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Title: Harper's Round Table, January 5, 1897

Author: Various

Release date: September 12, 2019 [eBook #60288]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Annie R. McGuire


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, JANUARY 5, 1897 ***




Produced by Annie R. McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

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

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1897. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVIII.--NO. 897. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

       *       *       *       *       *




[Illustration]

THE LITTLE BISHOP.

BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.


It was I who called him the Little Bishop. His name was Phillips Brooks
Sanderson, but one seldom heard it at full length, since "Phil" was
quite enough for an urchin just in his first trousers, and those assumed
somewhat prematurely. He was "Phil," therefore, to the village, but
always the dear lovable Little Bishop to me. His home was in Bonnie
Eagle; it was only because of his mother's illness that he was spending
the summer with his uncle and aunt in Pleasant River. I could see the
little brown house from my window. The white road, with strips of tufted
green between the wheel tracks, curled dustily up to the very door-step,
and inside the wire screen-door was a wonderful drawn-in rug, shaped
like half a pie, with "Welcome" in saffron letters on its gray surface.
I liked the Bishop's aunt; I liked to see her shake the "Welcome" rug
before breakfast, flinging the cheery word out into the summer sunshine
like a bright greeting to the new day; I liked to see her go to the
screen-door a dozen times a day; open it a crack, and chase an imaginary
fly from the sacred precincts within; I liked to see her come up the
cellar steps into the side garden, appearing mysteriously as from the
bowels of the earth, carrying a shining pan of milk in both hands, and
disappearing through the beds of hollyhocks and sunflowers to the
pig-pen or the hen-house.

I had not yet grown fond of the uncle, and neither had Phil, for that
matter; in fact Uncle Abner was rather a difficult person to grow fond
of, with his fiery red beard, his freckled skin, and his gruff way of
speaking--for there were no children in the brown house to smooth the
creases from his forehead or the roughness from his voice.

I was sitting under the shade of the great maple one morning early when
I first saw the Little Bishop. A tiny figure came down the grass-grown
road leading a cow by a rope. If it had been a small boy and a small
cow, a middle-sized boy and an ordinary cow, or a grown man and a big
cow, I might not have noticed them; but it was the combination of an
infinitesimal boy and a huge cow that attracted my attention. I could
not guess the child's years; I only knew that he was small for his age,
whatever it was. The cow was a dark red beast with a crumpled horn, a
white star on her forehead, and a large surprised sort of eye. She had,
of course, two eyes, and both were surprised, but the left one had an
added hint of amazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking
accidentally in the centre of the eyebrow.

The boy had a thin sensitive face and curly brown hair, short trousers
patched on both knees, and a ragged straw hat on the back of his head.
He pattered along behind the cow, sometimes holding the rope with both
hands, and getting over the ground in a jerky way, as the animal left
him no time to think of a smooth path for bare feet. The Sanderson
pasture was a good half-mile distant, I knew, and the cow seemed in no
hurry to reach it; accordingly she forsook the road now and then, and
rambled in the hollows, where the grass was sweeter, to her way of
thinking. She started on one of these exploring expeditions just as she
passed the great maple, and gave me time to call out to the little
fellow, "Is that your cow?"

He blushed and smiled, tried to speak modestly, but there was a quiver
of pride in his voice as he answered, suggestively, "It's--nearly my
cow."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Why, when I drive her twenty-nine more times to pasture 'thout her
gettin' her foot over the rope or 'thout my bein' afraid, she's goin' to
be my truly cow, Uncle Abner says. Are you 'fraid of cows?"

"Ye-e-es," I confessed, "I am, just a little. You see, I am nothing but
a grown-up woman, and boys can't understand how we feel about cows."

"_I_ can! They're awful big things, aren't they?"

"Perfectly enormous! I've always thought a cow coming towards you one of
the biggest things in the world."

"Yes; me too. Don't let's think about it. Do they hook people so very
often?"

"No, indeed; in fact one scarcely ever hears of such a case."

"If they stepped on your bare foot they'd scrunch it, wouldn't they?"

"Yes, but you are the driver, you mustn't let them do that; you are a
free-will boy, and they are nothing but cows."

"I know; but p'r'aps there is free-will cows, and if they just _would_
do it you can't help being scrunched, for you mustn't let go of the rope
nor run, Uncle Abner says."

"No, of course that would never do."

"Does all the cows where you live go down into the boggy places when
you're drivin' 'em to pasture, or does some stay in the road?"

"There aren't any cows or any pastures where I live; that's what makes
me so foolish. Why does yours need a rope?"

"She don't like to go to pasture, Uncle Abner says. Sometimes she'd
druther stay to home, and so when she gets part way there she turns
round and comes backwards."

"Dear me!" I thought, "what becomes of this boy mite if she has a spell
of going backwards? Do you like to drive her?" I asked.

"N--no, not erzackly; but, you see, it'll be my cow if I drive her
twenty-nine more times 'thout her gettin' her foot over the rope and
'thout my bein' afraid," and a beaming smile gave a transient brightness
to his harassed little face. "Will she feed in the ditch much longer?"
he asked. "Shall I say 'Hurrap'? That's what Uncle Abner
says--'_Hurrap!_' like that, and it means to hurry up."

It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded, and the cow fed on,
peacefully. The little fellow looked up at me confidingly, and then
glanced back at the farm to see if Uncle Abner were watching the
progress of events.

"What shall we do next?" he asked.

I delighted in that warm, cozy little "_we_"; it took me into the firm
so pleasantly. I am a weak prop indeed when it comes to cows, but all
the manhood in my soul rose to arms when he said, "What shall _we_ do
next?" I became alert, courageous, ingenious, on the instant.

"What is her name?" I asked, sitting up straight in the hammock.

"Buttercup; but she don't seem to know it very well."

"Never mind; you must shout 'Buttercup!' at the top of your voice, and
twitch the rope _hard_; then I'll call, 'Hurrap!' with all my might at
the same moment."

We did this; it worked to a charm, and I looked affectionately after my
Little Bishop as the cow pulled him down Aunt Betty's hill.

The lovely June days wore on. I saw Phil frequently, but the cow was
seldom present at our interviews, as he now drove her to the pasture
very early in the morning, the journey thither being one of considerable
length and her method of reaching the goal being exceedingly
round-about. Uncle Abner had pointed out the necessity of getting her
into the pasture at least a few minutes before she had to be taken out
again, and though I didn't like Uncle Abner, I saw the common-sense of
this remark. I sometimes caught a glimpse of them at sundown as they
returned from the pasture to the twilight milking, Buttercup chewing her
peaceful cud, her soft white bag of milk hanging full, her surprised eye
rolling in its accustomed "fine frenzy." The frenzied roll did not mean
anything, the Bishop and I used to assure each other; but if it didn't,
it was an awful pity she had to do it, the Bishop thought, and I agreed.
To have an expression of eye that means murder, and yet to be a
perfectly virtuous and well-meaning animal, this is a calamity which, if
fully realized, would injure a cow's milk-producing activities
seriously, I should think.

I was looking at the sun one evening as it dropped like a ball of red
fire into Wilkins's Woods, when the Little Bishop passed.

"It's the twenty-ninth night," he called, joyously.

"I am so glad," I answered, for I had often feared some accident might
prevent his claiming the promised reward. "Then to-morrow Buttercup will
be your own cow?"

"I guess so. That's what Uncle Abner said. He's off to Bonnie Eagle now,
but he'll be home to-night, and mother's going to send my new hat by
him. When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her name and call
her Red Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like it. When she b'longs
to me, mebbe I won't be so 'fraid of gettin' hooked and scrunched,
because she'll know she's mine, and she'll go better. I haven't let her
get snarled up in the rope one single time, and I don't show I'm afraid,
do I?"

"I should never suspect it for an instant," I said, encouragingly. "I've
often envied you your bold, brave look!"

He appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't cried, either, when she's
dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs. Bill Jones's little
brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything, not even bears. He
says he would walk right up close and cuff 'em if they dared to yip; but
I ain't like that!"

I told Aunt Betty that it was the Bishop's twenty-ninth night, and that
the big red cow was to be his on the morrow.

"Well, I hope it'll turn out that way," she said. "But I ain't a mite
sure that Abner Sanderson will give up that cow when it comes to the
point. It won't be the first time he's tried to crawl out of a bargain
with folks a good deal bigger than Phil, for he's close, Abner is! To be
sure, Phil's father bought all his stock for him years ago, and set him
up on the farm; perhaps that'll make some difference, now he's died, and
left nothing to his widder. Abner has hired help in July and August, so
he can get the cow to the pasture easy enough without Phil. I wish you'd
go up there to-night, and ask Mis' Sanderson if she'll lend me half her
yeast-cake, and I'll lend her half of mine a Saturday."

I was used to this errand, for the whole village of Pleasant River would
sometimes be rocked to the very centre of its being by simultaneous
desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest repository was a mile and a half
distant, as the yeast-cake was valued at two cents and wouldn't keep, as
the demand was uncertain, being dependent entirely on a fluctuating
desire for "riz bread," the Edgewood store-keeper refused to order more
than three yeast-cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes they remained on
his hands a dead loss; sometimes eight or ten persons would "hitch up"
and drive from distant farms for the coveted article, only to be met
with the flat, "No, I'm all out o' yeast-cake; Mis' Simmons took the
last; mebbe you can borry half o' hern, she hain't much of a
bread-eater."

So I climbed the hill to Mrs. Sanderson's, knowing my daily bread
depended on the successful issue of the call. As I passed by the corner
of the barn, I paused behind a great clump of elderberry-bushes, for I
heard the timid voice of the Little Bishop and Uncle Abner's gruff tone.
I did not wish to interrupt nor overhear a family interview, and I
thought they might walk on as they talked; but in a moment I heard Uncle
Abner sit down on a stool by the grindstone as he said:

"Well, now, Phillips Brooks, we'll talk about the red cow. You say
you've drove her a month, do ye? And the trade between us was that if
you could drive her a month without her getting the rope over her foot
and without bein' afraid, you was to have her. That's straight, ain't
it?" The Bishop's face burned with excitement, his gingham shift rose
and fell as if he were breathing hard, but he only nodded assent and
said nothing. "Now," continued Uncle Abner, "have you made out to keep
the rope from under her feet?"

"She 'ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time," said Phil, stuttering
in his excitement, but looking up with some courage from his bare toes,
with which he was assiduously ploughing the earth.

"So far, so good. Now 'bout bein' afraid. As you seem so certain of
gettin' the cow, I suppose you hain't been a mite scared, hev you? Honor
bright, now!"

"I--I--not but just a little mite. I--"

"Hold up a minute. Of course you didn't _say_ you was afraid, and didn't
_show_ you was afraid, and nobody knew you _was_ afraid, but that ain't
the way we fixed it up. You was to call the cow yourn if you could drive
her to the pasture for a month without _bein'_ afraid. Own up square
now, hev you ben afraid?"

A long pause, then a faint "Yes."

"Where's your manners?"

"I mean yes sir."

"How often? If it hain't ben too many times mebbe I'll let ye off,
though you're a reg'lar girl-boy, and'll be runnin' away from the cat
bimeby. Has it ben--twice?"

"Yes," and the Little Bishop's voice was very faint now, and had a
decided tear in it.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, sir."

"Has it ben four times?"

"Y-es, sir." More heaving of the gingham shirt.

"Well, you air a coward! How many times? Speak up now."

More digging of the bare toes in the earth, and one premonitory tear
stealing from under the downcast lids, then:

"A little most every day, and you can keep the cow," wailed the Bishop,
as he turned abruptly and fled behind the barn, where he flung himself
into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave himself up to unmanly
tears.

I had heard more than I wished, for I had been rooted to the spot, not
so much because of my interest in Phil as that I did not like to vex
Uncle Abner by making him aware of my unintentional presence. I did not
dare seek and comfort my Little Bishop sobbing in the tansy bed, the
brand of coward on his forehead, and, what was much worse, the fear in
his heart that he deserved it. I hurried home across the fields, quite
forgetting my errand, and told Aunt Betty, with tears in my eyes, that I
would rather eat buttermilk bread for a week than have one of Uncle
Abner's yeast-cakes in the house. I acknowledged that he had been true
to his word and had held to his bargain, but I could not forgive his
making so hard a bargain with my timid Little Bishop.

Aunt Betty finally heard from Mrs. Sanderson, through whom all
information was sure to filter if you gave it time, that Uncle
Abner despised a coward, that he considered Phil a regular
mother's-apron-string boy, and that he was "learnin'" him to be brave.

Bill Jones, the hired man, now drove Buttercup to pasture, though
whenever Uncle Abner went to Moderation of Bonnie Eagle, as he often
did, I noticed that Phil took the hired man's place. I often joined him
on these anxious expeditions, and a like terror in both our souls, we
attempted to train the red cow and give her some idea of obedience.

"If she only wouldn't look at us that way we would get along real nicely
with her, wouldn't we?" prattled the dear Bishop, straggling along by my
side; "and she is a splendid cow; she gives twenty-one quarts a day, and
Uncle Abner says it's more'n half cream."

I assented in all this, thinking that if Buttercup would give up her
habit of turning completely round in the road to roll her eyes and
elevate her white-tipped eyebrow, she might indeed be an enjoyable
companion; but in her present state of development her society would not
be agreeable to me even did she give sixty-one quarts of milk a day.
Furthermore, when I found that she never did any of these reprehensible
things with Bill Jones, I began to believe cows more intelligent
creatures than I had supposed them to be, and I was indignant to think
Buttercup could count so confidently on our weakness.

One evening, when she was more than usually exasperating, I said to the
Bishop, who was bracing himself to keep from being pulled into a
way-side brook where she loved to dabble, "Bishop, do you know anything
about the superiority of mind over matter?" No, he didn't, though it was
not a fair time to ask the question, for he had sat down in the road to
get a better purchase on the rope.

"Well, it doesn't signify. What I mean is that we can die but once, and
it is a glorious thing to die for a great principle. Give me that rope.
I can pull like an ox in my present frame of mind. You run down on the
opposite side of the brook, take that big stick, wade right in--you are
barefooted--brandish the stick, and, if necessary, do more than
brandish. I would go myself, but it is better she should recognize you
as a master, and I am in as much danger as you are, anyway. She may try
to hook you, of course, but you must keep waving the stick--die
brandishing, Bishop, that's the idea! She may turn and run for me, in
which case I shall run too; but I shall die running, and Aunt Betty can
bury us under our favorite sweet-apple-tree!"

The Bishop's soul was fired by my eloquence. The blood mounted to our
brains simultaneously, and we were flushed with a splendid courage in
which death looked a mean and paltry thing compared with vanquishing
that cow. She had already stepped into the pool, but the Bishop waded in
towards her, moving the alder branch menacingly. She looked up with the
familiar roll of the eye that had done her such good service all summer,
but she quailed beneath the stern justice of the Bishop's gaze.

In that moment she felt ashamed, I know, of the misery she had caused
that helpless mite. At any rate, actuated by fear, surprise, or remorse,
she turned and walked back into the road without a sign of passion or
indignation, leaving us rather disappointed at our easy victory. To be
prepared for a violent death and receive not even a scratch makes one
fear that one may possibly have overestimated the danger.

Well, we were better friends after that, all three of us, and understood
one another better as the summer grew into autumn and the great maple
hung a flaming bough of scarlet over the hammock. Uncle Abner found the
Bishop very useful at picking up potatoes and gathering apples, but he
was going to leave Pleasant River as soon as the harvesting was over.

One warm evening Aunt Betty and I were borrowing half a yeast-cake, and
incidentally sitting on Mrs. Sanderson's steps at sunset. Buttercup was
being milked on the grassy slope near the shed door. As she walked to
the barn, after giving up her twelve quarts of yellow milk, she bent her
neck and snatched a hasty bite from a pile of turnips lying temptingly
near. In her haste she got more of a mouthful than would be considered
good manners even among cows, and as she disappeared in the barn door I
could see a forest of green tops hanging from her mouth, while she
painfully attempted to grind up the mass of stolen material without
allowing a single turnip to escape.

It grew dark soon after, and we went into the house, but as we closed
the door I heard the cow coughing, and said to Mrs. Sanderson,
"Buttercup was too greedy, and now she has indigestion."

The Bishop always went to bed at sundown, and Uncle Abner had gone to
the doctor's to have his hand dressed, for he had hurt it in some way in
the threshing-machine. Bill Jones came in presently and asked for him,
saying that the cow coughed more and more, and it must be that something
was wrong, but he could not get her to open her mouth wide enough for
him to see anything.

