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The company returns from its excursion, the darkey
brings up the rear and bears the well-riddled
target,
The squaw, wrapt in her yellow-hemmed cloth, is
offering moccasons and bead-bags for sale,
The connoisseur peers along the exhibition-gallery
with half-shut eyes bent side-ways,
As the deck-hands make fast the steamboat, the plank
is thrown for the shore-going passengers,
The young sister holds out the skein, while the elder
sister winds it off in a ball, and stops now and
then for the knots,
The one-year wife is recovering and happy, having
a week ago borne her first child,
The clean-haired Yankee girl works with her sewing-
machine, or in the factory or mill,
The nine months' gone is in the parturition chamber,
her faintness and pains are advancing,
The paving-man leans on his two-handed rammer
—the reporter's lead flies swiftly over the note-
book—the sign-painter is lettering with red and
gold,
The canal-boy trots on the tow-path—the bookkeeper
counts at his desk—the shoemaker waxes his
thread,
The conductor beats time for the band, and all the
performers follow him,
The child is baptized—the convert is making his first
professions,
The regatta is spread on the bay—how the white
sails sparkle!
The drover, watching his drove, sings out to them that
would stray,