MR. LEONARD G. FOSTER.

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen:

You received me so kindly last year in the few little sketches of the "Early Days," that the committee has invited me to give you five minutes of the same poem, only different stanzas. The whole poem is now published in book form, and illustrated.

In all the streams the finny shoals,
In great abundance grew,

While in the air, the feathered tribes,
In flocks unnumbered flew.

"Tranquility and peace prevailed
Upon each settler's farm,

For scalping knives and tomahawks
Had lost their power to harm.
The music of the axe rang clear
From early morn 'till night,

While heaps of burning brush and logs
Sent forth their gleam of light.

The new Log Cabins now were seen
Fast springing into view;

And Ox-team ‘Schooners' from the east
Were six weeks coming through.

"The little clearings that were made
Soon brought enough to eat,
For in each rooty, stumpy field

Grew Indian Corn and Wheat.

We struggled hard those early days

To keep privations down,

We hauled our cord wood many miles

To what was called a 'Town.'

With Qx-Team, 'geeing, hawing,' through
The wild woods we would go,

With snail-like locomotion that
Was awkward, quaint and slow.

"We drove the Oxen through the gap
And down the barnyard lane,
Unyoked, and housed and fed them well
With fodder, hay and grain;

Then, to the new Log Cabin door,
Our weary footsteps led,

We pulled the latchstring, entered in,
And found the table spread.

With mush and milk, and pork and beans,
And good old pumpkin pie,
No Angel food in heaven or earth
Could better satisfy.

The sunflower and the hollyhock,

Snowballs and lilies white,
The daisies, pinks, and daffodils.
With lovely colors bright;
The poppies, phlox and violets,
And morning glories gay,
All scent the air with odors sweet
In memory of today.

"A flickering tallow candle there
Was all the light we had,
Except the roaring fire-place,
That made us warm and glad.
We made those tallow tapers by
A process wondrous slow,
We dipped the wicking in the grease,
Then out to see them grow;
No strong electric light, or gas,
Illumined our pathway bright,

And yet our Tree of Knowledge grew
By that dim candle light.

"Dear mother had been spinning yarn,

And reeling knots and skeins,

And knitting socks and mittens
With cheerfulness and pains;

And there she was, that time of night,
To welcome pa and me,

Her angel face with loving smile.
Methinks I still can see!

How plainly I remember now,

Though weary, old and gray,

When death came in our cabin home, And mother passed away."

"Let's climb the little stairway here, And walk the puncheon floor,

To trundle bed, where mother tucked Us snug in days of yore,

The President: I notice my old friend Mr. George H. Foster in the audience, and I will ask him to say a few words to us. We have had some "Foster," but I think we can stand a little more.