When Uncle Abner had driven into the yard, he came in for a lantern, and
went directly out to the barn. After an hour or more, in which we had
forgotten the whole occurrence, he came in again. "I'm blamed if we
ain't goin' to lose that cow," he said. "Come out, will ye, Hannah, and
hold the lantern? I can't do anything with my right hand in a sling, and
Bill is the stupidest critter in the country."

We all went out to the barn except Aunt Betty, who ran down the path to
see if her son Moses had come home from Saco, and could come up to take
a hand in the exercises.

Buttercup was in a bad way; there was no doubt of it. Something, one of
the turnips, presumably, had lodged in her throat, and would move
neither way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Her breathing was
labored, and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking. Once or
twice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before they
could fairly discover the cause of trouble she had wrested her head
away.

"I can see a little tuft of green sticking straight up in the middle,"
said Uncle Abner, while Bill Jones and Moses held a lantern on each side
of Buttercup's head; "but, land! it's so far down, and such a mite of a
thing, I couldn't git it even if I could use my right hand. S'pose you
try, Bill."

Bill hemmed and hawed, and confessed he didn't care to try. Buttercup's
teeth were of good size and excellent quality, and he had no fancy for
leaving his hand within her jaws. He said he was no good at that kind of
work, but that he would help Uncle Abner hold the cow's head; that was
just as necessary, and considerable safer.

Moses was more inclined to the service of humanity, and did his best,
wrapping his wrist in a cloth, and making desperate but ineffectual dabs
at the slippery green turnip-tops in the reluctantly opened throat. But
the cow tossed her head and stamped her feet and switched her tail and
wriggled from under Bill's hands, so that it seemed altogether
impossible to reach the seat of the trouble.

Uncle Abner was in despair, fuming and fretting the more because of his
own uselessness. "Hitch up, Bill," he said, "and, Hannah, you drive over
to Edgewood for the horse-doctor. I know we can get out that turnip if
we can hit on the right tools and somebody to manage 'em right; but
we've got to be quick about it or the critter'll choke to death, sure!
Your hand's so clumsy, Mose, she thinks her time's come when she feels
it in her mouth, and your fingers are so big you can't ketch holt o'
that green stuff 'thout its slippin'!"

"Mine's little; let me try," said a timid voice, and turning round, we
saw the Bishop, his trousers pulled on over his night-shirt, his curly
hair ruffled, his eyes big with sleep.

Uncle Abner gave a laugh of good-humored derision. "You--that's afraid
to drive a cow to pasture? No, sir; you hain't got sand enough for this
job, I guess!"

Buttercup just then gave a worse cough than ever, and her eyes rolled in
her head as if she were giving up the ghost.

"I'd rather do it than see her choke to death!" cried the Bishop in
despair.

"Then, by ginger, you can try it, sonny!" said Uncle Abner. "Now this
time we'll tie her head up. Take it slow, and make a good job of it."

Accordingly they pried poor Buttercup's jaws open to put a wooden gag
between them, tied her head up, and kept her as still as they could,
while we women held the lanterns.

"Now, sonny, strip up your sleeve and reach as fur down 's you can! Wind
your little fingers in among that green stuff stickin' up there that
ain't hardly big enough to call green stuff, give it a twist, and pull
for all you're worth. Land! what a skinny little pipe stem!"

The Bishop had stripped up his sleeve. It was a slender thing, his arm;
but he had driven the red cow all summer, borne her tantrums, protected
her from the consequences of her own obstinacy, taking (as he thought) a
future owner's pride in her splendid flow of milk--grown to love her, in
a word--and now she was choking to death. Love can put a deal of
strength into a skinny little pipe-stem at such a time, and it was only
a slender arm and hand that could have done the work.

Phil trembled with nervousness, but he made a dexterous and dashing
entrance into the awful cavern of Buttercup's mouth; descended upon the
tiny clump of green spills or spikes, wound his little fingers in among
them as firmly as he could, and then gave a long, steady determined pull
with all the strength in his body. That was not so much in itself, to be
sure, but he borrowed a good deal more from some reserve quarter, the
location of which nobody knows anything about, but upon which everybody
draws in time of need.

Such a valiant pull you would never have expected of the Little Bishop.
Such a pull that, to his own utter amazement, he suddenly found himself
lying flat on his back on the barn floor, with a very slippery something
in his hand, and a fair-sized but rather dilapidated turnip on the end
of it.

"That's the business!" cried Moses.

"I could 'a' done it as easy as nothin' if my arm had been a leetle mite
smaller," said Bill Jones.

"You're a trump, sonny!" exclaimed Uncle Abner as he helped Moses untie
Buttercup's head and took the gag out. "You're a trump, and, by ginger,
the cow's yourn!"

The welcome air rushed into Buttercup's lungs and cooled her parched,
torn throat. She was pretty nearly spent, poor thing! and bent her head
gently over the Little Bishop's shoulder as he threw his arms joyfully
about her neck, and whispered, "You're my truly cow now, ain't you,
Buttercup?"

"Aunt Betty," I said, as we walked home under the harvest moon, "there
are all sorts of cowards, aren't there, and I don't think the Little
Bishop is the worst kind, do you?"

       *       *       *       *       *

TRYING TO SEE THE WIND.

Did you ever try to see the wind? It is a very pretty experiment, and
one easily performed. In the first place choose a windy day, then secure
a polished piece of metal. (A hand-saw will be the easiest to get.) Hold
the metallic surface at right angles to the direction of the wind. For
example, if the wind is in the north, hold the saw east and west
inclined about forty-five degrees to the horizon. Now look carefully at
the sharp edge, and you will shortly see the wind pouring over it like a
waterfall. Do not try the experiment on a rainy or a murky day.




[Illustration]

TORTOISE-SHELLS.

BY A. V. S. ANTHONY.


It was a bright winter morning, and the air outside was frosty and
still. A young maid sat in her cozy chamber dressing her golden-brown
curls, and as she drew her comb through them she heard a sharp crackling
sound that caused her to put on her "thinking-cap," as was her habit
when anything out of the common occurred, for she liked to reason out
matters in her own quiet way. In her studies she had not as yet reached
any allusion to that subtile power known as electricity, so she
concluded that the sound must have come from the comb, which she thought
was possibly made from the shell of a snapping-turtle. Having settled
the affair comfortably in her mind, she finished her toilet hastily,
that she might lose no time in announcing her discovery to the family at
the breakfast table.

It was the fortunate lot of the head of the family to have been wrecked
on a coral reef. I say fortunate, because "All's well that ends well,"
and inside the reef was a small island, on which he, the head of the
family, had the rare experience of witnessing the catching of turtles
and the removal of their shells by some native fishermen.

Stories of shipwrecked mariners have been so often told that the
incidents of mine need not be repeated here. If, as the Irishman said,
the tale of the _lost_ could be told, it would be quite new and
interesting; but mine was the very ordinary and commonplace.

After the morning meal was over I told the little maid about it, as I
briefly tell you here.

I was on my way to Central America, and had almost reached my journey's
end when our ship was wrecked. We struck the reef about nine o'clock at
night. It was a very dark and thick night, and the waves dashed over us
as we huddled together on the quarter-deck while waiting for daylight to
determine in which direction lay possible safety. When the sun rose the
next morning we saw approaching us a canoe containing four Indians, with
whose assistance we got over the dangerous rocks, and were soon on the
island, which was about ten miles distant from the mainland.

It was a beautiful morning, and after the Indians had made us some hot
coffee and tortillas (an unleavened corn-cake, baked on hot stones),
they went off with the Captain and crew to the wreck, to see if anything
could be saved from it, while I lay under the cocoanut-trees enjoying
the soft tropical air and congratulating myself on my escape.

When the Captain returned, he determined that he had been driven about
twenty-five miles out of his course by a strong current that sets up
northward along the eastern coast of Yucatan, for which he had not made
proper allowance.

Day was the period of rest for the Indians, and as we all needed sleep,
we closed our eyes on the lovely yellow light of the Caribbean Sea, and
stretched ourselves under the shelter of the thatched hut.

Towards sunset the Indians awakened us, and gave us another meal of
coffee and tortillas, with _chile_--an uncommonly hot little green
pepper. The night promised to be fine, and the Indians predicted a good
catch of turtles, as the egg-laying season was nearing its close. So,
after an hour or two of chatting, we went down to the edge of the beach,
and hid ourselves among the tall salt grasses that lined the shore above
high-water mark, where we lay quietly watching the moon rising in its
mysterious way out of the sea. Not a sound was heard, save the soft
murmuring of the waves as they washed over the reef about half a mile
away. We were as still as mice, as the Indians had cautioned us against
talking, for the turtles were shy, and very quick to take alarm. After a
long wait one of the men touched my arm, and pointed to some dark
objects that were slowly crawling out of the water, which was as quiet
as a mill-pond. Those dark objects were five big turtles that had come
ashore to lay their eggs, which are from two to three inches in length,
and sometimes as many as two hundred in number.

[Illustration: WATCHING THE TURTLES COMING OUT OF THE WATER.]

This turtle has a small squat head covered with plates of shell, and has
a jaw like the beak of a hawk. It has four limbs, or flippers--the
hindermost being quite long and winglike--which are armed with a couple
of strong nails, with which it digs holes in the sand when it comes
ashore to lay its eggs, and it is very fierce at such times if
disturbed. When the eggs are laid and carefully covered, Mrs. Turtle
waddles off to the water, and gives no further thought of her two
hundred or more children which she has left behind.

In the course of time the hot sun hatches out the little chelonians, who
burst their shells, and digging their way out of the sand, toddle town
the beach to the sea to begin their careers.

Their food consists of sea-weed, crabs, and fishes, and when they grow
to be about two hundred pounds in weight, and their shells become
valuable, it behooves them to keep their "weather eyes" open for
dark-skinned men when their maternal instincts prompt them to ramble on
shelving beaches by the light of the moon.

When the turtles were well up on the shore, the natives rushed out with
stout poles, and after a sharp tussle succeeded in turning them over on
their backs--no easy task, as they were nearly four feet long, and
weighed several hundred pounds.

Once on their backs they were helpless, as they were unable to regain
their natural position. Long after midnight we added another to our
catch, and then went to rest, leaving the turtles on the beach.

In the morning the natives rolled them over, and after fastening their
flippers to stakes driven into the beach, built a light fire on their
backs, which caused the plates to curl at the edges, under which a knife
was passed and the plates removed, leaving underneath a solid body of
bony substance, which is the real protecting shield.

The fire seemed to cause the turtles much pain, as they moaned in quite
a human way, but the work was soon over, and on being released, the poor
things crawled down the beach and disappeared into the sea. The natives
are very careful not to fatally injure them, as they are not very
numerous in these waters, and would soon be exterminated if
indiscriminately slaughtered, and this is the only variety--the
hawksbill, _Erectmochelys imbricata_, the zoologists call them--that
yields the tortoise-shell of commerce. I was told that a second shell
soon formed, but it grew as one solid mass, and had no commercial value.

There are thirteen of these plates, and the centre one, on a full-grown
specimen, is oftentimes fully fifteen inches long, weighing over half a
pound, and ranging from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in thickness.

The finest shell comes from the Eastern Archipelago, around the Celebes,
and along the coast of New Guinea, and its value depends on its mottled
color; that having a warm transparent yellow tone, with rich brown
spots, is the most sought after, and brings the highest price. It is a
horny substance, much harder, more brittle, and less fibrous than
ordinary horn, and it is very tender, and should not be exposed to
severe cold.

In preparing the plates for manufacturing purposes, they are first
carefully scraped and washed, the rough edges filed off, and then
treated to a bath of boiling water, after which they are subjected to
pressure to flatten them. Great care must be used to avoid overheating
them, as an excess of heat destroys the transparent and translucent
portions, and turns them into a muddy, opaque mass, and thus impairs the
market value, so only the most skilful workmen are intrusted with the
finer grades, as long practice enables them to work the material at a
moderately low temperature.

The shell has an extremely peculiar quality, and with the proper degree
of heat can be fashioned into any desired form, which it retains on
cooling. All the chips, scraps, and filings that come from working the
shells are carefully saved, as they can be softened and pressed into
moulds of various shapes.

When thickness is desired, two surfaces are roughened by rasping, and
the pieces are then plunged into boiling water, which liquefies the
superficial film, and transforms it into a sort of gluey paste, and when
the two pieces are pressed together--sometimes between hot irons--a
solid mass is obtained, without loss of the valuable qualities so much
esteemed. Many cheap compositions and a large amount of stained horn are
on the market, which are sold to the unwary as real tortoise-shell, but
the fraud is easily detected.

The old Romans held the shell in high favor, and used it very freely to
veneer furniture, etc.; and the modern French and German craftsmen
decorate their buhl cabinets with it in connection with gold, silver,
and copper. To-day it is made into many articles of jewelry, chains,
sleeve-buttons, lorgnettes, combs, and other toilet articles. To-morrow
it may be out of fashion, and be laid away with camel's-hair shawls.




CAPTAIN JACK'S CHRISTMAS GIFT.


It was just in the holiday season when Bob and Tommie were delighted to
receive a visit from their old friend Captain Hawkins from the
sea-shore.

"Just thought I'd run up to town for a few minutes," he said, as if it
were necessary for him to explain his presence in town. "You see, I've
got a few nevews an' several thousand gran'children what likes to hear
from me about Christmas-time, so I goes about Bemberton-by-the-Sea, and
all I can find in the shops down thereabouts is the same old things
they've had for the last forty year."

"My! Captain Hawkins," said Bob. "Forty years? Are your nephews and
grandchildren as old as that?"

"Well, pretty nearly," said the Captain, with an uneasy laugh. "Pretty
nearly; and when you get to be forty you get kind of tired o' tin pails
and wooden spades and little red jumpin'-jacks an' doll babbies and
lemon drops. You boys don't understand that, but wait till you get to be
forty year old, and see if I ain't tellin' you the solemnest kind o'
truth."

"I guess you're right," said Bob. "I gave my daddy a fine old
Jack-in-the-box once, and he laughed like everything at first; but he
didn't play with it much, and finally it came back to me again. Pop's
pretty nearly forty."

"Yes, an' I guess he laughed like sixty when he saw that Bob-in-a-box."

"Jack-in-a-box," said Bob, with a smile.

"All the same," retorted the old Captain. "Jack-in-a-box,
Tommie-in-a-box, or Bob-in-a-box! I never could see why they took the
trouble to specify, and if I'd ever have had any children o' my own the
Jack-in-a-box would ha' been named after 'em."

"But, Captain, you were just speaking of your grandchildren," said
Tommie. "How can you have any grandchildren if you haven't had any
children?"

"Oh, that's easy," replied the Captain. "I've adopted 'em. Whenever I
see boy or a girl that strikes me as being grand I adopt 'em and call
'em my grandchildren. I guess I've got most a million of 'em scattered
round."

"And you've come up to get a million Christmas presents for 'em?" cried
Bob, in ecstasy.

"Yep--only there ain't more'n ten of 'em," said the Captain, "that
expects anything. I'm goin' to spend ten cents apiece on 'em, but first
I've got to get the other eight."

Bob looked at Tommie and Tommie looked at Bob. They were really puzzled
to think what the Captain could mean.

"The other eight?" asked Bob.

"Yes," said Hawkins. "You boys ain't the only grandchildren I've got. I
love you, but you ain't the only ones I love. There's at least eight
more. And what do you suppose I'm goin' to give you all for Christmas?"

The boys gave it up.

"Well," said the Captain, in a whisper, "as I was a-comin' up Broadway
a-lookin' into the windows, all of a sudden I see a hoss-car goin' along
without a hoss, and I says goodness gracious that's funny. A hoss-car
without a hoss, an' what was queerest of all, _no trolley_! Boys, it
scaret me. Me who was never scaret before was scaret then. So I says to
a policeman, 'Great scott! Mr. Constable, say, what makes that car go so
fast?' 'It's the cable,' says he. My goodness thinks I, I'm sorry for
the man that has to pull it, but I jumps aboard one of 'em, pays my five
cents, and I have the finest sail from Forty-second Street to the
Battery you ever see. No wind, no steam, nothin' in sight to move you,
but movin' just the same, just as if you was on a sled slidin' down a
hill. It _was fine_. Goin' around by Fourteenth Street you got lurched
like as if you was at sea, an' then with a clear track and no squalls we
just bounded down past Canal and Wall streets to Bowlin' Green, and back
as slick as anything. And I says to myself, Cap'n Hawkins you've struck
it. Don't give the boys no pails, no Jims-in-the-boxes, no spades, no
nothin', but get the whole ten of 'em together and give 'em a ride on
the cable-car whether you're sorry for the feller that pulls the rope or
not. So I'm goin' back to Bemberton for the other eight, and when you
boys are free I want you to join us for a sail from Central Park down
and back, eh?"




