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Title: Harper's Round Table, March 23, 1897

Author: Various

Release date: January 12, 2020 [eBook #61154]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Annie R. McGuire


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, MARCH 23, 1897 ***




Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 23, 1897. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVIII.--NO. 908. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

       *       *       *       *       *




[Illustration]

OLD PORTSMOUTH.

A CHAPTER OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY.

BY SIR WALTER BESANT.


Portsmouth, as I remember the place in the days of my early youth--say,
somewhere about the years 1844 to 1850--was surely the liveliest place,
the most full of action, movement, and life, of any in her Majesty's
dominions, which were then half as wide as they are at present. Not as a
place of industry; there was never, if you please, any industry at all
carried on in that town outside the Dock-yard, except of course the
industry of fleecing the sailor. This was a merry and an exhilarating
sport, because the sailor himself enjoyed being fleeced, entered
thoroughly into the spirit of the game, and neither resented nor
regretted what he knew would be the end of it--viz., the loss of all his
money. Nor, again, could the town be considered picturesque. Somehow,
Portsmouth always escaped any beauty of buildings and streets. There
was, it is true, a late eighteenth-century look about most of the
streets; there was one old church within the Walls; there was a square
low tower at the end of High Street which looked well; there were Gates
in the Walls; and there was the _Domus Dei_, the ancient garrison
chapel, then not yet "discovered" or restored. There must have been, I
suppose, a time when the High Street and St. Thomas's Street and St.
Mary's Street were built with gabled houses and with timbered fronts,
but they had all disappeared long before my time.

The real centre of the town was, of course, the Common Hard--which is
one of the streets of the world like the Cannebière of Marseilles, the
King's Road of Brighton, or the High Street of Oxford. Portsmouth cannot
be conceived as existing without the Common Hard. It is a broad street
facing the harbor; at one end are the gates of the Dock-yard; at the
other, a police station, in front of which at one time stood a pair of
stocks. The magistrates, in their wisdom, revived this time-honored
punishment for a while, but I believe it did not answer. Certainly I
myself once saw a man in the stocks. I must have been a child of six or
eight at the time, but I remember him well, because I was immensely
impressed with the shamefulness of it, and I expected to see the
prisoner hanging his head and weeping. Not a bit, if you please. The
hardened villain sat up, faced the foot-lights, and grinned merrily all
the time.

The street contained shops of all sorts--shops of curios brought home by
the sailors and sold to their merchants; jewellers' shops; shops
offering telescopes, sextants, and all kinds of naval things; taverns
and hotels--then called inns. These shops, however, were not designed
for able-bodied Jack, I believe, but for his officer.

It was a fine lookout from the Hard upon the harbor, which was crammed
full of ships--ships fitting, ships just come home, harbor-ships, hulks,
store-ships, tugs, tenders, and small steamers. As yet the man-o'-war
was a wooden ship. She carried 120 guns and a thousand men; mostly she
sailed, and in the art of sailing she had no equal. As a boy I thought,
and still think, that there is no work of man's craft and ingenuity more
wonderful, more beautiful, than a great three-decker in full sail.

Those who wished to cross the harbor or to visit a ship, started from
the "Beach" or from the "Logs." The Beach was a narrow spit of sand and
shingle running out into the water; it was the "stairs" for the
watermen, who all day long kept up a perpetual bawling. "Going over? One
more. Just going over. Only one more!" When they had a boat-load, say
six or eight passengers at a penny apiece, they put off, and rowed
across the harbor to Gosport, on the other side.

Saw one ever a more animated sight than the harbor on a fine summer
morning in the forties? Boats manned by Royal Navy men working their way
here and there, yachts letting out their sails for a cruise in the
Solent, wherries plying backwards and forwards, ships in the grip of the
tide. We pass on our way the _Victory_, Nelson's last ship; she is
moored off the Beach, and swings round with every tide. If you went on
board you would see the place where Nelson fell, and the place where
Nelson died--a dark and noisome hole on the orlop-deck down below.
Yonder black hulk without masts is a ship whose exploits would fill a
volume. Her name is the _Billy Ruffian_--mealy mouths call her the
_Bellerephon_. Beside her, another dismasted hulk, now a coal-ship, is
the _Asia_, from which was fired the shot which blew up the Turkish
Admiral at Navarino. Beside her is the _Arethusa_, another historic
ship. Beyond, in line, the old worn-out ships are laid up one after the
other up the harbor; they are all historic ships; to hear their names is
to be reminded of Copenhagen, the Nile, Trafalgar; they are store-ships,
coal-ships, training-ships now, and those painted yellow are the
convict-hulks. How much misery, how much brutality, how much despair had
their permanent home on those terrible yellow ships called
convict-hulks? The men were taken ashore every day to work--their work,
the heaviest and the most disagreeable, lay chiefly in the Dock-yard;
they worked under warders armed with guns, shotted and bayonetted. Many
a time have I gone into the yard, a penny quid or screw of tobacco
secreted in my pocket. One would get as near as one dared to one of the
gang without raising suspicions. There one waited, pretending idle
curiosity, till the warder's eyes were turned in the opposite direction,
then out with the quid, and down with it at the nearest convict's foot.
He made no sign; he never moved or looked up; he just covered the packet
with his foot, and went on with his work. The donor retired a space, yet
kept an eye upon him. Presently the man straightened himself out; he
looked at his tool; he picked up a stone as if to knock off something;
he hammered it, and looked at it again critically; the warder, who had
watched his movement, turned his head, as satisfied that it was
harmless; the convict put down the stone; then, if you had good eyes,
you would see the quid transferred in a moment to the man's mouth. Oh!
the rapture of that quid! He could not express his gratitude in words,
but with a glance of his eye he could, and did. What would have been
done to the boy had he been discovered is too terrible to be considered.
However, that boy escaped. The sight of convicts working in a gang has
always fascinated and terrified me. The submission and obedience, the
awful silence, the evident determination to do as little as possible,
the profound misery of the life, the cruel crushing down of
manhood--these things I felt as a boy of twelve as much as I feel them
now. And always with it that feeling of John Bunyan, "But for Grace,
John, thou too hadst been here."

A little up the harbor there rose a few inches out of the water an islet
called Rat Island. This was the burying-ground of those poor wretches
who died on the hulks. I have rowed round this island in the twilight of
a summer evening, wondering whether the ghosts of the convicts still
haunted this dreary spot and exchanged stories of crime and the
cat-o'-nine-tails and irons with each other. I now understand that the
ghost which could choose to remain on so desolate a spot must have been
indeed a fool.

The Logs were a narrow and rude pier constructed of square trunks laid
side by side, with upright posts here and there to keep them in place.
They were chiefly used by the Royal Navy boats which were coming and
going all day long. I recall the picture of one. At sight of the boat
and the officer in command the boy on the Logs runs a little farther out
where the Logs are covered with water--he would not willingly stand in
the way of that officer, whom he envies with a yearning inconceivable to
be in his place. Nobody remembers how boys yearn and long for the
impossible. The boat is manned by eight stout, well-set-up fellows; they
wear spotless white ducks, jerseys, and straw hats. The officer stands
up in the stern, strings in hand. He commands these splendid
fellows--He!!!--and he is no older than the envious boy who looks on. He
wears a jacket, white ducks, and a cap with the enviable crown and
anchor on it. His voice is clear and loud. Timid? Afraid? Not a bit of
it. This midshipmite is already Captain and First Lieutenant and all. He
jumps on the Logs and marches off, head erect, conscious that all other
boys regard him with envy unspeakable. Do the sailors put tongue in
cheek and mock him when he is gone? Not a bit of it. The child is their
officer; he represents authority. It is not the boy who commands men--it
is the Captain. The faces of the men, if you look at them, are not quite
like the faces of their grandsons who at present man the navy. Our man
of '96 is sober, quiet, thoughtful, as becomes one whose long training
has almost made him belong to a learned profession. He is a total
abstainer too. When he goes ashore it is to the Sailors' Home and not to
the old quarters. The men of '48 are sturdy and bluff and resolute; but
they have a certain look that means rum when they can get it, and other
indulgences such as can be afforded.

At the back of the Hard was Jack's own pleasure-ground--half a dozen
streets belonging to him, to the watermen, and to those who made it
their business to look after Jack. These streets were full of strange
things. There were shops where they sold old clos', with many queer
things that came home on board. There were birds--parrots, parraquits,
avvadavats, love-birds, monkeys, lemurs, flying-fish dried, rotting
bananas, Venus's fingers from the Philippines, _cocos de mer_ from the
Seychelles, carved wooden boxes from China, queer little nameless
things from Japan, curved swords from Malay, groups of figures from
India--all these things are common now; they were not common then. I
would gaze at them displayed behind the small windows illuminated at
night by a single candle, with a sick yearning because I could not buy
them all. Meantime--oh, heavenly sound!--the fiddle at the public-house
next door strikes up. It is an ancient tavern; the floor was lower than
the street; the windows were decorated with transparencies showing the
valor of the British tar when engaged with the Chinese. Heavens! How
those Chinamen ran! And with what a rapturous sense of duty did Jack
seize a pigtail with the left hand, and with the right decapitate poor
John Chinaman! It was after the war of 1842, or thereabouts--a war now
wellnigh forgotten. Within--I would look in and even step in
unregarded--the fiddler sat on a stool at the end of the long low room.
He was a Pole. He had but one leg, and he fiddled marvellously, so as to
make even a man with a gouty toe stand up and shake that limb. Jack
danced hornpipes chiefly; he liked best to dance by himself because the
_cavalier seul_ enjoyed more scope for figure-dancing and for
flourishes; also because the undivided applause and attention of the
house were bestowed upon him. In the reel, in which the fair sex took a
share, beauty more than skill--looks, rather than merit--provoked
admiration. Poor Jack! Poor fair sex! Was it possible for any human
creatures to look more deliriously happy?

I have said that the watermen also lived in those back streets; I
believe, however, that the watermen lived apart from the sailors; the
most of them had been sailors--they were all full of yarns--they were
all heroes of the old war; their sons were sailors; but they themselves
were married men with families. It was not considered the thing for a
sturdy old waterman to frequent the same tavern as Jack ashore; his time
for the hornpipe and the fiddle was over.

I have said that Jack's face and appearance have not been transmitted to
his grandsons. There was one peculiarity about Jack of '48 that has been
somewhat forgotten. He of 1800 wore a pigtail--that pigtail was cut off.
I do not know, exactly, in what year. It was succeeded, however, by
ringlets. The Jack of '48 wore ringlets very carefully curled, glossy,
and artistic. If you passed Jack to leeward you perceived--what?
Rowland's Macassar? Tallow? My friends, let us never inquire into the
machinery by which those ringlets were made to curl so gracefully, and
to assume an appearance so beautifully, so wonderfully glossy.

Of the Dock-yard I must say little, though the part it plays in
Portsmouth is like the part played in Winchester by the cathedral, or in
Cambridge by the university. There were the huge skeletons of the wooden
ships, one after the other, in various stages; there were the dry docks,
with the workmen hurrying round the sides on narrow boards, calking and
painting; there was the pond, where they laid up the timber to "season";
there was the Rope-house, a quarter of a mile long, where the men "who
made their living backwards" so walked all day long twisting the yarn;
there was the place where they steamed the beams so that they could be
bent; there was the carver of figure-heads; there were the manufacturing
of blocks and the making of spars. And every day and all day long the
sound of multitudinous hammers, the creaking of cranes, the grinding of
saws, went on without stopping. A lovely workshop, and now, I believe,
more wonderful still!

[Illustration]

The town, I said, had little beauty in its streets. There was a George
the Second church, which had a spaciousness and a dignity of its own.
There was another which had neither dignity nor space. There were no
public buildings to speak of. But there were the Walls. The Walls! Oh,
the Walls! These are all levelled and pulled down now. Nobody knows why
they were levelled, but they were; and with them disappeared the beauty
and the glory of the town. They were not ancient stone Walls, but
earthworks in the style approved about the year 1780. I append a section
of the Wall as I remember it. An open space, A B, separated it from the
building of the town. A slope, B C, brought one to a broad road, C D,
for the carriage and passage of cannon, ammunition, etc. At D, another
low slope, about three feet high, to a narrow standing-place, D E, in
front of which ran E F, a breast-work. The defenders were to fire, thus
protected, across F F. F G was the slope to a level lower than that of
A B on the other side. At H H was a narrow moat, but the intention of
the builders of the Wall was to let in the water so as to cover up the
whole of the valley G H; at H the ground sloped up; at many places the
ground beyond H was also protected by an earth-work. The Wall ran in
lengths protected by bastions; these bastions were mounted with cannon.
At intervals there were stone gates with stone lookout-places, most
mysterious. The town was divided into two parts, a Wall ran round each.
No one would believe what a lovely place for a boy was the Wall--either
Wall--to walk upon, or sit upon, or linger, and look, and listen, and
dream upon. If you wanted a quiet place for reading you could sit
protected from cold wind on a cannon-wheel; if you wanted to dream you
could lean over a certain angle on the Queen's Bastion--was it the
Queen's?--and there below stretched out the whole extent of the harbor,
a broad lagoon at high tide, four miles from north to south and six from
west to east; at the head of the harbor, Porchester Castle stood out,
gray and frowning over the clear water that lapped her water-gate. This
was a Roman fort; the outer Walls--the Roman work--still stand, and will
continue to stand for many centuries; within there are the ruins of a
Norman castle, the lofty design still uninjured; in another corner is a
long and narrow Saxon church--a fine thing, this, for a boy to gaze
upon. But that was not all. The space in front of the Wall was laid out
in grass; in spring these meadows were full of buttercups; in the summer
the grass all over the Walls, the parapet, the slopes, the sloping up of
the Wall, the spaces on the bastions between the cannons, were filled
with clover, daisies, buttercups, wild convolvulus, colored
grasses--everything. There were also trees--"to catch the shells," we
used to say; they were planted all along the Walls, and made a sweet and
delightful walk in summer-time. And it was so quiet all day long upon
the Walls; nobody but a few children ever came there; we had our own
favorite bastion, our own view across the harbor; we carried home
handfuls of the wild flowers.

If one of the two Walls looked out over the harbor, the other looked out
over the Solent and Spithead. The second Wall was not so beautiful in my
eyes as the first. It began at a place which even a boy would not but
recognize as squalid and horrible. Very near there stood a church of
great interest, though of repellent appearance--I know not why it was
repellent to look at, but it was. Between the church and the Wall lay a
broad piece of consecrated ground. More than once have I been reminded
what this ground was used for. More than once have I stood upon the Wall
and looked down upon a funeral; the coffin, borne by six soldiers, was
covered with the union-jack for a pall--could one have a better? behind,
marched, with guns reversed, a small company of soldiers; in front went
the muffled drums and the fifes. 'Twas the burial-place, you see, of the
private soldier. When the service was over, the soldiers stood over the
grave and fired their last farewell to their poor dead comrade; then the
drummers took off their muffling and they fell in, and the fifes struck
up a merry tune and so away back to barracks. Poor lad! Who was he? No
one knew; no one cared. In those days no one, I believe, ever sent a
message to his people that he was dead.

On the outside, where the moat and slopes afforded a fine place for
practice, the young drummers and the young buglers were practising all
day long. I never hear a bugle-call, to this day, without being reminded
of morning upon Portsmouth Walls. At the other end of this Wall were two
or three very fine bastions, armed with larger cannon and with bombs
which looked out on Spithead, where the fleets assembled before they put
to sea. From Spithead sailed those great fleets, the Baltic and the
Black Sea fleets, at the beginning of the Crimean war. A very splendid
sight it was. The Queen led the way in her yacht. Then followed the
Admiral, old Charley Napier; then came the gallant line-of-battle ships,
each in place. To look at a ship of the modern type and to think of that
magnificent fleet reminds one of the Israelites when they wept at the
opening of the second Temple, to think of the perished glories of the
first!

It was in the harbor, from the Dock-yard, that the troops used to
embark. There is a picture, I forget by whom, representing the
embarkation of a regiment for the Crimea. I can testify that the picture
is faithful, for I saw, I believe, that very embarkation. There are the
girls crying--I saw them; the young fellows full of spirit and
courage--I saw them with envy and admiration; the sailors quietly
carrying out their orders--I saw them too. As one recalls the scene, one
thinks of what these poor fellows were going to endure--the cold of a
Crimean winter; boots made of brown paper; coats of shoddy; green
coffee-berries with which to make their coffee; oh! the blind rage! the
helpless rage! the bitter tears of rage! of the whole country! and
nothing done--no--nothing. Alas for the wickedness of it! Yet nobody
hanged--and these poor brave fellows done to death--not by the enemy,
but by their own people!

