UF00065513_00122.pdf

UF00065513_00122.txt

00001.txt

00002.txt

00004.txt

00006.txt

00007.txt

00008.txt

00009.txt

00010.txt

00011.txt

00012.txt

00013.txt

00014.txt

00015.txt

00016.txt

00017.txt

00018.txt

00019.txt

00020.txt

00021.txt

00022.txt

00023.txt

00024.txt

00025.txt

00026.txt

00027.txt

00028.txt

00029.txt

00030.txt

00031.txt

00032.txt

00033.txt

00034.txt

00035.txt

00036.txt

00037.txt

00038.txt

00039.txt

00040.txt

00041.txt

00042.txt

00043.txt

00044.txt

00045.txt

00046.txt

00047.txt

00048.txt

00049.txt

00050.txt

00051.txt

00052.txt

00053.txt

00054.txt

00055.txt

00056.txt

00057.txt

00058.txt

00059.txt

00060.txt

00061.txt

00062.txt

00063.txt

00064.txt

00065.txt

00066.txt

00067.txt

00068.txt

00069.txt

00070.txt

00071.txt

00072.txt

00073.txt

00074.txt

00075.txt

00076.txt

00077.txt

00078.txt

00079.txt

00080.txt

00081.txt

00082.txt

00083.txt

00084.txt

00086.txt

00087.txt

00088.txt

eee



See eaierreaieets 2 Sa eabeaeebiniee
ds opis oie ao etd snare eee rate ee?









ST. NICHOLAS.



VOL. X.

NOVEMBER, 1882.

' No. 1.





(Copyright, 1882, by Tue CENTURY CO.]

THE STORY OF VITEAU#

BY FRANK R. STOCKTON.

.



CHAPTER I.

By the side of a small stream, which ran through
one of the most picturesque portions of the prov-
ince of Burgundy, in France, there sat, on a beau-
tiful day in early summer, two boys, who were
brothers. .

They had been bathing in the stream, and now,
having dressed, they were talking together on the
bank. :

Raymond, the elder, was about fourteen years
old, and his brother Louis was some eighteen
months younger. In form and feature, and in
general disposition and character, they were not
unlike many of the boys of our day, and yet these
two young fellows lived more than six hundred
. years ago. They were dressed in simple tunics,
one green, one brown, and wore short breeches,
dark-colored stockings, and rather clumsy shoes.

The two brothers were very busily engaged in
conversation, for they had a great deal to say to
each other, and not much time to say itin. On
the next day Louis was going away from home, to
be gone a long, long time.

Raymond and Louis were the sons of the Count-
ess of Viteau, whose chateau stood on a little
eminence about half a mile away. Their father,
the Count of Viteau, had been one of the most
steadfast adherents and supporters of the Duke of
Burgundy, in his endeavors to maintain the inde-
pendence of his dukedom against the claims of
the French crown, and had fallen in one of the
battles between the Duke’s followers and the army

Vou. X.—t1,

of the Regent, Queen Blanche, who, in those days,
ruled France in the name of her son, the young
King, Louis IX., afterward known as Louis the
Just, or St. Louis.

The Duke’s forces had been defeated, Burgundy
had been compelled to acknowledge the supremacy
of the French crown, and peace reigned in the
kingdom. ,

The widowed Countess of Viteau now found her-
self the.sole protector and guardian of her two
boys. Fortunately, she had a large estate, but
even this added to her cares and responsibilities,
and rendered her less able to attend to what she
had intended should be the aim and business of
her life—the education of her sons.

Education, in those days, did not mean what it
does now. The majority of the people, even of
the upper classes, were not educated at all, some
of the lords and barons being unable to write their
names. Printing had net been invented; all books
were in manuscript, and were scarce and valuable.
Most of the learning, such as it was, had been, fora
long time, confined to the monks and priests; but,
in-the era in which our two boys lived, people had
begun to give more attention to general education,
and there were schools in some of the large cities
which were well attended, and where the students
of that day were taught grammar, logic, rhetoric,
music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, al-
though their studies in most of these branches were
not carried very far. The school of Paris was one
of the most celebrated of these institutions,

The Countess of Viteau was among the few ladies

* Copyright, 1882, by F. R. Stockton.



2- THE STORY

OF VITEAU.

[Novemsrr,



of the time who really cared for an education beyond
that which included the small number of accom-
plishments then considered necessary to persons
of high position, When quite a young woman,
she had learned all that the priests, one or more
of whom generally lived in her father’s house,
could teach her, and afterward, when her sons
were old enough, she made it her personal business
to attend to their studies. Some things she taught
them herself, and, for other branches, she em-
ployed such men of knowledge —almost always
members of some order of the clergy—as could be
obtained.

But now the time ‘had arrived when the customs
of the day demanded that one of her sons, at
least, should leave her to receive an education of
another sort, and her younger boy was to be sent
away to the castle of the Count de Barran, an old
friend ‘and fellow-soldier of her husband, to be
taught, as most of the boys of his station were
taught, the arts and usages of knighthood and
chivalry. Raymond would also be a knight, but
his mother wished him to be more than that. He
would succeed to the rank and estate of his father,
and she. hoped that he would not only be a noble-
man and a soldier, but ascholar. When he should
leave her to go to the school at Paris,—and it was
for this school that she was now endeavoring to
prepare him,—he would live with one of his rela-
tives, by whom he would be instructed in the noble
duties of chivalry. His mother felt sure that his
studies at the school and his knightly exercises
would not interfere with each other.

“Only one more day,” said Raymond, “and
then it will seem so strange here without you,
Louis.”

‘But it will be ever so much stranger for me,”
said Louis, ‘‘for I shall be without everybody. I
have never seen a single soul of the castle people,
excepting the Count de Barran, and it is so long
since he was here that I have almost forgotten
him. He was a big, stout Hiab, and that’s all I
know about him.”

“You might as well have never seen him,” said
Raymond, “ for he is not stout, and he is not big.
He ’s a tall, thin man, and, J think, a kind one.
But I expect you soon will know everybody.”

“Or they will know me,” said Louis, ‘‘ which
will be the same thing.- I know IJ shall have lively
times. Let me see: For a year and a half I shall
be a page. There must be ever so many ways for
the pages, especially if there are a good many of
us, to have royal fun. And then, when I am four-
teen, I shall be a squire. I think I shall not like
that so much, excepting for the fighting part.”

“Fighting!” exclaimed his brother. ‘‘ You ’ll
have none of that.”

“Oh yes, but I shall have,” returned Louis.
‘‘Barran has always been fighting, ever since I
heard of him; and if he does his duty by me, he

is bound to take me with him to the wars.”

“But the wars are all over,” said Raymond.
* You know that as well as I do.”

“Oh, there’ll be more,” said Louis, laughing.
‘“¢There is sure to be trouble of some kind before
I’m fourteen. And, if there are any wars, you
must come to them. It wont do to be spending
all your time here, with priests and books.”

“Priests and books!” exclaimed Raymond.
“TJ don’t expect to spend half my time with them.
I shall ride and fence, and tilt and hunt quite as
much as you will, or even more, I doubt not. But
I can do all that, and be a scholar too.”

“
“¢if it were not so much trouble. Just to learn to
write, like the monks who make our books, must
take years! I tell you, Raymond, it would be time
wasted for me.”
_ No doubt of that,” said his brother, laughing.
“Vou would never have the patience to write out
all the pages of a book, even if you could do it so
well that people could read it. If youcan do so
much as write me a letter from the castle, to tell
me how you find things there, and what happens
to you, I shall be glad enough.”

“¢J never did write a letter,” said Louis, “but I
feel quite sure that I could do it. The trouble
would be for you to read it.”

“That’s true,” said Raymond; ‘but I will do
my best to read, if you will do your best to write.”

“Did not our mother tell you to.ask me this?”
said Louis, turning toward his brother with a smile.

“¢ She did,” answered Raymond. :

“T thought it sounded like her,” said Louis.
«She greatly wants me to read and write; and,
for her sake, and yours, too, Raymond, Ill try a
letter. But is not that Bernard, over. in the
field?”

“Ves, it is,” said Raymond.
young falcon for me.’

“For you!” cried Louis, jumping up.
not know that. Let us go down to him.”

_ J did not know it, either,” said his brother,
rising, ‘‘until yesterday. Bernard is going to

“He is training a

“I did

‘teach me to fly the bird as soon as it is trained.”

“‘And 1am going away to-morrow,” cried Louis.
“Jt is too bad!”

The boys now ran down to the field, where a
tall, broad-shouldered man, dressed in a short,
coarse jacket of brown cloth, with tight breeches
of the same stuff, was walking toward them. He
bore on his. left hand a large falcon, or goshawk,

a bird used in that day for hunting game of various
kinds.









1882. ] THE STORY

OF VITEAU. 3



“ heard that you were training that bird? I should
have liked to watch you all the time.”

“That is the reason you were not told,” said
Bernard, who had been the squire of the late
Count, and was now a well-trusted member of the
household of Viteau.

“‘Tf you had known what I was about,” he
continued, ‘‘you would have done nothing but
watch me, and therefore it was that your good
mother told me to keep the matter from you. It
takes a long time and a world of trouble to train
a hawk, especially one that was nearly full-grown
when caught, as this one was. Those taken from
their nests are far easier to manage.”

“* But he is trained now, is n’t he?” said Louis.
“Why not try him to-day? Just one flight, good
Bernard, for, you know, I shall be gone to-morrow.
We can easily find a ‘heron, or a pheasant, or
something he can go after.”

“No, no, my boy,” said the squire; “this bird
is not yet ready to cast off for a free flight. Why,
it was only last week that I ceased using the long
string with which I brought him back when I
wanted him; and, ever since, I have been very
careful to have a lure which should be so tempting
that he would be certain to come down to it, no
matter how high he might soar. See, here is the
one I used to-day. He has eaten from it the whole
breast of a pigeon.”

With this he showed the boys his “‘ lure,” which
was a rude figure of a bird, the body made of
cloth, with the head, talons, and wings of a real
bird, and to which had been attached a piece of
some kind of meat of which the falcon is fond.
By being thus accustomed to find something good

- to tear and eat when called to his master, the bird
gradually learned to obey the call whenever he
heard it. ;

Raymond was quite willing to wait until the
hawk was thoroughly trained, before testing him
in actual sport; but Louis, very naturally, made
great complaint. To-day was his last chance.
Bernard, however, was firm, and so they walked
toward the chateau, the hooded bird still perched
upon the squire’s wrist.

Just as the three, now busily talking of Louis’
future life at the castle of the Count de Barran,
were about entering a little gate in the lower part
of the grounds which surrounded the house, there
came out of the gate a monk wearing a long,
dark, and rather dirty gown, and walking with his
eyes fixed upon the ground, as if deeply engaged
in thought. He seemed scarcely to perceive the
boys or the squire, as he passed them.

*“T shall be glad to be free from those long-
gowned folk,” said Louis, as they entered the

grounds. ‘‘No more priests’ lessons for me. I
shall have knights and soldiers for my teachers.”

‘* All very: fine,” said Bernard, “‘but you will
have other things to do besides learning how
to be a knight and soldier. You will serve your
masters and your mistresses at table, clean armor,
hold stirrups, and do everything they ask of you.”

“‘Oh yes,” said Louis; ‘‘ but that will be only
while I am a page. Ina year and a half all that
will be over.”

“‘A- year and a half seems to me like a long
time,” said Raymond; ‘‘ but time always passes
quickly with Louis.”

This remark was made to Bernard, but the
squire did not appear to hear it. He was look-
ing back through the gate at the departing monk.

“If I only knew that Ze was never coming back,”
he said to himself, ‘¢I would not much care what
else happened.”

And then .he followed the boys up to the
chateau.

CHAPTER II.

THE good squire did not make his inhospitable
remark in regard to the monk because he had any
dislike for monks or priests in general. He had
as high an opinion of the members of the clergy as
any one, but he had a very strong dislike for this
particular prior. To understand his reasons for
this feeling, we must know that, not very long
before the period at which our story begins, and
soon after the Queen Regent had conquered -the
rebellious provinces, and so consolidated the king-
dom, there was established in the city of Toulouse
that terrible tribunal of the Romish Church
known as the Holy Inquisition. Here persons
suspected of holding opinions in opposition to the
doctrines. taught by the Church were tried, often
subjected to tortures in order to induce them to
confess the crimes with which they were charged,
and punished with great severity if found guilty.
This inquisition was under the charge of the
Dominican friars,. of which order the man who
had just passed out of the little gate was a member.

For several weeks the frequent visits of this prior
to the Countess of Viteau had given a great deal
of uneasiness to Bernard. The man was not one
of the regular religious instructors of the family,
nor had he anything to do with the education
of the boys. There was some particular reason
for his visits to the chateau, and of this the house-
hold at large knew nothing; but the fact of ‘his
being a Dominican, and therefore connected with
the Inquisition, made him an unpleasant visitor to
those who saw his comings and goings, but who
did not know their object.



4 THE STORY

OF VITEAU.

[NovEemMBER,



Squire Bernard thought that he knew why this
Brother Anselmo came so often to the chateau,
but he could not be certain that he was right. So
he kept his ideas to himself, and did
no more than hope that each visit of
the friar might be the last.

‘When the two brothers entered the
chateau, they went directly to their
mother’s apartments. They found her
in a large room, the floor of which
was covered with soft rushes, for there
were no carpets in those days. There
was an abundance of furniture, but it
was stiff and heavy, and on the walls
there hung various pieces of tapestry,
of silk or wool, most of which the good
lady had embroidered herself.

The Countess of Viteau was a wom-
an of about thirty-five years of age,
and of a sweet but dignified appear-
ance and demeanor. She was evidently
very fond-of her children, and they
were equally fond of her, She hada
book in her hand when the boys en-
tered (it should be remembered: that
she was one of the very few ladies of
that day who read books), but she laid
it down, and drew her sons to her, one
on each side.

“Mother,” said Louis, as she leaned
over to kiss the young fellow who was
to leave her the next day for sucha
long, long time,—‘‘ Mother, I wish
you would write a letter to the Count
de Barran, and ask him to have me
taught falconry as soon as possible,
and also to get me a hawk of my
own, and have him trained.”

“What put that into your head?”
asked his mother, who could not help
smiling at this absurd idea on the part
of a boy who was going to begin life as a page,
but who expected to enter at once into the sports
and diversions of the grown-up nobility.

“ of it,” said Louis. ‘‘I suppose I shall not see that
bird fly,—at least, not for ever so long,—and so I
want one of my own.”

“J did not intend you should know anything
about Raymond’s falcon,” said his mother, ‘for I
knew it would fill your head so full that there would
be no room for anything else. But we will not
talk of falcons now. I have a great deal to say to
my little boy zt

“Not so very little either,” said Louis, drawing
himself up to his full height.

‘Who is going away,” continued his mother,



**to learn.to be a page, a squire, and a Christian
knight.”
We need not know what she said to him, but

























BERNARD, RAYMOND, AND LOUIS MEET THE MONK,

the three were together until the room grew dark,
and there was. no treasure that Louis could take
with him which could be so valuable as the
motherly advice he received that afternoon.

Louis was to start for Barran’s castle in the fore-
noon of the next day, and was to be accompanied
by Bernard and a small body of archers, for,
although there were no wars going on at that’
time, there was always danger from robbers. All
over France, and in many other parts of Europe,
there were well-organized bands of men, who made
a regular business of pillaging travelers on the
highways. So it was necessary that Louis should
have with him enough men to defend him against
an attack by these brigands.

Very early in the morning,—earlier than any





1882.] THE STORY

OF VITEAU. 5



one else in the chateau, excepting a few servants,—
Louis arose and dressed himself. He did this very
quietly, so as not to wake his brother. Then he
stole softly down to a room in the lower part of the
building, where he knew Bernard kept the falcon
he was training. The door of this room was shut,
but not locked, and Louis slipped in without
waking the squire, who slept soundly in a cham-
ber just across the passage-way.

He closed the door, and looking around the
room, into which a little light came from a small,
high window, he soon perceived the falcon sitting
on a wooden perch, in a corner. The bird was
unhooded, but was tied by the leg, with a short
cord, to the perch. Onasmall table near by lay
the hood. As Louis approached the falcon, it
turned its head quickly toward him and slightly
raised its wings. This threatening gesture made
the boy hesitate; he did not want to be bitten or
scratched, Drawing back, and looking about him,
he saw a cloth lying upon a bench. Seizing this,
he quickly threw it over the bird, untied the cord,
and, muffling with the cloth a little bell which was
fastened to one of the falcon’s legs, Louis snatched
up the hood from the table, and, with the bird
under his arm, he hurried out of the room, care-
fully closing the door behind him.

. Out-of-doors, he quickly made his way to the
little gate at the bottom of the grounds, and,
through this, passed out into the road. When he
reached a spot where he could not be seen from
the chateau, he sat down, carefully uncovered the
head of the falcon, and clapped over it the little
hood. Then he threw aside the cloth, and set the
bird upon his wrist, where it perched contentedly,
although not finding it quite so firm a support as
the strong hand of Bernard. While wearing the
hood, which completely covered its eyes, it would
not attempt to fly.

“Now, then,” said he to himself, ‘‘1 shall try ,

‘what this fine bird can do; and when I have had
an hour’s sport, I shall take it back ‘and put it on
its perch, and no one will be any the worse for it.
lfI meet Bernard, as I go back, I shall not care.
I shall have had my bit of falconry, and he can
have his falcon. There must be herons, or some
kind of birds, down in that field by the wood,
where we saw Bernard yesterday.”

When Louis reached the field, he gazed eagerly
into the air and all about him for some flying creat-
ure, after which he could send his falcon in chase.
But nothing, excepting a few small birds, could he
discover, and he was not to be content with such
game as they. If he had had dogs with him, or
knew how himself to arouse the birds from their
covers, he might have had a chance to send his
falcon after a long-legged heron, or a pheasant;

but no large bird chose to make its appearance,
and poor Louis began to think that he would lose
the one chance he had of seeing Rayinond’s falcon
in pursuit of its prey.

Suddenly, from under some bushes near the
edge of the wood, a large hare leaped out, and
went jumping across an open space toward a little
copse a short distance beyond the spot where Louis
stood. Our young hunter knew that falcons chased
hares, and such small animals, as well as winged
game, and he instantly jerked the hood from the
head of his bird, and cast it off toward the flying
hare.

But, to his amazement, the falcon did not pur-
sue the hare, which, in a few moments, disappeared
in the copse. Louis did not know that hawks or
falcons were not always trained to chase both hares
and birds, and that this one had been accustomed
to fly after winged game only.

Instead of swooping upon the hare, which, it is
probable, it did not see, the falcon rose into the
air, and began to soar around in a great circle.

“‘Perhaps it will see some game for itself,”
thought Louis, ‘‘and that will do just as well.”

But the falcon did not appear to be in pursuit of
anything. It only flew around and around, ap-
parently rising higher and higher each moment.
Louis now became anxious for -it to come down,
so that he could try again in some other place to
scare up some game, and he began to whistle and
call, as he had heard the falconers do when they
wished their birds to descend.

But the falcon paid no attention to his calls, and,
after rising to a great height, it flew away to the
south, and presently was lost to sight.

Poor Louis was overwhelmed with grief. - It
seemed to him that he could never hear anything
so dismal as the last tinkle of the little bell on the
falcon’s leg, nor see anything so sad as the dark
speck which he watched until it appeared to melt
away into the distant sky.

For some minutes Louis stood gazing up into
the air, and then he hung his head, while a few
tears came into his eyes. But he was a sturdy
boy in mind and body, and he did not cry much.
He slowly turned, and, with the hood of the falcon
in his hand, went back to the house.

“Tf they ask me about it, I shall tell them,” he
said to himself, ‘‘but I hope they will not find it
out just as ] am starting away.”

It was yet quite early when Louis reached his
room, where he found his brother still asleep, and
there was soon so much hurry and bustle, in the
preparation for the departure of the little expedi:
tion, that the absence of the falcon did not seem
to have been discovered. /

After a prolonged: leave-taking, and a great



6 ' THE STORY

OF VITEAU.

[NovEeMBER,



many tears from his mother and brother, and from
many of the retainers and servants of the chateau,
Louis set forth for the castle of Barran. He rode
his mother’s palfrey, a small and gentle horse, and
was followed by quite a train of archers and men-
at-arms, headed by the trusty Bernard.

CHAPTER ITI.

WHEN the first pain caused by the separation
from his dear mother and brother began to sub-
side in Louis’ heart,— and it must be admitted that
it began to subside pretty soon, the day being so
bright and everybody in such good spirits, —he felt
quite proud to see himself atthe head of sucha
goodly company, and greatly wished that they
would fall in with some enemy, so:that he might
have ‘a little conquering to tell about when he
should reach his future home. But no enemy was
met, and, if a fight had taken place, it is not likely
that the boy would have been able to boast of his
part in it, for Bernard was very careful of his
young charge, and as soon as they had left the
neighborhood of the Chateau de Viteau, and had
entered the forest through which ran their road
for the greater part of the journey, he made Louis
ride about the middle of the little procession, while
he himself went a short distance in advance, looking
‘ carefully about him for the first signs of robbers,
or any one else who might be DEE ue to dispute
their passage.

But no such persons were met, and toward the
end of the afternoon Louis and his train rode into
the court-yard of the castle.

The moment that he entered the great gates,
the quick eye of the boy perceived that he had
come to a place very different from his mother’s
chateau. - He had supposed there would be a dif-
ference, but had never imagined it would be so
great. There were a good many serving-people,
of various ranks and orders, at Viteau. There
were ladies in attendance on his mother; and
sometimes there were knights and other visitors,
whose diversions had. made what Raymond and
Louis had considered a very gay time; but there
never had been anything like the lively scenes
which met the eye of our young friend, both in the
court-yard and in the halls of the castle itself.
Outside there were boy-pages running on various
errands, or standing about, watching other people
and neglecting their own business; and there were
squires, men-at-arms, and archers who were loung-
ing in the shade, or busily at work rubbing up a
piece of armor, or putting a point on an arrow-
head or on a blunted lance. Here and there was
a knight not. clad in armor, but in fine silk and

“brown beard, who stood beside him,

embroidered cloth, looking at horses which were
being led about the inclosure by varlets or infe-
rior serving-men, who generally were dressed in
clothes of dirty leather. Two barefooted monks,
one of them holding the bridle of a donkey, with
a bag thrown across its back, were talking to-
gether near the gate. Some people were laughing,
some were talking, some were calling to others at a
distance, and some were hammering; the horses
were making a good deal of noise with their feet;
aman was blowing a horn, which he had begun to
blow as soon as Louis had entered the gates, and
which was intended, it appeared, asa general an-
nouncement that somebody had arrived who was a
friend, and had been admitted freely. All together,
there was more noise, and moving about, and
standing still, and lying down, than Louis had ever
seen, at one time, before.

Inside the castle there was not so much bustle;
but knights and ladies, the first generally dressed
much more finely and with more show of color and
ornament than their female companions, were to
be seen here and there. The pages who were not
running about or standing still outside seemed
to be doing the same inside; there was a clatter
of metal and wooden dishes in the dining-hall,
where the servants were preparing supper; and, in
a room opening into the great hall, a tall knight sat
upon a stool, with a little harp on his knee, singing
one of the romantic songs which were so much
liked in those days, and accompanying his voice
with a steady “‘tum-tum” on the harp-strings.
Around him were several knights and ladies, some
sitting and some standing, and all listening, with
much satisfaction, to his song.

The Count de Barran, a tall, spare man, with
an ugly but good-humored face, gave Louis a
kindly welcome.

‘‘He is the son of Raymond de Viteau, my old
brother-at-arms,” he said to a knight with a great
“and J shall
try to make of him as good a knight as his—as
I can.” ;

“You were going to say ‘as good a knight as
his father,’ good sir,” said Louis quickly, looking
up into Barran’s face. ‘‘Do you think I can not
be that?”

‘“¢That will depend upon yourself,” said the
master of the castle. ‘‘ Your father was brave and
noble above his fellow-knights. If you become
his equal, my little fellow, I shall be very proud.
And now I.shall send you to my sister, the Lady
Clemence, who will see that you are taken care of.”

‘¢The boy’s quickness of wit comes out well, even
now,” said the brown-bearded knight; “‘ but you
may have to wait for the bravery and the honor to
show themselves.”



1882. | THE STORY

OF VITEAU. 4



“Not long, I hope,” replied Barran. ‘Good
blood must soon make some sign, if he has it in
him.”

The next day Bernard and his train returned to
Viteau, with many messages from Louis, and the
life of the boy, as the youngest page in the castle,
fairly commenced. Ina few days he began to un-
derstand his duties, and to make friends among the
other pages, all of whom were sons of well-born
people. These boys had come to the castle to
receive the only education they would ever have.
Louis did not at first very much like to wait upon
the knights and ladies at table, and to find himself
expected to serve so many people in so many
ways; but he soon became used to these things,
especially when he saw other boys, whom he knew
to be just as good as he was, doing what he was
expected to do.

He had a bright, interesting face, and he soon
became a favorite, especially among the ladies, for
they liked to be waited upon by a page who was
so good-humored and quick. The Count de Bar-
ran was not. married, and his sister, the Lady
Clemence, was at the head of domestic affairs in
his castle.

The only very young person among the visitors
at the castle was a little girl named Agnes, the
motherless daughter of Count Hugo de Lanne, the
brown-bearded man who had talked with De Bar-
ran about his new page. Between this girl and
Louis a friendship soon sprang up. Agnes was a
year older than he, and she knew so much of
castle-life, and of the duties of a page, that she
became one of his best instructors. She was a lively,
impulsive girl; and this was the reason, no doubt,
why she and Louis got on so well together.

One morning, as Agnes was passing through an
upper hall, she saw, standing at a window which
overlooked the court-yard, our young friend Louis,
with an enormous battle-ax over his shoulder. As
she approached, he turned from the window, out of
which he had been looking.

«¢ What in the world,” she cried, “‘ are you doing
with that great ax, and what makes you look so
‘doleful ?”

“‘T am taking the ax down to the armorev’s shop,
to be sharpened and polished,” he said.

“Jt is too big a thing for you to be carrying
about,” said Agnes, ‘“‘and it seems sharp enough
now. And as to you, you look as if you were
going somewhere to cut your head off with it.
What is the matter with you?”

“ That is the matter,” said Louis, turning again
to the window, and pointing to a body of horsemen
who were just riding out of the gate. They had

dogs with them, and several of them carried each °

' a hooded falcon perched upon his wrist.

**Did you want to go hunting herons? Is that
what troubles you?” asked Agnes.

“No, indeed; I don’t want to go,” said Louis.
“7 hate to see falcons.”

‘“What did you look at them for, then?” asked
Agnes. ‘‘ But I don’t see how you can hate them.
LT love to see them swooping about, so lordly, in
the air. Why do not you like them as well as I
do?”

Moved by a strong desire to share his secret with
some one, Louis, after a little hesitation, finally
put the battle-ax on the floor, and told Agnes the
whole story of the loss of his brother’s falcon, first .
making her promise that she would never repeat
it to any one. He told it all in a straightforward
way, and finished by explaining how the sight of
the hunters made him think of his poor brother,
who could not go hawking for ever solong. In-
deed, he did not know that Bernard would be will-
ing to get another hawk and take all the trouble
of training it. He might be very angry.

“*T think it ’s easy enough to make that right,”
said Agnes. ‘‘You ought to give your brother
another hawk, already trained.”

**T would like much to know where I am to get
it,” said Louis.

Agnes thought for a moment.

“My father will give you one,” she said, ‘‘if I
ask him. If he questions me as to what you want
with it, I can tell him, with truth, that you want
to give it to your brother, who has no falcon, and
who needs one very much.”

“‘Do you really think he would give me one?”
asked Louis, with brightening face.

““{ am sure of it,” said Agnes. “‘ He has plenty
of trained falcons, and he could spare one easily
enough. I will ask him, as soon as he comes back
to-day.”

Accordingly, when Count Hugo returned from
his hawking expedition that afternoon, he was met
by his little daughter, who asked him for a falcon,
a well-trained and good one, which could hunt
hares as well as birds, and which would be sure to
come back to its master whenever it was called.

Of course such a request as this excited some
surprise, and required a good deal of explanation.
But when Count Hugo, who was a very indulgent
father, and who had also quite a liking for Louis,
heard what was to be done with the bird, he con-
sented to give it.

“ not let him have it, for a page has no need of fal-
cons, and a boy of the right spirit ought not to
desire gifts; but, as he wants it for his brother, who
is in a station to use it, it shows a generous disposi-
tion, and he shall have it.” And calling to one of
his falconers to bring him a hawk, he handed it to



8 THE STORY

OF VITEAU.

(Novemser,



Agnes, and told her that she should herself give
it to her young friend.

‘He and you can look at it for a quarter of
an hour,” said the Count, ‘‘and then he must
bring it back to Orlon, here, who will féed and
take care of it until the boy has an opportunity of
sending it to his brother. Don’t take its hood off,
and keep your fingers well clear of its beak.”

When Agnes appeared with the falcon unsteadily
perched on her two small fists, which she had
covered with a scarf, to kéep its talons from hurt-
ing her, Louis was overwhelmed with delight. He

was sure that this was a much finer bird than the
one he had lost.

When the falcon had been sufficiently admired,
and had been returned to its keeper, and when
Louis had run to find Count Hugo, and had
thanked him for his kindness, the question arose

to him myself. I want him to have it just as soon
as he can get it,” said Louis.

“‘T can lend you my jennet,” said Agnes. ‘‘He
is small, but can travel far.” j

** You will lend him!” cried Louis. ‘‘ And are
you not going to use him for two days? It will
take at the very least two days to go to Viteau and
come back.”

“‘T may not ride him for a week,” said Agnes.
“* But you must not travel to your mother’s house
alone. You must wait until some company is
going that way.”

Louis would have been willing to start off by
himself, but he knew he would not be allowed to
do so; and he had to curb his impatience for three
whole days before an opportunity of making his
journey offered itself Then a knight from the
south was leaving the castle, with a small train,




LOUIS AND BERNARD ON THEIR WAY TO DE BARRAN’S CASTLE.

between the two young friends: How was he to be
carried to Raymond?
“If I had any way of riding there, I’d take it

and as they would pass near Viteau, Louis was

*allowed to accompany them.

The Count de Barran was not pleased that his





1882.] THE STORY

OF VITEAU. 9



new page should ask for leave of absence so soon;
but, as it was represented that there was good
-reason for the journey, and as the Lady Clemence
urged the boy’s request, he was allowed to go.

So, early one morning Louis started away, the
gayest of his company, his little Spanish steed
frisking beneath him, the falcon perched bravely
on his arm, and Agnes waving her scarf to him
from a window of the castle.

All went well during the forenoon, excepting

Viteau. It could not be far, and his spirited little
horse would soon take him there.

Consequently, when he came to the place where
his companions took their way eastward, Louis fell















Passo



























































LOUIS, AGNES, AND THE FALCON.

that the falcon became very heavy, and had to be
perched on the saddle-bow; but, during a short
halt which the party made about noon, Louis dis-
_covered that it was not the intention of the knight
from the south to take the most direct road to
Viteau.. He meant, a mile or two farther on, to
turn to the east, and to spend the night at a cha-
teau belonging to a friend. Then, the next day, he
would pursue his journey and would pass, by a
rather circuitous road, near to Viteau.

Louis did not want to stop all night anywhere
excepting in his mother’s house, and he made up

his mind that, when he reached the forking of the:

road, he would leave the party and gallop on to

behind and, instead of following them, he kept on
the road to Viteau, urging his horse forward at the
top of its speed. He hoped that his departure had
not been noticed, and that he would not be missed
until he had gone so far that he could not be over-
taken. He expected to be pursued, for he knew
the knight and his men would not allow him to go
off by himself if it could be prevented.

So he galloped on, his falcon tightly grasping the
saddle-bow, and he himself turning around every
few minutes, to see if he were followed. But he
saw no horsemen riding after him. The knight’s
men had straggled a good deal after they had
turned into the new road, and Louis was not



Io

TIMES AND SEASONS.

[NovEMBER,



missed for an hour or two. Then, when his
absence was discovered, the knight sent three men
after him, with instructions to bring him back, or to
escort him to Viteau, in case they found him near
that place. It was supposed, of course, that he had
slipped away, so as to get home ‘as soon as possible.

