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elections ama —
from the best :::
Juvenile Authors

 

  

Edited by

Rev. Wiliam Henry Mitbarn

Chaplain of the House of Representatives

Profasety [tlustrated by Celebrated
American Artists

J. H. MOORE & COMPANY,
PHILADELPHIA AND CHICAGO.
1898.
COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY A. L. Surru.
INTRODUCTION.

SS ee

    
 
    
   
   
  
  
   
   
   
  
 
   
   

o him who thinks of it truly, the wonder of a book can never cease. That lines of
ers and words, formed by types on sheets of paper, can transfer from one man to
10ther, indeed, to thousands, perhaps to generations of men, truth, sentiment, im-
zination, the wealth of mind and life, enriching the reader without impoverishing the
ithor, lifting the one to a height and breadth of vision which the other has gained
after years of self-denying and painful toil, to make the secrets of the world and of
e soul common property,—this approaches the marvelous, not to say the miraculous.
hrough the portals of the eye and ear a stranger may enter the brain and so the mind
id heart, take possession of thought and love, enthrone himself as a supreme master
life, moulding and directing the will, shaping character and conduct, awakening in
powers hitherto undreamed of, bestowing upon us treasures that shall endure to eter-
ty, and crowning us with the radiant and life-giving sense that we are the heirs of
mortality, and all this done though the writer himself may have been in the dust a
ousand years. Cold type may become a sceptre of power such as Alexander, Casar
Napoleon never wielded, its authority entering the inmost recesses of the soul, ruling
ith a sway that is not questioned, and maintaining its sovereignty over millions from
eto age. Nearly five hundred years ago the most powerful man on earth, at whose
ad the world seemed to tremble, was Tamerlane. His empire stretched from the
editerranean to the Ganges. He stood one day, clad in complete steel, battle-axe on
oulder, near the site of Damascus, which he had destroyed, and reviewed his troops
er they had erected a pyramid composed of seventy thousand skulls. Well did he
erit his title ““The Scourge of God.’? Not far from that time a poor German lad was
aying in the streets of Mentz, and his cheek must have turned pale as the report of the
rtar’s bloody triumphs floated through Europe. Who could have imagined that the
y, John Gutenberg, ‘‘when he was come to years,’’ by his invention of metal types
d their use, would wield a weapon more mighty than the sword of the Mogul, and
und an empire of printed books whose reign shall last as long as sun and moon en-
re, while thirty years ago the last descendant of the ‘“‘Great Mogul” perished inglo-
usly at Delhi, and his name and fame would have been lost from among men but for
XUI
xIV . INTRODUCTION.

OT OE EE OS NIT BO

aaa

the printing press first set up on the banks of the Rhine. An egg is laid, and the barn-
yard resounds with cackle; an acorn drops silently into the earth, and a thousand years |
after a monarch oak, sprung from it, spreads its branches to the heavens, in which the —
fowls of the air make their nests, awhile generations of men find shelter in their shade.

The children of Europe and America to-day glow, thrill or tremble at the stories told |
by Scheherezade, in the ‘‘Arabian Nights,’ ages ago, to save her life, and all agree |
that she was entitled to it, as through many centuries she has been a nursing mother of |
the imagination, in the west as well as in the east.

A blind man sang his verses in city after city, and for five hundred years his scholars |
continued the chant, when the pen took them from the memory, and the eye received |
them as well as the ear. Those verses, called the Iliad and Odyssey, wrought with a |
silent, irresistible force in the lives of men, made Attica, Sparta, Ionia what they became,
and crowned the Macedonian Alexander with the diadem of the world. Other books
have come and dispossessed these of their regal power over life and character, but even
at this late day and in this new world they hold sway over the imagination, and all cul-
tured men and women owe an immeasurable debt to Homer.

Nearly three thousand years ago a shepherd boy, ruddy of cheek and fair to look upon,
tuned his harp and voice while watching his flocks. He became a hero, then an outlaw
and afterwards a victorious king, founder of a mighty empire. His land has been des- |
olate for centuries and his kingdom remains only as a mournful memory ; but the songs |
which he sang by the sheepfold at the cave of Adullam, among the rocky wastes of En-
geddi, and in his royal City of the Four Hills, move the souls and tongues of men to-day,
with even a deeper and grander power than when they fell fresh from his lips, and as long
as the heavy-laden and sorrowful need pity and consolation, as long as the soul, struggling
against darkness, sin and terror, asks for cheer, guidance and light, as long as the re-
deemed and exultant heart pours itself in thankfulness and praise, the Psalms of David
can never die. i

The adopted son of a princess, bred in the palace, learned in all’ “the wisdom of his
time, for a patriotic deed became a fugitive and a herdsman, and through forty years, L
for the most part spent in solitary communion with nature’s sternest and sublimest forms :
and in life’s hnmblest duties, was in the end not only the heroic deliverer of his people,
but the author of five short books, making one, which moulded his people into rock-like
solidity against which the stormy billows of time have beaten in vain, and which the
changes and chances of the world could not destroy. The Pentateuch—the five books
of Moses—is to-day translated into all languages, and is as priceless and sacred to the
Christian as to the Jew, and not only carries the mind back to the fore-world, but up to
Him who made it, and is a School-master in the Halls of Science, in the Courts of Law
and History, in the Groves of Poetry, by the Fountains of Health, an exhaustless mine

  

   

Bs
INTRODUCTION. xy

‘of truth, where millions have worked to their profit, and where millions will continue to
work with yet greater profit till time shall be no more. There is a simple, unpretend-
ing little book which tells the story of a man whose hands grew hard in making tents of
goats’ hair, whose arms and legs bore marks of prison chains, and his body of stones
‘which had been thrown to kill him, and of cruel rods and scourges with which he was
lashed over and over again. With this book there have come down to us a number of
his letters, and from the Acts of the Apostles and the Epistles of St. Paul the best and
noblest men and women have gained instruction, inspiration, life.

Four plain, unlettered men composed short biographies of One whom they knew and
loved, telling of his birth, works, deeds, sufferings and death, and those brief records
combined into one have changed the face of the world, telling, as they do, ‘‘of the
holiest among the mighty, the mightiest among the holy, who lifted with his pierced
hand empires off their hinges, and turned the stream of centuries out of its channel, and
still governs the ages.”’

Napoleon, when at St. Helena, once said, ‘‘The Gospel is no mere book, but a living
creature, with a vigor, a power, which conquers all that opposes it. The soul, charmed
with the beauty of the Gospel, is no longer its own; God possesses it entirely. He di-
rects its thoughts and faculties, it is His.’? Well might Milton say: ‘‘Books are not ab-
solutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them as active as that soul whose
progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a vial, the purest efficacy and extraction
of that intellect that bred them. Almost as well kill a man as kill a good book; who
kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God’s image, but he who destroys a good book
kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye.’’ The imperishable
wealth of the world is housed in books, and every man or boy of our race may take
as much of the treasure as he can carry, without the charge of burglary.

The Indian chiefs who visit Washington see many things in the beautiful city which
awaken in them astonishment and delight; but there is one place which they cannot under-
stand—the Congressional Library. Rising storyupon story, their alcoves, with their count-
less shelves of books, are an inscrutable mystery to them ; they gape with hollow-eyed won-
der and turn away from the volumes and their readers with ill-concealed disdain. The
savage cannot conceive that those bound pages, on which are inscribed the mystic charac«
ters of print, contain the secrets and the forces which have made the white man’s life what
it is; have built the White House, the Departments, the Capitol, the Navy-Yard and
Arsenal ; that these books which he spurns have taught the pale-face to make a ferry of the
ocean, to bridle the lightning and employ it as a newsboy, to rear these stately piles in
which the civil affairs of sixty millions of people are cared for. Still less can he con-
ceive that books enable men to turn the stony leaves of nature’s volume, and read thereon
the history of the planet, to explore the heavens and learn from star and sun what they
XVI INTRODUCTION.

are made of and how they move. If you were to tell the red man that books lay bare
the secrets of the human heart, arm it with courage in adversity, hope in the ambush of
despair, and faith that looks through death and sees beyond a city which hath founda-
tions whose builder and maker is God, and that through them-we can have even here
the earnest and foretaste of eternal peace and blessedness, his stolid indifference would
express itself in the grin of disbelief and denial. One must have something within him
to which books can speak, or they are of little worth. What they teach and do for us is
the measure of our capacity, the gauge of our development.

Emerson says, ‘‘If we encounter a man of rare intellect we should ask him what
books he read.’’ The unread man is astranger to himself and to the world in which
he lives, ‘‘not half its riches known and yet despised.’’ ‘‘He hath never fed of the
dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk
ink; his intellect is not replenished; he is only an animal, only sensible in the duller

pare 1s
“Sure, He that made us with such large discourse,
Looking before and after, gave us not
That capability and God-like reason
To fust in us unus’d.””

The child finds the mastery of the alphabet a mountain-steep, and shrinks from climb-
ing; but as stage after stage of the hard ascent is gained and higher levels are reached,
what delights flow in through the eye to the memory, to fancy, the imagination and the ~
heart. The pain of the toil is forgotten; the mechanical becomes spiritual, the sense of
drudgery ceases ; and although immeasurable heights still lift themselves before him at
every stage, the adventurous and industrious youth may behold fairer landscapes, a
widening horizon and brighter stars, to reward him for his labor. ‘‘And all the secret of
the Spring moves in the chambers of the blood.’’ The patient toil of the young man is
rewarded by broader outlooks from higher slopes; not only has he achieved mental
health and vigor, clearer vision, the keen pleasure that comes from the sense of awak-
ened faculties and creative power, but—

‘Many an old philosophy
On Argive heights divinely sang,

And round him all the thicket rang
To many a flute of Arcady.”

I happened once in New Orleans to see, through the eyes of a friend, a boy lying
prone upon a gallery not far off, his head resting upon one hand, in the other hand a
book. A fierce thunder storm was raging, the rain fell in torrents, the vivid flashes of
lightning and deafening roar of the thunder were almost continuous, but the boy heard
and heeded not; he was in another world, whose enthralling interest and beauty made
him blind and deaf to the terrors of the tempest. Withdrawn from the world around
INTRODUCTION. . XV

   
  
   
    
 
    
 
   
 
   
 
  
  
 
   
     
  
  
  

im, the book had introduced him into another, where everything was bright and fair,
nd for the time it was his home. To lift us out of the rut of custom, to arouse our
aculties and implement them with new powers, to make us forget ourselves, our infirm-
ies and hard lot of poverty, toil and pain, to purge our eyes that we may behold ‘‘the
ke that never was on land or sea,’’ to open our ears that we may listen to the harmony
f harps as they pour forth their seven-fold hallelujahs and hosannas, and make us feel
hat we are not of the earth, earthy, but that our true home is in ‘“‘an ampler ether, a
iviner air,’’ this is, in part at least, what books may do for us. My dwelling place may
be rude, my fare ated and comiods scant; I may be denied access to the society, picture-
Palleries, concerts, theatres, ball-rooms, halls of high debate, for which I crave, but a
few well-chosen books andthe habit of reading them aright, will make amends for all
privations. Gibbon said, ‘‘My early invincible love of reading I would not exchange
for the treasures of India.’? Addison said: ‘‘Reading is to the mind what exercise is to
the body. As by the one, health is preserved, strengthened and invigorated; by the
ther, virtue (which is the health of the mind) is kept alive, cherished and confirmed.”
A good reader not only grows familiar with the secrets of land, sea and sky; with the
ast and the present, but the best heads and hearts the planet has yet produced grow in
me to be his friends, his intimates, and to him unburden themselves of their confidence.
ot only is his brain enlarged, stored with knowledge, and furnished with power for
higher work on easier terms, but his sympathies are widened and quickened, so that he
can make his own the thoughts, deeds, temper and spirit of the wisest and noblest men
at have appeared in the theatre of time. He drops the narrow and provincial that
ere in him, puts off petty prejudices and hatreds, rises to higher planes of judgment so
at he can estimate things at their true value, reversing many a former opinion, learn
that humility is the only way to true exaltation, and that to exchange pride for lowliness
is great gain.

Books used to be so costly that only princes, nobles and other very rich people could own
em, and to read them was the privilege of afew; now scarcely any are so poor as to be
denied their royal luxury. I well remember the time, in what was then the far West,

where I was a growing boy, when books were hard to be had, and the reader’s longing
for them was like the hunger and thirst of the traveler in the desert. At the age of
ght or nine years, and after many months of careful hoarding and painful earning, I
anaged to get money enough to buy twelve volumes of the ‘‘Boys and Girls Lithia 2?
published more than fifty years ago, and I doubt if any prince in the world felt as rich
Idid then. The contents of those volumes, read over and over again, gave me such
elight that I cannot put it into words, and that delight abode with me for years.

‘The volume herewith presented to the young people of this country is one which ought
to do for them what those books did for me. ‘The publishers have spared neither pains

 

 

 

 

 
XVIII INTRODUCTION.

nor expense in their effort to make it as nearly perfect as a book of the kind can be
made. ‘The selection of pieces from many distinguished writers, embracing subjects in
History, Biography, Travel and Adventure, and added to these, sketches of many men
who have been eminent in business, and of the means by which their success was
achieved, and besides not a few of the choice poems of our language, reflects great credit
upon the judgment and taste of the compilers; and the beautiful illustrations with which
the book so richly abounds give to it increased charm and value. While these hand-
some pages, by their pictures and literary matter, will engage the eye, improve the
taste, quicken the intellect, arouse the fancy and imagination, amusing and entertaining,
and at the same time stirring and inspiring the noblest aspirations of youthful readers,
_ the utmost care has been taken that not a blush should be brought to the cheek of the most
modest, nor a stain left in the memory of the most pure. It is hoped that this book will
be a God-send to hosts of young people throughout this wide country, not only in the
populous sections of our great country, but where books are scarce and libraries cannot
be reached—on the plains of Texas and Dakota, and on the slopes of the Rocky Moun-
tains and the Sierra Nevada—among the mining camps, and on broad ranches—as well
as in new towns and villages springing up as by magic in our new West. Between its
covers are garnered truths, sentiments, imaginings, happy turns of expression, brilliant |
word-pictures and inspiring suggestions, that well read and pondered by those for whom |
it is especially intended, will bring abundant recompense, and the recollection of them |
will ‘Flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude.’? Although the vol- |
ume has been prepared for young people, those of riper years will find much in it to
attract and benefit them, much that will delight and reward. Coleridge once stopped
at a wayside inn, and picked up in the sitting-room a well-worn copy of the Vicar of ;
Wakefield, and as he looked over its oft-turned pages, exclaimed, ‘‘This is fame.’’ I
the trust that the “Stories for Little Men and Women ”’ will gain fame like that, find a
hearty welcome in many homes, and win its way to the admiration and love o
thousands, both old and young, awakening a taste for reading, fixing the habit and
remunerating all who turn its leaves, it is now sent forth upon its errand.

WILLIAM HENRY MILBURN.

      
 
  

 

 

 

  

 
A MODERN HERO.

 

By Marion HARLAND.

 

T was a very humble house.
Only a flat of three rooms
on the third floor of a tall
tenement-house in a back
street near the river. A
bedroom, a tiny parlor
and a kitchen, which was
also an eating-room, made
up the suite. The Briggses

lid all their daylight living in the last-named apart-

nent. The floor was painted yellow; the walls

vere whitewashed ;_ the furniture was homely, sub-
stantial and well-kept.

Everything was shining .clean, and both win-
lows were full of plants, many of them in flower.
Mrs. Briggs was fully persuaded in her own mind
hat no other woman in the city had such a tale of
laily mercies as herself. Among them were the
southern exposure of those windows and the circum-
itance that a gap in the buildings back of them let
n the sunshine freely. Her nasturtiums blossomed
here all winter; from a pot she had suspended by
itrings from the top of the casing, sweet alysseum
lowed downward like a fountain of soft green
waters tipped with white ; scarlet geraniums shot
ip rank shoots that had to be pruned into rea-
sonableness, and” as to Christmas roses — “ But
here!” the worthy soul would assure her ac-
yuaintances, “ they do beat everything !’’

 

This winter the calla was about to bloom. A

cind lady had given the bulb to Mrs. Briggs’s son
— Top, Junior —last year, and there was no telling
the store he set by it.

Topliffe Briggs — alias, Top, Senior — was an
¢ngineer on the great North, East, West and South
Railway. He sat at the tea-table with his wife
ind son at five-thirty one cloudy February after-
loon, His next train went out at six-forty-five.
Je had run “Her” into the station at four, and
s house was but two blocks away. Mrs. Briggs
ould see from those unparalleled kitchen-windows
he bridge by which the track crossed the river
separating the town from the marshes, ‘and could

  

calculate to a minute when the familiar step would
be heard on the stairs.

“You see we live by railroad time,” was her
modest boast. “ And my husband always comes.
straight home.” She did not emphasize the “ my,”
knowing in her compassionate heart what other
husbands were prone to lag by the way until they
came home late and crookedly.

Top, Senior, was on time to-day. “I ken trust
Her with Bartlett, you see,” he remarked to his
wife. “He won’t leave tel she’s all trig an’ tidy
for the next trip. I wisht I could be as sure o”
Stokes!” ,

Mrs. Briggs looked up inquiringly.

‘Stokes is a clever fellow,” pursued Top Senior
regretfully, slicing vigorously into the cold corned.
beef, for he was hungry. ‘Smart as a steel trap,
and onderstan’s his business. I never see a fire
man what hed a better chance o’ risin’ to an in
gineer. He knows Her pretty nigh’s well ez I do
I’ve took real comfort in learning him all I could
But I’m afeerd, sometimes, he’s on a down-grad
and the brakes don’t work.”

“ You mean that he drinks, don’t you, father ?’
asked the sharp-eyed boy at his elbow.

“* There, father!” interjected the mother. “ You
might ’a’ known he’d onderstan’, no matter how
you put it!”

“T ain’t afeered o’ my boy blabbin The
brawny hand stroked the thin light hair of his only
child. “ An’ I want he should learn to hate tha
stuff. It’s the devil’s best drivin’ wheel — liquor is.
I’d ruther lay you with my own han’s ’cross the
rails this very night, an’ drive Her right over you,
than to know that you’d grow up a drunkard,
Never do you forget them words what your father’s
-a-sayin’ to you, now, Junior! I mean every one o’
them !”

The boy started at the earnestness of the ex-
hortation, winked hard to keep his eyes dry, and
changed the subject. ‘ Hev you noticed my lily
to-day, mother? I guess it’ll be wide open by the-
time you get in to-night, father.”

yy

iT
wo. : A MODERN HERO.

They all turned to look at the tall stem, crowned —

by the unfolding calyx. “Jumior’s goin’ to be a
master-hand with flowers,” observed the mother.
* He saves me pretty nigh all the trouble-o’ takin’
keer of.’em. I’ve been thinkin’ that might be a
good business for him when he grows up.”

She was always forecasting his future with more
anxiety than generally enters into maternal hopes
and fears. When but a year old, he had fallen from
the arms of a neighbor who had caught him up from
the floor in a fit of tipsy fondness. The child’s
‘back and hip were severely injured. He had not

walked a step until he was five years of age, and.

would be lame always... He was now twelve—a
‘dwarf in statue, hump-backed, weazen-faced and
‘shrill-voiced, unsightly in all eyes but those of his
parents. To them he was a miracle of precocity
and beauty. His mother took in fine ironing to
pay for his private-tuition from a public school-
teacher who lived inthe neighborhood. He learned
fast and eagerly. His father, at the teacher’s sug-
gestion, subscribed to a circulating library and the
same kind friend selected books for the cripple’s
reading. There was a hundred dollars in the-sav-
ings bank, against the name of “ Topliffe Briggs,
Junior,” deposited, dollar by dollar, and represent-
ing countless acts of self-denial on the part of the
industrious couple, and his possible profession was
‘a favorite theme of family converse.

“ For that matter, there’s lot o’ things a scholard

like him ken do,” rejoined Top, Senior, with affec-

tionate confidence in his heir’s talents and acquire-
ments. ‘’Tain’t like ’twould be with a feller like
me whose arms an’ legs is his hull stock in trade.
‘Why, I min’ seein’ a leetle rat of a man come on
‘board one time ’scorted by a dozen ’o the biggest
bugs in the city, an’ people a-stretchin’ their necks
‘out o’ j’int to ketch a look of him. Sech a mealy-
faced, weak-lookin’ atomy he was! But millions 0’
people was a-readin’ that very day a big speech
he’d made in Washin’ton, an’ he’d saved the coun-
try from trouble more ’n oncet. He mought ’a’
been President ef he had chose torun. That’s the
good o’ hevin’ a tiptop head-piece.”’

“T’ve made up my mind!” said Top, Junior,
with anair. “I’m goin’ tobe aHero! Like Julius
Cesar an’ Alexander an’ William Tell an’ Captain
John Smith, an’ other men I’ve read about. I wish

you would be a Hero, father! It’s ever so much
nicer than runnin’ an engine. Won’t you—please!

need a bite at the Agapolis deepo.

You are strong enough and good enough for any:
thing, an? I’m sure you know a great deal about
things!”

The blue eyes were bright and wistful, his hand
stole up to the bushy whiskers, ginger-colored from
exposure to the air and boiler-heat.

“ Me,ahero! Haw! haw!” roared the engineer,
letting fall his knife and fork in his merriment.
“ 7’dcuta figger at the head of an army, or speakin’
in Congress, or a-setten’ on a gold throne, wouldn’t
I? No! no! my man! ” sobering down suddenly,
into a sort of sad dignity. “Ver father ain’t got
the brains nor the eddication for nothin’ of that
kind! All he ken do is to live clean an’ honest
in the sight o’ the Lord, an’ to rur his i ingine *cor-
din’ to the best o’ his lights.”

“The Lord’s too reasortabte to expect more of
yen? ’n to. do your duty in the place where’s He’s ‘put
you,” said the wife gently.

*.“Thopeheis, Mother! Ef he looked for more —~
or for any big thing ’s fur as that goes, the chances
are He’d be disapp’inted. I hev plenty o’ time fur
thinkin’ while we’re scootin’ ’cross the level coun-
try an’ creepin’ up steep grades, an’ I’ve worked it
out to my own satisfaction that somethin’ else I’ve
got to be thankful fur, is that my way in life’s been
marked down so plain. ’Seems if I hed been sot
onto rails pretty much’s She is, an’ ’s long ez I do
my level best on that ’ar line, why, it’s all I hen do.
That’s the hull.of it! I ain’t no speechifier, you
see, Junior ”? — with an embarrassed laugh at the
boy’s evident discontent —“T’ll hev to depen’ on
you fur to say it— or maybe, write done ship-shape,
some 0’ these notions o’ mine, some day. I’d git
better holt o’ them myself ef I was to hear some-
body what knowed how to put things go over ’em.
Mother! eddication wouldn’t learn no woman how
to make better bread’n yourn. Fact is, there’s-
nothin’ ekal to home, an home-vittles an’ home- -
folks! With such a livin’ ez I’ve took in, I sha’n’t
We’re half an
hour there, but I hate the very smell o’ them eatin’
houses! An’ please God! I’ll bring Her in at
twelve — sharp!”

He pulled on his overcoat and felt in the pocket
for his gloves. ‘“ I’m.main proud o’ them fellers !”
he said, fitting one to a hand half the size of a leg
of mutton and not unlike it in shape.

He had said the same thing every time he put them
on since Christmas. They were a holiday gift from
   

       

 

BIRD’S EYE VIEW OF GROUNDS AND BUILDINGS, COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, CHICAGO, 1892-93.
A MODERN HERO. 13

the conductors on the line between the two cities
which was his semi-daily beat.

“T take a world o’ comfort in them, this freezin’
weather. Fact is, Mother, this world’s been pretty
full o’ comfort, all the way through, for us — a nice
easy grade —ef yer father ain’t a Hero, Junior!
Six-twenty! I mus’ be off! I like to be there in
time to see thet Stokes is on han’ an’ all right. Ef

you don’t min’, Mother, we’ll hev him to dinner nex’
I want to do somethin’ t’wards savin’

Sunday.
Stokes. ‘Specially ez he’s on my line!”

At six-fifty, Top, Junior, from his post at the
calla-window, saw the long line of cars, spaced by
dots of murkey red, the luminous plume of smoke
trailing, comet-wise, above them, slowly pass over
the bridge. It was a cloudy evening and the
marsh-mists swallowed up the blinking windows as
soon as the train gained the other shore. Junior
loved his mother, but his father seemed to take
most of the life and cheer out of the room when he
went. Existence stagnated for the boy who had
no mates of his own age.

“T wish he didn’t hev to run in bad weather and
nights!” he said, fretfully.

“Tt’s his business, child, an’ your father ain’t
one to dodge his duty.”

“T hate the word!” retorted the petted cripple.

“When I’m a man I’ll be my own master, and
switch Duty off the track.”

The obnoxious word came up cain in the course
of the evening. In reading aloud to his teacher
they happened upon this definition of “a hero,”
given by one of the characters in the story under
his eyes: “ One who, in a noble work or enterprise,
does more than his duty.”

Junior looked up disappointed. “Is ¢#at the

meaning of hero?” he said, intensely chagrined.
' “That is one way of stating it. I doubt, myself,
if we can do more than our duty. What do you
think, Mrs. Briggs?” asked the young woman.
She esteemed the honest couple for their sterling
worth and sense, and liked to draw them out.

“A person ken ondertake more, I ’spose. Ef
‘hey don’t carry it through, it’s a sign ’twas meant
‘ur them to go jest that fur, an’ no further. "Twon’t
Jo fur us to be skeery ’bout layin’ holt of the
iandle the good Lord puts nighest to us, fur fear
t’s too big a thing fur us to manage. That’s what
ny husband says. An’ if ever a man lived up to
t, he does.”

Top, Junior, looked sober and mortified. The
heroism of common life does not commend itself
to the youthful imagination. When his lesson was
finished it was time for him to go tobed. “Wake
me when father comes in!” was the formula with-
out which he never closed his eyes.

His mother never failed to do it, but he wanted
to make sure of it. She put on a lump of coal,
just enough to keep the fire “in,” and sat down to
the weekly mending. At eleven-forty, she would
open the draughts and cook the sausages ready-
laid in the pan on the table. Top, Senior, liked
“ something hot and hearty,” after his midnight
run, and this dispatched, smoked the nightcap pipe
of peace, Junior, rolled in a shawl, on his knee.
The wife’s face and heart were calm with thankful
content as the hours moved on. She was rosy and
plump, with pleasant blue eyes and brown hair, a
wholesome presence at the hearthstone, in her
gown of clean chocolate calico with her linen collar
and scarlet cravat. Top, Senior, had noticed and
praised the new red ribbon. He comprehended
that it was put on to please him and Junior, both
of whom liked to see “ Mother fixed up.” In this
life, they were her all, and she accounted that life
full and rich.

As she sewed, she heard the slow patter of Feb-
ruary rain on the shelf outside of the window, where
her flowers stood in summer. The great city was
sinking into such half-sleep as it took between
midnight and dawn; the shriek and rush of incom-
ing and -outgoing trains grew less frequent. She
did not fret over the disagreeable weather. Top,
Senior, had often said that such made home and
fire and supper more welcome.

At Junior's bed-time, he was eighty miles away,
walking up and down the muddy platform of the
principal station of Agapolis, stamping his feet at
each turn in his promenade to restore the circula-
tion. His was a fast Express train, and he stood
during most of the run, on the alert to guard against
accident. There was no more careful engineer on
the road. Fireman and brakeman were off for
supper in or near the station. He slouched as he
walked, his hands thrust deep into his pockets ; his
overcoat was heavy and too loose even for his bulky
figure. He had “taken it off the hands” of an
engineer’s widow whose husband was dragged from
under a wrecked train one night last summer,
“Mother” used to look grave when Top, Senior,
14

began to wear it, but she was not a mite notional
-— Mother wasn’t, and she was glad now that poor
Mrs. Wilson had the money and he had the beaver-
‘cloth coat. His face was begrimed with smoke,
his beard clogged with cinders and vapor. A lady,
travelling alone, hesitated visibly before she asked
a question, looked surprised when he touched his
hat and turned togo half the length of the plattorm

 

that is in a woman!

A MODERN HERO.

o

hevin’ thet boy disapp’inted every day I live. Come
summer, he shell hev a-run or two on Her every
week. Mother ’n me hes got to make up to him
for what he loses in not bein’ strong an’ like other
chillren. Mother—she’s disposed to spile him
jest a leetle. But dear me! what a fustrate fault
She did look good in that ere
red neck-tie, to-night, an’ she was always pretty.”

HE HELD FAST!

that he might point out the parlor-car. He observed
‘and interpreted hesitation and surprise, and was
ood-humoredly amused.

“T s’pose I don’t look much like what Junior

calls ‘a hero,’” he meditated with a broader gleam.
“What a cute young one heis! Please God! he'll
make a better figure in the world ’n his father hes
‘done. Ihope that lily-flower o’ hisn will be open in
the mornin’. ‘Seems if I got softer-hearted ’bout

The rain was fine and close, like a slanting mist
that pierced the pores, when the Express drew out
of the station, and as it fell, it froze. Stokes
growled that “the track would be one glare of ice
before they got Her in.” He was inclined to be
surly to-night, an uncommon circumstance with the
young fellow, and after several attempts to enliven -
him, Top, Senior, let him alone. He was notin a
talkative mood himself. The tea-table chat ran in
SE I ee, Eee Fae eae aE aot Beat Leme

 

 

A MODERN HERO.

his head and set him to dreaming and calculating.

F. In five years Junior would be seventeen —old
+ enough, even for a lad who was “not strong,” to

earn his living. If all went well, there ought to be
a hundred and fifty doliars in the bank by then,
There might be something in Mother’s idea of
setting him up as a florist. And Mother could
help with the flowers.

“Fello! ole feller! look out!”

Stokes had stumbled over the fuel in the tender,
in replenishing the boiler-fires. He recovered him-

: self with an oath at the “ slippery rubbish.” Some-

thing had upset his temper, but he neither spoke
nor looked like a man who had been drinking.

‘The teazing, chilling drizzle continued. The head-

light of the locomotive glanced sharply from glazed
rails and embankments; the long barrel-back of the

- engine shone as with fresh varnish.

“ D’ye know that on a night like this She beats

/ out the tune o’ Mome, Sweet Home, ’s plain as
» ever you heerd a band play it?” said Top, Senior,
= cheerily out of the thickening damps.
- me see Mother ’n the boy clear ’s ken be.
‘great thing fur a man to hev a comfortable home,

“Tt makes
It’s a

Bg

» worse-than a dog’s life!

 

; ’n a good woman in it!”

Stokes burst out vehemently at that: “ This is
We — you ’n me — are
no more to them selfish creturs in there” —nodding
backwards at the passenger cars — “then the ingine
that draws ’em. I’m sick o’ freezin’ an’ slavin’
an’ bein’ despised by men no better ’n Ibe! How
a'man of any sperrit ’n’ ambition ken stan’ it fur
twenty years as you hev, beats my onderstandin’.”

He will always remember the pause that pre-
faced the reply, and how Top, Senior, patted the
polished lever under his hand as he spoke: “She’s
a pretty respectable cretur, take Her all in all.
‘When you ’n I run into the las’ dark deepo that’s
waitin’ fur us at the end, I hope we'll be able to
show’s good stiffikits as hern. Here’s the bridge!
Will be soon home, now.”

It was a long bridge, built far out to be above
high tides. As they touched it the furnace-door
flew open. Some said, afterwards, that the door
was not properly secured, others spoke of a “ back-
draught,” others syspected that the fire was over-
fed. The volume of flame that leaped out licked
the very faces of the twomen. They recoiled with
a bound and made a simultaneous rush for the air-
brake in the forward passenger-car to stop the

iD

train and check the backward sweep of the blaze,
The passengers, seeing the flash and hearing the
whistle and shouts of “ Down brakes!” pressed
against the front windows and a dense living mass
blocked the door against which Topliffe Briggs
flung all his weight.

“Git in ef you ken,” he said to the fireman.
“Pll try Her!” He fastened the shaggy great-
coat up to his chin as he faced the pursuing fires,
walked forward to the stand where lapped and
curled the fiercest flames, laid hold of steam-brake
and the lever by which he “drove” the engine.
His fur-lined gauntlets scorched and shrivelled as
he grasped the bar; the fire seized upon his hair
and garments with an exultant roar. He held fast.
He must get the passengers off the floorless bridge
that might ignite at any moment. He must check
the-engine as soon as he cleared the last pier, or the
cars would take fire before they could be uncoupled.
He shut his eyes from the maddening heat and
glare, and drove straight on. Not so fast as to
hurry the greedy flames that were doing their worst
upon him, but at a rate that ran them over the
river and upon solid earth as the fuel in the tender
burst into a blaze and the forward car began to
crackle and smoke in the hot draught. At that
point steam and air-brakes did their work in effect-
ing a safe halt.

“The fireman was badly scorched,” reported
the press next day, “but train and passengers were
saved by the heroism of the engineer.”

The words flashed along the wires over land and
ocean ; were set up in startling type in hundreds of
newspaper offices while he who did not know hero-
ism by name was breathing his last on a mattress
laid on the yellow-painted floor of the room he had
seen so “clear” when the engine-throb and piston-
beat played Home, Sweet Home. The sunshine that
had followed the rain touched the white cheek of
the opened lily before falling on his sightless eyes
and charred right hand.

When they brought him in he knew whose silent
tears dropped so fast upon his face, and the poor
burned lips moved in a husky whisper. The wife
put her ear close to his mouth not to lose his dying
words :

“ Twas afraid you'd see that we was a-fire. From
the winder. I hope you — didn’t— wake Junior!”
The boy who had begged his father to be a
hero!
FACING THE WORLD.

(4 Story for Boys.)

 

By THE AUTHOR oF “JouN Ha.irax, GENTLEMAN.”

LAD Iam, mother, the hol-
idaysareover. It’s quite
different going back to
school again when one
goes to be captain— as
I’m sure tobe. Isn’t it
jolly?”

Mrs. Boyd’s face as she
smiled back at Donald,
was not exactly “jolly.”

Still, she did smile; and then there came out the
strong likeness often seen between mother and
son, even when, as in this case, the features were
very dissimilar. Mrs, Boyd was a pretty, delicate
little English woman: and Donald took after his
father, a big, brawny Scotsman, certainly not
pretty, and not always sweet. Poor man! he
had of late years had only too much to make him
sour.

Though she tried to smile and succeeded, the
tears were in Mrs. Boyd’s eyes, and her mouth was
quivering. But she set it tightly together, and
then she looked more than ever like her son, or
rather, her son looked like her.

He was too eager in his delight to notice her
much. “It is jolly, isn’t it, mother? I never
thought I’d get to the top of the school at all, for
I’m not near so clever as some of the fellows. But
now I’ve got my place; and I like it, and I mean
to keep it ; you’ll be pleased at that, mother?”

“I should have been if —if-—” Mrs. Boyd tried
to get the words out and failed, closed her eyes as
_ tight as her mouth for a minute, then opened them
and looked her boy in the face gravely and sadly.

“Tt goes to my heart to tell you—I have been
waiting to say it all morning, but Donald, my dear,
you will never go back to school at all.”

“Not go back ; when I’m captain! why, you and
father both said that if I got to be that, I should
stop till I was seventeen — and now I’m only fif-
teen and a half. QO, mother, you don’t mean it!

16

 

Father couldn’t break his word! I may go back !?
Mrs. Boyd shook her head sadly, and then ex.
plained as briefly and calmly as she could, the
heavy blow which had fallen upon the father, and,
indeed, upon the whole family. Mr. Boyd had
long been troubled with his eyes, about as serious
a trouble as could have befallen a man in his pro-
fession— an accountant —as they call it in Scot-
land. Lately he had made some serious blunders
in his arithmetic, and his eyesight was so weak that
his wife persuaded him to consult a first-rate Edin-
burgh oculist, whose opinion, given only yester-
day, after many days of anxious suspense, was that
in a few months he would become incurably blind.
“ Blind, poor father blind!” Donald put his hand
before his own eyes. He was too big a boy to cry,
or at any rate, to be seen crying, but it was with a
choking voice that he spoke next: “TI’ll be his
eyes ; I’m old enough.”
“Yes ; in many ways you are, my son,” said Mrs.
Boyd, who had had a day and a night to face her
sorrow, and knew she must do so calmly. “But
you are not old enough to manage the business;
your father will require to take a partner immedi-
ately, which will reduce our income one half.
Therefore we cannot possibly afford to send you to
school again. The little ones must go, they are
not nearly educated yet, but you are. You will
have to face the world and earn your own living,
as soon as ever youcan. My poor boy!” _
“Don’t call me poor, mother. I’ve got you and
father and the rest. And, as you say, I’ve hada
good education so far. And I’m fifteen and a half,
no, fifteen and three quarters—almost a man.
I’m not afraid.” s
“Nor I,” said his mother, who had waited a full
minute before Donald could find voice to say all
this, and it was at last stammered out awkwardly
and at random. “No; Iam not afraid because
my boy has to earn his bread; I had earned mine
for years as a governess when father married me.

 
  

“I began work before I was sixteen.
S - will have to do the same, that is all.”

- That day the mother and son spoke no more to-

gether. It was as much as they could do to bear
their trouble, without talking about it, and besides,
Donald was not a boy to “make a fuss” over
things. He could meet sorrow when it came, that
is, the little of it he had ever known, but he disliked
speaking of it, and perhaps he was right.
So he just “ made himself scarce” till bedtime,
and never said a word to anybody until his mother
came into the boys’ room to bid them good night.
There were three of them, but all were asleep ex-
cept Donald. As his mother bent down to kiss him,
he put both arms round her neck.

My son

   
   
 
  
   
 
   
  
  
    

“ Mother, I’m going to begin to-morrow.”
“ Begin what, my son?”
“Facing the world, as you said I must. I can’t
go to school again, so I mean to try and earn my
“ How?”
“Y don’t quite know, but I'll try. There are
several things I could be, a clerk — or even a mes-
“sage-boy. I shouldn’t like it, but I’d do anything
_» Yather than do nothing.”

-- Mrs. Boyd sat down on the side of the bed. If

. she felt inclined to cry she had too much sense to

Show it. She only took firm hold of her boy’s

--hand, and waited for him to speak on.

» “Pye been thinking, mother, I was to have a new
Suit at Christmas, will you give it now? And let
it be a coat, not a jacket. I’m tall enough — five
feet seven last month, and.growing still; I should
look almost a man. Then I would go round to
every office in Edinburgh and ask if they wanted a

~elerk. I wouldn’t mind taking anything to begin

~ with, And I can write a decent hand, and I’m not
-.-bad at figures ; as for my Latin and Greek ” —
“Here Donald gulped down a sigh, for he was a
pital classic, and it had been suggested that he
should go to Glasgow University and try for “the
ell” which has sent so many clever young Scots-
men to Balliol College, Oxford, and thence on to
ime and prosperity. But alas! no college career
_Was now possible to Donald Boyd. The best he
could hope for was to earn a few shillings a week
as a common clerk. He knew this, and so did his
. mother, But they never complained. It was no
: “fault of theirs, nor of anybody’s. It was just as
: they devoutly called it, “The will of God.”

 

 

 
 
  
 
 
  

 

 

LACING THE WORLD. 1

“Your Latin and Greek may come in some
day, my boy,” said Mrs. Boyd cheerfully. “ Good
work is never lost. In the meantime, your plan is
a good one, and you shall have your new clothes at
once. Then, do as you think best.”

“ All right; good-night, mother,” said Donald,
and in five minutes more was fast aslcep.

But, though he was much given to sleeping of
nights — indeed, he never remembered lying awake
for a single hour in his life—during daytime
there never was a more “wide awake” boy than
Donald Boyd. He kept his eyes open to every-
thing, and never let the “golden minute” slip by
him. He never idled about — play he didn’t con-
sider idling (mor dol). And Iam bound to confess
that every day until the new clothes came home
was scrupulously spent in cricket, football, and all
the other amusements which he was as good at as
he was at his lessons. He wanted “to make the
best of his holidays,” he said, knowing well that
for him holiday time as well as school time was now
done, and the work of the world had begun in
earnest.

The clothes came home on Saturday night, and
he went to church in them on Sunday, to his little
sister’s great admiration. Still greater was their
wonder when, on Monday morning, he appeared in
the same suit, looking “quite a man,” as they
unanimously agreed, and almost before breakfast
was done, started off, not saying a word of where
he was going.

He did not come back till the younger ones were
all away to bed, so there was no one to question
him, which was fortu-
nate, for they might
not have got very
smooth answers. His
mother saw this, and
she also forbore. She
was not surprised that
the bright, brave face
of the morning looked
dull and tired, and
that evidently Donald
had no good news of the day to tell her.

“J think I'll go to bed,’ was all he said,
“ Mother, will you give me a ‘piece’ in my pocket
to-morrow? One can walk better when one isn’t
so desperately hungry.

“Ves, my boy.” She kissed him, saw that he

 

DONALD LOYD.
18 FACING THE WORLD.

was warmed and fed — he had evidently been on his
legs the whole day —then sent him off to his bed,
where she soon heard him delightfully snoring,
oblivious of all his cares.

The same thing went on day after day, for seven
days. Sometimes he told his mother what had
happened to him and
where he had been,
sometimes not; what
was the good of tell-

same story. Nobody
wanted a boy or a
man, for Donald, trust-
ing to his inches and
his coat, had applied
for man’s work also,
but in vain. Mrs. Boyd was not astonished. She
knew how hard it is to get one’s foot into ever so
small a corner in this busy world, where ten are
always struggling for the place of one, Still, she
also knew that it never does to give in; that one
must leave no stone unturned if one wishes to get
work at all. Also she believed firmly in an axiom
of her youth — “ Nothing is denied to well-directed
labor.’ But it must be real hard “labor,” and it
must also be “well‘directed.” So, though her
heart ached sorely, as only a mother’s can, she
never betrayed it, but each morning sent her boy
away with a cheerful face, and each evening
received him with one, which, if less cheerful, was
not less sympathetic, but she never said a word.

At the week’s end, in fact, on Sunday morning,
as they were walking to church, Donald said to her:
“Mother, my new clothes haven’t been of the
slightest good. I’ve been all over Edinburgh, to
every place I could think of — writers’ offices, mer-
chants’ offices, wharves, railway-stations — but it’s
no use. Everybody wants to: know where I’ve
been before, and I’ve been nowhere except to
school. I said I was willing to learn, but nobody
will teach me; they say they can’t afford it. It is
like keeping a dog, and barking yourself. Which
is only too true,” added Donald, with a heavy
sigh.

“May be,” said Mrs. Boyd. Yet as she looked
up at ber son—she really did look up at him, he
was so tall —she felt that if his honest, intelligent
face and manly bearing did not win something at
last, what was the world coming to? “My boy,”

 

MRS. BOYD.

ing? it was always the -

she said, “things are very hard for you, but not
harder than for others. 1 remember once, when |
was only a few years older than you, finding my-
self with only half a crown in my pocket. To be

sure it was a whole half-crown, for I had paid i

every half-penny I owed that morning, but I had

no idea where the next half-crown would come.”
from. However, it did come. I earned two pounds _~

ten, the very day after that day.”

“Did you really, mother?” said Donald, his o
I'll not.

eyes brightening. “Then J’ll go on.
‘gang awa back to my mither,’ as that old gentle. .

man advised me, who objected to bark himself; a» o

queer, crabbed old fellow he was too, but he was.

the only one who asked my name and address. =

The rest of them — well, mother, I’ve stood a good
deal these seven days,” Donald added, gulping

down something between a “fuff” of wrath and e ‘

sob.
“T am sure you have, my boy.”

“But Pt hold on; only you'll have to get my :
boots mended, and meantime, I should like to try ,

a new dodge. My bicycle, it lies in the washing.

 

 

 

house ; you remember I broke it and you didn't a

wish it mended, lest I should break something
worse than a wheel, perhaps.

It wasn’t worth ~
while risking my life for mere pleasure, but I want —

my bicycle now for use. If you let me have it»

2)

mended, I can go up and down the country for .

fifty miles in search of work —to Falkirk, Linlith-_
gow, or even Glasgow, and I'll cost you nothing
for travelling expenses.
mother?”

She had not the heart to say no, or to suggest thal
a boy on a bicycle applying for work, was a thing
too novel to be eminently successful.

eagerness and pluck. She hoped too, that, spite ”
of the eccentricity of the notion, some shrewd,
kind-hearted gentleman might have sense enough
to see the honest purpose of the poor lad who had
only himself to depend upon. For his father had.
now fallen into a state of depression which made.
all application to him for either advice or help
worse than useless. And as both he and Mrs. Boys

had been solitary orphans when they were married,

Isn’t that a bright idea. —

But to get
work was at once so essential and so hopeless, thal
she would not throw any cold water on Donald's

there were no near relatives of any kind to comts S

to the rescue.

Donald knew, and his mother knew.
too, that he must shift for himself, to sink or swim Be

 
 

FACING THE WORLD, 19

So, after two days’ rest which he much needed,
= the boy went off again “on his own hook,” and
“his bicycle, which was a degree better than his
legs, he said, as it saves shoe-leather. Also, he
~ was able to come home pretty regularly at the same
~ hour, which was a great relief to his mother. But
~ he came home nearly as tired as ever, and with a
 despondent look which deepened every day. Evi-
dently it was just the same story; no work to be
» had; or if there was work, it was struggled for by
. a score of fellows, with age, character, and experi-
“ence to back them, and Donald had none of the
three. But he had one quality, the root of all suc-
: cess in the end, dogged perseverance.

_ There is a saying, that we British gain our vic-
“tories, not because we are never beaten, but be-
Cause we tiever will see that we are beaten, and so
-. go on fighting till we win. “Never say die,” was
~ “Donald’s word to his mother night after night.
But she knew that those who never say die, some-
times do die, quite quietly, and she watched with a
sore heart, her boy growing thinner and more worn,
--even though brown as a berry with constant ex-
-. posure all day long to wind and weather, for it was
now less autumn than winter.
. After a fortnight, Mrs. Boyd made up her mind
that this could not go on any longer, and said so.
"Very well,” Donald answered, accepting her
“decision as he had been in the habit of doing all
his life. —Mrs. Boyd’s children knew very well
_.- that whatever her will was, it was sure to be a just
and wise will, herself being the last person she
ever thought of. — “Yes, I’ll give in, if you think
I ought, for it’s only wearing out myself and my
Clothes to no good. Only let me have one day
“more and Til go as far as ever I can, perhaps to
Dunfermline, or even Glasgow.”
'. She would not forbid, and once more she started
,. him off with a cheerful face in the twilight of the
“-wet October morning, and sat all day long in the
empty house —for the younger ones were now all
going to school again — thinking sorrowfully of
her eldest, whose merry school days were done for-
er.

 

 

   
  
    
   
  
  
 
 
  

  

     
  

 

= In the dusk of the afternoon a card was brought
-oup to her, with the message that an old gentleman

_. Was waiting below, wishing to see her.

-. »s A shudder ran through the poor mother, who,

.. like many another mother, hated bicycles, and

~. Never had an easy mind when Donald was away

 

on his. The stranger’s first word was anything
but reassuring.

“ Beg pardon, ma’am, but is your name Boyd,
and have you a son called Donald, who went out
on a bicycle this morning ?”

“Yes, yes! Has anything happened ?
quick !”

“J’m not aware, ma’am, that anything has hap-
pened,” said the old gentleman. “I saw the lad
at light this morning. He seemed to be managing
his machine uncommonly well. I met him at the
foot of a hill near Edinburgh Castle. He had got
off and was walking; so he saw me, and took off
his cap. I like respect, especially in a young fel-
low towards an old one.”

“Did he know you, for I have not that pleasure?”
said Mrs. Boyd, polite, though puzzled. For the
old man did not look quite like a gentleman, and
spoke with the strong accent of an uneducated
person, yet he had a kindly expression, and
seemed honest and well-meaning, though decidedly
“canny.”

“‘T cannot say he knew me, but he remembered
me, which was civil of him. And then I minded
the lad as the one that had come to me for work
a week or two ago, and I took his name and
address. That’s your son’s writing ?”’ he jumbled

Tell me

 

EDINBURGH CASTLE.

out and showed a scrap of paper.
isn’t it?

* And he really is in search of work? He hasn’t
run away from home, or been turned out by his
father for misconduct, or anything of that sort? He
isn’t a scamp, or a ne’er-do-weel?”

‘I hope he doesn’t look like it,” said Mrs,
Boyd, proudly,

“It’s bona fide,
20 FACING THE WORLD.

“No, ma’am ; you’re right, he doesn’t. He car-
ries his character in his face which, maybe, is bet-
ter than in his pocket. It was that which made
me ask his name and address, though I could do
nothing for him.”

“Then you were the gentleman who told him
you couldn’t keep a
dog and bark your-
self?” said Mrs.
Boyd, amused, and
just a shade hopeful.

“ Precisely. Nor
can I. It would have
been cool impudence
in alad to come and
ask to be taught his
work first and then
paid for it, if he
hadn’t been so very much in earnest that I was
rather sorry for him. I’m inclined to believe, from
the talk I had with him at the foot of the brae to-day,
that he is a young dog that would bark with uncom-
mon little teaching. Material, ma’am, is what we
want. I don’t care for its being raw material, if it’s
only of the right sort. I’ve made up my mind to
try your boy.”

“Thank God!”

“What did you say, ma’am ?
pardon.”

For he saw Mrs. Boyd had quite broken down.
In truth, the strain had been so long and so great
that this sudden relief was quite too much for her.
She sobbed heartily.

“JT ought to beg your pardon,” she said at last,
“for being so foolish, but we have had hard times
of late.”

And then, in a few simple words, she told Don-
ald’s whole story.

The old man listened to it in silence. Some-
times he nodded his head, or beat his chin on his
stout stick as he sat; but he made no comment
whatever, except a brief “ Thank you, ma’am.”

“Now to business,” continued he, taking out
his watch; “for I’m due at dinner; and I always
keep my appointments, even with myself. I hope
your Donald is a punctual lad?”

“Yes. He promised to be back by dark, and I
am sure he will be. Could you not wait?”

“No. I never wait for anybody; but I keep no-
body waiting for me. I’m Bethune & Co., Leith

 

MR. BETHUNE.

But — I beg your

Merchants — practically, old John Bethune, who
began life as a message-boy, and has done pretty
well, considering.”

He had, as Mrs. Boyd was well aware. Bethune
& Co. was a name so well known that she could
hardly believe in her boy’s good luck in getting
into that house in any capacity whatever.

“So all is settled,” said Mr. Bethune, rising.
“Let him come to me on Monday morning, and
I'll see what he is fit for. He’ll have to start at
the very bottom — sweep the office, perhaps — I
did it myself once —and I’ll give him —let me
see — ten shillings a week to begin with.”

“*¢To begin with,’” repeated Mrs. Boyd, gently
but firmly; “but he will soon be worth more. I
am sure of that.”

“Very well. When I see what stuff he is made
of, he shall have a rise. But I never do things at
haphazard; and it’s easier going up than coming
down. I’m not a benevolent man, Mrs. Boyd, and
you need not think it. But I’ve fought the world
pretty hard myself, and I like to help those that
are fighting it. Good evening. Isn’t that your
son coming round the corner? Well, he’s back ex-
act to his time, at any rate. Tell him I hope he
will be as punctual on Monday morning. Good
evening, ma’am.”

Now, if this were an imaginary story, I might
wind it up by a delightful denoument of Mr.
Bethune’s turning out an old friend of the family,
or developing into a new one, and taking such a
fancy to Donald that he immediately gave him a
clerkship with a large salary, and the promise of a
partnership on coming of age, or this worthy gen-
tleman should be an eccentric old bachelor who
immediately adopted that wonderful boy and be-
friended the whole Boyd family.

But neither of these things, nor anything else re-
markable, happened in the real story, which, as it
is literally true, though told with certain necessary
disguises, I prefer to keep to as closely as I can.
Such astonishing bits of “luck” do not happen in
real life, or happen so rarely that one inclines, at
last, to believe very little in either good or ill for-
tune, as a matter of chance. There is always
something at the back of it which furnishes a key
to the whole. Practically, a man’s lot is of his
own making. He may fail, for a while undeserv-
edly, or he may succeed undeservedly, but, in the
FACING THE WORLD. 21

long run, time brings its revenges and its rewards.

As-it did to Donald Boyd. He has not been
taken into the house of Bethune & Co., as a part-
ner; and it was long before he became even a
clerk —at least with anything like a high salary.
For Mr. Bethune, so far from being an old bach-
elor, had a large family to provide for, and was
bringing up several of his sons to his own busi-
ness, so there was little room for a stranger. But
a young man who deserves to find room generally
does find it, or make it. And though Donald
started at the lowest rung of the ladder, he may
climb to the top yet.

He had “a fair field, and no favor.” Indeed,
he neither wished nor asked favor. He determined
to stand on his own feet from the first. He had
hard work and few holidays, made mistakes, found
them out and corrected them, got sharp words and
bore them, learnt his own weak points and — not
so easily —his strong ones. Still he did learn
them ; for, unless you can trust yourself, be sure
nobody else will trust you.

This was Donald’s great point.

Fle was trusted.

People soon found out that they might trust him;
that he always told the truth, and never pretended
to do more than he could do; but that what he could
do, they might depend upon his doing, punctually,
accurately, carefully, and never leaving off till it
was done. Therefore, though others might be
quicker, sharper, more “up to things ” than he,
there was no one so reliable, and it soon got to be
a proverb in the office of Bethune & Co, —and
other offices, too— “If you wish a thing done, go
to Boyd.”

I am bound to say this, for I am painting no im-
aginary portrait, but describing an individual who
really exists, and who may be met any day walking
about Edinburgh, though his name is not Donald
Boyd, and there is no such firm as Bethune & Co.
But the house he does belong to values the young
fellow so highly that there is little doubt he will
rise in it, and rise in every way, probably to the
very top of the tree, and tell his children and
grandchildren the story which, in its main features,
I have recorded here, of how he first began facing
the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SORRY LITTLE KITTY MAKES AN EXPLANATION,

22
4 THE

LIGHTS OF

PARIS. 23

 

THE LIGHTS OF PARIS.

 

By IsaBeL SMITHSON.

 
 

HREE hundred and sixty years
ago there were no lights in the
streets of Paris. People who
wanted to go out in the evening
were obliged to have servants
walking before them with

torches. Those who could not afford

this carried their own lights, while the
very poor people groped along, feeling
their way by the walls and fences.

In times_of war, however, it was the
law for every citizen to put a lighted
candle in his window, and a pail of
water on his doorstep; the light, to keep
away robbers, and the water to be used
in case of fire. What
should we think nowadays,
of a large city with neither
police nor firemen !

The people of Paris did
not obey this law very
strictly ; and there is still
kept among the state
papers an old, old letter,
dated 1525, from Louisa,
the Queen-mother, in
which she announced to
Parliament that her son,

a

  
 
 
  
    
  
  
 
   

 

King Francis the First, had been taken prisoner, and
had lost eight thousand of his soldiers. This news
filled all France with grief and confusion, and Parlia-
ment, fearing riots in the capital, gave strict orders
that all the people should light their window candles
and keep in readiness their pails of water.

Thirty-three years afterwards, at about the time of
Sir Walter Raleigh’s first coming to America, a law
was passed in Paris that on account of the increasing
numbers of “ thieves, robbers and forcers of doors,”
a good light should be kept burning at the corner of
every street, from ten-o’clock at night until four in
the morning, “and where the street is so long
that the said light can not be seen from one end to
the other, there shall be another light placed in the
middle of the said street.” This law was proclaimed
throughout the city with a flourish of trumpets, but
we should have thought the lamp-posts very strange
affairs; for they were merely wooden poles with a
horizontal bar on the top of each, from which hung
an iron pot containing resin and burning tow. It was
much like the light that fishermen carry on theia
masts. Of course this made a great deal of smoke
and a strong smell of tar; but the people did not
mind that, for now they could at least see their way
about the streets at night.

In 1576, when Henry the Third was king, civil
war snuffed out the hanging lights of Paris; for in
24

the confusion of political
quarrels, the street lan-
terns were entirely neg-
lected, and History tells
us what sort of place
Paris was at that time
and what horrible deeds
were committed at night
under cover of the dark-
ness of the streets. In
the reign of the next
king, Henry the Fourth,
and during the civil war
of the Fronde, when the
people refused to obey
their young king, it was
no better. ‘The city was
totally unlighted, and at
night the streets were
thronged with robbers
who hid in the dark cor-
ners watching their
chance to rush out and
rob the passers; and what
made things worse, the

streets were almost entirely without pavements, so
that while a person was busy picking his way through
the mud, he was very apt to be pounced on by one of

 

HE COULD AFFORD IT.

  
  

THE LIGATS OF PARIS.

ise Sex pe eed rechten Oo . rr. |
BE tigre = Ss 7a wes Aa

THE PAIL OF WATER REQUIRED BY LAW.

 

 

 

TO KEEP AWAY ROBBERS.

these freebooters, robbed
of his money and jewels,
and perhaps even murdered.

At last an Italian abbot
named Landati Caraffa
thought of a plan for help-
ing the Parisians out of
their troubles, and at the
same time making himself
rich. He organized a com-

pany of light-bearers to guide people through the
streets at night, for which they charged five sous
(cents) for a quarter of an hour.

Each carried an

 

 

 

 

 

HIS OWN TORCH-BEARER.

THE VERY POOR GROPED ALONa,

 
THE LIGHTS OF PARIS.

oil lamp which gave as much light as six large candles,
and wore in his belt a sand-glass of a quarter of an
hour. When one of these light-bearers was engaged
he would, after receiving his money,
light his lamp, turn down his glass
and set off, and the only drawback
to the usefulness of these walking
lamp-posts was the fact that no one
could answer for their honesty, more
than one of them having been known
to overpower and rob his employer
on reaching a lonely street. Still,
for want of a better, this plan con-
tinued to be carried out, even until
the beginning of the present cen-
tury.

The person who succeeded best
in lighting Paris was also the founder
of the French police force, Nicholas
de la Reynié. In 1667, he was
made Lieutenant-General of police,
and Louis the Fourteenth gave

THE NIGHTFALL CRIER.—~‘ HANG OUT YOUR LANTERNS.”

him for his watchword these three nouns: CZean/i-
ness, Light, Safety; a very difficult programme to

aes

carry out in a city which had no street lamps, which
had never been swept, and which was, besides,
swarming with thieves.

But La Reynié set to work

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
    

TREACHEROUS LIGHT-BEARERS.

vigorously; had the mud and dirt carted away,
formed a large body of night watchmen, and ordered
that candles protected by glass should be hung by
cords from the first story of the houses. It was not
thought necessary, however, to have these lights used
during the summer months, and it was soon discov-
ered that thieves and pickpockets began their work
again as soon as the warm weather returned, so that
scarcely a night passed without the dismal, desperate
cry, “Help! help t” being heard in the streets.

Then the people clamored to have the lights kept
burning the whole year round; and after a great deal
of delay it was decided that the city should be lighted
from the twentieth of October to the thirty-first of
March, which was a gain of forty days, or rather of
forty nights.

The people were very much pleased with this
arrangement, and Madame de Sévigné, who lived in
Paris at that time, said in a letter to her daughter:

“We supped yesterday at Mme. Contange’s, where
we met Mme. Scarron, and about midnight we came
home very gayly without being the least afraid of rob-
bers — thanks to the lights in the streets.”

At the end of the seventeenth century, there were
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

26

in Paris six thousand five hundred of these street
lights, consuming more than a thousand pounds of
candles every night. Each lantern was ornamented
with the figure of a cock, the emblem of ‘watchful-
ness; and just at nightfall a man went through the
streets ringing a bell ; at this signal the people were
obliged to untie the jauterh cords that were fastened
to their houses, let down the lanterns, and light the
candles, which were left burning till two in the morning.

During the terrible winter of 1709, when France

was afflicted with famine as well as war, there were :

 

A WELL-LIGHTED STREET. — 1560-80.

no lights in Paris, for the starved cattle died in such
numbers that there was not enough tallow to make
candles.

Six years later, however, on the night of the twenty-
seventh of August, King Louis the Fourteenth was
taken so ill that every one knew he would soon die, and _
his son-in-law, the Duke of Orleans, sent an order that

-the street lights should be put in their places at once,
to be in readiness in case the little Dauphin (after-
wards Louis the Fifteenth) should have to go through

 

x

THE LIGHTS (OF PARIS.

Paris to the death-bed of his royal great-grandfather.

The glaziers, therefore,-were set to work at once
to get the lanterns ready, ‘Unfortunately, four years
after this a violent hurricane passed over Paris,
breaking all the panes of glass, in the lanterns, and
even bending and twisting the iron rods.

In 1766 the first street lamps appeared.- A cotton
wick steeped in oil was used instead of a candle, and
a reflector was added to increase the light. All.the
candle-lanterns were taken away, and these oil lamps
pur in. their places, and the light was so much more

HOTEL DE CLUNY. .

bright and steady a the people thought the highest
point in street lighting had been reached, and every
one laughed at the old lanterns, as we of to-day laugh
at their oil-lamps, and as our children will, no doubt,
make fun of our gas-lights. ,

These oil lamps were used the entire. year except
at the time of the full moon, when they were always
left unlighted, even though the moon were entirely
clouded over! This foolish custom, POWSVER was
soon done away with,

 
THE LIGHTS OF PARTS, 27

But neither lanterns nor lamps
could interfere with the Abbot
Caraffa’s torch-bearers; they still
waited at the doors of houses
where balls were taking place,
stood at the entrance of theatres,
or went about the streets carrying
their torches and crying out:
“ Who wants a light?” They were
always on hand in time to call the
watchman in case of alarm of fire
or thieves; they would run for a
carriage, escort people home, and
sometimes would even go up-stairs
with belated persons and light the
candles in their rooms! An old
picture shows us some torch-bearers
walking in front of two young peo-
ple who look as if they were not
giving much thought to robbers.

During the French Revolution,
no attention whatever was paid to
the lighting of the city, but yet the
street-lamp played its part —a hor-
rible one —in the fearful tragedy
of that time. The fatal cry “4 a

 
    
 
 
 
  
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
   

ACE NCTE RCE KU 119 os Bfhy-Atine

 

 

 

 

 

THE TORCH-BEARERS STILL ES-
CORTED PEOPLE HOME,

A French writer tells us
that Queen Marie Antoinette
and her brother-in-law, the
Count d’Artois, used often
to go at night from Versail-
les to Paris to attend balls
and theatres, and so the road
between the palaces was al-
ways kept lighted until the
royal coach had passed.
Five leagues and a half —
more than thirteen miles of
street-lights! The illumina-
tion of the “ royal progress ”
was thought by the people

a very brilliant spectacle. THE TIME OF OIL LAMPS. — MAKING MERRY OVER THE OLD CANDLE-LANTERNS,
28 .

danterne !” (To the lantern!) was heard nightly in

the dark streets of Paris, and then a savage, howling ©

mob would come tearing along, diagging some terri-
fied creature who a few minutes later would be swing-
ing lifeless from the iron bar of the street lantern.
Foulon, who was a friend to the king, was the first
one of hundreds who perished in this way during the
Ke: n of Terror.

In 1787 the Argand burner was invented by Aimé
Argand, a native of Switzerland. He made a lamp

THE LIGHTS OF PARIS.

because they got entangled in the catafalque.

Twice were royal funerals interrupted on this way ;
on the twenty-first of January, 181s, the bodies of the
unfortunate Louis the Sixteenth, and Marie Antoi-
nette, his wife, were taken from the cemetery of La
Madeleine, to the church of St. Denis, and as no
one had thought to remove the street lamps, the top
of the funeral-car caught-in the cords of a lantern,
and it took.a long time to disentangle them.

In December, 1840, when the body of Napoleon

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

==

SST SSS

GASLIGHT, LATE AFTERNOON IN THE RAINY SEASON. PORTE ST. MARTIN.

in which a flat wick of twisted cotton was placed
between two tubes, and in the centre the air was able
to circulate freely, while a glass chimney aided the
draught and prevented the wick from smoking.

This invention was made perfect in 1821, by a
lamp-manufacturer named Vivien, and these burners
were used all over Paris until the ‘ntroduction of gas,
eight years afterwards. The lamps were hung over
the gutters, which in those days ran down the middle

the Great was carried to the Church of the Invalides,
great care had been taken to remove the lamps in
those streets where the procession was to pass; but
after the’grand ceremony was over and the empty
funeral car was returning by a shorter way to the
undertaker’s, it was stopped_by a lamp, and had to
be left in the street till the next day.

Some years before this, the discovery of gaslight
was made by a Frenchman named Phillippe Le Bon,

of the street, and the lamps had to be taken down - a very clever engineer.

when a funeral procession passed underneath,

It was already known that hydrogen-gas would
THE LIGHTS OF PARTS, 29

nae Ud te

THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.

burn easily, but Le Bon was the first one to show
how it could be used for lighting.

When he was thirty-one years old, he tried the
experiment of burning some wood, and causing the
smoke to pass through water, and he found that this
would produce a pure gas which when lighted made
a bright flame and an intense heat. He called his
-gas-machine a Zhermo-lampeo, and invited the people

to come and witness his experiment.

_ The new gas was considered very wonderful, but
-was not put to use until long after the death of its
discoverer.

A German named Winsor, took up Le Bon’s idea,

See ee eet

 

 
  
  
  

 

ARC DU CARROUSEL.

and on the last day of the year, 1829, the first gas-
light appeared in Paris. This was’in the Rue de la
Paix; six months later, the Rue Vivienne was lighted,
and then one by one the old oil lamps were taken
down, and before very long Paris contained eight
thousand gas-lights,

In the French capital, however, electricity is, of
course, fast taking the place of gas. It is so much
brighter and so much cheaper that of course in
time, perhaps when the children of to-day are men
and women, all streets and theatres, possibly even
private dwellings, will be brilliantly illuminated by
the silvery moon-like radiance of electric light.

 
30

DOROTHY.

 

DOROTHY.

By Emity A. BRADDOCK,

 

H! it was a sight fearsome, fit to curdle the blood of the stoutest —
That little craft caught in the teeth of the hungry, mad-foaming breakers
That craunched it, and tore it, and broke it, now on the jagged rocks flinging,
Then. catching it back, as tigers sport’ with their prey then devour it;
And the six men up in the rigging, clinging, and praying, and uadaennes
As one would shudder that looked down into his own grave open !
All the fisher-folk were away, six leagues away, to the northward,
Where the night before they had sailed, fast locked by the south gale in harbor ;
Only on the sands there were three old men, peering and moaning :
“Ah! if we were young as we once were, who knows but that we might save them?”
And the women were wringing their hands, with quavering, shrill cries, pitiful.
Among them, poised on her bare feet, like a bird pluming for flying
Over the foam, her brown hair out on the wind streaming and tossing,
Her cheeks flushing and paling, but her eyes clear, stood lass Dorothy.
Straight, strong-limbed and sunbrowned was she, modest, withal, and winsome,
“ Will the vessel break up in an hour? If I thowt so lang she would hing there,
I'd awa’ for the lifeboat,” cried she. “ Nay, nay, lass,” answered old Donald,
“Could you gang the four miles, you could na cross the burn swollen to bursting.”
“TPIl awa’,” spake Dorothy, nothing more; and swiftly she darted
 

Pease tee tee ry ee

 

DOROTHY, . 31

Off to the moor, as from the strained bow the arrow goes leaping.

For a mile the fierce gale she battled; then down to the sands forced to scramble
Where the huge waves were rolling, and through the hollow rocks booming their thunder,
Sped on, through the foam plashing knee-deep, ever fighting for footing,

Till she came to the burn white with wrath, as if with the mad sea leaguing

In vengeance against the foe who, for its prey, with it would wrestle.

What though her heart sank? in she plunged — for, O, the men that were drowning!
Waist-deep, then overhead sinking, seized by a swirling eddy,

Struggling up to her feet, on pressing again, till once more on the moorland,

She breasted the gale, flinging to it the wet garments that hindered.

So reached she at last the house where lived the coxswain of the lifeboat,

And sank at the threshold, swooning, but gasping with wan lips: “ The schooner —

 

On the letch — norrad!” Well knew the coxswain the need that had sent her.
“ Look after the lass, gude wife!” he shouted, and ran for the lifeboat.

_ The blessed lifeboat! how it shot out into the surges, bounding

Away and away — around the Point —close up to the wreck, undaunted !
And lo! the six men dropped into it, saved, as solemnly joyful
As if into heaven they had come, out of death, with its chrism on their foreheads.

Only a simple lass still is Dorothy, never dreaming

That she has done aught heroic. Yet, sometimes, 0’ nights, when the stormwind
Is out, shé smiles as she lays her head on its rude straw pillow,

To think of the six men, somewhere safe, living and loving,

Because she dared through the gale and the foam to run for the lifeboat.
32

A MAN’S A MAN FOR A’ THAT.

A MAN’S A MAN FOR A’ THAT.

By Rosert BURNS.

S there, for honest poverty,
That hangs his head, and a’ that?

The coward-slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toils obscure, and a’ that;
The rank is but the guinea-stamp ;
The man’s the gowd for a’ that. -

What though on hamely fare we dine,
Wear hodden gray,and a’ that ;

Gie fools their silks, and knaves their wine,

A man’s a man for a’ that.

For a’ that, and a’ that,

Their tinsel show, and a’ that ;

The honest-man, though e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that.

_—_—

Ye see yon birkie, ca’d a lord,

Wha struts, and stares, and a’ that;
Though hundreds worship at his word,
He’s but a coof for a’ that ;

For a’ that, and a’ that,

His rib and star, and a’ that,

The man of independent mind,

He looks and laughs at a’ that.

A prince can mak a belted kinght,

A marquis, duke, and a’ that;

But an honest man’s aboon his might,
Guid faith, he mauna fa’ that !

For a’ that, and a’ that,

Their dignities, and a’ that,

The pith o’ sense, and pride o’ worth,

' Are higher ranks than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may,

As come it will for a’ that,

That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,
May bear the gree, and a’ that;

For a’ that, and a’ that,

It’s coming yet for a’ that;
That man to man, the warld o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.

— From Burns Poems,
 

 

 

 

 

 

A MAN FOR A’ THAT.

33
THE WEAVER OF BRUGES.

&
=

THE WEAVER OF BRUGES.

By M. M. P. Dinsmoor.
HE strange old streets of Bruges town
Lay white with dust and summer sun,
The tinkling goat bells slowly passed
At milking-time, ere day was done.

An ancient weaver, at his loom,

With trembling hands his shuttle plied,
While roses grew beneath his touch,

And lovely hues were multiplied.

The slant sun, through the open door,
- Fell bright, and reddened warp and woof,
When with a cry of pain a little bird,
A nestling stork, from off the roof,

Sore wounded, fluttered in and sat
Upon the old man’s outstretched hand ;
“ Dear Lord,” he murmured, under breath,
“Hast thou sent me this little friend ?”

And to his lonely heart he pressed
The little one, and vowed no harm
Should reach it there; so, day by day,

Caressed and sheltered by his arm,

The young stork grew apace, and from

The loom’s high beams looked down with eyes
Of silent love upon his ancient friend,

As two lone ones might sympathize.

At last the loom was hushed: no more
The deftly handled shuttle flew ;

No more the westering sunlight fell
Where blushing silken roses grew.

And through the streets of Bruges town
By strange hands cared for, to his last
THE YOUNG STORK GREW APACE, AND FROM And lonely rest, ‘neath darkening skies,
? YOVW> .
THE LOOM’S HIGH BEAMS LOOKED DOWN .. . The ancient weaver slowly passed ;

 
LONGFELLOW IN WESTMINSTE Rk. 35

Then strangé sight met the gaze of all:

A great white stork, with wing-beats slow,
Too sad. to leave the friend he loved,

With drooping head, flew circling low,

And ere the trampling feet had left
The new-made mound, dropt slowly down,
And clasped the grave in his white wings
His pure breast on the earth so brown,

Nor food, nor drink, could lure him thence,
Sunrise nor fading sunsets red ;

When little children came to see,
The great white stork — was dead.

LONGEELLOW- IN WESTMINSTER?

fr Bap Bag

 

HENRY W. LONGFELLOW.—from photograph of the bust, by
Thomas Brock, A. R. A., now in Westminster Abbey.

HILD! when you pace with hushed delight
The cloistral aisles across the sea,
Whose ashes old of monk and knight
Renew the legends heavenly-bright
That charmed you from your mother’s knee 3

And steal along the Abbey’s nave,
With war’s superbest trophies set,
To some lorn minstrel’s narrow grave,
Who more unto his century gave
Than Tudor or Plantagenet;

Scorn not the carven names august,
Where England strews memorial flowers,
But circled by her precious dust,
Salute, a-thrill with pride and trust,
Your own dear poet, child of ours!

He stands among her mightiest ;
We craved it not, yet be it so.
If his sweet art were least, or best,
Is judged hereafter. For the rest
Speak fondly, that the world may know :=—=

Not any with God’s gift of song
Served men with purer ministries ;

Not one of all this laurelled throng

Held half the light he shed so long
From that high, sunny heart of his!
36

THE WASHINGTONS’ ENGLISH HOME.

By Rose G. Kincstey.

 

_ A WAY in the centre of Northamptonshire,
A among great solemn woods and heavy clay
pastures, lies a stately park round a noble house.
On the hill above sits an ancient brown sandstone
church, brooding like an old hen over her chick-
ens — the yellow-brown sandstone cottages of the
village. And a mile beyond the church, in a smal-
ler village, a low sandstone house stands by the
roadside, with thatched roof, and high gable-ends,
and stone mullioned windows, and an inscription
carved over the door,

The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.
Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Constructa. 1606.

The Park is-Althorp Park, Lord Spencer’s splen-

   

 

y

{

 

 

did home, The church is Brington Church; and i
it contains ‘monuments which should stir every §
American heart. For in the sandstone house at 5
Little Brington lived the ancestor of George Waslr
ington ; and he lies buried in Brington Church with
his wife and several of his children and kinsfolk

Yes! In that low sandstone house—now 4
cottage — Mr. Lawrence Washington, son and heit
of Robert Washington of Sulgrave in Northamp 7
tonshire, lived and died. And it was his second q
son, John, who emigrated in 16 57 to Virginia, there 3
to found the family.of the illustrious first. Presi
dent of the United States,

The Washingtons who were originally a Lance
shire family, had been settled in Northamptor
shire for several generations 3 first in the town d

   
  
 
 
 
  
    
   
 

 

THE WASHINGTONS’

Northampton; then at Sulgrave; and when their
fortunes declined——in consequence, some say, of
the ill luck which always came to. those who held
church property, and the manor of Sulgrave had
belonged to St. Andrew’s Monastery at North-
ampton—and they were obliged to leave Sul-
grave, Lawrence Washington settled at Little
Brington, near his friend and kinsman Sir Robert
Spencer. Some suppose that Lawrence Wash-
ington built the house at Little Brington, and
placed the inscription over the door in token of
his many sorrows and trials — the loss of fortune
and home, for he was forced to sell Sulgrave in
r6ro0, and the deaths of his wife and several
children. Be that as it may, he lived at Little
Brington for some years before his death in 1616.
He was honorably buried in the church at Great
Brington. And his sons William, John, and Law-
rence, were constant guests at Althorp Park, hard
by. In the curious steward’s books which were

i

(oh
Uys

    
 

fee

  

GREAT BRINGTON. CHURCH.— BURIAL PLACE OF THE WASH-
INGTONS.

found some few years ago in: an iron-bound chest
at Althorp, and give every item of expenditure in

the household from: 1623 to 1645, the names of the

Washingtons occur-continually, among the quaint-

ENGLISH HOME. 37

est entries which give one a very clear idea of the
way a great house was managed in those days.
Here are a few examples from the yellow old
housekeeping pages:

1623.
June 21. Lump sugar into the nursery, 3 li. 00-02-09
Sir John Washington and Sir William
Washington, staying in the house,
lobsters given to Mr. Curtis. 4. 00-06-00
Dec. 6. To Legg for the carriage of a doe to
my Lord Archbishop. 00-05-00
Collar of Brawne sent to Mr. Wash-
ington.
1624.
July 3. Sent to my Ladie Washington, Puetts
6. (Peewits). Quailes 3. Hearne r.
Sturgeon. I rand.
Oct. 30. For 12 li. of currants fora great cake. 00-04-00
For butter for a cake, 6 li. 00-02-03

This was the christening cake for “Mistress Katherine
Spencer,” who was baptized Nov. 14. Sir John Washington
and Mr. Curtis being among the guests,

These are only a few out of many mentions of
the brothers whose horses are noted constantly as
being provided with “oates” and so forth. The
friendship between the two families of Washing- -
tons and Spencers was maintained until the out-
break of the Civil War. Young Mordaunt, Sir
John Washington’s eldest son, frequently came
with his father to the house that seems to have
been ever open to them, and where Mistress Lucy
Washington, Sir John’s younger sister was house-
keeper, a post which in those days was often filled
by gentlewomen of good family. It was only in
1641 that these friendly visits ceased — brought to
an end some suppose by political differences, which
at that time were only too apt to sever all ties of
friendship and even of family. Sir John is lost
sight of during the Civil War, though there is no
doubt that he espoused the King’s side against
Oliver Cromwell; and, according to Washington
Irving and other authorities, he and his brother
Lawrence were mixed up in the royalist conspi-
racy of 1656, and found it more safe and. conven-
ient to seek a home in the New World the next
year, with very many others of their defeated
party.

For some years before his. emigration, Sir John
Washington, a widower, with three sons Mordaunt,
John, and Philip, had lived at his manor of South
38 \ THE WASHINGTONS’

Cave, near Hullin Yorkshire. And this explains
why we are usually told that the great Washing-
ton’s ancestors came from the north of England.
So they did—just at last. But their true home
for more than a hundred years had been the noble
county of Northampton. Lawrence Washington
was born and died in the county, his children
were born there too, and Sir John the emigrant
married a Northamptonshire lady, Dame Mary
Curtis, of Islip, and her tomb is in Islip Church
to this day. So that the midlands may justly
claim the honor of having sent forth a son of their
soil, to help in the making of the great American
people.

A few years ago circumstances took me to Bring-
ton Rectory; and day after day I wandered across
to the grand old. church and sat for several hours
at a time, sketching the beautiful tombs of the
many noble Spencers who since-1599 have been
buried there.

(Before that date they were buried at Worm-
leighton, their great house in Warwickshire.)

There lies Sir Robert, whose friendship in-
duced Lawrence Washington to settle at Bring-
‘ton, and there, too, lies William his son, Baron

Spencer of Wormleighton, John Washington’s

friend.

There too is the heart of his son and suc-
cessor the gallant Henry Spencer, who was
made Earl of Sunderland by King Charles on the
blood-stained battlefield of Edgehill, within sight
of his house of Wormleighton, and who fell at
Newbury by Falkland’s side. And there is his
uncle, Edward Spencer, the Puritan — Cromwell’s
friend; whose influence with the Protector saved
Brington Church and those splendid tombs from
destruction at the hands of the Roundhead sol-
diers. How often have I blessed Edward Spen-
cer’s memory when I looked at those exquisite
monuments all fresh and whole, with their grand
recumbent figures, and their carved and painted
and gilded canopies— and thought of the broken
fingers, the mutilated noses, the disfigured armour
and inscriptions in too many of our English
churches.

But unique and magnificent though the monu-
ments be in the Spencer Chapel, what riveted my
attention was a great slab of stone in the pave-
ment of the aisle. It is cracked right across the
middle, but is otherwise uninjured, It bears a

ENGLISH HOME.

coat of arms, on one half of which are two stripes
with three: stars above them; on the other half
three chalices; and beneath runs an inscription
setting forth that

| HRE on ietame-Bopy OF LAWRENCE
"WASHINGTON ->-SONNE & HEIR OBgy
p ROPER THe INETON ——

 

Tae fers ce Oe
nH : Gh “OF IA

ByTLER: OP TEES-IN-THIC COUN TIO «4
OF SYSSEXE ESQVIER-WHOHADISSY.
RY-HER; B:SONNS & 9 DAVCHTERS |
WHICH LAWRENCE DECESSED THE I3 ):

OF DESEMBER-: AS DNi-+I616

"HoV THAT BY: CHANC-oR-cHorce
OF‘ THIS‘HASTSICHT
"KNOW -LIFE-TO-DEATH: RESIGNS
AS-DAY-TO-NIGHT @-# wil
BVT AS THE ene oe
REVIVES -T an
«S'O*CHRIST-SHALL'VS ae
THOVCH TURNED -J0-DVST ge

 

This was the father of the emigrant Sir John,
and those three stars, those two stripes, that were
carried over the ocean to the new home in Vir-
ginia, must have had some connection I think, with
a certain flag that floats very proudly —as it has
reason to do — on thousands of ships that sail that
very ocean —on thousands of flagstaffs through-
out the length and breadth of the American con-
tinent. There are several other Washington tombs
at Brington all with their stars and stripes in
some form or other. But I think you will agree.
with me that Lawrence, the last English ances-

 
THE WASHINGTONS’ ENGLISH HOME, a9

tor of the maker of a mighty nation, is by far the
most interesting member of the family to us nowa-
days.
he sat in the “house-place” of his newly built
home at Little Brington, had any one prophesied
to him that his son John’s descendant was destined
to rule the greatest republic of the modern world.
The old Washington house — till recently a farm-
house, and now a well-to-do labourer’s cottage —
with flowers peeping out of the stone-mullioned
windows, and sparrows building and chattering in
the thatched eaves, and children filling their pitch-
ers at the village pump under the great yew tree
across the road, looks curiously settled and unad-

 

IN SIR JOHN WASHINGTON’S DAY.

venturous, and unaware of the great destinies of
its children,

And now that we have waded through this old
bit of history, let us see what sort of a land the
Washingtons lived in.

I wonder what he would have thought as —

Northamptonshire is a country of big parks, big
woods, big fields, big fences, big trees. The great,
long-fleeced sheep, that fatten by hundreds in the
tank grass pastures, look like mammoths after the
neat, black-faced “south-downs” of Hampshire
and Sussex. The huge white-faced Hereford cat-
tle stare over the hedges like “ Bulls of Bashan,”
or walk in a long line after us across a field, while
our fox-terrier who they are following, takes refuge
under our feet much to our discomfort. There
are few rivers: but wide brooks run through the
bottom-lands, cutting deep channels through the
heavy clay. The land swells up every mile or so
into bleak, rolling ridges like vast green waves

that foam here and there into a crest of
‘ woodland; and it sinks again into damp
valleys, where wreaths of white mist hang
even on summer days. So that one is
for ever going up or down-hill, though
there is not a hill to be called a hill in
the whole county. Sandstone villages,
_with some of the finest churches in Eng-
_land are built along the crest of the
ridges in one long straggling street: |
and the high pitch of the thatched roofs
with their tall chimneys at each end, and
the soft olive-green and yellow brown of
the stone they are built of, give them
a most picturesque appearance. But
though the woods are carpeted in spring
with primroses—and the pastures are
alive with sweet yellow cowslips, and
scores of nightingales sing in the spin-
neys, yet the country is sad to my mind.
It is all grave and solemn. It never
laughs and smiles in the sunshine, like
the southern and western counties —
like some parts even of our beautiful
Warwickshire. The people too have
less of the kindliness and courtesy of
manner that one finds in the South:
but often carry their “love of inde-
pendence ” as they call it, to the verge
of rudeness. Yet, after all, it is a fine
and stately land; and oh! what a hunting county.
What gallops with the famous Pytchley Pack
across those wide grass fields— what splendid
riding over those deep brooks, and great “ Bul-
finches” —as the hawthorn edges are called—a
40

wall of thorns six feet through and fifteen feet high
—that only the finest, heaviest horses can face.
Then what splendid homes there are — great parks
whose owners have been settléd there for hundreds
of years, each with its separate bit of history that
has helped in the making of
England. And chief among
them all is Althorp. Come
with me and let me tell you
of my first walk from Bring-
ton to Althorp Park, where
John Washington was so often
a welcome guest; and let me
show you the very same trees
that he may have climbed
birds’-nesting with young Wil-
liam Spencer, his contempo-
rary and playfellow; and let
us walk through the same
glades where Philip Curtis,
another of the Althorp guests,
may have wandered with fair
Mistress Amy Washington,
John’s sister, whom he mar-
ried in 1620, a year or two
after the marriage of his sis-
ter Mary to John Washing-
ton.

Outside the rectory garden
gates the sun was casting long shadows across the
‘Gravel Walk,” a noble avenue of elms, sadly shat-
tered by the October hurricane of the year before:
but still grand enough to satisfy any one who had not
known their former glory. Far away to the left
across the Valley, Holmby* House of famous
memory, gleamed golden-white on a ridge on in-
tense purple. Everything was bathed in tender
brilliant sunshine, and the air was fresh, clear,
and invigorating, as we neared the high park wall
of olive-green sandstone. A little postern gate
let us into the park, and turning to the left along
the avenue of gigantic elms which runs the whole
way round it inside the wall, we soon reached the
heronry, cut off from the park by tall iron deer-
fencing.

The scene was strangely familiar to me.— Surely

 

* Now spelt Holdenby. It was: here that King Charles the First was
kept ina kind of honourable confinement in 1647, by the Parliamentary
Commissioners.

IN SIR JOHN WASHINGTON’S DAY.— CAVALIERS AND ROUNDHEADS.

THE WASHINGTONS’ ENGLISH HOME,

I must have seen it all before— But no! that was
impossible as I had never set foot in Northampton-
, shire in my life until now. I stood staring and
puzzled, Then it all rushed across me. ‘The

giant stems of the oaks and Spanish chestnut,

 

glistening pale against a dark. background of fir’
and spruce, were for all the world like the end of
a clearing in Canada, or Western New York. I
had seen the same thing hundreds. of times: but
here there were. no. huge stumps left in the clear-
ing —no lumberer’s log hut — but smooth green
turf and trim gravel walks, and long settled peace
and plenty all about.

But now the silence was broken by strange
sounds overhead — clanking and rattling as of
chains smitten together, with wild hoarse cries.
The trees above us were bare and broken. Some
blight seemed to have fallen on them, and stripped
the bark, and torn the small branches, I looked
again, and in the blasted trees I saw huge birds
moving to and fro, and piling broken twigs into
rough untidy heaps. We were in the midst of the
heronry; and the herons were building their
nests; while the noise of clanking chains was made
by their long bills clappering together with a strange
THE WASHINGTONS? ENGLISH HOME,

metallic sound, as they flapped backwards and
forwards quarrelling over the possession of some

 

favorite fork
in the trees
that they
are gradu-
_ally destroy-
ing. John
Washington
must have
often seen
the ancestors of those great gray. birds; for in
the Althorp Steward’s Books that I have al-
ready quoted mention is constantly made of the
“ hearnes.”

  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    

41

One day “Creaton” gets three shillings, for
climbing nine herons’ nests. A. day after “four-
teen hearnes”
are sent to
Wormleighton ;
young ones I
suppose that
Creaton took out of the nests,
In one week some years later,
twenty-five herons’ nests are
climbed. ‘“ Hearnes” are sent
‘as presents to Lady Washington and the neigh-
bors, and so forth. But I shall have more to tell
you about the herons before I let you go, so let us
leave them screaming and quarrelling and push
on into the park.

At length another avenue, with one fallen

=a
ww

\ giant elm lying across it — measuring eighty feet

from where it split off some thirty feet from the
ground —led us down towards the house. And
then a gate in the deer-fence let us into the garden
and arboretum, with rows of ancient
trees marking its confines.. The
emerald turf was studded with thou-
sands of gay little winter aconites
lifting their yellow heads to the sun
out of their petticoats of close green
leaves, and countless snowdrops
ringing their dainty white bells,
looking like downy patches of new-
fallen snow on the grass. Among
the beautiful groups of rare and
curious trees we wandered on till
we came to the “ Oval’”’—an oval
pond, some three hundred yards
long — covered with tiny dabchicks,
and busy coots and moor hens
who perpetually chased each other through the
water on to the island in the middle, and disap-
peared among the scarlet fringe of dogwood, to
emerge on the other side ready for a fresh chase
and frolic. Stately swans basked in the sunshine
on the water, or stretched their long necks and
shook their white wings on shore. Up from the
water sloped banks of smooth-shaven turf; and

some fifty feet back from the pond rose an encir-

cling line of huge single trees, any one of which was
a.study in itself, and in whose tall tops jackdaws
kept up an. incessant chatter over their housebuild-
ing and love-making.
42 THE WASHINGTONS’

Althorp House lay away to our right — the great
white house with its priceless books — the finest
private library in Europe it is said —and its price-
less pictures — portraits by every famous painter
for four hundred years — besides Italian and
Flemish paintings, some of which, thanks to their
owner’s generosity, may be seen every winter in the
Loan Exhibitions at South Kensington or Burling-
ton House. But we had no time to explore the
treasures of Althorp House on that early spring
afternoon ; so we turned up past the dairy — filled

throughout with pots and pans of Dresden china —
"and reached the limits of the garden.
The gate in the deer-fence was locked: but we

ENGLISH HOME.

look and one ear cocked up and the other down,
and a couple of Teckels—long-backed, bandy-
legged, satin-coated, black-and-tan German turn-
spits, with delicate heads like miniature blood-
hounds, and sad pathetic eyes — poured out upon
us an avalanche of heads, tails, legs and barks.
But their bark is worse than their bite; and they

are soon begging to share the delicious tea and bread
and butter with which we are regaled.

The head
keeper Mr. C , is past ninety ; and his father,
who was head keeper before him, died when he
was past ninety; and his son who will be head
keeper when the dear old man is gone to his rest,
has every right to live to the same ripe old age;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

STREET IN LITTLE BRINGTON.

made for another which brought us out close to the
head keeper’s house. It is a beautiful old sand-
stone building of the sixteenth century ; and as we
knocked at the massive oak door, studded with
nails and clamped with iron, an inscription on the
stone lintel, rudely carved with a knife, caught my
eye:

THOMAS PADGET
KEEPER
1672.

A chorus of dogs answered our knock; and as the
door opened, a splendid Skye terrier with knowing

for his mother also came of a long-lived family.
Her brother, who died quite recently, served in the
American War of Independence.

But what a picture the old man is, in his well-
made shooting coat with innumerable pockets, and
his tight snuff-colored breeches, and top boots —
and what a perfect gentleman he is, with courtly,
highbred manners that this schoolboard-taught
generation-may strive and struggle after, but never
attain, in spite of all their boasted civilization.
He has lived among the great of the world; but
he knows his place, and keeps it too. And though
his grandchildren are barristers and clergymen he
            

 

LITTLE. BRINGTON, ENG,— AT THE VILLAGE PUMP.
44 THE WASHINGTONS’

is “My Lord’s head keeper,” and proud he is of
his position.

The hounds. came past on Saturday, his grand-
‘daughter said ; and though he had been ailing for
a day or two, the old man ordered his horse, and
-escorted the Empress of Austria across the Park.

“Ves,” he said, “I saw.them all.— There was
Lord , he came ard spoke to me, and I asked
how his son was — nice boy he was—used to be
‘often at Althorp. He said he was in Ireland.
And Squire B come and spoke to me—Ah
‘yes! they all know me. Last time the Prince of
‘Wales was here, he came up to see me — but I was
-out.”

And the fine cheery old face lights up at the
remembrance of all these little attentions. I told
thim I had never seen a heronry before, and he
‘beamed again.

“Ah! now,” he said, “TI am pleased they’ve
‘gone back there! At one time I was afraid as
they’d all go away. They took to. building in a

 

 

‘little spinney close down here in Holdenby fields +

‘but I wasn’t going to stand that—so I took a man
or two, and pulled every one of their nests right
down; and then they went back to the old place.
I was ea for they’ve built there ee between two
‘hundred and three hundred years.”

He told us that the herons go out at night in
‘long lines, two and two, and rob the fish ponds and
the shallows for miles round — standing motionless
‘under the hedges waiting for the favorable hour to
‘begin, like a regiment of soldiers: and before
‘morning they came home with their pouches
‘crammed with fish and 4
eels. One he said
‘brought home an eel
hook and well besides
the eel, and got himself
‘hooked up in the trees
by it, and would have
‘starved to death had not
the keepers climbed up
-and released him.

But now the sun is
getting low, and we turn
thomewards across the
Park, past the herds of END

 

OF A LANE IN BRINGTON.

ENGLISH HOME.

deer under the great trees feeding up to the sunset ;
and overhead stream up countless thousands of
rooks and their attendant jackdaws. Away to

the west, from out of the eye of the setting sun,

 

they come, seemingly an interminable line ever
growing and increasing; and then when they
settle down in the trees on the knolls above the
house, what a sea of sound their voices make, till
night. falls and quiets
them. -
Up the avenue the
church tower over the
Washington graves
glows against the bright
evening sky: and as we
near home children’s
voices playing round the
old Market Cross by
_the Rectory gates, rise
shrill and clear, and we
are once more in the
work-a-day world.
SONGS OF PRAISES, 45.

SONGS OF PRAISES.

By Mrs. A. D. T. WHITNEY.

N a dried old mow, that was once, alas!

A living glory of waving grass,

A cricket made merry one winter’s day,

And answered me this, in a wondrous way,

When I cried, half sharply, “Thou poor old thing!

How canst thou sit in the dark and sing,

While for all thy pleasure of youth thou starv-
est?”

— “I’m the voice of praise that came in with the

harvest !”

I went away to the silent wood,
And down in the deep, brown solitude,
Where nothing blossomed, and nothing stirred,

Up rose the note of a little bird.

“Why carollest thou in the death of the year,
Where nobody travelleth by to hear?” ;
— “Tsing.to God, though there be no comer,
Praise for the past, and the promise of summer!”

I stopped by the brook that, overglassed
With icy sheathing, seemed prisoned fast 5
Yet there whispered up a continual song,

From the life underneath that urged along.

“© blind little brook, that canst not know
Whither thou runnest, why chantest so?”

— “J don’t know what I may find or be,

But I’m praising for this: I am going to see!”

THE TROUBADOURS.

By Grorce Fosrer Barnes.

LACED in the broad
light of our practical
times, the history of
those old days when
the Troubadours
flourished seems like
a story, or, as Na-
poleon would have
said, “a fable agreed
upon.”

The Troubadours
were men who made
the composition and
recitation of poetry
a profession. Many
of them were actors,
and mimics, and jug-
glers, and the pro-

fession was at one time a very lucrative one, its

members frequently retiring from business loaded

 

with gold and valuable goods given them by the
weakhy people whom they had amused. An old
song relates how one of them was paid from the
king’s own long purse with much gold and “ white
monie.”

To be a Troubadour then, was to be a juggler,
a poet, a musician, a master of dancing, a conjurer,
a wrestler, a performer of sleight-of-hand, a boxer,
and a trainer of animals. Their variety of accom-
plishments is indicated by the figures on the front
of a chapel in France, erected by their united
contributions. It was consecrated in September,
1335. One of the figures represented a Trouba-
dour, one a minstrel, and one a juggler, “each
with his various instruments.” Like others occu-
pied in a trade or profession at that time and
since, they bound themselvesinto one great soci-
ety, or “trade union ;” and we are told that they
had aking. It is certain that they often travelled
in companies from place to place in search of
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BEFORE THE CASTLE GATES AT NIGHTFALL.
THE TROUBADOUTURS.,

employment, and often in midwinter they ap-
- peared before the castle gates at nightfall, a group
of crimson, and violet, and velvet-black, relieved
against the shadowed snow.

The richer class of Troubadours did not travel
at this season. They remained at home during

47

well pounded. It is related of one that while
returning from a visit to a certain lord, having
reached a deep and dangerous forest, he was sud-
denly set upon by thieves who haunted these gloomy
shades. They took from him his horse, his
money, and even his clothing, and were about te

 

THE TROUBADOUR SINGING TO THE THIEVES.

the winter and composed, or learned new verses,
and thus prepared themselves for a fresh cam-
paign; and with the first upspringing of the grass
they came forth like song birds, flocking joyously
from city to city, from castle to castle, with their
flutes and rebecs, their wonderful stories of Ar-
thur’s Round Table, of wild horses of the forest
bearing fair maidens lashed to their backs forever,
of towers dragon-guarded.

The life of the wandering Troubadour must
needs have been one of romance and adventure.
Not infrequently did he picture to the life in his
lyric some well-known character of the day and
the neighborhood ; and it followed that if the hero
of the song or recital was of a revengeful nature,
the Troubadour was frequently waylaid and

kill him, when the captive Troubadour begged to
be allowed to sing one more song before he died.
Obtaining consent, he began to sing most melodi-
ously in praise of thievery and of these particular
thieves, whom he so delighted with his sweet
compliments and admiration that they “ returned
him his horse, his money, and everything they
had taken from him!”

But there were often pleasanter scenes “under
the greenwood tree.” Picture to yourself a com-
pany of the merry singers, in fantastic array,
halted beneath the broad and protecting boughs.
Can you not hear the jest go round, the free
laugh ring out, and echoing in the old woodland, as
these Troubadours, those human songsters, revel in
the joy of their out-of-door life, and breathing the
48

“Healthful airs of the forest? What is the world
‘of ‘war ‘and loss, burning ‘castles and tumbling
thrones, to them? What but so much material for
‘moving, ‘thrilling song?

These roving ‘minstrels were often of great
secret service to armies in time of war, for they
could travel where others could not, and many
were the momentous missions they undertook. The
Troubadour was always free to go and come,
a welcome guest, a jolly good fellow. ‘The camp
fires might be burning, armies moving from base
to base, but amid the tramp of marching men
and the shifting of military posts he was secure
in his privilege as a neutral person. Asa

song, the turning of three somersaults, or a new wh ie Z ee

jest was sufficient password to hostile camps,
it naturally followed that he should often be >}

outer lines, and into castles whose gates were
closed by armed men. Imagine him spirit-
edly reciting some heroic tale to a group of
rough and iron-clad warriors — restless soldiers
of tortune, who listen to him with savage in-
terest, clinking their swords as an accompani-
ment to his song. While they make jokes at
his expense they house and feed him. They
reward him with curious trinkets taken in bat-
tle, a quaint ring, or ancient bracelet, a gem-
crusted drinking-cup, which serves to swell
his possessions. But the cunning Trouba- 4
dour takes the number of theirspears. He fi
spies the secret gates
where the men go in
and out at night bear-
ing supplies of pro-
visions and arms. He
learns the plans for to-
morrow’s foraging. In
short, a song, a simple
story, a few amusing
tricks, secretly turns
the tide of battle, set-
tles the fate of kings
and queens,

Among the many
unhappy queens of
merry England, Elea-
nora of. Aquitaine stands in her place. Her
‘reign was full of trouble and misfortune, although
‘Henry the Second was a most peace-loving king of

employed as a spy or messenger, penetrating * Coes ff Ae el

UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE.

THE TROUBADOURS.

his time. Referring:to her ambitious and captive

son, Richard -Cceur de Lion, who, bythe way, was .
a Troubadour, she describes herself in one of her

letters to the Pope: “ &ileanora, by the wrath of

God, Queen of England.”

Well, the turbulence of her reign was often due
to the war songs of Troubadours; for if. ever
it occurred that hér impetuous sons were inclined
to a season of peace, the Troubadours always
broke into their retirement with passionate and
boastful zevsons which urged them to revolt and

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
    
    

 

 

 

 

 

battle. As the Marseillaise has resounded in the
streets of Paris in our time, inspiring men and
women with feelings of enthusiasm and reckless
THE TROUBADOURS. |

valor, so certain subtle recitations of the minstrels
roused the insurgent sons of Eleanora to rebellion
and deeds of blood. ‘The peace of a kingdom, the
ties of kindred, the affairs of state, were over-
turned by a mere song. Chief of these political

 

49

France, and Spain, exciting passion, distrust, and
hatred among high and low. So skilful was
he in creating discord and manipulating intrigue,
that Dante fittingly assigned him a place in the
Lnferno.

IN THE REIGN OF ELEANOR OF PROVENCE.

Troubadours, and a personal friend of these war-
_ like sons of Eleanora, was the Baron Bertrand
de Bosn. This French nobleman was a born
revolutionist, impetuous, violent, and his verses
on the lips of Troubadours, penetrated England,

of one of the earliest Troubadours, whose works
have reached down to our day; and many of the
songs of that day are addressed to hers One
of her Troubadour train, after a life of devotion to
poetry and romance, became a monk and ended

Eleanora herself was the granddaughter
50

his days amid the sober scenes and subduing
influences of an abbey in the Limousin.

Retiring from the world into the bosom. of the
Church, seems to have been a favorite closing act
among the Troubadours. Many of them did so from
ignoble or selfish motives, but some were actuated
by religious convictions, no doubt. Great ladies,
also, whose beauty had been made famous by the
Troubadours, frequently sought in the end, peace-
ful nunneries from which they never came forth
again.

Many of the productions of the Troubadours con-
tained from fifteen to twenty thousand verses, and

therefore required much time in the delivery, es- .

pecially. as they were accompanied by music.

When one performer became weary another
took his place, and thus continued the linked
sweetness to an almost
endless length. The
‘Troubadour was a reformer
of manners and the creator
of many pleasing offices,
some of which exist to
this day. For instance:
In the reign of Eleanor
of Provence, queen of
England, we have our first
glimpse of a poet-laureate ;
and the office since be-.
come so glorious with
song, undoubtedly sprung
out of the literary tastes
of the Provengal queen,
who was herself a singer,
and had been surrounded
in her youth by Trouba-
dours and minstrels. But
this kindly harboring of
Troubadours came near

being the death of the king,
' her husband; for one night a gentleman known
as “a mad poet” was so well used in the hall
that he got into high spirits and amused the royal
household by “joculating for their entertainment,
and singing some choice minstrelsy.” But he
seems all the while to have had another end in
view, for at a convenient moment he crept into
the king’s bedchamber armed with a very sharp
knife which he plunged into the royal couch. For-

tunately the king was not there, and although the.

THE TROUBADOURS.

mad poet called loudly for Henry, demanding that
he show himself and be killed, the search was in
vain. The poor poet had to pay for this attempt,
being executed at Coventry.

For many years the Troubadours continued
to sing at ancient windows and in lordly halls,
But their numbers gradually grew less, until few
were left of all that happy profession. As times
grew more peaceful, and pleasq ‘ter occupations
increased, the romance of chivalry, the wild leg-
endry of feudal courts and fields waned in inter-
est for the people, until only an occasional stroller
was seen no more in princely dress, slowly travel-
ling along some lonely road in quest of such
warmth or comfort as a charitable or inquisitive
person might give him by listening to his worn-out
songs. Instead of receiving a cloak of cloth of sil-

 

THE LAST MINSTREL.

/

ver inwoven with gold as a reward, he was. content
with a bed of straw. There is much pathos in
those lines of Walter Scott which describe the last
minstrel as forsaken by all except an orphan boy :

The bigots of the iron time _

Had called his harmless art a crime.

A wandering harper, scorned and poor,
He begged his bread from door to door;
And tuned to please a peasant’s ear,
The harp a king had loved to hear.
 

AN ARAPAHOE BABY CARRIAGE.

 

THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS.

By MarcaretT SIDNEY.