Besides the embarkation, I remember seeing the return of one of these
regiments. It had been terribly cut up at Inkermann or at some other
engagement; once, too, a shell burst in the middle of their band. They
marched, what was left of them, up the street, colors flying, band
playing. And all the way along the women wailed aloud and the men
choked. For of all the band there remained but five; of all the gallant
boys who marched out playing the fife and beating the drum there were
but two; of all the men who played the cornet and the clarion and the
serpent and the rest of the wonderful instruments there were but three.

I have gone on too long. One more picture, and I have done. On the Hard,
along the railings which ran in the front, only ceasing with the beach
and the Logs, extended a long bench, on which every morning all the year
round, except in rain and snow, there sat a row of grizzled veterans.
They were mostly one-legged; some were no-legged. The bench presented a
very remarkable spectacle of "timber toes," _i.e._, wooden legs sticking
out in a horizontal row. The owners of the "timber toes" were affable;
they would graciously accept a quid, or the price of one, or the
equivalent of a quartern of rum, and in return they would cheerfully tip
you a yarn--but, for choice, beyond the hearing of the other old boys.
Now the really remarkable thing about these heroes was that every man
among them had been on board the _Victory_ at Trafalgar; every man among
them had been the first man to observe when Nelson fell, the first man
to pick him up, the chief hand in carrying him to the cockpit, the
trusted man kept down by the surgeon to perform the last offices for the
dying Admiral. Nay, so often had every man told this story that he had
at last come to believe it; and the genuine tears would crowd into his
eyes when he arrived at the last scene in the mournful history: "'Kiss
me, 'Ardy,' was the last words of the Dyinero." They had of course other
memories which were, I believe, more authentic. There were memories of
the American war in 1814, of French prisons, of actions long since
forgotten, of admirals whose fame has been eclipsed by that of Nelson. I
remember one man who was in the Mutiny at the Nore, which was in 1796;
and one ancient mariner I remember who said he was a cabin-boy with
Captain Cook in his last voyage--he saw him speared. Well, it was quite
possible; the man looked a mere monument of antiquity; it was quite
possible if he was eighty-eight--he looked ninety-eight. It was quite
possible, on the other hand--but let me believe that I have myself
conversed and shaken hands with one of Captain Cook's crew.




THE SAILING OF JEAN-PAUL.

(_In Two Instalments._)

BY M. L. VAN VORST.


I.

The grandmother of Jean-Paul was proud of the boy. She said he was as
"brave as a lion, as brown as a berry, as straight as a birch." Indeed
she talked so much about him, and repeated this so many times, that her
companions the washer-women grew tired of hearing about Jean-Paul, and
after awhile she found that she talked to deaf ears. "Are there not
other boys in the village besides Jean-Paul?" they said. "There are
Joseph and Victor and Charles. And what has Jean-Paul done, after all?
Nothing." So the old woman held her peace, and ceased to say aloud the
things she thought about her big brown grandson.

Jean-Paul lived with his grandmother, Mère Vatinel, in a tiny house made
of pieces of flint stuck together with white cement. It had a bright red
roof, and looked like a house in a fairy-tale.

It was one of many fisher dwellings standing in rows on either side the
narrow village street that ran straight down to the sea. From the great
expanse of water washing the pebbly beach and curling up about the high
cliff-side all the town gained its living.

Jean-Paul knew little of danger, and cared still less. He only knew that
he was strong and fifteen years old, that his father had gone to sea at
his age; his friends had left the dull little town, and he too longed to
board one of the straight-masted vessels that stood so proudly in the
harbors of Fécamp and Havre, and put far out and away to follow his
fortune and to know the sea.

Jean-Paul sat before the rough pine table in the room that served as
kitchen, bedroom, and all rooms in one; he was eating his supper of
lentil soup and a piece of coarse bread. Opposite him sat his
grandmother, in her white peasant cap and her short blue skirt; she was
knitting, and Jean-Paul watched the candle-light flicker on her needles.
"Grandmother," he said, trying to speak at his ease, "I am fifteen years
old now."

"Yes," nodded the old woman.

"And I am strong too. See?" and he rolled up his blue sleeve and showed
her a stout brown arm of which he might well have been proud. "And
yesterday with Père Guillaume, whom thou knowest is a weak old man, I
dragged in the boat--our boat. In truth, grandmother, it was I, and not
Père Guillaume, who made her slide up on the beach."

"Yes," she said, "thou art strong. Praise God keep thy strength; it is
mine as well; I need thee, my son."

The bright face of Jean-Paul fell; he ate on in silence for a little,
then said, with an effort, "Grandmother, the _Belle Hélène_ sails
to-morrow week."

At this Mère Vatinel let her knitting fall, and clasped her hands on the
table and faced her grandson. "Jean-Paul," she said, "I am nearly
ninety years old; I have but you; the sea has taken all the rest--my two
big sons and thy mother's husband, and thou knowest well that when the
news came that thy father's ship would never cast anchor again, thy
mother fell as one dead, and thus the sea cursed my last child. I hate
the sea," she said, raising her old hand as if in turn to curse it; "it
is our tomb."

If Jean-Paul heard this it did not make him waver. "One must live,
grandmother," he said, stanchly. "It is our friend too. All sailors are
not lost. There is Joseph, who comes here every year with his pockets
full of louis; and we are poor; I will come home rich, and some day I
may even own my bark, grandmother; and it is so cowardly to stay at home
with only the old men and the children."

"And thy grandmother, Jean-Paul?"

He did not reply. Then she burst into tears, and rocked to and fro.
"Never, never, while I live!" she wept. "All have been taken from me.
Jean-Paul, Jean-Paul, thou wilt break my heart!"

"Listen!" he said. "We will speak of this no more. I will not go unless
thou art quite content."

It was surprising how quickly the old woman dried her tears. "Thou art a
brave gars, a good gars," she said, nodding her head. "Thou shalt
perhaps find service at the château. Who knows?"

Jean-Paul did not reply, but Mère Vatinel took it as a sacred promise,
for did she not know she would never be content?

       *       *       *       *       *

Jean-Paul bought his rabbit at the Gingerbread Fair. On certain _fête_
days in the little square before the Mayory all the world goes to buy
gingerbread. They are fascinating, those long pieces of brown cake with
colored candies on the top. And the extraordinary men! And the animals
whose like is seen in few zoological gardens! I should say all the world
went _to see_, and those who had a few sous bought, and the others stood
and looked on in admiration and envy. Jean-Paul sauntered along, his
blue cap pushed back on his head, his hands in his pockets; he tinkled
the ten sous of his savings noisily, for he was the proud owner of ten
whole sous. He could buy a good deal of gingerbread with this, but not
too much. He thought, however, that he would spend five sous at throwing
the rings, and with the rest collect a gingerbread menagerie. To throw
the rings is a delightful sport; one can never have too many
jack-knives. The knives are stuck by the blades in rows on an inclined
board. Then you buy five rings for five sous. You take aim, try to
encircle a knife with a ring, and if you succeed the prize is yours.
Jean-Paul was an expert, and had his eyes on three "rippers," as he
called them in his French slang. The little man who kept the booth knew
him, and nodded to him, and held out the rings, when a loud burst of
laughter from a group of boys at his right hand made Jean-Paul look
toward them. They were gathered in a circle, and intensely watching
something in their midst. The lad walked toward them, and looked too. A
little brown rabbit, trembling with fright, its eyes wild and startled,
cowered in the centre of a chalk circle which the boys had drawn around
him.

"Look, Jean-Paul!" said a little boy, plucking his sleeve. "They are
laying wagers as to how far the rabbit will jump when Pierre pokes him
with his stick. It is my rabbit, Jean-Paul, and they are to give me a
sou for the sport."

Jean-Paul said nothing. He looked at Pierre, who was a big brutal fellow
with a coarse face. He was cabin-boy on one of the ships that sail
between Havre and New York, and he had come home for a holiday. Leaning
forward, he gave the rabbit a sharp poke with the pointed stick. The
poor thing leaped clear out of the line, and was greeted with shouts of
applause.

"She's better than a gingerbread bunny," laughed Pierre, "and just the
color. Jump! Jump, ma belle!"

Jean-Paul adored animals, and having a heart in proportion as big as his
strong body, he hated cowardly abuse. His first impulse was to strike
Pierre a ringing blow, seize the rabbit, and rush off with it. He chose
another course. "Is it really yours, the rabbit?" he said, very fast and
in a low tone, to the little boy who stood by his side watching the fun
with big eyes.

"Yes, really mine. I am to have a sou."

"Will you sell him for ten?"

The boy gasped. Ten sous! He had never in his ragged existence owned ten
sous.

"Quick," said Jean-Paul, rattling the money before his eyes.

To be master of ten sous, and to have at the same time a gingerbread
fair at his very side was too great a stroke of fortune for the little
peasant to grasp. "I should think so!" he said.

"There, then." Jean-Paul crowded the pennies into the boy's hand, leaned
forward, and picked up the little rabbit by the ears, and lifted it over
the heads of the group.

"See here!" exclaimed Pierre, angrily, "you are a little too fresh, my
fine fellow!" and he sprang to his feet and confronted Jean-Paul.

"It is my rabbit, Pierre Fouget," replied the other, whose eyes, though
calm, were dangerous. "I have just bought him for ten sous."

"Yes," nodded his former owner, "that is so; and give me my sou for the
sport, Pierre."

Pierre measured the straight figure of Jean-Paul. He looked at his broad
chest, and at the big hand that held the panting beast tenderly.
Jean-Paul stood quite still and looked back at him. Then Pierre laughed
sneeringly, and shrugging his shoulders, "My word, if the monsieur has a
fancy to collect animals, and can pay for them, it is his own affair,"
he said, and turned away.

The little boy of the ten sous, his hands full of cakes, was swinging in
the merry-go-round. He waved his hand to Jean-Paul as he passed. "I
shall ride twice more, Jean-Paul," he said.

This is how Jean-Paul bought his rabbit at the Gingerbread Fair.

       *       *       *       *       *

Monsieur le Maire was a very important person. I shall not tell about
his duties, or all that he did in the little white Mayory over the
post-office. Dear me, that would be dry reading! After one had climbed
the steep cliff straight up from the village, and walked three
kilometres or more, all the fertile farm-lands, and those forests with
the green-trunked trees, and the white château with its high gables
belonged to M. le Maire. His ancestors had been royalists, and fought
for and served many kings and princes. But M. le Maire of Freport was a
good republican, and he used to say he belonged to the people, which, of
course, pleased them very much indeed; and those of the town who loved
the days of the Emperor loved M. le Maire for his ancestry, and the rest
honored him as a good servant of the republic.

Jean-Paul saw him go in and out of the Mairie, and drive home every
afternoon in his red dog-cart. He thought the Maire was a great man, and
admired him, and stood in awe of him a little, perhaps. He would have
told you, that he knew the Mayor very well, but the Mayor did not know
Jean-Paul--less than he knew Philip or Joseph or the other
fisher-lads--for his grandmother had enough to keep them far from want,
and never applied for charity to the government. And then the knitting
that she did--well, that was an important item, for she turned off an
astounding number of thick stockings, and every six weeks Jean-Paul
carried the little package to a village by the cross-roads, where
another old woman bought the stockings, and sold them to a dealer at
Havre.

The brown rabbit had become Jean-Paul's constant companion. She ate
sitting close to the boy's elbow, slept at night huddled in a brown heap
at the foot of his bed. He called her La Belle Hélène; it brought him a
little nearer to the beloved ship he was never to board to say the name
over and over, for although he made no sign, and spoke not at all of his
great desire, still his heart was on the sea, and the thought that he
must spend his youth and strength fishing a little with Père Guillaume,
loitering about the town with a few young fellows, that he was never to
see the great ice-fields or know the wild joy of catching the mighty
fish, that the fisher-seaman's life was forbidden him, it was hard,
bitter hard to bear.

He stood with Père Guillaume on the beach; a fierce October storm was
coming thick and fast from the west, and the fishermen stood talking
together in little groups; and watching the ink-black clouds.

"How ugly it is," said the old fisherman. "From now on we have the black
weather. I shall not venture out to-day, Jean-Paul."

"I should like nothing better," said the boy, eagerly. "It is fine out
there. One can hear the waves crash. That is real sea. I will do all the
work, Père Guillaume," he added. "The fish fairly leap into the boat
to-day."

The old man could not be moved. "It is well enough for you," he said;
"you are a strong swimmer, Jean-Paul, but for me, to capsize is death.
When one is old one hugs the fireside."

"Oh, it must be dreadful to be old," thought the boy; "one fears
everything!" Then he remembered that it was the day for his trip to St.
Julian with the parcel of stockings that his grandmother had knitted for
sale, and he hurried back to the cabin, while the storm gathered faster
and the wind swept along the hard flint roads.

"It is bad weather," said the grandmother, as he stuffed the parcel in
the pocket of his jacket.

But the journeys to St. Julian were never postponed, for the Havre
dealer only passed once in six weeks, and to succeed one must be
punctual. Jean-Paul went in all weathers. In his other pocket he put the
rabbit Belle Hélène, and the old grandmother watched him as he pulled
his cap down hard and bent his head against the wind.

"How strong he is, how straight!" she murmured, and she thought of the
rabbit in his pocket and smiled. "_La Belle Hélène_, _La Belle Hélène_,
his heart is all with the ship. If I were not so old, and the sea has
taken so much! It is not fair," she said, shaking her head. "One may at
least keep one out of four brave gars." And then she went into her
cabin, shut the door against the wind, and commenced a new pair of
stockings.

Meanwhile Jean-Paul went sturdily up, up the hill. The road to St.
Julian lay past the woods of the château. The young fellow loved these
forests when the tree trunks were all green with a bright moss growth,
and where the guests of the Mayor came and hunted during the fall weeks,
and flashed through the trees in their bright scarlet coats.

[Illustration: THE GAMEKEEPER'S HAND FELL UPON JEAN-PAUL.]

He had often watched the chase, and seen the brown hares jump in the
underbrush and the deer fly by. But his thoughts on this day were
elsewhere, and do as he would, it was nothing but _La Belle Hélène_, _La
Belle Hélène_ that kept constantly sailing into his thoughts and casting
anchor in his brain. It was easy enough to slip off at night, follow the
cliff path, and before you know it you are at Fécamp; and the harbor is
bristling with barks at this season, and when one knows the mate of _La
Belle Hélène_, and he has said, "Come, Jean-Paul, you will join us next
year surely, mon vieux." (That makes one feel so grand to be called old
chap by a man of position.) "Next year I will give you a good berth and
recommend you to the Captain, and you will do the rest." And this was
next year, and he was as far away as ever! Here Jean-Paul drew a big
breath that meant a pain was at the other end of it, and went on
thinking. When he reached the little knoll just at the end of the
forest château, the hard struggle was at an end, but he felt about as
beside himself as a healthy boy of fifteen can. The result was that he
was more tired than though he had already gone the whole of the long way
to St. Julian. Suddenly he remembered what his grandmother had given him
just before he left the house--his luncheon; and he sat down on a big
stone, and he drew out of his pocket a chunk of coarse bread and a stick
of chocolate. He commenced slowly and meditatively to munch this repast
and stare way down the long white road into the fast-deepening twilight,
while the wind, which was against him, blew so hard that he could with
difficulty keep his seat. Far away behind him lay a glimpse of the sea,
which showed black and sullen. Jean-Paul felt La Belle Hélène move
restlessly in the right pocket of his coat. "Poor little thing, she is
hungry too! I will not eat alone," he said, and drew the rabbit out of
his pocket, and put her on his knee, gently stroking her while she
nibbled a few crumbs of bread. Just then who can say what strange spirit
awoke in La Belle Hélène, or what familiar wood call may have reached
her ear, for she gave a violent start, and sprang from the knee of
Jean-Paul, made one swift bound, pushed her lithe body through the thick
hedge, and was off into the dark woods of the château; but almost as
quick in his movements was Jean-Paul, for he sprang to his feet, tore
his way through the hedge, and started in hot pursuit. She kept ever
just in front of him, maddeningly near, yet maddeningly far. He pushed
his way through the bushes, and the two soon found themselves in the
beautiful woods of the château. Jean-Paul thought of nothing save that
La Belle Hélène had escaped and he must get her once more. He called in
vain; freedom was sweet, and the leaves must have felt delightfully
familiar; and ever pursuing the rabbit who had allured her away, the
brown beast kept just beyond her master's reach. Perhaps, however, she
lost for a moment the call of her kind, or the imploring tones of her
little master touched her, for she stopped. At that moment Jean-Paul
threw himself forward and caught La Belle Hélène. As his hand fell upon
her, another hand, not half so gentle, fell upon the shoulder of
Jean-Paul, and with the rabbit clasped in his hand, the startled lad
turned and confronted the gamekeeper, who stood with his gun in his
hand, rudely peering in the young fellow's face. "Ha! ha! my pretty
fellow, caught in the act, in the very act," chuckled the gamekeeper,
maliciously, and he put his hand over the little brown rabbit.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




A CHARLES LAMB PARTY.