The men did not like the job at all, for they
feared they would not be able to return until after
dark to the chateau where their party was to spend
the night, and they did not fancy traveling at
night for the sake of a boy they knew very
slightly, and cared very little about. So, after rid-
ing five or six miles, they agreed to halt until
nearly night, and ride back to their party at the
top of their speed, and report that they had over-
taken Louis, and had accompanied him to a spot
within sight of his mother’s chateau.
was believed by the knight from the south, who
had no very clear idea as to the distance of Viteau
from the forks of the road; and no further thought
was given to the young page.

As for Louis, he kept madly on his way. His
horse was strong and fleet, but it was beginning to
flag a little in its pace, when, suddenly, it stopped
short. A tall man stood in front of it, and in a
moment had seized the panting animal by the
bridle. Another man, with a pike in his hand,

This story -

appeared on the right, while several others came
out from.behind some bushes on the left. The tall
man wore a cuirass, or ‘body-armor, of steel rings
linked closely together, which had probably once
been bright and shining, but which was now very
rusty and old. He wore no other armor, and his
clothes seemed torn and soiled. The whole party,
indeed, as Louis, with open mouth and eyes,
glanced quickly around him,—too much startled
to speak,—seemed to be a very rusty set of fellows.

Louis did not long remain silent. Indeed, he
was the first one to speak. He had often seen
such persons as these among the serfs and varlets
at the castle, and he had been accustomed to
respect from them.

‘Ho there!” he cried, ‘‘ move out of my way:
Step from the road, do youhear? I am going home
to my mother’s chateau, and I am in a hurry.”

“¢Your mother can wait,” said the tall man. ‘““We
should be pleased to have your company ourselves
to-night. So do not be angry. You can not go on.”

“T believe,” cried Louis, his eyes flashing,
although they were full of tears, ‘‘that you are
a set of robbers.” :

‘“‘ That is true,” said the other, ‘‘and this little
man, and this little horse, and this very fine falcon,
are our booty.”

(To be continued.)

TIMES AND SEASONS.

By W. J. LINTON.

THERE ’S a time—the proverb tells us —
For all things under the sun; :
Even so may be proper seasons
For good works to be done,
And for good words to be said.
In the fear lest I or you
May miss the happy occasions,
Let us here note down a few.

When the trees are heavy with leaves,
When the leaves lie underfoot,

When fruit on the board is frequent,
And while there is rind or root;

When the rain comes down from the heavens,
When the sun comes after rain,

When the autumn fields are waving
With the weight of golden grain;

When the hills are purple with heather,
When the fells are black with cold,

When the larches are gay with their tassels red,
When nuts are shrivel’d and old;

Whenever there ’s growth in the spring-time,-
Or June close follows May, ,

And so long as the first of January
Happens on New-Year’s day;

When mushrooms spring in the meadows,
Or toadstools under the trees,

When the gnats gyrate in the sunshine,
When the oak-boughs strain in the breeze;

In the days of the cuckoo and swallow,
When the sea-gulls flee the foam,

When the night-jar croons in the gloaming,
Or the owl goes silently home;

When the lake is a placid mirror,
When the mountains melt in mist,
When the depths of the lake are as pillars of gold
On a floor of amethyst ;
When a rainbow spans the morning,
When the thunder rends the night,
When the snow on the hills is rosy red
With the blush of the wakening light;



7882.) GRACE FOR A CHILD. Il

When the soul is heavy with sadness,
When the tears fall drop by drop,

‘When the heart is glad as the heart of him
Who climbs to a mountain-top;

When youth unrolls like a bracken-frond,
When age is grandly gray

_ As the side of a crag that is riven and scarr’d

With the storms of yesterday :—

Believe that in all of these seasons
Some good may be done or said,

And whenever the loving thought and will
Are loving enough to wed;

And well is it with the happy heart

+That hath throughly understood

How the ‘‘time for all things under the stn”
Is always the time for good.

CG RAGS FORAGHILD
b
Robert Herrick



“
H@ER6 A LITTLG CHILD 1 STAND.
HeaAvING UP MY SITHER HAND:

CoLpD AS PADDOCKS»THOUGH THEY BE,
Herel Lirr THEM UPTO TH¢e,
FoR A BENISON TO FALL

ON OUR MGAT AND ON OUR ALL.



AMeN .



12























































































































“TORPEDOES—DON’T ANCHOR!”



[Novemser,



























“SHE DOES N’T SEEM TO KNOW THAT SHE ’S ME!”

x

“TORPEDOES—DON’T ANCHOR!”

By CHARLES BARNARD.



Boys and girls who travel by the Sound boats,
from Fall River or Newport, Stonington or Provi-
dence, or any of the ports on Long Island Sound,
toward New. York, always get up early and go out
on deck. They want to see the view as the boat
comes in from the broad Sound and enters the East
River. It is one of the finest sights in the country,
and, if you ever do go that way, be sure and look
about you the moment the light begins to shine in-

to your state-room window. First, you will see the
beautiful shores of Long Island and Connecticut,
with the charming bays stretching far back among
the undulating hills. Then there are the pretty
cottages, the long, smooth beaches, the curious
light-houses, and the great forts.

As the two shores appear to come nearer
together, you pass a funny brick light-house on
an island, and then come the vast fortifications,



1882.]

“TORPEDOES—DON'T ANCHOR!”

tS



just where the boat seems to enter a river and
takes a sudden turn to the west. On the stone
walls of one of these forts is a monstrous sign,
with letters six feet high:



TORPEDOES— DON’T ANCHOR!

There are ships and schooners passing both
ways. You see tug-boats rushing about in search
of a job, or toiling along with canal-boats, schooners,
or barges in tow. In some of the bays perhaps you
may see vessels at anchor, with their sails furled.
Here and there you may pass fishermen in boats,
anchored near their nets or over the fishing-
grounds. Not aship or sloop, or even a sail-boat,
is at anchor here; every one seems to be in a
great hurry to get away, as if some strange, mys-
terious danger lay hidden here. The pilot looks
straight ahead, and the steamer plows swiftly
along in her course. It would not be wise to drop
anchor just now. You may sail on and see all the
wonderful sights beyond, but you can not easily
forget that strange place, with its warning sign,
“Don’t anchor.” Once upon a time, a schooner,
called the ‘Olive Branch,” did come to anchor
there, but she never sailed the seas again, and
not so much as a stick of her could be found
afterward that was fit for anything but to make a
bonfire on the beach.

The coast of the United States is several thou-
sand miles long. Scattered along it are hundreds
of ports and harbors, opening upon the Atlantic,
the Gulf of Mexico, or the Pacific. They extend
from the wooded hills of Maine, down past the
low, sandy shores of New Jersey, the Carolinas,
and Florida, to the shallow river-mouths of Texas,
and, again, far along the shores that face the
great Pacific. Into these ports come the ships of
every nation, while up and down the coast, and far
away to all parts of the world, sail our ships and
steamers. At some of these places, where ships go
in and out, as at Boston, Newport, New York,
Charleston, and San Francisco, and at many of the
river entrances, are stone forts built to guard the
harbors from an enemy’s ships. Great guns are
‘mounted in the forts, and there are soldiers always
on guard, to see that no one does any harm to our
defenses. :

But many of these forts were planned or built a
long time ago. Some were even used in the Revo-
lution. Since they were built, methods and imple-
ments of warfare have undergone great changes.
War-ships are now covered with heavy plates of
iron that only the largest guns can break, and they
carry monster cannon, some of them throwing

shells weighing over seven hundred pounds, that’

could easily knock one of our old stone forts to
pieces.

We don’t want to fight. If we have a misunder-
standing with any nation, we send some wise and
sensible people there, to have a talk about the
matter and try to settle things in a peaceful way.
But, at the same time, we must be ready to fight,
for, if we were not, some little nation might send a
couple of war-ships over here, and before we could
stop them they might knock our forts to pieces
and, perhaps, burn up some of our towns. Thus
it happens that, as the majority of our forts are not
supplied with formidable artillery, we have tried to
find some other way of driving away or destroying
an enemy’s ships of war in case they should try to
enter any one of our ports.

A war-ship may carry heavy iron armor that will
resist the shots fired from ordinary cannon, but if a
big bomb-shell should go off under her keel she
could not help herself, and would instantly tumble
to pieces and sink out of sight inthe sea. This queer
kind of under-water hostilities we could carry on, if
necessary, almost anywhere along our coasts, and,
conducted by our brave and skillful soldiers, not all
the war-ships in the world would be able to capture
our forts. #

The weapons used for this under-water warfare
are called ‘‘ torpedoes.” They are queer things.
Some rest on the bottom of the bay, like great
frogs. Others float silently in the water, just out of
sight, like a lazy trout sunning himself in a pool,
and still others are like live sharks, for they can
swim and chase a ship under water till at last they
put their terrible teeth in her keel and drag her
down to destruction.

This place at the end of .Long Island Sound,
where you can see the strange sign warning ves-
sels not to anchor, is the school where our soldiers
are taught to use torpedoes in time of war. Here
are used only torpedoes intended for the defense
of our harbors. There is also another school at
Newport. At these, they study how to use torpe-
does on board ships and gun-boats, by way of prac-
tice against a time when they may be required to
attack the enemy’s ships on the open water. The
United States Government will not permit us to
see how torpedoes are made and used, because it
is important that this should be kept a secret, as
far as possible. . All we can do is to see, in a gen-
eral way, how they would be used in war, and how
they would behave in a battle.

As I have said, there are two kinds of torpe-
does: those that are anchored in one place, and
those that swim about in the water. Of those
that are anchored, there are also two kinds. One
kind consists of great iron boxes filled with dyna-
mite and sunk in ‘the water at particular places.



14

“TORPEDOES—DON T ANCHOR!”

(NovemBER,



They rest in the mud, or on the sand and stones,
till they are ready to be fired, when they blow up
or explode with terrible effect; and if a ship hap-
pens to be. passing over one of them, she is sure to
be torn to pieces.:: The other kind have afloat an-
chored just out of sight under water, while the



A DOUBLE BLAST.*

torpedo rests on the bottom. These, too, when
they explode, destroy anything that happens to be
near. At Willet’s Point, where the warning sign
tells the ships not to anchor, the torpedoes are
planted at the bottom of the water, and some
times, as on the Fourth of July, some of them are
fired off. Of course all vessels are warned away,
for the torpedo sends into:the air a tremendous
fountain of water, hundreds of feet high, that would
destroy any ship it fell upon.

There are two ways of firing these ground tor-
pedoes: In one there is a wire, carefully protected

from the water, leading from the torpedo to the
shore. The soldiers in charge of it can send elec-
tricity through this wire and set fire to the dyna-
mite, and thus fire the torpedo. The torpedo is
lost and destroyed, but the broken wire can be
pulled ashore, and used again on another torpedo.
The second method is to fasten to the torpedo a
wooden float. If one of the enemy’s ships passes
over such a torpedo and happens to strike and
push aside the float that is anchored just over it,
this will also fire the torpedo, for the chain or rope
that anchors the float is connected with the tor-
pedo, and any strain or pull on the rope discharges
it. In this way the ship itself may fire the torpedo,
and thus become an agent in its own destruction.
The swimming torpedoes are of two kinds. One
of these swims like a fish, and, if it strikes its nose
against a ship, explodes, and sinks the vessel by
tearing a terrible hole in the bottom. Another
kind can also swim, but it carries fastened to
its tail a long wire, which it drags through the
water wherever it goes. By means of this wire,

"the soldier who stands at the end, on the shore, or

the sailor on board ship, can make the fish turn
to the right or left, dive, turn around, go back-
ward, or come home again when it is wanted.
Besides this, the fish will blow up if it strikes
against the enemy’s ship, or whenever the man at
the wire wishes to fire it. The Government will
not tell us how such a wonderful thing can be done,
but you may: be sure that these fish-torpedoes
are strange fellows. They seem to be able to do
everything that a fish can do, and more, for when
they get angry they can burst out into a frightful
passion and send the water flying into the air for
hundreds of feet, and woe to the sailors who are
near! Torpedo, ship, and men go to the bottom
in-a volcano of fire and water. Besides these an-
chored and swimming torpedoes, there is another
kind called spar-torpedoes, so named because they
are placed on the ends of spars or booms that run
out under water from the bows of small. boats.
The boats rush up to the side of the big ship, in
the dark, and explode the torpedo underneath,
thus sinking the vessel. ,
Sometimes, on the Fourth of July, or when the
President or some other distinguished visitor. is
at Newport or Willet’s Point, some of the ground
torpedoes are fired as a salute. And a grand
salute itis. A time is chosen when no vessels are
passing, and all small boats that may be near are
warned away. The officer on the shore starts
the steam-engine attached. to the dynamo. machine
that gives the electricity, or he arranges his battery
for the purpose. When all is ready, he presses
his finger lightly on a knob. Instantly there
appears out on the sea a terrible rush of solid

* The illustrations to this article are copied from instantaneous photographs (by Von Sothen) of actual torpedo explosions.





1882.]

“ TORPEDOES—DON'T ANCHOR!”

tS



water, dark green and blazing white. It mounts
into the air higher and higher, breaking into foam
and spray. While this mass is white and feath-
ery, the sea all around seems to sink into a vast
whirlpool or crater, The water turns black, and

the explosion, and float all about on the water.
The boys knew what to expect, and are picking up
the dead fish as fast as they can. On one occa-
sion, three porpoises were swimming near where a
torpedo was fired. For a week afterward the sol-







































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































THE BEGINNING OF A BLAST-—SHOWING THE BLACK RING OF WATER.

then the waves rush in from every side and fill
the hole whence the fountain sprang. .. An instant
later there is what seems to be a second, though
less violent, explosion, and another fountain rushes
up. Then, with a roar and splash, down falls the
tall column of water, and the sea is covered with
seething foam, and a ring of waves spreads out
wider and wider in every direction. Grand water
fire-works these, as you see by the pictures.











































































































































diers had porpoise-steaks for breakfast. Atanother
time, a fisherman, who was out in his boat when a
torpedo went off, found six wild ducks dead in the
water. Poor birds! They never knew what was
the cause of the terrible concussion that killed
them. If they were conscious of anything, it must
have seemed to them that an earthquake had
taken place, or that some great water-spout had
leaped out of the sea to crush them.























































































































A GRAND SALUTE—GOING UP.

When the water is quiet again, all the men and
boys who are waiting near in their boats row out
to the place where the torpedo was fired. What
are those white things floating on the water? They
are fish. Thousands of them have been killed by



A GRAND SALUTE—COMING DOWN,

Should we ever have awar with any foreign power,
these soldiers at the Willet’s Point torpedo school
would be sent to all our forts, and hundreds upon
hundreds of torpedoes would be planted near the
entrances of all our ports. Then, if one of the



16

“TORPEDOES-——-DON’T ANCHOR!”

[Novemszr,















































































































































NO. I.— BEFORE THE EXPLOSION.

enemy’s ships tried to batter down a fort which
guarded one of our harbors, two soldiers hiding
on the shore would watch the ship as she sailed
in. Each man would .have a small telescope

























































































































































































































































































































NO. 3.—THE MOMENT AFTER.

pointed in a particular direction, and when the
ship came in sight of either, he would speak to the
other man through a telephone. “When they both
could see the ship at once, she would be over a
torpedo, and one or both would touch the knob,



















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































NO. 2,.-THE MOMENT’ OF EXPLOSION.

the electricity would fly along the wire under the
sea, and Mr. Enemy would suddenly stop. The
poor ‘ship would feel a terrible shock. Her iron
sides would be torn apart, her engines would sink



NO. 4.~—THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

down through the bottom and: fall out, the boilers
would explode with a great concussion, the masts
leap into the air, and, in an instant, in a cloud of
smoke and spray, the mighty ship would break in
two and sink, in a seething whirlpool, into the



1882, }

“TORPEDOES—DON 'T ANCHOR!”

17



vaging water. It would be indeed terrible, but
the fort and adjacent city would be saved. :

I told you that once a schooner called the ‘‘ Olive
Branch” did anchor off the fort. She was an old
boat, and they put her there to see what would be-
come of her if torpedoes were fired near her. You
know that nowadays photographers are so skillful

shows it was a pretty close shot. Then they fired
a torpedo directly under the schooner, and took
three pictures one after the other. Picture No. 1
shows the ‘‘ Olive Branch” just before the explo-
sion, The men seen on board were only dummies
or scare-crows put there for fun. In No. 2 the
torpedo has burst and the schooner is torn in two.























































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































BETWEEN TWO FIRES,—EXPLODING TORPEDOES SIMULTANEOUSLY AT THE TWO ENDS OF A BOAT.

that they can take a picture in an instant of time.
When the torpedoes were to be fired, the photog-
rapher set up his camera upon the shore, and
arranged it in such a way that the pictures would
be taken at the same time that the torpedoes
exploded.

First they tried to see how near they could come
to the schooner and not hit it. The large picture

VoL. X.—2.

The mainmast has jumped right out of the huil,
and the hull has broken into two pieces. The
bowsprit is bent down into the water, and the
stern has dived the other way. In No. 3 every-
thing is torn to a million pieces, and there is only
a huge fountain of sticks, ropes, and muddy water.
In No. 4 the terrible wreck is falling back in ruins
into the sea.



18

“ TORPEDOES—DON’T ANCHOR!”

[Novemser,



‘All this took only a few seconds, but the pho-
tographer caught thé strange scenes just as they
passed. ;

The other pictures show different views of ex-
plosions of torpedoes, the name on each explaining
what it is.

We shall never go to war if we can avoid it,
and we shall try very hard to prevent it, for war
is a cruel and costly.way to settle disputes., Per-
haps for a hundred years torpedoes will never be








S hoes ON









fired except for salutes on the Fourth of July, and
there will be no torpedoes planted anywhere except

" at the schools at Newport and Willet’s Point. But

thése torpedo schools show that we are ready to
fight, and that is one very good way to keep out
of a fight. Torpedoes are terrible things in war,

and we all trust they may never be used, except as
a wonderful kind of fire-works to salute the flag or
the ships of other nations when they come to make
us a friendly visit.















HOTEL.

By Laura F. HINSDALE.

OF all the gods to legend given,
The wisest dwells beyond the sea;
One of a brotherhood of seven,
His funny name is Hotei.*

His brother, Daikokom, has wealth,

His sacks of rice are tied with gold;
But he has neither youth nor health,
And looks forlorn and cross and old.

The God of Glory bears a lance,
And wears a cuirass and a star;

You see, with but a moment’s glance,
He’s only bent on making war.

The God of Love, with arrows bent,
A very naughty god is he!

And many a gentle heart has rent,
As all the wide world will agree.

But Hotei ’s a jolly lad,

Who lives in far-away Japan;
In simple sackcloth he is clad,
He owns a wallet and a fan.

He fans away the webs of care,
And, when his purse is empty quite,
Tosses it gayly in the air,
And laughs to see it is so light.

The children love him, high and low,
For where he goes ’t is always May;
And joy-birds sing, and flowers grow,
And all the world is blithe and gay.

When he awakes, he laughs with glee,
Because the world was plainly meant
For just such happy souls. You see,
His name, in English, is Condewz,

= yo

* Pronounced “ Ho-ta-é,



1882. ]

OLD MORDECAI’S COCKEREL.

Eg



OLD MORDECAI’S COCKEREL.

By SARGENT FLINT.

“¢ GRAND old trees,” said Mamma, ‘‘a fine view
from the piazza, and pleasant inside.”

**T see no fault,” said Papa.

“Except that hideous little house at the foot of
the garden,” said Aunt Amy.

“<< And that horrible old man, sitting all day close
up to our fence,” said Bob.

“‘Both his legs is shorter than the other,” said
little Lucy.

‘* He sits on his own land,” said Papa. °

* And he minds his own business,” said Mamma.

“¢ Nevertheless, he is a very Mordecai at our
back gate,” said Aunt Amy.

But the summer went, and, despite the hid-
eous little house at the foot of the garden, and
the old man smoking his pipe so near the fence,
everbody had seemed quite merry. The grand old
trees were bare now, and a great, melancholy pile
of leaves in the garden was all that was left of
their glory. Aunt Amy wished the pile had been
a little higher, that it might have hidden old
Mordecai’s house.

_T like Old Mortify,” said Lucy; ‘‘he hands
me my kitten when she runs away.”
grown used to seeing the old man walking from
side to side, on his poor old rheumatic legs, and felt
kindly toward him. She had smiled first at his
little grand-daughter, and then asked her if she
were Mortify’s little girl. :

“What you mean?” said the child.

“ Are you his little girl?” asked Lucy.

“He is my grandpa ; J am Sadie.”

Lucy handed some white roses through the
fence, and Sadie handed back a plum.” To be
sure, the plum was very hard, and Lucy could not
eat it; but she believed it was the best her little
neighbor had, and always spoke to her afterward.

Now, the weather had become so cold that Mor-
decai no longer sat by the fence, or walked in his
little garden; and Lucy had not seen Sadie for
a long time. |

In a week it would be Thanksgiving. The sky
was gray and cold, and the tall trees waved their
bare branches to keep warm until the snow should
come to cover them.

‘Everything looks awfully homesick,” said Bob,
standing at the window. ‘‘ This is the meanest place
I ever saw.”

At that moment a loud, defiant crow fell upon
his ears.

“That's Old Mordecai’s cockerel,” he said angrily.

leaves.

She had.

** Yes,” said Lucy.
pile of leaves.”

**T told him never to crow on our side of the
fence,” said Bob. :

Lucy laughed.

“You may laugh, but you just see if he crows
on our side again, Lucy Jackson.”

Once again the cockerel crowed, loudly and tri-
umphantly. Once more Lucy laughed. Bob went
out, and Lucy saw the cockerel scratching the
Then she saw Bob creeping toward him
with a bow and arrow. She laughed again, for
she considered Bob a very poor shot. Aunt Amy
had often said that, if no one but Bob cared for
archery, a target would last forever.

Mordecai’s cockerel seemed to be of the same
opinion, for he stopped, a moment to turn his eye
toward the young archer, then began to scratch
again more diligently than before. .

Lucy did not see the arrow fly from the bow, but
she saw Bob flying to the stable with the cockerel
in his arms. She was so much excited that she
ran out at once, bare-headed, to find Bob just
drawing out the arrow ftom the poor fowl’s breast.

“Oh, Bob!” she whispered, “that will hurt him
dreadfully.”

**Do you.’spose he likes it that way?” said
Bob, sarcastically.

“Oh, Bob‘f?: she continued, ‘I did n’t believe
you could ever hit anything.”

““ Nor I, either.” ‘

She turned away her head while he drew out the
arrow. The cockerel flapped his wings a little,
then closed his eyes and lay quite still.

** He ’s going to die,” whispered Lucy.

“That ’s just like a girl! Why don’t you help
a fellow out?”

‘€T will do anything you want me to, Bob.”

“A girl ought to know more about such things
than a boy.” 1:3

“Tl know it,” sighed Lucy. ‘I ’m trying to
think; but all I can remember is arsenicum and
Jamaica ginger. He has n’t sneezed, so I don’t
believe it’s arsenicum he needs. Shall I go for
some ginger?”

**Do you think it would do any good?”

“He opened one eye; maybe, if he had some
ginger, he could open both.”

“Well, go,get it; we can try it.”
went for the ginger.

“Hope you staid long enough,” said Bob, when

““T can sce him down at the



And Lucy



20

OLD MORDECAI’S COCKEREL.

[Novemser,



she appeared at the stable-door with a cup in her
hand.

“That mean cook would n’t give me the sugar,
and I hurried so I spilled the ginger in the closet.
How is he?”

“He keeps on breathing, but he does n’t notice
much.” ; :

Bob took the cup, and gave the cockerel a
spoonful of the ginger. The bird staggered to his
feet and flapped his wings. Lucy thought surely
he meant to crow again on their side of the fence,
but the next instant he -lay motionless before them.

“He ’s gone!” said Bob, solemnly.

‘““T wish we had tried the arsenicum,” said Lucy,
sadly. ‘‘ What will Old Mortify say?”





BOB GAVE THE COCKEREL A SPOONFUL OF THE GINGER.”

‘

“T guess I shall be Old Mortify, if Papa finds it
“out. How strong this ginger smells !—how much
did you put in?”

“Five spoonfuls. I thought he was so awful
sick he ought to have a lot.”

‘Five spoonfuls! Then you killed him.”

“Oh, Bob, don’t say that!” she cried. ‘‘ What
would Sadie say to me?” and she lifted the bird's
head tenderly, but it fell back again upon the
stable-floor. Old Mordecai’s cockerel would never
crow again on either side of the fence. Little Lucy
stood shivering, with tears in her eyes.

‘¢ Run in the house,” said Bob.

‘¢ What shall you do?”

“T am going to hide him under the leaves.



And mind you, it’s my place to tell of it, and not
yours.” /

“But you'are going to tell, Bob?”

“You run in, and wait and see.”

She went in and stood by the window, and
saw him come carelessly out of the stable and walk
about the garden, then return with the dead cock
and cover him hastily with leaves.

When he came in, he said: “‘ Don’t stand staring
at that pile of leaves. It’s done, and can’t be

helped. Nothing but an old rooster, anyway! No
business crowing on our side of the fence.
him fair warning.”
“But he did n’t understand, Bob.”
“Well, he does now,” said Bob.

T gave

That night, after the children had gone to bed,
the old man came up to inquire if any one had
seen his cockerel.

Aunt Amy went up to ask Bob.

“Ves,” said that young gentleman; ‘‘tell him
I saw him on the wrong side of the fence about
four o’clock.”

As the days went by, little Lucy felt more and
more uneasy, as she thought of what lay under the
leaves. She had seen Sadie out, and had heard
her call and call for the poor cockerel] that never
came. Still she had kept quiet, waiting for Bob
to speak. ,

The day before Thanksgiving she sat alone in
the library, Her mother and Aunt Amy had gone



1882. |

to the city to meet her grandmother, and Lucy felt
a little lonely. Bob saw her as he passed the door,
and stepped i in, saying:

‘‘ What is the matter with you, Lacy? Why
can’t you brighten up? You've had the doleful
dumps for a week.”

‘Oh, Bob!” she answered, “why don’t you tell
about that cockerel? It worries me awfully.”

He glanced around at all the doors, then came
savagely up to his sister and took her roughly by
the arm. ‘‘T suppose,” he whispered almost fiercely,
*‘you mean that old rooster under the leaves.
Now, never say another word to me about it. You
have twitted me enough.”

She looked very much astonished, as she had
never referred to it in any way before. A mightier
voice’ than little Lucy’s had been calling to him
ever since he hid the bird under the leaves.

She saw that his conscience: troubled him, and
gained courage. ‘‘If you would only tell Mamma,
she would tell you what todo. Oh, Bob! I can’t
walk on that side of the garden for fear I shall see
Sadie. She came out yesterday, and looked over
our fence, and I heard her call the cockerel sev-
eral times.”

Bob looked down into Lucy’s face and wished
he had not taken hold of her quite so roughly. He
went back to the kitchen and got a large bunch of
raisins and gave them to her, with a pat on the
head, which she understood very well. ‘* Too
bad,” he declared, ‘‘that you can’t go out to-day.”

After he had gone, she took up the raisins,
_ when, happening to look out of the window, she
saw Sadie looking over the fence. ‘I will give
her my raisins,” thought Lucy.

The cook rapped sharply as she passed the
kitchen window, for she knew Lucy ought not to
go out.

“Don’t give me all,” said Sadie, as Lucy passed
the great bunch through the fence.

** To-morrow we shall have a whole box-full,”
said Lucy.

“We can’t find our rooster,” said Sadie. ‘‘ Grand-
pa sold all but him; we kept him for Thanks-
giving. I don’t see how he got out of the coop.
We can’t have any Thanksgiving now.”

“Too bad!” said little Lucy, very faintly.

‘* Grandpa ’s looked everywhere for him, till he
tired himself out, and got rheumatism dreadfully.
He thinks some of the neighbors have killed him.”

Lucy turned a little pale, and said she had avery
. bad-cold and must go in,

Sadie would have been surprised had she looked
out a few minutes later, for she would have seen
Lucy running toward the provision store. -

‘‘ Anything wrong, Miss Lucy?” said the red-
cheeked boy who drove the wagon.

OLD MORDECAIL’S COCKEREL.

She went in timidly, and when she stood close
by his side, she whispered, ‘‘ How much do you
ask for roosters?”

‘© A hen would n’t do?” he asked, laughing.

“No,” she said, with a sigh, as she compared in
her mind the proud strut of Mordecai’s cockerel
with the walk of any hen she had ever met. ‘‘ No,
I want a rooster.”

“What ’s it for?” he said, confidentially.

“For Thanksgiving.”

“1 just took two fine gobblers up.”

“Tt ’s for —for somebody else’s Thanksgiving.”

“Oho! Why not get a small turkey? Just the
thing.”

Why had she not thought of it before! Perhaps
that would help Mordecai to forgive them. (She
had begun to blame herself with Bob, for had she
not prepared the fatal ginger ?)

The red-cheeked boy held up a plump little
turkey.

“Ts that a dollar?” she asked.

‘‘ That ’s heavier than I thought,” he said, after
he had thrown it into the scales. ‘‘ That will cost,
all told, let me see,—one dollar thirty-eight.”

She began feeling about her neck, as if she kept
her money concealed somewhere about her jugular -
veins, and the tears came to her eyes.

The red-cheeked boy became again confidential.
“Come, now,” he said, in a low tone, ‘‘ how much
do we want to pay? What is just the little sum
we were thinking of, when we came in?”

“‘T have only one dollar,” answered Lucy, with
her hand still guarding a jugular. .

“A dollar is quite enough to pay for a small,
nice, plump little turkey, if the right person comes
for it.”

Lucy hoped she was the right person. ‘If you
please,” she said, as he showed her another tur-
key, the smallest one she had ever seen, ‘‘ are you
sure it’s aturkey? I don’t want a rooster, now.”

“‘My word for it, Miss Lucy, yesterday after-
noon that fowl said ‘Gobble.’ Shall I send it to
your house?”

‘‘ If you would do him up so he would look like
a dress, ] would be very much obliged to you.”

While he was gone, she. again put her hand to
her neck and took off asmall gold chain; attached
to this was a gold dollar. She had worn it since she
was a baby; her fingers seemed unwilling to take
it off. Her little head said, ‘‘ Take it off!” and
her little heart said, ‘Oh, no!”

When the boy came back with the turkey, look-
ing as much like a dress as a provision man could
make it, the small coin still remained firmly at-
tached to the chain.

‘‘ Tf you please, will you undo this?” said Lucy.

He looked at it a moment, without taking it in



22

OLD MORDECAI’S COCKEREL.

{NovEMBER,



his hands, and said, ‘“‘ Why don’t you charge it,
Miss Lucy?”

“Oh, no, no,” she said, hastily; ‘‘ Papa is not to
pay for this. I must pay for it myself.”

“*T understand; you don’t want your good works
talked about either, Miss Lucy. But I don’t want
to take this.”

“Come, come,” said his employer from the
other side of the store ; “‘ fly around there !”

The boy hurriedly unfastened the dollar, and
said: “You may have it back any time, Miss
Lucy.”

She took the turkey ih her arms and went out.
When she had walked a few steps she stopped sud-
denly and turned and went back. The boy was
just getting into the wagon. She pulled his coat,
and, as he turned, said timidly: “‘ You are so kind,
will you tell me how to spell ‘Mordecai?’ Not
Mortify, but Mordecai.”

“Tt ’s a joke,” he said, grinning.

“Oh, no!” groaned poor Lucy.

“Mordecai,” he said, pausing, with one foot on
the wheel: ‘‘ M-o-r — Mor— d-y — Mordy — k-i—
Mordyki.” i

She thanked him and hurried home.

When Bob came in, she pulled him into a corner
and whispered: ‘‘I have bought a little turkey, the
littlest one you ever saw, but a sure turkey, for
Mordecai! Run out, before you take off your
coat, for it’s in the stable, in the oat-box; and will
you take it to Mordecai’s house? Go quick, before
it gets dark.”

He turned toward her with an angry gesture.

“Oh, Bob! Sadie can’t have any Thanksgiving,
because we killed the rooster, and I knew you
would be so sorry.”