ENTURIES of wrong
often right themselves
by the refusal of scales
to longer blind the ‘eyes
of “the powers that be.”
And poetic justice is sat-
‘isfied when retribution
is meted out from the
long garnering of silent
abuses. Sometimes we
can afford to wait for these slow processes in
the which Justice comes tardily to herself. In our
backward glance over our dealings as new-comers
with our Indian brethren, the owners of our boasted
possession — this goodly land, we exclaim: “Why
was Justice so slow to take the sword herself?”
That will do for the past. Having awaked and
turned our faces toward the light, we only ask
now, “ What can we do for the Indian to requite

 

him?”

It is some comfort to know that much has been
_ done for him. That into the seething turmoil of
- Many political problems, and the almost. over-
whelming mass of matter, great and small, that

clogs the Congressional wheels, has penetrated the
thin blade of a “This do; for the Lord requireth
it at thy hand.”

So now the Indian stands at our right hand,
not so much as a suppliant, but a brother demand-
ing his rights ; and having awaked to our duty, we
gladly, yet with considerable perplexity as to the
how, cast about in our minds what and how to re-
quite.

Brave men have worked at the problem long,
Women as brave, have struggled on and prayed.
Their work stands before us all as monuments of
wonder in the face of everything but despair.

“ The Carlisle School for the education of Indian
youth” is one of these huge endeavors success-
fully wrought out. For the young people and
the family, this volume gives space to a de-
scription, with authentic pictures, of its inception,
its working force, its methods and plans, that
by this study of what has been done, what is still
being achieved, and what the future is to bring,
we may all come soméwhat more understandingly
to a clearer idea of the claims of the Indian upon

us, 5 I
52 THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS.

How did the school begin? In 1875, some
Indian prisoners were sent for various misdemean-

 

CAPT, R. H. PRATT.

ors from the Indian Territory as prisoners to
Florida. By order of General Sheridan, the War
Depariment placed R. H. Pratt,
rst Lieutenant Tenth U. 5.
Cavalry over them as superin-
tendent. They located in the
sleepy Spanish town St. Augus-
fine. Lieutenant Pratt, with
the Christian energy that all
of us who know him recognize
as one grand element of his
success in this chosen life-work,
immediately set to work with
a zeal unparalleled, on this
most difficult problem, “How
furnish mental knowledge and
industrial training at one and
the same time, to these down-
trodden creatures?”

A record of this part of the
work would be intensely inter-

esting; how he enlisted the sympathy and aid

of several ladies wintering in St. Augustine,

who volunteered to help teach the Indians;
how he seized the. meagre opportunities afforded
to train them industrially, by setting them to
pick oranges, grub the land, to boat pine logs
and construct out of them log huts, that they
might learn how to replace their skin tepes; how
every chance to teach them practical methods of
selfsupport was most eagerly grasped. But the
space is short, and Carlisle beckonsus on. Suffice
it to say that a marked success was his, resulting
in the sending to General Armstrong, at Hampton
Institute, first seventeen pupils, then fifty-two more,
including girls. Then Lieutenant Pratt proposed
to the Interior and War Departments to undertake
the education of two hundred and fifty to three
hundred children at the old military Barracks at
Carlisle, Pa., which was accepted.

This was the beginning of the Carlisle School
which opened on the first of November, 1879, with
one hundred and forty-seven students.

Now, then, what and where were “ the Old Bar-
racks?”

The Old Barracks were first erected and occupied
as a prison for. the Hessian troops captured by
Washington at Trenton in 1776. The old Guard
House built at the time by these Hessian prison-
ers still remains. Other buildings, in the shape

of those now standing, were erected during the.
Florida War, 1835-36, remaining until 1863, when

   

THE DINING-ROOM.

they were burnt by Fitz Hugh Lee, who then
shelled the town of Carlisle. In 1864-65 they
THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS. 53

were rebuilt by the Government, and occupied
till 1872 as a training school for cavalry, when
they were left unoccupied until the opening of
the Indian school in 1879. For many years
before the war they were occupied as a training
school and depot for instructing soldiers in the art
of war, whose principal duty was to fight Indians !
(Poetic Justice takes grim satisfaction in this over-
turning of the Old Barracks.) The buildings stand
to the west of the town of Carlisle, occupying the
sides of a square used for parade ground, etc.,
one being occupied by the superintendent and his

ness the workings of the Carlisle School. The
the day was raw and chill, but our reception was of
sunniest and most cheering description. As our
party of fifty-four drew up in carriages, barges,
stages, and various kinds of vehicles pressed into
duty for the occasion, before the door, the whole
atmosphere, eloquent with its old historic mem-
ories, seemed to ring with new life, and we forgot
cold, and snow, and sleet, and stepped in, glad as
birds at harbinger of spring. Truly springtime of
hope and promise is budding for the poor Indian,
thought we. After paying our greeting to the

 

INDIAN GIRLS FROM TEN TRIBES.— GIRLS’ QUARTERS AND PAVILION BAND STAND.

staff, another by teachers and female pupils’ dor-
mitories, a third as dormitory for the boys.
Other buildings have been either converted from
old ones or newly built to meet the needs for
chapel, infirmary, refectory, schoolhouse, gymna-
sium, trade-schools, etc. So much for the buildings.
One portion of one of the large number only can
be given here, with an interesting group of girls
seated on the lawn.

It was on a cold, snowy day in March, 1883,
that, responsive to an invitation from Secretary
Teller, my husband and I joined the Congressional
party of Senators and Members going with their
wives, daughters and a few invited guests, to wit-

superintendent and his wife, and those of the ine
structors who were at leisure, everything was
delightfully informal, and we were allowed free
range to observe, criticise, and admire. Bright-
faced, earnest-eyed young creatures met us on
every hand; girls with a sweet, ladylike demeanor,
boys respectful, quiet and manly. Iscanned them
closely, to catch the stolidity and habitual dulness
of the down-trodden Indian, but except in very
rare cases, found only a hopefulness, and a look
ing forth of soul, to meet my gaze. It seemed to
say to me, “ Wait! we will yet awake and repay all
that is being done for us.”

There was a most delightful lunch served by
54

the deft hands of a corps of Indian girls, Then
we began the much more delightful tour of inspec-
tion.

The dining-room looked very bright and cheer-
ful as we passed in, with its neat table appoint-
ments, and tidy, white-aproned young girls as
waitresses. What a revelation to all womanly
instincts is this one room with its duties apper-
taining, to a mind running wild on the plains, and
knowing nothing of the sweet home-y-ness of
daily life.

As the children come from the plains into the

és

THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS.

the knowledge they long for can never be theirs,
The presence of their loved leader is with them,
sustaining and reassuring. How can they be
afraid ? ;

No child comes unwillingly to Carlisle. The
only difficulty to contend with in the whole matter
is the inadequate means to bring the large num-
ber, ready and waiting, into the civilization that
instruction by competent teachers alone can supply.
When the appropriation is what it should be, so
that an education lies within the reach of every
Indian’ child, our consciences will be somewhat

 

NAVAJOS IN NATIVE DRESS,

new atmosphere of school and family life, the
world seems suddenly to assume limitless possibil-
ities of terror. They huddle on the lawns in their
blankets, bone necklaces, skin moccasons and other
toggery of their native life, going to Mother Nature
for comfort in, and explanation of, this new extrem-
ity. A house to their eyes seems to beckon into
such a region of confinement, that for the first few
wild moments, life on the boundless plain, chasing
animals about as civilized as themselves, appears
the only delightful thing on earth.

The group here represented, is a quiet, self-con-
trolled one, evidently realizing that by each one
must be sturdy acceptance of offered good, else

¢

freer of burdens concerning them. For only by
an education i the best sense of the word, meaning
that introduction into knowledge of practical influ-
ence in home training, practical experience in all
manual trades, tilling of the land, etc, and practi- |
cal rooting and grounding in at least rudimentary
mental acquirements, till they are like edged tools,
simple it may be, but ready for action, can the
Indian be converted from his low savage condi-
tion, and we be released from the care of him.

To become self-supporting is the first advance

‘that nation or individual makes toward civilization.

Hence any working at the problem of the Indian
question of to-day, in any other way than the first
THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS, 55

simple proposition, that man, as a reasonable being
must work if he would live, is both sentimental
and useless. Methods of work must then be laid
before the subject for civilization; and avenues
toward trades of all sorts, freely opened as to any
other specimen of humanity in our land, with a right
to practice such wherever he please, and the most of
our part in the matter will have been accomplished.
The Indian will take care of himself, We shall
hear very little of the terrible atmosphere now
clinging to him. To thoughtful minds who have
most broadly and conscientiously grasped the
situation, the “terrible classes” now swarming in
communistic secret strougholds throughout our
great city-centres, are infinitely more to be dreaded
than the educated Indian.

Here are some of the faces of “our boys and
girls,” as they lovingly call them at Carlisle. Most
of them have probably been but a few months
surrounded by the atmosphere of happy home and
school life; many probably first entering in the
abject state of terror before described; now in
greater terror at the prospect of being recalled
to their reservations when school-life ends. They
do not look very dangerous, do they? Ah! could
you see and talk with them, and watch the bright
expression, the earnest purpose, the pathetic grati-
tude, it might enlighten you a bit, and thereby
cause a wholesome revolution in your pet theory
on the subject.

The bakery at Carlisle affords a most interest-

 

THE INDIAN BAKERS,

ing practical refutation of the statement that the
Indian is incapable of using knowledge to any

benefit to his fellows. Whoever can turn out such
good bread as we saw with our own eyes, and

 

“OUR BOYS AND GIRLS.”

tasted and enjoyed with our own mouths, is a
real benefactor to the human race. It shamed
much that we put on our family
tables as the best result of Dinah’s
or Norah’s kitchen administration.
It was so pure and white and
sweet — well-baked and conscien-
tiously kneaded ; truly a most im-
portant proof of the Indian’s
adaptability to domestic duties,
Does it not make you want some
to see it in the picture?

An Arapahoe boy has charge
of the bakery; and assisted by a
Sioux and a Pawnee, bakes nearly
two barrels of flour into the loaves,
as you see in accompanying cut,
every forenoon of the week, with
the exception of Sunday. After-
noons these boys spend in the schoolroom.

Mental discipline and manual labor are given
56

their proper placés at Carlisle. No encroachments
on the other’s rights is allowed either, by the wise ad-
ministration at the head of affairs there. The chil-

 

THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS,

tact that brings out the best in the Indian charac.
ter, constantly used by the man who is working
out the daily problem of their elevation. Edgar
Fire Thunder, a bright, in-
teresting boy, was making us
a speech of welcome, and also
describing his entrance into,
and life at the school. All
was going on well; guests were
pleased with his sturdy, self-
possessed manner, and inter-
ested inhis manly words. Sud-
denly poor Edgar, like many
another in similar position,
found that the graceful wind-
ing-up of his speech had treach-
erously forsaken him. All his
pleasing unconsciousness was
gone, leaving a mild kind of
stage fright. How we sym-
pathized with the poor fellow,

 

 

THE TIN SHOP.

dren are taught what they will use when going out
from the school. In all cases, the training is done
patiently, systematically, sensibly and thoroughly.
It is a happy, busy place, where the individuality
of each child is brought out healthfully; his or her
bent of mind carefully studied, and its wants pro-
vided for. If a boy shows a taste for wagon-
making, he is allowed to follow it, and not thrust
into the tin shop, where, like many another boy

obliged to pursue a given calling against his will, .

he might turn out stupid and spoil a very genius
for producing wagons.

The wagon shop at Carlisle has twelve appren-
tices constantly employed making wagons for the
Indian service; sending them into nearly every
Territory, even to Washington Territory and Ore-
gon. Captain Pratt writes me: “ During my recent
trip to the West, I saw quite a number of our
wagons in use by the Government and the Indians,
and rode nearly two hundred miles in one.” [We
know the good Captain enjoyed that ride more than
the pleasure afforded by the most luxuriously
appointed car on the whole Pacific route !]

Speaking of the thoroughness of the training -

given at Carlisle, one little incident which deeply
interested us all, will serve as fitting illustration;
also giving some faint idea of the kind, delicate

and hung on his forlorn

efforts to recover the cue,
Captain Pratt stood patiently waiting at the side
of the room for the lad to recover himself; and as
Edgar became at last still and hopeless, like a
stranded thing on the tide of endeavor, there broke
out such a kind, cheery voice, that it touched
every heart.
“Edgar works in
the blacksmith’s

shop,” the voice
said; “now if he
will go to the

shop, and put on
his working suit,
the Secretary,
Senators and par-
ty will meet him
there to see him
weld an axle in
one heat.”

The boy’s face
fairly glowed.
Chagrin and
hopeless depres-
sion forsook him,
and he lifted up his head with restored manliness,
and strode out, again his sturdy little self. I
never saw such a kindly thing more delicately

   

TOM NAVAJO,
THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS,

done, and I know I express the feelings of the
company, when I say, that to us all it was a spon-
taneous proof of the
Spirit of Carlisle
School. It is only
proper to add that the
party did respond to
the invitation, Senator
Logan saying after-
ward that he was sure
the boy could do that,
for he had seen him.

The tin shop gives
work to fourteen ap-

prentices. It is a
most interesting de-
partment. The arti-

cles are strong and
well-made,
varied description.
My tiny coffee-pot will
often, as I make the
“fireside cup o’ coffee
for two,” take us back to the day at Carlisle, and
brighten the evening talk in the firelight.

Last year, from the tin shop, were sent out over
fifteen thousand articles, also seven tons of stove-
pipe; all despatched to the agencies for the use of
the Indians. No finer buckets, coffee-boilers
and pans, I presume, are made than those turned
out by some of the Indian boys.

The carpenter shop has twelve apprentices,
and has charge of the general repairs and con-
struction of new buildings at the school. Under
Supervision of the carpenter, the large hospital
building was built by Indian boys. ,

The hospital and care of the sick is under the
charge of Doctor O. G. Given, of Washington,
Iowa, an intelligent, Christian man, with genial,
large-hearted benevolence expressed in every fea-
ture. When pupils are taken sick, they are at
once separated from their fellows and placed in
the hospital.

The shoe shop is constantly kept busy in manu-
facturing and repairing boots and shoes for the
four hundred and thirty-three pupils of the school.

The harness shop turns out a very large propor-
tion of the harness required by the Indian depart-
ment for the use of agencies and Indians.

The sewing department was a most interesting

 

MANUELITO CHOW.

and of

a7

feature, particularly to us matrons, who walked
around among the girls, inspecting the neatly
mended clothing, and the piles of new garments,
All of the girls’ clothing, and the boys’ underwear,
are manufactured mostly by the Indian girls, under
the instruction of Mrs. Worthington.

The laundry, with its methodical appliances and
nice arrangement, also detained us some time, to
examine closely the various sorts of work executed
by the strong, tidy Indian girls, who take hold of
this kind of work with an alacrity that shows
they are waking up to the truth of the statement,
“Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

Each mechanical branch is under the super-

 

WHITE BUFFALO (CHEYENNE).

intendence of a practical workman; the instruc-
tion, therefore, is not at all vague, and merely
theoretical, but thoroughly practical in every detail.

Carlisle School has also a fine farm of one hun-
dred and fifty-seven acres, worked by the pupils
58 THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS.

under the training of Mr. Amos Miller, an experi-
enced farmer. The crops raised here compare

 

OSAGE BOYS,

favorably with those of the best neighboring farms,

- About one half of the pupils are placed out dur-
ing the summer vacation in the families of farmers,
where they learn, by practical experience, the details
of agriculture and civilized life. This feature of
the school life has been productive of the best
results.

I wish that space would allow me to quote from
the letters in the Aforning Star, the paper pub-
lished by the Indian boysat Carlisle. These letters
are written by pupils living in different families
through the long summer vacation, that they may
learn to put their knowledge in domestic and farm
matters to the proof, while they are in positions to
acquire, through association with practical teach-
ers, many valuable additions to their store of
knowledge. They are graphic, ambitious, and of
excellent spirit, often funny, from the marked
individuality of the writer, and the violent strug-

gle to get the best of the English language. But
not even one of the letters may be crowded in,
for magazine limits must be banded with the stern
fiat of necessity, and this article already is swell-
ing toward its uttermost bound.

The exercise, drilling and mental discipline of
the various school departments afforded us intense
pleasure. Particularly as we noticed a marked
absence of that disagreeable feature of most school
exhibitions —the “show system.” It was not
with any desire to parade knowledge that pupils
exhibited on the platform and before the black-
board what they knew. It was the conscientious
wish to show their methods of study; to display
to the guests the workings of the different minds
to be disciplined, Often impromptu questions and

 

IRON, NORTHERN ARAPAHOE.

diversions to the train of reasoning would be pre-
sented to the pupil, to disclose the trend of his or
THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS,

her mind, and to ascertain if the knowledge were
real or only superficial. The first thing with these
teachers seemed to be to make the pupil grasp the
idea, and work at it until it was understood. In
all cases this appeared to be thoroughly striven
for before the second step should be taken. I
attribute to this sensible, conscientious care, the
well-grounding in the rudiments of knowledge that
the Carlisle children are receiving. And the Insti-
tution is to be congratulated in the possession of
' such a competent, painstaking and devoted instruc-
tor as Miss Carrie M. Semple. She was educated
at the Western Female College, Cincinnati; for
years connected with the work of instructing the
Freedmen of the South at Fiske University, also
superintendent of the public schools at St, Augus-
tine, Florida. ‘

I wish I could give space to mention individu-
ally the different teachers of this department of
the school life—the intellectual training. I en-
joyed conversation with many of them, and caught
never-to-be-forgotten glimpses of their devotion and
adaptation to the cause. But the length of list
forbids.

There are at present at Carlisle School four
hundred and thirty-three pupils, one hundred and
sixty of whom are girls, representing thirty-six
tribes,

We will glance at some of these pupils in their
native dress. Here is White Buffalo, a youth of
eighteen years of age, with naturally gray hair,
Tom Navajo, Iron, Northern Arapahoe, and Man-
uelito Chow, son of the former great chief of the
Navajos, Manuelito. ,

The group of boys given represents six Osage
Indians. All of them have good, clear faces, while
the little fellow down in lower left corner might be
“our boy” in some cultivated home-circle, as far
as bright, lovable appearance goes, ,

Susie is the sole representative of her tribe, the
Delawares or Leni, who were patties to the cele-
brated treaty with William Penn. They have
been bought out, fought out, and driven out, from
One point to another as the Anglo-Saxon forced
his way across the country, until at present there
remains a mere handful in the southern part of
the Indian Territory. Susie is an exceptionally
bright child, with a sweet voice, and is a member
of the school choir, The doll (which certainly
Seems possessed with ambition to be a model of

59

deportment) was a gift through that good friend to
the school, Miss Susan Longstreth, of Philadel-
phia.

Some two weeks after my return to Boston, I
was very much touched by the reception of a pack-
age of sketches which some of the Carlisle pupils
had executed for me. Out of a generous number,
I am compelled to select but three. So I give
Otto Zotom’s idea of a battle with United States
troops. Otto, of course, had his patriotic duty to
his own tribe to perform, yet he is very generous

 

SUSIE AND HER DOLL,

to his white brethren. The hills seem to trouble
him somewhat, his rules on perspective not being
so thoroughly acquired during his few months’ so-
journ at the school as to be wholly at his com-
mand, Yet he gets over it very well, and shows an
original dash and force, born of his extremity.

It is a singular fact that the Indian children un-
der education and the influence of family life are
very averse to fighting. In their reachings after
civilization, there is a recoil from the revenge,
brutality and love of conquest attendant upon war.
In their letters, in their talk, in their spirit, more
60 THE CARLISLE SCHOOL FOR INDIAN PUPILS.

than all, is exhibited a desire to live and learn in
peace with all. Their thirst is for knowledge.

 

IN PURSUIT OF U. S&S TROOPS.

This Otto Zotom, a
young Kiowa, is a very
bright, promising boy.
He was sent to Carlisle
by his brother, now a
deacon in the Episcopal
Church, and a missionary
in the Indian country,
but formerly a prisoner
under the care of Captain
Pratt, at Fort Marion
(San Marco), Florida.

A study of horses, by
Otto, is interesting as
showing the development of ideas as regards pose
and proportions of equine anatomy, as they arise
naturally to the self-tutored mind of an Indian
boy, while his portrayal of an engagement with
a buffalo enlists our sympathies for the poor “ King
of the Plains.” Otto in his extreme generosity
wishes every one engaged in the encounter to en-
joy a shot that tells ; so that the glory of the whole
thing is most satisfying. The young artist has a
true love for his pencil, and such a painstaking in-
dustry that the world may yet hear from the
Indian boy at Carlisle. All success to him—
young Otto Zotom!

In closing this meagre account of Carlisle School
and its workings, so different from what I long to
give, I can only express the earnest wish that
every reader of this volume could visit and

 

see the institution for themselves. If ever your
wanderings call you in the vicinity of the quiet
town, grasp the opportunity, I beg of you. You
will never regret it. You may be sure of a cordial
welcome, a capital chance to inspect and criticise,
and you will come away enlightened on many
points. Such visits are worth hundreds of magae
zine articles and countless letters from enthusiastic
friends. “Seeing zs believing,” now as it has ever
been.

I am glad to announce that the Fair under the
auspices of Mrs. J. Huntington Wolcott and her
corps of young ladies in Boston has netted for
Carlisle the grand sum of two thousand dollars.
On the strength of it, Captain Pratt writes me that
he expects to undertake the care of five boys and
five girls from the Pueblo village of Isleta, N. M.

Pi Think of it! Ten chil-
dren rescued by these
noble, womanly efforts,
from savage degradation
to grow up into good
citizenship.

How many other fairs
can be held? if we cane
not raise two thousand
dollars to educate ten, we
may gather in two hun-
dred dollars; and who
can estimate the influence
of one Indan child at

 

AN INDIAN BOY’S DRAWINGS. — A BUFFALO HUNT.

Carlisle? The hearts of his tribe go with him, and
are awakened to gratitude, and the cementing of
“WON'T TAKE A BAFF,” 61

friendly ties with our Government. Wars will be
avoided; peace and good-will toward those who
¥ecognize in their children faculties capable of
cultivation toward the best and truest things, will
be the inevitable result.

The years speed us on, taking many opportunities
for good in their relentless grasp. Shall we resign
this idly ?— the effort to aid in the bringing up of
the Indian children and youth toward the light a
loving Creator designed for all?

“WON’T TAKE A BAFF,”

By MarcGaret EYTINGE.

 

 

 

 

al the brook in the green meadow dancing,
The tree-shaded, grass-bordered brook,
For a bath in its cool, limpid water,
Old Dinah the baby boy took.

She drew off his cunning wee stockings,
Unbuttoned each dainty pink shoe,

Untied the white slip and small apron,
And loosened the petticoats, too.

And while Master Blue Eyes undressing,
She told him in quaintest of words

Of the showers that came to the flowers,
Of the rills that were baths for the birds.

And she said, “Dis yere sweetest of babies,
W’en he’s washed, jess as hansum ’Il be
As any red, yaller or blue bird
Dat ebber singed up in a tree.

* An’ sweeter den rosies an’ lilies,
Or wiolets eder, I guess—”

When away flew the mischievous darling,
In the scantiest kind of a dress.

“Don’t care if the birdies an’ fowers,”
He shouted, with clear, ringing laugh,

“Wash ’eir hands an’ ’eir faces forebber
An’ ebber, me won’t take a baff.”

 
62

MR. ANY-TIME THE SPANIARD.

MR. ANY-TIME THE SPANIARD.

By H. H.

HAVE a friend whose reply generally is, when
you ask him to doa thing: “Oh, yes, that can
be done any time.”

He is not in the least unwilling to do things. He
is not obstinate about admitting that the things ought
to be done, but his first instinctive impulse in regard
to almost everything in life is to put it off a little.

If you remonstrate with him, he has a most exas-
perating proverb on his tongue’s end, and he is
never tired of quoting it: “There is luck in leisure.”

Do what you will, you can’t make him see that this
proverb i is aimed at people who hurry unwisely ; not
in the least at people who are simply prompt. As if
headlong haste and quiet, energetic promptitade were
in the least like each other.

We call Mr, Any-Time the Spaniard, because it is
well known that the Spaniard’s rule of life is, “‘ Never
do to-day that which can be put off till to-morrow.”
Even into the form of a historical proverb, the record
of this national trait of the Spanish people had crys-
tallized many years ago. Even the Spanish people
themselves say sarcastically, “‘Succors of Spain: late
or never.”

But says Mr. Any-Time, “ What is the use of being
in such a hurry? Oh, do be quiet, can’t you! Let’s
take a little comfort ;” and then he settles back in
his chair and looks at you with such a twinkle in his
eyes that you half forgive him for his laziness. That
is one thing to be said for lazy people. They are al-
most always good-natured.

Then we preach a little sermon to him, and the

sermon has four heads; four good reasons why we

ought to do things promptly.

Firstly, we say to him, “How dost thou know, O
lazy Spaniard, that thou canst do this thing at any
other time than the present? Many things may pre-
vent — sickness, thine own or thy friends’— business,
forgetfulness, weather, climate; there is no counting
up all the things which happen, and which hinder our
doing the things we have planned to do, but have put
off doing.”

Secondly, “There is another truth, O lazy Mr.
Any-Time, each day, each hour, each minute, has its

own thing to be done —its own duty. If one single
thing is put off, that thing will have to be crowded
into the day, or the hour, or the minute which be-
longed to something else ; and then neither thing will
be well done.

Thirdly, “If it can be done now; that alone is
reason enough for doing it now; that alone is
enough to prove that now is the natural time,
the proper time for it. Everything has its own natu-
ral time to.be done, just as flowers have their natural
time to blossom, and fruits have their natural time to
ripe and fall. :

Just suppose for a minute that such things should
get into the way of saying, “ Any time!” That the
grains should say, “Oh, we can get ripe any day,”
and should go on, putting it off and putting it off all
through July and August, and September, and Ooto-
ber; for when people once begin to put off, there

‘is no knowing what will stop them — until, all of a

sudden, some day a sharp frost should come and
kill every grass-blade throughout the country. What
would we do for hay, then, I wonder! Why, half
the poor horses and cows would starve, and all because
the lazy grains said they could get ripe “ any time.”

Suppose strawberries or apples should take it into
their heads to say the same thing. Wouldn’t we get
out of patience going, day after day, looking for some
ripe enough to eat? And wouldn’t the summer be
gone before they knew it? and all the time be wasted
that the vines and the trees had spent putting out
their leaves and blossoms, which had not come to
fruit? And wouldn’t the whole world and every-
body’s plan of living be thrown into confusion if
such things were to happen? ?

Luckily no such thing is possible in this orderly
earth, which God has made with a fixed time for
everything ; even for the blossoming of the tiniest little
flower, and for the ripening of the smallest berry that
was ever seen. Nobody ever heard the words “any
time” from anything in this world except human
beings.

Fourthly, we say to our dear Spaniard, “ Things
which are put off are very likely never to be done at
MR. ANY-TIME THE SPANIARD. . 63

all. The chances are that they will be at last for-
gotten, overlooked, crowded out. _

“Any time” is no time; just as “ anybody’s work”
is nobody’s work, and never gets attended to, or if it
is done at all, isn’t half done.

And after we have preached through our little ser-
mon with its four heads, then we sum it all up, and
add that the best of all reasons for never saying a
thing can be done “ any time” is that, besides being
a shiftless and lazy phrase, it is a disgraceful one.
It is the badge of a thief; the name and badge of the

worst thief that there is in the world; a thief that.

never has been caught yet, and never will be; a thief
that is older than the Wandering Jew, and has been
robbing everybody ever since the world began; a
thief that scorns to steal money or goods which
money could buy; a thief that steals only one thing,
but that the most precious thing that was ever made.

It is the custom to have photographs taken of all
the notorious thiefs that are caught ; these photographs
are kept in books at the headquarters of the police,
in the great cities, and when any suspicious character
is arrested the police officers look in this book to
see if his face is among the photographs there. Many
a thief has been caught in this way when he supposed
that he was safe.

Now most of you have had a sort of photograph
of this dangerous and dreadful thief I have been
describing. But you will never guess till I tell you
where it is. It is in your writing-book, under the
letter P,

You had to write out the description of him so
many times that you all know it by heart.

“Procrastination is the thief of time.’ When you
wrote that sentence over and over, you did not think
very much about it, did you? When we are young it
always seems to us as if there were so much time in
the world, it couldn’t be a very great matter if a thief
did steal some of it. But I wish I could find any
words strong enough to make you believe that long
before you are old you will feel quite differently. You
will see that there isn’t going to be half time enough
to do what you want to do; not half time enough to
learn what you want to learn; to see what you
want to see. No, not if you live to be a hundred,
not half time enough; most of all, not half time
enough to love all the dear people you love. Long
before you are old, you will feel this; and then, if
you are wise, you will come to have so great a hatred
of this master thief that you will never use — or, if
you can help it, let anybody you know use, that
favorite by-word of his, “ any time.”

 

 

CHIEF OF HIS TRIBE.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IN THE SUGAR ORC.

HARD,

64
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

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A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP.

By AMANDA B. Harris.

S there not a fascination about that word

“camp?” The very mention of it is enough

to set one wild to be off somewhere. It suggests

the freedom of all out-of-doors, which so many of

us grown folks, and all children who have the real
child nature, so often long for and delight in.

To go, as Charles Kingsley says, and “be a
_savage” for awhile! To go as the trappers and
_ hunters go, only there should be no traps and no

guns among our belongings! To doas the explor-
ers and surveyors and naturalists do; sleep o’nights
‘out under the sky, and
live on food not cooked
over civilized fires, or
according to the rou-
tine in civilized homes A\\iR
under roofs in houses
over kitchen stoves!
Would not it be rapture
now and then to try the
way of Daniel Boone
and of Frémont among
the Rocky Mountains,
_ of Wilson, the ornith-
‘ologist, and Audubon
and his wife? Or the
' modern ‘pastoral life of
the young men who
tend the cattle and
_ sheep on the mountain
pastures of Montana and the Texan
plains? I cannot remember the time -
when I did not envy the boys who used
to go off sugaring to a certain camp
under the maples a mile and a half off
on the hill. It was a privilege exclus-
ively belonging to boys; and it always appeared as
if boots had something to do with it—those stiff,
tall, thick-soled boots of theirs which came about
_up to their. knees, made to order by the shoemaker,
out of calf-skin or cow-hide, and by him warranted
water-tight, provided they were kept well greased,

ee
Se
wee
—

=

See

—S

—=

SSN

which matter was faithfully attended to by the .

“in wearing such boots!

. was too bad for girls.

  
 
 
 
          
   
  

   
   
   

wearers, who used semi-weekly to smear them with
melted tallow and rub it in till the leather would ©
shed water like a duck’s back. What advantages
Boys could go through
the slush and slumping drifts; but the travelling
Boys could go across lots
and climb over walls, and wade. “Besides,” it
was no place for girls—they could eat maple
sugar at home. “Besides,” it was too far. “ Be-
sides,” they would get “all tanned up.” “ Be-
sides,” the boys were going to stay all night. That
ended it. Now, as for staying
all night, why that was the thing
we greatly desired to do. Oh,
just to sit in the fire-lit camp and
see the shadows come and go,
and the blaze waver and fail and

YD

IN THEIR FOREFATHERS’ WAY.

then roll up in a great wave of brightness; and to
know that we were off in the night; to forget every-
thing we were used to, and live in the new strange
world; and look off and see the phantoms of trees,
and the cold, glistening, frosty mist down in the val-
ley, and the solemn mountains standing back against
the sky; to hear the voices of the night, not like

65
66

summer ones, for katy-did and grasshopper and
cricket were all gone to the Land of Light, if there
is one for insects, or were swathed in their shrouds,
or hidden away, or had returned to the dust from
which they came ; but there were birds, and pen-
sive small voices
would come out of
the dark, a startled
squirrel would rustle
the dead leaves, and
rabbits are known
to walk abroad be-
tween midnight and
cock-crowing; the
river rumbled like
distant thunder
away off somewhere
where echo pro-
longed the sound;
brooks under the
crust tinkled and
gurgled, and whiles,
as the Scotch say,
- the ice would crack.
Voices of the night, lonesome and mystic—the
air was full of them to one who had ears to hear.

We imagined it all, like Annie Keary, who begun

-her stories with “ Let us suppose,” and how, before
it was dark we would gather dry sticks and cones
and the kind of fallen pine-boughs that will snap
when you step on them—and then the people who
owned the camp would let us tend the fire, and it
would roar and send out sparks —and no doubt
smoke some, right into our eyes, and drop white
ashes on us, and burn our faces and holes in our
garments. Perhaps, too, they would let us have a
kettle or an old dinner-pot of our own — unques-
tionably they could hunt one out from some of
those dark corners overhead where there were
boards laid across for a storage place; and we
would have some partly boiled syrup put in, and
it would come to candy— flavored a little bit with
smoke and the burning on, and mixed a little with
hemlock leaflets and the crumbling relics of
scorched pine needles,

We should probably find out all about sugar-
making, too, about maple-trees, and wood-craft;
and we would make our host tell us stories, Indian
stories just scary enough to thrill us and make us
afraid to look behind us if a stick crackled outside,

 

THE SAP-BUCKETS.

A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP.

and about the early settlers, and then those neigh-

borhood stories which the shrewd country people.
can tell so well, real character delineations full of

genuine human nature about some odd geniuses

such as Mrs. Stowe delights to “write up.”

That struck us as a charming idea of sugar camp
life. We ought to have been born back three or
four generations ago, when the sugar-makers did
things in a way more primitive, as the Indians
taught them; for it was from the Indians that our
ancestors learned to tap the maple-trees in spring
and boil the sap down. There were not such
limitations to the knowledge of the red men as
many persons think. It is doubtful if there was
much concerning the qualities of trees and plants
that they did not know. To be sure they had .
plenty of time, the forest all around them, and
nothing else to do except fight.

Very soon after the Pilgrims landed, some of
Massassoit’s people entertained the white strangers
with “sweet bread,” made of Indian corn, perhaps
first parched, and then ground — whether the sweet-
ness was that of corn meal alone, or from some other
source, we are left to conjecture. Lately we have
been told by a popular author that the Indians
used to cook “little doughnuts of meal by drop-
ping them into maple syrup,” which is a hint for
modern cooks to work out to more esthetic results,
The aborigines had no iron utensils, so they used.
earthen pots of a. rude shape, which they set over
the fire, and boiled the sap out in the open air.
For collecting it they had wooden troughs, fash-
ioned from a log by being burnt out or gouged -
out with a hard shell. Other wooden vessels were
hollowed in the same way; and they had, besides
these, pails, or buckets, made from great sheets
of birch bark.

It is to be hoped that the Indians who were.
friendly, taught the newcomers the secret of the
maple-trees very soon; for in that olden time
when broths and bean-porridge and messes con-
coted from pumpkins made so much of the fare,
when there was no coffee used, and tea only as the
rarest luxury, what a treat it must have. been to
have had maple syrup! A writer who knows,
says that “the sap of all the New England maples
and birches, and lindens, and hickories, and wal-
nuts, is watery and sweet and contains crystal-
lized sugar.” It seems also that under modern
improvements there can be sugar made from
A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. 67

eight different kinds of common field corn; but
they did not know that it could be extracted from
even the one kind they raised in the clearings, and
they could not have spared the corn if they had
known.

They made the most, however, of what they
_ had. About ten years after the Pilgrims came,
somebody composed what was called a “ Forefath-
er’s Song;” wretched rhymes, telling of wretched
fare, but supposed to show us how they lived:

Instead of pottage and puddings and custards and pies,
Our pumpkins and parsnips are common supplies ;

We have pumpkins at morning and pumpkins at noon,
If it was not for pumpkins we should be undone.

 

THE SAP-YOKE.

If barley be wanting to make into malt,

We must be contented and think it no fault;

For we can make liquor to sweeten our lips

From. pumpkins and parsnips and walnut-tree chips.

 

Then four lines are wanting, which I will trust
and hope were about something more toothsome
than parsnips and pumpkins, nainely, maple syrup
—for next these two lines come in:

Now, while some are going, let others be coming,
For while liquor’s a-boiling, it must have a-scumming.

Which is what the syrup needs,

Poor rhymes; and poor forefathers and fore-
mothers, if they had no better food!

The settlers tapped the trees in a way that was
no better than murder to those magnificent sugar
maples of the primeval forest. The process was
called “boxing;” that is, cutting a deep gash to
let the sap run out. A piece of sumach with a
hole bored through the pith was the spout. The
troughs to receive the sap were like a pig’s trough.
The trunk of a white ash was sawed into proper
lengths, and then split in halves, and then dug out
with a gouge or a chisel, driven in by hand beetles,
An expert woodman, as an old historian says, could
make thirty or forty of theseinaday. Big troughs
out of mammoth logs were hewn out for reservoirs
into which to empty the contents of the small ones.
The men and boys went around with pails attached
to a sap-yoke over their shoulders, to collect the sap.
If the snow was deep they wore “ rackets,” or snow-
shoes, such as we see preserved as relics in muse-

ums, a sort of kite-shaped frame woven across

with leather thongs or basket stuff.

The sap was boiled out-of-doors right in the
“sugar bush® as they called it. Two crotched
sticks were driven into the ground, perhaps eight
feet apart, and a strong pole known as the
“lug-pole,” was laid across them, a big side log
placed against each stick on the inside, and be-
tween these the fire was built, usually of fallen
limbs, and green ones which were gathered
from the forest around. Great potash kettles
were used, or smaller ones when those were not
to be had; and when the sap was nearly thick-

ened to syrup a piece of fat pork, or even tallow,
was put in to keep it from boiling over. At the
last it was strained through a flannel sieve and
hung up in bags to drain. The women, and chil-
dren who were old enough, helped, working with
handkerchiefs tied over their heads; and altogether
it was a wild and picturesque scene.

Sometimes the pleasant sugar-making season had
a sudden tragic ending when Indians swooped
68 A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP.

‘down on the little frontier settlements, as hap-
pened once in the neighborhood of one called
“Number 4.” A certain good Deacon Adams
started on a bright frosty April morning to make
sugar on a hill a mile from the cluster of cabins. It

NUTS

  
   
 
 
   
   
      
   
 
  
     

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HOUSE,

was in the time of
the old French
War when French
and Indians
joined together
against the Eng-
lish ; and a party
of them came down from Canada to this nook in
the wilderness. The unsuspecting man, as he was
trudging up the hill, was surrounded by seventy of
them and tied to a tree while they went off and
seized the next man they met, and the miller whose
mills they burned; then with those captives and
two hunters whom they took as they went along,
set off for Canada. It was the hapless deacon’s
last sugaring, for though he was afterwards ex-
changed, he died on the way home.
There is a pathetic story in the old records of a
_child lost from the sugar bush who never came
back and was never heard of after. The father
had a “boiling place,” at some distance from his
cabin, and his little boys, one six years old and

the other four, were fond of spending the day out.

there with him. Young as they were they could be
trusted, for those children living in the wilderness
were shrewd and sharp-witted, used to hardship
and on the lookout for danger; and, one day
when he was obliged to go to the cabin for
something, he felt safe in charging them to
stay by the fire till he came back. But the
elder one, happening to find a favorite spoon
which had been lost there, was so overjoyed
that.he set out at once to follow his father,
saying to the little one, “I will go up to the
house and show the spoon to father,” and
from that moment was never seen again,
though all the settlers for miles around
turned out and searched the wilderness day
and night, day and night as long as there was
a possibility of finding him.

A hundred years ago there was a growth of
grand rock maples in this part of New England,
and some of the farmers at the foot of the moun-

with kettles and tools on their backs, and
stay and tap the trees and make sugar. That
was camp life indeed. There were bears and
foxes in the woods and dens of the -rocks,
and the solitude was awful. Far up the
lonely mountain side, with miles of wilderness
between them and the little hamlets they had left,
whose lights they could see twinkle and then go
out as they sat under the roof of pine boughs and
watched the kettles through the night; but the
sugar-making came at a season too early for any
other work, and in those hard times “ boughten ”
sugar was dear and hard to get. There were trees
there then that were three feet through.

The rock maple is the beautiful tree of the
rugged New Hampshire hills, the natural growth
of rocky soil, as much as the firs and tiny white
birches upon the mountain tops, the pine on the
sandy lands, the elms on the meadows, the wil-
lows by the water. It will live two hundred years;
and it is such a wonderful thing for seeding itself
that we should find ourselves surrounded by a
wilderness in a few years if all the little maples
were let live.

Somebody fond of gathering statistics says that
in some of the little hill towns before trees were
cut down so, many families used to make half a
ton of sugar; Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont

tain (Kearsarge) used to go up on snowshoes, ©

eT
A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP.

Western Massachusetts, Ohio and Michigan, seem
to be the favored regions, and there ought to be
rock maples enough there to supply all their peo-
ple with sugar. There would be if all farmers did
as well proportionately as some who manufactured
in one season six thousand pounds of “stirred
sugar” from seventeen hundred trees, and _ all
this besides the molasses which drained from it.
Some makers refine it to the degree of loaf
sugar till it is as white and crystal-like as a crust
of snow. One man who described his way, said,
as they all do, that the first thing was to have
every bucket and spout and “carrier” and pan
and kettle as sweet and clean as could be. They
think it well to have covers to the sap-buckets, so
that no leaves or anything shall fall in. They boil
as soon as they can after the sap comes from the
‘trees, keep the boiling sap well skimmed and
clarify it with the whites of eggs or new milk

    
  
   
   

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69

It was news to us that sap things never rust,
When the season is over, all the buckets are
scalded with water, then rinsed with sap, dried,
and put away in the sap-house ; the same is done
by the iron pans used for boiling; they receive a
final washing with the sweet fluid and come out
fresh and clean the following spring. The buckets
are of pine, though people are beginning to use
tin ones holding ten and eighteen quarts, and
there is also a tin spout with a hook instead of the
wooden one.

But that immaculate whiteness is of no special
consequence unless one wishes to take a premium
at a State Fair. We can all be satisfied with the
“wax”—that delicious stage when we begin to
try the hot liquid on a piece of snow crust, and
keep tasting and trying, and trying and tasting
till we pronounce it perfect; sweetness and flavor
can no farther go; the aroma of the woods cons

 

  
  

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COLLECTING THE SAP.

stirred in; this makes a curd and all the impuri-
ties of the syrup rise with it. The whiteness is
obtained by repeating the process of stirring and
straining.

It is stir, stir, and strain, strain,
Let it settle, and do it again.

densed in substance transparent as amber, When
it is ready to “sugar off,” one man says the test is
to let fall a little from the point of a knife into
cold water; if done, it will settle at the bottom “in
a round flat drop.”

Did you know that they sometimes feed bees with
maple syrup before the flowers come? Think of it!
79

Honey evolved from maple sugar by the mystic bee
agency! What estheticism, what refinement, what
luxury! And do not the bees and other insects
sip at the sap bucket? The average boy does;
and the old inhabitants make “sap coffee” and
“sap beer.” You have noticed’ how the shade
trees all along a village street will suddenly, on a
bright March morning, appear decorated with tin
kettles at the end of pine spouts; and the tinkle,
tinkle of little rivulets is heard as the generous
. trees yield their stored-up sweetness. It was not

complimentary to the children of a certain place
that last year all the trees had the spouts inserted
and the pails and kettles hanging at a height which
could only be reached by a ladder, and the ladder
was not there. 3
Maple sugar time has no definite limits. Some-
times it begins in February, sometimes in March,
_or not till April when the “run” is a very short
one. There is amystery about the agencies which
make the sap start. The wood-pecker who probes
the bark may listen at the hole he has made and
hear something about it; the woodchuck burrowed
at the roots may be conscious when there is a stir

 

A MAPLE SUGAR CAMP. |

within there; if there are dryads living in the trees
and gnomes under them, they are sure to know.
But the wisest woodsman cannot answer some of
your questions. .He will tell you that sap is

- sweeter from a tree which stands by itself; that it is

thinner near surface water, and darker as you bore
farther in; but why it is more abundant some years
than others, and just how climatic changes affect
the flow, or the time, or flavor, he cannot say.

The genuine sugar camp of old, without a roof
over your head, the fire fed by sticks gathered up,

Be;

a piece of fat pork hung above the kettle to keep
it from boiling over, and all the gypsyish sort of
life, has quite gone by, or pretty nearly.

You will find many a sugar place such as we
did on that misty twilight of last April, when the
travelling was neither wheeling nor sleighing; and
the horses worrying through drifts that came to the
wheel-hubs and then plunging into soft mud —that
is the kind in sugar-time— took us in safety at
last to the door of a rambling farmhouse. The
sugar orchard covered the side hill away beyond.
To reach it we floundered and slipped and slumped
along the winding country road till we came where
THE MYSTERY OF SPRING. 71

the bars had been taken down and the worn path
shewed that an ox team had passed that way many
times. It was the thing to do to follow it, now up,
now down, over hummocks and bowlders and dip-
ping into the snowy hollows, till we were within
the sylvan precincts, inhaling the woodsy smells,
and the odor of green things down in the root.
The sugar house was as cosey as Thoreau’s hut
at Walden; a regular hut in the woods, with its
two windows looking into the trees, a little lean-to
for the firewood, and the door where one could
sit and see the sights and hear the voices I had
dreamed about as children dream. The rugged
tree boles showed gray as far as the eye could
reach, and the phantom look of leafless boughs
was overhead; the hills, the far valley, the moun-
tains, were all the same with a difference; snow-

banks, wet hollows, lush moss and partridge ber-.

ries; it was in the woods, and of the woods; rural,
. far-off, fascinating.

Just then the foreground was occupied by the
ox-sled, still holding, bound to it by chains, the
barrel which had been drawn about under the

 

trees to receive the sap from the buckets which
now hung by their leathern loops empty and silent,
for the sap was not running.

The interior was a place for a boy to read Rod-
inson Crusoe in, or the old tales of Homer, while
he waited and watched, and sat up all night to
tend the fire, or to get one’s first taste of the
Midsummer Night’s Dream ; a place to tell stories
in with one’s comrades, or play fox-and-geese on
the rude board that hung on the wall, or to solve
problems and guess riddles, and get a firelight
education of a kind not set down in school books,
all sorts, odds and ends of wholesome learning,
with a good deal of nonsense of the right kind.

There is not a little of the work-a-day about the
experience of the sugar-makers out under the
maples, but a poetic and picnic side, too, that one
cannot afford to miss. And I mean to hold stoutly
by my statement in the beginning; and say that
that lone sugar house with its sylvan outlook and
its primitive inlook with its various properties,
and all we were made welcome to and free of, is
a delightful place to go to.

 

THE MYSTERY OF SPRING.

By Mrs. Mary B. Dooce.

OME, come, come, little Tiny,
Come, little doggie! We

Will “ interview ” all the blossoms

Down-dropt from the apple-tree ;
We'll hie to the grove and question *

Fresh grasses under the swing,
And learn if we can, dear Tiny,

Just what is the joy called Spring,

Come, come, come, little Tiny;
Golden it is, I know:
Gold is the air around us,
‘The crocus is gold below;
Red as the golden sunset
Is robin’s breast, on the wing —
But, come, come, come, little Tiny,
This isn’t the half of Spring.

Spring’s more than beautiful, Tiny;

Fragrant it is— for, see,
- We catch the breath of the violets

However hidden they be;

And buds o’erhead in the greenwood
The sweetest of spices fling —

Yet color and sweets together
Are still but a part of Spring.

Then come, come, come, little Tiny, .
Let’s hear what you have to tell
Learned of the years you’ve scampered
Over the hiil and dell —
What! Only a dark for answer?
Now, Tiny, that isn’t the thing
Will help unravel the riddle
Of wonderful, wonderful Spring,
 

72 . Ke A LITTLE WITCH.

“Yes, Tiny, there’s something better Oh, Tiny, you'll never know it—

 

Than form and scent and hue, For the mystery lies in this:
In the grass with its emerald glory; 2 Just the fact of such warm uprising
= In the air’s cerulean blue; From winter’s chill abyss,
In the glow of the sweet arbutus; And the joy of our heart’s upspringing
In the daisy’s perfect mould :— ae Whenever the Spring is. born,
All these are delightful, Tiny, Because it repeats the story
But the secret’s still untold. © Of the blessed Easter-morn!

 

Peas | Ait Tike Woler Cit

By Cria: THAXTER,

Through the dark earth gently breaking
Though they have not blossomed yet, __
Here to seek them through the wet
Merrily comes Margaret. :

Nothing recks she of the flood,
Nothing finds she, flower or bud,
But she seems herself a flower °
In the tumult of the shower;
While across the field she trips,
~O’er bright eyes and ruddy lips
Fast the sparkling water slips,

 

 

Gay and daring little witch!

-- How the color, deep and rich,
Mantles in her cheek’s sweét curve t
Mark the pretty mouth’s reserve:
Ah, but smiles are hidden there!
Like a torch her golden hair
Flares above her forehead fair,

Slender shape of pliant grace
Crowned with such a charming face }

 

MARGARET. Not a single flower is out, :
But that’s naught to mourn about;
OFTLY sweeps the April storm, She the loveliest blossom is,
Floods of rain and breezes warm. All a-bloom with light and bliss,

Drowsy flowers at last are waking, For the sun and rain to kiss, ©
TWO HUNTERS. 73

AU NWSOy. JehCOND Ia IRS)

Anecdote ef Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy.
oO Ly.

By Mrs. S. M. B. Pratt,

HEY met in the heat of a Southern sun. So the beautiful youth went home that night
And how did they iook? Oh, I fancy one With his black eyes blacker yet from tie fight.
‘Was a picturesque peasant. such as you may “Now,” the genial gentleman said “ it is mine —
See in a lover’s part, at tne play. And” (this to himself) “by the right divine,”

 

THEY MET IN A LONESOME PLACE.

This hunter was nothing at all, you see, At morning a carriage was sent to bring

- And the other was — everything! But he The wondering peasant before the king.
Was none too handsome, let us suppose, “Do you know me, sir?” “I'd the honor to fight
Although his face out-reddened the rose. With your Majesty, as I fear, last night.”
These two Italians met, as I said, “ And saw by the shot, when the hare was dressed,
In a lonesome place where a hare lay dead. That it was not mine — forgive me the rest :
“Tt is mine — I shot it,” one stormily cried ; There’s enough for us both —and it was not mine;

“It is mine —I shot it,” the other replied. Come in, I beg you, with me and dine.”
7A BINGEN ON THE RHINE.

BINGEN ON THE RHINE.

By Carouine E, S. Norton.

A SOLDIER of the Legion lay dying in Al

giers,

There was lack of woman’s nursing, there was dearth
of woman’s tears ;

But a comrade stood beside him while his life-blood
ebbed away,

And bent with pitying glances to hear what he mien
say.

The dying soldier faltered, and he took that com-
rade’s hand,

And he said, “I never more shall see Imy own, my
native land;

Take a message, and a token, to some distant friends
of mine,

For I was born at Bingen, at Bingen on the Rhine.

“Tell my brothers and companions when they meet
and crowd around

To hear my mournful story, in the pleasant vineyard
ground,

That we fought the battle bravely, and when the day
was done, :

Full many a corse lay ghastly pale beneath the set-
ting sun ;

And, ’mid the dead and dying, were some grown old
in wars,

The death-wound on their gallant breasts, the last of
many scars ; , ,

And some were young, and eueoy beheld life’s
morn decline,

And one had come from Hiiged fair Bingen on the
Rhine.

“ Tell my mother that her other son shall comfort
her old age;

For I was still a truant bird, that thought his home a
cage.

For my father was a soldier, and even as a child

My heart leaped forth to hear him tell of struggles
fierce and wild; ‘

And when he died and left us to divide his scanty
hoard

I let them take whate’er they would, but I kept my
father’s sword; _

And with boyish love I hung it where the bright light
used to shine

On the cottage wall at Bingen, calm Bingen on the
Rhine.

“Tell. my sister’ not to weep for me, and sob with
drooping head ~

When the troops come marching home again wa
glad and gallant tread,

But to look upon them proudly, with a calm and
steadfast eye,

For her brother was a soldier, too, and not azad to
die ;

And if a comrade seek her love, I ask her in my
name,

To listen to him kindly, without regret or shame,

And to hang the old sword in his place, my father’s
sword and mine; °

For the honor of old Bingen, dear Bingen on the
Rhine.

“There’s another, not a sister, in the happy days
gone by

You’d have known her by the merriment that sparkled
in her eye;

Too innocent for coquetry, to fond for idle scorning,

O, friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes
heaviest mourning.

_ Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon

be risen

My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of
prison ),

I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sun-
light shine,

On the vine-clad hills of Bingen, fair Bingen on the
Rhine,
 

 

““TELL MY SISTER NOT TO WEEP FOR ME.”

NI
wn
76

“‘T saw the blue Rhine sweep along, I heard, or
seemed to hear,

‘The German songs we used to sing in chorus sweet
and clear;

And down the pleasant river and up the slanting hill,

‘The echoing chorus sounded, through the evening
calm and still ;

And her glad blue eyes were on me, as we passed,
with friendly telk

Down many a path beloved of yore) and well remem-
bered walk,

And her little hand lay lightly, confidingly, in mine,

But we’ll meet no more at Binget, loved Bingen on
the Rhine.”

TWO PERSIAN SCHOOLBOYS.

His trembling voice grew faint and hoarse, his grasp
was childish weak,

His eyes put on a dying look, he sighed, and ceased
to speak ;

His comrade bent to lift him, but the spark of life
had fled —

The soldier of the Legion in a foreign land is dead ;

And the soft moon rose up slowly, and calmly she
looked down

On the red sand of the battle-field with bloody corses

' strown ;

“Yet calmly on that dreadful scene her pale light

seemed to shine,
As it shone on distant Bingen, fair Bingen on the Rhine.
— From Mrs. Norton's Poems.

 

TWO PERSIAN

SCHOOLBOYS.

By Mary J. SAFForRD.

{—pAKE, Otanes, wake,
the Magi are sing-
ing the morning hymn
to Mithras. Quick, or
we shall be late at the
exercises, and father
promised,if we did well,
we should go to the
chase with him to-day.”

“ And perhaps shoot a lion, What a feather in our
‘caps that would be! Is it pleasant ?”

Smerdis pulled open the shutters that closed the
‘windows, and the first rays of the sun sparkled on
the trees and fountains of a beautiful garden beyond
whose lofty walls appeared the dwellings and towers
‘of a mighty city. Already the low roar of its traffic
reached them while hurrying on their clothes to join
their companions in the spacious grounds where they
‘were trained in wrestling, throwing blocks of wood at
‘each other to acquire agility in dodging the missiles,
tthe skilful use of the bow, and various other exercises
for the development of bodily strength and grace.

A few minutes later the two brothers, Smerdis and
‘Otanes, with scores of other lads, ranging in age from
seven to fourteen years, were assembled in a vast
playground, surrounded on all sides by a lofty wall.

 
  
   
 
 
   

The playground of a large boarding-school?

It almost might be called so, but the pupils of this
boarding-school were educated free of expense to
their parents, and it received only the sons of the high-
est nobles in theland. This playground was attached
to the palace of Darius, King of Persia, who reigned
twenty-four hundred years ago, and these chosen boys
had been taken from their homes, as they reached the
age of six years, to be reared “at his gate,” as the
language of the country expressed it.

Otanes and Smerdis were sons of one of the highest
officers of the court, the “ear of the king,” or, as he
would now be called, the Minister of Police. Hand-
some little fellows of eleven and twelve, with blue
eyes, fair complexions, and curling yellow locks, their
long training in all sorts of physical exercises had
made them stronger and hardier than most lads of
their age in our time. Though reared in a palace, at
one of the most splendid courts the world has ever
seen, the boys were expected to endure the hardships
of the poorest laborer’s children. Instead of the gold
and silver bedsteads used by the nobles, they were ~
obliged to sleep on the floor; if the court was at
Babylon, they were forced to make long marches under
the burning sun of Asia, and if, to escape the intense
heat, the king removed to his summer palaces at
TWO PERSIAN SCHOOLBOYS.

Ecbatana and Pasargade, situated in the mountain-
ous regions of Persia, where it was often bitterly cold,
the boys were ordered to bathe in the icy water of the
rivers flowing from the heights. In place of the
dainty dishes and sweetmeats for which Persian cooks
were famous, they were allowed nothing but bread
water, and a little meat; sometimes to accustom them
to hardship they were deprived entirely of food for a
day, or even longer.

On this morning the exercises seemed specially long
to the two brothers, full of anticipations of pleasure ;
put finally the last block of wood was hurled, the last

77

chase, were already mounted, among them the father
of the two lads, who greeted them affectionately as
they respectfully approached and kissed his hand.

“Make haste, boys, your horses are ready. Take
only bows and shields—the swords and lances
will be in your way; you must not try to deal with
larger game than you can manage with your arrows,”

“‘May we not carry daggers in our belts too,
father?” cried Otanes eagerly. “They can’t be in
our way, and if we should meet a lion”? —

A laugh from the group of nobles interrupted him,
“ Your son seeks large game, Intaphernes !”’exclaimed

 

THE BOYS HURRIED OFF TOWARD HOME,

arrow shot, the last wrestling match ended, and the
boys, bearing a sealed roll of papyrus, containing a
leave of absence for one day, hurried off towards
home.

Their father’s palace stood at no great distance
from the royal residence, on the long, wide street
extending straight to the city gates, and like the houses
of all the Persian nobles, was surrounded by a beau-
tiful walled garden called a paradise, laid out with
flower-beds of roses, poppies, oleanders, ornamental
plants, adorned with fountains, and shaded by lofty
trees.

The hunting party was nearly ready to start, and
the courtyard was thronged. Servants rushed to and
fro bearing shields, swords, lances, bows and lassos,
for a hunter was always equipped with bow and,
arrows, two lances, a sword and a shield. Others
held in leash the dogs to be used in starting the game.

The enormous preserves in the neighborhood of
Babylon were well-stocked with animals, including
stags, wild boars, and afew lions. Several noblemen
cladin the plain hunting costume always worn in the

a handsome officer. ‘“ He must have better weapons
than a bow and dagger, if” —

The rest of the sentence was drowned by the noise
in the courtyard, but as the party rode towards the
gate Intaphernes looked back: “ Ves, take the dag-
gers, itcan dono harm. Keep with Candaules.”

The old slave, a gray-haired, but muscular man,
with several other attendants, joined the lads, and
the long train passed out into the street and to-
ward the city gates. Otanes hastily whispered his
brother: “ Keep close by me, Smerdis; if only we
catch sight of a lion, we’ll show what we can do with
bows and arrows.

The sun was now several hours high, and the streets,
lined with tall brick houses, were crowded with people
— artisans, slaves, soldiers, nobles and citizens, the
latter clad in white linen shirts, gay woollen tunics
and short cloaks. Two-wheeled wooden vehicles,
drawn by horses decked with bells and tassels, litters
containing veiled women borne by slaves, and now
and then, the superb gilded carriage, hung with silk
curtains, of some royal princess passed along. Here
78 TWO PERSIAN SCHOOLBOYS,

and there a heavily laden camel moved slowly by, and
‘the next instant a soldier of the king’s bodyguard
‘dashed past in his superb uniform —a gold cuirass,
purple surcoat, and high Persian cap, the gold scab-
bard of his sword and the gold apple on his lance-tip
flashing in the sun.

High above the topmost roofs of even the lofty
‘towers on the walls rose the great sanctuary of the
Magi, * the immense Temple of Bel, visible in all
‘quarters of the city, and seen for miles from every
. part of the flat plain on which Babylon stood. The
huge staircase wound like a serpent round and round
the outside of the building to the highest story, which
contained the sanctuary itself and also the observatory
whence the priests studied the stars.

Otanes and Smerdis, chatting eagerly together, rode
on as fast as the crowd would permit, and soon reached
one of the gates in the huge walls that defended the
city. These walls, seventy-five feet high, and wide
enough to allow two chariots to drive abreast, were
strengthened by two hundred and fifty towers, except
‘on one side, where deep marshes extended to their
base. Beyond these marshes lay the hunting-grounds,
and the party, turning to the left, rode for a time over
a smooth highway, between broad tracts of land sown
with wheat, barley and sesame. Slender palm-trees cov-
ered with clusters of golden dates were seen in every
direction, and the sunbeams shimmered on the canals
and ditches which conducted water from the Eu-
phrates to all parts of the fields.

Otanes’ horse suddenly shied violently as a rider,
mounted on a fleet steed, and carrying a large pouch,
dashed by like the wind.

“One of the Augari bearing letters to the next sta-
tion!” exclaimed Smerdis. “See how he skims
along. Hi! If I were not to be one of the king’s
bodyguard, I’d try for an Augar’s place. How he
goes! He’s almost out of sight already.”

“ Flow far apart are the stations?” asked Otanes.

“Eighteen miles. And when he gets there, he’ll
just toss the letter bag to the next man, who is sitting
on a fresh horse waiting for it, and away fe’ go like
lightning. That’s the way the news is carried to the
very end of the empire of our lord the King.”

“Must be fine fun,” replied Otanes. “ But see,
there’s the gate of the hunting-park. Now for the
lion,” he added gayly.

“May Ormuzd f save you from meeting one, my
'The Magi were the Persian priests.

+The principal god of the Persians,

young master,” said the old servant Candaules.
“Luckily it’s broad daylight, and they are more apt
to come from their lairs after dark. Better begin
with smaller game and leave the lion and wild boars
to your father.”

“Not if we catch sight of them,” cried Otanes,

settling his shield more firmly on his arm, and urging

his horse to a quicker pace, for the head of the long
train of attendants had already disappeared amid the
dark cypress-trees of the hunting park. The immense
enclosure stretching from the edge of the morasses
that bordered the walls of Babylon far into the coun-
try, soon echoed with the shouts of the attendants
beating the coverts for game, the baying of the dogs,
the hiss of lances and whir of arrows. Bright-hued
birds, roused by the tumult, flew wildly hither and
thither, now and then the superb plumage of a bird
of paradise flashing like a jewel among the dense
foliage of cypress and nut-trees.

Hour after hour sped swiftly away; the party had
dispersed in different directions, following the course
of the game; the sun was sinking low, and the slaves
were bringing the slaughtered birds and beasts to the
wagons used to convey them home. <A magnificent
stag was among the spoil, and a fierce wild boar, after
a long struggle, had fallen under a thrust from
Intaphernes’s lance. ‘

The shrill blast of the Median trumpet sounded
thrice, to give the first of the three signals for the
scattered hunters to meet at the appointed place, near
the entrance of the park, and the two, young brothers
who, attended by Candaules and half a dozen slaves,
had ridden far into the shady recesses of the woods,
reluctantly turned their horses’ heads. No thought
of disobeying the summons entered their minds —
Persian boys were taught that next to truth and cour-
age, obedience was the highest virtue, and rarely was
a command transgressed.

They had had a good day’s sport; few arrows
remained in their quivers, and the attendants carried
bunches of gay plumaged birds and several small
animals, among them a pretty little fawn. “ Let’s go
nearer the marshes; there are not so many trees, and
we can ride faster,” said Otanes as the trumpet-call
was repeated, and the little party turned in that direc-
tion, moving more swiftly as they passed out upon
the strip of open ground between the thicket and the
marshes, The sun was just setting. The last crimson
rays, shimmering on the pools of water standing here
and there in the morasses, cast reflections on the
TWO PERSIAN SCHOOLBOYS.,

tall reeds and rushes bordering their margins.

Suddenly a pretty spotted fawn darted in front of
the group, and.crossing the open ground, vanished
amid a thick clump of reeds. ‘“ What a nice pet the
little creature would make for our sister Hadassah!”
cried Otanes eagerly. ‘See! it has hidden among
the reeds; we might take it alive. Go with Candaules
and the slaves, Smerdis, and form a half-circle beyond
the clump. When you're ready, whistle, and I’ll ride
straight down and drive it towards you; you can easily
catch it then. We are so near the entrance of the
park now that we shall have plenty of time; the third
signal hasn’t sounded yet.”

Smerdis instantly agreed to the plan. The horses
were fastened to some trees, and the men cautiously

79

from his saddle, while the horse, free from its rider,
dashed, snorting with terror, towards the park entrance,

“A lion! A lion!” shrieked the trembling slaves,
but Smerdis, drawing his dagger, ran towards the
place where his brother had fallen, passing close by
the body of the fawn which lay among the reeds with
its head crushed by a blow from the lion’s paw.
Candaules followed close at the lad’s heels.

Parting the thick growth of stalks, they saw, only
a few paces off, Otanes, covered with blood, lying
motionless on the ground, and beside him the dead
body of a half-grown lion, the boy’s arrow buried in
one eye, while the blood still streamed from a lance-
wound in the animal’s side.

Smerdis, weeping, threw himself beside his brother,

 

THE HUNTING PARTY WERE NEARLY READY TO START.

made a wide circuit, passed the bed of reeds, and
concealed themselves behind the tall rushes beyond.
A low whistle gave Otanes the signal to drive out the
fawn.

Smerdis and the slaves saw the lad straighten him-
self in the saddle, and with a shout, dash at full speed
towards the spot where the fawn had vanished. He
had almost reached it when the stiff stalks shook
violently, and a loud roar made them all spring to
their feet. They saw the brave boy check his horse
and fit an arrow to the string, but as he drew the
bow, there was a stronger rustle among the reeds; a
tawny object flashed through the air, striking Otanes

and at the same moment Intaphernes, with several
nobles and attendants, attracted by the cries, dashed
up to the spot. The father, springing from the sad-
dle, bent, and laid his hand on the boy’s heart.

“Ttis beating still, and strongly too!” he exclaimed.
“ Throw water in his face! perhaps” —

Without finishing the sentence, he carefully exam-
ined the motionless form. ‘Ormuzd be praised!
He has no wound ; the blood has flowed from the lion.
See, Prexaspes, there is a lance-head sticking in its
side. I believe it’s the very beast you wounded early
in the day.”

The officer whose laugh had so vexed Otanes,
80 . TWO PERSIAN SCHOOLBOYS.

stooped over the dead lion and looked at the broken hurled him from the saddle and stunned him. See!

shaft. he is opening his eyes. Otanes, Otanes, you’ve killed
“ Ay, it’s my weapon; the beast probably made its - the lion!” : .

way to the morass for water; but, by Mithras!* the The boy’s eyelids fluttered, then slowly rose, his

lad’s arrow killed the brute; the barb passed through eyes wandered over the group, and at last rested on

the eyeball into the brain.” the dead lion. The old slave’s words had evidently

“Yes, my lord,” cried old Candaules eagerly, reached his ear, for with a faint smile he glanced
“and doubtless it was only.the weight of the animal, archly at Prexaspes, and raising himself on one elbow,
which, striking my young master as it made itsspring, said:

* The Persian god of the sun. “You see, my lord — even with a bow and dagger!” -

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
if og: INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 8x

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHIZDHOOD*

The Child is father of the Man;
And f could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety,

 

THE CHILD.

1. If,
There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream, The Rainbow comes and goes,
The earth, and every common sight, And lovely is the Rose,
To me did seem The Moon doth with delight
Apparelled in celestial light, Look round her when the heavens are bare,
- The glory and the freshness of a dream. Waters on a starry night
It is not now as it hath been of yore ;— Are beautiful and fair;
Turn wheresoe’er I may, The sunshine is a glorious birth;
By night or day, But yet I know, where’er I go,
The things which I have seen I now can see no That there hath passed away a glory from the
more. , earth, .

—_——

* From Poems by William Wordsworth.

ven we
  

- 2 \ x as
i

 

 

APPARELED IN CELESTIAL LIGHT.

82

 
 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. 83

 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

“FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

III,

Now, while the birds thus sing a joyous song,
And while the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound,
To me alone there came a thought of grief:
A timely utterance gave that thought relief,
And I again am strong:
The cataracts blow their trumpets from the steep;
No more shall grief of mine the season wrong;

—

I hear the Echoes through the mountains throng,
The Winds come to me from the fields of sleep,
And all the earth is gay;
Land and sea
Give themselves up to jollity,
And with the heart of May
Doth every Beast keep holiday ; —
Thou Child of Joy,
Shout round me, let me hear thy shouts, thou
happy Shepherd-boy }
           

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AND THE BABE LEAPS UP ON HIS MOTHER’S ARM.

 

 

 

 
 

 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY

FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

Iv. : On every side,
‘ In a thousand valleys far and wide,
Ye blessed Creatures, I have heard the call Fresh flowers ; while the sun shines warm,
Ye to each other make; I see . And the Babe leaps up on his Mother’s arm:—
The heavens laugh with you in your jubilee; I hear, I hear, with joy I hear!
My heart is at your festival, — But there’s a Tree, of many, one,
My head hath its coronal, A single Field which I have looked upon,
The fulness of your bliss, I feel —I feel it all. Both of them speak of something that is gone:
O evil day! if I were sullen. The Pansy at my feet
While Earth herself is adorning, Doth the same tale repeat:
This sweet May-morning, Whither is fled the visionary gleam?

And the Children are culling Where is it now, the glory and the dream?
86 INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

Vv.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
‘From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing Boy,
But He beholds the light, and whence it flows
He sees it in his joy;
‘The Youth, who daily farther from the east
Must travel, still is. Nature’s Priest,
And by the vision splendid
Is on his way attended ;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

VI.

Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own;
Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind,
And even with something of a Mother’s mind,
And no unworthy aim,
The homely Nurse doth all she can

To make her Foster-child, her Inmate Man,
Forget the glories he hath known,
And that imperial palace whence he came.

VII.

Behold the Child among his new-born blisses,
A six years’ Darling of a pigmy size !
See, where ’mid work of his own hand he lies,
Fretted by sallies of his mother’s kisses,
With light upon him from his father’s eyes,
See, at his feet, some little plan or chart,
Some fragment from his dream of human life,
Shaped by himself with newly-learned art!

A weding or a festival,

A mourning or a funeral,

And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his song,
Then will he fit his- tongue

To dialogues of business, love, or strife;

But it will not be long

Ere this be thrown aside,

And with new joy and pride
The little Actor cons another part ;
Filling from time to time his “ humorous stage *
With all the Persons, down to palsied Age,
That Life brings with her in her equipage,

; As if his whole vocation

Were endless imitation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMCRTALITY. 87

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

VIII,

Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy Soul’s immensity;
Thou best Philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou Eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read’st the eternal deep,
Haunted forever by the eternal mind, —
Mighty prophet! Seer blest !
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave ;
Thou, over whom thy Immortality
Broods like the Day, a Master o’er a Slave,
A Presence which is not to be put by;
Thou little Child, yet glorious in the might
Of heaven-born freedom on thy being’s height,
Why with such earnest pains dost thou provoke
The years te bring the inevitable yoke,
Thus blindly with thy blessedness at strife?
Full soon thy Soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life !

IX.

O joy ! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That Nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive !
The thought of our past years in me doth breed
not indeed

Perpetual benediction:

For that which is most worthy to be blest;
Delight and liberty, the simple creed
Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,
With new-fledged hopes still fluttering in his breast :
Not for these I raise
The song of thanks and praise;
But for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings ;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections, ~
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain light of all our day,
Are yet a master light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make’
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy !
Hence in a season of calm weather,
Though inland far we be,
Our Souls have sight of that immortal sea
Which brought us hither,
Can in a moment travel thither,
And see the Children sport upon the shore,
And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore.

 
Qc

 

_ BEHOLD THE CHILD AMONG HIS NEW-BORN BLISS"S,
A SIX YEARS’ DARLING OF A PIGMY SIZE!
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY. + BG

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY,
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD.

x.
Then sing, ye Birds, sing, sing a joyous song!

And let the young lambs bound
As to the tabor’s sound !

We in thought will join your throng,
Ye that pipe and ye that play,
Ye that through your hearts to-day
Feel the gladness of the May!

- What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight,

Though nothing can bring back the hour

Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower ;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind ;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering ;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

XI.

And O, ye Fountains, Meadows, Hills, and Groves,
Forbode not any severing of our loves!
Yet in my heart’of hearts I feel your might;
I only have relinquished one delight
To live beneath your more habitual sway.
I love the Brooks which down their channels
fret,
Even more than when I tripped lightly as they;
The innocent brightness of a new-born Day
Is lovely yet ;
The Clouds that gather round the setting sun
Do take a sober coloring from an eye
That hath kept watch o’er man’s mortality ;
Another race hath been, and other palms are
won.
Thanks to the human heart by which we live,
Thanks to its tenderness, its joys, and fears,
To me the meanest flower that blows can give
Thoughts that do often lie too deep for tears,
 

THOU LITTLE CHILD, YET GLORIOUS IN THE MIGHT
OF HEAVEN-BORN FREEDOM ON THY BEING’S HEIGHT,

90
 

THE THOUGHT OF OUR PAST YEARS IN ME DOTH
BREED PERPETUAL BENEDICTION . , .

 

gl
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BROOK.

COME from haunts of coot and hern,

I make a sudden sally
And sparkle out among the fern,
To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,
Or slip between the ridges, |

By twenty thorps, a little town,
And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip’s farm I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways,

In little sharps and trebles,
I bubble into eddying bays,

I babble on the pebbles,

With many a curve my banks I fret
By many a field and fallow, j

And many a fairy foreland set
With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow
To join the brimming river,

For men may come.and men may go,
But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,
With here a blossom sailing,

Q2

By ALFRED TENNYSON,

And here and there a lusty trout,
And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake
Upon me as I travel

With many a silvery waterbreak
Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along and flow
To join the brimming river,

“For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,
I slide by hazel covers ;

I move the sweet forget-me-nots
That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,
Among my skimming swallows 5

I make the netted sunbeam dance
Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars,
In brambly wildernesses ;

I linger by my shingly bars ;
I loiter round my cresses ;

And out again I curve and flow
To join the brimming river, ;
For men may come and men may go,
But I go on forever.
— From Tennyson's Poems,
 

I MOVE THE SWEET FORGET-ME-NOTS
THAT GROW FOR HAPPY LOVERS,

93
94 HOW THEY BROUGAT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT TO AIX,

HOW THEY BROUGHT THE GOOD NEWS FROM GHENT.
TO AIX,

By ROBERT BROWNING. .

SPRANG to the stirrup, and Joris and he:
I galloped, Dirck galloped, we galloped all three;
“Good speed!” cried the watch as the gate-bolts
undrew,
* Speed!” echoed the wall to us galloping-through.
Behind shut the postern, the lights sank to rest,
And into the midnight we galloped abreast.

Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace —

Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our
place ;

I turned in my saddle and made its girths tight,

Then shortened each stirrup and set the pique right,

Rebuckled the check-strap, chained slacker the bit,

Nor galloped less steadily Roland a whit.

"Twas moonset at starting ; but while we drew near

Lokeren, the cocks crew and twilight dawned clear;

At Boom a great yellow star came out to see ;.

At Diiffeld ’twas morning as plain as could be;

And from Mecheln church-steeple we heard the half-
chime —

So Joris broke silence with “Yet there is time!”

At Aerschot up leaped of a sudden the sun,

And against him the cattle stood black every one,
To stare through the mist at us galloping past;
And I saw my stout galloper Roland at last

With resolute shoulders, each butting away

The haze, as some bluff river headland its spray;

And his low head and crest, just one sharp ear bent
back >

For my voice, and the other pricked out on his track,

And one eye’s black intelligence — ever that glance

O’er its white edge at me, his own master, askance;

And the thick heavy spume-flakes, which aye and anon

His fierce lips shook upwards in galloping on.

By Hasselt, Dirck groaned; and cried Joris, “ Stay
spur!
Your Roos galloped bravely, the fault’s not in her ;

We'll remember at Aix” —for one heard the quick
wheeze

Of her chest, saw the stretched sibel and staggering
knees,

And sunk tail, and horrible heave of the flank,

As down on her haunches she shuddered and sank.

So we were left galloping, Joris and I,

Past Looz and past Tongres, no cloud in the sky ;

The broad sun above laughed a pitiless laugh ;

*Neath our feet broke the brittle bright stubble like
chaff; :

Till over by Delhem a dome-spire sprung white,

And “Gallop,” gasped Joris, “for Aix is in sight !

“How they’ll greet us!” —and all in a moment his
roan

Rolled neck and croup over, lay dead as a stone; +

And there was my Roland to bear the whole weight

Of the news which alone could save Aix from her
fate,

With his nostrils like pits full of blood to the brim,

And with circles of red for his eye-sockets’ rim.

Then I cast loose my buff-coat, each holster let fall,

Shook off both my jack-boots, let go belt and all,

Stood up in the stirrup, leaned, patted his ear,

Called my Roland his pet name, aoe horse without
peer —

Clapped my hands, laughed and sung, ‘any noise, bad
or good,

Till at length into Aix, Roland. galloped and stood.

And all I remember is friends flocking round,
As I sate with his head twixt my knees on the
ground ;
And-no voice but was praising this Roland of mine
As I poured down his throat our last measure of wine,
Which ( the burgesses voted by common consent )
Was no more than his due who brought good n news
from Ghent.
— From Browning's Poems.

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AT AERSCHOT UP LEAPED OF A SUDDEN THE SUN.

95
RING OUT, WILD BELLS.

RING OUT, WILD BELLS.

By ALFRED TENNYSON, |

ING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;

Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,

Ring in redress to all mankind. —

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times ;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,

But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring .out false pride in place and blood, —
The civic slander and the spite; -
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring. out the narrowing lust of gold;

- Ring out the thousand wars of old,

Ring in the thousand years of peace,

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,

Ring in the Christ that is to be.

— From “In Memoria”
 

 
O MAY I JOIN. THE CHOIR INVISIBLE!

By Grorce ELiot.

MAY I join the choir invisible
Of these immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence ; live
In pulses stirred to generosity,
In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn
Of miserable aims that end with self,
In thoughts sublime that pierce the nights like stars,
And with their mild persistence urge men’s minds
To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven :
‘To make undying music in the world,
Breathing a beauteous order that controls
With growing sway the growing life of man.
So we inherit that sweet purity
For which we struggled, failed and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,
Poor, anxious penitence is quick dissolved ;
Its discords, quenched by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air;
And all our rarer, better, truer self,
‘That sobbed religiously in yearning song,
That watched to ease the burden of the world,

Laboriously tracing what must be,

And what may yet be better — saw rather

A wortheir image for the sanctuary

And shaped it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so

To higher reverence more mixed with love—
That better self shall live to human Time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky

Be gathered like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever.

This is life to come,
Which martyred men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow.

May I reach
That purest heaven, —be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor, feed pure love, .
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty,
Be the sweet presence of a good diffused,
And in diffusion even more intense !
So shall I join the choir invisible
Whose music is the gladness of the world.

— From The Legend of Tubal and Other Poems.

 
   

 

“MAY I REACH THAT PUREST HEAVEN |”

99
HE COULDN'T SAY No.

HE COULDN’T SAY NO.

IT was sad and it was strange!
He just was full of knowledge,
His studies swept the whole broad range
Of High School and éf College ;
He read in Greek and Latin too,
Loud Sanscrit he could utter,
But one small thing he couldn’t do
That comes as pat to me and you
As eating bread and butter :
He couldn’t say “No!” He couldn’t say “No!”
I’m sorry to say it was really so!
He’d diddle, and dawdle, and stutter, but oh!
When it came to the point he could never say
“Nol!” ae

Geometry he knew by rote,
Like any Harvard Proctor;
He'd sing a fugue out, note by note;
Knew Physics like a Doctor ;
He spoke in German and in French ;
Knew each Botanic table ;
But one small word that you'll agree
Comes pat enough to you and me,
To speak he was not able:
For he couldn’t say “No!” He couldn’t say “Nol!”
*Tis dreadful, of course, but ’twas really so.
He’d diddle, and dawdle, and stutter, but oh!

When it came to the point he could never say“ No!” |

And he could fence, and swim, and float,
And use the gloves with ease too,
Could play base ball, and row a boat,
And hang ona trapeze too;
His temper was beyond rebuke,
And nothing made him lose it;
His strength was something quite superb,
But what’s the use of having nerve
Tf one can never use it ?
He couldn’t say “No!” He couldn’t say “No!”
If one asked him to come, if one asked him to Zo,
He'd diddle, and dawdle, and stutter, but oh!
When it came to the point he could never say
“No!”

. EL B.,

When he was but a little lad,
Tn life’s small ways progressing,
He fell into this habit bad
Of always acquiescing ;
’Twas such an amiable trait,
To friend as well as stranger,
That half unconsciously at last
The custom held him hard and fast
Before he knew the danger,
And he couldn’t say “No!” He couldn’t say “No!”
To his prospects you see ’twas a terrible blow.
He'd diddle, and dawdle, and stutter, but oh!

When it came to the point he could never say “Not”

And so for all his weary days
The best of chances failed him;
He lived in strange and troublous ways
And never knew what ailed him ;
He’d go to skate when ice was thin;
He’d join in deeds unlawful,
He’d lend his name to worthless notes,
He’d speculate in stocks and oats;
*Twas positively awful,
For he couldn’t say “No!” He couldn't say “No!”
He would veer like a weather-cock turning so slow;
He’d diddle, and dawdle, and stutter, but oh!
When it came to the point he could never say
“No!”

Then boys and girls who hear my song,
Pray heed its theme alarming:
Be good, be wise, be kind, be strong —
These traits are always charming,
But all your learning, all your skill
With well-trained brain and muscle,
Might just as well be left alone,
If you can’t cultivate backbone
To help you in life’s tussle,
And learn to say “No!” Yes, learn to say “No!”
Or you'll fall from the heights to the rapids below!
You may waver, and falter, and tremble, but oh!
When your conscience requires it, be sure and
shout “No|” |
 

ID you ever wonder what they
ate, and how they cooked it, in
the very new New England of a hundred
years ago? Or have you supposed that,
like Mother Goose’s old woman, they

“lived upon nothing but victuals and drink?”

They certainly did; but with smaller variety in
material and fewer utensils, their food necessarily
differed widely from ours, and many very delicious
old-fashioned dishes are‘now almost forgotten.

The whole country was new then, and Vermont
was farther inland, practically, than the remotest
corner of Arizona is now; and the food of each
family was almost wholly produced on the farm upon
which they lived, so that the sturdy, determined set-
tlers were independent of foreign lands.

I have often heard Madame Thankful Whitney’s
cooking spoken of, and some of her receipts have
passed down to me, but I suppose the dear old peo-
ple who told them to me, would think the same
dishes if cooked in modern stoves and ranges, lacked
a peculiar appetizing flavor which is imparted only
from the brick oven, the bake-kettle, or the fireplace,
or more probably from Madame Whitney’s skilful
handling and compounding ; it certainly did require
more skill to cook well then than now.

The very earliest settlers in Vermont used gener-
ally to come in small companies, all men, bringing
with them little beside a change of clothing, a gun,

 

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an axe, and a small supply of flour and salt. There
would, perhaps, be two horses belonging to a party
of five or six, and on these they bound the more un-
wieldy articles; the rest they strapped upon their
own backs. When they found a favorable location,
they built a cabin of bark and bushes, selected and
staked out their farms, and each immediately began
to clear his own.

They could shoot game enough for their meat
supply, and the handiest one of their number was
deputed to make unleavened bread as often ‘as
occasion required; and they did their cooking in a
little fireplace in, or near, the cabin.

Week after week they chopped down the great
primeval trees; when a sufficient quantity had been
felled in any one of the lots, they all worked together
to pile the brush and logs for burning. The huge
fires were a wild and splendid sight, especially at
night, and frightened the wolves to safe distances
for some time. After the burning, if it was in season,
they immediately sowed wheat, bought at the nearest
settlement, and patiently hoed it in. The land was
too rough for use of plow and harrow, therefore as
fast as the wheat was scattered the ground was mel-
lowed and the seed covered by means of a hand hoe.

IOJ
102 OLD-TIME
It sprung up quickly, and produced an abundant
crop.

After the wheat was sown, they built substantial
log cabins on their farms in the midst of theclearing.
“Didn’t they leave a single tree to shade their houses?”
some one wonders. No; they were too wise to do
that. The first blast of wind might have blown them
over and perhaps crushed their little cabins. Forest
trees do not send out their roots widely and bracingly,
like those which grow in open land, and they do
not stand stoutly alone. The cabins completed, the
clearings were left in the care of one man, while the
rest went back to the home State for their families.
It was not safe to leave the wheat fields unwatched ;
and with all the care, very likely the bears got half
of the crops.

The food for the family during the first year was
principally wild game and wheat. The pigs and
sheep and calves which they had laboriously driven
from the old homes were altogether too precious to
be killed until they were sure of others. They often

COOKERY.

“improved” farm; that is, a small clearing had been
made upon it a few years before, and an unfinished
framed house built, also a log stable, I think, around
which had been stacked the wild hay cut in the clear-
ing. Oh, how they shivered in that unfinished house
that first winter, though Mr. Whitney kept his ham-
mers and saws flying—ceiling and battening the
cracks; for he was a notable carpenter. It is said
“ pride will keep one warm,” but their pride in their
“board house” was not sufficient to keep them half
as warm as their neighbors were in their snug, cosey
log cabins. Did you never live inalog house? Then
I wish you could for just one winter; you would
never pity the early settlers again, simply on the score
of their houses. They were, perhaps, a trifle too
dark in the day time, since the logs could not be cut
through too often for window space; but they were
very warm. The settlers, to be sure, built framed
houses as soon as possible, both because they could
be made more roomy and because they liked to build
“for good.” <A log house was erected for temporary

 

THE VERY

boiled their wheat, and corn too after they began to
raise it, whole, or else cracked it in a mortar; for the
grist-mill might be twenty or thirty miles away, and of
course they went to it as seldom as possible.

But Mr. Whitney brought his family to an

EARLIEST SETTLERS,

accommodation without foundation stones; conse-
quently sagged, sunk, and leaned, and seldom lasted
many years. Madame Whitney’s house, like all of
that date, had an immense chimney—larger than
her bedroom, with small fireplaces in the “square
OLD-TIME

rooms,” and one —high, deep and wide—in the
? . . .

kitchen. A heavy crane swung in this kitchen fire-
place, on which she could hang four or five cooking-

| Aree
HW

I thee
Se Y
Wo:
Hy es

NY

 

pots and kettles at atime. At the left was the brick
oven, four feet deep and two feet high, arched over
with brick. The brick or stone floor of this oven
was about four feet higher than the kitchen floor, and
under it was a long pit for ashes.

A large portion of the great Whitney farm still
bristled. with stumps and roots; but some corn was
raised even the first year. Potatoes, which after-
ward formed such an important crop, were little used,
a barrel of them being considered an ample supply
for winter. They were raised in the garden with
other vegetables and in similar quantities. Baked or
boiled potatoes for every-day fare, as we regularly
use them, were unknown; they were mostly used
in “ boiled victuals,” a farm-house dinner stil] much
esteemed by families who keep to the old ways.

Madame Whitney’s preparations for a boiled din-
ner began before breakfast, when she put a great
piece of salt beef in the pot over the fire. This pot
was a fat thing, small at the top, to keep the smoke
away from the cover, and it held two or three pail-
fuls. A piece of pork and a quantity of “garden

COOKERY. 103
gauce’’—beets, cabbage, turnips, carrots and pota-
toes—followed the beef at the appropriate time, and,
best of all, a pudding. No boiled dinner was com-
plete without its pudding, which was put into the
pot at exactly nine o’clock, dinner being always
served at noon. The pudding was a simple batter
of new milk and Indian meal, made thin and boiled
in a linen bag. ‘To insure lightness the water in the
pot must be boiling briskly when the pudding was
put in, and never stop for an instant. ‘This item of
care-taking attended to, when the bag was turned
off, the pudding was always found to be “light asa
cork,” and, with cream and maple-sugar, was very
toothsome; and all the more highly prized that they
did not have dessert with every dinner. After the
vegetables and meats and pudding had been taken
up, crusts of brown bread which had been saved for
this purpose, were put into the pot and boiled a few
minutes, then skimmed out—a brewis with nameless
garden flavors —to accompany the dinner.

A good deal of time was required for the prepara»
tion of a boiled dinner, but the shrewd lady saw at
least four meals in the pot when she swung forth
the crane. She served it warm for the first dinner,
cold for supper, with brown bread and a salad of
chopped mustard leaves if it was summer time. In
the morning she made a hash of the remaining meats
and vegetables; and for the next day’s dinner there
was a soup compounded of the fragments, the pot-
broth, and a pint of beans —I must admit that this
was not so popular a dinner as the first.

Many beans were raised, the stumps being very
convenient to dry them on. They were baked and
stewed, but oftenest of all were made into bean
porridge. This was a rich, thick soup, cooked slowly
fora long time. It was made with seasoning of beef
bones, if obtainable, but oftener a few slices of salt
pork were fried in the pot, two or three quarts
of water poured upon
them, and added to this

  

A SUBSTANTIAL LOG CABIN.
104 OLD-TIME
over night in cold water. It was additionally sea-
soned with salt and small bits of pepper-pods, and
was a staple article of diet, being made as often as
once a week, summer and winter; took kindly to
repeated warmings over, and was a popular dish with

_the children, brown bread or wheaten being crum-

bled liberally into the steaming bowl.
Plenty of wheat was produced as I have told you,
and ryealso. It was all threshed with hand flails. I

always think when I see a threshing-machine that
A good

the poetry of farm-life is almost gone.

  
  

    
   
  

COOKERY.

the many purposes for which we use barrels. When
flour or meal was needed, Mr. Whitney brought
forth his “fan,” put a few quarts of grain upon it,
and by a dexterous sleight tossed the grainup a few
inches, catching it on the fan when it came down, to
toss it up again. The grain and chaff soon began
mysteriously to separate, the chaff toward the front
and the grain to the back of the fan. At intervals
the chaff and dirt were brushed off and the process
renewed and repeated until the grain was perfectly
clean and ready for the bag. ‘he filled bags were

 
  
 
  
   
 
  
      

ipa,
Cleary was
Fae ead
My i" Kk | aK } is
SS alll fer a) IM,
tp WIL 9 3 ae
yn YLA SG ELLE YY

SOWING WHEAT.

thresher was very easy, leisurely and rythmical in
his movements; he brought his flail around with a
graceful swing very different from the might-and-
main blow which pictures often suggest. Two men
were accustomed to thresh on one floor. When one
flail went up the other came down; and though it
looked like easy work, it was not.

When the grain had been threshed and partially
cleaned from chaff, it was stored in the chamber in
hollow logs from which the bark had been stripped,
and the decayed wood on the inside scraped or
burned out. These primitive barrels were cut in sec-
tions about four feet long, set up on end, and served

piled upon the back of a horse which Cyrus led or
rode to mill.

Baking-day was the great day of the week. Mad:
ame Whitney was up betimes ; Cyrus was summoned,
and was expected to split a great pile of short oven-
wood before breakfast; and it was Sally’s duty
during the same time to have sifted the meal and
flour: three sievefuls of rye and three of cornmeal
into the bread-trough, a box as large as a baby cra-
dle, and strongly dovetailed together. The modern
mind fails to understand why these bread-troughs
were made so large; but it is a fact that they seldom
held less than two bushels. At each end of the
 

 
   

trough near the top, was a slot to hold the “ meal-
stick,” and along this stick little Sally slid the sieve
to and fro. to and fro, to sift the meal. She next
sifted a quantity of flour into the wheat tray —a

OLD-TIME COOKERY.

105

I say, because the broom was often dipped in a pail
of water to wash away the ashes.

Pots of beans and an Indian pudding were set in
while the oven was yet too hot for bread. The rye-

 

THE SALT MORTAR.

heavy home-made wooden receptacle holding but
little less than the trough. After breakfast Madame
rolled her sleeves to her shoulders, tied on a clean
linen apron, and with a pan of milk and water and a
bowl of fresh yeast, began to compound the brown
bread. I regret to say that it is my belief that she
called this bread “ryninjun” when it was done.
It was no light task to mix five or six large loaves,
since it must be made stiff enough to bake without
pans on the bottom of the oven. When thoroughly
mixed she heaped it in one end of the trough and
set it near the fire to rise. Then she mixed the
wheaten dough and set the tray over the trough.
The oven was heated by building a fire of finely
split wood in it. This fire was kept up an hour or
two; but old ladies used to say they “could tell
when an oven was hot by the looks.” When it
was at white heat, the coals were spread over the
oven to heat the bottom; and when this stone floor
reached the right degree, the coals and ashes were
scraped out, and a birch broom, from which the
string had-been cut to let the splinters stand in all
directions, was used to sweep or mop it clean—mop,

and-Indian and the wheat dough having become
light, they were gently formed into loaves, well
sprinkled with dry meal, and slid into the oven from
the blade of a long-handled wooden shovel —the
brown bread first, and when the oven was a little
cooler, the wheat bread. The heat was measured by
the hand; if the cook could hold her hand in the
oven while she counted twenty, she put in her brown
bread; when she could count forty the white bread
followed.

There was then room for two or three pies in the
mouth of the oven. Fruit pies could seldom be made;
berries, to be sure, soon sprang up in the clearings, .
and wild grapes grew near some of the streams;
but the Whitney family and their neighbors had
to wait years for apples and the other tree-fruits.
Think how large a place fruit, raw and cooked,
occupies in all our meals and culinary calculations,
and you will wonder how our foremothers managed
to live without it! When wild cherries were ripe
Madame Whitney used sometimes to make pies of
them, of both bird cherries and the bush cherry called
chokecherries. These cherry pies required long bak-
106 OLD-TIME
ing; and, if the crusts were growing too brown, she
covered them with large green leaves. She could not
use yesterday’s daily paper, since yesterday had brought
her no such thing. I doubt if she ever saw one. In
spring she made -pies of sorrel. On baking days
the children were sent to gather a quantity of fresh
young green sorrel leaves—the old leaves were
tough and bitter. After covering a plate with paste
she piled it high with the carefully washed and
picked sorrel, put on plenty of maple sugar, and
covered it with paste. Sometimes she scalded the
leaves slightly: then she could judge better of the
quantity to put in. Should you try to make sorrel
pies, girls, remember sorrel takes as much sugar as
rhubarb. America had not then become a “pie-
eating nation,” but Madame Whitney made more
than her neighbors, especially when pumpkins came.
Oh, the pumpkin! I don’t know what our pioneers
would have done without it. It was easily raised
and much used. They put it into brown bread to
give it a sweet taste; they ate it simply stewed; they
cut it in long strips and dried it over the fire, or
stewed it and dried it in the oven after the bread had
been drawn out; they made pies of it, and some-
times they even made from it an
inferior kind of syrup. “ Didn’t they

COOKERY.

buckets, iron spouts and great reservoirs, and all the
modern appliances which are locked in his father’s
sugar-house.

Oh, yes; there were plenty of maple-trees, but
nothing else. Before sugar could be made, Cyrus
and his father must work many a long evening chop-
ping and burning out troughs to be used in place of
buckets. They also made spouts by burning out the
pith of some soft-hearted wood with a hot spindle.
They tapped the trees by boring with a large auger,
or else cut in them a long diagonal gash with an
axe, turning out a chip on the lower end to conduct.
the sap, in place of a spout. Either method would
be considered gross cruelty to the tree by a modern
sugar-maker. Many families had only their dinner-
pot or a small wash-kettle to boil down sap in; but
Madame Whitney had saved from the sale of the
saltpetre works an immense kettle, and brought it all
the way to Vermont. Mr. Whitney hung this old

‘saltpetre-kettle by means of a large chain, to a stout,

well-braced pole, slung the great dinner-pot beside

 
 
 
  
    

TOO PRECIOUS TO BE KILLED.

have sugar enough ?” some farmer’s boy asks, “with
the town half covered with maple-trees?” And I
suppose he sees heaters and evaporators and tin

it, tapped the trees, and then left the boys to make
the year’s supply of sugar. Merry times they had
too, though all the sap was gathered by hand. Ben
 

OLD-TIME

and Cyrus had sap-yokes which they wore on their
shoulders to lighten the task of carrying the pails,
and sometimes too, they wore snow-shoes as they
trudged about over the crusty snow from tree to tree
through the tall, silent forest. The sap they gath-
ered was stored in a long trough from which the
It was little John’s business to

kettles were filled.

 
  

~.

COOKERY. 107
some of the neighbors’ boys would come over to pass
the evening, perhaps staying to “sugar off.” After
supper of toasted brown bread and roast squirrel,
they would lie down on the fragrant green floor and
tell stories of bears and wolves and panthers, the
scenes of which were so near, both in time and space,
that poor little John’s hair often stood on end, and

- he could plainly see fierce
eyes glaring from every bush
on the way home, until he

23,

  

Se,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

= SoS

  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 

almost “ wished the old cat-
amount had him and done.
with it.” Sometimes they
told Indian stories, even
more frightful than those
of wild beasts ; for the fear
of the red man had not yet
passed away from the set-
tlements. But they gener-
ally forgot the terror each,
had in turn awakened, when.
the important moment ar-
rived of testing the slowly

 

DRYING BEANS.

 

keep the fires, and skim
the syrup as it boiled.
There was little time to
play, but what there was
was improved. They
climbed trees, shot game,
broiled bits of salt pork
over the fire for their
luncheon, and ate the froth
which danced on the top
of the kettles—it con-
tained all the impurities
of the sap, but no matter:

“ Anything sweet in the mouth
can sweeten
All this bitter world for a boy.”

Sometimes they had to boil at night, and an eerie
and a merry time both, they had then. The sap was
gathered before dark, and they repaired to the bush
house before the fire, going out occasionally to fill up
the kettles. A thick mat of odorous hemlock boughs
covered the floor of the house, and the great fire
shining in made it very light and warm. Generally

  

bubbling syrup to sce whether it would “ grain,”
trying it upon pieces of broken crockery, and waxing:
other spoonfuls on the snow for immediate consump~
tion while they waited for the test-portions to cool.
How delicious were the cold sheets uf waxen sweet:
that they peeled from the snow in yellow-brown rolls,
rivalling even the saucers of warm sugar. That tom
108

‘was a good opportunity to manufacture maple sugar
eggs. These were made by pouring out the yolk

and white
of an egg
through a
small open-
ing in one
end of the
shell, and
then pouring
in warm sug-
ar, and leav-
ing it to grow
solid, the
shell to be
removed at
pleasure.
The Whit-
ney children
usually pro-
vided them-
selves with
a dozen or

more apiece of these sugar eggs; and for purposes of barter
among themselves and neighbors’ young folks these sweets

OLD-TIME COOKERY.

  
   
   
  
  
  
 
 
  
  
  
 
 
  
  
   
 
  
 
  
 
  
 
 

BAKING DAY.

were more powerful than coin of the realm.

The first pail of sap gathered Ben was sure to carry home
Madame Whitney boiled this down about
‘one third, added twice as much new milk as there was syrup,
‘and thickened it with flour until about as thick as good

for sap porridge.

   

  

 

LYN Oe

‘cream. This was dipped boiling hot upon a quantity — ents.

of hard bread-crusts, and made a good supper—at

least for Cyrus, Ben, Sally and John. Nothing
was wasted in Madame Whitney’s house. Even

the crusts of bread
were all saved, and
served up in various
palatable ways.
When they could
get the promise of
some Pop Robin ev-
ery boy in the house
was happy. Iam go-
ing to tell you just
how that was made,
and some of Mari-
on Harland’s Wipe
AWAKE cooks will
perhaps try to make
it and see how they
like this dish of their
great-great grand-par-

   
 
 
 
 
  
 
   

Well, Madame Whitney boiled the sap and
added the milk, as she did for sap porridge. ‘Ther
OLD-TIME

when it boiled she put in her “robins.” To make

these she tuok one egg for each cup of sweet milk,
and stirred in flour till it was a stiff batter; but I

 

 

think if you
should put in
asmuch cream
of tartar and
soda as youdo
in making bis-
cuits, your rob-
ins will be
more likely to
be light— if
they are heavy
your dinner is
spoiled. The
batter should
be as stiff as
you can stir
with 4 spoon; and as soon as the sweet porridge
boils you are to drop in bits, or “robins,” about as
large as an acorn. Drop them just where the boiling
makes a free space in the pot, and don’t let the boil-
ng Cease for a moment. Cover the pot, and let it

 

 

THE BAKE-KETTLE,

COOKERY. 108

”

boil a few moments after the last robin isin. A little
salt should be put both into the robins and the por-
ridge, the salt taste being quite distinct in the
robins.

Salt was one of the anxieties and trials of the
housekeeper; it required two bushels of wheat to
buy one bushel of salt, and the exchange had to be
made several miles away. It was coarse salt when
bought; all the fine salt used for butter and cooking
was pounded in a mortar— the Whitney boys hated
the salt mortar worse than they did the churn.

The first maple syrup brought in demanded “ flap-
jacks” for its full enjoyment. These were baked in
a frying-pan, with a handle three or four feet long,
and cook, who was perhaps the good deacon himself,
held the pan over the fire, while the mass of batter
was baking; when well done on the under side he
shook the pan lightly till the cake would slip upon
it; then, with a skilful toss, he /apped the cake over,
still holding the pan over the fire — this made flap-
jacks of the cakes, I suppose, for they were what
we call griddle-cakes or pancakes. But Madame
Whitney’s pancakes were different; they were made
much like the dumplings in Pop Robin, and dropped
by spoonfuls into hissing lard. No one could stand
over the blazing fire to do this, so a parcel of coals
was drawn out on the hearth, and in them was set a
a long-legged
spider con-
taining the
lard. All iron-
ware was then
made with
long legs to
stand in beds
of coals. A
* short-cake ””
was baked in
a spider over
the coals until
the bottom
was done, then
turned up be-
fore the fire till
the top cooked
and browned. Biscuits were baked in a bake-kettle
—a kettle holding ten or twelve quarts, with a heavy
cast-iron cover, which was surrounded by a deep rim,
The kettle was put on the hearth over a bed of live
coals, the dough laid in, either with or without a
L1LoO

baking plate, the cover put on, and coals piled upon
it. When the coals began to die, they were easily
renewed from the fireplace. The bake-kettle was
- prized for an emergency, as it was so readily got in
baking order, while the heating of the brick oven
was an affair of time and preparation.

When the settlements were new, the cows ranging
the woods got little nourishing food and gave little
milk. As fast as possible, trees were girdled or felled
to give more grass space, and better pasturage and
milk soon came to form a very important article of
diet. Plain, but substantial breakfasts and dinners
of solid food were always provided; but in mos
houses the suppers, not teas, were of milk with bread
or hominy, mush, or hulled corn, or boiled wheat,
eaten from wooden bowls or pewter porringers.

But whatever the meal chanced to be, any neigh-
bor or friend who happened to call was asked to “sit
by,” and made welcome to a share. Everybody was
hospitable and benevolent, and all were as generous
in caring for others as they were shrewd in looking

- QUESTIONS.

out for themselves. If any man was sick, his neigh-
bors did his planting or harvesting, taking good care -
to have it done in season. Besides, in clearing land
and erecting buildings every man even those in most
prosperous circumstances was forced sooner or later
to ask help. No one willingly refused an invitation
to a log-piling, raising, or other “ bee.” These were
the housewife’s great days. If her townsmen took
pleasure in coming to help her husband, she took
both pleasure and pride in giving them a good din-
ner when the work was done. As soon as the invita:
tions to a bee were out, the girls and matrons in the
vicinity dropped in one by one, with ‘offers of
assistance in the house, cooking utensils and the use
of the oven. ‘The day of the bee as well as the day
before, was as busy a one in doors as out. A row of
pots hung bubbling on the crane, the great oven was
heated again and again, and, if it was a very great
occasion, pots of beans and pudding were sent to
other houses to bake —but at another time I will
tell you the full story of “an old-fashioned bee.”

