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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Golden Days for Boys and Girls, by Various
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Golden Days for Boys and Girls
+       Volume VIII, No 25: May 21, 1887
+
+Author: Various
+
+Editor: James Elverson
+
+Release Date: November 17, 2008 [EBook #27287]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN DAYS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Louise Hope, Juliet Sutherland and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
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+
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+
+
+[This e-text comes in three different forms: unicode (UTF-8), Latin-1
+and ascii-7. Use the one that works best on your text reader.
+
+  --If “œ” displays as a single character, and apostrophes and
+  quotation marks are “curly” or angled, you have the utf-8 version
+  (best). If any part of this paragraph displays as garbage, try
+  changing your text reader’s “character set” or “file encoding”.
+  If that doesn’t work, proceed to:
+   --In the Latin-1 version, “œ” is two letters, but French words like
+  “étude” have accents and “æ” is a single letter. Apostrophes and
+  quotation marks will be straight (“typewriter” form). Again, if you
+  see any garbage in this paragraph and can’t get it to display
+  properly, use:
+  --The ascii-7 or rock-bottom version. All necessary text will still be
+  there; it just won’t be as pretty.
+
+Boldface text is shown with *asterisks*. The notation [->] represents
+the pointing-finger symbol.
+
+The layout of the advertising pages is shown after all text, along with
+a list of file names for major illustrations. Typographical errors in
+the original, whether corrected or not, are listed at the end.]
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+           *       *       *       *
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      Vol. VIII.--No 25.      May 21, 1887.
+
+                  GOLDEN DAYS
+
+              For Boys and Girls
+
+                           Philadelphia:
+                           JAMES ELVERSON,
+                           Publisher.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Transcriber’s Note:
+
+Text incorporated into advertising illustrations is shown in
+(parentheses); where necessary, a brief description of the
+illustration is given in {braces}.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+QUITE UP TO THE TIMES.
+
+_New Applicant_--Do I know how to use Sapolio? Well, that’s fresh! Do I
+look like a girl who don’t know about Sapolio? Am I blind, d’yer think,
+or can’t read? Why, the babies on the block know all about Sapolio. What
+are ye givin’ me?
+
+SAPOLIO
+
+is a solid, handsome cake of House-cleaning Soap, which has no equal for
+all scouring purposes, except the laundry. Perhaps you have heard of it
+a thousand times without using it once. If you will reverse the position
+and use it once you will praise it to others a thousand times. Ask your
+grocer for a cake, and try it in your next house-cleaning.
+
+  No. 3. [Copyright, March 1887.]
+
+
+DYKE’S BEARD ELIXIR
+
+[Illustration: (Before After Before After)]
+
+For_es heavy Mustache, Whiskers, or hair on bald heads in 20 to 30 days.
+Extra Strength. No other remedy 2 or 3 Pkgs. does the work. We will
+prove it or forfeit $100.00 Price per Pkg. sealed and postpaid 25c., 3
+for 50 cts., stamps or silver. SMITH MFG. CO., PALATINE, ILLS.
+
+
+$50 WEEKLY
+
+EASILY EARNED!
+
+*We want agents* for our celebrated Oil Portrait. *No experience
+required!* *4 orders* per day gives the Agent $50 weekly profit! Our
+agents report from 4 to 30 daily sales! Send at once for terms and full
+particulars. *$2 outfit free!* *SAFFORD ADAMS & CO., 48 Bond St., N.Y.*
+[Mention “Golden Days.”]
+
+
+IMPROVED
+
+HIRES’ ROOT BEER
+
+25 cents / PACKAGE
+
+Makes *Five Gallons* of a *delicious*, sparkling temperance beverage.
+*Strengthens* and purifies the blood. Its *purity* and delicacy commend
+it to all. Sold by druggists and storekeepers everywhere.
+
+
+A ZANZIBAR TIGER COWRY SHELL, 8c. Send stamp for list. Steel & Co., 135
+E. 23d St., New York
+
+
+CURE FOR THE DEAF
+
+PECK’S PATENT IMPROVED CUSHIONED EAR DRUMS *Perfectly Restore the
+Hearing*, and perform the work of the natural drum. Invisible,
+comfortable and always in position. All conversation and even whispers
+heard distinctly. Send for illustrated book with testimonials, *FREE*.
+Address or call on F. HISCOX, *853* Broadway, New York. Mention this
+paper.
+
+
+FREE a $2.50 *Gold Ring* to all who will act as our agents. The Journal
+Co., Essex, Conn.
+
+
+[Illustration: (THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA COMPANY)]
+
+GOOD NEWS TO LADIES.
+
+Greatest inducements ever offered. Now’s your time to get up orders for
+our celebrated *Teas* and *Coffees*, and secure a beautiful Gold Band or
+Moss Rose China Tea Set, or Handsome Decorated Gold Band Moss Rose
+Dinner Set, or Gold Band Moss Decorated Toilet Set. For full particulars
+address
+
+  *THE GREAT AMERICAN TEA CO.,*
+  P.O. Box 289. 31 and 33 Vesey St., New York.
+
+
+AGENTS wanted for Lyman Abbot’s Life of Beecher. The only proper one.
+A. GORTON & CO., Philada.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  Vol. VII “Golden Days”
+
+    NOW READY,
+
+      is a
+
+  MAGNIFICENT BOOK OF 832 PAGES!
+
+A perfect mine of everything that will interest young people.
+
+  *It is Superbly Illustrated,*
+
+    --CONTAINING--
+
+Over 400 Finely-Executed Wood Engravings!
+
+    Making, without question,
+
+  THE MOST ATTRACTIVE BOOK
+
+    Of The Season.
+
+[->] This volume will be sent to any address, prepaid, on the receipt of
+price--$4.00.
+
+  JAMES ELVERSON,
+  Publisher “GOLDEN DAYS,” Philad’a
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[->] Advertisements inserted on Second and Third Pages of Cover at 50
+cents per line, and on the Fourth Page at 75 cents per line, agate
+measurement).
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Best Practical Joke of the Season
+
+[Illustration: (Ring the Bell)]
+
+The perfect Electric Bell Button is made to pin on your breast, Fine
+ebony finish with white button sure to induce a push, which never fails
+to produce a shock with “Hail Columbia,” and variations. *A Full Charge*
+of electricity every time. The old joker is told “*That is Good! Ring
+the Bell.*” The *Best Selling Article* ever invented. *4760* sold by one
+agent in *3* weeks. Sample by Mail *15* cents.; two for *25* cents.;
+*14* for *$1.00*. 100 for *$6.00*. Try *$1* worth. Stamps taken.
+
+Send all orders to World Manuf. Co. 122 Nassau St. New York
+
+
+*EUREKA RECITATIONS*
+
+NINE NUMBERS NOW READY.
+
+Each number contains nearly *100 selections* by Mrs. Anna Randall-Diehl,
+and bound in 4-color lithograph cover. Mailed for 12 cents each by J. S.
+Ogilvie & Co., Publishers, 31 Rose Street, New York. Send for one.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  [Illustration:
+  (The
+  READY BINDER
+  for binding
+  THREE MONTHS
+  of the
+  GOLDEN DAYS
+  Price, 10 Cents.)]
+
+*THIS BINDER* is light, strong and handsome, and the weekly issues of
+GOLDEN DAYS are held together by it in the convenient form of a book,
+which can be kept lying on the reading-table. It is made of two white
+wires joined together in the centre, with slides on either end for
+pressing the wires together, thus holding the papers together by
+pressure without mutilating them. We will furnish the Binder at Ten
+Cents apiece, postage prepaid. Address JAMES ELVERSON,
+
+  Publisher, Philadelphia, Pa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: (Perfection Slate Erasor)]
+
+*We want you as our Agent* to sell the *Perfection Slate Eraser* in
+schools. _It is attractive, well-made and indispensable._ Send five
+2-cent stamps for sample and particulars. WITTRAM MFG. CO., 525 Front
+St., San Francisco, Cal. (*Box 2414.*)
+
+
+[Illustration {knife}]
+
+*FOR 10 cts. to pay postage &c.*, we will send this Charm Pen-Knife and
+five other samples FREE. *Atlantic Works, East River, Conn.*
+
+
+[Illustration {bicycle}]
+
+*BICYCLES $8 to $150. EASY PAYMENTS.*
+
+Tricycles, $7.50 up. Standard makes. 2d-hand Wheels handled. Send for
+Catalogue.
+
+GEO. W. ROUSE & SON, 34 G St., Peoria, Ill.
+
+
+[Illustration {ring}]
+
+1 Stone Ring, 1 Band Ring, 275 Scrap Pictures & Verses, Book of Poems,
+Book Flirtations, 40 Agt’s Samples, All 10c. Austin Card Co., New
+Haven, Ct
+
+
+[Illustration: (THE NEW DEPARTURE DRUM)]
+
+*THE NEW DEPARTURE DRUMS*
+
+are made with patent double acting rods and folding knee rest. Light,
+substantial and handsome. Used in the best Bands and Orchestras.
+Unequaled for tone, surpass all others in finish and appearance. If
+nearest Music dealer does not keep them, write to us for Illustrated
+Catalogue.
+
+*LYON & HEALY, Chicago, Ill.*
+
+
+*PRINTERS* Send stamp for wholesale list of BLANK Cards, 1000 kinds.
+Card Co., Montpelier, Vt
+
+
+*SHORTHAND* Writing _thoroughly taught_ *by mail* or personally.
+*Situations procured* all pupils when competent. Send for circular.
+*W. G. CHAFFEE*, Oswego, N.Y.
+
+
+23 HIDDEN NAME *MOTTO CARDS*, 10c
+
+Story Book and AGENT’S OUTFIT with each pack. HAMDEN CARD WORKS, Hamden,
+Conn
+
+
+[Illustration: (The Gem) {hose reel}]
+
+REEL, 25 FEET HOSE, NOZZLE AND COUPLINGS, $4.00.
+
+Sent on receipt of price.
+
+*Rubber Footballs*, No. 1, *$1.25* each
+
+Additional sizes to No. 6, 25c. extra.
+
+[->] *RUBBER GOODS* of all descriptions--Gossamers, Shoes, Boots, etc.
+
+*ROBERT C. GEDDES*, 316 Market St., Philada., Pa.
+
+
+*CARDS*
+
+100 Fancy Pictures, all new designs, 30 latest Songs, 50 Elegant Fancy
+Patterns, 1 Album, over 60 Colored Transfer Pictures, with our Grand
+Premium List all for *10 cts.* BIRD CARD WORKS, MERIDEN, CONN. Autograph
+Album, name in gold, *10 cts.*
+
+
+HIGHLY Educated Physician who has traveled much and speaks several
+languages, wants to complete a party of youths for travel in Europe.
+References exchanged. Address “Æskulap,” (office of) Advocate, 805
+Broadway, N.Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      Children Cry for Pitcher’s Castoria
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+*FOR MALARIA,*
+
+And malarial diseases so prevalent in the South and West, Ayer’s Pills
+have proved peculiarly beneficial. “I have found in Ayer’s Pills, an
+invaluable remedy for disorders peculiar to miasmatic localities. Taken
+in small and frequent doses,
+
+  *Ayer’s*
+
+Pills act well on the liver and aid it in throwing off malarial
+poisons.”--C. F. Alston, Quitman, Texas.
+
+Prepared by Dr. J. C. Ayer & Co., Lowell, Mass.
+
+*YELLOW FEVER,*
+
+The terror of the South, has yielded to Ayer’s Pills. James M. Crofut,
+of Beaufort, S.C., writes: “During the past three months our city has
+been scourged with yellow fever. Many friends and neighbors have been
+taken from us. In several cases Ayer’s
+
+  *Pills*
+
+broke the attack of the fever, and saved the patient’s life. They are an
+excellent liver medicine.”
+
+Sold by all Druggists and Dealers in Medicines.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: (BOYS GIRLS)]
+
+*LEARN TO TELEGRAPH*
+
+With the Pocket Telegraph Instrument
+
+In a few hours. Want an agent in each town. They sell fast. Sample and
+alphabet, postpaid, for 13 two-cent stamps, or 6 for $1.00. You can sell
+them quick for 25c. each. *PORTVILLE MF’G CO.* limited, Portville, Catt.
+Co., N.Y.
+
+
+MORE MONEY THAN EVER
+
+You thought of can now be made. MALE or FEMALE. Write quick for free
+Sample and Terms. BEST selling article ever out. *NATIONAL CO.*, 21 Dey
+St., N.Y.
+
+
+*LANGUAGES.*
+
+*The Meisterschaft System*, by Dr. R. S. ROSENTHAL, is the only
+successful method ever devised to learn to speak without a teacher, and
+in a few weeks,
+
+*French*, *German*, *Spanish* or *Italian*.
+
+Endorsed by leading linguists. Terms, $5.00 for books of either
+language. Sample copy, Part I., 25 cents. Liberal terms to Teachers.
+
+*MEISTERSCHAFT PUBLISHING CO., Boston, Mass.*
+
+
+*100 Choice New Recitations* 13 Songs, Elegant Sample Cards, all for a
+2c. stamp. CADIZ CARD CO., CADIZ, O.
+
+
+*SPRING SALE* To reduce our stock of music we will send by mail,
+postpaid, the *Beautiful Blue Danube* Waltzes and 60 pieces, full
+sheet-music size, including songs, marches, quadrilles (with calls), for
+only 20 cents. Satisfaction guaranteed, or money refunded. *WHITE WINGS
+& 100 Songs*, words and music, *10c.* W. HATHAWAY, 339 Wash. St.,
+Boston, Mass.
+
+
+*BROWN’S FRENCH DRESSING.*
+
+The Original! Beware of Imitations!
+
+[Illustration {bottle}]
+
+*AWARDED HIGHEST PRIZE AND ONLY MEDAL*
+
+PARIS EXPOSITION, 1878.
+
+Highest Award New Orleans Exposition.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+*PRINTING MADE EASY!*
+
+With our Economy Outfits. Business men save money doing their own
+printing! Fun for the boys! Instructions free. Business Outfits $7.50
+upwards. Card Outfits $2. Catalogue for 2c stamp. Wm. Volkmann & Co.,
+164 Washington St., Chicago, Ill.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+CAT’S-EYE SCARF-PIN 44 cts
+
+The Gem Cat’s Eye is so called because it possesses the peculiar ray of
+light or glisten seen in a cat’s eye in the dark. I have a limited stock
+only, and offer you one for only *44 cts.*, post paid. The same in Ear
+Drops, choice, *87 cents*. _Send Stamp for large illustrated catalogue
+of Mineral Cabinets, Agate Novelties, Indian Relics, etc. Trade
+Supplied._
+
+H. H. TAMMEN, 935 16th St., Denver, Col.
+
+
+*100 New Imported Scrap Pictures, 12 Elegant Imported Cards*, 1 Album of
+*50* Colored Transfer Pictures and Agt’s Samples for ’87. all for *10c.*
+S. STOKES & CO., Meriden, Conn.
+
+
+*DRUNKENNESS* *OR THE LIQUOR HABIT POSITIVELY CURED* in any of its
+stages. All desire or craving for stimulants entirely removed. Medicine
+can be given without knowledge of the patient, by placing it in coffee,
+tea, or articles of food. Cures guaranteed. Send for particulars.
+*GOLDEN SPECIFIC CO., 185 Race Street, Cincinnati, Ohio.*
+
+
+How to Make, Your Own *CANDIES*. By an Experienced Confectioner. Book
+containing 68 Recipes mailed on receipt of 10 cts. L. SCHWARZ
+Confectioner, 68 Fulton St., N.Y.
+
+
+1000 foreign stamps, including Mexico, Jamaica, Dutch E. India, Barbados
+& Portugal, 25cts. CHAS. A. TOWNSEND, Akron, O.
+
+
+*PAKET* of *FOREN STAMPS* and Catalog, 10c. *ALBUMS*, 50c. Agents’ terms
+and Catalog, 10c. JOHN NEWHAM, *Box 3694*, N.Y. City.
+
+
+*500 FOREIGN STAMPS*, Australia, etc., 10c.; 105 varieties, 10c. F. P.
+Vincent, Chatham, N.Y.
+
+
+STAMPS 106 varieties, 10c.; 1010 mixed, 20c. Putnam Brothers,
+Lewiston, Me.
+
+
+*STAMPS* APPROVAL SHEETS. Agents wanted. *E. A. OBORNE. Jamaica, N.Y.*
+
+
+*STAMPS* Agents wanted. 30 per cent. com. on sheets. Keystone Stamp Co.,
+Box 200, Philad’a, Pa.
+
+
+25 *Foreign Stamps FREE* to every collector. Send your address. _A. E.
+Ashfield_, Box 233, Rye, N.Y.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration]
+
+*A NEW BOOK ON CURVE-PITCHING*
+
+That so fully explains the Art that
+
+*Any one with a Little Practice can Master all the Curves* used by the
+most noted pitchers. Price, *15* cts. Send for Catalogue.
+
+  A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES FROM
+  1492 TO 1885, INCLUSIVE, FOR 10 CENTS.
+
+A. J. REACH & CO., 23 S. 8th St., Philad’a, Pa.
+
+
+*390* Funny Selections, Scrap Pictures, etc., and nice Sample Cards for
+2c. HILL CARD CO., Cadiz, Ohio
+
+
+*THE RED BOOKS.*
+
+NEW PIECES TO SPEAK IN SCHOOL,
+
+at Church or Home Entertainments. Elocution. Gesture. Beautifully
+Illustrated. 12 different numbers, $1.00. Sample by mail, 10 cts.
+*Agents Wanted.*
+
+*HALL & STEBBINS, 11 Michigan Ave. CHICAGO, ILL.*
+
+
+*CARDS*
+
+New Sample Book of Hidden Name Cards for a 2c. stamp. STAR CARD CO.,
+Laceyville, Ohio
+
+
+*WAKE UP* and earn *$70 per month* at home. COSTLY OUTFIT of samples,
+a package of goods and full instructions sent for *10c.* to help pay
+postage and advertising.
+
+*H. C. ROWELL & CO., Rutland, Vermont.*
+
+
+*4 U.S. ½ CENTS*, postpaid, 25 cents. Price List free. G. J. BAUER, 73
+Front St., Rochester, N.Y.
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+*PRINT YOUR OWN CARDS!*
+
+Press, $3; Circular size, $8. Press for small newspaper, $25. New Rotary
+Jobber, $100. Send 2 stamps for catalogue Presses, Type, cards to
+factory, Kelsey & Co. Meriden, Conn
+
+
+*WARNER BRO’S*
+
+  [Illustration: (CELEBRATED CORALINE CORSETS
+  FLEXIBLE HIPS
+           NURSING
+  HEALTH   ABDOMINAL  CORALINE)]
+
+*9, MILLION*
+
+worn during the past six years.
+
+This marvelous success is due--
+
+1st.--To the superiority of Coraline over all other materials, as a
+stiffener for Corsets.
+
+2d.--To the superior quality, shape and workmanship of our Corsets,
+combined with their low prices.
+
+Avoid cheap imitations made of various kinds of cord. None are genuine
+unless
+
+*“DR. WARNER’S CORALINE”*
+
+is printed on inside of steel cover.
+
+*FOR SALE BY ALL LEADING MERCHANTS.*
+
+*WARNER BROTHERS,*
+
+*359 Broadway. New York City.*
+
+
+*THIS HAMMOCK CHAIR*
+
+[Illustration]
+
+May be changed instantly to an automatic floor Chair adjustable to many
+reclining positions. Has no equal, and is desirable for
+
+[Illustration]
+
+*Library, Steamer, and Invalid Use.*
+
+Used in hospitals, colleges, families, and wherever
+
+*COMFORT AND HEALTH*
+
+are desired at a small cost. Folded compactly, and shipped anywhere.
+Circulars, testimonials, and photographs for 2 cts. Price $7 to $15.
+LIBERAL DISCOUNTS to agents and dealers. _Mention this Paper._
+*BLAISDELL CHAIR CO., 96 High St., Boston.*
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+           *       *       *       *
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                  GOLDEN DAYS
+              FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
+
+(Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, by
+JAMES ELVERSON, in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
+Washington, D.C.)
+
+                  VOL. VIII.
+
+          JAMES ELVERSON, Publisher.
+       N.W. corner Ninth and Spruce Sts.
+
+           PHILADELPHIA MAY 21, 1887.
+
+                     TERMS
+          $3.00 Per Annum, In Advance.
+
+                    No. 25.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+           *       *       *       *
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+              LINDA’S CRAZY QUILT.
+
+              By Fannie Williams.
+
+
+“Oh, dear!” sighed Linda Trafton, turning over the pages of a
+closely-written, school-girlish letter, which her brother Fred had
+tossed into her lap, on returning from the post office. “I do wish I
+could get silk pieces enough to make a crazy quilt. Cousin Dell writes
+all about hers, and it must be very pretty.”
+
+“Crazy quilt! That’s about all I’ve heard for the last six months!
+I should think you girls had all gone crazy yourselves!” ejaculated
+Fred.
+
+“Why, Fred!” was Linda’s only answer to this outburst.
+
+She was a very sweet-tempered little maid, with soft, brown hair and
+soft, brown eyes, that matched in color as exactly as eyes and hair
+could match, and gave her a look of being--as indeed she was--too gentle
+to dispute, or even to argue, with anybody, least of all with Fred, who
+was fifteen, and three years her elder, and always took a tone of great
+superiority toward his little sister.
+
+Still, he was a pretty good sort of brother, as brothers go; and, in
+Linda’s eyes, he was a prodigy of cleverness.
+
+So, whenever they happened to differ in opinion, and Fred expressed
+himself in this vehement style, she only looked at him in a deprecating
+way, and murmured:
+
+“Why, Fred!”