He made no reply, but ran with great haste to
the stable. Hesoon found the bundle and brought
it to the little window, when he saw there was a
little letter, pinned with several pins, on the out-
side. The afternoon light was fast fading, and it
was with some difficulty he read the note, of which
this is a copy:

“DEAR MISTER MORDYKI BOB AND ME KILED
YOUR RUSTER PLEAS TAKE THIS Lucy.”



“The good, generous little thing!” muttered
Bob, gazing solemnly at the brown bundle, which
was supposed to resemble dry goods. ‘‘I wonder
where in time she got the money! And to say
she killed it, or had anything to do with killing it!
Oh, I hope she wont grow up and be one of those
good kind of folks that never have any fun and
give all their money away. Where in the world
@id she get the money?” He folded the note care-

fully and put it in his pocket. “I never felt
meaner,” he thought, as he seized the turkey, with
no gentle hand, and ran to Mordecai’s house.

The old man sat at the front window, and Bob
thought he looked a little sour as the gate opened;
but he came to the door as fast as he could hobble,
for fear Mrs. Mordecai might get there first. Bob
held out the turkey and said: ‘‘I shot your rooster,
sir. My little sister thought you were saving him
for Thanksgiving, and she sent you this turkey.”

“So you killed my cockerel, did ye?” said the
old man; ‘‘a mighty fine cockerel he was!” He _
punched with his thumb the turkey that he could —
not see, as if he wondered if it could possibly be
as fine as the cockerel.

. Thad no idea I should hit him,” said Bob. ‘I
am a most awful shot, sir. Would you rather
have a live rooster?”

“‘N-no,” said old Mordecai. ‘‘ Though my wife
misses his crowing in the morning — overslept every
morning since he went.”

“We should have killed him for Thanksgiving,”
said Mrs. Mordecai, a tired-looking little woman,
who looked as if she could oversleep, in spite of all
the warnings that might be sounded. “A turkey,
Father, is better than a cockerel; and so we have
lost nothing.”

“You don’t like to feel that yer neighbors is
standin’ round armed, ready to destroy yer prop~
erty,—do you, eh?” .

““No, but I like to know that, if they do happen
to destroy it, they stand ready to pay more than
it’s worth.”

«Ver allays did like young folks,” said Mordecai,
dryly, and hobbled back to the front window.

“You are a good boy,” said his wife. ‘Don’t
mind him; he’ll speak better of you behind your
back.”

“’T was Lucy sent it; I only killed the cockerel,”
said Bob, turning away.

“‘¥ have carried the turkey down,” he said to
Lucy on his return. ‘‘Now, tell me where you got
the money.”

‘“*T had to take my gold dollar.” Lucy could not
keep the tears from filling her eyes.

«Whew !” he said, “‘the one on your chain?”

She nodded.

* Born with it on, were n’t you?”

“‘T don’t ’member when I got it,” said she, a
little more cheerfully. ‘‘ Don’t go out again, Bob,”
as he started suddenly toward the door, and she
saw him run across the garden with his skate-bag
under his arm.

‘Hang the old rooster!” he said, as he passed
the little house and saw old Mordecai sitting at
the window. ‘‘It’s going to cost me a pretty sum. .
I wont do it!—It’s good enough for her, to go





2882.)

OLD MORDECAI’S COCKEREL.

23



spend that dollar — Just like a girl—I hope he wont
take them. Hang Mordecai!” Still he walked
on rapidly until he came to. Johnny Bang’s house.
“ Hope he’s gone away,” he said, as he pulled the
bell, which was answered by young John himself,
whose eyes brightened as he saw the skate-bag;
but he waited for Bob to speak.

“You said last night you would give me two
‘and a half; say three and they ’re yours,” said Bob.

‘Do you suppose I made a half a dollar in my
sleep?” said Johnny, with a grin.

‘Can you give me three?”

“No, I can’t.”

‘Jerry will; I came to you first, because you
made the first offer. I must have three or nothing.”

“Vou come in and sit down, and 1’ll see if I can
work Mother up to it.”

Johnny’s mother proved a person easily ‘‘ worked
up,” for in a few minutes he returned with three
crisp bills in his hand.

“*T told her they cost five dollars, and you had
-had them only two weeks ; was that straight?”

“Yes,” said Bob, ‘‘ that’s straight.”

“She asked me if you had a right to sell them

without asking your father, and I told her you
bought them yourself with your own money that
you had saved ; was that straight?”

“Yes,” said Bob, his mouth twitching a little,
“that’s straight.”

He took the skates from the bag and handed
them to his friend.

“Wont throw in the bag?” said Johnny.

“Oh, I7ll throw in the whole family,” said Bob,
sarcastically, as he left the house.

The first call he made was on the red-cheeked boy
at the provision store; then he went to the city.

After supper, when little Lucy was sitting with her
father, talking about Thanksgiving, he came in,
looking rather tired, and gave her a,tiny box. She
opened it and found first a note, which said to her:

‘* Dear Lucy: You did the square thing by me and I wont
forget it. Hang these on your chain in remembrance of Old
Mordecai’s rooster. Bos.”

And under some pink cotton lay her own little
dollar, and beside it a small gold cockerel, as
proud-looking as Old Mordecai’s before Bob’s un-
lucky shot. -






ut drow year’
He ne ay

% nay Jewell —

ERE Was a fal denflemanydewel
\who accented.a.call fo a duel,

fer 4
vhibnch disgraced His fat gorfles Bs
Le elt 7

ow










24 THE QUEEN'S GIFT. [Novemner,

ee axl woe gee ~ errs oc



THE QUEEN’S GIFT.



By Rost HAaRTWicK THORPE.

HERE English daisies blossom 7 Wp VE
And English vabing sing, y a AY
Gy




















“9 yy
When all the land was fragrant y 3 i ee
Beneath the feet of Spring, a
as
: == ) in i Ros Se
— ees
My, Two little sisters wandered,
iy Ue Together, hand in hand,
i) Along the dusty highway, Dae
} Their bare feet soiled and tanned. ZL ae Vile,
Zeid















i

SHS ya
ae A i

ee.












That filled their eyes with tears;
Their little hearts were burdened
With gnef beyond their years.

The bright-eyed daisies blossomed,
-In valley and in glen,

The robins sang ‘their sweetest,
Spring smiled— but not for them.

&





1882] THE QUEEN’S GIFT. 25



ENEATH the trees of Whitehall,
Within their shadow brown,
From out the royal palace
The Queen came walking down.







She saw the children standing,
Together, side by side,

And, gazing down with pity,
She asked them why they cried.

















2 SONS
; oo
arate 3

“a







ut (
iG

alain
Ze ate i a vi










EAR lady,” said the eldest,
*« My little sister Bess




WA
1 Cr




















Ad EE And {I have come -together
\ | A hundred miles, I guess.
igi oe **Sometimes the roads were dusty,
RN And sometimes they were green;
Wall Hi We ’re very tired and hungry—
NT We want to see the Queen.
li -_
ANN ‘qi | “‘For Mother’s sick, dear Lady,
ae. a Ny) She cries ’most all the day;
week UR « We hear her telling Jesus,
= gy Bi When she thinks we ’re.at play.






(November,

260 THE QUEEN'S GIFT.
















,HE tells Him all about it,

How when King James was King,
We were so rich and happy

And had ‘most everything.





<¢ We had our own. dear father,
At home beside the Thames,
But Father went to battle
Because he loved King James.



« And then things were so different—
1 can not tell you how.
We have n’t any father,
Nor any nice things now.








\S pal
NSAI) oe









Se | i




AST night, our mother told us
They ’d take our home away,
And leave us without any,
Because she could n’t pay.

“© So then we came together,
Right through the meadow green,
And prayed for God to help us,
- ; And take us to the Queen;



1882. ]




















a Cg fH)
“Lp, OED Y
AWA Lj,
YZ iff
NW



a poaoe co,







\






A
aa








Ae

THE QUEEN’S GIFT.

*
ECAUSE Mamma once told us .
That, many years ago,
The Queen was James’s little girl,
And, Lady, if ’t was so,

“*T know she ’Il let us keep it,—
Our home beside the Thames,—
For we have come to ask her,
And Father loved King James.









. me i |

a UU Fass ail i



































Tinian

4 NS



a

















































































































































































































































































OTe, . J ‘ou a
ee pa

—





X\ ; i
Ny} ND if we had to leave it,

I ’m sure Mamma would die,
For there ’s no place to go to,—
No place but in the sky.”

Her simple story finished,

She gazed up in surprise,
To see the lovely lady

With tear-drops in her eyes.





28 THE QUEEN’S GIFT. [Novempxr,















Had sought each downy, nest,
And when the bright-eyed daisies,
Dew-damp, had gone to rest,

A carriage, such as never
Had passed that way before,

Set down two little children

Beside the widow’s door. -






rn
cases

ca










WY HEY brought the weeping mother
A package from the Queen.
Her royal seal was on it,
And, folded in between,

1

A slip of paper, saying:
“The daughter of King James
Gives to these little children

Their home beside the Thames.”







1882. ] A HAPPY

THOUGHT. © 29



A HAPPY

.

THOUGHT.

By KATHARINE R. MCDOWELL.

‘WHAT a looking room!” exclaimed Olive
Kendall, as she came in from school and added to
the confusion of the sitting-room by throwing her
satchel on the lounge. ‘‘ Why does n’t somebody
fix it up?” But.no one answered. Only Leila
and Nora were there to answer, and both their
heads were bent over a geographical puzzle.

Olive threw herself into an easy-chair and looked
out of the large bay-window. It was pleasanter to
turn her head that way than to look ‘around the
disordered room. She only wished she could turn
her thoughts away from the room as easily, but she
could not so long as that voice kept saying:

“You know that Bridget is out with the twins,
and that Kate is busy getting dinner, and that
there is no one but yourself to put the room in
order-— you and your little sisters. Why not go to
work and have a surprise for Mamma when she
comes in?”

“Leila and Nora, we really ought to fix up the
room,” said Olive, with a half-yawn. ‘The twins
have scattered their things. Wont you help?”

‘“‘In a minute,” answered Nora. ‘‘ We only
want a little crooked piece to go right in there.”

“Yes,” responded Leila, ‘‘it’s Finland. I re-
member the very piece — colored yellow, and with a
bit of-sea-coast,” as she turned to look for it.

“Are n’t you coming?” asked Olive, as she
listlessly folded an afghan. Again the answer was :

“¢ Just as soon as we find Finland.”

Olive looked about the room in a hopeless, help-
less sort of way. ‘‘ With Leila and Nora both in
Finland,” she thought, ‘I may as well give up ex-

‘ pecting their help. If it were only a game u

She stood a moment in thought. Her face sud-
denly brightened. She went to Mamma’s desk and
cut six slips of paper, then wrote a word on each.

“ Are you getting some strips ready for Conse-
quences?” asked Leila, a new interest in her face,
as she looked up from the pieces of map.

*“No,” replied Olive, at which the search for
Finland was renewed.

“Are we going to play Anagrams?” ventured
Nora, to whom Leila had just whispered something
as she motioned toward Olive.

“No, but you ’ve guessed pretty well,” admitted
Olive, “‘ for it ’s a game—a new one.”

““A game! A new one!.” echoed the little sis-
ters, not only losing interest in Finland, but letting
the whole of Europe fall- apart. “Let’s play it!
I’m tired of this map-puzzle.”’



“Yes, Olive, tell us how,” pleaded Leila, ‘‘ and
then we ’ll help with the room. We truly will.”

*‘T don’t know that you ’Il like the game,” said
Olive, ‘‘ but I’m sure that Mamma will.”

“‘Then we shall, of course,” said Nora, very
decidedly. ‘‘ Let’s begin it now.”

So Olive laid the slips on the table — the written
side downward. Then she said: ‘‘ Now we are
to draw in turn, the youngest first. Come, Nora!”

Nora looked at the different pieces of paper, put
her finger on the last, and then suddenly changed
her mind and took the one nearest her.

“Don’t look at it yet, Nora,” said Olive.

‘*Oh, I shall certainly look, if Leila does n't
hurry,” said Nora, excitedly, shutting her eyes
very tight, but soon opening them to ask: ‘‘Is
there a prize; Olive?” and jumping up and down as
Olive nodded. ,

After Leila had settled upon one of the slips, she
and Nora made Olive shut her eyes while they
changed .all about the papers that were left, for
fear that Olive, having made them, might choose
a better one than they. At last they all had slips.

“ Now read !” signaled Olive.

“ Table,” said Nora, consulting her paper.

‘* Chairs,” read Leila, from hers.

* Carpet,” announced Olive.

“‘Now what?” asked Nora. ‘Dol pass mine
on to Leila?” But Olive was on her knees, pick-
ing up a lot of playthings.

“ Mine was carpet,” she said, as she hastily put
a handful of toys into a little cart belonging to the
twins, ‘‘so I’m to take everything off the carpet
that does n’t belong there. You are to put in
order whatever your paper tells you, and the game
is to do it as well and as quickly as you can.”

Nora flew to the table. She ran into the hall

with Teddy’s hat, and into the nursery with

Freddy’s whip. Then she got'a brush and prepared
to sweep off the table-cover. To do this she piled
some books on one of the chairs.

“« My paper says chairs,” cried Leila, ‘‘and there
are eight of them! If you put those books there,
I’ll never get through.”

‘The other table is yours also, Nora,” said
Olive, as she straightened the rug in front of the
fire. ‘‘Look on your paper.”

Sure enough, there was an s that Nora had over-
looked! So the books found a place on the little
stand while the big table was being brushed, and
were then piled nicely up, and the magazines and



30

A HAPPY THOUGHT.

[NovemMBER,



papers laid together, after which Nora stood off and.
viewed the effect with such satisfaction as almost to
forget the smaller table.

She was reminded of it, however, by Leila, who
was flourishing a duster about as she went from
one chair to another, fastening a tidy here and
shaking upa cushion there, until she was ready
to say: ‘‘ The whole eight are done.”

“‘T ve finished, too,” said Olive, as she brushed
the hearth and hung the little broom at one side
of the open fire-place. ‘* Now, we all draw again.”

Nora chose quickly this time, and went right. at
her work when she saw the word ‘“‘Afande?,” hardly
hearing Leila say ‘‘ Des#,” and Olive “Lounge.”

“Well, what do you think of the game?” asked
Olive, a while after, as, having left the room to put
away her school-satchel, she returned and found
Leila and Nora putting the finishing touches to
their tasks, and rejoicing over the finding of Fin-
land in Mamma’s desk.

“Why, we think it a great success — don’t we,
Nora? And we see now why you didn’t know the
name,” added Leila, laughingly.

“Here comes Mamma up the walk,” announced
Nora from the bay-window.

“‘ Well, don’t say anything, and see if she notices
the room,” suggested Leila.

Mamma came to the sitting-room door, and
looked in. No wonder she smiled at the picture.
The room a model of neatness, the winter’s sun
streaming in at the window, the fire crackling on
the hearth, and three faces upturned for a kiss.

“So Bridget is home,” said Mamma, in a tone

of relief, as she glanced about the room. “‘f left
her getting rubbers for the twins, and feared she
would n’t return till dinner-time.”

' She is w¢ home, Mamma,” said Olive, while
Nora and Leila exchanged happy glances, and
Nora could n’t keep from saying (though she said
afterward she tried hard not to tell): .

“We fixed it, Mamma. It’s Olive’s game!”

Then, of course, Mamma had to hear all about
it, and Papa, too, when he came to dinner.
Otherwise he might not have brought up those
slips of red card-board that he did that evening,
nor have seated himself in the midst of them all,
and said: ‘* Now, I propose we make a set of cards
in fine style,” as he proceeded to write on each the
word that Olive or Leila or Nora would tell him.

“* And now, what shall we call the game?” asked
Papa, with pen ready to put the name on the other
side of the six bright cards.

“How would the ‘Game of Usefulness’ do?”
suggested Olive.

“Or ‘Daily Duty’?” put in Leila; ‘‘ for we ’ve
promised to play it every day.”

““Would n’t ‘Helping Hands’ sound well?”
asked Mamma. And they probably agreed upon
that, for, when Nora went up to bed, one of her
plump hands held the new cards, and the name
that Mamma had proposed was written on each.

“‘T wonder what the prize was?” she asked
Leila the last thing that night.

““T guess it must have been Mamma’s smile
when she looked in,” said Leila.

And was not that a prize worth trying for?

AN OLD ROMAN LIBRARY.

By C. L. G. SCaALgs.

THE boys and girls of the nineteenth century
probably seldom think of the marvelous changes
that have been wrought in our modern civiliza-
tion. by the invention of printing; but, if some
mischievous fairy should suddenly whisk out of
sight ‘all the books, pamphlets, newspapers, and
magazines in the land, and leave not a trace of a
printed page behind, then doubtless we. should
all begin to realize something of what the printing-
press has done for us, and perhaps take to won-
dering how people got on in the days when it was
not known. Books of some sort, however, the
people of that time must have had, for the com-
plaint that ‘“‘of making many books there is no
end” comes echoing down to us even from the far-

off era of King Solomon. But, how could they
have been made, and what kind of books were they?
Very unlike our own, as we shall presently see.
The old authors of Greece and Rome, over whose
works your big brothers—and sisters, too— are
still poring in high school and college, would
never recognize their. own: writings in the new
dress the printers have given.them ; and, if ushered
into a modern library, they would stare with aston-
ishment at the strange scenes before them. But
a glimpse of their book-shelves would be no less of -
a surprise to some of us.

It so happens that some of those old-time
authors have been so kind as to leave their library-
doors ajar behind them, and, by taking the trouble







1882. J

AN OLD ROMAN LIBRARY.

31



to clear away from the pathway the rubbish and.the
dust of ages, we may enter and survey at our leisure
the quaint appointments and the rare treasures
within.

Come with me, then, and let us see what an old
Roman library is like—the library of a man who
never dreamed of a printed page.

The library itself is a comparatively small room.
Entering the door, we first note the windows, few
in number, and so high up in the wall that there is
plainly little danger of their tempting the student
or reader to gaze abroad; then the floor of plain,
smooth marble, or laid in mosaics with marbles of

little cells, are the dooks, many of them classics,
which have been reprinted in our modern text, and
are read and admired by the scholars and wise men
of to-day.

Let us look at this one in a gay, yellow dress,
which beams out at us with its one round black eye
like a cheerful little Cyclops, and see what kind of
a book it is. We take up the roll, which is, per-
haps, ten inches in width, and begin to unfold it.
But it seems to have no end, and at last unrolls
before our astonished gaze one continuous sheet of
thick, tough paper, some ten feet in length, the
inner end of which is fastened to the rod with the











































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































various sorts; the walls covered with arabesques
and traceries from the Greek mythology, and pre-
senting at intervals busts of famous old Greek and
Roman authors. Next our wondering glances fall
upon a row of presses or cupboards, some six feet
in height, ranged around the sides of the room.
Each is filled with shelves divided off into little
compartments or pigeon-holes, and in these snugly
repose curious purple, yellow, and grayish rolls of
different sizes, from the centers of which project
slender rods, terminating in polished knobs. From
each of these rods dangles a small label, covered
‘with hieroglyphics in light red ink.

But these queer rolls, so snugly reposing in their



IN AN OLD ROMAN LIBRARY.— A CHAT ABOUT THE LAST NEW BOOK.

projecting knobs. A second glance shows us that
the whole of one side is closely covered with text
written in parallel columns from left to right, up
and down the sheet, the spaces between being de-
fined by light red lines which curiously intersect
the whole expanse. The letters of the text, out-
lined almost in relief by the thick, black ink with
which they are written, look out at us with an un-
recognizing stare, wholly ignoring the fact that, in
their modern dress, some of us have had a hard
Struggle with them in order to maintain our rank
in the Latin class at school. But the words, as we
see them here on this old scroll, seem an unknown
tongue to us, till the title of the book, written at



32

AN OLD ROMAN

LIBRARY.

[NovemBzER,



the end next the staff, as well as at the beginning,
explains the mystery. “The volume we hold is, it
seems, the Annales of Q. Ennius, the ‘“ Father
_ Ennius” mentioned by Horace and other Latin
poets. And, satisfied’ with this, we replace the
book in its pigeon-hole, and pass on to the more
familiar names of Horace and Martial, that greet
us on the pendent labels of two rolls that the #-
brarius (one of the slaves whose task is the care
of the library and the copying of books) has just
brought in and placed in a hitherto vacant niche of
the library. But a short examination of these
volumes soon convinces us that, for practical pur-
poses, our well-thumbed “ Anthon,” ‘‘ Harkness,”

x “Chase and Stewart’s,” are more desirable.
Fancy, for instance, a luckless school-boy rising to
recite in Horace or Virgil, with one of these cumber-
some rolls to be held up and uncoiled while gazing
wildly up and down this wilderness of words, which
at first glance seems to be chiefly composed of v’s,
owing to the queer practice of the old Romans in
making their u’s like vs! And a second glance,
moreover, shows that we have before us indeed a
pathless wilderness of words, for not a single punc-
tuation-mark (save here and there a lonesome-
looking. period) holds out its friendly signal to mark
the boundary lines of the author’s thought.

But now, through the half-open door by which
the Zibrarius has just entered, we catch a glimpse
of an adjoining room, where his fellow-slaves are
busily at work copying manuscripts and perform-
ing the various other operations connected with
the art of Roman book-making. At our request
the Zibrarins allows us to enter this room, and
accompanies us himself to explain the new and
strange process we are about to witness. Seated
near the door is a slave, who is busily engaged in
gluing together, into one long sheet, strips of
paper, made, we are told, of a reed that grows on
the banks of the Nile and is called papyrus.
When this sheet is long enough, he passes it to the
next slave, who stains its back with saffron and then

hands it to another, receiving from him in return a

similar sheet, covered, on. one side only, with the
same parallel columns of closely written text- with
which we have already become familiar. This is now
handed to another slave, whose task it is to fasteri
it by the end which bears the covona or flourish —
a mark denoting that the transcriber’s and the
reader’s task is done— to a cylindrical stick of pol-
ished ivory terminating in glistening knobs of the
same material. Glancing ovér-his shoulder, we see
another slave with a pile of these cylindrical sticks,
some of ivory, some of woods ‘of various sorts.

These latter he rubs vigorously with pumice-stone
preparatory to staining them with the purple,
yellow, and black dyes at his side. - .

But let us see what further befalls the sheet just
attached to the ivory staff. We find that it has
been coiled deftly around its center-piece, its ends
have been polished and colored, and it is now ready
for its cover of parchment, which has ‘also made ~
the acquaintance of the brittle pumice and brilliant
dyes, its margins being adorned with scarlet lines
which gleam out vividly along the less glowing
purple of its surface. Cedar-oil, too, has been
tubbed into. it to check the depredations of
insects, and now the long sheet is rolled up tight
and tied with the ‘‘red thongs.” The label, with
the name of the work and its author, is attached,
and a new volume is ready for the Roman reading-
public.

With books like these, however, we can well
understand why it is that in every Roman library
the door faced tu the cast, in order to give the
scrolls the benefit of the morning sun, and pre-
vent the formation of mold upon the cherished
volumes.

Realizing after all this the immense labor and
pains involved in the production of such works as
these, we turn to the obliging Zbvarius and ask
him what price they bring in the market. Judge
of our surprise when he assures us that, though a
volume so carefully prepared as the one we have
just seen may sell for somewhat more, yet twenty
cents of our money is an ordinary price, and that
many books, by even so popular an author as Mar-
tial, are sold for a still smaller sum.

Indeed, a new “book” that does not happen to
suit the popular taste, he tells us, often finds its way
directly to the fish-markets and groceries, to be
used by the clerks for casting up accounts, or. for
wrapping up goods for delivery to their customers.
Greatly astonished at this revelation as to ine
abundant supply and slight value of books in “ ye
olden time;” we continue our questioning, and, be-
thinking ourselves that they have no newspapers
here, we ask how the literary world becomes aware

_ of the publication of a new work. To this he re-
. plies that the book-sellers announce its appearance

on the posts of their shop-doors, and that it is also

_ customary for an author to send early copies to his

rich. and powerful friends and ‘patrons, some of
whom will not fail to give it notoriety by repeating
passages from it at the next dinner-party which
they attend. But one question only suggests an-
other, and we find ourselves quite in danger of
turning into animated interrogation-points, when,
fortunately, the gathering shadows warn us that
we must take our departure and journey back to
the modern world with its myriad book-shelves,
which the printing-press has filled with volumes
so unlike the rare, quaint treasures of this old Ro-
man library,









“ pups.”
[After a painting by J. G. Brown.]

VoL. X.—3. '



34

ALL THE PLUMS.

a
[Novemeer,



ALL THE PLUMS,

(A Thanksg. giving Story.)



By SOPHIE SWETT.



Ir did seem as if Thanksgiving never would
come.

The November page of the Farmers’ Almanac

that hung under the clock bore inriumerable prints
of small thumbs that had laboriously traveled
across it, counting the number of days that’ must
be lived through before that happy day arrived
which, according to the Governor’s proclamation,
was to be ‘‘a day of thanksgiving and praise.”

Little Darius and Lucy Ann thought praise
meant plum-pudding, and even Jonah, who -was
getting to be an old boy, and could do problems
in cube root, owned that it was not very long ago
that he thought so too.

There was a continual weighing and measuring
of goodies, and odors of-spice and sweetness
floated out of the great kitchen all over the house.
The children seeded raisins, and sliced citron, and
cracked walnuts, and chopped apples for the
mince-pies, but Lucy Ann and little Darius were
getting discouraged, for it seemed every day as
if the next must be Thanksgiving, and yet when
they awoke in the morning it was n’t.

This was not going to be only an ordinary Thanks-
giving day, with almost everything nice that could
be thought of for dinner, and a great many aunts

and uncles and cousins, all grown up, and all

wanting to sit down and talk (instead of having
a good time), for visitors. This year, their little
city cousin, whom they had never seen, was coming
to spend Thanksgiving with them.

Her name was Mabel Hortense, and the children
were very proud of having a cousin who lived in
the city and was named Mabel Hortense. At
Damsonfield Four Corners, where they lived, all
-the little girls were named Mary Jane or Sarah
Ann or Lucy Maria, or, at the best, Hattie and
Carrie; they had scarcely even heard of so fine a
name as Mabel Hortense. But a little girl who
lived in a great city, where there was scarcely
a bit of anything so common as grass, and the
“sreat big houses were all hitched on to each
other,” as Roxy Jane, the hired girl, said, and
hand-organs and monkeys were as thick as huckle-
berries in August, and there was a candy store at
every corner, could not be expected to have a
common name.

They had a photograph of Mabel Hortense,
with her hair banged and a doll almost as large
as a real live baby in her arms. She had a neck-

_caps on,

lace around her neck and bracelets on her arms
and ear-rings in her ears. Becky borrowed Hannah
Olive Judson’s blue-glass beads to wear during
Mabel Hortense’s visit, and made Lucy Ann a neck-

‘ lace of red alder-berries, and then, as they all had

on their Sunday clothes, she felt ready for Mabel

‘Hortense’s arrival.

It was the very night before Thanksgiving Day,
and all the aunts and uncles and cousins had
arrived, except Mabel Hortense and her mother,
and Peter Trott, the hired man, had driven over
to the station to bring them.

Even little Darius, who had begun to think that
Thanksgiving Day had been postponed until next
year, was now convinced that it was coming to-
morrow. There was a blazing log-fire in the great
fireplace in the sitting-room, and Priscilla sat on
the rug in front of it, herself and her three kittens
in that condition of holiday freshness which be-
comes New England cats on the eve of Thanks-
giving Day. The canary birds were singing so
loud that they had to be muffled in Grandpa’s
bandana. handkerchief, that the aunts and uncles
and cousins might hear each other relate all the
happenings of the past year.

Little Darius was continually running to the
door, with his cage of white mice under one arm
and his tame squirrel under the other, so that he
might show them to Mabel Hortense the very first
thing.

“JT would n’t be such a silly,” said Lucy Ann,
who had her black Dinah, with raveled yarn for
wool, and two great white buttons for eyes, in her
arms, and wanted Mabel Hortense to see her the
very first thing. ‘‘ Why in the city, where she
lives, the mice are all white, and so tame that they
come out and dance when people play on the
piano. Peter Trott says so. And they keep
squirrels in the stores, all with white aprons and
to crack nuts for customers. Peter
Trott says so.”

“ They aint so nice as my mice and my squirrel,
anyway, and Grandpa says not to b’lieve Peter
Trott,’cause he tells wicked, wrong stories { ”’ cried
little Darius, almost moved to tears at the possi-
bility that any mice or any squirrels were more
attractive than his. ‘‘I should n’t think you ’d want
to show any city girl your old Dinah. She was
homely enough before Grandpa sat on her and flat-
tened her all out; she’s ovfle now!”



1882. ]

Lucy Ann might have resented this, for she was
very fond of Dinah, and thought her a beauty in
spite of the accident that had befallen her,— which
was a very cruel one, for Grandpa weighed over two
hundred pounds, —but just then the carriage drove
up, and a little girl was lifted out by Peter Trott,
and set down inside the door.

There was Mabel Hortense, bangs and doll and
all, just as she looked in the photograph, only that
both she and the doll had on traveling costumes,
so there was not so much jewelry to be seen.

She did not look in the least like a Damsonfield
little girl, nor the doll like a Damsonfield doll.
The doll wore a suit trimmed with fur, just like
her mamma’s, and it fitted her just as nicely.
(Becky could only make a doll’s dress like a
sacque, with slits for the arms, and Aunt Eunice
did n’t think it was worth the while to make dolls’
dresses at all.) And she had on the daintiest gloves
and boots imaginable, without a wrinkle in them.
Gloves and boots were entirely unknown in doll
society in Damsonfield.

For one moment Lucy Ann felt ashamed of
Dinah, but she gave her an extra hug the next
moment to make up for it.

Becky was glad that she had on Hannah Olive
Judson’s blue beads, and that Lucy Ann had on
brand-new shoes, for Lucy Ann’s toes were almost
always threatening to stick out through her shoes,
and she did hope that Solomon would n’t tell that
the beads were borrowed; that would be just like
‘Solomon, and she wished she had thought to warn
him about it when Aunt Eunice was cautioning
him not to tell that they had borrowed the sugar-
tongs of Aunt Jemima, and that they did n’t always
have two kinds of preserves for supper.

‘he first thing that Mabel Hortense seemed to
notice was Dinah.

**Oh, what a perfectly beautiful doll!” she ex-
claimed. ‘‘ She is truly colored, is n’t she?”

“She was born go,” said Lucy Ann, proudly
displaying the raveled-yarn wool, which was
Dinah’s strong point in the way of looks.

‘*T don’t think I ever saw a colored doll before!

You will give her to me, wont you?”

Lucy Ann was very much surprised, and did n’t
know what to say. Becky gave her a little poke
with her elbow. Aunt Eunice had said they must
do everything that their city cousin asked them to
do, and Becky thought Lucy Ann ought to give
Dinah to her; but Dinah wasn’t Becky’s, and she
did n’t know how it felt to part with her.

“To keep?” said Lucy Ann, falteringly, after
Becky had given her a second poke.

“Oh, of course! I shall carry her home,” said
Mabel Hortense.

“Will you give me yours for her?” said Lucy.

ALL THE PLUMS.

35

“Oh, no; I want them both!” said Mabel Hor-
tense, decidedly.

And taking Dinah out of Lucy Ann’s arms—by
her wool—she thrust her under one arm and her
own doll under the other, and followed her mother
into the sitting-room. Lucy Ann’s tears began
to flow, but Becky whispered:

““T suppose that ’s the way city people do. You
must n’t cry.” ,

Mabel Hortense seated herself on a stool before
the fire, and immediately picked up the three
kittens, dropping a doll on each side of her.

“‘T like kittens. I shall take these home with
me,” she said.

Lucy Ann received a warning look from Becky,
but she felt that, when it came to carrying off kit-
tens, the ways of city people could not be endured,
and she said, firmly: ‘‘ The Maltese one, with the
very peaked tail, is Becky’s, and the black one with
a spot on his nose is Solomon’s, and the little, white,
fuzziest one is mine, and Priscilla herself belongs
to Jonah.”

Little Darius at this moment thrust his cage of
white mice and his squirrel before Mabel Hortense’s
eyes, and she dropped the kittens.

*¢Oh, what funny little things! And the squirrel,
with his tail the most of him, is too sweet! I shall
carry them all home with me.”