VOLCANOES--THEIR MODE OF ACTION AND ORIGIN.

BY NATHANIEL S. SHALER,

PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY.


In endeavoring to set before the reader an account of volcanoes, I find
a difficulty arising from the fact that very few people have had a
chance to see these curious features in the machinery of the earth. In
the United States, except in the far-away island district of Alaska,
there is not one that has been seen by white men in a state of activity.
Many, it is true, exist in the Cordilleran district, between the
Canadian and Mexican line, but these are for the most part inaccessible,
or, if conveniently placed for the tourists' convenience, are not well
suited to show the most important facts of these structures. In writing
about the sea, rivers, mountains, glaciers, or any other class of
natural objects, our country affords admirable means of illustration,
which may serve to convey clear impressions; but the story of volcanoes
has to be told without this help.

It is otherwise in the Old World. In Europe, Ætna and Vesuvius have had
their activity associated with that of the most cultivated people of the
world for about twenty-five centuries; and at many points, as in the
valley of the Po or in central France, there are groups of volcanoes
which are, though no longer active, in a very perfect state of
preservation, within sight of the ways which are traversed by all
sight-seeing travellers.

Its convenient position, immediately neighboring to the most beautiful
scenery and the greatest treasures of antiquity, has made Vesuvius the
volcano of all others which people are likely to see. Probably a hundred
climb it for one who ascends any other cone. This is true of our own
countrymen who travel as well as those of Europe. This choice of
Vesuvius as the volcano of pilgrimage is fortunate, for the reason that
though by no means a great specimen of its kind, it is perhaps the most
useful to the student of all the thousands that have been examined and
described by observers of volcanic phenomena. Therefore, as we should
begin our inquiry by seeing what occurs in a volcanic outbreak, and the
consequences of these explosions, we will make our study on this
beautiful cone.

It is characteristic of this most amiable of volcanoes that of late
years it has been in many frequent slight eruptions. The greater number
of craters lie sleeping for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years,
until they break forth with a fury that sends desolation to the country
for miles from the point where the discharge takes place. But Vesuvius,
which in its early years was given to furious storms, such as that which
overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii eighteen centuries ago, has now
become so mild-mannered that men till their vineyards in a fearless way
on the slopes which lead up to the crater.

It was my good fortune, about fifteen years ago, on one of several
visits to Vesuvius, to find it in an excellent state for an inquiry,
which showed me more of what goes on in an eruption, and led to a better
insight into the nature of the work than has often been seen by the
geologist. There was a slight eruption in progress during the night;
from the windows of my lodging in Naples I could see the successive
puffs of fire from the crater coming regularly, several each minute. On
the following morning there was a strong northerly wind blowing, which
made me hope it would be possible to approach the edge of the opening
without danger from the falling stones.

Climbing the long way which leads from the railway station on the shores
of the bay, through the gardens, villages, and vineyards, I came at
length to the observatory which has been established on the border of
the area which is reasonably safe in times of trouble. Here I learned
that the instruments which show the tremblings of the earth, the small
earthquakes which are not perceived by our bodies, indicated that the
cone was in a state of constant trembling. The observers who watch this
apparatus thought it likely that some time during the day the cone would
be blown away in a violent eruption, such as now and then sends the
upper part of this and many other volcanoes flying into bits before the
fierce blast of the escaping vapors.

My way lay across a wide field of lava and cinders to the place where
the steep slope of the upper cone rose to the level where the crater was
bombarding the sky with the rapidity of a well-served cannon. The climb
up this cone, composed of the bits of lava which had been blown into the
air and had fallen down again to the earth, was very laborious. The
slope was as steep as a house roof. It took three steps to gain each
foot in height. Now and then a stronger blast from the crater would
shake the heap, so that it was hard to keep the ground that had been
gained. It took a long hour to win the height of four or five hundred
feet.

[Illustration: "CREEPING TO THE SHARP EDGE OF THE CRATER, I SAW INTO THE
VERY MOUTH OF THE VOLCANO."]

Creeping to the sharp edge of the crater, and peering cautiously into
the cavity, I saw into the very mouth of the volcano. The cup-shaped
depression was about three hundred feet in diameter, and perhaps half
that depth; it passed downward into a well-like pipe, perhaps sixty feet
across. The lower part of the pit was, even in the bright sunlight,
evidently red-hot. The sides of the pipe were white-hot. On this lower
part of the pit, which shone like the eye of a furnace, a mass of very
fluid lava was lashing up and down, now rising until it filled the
bottom of the basin with its fiery tide, again sinking until it was out
of sight.

Each time the lava rose up into the basin it swelled quickly in its
middle part, and in the twinkling of an eye it was broken by an
explosion of such violence that a quantity of the fluid rock was tossed
in fragments high into the air. As this sped upward and downward, it had
a chance partly to cool, so that as it fell on the edge of the cone
opposite to where I was the roar of its striking was very suggestive of
what would happen if the wind should die away.

Although the circumstances were such as made it hard to observe closely,
I had no difficulty in seeing that the vapor which blew out at each
explosion was steam. As it came forth, it was of the steel-blue color
which we see just where the steam comes from the safety-valve of a very
hot boiler. As it rose in the crater it soon became white, and as it
whirled around me it had the well-known odor of steam, mingled with that
of sulphur. In a word, it was evident that it was the vapor of water
which was the cause of the explosions.

After I had watched this fascinating scene for about half an hour, with
much inconvenience from the heat of the earth and from the shaking of
the ground on which I lay, the explosions, which were at first at the
rate of three or four each minute, became more and more frequent and
violent, and the strong wind began to die away, so that a speedy retreat
was necessary to escape the bits of lava, which were now falling
heavily. Looking back from the base of the cone, I noted that the
explosions came faster and faster, so that it sounded as a continuous
roar. It was just as when a locomotive starts on its journey. At the
outset we can count the puffs; as the cylinders move faster and faster
the escape sounds perfectly continuous.

From the base of the cinder cone there flowed out a small lava stream.
This lava was evidently full of steam, which poured forth from all parts
of the surface. This is seen in all eruptions. Clouds of steam hung over
the streams of lava. They are often visible ten miles or more away from
the current of molten rock. In a great eruption the steam given forth
from the crater often forms, as it condenses, into rains, that fall in
fearful torrents about the cone. It is evident, in a word, that the
explosions of volcanoes are formed by the escape of the vapor of water.
They are, indeed, like the explosions of boilers.

The question now arises as to the way in which this steam gets into the
lava. This we can decide by a simple bit of study of the facts. Taking a
map which shows the positions of several hundred active volcanoes, we
find at once that they are all situated on the sea floor, from which
they rise to form islands on its surface; or, when they are on the
continents, they are never more than two hundred and fifty miles from
the ocean. This shows that the activity of a volcano is, in some way,
related to the sea-water. The only way in which we have been able to
reasonably conceive of the sea bringing about volcanic explosions will
now be described.

On the sea floor there is a constant laying down of
sediments--limestones, sandstones, etc. We know by the parts of the old
sea floor that have been uplifted into dry lands that such beds have
been formed, to the thickness in all of one or two hundred thousand
feet. These beds are made of small bits of rocky matter and fragments of
dead animals and plants. These bits do not fit closely together, and the
interspaces are filled with sea water, so that as much as one-twelfth of
the rock is usually made up of the fluid in which it was formed. As the
ages go on, these beds, with the water which they hold, are buried
deeper and deeper by the newer rocks which are laid down upon them,
until it may be that they are thus brought to lie twenty miles or more
below the surface of the solid earth.

Next let us see as to the heat to which these rocks, with their
imprisoned water, are exposed. We know, from a great number of studies
which have been made in mines that for each mile we go downward in the
earth there is an increase in heat, differing a good deal in different
places, but on the average amounting to about one hundred degrees.
Therefore, at the depth of twenty miles the imprisoned water would have
a temperature of about two thousand degrees. In other words, it would be
about as hot as the melted iron that comes from the blast-furnace. Thus
heated, the water of the tiny cells of the rock would tend to explode
with something like the intensity of gun-powder when it was fired; but
as it is sealed in by the great thickness of the rock above, it cannot
_burst_ into vapor--just as in the steam-boiler the water stays as a
fluid even when it is heated twice as hot as it needs be to become steam
when it is not confined.

Let us now suppose that a rift, or, as geologists call it, a fault, is
formed in the rocks leading from the surface downward to the level where
this very explosive water lies. We can readily fancy that at once the
fluid would flash into steam; and as this occurred in the myriads of
little cavities in the rocks, which were so heated that they tended to
become melted, great quantities of the beds would be forced along with
the escaping steam in the form of lava. We see also that this would
account for the fact that when the lava comes to the surface of the
earth it is commonly filled with steam. When it rises quickly to the
air, it is blown to fine dust by the expanding vapor; or if it does not
fly to pieces, the little bits of water expand into bubbles, forming
pumice or lava, so full of little cavities that it will float on the
water like cork.

This view as to the origin of volcanoes, although it would not be
accepted by all the students of these strange features of the earth,
seems most probable, for the reason that it accounts for the fact that
all the seats of present volcanic activity are on the floor of the seas
or near their borders, and that the extinct volcanoes which we have had
a chance to study lost their activity at a time when, by the changes in
the shape of the land, the sea was moved away from the region where they
were found. We easily perceive that it is only where, as in the sea,
beds are being laid down, one on top of another, that the heat is rising
in the rocks, and the water in their crevices becoming hotter; beneath
the land the rocks are always becoming less heated, so that the water
which they contain is constantly cooling down.

I have spoken of the water contained in the very heated rocks as if it
remained in the state of fluid. It is likely that, when in its very hot
state, it may be changed into its gases, oxygen and hydrogen, of which
it is composed, and that these gases would again become the vapor of
water as they rose toward the surface and were somewhat cooled. This and
other matters of chemical detail which go on in the wonderful laboratory
of the under-earth do not hinder our believing that volcanoes are due to
the escape of the water which is constantly being buried in the rocks as
they are built. So large is the amount of this water which lies thus
buried that probably it amounts to somewhere near as much as is held in
all the seas. Were it not for the return of the buried fluid through the
volcanoes, the oceans would doubtless be much smaller than they are.
They might, indeed, have long since disappeared in the crevices of the
earth.




A LOYAL TRAITOR.

A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

BY JAMES BARNES.


CHAPTER XI.

THE SWORD-FISH AND THE WHALE.

Now again we had changed our course, and were going before the wind
directly to the westward. The breeze was light, and better for a small
vessel than for a heavy, deep-laden man-of-war, and we might have run
away in safety if we chose. That something was up, however, that meant
adventure no one could help seeing.

Orders were given, without any bawling or shouting, to get down the
top-gallant masts on deck. The crew worked like ants. (I loved them for
the way they went about it.) The yards were lowered to the deck as
quickly as if they were clothes-poles in a drying-yard. I had never seen
anything done so neatly and with such despatch. Our headway decreased,
of course, as we lost the use of our upper sails.

Mr. Spencer, who was aloft, reported to the deck: "We're hidden now,
Captain Temple," he said. "She might pass within a quarter of a mile of
us and never see us."

Purposely I had stepped close to him as he spoke to the Captain, and the
latter's reply was as astonishing to me as it apparently startled the
officer. Temple was eagerness in every line of his face. He struck his
right fist into the palm of his left.

"The closer the better," he exclaimed. Then he turned. "What are the
soundings?" he inquired of the bow-legged man who had hastened up. (I
have forgotten to state that we had been heaving the lead for the last
half-hour.)

"Six fathoms, sir, and shoaling; here it is, sir."

"Prepare to lower away the long-boat, Mr. Bullard," the skipper ordered,
after a glance at the lead. "Mount the forward swivel in her, pick a
crew, take a boat's compass, and make off due west. Mr. Spencer, you
will take command of her. A word with you."

Every one looked at the Captain in astonishment, but no one asked a
question or put in a word. As I was one of the crew of the long boat, I
helped to get her ready and swing her overboard. The swivel was lashed
on the forward gratings, and half a dozen muskets were handed down to
her, and we shoved off. Mr. Spencer was pale and nervous. As we left the
brig's side we saw that her helm had been put hard down, and that she
once more was headed north. There was just enough wind to move her
slowly through the water. In three minutes she was lost to sight.

We had been resting on our oars, and now Mr. Spencer spoke for the first
time.

"Make no noise," he said. "Pull slowly, straight ahead."

We gave way, trying our best to silence the thumping in the row-locks.
So light was the breeze that we could have kept apace of a vessel's
sailing. For ten minutes we rowed on, and then we stopped again, and
Spencer spoke.'

"Load that swivel and get ready with those muskets," he ordered.

I heard him mutter something in which I caught the words "tomfoolery"
and "nonsense," and I looked back over my shoulder. A half-dozen
perplexed-looking marines were grouped in the bow, and three sailors
were ramming home a charge in the swivel.

"Lads," said Mr. Spencer, "it's Captain Temple's orders to fire into
that frigate and get away, if we can. It all depends upon yourselves and
the way this boat is handled whether we are blown out of the water, or
cut to pieces, or escape with whole skins. I want no talking in the
boat."

The man beside me on the thwart pulled his shirt over his head, and
several others did likewise. They sat there bare from the waist up, and
their torsos looked like those of the men in some of the old engravings
in the handsome books I had read at Marshwood.

We were pulling slowly ahead now, and for fully a quarter of an hour we
rowed without a break. Then Mr. Spencer called for oars, and we drifted
a long time.

"Listen!" said one of the men in the bow, suddenly. He was bending over,
with his hand making a hollow back of his ear. Half of the crew did
likewise. For a minute I could hear nothing. Then I detected a groaning
sound and a ripple of the water. It was the noise of a vessel's sailing.

"I can see her, sir," the bowman said in a hoarse whisper. "She's not
five cable-lengths away."

The Lieutenant rose to his feet, and I could see that his hand was
trembling as he fumbled in the breast of his jacket. He pulled a
boatswain's whistle out and put it to his lips. But before he blew he
spoke calmly.

"Bring that gun to bear on her," he said.

"Blow her out of water," spoke up the man beside me, with a chuckle.

What utter foolishness it seemed to me even then (and of a truth it
probably was that anyhow) to attack a frigate in a long-boat armed with
six muskets and a broadside that you could carry in the crown of your
hat! But no one seemed to flinch.

"Give way softly," whispered Mr. Spencer, taking the tiller himself from
the cockswain. Then, without warning, the silver pipe shrilled out, and
he bawled at the top of his voice, as if he were commanding a ship's
crew, instead of a handful of mystified seamen in a cockle-shell: "All
hands on deck there, and lively! There's a vessel here astern of us!
Port your helm!" He answered this order himself with an, "Ay, ay, sir,"
and leaning forward shouted, "Fire!"

Close to the water a great shape could be seen. The little gun
slap-banged, and almost jumped overboard with the recoil. The six
muskets rang; and, animated more by the gesture of Mr. Spencer's hand
than the word, we laid back on the oars. We took perhaps some forty
strokes or more, when the Lieutenant called for us to cease, with a
sound of a hiss betwixt his teeth. The huge shape was now astern of us
on the port hand close too. We had rowed across her bow! Now so tense
was every nerve, and at such a tension was my mind, that I remembered
everything I heard and saw so that I can repeat it to a dot.

The shot and volley had been followed by a confused cry and a great
to-do from the direction of the frigate. Now we could hear a confused
jumble of accents, and above it the cries of a man's voice in agony,
"Oh, oh, I'm killed!" it said distinctly. Then a voice commanded
silence, and we could make out every word that passed.

"Can you see anything ahead there, you men forward?" asked a voice so
close that it appeared to be directed towards us.

"No, sir; not a thing, sir!" was the answer. If anything, it sounded
closer than the first.

Then cool and distinct we caught the following orders, as we sat there
holding our breaths, and our hearts beating so loudly that we nearly
rocked the boat.

"Ready about! Ready! Ready! Put your helm down, quartermaster."

"Helm's alee, sir."

"Haul taut! Mainsail, haul!" (An anxious waiting pause.) "Head braces!
Haul well taut! Let go, and haul!"

So firmly were these words impressed upon me that I never had to learn
afterwards the orders for tacking ship.