+
+“Well, I should like to know,” continued Fred, “what could be more
+idiotic than the way you spend your time, you girls, fitting those
+ridiculous, catty-cornered pieces of silk together, and working them all
+over with bugs and cobwebs and caterpillars, and little boys in Mother
+Hubbard dresses! You may well call ’em _crazy_ quilts! I don’t believe
+there was ever anything crazier, unless it was the lunatic who first
+invented them!”
+
+“Why, Fred!” said Linda, again. “Now, I think they are too pretty for
+anything!”
+
+“Pretty!” snorted Fred. “They’re made out of the last things that you’d
+suppose anybody would ever think of putting into a bed-quilt. I can’t
+get a chance to wear a neck-tie half out before somebody wants it. Kate
+Graham spoke for my last new one the next day after I bought it. And I
+hardly dare to put my hat down, where there’s a girl around, for fear
+she’ll capture my hat-band!”
+
+By this time, Linda was laughing outright.
+
+“Oh, you are so funny, Fred! But you only just ought to see Kate
+Graham’s crazy quilt. I _know_ you couldn’t help calling it lovely. She
+has got pieces of ever so many wedding dresses in it; but I don’t know
+who would give _me_ any. Aunt Mary never will get married, nor Cousin
+Susie, nor our Bridget, unless Pat hurries up with his courting--and
+there’s nobody else. Besides, they are all making crazy quilts of their
+own. I would start one with papa’s old silk handkerchief and his
+Association badge, if I thought I could ever get pieces enough to finish
+it; but I don’t see how I could.”
+
+“Bess Hartley told me that she was going to send off somewhere and get a
+lot of pieces that are put up to sell. You get a whole package of
+assorted colors for a dollar,” suggested Fred.
+
+“Oh, that would make it cost too much! Mamma would not let me do that,”
+said Linda, shaking her head. “She says it is well enough to use up odd
+bits of silk in that way, if one happens to have them; but she doesn’t
+think it right to spend money in such a manner, instead of using it for
+better purposes--and I don’t suppose it is.”
+
+“Well, I am sure I don’t know what you are going to do,” was Fred’s
+consoling observation. “You’d be as crazy as the rest of the girls if
+you began to piece a quilt; and I don’t know but you will go crazy if
+you can’t.”
+
+With which conclusion, Fred walked off whistling, and left Linda to read
+her Cousin Dell’s letter over again, and wish that Patrick O’Brien would
+propose to Bridget, if he was ever going to, so that she could get
+married, and have a new silk dress for her wedding.
+
+However, Linda was not the girl to fret and worry after things which
+were unattainable.
+
+Fred would have his joke, but she was not going to make herself unhappy
+just because she had not the materials for making silk patchwork, as
+Dell and the rest of her girl friends were doing. There were plenty of
+other pleasures and amusements within her reach, and the one that she
+enjoyed most of all came in her way, as it happened, the very next
+morning.
+
+[Illustration:
+“OH, MRS. BURBANK! WHAT BEAUTIFUL PIECES!” CRIED LINDA.
+“WHERE DID THEY ALL COME FROM?”]
+
+Her father said to her, as he rose from the table after breakfast:
+
+“Linda, would you like a ride, my dear? I am going to drive over to East
+Berlin, and I will take you along, if you would like to go.”
+
+“_If_ I would like it! Why, papa, you _know_ there isn’t _anything_ that
+I like so much as a good, long ride with you!” cried Linda, dancing with
+delight, as she ran off to get ready for the drive.
+
+For it was indeed a “good long” ride to East Berlin--fifteen miles at
+least--and the day was just as fresh and bright and lovely as a day
+could be in the fresh and bright and lovely month of May.
+
+The young grass was emerald green along the country roads, the apple
+trees were all in sheets of bloom, hill-sides were fairly blue with
+bird-foot violets, and sweet spring flowers were smiling everywhere.
+
+Linda was so full of happiness that she could scarcely keep from singing
+in concert with the birds that trilled and chirped among the trees on
+either hand, as the pleasant road led through a piece of woodland.
+
+But the woods came to an end abruptly where the trees had been cut off,
+and where some men with ox-carts were hauling away the long piles of
+cord-wood. Then there were fields of plowed ground on each side of the
+road, and then a long stretch of rocky hills and old pastures, and
+presently some houses came in sight.
+
+Old, weather-beaten houses they were--a dozen, perhaps, in all. Two or
+three had once been painted red, and still displayed some dark and dingy
+traces of that color; but most of them were brown, and some had green
+moss growing on their broad, sloping roofs--roofs which were two stories
+high in front, but came down so low at the back that a lively boy might
+reach them from the ground with very little effort, only the place did
+not look as if anything so young or so lively as a boy had been seen
+there for at least twenty years.
+
+Still, it was a pleasant place. There were thickets of lilac and
+mock-orange bushes around every house, and old-fashioned lilies and
+roses growing half-wild along the fences.
+
+There were flagged walks leading up to all the doors, with borders of
+evergreen box, which had once been trim, and still was quaint and
+pleasing; there were old gardens, where everything was “all run out,”
+but where the bees and birds appeared to find congenial homes; there
+were gnarly old apple-trees, with bending, twisted branches that touched
+the ground and made the most enticing rustic seats.
+
+Withal, there was a calm and stillness brooding on the place that filled
+one’s fancy with sweet thoughts of olden times and--
+
+“Whoo-oo-oop! Hip, hip, pip, hoo-_ray_!”
+
+“Good _gracious_!” cried Mr. Trafton, starting from his pleasant
+reverie, and clutching at the reins which lay loose upon his knee. “Good
+gracious! What’s that?”
+
+“It’s a boy!” said Linda, with a quite disgusted accent.
+
+Unquestionably, it was a boy--and a boy of the most aggressively modern
+type, clad in garments of the very latest cut, from his flannel
+yachting-shirt to his canvas “base-ball” shoes--a boy with a look as
+well as a voice, which proclaimed him all alive.
+
+His close-cropped head was bare, and his white straw hat came spinning
+over the stone wall and into the middle of the road, as if impelled by
+steam-power, before the boy himself scrambled over, giving vent to
+another whoop, which would have done credit to a Comanche gone mad.
+
+The whoop and the hat together were enough to startle almost any horse;
+and, although Mr. Trafton’s fine roadster, “Billy,” was pretty well
+trained, the combined effect was a little too much for his nerves. He
+gave a sidelong leap and started to run. His master checked him sharply,
+and veering from the road, he ran the wheels into a deep rut, and over
+went the buggy with a crash!
+
+Linda screamed, as she was pitched headlong into a thicket of sweet-fern
+which grew along the roadside; but the bushes broke her fall, and,
+beyond the fright and a scratched hand, she received no injury.
+
+Her father was equally fortunate, and, as Billy had recovered from his
+momentary panic and did not run, the accident appeared, at the first
+glance, to be nothing serious.
+
+The boy who had caused it came forward, with a look of trepidation upon
+his countenance, exclaiming:
+
+“I’m awfully sorry, sir; I didn’t mean to frighten your horse. I was
+down behind the wall and didn’t see you coming, or I wouldn’t have
+thrown my hat so. I was only scaring a squirrel.”
+
+“He must have been pretty thoroughly scared,” said Mr. Trafton, drily.
+
+However, the boy’s bright face wore an expression of such honest regret
+that he added, with a good-humored accent:
+
+“Well, well, I was a boy myself once. You must be more careful another
+time, my lad.”
+
+“That I will, sir.”
+
+And as Mr. Trafton began to raise the overturned buggy, the boy took
+hold and helped him.
+
+On getting the vehicle righted, they found that one wheel was broken so
+badly as to need repairs before the journey could be continued, and Mr.
+Trafton surveyed the damage with grave concern.
+
+The boy gave a low whistle, and murmured:
+
+“Here’s a state of things!”
+
+“I don’t see what I’m going to do,” remarked the gentleman. “There’s
+nobody in this region who could mend that wheel, I suppose?”
+
+“Oh yes there is!” cried the boy, brightening up. “Doran’s blacksmith
+shop is only a little ways down the road; you can get the wheel fixed
+there. I’ll go along and hold up this side of the buggy; and I’ll pay
+the bill, sir, as I caused the damage.”
+
+Mr. Trafton looked at him approvingly, but answered:
+
+“You need not do that, my boy. The bill won’t amount to much; but the
+job may take some time--and where can I leave my little girl? I suppose
+you would not care to wait in the blacksmith shop, Linda?”
+
+Before Linda could reply, the boy said, looking at her frankly, and not
+at all abashed:
+
+“She can stay with my grandma while you’re having the wheel fixed. Mrs.
+Deacon Burbank is my grandma; she lives right here, sir,” pointing out
+the house.
+
+“And where do you live?” asked Mr. Trafton, who took a liking to Mrs.
+Deacon Burbank’s grandson, for all his annoyance at the trouble which
+that lively youth had caused him.
+
+“I’m staying with grandma this summer,” said the boy; “but I live in
+Boston when I’m at home. My name is John Burbank.”
+
+“Well, John, you will have to take Linda to your grandma, for I cannot
+leave Billy standing here with this broken buggy.”
+
+“All right, sir; I’ll be back in a minute, and help you down to
+Doran’s.”
+
+So saying, John Burbank led the way, and Linda followed, to the nearest
+of the brown old houses--a big, broad-roofed domicile, with wide, double
+doors and narrow windows, and with two great cherry trees in the front
+yard, looking like two great drifts of snow, they were so thickly
+covered with white blossoms.
+
+A border of red and yellow tulips, gay daffodils, and “crown imperials,”
+edged the narrow walk which led from the front gate around to the side
+door, where they were received by a surprised old lady in gold-bowed
+spectacles, to whom John presented his companion, with the following
+concise account of the accident which occasioned her unexpected
+appearance:
+
+“Grandma, here’s a girl, and her father is out there with his team, and
+they’ve just had a break-down, and it was all my doing; but I didn’t
+mean to! I scared the horse, hollering at a squirrel. I’ve got to go and
+help her father get the buggy down to Doran’s, and she’s going to stay
+here till it’s fixed, and her name’s Linda. I don’t know what her other
+name is.”
+
+“Linda Trafton,” supplemented Linda, as the boy paused to catch his
+breath.
+
+“Johnny,” said the old lady, speaking as severely as a stout old lady
+with dimples in her cheeks and a twinkle in her eyes could be expected
+to speak, when addressing her only grandson--“Johnny, I do declare for
+’t, you air the worst boy! What under the canopy will you go to cuttin’
+up next? Come right in, my dear,” she said to Linda, “and make yourself
+to home. Johnny, you run along and help the gentleman; and tell Mr.
+Doran your gran’ther will pay the bill.”
+
+“Oh, I’m going to pay it myself, grandma, with my own pocket-money,
+if the gentleman will let me; but he says he won’t.”
+
+And Johnny was off before he had done speaking.
+
+“I declare for ’t,” said his grandmother, “that boy is a regular
+Burbank; jest exactly what the deacon used to be at his age--always into
+suthin’. I knew the deacon when he wa’n’t any older than Johnny, an’
+I remember jest how he used to act. Take off your things, my dear, and
+make yourself to home.”
+
+She took Linda’s hat and sacque, and carried them into the spare
+bed-room, where there was a great “four-poster” bedstead, with
+blue-and-white chintz hangings and a blue-and-white spread; and then she
+came and sat down by Linda, and asked her a great many questions about
+the break-down, and about her father and mother and herself, but she was
+such a nice old lady that Linda did not mind her being a little
+inquisitive.
+
+In return, she gave Linda quite a complete history of her own family,
+and told her a number of entertaining stories about Johnny and Johnny’s
+father, and about the deacon when he was a boy. Finally, she looked at
+the queer old clock on the kitchen mantle-shelf, and remarked:
+
+“It’s time I was gittin’ my dinner over to cook, and I guess I shall
+have to leave you to amuse yourself a little while, my dear. You might
+go out an’ look ’round the garden, if you want; or maybe you’d ruther go
+up in the garret, an’ look at Johnny’s picture-books an’ things. He
+likes to stay up there, when it rains so’t he can’t go out.”
+
+“Oh, I should like that, of all things!” cried Linda, delighted. “I do
+love a real old-fashioned garret, with all sorts of old things in it!”
+
+“Do you now? Well,” said Mrs. Burbank, beaming over the gold-bowed
+spectacles, “our garret is full of old truck, an’ you can go up there
+an’ rummage ’round all you’ve a min’ to.”
+
+She opened the door of a narrow staircase, with steep and well-worn
+stairs, and told Linda that was the way to the back chamber over the
+kitchen, and when she got up there she would see the garret stairs;
+and she guessed Linda could find the way up alone. She was pretty hefty
+herself, and she didn’t travel up and down stairs any more than she
+could help.
+
+Linda very quickly found her way to the garret, which proved to be
+indeed a veritable treasury of “old truck;” and her brown eyes opened
+wide with ecstasy as she caught sight of a real, genuine spinning-wheel,
+stowed away under the low, sloping roof.
+
+Then she discovered a smaller wheel, with a motto carved around its rim
+in quaint lettering, which Linda studied over a long time before she
+made it out--“Eat not the Bread of Idleness.” She learned afterward that
+this was a flax-wheel, on which Deacon Burbank’s mother used to spin the
+thread to weave her linen sheets.
+
+Beside the flax-wheel stood a superannuated chest of drawers, with dingy
+brass handles, which had once, no doubt, been a fine piece of furniture.
+
+Then there were broken-down chairs, with straight, stiff backs; queer,
+cracked jugs and bottles, and painted teacups with the handles broken
+off; and funny old spelling-books and school-readers, all inscribed,
+in beautiful handwriting, on their yellow fly-leaves:
+
+  “John Burbank, his book.”
+
+Linda knew that the John Burbank who had learned his lessons from these
+old books must have been the deacon “when he was a boy,” and not her
+young friend, Johnny.
+
+There were several old-fashioned wooden chests among the treasures of
+this delightful garret, and Linda hesitated to open them at first;
+but finally she called to mind that she had been given permission to
+“rummage” as much as she pleased.
+
+One chest, painted green, stood near the narrow window, which threw a
+checkered square of sunshine upon the garret floor, and as Linda raised
+the cover she gave a little scream of rapture, for it seemed almost as
+if she had found a broken rainbow, there was such a glitter of gay
+colors in the sunlight.
+
+“Oh! _oh!_” she cried, “what lovely, _lovely_ pieces for a crazy quilt!”
+
+For the old chest was nearly filled with scraps of silk and satin of
+every shape and size, from bits not over an inch wide to the large,
+three-cornered pieces, of which there seemed to be a great number, left
+in cutting trimming-folds “on the bias,” as Linda knew, for she had seen
+many such remnants proudly displayed by those of her girl friends who
+happened to be in the good graces of Miss Cranshaw, the village
+dressmaker. But such brocades and stripes, such “plaid” and “watered”
+and “figured” silks, such brilliant shades of color as she found among
+the contents of that chest, her eyes had never looked upon before.
+
+“I wonder if these are pieces of Deacon Burbank’s mother’s dresses?”
+thought Linda, as she turned them over, exclaiming, every other minute,
+“Oh, how pretty!” or “Oh, what a beauty!” for every new piece that she
+took up seemed prettier than the last. “Why, she must have had as many
+as Queen Victoria. Why _don’t_ they wear such colors now? Most of the
+silk dresses that Miss Cranshaw makes are black, or brown, or
+sage-green, or some other sober shade; but these are all so bright.
+Oh, what a lovely blue!”
+
+“It is a handsome piece of silk, ain’t it? That was the dress Miss Polly
+Newcome wore to the inaugeration ball at Washington, ’most forty years
+ago. They don’t have no such silks in these days.”
+
+Mrs. Deacon Burbank had mounted the garret stairs with footsteps far
+from noiseless, being, as she said, a “hefty” old lady; but Linda had
+been too much absorbed to notice her approach until she spoke.
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Burbank! What beautiful pieces!” cried Linda. “Where did they
+all come from?”
+
+“Why, they come from all ’round, my dear,” said Mrs. Burbank, sitting
+down with Linda, beside the green chest. “You see, my girls used to take
+in dressmakin’, when they was young, and the pieces kinder gathered an’
+gathered. The girls used to keep the silk pieces separate, thinkin’ they
+might do suthin’ with ’em sometime; but they never did. They was always
+too busy to do much putterin’ work. So the pieces have laid there ever
+sence the girls left home. They all got married, many a long year ago,
+my girls. Cecilia went to New York, and Evaline lives down in
+Pennsylvaney--she’s got to be quite an old woman herself now; and Nancy
+Jane, she’s layin’ in the cemetery over to East Berlin, with her own
+little girl buried ’long side of her,” said the old lady, sighing. “But
+they used to be called the best dressmakers there was anywhere round
+these parts; folks used to come from as far off as Tolland County to
+have their nice dresses made by the Burbank girls. Miss Polly Newcome
+went to Washington the winter that her father was elected to the Senate.
+She was a great beauty, Miss Polly was, an’ they made everything of her
+in Washington. But my girls had the makin’ of all her new clothes, ’fore
+she went. This was a dress she wore to a grand dinner-party that was
+given to her father, Senator Newcome.”
+
+And the old lady picked out a scrap of marvelous brocade, with
+silver-white roses on a wine-colored ground, and smoothed it on her
+knee.
+
+“This was the one she wore to the President’s reception”--selecting a
+bit of rose-colored satin, striped with sky-blue velvet; “and this,”
+she continued, smoothing out a long strip of changeable silk in green
+and ruby tints, “was another dinner dress. Here’s a piece of plaid silk
+that was made up for Squire Harney’s wife, when she was goin’ to Europe;
+and here’s a piece of Mrs. Doctor Thorne’s dress, that she had made on
+purpose to wear to a grand party over in Tolland.”
+
+This last was a good-sized square of bright yellow silk, with polka-dots
+of mazarine blue.
+
+Linda, looking at the gorgeous fabric with admiring eyes, exclaimed:
+
+“I never saw such pieces in all my life! They _would_ make the loveliest
+crazy quilt!”
+
+“What kind of a quilt, my dear?”
+
+“A crazy quilt,” said Linda, laughing. “Haven’t you ever seen one, Mrs.
+Burbank? Fred says the person was crazy who first invented them; but I
+think they’re just as pretty as they can be. It takes a great many
+pieces of silk, though, to make a bed-quilt, and some of the girls only
+make sofa-pillows and such things.”
+
+“Oh, you mean patchwork. The land!” said Mrs. Burbank, “I used to make
+silk patchwork more than sixty years ago. It was all the style then,
+but I didn’t s’pose they ever done it now.”
+
+“Oh, yes; it is all the style now,” said Linda, with a smile.
+
+“Do tell! I want to know if you like to piece patchwork?” said the old
+lady, looking over her spectacles at Linda’s girlish face, with its
+gentle eyes and frame of soft, brown hair. “I declare for’t, you look
+just as my Nancy Jane did when she was your age! If you want them
+pieces, child, you can have ’em; I ain’t got any use for ’em, and don’t
+s’pose I ever shall have. I’m too old to piece patchwork, myself--my
+eyesight ain’t what it used to be.”
+
+For a moment Linda was speechless with delight, but finally she found
+her voice, and cried out:
+
+“Oh, Mrs. Burbank! All those lovely crazy pieces! Do you really mean to
+give them to me?”
+
+“Of course I do, and I’m real glad to see ye so pleased, my dear. Them
+silk pieces have laid in that chest years an’ years, doin’ nobody any
+good; an’ they shan’t lay there no longer, if they can make a little
+girl so happy.”
+
+And the good old lady looked happy herself as she opened another chest,
+and, taking out an old pillow-case of home-spun linen, began to fill it
+with the wondrous “crazy pieces.”
+
+When she had crowded them all in and tied the bag with a piece of twine,
+she said:
+
+“Now, you can take ’em right along with you, an’ whenever your father
+happens to come this way ag’in, he can bring me back the piller-case,
+for it was one of Mother Burbank’s, and I shouldn’t want to lose it.
+I declare for ’t!” she added, “I forgot all about your father, child,
+I got so took up with lookin’ over them pieces. He’s got the buggy
+mended, an’ he’s come back after you, so you must come right down.
+I want you an’ he should have dinner ’fore you go; it’s all ready.”
+
+And happy Linda went down to the kitchen, where she found her father and
+Johnny, and Deacon Burbank, who had just come home to dinner.
+
+Mr. Trafton was hungry, and quite willing to take dinner at the
+deacon’s, instead of waiting till they arrived at East Berlin.
+
+They all became very well acquainted in the course of the meal, and Mr.
+Trafton promised to bring Linda to see Mrs. Burbank, whenever he came
+that way.
+
+“And I will bring my crazy quilt and show it to you, when I get it done,
+Mrs. Burbank,” added Linda.
+
+Whereupon Johnny spoke up, and said:
+
+“If you don’t get on with your crazy quilt any faster than my sister
+does with hers, you won’t ever get it done!”
+
+And Linda told him that sounded just like Fred!
+
+Johnny carried the pillow-case out to the buggy and tucked it under the
+seat; and Linda could think of nothing but her crazy pieces all the way
+to East Berlin.
+
+When she got home and showed them to Fred, he declared they were the
+jolliest, craziest lot of pieces he had seen yet!
+
+And when Linda’s quilt was commenced, all the girls went wild over it;
+but she laughingly refused to tell them where her pieces came from.
+
+She made a great mystery of the matter, asserting, in reply to all
+inquiries, that hers would be a crazy quilt with a history, and nobody
+should know anything about it until the quilt was finished.
+
+A crazy quilt with a history is no trifling piece of work, and the girls
+have not yet heard the story.
+
+
+
+
+DAVY’S TURN.
+
+BY FLORENCE B. HALLOWELL.
+
+
+“Never mind! It’ll come my turn some day, and then I’ll pay you boys up;
+and you’ll be sorry enough for all the mean things you’ve done to me,”
+and Davy Potter stooped to pick up the books which one of a group of a
+dozen boys had pushed from his arm.
+
+The school-house yard was muddy from recent rains, and the books were so
+wet and dirty that Davy took out his pocket handkerchief to wipe them
+off.