Even Becky began to doubt whether she should
like city ways. Lucy Ann’s eyes and mouth grew
into round O’s with astonishment, and little Darius
get up such a howl that Aunt Eunice forthwith
shut him up in the china-closet.

“‘T am afraid these children are not very
obliging,” remarked Mabel’s mother. ‘‘ Mabel
Hortense has always been accustomed to have
everything she wants.”

Lucy Ann drew Becky into the hall, and shut
the door. ‘‘ We must n’t let her see the play-house,
nor my tea-set, nor Solomon’s soldiers, nor little
Darius’s elephant, nor anything. I think we ’d
better carry them all up to the attic closet and lock
the door!” she exclaimed.

Becky thought so, too, and they hurriedly col-
lected all their playthings, and hustled them into
the attic closet, and locked the door securely.
Becky even took off Hannah Olive Judson’s blue
beads and left them there. It would be so dread-
ful if Mabel Hortense should decide to carry those
home with her!

But Becky’s conscience troubled her a little as
she went back to the sitting-room, for Aunt Eunice
had said they must be hospitable, and do every-
thing they could to make Mabel Hortense have a
good time. - Becky resolved that she would not re-
fuse to do anything that Mabel Hortense wanted
her to do.



36 .

ALL THE PLUMS.

[NovEMBER,



As she reéntered the sitting-room, Solomon was
entertaining Mabel Hortense.

“‘T have my old clothes on, because I’m a boy
and don’t care, but you ought to see how the others
have been fixing up, all in their Sunday things,
and Becky borrowed Hannah Olive Judson’s beads.
Say, are the sidewalks all made of gingerbread in
the city? Peter Trott says so.”

“‘No,” said Mabel Hortense, slowly and reflect-

ively. ‘‘ They are made of pound-cakes.”
“True as you live?” said Solomon. ‘‘I thought
it was only one of Peter Trott’s yarns. And are

the houses made of molasses candy?”

“*Oh, no, only some of the poor people’s houses ;
ours is made of ice-cream.” ©

‘*T should think it would melt!” exclaimed
Solomon.

“Tt does n’t, but sometimes we eat it up, and
build ourselves another,” said Mabel Hortense.

Becky looked at her. It was a feeble imitation
of the way in which Aunt Eunice looked at Lucy
Ann and her when they misbehaved in church.

““T am afraid you tell very wrong stories,” she
said, severely. ‘‘ People Bodie n't possibly live in
houses made of ice-cream.’

Mabel Hortense blushed very red, and cast down
her eyes. But then she answered, snappishly :

«‘ Well, who ever. s’posed he would believe it!
Such a big boy! I never saw one so silly!”

It was not the first time that Solomon had been
told he was silly, but coming from a girl who lived
in the city it was especially cutting.

Solomon made a resolve then and there that he
would “ get even ” with Mabel Hortense. —

“Do you like Thanksgiving Day?” asked
Becky, politely. She was afraid she had spoken
rather severely to Mabel Hortense, and was trying
to make amends for it.

“Not so very much,” said Mabel Hortense.
‘Tl like to see the stained glass in church make
the people’s noses look red and yellow, and then
there ’s the dinner, but that’s disappointing, be-
cause one can’t have all the plums.”

Becky and Solomon and Lucy Ann looked as-
tonished and inquiring.

“In the pudding, you know. I don’t care
anything about the dinner, except the pudding,
and I don’t care anything about the pudding, except
the plums. Mamma gives me hers, and Grandpa
gives me his, but other people are so selfish. They
eat their own plums. Could n’t you manage, to-
morrow, so that I could have all the plums?”

Solomon and Lucy Ann looked at each other in
silent astonishment. Lucy Ann was very fond of
plums, but it never had occurred to her that she
could, by any possibility, have more than her
‘share. Solomon was particularly fond of plums,

and had been known to imitate on the sly the
example of little Jacky Horner, but he had never
wanted to eat all the plums out of a Thanksgiving
plum-pudding. Mabel Hortense seemed to him
almost as wonderful as the hen that Mother Goose
was acquainted with, that
* Ate a cow and ate a calf,
Ate a butcher and a half,

Ate a church and ate a steeple,
Ate the priest and all the people!”

“7 will ask Aunt Eunice to give you a very
plummy piece, but I don’t see how you could have
all the plums,” said Becky, seriously.

Solomon was thinking. An idea had Suddenly
popped into his mind that here was a chance for
mischief. Solomon loved mischief. And there
might be also a chance to “‘pay up” Mabel Hor-
tense, who had laughed at him and called him silly,

“Oh, I think we could manage it,” said he. |
“‘Roxy Jane always bakes the pudding the day
before Thanksgiving, because on Thanksgiving Day
the oven is filled with the turkey and chickens
and things, and then she warms it up or serves it
with a hot sauce. The pudding is in the pantry
this very minute; I’ve seen it.”

“Well, what if it is?” asked Becky. *

“We might slip into the pantry when nobody
was looking, and carry it off and hide it some-
where,— out in the barn, on the hay-mow, would
be a good place, —and to-morrow we could eat it
and have all the plums!”

' “Why, of course! That is just as easy!
you’re a very nice boy to think of it. I7ll never
call you silly again. Of course, you’ll give me all
the plums,” said Mabel Hortense..

“It would be very wrong! What would Aunt
Eunice say? Why, Solomon, when last. Sunday
was your birthday, and you said you were surely

And

‘going to be good a week!”

“1 did n’t know then that I was going to have
company from the city,” said Solomon. ‘ And it
is n’t any harm, anyway. There’ll be plenty for
dinner, without the pudding — maybe ’t would make
some of them sick to eat it; and Aunt Eunice will
never find out what became of it.”

“1 don’t think it’s nice of you to say it would
be wrong, when I’m your company. People ought
to do everything that company wants.”

“Aunt Eunice said we must do everything that
Mabel Hortense wants us to,” urged Solomon.

“Yes, so she did,” said Becky, rather faintly,
ce but —_—__* -

“Tt does n’t make. any difference whether you help
or not, we’re going to do it,” said Solomon. “And
now, too, for they’re all talking and wont notice
where we go, and Roxy Jane is setting the table,
and can’t see us go to the pantry.”



1882. }

Lucy Ann skipped along with Solomon and
Mabel Hortense, not’ minding in the least that
Becky looked reprovingly at her.

After a little hesitation, Becky arose and followed
them. She might as well see what they were going
to do, she thought.

There was the Thanksgiving plum-pudding, in
a great, yellow earthen baking-dish, on the pantry
shelf, rich and toothsome and sweet-smelling.

‘“T was going to take the pudding-bag to put it
in, but it is n’t big enough for such a whacker of
a pudding, and the clothes-pin bag is n’t clean
enough. Becky, you go to the clothes-press
and get a clean pillow-case! We can slip it into
the wash-tub Monday morning, and nobody will
notice.”

Becky went. Since they were going to do it,
anyway, she might as well join them, she said to
herself. Perhaps it was n’t polite to refuse company.
And it was going to be great fun!

Solomon slipped a knife around the edge of the
pudding, to separate it from the dish, as he had
seen Roxy Jane do, and put it into the pillow-
case. Then they all stole softly out through the
long wood-shed to the barn, Solomon, with the
pudding slung over his shoulder, leading the way.

Solomon looked, cautiously around, to be sure
that Peter Trott was not in the barn. Peter was
not a tell-tale, but he had a sweet tooth, and it was
just as well to be on the safe side.

There was not a sound to be heard as. they
entered the barn, and both Solomon and Becky soon
forgot everything except that they were having
great fun.

They deposited the pudding in its pillow-case
bag in a bed of hay, covering it carefully so that
scarcely a glimpse of the white cloth was to be
seen. It was hardly done when Roxy Jane rang
the supper-bell vigorously.

‘“Now we shall all have to go to church in
the morning,” said Solomon, as they hurried into
the house, “‘ but the very first thing after we come
home we ’ll go up on to the hay-mow and eat the
pudding.”

One who was watching Solomon closely might
have seen a twinkle in his eye, when he said that,
which meant mischief deeper than any of his com-
panions in the pudding enterprise suspected.

For it would n’t be paying up Mabel Hortense
to let her eat all the plums. Oh, no, indeed!

At five o’clock the next morning, Solomon arose

from his bed softly, that he might not awake’

Jonah, who was sleeping beside him, dressed him-
self in great haste, and stole down-stairs. He had
Meant to be up at four o’clock, but, unfortunately,
had failed to awake. It was quite important for the
accomplishment of his purpose that he should get

ALL THE PLUMS.

37

to the barn before Peter Trott did, and Peter Trott
was a very early bird. ,

The large lantern which Peter used was not
hanging in its accustomed place, but that was not
a sure sign that Peter had gone to the barn, be-
cause he was not very orderly and might have left
it somewhere else.

Solomon lighted the small lantern, and tiptoed
softly, listening intently, all the way through the
wood-shed, which had never seemed so long nor so
dark. There was no sign of Peter Trott’s lantern,
and Solomon came to the conclusion that Peter’s
alarm-clock had not yet gone off.

An industrious hen, who had been laying an egg
at this unseasonable hour, flew off her nest with
loud cackling, and startled Solomon so that he
almost dropped his lantern into the hay. Perhaps
she meant to lay more than one egg that day,
because it was Thanksgiving Day, but Solomon
thought she might have waited until daylight.

Her nest seemed to be very near the place where
they had hidden the pudding. Solomon hoped
that she had n’t been having a peck at the plums.
He meant to have all those plums for his own
private refreshment. He would never have thought
of it if Mabel Hortense had not suggested it, and
he did not want to eat them all at once, but he
thought it would be a very good plan to hide the
pudding where nobody but himself could find it,
and have a private nibble whenever he liked.

But the best of it was that he should be more
than even with Mabel Hortense. Instead of having
all the plums, she would. n’t have any of them.
And would n’t the girls all be surprised when they
came, after church, to the place where the pudding
had been hidden and found it gone? And should
n’t he have to pretend to be surprised? Solomon
chuckled to himself, thinking of it.

By this time he had come to the place where he
had put the pudding. He put his hand down to
pull up the bag, but, lo and behold! there was only
a deep hole where the pudding had lain.

The pudding had vanished, bag and all!

Solomon’s first thought was that it must be
magic—some fairy had spirited it away, to punish
him for his misdeeds. But when his knees had
stopped shaking, he thought of Peter Trott.

Peter wore soft shoes, and was always near when
one did not suspect it, and he was very fond of
goodies. He might like all the plums as well as
Mabel Hortense. Just at that moment he heard
the noise of the hay-cutter at the farther end of the
barn, and a ray of light from Peter Trott’s lantern
was cast upon the barn-floor.

‘Peter, Peter, what have you done with the
plum-pudding ?” cried Solomon, angrily.

“* Sakes alive! Is that you up on the hay-mow?



38

ALL THE PLUMS.

[(NovemBErR,



Do you want to scare a fellow to death?” said
Peter,.in a shaking voice. ‘What are you doin’
up there at this time in the morning?”

“T’m not so early but what you’ve been before
me, and carried off my plum-pudding, or else eaten
it up!” said Solomon, almost in tears.

“‘Plum-puddin’! Plum-puddin’! You aint
dreamin’ or walkin’ in your sleep, are you? It’s
Thanksgivin’ Day, sure enough, and it’s likely
there ll be a plum-puddin’ along about dinner
time, good and spicy, and chock full of plums, but
it’s too early in the morning. to talk about it now.
I’m a master hand for plum-puddin’, myself, but
I should n’t consider it wholesome before break-
fast!”

“7 hid the plum-pudding, in a pillow-case, up
on this hay-mow, and it’s gone!” said Solomon,
‘and nobody has been here but you.”

“Hid a plum-puddin’ up in the hay? That’s
cur’us !”? exclaimed Peter Trott, in a tone of great
astonishment. ‘‘ And it’s gone >—that’s cur’user
still! But, now I think of it, that yaller-speckled
hen was makin’ a great fuss up there, and she’s
a master hand for victuals, that hen is, and she’s
got a terrible big swallow. Why, I see her swallow
a pumpkin the other day and make no more of
it than she would of a pea!”

‘¢T sha’ n’t believe any more of your stories,
Peter Trott!” cried Solomon. ‘I got called silly
by doing it, and Grandpa says not to.”

Peter looked very sad.

“Well, I s’pose I have got kind of an unfort’nit
habit of stretchin’ the truth a little. It kind of
seems to come nateral. But I ’m a-breakin’ my-
self of it fast. Now I come to think of it, it wa’ n’t
a pumpkin but a squash, and not more’n.a middlin’
sized one, that I see that hen swallow. And it a’nt
likely that she swallowed the puddin’, on account
of the bag; that would have stuck in her throat,
certain sure.” .

“You. have done something with that pudding,”
insisted Solomon, hotly.

“Well, now, I did toss some hay off that mow
into Dandy Jim’s stall. You don’t s’pose the
puddin’ could have caught on the pitchfork, do
you? Dandy Jim would n’t have eaten the bag,
anyhow, bein’ dretful pertikler about his victuals,
so it’s easy enough to find out.”

And Peter. Trott, in a very eager and interested
manner, went into Dandy Jim’s stall, and searched
about. Solomon followed him, with his lantern,
and looked carefully all over the stall. But no
traces of either pudding or bag were to be found,
and Dandy Jim, after the closest inspection, did
not seem to be suffering from indigestion, as Sol-
omon thought he certainly would be if he had
eaten the pudding-bag. |

Peter Trott certainly looked very innocent, but
Solomon had by no means lost his suspicions that
he knew more about the disappearance of the pud-
ding than he chose to tell, But to show anger
toward him would never bring Peter to confession.
So Solomon began. to plead with him:

“« Peter, please don’t tease me. P-l-eas-e tell me
all about it.”

Peter thrust both hands into his trousers pockets,
and looked very benevolent.

“Well, now, I have been jokin’ a little, that’s a
fact, but I don’t want to hurt your feelin’s. But as
for that puddin’, all I can say is that I saw a tramp
eatin’ somethin’ out in the barn-yard last night,
an’ it may ’a’ been that puddin’. I can’t say
certain. that it was the puddin’, but he was a-eatin’
ez if he enjoyed it mighty well. He was sittin’
kind of doubled up in that bushel-basket, with his
legs kind of danglin’, and he had a cloth tucked
under his chin for a napkin. Of course, I did n’t
know how he come by it. I did n’t once think
that it might be our Thanksgivin’ puddin’. I did
think about orderin’ him off, but he had such a
queer look in his eye that I felt like givin’ him a
wide berth, and I let him alone. Judgin’ from
what you tell me, I ’m afraid your puddin’ ’s gone
for good. But I can’t say for certain.”

Solomon felt satisfied that Peter was telling the
truth, now. Tramps were plenty in the neighbor-
hood, and, only the day before, he himself had
seen just such an one as Peter described, resting
under a tree. And Peter was always careless
about the barn door.

Now that the pudding was gone, Solomon began
to think anxiously of the probability of being found
out. While there was a great deal of fun to be ex-
pected with the pudding, that probability had kept
in the background of his mind, but now it loomed
out fearfully. Aunt Eunice would be sure to make
a strict investigation as soon as she knew that the
pudding was gone, and Aunt Eunice could always
find out things. Sometimes her finding out seemed
really marvelous, and she said that a little bird told
her. Jonah said she was only joking, and Becky
did n’t really believe it, but: Solomon was inclined
to think it was true. Solomon thought, now that
he came to consider the matter, that anybody
who had stolen the Thanksgiving plum-pudding
would n’t be ‘‘let off very easy.” He deliberated
whether he should throw the blame upon Mabel
Hortense or not. It seemed rather mean to tell

‘of a girl, but, ‘‘anyway, he should n’t have thought

of it, if it had n’t been for her.”

The Thanksgiving sermon had always seemed
endless to Solomon, but on this day it was actually
too short; anything was better than having dinner-
time come.





1882. ] ALL

As soon as they reached home, Mabel Hortense
and Lucy Ann came to him and whispered:

** Now we will go to the barn and have the pud-
ding, wont we?” :

Becky stood in the background, looking pale
and sad. The truth was, Becky’s conscience had
been making her very unhappy.

“ The pudding ’s gone,” said Solomon, gloomily.

“Gone! Where?” exclaimed Mabel Hortense,
Becky, and Lucy Ann, in a breath.

“Paten up!” said Solomon.

“What! plums and all?” exclaimed Mabel

‘Hortense, the corners of her mouth beginning
to droop. ‘Who did such a cruel, wicked thing?”

“A tramp. He ate the pudding— plums and all.”

**Oh, what a greedy thing, to eat all the plums!
{T wanted them myself,” said Mabel Hortense.

“We have n’t had a bit of fun. And what will
Aunt Eunice say?” said Becky.

‘Girls are always getting a fellow into trouble!”
said Solomon, savagely.

The children showed a surprising lack of eager-
ness in obeying the summons to dinner, all except
little Darius, who did not feel guilty, and still ex-
pected plum-pudding.



“ROXY JANE BEARING

THE PLUMS. 39

o

Solomon had a very small appetite for turkey,
and Becky could scarcely force down a mouthful.

Solomon felt, when they were waiting for des-
sert to be brought in, that it was one of the most
awful moments of his life, and Becky watched the
door with a frightened and fascinated gaze.

But what did their eyes behold! Roxy Jane,
with beaming face, bearing aloft a huge platter,
on which reposed a great, rich-brown, plummy-
looking pudding! It looked exactly like the pud-
ding they had stolen, and Roxy Jane said, in
answer to a compliment upon the looks of her
pudding, that ‘‘it got a splendid bake. She never
knew one to slip out of the dish so easily.”

Tt was placed on Solomon’s end of the table, and
he bent over and examined it critically. A tiny
wisp of hay was clinging to its side. Solomon
picked it off slyly and showed it to Becky.

“‘Grandpa, don’t ever send Peter Trott away,
for he ’s a good fellow!” said Solomon, eagerly.

And all the grown people’ wondered why the
plum-pudding made him think of that.

‘*T want all the plums!” said Mabel Hortense.

But nobody paid any attention to her, and she
had only her share.





ALOFT A GREAT, PLUMMY-LOOKING PUDDING!”



40 THE QUEST.

[NovEmser,

S é . ee a =| bere are Teng walas! ae
And bis little Brave, Ph nine are white at at one is black,
Py ae word? If As nef atail — or black a ee
Bitte { che ela | gee us come { a : nen th ome if -cloyi
Ar limping 6 ied dly homes OO prs dearfail are en e, |
at “nal oto setts uy all, ao, P ks tren, ae

A wc shall never i
y 8)

arnin
\ The cream ees beaut a days.
A 4 one feo up "a paraso
started way.
ps ee, great old yellow Fh LNES
Y A across The clam wen a

ete little. spring

Dy eve the oS a eg

= Tet





1882.) THE QUEST. AI














Oph Jessamine The Jessamine swung

athe secrel Tell. .
Wive us & hindiwe prayy® C
Kn w. of Or place q

Whe belly that hand

rom thal gnor led ad

cient Tree}






Gucel odory fell ‘ ee
















v ust we seeks or a. Trace] | Crom each olden be >, s
efOT our poor lost Tai 5 sé J minslrelsy.
To-day? ik EP)






ey

App oul of the little hollaw
Af ilong, “the ondy way.
frien ‘through theeferub-oak barrens
“Whey ran wilh the brbblening day-
“he Jen ar? asunbeam Tedcther
Plered the Jgive-oak prove,
nh - ae 5 ns Bar
A UT hat the ish winds Toss
é xP their flecee wilh atouch of love. a‘

e : {pe -
és ZA
Renee \ e Gy
cg

OO Ricsatt boy Mage
3 OS 1 Bn! liSht winds “ass!
ell us fhe secret, we pray. '
Sh what far place

‘ust we ook er a, trace

yf our poor logl* Fauils To~day ?”




















hen the mor thate. ung, Qe
is the Oaks and une
Ke a mis, swayed To a" fro.
Jet no sound nor sien

= id! haf they could divine



42 , THE QUEST. {[November, .



¥ Este the sald ¢ of the river rfevemp® VY : 7

= Ch itole with eEAryome tread,
IR pause by | the or where the pe Kise £ a iY
Pe es Me gectyin lifted his fee yy it









BI -
‘9 meee snake .

ome answer make

a LS our gycilioning how, we ‘pray. wt Wy 7

aG what slrand e place
Tall we look “yor, o Trace

Jad eur poor lost Fails Te-day?” Be

et the Ae sank ae
Pa e bank ,
Oe sth st ee thee rf
Niet a sound te . sign |
shat. could divithe

ave emt ee they were seeing:

Tey Ss a!

2

growin
) the cocet abn no Sie bh Shae
oar above them®@blow

JpsPert hey lil-hey weched at las

he lazy rivers flowing.
IR°IRGI* ,





1882. ] THE QUEST. 43.



‘fo. yehis per nen an sas
Gomes, spsper @ Tog eth then |
quest o~ dey ts

® cath one Tuned his pee

) e brea,
Qysh yor Tait ‘into if oe apt sailed

hip EY quest





beF ples es SF sheep tis: ay be-
IISDown & iG oe river dre

/ (Oipe € reali ht gleam onitk shore |
eee “the leaver in the Ce 2?

i
be 2 ik ering the yellow, bells thet Beane
£5 ve eee cet th @ essariine’s dark reen TrespeS,

ch = S gh heats the sond of fheS za ~birel
0 See Pyie in 2. woods recesses?

ee
ee

7 PERS GPE
pee ah. as Hurry | Hurry
Le 4 pet ed along your Led | !

or as stir as preaching, a all ourhil )

A PE J palin just ae







44 THE QUEST. - (Novemser,



Ti : Tan s the pier Tore
Kr fe rom shore @ shore,
ee vi i ef Je had dene. m il; life before -
Sul no matter how de th walery sped
Fhe tail, of the s <

Cas was sie” 2
gg alipatoly "were they all gS

Nes oh Bne could see.
“Phey WERE basking in theyun 7
WY hen the Tails * came floating down:



ru “never oe ioen by The eyed
Nes Nh the Tails lp b-floating i “hy
@ Along en er way To fiefs ed. 5B
Oe the “saterr ‘hurrying;
N\Foo "© 3 Y08
@) hurrying 2Jlurrying 6
» toustling » huglling , ~
Of) Ome | \iHling and OF ing
Sach ster inks pes of the a nly fare: |
OA hile hen thr ie conch tan all
dhe sheep: sche erécl in his parasol,
balancing here am cre »
ZN THiS, shore, now,
ewe i ates é dhe oer,
Dien ee To hy Brettes th rit ig aid
WAY ce river—Tways all hot if cou
Pec ove veg —Aeevard Ze ge





THE QUEST. 45

1882.]



























































































aia
2

ee

fs. ae:
- R.
=

‘ Vis ps









a
Z

ee



eee





46 THE QUEST. [Novemner,















——————— By. |
\ CS oR oa o ne below his =
Cre eee urn —ree: oe
{ o (po whe beyond if the afbly ne =
08 ics ee ledge, Twernly Jeet ar sO,
Ke ead| lang inle oo below, —
fs ~ ees ddyiné 4 whir Ino
( Sevisting 3 and pee ngs
pe e ” J issifsippi elf would wt know
Sphich way | it ought F To turn and glow: ;

Ie. “Tails went down Sah. an. ews sh;
os Alli igators wilh shove oaâ„¢ rails
ex ‘To bi ee clung ie a
a reac ec e EQDs
& ailep, They shot oul 5 weet, one, wt alle. me
" Le;,! |
I oe © | bel we
alee © ofory lca mrs \-

Bid as the a swepl a ne ZA

OSS







Sach ee Ais own posticnlar fail.
BFed seam ashore wi ot a -werd5

“Pur of AI Ligatores wt Poyasoly
ep Neth Rething more Was ever heard. ——

CRY







1882.] THE QUEST. 47





Aitth BoPeey
y Odes | lnvit’ beer: shea,

ea bat Rio where to fad Them-
” ‘@). lsausthem alone

oe they ll come bome.

rian their Tails — zs
en:





Ape





48

THE TINKHAM BROTHERS

2 NovEemsBeEr,

TIDE-MILL.



THE TINKHAM BROTHERS’

TIDE-MILL.*

: By J. T. TROWBRIDGE.





g al
o a

& ee o

“CAN YOU SHOW ME DEMPFORD STREET?’”

CHAPTER I.
ON THE TAMMOSET RIVER.

A YOUNG fellow, about seventeen years old,—a
mere boy, in fact, with a rather solid-looking but
fresh and pleasant face,—stepped from a train at
the Tammoset station, one March afternoon, and
looked about him with the air of a stranger.

After a brief survey of the plashy village streets, -

bordered with gutters half full of snow and slug-

*Copyright, 1882, by J. T. Trowbridge.

gish water, he addressed a flagman who was com-
ing along the platform.

“Can you show me Dempford street?”

‘¢ First street to the left,” was the ready answer,
illustrated by a motion of the flag rolled up on its
stick.

“* Does that take me to the river?”

“Straight to the river—straight to Dempford
bridge.”

‘‘And Mr. Dushee’s place?”

‘Qh, Dushee’s!” said the flagman. ‘That ’s a

All rights reserved.



1882, ]

THE TINKHAM BROTHERS’

TIDE-MILL. 49



little off the main track. Turn to your right, just
before you get to the bridge, and keep down the
river a few rods, till you see an old mill.”

‘That ’s just what I want to see,” the boy re-
plied, with a look of satisfaction. ‘‘ Much obliged.”

Picking his way along the muddy sidewalks, he
passed beyond the village, and in a few minutes
came to the brow of a hill, where he paused.

Below was the river, sweeping, full-banked and
strong, across the foreground of a brown land-
scape, mottled with dingy patches of snow-drifts.
On the left, not very far away, was a large pond
or lake, still ice-bound, except near the mouth, out
of which the dark current flowed. There were
orchards and groves, and pleasant residences here
and there, on the far-winding shores.

“That must be fine in summer,” he said to
himself, with a smile. “‘We’ll keep a boat and
go a-fishing, and have some jolly sails—if the
chickens I’m counting will only hatch. Wont it
be nice to take Mother out, and row with her along
by those woods, just after sunset?—if she will
only agree to my plans. And Letty, wont she like
it! But I know it can’t be; it’s all too good to
come true.”

And yet there was a look on his face which said
that it should come true, if the determined will
and good wit of a boy of his size could accomplish
it.

The river flowed beneath the bridge at the foot of
the slope, and, making a curve to the right, soon
disappeared under the hill, which terminated there
in a low bluff. On the summit of that was an old-
fashioned house, and just beyond, through the
bare boughs of a large willow-tree, appeared a
brown. roof.

“That must be the mill,” he eaeaunet: starting
to walk toward it.

Descending the bluff, he took a east along
the river’s brink, amidst a scene picturesque enough
even at that season of the year.

On his right was the bluff, or high bank, to the
steep side of which heavy snow-drifts still clung.
On his left, the whirling stream rushed on toward
alow dam, over which it broke with a sound that
was music to his ears. The mossy turf of the path
he trod was supported by the roots of willow-trees

that overleaned the water, in the largest of which —

an immense pollard, with stout branches —seats
were framed, with a little foot-bridge of plank lead-
ing to them from the top of the bank.

“What a place for Mother to sit and sew, in
pleasant weather!” he said to himself, with ever-
kindling enthusiasm. ‘‘ We ’ll put a little railing
along by the plank, and we can help her over
safely. It beats all the bay-windows in the world!
Right over the water, and up amOny the birds!”

VoL. X.—4,

A pair of those early comers, the blue-birds,
were there already, flitting in the boughs, their
beautiful plumage and richly warbled notes hinting
of the delights of the season of leaves and flowers

now so near at hand.

But, while taking in with keen interest so many
things, the eye of the boy did not neglect the prin-
cipal object of his visit.

That rose before him, at the end of the path,
close by the great willow—a little, old, brown
two-story building, built partly over the water, at
the end of the dam, and partly against the high
bank.

A door at the end of the path opened into a shed-
like wing, where his eye was delighted with the
sight of a forge, with its great bellows. :

“‘ This is what the boys will like!” he said, with
anodandasmile. ‘‘ And there is the water-wheel!
I wonder why it is n’t going. I believe the place
is deserted.”

He peeped through an open door-way, leading
from the shed into the lower story of the mill, and
saw on one side a long work-bench, with lathes, a
circular saw beyond, wheels and boards overhead,
and all sorts of odd litter scattered about the room.

Nothing very attractive, you would have said ;
and yet the sight filled the boyish visitor with mild
rapture.

“‘ Everthing is lovely, so far! But I must n’t ap-
pear too well pleased. There ’s somebody.”

The rodf of the shed formed a walk from the
upper story of the mill to the top of the bank.
Footsteps were heard on the boards overhead, and
presently a chubby-faced boy appeared beyond, de-
scending a path through the slushy snpw.

“T*ve come to look at your mill,” said Boy Num-
ber One, carelessly.

“Wall, ye can look—don’t cost: nothin’,” said
Boy Number Two, with a grin.

“It’s a dilapidated old shell,” remarked Num-
ber One.

‘¢ Wall, kind 0’,” said Number Two, “‘ though she
aint so old as she looks. She never had no coat

-of paint; that ’s what ’s the matter.”

“‘T should think so,” said Number One. ‘Is the
water-power good for anything?”

’ “ Good for anything!” echoed Number Two, as
he went and stood by Number One, and watched
the current rushing by the undershot wheel.
‘* There ’s power enough.”

‘Why is n’t somebody using it, then?”

“Well, we might; tide is going out strong now.”

“¢- You are dependent on the tide, are you?”

“Of course,” said Number Two. ‘‘ Don’t you
know? It’s a tide-mill.”

‘I’m not much acquainted with tide-mills,”
Number One replied.‘ Explain it to me.”



50

THE TINKHAM BROTHERS’

TIDE-MILL. [Novemser,



“This is the Tammoset River,” said Number Two,
* though some folks call it the Dempford River. It
runs between two towns. This is Tammoset on
this side, and that is Dempford over there.”

“¢ And what’s the name of the lake?”

“That ’s got more names than a poor man has
shirts,” grinned Boy Number Two. ‘“‘ Some folks
call it Tammoset Lake, and some Dempford Lake ;
but ’most generally they say jest the lake, or the
pond.”

“Do you mean to say that the tide flows all the
way up here, from the harbor?”

“Course I do! Why not? It’s only about seven
miles, and there ’s scarce any fall to the water.”

“Is the water of the lake salt or fresh? ” asked
the strange boy.

“Fresh, of course,” the Tammoset boy replied.
“No salt water ever gits up as fur as here, without
tis in avery dry time. They do say the water in
the bottom of the pond is a leetle mite brackish ;
though I don’t know how anybody knows.”

“J see,” remarked the visitor, who was not
quite so ignorant as he had been willing to appear.

“When the tide comes in, it forces back the flow |

of fresh water; but it turns again before it gets up
as faras here. Salt water being heavier than fresh,
any that gets into the lake would stay at the
bottom.”

While they were talking, there came a sudden
rush of water under the wheel, which began to
move, slowly at first, then with a brisk fush of the
revolving paddles.

“There she goes!” said the Tammoset boy.
.“T told you ’t was about time for her to begin to
hum. Do you want to see Father?”

**Is Mr. Dushee your father?”

“Yes, and he owns the mill; and he wants to
sell it. Do you know of anybody who wants to
buy? 7

The Tammoset boy spoke so eagerly that the
boy who really wanted to buy thought it best to
appear more indifferent than ever.

‘J ’d like to see him by and by.
want to sell?” ;

“¢ Oh; Ld’n’ know! Tired on’t, I's’pose. Wants
to git into some other kind o’ business, where he
wont have to work so hard.”

‘¢ That ’s natural,” said the visitor.
how you: take advantage of the tide.”

The boy who belonged to the place led the way
to a platform over the end of the dam, and pointed
out a broad opening in it, stopped by movable
boards, over which the water poured. |

“Them ’s the . flash-boards,” he explained.
*¢ When the tide runs up they float, and let it go up
into the pond. Those ropes keep ’em from float-
ing away. After the tide turns, and we want the

Why does he

‘¢ Show me

power, all we ’ve got to do is to put. down the
flash-boards. Soon’s the water has fell away a
leetle from the lower side, we’ve got about as
smart a water-power, till tide comes up again, as
ever ye need to have, fora small, perty business,
ye know. Two tides a day, understand.”