Now followed a rumbling sound and some shouts and orders, and then a
crash and an explosion that ripped the fog and cut great gashes of red
flame through the gray opaque wall.

"Gee!" said the man next to me, with a shiver, "if that had caught us,
eh!"

"Good-by, Mary Ann!" said the man in front, looking back over his
shoulder.

Mr. Spencer was leaning forward. "They think we're off there," he
whispered, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Lads, you did well."

Now all was silence again, and the frigate gathered headway to the
north. We staid where we were.

But now, if I shall live to be a hundred, I can never get one sound from
my ears. To the eastward, and beyond the English vessel, sounded the
shrilling of a fife. The first bars of "Yankee Doodle" was the tune it
played. I almost leaped up to my feet, but the music was soon ended, for
a rattling swingeing crash followed a burst of blurred red flame. I
could smell the smoke from the frigate's broadside that reached us now.
But it was not she that spoke the second time.

"Kill-Devil's got the weather-gauge of her, by Moses!" said the sailor
next to me, putting his arm about my neck and giving me a hug.

"Silence in the boat there," ordered Mr. Spencer, angrily.

A roaring crash and confusion of explosions followed. The men in the bow
began to laugh hysterically, and even Mr. Spencer joined them.

"The _Young Eagle_'s got under her quarter. She'll rip her hide," he
laughed. "Hark! did you hear that? It's the long twelve. Don't cheer,
you fools!"

It was well he had given this order, for the men were about to burst
into a shout. One of them dropped his oar, and was roundly reprimanded
for it. But now a multitude of sounds came from the direction of the
fighting-vessels. Groans and orders, cries and firing, and above them
all the comments from close about me, that in my ignorance I did not
exactly understand.

"Old Johnny Bull's missed stays," roared Mr. Spencer, laughing. "It's
the sword-fish and the whale. Stab her again, Captain Temple, stab her
again!"

A distinct broadside was heard, and then a cheer, followed by a confused
roaring, with high treble shrieks, like a countertenor's note in a
chorus.

"Bleed, bleed, bleed," muttered the man next to me.

"That was our cheer," gurgled the cockswain, sawing to and fro in his
narrow little box; but no sooner had he spoken than a crash louder and
brighter colored than any of the rest ripped out.

"The frigate's broadside!" gasped Mr. Spencer.

All was silence now.

"Heaven help us, they've sunk her!" the Lieutenant said, hoarsely.

No sound for full five minutes.

Three or four shots now, and then silence again. It appeared to me that
the fog had lessened. A fine drizzle was falling; and we could see the
outlines of a vessel not a quarter of a mile away from us.

"Pull for your lives!" cried Mr. Spencer. "Pull for your lives!"

We gave way together, and the heavy boat was soon hitting up a good pace
and burying her nose as she rose and fell on the seas. The Lieutenant
took a glance at the small compass, and headed us toward the northwest.

"We're close to Long Island," he said. "I can't make out the _Young
Eagle_ at all. That ship's the Britisher."

We had rowed but a few minutes longer when, as if by a miracle, the mist
cleared away and the sun shone out. Clear and distinct a big vessel lay
off to the eastward. The hated emblem of St. George flew at her peak.

"I thought as much," remarked Mr. Spencer to the cockswain. "She's
grounded on the sand bank. That's what Temple counted on."

But hurrah! to the windward of the British vessel was a sight that gave
us joy. There was the _Young Eagle_, eating up into the wind, with her
jib-boom hanging, and one of her yards aslant. Somehow Temple had found
time to get up his top-gallant masts again, for they were both in place.
But now those on board the frigate had espied us; that was plain enough.
She was not so large a vessel as she had first seemed, being of the
smaller class, carrying probably not over thirty-two guns at the most.
She was badly cut up from the effects of her encounter with the brig,
however. Her foretopmast was gone, her mainyard was over the side, and
all her running-gear in great confusion. If Captain Temple had been an
officer of the regular navy he might have deserved cashiering for such a
foolhardy bit of business as attacking a powerful vessel when he might
have escaped. He was the only one on board the privateer, however, who
had reckoned her at less than forty-four guns, and besides this, after
his glance at the lead he knew where he was, and could have pricked his
position to a certainty on the map. I know that now.

As Mr. Spencer had said, he surely must have counted on the proximity of
the sand bar. If the frigate had been taking careful soundings, she
would never have got on to it.

The fresh wind that had spoiled the fog was coming from the northward (I
can recall no day in my seafaring life when it blew from so many
different points as it had in the last ten hours). But I am wandering
from the recital of what occurred, and now to pick it up again.

As I have stated, the frigate had seen us, and proof positive was not
wanting, for a puff of smoke from one of the guns of her forward
division leaped from her side, and the ball came spattering along toward
us.

"Oh, shoot the shot!" laughed one of the bowmen. We were missed by fully
a cable's length.

But the wind was against us, and with a good light to observe our
progress I noticed that we were making slow headway. The long-boat was
intended to be rowed by six oars of a side. Now, owing to the extra men
that we carried, there was only room for ten men to do the pulling; and
by some mistake the oars that we were wielding were not all of the same
length, some of the cutter's having been put in by mistake. The weight
of the swivel caused us to be well down by the head, moreover, and the
cockswain had to mind his eye to keep headed straight. All idea, of
course, of our getting back to the brig that day at least was done for,
and to save ourselves we were making for the shore of Long Island,
distant about three miles. But we were not out of range of the guns on
the frigate, and consequently we were yet in danger.

"Come aft here, you men in the bow!" ordered Mr. Spencer. "She'll row
better. Here, stir a foot!"

He looked back, and just as he did so there came another puff of smoke.
I saw the ball smash into the top of a wave, strike the water again, and
then, slightly deflected, it came right for us. I saw this first, and
backed water, giving a shout of fear. The men in the bow gave a leap
forward and tumbled in among us, sprawling over our heads and shoulders,
and bruising shins and elbows.

If the shot had struck four inches lower we would have been sunk then
and there. It caught the gunwale forward, just abreast of the grating on
which the swivel was lashed. The poor fellow pulling the bow oar on that
side gave a shriek and dropped his oar, clasping both hands about his
head. I looked back and saw the blood trickling over his shoulders and
through his fingers. A splinter had almost scalped him. We yawed about
and shipped the top of a sea, and it looked like the end of matters, for
we were out away to within eight inches of the water, and the bow badly
stove and broken.

"Cast loose that gun and heave it overboard, two of you," roared Mr.
Spencer. "The rest all aft. No! Steady! Debrin, you and Jones keep your
place, and pull, do ye hear, pull."

I laid back with all my might, and so did the man next to me. The brave
lad in the bow had recovered from the shock of his flesh-wound, and with
another fellow cast off the lashings of the swivel and dumped it over
the side. I can never forget the sight of that gory man working there
with his broad naked back red from his head to his waist. As soon as it
was finished he tumbled weakly across the thwart. The men in the
stern-sheets were baling with their hands, and one was using Mr.
Spencer's cocked hat with great effect, while Jones and I were giving
way at top strength and keeping with a great effort the seas from
broaching us. As the weight was now in the stern, we could ride, bar
accidents, in half safety. And the oars were taken up again. The bowman
bent over and tied up his wounded comrade's head with his neckerchief,
and for this the other thanked him as he might for some slight courtesy.
But a new terror threatened us.

Two successive shots that had been fired at us during the confusion went
wide, but now we saw that they were lowering away a great barge over the
Englishman's side, and that the men were sliding down into her.

"Heigh! Look there! The _Young Eagle_'s coming down to pick us up,
lads," cried Mr. Spencer, turning about in response to a touch on his
elbow from the cockswain. "Pull now, and get down to it!"

He headed the long-boat more to the westward, and we could see that the
_Young Eagle_ had repaired some of her damage, and had tacked in the
direction we were going. She would have passed almost within range of
the frigate, but all at once the latter vessel gained sternway (her
top-sails had been aback for some few minutes), and she worked off the
bar. Our hopes of rescue fell. Turning on her heel, she made out to meet
our brig. Now we perceived that the frigate's sides were gashed, and two
or three of her ports astern had been knocked into one big opening. But
the barge was after us! Every man rowing in our boat could count her
strokes. There was no use of making light of it! She was gaining at
every jump, lifting high above the top of a sea, and now and again
almost disappearing.

There were twelve good men behind those long white sweeps, and they
rowed a light boat with speed in her. We were making for the shore now,
and grunting with the weight we put into every backward swing. Mr.
Spencer was talking to us after the fashion of a cockswain to a racing
crew, calling out continually:

"Lift her, boys! That's the ticket! Pull altogether," and so forth.

My mouth grew so dry that I could not swallow, and I could feel my head
roll backward and forward. Presently I began to row with my eyes shut,
for it seemed an effort to keep my lids from falling. One of the men in
the stern began to spatter us with water to refresh us, for the sun was
blistering hot by this time. The Lieutenant stopped his cackling.

The stroke oars were being helped at their work by two men pushing as
the rowers pulled. I caught a dim sight of this, and wished that some
one could lay hold of my sweep with me, for my forearms pained, and I
felt gone in the pit of my stomach. How long we rowed that way I do not
know, but suddenly I was awakened, as it were, by hearing Mr. Spencer
say:

"Lads, you have held your own. Keep at it!" Then in a lower tone he
added, "Get ready with those muskets."

This speech had called me to my senses, and it was almost with a shock
of surprise that I found myself keeping up the stroke. My eyes had been
closed so long that the light dazzled me, and at first I could see
nothing, but I felt better than I had before I closed them. And now to
say something that is of interest. A refreshment often comes to a man
whose muscles have apparently expended all their strength, and thus it
was with me. I was working on my heart and nerves alone, on the very
life of me, as it were, and to keep this up too long means ruin; that is
its limitation. When my eyes could focus, what little breath I had
almost checked.

There was the English barge _not three hundred yards astern_! A
despairing look behind me, and I saw that the shore was yet a half-mile
off. The sea was breaking in little rolls of white on every hand, and we
were in shoal water that had a peculiar yellowish look. I noticed Mr.
Spencer kicking off his boots.

I closed my eyes again, for the sweat stung them, and I felt a blackness
coming over me. But just then the crack of a musket sounded in front of
me. It was followed by another, and a little action began, for the
English boat was answering. I was wide-awake once more now, but in a
dream apparently. The marines would stand up and fire, and then squat
down and load again. I could hear the English bullets sing past.

"Ouch!" exclaimed the cockswain, all at once, as if he had dropped
something on his toe.

A ball had struck him on the fleshy part of the thigh, and he sat there
rubbing it and talking in such a comical way that the man on the thwart
next to me laughed outright in a hoarse, jarring fashion.

[Illustration: A BREAKING WAVE CATCHING US UNDER THE QUARTER WE ROLLED
OVER FAIRLY.]

We were in the surf by this time, and the British barge was
half-pistol-shot away, when No. 5 on the starboard hand fell over in a
faint; the cockswain got another ball, this time in the wrist, that
caused him to let go the tiller, and a breaking wave catching us under
the quarter, we rolled over fairly end for end with a clatter. When I
came up, there was a tremendous seething and bubbling in my ears, and
putting out my arm I managed to catch hold of the tiller-hooks of the
overturned boat, and hung on with all my might.

"Help me!" cried a voice. I looked about, and saw the wounded seaman
weakly swimming alongside. I extended my hand to him, and observed that
eight or ten others were holding fast with straining fingers to the
long-boat.

The English barge was backing in carefully and with skill. We were not a
cable's length from shore, and making for it hand over hand, swimming
with the ease of a porpoise, was Mr. Spencer. I knew it was he by the
gleam of gold lace on his high collar. But the seaman had grasped me so
tightly that I lost my hold, and there came to me the sense that I was
drowning, and did not care at all.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




A FAIRY FÊTE.

BY EMMA J. GRAY.


"I'm to be a fairy god-mother to-night," were Mabel's words, as, sitting
in the large Indian chair, her eyes glistened with anticipation.

"What will you wear?"

"Oh, one of Millie's old costumes. You may remember that three years ago
she took part in the fairies' dream!"

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, by a little alteration the same frock and wings will do for me."

"Are you to have anything to say?"

"I'm to have everything to say. And I'm to wear a crown with a big star
in the centre," and up went her hand to indicate the place. "And my
wings are showered with diamond dust, and my dress--oh-h, it dazzles my
eyes under gas-light! You ought to see the silver spangles!"

"What's the entertainment for, Mabel?"

"Oh, just to amuse people. It is to be given in Mrs. R's---- parlor. Lots
of folks will be there. It will be simply gorgeous! You know it's the
fad now to have a magician or something to entertain one's friends, and
I'm to be sacrificed to-night."

And then up the merry girl jumped to practise a violin solo.

Every reader of HARPER'S ROUND TABLE is familiar with the tales of Hans
Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, but it is possible that every one does
not appreciate what delightful entertainment they would make. Therefore
when Ralph and Margaret wonder what their league could give to replenish
the treasury, select an appropriate fairy-tale, and while your committee
are making the business arrangements, the persons who are to take part
should be busy with rehearsals, so that when the night of entertainment
arrives, and the house is packed to overflowing, no one will be covered
with shame and confusion of face.

Among many wonderful tales worthy of particular mention is "Little Ida's
Flowers," because it is capable of charming representation and
necessitates many characters. It may be given at any time of the year.

_Characters:_

  LITTLE IDA, _a short girl_.
  STUDENT, _a tall boy_.
  FIRST FAIRY.
  SECOND FAIRY.
  PRIVY COUNCILLOR, _a boy representing a middle-aged man_.
  THE READER, _a girl_.
  YELLOW LILY, _a girl_.
  BLUE CROCUS, _a boy_.
  FLOWERS, _girls and boys_.
  BUTTERFLIES, _girls and boys_.

SCENE FIRST.--A library, showing a table, lamp, easy-chairs, sofa, one
very high chair representing a throne. Ida, costumed as a little girl,
walks toward the Student, who is seated on the sofa, and holds towards
him a bunch of flowers.

[Illustration]

_Ida_. "My poor flowers are quite dead. They were so pretty yesterday,
and now all the leaves are withered. Why do the flowers look so faded
to-day?"

_Student_. "Do you know what's the matter? The flowers have been at a
ball last night, and that's why they hang their heads."

_Ida_. "But flowers cannot dance!"

_Student_. "Oh yes! When it grows dark and we are asleep they jump about
merrily. Almost every night they have a ball."

_Ida_. "Can children go to this ball?"

_Student_. "Yes, quite little daisies and lilies-of-the-valley."

_Ida_. "Where do the beautiful flowers dance?"

_Student_. "Have you not often been outside of the town gate, by the
great castle where the King lives in summer, and where the beautiful
garden is with all the flowers? You have seen the swans which swim up to
you when you want to give them bread crumbs. There are capital balls
there, believe me!"

_Ida_. "I was out there in the garden yesterday with my mother, but all
the leaves were off the trees, and there was not one flower left. Where
are they?"

_Student_. "They are within the castle. As soon as the King and all the
court go to town, the flowers run out of the garden into the castle and
are merry. You should see that. The two most beautiful roses seat
themselves on the throne, and then they are King and Queen; all the red
coxcombs arrange themselves on either side, and stand and bow; they are
the chamberlains. Then all the pretty flowers come, and there is a great
ball. The blue violets represent little naval cadets; they dance with
hyacinths and crocuses, which they call young ladies; the tulips and the
great tiger-lilies are old ladies who keep watch that the dancing is
well done and everything goes on with propriety."

No sooner is this last word uttered than a sound of music is heard.
Enter two Fairies, who stand one on either side of little Ida, and
waving their wands over her, sing:

  "Oh, listen, listen! your eyes shall glisten
  With pleasure and love and jubilee."

_First Fairy_. "She looks surprised."

_Second Fairy_. "She has dropped her flowers."

_First Fairy_. "She would better sit down."

_Second Fairy_. "Follow me."

Whereupon Ida follows the Second Fairy's lead, who waves her to a seat
by the Student's side, and immediately the fairies walk to the opposite
end of the room. As they walk gay music is heard louder and yet louder,
and in run the Flowers, as the Student has described, the two most
beautiful roses seating themselves on the tall chair which represents
the throne.

This scene will allow for a large number of girls and boys, and each
should be costumed so that no one can make mistake as to what flower
they are exhibiting. When all are in the room dancing begins, and
continues for half an hour; as the Flowers retire they make obeisance to
the King and Queen. And all having now gone but the Fairies, the King
asks the First Fairy to dance with him, and the Queen the Second Fairy
to dance with her, and after a short dance they also retire, and Ida and
the Student are again alone.

