Class TSsJlbl. 
 
 GoiPglitN". 
 
 COPVRIGHT DEPOSIT 
 
The lake and all its hills were old 
 When youthful Adam first loved Eve. 
 
 BOOK OF THE GREEN LAKE MANSE 
 
 A Sequel to the Rhymed Story 
 of Wisconsin 
 
 BY J. N. DAVIDSON. A. M. 
 
 The Lord hath given the father honor over 
 the children, and hath confirmed the authority 
 of the mother over the sons. 
 
 — Ecclesiasticus III, 2. 
 
 MADISON. WISCONSIN 
 
 TRACY a KILGORE 
 
 PRINTERS 
 
 1913 
 
p\i" y - 
 
 Copyrighted, 1913 
 By John Nelson Davidson 
 
 FEB 26 1914 
 
 ©aA369146 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 To Mr. George Huntington Webster 7 
 
 On Seeing at Forest Lodge a Portfolio of Etchings 7 
 
 Still Sings Thy Heart 8 
 
 Of the Wonderful Effects of Divine Love 8 
 
 The Present Lord. 11 
 
 Immanuel 12 
 
 We Have Loved a Little Child 12 
 
 Edward Huntington Merrill 13 
 
 Mrs. Catherine Demorest Eaton 13 
 
 Edmund Booth 14 
 
 Bertha May Booth 14 
 
 Mrs. Grace Hamilton Sweeney 16 
 
 Dedication Hymn, Grace Church, Two Rivers 17 
 
 To the Growing Grass at Hill Crest 18 
 
 William E. Cramer 18 
 
 Mrs. Jeanette Laurie Palmer 19 
 
 On Reading one of the ''Sonnets from the Portu- 
 guese" 20 
 
 A Christmas Sonnet 21 
 
 Dies Irae 22 
 
 Day of Wrath 23 
 
 A Nation-Builder 27 
 
 In Memory of a Friend 27 
 
 In Memory of John Nagle 28 
 
 In Memory of Frances Schroeder 29 
 
 At the Grave of William Taylor 30 
 
 At St. John's Cathedral 30 
 
 John Calvin on Government 31 
 
 Versification of Micah VI. 6-8 32 
 
 The Kingdom of God 32 
 
 Our Twenty-seven Presidents 34 
 
 The Governors of Wisconsin 37 
 
 Wisconsin Song 38 
 
Green Lake School Song- 3& 
 
 Song of the Class of 1909, Green Lake High School 41 
 Hymn for the Wisconsin Congregational Conven- 
 tion 42; 
 
 Dedication Hymn for Church at Anamosa, Iowa. . . 42 
 
 Endeavor Consecration Hymn 43 
 
 The Pledge in Song 44 
 
 A Lakeside Walk in Winter Wind 45 
 
 Wisconsin Spring 47 
 
 The Wind of Yesterday 48 
 
 The Joke of the Season 49- 
 
 With Apologies to the Sawdust City 49 
 
 Have You a Rhyme for Peshtigo ? 50 
 
 My Neighbor's Chickens 50 
 
 To Mr. Carnegie's Spelling Reform Association.. 62 
 A Suggested Ending for One of James Whit- 
 comb Riley 's Poems 53 
 
 Carpet Beating 54 
 
 The Steam Thresher 55 
 
 On a Bill for " The Doane Owl " 56 
 
 On Reading of a $200,000 Crown Given by a Brewer 
 
 to his Wife 57 
 
 For the Young Folks at Hill Crest 58 
 
 Visions Given by a Voice 58 
 
 The Song of the Needle 59 
 
 The Academy's Soldier 60 
 
 A Scene on the Shield of Achilles 61 
 
 A Parable of Hope 62 
 
 Believe 62 
 
 To My Neighbors at Hill Crest 63 
 
 To Mr. H. B. Lowe 64 
 
 A Plea for " Pleaded " 65 
 
 In Memory of Professor Joseph Emerson 66 
 
 Christmas Spirit 67 
 
 Our Summer School of Only Three 68 
 
 Mary Leavitt 69 
 
 Rose of Enzie 86 
 
 Mrs. Mary Sanderson 87 
 
 Our Wee Pet 92 
 
Preface and Dedication 
 
 The Green Lake Manse is in a place of 
 beauty. It stands beside an oak that carries 
 its leaves nearer to the sky than any other 
 tree in Green Lake; an oak that was old 
 when the pioneers made close to it a road the 
 depression of which is still visible. On the 
 right of this old road, as you go eastward, 
 men built the church; on the left of it, the 
 school. To each there has been a well worn 
 path from the Manse; a path that has been 
 prolonged until it has reached Ripon Col- 
 lege, and thence a scientific institution in the 
 Nation's Capital. 
 
 Between the oak and the Manse is a vista 
 through which one may see, even in summer, 
 the deepest of Wisconsin's lakes; the one 
 destined to remain when the others of our two 
 thousand shall have turned to marshes and 
 meadows. 
 
 Beside this lake is a home whence came 
 the children who made "our summer school 
 oi only three," without the interest of whose 
 parents this book might not have been pub- 
 lished. Not far from this lakeside Vatican, 
 as in harmless and obvious jest I sometimes 
 call it, is Forest Lodge, whose kindly owner 
 found that kindred of his were old-time 
 friends of my father and my mother. He 
 himself is one of the many who added to the 
 5 
 
happiness of my mother's later days. May 
 God reward them all! 
 
 I am sure others will not think it invidious 
 if I make special mention of what Mr. and 
 Mrs. Lawson, of Lone Tree Point, did for the 
 building of the Manse, and for the joy of the 
 heart of her who was the first mistress of it. 
 Mrs. Lawson's father, the late William 
 Henry Bradley, was a citizen of Galena when 
 my mother dwelt there; and my aunt was his 
 pupil in Bible class. He was a citizen who, 
 wherever he lived, left the impress of a 
 character that was like a newly stamped coin 
 of gold. 
 
 As I write these words Vergil's "rainy 
 Hyades" are lighting the clear Eastern sky. 
 In Hill Crest home, next on the west, the 
 children of a gracious mother sleep; children 
 of a bereaved father. I am alone, for they, 
 sister and cousin, who now share the Manse 
 with me are guests in the home on Lone Tree 
 Point. Dawn and Night are contending. It 
 is the morning of the day that precedes the 
 eighty- fifth anniversary of my mother's birth. 
 To her memory, and to the friends who love 
 her, I dedicate this book. May she, in Para- 
 dise, be glad that it has been written. 
 
 J. N. D. 
 
 Green Lake, 
 
 Nineteen Thirteen, 
 
 August First. 
 
To Mr. George Huntington Webster 
 
 On the Seventy- second Anniversary of his Birth 
 
 Acquaintance thine am I of summer days, 
 And these but few. Is it my privilege 
 At this glad time to bring thee word of praise 
 Like some wild flower that grew on rocky ledge? 
 Perhaps not even this is mine to give, 
 But only humble leaf that on some oak 
 Makes murmur while the August hours still live. 
 But one who at God's moving taught and spoke, 
 Compared the righteous man to stately tree 
 That by the waters bears abundant fruit. 
 Thou hast deserved that we apply to thee 
 His gracious words. So let our own be mute. 
 
 On Seeing at Forest Lodge a Portfolio of Etchings 
 
 What marvel this? A city old and quaint. 
 Transported hither by the etcher's art. 
 Reveals its past, inscribed on living heart, 
 We see the shrine, built by forgotten saint. 
 And seem to hear his vespers, far and faint. 
 The artist leads us to the busy mart 
 Where pavements show the wear of hoof and cart. 
 Rebuilds he walls that heard the beggar's plaint 
 
 When France first heard of world beyond the sea; 
 
 When kings rolled by who share the centuries* fame. 
 There ruined chateau dominates the lea; 
 
 Here arch spans flood 'neath sunset skies aflame : — 
 An offering all, of filial piety, 
 "To father" given. Then follows Webster's name. 
 
 Nineteen Thirteen, September 13. 
 
Still Sings Thy Heart 
 
 Still sings thy heart, for thou hast measured years 
 With sunshine, not with storm, with joy, not tears, 
 And therefore youth abideth with thine age, 
 Blest is thy record writ on life's fair page. 
 The story of unselfish love is there; 
 A love that quickens now our heart-felt prayer 
 For thee and thine; that all that thou hast done 
 Of faithful service wrought from sun to sun 
 May, as attendant angel, walk with thee 
 Along the shore of life's majestic sea. 
 
 On the Wonderful Effects of Divine Love 
 
 BY THOMAS A'KEMPIS 
 
 Lov^e is altogether good; 
 By itself it maketh light 
 Everything that seemeth heavy, 
 Maketh burdens seem no burden; 
 All that's bitter maketh sweet. 
 By the noble love of Jesus 
 Man to do great things is driven, 
 And it stirreth in him longing 
 For what is more nearly perfect. 
 
 Love willeth that it be on high; 
 Love willeth not to be kept back 
 By any thing that's low and mean, 
 Love willeth that itself be free: 
 By worldly good be not entangled 
 Or by adversity subdued. 
 
Nothing is sweeter than Love, 
 Nothing- is stronger than Love, 
 Nothing is higher, nothing is wider. 
 Nothing more pleasant than Love. 
 Nothing is fuller or better than Love 
 In earth or in heaven; 
 For Love's born of God 
 And findeth no rest but in Him. 
 
 A lover rejoiceth, is free; 
 
 He flieth, he runneth, 
 
 And no man can hold him. 
 
 He hath all in all 
 
 And all for all giveth 
 
 Because in the Highest he resteth; 
 
 He resteth in Him above all 
 
 From whom all that is good 
 
 Proceedeth and floweth. 
 
 He respecteth not gifts 
 
 But turneth himself to the Giver. 
 
 Love knoweth no measure ofttimes. 
 
 And fervent is Love above measure, 
 
 Attempteth above its own strength. 
 
 And for itself lawful 
 
 And for itself possible 
 
 Love thinketh all things; 
 
 And therefore for all things is strong. 
 
 And much it completeth 
 
 And bringeth to pass 
 
 Where one not a lover 
 
 Doth faint and lie down. 
 
 Watchful is Love 
 
 And even when sleeping 
 
 It slumbereth not. 
 
 Though it endure to be weary 
 
 It is not lightly tired. 
 
 Love, tho' pressed, is not straitened; 
 
 Or alarmed, is not put to confusion. 
 
As a flame or a torch in its burning 
 
 It forceth its way ever upward. 
 
 If any man love 
 
 He knoweth the cry of this voice, — 
 
 Loud cry in God's ears, 
 
 The ardent affection that saith: 
 
 "My God, my Love. 
 
 Thou art all mine, 
 
 And all I am is Thine." 
 
 Enlarge Thou me in Love 
 That with the palate of my heart 
 I may taste and I may learn 
 How sweet a food it is to love. 
 Let me be holden by Love, 
 Above myself mounting 
 Through fervor and wonder. 
 
 Let me sing the song of Love: 
 
 Beloved, let me follow Thee; 
 
 Spend thyself, my soul, in praise 
 
 In thy joy through Love. 
 
 Let me love Thee, love Thee, more 
 
 Than I love myself. 
 
 Nor love myself except in Thee; 
 
 And love in Thee 
 
 All that love Thee, love Thee, truly. 
 
 As the law of Love commandeth, 
 
 Law that shineth from Thyself. 
 
 Love is swift and is sincere. 
 Love is pleasant and delightsome. 
 Brave and patient, faithful, prudent. 
 Manly, never seeking self. 
 Where a person seeketh self 
 There from Love he falleth, falleth. 
 
 Love is circumspect and humble, 
 Upright, yielding not to softness, 
 Nor to vanity attending. 
 
 10 
 
Love is sober, chaste and firm, 
 Quiet, guarded and obedient; 
 Unto God, devout and thankful; 
 Trusting, hoping in Him always. 
 Who is not prepared to suffer 
 For the will of his Beloved 
 Is not worthy name of lover; 
 Nor for things that fall against him 
 Should the lover turn from God,— 
 From his well beloved God. 
 
 Versified by J. N. Davidson. 
 
 The Present Lord 
 
 Forgive me, Jesus, if I think of Thee 
 
 Not seated by the Father's throne in light 
 
 But guiding in some sad soul's wandering 
 
 night, 
 
 Or Captain of those men whom sinners flee, 
 
 Or easing disappointment when the plea 
 
 The wronged have made for justice and 
 
 the right 
 Seems all unheard and all in vain the fight. 
 Unconquered still Thy hosts; Thou giv'st to 
 see 
 The triumph though delayed; with these 
 
 Thou art. 
 Or this I think: He is with all that keep 
 Integrity in field, or shop, or mart; 
 With those who watch while homes and 
 children sleep; 
 With those who feel the rending of the heart 
 When silent steps of death near loved ones 
 
 creep. 
 ''The Advance,'' February 16, 1305. 
 
Immanuel 
 
 O living tree of fruit and flower, 
 O word of everlasting power, 
 O creed of blessed truth and trust, 
 O faith that lifts us from the dust: 
 God with us, blest Immanuel. 
 
 The blood in hearts thou hast renewed 
 Beats high to call of brotherhood, 
 Makes strong for deeds of love the hands 
 When men hear gladly thy commands, 
 Thou Brother God, Immanuel. 
 
 We Have Loved a Little Child 
 
 WRITTEN FOR A FRIEND 
 
 He who loves a little child 
 Doeth what our God hath done. 
 Think ye. In His own loved Son, — 
 Crowned with manhood undefiled, 
 Lord in storm and conflict wild,— 
 God hath blessed each little child. 
 
 We have loved a little child. 
 Read ye. Jesus, Lord of life, 
 Taketh from earth's hurt and strife.— 
 Like Himself all undefiled, 
 Never by the wrong beguiled, — 
 And He keepeth safe our child. 
 
Edward Huntington Merrell 
 
 Thy life-work is not done, for thou didst build 
 
 For age of ages, not for years alone; 
 
 Like those who formed the miracles in stone, — 
 Men chief among the captains of their guild, 
 Who shrine and temple and cathedral filled 
 
 With questioning "Who can for sin atone?" 
 
 And God gave longed-for answer: things unknown, 
 He brought to light as He Himself hath willed. 
 Thou'st formed of many a heart a temple fair; 
 
 Hast towers of thought built upward toward the skyj 
 Hast wrought in state and college with the care 
 
 Wise master-builders showed in times gone by. 
 Thou, bending at thy task with zeal and prayer, 
 
 Had'st vision and didst teach of God Most High. 
 
 In Memory of Mrs. Catharine Demarest 
 Eaton 
 
 As one who passing by some hallowed shrine 
 Hears voice of song and utterance of prayer. 
 And knows some soul hath felt its weight 
 of care. 
 Or burden of its sin, by touch divine 
 Removed; so have I known that life of thine; 
 Thy home a temple, thou a priestess there. 
 Thy voice that made melodious the air 
 In blessing hearts hath oft, far heard, blest 
 
 mine. 
 Brave hearted singer in heroic days. 
 Thy life was purpose set to melody! 
 Wife, mother, friend, thy character displays 
 
 The impress that on Mary's soul we see; 
 Thou wilt not blush now at our words of 
 praise. 
 Our tribute hath its truth, its worth from 
 
 thee! 
 "Advance," April 7, 1904. 
 
 13 
 
Ninety Years of Silence 
 
 Written in Memory of Edmund Booth, 
 His mother's songs he heard; then silence fell, 
 
 To him all noiseless was his schoolmates' play, 
 
 And birds with songs unheard filled all the day. 
 "Sad, sad," men sighed "that he apart must dwell 
 As in a voiceless world.'' But let his life's work tell 
 
 How strong the resolute soul; how mighty they 
 
 Who beat beneath their feet the fears that sway 
 The timid and the weak. A proud farewell 
 We speak, for thou hast stood life's testing pain; 
 
 Thou wast the conqueror of thine adverse fate; 
 Sight of the soul far-reaching, thou didst gain; 
 
 Cry of the wronged made thee articulate; 
 Rights of the dumb thou didst with might maintain; 
 
 Deeds like thy Lord's; these we commemorate. 
 
 Bertha May Booth 
 
 A Teacher of the Dumb 
 
 The theme of the first of these sonnets was suggested by French's wonder- 
 ful tribute to his friend. Milmore; the work entitled, "Death and the Sculp- 
 tor," 
 
 A young man toiling at the wondrous art 
 That gives to marble human form and grace 
 Perceived a touch and, turning, saw the face 
 Not of a threat'ning Horror armed with dart 
 But of a matron with a loving heart 
 
 Who bore this kindly message: "In some place 
 Thy Master hath a need that thou should'st trace 
 Fair lines of beauty; that thou life impart 
 
 To what were else imperfect, shapeless, dead '' 
 
 Thine, daughter, sister, was a nobler art 
 Than sculptor's craft or painter's; thou hast led 
 
 The moving of the mind in those apart 
 In everlasting silence and the dread 
 
 Of hopeless years. Thou'st taken Christ's own part 
 In pitying woe and inarticulate need 
 And hast these helpless from their bondage freed. 
 
 14 
 
"Good night" thou say'st? Why, it is not mid-day! 
 Thy sun hath not to noon's high altitude 
 Arisen yet. Like discord harsh and rude, 
 In music's charm seems parting now; we say: 
 There can be none who need thee more than they 
 To whom thou gav'st the rare, rich plenitude 
 Of thy great heart and of thy mind imbued 
 With love of duty; who made toil seem play. 
 
 With love of beauty; who spake word divine. 
 
 "Be opened'' to dumb lips; whose words in song, 
 "I trust Thee with my life," seem like design 
 
 Of Him to whom the ways of life belong. 
 That we may comfort find as we resign. 
 Thee to the Father who can do no wrong. 
 