BY EMMA J. GRAY.


"Who started the thing, I don't remember. Oh yes, I do--it was Edith
Worster; you know she's a member of the Cozy Club; and I tell you it was
just splendid, a capital idea, and so pretty in all its arrangements
that I am willing to risk anything that you would like me to tell you
all about it."

At these words the dear old lady laughed aloud, for how could she "keep
still any longer," she roguishly asked, "eaten up with curiosity, as I
always am about young folks and their doings." And then Maud's long
chestnut-brown hair, tied with a ribbon to match, fell over her
grandmother's face in the endeavor to kiss her. For grandma sat in a
large arm-chair, which her portly figure filled from arm to arm, while
Maud stood at her back looking taller than ever this morning, on account
of the long red stripes in her dark brown cashmere morning gown.

Grandma had a square of a silk crazy-quilt in her hand, on which she was
about to embroider her initials on a field of lustrous yellow silk, and
Maud having now drawn up a rocker, seated herself for work also,
directly in front, and as close to her grandmother as room could allow.

"Heigh ho! I suppose I must sew on these tiresome napkins, or they'll
never be done." And then spreading one smoothly over her lap, she
continued: "Isn't it a torment, to have to stitch these things all
around to keep the fringe from fraying? Don't you think fringed napkins
a nuisance anyway?"

"Yes," was the slowly given monosyllable; and then grandma, who had been
energetic all her life, added, "but, child, think how pretty they are."

At these words Maud made a dive into her apple-green silk work-bag, as
if on business bent, and rapidly drew out needle, thread, scissors, and
thimble. While she was threading her needle, grandma said, "Really, I
can't wait any longer, child; let me hear all about it."

"That's a dear. I thought you'd be dying to know. You'll admit I
understand something about your inquisitiveness," and then Maud's
laughing baby-blue eyes were lifted lovingly towards her grandmother's
face.

"Well, while you were away off West visiting Aunt Maria, I gave Charles
Lamb's party."

"Charles Lamb! Well, I'll believe you're the crazy one now, for he's
been dead many a year."

"Oh, grandma," and Maud laughingly shook her head, "you are funny!
Didn't I tell you that Edith Worster is a member of the Cozy Club? And
they are all owlish sort of people--the owl is the bird of wisdom, you
know. Well, while you were gone she came to call on me, and I'm sixteen
and she's twenty-three."

"What of that?"

"Oh, she's seven years older than I am, and awfully wise, and I didn't
know what to say to her exactly; and so, as I've been told to entertain
people by asking them questions about themselves, I asked Edith what the
Club was reading now. 'Charles Lamb,' and then you should have seen her
face change; it was so eager, and looked so full of joy as I thought it
had before looked full of misery. I'm sure her call on me was a duty
one, one of the good-child kind, and then she asked me if I--_I_
remember"--and Maud stretched her left arm out at full length, and,
raising the index-finger, pointed to herself--"had lately read the essay
of Elia, entitled, 'Rejoicings Upon the New Year's Coming of Age!'

"I shrunk into almost nothingness before her, no doubt, when I
impulsively answered, 'Oh my, no! I don't even know who Elia is--any
relation to Elias?' and then I laughed.

"But, grandma, she was awfully nice. She wasn't the least bit proud and
horrid, hadn't any of that drawn-up lofty air some people would have put
on, and she explained all about it, and told me Elia was the name
Charles Lamb sometimes used for himself, and she made me so interested
in him, telling me of his love for his sister Mary and his father, and
that in writing to the poet Coleridge, who was Charles Lamb's greatest
friend, he told him, 'I am wedded to the fortunes of my sister and my
poor old father.' Did you know, grandma, Mary Lamb was out of her mind
at times? Oh, it was such a grief to her brother!

"Well, no sooner was Edith Worster the other side of our hall door than
I rushed to the library and pulled down book after book in my hunt for
these same essays of Elia. I knew they were around somewhere, but
whether the book was big or little, thick or thin, I didn't know. But
after a while I found it, and then I got into that big sleepy hollow
down there and read the essay Edith spoke about. _Read it all through_,
remember; just put that to my credit."

"I will, Maud; but what's that got to do with your party?"

"_Do?_ It _did_ the party, that's all. Only listen, for my party was
splendid. Didn't it have a go, though! It was simply delicious!" and
Maud smacked her lips over the remembrance. "Oh, you ought to have seen
it for yourself, grandma! You'll hear lots of talk about it yet, though,
you'll see if you don't," and Maud wagged her head sagely.

"Well, I'm listening and impatient," and grandma's work was dropped in
her lap, while her eager face glowed with the one word "more"--for
grandma, as she herself expressed it, was very fond of young folks'
doings, and, moreover, Maud was her only grandchild.

"It must have been a good fairy that whispered it to me, for no sooner
had I finished the essay than the thought came, why not try that scheme
for a party? I knew I was promised a party for my sixteenth birthday,
and I had heard mamma say, only that very morning, the invitations must
soon go out; and then poor mamma sighed, while she said: 'I wish we
could think of something new, Maud. Parties are so hackneyed
nowadays--the same old things given over and over.' So when the good
fairy whispered, I tripped away to mamma, book in hand, as fast as my
feet would take me. And then such a scene of excitement as I made! Mamma
begged of me to sit down and talk understandingly if I could. For her
part, she didn't know what I was trying to get at. And I don't wonder,
for she never had heard me mention _The Essays of Elia_ before in all my
life. I think poor mamma thought I had gone quite mad. Oh, grandma, such
fun!" and Maud laughed heartily over the remembrance of it.

"However, after awhile I calmed down, as grandpa advises me sometimes,
and I explained to mamma about Edith Worster's call, and how I happened
to hear of this particular thing; and then, because it was the easiest
way, I read mamma the essay, adding, 'Now that would make me a brand-new
party.' To this idea mamma instantly agreed, and we sent out the
invitations so worded that each one knew perfectly he was to wear a
costume that would represent a day in the year. And in order that I
wouldn't have too many of one kind and too few of the other, each
invitation suggested the kind of a day that was meant. In this way I had
June Days, Rainy Days, Lenten Days, etc., etc."

"But, my dear grandchild, my brain is all befogged. I can see by what
you have said that you had a sort of a masquerade, but your old
grandmother knows no more about that essay than you did. You know, I
never was much of a scholar, had to work too hard in my young days to
find time for an education, and I've been sorry and ashamed over my lack
of knowledge many's the time," and at the remembrance the old lady's
eyes filled with tears.

This was too much for impulsive Maud, who in a trice had both her arms
around her grandmother's neck, sternly saying: "Take those words back or
I'll never kiss you again. No education indeed! You had the education
which comes from hard work and denial. Where would all our comforts have
been to-day--what would papa have known, I'd like to ask, had it not
been for you? What sort of an education would I have had? It's a burning
shame," and the hot blood reddened Maud's cheeks, "that I have not made
better use of my advantages! But 'it's never too late to mend' are the
old words, which I shall apply to myself hereafter; and there, now,
dearest grandma," and Maud kissed her, saying aloud: "One, two, three;
that's our seal to the bargain. And remember, you are not to say another
word against yourself, and I am to study harder than ever before. Who
knows, I may be a second Edith Worster, if I try."

"If you try, you can do all things, Maud," and then grandma felt around
for her handkerchief, and slowly wiped away the moisture which had
dimmed her gold-rimmed spectacles.

"Now I'll run away for a second, and get the book to read you the
opening of the essay. You will understand it better than my wordy
jargon"; and then off Maud flew, napkins, scissors, and all the rest of
her sewing paraphernalia dropping at her feet in a hurry to be gone;
however, she stopped for a second, and gathering them up, threw them
hastily on the table while she rushed on. In a minute she returned, and
though all out of breath, at once found the place and commenced:

"'Rejoicings over the New Year's Coming of Age.'

[Illustration]

"'The _Old Year_ being dead, the _New Year_ coming of age, which he does
by Calendar Law as soon as the breath is out of the old man's body,
nothing would serve the young spark but that he must give a dinner upon
the occasion, to which all the Days in the year were invited. The
_Festivals_, whom he deputed as his stewards, were mightily taken with
the notion. They had been engaged time out of mind, they said, in
providing mirth and good cheer for mortals below, and it was time they
should have a taste of their own bounty. It was stiffly debated whether
the _Fasts_ should be admitted. Some said the appearance of such starved
guests, with mortified faces, would pervert the ends of the meeting. But
the objection was overruled by _Christmas Day_, who had a design upon
_Ash Wednesday_ (as you shall hear), and a mighty desire to see how the
old domine would behave himself in his cups. Only the _Vigils_ were
requested to come with their lanterns to light the gentlefolks home at
night.

"'All the _Days_ came to their day. Covers were provided for 365 guests
at the principal table, with an occasional knife and fork at the
sideboard for the _Twenty-ninth of February_.

"I should have told you that cards of invitation had been issued. The
carriers were the _Hours_, twelve little merry whirligig foot-pages, as
you should desire to see, that went all around and found out the persons
invited well enough, with the exception of _Easter Day_, _Shrove
Tuesday_, and a few such movables who had lately shifted their quarters.

"'Well, they all met at last--foul _Days_, fine _Days_, all sorts of
_Days_--and a rare din they made of it.'

"Now, grandma," exclaimed Maud, slamming the book together, "that's
enough to give you the idea. Our cards of invitation were decorated,
some with hour-glasses, others with clocks or watches, and all stating
the day the receiver was to represent. Example: Costume, May Day. Those
who didn't understand asked me what was meant; others again told each
other, and some did not need any information, as the invitation was
called 'A Charles Lamb Party.' From what I have read, you will
understand that no masks were worn.

"Oh, it was so unique and so pretty, and mamma and I had lots of fun
selecting the days for each guest! Of course we couldn't have 365
people--our house isn't big enough--so we only had a few Lenten Days,
and while all the months were represented, we didn't have every day of
the month.

"April-fools' Day was so funny! Oh, grandma, how you would have laughed
had you but seen her! She came prepared with all sorts of jokes; one of
them was some bits of wood covered with chocolate, which she passed off
on her friends as chocolate caramels."

"How was she dressed, Maud?"

"She wore a brown domino, and a blue paper fool's-cap; and such a sight!
Why, it nearly reached the ceiling, it was so tall! I don't see how she
managed to balance it. And on her back, in big letters cut out of red
calico, were the words, 'April Fool.' Oh, she made lots of fun, I tell
you!

"At supper-time she played a most unexpected joke, for she threw aside
cap and domino, and was just the sweetest thing I ever saw, dressed in
pale pink silk embroidered with forget-me-nots. You know she _is_ sweet
anyway, grandma."

"I don't know who you are talking about."

"That's true; why, Alice Douglass!"

"Yes, she is sweet, and pretty too. She has such beautiful hair. What Day
were you, Maud?"

"I was St. Valentine's Day. I wore rose color, because it is love's own
color, and I had several tiny valentines basted on my dress. We had a
game during the evening, and I used them as prizes. They were considered
valuable souvenirs too, I can assure you. There was no one in the room
but who would like to have gotten one.

[Illustration]

"Mitchell Morgan was Christmas Day, and he did it to perfection. You
know he has the same jolly face that Santa Claus has, and he copied him
to the smallest detail, even to the bells, sled, and pack of presents.
Of course these were cheap toys. I cannot help being sorry, though, we
had such good times, and you weren't in them. Maybe some vacation I'll
have one again. Papa thinks it would be just the thing to give in a barn
in summer-time.

"The longest boy I knew I had represent the 21st day of June, and the
shortest one the 22d of December.

"Rainy Days came in with water-proofs and umbrellas, and would even
pretend they were dripping wet and shaking the drops off, while Sunshiny
Days looked merry and jolly, and were dressed in all the colors
imaginable; some of the girls carried summer flowers as wreaths or
garlands, while others had their frocks trimmed with them.

[Illustration]

"But you should have seen the Wedding Day. She was the youngest girl
invited. Her mother made her a white satin gown with a long train,
embroidered with beads and flounced with lace. She wore a white veil
which trained with her dress, and carried a big bouquet fastened with
white satin ribbon with flowing streamers, exactly the same as a bride
would have. I tell you we all clapped when she entered.

"One boy represented Pay Day, who came late, as he always does; another
was May the 1st, and he pretended to be moving all the while, and
besides all the Days who came to my party, there came lots of goodies to
eat--some very old-fashioned refreshments, such as mamma used to have
when she gave a party, she said; and we played games, danced, and sung,
and had the jolliest time. No one wanted to go home. It wasn't one bit
like an ordinary party.

"Was it anything like what you had when you was a girl, grandma?"




THE PAINTED DESERT.[1]

[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 904.

A STORY OF NORTHERN ARIZONA.

BY KIRK MUNROE,

AUTHOR OF "RICK DALE," "THE FUR-SEAL'S TOOTH," "SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES,"
"THE MATE SERIES," ETC.


CHAPTER IX.

HOW THE VALLEY OF PEACE WAS DISCOVERED.

On the evening of the day that had introduced Todd Chalmers to the modern
cliff-dwellers of the Valley of Peace, he and they gathered about a
cheerful fire burning on the open hearth of the castle, and the
Professor gave him a history of their coming to that place as follows:

"It is now twelve years since I filled the chair of Biblical Literature
and American Ethnology in Calvert College. About that time I was
confronted by certain problems that could only be solved by a visit to
the pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, in which, as thee doubtless
knows, the manner of life remains to-day practically unchanged from what
it was at the time of their discovery by the Spaniards. Through the
liberality of thy father were the means for making such a visit
furnished.

"Apprehending no danger, I brought with me my wife and my only son
Reuben, a well-grown lad of eighteen. We travelled from Albuquerque in a
light wagon drawn by two stout mules, and provided with all necessaries
for our comfort. Everything went well with us until after we left Zuñi
for the Moqui towns of northeastern Arizona, 'the seven cities of
Cibola,' as they were named by the Spaniards. Toward them we travelled
in company with two Mexican traders who, though they had never visited
the Moqui towns, thought they knew the way.

"The Mexicans proved unreliable guides, however, and by the time we
crossed the Flax River had managed to lead us from the trail. Still, we
believed ourselves to be moving in the right direction, and pushed on,
though the country became more and more desolate with every mile.

"Toward evening of the day on which we crossed the river our wagon was
halted by the breaking of a piece of harness, and the Mexicans, keeping
on, were quickly lost to view behind a rise of ground. I soon had the
harness mended, and Reuben, who was mounted on a saddle-horse, rode
ahead to catch sight of our companions before they should gain too great
a distance.

[Illustration: "INDIANS ON THE WAR-PATH!" HE SHOUTED.]

"I followed with all speed, but had not passed the rise when the lad
came dashing madly back, shouting: 'Indians! Indians on the war-path!'
In another minute he had told his story. A band of Apaches who had
broken from their reservation had killed the Mexicans, and were busily
engaged in examining their bales of goods. They were so surprised by
Reuben's approach that they could only let fly a few arrows as he turned
and fled. Being on foot, they pursued him but a short distance; but one
of their arrows had struck him and passed through his body, inflicting a
most dangerous wound.

"I got him into the wagon, and then, not knowing what better to do,
turned it at right angles to the course we had been pursuing, with the
idea of making a circuit around the Indians. After that I hoped to
regain our original direction, for I knew that in reaching the Moqui
towns lay our only hope of safety.

"For three days we wandered over the burning sands and amid the magic
paintings of the desert, while our poor lad suffered agonies from his
wound. By nightfall of the third day, our horse having already given out
and been abandoned, the mules were too weak to travel another step, and
I turned them loose to die. One staggered but a few yards before he
fell, while the other wandered feebly out of sight.

"That night, amid the crashings of a thunder-storm, our poor boy was
mercifully relieved of his sufferings by death, and our only comfort was
that we should shortly follow him. But we were to be reserved for
further work, and even as we sat with our dead, the cry of one who was
to save us was borne to our ears. I stepped from the wagon to listen,
and by a flash of lightning saw the figure of a little child standing
beside a dark object that lay on the ground. This proved to be an Indian
woman, alive and conscious, but too feeble to rise.

"Believing her to be starving, I carried her food, which both she and
the child ate ravenously, and by daylight she was able to come to us. By
signs I tried to learn from her if any of her people dwelt so near that
we might hope to reach them; but she gave me to understand that she was
lost, and knew not in what direction they might be found. The child, who
was no other than this dear boy"--here the speaker laid his hand
lovingly on Nanahe's shoulder--"was in so much better plight than his
mother that she had evidently sacrificed her own strength to save his.