_Ida_. "But is nobody there who hurts the flowers for dancing in the
King's castle?"

_Student_. "There is nobody who really knows about it."

_Ida_. "Can the flowers out of the botanical garden get there? Can they
go a long distance?"

_Student_. "Yes, certainly. If they like they can fly. Have you not seen
the beautiful butterflies--red, yellow, and white? They almost look like
flowers, and that is what they have been."

[Illustration]

Once again gay music is heard, and in come the fairies dancing, followed
by a train of dancing butterflies, costumed in red, yellow, and white.
After dancing for ten minutes the butterflies retire, and the fairies
wave their wands to Ida and the Student, and sing,

  "We be fairies of the wood,
  And spend our time, on doing good."

Then they immediately touch their wands to the floor, and the First
Fairy draws a ring at the feet of Ida, and the Second Fairy at the feet
of the Student, and then they retire.

_Ida_. "How can one flower talk to another? For you know flowers cannot
speak."

_Student_. "That they cannot, certainly; but then they can make signs.
Have you not noticed that when the wind blows a little the flowers nod
at one another, and move all their green leaves? They can understand
that just as well as we when we speak together."

_Ida_. "That is funny." And she laughs.

Enter the Privy Councillor, who has come to pay a visit, and sits down
on the sofa by the Student's side.

_Privy Councillor_. "How can any one put such notions into a child's
head? They are stupid fancies!"

_Ida_. "What the Student told about the flowers seemed very droll." And
picking up her nosegay, which had been scattered over the floor, she
looks tenderly on it while saying, "The flowers are tired because they
have danced all night." And then walking to a table on which stands a
doll's bed, she lays them in and puts the coverlet over them. The whole
evening through she can not help but think of what the Student has told
her.

SCENE SECOND.--Ida's bedroom. Ida in bed. The night-lamp burning on the
table.

_Ida_. "I wonder if my flowers are still lying in the doll's bed? How I
should like to know!" She raises herself a little, and looks at the
door, which stands ajar. Within lie the flowers. Ida puts her head down
on her pillow.

[Illustration]

Enter two Fairies. They walk directly to her bed, and stand one on
either side of Ida's head, slowly waving their wands over her. Piano
music is softly played, and Ida goes to sleep.

An unseen person now reads the following dream, which may be acted as
far as is deemed advisable:

"Ida listened, and then it seemed to her as if she heard some one
playing in the next room. Now all the flowers are certainly dancing in
there! 'Oh, how glad I should be to see it!' But she dared not get up.

"'If they would only come in,' thought she. But the flowers did not
come, and the music continued to play beautifully. Then she could not
bear it any longer, for it was too pretty. She crept out of her little
bed, and went quietly to the door and looked into the room. Oh, how
splendid it was!

"There was no night-lamp burning, but still it was quite light; the moon
shone through the window in the middle of the floor. All the hyacinths
and tulips stood in two long rows. On the floor all the flowers were
dancing very gracefully round one another, making perfect turns, and
holding one another by the long green leaves as they swung round. But at
the piano sat a great yellow lily, which little Ida had certainly seen
in summer, for she remembered its manners in playing, sometimes holding
its long yellow face to one side, sometimes to the other, and nodding in
tune to the music. (Enter a tall girl, representing a yellow lily.)

"No one noticed little Ida. Then she saw a great blue crocus hop into
the middle of the table where the doll's bed stood. (Enter a boy,
costumed to represent a blue crocus.)

"There lay the sick flowers, but they got up directly and nodded to the
others to say that they wanted to dance too.

"Then it seemed as if something fell down from the table. Ida looked
that way. It was the birch rod which was jumping down! And a wax doll,
with just such a broad hat as the Councillor wore, sat upon it. The
birch rod hopped about among the flowers, for it was dancing the
mazourka; and the other flowers could not manage that dance because they
were too light and unable to stamp like that.

"The wax doll on the birch rod all at once became quite great and long,
and said: 'How can one put such things in a child's head? Those are
stupid fancies.' And then the wax doll was exactly like the Councillor
in the broad hat, and looked just as yellow and cross as he. But the
flowers hit him, and then he shrank up again and became quite a little
wax doll. That was very amusing to see, and Ida could not restrain her
laughter. The birch rod went on dancing, and the Councillor was obliged
to dance too; it was no use, he might make himself great and long, or
remain the little yellow wax doll with the big black hat. Then the other
flowers put in a good word for him, and the birch rod gave over.

"Then the door opened and a great number of splendid flowers came
dancing in. (Enter roses of all sorts and Butterflies, dancing.)

"Ida could not imagine whence they had come; these must certainly be all
the flowers from the King's castle. First of all came two glorious
roses, and they had little gold crowns on; they were a King and a Queen.
Then came the prettiest coronations, and they bowed in all directions.
Great poppies and peonies blew upon pea-pods till they were quite red in
the face. The blue hyacinths and the little white snowdrops rang just as
if they had bells. All danced together, and all the flowers kissed one
another. It was beautiful to look at.

"At last the flowers wished one another good-night."

No sooner is good-night uttered than the Fairies motion to the flowers
to keep perfectly still, and point their wands at Ida.

_First Fairy_. "She sleeps, her breathings are not heard."

_Second Fairy_. "Her fragrant tresses are not stirred."

_First Fairy_. "Hasten hither, King and Queen."

_Second Fairy_. "Roses, sweet that we employ."

And immediately the quartette step to the front of the stage and sing a
good-night song.

At the close of which all dance--even Ida, who wakens by the jollity.

Exeunt.

       *       *       *       *       *

A GOOD TIMEPIECE.

Here is a fish story, for the truth of which we cannot vouch, but which
all fishermen young or old will enjoy. It comes from an English journal,
the Northampton _Daily Reporter_.

Last spring, while a party of tourists were fishing "up North," a
well-known lawyer lost his gold watch from the boat in which he was
sitting. Last week he made another visit to the lakes, and during the
first day's sport caught an eight-pound trout. His astonishment can be
imagined, when he found his watch lodged in the throat of the trout. The
watch was running, and the time correct. It being a "stem-winder," the
supposition is that in masticating his food the fish wound up the watch
daily.




THE NEW YEAR.


  The clock struck twelve in the tall church tower,
    And the old year slipped away,
  To be lost in the crowd of phantom years
    In the House of Dreams that stay
            All wrapped in their cloaks of gray.

  Then swift and sweet o'er the door's worn sill
    Came the youngest child of Time,
  With a gay little bow and a merry laugh,
    And a voice like bells achime,
            Challenging frost and rime.

  He found there was plenty for him to do,
    The strong and the weak were here,
  And both held out their hands to him
    And gave him greetings dear,
            The beautiful young new year.

  "You must bring us better days," they said,
    "The old year was a cheat."
  Which I think was mean when the year was dead;
    Such fate do dead years meet,
          To be spurned by scornful feet!

  "I bring you the best a year can bring,"
    The new-comer stoutly spake,
  "The chance of work, the gift of trust,
    And the bread of love to break,
          If but my gifts you'll take!"

  The noblest thing a year can lay
    In the lap of you or me,
  The brave new year has brought this day,
    It is Opportunity,
            Which the wise are quick to see.

  MARGARET E. SANGSTER.




SAVING A TORPEDO-BOAT.

ONE OF THE OLD SAILOR'S YARNS.

BY W. J. HENDERSON.


It was a day of southwesterly weather, one of those days on which shower
follows shower across the murky and writhing sky, and the air feels like
water atomized. The boys had grown tired of sitting in the house, and
having donned oil-skins and rubber boots, they had gone down to the pier
in hope of seeing some interesting sight at sea. They found the Old
Sailor in his favorite position, and sat down beside him. He too was
clad in oil-skins, and was shaking his head in solemn discontent because
he could not get a good view of the ocean. The sea-water was quite cold
and the rain was much warmer; consequently the surface of the great deep
was covered with a wavering veil of light gray mist, through which the
eye could not penetrate more than two hundred and fifty yards.

A few minutes after the boys sat down another thunder-storm broke, and
rain fell in torrents. The lightning flashed fiercely and the thunder
bellowed mightily. Suddenly, in the very height of the tumult, out of
the curtain of the gray mist came a wild, unearthly shriek, rising in
pitch and intensity each second. The boys started to their feet, pale to
the lips, and gazing at the Old Sailor with appealing eyes. The next
instant a long, low, lean, olive-colored hull shot out of the mist. From
two funnels, one forward and one aft, great streamers of oily black
smoke went swirling away over the stern, while under the bows a snowy
jet of gleaming spray spurted high along the craft's sides. From her
crouching stern the water sprang outward and upward in a boiling wave,
lashed into silver and emerald by the whizzing screws. She shot past the
end of the pier, not a hundred yards away, with her whistle shrieking
wildly as she went. The boys had barely time to catch the outline of her
and to see the crouching figure of the seaman who tried to peer into the
mist ahead of her, before she had hissed out of sight, and left only the
troubled wake to tell the story of her passage.

"What was that?" gasped Henry, when he could catch his breath.

"That, my son," said the Old Sailor, solemnly, "were the United States
torpedo-boat _Cushing_, bound fur Sandy Hook, an' no time to spare."

"But I should think she'd be in danger of running into some vessel."

"Oh, they can stop her an' back her in twice her own length," said the
Old Sailor.

"But why does she go so fast?" asked George. "Do they wish to get out of
the rain?"

"No, I reckon they ain't afraid o' rain," said the Old Sailor, with a
grave sidewise movement of his head. "But mebbe she are in the same fix
as the torpedo-boat _Hop-lo_ were at the battle o' Yalu, w'ich the same
I were her bosun's mate, an' also, moreover, kep' her from sinkin'."

"Oh, tell us about that!" exclaimed George.

"W'ich are the werry identical thing wot I'm agoin' fur to come fur to
do. It so happened as how I were in Hong-kong w'en that misfortinate
disagreeability atwixt China and Japan come to a head. Pussonally I
'ain't never had no werry high respeck fur a Chinaman, but w'en I
l'arned as how my friend Li Hung-Chang were a-offerin' double wages an'
double prize-money fur American sailors to ship in the Chinese navy,
w'y, sez I to myself, sez I, 'Ef I don't get killed, a Chinaman's money
are as good as a Jap's, an' there's twicet as much on 't; an' ef I do
get killed, w'y, I reckon as how I won't be no deader under one flag
than under t'other.' An' with that I ups an' I ships. An' they orders me
to a bloomin' torpedo-boat.

"I won't say as the _Hop-lo_ weren't a werry good boat, though she'd
orter been called the Hop-hi, seein' as she were a thirty-knot boat, one
o' the best ever built by old Thorneycroft in England. She looked a good
deal like this 'ere _Cushing_ wot jes scooted past, 'ceptin' as how she
were higher in the bows an' used to get more down by the stern w'en she
were goin' fast, w'ich the same it were owin' to that I saved her. As I
said afore, it were at the battle o' Yalu wot it happened. I ain't
agoin' far to make no circumstigious attempt fur to tell the story o'
that battle; 'cos w'y, w'en you're into a battle you don't know nothin'
'bout it. All I knowed was that the torpedo-boats in gineral was
a-cruisin' around outside o' the battle-ships, like so many porpoises in
the wake o' whales. The Admiral, w'ich the same I could see him without
glasses, were a-prancin' around on one leg an' sendin' up signals every
minute. Waal, the fight was on putty soon, an' ye couldn't see a thing
'ceptin' smoke. The noise o' them big guns was enough to skeer ye blue,
but that are not wot I started out fur to tell ye. We got orders fur to
launch a torpedo at one o' the Japanese battle-ships, an' we went an'
done it. Wot that there torpedo hit I never rightly knowed--but it
didn't hit that battle-ship. But she hit us with one o' her five-inch
guns right under the starboard bow an' blowed a bloomin' big hole below
our water-line.

[Illustration: "WEI! WEI! WE GO DLOWNEE NOW ALLEE SAMEE STONEE!"]

"'Wei! Wei!' yells the Cap'n, a pug-faced Chinaman with one eye. 'We go
dlownee now allee samee stonee! Wei! Wei!'

"An' with that the hull crew took to catterwaulin' an' squealin' like a
lot o' pigs at feedin'-time.

"'Avast there, ye leather-faced slobs!' sez I to them, sez I. 'Run the
bloomin' boat on the beach!'

"'Melican man biggee foolee!' screamed the Cap'n. 'Beachee allee samee
twently mile.'

"'Waal, go ahead, anyhow!' sez I to he, sez I, 'an' don't be layin'
still here. They'll shoot your bloomin' boat full o' holes an' make a
marine sponge out o' her,' sez I, jes like that, him bein' Cap'n with
epaulets on, an' me a bosun's mate with nothin' finer 'n a quid o'
'baccy. Werry good. I rings the bell myself an' the engineer starts her
ahead full speed. It weren't two minutes afore we was out o' the wust o'
the fight, but them there Chinks was still scared blue. Nex' minute they
was scared bluer than ever, fur up comes a feller yellin' like a Bowery
boy at a four-story fire:

"'We sinkee! Sinkee!'

"'Wei! Wei!' screamed the Cap'n; 'we sinkee; allee samee sharkee eat us!
Wei! Wei!'

"'Shut up, ye doughnut-headed son of a sea-cook!' sez I to he, sez I.
'What makes ye think we'll sink?'

"'Watee comee in chop-chop; allee samee whole ocean come! Welly bad!
U-u-u-gh!'

"'Wei! Wei!' begin the Cap'n agin, jumpin' up an' down like he thought
he was a jig-dancer in a variety show.

"'Stow yer jaw-tackle there, ye moon-eyed monkey!' sez I, to he, sez I,
me havin' lost my respeck for him, though he were a Cap'n an' wore a
sword, w'ich the same it didn't cut no ice. 'Man the pumps, ye batherin'
screechers!'

"Waal, o' course that weren't edzackly the right kind o' order to give;
'cos w'y, she were a modern torpedo-boat an' her pumps was run by steam;
but anyhow it started 'em goin'. Chunk-chunk! chunk-chunk! chunk-chunk!
they pounded along fur a little while, and then one on 'em stopped all
on a suddent, with a big crack.

"'Wei! Wei!' squeals the Cap'n.

"'Shut up, ye molasses-colored parrot!' sez I to he, sez I, 'or I'll
stick ye into one o' yer own torpedo-tubes an' pull the string.'

"'Melican man welly wicked,' he muttered, as he walked forward.

"'Wot are the matter below there?' sez I.

"'Pumpee brokee!' hollered the engineer.

"'Both on 'em?'

"'No, only onee. He heap much brokee. No go any moree.'

"'Keep the other one at it,' sez I.

"Then I goes down below myself fur to see where the bloomin' trouble
were. Waal, it were not no cheerin' sight wot I seed down there. The
water sartainly were a-pourin' into the blessed old pot at a werry
discouragin' gait, and the one pump were not able for to gain any ground
on it. So sez I to myself, sez I, 'I got to git this 'ere water out o'
her somehow, or else I'm agoin' to git more water 'n I want myself.' So
sez I, 'How are I going fur to persuade this 'ere water fur to run out
o' this 'ere weasel?' An' the werry minute I sez it, I seed how 'twere
to be done. I jumps on deck an' I sings out fur the crew o' the
three-pounder rapid-fire gun.

"'Stan' by here, ye clay-colored scaramouches, an' git the gun below!'

"'Wei! Wei!' begins the Cap'n, and with that I ups an' grabs him by the
pigtail. I hauled him forrad an' I made him fast by that pigtail to the
ring o' the starboard anchor.

"'Now,' sez I, 'ye howlin' son o' darkness, if I hear another sound out
o' ye, I'll heave to an' let go the anchor.'

"'Melican man welly wicked,' he moaned.

"I got the gun down into the hold of her, an' I run it away aft. Then I
loaded it an' p'inted it at the lowest part of her starn. The haythen
set up a werry commojious amount o' weepin' an' whoopin' w'en they seed
wot I were a-doin'; 'cos w'y, they thort it would make two holes an'
sink the boat jes that much faster. But I pulled the trigger an' blowed
a bloomin' big hole into her starn right alongside o' the rudder-post
an' underwater. The water did come in right off, an' the Chinks broke
fur the deck an' commenced to cast off the boat falls. I stood at the
door o' the fire-room, an' sez I to the engineers an' firemen, sez I:

"'Turn her up to her hottest gait, an' mind that I'll shoot the first
man that leaves his post.'

"W'ich the same I would 'a' done it; 'cos w'y, they might as well 'a'
ben shot as drownded.

