Better make your will out, smarty,
'Cause, you know, November's come.

"Gobble! gobble!" oh, no matter!
Pretty quick you'll change your tune;
You'll be dead and in a platter,
And _I'll_ gobble pretty soon.
'F I was you I'd stop my puffin',
And I'd look most awful glum;--
Hope they give you lots of stuffin'!
_Ain't_ you glad November's come?

* * * * *

THE WINTER NIGHTS AT HOME

A stretch of hill and valley, swathed thick in robes of white,
The buildings blots of blackness, the windows gems of light,
A moon, now clear, now hidden, as in its headlong race
The north wind drags the cloud-wrack in tatters o'er its face;
Mailed twigs that click and clatter upon the tossing tree,
And, like a giant's chanting, the deep voice of the sea,
As 'mid the stranded ice-cakes the bursting breakers foam,--
The old familiar picture--a winter night at home.

The old familiar picture--the firelight rich and red,
The lamplight soft and mellow, the shadowed beams o'erhead;
And father with his paper, and mother, calm and sweet,
Mending the red yarn stockings stubbed through by careless feet.
The little attic bedroom, the window 'neath the eaves,