 Who would have thought that this memorial strain 
 My pen should write? For I have seen thee play 
 In happy sisterhood the summer day. 
 Of years long past: have heard thy laugh; refrain 
 Of thy abounding ioyfulness. No pain 
 Nor asking "Why?" of God can take away 
 The memory whereby I hear thee say: 
 "Tell us a story, please." O why complain 
 When still I hear the music of thy tongue. 
 Still see the beauty that can never fade; 
 For thou shalt be forever fair and young; 
 
 Approaching life unknown, yet not afraid. 
 Thy noblest song, I know, is yet unsung; 
 Thy life's full offering hath not yet been made! 
 
 15 
 
In Memory of Mrs. Grace Hamilton Sweeney 
 
 Keep thy dear place: 
 Beside us still, we can not let thee go. 
 Our lives shalt still thy constant presence know. 
 More thou wilt be than form or face portrayed. 
 In that fair dwelling that our love hath made 
 Abide as one who lives; keep thine own place. 
 
 Keep thy dear place: 
 Continue thou with us, increase our joy. 
 Here, here are those who love thee, here thy boy. 
 Here father, mother, husband are; most dear; 
 And all who shared thy deeper life; be near; 
 Still live with us; keep always thine old place. 
 
 Keep thy dear place: 
 We who have shared the home's sweet sacrament 
 Have right to thee, for thou wast given, not lent. 
 Share, as God wills, some larger life, but know. 
 He knoweth well, for He hath made us so, — 
 That we shall keep thee in thine own dear place. 
 
 Keep thy deas place: 
 When summer silence on the outspread stream 
 Gives back to heaven its stars; when all things seem 
 So like a gift of God's eternal peace; 
 When clouds have passed, when sound and tumult cease, 
 Thou, though unseen, wilt be in thine old place.- 
 
 Keep thy dear place: 
 When by the Father's bounties we are fed, 
 Together at our table breaking bread. 
 Seem not as one that's absent; all the day 
 Make duty blessed, share thy child's fond play, 
 Make glad our hearts; keep always thy dear place. 
 
 Keep thy dear place: 
 We bid thee no farewell; we still shall see 
 The light of thy loved face, and none can be 
 Nearer than thou. Share thou the home above, — 
 Thou'lt be no stranger in a world of love, — 
 But still abide with us; keep thine own place. 
 
 16 
 
Dedication Hymn 
 
 In large part the beautiful new Grace Congregational 
 church of Two Rivers, Wisconsin, stands as a memorial 
 of parental love. The following hymn, by Pastor J. 
 N. Davidson of Green Lake, was sung at the dedica- 
 tion of Grace Church, 1909, March 7: 
 
 Blest, Thou hast caused this house to be 
 For all assembled think of love, — 
 
 Love, deeper than the deepest sea; 
 Love binding earth to heaven above. 
 
 These walls are love's transfigured form; 
 
 A shade in passion's burning heat; 
 A shelter in grief's wintry storm; 
 
 A place where man our God may meet. 
 
 By all the gifts that built this shrine 
 
 Help us in others' lives to see 
 Some hope in God, some wish divine, 
 
 Some far extending charity. 
 
 Our giving is Thine own returned; 
 
 Our love Thy teaching, feebly learned; 
 To Thee all good, all truth belong; 
 
 Here speak them, Lord, in word and song 
 
 So shall this temple lesson be 
 That God is dwelling yet with men 
 
 In hope and blessed memory; 
 In deed that brings Christ near again. 
 
To the Growing Grass at Hill Crest 
 
 O fairj soft turf, pressed ofc by gracious feet, 
 
 Where children play in innocence and glee; 
 
 Where tired toilers come a while to free 
 Their minds and hearts from struggle and deceit 
 Of courts' sharp wrangles and, in love, complete 
 
 The summer home's rare happiness; and see 
 
 The tricky squirrel dart from hickory tree 
 With winter store to some secure retreat. 
 Bless, yielding turf, with coolness active feet 
 
 Of those who strength and sunshine seek in play; 
 To whom seems near one who made home complete; 
 
 Who loved these scenes, and watched from day to day 
 The bending sky and lake each other greet; — 
 
 She bids you with your joy her love repay. 
 
 William E. Cramer 
 
 In the high peerage of the press and pen. 
 
 That unassembled parliament of state. 
 
 His was a place among the nobly great. 
 Right eminent was he among the men 
 Who sought Wisconsin when the wild beast's den 
 
 Still held its tenants. In that d»y of fate 
 
 When men on fundamentals held debate 
 His was the counsel of a citizen 
 
 Who loved the forming commonwealth, who saw,- 
 Broader than vision on our inland sea, — 
 
 The future of a state on righteous law 
 Builded to stand forever. Hail to thee, 
 
 Thou first 'mid equals. We in rev'rence draw 
 Strength from thy life and its integrity. 
 
 Published 1905, May 28th. 
 
 18 
 
In Memory of Mrs. Jeannette 
 Laurie Palmer 
 
 If all were like her happy all would be, 
 How kindly was her laugh, how inno- 
 cent her glee! 
 Two things she joined that many keep 
 
 apart : 
 Wise trust in God; a joyous, merry heart. 
 So was she like the morning's blessed light 
 That upward-guides the eye, that makes 
 all bright 
 In sky and earth. "Because to God she 
 lives 
 Her loving service to us all she gives." 
 So said they all who knew her daily life, 
 O friend! O mother! O thou faithful 
 wife! 
 So didst thou meet each day's recurrent 
 need; 
 So didst thou join in one thy creed and 
 deed. 
 
On Reading One of the "Sonnets 
 from the Portuguese" 
 
 The music of a woman's love-made rhyme 
 Fell sweet and sad, at eve, upon my ear; 
 At evening- in the dying of the year. 
 I knew that she, pure Sappho of her time, 
 Gave love for love; and, in the happy clime 
 Of Tuscan Florence, sang without a peer. 
 Housed patriots' hope and tyrants' hate 
 and fear, — 
 Without a peer she sang 'mid band sub 
 lime 
 Who mothers are at once of sons and 
 songs! 
 I knew her life had been both love 
 and light; 
 That she had aided triumph over wrongs; 
 Had wrought with those who burned 
 the Bourbon blight 
 From Vergil's home and Dante's: and, 
 with thongs, 
 Had scourged the tyrants into outer 
 night! 
 The love that blessed her husband, child 
 
 and home. 
 Was potent to free Italy and Rome. 
 U Deceynher, 1906. 
 
 20 
 
A Christmas Sonnet 
 
 My heart cries "Give!" and will not rest content 
 Unless some token tell my love to thee. 
 What can I give? Thou needest not from me 
 Thy table's wealth increased; nor ornament, 
 Fair in design, of art and nature blent, 
 
 Thou art not one that boasteth, saying, "See 
 How many they who make their annual plea 
 "Forget me not." Nay, thou most reverent 
 Before the love that, like the ocean tide. 
 
 Sweeps round the earth with heaven-born uplift high, 
 Wilt value most the gift that not in pride 
 
 Of pleased exchange doth come, but was a sigh 
 That's now a laugh; the joy of need supplied 
 By lowly toil that some one, — why not I?— 
 In quietness must give. Share love that's glad 
 To bless alike the joyous and the sad; 
 To sj,y, if thou dost mourn some heart that's still. 
 Thy fondest hope is less than God's good will. 
 
Dies Irae 
 
 Dies irae dies ilia, dies tribulationis et angus 
 tiae, dies calamitatis et miseriae, dies tene- 
 brarum et caliginis, dies nebulae et turbinis. 
 
 Dies tubae et clangoris super civitates mu- 
 nitas, et super angulos excelsos. — Sophonia 
 1:15, 16. 
 
 Dies Irae 
 
 BY THOMAS OF CELANO. 
 
 Dies irae! Dies ilia! 
 Solvet saeclum in favilla, 
 Teste David cum Sibylla. 
 
 Quantus tremor est futurus, 
 Quando Judex est venturus, 
 Cuncta stricta discussurus! 
 
 Tuba mirum spargens sonura 
 Per sepulchra regionum, 
 Coget omnes ante thronum. 
 
 Mors stupebit, et Natura, 
 Quumresurget creatura 
 Judicanti responsura. 
 
 Liber scriptus proferelur, 
 In quo totum contineiur, 
 Unde mundusljudicetur. 
 
 Judex ergo quum sedebit, 
 Quidquid latet apparebit, 
 Nil inultum remanebit. 
 
 Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? 
 Quern patronum rogaturus, 
 Quum vixJjusLus sit securus? 
 
 Rex tremendae majestatis, 
 Qui salvandos salvas gratis, 
 Salva me, Fons pietatis. 
 
 22 
 
Day of Wrath 
 
 That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and 
 distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day 
 of darkness and gloominess, a day of thick clonds 
 and thick darkness. 
 
 A day of the trumpet and alarm against fenced 
 cities, and against the high towers. — Zephaniah, 
 1 : 15 16. 
 
 Day of Wrath 
 
 Day of wrath! That day portended 
 David's word with Sibyl's blended; 
 Earth in flame and ashes ended. 
 
 Great the fear: that dread time neareth 
 When the awful Judge appeareth 
 Who all causes strictly heareth. 
 
 Hark! The trumpet, uttering thunder 
 Through the tombs now rent asunder. 
 Drives all to The Throne in wonder. 
 
 Death and Nature now are shaking: 
 Lo, creation riseth quaking, 
 To the judgment call awaking. 
 
 Forth is brought the Book revealing 
 All the record; deed, thought, feeUng 
 Earth is judged; there's no concealing 
 
 When the Judge His session holdeth 
 Who each secret thing unfoldeth 
 Nor unpunished sin beholdeth. 
 
 Wretched, what shall I be pleading. 
 Whom entreat for help or heeding 
 When the just are mercy needing? 
 
 King whose majesty hath spoken, 
 To Thy chosen, Avord unbroken 
 Save me: be Thy Cross the token. 
 
Recordare, Jesu pie, 
 Quod sum causa tuae viae: 
 Ne me perdas ilia die. 
 
 Quaerens me sedisti lassus; 
 Redemisti crucem passus; 
 Tantus labor non sit cassus. 
 
 Juste Judex ultionis, 
 Donum fac remissionis 
 Ante diem rationis. 
 
 Ingemisco tanquam reus; 
 Culpa rubet vultus meus; 
 Supplicanti parce, Deus. 
 
 Qui Mariam absolvisti, 
 Et latronem exaudisti,! 
 Mihi quoque spem dedisti. 
 
 Preces meae non sunt dignae, 
 Sed tu bonus fac benigne, 
 Ne perenni cremer igne. 
 
 Inter oves locum praesta, 
 Et ab haedis me sequestra, 
 Statuens in parte dextra. 
 
 Confutatis maledictis, 
 Flammis acribus addictis, 
 Voca me cum benedictis. 
 
 Oro supplex et acclinis, 
 Cor contritum quasi cinis, 
 Gere curam mei finis. 
 
 Lacrymosa dies ilia, 
 Qua resurgot ex favilla 
 Judicandus homo reus; 
 Huic ergo parce, Deus! 
 
Jesus, in Thy memory hold me; 
 Though I caused Thy woe, enfold me. 
 Lose me not That Day foretold me. 
 
 Seeking me Thou, worn and falling. 
 Didst redeem by Cross appalling; 
 Be not vain Thy toil and calling. 
 
 Just in law's strict execution 
 Give me, Judge, Thine absolution 
 Ere That Day of retribution. 
 
 Now accused of crime, I'm groaning, 
 Red my face with blush, guilt owning. 
 Spare me, God, my sin bemoaning. 
 
 Thou who pardon'st Mary pleading. 
 Heard'st the Robber with Thee bleeding, 
 Gav'st me also hope and heeding. 
 
 Nothing worth my prayers and yearning: 
 Yet let me, Thy goodness learning. 
 Perish not in endless burning. 
 
 With Thy sheep, as hath been told me. 
 On Thy right in safety fold me; 
 From th' accursed goats withhold mr. 
 
 When the wicked, from Thee riven. 
 Justice own, though flameward driven, 
 Call me with Thy saints forgiven. 
 
 I in suppliance now am bending; 
 Heart like ashes! Prayer ascending! 
 Give me care when time is ending. 
 
 Day of tears and dread assembling ! 
 Guilty man ariseth trembling. 
 God of world aflame, O hide him ! 
 Let not mercy be denied him I 
 
The solemn word that holy Thomas spakn 
 
 Is surely warning for the present time. 
 
 This is the day of judg'ment; mornings break 
 
 That bring revealings of some hidden ci ime. 
 
 O heart of minel unclean unless God dwell 
 
 Welcomed within thee, know thy judgment's 
 
 near. 
 Yea, even at the doors; His thunders tell 
 All secret things. Is this a cause for fear. 
 That heaven and earth set truth against the lie; 
 Duty against thy love of idle ease; 
 Eternal life against the things that die? 
 Be thou unhappy then, for God's decrees 
 Are registered against thee. But, if pure 
 Thine inward purpose, and if right thy choice, 
 Thou wilt be glad that judgment standeth sure. 
 "Jehovah reigneth; let the earth rejoice !" 
 
A Nation-Builder 
 
 "Send, send us men, good men, and send them now," 
 A nation builder called, for well he knew 
 That even as the summer breezes blew 
 Ten thousand farms, new made with busy plow, 
 Had registered in maize their potent vow 
 
 That homes should be where once wild grasses grew. 
 "A state is making." Swift his wing'd words flew; 
 "With manhood's wealth do ye this realm endow: 
 Count time by hours, not by month or year." 
 Then he, companion for apostle meet, 
 Led where he bade to follow. Life was dear. 
 
 But not his own. His offering was complete. 
 His name stands first where honored names appear 
 On prophets' school and college: Stephen Peet. 
 And on our state, amid her greatest, best, 
 We read it as on lasting palimpsest. 
 
 In Memory of a Friend 
 
 Olean-lipped, fine-featured, with the onward look 
 
 Of one who, leaving boyhood, stands alert 
 
 To see what course before thy manhood lay; 
 
 Such wast thou, friend. I know thy honest hand, 
 
 Thy voice sincere, striking the deeper note 
 
 That means the entrance on the larger life 
 
 That lies before each boy of noble aim. 
 
 Of purpose high and spirit resolute. 
 
 O these things make man's lifel and these were thine. 
 
 Are thine, and by them thou will serve so long 
 
 As this great universe hath need of good, 
 
 Of man's integrity and highest worth. 
 
 27 
 
In Memory of John Nagle 
 
 He serves God well who serves his fellow-man; 
 He faithful is who doubts not that the search 
 For truth will have deserved, divine reward; 
 He leader is who hews himself a road 
 And shows what man can do; and patriot he 
 Who puts above the clamor of the day his sense 
 Of duty and of rig-ht: these things thou didst, 
 Clear mind, strong soul and teacher thou of 
 
 men. 
 True hero, for thou didst not fear the strife, 
 And striving thou hast won a victor's crown 
 For thou hast striven well ! 
 
 I did not personally know Mr. Nagle, However I honor 
 him for the good work he did as superintendent of the 
 Manitowoc county schools. Even more do I honor him for 
 the stand he took against the hypocrisy and beer-addled 
 bigotry that brought about the repeal of the so called Ben 
 nett law; a repeal that was a legislative misdeed, and was 
 followed by an increase of illiteracy in our disgraced state 
 
In Memory of Frances Schroeder 
 
 Who perished when the steamer "Columbia" we 
 down near San Francisco. 
 
 Not where the sound of bells 
 Falls from some hallowed shrine; 
 
 Not where the marble tells 
 Hope of a faith divine; — 
 
 Not where the grasses creep 
 Soft when the June stars shine: 
 
 Not where thy kindred sleep 
 Lies that fair form of thine. 
 
 Then is the place unblest 
 
 We may not know or see 
 Where thou didst find the rest 
 
 Whose morn is eternity? 
 
 Nay, for the word of God's psalm 
 Proclaimeth that His is the sea; 
 
 He made it; — its storm and its calm; 
 He will speak, and it no more shall be! 
 
 Tke Manse, Green Lake, 
 
 10 August, 1908. 
 
 29 
 
At the Grave of William Taylor 
 
 I came a stranger and a friend 1 found 
 
 In him whose form is hid by this low mound. 
 
 How did he seek his daily task to do? 
 
 As one who faithful was, and just and true. 
 
 How did he write the story of his life? 
 
 In love of children, home, and God, and wife. 
 
 What was his hope for better life above? 
 The word divine that saith, "Our God is love. 
 
 At St. John's Cathedral 
 
 Shall I who can not speak the shibboleth 
 Of creed polemic enter here and pray? 
 
 No voice is heard, no tone or organ breath. 
 A soothing silence fills the softened day. 
 
 Why hesitate? This is my Father's shrine, 
 
 Appointed as a place of holy tryst; 
 The broken bread, the hallowed fruit of vine, 
 Show here His dying Who is called the Christ. 
 
 The bread shall perish and the cup shall fail, 
 Yet He abideth Whom they feebly show. 
 
 The hymn, the creed, the penitential wail 
 Change word and form, but change He can 
 not know. 
 
 I meditate, seek peace Eternity 
 
 Seems palpable and present. Bolder grown 
 My soul claims place in that blest company 
 
 Who worship the Eternal One alone. 
 
 30 
 
John Calvin on Government 
 
 From his address to Francis I. Versified by J. N. Davidson 
 from Allen's translation. 
 