 

 

QUESTIONS.

By Kate LAWRENCE,
Cr you put the spider’s web back in its place, that once has been swept away?
Can you put the apple again on the bough, which fell at our feet to-day?
Can you put the lily-cup back on the stem, and cause it to live and grow?
Can you mend the butterfly’s broken wing, that you crushed with a hasty blow ?
Can you put the bloom again on the grape, or the grape again on the vine?
Can you put the dewdrops back on the flowers, and make them sparkle and shine?

Can you put the petals back on the rose?

If you could, would it smell as sweet ?

Can you put the flour again in the husk, and show me the ripened. wheat ?

Can you put the kernel back in the nut, or the broken egg in its shell?

Can you put the honey back in the comb, and cover with wax each cell ?

Can you put the perfume back in the vase, when once it has sped away ?

Can you put the corn-silk back on the corn, or the down on the catkins —say?
You think that my questions are trifling, dear? Let me ask you another one:
Can a hasty word ever be unsaid, or a deed unkind, undone?
Se Oe pee Poe ee Sean ORR ERR

 

OUR

RGYAL NEIGHBORS AT SANDRINGHAM.

By Mrs.-RayMonp BLATHWAYTE.

 

DARE say all American
boys and girls very well
know Sandringham to be
the name of the house
in which the Prince of
Wales lives when he is
quite at home. I have
the good fortune to live
within a few miles of the

 

; estate, and we often drive there, especially when

we have any visitor staying with us whose heart,
like ours, is cram-full of loyalty, as we had last
November. The Prince and Princess are always
at home at that time, and remain to spend Christ-
mas. They had, as usual, been entertaining the
people of the county with dancing and festivity.
It was the morning after the ball, and there was
to be a grand meet of the hunt at Hillington, and

"we decided to drive to see the royal party leave the

hall.

It was a brilliant frosty morning, and off we rat-
tled through the little village and out into the open
country, gay with autumnal coloring, the sea glit-
tering and sparkling in the far off distance. We
rushed, up hill and down dale, through villages
that woke up to see us pass, and along great com-

"mons grand in their noble solitude, then up a pretty

little wooded steep, and there the Park lay before

~us in all its English beauty. Here are the Nor-

wich gates, handsome iron structures, presented
to the Prince of Wales by the inhabitants of the
ancient cathedral city. There is the long avenue
of noble oaks and beeches; and then the house
itself—a plain and somewhat homely-looking build-
ing.

A soldierly looking policeman is standing at the
gates. Uncle Raymond, who is driving, jumps
down and accosts him : “Has the Prince gone yet ?””

“No, sir, you’re in plenty of time.
better go round to Cook’s Lodge, and drive slowly
up the hill; you’re sure to see him pass.” __

We drive on again, Everything savors of roy-
alty, Prince of Wales’ feathers meet the eye at every

You had.

turn; even the very carts bear his name upon them
as they pass. And now we take position on the hill.
A quarter of an hour goes slowly by, and yet we
see and hear nothing.

“Ts it possible,” cries Uncle Raymond taking out
his watch, “that we have had our drive for nothing ?
Here is a man, I’ll ask him.”

The laborer civilly informs us that the Prince is
snipe-shooting at Wolverton, and, touching his hat,
passes on.

We groan audibly. A gentleman in hunting cos-
tume, but on foot, appears in the distance. As he
approaches Uncle Raymond questions him: ‘ Does
the Prince go hunting to-day?”

“Ves; he does go hunting to-day.”

“Will he pass this way?”

“Fe will pass this way; you cannot possibly
miss him.”

Presently carts and wagonettes go by; and then
a string of the royal hunters step proudly past us.
Then two or three red coats appear, more wagon-
ettes, more strings of hunters, more red-coats, all
looking as “fresh as paint and as cheerful as par-
rots.” And then comes a pause. We are alone
once more. But soon a gentleman rides slowly out
of the gates, immediately followed by a laughing
cavalcade.

It is the Prince!

He on the gray horse, at the head of the caval-
cade, comes slowly up the hill.

Uncle Raymond stands bareheaded at the pony’s
head. ‘The Prince’s eye is upon us and, noting
Uncle Raymond’s bare head, he lifts his hat, bows
graciously and gallops rapidly forward. He looked
very handsome in his red coat, every inch the Prince
of Wales, and England’s future King.

Then there is more waiting until an open car-
riage, drawn by four horses with postilions, turns
the corner. Two gentlemen are on the box, then
two ladies, then a lady and gentleman. The Prin-
cess is on the second seat, and on our side. As
she passes, looking pale, but very sweet and pretty,
she, too, bows in the most charming manner. Then

1T1
IL2

she also passes out of sight.
the Prince and Princess.

We took another visitor to Sandringham when
the family were away. I remember that we visited
the little rural church, across the park to which the
Princess used to steal so often on those dull winter
days more than twelve years ago, when it was be-
lieved the Prince lay dying, and all England waited
in suspense the issues of life or death, Just with-
out the east window, in the mossy green of the
churchyard, there is a little grave with simple mar-
ble cross and low iron railing. Here lies the
little Prince who only lived through one short day,
the third son of the royal pair, Alexander John
Charles Albert. Scarcely a stone’s throw from this
is the grave of the favorite young groom, Charles
Blagg, who died of the same illness that seized the
Prince in that memorable winter of ’71. A stone
cross marks the spot, and on the reverse of the
cross is engraved by the Prince’s special command :
“ The one was taken and the other left.” ‘This is one
of the many little incidents which prove to us Eng-
lish people that our Prince possesses a warm heart.
He who could be touched by the death of a ser-
vant, and acknowledge that God’s Providence alone
had preserved him from sharing the same fate,
must be possessed of deep and tender feelings. In
the chancel of the little church, erected by the
Prince’s order to the memory of his sister the
Princess Alice, is another tablet inscribed by him:
“< This monument is erected by her devoted and sorrow-
ing brother Albert Edward, Prince of Wales.”

We left the churchyard to enter the park and
grounds surrounding the hall. There is much of in-
teresttobeseen. Although no portion of the house is
ever shown, by favor we were allowed to go into the
Princess’ little tea-room adjoining her dairy; an
exquisite little room decorated with gifts from her
personal friends in the shape of pictures, painted
panels, plaques etc. etc. Here she frequently enter-
tains her especial friends at afternoon tea, part of
the meal being a large home-baked loaf, for which
the Princess always stipulates, and from which she
cuts slices for her guests with her own hands.
The big, cool dairy is perfect in its arrangement,
and the cream from those large white pans is sim-
ply delicious. This is one of the homely tastes
that so endears the Princess to us, because it shows
that amidst all the grandeur by which she is nec-
essarily surrounded, she still preserves her fond-

Our guest had seen

‘them driving a sand-cart.

OUR ROVAL NEIGHBORS AT SANDRINGHAM.

ness for simple pleasures and for housewifely ways.

Here in these green lanes and woods she fre-
quently puts aside the accessories of royalty. A
few years ago, she and some of her children had
enjoyed a considerable ramble, and were exces-
sively fatigued, when opportunely an old man passed
The Princess instantly
accosted him, asking him to give them a lift. He,
addressing her as “my good lady,” bade her and
the children “jump up.” This they did, im-
mensely enjoying the “lark.” They chatted pleas-
antly as they jogged along (for our Norfolk la

 

 

H. R. Hey LOUISE OF WALES.

borers are singularly shrewd and intelligent, and
always ready to respond when talked to), until they
came to the big iron gates where the ways divide.
The man then asked the “good lady” where he
should set them down.

She said Bs might drive straight on.
“straight on’

Now
’ meant through those big Norwich
gates which admit you into the approach to the
hall. The man hesitated. The Princess insisted ;
and moreover she made him drive up to the very
door where kings and dukes and all imaginable
grandees are received. I wonder whose surprise
 

OUR ROVAL NEIGHBORS AT SANDRINGHAM.

was the greater, that of the driver of the sand-
cart, or that of the Princess’ attendants when she
alighted at her own door from this novel equipage!

Only a few months ago the Princess, before leav-
ing Sandringham, went to take a farewell gift. of
photographs to one of the people on the estate.
A new maid-servant opened the door to her.

“Ts Mr. So-and-So at home?” asked the Princess,

“No, Miss,” said the girl, “ but he won’t be long;
will you come in and wait a bit?”

_ “Tell him,” said the laughing Princess, as she
handed over the packet, “that the Princess of
Wales brought these for his acceptance.”

The Princess herself repeated this story to the
gentleman of the house, who quickly responded :

“No stranger would ever take your Royal High-
ness to be the mother of those fine young men,”
referring to the Princes.

But to return to Sandringham. We wandered
down by the lake, and went into a beautiful little
cave which the water enters and forms a deep, still,
dark pool, such a contrast to the sunlit lake out-
. Side, over the surface of which some lovely swans
and water fowl were gliding. We walked on the
broad long terrace, and saw Prince Eddy (who is
now at Sandringham with a tutor, studying), play-
ing at tennis in the court with the Vicar and his
wife, and some friends. Then we went through the
stables, and saw the tiny pony that was made such
a pet of by the royal children that it used to follow
them up and down stairs. We were shown also, a
little old-fashioned pony-chaise, never used now,
which the Prince of Wales first drove out in as a tiny
boy. Next we went to the kennels to see the dogs;
fine fellows they are, with big loving eyes, and
nice smooth foreheads. Then on to the bears; there
are two, named Charlie and Polly. They went
through their little performance obediently, climb-
ing a pole and catching the biscuits we threw to
them, sometimes with their mouths, sometimes with
their paws. Next came the monkeys,

By this time we began to feel that we had done
our duty right loyally; so Uncle Raymond went
back to the “model farm” where he had left the
pony. He was put into the shafts by a dear old
farm laborer who told Uncle Raymond how he
often went round the farm with the Prince, and that
they were frequently alone together for hours, and
the Prince always talking freely. He said he went
part of the way to India with the Prince on board

113

the Serapis, to take some cattle to the King of
Greece ; he spoke of the kindness to King George,
and of how he used often tocome and talk to him,
When he left, the king gave him a portrait of him.
self and of all his family. He was sent to Den
mark once, too, to take some cattle from the Prince
to his kingly father-in-law, and met with plenty of
kindness.

Of course, we who constantly live in the neigh-
borhood of Sandringham hear, and speak, and
think much of our royal neighbors. We see them
apart from the trappings of royalty, we meet them
riding and driving about the pleasant country lanes
and we hear of them fulfilling —as they delight to
—the homely duties of Squire and Squiress. The
Prince is a model landlord, and the Princess in
her home is a bright example of what a woman
should be as mistress, wife, and mother. Only the
other day I heard of her entering one of the cot-
tages where lay a poor man who had met with an
accident, laden with salves and old linen. She ex-
amined his wound, and then dressed and bandaged
it with her own hands so skilfully that the parish
doctor thought another medical man had been
called in to attend his patient, and refused to con-
tinue to treat him himself. Whereupon the Princess,
with a sly laugh doubtless, for she has a very keen
sense of humor, sent another doctor to the sufferer,

To the old cottagers the Prince has always
seemed more like a country Squire than England’s
future king; they do not realize his position apart
from Sandringham. His pleasant bonhomie, his
generosity, his kind-heartedness have endeared him
to them. As the plain but familiar equipage goes
by, the labourer looks up from his toil in the fields
to murmur “The Prince, God bless him!”

A favorite resort of the royal pair in the early
days of their married life was a little sea-side vil-
lage about nine miles distant from Sandringham,
which has since given its name to a popular sum-
mer resort close by. Here is a wide sea-beach,
with level stretches of brown-ribbed sand, low sand-
hills, and cliffs whereon a lighthouse stands. One
of the keepers of that Light was a garrulous old
man with whom it was pleasant to linger for a chat,
as one rested on the bench under the white wall
which skirted the Lighthouse garden, on some
bright sunshiny morning, with the grand panorama
of sea and sky, and the low line of the distant
Lincolnshire coast, spread out before one, Just in
IT4

such a way I have often rested and talked to him,
or listened while he told me how he had many a
time seen the young royal pair upon the sands be-
low, at play like a couple of children, pushing each
other into the water, or drenching each other with
the salt sea spray. They used to drive from Sand-
ringham with as few attendants as possible, put up
their carriage and horses at a little old-fashioned
inn near the shore, and walk down to the beach.
The landlord of this inn is (for he still lives) an ec-
centric character, come of an old gypsy family es-
tablished for more than five centuries in the village,
during which time every now and then the gypsy
blood would break out and some one member of
the family would take to roving. The old man him-
self did so in his young days. Curiously enough
his surname is Wales, and one day he said to the
Prince, “ Your Royal Highness must surely be re-
lated to me, for my name is Wales.” The Prince
was mightily amused with the old man’s joke, and
showed his appreciation of it by repeating it often.

These little excursions generally included a pic-
nic lunch, either on the beach, or in the park which
forms a part of the estate of the lord of the manor,
who was then an absentee, representing the British
government at Washington. An invariable feature
of these picnics was the boiling of a pot-ful of
potatoes over a gypsy fire. On this the Princess
always insisted. On one of these occasions an old
woman familiarly known in the village as “ granny,”
whose birth was lost in the mist of antiquity be-
cause, as she herself told me, “her mother never
wrote it down,” danced before their royal high-
nesses, and was rewarded with a shower of small
coins. The sum of poor old “ granny’s ” years is
told now, and she is gone home, and changes of
various kinds have put an end to these rural pic-
nics on the beach. Only now and again, generally
when they are down for the Easter recess, the Prince
and Princess visit the shore with their children ;
and the Princess may be seen in her high water-
boots, walking leisurely through the thin edge of
the water as it creeps up and along the shore. Per-
haps, who can tell, the scene reminds them of those
merry days of old, and they tell over again to
make the royal children laugh, some remembered
incident, perhaps of old granny’s dance, or the
landlord’s relationship.

They are easily moved to smiles and laughter,
these happy, healthy children in whom the spirit

OUR ROYAL NEIGHBORS AT SANDRINGHAM.

of fun and enjoyment seems to be re-kindled with
added force. Prince George is the mainspring of
all the frolic and fun that goes on at Sandringham,
at Christmas and other times. He is a good speci-
men of English boyhood, strong, active, and brim-
ful of mischief. His elder brother, known here by
his pet home name “ Prince Eddy,” is more thought-
ful and studious, though now and again Prince
George’s spirit seems. to infect him. With both,
Mr. Beck, the agent, is a great favorite. I am
almost ashamed to tell how they bestowed upon
him the soubriquet of “Old Satan” — wherefore, I

 

 

THE PRINCESSES, VICTORIA AND MAUD, OF WALES.

cannot imagine, for nothing more anti-Satanic
than his jovial, weather-bronzed face can be con-
ceived. They used to delight in waylaying him
with snow-balls, and in making him the subject of
all sorts of pranks. And yet they have a care for
his comfort, for at luncheon Prince George has
heaped his plate up with dainties, thinking he cared
for, and yet could not get them at home! And
they have a regard for his appearance too, advis-
ing him as to the kind of collars he should wear,
and on one occasion Prince George went so far as

 
OUR

   
  
 
      
 

to re-tie his necktie for him. When the two Princes
returned from their travels, which all the world
has read of, they brought “ Old Satan ” a couple of
‘ostrich’s eggs from Jerusalem, which Prince George
declared he had actually seen laid! The eggs, duly
mounted on appropriate stands, occupy a promi-
nent position in the pretty drawing-room of the
agent’s house. This house is a sort of common
ground to our royal neighbors. Standing in the
quaint entrance hall with its mistress, it is easy to
conjure up some of the many pictures of royal in-
~ vasions as she describes them. First, the Princess
and her dogs enter on some windy November day
amidst a splash of rain, and a whirl of dry leaves.
-.. Then, some of the children come clamouring for
“ Beck,” suppressing the nickname in the presence
- of their mother. Or the Prince rides up to the door
~ with the same demand. From the frequent calls
upon him, one would imagine that nothing could
‘.. be done successfully unless Beck is to the fore.

_ And then those Christmases at Sandringham! In
November they entertain the county at a succession
-. of balls for gentry, tenants, and servants. The

old hall is ablaze with lights, long processions of
_’. earriages roll down the avenue, merry music sounds,

oe and all is mirth—to the royal party at any rate,
, though many a young and awkward little country
_ débutante may shiver and shake in her shoes at the
thought of entering the awful presence of royalty.
Not so her elders, however, for to this end have
they schemed and contrived, and burned with envy
of more fortunate neighbors who, for a succession
of seasons have had the entree of Sandringham.
_ But the height of their anibition is attained at last,
_the magic bidding has been given and here they
‘are, shivering amidst their furs, for the snow lies
. white without the carriage windows (the first snow
_ of the season generally falls on the night of the
Sandringham ball), but what matter cold and fatigue
“since this night will set the seal to their social po-
~ sition.

Christmas at Sandringham is essentially a home
Christmas, a celebration of the great and univer-
sal children’s day, for, and with the royal children.
There are always Christmas-Tree parties, and
dances, and theatricals, at some of which little
friends of my own are accustomed to meet the three
young Princesses, “And what do they say to
you?” I asked one of them, with great gravity.

ROYAL NEIGHBORS AT SANDRINGHAM.

Il5

“O, they just ask the same questions that other
children do, only more of them. They want to
know what we do at school, what lessons we have
to learn, what we have to eat, and all that sort of
thing, you know. But they seem most curious about
school, because they cannot quite imagine what ‘go-
ing to school, is like.’ ”

But when Christmas night settles down over the
great heath which lies all around and about Sand-
ringham, and darkness clouds the distant sea;
when there is an icy edge to the keen air, and the
stars shine out with extra brightness ; when there
is warmth on every hearth in all the model cot-
tages, and only the churches stand dark and still
in the cold winter night, how redly the lights gleam
behind all the windows of the Hall! Every one out-
side has been cared for, many a happy Christmas
has been made secure, and now the Prince and
Princess keep theirs lightheartedly with their chil-
dren and guests. The two tall striplings — for they
are almost young men now— Prince Eddy, and
Prince George, rush forward in friendly rivalry to
secure the honor of conducting their mother to din-
ner. They are almost like lovers — those two tall
youths —so passionately are they devoted to the
beautiful and young-looking “Sea-King’s Daughter .
from over the sea.” Neither being first, and neither
winning preference, the Princess goes gayly to the
dining-hall between them. After them comes the
Prince with his bonny group of daughters; the por-
traits given here of the young princesses are from
home photographs. There has been a distribu-
tion of gifts at the breakfast table in the morning,
and you may be sure that “Old Satan” had re-
ceived his usual summons up to the Hall to get
something very especial. And after dinner comes
the frolic. Snap-dragon has been one of the favor-
ite amusements, but so serious did it like to prove
one year that I do not believe it still continues in
favor. Some of the burning spirit fell upon the
dress of the Princess who might have been badly
burnt but for the presence of mind of Sir Dykin
Probyn, who promptly extinguished it.

So time passes with our royal neighbors, and the
years rollon. God grant that many more have yet
to pass before they will be called upon to give up
their cosey home at Sandringham to enter upon the
greater splendour of the Throne.
 

116
 

HEY were sitting by the great blazing wood-
fire. It was July, but there was an east wind
‘and the night was chilly. Besides, Mrs. Heath had
a piece of fresh pork to roast. Squire Blake had
“killed” the day before—that was the term used
to signify the slaughter of any domestic animal for
food —and had distributed the “fresh” to various
families in town, and Mrs. Heath wanted hers for.
the early breakfast. Meat was the only thing to be
had in plenty — meat and berries. Wheat and corn,
and vegetables even, were scarce. There had been
a long winter, and then, too, every family had sent
early in the season all they could possibly spare to
the Continental army. As to sugar and tea and
molasses, it was many a day since they had had
even the taste of them.
The piece of pork was suspended from the ceiling
by a stout string, and slowly revolved before the fire,
Dorothy or Arthur giving it a fresh start when it
showed signs of stopping. There was a settle at
right angles with the fireplace, and, here the little
cooks sat, Dorothy in the corner nearest the fire,
and Arthur curled up on the floor at her feet, where
he could look up the chimney and see the moon,
almost at the full, drifting through the sky. At
the opposite corner sat Abram, the hired man and

    
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
 
 
 
  
  
   

     
 
   

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A HERO.

(A Story of the American Revolution.)

 

By Mrs, Frances A. HuMPHREY

faithful keeper of the family in the absence of its
head, at work on an axe helve, while Bathsheba,
or “Basha,” as she was briefly and affectionately
called, was spinning in one corner of the room just
within range of the firelight.

There was no other light — the firelight being suffi-
cient for their needs—and it was necessary to
economize in candles, for any day a raid from the
royal army might take away both cattle and sheep,
and then where would the tallow come from for
the annual fall candle-making? There was a rumor
— Abram had brought it home that very day —that
the royal army were advancing, and red coats might
make their appearance in Hartland at any time.
Arthur and Dorothy were talking about it, as they
turned the roasting fork.

_“Wish I was a man,” said Arthur, glancing
towards his mother, who was sitting in a low splint
chair knitting stockings for her boy’s winter wear.
“T’d like to shoot a red coat.”

“OQ Arty!” exclaimed Dorothy reproachfully;
“you're always thinking of shooting! Now / should
like to nurse a sick soldier and wait upon him.
Poor soldiers! it was dreadful what papa wrote to
mamma about them.”

“Would you nurse a red coat?” asked Arthur,

indignantly. | 117
118

“Yes,” said Dorothy. ‘Though of course I
should rather, a great deal rather, nurse one of
our own soldiers. But Arty,” continued the little
elder sister, ‘‘papa says if we must fight, why, we

must fight bravely, but that we can be brave without -

fighting.”

“Well, I mean to be a hero, and heroes always
fight. King Arthur fought. Papa saidso, He and
his knights fought for the Sangreal, and liberty
is our Sangreal. I’m glad my name is Arthur,
anyhow, for Arthur means noble and high,” he said,
lifting his bright boyish face with its steadfast blue
eyes, and glancing again towards his mother. She
gave an answering smile.

“T hope my boy will always be noble and high
in thought and deed. But, as papa said, to be a
hero one does not need to fight, at least, not to
fight men. We can fight bad tempers and bad
thoughts and cowardly impulses, They who fight
these things successfully are the truest heroes, my
boy.”

“Ah, but mamma, didn’t I hear you tell grand-
mamma how you were proud of your hero. That’s
what you called papa when General Montgomery
wrote to you, with his owr hand, how he drove
back the enemy at the head of his men, while the
balls. were flying and the cannons roaring and

flashing; and when his horse was shot under him.

how he struggled out and cheered on his men, on
foot, and the bullets whizzed and the men fell all
around him, and he wasn’t hurt and”— Here the
boy stopped abruptly and sprang impulsively forward,
for his mother’s cheek had suddenly grown pale.

“True grit!’? remarked Abram to Basha, in an
undertone, as she paused in her walk to and fro
by the spinning-wheel to join a broken thread.
* But there never was a coward yet, man or woman,
’mong the Heaths, an’ I’ve known ’em off an’
on these seventy year. Now there was ole Gin-
eral Heath,” he continued, holding up the axe
helve and viewing it critically with one eye shut,
“he was a marster hand for fightin’. Fit the Injuns
’s though he liked it. That gun up there was his’n.”

“Tell us about the ‘sassy one,’” said Arthur,
turning at the word gun.

“Youngster, ’f I’ve told yer that story once, I’ve
told yer fifty times,” said Abram,

“Tell it again,” said the boy eagerly.
take down the gun, too.” :

Abram got up as briskly as his seventy years

“And

‘haps from hunger.

A HERO.

9

and his rheumatism would permit, and took down
the gun from above the mantel-piece.
large one.

“Not quite so tall as the old Gineral himself,”
said Abram, “but a purty near to it. This gun is
*bout seven feet, an’ yer gran’ther was seven feet
two—a powerful built man. Wall, the Injuns had
been mighty obstreperous ‘long ’bout that time,
burnin’ the Widder Brown’s house and her an’ her
baby a-hidin’ in a holler tree near by, an’ carryin’
off critters an’ hosses, an’ that day yer gran’ther
was after “em with a posse o’ men, an’ what did
that pesky Injun do but git up on a rock a quarter
o’ a mile off an’ jestickerlate in an outrigerus
manner, like a sarcy boy, an’ yer gran’ther, he took
aim and fired, an’ that impident Injun jest tumbled
over with a yell; his last, mind ye, and good enough
for him!”

“T like to hear about old gran’ther,” said Arthur.

As Abram was restoring the gun to its place
upon the hooks, a sound was heard at the side
door—a sound as of a heavy body falling against
it, which startled them all. The dog Czsar rose,
and going to the door which opened into the side
entry, sniffed along the crack above the threshold.
Apparently satisfied, he barked softly, and rising on
his hind legs lifted the latch and sprang into the
entry. Abram followed with Basha. As he lifted
the latch of the outer door—the string had been
drawn in early, as was the custom in those troublous
times — and swung it back, the light from the fire fell
upon the figure of a man lying across the doorstone.

“Sakes alive!” exclaimed Abram, drawing back.
But at a word from the mistress, they lifted the
man and brought him in and laid him down on the
braided woollen mat before the fire. Then for a
moment there was silence, for he wore the dress
of a British soldier, and his right arm was bandaged.
He had fainted from loss of blood, apparently —per-
Basha loosened his coat at the
throat, and tried to force a drop or two of “spirits”
into his mouth, while Mrs. Heath rubbed his hands.

“He ain’t dead,” said Basha, in a grim tone, “and
mind you, we'll see trouble from this.” Basha
was an arrant rebel, and hated the very sight of
a red coat. “What are you doin’ here,” she con-
tinued, addressing him, “ killin’ honest folks, when
you'd better ’ve staid cross seas in yer own country?”

“Basha!” said Mrs, Heath reprovingly, “he is
helpless.”

It was a very

 

 
But Basha as she unwound the tight bandage
from the shattered arm, kept muttering to herself
like a rising tempest, until at length the man having
come quite to himself, detected her feeling, and with
great effort said, “I am wot a British soldier.”

“Then what to goodness have you got on their
uniform for?” queried Basha.

Little by little the pitiful story was told. He was
an American soldier who had been doing duty as
a spy in the British camp. Up to the very last
day of his stay he had not been suspected; but
trying to get away he was suspected, challenged,
and fired at. The shot passed through his arm.
He was certain his pursuers had followed him till
night, and they would be likely to continue the
search the next day, and he begged Mrs, Heath
to secrete him for a day or two, if possible.

“T wouldn’t mind being shot, marm,” he said,
“but you know they’ll hang me if they get me. Of
course I risked it when I went into their camp,
but it’s none the pleasanter for all that.”

Now in the old Heath house there was a secret
chamber, built in the side of the chimney. Most
of those old colonial houses had enormous chimneys,
that took up, sometimes, a quarter of the ground
occupied by the house, so it was not a difficult thing
to enclose a small space with slight danger of its
existence being detected. This chimney chamber
in the Heath house was little more than a closet
eight feet by four. It was entered from the north
chamber, Abram’s room, through a narrow sliding
panel that looked exactly like the rest of the wall,
which was of cedar boards. An inch-wide shaft
running up the side of the chimney ventilated the
closet, and it was lighted by a window consisting
of three small panes of glass carefully concealed
under the projecting roof. In a sunny day one
could see to read there easily.

A small cot-bed was now carried into this room,
and up there, after his wound had been dressed
by Basha, who, like many old-time women, was
skilful in dressing wounds and learned in the prop-
erties of herbs and roots, and he had been fed
and bathed, the soldier was taken; and a very
grateful man he was as he settled himself upon
the comfortable bed and looked up with a smiling
“thank you,” into Basha’s face, which was no longer
grim and forbidding.

All this time no special notice had been taken
of Dorothy and Arthur. They had followed about

 

A HERO.

LIQ

to watch the bathing, feeding and tending, and when
Mrs. Heath turned to leave the secret chamber, she
found them behind her, staring in with very wide-
open eyes indeed; for, if you can believe it, they
never before had even heard of, much less seen,
this lovely little secret chamber. It was never
deemed wise in colonial families to talk about these
hiding-places, which sometimes served so good a
purpose, and I doubt if many adults in the town
of Hartland knew of this secret chamber in the
Heath house.

' The panel was closed, and Abram was left to
care for the wounded soldier through the night. It
was nine o'clock, the colonial hour for going to
bed, and long past the children’s hour, and Dotty
and Arthur in their prayers by their mother’s knee,
put up a petition for the safety of the stranger.

“ Would they hang him if they could get him,
mamma?” asked Arty.

“Certainly,” she replied. “It is one of the rules
of warfare. A spy is always hung.”

In the morning, from nine to eleven, Mrs. Heath
always devoted to the children’s lessons. Arthur,
who was eleven, was a good Latin scholar. He
was reading Cesar’s Commentaries, and he liked it
—that is, he liked the story part. He found some
of it pretty tough reading, and I need not tell you
boys who have read Cesar, what parts those were.
They had English readings from the Spectator, and
from Bishop Leighton’s works, books which you
know but little about. Dotty had a daily lesson in
botany, and very pleasant hours those school hours
were.

After dinner, at: twelve, they had the afternoon
for play. That afternoon, the day after the soldier
came, they went berrying. They did this almost
every day during berry time, so as to have what
they liked better than anything for supper—berries
and milk. Occasionally they had huckleberry “slap-
jacks,” also a favorite dish, for breakfast; not often,
however, as flour was scarce.

They went for berries down the road known as
South Lane, a lonely place, but where berries grew
plentifully. Their mother had cautioned them not
to talk about the occurrence of the night before,
as some one might’ overhear, and so, though they
talked about their play and their studies, about papa
and his soldiers, they said nothing about dhe soldier.

They had nearly filled their baskets, when a growl
from Caesar startled them, and turning, they saw two
- eh?

120

horsemen who had stopped near by, one of whom
was just springing from his horse. They were in
British uniform, and the children at once were sure
what they wanted.

“OQ Arty, Arty!” whispered Dorothy.
come, and we mustn’t tell.”

The man advanced with a smile meant to be
pleasant, but which was in reality so sinister that
the children shrank with a sensation of fear.

“How are you, my little man? Picking berries,
And where do you live?” he asked.

“With mamma,” answered Arthur promptly.

“And who is mamma? What is her name?”

“Mrs. Heath,” said Arty. %

“And don’t you live with papa too?
papa?” the man asked.

Arthur hesitated an instant, and then out it came,
and proudly too. “In the Continental army, sir,”

“They’ve

Where is

“Ho! ho! and so we are a little rebel, are
we?” laughed the man. “And who am I? Do
you know?”

“Yes, sir; a British soldier.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because you wear their uniform, sir?”

“You cannot have seen many British soldiers
here,” said the man. “Did you ever see the British
uniform Da 2”

“Yes, sir,” replied Arty.

“And where did you see it?” he asked, slandiag
sharply at Arthur and then at Dorothy. Upon the
face of the latter was a look of dismay, for she had
foreseen the drift of the man’s questions and the
trap into which Arty had fallen. He, too, saw it,
now he was in. The only British uniform he had
ever seen was that worn by the American spy. For
a brief moment he was tempted to tell a lie.
he said firmly, “I cannot tell you, sir.”

“Cannot! Does that mean will not?” said the
man threateningly. Then he put his hand into
his pocket and took out a bright gold la
which he held before Arthur.

“Come, now, my little man,-tell me hae you
saw the British seldien: s uniform, and you shall have
this gold piece.”

But all the noble impulses of the boy’s nature
inherited and strengthened by his mother’s teach-
ings, revolted at this attempt to bribe him. His
eyes flashed. He looked the man full in the face.
“T will not!” said he.

“Come, come!” cried out the man on horseback.

Then —

A HERO.

“Don’t palter any longer with the little rebel. We'll
find a way to make him tell. Up with him!”

In an instant the man had swung Arthur into his
saddle, and leaping up behind him, struck spurs to
his horse and dashed away. Czesar, who had been
sniffing about, suspicious, but uncertain, attempted

to leap upon the horseman.in the rear, but he,

‘drawing his pistol from his saddle, fired, and Cesar

dropped helpless.

The horsemen quickly vanished, and for a moment
Dorothy stood pale and speechless. Then she knelt
down by Cesar, examined his wound—he was shot
in the leg — and bound it up with her handkerchief,
just as she saw Basha do the night before, and then
putting her arms around his neck she kissed him.
“Be patient, dear old Cesar, and Abram shall come
for you?”

Covered with dust, her frock stained with Casar’s
blood, a pitiful sight indeed was Dorothy as she
burst into the kitchen where Basha was preparing
supper.

“OQ mamma, they’ve carried off Arty and shot
Ceesar, those dreadful, dreadful British!”

Between her sobs she told the whole fearful story
to the two women—fearful, I say, for Mrs. Heath
knew too well the reputed character of the British
soldiery, not to fear the worst if her boy should per-
sist in refusing to tell where he had seen the British
soldier’s uniform. But even in her distress she was
conscious of a proud faith that he would not betray
his trust.

As to Basha, who shall describe her horror and
indignation? “The wretchés! ain’t they content to
murder our men and burn our houses, that they
must take our innercent little boys?” and she struck
the spit into the chicken she was preparing for -
supper vindictively, as though thus she should like
to treat the whole British army. ‘“‘The dear little
cretur! what'll he do to-night without his mamma,
and him never away from her a night in his blessed
life. ’Pears to me the Lord’s forgot the Colo-
nies. O dearie, dearie me!” utterly overcome she
dropped into a chair, and throwing her homespun
check apron over her head, she gave way to such
a fit of weeping as astonished and perplexed Abram,
one of whose principle articles of faith it was that
Basha couldn’t shed a tear, even if she tried, “mor’n
if she’s made o’ cast iron.”

It indeed looked hopeless.
after these men and rescue Arthur?

Who was to follow
There was
 

 

eh ee ea AMER Sy ph am Ie

_ and knew they were at supper.

   

Ay HERO.

hardly any one left in town but old men, women
and children.

Mrs. Heath thought of this as she soothed Dor-
othy, coaxed her to eat a little supper, and then sat
by her side until she fell asleep. She sat by the
fire while the embers died out, or walked up and
down the long, lonely kitchen, wrestling, like Jacob,
in prayer, for her boy, until long after midnight.

And now let us follow Arthur’s fortunes. The
men galloped hard and long over hills, through
valleys and woods, so far away it seemed to the
little fellow he could never possibly see mamma
or Dorothy again. At last they drew up at a large
white house, evidently the headquarters of the offi-
cers, and Arthur was put at once into a dark closet
and there left. He was tired and dreadfully hungry,
so hungry that he could think of hardly anything
else. He heard the rattling of china and glasses,
By and by a servant
came and took him into the supper room. His eyes
were so dazzled at first by the change from the dark
closet to the well-lighted room, that he could scarcely
see. But when the daze cleared he found himself
standing near the head of the table, where sat a
stout man with a red face, a fierce mustache, and
an evil pair of eyes. ‘

He looked at Arthur a moment. Then he poured
out a glass of wine and. pushed it towards him:
“Drink !”

But Arthur did not touch the glass.

“Drink, I say,” he repeated impatiently.
you hear?”

“J have promised mamma never to drink wine, "
was the low response. >

It seemed to poor Arthur as though everything had
combined against him. It was bad enough to have
to say no to the question about the uniform, and
now here was something else that would make the
men still more angry with him. But the officer did
not push his command; he simply thrust the glass
one side and said, “Now, my boy, we’re going to
get that American spy and hang him. You know
where he is and you’ve got to tell us, or it will be
the worse for you. Do you want to see your mother
again?”

Arthur did not answer.
answered just then.
throat. Cry?
silence.

“Obstinate little pig! speak!” thundered the offi-

&“ Do

He could not have
A big bunch came into his
Not before these men. So he kept

I2I

cer, bringing his great brawny fist down upon the
table with a blow that set the glasses dancing.
“Will you tell me where that spy is?”

“No, sir,” came in very low, but very firm tones,
I will not tell you the dreadful words of that officer,
as he turned to his servant with the command, “Put
him down cellar, and we’ll see to him in the morning.
They’re all alike, men, women and children. Rebel-
lion in the very blood. The only way to finish it is
to spill it without mercy.”

Now. there was one thing that Arthur, brave as he
was, feared, and that was—rats! Left on a heap
of dry straw, he began to wonder if there were rats
there. Presently he was sure he heard something
move, but he was quickly reassured by the touch
of soft, warm fur on his hand, and the sound of
a melodious “pur-r.” The friendly kitty, glad of
a companion, curled herself by his side. What
comfort she brought to the lonely little fellow!
He lay down beside her, and saying his Our Father,
and Wow J /ay me, was soon in a profound sleep, the
purring little kitty nestling close.

The sounds of revelry in the rooms above did not
disturb him. The boisterous songs and laughter,
the stamping of many feet, continued far into the
night. At last they ceased; and when everything
had been for a long timesilent, the door leading
to the cellar was softly opened and a lady came
down the stairway. I have often wished that I
might paint her as she looked coming down those
stairs. Arthur was afterwards my great-grandfather,
you know, and he told me this story when I was a
young girl in my teens. He told me how lovely
this lady was.

Her gown was of some rich stuff that shimmered
in the light of the candle she carried, and rustled
musically as she walked. There was a flash of
jewels at her throat and on her hands. She had
wrapped a crimson mantle about her head and
shoulders. Her eyes were like stars on a summer’s
night, sparkling with a veiled radiance, and as she
stood and looked down upon the sleeping boy, a
smile, sweet, but full of a profound sadness, played
upon her lips. ‘Then a determined look came into her
bright eyes.

He stirred in his sleep, laughed out, said “mamma,”
and then opened his eyes. She stooped and touched
his lips with her finger. “Hush! Speak only in a
whisper. Eat this, and then I will take you to your
mother.”
122

After he had eaten, she wrapped a cloak about
him, and together they stole up and out past the
sleeping, drunken sentinel, to the stables. She lead
out a white horse, her own horse, Arthur was sure,
for the creature caressed her with his head, and as
she saddled him she talked to him in low tones,
sweet, musical words of some foreign tongue. The
handsome horse seemed to understand the necessity
of silence, for he did not even whinny to the touch
of his mistress’ hand, and trod daintily and noise-
lessly as she led him to the mounting block, his small
ears pricking forward and backward, as though know-
ing the need of watchful listening.

Leaping to the saddle and stooping, she lifted
Arthur in front of her, and with a word they were
off. A slow walk at first, and then a rapid canter.
Arthur never forgot that long night ride with the
beautiful lady on the white horse, over the country
flooded with the brilliancy of the full moon. Once
or twice she asked if he was cold, as she drew the
cloak more closely about him, and sometimes she
would murmur softly to herself words in that silvery,
foreign tongue. As they drew near Hartland, she
asked him to point out his father’s house, and when
they were quite near, only a little distance off, she
stopped the horse.

“T leave you here, you brave, darling boy,” she

said. “Kiss me once, and then jump down. And
don’t forget me.” :
Arthur threw his arms around her neck and kissed
her, first on one cheek and then on the other, and
looking up into the beautiful face with its starry eyes,
said:

A HERO.

“T will never, never forget you, for you are the
loveliest lady I ever saw except—except mamma.”

She laughed a pleased laugh, like a child, then
took a ring from her hand-and put it upon one of
Arthur’s fingers. Her hand was so slender it fitted
his chubby little hand very well.

“Keep this,’ she said, “and by and by give it
to some lady good and true, like mamma.”

“Will you be punished?” he’ said, keeping her
hand. She laughed again, with a proud, daring toss
of her dainty head, and rode away.

Arthur watched her out of sight, and then turned
towards home. Mrs. Heath was still keeping her
lonely watch, when the latch of the outer door was
softly lifted —nobody had the heart to take in the
string with Arty outside—the inner door swung
noiselessly back, and a blithe voice said, “ Mamma!
mamma! here I am, and I didn’t tell!”

All that day, and the next, and the next, the Heath
household were in momentary expectation of the com-
ing of the red coats to search for the spy. Dorothy
and Arthur, and sometimes Abram, did picket duty
to give seasonable warning of their approach. But
they never came. In a few days news was brought
that the British forces, on the very morning after
Arthur’s return, had made a rapid retreat before an
advance of the Federal troops, and never again was
a red coat seen in Hartland. The spy got well in
great peace and comfort under Basha’s nursing, and
went back again to do service in the Continental
army, and Dotty used to say, “You did learn, didn’t
you, Arty, how a person, even a little boy, can be a

hero without fighting, just as mamma said?”

 

AUDACITY,

 
 

  

 

 

 

123

A SATURDAY MORNING SORROW.

Sp BONEINEY Os \WANe.

(4 True Story.)

 

By ANNIE SAwYER Downs.

 

R. HOLDEN’S housé at Seal Harbor does not

look much like an ordinary New England
poor-house, although to that use the selectmen of Tri-
mountain devote it. Usually the few paupers are
old and feeble people, but the day Mrs. Jordan
and her husband walked up the narrow path which
led from the landing where they had left their
boat, besides the old people there were several
children who, in country speech, were “to be bound
out.” : :

Boys and girls between the ages of nine and .

twelve were hanging about the doors, and looking
eagerly or stolidly, according to their dispositions,

at the Jordans, and a number of other couples who.
arrived about the same time. , One little girl attracted
Mrs. Jordan’s notice. She was neither as pretty
nor as bright-looking as some of: the others, and
Mr. Jordan did not see anything to fancy about her.

But Mrs. Jordan said she had a good steady
eye, a sweet voice, and to her tender heart, most
irresistible attraction of all, looked ill, and was even
a little deformed, through a curvature of the spine.
So if Charles, as she called her husband, wanted’
her to take any little girl, it must be that one.

“But, mother,” expostulated the puzzled Charles,
“she is not strong, she cannot help you any, and:

 
124

instead of looking after things when Willy and I
are off fishing, will only make one more for you
to run after! Why not take that great red-cheeked
girl who looks so good-natured and energetic? ”

Still, as Mrs. Holden put it, “Mrs. Jordan would
not be said by her husband,” and soon brought
him round to her way of thinking. The girl’s name
was Janet Graham, and she was an orphan, her father
having been lost at sea, and her mother dying of
‘consumption not long after. The poor-house had
been her home for. several years, and all the Hol-
dens liked her “first best,” their oldest boy declared.

Questioned by the still doubtful Mr. Jordan why
they liked her and what she could do in particular,
he was unable to specify, beyond tending babies
and rowing a boat, at both of which accomplishments
he declared “she was a beatum.” The conversation
was interrupted by Mrs. Jordan, who, holding Jenny
by the hand, informed her husband that the wind
‘was all going down, and if he did not hurry and
cast off, he would have to row them the whole
way home. As home was twelve miles distant, on
Swan’s Island, we do not wonder he stopped no
longer to inquire about Jenny’s good qualities.

He owned the whole island, and most capital
‘sheep pasturage he had there, as well as a farm
and several fish houses; and here he had lived
‘with his wife and nephew, Willy, for many years.
‘There was no other dwelling-house upon Swan’s,
‘and although besides Willy and himself there were
generally other men whom he employed in the
family, no woman ever came to bear Mrs. Jordan
‘company for any length of time. As she was Eng-
lish, she had no kith or kin this side the sea, and
although cheerful, even merry, yet frequently longed
for a little girl to go about with her as Willy did
‘with Charles, and now she had her.

In spite of Mrs. Jordan’s predictions, the wind
‘did not go down, and in good time they landed
safely at Swan’s Island. Willy was at the rough
pier to receive them, and to tell Jenny how glad
he was to see her; but after his aunt and she had
‘started. up the hill toward the house, he looked
-questioningly to his uncle.

“No,” returned Mr. Jordan, “she ain’t no beauty,
‘and she won’t never set no rivers on fire; but she
-does look stiddy, and your aunt was set on her.”

Swan’s Island would perhaps have seemed lone-
‘some te most children, but Jenny never found it so.
-As she crossed the threshold of the kitchen door,

JENNY OF SWAN'S.

she felt herself at home, and with loving interest
and earnestness threw herself into the life around
her.

They gave her a room of her own, under the
eaves of the low, unpainted, one-story house, and
she begged Mrs. Jordan to teach her how to keep
it dainty and nice, like all the rest of the quaint little
home. She had learned to read and write at Seal
Harbor, and as Willy always went off the island
winters to attend school, he taught her from the
day she came.

Mrs, Jordan knew all about sewing and cooking,
and having been a lady’s maid in the old country,
was acquainted with many little devices for improv-
ing Jenny’s rough skin, and beautifying her lustreless
hair, She was a good Christian woman besides,
and every Sunday the family gathered, and one or
another read the prayers and lessons her church
ordered for the day. Mr. Jordan soon found his
heart going out lovingly to the child, and, taking
her with him frequently to the sea side of the
island, where the gray gulls built their nests and
reared their young, was surprised at her intelligence
and touched by her affection for his wife. The sim-
ple, regular life, good food and wise care, improved
her health so much that in the course of three or
four years the strangers who came in summer to
visit the lonely island with its savage cliffs, its count-
less sea birds, and its one happy family, never thought
of her as being deformed, and even old friends, who

 

JENNY’S HOME.

knew her when she first lived with Mrs. Jordan,
could hardly believe their eyes when they looked
at the erect, red-cheeked maiden who walked like
a young Diana round the rocky shore, or jumped
 

JENNY OF SWAN’ S.

from bowlder to bowlder in search of rare eggs, or
still rarer ferns and lichens.

Business was always good with Mr. Jordan. He
and Willy put by money every summer, and in winter
the latter left them for four or five months to go to
school, and when he returned bringing new books,
papers, and all sorts of bright gossip, they would
not have exchanged their island for Windsor Castle.
But even the beautiful island, and the life more ideal
than any other I have ever known, could not entirely
escape care and sorrow.

Last winter. Mr. Jordan was sick with sciatica,

 

   

125

lambs who came into the world only the night
before wouldn’t get a chill; and above all, why the
gulls screamed so much louder than usual. Hark!
surely that was not the scream of a gull. That was.
a human voice shouting “Help, help!” She rushed
toward the north shore hatless, coatless, with her
long hair, which her violent motion loosened, stream-
ing in the wind. ~

As she passed the house, Mrs. Jordan with a face
like that of a dead woman, looked out of the door
and pointed to the cove. Once more she heard
that agonized cry, and then the truth broke upon

JENNY GOES TO THE RESCUE,

and for many weeks unable to move. He sent to
the mainland and hired a man to come and look
after the cattle and sheep, but this man was not
Willy, by any means, and Mrs. Jordan and Jenny
were unusually happy when April came, and Willy
was home again.

The first day of May Jenny ran to the well for
water. The wind was blowing very fresh, and as she
pulled up the bucket she noticed how very rough
the water was on all sides of the island. She
wondered, half idly, if her own little boat down
at the north cove was securely moored; if the young

her. It was Willy; and gaining the height of land
at this moment she saw, quite a long distance out,
his overturned boat. At the same instant she heard
Mr. Jordan shouting through his speaking trumpet
from the bedroom window, “Hold on, Willy, Jenny
is coming!” Poor Mr. Jordan, so disabled was he
that it was only after repeated attempts, and in spite
of the severest pain, that he got to the window;
and he had not, as he afterwards owned, the faintest
hope that the girl, in that sea, could get her boat
off, much less out, in time to save Willy, whom he
could see, although she could not, struggling in the
126

water. But Jenny had no misgivings, “Yes; I am
coming, Willy, hold on!” she shouted. But to her
dismay her own little boat, with its slender oars
which she could use as deftly as she could a sewing-
machine, was adrift, and worse than that, Willy had
taken the oars belonging to the old dory, still at its
moorings, to go out in his boat to which upside down
she could now see him clinging. No oars were left
but the heavy ones used in the great sail boat. She
had no time wherein to think how much more diffi-
cult her task would be on account of these facts,
but quick as a flash unshipped the old dory and
pushed off with the big oars. So high ran the
waves, and so terribly was the wind blowing, that
both Mr. and Mrs, Jordan, who: were watching her,
thought the boat would fill, and thus they would
lose both their children. But she was as cool as
if she had been merely out for a pleasure row,
and managed her clumsy craft so adroitly that she
took in very little water, although she was drenched
to the skin by the flying spray. Once only, she told
them afterward, she nearly gave out. A mountain-
ous wave threatened instant destruction, and she
lost sight of Willy, whom, from the moment of start-
ing, she had kept in sight. The great, unwieldy
oars seemed to mock her utmost strength, and she
did not know but she was fainting, perhaps even
dying.

But it was only a second, and she said, “I heard
this ringing in my ears: They did roan for
you, now you save Willy.”

And she did save him. His last conscious moment
was spent in getting into her boat, where he lay like
one dead, unable to help her in what was almost

THE CRITIC.

as dangerous as getting out—getting back. Fortu-
nately, the hired man, who had been shooting on
the sea side of the island, appeared in time to assist
her in making a landing and in carrying Willy to
the house. It was half a day before he was able
to speak, but they knew the first time he opened
his eyes, that he was fully aware who saved him.

After a while he told them that going out to take
up- his lobster pots, he piled so many on his boat
that their weight, combined with the rough sea, over-
turned it.

Like. many seafaring people, he could not swim
a stroke, and if the lobster pots had not been
anchored by what is called a “kedger,” which he
had not pulled up, he would have given himself
up for lost. But the boat was so entangled with
the lobster pots that the kedger kept it from drifting
at once out of reach, and he held on.

When they asked him if he thought Jenny would
reach him in time, he said, “I hadn’t a doubt but
she would.”

He had a rheumatic fever, spite of all his courage,
and they had to send to the mainland for a physician.
They told him the story, and we think he must have
written the Humane Society, for one day when Jenny
went to Seal Harbor for the mail, she was amazed
beyond words as a nice little box was handed her
by her old friend, the Holden boy, which contained
the beautiful silver medal the Society bestows for
such acts of noble self-forgetfulness. Jenny likes
to look at- the medal, but says, “Of course I do
not deserve it, for I never could have looked my
aunt Mary Jordan in the face, if I had not. saved
Willy.”

 

THE CRITIC.

By Janet MILLER,

E were “practising scales” in the parlor,
And the air was wild with our din,
When, happening to glance at the window,
A robin was looking in,

His wee head turned sideways with wonder,
As he listened in mute surprise;

For how those children could blunder
In scales, he couldn’t surmise.

Ah! robin, don’t judge in a hurry,

Though your scales are quite without flaws;
Don’t you think you would be in a flurry,

If you were obliged to use claws?
 

 

 

THE BOY BISHOP.

 

 

 

 

 

“yusH |!” SAID THE KING.

 

THE BOY BISHOP.

By Cevia THAXTER.

USH!” said the king

—

Suddenly swept the lovely sounds

To the restless hounds at his royal knee, As from some heavenly choir.

“Thor and Woden, quiet be!
While I hear the bishop sing!”

O fair to see
Was the young boy bishop, all robed in silk,
Cheeks red as roses, brow white as milk,

So beautiful was he!

O, loud he sang!

His ‘eivar voice, sweet as a golden flute,

Leaped from his lips while the king stood mute,
And the whole air thrilled and rang.

Like a tuneful lyre
Over the monarch and over the hounds

Said the king, “Well done!
Now, by my faith, a voice so pure,
So fresh, melodious, high and sure,

I have not heard, my son!”

And as he said, |
From his finger he drew the ruby rare:
“ Keep thou this sparkling ring to weas,
And these coins of gold so red.

“Proud shalt thou be
Till thou art old and canst no more sing,
Remembering thou did’st charm the king,
Who will remember thee!”

127
HEROINES OF THE POETS.

WORDSWORTH’S LUCY.

HE dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:

A violet by a mossy stone
Half hidden from the eye!
— Fair as a star, when only one
Ts shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;

But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

1790.

128

 

I travelled among unknown men,
In lands beyond the sea; .
Nor, England! did I know till then
What love I bore to thee.

’Tis past, the melancholy dream!
Nor will I quit thy shore

A second time; for still I seem :

To love thee more and more,

Among thy mountains did I feel -
The joy of my desire ; :

And she I cherished turned her wheel
Beside an English fire.

Thy mornings showed, thy nights concealed
The bowers where Lucy played ;

And thine too is the last green field
That Lucy’s eyes surveyed.

1799-

 
 

WORDSWORTH’S LUCY.

129
130

MOTHER AND POET,

MOTHER AND POET.

(Turin — After news from Gaeta, 1861.)

 

By ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

EAD! one of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead! both my boys! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me/

Vet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art for a woman, men said,
But ¢#is woman, #his, who is agonized here,
The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
Forever instead. :

What art can woman be good at? Oh, vain!
What art zs she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain?
Ah, boys, how you hurt! you were strong as you
pressed,
And J proud by that test.

What art’s fora woman? To hold on her knees
Both darlings! to feel all their arms round her
throat
Cling, strangle a little! To sew by degrees,
And ’broider the long clothes and neat little coat!
To dream and to dote.

To teach them... It stings there. J made them
indeed
Speak plain the word ‘country.’ I taught them,
no doubt, \

That a country’s a thing men should die for at need.
Z prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant turned out.

And when their eyes flashed, oh, my beautiful eyes!
I exulted! nay, let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise,
When one sits quite alone! Then one weeps, then
one kneels!
— God! how the house feels,

At first happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses, of camp-life and glory, and how
They .both loved me, and soon, coming home to be

spoiled,
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel bough.

Then was triumph at Turin. ‘Ancona was free!’
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead! I fell down at his feet
While they cheered in the street.

I bore it—friends soothed me: my grief looked sub-
lime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained
To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us
strained
To the height he had gained.

And letters still came — shorter, sadder, more strong.
Writ now but in one hand. I was not to faint,
One loved me for two . . . would be with me ere long
And ‘ Viva Italia’ Ze died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint.

My Nanni would add, ‘he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls .
imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how ’twas impossible, quite dispossessed,
To live on for the rest.’

« Was

On which, without pause, up the telegraph line,
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta — Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah! ‘his,’ ‘their’ mother: no
‘mine.’
No voice says ‘my mother’ again to me.
You think Guido forgot?

What!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

: DEAD! ONE OF THEM SHOT BY THE SEA IN THE EAST,
AND ONE OF THEM SHOT IN THE WEST BY THE SEA

13 E
132

Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth’s affection, conceive not of woe?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through that Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.

O Christ of the seven wounds, who look’dst through
the dark
To the face of thy mother! consider, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christ’s, die with eyes turned
away,
And no last word to say!

Both boys dead! but that’s out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always
keep one.
*Twere imbecile hewing out roads to a wall,
And when Italy’s made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son?

.

Ah! ah! ah! when Gaeta’s taken, what then ?
When the fair, wicked queen sits no more at her
sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men?
When your guns of Cavalli, with final retort,
Have cut the game short, —

MOTHER AND POET. oe ee

When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,
When your flag takes all Heaven for its white,
green, and red,
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy’s crown on his head,
(And I have my dead,)

What then? Do not mock me! Ah, ring your
bells low!
And burn your lights faintly. dy country is
: there,

Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow.
My Italy’s there-— with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair.

Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn,
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at

length :
Into wail such as this! and we sit on forlorn
When the man-child is born.

Dead! one of them shot by the sea in the west! |
And one of them shot in the east by the sea! |
Both! both my boys! If, in keeping the feast,

You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me/

 

 

 
 

AUTUMN GOLD.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHO SEE ALL THINGS WITH LOVING THOUGHT.

AWE VN GOLD,

 

By CHRISTOPHER P. CRANCH.

dig Autumn when the winds are high,
And white clouds drive across the sky,

Or when with rains the woods are wet,

And trees pay earth their annual debt,

With what a wealth of falling gold

In splendid heaps the account is told!

Each leaf of bronze and yellow tint

A coin fresh-stamped in Nature’s mint,

With royal superscription shines

Beyond the graver’s tame designs.

What gold from mines in Earth’s abyss
So genuine, fresh and pure as this?
What forms so beautiful as those
. The goldsmiths of the forest chose?
What dyer’s art could ever hit
Colors so choicely exquisite?

What regal stamp of Emperors old

 

Match the fine tracery of this gold?
Yet here ungrudging Nature heaps
The treasures of the forest deeps

In piles upon the lap of Earth

As though regardless of their worth,
And thoughtless idlers from the town
Shuffle aside and trample down
Colors and forms more precious far
Than e’er in Orient bazaar

The jealous jeweller has hid
Beneath his costly coffer’s lid.

Scarceness one half their value makes:
Beauty that Nature gives and takes
Year after year, to our dull eyes,

Is wealth we slowly learn to prize,

And they alone its worth are taught
Who see all things with loving thought.

133
 

DON QUIXOTE AND SANCHO PANZA.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
   
   
   
   
   

NCE upon a time (last summer, in fact) we (which means two
of us) set out to see wind-mills.

You remember how Don Quixote, when he started to seek adven-
tures, “discovered thirty or forty wind-mills all together on the
plain,” and thinking them giants with arms two or three leagues
long, began to fight them, when a breeze of wind “springing up
drove the sails against him,” and sent him and his steed, Rosinante,
into the air; and how Sancho Panza intimated that the knight had
wind-mills in his own head. - You will, perhaps, think we were in the
same condition, But artists must be reckoned in with us in that
case, for, as every one knows, these picturesque structures have been
favorite subjects with them time out of mind—those ancient ones
which stand here and there on lonesome heights in Spain, and be-
yond all, the miles of them on the flats of Holland.

Of all the world, Holland is the wind-mill country; as one draws
near the shore there come in sight “wind-mills, cows, sheep, Dutch-
men, churches, steeples and little red-tiled houses,” but mostly
wind-mills, At Rotterdam, at Dordrecht; one finds them in North
Holland and in Friesland; sees them from the
Zuyder Zee, from every canal; but above all at Zaan-
dam, where they thrash the air, as one of the artists
says, and “grind every sort of thing that can be
ground, and when they don’t do that they saw wood
and pump water,” and “all the rich people are wind-
millers;” there are about four miles of them in all,
“as far into the dim distance” as the eye can reach,
so that “if any one desires to see Holland from its

A ROTTERDAM VISTA.

 
BA Cee ee eye

 

 

 

 

 

A WIND-MILL PILGRIMAGE.

wind-milly side,” let him go to Zaandam and be
‘surfeited forever after.”

Who invented them, whose idea it was to make
the wind a miller to grind meal or a servant to
pump water, no man knows, though it is said in
one place that they may be traced to Holland,
where their use was to remove the water from the
marshes; and in another, that it was the East, in

 

135

The wind roared, and the rains fell.

The poor white man came and sat under our tree,
He has no mother to bring him milk,
No wife to grind his corn, /

Let us pity the white man, no mother has he.

No matter where the wind-mill originated, the
hand-mill was before it, in the East, and almost
everywhere. Even the Roman soldiers carried

 

“BUT ABOVE ALL AT ZAANDAM.”

a sandy region where there were no water brooks,
and as John Ridd says in Lorna Doone, “folk
made bread with wind.”

But there is another side to that last statement,
because the Orientals ground their grain between
two stones, and the women didit. It was one of the
sounds of home-life— that grinding. It always
makes one think of the careful, busy, frugal mis-
tress, the bread-maker, the loaf-giver. Who of you
that has ever read the travels of Mungo Park in
Africa can forget the pathetic little story of that
lone stranger, benighted, weary, sick, among in-
hospitable people, preparing to pass the night in
a tree for safety, when the native woman took him
to her hut and gave him food and a mat to sleep
on; and as he lay there, he heard her maidens
sing these plaintive lines which they improvised
on the spot:

little mills along with them and ground their own
corn to make their own bread, which they baked
in pan-cakes on a flat plate over the fire — which
was indeed a primitive way of doing things fora
people so great and grand. Froissart tells time
and again how the armies of France and England
among their incumbrances had hand-mills of some
kind.

The Scotch had something they called the
“knockin’-stane,” by means of which they “un-
hulled” and broke up their oats and barley, with
a “knockin’-mell” or mallet. The “mell” was of
a solid kind of wood, the mortar of close-grained —
stone, and so big that one has been seen in some
old Scottish house in use for a pig’s trough, or
turned bottom upwards for a seat. The cottagers
kept it near the door, to be at hand when they
wanted barley for broth; too handy, in fact, ready
136 A WIND-MILL
for anybody to stumble over, as lazy Davy did,
according to the auld ditty:

Davy Doits, the king o’ loits,
Fell o’er the mortar-stane.
When a’ rest got butter an’ bread,
Davy Doits got nane.

_ When I read about a “guern” in stories of old

England, I can see such a hand-mill as people
used for grinding grain and something else that
was of quite as much importance to those ancient
beer-drinkers—malt. There was even in London
a church named St. Michael-a-Quern, because in
the market-place near was one of these mills. It
was a round stone of the size of a half-bushel
measure ; another stone fitted into it having a hole

 

 

2 a

i
rt a : ig

aa We

 

PILGRIMAGE

the little church behind the building of the Essex
Institute.

No doubt, as they came direct from Holland,
they soon built a wind-mill like those in that coun-
try; and the grinding was called “beating out the
corn.” One thing which they did not have, either
in England or Holland, was Indian corn; but they
learned to value it, after many straits, “more than
silver.” ~ 3

It was almost the first thing they found, and
before they arrived at Plymouth. The Mayflower
anchored first in Cape Cod Harbor, sailing around
the northeastern point (Race Point), where the
elbow sticks out into the sea, and coming within
the safe, comfortable, sheltering arm where Prov-
incetown is. It was then and there that the

 

IN HOLLAND.

_ through which the grain was dropped, and an iron
~ ring on the edge to pull it out, through which was
placed a stick to move it around when grinding.
Possibly the Pilgrims brought over some kind
of hand-mill; but if so, the records at Plymouth,
which give inventories of estates will show. There
is a queer one preserved among other relics at
Salem, which anybody can see who cares to, iz

“A WIND-MILL VILLAGE.”

women went ashore and washed the clothes, had
the first New England washing-day, on Monday,
too, which Mrs, Preston made such a- spirited
ballad about.

Then Miles Standish and a few other men ate
some biscuit and Holland cheese in their pockets,
set off to explore; and seeing a heap of sand, dug
iste if, acd feund < cellar lined with bark. and
A WIND-MILL

about four bushels of corn, yellow, red and blue,
the first they had ever set eyes on. And they took
it after much deliberation — it was really stealing
— having resolved to pay the Indians the first op-

portunity, which, I am glad to say, they did.

The poor colonists had times when it was hard

' to get anything to eat, and but for corn and learn-

ing from the savages how to cook it, they would
have starved. They bought hogsheads of it from
them one season, which the squaws brought down
in canoes; and friendly Squanto and Massassoit
entertained the leaders with mazium, made of the
meal mixed with water, which they called nokehihe,
and introduced them to the knowledge of sams,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

:

AT NANTUCKET. “THE ONE OLD MILL THAT IS LEFT.”

hominy, suppawn and succotash— the last made of
whole kernels boiled with beans, but the others all
of pounded or cracked corn, for which they had

" quite a ways out to sea,

PILGRIMAGE. 137
large mortars hollowed’ out of hard-wood logs.

The white men improved upon the aboriginal
method and fashioned nice mortars; and great

  

KING PHILIP’s SAMP BOWL. (From the Mass. Hist. Societg
: Collection.)
was the thumping with pestles of wood or stone
along that line of houses where Leyden street is,
till times were favorable for a wind-mill to be built.
Hundreds of those styles of mortars, either of iron,
“or wood, or stone, may now be found in old houses
or in museums scattered about New England. In -
a bric-a-brac store at Nantucket they show one
made of lignum-vite, which looks as if it might
bear constant use for two hundred years to come,
Mrs. Austen says in her MWantucket Scraps that

_ “the women ‘got tired of grinding samp” in those

and hand-mills; and that some man thought the
matter over, and then went to bed and dreamed it
over, and dreamed out a wind-mill, and went to
work and built one.

There used to be three there, back of the town,
on the Mill hills, as they were called, high up,
waving their great arms so that they could be seen
In the Revolutionary.
times, the islanders hit upon the happy plan of
using the mills to telegraph to the ships in the
harbor if British cruisers were around. A set of
signals was fixed upon and the vanes were made
to indicate how matters stood.

A woman, who told us about one, said she was
sorry enough when it was gone, for she and her.
schoolmates used to play around there; “and we
used to go up there when I was a girl,” she said,
“to get corn to parch. We never heard of pop-
corn then. It was the common yellow corn. We
used to beg it, we schoolgirls, and carry it home
and put it in a frying-pan over the fire, and when
there was one white one we were so pleased; and
one girl had that, and then another would have
the next one,” ‘
138 A WIND-MILL

She was not certain, she said, “whether that
story.was true about a little girl getting hold of
one of the sails one day, and the mill beginning

AL he

i
i)
TT

   
   

“THAT WAS AT WEST FALMOUTH.”
to go, and she
hanging on,
and being car-
ried away up
in the air and
round and
round before
it came down
again ; but I’ve
caught hold
and come pret-
ty. near that
myself, if I had not let myself drop; and I’ve been
knocked over by the sail when it begun to go;

‘and one time there was a cow feeding on the grass,
and.she was knocked so badly that they had to
kill her.”

. The one old mill that is left is upon a green
hill, a cool, delightful, breezy place, and there is an
ancient Portuguese with rings in his ears, Juan Sil-
ver, who keeps it, and shows it to visitors. One
day, when we took our morning walk up that way,
the door stood wide open, and he was to be seen
at a window up in the tower, where he was explain-
ing things to some summer boarders, but as we
came into sight, he spied us, came down with a
hippity-hop, and reached out and pulled the door
to quicker than I can write it.

. Looking up in amazement we saw the meaning
of this ungracious act, for there was a little board
on the outer wall which bore this inscription, all in

“ OVER AT POCASSET, STILL ANOTHER.”

PILGRIMAGE.

primitive capitals, and periods, and small figures:
Now, as we had already been seeing the inside

ADMITTANCE,
5 CENTS,

OPEN,
6 P.M.

FROM 9 A.M. TO
COME ONE. COME,
ALL.

 

of wind-mills to our heart’s content from basement
to tower, this did not disturb us in the least; and
so we sat down on the grass and enjoyed the land-
scape. There lay the crowded town of Nantucket,
yonder the moors where heath grows and so many
wild flowers, there the rim of sea. .

Meanwhile we had to hear what was going on
over our heads between a roguish visitor and the
Portuguese who would keep putting out his head
with the crisp, wiry hair and the great rings in his
ears; and we
could hear his
jabbering, and
“ya, ya,” and
his cackle of a
laugh at the
young man
who tried so
hard to get
him to set the
mill to going.

 

“ AT FALMOUTH ITSELF,”

There was a stiff breeze, but do it he would not.
“Why,” said the other, “you'll be mouldy here
in a week. Come, fetch on your sails, and set the

 
OS fay ry

A WIND-MILL

thing a-going. Well, then, if you won’t, I’ll tell
you what. Carpet the place, and put up a rack
full of newspapers and things to sell, and send out
the town crier to tell, and get the people in. O,
you're a jolly old keeper!” And the little Portu-
guese would cackle
again iilke a piece of
wheezy machinery, “ya
ya if ”

This one was built
about a hundred and
forty years ago — the
date is there, cut into
the stone doorstep after
an ancient and useful
fashion; and it is of
solid “oak that grew in
the Dead Horse Valley
over there,” though it is
questionable if an oak-
tree is now growing any-
where around; and it is
battered and worn, and
eaten, and scrawled over with visitors’ names.
They tell that during the Revolution, a British
man-of-war fired a cannon ball which went through
it, and nearly hit the miller, giving him a terrible
scare ; but legends are apt to gather, as moss does,
about those antique buildings.

At any rate, it has stood a good
deal of some kind of bombard-
ment; maybe of the kind which
that same John Ridd tells of, when
he went out with his father’s match-
_ lock gun “which he could hardly
carry to his shoulders, to practice
shooting: “Perhaps for a boy there
is nothing better than a good wind-
mill to shoot at, as I have seen in
the Low Countries, but we have no
wind-mills upon the great moor-

 

 

THE OLD MILL AT

PILGRIMAGE. 139
lands, yet here and there a barn door. . . there
is a fair chance of hitting the door if you lay your
cheek to the barrel and try not to be afraid.”

It was “down on the Cape” that we saw one of
the mills in operation, and were shown all about
it. Such a rude, strong
door with a wooden
latch that must have
been two feet long, such
winding stairs, such
heavy beams, such a
tower and look-out, such
a mealy, odd, pictur-
esque, never-to-be-for-
gotten place! We were
even given leave to
bring away as relics
for an antiquarian so-
ciety, two or three of
the crumbling, mossy
shingles that had been
sunning on its sides
nearly a hundred years.
The owner showed us how he managed, how he
hooked the canvas sails to the great vanes, and
told us that the long stick of timber outside,
clamped with iron, and with a big wheel at the
end was “the tail,” and how
they changed it about for the
wind; and as we listened the
vanes went round and round,
and the corn in the hopper came
out meal,

All the region round had al-
ways come there for meal, and
when the wind was right the
sound of the grinding did not
cease even when the sun went
down. Strangers from a part of
the country where there are no
wind-mills came to wonder at

NEWPORT, R. 1.

 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
   

   

SOME FOREIGN WIND-MILLS: THE MILL AT SAN SOUCI; AT ROTTERDAM; ON THE ELBE ; MILL AT DORDRECHT;
AT MONTMARTRE, PARIS.
I41

it and artists to sketch. Two girls, sitting ona
rock under the shade of the fence, were attempt-
ing it then.

But of all the stories, nothing pleased me so
much as about “the fe-ads.” Away up towards
the tower, as we noticed from without, were holes
bored through the timber, as if this one had indeed
served some John Ridd for a mark, but from some-
thing that carried a ball bigger than his father’s

old matchlock would admit. And when we climbed

the mealy stair and wondered aloud at the holes
bored smooth through the timbers, the miller said
it was “the Zeaks did it:” wood-peckers, red-
headed ones, that in this way made themselves
refuges from winter and the storm. A hard way
it seemed; a queer bit of bird calculation, a labo-
rious provision for time of need; an unnecessary
piece of work one would think ; “ but they do it,”
he said, “and round here we call them Ze-aks.”
That was at West Falmouth; further along at
Falmouth itself is another; over at Pocasset still

HEROINES OF THE POETS.

another; away near. the Highland Light on the
back side of the Cape one looms up; in a word
wind-mills are not hard to find in that historic
region of New England; and if we have not one
as fanciful as that of Sans Souci or of Mont-
martre, or those on the Elbe, which our artist has
pictured, have we not the quaint “round tower”
at Newport which might have been a wind-mill
but was not—or rather it is a disputed question
concerning which much has been written ; see what
Longfellow says about it in his introduction to
“The Skeleton in Armor.”

You know, perhaps, how fond he was of such
subjects, and how, about the time he wrote his
poem “ The Wind-mill,” he said to a visitor, “ The
Germans love to write of such homely topics, and
I love them for it,” and he went across the room .
and pulled down German books from the shelf and
read about all sorts and kinds of mills, saw-mills,
grist-mills, wind-mills ; for he too loved the homely,
the quaint, the picturesque wherever found,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HEROINES OF THE POETS.

KEAT’S MADELINE.

CASEMENT high and triple-arched there was,
All garlanded with carven imageries
Of fruits, and flowers, and bunches of knot-grass,
And diamonded with panes of quaint device,
Innumerable of stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damasked wings;
And in the midst, ’mong thousand heraldries,
And twilight saints, and dim emblazonings,
A shielded scutcheon blushed with blood of queens
and kings.

Full on this casement shone the wintry moon,

And threw warm gules on Madeline’s fair
breast,

As down she knelt for heaven’s grace and
boon ;

Rose-bloom fell on her hands, together prest,
And on her silver cross soft amethyst,
And on her hair a glory, like a saint:
She seemed a splendid angel, newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven :— Porphyro grew faint:
She knelt, so pure a thing, so free from mortal
taint.
From“ The Eve of St. Agnes.”
ies

 

I41
OSITO.

By F. L. STEALEY.

N the lofty mountain that
faced the captain’s cabin,
the frost had already
made an insidious ap-
proach, and the slender
thickets of quaking ash
that marked the course
of each tiny torrent, now

stood out in resplendent
hues and shone iin off like gay ribbons running
through the dark-green pines. Gorgeously, too,
with scarlet, crimson and gold, gleamed the lower
spurs, where the oak-brush grew in dense masses
and bore beneath a blaze of color, a goodly har-
vest of acorns, now ripe and loosened in their
cups.

It was where one : of these spurs joined the pa-
rent mountain, where the oak-brush grew thickest
and, as a consequence, the acorns were most abun-
dant, that the captain, well-versed in woodcraft
mysteries, had built his bear trap. For two days
he had been engaged upon it and now, as the even-
ing drew on, he sat contemplating it with satisfac-
tion, as a work finished and perfected.

From his station there, on the breast of the lofty
mountain, the captain could scan many an acre of
sombre pine forest with pleasant little parks inter-
spersed, and here and there long slopes brown
with bunch grass. He was the lord of this wild
domain. And yet his sway there was not undis-
puted. Behind an intervening spur to the west-
ward ran an old Indian trail long travelled by the
Southern Utes in their migrations north for trad-
ing and hunting purposes. And even now, a light
smoke wafted upward on the evening air, told of a
band encamped on the trail on their homeward
journey to the Southwest.

The captain needed not this visual token of
their proximity. He had been aware of it for sev-
eral days. Their calls at his cabin in the lonely
little park below, had been frequent, and they had
been specially solicitous of his coffee, his sugar, his
biscuit and other delicacies, insomuch that once or

142

 

twice during his absence these ingenuous children
of Nature had, with primitive simplicity, entered his
cabin and helped themselves without leave or stint.

However, as he knew their stay would be short,
the captain bore these neighborly attentions with
mild forbearance. It was guests more graceless
than these who had roused his wrath.

From their secret haunts far back towards the
Snowy Range, the bears had come down to feast
upon the ripened acorns, and so doing, had scented
the captain’s bacon and sugar afar off and had
prowled by night about the cabin. Nay, more,
three days before, the captain, having gone hur-
riedly away and left the door loosely fastened, upon
his return had found all in confusion. Many of his
eatables had vanished, his flour sack was ripped
open and, unkindest cut of all, his beloved books
lay scattered about. At the first indignant glance,
the captain had cried out, “Utes again!”” But on
looking around he saw a tell-tale trail left °y floury
bear paws.

Hence this bear trap.

It was but a strong log pen floored with rough-
hewn slabs and fitted with a ponderous movable .
lid made of other slabs pinned on stout cross
pieces. But satisfied with his handiwork the cap-
tain now arose and prying up one end of the lid
with a lever, set the trigger and baited it with a
huge piece of bacon. He then piled a great quan-
tity of rock upon the already heavy lid to further
guard against the escape of any bear so unfor-
tunate as to enter, and shouldering his axe and rifle
walked homewards. :

Whatever vengeful visions of captive bears he was
indulging in, were, however, wholly dispelled as he
drew near the cabin. Before the door stood the
Ute chief accompanied by two squaws. “How!”
said the chieftain, with a conciliating smile, laying
one hand on his breast of bronze and extending the
other as the captain approached.

“How!” returned the captain bluffly, disdaining
the hand with a recollection of sundry petty thefts.

“Has the great captain seen a pappoose about
 

OSITO.

his wigwam?” asked the chief, nowise abashed, in
Spanish —a language which many of the Southern
Utes speak as fluently as their own.

The great captain had expected a request for a
biscuit; he, therefore, was naturally surprised at be-
ing asked fora baby. With.an effort he mustered
together his Spanish phrases and managed to reply
that he had seen no pappoose.

“Me pappoose lost,” said one of the squaws
brokenly. And there was so much distress in her
voice that the captain, forgetting instantly all about
the slight depredations of his dusky neighbors, vol-

 

143

was down. Hastily he approached, bent over, and
peeped in. And certainly in the whole of his ad-
venturous life the captain was never more taken by
surprise; for there, crouched in one corner, was that
precious Indian infant.

Yes, true it was, that all those massive timbers,
all that ponderous mass of rock, had only availed
to capture one very small Ute pappoose. At the
thought of it, the builder of the trap was astounded.
He laughed aloud at the absurdity. In silence he
threw off rock and lid and seated himself on the
edge of the open trap. Captor and captive then

 

unteered to aid them in their search for the miss-
ing child,

All that night, for it was by this time nearly dark,
the hills flared with pine torches and resounded
with the shrill cries of the squaws, the whoops of
the warriors, the shouts of the captain; but the
search was fruitless. ; :

This adventure drove the bear-trap from its build-
er’s mind, and it was two days before it occurred
to him to go there in quest of captive bears,

Coming in view of it he immediately saw the lid
j

“WHAT ARE YOU CALLED, LITTLE ONE?” ASKED THE CAPTAIN.

 

gazed at each other with gravity. The errant in-
fant’s attire consisted of a calico shirt of gaudy
hues, a pair of little moccasons, much frayed, and a

red flannel string. This last was tied about his

straggling hair, which fell over his forehead like the
shaggy mane of a bronco colt and veiled, but could
not obscure, the brightness of his black eyes.

He did not cry; in fact; this small stoic never
even whimpered, but he held the bacon, or what re-
mained of it, clasped tightly to his breast and gazed
at his captor in silence. Glancing at the bacon,
144

the captain saw it all. Hunger had induced this
wee wanderer to enter the trap, and in detaching
the bait, he had sprung the trigger and was caught,

“What are you called, little one?” asked the
captain at length, in a reassuring voice, speaking
Spanish very slowly and distinctly.

“Osito,” replied the wanderer in a small piping
voice, but with the dignity of a warrior.

“Little Bear!” the captain repeated, and burst
into a hearty laugh, immediately checked, how-
ever, by the thought that now ke had caught him,
what was he to do with him? The first thing, evi-
dently, was to feed him.

So he conducted him to the cabin and there, ob-
serving the celerity with which the lumps of sugar
vanished, he saw at once that Little Bear was-most
aptly named. Then, sometimes leading, and some-
times carrying him, for Osito was very small, he set
out for the Ute encampment.

Their approach was the signal fora mighty shout.
Warriors,squaws and the younger confréres of Osito,
crowded about them. A few words from the cap-

tain explained all, and Osito himself, clinging to his

mother was borne away in triumph —the hero of
the hour. Yet, no— the captain was that I be-
lieve. For as he stood in their midst with a very
pleased look on his sunburnt face, the chief quiet-
ing the hubbub with a wave of his hand, advanced
and stood before him. “The great captain has a
good heart,” he said in tones of conviction. ‘ What
can his Ute friends do to show their gratitude?”

“ Nothing,” said the captain looking more pleased
than ever.

OSITO.

“The captain has been troubled by the bears,
Would it please him if they were all driven back to
their dens in the great mountains towards the set-
ting sun?”

“Tt would,” said the captain ; “can it be done?”

“Ttcan. It shall,” said the chief with emphasis, F

“To-morrow let the captain keep his eyes open, and
as the sun sinks behind the mountain tops he shall
see the bears follow also.”

The chief kept his word, The next day the up-
roar on the hills was terrific. Frightened out of their
wits, the bears forsook the acorn fields and fled
ingloriously to their secret haunts in the mountains
to the westward.

In joy thereof the captain gave a great farewell
feast to his red allies. It was spread under the

pines in front of his cabin and every delicacy of the |

season was there, from béar steaks to beaver tails,
The banquet was drawing to a close, and compli-
mentary speeches ’twixt host and guests were in

order, when a procession of the squaws was seen |
They drew

approaching from the encampment.
near and headed for the captain in solemn silence.
As they passed, each laid some gift at his feet —
fringed leggings, beaded moccasons, bear-skins, coy-

ote skins, beaver pelts and soft robes of the moun- :

tain lion’s hide — until the pile reached to the cap-
tain’s shoulders. Last of all came Osito’s mother
and crowned the heap with a beautiful little brown
bear-skin. It was fancifully adorned with blue rib-
bons, and in the centre of the tanned side, there
were drawn, in red pigment, the outlines of a very
stolid and stoical-looking pappoose.

 

 

 

 
S aiOD ~ Build, Gy

 
  
 
 
   
       
 
 
  
   
 
    
  
   
  

ei

eat

HE mail was due at five o’clock Pp.

M. in the border town of Parrisville ;
: so it was not strange that half the
male population of the place turned out a little
before that time on Tuesdays and Fridays, and
congregated about the little building used « as a post-
office.

Joe Fanshaw was rarely late, but on his power-
ul great iron-gray horse would dash gayly up-to
ithe door of the office, fling down his heavy leathern
ag, and dismount, answering goodmaniredly the
waiting crowd,
| It was a thriving little village, this Parrisville,
and many of its inhabitants were getting into quite

grain East in summer, and their furs and skins in
winter.

Their relations with the Indians of the neigh-

CAMP HAMPERFORD.

_comfortable circumstances, sending their stock and

145

CAMP HAMPERFORD.

 

By Mrs. Harriet A, CHEEVER,

boring forests had been chiefly friendly. It is true,
a marauding band had occasionally appeared, mak-
ing some mischief and disturbance, but the decided
and united action of citizens in dealing with such
visitors had usually brought about a speedy dis-
appearance.

One midsummer afternoon just after haying, three
boys of about fourteen or fifteen were standing near
the post-office, while a fourth, a little fellow, was
sitting on the broad low steps. i

Joe Fanshaw had been and gone, the mail had
been distributed, but many still lingered, discuss-
ing the news in papers and letters.

All at once a strange figure was noticed emerg-
ing from the woods at a little distance ; grotesque
enough of itself, it was splendidly mounted on a
snow-white pony elegantly equipped, the saddle of
wampum skilfully embroidered. a

“ Halloo,” shouted Phil Hamlin, one of the larger
boys, “here comes old Nomantic on one of those
magnificent white ponies! How would ¢#at suit you,
Davy boy?”

He turned as he spoke to the child on the steps,
with a glance at the crutches beside him. It was a
very longing, pitiful look which Phil cast at his lame
little brother; but the latter replied cheerfully —
enough :

“Wish we could buy that little white beauty, Phil.
We'll see what the letter from uncle Philip says when
we get home.”

‘Horses were scarce among these settlers. Oxen
were stronger for labor, and could both draw and
plough, and any superfluous property was not thought
of.

By this time Nomantic had approached the group
before the office door, and at once began trying to
sell the beautiful animal with its richly-wrought
saddle. The Indian was chief of a tribe whose wig-
wams were three miles away in the forest from which
the tawny tradesman had just'emerged. He, as well
as many of his tribe, squaws included, used often to
visit Parrisville, trading off baskets, game, fish; and
once in a great while, one of the more prominent
146

men, or perhaps the chief himself, as in the present
instance, would come to offer for sale some fine and
well-broken pony sent to their camp by Indians of
the distant prairie. There were but two ponies in
town, however, as the purchasers of the rare little
horses usually sent them East, selling at a great profit.

But this evening Nomantic seemed doomed to
disappointment. It seemed to. make no difference
that his queenly young daughter of whom the savage
father was exceedingly proud, had herself wrought
the saddle; no one wanted to buy, as he proposed no
barter, only cash.

“Supposing I ask what he’ll take,” said Phil
Hamlin, looking at Tom Perkins.

“Do,” replied Harry Ford; “only remember
you'll have to cut him short if you do, or he’ll hang
on like a midsummer night’s dream.”

It took some time to make the wary old chief fix a
price. He grunted a good deal about the positive
necessity of disposing of the pony. They were going
to break camp soon, and go farther West; “ too
much Pale Face here.” After which he offered the
animal for “one hundred dollars.” J

A shout of derision followed this offer, whereupon
he immediately came down to seventy-five ; but the
significant manner in which the boys turned their
backs upon him and whistled, brought him down to
fifty. But there he stopped. Then he plead as only
an old Indian can plead.

“ Wouldn’t good Pale Face buy of poor Indian?
Little squaw’s own hands work saddle — pretty sad-
dle. Pray buy of poor Indian!”

Regretfully enough the boys insisted they couldn’t
buy that evening. Nevertheless he followed Phil
and Davy Hamlin to their father’s stable, and to the
very house door, all the time imploring, ‘‘ Please buy

of poor Indian!”

Not until the boys entered and closed the door,
did the importunities cease. Then as the old chief
turned back and re-mounted the pony, the boys softly
stepped out and watched the graceful creature canter
away, and as horse and rider again entered the
woods, Phil turned just in time to see two great glis-
tening drops in Davy’s eyes as he stood leaning on
his crutches.

“Come, Davy,” said the great boy tenderly, “ let’s
go in and see what uncle Philip writes.”

The letter said nothing of money ; however, later
in the evening when the boys recounted the incident,
Phil added in his bluff way:

CAMP HAMPERFORD.

“Be a grand thing to mount Davy in that style,
wouldn’t it, father ? ”

“Indeed it would,” replied Mr. Hamlin, “ and I
heartily wish I could; it might really strengthen him;”
but we still have need of great prudence. Your
uncle Philip writes that money is very hard in Bos-
ton, and I suppose you might as well ask for a coach-
and-four, my son,” he added slowly, “as for fifty
dollars.”

For three successive days Nomantic appeared with
the snow-white pony, and each time stopped at Mr,
Hamlin’s stable door, but not once did he offer the
pony with its wrought wampum saddle, for less than
“fifty dollar,” insisting that the saddle was “so
much worth,” chiefly it would seem from being the
work of the skilful fingers of his darling child.

No one yet had possessed even a trinket from the
handsome maiden. She was occasionally allowed to
accompany her father on his trading excursions to
the village, where her clear olive cheeks, starry eyes
and graceful figure, attracted great attention ; but she
was far too choice a treasure to old Nomantic to be
allowed to trade or chatter with the Pale Faces.

As we have said, the haying was over, and it was
just that “meantime” between haying and harvest-
ing, when it was most convenient to spare the boys
for a few days’ frolic. Once a year the Parrisville boys
were allowed to camp for a few days in the woods,
with only one restriction: they must not go évo far
from home.

The Parrisville boys greatly enjoyed this annual
“ pow-wow.” The three friends, Phil Hamlin, Tom
Perkins and Harry, Ford, usually clubbed together,
and their camp was sportively named for each, taking
the first syllable of the last names; consequently,
“Camp Hamperford.”

There was only one drawback to Phil Hamlin’s
perfect happiness on these occasions— the wistful
face of little lame Davy when they started off. He
would gladly have taken him, but the child was deli-
cate, and the nights were likely to be chill in the
forest even in summer, and the camp-fires were not
always sufficient to keep out a dampness harmless
enough to a rugged fellow, but dangerous to a fragile,
rheumatic boy.

They had decided this time to camp in a lovely
spot some three miles distant, and all they could
talk about for several days previous was the charming
sport in anticipation.

Now we must diverge here to say that every coun-
CAMP HAMPERFORD.

try store has its pet loafer, the inactive being who
can tell the best story, and is always ready with his
little joke, and that Parrisville was no exception.
Go when you might, there in a chair by the door in
summer, or by the stove in winter, lounged Sam
Crofts, an oracle to the small boys who never tired
of his high-flown stories or time-worn jokes. This
Crofts had always evinced a fondness for the delicate
little Davy Hamlin, partly perhaps on account of his
lameness, and partly because of the chlid’s satisfac-
tion in listening to his stories.

On this occasion as the boys went jubilantly to
and from the store, making small, but to them im-
mensely important purchases, Sam had all sorts of
jovial advice to give, together with sundry warnings,
all of which went into one ear and straightway out
of the other with the older lads. But the afternoon
before they were to start, as Davy was about finish-
ing an errand, Sam spoke to him with great apparent
solemnity, while he slyly winked at some of the by-
standers :

“ Have the boys bought their ginger yet? Never
oughter go inter the woods without plenty 0’ ginger,
Bad sign to go inter the woods without ginger; very
bad sign!”

“Don’t believe they have,” said Davy thoughtfully.

“Then you better remind ’em,” said Sam ear-
nestly, adding with a knowing twist of his empty
head, “‘ wouldn’t let a boy o’ mine go inter a forest
without his ginger, any more’n I’d let him go without
his gun ; unluckiest thing that could be done. And
they better fix it all ready to take too,” added the
mischievous fellow.

Now the dearest object on earth next his mother,
to Davy Hamlin, was his brother Phil. The two
boys were the only children of the family, and their
attachment to each other was something beauti-
ful, Davy looking up to fifteen-year-old Phil as the
very embodiment of everything grand and noble in
boyhood, while Phil looked upon delicate little Davy
as something to be most tenderly cared for and con-
sidered on all occasions. “The precious little mor-
sel!” he once called him.

So it followed that what the crafty Sam Crofts had
said made a deep impression on Davy’s mind, and
he resolved that his dear brother should not go to the
woods lacking anything it would be unlucky to be
without. Such a superstitious idea would have been
foolish in a stronger or older boy, but eight-year-old
Davy was frail and nervous, and took alarm easily,

147

That night at supper Davy announced his anxiety.
“Say, Phil! Sam Crofts says you musn’t go out

camping without your ginger! He says it is unlucky.”
For reply, Phil threw back his head and laughed

knowingly, while his father remarked gravely :

*T think Sam would be luckier if he was less partic-
ular about taking his ginger.”

But Davy didn’t understand at all what Sam Crofts
had meant by ‘‘ ginger,” and his father did not care to
enlighten him, when he saw his innocent ignorance.
Meantime Davy resolved firmly that his careless
brother should not depart without a bottle of the lucky
tonic, and moreover that he would follow out Sam’s
advice carefully, and prepare it ready for use. Ac-
cordingly after supper he quietly searched about for
a large bottle with a firm, strong cork; then going as
quietly to his mother’s medicine closet, he looked
for the bottle marked “Jamaica Ginger,” which to
his delight he found nearly full. Pouring most of
its contents into the empty bottle, he proceeded to
fill it with water; then he managed to obtain a good
quantity of sugar from the bowl. He shook the mix-
ture long and vigorously, then tasted, and found it
didn’t quite flay his tongue; in fact he thought it
really quite palatable after it ceased to burn. His next
visit was to his mother’s room for three pins; then
creeping down to the front hall, he placed the bottle
in the large deep breast pocket of Phil’s ulster —of
course he would take his ulster— securely pinning
it across. He argued that Phil wouldn’t notice
any extra weight about his coat, as all its pockets
were well stuffed, in the excitement of getting off, yet
would probably detect it later.

The next day was all that could be desired of fine
weather, but Davy’s soft, large blue eyes, as usual, were
full of tears as he watched the trio start off, though
he managed to conceal them until they had gone.
And he was greatly relieved when Phil, sure enough,
slung his ulster over his arm, only remarking:

“This always was the heaviest old coat!”

They took with them two well-trained dogs; Phil’s
own, a splendid retriever named “Sampson” in consid-
eration of his unusual strength, and for short, called
Samp. The other belonged to Mr. Ford, and was
loaned Harry for the occasion. He was a powerful
bull-mastiff, ‘“‘ Watch,” by name. These dogs were
the best of friends; so it was eminently proper they
should go in company as guards and fellow sportsmen
of the three fine boys setting out for a midsummer’s
frolic.
 

STOOD THE MOTIONLESS FIGURE OF NOMANTIC,

FEW YARDS OFF

A
CAMP HAMPERFORD.

They reached the camping ground a little before
noon, having taken the two miles and a half very
leisurely, with frequent halts; for the weather was
warm, the beauty of the old forest beguiling, and the
little hand wagon heavy to draw.

Soon after their arrival, as Phil was hanging his
ulster on a peg driven into one of the tent poles, he
exclaimed :

“Bless me, this old coat was never so heavy be-
fore!” and just then something or other in one of
the pockets settled with a bounce. “I do believe
some one has been stuffing some everlastingly heavy
thing in one of these pockets a-purpose!” he ex-
claimed, and began anexamination, After extracting
sundry pins which confined a great round object in
the breast pocket, he produced the bottle marked
carefully in Davy’s queer little hand, “Jamaica
Ginger.”

“Oh ho!” roared Phil; “if Davy hasn’t suc-
ceeded in tucking some ginger off on to me after
all;” then he added, his voice full of fondness, “the
dear little idiot!” After his laugh, in the bustle and
hurry which followed, he placed the bottle back in
the same pocket, and went on with the work of “‘fix-
ing up.”

We cannot stop to tell what merry sports were
enjoyed during the three days of this outing; but the
weather was charming throughout, the moon was at
her highest and fullest, the game abundant, and the
good nature and overflowing spirits of the boys
unchecked by any untoward event. There was a
hunt every morning, and a feast every afternoon.
The late evenings were spent in strolling about near
camp and story-telling, aid the vigorous exercise and
keen enjoyment had added heightened color to the
bronzed cheeks of the happy campers.

At length the last night, the fourth, of their wild
woods’ sport had arrived. Next day they must
“pull up stakes” and start for home; but they had
made the most of this last day. Rising at dawn and
taking the guns and dogs, sufficient game and wild
fowl had been secured to provide a last grand feast,
and also leave quite a little “show” to take home.

The moon was riding high in the heavens, and
Watch was lazily crunching a bone outside the open
tent, when Phil went out for one last look about. He
was somewhat troubled because Samp was missing.
In vain he whistled and called. The rogue had
stolen off; but probably not far— might return any
moment. At all events, Phil was too sleepy to wait

149

up for him. They were not unguarded either; fot
woe betide the luckless intruder who dared Watch’s
mighty grip!

Silence reigned throughout the forest save for the
whispering of the leaves overhead, the twittering of
some uneasy birds, the occasional hoot of an owl, or
the flapping wings of a nighthawk.

It was past midnight, although it seemed as if he
had been sleeping but a few moments, when Phil be-
came conscious of a cold nose rubbing against his
cheek, and of a whining, coaxing, urgent appeal —
Samp. Samp had returned. He half-opened his
eyes, spoke impatiently :

“Down, Samp! quiet, old fellow! behave your-
self!”

But Samp would neither “down,” “quiet,” nor “be-
have.” Finding Phil was waking, he pulled eagerly
at the hem of his pants, whining and crying in an
unaccountable manner. In vain Phil scolded and
soothed by turns. The dog persisted. At length
Phil sat upright, rubbed his eyes, and said softly and
kindly: “Well, now, old fellow, what’s up? What
ails you?” .

During all this time the other boys had not stirred,
and Tom Perkins drowned all sounds anyway, by a
most tremendous snoring. But Samp, now that he
felt Phil was broad awake, grew more excited than
ever, taking long leaps and bounds outside the tent,
then crawling back along the ground, almost voicing
his entreaties to Phil to “come!”

“Well, Samp,” said the boy at last, “ you surely
never would behave in this way for nothing, and I
don’t believe you’re the boy to coax me into any dan-
ger. Idon’t much believe you are, Sampson Hamlin.
Oh, I’m coming,” he added, patting him; “ just wait
one moment, do!”

He took his gun, hung a pistol in his belt, then feel-
ing a decided chilliness in the air, muttered:

“Guess I'll don my ulster. Whew!” he added,
drawing it on, “this heavy coat feels good! I declare
it does!”

Then he paused and reflected. Should he wake the
others ?

“What for?” was his next thought. ‘Of course I
sha’n’t go far, and I’m well protected, armed as I am,
and with Samp along; besides there’s nothing to be
afraid of.”

Fear was an element almost wanting in the charac.
ter of a border boy, and neither Phil nor his compan-
ions formed exceptions to the general rule.
I50

Just then he glanced at Samp standing mutely re-
garding him with such a human look in his pleading
eyes, and he could but smile as to another boy.

“Come, old trusty!” he said. “I’m ready for
you!”
~ With impatient, eager bounds, the dog led the way
farther into the woods. Phil followed at a brisk,
steady pace. He had tramped about half a mile when
Samp, leaping forward, then back, as if to make sure
his master would follow, turned aside into a little
glen thickly surrounded by trees. At a glance, Phil
saw a long dark object lying along the ground, the
head raised, but the entire form motionless. For an
instant his fingers closed over the revolver at his side
as he whistled softly to Samp; then he advanced, and,
entering the glen, saw by the clear moonlight that it
was the figure of a woman which lay there alone in
the still, deep forest. As Samp licked her white
cheek, he thought he heard a soft moan.

The next instant Phil was kneeling beside a dying
girl, whom he now saw plainly was no other than the
cherished daughter of Nomantic, the old Indian chief.

He knew at once that according to traditional cus-
tom of the Indians, the girl had been left there to
die. Yes, he understood the fact at once. She had
sickened in the morning, and as her sufferings grew
more intense, the chief had consulted a doctor at the
village, a Pale Face. But the physician not caring to
visit the camp, had written a prescription, and the
medicine had done no good, and towards night it had
become apparent that there was no more hope for her.
So with loud cries and moans from the women, and
bitter grief on the father’s part, he had, according to
the tribal custom, borne her in his strong arms to this
sheltered spot, piled high a pillow of summer leaves,
and withdrawn from a sight he had no strength or
courage to witness.

Phil’s young heart had never known before any
such great solemn ache as this. He wished he had
waked the other boys. He thought of sending Samp
back for them. But then, what could they do?

“ Ginger blue!” he ejaculated. “What can a fel-
low do in such a case as this? I wonder” —for at
the instant of his boyish exclamation the remembrance
of Davy’s bottle of ginger flashed across his mind,
and clapping his hand to his breast pocket, there it
was, sure enough.

“Probably it won’t do much good,” he soliloquized,
“but I guess I'll try it.”

Raising her heavy head carefully, he poured a little

CAMP HAMPERFORD.,

of the liquid into the girl’s mouth. There was a con
traction of the brow, a struggle, and it was swallowed.
Phil waited a few moments, then repeated the
action.

“Well, you haven’t killed her yet,” he said to him-
self in an encouraging tone; and justthen she moaned,
Phil fancied, and not as feebly as before. He laid
her head softly back, waited several moments, then
again raising her gently, administered at intervals
several swallows until a decidedly good dose of the
hot mixture had been taken; and this time, to his un:
speakable gratification, as he laid the pretty head
back on its leafy pillow, the great black eyes opened
languidly and looked into his face.

“Going to live, I do believe,” thought the boy.
“Bless that little goose of a Davy and his ginger!
Wish the little chap could see how his ‘lucky stuff’ is
working now.”

Glancing up at the moon, he was surprised to find he
must have been absent from camp a full hour, but he
could not think of leaving his deserted patient. Poor
child of the forest !

A great restful feeling of relief was creeping over
Phil, moreover, unmistakably the young girl was re-
viving. She probably was to live. The eyes had
opened wider now, and at last they fixed on his face.

“ Do you feel better?” asked Phil, bending towards
her, and smiling half shyly.

She moved her lips, and made what sounded like
a little affirmative moan.

“A little more of Davy’s lucky ginger,” thought
Phil; and this time, although taken with some diffi-
culty, it was evidently taken intelligently. In the
course of another half-hour the girl could move her
head and hands, and after a while Phil helped her
to sit up, resting against a tree, while he rubbed
her hands and bathed her forehead — with ginger.

He was all unconscious, however, that at this time
two piercing eyes, keen as a hawk’s, far-seeing as an
eagle’s, were watching his movements. Even the
sagacious Sampson had failed to prick a silken ear
at the stealthy advance through the thicket of the
dusky form creeping along like a panther on all-
fours. ;

But suddenly now Sampson sat upright, every
nerve alert and quivering. Turning quickly, Phil
saw but a few paces off, the tall, erect figure of a
plumed and painted savage. The form was that
of Nomantic, but the features, even at that neaf
distance, were indistinguishable.
CAMP HAMPERFORD.

Just here they made a striking picture in the moon-
light of the grand old forest. Phil had sprung to
his feet, and was standing close to the Indian maiden’s
side, one end of his gun resting on the ground, yet
firmly held in both hands. Sampson crouched
“couchant,” ready for a deadly spring at a half-
instant’s notice — aye, and what a spring it would
have been-——while a few yards off stood the motion-
less figure of Nomantic.

But the scene remained in tableau but for a
moment; for suddenly from the Indian girl herself
came a cry half of joy, half of pain; and in another
moment she was clasped in her own father’s arms.

He had thought that all must by this time be
over; and unable longer to control his bitter grief
and longing, had stolen out to see if his darling
young princess were indeed dead, and waiting to be
made ready for her burial.

No words could express his astonishment, when,
on nearing the spot, he saw her not only still alive,
but reviving.

Lifting her as though she were a child, and grunt-
ing forth some strange sounds meant for thanks to
Phil, who with rare presence of mind handed him
the bottle containing what remained of Davy’s lucky
“ginger,” he. strode with his daughter back to the
camping grounds but a short distance away.

But as the sturdy old Indian started away, the
pretty creature turned her face towards Phil with a
look in her starry eyés he never quite forgot. Touch-
ing her pale lips with her slender finger-tips, she
waved her own sweet thanks, and half-bashfully
Phil smiled and waved back a sort of “by-by.”

When half-way back Phil met the entire Camp
Hamperford, turned out “to rescue him,” as Harry
Ford remarked. They explained that a dismal howl
from Watch had awakened them, and then they dis-
covered his “nowhereness.” It was a long and
exciting story to which the boys listened; but there
was still an hour or two left before sunrise, and the
camp again slept soundly.

Home was reached safely that afternoon. There
were exciting tales to be told that evening in the
three households; and it would have done any one
good to have witnessed Davy’s unbounded satisfac-
tion at the part he had played in ¢ke event of the
trip.

It was on the third morning after the arrival home,
that Mr. Hamlin awoke Phil at an early hour, telling
him a message had been sent him during the night,

’ kind Pale Face, and Star Eyes work um saddle.

I51

and he must arise and attend to the matter at once,
adding that Mike was somewhere in the garden, and
would tell him about it.

There was something mysterious about his father’s
manner, and on expressing the opinion to Davy
during his hurried dressing, Davy said yes, he thought
so too. ‘

Phil hurried down-stairs, burst out of the back
door, bounded like a squirrel through the garden to’
find Mike, when lo and behold! there at the stable
door, firmly fastened and secured, patiently stood a
lovely snow-white pony, with wampum saddle curiously
embroidered, and bridled and stirruped in style en-
chanting.

Going up to the graceful creature Phil saw that
an enormous piece of yellowish white paper had
been folded and pinned to the saddle. Taking it
down he read with considerable difficulty, what some
more enlightened “Red Face” had been coaxed or
hired to prepare, for the “ undersigned ” could
neither read nor write:

“We brake camp terday and speed the far West,
With forrests full of thanks we send him poney to
May
Great Spirrit spred loving wings over deer yung Pale
Face. We take with us him gift of good fire warter,
and saved the loved yung squar.

“Cuier Nomantic >< [his mark.]
“Star Eves = [her mark.” ]

Back sped Phil to the house, his face radiant and
his eyes aflame. He rushed over the stairs and into
his room just as the little crippled brother had
finished the slow task of dressing.

“Oh, you duck of a Davy,” he cried, “what do
you think now! Why, that blessed old Injine, Noman-
tic, you: know—the old chief, you know—has sent us
that darling little white saddle and wampum pony —
why, what the mischief am I saying! he has sent us
that dear little white pony, wampum saddle, and all
the fixin’s! You needn’t say you don’t believe it now,
it’s true as this world, and there’s a great big lump in
my throat most choking me too!” for great fifteen-
year-old Phil was actually almost sobbing with delight
and excitement.