"Months afterward we learned that she had been the Moqui wife of a
Navajo brave, who had died shortly before our meeting with her. She had
hardly been left a widow when a party of Navajos decided to make a raid
on the flocks of their Moqui neighbors, and demanded that she should
guide them to the best locality for their purpose. This, in spite of all
threats, she refused to do, whereupon they drove her with her child into
the desert, which they regarded as the place of lost spirits, forbidding
her ever to return, under penalty of torture to her child and death for
herself. So she, like ourselves, had wandered hopelessly until she had
discovered the dying mule that I had turned loose, and followed his
trail to our vicinity. From the first I called her Hagar.

"All the previous day we had been slowly approaching a great white mesa
toward which, without special reason, I had directed our course. Now we
were close beside it, and I conceived the idea that at its base we might
find some shaded crevice in which to lay our dead boy. At any rate, I
could better bear to leave him there than out on the pitiless desert. So
with mother's aid and that of Hagar, I finally succeeded in bearing him
to the place I desired. We found a deep cool recess in the rocky wall,
and there laying him down, rested for a while before undertaking to
complete our sad task.

"We were in so pitiable a plight from weakness and our recent exertions
that the woman Hagar seemed to have lapsed into unconsciousness, and
allowed her child to wander unnoticed from her side. All at once there
came from him a shrill cry, accompanied by a muffled crash from the
inner end of the recess, to which he had penetrated. Hagar sprang to her
feet and sped toward the sound, while I followed close after. We found
the little one lying unharmed at the foot of a rocky slope, while just
beyond, as though it had leaped over him, lay a bowlder apparently newly
fallen from above.

"Glancing up in the direction from which it must have come, I was amazed
to perceive a ray of light shining from beyond the barrier. Cautiously
making my way up the slope, I discovered the light to shine through a
small opening caused by the displacement of the bowlder already
mentioned. Looking through this as through a window, I beheld a sight so
marvellous that for a time I could not believe in its reality. I need
not attempt to describe it to thee, Todd Chalmers, for thee is already
familiar with the aspect of the Valley of Peace, and can judge of my
feelings at coming thus unexpectedly upon it.

"Soon after we discovered a ruined hut of stone that told of former
human occupancy of the valley, and, as it stood near a stream, we
lighted our fire close beside it. Taking Hagar with me, and again
visiting the wagon, we brought back a number of things most needful for
immediate use. Among them was a fowling-piece, which was the only
firearm that I possessed. With this I fired at and killed a rabbit that
regarded us from a short distance without the least trace of fear. The
effect of that shot was prodigious. It roared and echoed among the
cliffs like a thousand thunders, and caused the appearance of such an
amount of animal life as satisfied me that we were in no danger of
starving so long as we should remain in the valley.

"After a supper of stewed rabbit, thin cakes of cornmeal that Hagar
deftly baked on the heated surface of a flat stone, and tea, the Indian
woman and I made one more trip to the wagon, from which we brought in
all our bedding. Then, after collecting a sufficient supply of firewood
to last until morning, we sought our rude couches, and prepared to pass
our first night in the wonderful place to which we had been so strangely
led.

"The next day we brought in all our effects from the wagon, cleaned out
the old hut, rebuilt its walls, chimney, and fireplace, and stretching
our wagon cover above it, found ourselves comfortably housed. In all
this work Hagar proved herself invaluable, knowing much better than I
how to handle clay and building stones, while even little Nanahe,
working under his mother's direction, willingly performed such light
tasks as came within the limit of his strength."


CHAPTER X.

MODERN LIFE IN AN ANCIENT CLIFF DWELLING.

"No sooner was our work on the hut completed," continued the Professor,
"than I determined to make an exploration of the valley, for I had yet
to learn of its size, what it produced, whether it contained any
inhabitants besides ourselves, and if there was any entrance to it other
than the one by which we had come. So, after an early breakfast, I set
off down the stream that flowed past our camp, carrying the
fowling-piece over my shoulder.

"As I advanced, the fertility of the soil was a constant source of
delight, for it not only produced a heavy growth of grasses, besides the
useful amole, or soap-root, and many other plants, but a great variety
of trees, among which I recognized cottonwood, cedar, the piñon or
nut-bearing pine, and peach-trees that had run wild from some long-ago
planting. These last showed the valley to have been visited by human
beings since the coming of Spaniards to this country, for by them were
peaches introduced. I also found an abundance of cotton-plants with full
bolls, which, though small in size from lack of cultivation, would yield
a serviceable fibre. No trace of human beings was to be seen save the
ancient ruins of a few huts, together with mounds of broken pottery and
stone implements of every description.

"When late in the day I regained camp, almost my first greeting from
mother was, 'Whatever thee has discovered, Rufus, I am persuaded that we
who remained behind have found something of still greater value.'

"Then she told me how, with the keen instinct of her race for such
things, Hagar, while gathering pine-nuts, had run across a trail leading
up the face of the cliffs, and had followed it to this very place.
Mother had also climbed to the platform, taken a hasty glance at its
marvels, and then, leaving Hagar and the child up there, had returned to
meet me, and conduct me to the wonderful place they had found.

"Smiling at her excitement, for I could not then realize the value of
the discovery, I followed her up the steep acclivity, wondering at her
endurance, especially when we came to the last fifteen feet of
perpendicular steps. When we finally gained the place where Hagar
smilingly awaited us, I was amazed at the width of the platform and the
extent of the view to be obtained from it. I longed for the spy-glass
which had formed part of the equipment of our wagon, and which had been
left in the hut. I even proposed to return and get it, thinking that the
platform and view from it embraced the whole of Hagar's discovery. At
that mother interfered, and saying that she had something of much
greater importance than a view to show me, directed my attention to the
further end of the platform. Then for the first time I became aware of a
small house occupying the entire space beneath a jutting of the cliff.

"It was built of stone, so deftly laid and so colored by time that even
a short distance away it could not be distinguished from the adjacent
rock. From the shape of its doorway, which was thus"--here the Professor
traced a rude diagram in the ashes of the hearth--"but which we
afterward altered to suit our own notions, I knew that the structure was
a cliff-dwelling of the most ancient pattern.

"In an instant I was as excited as mother, though with a different
reason, for this was the very type of dwelling I had been most anxious
to study, and if it should prove to have remained unvisited since its
abandonment, my fondest hopes of discovery would be fulfilled. Nor was I
disappointed, for an examination of the interior revealed a profusion of
unbroken pottery, implements of stone, horn, and bone, pictographs or
rude drawings on the walls, agate and jasper fragments of fossil trees,
such as I had noticed in abundance at the lower end of the valley, and
many other things, all in such a fine state of preservation as gave
instant proof that here was a treasure not yet duplicated in America.

"Over all these things and on the floor the dust of ages lay thick, and
rose in suffocating clouds with our every movement. Heedless of it, I
penetrated each of the three rooms contained in the house, wild with
delight over what I saw. I was somewhat taken aback when I found that
mother, who had seemed to share my enthusiasm, was all this time
regarding the place with the eye of a housewife, and as one in which we
might establish a home for such time as we should remain in the valley.
Finally, however, she won me to her way of thinking, and though we
returned to the camp for that night, we set to work early the next day
to put 'Cliff Castle,' as mother called it, in a habitable condition.

"On my second visit to it I discovered the steps leading to the top of
the mesa and the ruined watch-tower that crowns it. There I also found a
rock cistern, and a broken conduit, that could be opened at pleasure, by
which its waters had formerly been conveyed to the house. This, with
Hagar's skilled assistance, I soon repaired, and by nightfall of that
day we had the ancient cliff dwelling cleansed and ready for occupancy.
Another day was necessary for the removal of such goods as we needed
from below, but with that accomplished, we were comfortably settled in
what has been from that day to this our home.

"Of course much has been done to it since then in the way of
enlargement, the making of a more generous provision for light and
ventilation, and in the adding of many comforts, but in its general
aspect Cliff Castle stands to-day unchanged from the time it was built,
many centuries before the continent of America was discovered by
Columbus.

"Although so long as my meagre supply of ammunition lasted I had no
difficulty in procuring all the meat needed for our table, a supply that
Nanahe has kept up since by means of his throw-stick, I began the making
of a field as soon as our dwelling was put in order. My greatest labor
lay in fencing this against goats and rabbits. When it was ready I
planted it with corn, oats, beans, and squashes, the seed for which were
yielded by a bag of feed for our poor mules that I had procured in Zuñi.
I also set out peach-trees and grape-vines, improving greatly the
quality of their fruit by cultivation, and a little later I captured two
young goats, from which our present domestic flock has been reared.

"In all our labors, both mine in the field and mother's in the house,
Hagar was our invaluable assistant and instructor. She it was who taught
me to use the ancient stone hoes and planting sticks of my remote
predecessors, to construct wattled fences, to cure meat so that it might
be kept, and to work in clay until I could produce rude but serviceable
articles of pottery. She taught mother how to spin cotton thread on the
stone spindles that we found in this and other cliff dwellings, and
afterwards to weave them into a coarse cloth on a rude loom that she
herself constructed.

"She gave lessons in making matting of yucca fibre, in plaiting baskets,
dressing hides, and in sewing rabbit-skins with bone needles. Before we
began to harvest our planted crops, she gathered up large quantities of
certain grass-seeds, ground them into flour on old stone metates, and
made of this a palatable bread. She taught us where to look for wasp
honey, as well as how to extract sugar from grapes and peaches.

"I discovered the deposit of salt that seasons our food, and the
selenite that, cleaved into thin sheets, serves instead of glass to
close our windows against the cold of winter; but nearly every other
comfort with which thee finds us surrounded we owe to the knowledge,
skill, and cheerful industry of that splendid woman. She remained with
us nearly two years. Then, with her life work nobly accomplished, she
left us, and we buried her beside our dear boy.

"Since then Nanahe has been as our own well-loved son, bravely filling
his mother's place. With his increasing strength he has gradually
assumed the duties that my failing powers have caused me to relinquish,
until now he is our mainstay and dependence, as well as the delight of
our declining years. He has been quick to learn all that I could teach
him, and is fitted for a wider sphere of activity than that in which he
now moves. But I know not how we could exist without him, nor how he
might gain the outer world, even though we knew in what direction lay
its most accessible point.

"In all these years I have not been able to determine our locality nor
our distance from any known place, nor have we been visited by any human
being beside thyself since coming to the valley. On account of the
marvellous coloring of the desolate region surrounding us I have called
it the Painted Desert, though I am not certain that the name originated
with me, for I have a dim memory of hearing it before. I cannot satisfy
myself, however, as to whether the Moqui towns lie to the east or the
west of us. I am of the former opinion, but Nanahe, for some reason,
inclines to the latter. At the same time, neither of us can form any
idea of how far away they may be."

"I do not know," said Todd, "for I am very much ashamed to say that I
was so filled with visions of hunting as to neglect my opportunities for
gaining profitable information while with my brother's expedition. I
too, however, am of the opinion, that the Moqui towns lie to the
eastward of this place. Nor do I think they can be at any great
distance, certainly no further than two active young chaps such as
Nanahe and I might cover without danger during a time of rains. Don't
you think, sir, that we might make the attempt?" concluded the boy,
eagerly.

"What does thee think would become of mother and me if thee should take
Nanahe from us?" asked the old man.

"We would only be gone a short time, and would return with such
assistance as would enable you also to rejoin the world from which you
have been cut off so long," replied Todd.

"My son, when first we came here I too was impatient of imprisonment,
and fretted against it; but since then I have come to a knowledge that,
with our present freedom from the cares and anxieties of the world, our
life is happier here than it could possibly be elsewhere. More than
that, this place is our home, which we have learned so to love that
mother and I hope never to leave it, save for the better land of our
Father. I would not seek to detain thee here one moment against thy
will, nor would I hinder the departure of Nanahe if I knew of a way for
his going and an object to be gained. At present neither of these seems
to be offered; but in the Lord's own time, if it be His will, they are
certain to come, and until then we must be content to await His
pleasure. Therefore, my dear lad, satisfy thyself as well as may be in
this place, gain from it whatever of health, strength, and knowledge
thee can, and have faith to believe that in due time a way of escape
will be opened to thee."

Todd accepted this advice in silence and with a heavy heart, for to him
the Valley of Peace, in which he could not regard himself as other than
a prisoner, was only a refuge from the perils of its encircling desert;
while the great, outer world from which he was cut off contained all of
life that he deemed worth the having. Therefore during the next few
weeks, while he found much pleasure in the company of Nanahe, under
whose guidance he explored every foot of the valley and became an expert
climber of its frowning cliffs, he brooded constantly over plans of
escape. He even went so far as to propose to the Indian lad that they
two should set forth on a search for the Moqui towns in spite of the
Professor's protest, but was met with an unqualified refusal.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




ONE TOUCH OF NATURE.

A LEGEND OF WESTERN NEW YORK.

BY G. T. FERRIS.


"What d'ye think it all means?" said Mark Lytte, peering through the
tangled thicket of hazel and sumach, where the earliest autumn dyes had
begun to lay their crimson.

Buckskin, before answering his young comrade, pondered on the scene
before him. In the hollow nestling at the foot of the hill and clasped
in the bend of the river lay the large Indian village, all astir with
motion and excitement. But it seemed not to be the fever of war and
slaughter which so often convulses the aboriginal man, but a jubilee of
mirth and innocent delight. They were looking down on one of the most
considerable towns of the Seneca tribe in western New York, near what is
now Olean. Hurrying through the village streets, laughing groups of
dark-skinned youths and maids carried wreaths of wild-flowers, branches
of trees, and great sheaves of maize-stalks toward a lofty pole which
towered in the centre.

"To think I shouldn't 'a' known quick as powder flashin'" finally said
Buckskin John, whose iron face and tanned skin showed his occupation no
less than his garb. "It's the Feast of the Green Corn[2] among these
Iroquois devils, an' then they're allus as frisky as so many lambs. They
put off the wolf-skin for a while, but they keep it mighty handy, I kin
tell ye."

[2] The Feast of the Green Corn among the powerful Iroquois Confederacy,
or Six Nations, occurred in the latter part of August or early
September. Its rites so resembled the Hebrew Feast of the Tabernacles
that it furnished an additional argument for the notion that the
American Indians were remotely descended from the ten lost tribes of
Israel.

"Perhaps it'll give us a better chance to try our luck," answered Mark,
whose face was that of a lad of sixteen, though his height and the
sturdy square of his chest looked older. He wrung his hands excitedly,
and continued, with a quiver in his voice, shaking his long rifle in the
direction of the village: "What can we do? I shall go crazy if we fail.
Mother's grievin' to death, fadin' each month into a mere shadder. 'Twas
all right till last year, Buckskin, and she showed no sign but what
she'd a'most forgot about our lost Nellie. Then we heard of the little
white gal in Cornplanter's village, and that he was the very chief who
made the raid when we lived at Fort Pitt. Then Cunnel Johnson over to
Fort Niagara, though he did fight agin us in the late war, came to see
Cornplanter six months ago. An' the chief would say nuthin' but that the
little gal, whoever her parents were, was no longer white, but Indian,
his adopted sister, whom he loved dearer than life. That broke mother's
heart, for she began to pine soon as she found as Cornplanter ud never
let the captive free."

Mark's brief rehearsal did scant justice to a typical drama of the
border. Six years before, during the early days of the Revolutionary
war, a war party of the Senecas had made an irruption into western
Pennsylvania, and among their captives was a girl of four years old
belonging to the Lytte family. The great chief, who shares with Red
Jacket the highest mark in Seneca tradition, took the trembling captive
to his mother with the words:

"My mother, I bring to you a daughter to supply the place of my brother,
killed by the Lenapé six moons ago. She shall dwell in my lodge and be
my sister." So little Eleanor Lytte became Ma-za-ri-ta, "the Ship under
Full Sail," so named from her joyous and energetic disposition.

"Waal, we'll have to go slow," Buckskin had answered his companion.
"I'll resk my topknot to help ye, lad, but we'll see how the lan' lays."
The old hunter knew that at this festival-time hospitality would be
flung with both hands to all comers. So they moved down the hill into
the main village street, where a tall Indian, with all the insignia of a
great sagamore in his tattooing, head-dress, and port, received them
with a grave welcome.

"My white brothers have come to the green-corn feast of the Senecas.
They are welcome. Our hearts are glad, and all we have is theirs." Then
he ordered his guests conducted to a well-built log house, where a
generous provision for all their wants was found. They had scarcely
satisfied their simple needs when the music of Indian flutes and drums
drew them to the door, and there they found the messenger ready to
conduct them to the "long house," where the procession was forming which
would begin the festivities.

