Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1899-04-24
Maine G0ssaln..
The South Shed Door.
BITE

S''SS
The garden paths are filled with ice;
snow lies on every bed,
The lilac bends with icicles that sparkle
blue and red
The wind has caught wilder cry, the
frost. a Slyer tweak,
And all about the house. great drifts
crouch, in the shadows bleak,
But If you dream that spring is never
coming any more,
Go. thaw your faith and courage out be-
side the south sheddoor.
The woods still chant an echo of their
old December hymn,
y mail of crust on every field makes tired
eyes so dim
They cannot see the tender sky, grown
soft with coming rain.
They cannot see the river bubbling up
to life again,
But the warm sun lies lovingly on sill
and wall and floor.
And spells his sweetest prophecy beside
the south shed-door.
Along the caves. drip. drip-drip. drip-a
shining shower falls:
In every rainbow drop the life of April
beats and calls.
One dear bare spot beside the step grows
darker every day:
And down the yard Il score of streams
dance froliCking away.
Can you not hear the sturdy saw, behind
the wood-pile sing.
With many joyous creak and buzz.
IT'S spring, It's spring, tits
Ana iook-thc first professional with
chanticlcer before
\ troop of snow-white feathered danes
passes the south shcd-door.
All, many day must come and go be-
fore the fields are fair.
Or gardens wait their fragrance TO the
wooinG light and air,
And many a tempest blast shall rock the
pItieut forest vet.
But tired eyes, take courage; tired heart
do not forget
That Gods own spring has come again
Just as it came before
And even now is waiting at some humble
warm south door.
Ellen IIamln Butler.
The drives are getting started.
May1ower parties were numerous,
yesterday.
The bikers are longing to get out into
the country.
\ Bangor dream of, happiness centers
around a new court house.
WatervilIe's, second smallpox scare
proved to be only a scare.
The two batteries of the eth Artillery
at Portland are going to Manila.
Brunswick views with delight the
excavations for the new station. u,
stsNi -.
one of the wisest things done by the
late Legislature was the action result
ing in the State ownership and control
of the Industrial school.
The Governor and Council and a
miniature Niagara promise to be
among the chief attractions of the Gar
diner carnival.
The Brunswick living whist was a
great success. except from the minor
and unimportant standpoint of finance.
Solon. reports for the first outdoor
band concert of the season, Saturday
evening.
Bucksport likes to refer to it's gram
mar school and former teachers there
of. Three of them are now judges
Judge Trip of Yankton, South Da-
kota, lately appointed a member of the
Samoan commission, Judge Emery of
the supreme court of Maine, and Judge
Bonney of the Cumberland superior
court.
A greWSome relic brought home from
Cuba by DR.. Curtis of East Dixmont, is
a piece of the famous "pangmans tree"
on which more than 200 Cubans have
been, strung up by their Spanish
friends.
The elms are among the trees that
, blossom earliest, April 23rd being the
average date for the last % years in
Portland, according to the figures of a
man who has kept tally Last year
they came out April l, while the earli-
est known was on April s. This year
they were later by a week or two.
1t is proposed to erect in Washington
a monument to Rev. Samuel Francis
Smith, forever famous as the author Of
My Country 'Tis of Thee" A COM
mittee of Washington business men is
TO be formed for raising $50 900 for de
fraylng the cost of erecting the monu-
ment on some appropriate site at the
Capital DR.. Smith. who was born in
1903 in Boston, had written the hymn
before he went to Waterville in 1894 to
fill the professorship of modern lam
guases at Colby. The hymn was first
sung at a children's celebration on the
Fourth of July 1882. in Park Street
church. Boston. which looks out over
the historic Boston common. The