"And I'll never forgit," continued Mr. Judkins, "the last case of homesickness I had, and the cure I took fer it. 'Tain't been more'n a week ago neither. You see my old home is a'most too many laps from this base to make it very often, and in consequence I hadn't been there fer five years and better, till this last trip, when I jes' succumbed to the pressure, and th'owed up my hands and went. Seemed like I'd 'a' died if I hadn't. And it was glorious to rack around the old town again--things lookin' jes' the same, mighty nigh, as they was when I was a boy, don't you know. Run acrost an old schoolmate, too, and tuck supper at his happy little home, and then we got us a good nickel cigar, and walked and walked, and talked and talked! Tuck me all around, you understand, in the meller twilight--till, the first thing you know, there stood the old schoolhouse where me and him first learnt to chew tobacco, and all that! Well, sir! you hain't got no idea of the feelin's that was mine! W'y, I felt like I could th'ow my arms around the dear old buildin' and squeeze it till the cupolo would jes' pop out of the top of the roof like the core out of a b'ile! And I think if they ever was a' epoch in my life when I could 'a' tackled poetry without no compunctions, as the feller says, w'y, then was the time--shore!" TO THE QUIET OBSERVER ERASMUS WILSON, AFTER HIS LONG SILENCE Dear old friend of us all in need Who know the worth of a friend indeed, How rejoiced are we all to learn Of your glad return. We who have missed your voice so long-- Even as March might miss the song Of the sugar-bird in the maples when They're tapped again. Even as the memory of these _Blended_ sweets,--the sap of the trees And the song of the birds, and the old camp too, We think of you. Hail to you, then, with welcomes deep As grateful hearts may laugh or weep!-- You give us not only the bird that sings, But all good things. AMERICA'S THANKSGIVING 1900 Father all bountiful, in mercy bear With this our universal voice of prayer-- The voice that needs must be Upraised in thanks to Thee, O Father, from Thy Children everywhere. A multitudinous voice, wherein we fain Wouldst have Thee hear no lightest sob of pain-- No murmur of distress, Nor moan of loneliness, Nor drip of tears, though soft as summer rain. And, Father, give us first to comprehend, No ill can come from Thee; lean Thou and lend Us clearer sight to see Our boundless debt to Thee, Since all thy deeds are blessings, in the end. And let us feel and know that, being Thine, We are inheritors of hearts divine, And hands endowed with skill, And strength to work Thy will, And fashion to fulfilment Thy design.