“Only, one of them ’s apt to be in the night,”
replied the visitor, with a laugh. ‘‘Do you own
any land on the other side ?”

““No need of that,” said the mill-boy. ‘‘ Father
jest bought the right of the owner to build his
dam and keep it there ninety-nine years. I don’t
know why they did n’t =ay. a hundred, while they
was about it.” .

“Ninety-nine seems fans enough for all practi-
cal purposes,” said the visitor, hardly able to con-
ceal his delight at the general aspect of things.
“What ’s the price of the old trap, anyway?”

*J don’t know what the price is; but Father says

~he means to sell for what he can git,” said young

Dushee, innocently.

“Oh, does he?” thought the visitor, with secret _
glee—not that he was at all anxious to obtain the
property for less than it was worth, but that, hav-
ing already set his heart on it, he earnestly hoped
that the price would come within the means at his
command.

CHAPTER II.
THE OWNER OF THE MILL.

A LARGE-FACED, sandy-complexioned man was
at work before a lathe when the two boys entered
the shop. He was turning what promised to be a
croquet-ball, making the fine chips fly, and the
round, ragged-looking block hum.

As the mill-boy had just such another flabby-
cheeked, sandy countenance, laid out on a smaller .
scale, the visitor did not-need to be told that he
was in the presence of the elder Dushee.

He watched the operation of turning with lively
interest, while the son spoke to his father, and
tried to attract his attention. But the elder Dushee,
having noticed by a glance that it was only another
boy who had come in with his boy, kept steadily
at his work, with no more expression in the exten-
sive features than if they had been composed of
‘the sand they so much resembled.

After a while he paused in his cutting to apply
the curved arms of a measure to his revolving
ball. Then the son tried again.

‘‘ Here ’s somebody to look at the mill.

he wants to buy!”
' Instantly a gleam of sunshine lighted up the
Sahara-like countenance—-a smile, in other words
—which was turned hospitably on the youthful
stranger.

Guess



1882. ]

THE TINKHAM BROTHERS’ TIDE-MILL.

51



“Come to look at the mill, have ye?’ Scanning
him closely, and seeing what a mere boy he was,
the man added: ‘‘ But I don’t s’pose you want to
buy?”

“‘No, I don’t,” said the visitor.

The sunshine faded from the desert.

“ But I know parties who may wish to purchase,”
he continued, ‘‘and I have come to examine and

report.”
“Oh! all right.” The sandy waste lighted up
again. ‘Ill show you what we ’ve got here.”

“Don’t leave your work,” said the visitor.

‘“‘That can wait. J happened to get hold of
some good apple-tree wood, and I thought I would
turn a few croquet sets,” Mr. Dushee explained.
‘¢ Who are the parties you speak of?”

«Well, my brothers and myself. There are five
of us altogether. I am the third. Our name is
Tinkham.”

“The Tinkham boys! I have heard of the
Tinkham boys!” Mr. Dushee exclaimed. ‘ And,
by George! I owe ’em a grudge, too!”

‘1 am sorry for that,” replied young Tinkham,
modestly.

“Ves, sir,” said Mr. Dushee, good-naturedly,
notwithstanding his grudge. ‘‘J was making a
very nice doll’s carriage for Mellen & Company ;
they sold all I.could turn out. But ail to once
they said: ‘Mr. Dushee, we can’t take any more
of them carriages at that price.’ ‘What’s up?’
says I. Says they, ‘We have to retail your car-
tiage at three dollars; but here ’s some, jest about
as good,— better, too, in some respects,—that we
can sell for two.’ ‘Whose carriages be them?’
says I, and J ll own that they was mighty cute
little things! By two or three ingenious tricks,
the inventors had managed to make a cheaper
article than mine, while it was quite as perty,—
mebby pertier,—and nigh-about as strong.”

The visitor smiled quietly, while Mr. Dushee
went on.

“Whose make be them?’ says I. ‘The Tink-
ham boys’,’ says they. ‘Who’s the Tinkham

_boys?’ says I. ‘The Widder Tinkham’s,’ says they.
‘That ’s about all we know of ’em—only that
they ’ve got long heads on their shoulders, and can
make dolls’ carriages cheaper ’n you can.’ ‘Very
well,’ says I; ‘let °em make ’em!’ But I tell
ye I was mad!” :

“That little carriage was my brother Luther’s
notion,” said the Tinkham boy present. ‘‘ He’s
only nineteen, but he’s full of ideas, and can do
almost anything he séts out to. He didn’t set out to
undersell you, Mr. Dushee, or to injure your busi-
ness; but he saw there might be improvements
made in dolls’ carriages, and it appears that he
succeeded in making them.”

“Qh, that ’s all right!” Mr.
“Where ’s your shop?”

‘‘We have n’t any shop of our own,” the Tink-
ham boy answered, frankly, ‘‘ and we are looking
about for one. That is, ] saw your advertisement,
and thought perhaps your tide-mill would suit our
purpose.”

-“ Should n’t wonder if it would!” said the
proprietor, gleefully; ‘‘should n’t wonder a mite!
Where have you done your work?”

**At home, and in our Uncle Dave Darrill’s
saw-mill. My older brothers, Luther and Martin,
began to make things for their own amusement
while they were going to school. Then, when
Father died, and they had to go to work, they
thought they would put some of their toys and
knickknacks on the market. A few sold pretty
well, and that encouraged them to invent more.
They have made a good ‘many of their own tools,
and contrived the machinery they have put up in
Uncle’s mill, Iam not much of an inventor, my-
self,” the Tinkham boy went on, ‘‘but I am a
tolerably good workman, and I believe I ’ve a head
for business.” ‘

“1 should think you had!” said Mr. Dushee,
with increasing good humor.

5‘I don’t want to be separated from my brothers ;
I want to keep the family together,” the represent-
ative of the Tinkhams went on, with a swell of
emotion in histones. ‘*I have two younger broth-
ers, still at school, and one sister. My mother fell
and broke her knee on a bad place in the side-
walk, just after Father died, and she is a cripple.
We want to keep her with us.”

“A good idee! a good idee!”’ Mr. Dushee ex-
claimed, the sunshine of his smile expanding until
it seemed to spread all over the continent of his
person, and put him into a-unhiversal glow.

“‘The time has come when the boys ought to
have a shop of their own, with a little elbow-room
and water-power. I want to keep with them, and
learn to be the business man of the concern. Then
our younger brothers can work into it. That’s
my plan, and that ’s why I have come——”

Suddenly, seeming to recollect himself, the vis-
itor hesitated. He had set out to be very diplo-
matic, and here he was telling the honest truth and
exposing his secret motives without any caution
whatever. Indeed, it was not in Rush Tinkham’s
frank and impulsive nature to use much reserve
and finesse, however needful he might think them
in advancing his personal interests; but he in-
stinctively broke through them, and stood on the
solid and enduring ground of sincerity.

. “You ’ve come to jest the right place,” Mr.
Dushee made haste to assure him. ‘‘ This is jest
the mill you want!” showing his visitor about the

Dushee said.



52

THE TINKHAM BROTHERS’ TIDE-MILL.

[NovemBer,



little factory. ‘‘ Everything in perfect repair, shab-
by as things look. Good water-power, good ma-
chinery, plenty of room. Come upstairs.”

Rush Tinkham felt sure that his brothers would
be delighted with what he saw But he said dis-
creetly: :

“‘T should n’t wonder if it would suit us. Now,
about the price.. Put your figures right down ‘to
the lowest point; then, if we can reach up to
them, I’ll try to have my brothers come out and
see the property.”

“You ought to buy the whole place,” said the
owner; ‘‘ good house, an acre of land, garden, and
stable.” ‘

“‘T should like that, if we can afford it,” said
Rush; thinking, ‘‘ We ll keep a horse, and give
Mother such nice rides!”

Mr. Dushee then showed him the house and
grounds, the boy’s keen eyes taking in everything,
while he often said.to himself: ‘‘ Mother will like
this; wont Mother take comfort in that!” for,
though simple and plain, everything was spacious
and comfortable, compared with the narrow quar-
ters which the family occupied in the city.

‘Nice place, aint it?” said the proprietor, with
his most expansive smile, as they returned to the
mill. «
“T like it,” Rush replied, frankly; ‘‘and I am
surprised that you should want to part with it.”

“¢T don’t want to,” said Mr. Dushee. ‘‘ But, if I
sell the mill, I don’t care to keep the house. And
I want to sell the mill because the Tinkham boys
cut under me, and make dolls’ carriages cheaper’n
I can.”

He laughed. Rush laughed too, and said:

“There ’s no other reason?”

‘That ’s the principal reason. My ways are
ruther old-fashioned, and I can’t get out of the
ruts; I can’t compete with younger men with their
modern improvements.”

“Your water-power is all right?” Rush inquired.

The owner grinned. Young Dushee also grinned,
with a curious expression, as he stood and listened
to the conversation and watched his father’s face.

“Tt ought to be; I’ve used it nigh on to fifteen
year. I’ve never seen the time,” the elder Du-
shee added, ‘‘when I could n’t depend on eight
hours, in every twelve, of good running power.
Each tide is about two hours coming up. In about
two hours more it will be running down fast enough
for the wheel. Then we have eight hours, as I
say, before the water sets back again. In the
driest time, when fresh water fails and a good
many mills have to stop, the tide keeps up the
‘supply here.”

“You ’ve a right to dam the stream?” said
Rush, looking out on the river from a window.

‘CA perfect right,” the elder Dushee declared,
rather earnestly, while the younger watched his
face with the same curious grin which Rush would .
have done well to observe. ‘‘It don’t injure no-
body. It keeps the level of the lake stiddier ’n
it would be without it, and that’s ruther an ad-
vantage to land-owners than otherwise.”

*¢T should think it might be in the way of boats,”
Rush suggested. :

There was a sort of sunset flush on the sandy
desert of a face, as the proprietor answered stoutly :

“Whether ’t is or not, it has been there, as I
said, nigh on to fifteen year; and it has a perfect
right to be there, for this aint a navigable stream.”

They then talked of terms; and Mr. Dushee,
after much hesitation, named a price for the whole
place, and also a separate price for the mill.

“Tf everything is as you say, and as it looks to
be,” said Rush, ‘‘I ll have my brothers, and per-
haps my uncle, come and talk with you.”

“It’s jest as I say, and jest as it looks,” Mr.
Dushee assured him. Then, as Rush started to
go, he said: ‘‘ Wait till we tackle up, and my boy
shall carry you over to the depot. Dick, run and
be backing out the buggy.”

Rush Tinkham took a last survey of the mill,
the river, and the pleasant grounds, while father
and son were ‘‘ tackling up,” and the father gave
the son this parting counsel :

‘‘ Watch the clock on the steeple, and keep
driving till jest a minute or two afore train-time,
so he wont have no chance to talk with anybody
else about the mill. And be sure you don’t let on
anything about M

Here he lowered his voice, for the horse was
harnessed, and, Rush was coming to get into the
buggy-

Returning along the hill-side toward the lake,



-Rush, from the high buggy-seat, observed an

object which had hardly attracted. his attention -
when he passed within sight of it on foot. It was an
odd-looking, half-finished structure, partly hidden
by trees on the shore.

‘¢ What are they building over there?” he asked

~ of Dick Dushee.

Now, as this was a dangerously near approach to
the subject which he had been warned by his father
not to ‘‘let on anything about,” Dick Dushee, I
regret to say, prevaricated.

‘Oh, I d’n’ know,” he replied. ‘‘ Some sort of
a summer-house, I believe.”

“An odd-locking summer-house,” was Rush
Tinkham’s comment, ‘“‘and an ugly object to be
set there, on the Iake-shore !”

Dick Dushee looked straight before his nose at
the horse’s tail, and made no reply.

They rode on, and, with his mind full of other





1882. ]

THE TINKHAM BROTHERS’

TIDE-MILL. 53



things, Rush thought no more of the odd-looking
“‘summer-house,” destined though it was to be
the source of unnumbered woes to the future own-
ers of the tide-mill.

CHAPTER III.
THE TINKHAM FAMILY.

RusH TINKHAM went home that evening full
of enthusiasm for the purchase of the Dushee
property.

“Tt seems as though the place had been made
on purpose for us,” he said, drawing his chair up
to the table, where the family were already at
supper. ‘‘We must have it! We will have it!”

‘¢ Even if we have to steal it,” suggested Martin,
the oldest son, whose habit it was to grow cool as
the juniors grew warm on any subject.

He had a dry way with him, and a serious drawl,
which, together with a trick of drawing down one
side of his homely mouth, gave a droll effect to his
little sarcasms.

“‘You would say steal it, or anything, to have
it, if you should pay it a visit,” said Rush. “‘ Oh!
the nice water-power, the iron lathe and the wood
lathe, the steam-box, the forge, the jig-saws, and
things—it would do your heart good, Mart, to see
’em!”

**T rather think it would make my heart ache to
see what J could n’t have,” Mart replied.

“Rush has got tide-mill on the brain,” remarked
Luther, the second son, a near-sighted youth in
glasses, which gave a singularly old look to his
face of nineteen. He stammered a little. ‘* F-f
funny! Rush can’t invent anything, and yet he’s
the one who is so anxious for us to have a Fff-
factory of our own.” : :

“You are just as anxious as he is,” spoke up
Letty, the sister, a bright girl in her sixteenth year;
“but you are not half so enterprising.”

“Come, children,” said the mild mother, in her
cripple’s chair, which had been drawn up to the
table, ‘postpone your disputes, and hear what
Rocket has to say.”

“Rocket” was the playful family name for Rush ;
though I am not sure that any one could have told
how he ever came byit. Perhaps it was on account
of an eager, impetuous way he had of starting up
and darting off on new enterprises — a trait which
had been more noticeable in him two or three
years before than now.

Or it may have been suggested by his real name.
Since a rocket goes with a rush, why should not
“Rush” give rise to “‘ Rocket”?

Each of the children had some such nickname,
and it was a beautiful trait of the mother. that,

despite her years, her widowhood, and her crippled
limb, she entered into all innocent sportiveness of
this sort with as much spirit as any of them.

“‘ The tide-mill is my idea, and, for that rea-
son, Mart and Lute oppose it,’ said Rush. ‘‘ But
they I] come ’round. It’s just the place for you,
Mother ; and for you, Letty! Such a great willow-
tree as there is, with seats in it, almost over the
water, and a foot-plank running to them from the
bank! A pair of blue-birds came while I was there,
and told me how pleasant it was in summer.”

**Oh!” exclaimed Letty, sharing his enthusiasm.
““You make me want to fly to get there! I’m
longing for trees and water!”

‘And, of course, we shall keep a boat and a
horse; and, Mother, you shall have the loveliest
rides on the lake and the fine Tammoset roads!”
Rush rattled on. “‘Anda garden for flowers and
vegetables —think of that! And pigs and chickens,
boys!” addressing the two youngest, at the end of
the table.

“YT go in for the pigs and chickens!” cried
Rupert, aged fourteen.

“Let ’s move to-morrow!” exclaimed Rodman,
aged twelve.

‘But you have n’t told us the price of all these
fine things,” said the mother, with a smile.

“Ves, Rocket,” added Martin, who was far more
interested than he appeared. ‘‘ Now for the cold
water.”

“The asking price is four thousand dollars.
But I’ve no doubt we can buy it for three, for
Dushee is awfully anxious to sell. That includes
everything ; and there is an acre of land. By the
way, boys, there’s a good joke!”

And, to explain Dushee’s motive for selling,
Rush told the story of the dolls’ carriages which
Luther’s had driven out of the market.

That pleased Luther, and brought him over to
Rush’s side.

“Now, I’ve something to tell you,” he said.
“‘Mart to-day received a p-p-proposal to make
all the wood-work of Cole & Company’s fire-
works. To do that, we shall need our own shop.”

“Oh, now! if everything is n’t made a-pur-
pose!” said Rush. ‘‘Dushee said he must have
half down in cash, say fifteen hundred. You ’ve
got twelve hundred, Mother; and I’m sure we
can raise the rest somehow, with enough to move
and start with.”

The widow smiled, but with something like a
look of pain.

““My poor little twelve hundred dollars!” she
said; ‘‘all I have in the world!”

“Except your children, Mother,” said Letty,
with a high, proud look. ‘See those five. stal-
wart boys!”



54

LITTLE KATE’S DIARY.

[NovEMBER,



“And my dear, darling daughter!” said the
mother, with starting tears.
anybody else what you all.are tome. Iam rich
in your love and help. But I must look out care-
fully for my twelve hundred dollars, just the same.
I can’t—JI can’t risk that!”

“‘ Where ’s the risk?”? Rush asked. “I tell you
‘this is a big thing that has been kept waiting for
us. We’re bound to succeed, and build up a
business, and make such a home for you, Mother,
as you never could have unless we launched out 3 a
little.”

“Well, well! we ‘ll see,” said Mrs. Tinkham,
quickly brushing away a tear, and smiling reso-
lutely. ‘* We shall do nothing rashly.”

“Of course,” replied Rush. “I want Lute
and Mart and Uncle Dave to go and see the place,
examine it thoroughly, and make sure that every-
thing about it is all right; and then buy it only
if they think it ’s best.” .

: There was much more talk on: abe exciting topic,

. the result of which was that the two oldest boys
and their uncle visited the Dushee place two days
later, and got the refusal of it for thirty-six hun-

“¢T know better than.

dred dollars—sixteen hundred to be paid in cash,
the remainder to be secured by mortgage.

The uncle advised the purchase, and Mart and
Lute were now as eager as Rush himself to get
possession of the old tide-mill and the river-side
home. They had not noticed the odd-looking
““ summer-house” on the lake-shore.

The boys had two hundred dollars of their own,
and their uncle, who knew them well and believed
in them, offered to lend them five hundred more. .
After that the mother could no longer withhold
her consent.

To make every step secure, a lawyer examined
the title to the property, and, that being found
satisfactory, the bargain was finally closed, to the
great joy of Rush and-his brothers, and equally
to the satisfaction of Mr. Dushee. |

“They ’re young and plucky; they can fight it
better ’n [ can,” he remarked, with a big sigh of
relief, when he told Dick that he had at last got
the “‘ plaguy thing” off his hands. ‘¢ Now let ’em
find out!”

Thus, the tide-mill became the property of the
Tinkham boys, and began its exciting adventures.

(To be continued.)

LITTLE KATE’S DIARY.

By Mrs. M. F. Butts.

LITTLE Kate Andrews had long wished to keep
a diary. Her elegant Cousin Maud, from the city,
who wore trails and frizzes, and carried a wonder-
ful painted fan and a white parasol trimmed with
lace, kept a diary. She used to sit at her table
and write, after everybody else was in bed. Some-
times Kate slept with her, and she would wake up
after her first long nap, and watch Maud as she
wrote. Kate thought she looked very interesting
in her long white wrapper, her black hair hanging
over her shoulders, and her head supported upon
her hand. To sit up in that way and write in a
diary was the little girl’s highest ambition.

So, when Maud asked Kate what she should buy
for her after she went back to the city, the child
answered : ‘‘A diary, please; one just like yours.”

The diary came all right, wrapped in buff paper,
and directed to ‘‘Miss Kate Andrews, care of
James Andrews, Esq.”

Kate was delighted. She meant to sit up late
‘that very night. Mamma was going to a party, and
it would be easy to sit up till nine o’clock at least.

But, for fear something would happen, she
thought she would make one entry in her new
book in the afternoon. So she went to Papa’s desk,
got pen, ink, and blotter, and sat down in the
desk-chair with her. left hand supporting her head,
in imitation of Cousin Maud.

But what should she write? Her little mind was
perfectly blank the moment she got the pen in
her hand. Brother Ned sat at the open EON
studying his grammar lesson.

“Ned, will you please tell me what folks nue in
diaries mostly? ” she said.’

«Events and feelings,” said Ned, grandly.

Kate wrote across the upper part of the first page,
“Evenz and Fealings,” when she came to another
stop.

“‘But, Ned, what is events?’ she asked, after a
minute. -

“Eating your dinner is an event,” said Ned.
“‘ And sometimes they put good resolutions into
their diaries. And they write down the bad things
they have done.”



1882.] “T KNOW I HAVE

x

LOST MY TRAIN.”

55



Kate became very quiet.

“Tf eating dinner is an event,” she thought, “ it
is n’t interesting enough to put in a diary. I think
Cousin Maud wrote about the friends who came to
see her, and the books she read. But I should n’t
’spose folks would want to write it down when they
don’t do as they ought to. I want my diary to be
“nice reading.”

So, under June 1, 1881, she wrote:

‘¢ There is no evenz worth writing down. When
I get time, I shall make up some. About my feal-
ings, I have n’t much of any.”

In the evening, after Mamma went to the party,
Kate carried the pen and ink to the nursery.
Nurse, thinking she had gone to bed, sat in the

‘kitchen gossiping with the cook. The little girl
established herself at the table and began to write:

‘‘To-day, aman came and pade me the rent.

, It was a million dollars. I gave some to a minis-
ter to build a meeting-hous and make a chine of

bells. I bought a white saton dress, with an awful
long trane. A member of Congress carried my
trane. The President gave me a bokay of roses.




: |p aman: tamed. &

My fealings were happy, ’speshly when I gave my
white saton dress to a poor woman with 10 chil-
dren, and bought me a pink one with pink roses
embrordered onto it.”

Under another date, she wrote:

‘TI wore a reeth of white roses to-day, maid of
purls. A beggir child came, and I took a rose out
of the reeth and gave it to her. The Prince
smiled at me, and called me an angil.

“‘T sat under a tree ang read a thick book in an
hour. Reading is nice.’

It took Kate a long time to write all this. When
she had finished, she said: ‘‘ There, that’s what I
call events !”

While she was trying to read over her ‘‘ Evenz
and Fealings,” she fell fast asleep, dropping her
pen and making a big blot on the page. There

Mamma and Papa found her, when they came home
from the party.

They had a hearty laugh over the poor little
book, and after that, whenever they spoke of a
stilted, unnatural! person, they said: ‘‘ He reminds
me of Kate’s diary.”



=a Joshua ad
aa

DET ‘run on-the-rails:
With: my - ae for- sails A
find ‘may be Hl -catch: ieagain”





(November,

56

THE CAT AND THE. MOUSE.
THE CAT AND THE MOUSE.



‘By PALMER Cox.











































































































3882.) A BOY IN

THE WHITE

HOUSE. 57



A BOY IN THE

WHITE HOUSE.

By Noau BROOKS.

BEFORE the time of President Abraham Lincoln,
there had been very few children living in the White
House. Mr. Buchanan, who immediately preceded
Lincoln, wasunmarried. Mr. Pierce, who came next
before Buchanan, was childless, his only son hav-
ing been killed by a sorrowful accident just before
the newly elected President moved into the house
where he had anticipated taking his much-beloved
boy. And so, for many years, no President had
brought into the White House the mirth and
laughter of childhood. People who visited the
home of the President, in Washington, used often
to remark on the absence of children; and I dare
say that many a mother, as she wandered through
. the’ stately apartments of that celebrated house,
thought to herself that she would not like to live in
the midst of its grandeur if she had to give up the
companionship of her dear boys and girls. Per-
~ haps it was because of this absence of children

that everybody used to say that the White House
did not seem like a home, but rather a place to
“stay” at for a time.

This was all changed when Lincoln and his
family came to Washington, in March, 1861. At
that time three boys were the only children of
the good Lincoln. Robert, the eldest, now Secre-
tary of War for the United States, was then not
quite eighteen years old. Willie, the next eld-
est, was a little more than ten years of age; and
Thomas, better known as ‘‘ Tad,” was eight years

-old, having been born April 4, 1853. His next
birthday was probably the first boy’s birthday ever
celebrated in the White House.

When these three boys, of eighteen, ten, and
eight years respectively, came to the White House,
it may be imagined that they speedily changed the
aspect of things in the quiet and dignified old
mansion. They were happy, hearty boys, brought
up to spend much of their time in out-door sports
and boyish exercise. Visitors to the White House
soon noticed a change from the dull, uniform quiet
that had prevailed during the administration of
‘Mr. Buchanan, whose stately and old-bachelor
ways were very different from those of the home-
loving family that had succeeded the solitary old
man. Bats, tops, kites, and other playthings were
oftentimes to be seen scattered about in the grand
halls of the mansion. The shouts and clatter of two
youngsters were heard resounding through the fine
old corridors, and visitors who well knew the place
would smile and nudge each other when they

picked up, as they sometimes did, a trifle which
indicated that a very-much-alive boy had been scur-
rying through the state apartments, on a short cut
across the house.

Robert, however, did not long remain in the
White House. He had entered Phillips Academy,
Exeter, N. H.,in July, 1859, and had been admitted
to Harvard during the following year. Going home
in February, 1861, for the first time since his
original departure, he accompanied his father to
Washington, and so was present at the inauguration.
But he soon rejoined his class, and Tad and Willie
were the two boys of the White House. As a
pleasant souvenir of those days, I give the readers
of ST. NICHOLAS a copy of a portrait of Robert,
taken soon after the arrival of the family in
Washington. In February, 1862, the shadow
of a great grief came down upon the cheery fam-
ily in the White House. Willie, the studious and
lovable boy, the joy and comfort of his mother and
father, died suddenly, after a short illness. By this
time, the War of the Rebellion had waxed fierce
and deadly. In almost every house there was
mourning and lamentation for the dead, alarm and
anxiety for the absent. The good President was
sorely distressed with many cares and troubles. He
was continually thinking, with a heavy heart, of the
sorrows of others, whose beloved sons, brothers,
and friends had fallen on the field of battle. Yet
he knew that more must fall before the war could
be ended and peace return. And, in the midst of
these heavy griefs that weighed down the heart
of the noble Lincoln, came the death of his bright-
eyed and affectionate little son. It was less than a

‘year after the three boys had come to the White

House that Willie’s pale form was laid, with many
tears, in the house appointed for all mankind.

_ We shall never know how deep was the sorrow
of Lincoln, the tender-hearted father, when this
new and unlooked-for blow fell upon him. He was
not a man to talk much of what was deepest in his
mind. Although he was pleasant and bright in his
conversation with friends, he kept locked up in
his heart many of the thoughts which men of a
different nature would have put into words. But
some of us know that, in the long nights when
Lincoln sat alone in his chamber, oppressed with
unspeakable anxieties for the whole country, and
waiting to hear news from the struggling army of
the Union, the darkness of his own personal grief
came over him to deepen his loneliness and gloom.



58 A BOY IN THE

WHITE HOUSE.

[NovemeBeEr,



Once, while Lincoln was passing several days at
Fortress Monroe, waiting for certain military move-
ments, he employed his leisure in reading Shake-
speare. While thus engaged one day, looking
through into an adjoining apartment, where was
seated Colonel Cannon, of General Wool’s staff, he
called to him, as if longing for fellowship in his
thoughts, and asked him to listen while he read
from the book. He then recited a few passages
from “ Hamlet” and from ‘‘ Macbeth.” Then,
turning to ‘‘ King John,” he read the passage in
which Constance bewails the loss of her boy.
Closing the book and recalling the words, Lincoln
asked Colonel Cannon if he had ever dreamed of
being with one whom he had lost in death, only to
wake and find the vision fled.

“Just so,” he said, ‘*I dream of my boy Willie.”

The loving father bowed his head and wept.as he
recalled the words of Constance -

“And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say
That we shall see and know our friends in Heaven:
If that be true, I shall see my boy again.”

It was this bereavement, I think, that made Mr.
Lincoin and his wife very tender and indulgent
toward their youngest boy. It seemed almost
impossible for father or mother to be stern to this
boisterous and irrepressible youngster. Besides
this, he had many qualities that endeared him to
those who knew him, and there were circumstances

that made almost everybody very kindly disposed .

toward him. If there was ever a boy in danger of
being ‘‘ spoiled,” this youngest son of the President
was that lad. Much of the time it was impossible
that he should not be left to run at large. He was
foolishly caressed and petted. by people who wanted
favors of his father, and who took this way of
making a friend in the family, as they thought;
and he was living in the midst of a most exciting

epoch in the country’s history, when a boy in the.

White House was in a strange and somewhat un-
natural atmosphere. But I am bound to say that
Tad, although he doubtless had: his wits sharp-
ened by being in such strange surroundings, was
never anything else, while J knew him, but a bois-
terous, rollicking, and absolutely real boy. He
was not ‘‘ old for his years,” as we sometimes say
of precocious children, nor was he burdened with
care before his time. He was a big-hearted and
fresh-faced youngster, and when he went away
from the White House, after his father’s tragic end,
he carried with him, from the midst of sorrows
and associations that are now historic, the same
boyish frankness and simplicity that he took into it.

The boy was named Thomas after his grand-
father, the father of the great President. An
unfortunate difficulty in his speech prevented him

from speaking plainly, and strangers could hardly
understand what he said. The nearest he could
come to saying his‘own name, when quite a little
fellow, was ‘‘ Tad,” and the name clung to him
for many a year. In the family he was usually
known as ‘‘Taddic,” but even this nickname was
shortened, and those who were fortunate enough
to be near the President during his term of. gov-
ernment will never forget ‘‘ Tad,” the tricksy sprite
of the White House.

In those days, it was the custom of people who
objected to the prosecution of the war to speak of
Lincoln as ‘‘a tyrant.” This seems silly enough
now, when all the commotion and bitterness of.
the war have passed away; but even then, to
those who knew the mild-mannered and. tender-
hearted President, the word had no meaning. One
day, going to the White House, I met a very eminent
public man, who, with a queer look, said, ‘I have
just had an interview with the tyrant of the White
House.” Then, noticing my surprise, he added —
“Tad,” and went away laughing at his little joke.
If there was any tyrant in that house during Lin-
coln’s administration, his name was Tad. The boy,
certainly did rule everybody who came within his
power. Without being domineering or unpleasant
with his imperiousness, he had a fashion of issuing
orders that brooked no delay, no refusal. He over-
ran the White House and the grounds. It was
seldom that he had playmates; but, to hear the
noise that Tad contrived to make, one would sup-
pose that there were at least six boys wherever he
happened to be. The day was passed in a series
of enterprises, panics, and commotions. Tad in-
vaded every part of the great establishment, and
he was an uncommonly knowing person who could -
tell where the agile lad was likely next to appear,
at any hour of the day. Now his whoop would be
heard as he galloped his pony to the stable-door,
and anon he would be expostulating with his dog-
team, as he trained them on the lawn by the side
of the house next the Potomac. A party of ladies
(said to be from Boston) were one day almost
frozen with horror as they were reverentially stalk-
ing about the famous East Room. There was an
outburst and a clatter at the most distant end of
the corridor. leading to the family apartments, a
cry of ‘‘Get out of the way, there!” and Tad,
driving a tandem team of goats harnessed to a
chair, careered into the state apartment, once
around, and then out to the front of the house.

One of his admiring friends gave him a box of
tools. This was, for a few days, a mine of pleasure
to Tad. There was nothing within his reach that
was not.sawed, bored, chiseled, or hacked with
some one of the tools of that collection. At first,
he proposed setting up a cabinet-shop for the man-



1882.) A BOY IN THE

WHITE HOUSE. 59



ufacture of furniture for the hospitals. Then the
repairing of a wagon engaged his attention; but
when he began to try experiments with the old-
fashioned mahogany chairs in the East Room, the
box of tools mysteriously disappeared.

Of course, Tad knew no law, no restraint, that
should bar any part of the house against him. So
it sometimes happened that, while the President
and his Cabinet were anxiously discussing affairs of
state, and were in the midst of questions of great
moment, Tad would burst into the room, bubbling
with excitement, and insist that his complaint or
request should be attended to at once. Sometimes

it was the woes of some ill-clad petitioner, repulsed -

by the ushers, that aroused his childish wrath.
At other times he would insist on being allowed to
drag before the President of the United States a
particularly youthful suitor, whose tale he had
heard for himself, and who appeared in the pres-
ence with an air of mingled terror and amuse-
ment. There was a certain Cabinet officer whom
he did not like, and when he had burst into his
father’s privacy, one morning, to find the objection-
able functionary there, Tad, unabashed, cried out,
*¢ What are you here so early for? What do you
want?” It may be added that office-seekers gen-
erally he regarded with undisguised contempt.
While Mr. F. B. Carpenter, the artist, was at
work on his picture of Lincoln and his Cabinet, it

was found necessary to make some photographic .

studies of the room in which the President and his
council were to be represented as assembled. In
his book, ‘‘ Six Months at the White House,” Mr.
Carpenter tells a characteristic story of Tad’s op-
position to all attempts to infringe upon what he
considered to be his rights. While the photog-
raphers were at work, Mr. Carpenter took them
to a room which could be darkened for their pur-
poses, but of which Tad had lately taken posses-
sion and had fitted up as a miniature theater, with
drop-curtain, seats, orchestra, and benches.