That night when Joe Fanshaw dashed up to the
post-office, he informed half of Parrisville that the
Indians of Nomantic’s tribe had decamped—started
for the far West.
CAMP HAMPERFORD.

152

_ The story of Phil’s forest adventure got out, as such
stories will; but the friends kept their own counsel
concerning some of the facts of the case. And little
Davy, whose lameness was caused partly by physical
weakness, began improving immediately on beginning
his invigorating rides on Star Eyes’ pony. ‘Tom Per-
kins and Harry Ford enjoyed long rambles with her
too, to say nothing of Phil, her happy master.

For some reason or other, that great gossip, Sam
Crofts, never could get any one to give him the true

 
  

  
 
 

\

  

facts of the mysterious presentation, although on
every possible occasion he would ask Davy half-know-
ingly —to delude him into confidence if possible—
and half-curiously : :

“Say now, Davy, what made you name the pony
‘Ginger ’?”

But the sly little Davy only perks his head on one
side, half-shuts his eyes, and replies:

“Oh, ‘always lucky to have ginger around,’ you
know, Mr. Crofts!”

      

"Py par fo
LITTLE BROWN THRUSHES.—LITTLE CHRISTEL.

153

LITTLE BROWN THRUSHES.

Mrs, WHITON-STONE.

ITTLE brown thrushes at sunrise in summer
After the May-flowers have faded away,
Warble to show unto every new-comer
How to hush stars, yet to waken the Day:
Singing first, lullabies, then, jubilates,
Watching the blue sky where every bird’s heart is;
Then, as lamenting the day’s fading light,
Down through the twilight, when wearied with
flight,
Singing divinely, they breathe out, “good-night!”

Little brown thrushes with birds yellow-breasted
Bright as the sunshine that June roses bring.
Climb up and carol o’er hills silver-crested
Just as the bluebirds do in the spring,
Seeing the bees and the butterflies ranging,
Pointed-winged swallows their sharp shadows
changing ;
But while some sunset is flooding the sky,
Up through the glory the brown thrushes fly,

' Singing divinely, “ good-night and good-by!”

 

LITTLE CHRISTEL.

By Mrs. Mary E. BRapDLey.

 

RAULEIN, the young schoolmistress, to her
' pupils said one day,

“ Next week at Pfingster holiday King Ludwig rides
this way ;

And you will be wise, my little ones, to work with
a will at your tasks,

That so you may answer fearlessly iateves ques-
tion he asks. ~

It would be a shame too dreadful if the king should
have it to tell

That Hansel missed in his figures, and Peterkin
could not spell!”

“Oho! that never shall happen,” cried Hansel and
Peterkin too,

“We'll show King Ludwig when he comes, what
the boys in this school can do.”

* And we,” said Gretchen and Bertha, and all the
fair little maids

Who stood in a row before her, with their hair in
flaxen braids,

“We will pay such good attention to every word
you say

That you shall not be ashamed of us when King
Ludwig rides this way.”

She smiled, the young schoolmistress, to see that
they loved her so,

And with patient care she taught them the things
it was good to know.

Day after day she drilled them till the great day
came at last,

When the heralds going before him blew out their
sounding blast ;

And with music, and flying banners, and the clat-
ter of horses’ feet,

The king and his troops of soldiers rode down the
village street.

Oh the hearts of the eager children beat fast with
joy and fear,

And Fraulein trembled and grew pale, as the cav-
alcade drew near;

But she blushed with pride and pleasure when the
lessons came to be heard,

For in all the flock of her boys and girls not one of
them missed a word,

And King Ludwig turned to the teacher with a
smile and a gracious look ;

“Tt is plain,” said he, “that your scholars have
carefully conned their book.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“FOR THE KING IN HIS ARMS HAD CAUGHT HER,”

154
LITTLE CHRISTEL.

“ But now let us ask some questions to see if they
understand ;”

And he showed to one of the little maids an orange
in his hand.

It was Christel, the youngest sister of the mistress
fair and kind —

A child with a face like a lily, and as lovely aid
pure a mind.

“What kingdom does this belong to?” as he

called her to his knee;
And at once —“ The vegetable,” she answered
quietly.

“ Good,” said the monarch kindly ; and showed her
a piece of gold;

*‘ Now tell me what this belongs to, the pretty coin
that I hold? ’”

She touched it with careful finger, for gold was a
metal raré,

And then —“ The mineral kingdom !” she answered
with confident air.

Well done for the little midchen!” And good
King Ludwig smiled

At Fraulein and her sister, the teacher and the
child.

“ Now answer me one more question :” —with a
twinkle of fun in his eye —

“What kingdom do /belongto?” For he thought
she would make reply,

“The animal;” and he meant to ask with a frown,

if that was the thing

For a little child like her to say to her lord and
master, the king ?.

He knew-not the artless wisdom that would set his
wit at naught,

And the little Christel guessed nothing at all of
what was in his thought.

155

But her glance shot up at the question, and the
brightness in her face,

Like a sunbeam on a lily, seemed to shine all over
the place.

“What kingdom do you belong to?” her innocent
lips repeat ;

“ Why surely, the kingdom of Heaven!” rings out
the answer sweet.

And then for a breathless moment a sudden silence
fell, , :

And you might have heard the fall of a leaf as they
looked at little Christel.

But it only lasted a moment, then rose as sudden
ashout— |

“Well done, well done for little Christel!” and
the bravos rang about.

For the king in his arms had caught her, to her
wondering, shy surprise,

And over and over he kissed her, with a mist of
tears in his eyes,

“ May the blessing of God,” he murmured, “ forever
rest on thy head!

Henceforth, ty his grace, my life shall prove the
truth of what thou hast said.”

He gave her the yellow orange, and the golden
coin for her own,

And the school had a royal feast that day whose
like they had never known.

To Fraulein, the gentle mistress, he spoke such
words of cheer

That they lightened her anxious labor for many
and many a year.

And because in his heart was hidden the memory
of this thing,

The Lord had a better servant, the Lord had a
wiser king!

 

A SCULPTURED MADONNA,
156

HEROINES OF THE POETS.

HEROINES OF THE POETS.

COLERIDGE’S GENEVIEVE.

FT in my waking dreams do I
Live o’er again that happy hour,

"When midway on the mount I lay,

Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine, stealing o’er the scene,

Had blended with the lights of eve;

And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve !

——

She leaned against the armed man,

The statue of the armed knight ;

And stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,

My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!

She loves me best, whene’er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,

I sang an old and moving story —

An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
COLERIDGE’S GENEVIEVE,

 

BS
158

LTO A SKEYLARK.

TO A SKYLARK,

By Percy ByssHE SHELLEY.

AIL to thee, blithe spirit —
Bird thou never wert —
That from heaven or near it
Pourest thy full heart
In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

Higher still and higher
From the earth thou springest,
Like a cloud of fire ;
The blue deep thou wingest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

In the golden lightning
Of the sunken sun,
O’er which clouds are bright’ning,
Thou dost float and run,
Like an embodied joy whose race is just begun.

The pale purple even
Melts around thy flight ;
Like a star of heaven,
In the broad daylight
Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill de-
light —

Keen as are the arrows
Of that silver sphere
Whose intense lamp narrows
In the white dawn clear,
Until we hardly see, we feel, that it is there.

All the earth and air
With thy voice is loud,
As, when night is bare,
From one lonely cloud
The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is over:
flowed.

What thou art we know not;
What is most like thee?
From rainbow-clouds there flow not
Drops so bright to see
As from thy presence showers a rain of melody: ==

Like a poet hidden
In the light of thought,
Singing hymns unbidden,
Till the world is wrought
To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:

Like a high-born maiden
In a palace tower,
Soothing her love-laden
Soul in secret hour
With music sweet as love which overflows her bower:

Like a glow-worm golden
In a dell of dew,
Scattering unbeholden
Its aerial hue
Among the flowers and grass which screen it from the
view:

Like a rose embowered
In its own green leaves,
By warm winds deflowered,
Till the scent it gives
Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-wingéd
thieves.

. Sound of vernal showers
On the twinkling grass,
Rain-awakened flowers,—
All that ever was,
Joyous and clear and fresh,— thy music doth surpass.

Teach us, sprite or bird,
What sweet thoughts are thine:
I have never heard
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine,

Chorus hymeneal
Or triumphal chaunt,
Matched with thine, would be all
But an empty vaunt —
A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
TO A SKYLARK. | 159

What objects are the fountains
Of thy happy strain?
What fields, or waves, or mountains ?
_ What shapes of sky or plain?
What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of
pain?

With thy clear keen joyance
Languor cannot be:
Shadow of annoyance
Never came near thee:
Thou lovest, but ne’er knew loves had satiety.

Waking or asleep
Thou of death must deem
Things more true and deep
Than we mortals dream,
Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal
stream ?

We look before and after,
And pine for what is not:

Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught ;
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest
thought.

Yet, if we could scorn
Hate and pride and fear,
If we were things born
Not to shed a tear, /
I know not how thy joy we ever should come nea:

Better than all measures
Of delightful sound,
Better than all treasures
That in books are found,
Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!

Teach me half the gladness
That thy brain must know;
Such harmonious madness
From thy lips would flow
The world should listen then as I am listening now

— from Shelley's Poems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

THOU ART UNSEEN, BUT YET I HEAR THY SHRILL DELIGHT,

160
 

 

 

TOSS Nee ae Failte

 
 

 
A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

161

 

A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & Co.

—_—_—

By Amanpa B. Harris.

 

 

HE thing that was expected of me

one day was to find the picturesque

and romantic side there is to such practical kind of

business as the making of paper—to tell that, and

make the plain facts of the case more attractive. It

looked “oo practical, and I was hopeless, but the
mummies decided it,

What had the mummies to do with it? Just this,
that some of the cloudy, obscurish sort of blue-gray
paper that has been in use was once Egyptian cloth.
T have a very positive impression that blue is the pre-
vailing color worn by the common people in some
of the Eastern countries; it certainly is in China, a
dull blue; and if I mistake not, the Jewish women of
old wore it; and the Egyptians, not only in former
times, but they wear it still.

At any rate, that dingiest, dreariest of blues was
the color of a peculiar kind of cloth, which it gives
you a creepy sort of feeling to touch; woven long,
long ago on the quaint Egyptian looms; worn first-—
who knows ?—and at last wound and wound about
the mummies before they were laid away in their
niches of silence. All the Egyptian dead of by-gone

ages were embalmed and swathed in cloth, whether
they were rich or poor. For the former class the kind of
linen called dyssus was used, as microscopic examina-
tion has proved. For the poorer it was a coarser,
cheaper stuff, looking like hard, firm cotton (I havea
piece of it here); and on some mummies there were
“not less than forty thicknesses of cloth ;” sometimes
more than thirty pounds of bandages on one person,
So that there was opportunity for securing an immense
amount of material for paper, if anybody chose to
engage in such abominable business, '

What sacrilegious, unnatural traffic that was —
unswathing those forms, and sending shiploads of
blue cerements across the ocean as merchandise !
But then, we must bear in mind that, religiously as
the old Egyptians preserved their dead, the modern
ones have always been ready to offer mummies for
sale as curiosities. When we remember this, we
shall feel less surprise that they should sell the
wrappings too!

They were all fumigated at some of those far Med-
iterranean ports, packed in bales and shipped; on
whose responsibility it would be useless to inquire,
162

And even some of them, queerly enough, came to this
little town named for Benjamin Franklin, up among
the New Hampshire hills. What wonder that the
little girls who used to play under the machinery in
their father’s mill, looked on at the unlading of this
strange merchandise with solemn faces! They had
seen many curious things in that great rag-room;
strange flotsam and jetsam had come thither; and
they had listened to stories of curious findings, but
there had been nothing so strange as this. There
was something really awesome in it. Still to their

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
 
 

WROUGHT BY NUNS IN ITALIAN CONVENTS.

young imaginations the mummy cloths brought visions
of the sleepy Nile and the Pyramids, and palm-trees
under the hot haze of an Egyptian noon; old Cairo
and the Sphinx, the Pharaohs and Cleopatra seemed
_not so far away either in space or time: and that old
world and the Orient were for the moment almost as
real as the rambling village where they lived, with its
white houses and brick mills, and the cool green mead-
ows where the Pemigewasset and the Winnepesaukee
— lovely rivers !— met and formed the Merrimack.

That was years ago; and the paper was called
“ granite,” from the blue-gray stone of that name. In
these times it would probably be “momie” paper,
and very stylish.

As you will infer, the special mill I am writing
about (which is now engaged in the manufacture of
such paper as newspapers are printed on) then made
letter paper. The imprint was one well known all over

A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

the country ; and the stamp, which may now be recog-
nized in many a bundle of old letters and documents,
was a bird holding a letter in its bill. Besides the
white and the granite there was a blue kind; and
about this there is a scrap of history too. At that
time, thirty-five or forty years ago, there was a great
deal of blue calico worn —we call the same thing
“print.” Dark indigo blue calico, sprinkled with
little stars or dots in white, or criss-crossed, as some-
body called them, or some small pattern. The style
has re-appeared, as you all know. A good, service-
‘able color our mothers found it for every-
day wear; and there was so much of it, that
when it came to the rag-room at the mill, it
was sorted out by itself, and went to make
a clear blue grade of letter paper.
There was a bit of Italy came in the same
way as Egypt did to this northern town;
bales of white rags from Leghorn; and they
were all linen. What exquisite, firm paper
they should have made! It was strong,
stocky linen, and some of the cast-off gar-
ments were in fashion somewhat like a
frock; and so rich was the embroidery on
them that ladies saved specimens as curios-
ities. The work was rich and strange ;
a not like anything ever seen in this part

Bech - 4
LN EE.
B:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

 

WHEN THE CHURCH RECORDS WERE MISSED.

of the world. One could only conjecture about who
wrought it; perhaps nuns in the Italian convents;
perhaps noble dames and maidens made a pleasant
pastime of it with their needles, as we do now with
A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

Kensington stitch. Certainly such fabric and such
work were not worn by peasants.
Other bales there were from certain places where

  

BARTERING OLD RAGS FOR NEW TIN.

the contents, whether of waste paper or cloth, had
been cut into small pieces, that the character of the
writing or printing and the style of the garment
might not be betrayed; and all the rags were scrup-
ulously clean, having been washed 'be-
fore they were packed.

As for the rest, the rag-pickers in
the city streets were working in their
way in the long line of processes
towards what was one day to be reams
and piles of fine letter paper ; and the
tin-pedlers’ carts were going about

 

    

163

It was in “war times” that the books and manu-
scripts and tons of newspapers and pamphlets, began
to pour in.

Formerly paper stock, as this kind was

   
  
 
 
 
 
 
 
   

“MET, AND FORMED THE MERRIMACK.”

called, had been of but little value, only about
half a cent a pound, for the reason that the man-
ufacturers knew of no way by which the ink
could be taken out; the printing or writing
would show through, so that books and papers
had to be made into wrapping paper. But
as soon as some genius found out how to do,
the price went up so high that most of the old
garrets were despoiled of the hoarded accumulations
of years. The greater part of the school books went
that way. Volumes which the older generations had
treasured, a younger generation sold, and things
were lost
which can
never be re-
placed. Rare
pamphlets
came to this
mill, and
books in cost-
ly bindings,
two hundred
years old,
The church
records of a
certain im-
portant town
turned up in
‘one of the

bundles. Some things were rescued by antiqua-
rians, who moiled and toiled amidst these tons

SCRAP-BOOK TREASURES.

 

 

 

  

OLD LACES.

from town to town the same
as now, and the good wives
stood by the shining, clattering load and haggled and
examined the wares, and bartered old rags for new tin.

   

of printed matter, in search of some scarce vol-
ume. And those girls who used to ride on the loads
of bales when they were small, now that they were
older came daintily picking their way and rammaged
for poetry to put in their scrap-books.

Strange findings and experiences there used to be
 

 

 

 

 

 

| 164

Bundles of family letters, of priceless value to the
genealogist; private journals, held very sacred by
the ones who poured their hearts out on the pages,
_ went mercilessly into the boiling tanks, to re-appear
perhaps i in the very morning journal whose columns
some of us were scanning for the latest news from
the seat of war. Rejected manuscripts were among
the contents of the tin-pedlers’ bags; telling stories
of disappointment. not written in the text, but des-
tined, possibly, for a better use in their new shape,
after going through the paper-mill, than if the editor

 

  

ee

A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

employer of stealing a diamond ear-drop which was
afterwards found among: the paper-rags. “ Once,”
said one of the women who worked at sorting rags,
“my girl found five dollars, right there, a bill, and we
used to find gold rings and such things. Now it is
different.”

The reason why it is different now is that a great
deal of the paper is made of the waste from cotton
factories, The time of mummy wrappings and Italian
fine needlework was in the past; and it was a pro-
saic region of stuff of to-day into which we stepped

 

SORTING.

had found them “available.” Sometimes there was
the evidence of somebody’s dishonesty, in pieces of
harness, heavy buckles and straps, which had been
hidden in a bundle of rags to make it weigh more.
Several times there was a sealed letter of importance,
even containing money, the loss of which from the
post-office or failure to reach the address had caused
business troubles and anxieties for years; and jewelry
would be found, on account of which, perhaps, some
poor seamstress had been made to suffer. You will
remember how one was once agctned by her rich

from the sidewalk on our first day at the mill. We
began at the beginning — with the rag room — which
was then cluttered with the material above men-
tioned ; waste from a mill, and everything that had
been swept up with it, pieces of bobbins and quills,
iron, wood, and rubbish in general. _

The first thing was to submit it to a_ tearing
and whirling process in a revolving machine called.
a “duster,” where a cylinder set with spikes: like
harrow teeth, gave the incongruous mass a vigorous
shaking up, during which the wood avd meta] and

 
\

‘A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

stone came rattling out like a hailstorm on the floor,
while the rags fell over into the room beyond. There
they were gathered up and carried into the sorting
room. Seventeen women were at work on them with
their heads done up in colored handkerchiefs. One
of them told me she had worked there twenty years,
and turning to the daughter of her former employer,

 
  

  

ff
wf ;
. TeV Qustizes :

she spoke of the date of his death, and said, “I
remember it just as well as when I buried my six
‘children. He was a good friend to the poor.”

Each had seven barrels into which she sorted the
stuff: chips into one; old-paper into another, for
brown paper; and so on. Nothing usable is lost.
Each has a sort of table with sides like a box,
‘on which the rags are sorted; the bottom of it is
‘a sieve with large meshes to let the dust through, and
fastened to one side of some is a piece of scythe —a
‘dangerous, ugly-looking blade, across which they
‘draw any piece which has buttons or hooks, to cut
them off. The scene in this room is made to look
picturesque under the artists’ hands, but it is anything
but that to the senses of the women.

After this the rags are pitched into a cutter which
‘cuts them fine, and then another more fine; and
they pass the ordeal of a second revolving machine,
which sets the dust a-flying, and empties them into
another room; and of the debris at so late a stage of

STEPS PAPERWARD.

165

winnowing as this, and after so much sorting, there
is taken away every night from twelve to twenty-four
bushels. As this cataract of cotton goes flying over
into the room for it, it occasionally takes fire. Some-
times a match, in spite of all restrictions, as been
dropped into the waste by somebody, somewhere ;
and if it has escaped’ the keen eyes of the sorters
(and a wicked little match can keep out of sight), it
is quite sure to strike fire now.

   

   

- roy
i ? fe 4
aera? BS
TENG i ee {
s The Bleaching Rear

eee

 

 
  
  

Next comes the preparation for cleansing with
lime water. The rags are pitched and crammed
down a crater or tunnel in the floor; and if I heard
aright, a man goes down into that dark, vile-smelling
pit, among them, and stows them away. The pit
proves, on going down-stairs, to be an immense iron
cylinder, like a gigantic barrel, more than the height
of a man in diameter, and three times that length.
There were two of them up in air, called “ rotary
bleachers”; they hold nearly a ton each, and every
night at five o’clock are filled: the lime water is put
in, and there they boil all night. When the rags are
done, workmen come with strong, long-handled imple-
ments and hook them out. ‘Mountains: of these
sopping, cooked rags loomed up in the cave-like
place ; and the floor was sloppy and slippery.

Before we went again to the upper regions we took
a look at the furnaces... Those semi-subterranean
166

regions might have been the workshop of the Cyclops.
Away in there I fancied them forging the strange,
cruel-looking iron things that the men were using,
and those ponderous iron doors which shut from sight
the fires seven times heated. They were like the
doors of ovens, that might have been a bakery for
Titans; and in the cavernous depths hidden by the
knobbed and massive doors, who could say but their
baked meats were sissling and browning?
Meanwhile, the odor was not of flesh or fowl,
plum pudding or good wheaten loaf; but a mingling
of cotton factory, machine oi] and lime water, tem-
pered by the chloride of lime and alum, which gave a
chemical flavor and taste to the universal atmosphere.
When we left that place where the fires never go
out, as one might almost say, for the machinery of the
mill never stops until midnight Saturday, we ascended
to the bleaching room. Up to it the lime-cleansed
rags are conveyed in little cars, the
full ones going up through a
trap door by a broad band,
and the empty ones coming

  

Catting aad fotge

There several tanks, huge enough to be bath tubs
for those same giants, are ready to receive them, and
men stand waiting with horrible tongs to clutch and
toss them in. Those tongs are like instruments of
torture; they must have been invented in the days of
the Spanish Inquisition.

A DAY WITH RAGS,

 
  
   
 
 
 
 
   

TATTERS & CO.

In each vat is a washing engine, which keeps a
stream of clean water all the time running through
that mess which is like a cauldron of witches’ soup;
washing, washing, while the foul water goes pouring
out through a great pipe, and is carried off into the
river below. A screen of fine wire keeps the stock
from washing away ; and in out of sight is machinery
that grinds the rags, and there are sets of knives and
zigzag knives which tear them without hurting the
fibre; and there they are ground and dismembered
and tormented for five hours or less, according to
their state of soil and oiliness when they are put in.
Then the water is let off, a curious little trap which
catches the buttons that have managed to accompany
the rags so far on the way to being paper, is opened,
the buttons scraped down towards their final place of
deposit in the river, and the chloride of lime and
alum are next in order. We happened to be
on the spot just after these things were put
in, and we were standing near and intently
looking down into the tub or vat or tank
(either name is well enough, though I am
pretty sure the men said “ tub”), when of a
sudden the whole company of us set to
crying and laughing together, and had to

 

retreat, the fumes were so overpowering, and the
faces of all the workmen were one broad grin at the
sight.

After the bleaching powders are in, the whole
mass begins to churn into foam, and is kept churning
and churning for three quarters of an hour, and the
A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

alum shines like a silver crust on the top of the
drifts. The air is full of the keen steam of it, which
makes your nose tingle, and you have a general
sense of a grand purifying day. By this time,
between lime water, chloride of lime and alum (and
sometimes oil of vitriol), besides perpetual water and
ceaseless rinsings, the paper pulp is white as snow.
Odor or color could not survive such heroic treat-

167

ultramarine ; and occasionally if an order comes to
that effect, something which gives a reddish cast. In
other mills various kinds of dye are used. But
before the tinting, there must be a final thorough
rinsing to remove the chloride and alum, which
would, as the man said, “kill the color.” So in a
final set of tubs, the much vexed and beaten pulp is
put through another running water course of treat-

 

ment.

Moreover, it has been nothing but winnowing
and grinding and pounding and squeezing from first

to last. Through it all the fibre has remained intact.
The first set of knives, and the next set too, were dull
blades, which rent rather than cut. As it comes out
of the bleaching tubs and is piled in snowy heaps on
the little cars, it looks like cotton batting wrung out
of water, wrung into bits. If you take a wad of it in
your hand and pull it apart, you will find a good deal
of tenacity to it. If it had been cut and chopped, as
seemed to be the case, the paper would be brittle.

It looks pure white, but if it-was given no tint the
paper would naturally be of a yellowish cast. So it
is blued as a laundress blues her clothes, They use

ment, then a man dishes in the blue fluid, and its
lovely whiteness is gone.

There also comes in another element in this last
room before it begins to take the form of paper. The
mill at present makes paper for newspapers ; and for
these more or less wood pulp is used; and it is in
this room that it is incorporated with the rag pulp.
The kinds of wood are spruce and poplar ; the former
is the stronger of the two, the latter is whiter. It
is prepared in another mill (about which more
pretty soon), and brought here in large sheets ready —
for use. The quantity of wood pulp added depends
upon the order. Say the Boston Journal, which has
its paper manufactured here, wants so many pounds
168

of wood to the hundred. It has only to furnish a
sample, and the order is filled accordingly. A man
tears one of these sheets into fragments and throws
them into the tub of pulp. The suction draws them

. swiftly within the power of the machine which will

- soon reduce them to a mush, and incorporate them

thoroughly with the other, but not before they have
passed again before our eyes looking like a munifi-
cent dessert of floating island —pale goldy-colored
islands on a frothy white sea.

And now the protracted ordeal is nearly at an end,
and the thin mush, which is a great deal of water
thickened with what is to be paper, is conveyed to
another long room, by means of a complex arrange-
ment of bands and wheels, of whirling and sliding

_ things, the very sight of which dazes the senses of

\

one who does not understand machinery, and is
afraid of it, too. Some way it is to be seen in that
other room, where it is shaken as in a sieve; and
strained as in an endless milk strainer; and pressed,
and compelled into a narrow passage-way where
absorption takes place; it seems to be going over a
dam (or under one), and along a glassy-looking road-
way like a flume; it is now in sight, and now it

is not; now it looks substanceless, but before you’

know how it can have happened, it is going first over

one hot cylinder, and then over another, and if you

follow on you soon come to an endless web of paper
being wound almost smoking hot on a huge roller.

All this our guide, who had conducted us through
the buildings, tried to make us understand—that the

‘sifting and the straining and the constant stream of

- water were to sift out, strain out, and wash out the

last remnants of sand: that the solid rubber bands
running along each side were to regulate the edges
of the paper; and why this thing and that thing
were there. But nothing else was so clear to us as
that it was hot as a fiery furnace and sopping wet,
scarlet wheels were revolving, and a dangerous hum
and whiz were in the air as they went round, and the

A DAY WITH RAGS, TATTERS & CO.

prudent way was to get out of it as quickly as possible.

Finally it is reeled and measured off, sheathed
in strong coverings, labelled, expressed to printing
offices whence it re-appears in your morning Journal,
or your monthly WipE Awake. But, after all, the

poetic and beautiful element of the thing isin another

mill which is not a paper mill at all, but the one
where the wood pulp is prepared, and a tributary to
it, and distinctively named the “pulp mill.” To that
we went. They were working the spruce that day.
The place, with its piles of logs, and spout high in
air, down which they were slid to the dumping-
ground, suggested a saw mill. In the interior, logs
of spruce, fresh enough from the forest to be full
of the fragrant rosin, were ready in four-foot piles.
These were swiftly sawed into short pieces, by two
men——one who fed and one who held the wood
against the dazzling, dangerous, whirling steel; at
another machine the bark was taken off; at a third a
man held the section of log while a guillotine—a
deadly, horrible iron thing — came down with terrible
certainty and cleft it in billets as he offered it.
These were tossed into machines where were lying
in ambush grindstones of tremendous power; and
when next you saw, what a moment before was a
segment of a tree was cream-colored pulp. Then, it
was put through another process, and lo! -thick
blankets a yard square, exquisite in color, luxurious,
ready to be carried over to the paper mill.

The sap of the tree was still in them; the texture
of wood, to which so many summer winds and rains,
and so much sunshine had been tributary. The pale
buff of the lovely fibre was there unchanged. The
compression and transformation had not spoiled that
aroma of the woods. I brought away one of the
cream-tinted, spruce-flavored sheets, inhaling the
lingering balsam. It called up pictures of lone
clearings in the wilderness; of the forest primeval;
of wild deer and moose. I dreamed of Katahdin and

the Adirondacks.

 
THE LITTLE GOLD MINERS OF THE SIERRAS.

149

THE LITTLE GOLD MINERS OF THE SIERRAS.

By Joaquin MILLER.

HEIR mother had died crossing the plains, and

their father had had a leg broken by a wagon

wheel passing over it as they descended the Sierras,

and he was for a long time after reaching the mines
miserable, lame and poor.

The eldest boy, Jim Keene, as I remember him, |
was a bright little fellow, but wild as an Indian and -

full of mischief. The next eldest child, Madge, was a
girl of ten, her father’s favorite, and she was wild
enough too. The youngest was Stumps. Poor, timid,
starved Little Stumps! I never knew his real name.
But he was the baby, and hardly yet out of petticoats.
And he was very short in the legs, very shortin the body,
very short in the arms and neck ; and so he was called
Stumps because he looked it. In fact he seemed to
have stopped growing entirely. ~Oh, you don’t know
how hard the old Plains were on everybody, when we
crossed them in ox-wagons, and it took more than
half a year to make the journey. The little children,
those that did not die, turned brown like the Indians,
in that long, dreadful journey of seven months, and
stopped growing for a time.

For the first month or two after reaching the
Sierras, old Mr. Keene limped about among the
mines trying to learn the mystery of finding gold, and
the art of digging. But at last, having grown strong
enough, he went to work for wages, to get bread for
his half-wild little ones,-for they were destitute in-
deed.

Things seemed to move on well, then. Madge cooked
the simple meals, and Little Stumps clung to her dress
with his little pinched brown hand wherever she
went, while Jim whooped it over the hills and chased
jack-rabbits as if he were a greyhound. He would
climb trees, too, like asquirrel. And, oh |—~ it was de-
plorable — but how he could swear!

At length some of the miners, seeing the boy must
come to some bad end if not taken care of, put
their heads and their pockets together and sent the
children to school. This. school was a mile away
over the beautiful brown hills, a long, pleasant walk
under the green California oaks.

Well, Jim would take the little tin dinner bucket,

and his slate, and all their books under his arm and
go booming ahead about half a mile in advance, while
Madge with brown Little Stumps clinging to her side
like a burr, would come stepping along tlie trail under
the oak-trees as fast as she could after him.

But if a jack-rabbit, or a deer, or a fox crossed
Jim’s path, no matter how late it was, or how the
teacher had threatened him, he. would drop books,
lunch, slate and all, and spitting on his hands and
rolling up his sleeves, would bound away after it,
yelling like a wild Indian. And some days, so fasci-
nating was the chase, Jim did not appear at the
schoolhouse at all; and of course Madge and Stumps
played truant too. Sometimes a week together would
pass and the Keene children would not be seen at
the schoolhouse. Visits from the schoolmaster pro-
duced no lasting effect. The children would come
for a day or two, then be seen no more. The school-
master and their father at last had a serious talk
about the matter.

“ What caz I do with him?” said Mr. Keene.

“ You'll have to put him to work,” said the school-
master. “Set: him to hunting nuggets instead of
bird’s-nests. I guess what the boy wants is some
honest means of using his strength. He’s a good
boy, Mr. Keene; don’t despairof him, Jim would be
proud to be an ‘honest miner.’ Jim’s a good boy,
Mr. Keene.”

“Well, then, thank you, Schoolmaster,” said Mr.
Keene. “Jim’s agood boy; and Madge is good, Mr.
Schoolmaster; and poor starved and stunted mother-
less Little Stumps, he is good as gold, Mr. School-
master. And I want to be a mother to ’em — I want
to be father and mother to ’em all, Mr. Schoolmaster.
And ll follow your advice. I’ll put ’em all to work
a-huntin’ for gold.”

The next day away up on the hillside under a
pleasant oak, where the air was sweet and cool, and
the ground soft and dotted over with flowers, the
tender-hearted old man that wanted to be “father
and mother both,” ‘‘located” a claim. The flowers
were kept fresh by a little stream of waste water from
the ditch that girded the brow of the hill above.
 

 

 

 

170

Here he set a sluice-box and put his three little min-
ers at work with pick, pan.and shovel. There he
left them and limped back to his own place in the
mine below.

And how they did work! And how pleasant it
was here under the broad boughs of the oak, with the
water rippling through the sluice on the soft, loose
soil which they shoveled into the long sluice-box.
They could see the mule-trains going and coming,
and the clouds of dust far below which told them

the stage was whirling up the valley. But Jim kept

  

THE LITTLE GOLD’ MINERS OF THE SIERRAS.

day after day, now up to his waist in the pit.

One Saturday evening the old man binpe? up the
hillside to help the young miners “ clean up.’

He sat down at the head of the sluice-box and
gave directions how they should turn off the most of
the water, wash down the “ toilings ” very low, lift up
the “riffle,” brush down the “ apron,” and finally set
the pan in the lower end of the “ sluice-toil ” and pour
in the quicksilver to gather up and hold the gold.

“What for you put your hand in de water for,
papa?” queried Little Stumps, who had left off his

 

“cCoLoR! TWo COLORS! THREE, FOUR, FIVE— A DOZEN |”?

steadily on at his work day after day. Even though
jack-rabbits and squirrels appeared on the very scene,
he would not leave till, like the rest of the honest
miners, he could shoulder his pick and pan and go
down home with the setting sun.

Sometimes the men who had tried to keep the
children at school, would come that way, and with
a sly smile, talk very wisely about whether or not

the new miners would “strike it” under the cool
~-oak among the flowers on the hill. But Jim never
stopped to talk much. He dug and wrestled away,

work, which consisted mainly of pulling flowers and
putting them in the sluice-box to see them float away.
He was sitting by his father’s side, and he looked up
in his face as he spoke.

“ Hush, child,” said the old man softly, as he again
dipped his thumb and finger in his vest pocket as
if about to take snuff. But he did not take snuff.
Again his hand was reached down to the rippling
water at the head of the sluice-box. And this time
curious but obedient Little Stumps was silent. :

Suddenly there was a shout, such a shout from Jim

ws =

 
THE LITTLE GOLD MINERS OF THE SIERRAS,

as the hills had not heard since he was a schoolboy.

He had found the “color.” ‘Two colors! three,
four, five —a dozen!” The boy shouted like a
Modoc, threw down the brush and scraper, and kissed
his little sister over and over, and cried as he did so;
then he whispered softly to her as he again took up
his brush and scraper, that it was “for papa; all for
poor papa; that he did not care for himself, but he
did want to help poor, tired, and crippled papa.”
But papa did not seem to be excited so very much.

The little miners were now continually wild with
excitement. They were up and at work Monday
morning at dawn. The men who were in the father’s
tender secret, congratulated the children heartily and
made them presents of several small nuggets to add
to their little horde.

In this way they kept steadily at work for half the
summer. All the gold was given to papa to keep.
Papa weighed it each week, and I suppose secretly
congratulated himself that he was getting back about
as much as he put in.

Before quite the end of the third month, Jim
struck a thin bed of blue gravel. The miners who
had been happily chuckling and laughing among
themselves to think how they had managed to keep
Jim out of mischief, began to look at each other and
wonder how in the world blue gravel ever got up there
on the hill. And in a few days more there was a well-
defined bed of blue gravel, too; and not one of the
miners could make it out.

One Saturday evening shortly after, as the old man
weighed their gold he caught his breath, started, and
stood up straight; straighter than he had stood
since he crossed the Plains. Then he hastily left the
cabin, He went up the hill to the children’s claim
almost without limping. Then he took a pencil and
an old piece of a letter, and wrote out a notice and
tacked it up on the big oak-tree, claiming those
mining claims according to miners’ law, for the three
children. A couple of miners laughed as they went
by in the twilight, to see what he was doing; and he
laughed with them. But as he limped on down the
hill he smiled.

That night as they sat at supper, he told the chil-
dren that as they had been such faithful and indus-
trious miners, he was going to give them each a
present, besides a little gold to spend as they pleased.

So he went up to the store and bought Jim a red
shirt, long black and bright gum boots, a broad-brim-
med hat, and a belt. He also bought each of the

I7¥

other children some pretty trappings, and gave each
a dollar’s worth of gold dust. Madge and Stumps
handed their gold back to “ poor papa.” But Jim was
crazy with excitement. He put on his new clothes
and went forth to spend his dollar. And what do
you suppose he bought? I hesitate to tell you. But
what he bought was a pipe and a paper of tobacco!

That red shirt, that belt and broad-brimmed hat,
together with the shiny top boots, had been too much
for Jim’s balance. How could a man.— he spoke of
himself as a man now—how could a man be an
“honest miner” and not smoke a pipe?

And now with his manly clothes and his manly
pipe he was to be so happy! He had all that went
to make up “the honest miner.” True, he did not
let his father know about the pipe. He hid it under
his pillow at night. He meant to have his first smoke
at the sluice-box, as a miner should.

Monday morning he was up with the sun and
ready for his work. His father, who worked down the
Gulch, had already gone before the children had
finished their breakfast. So now Jim filled his bran-
new pipe very leisurely; and with as much calm
unconcern as if he had been smoking for forty years,
he stopped to scratch a match on the door as he went
out.

From under his broad hat he saw his little sister
watching him, and he fairly swelled with importance
as Stumps looked up at him with childish wonder,
Leaving Madge to wash the few tin dishes and fol-
low as she could with Little Stumps, he started on up
the hill, pipe in mouth,

He met several miners, but he puffed away like a
tug-boat against the tide, and went on. His bright
new boots whetted and creaked together, the warm
wind lifted the broad brim of his somédrero, and his
bright new red shirt was really beautiful, with the
green grass and oaks for a background —and so this
brave young man climbed the hill to his mine. Ah,
he was so happy !

Suddenly, as he approached the claim, his knees
began to smite together, and he felt so weak he could
hardly drag one foot after the other. He threw down
his pick ; he began to tremble and spin around. The
world seemed to be turning over and over, and he
trying in vain to hold on to it. He jerked the pipe
from his teeth, and throwing it down on the bank, he
tumbled down too, and clutching at the grass with
both hands tried hard, oh! so hard, to hold the world
from slipping from under him.
172

‘*Q, Jim, you are white as snow,” cried Madge as
she came up.

“White as ’er sunshine, an’ blue, an’ green too,
sisser. Look at brurrer ‘all colors,’” piped Little
Stumps pitifully. .

“O, Jim, Jim — brother Jim, what is the matter?”
sobbed Madge.

“ Sunstroke,” murmured the young man, smilling
grimly, like a true Californian. “No; it is not sun-

‘

 

HE TOOK THE LIMP YOUNG MINER IN HIS ARMS.

stroke, it’s —it’s cholera,” he added in dismay over
his falsehood.

Poor boy! he was sorry for this second lie too.
He fairly groaned in agony of body and soul.

THE LITTLE GOLD MINERS OF THE SIERRAS.

Oh, how he did hate that pipe! How he did want
to get up and jump on it and smash it into a thousand
pieces! But he could not get up or turn around or
move at all without betraying his unmanly secret.

A couple of miners came up, but Jim feebly begged
them to go.

“ Sunstroke,” whispered the sister.

“No; tolera,” piped poor Little Stumps.

“Get out! Leave me!” groaned the young red-
shirted miner of the Sierras. _

The biggest of the two miners bent over him a

moment.
_ “Yas; it’s both,” he muttered. ‘ Cholera-nicotine-
fantum!” Then he looked at his partner and
winked wickedly. Without a word, he took the limp
young miner up in his arms and bore him down the
hill to his father’s cabin, while Stumps and Madge
ran along at either side, and tenderly and all the
time kept asking what was good for “ cholera.”

The other old “honest miner” lingered behind to
pick up the baleful pipe which he knew was some-
where there; and when the little party was far
enough down the hill, he took it up and buried it in
his own capacious pocket with a half-sorrowful laugh.
* Poor little miner,” he sighed.

“ Don’t ever swear any more, Windy,” pleaded the
boy to the miner who had carried him down the hill,
as he leaned over him, “and don’t never lie. Iam
going to die, Windy, and I should like to be good.
Windy, it azn’¢ sunstroke, it’s” —

“Hush yer mouth,” growled Windy.
what ’tis! We've left it on the hill.”

The boy turned his face to the wall. The convic-
tion was strong upon him that he was going to die.
The world spun round now very, very fast indeed.
Finally, half-rising in bed, he called Little Stumps to
his side:

‘* Stumps, dear, good Little Stumps, if I die don’t
you never, never try for to smoke; for that’s what’s
the matter with me. No, Stumps — dear little brother
Stumps — don’t you never try for to go the whole of
the ‘honest miner,’ for it can’t be did by a boy!
We're nothing but boys, you and I, Stumps — Little
Stumps.”

He sank back in bed and Little Stumps and his
sister cried and cried, and kissed him and kissed him.

The miners who had gathered around loved him
now, every one, for daring to tell the truth and take
the shame of his folly so bravely.

“T’m going to die, Windy,” groaned the boy.

“T know
THE QUEEN OF TOLOO,

Windy could stand no more of it. He took Jim’s
hand witha cheery laugh. ‘“‘ Git well in half an hour,”
said he, “ now that you've out with the truth.”

And so he did. By the time his father came home
he was sitting up; and he ate breakfast the next
morning as if nothing had happened. But he never
tried to smoke any more as long ashe lived. And he
never lied, and he never swore any more.

173
Oh, no! this Jim that I have been telling you of is
_ “Moral Jim,” of the Sierras. The mine? Oh! I

almost forgot. Well, that blue dirt was the old bed of
the stream, and it was ten times richer than where the
miners were all at work below. Struck it! I should
say so! Ask any of the old Sierras miners about
“The Children’s Claim,” if you want to hear just how

_Tich they struck it.

 

 

THE QUEEN OF TOLOO.

By Ciara J. DENTON,

THE Queen of Toloo
Made a frightful ado ;
They ran to see what was the matter:
Her cup was upset,
No milk could she get,
And that was the cause of the clatter.

There were looks of dismay,
But her maiden so gay
Flew down to the kitchen instanter,

And brought up some more,
Which she quickly did pour
From the mouth of the silver decanter.

But the Queen of Toloo
Cried, “ That will not do,
I tell you I want back the other!”
Now what could they do
With this Queen of Toloo?
_ They sent her right in to her mother!
174

OUR EVERSLEY DOGS—DANDY, SWEEP, VICTOR.

OUR EVERSLEY DOGS—DANDY, SWSEP, VICTOR.

By Rose KINGSLEY.

e: rN NCE upon
a time
when I
was a lit-
tle girl I
remem-
: ber sit-
2 ting beside my
Sf father upon the box

U ofa travelling carri-
age, on our way home
from a happy visit by
the banks of the beau-
tiful Thames. The
horses trotted stead-
ily onwards. The postil-

  
   
  
 

down to the cadence of their measured
steps; mile after mile of black fir-trees
7 rising out of beds of purple heather, slip-
ped behind us, and between our feet, se-
cured by a strong chain, lay a long-backed, short-
legged, wiry-haired yellow puppy.
That was Dandy. oF 2
Presently the fir-trees and sandy heaths melted
into ploughed fields and hedgerows. We came to the
crest of a long hill, and below us, between wide-
stretching, heather-clad moors known as Finchamp-
stead Ridges and Hartfordbridge Flats, lay a sunny
green vale. Down into the vale we trotted, through
‘copses full of nightingales; over the little Blackwater
River, where otters barked in the crumbling banks,
and kingfishers darted out—a flash of sapphire and
emerald —from some sheltering alder; past the
smooth-shaven village green where men and boys
were playing cricket after their days’ work; past
thatched cottages, each with its garden bright with
flowers; past bits of common where the cottagers fed
their geese, and their donkeys browsed on the
prickly golden-flowered gorse; up the church lane
from whose banks in spring we children filled our
hands with sweet-scented white violets that hid their

JB and light-blue jacket, bobbed up and
Lo

lion in his black velvet cap_

modest heads among the grass beneath the tall elm-
trees. Then we came to a farmhouse with its barns
and rick yards; and beyond it we saw a square red

- brick church tower, and beyond the church tower lay

a low old: bay-windowed red brick house covered with
roses and creepers and guarded by three huge Scotch -
fir-trees rising from the green lawn —and we were
at home: for this was Eversley Rectory, and here
Dandy was to live.

But before I introduce you to Dandy himself, I
must tell you a little about his family history; for he
was no common cur, picked up out of the streets, and
he must be treated with proper respect, as befits a
dog of ancient pedigree.

He was one of that renowned breed of terriers that
Sir Walter Scott made famous in “ Guy Mannering,”
of “auld Pepper and auld Mustard, and young Pep-
per and young Mustard, and little Pepper and little
Mustard,” who, as their gallant old owner said, “fear
naething that ever cam’ wi’ a hairy skin on’t.” The
first Dandie Dinmont terriers belonged to Mr. James
Davidson, of Hindlee, on the edge of the Teviotdale
Mountains, and their master was the original of the
delicious character of the brave old border farmer,
Dandie Dinmont of Charlie’s-hope. From these
fearless ancestors sprang a long line of fearless de-
scendants. They are something like a skye terrier,
but heavier and stronger, with shorter hair; and in
color are either ‘“ pepper,” a bluish-gray, or “ mus-
tard,” or reddish-brown. They are noted for courage,
sagacity, strength and faithfulness; and among all
that famous family never was there a wiser, a better,
or a finer dog than our dear friend Dandy; for a
friend he soon became. We loved him as one of
the family, and he rejoiced in our joys and grieved
and sympathized in our sorrows.

In a few months after his arrival Dandy had grown
to his full size. He was a long, low dog, with very
short, strong, croo¢rd legs, big paws that turned out
like a turnspits’) a »road head with plenty of room

‘for his brain, powe.ful jaws and teeth, soft drooping

ears, and tender, steadfast brown eyes which expressed
every thought in his heart as plainly as if he had had
OUR EVERSLEY DOGS—DANDY, SWEEP, VICTOR.

the gift of speech, the only human attribute that was
denied him. He was immensely strong; and though
perfectly sweet-tempered to every human being who
did no evil, he soon developed a taste for fighting
other dogs which, I am ashamed to say, was a great
source of delight to us naughty children. For if in
our walks we met a strange dog that looked as if it
would like to make a meal upon us, Dandy was bris-
tling all over in a minute. Then the big dog—for
Dandy would never notice dogs smaller than him-
self—would take a turn round the low yellow dog,
growling with contempt. Then came a sudden snarl —
a flash of white teeth, and the big bully was lying
in the dust, while Dandy, unhurt, stood calmly survey-
ing his prostrate foe who had been seized by the leg
and rolled over just when he expected to make an
easy end of our precious defender.

One day I remember a little carter-boy coming
down to the Rectory in some excitement:

“ Oh, please ’um, you’d better go up on Brick Hill,
that there dog of yourn’s been a fightin’, and ’eve
got two dogs down and he standin’ on ’em.”

And sure enough there stood Dandy, bristling and
triumphant, with his fore feet planted on a huge
sheep dog and a greyhound belonging to a neighbor-
ing farmer, who lay not daring to move head or tail.
How he managed it we never could tell, for each of
his adversaties was twice as big as he was: but any
dog having once felt Dandy’s teeth was sure to sub-
mit to his rule for the rest of his life.

No children are perfect; and so Dandy’s early
days could not be expected to pass without some
youthful misdemeanors. The most serious of these,
and one which he bitterly repented for many years to
come, occurred on a Sunday. We were all away from
home, so a strange clergyman was engaged to come
over to Eversley for the day to do the duty, and a
nice beefsteak had been prepared for his dinner
between services. But when the cook went to the
larder to get her beefsteak and dress it, it was no-
where to be found. Then she bethought her of
Dandy, who had come in a little while before with his
nose and paws covered with earth, as if he had been
burying some treasure. Search was made, Dandy
was watched, and at length he was tracked to a hiding-
place in the garden, and there were the melancholy,
earthy, half-eaten remains of the poor clergyman’s
Dandy was beaten for about the first and
but he was also scolded, and
For years

dinner.
last time in his life:
that hurt him far more than any beating.

175

after one had only to say, “ Dandy, who stole the
beefsteaks? ” and his tail would go between his legs,
his brown eyes fill with tears, and he would slink
away with a look of the most bitter remorse and
abject misery.

When Dandy had been with us for a year or two,
we were obliged, on account of my mother’s health, to
leave Eversley for a couple of years, and go to the
milder climate of Devonshire. Our first point was
Torquay ; and here we children first learnt the delight
of life on the seashore. Our whole time was spent
in searching the rocks of Livermead for rare sea-
beasts, and the sands of Paignton for shells and
sea weeds, which we brought home and kept alive in
large glass vivariums. Dandy was our constant com-
panion; and while we with our father were hunting
for the lovely living flowers of the rock pools, Dandy
was enjoying himself quite as much hunting for rab-
bits along the cliffs and sand hills. One day we had

 

CHARLES KINGSLEY.

been on Paignton Sands, and came home laden with
a precious prize—the great “ red-legged cockle,”
that strange mollusk that at certain times appears in
vast quantities in Torquay, and is not found anywhere
else till you get down at the coasts of the Mediterra-
nean. Dandy, however, did not come home with us;
but we took little thought of his absence, feeling sure
he was busily engaged in some rabbit-hole, and would
176

follow us when he had come to the end of his task.
But evening came, and ao. Dandy. I can see the
table in the window with lamp upon it, and the great
yellow cockle shells hopping and clattering about in
the glass pans of salt water, each on their red coral

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

EVERSLEY RECTORY.

leg like a scarlet capsicum. But even cockles, rare
and strange as they were, could not console us, and
we were very miserable.

Presently, late in the evening, came a knock at the
door, and when it was opened there stood a coast-
guard man in his sailor dress, and in his arms, limp
and still, lay Dandy. Oh the misery of that sight!
how we cried! He seemed if not dead, at least
dying; unable to move, yet still smiling with his
loving, faithful eyes at his beloved master. He had
fallen over a cliff while hunting his rabbits or trying
to find us, and the good coastguard, on his rounds
to keep the coast safe from smugglers, had found
him lying apparently dead, and knowing us and our
love for the dog, had carried him all the way to
Livermead in his arms.

But Dandy was not to die yet.~ He was nursed
and tended like a sick child. After some while he
began to mend; and by the time we left Torquay
and drove across Dartmore to Bideford, on the north
coast of Devon, Dandy was as well as ever, and dug
out scores of rabbits on Northam Burrows, among
the rest-harrow and lady-fingers, while the Atlantic
waves roared upon the pebble-ridge hard by; and
made himself the terror of all evil doers, whether

OUR EVERSLEY DOGS—DANDY, SWEEP, VICTOR.

dogs or men, at Bideford; and was pursued wher.
ever he went by an excited but respectful crowd of
little boys, who screamed to each other in shrill,
west-county voices, to “come and look at the young
lion.”

Time went by.. We were once more in our dear
home at Eversley, and Dandy rejoiced like us to settle
down after his travels. It was a happy life that we
led. Above the Rectory, between the green fields
and the brown moors, lies the Mount, a little bit of
primeval forest untouched by the hand of man since
the Norman Conquest, and here most of our young
days were spent. There was a huge hollow oak,
into whose branches we climbed by a few rough
steps; and perched aloft in the green shade we
learnt our lessons and played unspeakable games,
in which the whole Mount became: peopled with
imaginary friends and enemies, and we had won-
derful adventures and escapes, slew monsters, and
visited the fairies, within the limit of one acre of
wood. Here we.gathered the blue wild hyacinth, or
the starry wood anemone ; we crept softly under the
holly trees and watched the quivering brown throat
of the nightingale, as, with head aloft, he poured
forth a torrent of tremulous song ; we listened to the
little wood-wren in the tree-top, and in the forks of
the gorse-stems we found the tiny dormice clewed
up in their nests. And this was Dandy’s kingdom.
Every rabbit-burrow he knew by heart; and deer
was his joy when, in the holidays, our man George
would come with gun and spade and ferrets for a
day’s rabbiting with my brothers. In an incredibly
short time he would be nearly buried in a rabbit
hole, digging the sand away with his strong fore-
paws, and sending it flying behind him with his hind
feet.

But though Dandy loved us and loved hunting, he
loved his master best of all. Never was he so happy
as when he was trotting after my father in his long
walks over the parish to see the sick and-poor. Over
the wide desolate moors he followed his: footsteps,
along the narrow tracks in the heather.. He knew
every cottage, and would lie motionless for any
length of time by some sick woman’s bedside, while
his master read and prayed with her. Or on the days
my father had a “Cottage Lecture,” a little service
for some old folks who were too feeble to get to
church, Dandy was sure to be there, never moving,
or disturbing even the cat by the turf fire while the
service went on. He sometimes came to church
OUR EVERSLEYV DOGS—DANDY, SWEEP, VICTOR.

himself, but there he behaved with his wonted dis-
cretion.

Once when my father was preaching at Northam,
near Bideford, we found on arriving at the church
door that Dandy had followed us, though he gener-
ally knew he was not to come out on Sunday morn-
ing.
him to come in and be quiet. But he knew it was a
strange church, and seemed uneasy lest all should
not go right with his master in such an unknown
.place. So when my father went up into the pulpit
for the sermon, Dandy followed him, and calmly
lying down on the top of the high old-fashioned
pulpit steps, looked round on the astonished congre-
gation as much as to say, “If you attempt to annoy
‘or hurt my master, I am here to defend him,” and
there he watched till the sermon was over.

Years came and went, and we children grew up,
and Dandy grew old — very old for a terrier of his
breed. At last, when he.was thirteen years old, he
could hardly do more than crawl off his mat in the
front hall to a sunny corner in the garden, though
still when we said to him, “ Ring your bell, Dandy,”
he would flap .his strong tail against the floor, and
smile in ourfaces. And then came the sad day when
in his 1ipe old age he peacefully died, and went away
to the happy hunting-grounds to which all good dogs
go. There was not a dry eye in our home that day,
and we all mourned for a true friend. Faithful and
loving was Dandy, self-denying and self-conirolled
to a degree that might shame most human beings.
And when he was buried on the lawn under the
great fir-trees where he had spent so many happy

_ days, his master engraved upon the little stone which
covers his grave:

“ FIDELI FIDELES.”
The faithful to the faithful.

Beiore Dandy died another dog came to our home
—an enormous black retriever whose name was
Sweep. His mother, who belonged to a neighbor of
ours, was celebrated for her light mouth. I have
- seen her master roll a new-laid egg down a grassy
slope, when she rushed after it, caught it while it was
yet rolling, and brought it uncracked to his feet,
This lightness of mouth our Sweep inherited; and it
was pretty to see him in the stable-yard catch a wee
snow-white kitten by the nape of its neck, and carry it
unhurt wherever we told him. Thekitten delighted in
the feat, and would come rubbing and purring against

It was too far to send him home, so we told

Eig

the great black dog to make him doit again, By and
by as the kitten grew into a cat, Sweep found she

~ was too heavy to take up by her neck without pinch-

ing her too hard with his teeth; so he used to take
her whole-head into his capacious mouth, and so
carry her about, much to the horror of any new-
comer, who thought of course he was going to bite
her head right off!

Sweep in his way was as faithful as Dandy; but it
was a curious way, and sometimes rather alarming.
He had been taught in the stable to guard anything
left in his charge against all comers, if one told him
to “mind it.” One day a foolish stable boy told
him to “ mind” my youngest brother’s hat, which he
had dropped on the ground. The child wanting his
hat, stooped to pick it up ; whereupon Sweep flew at
him and bit him, refusing to give up the hat until the
stable boy in terror at what he had been the cause of,
came to the rescue. Happily the bite proved a slight
matter. But every one was careful after that how
they told Sweep to mind their property.

He was a strange dog, and there were only ‘three
people in the world who might lay a finger on him;
my brother and I, and our man George. If we had
beaten him to death I believe he would have sub-
mitted with perfect good temper. But woe betide
any other rash mortal who raised so much as a straw
to chastise him. Our good neighbor and doctor
once was kind enough to come and see Sweep, who
in hunting had hurt his eye with a thorn. The dog

 

DANDY ALWAYS PREFERRED A BIG FOE.

was suffering greatly, and I brought him into the
kitchen, and sitting down close to the door got bis
head firmly between my knees, and coaxed and com-
forted him till the doctor appeared. He opened the
door beside me, advanced to his patient with sooth-
ing words, and then leaning forward, was about to
178

examine the injured eye. But with a roar like
thunder, up sprang Sweep, tearing himself from my
grasp; the doctor flew through the door as if he had

 

SWEEP AND HIS CAT TRICK.

‘been shot out of a gun; and Sweep’s eye had to get
well by itself.

Sweep hated tramps, and very few dared visit our
house if they knew he was at home. One day in his
objection to this most objectionable race of people,
he nearly devoured one of my friends. She was a
very pretty young lady, who had the gift of transform-
ing herself by a few touches, a twist of her hair, a
red cloak, and an old bonnet, into one of the most
appallingly hideous old women I ever had the misfor-
tune to see. One evening she dressed up in this
fashion, and knocking at the kitchen door, suddenly
appeared before the astonished servants. Sweep was
more than astonished — he was furious — and with
a terrific growl rushed at the supposed tramp and
would certainly have torn her down had she not had
the wit to jump upon the kitchen table, which gave
George time to recognize her and drag the dog off.

Nevertheless in spite of these shows of temper we
were all devoted to Sweep. He was a grand fellow
and a splendid watch dog. Indeed we thought that
it was because he was such a terror to tramps and
evil doers that he came to a melancholy end. For
one day he seemed ill and out of sorts, and before
evening was dead of poison, which had evidently been
laid down for him somewhere near the house.

But I cannot finish Sweep’s history without speak-

always roused bya scramble and a scrimmage.

OUR DOGS AT EVERSLEY—DANDY, SWEEP, VICTOR.

ing of his dear friend “ Victor,” our little royal dog,
for he and Sweep were inseparable companions.
Once when my father was dining at Windsor Cas-
tle, he admired the Queen’s favorite Dachshund,
who never leaves her side ; and the Queen graciously
promised him a puppy as soon as any were ready.
Months went and we heard nothing of the gift.
But the Queen never forgets, and one day my father
received a note from one of the keepers at Windsor:

“DEAR SiR.— A fine deakle pup awaits your commands.”

We laughed over the Englishman’s attempt at
German spelling, but sent the commands; and a
hamper arrived with a little squeaking puppy inside
it. He looked at first like an animated worm with
four legs, he was so long and thin and low. But he
found his way into our hearts in spite of his queer
looks, and became the spoilt child of the house.

These Dachshunds, or Teckels, or German Turn-
spits, are used, as their first name denotes, for
hunting badgers in Germany. ‘They are also use-
ful with-wild boars, as they are so low that when the
boar makes a rush at them~they can generally slip
under his tusks and seize him by the leg. The Prince
of Wales’s famous dog “Woodman” has a great scar
all along his side from the tusk of a wild boar in one
of these encounters. The Dachshunds are of three
colors: black and tan, liver colored, and pale chest-
nut. The last are the most valuable, and also,
alas! the most delicate, as we found to our cost; for
our little dog that we named “ Victor,” after his royal
donor, was a beautiful warm chestnut color. His
long body was set upon the crookedest of legs—
elbows turning out and wrists turning in; his height
when he was full grown was about five inches at the
shoulders; and he was a yard long from the tip of
his nose to the tip of his tail. But his grotesque
appearance was more than made up for by the beauty
of his head. It was like that of a miniature blood-
hound, with fine nose, drooping ears, large pathetic
eyes, and his coat was as smooth as satin.

As I said, he soon became our spoilt child, and
ruled the house. He refused to sleep anywhere save
wrapped in a blanket on a certain low wicker chair
between my sister’s and my beds. If we attempted
to put him elsewhere not a creature in the house
could sleep for Master Victor’s howls. So at last we
succumbed, and our nights were tolerably tranquil
till about four o’clock in the morning, when I was
This
OUR DOGS AT EVERSLEVY—DANDY, SWEEP, VICTOR.

was Victor, who arrived headlong upon my chest,
scratched the bedclothes aside, wormed his soft little
body down my bed till he reached my feet, and lay
there happily till morning, giving a little growl and
sometimes a gentle nip with his small teeth if I moved.

He was a dog of very aristocratic tastes. No
power on earth could make him go down by the back-
stairs; and if the maids ever chanced to persuade
him to come with them to the kitchen, he would leave
them to go down their own way, and running round

by the front staircase, meet them at the kitchen door,

Dachshunds were much less common twelve years
ago than they are now. And when my father’s duties
took us to Chester for three months every summer,
we were almost mobbed by the boys of that dear old
city when we took Victor out walking. His long
back, his crooked legs, and his bright, intelligent head
were sources of never-failing wonder and delight to
the young rogues, who pursued us with jeers and
shouts, of which Victor never took notice.

But it was at Eversley that the little dog was the
happiest. Sometimes he went out ona private rabbit
hunt with his friend Sweep; and we used to see the
little wriggling yellow body panting after his big
black companion, and imagining he was going to
catch a rabbit that outstripped him in a moment.

But when the dinner-bell— or still more on Sunday,
when the church bells rang —then, indeed, we had a
ludicrous exhibition from the two dogs. Sweep could

not endure the sound of bells, and the moment they -

began to ring down went his tail, up went his head,
and round and round the house he flew howling in
the most frightful way. Victor had not the least
natural objection to bes —at Chester he bore the
whole cathedral chime with perfect composure —
but he felt it right to show his sympathy for Sweep
when he was with him, upon the principle that imita-

: Wy
oe. ST

179

tion is the sincerest flattery. So as soon as the bells
began, out of the house shot Victor; over the lawn,
along the garden paths and through the yard he
followed Sweep in his agonized race, turning where
he turned, stopping where he stopped, and adding
shrill yelps and howls to his friend’s lamentations.

- Poor little Victor; his life was. a short one. When
we had had him for nearly two years he fell terribiy
ill, And in spite of every care—in spite of his
beloved master sitting up with him for three whole
nights watching and tending the suffering little crea-
ture—he died at last, and
was buried beside Dandy and
his friend Sweep under the
fir-trees,

        
  
   

After that, my father said AN : Wale y
he would never have Ss oi \ -

another pet

  

SWEEP COULD NOT ENDURE THE SOUND
OF BELLS.

dog ; they cost one too much sorrow. So Victor
was the last of the faithful friends who were so
faithfully loved by their master.

 

“MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!”
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AUTUMN LEAVES,

180

 
 

THE BABYS REVERY.—THE BRAVESI BOY IN TOWN.

181

THE BABY’S REVERY.

By Mary E. WILKINS.

-A_N exquisite little maiden
With a head like a golden flower,
She soberly stood at the window
In the still, white twilight hour.

“ And what are you thinking, sweetheart ?”

She was such a little. child
She could not answer the question ;
~ She only dimpled and smiled,

But I wondered, as she frolicked,
Her mystic revery o’er,

Was she a rose-shade less a child
Than she had been before?

Was she pausing, as a rose-bud
Seems pausing while it grows?
Had I caught the blooming minute

Of a little human rose?

THE oKAVEST BOY “IN TOWN

By Mrs. Emity Hun tincron Nason.

E lived in the Cumberland Valley,
And his name was Jamie Brown ;
But it changed one day, so the neighbors say,
To the “ Bravest Boy in Town.”

. *Twas the time when the Southern soldiers,
Under Early’s mad command,

O’er the border made their dashing raid
From the north of Maryland.

_And Chambersburg unransomed
In smouldering ruins slept,

While up the vale, like a fiery gale,
The Rebel raiders swept.

And a squad of gray-clad horsemen
Came thundering o’er the bridge,

Where peaceful cows in the meadows browse,
At the feet of the great Blue Ridge;

And on till they reached the village,
That fair in the valley lay,

Defenseless then, for its loyal men,
At the front, were far away.

“ Pillage and spoil and plunder!”
This was the fearful word

That the Widow Brown, in gazing down
From her latticed window, heard.

*Neath the boughs of the sheltering oak-tree,
The leader bared his head,

As left and right, until out of sight,
His dusty gray-coats sped.

Then he called: “Halloo! within there!”
A gentle, fair-haired dame

Across the floor to the open door
In gracious answer came.

“Here! stable my horse, you woman! ”?—
The soldier’s tones. were rude —

“Then bestir yourself and from yonder shelf
Set out your store of food !”

For her guest she spread the table;
She motioned him to his place

With a gesture proud ; then the widow bowed,
And gently — asked a grace.
182 BENNY’S

“Té thine enemy hunger, feed him! -
I obey, dear Christ!” she said ;

A creeping blush, with its scarlet flush,
O’er the face of the soldier spread.

Herose: “ You have said it, madam!
Standing within your doors

Is the Rebel foe; but as forth they go
They shall trouble not you nor yours !”

Alas, for the word of the leader!
Alas, for the soldier’s vow!

When the captain’s men rode down the glen,
They carried the widow’s cow.

It was then the fearless Jamie
Sprang up with flashing eyes,

And in spite of tears and his mother’s fears,
On the gray mare, off he flies.

Like a wild young Tam O’Shanter
He plunged with piercing whoop,
O’er field and brook till he overtook

The straggling Rebel troop

Laden with spoil and plunder,
And laughing and shouting still,

As with cattle and sheep they lazily creep
Through the dust o’er the winding hill,

“Oh! the coward crowd!” cried Jamie ;
“There’s Brindle! I’ll teach them now!”

WIGWAM.

And with headlong stride, at the captain’s side,
He called for his mother’s cow. .

“Who are you, and who is your mother ?—
I promised she should not miss ? —

Well! upon my word, have I never heard _
Of assurance like to this!” : :

“Ts your word the word of a soldier?” —=
And the young lad faced his foes,

As a jeering laugh, in anger half
And half in sport, arose.

But the captain drew his sabre,
And spoke, with lowering brow:

“ Fall back into line! The joke is mine!
Surrender the widow’s cow!”

And a capital joke they thought it,
That a barefoot lad of ten

Should demand his due— and get it too—
In the face of forty men. =

And the rollicking Rebel raiders
Forgot themselves somehow,

And three cheers brave for the hero gave,
And three for the brindle cow.

He lived in the Cumberland Valley,
And his name was Jamie Brown ;

But it changed that day, so the neighbors say,
To the “ Bravest Boy in Town.”

BENNY’S WIGWAM.

- By Mrs. Mary CATHERINE LEE.

OW, Pettikins,” said Benny Briggs, on the first
day of vacation, “come along if you want to
see the old Witch.”

Pettikins got her little straw hat, and holding
Benny’s hand with a desperate clutch, trotted along
beside him, giving frequent glances at his heroic face
to keep up her courage. Her heart beat hard as

they took their way across to the island. The isla

is really no island at all, but a lonely, lovely porti :
of Still Harbor, between Benny’s home and Grandm:
Potter’s, which by means of a smalt inlet and a little
creek, and one watery thing and another, is so nearly
surrounded by water as to feel justified in calling
itself an island. They crossed over the little bridge
BENNY’S

that took them to this would-be island, and following
an almost imperceptible wood path, came within sight
of the Witch’s hut. It was a deserted, useless, wood-
chopper’s hut, which the mysterious creature whom
the children called a witch had taken possession of
not long before. Here Fanny drew back, “O
Benny, I am afraid,” said she.

“Humph! she can’t hurt you in the daytime,” said

Benny. “She ain’t no different in the daytime from
any other old woman. It’s only nights she is a
witch.”

Fanny allowed herself to be led a few steps further,
and then drew back again. “O Benny,” said she,
“there’s her broomstick ! there it is, ‘right outside o’
the door—and O Benny, Benny, there’s her old black
cat!”

“Wal, what on it, hey? What on it?” creaked a
dreadful voice close behind them. Then, indeed,
Fanny shrieked and tried to run, but Benny’s hand
held her fast. She hid her face against Benny’s arm
and sobbed.

It was the old Witch her very self. She looked at
them out of her glittering eyes —O how she did look
at them!—with her head drooped until her chin
rested on her chest. This seemed to bring the
arrows of her eyes to bear upon the enemy with
greater force and precision.

“There ain’t any law ag’in my having a ca¢ and a
broomstick, is there?”’? she asked in a voice like the
cawing of a crow, bringing her staff down with a
thump at the words “cat” and“ broomstick.” “What
are you skeered of?”

“Why, you’re queer, you know,” said Benny des-
perately. . .

“ Queer, gueer ?” piped the Witch; and then she
laughed, or had a dreadful convulsion, Benny couldn’t
tell which, ending in a long, gurgling “ Hoo-o0-00!”
on a very high key. “Now, s’pose you tell me what
is °t makes me queer,” said she, sitting down on a
log and extracting from the rags on her bosom a

-pipe, which she prepared to smoke.

“Whew!” whistled Benny, “’twould take me from
now till Christmas ; I’d rather you’d tell me.”

The crone lighted her pipe. The match flaring
upon her wrinkled, copper-colored face and its gaunt
features made her hideous. Poor little Fanny, who
ventured to peep out at this moment, sobbed louder,
and begged to go to her mother. The old woman
puffed away at her pipe, fixing her gaze upon the
children.

WIGWAM.,

“Got a mother, hey?” said she.

“Yes.”

“ And a father?”

“ Yes.”

“Um-m-in.”

She puffed and gazed.

“ You wouldn’t like to see *em shot?”

At this Benny stood speechless, and Fanny set up
such a cry to go home that Benny was afraid he
should have to take her away — that is, if the Witch
would let him. He began to consider his chances,
Still the more terrible the old Witch seemed, the
more Benny wanted to see and hear her. He whis-
pered to Fanny:

“ She won't hurt you, Pettikins — she can’t; I won't
let her. Hush a minute, and see what I’m going to
say to her!”

Fanny hushed a little, and Benny fixed an auda-
cious gaze upon the Witch—or a gaze which he
meant should be audacious. “What zs the matter
with you?” said he.

The old woman removed her pipe and sat holding
it with her forefinger lapped over it like a hook.

“They call it ‘exterminated,’” said she, pushing
back the broad-brimmed, high-crowned man’s hat that
she wore, and showing her gray, ragged locks. “I’m
exterminated. You don’t know what that is, I s’pose?”

“Exterminated, ex-/ev-min-ated,” said Benny,
scratching his head, “ why, to — to — drive out —to
—-ah — put an end to — to — to — destroy utterly.”

“JT don’t know what your book meaning is. I
didn’t get mine from books. I got it all the way
along — began to get it when I wasn’t much bigger’n
that little gell,” said the Witch, pointing at Fanny with
her pipe. “I didn’t know what it meant when I first
heard it, but I know now. Hoo-00-00-00!”

“T wish you’d tell us about it,” said Benny. “Tell
us about beginning to learn it when you wa’n’t much
bigger’n Pettikins.”

“That’s when the colonel said we must move
west’ard,” said the witch, laying her pipe down on
the log, leaning her elbows on her knees, and resting
her bony jaws in the palms of her hands. “ Injuns,
before they’re exterminated, stick to their homes like
other folks.”

“You ain’t an Jnjun, be you!” gasped Benny,
with a look and tone which expressed volumes of
consternation and disappointment at her utter failure
to come up to his ideal Indian. Why, she wasn’t the
least bit like the pictures! She wasn’t like the mag-
 

 

 

184 BENNY’S

nificent figures he had seen in front of the cigar
stores in New Haven. Where were all her feathers

and things—her red and yellow tunic, her gorgeous _

‘moccasins, her earrings and noserings and bracelets
‘and armlets and beads? Why, she was ju-u-u-ust as
- ragged and dirty!

All this and more Benny’s tone expressed when he
said: “ Why, you ain’t an /zjun, be you?”

“Well, I was. I ain’t nothing at all now. I ain’t
even a squaw, and they said they was going to make
a Christian on me. I was a Chetonquin.”

 

WIGWAM.

I hid behind a big tree and watched it. When
I saw my father shot I started to go to him and a
shot struck me. See there!” said she, pushing up
her coarse gray locks: and showing a deeper, wider
seam than the creases and wrinkles on her face.
“A bullet grazed me hard and I was stunned and
blinded with the blood, and couldn’t run, but my
people had to. They didn’t any on ’em see or know
about me, I s’pose, and I laid there and sorter went
to sleep. Colonel Hammerton took a notion to pick
me up when he rode over the ground he had soaked

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THEY ENCOUNTER THE WITCH.

“Oh, yes,” said Benny, looking at her now with
the interest attaching to one who Aad worn the feath-
ers, and beads, and moccasins, and-rings. “ Well,
what did you do when the colonel told you to go
West?”

“ We had a fight.”

That was satisfactory to Benny. ‘ Which whip-
ped?” he asked, with his own native briskness, as if
this, now, was common ground, and he was ready to
talk at his ease.

“ Which a’most always whips > It was a hard fight.

with the blood of my people — ground that belonged ta
my people,” shrieked the woman, straightening herself
up and shaking her fists in the air. - =

Benny liked that. Even Fanny gazed at the strange
creature with fascination, And when the Indian’s
excitement abated and she ceased to mutter and chat-
ter to herself and sunk her face into her palms again,
gazing absently on the ground, Fanny pulled Benny’s
sleeve and whispered, “ Ask her what he did then,
after he picked her up.”

“ What did he do with you then?” ventured Benny.

 
BENNY’S

The old woman started, and gazed at them curiously,

"as if she had forgotten all about them, and had to re-

call them out of the distant past. “ What did who
do?” said she.

“What did Colonel Hammerton do with you when
he picked you up ?”

“Oh, I didn’t know who picked me up — thought
*twas some of. my people, Is’pose. Colonel Hammer-
ton carried me off to the fort, and then took me to
Washington: said he was going to make a Christian
on me. I had to stay in houses — s/eep in houses !—
like being nailed up in a box. Ugh! what a misery
’tis to be like white folks! Hoo0-00-00-00-00-00!
You wouldn’t want to know all the racks and miseries
and fights and gtinds on it. I guess they got sick
on it themselves, for after I’d tried a many times to
get away from houses, and been brought back, I tried
again and they let me go, and I’ve been a-going ever
since. I asked for my people, and they told me they
was exterminated, every one on’em. “Yes, I’ve been
a-going ever since, but I can’t go any more. I hope
they'll let me stay in these forests ’till the Great
Spirit takes me away to my people. He can’t find

me in the houses, but if I keep out in the forest, I
hope he’ll find me soon. It’s been a weary, long
time.” -

“ Are you two hundred years old?” asked Benny
softly. ‘ That’s what folks say.”

“Two hunderd ? Hoo-00-00-00! fwohunderd? I’m
ven hundered, if I’m a day,” said the poor old creat-
ure. “But don’t be afeard on me —I hope there
won’t be anybody afeard on me 4ere, for then they’d
be driving on me off, or shutting me up again some-
where where the Great Spirit can’t find me. Tell

. your people not to be skeered on me—ask ’em to let
me stay here.”

The sad old eyes looked wistfully at Benny, whose
generous heart took up the poor Indian’s cause at
once.

-“You can stay here fast enough,” said he. “I
know who these woods belong to— some o’ my rela-
tions. There won’t anybody be afraid of you. Me
’n ’Bijah’ll take care of you.”

“O, bless you!” said she. “I thought I’d got to the
right place when I got here—it looked like it — it
felt like it. It seemed a’most as if I most expected
to see wigwams. A-h-h-h-h, if I could sleep in a wig-
wam!” ;

Benny felt that he could sympathize with her in
that. He and the boys had played Indians and

WIGWAM, 185
*Bijah had built wigwams for them in the wood, and
he had greatly wished and entreated to be allowed to
sleep all night in one. But he could not guess at the
longing of the aged to go back to the things dear and
familiar to them in childhood; he did not know that
all the old Indian’s days were spent in dreaming of
those things, and that she often wandered all night in
the woods, fancying herself surrounded by the wig-
wams of her people — searching anxiously for that
of her father. Though Benny could understand noth-
ing of the pathetic sadness, he felt a strong desire to
offer consolation and cheer, and he said, “JZ can
build wigwams. Me ’n ’Bijah’ll make you a wig-
wam !”

But the aged Chetonquin muttered to herself in a
tuneless quaver, and shook her head dyubtingly.

“What! She don’t deleve it!” Benny exclaimed
to himself. “Don’t believe that ’4i7ai can make
wigwams ! We'll show her!”

And he was so eager to be about it that he took
leave directly of his strange acquaintance, who seemed
lost in reverie, and to have forgotten him entirely.

When Mr. and Mrs. Briggs heard Benny’s story of
the poor Indian woman, their excellent hearts were
at once filled with compassion for so forlorn a creat-
ure. Mr. Briggs had very radical theories about equal
mercy and justice for each member of the human
race.

“Tt isn’t likely,” he often said, “that some have
a right to be in this world and others haven’t;” and
he immediately set himself to illustrate his theories
in the case of the Chetonquin.

Mrs, Briggs said there could be no doubt that she
needed other things besides wigwams, which conjec-
ture was found to be sadly true upon investigation,
An attempt was made to put this last of the Cheton-
quins into more comfortable quarters, but she received
the suggestion with dismay, and prayed so earnestly
to be left on the spot she seemed to think was like
her own native forest, that it was decided to make her
as comfortable as possible there, since it was early
summer and no harm could come from exposure. :
When the weather was cold again, she would be glad
to be sheltered elsewhere. So Mr. and Mrs. Briggs,
Grandma Potter and ’Bijah, took care that she needed
nothing, and left her to be happy in her own way.
Her shattered mind, little by little, let go of every-
thing save the memories of her childhood. All the
people of the neighboring region, old and young, came
to understand and respect the sorrows of the poor
186 BENNY’S
creature they had talked of as a witch. But the most
friendly people seemed to disturb her —to break in
upon her dreams —and children, especially, were not
allowed to visit her.

Benny could not forego, youve the pleasure he
had promised himself, of getting ’Bijah to help him
make a fine wigwam in the woods, and saying to old
Winneenis — as she called herself — “There! what
d’ye call that? There's a wigwam for ye, ’n me ’n
*Bijah made it, too!”

Benny might make as many wigwams as he pleased,
Mr. Briggs said, “‘ but he was not to go near or disturb
old Winneenis.”

One extremity of the island was in the vicinity of
Grandma Potter's, and Benny passed a good many
days of his vacation at Grandma’s. One day Benny
said to ’Bijah, “Now you can make that wigwam,
can’t you, ’ Bijah? You said you would when the hay
was all in, and it zs all in, ain’t it? Le’s make it
to-day over there in the woods, on the island. The
boys are coming over to-morrow, and I want to have
it done before they get here. Say, will you, ’Bijah ?”

“Wal, I’d know but I can,” said *Bijah.

“JT want a veal one,” said Benny, “life-size, just
like them you saw when you was out there to
Dakota— none o’ your baby-houses.”

’Bijah went up-stairs into the barn chamber, hum-
ming Zhe Sweet By and By, and Benny accompa-
nied him in doing both. ’Bijah opened an enormous
chest and pulled out a lot of old buffalo and other
robes, the worn-out and moth-eaten accumulation of
years, not to say generations, and sitting down, took
out his jack-knife and ripped the ragged linings out
of several that were pretty well divested of their fui,
and making a pile of skins, old horse blankets and
lap rugs, he said, “‘ Now, then, sir, we'll have a wig-
wamn fit for old Black Hawk himself.”

And you may be sure ’Bijah was as good as his
word. He got out old Tom and the wagon, and he
and Benny and the skins and blankets all got in and
drove over to the woods on the island, and there
*Bijah cut poles and made the finest wigwam ever
seen this side of the Rocky Mountains — or the other
side either, for that matter. They spread blankets
on the ground inside, and Benny declared it wanted
nothing but a few Indians and tomahawks and bows
and arrows lying round to make it look just Ks the
picture in his g’ography.

Benny’s last thought was of his wigwam that night
as he slid off into the delicious sleep that only rosy-

WIGWAM.

cheeked, tired boys know. He dreamed he was the
chief of a powerful tribe, and that he found old Win-
neenis, not old any longer, but a little girl like F anny,
crying in the forest because she couldn’t find her
way to her people, and that he took her by the hand
and led her home. Her shout of rapture when she.
found herself once more with her people, wakened
Benny, and he saw it was morning, and the shout he
had heard instead of being that of little Winneenis,
was grandma's voice calling him to get up. He was
rather disappointed to find he wasn’t a powerful
chief, but he consoled himself with the thought of
his uncommonly fine wigwam, and hurried down
stairs to see what time it was, for the boys were to
come on the early train, and he meant to go right
over to the woods with them.

He had scarcely finished his breakfast when the
boys arrived, and they all started for the woods in
great glee. On the way, Benny told them the story
of old Winneenis, and the boys were full of wonder,
interest, and curiosity to see her.

Upon reaching the wigwam, they admired its out-
side, agreed that nothing in that style of architecture
could surpass it.

“And now,” said Benny, “see how nice ’tis in-
side,” and he took a peep in himself. “ Why,” whis-
pered he, drawing back, “she’s Aere —she’s here in
the wigwam, sound asleep, and she. looks awful glad.
Sh-sh ”— with a warning shake of his finger — “ we
mustn’t disturb her; father said I mustn’t. Le’s go
away and wait till she wakes up.”

They each took a peep at the old Indian woman

‘and went away softly.

They remained in sight of the wigwam, exhausting
every. device for wearing away the time, and Joe’s
watch was frequently consulted. Time and patience
wore away together.

“ There,” said Charlie, at last, “we’ve waited long
enough; we ought to wake her up now.”

“Tt might make her crazy again to see such a lot
of us, and I—I don’t like to,” said Benny. ““I’ll
go ’n ask ’Bijah what to do.”

They went and brought ’Bijah, who said he should
think likely she woud want to sleep a spell, she must
be pretty well beat out, pokin’ around all night,
He’d heard her making them queer noises o’ hern
—something like a hoarse kind 0’ Phebe bird, it
sounded, in the distance.

“T shouldn’t be surprised,” he began, in a low tone,
stooping and peering in at the wigwam ; but, contrary
> MY ARIZONA CLASS.

to his words, he did look very much surprised indeed.
He stepped into the wigwam and touched the
sleeper gently., Then he shook his head at the boys
and motioned them away, and when he came out,
they understood from his look, that old Winneenis
was dead.
_ Wandering, as was her wont at night, she had
come upon Benny’s wigwam, standing in the clear

187

moonlight, and to her longing, bewildered mind it
had probably seemed the wigwam of her father.
Who can ever know the joy, the feeling of peace, and
rest, and relief, with which she laid her tired bones
down in it, and fell asleep, a care-free child once
more, and thus passed from its door into the happy
hunting-grounds? And Benny always felt glad the
wigwam had been built.

 

 

ON THE WAY TO PRESCOTT. —CAMPED IN THE CACTL

MY ARIZONA CLASS;

 

By Mrs. Jesst1z BENTON FREMONT.

 

HAVE been asked to tell you, the young readers

of this book something of my work in the

schools of Arizona, but to begin let me disclaim this

important naming of the simple thing it came in my

way to do for the one school of Prescott, the capital

of Arizona. I was in no other town during my stay
there.

Four years make wonderful changes on our fron-
tiers, and now one great railroad crosses it, and con-
nects it with both oceans, and another, more to the
north, is fast approaching the same result; but in
78 there was not a mile of railroad within the Terri-
tory, and it was so isolated by difficulty of travel and
dangers, that with those living there it was the
188

accepted phrase to speak of themselves as outside the
world, while going to California, or anywhere, was
called “ going zzséde.” Even with government trans-
portation which we had, climate and natural obstacles
had to remain unchanged, while with the ordinary
means, travel was a perfect nightmare of fatigue,
discomforts and some dangers. ,

From Yuma, where the railway travel ended, the
distance to Prescott was only about two hundred and

 

GEN. FREMONT, EX-GOV. OF ARIZONA,

thirty miles (what we make in a morning between
New York and Washington), which the mail stage
made in forty-eight hours—more or less. This
“mail stage ” was an open buckboard with two horses.
On this were piled passengers, express matter and
mails, and night or day no stop was made except for
meals and to change horses, and, quite often, to be
robbed. This seemed to be accepted without resist-
ance; few men would not prefer giving up their
money rather than their lives. And to be wounded
was terrible, where not a village or settlement, not
even a real farm broke the solitude.

We were eight days on our way, but the experi-
ence that governed all preparations for. the little
journey gave us the luxury of comfort for such travel.
We averaged only thirty miles a day, but this was good
travelling for mules which had to make the whole
djistance unchanged and return immediately to Yuma,
And the variation of temperature and air as we rode

MY ARIZONA CLASS.

from the low level of Yuma, and its one hundred
degrees to one hundred and thirty degrees of heat to
the six thousand feet and keen, thin, cold air of Pres-
cott, told on animals as well as people. There were
camp fires and lots of blankets, and I had a tent and
the cushions of the ambulance, but one does not linger
on such beds.

Each morning we had had tea, everything was
repacked, and our three ambulances ready for the word
to start, which was given at six.

It was a most interesting bit of travel, such as there
can be no need to make again, and I am sure you
would like to hear, and I should like to tell you of it,
but when would we get to school ?

You cannot do justice to this school unless you

‘realize somewhat what made it so worthy of each

one’s best aid. To you, schools, with all their
belongings — buildings, teachers, scholars — come in
the natural order of things, pretty much as the sea-
sons and their belongings, but here where the weary
work of emigration was followed by settlement in the
midst of warlike Indians, where their nearest town
was Los Angeles, in California, five hundred desert
miles away ; where every necessity for work and com-
fort, from a steam engine to a lemon, had to be hauled
in wagons with mule teams over these hot and almost
waterless lands—it was against these depressing
influences that the Arizona settlers built up this
really fine public school. Beginning with one room
and six scholars, in five years it had reached its pres-
ent assured and excellent condition.

The building is not a thing of beauty. You would
not hang a picture of it where the eye would be
refreshed by its graceful proportions and the mind
stirred by classic memories belonging with it, but no
monument of Roman days represents Victory more
truly than does this homely, square-set brick building;
victory won by patient and brave women as well as by
the men whose dangers of emigration and early settle-
ment they shared.

We thought it most admirable that a young com-
munity with many uses for all its money should give
so largely for education. In its solid walls and com-
plete “outfit” (I like that expressive frontier-term)
this school would do honor to any of our larger towns.
We lived near by, and it was a recurring morning
pleasure as the bell rang out from its belfry to look
over towards the fort, and there, with military punctu-
ality, was sure to appear coming over the rolling
ground the four-mule “school-ambulance,” with its
MY ARIZONA CLASS,

full load of “the fort children,” who swarmed down
before it fairly drew up at the gate. In the enclosure
the “town-children” would be already forming in
line to the beat of a drum —a concession to one of
the older lads who owned and loved his drum—
but the ambulance and the drum gave still more the
idea of an army of progress. ,

It was the duty of the Governor to inspect the
schools, and we made together the first visit to this
one. A broad hall separated the two very large
rooms for the younger classes—such jolly, bright-
eyed, red-cheeked, clear-voiced little men and women,
Americans, English, German, Mexicans, and mixed
— admirably taught and trained, and with the pleased
willingness to show-off of happy children at home.
The large windows which looked out to beds of
granite mountains and pine-forests, let in sunshine
and life-giving air, and this, with their good models
in teachers, had given them the friendliness of well-
trained children — wearing enough from their num-
bers and tremendous vitality, but wonderfully credit-
able in results.

On the second floor was the upper class. Perhaps
forty young people from fourteen to twenty years of
age. This naturally was the more interesting class.
Here the examinations, especially in mathematics and

in applied physics, won the surprise and admiration of -

the Governor. There was one lad who added to his
calculations swift, sure touches of mechanical draw-
ing (sinking shafts and other mining operations), and
though he was but sixteen, he showed in every con-
clusive line and calculation that his subject had a
living interest for him; and the intelligent looks of
many of the girls as they followed him critically
proved their unusual knowledge in these branches,
Although I looked on politely, I comprehended but
dimly. To me sweet little “ Pet Marjorie’s ” despair
over figures is very real— “seven times seven is the
divil,” she says, “ but seven times nine is more than
flesh can bear.” However, the General knew enough
for two, and when the history review came up he said,
was the authority, and so turned upon me

a battery of doubting, inquiring young eyes.
dren and dogs know who to trust.” These children
paid me the compliment I value sincerely, to take me
into their regard, and from the first we made friends.
The principal explained that history was not a
favorite study with them; that they did not give much
time to it, as it was out of the line of more practical
studies, etc., etc. And one of the elder girls said,

“ Chil--

18g

“We are Americans, and have no connection with
that old world and its dead-and-gone kings and cruel
queens and wars.”

You see, in place of the delightful, suggestive, ex-
planatory study which history should be made to the
young, they had only been given those old husks and
dry bones of dates, and battles, and lists of kings,
and detached moth-eaten old anecdotes called “ Con-
densed History,” to be committed to memory only to
be at once thrown out of a healthy young mind as
not fitting in anywhere.

But it would be a whole book full if I began to
tell what it might be, what it had been made to me
even in my childhood, by my father, growing with
my growth, and expanding steadily into fresh interest
and comprehension.

It is impossible for young Americans to appreciate
their own form of government, faulty as its workings

 

MRS. JESSIE BENTON FREMONT.

must be often, unless they can know where it differs,
from those of other countries. We have an arrogant
way of claiming as our own certain ideas which are
the results of long effort in older countries, in which,
though they might need and desire radical changes,
they had to go on bearing their ills, because any
change meant such disturbance of interests that to
reach good evil would have to come first.

We began with a clear field on many of these
greater ideas.

The one change in our institutions which we have
made has taught us how sore the cost was. Think
190

what obstacles time and usage have made in old
countries, where what we call “ wrongs” and “ abuses ”
are remnants of past days, but now hardened into
barriers which only revolutions can make a breach in,

Something of this I said as I turned over the un-
interesting pages of the “ History” given me to
examine them upon.

As I expected, its very incomplete teachings had
left only unfair, vague ideas.

The young girl who had spoken of the past as not
necessary to us, was so bright and clever that she was
worth making explanation to. I asked her why she
considered queens (as such) cruel, and she gave
fluently Catherine of Medici, and the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, and “ Bloody” Mary (poor, unhappy
Mary!) and Catherine of Russia, and — Marie Antoi-
nette — quite as though they did not differ.

I saw at once how I could interest her and make
her feel there were two sides to this, as to all things.
Of course she knew, and believed —for was it not
printed in a school-book ?—that stupid story which
has survived a century, and which is given as justify-
ing the wrath of the pullering poor of Paris, You all
know it.

The Queen asks the cause of some tumult.

“Your Majesty, the people are ungovernable be-
cause they cannot get bread.”

“What !
then ?”

On this I told them of Marie Antoinette in her
own home, as Wraxall’s and Mozart’s memoirs and
other such dispassionate early sources shew her; a
wholesome, frolicksome young girl, submissive even to
childishness to an unusually firm-natured mother who
trained her and her sisters in womanly and simple
habits; for royal Austrian life always, to-day as in
the day of Maria Theresa, is extraordinarily domestic
and sensible.

At fifteen this young girl was married, or rather
given in exchange to France. She was merely the
seal on a contract, and no more care taken of her
feelings then nor for seven years after she reached
Paris, than if she had been just the wax of a State
seal. It is all painted in that scene on the island in
that river of which one bank was German and one
French, and where she was met by her new attend-
ants, who parted her — forever — from every person
and even everything that had belonged with her Ger-
man life, Not even a garment was left upon her that
had come from her home.

No bread? Why do they not eat pastry,

MY ARIZONA CLASS.

But disrobed thoroughly, she was dressed anew in
garments of entirely French make, and taken by
strangers into a country strange and unfriendly to.
her. ’

We who look back can see close to this the last
scene in that life.

Once more the French have taken from her every-
thing that was hers; friends, husband, children ; even
her clothing. And we see the beautiful woman, “the
daughter of the Czsars,” borrowing a black gown of
woollen, from the jailer’s wife, and making a bit of
muslin into the widow’s cap with which to cover her
hair — still thick and young, but gray from agony; ~
the Queen of France, the daughter of the Empress of
Austria, sewing and making ready through the night
to go decently covered in the morning to have her
head cut off. The hands Mozart had guided on the
piano, in her happy girl-home, were tied behind her
back, and no way left her to steady herself as she was
jolted in a springless cart over the cobble stones of
old Paris to the guillotine.

Even her enemiés admit that she met her impris-
onment, as well as her death, with quiet dignity and
piety. .

Of this nothing was told. Nothing was said to
shew that long before her birth the cruel misrule of
France was creating the revolution which made her
one of its victims. But that foolish story was there in
full, when a little knowledge exposes its foolishness.

féte is not pastry, but.dough, In Europe, where
bread is so precious that governments regulate the
baker’s business, it is a serious matter to bake bread.
In French and German countries, perhaps in others,
but there I have seen it, the floor of the bake-oven is
lined with a layer of dough, made from inferior flour,
a carpet-dough, to moderate the heat and give to the
loaves a golden, thick and brittle crust. This makes
a coarse, unleavened flour-cake which is always given
away to the very poor, and which has its established
name, “la pate du pauvre.”

The Queen in her German home training must
have know this; her question — if she ever asked it —
would shew knowledge of the care of the poor as well
as knowledge of how bread was baked:

“Ts there zothing for the poor; not even the dough
that lines the oven? (pas méme la pate?)”

Florence Nightingale says that a disappointment in
love does not qualify a girl to become a hospital nurse..
Nor does the marriage ceremony qualify even the
happiest girl to become a good housewife.
MY ARIZONA CLASS.

Queen as she was, Marie Antoinette knew more of
the dairy and of breadmaking than is thought needed
to teach girls in most of our American homes, where
parents would seem to prevent the apprenticeship to
practical life.

This bit of historical justice enlisted that real
chivalry towards women of which our American men
have so much, and made the lads
ready to go a crusade with me

1Ql

Sometimes that altitude tells against one (we were
over a mile up in the air). Bayard Taylor said the
stranger in Colorado is known by the blood-spots on
his pocket handkerchief, and at certain seasons, most
persons feel this disturbed circulation and faint-
ness increased. But “ my class,” as I liked and they
liked me to call them, were so heartily interested and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

through all time — redressing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-wrongs even if we did fight .wind-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

mills. And the girls adopted me

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

without further doubt.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We went home unexpectedly in-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

terested by our morning, to be fol-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

lowed by the Principal, who came

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

bringing the “ request and hope” of
the class, that I would come again
and “tell them more.”

He combatted my objections,
which were chiefly my unwillingness
to assume to help what was already
excellent in his work, and my
doubt of being of use to indifferent,
perhaps unwilling minds. With my
own set of young people, and their
young friends, I had my long-estab-
lished post of story-teller, and the
history-talks during vacations, when
wet days made out-door amusements
wait, had proved the seed-time of
much after good in some lovely
homes where “your way is to be
followed, when my boys are old
enough,” and in delightful grateful
letters to me from far countries
where the traveller “ now a bearded
man,” felt at home from the talks of
past days in the still and beautiful
library.

But Mr. Sherman said that I had
roused a new interest and new per-
ceptions, and that if I would come
it would be a good influence in
many ways. And so it came about that except when
an illness of some weeks prevented, I was there almost
every Friday of the whole term. They arranged to
have the last hour, from two to three, free for me.
And the mutual interest and pleasure of it grew upon
us so much that I let nothing interfere.

 

THE MORNING DRUM-CALL.

so pleased with me for “taking the trouble,” that
when during the wind-season I sometimes reached
them gasping and pale from the short climb of the
hill, they were so concerned, and so unwilling I should
tire myself, that I think some better ideas went in
those broken hours than when I was quite well.
192

They were always careful to make no noises, and
listened with true politeness. Always I found every-
thing ready, and the agreeable atmosphere of feeling
wanted and welcomed. After a little the boys began
to get themselves up for the Friday hour. Boots
were cleaned and trousers were worn outside of them.
Myself I liked better the intelligent wearing the
trousers tucked in out of the mud, but it was meant
as a courtesy, and so covered a multitude of wrinkles.
Their thick suits of hair were wetted and brushed
flat, another loss of the picturesque, but also well-
meant; then coats over their blue flannel shirts, and
presently Sunday coats and dress entirely, which
meant so much! for many of these lads, and some of
the elder girls as well, earned by work out of school-
hours that which enabled them to stay in the town,
dress themselves, and get the advantage of instruc-
tion.

The girls, of course, had risen at once to a new
opportunity for dress, and blossomed without delay
into frills and ribbons and crépé ’d hair.

Mr. Sherman told me after a little that he found no
punishment so effectual as to deprive them of being
in the class at that Friday hour—so that I had
come to be an influence in aid of order and good
manners. :

Soon I marked the specialties of my young people
and fitted myself to them. Sometimes I would chalk
on the blackboard back of the desk a sentence or a
quotation, which would serve as a key-note for the
next Friday, and when any one of them would recog-
nize its leading or application they were charmed to
have succeeded in “ trailing ” an idea.

Some photographs and water-colors and souvenirs
of a late journey among interesting places from Den-
mark to Austria, had by chance been brought out
among our baggage. They were very useful now in
giving form to their vague ideas of feudal buildings.
Many of these lads knew what it was to help defend
an impromptu breastwork of wagons against an attack
of Indians, but a tower or moat they had not seen.
Many, coming overland from our border country,
had never seen a great city, or the ocean. To these
I could be in some degree what libraries and picture-
galleries and lectures are so largely to you.

It had been my request that none but the class
should be my hearers, and this wish was generally
respected. 1 wanted (for one reason) that the scholars
should feel sure I did this for them only.

However, some parents came who “thought they

MY ARIZONA CLASS.

should know what was being taught to their children,”
and some few who were not parents came (once)
because they knew it would not be agreeable to me —
these latter were not Western men— but very soon
I was let alone, opinions ranging from my being
held as “an amiable lunatic for taking so much trou-
ble for nothing,” (!) to the warmest thanks from
parents and from men interested in the growth of
schools.

I had no plan or settled idea beyond the willing-
ness to give pleasure, and help forward inquiring
young minds by sharing with them my own reading.
And, knowing how isolated life in new States must
generally be, I felt it would be a real gain for them
to see in history and historical memoirs and writings
an inexhaustible thine of delightful reading, taken
merely as reading. -

The first Friday, when I was formally installed at
the desk of the superintendent, (which he always
resigned to me, going himself “ among my scholars i,
when I saw all those questioning eyes fixed on me, I
repented me of my rashness. A sudden sense of too
much responsibility clouded over every other percep-
tion. I had no fear but that I could interest them
and amuse them; for that indeed is always easy
enough,

But could I really help them forward? Could I
help them to a resource against loneliness? Could
I make clear to them what was real greatness in indi-
viduals as well as in nations?

There was, however, no retreat. And in I plunged
where their lesson for that day had brought them, to
the beginning of 1500, and the reign of Frances the
First, of France. This was a good place to connect,
as 1492 is our first date, and, as I told them, illustrates
the curious injustice of fate which so often, in actual

- life as in history, makes one to reap what was sowed

by another; for, as Emerson so pithily puts it,
“Columbus the navigator discovers the continent, but
Americus Vespucius the pickle-dealer puts his name
upon it.”

Then to keep more to their age, I told them of a
visit I had made one long summer day to the fine old
mountain castle of Bussy Bourbon, near Vichy, in South
France, already an old castle when the mother of
Francis took refuge there after the defeat of Pavia,
and where she remained during his long imprisonment
in Spain. The details of its strong towers and great
moat, with its drawbridge still in use, interested them
greatly; and the description of its gallery of family
MY ARIZONA CLASS,

’ portraits, from Saint Louis through to the last Bourbon
of the old line. Henry the Fifth (Count de Cham-
bord) was an embodiment of what had been to them

merely a list of names.

The former universal distrust and reliance on force,
not on right or law, was shown not only by this forti-
fication of a residence, but by the village huddled
under one of its walls. for protection. No outlying
life was safe then any more than lately with them-
selves in this Indian country, where the fort on the
hill made safety for their village close by. But while
with us everything worked together to bring in safety
and law, there everything, for centuries, had been
dependent on individual caprice.

We had fancied walking down the straggling, un-
paved village street, and seeing nearer its small,
thick-walled, almost windowless houses—dark, damp,
unventilated nests of fever and rheumatisms, in pain-
ful contrast to the noble space and luxurious comfort of
the castle. One could see why when those ignorant
people began to question this order of things they did
not reason, but destroyed.

A smell of bread-baking drew us to the village
bakery, where we got some, intending to eat and be
réfreshed for the long drive back to Vichy. We did

_try to eat that bread, the baker-ess was looking on
so doubtingly, but it was impossible. Sour, bitter,
gritty and tough all at once, and made of nothing we
could recognize as flour, yet this forlorn stuff had
been carefully baked on a layer of still coarser mix-
ture, under the yard-long loaves. There was the
pate du pauvre, and there too were the village poor
eagerly waiting to getit; so old, so deformed by
labor and want, so sad a sight that our hearts grew as
heavy as the bread.

I told my class that poverty was a relative word in
our country, and that here in the Western new country,
where every one shares willingly, and each helps as

_he can, there is no comprehension of the hopeless
state of the poor of the old world.

But this is off the track from Francis, who might
have been named Prince Fortunatus, for his birth
brought him so much, it seemed as though all the
fairies had combined to endow him. The throne of
France, health, beauty, fair talents and a pleasant
sort of nature which made him liked; his thinking
done for him by his loving and wise mother, Louise
of Savoy, who had much of that common sense and
gallant courage of a later member of her house, Victor
Emanuel, his best feelings warmly met and nourished

193

by the love of his charming, talented sister, Reine
Marguerite des Marguerites, as he fondly named
her, “ Queen Daisy of all Daisies; the noble Bayard
his devoted friend — ought not this fortunate youth
to have made some good use of his life? His reign
was gay and brilliant, but what of it lasted? Even
the Field of the Cloth of Gold failed to keep peace
with England.

Close by all this splendor two plain figures come
out upon the historical canvas of that time. One, the
worn and disappointed old mariner, Columbus, his

useful and heroic life wearing away in poverty and long

imprisonment: these were his bitter portion for hav-
ing enriched Spain with a new world. They put on
the Royal Standard —

A Castilla y & Leon
Nuevo mundo dio Colon,

and Columbus himself they put in prison — to their
everlasting shame.

His figure is disappearing. Just coming forward
is a young boy who has neither wealth nor power,

 

MARIE ANTOINETTE,

whose own parents can do so little for him that he
must leave home and get his food from house to
house by his music; and so, among his music-loving
fellow-Germans the young Luther makes, unaided, his
first appearance.

Of these three lives what has outlasted ?
194

Absolutely nothing of Francis survives. His throne
and the “right divine” to rule are things of the past.
The larger idea of the divine right of each man to
justice and liberty of thought and action has replaced
it. But it has required eighteen centuries for that
brief sentence, ‘‘ Do unto others as you would be
done by,” to be recognized as the only stable corner-
stone of government. The old castle of Francis
stands strong as ever, but the conditions of his time

 

MARIE ANTOINETTE IN PRISON.

are more impossible now than a fairy tale, while with
all Luther’s own faults, his teachings of personal lib-
erty and personal responsibility are to-day stronger
than any power of kings, and find their largest expres-
sion here in the land discovered by Columbus.

In this way we came down the ages. They found
life and color, and the same motives and passions as
ours of to-day in all these far-back people. They
felt the continuous chain of effort and progress,
and, I hope, realized that whether rewarded or not, it
was right and noble to live for others as well as for
one’s self, Coming to later days, there were so many

MY ARIZONA CLASS.

delightful examples of this to tell them, and “all true
stories,” as the children say.

Even the story of the boy Casabianca was, I found,
not known to many of the class. But his own family
in Paris had not known of those verses until quite
recently. One of the ladies had told me so when I
expressed my satisfaction at being in their house and
meeting members of the family whose name was truly
a household word wherever the English language was
spoken. “So you know of it in America too,” she
said, “my poor little cousin! we never dreamed he

" was famous until an English lady told us, as you do,

that your nurseries were made obedient by telling
them of the boy who would not leave his post without
his father’s word!”