 But it shall be yours, my king. 
 Not to turn away your ears 
 Or your thoughts from just defence 
 In a cause of such importance 
 As maintaining unimpaired 
 God's own glory in the world 
 And the honor of His truth 
 And continuance uninjured 
 Of the kingdom of our Christ. 
 This is cause worth your attention, 
 Worthy your cognizance royal, 
 Worthy of your throne exalted. 
 This consider, is true kingship 
 That you own yourself God's servant 
 In your kingdom's government. 
 Where God's glory is not made 
 End and purpose of all ruling 
 There is but a usurpation 
 Sore deceived he who expecteth 
 Lasting good in any kingdom 
 Not by God's own scepter governed 
 And that scepter is His Scripture. 
 Heavenly oracle ne'er faileth, — 
 Truth of Proverb that declareth 
 Where no vision is, the people 
 Perish, casting off restraint. 
 
Versification of Micah vi. 6-8 
 
 Wherewith shall I come before God 
 
 And bow myself down to Jehovah? 
 
 Will Jehovah be pleased 
 
 With thousands of rams 
 
 Or ten thousands of rivers of oil? 
 
 Shall I give my first born for my sin, my 
 
 transgression, 
 The fruit of my body for sin of my soul? 
 
 Man, He hath showed thee 
 
 The things that are good. 
 
 And what doth Jehovah require of thee 
 
 But justice to do. 
 
 And kindness to love 
 
 And humbly to walk with thy God? 
 
 The Kingdom of God 
 
 Read at the semi centennial anniversary of the establishment at 
 Stoughton, Wisconsin, under the pastorate of Rev. Robert Sewell, first 
 minister of that place, of the Congregational church organized in the 
 town of Dunkirk. 1846, February 22d, under the pastorate of Rev. Abner 
 Barlow, and re-organized at Cooksville in 1851. 
 
 Respectfully inscribed to Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Townsend, helpers in 
 the work of The Kingdom. 
 
 One thing only is great, and that is the kingdom;— 
 Kingdom of God or of heaven, or the kingdom of manhood; 
 Manhood completed in Godhood, both known in the Master, 
 Him whom we build oq who plan for the ages; Foundation 
 Deep and eternal, unfolding both life and its toilings. 
 Wisdom is theirs who so build for themselves and their fellows. 
 Thus they built whom we honor at this convocation. 
 O could we write as they lived! Then the roar of the ocean 
 Mingled with sound of long journeys would hush all our speakings. 
 We should hear sobbings, and partings from homes left forever. 
 We should know also the strength of their purpose who pressed on 
 Far into lands wild and lonely, for such were our prairies. 
 There we should know their heart anguish, and share fearful stillness 
 Startling the ear when the earth is as silent as starlight. 
 
 32 
 
Winter and storm they endured who came here to build homes, 
 Churches and schools; an 1 the state, whose vast superstructure 
 Rests on these lasting foundations. Churchmen and schoolmen, 
 State-builders, home-makers these were, strong men and faithful; 
 Chosen of God and selected from nations for this work; 
 Called from the land that bore Cromwell and Milton and Bunyan; 
 Called from the realms of the Kelt, of the Norsk and of Luther; 
 Yea, from our own land, the mother of Edwards and Beecher. 
 Such were our fathers and such their companions, our mothers. 
 Fatherhood! Motherhood! Great in the Lord is their glory. 
 These became fathers and mothers of states and of cities. 
 
 What of that vine of their planting whose blossoms and clusters 
 Here we behold all about us in fragrance and beauty? 
 Wisdom is justified, surely, by what she hath brought forth. 
 What is he worth who hath planted a tree or a wheatfield? 
 What is he worth who hath framed by his skill great inventions? 
 What is he worth who hath showed men the way of right living. 
 Brought to them flame from the altar of God's inspiration? 
 What shall it profit a man if the whole world he gaineth,— 
 Gaineth, but loseth his own soul? Tell worth of this warning. 
 Price can we set upon virtue and righteous endeavor? 
 What are they worth who bring comfort and hope to the dying? 
 What are they worth who cause names to be written in Life's Book? 
 This they were worth who built here upon Christ the Foundation. 
 
 Swiftly the years come and go, and new homes are established. 
 Love gives itself unto love, and true marriage is hallowed. 
 Blessing invoked on its child, and he learns of Our Father, 
 God Who is love, and the teaching he never forgetteth. 
 Wayward, perhaps, or grown old, still he knoweth the path home. 
 God make us children again, with hearts broken, tender; 
 Make us to know our communion with saints now in glory. 
 Do they not know that their plantings have fruited in blessing? 
 Those whose dear memory dwells in this loved congregation? 
 Trustful that they who shall meet here in years now far future 
 Justly may say that we kept well the faith of the fathers. 
 We speak, as they did, iu word and in deed this confession. 
 One thing only is great, and that is God's kingdom! 
 
Our Twenty-seven Presidents 
 
 Hear first a name the world reveres; 
 He led through years of hopes and fears: 
 Our Washington of world-wide fame. 
 
 Then Adams came of humbler name. 
 He first Vice-President had been 
 And 'mid war's din had helped to win 
 In king's courts place for nation new. 
 His heart was true when friends were few. 
 
 Four years he steered the ship of state 
 
 Through danger great, for France, so late • 
 
 Our country's friend, had foe become, 
 
 "Her war ships cornel" men said, while some 
 
 As sentinels upon the land 
 
 From him so grand await command, — 
 
 From Washington the army's chief, 
 
 Whose service brief (as seemed to grief) 
 
 Had end amid this vexing strife; 
 
 Had end with life, while tears of wife 
 
 And nation followed to his rest 
 
 The one called best. He stood life's test 
 
 Mark this of Adams: First was he 
 To dwell where we, by wise decree. 
 Built new and great our capital; 
 That pride of all; may it never fall 1 
 
 Two terms, you know, had Washington 
 And Adams one; his service done 
 Plain Thomas Jefferson held sway. 
 We this may say: He had his way, 
 Enlarging by the Purchase great 
 Our Union built of state on state. 
 He bought (thus led our land's advance) 
 What was to France realm of romance 
 
 34 
 
Eig-ht years he served; and war-cloud dark 
 
 With lightning- spark for all to mark 
 
 Hung- thundering over all our seas. 
 
 Our land to please, her fears to ease, 
 
 James Madison hard duty found. 
 
 Soon came war's sound with death and wound. 
 
 For freedom on the seas we fought. 
 
 By courage taught; with life, peace bought. 
 
 Monroe next ruled; our land was blest. 
 Oreat grew the West; as honored guest 
 Came La Fayette the land to see 
 He helped to free, — for you and me! 
 
 The younger Adams next held sway; 
 Then one grown gray in war's fierce way: 
 The sturdy Jackson whose command 
 Smote treason's hand in erring land. 
 Van Buren next was nation's guide; 
 Then one who died while yet untried 
 In that great office, Harrison. 
 Soon set his sun, his duty done. 
 
 Then Tyler served; next, James K. Polk; 
 When war awoke with deadly stroke. 
 But welcome peace (the story's old) 
 Gave land of gold,— of wealth untold. 
 
 Next dying in his well won fame. 
 Brave Taylor came, of honored name. 
 
 Then Fillmore served; next, Franklin Pierce. 
 Alas for Pierce! when strife was fierce 
 He ruled; and then Buchanan came. 
 Next, greatest name and purest fame 
 Since Washington, our Lincoln earned. 
 He right had learned and wrong he spurned. 
 By fearful deed,— the nation's woe.— 
 Crime laid him low. Next, Johnson know. 
 Then came the unboasting soldier Grant, 
 So free from cant and empty rant. 
 
 35 
 
Next Hayes the exalted office filled, 
 Then votes willed (who soon were thrilled 
 Once more with tale of crime's wild thrust)' 
 To give the trust to Garfield just. 
 
 Then Arthur President became, 
 This roll of fame next bears the name 
 Of Cleveland, by sharp contest tried. 
 We bade preside as nation's guide. 
 Next term, the younger Harrison. 
 
 Twice Cleveland won; his service doae 
 
 McKinley took the helm of state 
 
 When dark and great war's cloud and fate 
 
 Broke peace with Spain. A tale of crime 
 
 Now mars our rhyme. O mournful time! 
 
 Again a President was slain. 
 
 In shame and pain,— foul murder's stain,— 
 
 His grave was made where once he dwelt. 
 
 He justice dealt. Then Roosevelt 
 
 A scholar bold in hunter's craft, 
 
 A foe of "graft," preceded Taft. 
 
 Then Wilson of New Jersey came, 
 
 Of college fame and high acclaim. 
 
 36 
 
Governors of Wisconsin 
 
 Before Wisconsin was a state 
 
 Twice Dodge the bold had governed well. 
 Two others held the office great, 
 
 To put the tale in rhyme we tell 
 That Dodge came first and fourth: between 
 Came Doty, second; Tallmadge, third: 
 And then Wisconsin's name is seen 
 
 In list of states. You've often heard 
 That Dewey, first, the people chose, 
 
 Then Farwell, Barstow, Bashford came. 
 Next Randall's name the record shows; 
 
 Then Harvey justly known to fame. 
 Who where dark Southern river flows 
 
 Found death — in service for the state. 
 On Salomon the office fell. 
 
 While still we mourned brave Harvey's fate. 
 The name of Lewis next we tell. 
 
 Then Fairchild thrice the people chose. 
 He lost an arm in Southern fight. 
 
 Read Washburn, Taylor, names 'mid those 
 Who held the office. Then we write 
 
 Both Ludington and Smith. Next read 
 That Rusk bore rule for sevea full years. 
 
 Then Hoard, and Peck, and Upham heed. 
 Next Scofield came. La Follette hears 
 
 The Senate's call, and so resigns 
 To Davidson the honored trust. 
 
 These names our history tells in lines 
 •Of praise or blame; to all be just. 
 
 Then came McGovern; may we tell, 
 When he has done, that he did well. 
 
 37 
 
Wisconsin Song 
 
 tune: "AMERICA." 
 
 Wisconsin, favored state, 
 In Union true and great 
 
 With East and West; 
 One people, happy, free. 
 With North and South are we, 
 With dwellers by the sea; 
 
 A nation blest. 
 They came from far and near 
 Who hold Wisconsin dear 
 
 Nor farther roam; 
 From states grown great and strong, 
 From realms of fame and song. 
 They came in eager thron>^ 
 
 And here found home. 
 With strength of sturdy arm 
 They wrought the field and farm. 
 
 Built town and school. 
 Then heard from Southern strand, 
 War's thunder shake the land 
 And fought at just command 
 
 For righteous rule. 
 With cheerful heart and voice 
 Their children now rejoice 
 
 In happy song. 
 We love lands east and west, 
 Broad plain and mountain crest. 
 But love Wisconsin best: 
 
 Her praise prolong! 
 
 Fair land of oak and pine, 
 Of prairie, lake and mine, 
 
 Our chosen state; 
 United would we be. 
 Our nation serve and thee, 
 In loyal duty free 
 
 God make thee great! 
 
Green Lake School Song 
 
 Tune: Dixie. 
 There's but one Green Lake in the whole 
 
 countree, 
 And that is the place that pleases me 
 
 Best of all, best of all, best of all. 
 Our Green Lake! 
 Wisconsin state our town is found in, 
 Good old state to get around in, 
 
 Best of all, best of all, best of all, 
 Wisconsin! 
 
 Chorus for first stanza: 
 I'm glad I'm in Wisconsin, 
 
 Hurrah, hurrah! 
 Wisconsin grand is my fair land, 
 Our good old state Wisconsin 
 Green Lake, Green Lake. 
 In our good state Wisconsin; 
 
 Green Lake, Green Lake, 
 In our good state Wisconsin. 
 II. 
 We dailj^ climb with a hearty will 
 To our tip-top school house on the hill, 
 
 On the hill, on the hill, on the hill 
 In Green Lake. 
 Let the sun shine hot or the north wind blow 
 We'll push our way through the heat or the snow 
 Up the hill, up the hill, up the hill. 
 In Green Lake. 
 Chorus for second stanza: 
 Wisconsin's in the Union, 
 
 Hurrah, hurrah! 
 The Union grand is my fair land; 
 I'm glad I'm in the Union. 
 
 Hurrah, hurrah, 
 I'm glad I'm in the Union. 
 
 Hurrah, Hurrah, 
 I'm glad I'm in the Union. 
 
III. 
 
 And when in the world our way we take 
 We'll do as we did in old Green Lake, — 
 
 Climb the hill, climb the hill, climb the hill 
 With brave will 1 
 Never loaf in the heat nor balk in the snow 
 But with God's good help we will forward go; 
 Push along, push along, push along. 
 With a song I 
 
 Chorus for third stanza: 
 The best is all before us. 
 
 Hurrah, hurrah! 
 The whole world grand is our fair land 
 With bright skies bending o'er us. 
 
 Hurrah, hurrah ! 
 The best is all before us; 
 
 Hurrah, hurrah, 
 The best is all before usi 
 
 40 
 
Song of the Class of 1909, Green Lake 
 High School 
 
 TUNE— " DOWN THE LANE " 
 
 Not a sad farewell we're singing, 
 
 And our words are not of g-rief; 
 Joy has set our voices ringing; 
 
 We to-night are first and chief. 
 We don't ask for sighs or pity, 
 
 We've had four bright, happy years. 
 We're not heroes but we're gritty 
 
 And our future wakes no fears. 
 
 Chorus: 
 
 We're too happy to be dumb 
 
 For the best is yet to come. 
 O there's something best for every one of us. 
 
 What it is we do not know, 
 
 But as on in life we go 
 We shall find God's best for each of us 
 
 As on we go. 
 Do you say this hour is fleeting? 
 
 Why, it will forever live ! 
 So we sing you cheerful greeting. 
 
 And for these our thanks we give: — 
 All the good our school has brought us; 
 
 Home and friends and mem'ries dear; 
 Motto by the Master taught us, 
 
 "Do the right and no one fear!" 
 Chorus: 
 
Convention Hymn 
 
 The faith the fathers held we keep, 
 
 And ours the task their hands laid down; 
 
 The fields they sowed we till and reap; 
 Bear summer's heat and winter's frown. 
 
 But what the faith that once they taught, — 
 Their guide in darkness, strength in storm? 
 
 This, — let the word be unforgot, — 
 God's changeless truth in changing form. 
 
 What task was theirs? The outward deed 
 That love impelled. Can ours be less? 
 
 Learn well and share their hearts' great creed, 
 Their eager joy to serve and blessi 
 
 Dedication Hymn 
 
 tune: mendebras. 
 
 His feet shall press this threshold, 
 
 His face give light within; 
 He maketh here His blest fold 
 
 And calleth wanderers in, 
 Ask'st thou "Of whom this story?" 
 
 Christ Jesus this is He 
 Who Cometh with the lowly; 
 
 Look, contrite heart, and see! 
 
 Though earth and heaven are telling 
 
 Thy wonders. Lord, and praise. 
 We need Thy nearer dwelling 
 
 In walls our hands may raise. 
 Pill then this house with glory, 
 
 Teach Thou our eyes to see 
 Thy presence with the lowly 
 
 In temple built for Thee! 
 
 42 
 
Endeavor Consecration Hymn 
 
 Where I may serve Thee best, O Master, 
 
 Keep me or send. 
 Life's days are passing fast and faster, 
 
 Soon labor here must end. 
 Joy is it, blessed Lord, to serve Thee 
 
 Where Thou dost call: 
 Mountain or pla-n or forest please me: 
 
 Thing-s either great or small. 
 
 chorus: 
 
 Turn my life from self and sadness. 
 
 Choose paths for me; 
 Thy service, Lord, is joy and gladness 
 
 Happy my walk with Thee, 
 
 In brightest sunshine call to serve Thee; 
 
 Call Thou in storm; 
 Bid me to homes of those who need Thee 
 
 Of known or unknown form; 
 Call Thou to cities busy thronging, 
 
 Or desert lone: 
 Send me, with peace, to strife and wronging, 
 
 Or to the sad heart's moan. 
 
 chorus: 
 Blessed the loving hand that saved me,— 
 
 Hand pierced and torn. 
 Blessed the tender heart that owned me 
 
 Sinner condemned, forlorn. 
 Thy loving kindness, it hath won me, 
 
 Love all Thine own. 
 And, Master, when in joy I meet Thee 
 
 Let me not come alone ! 
 
 chorus: 
 
 43 
 
The Pledge in Song 
 
 Tune: Ariel. Meribah or Bremen. 
 
 This sacramental pledge I take, 
 O Master, for Thy love's dear sake; 
 
 For strength I trust in Thee. 
 Thy truth I'll read in each day's light; 
 Companion on Thy path of right 
 
 I'll strive, my Lord, to be. 
 
 My need shall seek Thy help in prayer: 
 Thy church be mine in constant care; 
 
 I'll go where'er she calls. 
 Her worship, praise and words of grace 
 Shall find me seeking Thy loved face 
 
 Within her hallowed walls. 
 
 Tho know'st how frail I am, O Lord, 
 Gird me with courage as a sword. 
 
 Teach Thou my hands to fight; 
 Then through my life I'll faithful be, 
 With true endeavor serving Thee 
 
 In trial or delight. 
 
 When they whose fellowship is mine 
 Shall meet for prayer and song divine 
 
 In honor, Lord, of Thee, 
 Their joyous comradeship I'll seek, 
 Some word of truth my lips shall speak; 
 
 Amen; so let it bel 
 
 44 
 
A Lakeside Walk in Winter Wind 
 
 The pulses speed the eager feet. 
 
 Each bound reveals a gleamed surprise. 
 
 Look, look! Behold these doubled skiesl 
 The blue above, with cloudlets fleet; 
 The darker sky beneath that frowns 
 
 With secrets of a silent world. 
 