Everything was going on well, when suddenly
there was an uproar.

Tad took great offense at the occupancy of his
room without his consent, and, turning everybody
out, locked the door. In his anger, the little fel-
low put all the blame on Mr. Carpenter, and abso-
lutely refused to allow the photographers even to
go into the room for their apparatus and chemicals,
there locked up.. He pocketed the key, and went
to his father in high dudgeon.

Mr. Lincoln was sitting in his chair, one photo-
graph having been already taken. He mildly told
Tad to go and open the door.

Tad went off to his mother’s room, muttering
and refusing to obey, Mr. Carpenter following and
vainly entreating him to open the door.

Presently Lincoln said, when Mr. Carpenter re-
turned, ‘‘ Has not the boy opened the door?”

On being told that he had not, the patient
father, compressing his lips, strode off to the family
apartments, and soon returned with the key to the
theater, which he unlocked himself, saying:

“There, go ahead; it’s all right now.”

The President went back to his office, and, re-
suming his seat, said, as if in apology for Tad:

“Tad is a peculiar child. He was violently ex-
cited when I went to him. I said, ‘Tad, do you
know you are making your father a great deal of
trouble?’ He burst into tears, and instantly gave
me the key.”

A friend of the Lincoln family once sent a fine
live turkey to the White House, with the request
that it should be served on the President’s Christ-
mas table. But Christmas was then several weeks
off, and in the interim Tad won the confidence
and esteem of the turkey, as he did the affection of
every living thing with which he came in contact.
“Jack,” as the fowl had been named, was an ob-
ject of great interest to Tad, who fed him, petted
him, and began to teach him to follow his young
master. One day, just before Christmas, 1863,
while the President was engaged with one of his
Cabinet ministers on an affair of great moment,
Tad burst into the room like a bomb-shell, sobbing
and crying with rage and indignation. The turkey
was about to be killed. Tad had procured from
the executioner a stay of proceedings while he flew
to lay the case before the President. Jack must
not be killed; it was wicked.

“But,” said the President, ‘‘ Jack was sent here
to be killed and eaten for this very Christmas.”

‘*T can’t help it,” roared Tad, between his sobs.
**He’s a good turkey, and I don’t want him killed.”

The President of the United States, pausing in
the midst of his business, took a card and wrote
on it an order of reprieve. The turkey’s life was
spared, and Tad, seizing the precious bit of paper,
fled to set him at liberty. In course of time Jack
became very tame, and roamed at will about the
premises. He was a prime favorite with the sol-
diers —a company of Pennsylvania ‘‘ Bucktails ”»—
who were on guard at the house. The tents of
these soldiers were at the bottom of the south
lawn, on the Potomac side of the house. In the
summer of 1864, the election for President being
then pending, a commission was sent on from
Pennsylvania to take the votes of the Pennsylvania
soldiers in Washington. While the ‘ Bucktails”
were voting, Tad rushed into his father’s room, the
windows of which looked out on the lawn, crying,
“Oh, the soldiers are voting for Lincoln for Presi-
ent!” He dragged his father to the window and
insisted that he should see this remarkable thing.



60 A BOY IN THE

WHITE HOUSE.

[NovemBeER,



The turkey, now grown tall and free-mannered,
stalked about among the soldiers, regarding the
proceedings with much interest.

“¢ Does Jack vote?” asked Lincoln, with a roguish
twinkle of his eye.

Tad paused for a moment, nonplussed at the
unexpected question; then rallying, he replied,
‘Why, no, of course not. He is n’t of age yet.”

Great was Tad’s curiosity, in 1864, to know
what was meant by the President’s proclamation for
a day of fasting and prayer. His inquiries were
not satisfactorily answered, but
from the servants he learned,
to his great dismay, that there
would be nothing eaten in the
White House from sunrise to
sunset on Fast Day. The
boy, who was blessed with a
vigorous appetite, took meas-
ures to escape from the rigors
of the day. It happened that,
just before Fast Day came,
the family carriage was brought
out of its house to be cleaned
and put in order. Tad stood
by, with feelings of alarm, while
a general overhauling of the
vehicle went on, the coachman
dusting, rubbing, and pulling
things about, quite uncon-
scious of Tad’s anxious watch
onthe proceedings. Pretty
soon, drawing out a queer-
looking bundle from one of
the boxes under the seat, thé
man brought to light a part
of a loaf of bread, some bits of
cold meat, and various other
fragments of food from the
larder. Tad, now ready to
burst with anger and disap-
pointment, cried, ‘‘Oh!.oh!
give that up, I say! That’s
my Fast Day picnic!” The
poor lad, from dread of go-
ing hungry, had cautiously
hidden, from day to day, a.
portion of food against the day of fasting, and
had stood by while his hoard was in danger
hoping that it might escape the eyes of the serv
ants. He was consoled by a promise from his
mother, to whom he ran with his tale of woe, that
he should not suffer hunger on Fast Day, even
though his father, the President, had proclaimed a
day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer for all the
people.

Mingled with his boyish simplicity, Tad had a

PORTRAIT

great deal of native shrewdness. The White
House was infested with a numerous horde of
office-seekers. From day to day these men crowded
the corridors leading to the President’s office,
Sometimes they were so nunierous as to line the
halls all the way down the stairs. It was not long
before Tad found out what this assemblage meant,
and it then became one of his greatest diversions,
when other resources failed, to go around among
the office-seekers and sympathetically inquire what
they wanted, how long they had waited, and how



OF SECRETARY LINCOLN AT THE AGE’OF SEVENTEEN.

much longer they proposed to wait. To some he
gave goud advice, telling them to go home and
chop wood for a living. Others he tried to dis-
miss by volunteering to speak to his father in their
behalf, if they would promise not to come again.
Many of these people were at the White House for
weeks and even months, never missing a day,
unless they learned that the President was out of
town, or otherwise absent from the house.

Tad levied tribute on the men whose faces he



1882. ] A BOY IN THE

WHITE HOUSE. Or



had learned to know. Once he mounted guard at
the foot of the staircase and compelled every pas-
senger to pay an admission fee of five cents,—“ for
the benefit of the Sanitary Fund,” as he explained.
Most of the visitors took it in good part, and some
of the fawning creatures, glad of an opportunity to
earn the good-will of the little fellow, paid their
way with a “‘stamp” of some considerable value.
This venture was so successful that Tad resolved
on having one of the Sanitary Commission fairs
then so much in vogue all over the country. He
placed a table in the grand corridor, or entrance
hall, of the White House, stocked it with a few
broken toys, some purchases of fruit, sundry arti-
cles of food begged from the family pantry, and
a lot of miscellaneous odds and ends contributed
by admiring friends. Before night, the sanitary
fair of the White House was closed out. No man
who looked as if he had money in his pocket was
permitted to pass into the House that day without
first buying something of Master Lincoln’s stock
in trade,

His success in this venture emboldened him
soon afterward to branch out in a larger specula-
tion. Having saved up quite a sum of pocket-
money, he bought out the entire stock of an old
woman who sold apples and gingerbread near the
Treasury building.. A pair of trestles and a board,
extorted from the carpenters employed on the
building, gave the young merchant his counter,
and he set up his shop in the grand, historic por-
tico of the White House, much to the horror of
some of the eminently respectable people who passed
by and beheld this most undignified proceeding.
Before noon, almost every office-seeker who entered
had bought a luncheon, under compulsion, from
the alert young shop-keeper, who drove a brisk
trade as long as his goods lasted. When Tad had
sold out all he had to sell, a goodly lot of the frac-
tional currency of those times was stuffed into his
pockets, his hat, and his little fist. He was ‘‘ the
President’s son,” and that was enough for the flat-
terers, who were glad to buy of him. But Tad was
too generous and open-handed to.be long a gainer
by any such operations. Before night, capital and
profits had been squandered, and the little specu-
lator went penniless to bed.

Everything that Tad did was done with a certain
rush and rude strength which were peculiar to him.
I was once sitting with the President in the library,

_when Tad tore into the room in ‘search of some-
thing, and, having found it, he threw himself on
his father like a small thunderbolt, gave him one
wild, fierce hug, and, without a word, fled from the
room before his father could put out his hand to
detain him. With all his boyish roughness, Tad
had a warm heart and a tender conscience. He

abhorred falsehood as he did books and study.
Tutors came and went, like changes of the moon.
None staid long enough to learn much about the
boy; but he knew them before they had been one
day in the house. “Let him run,” his father
would say; ‘“‘there ’s time enough yet for him to
learn his letters and get poky. Bob was just such
a little rascal, and now he is a very decent boy.”

It was curious, however, to see how Tad com-
prehended many practical realities that are far
beyond the grasp of most boys. Even when he
could scarcely read, he knew much about the
cost of things, the details of trade, the principles of
mechanics, and the habits of animals, all of which
showed the activity of his mind and the odd turn
of his thoughts. His father took great interest in
everything that concerned Tad, and, when the long
day’s work was done, and the little chap had re-
lated to the President all that had moved him or
had taken up his attention during the daylight
hours, and had finally fallen asleep under a drowsy
cross-examination, the weary father would turn
once more to his desk, and work on into the night,

_ for his cares never ended. Then, shouldering the

sleeping child, the man for whom millions of good
men and women nightly prayed took his way
through silent corridors and passages to his boy’s
bed-chamber. .

One day, Tad, in search of amusement, loitered
into the office of the Secretary of War, and Mr.
Stanton, for the fun of the thing, commissioned
him a lieutenant of United States Volunteers.
This elated the boy so much that he went off im-
mediately and ordered a quantity of muskets sent
to the White House, and then he organized and
drilled the house-servants and gardeners, and, with-
out attracting anybody’s attention, he actually dis-
charged the regular sentries about the premises
and ordered his unwilling recruits on duty as
guards.

Robert Lincoln soon discovered what had been
done, and as he thought it a great hardship that
men who: had been at work all day should be
obliged to keep watch during the night to gratify
a boyish freak, he remonstrated. But Tad would
listen to nothing from his elder brother, and
Robert appealed to his father, who only laughed
at the matter as a good joke. Tad soon tired,
however, of his self-imposed duties and went to
bed. The drafted men were quietly relieved from
duty, and there was no guard at the President’s
mansion that night, much to Mr. Lincoln’s relief.
He never approved of the precaution of mounting
guard at the White House. While Tad sported
his commission as lieutenant, he cut quite a mili-
tary figure. From some source he procured a
uniform suitable to his supposed rank, and thus



62 A BOY IN THE

WHITE HOUSE.

[NovemMBER,



proudly attired, he had himself photographed, as
seen in the illustration on page 64.

It had been intended to celebrate Tad’s tenth
birthday, April 4, 1863, by a visit to the Army
of the Potomac, then encamped on the banks of
the Rappahannock, opposite Fredericksburg. The
President, at the suggestion of Mrs. Lincoln, had
thought that it would cheer the soldiers to see the
familiar face of the chief magistrate among them
before their anticipated departure for the front.
But ether business had intervened, and it was not
until the boy’s birthday had actually arrived, and
with it a present of a fine pony, that we got away
from Washington. Our party consisted of Tad,
his father and mother, Mr. Edward Bates, the
Attorney-General of the United States, and two
friends of the family. : Toward evening a violent
and unseasonable snow-storm came up, and the
little steamer that was taking us from Washing-
ton to Aquia Creek (the landing-place of the army)
was compelled to cast anchor for the night under
the lee of a headland of the Potomac. By that
time Tad had examined every nook and corner
of the steamer, and as the President’s party were
the only passengers on board, he had full swing
during the trip. After we had anchored, Tad, re-
solved to employ advantageously every moment of
the time, rigged up a fishing-line and went val-
jantly to work, in the midst of the snow-storm, to
catch fish for supper. He promptly reported every
bite to his father or mother, and when he finally
rushed into their presence with a single very small
and very bony fish, a proud and happy boy was he.
But we actually did have a smoking platter of fish
for supper, much to the delight of Tad, who had
marked the three fish of his own catching by cut-
ting off their tails. 5

During the five days of our stay in the Army of
the Potomac, Tad was a most restless little chap.
At General Hooker’s head-quarters there was a
bakery, a printing-office, a telegraph station, and
sundry other small establishments, all in shanties
or tents. We were quartered in large ‘ hospital
tents,” as they were called. By the end of the
first day, Tad had exhausted everything in sight,
and was ready to go home to his beloved pony.
But there were reviews and parades to come, and
for these the President must stay. Each day, be-
ginning with the second of our stay, was taken up
with a review. While these lasted Tad was happy.
A handsome young soldier was detailed to act as
escort to the boy, and a little gray horse consoled
him, for the time, for the absence of his own pony.

That long series of reviews in the Army of the
Potomac, just before the battle of Chancellorsville,
will never be forgotten by the participants. Over
hill and dale dashed the brilliant cavalcade of the

general-in-chief, surrounded by a company of offi-
cers in gay attire and sparkling with gold lace,
the party being escorted by the Philadelphia Lan-
cers, a showy troop of soldiers. In the midst, or
at the head, rose and fell, as the horses galloped
afar, the form of Lincoln, conspicuous by his height
and his tall’black hat. And ever on the flanks of
the hurrying column flew, like a flag or banneret,
Tad’s little gray riding-cloak’ His short legs
stuck straight out from his saddle, and sometimes
there was danger that his steed, by a sudden turn
in the rough road, would throw him off like a bolt
from a catapult. But faithful Michael was always
ready to steady the lad, and, much to the amaze-
ment of everybody, the hard-riding and reckless
youngster turned up at head-quarters every night,
flushed with the excitement of the day, but safe
and sound.

The soldiers soon learned of Tad’s presence in
the army, and wherever he went on horseback ~
he easily divided the honors with his father. I
can not begin to tell you how the men cheered
and shouted and waved their hats when they saw

_ the dear face and tall figure of the good President,

then the best-beloved man in the world; but to
these men of war, far away from home and children,
the sight of that fresh-faced and laughing boy
seemed an inspiration. They cheered like mad.
When told that he ought to doff his cap to the
soldiers who saluted him, Tad sturdily replied:
“Why, that ’s the way General Hooker and Father
do; but I’m only a boy.”

When night came on, and there was nothing for
Tad to do but to hang around his father and mother,
he grew weary of the army, and longed for that
pony at home. Then he would begin to ask why
he could not go back. But it was in vain he re-
minded his father that the soldiers did not like vis-
itors, and in vain he told his mother that women
were not wanted in the army. Finally, his father,
to be rid of the boy’s importunities, said: ‘Tad,
I'll make a bargain with you. If you will agree
not to say anything about. going home until we
are ready to go, I will give you that dollar that
you want so badly.” For Tad had needed, as
he thought, a whole dollar in cash. Being a truth-
ful story-teller, I must say that Tad did sometimes,
later during our stay, murmur at the long sojourn
in the army; but, while we were waiting for the
ambulances to take us to the station on our way
back to the steam-boat landing, Lincoln took out
a dollar note, saying, ‘‘ Now, Taddie, my son, do
you think you have earned this?”

Tad hung his head and answered never a word;
but the President handed him the note, saying:
“Well, my son, although I don’t think you have
kept your part of the bargain, I will keep mine,



4882. ] A BOY IN THE

WHITE HOUSE. 63



and you can not reproach me with breaking faith,
anyway.”

On the way from head-quarters to the station
there was an immense amount of cheering from the
soldiers, who, as usual, seemed wild with delight at
seeing the President. Occasionally we heard them
cry, ‘‘ Three cheers for Mrs. Lincoln!” and they
were given with a will. Then, again, the men
would cry, “‘ Three cheers for the boy!” This
salute Tad acknowledged, under instructions from
his mother, and entirely unabashed by so much
noise and attention. One soldier, after the line
through which we were passing had given three
cheers ‘‘ for the next fight,” cried, ‘‘ And send along
the greenbacks!” This arrested the attention of
Tad, who inquired its meaning, and, when told
that the army had not been paid for some time,
on account of the scarcity of greenbacks, he said,
with the true spirit of an inflationist, ‘‘ Why does
n’t Governor Chase print ’em some, then?”

In the October number of The Century Magazine
another incident in which Tad took part is nar-
rated in a letter from Mr. Alexander Starbruck, of
Waltham, Mass., as follows:

“ About the last of February, 1865, Mr. H. F.
Warren, a photographer of Waltham, Mass., left
home, intending, if practicable, to visit the army in
front of Richmond and Petersburg. Arriving in
Washington on the morning of the 4th of March,
and finding it necessary to procure passes to carry
out the end he had in view, he concluded to re-
main there until the inauguration ceremonies were
over, and, having carried with him all the appara-
tus necessary for taking negatives, he decided to
try to secure a sitting from the President. At that
time rumors of plots and dangers had caused the
friends of President Lincoln to urge upon him the
necessity of a guard, and, as he had finally per-
mitted the presence of such a body, an audience
with him was somewhat difficult. On the after-
noon of the 6th of March, Mr. Warren sought a
presentation to Mr. Lincoln, but found, after con-
sulting with the guard, that an interview could be
had on that day in only a somewhat irregular
manner. After some conversation with the officer
in charge, who became convinced of his loyalty,
Mr. Warren was admitted within the lines, and, at
the same time, was given to understand that the
surest way to obtain an audience with the President
was through the intercession of his little son ‘Tad.’
The latter was a great pet with the soldiers, and
was constantly at their barracks, and soon made
his appearance, mounted upon his pony. He and
the pony were soon placed in position and photo-
graphed, after which Mr. Warren asked ‘ Tad’ to
tell his father that aman had come all the way
from Boston, and was particularly anxious to see

him and obtain a sitting from him. ‘Tad’ went
to see his father, and word was soon returned that
Mr. Lincoln would comply. In the meantime Mr.
Warren had improvised a kind of studio upon the
south balcony of the White House. Mr. Lincoln
soon came out, and, saying but a very few words,
took his seat as indicated. After a single negative
was taken, he inquired: ‘Is that all, sir?’ Un-
willing to detain him longer than was absolutely
necessary, Mr. Warren replied: ‘Yes, sir,’ and
the President immediately withdrew. At the time
he appeared upon the balcony the wind was blow-
ing freshly, as his disarranged hair indicates, and,
as sunset was rapidly approaching, it was difficult
to obtain a sharp picture. Six weeks later Presi-
dent Lincoln was dead, and it is doubtless true

that this is the last photograph ever made of him.”

Later, Tad figured with his father in one more
historic scene. It was on the night of April 11,
1865, when the President made his last long
speech. The news of the fall of Petersburg and

_Richmond, and the flight of Lee and Davis had

come to Washington: On that night the White
House was illuminated, and there was great joy
throughout the land, for we had begun to feel that
the war was nearly over. -Outside of the house
was a vast crowd, cheering and shouting with a
roar like that of the sea. A small battery from the
Navy Yard occasionally rent the air with a salute,
and the clamor of brass bands and the hissing of
fire-works added to the confusion and racket in
front of the mansion. Lincoln and a few ‘friends
lingered at the dinner-table until it was time for
him to begin his speech. As the little party
mounted the stairs to the upper part of the house,
there was a tremendous din. outside, as if roars of
laughter were mingling with the music and the
cheers. Inside of the house, at one of the front
windows on the right of the staircase, was old
Edward, the conservative and dignified butler of
the White House, struggling with Tad and trying
to drag him back from the window, from which he
was waving a Confederate flag, captured in some
fight and given to the boy. The crowd recognized
Tad, who frantically waved the flag as he fought
with Edward, while the people roared with delight.
‘The likes of it, Mister Tad,” said the scandal-
ized butler—‘‘the likes of a rebel flag out of the
windows of the White House! Oh, did I ever!”
Edward conquered, and, followed by a parting
cheer from the throng below, Tad rushed to his
father with his complaints. But the President, just
then approaching the center window overlooking
the portico, stood with a beaming face before the
vast assembly beneath, and the mighty cheer that
arose drowned all other sounds. The speech began
with the words, ‘‘We meet this evening, not in sor-



64.

A BOY IN THE WHITE HOUSE.

[Novemser,



row, but in gladness of
heart.” As Lincoln
spoke, the multitude
was as silent as if the
court-yard had been
deserted. Then, as his
speech was written on
loose sheets, and the
candles placed for him
were too low, he took
a light in his hand and
went on with his read-
ing. Soon coming to
the end of a page, he
found some difficulty in -
handling the manu-
script and holding the
candlestick. A friend
who stood behind the
drapery of the window
reached out and took
the candle, and held it
until the end of the
speech, and the Presi-
dent let the loose pages
fall on the floor, one
by one, as fast as he
was through with them.
Presently, Tad, having
refreshed himself at
the dinner-table, came
back ‘in search of
amusement. He gath-
ered up the scattered
sheets of the Presi-
dent’s speech, and
then amused himself
by chasing the leaves
as they fluttered from
Lincoln’s hand, Anon,
growing impatient at
his delay to drop an-
other page, he whis-
pered, “‘Come, give
me another!” The
President made a queer
motion with his foot
toward Tad, but other-
wise showed no sign
that he had _ other
thoughts than those on :

reconstruction which he was dropping to the list-
eners beneath.

Without was a vast sea of upturned faces, each
eye fixed on the form of the President. Around
the tall white pillars of the portico flowed an undu-
lating surface of human beings, stirred by emotion

ee



TAD LINCOLN IN HIS UNIFORM OF A LIEUTENANT.

and lighted with the fantastic colors of fire-works.
At the window, his face irradiated with patriotic
joy, was the much-beloved Lincoln, reading the
speech that was to be his last to the people. Behind
crept back and forth, on his hands and knees, the
boy of the White House, gathering up his father’s



3882] ° °°

THE FALSE SIR SANTA CLAUS.

65



carefully written pages, and occasionally lifting up
his eager face, waiting for more. It was before
and behind the scenes.. Sometimes I wonder,
when. I-recall that night, how much of a father’s
love and thought of his boy might have been min-
gled in Lincoln’s last speech to the eager multitude.
The. dark and dreadful end was drawing nigh
apace... Within a few days after that memorable
night, the beloved Lincoln fell-by the hand of an
assassin. Amid the lamentations of a stricken
nation, his form was carried back to Illinois to be
buried near the spot where little Willie had been
laid to rest. Soon afterward, the stricken family
left the gloomy White House, and the sound of
Tad’s.merry voice was heard no more in the man-
sion of the people.
After his father’s death, Robert took charge of
his brother’s education until the lad went to Europe
with his mother, in 1869. | Sobered’ and steadied
by the.great-tragedy through which he had passed,
Tad applied himself diligently to study, and made
such progress that his friends cherished for him the
brightest hopes. He was a self-reliant boy, firm

in his friendships, cordial, modest, and as true as
the needle to the pole whenever principle and just-
ice were called in question. Under the tuition of
a careful instructor in Germany, he quite overcame
the difficulty in his speech which had burdened
him from childhood. He was disciplined by an
English-speaking German teacher, who required
him to read aloud, slowly and distinctly, as a
daily exercise. By this simple means he finally
learned to speak plainly, but with a slight German
accent which came from his practice in reading.

Returning home with his mother in 1871, he was
taken with a severe illness, and after enduring with
manly fortitude months of great pain, he passed
away July 15, 1871, being then only a little more
than eighteen years old. It was well said of him
that he gave to the sad and solemn White House
the only comic relief it knew. And, in justice to
the memory of the boy whose life was but a brief
and swiftly passing vision of a cheery spirit, it
should be added that his gayety and affection were
the only illumination of the dark hours of the best
and greatest American who ever lived.



THE FALSE SIR SANTA CLAUS.

(A Christmas Masgue jor Young and Oid.)



By E. S.

BROOKS,

Author of the “Land of Nod” and ‘‘ Comedies for Children.”



Music py ANTHONY RIEFF.



[THis Masque is designed to precede the Christmas tree at a
Christmas party. Its action may call for the help of the entire com-
pany to assist at the choruses. All the children in the room may, if
desired, be massed on the stage, and the chorus of parents may be
given by the audience from the seats they occupy, provided they are
led by a few ready voices near the piano. No special decoration is
needed for the stage. The action should take place near the.Christ-
mas tree, which should, if possible, stand behind a curtain, or be
screened by the folding-doors, until the end of the Masque, when it
should be suddenly disclosed with all its blaze and glitter. The
‘“properties”’ are simple and none of the costumes need be elaborate,
but the setting can be as greatly diversified and elaborated as the
inclination and facilities. of the mahagers permit. Let the choruses
and speaking parts be rendered with spirit. AZach of the text can
be sung to familiar airs, which will readily suggest themselves to
the musical directors.) i :

CHARACTERS.

Mr. Moneyaacs (afterward the False Sir Santa Claus).—Hard
as his dollars, and “down on children.”

SanTa Craus,—Positively the Only Original article. No-connection
whatever with the spurious imitation above.

Jack Frost anp wis Wire,—Firm friends of the “only original.”

Jack O’LanTerN.—The pugnacious young page of the False Sir

‘ Santa Claus. ye . F
Tue Farry Bountirut.—All glitter and spangles,

VoL. X.—s,

The base and
hireling policemen of the False
Sir Santa Claus.

Rep Ripinc-Hoop’s Wor, | &he False. Four.

Tue Bic Bucasoo,

Tue Wuoopinc-coucH Man,

Tue WANDERING JEw,

Dick,

ETHEL, + Who do the talking for the rest of the children. .

CurRLY-LocKs, j /
Tue Cuorus oF CHILDREN — Tue INDULGENT PaRENts.

COSTUMES AND PROPERTIES.

Mr. Moneysacs may be a “ grown man,” or a big boy.. May be
dressed in street costume at first. When he appears as the FALsE
Sir Santa Craus he should wear a full-dress suit, of fashionable
cut, with opera hat, white kids, big watch-chain, trim white wig,
white mustache and side-whiskers —as great a contrast as possible
to the conventional Santa Claus. °

Santa Craus should-be made up, as customary, “in fur from his
head to his foot, a bundle of toys flung on his back,” etc... Another
“ grown man”’ or big boy should be selected for this part.

Jack Frosr.—Boy of fifteen. 2 Pretty ice-and-snow suits of white

His Wire.—Girl of thirteen. canton flannel and swan’s-down
trimming, sprinkled with silver powder, and silver wands.

Jack O’Lantern.—Agile boy of twelve, in tight-fitting fancy or
Jester’s suit,

Tue. Fairy Bountirut.—Girl of. sixteen; fancy white. dress,
wings, and spangles, silver wand. ~



66°

THE FALSE SIR SANTA CLAUS.

[NovemBER,



Rep Ripinc-Hoop’s Wotr.—Boy of ‘sixteen, in fur robe or coat,
with wolf’s-head mask, and movable jaws, if possible.

Tue Bic Bucasoo.—Tall youth of sixteen or eighteen, with
demon’s mask or some ugly face. Dressed in close-fitting red suit.

THe WHoopinc-coucH Man.—Boy of sixteen, doubled and
bent, with basket and crook, whitened face, and light clothes.

Tue Wanverinc JeEw.— Big boy in old black suit, shockin,
bad hat, and bag full of ‘old clo’es.” ‘

Dicx.—A bright boy of fourteen.

Erue..—A bright girl of twelve.

Curty-Locxs.—A pretty little girl of six or eight.



THE FALSE SIR SANTA CLAUS.

[As the curtain rises, the children rush in pell-mell, singing:























tt. Moderato. _ J bs =
(i= ===
: 2 ‘ ’ Ho! for us;
oo Ps pl 2a i =a
eptsaa is heeo es ———_
mf. mip













7 ae 5 _=s
2

‘ae!











































3 BN pg a
(22S SSS
Hey! for us; Please clear the way for us,
fp en ——

io p= —
GSS SS
- —#—, S38, «0
See]
: ama a t















Ce ese

las - sie and lad,
es

| reef

SS =F
| | o-Ps

SSS a ae
=e

oe
Here are no wea-ry ones, Here are no dreary ones,

Pa,

, 2, oo +} .
i ra eee | oe s ie os
os eet
eae = =]

SSS Se
Christmas has come, and we,chil-dren are glad;
+—t ee Ea rr —
eS = == ===
PAG ae iran
: Zt

o ole—~
ie ¢. e-te i e
P.

lease clear the way for us,















































Se Se

ote
eS tee



















ETHEL.









fier
et

=e

Christ-mas has come, and we chil- dren are glad.

oe,
5S ssl



















































putas ££ ££ - « # |
aS Sel
fd ao aor ee grs os ssa
(Ges $-si5 s=5r* Beat
—— a Rg —p-
ire P=

CHORUS OF INDULGENT PARENTS (i audience).
Shout it out! Sing it out! Clear voices ring it out!
Ring out your glee, every lassie and lad.
Under the holly, now, sing and be. jolly, now;
Christmas has come and the children are glad!

CHORUS OF CHILDREN.

Hurry all! Scurry all! We ’re in a flurry all! |
We ’re in a flurry, with happiness mad.

Gayly we sing to you; welcomes we bring to you;
Christmas has.come and. we children are glad!

[Enter Mr. Moneypacs, account-book in hand. He shakes his
fist -at children, and says, sharply:

What a rumpus! What a clatter!
Why, whatever is the matter? -

MONEYBAGS.

All this rout and shout and riot is distracting to my

brain. .

You ’ve disturbed my computations

With your singing and gyrations,

And you ’ve mixed my figures up so, I must add ’em

all again.

Oh, stupid Mr. Moneybags, where are your

senses, pray, sir? . ;

Dick. - Why, don’t you know—of course you do—
that this is Christmas Day, sir?

CurLy-Locks. ’T is Christmas, sir — the children’s day !

ETHEL, DICK, AND CURLY-LOCKS (shaking their fingers ).

And please to understand—

ALL THE CHILDREN. We ’re waiting here for Santa

Claus to come from Somewhereland.

CHORUS OF INDULGENT PARENTS.

‘Don’t scold them, Mr. Moneybags, for, please to under-

stand,
They ’re waiting here for Santa Claus to come from
Somewhereland.
Monevpacs (much disgusted).
For what? For who? For Santa Claus?
°T is past my comprehension
That, in this nineteenth century,
Such foolishness finds mention!
For Santa Claus? No bigger: fraud
Has ever yet been planned!
There zs #’¢ any Santa Claus,
Nor any Somewhereland !
(Consternation among the children,



1882.] THE FALSE SIR

SANTA CLAUS. 67



ETHEL (ingignantly).

Oh, wicked Mr. Moneybags, how can you be so eral!
Dick (fathetically). Why, Christmas without Santa
_ Claus is weak as watered gruel!

ETHEL AND CURLY-LOCKS (sorrowfully ).
We can’t believe you!

Dicx (vehemently). And we wont!

ETHEL, Dick, CURLY-LOCKS (with warning finger).
So, please to understand —
ALL THE CHILDREN (vociferously). We ’re waiting
here for Santa Claus to come from Somewhereland.

CHORUS OF INDULGENT PARENTS,

They can’t believe you, and they wont, for, please to
understand,
‘They ’re waiting here for Santa Claus to come from
Somewhereland.
MONEYBAGS (aside).
It seems to me it would be wise
To stop this superstition ;
To open these young eyes to fact
Would be a useful mission.
So I'll devise a little scheme,
And try it, if I’m able,
To bring these folks to common sense,
And burst this foolish fable.
Well, good-bye, youngsters; now I’m off!
I really can not stand
This trash you talk of Santa Claus
Who comes from Somewhereland.
DIck (turning to children, with uplifted hands).
No Santa Claus?
THE CHILDREN (lifting hands in dismay). No Santa
Claus !
CURLY-LOCKS (tearfully). I never did—did you?
ETHEL (to children, hands lifted). No Santa Claus!
THE CHILDREN (Lifting hands solemnly). No Santa
Claus !
ALL (i audible tears). Boo-hoo, boo-hoo, boo-hoo !
ETHEL (spitefully). I just believe he ’s telling fibs.
Dicx (surlily). Of course!
ETHEL (dejectedly). It seems to me,
This horrid Mr. Moneybags
Is mean as mean can be!
Dick (decidedly). Of course he’s fibbing.
CURLY-LocKs (indignantly). *Course he is.
ETHEL. He does it just to tease us.
Dick. He’s down on children; so, you see,
He never wants to please us.
CURLY-LocKs (anxiously). Oh, dear! why does n't
Santa come ?
Dick. Let’s wish him here.
THE CHILDREN (incredulously), That ’s—quirky !