"'Now, ye gallopin' haythen,' sez I to they, sez I, 'shovel coal fur yer
lives. Hop, now, hop! Fill the furnaces full; put a ton o' lead on the
safety-valve; turn on the forced draught, an' turn up the screws till
they make the water hot astarn on us.'

"Waal, my sons, ye never in all yer born days seed any such hustlin'. It
warn't fifteen minutes afore they had the furnaces red-hot, an' the
screws was agoin' round at the rate o' a hundred an' thirty-seven turns
a minute. It took the wessel a little while to git agoin', but in ten
minutes she were a-vibratin' like a fiddle-string, so that she jes
actooally hummed like one. An' go! Waal, ye 'ain't never seed nothin'
like it in water. W'y, the waves goin' past her looked like the tracks
o' one o' Farmer Hulick's harrows. Then my scheme beginned fur to work.
I told ye that the _Hop-lo_ always went down by the starn when she got
to goin' fast, didn't I?"

"Yes," answered both boys.

"Waal, that were what I were countin' on partly--that an' her speed. The
water inside o' her commenced fur to run out o' the hole wot I'd blowed
in her starn. More come in the hole forrad an' flowed aft, so w'en she
got to goin' at a twenty-five-knot gait, wot come in forrad couldn't
stop; but jes ran right through her an' out the hole in the starn. The
faster she went the faster the water went through her, but it couldn't
stop inside, an' so it didn't get no deeper. Say, ye ort to seed the
faces o' them Chinamen w'en they seed how my scheme were a-workin'! W'y,
them fellers mos' killed theirselves a-heavin' coal on an' keepin' her
goin' faster an' faster. The Cap'll he come down below, looked at the
water a-runnin' through her, an' sez he to me, sez he,

"'Melican man biggee head.'

"'Werry good,' sez I to he, sez I; 'but wot I want o' you is silence,
an' that o' the werry quietest sort.'

"'Allee lightee,' sez he.

"'Now,' sez I, 'you stay down here an' keep these bloomin' engineers an'
firemen at work, an' I'll go an' do the navigatin'.'

"So I left him there, an' I went up an' headed the boat fur the port o'
Yu-hi, where I knowed there were a ship-yard an' we could git hauled out
an' repaired. An' in an hour the bloomin' harbor were right over our
bow. An' now I were puzzled agin; 'cos w'y, ef I stopped her she'd sink,
an' ef I run her onto the beach the way she were agoin', I'd smash her
all to splinters no bigger'n rope-yarns. While I were a-walkin' around
on the deck an' a-worryin', I tuk a look ahead through the marine-glass,
an' blow me fur a pickled oyster ef I didn't see the werry way out o' my
trouble."

"What was it?" asked Henry, excitedly.

"A marine railway wot they hauls out wessels on fur to repair 'em. There
wasn't nothin' on to it, an' there was the rails runnin' with a nice
slant right down into the water. Waal, I headed her right fur it, an' I
opened up the whistle an' let out a yell that would wake the town.
People came out runnin' like they was crazy, an' wavin' their hands fur
me to stop her; but I didn't pay no 'tention. I hadn't time fur to stop.
I put my head down the hatchway an' yelled,

"'All hands on deck!'

"Up come the blatherin' chinks a-fallin' all over each other, an' w'en
they seed how we was headin', they squealed dreadful.

"'Wei! Wei!' sez the Cap'n.

"An' bein' tired o' that, I jes ketched him by the pigtail an' swung him
overboard an' let him swim ashore. The next minute we struck the marine
railway head on, going square atween the rails, jes as I counted to do.
An' o' course we skated our whole length right up the tracks.

"'Over all hands?' I yelled.

"The Chinamen came to life an' seemed to understan', fur over they went,
an' had chocks under her quicker'n ye could say 'ahoy'; an' there she
were, comf'able an' snug as an old woman in bed, with all the water run
out o' her, an' nothin' to do but to plug up the holes an' get to sea
agin. But d'ye s'pose them bloomin' beggars was grateful to me, fur wot
I done fur 'em? Not a bit. They court-martialled me fur firin' on my own
wessel."




[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]


The All-Boston Interscholastic Football Team for 1896 is as follows:

  J. W. HALLOWELL, _Hopkinson's_                 end.
  F. GILLISPEE, _Brookline High_              tackle.
  F. W. LOWE, _Boston Latin_                   guard.
  F. R. HUTCHINS, _Brookline High_            centre.
  O. TALBOT, _Brookline High_                  guard.
  W. D. EATON, _English High_                 tackle.
  E. W. MANAHAN, _English High_                  end.
  G. A. SAWIN, _Cambridge Manual_       quarter-back.
  W. B. BOYCE, _Brookline High_            half-back.
  CATO THOMPSON, _Cambridge Manual_        half-back.
  A. STILLMAN, _Hopkinson's_               full-back.

[Illustration: E. W. MANAHAN, End.]

[Illustration: F. W. LOWE, Guard.]

[Illustration: W. B. BOYCE, Half-back.]

[Illustration: F. GILLESPIE, Tackle.]

[Illustration: OLIN TALBOT, Guard.]

[Illustration: G. A. SAWIN, Quarter-back and Captain.]

[Illustration: W. D. EATON, Tackle.]

[Illustration: J. W. HALLOWELL, End.]

[Illustration: A. STILLMAN, Full-back.]

[Illustration: C. M. THOMPSON, Half-back.]

[Illustration: F. R. HUTCHINS, Centre.]

The substitutes are W. Murphy, English High, end; C. W. Jaynes,
Hopkinson's, tackle; C. Shea, Hopkinson's, guard; R. Hazen, Cambridge
Manual, centre; E. F. Sherlock, English High, quarter-back; G. L.
Huntress, Hopkinson's, half-back; T. F. Teevens, Boston Latin,
full-back.

In picking a representative All-Boston Team the first consideration
given to the individual has been his ability to play his position as
near perfection as it is proper to expect. The player who has displayed
the most talent in this direction has earned the title to become a
member of this team. To reach a standard above the average an All-Boston
player must necessarily have the essential qualities that define a
football expert--namely, courage, pluck, reliance, and a true conception
of collective strength.

For quarter-back, that most important position so difficult to fill
satisfactorily, there is only one choice, and that is George A. Sawin,
of Cambridge Manual. He has exemplified the execution of accurate
passing and the propagation of complicated trick plays, born of natural
aptitude and experience. Cambridge Manual was reputed to have the most
intricate formation plays of any team in the league, and their ultimate
successful completion depended entirely on Sawin's steadiness. That he
never slipped up was proved by the prosperity that attended the team.
Sawin's station on the defence is directly behind the centre, where he
can close up holes at either side of the pivot of the line. As a tackler
his real value is felt, for he backs up the line and makes it
impregnable. Sawin has done all the punting for his team, and whenever a
kick was wanted he exchanged places with a half-back to receive the
ball. His long punts were constantly commented on, and no one in the
league excelled him.

The command of the team should also be assumed by Sawin, not alone
because of his point of vantage in the field, but for his excellence as
a strategist, and as a leader who inspires confidence in his players,
and exacts their respect.

The centre of the line can well be taken care of by Hutchins of
Brookline, who, for a centre, has been unusually active throughout the
season. He has outclassed every centre that faced him, though outweighed
in many cases. His football personality lies in his strength to make a
pathway for a rusher and his conspicuousness in tackling back of the
line.

No one guard has given evidence of having star abilities, and there are
several ranking on about the same plane. Talbot of Brookline High, who
was substitute on last year's All-Boston team, is inferior to nobody
now, and easily takes a permanent place. He has had excellent coaching
from an old Harvard guard all the season, and it is no wonder that he
exhibits all the capabilities of a finished guardsman. For the other
guard the competition is much closer, but should go to Captain Fred
Lowe, of Boston Latin, who has had three years' experience, and in that
time has always stood at the front.

There is no disputing the fact that the tackle positions belong to Eaton
of English High and Gillispee of Brookline High. Eaton was a member of
the All-Boston team a year ago as guard, but exigencies arising, he was
moved to tackle, and his all-round proclivities cropped out there, where
he has played the same aggressive, straight-forward game that
characterized him in '95. As a rushing linesman he can claim superiority
over any man who stood on the scholastic gridiron this fall.

Gillispee of Brookline High has proved his worth as a tackle as the
season advanced. He has earned his position by hard, untiring effort,
and in every game he has been prominent in smashing interference and
making his position invulnerable.

With Hallowell, of Hopkinson's, and Manahan on the ends, the team would
have an almost perfect line. Hallowell occupied a similar position last
year, and has sustained his reputation this season. He was the most
difficult end in the league to circle, for he can wade through the most
compact interference and nail the runner.

Manahan has played tackle all the year, but this was because he found a
better end player than a tackle. His position is end, where he
demonstrated last season his talents, and where he should have been this
fall. As it was, he played an excellent game at tackle, although
generally handicapped by the weight of his opponent. The players in this
team to whom the burden of rushing the ball would fall are Cato
Thompson, Cambridge Manual, Walter B. Boyce, Brookline, and A. Stillman,
Hopkinson's.

Thompson and Boyce, the half-backs, are good at line-breaking or end
plays. The former is especially clever at sprinting around the
extremities of the line, and has exceptional speed. Boyce is the best
individual back in the association, and his bucking the line has been
Brookline's chief mode of gaining ground. Both players are fine
defensive workers, and would aid Sawin on the line. Stillman gets placed
not so much for his rushing game as his fearless punting. He can always
be relied upon to follow his interference closely, and goes into a hole
like a shot. Teevens of Boston Latin pushes Stillman for the position,
as he is the surer at gaining through the line.

The following tables complete the records of the New York, Connecticut,
and Cook County football leagues:

N.Y.I.S.A.A. FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP.

  SECTION I.

                   Games    Games     Games     Points     Points
                    won.    lost.     tied.      won.       lost.
  De La Salle        2        1         1         26         16
  Berkeley           1        1         1         30         14
  Barnard            1        2         0         12         32

  SECTION II.

  Trinity            2        0         0         50          0
  Dwight             1[1]     2         0          8         42
  Cutler             1        2         0         10          8

[1] This game was won by default from Cutler.

FINAL CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.

  De La Salle     2--Trinity         0

SCORES OF GAMES PLAYED.

  De La Salle     4--Barnard         6
  De La Salle     6--Berkeley        6
  De La Salle     6--Berkeley        0
  De La Salle    10--Barnard         4[2]
  De La Salle     2--Trinity         0
  Trinity        32--Dwight          0
  Trinity        18--Cutler          0
  Berkeley       24--Barnard         2
  Cutler         10--Dwight          8
  Cutler          0--Dwight          6[3]

[2] An all-round tie in Section I. necessitated a play-off, but as
Berkeley forfeited, this was the only game played.

[3] Won by Dwight by default.

COOK COUNTY FOOTBALL LEAGUE.

                                T
                                o
                                u
                        G       c
                        o       h       S
                        a       -       a
                        l       d       f
                        s       o       e
                                w       t
                        f       n       i
                        r       s       e
                        o               s
                        m       f
                                a       B
                        T       i       y               P
                        o       l               P       o             G
                        u       i       O       o       i      G      a
                        c       n       p       i       n      a      m
                        h       g       p       n       t      m      e
                        -               o       t       s      e      s
                        d       G       n       s              s
                        o       o       e               l             l
                        w       a       n       W       o      w      o
                        n       l       t       o       s      o      s
                        s       s       s       n       t      n      t

  Englewood            12       3      ..     118      12      9      0
  Hyde Park            14      11      ..     128      54      8      1
  Lake View            11       4      ..      40      16      6      2
  Evanston             11       4      ..      82      50      5      3
  North Division       17       6      ..     126      72      5      4
  English High          3       1      ..      22      24      4      5
  Northwest Division    3       1      ..      22      86      3      6
  Manual-Training       1       1      ..      10      78      2      7
  Oak Park              6       3      ..      48     142      1      8
  West Division         0       2      ..       8      84      1      8

CONNECTICUT I.S.F.B.A.

NORTHERN DIVISION.

  October 31--New Britain H.-S., 42; Hartford H.-S., 6.
  November 7--New Britain H.-S., 50; Norwich[4] F. A., 0.

SOUTHERN DIVISION.

  October 31--Meriden H.-S., 54; Hillhouse H.-S., 12.
  October 31--Bridgeport H.-S., 12; Waterbury H.-S., 8.
  November 7--Meriden H.-S., 20; Bridgeport H.-S., 12.

CHAMPIONSHIP GAME.

  November 14--New Britain H.-S., 30; Meriden H.-S., 6.

[4] On October 31 Connecticut Lit. Inst. forfeited to Norwich F. A.

[Illustration: TRINITY SCHOOL FOOTBALL TEAM, OF NEW YORK.]

The Trinity School Football Team this year was the strongest that that
school has ever put into the field; and although it did not win the New
York championship, it made an enviable record for itself during the
season. Thirteen games in all were played as follows:

  Trinity    10--Yonkers High-School             0
  Trinity    28--St. Austin's School             0
  Trinity     4--Montclair High-School           2
  Trinity    44--Packard Business College        4
  Trinity     0--St. Paul's School              30
  Trinity     6--Rutger Prep. School             0
  Trinity    10--Staten Island C. C., 2d team    6
  Trinity     0--Princeton Prep. School         10
  Trinity   *32--Dwight School                   0
  Trinity   *18--Cutler School                   0
  Trinity   * 0--De La Salle School              2
  Trinity    10--Columbia Freshmen               0

The contests marked with a star were games played in the New York
Interscholastic championship series.

For the first time in several years the Trinity players this season had
a regular coach, to whom much of the credit of their success is due. The
'95 team knew nothing of systematic interference, whereas this year's
eleven was well trained in that branch of the sport, and developed a
special strength on end plays. Only four of the '95 team returned to
school this fall. These were Page, centre; Brown, left guard; Stromeyer,
left half-back, and O'Rourke, full-back. Page and Brown were moved to
tackles, and proved efficient in those positions.

On looking over the new material at the beginning of the season Captain
O'Rourke found that he had an abundance of men capable of playing end
and back, but there were not many heavy players for the centre of the
line. Consequently in the early games Trinity's opponents made most of
their advances through the centre; but this weakness was finally
remedied, and the eleven developed a strong defence. With the experience
acquired this season next year's eleven should prove particularly
strong.

With the great development of football among all the schools, it has now
come to be an important matter with the colleges to keep track of the
scholastic players, and to depend upon them for material for the
university elevens. In connection with this it is interesting to look
over a list of the graduating football-players which has been recently
compiled.

Beginning with the New York League we find that of the seven members of
the Berkeley team who graduate next spring, Bien, Gilson, and Rice will
go to Yale, Walker and Hasbrouck will go to Columbia, Wiley will enter
Princeton, and Pell will not go to college at all. From the Cutler team
Yale will get Kimball, Kip, and Lee, Harvard will get Hoffman and Sands,
and McElroy will go to Columbia. Columbia will get four men from
Drisler's eleven--Agate, Ballin, Furnald, and Wolff. Columbia also gets
Brooks from Hamilton Institute; and from the same school Carey will go
to Princeton, and Foster to Technology, Boston. Of the Dwight
football-players, Bogart, Cameron, McCord, and Vinton go to Yale, Adler
to Pennsylvania, Slawson to Princeton, and Eickemeyer to Columbia. From
the champion team of De La Salle only two go to college--Tilford to
Yale, and Bennett to Manhattan College.

Not so many men go to college from the Long Island League. Pratt
Institute will send Bowie and Warner to Cornell, and Nevins to Columbia.
Brooklyn Latin will send three men to Harvard--Lawrence, E. Motley, and
J. L. Motley; Auchincloss, Brown, and Hoppin will go to Yale. From the
championship team of St. Paul's, Garden City, Loraine, Symonds, and
White will enter Harvard; and Cluett will go to Yale.

The Connecticut League will naturally send more football-players to Yale
than to any other college. From Hotchkiss School six men will go down to
New Haven--Hixon, Hoysradt, Montague, Noyes, Reynolds, and Savage. Two
of the substitutes of the team, Coy, also a tennis-player, and
Robertson, will likewise go to Yale. Fincke, football man and tennis
champion, will go to Harvard. From the Hartford High-School Wood goes to
Cornell; and Cutter, Gibb, Hanford, and Lockwood go to Yale. From
Meriden Hubbard will go to Yale, and also possibly Gibson and Lane;
Collins will enter Tufts College. From the champion New Britain team
Yale will get Buckley, Corbin, and Flannery.