 (Ask not what ships, once tempest-whirled, 
 Lie hidden there.) See jeweled crowns 
 Of flashing light and changing form 
 
 In maze magnificent proclaim 
 
 The sovereign sway, the potent name 
 Of leaping leagues of lake and storm. 
 
 Tho toilers of the troubled sea 
 Fling foaming fury on the sands; 
 And quick the winter's frosted hands 
 
 Seize waters, dashing wild and free. 
 
 And change their captive drops to stone! 
 
 . The fierce assailants of the shore 
 Beat charge again, with angry roar, 
 
 But thunders die in sobbing moan. 
 
 The treacherous winds that, far at sea. 
 Commanded strife 'gainst ship and coast, 
 And armed the huge embattled host, 
 
 Lead shoreward to the strife, then flee. 
 
 The vanquished waters in defeat 
 Burst high toward skies and icy day; 
 The torrents fall in shining spray 
 
 On crystal turrets that repeat 
 
 From seams of ice, — an em'rald's flaws, — 
 In strength renewed of winds' wild rush. 
 The blows of blocks in crash and crush, 
 
 Like grinding of a monster's jaws. 
 
What builders toil upon the shore 
 Unwearied all the restless night, 
 Unseen by stars or morning light? 
 
 Whose was the deft, inventive lore, 
 
 Constructive skill and grand design 
 
 That built these arched and massive halls, 
 These palaces and terraced walls 
 
 Upreared in beauty all divine? 
 
 And thus, the lake and land between, 
 
 I journey for this winter day ; 
 
 I dream not of the distant May. 
 Let then these dunes bear scanty green; 
 My joy is now the pageantry 
 
 That diamonded these ancient sands, 
 
 Reveals the work of unseen hands 
 And walled a thousand miles of sea ! 
 
 Tivo Rivers, February, 190S. 
 
 46 
 
Wisconsin Spring 
 
 Spring is a long continued fight 
 'Twixt winter and the summer, 
 There comes, perchance, a day's delight 
 And next an Alaskan hummer. 
 
 Amid our mixed and varied weathers, 
 Half-frozen rain, and wind, and snow. 
 The robin wishes for more feathers; 
 Indeed he may, for aught I know. 
 Wish for a "merry widow" hat 
 To serve as shelter, house or home, 
 Save that beneath so vast a dome 
 He wouldn't know "where he was at !" 
 
 But fields shall drink their cups of snow. 
 The Arctic winds shall cease to blow; 
 In mighty wrestle summer throw 
 The tyrant winter; next how soon 
 In long clear days at highest noon 
 Will each one say with sweat on phiz 
 "Whew, what a change! How hot it is!" 
 
The Wind of Yesterday 
 
 Things flew that had no wings 
 
 Just yesterday. 
 The xarmers traded land, 
 Mixed with a lot of sand, 
 
 Just yesterday. 
 The cheerful man who sings 
 Of spring and such-like things 
 
 Was silent yesterday. 
 The man whose hat the wind blew off 
 This morning has a dreadful cough. 
 
 He got it yesterday. 
 While running for his blamed old hat 
 He could n't see "where he was at," 
 
 Just yesterday. 
 But got his mouth all filled with dust 
 That came with tearing blast and gust; 
 He almost felt that he would "bust" 
 
 Just yesterday. 
 He couldn't — sing — and would n't pray^ 
 
 Just yesterday. 
 The rooster, used to all the weathers. 
 Is looking now to find his feathers; 
 
 He lost them yesterday. 
 This morning women groan and say: 
 "Behold the work of yesterday I 
 Bring broom and pan. Oh no. oh no. 
 Was ever woman troubled so? 
 They 're not enough. Just get the hoe.'^ 
 Dousman, 1906, March, 22. 
 
 48 
 
The Joke of the Season 
 
 Said March to April, "What a joke 
 'Twould be if I should take your cloak 
 
 And wear the beauty of your face 
 And you should run my furious race." 
 
 "Agreed." said April, '-Now, for fan, 
 I'll lend you, March, my glorious sun 
 
 And take your northwest blizzards bold. 
 Your snows, your frosts and all your cold." 
 
 So March unlocked the doors of ice 
 And creatures all from men to mice. 
 
 Including robins on the trees. 
 Were fooled by that enticing breeze 
 
 Which April loaned to March. In turn 
 She made us her deceits to learn. 
 
 For sun she gave us shade and cloud 
 And filled our ears with roarings loud. 
 
 Her wolfish winds did bark and howl 
 While we did little else but growl. 
 
 So now to months perverse we say, 
 "Don't either of you trade with May!" 
 
 The Manse, April 17, 1907. 
 
 With Apologies to the Sawdust City 
 
 If a judge indictments quashing,. 
 Were to give a squash a washing 
 (Resting from his common labor 
 Settling strife 'twixt man and neighbor), 
 Would he call the water squash-wash 
 Just to have a rhyme with Oshkosh? 
 1906, January 22. 
 
Have You a Rhyme for Peshtigo? 
 
 Peshtigo, Peshtigo! 
 
 How the nimble trochees flow 
 
 Seeking rhyme for Peshtigo, 
 
 For the dactyl Peshtigo! 
 
 "Mesh" I know, "mesh" I know: — 
 
 Is this rhyme for Peshtigo? 
 
 No; it is a sonant sin 
 
 Not to have the t sound in 
 
 And these "meshes" lack the "t;" 
 
 Surely that's a grief to me. 
 
 I may dive or swim or climb 
 
 For that longed-for triple rhyme, 
 
 For that most elusive chime 
 
 But must ask your help for I'm 
 
 Meshed I know, meshed I know, 
 
 Hunting rhymes for Peshtii^o. 
 
 Try once more: Refreshed I go 
 
 With two rhymes for Peshtigo! 
 
 My Neighbor's Chickens 
 
 The following verses expresses no grievance of my own. 
 I could not ask for more considerate neighbors, But all 
 gardeners are not so fortunate, and it is for their sake and 
 at the suggestion of one of them that these lines were 
 written. 
 
 Sometimes I say "The dickens! 
 
 There are my neighbor's chickens!' 
 
 My neighbor I like well 
 
 But — let me grievance tell — 
 
 I do not like his chickens. 
 
 Save when he bids me to a roast 
 
 And plays the part of kindly host. 
 
 50 
 
My garden is most dear to me 
 From carrot bed to apple tree 
 And so my patience sickens 
 When I behold the chickens 
 In it and scratching merrily. 
 Dark gloom grows darker, thickens, 
 In looking at those chickens. 
 
 A certain scientific man 
 
 Once called the hen "A feeble bird.'' 
 
 It is, I'm sure, on no such plan 
 
 My neighbor's hens are built; the word 
 
 "Feeble'" to them does not apply. 
 
 I wish Professor would stand by 
 
 And see those hens make mulching fly 
 
 Or let him watch them as they eat 
 
 My cauliflower choice and sweet, 
 
 Or gorge themselves on berries fine; 
 
 The way they always do with mine. 
 
 They run on their destructive feet 
 
 From stalk to stalk, from vine to vine, 
 
 Or scratch as if they dug a mine. 
 
 And so, my neighbor, won't you, please, 
 My cares dispel, my troubles ease, 
 By keeping all your hens at home? 
 Soon, soon the very earth will freeze 
 And then the fowls at large may roam. 
 So I'll not need the pen of Dickens 
 To tell my horror of your chickens! 
 
To Mr. Carnagie's Spelling Reform 
 Association 
 
 There was a man who had the ague, 
 He thought it was a dreadful plague. 
 His home was in a town named Prague, 
 His name was Robert Allen Sprague. 
 
 The school ma'am said to Johnny Bright 
 
 "The word 'potatoes' — spell it right.'' 
 
 Now "dough" on just the day before 
 
 Had sent John shamefaced from the floor, 
 
 But he had learned his lesson well, 
 
 "P-o" his tongue began to tell, 
 
 "O-u-g-h"— that's "po" I'm sure, 
 
 (How good it is to know a cure 
 
 For spelling bad!) and "a" in "eight"— 
 
 "E-i g-h" as sure as fate, 
 
 With "t" prefixed it must spell "ta." 
 
 I'm sure that's just as clear as day; 
 
 And "beaux"— that teaches me right well 
 
 The last part of my word to spell. 
 
 And now I'll drop my crooked verse 
 
 And turn to prose or something worse. 
 
 This is the way my mind is bent 
 
 To spell the product esculent: 
 
 P-o U'g-h-t-e i g-h t e-a-u-x. 
 
 Potatoes ! 
 
 A man came in while clerk was out 
 
 And spelled a name; of that no doubt 
 
 "P-h-t-h" and "o-l-o." 
 
 The clerk perplexed thought "Read that slow.'^ 
 
 "P-h-t-h," and "o-l o," "g-n."' "y-rr" and "h." 
 
 "A Russian surely" thought the clerk 
 
 With visions of a bomb or dirk. 
 
 The stranger then appeared in view 
 
 "I beg your pardon, sir, will you 
 
 Pronounce your name? I'm sure that few 
 
 52 
 
To this hotel have ever come 
 
 With name I could not frame to some 
 
 Syllabicated utterance clear 
 
 But yours I can't pronouce, I fear." 
 
 ^'My name," the stranger prompt replied, 
 
 "Is simply 'Turner;' I've defied 
 
 The spelling books to show I'm wrong." 
 
 Add now, in mingled prose and song 
 
 Let's show according to what plan, 
 
 His name was spelled by this bad man 
 
 The "t" he sounded as in "phthisic," 
 
 And 'colonel" gave him "o l-o," 
 
 *'G-n" you find in ''sign," "allign,'' 
 
 'Y-r r-h" is seen in "myrrh.'' 
 
 The gasping clerk said "Thank you, sir! 
 
 I'll give you number nignty-nign 
 
 And serve you neither beer nor wign 
 
 And hope your wronged and mispelled name 
 
 Will guide you into sense and fame." 
 
 A Suggested Ending for One of James 
 Whitcomb Riley's Poems 
 
 Nobody on the old farm now but mother, an' me, an' 
 
 John; 
 But I guess that state of things ain't going to keep 
 
 right on 
 For we all go to church in the morning, and John in 
 
 the evening, too. 
 ^'They need me to sing," he says, and that, I suppose, 
 
 is true; 
 And the girl that plays the organ — Well, all the 
 
 neighbors say 
 John's horse don't head for home any more but always 
 
 the other wav I 
 
 53 
 
Carpet Beating 
 
 Thump, thump! This rug 's the worst one yet. 
 
 A fool would swear, a child would fret. 
 
 But what's the sense of all complaining? 
 
 "It'shot;" "It's cold;" " 'Twill soon be raining;" 
 
 "The dust is like a cloud;" "I fear 
 
 Those microbes ever coming near." 
 
 At no one time can all those things 
 
 Be true, and so the wise man sings: 
 
 "Thump on, thump on! Keep time, keep time; 
 
 Your blows should make a kind of rhyme. 
 
 Thump, thump, for there's a near by pump 
 
 With water plenty, if a lump 
 
 Form in the doorway of the throat. 
 
 So then, thump on! Throw off your coat. 
 
 Thump, thump, and think how school boys 
 
 jump. 
 Whack, whack, thump, thump, whack, whack, 
 
 thump, thump." 
 Don't say that this is woman's work 
 You lazy, good-for-nothing shirk. 
 A white man, you can bet your life. 
 Is not ashamed to help his wife. 
 A Mohawk might be or a Sioux; 
 But surely, friend, not I nor you. 
 
 And yet there is a kind of pleasure 
 
 In cleansing beat and rhythmic measure. 
 
 The work must needs be done, and I 
 
 May have the fun and make things fly. 
 
 So thump and whack, and whack and thump. 
 
 Don't whine, don't growl, don't be a gump. 
 
 For much that's good, as I shall tell. 
 
 Is in your task, so do it well. 
 
 Here'o carpet-beater's joy. You've guessed it? 
 
 54 
 
Thank God for friends whose feet have pressed it 
 
 (This "it" means carpet, not the ]oy, 
 
 You keen-wit girl, you high school boy !) 
 
 And so we'll make our carpet-beating 
 
 A right good chance for hearty greeting 
 
 To all who step upon our floors. 
 
 To all who come within our doors. 
 
 Yet last I'll say, with rev'rent meaning 
 Thank heaven and man for vacuum cleaning ! 
 
 The Steam Thresher 
 
 Whistle's call and the men's prompt stir, 
 "Chuh, chuh, chuh, bhurr-urr-urr." 
 Bundled grain in the pitchfork's grip 
 Tossed to the curved knives' slash and rip. 
 
 "Chuh, chuh, chuh, bhurr-urr urr," 
 The engine's gasp and the ihresher's whirr. 
 Steel toothed cylinder's countless knocks, 
 Throbbing sieve and the full grain-box. 
 
 Measured bulk of the ripened grain 
 (Harvest toil hath not been in vain), — 
 Rye, or oats, or the hard-brown, wheat, — 
 Hurries the tread of the carriers' feet. 
 
 Ceaseless stream of the beaten straw 
 Poured to the blower's greedy maw. 
 Caught in the long pipe's blast and gust. 
 Borne to the stack in a storm of dust. 
 
 Honor inventive skill and thought; 
 
 Honor the hands that have shaped and wrought; 
 
 Honor the farmer's toil and vim! 
 
 Praise Lord of all in our threshers' hymn! 
 
 55 
 
On a Bill for "The Doane Owl" 
 
 (A College Paper) 
 
 How to make '"The Owl" much better? 
 Loose the bird from every fetter 
 Of the chain of debt, and let her 
 Wing her course all unimpeded, 
 Money is the thing that's needed. 
 Be my admonition heeded. 
 
 Other ways are mere illusion, 
 Ending only in confasion, 
 Put away such vain delusion. 
 
 Toil and trade your purses fill. 
 Pay you then that "little bill," 
 (Overdue?) with right good will. 
 
 If you heed this needed preaching 
 And the plaintive "Owl's" beseeching, 
 Soon that bird will cease her screeching! 
 
 And in gentle notes and low 
 Tell you where alumni go. 
 Bring you word of joy or woe. 
 
 Here's the cash for my subscription. 
 Let me the collector's grip shun 
 And all things of description! 
 
 Aid the students' enterprise 
 Till their pockets and their eyes 
 Both bulge out in great surprise. 
 
 Then they'll treat "The Owl" right well; 
 Write much better; and, — don't tell, — 
 They may even learn to spell! 
 
On Reading of a $200,000 Crown Given 
 by a Brewer to His Wife 
 
 Beer, bier, 
 Spell it as the Eng-lish do:_ 
 Spell it as the Germans do 
 (That I'm sure fits like a shoe); 
 
 Beer, bier. 
 'Twixt the two come Bright's disease. 
 Weakened heart and things like these. 
 Hear pneumonia's dying- cry; 
 Feel lumbago's pains and see 
 Coarseness in the face and eye; 
 Beer and fouler things agree! 
 Brewer, give your wife a crown; 
 Drinker, see your wife bent down 
 Washing other women's clothes. 
 Paying for your own red nose 
 And the other woman's crown! 
 Hear the wail of such a wife 
 Mourning o'er her saddened life: 
 "Two hundred thousand in that crown! 
 How many women in your town 
 And mine have paid its shameful price! 
 Our gold is brass; our diamonds, ice. 
 Above the diamonds in that crown 
 I see the tear-drops trickle down! 
 
 O beer, O beer. 
 For me thou hast no gift to cheer. 
 Accurst those diamonds and the beer!" 
 
 57 
 
For the Young Folks at Hill Crest 
 
 Go, go, 
 
 Drifts of snow; 
 O fall, brown leaves. 
 From the old oak trees; 
 Blow, south wind, blow I 
 
 I want the Hill Crest lawn to show 
 A happy girl, a laughing boy. 
 They're always filled with glee and joy. 
 Now who's that girl and who's that boy? 
 
 That girl with bonnie, cheerful face? 
 
 Why, that's Miss Grace! 
 The boy? Well, well! Now give me time! 
 He has a name not meant for rhyme! 
 
 They call him Tompie. He's all right! 
 
 He'll come when June's blue skies are 
 bright! 
 
 Visions Given by a Voice 
 
 The reader turned the centuries back; 
 We breathed the new world's atmosphere; 
 Saw huntsm.en on the wild boar's track; 
 Heard Norsk winds whistle loud and clear; 
 With Shakespeare walked by Avon's stream; 
 Saw Milton, blind for freedom's sake: 
 Heard Bunyan tell his wondrous dream: 
 Heard thunders roll on Leman's lake. 
 
 58 
 
The Song of the Needle 
 
 Great Homer sang- Achilles' wrath 
 And also traced the crooked path 
 That brought Ulysses to his home 
 Through treacherous seas and billows' foam. 
 In Latin verse good Vergil told 
 The story of his hero bold. 
 Italian Dante bids us know 
 The horrors of the world below ; 
 And English Milton wrote on themes 
 Beyond our ken, above our dreams. 
 Pope bantered one who he called fair 
 About a cut-off lock of hair. 
 "The sofa," Cowper said, "I sing;" 
 And, "my barbaric yawp I fling 
 O'er all the world," Walt Whitman wrote. 
 And now may I attempt a note? 
 May I the honored needle praise, 
 And tell its use in humble lays; 
 I who have held it in disdain 
 And said "To sew is always pain?" 
 Repentant now, on duty bent, 
 I take the humble instrument 
 And make its usefulness my own 
 Without a sigh, complaint or groan. 
 And so, with neither fear nor dread 
 I'll write my song in lines of thread! 
 1907, April, nth. 
 