+
+“What’ll you take for that handkerchief, Dave?” asked Fred Bassett.
+“It’s a beauty, and no mistake.”
+
+There was a loud shout from the other boys, and universal attention was
+directed to the little square of faded calico Davy was so industriously
+using.
+
+A hot flush rose to the boy’s thin, freckled face; but he made no reply,
+except to mutter under his breath something which the boys could not
+catch.
+
+But there was a bitter, vindictive feeling in his heart as he followed
+his persecutors into the school-house. He did not understand why all the
+wit--if wit it could be called--should be leveled at him; why he should
+be the target for every poisoned arrow, simply because he was poor, ugly
+and always at the bottom of his classes. He thought it unjust and cruel,
+and longed with all his heart for the time to come when by some real
+good luck he would have a chance to “pay the boys up.”
+
+He knew that if he ever needed assistance in any such work, he could
+rely on old Sim Kane to help him; for the old man--a half-witted
+creature who earned a miserable livelihood by doing odd jobs of
+wood-sawing and cleaning for charitably-disposed people--had good
+reason, also, to hate the boys of the Prickett school, and long for
+revenge.
+
+Davy lived with an aunt, who gave him a home as a matter of duty, and
+regarded him as a burden and a nuisance, often treating him so unkindly
+that he was made very unhappy, and spent as little time with her as
+possible.
+
+He tried honestly to be dutiful and obedient; but he couldn’t help
+forgetting occasionally to wipe his feet before entering the kitchen,
+and sometimes he let the fire go out, or forgot to feed the chickens.
+Then he was severely reprimanded, of course, and told that he was
+ungrateful, as well as stupid.
+
+But in the woods he was free to do as he liked, and there was no one to
+scold or find fault with him, and he had many dumb but affectionate
+friends there among the squirrels, rabbits and birds.
+
+So he always took his way to the woods every Saturday as soon as he had
+cleaned up the yard about his aunt’s house, filled all the
+water-buckets, cut the kindling for the kitchen stove, and attended to
+the dozen or more other chores Miss Potter required of him.
+
+He never shirked the least of them, no matter how anxious he was to get
+away; for he had been so frequently told how much he owed to his aunt,
+that he believed he could not do too much for her.
+
+It was while exploring the depths of the woods, one day, that he
+discovered the secret retreat of the “Mystic Nine,” a club of nine boys
+who disappeared from the village regularly every Saturday morning during
+the spring, summer and fall, and remained away until sunset, often
+returning with torches to have a street parade after dark, or with a bag
+of plump birds for a grand “fry” in the kitchen of some indulgent
+mother.
+
+That they had a hiding-place of some sort, where they held meetings and
+ate the generous lunches they carried with them, all the boys outside
+the nine felt sure; but none of the Mystics ever answered any questions
+concerning it, and threw out vague but impressive warnings as to the
+terrible fate that would befall any one whose curiosity led him to seek
+to penetrate the secret they guarded so closely.
+
+Davy stumbled upon it quite by chance. Following the trail of a bird
+with a wounded wing, he found himself in a part of the wood he had never
+been in before, and came suddenly upon a great pile of brush a dozen
+feet high, behind which was the entrance to a deep cave in a rocky
+hillside.
+
+He entered, and found it well furnished with rough blankets, a table,
+an oil stove, and many other things necessary to the comfort and
+convenience of nine boys. A large window in the roof, which was
+carefully covered with brush, afforded a means to obtain light, when
+that given by the mouth of the cave did not prove sufficient, or when
+bad weather made it necessary to drop the canvas which did duty as a
+door.
+
+Davy, afraid of getting into trouble, kept his discovery to himself, but
+he made frequent stolen trips to the cave, and resolved that some day he
+would use his knowledge for the purpose of obtaining his revenge.
+
+He had a vague plan in his head to guide about fifty of the roughest
+boys in the village to the cave, and thus give the secret to every one,
+and he fully determined to let this be his form of revenge, when, being
+called upon to read in class, he was forced to use the wet, soiled
+books.
+
+His thoughts were directed so much to this subject that his lessons were
+recited even worse than usual, and as a result he was kept in to study
+for an hour after the close of school.
+
+When he was at last free to go home, and left the school-house, he found
+that poor old Sim was in the hands of his enemies. The Mystic Nine had
+placed him in his own dilapidated hand-cart, and were wheeling him down
+one of the side streets as fast as they could go, shouting and laughing
+at his frenzied cries of distress and the ludicrous picture he
+presented, as he clung to the side of the cart, the brim of his torn
+straw hat flapping in the wind, and an old scarf of bright scarlet silk,
+which he cherished as his dearest earthly possession, streaming out
+behind.
+
+Davy felt very sorry for the old man, but did not dare interfere. He
+could only wait until the boys, becoming wearied of their sport, ran the
+cart into a shallow pond and went off to seek other diversion.
+
+Old Sim was almost helpless with fright and exhaustion, and when Davy
+waded into the pond and pushed the cart out on dry land again, he threw
+his arms about the boy’s neck, and clung to him, sobbing and moaning
+like a child.
+
+It was all Davy could do to comfort and quiet him, and to persuade him
+to go home, so apprehensive was he that another attack would be made on
+him. But Davy finally succeeded in convincing him that there was no
+further danger, and the old man went scuffling off to the miserable
+shanty he called home.
+
+The next day was Saturday, and as the weather was clear and bright, Davy
+resolved to spend the whole morning in the woods. But his aunt found so
+much for him to do that it was nearly noon before he was able to get
+away.
+
+As usual, he divided his lunch with the birds and squirrels, and then
+lay down under a tree to read a book he had brought with him.
+
+But it failed to interest him, and his mind persisted in dwelling upon
+the unkindness with which he was so systematically treated, both at home
+and at school.
+
+“I wonder if it will ever be any different?” he thought, as he sprang to
+his feet at last. “If I only could get to the head of the grammar class
+just once, they might treat me better. But of course there is no use in
+thinking of that, for there’s no chance of it.”
+
+He strolled through the woods, his steps turning unconsciously in the
+direction of the secret cave.
+
+He had almost reached it, when he suddenly became aware of where he was,
+and started to retrace his steps, fearing the boys would come out and
+discover him there.
+
+But scarcely had he turned when, to his amazement, he saw old Sim Kane
+come rushing toward him from the direction of the cave.
+
+The old man’s face was pallid with excitement, and he was swinging his
+long arms, and muttering and laughing to himself in a way that made
+Davy’s blood run cold.
+
+“Sim! Sim! what’s the matter?” he cried.
+
+But the old man paid no attention to him, and not pausing to question
+him again, but sure there was trouble of some sort at the cave, Davy ran
+toward that secret retreat.
+
+His ears soon told him what the trouble was. The great pile of brush
+which concealed the entrance to the cave had been set on fire!
+
+Terrible was the vengeance which the half-demented old man had taken on
+his boyish persecutors.
+
+Davy, with a loud cry of horror, and forgetting in that awful moment all
+his own wrongs, seized a stout branch, and rushed upon the pile of brush
+without a moment’s hesitation.
+
+The entire mouth of the cave was a mass of flame, and it was no easy
+matter to scatter the burning brands, so intense was the heat.
+
+But Davy fought the fire right and left, with a wild energy far beyond
+his strength and years, and at last the mouth of the cave was clear,
+and the fresh air could enter it again.
+
+Then, exhausted, faint, and suffering most intense agony from a dozen
+terrible burns, the brave boy sank to the ground.
+
+At first he was scarcely conscious, but presently he became aware that
+some one was bending over him, and opening his eyes, he saw Fred
+Bassett’s face, so full of pity, admiration and kindness that poor Davy
+scarcely recognized it.
+
+“We didn’t deserve this good turn of you, Davy,” said the boy. “But I
+can’t tell you how thankful we are to you. But for you we would have
+been suffocated inside of ten minutes. It was that old Sim who set the
+fire. We were busy at the back of the cave, making it deeper, and didn’t
+know anything about the fire until we heard the old man shout at us from
+the window overhead. He was half mad with joy, and was just about to
+light the brush on the window. He must have fired the pile in front in
+twenty places. There was no use in trying to get out. It was like a wall
+of fire. I tell you, we all thought our time had come. It was just
+awful.”
+
+“I’m glad I came when I did,” said Davy, gently. “But I’m afraid you’ll
+have to help me home. My feet are so badly burned I don’t believe I can
+take a step.”
+
+“As if we’d let you even think of walking!” exclaimed Fred. “We’ll rig
+up a litter in short order.”
+
+So Davy was carried into the village in state by seven of the boys,
+while the two others went on ahead to tell Miss Potter what had happened
+and engage the services of a doctor.
+
+And it was not until his wounds were all dressed, and he was lying
+quietly in bed, with Fred Bassett and Tom Harper sitting beside him,
+that Davy happened to think that the “turn” for which he had waited so
+long had come at last, and he had failed to take the revenge he had so
+ardently desired.
+
+But he never regretted this, for he never had to complain again of
+unkind treatment from either his aunt or his schoolmates. For Miss
+Potter, in taking care of her young nephew during the three weeks he was
+confined to the house, found good qualities of head and heart the
+existence of which she had never before even suspected, and she made up
+her mind that she had thought Davy a burden because she had never really
+understood him.
+
+As to the boys--well, they made a hero of Davy, and the “Mystic Nine”
+became the “Mystic Ten,” by the admission to membership of the shy,
+freckled-faced boy who was always at the bottom of his classes.
+
+And affection and encouragement brightened up Davy’s wits so much that
+he ceased before long to occupy that unenviable and lowly position, and
+astonished his teacher by his rapid progress.
+
+No punishment was ever meted out to old Sim; but it is scarcely
+necessary to say that the boys were careful to let him severely alone
+after that memorable Saturday on which Davy became a hero.
+
+
+
+
+THE BLIND GIRL AND THE SPRING.
+
+BY SYDNEY GREY.
+
+
+  Yes, it is true that I am blind (it was not always thus),
+  But oft it comes into my mind how God can comfort us.
+  For if, of some good gift bereft, we bend before His will,
+  He ever has a blessing left which should our sorrows still.
+  This very morn I found it so; scarce had the day begun,
+  Ere with small, pattering, restless feet that hither swiftly run,
+  The children came in joyous mood, and shouted, “Spring is here!”
+  And when they led me through the wood, I knew that she was near.
+  I felt her breath upon my cheek, and while we walked along,
+  A thousand times I heard her speak the rustling leaves among,
+  In tones as though a harp had thrilled beneath an angel’s touch,
+  And all my soul with rapture filled: yet when I said as much,
+  The others laughed and whispered low, “Nay, nay, it is the wind!”
+  To them perhaps it might be so; but, ah! if folks are blind,
+  They learn in every sound that floats around their pathway dark--
+  The breeze, the brook, the glad bird-notes--some hidden voice to mark.
+  Therefore, when spring begins to don her garments fresh and gay,
+  Because I cannot look upon her beauty day by day,
+  Nor see the pointed crocus flame above the garden mold,
+  Nor watch the snowy tips that frame the daisy’s heart of gold;
+  Because unto my longing eyes may never be displayed
+  The changeful glory of the skies, warm shine and soothing shade,
+  Nor the great sun’s far-reaching rays which crown the day with light,
+  Nor yet the star-lit purple haze that comes before the night;
+  She breathes the tender tale to me, in accents clear and plain,
+  Until I nearly rend the veil and see it all again.
+  And though I’m blind, I know quite well, when to the woods we go,
+  The place to find the wild bluebell, and where the lilies blow;
+  Shy violets tell me, as I pass, their buds are at my feet,
+  And through the lengthening meadow-grass run murmurs soft and sweet.
+  Oh! I thank God that He doth bring such daily joy to me,
+  For even I can welcome spring, like happy girls who see.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+How to Make A Canvas Canoe,
+
+(_Concluded._)
+
+BY E. T. LITTLEWOOD.
+
+
+The covering is best made of what is known as “crash,” strong and close.
+It must be wide enough to go completely under the canoe, and can be had
+about 5 ft. wide, which will be quite wide enough. Seven yards of it
+will be sufficient.
+
+To put on the canvas, turn the canoe over. Lay the canvas with the
+centre line along the keel. Stretch it well by pulling at each end, and
+tack it through the middle at the extreme ends with a few tacks in a
+temporary manner. Put in temporary tacks along the gunwale at moderate
+intervals, stretching slightly, and endeavor to get rid of all folds.
+
+Begin in the middle and work toward the ends, and always pull straight
+away from the keel, and not along the gunwale. Then put in a second set
+of tacks half way between the first set of tacks on one side, pulling
+fairly tight. Then, on the other side, put in tacks opposite to the
+latter, pulling as tightly as possible.
+
+The best way to do this is to seize the canvas with a pair of pincers,
+so that on pulling you can get the head of the pincers just over the
+gunwale, when they can be used as a lever to give an extra pull. A tack
+may then be put in on the outside of the gunwale; half-inch galvanized
+tacks will do.
+
+Now remove the temporary set of tacks. To get rid of folds, which will
+not occur along the keel, but along the gunwale, keep bisecting the
+distance between two consecutive tacks by another tack, so that the
+canvas is equally loose on each side of it, always now pulling the
+canvas as tightly as possible.
+
+In this way the folds will disappear, and the canvas be stretched tight
+and well-fastened to the gunwale. Leave that portion within a foot of
+each end untacked.
+
+Next cut away all that portion which projects beyond the stem and
+stern-post; turn the edges in, and tack along the edges at moderate
+distances.
+
+Bisect these distances, and these again, till you have a very close row
+of tacks, as in Fig. 12. Pull fairly tight, but not too tight, and do
+not use pincers for this part; quarter-inch tacks will be best.
+
+The ends may be cut out and put on, lapping the edges over the side, as
+shown in Fig. 12, and enough canvas will be left to fill the part along
+the sides of the well, into which the canvas should be tacked with a
+fine row of tacks, afterward being stretched over the gunwale. The canoe
+will now be completely covered in except the well.
+
+Before putting on the top, however, give the lower part outside a good
+coating of boiled linseed-oil. This will be most of it absorbed into the
+canvas. The same may be done afterward with the top.
+
+When this is dry--that is, after two or three days--give another good
+coating of the same. Then paint the canoe according to taste. Two coats
+for the bottom will be advisable, and paint which will stand water well
+should be used. It would be well to paint the framework with one coat
+before covering.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Make a stretcher (Fig. 13) for the feet, of half-inch board, and slips
+to fit it into (Fig. 10), with stops on the floor. Also, a backboard of
+half-inch board, to correspond (Fig. 14). Each piece in the latter may
+be 18x4 inches. They should be nailed into two cross-pieces behind, so
+as to form a hollow for back, and should be placed two inches apart,
+to allow a space for the spine.
+
+I prefer myself to fit in the backboard by means of stops on the floor
+and back of the well, making it keep one position, and that at a
+considerable slope, and have not found a swinging backboard so
+comfortable as some appear to have done.
+
+For the paddle, for which I think about 7 feet 6 inches long over all
+is a good length, take a light, clean piece of yellow pine, or fir,
+1½ x 1¼ inches, not more, and 6 feet long. In the ends of this cut
+slots 6 inches long, each to receive two pear-shaped pieces of very
+light half-inch plank, 1 foot 3 inches by 8 inches. Nail them through
+with copper nails, if possible. The blades should be at right angles
+to the thickest direction of the handle.
+
+Before nailing in, shave down the handle from an oval of 1½ x 1¼
+inches for 2 feet of the middle to an oval of about 1⅛ x ⅞ inches
+near the beginning of the blades.
+
+The handle should have its full thickness at the beginning of the blade,
+but should be well tapered off along the blade, so as to be quite thin
+at its middle, where it ends. It should have its full breadth across the
+breadth of the blade. The blade itself may be shaved off thinner toward
+the edges.
+
+I do not think that for ordinary purposes any strip of copper or tin
+need be put round the blade, and the weight is increased by using.
+
+The great thing about a paddle is that it should be as light as
+possible, and, if it appears able to stand it, it may be reduced still
+further. It may be painted or varnished, all but two feet in the middle.
+I find no rings on the paddles necessary.
+
+A short strip nailed outside the gunwale in the middle of the canoe is a
+good thing; it prevents wear from the paddle, and forms something to
+catch hold of in lifting the canoe.
+
+A short outer keel is also a good thing at each end to prevent wear; but
+in making holes for the nails through the canvas into the keel care must
+be taken to turn in the edges round each hole, to tack with a close
+circle of tacks, and paint well, so as to render the place water-tight.
+
+An apron is seldom wanted, but may be made of canvas rendered waterproof
+with boiled oil, if desired.
+
+It is well to fasten some inflated bladders in each end, so as to make
+the canoe a diminutive lifeboat, in case of an upset or of a hole being
+knocked in her.
+
+The canoe will now be ready for launching. The owner should learn to put
+her carefully into the water and take her out by himself--to carry her
+on his shoulder.
+
+Superfluous wood may be cut from the central parts of the shapes, and
+also from along the keel toward the ends before covering. The floor
+forms a considerable item in the weight, consequently this should be
+made no wider or thicker than necessary. In paddling, learn to reach
+well forward and back, with a good swing of the body from side to side.
+
+Such a canoe as described will be found to wear well, and one made by
+myself for a friend two years ago is now in use, and quite water-tight.
+
+
+
+
+HOW THE PARTRIDGE DRUMS.
+
+
+“When I first came to Canada,” says a writer from that locality,
+“I found there were various opinions as to the method of making the
+sound. One man, who read a great deal, but rarely went into the woods,
+said that the sound was produced by the bird’s voice. Some of the
+hunters told me that the bird struck its wings on the log, and others
+that it struck them together over its back.
+
+“I did not give much heed to the bookman’s explanation, for all the
+woodmen laughed at it. I soon learned to discredit also the idea that
+the bird thumped the log with its wings, because whether it stood on a
+stump or a stone, a rotten log or solid timber, the sound was always the
+same. Lastly, I did not believe that the wings were struck together,
+because, when a pigeon or rooster strikes its wings together, the sound
+is always a sharp crack. At length, after watching the bird carefully,
+I came to the conclusion that it drums by beating the air only.
+
+“It is not an easy matter to get sight of a partridge when he is
+drumming, but I managed to do it by crawling on my hands and knees
+toward the bird, lying still while he was quiet, and only moving forward
+when he renewed his noisy courtship; for it is only to woo and win his
+mate that Sir Ruffled Grouse indulges in these musical exercises.
+
+“In this way I contrived to come within twenty feet without alarming
+him. Through the alder thicket I could just see his shapely form,
+strutting about like a turkey cock; then for a moment he stood upright,
+with his feathers lying close.
+
+“Suddenly his wings flashed, and at the same moment I heard the loud
+thump. Then for a few seconds he stood looking about as though nothing
+had happened; but presently came a second flash and thump, and others
+followed at lessening intervals, until at last the serenade rolled a way
+like the galloping of horses or the rumbling of distant thunder.”
+
+
+
+
+FROGS AND TADPOLES.
+
+BY E. S.
+
+
+It is very interesting in the spring to watch the gradual development of
+a frog from the egg, through the tadpole stage of its existence, till at
+last it assumes its final form.
+
+The old frogs emerge from their winter hiding-places in the mud, early
+in the spring, and during April their eggs may be found floating on
+almost every stagnant pond.
+
+A group of these eggs in their early stages of development looks like a
+mass of clear white jelly, containing numbers of black specks, each of
+which is really the germ of the future tadpole.
+
+In order to watch the development, a group of the eggs should be taken
+and put in a shallow vessel of water, which, if kept in the house,
+should have a bell-glass, or some other covering, over it, to keep out
+the dust.
+
+The jelly-like mass which envelopes the future tadpole is so clear that
+all its changes can be easily watched.
+
+First the head appears, then a flat tail, and in course of time the
+nostrils, mouth and large eyes, till at length the completed tadpole
+bursts open its gelatinous covering, and apparently not in the least
+embarrassed by its new surroundings, begins swimming briskly about,
+looking for something to eat.
+
+The time occupied in hatching varies in different countries, according
+to the climate, from four days to a month.
+
+The following stages are even more interesting, especially for those who
+can take advantage of the transparency of the parts to watch the
+circulation of the blood through a microscope.
+
+The body of the tadpole gradually gets broader, while the tail gets
+thinner and thinner, till it finally disappears altogether; but before
+that happens, its place has been taken by two hind legs, which first
+appear under the skin and then gradually push their way through.
+
+The fore legs next appear, and so on through all the stages of
+development, till in a longer or shorter time, according to the amount
+of warmth, light and food it can obtain, the complete frog appears.
+
+But woe betide the unfortunate tadpole which, first of the shoal,
+attains to the dignity of possessing limbs, for so ferocious are the
+later ones, and so jealous of their precocious little brother, that they
+almost always fall upon him, and not content with killing, never rest
+till every morsel of him is eaten.
+
+And unless several of the tadpoles assume their final change about the
+same time, this proceeding is repeated till their numbers are very
+considerably diminished, or, as sometimes happens, till only one
+survivor is left, who, having helped to eat all his brethren, instead of
+meeting with his deserts, is allowed to live on in peace, till some day,
+in the course of his walks abroad, he, in his turn, is snapped up as a
+delicate morsel by some hungry snake or water-fowl.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+  BE HONEST AND TRUE.
+
+  By George Birdseye.
+
+
+      Be honest and true, boys!
+      Whatever you do, boys,
+  Let this be your motto through life.
+      Both now and forever,
+      Be this your endeavor,
+  When wrong with the right is at strife.
+
+      The best and the truest,
+      Alas! are the fewest;
+  But be one of these if you can.
+      In duty ne’er fail; you
+      Will find ’twill avail you,
+  And bring its reward when a man.
+
+      Don’t think life plain sailing;
+      There’s danger of failing,
+  Though bright seem the future to be;
+      But honor and labor,
+      And truth to your neighbor,
+  Will bear you safe over life’s sea.