The English lady had translated for them into
French, the verses, and so, in the third generation,
the “poor little cousin” became introduced to his
own family as the boy counterpart of the Roman
sentinel at Pompeii.

A lady at the fort had Mrs, Hemans’ verses, and
they were part of each scholar’s memory before the
next Friday.

Any one who could, helped forward our class. The
young people reported our talks in their own fashion,
and any special point of interest to each became en-
larged and was often made very interesting by out-
side discussion.

One of the officers had a good and large photo-
graphic collection of foreign views, buildings and
portraits, and sent me these, with his fine glass for
exhibiting them, to use for the class.

These, however, I would not move from my own
house, but invited my young people to private views,
where we could also have more satisfactory fulness of
speaking than in the school, where, as I could not
mention either religion or politics, I was continually
hampered. For a narrow or a broad policy, and a
narrowing or an enlarging religion are the unhealthy
or healthy currents in the world’s growth. But at
home I was quite free, and I asked them to come to
me there for any fuller knowledge or explanation.
At Christmas I had-had them all to a special kettle-
drum, and told them to remember the afternoon tea- —
hour, and always come to me then.

The altered and humane treatment of the poor and
the insane, of “all prisoners, sick persons and young
children ”— three most helpless classes — made one of
our most useful and interesting talks; ranging from
the Crusades and the knights of Saint John through
LITTLE JUSTINE.

to our sanitary commission and the Geneva-cross
Congress.

And another talk they liked was on the value of
little services, “the small, sweet courtesies of life,” as
aiding the health, and courage, and efficiency, of
those about us.

Some things I said and told them of pleased them
so much that, seeing the opportunity was ripe, I asked
if they would do me a favor? something to gratify me
very much?

And as they heartily agreed, I asked that for the
coming week, beginning as.soon as the class was dis-
missed, and with each other, they should try each one
to do what was agreeable and helping to others, at
home. and out of home — just as an experiment for
one week, ;

What visits this brought me from mothers! The
wonder and thanks and the laughing, with the tears
starting too over the sudden shamefaced goodness of
careless or unruly children.

Those were happy visits to receive. It would have

“been the millennium had the experiment lasted, but
they had made the trial once, and a good idea will
take root as surely as a bad one.

I would like to tell you more, but this is already far
too long for the space allotted me, and yet, looking
back on that time I see this is but husks, it is so con-
densed. &

We began in the autumn; we grew into better
understanding all the time until the term closed at
the end of June, and with it ended our Fridays
together,

The last day I went to them quite regretfully.
There was something~unusual in the effect of the room,
which I felt without exactly seeing. The desk on the

195

platform was always tidied for me,but this day no book
was left upon it, and fresh large sheets of white blot-
ing paper covered its whole surface. Three large
china vases adorned it, filled with garden flowers,
which are very hard to raise up there, and so more
than ever precious.

A conscious smile of satisfaction brightened all
their faces, and each girl had blue ribbons, while the
lads wore blue cravats.

This, then, was a féte in my honor, and my color was
adopted. All were in “Sunday clothes.” Few of
the class could carelessly use their best things; they
had earned them, and knew their value, All this
touched me, and the little I had to say was a regret in
parting, which they felt was true.

Then a nice English-born lad, whose parents were
our pleasant neighbors, stepped forward, blushing,
but resolved, with a roll of paper, and a morocco
case (with more blue ribbon),

We were not the less Americans if we were at the
outermost place, among Indians, and walled in by
mountains. We were to have our speeches and our
presentation of a testimonial. And I have it and
use it sometimes, and shall always value this souvenir
of my young friends; some sugar tongs, and the
small ladle for the powdered sugar. The silver
things are very pretty against their blue satin cush-
ion, but the best part is the inscription —

“ FROM PRESCOTT SCHOOL.”

I sent over for my album, and had each one write
me their name and birthplace, and then came good-
bye, which proved to be for always, but we will not
forget one another, my class and I,

 

LTTE US Tine

By Cetra THAXTER,

HERE'S a touch of frost in the crisp, fresh air,
And the trees and hedges are growing bare,
And autumn says “It is my turn now,”
As she strips the leaves from the patient bough,

All in the bright morning comes little Justin
With the prettiest bossy that ever was seen,

But though he’s so sleek and so handsome a calf
He has too much will of his own by half,
196 LITTLE JUSTINE,

And he does not like to be led away
From his mother’s side in the early day ;
Where the little maid’s feet so lightly go,
He veers about and he trots so slow.

He’d say, if only the power had he,

“ Justine, why couldn’t you let me be?
I'd rather go back at once, if you please,
To yonder barn by the poplar trees.”

 

 

But little Justine with a merry laugh

Cries, “ Hurry, my beautiful bossy calf!

You will have nothing to do all day

But to sleep and to eat and to frisk and to play.

‘Tis a lovely place I shall tether you in,
There are many there of your kith and kin:
You'll not be lonesome, there’s plenty to eat,
You must learn to nibble the grass so sweet.”” —

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WITH THE PRETTIEST BOSSY THAT EVER WAS SEEN.

“O milk is good and clover is tough,

And I haven’t begun to have breakfast enough :
And I know the pasture you lead me to

Is cold and wet with the frosty dew.”

The wind blows her pretty blue cloak away
From her scarlet skirt and her apron gray,
And ruffles the mass of her yellow hair,

And kisses her cheeks that are rosy and fair,

And she looks so charming and blithe and gay

As she trips so carelessly down the way!

But the bossy hangs back, and “O dear,” thinks he,
* Justine, how I wish you would let me be!”
"saw,

ELIIE’S HOLOCAUST.

397

A DECEITFUL APPEARANCE.

IS eyes were bright, his nose was pug, and black as any coal,
And on his neck a collar hung, with bells around the whole
Upon the velvet seat he sat, and out the window far
His eyes were fixed. How fine it was in that grand palace car!
But soon a stern conductor came, and frowned upon the pet:
“Dogs travel in another place; the rules, ma’am, you forget.”
The lady sighed, and bit her lip: “Dear me, sir, is that so?

You’d better let him stay.

I’m sure you cannot make him go.”

With lofty look, “We'll see to that,” the dignitary said;

“ Here, porter! come and lend a hand!”

Then to the task they sped,

And bravely from his wrinkled back they drew the fleecy rug —

But turned away with awkward smiles.

It was a porcelain pug.

BULLE’ S tO LOCAD ST,

 

By Mrs. Louisa T. CRAIGIN.

APA, may I read Scottish Chiefs?”
“Yes, dear, if you’ll make-it an odd-and-end
and not a business.”

Ellie had been having a “rummage” in the library
and had unearthed the three delightfully fat volumes,
bound solidly in brown leather, with a tarnished title:
The Scottish Chiefs, by the author of Thaddeus of War-
Having papa’s permission to read it, without
further delay it was tucked in at the foot of the
straw wagon; where Baby May was already enthroned,
with Ellie’s Blondette in her arms.

The children were going to Mrs. Newell’s on an
errand ; it was a lovely walk through the woods. Ellie
felt quite justified in resting for a half-hour and mak-
ing a beginning on the treasure. They were later in
starting home than Ellie had intended, but the wood
still looked bright and she chose it rather than the
longer road.

About half-way through was a lovely open glade
where they had often had picnics. The path crossed
it quite distinctly, but on either side the rocks and
woods wére thick, and there were some ugly places
where an attempt had once been made at quarrying
granite. The hollows were often half-full of water,
and the rocky débris was covered with moss and

 

vines lovely to look at, but treacherous to the
foot.

A low stone wall had at one time made a line of
separation between the glade and the quarries, but
it had been loosely and carelessly laid, originally, and
in many places had entirely disappeared.

The wood had seemed dusky, and this spot, open
to the sunshine, was very attractive, though Ellie
ought to have realized that only when the sun was
quite low was it possible for it to glint through the
trees in those long bright lines.

“ Ellie, Ellie, May wants to play house!”

“Oh no, dear, it is late; we must go home.”

“No, May wants to dance in the sunshine;” and
into the centre of the bright stream of sunlight danced
little May, singing her hop-song, as she called it, and
keeping time with her tiny feet to the “ Merrily
oh-oh ! merrily oh-oh /”

“Now, Ellie,” she cried, “you sit down and I'll
dance.” :

Ellie was tired: it was a beautiful resting place on
the old tree bole. May looked so pretty dancing in
the sunlight ! why shouldn’t she stop for five minutes?
she would so like to know if those dreadful men
really did kill lovely Marion, and how William Wal
198

lace would meet the earl, Surely this was an odd-
and-end, and she would be home long before papa.

And so little May danced ‘in the sunshine with
Blondette, and Ellie sat on the mossy tree trunk and
drifted away into Scotland and the long by-gone
centuries. ‘

Once or twice she was conscious of the “ Merrily
oh-oh, oh-oh,” but the minutes sped away and she
never knew that the song had grown fainter and
finally ceased ; so absorbed had Ellie become in the

ELLIE'S HOLOCAUST,

ing wearily after her the empty carriage, light enough
now in her hands. Oh, how light her heart would be
at that moment if only the wagon were the heavier
for dear May’s weight !

As Ellie came in sight of the house she knew as
well as if it had been told her, that May was not there.

Her heart sunk like lead. How could she tell the
sad story! If only Dick would look out of his win-
dow! If only she could get at him without going
into the house! Only he must know.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    

fate of her beloved hero, that never once
were her eyes lifted from the swiftly turned
pages, until the dim light made it impossi-
ble to follow the closely printed lines. In
dismay Ellie looked around: the sunshine
had long since faded; the empty wagon
stood by her side, but where was May?

In terror Ellie called the child, but no an-
swer came. Up the wood path back and forth
she ran, calling “May! May!” but only the echoes
answered her.

It was still fairly light in the glade and on the
wood path, but the thicket lay black in shadow. As
far as Ellie dared to go, she went on either side,
climbing the broken rocks and searching among the
bushes, but no Baby May, nor any trace of her.

One hope Ellie had, though at best a faint one,
that the child might have gone on the wood path
towards the Cedars and be already at home. With
a heavy heart she took the homeward path, draw-

 

ELLIE’S HOP-SONG; “MERRILY OH-OH!”

Suddenly Ellie remembered Sam Langmaid’s sig-
nal—an odd musical phrase of his own devising,
that the boys in Dick’s old club still used as a gath-
ering note. Ellie had learned it for fun, years ago.
Now was the time to test her accomplishment.

Out it came, in shrill, clear notes that would not
have disgraced Sam himself. It reached Dick in his
snuggery, rousing him from a knotty problem in
Legendre,

As chief who hears his warden call,
To arms! the foemen storm the wall!
LLILILE’S HOLOCAUST,

Dick flew through the long window on to the up-
per piazza and down the trellis which made an excel-
lent ladder and was much preferred by Master Dick
as a way of descent, to the more legitimate stairway.

Round the corner he rushed, expecting to see Sam
Langmaid, and was thoroughly vexed to find only
Ellie.

“ Aren’t you ashamed of yourself to whistle like a
tomboy! The better you do it, the worse it is; fool-
ing me just when I’m driving so.hard for examination!
- ]’ve half a mind to shake you, Ellie Adams !”

When Dick got near enough to see Ellie’s pale
face, his vexation turned to anxiety.

“Whatisit, dear Ellie ? Forgive me. I was a brute.
I might have known you wouldn’t have signalled for
nothing. What is it, dear?”

“Q Dick — Baby May — oh dear, oh dear!” and
Ellie broke down completely.

‘“* Be quiet, Ellie, will you? Can’t you tell me what
you mean? What is it about Baby May? Is she
hurt or lost?”

“T don’t know,” sobbed Ellie, “whether she is
hurt or not, but she is lost; we stopped in the glade
coming home from Leslie’s and—and Isat down
and May wanted to dance in the sunshine— and I
thought it was an odd-and-end, and I read a little bit
and then I read more, and--and I looked up and
May was gone, and I hunted everywhere till it was
so dusky I couldn’t see — Dick, what shall I do!”

Dick was calm and kind, but very firm, as he spoke
rather sternly to Ellie:

“Be quiet! You’ve done mischief enough with
your confounded story-book, don’t make it worse by
going into hysterics. We can’t do anything till papa
comes. He ought to be here in five minutes. I'll
get your plaid shawl, you are shivering now, dear,’’ he
added kindly; “I'll light the big lantern,” he added,
“and we will stop papa before he turns up the
avenue.”

In two minutes Dick was back with Ellie’s shawl
which he folded round her with boyish tenderness;
they soon heard the sound of wheels; a moment
later the buggy came up the hill.

Papa knew something was amiss when he saw Dick
swinging the lantern. The story was soon told; Ellie
and Dick got into the roomy carriage and Don
Fulano’s head was turned the other way.

“Can we drive through on the wood road, Ellie?”

_asked papa; “I haven’t been there this season.”

“Yes, papa, from this side; for the Crosbys

199

have been cutting wood. I met their team to-day.”

It was almost as dark in the glade as in the thicket
by the time they reached the old tree bole where Ellie
had lost herself and her dear little sister. There
lay the brown volumes and the red afghan and the
heap of bright leaves and the pile of acorns the child
had gathered.

Papa and Dick searched every square inch of the
glade for any traces of footprints or anything that
might have dropped from May’s hands. She had
evidently taken Blondette with her.

“ Yes,” said Ellie, “ she was dancing with Blondette
when I saw her last, in the square of sunshine, and
she had a wreath of blackberry vine and some tinsel
that Nettie gave her. She said she was playing
Flower-dance like the Viennese children mamma told
us about, and I wouldn’t dance with her—oh! oh!”

“Sit down, Ellie, just where you sat then, and tell
me where the sunshine square Jay as nearly as you
can recall it.”

“Just where you are now, papa.”

Mr. Adams swung the lantern in every direction.

Suddenly Dick exclaimed, “'There’s a piece of tin-
sel on a bush over the wall! Swing the lantern again,
papa. I know it was the silver stuff, it glittered so.”

Again the light of the lantern shone into the shad-
owy thicket.

“ Steady now, papa!
see!”

Over the watl went Dick and returned waving the
blackberry spray with the bright tinsel hanging from
it. “She has been over there, that is certain.”

It was a clue to direction at all events, and as they
followed every possible opening in the underbrush
they came to another trifle that gave unspeakable
comfort; it was only a shred of red worsted, but it
was a bit from a pretty knit cape which May wore,
and proved conclusively that she had turned to the
left away from the quarry pools, into whose dark
depths she might have so easily fallen.

“Papa, she followed the sunset! Don’t you see it
would shine through the trees on this side, but not on
that?”

It was no easy task for a man to go where a child
slipped through easily enough, but Dick plunged into
every opening and peered behind every tree, and in
the shadow of every rock, while papa swung the lan-
tern and called and shouted.

At last they came to a place where the slope was
quite abrupt and slippery with pine needles. The

There, just so, while I go and
2

200

trees were larger but fewer, and half-way down was
one huge fallen pine, a monarch of the forest, pros-
trate long since in some thunder storm.

The light from the lantern went farther here than
in the woods, and showed the even, smooth slope
without place for a footho.d apparent, short of the
fallen pine.

It was Dick again who cried out “Papa, papa!
some one has slid down here lately; see, the moss is
scraped away a little, and there’s a sort of furrow in
the pine needles!”

Without another word Dick sat down on the edge
of the slope, stretched his feet out before him, and
began to slide down in the furrow.

He landed, as he expected, under the lee of the
fallen pine, and the next instant a cheery shout came
up to his father on the bank above.

“All right! She’s safe! Can you slide down,
papa? I don’t think I can lift her up the hill alone.”

Down in the same furrow came papa, the big
lantern in front like a locomotive with a headlight.
There under the shelter of the fallen pine, lay the
lost child sleeping as sweetly as if she were in her
downy crib at home. The pine needles had blown in
thick windrows against the tree trunk and made an
elastic bed that was not even damp. Blondette was
clasped lovingly in May’s arms. There were traces
of tears on the little one’s face as though she had
sobbed herself to sleep, but all consciousness of
trouble had vanished in happy dreamland. She did
not even stir for all the exclaiming and shouting and
the flashing of the the lantern, and only sleepily said
“Good night,” as papa took her in his arms and laid
the sleepy little head on his shoulder.

“We shall have to slide down the rest of the way,
papa. You know where it comes out this side of the
pond; there are some bars that open on to the road,
and you can wait there while I go back for Ellie and
the team. There’s a short cut up the glade from the
pond — it’s steep, but I know it like a book.”

There was no more dignified way of doing it, so
papa sat down on the smooth pine slope with May
and Blondette in his arms, Dick started first with
the lantern, shouting merrily, “Clear the track, engine’s
coming!” Dick was boy enough to enjoy it thor-
oughly when the tension of anxiety and apprehension
was removed.

A few minutes landed engine and tender at the
foot of the hill. Dick took down the bars and found
a soft stone for papa, then he took the lantern and

ELLIE’S HOLOCAUST.

scrambled up the steep pathway to the glade,

There .he found Ellie in a most miserable and
abject condition; her shawl was wrapped closely
round her folded arms, and she was rocking her-
self slowly back and forth, talking to herself as she
was very apt to do when excited by grief or joy:

““ May is dead, and I killed her! She is drowned,
and papa thinks I am too wicked to help him look
for her! I hope I shall be put in prison, and stay
there as long as I live!” She was so absorbed in
her remorse, that Dick came close to her and put
both arms round her before she knew he was there at
all.

“O Dick, is she dead?” sobbed Ellie, in a terrified
voice.

“No, indeed ; safe and sound in papa’s arms fast
asleep. Jump into the buggy, and I’ll tell you as we
drive along.”

“Did you find her, or papa?
Is she hurt ?”

“T guess I found her, but I couldn’t have got her
down without papa. Where do you suppose she was?”

“T can’t guess,”

“T suppose she followed the sunshine over the
wall; there was a low place where she could go
through very easily, and then following the sunset
she turned to the left of the quarry-pits to the edge of
the pine grove.”

“To the slippery place where the bank is?”

“Yes, Then she must have slid down as far as
the old pine, and there she was, cuddled up fast
asleep, as cosey as you please, with Blondette in her
arms. You ought to have seen papa go down that
slope with the lantern in his lap! I slid down first,
and when I told papa May was there, down he came
just as neat as if he’d been on a Canadian To-
boggan !” -

“ How did you get her up?”

“We didn’t get her up at all—we got her down.
You ought to have seen the express train, a special,
fastest time on record. Locomotive and headlight,
your humble servant with the lantern; one passenger
car only, papa with May and Blondette. We landed
close by the long bars, and there papa is sitting, this
blessed moment, with his child in his arms.”

It was a joyful hug that Ellie gave her dear little
sister; but May was too sleepy to respond; in fact,
she rather resented any change in her comfortable
position, and quite wrung Ellie’s repentant heart
with her sleepy talk:

Where was she?
ELLIE’S HOLOCAUST.

“Go way, Ellie; you wouldn’t dance! I love
Blondette best, she danced; and we slided, and we
slided, way down into the sunland.’’

Papa tucked the little one in between Ellie and
himself, and in less than ten minutes Baby May was
safe home drinking warm milk in Dinah’s loving
arms; she was so very amiable, or so very sleepy,
that she let Chloe undress her and
put her into bed without even ask-
ing for mamma.

Ellie poured out tea for papa and
Dick, but it was a sober face that
sat behind the big urn, and some
salt tears went into her cup of choc-
olate, as papa, in his quiet way, en-
forced the lesson of her bitter expe-
rience in a few words that were
both grave and kind, but which cut
Ellie to the heart.

““Good-night, my daughter,’’ he
said at last, and drew the weeping
girl upon his knee as he used to do
when she was a little girl and stood
in need of comfort after rebuke.
She threw her arms round his neck
and Jaid her head on his shoulder
and cried quietly. ‘‘Good-night,
my dear daughter. You will not
forget this last lesson. You have
had so many, that sometimes I al-
most despair; but you must work
this out for yourself.’’

“YT will indeed, papa.’? A look
of determination came into Ellie’s
face, and her lips were firmly
pressed together: at length she said,
‘‘Papa, may I have those books for
my very own, The Scottish Chiefs,
I mean?”’

“Yes, Ellie, you can have them
for your very own, if you can find
heart to enjoy them now.”

There was a tone of regretful
surprise in papa’s voice and his
little daughter’s sensitive ear caught it in an instant.

“O papal’? she sobbed, ‘‘you don’t think—you
can’t suppose—please don’t ask me aboutit! Only
may I have them for my very own, to do with ex-
actly as I please?”

‘Yes, for your very own,’’ quietly answered papa,

DOWN THE PINE-NEEDLE SLOPE.

201

Be sure that Ellie’s evening prayer that night
was more full of meaning than usual, especially in
the prayer of thanksgiving ‘‘for the mercies and
benefits of the past day.’’ She shuddered when she

thought of what might have been her wretchedness
if May had danced on along to the quarry-pits in-
stead of into the pine woods.

   

 

Earnestly in her own
words, Ellic prayed that
she might never forget
that night, and might
have the courage to car-
ry out her purpose and
promise to herself.

After breakfast, the
next morning, Ellie
coaxed Dick into the
library with an air of se-
riousness and mystery.

“Dick, papa has given me The Scottish Chiefs
for my very own, to do with as I please—and—’’

‘And, Ellie Adams, you are no sister of mine, if
you can bear the sight of the little fat monsters,’’
said Dick indignantly.

‘‘Who said I wanted to see them? I hate the
202

very sight of ’em. I don’t even want to know
whether William Wallace met the Earl or not. I
won’t know; no, never! I’d stop my ears if you
tried to tell me! There, now.”

“All right. Well, then—In the name of King
Arthur and the Baron Munchausen, what do you want
of those three musty volumes ?”

“ What is it boys do in college when they are done
with Zuclid and want to get it out of sight ?”

“Oh, they make a grand procession and bury the
chap with funeral honors; but as I’m a true knight,
I don’t see what you are driving at; still, ‘P’m all
ears,’ as the donkey said.”

“JT don’t think it’s just that I want either,” said
Ellie hesitatingly ; “ for I don’t want honors ; just the
other thing, you know. When the King or the Pope

_or anybody of that sort makes a man bring his

books into the market-place and have them burned
because they are dangerous — the way the Inquisition
treated Galileo’s writings.”

“Vou mean a holocaust—a sacrifice in the flames,
of something precious.”

“Ves, that is just what I mean. Now you know I
couldn’t do it if Scottish Chiefs didn’t belong to me —
my very own; that’s the reason why I asked papa
if I might have the books to do with as I pleased.”

“Good for you, little girl! So you are going to
burn up Sir William and the Earl of Mar, Greme,
and little Lord Ruthven, and all their clans, as a sort
of retributive sacrifice, hey? I’m with you heart
and hand, Ellie; because I think it means more than
it appears. It’s a symbol of something deeper and
‘more radical than the mere destroying of a book that
got you into a pretty serious scrape.”

“Ves, that’s just it, Dick.
cently and in order.’ I could throw it into the
kitchen fire, or put it on the back log in the library,
but it wouldn’t be the same.”

“Phew! JI guess not! Did you ever smell
burnt boots? That’s the savor your goodly ancients
would send forth. Think of three leather covers
sending up their fragrance at once! Picture Dinah
if the scene were the kitchen; and papa, if the
funeral pyre were in the library! ‘The offence
were rank.’”

“T didn’t think about that; I only thought it
would be ‘ poetic justice’ to put an end to the dan-
gerous things just on the very spot where the mis-
chief was done. I want you to come with me and
help me build a good fire right in the heart of the

- Lucky it’s Saturday and the morning’s free.

I want to do it ‘de--

ELLIE?S HOLOCAUST,

glade, and then I mean with my own hands to lay my
dear Scottish Chiefs in the-very hottest part of the
flame and watch them burn up. Now you will, Dick,
won’t you?” said Ellie most persuasively.

“Yes, I will, comrade; there’s my hand on’t!
How
soon, fellow-conspirator, will you meet?”

“Right away. That is, as soon as May goes to
sleep; she always has a nap, you know, at ten. I
promised to read Hobé0 Gobo for her this morning.”

“Tis well. Then at the stroke of ten I’ll meet
with thee; and be at all points armed cap-a-pie.”

Dick entered so heartily into the spirit of Ellie’s
holocaust that without waiting for her, he went to the

_ glade and busied himself laying a regular fire-altar,

with broad stones laid together pyramidally. There
was an abundance of dry wood, broken branches, and
dead leaves, to say nothing of spicy pine cones,
and in a halfhour Dick had made a heap large
enough to have consumed an entire library; or, as_
he said, “fit for a Hindoo Suttee with accommoda-
tions for Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego without
crowding.

Punctual at the the time appointed, Ellie appeared
bearing herself quite bravely and holding the dearly
beloved volumes that had proved such sore tempta-
tion to her.

She screamed with delight at her fellow conspira-
tor’s careful preparations, and changed her plan in
detail on the spot.

“T won't wait till the fire burns, Dick. I'll put
them on the altar first like Iphigenia, and then you
can light the fire and we will sit here on the pine-bole
and watch it.”

Was it a silly thing for a girl who had begun on
her teens to do? It doesn’t seem so to me, even
now, looking back through the vista of a quarter of a
century; for there was, as Dick said, something
under it all that gave dignity and worth to the sacri-
fice. Remember Ellie’s passionate love for stories,
her admiration for her Scottish heroes, and the burning
desire she had in common with all imaginative peo-
ple to know how it all turned out. She had so
stepped into that magic world the afternoon before,
that every character in the book was real to her, and

had a special corner in her heart, like friends she had

personally known, and she was deliberately crucify-
ing self in her voluntary sacrifice. It didn’t keep
the tears from coming, nor lessen the pain, but down

in her heart the child felt and knew from that ex-

s
ELLIE’S HOLOCAUST.

perimental knowledge which alone is worth anything
in individual growth, that cost in the best sense
makes value, and that it is only our best that we
have any right to offer up, and hope to be helped
and strengthened in the offering.

Gravely and seriously Ellie went toward the funeral
pyre. She kissed each stubby book as she laid it on
the stone altar, and even Dick did
not laugh at the fast dropping tears.

Then Ellie sat down on the fallen
pine, and Dick drew a’ match and
touched the heap at the four cor-
ners, then came and sat beside El-
lie. First, a thin curl of smoke
struggled through the interstices,
then the pale blue grew darker
and denser, and ruddy tongues of
flame leaped from leaf to twig, the
pine cones glowed and crackled,
the fagots caught the blaze, and in
five minutes the altar of sacrifice
was like a fiery furnace seven times
heated.

The poor dumb things had a
dreadfully live way of curling up
and opening out, as leather will
under fire. They swelled visibly,
Dick said before their final collapse.
He didn’t say anything mocking to
Ellie then; her grief and penitence
were so deep that his boy-heart was
touched. He put his arm round
his little sister, and let her feel the
comfort of his sympathy while the

burning continued.
The squirrels and the birds were

doubtless surprised, and not espe-
cially pleased at the-black, unsavory
cloud of smoke; but the winds of
heaven soon bore it far away, and
Dick heaped on pine cones and fir-
tips full of odorous gum, till the
breeze was as spicy as though it blew soft o’er Cey-
lon’s isle.

The holocaust at last was over: nothing but a few
glowing coals remained to tell the tale. In a few
moments those were black and gray, and not to be

 

203

distinguished from the remains of picnic fires, so
numerous in the woods that one more or less would
never be noticed.

Ellie best knew what she had offered up on the
altar of her own heart there in that greenwood
temple ; but she never forgot it, nor the quiet, silent
walk home with Dick. It was one of the many,

THE HOLOCAUST.— “GRAVELY AND SERIOUSLY.”

many memories that knit so closely those two lives.

Ellie could not speak of it; but it is probable that
Dick told papa, for no one ever asked anything about
the fate of Zhe Scottish Chiefs, or betrayed any
knowledge of Ellie’s holocaust.
204

CARYL’S PLUM.

CARYL’S PLUM.

By MARGARET SIDNEY,

“He put in his thumb
And pulled out a plum.”
O sang Caryl over the stairs.

“ Now if Ze pulled out a plum, why shouldn’t
she?” she said to herself, halting a bit by the landing
window. “Anda good big plum too—nice and
juicy. O, aunt Sylvia, aunt Sylvia!”

She fairly hugged herself in glee, then drew one
long breath and dashed on to her own poor little room.

“Oh, you here, Viny?”-she exclaimed in surprise
as she flung open the door.

A small figure rose to a perpendicular position in
front of the old bureau, while a shoving-to of the under
drawer proclaimed some attention having been paid
to the pretty laces, ribbons, and various other adorn-
ments packed away for safe keeping.

Caryl remembered leaving the key in the drawer
after taking out a bit of lavender ribbon the night
before for aunt Sylvia’s cap.

‘“ What have you been doing?” she asked sharply;
and taking hold of the small wiry shoulder, she
looked down into a little- black face whose eyes
were staring solemnly into the farthest corner of the
room, .
“Ben doin’?” repeated Viny, scared almost to
death inwardly, but preserving a cool exterior.
“ Nothin’, only shettin’ the draw’; plaguey thing
wouldn’t stay put. Tore my dress,” she added
mumblingly to fill out the pause.

“Where?” said Caryl, looking sharply at her.

“Dar,” said Viny, with a violent twist, so that she
could compass the back breadths of her blue ging-
ham frock, and she pointed abruptly to a cat-a-corn-
ered rent. ;

“Oh, no, you didn’t,” contradicted Caryl, looking
her through and through, and giving her a small
shake, “tear that either; I heard Maum Patty scold
you yesterday for letting Jip bite it and snip out a
piece.”

“Well, somefin tore,” said Viny.
tis, but it’s somewhars.
Miss Ca.”

“Tl lock, and lock, and lock,” declared the young

“T donno whar
A mighty smart tare, too,

girl, now down on her knees before her precious
drawer, “before I run the chance of your rummaging
fingers getting here again. Now then, Viny!”

“Yes’m,” said the little black girl obsequiously,
and rolling her eyes to all quarters; “ Oh, yes’m!”

“We are going to move, Viny,” said her young
mistress, taking the key out of its lock, and turning
her back on drawer and contents, to sit on the floor
with hands folded in her lap while she watched. the
effect of her words.

“ Move?” echoed Viny with a start; “Oh, lawks!
whatever’s dat, Miss?”

“Why, go to a new place,” said Caryl, laughing in
spite of herself. ‘For mercy’s sake, child, do take
your eyes in! It'll be very fine, Viny, oh, so fine!”
she cried enthusiastically.

“ An’ lib here nebber no mo’?” cried the little
black figure in a shrill scream; “ wot, an’ hev no leaky
sink dat keps me a-swashin’ an’ a-swashin’, an’ no ole
ruf dat lets in hull buckets full o’ water onter de bed,
an’? — -

“No,” said Caryl, interrupting the steady stream
of invective against the old house, “ everything’s to
be as new and nice and neat as a pin, Viny—sinks
and everything else; you can’t begin to think how

splendid it’s to be!”

“Tm goin’ to tell gramma,” cried Viny, wholly off
her balance, “dis berry same minnit. Lawks! but
won't she be tickled to leave the ole shell! Den I’ll
git my bunnet an’ go wid yer, Miss Ca, in tree shakes
of a lobster’s whisker !”

She scampered in the greatest excitement to the
door, when a detaining pull on the end of her long
apron, brought her to a full stop.

“You crazy child!” exclaimed Caryl, bursting
into a laugh and holding her fast. “We can’t go this
moment, no matter how bad the old house is. Listen, -
Viny!”

But the small figure flung itself into a heap on the
floor so suddenly that she nearly pulled her young
mistress with her, while the little black hands clapped
themselves over the bead-like eyes, wail after wail of
disappointment making the room to ring,
CARYL’S PLUM.

“Will you stop /” cried Caryl in perfect despair.
“ Aunt Sylvia’s head will snap with your noise! If
you don’t stop crying, Viny, you sha’n’t go when the
rest of us are ready to move, so there, now.”

Threats had the power to do what nothing else
could. Viny wiped off all the tears on the backs of
_ her grimy little paws, gave two or three concluding
sniffs, sat up straight, and was immediately all right
for further developments,

“Now then”—Caryl pointed off her sentences
briskly on the tips of her rosy fingers—‘“ you must
try to help—well, an awful great deal, Viny, yourself,
or else it can’t be a moving for any single one of us.”

Viny’s eyes widened fearfully, but she didn’t stir.

“ Tf you will take care— mind ! splendid care of aunt
Sylvia every morning, ” said Caryl slowly and with
extreme empressement —“watch and get her every-
thing she wants, not wait for her to ask for anything,
then I can go off down street and make lots and lots
of money, Viny. Think of that; lots and lots! Then
we can move, and aunt Sylvia will maybe get well.”

Caryl’s gray eyes were only a thought less big
than those of her small black audience, who presently
caught the infectious enthusiasm and emitted several
lusty crows. 2

“ Jiminy —oh, I didn’t say it —I didn’t—I didn’t!
O Jiminy, I didn’t —I didn’t—O Jiminy, l’—

“Stop saying it, then,” exclaimed her young mis-
tress decidedly, and enforcing her words by a vigor-
ous shake.

“Oh, I didn’t—I will—O Jiminy ! yes, I will!”
cried the little black delinquent, the full tide of orig-
inal sin taking an unfair advantage of her excitement
to engulf her. “Oh—er—oh— er-r—

Caryl came to her rescue by giving her a new idea.

“See how splendid you can be, Viny dear,” she
said kindly.
so that part of the new home will be of your getting;
for I never could have the chance to earn anything if
you didn’t take my place and be aunt Sylvia’s nurse.”

“J know how,” said Viny, perfectly overcome
with the “ greatness thrust upon ” her; “it’s to slip
crickets under her feet to put her toes onter. I'll
slip ’em all day. An’ it’s to wipe her specs, an’ to
say yes, no, an’ to ”—

“To be good,” finished Caryl solemnly; “ that
comprehends the whole business. ”

“To be good,” repeated the small nurse yet more
solemnly, “an’ to compren’ the whole bus’ness; I
will.”

“You can be such a good little helper, -

205

“You are a ridiculous child,” cried Caryl impa-
tiently; “I don’t really suppose you are fit to be
trusted, but then, it’s the only thing to try.”

Viny having been duly elected to office, consid-
ered her honors settled, so she was little disturbed
by any opinions that might be held concerning her.
Therefore she squatted and wriggled in great delight,

 

CARYL GOES TO WIN HER FORTUNE,

grinning at every word that fell from her young
mistress’ lips.

“You see, Viny, ” Caryl was saying, beginning on
her confidence, “ I’ve got an order to teach the little
Grant girls how to paint, and if I can run down there
two hours every morning, I’m to have twenty-five
dollars, and Madam Grant is going to give it to me
in advance; that is, after the first quarter. Think,
Viny, ¢wenty/ive dollars! That's what we want to
move with, into Heart’s Delight!”

This was the up-stairs southwest corner of a little
cottage that for a year or more had. been the desidera-
206

tum of the young girl’s highest hopes that had to wear
themselves out in empty longings, the invalid’s scanty
exchequer only sufficing for doctor's bills and similar
luxuries. They had lived in the old house now for
many a twelvemonth, along with several other broken-
down lodgers whose slender means compelled them
to call this place “ home” — this place where never
a bit of sunshine seemed to come; where even the
birds hated to stop for a song as they flew merrily
over the treetops. And no wonder. ‘The trees
were scragey, loppy old things hanging down in dis-
mal sweep over the leaky roof and damp walls.
They had to stay, and the lodgers, but the birds
and the sunshine tossed off.the whole responsibility
of life in such a gloomy old home, and flitted to
gayer quarters. But now, what if Heart’s Delight
could really be theirs ! ‘

“ Yer goin’ ter tell ’em how to paint dem tings yer
daub?” broke in Viny, and snapping off this delight-
ful thought.

“You shouldn’t speak so, child,” said Caryl with
the greatest dignity; “it’s very fine work, and you
couldn’t possibly understand it. It’s art, Viny.”

“Ho, ho!” laughed the small black figure,
nowise impressed, and cramming her stumpy fingers
up to her mouth to keep the laugh in as she saw her
young mistress’ displeasure. “ It’s an awful old dirty
muss, an’ I wish I could do it,” she added under her
breath.

“And I shall begin to-morrow, ” declared Caryl
with still greater dignity, and drawing herself to her
full height. ‘ Aunt Sylvia says she’ll try you. Now
you'll be good, won’t you?” she added anxiously.
“It’s only for two hours a day, Viny.”

“Tl be good,” declared Viny, “’strue’s I live an’
breeve.” Meanwhile the darkest of plans ran riot
in her little black head.

“ Heart’s Delight — Heart’s Delight!” sang Caryl’s
happy voice all that day; and like St. Patrick’s poor
imprisoned snake, she began to feel that to-morrow
would never come.

But hours come and go, and -Caryl awoke the
next morning, the brightest, cheeriest morning that
ever called a happy girl out of bed.

“Aunt Sylvia won’t have many more days in that
dark little room of hers, ” she cried to herself, throw-
ing on her clothes rapidly. “ O, dear, where ave the
pins? I can’t bear to wait a minute any more than
Viny, when I think of that dear lovely nest, and the

CARYL’S PLUM.

bay-window, and all that sunshine. I'll always have
it full of flowers, and the bird shall sing all the time,

and —and—and ”—

The rest was lost in a dash of cold water over the
rosy face, and Caryl soon presented herself at her
aunt’s bedside.

“Tl do well enough while you are gone,” said
her aunt, smiling up from the pillows into the bright -
face above hers. ‘“ Now you’re not to worry about
me in the least, for you cannot do justice to yourself
if your mind is troubled. Remember, Caryl, and be
thorough in your efforts to teach your little pupils. ”

“And Madam Grant is going to buy some of my
panels and little plaques, I almost know,” cried
Caryl, bustling around for her aunt’s long woollen
wrapper and her day slippers, ‘‘for she told me she
should want to see them some time. Then auntie—
oh, then!” :

The young girl in her eagerness climbed upon the
old bed to lay her fresh young cheek against the pale.
thin one. How she longed to put brightness into the
poor invalid’s life!

“ Remember, ” said aunt Sylvia lightly, to hiae the
tears in her voice, “‘ your fortune’s to be made. Only
be prompt and thorough, and put your whole mind to
your work. That is the secret of success.”

“TJ will, auntie, oh, I w2i7/” cried Caryl happily,
“and Viny will do well, I guess,” she added, the
gleeful tones dropping down with an anxious note.

“Viny will prove a capital little nurse, I expect,”
said Miss Sylvia cheerfully; “now the day won’t
wait, Caryl, so get your old auntie up.”

“My old auntie is just /ovely,” cried the girl,
hopping off from the bed, and flying around merrily,
well pleased at last when the invalid was in her
chair, to see a little faint, pink color stealing up the
wan cheek.

“The best cap, aunt Sylvia—the best cap!” she
cried, running for the one with the fresh lavender
ribbons.

“What an extravagant puss exclaimed aunt
Sylvia, willing to humor the gay little heart, and
tapping her cheek as the young girl settled the cap
on the lovely gray hair.

“ Everything must be best to-day,” cried Caryl
recklessly. “It’s all fresh and new and fine! All
the world is made just for us.”

Maum Patty saw Caryl run down the dirty little
brick path that served for all the lodgers in the old
house as a walk to the broken-down gate, with her

$9?
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER THE SMALL FLYING FIGURE,

207
208

color-box under her arm, and her little roll of pictures
in her hand, and heaved a sigh from her ample
bosom.

“ Dat chile can’t make no fortin’ like she’s a-tinkin’
of, but laws! let her try. Here, yer Viny, yer, be
off up to de Missis’ room. Scatnow! De pore lettle
lamb,” she mourned, as her hopeful grandchild un-
willingly dragged her recreant feet off to her duties,
leaving her grandmother to pursue her reflections in
peace, “it mos’ busts my heart to see her a-workin’
an’ de Missis keepin’ up an’ pretendin’ she’s as fine as
a queen. *Twarn’t so in ole Patty’s day. Den dar
wos plenty—pies andturkies. Lors, what stumpers!
An’ hull bar’Is 0’ flour, an’ sugar, an’ a creation sight
of eberyting in de beyeutiful house, an’ now look at
dis ole shell!”

Maum Patty tossed her turban in intense scorn at
each of the dark soot-begrimed walls of the place
called kitchen.

“‘ Missis ud feel more like folks,” she said at each
disdainful scrutiny, ‘an’ like as not git well, ef we
cud cut sticks inter anudder home. Ef de chile only
cud do it!”

She peered anxiously down the dirty little brick
walk again, then fetched a still longer sigh.

“TJ don’t darst to!” she declared in a mighty
burst at last. “I don’t, cos wot ud keep us all from
the pore’us den. It’s every speck I kin do ter
keep along of de Miss an’ Car’l an’ take keer of ’em
wi’dout a cent o’ pay; I don’t darst tech my stockin’
bag in de bank.”

Maum Patty always spoke of her scanty savings
deposited in the neighboring bank, in this way, fondly
supposing them in the original condition in which ten
years ago, she had taken them there for a future
shield against sickness and old age.

Meantime the little black nurse had begun her
work.

Peering around Miss Sylvia’s half-closed door,
Viny exclaimed to herself “ Umph! she don’t want
me; guess she’s a-readin’ now. I'll git'inter Miss Ca’s
room an’ try on all her clo’es an’ pertend I’m makin’
calls, an’ peek inter ebery single place whar I kin,
an’ I'll be a lady, an’ dar sha’n’t no one scold Viny.”

“ Viny,” called Miss Sylvia’s soft voice, hearing a
rustle at the door.

“Dat’s Jip she’s a-talkin’ ter, I reckin,” said Viny,
stealing off on her tiptoes down the hall, and stick-
ing her fingers in her ears that she might hear no
more troublesome conscience calls; “I seen him on

CARYL’S PLUM,

de rug when I peeked in de crack, Now den—
Whoop, says I, Whoop /”

She was safe now in Caryl’s room, where the first
thing she did was to indulge in a series of somer-
saults over the floor, and also, for variety, over the
neat little white bed. These afforded ler intense
comfort. When she came up bright and shining
after this celebration of her independence, she
drew herself up with a serious face and proceeded
at once to stern business.

“Two hours ain’t long,” she observed wisely, “ an’
I mus’ be back some of de time. Jiminy! she’s
forgot de key agin!”

In truth, Caryl in her great excitement of hunting
for some pictures packed away in her precious
drawer, had forgotten to pocket the key that pro-
tected her few treasures.

Ruthlessly, then, they were pulled out and over-
hauled, while Viny revelled in each new discovery,
chattering softly to herself in glee. She tied on all
the bright bits of ribbons she could lay her hands on,
to the little tiny tails adorning her head. She
twisted with great difficulty into a delicate white
spenser that Caryl’s mother had worn when a girl,
saved for its tender reminiscence, and for the soft,
fine old lace that would be of use to the young
daughter by and by. Viny was nowise disturbed in
her enjoyment at certain ominous crackings and
creakings that proclaimed the giving way of the deli-
cate material. Arrayed at last to her satisfaction,
although the lace did hang down in some shreds
where her impatient fingers had clutched it, she
whirled and whirled in front of the old-fashioned
glass with many grimaces, trying the effect of her new
costume.

“J want sumfin to shine,” she said at last, tired of
this; “jew-a/lery an’ stuns. Le’s' see ef she’s got
any.”

Now in one corner of Caryl’s drawer, was a small
black box; unfortunately, the lock was broken in
childhood, and there had been no money to spare for —
repairs of anything of that sort, so she had tied it
securely with the strongest of twine, and written on
the cover in big schoolgirl hand the words, “ Don’r
ANY ONE DARE To ToucH!” Although Viny was
unable to decipher the writing in the least, it was fun
enough to attack the string, which presently suc-
cumbed to the violent onslaught of tooth and nail,
and the precious, precious bits of brightness were
soon at the mercy of the little black fingers.
 

 

CARYL’S PLUM.

Maum Patty was droning away in the kitchen
some old Methodist hymns. Viny was dimly con-
scious of a faint call from the invalid’s room as she
drew out in the utmost delight, an old-fashioned
brooch with a green centre around which were some
little sparkling things. :

She couldn’t even say “Jiminy!” but simply held
‘the pretty thing which seemed glad of its freedom
from solitary confinement, and thus delighted to
sparkle more than ever in its resting-place in the little
dlack hand. With trembling fingers she fastened it
into the centre of the lace spenser, above her naughty
little bosom, hurrying to the glass to do so, and had
just taken one look, when a low cry of
distress struck upon her ear.

It filled her whole soul with dismay,

_ rooting her like a little frozen thing to
the spot. It was Miss Sylvia, she knew.

With one mighty effort she tore her-

' self from the spot, and rushed headlong
into the hall, “Oh—oh—ok/” came
from the invalid’s room.

At that Viny wrung her hands and
writhed in dire distress.

“* She’s a-dyin’!”’ she gasped, her knees
knocking together in a lively manner;
“T don’t darst to look —I don’t!—
Uve killed her!” And the whole flood
_ of remorse sweeping her very soul, she

‘turned and scuttled down the crooked -
little stairs and into the street,

“A doctor!” was all her thought. She
remembered hearing Caryl say he lived
in a big brown house that had lots of
flowers in the windows, But where upon
the face of the earth the house was
situated, Viny knew no more than a bird.
However, she must get him, so she
dashed blindly on, turning the first cor-
ner to run headlong into the arms of a
portly old lady who was placidly enjoy-
ing the fresh air and sunshine at the
same time that she displayed her rich
street attire.

“Oh, my goodness!” cried the old lady, startled
out of all fine speeches by the coilision, and jumping
in fright to the extreme edge of the curbstone. Then
seeing the cause, she cried in anger, “You misera-
ble, dirty little thing you, you’ve nearly killed me!”

At the word “killed,” Viny began to dance in

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

209

terror on the sidewalk. “TI know it,” she cried, “oh
dear, I know it! she’s dead, an’ grandma ’ll beat
me.”

“ And if you don’t know any better,” cried the old
lady, vainly trying to settle her gray puffs as they
were before, “than to run into people in this way,
Pll have you arrested, I will!”

At this, Viny was completely overcome. Her guilty
conscience pictured all sorts of punishments; worse,
far worse, than “ grandma’s ” judgements, and, fall-
ing on her knees, she grasped the old lady’s black
satin gown and implored for mercy,

The old lady, now her attention was drawn off from

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“HE SHUCK IT, AN’ SHUCK IT!”

her own annoyance, settled her eyes on the brooch
half concealed by a fold of the little lace spenser.
“You wicked, bad child!” she exclaimed, seizing
her arm and pouncing one stifly gloved hand on the
sparkling brooch; “you’ve stolen that! It’s bad
enough to be run into by a dirty little thing fresh
210

from Bedlam, without being wicked into the bargain.
That’s 4eo much !”

The little black figure being too wretched to hear
this tirade, could only mumble and wail and wriggle
closer and closer into the folds of the rich gown.

“Get out of my dress!” cried the old lady excit--

 

“YES, VINY, I SHALL HAVE TO FORGIVE you!”

edly. “ Here, I’ll call the police, if you don’t let go
of me this instant! Stop, I say! Po-o-lice!”

Viny gave one violent jerk that brought her up
to her feet, and with eyes distended in terror,
started in wild despair across the street. A pair
of handsome bays were coming in their best step
down from the Square, drawing a carriage full of
people who seemed in the very best of spirits.

“ Whoa-a!” A click, a rapid pull-up with all
Thomas’ best strength, and the horses fell back on
their haunches just in time for the little lithe figure
to dart under their pawing hoofs and be saved!
Everybody leaned out of the carriage for a glimpse
of the child.

“ Why— why” — A young girl’s face paled, while
the gray eyes flashed, and with one spring she was

CAR YL’S PLUM.

out and rushing after the small flying figure who in
her fright had turned to flee the other way.

“Look out, Caryl!” called the others in the car-
riage after her. .

“Oh, she'll be killed,” moaned a little girl leaning
out as far as she dared over the wheels.

“And then she can’t ever get into the pretty new
house,” wailed another. “Oh, what shall we do!
Come back, Bessie!” she cried, tugging at her sister’s
skirts. ‘‘Grandmamma, make her come into the
carriage, I can’t hold her!”

But a crowd of people surging up around them at
this moment, took off all attention from Bessie and
everybody else but the little fugitive and her kind
pursuer. Caryl made her way through the crowd
with flushed face, her little brown hat hanging by its
strings around her neck, pantingly dragging after her

’ the little black girl.

“Tt’s our Viny,” she said, “and something is the
matter with aunt Sylvia! O, Madam Grant!”

“My poor child,” said a sweet-faced woman, reach-
ing out a kind arm, while the children seized hold of
Caryl at every available point, between them drag-
ging her and her charge into shelter, “don’t be
troubled. Drive just as fast as you can, Thomas, to
No. 27, you know,” she commanded hurriedly.

Then the first thing Caryl did was to turn upon
Viny and unhook the precious brooch as a low sob
came from her white lips. “ If it had been lost!”

A soft hand stole under the little brown cloak to
clasp her own; but Madam Grant said never a word.
She knew that the young girl’s heart was too full for
speech; that the mother’s brooch would speak more
tenderly than ever she could, of forgiveness to the
little ignorant black girl.

The children were all eyes at Viny and her costume,
but they said never a word while she howled on
steadily, only ejaculating in an occasional gust, “O
Miss Sylvy — Miss Sylvy !”

Caryl, white as a sheet, rushed out of the carriage
and into the old lodging house the instant the horses
paused by the broken gate. Maum Patty was sing-
ing in the little kitchen the refrain she never indulged
in except in her most complacent moods, Flinging
wide the door, Caryl panted out, “Oh, what is it!.
Tell me at once!” .

“Lawks!” exclaimed Maum Patty, startled from
her peaceful enjoyment, and turning so suddenly in
the old calico-covered chair that she sent her spec-
tacles spinning into the middle of the floor. ‘“ Massy,
 

EARLY TO SCHOOL.

how yer look! Tain’t wurth it—don’t! He hain’t
spile’t it; I stopped him,” she added exultingly.

“ Stopped what ?” echoed Caryl in bewildered dis-
tress. “Oh, do tell me! Isn’t aunt Sylvia sick?
Tell me, Maum Patty,” she pleaded. And she
grasped the old woman’s arm in an agony.

“Massy, no!” declared Maum Patty in her most
cheery tones, “she’s ben a-laughin’ fit to kill herself,
an’ I don’t wonder, for the little rascal looked as
cunnin’ as animp, But I stopped him—I stopped
him !”’ she added triumphantly.

Caryl had no strength to ask further, nor to stir,
The reaction was too great, and she leaned up
against the door for support.

“ Fle shuck it, an’ shuck it,” said the old woman,
laughing immoderately. “ Laws, how he shuck it—
dat Jip did—yer aunt’s beyewtiful cap with the new
puppel ribbons! Ye see it tumbled off; I dunno
wedder she sneezed, or wot she did, but anyway, it
tumbled off on de flo’, and dat little pison scamp
jumped up from his rug an’ cotched it, an’ she
a-callin’ an a-callin’ fit ter die —I’ll snake dat Viny
w’en I gets her.—Lawks, but I couldn’t help it! I

 

ak

laughed till I cried to see dat dog carryon. Lucky I
run up just when I did to pay my ‘specks to de
Missis, for—I stopped him, I stopped him,” she
brought herself up to declare, wiping her eyes.

“Viny,” said Caryl, in her little room, an hour
after, when everything had been confessed and for-
given; when the delightful story had all come out,
how they were really and truly to move that very
afternoon ; how Madam Grant had paid the rent in
advance for the sunny rooms in the little cottage, and
they were just driving around to surprise aunt Sylvia
when they witnessed Viny’s escapade; how the car-
riage was to come before very long to take dear aunt
Sylvia to her longed-for refuge ; how the price of the
lessons was to go for new furniture ; how everything
for the rest of their lives was to be cheery, winsome
and bright to the very last degree — when it was all
finished, Caryl looked kindly down into the sorry
little black face —“ yes, Viny,” she said with the
happiest little laugh, “I shall have to forgive you, for
it’s the last naughty thing that you will ever do in

the old home.” © z
212

 

 

I DO NOT KNOW WHAT I WAS PLAYING,
OR WHAT 1 WAS DREAMING THEN,

 
THE LOST CHORD.

THE LOST CHORD,

By ANNE ADELAIDE PROCTER.

EATED one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

I do not know what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then ;

But I struck one chord of music
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight

Like the close of an angel’s psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit

With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife ;

 

 

 

It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexed meanings
Into one perfect peace,

And trembled away into silence
As if it were loath to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,

That came from the soul of the organ
And entered into mine.

It may be that death’s bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in heaven
I shall hear that grand amen,

213

— from Miss Procter's Poems.

 

 

 

 

 

 
214 : PAUL REVERE’S RIDE.

PAUL REVERE’S RIDE.

fom, my children, and you shall hear
ew Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,

On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:

Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said-to his friend — “If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-arch

Of the North-Church tower, as a signal-light—
One if by land, and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm,

For the country-folk to be up and to arm.”

Then he said good-night, and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,

Just as the moon rose over the bay,

Where swinging wide at her moorings lay

The Somerset, British man-of-war:

A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon, like a prison-bar,

And a huge, black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and street
Wanders and watches with eager ears,

Till in the silence around him he hears

The muster of men at the barrack-door,

The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,

And the measured tread of the grenadiers
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed to the tower of the church,
Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry-chamber over-head,

And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade —

Up the light ladder, slender and tall,

To the highest window in the wall,

Where he paused to listen and look down

A moment on the roofs of the quiet town,
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the church-yard, lay the dead
In their night-encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still,
That he could hear, like a sentinel’s tread
The watchful night-wind as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,

And seeming to whisper, “All is well! ”
A moment only he feels the spell

Of the place and the hour, the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;

- For suddenly all his thoughts are bent

On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay—
A line of black, that bends and floats

On the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse’s side,

Now gazed on the landscape far and near,
Then impetuous stamped the earth,

And tumed and tightened his saddle-girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry-tower of the old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely, and spectral, and sombre, and still.

And lo! as he looks, on the belfry’s height,
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!

He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,

A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,

And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a spark

Struck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:

That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the
light,

The fate of a nation was riding that night;

And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,

Kindled the land into flame with its heat.

It was twelve by the village-clock,

When he crossed the bridge into Medford town,
He heard the crowing of the cock,

And the barking of the farmer’s dog,

And felt the damp of the river-fog,

That rises when the sun goes down.

It was one by the village-clock,

When he rode into Lexington.

He saw the gilded weathercock

Swim in the moonlight as he passed,

And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,
Gaze at him with a spectral glare,

As if they already stood aghast

At the bloody work they would look upon.

It was two by the village-clock,

When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the fiock,

And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning-breeze
Blowing over the meadows brown.

And one was safe and asleep in his bed

Who at the bridge would be first to fall,

Who that day would be lying dead,

Pierced by a British musket-ball.
PAUL REVERE’S RIDE. 215

 

“SO THROUGH THE NIGHT RODE PAUL REVERE}

AND SO THROUGH THE NIGHT WENT HIS CRY OF ALARM
TO EVERY MIDDLESEX VILLAGE AND FARM—

A CRY OF DEFIANCE, AND NOT OF FEAR.”

‘You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British regulars fired and fled —

How the farmers gave them ball for ball,

From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,
Chasing the red-coats down the lane,

Then crossing the fields to emerge again

Under the trees at the turn of the road, In the hour of darkness, and peril, and need,
And only pausing to fire and load. The people will waken and listen to hear
Bo through the night rode Paul Revere; The hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,
And so through the night went his cry of alarm And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW,

To every Middlesex village and farm —

A cry of defiance, and not of fear —

A voice in the darkness, g knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,

0 SoG 0- ——
ord

216

BOBETTE.

BOBETTE,

By Mary M. Epmunps.

—

     
 
 

| TLLESPIE’S TOWER is a

gloomy old building standing
guard, apparently, over the scattered
houses of a fishing hamlet which lies below,
close in under the shelter of the cliffs. At low tide
there is a long flat stretch of sand before it, and the
broad ocean beyond. Only the lover of wild bleak
pasture lands, straight cliffs, and a cold, restless sea,
could find any attraction in the view; yet there are
those who love its very grayness and unbounded
breath.

The house is more like fortress than dwelling, with

massive walls and narrow slit-like windows; but
there is one grand outlook from the landing of the
staircase, and this was evidently appreciated, as the
dark polished cherry of the window-seat bore many
scratches from long buttoned aprons and small hob-
nailed ‘shoes,

At this moment a child was slowly climbing the stair-
case. toward her favorite nook. The window was just
broad enough for her to sit with her little feet straight
out before her, and to place her doll bolt upright with
her back against the wall. They sat there face to
face, the large wax doll dressed in baby clothes, and —
wrapped in a white capuchin, or long cape, and peaked
hood, which stood up very erect on her head; the
child as motionless as her companion, her hands
clasped over her white apron, and only the hem of
her short black dress showing below. Her dark hair
was drawn back with a round comb and hung down
her back in heavy braids. Her eyes too were dark
and very clear, and were resting thoughtfully on the
tossing sea. A stiff gale was blowing from off shore,
and as the tide crept in the waves were caught and
buffeted about and almost driven back over the
sands. There was a great white ship in the offing,
its masts and sails in strange foreshortened angles as
it beat up against the wind. It seemed more like
some phantom than anything earthly and filled with
life.

The beach below was deserted; the fishing boats
were out in spite of the storm, the babies all safe at
home with their mothers, and the children at school
—and Bobette sat on alone and idle, and gazed at
the white wing-like sails and the sea.

Presently she sighed and turned her head. The
hall below, too, looked dark and solitary ; there was
not a sound in the house. She glanced at the doll sit-
ting opposite her; the blue eyes gazed back at her
blankly; there was no sympathy in the waxen face.

Bobette’s eyes wandered back to the ocean, and
she gave a long, deep sigh. Her eyelashes rose and
fell more and more slowly, and even rested for an
instant now and then on her cheek; but she roused
herself presently, rearranged dolly’s curls and peaked
BOBETTE.

cap, then slid down from her seat and _ slowly
descended the stairs. She crept on tiptoe across the
silent hall and into the dining-room, and stood doubt-
ful, for an instant, before the great mahogany side-
board. On it was a plate heaped high with square
chunks of gingerbread, and a silver basket of fruit;
but Bobette passed on through a parlor where the
shutters were closed and the curtains drawn. Beyond
was a sleeping room, and into this Bobette looked
from the door.

On a sofa lay a woman asleep, her long fair hair
hanging off over the cushions.to the floor. Her black
dress was very long and clung closely to her, and one
blue-veined hand was pressed on the wet handker-
chiefs bound round her head.

Bobette did not fancy the heavy aromatic odors which
filled the room, and she beat a noiseless retreat.
She was never at a loss for resources; but that they
were at times somewhat questionable, was evident
when, ten minutes later, she cautiously opened the
door of a great square room in the second story of
the tower, and peeped down through the oak railing
of the staircase ; a long skirt of brilliant rose-colored
silk rustled softly over the waxed floor, an exquisite
blue crépe shawl folded round the small shoulders was
tied in a hard knot behind and fell gracefully over
the train, and above the bright mischievous face was
an elaborate widow’s cap with long floating ends.

The way was still clear. Bobette lost no time in
escaping from the house and getting down the stone
steps to the beach as fast as her small size and the
rose-colored train would allow.

She went directly toward a small wooden house
standing quite alone, and climbed upon a ledge of
rock beside it, thus reaching the level of an open
window.

She looked in for a moment, then leaned her short
plump arms upon the sill and put her head inside.

The room was filled with rows of desks and
benches and sturdy-looking boys and girls. ‘The
teacher was standing at the blackboard on the small
raised platform. A rustle increasing to general con-
fusion made her turn in surprise.

“Why, Bobette!” she cried, her eyes sparkling
with amusement, “what in the world are you doing
there?”

Bobette was only too glad to get into conversation.
She replied politely :

“How do you do? What I’m doing is watching
Harvey. He’s making the rudder for our ship.”

217

This raised a shout of laughter, and all eyes turned
toward a fine-looking boy whose seat was directly in
front of Bobette.

“Well, Bobette,” the teacher said kindly, “you
see you are disturbing us now; we are not accus-
tomed to such gay little visitors. Get down and run
away.”

“But I must speak to Harvey! Ican’t go away till
I do that,” said Bobette.

“ Harvey, you may go to the door for two minutes
to see what Bobette wants,” said the teacher dis-
creetly.

When Harvey appeared outside, he gave a low
whistle of surprise; but Bobette welcomed him rapt-
urously. ‘ Harvey!” she cried enthusiastically,
“when are we going to sail that ship? Now?”

“This is schooltime, Bobette !”

“But let’s go now, Harvey —they couldn’t catch us,
and I’m lonely to-day. I couldn’t stay at home,
though I thought about what you said. I did try to
be good. But I should die if I tried any more, and
what would you do then,
Harvey? Wouldn’t you
be sorry you said I
phase a MATE

The boy was four
years older than Bob-
ette; he smiled a little,
then unclapsed her
hands which were tight-
ly holding his.

*“Poor Bobette!
We'll go to the pond and
sail our boat to-night.
Where’ll you be? Are
you going home now?”
asked the boy.

“Oh, no!” the child
said decidedly; “no-
body knows where I am!
Mamma was asleep, and
Betsey up in her room,
and Anthony was out.”

When Bobette was left
alone she wandered on,
her head turned to watch
her sweeping skirts. She was passing the littie
weather-beaten stone church when she ran against
the rector, and both stopped in bewilderment.

Mr. Abert was a quiet, scholarly little man, with a

=| be
[7 HE
| eS

 

THE WAY WAS CLEAR,
218

clear pale face, and kindly, very nearsighted eyes.

He had been reading as he walked and did not at
first recognize in this gay apparition his small friend
Bobette;, but there was no mistaking her merry laugh.
After a few explanations, Bobette slipped her hand
into his, and they walked gravely away together to
the rectory.

Bobette established herself in a deep arm-chair by
the table, and looked over the great illustrated Don
Quixote for the fiftieth time, while Mr. Abert was
writing.

“Come, now, Bobette,” said he, when at last his
letters were sealed and stamped, “let us go out, for I

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

BOBETTE.

“ And now it is over three years!” said the rector
absently, after a pause.

“Yes, three years,” repeated Bobette; “I cannot
do it any more years. You don’t know, so you think
me a very naughty girl. But see how it is. This
morning, when I was fast asleep in the dark, mamma
came into my room and said it was dear papa’s day,
and I must jump up quick and not wait for Betsey.
And my bath was so cold it frightened me awake.
Mamma was crying, and that made her pull my hair
and tangle it with the comb. Then the chapel was
so dark and lonely! While I knelt there beside
mamma, I saw a wee fairy, all in white, playing under

 

“MAN,” SHE CALLED SUDDENLY, “COME BACK!”

think the sun is going to shine. How is mamma
to-day?”

“Oh, mamma” — the child began doubtfully; “you
know this is a very bad day for us. Mamma is not
ever well on this day.”

“Not well?” Mr. Abert repeated, stopping short at
the garden gate. “Perhaps I had better step up
and see her?” f

“Oh, no!” cried Bobette ; “don’t you know what
day this is?”

The rector looked puzzled: “This is Thursday, I
believe.”

“ Ah,” said Bobette, shaking her head impatiently,
“it’s papa’s death’s day— the day when he didn’t
come home. I hate it!” the child cried passionately ;
“TY wish papa had not gone away! I do!”

the curtain at the door, and when mamma prayed
that papa would come home again, and not be dead,
I screamed, because then the fairy became a ghost.
Betsey said it would come if I did the least wrong
thing. That frightened mamma, and I had to eat my
bread and milk alone, because we must fast all to-day.”

“But did you pray too, Bobette?” asked the rec-
tor, looking thoughtfully at the child.

“Yes; I prayed God to please bless papa, and
take good care of him if he is alive, and if he is in
Heaven to please make us forget about him and not
be sad any more. Mamma read prayers in the chapel
with Betsey and Anthony too—then she fainted
away, so we stopped.”

Bobette wound up her lengthy recital in the most
matter-of-fact tone.

 
BOBETTE,

They had now seated themselves on a piece of
driftwood under the shelter of an old boat.

“But,” said Bobette, “it was very nice that she
fainted, for Betsey said it was the best thing she
could do, and she’s asleep now. Look, there comes
aman!”

A stranger, an extremely tall, finely built man, with
a face almost hidden by thick, but closely cut whiskers,
was making his way toward them from the promon-
tory which separated this beach from the large harbor
beyond. He gave an amused glance at the small
grotesque rose-colored figure in its widow’s cap, sit-
ting beside the clergyman as he passed; and on
second thought he stopped and turned back.

“You don’t often have these hard gales off the
land, I fancy?” he said inquiringly. His voice had
a pleasant hearty ring.

“Not often, but this has lasted some time,” Mr.
Abert replied.

“Indeed? I hope it will blow itself out by sunset.
You’ve found a nice cosey shelter for a seat. Whose
child are you, gay little gypsy?”

Bobette surveyed him reflectively. Of this form
of address she did not approve. She replied pres-
ently, with quiet composure: ~

“Child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of
heaven.”

The stranger’s great black eyes opened wide in
astonishment; then he gave an odd little laugh.

“But how is it about the pomps and vanity of this
wicked world?” he asked slyly. “ Has not that part
of your education been a little bit neglected? Eh?”

Bobette looked slightly taken aback.

“Never mind, my dear,” the stranger went on
quickly. “ You probably follow the edifying example
of King Solomon arrayed in all his glory —I doubt
if he was as picturesque in the general effect.”

Bobette ventured no reply.

“Would you favor your humble admirer with a
kiss?” he asked, bending towards her with an amused
smile.

Bobette drew back haughtily towards her friend,
“No, I would not,” she replied.

The stranger’s smile vanished. “Is this your little
daughter?” he asked of the rector.

“No; it is the daughter of Godfrey Gillespie who
was lost at sea some years ago —before I came to
this parish,” the rector replied somewhat stiffly.

“Ah, indeed,” said the stranger.

He turned away and walked on. Bobette raised

219

her head from Mr. Abert’s shoulder where she had
hidden it, and looked after him.

“Man,” she called suddenly, “come back !”

At this imperative command, he looked round,
smiled slightly, and obeyed. Bobette stood erect,
with one little hand stretched out toward him, an
expression of resolution in her face, her cap strings
flying in the wind.

“I will kiss you,” she said gravely. -

He bent forward, and she touched her lips to the
bit of sunburned cheek above his whiskers. The
man caught her in his arms and held her for an
instant, kissing her rosy mouth, then strode away
without a word, and Bobette sat down again behind
the boat.

“He ought not to have done that,” said the clergy-
man; “he ought not to have done anything of the
sort.”

“Yes, he ought,” Bobette asserted, though her tone
was not disrespectful; “TI like that man.” Her eyes
were closely following him. Now she sprang up
again. “Look!” she cried anxiously. “Could he
be going to see my mamma?”

The rector rose.

“Well,” he said, “you remember you told me
your mamma could see no one to-day.”

This seemed to relieve Bobette’s mind, “Is it
four o'clock yet?” she asked. “Then I must ge.”

Harvey was sitting on the churchyard wall, wonder-
ing what had become of Bobette, when a voice called
breathlessly, “ Harvey, where’s our ship?”

“It’s not finished yet. I didn’t get time enough
in school to-day. Take off that silk stuff — you can’t
do anything in that.”

But the little rose-colored widow shook her head
resolutely, and seized Harvey’s hand impatiently,

Back of the beach, separated from the salt sea by
high ridges of sand dunes, lay a fresh water lake
winding for some distance inland, and boasting of a
few gnarled trees along its shores.

Harvey and Bobette were soon rowing over this
water toward a small island where stood a famous
old tree. It must once have been the giant of the
moorlands, for the first branches grew out far above
the ground, but all the upper part had been carried
away by storms. The broad top, with the bare old
arms which had once been branches around it, was
the favorite resort of the boys of the fishing hamlet,
and to reach this lofty spot, Bobette had always
longed unspeakably,
220

On landing, she was commanded to sit with closed
eyes while Harvey’s preparations were made; but

anING,

a ( :

 

 

Ai 4 /r
arti, “SN
a a 4

“BUT I DON’T WANT TO GET DOWN,” SAID SHE.

she listened with suspended breath and rapturous
suspicions, while he climbed the tree by the notches
cut here and there for steps in the rugged bark,

BOBETTE.

When she was bidden to open her eyes, behold a
rope ladder reached from the ground to the top of
the tree! ,

“Should you like to come up?” asked Harvey,
trying to speak in an indifferent tone. “ All you’ve
to do is to climb that ladder! Are you sure you
dare?”

“ Sure,” Bobette replied.

“T’ll hold it steady — but you’ll have to take off
that long skirt.”

For this, Bobette was willing to relinquish her
silken trail. A deft bit of fingering, a funny little
squirm and kick, and it lay on the sand. Bobette
began the ascent bravely. It was by no means easy, as
the ladder swayed in the wind, and one round of
rope gave way and nearly let her fall; but the sturdy
little arms held on tight, and a merry scream of
laughter soon proclaimed she had reached the eyrie.
Harvey gave himself up to the enjoyment of her
childish delight in the fun. He hurried up and down
the swaying rounds in true sailor fashion —now for
the provisions, in the shape of cookies and nuts, now
for a supply of pebbles for missiles in case of sudden
attack, and again for a flask of water to use during
the siege. But the ladder was unfortunately an old
one which had been washed ashore during a storm.
There was more than one unheeded warning as a
strand gave way here and there; then, suddenly, the
ropes parted altogether in mid air!

Harvey picked himself up quickly. He looked up
at Bobette, who laughed merrily, thinking it an
intentional part of the fun. He grew grave as he
began to realize the state of the case. Evidently, the
ladder had given out once for all, and how was
little Bobette to get down?

“ What is it?’? she asked quickly; “did you hurt
you?” ‘

“Not a bit. Ill be up there in a minute.
thinking how you’d get down.”

“But I don’t wish to get down!
she cried cheerfully.

“ But the ladder’s broke!”

“ Never mind; let’s stay up here all night.”

“ Bobette, I’ll have to go and get somebody to
help us. This rope’s as rotten as sand. I’m awfully
sorry I took you up there !”

“I’m not! I like it better’n I thought I should.
I can see— Harvey, don’t go—are you going?”
The little face under the widow’s cap was very grave
and anxious.

I was

I’ve just got up,”
BOBETTE.

Yes, Harvey was going. She was to be left alone
. onthe island, _ ~ :

“Vou must keep perfectly still till I come back,”
he said. “I don’t dare to wait —it’ll be dark before
long. Iwasa thoughtless boy to do this thing. I
wanted to give youatreat. But I might have known
girls” — i

Bobette’s eyes flashed. “I won’t be called girls!”
she cried. “If I wished-to, I’d get down in a minute,
but I don’t.”

6c How < 9

“Climb down, same way all the boys do; I could!”

“Don’t you dare to try

it, Bobette! Promise?”
’The child smiled mis-
chievously. ‘

“Please, Bobette, say
you'll sit down and be
quiet till I get back?”
Harvey asked pleadingly.

But Bobette would not,
and he had to go without
the promise. She stood
motionless until he was
out of sight. She thought
then of eating a cookey,
but remembered that the
reason she felt so hungry
was that this was fast day;
she thought of mamma
and laid it down untasted.

She looked down the
side of the tree where
Harvey had climbed up.
It was a dizzy height, but
her little head was a steady
one. Should she venture?
_ She would have done exactly as Harvey asked, if he
hadn’t called her ‘girls!’ She let herself down cau-
tiously over the edge, and clung to the branches, dig-
ging her little shoes into the holes in the bark as
Harvey had done.

The sun had just set, and the cloudy sky grew
dark rapidly. Clinging fast, Bobette got down out of
reach of the branches ; but now she was seized with
sudden fear. She thought she would give it up.
Her short arms could not reach round the trunk, and
in her excitement she could find no place to plant her
f(%t to raise herself an inch,

Small as-she was, she knew her only chance was in

ALL THAT

221

keeping cool. Slowly and cautiously she let herself
down again, little by little, but the dear safe ground
seemed hopelessly far away. Again her strong will
helped; she knitted her small brow, clung tight to
the bark, and reached down her foot. There was a
slip! A painful bruising of the skin on the little
hands and knees, a fearful rush through the air, and
Bobette struck the ground. For a moment she lay
stunned, then was conscious of a strange dull pain in
one foot, doubled back beneath her. It became
intense when she tried to move. Still Bobette kept
a brave heart. Her clothes were hanging in tatters

a

 

NIGHT LIGHTS BURNED IN GILLESPIE’S TOWER.

around her, her cap was gone altogether, and part of
the blue shawl. Poor Bobette! She could just
reach the rose-colored skirt; she dragged it over her
to hide the rents in her frock.

Hard it was to sit and wait. It was almost dark
on the water, and when, at last, there was a sound of
oars, and Harvey called anxiously, “ Bobette, are you
there — safe?” and she tried to speak, her voice was
choked with tears, and the answer was just a sob.

But when she saw the boat she suddenly calmed;
for the stranger whom she had seen on the beach,
was rowing with Harvey, and in the stern sat Mrs,
Gillespie and Mr. Abert !
222 4 BIT OF

Yet could it be mamma who sprang out so lightly? .

There was no widow’s cap hiding golden hair; noth-
ing but a shawl she had caught up in haste, and there
was the color of wild.roses on her cheeks.

“Bobette, darling, how did you get down?
you hurt?” a torrent of questions came.

Still Bobette, huddling under the rosy silk, was
speechless. Her mother fell on her knees and put
her arms close round her child. “ Bobette,” she whis-
pered, “ Bobette, God had heard our prayers—he has
come!”

“Papa?” cried the child; then the strange dull
pain swept over her, and her eyelids drooped.

All that night lights burned in Gillespie’s Tower.
Little Bobette’s broken ankle had been set by her
papa’s own dexterous hand, and she was now, at last,
sleeping fitfully.

Are

MENDING,

Mr. Abert had waited until he was sure that his
little friend was safe, then he stood a moment longer
with old Betsey at the lower gate. She had been
all the afternoon longing for a listener to whom she
could free her mind. in 8

“Yes, it’s all come out right,” she admitted, “ but,
as I was about to say, I never really thought he was
drowned dead—and no more he wasn’t. He do
say he was shipwrecked on a desert island, and all
that. It’s mighty queer if it zs true, and she’s nearly
worried her life out, appointing a day to weep and
mourn on, for to be his death-day, which she couldn’t
have certainly known to be right, anyway, you know,
And that Bobette did need a father over her, if ever
a child did!”

But finding that Mr. Abert was out of hearing, old
Betsey closed and bolted the door.

 

 

¥ it scm hel i thts Bae
y Qh ELE (Leche VES }
Ys And Dais/lll EWS ds: s

Discoverithe}e ek

  

       
   

   

  

OS

Va (Neuere
ANG Te i

WAH) \\ Nis ull ii d

       
    
HEROINES

OF THE POETS.

223

 

 

 

 

 

Mt
|

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-A QUEER VILLAGE.’

OU have heard of “castles built in the air,”
Of wonderful structure and splendor rare ;
But lately a populous village I found
That is built high up without touching the ground.
Its houses are furnished, and quite complete,
But they stand in a row on a single street ;
Each one is tinted an ashen gray —
Masons built them of mud and clay. .
I have tried to reach them many a time,
But their builders (you may not believe my rhyme)
Have put no ladder, or step, or stair
By which we can visit their homes in the air,
However much I may stand and implore,
And beckon the owner within his door
Who looks down on me with lustrous eye,
I can only salute him, and hasten by.

These rough-built houses are very new,
And close together they somehow grew;

Well-lined and soft they seem to be

Within — so far as I could see;

And the builders and owners to and fro,

And in and out of the doorways, go

Oftener than pass our city cars,

Now skimming the earth, now brushing the stars,
If you happen near by on a summer day

You will see this colony’s glossy array

Moving about —a frolicsome host —

They work, and they play, but they gossip most.
Can you guess what village stands up so high,
Half on the earth and half in the sky?

A little boy tells me he firmly believes

The swallows built it under the eaves,

HEROINES OF THE POETS.

BURNS’ HIGHLAND MARY.

E banks, and braes, and streams around
The castle o’ Montgomery,
Green be your woods, and fair your flowers,
Your waters never drumlie!

There simmer first unfaulds her robes,
And there the langest tarry ;

For there I took the last fareweel
O’ my sweet Highland Mary.

How sweetly bloom’d the gay green birk!
How rich the hawthorn’s blossom!

As underneath their fragrant shade,
I clasped her to my bosom !
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

224

 

 

 

 

ed

 

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4
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= Bet
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ia
ine

HIGHLAND

 

 

 

MARY,

 
 

A LITTLE
The golden hours, on angel wings,
Flew o’er me and my dearie ;
For dear to me, as light and life,
Was my sweet Highland Mary!

Wi’ mony a vow, and lock’d embrace,
Qur parting was fu’ tender ;

And, pledging aft to meet again,
We tore oursels asunder;

But, oh! fell Death’s untimely frost,
That nipt my flower sae early ! —

PAINTER.

Now green’s the sod, and cauld’s the clay,
That wraps my Highland Mary!

Oh, pale, pale now, those rosy lips,
I aft hae kiss’d sae fondly !
And closed for aye the sparkling glance
That dwelt on me sae kindly!
And mouldering now in silent dust
That heart that lo’ed me dearly —
But still within my bosom’s core
Shall live my Highland Mary!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i
of

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A LITTLE PAINTER,

OS an airy fairy painter painted in the dawn and dew,

Painted in the sultry noontide, painted all the summer through :
Flowers and fields and wondrous woodlands, skies at sunrise and sunset —
And, as true as fairy stories, he is painting somewhere yet!

 
EVAN COGSWELL’S

EVAN COGSWELL’S ICE FORTY.

LORE OR &

By Irvine L. Beman.

 

N the early days of Northern Ohio, when settlers .

were few and far between, Evan Cogswell, a
Welsh lad of sixteen years, found his way thither and
began his career as a laborer, receiving at first but
two dollars a month in addition to his board and
“home-made” clothing. He possessed an intelligent,
energetic mind in a sound and vigorous body, and
had acquired in his native parish the elements of an
education in both Welsh and English.

The story of his life, outlined in a curious old
diary containing the records of sixty-two years, and
an entry for more than twenty-two thousand days,
would constitute a history of the region, and some of
its passages would read like high-wrought romance.

His first term of service was with a border farmer
on the banks of a stream called Grand River, in Ash-
tabula County. It was rather crude farming, how-
ever, consisting mostly of felling trees, cutting wood
and saw-logs, burning brush, and digging out stumps,
the axe and pick-axe finding more use than ordinary
farm implements.

Seven miles down the river, and on the opposite
bank, lived the nearest neighbors, among them a
blacksmith who in his trade served the whole country
for twenty miles around. One especial part of his
business was the repairing of axes, called in that day
“jumping,” or ‘ upsetting.”

In midwinter Evan’s employer left a couple of axes
with the blacksmith for repairs, the job to be done
within a week. At this time the weather was what is
termed “settled,” with deep snow, and good “slip-
ping” along the few wildwood roads.

But three or four days later, there came a “ Janu-
ary thaw.” Rain and a warmer temperature melted
away much of the snow, the little river was swelled to
a great torrent, breaking up the ice and carrying it
down stream, and the roads became almost impas-
sible. When the week was up and the farmer wanted

the axes, it was not possible for the horse to travel, -

and after waiting vainly a day or two for a turn in
the weather, Evan was posted off on foot to obtain
the needed implements. Delighting in the change
and excitement of such a trip, the boy started before

noon, expecting to reach home again ere dark, as it
was not considered quite safe to journey far by night
on account of the wolves.

Three miles below, at a narrow place in the river,

- was the bridge, consisting of three very long tree-

trunks reaching parallel from bank to bank, and cov-
ered with hewn plank. When Evan arrived here he
found that this bridge had been swept away. But
pushing on down stream among the thickets, about
half a mile below, he came upon an immense ice-jam,
stretching across the stream and piled many feet high.
Upon this he at once resolved to make his way over
to the road on the other side, for he was already
wearied threading the underbrush. Grand River,
which is a narrow but deep and violent stream, ran
roaring and plunging beneath the masses of ice as if
enraged at being so obstructed; but the lad picked
his path in safety and soon stood on the opposite
bank.

Away he hurried now to the blacksmith’s, so as to
complete his errand and return by this precarious .
crossing before dark.

But the smith had neglected his duty and Evan
had to wait an hour or more for the axes. At length
they were done, and with one tied at each end of a
strong cord and this hung about his neck, he was off
on the homeward trip. To aid his walking, he pro-
cured from the thicket a stout cane. He had hardly
gone two miles when the duskiness gathering in the
woods denoted the nearness of night; yet as the
moon was riding high, he pushed on without fear.

But as he was skirting a wind-fall of trees, he came
suddenly upon two or three wolves apparently emerg-
ing from their daytime hiding-place for a hunting ex-
pedition. Evan was considerably startled; but as
they ran off into the woods as if afraid of him, he
took courage in the hope that they would not molest
him. In a few minutes, however, they set up that
dismal howling by which they summon their mates
and enlarge their numbers; and Evan discovered by
the sounds that they were following him cautiously at
no great distance.

Frequent responses were also heard from more
EVAN COGSWELIL’S ICE FORT.

distant points in the woods and from across the river.
By this time it was becoming quite dark, the moon-
light penetrating the forest only along the roadway
and in occasional patches among the trees on either
side. The rushing river was not far away, but above
its roar arose every instant the threatening howl of a
wolf. Finally, just as he reached
the ice-bridge, the howling became
still, a sign that their numbers em-
boldened them to enter in earnest
on the pursuit. The species of wolf
once so common in the central
States, and making the early farm-
ers so much trouble, were peculiar
‘in this respect; they were great
cowards singly, and would trail the
heels of a traveller howling for re
cruits, and not daring to begin the
attack until they had collected a
force that insured success; then
they became fierce and bold, and
more to be dreaded than any other
animal of the wilderness. And at
this point, when they considered
their numbers equal to the occasion,
the howling ceased..

Evan had been told of this, and
when the silence began, he knew its
meaning, and his heart shuddered at the prospect.
His only hope lay in the possibility that they might
not dare to follow him across the ice-bridge. But
this hope vanished as he approached the other shore,
and saw by the moonlight several of the gaunt crea-
tures awaiting him on that side. What should he do?
No doubt they would soon muster boldness to follow
him upon the ice, and then his fate would be sealed
in a moment.

In the emergency he thought of the axes, and
taking them from his neck, cut the cord, and thrust
his walking-stick into one as a helve, resolved to
defend himself to the last.

At this instant he espied among the thick,
upheaved ice-cakes two great fragments leaning
against each other in such a way as to form a
roof with something like a small room underneath.
Here he saw his only chance. Springing within, he
used the axe to chip off other fragments with which
to close up the entrance, and almost quicker than
it can be told, had thus constructed a sort of fort,
which he believed would withstand the attack of

 
  
 
 
   
 
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
  

227

“ the wolves. At nightfall the weather had become
colder, and he knew that in a few minutes the damp
pieces of ice would be firmly cemented together.

Hardly had he lifted the last piece to its place,
when the pack came rushing about him, snapping
and snarling, but at first not testing the strength

of his intrench-
ment. When soon
they began to
spring against it,
and snap at the
corners of ice, the
frost had done its
work, and they
could not loosen
his hastily built
wall.

Through narrow
crevices he could
look out at them,
and at one time

HOMEWARD.— SAFELY INTRENCHED.

counted sixteen grouped together in council. As the
cold increased he had to keep in motion in order
not to freeze, and any extra action on his part
increased the fierceness of the wolves. At times they
would gather in a circle around him, and after sniff-
ing at him eagerly, set up a doleful howling, as if
deploring the excellent supper they had lost.
228

Ere long one of them found an opening at a
corner large enough to admit its head; but Evan
was on the alert, and gave it such a blow with the
axe as to cause its death. Soon another tried the
same thing, and met with the same reception, with-
drawing and whirling around several times, and
then dropping dead with a broken skull.

One smaller than the rest attempting to enter,
and receiving the fatal blow, crawled, in its dying
agony, completely into the enclosure, and lay dead
at Evan’s feet. Of this he was not sorry, as his feet
were bitterly cold, and the warm carcass of the animal
served to relieve them.

In the course of the night six wolves were killed
as they sought to creep into his fortress, and several
others so seriously hacked as to send them to the
woods again; and however correct the notion that
when on the hunt they devour their fallen comrades,
in this case they did no such thing, as in the morn-
ing the six dead bodies iay about on the ice, and
Evan had the profitable privilege of taking off their
skins.

Of his thoughts during the night, a quotation from
his diary is quaintly suggestive and characteris-
tic:

NAMING THE KITTEN.

“T bethought me of the wars of Glendower, which
I have read about, and the battle of Grosmont Castle;
and I said, ‘I am Owen Glendower; this is my castle;
the wolves are the army of Henry; but I will never
surrender or yield as did Glendower.’”’

Toward morning, as the change of weather con-
tinued, and the waters of the river began to diminish,
there was suddenly a prodigious crack and crash of
the ice-bridge, and the whole mass settled several
inches, At this the wolves took alarm, and in an
instant fled. Perhaps they might have returned had

‘not the crackling of the ice been repeated fre-

quently.

At length, Evan became alarmed for his safety,
lest the ice should break up in the current, and
bringing his axe to bear, soon burst his way out and
fled to the shore. But not seeing the ice crumble, he
ventured back to obtain the other axe, and then
hastened home to his employer.

During the day he skinned the wolves, and within
a fortnight pocketed the bounty money, amounting
in all to about one hundred and fifty dollars. With
this money he made the first payment on a large

‘farm which he long lived to cultivate and enjoy, and

under the sod of which he found a quiet. grave.

NAMING THE KITTEN.

By Ciara Doty Bares.

 

“ ROSE.”

S Rose a nice name for kitty?
You.see she’s a bit of pink at the end of her nose,

 

Do you like Rose?

Gray isn’t the prettiest color for flowers, of course,
Besides, to be streaked like a tiger does make it worse,

If she were only a white puss Rosy would do,
Or even yellow—for roses are yellow too.

She’s scratched me, here, on my finger; pussy, for shame!
When I was thinking to give you the sweetest name.

Just see the mark—it is bleeding, and burns like fire;
Tl call you Brier! uy

You never shall be Rose—never!

      

RIER.”
 

 

 

 

GRANNY.

(4 True Story.)

 

By Mrs. Kate Upson Car.

 

HOO, shoo there! Ah, worse luck to yez! An’

it’s peckin’ me tomatties ye’d be afther, is it?

Be off wid ye, the whole botherin’ Granny’s lot of ye!”

And Mrs. Bridget O’Toole shook a dilapidated broom

fiercely at Granny’s innocent-looking flock of hens,

and drove them into the little enclosure where they
belonged.

Then she leaned against the side of the house to
get her breath, looking at her neat garden and_heap-
ing bad opinions upon the marauders who would like
nothing better than to destroy it.

“Ah!” she continued sagely, wagging her head,
_ “a quare world it is, and a quare family is the
O’Tooles!” With this, her favorite bit of generali-
zation, Mrs. O’Toole went back to her kitchen; but
she knew very well that, “ quare” as the O’Tooles
were, many of their more pretentious neighbors in
the village a mile away, might be improved by imita-
ting some of the qualities of that humble family.

Granny’s hens were indeed a great trial to her
daughter-in-law; but so wonderfully did they thrive
and multiply under Granny’s watchful care, that they
were a source of considerable revenue to that dear
old lady; and when Bridget wou'd lose her patience
Granny would hear her out, and then say with the
slyest of winks, and the mellawest of brogues, “ But

I notice that ye liked the dress purty well, Bridget,
me dear, that I bought ye with me egg-money, an’ ye
all seem to relish a roast of thim.”

Which was true, and no doubt the reasons why
the O’Tooles were so completely dominated by
Granny’s hens, that even the daily breakfast had
come to consist, out of deference to them, almost
invariably of “ hasty pudding,” a dish relished alike
by both parties ; and when the family had withdrawn
from the table, Granny, beaming and clucking, would
make her way out to her pets with the abundant
residue:

“Ah, Speckle, me darlint, an’ where was ye the
night? Bridget ’Il have the head off ye for spindin’
ye time in her garden! An’ Rid Top, ye old rascal!
were ye at the tomatties the day? Ye Greedy! give
ye chillern some, an’ git along wid ye! An’ ye little
yeller beauties! to think 0’ so many o’ ye gettin’ out
o’ ye shells so foine an’ hearty!”

The serving up of the family breakfast earlier was
almost as interesting as Granny’s administration of
the remainder to the hens. Mr, Dennis O’Toole,
her son, had inherited the politest of manners from
his father, who had been a butler in a great house
over in the old country, and he waited upon his far
ily with the utmost ceremony. :
229
230

“ An’ what will the Granny take for her breakfast?”
Mr. O’Toole was in the habit of inquiring, as though
the subject were a highly complicated one, and
admitted of a variety of answers. At the same time
he flourished his ladle, and regarded his mother with
a smile of deferential interest.

“Mush an’ milk, af it plaze ye, Dennis me son,”
Granny would reply with her silvery brogue.

‘Biddy, me love?”

“Mush an’ milk in coorse!”

Biddy had little admiration for the grand ways of
her husband. :

“ Terry, me boy, an’ how is it with ye the mornin’? ”

“ Mush an’ milk, sir, af ye plaze.”

“ An’ Norah honey, what will ye have?”

“Mush an’ milk, sir, plaze ye.”

And so on until all were helped in due order.

But “moild” as was the father, and “sinsible” as
was the mother, it was to Granny’s lap the culprit
always fled who had just escaped.from the scene of
some gay roguery; and it was into Granny’s ear that
they poured daily a recital of the trials and adventures
of each individual little O’Toole, which is saying a
good deal, for there were eight of them! and when
the day was ended, and from the four quarters of the
globe the eight little O’Tooles came trooping in for
supper and bed, while Dennis rested by the fire, and
Bridget bustled more softly than usual about the room,
it was Granny’s silver voice which related to them some
marvellous story, giving them glimpses into beautiful
paradises outside their own poor, besmirched little
world. Sometimes the story would be of the exqui-
site fairy Erina, who waved a wand and a green
island rose from the depths and settled into the midst
of the sea, “ the same bein’ called Ireland, me dears,
at the prisent day ;” sometimes it was of the noble
giant Ap Tolladin, the founder of the kingly house
of O'Toole: but oftener the story was of the charming
and unfortunate Princess of Kilcannel, who, after
being hunted from her father’s kingdom, and treated
with exasperating cruelty — one feature of her torture
being an enforced existence for weeks at a time upon
a diet of toads and mushrooms — was finally rescued
and restored to her possessions by a brave and hand-
some knight, in whose society she enjoyed all man-
ner of blessings forever after. This story Granny
related to one child or another almost every day of her
life.

One afternoon when Terry was eight or ten years
old, he was trudging along the highway in a doleful

GRANNY.

mood, because he could not go to school. A maiden
lady who kept house by herself in the village near
Terry’s home, had that day opened a “select school,”
and as there was no other in the place just then,
nearly all of Terry’s mates were going. Terry had
begged hard to be ailowed to go too; but Dennis
had answered sadly:

“Spade it as hard as I can, me boy, it's little
enough we get to ate, let alone the larnin’.”

Terry knew that his father spoke the truth, so he

had quite given up the idea, and was plodding home-

ward from the village with a package of nails, where-
with to make coops for some of Granny’s expected
broods, when he suddenly met the teacher face to
face. Terry’s eyes filled with tears the minute.

““What’s the matter, my boy?” asked the teacher,
who was odd, but kindly.

Terry paused to sob a bit, for the sympathizing tone
had filled his heart full to overflowing; then added:

“ Nothin’ much, mum !”

“Tell me about it,” said the teacher peremptorily.

“Nothin’ ” — with a great swallow of salt tears —
“ only —I can’t go to school.”

“Do you keep hens?” inquired the teacher with
apparent irrelevance. She knew something about the
O’Tooles, and she did not keep hens herself.

Terry beamed all over with a vague sense of en
couragement,

“Granny does.”

“Well, bring me an egg a day, and you can come
to school.”

Terry went home hop-skip, sure of Granny’s help;
and every day he carried an egg to school, and
learned far more than its worth, while Granny —
Granny was the happiest little Irish woman in the
world, to think that she could do something to make
a ‘“gintleman ” of her pet.

‘Terry grew tall and strong very fast, and at sixteen
could do a man’s work, and earn almost a man’s
wages, and take care of his own schooling evenings.
Granny’s hens were housed now, thanks to Terry’s
skill, in a regular palace which stood on a knoll be-
hind the house, afid was surrounded by a village of
ornamental coops. In fact a good many improve-
ments had been made all about the modest O’Toole
dwelling. This had originally consisted of two rooms
below and a “loft” above, which was roughly par-
titioned into two dusky chambers.

Granny had always slept in a curtained little bed
in her own special corner of the western and larger
GRANNY.

room below, which served also for parlor, dining-room
and kitchen; but now an “ell” had been built on
one end of the little house, and the lower of the two
nice rooms thus added was fitted up by Terry for
Granny, and Granny alone; for the bond between
Terry and Granny, who had made a “gintleman ” of
him, waxed stronger year by year.

At a distance of only a few rods from the O’Toole
cottage, though somewhat below it, ran a broad deep
brook, a mild, inoffensive little stream in ordinary
weather, but quick to rise and overflow its banks
whenever a steady rain saturated the neighboring
hills. Still as a narrow meadow stretched a little
below and on the other side, there was usually plenty
of room for the water to spread, so that no damage
had ever come from it to the O’Tooles.

Shortly after their house had been repaired and
enlarged, however, and when they were beginning to
regard it as a more precious possession than ever be-
fore, an elm-tree of enormous size fell across the
broad brook just above the little meadow, and was
allowed to lie there; and more than once they had
thought seriously of possible danger from the great
bridge above, which was old and very rickety. If
the bridge should go down when the water was high,
and lodge against the tree and thus dam the stream,
the whole force of the current would be turned toward
their own little house; and though it had a little
meadow beyond it also, the worst results might fol-
low. To be sure the highway commissioners had
reported that a new bridge was needed at that place ;
but, as in most small villages, there was delay upon
delay, for the “‘ town fathers ” are slow to act in such
cases. What were the cosey O’Tooles to them, or
the small amount of travel over this particular by-
road, that they should build a new bridge before the
old one had actually tumbled down ?
~ One night after it had been raining hard for twenty-
four hours, the sunshiny stalwart young Terry came
in very wet, and looking uncommonly sober.

“The old bridge is a-shakin’ like the ager,” he
said savagely.

Biddy began a sharp tirade about the “select men,”
but Granny knitted silently away as usual. Terry
came and stood by her, and stroked her soft hair,
still a satiny brown.

“If it’s to coom, it’ll coom, Terry, me boy,” she
said brightly. “I belave everythin’s for the best,
an’ I'll go to bed to-night as aisy as ever. Besides,”
smiling upon the pride of her heart, “what a

231

stout boy is here to take care of the old Granny!”

Her reassuring words made Terry feel a great deal
calmer, and indeed it affected all of them comforta-
bly, for they relied much on Granny’s sweet wisdom,
believing her, in fact, to be under the special pro-
tection of the saints; and the family retired only a
little later than usual.

As the rain poured harder and harder on the roof
above his head,
however, Terry
could not help get-
ting up and half
dressing himself.
Then feeling a
trifle ashamed of
his fears, he threw
himself back upon
the bed, and lay
there listening.

Suddenly he
heard a distant
crackling noise,
and presently a
swish of water
different from the
steady dashing
and roar of a
moment before.
At that instant
there was a loud
knock at the door;
a man shouted
outside :

“One pier’s
gone from the
bridge! It'll be
down in ten min-
utes! Get over
your meadow to
high land, and be
quick about it!”

Terry woke his brothers
down-stairs ata bound. His mother met him, dressing
as she spoke.

“ Here’s the babies,” she said, running back to the
bed and bringing the two youngest children to him,

With but a single blanket around them, he hurried
out of the house, and across the meadow.

Crack, crack, thud! Into a whirlpool din of
waters went the bridge; and just as Terry, with his

 

GRANNY’S “WINS.”

and sisters, and sprang
239

frightened little brothers and sisters at his heels,
reached “ high land,” they knew that the timbers had
reached the old elm, and that the stream was dammed
just as they had often foreboded; for it seemed as
though the whole Atlantic Ocean had been suddenly
let loose below and all about them. Ah! the dear
cabin must go! Terry turned in silence, to meet the
remainder of the family struggling up the knoll.

It was a chilly night in fall, and pitchy dark,
though it was the time of the full moon.. Dennis had
caught up the lantern in his terrified flight, and had
matches in his pockets, so that soon they were able
' to see a little, and to count up the shivering little
group. Eight children, father and mother— so far, so
good; but where — why, where was Granny!

“QO father!” cried Terry, “how could you leave
her asleep when you knew I had the babies?”

Dennis wrung his hands, and silently heaped male-
dictions upon his own head. The children wept and
howled, for how could they live without Granny?
And even Biddy broke into a high Irish lament.

Suddenly from the window which was toward them
of their little home, the window of Granny’s room,
beamed a light.

Granny was awake, then, and so far safe and sound.
They saw her raise the curtain, saw her moving
about briskly and peering out, and then they all saw
her sit down beside the window. They could not see
her face, but they knew that it were the same smile-
like calm as ever.

“Take care of yeselves now,” said Terry, pulling
his hat down a little more firmly upon his head, and
turning toward the seething flood that covered the
acre and a half between him and the little house,
“I’m off for Granny.”

Biddy threw her arms up with a shrill cry. She
was “shure he’d be did, stone-did, by the time he got
safe there !”

But the children applauded. It seemed a simple
enough thing to them for Terry to wade over to the
house, and, though they had never heard the story of
the old Anchises, to bring- Granny over on his
shoulders, They did not know that the water was
already as deep in many places as Terry was high, and
that if a piece of the solid old bridge timbers which
were whirling down stream one by one, should strike
him, that he would float away as dead as the timbers
themselves ; and you may be sure Terry did not stop
to tell them.

He simply shut his teeth tight, and waded in. By

GRANNY.

the light of the lantern they could see him out a little
way; then the darkness took him in, and there were
ten minutes of suspense, in which the howling of the
tempest, and the thunder of the waters, sounded more
terrible than ever; at least to Dennis and Bridget.

Then the wind brought them a faint “halloo!”
Next, in front of the light that streamed from Gran-
ny’s window, a dark figure was visible by Granny's
side. Terry was safely over,

“Oh, but he’ll never get the Granny safely across
there!” groaned Dennis. “A plague on me ould
rheumatism that I couldn’t go with the b’y.”

“Terry’'ll manage,” said little Norah shrewdly.
“Terry’s as strong as a horse.”

But in her heart even Norah was anxious, and
they held their breaths, and shiveringly paced about
on the knoll. The little ones, wet, and cold, and
sleepy, at last began to cry vehemently, and to
demand dry clothes. Biddy tried to hush them; but
at last, feeling the babies shiver in her arms, she de-
cided to get them to the nearest neighbor’s, a mile on
to the north, put them to bed, and then return herself.
As she hurried away, she and they all heard from the
house the sound of rapid and vigorous pounding. In
a moment it had stopped. What was Terry doing?

In fact, Terry was taking down the front door for a
raft. The water was already up to the doorstep,
and rising every instant. So while Granny, wrapped
up and ready for flight, with all the valuables that
she could carry fastened firmly to her clothes, sat
placidly in her chair crooning an old Irish song,
Terry with a few stout strokes had the door off, and
soon Granny was balancing on it out on the water;
the clothes-line was wound around it, and over her
lap, with plenty of it in her hands to hold on by.
She had gathered together a pile of blankets and
clothing, and Terry heaped them up around her.

“Ah, me hins!” groaned Granny tenderly.
“Don’t ye belave, Terry dear, that one coop could
get on behint me here?”

Terry, the boy that Granny had educated with
“an egg a day,” couldn’t resist such an appeal as
that. He waded around to the hen-coops, securing
Granny’s craft meanwhile to a window casement,
brought back the best coop of hens, established it
as Granny had suggested —with a bend af the clothes-
line—and then he set out on the perilous return
voyage, pushing his unwieldy craft before him when
he could, pulling it by the clothesline when he
couldn’t push it, and when he came to a deep
GRANNY.

place, swimming with it against his “upper” side.

The water grew deeper. Suddenly the lantern
unaccountably disappeared from the knoll—it had
gone with Bridget and the babies—and Terry had
no longer any idea whither they were tending. The
loud, steady rush of the broad river into which the
brook emptied in full view from the O’Toole cottage,
sounded ominously near.

Before ten minutes had passed, it seemed to Terry
as though he had been wading for a whole day, and
as though he might as well give it up altogether,
excepting for Granny’s courage and calmness.

“Tet the raft go, Terry, me boy!” she had said,
observing his exhaustion, and pausing in telling a
story with which she was beguiling the way. “The
old Granny has lived her day, an’ she’s ready to go.”

“Not without yer boy, Granny,” said Terry,
between hard breaths.

At that instant the dim star of light in the little
cabin which had been drifting very fast to the south
of them, went out, and their last beacon was gone.
They knew then— Granny as well as Terry — that
the water had crept in and overturned the little
stand on which they had left it burning. Even
Granny gave a long, quivering sigh. ‘Terry tugged
and tugged. He could not speak, for not only was
he strained and tired, but he was very sick at heart.

Suddenly he felt that the rain was ceasing,
and at the same instant the clouds. broke a little,
and it grew lighter. A knoll in the meadow scraped
the raft, and Terry sprang upon the small, but
precious Ararat, keeping tight hold of his swaying
charge meamwhile, and clinging to a stout young
tree which perhaps a kind, foreseeing Providence
had planted directly on top of the-knoll.

Terry could almost have cried, great stout fellow
that he was, sitting there in the shallows on the
knoll, clinging to the tree, dripping wet from top
to toe, sore and tired to the last degree, his home
gone, and seeing nothing but a watery grave at last,
for the dear old Granny and himself, and the
precious “hins.”

But the moon began just then to make its presence
known, and after a moment’s struggle with the flying
clouds, shone out clear, and full, and bright. The
tempest was evidently over, and Terry’s heart began
to come back to him.

“ Hooray, Granny!” he cried with a crazy laugh.
“Here we are! We'll sail a few steps further,
and if we can’t get on, we’ll come back here.

233

We can hold out here, if we can’t anywhere else.”

Granny’s teeth were chattering with the cold, but
she went on cheerfully with her discourse:

“And thus it was with the beautiful princess,
‘ Alack, me lord,’ she said, with the tears streaming
down her purty cheeks, ‘I’m no’ ungrateful to ye.
T’ll not forget“how in the darkness an’ the storm ye
stood by me.’”

“An’ I niver understood it so well before,” said
Terry, putting his face up close to the dear old
story-teller’s, to see just how she looked once more.

The wind blew her soft hair about her forehead,
but the blue eyes were shining underneath, and the
kind old lips were smiling as they had always smiled
on Terry ever since he could remember.