[Illustration: MA-ZA-RI-TA LED THE CHANT AS THEY DANCED ABOUT THE
PILLAR.]

Foremost, hand in hand with the chief, was a brilliant little figure, a
girl about ten years old. With a skin naturally snow-white, but now
kissed to a ruddy hue by the sunshine, and long brown plaits glittering
with the most brilliant beads; petticoat and bodice of the finest
broadcloth, and around her neck and shoulders rows of silver brooches
and strings of white and purple wampum; on her feet deer-skin moccasins
embroidered with porcupine quills, contrasting with the scarlet leggings
above--Ma-za-ri-ta looked indeed the fit princess of the revels. The
pride which shone in Cornplanter's eyes, the admiration with which all
the Indians gazed on the dancing girl--for her feet had already begun to
move to a nimble measure--struck a chill to the heart of Mark, for it
seemed a portent of sure defeat. Her blue eyes sparkled with joy as she
danced in the van, followed by the Seneca girls in pairs, all attired in
gala dress, and with wreaths of flowers on their heads. Then came
Cornplanter and his lesser chiefs, the warriors, the squaws, and the
children, and the march advanced to the pole in the centre of the
village, shaped in a square enclosure, that painted pole horribly etched
with the scars of innumerable tomahawks when the frenzy of war-dancing
made it the symbol of the enemy's body. Now the great mast was belted
thick with greenery to its very top, corn-stalks with pendent ears,
bunches of golden-rod, and all the richest spoil of the thickets and
meadows. Ma-za-ri-ta's sweet voice, as the dance of the maidens gyrated
more and more swiftly about the gorgeous pillar, led the chant among the
more shrill and unmusical notes of her companions.

Mark edged his way through the throng, for a fancy had suddenly come to
him, and he stood in the inner ring next the circle of dancers.

"Nellie! little Nellie! don't you remember Mark?" he said, in a piercing
whisper, as she approached several paces in the van of her choir.

Ma-za-ri-ta slowed her pace, looking at him wonderingly with a flush of
offended pride, for the little princess felt she was the queen of the
Senecas, child as she was. Again as she neared his place she heard the
words, "Nellie, _can't_ you remember?" The beautiful child face was
troubled, as though some dumb vague memory were stirring under the
surface, but again she moved on, shaking her head. Bitterly did Mark
bewail his failure to Buckskin, for, "I'm sure," he said, "she is our
lost Nellie, and I can see our mother's look in her pretty eyes."
Something worked like yeast in the old hunter's thoughts as he listened
in silence to Mark's passionate rambling words that night, when all the
camp was hushed to silence, and they lay tossing on their bear-skins.

"Why don't you answer?" the boy burst out, with petulance.

"Mark, I'm glad," the other said, deliberately, "that there seems to be
no chance of takin' the little gal away by force or cheatin'. I rayther
guess there's a doggone poor show of doin' anything that-a-way, and we
might 'a' known it afore. But I'll swar she's her mother's darter, as ye
said a minnit since, and when ye talk about the mother, thar's the key
of the hull sityvashun, as the lawyer chaps ud say. Ye don't quite
unnerstan' what I mean, hey? Waal, it's jes this, my young master. Your
mammy must come down here to Cornplanter's village, and she'll do mor'n
all the guns and bagnets of Gen'ral St. Clair's army to get the little
gal back, ef so be she is the right one, and I genooinely believe it.
The chief loves his adopted sister with every drop of his blood, and his
people adore her as their little princess. They'd lay their lives down
afore givin' her up, onless ye tech 'em jess right. But I know 'em well,
blood-thirsty varmints and wild beasts as they are when you cross 'em,
and a redskin's got a heart as beats big and strong as any white man's,
ef ye can find it oncet. Then I've heerd uv Cornplanter fur the last
fifteen year, and they all say he's one of the best as well as bravest
critturs as ever wore a scalp-lock. Cheer up, laddie; we'll git her, but
we can't do it yet. Trust ole Buckskin's idee."

Buckskin's solace scarcely calmed Mark's restlessness, and after the
hunter's snores proved him in the realm of dreams, he arose with the
idea of strolling through the moonlit village, and walking off the
fancies that would not let him sleep. The lonely streets were wrapped in
the pallid shine which silhouetted the log houses and the trees in
ghostly shadows, and had it not been for the occasional howl of a
distant wolf or the snarl of an Indian dog, he might have fancied
himself the only waking creature. He wandered aimlessly, in a maze of
fear and doubt what would be the outcome of it all. His careless
footsteps finally carried him to the edge of the village, where, at the
very shadow of the forest, stood a large double house apart from all the
others. Then he saw he was not the only sleepless soul, for from its
doorway glided a figure whose height and garb--for the moonlight
glittered on the costly bead-work--showed it to be the one who filled
his heart full to bursting. He forgot all prudence and doubt, and sprang
forward swiftly.

"Nellie! Nellie!" he cried, in tones that cut the silent air like a
knife. "I am your brother Mark--your playmate that loved you so dearly.
Come home with me to mammy, who is dying for you, away from this
dreadful place. A long time ago they carried you away from us, and now
I've found you again, and will not let you go, my darling little
sister." He forgot all the surroundings--all but need of giving voice to
the feeling that shook him as the wind shakes the leaves in the trees.

Ma-za-ri-ta's face quivered in the starlight as she shrank from the hand
that eagerly clutched her arm, as if he would have led her away at once;
then something like half-awakened intelligence was quenched in a wave of
blind terror, and she shrieked aloud.

A tall figure leaped like a tiger from the dark of the doorway, and Mark
felt the grip of iron fingers on his throat which threatened to strangle
him. As he lay helpless in that clutch, he saw an upraised tomahawk
sparkling in the moonshine; but Cornplanter did not strike, though his
words were edged with cutting disdain.

"Such is the honor of palefaces," said he; "from the cub to the
full-grown wolf the same. The Senecas welcomed their guests and did them
honor. Their hearts were warm and friendly, for it is now their festival
of peace and goodwill. But what should they do to one who would steal in
the dark, and rob them of their dearest?"

"Do?" said another voice, for Mark was speechless with rage, shame, and
impotence, and Buckskin darted forward, grasping Cornplanter's uplifted
arm, though the chief showed no immediate purpose to use his gleaming
weapon. "Do? They should respect the voice of natur' and blood cryin'
aloud!" Honest Buckskin had wakened suddenly, and alarmed at Mark's
absence, sought him through the Indian village. "Look ye here, chief,
this is a foolish boy, and he couldn't 'a' done what ye think, had he
been in ever so much airnest. But he suspecks he's found his little
sister that you and yourn took from his mammy's arms six year ago durin'
the time o' fightin'. The great Seneca is just; and let him say, then,
who's the thief, ef it comes to a matter o' stealin'."

The ferocity which had hardened Cornplanter's lineaments still
threatened the offender in spite of the hunter's plea. But Ma-za-ri-ta,
who had listened with shifting emotions chasing over her face, vainly
striving to pierce the meaning of the words, now threw her arms about
the neck of the chief, and spoke rapidly in the Seneca tongue. The
Indian's stern aspect melted and took on its more wonted expression, in
which there was something almost benignant.

"Go without harm even while it is night," he said, "lest the Senecas
discover all, and sore mischief befall." He brought them their arms,
loaded their wallets with food, and dismissed them. And as Mark turned
before entering the forest, he caught a last look of Ma-za-ri-ta,
watching their retreating footsteps with clasped hands and head bent
forward.

It was about a week afterwards that Colonel Johnson received a visit at
Fort Niagara in Canada, just across the river, which whetted his
interest keenly. This whilom British agent of the Iroquois tribes still
exercised a powerful influence over them, though their territory now
belonged to the conceded limits of the new republic. To him they looked
even yet for advice and authority. He recognized the Lyttes, mother and
son (for the father was dead), and his feelings guessed shrewdly at the
occasion as they walked up the esplanade from the jetty where they had
landed.

"Well, Mrs. Lytte," he said, after the first look at her pale and
working features, which were full of news, "I see you've learned
something more."

"Cunnel, in the name of God, and for the sake of your own dear wife and
children, you must help me now," the woman gasped, for her throat was
too full. "Mark has jess come from Cornplanter's village, and he says
for sure and sure it's little Nellie. An' she didn't know him! But,
Cunnel, she will know the mammy that bore her and gave her suck, for
I'll die of a broken heart ef she don't."

"We must trust for the best, my dear lady," said he, cheerily. "The
first thing will be the child's knowing you. That clearly proven, the
question will be as to Cornplanter. It will be a knock-down blow, but
the Seneca has great qualities. He may set his face against it like
flint, yet I shall be surprised if he thinks of self alone in the
matter. And what idea did you get of Cornplanter?" he concluded, turning
to Mark.

"Pretty good for an Indian," said Mark, moodily; "but ef he don't give
up Nellie to mother, I'll brain him with his own hatchet, ef I die for
it next minute."

"Well crowed, young cockeril," laughed the Colonel, "but we'll find
better weapons than tomahawks. It's the heart and not the skull we've
got to reach." There was no need to waste time, and quick outfit was
made for the journey to the Seneca village, about eighty miles away.

Cornplanter received the message from the Indian runner, giving warning
of Colonel Johnson's proposed visit, but with no further hint of
purpose. Yet he felt a keen pang of foreboding. Stoic as he was, there
was something in the air that mocked him with the notion of fate lying
in ambush close at hand. As Ma-za-ri-ta afterwards recalled, the chief
treated her with a clinging, pathetic tenderness during these days she
had never known before. And finally, when he saw with Colonel Johnson
the youth who had been his recent guest, and a pale-faced woman with
questioning gaze that wandered and hunted like that of a mad-woman, it
was no longer guesswork. It was as if a bullet had pierced his chest.
The Englishman knew his man, and made a plain appeal with all the fling
of that bullet.

Cornplanter heard with a stern, impassive face. "My father's words are
good and just," he said. "Let Ma-za-ri-ta decide," and hope knocked
again faintly at the gate that his little sister would not know the
white woman who had come to rob him of his heart's blood. The girl was
led from her lodge, unknowing the test, and ran gayly to her Indian
brother's side, and looked curiously at the little white group in the
centre of the watchful throng of red men. Her eyes glanced smilingly at
her Indian friends, till they were fastened as if by a magnet on the
white woman's face, and there they hung, fascinated, open-mouthed,
spellbound, as though they could never drink their fill. The woman
stood, arms half extended, burning eyes unquenched by their own tears,
lips dumbly moving. Fear, wonder, longing, doubt, swept over the girl's
face, till all thought was swallowed up in a light unspeakable, and her
tongue babbled "ma-ma." She tottered, but Mrs. Lytte leaped at her and
locked her fast with convulsive cries and sobs.

The chief's rigid face was that of a bronze man. All listened for his
lips to speak. But it seemed as if the jaws were locked. And when the
voice came his followers scarcely knew its hollow accents:

"The Great Spirit has spoken, and who are his red children that they
should refuse to listen." Then he covered his face with a corner of his
deer-skin robe and passed swiftly from their midst, this Indian
Agamemnon, who would not reveal his own agony of spirit.

Eleanor Lytte never saw her Indian brother again, but costly presents
each year proved his indelible memory till his death.




THE REMARKABLE ADVENTURES OF SANDBOYS.

A BIG HAUL.

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.


There was great excitement at the hotel. The oldest guest--that is to
say, the one who had passed the greatest number of summers at the
Mountain House--had just come in from his morning's fishing, and had
brought with him the largest trout that, so far as any one knew, had
ever been caught in the lake. It was a perfect beauty. Its body was long
and graceful in its lines and curves, and its "speckles" were of such a
lovely hue and quality that a little girl who was looking at them
remarked that she "wouldn't mind gettin' her nose all over freckles if
they was only pretty and pink like that instead of rusty-lookin' little
yeller spots." And everybody in the hotel, even the fishers who had
fished for days and days without catching anything, or getting even any
bites save those of the black-flies, were glad that the luck had come to
the oldest guest, for he was a great favorite with everybody;
grandfathers as well as boys had a great affection for him, he was such
a fine fellow, and so pleasant and courteous to every one. Probably no
one else in the hotel could have caught the "record" trout without
making somebody jealous of him, but in this case it was different, the
oldest guest had such a habit of seeming to share his good-fortune with
all with whom he came in contact. So it happened that there was great
rejoicing over the morning's catch, and everybody said it was a
wonderful one--even Sandboys acknowledged that it was a catch to be
proud of.

"Never been beat as an individual catch," he said. "Never. Biggest trout
I ever see; but not the biggest haul--not quite. No, not by a long shot,
by hookey!"

This remark made in the hearing of Bob and Jack naturally aroused the
curiosity of the two boys. They had been, on the whole, the chiefest of
the admirers of the oldest guest for a long time, and when he came in
just before dinner with his three-and-three-quarter-pounder, Jack ranked
him on the score of achievement with Napoleon Bonaparte, and Bob
admitted that he stood second to none but George Washington. Sandboys's
observation, however, changed this somewhat. If somebody had once made a
bigger haul, even if he had not caught a bigger fish, there might have
to be some slight rearrangement in the order of their lists of heroes.

"What do you mean by that, Sandboys?" they asked.

"Just what I say," replied Sandboys. "As a fish, that's the biggest fish
that's ever been took out of any of these lakes about here; but as a
haul on a single cast, it ain't in it with one I know about."

"Who made it?" asked Bob. "Jimmie Hicks?"

"Jimmie nothin'," retorted Sandboys, scornfully. "Jimmie was a mighty
smart lad at fishin'; but I'm talkin' of something alongside of which
smartness ain't no more'n a peanut side of an elephant."

"Then who did do it?" queried Jack. "You?"

Sandboys gave a significant little nod, and answered modestly, "Well, I
had something to do with it; but old Spavinshanks is entitled to some of
the credit--most of it, in fact."

The boys settled down on the settee, which, when he was on duty, was
Sandboys's throne.

"Tell us about it," they said.

Sandboys glanced anxiously around, and then he shook his head.

"Some other time," he said in a whisper. "When _he_ ain't in ear-shot.
He don't know nothin' about it, and if he did he'd be awful mad."

"He" to whom Sandboys so mysteriously alluded was Mr. Bingle, the owner
of the Mountain House stables.

"If he ever suspected," continued Sandboys, "he could ruin me. _It was
his tackle I used!_"

And with that he was off out of ear-shot, and away from the sharp
eyesight of Mr. Bingle, whose glance seemed to penetrate to the core of
his conscience, as it is apt always to be when consciences with
something weighing upon them are involved.

Later on when he was off duty, and Mr. Bingle was far away, Sandboys
made confession to Bob and Jack, and it ran somewhat in this wise:

"The reason I didn't want old Bingle to hear," he explained, "was
exactly as I told you. It was his tackle I used with my big haul, and
he'd be fightin' mad if he knew who it was as done it. He knew it had
been done, of course, but he never knew it was me."

"But I don't see," said Bob. "Using somebody else's tackle isn't any
crime. Everybody does it, don't they?"

"It all depends on the tackle," said Sandboys. "Some tackle's more
expensive than others, and more easily damaged. Old Bingle holds his at
about eighteen dollars a day--and I must say when he got it back it was
pretty wet and muddy--'specially old Spavinshanks."

Bob looked at Jack and Jack looked at Bob. Sandboys when he spoke
plainly was hard enough to find otherwise than queer, but when he chose
to veil his words in mystery, he was even harder to see through than a
stone wall. The idea of any man's holding his fishing-tackle at a
valuation of eighteen dollars a day was preposterous enough; that he
should object to its being brought back wet and muddy was surprising;
but the phrase "'specially old Spavinshanks" was absolutely past
comprehension.

Jack laughed, however, in spite of his mystification, and said, "Who was
old Spavinshanks? The worm?"

"Not a bit of it," returned Sandboys. "Old Spavinshanks was that old
gray horse Mr. Bingle paid ten dollars for thirty years ago, and has
been earning fifteen dollars a day out of every summer every year since.
I borrered him, though Bingle didn't know it, and that's how I came to
get the big haul, and my, what a wet and muddy beast he was when he got
back into the stable that night! He was so muddy they thought he was the
black mare for a minute.