+
+      Then up and be doing,
+      Right only pursuing,
+  And take your fair part in the strife.
+      Be honest and true, boys,
+      Whatever you do, boys,
+  Let this be your motto through life!
+
+
+
+
+        [_This Story began in No. 22._]
+
+             IN SEARCH of HIMSELF.
+
+         A Tale of Dangerous Adventure.
+
+              BY GEORGE H. COOMER,
+
+        Author Of “Arthur Summers,” Etc.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+RALPH MAKES A FRIEND.
+
+Ralph had need of all his courage, as he realized what was before him.
+In a low, swampy spot, close under a pile of rock and earth, that rose
+out of it like a wall, was an animal such as he had never met with until
+this moment, although he instinctively guessed what it must be.
+
+The creature appeared to be in a complete frenzy of rage. It was covered
+with mud and water, and with furious motions was trampling down the
+long, rank grass which grew about the place.
+
+“A wild boar!” uttered our young friend to himself, with his heart
+leaping to his throat, as his glance took in the sharp back, the high
+shoulders, and the immense tusks that curved from the jaws like
+cimetars.
+
+He had seen pictures of such animals, but had never dreamed how
+startling the reality would be.
+
+The boar seemed to direct his fury against the ledge which formed the
+boundary of the muddy and grassy place where he was raging about; and
+looking a little above the savage brute, Ralph perceived a something
+which appeared like a human form in some manner confined among the
+rocks. He thought the body looked as if partially under a big stone that
+held it down.
+
+Instantly the thought came to him:
+
+“It must be that a man has got caught there under a rock, which he has
+pulled down upon himself in trying to clamber up.”
+
+Just as this thought entered his mind, he saw the boar give a fearful
+spring and fall back with what seemed a strip of clothing between his
+jaws.
+
+The position of the imprisoned man must be awful, and there was not a
+moment to lose. The next spring might be more successful.
+
+The fierce jaws clashed together with a startling sound, and the huge
+head was shaken, as if the frenzy of the monster was increased by the
+possession of that bit of rag.
+
+The prisoner gave another wild cry, and Ralph responded, with all the
+strength of his lungs:
+
+“I’ll help you! I’ll help you!”
+
+He was too far off for a successful shot, but he hoped by firing to
+attract the animal’s attention from the man to himself, and then, in
+case of need, he might retreat into some one of the trees among which he
+was then standing.
+
+So, taking the best aim he could, he fired both barrels in quick
+succession. But the boar, except by a furious toss of the head and a
+single terrible “_Whoosh!_” paid not the slightest attention to him.
+
+Indeed, the efforts of the animal to reach the intended victim became,
+if possible, more frantic than ever; and Ralph guessed that once, at
+least, the tusks came in contact with some part of the poor captive’s
+body.
+
+“I can do nothing in this way,” he said to himself. “The man will be
+torn in pieces before my eyes. I must make a bold move and take my
+chance.”
+
+Between himself and the scene of danger there was neither rock nor tree,
+but only the shallow mud and water, and the rank grass. The venture
+would be a desperate one, but nothing less would save the man from a
+terrible death.
+
+[Illustration:
+“RALPH’S LEGS WERE KNOCKED FROM UNDER HIM BY THE WEIGHT
+OF THE HUGE BODY, SO THAT HE FELL AT FULL LENGTH IN THE MUD.”]
+
+Ralph had about him shells containing charges of all descriptions,
+from fine shot to bullets. Quickly throwing open his breech-loader, he
+slipped a ball cartridge into one barrel and a heavy charge of buckshot
+into the other.
+
+Then springing forward, he went splashing across the morass, with the
+mud and water almost up to his knees.
+
+“I am no marksman,” he thought, as he strode rapidly on, “and shall have
+to get close to him to hit him; but if he should come at me, I shall
+have my second barrel, besides a plenty of shells.”
+
+There was some reassurance in this thought, especially as he had two of
+the spare shells in his hand, ready for use in case of need.
+
+At a distance of only six rods from the enraged animal, he stopped and
+brought up his gun.
+
+The boar was not still for an instant, but rushing about in its efforts
+to get up the rock. He had certainly struck the man, for there was blood
+on the rock and on the savage tusks. This probably rendered him all the
+more eager.
+
+“I’ll try the buckshot first,” thought Ralph, “for they’ll scatter a
+little, and some of them must hit him.”
+
+He ranged between the two barrels, and pulled. “Bang!” sounded the
+report. “Whoosh!” uttered the boar, stopping short in his efforts
+against the rock, and turning his whole attention upon the intruder.
+Doubtless he was hit, but perhaps not mortally.
+
+Ralph’s gun was again at his face. “Bang!” This time the single ball was
+sent, but through the smoke of the discharge he saw that the boar was
+rushing upon him.
+
+An interval of six rods, and a wild hog, six feet long, bounding over it
+with clashing jaws! How the breech-loader sprang open, and how the two
+spare charges went into it! What if Ralph had not held them all ready in
+his hand?
+
+“Bang! bang!” The boar’s head was not three feet from the muzzle as the
+second barrel was fired. The monster’s impetus carried him on with a
+plunge; and the young hero’s legs were knocked from under him by the
+weight of the huge body, so that he fell at full length in the mud.
+
+For an instant he believed himself lost, and while scrambling to his
+feet he expected to feel the sweep of those sword-like tusks.
+
+But there was no longer any danger; the last discharge had done its work
+to perfection, and with his knees bent under him, the boar lay just as
+he had plowed into the mire, having not even rolled over.
+
+Picking up his gun, Ralph hurried to assist the person on the rock, whom
+he had already seen to be a negro, and whom he now found to be held down
+by a large stone, which lay upon his legs, he having doubtless pulled it
+from a position above in his frantic efforts to escape from his pursuer.
+
+The confined black could not help himself; but Ralph succeeded, without
+much difficulty, in relieving him from the heavy weight.
+
+The stone could not have slipped more than two or three feet, for the
+negro was not much injured by it, although it had held him so firmly.
+He had the marks of the animal’s tusks on one of his legs; but the wound
+was not a dangerous one. Ralph bound his handkerchief around it, and
+felt very glad to find that the poor fellow was almost as good as new.
+
+Finding himself able to walk, and seeming to realize how much he owed to
+his young rescuer, the stout negro grasped the boy’s right hand in both
+his own, and with tears glistening in his eyes, uttered a number of
+rapid sentences, only a few words of which Ralph could understand, but
+which were evidently the outpourings of gratitude.
+
+Still, there was in his manner an appearance of apprehension, as if he
+feared that the lad might not be alone. He would glance furtively about,
+like one who is expecting an enemy; and it was plain that he was
+meditating a retreat.
+
+Back of the rocks there was dry, firm land; and in this direction he
+looked, as if desirous of moving off.
+
+Ralph recalled the conversation which he had heard the day before about
+the runaway slave.
+
+“This man may be Jumbo himself,” he thought. “I’ll try to make him
+understand me.”
+
+Then, looking kindly in the negro’s face, he said, in Spanish:
+
+“I think you are Jumbo. I am only a boy, and I am all alone. You are
+free; you can go where you will.”
+
+And he pointed to the deep, free woods.
+
+Ralph had great difficulty in getting out this amount of Castilian; but
+the negro, whose own command of that language seemed to be of the most
+meagre description, comprehended his meaning. He took the spirit, if not
+the words.
+
+A grateful expression came over his dark face, and again he clasped the
+boy’s hand, with the same flow of mingled African and Spanish upon his
+tongue.
+
+Ralph bade him a kind good-by, and he walked away into the forest,
+waving his sable hand with a gesture full of feeling as he disappeared.
+
+Our young sailor now proceeded to examine the animal he had killed.
+
+It is said that the timid man is afraid before the danger, the coward
+during it, and the brave man after it. Ralph was afraid after it.
+
+He felt a kind of weakness about the knees, and wondered that he had not
+noticed it before. He remembered how the bristles had stood up on the
+boar’s back, how the savage jaws had clashed together, and how he had
+seen the tusks standing out like long knives as the creature came
+straight for him.
+
+Now how grim the monster looked as he lay in the mud and water, just
+where he had dropped dead--not on his side, but with the legs doubled
+under him, and the stout, hoggish ears sticking up like ears of corn.
+
+“The next thing is to find my pony,” thought Ralph. “Let’s see--which
+way did I come? Here are my tracks. I must have come out of that thicket
+yonder.”
+
+Then, looking about him, he saw another line of tracks, and, going to
+examine it, perceived that it was where the boar had chased the black
+man across the morass. Most of the negro’s footprints were lost in those
+of the hog.
+
+Almost at the moment in which Ralph reached his pony, he heard the
+report of a gun at some distance, and guessed that Mr. Arthur was coming
+in search of him. He answered the signal, and the planter, who had
+become anxious for his safety, soon made his appearance.
+
+“I had begun to be really alarmed about you,” said Mr. Arthur, “and
+feared I should have to go back and summon assistance in the search. If
+you had not heard my gun, I should have missed you, for I was just about
+to turn in the opposite direction.”
+
+“Oh, I am sorry I have given you all this trouble!” said Ralph. “It is
+too bad. But you can’t think what I have killed! I am glad you have
+come, so that I can show you.”
+
+“Why, how wet and muddy you are!” said the planter, “and how your
+clothes are torn! For heaven’s sake! where have you been?”
+
+Ralph related his adventure, and told how the black man had gone into
+the forest.
+
+“I would not have had you take such a risk for all I am worth!” said Mr.
+Arthur. “What would your father say if he knew of it?”
+
+“But the man couldn’t get away, and the boar might have got at him
+before I could have had a chance to bring any one else here,” replied
+Ralph.
+
+“Yes, I know; but it was a fearful risk. No doubt the man was the
+runaway that I was speaking of to Mr. Osborne. At least, I should judge
+so from your description. Osborne would have detained him, of course;
+but I am not sorry that you made no such attempt. I should have been
+tempted to let him go myself.”
+
+It was a great relief to Ralph to find that Mr. Arthur took this view of
+the matter--a very singular one, he thought, for the owner of five or
+six hundred slaves; yet, from what he had seen of his kind friend, he
+was not surprised at it.
+
+The planter was curious to visit the scene of the adventure, and, with
+some difficulty, they made their way to the place.
+
+“Why, Ralph,” he exclaimed, looking at the dead animal, and then at the
+surroundings of the spot, “it is fearful! Had I known what you were
+about, I should have given you up for lost. Not a tree within twenty
+rods of you! Suppose you had failed to kill him? It frightens me to
+think of it!”
+
+Going to the ledge beyond, they saw where the negro had scrambled up
+with muddy feet, and where the sharp hoofs of the boar had scratched
+long lines on the rock.
+
+It was easy to see how the large, loose stone, which had prevented the
+fugitive’s escape, had slipped from its place as he tried to climb
+over it.
+
+“Well, well,” said Mr. Arthur, “you ought to have one good friend in the
+forest, and I guess you have! I don’t think that poor fellow will ever
+forget you.”
+
+Ralph felt that this was pay enough, even though the friend was only a
+poor negro, whom he might never see again.
+
+And now, leaving the huge game where it had fallen, he accompanied the
+good planter back to the little village of huts, where Mrs. Arthur and
+Camilla were awaiting them in some anxiety.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+OUR SAILOR BOY DISLIKES MR. OSBORNE.
+
+“Oh, how dreadful!” exclaimed Camilla, as she listened to the recital of
+what had taken place.
+
+“I am thinking of his mother,” said Mrs. Arthur, “and I am so
+thankful--so thankful--that he is safe!”
+
+Mr. Osborne took a very practical view of the matter.
+
+“You could have kept the negro, I suppose,” he said, “as you had your
+gun; but then it might not have been very easy to get him anywhere, you
+being a boy.”
+
+“I didn’t wish to _get him anywhere_,” replied Ralph. “I wished him to
+go where he liked.”
+
+“Of course; it wasn’t your business to catch runaway negroes,” said the
+overseer, “and you did perfectly right. Only I wish I could have been
+there. Did he seem to be afraid of you?”
+
+“No, sir; I laid down my gun.”
+
+“Suppose he had taken it up?”
+
+“I never thought of such a thing, sir; I was trying to help him, and he
+knew it.”
+
+“I wouldn’t have trusted him,” remarked the overseer.
+
+“I did trust him, sir; or, rather, I didn’t think anything about it.
+I wanted to stop his leg from bleeding.”
+
+“Was he in a hurry to be off after you had fixed him up?”
+
+“He looked uneasy, as if afraid that somebody else might come before he
+could get away.”
+
+“Perhaps he expected you to take up your gun and order him to march for
+his old quarters?”
+
+“I don’t know how that was,” said Ralph; “but the gun lay all the while
+where he could have taken it up if he would.”
+
+“What did you say to him?”
+
+“I told him he was free. And it almost made me cry to see how grateful
+he appeared for what I had done. I hope he has some good place to
+stay in.”
+
+“No danger,” said the overseer; “he has a good enough place for this
+climate, and lives on the fat of the land, besides. I think some of my
+negroes could go straight to him within the next two hours, but they
+won’t tell.”
+
+“And do they never run away, too?” asked Ralph.
+
+“Yes; but I have generally got them back. Sometimes they are arrested by
+the Spanish soldiers, if they venture out of the woods; and sometimes,
+when they keep in their hiding-places, I track them out myself.”
+
+“And do you whip them when you get them back?”
+
+“Of course I do; that teaches them better than to risk it again.”
+
+Somehow, Ralph did not like Mr. Osborne; for, besides that it was hard
+to help associating him with the cruel office he occupied, there was a
+something in him as an individual which repelled the boy’s quick,
+intuitive sympathies. Practically he might be better than most
+overseers, but how could he be otherwise under a superior like Mr.
+Arthur?
+
+Ralph had brought in the parrots and paroquets that he had shot, for he
+had not forgotten them on remounting his pony, and he now took off their
+skins in a very artistic manner, leaving the beautiful plumage almost
+unruffled, much to the delight of Camilla, who thanked him for his
+thoughtfulness of her.
+
+Upon the journey homeward, the two spotted ponies, keeping close
+together, galloped, trotted or walked, according to the fancies of their
+riders or the variations of the road, while the horses of the older
+people jogged more steadily.
+
+“I wonder,” said Camilla, “if Jumbo will not often think of you? I know
+he will, though--he cannot help it.”
+
+“I hope he will,” said Ralph; “and I hope, too, that he will not suffer.
+Your father does not seem at all anxious to get him back.”
+
+“Oh, no! papa does not care for his running away. He says that if the
+revolution should succeed, the new government would free all the slaves,
+and he is willing that this should be done. Somehow, he is a slaveholder
+against his will.”
+
+“Do you like Mr. Osborne?” asked Ralph.
+
+“Not very well. Papa has a high opinion of him as an overseer, but I do
+think that even papa himself is not quite satisfied with all that was
+done while we were away in the United States.”
+
+“The revolutionists appear to ruin a great many sugar plantations,” said
+Ralph. “Do you ever feel afraid of being molested?”
+
+“Yes, mamma and I do, because they sometimes come very near us; but papa
+says he does not think there is any danger. They know what his
+sentiments are; besides, he is an _Americano_, and they have a great
+respect for _los Americanos_.”
+
+“And isn’t he afraid, then, of the Spanish government?”
+
+“No; he takes no active part on either side; only his feelings are with
+the liberal party. I think papa is not much of a politician.”
+
+“I know how he feels,” said Ralph; “he is good and kind, and wants
+everybody to be free. He is one of the best men I ever saw.”
+
+“He really is!” exclaimed Camilla, enthusiastically. “He is just as good
+as any one _can_ be. And,” she added, with childlike earnestness, “he
+likes you ever so much, too.”
+
+Ralph was perfectly happy upon this ride; and when the party reached
+home, it was to be greeted by the unaffected welcome of the negroes,
+old and young, who were evidently much attached to their master and his
+household. The parrots chattered, and the song-birds sang, while the
+odor of the orange blossoms was well in keeping with the rest.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+A NEW PROPOSITION.
+
+Next day the planter and his young guest visited the city, and returned
+with Captain Weston. He was thrilled by the story of Ralph’s encounter
+with the wild boar. It shocked him to think how narrowly a dreadful
+calamity had been escaped, and he all the while attending to his
+ordinary duties, in ignorance of the danger.
+
+“Captain,” said Mr. Arthur, as they sat conversing together after
+reaching the plantation, “I have a proposition to make. Why not let
+Ralph remain with me till your return from Philadelphia? I may take a
+journey or two about the island within the next few weeks, upon
+business, and probably he would enjoy going with me. It would give him
+an opportunity to see more of Cuba than he is likely to see in any other
+way.”
+
+“I don’t know what his mother would say,” replied the captain. “She
+expects me to bring him home, and I am afraid she would be troubled
+about it. Besides, I like to have him with me, though I know you would
+take every care of him.”
+
+“I understand your feelings,” said the planter; “but my wife is about
+writing to Mrs. Weston concerning the debt of gratitude we owe him; and
+should you consent to his remaining, I think her letter will place the
+matter in such a light as to remove any objection on his mother’s part.”
+
+Mrs. Arthur seconded her husband very earnestly.
+
+“You cannot think how much we would enjoy having him here,” she said.
+“He has such a kind, lovable nature, and is so bright and active. I do
+hope it may be arranged that he may stay.”
+
+Captain Weston revolved the matter seriously, and concluded at length
+that it should be left to Ralph’s decision. What that decision would be
+he could have had very little doubt, as he glanced toward the boy and
+girl who were at that moment enjoying a swing under an orange tree of
+unusual size, the vibrations of the rope occasionally bringing down some
+of the golden fruit.
+
+Ralph was in ecstasies at the proposition, and Camilla’s bright face
+lighted up with a pleasure that she did not try to conceal.
+
+“Oh, how nice it will be!” she said. “I am so glad you are to remain.”
+
+A soft flush leaped to her cheeks as she spoke, and her beautiful eyes
+expressed an artlessness that was very bewitching.
+
+So it was settled that Ralph should remain in Cuba during the two months
+which would probably elapse before the return of the Cristoval Colon to
+Santiago. His mother (for he could not have endured to think of Mrs.
+Weston in any other light) would be comforted by the knowledge that he
+was in such good hands. And then how much he would have to tell her when
+he should go home!
+
+Captain Weston was greatly pleased with the plantation and its
+management. He had seen much of Cuba, but never anything of this kind
+which appeared so satisfactory. He walked and rode with the planter,
+smoked his cigar with him, and admired his kind treatment of his slaves.
+
+After a tarry of two days, he returned to the city, accompanied by the
+planter and Ralph.
+
+As the latter mounted the side of the Cristoval Colon, he met a merry
+welcome from the tars, some of whom threw out sly innuendoes in their
+sailor style about pearls and pearl-divers, but he did not permit their
+harmless jokes to annoy him.
+
+After a pleasant visit, Mr. Arthur returned to the plantation; but Ralph
+did not accompany him, as he desired to remain some days with his father
+during the vessel’s brief stay in port.
+
+He was not a boy who was afraid of work, and now, putting on his
+everyday rig, he applied himself with a light heart to the duties of the
+ship, lying stoutly back upon the slack of the tackle, while the sailors
+hoisted the heavy articles of the cargo, or running aloft to loose the
+sails for drying after the drenching night dews, and assisting to furl
+them at evening.
+
+“That boy is smart,” old Jack Evans would say to his shipmates. “He is
+the best fellow for a captain’s son I ever fell in with; he is always
+looking for something to do.”
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+OLD JACK SEES A REMEMBERED FACE.
+
+One evening, when Ralph went into the forecastle, he found Jack alone
+there. The old sailor had just been overhauling his sea-chest, and had
+in his hand the baby’s shoe which he had so long carried for good luck.
+
+“I was just looking at it,” he said, “because to-day I came across the
+father of that identical baby. I hadn’t seen him for about sixteen
+years, but I knew him in a minute. He was puffing his cigar, just as he
+used to do about the decks of the Moro Castle.”
+
+“What!” exclaimed Ralph, “the very man? Oh, how I wish I had been with
+you! Who is he, and where does he live?”
+
+“That I don’t know,” replied Jack. “Of course, he didn’t know me, and I
+hadn’t a very good chance to introduce myself. He was jabbering with a
+lot of other Spaniards on a corner, with his _caramba_ and his _como
+esta usted_, so that I didn’t feel like going up to him with a yarn
+about a baby’s shoe. Which way he went I don’t know, for I had to get
+back to the ship.”
+
+“When was it?” asked Ralph, with great earnestness.
+
+“It was while I was ashore this noon.”
+
+“Why didn’t you tell me?” said the boy. “I would have gone right ashore.
+But, no--I couldn’t have found him without you. Dear me! I wish I could
+have been with you.”
+
+“Why, my lad, it’s of no consequence,” said Jack. “You seem to think
+more of it than I do.”
+
+“But I want to see him,” replied Ralph. “I wonder if he is about here
+every day?”
+
+“Likely enough,” said Jack. “But I didn’t think you cared anything about
+the matter.”
+
+“Well, I’m thinking of that baby’s shoe,” answered Ralph. “It seems so
+queer--the way you got it, and the way you have kept it.”
+
+“I know that’s odd,” said Jack. “I suppose my keeping it is all
+nonsense.”
+
+“No, it isn’t,” said Ralph. “I don’t think it is, I’m sure.”
+
+“You believe a little in old shoes, then?”
+
+“I believe in _that_ shoe, Jack. I mean to go ashore with you, and have
+a good look for that man.”
+
+“But we shouldn’t stand much chance of finding him,” replied Jack. “I’ve
+been here in Santiago a number of times, but this is the first time I
+have run across him here.”
+
+Ralph looked anxious and excited; but he saw that Jack felt somewhat
+surprised at the interest he took in the matter, and so restrained
+himself.