 59 
 
The Academy's Soldier 
 
 Inspired by the splendid enthusiasm of Principal Toan, of 
 Rochester Academy: 
 
 Is this the new word: We must teach boys to fight? 
 Have we taught them to do things but not to do right, 
 Left them weak in their powers of choice and decision, 
 Compelled them to learn mathematic precision 
 Without application to duty or life? 
 
 And, knowing full well the world's contest and strife, 
 Have we failed to teach boys who are foes, who are friends, 
 What enemy wars and what Captain defends? 
 Have we sent out young soldiers unarmed and untrained 
 To a struggle wherein all is lost or is gained? 
 
 60 
 
A Scene Depicted on the Shield Made by 
 Hephaestus for Achilles 
 
 Iliad xviii. 593-606. 
 Unmarried youths and maidens for whose sake 
 Their ardent wooers to the parents gave 
 Of cattle numerous gifts; these all there danced 
 With hands close clasped upon each others' wrists. 
 The maidens finest of fine linen wore. 
 The young men also were in linen clad, — 
 Close-fitting garments made with oil to gleam 
 On polished surface of the well- wove cloth. 
 Wreaths beautiful the maidens wore; the youths 
 Had knives they used at sacrifice or feast. 
 These gilded were, these knives of peaceful use, 
 By silvered baldric from the shoulder hung. 
 
 Youths, maids, ran lightly on their well trained 
 
 feet; — 
 As craftsman seated at ceramic art 
 Sets potter's wheel awhirl between his palms, 
 A trial making of its speed and worth;— 
 They formed swift circles in the mazy dance. 
 At one time youths, at other graceful maids 
 Haste into ranks athwart each others' course. 
 
 Delighted to their hearts' content a throng 
 Stood round about the love-inspiring dance 
 Wherein two gymnasts led like whirling wheels. 
 Now touching earth with feet and now with hands. 
 
A Parable of Hope 
 
 Beneath the ice and fold of snow 
 Imprisoned, yet in endless flow. 
 The clear, pure waters come and go. 
 
 The winter's touch hath power to bind 
 As death may hide the heart and mind, 
 Yet stream and soul their own shall find. 
 
 At evening time there shall be light 
 For us alone the solemn night. 
 Beyond the evening, dawn's delight. 
 
 Be these thy parables divine 
 
 For comfort of that grief of thine; 
 
 The eve grows dark that dawns may shine. 
 
 For those set free as is the light , 
 The eve and morning blend in sight 
 Where home and heaven their joys unite! 
 
 Believe 
 
 I walked upon the wave-wet sand. 
 Dividing line 'twixt lake and land. 
 And heard the whitened billows break: 
 Then said a voice like His who spake 
 To John of old by Patmos' sea, 
 ^'Believe on me." "Believe on me." 
 
To My Neighbors at Hill Crest 
 
 Shall I do dear Sam a wrong" 
 If I write no little song 
 Telling how he pleases Grace. 
 Brings the light to Tompie's f^ce, 
 Shares their play or runs a race, 
 Merry all about the place? 
 
 No; I'd do the duck no wrong 
 
 If I failed to make the song. 
 
 He'll not care for verse or rhyme. 
 
 But this pleasant summer-time 
 
 I have seen my little neighbors, 
 
 Happy in their kindly labors 
 
 Making Sam and others glad. 
 
 So I say, "God bless the lad; 
 
 Bless the lassie;" and I know 
 
 That the love to Sam they show 
 
 Makes their own hearts richer, truer; 
 
 Makes the sky seem brighter, bluer; 
 
 Makes them to us all a joy 
 
 (I mean duck, and girl, and boy). 
 
 So I'd surely do a wrong 
 If I did not say in song 
 To loved Tompie and Miss Grace 
 (Merry all about the place) 
 That their duck 's important, quite. 
 With his new-grown feathers white; 
 But the more important thing 
 Is their love; of this I sing! 
 1909 Summer. 
 
 63 
 
To Mr. H. B. Lowe 
 On the Eighty-fourth Anniversary of His Birth 
 
 Son, daughter, daughter's child and loving wife 
 Have privilege this day we may not share. 
 Nearest thy heart are they, part of thy life. 
 Chief joy by right is theirs, but they will bear 
 The kindly meant intrusion of thy friends 
 Who bring their heartfelt wishes for thy joy. 
 We claim as ours one on whom Worth attends; 
 High worth with cheer as of a happy boy: 
 High worth of character and its crown of years: 
 Thus claim we thee as ours, thou citizen. 
 Once soldier, always patriot. Who hears 
 Thy name and does not see thee with the men 
 Who saved our Union and endangered flag. 
 Whose courage did not fail nor ardor lag? 
 
 Our land is holier, for it caught thy blood 
 
 In battle that was part of sad defeat 
 
 Fought where high hills guard Rappahanock's flood 
 
 And still the fame of Washington repeat: 
 
 That blushed in blood at foul Secession's rage; 
 
 At Slavery, relic of a darkened age. 
 
 What years those were of battle! Live, live on. 
 
 Give us the spirit of the mighty deeds 
 
 Of which thou wast a part; of heroes gone. 
 
 Be inspiration: for our land still needs 
 
 The service of the story and the song 
 
 That celebrate high triumph over wrong. 
 
 The Manse, 
 
 Nineteen Tfiirteen, May iift/i. 
 
A Plea for " Pleaded " 
 
 Lines suggested by the use of "plecV in an article enti- 
 tled "The State Convention," published in "Our Church 
 Life." for October, 1898. 
 
 O Editor! Dear Doctor Kidder! 
 
 "Pled" is a term that ranks with "widder," 
 
 With "hain't'' and "right smart chance of 
 
 corn." 
 (Don't these arouse your wrath and scorn?) 
 Respectable as "Wed?" Oh no. 
 With honest "fed" it can not go. 
 O ye who ate good mother's bread, 
 Was it from dough that once she ' 'kned?" 
 The slippers for your comfort made 
 With figures queer in beads displayed — 
 Ye know, ye advocates of "pled," 
 Those slippers "beaded ' are not "bed." 
 Are not these words from Bunyan needed 
 "It stood as if with men it pleaded?" 
 Ye who conform to Scripture law 
 In Samuel read. Ye '11 find no flaw 
 In the translators' English there 
 Kept by revisers' thought and care. 
 Read, too, in Lamentations sad 
 And where Ezekiel maketh glad. 
 O be my words of warning heeded, 
 And henceforth write not "pled" but "pleaded." 
 
 The Bible passages referred to above are the following: 
 I. Samuel 25:39. 
 Lamentation 3 :58. 
 
 Ezekiel 20:39. Here, however, the American committee 
 has substituted "entered into judgment." 
 
 65 
 
In Memory of Professor Joseph Emerson 
 
 Whom the Beloit boys called Zeus. 
 Again these happy summer days I read 
 That ever-living- tale of Ilium: — 
 Atrides Agamemnon, king of men. 
 By impious deed brings evil on the camp 
 And rouses wrath in wronged Achilles' breast 
 For whose dear sake Thetis to Zeus appeals. 
 But when that magic name I dwell upon 
 I see a nobler Zeus who with us walked. 
 Companion yet supreme. O towering hight, 
 Of living sculpture fashioned by the touch 
 That Grecian culture gives a Christian soul. 
 Thou art my Zeus, my potent Jupiter ! 
 In honor of thy stately majesty, 
 Of form and bearing and profoundest thought, 
 With warmth of heart that clothed these all 
 
 with life, 
 I offer this poor tribute to thy fame. 
 A flower to bloom upon thy tomb and die. 
 
 66 
 
Christmas Spirit 
 
 One time at least in every year 
 Each man's a Christian, has no fear 
 Of being thought unduly good 
 When saying "I've done all I could 
 To make all hearts about me glad, 
 To cheer each girl and merry lad. 
 To see that none in town shall lack 
 For roast in pan and flour in sack." 
 Now that's the generous way to act. 
 But let me tell an important fact: 
 It's often easier to be kind 
 Than just; and justice is not blind 
 As some have pictured: he has eyes 
 Who's wisely just and justly wise. 
 So then be generous as we must 
 If like our Master we would be. 
 To be like Him both kind and just; 
 To heal the hurt and wrong we see 
 Is worth our trying all the year. 
 You can be both so don't you fear ! 
 Learn this lesson from my song: 
 Keep Christmas spirit all year long. 
 
 67 
 
Our Summer School of Only Three 
 
 Respectfully inscribed to Mr. and Mrs, Henry Pope, of Chicago and Green Lake. 
 I will write you a record in rhyme for our girl; 
 I will sing you a story in song" for our boy. 
 That is easy; for Margaret truly is Pearl. 
 And our Henry at home and at Green Lake is joy. 
 And there's one dear as each to the other, I'm sure: 
 That's our own brother William; for blues perfect cure. 
 
 One was reading in Homer of Trojans and Greeks; 
 
 Of Achilles and Hector, Ulysses and Zeus. 
 
 And one read ''Black Beauty," a sermon that seeks 
 
 All our horses to guard from neglect and abuse. 
 
 And between us and Sly apples hung on a tree 
 
 Near enough, one would think, to hear "Beauty's" wise plea. 
 
 Did our Margaret sometimes put thoughts into rhyme? 
 If she did need I say that a song is no crime? 
 Oh, the stories of circus, golf , fishing and play 
 That were told on the caligraph day after day I 
 Now we're ready for long winter's work and good cheer 
 And for all that will make this a happy school year. 
 Green Lake Manse, 1912. 
 
 68 
 
Mary Leavitt 
 
 On the south side of Scotland's famous 
 Clyde near where that stream, there scarcely 
 larger than a good-sized brook, ceases to be 
 affected by the tide, stands the ancient Scot- 
 tish borough which its people call Ruglen. 
 But if you wish to find it on the map or in 
 the encyclopoedia look for "Rutherglen," the 
 only form of the name in print. Once within 
 its municipal limits it included Glasgow, of 
 which it is now practically a suburb or a 
 part. 
 
 In Rutherglen there was dwelling in 1828 
 a young man John Nelson whose ancestors 
 had been shepherds in the Highlands, the re- 
 gion that has produced so much of mighty 
 manhood and womanhood. His wife Mar- 
 garet Correns was a woman of rare delicacy 
 of character as well as strength of character. 
 She was of a family that had come from the 
 Galloway region of Scotland. 
 
 In August of 1828, as the second day thereof 
 was at its beginning, their first-born was 
 given to these parents, and to her they gave 
 the blessed Bible name of Mary. As soon as 
 she could learn anything she was taught to 
 obey God and her parents. These were not 
 members of what they probably regarded as 
 the somewhat lax and worldly Established 
 Church of Scotland but of the Relief Church, 
 a body which in asserting the right of a con- 
 gregation to choose its own minister had 
 been compelled to separate from the Estab- 
 
lishment. Under the evangelical and some- 
 what austere discipline of the Relief Kirk, now 
 part of the United Free Church of Scotland, 
 Mary was early taught that the chief reason 
 for living is that we may "glorify God and 
 enjoy Him forever." Strong teaching to give 
 a child, you may say. Yes, it takes strong 
 teaching to make men and women strong: — 
 and it does it. 
 
 In the home the character of Mary's 
 mother was impressed, naturally in a special 
 degree, upon her eldest child. But the 
 parting between them came all too soon, for 
 on a summer's day, a little more than a month 
 before Mary was fourteen years old, the 
 mother could no longer care even for the 
 baby Joseph, a part of whose life-story is told 
 on one of the pages of this book. Seventy 
 years after the event, a nephew of Mrs. Nel- 
 son, the late William Ross, of Butler, Mis- 
 souri, recalled a circumstance of her illness. 
 He remembered crying because he saw that 
 her long and beautiful hair had been cut off. 
 Though she was then in a state of delirium 
 or on the verge of it, she would comfort him 
 and said: "Dinna greet" (don't cry). But 
 there was reason for tears. On the 2nd of 
 July, 1842, the mother was taken from her 
 children. Mary took, so far as such a child 
 could, her mother's place. There were then 
 two sisters, Margaret and Elizabeth; and 
 four brothers, John, James, William and 
 Joseph. Another boy, Robert, had died in 
 infancy. 
 
 Soon the Ruglen home was broken up for- 
 ever. To it had come from New York City, 
 Mrs. Mary Wilson, a sister of the dead 
 mother. The father decided to remove to 
 
 70 
 
America. The aunt helped prepare the chil- 
 dren for the voyage and did not end her ser- 
 vice for them with their arrival hither. 
 Blessed be her memory for her deeds of love 
 even though they were sometimes done in 
 harsh ways. God grant that she may find in 
 Paradise a tenderness that her training taught 
 her not to give. 
 
 It was in November that Mr. Nelson with 
 his children and sister in-law sailed in the 
 packet-ship Sheridan from Liverpool for New 
 York. The seven weeks' voyage that brought 
 them thither was to Mary a time of sea- 
 sickness and misery. At New York they 
 stayed for the winter. 
 
 In the spring of 1843, perhaps in May, Mr. 
 Nelson with Mrs. Wilson and another sister 
 of his late wife, and their mother, started for 
 Fairplay, Wisconsin, whither they had been 
 invited by a friend, Mr. George Arnott, one 
 of the multitudinous "prospectors" in the 
 Galena lead region. Bringing the children 
 our emigrants went via the Erie canal to 
 Buffalo and the Great Lakes to Chicago, then 
 a stuck-in-the mud village that was not to be 
 compared in prosperity and wealth with Ga- 
 lena. At Chicago Mr. Nelson, like many an- 
 other, received the offer of a lot if he would 
 only stay and build and, also like many an- 
 other, he declined the offer. To Galena he 
 and his company pressed on, the older people 
 riding in wagons, and the children alternately 
 riding and walking. When in June, 1904, 
 on our way to the Doane College commence- 
 ment at which two of her grandchildren were 
 to be graduated, we were gliding in a Pullman 
 westward from Chicago, our mother spoke 
 of the contrast between the two journeys, 
 
and recalled the beauty of the prairies and 
 their flowers in that far-off early summer. 
 Yet she missed the richer fragrance of the 
 Scottish blossoms, though she rejoiced 
 in America's clearer and more brilliant 
 skies. 
 
 From Galena Mr. Nelson went to Fairplay, 
 a now almost non-existent mining village in 
 Grant county, where he made his home until 
 his death in 1860. 
 
 Miss Nelson's first marriage was in 1846 to 
 George Bennett Davidson, a native of the 
 parish of Keith, Banffshire, Scotland. He 
 was a writer of some local repute, and his 
 name is to be found in "Poole's Index." He 
 was a miner and smelter, and was much in- 
 terested in politics. He would read aloud on 
 winter evenings from the "Congressional 
 Globe," the predecessor of the present 
 "Congressional Record." Thereby our 
 mother became much disgusted with the 
 tone and manner of the Southern leaders of 
 that day. Perhaps, also, this education pre- 
 pared her to become, as she did, an advocate 
 of woman suffrage. Mr. Davidson was one 
 of those who supported Van Buren and 
 Adams in the famous Free Soil campaign of 
 1848. 
 
 Into this newly made home came the sor- 
 row that is suggested by Tennyson's line: 
 "I wept like a child for the babe that was 
 dead before it was born." 
 
 The second child was the writer of this 
 sketch; the third a girl-babe who met an 
 accidental death just as her father was 
 starting on the journey from which he never 
 returned. Mr. Davidson died in the South 
 Pass of the Rocky Mountains while on his 
 
way to California. The mournful tidings of 
 his death came to the widow from the pen of 
 her brother John, who is still a resident of 
 Oakland, California. 
 
 Part of Mrs. Davidson's widowhood she 
 spent in her father's home. There in 1851, 
 her sister Margaret was married. For a 
 time Mrs. Davidson and her second brother, 
 James, made a home together. In 1853 their 
 father made a second marriage. Thus Agnes 
 McKinlay, a native of Dunfermline, Scot- 
 land, became my "grandmother" before she 
 was anybody's mother. What wealth of 
 Scottish story was at her command! How 
 much she could tell of King Robert the 
 Bruce whose bones rest in the Abbey church 
 of her native city! She was always ready 
 to sing Burns's song about the battle of Ban- 
 nockburn, and gave me a love that was 
 greater, I fear, than I ever deserved from her. 
 
 To this "grandmother" the blessedness of 
 motherhood was not denied. On the 22nd of 
 August, 1854, there was born to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Nelson, a daughter to whom — the moth- 
 er's only child,— was given the baptismal 
 name of Euphemia Davidson. In her eldest 
 sister this child found also a second and 
 younger mother. 
 
 After a widowhood of some years Mrs. 
 Davidson was married, 1855, January 1st, to 
 James Leavitt, a native of Shipton, Lower 
 Canada (now the Province of Quebec). What 
 Mr. Leavitt was, mentally and in character, 
 is indicated by the fact that "The Independ- 
 ent,"— in the old days of the anti-slavery 
 conflict as distinguished from abolitionism,— 
 had first place in the periodical literature of 
 his new home. Representatives of his family 
 
had fought in the war that won the independ- 
 ence of the United States. That he had been 
 born in Canada was almost an accident; in 
 cast of mind and in mechanical ingenuity and 
 otherwise, he was a true son of New England. 
 Not unstable in disposition or habit, he yet had 
 found home in New Hampshire and Cali- 
 fornia; in Boston and Chicago. A previous 
 marriage had left him with a daughter who 
 was still a child. 
 