[Illustration]

"The way it came about was this. I got word one day that an old
schoolmate o' mine I hadn't seen for two years was down at the Flume,
and I thought I'd like to go down and see him. So I went to old Bingle,
and asked him to let me have a horse and buggy to drive down there in,
for, as you know, it's over five miles from here. Bingle looked at me
calmly for a second, and said all right. The reg'lar fare down an' back
is ten dollars. You can have the rig for six--four dollars off. He knew
I couldn't pay it, and I told him so. Well what of it, says he. You
don't think I'm keepin' a livery-stable for fun, do ye? No, says I, but
I've done lots o' things for you for nothin'; you might do somethin' for
me. Well I will, says he. Next winter, when there ain't no call for
hoss-and-buggies, you can have the rig free. Now it'll cost you six
dollars. That made me mad, an' as it was in days when I didn't think
much about right or wrong, not havin' studied theeligy, as I have since,
I made up my mind to have the rig, an' have it free. And when I make up
my mind to a thing, it's as good as done. I had the rig when night came
on an' I was through with my day's work, and old Bingle had locked up
for the night and gone to bed--he generally got so tired figerin' up his
profits at night he went to bed about half past eight--I sneaked down to
the barn, took old Spavinshanks, harnessed him up to the buggy, and
started off for the Flume. I spent a very pleasant evening with my
friend Silas, and along about eleven o'clock I started back home again.
Everything went well until I got up to within a half-mile of the lake,
when it began to rain like buckets. I never see such a pour in all my
life.

[Illustration]

"'Whoa!' says I to old Spav., an' when he come to a standstill I
fastened the reins to the whip-stock, an' jumped out to put up the
leather cover of the buggy. I wasn't goin' to be drenched if I could
help it. Spav. stood still enough whilst I was fixin' the buggy-top and
fastenin' down the flaps at the sides. He was a good old horse, and had
worked so hard for the money he'd earned for Bingle that he hadn't any
false pride about bein' skittish. He was just a tired, sensible old
hoss. But there's a limit to what horses'll stand, an' when lightnin'
strikes a tree back of 'em, with a noise like a slew of artillery let
off all to once, no self-respectin' hoss can be asked to stand quiet.
That's what happened. Just as I was gettin' ready to get back into the
buggy again, flash! boom! comes the streak, and Spav simply flew off in
a great scare. As he approached the lake he shied, an' when he got to
the part of the road that's right on the lake he lost his senses and
plunged in, the buggy, with the top up, trailin' after him. I was
kerflummexed that time, I can tell you. I thought sure Spavinshanks'ld
be drownded and the buggy bust, but it didn't happen that way at all. He
swam right around the lake, luggin' the buggy right along too, an' by
the time I got to the boat-house he was nearin' the shore just beyond. I
made a rush for him, and as he came out had him by the bridle, and
inside of five minutes we was at the barn. There he was, covered with
mud and the buggy just reekin' with fish. There was two hundred an'
twenty trout, forty-seven suckers, and 'most a million minnows--every
one of 'em caught in the buggy-top!"

"Dear me!" cried Jack. "Really?"

"Yes, really," said Sandboys. "An' that's why there's so few fish left
in that lake now. Old Spavinshanks must have hauled that buggy through
every blessed school in the place. Which is why I say that while that
trout we see to-day was the record trout, he ain't no record haul for
one cast, not by a long shot, by hookey."

[Illustration]

And the boys agreed with him that it was indeed a marvellous haul, and
with a mighty strange kind of tackle too. Nor did they wonder that
Sandboys was reluctant to have Mr. Bingle hear of it. Hardly any owner
of horses would care to have his horse and buggy used in exactly that
way, no matter of how grasping or of how generous a spirit he might be.




[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]


The Arlington High-School Polo Team has won the High-School Championship
in Massachusetts, winning seventeen games out of nineteen played. Aside
from these successes in the League matches the Arlington players have
met and defeated nearly all the other high-school teams in the vicinity
of Boston, and have played two tie games with the Harvard 'Varsity team,
and one tie game with the Cambridge League team, which is considered the
strongest in the State.

The championship of the Interscholastic Association in the polo series
was won by Cambridge High and Latin; but this school's team has been
twice defeated by Arlington, so that it seems only just to award to the
latter the credit of being the best school polo team in Massachusetts.

[Illustration: THE ARLINGTON HIGH-SCHOOL POLO TEAM.]

A few words only concerning the individual players. Johnson, the
captain, played first rush, and is considered one of the cleverest men
at this position. He is a very fast skater. He played on the team last
year, and is somewhat of an all-round athlete, holding down centre-field
on the nine and playing half-back on the eleven. Puffer, the second
rush, was captain of the polo team last year, and in the fall he played
tackle on the football eleven. His strong point is the accuracy of his
shots, and he is credited with having scored the greatest number of
goals during this season.

The half-back position was well played by Pierce, who was a new man, but
had had some athletic training on the eleven in the fall, where his
position was that of guard. Wood also played half-back, and was on the
team the year before. He, too, is a member of the school nine and
eleven. The goal was looked after by White, and he did as good work in
his position as any of the goal-keepers of the neighborhood. It was his
first year as a polo-player, but like the other members of the team he
has had football and baseball experience. His brother played centre, and
is a veteran, having been a member of last year's team, second base on
the nine, and quarter-back on the football team.

The hardest games that Arlington has played were those against the
Felton A.A., the Harvard 'Varsity, and Summerville High-School. The
Felton team was a very strong one, and after two twenty-minute halves
defeated Arlington 1-0. Summerville High also got a game away from
Arlington, but in the return match was defeated 4-0 in a fifteen-minute
half.

[Illustration: BASEBALL CHAMPIONSHIP CUP.

New England Interscholastic League.]

The Interscholastic Baseball Championship Cup, which has been played for
for seven years, has finally been awarded to the Cambridge High and
Latin School, their team having won it the greatest number of times.
This cup is of solid silver, nearly nine inches high, in the form of a
loving-cup with handles. In design the bowl rests upon a circular wreath
of holly, and the bulge of the bowl itself is decorated with wreaths of
wild roses.

The first winner of this cup was the Boston Latin School, which secured
it in 1889. In 1890 and '91 Cambridge High and Latin held the trophy,
but surrendered it in 1892 to English High, getting it back from them
again in 1893. In 1894 C. H. and L. was tied with two other teams for
the championship. No award was made that year. Then again in 1895 C. H.
and L. was tied with Hopkinson's. No school in the seven years' struggle
having made so good a record as Cambridge, the cup is consequently now
the permanent property of the school.

The principal feature about the two most important in-door scholastic
tournaments held in this city within the last two weeks was the
promptitude with which the events were disposed of. As a rule, these
in-door games drag along until after the dinner hour; but the Berkeley
games were over quite early in the afternoon, and the Barnard games, a
week later, took little more time to be decided. The credit in both
cases is doubtless largely due to Mr. E. J. Wendell, who acted as
referee on both occasions.

As usual, the Berkeley athletes did not enter the competition for points
in the cup contest, leaving it to their guests to struggle for this
trophy. But in spite of this they took more points than any of the other
schools, leading with 3 firsts, 1-1/2 seconds, and 1-1/2 thirds, a total
of 21 points. Barnard captured the prize with 2 firsts, 2 seconds, and 2
thirds--making a total of 18 points. The Jerseymen from Pingry School
made a strong showing on this occasion and scored 2 firsts and 2
seconds, earning 16 points, and thus coming in a close second to
Barnard.

One of the most interesting performances of the afternoon was Paulding's
vaulting, the height he reached being 10 ft. 6 in., which is two inches
higher than the in-door record established by him only a short time ago.
We may, indeed, look for some excellent work in this event at the
Madison Square Garden games next Saturday. Another record that was
broken at the Berkeley games was the shot put, Bigelow going 41 ft.,
which is considerably beyond the former mark of 39 ft. 8-1/2 in.
Tomlinson, who took second to Bigelow, also passed the old record.

Another mark that was lowered was that of the 60-yard dash for Juniors,
which now stands 7-1/5 sec., and the deed was done by Whitmore. Manvel
of Pingry did well, as usual, but he did particularly well on this
occasion by winning both the quarter and the half mile runs. The mile
event went to Tomlinson of Barnard, and the walk was taken by Ladd,
although Boyesen had been counted on for the winner.

At the Barnard games the record of 7-1/5 sec. for the 60-yard dash
(Senior) was lowered by Wenman of Berkeley to 7 sec. Tomlinson, who won
the mile run at the Berkeley games, also took first at the Barnard
tournament, and brought the record down to 4.49-1/5, which was a much
better performance than he made the week previous--5 min. 1-3/5 sec. At
these games Pingry again showed up well, and tied with the Brooklyn
High-School for first place, each having scored 11 points.

As these last two in-door scholastic games are undoubtedly the most
important that will be held in the city this winter, it may prove of
value in making some sort of a prognostication of what will happen at
the Madison Square Garden next Saturday to append the summaries:

THE BERKELEY GAMES.

     60-yard Dash, Senior.--First heat won by Byrd Wenman, Berkeley; H.
     Cadenas, Columbia Grammar, second. Time, 7-1/5 seconds. Second heat
     won by C. A. Sulzer, Pingry; B. T. Doudge, Blake School, second.
     Time, 7 seconds. Third heat won by J. Holland, Barnard; S.
     Millbank, Trinity, second. Time, 7-1/5 seconds. Fourth heat won by
     Ira Richards, "Poly. Prep."; W. S. Hipple, Barnard, second. Time,
     7-1/5 seconds. Extra heat, for second men, won by H. Cadenas. Time,
     7-1/5 seconds. Final heat won by Wenman; Sulzer, second; Holland,
     third. Time, 7 seconds.

     60-yard Dash, Junior.--First heat won by W. Silleck, Barnard. Time,
     7-2/5 seconds. Second heat won by G. Whitmore, Dwight. Time, 7-1/5
     seconds. Third heat won by J. Lackey, Brooklyn High. Time, 7-1/5
     seconds. Fourth heat won by J. Deering, Berkeley. Time, 7-3/5
     seconds. Fifth heat won by W. Sartorius, Barnard. Time, 7-2/5
     seconds. Sixth heat won by W. Dougherty, Harvard. Time, 7-2/5
     seconds. Final heat won by Whitmore; Lackey, second; Sartorius,
     third. Time, 7-1/5 seconds.

     440-yard Run.--Won by H. E. Manvel, Pingry; J. Storms, Barnard,
     second; B. Campbell, Brooklyn High, third. Time, 55-3/5 seconds.

     880-yard Run.--Won by H. E. Manvel, Pingry; A. Tomlinson, Barnard,
     second; B. White, Berkeley, third. Time, 2 minutes 9-1/5 seconds.

     One-mile Run.--Won by A. Tomlinson, Barnard; P. H. Christensen,
     Harvard, second; R. L. Sanford, "Poly. Prep.," third. Time, 5
     minutes 1-3/5 seconds.

     60-yard Hurdle-race.--First heat won by F. Bien, Jun., Berkeley; C.
     Robinson, Trinity, second. Time, 8 seconds. Second heat won by
     C. A. O'Rourke, Trinity; L. Herrick, Brooklyn High, second. Time, 8
     seconds. Third heat won by S. H. Plum, Jun., Newark Academy; E.
     Johnson, Trinity, second. Time, 8-1/5 seconds. Final heat won by
     Bien; O'Rourke, second; Herrick, third. Time, 8 seconds.

     One-mile Walk.--Won by H. W. Ladd, Melrose; B. Boylesen, Berkeley,
     second; D. McGrew, Trinity, third. Time, 8 minutes 9-3/5 seconds.

     Running High Jump.--Won by G. Serviss, Brooklyn Latin, with 5 feet
     7 inches; C. L. Du Val, Berkeley, second, with 5 feet 6 inches; W.
     Grace, Columbia Grammar, third, with 5 feet 6 inches. Du Val got
     second place on the toss.

     Pole Vault.--Won by R. G. Paulding, Berkeley, with 10 feet 6
     inches, beating the in-door scholastic record of 10 feet 4 inches,
     made by himself earlier in the year; P. A. Moore, Pingry, second,
     with 9 feet; L. Curtis, Barnard, A. J. Forney, Adelphi, and M. W.
     Forney, Adelphi, a tie for third at 8 feet 9 inches.

     Putting 12-pound Shot.--Won by J. Stewart, Barnard, with 41 feet,
     breaking the in-door record of 39 feet 8-1/2 inches, made by R. H.
     Bigelow, Wilson and Kellogg, in 1893; J. C. Tomlinson, Jun.,
     Collegiate, second, with 40 feet 4 inches; M. Page, Trinity, third,
     with 38 feet 4 inches.

THE BARNARD GAMES.

     60-yard Dash, Senior.--First heat won by A. Kennedy, Brooklyn High;
     M. Arnold, Berkeley, second. Time, 7-2/5 seconds. Second heat won
     by B. Wenman, Berkeley; B. T. Doudge, Blake, second. Time, 7
     seconds. Third heat won by J. Holland, Barnard; H. Cadenas,
     Columbia Grammar, second. Time, 7 seconds. Fourth heat won by S.
     Millbank, Trinity; A. Manara, Columbia Grammar, second. Time, 7-2/5
     seconds. Extra trial, for second men, won by Doudge. Time, 7
     seconds. Final heat won by Wenman; Holland, second; Doudge, third.
     Time, 7 seconds.

     60-yard Dash, Junior.--First heat won by W. B. Sartorius, Barnard;
     G. Ralph, Collegiate, second. Time, 7-2/5 seconds. Second heat won
     by H. Leopold, Dwight; J. B. Smith, Collegiate, second. Time, 7-1/5
     seconds. Third heat won by F. Wickham, Pratt Institute; A. Meyers,
     Pingry, second. Time, 7-1/5 seconds. Fourth heat won by V.
     Dougherty, Harvard; R. Auchincloss, Cutler, second. Time, 7-1/5
     seconds. Fifth heat won by C. Warren, Cutler; A. Lackey, Brooklyn
     High, second. Time, 7-2/5 seconds. Sixth heat won by G. Whitmore,
     Dwight; E. Bill, Cutler, second. Time, 7-1/5 seconds. Final
     heat--Whitmore and Wickham, a dead heat; Sartorius, third. Time,
     6-4/5 seconds. Run-off won by Whitmore. Time, 7-1/5 seconds.

     220-yard Run, Senior.--First heat won by H. Ficke, Barnard; M. D.
     Evans, Oxford, second. Time, 26-4/5 seconds. Second heat won by Ira
     Richards, Polytechnic Preparatory Institute; B. Wenman, Berkeley,
     second. Time, 26-2/5 seconds. Third heat won by E. Pury, Barnard;
     R. Topping, Adelphi, second. Time, 27 seconds. Final heat won by
     Richards; Pury, second; Wenman, third. Time, 25-3/5 seconds.

     220-yard Run, Junior.--First heat won by W. B. Sartorius, Barnard;
     J. B. Smith, Collegiate, second. Time, 27 seconds. Second heat won
     by F. Wickham, Pratt Institute; A. Myers, Pingry, second. Time,
     26-2/5 seconds. Third heat won by R. McClave, Trinity; J. Ralph,
     Collegiate, second. Time, 28-4/5 seconds. Fourth heat won by A.
     Lackey, Brooklyn High; V. Dougherty, Harvard, second. Time, 27
     seconds. Final heat won by Wickham; Lackey, second; Myers, third.
     Time, 25-3/5 seconds.

     440-yard Run.--Won by H. E. Manvel, Pingry; G. Burlingame, Brooklyn
     High, second; V. Earle, Barnard, third. Time, 56-1/5 seconds.

     880-yard Run.--Won by H. E. Manvel, Pingry; A. Tomlinson, Barnard,
     second; J. Beasly, Adelphi, third. Time, 2 minutes 9-3/5 seconds.

     One-mile Run.--Won by A. Tomlinson, Barnard; P. H. Christensen,
     Harvard, second; R. L. Sanford, Polytechnic Preparatory Institute,
     third. Time, 4 minutes 49-1/5 seconds.

     60-yard Hurdle-race.--First heat won by L. Herrick, Brooklyn High;
     W. Halsey, Barnard, second. Time, 8 seconds. Second heat won by T.
     Pell, Berkeley; S. H. Plum, Newark Academy, second. Time, 8
     seconds. Third heat won by C. O'Rourke, Trinity; G. Smith, Columbia
     Grammar, second. Time, 8-1/5 seconds. Extra heat, for second men,
     won by Halsey. Time, 8-1/5 seconds. Final heat won by Herrick;
     Pell, second; O'Rourke, third. Time, 7-4/5 seconds.

     Running High Jump.--Won by W. Grace, Columbia Grammar, with a jump
     of 5 feet 2-1/4 inches; W. Duvan, Newark Academy, second, with a
     jump of 5 feet 2 inches; L. Curtiss, Barnard, third, with a jump of
     5 feet 1 inch.

     Pole Vault.--Won by R. G. Paulding, Berkeley, with a vault of 10
     feet; C. Eastmond, Brooklyn High, second, with a vault of 9 feet 2
     inches.