+
+“After all,” he thought, “it may have nothing to do with _me_. Just a
+baby on its passage to the United States. But, then, it was going to
+Philadelphia, and it was a boy baby; and I must have been a baby at the
+same time. I wonder what Jack would say if he knew what I am
+thinking of?”
+
+It would be strange, he thought, if he were really to get track of
+himself in such a way--the first of the tracks being made by that tiny
+shoe in Jack’s chest. And then he reflected how improbable it seemed,
+when there were so many babies in the world, that he should have been
+_that_ baby.
+
+“I almost hope the thing will never come to light,” he said to himself.
+“Perhaps it is better not to know.”
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+IN A MENAGERIE.
+
+
+There is a distinct individuality among tigers, as among ourselves, some
+being gentle and tolerably tractable, while others are fierce, morose,
+and not to be trusted.
+
+In Mr. G. Sanger’s menagerie, at Margate, England, there are two
+tigresses which are of exactly opposite characters. Both go by the name
+of “Bessy,” there being an extraordinary lack of originality in the
+nomenclature of animals.
+
+The difference may be partly owing to the accident of birth, one having
+been captured while young, and the other born in a menagerie.
+
+One might naturally imagine that the latter would be the better tempered
+of the two, she never having known the freedom of savage life. But, in
+accordance with the invariable rule, the “forest-bred” animal is the
+tamer, those which have been born in captivity being always uncertain in
+their ways, and not to be trusted.
+
+Now, “Bessy the First” is forest bred. The head keeper, Walter
+Stratford, has the most perfect confidence in her, and can take any
+liberties with her.
+
+After I had paid several visits to the menagerie, I thought that she
+began to recognize me, and therefore cultivated her acquaintance. Now,
+as soon as I enter the house, Bessy tries to attract my attention,
+expects to be patted and stroked, her ears to be pulled, and her nose
+rubbed, just as a pet cat would do.
+
+One day I had an unexpected experience with her. Nearly the whole of the
+end of the room is occupied by a huge cage, in which Stratford delights
+in putting all sorts of incongruous animals.
+
+There are several varieties of monkeys, a porcupine, a goat, some
+rabbits and guinea-pigs, a few geese and ducks, four cats,
+a coati-mondi, two raccoons, a jackal, a little white Pomeranian dog
+named Rose, two pigs, and other animals.
+
+Thinking that the goat would like some fresh grass, I went to the lawn,
+gathered a large handful, and brought it to the goat.
+
+Not a blade of that grass did she get. I had hardly held the grass to
+the bars when Rose flew at it, drove the goat away, and literally tore
+the grass out of my hands. Three times did I fetch grass before the goat
+was allowed to eat a blade of it. Ever since that time I have always
+furnished myself with a good supply of grass before visiting these
+animals.
+
+On one occasion I stopped as usual at Bessie’s cage, and noticed that
+she stared fixedly at the grass. So I said, jokingly:
+
+“Why, Bessy, you cannot want grass. However, here it is if you want it.”
+
+So I put my hand into the cage, and was much surprised by seeing her
+gently scrape the grass out of my hand with her huge paw. Then she lay
+down, gathered the grass between her paws, and licked up every particle
+of it.
+
+When she had finished it, she looked appealingly in my face as if asking
+for another supply; so I brought a fresh handful, the whole of which she
+took in the same dainty way.
+
+Meanwhile Rose was performing the most extraordinary antics at the end
+of the room. She had seen me bring in the grass, and naturally imagined
+that it was intended for her. What with disappointment, and what with
+jealousy, she was simply frantic, barking, yelping, jumping up and down,
+scratching at the bars of the cage, and expressing her outraged feelings
+in the most ludicrous fashion. Now I always give Bessy her allowance of
+grass first, and then take another portion to Rose and the goat.
+
+It is a rather remarkable fact that the carnivora are much more eager
+for the grass than are the deer, camels, antelopes and other vegetable
+feeders.
+
+As to “Bessy the First,” she is so fond of Stratford, and places such
+reliance on him, that when she has cubs she will allow him to enter the
+cage, take away the cubs and hand them about among the visitors. In
+fact, she is quite pleased to see that her offspring attract so much
+attention.
+
+Very different is “Bessy the second.” She never had a very good temper,
+but was not considered to be a very dangerous animal, until an event
+occurred which completely altered, or, at all events, had an evil
+influence upon her character.
+
+Nearly two years ago, three young lion cubs were in the next cage to
+hers. One day she seemed to be seized with a sudden frenzy, smashed the
+partition between the cages, flew at the cubs, and killed two of them in
+a moment.
+
+The whole attack was so quick and unexpected that Stratford had only
+just time to save the life of the third cub. Since that time she has
+been carefully watched, for when once a lion or a tiger has broken
+through a cage it is apt to repeat the operation.
+
+“Bessy the Second” is restless, morose and suspicious, and if any of the
+animals make a sudden movement, she starts up, stares at them through
+the bars, and often sets up a series of roars, which have the effect of
+causing every lion and tiger in the place to roar for sympathy, so that
+the noise is deafening.
+
+
+
+
+STORIES OF DUMB CREATURES.
+
+
+--Says a naturalist: “We came to a large piece of timber, and while
+passing through it, I had my first experience with the honey-bird of
+South Africa. This curious little bird is, in size and plumage, about
+like an English sparrow, and gets his name from the fact that the little
+fellow, who is very fond of honey, being unable to obtain it for
+himself, will lead men to the places where the wild bees have hidden
+their stores of rich, wild honey. Whenever this bird sees a man, he will
+fly close to him, hovering around, uttering a twittering sound; then he
+will go off in the direction of the place (generally a tree) where the
+honey is, flying backward and forward in a zigzag fashion. Then back he
+will come, twittering in the same manner, as if to say, ’Come along:
+I’ll show you where it is.’ These actions are repeated until the tree is
+reached, when the bird will indicate it very plainly by flying to it and
+hovering around it. If the distance is great (and sometimes the
+honey-bird will lead a person who is willing to follow a distance of ten
+miles); he will wait on a tree until the follower comes up, and will
+then continue his business of piloting. He is very persistent, and will
+do his best to draw any one on; but if the party is not posted about
+honey-birds, and refuses to follow, or goes in the wrong direction, the
+bird will leave, probably in search of some person who will appreciate
+his efforts to provide him with sweetmeats. While the bees are being
+smoked out, and the honey taken up, the bird will hover in the vicinity
+until the job is done, when of course his reward comes in the shape of a
+feast on the fragments that are left. If he knows of other hives, just
+as soon as one is disposed of he will lead the way to another, and I
+have, since this time, known as many as four trees taken up by a party
+in one day. When the honey-bird has shown one tree, if the hunters are
+satisfied with that, and refuse to follow him further, he leaves them;
+but I have never heard of an instance in which the bird misled any one
+in regard to finding honey. It frequently happens, however, that a
+honey-bird will lead a person into very dangerous places, and unless the
+hunter keeps his eyes about him when following this bird, he may run
+right into a lion, a venomous snake, or some other equally undesirable
+acquaintance.”
+
+--A correspondent of a New Orleans paper writes: “Dick was only a big
+toad. The boys found him beside the road one day last summer when the
+June roses were in bloom, and triumphantly deposited him in one of the
+flower-beds, ‘to eat the bugs and things off’n the pinks and pansies and
+rosemary; and, besides, you know, mamma, the other boys will throw
+stones at him.’ That settled it, and Dick (as they gravely informed me
+they had named him) was left to enjoy his flowery home. Occasionally,
+when cutting flowers, I noticed the exceeding tameness of the little
+creature, and was often assured by the boys, ‘Our Dick is the very best
+toad in town.’ However, I noticed nothing uncommon until two or three
+weeks after they had brought him home, when I was attracted by their
+peals of laughter, and presently heard them calling, ‘Dick, Dick! come,
+Dick!’ I slipped out and peeped around the corner of the house, and
+beheld a most comical sight--one of the boys down on his knees, holding
+out his hands and calling to the toad, which was gravely hopping toward
+him, making a peculiar little noise, until he reached the outstretched
+hand, into which he hopped and sat contentedly blinking his bright,
+bulging eyes. After this I noticed the strange pet more closely, and
+found he would always come promptly when his name was called, and seemed
+very grateful when presented with a worm or bug. He would come at any
+kindly call, but showed greatest preference for eight-year-old,
+mischievous Teddy, into whose hand he would always hop, and whom he
+would hop around after as long as he would walk around the flower-bed
+where Dick made his home, but never beyond its limits. And such pansies,
+pinks and other sweet posies I had there!--no cut stem or bitten leaves.
+Dick ate all the floral enemies up that ventured there. When the cold
+days of autumn came upon us, he left us, and we have seen him no more.
+What is the moral of this? Nothing--only that kindness and mercy shown
+to even so humble a creature as a toad will bring pleasures and a sure
+recompense.”
+
+--Writing from Tecumseh, Mich., a correspondent sends this: “A few years
+ago our house was infested with a large number of rats, which had taken
+up their abode in a recess of the cellar that had formerly been used as
+a landing-place for a dumb-waiter, but was now filled with odds and ends
+of every description. We had endeavored to rid ourselves of these pests,
+but all our attempts were in vain, and they held their daily matinees as
+usual. On hearing more of a commotion than common, one afternoon,
+I softly opened the cellar door, and, to my amazement, saw nine rats,
+one of which had mounted a box containing potatoes, while the others
+were stretched out in a line leading to their den--the recess before
+mentioned. Now comes the most curious part of my story: The rat that
+stood on the box of potatoes would push a potato over the edge, then the
+rat in line nearest the box would roll the potato to his neighbor, and
+so on with each one till the potato was safely stowed away. I watched
+them for some time, and, seeing the potatoes disappearing rather
+rapidly, I dispersed the earnest workers by a stamp of my foot.”
+
+
+
+
+PUZZLEDOM.
+
+NO. CCCLXXVII.
+
+
+Original contributions solicited from _all_. Puzzles containing obsolete
+words will be received. Write contributions on one side of the paper,
+and apart from all communications. Address “Puzzle Editor,” GOLDEN DAYS,
+Philadelphia, Pa.
+
+
+ANSWERS TO LAST WEEK’S PUZZLES.
+
+
+  No. 1.  Calendar.
+
+  No. 2.  B E S T O W
+          E P A U L E
+          S A C R E D
+          T U R B I D
+          O L E I N E
+          W E D D E D
+
+  No. 3.  Wise-acre.
+
+  No. 4.  C A L A B O O S E
+          A N I M A B L E
+          L I M E R O D
+          A M E N D E
+          B A R D S
+          O B O E
+          O L D
+          S E
+          E
+
+  No. 5.  Mark Tapley.
+
+  No. 6.  M O C H E S
+          O T I O S E
+          C I C U T A
+          H O U D A H
+          E S T A T E
+          S E A H E N
+
+  No. 7.  Good-humored.
+
+  No. 8.      F A I R S
+             A B N E T S
+            I N T A I L S
+           R E A L L I E D
+          S T I L E T T O S
+            S L I T H E R
+              S E T E E
+                D O R
+                  S
+
+  No. 9.  Byrnehc, Pygmalion, Traddles.
+
+  No. 10.  G R A T I S
+           R E V E S T
+           A V E N E R
+           T E N U R E
+           I S E R I N
+           S T R E N E
+
+  No. 11.  Cover-shame.
+
+  No. 12.
+
+       H U M E C T A T I O N
+         P O L I A N I T E
+           B A T T E N S
+             S E T A E
+               D O R
+                 O
+
+
+NEW PUZZLES.
+
+
+NO. 1. NUMERICAL.
+
+      When trees and fields _complete_
+        Their garbs of green;
+      When birds and flowers sweet
+        Again are seen,
+  And airy zephyrs murmur by,
+  My 5, 4, 3 and 6 soars high.
+
+      Oh! how I’m in a state
+        Of agitation,
+      6, 1 and 2 I get
+        An inspiration.
+  ’Twill be in vain--in vain my lay,
+  For spring will then have flown away.
+
+_Villanova, Pa._       VILLANOVA.
+
+
+NO. 2. SQUARE.
+
+1. The young of the great black-backed gull. 2. To come. 3. Carves.
+4. Granters. 5. To entirely destroy (_Obs._) 6. To grow smaller.
+
+  _Rochester, N.Y._       EGERTON.
+
+
+NO. 3. CHARADE.
+
+  _Prime_ not, ye fair ladies, or gentlemen wise.
+    To disbelieve what for your fortune will prove;
+  _Next total_, not gold, should select as a prize,
+    _Three_, friends, to the right, and marry for love.
+
+  _Danville, Va._         ALEDA.
+
+
+NO. 4. PENTAGON.
+
+1. A letter. 2. The pulp of fruit. 3. A shrub of the genus _Corylus_.
+4. The Brazil nut. 5. Deep blue colors. 6. Contrite. 7. A detached
+bastion (_Fort._) 8. To admit extension. 9. Rigid.
+
+  _Haverhill, Mass._        PYGMY.
+
+
+NO. 5. MUTATION.
+
+  Like a hawk that pounces on its prey,
+  Swift as lightning on a summer day,
+  Through the stillness of the air you came,
+  Without life, and more--without a name.
+  Man has called you _whole_--perhaps you are
+  Dross ejected from some brilliant star!
+  But methinks the spheres their place will yield
+  ERE TO TIME your mystery is revealed.
+
+  _Newark, N.J._      DEMOSTHENES.
+
+
+NO. 6. SQUARE.
+
+1. Gaps. 2. By reason of this. 3. A fleet of vessels. 4. A sort of
+flying fish. 5. A title addressed to a lady. 6. The principal gold coin
+of ancient Greece.
+
+  _East Brady, Pa._       ST. ELMO.
+
+
+NO. 7. CHARADE.
+
+  Come here, my _second_--lose no time;
+    _First_ lively, don’t procrastinate;
+  Although, my _all_, I’ll spare no pains
+    To render you less obdurate.
+
+  My _all_! Yet truly as a _last_
+    I’ve learned to look upon my boy:
+  Most true it is, ’tis but a _one_
+    From sad distrust to life of joy!
+
+  _First_ dame, indeed, I would not be
+    Held in my _second’s_ inmost thought;
+  Transmuted by love’s magic power,
+    My _all_ my _last_ is, without doubt.
+
+  _Woburn, Mass._     GLEN COTTAGE.
+
+
+NO. 8. HALF SQUARE.
+
+1. Concise. 2. Birds resembling thrushes. 3. A poisonous substance
+composed of minute fungi. 4. Forms. 5. Kinds of liquor. 6. An iron chain
+(_Obs._) 7. Exists. 8. A letter.
+
+  _Boston, Mass._         PI ETA.
+
+
+NO. 9. NUMERICAL.
+
+  The _whole_ is a thing that drives away harm,
+  Defined by dear Webster as “a charm;”
+  My 5, 6, 2, 3, 3 is by the same called “not much;”
+  My 6, 7, 8, a “vassal,” “subject,” “person,” or such:
+  My 5, 2, 3, 1 is “taste,” “savor,” or “a sailor;”
+  My 1, 2, 4, 3 of a coat is oft shortened by a tailor.
+
+  Now I think you have all you require to solve this numerical;
+  If not, I will tell you the _whole_ relates to nothing clerical.
+
+  _N.Y. city._          ATELLO.
+
+
+NO. 10. SQUARE.
+
+1. Barley-water. 2. A small particle. 3. A fine white powder or earth,
+without taste or smell. 4. A paved way. 5. To convey or transfer.
+6. Tidier.
+
+  _Chicago, Ill._         U. REKA.
+
+
+NO. 11. ANAGRAM.
+
+TOM, THESE MEN CRITICISE COMMON RATES.
+
+  The law’s strong arm and stern decree
+  Are turned against monopoly;
+  Justice and equal rights for all
+  Be ours though the heavens fall!
+
+  _Hazleton, Pa._       P. O. STAGE.
+
+
+NO. 12. INVERTED PYRAMID.
+
+_Across_: 1. The process of analysis by means of standard solutions
+(_Analyt. Chem._) 2. Little tufts. 3. Species of walls made of stiff
+clay. 4. To steal (_Obs._) 5. A letter.
+
+_Down_: 1. A letter. 2. A pronoun. 3. To surpass. 4. To impair
+seriously. 5. A case in which the relics of saints were kept. 6. To
+produce. 7. A pronoun. 8. A bone. 9. A letter.
+
+  _Hoboken, N.J._        JUNIUS.
+
+
+Answers will appear in our next issue; solvers in six weeks.
+
+
+SPECIAL.--GOLDEN DAYS Puzzlers’ Directory for each of the first correct
+solutions to Nos. 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11.
+
+
+SOLVERS.
+
+Puzzles in “PUZZLEDOM” No. CCCLXXI were correctly solved by E. C.
+Lectic, Maud Lynn, Demosthenes, Barnyard, Skye Buckeye, Gemini, Egerton,
+H. S. Nut, Jr., Will O’ the Wisp, F. Aitchell, Col. O’ Rado, Dorothy
+Doolittle, Grepwic, Cricket, P. O. Stage, Sub Rosa, Fairplay, Alcyo,
+Tunie H. S., R. M’Bride, Jo Jo, Khimo, Lorrac, Billy Bluebottle, May Le
+Hosmer, O. Pal, Vladimir, F. Arce, Nue Norton, J. H. Mowbray, U. Reka,
+Sim Sly, Clarence W. Chapin, Reklaw, Io, Tom B. Stone, Toodlewinks, Jo
+Ram, Craftsman, Fly, Alpheus, Chinook, Puzz L., Teddy, Wm. H. Deucker,
+Annie Gramme, W. T. Anderson, C. R. Irving, Jr., Bennie Knowels, Monte
+Christo, V. G. Ohnja, H. U. T., Alphonzo, B. L. Under, Bryx, J. I. C.,
+Harry S., Jno. Bopp, Cale and Harry Allen, J. Evans, Alpha Sigma,
+Liberty, Brooklyn Boy, Jno. Beck, Howard H. Geiger, Earnest Fleet,
+Washingtonian, Annie A. Powell, Dick Ens, C. H. Sweetzer, Panama Derby,
+Orpheus, Jno. Fitzgerald, Henn, Reidsville, Mahdea, A. B. Y. Nomis,
+H. C. Williams, Mas Ten, Panama Hat, Tidal Wave, Primrose, Geo. W.
+Phinney, J. F. Ireland, Laf A. Yette, Freddie Geib, R. O. Chester, A. B.
+Williams, Lucrezius Borgers, Lackawanna, Laeno, Whisk, Effie W.McConkey,
+C. B. A., Puer and Swamp Angel.
+
+COMPLETE LIST.--E. C. Lectic.
+
+The specials were awarded as follows:
+
+  No. 1. Cricket, La Porte, Ind.
+  No. 3. Clarence W. Chapin, Akron. Ohio.
+  No. 5. E. C. Lectic. Chicago, Ill.
+  No. 7. Alcyo, New York city.
+  No. 9. Jo Ram, New York city.
+  No. 11. E. C. Lectic, Chicago, Ill.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
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+
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+
+  JAMES ELVERSON,
+  Publisher.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+      [->] _A new Serial Story, entitled_
+
+           Three Young Silver Kings!
+
+               BY OLIVER OPTIC,
+
+             Will Begin Next Week.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+NATURE’S SCULPTURE.
+
+BY GEORGE WALDO BROWNE.
+
+
+Perhaps the strangest public work ever suggested by man was that of
+Dinocrates, whose scheme was to cut and carve Mount Athos into the form
+of a gigantic man, holding in one hand a town, in the other a cup to
+receive the drainage of the mountain before it reached the sea.
+
+His king, Alexander the Great, declined to accept his plan; though,
+amused at his extravagant notion, he gave him a permanent place in his
+attendance.
+
+A small village in Northern Italy to a wonderful extent fulfills the
+wild dream of the Macedonian architect, the houses being grouped in such
+a manner upon a broken eminence of land that from a certain point a
+striking resemblance to an upturned human face is outlined. In addition
+to a chin, nose and brow, a white chimney lends an eye to the profile,
+while a line of bushes at the crown has the appearance of shaggy locks.
+
+Allowing that a vivid imagination has much to do toward perfecting these
+faces of nature’s sculpture, and that a range of hills or coast line
+will lend itself to almost any fancy we choose, there are in different
+localities stones and cliffs bearing a remarkable resemblance to the
+human countenance, individual peculiarity sometimes being easily traced
+in these grave omens.
+
+As the voyager approaches Rio Janeiro, he sees in the distance,
+apparently rising from the sea, lonely and majestic, a massive stone
+head, with the profile of the Iron Duke of England, the brow, the nose,
+the chin, each feature perfect in its outline.
+
+St. Vincent, of the Cape Verde group, has a huge volcanic rock which
+requires no grievous strain of the imagination to transform into the
+figure of George Washington in a recumbent position, the profile, the
+hair and even the collar frill being reproduced with remarkable
+clearness.
+
+Rising grimly from the whirlpool of waters beating fiercely the rugged
+western extremity of Santa Catalina Island, in the West Indies, is an
+isolated block of basaltic rock, many feet in height, bearing a marked
+likeness of a human face. It is known as “Morgan’s Head,” from a fancied
+resemblance to that noted free-booter.
+
+Among the countless rocks fringing the coast of Norway is one forming a
+striking picture of a horse and rider about to plunge into the surf,
+fifteen hundred feet below. This gigantic illusion, to the fanciful
+minds of the old bards presented the image of Odin as he disappeared
+before the advance of Christianity.
+
+In Iceland, overlooking one of its picturesque valleys, is a bluff
+surmounted by a colossal head, covered by a stunted growth looking not
+unlike a cap with frills. Before this august image the worshipers of
+Odin were wont to bow in serious reverence.
+
+The rugged coast of England has several of these faces of nature. Off
+the Cornish point are seen the Great Lions, and lower down the shore the
+Armed Knight. There is also the Old Man, the Old Dame, Duke’s Nose and
+Witch’s Head.