From other schools not in any of the large interscholastic leagues the
larger colleges will also get a number of good men. From Andover, Yale
will get Holladay, Swift, Wheeler, and White, and also one or more
substitutes. Exeter will probably send three players to Harvard. From
Lawrenceville, Cadwalader, Dudley, and Richards go to Yale; Loy and
Mattis to Princeton. From the football team of St. Paul's, Concord,
Henderson and Hollingsworth will enter Harvard; Vredenburg will go to
Princeton; and Yale will get Campbell, Phipps, and Richardson, besides
three or four substitutes of the team. Groton will send six
football-players to Yale--Allen, Gillett, Smith, Strong, Twichell, and
Whaples. Sturtevant will go to Trinity.

From St. Mark's, Southboro', Harvard will receive Wittemore; Technology
of Boston will get Adams; while Hare and Nash will go to Yale.
Westminster School will probably send six of the players of its team to
Yale--Fabbri, Knapp, McLean, Nisbet, Scott, and Wells. From the Hill
School only two of the first football team graduate--Keifer, who will go
to Yale, and Fincke, who is undecided. Taft's School will send seven of
its football men to New Haven--Bell, Barnett, Lear, Merriman, Townshend,
Welch, and White.

"FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES."--BY WALTER CAMP.--POST 8VO, PAPER, 75
CENTS.

  THE GRADUATE.




ADVERTISEMENTS.




[Illustration: ROYAL BAKING POWDER]

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ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., NEW YORK.




QUESTIONS FOR YOUNG MEN.

ON DRESS.


There is a certain professor in a certain university of the United
States who once, at the beginning of one of his lectures on fine arts,
got on the subject of the kind of pins worn in the neck-ties of young
college men. He was a good lecturer, and was always interesting, but
this lecture was the most interesting of his course to the three hundred
boys who heard him, and the whole hour was spent on neck-tie pins, their
use and misuse, and what they suggested. The gist of what he said was
that there was no more reason why a boy should wear a horseshoe with a
whip across it all in gold than that houses should have sieves for
roofs. And that as it was extremely foolish to put a big sieve on your
house for a roof, so it was quite as foolish to wear horseshoes on your
neck-ties. The principle of this is that you should have a reason in
what you wear as well as in other things, and that senseless
decorations, like horseshoes on neck-ties or neck-ties on horseshoes,
are silly and unbecoming to a self-respecting person. This particular
example was only one to illustrate a principle, which is that nothing
unusual, queer, out of the ordinary, is in itself a good thing; that, in
fact, most things that are queer and out of the ordinary are likely, in
the question of dress, to be in bad taste. A man's dress ought to be
quiet, but it _must_ be clean and well taken care of in every instance.
The best dressed man is the man who, in whatever company he finds
himself, is inconspicuous; who, you realize in an indefinite way, is
well appointed, though you cannot well tell why. If you appear at a
dinner in overalls, people say you are badly dressed, and they would
repeat that wise observation if you went out in the field in a
swallow-tail-coat. In the same way a man who has a flaring neck-tie or a
purple handkerchief, or very long coat or very short trousers, is at
once conspicuous, and therefore badly dressed.

This is not a question which involves the expenditure of money. A young
man's clothing may be worn threadbare, but it can always be clean, and
it costs no more to buy a quiet-colored cloth than to buy a big check of
black and green or brown and yellow. If you study the matter a little
you will find that you can tell the general character of any person by
his clothes. Some men are sure to always wear slouchy clothes,
half-soiled linen, a bright green neck-tie; others wear highly colored
waistcoats; others again are always in the height of fashion--that is, a
little in the extreme year after year; and still others make a point of
being badly dressed and out of the prevalent style to show that they are
not swayed by such silly laws as style. It is easy enough to place all
these men in their proper places. And then, finally, you see some young
chap whose clothes are clean, who is neither out of the style of the day
nor in the height of it, whose clothes may be showing distinct signs of
wear, but who seems to fit them pretty well, and to be noticeable in no
particular way so far as they are concerned, and in all probability you
put him down, if you think of the matter at all, as a man of
common-sense, of decency, of self-respect, and good manners.

Then, again, some men sit in their shirt sleeves at home. There is no
reason for this. It is merely a queer idea that you are more comfortable
in that style of dress. But such men do not realize that their sisters,
wives, mothers, naturally lose some of their respect for them, and that
they unconsciously lose a good deal of respect for themselves. Certainly
these sisters and wives and mothers are the girls and women we think
most of, and why do we treat them with a disrespect that we would never
think of subjecting strangers to in our own or in their homes? That
disrespect to them is a boomerang, a reflector on us ourselves. If you
dress quietly and decently and as well as you can, if you keep yourself
and your clothes clean, you are more likely to keep morally clean, to
think and act in a dignified way, and to treat others with proper
respect. Of course there are great men who are slovenly, but they are
never great because they are slovenly, and it would not dull their
greatness if they kept themselves clean and orderly. It is because they
grow careless, and carelessness is never excusable in any one. Think
about your clothes, then, and avoid anything that will make you
noticeable. That does not mean that one should always be thinking of
what to wear, that one should be a dandy and a fop. It simply means that
he should be a self-respecting man who tries to be decent.

       *       *       *       *       *

Postmen sometimes have very lively experiences in the course of their
daily rounds. It has often happened that on lonely roads they have had
to fight their way against tramps and others who lie in wait to see what
they can get that doesn't belong to them, and may be worth having. The
most novel experience that has come to notice, however, was in the work
of an English postman. It appears that on a recent Sunday a swarm of
bees took possession of the village letter-box at Haunton, six miles
from Tamworth. There is no collection on Sunday, and on Monday night,
when the rural postman essayed to take out the letters, he was compelled
to beat a speedy retreat, and no one could approach within twenty yards
of the box. The postman avers that that was the liveliest mail he has
had to do with in a long while.

       *       *       *       *       *

BLÜCHER'S PIPE-BEARER.

There is a story told somewhere of an old Indian-fighter, one of the
kind that trailed the war parties of the redskins far back in the last
century. This veteran loved his pipe, and as the story goes, during one
of his exploits the Indians followed his trail by the smell of the
tobacco smoke, and finally a well-aimed bullet knocked the glowing bowl
from his mouth. Thus warned, he made his escape.

This pipe story does not equal that told of Christian Hennemann, a
countryman from Rostock, who fought with Field-Marshal Blücher at
Waterloo. Those who are familiar with Blücher's life know of his
partiality for a pipe, and even in the heat of battle he never neglected
his smoke. As day broke the morning of the memorable battle of Waterloo,
Blücher called the hussar Christian Hennemann, and placed him in charge
of a box of clay pipes, with the instruction to keep one always ready to
hand to him, that he might enjoy a few whiffs during the engagement.

As the morning wore on, Blücher sat on his white charger gravely puffing
away. He had reached out his hand for the second time to take the
refilled pipe, when an ungenerous cannon-ball dug up the ground near at
hand, causing his horse to shy. Blücher hastily handed the pipe to
Christian, saying, "Just keep that lighted for a few moments while I
drive those rascally Frenchmen back."

The chase was a long one, as history relates, and through the hot summer
day the battle waged and men fought and died. When the battle was over,
Blücher and Wellington, who were riding over the scene together,
happened to pass near where Blücher had first started to chase the
enemy. Outlined against the sky a lonely man sat perched on a rock. A
bloody rag was bound around his head, and one arm hung in a sling. He
was calmly smoking a clay pipe.

With an exclamation of surprise Blücher pulled up.

"Why, it's my Hennemann! How you look, boy! What are you doing here
alone?"

"Waiting for you, as ordered," was the grumbled reply. "Been waiting
ever since you left. The French have shot away every pipe in the box.
They ripped the flesh from my head and shattered my arm with their
bullets. It's well there is an end to the battle, or you would have been
too late even for this last pipe."

Wellington, turning to Blücher, remarked:

"You have admired the unflinching loyalty and bravery of my Highlanders.
What shall I say of this brave soul?"

"But your Highlanders had no pipes to regale themselves with," Blücher
replied.




[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.


The prices of great rarities are not declining, and the common stamps
are worth as much to-day as ever; but the middle-class U. S. stamps have
had a serious decline during the past three months. However, the stock
is not large, it cannot be increased, and the good stamps are constantly
being spoiled by carelessness or destroyed by accident, hence the
eventual return to higher values is inevitable.

A rumor has gone abroad that the Bureau of Engraving and Printing in
Washington contemplates making an entirely new set of postage-stamps, or
keeping the present dies and changing all the colors. In either case
there will be a great demand for Plate Nos. The present prices of Plate
Nos. are quite low, and collectors should make up their albums as soon
as possible. If a new set of stamps is issued, almost every one will be
able to get all the new Nos. at a slight advance on face values.

One of the New York dealers has adopted a new method of selling scarce
stamps. For instance, a U. S. Revenue was placed in the window marked
$20, the catalogue price, with a notice that the price would be reduced
$1 each day until sold. Quite a number of collectors kept tally, and
determined to buy the stamp when it had come down to $12 or $13. They
are still waiting, as the stamp was sold at $14. Other dealers intend to
do the same thing with other stamps, and in many instances they expect
the stamp to be sold the second day.

     S. P. KENNA.--There is no accounting for fashion, but the wise
     collector is one of those who set the fashion. Those who come in
     later must pay highest prices. Australians were the most sought
     after three or four years ago, then came West-Indians. U. S.
     stamps, of course, are, and probably will be, more sought after in
     this country than abroad.

     J. SHACKHEIM.--A fine unused 90c. U. S. 1860 issue, sold at one
     auction for $11 a few days ago, and the next day a poor copy of the
     same stamp brought $13.50 at another auction. The first was very
     cheap, the second very dear. Unused high values U. S. will always
     be very scarce, and in some cases rare.

     J. URBAN.--You have a very interesting lot of coins, but none of
     them is of such rarity as to be worth sending to a dealer. You will
     doubtless be able to get many others in time at nominal prices, and
     thus make up a good collection.

     W. HAMMOND, 8 High St., Peabody, Mass., wishes to exchange stamps.

     J. O. HALL.--To get the new stamps as issued I would advise you to
     join the American Philatelic Association. Address J. F. Beard,
     secretary, Muscatine, Iowa.

     F. X. SCHMIDT.--The first coins struck for an American
     English-speaking country were the Sommer Island III., VI., XII.
     pence in 1616. These are now called the Bermuda Islands. The next
     coins were the New England III., VI., XII. in 1652, and the
     Pine-Tree pieces struck in the same year.

     J. KLEINSCHMIDT.--There are two varieties of the 1869 15c. stamp.
     1. The ordinary, in the frame of which, under the letter T of the
     word POSTAGE, is a diamond. This variety is worth $1.25 used. 2.
     The other has the diamond cut out, and this variety is worth $3
     used.

     A. A. DAVIS.--Brazil stamps, both used and unused, had been very
     low in price for all issues from 1850 to 1893. Daring the past two
     years they have gone up in price quite remarkably, as the dealers
     and collectors find that certain varieties are quite scarce. If you
     have the complete sets unused hold on to them, as prices are bound
     to advance.

  PHILATUS.




[Illustration: IVORY SOAP]




You Should Have

"Harper's Round Table" for 1896

Volume XVII. With 1276 Pages and about 1200 Illustrations. 4to, Cloth,
Ornamental, $3.50.

     It is doubtful if any other book issued at this holiday season
     contains so many stories for young readers as this volume.--_San
     Francisco Chronicle._

     The book is one which is sure to delight all the
     children.--_Detroit Free Press._

     A pronounced success as an educational means of great
     value.--_Pittsburg Chronicle-Telegraph._

     One of the best periodicals for children ever
     published.--_Philadelphia Ledger._

Naval Actions of the War of 1812

By JAMES BARNES. With 21 Full-page Illustrations by CARLTON T. CHAPMAN,
printed in color, and 12 Reproductions of Medals. 8vo, Cloth,
Ornamental, Deckel Edges and Gilt Top, $4.50.

     Unquestionably both the most lifelike and the most artistic
     renderings of these encounters ever attempted.--_Boston Journal._

     Brimful of adventure, hardihood, and patriotism.--_Philadelphia
     Ledger._

The Dwarfs' Tailor

And Other Fairy Tales. Collected by ZOE DANA UNDERHILL. With 12
Illustrations. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.75.

     The twenty-two tales form a cosmopolitan array that cannot fail to
     delight young readers.--_Chicago Tribune._

     Fascinating for old and young.--_Boston Traveller._

A Virginia Cavalier

A Story of the Youth of George Washington. By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.
Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.50.

     Warmly commended to all young American readers.--_Chicago
     Inter-Ocean._

     An absorbing tale.--_Philadelphia Bulletin._

Rick Dale

A Story of the Northwest Coast. By KIRK MUNROE. Illustrated by W. A.
ROGERS. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $1.25.

     Lively and exciting, and has, incidentally, much first-hand
     information about the far Northwest.--_Outlook_, N. Y.

     Capital story of adventure.--_Philadelphia Evening Bulletin._

       *       *       *       *       *

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York




What All Ought to Read.

A member living in the South asks for a list of books that persons of
all ages ought to read in order to begin further reading--books that
ought to be read, no matter in what direction a later taste might lead.

Here is a list prepared last year to fit this very question. It was
prepared by some one well qualified for the task:

  _Tales from Shakespeare_, by Charles and Mary Lamb.
  Sir Walter Scott's _Ivanhoe_, _Lady of the Lake_, and _Marmion_.
  Tennyson's _Idyls of the King_.
  Macaulay's _History of England_.
  Higginson's _Young Folks' History of the United States_.
  Thackeray's _The Virginians_.
  Walter Besant's _For Faith and Freedom_.
  Dickens's _Tale of Two Cities_.
  _Brave Little Holland, and what She taught Us_, by W. E. Griffis.
  Lew. Wallace's _Ben-Hur_.
  _Bible Characters_, by Charles Reade.
  _Recreations in Botany_, by Caroline A. Creevey.
  _The History of a Mouthful of Bread_, by Jean Macé.
  Laboulaye's _Fairy-Tales_.
  _Life and Letters of Louisa M. Alcott_.
  _John Halifax, Gentleman_, by Mrs. Craik.
  Longfellow's _Evangeline_.
  Irving's _Life of Washington_.
  Whittier's _Snow-Bound_.
  Hawthorne's _House of Seven Gables_ and _Tanglewood Tales_.
  Fenimore Cooper's _Leatherstocking Tales_ and _Last of the Mohicans_.
  Amelia E. Barr's _Bow of Orange Ribbon_.
  Alexander Johnston's _American Politics_.

How many of these have you read? And why may not a Chapter take up this
list?

       *       *       *       *       *

A Call for Charity.

     The storm of September 29 caused such disaster at Fort White that I
     have decided to write to you, through the columns of HARPER'S ROUND
     TABLE, and ask you to send ten cents to Mrs. E. G. Persons, Fort
     White, Florida. It will be distributed among the storm sufferers of
     that place, which was almost totally wrecked. Only three
     dwelling-houses were left standing. The turpentine-men were ruined,
     as nearly all the turpentine-trees were blown down. I hope that you
     will all respond liberally and quickly, for what is a very small
     sum to one person will mean a great deal to the storm sufferers.

  ALBERT H. ROBERTS, K.R.T.
  ANITA, FLA.

       *       *       *       *       *

Working a Turpentine Orchard.

Our national Department of Agriculture gathers facts in relation to
forestry as well as to farming, and publishes them for the use of any
one who wishes them. It has just issued some interesting facts about
pine-trees, of the variety from which turpentine is obtained.

"Work in a turpentine orchard is started in the early part of the
winter, with the cutting of the boxes. Trees of full growth, according
to their circumference, receive from two to four boxes.

"The boxes are cut from eight to twelve inches above the base of the
tree, seven inches deep and slanting from the outside to the interior.
In the adult trees they are fourteen inches in the greatest diameter,
and four inches in the greatest width, with a capacity of about three
pints. In the mean time the ground is laid bare around the tree for a
breadth of two and a half to three feet, and all combustible material
loose on the ground is raked into heaps to be burned, in order to
protect the trees from the danger of catching fire during the
conflagrations, which are frequently started in the pine forests by
design or carelessness. The employment of fire for the protection of
turpentine orchards against the same element necessarily involves the
total destruction of the smaller tree growth, and if allowed to spread
without control beyond the proper limit often carries ruin to the
adjoining forests.

