* * * * * The folks who sit on the back-steps and worry about the future never catch any smiles from the present as she passes the front gate. Love's Dream. I. Love gave me a Dream in the years that have fled From the glorified joys of her beautiful home, And over the world of the living and dead It has followed forever wherever I roam; And over the mountains and through the black night It has guided my feet with its wonderful light. II. It has joyed at the triumphs that came with renown, And its rapture surpassed what the multitudes knew; It has grieved at the failure that lost me the crown, With a faithful devotion unknown to but few; Through Despair's heavy shadow and Hope's holy gleam, How my lips still were kissed by the lips of the Dream! III. It has wept with my sorrow,--the sorrow that fell Where the heart battled hard with the merciless foe; It has laughed with my laughter when fortune was well And the blossoms of triumph were blooming below; And far through the black and the bright of each year It has followed my feet till it followed me here. IV. O, the Dream that has lived through the years of the lost, That with constancy shares all the paths I have trod, Never leave me alone till the harbor is crossed And I stand in the power and the presence of God; And on through the ages no glory shall seem Half so sweet as the love of my Dream,--of my Dream! The Frying Pan. "With all your talk about necessary house-hold implements," said Sooner Dave, "none of 'em is in it with the frying pan,--just the common, ordinary, every-day frying pan, that you chuck under your buck-board or tie to your saddle-horn. These parlor ornaments, side-boards, new-fangled stoves, potato-mashers, coffee-strainers and all the everlasting tribe of culinary jim-cracks have to turn out of the trail for the frying pan and give it the right of way. "With the frying pan for his companion, the civilized idiot is at home any where,--prairie or woods, creek bank or deer-lick or prairie-chicken trysting place. With a frying pan and some bacon fat, home is never far away, and a full meal is so near that heaven comes close to the hungry man. It has fought more battles, made more forced marches and won more victories than Napoleon. It has surveyed lands, bunched cattle and soonered claims. It has done all the pioneering for the frontiers-man. In this one divine utensil, the wanderer fries his meat, bakes his flap-jacks and brews his coffee; and as they all come steaming from its exalted circumference of life-sustaining food, what chafing-dish or modern steam-cooker was ever waited on by such a willing appetite?