     Putting 12-pound Shot--Won by J. Stewart, Barnard, with a put of 41
     feet 11-1/2 inches; John Tomlinson, Collegiate, second, with a put
     of 38 feet 4 inches; G. Miller, De La Salle, third, with a put of
     37 feet 7 inches.

For some time past the athletes at the public schools of this city have
felt that they could make a good showing in various branches of sport if
they only had the opportunity, but as the Interscholastic Association
admits to its competitions students from private schools only, the
public-school boys have never been able to meet them. It is reported
now, however, that a meeting is soon to be held by representatives from
a large number of the New York public schools, with a view to
establishing an association similar to the Interscholastic Association.

It is greatly to be hoped that this movement may prove a success, and
that the public schools will hold tournaments, as the private schools
do; and in baseball and football it would be well if, toward the close
of the season, the best teams of the two leagues could meet and settle
the supremacy of New York schoolboy teams.

A meeting of the executive committee of the National I.S.A.A. is
announced for next Saturday evening at the Knickerbocker Athletic Club.

"TRACK ATHLETICS IN DETAIL."--ILLUSTRATED.--8VO, CLOTH, ORNAMENTAL,
$1.25.

  THE GRADUATE.




QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.

GOOD MANNERS.


The average young man scoffs a little at a chap who is noticeable for
his good manners. Many a healthy boy thinks a certain roughness in
speech or manner is a sign of vigor and manliness in contrast to the
weak and womanly ways of one who is always bowing and scraping to the
people whom he meets. There could not be a greater mistake; because,
while an over-display of politeness is a sign of hypocrisy, natural
courtesy will never permit boy or man to behave in any way except in the
thoughtful, quiet, refined way which belongs to good manners. A rough,
honest chap is better than a slippery, well-mannered, dishonest one, to
be sure. That perhaps is the reason for so much of this deliberately
rough way some of us adopt. But this does not prove that courteous
behavior is wrong or to be avoided. It means that courteous behavior is
sometimes used as a cloak for other motives.

There is no reason, therefore, why the average young man in school or
college or business, in his daily occupation, or when he comes in
contact with women or men, girls or boys, should not make it a point to
be reserved, self-contained, tolerant, and observant of the little rules
which every one knows by heart, and which go to make his company and
companionship valuable to others. It is the same in his contact with men
as with women. A systematic method of observing ordinary rules in such
cases invariably has its effect. For example, you will see many a boy in
some discussion among his friends talking all the time, demanding the
attention of others, insisting on his views, losing his temper over a
game of marbles and declining to play longer, or making himself
conspicuous in a hundred other ways. He may be a very good chap, full of
push and vigor, and so sure of his own views that in his heart he cannot
conceive of any other person really having a different view of the
subject. That is an estimable character for a healthy boy to have.
Confidence in one's own ideas often carries one over many a bad place.
But the fact that the boy has such a character and his disagreeable way
of forcing it upon you are two entirely different things; and the
difference of being confident and disagreeable and confident and
agreeable is the difference between good and bad manners.

Besides, this aggressive confidence never has the weight that quiet
belief in one's ideas has. It is a very familiar incident in the course
of business men's meetings and of boys' meetings for one to propose
something, the others to agree to it, and then for one quiet man to
express his contrary views, and bring the assembled company over to the
opposite side of the question. This reversal of opinion is caused by the
fact that one man, who has been reserved until all the others have
finished, has now by the force of his quiet confidence turned the whole
tide the other way. Such quiet methods are real portions of good
manners, and they act far more strongly than aggressiveness. The old
proverb advising you to count ten before doing something on the spur of
the moment is meant to prove the same point.




[Illustration: STAMPS]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin
     collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question
     on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address
     Editor Stamp Department.

     E. L. SMITH, 64 Sparks St., Cambridge, Mass., wishes to exchange
     stamps.

     W. A. WHEELER.--I never heard of a "Walkers Penny Post." If it is
     on the original letter or envelope, I should like to see it.

     R. BOWERS.--The stamp _Cerrado y Sellado_ is a Mexican "officially
     sealed" stamp. These are, properly speaking, labels, not stamps,
     and consequently are no longer catalogued.

     W. M. FOORD.--As the Olympian stamps are still in use they are
     worth face value only, if unused. Used they are very common.

     J. KRANZ.--All the leading dealers in New York sell stamps by
     auction at irregular intervals throughout the season. Catalogues
     are sent free on application.

     H. BUNKER.--Entire envelopes are collected by comparatively few
     compared with those who collect stamps. Envelopes can be bought for
     one-quarter, or in some instances one-tenth, the price which
     adhesive stamps of equal rarity would command.

     F. X. STAHN.--Nova Scotia stamps are not being bought up by
     speculators. The fact is, no one knows how many were sold by the
     government to the syndicate now controlling the same. One set
     should satisfy you under these circumstances.

     A. LOBENTHAL.--Join your local stamp society, if there is one. If
     not, then join the American Philatelic Association.

     A. HOWARD.--Inverted centres on U.S. stamps are extremely rare. The
     price quoted by you is very reasonable if the stamp is in good
     condition.

     A. SENG.--The Canadian new issue has not been definitely announced.

     A. THALMAN.--Philatelic literature is a feature in a few public
     libraries. Pittsburg set the example in this respect. It will pay
     you as an active collector to take the three periodicals mentioned.

     J. J. BRIGGS.--Age does not determine the value of coins. It is
     altogether a question of supply and demand. If dealers have ten
     copies of a scarce coin and twenty collectors want them, the price
     will go up. If, on the other hand, there is little or no demand the
     prices will go down. As to U.S. coins in general I would say that
     the supply in the hands of the dealers is equal to any prospective
     demand. The immense quantity of old U.S. coins in the hands of the
     public will not command a premium. Coin-collecting to-day is very
     much what stamp-collecting was twenty years ago--that is to say,
     the speculative element is lacking.

     W. SMITHSON.--Collect Seebecks all you want. No society or
     association can prevent you. The stamps are pretty in themselves,
     and they have undoubtedly been used for postal purposes.

     G. H. DAVIS.--I never heard of the stamps issued by the
     "Stamp-Saving Society." They are interesting as curiosities.

  PHILATUS.




[Illustration: ROYAL BAKING POWDER]

Celebrated for its great leavening strength and healthfulness. Assures
the food against alum and all forms of adulteration common to the cheap
brands.

ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., NEW YORK.




Arnold

Constable & Co.

SPRING IMPORTATIONS.

PARIS LINGERIE.

_Tea Gowns, Matinées._

SHIRT WAISTS.

_Glacé Silk Petticoats._

CHILDREN'S WEAR.

_Outing Suits,_

_Gingham and Organdie Frocks,_

_Reefers, Jackets._

Broadway & 19th st.

NEW YORK.




MR. LAURENCE HUTTON

contributes a short story

The

Uncertain Glory

of an April Day

to the next number of

HARPER'S ROUND TABLE

Five Cents a Copy. Two Dollars a Year.

       *       *       *       *       *

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, N. Y.




[Illustration: PISO'S CURE FOR CONSUMPTION]

CURES WHERE ALL ELSE FAILS.

Best Cough Syrup. Tastes Good. Use

in time. Sold by druggists.




[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of Amateur
     Photographers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any
     question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should
     address Editor Camera Club Department.


LANTERN SLIDES.

So many of our new members have written asking how lantern slides are
made, and what is required for an outfit, that we publish another paper
on the subject.

Most young amateurs have an idea that it requires a great deal of skill
to make lantern slides, but any one who can make a good negative can
soon learn how to make a good lantern slide. The simplest way is by
contact-printing. Select a negative free from spots, scratches, or
pinholes. It must have fine detail in the shadows, and no harsh
contrasts of light and shade. The regulation size of a lantern slide is
3-1/2 by 4, so choose a negative which will still make a good picture if
all but the portion included in these dimensions is blocked out. Cover
the part of the negative which is to be blocked out with needle-paper,
or paint it with non-actinic paint, applying it to the glass side of the
negative. The negative is placed in a printing-frame, and then by a red
light, the slide is placed over the part to be printed from, the film
side toward the negative.

If one has a lantern the light of which is suitable for printing lantern
slides, cover the negative, open the door of the lantern, and then
holding the printing-frame about fifteen inches from the light, expose
from five to twenty seconds, according to the density of the plate. A
plate that prints quickly will need but five or eight seconds, but a
denser plate will require a much longer exposure, often as long as
thirty seconds. Cover the plate as soon as it is printed, close the
lantern, remove the slide from the frame, and place it face up in the
developing-tray. Turn the developer over it quickly, taking care that
the whole surface of the plate is covered immediately. Any developer
that makes good negatives will make good lantern slides. A weak
developer is to be preferred to one which brings out the image quickly.
Develop till the detail is well out, wash and fix same as a negative.

As every imperfection in a plate is magnified many times when thrown on
the screen, great care must be taken in the developing, fixing, washing,
and drying. When the slides are washed enough, take a piece of clean
surgeon's cotton and wash the film very gently, then place to dry where
no dust will settle on the surface.

If there are any spots on the plate after washing and before drying,
they may be removed with ferricyanide of potassium in solution. Tie a
small piece of surgeon's cotton to the end of a glass rod, dip it into
the solution, and touch the spot very lightly. Rinse the plate at once,
and if the spot has not entirely disappeared, repeat the operation. The
ferricyanide works very quickly, and must be rinsed off as soon as
applied.

Negatives which are too large for contact-printing are made into lantern
slides by the process known as reduction, directions for which will be
given again if requested.

The making of lantern slides is one of the most fascinating branches of
photography, and the work is specially appropriate for winter, both in
making the slides and showing them with the lantern.

[Illustration: FIRST PRIZE, JUNIOR COMPETITION, LANDSCAPES.

By Anton H. Schefer, New York, N. Y.]

[Illustration: SECOND PRIZE, JUNIOR COMPETITION, LANDSCAPES.

By Lesley Ashburner, Media, Pennsylvania.]

[Illustration: THIRD PRIZE, JUNIOR COMPETITION, LANDSCAPES.

By Howard Cox, Helena, Montana.]

     S. F. MACQUAIDE, 46 Mechlin St., Germantown, Pa., says that she has
     a number of 4-by-5 views which she would like to sell. If any of
     the Camera Club wish to purchase, a letter sent to address given
     will bring list of subjects and price of same. Our correspondent
     also wishes to buy a second-hand No. 2 Bull's-Eye camera.

     B. COVER, 713 Avenue W, Ashland, Wis., has a 5-by-8 Anthony view
     camera, with three double plate-holders, which he will sell cheap,
     or exchange for a 4-by-5 camera.

     WILLIAM O. WICKMAN, Great Barrington, Mass., wishes to purchase a
     picture of the White House, Washington, D.C. Would like either 4 by
     5 or 5 by 8.

     JOHN G. VOLKES, 324-1/2 Eighth St., New York city, would like to
     correspond with members of the Camera Club on photographic
     subjects.

     CLAUDE A. WOLFE, 1701 Diamond St., Philadelphia, would like to
     exchange a print of the State Capitol building of Tennessee for one
     of the Capitol buildings of New York, Massachusetts, and Maine; he
     also asks if any member has a good view camera which he wishes to
     sell, or exchange for a bicycle and a 5-by-7 Premo camera with five
     plate-holders.

     B. A. PORTER, 212 Tulip Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y., has views of Strong,
     Me., and of Brooklyn and New York, which he would like to exchange
     for views of other localities. Our correspondent asks those members
     sending prints to use an extra fixing-bath in toning the prints, as
     he is making a collection, and many of the prints fade after a
     while. For those who do not care to exchange, and who would like
     good views of the places named, he will sell unmounted views for
     10c. each.

     DUDLEY GREGG, Hogsett Military Academy, Danville, Ky., asks if any
     member of the Camera Club has a pocket-kodak which he would like to
     sell.

     WILLIAM S. JOHNSON asks what is sel d'or; a good formula for
     mounting-paste; a formula for metol developer; if hydrochloric and
     muriatic acids are the same; and where rubber finger-tips may be
     purchased. Sel d'or is a salt of perchloride of gold and
     hyposulphite of soda. Starch paste made by mixing with cold water
     and then boiling until of the proper consistency makes an excellent
     paste for mounting photographs. It will not keep, but must be made
     fresh when wanted. A good formula for metol developer is: Metol, 30
     grs.; sodium sulphite crystals, 180 grs.; carbonate of potassium,
     90 grs.; and water, 4 oz. Hydrochloric and muriatic acid are the
     same. Dealers in photographic supplies sell rubber finger-tips.
     Three finger-tips cost 15c.

     R. B. T. asks if there is any remedy for a negative which is
     under-developed after it is fixed. It can be intensified--in other
     words, redeveloped. See directions for intensifying in No. 824,
     August 13, 1895. If you have not this number, it will be mailed you
     from this office on receipt of 5c.

     FREDERICK S. COLLINS asks if solio toning solution can be used for
     toning albumen and aristo prints; and what makes a thin negative.
     The solio toning-bath can be used for aristo, but is not suitable
     for albumen paper. A thin negative may be the result of
     over-exposure, under-exposure, or under-development. Over-exposure
     makes the negative a uniform color and lacking in contrast.
     Under-exposure gives strong high lights and no detail in the
     shadows. Under-development gives good detail, but the negative is
     too weak to make a good print. Such a negative can be redeveloped
     or intensified. See answer given to R. B. T.

     L. K. asks where to get the magazine _American Amateur
     Photographer_. The address of the publishers is 239-241 Fifth
     Avenue, New York city. The price of the magazine is $1 per year.

     HENRY READ wishes a remedy for keeping the film from looking as if
     it were crackled; also how to make dry-plates. The tray should be
     rocked during the development of the film. The crackled appearance
     will then be avoided. Do not try to make dry-plates. The operation
     is too long, and the plates can be bought much cheaper than they
     can be made at home, besides being always reliable.




[Illustration: IVORY SOAP]

  The stores which keep the best that's made
  Secure the highest class of trade;
  The shoppers who are shrewd and wise
  Select such stores to patronize;
  And stores and shoppers all attest
  Pure Ivory Soap is far the best.

Copyright 1896, by The Procter & Gamble Co., Cin'ti.




[Illustration: ROYAL WORCESTER CYCLES]

Royal in their beauty, strength and speed. They are leaders in every
sense of the word. $100 to everyone. Tandems, $150.

       *       *       *       *       *

Middletown Cycles, $60, $50, $40.

CATALOGUES FREE.

WORCESTER CYCLE MFG. CO.

17 Murray Street, New York.

Factories: Middletown, Conn.; Worcester, Mass.




[Illustration: CRAWFORD BICYCLES]

Few bicycles selling for $100 have better quality or more elegant finish
and equipment. Guaranteed for one year.

SEND FOR CATALOGUE.

The CRAWFORD MFG. CO., Hagerstown, Md.

NEW YORK, BALTIMORE, ST. LOUIS.




EARN A GOLD WATCH!

[Illustration]

We wish to introduce our =Teas and Baking Powder=. Sell 50 lbs. to earn a
=Waltham Gold Watch and Chain=; 25 lbs. for a =Silver Watch and Chain=; 10
lbs. for a =Gold Ring=; 50 lbs. for a =Decorated Dinner Set=; 75 lbs.
for a =Bicycle=. Write for a Catalog and Order Blank to Dept. I

W. G. BAKER,

Springfield Mass.




[Illustration: CRESCENT BICYCLES]

Right Prices

You can pay more money for a bicycle, but you cannot secure a machine of
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Crescents are the most popular bicycles made--70,000 Crescents sold in
1896.

Crescents for everybody--men and women, youths and misses, boys and
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[Illustration]

WESTERN WHEEL WORKS

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Catalogue free. Agents everywhere.




HOOPING

COUGH

CROUP

Can be cured

by using

ROCHE'S HERBAL

EMBROCATION

The celebrated and effectual English cure, without internal medicine. W.
EDWARD & SON, Props., London, Eng. =All Druggists.=

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"Hold their place in the front rank of the publications to which they
belong."

HARPER'S

PERIODICALS

  MAGAZINE, $4.00 a Year
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  BAZAR, $4.00 a Year
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CARDS

=FOR 1897. 50 Sample Styles= AND LIST OF 400 PREMIUM ARTICLES FREE.
HAVERFIELD PUB CO., CADIZ, OHIO




Florida Pines and Pickaninnies.

     Pines are the principal trees of this part of Florida, though
     gnarled and mossy oaks are common. A glimpse of a sunset or the
     glow of a forest fire behind a group of these trees outlined
     against the sky forms many a beautiful picture. The pines are very
     picturesque too, they stand so tall, and the gray Florida moss
     hangs from their branches like draped garments.

