Page:Pieces People Ask For.djvu/215

Rh Her neighbors are bearing between them
 * Something straight to her door:

Her child is coming home, but not
 * As he ever came before!

"He is dead!" she cries; "my darling!"
 * And the startled father hears,

And comes and looks the way she looks,
 * And fears the thing she fears:

Till a glad shout from the bearers
 * Thrills the stricken man and wife—

"Give thanks, for your son has saved our land,
 * And God has saved his life!"

So, there in the morning sunshine
 * They knelt about the boy;

And every head was bared and bent
 * In tearful, reverent joy.

'Tis many a year since then; but still,
 * When the sea roars like a flood,

Their boys are taught what a boy can do
 * Who is brave and true and good.

I For every man in that country
 * Takes his son by the hand,

And tells him of little Peter,
 * Whose courage saved the land.

They have many a valiant hero
 * Remembered through the years,

But never one whose name so oft
 * Is named with loving tears.

And his deed shall be sung by the cradle,
 * And told the child on the knee,

So long as the dikes of Holland
 * Divide the land from the sea!

Phœbe Cary.

THE "COURSE OF LOVE" TOO "SMOOTH." came tripping from the church-door, her face flushed by emotions, awakened by the just uttered discourse, and eyes bright with loving expectation. He shivered on the