SPECIAL PROVIDENCES.

THERE was wailing and woe in Burlingtown, For every other day The humid showers came tumbling down, As they had come to stay. There was water enough in the land to spare; And men who were wont to pray, When they looked in the cellar each morn would swear And wrathfully turn away. All out on South Hill they pumped and pumped From morn till dewy eve, But their every effort the storm king trumped, And laughed him in his sleeve, Till the South Hill man his spirit was broke, And he sate him down on his hill. “Though I pump till my back cries out,” he spoke, “My cellar still keeps its fill.” “Now lithe and listen, good pump of mine, If ever I touch thee more, May never again the bright sun shine As it shone in the days of yore.” Then he took his pump and he hung it up Where it might not taunt his sight, And he drowned his grief in the poisonous cup Which “moveth itself aright.” And he vowed him that if the immortal gods Would hold up their rain for a while, He’d build him a cellar and take the odds— On top of his domicile. “For what was the use,” he grimly said, “Of a cellar in the ground, Into the which, if you went for bread, You were pretty sure to be drowned?” “I hate the cellar; oh winds of the south, Thy rains, as hard as I can; I wish I could strike them both with a drouth,” Exclaimed the South Hill man. He lifted his eyes to the city road A coming figure to scan, And a wild fierce light in his optics glowed When they fell on the hated gas man. He carried his book and his railway lamp, And wore a sinister frown; And he sought out the meter in cellars damp, And he noted the figures down. And whether a man burned much or small, Or how often the gas man came, Or whether they turned on the gas at all, The meter just counted the same. So the man of South Hill, when he saw him come, Supposing that he had come th— Rough ignorance, said, in tones full glum, “You cut off my gas last month.” The gas man he winked, and eke as he wunk, He shook his head knowinglee, And, as though he something suspiciously thunk, “We’ll look at the meter,” said he. Then he opened the door of the cellar so damp, And he stepped where the pump log had been, And he went out of sight, with his book and his lamp, As the water he tumbled in. “Oh, help!” loud he shrieked as his noddle came up, “Hubbulubbulup!” as his noddle went down, While the man of South Hill on the cellar door sill, Was the happiest man in the town. Splash! Splash! Blubbulup! in the cellar he heard, And he hugged himself close in his glee; And whenever the gas man would sputter a word, “Oh, catch hold of the meter!” cried he. And he shut down the doors, and he locked them up tight, And into the well threw the key, And, “Providence always and ever is right: Rains and cellars are useful,” said he.