     A picturesque feature of the Florida woods is the numerous negro
     cabins made of logs. All have the same kind of mud and stick
     chimneys, built hardly up to the peak of the hut, so that when the
     thick black smoke, perhaps full of sparks, comes out of the mouth
     of the chimney, it curls against the under part of the projecting
     shingles, and then passes away. It is certainly very curious that
     the huts do not burn down, but it is a fact that they rarely do.

     The cabins are very dirty, and passing one, you may see from two to
     perhaps five negro "pickaninnies" laying in the sand with a pig or
     two sometimes. The pigs here are commonly termed "razor-backs,"
     because they are so small and thin that their backbones seem almost
     to prick through their skin. This county is named Alachua (the ch
     is pronounced as k), meaning in the Seminole Indian tongue "big
     jug," because there is a sink in an open space that is called
     Paine's Prairie when it is dry, and Kanapaha Lake when it is
     changed--after a heavy rain--into a sheet of water. The sink is so
     deep that no one has ever discovered the bottom.

     The names of some of the places in Florida, and the flint
     arrow-heads which are frequently found, are all the traces that are
     left here of the Seminole Indians who once owned the land. Down by
     the coast, about fifty miles west from here, are found mounds of
     sand and oyster-shells, which, when dug into, reveal skeletons of
     Indians, and Spaniards who were killed. There is a place south of
     here which is historic. A great many soldiers were killed there by
     the Indians when asleep and off their guard. The Seminoles have
     been driven down into the "Everglades" of South Florida, a great
     swamp into the heart of which no white man has ever penetrated.
     Here the Indians stay, never daring to venture out to massacre in
     their old way, for there is no use in trying to do that now.
     Palmettoes grow in great abundance here. Sinks are very numerous,
     and so are natural wells.

     There is a place called Waldo in Florida, where there is a swamp in
     which cedar-trees grow, and a lake in which alligators live in
     great numbers, and on the banks of which beautiful wild-flowers
     grow. The alligators lay their eggs in straw on the land, go back
     to the water, and visit the eggs from time to time until they
     hatch. Then the parents lead their young to the water, where they
     live. These alligators are caught for their handsome skins, of
     which many things are made.

  ELSIE VERMILYE SMITH (aged 12).
  ARREDONDA, FLORIDA.

Accompanying this most interesting letter is a wash-drawing of a negro
cabin, with the too-short chimney, and the pig and pickaninnies in the
foreground. It is a clever drawing. The TABLE is glad to print
descriptive letters like this one, because everybody likes to read these
interesting insights into peculiar features of other parts of the
country. Will other readers send the TABLE equally good morsels?

       *       *       *       *       *

It Went to Paradise Valley.

There are always hurry and confusion at the end of every session of
Congress, and these are multiplied severalfold, if that be possible,
when the Congress dies, by Constitutional limit, with the expiration of
a President's term. In these busy hours droll things sometimes happen
and witty things are said. In the Congress just expired--the extra
session just called by President McKinley is of the new and not of the
Congress that sat during the winter--an incident occurred that
illustrates how great things often come about from small causes--a
slight turn in the tide of their fortune at the right time.

A railroad company wanted a right of way through a forest reserve in the
West. Senator Vest, of Missouri, opposed the grant for the reason that
in the dry summer seasons forest fires would be kindled by the
locomotives. The time was limited, and many important measures were to
come up. A Senator sitting near the famous Missourian whispered
something.

"Time presses," remarked Senator Vest, "and I am just informed that this
road leads to 'Paradise Valley.' If the road helps anybody to get to
Paradise, why, let it go through."

And it went.

       *       *       *       *       *

How the Prisoner Escaped.

H. D. Dantzler, St. Matthews, S. C., and several other readers, ask
about the solution of the "prisoner puzzle." A prisoner was offered his
liberty if, by starting at the warden's office, he could enter each of
the thirty-six cells once, and only once, double on his route, and
arrive at the office again.

Here is his route.

[Illustration]

       *       *       *       *       *

Programme for April-fool Day.

     The TABLE is asked: "Can some one through your columns suggest some
     entertainment for a young people's party to be given on April-fool
     day? Something appropriate for the day is wanted.

  "I. S."

If any reader will favor us, we will mail direct to this inquirer, since
the time is growing short, and print for the benefit of other readers in
future years.

       *       *       *       *       *

The Sign in the "Sail" Puzzle.

"I hope you will not think me very stupid, but even with the answer I
cannot read the sign of the boat-house in the puzzle. Will you kindly
explain through your columns now to read it?"

The preceding, either in these words or others of the same meaning, came
to us from several readers. The first word is read by taking not the
letters on the sign, but the succeeding one in the alphabet, as "b" for
"a," "e" for "d," and so on. The second word is read by taking the
preceding letter in each case, as "l" for "m," etc. The remaining words
are read by taking the letters in reverse alphabetical order. For
example, the fourth word on the sign begins with "x," which is the third
letter, reading backwards, or from the end of the alphabet. For it read
"c," and so on.

       *       *       *       *       *

In that Fifteen Problem.

The way to place the figures one to nine on a "tic, tac, toe" diagram so
that in eight ways the sum of the three figures will be fifteen is:
Reading from left to right, the top line, 4, 3, 8; the second line, 9,
5, 1; and the lower line, 2, 7, 6.

       *       *       *       *       *

Thirty Cents and Five Cents per Dozen.

Frank Smith figures out that A, B, and C sold eggs at the following
prices. Did you get answers agreeing with his?

  A sold 9 doz. at 30 cts., and  1 doz. at 5 cts. = $2.75
  B sold 5 doz. at 30 cts., and 25 doz. at 5 cts. =  2.75
  C sold 1 doz. at 30 cts., and 49 doz. at 5 cts. =  2.75

       *       *       *       *       *

Questions and Answers.

"B. H. S." asks: "To whom is application made in order to get a position
in any of the large railroad offices? I have heard that in order to get
a position in any of the New York Central offices certain examinations
had to be taken." The railroad you name examines applicants for
positions in the auditors' and all departments where good penmanship and
accuracy in figures are required, but it does not examine applicants for
positions in other departments. But it has no regular examining-board.
Nor do railways of the country have, as far as we know, such boards for
applicants to apply to. If one desires to get into the telegraph service
of a railway, he applies to the superintendent, or in some cases to the
chief operator or train-despatcher. Any local telegraph operator can
give the name of the proper official on his road. For positions in
auditors' and other accounting offices applications are made to those
officials. For places on trains apply to the superintendent, and on
locomotives to the master-mechanic. As a rule the best course is to get
acquainted with some employé, and through him make the application.

J. B. Coles asks how to get into West Point. Old readers must bear with
us when we answer again this much-answered query to say: Apply to your
member of Congress. The appointment is made by him, and by him only,
save in the case of a very few appointments made by the President of the
United States, which appointments are usually reserved for sons of army
officers, who have, as a rule, no legal residence and, therefore, no
member of Congress to apply to. The same course is to be followed to get
an appointment to Annapolis. If you prefer, you can write, merely for
information about vacancy and conditions, to the Secretary of War or
Secretary of the Navy. Address your communication as here named, and
add, Washington, D. C. Make the request plain and brief, and you will
receive a reply in good time. Don't hesitate to write to these
officials. They are public servants, and are always ready to answer such
proper inquiries. Only one cadet from each district can be at West Point
and at Annapolis, respectively, at a time.

Ralph Leach: Address G. A. Hentey, in care of _Boys' Own Paper_,
Paternoster Row, London, and Kirk Munroe, in care of this
publication.--Minnie Louise Naething asks what a "parchment eater" is.
We give it up--because our reference-books, like hers, are silent on the
subject. Can some one enlighten us?--"Cape Vincent" asks us some
questions, and desires answers by mail. We are always glad to oblige our
readers, but our purpose in answering questions is to give information
to all. Why not have answers published?

Robert H. Nead asks for information about the "Mad Yankee," which
occurred in one of the recent puzzle questions. We discarded "Mad"
Anthony Wayne because he was not a Yankee. Robert retorts that Elisha
Kent Kane was born in Philadelphia. The question was, in effect, what
public man went by the nickname "Mad Yankee"? The answer was Kane.
Whether the nickname was or was not correctly applied we cannot say. Nor
is it material. Wayne could not be accepted, for he was not the bearer
of that nickname, and our conditions included nicknames in the list of
questions.

Louise A. Littlepage, who lives in Colon, Guatemala, sends us a poem of
six verses on "The Noble Boy." The TABLE rarely prints poems--for
obvious reasons. Louise says, "If the TABLE wishes, I will send some
more verses." Will she not tell us in plain prose not about noble boys,
because such are not rare with us, but about Guatemala--the school she
attends, the interesting sights of the city she lives in, what time
blackberries are ripe, if she have such fruit, the flowers that bloom in
Colon in March, what the people of Colon think of the new republic of
which Guatemala is now a part? Does Colon have cable cars? Has she ever
been out in the country on a visit to a country house? If so, what was
it like, how furnished, and what did the housewife have for dinner?
Noble boys are noble boys the world over. But Guatemala is different
from Georgia, Maine, or Dakota. Please describe for us some of these
interesting differences.--A member: Wood-engravers' tools are for sale
only by a few first-class dealers in hardware. They are purchased in the
rough, and have to be finished and put in condition by the engraver. A
set of tools, including leather-pad and magnifying-glass, suitable for a
beginner would cost about ten dollars.




THE LUXURY OF SOAP.

Dr. Nansen is not a man whose happiness depends much on the possession
of luxuries, but there was at least one luxury which he confesses that
he missed during his long tramp with Lieutenant Johansen after they left
the _Fram_. The winter they spent in a hut passed comfortably, he says,
and if they had had a little flour, a little sugar, and a few books they
could have lived like lords. They did not complain at the absence of
these things, however, but one thing they did long for was soap. "It was
difficult enough," Dr. Nansen writes, "to get one's person clean, but
that we managed to a certain extent by rubbing in bear's blood and fat,
and then rubbing this off with moss." But this process was inapplicable
to clothes, and they were very desirous of washing their under-clothes
before beginning their spring journey. "After trying every other
possible way, we found, to our despair, no better expedient than to boil
them as best we could and then scrape them with a knife. In this way we
got so much off of them that they did to travel with, though the thought
of putting on clean clothes when we once got back to Norway was always
in our minds as the greatest enjoyment that life could bestow."

An analogy is traceable between this pleasure of anticipation and the
glee of Dan Troop, as described in Kipling's _Captains Courageous_, at
the prospect of getting back to Gloucester after five months on the
Banks and sleeping in a clean boiled night-shirt.

There is a picture in _Farthest North_ of Nansen at the end of his long
ice journey, and still in the soapless state, meeting Captain Brown of
the _Windward_, who brought him home.

       *       *       *       *       *

A RESTLESS BOY'S REASON.

"I'm going to be a minister," said Tommie, forcibly.

"Why, Tommie dear?" asked his father.

"So's I can talk in church," said Tommie.




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HARRY S. LEE, MATTAPAN, MASS.




Nansen's Great Book--"Farthest North"

[Illustration: SCOTT-HANSEN'S OBSERVATORY]

Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship _Fram_
(1893-1896), and of a Fifteen Months' Sleigh Expedition by Dr. NANSEN
and Lieut. JOHANSEN. By Dr. FRIDTJOF NANSEN. With an Appendix by OTTO
SVERDRUP, Captain of the _Fram_. With over 100 Full-page and Numerous
Text Illustrations, Sixteen Colored Plates in Facsimile from Dr.
NANSEN's own Water-Color, Pastel, and Pencil Sketches, an Etched
Portrait, Two Photogravures, and Four Maps. About 1300 pages, 2 Volumes,
Large 8vo, Gilt Tops and Uncut Edges, $10.00.

PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK




It was at Vicksburg during the war. A company were out on a foraging
expedition, when one of the privates, in nosing around the out-houses of
a farm, ran across a barrel of prime cider. Now, as the private
expressed it, a barrel of prime cider was not to be sneezed at, and with
the help of an aged darky he carried it after nightfall into the camp.
The next day he went to work rigging up a little counter, and before
noon was ready to dispense the refreshing beverage at the small sum of
ten cents a cup, according to the rudely scrawled sign outside the tent
flap.

Now liquid refreshment was scarce, and with a luxury like cider to
soothe the palate it was but a short while before the front of that tent
resembled the entrance to a circus. Business was brisk, exceedingly
brisk, and the private's arms ached in passing out the cups of cider.
His little till was rapidly filling up with coin, when there was a
perceptible dwindling in his customers.

The change was alarming, and he looked around for the cause. A loud
noise in the rear of his tent attracted his attention, and warily
closing up his shop, he walked around. A large crowd had gathered, and
after a great deal of struggling he managed to see that another barrel
of cider had reached the camp, for in the midst of the crowd he could
hear a man shouting, "Here ye are--cider five cents a glass!"

He hastened around to his tent and changed the sign from ten cents to
three cents a glass. In a short time the crowd discovered the change,
and his business boomed. Then his competitor could be heard shouting,
"Here ye are--cider for nothing!"

That settled it: he closed up his tent flap, and went around to see what
sort of a man gave cider away. This time he was able to get near, and
found, to his astonishment, that his competitor had driven a spigot into
the other end of his own barrel, which he had placed so carefully in the
rear of the tent.

       *       *       *       *       *

According to the New York _Press_, when John C. Reid was managing editor
of the _Times_ he had an office-boy whose nerve and cheek were colossal.
Greatness never embarrassed him, for he was no respecter of persons. One
day he entertained in the reception-room a waiting visitor, whose
patronizing way nettled him. All kinds of questions concerning his life
and occupation were fired at him, and finally he was asked how much he
earned a week. His reply was, "Fifty dollars," which caused the
interrogator to whistle. At that moment the visitor was summoned by
Reid, to whom he related his experience with an office-boy who said he
made fifty dollars a week.

Reid rang bell; enter boy.

"Did you tell this gentleman that you made fifty dollars a week here?"

"I did not tell him any such thing."

"What! You mean to say you didn't tell me a moment or two ago that you
made fifty dollars a week?"

"Never said any such thing."

"Why, you little liar! You--"

"What did you tell the gentleman?" put in Reid.

"I told him I earned fifty dollars a week; but you pay me only three
dollars."

The visitor was so excited that he forgot his business with the managing
editor. When he had taken leave of the office Reid raised the boy's
salary to six dollars.

       *       *       *       *       *

The late Jay Gould used to tell a good story of Mr. William M. Travers.
As Mr. Gould related it, he described Mr. Travers's going downtown to a
dog-fancier's place in Water Street, New York, in search of a
rat-terrier. The dog-fancier scented the value of his possible customer
at once, and cheerfully dilated upon the merits of the different canines
in stock. Finally, he selected a ratter, assuring Mr. Travers that the
dog would go for a rat quicker than lightning. Mr. Travers was rather
sceptical as he observed the shivering pup, and the dog-fancier noticing
this, said,

"Here, I'll show you how he'll go for a rat," and he put the dog in a
box with a big rat. The rat made a dive and laid out that unfortunate
terrier in a second. Mr. Travers turned around to the fancier and said,

"I say, Johnny, what will you take for the rat?"

       *       *       *       *       *

An Oakland, California, bootblack deserves special mention as an honest
man who would not deceive his patrons. When he first went into business,
six years ago, he put up a sign which read:

"Joe Garibaldi, bootblack. Has two small children."

Each succeeding year found him deserving of more sympathy, for he kept
amending the sign, until it read eight small children. A few days ago
Joe's bootblack stand was locked for a whole day, and when he returned
the next morning, he confided to the butcher's boy that his baby had
died. His first work was to amend the sign so that it might not mislead
the public, and it then read: "Joe Garibaldi, bootblack. Has seven small
children." Then, to avoid being placed in a false position before the
public, he added with his finger and shoe-blacking, "One he die."

       *       *       *       *       *

Senator Voorhees relates a story of emotional eloquence which came to an
ignominious end, as _Current Literature_ tells it. He had succeeded in
delivering an appeal which had brought tears to the eyes of several
jurymen. Then arose the prosecuting attorney, a gruff old man with a
piping voice and nasal twang.

"Gentlemen," said he, deliberately helping himself to a pinch of snuff,
"you might as well understand from the beginning that I am not boring
for water."

This proved so effectual a wet blanket to the emotions excited by Mr.
Voorhees that he realized the futility of his own "boring."

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration]

  "Oh, your song is most annoying,
    And unless you take it back,"
  Said the Doctor, "I will fire."
    But the Duck still shouted: "Quack!

  "Of your powder and your shot, sir,
    I am not the least afraid:
  So long as pills and potions
    You don't summon to your aid."





End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, March 23, 1897, by Various



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, MARCH 23, 1897 ***


    

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