 The newly constituted family was soon es- 
 tablished on a hill farm in Grant county, 
 Wisconsin; a farm whence one could almost 
 see the Mississippi as it sweeps past the mag- 
 nificent, bluff-walled amphitheater wherein 
 Dubuque, Iowa, is built. While coming 
 thence one February day, and when near his 
 home with a load of lumber, Mr. Leavitt 
 was accidentally killed by being thrown 
 from his wagon as it slipped on an icy road 
 and was overturned. The cries of her chil- 
 dren brought Mrs. Leavitt to the spot where 
 her husband lay dead. She was not crushed 
 under the fearful blow but endured as seeing 
 Him who is invisible. Her younger son was 
 then not four years old, and soon there was 
 born a daughter who never saw her father's 
 face. 
 
 Then came years of hard work upon the 
 undeveloped and unproductive farm. But 
 notwithstanding her unremitting toil Mrs. 
 Leavitt never became so much absorbed in 
 making a living as to forget the greater 
 duty of making a life or, rather of making 
 lives. That abundant life which Jesus came 
 to give, as He Himself said, was in some 
 measure her own, and she would have others 
 blessed with it. Yet in the deep things of 
 
religion she had the reserve that is the 
 usual accompaniment of a reverent and 
 humble mind. She had reasons for the faith 
 that was in her, but was not given to argu- 
 ment or disputation. She was loved by all 
 her neighbors nearly all of which were 
 Roman Catholics. The four miles of up-hill- 
 and-down that lay between home and their 
 church did not keep the Leavitt family from 
 public worship and Sabbath school. In the 
 mother the pastor found one of his most 
 faithful helpers and the school an efficient 
 teacher. She was steadfast in the cause of 
 temperance and was once a member of the 
 order of Good Templars. She believed in 
 walking circumspectly and would not have 
 playing cards in her house. Yet she was 
 willing that her children should go occa- 
 sionally to the circus though she let others 
 go along to take care of them. She did not 
 judge harshly those whose convictions and 
 practices were different from her own, but 
 on the contrary found among them some of 
 her best friends. Though women did not 
 vote then in school meetings, she was influ. 
 ential in having a new district formed. Be- 
 fore this was done she had been the teacher 
 of her own children. She was a dutiful citi- 
 zen, and stood for the public welfare as 
 against private greed in the proposed closing 
 of a good road and the substituting for it of 
 an exceedingly bad one. Under her personal 
 care one of the best orchards in the town 
 grew up on her farm. So she lived, faithfully, 
 usefully. 
 
 It was in the early part of this period of 
 her life, indeed the year after her husband's 
 death, that Mrs. Leavitt lost her father. Not 
 
 75 
 
long thereafter the home that had been his 
 was broken up. So by an inheritance of re- 
 sponsibility, and not less by her own warmth 
 of affection and force of character, Mrs. 
 Leavitt's house became the headquarters of 
 her father's family and kindred. Here they 
 and their children, in times of transition, 
 found something more than welcome. Nor 
 was such kindness as this limited to those of 
 her own blood. 
 
 From this little home of large hospitality 
 there went to a soldier's service and a 
 soldier's death Mrs. Leavitt's youngest 
 brother, Joseph Nelson, the one who as a babe 
 was left motherless in Rutherglen. This 
 home his older brother William, so lately 
 added to the silent majority, also considered 
 as his, and to it he returned from the living 
 death of Libby prison, of Danville, Ander- 
 sonville and Florence. A cousin also who, 
 to these men and their sister was like a 
 brother, went from Mrs. Leavitt's home, and 
 to his younger brother its doors were always 
 opened as to one who had a right there, 
 The sister's tears and prayers of that time 
 are among the traditions and memories of 
 her children. She wept when Lincoln was 
 slain, and rejoiced when the war and slavery, 
 the foul cause of it, came to an end together. 
 
 Mrs. Leavitt, who was a fine reader and 
 lover of books, and had used well the limited 
 opportunities of education that came to her, 
 especially the study of the Bible, was de- 
 termined that her children should have, if 
 they wished it, a training beyond that of the 
 common schools. So she aided the going to 
 Beloit College of her eldest son, and after 
 he had gone to Crete, Nebraska, to be teacher 
 
as well as student in Doane College, she re- 
 moved to Crete where she became matron of 
 Doane College, a position which she filled for 
 sixteen years. None find it so difficult to love 
 college students as those do who have to feed 
 them, and the fact that Mrs. Leavitt did 
 both is evidence that her affection was founded 
 upon principle and not upon impulse. 
 
 In August, 1897, she came to Two Rivers, 
 Wisconsin, to make a home with her daugh- 
 ter and the elder of her two sons. There as 
 everywhere she made warm friends; there as 
 everywhere she wrought effectively and 
 wisely. One thing at Two Rivers she did 
 not like: The moaning-, so constantly heard, 
 of the waters of our great inland sea. But 
 there she found those who in love became as 
 her own children. 
 
 In 1901, Mrs. Leavitt removed to Dousman, 
 a place in the beautiful lake region of Wis- 
 consin. She was there at a time interesting 
 in the development of the church and the 
 community; the time when the Wisconsin 
 Farm School for boys was removed thither. 
 To this institution she could render no special 
 service, but her heart went out in sympathy 
 to the boys, so many of them motherless. At 
 Dousman, as everywhere, sympathy and 
 friendship were the words written by her 
 kindly deeds upon the hearts of her neigh- 
 bors, and she found the time of her abiding 
 there one of happiness. Moreover at Dousman 
 she had a new experience: meeting that most 
 worthy woman, .Madam Caroline Elizabeth 
 Merrick, of New Orleans, Louisiana, author of 
 "Old Times in Dixie Land," a book of power 
 and wise radicalism. During the war for the 
 Union, her husband, Edwin Thomas Mer- 
 
rick, a native of Massachusetts, was Chief 
 Justice of the Supreme Court of his adopt- 
 ed state. Madam Merrick was at Dous- 
 man with the family of her son, Edwin T. 
 Merrick. The new things to Mrs. Leavitt in 
 these friendships was the point of view that 
 they gave her of the war for the Union. 
 Here were friends who were loyal citizens 
 and had been Confederates, a woman who had 
 been mistress of slaves and was glad of 
 emancipation; and was, moreover, an ad- 
 mirer of Frances Willard, a member of the 
 Woman's Christian Temperance Union and a 
 believer in woman suffrage! True hearts 
 soon learn to understand each other. 
 
 In 1905 Mrs. Leavitt's household removed 
 to Green Lake, Wisconsin, where friendship 
 toward her and her own in return was al- 
 most a touchstone of character. She had the 
 joy of seeing young people whom she loved 
 pass through high school, and a whole or part 
 of the course inRipon College. A winter, that 
 of 1910-11, passed at Hollywood. California, 
 probably prolonged her life. She was guest 
 there of Mrs. and Mr. William Nelson Kil- 
 bourn, eldest son and daughter-in law of 
 Mrs. Leavitt's youngest sister; on her return, 
 guest of her brother at Salt Lake City; of 
 her niece, Mrs. Arthur Parmalee, at Denver; 
 of her son Edwin, at Crete, Nebraska. 
 There her granddaughter still mourned the 
 death of a little child, the first great-grand- 
 child of Mrs. Leavitt's own blood. But her 
 step-daughter's grandchild had been with 
 his mother, in the Green Lake home and 
 was, in affection, her very own. 
 
 Though every place was made a home to 
 the venerable mother, she longed like a 
 
 78 
 
child for her own home. There with re- 
 newed interest she took up once more the 
 round of duty lessened by her failing' 
 strength. Still she rendered to the sick and 
 to others such service as she could give. She 
 was prepared in mind and heart for changes. 
 It did not startle nor alarm her when a 
 friend, Mr. Edward Dike who sat at her 
 table on the last Lord's day of his life, was 
 suddenly taken away. Nor was there dis- 
 tress or fear when her son was unexpectedly 
 summoned to the funeral of a friend of al- 
 most her own age, Mr. Alonzo Cragin, of 
 Joplin, Missouri. She mourned indeed for his 
 wife who, for the lifetime of a generation, had 
 l^een sister rather than merely friend; for 
 their children who were loved almost as her 
 own. Many. a summer vacation had found 
 them on the hills of the. old Grant county 
 farm. 
 
 Before the son's return Mrs. Leavitt had 
 reached the eighty-fourth anniversary of 
 her birth. Almost from that very time her 
 strength manifestly failed. Her times of 
 rest became more prolonged; her movements 
 less active; her calls and visits fewer. Yet 
 in one way she kept either her mind or her 
 muscles busy. She still felt responsibility, 
 still desired to serve, still tried to make all 
 about her happy. Thus autumn passed into 
 winter. Even in .January she still was able 
 on its first Lord's day to prepare her sick 
 daughter's breakfast and to take it up stairs. 
 But that day she received the communion of 
 the Lord's supper in her own home instead 
 of in the church. 
 
 She strove, though not complainingly, 
 against the limitation of her activity. She 
 
made ready to attend the annual business 
 meeting of the church, but the ab- 
 normal action of her heart forbade her doing 
 so. However, a few days thereafter, she was 
 able to go out once more, and called on a 
 sick neighbor, a soldier's widow, Mrs. Davis; 
 at the home of a veteran crippled in battle^ 
 Mr. H. B. Lowe, and that of still another, 
 Mr. David Wilson, whose niece was an 
 especially valued friend of her own. Only a 
 few days more was she able even to go about 
 the house. It was characteristic, that the 
 last time she left her own room it was to 
 prevent the need of waking her daughter 
 who, in care of the mother, had been deprived 
 of sleep the night before. Almost her only 
 complaint was ''Oh, I'm so useless." 
 
 Soon she wished that her son Edwin be 
 sent for, and he promptly came. She knew 
 that the end was not far off. "We have 
 had a happy home together," she said in 
 one of the last days of her life. We who 
 write these words thank all who have helped 
 make it so; they are many, very many. We 
 add our thanks for the kindness done her and 
 us during her decline and since her death. 
 
 The ending was not in pain but in weak- 
 ness. On Wednesday morning, February 
 19th, she seemed to follow the reading of 
 psalm CXXC, a part of which she had re- 
 peated some days before. The day passed 
 with no increase of hope to those who cared 
 for her. The daughter and younger brother 
 retirod for needed rest. The mother lay 
 quietly, sometimes as if in sleep. After she 
 cea-ed to speak to those who watched, she 
 stretched her hands upward saying, "Come? 
 come; now, now." At the appointed time, 
 
 80 
 
eleven o'clock, she took medicine, but a little 
 after midnig-ht it seemed best to call those 
 who slept. At ten minutes after two o'clock 
 in the morning the sound of her low breath- 
 ing was heard no more. (February 20, 1913). 
 
 A memorial service was held that after- 
 noon in the church where for seven years 
 and more she had been a worshiper, Her 
 body was taken to Crete for burial. There 
 the funeral party was met by many friends 
 among whom was the acting president of 
 the college. A second service was held in 
 the beautiful church of Crete, and, on Sat- 
 urday afternoon, February 22d, in Riverside 
 cemetery, close to the grave of her friend 
 and associate of many years. President Perry 
 of the college, we laid her body to its final 
 rest. 
 
 Mrs. Leavitt was a victor in the struggle 
 of life. Seventy years of active service 
 were hers, and she rejoiced in usefulness and 
 responsibility. Great things that she prayed 
 for, toiled for, and gave for, came to pass. 
 
 She saw betterment in the condition of all 
 who toil; she saw also a larger wage for the 
 workman, and more of gain for the farmer; she 
 saw the schools much more numerously at- 
 tended, and the old-time cruelties in them 
 brought to an end; the teachers better paid 
 and the teaching made more sensible and 
 effective. She saw a great advance in tem- 
 perance sentiment throughout the world, and 
 a corresponding recognition of the practical 
 as well as the ethical value of the practice of 
 total abstinence. So careful was she in her 
 own practice in this respect, that she once 
 denied a request to take in her trunk a bottle 
 of California wine as a gift to a friend. She 
 
lived to see women vote on equal terms with 
 men in nine states of the Union, to say 
 nothing of the school suffrage in many other 
 states. Yet she herself voted but once for 
 school superintendent, and but once in a 
 school meeting. She was not impetuous nor 
 aggressive. She saw improvement in the 
 legal status of women in neariy all the world. 
 She saw all lands opened to Christian missions. 
 She made no break with her early religious 
 associations and training, but was prepared 
 by them to receive new light from God's 
 holy works as well as from His holy word. 
 So she experienced the modification of harsh 
 theologies and the lessening of sectarian 
 rivalry. The fiery revivalism of the days of 
 her young womanhood, with its extravagant 
 and unreal confessions of personal guilt, and 
 its tendency to false judgment of character, 
 seemed to her the dross of the process by 
 which native ore was turned into useful metal. 
 She had a very great antipathy to anything 
 that, in connection with religion, made much 
 of form. She resented all ecclesiastical pre- 
 tension and distrusted priests. She abhorrt d 
 such titles as '"His Reverence," "His Grace" 
 and "His Holiness." 
 
 On the other hand she seemed to feel that 
 the religion that lacks en otion is likely to 
 lack motive, and it was right motive that, 
 with searching of heart she always looked 
 for. She did not like the hymn: 
 
 Oh. to be nothing', nothing 
 
 Only to lie at His feet 
 A broken and emptied vessel 
 
 For the Master's use made meet; 
 
 82 
 
but she liked even less the spirit satirized in 
 the lines: 
 
 Oh, to be something, something. 
 
 Each one to sit on a throne; 
 With a cultured and lofty nature 
 
 And an exquisite city tone. 
 
 All affectation of culture and of nicety of 
 phrasing was abhorrent to our mother's sin 
 cere soul. Yet the culture that is the knowl- 
 edge of the best she sought to secure, and 
 much of the rare English of the Bible she 
 knew by heart, and in devotion used its ven- 
 erable utterances. Her memory kept much 
 of the Assembly's shorter catechism and some 
 of the quaint versions of the Psalms used in 
 the Scottish churches. These treasures of 
 the heart and mind were, to her, perennial 
 fountains of blessing. 
 
 In public matters she took a true citizen's 
 duty in the making of two states. In one of 
 them she helped in the upbuilding of Doane 
 College. She saw the rescue of Kansas from 
 the grasp of Border Ruffianism; the election 
 of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency; the 
 abolition of slavery, and the successful issue 
 of the war for the Union. She was inclined 
 to take the side of the under dog in the fight, 
 and always sympathized with the wronged and 
 oppressed. Anything sly, mean, false, un- 
 derhanded or cruel kindled in her the fire of 
 moral indignation. She could not abide the 
 cruelties sometimes practiced upon animals. 
 She was interested in and read with attention 
 of great doings and of great public works: the 
 building of the Great Eastern, now almost 
 forgotten; the construction of the Pacific 
 railways, and once or twice, though not in 
 her last illness, she expressed a wish to 
 
 83 
 
live until the completion of the Panama, 
 canal. She neither feared death nor long:ed 
 for it. 
 
 But it was not the apparent or even the 
 real greatness of things that commarded 
 Mrs. Leavitt's deepest interest. Conscience, 
 in the form of diligence and thoroughness, 
 ruled all her judgments and work. She was- 
 willing to make allowance for immaturity 
 and inexperience, but not for carelessness 
 and neglect. The closet was to be as clean 
 and as orderly as the sitting room. The- 
 humblest task of kitchen and of laundry must 
 be well done. All this was without self-con- 
 sciousness, but in accord with habit that grew 
 out of the truth taught in the text: ''Thou- 
 art a God that seeth." Yet she was not in- 
 flexible. She never became too old to learn, 
 and was always ready to do team work: to co- 
 operate with others. Nor did she demand the- 
 place of leadership. For her it was enough 
 to be helper, and her help was given without 
 grudging or complaint. 
 
 No one was more competent to give a just 
 characterization of Mrs. Leavitt than her 
 brother, William Nelson, of Salt Lake City, 
 who wrote: 
 
 "Your mother lived a long, full life and 
 was ripe for the end. She has had toilsome^ 
 years and happy years. She was loved deeply 
 and returned that love in full measure. She 
 was unyielding in principle and steadfast in 
 affection. She was a woman of unusual force 
 of character, and influeniial over those with 
 whom she came in contact. Her sympathies 
 were wide and her heart was warm. She 
 was firm in friendship and judgment, and out- 
 spoken and determined in mind. The influ- 
 
•ence she exerted throughout her life was al- 
 ways for good, and her desire always was to 
 help those that were in need of help. Her 
 loss will sweep away your anchorage: * * 
 everything will be different with you hence- 
 forth." 
 
 As nearly as it could be true of a character 
 of such decision and sincerity, as nearly as it 
 ought to be S4id truly of any one, Mrs. 
 Leavitt hai no enemies. She couldlbe angry, 
 but not knowingly unjust. She could not 
 abide pretence, idleness, frivolity, vanity 
 and snobbishness. She stood appalled before 
 hatred and malignity. It is doubtful that 
 she quite understood the pharisaism that 
 sometimes leads the insolent and the coarse 
 to think that they only are honest in action 
 and in speech; or the emptiness of heart and 
 mind that leads to strivings for what is often 
 thought of as social pre-eminence. Mortgag- 
 ing a home to buy an automobile would have 
 seemed to her like an act of insanity. Of an 
 offender in any of the ways thus indicated, she 
 might have said with the prophet Isaiah: 
 "He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath 
 turned him aside; and he can not deliver his 
 soul, nor say: Is there not a lie in my right 
 hand?" Inability to see one's fault, and un- 
 willingness to confess it, seemed to her as to 
 the prophet to be among the most hopeless of 
 moral conditions. But to his words she 
 would have added: "Though he can not 
 deliver himself, yet there is One who is able 
 to deliver him." The prophets and Paul 
 she honored, but the Lord Christ she wor- 
 shiped and glorified. What pleased her best 
 in one of the later Scottish stories was the 
 43idding given by his aunt to a young minis- 
 
 85 
 
ter: "Speak aye a gude word for Jesus 
 Christ." This word, by her life, she spoke 
 whom we called mother. Hers is not one of 
 "the names that time will consign to eter- 
 nity," but it is that of one of the "unknown 
 good who rest in God's still memory folded 
 deep." 
 
