E. T. Roe DEAR LITTLE BROWN-EYED BESS. A True Experience of Child-life. DEAR LITTLE BROWN-EYED BESS. DEAR LITTLE BROWN-EYED BESS.

I was working in my garden one day in the end of June,
The sun shone high in the clear blue sky, and the clock had just struck noon;
I mused o'er my earliest childhood—my earliest friends, and lo,
There rose up the picture of a child in the dear dim Long-ago:
She holds in her arms a puppy, and smilingly shows it to me,
Her cheeks they are rosy and chubby, all dimpled with baby glee;
Her hair is dark and wavy, her brown eyes full of fun,
And she wears a blue straw bonnet to shelter from the sun.
She gathers daisies and kingcups till her pockets are more than full,
And dreams of the far-away city where she soon must go to school;
Her home it is rustic and lonely in the land of the river Ness,
But she loves her rural dwelling, does dear little brown-eyed Bess.
One time—ah! how well I remember, it seems like yesterday,
Dear Bessie came to visit me, just nine years past last May:
Beneath the hawthorn blossoms, hearts full of childish bliss,
We vowed eternal friendship, and sealed it with a kiss;
And I plucked a bright pink rosebud to fasten in her dress—
She was six years old that summer, was dear little brown-eyed Bess.
I remember very little of all she said to me,
But I know we loved each other with childish love and free;
I remember romping gaily around some little ricks,
And fondly giving Bessie a tiny box of bricks;
I remember our long, long parting one autumn afternoon,
And Bessie softly whispering, "Come back and see me soon."
But alas! some wicked fairy was present with us then,
For during the days of childhood we never met again.
Six years went by, and I happened to look at my toys one day.
When I came across a wooden horse with which I used to play,
A little wooden pony I found in the old toy "press,"
That I once had got in a present from dear little brown-eyed Bess
'Mongst the flowers I was dreaming and thinking—Was I ever to see her more?
When roused by a sound I looked and saw a carriage before the door
I ran right out of the garden and up the wooden stair,
Till I came to my own pink bedroom where I quickly smoothed my hair;
At my heart came a rush of rapture as I hastened to brush my dress
For who was down in the parlor? 'Twas dear little brown-eyed Bess.
Once more does our friendship flourish like the flowers in the garden-bed,
And a tall young stately maiden is in little Bessie's stead.
When I look at this stately maiden I think of the bright pink moss,
I think of a foaming brooklet with a bridge of stones across;
I think of a waste of heather, a collie pup, and a cat,
In the arms of a rosy baby with a blue straw sun shade hat.
When I look at this stately maiden I cannot a smile suppress.
While I bless in my heart the good old times when I knew her as little Bess.

JEANIE P. H. SIMPSON