+
+Not the least remarkable of these freaks is the Old Man of the Mountain,
+who uprears his gigantic form amid a sea of cliffs and rugged heights,
+in the heart of that region known as the “Switzerland of America”--New
+Hampshire.
+
+  “What doth thy anxious gaze espy?
+    An abrupt crag hung from the mountain’s brow!
+  Look closer; scan that bare, sharp cliff on high;
+    Aha! the wondrous shape bursts on thee now--
+    _A perfect human face_--neck, chin, mouth, nose and brow!”
+
+A face of granite that alone kept watch and ward over the country long
+ere the foot of man pressed its soil. In the grave, philosophical
+outlines is traced a resemblance to Franklin’s countenance. At the base
+of this singular mountain lies a sparkling sheet of water, called the
+“Old Man’s Mirror.”
+
+More beautiful and wonderful than any of these grave images is the Maid
+of the Kaaterskill Falls, in the Catskill Mountains. With the mellow
+light of sunset falling obliquely upon the thin layer of water flowing
+over a sharp ledge worn and fretted by the continual wear of the current
+for ages, rock and spray together making up the illusion, is to be seen
+the fairy-like form of an Indian maid, with flowing hair and robes. So
+clearly does she appear that the beholder has at first the startling
+conception of gazing upon a living being, suspended in the waters.
+
+Indian tradition says that this maid of the mist was once the beloved of
+the Great Spirit; but herself falling in love with a Mohawk brave, she
+perished here, fleeing from her angry master.
+
+
+
+
+MONUMENT PARK.
+
+
+The formations from which this takes its name are among the greatest
+curiosities to be seen in Colorado. Pen cannot well describe them. They
+consist of a series of curiously shaped natural monuments, which have
+been formed from sandstone rock solely by the action of the weather,
+a thin strata of iron on the top having protected these particular
+pieces and preserved them.
+
+No accurate estimate can be made of the thousands of years this work of
+the elements has been in progress. There are perhaps a hundred of the
+peculiar formations of different sizes and shapes, some of which are
+really fantastic.
+
+The Garden of the Gods is also a remarkable freak of Nature, partaking
+somewhat more of the grand and imposing.
+
+It is a secluded spot, hemmed in by great rocks stood up on edge and on
+end. They are some of the more marked of the numerous evidences on every
+hand here of a grand upheaval some time in the past.
+
+Imagine tremendous flat rocks, large enough to cover a quarter of an
+acre of ground, standing up on edge, 330 feet high, and you will have
+some idea of what forms the chief wonder of this garden.
+
+  G. B. G.
+
+
+
+
+BACKLOGS MADE OF STONE.
+
+
+It will surprise many persons of the present day to be told that the
+“backlog” of which we read so much in old-time stories was a large
+stone, a porous stone being preferred if possible. This stone was buried
+in the ashes, and on top was placed the “back stick.” The back stone in
+those primitive times played a very important part in the economy of
+early housekeeping. Matches were not then invented. Flint, steel and tow
+were the only means of lighting a fire or a lamp. Imagine for a moment
+the Bridget of to-day thus engaged, with the thermometer ten degrees
+below zero in the kitchen. The stone, together with the ashes with which
+it was covered, served to retain fire and heat through the night, and
+all that was necessary in the morning was a little kindling and gentle
+use of the indispensable bellows, and a fire was as readily made as at
+the present day.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+MAMIE’S LETTER TO HEAVEN.
+
+BY J. W. WATSON, AUTHOR OF “BEAUTIFUL SNOW.”
+
+
+  An humble room in a tenement house,
+    Four stories above the street,
+  Where a scanty fire, a scanty light,
+    And a scanty larder meet;
+  A woman sits at her daily toil,
+    Plying the needle and thread;
+  Her face is pallid with want and care,
+    And her hand as heavy as lead.
+
+  There she sits with her weary thought,
+    While the tears drop full and fast;
+  There she sits and stitches away,
+    With her memory in the past;
+  Beside her, perched on her little stool,
+    Sits Mamie, a six-year-old,
+  Who says she is never hungry at all,
+    And never admits she is cold.
+
+  There she sits and chatters away,
+    Not seeing her mother’s tears;
+  “Mamma, ’tis a month since winter came,
+    And I think to me it appears
+  That the Lord will never find us out,
+    If He’s anything to give,
+  Unless we can, some way, let Him know
+    The street and the number we live.
+
+  “You see, mamma, last winter He passed,
+    While papa was sick in bed;
+  He doesn’t know we are here, mamma,
+    And He doesn’t know papa is dead;
+  And so it happened all winter long
+    We didn’t have anything nice,
+  And so I think it would only be fair
+    If He came this winter twice.
+
+  “Do you ’member, mamma, that little, old man
+    Who gave me the bright, new cent?
+  Well, it wouldn’t buy much to eat, mamma,
+    And it would not pay for the rent;
+  So I bought a sheet of paper, mamma,
+    And I’ve written a letter in print--
+  It’s written to heaven direct, mamma,
+    And I’ve given Him just a hint.
+
+  “Shall I read it aloud to you, mamma?
+    Yes! Well, this is what I have said:
+  ‘Dear Lord, my name is Mamie St. Clair,
+    And dear, darling papa is dead;
+  I live forty-four in the street they call Fourth,
+    And the cold of the winter is here;
+  My mamma is poor, and I go to school,
+    And I hope you will send this year.
+
+  “’I hope you will send mamma a new dress
+    Of something that’s warm and nice,
+  A paper of flour, some loaves of bread,
+    And a couple of pounds of rice;
+  And dear, loving Lord, do, if you feel rich,
+    You could send her some shoes to wear,
+  And two or three pounds of beef for soup,
+    Or anything else you can spare.
+
+  “’I’ve heard my dear mamma say many a time
+    That a chicken would do her much good,
+  And so, dear Lord, if chickens is cheap,
+    A chicken also, if you could;
+  With three pails of coal, if it isn’t too much,
+    And some stuff for mamma’s lame knee,
+  And oh, my dear Lord, pray don’t think me mean,
+    But a dear little dolly for me.’
+
+  “That’s all, my dear mamma, and now let me run
+    And send it to heaven at once,
+  For if He don’t get it by Christmas time,
+    He surely will think me a dunce.”
+  The letter was posted, the letter was scanned,
+    With numberless grins by the men
+  Whose duty it was to assort all the waifs
+    That came from the wonderful pen.
+
+  “Now where’s the dear Lord?” said one of these men;
+    “That’s me,” said another, quite grave.
+  “Here’s a letter, then!”--tossing the missive to him,
+    “And a twopenny stamp you will save.”
+  The letter was opened, the letter was read,
+    There were very few tearless eyes;
+  The reader looked round on the silent group,
+    And then, with a nod, he cries:
+
+  “Now, boys, there is something in this that I like--
+    It’s nature right straight up to win,
+  And we’ve all of us got to be lords right here--
+    So here is my dot to begin.”
+  The dollars flew down on the table like snow,
+    They came from the crowd’s great heart,
+  A letter was written by proxy and signed,
+    The proposer to play the part.
+
+  And so it came off upon one winter night
+    That there happened this strange affair;
+  A tapping came soft at Mamie’s door,
+    And a very old man stood there;
+  He was clad from his head to his feet so warm,
+    And his beard it was long and white.
+  “Good-even!” he said, as he pushed in a box
+    Then vanished quite out of their sight.
+
+  They were speechless, and only could stare at the box
+    Directed to Mamie St. Clair,
+  From “The Lord in Heaven.” What did it all mean?
+    And a letter beside was there--
+  A letter from heaven read: “Be a good girl,
+    And never do anything ill;
+  Love mamma as well as you do to-day.”
+    And a fifty-dollar bill.
+
+  If I wrote from now till the crack of doom,
+    I could tell no more than this.
+  It was all packed down in that wonderful box,
+    And the dolly--oh, gracious! what bliss!
+  And in time that letter to heaven direct
+    Sent many and many a friend,
+  And perhaps a new papa--who knows?--may be sent
+    By heaven itself, in the end.
+
+
+
+
+          Striking out for Themselves.
+
+                BY F. H. SWEET.
+
+
+“Reckon we’ll get ’em burned out by Tuesday week, Tom, and be ready for
+Pylant’s oranges. Suppose the old fellow will want us to take pay in
+town lots, though.”
+
+“He’ll get left if he does;” and the lad by the fire removed the skillet
+of fried bacon from the coals and put the coffee-pot in its place. “I’m
+willing to work out a five-acre lot, but don’t want any towns. Say,
+Dave, what do you think of the party going to Punta Rassa?” he added, as
+he thrust a stick into the bean-pot to see what prospect there was for
+an early supper.
+
+“Well, from what I hear, I fancy there is plenty of good land to be
+homesteaded in that section, and if we didn’t have a good job here, I’d
+be for joining them. I begin to feel a little anxious to have some land
+where we can be starting trees of our own.”
+
+“Same here; but the land will come in good time, and while we’ve got a
+week’s rations of bacon and hominy ahead, I shan’t kick against luck.
+But grub’s ready.”
+
+Both lads fell to with a relish. Beans seemed to be the central dish at
+almost every meal, and yet they somehow never seemed to tire of them.
+
+They had encountered a good many hard knocks since leaving their Western
+home, but were evidently none the worse for them.
+
+Dave Freeman, the son of a hard-working Kansas farmer, had come South to
+better his prospects, and with a deep but unexpressed longing to help
+the home folks.
+
+At Flomaton, or Pensacola Junction, as it is now called, he had fallen
+in with Tom Byrne, an Indiana boy, and the two had soon become fast
+friends.
+
+By getting occasional jobs along the way, and not infrequently “tramping
+it,” they had reached their present quarters, near Panasofkee, in Sumter
+County.
+
+Here they had taken a contract from a “papertown” proprietor to clear
+five acres of land for seventy-five dollars.
+
+This was a low figure, as the ground was full of palmetto roots, and not
+only were the trees to be cleared from the land, but all stumps to be
+burned out.
+
+The boys already had been at work over two months, and hoped that
+another week would complete the job. On the first, their employer was to
+commence gathering his oranges, and they expected several weeks’
+employment with him.
+
+Although the work of clearing was very hard, the boys were rugged and
+hearty, and thoroughly enjoyed their novel surroundings.
+
+After finishing their beans, they put away the few dishes, and began the
+round of their stumps. Here and there one was dying out, and new fuel
+had to be piled around it. As one stump burned out, it was dragged from
+its hole and placed against the roots of another.
+
+And so, from one stump to another, adding fuel to this or dragging that
+away, their faces covered with soot, and looking more like negroes than
+white folks, the boys darted around, shouting gleefully to each other
+whenever one of the tall pines burned through and came crashing to the
+ground.
+
+A little to one side, and out of reach of the fires, the boys had built
+a little six-by-ten shanty, where they kept their belongings and
+occasionally slept. More frequently, however, they slung their hammock
+between two pines, near the camp-fire.
+
+At first, the peculiar roar of the alligators from the swamp near by had
+disturbed their rest, but they very soon got accustomed to it, and also
+to the startling challenge of a large bat, which is apt to frighten
+strangers by its sudden appearance and shrill cry.
+
+A few days before the boys finished their contract, a party of surveyors
+stopped at their shanty to get a drink of water, and to see if they
+could get them for a couple of days.
+
+As the pay offered was good, the boys were glad to accept it, and five
+minutes were sufficient to put their few belongings into the shanty and
+to nail up the door.
+
+It took the party some hours to reach their destination, and as soon as
+they had partaken of a lunch, they began to survey a site for a new
+town.
+
+The boys had seen a great many “paper towns” since they came to Florida,
+but as a rule had taken little interest in them. They were usually
+ventures of men who did not have money enough to make their speculations
+a success.
+
+Tom and Dave were put to work carrying chain, and very soon became
+interested in the talk of their companions.
+
+The spot chosen was a very beautiful one--a sloping hillside gradually
+narrowing into a strip six or seven hundred yards wide and running
+between two of the most picturesque lakes the boys had ever seen.
+
+[Illustration:
+“’WHY, BOYS, WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?’ TOM LOOKED UP TO MEET
+THE KEEN EYES OF THE DOCTOR.”]
+
+From the talk of the surveyors they learned that a number of them were
+railroad men, and that they were endeavoring to buy at nominal figures
+all the choice lands along the line of the new road before the settlers
+became aware of its value.
+
+They discussed their plans before the boys without reserve, and it soon
+became evident to the latter that the future of this hillside could bear
+no comparison with the other paper towns they had seen. A number of very
+wealthy men were interested in it, and they proposed to make it the
+winter home of themselves and friends.
+
+“You see, gentlemen,” said one of the men to his companions, as he
+pointed across the strip of land to the slope on the other side, “the
+road will wind around the lake, across the neck of land, and along the
+western side of the lake to the right, and then in almost a bee-line
+toward Palatka. Ten years from now, and this hillside for forty miles
+will be a succession of orange groves. Near the depot we shall have a
+limited number of business lots, while the balance of the land will be
+surveyed into large orange grove and villa tracts. It will be specified
+in each deed that no cheap buildings shall be erected. It is not a mere
+speculation, as there are already a dozen or more men who will begin
+elegant residences as soon as the land is surveyed.”
+
+“Do you know, professor, who owns that point jutting into the lake?
+It is a fine building site.”
+
+The speaker was a tall, sharp-featured man of middle age, whom his
+friends addressed as doctor.
+
+“No,” answered the professor, “but I think a man named Pylant is the
+owner, and that the twenty acres beyond belong to a Dutchman in Eustis.
+However, we do not wish to make inquiries at present. They saw us when
+we came out, and should we go back now and value their land, they will
+put on four prices. Our policy is to go back as though we were
+disappointed in the land, and by the time we return next week they will
+offer it at our own figures. We can probably get it for two to four
+dollars an acre. It is thirty miles from any town, and as Pylant got it
+from the government, four dollars will be a big price to him.”
+
+“And in twelve months it will be worth as many hundred,” said the
+doctor.
+
+Tom and Dave looked at each other curiously, and wondered how they would
+feel if they owned a few acres on this hillside.
+
+At the end of the week--for the two days’ work had lengthened into
+five--the boys were paid fifteen dollars, and told they would be soon
+wanted for several months, should they care to return.
+
+Everything was found safe at the shanty, and the boys went to work at
+the stumps with a will. At the end of the third day, the last root was
+reduced to ashes, and then Dave set to work to prepare a supper suitable
+for such an occasion. Fried quail (which they had snared), orange slump,
+pineapple shortcake, baked beans and a pot of steaming coffee graced the
+table (or rather box), while by way of dessert a pillow-case full of
+oranges, picked up in a neighboring grove, stood by the side of the
+banqueting board.
+
+Next morning the boys went to see Mr. Pylant.
+
+“So you’ve cleaned it up, have you?” he exclaimed, as the boys told him
+their errand. “I saw last week it was most done. Reckon you’ll want a
+little money and the rest in land. Sharp boys! know land is best--goin’
+up, goin’ up all the time.”
+
+“But if you please, Mr. Pylant, we’d rather have the money,” said Dave,
+quietly.
+
+“Money!” exclaimed the “cracker,” in astonishment. “Why, boys, in one
+year there’ll be a city on that land, and you’ll be rich. The lots I let
+you have for thirty dollars’ll be worth a fortune.”
+
+“We don’t want any lots,” replied Dave, decidedly. “We intend to get
+some land when we can, but we must have it large enough to put out a
+good grove on.”
+
+“Well, I’ll sell you a five-acre lot near the village for two hundred
+dollars, and you can work it out.”
+
+“Too much,” answered Dave. “We want cheaper land, and are willing to go
+a longer distance from town.”
+
+“But that’s cheap,” expostulated Pylant, who began to fear he would have
+to pay out money. “How far would you be willin’ to go for land?” he
+added, as another idea seemed to strike him.
+
+“Not particular, if the land is good and price low.”
+
+“Then I’ve got the identical place for you,” cried Pylant, his face
+brightening; “splendid land, and on a beautiful lake.”
+
+“How far?”
+
+Pylant hesitated.
+
+“Mebbe it’s twenty miles or so,” he at length said, slowly; “but it’s
+good, and I’ll let you have it low.”
+
+“Twenty miles is a long distance from town,” said Dave, dubiously; “but
+what’ll you take?”
+
+Fearing he would lose the sale, Pylant lowered the figures he had
+mentally fixed upon, and said, quickly:
+
+“If you take the twenty acres, you can have it for three dollars and a
+half an acre. I reckoned on sellin’ to the party here last week, and I
+’lowed to myself I’d ask five dollars. But, somehow, they didn’t seem to
+take to it.”
+
+“Well,” said Dave, slowly, as though hesitating, “I reckon we’ll take
+it. Can you fix up the deed now?”
+
+“Right off!” answered Pylant, quickly, fearing the boys might change
+their mind. “Here are the other five dollars I owe you.”
+
+Ten minutes later, Dave and Tom were the owners of the coveted twenty
+acres.
+
+For the next two weeks the boys worked in the orange grove and added
+another thirty-five dollars to their fund.
+
+Their living cost very little, and they now had nearly fifty dollars
+between them.
+
+Feeling comparatively wealthy, and with the prospect of, perhaps, weeks
+of idleness before them, if they remained where they were, the boys
+concluded to remove to their new possession.
+
+Provisions enough to last two months were purchased, and with these,
+and with a miscellaneous collection of kettles, axes, and other tools,
+the boys set out.
+
+Although the load was packed and strapped to their backs in the most
+convenient manner, it took two days to complete their journey.
+
+The third was spent in making a camp and looking up the stubs which
+marked the boundaries of their twenty acres.
+
+Like most of the high pine land in Florida, their tract was free from
+palmetto, and consequently much easier to clear than the low pine they
+had previously been at work upon.
+
+Four weeks passed, and they had heard nothing from the surveying party.
+
+Nearly three acres were cleared, and the boys were already calculating
+how many orange and lemon trees they would put out.
+
+One morning, as Tom was digging a hole under the roots of a lofty pine,
+preparatory to setting it on fire, he was greeted with a surprised:
+
+“Why, boys! What are you doing here?”
+
+And he looked up to meet the keen eyes of the doctor.
+
+“Clearing up our new purchase,” answered Tom, quietly.
+
+The doctor’s shrewd face broadened into a smile.
+
+“I see,” he said, pleasantly. “But how much are we to pay you boys for
+outwitting us? I saw Pylant yesterday, and was told that you had the
+land. The old man was nearly crazy, when one of us said we would be
+willing to go as high as twenty dollars an acre.”
+
+“I reckon we don’t care to sell at present,” said Dave. “Our twenty
+acres wouldn’t make much difference to you, who own as many thousand
+around the lakes.”
+
+The doctor and his friends laughed good-humoredly.
+
+“That’s right, boys,” said the one called professor; “hold the land for
+an advance. It will come sooner than you expect, perhaps. But we shall
+want your services for the next three months, to help our surveyors; so
+be at our camp in the morning.”
+
+After this the boys could not complain of loneliness. A few weeks of
+surveying outlined the streets and blocks of the new town; a sawmill was
+quickly under way; buildings went up rapidly, and here and there were
+displayed the new goods of enterprising young merchants.
+
+The fame of the new town spread through the surrounding country, and
+every day brought new arrivals, seeking work; and soon hundreds of axes
+could be heard on the hillside, clearing the land and making ready for
+the numerous young groves to be put out in the spring.
+
+Dave and Tom had all the work they could do, and utilized the evenings
+and odd moments in burning the trees and stumps on their land. By the
+first of February they had five acres cleared and fenced, and ready for
+trees.
+
+Believing the best to be the cheapest, they sent to one of the nurseries
+for three hundred and fifty budded trees. They took especial pains in
+setting them out, and in due time had as thrifty a young grove as one
+could wish to see.
+
+The trees cost them all the money they had earned and most of what they
+had laid aside; but when they looked at their beautiful young grove,
+they were more than satisfied.
+
+Before the end of the year the proposed railroad was built, and its
+advent made a tremendous rise in the value of land.
+
+The boys had had many excellent offers for their land before, but
+invariably declined to consider them. As the depot had been built very
+near them, they knew their place must advance rapidly.
+
+However, shortly after the erection of the depot, they received an offer
+of seven thousand dollars for the unimproved ten acres, and after a
+short consultation, decided to accept it. Dave had not seen his people
+for nearly two years, and was anxious to visit them. Tom, who was alone
+in the world, was to remain and look after their grove.
+
+So a few weeks later saw Dave walking up the lane to the old homestead.
+Knowing how particular his father was, he was greatly surprised at the
+thriftless look of everything. A man was hobbling across the yard as he
+approached, and Dave saw with dismay that the haggard face belonged to
+his father.
+
+Their meeting may be imagined, and Dave soon knew of the broken leg and
+the long, hard winter following it, with no one to look after things and
+unpaid bills accumulating rapidly.
+
+“A sorry home-coming, my boy,” said his father, with a wan smile.
+
+But Dave’s story quickly changed the aspect of things. The bills were
+paid; pinching want was a thing of the past.
+
+And then Dave talked and argued until his parents agreed to return with
+him and spend the winter in Florida, and give that genial climate a
+chance to make his father well and strong again.
+
+
+
+
+        [_This Story began in No. 21._]
+
+                 JACK STANWOOD;
+
+                      or,
+
+              FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN.
+
+               BY JAMES H. SMITH.
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+I BREAK JAIL THROUGH NO EFFORTS OF MY OWN.
+
+I was handed over to the custody of a little man, with big, staring
+eyes, and a magnified head of hair that made him look like a gun-swab.
+This was Mr. Janks, the jailor.
+
+He stood looking at me for some moments, swinging a bunch of keys on his
+finger, and then said, mournfully, “So, you’ve come, have you?” which
+made me think that he must have dreamed of my coming.
+
+Then he took up a small lamp, and, after examining me from head to foot
+as if I were some strange animal, he gave vent to a dismal groan, and
+asked me if I was hungry.
