St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878

Excerpt

THE SHEPHERD-BOY.

BY EMILY S. OAKEY.
Little Roy led his sheep down to pasture,And his cows, by the side of the brook;But his cows never drank any water,And his sheep never needed a crook.
For the pasture was gay as a garden,And it glowed with a flowery red;But the meadows had never a grass-blade,And the brooklet—it slept in its bed;
And it lay without sparkle or murmur,Nor reflected the blue of the skies.But the music was made by the shepherd,And the sparkle was all in his eyes.
Oh, he sang like a bird in the summer!And, if sometimes you fancied a bleat,That, too, was the voice of the shepherd,And not of the lambs at his feet.
And the glossy brown cows were so gentleThat they moved at the touch of his handO'er the wonderful rosy-red meadow,And they stood at his word of command.
So he led all his sheep to the pasture,And his cows, by the side of the brook;Though it rained, yet the rain never patter'dO'er the beautiful way that they took.
And it wasn't in Fairy-land either,But a house in a commonplace town,Where Roy as he looked from the windowSaw the silvery drops trickle down.
For his pasture was only a table,With its cover so flowery fair,And his brooklet was just a green ribbonThat his sister had lost from her hair.
And his cows they were glossy horse-chestnuts,That had grown on his grandfather's tree;And his sheep they were snowy-white pebblesHe had brought from the shore by the sea.
And at length, when the shepherd was weary,And had taken his milk and his bread,And his mother had kissed him and tucked him,And had bid him "good-night" in his bed,
Then there enter'd his big brother Walter,While the shepherd was soundly asleep,And he cut up the cows into baskets,And to jack-stones turned all of the sheep.(A Story of the Middle Ages.)BY THE AUTHOR OF
"CHRONICLES OF THE SCHÖNBERG-COTTA FAMILY."

CHAPTER III.

he next day, Gottlieb began his training among the other choristers.

It was not easy.

The choir-master showed his appreciation of his raw treasure by straining every nerve to make it as perfect as possible; and therefore he found more fault with Gottlieb than with any one else.

The other boys might, he could not but observe, sing carelessly enough, so that the general harmony was pretty good; but every note of his seemed as if it were a solo which the master's ear never missed, and not the slightest mistake was allowed to pass.

The other choristers understood very well what this meant, and some of them were not a little jealous of the new favorite, as they called him. But to little Gottlieb it seemed hard and strange. He was always straining to do his very best, and yet he never seemed to satisfy. The better he did, the better the master wanted him to do, until he grew almost hopeless.

He would not, for the world, complain to his mother; but on the third evening she observed that he looked very sad and weary, and seemed scarcely to have spirits to play with Lenichen....