Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1876-07-06
THE MAGIC PILL.

There lived in New England. long time ago,
An eccentric old woman named Barbara fitch:
Her neighbors had never moested her. though
She was always avoided rs being witch,
And they burHed, then, such old single ladies
Down East
Reducing the surplus of females, at least.
She was dying: and over her leaned Parson Cook,
To catch her last words; she gasped: " Parson a
Stands there-ia the cupboard land on the dish
look.
Is pill-if you swallow-it grants you one
I've saved it in case of a need-through the past
But find it is perfectly needless-at last
SO she died. Then the good Parson Cook shook
his head;
IL know the things evil; l doubt II it's best
To keep it to tempt me; but-hum-well," he
said
Twill at least do no harm in the fob Of my
vest"
For though in no wise resolution we fail
Yet we like to hold Nicholas just by the tail.
While the blazing logs snapped and the a-ket-
The rheumaffiics kept teasing his limbs and his
token that now he no longer was young;
For there's nothing like sickness or pain to re-
Old age Of the years it is leaving behind.
He fingered the pill and he sighed and said he,
There Is something quite wrong In our poor
mortal life.
If Ihad arranged it, it surely would be-
That age should not have all the bitterest strife.
All me-" sighed the Parson; II wish l were
young
And the little round pill glided over his tongue.
The most mischievous thing in this world is the
1t never says Just what we mean and desire.
Parson Cook had not said when he'd cease grow
He had leaped from the frying pan into the Are.
The lobster gets easily into the pot.
But he cannot get out, If he wishes or not
SO at first Dame Cook felt exceedingly proud,
To see how much younger her husband was
growing:
How his cracked, piping voice became lusty and
And in his white locks how the brown hair
showing.
lie looks"-so the gossips all said to his wife
oh ever so young, for his season OF liie."
But it seemed the pills power, like wine or
cOgnac,
Had been waxing much stronger the older it
grew;
For the terrible rate that his life hurried back
From the age it had reached, was as fifty to
As the school-boy, who oiters off slowly to
school,
Runs rapidly back as general rule.
So the church that he preached in discharged him,
b cause
Within less than year he looked scarcely nine
teen,
And to have such very young minister
just little too much OF scandal, wcen;
And scarce two months after, his beard grew as
small
AS Congressman's conscience-or nothing at
all.
Then, growing still younger. he lost his old life
And the wisdom that kindly Dame Nature
For the use of the aged; and so his good wife
Spanked him twenty-five times for stealing pre-
serves
He did everything else that he could to annoy;
For, alas he had turned to u terrible boy
Pulled his granddaughters hair and ripped up her
ragbaby.
And dropped the poor pussy cat into the WELL
nd called his dear wife " an old addle Drained
gaby,n
And nearly upset her by giving yell;
How often the cause OF our frights may be found
To be, upon analyzation, Il soundD
Then his petticoats shortly grew very much
longer;
He fed from bottle. grew dimpled and fat;
His hair it grew weaker his voice 1t grew stronger;
He twisted with collie, and gurgled, and spat;
He was strangled with sugar and camomile tea,
Or jounced out Of breath on his granddaughter
knee
'Tis a curious problem to speculate how,
Or in what sort OF protogenerical germ
As the limit which science to life Will allow
He might have concluded his lessening term,
Had Fortune not luckily ended her frolic,
By snufiiing him out in fit Of the collie
--Scribner's XOnthtY.