+
+Receiving a negative answer, he groaned again, and beckoned me to follow
+him.
+
+He led the way along a damp and chilly stone corridor, lined with little
+iron doors, which I needed no one to tell me belonged to cells, and I
+followed him very readily. My previous notions of prison treatment
+included the immediate ironing of the culprit to the extent of several
+hundredweight, and, finding myself mistaken, my spirits rose
+accordingly.
+
+He stopped before one of the little doors near the end of the corridor,
+and, opening it with a large key, ushered me into an apartment about
+eight feet square.
+
+This was my cell. The walls and ceiling were whitewashed, and the only
+furniture was an iron bedstead, covered with two coarse, gray blankets.
+
+Mr. Janks waved his keys around as if to welcome me to this abode, and
+then, instead of going out and leaving me to my reflections, he leaned
+up against the door and groaned once more.
+
+“The wickedness of these boys!” he said, passing his hand through his
+hair, and apparently addressing the ceiling. “Why do they ever come
+here? Why did you come here?”
+
+I hastened to explain that I did not come of my own accord, and so far
+from wishing to be in jail, if he would only have the kindness to open
+the door, I would promise him to make my exit, and never return.
+
+“And so young!” continued Mr. Janks, without paying any attention to my
+remarks, and still apostrophizing the ceiling. “But it’s allus the way!
+The younger they are, the worse they are!”
+
+Then he launched forth into a description of the number of bad boys who
+had passed through his hands, and endeavored to draw a parallel between
+their case and mine, but, I think, with poor success.
+
+He kept up this monologue for at least ten minutes, while I sat on the
+couch and listened with anything but pleasurable emotions.
+
+At the end of that time he came to a sudden stop, and went out slowly,
+groaning dismally.
+
+When the sound of his footsteps had died away down the corridor,
+I surrendered myself to my thoughts. And how I did think!
+
+What had been all my trouble compared to this? _In prison!_ The thought
+was horrifying!
+
+I felt now that I would not dare return home--for who would not shrink
+from me as a malefactor?
+
+Besides, I was extremely dubious as to my impending fate. I was not
+afraid of being convicted of larceny, unless Mary Jane Robinson perjured
+herself; but I was desperately afraid of Mr. Barron.
+
+I knew he took the Lancaster Examiner, and should he see my name in it,
+I felt certain he would pounce down on me, and then--well, something
+terrible would certainly happen.
+
+The sky looked very dark and cloudy just then, and you may easily
+imagine how bitterly I regretted my foolishness in running away.
+
+I lay awake for an hour or more thinking in this fashion, and then I
+fell into a fitful slumber.
+
+How long I slept, I don’t know; but when I awoke it was with a strange
+feeling that I was not alone--that some one was in the cell with me.
+
+I was wide awake in an instant, and my heart beat so loudly that I
+fancied I could hear it.
+
+I listened intently, and presently heard a light “pitapat,” as if some
+one was walking across the floor; and while I was trying to muster up
+courage to call out, there was a sharp click, a flood of light illumined
+the cell, and I saw that the intruder was a man.
+
+He was standing near the opposite wall, and in his hand he held a
+lighted wax taper, with the aid of which he was taking a survey of the
+room.
+
+As he turned slowly around, I saw that he was young, rather
+good-looking, and well-dressed, and at the same time he saw me.
+
+He started, and with an exclamation of alarm, dropped the taper.
+
+In an instant, however, he recovered the taper and himself, and advanced
+toward me.
+
+“Who are you?” he demanded. “And how did you get here?”
+
+I related, in a few words, who I was and how I came to be incarcerated.
+
+He laughed lightly when I had finished, and said:
+
+“I suppose you wonder how _I_ came here. Look!”
+
+I looked, and saw an aperture in the wall about two feet square.
+
+“I came through that,” he said, laughing softly at my evident
+astonishment. “My cell is on the other side. Now, I am going to escape
+from this jail, and I want you to go with me.”
+
+I know now that his reason was to prevent my giving an alarm; but I
+thought then that it was because he took pity on me.
+
+And I joyfully accepted his offer, although I couldn’t imagine how he
+was to manage it, and I made a remark to that effect.
+
+“Easy enough,” he said. “You have only a lock on your door, while
+there’s a dozen bolts on mine. That’s why I dug through, expecting to
+find the cell empty. However, it is all right. Take off your shoes.”
+
+I did so, and then my companion put out the lights, having first opened
+the door with what looked like a piece of wire.
+
+Then he whispered to me to keep hold of his sleeve, step cautiously and
+not let my shoes fall, and then we moved out into the corridor, now
+black as Egypt.
+
+My guide also seemed to be in his stocking feet; but where his shoes
+were I couldn’t imagine.
+
+We moved along slowly, but steadily, my guide seeming to know the way,
+and presently he opened a door with only a slight creak, and then
+whispered in my ear:
+
+“We are in the lodge. Don’t breathe.”
+
+Again we moved on and again stopped, and from one or two sharp clicks I
+judged him to be trying to open another door.
+
+Suddenly he drew me forward. I felt a rush of cold air, and the next
+instant I was out of jail.
+
+“Wait!” said my companion.
+
+And he closed the wicket gate, and locked it noiselessly.
+
+“If they find the gate open, they’ll smell a rat,” he remarked. “Now
+then, my boy, come on.”
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+I BECOME A WANDERER AND FALL INTO LUCK.
+
+I kept closely by his side, and for half an hour we moved along, keeping
+in the shadow of the houses, until we reached the outskirts of the town.
+
+“Now then,” said my companion, speaking for the first time, “put on your
+shoes.”
+
+I did so, and very glad I was to do it. At the same time he reached down
+and drew off his stockings, and then I saw they had been drawn on over
+his boots.
+
+Then he took my hand, and we walked along steadily and swiftly for an
+hour, until the lights of Lancaster had faded in the distance, and not
+until then did my companion fall into a walk and conversation.
+
+“What did you say you were in for?” he asked.
+
+“For nothing,” I answered, promptly.
+
+This seemed to amuse him greatly.
+
+“Of course not,” said he, after an outburst of laughter. “I never saw a
+prisoner in my life who wasn’t innocent!”
+
+I attempted to explain, but he wouldn’t listen.
+
+“No matter--it’s not my business. It was forgery with me--ten years at
+the least; and I couldn’t stand that, you know.”
+
+“Certainly not,” said I, not knowing what else to say.
+
+Then, by way of turning the conversation, I inquired how he came to be
+provided with tools to effect his escape.
+
+He looked at me suspiciously for a moment, as if he suspected me of some
+hidden motive in asking the question, and then, apparently satisfied
+with the scrutiny, he informed me that his friends had sent him pies
+every day for two weeks past.
+
+“Pies?” I exclaimed, in open-mouthed wonder.
+
+“Yes, pies,” he said, gravely. “Don’t you see? Nothing but the crusts.
+Inside were keys, saws and a jimmy.”
+
+“A _jimmy_?”
+
+“Yes--here it is. That came in four pies.”
+
+He took from his coat-pocket four pieces of steel, and in an instant
+fitted them together into a bar about two feet in length.
+
+“Not much to look at, is it?” said he; “but it is a crowbar, chisel,
+hammer and wrench, all in one. It only took me two nights to cut into
+your cell.”
+
+“And how did you know your way out in the dark?” I asked.
+
+“Because I came in that way, and I always keep my eyes open. Hello!”
+
+“What’s the matter?” I asked, in some alarm, as he came to a sudden
+halt.
+
+“Nothing much,” he answered; “only that I must leave you here. I don’t
+know where you are going, and I don’t propose to let you know where I am
+going. Besides, it is much harder to follow two than one, and there is
+no use of us both being captured.”
+
+“Captured?” I repeated, in dismay. “Do you think the officers will
+follow us?”
+
+“Do I think so? I know they will.”
+
+I was so terrified that my teeth chattered, at this announcement, and he
+noticed it.
+
+“Don’t get too scared, young one,” he added, consolingly. “They won’t
+look for you half as much as they will for me. If you travel right
+straight on, and keep out of their clutches for a week, you’ll be safe.”
+
+“But I haven’t done anything,” I said, tremblingly.
+
+“Oh, yes you have,” said he, with a laugh. “You have broken jail, and
+that means a year at least, if you’re caught.”
+
+I was so overwhelmed at this dread piece of news that I could only lean
+up against a convenient fence and stare at him.
+
+“Come, come!” he cried, impatiently, “brace up! They haven’t got you
+yet. If you go straight through this cornfield you will strike a road
+that will take you to Columbia. Good-by!”
+
+Before I had time to reply, he had plunged into the woods on the right
+of the road, and I was left alone.
+
+I was terribly alarmed, and lost no time in making my way through the
+cornfield; and when I found the road, I sped along it at a rapid gait.
+Fear lent me wings, and I fancied every bush an officer.
+
+It was a warm but pleasant night, and the moon was just rising.
+I calculated that it must be about midnight, and I determined that I
+would put many a mile between me and Lancaster before daybreak.
+
+So I set off at a dog-trot, and I kept it up until I saw the sun rising
+over the eastern hills.
+
+By that time I must have gone about twenty miles, and I was completely
+tired out, and very glad to crawl into the shelter of some neighboring
+woods and lie down to rest.
+
+Before I knew it I was asleep, and I did not awake until late in the
+afternoon.
+
+I was stiff and sore, and at the same time ravenously hungry. The first
+two ailments wore away as I started again on my journey, but the latter
+increased until I determined to brave anything rather than suffer any
+longer.
+
+The first house I came to was a small yellow frame, close to the road,
+with a yellow dog chained on the porch, and a woman frying ham in the
+kitchen.
+
+“Please, ma’am,” said I.
+
+“G’way!” said she. “Here, Tige!”
+
+“Please, ma’am--”
+
+“G’way, I say! We don’t want no tramps hookin’ everything they kin lay
+their hands on!”
+
+“Please, ma’am,” I persisted, mildly, “I am not a tramp. I want
+something to eat”--the woman started to unchain the dog--“for which I am
+willing to pay.”
+
+“Come right in,” said the woman, with a broad smile. “I declare I
+couldn’t have the heart to turn anybody away hungry. Tramps bother a
+person so that I get kinder suspicious, but I could see right away you
+were different from the general run.”
+
+While she was talking she was busily engaged in setting the table with
+fried ham, potatoes, bread and butter and coffee, and I lost no time in
+falling to. I paid a quarter for it when I had finished, and got away as
+quickly as possible, as I feared the arrival of some of the men folks,
+who might have their suspicions aroused.
+
+All that night I traveled on and slept in the woods again. Not to enter
+into particulars, it is sufficient to say that I kept this up for a
+week, until I found myself in the vicinity of Williamsport, and by that
+time I judged myself to be reasonably safe.
+
+So I boldly entered that city in broad daylight, had a bath and my hair
+cut, a complete change of underclothing, and enjoyed a day of rest.
+
+When I started out again, the next morning, I had recovered my usual
+spirits, and took to the road, determined to keep going as long as my
+money and strength held out. I had twenty-five dollars of the former and
+an unlimited supply of the latter.
+
+All that day I tramped on steadily enough, buying both my dinner and
+supper for trifling sums; and, when night came on, I thought it would be
+just as well to camp in the woods again.
+
+For that purpose I left the road, and, plunging into the forest on my
+left, I soon came to a secluded spot, near a ravine or gully, and there
+I made myself a bed of dry leaves.
+
+On this I lay down, and was fast drifting into the Land of Nod, when I
+was aroused by a sound something like the rattling of tinware.
+
+I promptly sat up and listened. Again I heard the rattling, and as it
+evidently come from the ravine, I arose and began an investigation.
+
+Peering over the edge of the gully, I saw at the bottom, about fifteen
+feet below, a bright light, and the rattling sound again smote my ears.
+
+By this time my curiosity was excited to the utmost, and, catching hold
+of a small sapling, I leaned far over the edge to observe the why and
+wherefor. As I did so, I felt the sapling giving away, and I made a
+desperate attempt to recover myself.
+
+It was no use. Down went the sapling into the ravine and I along
+with it.
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+I MEET AN ECCENTRIC DOCTOR AND ENTER INTO HIS SERVICE.
+
+The sapling and I fell directly on a fire of branches, from which came
+the light at which I had been gazing.
+
+I was slightly stunned, but I scrambled to my feet just as a heavy hand
+was laid on my collar, and a gruff voice said:
+
+“Vell! here’s a precious go!”
+
+I looked up, and saw that the voice and hand belonged to the same
+person--a short, stout man, with sallow complexion and glistening black
+eyes. His dress was a curious compound of broad, glazed hat and blue
+shift of a sailor and the flashy check vest and pantaloons of a peddler.
+
+“Vere did you come from, anyhow,” he demanded, before I had finished my
+survey, “a-busting down on a chap vithout varning, and a smashing of his
+pots and kettles?”
+
+“Pots and kettles?” I repeated, inquiringly.
+
+For answer he pointed indignantly to the ground, and then I saw what
+damage my descent had caused.
+
+A rusty coffee-pot, a little dish and a skillet were scattered among the
+embers of the fire.
+
+“That’s vot you did,” said he, resentfully. “Here vos I, a-cooking my
+supper and a-thinking of just nothink at all, when all of a suddent down
+you come, like a cannon-ball, and avay goes everythink! It was werry
+aggerwating because it was nearly done.”
+
+“I assure you, sir,” said I, very contritely, “that I had no intention
+of falling on your fire or your supper.”
+
+Then I explained the cause of my sudden descent, and wound up by
+offering to pay for the damage.
+
+By this time the man had entirely recovered his temper--if he had ever
+lost it, which I very much doubt--and smiled kindly.
+
+“Vell, vell, there ain’t much harm done except putting my supper back
+half an hour. Put up your money, my boy, and join me.”
+
+Then he righted the utensils, and whistling a lively air, prepared the
+meal anew. And this he did with an adroitness that proved the task to be
+by no means an unusual one.
+
+Within half an hour, he had made a pot of coffee, a pan of biscuits and
+a savory stew, and we were soon discussing this supper very amiably
+together.
+
+After supper he washed out the dishes and utensils in a brook near by,
+and lying at full length on the ground, composed himself for a smoke.
+
+All this time I had been regarding him in silence, but with considerable
+curiosity, and I had about made up my mind that he was a gipsy, on his
+way to join his tribe, when he startled me by saying, abruptly:
+
+“Look ’ere!”
+
+I intimated that I was all attention.
+
+“Who are you?” he asked, bluntly.
+
+“Jack Wood,” I answered, promptly, although a trifle nervously.
+
+“My name is Miles Norris,” he rejoined, after a long pause. “I’m a
+wender of physics and knickknacs.”
+
+“A doctor?”
+
+“Not exactly,” he replied, rising on his elbow and winking at me
+significantly. “I cures people as hasn’t got nothink the matter vith ’em
+and thinks they has.”
+
+This sentence was too deep for me to fathom, and on my intimating as
+much, he condescended to explain.
+
+“I go round the country selling my own medicines, which is Norris’s
+Golden Balsam, wot cures all kinds of pains, cuts and bruises,
+whatsomedever they may be; fifty cents a bottle, small bottles
+twenty-five. Then there’s the Lightning Toothache Drops, wot cures that
+hagonizing malady in one second, or money refunded--twenty-five cents a
+bottle. And finally, ’ere we ’ave the Great American Tooth Powder, which
+makes the blackest teeth vite in less’n no time, and makes the gums
+strong and ’elthy--ten cents a box. And each and every purchaser is
+presented vith a book containing fifty songs, all new and prime, free
+gratis and for nothink! Valk hup, ladies and gentlemen; who’ll ’ave
+another bottle?”
+
+During this recital, Doctor Norris gradually assumed a professional
+demeanor, and near the close he rose to his feet, and gesticulated as if
+addressing a large audience.
+
+But at the close he suddenly cooled down, and assuming his recumbent
+position, said, listlessly:
+
+“Now you know me.”
+
+“Certainly,” said I; “but then I do not see--”
+
+“I hunderstand,” said he. “You don’t see no Balsam, nor Drops, nor
+Powder?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“And you vonder vere they are?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Your surprise is werry natural,” said Doctor Norris, with great
+gravity. “I am out of those inwaluable medicines at present, but ven I
+get to my laboratory, I shall roll ’em out wholesale.”
+
+“Then you make them?”
+
+“In course. I couldn’t trust anybody else.”
+
+Then, after a pause, he added, slowly:
+
+“I don’t know but that I might let you into my secrets if-- What did you
+say your name was?”
+
+I repeated my alias, and told my fictitious history.
+
+“So you ain’t got nothink to do?”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“How would you like to work for me?”
+
+“Doing what?”
+
+“Selling my medicines.”
+
+“Done!” cried I, joyfully.
+
+“Hold hup!” said he, quickly. “I ain’t quite certain. Can you patter?”
+
+“Can I what?”
+
+“Gab, I mean--talk? Are you good on that?”
+
+“I think I am,” I answered, modestly.
+
+“And ’ave you got plenty of cheek?”
+
+“Oh, yes! Why?”
+
+“Because you’ll need it. You wouldn’t be afraid to stand hup before a
+big crowd and blow away about the Balsam, or the Powder, nor yet the
+Drops--hey?”
+
+I assured him that the prospect did not dismay me in the least.
+
+My companion then brought the conversation to a conclusion very
+summarily.
+
+“Then, Jack Wood,” said he, “you’re my man!”
+
+Then he rolled over and went to sleep, and although somewhat astonished
+at the suddenness of the doctor’s resolution, I thought his action a
+good one, and _I_ rolled over and went to sleep, also.
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+TREATS OF MY EXPERIENCE AS A PHYSICIAN--I REACH THE MISSISSIPPI.
+
+I awoke at sunrise, or rather Doctor Norris awoke me by a vigorous dig
+in the ribs with the point of his boot, and told me that breakfast was
+ready. I arose at once, washed my face, combed my hair, and then
+astonished the doctor by the vigor of my appetite.
+
+During the meal he confided to me his plans for the future. He had laid
+out a route through Butler and Beaver counties to the State line, and
+thence through Ohio until winter set in.
+
+“I make enough in summer to lay hup in winter,” he explained. “It’s an
+’ealthy and hinvigorating life, and I like it. I’ve traveled over nearly
+all the States between the Atlantic and the Mississippi, ’ave ’ad my
+hups and downs, and I wouldn’t change places with a king.”
+
+I rather doubted whether the doctor knew very much about kings, that he
+could afford to speak so positively, but I felt that it would be neither
+polite nor prudent to disagree with him.
+
+“I dare say I shall like the life very well,” I said, quietly.
+“But--what am I expected to do?”
+
+“You’ll be my assistant,” said the doctor, in a lofty voice, as if he
+was announcing my appointment to a cabinet position.
+
+Then he went into details, and explained that I was to assist him in
+concocting and selling the wonderful remedies of which he was the
+inventor.
+
+This duty included filling bottles, pasting on labels, carrying his
+baggage, making his fires, and several other minor matters which he
+could not recall just then.
+
+“Ve’ll camp out like this most of the time,” he added. “Hotels is
+hexpensive, and I never stops at ’em, unless it’s raining or I’m going
+to sell in the town. You von’t mind that, vill you?”
+
+I was more than delighted at the prospect, and I said so.
+
+“This man,” I told myself, “is evidently a great traveler, and he is
+going West. If I stick to him my fortune is made.”
+
+It did not take the doctor long to pack up his traps, and, dividing them
+between us, we journeyed along very agreeably.
+
+When we arrived in Butler we went to a hotel, and there, in the
+seclusion of our room, the doctor manufactured three dozen bottles of
+the balsam, as many of the toothache drops and twice as many boxes of
+the tooth-powder.
+
+At this distance of time I cannot recall the ingredients of these justly
+celebrated remedies, but I can cheerfully testify to their harmlessness.
+
+The balsam was composed of two or three simple aromatic oils, the
+toothache drops was merely a diluted essence of the oil of cloves,
+and the wonderful tooth-powder chalk powdered and scented.
+
+The labels for the various compounds the doctor carried in his oilcloth
+bag, and the bottles, boxes and various ingredients he purchased at the
+village drug stores.
+
+I am almost ashamed to tell you what enormous profits he made on his
+sales, and will only mention that he once told me that the bottle and
+label formed nine-tenths of the cost of the Golden Balsam, which
+retailed at one dollar.
+
+In these days the street vender of physic is an ordinary sight, but a
+quarter of a century ago he was almost unknown outside of the largest
+cities.
+
+After being a month in the company of Doctor Norris I easily understood
+why he followed such a life. In the town of Butler two days’ sales
+netted him sixty dollars, and he made nearly as much in Beaver.
+
+He was not always so successful, but, taking one week with another,
+I judged that he cleared at least fifty dollars, which was a bank
+president’s salary in those days.
+
+His methods were such as are in use among this class of gentry all the
+world over.
+
+Having prepared his stock in trade, he would gravely walk down the main
+street, followed by your humble servant.
+
+Halting on the most prominent corner, he and I would arrange the boxes
+and bottles in attractive pyramids on the top of a box or a barrel,
+taking as much time as possible, so as to attract the attention of the
+passers-by.
+
+Having achieved this object, the doctor would mount on a soap-box, so as
+to raise himself above the crowd, and begin his harangue.
+
+He always began gravely, and not until he had made several sales did he
+venture on a joke or a witticism, although he had a plentiful stock of
+cheap wit, such as crowds delight in.
+
+Another thing: When he spoke in public he used excellent English, and
+the cockney dialect entirely disappeared. He never explained this to me,
+but I suppose he was like an actor on the stage when addressing a crowd.
+
+“Ladies and gentlemen,” he would say, in calm and measured tones,
+“Shakespeare has said, ‘Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it!’ and
+he was right. Medicinal drugs are pernicious, even when given by a
+practiced physician, but when administered by quacks, it is little short
+of murder. Now, in my medicines I do not give you strange and deadly
+drugs. The articles I use are all known to you” (this was strictly
+true), “the mode of preparation only being a secret. No pain, no danger
+in their use, absolutely harmless to the smallest child, yet so powerful
+that the most deadly ailments yield to their power.”