Again he shouted to his father, and this time he
heard a faint response ; but it was far up the stream,
and as cloud after cloud blew by, and the wild moon
lighted up the scene more brilliantly, Terry could see
that the knoll on which they rested was on the high |
bank of the wide, swift, lonely river itself, and that a
few steps further would have taken him far beyond
his depth, and have consigned both himself and
Granny to certain death.

Having now got his exact bearing, and the rain
having subsided, Terry struck out boldly for a shore.
The family came running along the bank to meet
him, and a great shout burst from all the shivering
group as Terry with his raft slowly made the land.

The hens were clucking, and the cocks were crow-
ing; the blankets and wraps had mostly fallen off in
the struggle with the waters, but Granny, with her
soft locks blowing, and the water dripping from her
soaked clothes, sat placid and unruffled amid the
tumult, though she was shaking with the cold, and
though she knew that they had lost everything.

“ An’ it’s a foine moonlit sail the boy has given the
old Granny!” she said with her own delightful
brogue. ‘An’ it’s a foine house he'll build us again.”

“ Ab, but I never could have got through it all,”
rejoined Terry, dropping exhausted, and covering her
thin smiling cheek with kisses, “if every time I
could stop to listen, I hadn’t heard the dear voice, for
all the world as if we were sitting by the fireside
yonder, telling me the old brave story of the Princess
of Kilcannel.”

“ An’ she did that, did she?” cried Bridget admir-
ingly, who had just returned from escorting the little
ones to a place of safety. ‘Well, a quare world it is,
and a quare family is the O’Tooles !”
      
 
 

    

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GLADYS IN THE ATTIC.

234
s

ROBIN HOOD’S GHOST,

235

ROBIN HOOD’S GHOST.

(Being a true account of a ghost as seen by Mr. Thackeray and Charles Dickens, and others, in a Nottingham graveyard)

 

By Joaquin MILLER.

 

HERWOOD FOREST, in the centre of which
Nottingham now stands, was famous as a re-
treat for warlike and lawless men even in the
time of the Romans; for the woods were wonder-
fully deep and dense and the trees of great size
and beauty. After many hundred years the woods
began to grow narrower and thinner, and fields of
grain took their places. But still, even in Robin
Hood’s time, enough remained to make a very se-
cure hiding-place for Robin and his many merry
men. And his exploits here, were they all known,
would fill many. books.

The king and his court would come out here to
hunt, all the way from London, in great gilded car-
riages, with pompous powdered footmen holding on
behind. Robin did not like these, and he played
them so many sorry tricks that the king set a price
on his head.

But as we all know, Robin Hood always es-
caped, for he had many true friends, and lived to
die of old age in his dear leafy old Sherwood
Forest, near Nottingham.

This Nottingham is, and always was, a wonder-
ful place. Here many of the beautiful laces of
the world have long been made. It is now a
very wealthy city and has nearly a quarter of a
million people, and it is building, too, all the time
as fast as any Western town. The name at first
was spelled JVotteham. If you take your Latin
wd Saxon books and look up these words, you
aill find what they mean. “You see the north bank
of the Trent River here is a great steep sandstone
mountain, and into this sandstone, thousands of
years ago, the wild inhabitants dug holes and made
for themselves dark homes, or homes of night:
Notte-ham.

Of course the dwellers in these caves were never
c)nquered; and Robin Hood was as safe, once
under the ground, as in a castle; and a great deal
more so indeed; for these dark passages reached
for miles and miles under the earth, and were all
connected together. And as they were dark and

crooked and full of pits and falls known only to
Robin Hood and his men, no soldiers ever dared
venture far to follow him.

As England began to be civilized the hundreds
and thousands of women sitting at the mouths of
these caves looking out toward the sun, thought to
themselves that they must do something besides
harbor their robber husbands and carry wood and
water. And so sitting there at the mouths of their
caves in the sunlight, they began to weave lace.
You can understand that with the dark cave be-
hind, and the bright sun pouring in before, they
could see the fine threads clearly and could do won-
derful work. And thus was laid the foundation of
one of the greatest industries, as well as one of
the wealthiest cities, in all this world. Do not
forget this. And now we are going to come to
the ghost.

Three years ago I spent the summer in Sher-
wood Forest. Some of the time I lived at New-
stead Abbey, the beautiful and stately old home of
Lord Byron. And a portion of the summer I
spent at Bestwood, with the Duke of St. Albans.

The name and estate of Bestwood came about
in this way: Little Nell Gwynne, who had once
been a poor girl, and sang and sold oranges in
the streets of London, was brought out here on
one occasion with the king and his hunting party.
The poor girl had worked her way up in the world,
and had persuaded some wealthy people to found
a hospital for poor and unfortunate soldiers and
sailors, so that she became a great favorite and
every one loved her But with all her influence
and good deeds she was not rich. And so on this
occasion, she asked the king for a bit of land in
Sherwood Forest, where she might have a home
and settle down and live and die in peace, away
from the excitement and sin of London; and the
king at last consented to give her as much land
as she could set a mark around before break-
fast.

Now the dews are heavy in Sherwood Forest,
236

and the bushes always wet of a morning; and the
crafty old king felt certain that little Nell would
walk but a little way in her dainty slippers before
breakfast.

Walk! Not little Nell! She mounted a horse
at the first peep of day, while the old king still
slept, and taking a battle-axe in her hands, she
blazed over about seven miles, and got back all
right, and ready for breakfast before the king
knew what she had been about.

And so the land became hers. She made it
her home, and called it ‘ Bestwood,” because she
had chosen the best woods in all Sherwood Forest.

Her descendants are dukes, and they stand very
near the throne. And to this day this “ Best-
wood” is their home. It is a lovely place indeed.
The ancient house echoes with the laughter of
many merry children, and about the walls hang
many tokens and pictures of poor, tender-hearted
little "Nell who once sold oranges and sang for
her bread in the streets of London. The story of
her life reads almost like that of Ruth or Hagar
or some other tender bit from the Bible.

Now for the ghost! Close to Newstead Abbey is
Robin Hood’s cave. Of course every traveller
visits this cave, although it does not amount to
much. For remarkable as it may seem, we are
assured that there is an underground passage all
the way from this cave to the castle on the sum-
mit of the sandstone mountain, in the city of Not-
tingham. Though this castle is now a museum of
fine arts, it was the last stronghold of Charles
the First, just before he lost his head. Cromwell
feared to attack it. Richard the Lion-hearted
fought his brother here, sword in hand, after
he had usurped his throne, while the king was
away in the wars of the Crusades; and it was
built, or at least made a great castle, by William
the Conqueror. So you see Nottingham Castle has
no mean place in history. From the high summit
you can see the little church at Hucknall four
miles away to the southwest, where Lord Byron
lies buried. And two miles away to the south we
can see the humble home of poor Kirke White.

Well, these lacemakers of Nottingham never bury
their dead in the ground. As a rule, they put them
in catacombs, much as the early Christians did in
Rome. They cut out fine family vaults from the soft
and durable sandstone. Some of the old families
here can point out, laid neatly away on the shelves,

ROBIN HOOD’S GHOST.

their ancestors’ coffins nearly a thousand years old,
On a high knoll a little way outside of the city, a deep
carriageway is cut through the sandstone, with vaults .
on either side. Some of these very old vaults are open,

the hinges broken or rusted away, the doors rotten.

About twenty-five years ago, before the telegraph
and papers began to inform all the world at the same
instant of everything that is going on—and a great
deal more —it was suddenly rumored, on the very
best authority too, that an actual ghost was to be
seen nightly in Nottingham. It had first been
seen by a burial party at twilight flitting about on the
high bold knoll above the vaults. The most of the
party fled in terror, calling it the ghost of Robin
Hood. But there were some learned and thoughtful
gentlemen in the party, and they determined to get
at the truth; these hastily returned to the spot,
bringing the best men of the city with them to see.
this remarkable sight.

As they came up, breathless and eager, they saw
the white ghost still hovering and darting about over
the hill above the vaults. For the most part it
seemed to glide close down to the ground, as if on its
hands and feet. Then it would start up, strike out
wildly with its slim white arms, and then sink down
and for a moment disappear entirely.

The next night the same remarkable sight was
seen by thousands. The poor ghost did not speak
or make any sound at all. But somehow the fright-
ened inhabitants of Nottingham got it into their
heads that it was suffering great pain.

As the nights wore on, some of the boldest citi-
zens resolved to push their investigation to the
extreme and find out certainly the facts. They ad-
vanced ina body. The ghost fled over the hill, but
was finally seen to appear at the end of the carriage
wall and pass on up among the vaults.

The pursuing party divided, some entering at one
end of the deep carriage way and some at the other.
As they came upon the ghost down the deep cut
in the solid rock from either side, it darted into
an old vault. The boldest hesitated to follow it
here. But before leaving they made careful note of.
the poor ghost’s favorite hiding place, resolved to get
at his secret the following night.

Of course the news had got to London by this
time; and being so well authenticated, the whole city
was excited.

Charles Dickens, Mr. Thackeray, and many others,
some of whom are still living, and from one of whom
JACK-IN-THE-SWAMP.

I got these facts, hastened out to Nottingham to see
the ghost.

Of course the peasants and common people were
thoroughly frightened by this time and kept away ;
but the party from London were resolved to see
for themselves. They went into the old vault as
night came on, and sat down to wait for the ghost.

The party of the night before, using their same
tactics, drew the poor ghost from the hill as soon as
it appeared there, and made it take to the deep
carriage cut as before. Then closed in from both
ways with torches and lanterns, it fled frightened into
the old vault where a somewhat terrified party
crouched in the dark waiting for it. The two ladies
screamed and then fainted. The men jumped up
and tumbled over each other, while the poor ghost
scrambled up to the highest coffin and stood there
trembling and shaking till its little feet beat a
strange tattoo on the dry old oaken lid of some
ancient baron, The men got to their feet as fast as
they could, and catching up their lanterns, held them
high up over their heads and looked at the ghost.
It was a sheep !

They pulled Robin Hood’s ghost down from his
high place in a hurry, for they were very angry and
impatient at being hoaxed by a sheep. And the

237

ladies who were quite ashamed at having fainted,
caught hold of him and began to pull his wool and
shake him heartily. But when they found he was
only skin and bone they began to feel sorry and
to try to find out what was the matter with him.

And what do you think! why, the poor thing had
been licking and nosing an old tin can and got it
fast over its upper jaw. Then the flesh had swollen
and it would not come off, paw and plunge and dig
with his slim fore legs, and claw with his hind ones,
as he might. And as you know, or at least ought to
know, a sheep, nor indeed any cloven-footed creature
that chews the cud, has no upper teeth on its fore
jaw, and so as it could neither bite it off, nor paw it
off, nor kick it off, the poor creature was dying,
crazy from pain and hunger and fright.

Of course they relieved the wretched creature, and
in a few moments it was nibbling at the grass. But
no one ever wrote up the facts, I think. I think,
as the lady who told me the story said, they all felt
a little bit sheepish about it.

I have ventured to tell it because in the first place
it is quite harmless, and in the second place I wish
to impress you with this solid truth, that all ghosts
have no more foundation in fact than had this famoug
Robin Hood’s ghost.

 

JACK-IN-THE-SWAMP.

By Lucy Larcom.

RACKLE! crash! the ice is melting ;
From the west, wild showers are pelting ;
Swish and gurgle! splash and spatter!
* Halloo, good folks! what’s the matter?
Seems to me the roof is leaking!”
Jack from down below is speaking.

You know little Jack?

In the spring he stands up on the swampy edge

Of the hemlock-wood, looking out from the shade of the ferny ledge;

But in winters he cuddles close under a thatch of damp leaves,

Hark ! the water is trickling fast in through his garret-eaves,

And he opens his eyes, and up he starts out of his earthy bed ;

And he carefully holds, while he climbs aloft, his umbrella over his head.
High time for you to be up, Jack, when every living thing

Is washing and sunning itself, Jack, and getting ready for spring!
THE MAN IN THE TOB.

Little Jack, the country preacher,
Thinks, “ These rustics need a teacher!
I shall reprimand the flowers —
Flirting with the rude March showers
That invade my honest dwelling !

What I'll tell them, there’s no telling!”

They call him Jack-in-the-pulpit, so stiff he looks, and so queer, .

As he waits on the edge of the swamp, for the flower-folks to come and heat
The text and the sermon and all the grave things that he has to say:

But the blossoms they laugh and they dance, they are wilder than ever to-day —
No hearers —so never a word has the little minister said,

But there in his pulpit he stands and holds his umbrella over his head ;

And'we have not a doubt in our minds, Jack, you are wisely listening

To the organ-choir of the winds, Jack, and the tunes that the sweet birds sing

 

THE MAN IN THE TUB,

And this is the story: it happened one day

That a wonderful king came riding that way;
Said he, to the man in the tub, “ How d’ ye do?
I’m Great Alexander; now, pray, who are you?”

O, yes, to be clean you must rub, you must rub!
Though he lived and he slept and ate in a tub,
This singular man, in towns where he halted,
History tells us was greatly exalted.

He rose in his tub: “I am Diogenes.”

“ Dear me,” quoth the king, who’d been over the
seas,

“T’ve heard of you often; now, what can I de

To aid such a wise individual as you?”

s

 

“WHILE I RUB AND I RUB!”

OME here, little folks, while I rub and I rub! Could one expect manners, I ask, as I rub,
O, there once was a man who lived ina tub, From a man quite content to live in a tub?
In a classical town far over the seas; “Get out of my sunlight,” growled Diogenes
‘The name of this fellow was Diogenes, ' To this affable king who’d been o’er the seas,
; A WINTER GARDEN.

    
  
  
 

“wy N a certain Christ-
mas day not very
; long ago my com-
rade and I began
to make prepara-
tions for a series
of lovely experiments.
What they were to be
you might not guess in
a dozen times trying. We
had long been meaning
to do it, and saying that
we certainly would; and
‘with that intent had
brought home at one
time and another bushes,
boughs, branches, twigs,
osiers, brambles, enough
to have made a good-
sized bonfire, and more
than enough to keep the rooms in what housekeepers
call “a clutter.”

They were all leafless things, you understand,
which we collected after cold weather came on, and
all along through the winter as we had opportunity.
Sometimes they were dry tips of something that
stuck up through the snow, or that we could get hold
of by venturing on a drift or walking along the top
of a stone wall. And if we happened to be snowed
in, we had recourse to the trees and shrubs by the
side of our own garden fence. In that way we would
get together a nondescript variety; if only vigorously
alive it was all we asked for; and even that we
could not always tell without scraping up a bit of the
bark, so dry and dead did they look.

Not to make a mystery of it, let me say at once
that our “craze” just then was the study of buds—
we always had something. Examine the exquisite
drawings the artist has made from actual specimens,
cherry, butternut, spirea, maple, horsechestnut, and
other familiar things, and see if they are not fasci-
nating. Then try for yourself, as we did, to coax
such as these into leafage, some of them into bloom,

LEAFLESS THINGS.

439

A WINTER GARDEN.—I.

 

By Amanpa B. Harris.

 

and you will find great pleasure, as we did, in a win-
ter garden.

Are you aware that Nature does some of her
choicest work in buds? There is not an elegant
form in the world that she is not able to match in
one of these small things that so few people stop to
notice. The devices are inexhaustible; when you
have counted up all you can think of, like the ex-
quisite egg shape, an acorn, a cone, a pine-apple, a
ball, a cube, and the many pretty models for jar and
vase, you are only at the beginning of the list. And
the tints are infinite; there are nowhere else such
tender greens and rose pinks — fairer than the lining
of a sea-shell; and the browns and reds’ are of
shades which no painter can imitate.

You cannot come to a knowledge of all these
wonders without some help to your natural eye ; but
a cheap little microscope will admit you right into
fairyland. You can have no idea of the variety, nor
of the extreme delicacy, richness and beauty until
you have put them to the magnifying test. After
you have done so, you will
not think me extravagant in
my admiration; you will be
surprised at the finish of even
the minutest parts; and the
luxuriance displayed in some
of the buds as they unfold
will make you think of a gar-
den of the tropics.

LILAC FLOWERS IN DECEMBER.

We wished first to examine
the buds themselves, and see
what relation they bore to-
wards the future development
when woods were green; then
we were anxious to know what
would happen under a process
of indoor treatment. Many
of them—probably most—
would gradually swell, open,

 

WHITE-MAPLE BUDS IN
DEC. A. NATURAL SIZE.
B. ENLARGED 2 DIAME-
TERS.
 

240

‘and’expand into leaf; a few, perhaps, would blossom ;

at any rate we hoped so, and thought it worth while
to try. We had once done so with the common lilac,
‘and been rewarded with a pale thin spray of flowers
right in the depth of winter: and that is a time, I
hardly need say, when one can appreciate flowers.
In summer life is so full and abundant that you
hardly mind one bunch of bloom.
If you wish to prove it for yourself about the lilac,
nothing is easier, but be sure you select the right

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sponge : ‘A WINTER GARDEN. ‘

she gave to “every boy aa girl” on. or way to

~ school, while her neighbor, Ma’am Allison, drove the

little feet away ; and the next year the bush of SS
who gave was full, while Mes

“Ma’am Allison’s tree had of blooms not one!
. The last year’s seeds were there.”

And then, how

i

“Dame Margery said, Ah! don’t you know
If last year’s blossoms stay,

 

 

ALL ALONG THROUGH THE WINTER AS WE HAD OPPORTUNITY.

ind of branch, for right ones there are. You would
not, of course, think of taking a new shoot, for you
will remember that you never saw a blossom on one
of those, but towards the end of the older branches.
Serves: beaut even knowing so much you may make a mistake
that will be fatal unless you understand that it is of
no use to try with a branch which has been allowed

_, to goto seed. Those buds contain leaves only; next
_ year there will be flowers there, but not this. Per-
sons who want a full bloom on their lilac bushes
every year, look out to break off the flowers. You
“know that poem about Dame Margery’s lilac — how

 

 

 

The next year’s buds will fail to grow
Till these are broken away ?

For this year’s lilacs cannot live
With seeds of last year’s’ spring.”

_ And so it was that

“Ma’am Allison Jearned that she must give,
If she would have a thing.”

‘

Perhaps Ma’am Allison also learned a lesson. ot
botany, as you have. :

Take, then, one of the two-forked branches (you
will know them at once) with those strong buds in _
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ge

i892. Miz teee § Co: Ghrew me NE
preugo ~ it,
- Ss “ercapinnnacie lea

 
A.

pairs at the end; put it in warm water, which you
will have to change several times a day, and keep

   
   

BLUEBERRY BUSH IN WIN-

TER, NATURAL SIZE. B.
BLUEBERRY BUD ENLARGED
6 DIAMETERS. C. MOUN-
TAIN ASH, HERMETICALLY
SEALED, HALF DIAMETER.

soon as the leaves, or even earlier.

it where it
will not get
chilled : set
in the sun-
shine when
there is any
— nothing
is so good
for flowers,
with a few
exception-
al cases, or
for children, as plen-
ty of sunshine — and
in a few weeks you
will have a bit of May bloom
to brighten your room. En-
couraged by this you will
try other things. You can
easily judge what will be

most likely to come forward,

under such management;
you will think of the wild
cherry, of the plum-trees, of
the common garden spirea,
and the flowering almond, of
others both wild and culti-
vated which have flowers as
You can attempt

this process with anything you please; and should
“you get nothing but leaves for your pains, you will

still be well repaid.

You will notice that your lilac buds are very plump

as they come from the bush, and that the

“ nipping

and eager air” of winter has not harmed them in the

least.

In shape they are like acorns without the

cups ; and those vari-colored lines are where the cas-

ings lap which protect the vital part.
With a penknife blade if you will

solid they are!

How hard and

gently raise one of those brown-edged scales you will

_ come to a layer of green ones, one above another; now

lay back those bedclothes, as you might call them,
and there is the treasured darling within, and all this
swaddling and swathing has been to keep it from

harm.

It is the future blossom. What, ‘at? you

say. Yes, that: can you believe it? you see a heap
of what might be taken for the tiniest green grapes ;
and what a rarely lovely green it is too! —and so lucent,

A WINTER GARDEN.

241

sO juicy, so tempting, that they actually seem some-

thing good to eat!

Some day — what a wonder ! —

they will have become transformed into a great toss-
ing plume of lilac flowers.

Press the blade upon one of them, and N\\
you have granules almost infinitesimally
small, but they keep their substance in
shape, little as there is of it.
they look as transparent and dissolvable
as jelly, you find that they have form and
individuality. There is in them a portion
of the principle we call life ; a germ of one
of its countless forms; but nothing we can

ALDER IN AUTUMN, SEED PODS

‘,

  
    
  
 
 
 
  
 
  
  
 
   

Though

do throws
light on the
mystery of its
beginning. Oh!
where do the
beautiful tubes and
the salver-form corol-
las come from? —and hoz
do they come ?— and whence
that exquisite color— and
the fragrance, like balsam or
incense of the East ?—and
how can such sprays of liv-
ing beauty as toss and sway
in the summer air, spring
from such glutinous green
matter as that?
Greater wonders

 

than

AND DRY BUDS; REDUCED were wrought by Aladdin’s

ONE THIRD IN DIAMETER.

lamp are taking place right

in your own dooryard. No tale of genii is more

marvellous than this; and this is true.

You can

watch the process of growth after the enveloping

scales have opened and fallen back.

That impor-

tant inmost part develops more and more, assuming
a pyramidal form, and coming out farther, so that

soon the flower stem appears.

After that it is simply

a matter of progress and expansion; but the mystery
of its beginning, color and shape, is mystery still;
yet, in the words of a great botanist, though “we

cannot tell what life zs,’
which it does.”

2

we can “notice some things

MAKING THE ARRANGEMENTS.

Let me remind you that our dear old Mother
242

Nature makes her arrangements a long while before-
hand. She is both thrifty and farsighted, like a
good housekeeper who looks out that things shall be
ready against the time when they are sure to be.
needed; and with excellent reason, for Aer house-
keeping is done on a scale so vast. If there was no
calculation (as we should say), no system, what a
state this world would be in! what a mixed-up,
wrong-side-out, unfinished, behind-hand condition !
Think of what would happen if there
was no preparation until April for having
the trees leaf out. " The forests could
not be dressed in a hurry; and it takes
_a long time to fit even a rose for its
appearance in public; order, method
and fixed laws—the proces- 1
sion of the seasons could not Vy
go on without them. There My
are exceptions, it is true; but Z
then — they ave exceptions.
Nothing ever materially affects
her steadfast ways; in the
great plan tnere is never fail-
ure. Harm may come to cer-
tain individuais, or species, or
even to a given tract of coun-
try —such as untimely cold,
or heat, or blight, or something
equally disastrous— but the
damage is not felt beyond:
the earth comes out with each
returning spring as fresh and
vigorous as
if it was im-
mortal, and
the laws
which gov-
ern the uni-
verse joy-
ously assert
‘themselves
in spite of adverse forces.

One of the laws is,
that before the leaves
have dropped from the
trees in autumn, those
for the next year (includ-
ing the branches which
are to grow in one sea-
son) are provided for.

 

HALF DIAME-

HORSECHESTNUT,
TER.

 
 
  
    
 
 

A, BUTTERNUT; B. SUMACH
REDUCED ONE THIRD IN DI-
AMETER.

A WINTER GARDEN.

were once buds,
trunk of a tree
branches grow
some of just
about. There
terminal buds,

All branches and shoots
you know. The stem or
grows out of the root: the
from the stem, and from
such buds as we are talking
are two special ways — from the
and from those which are called
axillary, The first, as you of
course understand, is at the end
of the stem, which
pushes right along
by means of it from
year to year.

 
    
   
  

Thesecond word
seems to belong
more
strictly

to the

science Ik

of anat-

omy, for (

Sfaxil’? EA

means 4 POSSIBLE DEVELOP-
: MENT. REDUCED ONE
the arm- yarr IN DIAMETER.
pit; so ; ‘

the axillary buds are those in
the angle at the base of the
leaves. You can see them
before the summer
is gone, for they are
ready and bid-
ing their
time; and though

they do not exactly

crowd the leaves off,

they speedily take

the vacant places;

it is just as it is in

human life: “ ‘The

king is dead. Long

live the king!”

The nourishment which they
will need by and by is ready in
the bark and elsewhere, for
unseen forces have been all
summer as busy as ants storing
up food ;. besides this, there is
power in all vigorous plants to
absorb air, - moisture, -and
warmth. The growth of a tree

   

SPIREA, NATURAL SIZE
BED-TIME.

is a continued story, and just as the buds began in
the first place they keep on from year to year; if they
stop, there will be death.

There is another thing: more buds are provided
than there is any present use for. Professor Gray
says it “never happens” that they all grow; “if they
did, there would be as many branches in any year as
there were leaves the year before.” Imagine the
crowding and tangling if that could happen! But
what becomes of. the surplus buds? To answer that
question fully would take us into a study of structure
which there is not time for now; botany will tell you
all about it. Enough now to say that some always
remain undeveloped, and show as small bunchy

places on the bark ; some, after years of stagnation,’

start out and put forth a feeble, stripling bough on

243

their own account; others (they have the significant
name of “ latent’) survive for years without growing,
and when other branches happen to be killed, “these
come out to supply their place.”

There is, however, one class of trees, such as the
pines and spruces, where the loss of a member is not
made up; and if you break off a branch it will be in
vain for you to expect another. The tree will push on
upward, in obedience to the law of its being, which
is for the main stem to be “carried on in a direct
line, throughout the whole growth of the tree by the
development year after year of a terminal bud,” but
it will put out no new branch below. I never see
a portion of one of these evergreens lopped off with-
out feeling sorry about it; without thinking of it as.a
wrong done to the tree.

; | BED-TIME.

 

By MaRGARET VANDEGRIFT.

 

NDEED and indeed I am not sleepy;
I want a story, one story, oh please!
My eyelids just feel a little creepy, _
And my head would like to lie on your knees.”

“Tt’s the sand-man making your eyelids creepy,”
T say, as I stroke the curly head ;

“ My darling is very, very sleepy,

And here comes nurse to take her to bed.”

“Just a minute, mamma, a little minute!

I haven’t finished my dolly’s hood ;

I left the needle all sticking in it,

And she has to have it —I said she should.”

- “J will finish the hood for dolly, sweetheart,
She shall have it to-night, as her mother said ;
But the dark has come, and the stars are shining,
And nurse is waiting ; so go to bed.”

“ But I left my dolly under the willow,
Without her hat or her little shawl,

With only an apple for her pillow,

And nothing over her — nothing at all!”

“T will bring her in, and to-morrow morning
You shall find her under her patchwork spread,
All safe and sound, with her hood beside her;
So kiss me, baby, and go to bed.”

“I was cross this morning, and whipped my kittens
Because they wouldn’t play horses right ;

And I rubbed a coal on my little new mittens;
Forgive me, mamma; I’m sorry to-night.”

A clinging hug, and a.dozen kisses,

From lips that are soft, and warm, and red,
“T forgive you, darling ; I know you're sorry;
Love mamma always— and go to bed.”

“ Ah, mamma darling, it’s very lonely,

I think I would like to wait for you ;

The bed is so big with just me only.

Why are you waiting? You might come too.”

“You will be asleep in a minute, precious,
After you lay down your little head ;

And when you wake, you will find me by you,
One kiss, and then you must go to bed!”

 
 

IN THE SWEET 0’ THE YEAR.

244
JOE LAMBERT’S FERRY.

245

JOE LAMBERT’S FERRY.

 

By GEORGE Cary EGGLESTON.

 

T was a thoroughly disagreeable March morning.
The wind blew in sharp gusts from every quarter
of the compass by turns. It seemed to take especial
delight in rushing suddenly around corners and taking
away the breath of anybody it could catch there com-
ing from the opposite direction. The dust, too, filled
people’s eyes and noses and mouths, while the damp
raw March air easily found its way through the best
clothing, and turned boys’ skins into pimply goose-
flesh.

It was about as disagreeable a morning for going
out as can be imagined; and yet everybody in the
little Western river town who could get out went out
and stayed out.

Men and women, boys and girls, and even little
children, ran to the river-bank : and, once there, they
stayed, with no thought, it seemed, of going back to
their homes or their work.

The people of the town were wild with excitement,
and everybody told everybody else what had hap-
pened, although everybody knew all about it already.
Everybody, I mean, except Joe Lambert, and he had
been so busy ever since daylight, sawing wood in
Squire Grisard’s woodshed, that he had neither seen
nor heard anything at all. Joe was the poorest per-
son in the town. He was the only boy there who
really had no home and nobody to care for him.
Three or four years -before this March morning, Joe
had been léft an orphan, and being utterly destitute,
he should have been sent to the poorhouse, or “bound

out” to some person as a sort of servant. But Joe
Lambert had refused to go to the poorhouse or to
become a bound boy. He had declared his ability to
take care of himself, and by working hard at odd jobs,
sawing wood, rolling barrels on the wharf, picking
apples or weeding onions as opportunity offered, he
had managed to support himself “after a manner,”
as the village people said. That is to say, he gener-
ally got enough to eat, and some clothes to wear.
He slept in a warehouse shed, the owner having
given him leave to do so on condition that he would
act as a sort of watchman on the premises.

Joe Lambert alone of all the villagers knew nothing
of what had happened; and of course Joe Lambert
did not count for anything in the estimation of people
who had houses to live in. The only reason I have
gone out of the way to make an exception of so unim-
portant a person is, that I think Joe did count for
something on that particular March day at least.

When he finished the pile of wood that he had to
saw, and went to the house to get his money, he found
nobody there. Going down the street he found the
town empty, and, looking down a cross street, he saw
the crowds that had gathered on the river-bank, thus
learning at last that something unusual had occurred,
Of course he ran to the river to learn what it was.

When he got there he learned that Noah Martin
the fisherman who was also the ferryman between
the village and its neighbor on the other side of the
river, had been drowned during the early morning in
a foolish attempt to row his ferry skiff across the
stream. The ice which had blocked the river for
two months, had begun to move on the day before,
and Martin with his wife and baby—a child about
a year old — were on the other side of the river at
the time. Early on that morning there had been a
temporary gorging of the ice about a mile above the
town, and, taking advantage of the comparatively
free channel, Martin had tried to cross with his wife
and child, in his boat.

The gorge had broken up almost immediately, as
the river was rising rapidly, and Martin’s boat had
been caught and crushed in the ice. Martin had
been drowned, but his wife, with her child in her
arms, had clung to the wreck of the skiff, and had
been carried by the current to a little low-lying
island just in front of the town.

What had happened was of less importance, how-
ever, than what people saw must happen. ‘The poor
woman and baby out there on the island, drenched
as they had been in the icy water, must soon die with
cold, and, moreover, the island was now nearly under
water, while the great stream was rising rapidly. It.
was evident that within an hour or two the water
246

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
JOEL LAMBERT’S FERRY.

would sweep over the whole surface of the island, and
the great fields of ice would of course carry the
woman and child to a terrible death.

Many wild suggestions were made for their rescue,
but none that gave the least hope of success. It was
simply impossible to launch a boat. The vast fields
of ice, two or three feet in thickness, and from twenty
feet to a hundred yards in breadth, were crushing
and grinding down the river at the rate of four or
five miles an hour, turning and twisting about, some-
times jamming their edges together with so great a
force that one would lap over another, and sometimes
drifting apart and leaving wide open spaces between
for a moment or two. One might as well go upon
such a river in an egg shell as in the stoutest rowboat
ever built.

The poor woman with her babe could be seen from
the shore, standing there alone on the rapidly narrow-
ing strip of island. Her voice could not reach the
people on the bank, but when she held her poor little
baby toward them in mute appeal for help, the
mothers there understood her agony.

There was nothing to be done, however. Human
sympathy was given freely, but human help was out
of the question. Everybody on the river-shore was
agreed in that opinion. Everybody, that is to say,
except Joe Lambert. He had been so long in the
habit of finding ways to help himself under difficul-
ties, that he did not easily make up his mind to
think any case hopeless.

No sooner did Joe clearly understand how matters
stood than he ran away from the crowd, nobody pay-
ing any attention to what he did. Half an hour
later somebody cried out: “Look there! Who’s

that, and what’s he going to do?” pointing up the -

stream.

Looking in that direction, the people saw some one
three quarters of a mile away standing on a floating
field of ice in the river. He had a large farm-basket
strapped upon his shoulders, while in his hands he
held a plank.

As the ice-field upon which he stood neared
another, the youth ran forward, threw his plank
down, making a bridge of it, and crossed to the
farther field. Then picking up his plank, he waited
for a chance to repeat the process.

As he thus drifted down the river, every eye was
strained in his direction.
out: “It's Joe Lambert; and he’s trying to cross to
the island!”

Presently some one cried

‘town.

247

There was a shout as the people understood the
nature of Joe’s heroic attempt, and then a hush as
its extreme danger became apparent.

Joe had laid his plans wisely and well, but it
seemed impossible that he should succeed. His
purpose was, with the aid of the plank to cross from
one ice-field to another until he should reach the
island; but as that would require a good deal of
time, and the ice was moving down stream pretty
rapidly, it was necessary to start at a point above the
Joe had gone about a mile up the river before
going on the ice, and when first seen from the town
he had already reached the channel.

After that first shout a whisper might have been
heard in the crowd on the bank. The heroism of
the poor boy’s attempt awed the spectators, and the
momentary expectation that he would disappear
forever amid the crushing ice-fields, made them hold
their breath in anxiety and terror.

His greatest danger was from the smaller cakes of
ice. When it became necessary for him to step
upon one of these, his weight was sufficient to make
it tilt, and his footing was very insecure. After
awhile as he was nearing the island, he came into a
large collection of these smaller ice-cakes. [or
awhile he waited, hoping that a larger ficld would
drift near him; but after a minute’s delay he saw
that he was rapidly floating past the island, and ihat
he must either trust himself to the treacherous
broken ice, or fail in his attempt to save the woman
and child.

Choosing the best of the floes, he laid his plank
and passed across successfully. In the next passage,
however, the cake tilted up, and Joe Lambert went
down into the water! A shudder passed through
the crowd on shore.

“Poor fellow!” exclaimed some tender-hearted
spectator; “it is all over with him now,”

“No; look, look!” shouted another.
ing to climb upon the ice. Hurrah! he’s on his fect
again!” With that the whole company of spcc-
tators shouted for joy.

Joe had managed to regain his plank as well as to
climb upon a cake of ice before the fields around
could crush him, and now moving cautiously, he
made his way, little by little toward the island.

“Hurrah! Hurrah! he’s there at last!”’ shouted
the people on the shore.

“ But will he get back again?” was the question
each one asked himself a moment later.

“He's try
248

Having reached the island, Joe very well knew
that the more difficult part of his task was still
before him, for it was one thing for an active boy to
work his way over floating ice, and quite another
to carry a child and lead a woman upon a similar
journey.

But Joe Lambert was quick-witted and ‘‘long-
headed,” as well as brave, and he meant to do all
that he could to save these poor creatures for whom
he had risked his life so heroically. Taking out his
knife he made the woman cut her skirts off at the
knees, so that she might walk and leap more freely.
Then placing the baby in the basket which was
strapped upon his back, he cautioned the woman
against giving way to fright, and instructed her
carefully about the method of crossing.

On the return journey Joe was able to avoid one
great risk. As it was not necessary to land at any
particular point, time was of little consequence, and
hence when no large field of ice was at hand, he
could wait for one to approach, without attempting
to make use of the smaller ones. Leading the
woman wherever that was necessary, he slowly made
his way toward shore, drifting down the river, of
course, while all the people of the town marched along
the bank.

When at last Joe leaped ashore in company with
the woman, and bearing her babe in the basket on
his back, the people seemed ready to trample upon
each other in their eagerness to shake hands with
their hero.

Their hero was barely able to stand, however.
Drenched as he had been in the icy river, the sharp
March wind had chilled him to the marrow, and one
of the village doctors speedily lifted him into his
carriage which he had brought for that purpose, and
drove rapidly away, while the other physician took
charge of Mrs. Martin and the baby.

Joe was a strong, healthy fellow, and under the
doctor’s treatment of hot brandy and vigorous rub-
biag with coarse towels, he soon warmed. Then he
wanted to saw enough wood for the doctor to pay
for his treatment, and thereupon the doctor threat-
ened to poison him if he should ever venture to
mention pay to him again.

Naturally enough the village people talked of nothing
but Joe Lambert’s heroic deed, and the feeling was gen-
eral that they had-never done their duty toward the
poor orphan boy. There was an eager wish to help

JOE LAMBERT’S FERRY.

him now, and many offers were made to him; but
these all took the form of charity, and Joe would
not accept charity at all. Four years earlier, as |
have already said, he had refused to go to the poor-
house or to be “ bound out,” declaring that he could
take care of himself; and when some thoughtless
person had said in his hearing that he would have
to live on charity, Joe’s reply had been:

“Tl never eat a mouthful in this town that I
haven’t worked for if I starve.” And he had kept
his word. Now that he was fifteen years old he was

‘not willing to begin receiving charity even in the

form of a reward for his good deed.

One day when some of the most prominent men of
the village were talking to him on the subject Joe said:

“J don’t want anything except a chance to work,
but I’ll tell you what you may do for me if you will.
Now that poor Martin is dead the ferry privilege
will be to lease again, and I’d like to get it fora
good long term. Maybe I can make something out
of it by being always ready to row people across,
and I may even be able to put on something better
than a skiff after awhile. Il pay the village what
Martin paid.”

The gentlemen were glad enough of a chance to
do Joe even this small favor, and there was no dif-
ficulty in the way. The authorities gladly granted
Joe a lease of the ferry privilege for twenty years,
at twenty dollars a year rent, which was the rate
Martin had paid.

At first Joe rowed people back and forth, saving
what money he got very carefully. This was all that
could be required of him, but it occurred to Joe that
if he had a ferry boat big enough, a good many
horses and cattle and a good deal of freight would
be sent across the river, for he was a “ long-headed ”
fellow as I have said.

One day a chance offered, and he bought for
twenty-five dollars a large old wood boat, which was
simply a square barge forty feet long and fifteen feet
wide, with bevelled bow and stern, made to hold
cord wood for the steamboats. With his own hands
he laid a stout deck on this, and, with the assistance
of a man whom he hired for that purpose, he con-
structed a pair of paddle wheels. By that time Joe
was out of money, and work on the boat was sus- |
pended for awhile. When he had accumulated a
little more money, he bought a horse power, and
placed it in the middle of his boat, connecting it with
the shaft of his wheels. Then he made a rudder and
THE CHRISTMAS GIFT.

helm, and his horse-boat was ready for use. It had
cost him about a. hundred dollars besides his own
labor upon it, but it would carry live stock and
freight as well as passengers, and so the business of
the ferry rapidly increased, and Joe began to put a
little money away in the bank.

After awhile a railroad was built into the village,
and then a second one came. A year later another

railroad was opened on the other side of the river,

and all the passengers who came to one village by
rail had to be ferried across the river in order to con-
tinue their journey by the railroads there. The horse-
boat was too small and too slow for the business,
and Joe Lambert had to buy two steam ferry-boats
to take its place. These cost more money than he
had, but, as the owner of the ferry privilege, his
credit was good, and the boats soon paid for them-
selves, while Joe’s bank account grew again.

Finally the railroad people determined to run
through cars for passengers and freight, and to carry
them across the river on large boats built for that

249
purpose ; but before they gave their orders to their
boat builders, they were waited upon by the attor-
neys of Joe Lambert, who soon convinced them that
his ferry privilege gave him alone the right to run
any kind of ferry-boats between the two villages
which had now grown to such size that they called
themselves cities. The result was that the railroads
made a contract with Joe to carry their cars across.
and he had some large boats built for that pur
pose.

All this occurred a good many years ago, and Joe
Lambert is not called Joe now, but Captain Lambert.
He is one of the most prosperous men in the little
river city, and owns many large river steamers besides
his ferry-boats. Nobody is readier than he to help
a poor boy or a poor man; but he has his own way
of doing it. He will never toss so much as a cent
to a beggar, but he never refuses to give man or boy
achance to earn money by work. He has an odd
theory that money which comes without work does
more harm than good.

 

THE CHRISTMAS GIFT.

 

By CexraA THAXTER.

 

YOU dear little dog, all eyes and fluff!
How can I ever love you enough?
How was it, I wonder, that any one knew
1 wanted a little dog, just like you?
With your jet black nose, and each sharp-cut ear,
And the tail you wag —O you ave so dear!
Did you come trotting through all the snow
To find my door, I should like to know ?
Or did you ride with the fairy team
Of Santa Claus, of which children dream,
Tucked all up in the furs so warm,
Driving like mad over village and farm,
O’er the country drear, o’er the city towers,
Until you stopped at this house of ours?
Did you think ’twas a little girl like me
You were coming so fast thro’ the snow to see?
Well, whatever way you happened here,
You are my pet and my treasure dear —

Such a Christmas present! O such a joy!
Better than any kind of a toy !

Something that eats and drinks and walks,
And looks so lovely and almost talks ;
With a face so comical and wise,

And such a pair of bright brown eyes!

T’ll tell you something : The other day

I heard papa to my mamma say

Very softly, “I really fear

Our baby may be quite spoiled, my dear.
We’ve made of our darling such a pet,

I think the little one may forget

There’s any creature beneath the sun
Beside herself to waste thought upon.”
I’m going to show him what I can do

For a dumb little helpless thing like you,
T’ll not be selfish and slight you, dear;
Whenever I can I shall keep you near;
GENERAL GRANT.

[
Born, April 27, 1822. Died, Fuly 23, 1885.

ORD BACON says no man can be judged by
one act; we must wait as at a play until all
the acts are over and the curtain falls.

The curtain has fallen on a life of startling
changes passing with dramatic swiftness from
obscurity to extraordinary positions of honor and
power where, “in the fierce light that beats about
a throne,” in the fierce heat of contending armies
and in the fiercer passions of contending political
parties his part was acted out for over twenty
years; then the splendid drama suddenly became
tragedy; it reads like the old Greek tragedies
where the gods offended that a mortal should
approach their own greatness let loose upon him
every element of disaster and suffering.

The name which had become a synonyme for
success has of late embodied every reverse. Health,
fortune, pride, all were shattered and rent from
him, and then an unrelenting disease fastened on
him and took life itself.

Ours is a generous people and this furnace of
affliction fused all differences into one common
feeling of sympathy. Never has a man gone to
his death so sustained and comforted by the tender-
ness of a nation.

And rarely has any man been so sustained—
always —— by domestic love. The family life at the
White House was simple and reserved as was its
head; four generations, from the aged father of
Mrs. Grant to the infant great-grandchildren, made
a rare and beautiful home atmosphere. And this
blessing was with him to the end.

I would like to tell, to boys especially, some
things I know of General Grant’s sympathy with
young men; his comprehending and willing help

to them in the early deciding steps that influence |

a life. His habit of silence and his peculiar square-

set build gave him an unfair appearance of being

hard, and without interest in what was said to him.
250

But I found him the most prompt to take i= 1 case,
act, and follow it up thoroughly, of any P* sident
I have known. He was not in the least emotinal,
but sympathy he had, and his position esaSled
him to make his feelings action.

Having the common impression that he was
indifferent as well as silent in general society it
was a surprise and pleasure to have the President
ask me, one evening at a large reception gives to
him by Admiral Zielen, to stand near him that he
might hear what I said; “You always seem to
have something to say, now my difficulty is tc know
what to say.”

I answered naturally enough that “every one
has his gifts ” and while mine was only to talk, his
was to do the things that made every one talk of
him.

“There,” he exclaimed, “ that is just the sort ¢£
thing I like to hear you say” —and then as I>
saw the double meaning this had, so out of keepin, °
with his real modesty, we had such a good laug!
together that it made me see him in a new light.

Personally, I had not known General Gran
until he was in the height of his power as Presi
dent. With the family of Mrs. Grant it was ar
old friendship, dating from her father and mine

General Grant was given his first command by
General Frémont at Saint Louis in ’61—and ]
knew at the time the reasons for which he was put
in command at Cairo, to protect the river and
maintain our hold on Paducah and other points on
the Kentucky shore.

Kentucky intended remaining neutral, and re-
sented this “intrusion” as they called it, and
brought such political power to bear from Wash-
ington that it became imperative to make sure of
an officer who would not be swayed by political
considerations, but would simply and uncondi-
tionally maintain his military position. General

 
GENERAL GRANT.

‘Grant’s whole person bore the impress of tena-
cious will and courage. These qualities the whole
country soon came to know and the business men
counted on them when they had him for President.
“Property is timid,” but there were no alarms
while Grant held fast what the war had secured.

Because I was always met by friendly welcomes
and because I was sure of favorable hearing I
refused to be a channel of requests; it is a luxury
to a man in power to know persons who do not
wish to make use of him; but I made the excep-
tion for two very young men. The way in which
the President felt and granted their wishes will let
you see, as I did, into General Grant’s inner
nature.

One was a small request, but involved the influ-
ences that for some years would shape a young life.

The personal character of the commanding
officer of a man-of-war makes the tone of the ship.
It can be all for good as with the brave and good
Admiral Foote and the generous-natured Farragut,
and, almost universally it is a responsibility felt
and acted on by elder officers; but there are some,
very few, who use power as a weapon of offence.
To hope for courtesy or fairness from these would
be to lean on a broken reed, and constant injustice
develops the bad side, all the more in natures
that are open and generous.

A case came to me where a midshipman about
to make his first long cruise was warned that his
“ billet”? would be on a ship subject to the vexa-
tions and disadvantages from such a commander.
If he could be ordered to a certain other ship
everything would be the charming opposite. There
was no time to lose and I went to the Secretary of
the Navy to ask this transfer of orders. He was
out of town. Then I went to the President and
was taken at once into the Cabinet room — where
as achild I used to go with my father, and be with
another general the people remember, General
Jackson.

The President was quite alone ; I explained my
visit at once, telling him why I ventured to bring
so small a matter before him,and he went up high
in my esteem by his feeling that nothing that
influenced a young man’s character could be of
small account. As he spoke he drew paper to
him and began writing what was needed; sending
also for a messenger to take it over to the Navy
Department, with a verbal message that I was

251

waiting there with him, and he would be obliged if
the papers could be made out at once — “ It will
take about half an hour,” he said. Then he stopped
writing ‘to ask if it must be that ship more than
another— for it was to a flagship my youngster
wished his orders. “ You know,” said the President,
“T ought not to interfere in the personal surround-
ing of the admiral — it is like the staff of a general
and should be of his own choosing.” I liked this
complete grasp of the whole idea; not only the
chief consideration (to me) of several years of good
or of unfavorable influences but the quick remem-
bering of what was due to others also.

I showed him the letter asking this special mid-
shipman should be sent to that ship. Two of their
midshipmen had resigned and their Admiral had
given them the selection of those to fill the vacan-
cies (which shows his considerate amiable ways ).
The letter was from a young officer, a warm-hearted
Western lad who was a favorite with us. He said,
“the admiral told us to please ourselves as we had
to be so long together, and he wanted no rough-
joins but to have all work smooth among us. We
each put in our names and I put in Jack’s. Al-
though he is a class below ours nearly every vote
was for him and the Admiral agreed to both our
selections.”

“That settles it,” said the President, “ Jack shall
go,” and finishing his writing quickly sent it off.

His eye had caught the next words in the letter
and with a smile he asked, “‘ May I read this about
the pretty girl with the peaches and cream com-
pléxion?” and read it all—smiling: “it takes me
back to my cadet days. They have a happy time
over there,” and he spoke with real feeling of the
pleasure it was to see young people happy. “ My
little Nelly” (with such a tender tone in his voice),
was having her first visit to England. He was
gratified by the attentions given her and by her
manner of receiving them. She was like himself
for simplicity although more gay of nature than he
could ever have been; then with an entire change
of voice, “I can stand anything the papers say of
me, but my little Nelly!” and he stopped; then
after a long breath, “I cannot stand their saying
things against her.”

It was the week before his second election and
he talked with perfect openness of the chances;
there were chances against, and he did not under-
value them. Something was referred to which
252

made him say, “ If I am here that will not be.
What was gained by the war, will not be changed
in my time.”

The messenger coming back with the finished
orders, I was leaving when the President suggested
that Ihad best step into the Navy Department and
say a word of thanks there. “ They would like the
attention,” he said, and with Judge Dent as escort
Idid so. Another mark of the completeness of
his attention to what was being done; and of proper
consideration for the usages and rights of officials.
My midshipman was a happy and a grateful man
when that long white envelope reached him.

The other young man — he was but eighteen, but
they like to be always called men — had tried fora
cadetship to West Point and was refused at the
War Department. His personal qualifications and
the letters recommending him were both of the high-
est, but the hard fact remained that his father, a
Northern man and a West Point officer, had taken
the Southern side. On the mother’s side he was
Southern and of a distinguished name in the War
of Independence.

He was but five when the family left the
South for England and the boy had grown up away
from the war in a dispassionate atmosphere. In
Dresden he had been great friends with a young
son of mine— they had studied and skated and
had long walks and talks together, and now I
shared my son’s disappointment for his friend.

Each life must answer for itself, and our country
intends every man to have a full chance. We have
no law of entail for property, and the law of in-
herited enmity is confined to Corsica and savage
peoples.

I knew the President could see all sides of a
case and remembering what he had said to me of
young people I wrote to him of this young man.

I told him I felt the weight the lad had to carry
in his father’s war record but I asked was it just,
was it logical, to punish the children for the acts of
the fathers when the fathers were to have no pun-
ishment? If good feeling was to be restored let
the children who had done nothing have full
rights, especially to education.

I told him how bravely this boy had fought the
hard battle with poverty when reversescameto them
and had proved qualities of self-control and courage
andendurance. And, knowing him well, I knew
he was from intelligent conviction for the Union.

GENERAL GRANT.

Guy had nearly lost hope, but not persistence in
effort,

He went to Long Branch and sent his letter in to
the President. “The President was at supper, but
would see him when he was through;” the man
returned with a new military work with maps and
plans, “the President sends this for you to look
over while you are waiting.”

Soon he came in, half smiled as he looked up at
the six-foot lad and shook hands with him, making
him sit by him at the library table “and looking
into me” as Guy reported to me.

General Grant had the good manners to be dis-
tinct and make no delay; he told the boy that all
his appointments, ten, were already filled, that he
had an equal number of substitutes and had filled
four of these.

“The best I can do now is to put you number
five on the substitute list. If no chance opens that
way, I will give you an appointment on next year’s
list. But try your chance.”

He made a note, with his pencil, of the name,
age, etc., etc., for use in having the substitute ap-
pointment made out.

Guy offered his other letters — from a senator, a
governor, anda millionnaire, saying their names —
to which General Grant listened, but told him
never mind those, he should keep them for future
use, “but Mrs, Frémont’s letter is all I need.”

Happy Guy took his leave; turning back to ask
the President to give him the cedar pencil he had
been using for, he said,“ with your pencil I shall feel
I carry the baton of the marshal in my empty sack.””*

Five of the President’s appointments failed
to pass their examinations. “Substitute No. 5”
passed his handsomely; made his four years’
course with increasing credit, and is at’ this
present pursuing Apaches in Arizona.

Just before the accident that lamed him —
Christmas of ’83 — General Grant was at a mar-
riage inmy family. He surprised many by his ani-
mated pleasant manner; I had never seen him to
such happy advantage. We were all in such pleas-
ant frame of mind that painful memories had no
place and for the moment I did not think what
might be in the minds of two among my Southern
relations present when I asked if they knew Gen-

*This was a saying of the great Napoleon ‘‘ Every French soldier
feels he carries the baton of a marshal in his haversack.’? Before their

revolution only nobles could be officers, Since, the soldier can rise te
any rank.
GENERAL GRANT. 253

eral Grant or should I introduce them? I only
felt they were delightful and most distinguished-
looking men and forgot their large part in the war.

One, now a senator, knew Gane Grant and
advanced and spoke to him. The other, always
very calm and deliberate, seemed very much so
now ; and his tall spare figure and gray head seemed
to rise higher as he came forward and was intro-
duced——his cousin the senator saying also some-
thing in introduction.

The change in General Grant’s face struck me.
It was lit with a large feeling and the gravity with
which he offered his hand meant something, I felt
sure.

Suddenly it came to me — SHILOH!

My cousin was the devoted son of his noble
father, Albert Sidney Johnston.

To me the rush of painful ideas was sickening,
but both the men behaved with beautiful dignity.

Was it not strange those names, Grant, John-
ston, Benton (the Gunboat), once met in war at
Shiloh, should after so many years meet at a
martiage-feast to be united in good wishes and
kind feeling?

Among the thousand expressions of sympathy, I
am told General Grant was greatly touched by that
from the annual meeting of Southern soldiers on
the anniversary of Shiloh—its presiding officer
this son of General Johnston, and his scholarly
hand evident in the compact message breathing
only manly pity and Christian feeling.

I would like to think that brief look into each
other, at the happy marriage, had some part in this
gentle veiling of the face of war.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
254

 

HER ANGER,

By Anna F, BuRNHAM.

 

ARGERY cowered and crouched in the door of the beautiful porch,
There were beautiful people in there, and they all “ belonged to the church,”
But Margery waited without; she did not “belong” anywhere
Except in the dear Lord’s bosom, who taketh the children there.

And through the open doorway came floating a lovely sound;
She shut her eyes and imagined how the angels stood around
With their harps like St. Cecilia’s in the picture on the wall —
Ah, Margery did not doubt that so looked the singers all.

“ Suffer the little children!” sang a heavenly voice somewhere,
Or the soul of a voice that was winging away in the upper air ;

“ Let the children come to me!” sang the “angel” in her place,
And Margery, listening, stood with upturned eyes and face.

“Let them come! let them come to me!” And up the aisle she sped
With eyes that sought for the Voice, to follow where it led.

She did not say to herself: “I’mcoming! Wait for me!”

But it shone in her face, and it leaped in her eyes, dear Margery !

Up the stair to the singer she ran — she touched the hem of her dress.
But the choir were bending their heads, the preacher had risen to bless
The reverent throng, and— alas, bewilderéd Margery,

The Voice has ceased, and the singers have turned their eyes on thee.
 

BUT THE SWEETESE FACE BENT NEAR,

aN
256

THE BALLAD OF A SAD, BAD GIRL.

They look with surprise at her feet, and again at her ragged gown,
And one by one they pass with a careless smile or a frown;

But the sweetest face bent near, and —“I came,” said Margery,

“For I thought ’twas an angel sung, ‘ Let the children come to me!’”

With a tender sigh the singer took the child on her knee;

“T sang the words for the dear Lord Christ, my Margery,
And so, for the dear Lord Christ, I take thee home with me!”
—‘“It was an angel sang!” sobs little Margery.

THE BALLAD OF A SAD, BAD GIRL.

By M. E. B.

HE was pretty, she was bright,
She was brave as she was bonny,

Her eyes were full of light,

And her smile was bright and sunny ;
She was rare, she was fair,

And her hair was full of curl,
But she was — O, she was

Such a sad, bad girl!

Her cheek was like a rose,

Her mouth was like a cherry,
She’d a pretty, pert, snub nose,

And her laugh was gay and merry;
She was sweet to her feet,

And her teeth were made of pearl,
But she was —O, she was

Such a sad, bad girl!

Her locks were touched with gold,
And a three-foot rule would scrape her;
She was only five years old,
And her finger tips were taper ;
She could run just like fun,
With a rush and with a swirl;
Still she was — O, she was
Such a sad, bad girl!

For she wanted her own way,

And you couldn’t turn or twist her,
She’d say yes, or she’d say nay,

Spite of mother, friend, or sister ;
How she’d fly if you’d try.

Any fancy to imperil!
For she was— O, she was

Such a sad, bad girl!

If her mamma, or her aunt,
Asked for any little favor,
She’d say shai, and she’d say sha’#’é
With the very sourest flavor;
She would pout, and she’d flout,
Till their brains were in a whirl,
For she was — yes, she was
Such a sad, bad girl!

But she’s getting older now,

And although they’re almost frantic,
Still they hope she’s learning how

To be gentle and less antic,
So that soon a day may come

When they’ll call their little Pearl
Not a sad, and a bad-—

But a good, coop girl !1

‘
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ELK

 
OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

257

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

(What Eighty-three Business Men say.)

 

By Rev. F. E. Criark.

iL
SECRETS OF SUCCESS.

WONDER if most of the boys who read _ this

volume have not said to themselves as they have
heard their teachers talk to them about industry and
energy and diligence in study, and as they have
heard their pastors preach about purity and truthful-
ness :

“Yes; that is all very good. We expect it from
them. That is what teachers and ministers are for, to
talk about such things; but, after all, we never hear
practical men in real life say much about these
matters; and we ‘rather think that good luck and
sharpness and brass have about as much to do with
success in life as anything else.”

I have no doubt that a good many boys, and girls

too, for that matter, have had such thoughts as these
come into their heads, whether they have spoken
them out or not; and so the homely old teachings of
the minister and the teacher and the father and
mother about true success in life, have done them
very little good.

Now with just such young folks in mind, and hop-
ing to help them, I have asked a hundred practical
business men of Portland, Maine, what principles
they thought would make a boy successful in life, and
what dangers he must look out for in these days.

In Portland, as in most cities of its size, there are a
good many very successful business men who have
made their own way in the world, and who had, when
they began life, as little money to jingle in their
pockets as any boy who reads the WIDE AWAKE,

These are men into whose places you would like to
258

step, I know; and if you can all become as much
respected and honored, and as truly successful as
they, I shall be very glad.

This was the substance of the letter I sent to each
of these men in your behalf:

DEAR SIR:

As I am desirous of finding out, from our business men, the
principles of action which shall be of real value to our boys and
young men, will you help me by telling me:

I. What experience has taught you to be the most essential
conditions of true business success at the present day?

II. What especial dangers, from a practical business man’s
point of view, threaten the young men of to-day?

I shall be particularly glad of helpful items from your own ex-
perience.

Of these one hundred busy men to whom I sent
this letter, eighty-three replied, many of them sending
me long answers of eight, ten, or a dozen pages; and
you may safely believe that the interest taken by the
business men of Portland, in helping business boys
on in life, is felt by all sterling business men every-
where.

As these letters came, I drew off on a long roll of
paper, the suggestions ee each, putting the different
“virtues”? and “vices” under the names of those
who mentioned them until I had several yards of good
advice for you.

Did you ever hear of measuring good advice by the
yard? Well, this advice weighs a good deal as well
as measures a good deal.

To prove that it does, I will give you one of the
letters just as it came to me:

DEAR SIR:

Replying with pleasure to your inquiries, I should say, an-
swering question first (What are the most essential elements of
true business success ?):

Patient, persistent dig, dig, dig; at it every
minute.

Reputation (founded on fact) for honest
dealing every time.

Luck, and fortunate circumstance, caught
on the fly.

30 per cent, i
30 per cent. i
1o per cent. j
20 per cent. { Snap!

To per cent. | More persistent dig.

 

 

Ioo per cent. — Success.
To the second inquiry (What especial dangers threaten the
young men and boys of to-day?) :
I. Theatres, whether nasty or veneered, and glucose litera-
ture unsettle young men for plain character-building.
II. Cigarettes !!!
III. Slovenly morals of their employers, and of many of our

OUR BUSINESS BOYS,

public men. The spongy minds of youth eagerly absorb the im.
pure of other men’s example, but reject the better part.

IV. Too much coddling, and too few thumps, make young
men like dough, that shows a dimple for each touch of sin.

But we should not be very wise if we did not stop
a moment to ask what true success is. Many of my
correspondents have something to say about this at
the beginning of their letters. Every rich man is not,
by any means, truly successful; every poor man is
not, by any means, unsuccessful.

“You may win in one way and lose in another,”
says Cunningham Geikie, whose book for young men
I wish you would all buy and read; “and, if the loss
is greater, the balance, after all, is on the wrong side.
I take it, that the only success worth the name, is
when a man gains a living, or a competence, or
wealth, without paying too dear for it.

“You may buy gold too dear. If you give health
for it, you make a poor bargain; if you sell your fac-
ulties for it, and think of nothing but gaining wealth,
you give pearls for a bauble; if you give your soul for
it, your self-respect, your character, your conscience,
your peace, your hope, or any one of them, if you
could sell them singly, what will you think of the ex-
change when you come to feel what it means? True
success is when a fair share of this world does not
cost either moral, or intellectual, or physical health, or
life.”

And in this connection, he quotes from Izaak Wa}-
ton, The boys all have a fellow-feeling for Izaak
Walton, I know, because he used to like to go fish
ing just as they do, and he has written some delight
ful things about this sport, so they will listen to wha!
he says on another point:

“JT have a rich neighbor who is always so busy that
he has no leisure to laugh; the whole business of his
life is to get money and more money. We see but the
outside of the happiness of some rich men; few con-
sider them to be like the silkworm who, when she
seems to play, is, at the very same time, spinning her
own bowels, and consuming herself; and this many
rich men do, loading themselves with corroding cares
to keep what they have. Let us, therefore, be thank-
ful for health and a competence.”

Says one business man of Portland, whom we all
think has been remarkably successful all through his
life: “A young man, I believe, should give a fair
portion of his time to reading and study. He should
never devote his life wholly to money-getting.. I
have devoted certain hours strictly to business; but
OUR BUSINESS BOYS,

upon leaving my office, I have dropped it from my
mind, and have discouraged men with whom I had
business relations from obtruding it upon me out of
business hours. I am sure that I am much better off,
in every way, for having pursued this course.”

But I must take it for granted that you have some
true idea of what true success means, and go on to
tell you that the business men of Portland say, in the
first place: “Try to find out that for which you are
best adapted, and stick to that one thing.” Almost
all of them say this in some form or other.

“ Carefully determine what business you are fitted
for, and then never be satisfied except by advancing,”
says one.

“ A young man should have a real love, amounting
to a passion, for his calling,” says another.

“ Business life means more to-day than it ever did
before,” says another, “and business integrity is
achieved under greater temptation, and is therefore
significant of greater virtue.”

Then he goes on to speak of the different ways of
buying and selling goods which were in vogue fifty
years ago; of the constantly fluctuating markets; of
the keen-edged competition that cuts down profits;
and then adds: “Business men to succeed, must
keep up with the times.”

One of the ways to keep up with the times and to
make yourselves felt, is to take up one branch, and to
make yourself a specialist in this sense; that you can
do one thing at least, better than most other people
can doit. The field is too large in these days, and
competition is too sharp, for a man to do many things

well. The good poet is not usually a good painter
too. The fine musician is not generally a great arch-
itect. The successful merchant cannot carry on the

‘jaw business and do a little doctoring at the same
time.

In the old days, the minister in the country used to
carry on a farm, and entertain most of the strangers
who came to his village, and make his own boots
sometimes, and be his own butcher and baker and
candle (if not candlestick) maker; but now the pas-
tor of the smallest village church usually finds enough
to do without either farming it or keeping a free
hotel. So you will find it, boys, whatever business
you go into, and if you attempt to spread yourselves
ott over too much surface, you will become like the
sugar coating on a pill, very thin, and very inadequate
to hide the bitter dose which life has in store for you.
“This one thing I do,” is a good motto for any boy,

259

and all the better because it is found in the Bible.

When you have discovered what you are best fitted
for, and have decided to do that one thing, then all
these business men of Portland say: “ Work hard at
#,” Every one of them is decided upon this point,
that hard work is the price of true success.

“There is a very wide disposition throughout the
country to obtain a livelihood or to get rich without
work, The young should be taught that man to ful-
fil his calling, must produce something,” says one,

“Too many young men seek soft places, and go
behind a counter when they ought to go into the
field or machine shop,” says another.

“Let a young man go to work at something, with
little regard to immediate compensation,” says a third.

“Young men often say the world owes them a
living, and they are bound to have it. Now the world
owes them nothing but what they earn, and does not
owe them fine clothes or fast horses or the thousand
and one luxuries which they desire,” says a fourth.

“The wish for a ‘genteel occupation ’ is ruinous,”
says a fifth. ,

“We want fewer lightning calculators, and more
thorough-going, earnest, hard-working men,” says a
sixth.

Another quotes approvingly Judson’s motto. When
asked how he had accomplished such vast results, the
heroic missionary replied :

“T have no plan, except that when I have anything
to do, Z go and do it.”

If I could bend down the ear of each of the boys
who has just gone into a store, or is just going into
one, I should whisper to him: “If you want to suc-
ceed in business, make yourself indispensable to
your employer,” for this is one very important secret
that I have learned from these letters. Over and
over and over again this same form of words occurs:

“Let him make himself indispensable to his em-
ployer; ” and yet no one of my correspondents knew
what another was going to write me. “By hard work,
by thorough knowledge of detail, by fidelity in little
things, make such a place for yourself that your
employer cannot get along without you.”

I think if I had asked any successful man in any
city, instead of the merchants of Portland alone, they
would each one have mentioned hard work and con-
tinuous work among the elements of their success,
for a great many others have said the same thing in
the past, and the advice is all the more weighty
because it is so old and has been so often repeated,
260

I have no doubt many boys have envied Thomas
Edison, whom, with his boyish, yet thoughtful face,
they have seen looking out at them from the maga-
zines and illustrated papers, and have wished that
they too might be great inventors. There isn’t
much use in your envying Mr. Edison, but there is a
deal of use in your following his advice. He says:

“Tf a man would succeed, there must be continu-
ity of work.

“When you set out to do anything, never let any-
thing disturb you from doing that one thing. This
power of putting the thought on one particular thing
and keeping it there for hours at a time, takes prac-
tice, and it takes a long time to get into the habit.

“T remember a long time ago I could only think
ten minutes on a given subject before something else
would come into my mind. But, after long practice,
I can now keep my mind for hours upon one topic
without being distracted with thoughts of other mat-
ters.”

“The great thing to do for the business boy, is to
throw himself into something,” says a wise New York
merchant. ‘I should not be particular what, so that
tt gave him a chance to begin, and I should make him
understand that he must make his way from that point.

“ Go-at-it-ive-ness is the first condition of success,
stick-to-it-ive-ness, the second.”

I do not believe you will find “ go-at-it-ive-ness,”

r “stick-to-it-ive-ness’ in Webster’s Dictionary, or in
Worcester’s either, but they are easy words to remem-
ber, and contain ideas which, if put in practice, will
be worth more than a little to you.

Again, these eighty-three business men all insist on
one other quality which must always go with hard
work in winning true success; namely, Honesty strict
integrity.

The letters vary in many ways, but they all agree
in this. Remember, it isn’t one minister alone who
says that you must be honest if you would be truly
prosperous. If J said it you might suspect that I was
in league with your fathers and teachers and your
own ministers; but eighty-three business men, men
like those for whom you work, and like those whose
places you expect to fill some day, say to you:

“The prime requisite of true success in business is
honesty.”

OUR BUSINESS BOYS,

These men have kept their eyes wide open during
long and prosperous business careers; they know the
difference between true success and a seeming suc-
cess, which is a very false and hollow affair; they are
not blinded by the temporary dust and straws which
blow about the commercial streets; they have
watched many boys from their cradles; they have
seen the first slight temptations to dishonesty yielded
to or resisted; they are speaking not of theories, but
of what they know when they say to you: “You

- must be true, if you would succeed.”

“ All my success in forty-three years of business
life, has depended on this principle,” says one
wealthy man.

“T care not what egpeciie business or occupa-
tion or trade a young man engages in, if he knows
his business, has any brains and sticks to it, he will
succeed, provided he is honest; the foundation of
the structure is ¢ruth. I consider this the most
essential of all virtues, for it aids all others,” says
another.

“T have always been just as careful to pay a debt
of fifty cents as of fifty dollars,” says another.

“T have never known dishonesty successful in the
long run,” says another. :

“J have watched many tricky and apparently suc-
cessful men, who have had wide experience ; but the
bottom of a dishonest fortune always drops out,
sooner or later,” says still another.

Many of those who have written to me have given
much more good advice which I would like to present
to you, but it can all be condensed into the following
motto:

Find out what you are fitted for; work hard at that
one thing, and keep an honest heart.

I suppose some of you are in the high school, and
just before your class graduates you will choose a
class motto; and some of you will have it engraved
on a gold ring to wear on your finger. Is not this a
good private motto for each one of you to adopt,
which the merchants of Portland have coined for you
out of their own experience? But I hope you will
engrave it upon your souls, so that you may never
lose it, rather than upon a golden ring:

find out what you are fitted for; work hard at that
one thing, and keep an honest heart,
QU0R BUSINESS BOYS,

261

 

ON DECK.—A MORNING CANTER,

OUR BUSINESS BOYS,

(What Eighty-three Business Men Say.)

 

By Rev. F. E. Crark.

 

iI.
ROCKS OF DANGER.

AVE you ever read the story of Midas, boys?
If you have, you remember that when he
was a baby the ants carried grains of wheat into
his mouth, to show that one day he would be the
tichest of all men, and, sure enough, when he grew
up he had more money than any man that ever
lived, for everything that he touched turned to gold.
But this was a great plague to him, because even his
food turned to gold as soon as he touched it.
‘Moreover he had ass’s ears given him, and that
was a great trial, for he could not hide them, though
he kept his Phrygian cap over them as well as he
could. At last he dug a hole in the ground, and
whispered into that hole, ‘King Midas has ass’s
ears.” Then he covered up the hole. After that
he felt relieved, because he had told some one or
some thing his unpleasant secret ; but a reed sprang
up on that same spot and whispered the secret all
about.
Now Midas, as a business man, was not a first-class

success, though he had so much gold. So if you
gain ever so much money at the expense of a good
education, or good manners, or a good conscience,
these defects will be like Midas’ ears. You can’t
hide them, and the money will not make you happy,
and people will really laugh at your ears more
than they will admire your gold; and however hard
you try to conceal them, the secret will continually
be whispered, just as the reed of the old story
whispered as it swayed in the wind, “King Midas
has ass’s ears.”

That you may get along well in the world, without
these defects which often accompany riches, I have asked
a hundred business men, as I told you last month, to
point out the particular dangers which threaten boys
and young men in business at the present day, and
I will tell you what eighty-three of them say, as I told
you what they said of requisites for success,

I think likely that some of you have often wished
that you were commercial travellers, or “drummers,”
as you call them, and have thought you would be
perfectly happy if you could change places with
them. Now. the commercial traveller you have in
262

mind probably wears a very long ulster, and a
big diamond ring, arid almost as large a shirt-stud as
a hotel clerk, and he smokes very fragrant Havannas,
and stops at the best hotels, and travels all over
the country, and seems to have a real good time.
But there is a different commercial traveller, for I
have some very good friends who are commercial
travellers, and they are among the best men, as well
as the smartest salesmen I know. Yet I fear these
men would not attract your attention, for they don’t
wear much jewelry, and they are quiet, modest, active
business men. ‘This other class of runners, however,
whom you often see, and often envy perhaps, you
ought not to-hold up as your ideal young business
From what these eighty-three business men
Upon this

men.
tell me, I think the system is a.bad one.
subject one writes:

“The present method of doing business is an
absolute curse to young men, subjecting a very large
proportion of them to every form of temptation,
where there is absolutely no restraint.”

Another adds: “I know of nothing so dangerous
to young men entering business now, as this travelling
about the country to sell goods. I believe that hun-
dreds are ruined in body and soul every year by
it. Formerly the country dealer visited the city,
where he saw the various wares in the market, and
had the benefit of comparison. His views were
broadened by contact with men of broader views
than his own, and he returned home impressed with
his visit. Now he stays at home; the runner brings
his wares to his door; tells him they are the best and
the cheapest; will be scarce soon: perhaps loads him
down with miserable goods. The system is costly
alike to seller and buyer.”

Here is some good advice to those of you who
will realize your ambition and become runners one of
these days: “ A salesman should never urge goods
upon a buyer, but show them to him fairly, with
as few comments as possible, giving the buyer to
understand that he should be glad to sell to him if
he thinks it for his advantage to buy. He should
make very few allusions to his competitors or their

wares, but answer questions with regard to them, if |

at all, truthfully. By this practice, he will finally
establish confidence in himself, which will be better
to him than capital.”

Many others say very much the same thing; and ©

these words are all the more weighty because many
of these men have been through the commercial trav-

‘ business at once, at any rate.

OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

eller’s school, and have sold goods on-the road.

One steady, upright man, who has the reputation
of being one of the smartest salesmen who ever
went out of Portland, says this to me: “While one
rich customer always caroused and drank with my
rival in business, he invariably bought his goods of
me;” showing that good habits are respected and
trusted by men of bad habits.

But I do not suppose that you or JI, or all the
business men, can change this method of doing
So we must accept
things as they are, and, while we sail the sea, keep
off the rocks.

Another of the peculiar evils of the present day is
the lack of practical education. All our young men
want to go behind a counter; none want to go behind
awork-bench. It is a great pity that the old system
of apprenticeship has gone out of vogue, and nothing
has sprung up to take its place. _ -

“T have been in business as a master mason for
fifteen years,” one gentleman writes me, “and I have
never had an application from an American boy
to learn the trade. All the mechanical trades, as
soon as the present generation passes away, will be
exclusively in the hands of foreigners, and young
men of American parentage will be trying to earn
their living as clerks or book-keepers, without a trade
to fall back on, in case of failure in business.”

Says another: “Many of our younger mechanics
are bunglers for want of the old-fashioned, long and
patient training under constant responsibility. Young
men are too often seeking the profession or the count-
ing-room, while the farm or the shop are deserted.”

“Where shall we go in the future for skilled
labor?” asks another; “it is a serious problem.”

“Nineteen twentieths of the successful business
men of Portland,” writes a former mayor of the
city, ‘whether in money, or character, or both, com-
menced their work at as early an age as fourteen
years, showing that training is an essential element.
Every merchant captain out of Portland, for the last
fifty years, commenced sea-life a boy at about four-
teen years of age. Training again.”

“One of Portland’s richest men,” another person
writes, “has a son in a woollen mill, who began pick-
ing wool, and is fitting himself, while at his daily
labor, for the post of master manufacturer, in which
he will be in the way of earning more thousands
a year than most of our young lawyers.and doctors
are hundreds,”
OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

Some other wealthy parents are pursuing the same
course with their children, and there will be at least
a few young men in the future who will know not
only how to sell a piece of cloth, but how to make it.
It may make your hands a little rougher to build a
house than to keep a set of books, but remember one
kind of work is just as honorable as the other.

It may bea little more “genteel” work to daintily
hold up a piece of silk in the right light, to please a
lady customer, than it is to forge a chain cable for an
anchor; but the latter is just as useful an occupation.
A dollar and a half a day as wages doesn’t sound
quite as large as nine dollars a week salary, but it
will buy just as much bread and butter; and I should
prefer to earn four‘dollars a day as a skilled work-
man, than fifteen dollars a week as an indifferent clerk.

Every year the cry becomes louder and louder for
skilled labor, and every year the professions and
stores are more crowded, and the trades are more
deserted by American boys. Are there not some of
you boys who think that buying and selling goods is
the only thing worth doing in life, who had better step
out into a trade where there is more room to grow?

I suppose the great reason why so many boys crowd
in behind the counter is that they are in great haste
to get rich, and think this the only way to make
money; and this leads me to another of the rocks of

danger which every one of these eighty-three mer--

chants lays down on his chart of business success.

That this haste to be rich is the father of a great
brood of frightful evils, all these letters prove. In
many cases those who have written me have used the
very same words: “Haste to be rich,” “ extrava-
gance,” “the spirit of speculation ”—we may class
them altogether, for the same evil tap-root feeds
them all.

“Be content to grow rich slowly,” says one mer-
chant to young men.

“Begin at the foot of the ladder, and work your
way up.”

“Too many want to be men before they are boys.”

“ Boys now start in life where their fathers left off,
and walk backwards.”

“They expect a single turn of the wheel will bring
fortune.”

“Many young mén are economical only when the
contribution-box is passed.”

“The man who speculates is often called the keen’
business man, in the parlance of the street, and so
young men look to him as a model, and are ruined.”

263

These are some of many like expressions which
have come to me. One rich man tells me that he
began life and supported a family on ninety-two
cents a day, and never ran in debt. How many
young men would think they could do that now?

Another reminds young men that the goods bought
with borrowed capital are not theirs, but belong to
their creditors, and that to spend their receipts for
personal luxuries or for speculative purposes, is really
as much a defalcation of trust as the embezzlement
of bank funds by a bank cashier.

I suppose, however, that most of my readers have
not got quite as far in their voyage as the rocks of
speculation and eager money getting, but here is a
group of rocks upon which many are already drift-
ing; they are called by my correspondents “ club-
rooms,” “low theatres,” “ Sabbath-breaking,” ‘ bad
literature,” “evil companions,” “cigarettes,” “ intem-
perance.” Here is a whole archipelago of these
rocks, and if your ship of life gets to beating about
among them, I fear there will be very little business
success, or any other kind of success for you.

I have learned one thing from these letters, and
that is, that these shrewd, long-headed business men
with the deep pockets are watching you, boys. When
you think they care nothing where you are or what
you do, they have their eye on you all the time.

Said one of them to me in a private conversation :
“A boy makes a great mistake when he thinks he
can long be in a place without being known. He is
weighed and measured, and his mental and moral
calibre known very soon. He makes his reputation
before he knows it.” |

These men know the difference between a church
and a club house, and they do not forget it when
they see you on the steps of one rather than the
other. A rum-shop and a schoolhouse do not very
much resemble each other, and it will be very soon
known which you habitually enter.
ette is not an expensive luxury in itself, but it may
cost you a good place which you are striving to get.
I have seen some cigars that could be bought for two
cents, but even one of those may cost you in the
long run more than one thousand dollars.

Says one who employs a small army of boys and
young men: “ My answer to your second question, as
to the dangers which beset young men of to-day is,
club-rooms and smoking out of doors. One of the
characteristic evils of our times is smoking cheap
Pennsylvania cigars out of doors, on the corners

A single cigar-
264

of the street, or around the entrances of hotels,
putting on swell airs, and spitting promiscuously.
No sensible man would ever employ such youth
for any responsible situation.”

“Other things being equal, I prefer to employ a
boy who does not use tobacco,” says another.

You may think that it is nobody’s business how you
spend your Sundays, whether in riding and boating
and sleeping, or in church-going.

Perhaps this zs so; but another rich man writes
me: “The religious observance of the Sabbath I
consider a very important element in the success
of young men, not only morally, but intellectually,
physically and financially. The use of the Sabbath
as a day of amusement and recreation, does not
command the respect or confidence of those who
hold thé purse strings, and whose good opinions are
valuable to give credit and a good reputation.”

Still another writes: “Shrewd business men are
wont to regard those who honor the Lord’s day with
favor; and upon those who dishonor it they look with
distrust and suspicion.”

So you see that the old-fashioned virtues have not

-slow old road of uprightness and industry.

OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

gone out of use after all, at least if these Portland
merchants are to be believed.

You do not wear the same kind of collars and
neckties and coats that your grandfathers wore
when they were boys, but the same kind of hard
work and honesty and truthfulness are necessary for
you if you would succeed as most of them succeeded.
You can go from Boston to New York a good deal
quicker than they could, but you can’t reach the goal
of true success without travelling the same hard,
Fire
burns and ice freezes as in their day, and lack of
training, and business gambling and rum and bad
company are as sure to lead to ruinous failure as ever.

One correspondent says: ‘“ After all, it’s not what
is preached into a boy, so much as what springs up
out of a boy, that keeps him in the right way.”

There is a great deal of truth in that saying,
and my hope is that something that these business
men have said to you, through me, may be like a
good seed in your hearts, which shall spring up
and bear the fruit of an earnest, honest, and pure
life, and that will surely be a successful life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
OUR BUSINESS BOYS. 265

OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

(What Eighty-three Business Men Say.)

 

By Rev. F. E. Cruark.

III.
POLITENESS, SELF-DENIAL AND “ SIDE-SHOWS.”

ARTICULAR attention to little virtues which are
often overlooked, often makes a boy successful.
Disregard of these little virtues often makes his life
a failure,” says one of the eighty-three business men.
Among these lesser virtues which many of them
mention, is politeness. “If a boy would succeed,
he must be polite; he must have a pleasant address,”
is an idea that very often recurs in these letters.
It is plain that a “grumpy,” rude, cross boy, does
not stand nearly so good a chance of getting on well
in the world, according to these clear-headed business
men, as a pleasant-featured, good-natured boy.

And perhaps it may be a matter of degree, not of
kind, that makes all the difference between success
and failure. The boy who is a Z##/e more polite than
others, or a “vile more obliging, or somewhat more
ready to give up his own comfort for the comfort of
some one else, may outstrip his companions.

These trifles make up what President Garfield used
to call the “margins” of life. “The bulk itself of
almost anything is not what tells,” he says. “ That
exists anyway. That is expected. That is not what
gives the profit or makes the distinguishing difference.
The grocer cares little for the great bulk of the price of
his tea. It is the few cents between the cost and the
selling price, which he calls the margin, which partic-
ularly interests him. This same thing is all-important
in the matter of thought.”” Then he goes on to illus-
trate this truth by telling the story of his college class-
mate who always had the best lesson, whose “ margin ”
he found was fifteen minutes more of hard study after
the other boys had gone to bed. Young Garfield
then studied fifteen minutes longer still, after
his classmate’s light was put out, and that gave him
the margin which made him the class-leader. Every
business boy needs a large “ margin” of politeness as
well as of hard work, faithfulness and honesty.

I suppose that most of you when applying for a
position in a store, would put on your best suit of

clothes, and brush your hair very smoothly, and look
just as pleasant as possible when you first asked the
proprietor if he would not give you a place. Now if
that politeness is only put on for the occasion, it is
not worth much. Itis only skin deep. The kind of
politeness that these business men mean must be a
part of yourselves. You cannot put it on and take it
off as you do your overcoat. You may be sure that
genuine politeness will become known from the put-
on-for-the-occasion politeness, just as it is known that
a silver half-dollar is not a pewter one. If your po-
liteness is genuine, you are just as gentlemanly when
no one is looking on, as when the store is full of
people. When I use my telephone, one of the girls at
the central office has such a pleasant, good-natured
voice, that I always like to have her answer my call.
I do not know who she is, but I know she must be
polite and good-natured, for when I say “611 F. with
434,” she repeats “611 F. with 434.” in such a pleas-
ant tone that it makes me feel a little happier; and
I think her politeness must be a genuine part of her
life, or she would not be polite when she is a mile
away, and where I cannot see her.

Genuine politeness, too, treats the poor woman in
the rusty shawl who wants to buy a yard of calico,
just as well as the rich lady in the sealskin cloak
who wants a silk dress pattern.

“J have observed,” writes one, whose opinion is
entitled to respect, “many sly winks and blinks
among clerks which have driven many a_plainly-
dressed but valuable customer from certain stores.”
Again, this correspondent refers to the stolid, haughty
variety of clerks whose nonchalant ‘No, we haven’t
it,” is often the only answer vouchsafed to the
inquiring customer, and adds, “the haughtiness and
indifferent air of some of these young people in busi-
ness who have ‘accepted a position’ are exasperating
to the last degree.” Such a clerk loses his or her
employer many a dollar every day. You may be
sure that the quality of your politeness will be indi-
cated by the way you wait upon the poor woman
from the country, who wants to buy a paper of pins,
266

rather than by the way you serve the rich woman who
wants to buy a lace collar for her poodle dog. Any
boy will probably be polite to the rich woman, or to
the poodle dog, for that matter, if it had the money;
it is only the veal gentleman who will take just as
much pains to please the pin customer. Sooner or
later your employer will feel your quality ; sooner or
later you will feel his estimate in the scale of promo-
tion and salary.

There is another very important quality for busi-

ness boys, which my correspondents call by different:

names, but to which most of them allude in some way,

This quality make the old suit of clothes do for
another winter, if a new suit cannot be well afforded;
it puts up with a Waterbury watch when the boy
wants a hundred-dollar hunter; it gets him out of
bed at six o’clock in the morning, when he wants to
lie until seven; it leads him to shovel snow in the
winter and carry papers all the year round, so as to
help his widowed mother pay the house rent ; it pre-
vents him from buying his bunch of cigarettes, so
that he may carry home a dozen oranges to his sick
sister. In fact, it accomplishes a thousand other things,
and, for lack of a better name, we will call it Sef
denial; and it is the quality which any good business
man would consider in you were he contemplating
your probabilities in the direction of promotions and
partnerships. It is an important factor in the prob-
lem whether a clerk is likely to become a capitalist.

Here is a letter upon this subject, which I will
give to you just as it came tome. It is from a dis-
tinguished man, whom a great many temperance
people like, and a great many rumsellers hate, and
as he told me I need not conceal it, I will sign his
name to the letter : —

My DEAR MR. CLARK:

The key to success in any department of life is self-denial.
This means living with reference to the future and not for the
pleasure of the moment. Idleness, laziness, sensual indulgence.
involving wasteful expenditures, come from lack of self-denial.
Industry, promptitude, economy, followed by thrift and a suc-
cessful career, come from self-denial. The young fail in life,
and must ever fail, who lack self-denial. Drinking, smoking,
and other bad habits and unnecessary expenditures, all come
from lack of self-denial. Ifa man, young or old, lives for pres-
ent gratification, he cannot have a successful future. If one
desires that he must aim for it, keep his eye fixed upon it, and
avoid everything that will hinder him in the pursuit of it.

Truly yours,
Neat Dow.

Another of the business men of Portland in speak-

OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

ing of various dangers which beset boys, writes the
single word: “ Side-shows,”

He did not explain his meaning, but I will tell you
what I think he meant by it.

You have all been at some great fair or agricultural
show, where, besides the main building in which the
fair was held, there were several other buildings or
tents, covered all over the outside with flaming pictures
of the “ Fat Woman ” and the “ Living Skeleton” and
the “Human Midget and an impossible boa-constrictor
swallowing an impossible sheep, and the “ Albino Chil-
dren,” with their long white hair, and ever so many other
wonders. The admission to this side-show tent, you
remember, was ‘‘only ten cents,” whereas you had to
pay twenty-five or fifty cents to go into the fair
grounds, and so you concluded you would go into the
side-show, and see the fat woman and the skeleton
man, and the snake swallow the sheep. But when
you got in you found that the attractions of the side-
show were all on the outside; the fat woman wasn’t
nearly so fat, or the skeleton so thin, as they were
painted, nor could the latter draw himself out in long
sections, flute fashion, as the picture represented.
Moreover, the Albinos were very ordinary girls, with
fluffy hair, and the snake was stuffed, nor could he have
swallowed a sheep if he had not been. In short, the
side-show wasn’t what it was represented; the best
part of it was on the outside, and, as you had spent
ten cents, you had not enough left to pay for the
entrance ticket to the fair, so you lost all that

was really good, and saw nothing worth secing, after

all.

I think this side-show tent represents, as my corre-
spondent indicated, a real danger in every boy’s
life; and other business men mentioned some of the
particular “ side-shows” which you must guard against.
For instance, there is the “Variety Theatre Side-
show.” If there is no other objection to it, there is this
to be said, that it often distracts the minds of the boys
from their regular work or study, and makes them
less fit for the real business of life. It has all the
marks of a side-show. It doesn’t cost a great deal to
attend once, but the thirty-five cents or fifty cents, or
a dollar, spent for the theatre ticket, prevents your
buying the valuable book you want, or attending the
really useful lecture. Most of its attractions are on
the outside —the electric light, the flaming: poster,
the wonderful handbill; and there is frequently noth-
ing within that at all comes up to the announcement,
and when you have epent your money, you find that
OUR BUSINESS BOYS.

you have received nothing in return but a mind dis-
tracted from the duties of school and store.

Another very dangerous “side-show” is bad read-
ing — flash papers and magazines and novels. They
have the same three signs of worthlessness as the
tent where the fat woman and the skeleton man are
exhibited. They do not cost as much in the first
place as really good books or papers, and still they
use up the money which might go for something good;
their chief attraction is outside, in the exciting adver-
tisement of what the “ Boys of New York” are doing,
and they give you nothing for your dimes but an
uneasy, restless heart; a heart disgusted with the
actual things of life.

Did you see that cartoon which appeared some
time ago in one of our illustrated papers, of the
“Infant Indian Exterminator?” It represented a
tow-headed baby in his cradle, drawing nourishment
from a huge bottle labeled “dime-novels,” “ half-
dime stories,” “five cent papers,” etc. Knives and
pistols were thrust into narrow crevices of the cradle,
while a shot-gun rested across the baby’s knees. A
wild and lurid light gleamed from his eyes, his hair
stood on end with excitement, while all about on the
floor were scattered the “ Buccaneers of the Battery,”
“Tke, the Indian Killer,” “The Pirates of the
Passaic,” etc., etc.

I have known many boys who rocked themselves in
such a cradle year after year; I have known even

little office boys and cash boys to go to their places of
business, their pockets bulging with this literature, to
be read in spare minutes, and it has given me the
greatest sense of discouragement I have ever felt in
But I would advise

regard to “our business boys.”

   
 
 

A Ws see ey

Wee ae
i eR
PS

2607

every boy of you, to make the hottest fire in the
kitchen stove you can, stuff in all the “Indian Killers”
and “ Buccaneers” and “ Pirates” and “ Bloody Bens”
you find lying about, and never renew their acquaint-
ance.

Beware, too, of the public billiard-hall ‘“ side-
show.” ‘This looks bright and attractive from the
outside. The walls are beautifully frescoed, and the
gas lights are very brilliant, and theré does not seem
to be any harm in shoving about a few ivory balls ;
but those innocent-looking balls have kept many a
boy out of his rightful inheritance—a useful, success-
ful, happy life.

There are many other “side-show ” tents which
line all the pathway of life, of which the merchants
of Portland speak, such as “ Drinking Saloons,”
“Horse Races,” “ Midnight Dances,” and the like ;
but I hope you will keep away from them.

You can, too, make a “side-show” of almost any-
thing, even of things which are perfectly proper in
themselves. The skating rink, the fish pond, the
marble ring, the base-ball ground — if they take time
and strength which you ought to devote to work or
study, all become dangerous “side-shows.” [Every
boy ought to know how to skate, and fish, and shoot,
and play base-ball, only be sure not to make any of
these things the main business of life.

For remember: No boy that goes into many of
the side-show tents at the fair will be likely to get into:
the main exhibition, and the merchants of Portland
seem to agree, that no boy who patronizes these
moral “side-shows ” will be likely to get into the main
current of business life, nor, if he should, will he
carry off the prizes of a successful life.

 

aN

   
268

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS LS WON.

IS WON.

By Sarau K. Boiron.

I
PETER COOPER.

{ \N the seventh of April, 1883, the great city of

New York was in mourning. Flags were at
half-mast. The bells tolled. Shops were closed, and
in the windows the picture of a kind-faced, white-
haired man was draped in black. All day long tens
of thousands passed by an open coffin in All Souls’
Church: Governors and millionnaires, poor women
with little children in their arms, workmen in their
common clothes, and ragged newsboys — all with ach-
ing hearts. The great dailies like the Z>ibune and
flerald, gave six columns to the sadevent. Messages
of sympathy were cabled from England.

Who was this man whom the world mourned on
this April day?

Was he a President? Oh, no. A great general?
Far from it. One who lived magnificently and had
splendid carriages and diamonds? Not at all.

He was simply Peter Cooper, ninety-two years old,
the best-loved man in America,

Had he given money? Yes; but other men in our
rich country do that. Had he travelled abroad, and
so become widely known? No. He would never go
to Europe, because he wished to use his money in a
different way.

Why, then, was he loved by a whole nation? for
even the Turks, Parsees and Hindoos talked about
him. A New York journalist gives this truthful
answer:

Peter Cooper went through his long life as gentle as a sweet
woman, as kind as a good mother, and as honest and guileless as
aman could live, and remain human.

Some boys would be ashamed to be considered as
gentle asa girl, Not so Peter Cooper.

He was born poor, and always was willing that
everybody should knowit. He despised pride. When

his old chaise and horse came down Broadway, every .

cartman and omnibus driver turned aside for him.
Though a millionnaire, he was their friend and
brother, and they were personally proud and fond of
him. He gave away more than he kept. He found
places for the poor to work if possible, gave money if
they were worthy, and though one of the busiest men
in America, always took time to be kind.
His sunny face was known everywhere.
tor, Rev. Robert Collyer, said this of him:

His pas-

His presence, wherever he went, lay like a bar of sunshine
across a dark and troubled day, so that I have seen it light up

some thousands of care-worn faces as if they were saying who
looked on him, ‘It cannot be so bad a world as we thought,
since Peter Cooper lives in it and gives us his benediction.’

And how did this poor boy come to his success
and his honor?

By his own will and perseverance. Nobody could
have more obstacles to overcome. His parents had
nine children to support and no money. His father
moved from town to town, always hoping to do bet-
ter, forgetting the old adage, that “A rolling stone
gathers no moss.” When Peter was born, the fifth
child, he was named after the Apostle Peter, because
his father said: “ This boy will come to something.”
But he proved feeble, unable to go to school save one
year in his life, and then only every other day. When
he was eight years old, his father being a hatter, he
pulled hair from rabbit skins, for hat pulp. Year
after year he worked harder than he was able, but
he was determined to win. When his eight little
brothers and sisters needed shoes, he ripped up an
old one, and thus learning how they were made, there-
after provided shoes for the whole family. A boy
with this energy would naturally be ambitious. At
seventeen, bidding good-by to his anxious mother, he
started for New York to make his fortune. He had
carefully saved ten dollars of his own earnings; a
large sum, it seemed to him. Soon after he ‘arrived,
he saw an advertisement of a lottery, where if one
bought a ticket, he would probably draw a prize. He
thought the matter over carefully. If he made some
money, he could help his mother. He purchased a
ticket, and drew—a blank! The ten dollars gone,
Peter was penniless. Years after, he used to say,
“Tt was the cheapest piece of knowledge I ever
bought;” for he never touched games of chance after-
ward,

Day after day the tall, slender boy walked the streets
of New York, asking for work. At last, perseverance
conquered, and he found a place in a carriage shop,
binding himself as apprentice for five years, for his
board and two dollars a month. He could buy no
good clothes. He had n> money for cigars, or pleas-
ures of any kind. He helped to build carriages for
rich men’s sons to ride in, but there were no rides
forhim. It is an old saying, that “ Everybody hasto
walk at one end of life,” and they are fortunate who
walk at the beginning and ride at the close.

When his work was over for the day, his shop-mates
ridiculed him because he would not go to the taverns
for a jovial time; but he preferred to read. Making
a little money by extra work, he hired a teacher, to
whom he recited evenings. He was tired, of course,
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS ZS WON.

but he never complained, and made many friends
because he was always good-natured. He used to
say to himself, “If I ever get rich, I will build a place
where the poor boys and girls of New York may have
an education free.” How absurd it seemed that a
boy who earned only fifty cents a week for five years,
should ever think of being rich, and establishing
reading rooms and public institutions. Yet the very
kind and quality of his dreams was an earnest of
future success and greatness.

When Peter became of age, Mr. Woodward, who
owned the carriage factory, called him into his office.
“You have been very faithful,” he said, “and I will
set you up in a carriage manufactory of your own;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PETER COOPER.

you could pay me back for the money borrowed in a
few years.”

Peter was astonished. This was a remarkable offer
to a poor young man, but he had made a solemn
resolution never to go in debt, and he declined it,
though with gratitude. Mr. Woodward was now as
greatly astonished as Peter had been, but he respected
his good judgment in the matter.

The young mechanic now found a situation in a
woollen mill at Hempstead, Long Island, at nine
dollars a week. Here he invented a shearing machine,
which proved so valuable that he made five hundred
dollars in two years. With so much money as this,
he could not rest until he had visited his mother.
He found his parents overwhelmed in trouble on

269

account of their debts, gave them the entire five hun.
dred dollars, and promised to meet the other notes
his father had given asthey became due. His father
had- made no mistake, evidently, in naming him after
the Apostle Peter.

Meantime the young man had fallen in love, not
with a foolish girl who cared only for dress, and her
own pretty face, but with one who had a fine mind
and lovely disposition. Sarah Bedell was worthy of
him. After fifty-six years of married life, she died
on the anniversary of her wedding day. Her husband
said, “She was the day-star, the solace and the inspir-
ation of my life.” When their first baby was born, he
invented a self-rocking cradle for it, with a fan
attached, to keep off the flies, and a musical instru-
ment to soothe the child to sleep.

He now moved to New York and opened a grocery
store. An old friend advised him to buy a glue fac-
tory which, having been mismanaged, was for sale.
He knew nothing of the business, but he had faith in
himself that he could learn it, and he soon made not
only the best glue, but the cheapest in the country.
For thirty years he carried on this business almost
alone, with no salesman, and no bookkeeper. He rose
every morning at daylight, kindled his factory fires,
worked all the forenoons making glue, and afternoons
selling it, keeping his accounts, writing his letters and
reading in the evenings, with his wife and children.
He continued to work thus when his income had
reached thirty thousand dollars a year, not because
he was over economical, but that he might some day
carry out the purpose of his life, to build his free
school for the poor. He had no time for parties or
pleasures, but when the people of New York, because
he was both honest and intelligent, urged him to be
one of the City Council, and President of the Board
of Education, he dared not refuse if he could help
his own city. How different such a life from that of
aman, who, enjoying all the advantages of a govern-
ment, does not even take time to vote.

Mr. Cooper’s business prospered. Once when his
glue factory burned, with a loss of forty thousand
dollars, before nine o’clock the next morning, lumber
was on the ground for a new building, three times
the size of the former. He now built a rolling mill
and furnace in Baltimore. At that time, only thirteen
miles of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad had been
completed, and the directors were about to give up
the work, discouraged, because they thought no en-
gine could make the sharp turns in the track. Mr.
Cooper needed the road in connection with his roll-
ing mill; nothing could discourage him. He imme-
diately went to work to make the first locomotive ever
constructed in America, attached a box car to it, in-
vited the directors to get in, took the place of engi-
neer himself, and away they flew over the thirteen
miles in an hour. The directors took courage, and
the road was soon finished. Years after, when Mr.
Cooper had become famous, and the hospitality of
the city of Baltimore was offered him, the old engine
270

was brought out to the delight of the assembled thou-
sands, .

Mr. Cooper soon erected at Trenton, N. J.,the largest
rolling mill in the United States, a large blast furnace
in Pennsylvania, and steel and wire works in various
parts of the State. He bought the Andover iron
mines, and built eight miles of railroad in a rough
country, over which he carried forty thousand tons a
year. The poor boy who once earned only twenty-
five dollars yearly, had become a millionnaire! No
good luck accomplished this. Hard work, living
within his means, saving his time, not squandering
it as some men do,. talking with every person they
meet, common sense, which led him to look carefully
before he invested money, promptness, and the sacred
keeping of his word, these were the characteristics
which made him successful.

Mr. Cooper was honorable in every business trans-
action. Once he said to Mr. Edward Lester, a
friend who had an interest in the Trenton works, “I
do not feel quite easy about the amount we are mak-
ing. Working under one of our patents, we have a
monopoly which seems to me something wrong.
Everybody has to come to us for it, and we are mak-
ing money too fast: it is not right.” The price was
immediately reduced. A rare man indeed was Peter
‘Cooper, to lower the price simply because the world
greatly needed the article he had to sell!

He was now sixty-four. For forty years he had
worked day and night to earn money to build his
Free College. He had bought the ground between
Third and Fourth avenues, and Seventh and Eighth
streets, some time previously, and now for five whole
years he watched the great, six-story, brown-stone
building as it grew under his hands. The once
penniless lad was building into these stones for all
future generations, the lessons of his industry, econ-
‘omy, perseverance, and noble heart. Ina box in the
‘corner stone he placed these words :

The great object that I desire to accomplish by the erection
of this Institution is to open the avenues. of scientific knowl-
‘edge to the youth of our city and country, and so unfold the
volume of Nature, that the young may see the beauties of crea-
tion, enjoy its blessings, and learn to love the Author from
‘whom cometh every good and perfect gift.

But would the poor young men and women of New
‘York, who worked hard all day, care for educa-
tion? Some said no, But Mr. Cooper looking back
to his boyhood and young manhood believed that
the people loved books, and would use an opportunity
to study them.

And when the grand building was opened, with its
library, class-rooms, hall, and art rooms, students
‘crowded in from the shops and the factories. Some
were worn and tired, as Peter Cooper was in his
youth, but they studied eagerly despite their weariness.
Every Saturday night two thousand came together in
the great hall to hear lectures from the most famous
people in the country. Every year nearly five hun-
dred thousand read in the Library and Free Read-

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON,

ing Room, Four thousand pupils came to the night-
schools to study science and art.

For twenty-four years this labor of love has been
carried on. The white-haired, kind-faced man went
daily to see the students who lovedhim as afather. His
last act was to buy ten type-writers for the girls in the
department of telegraphy. Hasthe work paid? Ask
the forty thousand young men and women who have
gone out from the institution to earn an honorable
support, with not a cent.to be paid for their educa-
tion. No person is accepted who does not expect
to earn his living, for Mr. Cooper had no love for
weak, idle youth who depend on their parents and

‘on the hope of an inherited wealth.

The work has now outgrown the building, and
another million dollars is needed as a monument to
the noble benefactor who gave two millions to found
Cooper Institute. Of the fifteen hundred who ap-
plied last year for admission to the School of Art for
Woman, only five hundred could be received, for
lack of room, The graduates from this department
last year, and the members of the present class, have
earned over twenty-seven thousand dollars in the
past twelvemonths, Three pupils are teaching draw-
ing in nineteen of the Public Schools of New Vork
City. One teaches twenty-five hours a week, in eight
Public Schools, at two dollars an hour. Several en-
grave on wood for Harper and Brothers, and for
the Century Company. One scholar is now at the
head of the Decorative Art Society in New Orleans,
with a salary of one hundred and fifty dollars a month,
earning nearly as much-in outside work. Another,
with a photographer in Concord, N. H., receives
twelve hundred ayear. The superintendent of schools
at Winona, Miss., receives one thousand dollars the first
year, and she is promised more afterwards, One lady
earns twelve hundred dollars in a decorating estab-
lishment in Boston, One is designing in the Brit-
annia works at Meriden, Conn. One having married
a man of means, has opened a “ Free School of Art,”
with fifty pupils, to show her gratitude to Mr. Cooper.

Is it any wonder when Peter Cooper died, that
thirty-five hundred came up from the Institution to
lay roses upon his coffin?

His last words to his daughter, Mrs. Abraham
Hewitt, and his son, ex-Mayor Cooper, and their
families, as they stood around his death-bed, were,
not to forget Cooper Union. They have just given
one hundred thousand dollars to it. The influence
of this noble charity will be felt as long as the Re-
public endures. It has given an impulse to the
study of art, opened a door for women as well as
men, and shown to the world that in America work
is honorable for all. b

Peter Cooper came tohighest honors. The learned
and the great sought his home. He was president
of three telegraph companies, one of the fathers of
the Atlantic Cable, and was nominated for the Presi-
dency of the United States by the National Indepen-
dent party, in 1876, but he died as he had lived, the
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES. —HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

same gentle, unostentatious, unselfish man. He said
a short time before his death: “My sun is not
setting in clouds and darkness, but is going down
‘cheerfully in a clear firmament, lighted up by the
glory of God. . . I seem to hear my mother call-

271

ing me, as she used to do when I was a boy: ‘ Peter,
Peter, it is about bed-time!’ ”

 

Note. For many of these facts I am indebted to Professor J. C. Zachos,

Curator of Cooper Institute, and to Mrs. Susan N. Carter, Principal of the
Woman’s Art School.