 Rose of Enzie 
 
 Written for the "Great West'' 
 
 BY GEORGE BENNETT DAVIDSON 
 
 O sweet is the primrose which blooms by the mountain. 
 
 And sweet are the vines that encircle the tree; 
 And sweet are cowslips that grow by the fountain. 
 
 But sweeter the maiden, the rose of Enzie. 
 
 How fair are the lilies, how sweet are the roses. 
 
 How lovely the daisies where hums the gay bee; 
 Bnt fairer, more lovely and dearer than either 
 
 Is charming young Jessie, the rose of Enzie. 
 
 She 's fair and she/s lovely as May's dewy morning; 
 
 She 's handsome as Venus in grand majesty; 
 No heart so unspotted, no features so charming 
 
 As those of young Jessie, the rose of Enzie. 
 
 'T is pleasant to walk 'mid the green shading bushes 
 Where carol the birds in the hight of their glee; 
 
 But pleisanter far to walk with young Jessie 
 And bask in the smiles of the rose of Enzie. 
 
 Run on, winding rills, through the groves and the meadows; 
 
 Run on, till you meet in the depth of the sea; 
 But guide me, O fortune, wherever I ramble. 
 
 To meet with young Jessie, the rose of Enzie. 
 
 Galena, Illinois. 
 
Mrs. Margaret Sanderson 
 
 In Ruo-len of ancient Scottish story, there 
 stands near the edge of a steep hill an old 
 stone house. Up the hill Queen Mary of un- 
 happy memory once rode after the battle 
 that forever ended her reign over Scotland. 
 
 But we are to tell neither the history of 
 Rutherglen nor the story of Queen Mary. 
 However, in giving the sketch of any life it 
 is well to set forth its early environment, 
 and for thirteen years Ruglen was the home 
 of the subject of our narrative, a longer time 
 than she spent elsewhere in all her life, with 
 the exception of Pulaski, Illinois. 
 
 In the old stone house, whose walls had 
 they been then standing, might have heard 
 the heavy breathing of Queen Mary's horse 
 as his rider fled from the field of Langside, 
 there was born, 1829, December 13th, to John 
 and Margaret [Correns] Nelson, a second 
 daughter and second child to whom was given 
 the mother's name. Ecclesiastically, — and 
 that is a great matter in Scotland, — the 
 family did not belong to the established 
 church, but to a body that had separated 
 from it on the assertion that a congregation 
 has a right to choose its own minister. It 
 may be that unconsciously the foundation 
 was thus laid of the education that in later 
 years made Mrs. Sanderson almost a pioneer 
 of Congregationalism in Southern Illinois. 
 
 87 
 
For Margaret Nelson and her brothers and 
 sisters, the year 1842 was an eventful one. 
 On July 2nd of that year, the mother, a 
 woman of rare excellence and of superior 
 ability, was taken by death from her family, 
 and in November the husband and father 
 started with his children for America. A 
 seven weeks' voyage brought them to New 
 York on Christmas eve. The story of their 
 father's migration has been elsewhere told. 
 
 In the division of family labor that fol- 
 lowed the mother's death, there was assigned 
 to Margaret as her special duty the care of 
 the younger brothers, both of whom grew up 
 to be volunteers in the war for the Union. 
 Joseph, the youngest son in the family, was 
 killed by a rebel bullet in 1864, June 15th, at 
 Kenesaw Mountain, Georgia. 
 
 In a general way it may be said that young 
 Margaret's life alternated between Fairplay 
 and Galena. In the latter place she attended 
 a "select school" taught by sisters. Miss 
 Abby and Miss Jane Cook, who, being earn 
 est members of the Presbyterian church, re. 
 garded their work as a kind of religious mis- 
 sion. Thus prepared, Miss Nelson became a 
 teacher though she did not continue in that 
 vocation. 1851, November 30th, she was 
 married at Fairplay to Israel Sanderson, then 
 of Galena. Of this marriage were born three 
 sons, Edward, who, in his young manhood 
 was accidentally drowned in Nevada; Walter, 
 who died in 1888, and Arthur who died at 
 Pulaski in 1875, but three months after the 
 drowning of his elder brother. A daugh- 
 ter Abby, Mrs. Arthur Holbrook, is now 
 a resident of Mounds, Illinois. To her 
 it was given to be the mother's companion in 
 
the last years of a long life, and to give ten- 
 der care as the feebleness of age became more 
 and more manifest. The end came at an early 
 hour on the morning of Lord's day, August 
 7, 1910. It was still dark but she said a little 
 before her passing away, "Lift me up; I want 
 to see the sunrise." On Tuesday August 9th, 
 we laid to its last rest the frail body. Rev. 
 J. N. Davidson, of Green Lake, Wisconsin, 
 son of Mrs. Sanderson's elder sister, between 
 whom and his aunt there had existed for 
 many years an unusually strong attachment, 
 aided Pastor J. H. Runalls in the funeral ser- 
 vice. Burial was in Liberty cemetery be- 
 side the husband and two of the sons. 
 
 Inseparably bound up with the story of 
 Mrs. Sanderson's life is, of course, that of 
 her husband, who in his own right deserves 
 memorial words. His great-grandfather was 
 killed in Wolfe's campaign against Mont- 
 calm, and his grandfather served under 
 Washington in the War of Separation be- 
 tween the colonies and the mother country. 
 A son, Cyrus Sanderson, removed to Ken- 
 tucky, and at Mayville, 1823, January 4th, 
 the Israel Sanderson of our sketch was born. 
 His name and family history indicate Puritan 
 origin. 
 
 The greater part of Mr. Sanderson's boy- 
 hood and his early manhood were spent in 
 Springfield, Illinois, where in the "State 
 Journal" office he learned the trade of printer 
 with the old-time thoroughness and careful- 
 ness. He had many interesting recollections 
 of Springfield, and the forms of Lincoln and 
 Douglas were every day sights to him at that 
 time. 
 
 The success of Mr. Sanderson's life was 
 
achieved in newspaper work, though his first 
 independent venture therein, "The Express" 
 of Canton, Missouri was, financially a failure. 
 In Galena, Illinois, he became intimately ac- 
 quainted with some of the leading newspaper 
 men of what was then the Northwest. There, 
 too, he became the warm friend of George B. 
 Davidson to whose memory he paid tribute 
 in verse. In the art thus suggested Mr. 
 Sanderson had some skill. He at one time 
 contemplated publishing a poem upon Indian 
 legends and customs, the material for which 
 he may have gathered in Minnesota where 
 he spent some time working at his trade. 
 The manuscript he, in a moment of despond- 
 ency, unwisely destroyed. Among the poems 
 remembered by the writer is one wherein he 
 expresses the indignation of a just man to- 
 ward a priest who had refused Catholic burial 
 to the body of a poor boy who, through no 
 fault of his own, died without the due rites 
 of the so-called "church." 
 
 From Galena Mr. Sanderson removed to 
 Monroe, Wisconsin, where he became asso- 
 ciated with the late Rev. John Walworth in 
 the publication of "The Monroe Sentinel," 
 In 1855 Mr. Sanderson started the "Richland 
 County Observer," the first paper in the 
 county and brought it to a sound financial con- 
 dition Having disposed of this paper he spent 
 some time in Central Illinois. 
 
 Mr. Sanderson started at Lancaster, in 
 1859, the "Grant County Witness" which 
 he soon removed to Platteville where 
 it is still published. In these papers Mr» 
 Sanderson strongly advocated the principles 
 of the then recently formed Republican party. 
 He also worked strongly for the cause of 
 
 90 
 
temperance. After disposing of the "Wit- 
 ness" he engaged in mercantile business for 
 a time, but finally settled down at Pulaski, 
 Illinois, as a fruit-grower. There in his home 
 his aged mother died in 1873, and there he 
 himself passed away on the 7th of June, 1887. 
 
 For a great part of his life Mr. Sanderson 
 labored under the burden of poor condition 
 of health and this it was that impelled many 
 of the changes of home and occupation. 
 While not able always to give approval to 
 her husband's judgment in these matters, yet 
 Mrs. Sanderson was the faithful sharer of all 
 his toils and undertakings. She recognized 
 his abilities, which were of unusual order in 
 many lines of effort, and honored his fidelity 
 and conscientiousness. Wherever they lived 
 they won a high place in the esteem of the 
 community. 
 
 Mrs. Sanderson seemed to be gentle, and 
 was gentle. None the less she had decision 
 and power. She wrote verses rather to ex- 
 press her feelings and convictions than to 
 please critics who would demand technical 
 correctness of form. She loved flowers, and 
 made and kept warm friendships. She en- 
 dured great sorrow with a strong, brave 
 heart; sustained by strong religious convic- 
 tion and hope. Her last deep sorrow was 
 the death, February 22, 1910, of the only son 
 of her younger brother, William Nelson, 
 editor of "The Salt Lake Tribune." To this 
 brother she was for years almost like a 
 mother, and his sorrow was her sorrow. Her 
 sympathy was more deeply heart-felt because 
 she herself, as already noted, had lost three 
 sons. But all her grief is past now, and we 
 believe that love and life do not turn to dust. 
 
These words are written in a home that for 
 two summers, 1907 and 1909, enjoyed the 
 benediction of her presence. It seems lonely 
 without her. 
 
 John Nelson Davidson. 
 
 The Manse, 
 
 Green Lake, Wisconsin. 
 
 Our Wee Pet 
 
 BY MARGARET SANDERSON. 
 
 Wee pet, wee pet, 
 
 Come here to me; 
 Sweet pet, sweet pet. 
 
 Sit on my knee; 
 Brown eyes, brown eyes, 
 
 Look into mine; 
 Bright eyes, bright eyes. 
 
 Oh, how they shine! 
 Soft arms, soft arms, 
 
 Fold round my neck; 
 One kiss, one kiss. 
 
 Now we will take. 
 Dear one, dear one, you, you, I love; 
 None like, none like, my little dove. 
 
 9i 
 
William Nelson 
 
 As this book is so largely a tribute to the 
 first Mistress of the Green Lake Manse, her 
 deep and constant love for the brother whom 
 the people of Salt Lake City called Colonel 
 William Nelson, makes it fitting that some 
 account of his life should be given in con 
 nection with that of her own. In death they 
 were not long divided. On Saturday, Octo- 
 ber 25, 1913, he was on duty as usual in the 
 office of "The Salt Lake Tribune," of which 
 he was editor-in chief. He worked until 
 about midnight, as was his custom, reached 
 home and went to bed about one o'clock. 
 About six the next morning he was stricken 
 with hemorrhage of the brain, and before 
 the physician arrived his patient had passed 
 into unconsciousness that ended in death 
 within half an hour from the first attack. 
 Save for the shock to loved ones, the hus- 
 band and father probably would have chosen 
 that it be so. He would have wished that the 
 activity and usefulness of his life might be 
 continued up to its very end. 
 
 The characterization he gave of his eldest 
 sister applies almost equally well to himself. 
 A strength of body that made his muscles 
 seem like springs of steel; a steadiness of 
 nerve that enabled him in his young man- 
 hood to hold without a quiver of the ex- 
 tended arm, a thirty-pound dumb bell; cour- 
 age that seemed absolutely to have no ac- 
 quaintance with fear; a fidelity that never 
 
failed a friend,— that had in it the nobleness 
 and none of the servility of a clansman's 
 loyalty to his chief; ability that without aid 
 from patron, sect, clique or faction, or the 
 use of any underhanded method, brought 
 him into prominence ; a love held in check 
 upon the lips but overflowing in generous 
 deeds: — these are the qualities by which all 
 who knew him will hold him in abiding 
 memory. He was a determined enemy of 
 cant, affectation, pretence, falsehood, greed, 
 fraud, sham and uncleanness; and, though 
 neither suspicious nor ready to find fault, was 
 quick to detect those things. He seemed to 
 hold an Ithuriel's spear by which he could 
 compel Satan to throw off disguise, a weapon 
 which he found exceedingly useful in his pro- 
 longed conflict with the Mormon hierarchy, 
 that foulest of a foul brood. It seemed as if 
 the blood of the Covenanters was in his 
 veins, their spirit in his heart. He showed 
 that their better qualities could exist apart 
 from their grimness, which was fo eign to 
 his nature and repellant to his choice, and 
 apart from their theology, which he did not 
 believe. 
 
 It was to be expected that such a man, 
 twenty two years of age on July 1, 1861, 
 would become a volunteer soldier in the war 
 for the Union. His service was in the 10th 
 Wisconsin. A letter written from "Paint 
 Rock Creek, Ala., May 12, 1862," tells of his 
 first fight: 
 
 "Dear Sister: You may think me negli- 
 gent in not having written to you for so long. 
 But when you know the reason you will not 
 think so. I'll tell you how it happened: 
 Three weeks ago (April 21st), I was detailed 
 
with a squad of fifteen men to guard a rail- 
 road bridge on the Memphis and Charleston 
 road. Our troops had possession of the road, 
 and were stationed all along so that it was 
 necessary to keep the road open through all 
 its length ( it ends at Stevenson, Alabama), to 
 keep up our communications. While at the 
 bridge I had no chance to send letters. In 
 fact I had not taken my things with me, not 
 expecting to be gone more than two days. 
 We had a good time at the bridge, the guard 
 duty being light, and we were at liberty to 
 scout around as much as we pleased. The 
 only objection we had was there was no 
 regular time to get rations, and we were 
 frequently entirely out. But of course we 
 could not be expected to starve, so we 
 foraged, and found that chickens, ducks, 
 geese etc., went pretty well. 
 
 "We heard frequently that there was a 
 plot in contemplation to burn the bridge, 
 so we kept a good lookout, and I gave orders, 
 to the sentinels to say nothing to any 
 one after dark, but if they saw any one 
 coming around to shoot him down. This 
 may seem hard to you, but in the situa- 
 tion we were there was no safety for us 
 in any other course. There we were, many 
 miles from assistance, in the enemy's coun- 
 try where they were at liberty to collect hun- 
 dreds to bring against sixteen of us in all. 
 On April 27, we were up at a station two miles 
 from the bridge on a fo'aging expedition, 
 and while we were there our regiment passed 
 along. Just as they were passing a set of 
 wheels got loose and came near making a 
 smash-up. As it was the train was stopped 
 before any one was seriously hurt; but the 
 
track was damaged some. In consequence a 
 detail of twenty men, under a lieutenant, 
 was left there to repair it. So, you see, 
 there was reinforcement within two miles of 
 us in case we should be attacked. That 
 same night the lieutenant brought his men 
 down as he heard that we were to be at- 
 tacked. But the night passed off quietly 
 and in the morning they went back to the 
 station. The next evening, however, I got 
 news through the agency of a Negro, that the 
 enemy intended certainly to attempt to burn 
 the bridge that night. So I sent up to the 
 lieutenant for reinforcements, and eight men 
 and a sergeant came down. So that made 
 our force twenty-five. I had made my ar 
 rangements before they came, and had the 
 force nearly equally divided at each end of 
 the bridge. The bridge is high, and the 
 only approach to it is on the track, which is 
 very high grade there. The bridge is sided 
 up and has a tin roof. You will see that we 
 had a good position for defense. 
 
 "The sentinels were posted advantageously 
 to command a good lookout, and sure enough 
 a few minutes after ten o'clock the enemy 
 was seen swarming through the woods, 
 making for the bridge. On the west end 
 the sentinel came in and gave the alarm and 
 we collected at the entrance. We let them 
 come up to less than twenty yards, and then 
 poured in a volley with good aim. It took 
 them completely by surprise, and knocked 
 some of them over, besides- But they re- 
 covered quickly, and sent in a tremendous 
 volley of buckshot and ball, wounding four 
 of our men. Our men then fell back, and I 
 was afraid that the enemy might make a rush 
 
for the entrance, but they did not. It was 
 but a moment though, for I succeeded with- 
 out much trouble in getting- our boys back, 
 and then they got behind timbers and kept 
 up a fast firing and with good aim. 
 
 "On the east end the firing was more scat- 
 tering. The boys there did not let them 
 come up so as to get a good shot, but as soon 
 as they saw them commenced firing. Of 
 course they fired almost at random. Soon 
 after the attack a bold secesh lit a torch and 
 made for the bridge But he was soon drop- 
 ped, and no more attempts of the kind were 
 made. They frequently called on us to sur- 
 render, and promised to treat us well if we 
 would, but as I couldn't see the propriety of 
 giving up, I didn't say anything to them. 
 But the sergeant at the east end and some of 
 the men there cursed them some, and sauced 
 them like the deuce, which seemed to make 
 them mad, as they called out, 'Rush in on 
 them! Drag them out of that!' and a lot 
 more stuff of similar import But we stuck 
 to our trust, determined to save the 
 bridge or die on it. We saved it though, for 
 about half-past twelve the enemy withdrew 
 after a pretty hard fight of more than two 
 hours. 
 
 "You may want to know how I felt during 
 the fight. It was not pleasant, I can assure 
 you. I think, however, that I kept pretty cool, 
 and the only remarkable thing that I recol- 
 lect is that I was tormented by a most awful 
 thirst, and the worst of it was there was no 
 water on the bridge, and it is so high from 
 the creek that we couldn't get any. I picked 
 up their buck-shot and put some under my 
 
 97 
 
tongue and chewed them, but it was hard to 
 get moisture in my mouth. 
 
