Page 221 - The model orator, or, Young folks' speaker : containing the choicest recitations and readings from the best authors for schools, public entertainments, social gatherings, Sunday schools, etc. : including recitals in prose and verse ...

There had flashed such a scene of horror swift 011 my startled sight
That il curdled my blood in terror and sent my red lip.s white.

It was all in one awful minute—-I saw that the boy was lost;
He had gone for a, toy, I fimcicd, some child from a train bad tossed;
The local was easing slowly to stop at the station here.
And the limited mail was coining, and I had the line to clear.
I could hear the roar of the engine, T could almost feel its breath,
And right on the cctitrc metals stood my boy in the jaws of death;
On came the fierce fiend, tearing straight for the centre line.
And the hand that muse wreck or save it, O merciful God ! was mine,

1 Twas a hundred lives or Johnny's. ’Twas tllat J what could I do?
Up to God’s ear that moment a wild, fierce question flew—
' “ Wbafc shall I do, O Heaven ? :f and sadden and loud and clear
On the wind came the words, “ Your duty/' borne to my listening ear.
Then I set my teeth, and my breathing was fierce and short and C]nick,
“ My b oy!” I cried, but he beard not, and then T went blind and sick ;
The hot black smoke of the engine came with a rush before,
f turned the maij to the centre and by it flew with a roar.

Then I sank on my knees in llorror, and hid my ashen face—
T had (riven my child to heaven; his life v;as a hundred's grace.
Had I held my hand a moment, I had hurled the /lying mad
To shatter the creeping local that stood on the other rail J
Where is my boy, my darling? My boy! let me hide my eyes,
How can I look—hh father— on that whiell there mangled lies P
That voice! O merciful Heaven I his the child's, and he calls my name
1 hear but 1 cannot see him, for my eyes are filled with flame.

I knew no more that night, sir, for T fell as I heard the boy;
The place reeled round, and I fainted-—swooned with the sudden joy.
But T heard on the Christmas morning, when I woke in my own warm
bed,
With Alice’s arms around me, and a strani-'C., wild dream in my head,