{Aloud,

(Exit.

- Dick (stoutly). "Taint! Ethel saved a wish-bone up,

From last Thanksgiving’s turkey.
CHILDREN.” All right! Who ’ll pull it?
ETHEL (g7 oducing the wish-bone). Dick and I.
DIck (examining it). It’s dry enough. Say “when,”
boys. Catch hold here, Ethel—wish! .
THE CHILDREN. Now, pull!
{Dick and Eruet snap the wish-bone.

ETHEL. Dick ’s got the lucky end, boys !

CHORUS OF CHILDREN. (77y, jor air, ‘‘ Nelly Bly.” )
Come to us, come to us, here as we sing ;
Come to us, come to us, Christmas bells ring.
Come to us quickly —nor loiter, nor pause;

Come to us, come to us, old Santa Claus!
CHORUS OF INDULGENT PARENTS.

Santa Claus! Santa Claus! Jolly old Saint;

Hark to them! Hear to them! List to their plaint.
Broken the wish-bone! All wistful they stand,—
Come to them, Santa Claus, from Somewhereland !

{A loud clang and clash outside.
long jump, Jack O’LanTERN.

Enter, with double somersault or
The children start, amazed.
Jack O’ LANTERN (with comic posture). Who calls for

Santa Claus, I’d like to know?

ETHEL (surveying him curiously). We, Mr.— India-

rubber !

Jack O’LANTERN (laughing deristvely).- Yo, ho, ho!

(Turns a double somersault, or some other nimble contortion, and,
striking a comical attitude, says:

With a clash and a clang, and a rattle-te-bang,

And a bumpity-jump rather risky,
With a jounce and a bounce, Santa Claus I announce !
I’m his page, Jack O’Lantern so frisky.
See where he comes; stand all here close at hand,
Enter! Sir Santa Claus of Somewhereland!

[Enter Moneyaacs as the Fase Sir Santa Craus, dressed in full-
dress suit, as indicated in costume directions. The children
start back, surprised at seeing a person so different from their
idea of Santa Claus in dress and appearance. MoNnEYBAGS
surveys them through his eye-glass, sourly.

Moneysacs (g7ufly). Heigho, there, you youngsters!

Well, how do you do? H’m—what did you say?

ETHEL (4imidly). Oh, we only said Oo-00-00 !

MONEYBAGS.

Well, why this surprise? Why this staring and stir?

CURLY-LOCKS (showing him her toy book).

We looked for shat kind of a Santa Claus, sir.

Moneyacs (taking book and examining it critically

through eye-glass).

Hey? what kind? Oh, that! Ah! permit me to look;

Why, Santa Claus, child, does n’t live in a book!

[Reading quickly.

H’m —* little old driver”— Pshaw !

toys "—

“ Down the chimney” —that ’s nonsense, you know,

girls and boys.

{Reading again.

“ He was dressed all in furs, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and

soot

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a pedlar just opening his pack.

Lis droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

And the stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it Ee his head like a wreath.

He had a broad face
Oh, that’s nonsense, I say:

I have n’t looked that way for many a day!

I dress in the fashion; I’m solemn in speech,

And detest all the folly hat fable would teach.



—* sleigh full of





68

‘THE FALSE SIR SANTA CLAUS..

[NovEemBER,



I hate to be bothered with children and toys,

And I’m “down” on this Christmas Day worry and
noise.

ETHEL (axxiously). And your sleigh ?—

Dick (dubiously). And your reindéer ? —

~ Monerysacs. All sold—long ago.

They were quite out of date—too old- fashioned and
slow.

What with steam-ships ddl railways and telegraph wires,

And stores overcrowded with sellers and buyers,
And modern improvements in every land,

There’s no use for Santa Claus, now ; — understand ?
(Sings. (Try “The Campielis are Coming.” )

I’m a thrifty old merchant, who lives at the Pole;
A sleep-loving, ease-loving, saving old soul ; :
I’m healthy and wealthy and wise, now, because—
I’ve done with the nonsense of old Santa Claus!
CHILDREN (singing, poutingly).

He’s a selfish old merchant, who lives at the Pole;
A skinflint old miser, as mean as a mole;

But he ’ll never succeed, if he tries to pick flaws
In the joys of the children —this old Santa Claus!

INDIGNANT PARENTS (singing, suappishly ).

He’s a heartless old merchant, who lives at the Pole;
For his comfort and ease, he would barter his soul.
Come away from him, children; don’t trust him,
because —
He’s a fraud and a miser—this old Santa Claus!
MOoNEYBAGS (bowing low, in mock humility).
Thanks for your compliments, kind friends, indeed ;
I’ll not forget your praises ;
'T is pleasure rare to hear and heed
; Such kind and courtly phrases.
- But this I know — you ’Il soon, with speed,
Give up these Christmas crazes. ,
Dick (emphatically), Well, is n’t this dreadful ?
ETHEL (tearfully). Ob, dear, I could ee
MONEYBAGS (¢hreateningly). —
You ’d better leave that for the “sweet by and by.”

Tf there ’s one thing I hate, in this bedlam appalling, ;

It is to hear children a-screaming and squalling.
So, if you attempt-it, I know what to do!—
CuRLY-LocKs (anxiously). Oh, what does he mean ?-
ETHEL. I don’t know.
ALL THE CHILDREN (vociferously). Boo-hoo choo!
MONEYBAGS (wrathfully).
What ho, there! Hallo, there! “My trusty, police; .
These children are cranky— this nonsense must cease.
Come in here, my beauties, these children to tell
Sir Santa Claus knows, how to manage them well. :
[Enter the Fase Four, one by one. Consternation on the part of
the children. Moneyeacs checks them off as they enter. .
'. Here.’s. Red, Riding-hood’s Wolf!
Here ’s the Big Bugaboo!
Here ’s the Whooping-cough Man!
Here ’s the Wandenne Jew!
Are ‘n’t they sweet ?, What ’s the .matter ?
quiver, and quake so; _ .
One would’ ‘think ,you were. ‘righte
shake so.

You



ed, to see you all

‘THE Bic Bucazoo (solemnly).

Dick. What horrid, ugly people! 6
ETHEL. Did you ever; ever see
‘Such dreadful folks itivited to a lovely Christmas Tree ?
MoneysBacs. Speak up, my gentle SeE eS ails and
tell these children, now,
What parts you play on Christmas Day—and when
and where and how.
RED RIDING-HOOD’s WOLF (suappishly).
I ’ve great big Ears, and I ’ve great big Eyes,
. And I ’ve great big Teeth, because —
Oh, yes, you ’ve heard the story before —
Just look at these beautiful jaws!
|Opening mouth very wide.

I ’m the Big Bugaboo! And I live in the dark,
With my grin and my club. And I wish to remark,
I know all the bad boys, and IT ’m looking at you /
So, don’t you forget I ’m the Big Bugaboo!

THE WHOOPING-COUGH MAN (asthmatically).

I ’m the Whooping-cough Man, yes, I an—I am—

I’m the Whooping-cough Man so breezy ;
And the bad boys I fill, yes, I will—I will—
With my choke and my strangle so sneezy.
And the little girls, too, yes, I do—I do—
If I find them at-all uneasy, —
Why—I take their. breath off
With the cough—the cough.
I ’m the Whooping-cough Man so wheezy.
THE WANDERING JEW (seductively).
“Old clo’es! Old clo’es! Cash paid for old clo’es |”
I sing through the streets of the city,
And the people they bring every ragged old thing
When they hear the sweet strains of my ditty.
[Impressively.

But the bad girls and boys, if they make too much noise,
Or if words with their betters they bandy,
Why, I ups with their heels,

And I smothers their squeals
In my bag of “old clo’es,” so Randa!
[More consternation among the children.
MoNEYBAGS (. aluringly).
They sometimes give Boxes at Christmas, you know,
Instead of the Stockings and- Trees.
A nice Christmas Box would be jolly to show —
You each shall have one, if you please.
Come, gather around me, and-I will explain.
[The children draw near in anticipation,
My meaning I ’ll make very clear :
[Ominously. \
If children are cranky, I don’t seal again, —
But give them—a Box on the ear! ©

[Tries one on Dick, with bewildering effect. The children retreat im

‘dismay, and sing dolefully :
Seo:

= Se sot se]

ips see children, Doleftl children

















— Soules |__|
(eae (ee arige esse #4



(ese ae co ore ares









69













£882. ] THE FALSE SIR SANTA CLAUS.
=e . Please to go, please to go, please to go, because —
bs ae rare ae ee =| You’re not-what they looked for in old Santa Claus!
BS = en * — ss aie = ae MoNeynacs.
oe ons.is all: our:p ee one as’ all our What! Go? Ah, no—the children want me badly, .



















pa byie = Pas ag 853

eppiensst Eee eS

Gees oe a ence





























—
- glee... Singing turns to sigh-ing ; Day is dark be-
= sess
= as Jt SRR =e: =
@xS3 s z=3| = te! pow











ees a

. =

ar Ss
a

ue ee such an ene ee



















cause.



































ae































ea

you're not what we look’d for in old Santa Claus.

















Sel



































ees son

—_ tT











CHORUS OF DISTRESSED PARENTS.

Worried, flurried parents, worried parents, we!
Pleasure’s sun is clouded, gloomy is our glee.

Christmas ends in crying, hopes are dashed, because —~
He is such a horrid, hateful Santa Claus!

- The darling, snarling, doleful little dears ;
If I should leave, I know they’d miss me sadly;
-I know they love me, so I’ll spare their tears.
What! Go? Ah, no—not while I’ve strength to
stand ; ;
Why, I’m Sir Santa Claus of Somewhereland!
Tue Fase Four (in derisive chorus).
What! Go? Ah, no—not while we ’ve strength to
stand ;
Why, he’s Sir Santa Claus of Somewhereland !
Jack FROST AND HIS WIFE (singing behind scenes).
Out from the kingdom of ice and of snow,
-. Rollicking, frollicking, frisking we go;
Rollicking, frollicking, singing in glee;
Oh; who so merry and cheery as we?
Clear xings our song, all the day long, 3
All the glad Christmas Day, Christmas Day long.
Shout the gay glories of Christmas so grand;
~ Shout for old Santa Claus of. Somewhereland !
[Moneveacs and the FatsE Four start in surprise at the sound of
this singing, and look at each other anxiously.
MONEYBAGS. |
Say, who be these that sing so blithe and free?
Quick, Jack O’Lantern, find this out for me!
Jack O’LANTERN (reluctantly).
_Excuse me, I beg; I’m suspicious of dangers,
‘And it ruffles my nerves, sir, to interview strangers,
JACK FROST AND HIS WIFE (singing nearer).
Racing and chasing, from sunset to light,
Painting the windows with traceries bright;
Dancing with sunbeams, all sparkle and life,
Oh, who so gay as Jack Frost and his Wife?
Oh, who so gay, all the glad day,
All the glad Christmas, the glad Citas Day?
Shout the gay glories of Christmas so grand;
Shout for old Santa Claus of Somewhereland!
{Jack O’Lantern clutches Moneygacs by the arm and drags him
to the front, saying, hurriedly and emphatically:
“Jack Frost and his Wife, sir,
Oh, run for. your life, sir!
They ‘ll stir up a strife, sir,
And interview you.
They ’re Santa Claus folks, sir,
Have done with your jokes, sir!
You “Il be pinched and poked, sir—
And frost-bitten, too!.

Moneyacs (defiantly). Pshaw! Who's afraid? Here
on my rights Ill stand! :
I am Sir Santa Claus of Somewhereland !
{Enter Jack Frost and his Wir, briskly.
Jack Frost.
How are you, youngsters ?
I am Jack Frost ——
His WIFE. And I’m his loving wife.
Jack Frost (looking at the children anxiously).
What ’s the matter? where are your shouts of glee?
Where ’s Santa Claus? And where ’s your Christmas
tree?

Full of fun and life?



70

THE FALSE SIR SANTA CLAUS.

[Novemser,





Dick (ruefully). There ll be no tree
ETHEL (dolefully): And Christmas alee is o'er.
CURLY-LOCKS (with a great sigh).

Oh, Mr. Jack! Christmas will come no more.
Jack Frost. Why, who says that, you curly little elf?
CURLY-LOCKS. ; ;

Oh, don’t you know? Old Santa Claus himself!
Jack Frost (looking all around).

Old Santa here? Where? Not among chat band!
Dick (fointing to MONEYBAGS). There! .
MoNEYBAGS (fompozusly).

Zam Sir Santa Claus of Somewhereland !

JAcK Frost.

You? Well, I guess not! You, sir? Oh, no, no!

That’s a good joke! You Santa? Ho, ho, ho!
MoNneEYBAGS. ;

There, that will do! Be off, now! Scatter! Pack!
Jack’s WIFE.

We get away? I guess not! Will we, Jack?
Jack Frost (dancing derisively before MONEYBAGS).
No, not for such a fat old fraud as you!
[Then to children.

This False Sir Santa Claus _ is fooling you! <

Monevsacs.
Quick, now, my good vellcmen; clear them out!
I will not have such vagabonds about.
THE FaLse Four (closing around Jack and his WIFE).,
Move on, now! Come—move on! You ’re in the
way here!
Jack Frost (with hand to ear, SereaevEaly)
I ’m just a little deaf. What ’s that you say, here ?
THE WHOOPING-cOUGH MAN (grasping JACK FROosT’s
arm roughly ). Move on, I say!
. (Jack Frost touches him with his wand.] “Ah !
Jack Frost (slyly). Well, now, what ’s the matter ?
Dick (touching the WHOOPING-couGH MAN, who is
motionless as a statue). He ’s frozen stiff!
[Jack Frost suddenly touches the Bic Bucazoo with his wand.
THE Bic Bucasoo. Oh, how my teeth do chatter !

[He also stands motionless and stiff. ®
Eruei. Oh, see there, Dick! Feel him!
Dick. He ’s frozen, too.

Jack Frost.
Jack’s magic wand froze the Big Bugaboo!
Jack’s WIFE. Fu
They both are frozen up. Too stiff to wink;
They “ll let us stay here now awhile, I think!
ETHEL (Jointing to MONEYBAGS).
But is n’t he Santa Claus?

Jack Frost. He? Bless you, no!

Moneygacs. H’m! how will you prove it?
Jack Frost. That ’s easy to show.

Moneysacs. Well, show it!

Jack Frost. I will, sir! I will—don’t you fret!

Jack’s WIFE.

Oh, False Sir Santa Claus, we Il beat you yet!
MONEYVBAGS (snapping his fingers contemptuously ).
What can you do?

Jack Frost. Oh, quite enough, I think;
We'll do enough, I know, to make you shrink.
I ‘Il summon up each fairy, gnome, and elf,

I ’ll cafl—I ’ll call old Santa Claus, himself!

I ‘ll tell him —no—for first, I ‘Il stop this strife,
Or. we will (wont we, dear?) Jack Frost and Wife!

[They rush with their magic wands to Rep. Ripinc-Hoov’s WoLF
and the WANDERING JEW, who are at once frozen to statues and
stand stiffand tigid. Jack O’LANTERN runs off.

Dick. Hey! The Wandering Jew ’s frozen stiff as a

stake ! :

ETHEL. So ’s Red Riding-hood’s Wolf!

statues they make !

ALL THE CHILDREN (exultantly).

And now, hip, hurrah! Let Jack go, if he can,
For this horrible, terrible Santa Claus man!

What nice

(Jack Frost and his Wire, dancing around Monevsacs, pinchand
poke him, while he winces and nee and shivers and the
children jump for joy.

Jack Frost and his WIFE.

father’s Clock.” )

We ‘il nip his nose and tweak his toes,
With cold he ’l] shake and shiver;

We ’ll twinge his ears and freeze hi: tears,
Until he "Il quake and quiver.

We ’Il cover him nice with a coat of ice,
While he ’Il shiver and sneeze and stumble;

No Santa Claus he! . A fraud he must be:

: He ’s nothing but glitter and grumble.

MoNeEvBAGS (aching with cold).

Br-r-r! Oo-oo-00! I’m cold! Oh, hold there, hold?

Do save me from this ice man.
Ah, boo —I freeze! My nose!. My knees!
Do stop it— there ’s a nice man!

(Try, for ae “ Grand-

[Enter Jack O’Lanrern, hastily, with a stick, painted to look like
a red-hot iron bar. 6
Jack O’ LANTERN.
Here’s a red-hot bar I’ve brought, sir ;
Heat will thaw you—so it ought, sir;
Now I'll try what heat will do, sir.
[Pokes Monevpacs with the bar. That ’s for you!
{Lays it on Jack Frost’s back. And that’s for you, sir!
Moneyeacs (jumping with pain, but relieved).
Ouch! that ’s better — what a pelting!
Jack Frost (growing limp and drooping, as the hot iron
thaws him out).
Wifey, quick! I’m limp and melting!
Come, with magic wand revolving;
Here’s your Jacky fast dissolving!
jac 's WIFE.
- Courage, Jacky, here I come, dear;
My! you’re getting thin. and numb, dear.
There! Ill stop this in « trice, sir:
(Touching Jack O’LanTERN with her wand.
Jack O’Lantern, turn to ice, sir!

[Jack O’LaNTERN becomes a frozen statue. Noise of sleigh-bells
heard, and then Santa Ciaus is heard shouting, behind
scenes.

SANTA CLAUS. (outside).
“ Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer!
Vixen !
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall,
Now, dash away! dash away! dash away, all!”
[The children listen. amazed and delighted.

Now, Prancer and



7882.) , THE FALSE

SIR SANTA CLAUS.

71



CHORUS OF CHILDREN.
(Try the “ Galop” from “ Gustavus.” }

Hark! we hear the jangle, jingle;
Hark! we hear the tangle, tingle;
Hear the jingle and the tingle of the sleigh-bells sweet
and strong.
Welcome, welcome, rings our greeting;
Joyful, joyful, is the meeting;
Sweet the greeting and the meeting, sing the welcome
loud and long.
Jingle, jangle, tingle, tangle,
Christmas joy shall know no pause.
Tangle, tingle, jangle, jingle,
Welcome to you, Santa Claus!

CHORUS OF HAPPY PARENTS.
Jingle, jangle, tingle, tangle, etc.
SANTA CLAUS (entering with a rush, shaking snow off ).

Hello ! Merry Christmas! I hope I’m on time!
With the rivers I cross and the mountains I climb,
With the roofs that I scale and the chimneys I drop
down,
By the day afer Christmas I’m ready to flop down.
But what if I do get so tired with trotting ?
Your joy gives new strength for my planning and
plotting.
My reindeer are fleet, and— Hello!
matter ?
Something’s wrong here—or else 7’ as mad as a
hatter !
Why is Mr. Jack Frost, there, so slimpsy and droopy?
Who are these funny statues so cold and so croupy?
Why are not all these little folks happy and hearty?
And — well—bless my stars! Who’s ¢hat pompous
old party ? :
MonEvBacs (advancing).
I am Sir Santa Claus of Somewhereland !
SANTA CLAUS (guizzing hin).
Ho! are you? Well, old fellow, here’s my hand!
So you ’re Sir Santa Claus ?} Well—by the by—
If you are he —why, bless me! Who am I?
Moneyaacs (loftily).
Ihave no doubt, sir, you ’re some low impostor.
Santa Ciaus. Well, come, that’s friendly! I ‘Il look
up the roster.
But, still—I ¢kizk,—as far as I am able,
I’ve been old Santa Claus since the days of fable.
How is it, little folks? Well leave to you
To say which is the False one— which the True?
Dick (decidedly). Oh, youve the true one!
CURLY-LOcKs. Certain sure!
SanTa.CLaus (inguivingly. ) Because ?—
ETHEL. We know that e’s the False Sir Santa Claus.
Santa CLAUS. :
Well, well; that’s logic! Then, by your decree,
What shall the sentence of this culprit be?
Dick (vindictively). Let’s tar and feather him !
ETHEL. And freeze him, too!
SANTA CLaus.
Well, little Curly-locks, and what say you?

What ’s the

CURLY-LOCKS (reflecting).
He ’s been so dreadful naughty, I should say
It’s best to make him good again to-day.
If we are good to him, why, don’t you see,
Hfe’ll have a chance to try and gooder be?
SANTA CLaus.
Why, bless you for a rosy little saint!
You’ve found the cure that’s best for his complaint.
What, Mr. Moneybags, shall your answer be,
Now that you ’ve heard this little maid’s decree ?
Do you appreciate the magnanimity
Extended you by this small judge in dimity?
Moneyvsacs (dropping humbly on one knee before
CURLY-LOCKS).
I’m conquered completely, as vou may see,
And I bow to your gentle sentence;
And.I humbly beg, on my bended knee,
Your pardon — with true repentance.
IT have been swch a horrible, cross old bear,
With never a soul above dollars;
But I promise you now, if my life you spare,
To be one of your happiest scholars.
Hereafter my days shall have more of glee;
With the children I ’Il frolic and roam, ma’am,
And I'll give one-half of my fortune, free,
To the Destitute Children’s Home, ma’am.
Santa CLaus (clapping him on the back).
Bravo! Now joy-bells ring out clear and free;
Come with me, children! To the Christmas Tree!
[Entér the Farry Bountirut, with a burst of music. All stand
surprised. ,
Tue Fairy BOUNTIFUL.
One moment tarry, ere, with wonders sweet,
The tree shall m>ke your Christmas joys complete.
One thing remains: List, while I tell to you
What Fairy Bountiful would have you do.
In the old days, when Valor, Truth, and Right
Would fight the Wrong and conquer wicked Might,
The champion brave his sure reward would see,
And, by his king or queen, would knighted be ;
And, as his shoulders felt the royal blade
Give the glad stroke they called the “ Accolade,”
These welcome words came, as his guerdon due:
“ Rise up, Sir so-and-so, good knight and true!”

Without old Santa Claus, the children’s fan

At Christmas-tide could never be begun.

In their glad hearts the champion he ‘Il stand —

Their good old friend, who comes from Somewhereland.

Let, then, the title that this False one bore

Come to the True, with love in goodly store.

Kneel down, old Santa Claus, while with ready blade

Sweet Curly-locks shall give the “ Accolade!”

[Santa Craus kneels before Curty-LocKs, who touches him lightly
on the shoulder with the Fatry’s wand.

CURLY-LOCKS.

Good Knight and True! Dear to the girls and boys,

Friend of their fun and helper in their joys,

Receive this honor from the children’s hand.

“ Rise up, Sir Santa Claus of Somewhereland! ”

SANTA CLAUS (rising).

Thanks, thanks to you, Curly-locks gentle and true;

Thanks all, girls and boys, for this honor from you.



72

_THE -PALSE- SIR SANTA CLAUS.

{NovemMBER,
you



Ill be loyal and leal to your joyous young cause.
Health and wealth to you all! says a friend Santa

Claus.

Now, rally all, rally all, rally with me, ;
Round the wonders and siglits of the bright Ciise

mas Tree,

Give a cheer and a shout anda chorus, because —
We have routed and conquered the False Santa Claus !

(During the chorus that follows, in which the parents should join,

—

the curtain or doors should slowly open and disclose the Christ-
mas Tree, around which the children, with Sanra Ciaus at their
head, should march as they sing:

Moderato.





















4 Ze Se

— Hur-

ive, Our love he will al- ee command,









“a Saas = eri





















ee

fopsbaptsct=











cae t= ==He ie

a a i!

eee































7 e
=P Pe ere





























When he children are safe in the Land of Nod, All
| a 8
zie of er ee ie = ee ;
a 2s 2-2 = f
Scherzo. ;
= et i - o
ee = == 22 et =|
C oS CS
. ei





St==



































eo















Co ete en-[e- rah for Santa Claus, long may he live At his castle in
geese re Saas er el
A ss we = wo.

a4 £2 #58 eas === aa aa 3325
ere oe “e—e- 2G oes fe e—_elo®
Ee om ato =









ar :
ee S gietee-= s2 =e S$iting ee =|





































f -
I : :
= — ————— =
Somewhereland ; Hurrah ! - Hurrah!’ * for
- — — ——
Ga iat in |
a rt eae
yee Foe
ew e_- e. ene
cp —-~—_$—S—6— : =
eee: ——— £5







== = bax:



=









































= = = =ste 1
===
chimney-tops, jolly and odd,Old Santa Claus rushes and

sees aoe
== eset z 3=3=3-

eee
ea e=3





Ye

























—- “8. Za = ¢ aoe
(===



CHORUS.

—— S See ahs
+ { Scop (Oe
@ t ose fF a ==

rac - es; Then ring out and sing out the ‘nine: we

eee a =P





























sleep -i-ly Ge in tele pla ~ ces, Thon o - ver the an - ta Claus, long” may he’ ‘live At
‘ Aeron ekg Ld, ot, Daeg
a : ee by 2 — > —
—f— se a E [— ee s__ ss 3
e =F Se = a oe | poe
a o-¢ £. 2. aC #2 ee
er ——o--— io { ie = io a fe cal i aa i
—_— —— Ses ep = = t = =e









a
Pease
his castle | im Somewhereland.
aS had ite
eee epi ael

eet eee

epg titetrte tet

a =



















While Christmas-tide comes with its laughter and glee,

Our hearts shall keep green asthe holly,

If there in the circle with smiles we may see

Old Santa Claus merry and jolly.

Cuorus: Then ring out, etc.

Then ’round the glad Christmas-tree rally with joy,

Let Love’s happy sun shine in gladness ;

Sing it out, every girl, sing it out, every boy,

Old Santa Claus banishes sadness.
Cuorus: Then ring out, etc.

DISTRIBUTION OF GIFTS AND GENERAL JOLLITY.



1882.] FOR VERY LITTLE FOLK. 73



THE STORY OF ROB.—Totp sy nis LirrLe Mamma.



Rog is my boy doll. No-bod-y knows what he says but me. Rob
ran a-way one day—when he was young-er than he is now—and he was
gone a long time. I was a-fraid he would nev-er come back; and Pa-pa
“went out one day and brought home Nee-na. Nee-na is a ba-by-doll,
with-out an-y hair; but
she has blue eyes like
Rob’s, and is just too
sweet for an-y-thing.
One day it was my
birth-day, and I had
a birth-day par-ty, and
we had real dish-es,
and I poured the tea,
same as Mam-ma does ;
and the door-bell rang,
and who do you think
was there?

It. was Rob, come
home! And he had on
a Scotch cap and an UI-
ster coat. Yes, and he
had a car-pet bag, too,
and there he stood in
the hall, look-ing up at
me, and hold-ing out
his arms. He had come
to my birth-day par-
ty, just as Pa-pa said
he would. Oh, how
splen-did he looked,
and how glad I was to
see him! And when
he saw Nee-na he was

glad, and I knew he
would nev-er run a-way an-y more. And now he stays home ev-er-y day and
helps nurse his sis-ter, and. he is a good boy. Not a speck of naugh-ty
in him. . This is a true sto-ry, and here is Rob tak-ing care of Nee-na.















74

JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

[NovEMBER,







a ane 3
wie - Ban Ware ud oe





eel) ACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

ONE of my birds overheard a queer conversation
between the Deacon and the dear Little School-
ma’am the other day. They evidently were over-
joyed about something, he says, for they constantly
enlivened each other with interruptions, and neither
seemed to care one bit.

“ Like it ?” exclaimed the Deacon, ‘‘like it? Of
course they ‘Il like it! They ‘ll be wild over it!

Who ever saw a:sensible boy or girl that would n’t .

like such a colored front i

But just here the Little School-ma’am broke in
excitedly: ‘‘ Yes, and then that tide-mill that
Mr. Trowb

But the Deacon, eho barely allowed her to
finish a single sentence, immediately asserted:
“Ves, yes! Splendid! And then there ’s the
Veto story y

*¢Yes! And oh, the Cloth-of-Gold, you know!”
exclaimed the dear little woman, ‘“‘ and ——”

And so they went on in a way that would have
made me think my poor bird’s head was turned by
some unhappy accident, if I had not happened to
overhear one or two such conversations myself, in
previous years, between the two good folk he told
me of. AndI always found, too, that every such
talk predicted some happy event for you and me
in the pages of ST. NICHOLAS; and that ’s the
reason I tell you in advance about this one. I
have n’t the slightest idea why,a boy or girl should
like a colored front, nor who Mr. Trowb is, nor how.
he is going to grind a tide, nor what a veto story is,
but I do know that whenever the Deacon and the
Little School-ma’am have a jubilant talk in the style
described by my bird-reporter, it ’s a sign of the
fairest kind of weather in the ST. NICHOLAS sky.
So be on the look-out, my hearers, and send me
word promptly of any new developments. For it’s
my opinion that there ’s a good time coming.







A YOUNG: SOCIETY.

THE dear Little School-ma’am, who is much
interested in the St. NICHOLAS Agassiz Associa-
tion, tells me that it is growing very fast, and that
many new Chapters’ or branch associations are
forming in various parts of the country. This is
good news. Natural history is what the Deacon
calls a natural study, and I like to. hear. that
thousands of boys and girls enjoy it so much
that they have. enrolled themselves under the
banner of the St. N. A. A. St. NicHoLas tells
you about the Association in the Letter-box
every month, and all that your Jack wishes to speak -
of here is the new Chapter that lately has been
organized in Jackson, in the State of Michigan, by
a nine-year-old boy, one Master Gridley. There
is not a big boy in the Chapter, for the youngest
member is eight years old and the oldest eleven,
but neither aré there any babies. Not they.
They mean business. Already every little man. of
them has his badge of blue satin, and has accepted
the excellent by-laws as drafted by themselves.
Here are the by-laws:

zst, Resolved, That we come here for instruction, and to Jearn
everything that we can.

2d. Resolved, That any person behaving badly shall be expelled
from the Association.

3a. Resolved, That any person who does not bring an answer to
his question shall be expelled. ,

qth. Resolved, That every person must pay the sum of five cents
to become a member of the Association.

5th. Resolved, That any person who wants to enter must receive
a three-fourths vote.

FORCED TO MOVE.

Dear Jack: I read in the newspaper yesterday an account of a
wren and his little wife, who were forced, by a disagreeable odor,
to move their nest, and it interested me so much that [ want you to
tell it to the other ‘boys and girls.

This wrén lives in Virginia, and he and his wife had just finished a
perfect little nest high in an eastern corner of the long portico of a
farm-house. ‘They seemed quite delighted with the result of their
labors, when the farmer’s wife happened to buy some asafcetida,
which’ you know is one of the worst smelling things in the world. To
keep it out of the way, she leaned out of a window and stuck the
package up under the eaves, close to the wrens’ new abode, when —
what do you think?—that knowing little pair of birds at once
decided that they must move. For some days they were observed
to be ina state of confusion, and at last some one, noticing their
movements, discovered that they had carried their nest, twig by
twig, away to the farther end of the portico, and in a more sheltered
part, where the disagreeable odor could not reach them,

Was not that wonderful? — Your young friend,

Manian D. R.

DIVING AT THE FLASH.

“Ves, he dived at the flash,” insisted the Dea-
con, ‘‘ and that is the. way he dodged me, or rather
dodged my shot: It was in Mr. Justus Hoyt’s
mill-pond in New Canaan, Conn., when I was a
boy about thirteen years old. As I was passing
the pond, with my gun in my hand, I saw a bird
as large as a small duck sitting on the water, close
to a bunch of thick bushes which grew on the
bank. Here was a chance forashot! I thought
I could get him to a certainty, for I saw that the
bushes would hide me so as to allow me to creep
up very close. I worked my way along carefully,
and when I peeped through the leaves there he
sat, not over ten yards from me, not having seen
meatall. I put my gun quietly through, and took a’



1882. |

steady aim. My shot struck the water in a circle of
foam, exactly at the right place, but the bird was
not there. Now, do you ask where he had gone?
That is it exactly; he had ‘dived at the flash.’
He went under so quickly that even the shot had
not time enough to strike him. The thing is very
wonderful, and I can not explain it, but I have
seen it many times since I made that first shot
when I was a boy, and I have watched the birds
often when others have fired at them, and I have
seen them escape, and they did it so rapidly that I
could never tell how it was done. Because of this
remarkable power they are commonly called water-
“ witches. In books of ornithology their name is
grebe: as horned grebe, crested grebe, etc.”