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

By Saran K. BoitTon.

II.
JOHN B, GOUGH,

T was a cold Sabbath evening in October. A
young man walked the streets of a Massachusetts

city — Worcester — shivering and despairing. The
windows he passed were warm and golden with the
light of home, but he was homeless and penniless.
Those who knew him turned away without any token
of recognition. His hands trembled, his steps were
unsteady, his brain throbbed, he wished he were
dead. Later he stood bya railroad track with a bot-
tle of laudanum pressed to his lips; but to take his
own life seemed to him, outcast thpugh he was, too
cowardly. But what was the cause of this wretched-

ness? Ah, this young man was a drunkard, loath-
some and despised.

And had he expected to be an outcast, a drunkard,
at twenty-five? Oh, no; he took at first only a glass
of beer with his boyish companions. He was very
social, and he wantéd to enjoy life. He could, of
course, control himself, He never expected to “form
a taste for liquors,” as the saying goes. But, as
nearly always, the serpent fastened its coils about
him, and at last he was helpless.

His life had been a peculiarly bitter one. Born in
a very humble home at Sandgate, on the English
coast, gleaning with his mother and sister after the
reapers, that they might have bread to eat, or cleaning
knives and shoes in the gentleman’s house where his
father was a servant, there was little to make a boy’s
272

life bright. When he was twelve, a family offered to
bring him to America if his parents would pay fifty
dollars for his passage. It was difficult to earn this,
but his mother thought, after the manner of mothers,
“ Perhaps in the New World our John will be some-
body.” So, with tears, she packed his scanty cloth-
ing, putting in a little Bible, and pinning these lines
on a shirt:

Forget me not when death shall close
These eyelids in their last repose ;
And when the murmuring breezes wave
The grass upon your mother’s grave,
O then, whate’er thy age or lot
May be, my child, forget me not.
JANE GOUGH.

Then, again and again she pressed her only boy to
her heart, and stole out behind the garden wall, that,

 

 

JOHN B. GOUGH.

unobserved, she might catch a last look of the stage
which carried him to London.

The voyage was a long one of nearly two months.
The little lad often cried in his cabin, and he wrote
back, “ I wish mother could wash me to-night,” show-
ing what a tender “mother’s boy” he was. When
New York harbor was entered, and he was eager to
see his adopted country, he was sent below to black
boots and shoes for the family.

His school days were now over. After two years
of hard work in the country, he sold his knife to buy

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

a postage stamp, and wrote his father, asking his per.
mission to go to New York and learn a trade. Con-
sent was given, and, in the middle of the winter, our
English lad of fourteen reached the great city, with
no home, no friends, and only fifty cents in his
pocket. Hundreds passed by as he stood on the
dock, holding his little trunk in his hands, but no-
body spoke to him. But at last, by dint of earnest-
ness, he found a place to enter as errand-boy and learn
book-binding, receiving two dollars and twenty-five
cents a week, and paying two dollars out of this for
his board. How his employers supposed he could live
on one dollar:a month for clothes and washing has
never appeared.

The first night he was placed by his boarding-
mistress in an attic, with an Irishman who was
deathly ill. The second night the man died, and the
horror-stricken young boy staid alone with the dead
till morning.

Now nearly two painful years more went by. Fi-
nally, though he earned but three dollars a week, he
sent to England for his mother and sister. When
they arrived two rooms were rented; the girl found
work in a straw-bonnet factory, and, poor though they
were, they were very happy. John was now sixteen,
devoted to his mother, and still a noble, unselfish,
persevering boy.

At the end of three months, through dullness of
business, both children lost their places, and now be-
gan the struggles which the poor know so well in our
large cities. In vain they looked for work. Then
they left their two decent rooms, and moved into a
garret. Winter came on, and they had neither fuel
nor food. John walked miles out into the country,
and dragged home old sticks which lay by the road-
side. He pawned his coat that the mother, who had
now become ill, might have some mutton broth,

One day he left her in tears, and went sobbing
down the street.

“What is the matter?” said a stranger.

“T’m hungry, and so is my mother.”

“ Well, I can’t do much, but I'll help you a little,”
and he gave John a three-cent loaf of bread.

When the boy reached home, the good woman put
the Bible on the rickety pine table, read from it, and
then all knelt and thanked God for the precious loaf.

In the spring, he obtained employment at four dol-
lars and a half a week, but poverty and privation had
fallen too heavily, rested too long, upon the mother.
One day while preparing John’s simple supper of rice
and milk, she fell dead. All night long the desolate boy
held her cold hand in his; then, in that Christian city,
she was put in a pine box, and, without shroud or
prayers, carried in a cart, her two children walking
behind it, and was buried in the Potter’s Field.

For three days afterwards John and his sister never
tasted food. Probably the world said “ Poor things!”
but it is certain that nobody offered to help them.
Bitter at heart, John ceased to attend church. He
strolled out in the fields instead on the Sabbath. Qc-
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS JIS. WON.

casionally he went to the theatre, a place he shunned
when his mother was alive. Step by step he went
along the downward road; not in a day, or a month,
or a year, did he become a sot.

He took comic parts on the stage, because he was
good in mimicry, and his companions were not of the
best. Sometimes, it is true, he worked at his trade,
for weeks abstaining from drink and other spendthrift
ways; then appetite, or the invitation of old friends,
beguiled and overpowered him. Once he went on a
fishing voyage, laying up considerable money, married
and made a pleasant home for his wife ; but presently
he went back to his old habits, and at the time when
she and her baby died, he was lying drunk and uncon-
scious in the house.

It is needless to say that often, in agony, did he lament
the taking ofafirst glass. Howeasily, but for that, could
he have become self-educated and honored; now at
last, ragged, and broken in body by delirium tremens, he
was walking the streets of Worcester, on that Sabbath
evening, absolutely homeless and hopeless. He was
thinking, utterly heartsick as it is possible for man to
be, of his ruined life, when a hand was laid on his
shoulder. He was startled. Nobody had spoken to
him in a friendly way for months.

“Mr. Gough, I believe?” said the stranger.

“That is my name,” he replied, and passed on.

“You have been drinking to-day,” said the kind
voice. “ Why do you not sign the pledge and protect
yourself?” And then the young man, whose name
was Joel Stratton, took his arm in a brotherly way,
and, as a brother might, asked if he would not like to
be a sober man, go to church once more, and have
friends once more..

John Gough answered sadly: “TI should like all
these things first-rate. Such a change cannot be-pos-
sible, however.”

“Tf you will but sign the pledge and follow my ad-
vice, I will warrant that it shall be so. I will intro-
duce you to good friends who will take a pleasure in
helping-you to keep good resolutions.”

After some pondering, he determined to make the
effort. He said:

“ Well, I will sign it.”

“When?”

“T cannot do so to-night, for I must have some
drink presently. But I certainly will to-morrow.”

That night he drank heavily, and all the next day
at his work the longing for drink remained unbear-
able. But when night came he said, “If it should be
the last act of my life, I will keep my promise, even
though I die in the attempt, for I believe that man
has placed confidence in me.” ,

At the temperance meeting, with almost palsied
hand, he wrote “John B. Gough” to a Total Absti-
nence pledge. After a sleepless night, he went to his
work. But the craving for his daily drink was as
fierce as ever. His whole body trembled, and his
brain seemed on fire. It was the height of torture,
of temptation. Finally, as night came on, he said, “I

273

cannot fight this through. I will not yield, but I shall
die.”

Just then a lawyer, Jesse Goodrich, came in.

“T saw you sign the pledge last night, Mr. Gough.
Come in and see me. Keep up a brave heart.
Good-by! God bless you.”

These words seemed sent from heaven. He re-
peated them over and over again on his way home.
The friendship, the kindliness, the sympathy, seemed
divine. For six days and nights, in a wretched gar-
ret, without one hour of healthy sleep, without one
mouthful of food, John Gough fought the dreadful
battle with appetite. Weak, famished, almost dying,
he crawled out into the sunlight; but he had con-
quered.

Hope, the ambitions of manhood, came back into
his desolate life. The ragged clothes were brushed,
and the weekly temperance meetings were regularly
attended. He soon spoke with such intense earnest-
ness, in his gratitude, and his desire to rescue others,
that he received invitations to go to neighboring
towns, which he accepted, waiting only to earn suit-
able clothes. He kept his pledge for five months,
and then, yielding to physical weakness, broke it.
Tremblingly penitent, almost despairing, he went to
Mr. Goodrich and others, telling them that he had dis-
graced them as well as himself, and that he must leave
Worcester forever. But they held on to him; they
would not let him go, and he re-signed the pledge.

Soon after this, he became a Christian, and now,
for nearly forty years, he has honored the name he
bears. “If the pledge had been offered to me when
Iwas a boy in Sunday-school, I should have been
spared those seven dreadful years,”’ I have heard Mr.
Gough say. He was now twenty-six. This year he
made three hundred and eighty-three addresses,
receiving about three dollars for each, and paying his
expenses out of it. With the «first money he could
possibly spare, he purchased Rollin’s Ancient History,
bent upon self education.

And now there came into his life noble Mary
Whitcomb, a teacher, with fine mind and true heart.
She has shared alike his poverty and his fame.
No life of Mr. Gough will ever be complete without
“ Mary ” written on every page.

For eleven years he spoke eloquently throughout
our country, winning thousands upon thousands of
signers to the pledge. This public life was by no
means an easy one. He was opposed by the liquor
interest, and not always aided by those who should have
been his friends. In no year did he receive, on an aver-
age, over twenty-five dollars a lecture, and, in his zeal
and sympathy, hundreds were given without charge.

He was now urged to visit England. Sensitive to
an unsuspected degree, never forgetting the stains on
his early manhood, he sought the advice of Doctor
Lyman Beecher.

“John, my son, don’t fear,’’ he said.
prayed for you.
go with you.”

“T have
Go, and the blessing of an old man
274

England gave him the greeting she gives to heroes.
Exeter Hall, London, where the welcome meeting was
held, was draped with the flags of England and
America. For four hours great crowds waited on the
sidewalks for the doors to be opened. His brother
Englishmen were eager to hear the famous orator who
. had gone out from them a poor, unknown boy. As
he spoke simply yet touchingly, the enthusiasm was
unbounded, hundreds weeping with joy. All through
Great Britain, crowds, numbering often seventeen
thousand persons, came to hear him. On his thirty-
seventh birthday he spoke in Sandgate. The village
people listened as though he were inspired. Old Mrs.
Beattie, who had known him when a lad, hastened to
grasp his hand. When he slipped twenty-five dollars
in hers, telling her he was in her debt, she said,
“Goodness me! What for?”

“For a bottle of milk and some gingerbread you
sent me twenty-four years ago when I was starting for
America.”

Inquiring into her needs, he expended money
without stint, for coal and groceries, and as long as
she lived sent her fifty dollars each Christmas.

Rich and poor alike were moved by the pathos and
eloquence of Mr. Gough, and failing other expression,
brought gifts of gratitude; the London Temperance
Society, a dinner set of eighteen pieces of solid silver;
the poor woman of Edinburgh a handkerchief, saying
to Mrs. Gough, “I’d give him a thousand pounds if I
had it. Tell him when he wipes the sweat from his
face while speaking, to remember he has wiped away
a great many tears while he has been in Edinburgh.”

One day, while riding to the station, Mr. Gough
observed the driver tie a handkerchief about his neck
and then lean his face close against the window.

“ Are you cold?” asked Mr. Gough.

“No, sir.”

“ Have you the toothache?”

“No, sir. The window of the carriage is broke,
and the wind is freezing, and I’m trying to keep it
from you. God bless you, sir! I owe everything I
have in the world to you. I was a ballad-singer once.
I used to go round with a half-starved baby in my
arms for charity, and a draggled wife at my heels half
the time, with her eyes blackened. And I went to
hear you in Edinburgh, and you told me I was a
man, and when I went out of that house, I said, ‘ By
the help of God, I'll Je a man!’ And now I’ve a
happy wife and a comfortable home. God bless you,
sir! I would stick my head in any hole under the
heavens if it would save you any harm.”

At a meeting in Glasgow, to which three thousand
“outcasts” came, the worst woman in the city was
present. She had been in jail scores of times, and
was the terror of the borough. Touched by the story
of Mr. Gough’s sad life and of his mother, and his
rise from despair, she came forward to sign the pledge.

A gentleman said, “She cannot keep it. She will
be drunk before she goes to bed to-night ; better not
give her the pledge.”

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

“Tf £ say I wull, I can,” said she simply, and
signed it.

Two years afterward Mr. Gough went to her home.
“Ah,” she said, “I’m a puir hody. I dinna ken
much; and what little I ha’e kenned has been
knocked out o’ me by the staffs of the policemen;
but sometimes I ha’e a dream. JI dream I’m drunk,
and fichting, and the police ha’e got me again; and
then I get out of my bed, and I go down on my
knees, and I don’t go back till the daylight comes,
and I keep saying: ‘God keep me— for I canna get
drunk any mair.’”

She supported herself and daughter by sewing, and
gave all her spare time to reading the Bible among
the degraded, urging them to reform, following in Mr.
Gough’s steps afar off, but as nearly as she could.

Soon after Mr. Gough’s return to America, Joel
Stratton lay dying. He hastened to his bedside, and
the man who had moved England by his eloquence
embraced tenderly the waiter of the Temperance
Hotel who had saved him. “God bless you, Stratton!
thousands are thankful that you ever lived.”

“Do you think so?” he said feebly. ‘When I
laid my hand on your shoulder that night I never
dreamed all this would come to pass; did you?”

After his death, Mrs. Stratton received three hun-
dred yearly from Mr. Gough, in token of his grati-
tude.

For the past thirty years John B. Gough has worked
untiringly on both continents. Though he has swayed
brilliant and crowded audiences by his marvelous elo-
quence, he has not forgotten to visit prisons and poor-
houses, Thousands of the lowest have written to him
in their despair, and thousands of the highest in their
admiration for his work. His beautiful home at Hill-
side, Worcester, has no end of choice remembrances
from such friends as Spurgeon, the Earl of Shaftes-
bury, Cruikshanks, Doctor Guthrie, and our own
statesmen, and ministers, and poets. His choice
library shows his love for books. The last time he
was in England four thousand of the ede of that
country received him at a garden party in the grounds
of Westminster Abbey. Canon Wilberforce, Canon
Duckworth, Samuel Morley, the American Minister,
and others made addresses. Dean Stanley led him
through the grand old abbey. The next morning
twenty London papers, some in six columns, gave an
account of this great reception to the great moral hero
of his time.

At Sandgate, where he went to lay the corner-stone
of the Memorial Coffee Tavern bearing his name, the -
enthusiastic people removed the horses from his_car-
riage and drew it through the streets. He was invited
to dine at the stately homes where fifty years before
he had cleaned knives and blacked boots. Public
banquets were given in his honor. To his own coun-
try each time he has been welcomed back with demon-
strations no less hearty.

When asked recently the secret of his success, he
replied: ‘‘ Whether I speak to one or to thousands in
 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES .—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

my audiences, I always try to do my best.” Another
secret is his throbbing sympathy for humanity. He is
determined to win the erring, and therefore succeeds,
He has given nearly nine thousand lectures, and trav-
elled about five hundred thousand miles to accomplish
this purpose. Over a million copies of his lectures have
been sold, and one hundred thousand of his helpful
autobiography. He and his wife have reared seven
* fatherless children, and I know not how many boys
“he has helped through college. Mr. Gough’s hair has

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS

275

grown white in his labors. He has perhaps done
more than any other one man to make temperance an
absorbing topic of the time. When he began his work
few had taken the pledge; now the signers are mil-
lions. States are prohibiting that which works harm
to citizens ; schools are teaching that beer and brandy
poison both blood and brain. But his own personal
history, his struggle and his complete victory shall re-
main to the end of time as personal hope and courage
for the most complete outcast.

IS WON.

By Sarau K. Botron.

III.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

FELT I was in the world to do something, and
thought I mst,” said Mr. Whittier, speaking
to me of his early years, as we sat in his home at
Oak Knoll, Danvers, before a cheerful wood-fire.
This consciousness of “ must” is the secret of the
noble life and noble work which has impressed the
very heart of the American people. While no poet
has sung more lovingly of our flowers, brooks and
mountains, so no other has labored so heroically
for the great principles of the American Republic.
To free the slave, to give woman an equal chance
in the world with man, to make the nations love
each other and learn war no more — these are the
once unpopular principles which he has fearlessly
championed.
“ But,” says Mr. Whittier, “it is always safe to do
right ; and the truest expediency is simple justice.”
Mr. Whittier, now seventy-six years old, is a tall,
slender man, with dark, kind eyes, winsome smile,
and gentle manners. The moment he begins to
talk, his self-forgetfulness shows, and his kindli-
ness. Probably no one in this country has helped
so many young writers, by kind words to editors,
or by commendation of a first book. “I read a
book with sympathy for the author,” he says. “It
is easy to tear a volume in pieces by criticism, but
I try to find its merits.” Many who have come up
through struggles to success forget the great crowd
of toilers below when they have reached the top
of the mountain, but Mr. Whittier never forgets. .
His boyhood was passed in Haverhill, Mass., in
a lonely farmhouse half-hidden by oak woods, with
no other home in sight. Here, he says, on stormy
nights —

We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light-sifted snow-flakes fall.

Besides a brother and two sisters, there were few
companions. The father was a good Quaker, one
of the selectmen of the town; the mother a re-
fined, dignified woman, fond of reading the best
books. She spun and wove the linen and woollen
cloth needed in the family, always finding time to
teach her children from the Bible. There were
only twenty volumes in the home, most of these
journals of Quaker ministers; and the only fresh
book for the young boy was the yearly almanac!
He longed for reading, especially for books of biog-
raphy and travel; and wherever he heard of a vol-
ume, he would walk miles in the snow to borrow it.

When he was fourteen, his first schoolmaster,
Joshua Coffin, brought a volume of Burns to the
house, and read it aloud. Little John was de-
lighted, begged him to leave it, and lo! forthwith
began to make rhymes, and to imagine stories and
adventures.

This is not the first time that a book has
changed, or swollen the current of a life. Jar.
aday would have remained a bookbinder, perhaps,
if he had not read an article on electricity in a book
he was binding. Robert Dick became the noted
Scottish geologist from reading a book of Hugh
Miller’s. Between one baking and another, he often
walked fifty and eighty miles, toiling at his scien-
tific diggings and hammerings and spyings, with
but a dry biscuit for food, which he moistened in
brooks by the roadside.

Whittier’s elder sister, Mary, encouraged him to
write in the spare moments he could save from
work on the farm, and errand-going for his mother;
and, moreover, she sent one of his poems to the
Newburyport “ree Press, edited by William Lloyd
Garrison. Says Mr. Whittier: .

Some weeks afterwards, the news-carrier came along on
horseback, and threw the paper out from his saddle-bags.
My uncle and I were mending fences. I took up the sheet,
and was surprised and overjoyed to see my lines in the
* Poet’s Corner.” I stood gazing at them in wonder, and my
uncle had to recall me several times to my work.
276

Dickens had a similar experience when, as he
writes, “my first effusion, dropped stealthily one
evening, at twilight, with fear and trembling, into
a dark letter box, in a dark office, up a dark court
in Fleet street, appeared in all the glory of
print; on which occasion, by the by — how well
J recollect it—I walked down to Westminster
Hall, and turned into it for half an hour, because
my eyes were so dimmed with joy and pride, that
they could not bear the street and were not fit to
be seen there.”

Some time after this Mr. Garrison called at the
farmhouse to see the young poet, who was at work
in the fields, simply clad — like a true farmer boy
—in shirt, pantaloons and straw hat. With beat-
ing heart he made himself ready to meet the

editor. Mr, Garrison encouraged him, urging his
father to send him to school. Young Whittier
desired an education, but there was no money to
procure it. “Where there is a will, there is

 

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

always a way,” and reflecting that the young man
who worked for his father in summer, made shoes
in winter, he followed his example, and thus
earned enough to carry him through a six-months
term at the Haverhill Academy. After making
provisions for his board, tuition, and books, he
had twenty-five cents left in his pocket! This he
carried all the term, not spending a cent more

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS [IS WON.

than he had planned at the beginning — and this
instance of self-denial and self-control, really Spar-
tan in a schoolboy, is surely a lesson in the art of
success. He was popular at the Academy, for he
was, even as a lad, wholly free from conceit,
wholly free from egotism — two traits sure to be
at once detected and despised by schoolboys. He
had a fine, open face, then as now, was witty,
somewhat shy, did not talk over much, and was
very courteous. His memory was retentive, but
from the very first he formed the habit of storing
information in note books.

At the close of the term, he taught a school,
and thus earned money for another six months at
the Academy. After this, for some months, he
edited a paper called the American Manufacturer,
his salary being nine dollars a week; but pres-
ently we find him again at work on the farm, and
writing whenever he can find time. How little
there seems, at first glance, in such a life to inspire
rapt or tender moods for the making of verses.
His impulse was surely inborn, and from forces
and fires of his own nature. Young Longfellow
had literary friends with whom he could take
counsel. Whittier had only his devoted sister.
He still owned few books, still had little money,
and was troubled and depressed by poor health.
However, he worked constantly. We find him
next invited to Hartford, to take charge of the
New England Weekly Review, in the absence of
the editor, George D. Prentice, afterward so well
known in Kentucky. The young Quaker editor
showed his sense of high-toned journalism by
refusing to engage in personal bickerings or
controversies, then the fashion of newspapers.
After a year and a half of this life he was called
home by the illness and death of his father, and
again he “put his hand to the plough,” literally,
supporting his mother and sisters by labor on the
farm, one and all working “to make both ends
meet.” But if this life was hard it was mellowed
by the tenderest home affections. Elizabeth, the
younger sister, now wrote poetry, too, thus render-
ing the companionship more delightful, and already
fame was busy with the name so dear to her now
these long years.

Garrison, meantime, poor, setting his own type,
and sleeping in his office, was editing the Lzderazor,
and persistently demanding the unconditional sur-
render of the slave. He had been imprisoned
and’ insulted by the great, mobbed by the igno-
rant, yet still he kept his eyes on his motto; “I
will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard!”
Young Whittier, loving freedom as dearly as his
friend Garrison, at last resolved to give up his
projects of literary eminence, and join the “de-
spised abolitionists” instead. He wrote and pub-
lished with his own hard-earned money, an able
pamphlet concerning slavery, of which Lewis Tappan
of New York, presently had ten thousand copies
 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS £8 WON. 277

printed, to be distributed broadcast. It is not at
all surprising to learn of a young man so fearless
and so true, that he was a delegate to, and secretary
of, the first National Anti-Slavery Convention at
Philadelphia, in 1833, when he was but twenty-six
years old, and that two years later he was a mem-
ber of the Massachusetts Legislature. However,
few journals desired his ringing poems now. Ed-
itors drew back appalled at the impassioned
outcries for liberty, for action in behalf of the
oppressed four millions of fellow-men.

Soon after this, appearing at Concord, N. H.,
with George Thompson of England, an eloquent
anti-slavery speaker, the twain were mobbed by
two or three hundred persons, severely bruised
with stones, and barely escaping with their lives.
Yet the fearless young Quaker soon went on
to take charge of the Pennsylvania Freeman, at
Philadelphia. There his office was broken open
by a mob, who carried his books and_ papers into
the large hall of the building, set fire to them,
turned on the gas, and then retired to watch their
wild work go on, till the building lay a smouldering
ruin. For a year longer he worked on the paper,
till failing health compelled his return to the farm,
but not to silence, or any abandonment whatever
of his aims, although he had seen a mob, led
by “men of property and standing,” drag his old
friend Garrison through the streets of Boston, with
a rope around his neck, and rescued by the police,
only to be thrown into jail.

In 1847 Mr. Whittier become the associate
editor of the Wetional Era, in which Uncle Tom's
Cabin was printed as a serial. For this paper he
wrote nearly a hundred poems. Ten years later,
when the Atlantic Monthly was established, he was
one of its ablest writers. All these years he had
earned little money, but he had won enduring
fame, and everywhere was reverenced as the cham-
pion of every man’s inalienable rights. Certain
literature may be popular for a time, and find
a large sale, but only that which is written to
elevate the world, has within it enduring life.
Dicken’s books are sure of permanence, because
in them he showed the rich how wretchedly the
poor are housed and fed. Victor Hugo’s works
will not cease to be read, because they are, one
and all, impassioned pleas for liberty and justice.

Whittier’s mother died in 1857, having lived to
see her son come to his fame and honor, She
knew that his voice had thrilled thousands of
hearts; and she also knew there must be later a
glorious outcome in the nation’s life, from his fear-
less work. To the last, the devotion between
mother and son was beautiful.

There has been a glorious outcome, And the
poet of high courage, and deep tenderness, sing-
ing always in clear, true keys, has gone on his way
from honor to honor, along peaceful and sunny
heights now for many a year. On Mr. Whittier’s

seventieth birthday, Mr. Houghton, the publisher
of the Atlantic Monthly, gave a dinner in his
honor. Emerson and Longfellow, Holmes and
Howells, came with tender greetings, while from
Lowell, Bryant, Stoddard, Aldrich, and many
more, letters were read. The once “ barefoot
boy” was hailed the poet of the American people.
Whittier’s life is beautiful with the happiness of
noble aims fulfilled —a life that has hinged always
on that brief law, “ Dare to be true!” Unmar-
ried, the world has wondered if, like Washington
Irving, he did not cherish the memory of some
fair, sweet face. An article having appeared
some time since, in a Western paper, stating that
a lady, recently deceased, was the one whom
Whittier loved, the poet wrote a letter to the edi
tor, saying that the article was very interesting, but
somewhat imaginative, as he had never seen the
person mentioned since she was nine years old.
But doubtless the poem fz School Days was
written from the heart:

He saw her lift her eyes; he felt
The soft hand's light caressing,
And heard the tremble of her voice

As if a fault confessing.

“T'm sorry that I spelt the word ;
TI hate to go above you,

Because ” — the brown eyes lower fell —
“ Because, you see, I love you.”

Still memory to a gray-haired man
That sweet child face is showing.

Dear girl! the grasses on her grave
Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn in life’s hard school
How few who pass above him

Lament their triumph, and his loss,
Like her — because they love him.

“TJ have gotten a great deal out of life; more
than most people,” he said recently. When I
spoke of the early struggles, here recounted, he
replied, “I did not covet what was beyond my
reach. I try to remember only the bright and
good,” and added, playfully, “I have forgotten all
the mischief I did.” He recalled to me the nes
in My Birthday:

Better than self-indulgent years
The outflung heart of youth;
Than pleasant songs in idle years,

The tumult of the truth.

He lives in Lincoln’s memorable words, “ with
malice toward none, and charity for all;” he is
an outspoken proclaimer of total abstinence ;
never uses tobacco; he is modest, self-deprecia-
tive; yet thankful for his poetic gifts. Still so
devoted to principle is he, so brightly yet flames
the early fires, thathe says, “I set a higher value on
my name as appended to the Anti-Slavery Declara-
278

tion of 1833, than on the title page of any book.”

Thirty-six different volumes have been issued
of Mr. Whittier’s work; among them biography,
essays, and a historical novel, Margaret Smith's

ournal. For many years now, he has not been
able to read or write for more than a half-hour at
a time, yet he still accomplishes much.

Although Presidential Elector in 1860 and 1864,
voting for Mr. Lincoln, and one of the founders
of the Liberal Party, the early form of the present
Republican Party, he has refused to participate
largely in public life. He says, “I have always
taken an active part in elections, but I have not
been willing to add my own example to the greed
of office.” He has been a member of the Board
of Overseers for Harvard College, and a Trustee

 

 

 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

of Brown University. He is greatly loved by
his townspeople, both at his home at Amesbury,
and in Danvers. His books furnish a comfortable
income. He is genuinely fond of children and of
animals. When I saw him last, his dogs came to
welcome me, one holding up a bruised paw for
sympathy, while the mocking-bird talked so much
louder than both of us, that Mr. Whittier was
obliged to cover his cage. Such a life of cheer-
fulness in toil, of perseverance, such an example of
unselfish allegiance to duty, such an instance of
noble success won through utter devotion to high
principles, is a rich legacy to the children of our
country. Some one has well said, “The most val-
uable gift of a man or woman to this world is not
money nor books, but a noble life.”

    

     

CG Fede.

2 S . 4 fiz yd
ips CS ees

see

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

By SaraH K. Bouton.

IV.
JOHN WANAMAKER,
T was about twenty years ago that a poor young

man, in Philadelphia, started, in the southwest
part of the city, a Sunday-school, in a shoemaker’s

shop. Saloons were on every corner round about.
Rough men fought and stoned each other in the
streets, and murders were not uncommon.

“Vou will probably lose your life!” said his
friends, trying to dissuade him.

But that young man had become a Christian.
The highest love always renders us heroic, and

 
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

forgetful of self. Young Wanamaker’s sunny face,
his warm grasp of the hand, made him immediately
seem a friend to the roughest man he accosted.

His school grew in numbers, and was moved
‘into a tent. While the young men of his time en-
joyed their leisure, the encouraged superintendent,
laboring all day to earn his bread, went on gladly
giving his evenings and his Sabbaths to lifting the
lowly; year by year his hope, and his faith, and the
school grew. One after another the saloons dis-
appeared. Pleasant homes were built in their
places. The years still went on. By and by a
beautiful stone structure arose, with these words
graven on its front: A Luttle Child Shall Lead
Them. On Sundays three thousand scholars gath-
ered in the spacious assembly room. This room
was of itself attractive, with its frescoes of blue
and gold, and its cool silvery fountain in the centre.
Presently, too, the adjoining church was built for
the twelve hundred members which had grown up
from the Sabbath-school, the poor young man, now
a millionnaire, giving sixty thousand dollars as his
thank-offering for God’s blessing on his work.

The last time I stood in Bethany Sunday-school
and heard the exquisite music, and listened to the
dying message of one of the boys, “Thank the
superintendent for the help he has been to me,”
I bowed my head in gratitude that here and there,
like a beacon light, there shines out an ideal life
like that superintendent’s to inspire noble aspira-
tions in others — noble aspirations and courage to
undertake Christian work.

John Wanamaker was born in 1838. His par-
ents were Christian people, but they were poor,
and all his early life was a struggle with poverty.
Of a summer-morning, before school-time, little
John turned five hundred bricks for his father,
that they might dry in the sun, thus earning two
cents each day. When a mere boy, he worked ina
bookstore at a dollar and a quarter a week, walk-
ing four miles each morning and. evening to do
it, often buying a two-cent dinner—a cup of
milk and a biscuit, that he might save the more
money for his mother. A good boy he, be sure,
who would undertake four-mile walks and _ two-
cent dinners to earn money for his mother!

“Her smile was like a bit of heaven,” he once
said to me, ‘and it never faded out of her face to
her dying day.” If akiss from Benjamin West’s
mother made him a painter, the smile of John
Wanamaker’s mother gave the inspiration and
cheer which have made him the warm-souled
“ Merchant Prince.”

By and by the cheerful lad obtained a place in
a Clothing store at a dollar and a half a week.
There he soon won the approval of his employer,
because he determined to be “the best in what-
ever he had in hand.” This sort of ambition has
been the keystone of many a bridge over which
boys have passed from penury to plenty.

279

Balzac, the French author, when urged by his
father to enter law, because in literature one must
be either king or hodman, replied, “ Very well ; I
will be king.”

The boy’s first intellectual stimulus was from
hearing a sermon which he did not understand.
Writing down all the difficult words, he looked
up the meaning of each in the dictionary, as soon
as opportunity offered. Not content simply to
sell goods, at eighteen, with another lad, he pub-
lished a paper called Everybody's Journal, he solic-
iting the advertisements and serving the subscrib-
ers. The partnership could not be other than
harmonious, as he did all the labor. Until he was
nearly twenty-three years of age, he worked on
in the store, every week carrying his money to
his parents. Does this seem business folly and
weakness to any of you? Well, I have never
known son or daughter who obeyed the fifth com-
mandment to go unrewarded.

And now the work of the Bethany Sunday-
school was begun. There was but one life to live,
and how could he make the most of it? Full of
the reaching, leaping strength and the unlimited
enthusiasms of youth, he was yet deeply medita-
tive and reflective. Should he study for the min-
istry? He pondered the subject. Then, instead,
he considered men like George H. Stuart and
William E. Dodge, prominent business men who
had done honor to Christianity in their daily deeds,
preaching a noble and very convincing gospel in
all their dealings, great and small. Surely there
was as sore need for consecrated business men,
on ’Change and in the counting-room, in these days
of marvellous commerce with the ends of the earth,
as in the pulpit. :

On his twenty-third birthday he had decided,
It was then, I think, that he wrote over his name
the resolutions which have governed his life. He
said, “I will embark in the clothing business,
because I understand it, and I will Jet nobody dis-
suade me from my purpose.” Two of his mottoes
were these:

“ He is a rewarder of them that diligently seck
him.”

“ Vo man ts ever lost on a straight road.”

And now his life was well ballasted with a pur-
pose. That grand old Scotchman, Carlyle, once
said, “The man without a purpose is like a ship
without a rudder —a waif, a nothing, a no-man.
Have a purpose in life, if it is only to kill and divide
and sell oxen well, but have a purpose; and hav-
ing it, throw such strength of mind and muscle
into your work as God has given you.”

Young Wanamaker now began to showhis busi-
ness sagacity. He invested the first one hundred
dollars which he was able to save, in an undivided
interest in an estate, bought two more shares on
credit, settled the matter to the satisfaction of all
parties, and cleared for himself a trifle less than
280

two thousand dollars. With this money he began
active business. Presently, too, he married a
Christian girl, who had faith in his future, and con-
fidence in him. She might well argue in her heart
that a dutiful son would make a devoted husband.

The Civil War had just begun. Many dis-
couraged his enterprise and prophesied failure,
but the self-reliant, straightforward young man
had no expectation of defeat. He possessed will-
power to the degree which Victor Hugo calls
genius. He had also the habit of hard work. He
swept his store, and kept his account books. When
a bill of goods was to be delivered, and no one
was at hand to do it, he was not too-proud to
trundle the wheelbarrow along the street. Did he

 

JOHN WANAMAKER.

cream, then, that some day Philadelphia would ask
him to represent hér in Congress? Emerson truly
said, “The man that stands by himself, the uni-
verse stands by him also.” Canon Farrar well
calls labor the girdle of manliness.

Fifteen years passed on. The young merchant
had attended closely to business, advertised largely
and judiciously, held strictly to one price, given
customers the best for their money, chosen men
enterprising and sagacious for the heads of his de-
partments, and now, at the end of these years,
found himself the owner of three stores, covering
mearly seven acres, one of them, the largest retail

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS TS

WON.

dry goods store in America, with three thousand
employees!

Was this chance? Was this luck? It was
consummate ability. It was the work of a mind
that thought out large plans and original methods.
It was the logical fortune of a man that with quick-
ness of perception knew how to seize opportuni-
ties, that could inspire prompt, strong men with his
own enthusiasm, that could systematize, and with
swift conclusions, few words and bold action,
could crowd much into little time; that with genial
and polished manners knew how to win friends
in the business world, in circles high or low, and
also how to hold them — ah! it is his sincerity that
has held them. .

He might count his honors, his public recogni-
tions, if he would. When the Centennial Exposition
was talked of, and Philadelphia looked about for
men to aid in the vast enterprise, John Wanamaker
was one of the first called to the national work.
He was made chairman of the Bureau of Revenue,
and with the aid of the Board of Finance, he raised
the first million dollars ; he was chairman of the
Press Committee that brought the subject before
the whole country; and with much labor and
judicious management, he stood by and helped
carry the enterprise through to its success.

Meantime he had’ been a leader in every good
work, He was one of the founders of the Chris-
tian Commission. In the Moody meetings, his elo-
quence and leadership were invaluable; his sym-
pathy and tenderness touched thousands of hearts.
Daily and systematic reading had enriched his
thought, trained his mind, enlarged his sympathies,
broadened his outlook, widened the horizon of all
his heights. Saida prominent man to us recently,
“T have not read a book for five years, business is
so absorbing.” But the man who does not daily
broaden his mind and heart, goes poor into eternity.

In the later years, Mr. Wanamaker has given
one hundred thousand dollars to the Young Men’s
Christian Association, of which he has been presi-
dent for thirteen years, has built a church near his
country home, has aided hospitals and orphanages,
and, says a friend, ‘‘ He gives a fortune every year
in private charities.” ‘Three years ago he estab-
lished an Industrial College at Bethany, where five
hundred boys and girls, under the presidency of
Rev. Dr. Arthur T. Pierson, study bookkeeping,
telegraphy, cooking, embroidery, printing, painting,
etc. A mission akin to that of Cooper Institute,
Thousands of our future citizens will probably
bless him all their lives for having been thus en-
abled by him to earn their living, and to establish
themselves profitably and pleasantly in business.

How does he find time to accomplish these
charities, and yet manage his great business in-
terests? He saves the moments, often studying
the next Sunday-school lesson as he goes from his
business to his home. On his desk I read the

4
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES —HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

words, framed : ‘‘ Villa dies sine linea,” “No day
without a line,” the motto of the painter, Apelles.

Mr. Wanamaker is still in his early prime. He
has light hair, blue eyes, with the light of youth in
them, and a frank, manly face, whose sunny smile,
like his mother’s, one never forgets. Said one
of his employees to me: “I can work better for a
week after a pleasant ‘ good-morning’ from him.”
With a persuasive voice, a magnetic manner, a
noble presence, he wins every person with whom
he comes in contact, as I have said before,

Unostentatious, he is yet a born leader of men.
With the skill of a general, he deploys the seven
thousand persons who work forhim. Years agohe
said to his associates, “ I will not lie to sell goods,”
and he requires no deception, no subterfuge, from
his clerks in their dealings with buyers. He says,
“ When a country boy, 1 was shy about going into
fine stores; and I resolved if I ever owned one,
that everybody should feel at home in it, and not
be urged to buy goods.” It is a pleasure to walk
through his immense houses, look at beautiful
things, or linger in the reading-rooms for rest.
Always progressive, he was the first in this country
to use pneumatic tubes for carrying money in place
of cash boys, and to utilize the electric light.

But this busy, alert, occupied man takes time to
carry flowers to the sick-bed of a Sunday-school
scholar, and to talk with any person who needs his
help. A man came to the office one morning and
asked for Mr. Wanamaker. A score were waiting

281

to transact business with him, .nvolving thousands
of dollars. What was his errand? To talk about
being a Christian! The great merchant eagerly
responded, That hour together they knelt and
prayed over this, the most important decision of
life.

In his home, with his four children, he is a boy
again. He enters heartily into their amusements.
He plays croquet as though croquet were the one
important thing in a man’s life. He starts off
arm in arm with a friend to see who can come out
ahead in a brisk mile walk. It is this warm win-
someness of temperament that will keep him
always young. He is interested in boys and young
men. He says often after the day’s whirl of busi-
ness, “The best thing I have had to-day was a talk
with a poor boy.”

Does it seem strange now with his upright life,
his energy and his attention to his business and
good judgment, that he should have won success ?
Does it seem strange, with his sympathy, his con-
sideration for others, and his cheeriness, that
people love and trust him? You must see, I
think, that it has not been chance or luck. And is
it not inspiring to see a man, still young, so
grandly successful in business, so eminent in
Christian work, and so joyous and brotherly as to
make life for himself, and for those having to do
with him, like one of those bright days in spring,
when hope, courage, a sense of youth and strength
and some gladness to come is in the very air?

 

 

 

 

 
282

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

By Sarau K. BOLTon.

Vv.
HENRY M. STANLEY.

NCE on a time, had the wise men of the
world been asked who were to be the great
explorers of modern times, they probably would not
have pointed to a factory boy in Scotland, ten years
old, working fourteen hours a day, neither to a
homeless lad in a Welsh poor-house — David Liv-
ingstone and Henry M. Stanley. But we may
well say with President Garfield, “ I never meet a
ragged boy in the street without feeling that I
_ may owe him a salute, for I know not what possi-
bilities may be buttoned up under his coat.” We
all of us naturally enjoy adventure, and admire
heroic adventurers, An unexplored region exerts
a strange and drawing fascination upon the most
sober-minded of us. The world’s civilization
hinges often upon this element in our natures.

There is a long, royal line of brave and hardy
men who have given money and thought and life
to open up new lands and enlighten new races ;
but through all the centuries of exploration there
has remained, until our own years, a vast, unknown
country, covering over eight million square
miles — Africa, the Dark Continent. To be sure its
Egypt had at one time beeri the centre of the
world’s learning; its Alexandria, at the mouth of
the Nile, was as beautiful as Imperial Rome until
Julius Cesar conquered it, 48 8. c.; but under the
rule of the Turks it had gone back into barbarism.
To be sure along the east and west coasts the
English and the Dutch had opened trading stations,
but into the great pagan interior, believed to be in-
habited by cannibals, and teeming with natural
riches, no traveller had dared venture.

It was about one hundred years ago that Eng-
land endeavored to send missionaries to the
African tribes, but the malarial fevers were invari-
ably fatal to life. This was well known to young
David Livingstone, when, in the Scottish cotton
factory, he resolved to go into the dark and terri-
ble country as a missionary. He was twenty-five.
‘He had for years worked from six in the morning
until eight at night, his books before him on the
loom, that he might study Latin and science while
he worked, learning Greek, theology and medicine
in his evenings.

For the next sixteen years he gave himself to
mission work in behalf of the Afric heathen, and
to exploration in behalf of the whole world.

Beset by strange hardships through tedious and
difficult journeys, he penetrated the country, ex-
ploring the Zambesi and the lakes. He never felt
fear. His manliness and kindliness won him the
friendliness of the terrible and pagan peoples.

He took constant and sensible care of his health,
In the greatest hardship he never re-enforced his
strength and spirits with stimulants; water was
his only beverage.

When he visited home again, England and Scot-
land awarded the poor factory boy their greatest
honors— medals, gold, and the applause of their
Scientific Societies. He soon returned to Africa,
however, this time sent by the Government and
empowered to suppress the barbarous, the brutal
slave-trade in Africa, carried on by Egypt, the
Portuguese, and the tribes among themselves.
Captured in the interior, these herds of human
beings were bound together in gangs, the chains
eating into their wrists, and were driven thus to the
seacoast to be sold. In two centuries, it is esti-
mated that forty million Africans had been sold
into slavery.

On the death of his wife, the daughter of the
Missionary Moffat, Livingstone once more returned
to England, where he staid to write his seccnd
book, and then started for his last journey in
Africa in 1866. He was determined to give the
remainder of his life to this mission of Christianity
and exploration. He was equipped better than a
new man, by every year’s experience. His con-
stancy to his youthful purpose never wavered. It
was not love of adventure, it was the noble zeal of
exploration which had sent him forth in the begin-
ning, the only sort of travel that really benefits the
world, and is chronicled by history.

This time, for three years, nothing was heard
from him. The whole world grew anxious. At
last, while Royal Societies and Scientific Associ-
ations were debating, and Governments were delay-
ing, a generous, energetic American, James Gordon
Bennett, the owner of the Mew York Herald, re-
solved to find Livingstone, be he dead or be he
alive. He quietly undertook this at his own ex-
pense. The chief question would seem to be,
Whom could he send? There was, however, one
young man whose dauntless courage and deter-
mination he could depend upon: Henry M.
Stanley.

And who was Henry M. Stanley?

Born in 1840, in Wales, at three years of age,
this Henry M. Stanley was sent to the poor-house.
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

There he remained for ten years. About that
time in his life he shipped as a cabin boy, and
came to America—to New Orleans. There he
sought employment, and he must have shown
some very good qualities, energy and ambition,
probably, for he was adopted by a merchant named
Stanley. However, a restless nature asserted it-
self, and presently he was off to see the world.
He stopped for a time in Arkansas, living in a log
cabin, and supporting himself in Thoreau-like sim-
plicity, no doubt, as he had no settled occupation.
His friends supposed him dead, when suddenly
he appeared among them, having come down the
Mississippi on a flat-boat. His adopted father
died soon after, without having made a will, and
the adopted son was again penniless. He now
sought his fortune in California, among the miners
and the Indians, and at twenty, having lived at
the South, he naturally entered the Confederate
Army. Soon, taken prisoner, and enjoying the
stir of battle, he joined the Union Army, and was
put on board a man-of-war, where he rose to the
position of acting ensign.

The war over, and feeling no disposition for a
civilian’s life, he resolved to join the Cretans, who
were trying to throw off the Turkish yoke. It was
at this point in his career that he had the good
fortune and the good sense to engage himself to
the ew York Herald as its correspondent. He
now travelled widely in the East, showing both
daring and good judgment in all his moves and
adventures. Returning, he took in the poor-house
in Wales on his way, and gave the inmates a good
dinner and a friendly talk.

The next year, still turning his love of travel
and adventure into business, he accompanied the
English army against Theodore, king of Abys-
sinla, writing graphic letters to the Herald, and
making a reputation for himself by sending news
of victory to the English press before it was con-
veyed officially. The following year he was sent
to report the civil war in Spain, where he showed
the same triumphing will, the same quickness of
decision, the same despatch, the same pluck and
fearlessness, and always the same masterly com-
mon sense; whatever he attempted he was sure to
accomplish.

One day as Stanley was sitting in his hotel in
Madrid, he received a telegram: “Come to Paris
on important business.” In two hours he was on
the cars. There he met Mr. Bennett. Mr. Ben-
nett said, “‘Draw a thousand pounds now, and
when you have gone through that draw another
thousand, and when that is spent draw another
thousand, and so on, but FIND LIVINGSTONE.”

What a tribute it was, that command! A laurel
branch, a ribbonof honor. Mr. Bennett knew all
the promising young men of the day, and he had
chosen him!

On the sixth of January, 1871, Stanley reached

 

283

Zanzibar, an island off the east coast of Africa.
From this point, he started off into the unknown
country. He knew that money would be useless
in the heart of Africa, as the natives do all
their trading by exchange. He had, therefore,
purchased three hundred and fifty pounds of brass
wire, twenty sacks of various colored beads, and
nearly four thousand yards of three different kinds
of cloth, to barter for food and service. These
goods, with his boat, etc., weighed six tons. With
this baggage, his train comprised twenty donkeys,
and one hundred and ninety men. He found his
progress a proceeding of quite as much peril as he
had counted upon. The roads were mere foot-
paths. Trees were felled to make bridges across
the streams. Now they waded to their necks in
swamps filled with alligators, and now, often on
their hands and feet, crept through miles of

HENRY M. STANLEY.

matted jungles, noisome with decaying vegetation.
Whenever they halted for rest, loathsome flies,
white ants and reptiles, crawled over them; while
on the march, elephants, lions and hyenas were
too plenty and too near for comfort. ‘The water
was so impure, also, that the donkeys died from
drinking it.

What strange, ignorant, warlike peoples they
found! Most of them lived in huts of mud and
grass, crawling in through asingle opening. They
were naked. The women wore great coils of
234

brass wire about their necks, wrists and ankles,
while their bodies were smeared with red paint
and grease. Some of the men inserted the neck
of a gourd in each ear; in these receptacles they
carried tobacco and lime, obtained by burning
shells, while the women pierced their upper lips,
gradually enlarging the opening till they could
insert a shell. Each tribe spoke a different lan-
guage, and most were at war with one another.
When they agreed to become friends they made a
slight gash in the hands, or right cheek and fore-
head, and tasting each the blood of the other, .be-
come “blood relations!”

Sometimes these tribes fled at the approach of
Stanley and his men; sometimes they gathered in
great crowds to gaze upon them; and again, in
war paint and feathers, with bells on their ankles
and knees, flourishing battle-axes and assegais,
they attacked the travellers like packs of wolves.

For eleven months the determined Stanley had
led his: men, sometimes coaxing the weary, half-
starved ones, and sometimes whipping the insub-
ordinate. The feet of some were bleeding from
thorns, and others had fallen by disease. Not
one word had yet been heard of Livingstone.
Once the young explorer, alone with savages, was
well-nigh discouraged, but he wrote in his journal :
“No living man shall stop me—only death can
prevent me. But death —not even this; I shall
not die —[ will not die—I cannot die! Some-
thing tells me I shall find him and— write it
larger — FIND HIM, FIND HIM. Even the words
are inspiring.”

One day a caravan passed, and they asked the
news. ‘The reply was that there was a white man
at Ujiji on Lake Tanganyka— he had just reached
there.

Stanley’s heart beat at the announcement.

“Ts he young or old?” he asked.

“He isold. He has white hair on his face, and
he is sick.”

With enthusiasm, yet hardly daring to hope,
Stanley pushed on, travelling night and day until
they came in sight of Ujiji.

“Unfurl the flags and load the guns!” shouted
Stanley, his nerves for the first time quivering
with excitement. The Stars and Stripes floated out
with the Zanzibar flag, and fifty guns thundered
over the plain. They were immediately surrounded
by hundreds of Africans, who shouted “ Yamdbo,
yambo, bana!” These were words of welcome.

Suddenly from the crowd a voice called out,
“ Good morning, sir!”

Startled by English words, Stanley replied,
“Who the mischief ate you?”

“T am Susi, the servant of Doctor Living-
stone!”

Then a thrill went through Stanley’s soul. The
fatigues and the perils of the long, weird year were
as though they had not been.

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW

SUCCESS LS WON.

Susi ran back to his master, and soon the worn,
gray-bearded Livingstone and the young Ameri-
can stood before each other. They clasped hands
warmly, a strange tie uniting them at once.

“T thank God, Doctor, I have been permitted
to see you,” Stanley uttered from his heart.

“T feel grateful that 1am here to welcome you,”
was the response of the white-haired man, who,
without wife or children, receiving no letters for
years, with food only for a month, was hoping
against hope for aid.

For four months these two fearless men talked
and planned and explored together, the one re-
counting his privations and disappointments, the
other feeling that he must take up the work
which the noble Livingstone would soon lay down
forever. At length the day of parting came, for
the great traveller could not be prevailed upon
to go home, feeble though he was. His journals,
in waterproof canvas cover, were sealed and given
to Stanley, his letters written, supplies left him
for four years, and then the two men wrung each
other’s hands in silence, and Stanley, with choking
voice, gave the word to his men: “Right about
face! March!”

Livingstone never looked upon a white face again.
For a year he struggled on, fording the rivers on
the shoulders of his men, till, too weak to walk, he
was carried on a litter to the village of lala. At
four o’clock in the morning, May 1, 1872, Susi
entered the doctor’s tent to see if he might need
something. The latter was kneeling by the bed-
side, as if in prayer, his head buried in his hands
on the pillow, but quite cold and dead. For two
weeks his faithful servants dried the precious body
in the sun, and then, enclosing it in a bark case,
daubed with tar (pretending to bury it, as the
superstitious people would not let a dead body
pass through the land), they carried it on their
shoulders for nine long months, one thousand five
hundred miles, over rivers and through swamps to
the seacoast, where it was taken to England and
buried in Westminster Abbey. The great of the
earth gathered at that funeral. Among the pall
bearers was the negro lad who had borne the body
over the sea, Jacob Wainwright, and the young
American, Stanley, but for whom Livingstone
would probably have been buried on African soil.

Meantime Stanley had reached England, to find

- that after all his hardships, his statements about

Livingstone were disbelieved. The delivery of
the journals and the letters, however, proved the
truth. The Royal Geographical Society then pre-
sented him with a gold medal, and the Queen sent
him a gold snuff box, with “V. R.” set in brilliants
on the top.

But Stanley’s work was far from completed.
To his joy, the London Daily Telegraph now united
with the Mew York Herald to send him again to
Africa to continue Livingstone’s work. He at once
LITTLE BIOGRAPHEIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

bought one hundred and thirty books relating to
that country, determining to know all that had
been written concerning it. November 17, 1874,
with eight tons of baggage, horses, dogs, and three
hundred and fifty-six men, Stanley started, with
his mind made up to cross the Dark Continent
from shore to shore, and to solve that question of
the centuries, What is the source of the Nile? A
beautiful boat, the Zady Alice, was carried in
eight sections on the shoulders of the men, and in
‘the train was borne every appliance that could
lessen or shorten the labors of their long progress.

And now began one of the most heroic, yet
most painful marches in history. Losing their
way, wandering in jungles and swamps, stealing
aside to die in the brush, the company was
reduced soon to less than two hundred. Once,
when near starvation, two cubs were killed in a
lion’s den, and Stanley made a soup in a sheet
iron trunk which he used to carry baggage, giving
each of his men a good bowlful of lion broth
apiece.

About four hundred miles inland, they were
attacked by the natives, and twenty-five of the men
killed. At Uganda, on the contrary, they were
received with great state, and a present was made
them by King Mtesa of fourteen oxen, sixteen
goats, thirty-six fowls, and one hundred bunches
of bananas. This man was a powerful, half-civil-
ized emperor, governing two million people, with
tens of thousands of soldiers. Four thousand
five hundred women were attached to his house-
hold as servants. His palace was an immense,
barn-like structure on the top of a mountain.
Stanley translated the ten commandments for him,
and through these he professed to accept the
Christian religion instead of Mohammedanism.

In exploring Lake Victoria Nyanza, the treach-
erous natives persuaded the travellers to land, by
holding up sweet potatoes as a sign that they were
friendly. The moment the boats touched the
beach they wrested the oars, and pointed their
spears at Stanley’s head. ‘They then retired, say-
ing they would speedily return and put him to
death, Pulling some boards from the bottom of
the boat, his men used these as oars, and rowed
away just as the furious savages came yelling
back to the shore. On a second exploring tour,
to punish them, Stanley put their king in irons,
killed forty natives, and wounded scores of others.

For over a year, sometimes in peace, sometimes
in war, Stanley explored the inland lakes, learning,
meantime, all the horrors of the slave trade —naked
creatures driven into pens like cattle, and half-
starved ; their villages burned that they might be
the more easily captured. Next he explored the
Lualaba River, which Livingstone believed to
empty into the Nile. Stanley found it to be none
other than the Congo, ten miles broad at its
mouth.

285

Stanley knew he had now reached the region
inhabited by cannibals. But he did not quail
among the monsters. Hiring four hundred more
men, he commenced his journey. At first they
could scarcely pierce the jungles ; now they felled
huge trees, and dug them out for canoes; now,
unable to pass the falls, they cut their way four
miles through dense forests, sometimes over
mountains one thousand feet high; now exhausted,
they sank down in the wilderness to die, watched
by huge serpents. For four months they gained
only about a mile a day, yet the intrepid leader
toiled on, inspiring his heart-sick followers.

So superstitious were the natives, that, seeing
him writing in his notebook, they said such black
marks will bring disease and death upon the
people, and the book must be burned. Stanley
was now really aghast. Destroy the records of
nearly three long years, and his maps! He could
not fight now, for the great company had become
reduced by death to only one hundred and fifteen,
and nearly half of these were ill. He bethought
himself of a similar book he had with him, and
hastening into his tent, brought out a volume of
Shakespeare, which he burned before their eyes,
to their intense gratification.

And now the long journey across the continent
was nearly over. When Stanley announced to the
half-starved company that they were nearing the
ocean, one poor fellow went crazy with joy, and
shouting, “ We have reached the sea; we are at
home!” plunged into the forest, and was never
seen again. As soon as tidings of their distressing
condition could be sent, food was brought them
from the coast. On landing, every kindness was
shown them, and Stanley, true to his promise, took
his natives back to Zanzibar, around Cape Town.
When they reached home, they knelt on the beach,
and cried “Allah! Allah!” as they bent their
faces to the sand. When Stanley returned to
England, the devoted fellows shoved his boat into
the sea and then bore him on their shoulders out
into the surf to reach it.

Well, the boy of the Welsh poor-house had come
to world-wide fame! He had made that journey
of over seven thousand miles in the heart of Africa,
which he had planned; he had discovered that
the Shimeeyu River, four hundred miles long, is
the true source of the Nile, making it the longest
river in the world; and he was prepared to show
that this great land with its teeming millions was to
be invaluable to the world’s commerce,

Europe hailed him now. Humboldt, King of
Italy, sent him his portrait ; Victor Emanuel, his
father, bestowed a gold medal; the Khedive of
Egypt decorated him with the grand commander.
ship of the Order of the Medjidie; the Prince of
Wales sent his personal congratulations ; London,
Paris, Italy and Marseilles sent gold medals from
their Geographical Societies ; a dozen other cities,
286

like Berlin and Vienna, made him an Honorary
Member of their largest associations; and best of
all, he says: “The government of the United
States has crowned my success with its official
approval, and the unanimous vote of thanks passed
in both Houses of the Legislature has made me
proud for life of the expedition and its achieve-
ments.”

Mr. Stanley is now back in Africa again; and
under the International African Association, with
Leopold the Second, king of the Belgians at its
head, he is building a good road from the mouth of

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—UOW SUCCESS IS WON.

the Congo, or Livingstone River, inland, in order to
open the country to trade and civilization. He
has established five trading stations already, the

last about five hundred miles from the coast.

De Brazza, in the interest of France, has at-
tempted to forestall Stanley by gaining possession
of the territory, but the latter has won the nativer
to his side, and has virtual control of the whole
Congo route. Africa will have a great future,

doubtless, and the boy of the Welsh poor-house,
by his indomitable will and courage, has hastened
the day by many and many a year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

By Sarau K. Boron.

VI.
JOHNS HOPKINS.

E are living in an age of remarkable wealth,

and remarkable business successes, and of

Ft gee remarkable gift-giving and benefactions.
r. Otis of Connecticut gives a million dollars to
carry the gospel to the heathen; Mr. Slater, of the
same State, a million to educate the colored people

at the South; Mr. Durant a million to Wellesley
College for the education of young women;
Leonard Case, of Cleveland, Ohio, a million anda
half to a School of Science; Mr. Rich two millions
to Boston University, where young women share
equally with young men the benefits of higher
education.

But Johns Hopkins gave more than all these
princely men to found in Baltimore the University
and Hospital which bears hisname. When asked
 

LITTLE BIOGRAPALES.—

for money during his life he generally refused ;
doubtless his reply often seemed somewhat enig-
matical: “My money is not mine. I did not
make it. It has merely rolled up in my hands, and
J know what for. J must keep to my own work.”

And who was this munificent giver ?

He was a farmer’s boy; later, a clerk in a
grocery ; still later, the owner of a little shop; by
and by, a bank-president ; at last, a money king.

Johns Hopkins, so named from the family name
of his ancestor, Margaret Johns— Johns being an
early form of the word Jones— was born May 109,
1795, and was the eldest of eleven children. His
father, Samuel, was 2 Quaker farmer, kind and
conscientious, but rich only in his large family.
His mother was a superior woman, both in intel-
lect and will; so notably superior, in fact, that it is
said she guided not only the Yearly Meetings of
the Friends, but many matters of the county as
well, Such a mother would naturally impress her
strength of character upon her sons. There were
too, probably, fine. forces latent in the father’s
blood ; Governor Edward Hopkins of Connecticut
and Bishop Ezekiel Hopkins of Londonderry, men
of mark, were among his relatives.

Little Johns worked on the farm in summer
and received whatever education was possible in
winter. He was an active boy, both in body and
mind, getting and reading every book in the county
within his reach. He enjoyed Shakespeare, he
enjoyed history, and especially did he enjoy biog-
raphy; it probably stimulated him, even in boy-
hood, to find that men had begun at the foot of
the ladder and climbed, rung by rung, to the top.

When he was seventeen, a wealthy uncle, Gerard
Hopkins, came to pay his parents a visit. He
was at once interested in the intelligent boy, and
he persuaded the mother to permit Johns to go
back with him to Baltimore, and there to learn the
wholesale grocery business. Doubtless the boy’s
heart at once stirred with ambition, perhaps thrilled
with pleasure at the thought of life in the fine city.
This Baltimore uncle was an eminent minister
among the Friends, and his company was much
sought after, so that the country lad had oppor-
tunities to meet intellectual and well-bred people.
The aunt was a most cheerful woman, and very
kind to the young new-comer. If he were awkward,
she did not appear to see it, but always contrived
that he should feel at ease.

For two years Johns worked steadily ; the vic-
tory of success is half won when one gains the
habit of work. The uncle, about this time, was
appointed by the Baltimore Friends to go far out
to the State of Ohio, to attend the Yearly Meeting.
Who should be left in charge of the store, the
business, and the family? Mr. Hopkins called
his nephew Johns to him. He spoke to him
gravely:

“ J am going on this long journey, and thee is but

HOW SUCCESS IS WON. 287
a youth. Vow, J want thee to put an old head on
young shoulders ; and as thee has been faithful to
my interests since thee has been with me, I am
going to leave everything in thy hands. Hereare
checks which I have signed my name to; there
are upwards of five hundred of them. Thee will
deposit the money as it is received, and as thee
wants money thee will fill up the checks which I
leave with thee. Buy the goods and do the best
thee can. Be attentive at the house, and see after
our little children, whom we leave behind in thy
care and a female relative.”

A company of five, including his aunt, started
on this long journey. There were no railroads.
There was often no pathway save the trail of the
Indians. They traveled on horseback, fording
deep rivers, and threading their way through dense
forests. Well, the lad Johns did his part nobly
during their absence. It was a time of great
excitement, disturbance and anxiety, for the coun-
try was engaged in the War of 1812 with England.
The British had entered Washington, burnt the
Capitol, and were marching up the Chesapeake.
The people of Baltimore were fleeing in every
direction. Johns might well have been nearly
frantic, not daring to leave the children, and yet
obliged to care constantly for the store. Finally,
three days before the bombardment of Fort Henry,
the uncle and aunt arrived home much to his sur-
prise and relief. It proved that he had done bet-
ter than the uncle supposed he could. He had,
during the absence, evidently mastered the detail
of trade, had visibly increased the business, and
presently it appeared that he had won many
friends.

Five years after this his uncle again called him
aside. “This time he said, “ Johns, would thee like
to go into business for thyself?”

“Ves; but, uncle, I have no capital. I have
saved only eight hundred dollars.” (He had
been willing to work hard for seven years to save
this eight hundred dollars. )

“But that will make no difference. I will en-
dorse for thee, and this will give thee credit, and
in a short time thee will make a capital; thee has
been faithful to my interests, and I will start thee
in business.”

“JT will endorse for thee.” That was a profound
compliment, a tribute most uncommon for so young
aman to win from an old, clear-headed business
man. Johns’s habits were well known to his uncle ;
it was of course taken into consideration that he
never wasted his evenings, that he did not spend
his money carelessly or foolishly, that he did not
make unwise bargains, that, as a rule, he showed
good common sense in his dealings.

Starting for himself, he rented a small store,
formed a partnership with another young man, and
began business unostentatiously. He soon found
that better than his uncle’s endorsement was the
288

credit in the community which he had gained
through his devotion to his uncle’s business.

For twenty-five years, a quarter of a century,
Johns Hopkins Jabored untiringly, late and early.
His business grew and extended into other States.
He was invariably temperate, and his word was as
good as his bond. While other firms failed in
seasons of financial depression, his house always
maintained the highest credit. While other men
drove fast horses, gave entertainments, attended
parties, he devoted his time to his business and to
reading. There is probably a connection between
these two series of facts. Bishop Jeremy Taylor
said, “ Men will find it impossible to do anything

greatly good, unless they cut off all superfluous:

company and visits.” .

Mr. Hopkins may have been called unsocial; he
never was called ungrateful. He never forgot his
uncle. He said when nearly eighty years old, to
his cousin, Gerard Hopkins, now living in Balti-
more, “If not for him, I would in all probability
have remained a boy on the farm.”

And now came the time when he retired from
the grocery firm, leaving it to his two brothers,
who also had come to Baltimore, and two of his
clerks. Did he sit down to luxuriously enjoy his
wealth? Did he spend it in travel, or in fine so-
cial pleasure? Oh, no; accustomed to system-
atize monetary affairs, he was at once chosen
and elected president of the Merchant’s Bank, and
he accepted the position and held it until his
death. Here he had many opportunities to do
favors for young business men. These he gladly
aided, provided they had shown the three sterling
qualities: diligence, good sense, and integrity.
In times of panic, when notes were brought before
the directors of the bank for consideration, Mr.
Hopkins, unsolicited, would often endorse them,
thus helping worthy but unfortunate business men
when they most needed it. But for lazy people,
or for those who seemed to have no aptitude or
tact in making a place for themselves in the world,
he had very little sympathy.

Mrs. Caroline H. Dall tells of a Baltimore firm,
that, having hung his picture in their office after
his death, were thus interrogated: “What was
Johns Hopkins to you?”

The reply was this: “ We began with very little.
We were his tenants; the rent was heavy; he
exacted it to the moment, and we lost many an
opportunity beeause we dared not risk a dollar
after it became his due. One day he came in him-
self to look after it. ‘Why don’t you do a larger
business?’ said he. ‘You are prompt; you ought
to get on.’ We told him candidly, and he wrote
us a check for ten thousand dollars on the spot,
and told us not to hurry about paying it! When
we were able to repay him, he returned the inter-
est. From that day we prospered.”

They had never regretted the hard way in which

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

-coal and other companies.

a
they earned his respect, and they warmly cherished
his name and memory.

His giving was usually along this line of indus-
try and energy and promptness. He delighted to
reward and recognize these qualities. For instance,
five persons gave each a hundred dollars to buy
goods for a poor widow. At the end of two years
she returned the sum with interest. Mr. Hopkins
refused his share.” He said, “I don’t want it.
Keep it, and lend again in the same way.”

He was interested in all commercial enterprises,
especially those which concerned his native State.
Once when the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad came
near to failure, he boldly pledged his great fortune
in its behalf, and thus inspired confidence to such
a degree that men of wealth immediately invested
in it and saved its future. He was made a direc-
tor of the road, then chairman of the finance
Committee, and in 1873 furnished the company
with nine hundred thousand dollars, which enabled
it to pay its interest in cash. He was now the
possessor of two hundred millions worth of stock,
owned one hundred and fifty warehouses, was
director in five banks, treasurer of a large insur-
ance Company, and large stockholder in various
But it was by the same
pluck and same patience which enabled him to save
up eight hundred dollars dollar by dollar through
seven long, slow years of drudging detail work,
that he gained and managed and kept and increased
his millions.

“What will this rich man do with his money, as
he is unmarried ?” the people of Baltimore began,
by and by, to ask about the white-haired old mil-
lionnaire. He had given three thousand dollars
to help build a Quaker meeting-house, but. this
was little to the public, thought the world, for a
man worth his millions. “ Make your will,” said
his friends.

“Tam not ready,” was the enigmatical reply.
“T have got something to do, and I shall live till I
have done it.”

Absorbed in business, he still felt the early
training of that mother with a gift for administra-
tion whose constant thought was how to wisely
help the world. “Such a remembrance,” says La-
martine, “isa North Star to any wanderer.” Ran-
dolph said, “I should have been an atheist, if it
had not been for one recollection, and that was
the memory of the time when my departed mother
used to take my little hand in hers, and cause me
on my knees to say, Our Father which art in
fleaven.” Certain it is that Johns Hopkins, as the
years went on, felt more and more the actuating
power of his mother’s spirit. He pondered well the
disposition of his vast property. He determined
to place it where it would do constant good; where
it would carry on his favorite work of aid to those
who were working their way up as he had done!
Not by money itself; they must earn that for
< a i ¥ om 2 i He
Otway sie : PAR pay OE

wee

 

{8228 Hi Zsase SC OBisgoos
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW

themselves — it was necessary to the development
of mental and moral muscle. But he would give
them .knowledge, which Daniel Webster said, at
the laying of the corner stone of Bunker Hill
Monument, “is the great sun in the firmament ;
life and power are scattered with all its beams.”
His old heart went out, too, toward the sick, and
toward orphan children, because these could not
earn for themselves.

Therefore it was, that at his death, December
24th, 1873, when his will was read, it was found
that he had left seven million dollars tofound Johns
Hopkins University and Hospital. It was a grand
Christmas gift to a city, to the world at large.

 

 

JOHNS HOPKINS.

Broad and wise in his giving, he made no condi-
tions, save that the principal should not be used
for buildings ; these were to be erected out of the
income; and there was a request that there be
. several free scholarships for poor students from
three States — Maryland, Virginia and North Caro-
lina; and in the Hospital, which should be built
only after careful investigations of similar institu-
tions abroad, there should be a training-school for
nurses ; and on another piece of land, he provided
for an asylum for four hundred destitute or orphan
colored children. Plans of the Hospital, which
will be one of the working schools of the great

SUCCESS IS WON. 289
University, are hung in the halls of Oxford and
Cambridge, for the whole world is looking to see
what the seven million dollars of the grocery boy
will accomplish.

And what have they already accomplished? The
trustees, whom Mr. Hopkins had selected and
appointed, looked about the country for a presi-
dent, and the choice fell upon the youthful leader
of the University of California, who had married
the daughter of President Woolsey of Yale College.
When Doctor Gilman came to Baltimore, Johns
Hopkins’s sister said to him, “I had thought of an
older man.” He replied with a smile, “It is a
fault which will mend ‘daily. Jassure you, madam,
I will be as old as ever I can.”

A letter recently received from one of the pro-
fessors in the University says: “ Johns Hopkins’s
knowledge of men was superb. He knew by a
kind of instinct whom he could trust. But the
wisest choice he ever made was the choice of his
Board of Trustees, and the Board has shown its
sovereign sense in the choice of President Gil-
man.”

The best professors possible have been secured :
Professor Sylvester, to whom the Royal Society of
London gave its highest scientific distinction, the .
Copley Medal, for the chair of mathematics; Pro-
fessor Martin of Cambridge University, Biology ;
Doctor Haupt of Gottingen, only thirty years of
age, for Hebrew, Arabic, Assyrian, Ethiopic and
other languages —in short, there now are forty-
one able scholars on the academic staff. Stu-
dents, most of them already graduated from other
colleges, soon began to gather here for higher
education in special lines of work. Of five hun-
dred who have studied at Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity, only forty have gone into business; a
large proportion have become professors and in-
structors. Perhaps Johns Hopkins planned even
better than he knew, when he threw his great
pebble into the ocean of knowledge; the circles
will go on widening.

The spirit of its founder certainly pervaded the
institution. Six valuable journals are maintained by
the University ; in Mathematics, Chemistry, Philol-
ogy, Biology, Historical and Political Science, and
Logic. Much has been done in original research.
Says a recent writer,.“An idler is an unknown
bird at the Johns Hopkins University. Its mem-
bers are here, not for boating, base-ball playing,
and hazing, but for work.” The atmosphere is
scholarly. For several years there has not been
reason for any officer to censure a student for dis- ©
order or discourtesy.

Each year twenty Fellowships of five hundred
dollars each are given to as many scholars of
marked ability who are fitting themselves for a life-
work of study. Among these recipients are Mit-
sura Kuhara and Kakichi Mitsukuri of the Univer-
sity of Tokio, Japan. Another is from the University
290

of France. Eighteen Honorary Hopkins’s schol-
arships are distributed among those under-gradu-
ates who show great merit. The present college
buildings are plain, but fine ones are to be perma-
nently built at Clifton, a Baltimore suburb, with
grounds several hundred acres in extent. This
estate was Mr. Hopkins’s country seat, where he
walked and thought and saved and planned for
his grand beneficence. He might have reared a
magnificent granite shaft to himself; he might

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

have lived in costly ease, but he has preferred a
monument which will proclaim his name through-
out the world. To be simply rich, is to be forgotten
like thousands of other millionnaires ; to give wealth
like Johns Hopkins is to be remembered with
honor-and with gratitude forever. Generations of
boys will grow to be men, and their children’s chil-
dren will come into this busy world and go out,
but the work of this “seven millions” will never
be finished.

 

 
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

291

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

By Saran K. Bo.tTon.

VII.
WILLIAM M, HUNT.

HERE is no royal road to art. The ascent

of the glittering ladder is no whit easier

than the exploration of the wilds of Africa, by a
Stanley, or the accumulation of seven -millions by
a Johns Hopkins. The essentials of a success,
persistent work and indomitable will, have never
been other since the days of Adam. Certain, too,
is it that the story of most artists is the old story
of long poverty and long struggle, before victory.

Giotto, the “regenerator of Italian art,” was
the son of a herdsman, and he tended sheep
near Florence, using his spare time in drawing
pictures: of his flock on flat pieces of slate with a
pointed stone. One day the great painter, Cima-
bue, saw the unlettered boy of fourteen intently
at work, and he asked him if he would like to go
home to learn his art with him. Gliotto’s father
consented, and by and by the shepherd-boy sur-
passed his master. Pope Boniface VIII. sum-
moned him to Rome, and kings were eager to pur-
chase his paintings. He created a new school of
art, built the famous Cathedral Tower at Florence,
which Longfellow calls “‘ The builder’s perfect and
centennial flower,” and of which Ruskin says,
“ Power and beauty in the highest degree exist, as
far as I know, only in ove building in the world —
the campanile of Giotto. It is the model and
mirror of perfect architecture.”

Dannecker, the great German sculptor, was the
son of an ignorant stable-keeper, but he had a
refined and aspiring mother who fostered her boy’s
artistic tastes. He worked in the stable till he
was thirteen, but whenever he could, he stole off
to the yard of a stone-cutter and there he staid
and covered the marble slabs with his designs,
although he well knew he should be beaten by his
rough father for what would be considered idle-
ness. At last, he set forth into the world and
walked to Paris, and there, always hungry and
always meanly clad, he worked for two years in
the Louvre. Thence he walked on to Rome; and
though often discouraged and heartsick, he de-
voted himself untiringly to his art. At fifty years
of age, he made his celebrated Ariadne, a beautiful
woman reclining on the back of a panther, a mas-
terpiece of sculpture, which draws thousands every
year to Frankfort. Fortunes have been offered
for it, but money cannot buy it from Germany.

For eight long years too, Dannecker worked upon
his famous statue of the Christ, which was pur-
chased by the Empress of Russia for her son
Alexander J. Goethe and Canova were proud to
become the intimate friends of the man who was
once a stable-boy.

Thorwaldsen, the great Dane, was the son of a
poor wood-carver and a peasant mother, and he
had the same bitter struggle with poverty. It is
the old story: shy and melancholy, teaching draw-
ing and working with his father; going to Rome
on an academy pension of ten dollars a month ;
sending his work back to Copenhagen for sale,
which nobody wanted because he was not famous ;
carving his Jason with the Golden Fleece, and
breaking the cast because people only admired
and did not buy; at last, after nine weary years at
Rome, selling his humble furniture to go back to
obscure wood-carving in Denmark — when, lo!
the tide turns —a rich man from England sees his
work, orders a Jason in marble, and Thorwaldsen
is thenceforth famous. Now the academy at Co-
penhagen sends him five hundred dollars as an
expression of pleasure in his work. How much
more he had needed it when he lived, half-starved
in his comfortless studio! But the world has few
smiles for the struggling, but ah, how many smiles
when the struggles are over. Many a poor fellow
fails just at the border-land of success, when a
little more self-reliance and faith in self, and per-
sistent effort, would have won!

Hiram Powers, in our own country, is another
remarkable instance of hard-earned success. His
story, too, runs the old way: He was born on a
bleak Vermont farm, the eighth among nine chil-
dren, his family removing to Ohio where, by the
death of the father, all the children were obliged
to work for their own support; he himself was
first a clerk in a hotel reading-room, then in a
produce store; then he collected debts for a clock
maker; afterward, for seven years, he took charge
of wax figures in a Cincinnati museum ; then he
learned to model in plaster from a German —
working, trusting, hoping, in this fashion till he
was thirty. Then the long path of toil turned, but
it turned as it usually does, only by his own deter-
mined effort to tread a new way. He resolved
to go to Washington, and try his hand at model-
ling busts of distinguished men. But for such
bold venture, he might have spent his life among
the wax figures. Two years later, with a little
money laid by, and some aid from Mr. Nicholas
292

Longworth of Cincinnati, he started for Florence.
In one year his statue of Eve was finished, which
Thorwaldsen said was a work any sculptor might
be proud to claim as his masterpiece. Not long
after, his Greek Slave made him famous. The
first copy is in the gallery of the Duke of Cleve-
land; the second is in the Corcoran Art Gallery
at Washington ; the third belongs to Earl Dudley,
and a fourth was purchased by A, T. Stewart of
New York for eleven hundred dollars. His
bronze statue of Webster in the State House
grounds, is familiar to all Boston boys. I went to
his beautiful home in Florence, as to a shrine, but
alas, the great artist had gone out from its doors
forever.
Without the struggle of povervy, to be sure, but

 

WILLIAM M. HUNT.

amid the struggle of absorbing, tireless, enthusias-
tic work, another artist came to occupy the fore-
most position in American art, William M. Hunt.
Boston knew he was a great artist while he lived;
she will be constantly confirmed in this belief as
the years go on, and the great world will finally
acknowledge a master. We are so busy a people,
making great fortunes and building elegant homes,
we are so eager to discover a new oil well or
a new coal or silver mine, that we have little time
a discover a genius, even though he live next
oor.

Fortunately, the boy, Hunt, had a mother of

great — yes, remarkable talent — perhaps it would
be difficult to find a great man whose mother was

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

not a superior woman. Mrs. Hunt, it is believed,
would have been a famous painter also, had not-
her father, like others. in those days, thought it
unwomanly for a girl to be an artist, and forbade
her, absolutely forbade her, to touch the brush.
She married early, and after four sons and a
daughter were born, her husband died, leaving to
her the education of the children. An Italian ar-
tist coming to the town, she took him into her
home, and mother and children began to study
art together and in earnest.

William, at twelve, carved small heads in mar-
ble, and later, in shell cameos. Fond of music, at
fifteen he played on the piano and violin. His
brown eyes were full of fun, and his sensitive, joy-
ous nature, with his deep sympathy, won hosts of
friends. At sixteen he entered Harvard College,
but failing in health, yet not discouraged, at nine-
teen left the University and went to Italy. Here
he made the determination to become a sculpior,

‘and for two years, part of the time in Dusseldorf,

he studied drawing and the anatomy of the human
body. Later, in Paris, he became the pupil of
Thomas Couture. There he worked long and pa-
tiently with the brush. He doubtless thought
with Turner: “I know of no genius but the gen-
ius of hard work.”

Years after, he said to his class in Boston:
“You don’t know what persistent effort is! Think
of the violin student in the Paris Conservatoire,
who was more than a year trying to bend his
thumb as he had not been taught to do in the
provinces !

“When I was a little boy I wanted to learn the
violin, but a certain man discouraged me. ‘Don’t
learn the violin! It’s so hard!’ I could kick
that man now.” So annoyed was he that anybody
should shrink from hard work —it seemed to him
the most fatal of all weaknesses.

At another time, he said: “Be earnest, and
don’t worry, and you will learn twice as fast. If
you could see me dig and groan, rub it out and
start again, hate myself, and feel dreadfully! The
people who do things easily, their things you look
at easily, and give away easily }

“What if Michael Angelo had done his work in
the Sistine Chapel easily! An artist one day
called upon Grisi, found her upon a sofa, weary
and forlorn, He expressed his surprise at her
appearance, declaring that she was the one mortal
whom he had envied, such was her strength, buoy-
ancy and joyousness. He had not thought she
could find life a burden. ‘Ah,’ said she, ‘I save
myself all day for that one bound upon the stage.
Not for worlds would I leave this sofa, which I
must keep all day that I may be ready for my
work at night.’

“Inspiration is nothing without work. What
we do best is done against difficulties. Work
while your brain is full of the picture before you.
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS LS WON.

Work is a stimulus to work, and loafing a stimulus
to Jaziness.”

While in Paris, he became enthusiastically fond
of Jean Francois Millet who was then struggling
with poverty.

“For years,” said Mr. Hunt, “ Millet painted
beautiful things and nobody looked at them.
They fascinated me, and I would go to Barbison,
his home, and spend all the money I could get in
buying his pictures. I brought them to Boston.
‘What is that horrid thing?’ ‘Oh, it is a sketch
by a friend of mine.’ Now, he is the greatest
painter in Europe.”

When Mr. Hunt was thirty-one, he came back
to America to live. He had then painted his
great painting of the Prodigal Son, leaning on the
breast of his father, his exquisite Marguerite
plucking leaves from a daisy, and several other
works now well known. There was less art cul-
ture among our people then than now, but he had
courage and hope. He opened a studio in Néw-
port, and for seven years painted portraits mostly.
His standard was high. He lived in his art; was
wedded to it. He said, “You want a picture to
seize you as forcibly as if a man had seized you
by the shoulder! Strive for simplicity ; not com-
plexity! Don’t talk of what you are going to do!
Dor” There is a man for you who was building
his fame upon the foundation of thorough work.

Once, when asked by a lady how long it had
taken to draw a charcoal picture, he replied, “I
think it took me an hour or two; but I suppose I
ought to say that it took me forty years, as I’ve
been drawing about that length of time.”

Witty and brilliant in conversation, kind to

everybody, especially to young artists, he became
the centre of a circle of charming and earnest
people. He hated shams and affectations.
when asked what he thought of a young painter of
foppish appearance, he replied, “I don’t know
him. I know his clothes. I can have nothing to
do with such a man when I meet him; [I look
right through, and beyond, and around him.” But
he criticised all work tenderly as all great masters
do, saying, “‘ Don’t look too hard except for some-
thing agreeable. We can find all the disagreeable
things in the world between our own hats and
boots.”

He was as genuinely simple, too, as he was gen-
uinely great. One morning as he came out of his
studio on Tremont street, he met an old woman
on the stairs carrying down a big box of ashes.
He at once assisted, and together they placed it
on the sidewalk, quite to the surprise of some of
his kid-gloved admirers. :

When our artist was forty-three, and fame and
wealth had both been won, and time was precious,
he gladly opened his best studio to teach a large
class of women. How it broadened and beautified
the lives of those learners! How small seemed

Once.

293

the round of shopping and making calls, after
studying with such a master! His presence was
magnetic, raying out inspiration. One of his
ablest pupils (Miss Helen M. Knowlton) now a
well-known artist, used to jot down on bits of
paper in the class-room some of his brilliant words
and suggestions ; and so important were they that
in book form they have been heartily welcomed
both in Europe and America. Indeed the volume
is used as an art text-book in some of the normal
schools.

Five years after this, the great Boston fire swept
away much of the tangible labor of his lifetime,
but he met his loss bravely, and began work afresh,
toiling harder than ever. He said, “ Painting, for
me, is the only work worth doing, and there is no
other play.” “Draw whatever fascinates you.
Love something and paint it,” was often his ad-
vice. Sometimes envious people spoke of him as
the one-man-power in art in Boston.” But in his
modesty he has been heard to say, “I’ve been at
painting all my life, and I don’t feel to-day that I
know anything. I’m not sure that I can go on
with a single one of these portraits that I have
begun.”

He studied incessantly. Veronese, Michael
Angelo, Titian and Velasquez were his teachers
among the old masters, and Millet, Delacroix,
Corot and Turner among the modern. Of the
latter he said, “One hundred years from now, Tur-
ner will be counted the greatest painter who ever
lived. His coloris wonderful! His color is iri-
descent. The Venetians could get such color only
by painting transparently, but Turner is solid,
clear, throughout.”

In 1878 he was asked to paint two large pic-
tures upon the walls of the grand State House at
Albany, N. Y. He accepted, though shrinking
from it, and for five mouths, before beginning the
work, wrought at his plans. One of these great
mural paintings represents the Goddess of Night in
her cloud chariot ; before her three restive horses,
and behind her asleeping mother and child. Inthe
other, is depicted Columbus, standing in a boat
in mid-ocean, with Hope at the prow and Fortune
at the helm. So careful was he in the execution
of these paintings that thirty charcoal drawings
were made, also twenty oil paintings, and the col-
ors were tested on stone sent from Albany. Then
for fifty-five days, Mr. Hunt and his assistants
painted on the walls from early morning till late
at night standing on scaffolding.

When completed, in coloring and finish, the pic-
tures were a triumph of art, but the artist had broken
down in health. He sought the Isles of Shoals,
hoping to find renewal of strength from the brac-
ing and restful ocean breezes, but it was too late,
One September morning the country was shocked
to hear that the great artist was found lying peace-
fully in a little pool back of the cottages, dead. It
294

is supposed that he missed his footing, and no
hand was near to help.

He died in the prime of life, at fifty-five; but
his work lives on after him and is to live.
Whether he painted Niagara or Gloucester Har-
bor, the Street Musician or the Drummer Boy, the
Bugle Call or the Bathers, each of the paintings
was like himself, strong, refined, instinct with life
and feeling. Over four hundred of his pictures,
those owned by friends and therefore not burned,
were exhibited after his death, yet these probably
did not constitute one third of his work. Among
his best known portraits are those of Chief Justice
Shaw, Governor Andrew, Charles Sumner and
James Freeman Clarke.

It is to be noted that Mr. Hunt always honored,
never debased, his art. Being shown a picture,
very fine in technique, by a Munich artist, of a
drunken man holding a half-filled glass of wine, he
said, “It’s skilfully done, dut what zs the use of do-
ing it? The subject isn’t worthy of the painter.”

It is to be remembered, too, that he never
wearied in his unselfish efforts to encourage and

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES —

HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

develop art. “An ixchination to draw evinces tal
ent,” he often declared. “I saw a beautiful sun-
set last night, and I would have given worlds for
the power to put it upon canvas, even in the mod-
est manner. That desire indicates talent. Will
you use your talent or smother it? . . . Chil-
dren should be encouraged; not flattered. With
no help and encouragement, the child gradually
loses its desire to draw.” He persistently taught
artists to be individual in their thought, not copy-
ists, not followers after the manner of any school.

More than other American teachers, more than
any other American artist, he has left his impress
upon the working art talent of the time. His name
is'spoken reverently by earnest young artists.
His paintings are sought and studied by art stu-
dents who never saw him. Pictures often are
characterized as belonging “to the Hunt school
of art,” and his influence is most surely to survive
in art.

Surely, his successful life emphasizes what Sid-
ney Smith said of greatness: “ There is but one
method, and that is hard labor.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS

 

IS WON.

By Saran K. Botton.

 

VII.
ELIAS HOWE, JR.

HE inventors of the world have been, with

rare exceptions, very poor men. The
stories of Palissy, the Potter, of Stephenson, the
Father of Railways, of Goodyear, and of Elias
Howe, are as pitiful as they are inspiring. History

scarcely furnishes a more pathetic picture than
that of Bernard Palissy of France, working six-
teen years to discover how to enamel pottery; his
furnaces for burning his earthen ware were built
with brick carried upon his back, because he was
too poor to hire a horse to draw them; the floors
of his house were torn up for fuel; the doors even
taken off their hinges, and used to shut out the
driving storm from his workshop; his six children
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

died primarily from starvation it is believed; his
wife, in rags, was in despair over her husband’s
folly; Palissy himself was worn to a skeleton by
privation, and he gave his clothes to his assistant
because he was unable to pay him in money; he
was despised by his neighbors for what they con-
sidered his suicidal obstinacy; he was always
hoping, but always failing. At last success came.
He did discover the secret of one of the great in-
dustries of the world. Then he was made “ Ber-
nard of the Tuileries,” he received the patronage
of kings and emperors, he wrote books, he opened
a school of philosophy, and he was honored by the
disciples of art and science everywhere. Had he

ELIAS HOWE, JR.

been living in ease and luxury, he would perhaps
have never made those long, weary efforts; but in
his poverty, he was ever saying to himself: “If I
find out the secrets of pottery, my wife and chil-
dren wiil live in plenty. Now it is starvation—
by and by, it shall be wealth and fame.”

George Stephenson, unable to read the alphabet
till he was eighteen, working in the coal pits for
six pence a day, and mending the boots and patch-
ing the clothes of his fellow workmen in the even-
ings to earn a few extra pennies that he might
attend a night school, is another good illustration
of what a poor and ignorant boy may become.
Never idle, never above doing the commonest

 

295

work, never an ale drinker, as was the custom
among miners, he showed the fine quality of his
nature by giving the first money which he ever
earned, one hundred and fifty dollars, to his blind
father, that he might pay his debts.

When he became an engineer, and projected a
railroad between Manchester and Liverpool, the
people said, “He is a madman! His ‘roaring
steam engine’ will set the houses on fire with its
sparks, the smoke will pollute the air, and carriage-
makers and coachmen will starve for want of work.”
The excitement following his public proposals was
intense. For three days he was questioned by a
large committee of the Houseof Commons. This
was one of the questions: “If a cow gets on the
track in the way of an engine travelling ten miles
an hour, will it not be an awkward situation?”

Very soberly answered George Stephenson, but
with a twinkle in his eye: “ Yes, varry awkward
indeed for the coo!”

One Government Inspector said that if a loco-
motive ever went ten miles an hour, he “ would
undertake to eat a stewed engine wheel for his
breakfast.” Stephenson’s “ Rocket,” a clumsy
engine, but a wonder at the time, and now to be
seen at the Kensington museum, made the trial
trip at an average speed of fourteen miles an hour,
and so the Inspector had the opportunity of keep-
ing his promise. During the next ten years, being
employed to open up railroads in every direction,
Stephenson became wealthy and renowned, the
friend of Sir Robert Peel, the owner of a large
country seat, and the pride of England. He de-
clined the honor of knighthood. His famous son
Robert said of him, “ His example and his char-
acter made me the man I am.”

Charles Goodyear, of New Haven, Conn., for
eleven_years struggling to make India rubber of
practical use, imprisoned for debt, pawning his.
clothes and his wife’s trinkets, his children gather-
ing sticks in the fields when he was no longer able
to buy wood for fires to melt his rubber, often
with neither food nor fire in the house, once with a
child dead and no means to bury it, and five others
nearly starving — this great inventor furnishes an-
other instance of heroic struggle. He was derided
by his friends; one would say to another: “If
you see a man with an India rubber cap, an India
rubber coat, India rubber shoes, and an India rub-
ber purse in his pocket, with not a cent in it—
that is Charles Goodyear!” But these same
friends lived to see his vulcanized rubber applied
to five hundred uses, to see sixty thousand persons
annually producing eight million dollars worth of
merchandise from it. It surely shall be counted
no mean part of a great success that the daily wel-

‘fare of thousands of people is involved and pro-

vided for—that daily work and daily wages are
secured for multitudes.
Elias Howe’s life, like the others, is the old fairy
296

story of poverty and toil, ending with the grandest
success. In the town of Spencer, Mass., in 1825, a
boy six years old, somewhat lame, might have been
seen any day working with several little brothers
and sisters at sticking wire teeth into leather,
to make cards for combing cotton. The father
was a miller by trade, but from sawing boards,
or grinding corn, there came scarcely enough to
support a wife and eight children. It followed
presently that somebody must go out from the big
family and earn food for himself; therefore at the
age of eleven, the cheerful, good-tempered Elias
was sent to a farmer’s. to “live out” till he was
twenty-one,

For a year he worked steadily; but naturally
‘weak in body, the hard labor proved too severe,
and he went back to his father’s mill. At twelve
years old, most boys are in school, with little
knowledge or thought of how some other little
fellows work from morning till night, with no
opportunity for either study or play.

Elias was, as you see, one of these unfortunate
“other little fellows,” but he was ambitious, and
having heard of Lowell and its mills, at sixteen
he obtained the consent of his parents to go there.
It was a risk; he might make a permanent and
profitable place for himself, or he might be wrecked
by the bad habits of many about him. However,
the boy who could not at sixteen say “no,” when
asked to drink, or go into other sins, probably
would not have the backbone to say “no” at
twenty-one. For two years he labored faithfully ;
then the mill closed, and he was obliged to go
elsewhere. Under the shadow of Harvard Uni-
versity, he found another situation in the machine
shop where was employed his cousin, afterward
Major-General N, P. Banks, and they both boarded
in the same house. At twenty-one we find young
Howe with an inventor in Cornhill, Boston, earn-
ing the munificent sum of nine dollars a week.
This would have provided a fair support for one
person, but as he had married, and soon had three
little children to feed and clothe, life of course be-
came again a struggle for bread. In poor health,
he was now so often very weary, that he said “he
longed to lie in bed forever and ever.”

Liking machinery and. curious about inventions,
he was always asking himself if he could not “think

out something” which would give more money to’

his family. At last, as his wife sewed, he fell to
wondering why some machine could not be made
to take fifty stitches while she was taking one.
This idea presently took: possession of him. For
months he pondered over it. He experimented ina
simple way, with a needle pointed at both ends and
eye in the middle, and finally, by a rough model of
wood and wires, he convinced himself that a sew-
ing machine was a possibility.

But how was the money needed for the construc-
tion of a machine, to be obtained? Nine dollars

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

a week left no surplus for such a purpose. Possi-
bly he might earn more if working in a shop of his
own, he thought ; so he moved his lathe and a few
tools into his father’s garret in Cambridge. Day
after day he thought over his invention, but noth-
ing came of it. But it is a long road which never
turns, and by and by the way seemed open to suc-
ceed. He found an old schoolmate Georgé Fisher,
who believed in him and his invention, and who
took him and his family to his own home, gave
him a small garret for a workshop, and five hun-
dred dollars with which to experiment. This was
a foothold indeed for the young mechanic. Satis-
fied that his family would have enough to eat for
a time at least, he threw off care and set himself
diligently at work on his machine, and in six
months had completed one; it was only about
one foot and a half long, and equally high; but
to his great delight it would actually sew seams.

Now he had visions of luxury for his wife and
babies. For of course, the world would eagerly
purchase a thing so valuable in saving labor and
time. He took it at once to Boston, and the tailors
all looked at it; but nobody would buy. Indeed
they probably felt like breaking it in pieces, as the
miners did Watt’s engine. They saw the curious
wizard thing that would take their sewing out of
their hands, and therefore they resolutely opposed
it. Besides the machine would cost five hundred
dollars, and few were able to pay that sum if they
so desired. By the help of Mr. Fisher the machine
was patented in Washington; but the months went
slowly by, and there was no purchaser.

Want stared Elias Howe in the face, and he felt
that he must go back again, for the sake of. his
family, to daily work. Through a relative he be-

came engineer on one of the roads leading out of: ~

Boston, but his ill health forced him to abandon
it. Out of work, owing George Fisher nearly two
thousand dollars, with little prospect of ever pay-
ing it, hé moved his family back into his father’s
house in Cambridge.

He did not however lose his hope, for he believed
that if America did not care for his invention, Eng-
land would see the value of it. His brother Amasa
therefore took passage in the steerage of a sailing
vessel, carrying the precious, but apparently profit-
less machine to London. There William Thomas,
of Cheapside, with possibly some previous knowl-
edge of Yankee shrewdness, caught the idea of the
inventor, and was much sharper than a Yankee in
making a bargain. He bought the machine for
twelve hundred and fifty dollars, with the right to
make and use as many others as he chose; and he
offered the inventor fifteen dollars a week if he
would come across the ocean to operate it.

After four months Amasa returned. The money
he brought was soon used in paying debts, and as
nothing else opened in the way of work, the broth-
ers started again in the steerage, cooking their
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS TS WON.

own provisions. It was a cheerless journey, but
it is, as we have seen repeatedly, grim necessity
that forces men to heroic effort. For eight months
Elias worked for Mr. Thomas, and he sent for his
family; but after the machine was in good work-
ing order, the inventor evidently was not wanted
longer. And now what should he do in a strange
country? He borrowed a few tools and tried to
make another machine, but this did not secure
daily bread. He pawned his clothes, raised a little
money, and again sent his family back to his father’s
house in Cambridge.

Now alone, and penniless, he borrowed money
to pay for his scanty food —often beans — which
he cooked in his shop—and toiled on. A man
less brave than Elias Howe would probably have
drowned himself in the Thames, or attempted to
drown his sorrows in drink, but he still believed
in the great utility, in the great public benefit of
his invention, though the world, as ever, thought
him an idiot, a crazed dreamer, for his pains.
With no work, no friend to lend him any more
money, he sold the machine which he had spent
four months in making for twenty-five dollars,
pawned another, drew his baggage in a hand-cart
to an out-going vessel, found a place as cook in
the steerage, and set his face toward America.

His hopes had not been realized abroad. He
had come back in utter penury, but he was thank-
ful that he should see the dear ones whom he loved.

What was his amazement, his grief, when he landed -

in New York, to hear that his wife, worn with the
privations incident to being the companion of an
inventor, was dying of consumption. He had but
sixty-two cents in the world, and could not possibly
go to Cambridge. At once he sought employment
in a machine shop, hoping in a few days to earn
enough to take him to her bedside, but fortunately
he received ten dollars from his father, hastened to
her, and received her dying words of love and en-
couragement,

Borrowing a suit of clothes to attend the funeral,
for his own were too shabby, for the first time the
hapless inventor looked and felt discouraged and
‘desolate. With his wife’s companionship and cheer,
fragile though she was, he had ever been strong,
and he had always believed that he should earn
enough to make her comfortable, nay, to surround
her with luxury and beauty! To render his cir-
cumstances still worse, the ship in which were
stored all his household goods, had gone to the
bottom off Cape Cod. Perhaps now his visions
of success vanished; certain it is that he at once
went back into a shop at weekly wages —his friends
thought him a “sadder, yet a-wiser man.”

Meantime other men in America had been read-
ing about Howe’s invention, and they were thinking
out and working out similar projects. One man
in New York State exhibited a “ Yankee Sewing
Machine” as a curiosity, at twelve and a half cents

297

admission. Ladies came eagerly and carried home
pieces of the work, as a marvel. Elias Howe read
of this. He knew that all this success belonged
to him; but how could he begin a suit for his
rights, with his only machine in pawn across the
seas? Again and again he begged men to take
up the matter, striving to convince them that they
would make money for themselves, eventually; but
those who believed in him, were without funds, and
those who had funds were unwilling to risk their
money in so novel an uncertainty. At last one
person was found who promised to codperate pro-
vided that Howe’s father would mortgage his farm
to him for security. This Elias himself felt was a
great risk in behalf of an invention which had thus
far brought only disappointment to its originator.
But the father consented, and for four years the
weary lawsuits dragged along.

The most important was with Isaac Singer, an
actor, who having seen Howe’s machine, deter-
mined to make one, and in eleven days, working
twenty-one hours out of the twenty-four, had suc-
ceeded. At once, with great energy, he had adver-
tised, and had begun to send out agents. The real
inventor now notified him that he was infringing, and
by and by, too, the courts decided in Howe’s favor.

It was now nine years since the first machine
was made; nine years of exceeding bitterness and
of hope deferred." He was thirty-five when the long
looked-for day of success dawned. Many machines
were made, and sold both here and abroad, and
Elias Howe’s income soon increased, and swelled
to the large sum of two hundred thousand dollars
yearly! The mechanic was no longer cook in the
steerage, no longer subsisting upon a few beans,
cooked and eaten in his dingy workshop. In thirteen
years he had received two million dollars from this,
the thought of his own brain. He was recognized
as a benefactor to labor, to commerce, and to women
in every station in life.

When the civil war began, Mr. Howe was ready
to leave his prosperous business and help save the
Union. Did he enter the war as an officer? No;
the millionnaire considered himself no better than
any other true-hearted private. The following in-
cident shows well his character:

At the moment when Mr. Howe avowed his determination
to enlist, his coachman had entered the building to witness
the proceedings. He was a warm-hearted Irishman, named
Michael Cahill, past the age of military service as determined
bylaw. Upon hearing his employer’s speech, he rushed for-
ward, and clambering upon the platform, he cried out: “Put
my name down too. I can’t bear to have the old man go
alone.” So down went the name of Michael Cahill, coach-
man, next to that of Elias Howe. Laughter and cheers min-
gled in about equal proportions. For four months after the
Seventeenth Connecticut entered the field, the Government
was so pressed for money, that no payments to the troops
could be made. One day a private soldier came quietly to
the paymaster’s office in Washington, and as there were
several officers there to be attended to, he took a seat in the
corner to await histurn. When the officers had been disposed
298

of, Colonel Walker turned to him and said: “Now, my man,
what can I do for you?”

“T have called to see about the payment of the Seventeenth
Connecticut.”

The paymaster, a little irritated, told him bluntly “that a
paymaster could do nothing without money, and that until
the Government could furnish some it was useless for soldiers
to come bothering him about the pay of their regiments.”

“T know,” said the soldier, “the Government is in straits,
and I have called to find out how much money it will take to
give my regiment two months’ pay, and if you will tell me, I
am ready to furnish the amount.”

The officer started with astonishment, and asked the name
of the soldier, who was no other than Elias Howe. On re-
ferring to his books, Colonel Walker found that the sum re-
quired was thirty-one thousand dollars. Upon receiving the
information, the private wrote a draft for the sum and received
in return a memorandum, certifying the advance, and promis-
ing reimbursement when the Government could furnish the
money. A few days after, at Fairfax Court House, the regi-
ment was paid. When Mr. Howe’s name was called, he went
up to the paymaster’s desk, receiving twenty-eight dollars
and sixty cents of his own money, and signed the receipt
therefor, “ Private Elias Howe Jr.”’ After rendering all the
services a man in his physical condition could render, he re-
luctantly asked a discharge and returned home. He used to
say to the soldiers:

“T have got to leave you, boys. I’m of no use here; but
never mind; when your time is out come to me at Bridgeport;
I’m building a large sewing machine factory there, and I
shall have plenty of work for those that want it.”

Many of his comrades took him at his word, and until
his death were at work under him in various capacities.

Three years after the war closed, in 1867, Mr.
Howe received a gold medal for his sewing machine
at the Paris Exposition, and the Cross of the Legion

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

of Honor; a personal distinction to a great in
ventor. What was there left forhim to ask? He
had wealth, he had honors. He had overcome ill
health, poverty, and the schemes of men to rob
him of his inventions. He had held steadily to
one purpose in life, and through all he had been
uniformly just, kind, and never had he been in an
ill temper at the indifference of the world. That
man only has learned to live rightly, who takes
with a smile the world’s praise or blame, and with
steady head and hand goes straight on with the
work he has in hand.

In one sense, his was a completed life; and that
same autumn in which he received the Cross of the
Legion of Honor, he took cold, and was soon quite
ill, Still in early middle life, only forty-eight, his
friends felt that he must recover ; but one Thurs-
day afternoon, October 3, as the sun was setting
he sank peacefully away.

The sewing machine companies of the country
passed resolutions of sorrow and respect for “an
inventor of genius and ability, a business man of
industry and integrity, a benevolent and kind-hearted
friend, and a citizen of liberality and patriotism.”

Such a life as that of Elias Howe is surely full of
encouragement to those who, lacking money and
education, are yet determined to make the most
of themselves, who are determined to be true to the
ideas they believe in; itis by these plucky men the
race is helped forward to its great achievements.

 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW

SUCCESS

IS WON.

By Saraw K. Botton.

Ix.

ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS.
N a Georgia cornfield, might have been seen,
some years ago, a feeble little boy dropping
kernels for the colored “hands.” The hills were

four feet apart, and by quick, faithful work, he
could cover ten acres a day. This little lad’s
lovely and intelligent mother had died when he
was a baby, three months old. Hehad one “own”
brother and sister, and there were five half-brothers
and sisters. This family was poor, but its young
members were devoted to each other.
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

At eleven this slight boy was holding the plow;
strange work for a child much smaller than boys
of his age, but children do not hesitate at impos-
sible undertakings when love rules the home. It
was the next.year, I think, that a Sunday-school
was started in the little Georgia town, and Alexan-
der — this was the name of our child plowman —
who had read no books excepting the New Tes-
tament and spelling-book, was invited to attend,
He undertook to read Genesis by the light of a
pine-knot fire, after the aay’s work was over, and
soon sat up till midnight fascinated with the story
of Moses and Joseph. The taste for reading was
formed those nights—the delight, the solace of a
long lifetime.