"During the early days of spring the turpentine begins to flow, and
chipping is begun, as the work of washing the trees is called, by which
the surface of the trees above the box is laid bare beyond the youngest
layers of the wood to a depth of about an inch from the outside of the
bark. The removal of the bark and of the outermost layers of the
wood--the "chipping" or "hacking"--is done with a peculiar tool, the
"hacker," a strong knife with a curved edge fastened to the end of a
handle bearing on its lower end an iron ball of about four pounds in
weight, to give increased force to the stroke inflicted upon the tree,
and thus to lighten the labor of chipping. As soon as the scarified
surface ceases to discharge turpentine freely, fresh incisions are made
with the hacker. The chipping is repeated every week from March to
October or November, extending generally through a period of thirty-two
weeks, and the weight of the chip is increased about one and one-half to
two inches every month. The rosin which accumulates in the boxes is
dipped into a pail with a flat trowel-shaped dipper, and is then
transferred to a barrel for transportation to the still."

       *       *       *       *       *

Queer Complication of Territory.

Kings and presidents send ambassadors to the capitals of other
countries, as you know. The residence of these ambassadors is, in law,
not a part of the country in whose capital they are located, but a part
of the country from which comes the ambassador residing there at the
moment. For instance, the residence of the American Ambassador to France
is in Paris, but at law it is not French but United States territory. A
novel incident grew out of this legal fiction recently.

The Japanese Embassy in Berlin is not German, but Japan territory, of
course. The embassy owns a parrot. The parrot got out of its cage and
took lodgement in a neighboring tree--a tree in Germany, not in Japan. A
Japanese servant remaining in Japan levelled a hose at the parrot, with
the aim of dislodging him. It chanced that beneath the tree there sat,
at the time, a German resident of wealth. The water that dislodged the
parrot drenched him and ruined his clothes. He sued for damages, and got
$4--a compromise sum, because the inflictor of the damage was a resident
of Japan, had not left his own country, and could not be dragged into a
German police court.

       *       *       *       *       *

A Lake without Water.

Central Australia is only now becoming known, as is Central Africa. An
explorer tells the following about a wonderful "lake":

"We came, just at dusk, to the top of a sand hill, and saw Lake Amadeus
lying at our feet. It was a strange sight. The bed of the lake was here
only some three-quarters of a mile wide, but east and west it stretched
away to the horizon, widening out, especially westwards, into a vast
sheet many miles across. There was not a speck of water, only a dead
level surface of white salt standing out against the rich after-glow on
the west and the dull sky to the east, whilst north and south it was
hemmed in by low hills covered with dark scrub."

       *       *       *       *       *

To Amateur Paper Publishers.

Will publishers of amateur newspapers send sample copies to A. R.
Abbott, 38 Franklin Street, Northampton, Massachusetts?

       *       *       *       *       *

A Query in Natural History.

     Some time ago, under the above heading, a caterpillar was described
     which is commonly called saddle-back or slug caterpillar.
     Naturalists know it by the euphonious title of _Sibine stimulea_,
     which tells us that the tufts of bristles have nettlelike powers of
     irritation. The name slug caterpillar is given it because, the
     abdominal legs being absent, it moves with a smooth, gliding,
     snail-like motion. It feeds on many plants and trees, such as corn,
     rose, cherry, pear, and apple. After spending some weeks feeding on
     the leaves, it spins a brown cocoon, nearly spherical, surrounded
     by a loose silken web, and about July 1 a small moth emerges.

     It resembles those small moths commonly designated as "millers."
     The wings, which spread about one and one-half inches, are of a
     beautiful rich brown color, with a dark streak on the fore wings,
     near which are three whitish spots. Although nature has furnished
     the caterpillar with a protective armor of poisonous bristles, yet
     it does not seem to me to merit the epithet "hideous creature."

  C. W. B.
  EAST ORANGE, N. J.

       *       *       *       *       *

Questions and Answers.

Henry Osborn asks what causes Indian-summer weather, and why it is so
called. Neither is quite clear, dear Sir Henry. In Canada it is known as
St. Martin's summer. Why we call it Indian summer we have been unable to
find out. Can any one tell us? By early American colonists it was
thought that the haze was real smoke wafted from fires started by the
Indians in anticipation of winter.--A Pennsylvania member asks how
commercial pop-corn is made so excellent, when he has so much difficulty
in getting his corn to pop well. The reasons are several. One is
practice, which makes perfect. Another is good tools. Coal is poor stuff
to pop corn over. Get coke. That is better because it stays hot, and
does not die down as coal does. For popping corn in large quantities
regular furnaces lined with fire-brick are provided, and there are huge
wire baskets that are handled crane fashion. Some hold a bushel of corn
when popped. Pop-corn parties are said to be more common than usual this
autumn.

Gardner W. Millet asks when rifles were invented, and when metallic
ammunition, all ready for use, was first used. He also asks about
breech-loading guns and magazine-rifles. The earliest breech-loaders
were used in 1537, but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
they were common. They were also crude. At Kuisyingen, in 1636, only
seven shots were fired by soldiers in eight hours. The flintlock was of
Spanish origin, and came in about 1630. William, Prince of Orange,
brought it to England in 1688. Rifles are quite old, having been used in
Germany in the eighteenth century--early part. The Furguson, a breech
loading rifle, was used by American patriots during the Revolution. The
civil war brought into use the metallic ammunition, all ready for
loading on the instant, though there were many breech-loading rifles in
use before that day. The magazine-guns were invented in 1835, but not
much used till thirty years later. The rifle used by the United States
weighs eight pounds and twelve ounces, has a 0.3 calibre, and five
rounds of ammunition.

"C. G. A." is informed that Mrs. Augusta J. Evans, the author, is still
living, we believe, in Mobile, Alabama. A granddaughter is also a
resident of Mobile, named Mrs. Gaillard, formerly Miss Wilson.--Jay F.
Hammond asks if a barrel is used for a post-office at Cape of Good Hope,
as is said to be used at the Strait of Magellan. We think not. The
extremity of Africa is quite unlike the extremity of South America.
Perhaps some South African reader can tell us more.--Edwy L. Taylor: The
Camera Club Competitions close February 15. The reference to an earlier
closing was an error.--Edward C. Wood: Your game may be copyrighted, but
unless it be a mechanical contrivance, or a part of such, and that new,
it cannot be patented. The cost of a copyright is fifty cents, with a
further fifty cents for a transcript, while a patent costs upwards of
$100. We can find no record of the firm you mention. To copyright your
game mail two copies addressed to the Librarian of Congress, Washington,
D. C., give your full name and address, state the purpose of sending,
and enclose $1. Nothing else is required. To make the copyright
effective you must conspicuously place on every copy the words
"Copyright, 1896, by Edward C. Wood, Philadelphia."--C. B. M.: Apply to
Samuel French & Son, Dramatic Publishers, New York, and state just what
you want. They will reply at once, giving list, if you mention the ROUND
TABLE.




[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

     Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly
     answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to
     hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.


HINTS ON RETOUCHING.

II.--SPOTS AND SCRATCHES.

It often happens that there are spots on a negative--caused by specks of
dust on the plate, air-bubbles in the developer, or unlucky scratches in
the handling--which if not covered in some way make a black spot on the
silver paper, and mar the beauty of what would otherwise be a fine
picture. With a little practice one can learn to fill up these defects
so that they will be scarcely noticeable in the print.

Take a drop or two of the retouching varnish on the end of the finger,
and rub it lightly and evenly over the places which are to be retouched.
Put to dry in a place free from dust; it will be dry enough in three or
four hours. Place the retouching-frame on a table by a window with a
good strong light, close the blind or lower the shade over the upper
part of the window, and place a sheet of white paper under the frame on
the table. Place the negative in the frame, and over it put a piece of
opaque paper with a hole an inch or two in diameter opening over the
place to be retouched. This also protects the film and shuts off all
light except from the points to be treated. Now if the hole is a large
one, take the brush and moisten it, and rub a little of the lampblack
from the cake of water-color on it. Then with the greatest care touch
the spot directly in the centre with a bit of the paint. Rinse the
brush, and turning it till a fine point is obtained, work the paint
carefully toward the edges of the spot, taking care that it does not
touch the film but comes close to it. Let the paint dry, and if the
first application has not made the spot of an equal density with the
surrounding film, repeat the process. If the operation is not
successful, the paint can be removed by applying a little turpentine on
a soft cloth.

If the spot to be retouched is very small, or if there is a scratch on
the film, take a soft pencil sharpened according to directions given in
the first paper on retouching, and with very minute strokes go over the
places until the required density is obtained. Sometimes it is necessary
to go over the places several times before the spots appear like the
film.

If a negative has sharp, harsh contrasts, they can be softened by going
over them carefully with the pencil, using the softest one for this
purpose, and then blending the pencil strokes with a crayon stump.

Freckles, heavy shadows under the eyes and nose, are easily removed or
softened by using a needle-pointed pencil of very soft lead.

Undesirable backgrounds, or objects which have been unavoidably included
in the picture, may be blocked out by using a thin solution of
lampblack, and applying it to the back of the plate. A light coat
obscures the background, and a thick coat blocks it out entirely.

In beginning the practice of retouching, it is wise to experiment on
poor negatives, as first attempts are not always successful. Do not be
discouraged if the first trial prove a failure. Remember your early
experience in making negatives, and try again; for perseverance, no
matter in what direction, is sure to bring its reward--success.

     SIR KNIGHT WILLIAM MERRITT sends a print which shows no detail at
     the corners, and says that all his plates have the same fault, and
     asks what is the matter. The lens does not cover the plate--that
     is, the lens is too small for the size plate used. It may be that
     the diaphragm is too large, and by using a smaller diaphragm the
     blur showing on the edges of the picture would be corrected. The
     smaller the opening the more extended the sharp field of the lens;
     but the smaller the opening the longer must be the exposure.

     SIR KNIGHT CHARLES M. TODD asks if hypo is always used for the
     fixing-bath without regard to the kind of developer; if a
     ferrotype-plate will impart a gloss to all kinds of prints except
     blue prints; if the whole roll of films in a pocket kodak would
     have to be exposed before one could develop any of the exposures;
     if developing solution may be used the second time if only one or
     two negatives have been developed in it. Hypo is always used for
     the fixing-bath, as it is the cheapest and safest chemical for the
     dissolving of the unused or unacted upon silver salts.
     Ferrotype-plate will not impart a gloss to a platinum, bromide, or
     any of the soft-tinted papers. The films in a pocket kodak should
     all be used before developing. There are only twelve films in a
     roll, and if part were taken out, one film would have to be spoiled
     in order to put the unused films back on the empty spool. Developer
     may be used the second and even the third time. Most amateurs have
     a bottle for old developer, and use it for starting development, as
     it is safer unless one knows the exact time of the exposure of the
     plate.

     SIR KNIGHT F. ELTON MORSE, 11 and 13 Market St., Lynn, Mass.,
     wishes to exchange landscape views with other members of the Camera
     Club.




ADVERTISEMENTS.




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[Illustration: STAMPS]

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U.S. Postage and Rev. Fine approval sheets. Agts. wanted.

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Established 1780.




EARN A TRICYCLE.

[Illustration]

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Tricycle; sell 25 lbs. for a Solid Silver Watch and Chain; 50 lbs. for a
Gold Watch and Chain; 75 lbs. for a Bicycle; 10 lbs. for a Gold Ring.
Write for catalog and order sheet Dept. I

W. G. BAKER,

Springfield, Mass.




LAUGHING CAMERA. 10C.

[Illustration: MY! OH MY!!]

The latest invention in Cameras. You look through the lens and your
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mirth-maker on the market; creates bushels of sport. Catalogue of 1,000
novelties and sample camera 10c., 3 for 25c., 12 for 90c. mailed
postpaid. Agents wanted.

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Dept. No. 62, 65 Cortlandt St., N. Y.




HOOPING-COUGH

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Roche's Herbal Embrocation.

The celebrated and effectual English Cure without internal medicine.
Proprietors, W. EDWARD & SON, Queen Victoria St., London, England. All
Druggists.

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[Illustration]

THE SONG OF THE MUSES.

  What is that melody weird and wild
  That throbs and sobs like the wail of a child
  Through the quiet night so still and mild?

  Behold, it is a choir feline,
  With tenors, altos--all told, nine;
  Those are the Mewses, I opine.

       *       *       *       *       *

A PRACTICAL LITTLE GIRL.

"Oh, for the wings of a dove!" sang Mollie.

"What do you want with the wings of a dove, my dear?" asked her mother.

"To put on my new hat," said Mollie.

       *       *       *       *       *

HIS EXPLANATION.

"See here, Tommie," observed Tommie's teacher, "you ought to be able to
spell your own name."

"I can," said Tommie.

"Then why don't you? You've written it Tomie instead of Tommie."

"Oh, as for that," said Tommie, "you told us not to waste anything, and
that extra m is just a waste of ink."

       *       *       *       *       *

GOING INTO A NEW LINE.

"What'll you swap off a three-cent Nicaragua '95 for, Jack?" asked
Jack's uncle of the young stamp-collector.

"I won't swap it off for anything, Uncle George, but I tell you what I
will do. I'll swap off my whole collection for a goat. Stamps are always
the same, but goats--my--they're never the same!"

       *       *       *       *       *

NOTHING WONDERFUL.

"So you don't think much of Jack the Giant-killer, eh, Bobbie?"

"NO. He was smart. But not particularly wonderful. Why, look at me! I
can tire my Pa out in five minutes, and I guess _he_ could lick any
giant Jack ever saw."

       *       *       *       *       *

During the winter months the farmers' boys and girls have lots of fun
with their parties, taffy pulls, and such enjoyments, and considerable
humor can be found in their happy repartee. At one of these candy
parties a guest not altogether liked by some of the girls, unfortunately
sat in a saucer of maple sugar left on a chair to cool off, and his
unceremonious departure was the wonder of the evening. It was rather
hard on the young man, and it is doubtful whether he found anything to
end his embarrassment in the note he received the next day from the
daughter, saying that if the "Mr. D---- who sat in the saucer of maple
sugar last night will kindly return the saucer, he will save himself
further trouble."

       *       *       *       *       *

AN OBJECTION.

"I hate dancing-school," said Jack. "It's lots of fun dancing, but every
time I want to waltz I have to load myself up with some girl or other.
Why can't they let a feller dance by himself?"

       *       *       *       *       *

A SURGEON OF THE BICYCLE.

There are enterprising bicycle people in England as well as in this
country. A year or more ago London was flooded with the following
circular by a bicycle-repairer, which is ingenious enough in its wording
to have been the product of a Yankee:

"Bicycle surgery.

"Acute and chronic cases treated with assurance of success.

"Languid tires restored to health and vigor.

"Tires blown up without pain. Wind free. No cure, no pay asked.

"We understand the anatomy, physiology, and hygiene of wheels, and
homoeopathic or allopathic treatment, as individual cases require.
Sure cure guaranteed.

"Testimonials:

"'My wheel had three ribs fractured, and you cured it in one treatment.'

"'My tires were suffering with a case of acute aneurism, which had been
pronounced fatal by other bicycle-doctors, but you cured the disorder,
and I did not lose a day of my tour.'

"Thousands of testimonials like the above sent on application.

  "Dr. Blank, B.S. (Bicycle Surgeon.)
  No. -- Tottenham Court Road."

       *       *       *       *       *

FORCE OF HABIT.

He was thoroughly a business man, and he judged everything from the
point of view of weight--as was natural, since he dealt in things which
were sold according to their avoirdupois. One day somebody asked him if
he had any children.

"Yes," he said. "I've got 453 pounds of boys, and 236 pounds of girls."

       *       *       *       *       *

A SMALL BOY'S FEET.

"If it wasn't for me my class in school wouldn't have any standing at
all," said Hubert.

"Nonsense!" said his aunt. "Your mother says you are the foot of it."

"I am," said Hubert. "How could it stand if it didn't have a foot?"

       *       *       *       *       *

NOT REPEATED.

"When you stepped on that gentleman's foot, Tommie, I hope you
apologized?"

"Oh, yes, indeed I did," said Tommie, "and he gave me ten cents for
being such a good boy."

"Did he? And what did you do then?"

"Stepped on the other and apologized again, but it didn't work."

       *       *       *       *       *

A JOKE UNDER THE SEA.

"Let's get up a minstrel show," said the Shad to the Shark.

"All right," said the Shark. "I've got a splendid mouth for tambo."

"And think of my capacity for the bones, eh?" said the Shad.

And the minnows in the school that was swimming by laughed so heartily
that they swam down the Shark's throat without knowing it.





End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, January 5, 1897, by Various



*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, JANUARY 5, 1897 ***


    

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