 "Seven of my men were wounded in the 
 fight, two of them rather severely but not, 
 dangerously. None was killed. In the morn- 
 ing we found one of the enemy dead on the 
 ground. He was buried in the afternoon. 
 He was shot through the center of the 
 breast and also through the heart. About 
 half a mile from the bridge we found one of 
 them lying wounded, shot through the body. 
 He told us that there were 250 in his squad 
 on the west end of the bridge, and we learned 
 from citizens that there were 150 on the east 
 end. The wounded man also told us that on 
 the west end there were six killed and a 
 good many wounded. We could get no ac- 
 count of their loss at the east end, but a 
 squad of Ohio boys who came there in the 
 morning tracked them by their blood for five 
 miles. You see there were about four hun 
 dredof them against us twenty-five. They 
 went oflf reporting that there were five hun- 
 dred of us. It was a great shame to them 
 that they could do nothing with such great 
 odds in their favor — 16 to 1. But they are 
 of no account. They have no nerve at all, 
 and can't stand fire. In the morning our 
 boys picked up several nice revolvers and 
 some fine shot-guns which the enemy had 
 left. I suppose they belonged to wounded 
 men who dropped them when shot. 
 
 "We got great praise from Gen. Mitchell 
 and all our superior officers when they heard 
 of it. The General called for the names of 
 those engaged in the fight in order, as he said, 
 to promote the sergeants and mention hon- 
 orably the privates. So you may expect to 
 
hear of your cold-blooded brother being a 
 lieutenant, or something of that sort, in the 
 course of time, 
 
 "After the fight there was no more dis 
 turbance at the bridge, and yesterday we 
 were withdrawn and our places supplied by 
 Co. A of our regiment. 
 
 "My health continues to be of the best. My 
 name has never yet found its way to the doc- 
 tor's books, and I hope it never may. Joe 
 also has good health. The weather here is 
 very warm in the day time and cool at night. 
 The water is warm, and we have a good 
 place to go in swimming. 
 
 "This is the first day I have had a chance 
 to write for three weeks, and th's is the first 
 letter I have written. I will write to Joe and 
 Nelson and Fanny soon. Did you get my 
 letter from Shelbyville? 
 
 "You will hear from me again soon. I 
 don't get to see any papers here at all. 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 William Nelson. '^ 
 
 What wonder such an exploit called forth 
 from Gen. Mitchell a congratulatory order in 
 which he said: "The coolness, determination 
 and bravery displayed by the non-commis- 
 sioned officers and soldiers on this occasion 
 are worthy of the highest commendation. 
 Attacked in the night time by an overwhelm- 
 ing force, ten times their number, this hand- 
 ful of brave and determined men sternly re- 
 fused the summons to surrender, sustained 
 the enemy's attack for more than two hours, 
 and finally drove him from the field with a 
 severe loss of killed and wounded. 
 
 ' 'Sergeants Nelson and Makimson are recom- 
 
 99 
 
mended to the reg-imental and brigade com- 
 manders, and to the governor of their state 
 for promotion, and the soldiers who fought 
 under them so heroically will not be forgot- 
 ten." 
 
 In Thwaites's "Story of Wisconsin." we 
 read "Buell's report makes honorable men 
 tion of Sergeant William Nelson, of Com- 
 pany I of the Tenth, who, with a detail of 
 twenty-two [twenty-four] men. for two hours 
 held Paint Rock railroad bridge near Hunts 
 ville, against a force of nearly three hundred 
 Confederate cavalry, 'repulsing them in the 
 most signal manner.' This example Buell 
 continues, 'is worthy of imitation by higher 
 officers and larger commands.' " 
 
 The commission of captain by brevet that 
 ultimately came to Sergeant Nelson, was 
 made to date from April 28, 1862. 
 
 No doubt there are in this letter from 
 Paint Rock, expressions that its writer 
 would later have omitted or modified. He 
 was not a man to discredit valor, even that of 
 an enemy. But his standard was an exacting 
 one. 
 
 Children excepted in the mother's ca«e, 
 there was upon earth no one dearer each to 
 the other than this brother and this sister. 
 For her sake he had delayed his enlistment. 
 "But at last I determined that I could 
 stand it no longer, and could not keep from 
 enlisting. * * * The public interest 
 seemed to me tol have louder calls to all 
 able-bodied citizens than any private interest 
 could have." Thus he wrote four days later 
 (1862, May 16), in a letter that reveals his 
 tenderness of heart toward still another 
 sister: 
 
 100 
 
"I received a letter from Elizabeth yester- 
 day, announcing the death of her youngest 
 boy. Oh, it must be a terrible shock to her. 
 She is so full of kind feeling for all of us, 
 whom she knows scarcely anything about, 
 that it must have wrung her tenderest heart- 
 cords to part with her darling. Her sorrow 
 is great. Let us sympathize and sorrow with 
 her. 'A baby in the house is a well-spring 
 of pleasure.' What a barren waste must be 
 left when that well-spring runs dry!" 
 
 This sister Elizabeth, had been taken dur- 
 ing her father's widowhood, and soon after 
 his arrival in America, to the Lake Superior 
 region, and there she had married. Letters 
 were few in those days and Lake Superior 
 practically almost as remote as Loch Lomond. 
 At this time, however, she was living near 
 Romeo, Michigan. 
 
 On the fearful field of Chickamauga, the 
 Tenth Wisconsin fought under Thomas, and 
 Sergeant Nelson was one of the thousands of 
 the Union army who were taken prisoners. 
 He was never exchanged What sickness of 
 hope deferred he suffered was revealed in 
 the only letter that I remember of my 
 mother's receiving from him in that dreary 
 time. 
 
 At last the end of the war came, and with 
 it his deliverance. Then what a home-coming 
 was his! Brother and sister literally "talked 
 the night away." His own term of service 
 had been long. He enlisted on the 25th of 
 September, 1861; and was not discharged 
 until June 7, 1865. She was the one who had 
 become to him a second mother, and he, reti- 
 cent to others, opened to her the wealth of 
 his great heart. They had much to speak of. 
 
 101 
 
The dying of their brother Joseph, on the 
 field of battle (1864, June 15th), has already 
 been told. The third soldier of that house- 
 hold, the cousin Joseph Ross, had been hon 
 orably discharged with his regiment, 1864, 
 November 3d, and with his brother, Walter, 
 had re-enlisted in Hancock's veteran reserve 
 corps. A single fact will illustrate the 
 sweep of war among the neighbors and 
 friends that were theirs in common. In the 
 little congregation, the nucleus of which was 
 the still smaller church of which their 
 father in life had been, and of which the 
 sister continued to be, a member, there was 
 not one man or boy who might reasonably 
 have been expected do render army service 
 who did not enlist. Nine funeral services by 
 the pastor are recalled, and there were prob- 
 ably others; funerals of soldiers. 
 
 Twenty-six is a good age at which to face 
 new conditions, especially if one has been earn- 
 iag his own living ever since he was thirteen. 
 In the summer or early autumn of 1865, Mr. 
 Nelson, in partnership with the late D. B, 
 Priest and J. M. Rusk, afterwards governor, 
 bought "The Northwestern Times" of 
 Viroqua, Wisconsin, and changed its name to 
 the "Vernon County Censor." In 1872, Mr. 
 Nelson was elected to the state senate of 
 Wisconsin, and in the session that followed 
 he was one of those who determinedly and 
 successfully opposed the re-election of 
 "Mat " Carpenter to the United States sen 
 ate. It was not in the spirit of fault finding 
 with the body of which he was a member 
 that, April 21, 1872, he thus wrote to Mrs. 
 Leavitt: 
 
 "I had rather a good time in Madison the 
 
 102 
 
past winter, and after the feeling of misery 
 at the enforced idleness wore away, I en- 
 joyed myself pretty well." A pity that he 
 had not had more of enforced idleness. He 
 knew no other kind. A sadly significant ex- 
 pression occurs in the same letter: "I think 
 that if children do not learn to enjoy them- 
 selves while they are young, they will never 
 be able to in their after lives." 
 
 He had become, in 1869, the sole proprietor 
 of the "Censor," but sold it in January, 1874, 
 and became editor of the La Crosse "Repub- 
 lican and Leader." In March, 1876, he was ap- 
 pointed United States marshal for Utah, and to 
 him fell certain peculiarly trying duties in 
 connection with the trial and execution of John 
 D. Lee, Mormon commandant at the Moun- 
 tain Meadow massacre. Mr. Nelson's office 
 was, at that time, one of great personal 
 danger, a fact which his friends appreciated 
 much more than he did himself.* 
 
 In May, 1881, he became a member of the 
 editorial staff of the "The Salt Lake Tri- 
 bune," the leading daily between the Moun- 
 tains and the Sierras, and a strong anti-Mor- 
 mon paper. Of this for the last twelve years 
 of his life he was editor in chief. During 
 the thirty-two years of his connection with 
 the "Tribune," he was laid off but three 
 weeks by illness and took only one week of an 
 almost required vacation. 
 
 His marriage was at Viroqua, 1S66, August 
 22, to Mary Elizabeth Fretwell, whose father 
 
 * On March 4th, the day of Colonel Nelson's arrival 
 at Salt Lake City, seven of the most hardened convicts 
 in the penitentiary made an assault on the warden^ 
 Berghor, whom they mortally wounded. They then 
 succeeded in making- their escape, but were afterwai-ds 
 retaken.— History of Utah. O. F. Whitney. 
 
gave his life in the war for the Union. There 
 were born four daughters and one son who fol- 
 lowed his father's example and became a 
 volunteer soldier. His service was in the 
 Philippines. This son, William Nelson, Jr., 
 died at New Orleans, 1910, February 22nd. 
 Then, as was written by an intimate friend, 
 the father "closed his lips and said nothing, 
 but those who knew him, knew how much he 
 was suffering." 
 
 "While I have not had an intimate ac- 
 quaintance with Colonel Nelson," said Gov- 
 ernor Spry, of Utah, on the occasion of his 
 death, "I lived a neighbor to him for some 
 time and I have, on numerous occasions, had 
 opportunity to observe his tender devotion to 
 wife and children. His gentle, lovable, fath- 
 erly attentions to the members of his family 
 on the street and at public functions, has 
 often impressed me." 
 
 It was fitting that such a man should be 
 made a member of the first school board of 
 Salt Lake City, a body which he served as 
 president from 1892 until 1895. "During 
 Colonel Nelson's administration, as I remem- 
 ber," says Judge Robert N. Baskin, ex mayor 
 of Salt Lake City, "thirteen of our modern 
 school buildings were constructed. Colonel 
 Nelson did more to raise our school system to 
 its present high standard of efficiency than 
 any other member who ever served on the 
 board.'' 
 
 "His work has made his name a household 
 word in all thisintermountain region," wrote 
 Judge C. C. Goodwin, the friend whose words 
 about Colonel Nelson's sorrow for his son 
 have been quoted. "He was devoted to the 
 laws; to right, as God gave him to see the 
 
 104 
 
right, and he had no compromises to ask or 
 receive from the wrong." 
 
 Of like sort was the testimony of an edi- 
 torial associate: 
 
 "To him the life of the nation and of the 
 state — his nation and his state — depended 
 upon the supremacy of the law. It was this 
 motive that guided him in whatever battles- 
 he fought, whether as a soldier in the field or 
 as a soldier of the common good. With the 
 vision of the wise man and the seer, he saw 
 that the social order and the body politic rested 
 upon a foundation of law, and that the non- 
 enforcement of law, and law-breaking, were 
 the most menacing elements of public peril 
 in any community. In a sense he devoted his 
 life to the maintenance of this ideal. Whether 
 he was right or wrong, — and as men all of us 
 are fallible, sometimes even in our most 
 cherished ideals, — his words and his actions 
 were dictated by absolute sincerity. 
 
 "Such a man must of necessity be a strong 
 character, and therefore a leader in his com- 
 munity, and William Nelson * * became a 
 guide for thousands who held fast to his 
 ideals. And even those who disagreed with 
 him acknowledged his profound sincerity and 
 his inexorable conscientiousness. 
 
 "What nobler death could there be for a 
 great and good man, than to die on the firing 
 line marked out for him by the Master! 
 ***** 
 
 "In another column is told how he held the 
 bridge at Paint Rock in 1862, like Horatius- 
 of old, against a foe many times greater than 
 the force he commanded. As he held the line 
 then, so he held it all his life. 'We did not come 
 a thousand miles to surrender, ' he told the Con- 
 
 105 
 
federate leader who asked him to give up the 
 bridge. And so through a long and honorable 
 life he returned the same reply to any and 
 all who demanded that he surrender princi- 
 ples to which he gave the best that was in 
 him, and for which he was willing to die. 
 
 "Death could not find such a man unpre- 
 pared and did not. '' 
 
 What is all this but the fruition in life of 
 the truth early taught this boy of mingled 
 Galloway and Highland blood: "Man's chief 
 end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for- 
 ever?'' 
 
 The snbjoined resolutions of the Presbyte- 
 rian Synod of Utah are evidence of Col. 
 Nelson's work and character: 
 
 Whereas, Our great newspapers are 
 sources of immense power and influence, 
 some for good and others not so good: and 
 
 Whereas, There has been one such paper 
 in Utah, that has always taken the side of the 
 mission teacher and the mission preacher in 
 their hard and oft-times discouraging work; 
 and 
 
 Whereas, There are two men who stand 
 out prominently as editors in Utah for the 
 past thirty years in this splendid work of 
 making Utah a truly American state; there- 
 fore, be it 
 
 Resolved, That it is with peculiar pleasure 
 that we, as members of the Synod of Utah, 
 record our appreciation of the constant and 
 splendid work of Judge C. C. Goodwin, of 
 the Salt Lake Evening Telegram and William 
 Nelson, of the Salt Lake Tribune. 
 
 There has never been a cause advocated 
 by the men of this synod for thirty years 
 
 106 
 
past, that these editors have not backed up 
 with the power of their pen. 
 
 There has never been a cause of righteous- 
 ness in Utah which these men have not de- 
 fended. 
 
 There has never been a calumny heaped 
 upon the heads of any of our Christian peo- 
 ple that these men have not refuted. 
 
 The great broad principles which underly 
 this republic have had in them ardent advo- 
 cates. 
 
 As members of this synod, we rejoice in 
 many changes for the better in Utah, which 
 these men have helped in bringing about. 
 
 We rejoice that they are both of such un- 
 failing service to the highest interests of this 
 commonwealth. 
 
 We rejoice that the "Bow of each of these 
 men abides in its strength," and we offer to 
 our Heavenly Father sincere gratitude for 
 their services in the cause of right and our 
 earnest supplications for the continued physi- 
 cal and spiritual health of these two splendid 
 citizens. 
 
 A. G. Frank, 
 Geo. W. Martin, 
 W. E. Patten, 
 Committee on Resolutions. 
 
 Adopted unanimously by the Synod of 
 Utah, Saturday, October 11, 1913, Mt. Pleas- 
 
 WiLDMAN Murphy, 
 Stated Clerk. 
 
 107 
 
On a March 
 
 September 14, 1863. 
 Dear Sister Mary: 
 
 We left our camp at Anderson Station, 
 September 2nd. We have had tolerably easy 
 marches, and have lain here three days. We 
 have crossed two very high, tedious moun- 
 tains this side of the Tennessee river. Th© 
 first was Raccoon and the latter Lookout 
 We crossed the last September 10th. That 
 night we lay by our arms. In the morning it 
 was generally understood that the enemy 
 were near. Negley's division was the only 
 force with us, and that was a short distance 
 ahead. The rebels were said to have 25,000 
 to 30,000. But we advanced about three 
 miles, where Negley had skirmished with 
 them the day before. We went only three 
 miles as I said, then we bivoucked. In the 
 afternoon early we were drawn up in battle 
 order and advanced into the thick brush from 
 a cross road. We formed to the left of Neg- 
 ley's forces, as the rebs were flanking him in 
 that direction. We advanced some distance, 
 our skirmishers in front, but at last stopped, 
 and lay there some three hours. During this 
 time stray balls whizzed among us some, but 
 no one was hit. Soon the enemy began to 
 work to our left and we began to fall back, 
 for if he should get by our left flank, he 
 could easily destroy our train. We retired 
 some two miles, falling from position to posi- 
 tion several times, our troops cutting up the 
 enemy pretty badly when they attempted to 
 press too closely. It was late in the night be- 
 fore all was still. There was not much can- 
 nonading at any time. In the morning re- 
 inforcements came up, and we took up posi- 
 
 108 
 
tion covering our trains. In the afternoon 
 we went out in force, but found but few of the 
 enemy. They had traveled. A few prisoners 
 were taken. It is said that General McCook 
 ffot into their rear, and cut them up pretty 
 badly, but as we don't get any papers just 
 now, I have noauthentic news about that. But 
 they saw fit to leave pretty fast, for some 
 reason. 
 
 I am in first-rate health and spirits. I can 
 stand to march well. 
 
 The weather has been very hot and dry. 
 Dust is marvelously deep, and rises in chok- 
 ing clouds among us as we move along the road. 
 Water has often been scarce, and has been 
 very bad generally. But now we get good 
 water out of a cave of extensive underground 
 dimensions, through which a clear stream of 
 cool water runs. 
 
 I got your letter containing the stamps 
 while on this march I carried it in my 
 pocket a day or two, and when I came to use 
 them I found they were nearly all stuck to- 
 gether by sweat. I could not get them split, 
 so they are nearly all dead loss. But send me 
 a lot more, I will be more careful next time. 
 You see I write in pencil, but better that 
 than not at all. 
 
 Your loving brother, 
 
 William.