“FOR THE INQUISITIVE.”

‘HERE isa charming bit of a letter (which the
Little School-ma’am has picked out from many
good ones) in answer to

JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT.

75

ing the various parts of little birds’ throats by the
most astonishing Latin names that can be manu-
factured, we should be thankful that more birds are
not ‘‘ imitative,” for if they were we might lose a
great many of the songs we love, and, in return,
gain only a great deal of empty chatter.

ANOTHER ANSWER.

THANKS, young friends, for your clear and satis-
factory answers to my question in the September
number concerning the queer things with the slits
in their backs. After this, nobody need try to tell
your Jack anything more than he has learned from
your letters concerning the locust and its strange
habit of crawling out of its former self.

ANIMAL FLOWERS.

Dear Jack: I send you with this a picture of two animals that
look like flowers. ‘Their home is the bottom of the sea. The two
tallest ‘“‘ blossoms ” in the center of the picture represent the creature



my questions ‘‘ for the

==













inquisitive,” in the May
number :
BALTIMORE.

Dear Jack I saw in the
May number your questions for
the inquisitive one was ‘how
can a cat get down a tree”
pussy has very sharp Claws
which she sticks in the bark.
her claws are also very strong:
a little kitten can not get down
a tree very well as its Claws are
not very strong I put a little
kitten up a tree and she came
down backward a little way and
then jumped.

A dog can not come down a
tree or go up because his nail
are not shaped like that of a cat.
My cousin had a little dog and
he jumped up a tree about two
yards high and landed in the
crotch I remain your constant
reader Maniz H.

A TALKING CANARY.

Your Jack has just
heard of a canary that
had been trained to pro-
nounce a number of sen-
tences, closely imitating
the voice of the lady
who had been its in-
structor. Invariably after
such a performance, as
though overjoyed at hav-
ing accomplished some-
thing difficult, the little













creature would rush off













into a perfect ecstasy of

canary song, ‘‘tweet-

ing” and trilling as though, after all, that was
the only proper language for birds. An Eng-
lish writer, I am told, thinks it is the want of
‘imitative impulse rather than ‘any lack of the
necessary mechanical apparatus which now limits
the power of speech to parrots, ravens, jackdaws,
and a few other birds.” Other writers hold a
. different opinion. Meantime, my dears, while the
learned people are discussing this matter, and call-



TWO ANIMAL-FLOWERS.

called by naturalists RAzzocrinus loffotensis, and are copied from a
specimen brought up by a dredge from a depth of 530 fathoms, or
more than 3000 feet. The large lily-looking object at the right and
the lower flower to the left of the drawing show another animal
called Pentacrinzs asterta, They live attached to the bottom of the
sea. The ‘blossom ”’ is the head, stomach, and body of the animal.
When the little marine creatures on which they feed come within reach
of the arms that compose the lily, these arms close upon their prey,
holding them imprisoned until they are devoured, when this queer
‘flower’? again unfolds and moves its delicate stem, swayed by the
gentle currents, just as an ordinary flower is swayed by the summer
wind. Yours truly, D.C. B.



76 -THE LETTER-BOX. | [Novemser,



THE LETTER-BOX. |

3 sila SM ais ge See eae \\ slat -
oleh AN Ju. aa\bs XN IM, ar ye 35 x Wee cS, Che
none 4, - 4, ae :

a ab lle an sd\bediy, ja eeere oe ie
oe Bh SABA, ad et oKll M Sb wed

SOF org ll Sol WSS 5b poled 2 Sines. cu
a f sig Aunts Uy ix2\ drs dda) LAVA Sai on ol eb pls ( ie

E av, lawdlaede, am isp J5- Ming lbdly ess, al Ys ee
: EMG?
x \Se es \ Ht on eiiddeg) uf than las dan JUG
ve Slee pole sinoldlan (belies

a veer yexbe rr robe,
Sey

gn Bak ne



A REDUCED FAC-SIMILE OF A PAGE FROM “ST. NICHOLAS” IN ARABIC.



1882. ]

THE LETTER-BOX.

Le



Sr. NicHoLas in ARasic.

Rev. Henry Harris Jessup, the missionary, when in this country
a few years ago, suggested that many of the poems and rhymes in
Sr. NicHo.as could be translated into the Arabic language, and
still retain much of their melody and rhythm. The publishers at
once offered to supply any illustrations that would be needed fora
book of such transjations, and the result is a volume in Arabic with
textand illustrations from St, Nicuoias. It was printed in Beirut,
Syria, and is perhaps the first illustrated book ever printed in that
country, or in that language. The first copy was bound in Beirut,
on the r4th of last June, and we here present to our readers a
reduced fac-simile of one of its pages.



&
We are sure that all our readers will welcome and admire the
beautiful colored frontispiece, prepared expressly for this number of
Sr. NicHouas, and we are glad to announce that Mr. Birch has
made a companion picture, which is even finer, and which will
appear as the frontispiece of our next number. That number will
contain also several other exceptional fektures, as it is to be the
Christmas issue, and the finest single number of St. NicHoLas ever
published.
HartForp, Conn.
Dear St. Nicuoras: As I am always glad to get ideas for pres-
ents, I thought perhaps some of your other readers might like to
know how IT made a very pretty “school-bag”’ for my little sister.
J first cut out a piece of “‘ Ada” canvas, eight by twenty inches, and
worked a border around it, then lined it with farmer satin, olive-green
it was, as the stitch was worked in that color (though almost any
color would be pretty). I then braided some carpet thread of a
color to match the canvas, and fastened it on for handles. Then I
sewed the edges of the bag together. This is rather small, but it is
easy to make larger. Initials, or a fancy pattern worked in the middle
of one side, is a great improvement. I put initials. I have been
out of school for two months now, as I’m not well, and watch
for St. Nicuowas very eagerly. T have taken you for five years, and
shall keep on as long as I can. Every Christmas my grandma gives
me the three dollars to take you, and mamma has you bound. But
| must not say any more, as this is a long letter for the first time. I
must close now, as your very loving reader, Ciara M. Cone,
' . Thirteen and a half years.
P. S. Please ask the other readers to send a description of
some pretty piece of work.



Our thanks are due to Von Sothen for his courtesy in allowing
us to reproduce in ‘this number of St. NicHoxas his wonderful
instantaneous photographs of torpedo explosions.



. : .. DeErroir.

Dear St. Nicuotas: My brother and I have taken you fora
long time, and think you are splendid. I think it would ‘be so nice
for the subscribers who know how to make any pretty Christmas
présents to write to St. Nicuotas about them. I am sure if every-
body has as much trouble to find something pretty to make as we
have in this house, they would be very acceptable.

Something very pretty, for’ a person who has plenty of time, is a
random quilt, First, you want a large collection of silks, satins,
velvets, etc. The blocks are about one foot square. To make the
block, you embroider (with feather-stitch, etc.) the pieces of silk
together; they may be of any size or shape or color. If a piece of
silk is very large and plain, the effect is good to havea flower em-
broidered or hand-painted on it. The blocks are fastened together
by embroidery, and the whole quilt is lined with some bright-colored
silk. It is very pretty for an afghan on a sofa. ‘

Your interested reader, May.



. BROOKLYN.

Dear St. Nicnotas: I want to tell you a funny thing about our
little Mabel. When her father was having his house repaired, she
had seen the men climbing high ladders, and when she asked where
they were going, was answered, “To the roof.” Not long after,
Mamie’s mamma took her to see Jumbo. She watched in silence,
as one little pair of feet after another mounted the ladder to reach
the huge creature's back, then, suddenly clapping her hands, she
exclaimed: ‘‘Oh, Mamma! See! see! They are sitting a Juntos

roof!”



Janz B. Hates sends to the “ Letter-box” the following riddle:
Day by day, I ‘stand quite still ;
But when a person, thirsting,
_ Comes up and kindly shakes my hand,
’ Qut_ comes the water bursting.:
- What am I?
- > Answer: A pump.

THE AGASSIZ ASSOCIATION.—TWENTIETH REPORT.

Tuts month begins the third year of the Sr. Nicnotas Agassiz
Association. The latest number on our register is 3816, which
shows that our membership has doubled during the year. We have
now 336 Chapters on our list. We can not here afford space to ex-
plain again the history and purpose of the Society, but must refer
all who are interested to back numbers of the Sr. Nicuotas, which is
our organ of communication, and to the ‘ Hand-book of the A. A.,”
which we have prepared specially to acquaint all with the full
scope, plan, and history of our work. This book costs half a dollar,
and all orders for it, as well as all communications for this depart-
ment, and all letters of inquiry, should be sent to Mr. Harlan H.
Ballard, Principal of Lenox Academy, Lenox, Mass. The interest
taken in nature by our boys and girls, from Maine to Texas, has
been as gratifying as it has been surprising, and the assistance of
their elders has been of great value. Since our latest report, the
following new Chapters have been enrolled:

New Cuaprers.



No. Name. Menzbers. Secretary's Address.

319. Pelham, N. Y. (A)........ 4..Newbold Morris.

320. Peoria, Ill. (C)............ 6..J. A. Smith,

321. San Francisco, Cal. (I)... 8..Wm. Breeze, 1330 Sutter St.

322. Madison, Wis. (A) ....... t,. Andrews Allen, Box rqz.

323. Bryan, Ohio (A).......... 8..Miss Ethel Gillis.

324. Georgetown, D.C. (B)... 7..C. L. Dunlop. .-

325. Torrington, Ct. (A)....... —..J. F. Alldis, Box 165.

326. Freeland, Pa. (A)... .rr.,Samuel Caskey.

327. Muscatine, Iowa (A)......—..Glenn A. Gordon.

328. Buchanan, Mich. (A) 4.. William Talbot,

329. Mt. Vernon, N.Y. (A).... 7..Miss Clara E. Bernstein.

330. Cedar Rapids, Iowa (B)... 4..C. R. Eastman.

331. New Orleans, La. (A).... 4..Percy S. Benedict, 1243 St.
Charles St.

332. Augusta, Me. (A)........ —.. Chapter, please. send address.

333. San Francisco, Cal. (F)...11..Mrs. Helen Moore, 1336 Sa-
cramento St.

334. Chappaqua, N.Y. (A).... 4..M. Wright Barnum.

335- San José, Cal. (A)........ 8..F, R. Garnier, Box 181.

336. Auburn, N. Y. (B)....... '8..E. L- Hickok, 13 Aurelius Av.

ExcHaNnces DEsirED.

Franklinite, for carboniferous fossils, or the ores of tin or copper.
— Miss Mary R. Ridgway, W. New Brighton, Staten Island, N. Y.

Magnetic iron, shells from Scotland, and French buhr-stone.
— Maude M. Lord, 75 Lamberton St., New Haven, Conn.

Organ-pipé coral, and Tenney’s “‘ Geology,” for a large and per-
fect trilobite. — Bruce Richards, 1726 N. 18th st., Phila“, Pa.

Rare insects, for milberti, arthemis, semidea, nephele, portlandis,
and J.-Aléuiz butterflies.—C. C. Beale, Faulkner, Mass., Sec.
Chapter 297.

Insects of all kinds, for lepidopterze.— Fred. A. Brown, Malden,
Mass., Pres. Chapter 297.

Notes rrom Mremsrrs.

In response. to our question about the Proteus, Denver (B)
writes :

It is generally found in dark, subterranean lakes. It bears some
resemblance to the young of newts, having branchial tufts on each
side of the neck. The animal is of a light fesh-color, which deepens
on exposure to the air.

[The proteus is one of the salamanders, closely related to the
liredons. They are especially interesting because, even in their
adult state, they resemble one of the transient forms of higher
batrachians. ] 2

Can any one name a caterpillar which lives. on evergreen trees?
It carries its cocoon on its back. The cocoons have evergreen
needles hanging down the sides.

We now number five; we have also one honorary member. We
have separate collections instead of a general cabinet; we have a
microscope and books; we-all live near Agassiz’s Museum, and
have made one excursion to it. We have decided to take note of
all things we see concerning natural history. ‘

; F, T. Hammonn, Sec. Chap. 224...

I caught a fly and killed it. Then I took my microscope and
saw on its back, by the wings, a little red speck, and when I looked
at it with my microscope carefully, I saw it had legs and was alive.
Will some one please tell me what it was, and how it’ came there?

D. M. Perms, 26 Cathedral St., Baltimore, Md...



78

THE.LETTER-BOX.

[NovemzEr,



We are now fitting up and trimming our room, making cases,
and hunting up cabinets. We have added several varieties. of rare
butterflies and moths. - Sec. Chap. 223.

I have examined several kinds of pollen. I find it hard to deter-
mine the exact shape of the grains. Several] kinds appear oval, with
a mark across which looks asif it were a sort of rut.» .

While examining pollen from a cardinal flower (Lobelia cardi-
nalis), it occurred to me to float some of the grains in water. The
yesult was such a change of shape, which, beside, lasted only
while the grains were wet, that I gave up cardinal flowers in despair

A FRIEND oF THE A. A.

MayrortT, FLORIDA.
Pilot-boat ‘‘ Maggie B.” picked up a stone in seventy-two feet of
water, some three miles off the bar. The stone weighed about eighty
pounds. It was covered with moss, sea-weeds, and varieties of living
shell-fish. On one corner of the top was a branch of coral about a
foot long, with several branches. I never before saw coral growing
on such a stone, F. C. Sawver.

CopENHAGEN, N. Y.
Last spring I sent specimens of prepared woods to nearly one
hundred persons, I have a few more, which I would like to ex-
change. I will send one, to show method of preparation, on receipt
of ten cents. I also offer for exchange a case large enough to hold
twenty specimens of the woods. ‘The early winter is the best
time to cut woods, as the bark then adheres tightly.
L. L, Lewis, Box 174.

Sr. Cratr, Pa.

Some of us took an excursion to-day after “ water creatures.”” We
got some crabs, water-bugs, tadpoles, and two unknown species of
water-insects, all in some tomato-cans. When we got home, we
emptied them all into a little tub. One of the “unknown” began
to show murderous proclivities by tearing up the tadpole. When
this was taken from him, he attacked the water-bugs, so we re-
moved him to a separate apartment. _We wish to know the pirate’s
name. The other insects we did not know were long and narrow,
with two bead-like eyes protruding far from the head. They had

six long legs, the first pair of which pointed straight ahead, and were .

used to seize food. This food consisted only of flies, so far as we
could observe. Our interesting collection is prospering finely.
Gro. PowE.t, Sec. Chap. 266.

3 CoLumbus, OHI0.
We have a fine collection of insects. We have seven members,
and meet every week. . E, G. Rice, Sec. Chap. 307.

Rome, N. Y., Aug. 20.
The other day a curious nest was found fastened to the outside of
awindow. It was made of mud, and shaped much like a hornet’s
nest. On the outside, many small red spiders might be seen run-
ning up and down. ‘The inside of the cell was divided into round
cells, each of which contained a large yellowish-white grub, which
‘was covered with thin skin, closely resembling, in color and text-
ure, the inside shell of a peanut. We desire information regarding

this curious nest, City anp Country.

[The nest is the home of some species of wasp, probably Pelope-
us flavipes, or spirifer. \ abridge from the Zodlogist for 1864, p. 582:
*‘ About this time” (Aug. 8th, see date above), ‘‘ the other species
of pelopzus began to be busy fabricating their nests. When a
little more in length is finished than suffices for a single cell, an egg
is laid and spiders are brought in.” These spiders are for food for
the grubs of the wasps when they shall appear. They are stung so
as to be helpless, but not dead. Compare this with the way the
“digger wasp” treats caterpillars. The peanut-like skin was the
pupal envelope, with regard to which Mr, Gosse made a curious
discovery. The abdomen of the ‘‘dauber wasp” is supported on
a very long and slender peduncle or foot-stalk. ‘‘ Mr. Gosse,” says
‘Wood, “was naturally anxious to discover how the insect could
draw the abdomen out of the pupal skin. He discovered that the
pupal envelope did not sit closely to the body, but that it was as
wide in the middle as at either end.” “‘City and Country” could

. have learned all this by watching the insects. For extended details,
see Wood’s “‘ Homes without Hands,” p. 374.]

San Francisco, Aug. 29, 1882.

I have seen and eaten “squid,” and know a little bit about them.
The squid belongs to the cuttle-fish family. Some of them have
eight arms, and some ten. One with eight arms is called an octo-
pus. Itis dangerous for a man to go alone to catch them,.as they
sometimes draw him under water. Some squids have an ink-bag,
and when the contents are dried, sepia, used by artists, is obtained.

Bertua L. Rows 1, Sec. Chap. 296.

[Answered also by Bruce Richards. ]

Srocxrort, N. YÂ¥., Sept. 8, 1882.

On Friday, the 26th of last May, our teacher made a proposition
of starting a branch of the “A, A.” in our school. The attendance

at the first informal meeting was seventeen, of whom fifteen joined.
‘Three members have since-been admitted, We hold our meetings
in the school-house. We have a large number of specimens, but no
cabinet. WILLarD J. FisHer, Sec. Chap. 286.

(The School Committee of Stockport will undoubtedly furnish
you a cabinet, if they understand what you are doing. ]

Sycamorg, Iuz., Sept. 9, 1882.

T have a little beetle that must be first cousin to Stenocorms cenctus
(of which I have a fine specimen). It is about an inch long, with a
barrel-shaped thorax that has a little spine on each side and two
little black dots above. Its “flashing dark eyes” are grooved for
the admission of the antennz, which are long and many-jointed. It
is distinguished by two white spots on each wing-cover. These are
raised and shining, and divided through the middle. I can not find
an ‘account of it in Harris. Pansy SMITH.

[Who will name this curious beetle 2] %
j PirrspurGu, Pa., ‘D.”
Our chapter is progressing. finely-and increasing. in membership

every meeting. Please change the Secretary’s address to

GEORGE R. West, roo Diamond St., Sec. Chap. 298.

Hote pu SIGNAL, SwITZERLAND.
I thought you would like a specimen of the Edelweiss. It grows
in large quantities under the snow. The people here gather it and
make blankets of it. Harry JOHNSTON.

Music in THE A. A,
: Fuusuine, L. I.

. I want to tell you how much we enjoy our meetings. The sub-
ject of the latest meeting was Mistletoe, and here is what was said
about it. Mamma said, ‘‘ The botanical name of the mistletoe is
Viscum album. In olden times it was thought to be poisonous, for
Shakespeare speaks of the ‘baleful Mistletoe.’ The Druids used it
in religious rites. It is a parasite, growing chiefly on apple-trees.””
Miss Scott had tasted the berry, which is sweet and glutinous. She
painted me a lovely picture of mistletoe and holly. In the evenings
when Papa is at home, we have music, and, if possible; pieces bearing
on our subject; for instance, this evening we had a song entitled
“The Mistletoe Bough,” and an instrumental piece, the ‘‘ Mistletoe
Polka.”” Mamma plays on the violin, and I on the organ or piano.

From your friend, F. M. H.

Detroit, Micu.

J read in a number of the Canadian Entomologist an interesting
paper on ‘‘ Nature-painted Butterflies.” It was something like
this. Cut off the wings close to the body of the butterfly. Next
fold a piece of white paper in the middle. Cover the inside of the
paper with a thin, clear solution of gum-arabic. Lay the wings care-
fully on one-half of the paper, in their natural position, then fold
the other half down upon them. Press it with your hand, and leave
it to dry under a heavy weight, forsome hours. When dry, drawa
pencil line around the edges of the wings, then with a camel’s-hair
brush wet with water the paper outside the lines, deing very careful
not to wet tt elsewhere. Vastly, pull the two ends of the paper apart,
and the scales will adhere to the paper, leaving a transparent mem-
brane, which will fall out. Connect the wings by drawing a body,
and then cut out the butterfly. Cu, A. Wizey, Sec. Detroit (A).

Tue Oaxs, Tioca CEenreErR, N. Y.

I am nine, and my sister is five. We have examined a geranium-
bug, and it is beautiful: Its body is green, and it has six legs that
are clear like crystal. The antenne are longer than the insect, and
are sometimes thrown backward. It has a long beak. The body
has two horns at the end. The eyes are reddish brown, with tiny
white dots. Anciz Latimer, Sec.
Bircuam, Harirax, Nova Scotia.

I live on the sea-shore and near woods. Last summer I caught a
very large specimen of Lophius piscatorius, and. my father made a
skeleton of it. It was caught in the rock-weeds, and when we put
an oar at it, it caught it with its teeth, Heen W. Morrow.

Sours Boston, Mass.
On the outside of our school-house is a gong a foot in diameter.
In this a pair of sparrows (Passer domesticus) built their nest and
raised a brood this year. The gong has been rung about two dozen
times a day. Have other members noticed a more-curious place for
a nest than this? H. E. Sawver, Sec. Chap. 112.

St. Paur, Minn., Sept. 9, 1882.
Dear Mr. Baiarp::We had a few caterpillars, but they. all took
off their hair, and lay down in it and died. Frank RamaLey.

(Don’t bury them, Frank. ‘Watch for their resurrection. ‘They
have probably not died, but only changed into chrysalids. }

Philip C. Tucker, Jr., of Galveston, Texas, sends..a long and
interesting report on the squid, and requests us to correct an error,
which occurred in the July report, in the spelling of his name. He
also sends the following answer to F: R. Gilbert’s first question:

The Kuda Ayer, or Malayan tapir, is of a deep, sooty black color.
It is larger than the American tapir, and inhabits deep woods by
river-banks. It is extremely shy, ‘















THE RIDDLE-BOX.









‘ILLUSTRATED PUZZLE IN THE HEAD-PIECE.

SprraL Puzzte. The answer to this puzzle is a five-line verse,
appropriate to the November holiday, The last line of the stanza
is “Drops cider in the glasses” ; and the four remaining lines (con-
sisting of nineteen words) are concealed in the spiral. ‘These words
may be found by taking every second letter in the ‘spiral, after the
one to begin with has been rightly guessed. GF

CROSS-WORD ENIGMA.

My first is in thought, but not in mind;

My second in rough, but not in kind;

My third is in laugh, but not in cry;

My fourth is in corn, but not in rye;

My fifth is in sack, but not in coat;

My sixth is in sheep, but not in goat;

My seventh in gig, but not in dray;

My eighth is in fight, but not in fray;

My ninth is in grove, but not in wood;

My tenth is in mile, but not in rood;

My eleventh in sturgeon, but not in shad;

My twelfth is in gay, but not in sad;

My whole is a time to be grateful and glad.
ARABELLA WARD.

NOVEL CROSS-WORD ENIGMA.

_ My first isin November; my second is in February; my third is
in May; my fourth is in August; my fifth isin June; my sixth is
in September.

My whole is the name of a well-known poet, who was born
on November 3d. LEATHER STOCKING.

DIAMOND.

x. In Thanksgiving. 2. To place. 3. A tendon. 4. A military offi-
eer, 5, Conditions, 6..-Has been, 7. In festival.
‘ EDITH H. E, P.












NUMERICAL ENIGMA.

I am composed of forty-five letters, and form a quotation from
a book by George MacDonald.

My 15-43-12-4 is a prong of a fork. My 23-13-6 is a busy little
insect. My 5-29-19-28 is money. My 8-34-41-9 isa ballot. My
45-10-38-14~26 is an apparition. My 31~7-20 is a Wooden tub. My
27-21~3-24-36-40 is a very small twist of flax or cotton. My 16-39-
37 is a bulky piece of timber. My 42-17-32-11-30 is a kind of green
tea. My 33-28-35 is a tree similar to the pine. My 1-2-44-22-25
are sounds. E, J. CARPENTER.

RHOMBOID.



*
ak Ne
ee O*

*

* * * *

Across: 1. A word chiefly used in driving off a cat. 2. Spoken.
3. To decorate. 4. A delightful region.

Downwarp: rf. In Thanksgiving.. 2. A term which may be used
in designating several persons joined in partnership. 3. Dexterity.
4. A weed that grows among wheat. 5. Acover. 6. Myself. 7.
In Thanksgiving. J. 8S. TENNANT.

HALF-SQUARE,

Across: 1, A cape with a hood. 2. Disclosures. 3. To repair.
4. An abbreviation for one of the United States. 5. An abbrevia-
tion for a British Province. 6. A vowel. H. AND B,

ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN THE OCTOBER NUMBER.

A SHAKESPEARIAN CHARADE. Hamlet.

He saw the /és¢ upon a chopping block .(’t was unprotected).

He grasped the frst and did not second go (act undetected).

First and second show a play (by us selected).

Patcuwork..1. Let. 2. Lore. 3. Lumber. 4. Mass. 5. Leash.
6. Launch. 7. Lapse. 8. Knead. 9. Lantern.

ANAGRAMMATICAL SPELLING-LEssON. x. Cachinnation. 2, De-
termination. 3. Justification. 4. Spontaneous. 5. Terrestrial. 6.
Emancipation. —- CHarapE. Withwind.

Douste Acrostic. Primals, Franz; finals, Liszt. Cross-words:
x. FestivaL. 2. RabbI. 3. AtlaS. 4. NatcheZ. 5. ZealoT.

BEHEADED Ruymes. ‘Trout, rout, out. Skill, kill, ill. Spray,
pray, ray. Fit, lit, it.

StncLe Acrostic. Quebec, Cross-words: 1. Q-uiet. 2.U-sual.

3. E-lder. 4. B-ound. 5. E-mber. 6. C-ider.
Hour-ciass. Centrals, Vermont. Cross-words: 1. BraVado.
2. BrEad. 3. 1Re. 4. M. 5. LOg. 6. FaNcy. 7. PorTend.
Harr-square. 1. Presidial. 2 Reviving. 3. Evading. 4.
Sidles. 5. Ivied. 6, Dins. 7. (k)Ing. 8. Ag(ile). 9. L.
Douste Diagonat. Cross-words: 1. Her. 2. Ewe. 3. Ell.

MeEtTamorpuoses. x. Fail, foil, foul. 2, Mute, mule, mile, milk,
silk. 3. Floor, flood, blood, brood, broad, bread. 4. Wen, wan,
way, wry, dry. 5. Cords, corps, coops, crops, cross, cress, crest,
wrest, wrist, whist. 6, Heir, hear, pear, peas, pens, pins, wins,
wigs. Cross-worp Enicma. Emerson.

Provers Repus. Experience keeps a dear school, but fools
learn in no other.

Cups. From x to 2, deluge; 2 to 6, endear; 5 to 6, runner; 1
to 5, doctor; 3 to 4, Easter; 4 to 8, ransom; 7 to 8, anthem; 3 to 7,
enigma; 1 to 3, ddme: 2 to 4, ewer; 5 to 7, rhea; 6 to 8, room,



oo
°o

THE RIDDLE-BOX. [Novemsrr.

iTrLLELL LL



Cj seeeeeeeeee[)




CETTE ‘TT

TRACE a way through this maze, beginning at the circle containing the egg, and then through ‘the others successively, reaching at
last the middle circle. = :

‘Tue naMES of those who send solutions are printed in the second number after that in which the puzzles appear. Answers should be
addressed to Sr. NicHovas ‘ Riddle-box,” care of THe Century Co., 33 East Seventeenth street, New York City.

“ANSWERS TO ALL OF THE PUZZLES IN THE SEPTEMBER NuMBER were received, before September 20, from ‘ Professor and Co.”—
R..H. F.— Bessie R.— Emma Honig and Kate Howard —John Pyne— Marna and Bae—O. C. ‘Turner —Scrap —‘‘S. Long Beach. S.”
—Jumbo”—Fred H. Meéder— Annie E. Hixon—John C, and William V. Moses— Marie Faucompré— John W..Reynolds—‘‘Two
Subscribers ”— Prometheus —‘‘ College Point”’—“ Ailsa”.— Gertrude Lansing and ‘Julia Wallace—David E, Ansbacher— Florence
Leslie Kyte — Génie J. Callmeyer — Harry L. Reed — Clara J. Child. : :

ANSWERS TO PuzzLES IN THE SEPTEMBER NumBEr were received, before September 20, from Anna G.: Baker, 14 — Elaine, 2—
Frank P. Nugent, 4— Edith and Carrie Thompson, 1 — Charles N. Cogswell, 6— Sidney Van Keuren, 1— Blanche Haywood, 14 — Rosa,
Lottie Witte, 1 — Gracie D. Smith, 7 — Sadie L. Rhodes, 3— Florence E. Thompson, 6—‘‘ Southampton Trio,” iz — Chatles ‘Walton, 3—
“Two Aesthetic Maidens,” 9 — Helen and Hattie, r— A. T. Losee, 13 —Haedus, 3— Paul Gorham, 11 — Joe B. Sheffield, 2— A. Louise
Weightman and Julie P. Miller, 7 George W. Barnes, 4 — Susie Dessalet, 3 — Fred E. Walton, 3—Nellie F. Miner, 4— Claude Duval, 1

—“ Cinderella,” 2— Maude R., 3— Philip De Normandie, 2— Edith Buffington Dalton, 5 — Emile L. V.'Cheron, :— John P. Conduit, 4 . ©

—Nellie Caldwell; ro— Mabel Thompson, 7 — Weston Stickney, 1 —‘‘ Capt. Jinks,”’ 11 — Maud E. Benson, 4 — J. H. Ingersoll, 3 — Daisy,
2—Mary C. Burnam, 6—Ehrick Rossiter Jones, 2—D. S. Crosby, Jr., 12— Effie K. Talboys, 13— ‘Louise Kelly, 1o—‘‘Jinks and
Dad,” 9— H. Revell, 1— “Pewee,” 5 Grace Murray, 2— Allie Close, 6— Mary E. Baker, 5 — Helen R. and’ May D. Dexter, 14 —
Ruby .Frazer, 2— Alice W. C., 14 — Paul England and Co., 11 — Vera, 13— Roast and Pierce, 14 —‘‘ Alcibiades,” 12—‘‘ Patience,” 9 —
Willie, H. Bawden, 14— Arabella Ward, 3—M. W..T., 3—-Donna Ruth and Samiiel H: Camp, 7— Frank G. Newland, 10— Dolly
Varden, 6 — Helen W. Merriam, 11 — Francis L.. Bosqui, 3— Bertie and Maud, 8 — Arthur Herbert Cuming, 2— Afon, :r—‘‘ Jumbo,” 5
+ Gertie E.. Webb, 2—Addie White, 14 Gertrude and Florence, 11— Marion and Daisy, s—Clara_and her Aunt, 14—Frank P.
Midlam, 1 — Clarence H. Young, 14— Minnie B. Murray, 12—Shumway, 14— Algernon Tassin, 9 ‘‘ Flat-Rock Campers,” 11 — Cc. L.
Slattery,.13—Vin and Henry, 1x — Harry Johnston, 8— Bolivar, 13 — Daisy, Violet, and Clover, 3—T’ W. T., 7—Myrtle,.4 — Helen
Ansbacher, 7 — Trask, 14 — Nellie Mott, 1 — Freddy Thwaits, 14 — James H. Strong, 1o—V.. P.. Ji; S, M. S., 9— Warren, 5 — Rosette
et Félicité, r2— Madge Tolderlund, 4— J,.S.. Tennant, 13 — P, Embury, Jr., 5—- Appleton H., 14— Pernie, 12 — “* Three Old Maids,” 7
— Jessie Miihlhauser, a—A. Gardner, 11 — MaryBlack and Mae B. Creighton, ro— Standish McCleary, 4— Margarite, 2—Lottie A. Foggan, 3.



AS,
is
<—S

_ KELLOGG-HUBBARD LIBRARY

MONTPELIER, VT.
; Keep your Card in this Pocket and return it
; _ with the book to the library. —

ets -
j

BA ‘person who wilfully and maliciously a

_ writes upon or injures a.book, plate, picture,

engraving or statue belonging to alaw, town
blic library, shall be fined not more than

one thousand dollars, nor less than fiye dol

levees Section 6978, of the General Laws

of Vermont, 1917.





PRU RUS Ray
Shea atest ’ :
SP : Bs fs Rese ret

r 5 vi oe
aca thrusts 3 =
o te

bree sat

sh
phat
eae

ay

he
:

ie