Be Careful of Your Words. A Poem

JIM BRIDGER, "OUR FIRST CITIZEN" 435 took the Major and as I came up to him overheard him remark about these damn paper-collared soldiers telling him there were no columns of smoke. "It afterwards transpired that there was an Indian village in the immediate locality designated." The following excellent tribute is from a recent history of the State of New Mexico: "Jim Bridger was the most conspicuous figure among the old mountaineers. He was a trail maker in every sense of the word. The greatest fur-hunter and the greatest path-finder of them all, and possessing the most intimate knowledge of the Indian nature ever vouchsafed a white man, Bridger will grow in stature as time goes on and accurate history is written. "The Rocky Mountains had no secrets for him. He was the first to look upon Great Salt Lake. Seemingly bearing a charmed life, he wandered through the Indian's country, sometimes fighting, but more often living their life, and finding a solace of true brotherhood at the lodge fire. Every mountain climbed by him, and every stream he crossed was written down in the most marvelous memory ever granted to a mountaineer." Be Careful of Your Words Keep a watch on your words, my darlings, For words are wonderful things; They are sweet, like the bees' fresh honey — Like the bees, they have terrible stings; They can bless, like the warm, glad sunshine, And brighten a lonely life; They can cut, in the strife of anger, Like an open, two-edged knife. Let them pass through your lips unchallenged, If their errand is true and kind — If they come to support the weary, To comfort and help the blind ;_ If a bitter, revengeful spirit Prompt the words, let them be unsaid; They may flash through a brain like lightning, Or fall on a heart like lead. Keep them back, if they are cold and cruel, Under bar and lock and seal; The wounds they make, my darlings, Are always slow to heal. May peace guard your lives, and ever, From the time of your early youth, May the words that you daily utter Be the words of beautiful truth. — The Pansy.