Three years later, the father and the step-mother
both died within the same week, and the family
was broken up and scattered. Alexander went to
the home of his mother’s brother. His father had
been a good, kind man but with no genius for
making money, yet his death was a sad blow for
his helpless flock. Intelligent and sympathetic,
his pure life had been a great moral force in the
home. The actual work for each child would be
no harder now than it had been, perhaps; the
great woe of it was that each must go his own way,
alone. Alexander knew that he should not be
strong enough for farm work. He hoped to obtain
education sufficient to enable him to become a
merchant’s clerk. For nearly a year, by means of
the pittance left by his father, he attended school,
and then at fifteen regretfully bade good-by to the
schoolroom and carried home his books. The
next week he was to set forth. He meant to go
to a neighboring town and seek a place in a store,

Sabbath morning, with a heavy heart, he started
for his last day in the Sunday-school class. The
superintendent, Mr. Mills, asked how he was pros-
pering in his studies.

‘“‘T have finished school,” was the low answer.

“ What are you going to do?”

“Try to find a place in a store, and save some
money, if I can, for further study.”

Mr. Mills asked whether he would not like to go
to college, and study Latin.

If a great hope stole into the lad’s heart for a
moment, he resolutely put it away. ‘‘ I should like
it,” he said quickly, “ but I have no means.”

And then came the unexpected words:

“T will lend you the money.”

Alexander was too astonished to accept the pro-
posal. He said, at last, that he would talk the
matter over with his uncle and aunt. He went home
heart and brain in atumult. The uncle said little.
The aunt argued how much he could accomplish
in the world with an education; she said he ought
to accept at once, thankfully. She made the boy
a few new clothes, freshened up his old ones, and
with a woman’s enthusiasm encouraged him, as he
started into the untried life.

=00)

Young Alexander pondered much the first few
days. He could not bear to be dependent but
since it séemed to be needful, he would strive to
make friends, to be manly, to give Mr. Mills rea-
sons to be proud ofhim. The Sabbath-school had
turned his mind toward the pleasures and benefits
of reading, furnished him a benefactor, and opened
his way, perhaps, toward usefulness and greatness.
Doubtless years after when, as Horace Greeley said,
Stephens stood the most eloquent man in Congress,
he would have said with Senator Frelinghuysen :
“Zo go from the Sunday-school to the Senate of the
Onited States, I consider no promotion.”

College life covered a happy, joyous period in
the life of this earnest Southern boy. He boarded
with a clergyman by the name of Webster, who,
he afterwards learned, had made the suggestion to
Mr. Mills to advance the money for his education ;
and so fond did he become of this man that he
adopted his middle name, and ever after wrote his
own, Alexander Hamilton Stephens.

His first Latin book was fistorie Sacre, and
here his Bible study so helped him, that he soon
stood at the head of his class. He became exceed-
ingly popular with both his instructors and his fel-
low-students. A letter to a friend shows how well
he deserved it:

During the four years that I spent at college, I was never
absent from roll-call without a good excuse; was never fined ;
and, to the best of my belief, never had a demerit mark
against me. No one in my class, at any examination, ever
got a better circular than I did. . In my rooms we
talked, laughed, told stories, more than in any room in col-
lege. But there was never any dissipation in it; neither liq-
uor nor cards were ever introduced; nor were indecent
stories or jests ever allowed. I“ treated” as much in the way
of fruit, melons, and nicknacks in season as any other boy
in college; and yet my average annual expenses were only
two hundred and five dollars. ‘Tobacco was not on my list.
What I saved in hats, shoes and clothes, I spent in this
way. It was not to gain popularity, only to give pleasure
to those about me.

These are helpful suggestions to boys that have
an ambition to stand well with their fellows, while
they also push ahead, and a boy without ambitions
rarely comes to true greatness.

College days ended at last, and now came the
struggle with the world. Everybody comes to this
struggle in one way or another, Perhaps it is to
secretly overcome various temptations; perhaps it
is to openly earn bread; perhaps to patiently seek
chances to earn.

Young Stephens had already engaged as assist-
ant in an academy. ‘Teachers, patrons, students,
were strangers to him. He missed the college
friendships. The work wore upon his nerves.
He had no money and was of course in debt for his
education. He walked his two miles in the early
morning before the principal was awake. He
wrote in his journal :
300

In tnese walks, I poured forth my griefs to myself, and
often wept. A classmate called to see me and
told me in a jocular way of a pleasure trip to the Springs,
which had cost him from five hundred to one thousand dol-
lars. Little did he know my feelings at the relation. They
were those of a destitute child, almost starving, yet too proud
to beg or steal.

He was a fine teacher becatise he was naturally
a good disciplinarian and was also genuinely inter-
ested in the progress of his pupils; but at the end
of four months, with broken health, he accepted
a position in a private school. Ah! there was
another reason for his leaving, untold for forty
years, and then only to a single friend. In his
school was a girl of charming disposition, whom
he could not help but love. He had reason to
believe that she was equally fond of him. Poor,
with no profession, so frail in body and health, with
death as he thought in the near future, he could
not ask her to be his wife. Neither could he stay
where she was, and see her day after day; so
crushing all the new and inspiringyhelps of a pure
affection, he hastened away, travelling all night,
breaking his own heart, to render her prospects in
life brighter, he believed, than he could hope to
make them.

In the private school there were thirteen pupils,
for whose tuition he was to receive five hundred
dollars yearly. Ignoring his fragile health, he
admitted several poor lads to the school, without
charge, remembering his own longing for an educa-
tion. The next year, so much did his patrons like
him, he was offered a salary of fifteen hundred
dollars; but his health completely failed, and he
was obliged to return home.

What now was before him? A little money
remained to him and he resolved to study law as
soon as he should becume stronger. Some of the
townspeople “ made fun” of this resolution; he
was so small and boyish — he weighed but seventy
pounds. This stung him to the quick, but he
wrote in his journal :

My soul is bent upon success tu my profession.

You will see he conquered by resolution; not by
chance, nor by dash, but as Wellington and Napo-
leon and Washington and Grant conquered — by the
steady exertion of an iron will. And says he:

No one can imagine how I worked, how I delved, how I
labored over books. Often I spent the whole night over a
law book, and went to bed as the dawn of day was streaking
the east..

He was too, by nature, ambitious. He wrote to
a friend :

I have a restlessness of spirit and ambition of soul which
are urging me on. My desires do not stop short of the high-
est places of distinction. I feel the ragings of ambition like
the sudden burst of the long smothered flames of a volcano.

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

He longed, too, for companionship. Ido wish
I had an associate—a bosom confidant, whose
tastes and views were similar to my own, and whose
business and pursuits were the same,” he said
once; but the student did not find him, and he
turned and bent himself to his solitary work.

The day for examination came, a hot July day,
under a Southern sun. He was nervous, anxious.
But when it was over, the chief lawyers declared
they had never witnessed a better examination,
and the leading lawyer of the county offered him
a partnership, which he declined because he loved
the old home and determined to succeed there.

The first step had been successfully taken ; but
still he knew that for days and weeks he might not
have a case, or anitem of legal business. He was liv-
ing most frugally on six dollars amonth! But the
young lawyer who had his first opening into a fair
future from the Sunday-school, did not forget to
whom to look for help ; for we find in his jonrnal,

July 24:

And now, in the beginning, I do make a fervent prayer
that He who mace me and all things, and who has heretofore
abundantly blessed and favored me, and to whom I wish to
be grateful for all His mercies, may continue them toward
His unworthy servant; that Hé may so overrule my whole
course that a useful success may attend all my efforts.

The next week he attended court some distance
away. He walked ten miles to the house of his
uncle, carrying his saddle-bags on his shoulders,
and there borrowed a horse for the rest of the
journey. When near the town, he stopped in a
pine forest, changed his travel-stained clothes for
a pair of white cotton trousers which might pass
for linen, and appeared among his brother lawyers,
fresh and trim, only able, however, to tarry one
day. For his first address in court he received the
munificent sum of two dollars in silver !

But presently came his first real case, where a
mother asked the restoration of her child which
had been stolen from her by its grandfather. The
Court House and yard were full of people. The
boyish lawyer was unknown and uncared for, but
he had not only carefully thought out his argu-
ments, but had’ declaimed them on a lonely hill-
side. He spoke with all the pathos, tenderness
and conviction of one who having lost a mother,
intuitively knows the depth and power of a mother’s
love and her desolation when she is bereaved.
His great brown eyes filled with tears, his voice
quivered. Even the five judges wept, as they
restored the child to its mother, and “little Aleck
Stephens” took his rank as one of the first orators of
Georgia. Some one there remarked that ‘Stephens
would go to Congress in ten years ;” but he went
before the time they prophesied. ;

But you may be sure that the honor came through
resolution and work. He wrote to his warm friend,
LITTLE BIOGRAPAIES.—

Richard M. Johnston, who has published a valua-
ble biography of Mr. Stephens:

My time was occupied almost constantly on week-days in
reading, studying and office business. Inever lounged about
with village crowds.

At twenty-four, he was elected to the State Leg-
islature. Here he spoke rarely; but whenever he
did he commanded attention by his eloquence and
by his knowledge of his subject. The next year
he was prostrated by illness — consumption was
feared. However, he rallied, and five years later,

e was elected to the State Senate,
Meanwhile he was sending his half-brother,

 

ALEXANDER YU. STEPHENS.

Linton, through college, loving him almost with a
mother’s tenderness, and writing most frequently.
He tells him:

No day passes but you are in my mind, and you do not
escape from my dreams by night.

And then he gives wise counsel :

Always look up; think of nothing but objects of the high-
est ambition which can be compassed by energy, virtue, and
strict morality. Inall things do nothing on which you could

_ not invoke the divine blessing. Never condescend to notice
small offenses. Be above them.

HOW SUCCESS IS Woun. 30f

Again he writes him:

To be a scholar requires energy, resolution, time, self
denial, patience and ambition. He that possesses them can,
control not only his own destiny, but that of others.

Alexander Stephens had now reached the age of
thirty-one. His college debts were paid and he
was helping others as he had been helped. Per-
suasive in speech, profound in argument, Georgia
had sent him to the Congress of the United States.
He had no money to buy votes, no influential
friends to help, but his genius and his moral char-.
acter, winning the people, won the position. He
could now turn back to his journal where he wrote.
years before, “ My soul-is bent upon success,” and
write after it, ‘‘ I have succeeded.”

In Congress, Mr. Stephens took fearless posi-
tions upon all great questions. At one time he
incurred the displeasure of several Southern poli-
ticians by opposing the acquisition of California and
New Mexico, and Judge Cone called him a traitor.
Mr. Stephens was aroused, and threatened “to.
slap his face.’ Demanding a retraction of the
threat, Cone met him on a hotel piazza, threw the
man scarcely half his size to the floor, and thrust
a dirk knife eighteen times into his body, one gash
coming within the sixteenth of an inch of his heart.
Once, as the knife was aimed at his throat, Mr.
Stephens grasped it in his hand, which was literally
cut to pieces. He recovered, against the expecta-.
tions of everybody, and years after, looking at his.
withered hand, said, “‘ Poor Cone! I’m sure he’d
be sorry if he knew what trouble I have to write
with these stiff fingers of mine.”

For sixteen years, much of the time a great suf-
ferer, Mr. Stephens continued his honorable and
brilliant record in Congress. Meantime the ques-
tion of Slavery had become an all-important issue..
Naturally believing that slavery was legal and
righteous, from his life-long education and habits,
he yet fought earnestly against the secession of any
State from the Union. However, when Georgia
would follow the example of South Carolina, he
felt it his duty to stand by the State which had so.
long honored him with important trusts. He was,
made Vice-President of the Southern Confederacy,
yet so anxious was he that a reconciliation should
be brought about, that he, with two other Southern
men, met President Lincoln and Secretary Seward
at Hampton Roads in 1865, for a conference; but
no terms could be agreed upon. At the downfall
of the Confederacy, when urged to go abroad
rather than be imprisoned and perhaps executed,
he replied, “I would rather die in this country
than live in any other. I will remain and accept
whatever fate has in store for me.”

He was soon after taken, a prisoner, to Fort
Warren, Boston, where he remained some months,
treated, however, with kindness and respect; for
302

the North heartily honored a man who could say,
“<7 never departed from principles — | NEVER SHALL.”
He was above bribery. “ When I went to Con-
gress,” he said, “I made a covenant with myself,
signing it the day before I took the oath of office :
‘Except my pay, I will never make a dollar in
Washington, while a member of Congress,’ I have
collected for others, I suppose, half a million of
dollars, and I would never take a cent of it.”

While in Washington, a lady called upon the
great lawyer, asking his aid to save an imperilled
estate belonging to herself and three daughters.
He befriended her, chivalrously, and when she
offered to pay him, he refused it, but reminded her
of having given a “cup of cold water” on an
August day to a lad who was walking forty miles
to college! She was astonished to learn that the
weary lad and the famous lawyer were the same
person,

During all these years of anxiety and excitement
he wrote almost daily to Linton. Now it is of
mighty matters of State, now he tells of the illness
and death of his pet dog, Rio:

He sleeps at my feet in the day, [Mr. Stephens was ill],
and at night before I go up stairs to bed. . . . . Dur-
ing the night he repeats his visit several times. Poor fellow,
he is blind. He barks incessantly if [leave him. He keeps
close after me and follows the sound of my feet. I usu-
ally carry a cane, and let that drag along behind, for him to
hear it more distinctly than he can my tread. I find more
pleasure in thus exercising Rio, and witnessing the pleasure
it affords him, than I ever did in the enjoyment of all the
honors this world has ever seen fit to bestow upon me.

eos It is all over with poor old Rio. His strength
failed just at my room door, then he fell and died without
any struggle. He lay in the library all night. Next day he
was put into a box or coffin, and buried in the garden. Over
his grave I shed a tear, as I did over him frequently as I saw
nature failing.

After the war he wrote his Constitutional History
Of the Rebellion; it was able and candid. He
received from the sales, thirty-five thousand dollars.
Four years of this time, afflicted with inflammatory
rheumatism, he did not leave his house. He wrote
often in great pain, while propped up in his bed by
pillows. Invited nowto the Professorship of Polit-
ical Science and History in the University of
Georgia, he was obliged to decline. But during
this seclusion at his home in Georgia, which he
called Liberty Hall, “ because,” said he, “I do as
I please and all my guests are expected to do the
same,” he had five law students in his office, to
whom he made no charge either for books or in-
struction. During his life he aided over one hun-
dred and twenty young men and women to go
through college, a large number of whom entered
the ministry.

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW

SUCCESS IS WON.

And now came a great personal trial in the
death of his brother Linton, who had become a
prominent lawyer. Mr. Stephens said bitterly,
“The light of my life is extinguished. Why am I
here hobbling about and Linton gone?”

He was soon after elected to the United States
Senate. None of us who have seen him seated in
his chair on wheels before the Speaker’s desk —
for he could not walk, save with two crutches and
but feebly with them — will ever forget that pale
sad face, those clear, brilliant eyes ; his great mind
and his emaciated body. When Carpenter’s pic-
ture “ Signing of the Emancipation Proclamation,”
was given to the Government by the beneficence
of a woman, Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson, who paid
twenty-five thousand dollars for it, he who had been
the Vice-President of the slave-holding States, was
asked to make an address in conjunction with
General Garfield; and eloquently did he speak of
Abraham Lincoln, and of the future of a reunited
country.

Yet once again Georgia longed to show her
pride in her favorite son; and in 1883 he was
made Governor. Savannah soon celebrated the
one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the coming
of Oglethorpe, and Mr. Stephens, now seventy-
one seated in his chair, brought in glowing review
the history of the State, before the assembled
thousands. But the effort, the excitement, the
enthusiasm, was too much, and on March 4, he
died at Liberty Hall. Governor Stephens’ last offi-
cial act, after fifty years of service, was to grant a
pardon.

Nearly eighty thousand persons gathered to look
upon the beloved leader as he lay in state, at the
Capitol. The flowers brought by friends covered
numerous tables, and the roller-chair, now vacant,
was hung and cushioned with their beautiful bloom.
Throngs of the colored people walked many miles
to look upon the man who had always treated them
with protective kindness. A dozen bands played
the “ Dead March” and thirty military companies
headed the procession, two miles long, to the grave,
At sunset they laid the Governor to rest, and just
as one bright star came out, the great, silent com-
pany departed. ;

The general mourning, the sense of loss and
bereavement will linger with the present genera-

tion. The people at large loved him! The smali
man was their hero. He furnished them with an
ideal. His kindness could no more be hidden

than the sun. Like the sun, it shone for all.
Some one said to him, “Governor, I am told you
keep a room for tramps at Liberty Hall.”

The reply was characteristic: “Yes; I feel it
my duty to try to make everybody as happy as I
can” :
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON. 303

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.-HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

By SaraH K. BoLton.

X.
THOMAS A. EDISON.
NLY a few ‘are remembered in the history of

J anation; these, because they have been as-
sociated with some great event, or have given forth

some thought helpful to the world, or have called
into form. some universal benefit. The name of
Lincoln shall endure because he-freed four millions
of human beings; the name of Faraday, who
though elected to seventy scientific societies, and
offered nearly a hundred titles, said he “ would re-
main plain Michael Faraday to the last ;”” of Morse;
304

because he rendered the telegraph practical, after
years of disheartening hindrances; of Stephenson,
because he -wedded nations by his railroads; and
of Edison— he already ranks as one of-the world’s
few great and original inventors.

Like Garfield, like Grant, General Sherman, How-
ells, and many another prominent man, Thomas
Alva Edison comes from Ohio. Like the majority
of those who have gained renown, his life has been
a battle with poverty; one long work-day, with lit-
tle recreation, no leisure. He was born February
11, 1847, in Milan. In this small canal town there
was nothing whatever to inspire a boy with dreams
of usefulness and greatness; yes, he had one help
—a loving and ambitious mother. She had been
a conscientious schoolteacher; and for her son,
her chief desire was that he should love and. long
for knowledge. His mind-was quick, inquiring, ex-
perimental, dwelling upon detail. One evening it
is humorously related that the parents missed their
six-year-old boy. Search was made everywhere.
At last, he was found in the barn, sitting on a nest
of goose eggs, his dress-skirt spread out to keep
them warm, in the hope of hatching some goslings.
He had placed food near by, that he might remain
as long as need be at his task. He had witnessed,
it seems, the surprising results obtained by the
sitting of the mother-goose, and saw no reason
why he could not accomplish the same. To his
regret, the nest was broken up by his amazed
parents, and the young incubator quickly trans-
ferred to the house.

He had only two months at a regular school.
His father and mother were his teachers, the former

. paying him for every book he read, in order-to en-
courage him. The boy needed little stimulus, how-
ever, for he devoured every volume which came
within his reach. At ten he was deep in Gibbon’s
Rome, Hume’s Lngland, Sears’ History of the World,
the Penny Encyclopedia, and had also read several

_ books on chemistry. Especially did he enjoy read-

ing of great men and their deeds. His play was
in the direction of building plank roads, digging
caves, and exploring the banks of.the canal.

At twelve it became necessary for him to go out
into the world to earn for himself; a mere child,
he was ; but all the same hé must encounter rough-
ness and selfishness in the eager rush for money.
He obtained a place as train-boy on the Grand
Trunk Railroad in Central Michigan; selling ap-
ples, peanuts, song books and papers. With his
sunny face and his natural insight into business,
he soon succeeded to an extent that he had four
boys working under him, in the fig, vegetable ivory,
and prize candy trade.

This was not sufficient to occupy his energies,
however. He had not iost his interest in chemistry.
He found or made an opportunity to exchange some
of his papers for retorts and other simple apparatus,

and to procure a copy of Fresenius’s Jnalitative An-.

“ment on fire.

' gave great offence to a subscriber.

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

alysis, and then he proceeded to turn an old bag-
gage-car into a laboratory. Here he used every
spare moment in experiments, which were much to
his wonder and delight. For fear that somebody
might touch his chemicals, every bottle was labeled
“ Poison.”

Another business was soon added to our train-
boy’s list. Three hundred pounds of old type were
purchased from the Detroit Free Press, and with a
little knowledge of printing, gained by using his eyes

when buying his papers, he started a brand-new.

three-cent paper, called the Grand Trunk Herald.
This journal was twelve by sixteen inches in size,
and it was filled with railway gossip, changes and
general information all likely to be of use or inter-
est to travellers. The literary matter was contri-
buted by baggage men and brakemen. So popular
did it become,that George Stephenson, builder of the
great tubular bridge at Montreal, ordered an extra
edition for his own use. The London Zimes spoke
of it as the only journal in the world printed on a
railway train.

These enterprises came to grief in a singular
manner. The jolting of the car tumbled a bottle
of phosphorus to the floor, setting the compart-
Of course all was in confusion, at
once. The conductor rushed in, threw all the
chemicals and type out of the car, and gave the
young chemist a “thrashing.” A “sadder but a
wiser” boy, he gathered up the few scattered ma-
terials which remained and put them in the base-
ment of his father’s house at Port Huron, Mich.,
whither the family had moved. 5

In a short time, however, he was issuing another
small journal, called Zhe Paul Pry, but larger and
finer than the Herald. Soon a contributed article
The indignant
man shortly after met the editor on the margin of
the St. Clair river, and without ceremony, picked
him up and threw him in. Being a good swimmer,
Thomas safely found his way out, but with his ardor
for editorial pursuits forever dampened. During
the four years in which he was train-boy, he had
earned two thousand dollars, giving it all to his
parents. He had slept at home nights, a great
help for any boy in keeping his good habits, At
the Detroit end of the line, as often as possible, he
had- visited the library, at one time making the
laughable decision to read the thousands of vol-
umes in course, just as they ranged on the shelves,
After reading a space fifteen feet in length, which in-
cluded Newton’s Principia, Ure’s Scientific Diction-
aries, Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, he concluded
that a man must needs live to the age of Methuselah
to read a library through, and he gave up the plan.
He now took up Les Miserables, which he has read
a dozen. times since-then, Jules Verne, and what-
ever especially pleased him—a natural rebound.

During the early part of our civil war, when he
was fifteen, he conceived the idea of telegraphing
 

 

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warn,
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LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON. 305

the head lines of his papers to the next station, that
by thus whetting the appetite, passengers would
“be led to buy. It was not only a good business
scheme, but it served to develop more and more
his interest in the wonders of the telegraph.
He finally bought a standard work on electricity,
and presently the basement of the Port Huron
house had other attractions and recreations than
a printing press. Common stove pipe wire was
strung across and out of the room, connecting with
the residence of a boy friend. This wire was in-
sulated with bottles placed on nails driven into
trees. The magnets used were old wire wound
with rags, with a piece of brass serving as key.
If the other children had been like the irrepressi-
ble Thomas, the Port Huron house would not have
held them, but the mother, proud of anything that
looked toward knowledge in action, counted neither
old bottles, lines of wire, nor presses as nuisances.

And now an act of heroism made a turning
point in his life. The station agent who was also
the operator, at Mount Clemens, near Port Huron,
had a little boy two years old, who one day crept
on the track before the incoming train. Quick
as thought, young Edison rushed on_ the scene,
and, periling his own life, of course, saved that of
the child. In gratitude, the father offered to teach
the boy the art of telegraphy. This seemed a great
boon, and after laboring all day each night on
reaching home, Edison would return on the freight
train to Mount Clemens to study at his new work.
In five months, though hardly sixteen, he became
operator at Port Huron at six dollars and a quarter
a week. Here he worked almost night and day,
perfecting himself in his delightful employment.
He took hold of each detail with a will, and labored
so patiently and constantly, that his devoted and
encouraged mother might well dare to say that the
world would hear from her boy sometime. All in
six months, he worked in Canada, in Adrian, in
Fort Wayne, in Indianapolis; at the latter place,
though not yet seventeen, he invented his first tel-
egraph instrument, and automatic repeater, which
always has been considered an important achieve-
ment for one so young. We next find him at Cin-
cinnati, and at Memphis, caring little for dress,
hiked by his associates, but dubbed “ luny,” be-
cause absorbed in experiments which were con-
sidered impracticable. His services were finally
dispensed with, as they had been several times be-
fore, on account of his having “such a thinking
mind!”

Without money, and scantily clad, he took his
way to Louisville, walking much of the journey,
probably with no very cheerful thoughts about the
encouragement given to inventors. Here he re-
mained two or three years, till an unfortunate acci-
dent ended his connection with the firm. Under
the new telegraph rooms was an elegant bank.
One night, in his experimenting, he tipped over a

whole carboy of sulphuric acid, which ran through
the floor, spoiling the ceiling, the brussels carpet,
and the handsome furniture. At once another
man was engaged, one who would try no experi-
ments !

Wending his way again to Cincinnati, he soon
lost the place he there obtained, because he spent
too much time in the Mechanics’ Library, poring
over books on electricity. At twenty-one, being
really a skilful operator, he secured a position in
Boston; but he presently abandoned it thinking he
could make more money in inventions, and opened
a little shop. He was always hoping for good
things, but, for along time, the good things did not
come. He made a chemical vote-recording appa-
ratus, but the Massachusetts Legislature did not
adopt it. He developed various inventions and
improvements, but for lack of money, they were
not successful. Still he kept on thinking. In-
vited to speak before a company, he forgot the ap-
pointment, and when called for, was at the top of
a house putting up a telegraph line. He went
directly from his work, and was abashed to find
himself in the presence of a room full of elegant
ladies, but he was familiar with his subject, and
spoke impressively. This shifting life, the con-
stant struggle to make of use the thoughts within
him,was wearing. He was restless, too. He resolved
to try New York. Here for three weeks, he walked
the streets looking for work, penniless and de-
spondent. Nobody wanted an experimenting op-
erator! Many would have given up in despair, but
only those win who persevere. By chance, he
stepped into the office of the Gold Reporting ‘Tel-
egraph Company. Their instrument was out of
order. His offer to repair it was received with
incredulity, but he was permitted to try. He suc-
ceeded, and was at once given an excellent posi-
tion. Shakespeare says: “There is a tide in the
affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on
to fortune;” and this tide had come to our in-
ventor at twenty-three. Henceforward there were
to be no discharges for “luny” experiments. Hence-
forward the world was to sing his praises, and
fortune was to pour into his lap a half million dol-
lars in the next ten years ; the results of his “ think-
ings.”

The Western Union Telegraph and the Gold and
Stock Companies paid him a handsome salary,
with the provision that they might have the first
opportunity to buy any of his inventions. A large
electrical manufacturing establishment was opened
with this in view at Newark, N. J. With his force
of three hundred men, he soon had forty-five in-
ventions and improvements in hand, and was de-
scribed by the United States Patent Commissioner
as “the young man who kept the pathway to the
Patent Office hot with his footsteps.”

For some time, it had been a dream of his to
perfect the duplex system of telegraphing. He be-
306

lieved that two messages could be sent at the same
time over the same wire —a plan which the world
had heartily laughed at. But now, to the astonish-
ment of everybody, he invented the quadruplex
system by which four messages go at once over the
same wire! The world ceased to laugh, and woke
up to the fact that the very troublesome young
experimentor was, as Professor Barker said, “ not
only the greatest inventor of the age, but a dis-
coverer as well;” in fact,-that the Grand Trunk
train-boy was a genius!

When he was twenty-six, a new force came into

his life, a love for an intelligent, sweet-tempered -

girl, Mary Stillwell of Newark. There was no

 

THOMAS A. EDISON.

time for a-wedding journey, only an hour or two
for a quiet ceremony, and then the thinker went
back to his shop to work far into the night. A
friend returning from the Western Union Tele-
graph office in New York, seeing a light in the
laboratory, climbed the stairs. ‘“ Hello!” said he.
“What are you doing here this late? aren’t you
going home?”

“What time is it?” asked Edison, half be-
wildered by the interruption.

“Midnight, easy enough. Come along.”

“T mustgohome then. I was married to-day,” was
the reply of the man as absent-minded as Sir Isaac
Newton, who is said to have stirred the ashes in

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

his pipe with the finger of his lady-love, who re-
fused him in consequence.

Three years later he removed to Menlo Park, a
barren place, twenty-four miles from New York,
where he hoped to work in quiet, which however
was not permitted him ; and he remarked jocularly
to a friend: “I am considering the idea of fixing
a wire connecting with a battery that knocks over
everybody that touches the gate.” And yet, with
a pleasant smile, he gave kindly explanations to
any one really desirous to understand his work.
Sometimes his listeners were intelligent ; sometimes
stupid. ‘Once after he had explained the telephone
most carefully, the visitor said, “ Yes, I compre-
hend perfectly; simple enough. I understand it
all, except how the sound gets out again!”

“You can imagine how I felt.” says Mr. Edison.
“T gave him up.”

At Menlo Park he built a laboratory twenty-eight
feet by one hundred, and filled it with batteries,
magnets, etc., the machinery run by an eighty horse
power engine—the Port Huron basement on a
larger and grander scale.

Here all the world came to see the wonderful
phonograph, the ‘‘ talking machine,’’ into whicha
person can sing or speak, and by turning a handle,
the same tune or words be reproduced ; a blunt steel
pen or stylus is made to press against a sheet of
tin foil by the vibrations of a plate set in motion
by the voice; when the pen is replaced at the end
of the groove which it has traversed, the sound is
given out again. Of this instrument, Edison says:
“‘T have invented a great many machines, but this
is my baby, and I expect it to grow up and support
me in my old age.”’

Here too was the carbon telephone, used in vari-
ous parts of the United States; the tasimeter,
which measures the heat even of the far-away stars ;
the aerophone, by which the sound of the voice is
magnified two hundred and fifty times ; the electric
pen for multiplying copies of letters and drawings,
over sixty thousand now in use in this country: the
automatic telegraph, which permits the transmis-
sion over a single wire of several thousand words
per minute; the incandescent. electric light—all
these inventions and many others were at the great
wonder house at Menlo Park.

The public interest centres now in the electric
light, called Mr. Edison’s ‘‘ crowning discovery.”’
The first method of illumination by electricity was
by the voltaic arc, discovered by Sir Humphrey
Davy; the electric current passing between two
carbon points, In 1862 Faraday introduced the
electric light into a British lighthouse. Thesecond
method was an arch, inside ofa glass globe, brought
to white heat by the friction of an electric current.
Drexel, Morgan and Co., New York bankers, and
some others, put one thousand dollars in Mr.
Edison’s hands, that he might experiment in order
to make the light of practical use. He is said to
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—

have tried two thousand substances before decid-
ing upon fibres of bamboo for the arch in the
vacuum of his glass globe. As the United States
has four hundred million dollars invested in gas,
and England five hundred million, the wealth in
this light of the future will be seen readily. In
ten cotton factories in Fall River, Mass., forty-five
hundred Edison lights are used, much to the joy
of the workers, where gas-heated rooms formally
injured sight and health. Over sixty thousand
lamps are now in use, burning six hundred hours
before the bamboo is replaced by a new one.

Perhaps most interesting of all is Mr. Edison
himself, who has been called the Wizard of Menlo
Park. Five feet ten inches high, with boyish but
earnest face, light gray eyes, his dark hair slightly
gray falling over his forehead, his hat tipped to
the back of his head, as he goes ardently to his
work, which has averaged eighteen hours a day
for ten years, he is indeed a pleasant man to see,
You perceive he is not the man to be daunted by
obstacles. When one of his inventions failed —a
. printing machine —he took five men into the loft
of his factory, declaring he would never come down
till it worked satisfactorily. For two days, and
nights and twelve hours — sixty hours in all, he
worked continuously without sleep, until he. had
conquered the difficulty; and then he slept for
thirty hours. He often works all night, thinking
best, he says, when the rest of the world sleeps.

He is the very embodiment of concentration and
perseverance. When developing his automatic tele-
graph, says his friend:

Edison sat with a pile of chemistries and chemical books
that were five feet high when they stood on the floor, and
laid one upon the other. He had ordered them from New
York and London and Paris. He studied them night and
day. He ate at the desk and slept in the chair. In six
weeks he had gone through the books, written a volume of
abstracts, made two thousand experiments on the formulas,
and had produced a solution — the only one in the world —
that would do the very thing he wanted done — record over

two hundred words a minute ona wire two hundred and fifty

HOW SUCCESS IS WON. 307

miles long. He has since succeeded in recording thirty-one
hundred words a minute.

Yet, with all this devotion to work, he greatly
enjoys fun, He said one day to his old friend of
whom he learned telegraphing, Mr. Mackensie,
“Look here —I am able to send a message from
New York to Boston without any wire at all.”

“ That is impossible.”

“Oh! no, It’s a new invention.”

“Well, how is it done?” asked Mr. Mackensie.

“ By sealing it up and sending by mail,” was the
comical answer.

He cares nothing for display, and when tendered
a public dinner, declined, saying, that, “ one hun-
dred thousand dollars would not tempt him to sit
through two hours of personal glorification,” In
his home, he finds his recreation, with his wife and
‘children, to whom he is devotedly attached; one
child, Mary Estelle, is nicknamed “Dot,” and an-
other, Thomas Alva Edison, jr., “‘ Dash.”

But this modest man has received honors from
all the world. At the great Electrical Exposition
at Paris in 1881, two salons were devoted to his
inventions ; these halls were lighted, as well as
several others, by his beautiful lamps. The Royal
Society of London has exhibited his works with
pride. Union College has made him Doctor of
Philosophy. From scientists he receives over one
hundred and fifty letters daily, in French, German,
Italian, Spanish, Russian and Turkish.

Already he has taken out several hundred
patents and is as enthusiastic, as absorbed, in his
work asever. Only thirty-seven, his life seems but
just ripening into its wonderful fruitage. Electric ©
engines are much in his thought. He said re-
cently, “Anything is possible with electricity. A
new discovery may be made any day.”

That Mr. Edison has genius nobody will deny ;
but probably he would have accomplished little
without his broad reading, and well nigh unpar-
alleled devotion to work.

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

By Sarau K. Bo.ton.

 

XI.
DR. WM. T. G. MORTON.

HEN William Murdock, of Birmingham,
invented lighting by gas, he was ridi-

culed all England over. After using gas satisfac-
torily in his own house and shop, the lighting of a
town was suggested, but Sir Humphrey Davy scorn-

\

fully inquired whether it was intended “to take the
dome of St. Paul for a gas-holder!” And when
the subject was brought before Parliament, one of
the members exclaimed, “ Do you mean to tell me
that it will be possible to have a light wethout a
wick?”

“ Ves, I do, indeed,” said Murdock.

“ Ah, my friend,” replied the educated legislator,
“ you are trying to prove too much!”
308

And when gas pipes were first placed in the
House of Commons, the members put their gloved
hands very carefully upon them, supposing that the
gas passed along the iron tubes, on fire. No pa-
tent was obtained for the invention, Boulton and
Watt, whose works Murdock superintended, being
overwhelmed with their own lawsuits over the
steam engine, and too busy to assist him. He died
unrewarded for his great discovery.

When Doctor Edward Jenner of England, first
discovered vaccination, and after many satisfactory
experiments had been made upon his own little
six-year-old son, the medical societies forbade his
speculations upon the subject at their regular meet-
ings under pain of expulsion, refused to try his pro-
cess, accused him of an attempt to “ bestialize ” men
because the vaccine was taken from a cow, and
many clergymen pronounced it “diabolical.” A
few years after, when the method became popular,
and Parliament voted him fifty thousand dollars for
his boon to humanity, small-pox having been a
dreaded scourge heretofore, and one hundred thou-
sand dollars later — then several physicians claimed
the honor of its discovery themselves !

Similar, in many respects, reads the history of an-
other of the greatest benefactors of our race, the
man who discovered anasthesia, or a way to render
persons insensible to pain while undergoing surgi-
cal operations or in other form. In hospitals and
on battle-fields, a few years ago, when limbs were
cut off, the patients often died in the excruciating
agony. Now, this dread aspect of human woe is
changed. Under the influence of ether, pain is not
felt.

For ¢4zs blessed alleviation, the world still owes
a great debt to Dr. Wm. T. G. Morton, an Amer-
ican physician, whose life was the same pathetic,
heroic struggle as that of most thinkers and invent-
ors.

Born in the little village of Charlton, Mass., Au-
gust 9, 1819, Willie Morton, as he was called, asunny
affectionate lad, passed his early life like other New
England farmer-boys, tapping maple-trees in the
sugar orchard, mowing hay, shearing sheep, and get-
ting such education as the town afforded. His mind
seemed naturally to turn toward medicine, his young
mates calling him “doctor,” because he experi-
mented upon them with bread pills, carrying them
about in little vials made from elder branches. This
early practice soon came to an inglorious end, when
he nearly caused the death of his baby sister, by
administering his “ medicine ” while she lay asleep

_in her cradle, whereupon he was severely adminis-
tered to in another manner.

His father, always feeling keenly his own lack
of collegiate education, determined that his son
should have opportunities for study, and, at thir-
teen, sent him to Orford Academy, where he made
his home with a well-known physician. Here he
could spend his leisure in poring over medical books,

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

and in talking to Doctor Pierce of the pleasure he
should some day have inhis profession. The grave
man would shake his head and say, “ You hardly
know what you talk about, and how hard I have to
work.” Later, he went to Leicester, using all his
time in an eager search for knowledge ; while other
boys were deep in the sports natural to their years,
he was peering and pounding among the rocks for
minerals, or studying natural history.

It was when he was at Leicester that there came
the first great sorrow of his life. His father, in an
unfortunate business partnership, lost his money,

‘ and as a consequence William, at seventeen, must

abandon his plans for an education, and at once go
out into the world to earn his daily bread. This to
a boy whose one ambition was study and research
was a test-trial of the elements in his character.

And then, what could he do! His mother, a
woman of unusual practical good sense set out
with himfor Boston. There she succeeded in plac-
ing him in the publishing house of Mr. James B.
Dow, a man of sterling integrity. As was the cus-
tom at the time, the boy lived in his employer’s fam-
ily. Mrs. Dow, a noble woman, tried to make him
contented, but he was so genuinely homesick that
at last, fearing for his health, as it seemed impos-
sible to overcome his despondency, he was returned
to his father’s house, where he remained for some
time, learning as he had opportunity, and saving as
much as he could for future schooling.

About the time he reached his twenty-first year,
a college of dental surgery was opened in Balti-
more. Other young men had made money in the
practice of dentistry ; perhaps he could earn enough,
should he learn this business, to carry him through
a medical course. For eighteen months he studied
diligently, using a small sum of money left him by
an aunt, and then boldly opened an office in Bos-
ton, where he made many friends, and did his work
well.

Two years of earnest labor passed, and then
from Farmington, Conn., one of the prettiest towns
in New England, he brought a lovely bride of eigh-
teen, Elizabeth Whitman, to share thereafter with
beautiful devotion his struggles and his fame. It
was about this time also that he entered the Medi-
cal School of Harvard University. At last, eight
years after his school life had been so rudely broken’
up, he had reached the goal of his hopes.

With what delight he attended clinics in the wards
of the Massachusetts General Hospital is well re-
membered by many; and it is recorded by Ben:
Perley Poore, the journalist, that such was his de-
votion to his profession that “a skeleton was kept
in his bridal chamber, and that rising long before
sunrise, he used to prepare himself for the anatomi-
cal studies of the coming day.” Late in the even-
ing, he would be found last at the dissecting tables.

His sympathetic nature shrunk from the agony he
had often to witness in the hospital. Heasked him
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON. 309

self a thousand times if nothing could be found to
deaden pain. One day in applying sulphuric ether to
a sensitive tooth of one of his patients, he observed
that the surrounding parts became benumbed. At
once he began to question whether the whole body
could or could not be benumbed in some manner,
But how, with safety! Sir Benjamin Brodie, a well-
known scientist abroad, had written, “ I have given
ether to guinea-pigs, and it killed them! ”

The young medical student determined to experi-
ment upon — himself. if he died, the world would
at least only say, “he was foolish.” It took courage
of a high order to ‘mix, in the interests of science and

 

DR. WM. T. G. MORTON.

humanity, morphine, opium and etherin aretort, put
a hot towel around it, and slowly inhale it. But head-
aches so terrible resulted that he was obliged to dis-
continue experiments foratime. Like James Watt
when working upon his engine, he scarcely knew
whether he ate or slept; now experimenting with
animals, and then again upon himself with pure
ether. Finally, so firm became his faith in the knowl-
edge he believed himself to have gained that he
calmly soaked his own handkerchief in this liquid
that killed guinea-pigs and deliberately placed it
over his mouth‘and nostrils. As regards the natural
question as to whether he would ever come out of

the sleep into which he knew he must enter, he said
afterward :

I looked at my watch, then soon lost consciousness. AsI
recovered, I felt a numbness in my limbs with a sensation like
nightmare, and would have given the world for some one to
come and arouse me. I thought for a moment I should die
in that state, and that the world would only pity or ridicule
my folly. . Gradually I regained power over my limbs
and full consciousness. I immediately looked at my watch,
and found that I had been insensible between seven and eight
minutes.

The young student was overjoyed at the result,
and impatient now to try the effect upon others.
Toward evening, September 30, 1846, a man came
into the office nearly frantic with toothache, and
ready to try anything in his pain; he inhaled the
ether, and the tooth was removed before he was con-
scious of it. Young Morton was now fully confi-
dent that he had found the great “ pain destroyer ”’
of the world, and he at once began to consider how
he should bring the knowledge to the public use?
He wished that he might give one trial before the
renowned physicians at the Massachusetts General
Hospital. How else would they believe that a young
student had found that for which learned men in all
ages had been seeking —an annihilator of pain?
And yet, what if by any possibility the experiment
should prove a failure, and he should meet with ridi-
cule? What if, indeed, the patient should die, and
he be arrested and thrown into prison?

He called upon Doctor Warren, the senior sur-
geon, who expressed much interest ; he said he had
always hoped for the discovery, and that he would
immediately give an opportunity for the test upon
one of the inmates of the hospital. As the time
drew near, young Morton applied himseif night and
day to continued investigation and continued test,
and to the perfection of his instruments for inhala-
tion. The night previous to the experiment at the
hospital, he worked till four o’clock in the morning,
to make sure that all was in readiness. His young
wife of nineteen, who had watched every step in the
progress of the discovery, was unable to sleep from
her anxiety, and she met him as he came home, and
implored him for the sake of herself and her little
son, to give up the engagement. “You will ruin
yourself ;’’ she said. ‘ You wil! be the subject of
universal ridicule.” He playfully rallied her failing
courage, and then with solemnity and in tones of
assurance said, ‘‘I will not fail. ‘To-morrow the
world will greet my success.” With a reassured
heart, but sleepless, she waited, while he, saying he
had but two hours to sleep, almcst immediately fell
into profound slumber. At six he arose, and with-
out breakfast hastened to the instrument-maker’s,
and thence to the hospital. The large amphitheatre
was filled with distinguished surgeons, physicians,
students and others invited to witness a difficult
surgical operation which was to be undergone with-
310

out pain. On every hand eager but incredulous
faces. The patient, a young man of twenty-five, suf-
fering with a tumor on the mouth, was brought in.

“ Are you afraid?’’ said Morton to him. “ No,
I feel confident, and will do precisely as you tell
me,” was the reply.

Grave, but with perfect self-possession, the young
student began his work. In four or five minutes
the patient was soundly asleep, and then, in a si-
lence like the tomb, with surprise and amazement
growing on every face, Doctor Warren cut out the
tumor, saying slowly and emphatically, “Gentle
men, this is no humbug.”

When consciousness returned, the patient said,
“‘T have experienced no pain, but only a sensation
like that of scraping the part with a blunt instru-
ment.” - ;

At once, doubt among the spectators gave place
to joy and congratulations. The student had
become in one brief hour, not only sure of fame
and honor, but also the benefactor of every race,
through unending ages, and those learned men
recognized these facts. :

Meanwhile the young wife was waiting at homein
suspense almost unimaginable, About one o’clock
he came, his bright, enthusiastic face tinged with
sadness, as though he saw in the distance the hard
fate and the long struggle to come. He seemed
lost in thought as in a dream, and embracing her
tenderly, he simply said, “ I have succeeded.”

But that meant that surgery had been forever

robbed of its terrors, and good news of escape from °

pain was to go out over all the world from this
memorable day, October 16, 1846.

Mr. Robert Hinckley, a distinguished artist in
Paris, is now at work upon a large picture repre-
senting this impressive scene; the surgeons and
physicians of the Massachusetts General Hospital
grouped about the patient, and in the centre the
manly face of young Doctor Morton, then only
twenty-seven years of age. After the exhibition of the
painting in the Paris Salon, and in this country, it
will probably be hung in. the same room in the hos-
pital where this never-to-be-forgotten demonstra-
tion was made.

The newdiscovery was talked about everywhere,
presently, at home and abroad. Said Doctor War-
ren: “It will awaken the gratitude of the present,
and of all coming generations ;”’ said Doctor Oliver
Wendell Holmes: “The deepest furrow in the
knotted brow of agony has been smoothed forever.”
English journals were eloquent it its praise: “Itis
a victory not for to-day nor for our own time, but
for another age, and all time; not for one nation,
but for all nations, from generation to generation,
as long as the world shall last.”

Doctor Morton understood well the value to the
world of his discovery, and he spared no Pains to
spread the knowledge everywhere. Pamphlets were
published at his own expense, giving examples of

LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES,—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

e
the safe use of ether; agents were sent into all the
larger cities and towns to instruct people’ in its
use, and with properinstruments. Says his lawyer,
Richard H. Dana, jr., the author of Zio Years be:
Sore the Mast: “ Doctor Morton hardly knew a full
night’s rest, or a regular meal, for three months.”

But he had but just begun his struggles, his bit-
ter experiences. Several dentists at once issued a
“circular,” to physicians and to the newspapers,
setting forth the alarming effects of ether, and up-
braiding him for announcing the discovery of a
“humbug.” Some of his medical brethren, too,

- seemed to be envious, and hoped “no one would
be reduced from the high professional path of duty,
into the quagmire of quackery!“ Even some religi-
ous teachers called it “a decoy of Satan,” because
God had condemned man to suffer pain, and “ it
would rob him of the deep earnest cries which arise
in time of trouble for help!”

All this incited the young physician to greater
energy. Having already been at so much expense
to introduce the new agent and defend it, his

+ friends advised that he apply for a patent, that he
might reap some necessary pecuniary benefit from-
his discovery. This was granted; but the Govern-
ment soon using ether in the Mexican War, yet
paying no regard to the patent, contracts made with
other parties were boldly broken, and much loss
fell upon Doctor Morton. Atonce prominent men,
among them Doctors Warren, Bowditch, Bigelow,
Holmes, Parkman and others, asked Congress to
reward the author of this great boon to his country.
It had given the heirs of Robert Fulton ever
seventy-six thousand dollars for his improvement in
the steam-engine; to S. F. B. Morse, eighty thou-
sand dollars for the telegraph ; to one firm twenty-
five thousand dollars for the right to use the im-
proved method of refining gold bullion; to another
twenty thousand dollars for elevating and point-
ing heavy cannon; surely the Government would
give generously to him, who, Lecky declares in his
Liistory of European Morals, “has done more for
the real happiness of mankind than all the moral
philosophers from Socrates to Mill.”

But now came the most disheartening trial yet,
the same which had confronted Jenner and Watt
and Morse and Harvey: several men came boldly
forward and declared themselves the discoverers of
the way to produce insensibility to pain! One said
he had known it in his laboratory for five years.
To this Doctor Jacob Bigelow well replied : “If he
did make the discovery, as he asserted, he stands
accountable for the mass of human misery which
he has permitted his fellow creatures to undergo,”
during all this time. Another said he had used
nitrous oxide in extracting teeth and deserved to
be considered the discoverer, though he had gone
out of dentistry, and given up experimenting.
Others still claimed to have had this knowledge—
only they had failed to make it known.
LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SUCCESS IS WON.

Immediately the contest against Doctor: Morton
became bitter and personal. As a result, the bil]
to give him one hundred thousand dollars, which
had been passed by the House, was lost in the
Senate.

This was a bitter disappointment, a most bitter
experience. That any person could lay claim to
this discovery, which he had worked out with al-
most infinite labor, hazarding his life and reputa-

tion with fearlessness, or say, as did one physician, °

“TJ told it to him,” seemed to Doctor Morton un-
explainable, He had spent all he had earned and
more in his work, was deeply in debt; and now,
when only twenty-nine, he became ill from nervous
prostration.

He could not ‘solve the problem — while lavish
sums were spent on every new invention for slaugh-
ter, there was not a penny for the man who by his
discovery had saved thousands of. lives, and pre-
vented incalculable suffering.

When partially restored to health, friends fur-
nished the means fora second petition to Congress.
Daniel Webster, Charles Sumner, Rufus Choate,
Governor Marcus Morton, were among his warm
supporters, but while the Legislators said by a de-
cisive report, ‘Doctor Morton is entitled to the
merit of the discovery,” in the rush of the closing
session, no appropriation was made.

Once more, well, cheerful and hopeful, sustained
by his devoted wife and friends, though the new
claimants published their claims both at home and
abroad, Doctor Morton, ten years later, with an
immense amount of testimony from the highest in
the land, made his third application to Congress.
It would seem that there could be little doubt about
the sequel now, since two select committees of the
House of Representatives had reported in his favor;
the Military and Naval committees were on his side;
and the Trustees of the Massachusetts General Hos-
pital, with one hundred of the leading men of Bos-
ton, had sent him one thousand dollars, with their
autographs, in a silver casket, with the words :

‘“‘In honor of the Ether Discovery, September 30,
1846. He has become poorinacause which
has made the world his debtor.”

But no sooner was the subject broached in Con-
gress, than different members argued the claims of
their constituents ; one branch of the Government
passed a bill only to have it rejected in the other,
until everybody was worn out with the discussion,
and the matter was allowed to drop unheeded.
Doctor Morton went home dispirited, and was at-
tacked with asevere illness. For eight long years,
with loss of business and failing health, he had

‘ fought this battle for his rights in vain.

There had been one joy in all this disappeint-
ment and depression and defeat; one bright spot
in the darkness; at Etherton cottage, Wellesley,
Mass., where lived his wife and four pretty children,
he had always come home to rest and peace and love

~ were all using this wonderful blessing.

311

and perfect trust and sympathy. Close to his home
was that of his tenderly loved mother, whom he
visited regularly every night after his return from
business in the city ; and there he could forget for
the time the indifference, the heartlessness, and
the selfishness of the world. But now misfortune
came even to Etherton. The home with its fine
library, its perfect collection of surgical instruments
which he had spent years in gathering, had to be
mortgaged and its treasures sold.

Feeling how sadly his country had wronged and
neglected him, such noble men as Doctors Bigelow,
Bowditch and Holmes, Robert C. Winthrop and
Longfellow, and leading physicians in every city,
started a Morton Testimonial, which by generous
contributions should show how deeply indebted the
whole world really was to this one man. All gave
heartily; but the Civil War soon absorbed the
thought of the country and prevented the raising
of a large amount.

Fourteen years had now gone by since his dis-
covery of ether. Doctor Morton, at the wish of
the Government, had hastened to our battle-fields,
and sometimes after a single battle had given ether
or chloroform to two thousand wounded men, be-
fore the surgical operations were performed. Atthe
Wilderness and Spottsylvania Court House, with
General Grant, where twenty thousand were
wounded, he had given anesthetics, at the rate of
three minutes to the man, without a single failure.
The hospitals of London, Paris, Vienna and Berlin
One can
but pause again and again and reflect upon this
instance of national ingratitude.

One year after Doctor Morton discovered the
use of ether in destroying pain, Doctor Simpson
of England had brought out another agent, chloro-
form, which, though valuable, is dangerous, and its
use forbidden in most hospitals. For this England,
proud of the discovery, knighted him, and at his
death buried him in Westminster Abbey, For
Doctor Morton —who discovered an inhalent
safe as well as powerful and in use nearly the
world over before chloroform was discovered,
what has his country done? Absolutely nothing,
save to leave his family in want, and himself unre-
warded. Once more, wounded soldiers, Generals,
Doctors, College Presidents and Medical Societies
united to ask Congress for an appropriation of
two hundred thousand dollars for Doctor Morton.
Doctor Willard Parker of New York said, “He
has laid the civilized world under an infinite obli-
gation, and exhausted his means by so doing; ”
President Chadbourne of Williams College said,
“In my judgment he has been grossly wronged in
the preposterous claims of others, and in the long
neglect of the American people to make him some
compensation for the honor he has conferred upon
us.” The old opposition was at work, however,
and Congress did nothing.
312 LITTLE BIOGRAPHIES.—HOW SOCCESS LS WON.

Such injustice could not but have its effect upon
the strongest body and the most courageous heart.
True, he had reached the best success, that of im-
perishable fame as a benefactor, and had received
the largest gold medal of the Institute of France;
the Order of St. Viademir ” from Russia, the first,
itis said, ever bestowed by Russiaon an American ;
the “Order of Le Vasa” from Sweden ; but anxiety
for the welfare of his family, a sense of wrong treat-
ment and unfair dealing, broke his health and his
heart. One year after, with a public funeral, as be-
fitted his great service to humanity, Doctor Morton
was buried in beautiful Mount Auburn, Doctor
Jacob Bigelow writing these expressive words, now
upon his monument, erected by the citizens of Bos-
ton ;

IV. T. G. Morton. Inventor and Revealer of
Anesthetic Inhalation, Before whom in all time Sur-
gery was Agony. By whom Pain in Surgery was
averted and annulled. Since whom Science has Con-
trol of Pain.

In the attractive Public Gardens of Boston, stands
the Ether Monument, of granite, the gift of Thomas
Lee, with a fine bas-relief on each side, and the
words: ‘ Zo commemorate the discovery that the in-
halation of ether causes insensibility to pain, first
proved to the world at the Massachusetts General
Hospital in Boston, October, 1846.”

Mrs. Morton, with her five children, was left at
her husband’s death, to struggle on, as best she
might. Doctor Sims of New York, for many years
her husband’s warm supporter, now suggested that
he would try to secure from Congress two hundred
thousand dollars tobe equally divide between Mrs.
Morton and the widow of another claimant. Though
her beautiful home was in the market for sale, in

- name they bear.

order to obtain means to support and educate her
children, though her own health was shattered,
though before her was the probability of poverty
while life lasted, she said to a friend, “The prospect
of one hundred thousand dollars gained by the ‘sac-
rifice of my husband’s just claim, or indeed any
amount of money, presented to me not the slightest
temptation, and she of course declined Doctor Sims’
proposal. And a little later the lovely home at
Wellesley was sold.

The children are now grown-up, grown up to a
heritage of honor and to honor in turn the famous
The oldest son, Doctor William J.
Morton, graduating from the Boston Latin School at
seventeen with the first prize, from Harvard Univer-
sity at twenty, and later from the Medical Schools at
Harvard and Vienna with honors, practising for
two years in South Africa, stands now one of the
leading men in his profession in New York City;
President of the Neurological Society, a member of
the medical department of the University of the
City of New York, and Professor in Vermont Uni-
versity. The youngest son, Doctor Bowditch Mor-
ton, named for his father’s devoted friend, a grad-
uate also of Harvard, is universally esteemed for
his ability and successes already won; Mrs. Morton
lives in the happy home of her oldest son,

But though America has never paid Doctor Mor-
ton the debt she owes him, though he died in sad-
ness, count his life a success—the imperishable
good of it is secured to humanity.’ His patience

and perseverance, his courage and hope, his indom-
itable will and unflagging energy, under the most
trying obstacles, in the light of his achievement, re-
main also a legacy, almost as priceless, of inspira-
tion to those who are struggling unaided, either
in the development of science, or the progress of
philanthropy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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THE AMERICAN CRYSTAL
PALACE.

@0D08 0602

THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION,

@>0~<20@ 00

THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN
EXPOSITION,

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818
THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

ESTIMATED Cost oF CONSTRUCTION, ETC.

2020280808

DODO BOSOS

CONSTRUCTION AND EXPENSES

Grading, filling, etc... . .
Landscape gardening
Viaducts and bridges .
Piers a oe
Waterway improvements
Railways...

Steam plant .

Electricity d wees
Statuary on bu eines:
Vases, lamps and posts
Seating . ts é
Water supply, re etc.

Carried forward

Manufactures and Liberal Arts
Administration .

Mines

Electricity

Transportation ;
Transportation Annex .
Woman’s ..

Art Galleries :

Art Gallery Annexes .
Fisheries .
Fisheries Annexes Gy:
Horticulture . . : :
Horticulture Ceesieuees (3)
Machinery

Machinery Annex

Machinery Power House .
Machinery Pumping Works
Machinery Machine Shop

$450,400
323,499
125,000
70,000
225,000
500,000
800,000
1,500,000
100,000
50,000
8,000
600,000

$4,751,890

 

Brought forward . .
Improvement .of lake front .
World’s Congress auxiliary

Construction department expenses, .
Organization and administration,.. .

Operating expenses. . .

Estimated cost of main buildings .- .

Estimated epee pa to close of

Fair ..

DIMENSIONS AND AREA

FEET, ACRES.
787 x 1687 30.5

 

Brought forward

  
    
     
     
  
  
 

$4,751,890
200,060
200,000
520,000
31308563
1,550,000

$10,530,453

8,000,000

 

$18,530,453

 

2,500,000 fi

 

$21,030,453 |

FEET.

262x 262 1.6 Agriculture 500 X
350x 7oo 5.6 Agriculture Annex . .  300X
345 x 690 5.5 Agriculture Assembly Hall, ce . 125 X
256x 960 5.6 Forestry . ae a 208 X
425 x goo 8.8 Sawmill 125 X
199 x 388 1.8 Dairy : 100 X
320 x 500 3.7 Live Stock (2 re 65 x
120xX 200 1.1 Live Stock Pavilion . 280 x
165 x 365 1.4 Live Stock Sheds.

135 diam. .8 Casino 120 X
250x 998 5.7 Music Hall : 120 X

24xX 100 .5 United States Cerne. 345 X
492 x 846 9.6 United States Government Imita-
490X 550 6.2 tion Battle-ship . 69.25 X
490 X 461 Illinois State . 160 x

q7X ef 2.1 Illinois State Wings CG
106 X 250

Total . . we ees
99-5

Carried forward

314

 
WORLD’S FAIRS.

315

_ THE AMERICAN CrYSTAL PALACE,

URING the past half century a favorite and

J effective method of displaying and recording
the industrial progress of the world has been found
in the holding of World’s Fairs or Universal Exhi-
bitions. Almost every important capital of the
world has now held one or more of these interesting
displays, each in succession striving to outdo its pre-
decessors in extent and magnificence, until the latest
of them truly present in epitome the invention, indus-
try, art, science, and general progress of the entire

followed, and almost simultaneously with the exhibi-
tion in the Irish metropolis a similar exhibition was
opened in the capital of the Western Hemisphere.
The American Crystal Palace, which was opened
in New York in 1853, was in point of size much
inferior to its prototype in London, and altogether
insignificant when contrasted with the stupendous
exhibitions of later years. For its time, however, it
was porportionately equal to any that has ever been
held. At that time New York City contained only

 

WCRLD'S FAIR, NEW YORK, 1853.

world. It was fitting that the first of these universal
exhibitions should be held in the world’s chief city,
London. It was opened in 1851 in a huge building
erected in Hyde Park for the purpose, known as the
Crystal Palace. This stupendous structure was com-
posed chiefly of iron and glass and had a floor area
of more than one million square feet, In size and
originality of design it was one of the marvels of the
world. The example quickly stimulated similar
enterprises in other capitals. Dublin and Paris soon

a little more than half a million inhabitants, or about
one-third of its present population. The develup-
ment of the United States was still less advanced.
What are now central Western States were then
sparsely settled frontier territories. The Pacific
railroads were a dream of the dim future. The
Atlantic Cable was a vision. The telegraph itself
was a mere rudiment of its present development.
The railroad and the steamboat were primitive affairs.
Even horse cars had not come into general use.
316

Photography was in its infancy. As for the tele-
phone, the electric light, and a score of other great
inventions that are now of universal use, they were
not even dreamed of. As the New York Crystal
Palace of 1853 is to the Chicago Exhibition of
1893, so was America and its civilization of that
time to our country of to-day,

This first universal exhibition held on American
soil was situated in what is now known as Bryant
Park, in New York City. It is now in the very
heart of the city, at Sixth Avenue and Fortieth and
Forty-second Streets. In 1853 it was well out of
town in the suburbs, and was known as Reservoir
Square. At that time it was surrounded by open
fields and gardens, with here and there rows of
pleasant rural cottages. A few of the streets were
paved in that part of the city, but there was only a
faint indication of what another generation would
see. The little park was four hundred and fifty-five
feet square, and almost the entire area was occupied
by the Crystal Palace. The extreme dimensions of
the building, from north to south and from east to
west, were 365 feet 5 inches, and the arms were each
149 feet 5 inches wide. The municipal authorities
of New York on January 3d, 1852, granted a lease
of Reservoir Square for five years, thus furnishing

WORLD'S FAIRS.

the site for the building. The New York Legislature
on March rith, 1852, granted a charter to the Asso-
ciation for the Industry of all Nations, and on
March 17th the Board of Directors met and organ-
ized with Theodore Sedgwick as President, and
William Whetten as Secretary. The United States
Government gave countenance and aid to the insti-
tution by permitting the introduction of foreign
goods for exhibition free of duty. Daniel Webster,
then Secretary of State, secured the aid of the repre-

' sentatives of the United States at the chief courts of

Europe, and the Ministers of foreign powers residing
in the United States sympathized warmly with the
Association, and commended it favorably to their
respective governments. Under such auspices, and
with such encouragement the work went forward.
The first column was put in place with appropriate
ceremonies on October 3oth, 1852; the building
was open to the public on July 15th, 1853, though
still incomplete; and on Friday evening, August
zoth, 1853, the full opening was effected.

The Crystal Palace was not a financial success.
Nearly a million dollars were lost in the enterprise.
Finally, on the evening of Tuesday, October sth,
1858, the edifice was destroyed by fire, with most of
its contents.

202068020

THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION.

hen the World’s Fair of 1853 was opened in

New York it was evident that the American

nation was nearing some great and important changes.
When the Crystal Palace was burned, in 1858, the
nation was on the very verge of the “impending
conflict’? which had been long foreseen. The war
came. At its close America was a new nation. Its
political, social, and industrial systems were trans-
formed. Its growth and expansion received an
enormous impetus.
of ideas and arts from other countries was many-fold
greater than ever before. And thus it approached
the one hundreth anniversary of its independence,

The influx of population and °

and preparations were made to commemorate the
time with a second Universal Exhibition.

The Centennial Exhibition, which was held in
Philadelphia in 1876, was the greatest fair the world
had then seen. None of its predecessors had equaled
it in extent or surpassed it in variety or general
interest. Paris, in 1867, had given a more compact
and systematic display, and at Vienna, in 1873,
Oriental nations were more fully represented. But
the American Exhibition had many points of
superiority over these. It showed the natural pro-
ducts, industries, inventions, and arts of the Western
Hemisphere as they had never been shown before,
. WORLD’S FAIRS. 317

and brought them for the first time, in their fullness
and perfection, in contrast with those of the Old
World. In the department of machinery it was
incomparably superior to all its predecessors, and
also in that of farm implements and products. In
fine arts it did not contain as many really great mas-
terpieces as had been seen at Paris and Vienna, but
it embraced a wider representation of contemporary
art from all parts of the world. In general manu-
factures the display was much greater in quantity
than had ever before been attempted. And it greatly
exceeded all other fairs as a really international

Machinery Hall, United States Government Build-
ing, and about a hundred smaller structures. The
grounds were traversed by five main avenues, a belt-
line railroad, and many miles of minor walks. There
was an extensive lake, and a splendid wealth of lawns,
flower beds and groves.

The Main Building was the largest edifice in the
world. It was 1,876 feet long and 464 feet wide,
covering 2114 acres of ground. In the centre were
four square towers, 120 feet high. The facades at
the end were go feet high, and the corner towers
75 feet. The central aisle. was 1,832 feet long, 120

 

MAIN BUILDING, INTERNATIONAL CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION, 1876.

exhibition, for every civilized state on the globe,
excepting Greece and a few minor republics in Cen-
tral and South America, was represented,

About 236 acres of Fairmount Park in Philadelphia
were occupied by the Exhibition. The ground was
admirably adapted for the purposes of the Fair. It
was an elevated plateau, with three spurs jutting out
toward the Schuylkill River. One of the three spurs
was occupied by Memorial Hall, containing the art
exhibition, another by Horticultural Hall, and the
third by Agricultural Hall, while the broad plain
where they joined contained the Main Building,

feet wide, and 70 feet high. The framework was of
iron, filled in with wood and glass. Nearly one-third
of the space was occupied by American exhibitors.
Great Britain and her colonies occupied the next
largest area, with a display of enormous proportions:
and dazzling brilliancy. A single firm of silver-
smiths sent half a million dollars’ worth of wares.
France and her colonies and the German Empire
were also splendidly represented. Other conspicuous
exhibitors were Holland, Belgium, Austria, Russia,
Spain, Japan, Sweden and Norway, Italy and China.
Mexico, Brazil, Switzerland, Portugal, Egypt, Tur-
318

key, Denmark, Tunis, Chile, the Argen ne Republic,
Peru, the Orange Free State, the Sandwich Islands,
and Venezuela were also represented, Never before
had there been gathered together in one place such

 

INDEPENDENCE HALL, PHILADELPHIA,

a comprehensive display of the arts and industries of
so many of the peoples of the world.

Machinery Hall, which was especially devoted to
machinery in motion, was 1,402 feet long and 360

WORLD'S FAIRS.

feet wide, with an annex 208 by 210 feet for hydraulic
machinery. There were more than 10,000 feet of
shafting for conveying to the various machines the
motive power generated by the huge Corliss engine.
This enormous machine had cylinders of
44 inches diameter, and a ten-foot stroke,
a fly-wheel 30 feet in diameter, and 56 tons
in weight, making 36 revolutions per min-
ute. There were 20 tubular boilers of 70
horse-power each, and at 60 pounds pres-
sure the work of the engine was about 1400
horse-power. This building contained by
far the largest and most varied display. of
working machinery that had at that time
ever been seen in the world.

General Joseph R. Hawley, President of
the United States Centennial Commission,
formally presented the Exhibition to the
President of the United States, who: re-
sponded in a brief address, closing with
the words, ‘‘I declare the International
Exhibition now open.’’ At that moment a

" thousand flags were unfurled on every hand,
innumerable bells and whistles were sounded,
a salute of one hundred guns were fired, and
Handel’s ‘* Hallelujah Chorus’’ was sung
by the great choir, with organ and orches-

Then the President

and other distinguished guests formed in a

smaall procession and moved through the
principal buildings. In Machinery Hall
the President and the Emperor cf Brazil
set in motion the great engine and all the
machinery connected therewith, being
assisted by Mr. George H. Corliss, the
builder and giver of the engine. Then the
President and other guests were escorted to

tral accompaniment.

the Judges’ pavilion, where a brief recep-

tion was held. This concluded the opening
exercises, and thenceforth the grounds and buildings
were open to the public, at fifty cents admission,
every week-day until November roth, when the
Exhibition was closed.
‘THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

olg

CHICAGO.

 

THE AUDITORIUM HOTEL.

es New York World’s Fair of 1853 was the
third universal exposition ever held, and was
almost exactly contemporaneous with the second.
That in Philadelphia in 1876 was the eighth. That
in Chicago in 1893 is the fourteenth, and far sur-
passes in size and interest all its predecessors, As
a rule, such exhibitions have been held simply to
stimulate commerce and manufactures and educate
the public in the progress of art and industry.
One notable exception to this rule was observed in
1876, when the Universal Exhibition at Philadelphia,
besides fulfilling those objects, also served to com-
memorate the centenary of American Independence.
So, too, the great fair at Chicago marks the four
hundredth anniversary of that memorable enterprise
in which Christopher Columbus found a new world,
not only, as the legend on his banner declared,
for Castile and Leon, but for civilization and for
humanity.

Great as was the advancement of the nation,
material and otherwise, betwecn 1853 and 1876, it
has been no less marked and impressive between the
latter date and the present time. The exhibition at
Chicago, accordingly, in like measure surpasses that
at Philadelphia in variety and extent. ‘There are
new inventions to display which were unheard of in
1876, but which now are familiar as household words.
There are the fruits of the labor and skill of the
many millions who have been added to the popula-
tion of America, There are the results of experi-
ence and observation at the great fairs held in other
lands. There are innumerable circumstances and
conditions combining to make this by far the most
important exhibition the world has yet seen.

During the years of 1889 and 1890 there was much
public discussion of the proposed celebration of the
fourth Columbian centenary, Whena general agrce-
ment was reached that it should chiefly take the form
820

of a World’s Fair, the question arose, in what city
the enterprise should be placed. Rivalry became
exceedingly keen, especially between New York,
Chicago, and-Washington, and presently it was seen
that one of these three must secure the prize. But
which? Washington was the national capital, and
thus an appropriate site; it was accessible; it had
magnificent grounds for the purpose.
As for New York it was the metropolis,
the business and social capital, the chief
port, the city of greatest size and wealth
and interest, In favor of Chicago it was
urged that it was, with its marvellous
growth and enterprise, most truly repre-
sentative of the American spirit; that it
was nearest to the centre of the country,
and that in point of general fitness it was
second to no other. The ultimate deci-
sion was left with Congress, and it was in
favor of Chicago; whereupon all rivalries
were forgotten, and New York and the
whole nation joined loyally in the work
of helping forward the gigantic under-
taking.

It is fitting to take at least a brief
glance at the extraordinary city in which
this latest and greatest Universal Exhi-
bition is to be held—extraordinary both
in its history and in its present status.
The first white man who trod its soil was
the famous French missionary, Father
Marquette. He went thither in 1673.
Later, La Salle, Joliet, Hennepin, and
others visited the region; but none of
them made any settlement there. Indeed
while Boston, New York, Philadelphia,
Baltimore, and other cities were attaining
great size and almost venerable age, the
site of this Western metropolis remained
awilderness. In 1804, however the Gov-
ernment established a frontier military
post at the mouth of the Chicago River,
calling it Fort Dearborn. The little gar-
rison remained there eight years and
then, in 1812, was annihilated by the
Indians, though a few other white settlers
survived and held their ground. The
next attempt at settlement occurred in 1829, when
James Thompson surveyed the site for a proposed

THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

town. On August roth, 1833, the settlement was
incorporated, there being twenty-eight legal voters.
On March 4th, 1837, a city charter was obtained,
and thenceforth the growth of the place was rapid
and substantial beyond all imagination. In 1840
the population was 4,479; in 1850 it was 28,269;

in 1860 it was 112,172; and 1870 it was 298,977.

 

 

 

CHICAGO IN 1856.

In the fall of 1871 occurred an event notable not
only in the history of Chicago, but of the whole
THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION,

world. A little before midnight, on October gth, a
fire broke out, at the corner of De Koven and Jeffer-
son Streets. The weatherfor weeks had been dry,
- and a high wind prevailed. Before daylight the fire
_had burned its way to Lincoln Park, nearly four

 

TACOMA BUILDING.

miles ; and by the following afternoon it,had spread
Over 2,100 acres, 100,000 people were homeless,
and $200,000,000 worth of property was destroyed.
The business part of the city was a waste of ashes.
With characteristic generosity the whole country

' Chicago met promptly. A

321

sprang to the relief of the stricken city. A fund of

nearly $5,000,000 was quickly collected, and the

work of succoring the needy and rebuilding the city

was begun. Within two years almost every trace of

the stupendous calamity had vanished, and the
growth of the city proceeded even more
swiftly than before In 1880 its population
was 503,185, and in 1890 it had been swelled
to the enormous total of 1,098,576—the
second city of the Union, Its growth is at
the rate of more than 1,000 per week.

When it was incorporated Chicago cov-
ered an area of two and a-half square miles ;
now it covers 181.7 square miles. Its lake
front is 22 miles, and its frontage on the
river 58 miles. Ithas more than 2,230 miles
of streets, mostly broad and well paved.
Its water supply is drawn from away out
in Lake Michigan, and amounts to a hun-
dred gallons daily for each inhabitant,
though the works are capable of furnishing
twice that quantity. Twenty-six indepen-
dent railroad lines enter the city, making

_ it the greatest railroad centre in America.

Nor is Chicago lacking in facilities for
transportation by water. Its situation gives
it easy access to all the commercial activi-
ties of the great lake system; and it has
direct water communication by way of the
St. Lawrence River with Montreal, and by
the Erie Canal and Hudson River with
New York.

Figures are dry reading. But these few
statistics are necessary to show what man-
ner of city is this Western metropolis in
which the greatest exhibition of the world’s
industry isheld. How the city was selected
has already been told.

In order that the City of Chicago might
enjoy the honor conferred upon her by hav-
ing the Exhibition held there, she was
required to furnish an adequate site, accept-
able to the’ National Commission, and
$10,000,000 in money, which sum was, in

the language of the Acts of Congress, considered
necessary and sufficient for the complete preparation
for the Exhibition. This obligation the citizens of
suitable site and
$10,000,000 were provided, and, on evidence thereof,
822

the President of the United States issued his pro-
clamation, inviting the nations of the earth to par-
ticipate in the Exhibition. The $10,000,000 was
secured, first, by subscriptions to the capital stock
of the corporation to the amount of more than
$5,000,000 and a municipal appropriation tc the
City of Chicago of $5,000,000, People of all classes

THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

subscribed to the capital stock, from the richest
millionaires to the poorest wage-earners and the
entire sum of $5,000,000 was subscribed in a very
short time. An additional issue of stock was made,
and it also was rapidly taken up, until the popular
subscriptions aggregated nearly $8,000,000,

W000? 0680T 0

THE Wortp’s CoLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE LAGOON,

HE site of the Columbian Exposition is a truly
magnificent one, No World’s Fair ever had

one surpassing if equalling it. It embraces Jackson
Park and Washington Park, and the Midway Plais-
ance, astrip 600 feet wide connecting the two parks.
Jackson Park, where nearly all of the buildings are

located, is beautifully situated on the shore of Lake
Michigan, having a lake frontage of two miles and
an area of 586 acres. Washington Park contains
37£ acres, and the Midway Plaisance 80 acres.
Upon these parks, previously to their selection for
the World's Fair site, $4,000,000 was spent in laying
THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

out the grounds and beautifying them. The Exhi-
bition Company has spent more than ¢1,000,000
additional for similar purposes. These parks are
connected with the central portion of the City of
Chicago and with the general park and boulevard
system by more than thirty-five miles of boulevards
from i100 to 300 feet in width. The Midway
Plaisance is a popular driveway to the upper end of

323

near the shore of the lake, almost surrounded by the
lagoons. ‘The style of architecture is classic renais-
sance, and the building is 500 by 800 feet in ground
area. It consists of a single story, with a cornice
line 65 feet above the ground. Huge Corinthian
pillars flank the main entrance, each go feet high
and 5 feet in diameter, At each corner and from
the centre of the building rise huge pavilions, that

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RUINS OF YUCATAN.

Jackson Park, and is a broad and spacious avenue
richly embellished with trees and shrubs. The
inclosed portion of it connected with the Exhibition
grounds runs directly eastward, throughout its entire
length presenting some of the most picturesque and
novel effects of the whole Fair.

One of the finest structures on the Exhibition
grounds is the Agricultural Building, as befits the
foremost agricultural nation on the globe. It stands

at the centre being 144 feet square. The four
corner pavilions are each connected by curtains,
forming a continuous arcade around the top of the
building. The main entrance leads through an
opening 64 feet wide into a vestibule, and thence
into the rotunda, too feet in diameter, surmounted
by a magnificent glass dome 130 feet high. The
corner pavilions are surmounted by domes 96
feet high.
324

At the south side of the Agricultural Building is
another. vast structure, devoted principally to a
Live Stock and Agricultural Assembly Hall. This
is the common meetiug-point for all persons inter-
ested in live stock and agricultural pursuits. This
building contains a fine lecture-room, with a seating
capacity of about 1,500, in which lectures are
delivered and conferences held on topics connected
with live stock, agriculture, and allied industries. |

The Forestry Building stands near the Agricul-
tural Building, and is the most unique of all the
Exhibition structures. Its ground area is 208 by
528 feet. On all four sides is a veranda, the roof
of which is supported by a colonnade, each column
of which consists of three tree-trunks, each 25 feet
long. These trunks are in their natural state,
with the bark undisturbed. They were contributed

by the different States and -Territories of the’

Union, and by various foreign countries, - each
furnishing specimens of its most characteristic
trees. The walls of the building are covered
with slabs of logs with the bark removed. The
roof is thatched with bark. Within, the build-
ing is finished in a great variety of woods, so treated
as to show, to the best advantage, their graining,
their colors, their susceptibility to polish, etc. It
contains a wonderful exhibition of forest products
in general, doubtless thé most complete ever seen
in the world, including logs and sections of trees,
worked lumber in the form of beams, planks, shin-
gles, etc., dye-woods and barks, mosses, gums,
resins, vegetable ivory, rattan, willow-ware, and
wooden-ware generally, etc. There is also a large
exhibit of saw-mill and wood-working machinery,
including four complete saw-mills in an annex at-
tached to the Forestry Building.

Close by the Forestry Building is the Dairy Build-
ing, which contains not only a complete exhibit of
dairy products, but also a dairy school, in connec-
tion with which are conducted a series of tests for
determining the relative merits of different breeds
of dairy cattle as producers of milk and butter.
This structure stands near the lake shore and is 100
by 200 feet in area, and two stories high. On the
first floor, besides office headquarters, there is alarge
room devoted to exhibits of butter, and further
back an operating room, in which a model dairy will
_be conducted. On two sides of this room are seats
for 400 spectators to witness the operations of the

THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION,

model dairy, Ina gallery about this rcom are the
exhibits of cheese. dig
The Horticultural Building stands immediately

south of the entrance to Jackson Park from the
Midway Plaisance, facing on the lagoon. Between
it and the lagoon is a terrace devoted to out-door
exhibits of flowers and plants, including large tanks
for various liliesand other aquatic plants. The
building is 998 feet long and 250 feet wide, con-~
sisting of a central pavilion with two end pavilions,
each of the latter connected with the central one
by front and rear curtains, forming two interior
courts, each 88 by 270 feet. These courts are
planted with ornamental shrubs and flowers. Over
the central pavilion rises a glass dome 187 feet in
diameter, and 113 feet high, under which are exhi-
bited the tallest palms and tree ferns that can be

 

GEN. THOMAS W. PALMER,
PRESIDENT NATIONAL COMMISSION, WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSIT-ON,

procured. This building is devoted to the exhi-
bition of flowers, plants, vines, seeds, horticultural
implements, and all allied objects and industries.

The enormous mining industries of America,
apart from those of the rest of the world, would call
for much space for their proper accommodation.
The Hall of Mines and Mining stands at the south-
ern extremity of the western lagoon, and is 700 feet
long by 350 wide. Its architecture is early Italian
renaissance. Within it consists of a single story
surrounded by galleries 60 feet wide. There is thus
a huge interior space 630 feet long and 230 feet wide,
with an extreme height of roo feet at the.centre and
4o feet at the sides, It is spanned bya steel canti-
lever roof, abundantly lighted with glass.
THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

The Fine Arts Building isa noble specimen of
classic Grecian architecture. Its area is 500 by
320 feet, divided within by nave and transepts 100
feet wide and 70 feet high, at the intersection of
which isa dome 60 feet in diameter. The top of
the dome is 125 feet above the ground, and is sur-
mounted by a colossal statue representing a Winged
Victory. The building is beautifully located in the
northern part of the park, the south front facing
the lagoon, from which it is separated by beautiful
terraces, ornamented with balustrades. A huge
flight of steps leads from the main entrance down to
the water’s edge. The north front faces a wide lawn
and a group of State buildings. The grounds about
it are richly ornamented with groups of statues and
other artistic works.

The great development in late years of electrical
science calls for a large building in which to dis-
play one of the most novel and brilliant of all the
exhibits in the fair. The Electrical Building, 345
feet wide and 690 feet long, has its south front on
the great Quadrangle, its north front on the lagoon,
its east front toward the Manufacturers’ Building,
and its west front toward the Hall of Mines and
Mining. Its plan comprises a longitudinal nave
115 feet wide and 114 feet high, with a central tran-
sept of the same dimensions. These have a pitched

 

MRS, POTTER PALMER,
PRESIDENT OF WOMAN'S NATIONAL COMMISSION.

roof. The remainder of the building, filling the
external angles of the nave and transept, is 62 feet
high with a flat roof. The outer walls are composed

825

of a continuous series of Corinthian pilasters resting
upon a stylobate, and supporting a massive entabla-
ture. At the centre of the north side is a pavilion
flanked by two towers 195 feet high. At its centre
is a huge semicircular window, above which, ro2 feet
from the ground, is an open gallery commanding a
splendid view of the lake and park. At the south
side is a vast niche 78 feet wide and 103 feet high,
its opening framed by a semicircular arch. In the
centre of this niche, upon a lofty pedestal, is a
colossal statue of Franklin. The east and west cen-
tral pavilions are composed of towers 168 feet high.
At each of the four corners of the building is a
pavilion with a tower 169 feet high. The building
also bears 54 lofty masts, from which banners are
displayed by day and electric lamps at night.

The Fisheries Building consists of a large central
structure with two smaller polygonal buildings con-
nected with it on either end by arcades. The total
length is 1,100 feet, and the width 200 feet. In the
central portion are the general fisheries exhibit ; in
one of the polygonal buildings the angling exhibit,
and in the other the aquaria. The external archi-
tecture is Spanish Romanesque. The ingenuity of
the architect has designed after fishes and other sea
forms all the capitals, medallions, brackets, cornices,
and other ornamental details. The aquaria contains
about 140,000 gallons of water, 40,000 of it being
salt. They consist of a series of ten tanks, with
glass fronts to afford an easy view of their contents.

The Woman’s Building, which was fittingly
designed by a woman, is architecturally one of the
most attractive. It is encompassed by luxuriant
shrubbery and beds of flowers with a background of
stately forest trees, and faces the great lagoon.
Between the building and the lagoon are two terraces
ornamented with balustrades and crossed by splendid
flights of steps. The principal fagade of the build-
ing is 388 feet long and the depth of the building is
199 feet. The architecture is Italian renaissance.
The main grouping consists of a centre pavilion,
flanked at each end by corner pavilions, connected
in the first story by open arcades in the curtains,
forming a shaded promenade, extending the whole
length of the building. The structure throughout is
two stories high, with a total elevation of 60 feet.
At the centre is a fine rotunda, 65 by 70 feet,
crowned with a richiy ornamented skylight. The
building contains a model hospital, a model kinder-
326

garten, a model kitchen, a library, refreshment
rooms, a great assembly room, and other depart-
ments for displaying the varied industries in which
women are especially interested.

It is impossible here to describe in detail the archi-
tectural features or the marvellous contents of the
great Machinery Hall. It is one of the most
splendid structures on the grounds, measuring 846
by 492 feet in ground area, and standing at the
extreme south end of the Park, just south of the
Administration Building, and west from the Agri-
cultural Building, from which it is separated by a

THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

main floor by 30 staircases, each 12 feet wide. An
aisle 50 feet wide, called Columbia Avenue, extends
from end to end of the building, and a transept of
similar width crosses it at the centre. The main
roof is of iron and glass, and its ridge pole-is 150
feet from the ground. It covers an area 1,400 by
385 feet. The actual floor space of the building,
including galleries, is about 40 acres. The general
style of architecture is Corinthian, with almost end-
less arrays of columns and arches. There are four
great entrances, one in the centre of each facade.
These have the appearance of triumphal arches, the

 

LAKE FRONT.

lagoon. The general design of its interior is that
of three enormous railroad train houses side by side,
each spanned by trussed arches, and surrounded on
all four sides by a gallery, so feet wide. The bulk
of the machinery exhibited is in this edifice and its
large annex.

The building devoted to displays of Manufactures
and Liberal Arts is the largest of all. Its ground
area measures 1,687 by 787 feet, or nearly 31 acres.
Within, a gallery 50 feet wide extends around all the
four sides, and projecting from this are 86 smaller
galleries, 12 feet wide.

These are reached from the:

central opening of each being 40 feet wide and 80
feet high, Above each isa great attic story, orna-
mented with sculptured eagles 18 feet high. At
each corner of the building is a pavilion with huge
arched entrances corresponding in design with the
principal portals of the building. This stately edi-
fice faces the lake, with only lawns and promenades
between it and the water. North of it is the United
States Government Building, south of it the harbor
and injutting lagoon, and west of it the Electrical
Building and the lagoon separating it from the great
island.
THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

The Transportation exhibit is one of the most
interesting of the whole display, and is housed in a
huge Romanesque building, standing between the
Horticultural and Mining Buildings. It faces the
east and commands a fine view of the lagoon and

 

HON. GEORGE R. DAVIS,
DIRECTOR-GENERAL OF THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

great island. Its area measures g60 by 256 feet,
besides a vast annex covering 9 acres more. The
principal entrance to the building is through a huge
arch, very richly decorated. Within the building is
treated after the manner of a Roman Basilica, with
broad nave and aisles.
rising 165 feet above the ground, and reached by
eight elevators. The exhibits in this building and
its annex comprise everything pertaining to trans-

portation, including all manner of railroad engines —

and ‘cars, steamboats and other vessels, coaches,
cabs and carriage balloons and carrier pigeons,
bicycles and baby carriages, cash conveyers for
stores, pneumatic tubes, passenger and freight ele-
vators, etc.

The United States Government Building stands
near the lake shore, south of the main lagoon. Its
architecture is classic, resembling the National
Museum and other Government Buildings at Wash-
ington. It is made of iron, brick and glass, and
‘measures 345 by 415 feet. At the centre is an
octagonal dome, 120 feet in diameter and 150 feet
high, The south half of the building is devoted to
exhibits of the Post Office, Treasury, War and
Agricultural Departments. The north half is given

At the centre is a cupola ~

327

up to the Interior Department, the Smithsonian
Institute and the Fisheries Commission. The State
Department exhibit is between the rotunda and the
east, and the Department of Justice between the
rotunda and the west end.

The gem of all the buildings is that occupied by
the Administration of the Exhibition. It stands at
the west end of the great court, looking eastward,
just in front of the railroad stations. It covers an
area 262 feet square and consists of four pavilions,
each 84 feet square, connected by a vast central
dome 120 feet in diameter and 220 feet high, leav-

“ing at the centre of each fagade a recess of 82 feet

wide within which are the grand entrances to the
building. The general design is in the style of the
French renaissance. The first story is Doric, of
heroic proportions, and the second Ionic. The four
great entrances are each 50 feet wide and 50 feet
high, deeply recessed and covered by semi-circular
arches. The great dome, which is one of the most
striking features in the landscape of the Exhibition,
is richly gilded externally. Within 1t is decorated
with a profusion of sculpture and paintings.

The Illinois State Building is naturally by far the
finest of all the structures erected by the various

 

PRESIDENT H. N. HIGINBOTHAM
OF THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

States of the Union. It stands on a high terrace in
one of the choicest parts of Jackson Park, com-
manding a splendid view of the grounds. It is 450
feet long and 160 feet wide. At the north Memo-
rial Hall forms a wing 50 by 75 feet. At the south
328

is another wing, 75 by 123 feet, three stories high,
containing the executive offices and two large
public halls. Surmounting the central portion of
the building is a fine dome 72 feet in diameter and
235 feet high. The entire edifice is constructed,
almost exclusively, of wood, stone, brick and steel,
produced by the State of Illinois.

THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

turrets, torpedo tubes, nets and booms, anchors,
chain cables, davits, awnings, smoke-stacks, a mili-
tary mast, etc., together with all appliances for work-
ing the same. Near the top of the military masts
are shelters for sharpshooters in which are mounted
rapid firing guns. The battery consists of four
13-inch breech loading rifles, eight 8-inch rifles,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

GONDOLA.

The contribution of the United States Naval
Department is one of the most novel ever seen at any
World’s Fair. It is comprised in a structure which,
to all outward appearance is one of the newest and
most powerful ships of war. This is, however,
‘only an imitation battle-ship, composed of masonry
and resting on piling in the lake. It has all the
fittings that belong to an actual ship, such as guns,

four 6-inch rifles, twenty 6-pounder rapid firing
guns, six 1-pound rapid firing guns, two Gatling
guns, and six torpedo tubes. These are all placed

-and mounted exactly as in a genuine battle-ship.

All along the starboard side is a torpedo protection
net. The entire structure is 348 feet long and 69
feet 3 inches wide. It is manned by officers and
men detailed by the Navy Department, who give
THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

boat, torpedo, and gun drills, and maintain the dis-
cipline and mode of life to be observed on the real
vessels of the Navy.

The buildings of the Exhibition were dedicated
with appropriate ceremonies on October 21st, 1892,
~ being the 4ooth anniversary of the landing of Colum-
bus. They were opened to the public, however, for
the general purposes of the Exhibition, May rst,

329

1893, and will continue open from that day until
October zoth, 1893. During its progress there will
be held on its grounds and in its buildings in-
numerable conventions and festivals of national and
international interest, and it will doubtless be a
more truly universal exhibition than any -that has
yet been held in the world.

D202] 0400202

THe Mipway PLAISANCE.

Nearly one mile in length and 600 feet wide, The
Midway Plaisance forms a connecting link be-
tween Jackson and Washington Parks, the eastern
end being beside the Woman’s Building. A broad
walk for visitors extends through the centre, with a
twenty-five toot passage-way for police and firemen
on either side, which is also used for conveying sup-
plies during the night to the various villages etc.

Entering the Midway Plaisance at the eastern end,
the visitor first encounters the Irish Industrial
Village, occupying the southeast portion of the
grounds.
of Aberdeen, the wife of the Earl of Aberdeen, for-
merly Viceroy of Ireland and newly appointed Gov-
ernor-General of Canada. Lady Aberdeen founded,
while in Ireland, the Irish Industries Association,
among whose numbers are included the most promi-
nent persons in Ireland of all classes, creeds and
_ political opinions.
‘ the development and organization of cottage or
‘home industries throughout Ireland. Much has

already been done to make the work of the Irish poor
known in Great Britain, and the object of this village
at the World’s Fair isto demonstrate the expertness of
the workers and to find a market for their goods on
this side of the Atlantic. Special features are Lady
Aberdeen’s Cottage, the gateway of the village,
modeled after the entrance to King Cormac’s Chapel,
Rock of Cashel, a beautiful old Irish Cross, the his-
toric Castle of Blarney, a replica of the cloister from
Muckross Abbey, and a succession of cottages, each
exhibiting an industry in course of production, such

This exhibit is in charge of the Countess ished product.

The object of the’association is

as lace-making, hand-loom weaving, embroidery,
spinning, knitting, and a model dairy, where dairy-
maids show both old and new ways of butter-making.
Bog-oak and wood carving and jewelry are also ex-
hibited. After passing the Adams’ Express
Company’s Office we next come to the New
England Log Cabin, furnished in old-time style
and with inmates dressed in the costumes of that
day. Across the walk is the booth of the Diamond
Match Company, displaying the raw materials and
the processes by which they are converted into the fin-
Immediately west is the Philadel-
phia Model Workingman’s Home, and adjoin-
ing that the exhibit of the International Dress
and Costume Company. Here some fifty beau-
ties, selected from different countries, display their
charms of face and form in striking national cos-
tumes. Next, and still on the north side of the walk,
is the Electric Scenic Theatre, displaying the
latest electric methods of scenic effect. The exhibit
of the Libby Glass Company is one of the most
interesting at the Fair, showing as it does the many
processes of glass-making, from the mixing of the
ingredients to the most approved methods of cutting,
polishing and finishing; glass spinning and weaving is
also shown. Still keeping on the north side, the
Irish Village is reached, and here the visitor sees a
faithful reproduction of the St. Lawrence Gate at
Drogheda, built in the year 1200, the beautiful ruins
of Donegal Castile and a tall round tower, with a fine
carved Celtic Market Cross. Here are many houses,
the interiors and exteriors of which are reproduc-
330

tions of Irish cottages, and the workers are genuine
Celts, brought expressly from Ireland. A vast num-
ber of useful and elegant articles of Irish manufac-
ture are shown here. Bruce Joy, the Irish sculptor,
shows, among the art works, statues of William Glad-
stone, John Bright and a bust of Mary Anderson.
A prominent feature is the Wishing Chair of the
Giant’s Causeway, standing on real Irish soil. Cross-
ing to the south side again the United States
Submarine Exhibit, the exhibits of the Venice

THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION

containing 200,000 square feet, eighty dwellings and
a café, built after the fashion of Dutch dwelling-
houses in these islands, and three hundred natives
fromthe islands of Java, Sumatra, Borneo, Jehore,
Samoa, Fiji, New Zealand and the Sandwich group.
In the settlement are two theatres, one Hawaiian, the
other Javanese. At the latter the band and dancing
girls belong to the Sultan of Jokjerkata. The
dancers derive their talent from long lines of dancing
ancestresses, for there is a caste in the islands devoted

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

IRISH VILLAGE,

Murano Glass and the Hagenbeck Animal
Show are found in the order named. ‘The last-
mentioned shows the success attained by Mr. Carl
Hagenbeck in training and taming the most ferocious
animals known to man. Directly opposite is the
Japanese Bazar containing the characteristic
exhibits of that ingenious and artistic people.
Crossing Madison Avenue, where it intersects
the central walk, the exhibit known as the Dutch
Settlement is next encountered. This really con-
sists of a collection of South Sea Island Villages,

to thisoccupation. They are young, lithe, and beauti-
fully formed, and consequently, extremely graceful.
Acrobats, jugglers, dancers and medicine men from
other islands give wonderful exhibitions of their skill.
West of the Javanese Settlement is the German
Village, justly one of the most popular on the
grounds. Itrepresents German life in all its aspects.
The buildings are constructed of German material,
by German workmen, in German fashion, and appear
able to withstand the storms of many decades,
although built for a six months’ season only. A
THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION, Bal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

medizeval stronghold, a feudal castle
of the early sixteenth century, is sur-
rounded by a moat crossed by draw-
bridges. The halls are filled with a
most interesting museum. Among
other features is the celebrated collec-
tion of arms, coats of mail, imple-
ments of war and of the chase, be-
longing to Town Councillor Zschille,
of Grossenhain, Saxony. This collec-
tion alone is valued at £1,000,000.
Other features are typical German
farmhouses, articles of German indus-
try, two German military bands in
picturesque uniforms, covered pavil-
ions, accommodating 8,000 people at
one time, a concert garden and a
fine restaurant. Opposite the eastern
end of the German Village is the
Natatorium, with baths, swimming
pools, etc., café and open-air dining-
room. Immediately west the pictur-
esque building containing the Pan-
orama of the Bernese Alps next
attracts attention. This panorama,
the work of Messrs. Durmand, Furet
and Brand-Bovy, is 65 feet high and ;
over soo feet long. Fascinating and BERNESE ALPS.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
332

beautiful Alpine scenery, Swiss chalets, rugged,
moss-covered rocks, herds of cows and goats,
gr2at fields of snow and sparkling glaciers
make it difficult to believe that it is the paint-
ers’ art and not ‘‘Alps on Alps arising.’’
Next, on the south side, the Turkish Vil-
lage, with its Bagdad Kiosk, in early Turkish
architecture, its silver bed, weighing two tons,
once the property of a Turkish Sultan, its
imitation of one of the old streets in Constan-
tinople, and the two hundred natives, under
the care of one of their priests, presents a
novel and faithful picture of Oriental life.
West of the Woodlawn Avenue entrance, on
the south side, is the Moorish Palace, an
elaborate building, with walls and ceilings
decorated with fine paintings, the whole sur-
mounted by an airy dome. Grottos and foun-
tains, illuminated by colored electric lights,
bronzes, tiles, rugs, art objects and other
curios, with Arab attendants in native cos-
tume abound. Crossing to the north side the
Zoopraxiscopic Exhibit is of vast interest
to scientists and artists. The study of animal
locomotion is a new one and is pursued chiefly

Sai

Ter sy

MOORISH PALACE.

THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ys ==
Bs

 

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BAGDAD KIOSK,

by electro-photographic investigations, and
the lectures are interesting, even to the non-
scientific or non-artistic visitor, Inthe Per-
sian Concession, which adjoins this lecture
hail, one can purchase rugs, daggers, scimeters
and other wares of the famous artisans from
the land of Zoroaster. North of the last two
exhibits is The Street in Cairo, a series of
views in the mysterious land of the Nile.
Here in the Midway Plaisance the visitor can
easily fancy himself in the land of the Caliphs
—a land the record of whose civilization can-
not be found in authentic. history, but -comes
to us through dim traditions and the crum-
bling monuments that rear their heads above
the scorching sands of the desert. To com-
plete the illusion one meets the identical types
of people, animals and architecture seen at
the present day in grand Cairo. Here an
African or Kabyle jostles the Arab from the
Soudan, while camels, donkeys and donkey
boys are very much in evidence. Past houses
with projecting second stories, gaudy with
barbaric coloring, comes -the voice of the
THE WORLD’S

 

STREET IN CAIRO.

Muezzin, calling the faithful to prayer from the
balcony of his graceful minaret, reproduced in
fifteenth century architecture, while across the street
is the dwelling of a merchant
prince of the seventeenth century,

COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

333

The model of the Eiffel Tower, a feature of the last
Paris Exposition, is a curious contrast to the scenes
just witnessed. The model is one-fiftieth the size of
the original, with every feature accurately repro-
duced. About midway in the Plaisance is the
Ferris Wheel; this novel structure consists of a
huge wheel or rather two skeleton wheels, 264 feet
high and 28% feet apart, hung between two towers,
between which are suspended thirty-six passenger
coaches, with a carrying capacity of 2160 people; the
axle is 33 feet in diameter and 45% feet long, being
the largest steel forging ever made. The Glass
Spinning Exhibit adjoining shows the methods of
converting the fragile material into products which
will bear considerable rough handling. Immediately
south is the Ice Railway,a combination of toboggan
slide and skating-rink, a coating of ice being kept
continually in condition by means of ice-making
machinery. Just west of the Ice Railway are the
Model of St. Peter’s Cathedral at Rome and
the French Cider Press; the former is a master-
piece of workmanship, 30 feet in length by 15 feet in
width and 15 feet in height. Begun in the six-
teenth century, from the plans and drawings of the
original architects, and having been in the possession
of several Popes and noble Roman families, it faith-
fully represents the original structure; the carved
wood of which it is composed is covered with a sub-
stance perfectly imitating marble, Rare portraits
and other articles of interest are contained in the
interior. In the latter French peasant girls, in Nor-
mandy caps and short skirts, serve cider, made from

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

rich in mosaics and gilded ceilings.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

-The ‘‘okala,’’ or public warehouse

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

before the advent of railroads and

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

steamers, is faithfully reproduced.
Tents and temples, a café in the
shape of a small mosque, where
fragrant Mocha can be had, a the-
atre, richly decorated with lanterns 4
and hangings, are other attractions.
Priceless oriental merchandise of ™&
every description abound in the
bazars, which with the dancing
girls, the conjurers and musicians,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

must be seen to be appreciated.

 
apples in a French press, operated
by French peasants. The Vienna
Cafe occupies the middle of the
centre walk; regular meals are
served on the lower floor, while the
upper is devoted to wine and beer
tables and cold lunches. The In-
dian Bazar comes next and is
situated on the north side of the
walk. Here the visitor may pur-
_chase a great variety of oriental
merchandise. For the protection
of the Plaisance a Fire and
Guard Station is located near
this point. The Algerian and
Tunisian Village adjoins the
Indian Bazar on the north. With
its Moorish dome, minarets and ———

towers, its exterior of richly-colored VOLCANO OF KILAUEA.

and glazed tiles; the main build-
ing presents a most striking appearance. The vil- a concert hall, Kabyle Arab houses, with natives

lage shows a street in Algiers, also one in Tunis, engaged in their ordinary occupation and amuse-
ments, and a theatre, with musicians,

dancing girls and jugglers to the number
of fifty, are special features of the orien-
tal scene. As in many of the other
exhibits various wares of local manufac-
ture are’sold. From North Africa to the
Sandwich Islands is but a step. Here
is found the cyclorama of the Volcano
of Kilauea. The greatest volcano in
the world, situated in the island of
Hawaii, is portrayed in awful sublimity
upon 22,248 square feet of canvas. Ata
height of more than fifty feet above the
ground the figure of Pele, Hawaii’s god-
dess of fire, surmounts the entrance por-
tal. Upon the same side of the walk is
the Chinese Village, with joss-houses,
tea-garden, restaurant, bazar and theatre.
Grotesque idols and fragrant incense in
the former with dramatic talent of the
highest quality and rich costuming in
the latter, gives us outside barbarians
realistic views of the mode of worship
and amusements of the inhabitants of the
Flowery Kingdom. Some fabulously
high-priced teas are shown in the tea-
garden, while in the restaurant both

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CHINE‘ E VILLAGE,
THE WORLD’S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION. °

American and Mongolian menus are offered to the
visitor. The Captive Balloon park is the next
attraction on the west. In favorable weather three
ascents per hour are made. The car will contain
from sixteen to twenty people.

The Austrian Village, on the south side of the
‘walk, next engages the attention. Here thirty-six
buildings, the largest of which is the Rathhaus or

8385

accommodation. Adjoining Old Vienna on the
west is the Dahomey Village, divided into two.
parts, containing huts for forty men and sixty women
respectively, A museum, open sheds for cooking,
and the front of the exhibit, built of wood brought:
from Dahomey, especially interests the visitor.
The villagers exhibit their various ceremonials and
dances, and give their war-cries, songs, and chants.,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DAHOMEY VILLAGE.

city hall, show a portion of Old Vienna as it was one
hundred and fifty years ago. A church, with servi-
ces in the Austrian custom, and thirty-four shops
and dwelling-houses are with the Rathhaus grouped
around a court. Viennese wares of present and
earlier days are sold, and in the restaurant Vienna
bread, coffee and other comestibles are served by
Viennese waitresses. Austrian firms doing business
at the Fair have a branch Bank here for their

In the Lapland Village thirty-seven natives, in
their peculiar costumes, exhibit numerous curious
articles, mechanical products, etc. Hair-workers,
musicians and artists show their handiwork. A
number of reindeer and sledges are also on exhibition.
Budapest, the capital of Hungary, sends to the Fair
her choicest musicians, who give concerts every half:
hour in the theatre, in the lower part of the exhibit
known as the Hungarian Orpheum. Dressed in
3386 “THE WORLD'S COLUMBIAN EXPOSITION.

appropriate costumes the different tribes composing his race to receive scientific musical education and
the empire give the songs and dances of their training. The Barre Sliding Railway, also the
respective countries. The famous Hungarian band Blue Grotto of Capri, and more particularly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LAPLAND VILLAGE,

at intervals perform their choicest music, and there theNursery Exhibit, situated on either side of
is also a Gypsy band, under the direction of a leader the central walk, attract crowds of delighted

who enjoys the distinction of being the only one of _ visitors.

Tae

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