+
+Thus the doctor talked on for fifteen minutes, taking the crowd into his
+confidence in a learned and fatherly way, until some fellow bashfully
+thrust forward a coin, and then the money rolled in.
+
+The doctor was now in his element; he was witty, he cracked jokes,
+he told stories, and even indulged in snatches of song, and he rarely
+failed to hold his audience until his stock was exhausted.
+
+This operation sometimes consumed three or four hours, and sometimes his
+eloquence was wasted. But at all times he was cheerful and polite, and
+good and bad fortune seemed alike to him.
+
+I thought then, and I still think, that he was a remarkable man; and I
+am sure that he treated me very kindly. He paid me a very liberal salary
+of ten dollars a month, and whenever he had an unusually good day, gave
+me an extra dollar.
+
+All of this money I carefully stowed away in my belt for a rainy day,
+which I felt sure would come. And my experience did not deceive me.
+
+After leaving Pennsylvania, we traveled through the small towns of Ohio
+until near the middle of December, as it was a very open winter, and it
+was nearly Christmas before the cold and snow drove us into winter
+quarters in Toledo.
+
+The doctor intended to treat himself to a three months’ rest, and for
+that purpose hired two rooms and kept bachelor’s hall, and invited me to
+keep him company.
+
+I received no wages; but as he was to bear all expenses, I willingly
+agreed to the arrangement.
+
+These three months were absolutely uneventful, and about the first of
+April we started out again.
+
+The doctor had laid out a new route for this season. We traveled across
+country by stage to Keokuk, Iowa, intending to travel up the river as
+far as St. Paul, and then work eastward thorough Wisconsin and Michigan,
+and close the season at Detroit.
+
+But we never carried out our programme. My cruel fate pursued me--or was
+it punishment for my foolishness?--and at Davenport I was once more cast
+adrift.
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+       INTERNATIONAL LESSON--FOR MAY 29.
+
+   Exodus 14:19-21. Golden Text--Isaiah 43:2.
+
+  Central Subject--THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA.
+
+           BY REV. D. P. KIDDER, D.D.
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+According to Jewish tradition, it was seven days after the Passover that
+the Israelites passed over the Red Sea.
+
+Before they left they were directed by God to ask (not “borrow,” as it
+is in our version) of the Egyptians jewels of silver and gold, and other
+articles that would be of service to them.
+
+It was customary thus on the eve of a journey, or at the close of a term
+of service, to ask gifts. The practice corresponded to the asking of
+_backshish_, still so common in the East.
+
+The Egyptians, it seemed, readily and generously granted the request of
+the Israelites and supplied them abundantly. Thus, in some slight
+measure, they made return for the long years of unrequited service which
+the Hebrews had rendered to Egypt’s land and Egypt’s king.
+
+While the Egyptians were bewailing their dead, the children of Israel,
+having finished hurriedly their Passover feast, started on their journey
+of escape. Leaving Rameses, the western part of Goshen, they assembled
+at Succoth--“place of tents”--so called because it was a camping place
+for caravans going east, then and now. They were, perhaps, four days
+gathering at this spot, about two millions of people all told.
+
+The next point which they reached was Etham. This was a district of
+country just on the edge of the desert. From this point there were three
+routes to Palestine. The Israelites, by divine direction, took the most
+southern.
+
+They were at first surprised at this order of march; but it was the only
+safe one for them. The most northern would have taken them right through
+the country of the warlike and hostile Philistines, and the middle route
+(after passing the great wall which stretched from Pelusium on the
+Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez) would have brought them right out
+upon the desert.
+
+Several days had elapsed since the Israelites started on their flight.
+Pharaoh already missed them. His important works were brought to a
+standstill; there was no one to make or handle bricks, and the loss of
+so large and so efficient a body of workers was severely felt.
+
+A reaction takes place in the mind of the king; he charges himself with
+folly in letting the people go, and resolves to pursue them. He learns,
+also, that they have not yet got out of the land of Egypt, and he thinks
+that by the fact that they have turned south, and not gone directly to
+the east, they are confused, and he plans to catch them when they are
+hemmed in by the mountains and the sea.
+
+With six hundred of his swiftest chariots he at once sets out after
+them, leaving orders, doubtless, for other chariots as well as foot
+soldiers to follow as soon as possible.
+
+The Israelites were in the greatest alarm; there was no visible means of
+escape. They could go no further south, for the mountains were in front
+of them; they could not turn to the right for the same reason; the
+Egyptians were in their rear, and the Red Sea was before them. They were
+in a trap. This is what Pharaoh expected. The strategy on which he had
+reckoned (ver. 3) had worked admirably.
+
+
+THE PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE.
+
+  “And the angel of God, which went before the camp of Israel, removed
+  and went behind them; and the pillar of the cloud went from before
+  their face, and stood behind them:
+
+  “And it came between the camp of the Egyptians and the camp of
+  Israel: and it was a cloud and darkness to them, but it gave light
+  by night to these: so that the one came not near the other all the
+  night.”
+
+It is singular that this blind king should so soon forget that there was
+a God in Israel, and that he was to come into collision again with that
+Being who had so often foiled, and finally, in the death of the
+first-born, had utterly crushed him.
+
+But none are so blind or so heedless as the obstinate and the
+unbelieving. It will be seen that the battle that is soon to follow will
+end as before--in the defeat of Pharaoh, and, as some think, his death.
+
+We have in this “angel of God” the same being that we have met so often
+before, who talked familiarly with Abraham and Jacob. He is the one who
+afterward came in the form of the flesh, and is called Christ.
+
+This time His symbol was a cloud, and at night a pillar of fire. In such
+a large host as that of the children of Israel were at this time, it
+would be necessary that there be some elevated central object, so that
+those of the people scattered widely, in caring for the flocks and other
+like services, should not lose the location of the camp.
+
+Some such arrangement was early found important in caravans crossing the
+deserts, so that it was customary to carry a round grate with fire, held
+aloft on a pole. The ancient Persians and some other nations carried a
+sacred fire in silver altars before their armies.
+
+At night this cloud over the camp of the Israelites was illumined by
+some strong internal fire, so that the host dwelt amid the darkness of
+the desert as in a city brightly lighted. It was a marvelous miracle.
+
+This cloud now changed its position as the Egyptians came near to the
+Israelites. It stood between the two hosts. Over the Egyptians it was a
+dense fog that cut off all their vision so that they could not tell what
+the Israelites were doing, while to the latter it was as though it had
+caught and held the rays of the setting sun, and poured a brilliant
+glory all over and through their encampment. The Egyptians, thinking
+that the rising sun will disperse the fog, wait for morning.
+
+
+THE ISRAELITES ENTER THE RED SEA.
+
+  “And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused
+  the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made
+  the sea dry land, and the waters were divided.
+
+  “And the children of Israel went into the midst of the sea upon dry
+  ground: and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand,
+  and on their left.”
+
+While the Egyptians were thus waiting, the Israelites were busy; they
+were making the best use of their time. They were making their escape by
+the way last of all thought possible--even the bottom of the sea!
+
+The crossing was made in the neighborhood of what are now called the
+Bitter Lakes. This was then most probably the head of the Red Sea.
+
+It was at a time of the year when the tide would help the action of the
+wind. If there were shoals or flats at the place where the crossing is
+supposed to have occurred, as there are now at Suez, the wind and the
+tide clearing a passage there would leave deep water on both sides of
+the passage-way, and this most probably is the meaning of the expression
+that the waters were a wall to them on either side.
+
+  “They were a defense; not necessarily perpendicular cliffs, as they
+  were often pictured. God could make the water stand in precipices if
+  He should so choose, and such a conception is more impressive to the
+  imagination, but it is certain that the language of the text may
+  mean simply that the water was a protection on the right and on the
+  left flanks of the host. Thus, in Nahum 3:8, No (Thebes) is said to
+  have the sea (the broad Nile) for the rampart and a wall--that is,
+  a defense, a protection against enemies. It is true that in poetical
+  passages the waters are said to have stood ’as a heap’ (Exod. 15:8;
+  Psa. 78:13); but so they are also, in the same style, said to have
+  been ’congealed in the heart of the sea,’ and the peaks of the
+  trembling Horeb are said to have ’skipped like rams, and the little
+  hills like lambs’ (Psa. 114:4). Of course these expressions are not
+  to be literally and prosaically interpreted.”
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The wind thus prevailed all night, to keep the passage open until all
+the Israelites had crossed and the pursuing Egyptians had got well into
+the sea.
+
+
+THE ENEMY FOLLOW CLOSELY.
+
+  “And the Egyptians pursued, and went in after them to the midst of
+  the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots and his horsemen.
+
+  “And it came to pass that in the morning watch the Lord looked unto
+  the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the
+  cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians.
+
+  “And took off their chariot wheels, that they drave them heavily; so
+  that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for
+  the Lord fighteth for them against the Egyptians.”
+
+Surrounded by darkness and enveloped by the fog, the Egyptians did not
+know that they were rushing into the midst of the sea. It is not said
+that Pharaoh went in, and yet as the post of the king is usually
+represented on the ancient monuments as leading his soldiers--marching
+at their head--it may be, as some think, that his chariot led those six
+hundred chariots, and that he perished with them.
+
+  “The chariots of Egypt were very famous. According to Diodorus
+  Siculus, Rameses II had twenty-seven thousand in his army.
+  The processes of manufacture of chariots and harness are fully
+  illustrated by existing sculptures, in which also are represented
+  the chariots used by neighboring nations.”--_Rev. H. W. Phillot._
+
+At this point the movements of the Egyptians are very much impeded.
+Shortly after midnight, the fog changed into a storm cloud, blazing with
+lightning and growling with thunder. This was terrifying to the
+Egyptians in the extreme, as they were not accustomed to thunderstorms,
+and scarcely ever saw rain.
+
+  “Showers of rain also came down from the sky, and dreadful thunder
+  and lightning, with flashes of fire. Thunderbolts also were darted
+  upon them; nor was there anything which God sends upon men as
+  indications of His wrath which did not happen at this
+  time.”--_Josephus._
+
+Psalms 77:15-20 refers to this storm. Although the Israelites went
+through dry-shod, the pursuing chariots sank in the mire, were buried in
+the sand, and in some cases the wheels were wrenched off, so that the
+superstitious Egyptians recognized the fact that the God of Israel was
+fighting against them. They therefore began to retreat. In the meantime
+the children of Israel had an abundance of time to make good their
+escape.
+
+  “Before the captivity, the night (between sunset and sunrise) was
+  divided by the Israelites into three watches--the first watch, the
+  middle watch and the morning watch. It appears that the Israelites
+  had the space of two watches, at least (or eight hours), for
+  effecting their passage.”--_Murphy._
+
+
+THE OVERTHROW OF PHARAOH’S HOST.
+
+  “And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the sea,
+  that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their
+  chariots and upon their horsemen.
+
+  “And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea
+  returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the
+  Egyptians fled against it, and the Lord overthrew the Egyptians in
+  the midst of the sea.
+
+  “And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the
+  horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after
+  them; there remained not so much as one of them.”
+
+After the fugitives had safely gained the farther shore, and while the
+Egyptians were still struggling in the middle of the passage, through
+the gray of the dawn they saw the majestic form of Moses rise upon the
+opposite bank. They saw him stretch forth that terrible rod--that rod
+which had left so many deep scars upon the fair land of Egypt--and
+immediately the wind ceased, its strong pressure was relaxed, the sudden
+swell of the tide caught the waters, and they, as if impatient of
+restraint, leaped again to their wonted channel, burying the hopeless
+and helpless enemy.
+
+  “A sudden cessation of the wind at sunrise, coinciding with a spring
+  tide (it was full moon), would immediately convert the low, flat
+  sand-banks, first into a quicksand, and then into a mass of waters,
+  in a time far less than would suffice for the escape of a single
+  chariot or horseman loaded with heavy corselet.”--_Canon Cook._
+
+The destruction was as complete as it was sudden. Not one escaped. The
+disaster was overwhelming, crushing. The Egyptians never again disturbed
+the Israelites during all their after wanderings.
+
+
+THIS WAS THE LORD’S DOINGS.
+
+  “But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the
+  sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand and on
+  their left.
+
+  “Thus the Lord saved Israel that day out of the hand of the
+  Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the seashore.
+
+  “And Israel saw that great work which the Lord did upon the
+  Egyptians; and the people feared the Lord, and believed the Lord,
+  and his servant Moses.”
+
+There was only one explanation of this event, and that was the Lord
+wrought it. There could be no room in the mind of any of the children of
+Israel to doubt that God was with them. Repeatedly had they seen their
+enemies baffled and discomfited; now they saw them destroyed. What folly
+to contend with such a God! Would it be possible for these people thus
+delivered ever to doubt God? ever to distrust Him? ever to disobey Him?
+It would seem not.
+
+They had every reason to believe Him, to be grateful to Him, to love and
+serve Him devotedly. Without lifting a finger, they, an unarmed people,
+with not a soldier in all their ranks, nor a weapon worthy the name, had
+triumphed over a chosen detachment of the finest army in the world at
+that time, led, too, by a king who was familiar with battles and
+accustomed to victories.
+
+Josephus says that, after the passage of the sea by the Israelites,
+a west wind set in, which (assisted by the current) drove the bodies of
+the drowned Egyptians to the eastern side of the gulf, where many of
+them were cast up upon the shore. In this way, Moses, according to him,
+obtained weapons and armor for a considerable number of Israelites.
+
+
+
+
+  WHAT THEY DO WHEN IT RAINS.
+
+  By Carrie Cathcart Day.
+
+
+         “Where do you go,
+           Sweet, happy bird,
+          When wild winds blow
+           And storms are heard?
+  Do you not dread the rushing rain,
+  And wish the sky was bright again?”
+
+         “Tweet oh! I fly
+           To nestlings near--
+          To hush their cry,
+           And soothe their fear;
+  And o’er them all my wings I fold,
+  To keep them safely from the cold.”
+
+         “Where do you run,
+           Dear little duck?
+          Is the rain fun,
+           And best of luck?”
+  “Oh, yes! Quack! quack! I swim in glee,
+  It never pours too hard for me!”
+
+         “Of course, good sheep,
+           You do not care--
+          Out-doors you keep
+           Through foul and fair;
+  Your coat is surely thick enough
+  To shield you from a tempest rough?”
+
+         “Baa! baa! baa! baa!
+           I let the geese
+          Have all the wet;
+           For should my fleece
+          All soaking get,
+  ’Twould be too heavy for my play--
+  So to my shed I skip away.”
+
+         “Why do you croak
+           So long and loud,
+          Queer froggie folk,
+           When comes a cloud?”
+         “Cree-crake! cree-crake!
+  Because our pollywogs, we know,
+  When ponds are full will nicely grow!”
+
+         “But, bumble-bee,
+           Your gauzy wings,
+          It seems to me,
+           Are flimsy things;
+  Should they get drenched, ’twould spoil them quite,
+  And you’d be in a sorry plight!”
+
+         “I crawl beneath
+            A lily bell--
+          A lovely sheath
+            That suits me well,
+  And when--buzz! buzz!--the sun I greet,
+  The roses all are fresh and sweet.”
+
+          “Well, surely you,
+            My little lad,
+           Feel very blue
+            In weather sad?
+  You mope and fret and whine and frown,
+  To see the torrents driving down!”
+
+          “Oh, ho! oh, ho!
+            You do not know;
+           For _thus_, you see,
+            My trowsers go
+           Up to my knee;
+  I make believe to wade and splash
+  In puddles nice, with Puss and Dash,
+  And we pretend the shower pours
+  As hard _within_ as out of doors!”
+
+
+
+
+JACK-A-DANDY.
+
+BY HELEN WHITNEY CLARK.
+
+
+We children had been wishing for a tame crow ever since reading Dickens’
+charming description of his pet raven. There were no ravens where we
+lived; but Brother Tom said crows were just as good, and could be taught
+to talk, too.
+
+And one day, when we were playing “Here we go round the mulberry bush”
+in the woods near the house, little Ikey, our colored washerwoman’s boy,
+came along with a live crow in his hands.
+
+Of course we were curious to see and examine the wonderful bird, and we
+crowded around Ikey, who seemed bewildered at being the object of so
+much attention.
+
+“Where did you get him?” “What you going to do with him?” “How much will
+you take for him?” asked Tom, Josie and Fred, in one breath.
+
+But Ikey only grinned, as he answered each in turn.
+
+“Got him out of his nest in a post-oak. Dey was more of ’em, but I
+couldn’t git ony dis one. I’m a-gwine to raise him if mammy’ll let me.
+But I mout sell him, if I git a good chance.”
+
+The opportunity was not to be lost, and in a very few moments Ikey was
+trudging homeward with a handful of coppers and two nickels--all the
+change we could raise among us, and we proudly carried our new-found
+treasure to the house.
+
+“Mercy on us!” cried mamma, holding up her hands. “What on earth have
+you got there?”
+
+“A crow,” we told her. “And we’re going to tame him, and teach him to
+talk.”
+
+“Nonsense!” said mamma. “You don’t suppose I’ll have a _crow_ about the
+house, to kill the young chickens and eat up the eggs!”
+
+But we begged and pleaded, till at last she gave her consent to let us
+keep it.
+
+“It’ll be a great torment,” grumbled grandma. “It’s a _young_ bird,
+and you’ll have to feed it like a baby.”
+
+But we did not mind the trouble. Indeed, it was more of an amusement to
+us to feed our pet on scraps of meat and bits of bread. It opened its
+mouth so wide, and cried “Caw-aw-aw!” in such a satisfactory way.
+
+Ikey had instructed us as to the manner of feeding.
+
+“Jess you peck it on de head, an’ it’ll open its mouth like it does fur
+de ole birds,” he explained.
+
+And we found his advice was good.
+
+We named our pet “Jack-a-Dandy,” and he grew and throve so much that he
+was soon able to procure his own food, which consisted of crickets and
+other insects.
+
+He was so tame that we could allow him perfect freedom, without any fear
+of his deserting us.
+
+As he grew older, he used frequently to fly into the top of a tall
+post-oak near the front door, from which he would circle around and
+around the house, then alight on the ground, and come hopping in the
+door, with a cheerful “caw! caw!” as if asserting that there was no
+place like home.
+
+“He’s better than Dick Hardy’s tame squirrel,” Tom used to say, “for
+that has to be kept in a cage.”
+
+“And Bob Rooney’s pet coon has to be fastened by a chain,” said Josie.
+“But Jack-a-Dandy is as free as we are.”
+
+But mamma was not particularly pleased with Jack, and grandma continued
+to grumble over his misdemeanors, especially when he would rummage in
+her work-basket, and carry off her silver thimble or bright steel
+bodkin.
+
+“He’s a troublesome creature,” she would declare, “and if I had _my_
+way, he’d get his neck wrung.”
+
+But we kept a good watch on our favorite, to keep him from getting into
+mischief.
+
+We had used our best endeavors to teach him to talk, but he was a poor
+scholar, and could not even learn to pronounce his own name.
+
+Still we loved him, and continued to take his part against his enemies.
+
+Papa had never said much, one way or the other, about Jack, though he
+was not very favorably disposed toward the race of crows. But when the
+spring planting was done, he took sides with the opposition.
+
+“If your tame thief pulls up my corn, I’ll shoot him,” he declared.
+
+“If he troubles the young chickens, he’ll have to go,” said mamma.
+
+“If he spoils my garden, I’ll wring his neck,” asserted grandma.
+
+And, as may be imagined, we suffered considerable anxiety about our pet.
+
+One day we were eating dinner, while Jack sat perched on the post-oak
+near the door.
+
+Suddenly a terrible commotion occurred in the chicken-yard, caused by a
+hawk which had swooped down and seized a young chicken.
+
+The hen-mother, however, attacked the marauder so furiously that it was
+unable to carry off its prey immediately, and before papa could seize
+his gun and reach the scene of conflict, Jack-a-Dandy had flown to the
+hen’s assistance.
+
+He attacked the hawk so desperately that it dropped its prey, and a
+terrible combat ensued, in which Jack came off the victor. But not
+satisfied with this, he pursued the flying enemy a long distance,
+attacking him sharply when occasion offered.
+
+[Illustration:
+“BEFORE PAPA COULD SEIZE HIS GUN AND REACH THE SCENE OF CONFLICT,
+JACK-A-DANDY HAD FLOWN TO THE HEN’S ASSISTANCE.”]
+
+You may be sure we had a great many praises and a sumptuous dinner for
+our favorite, on his return.
+
+Hawks had for years been a great pest to poultry raising, and even mamma
+espoused Jack’s cause after his successful battle with the rapacious
+foe.
+
+And during Jack’s life, not another chicken was molested by the hawks,
+as he kept a vigilant watch, and attacked every one that dared to
+venture near the premises.
+
+He even won the good-will of papa, by keeping rigidly aloof from the
+corn-field; but grandma was still fearful lest he might do some damage
+to the garden.
+
+She was very careful of her early vegetables, and the garden-spot was
+paled in, to keep the chickens and rabbits from making depredations on
+the early lettuce, peas and cabbages.
+
+But no fence would keep Jack out. Like the wind, he went “wherever he
+listeth.”
+
+Much to our relief, however, he did not offer to molest the vegetables,
+but did good service in picking up the insects and cut-worms, which are
+usually such a pest about a garden.
+
+When he fell to devouring the squash-bugs, which were sapping the life
+of the “Boston Marrows,” grandma’s last prejudice was overcome, and she
+declared that Jack was worth his weight in gold.
+
+After that, she never went to the garden without calling Jack, who would
+give an answering “caw!” and hop gravely after her, or perch on her
+shoulder with all the confidence of a privileged favorite.
+
+As long as he lived, Jack continued to grow in the good opinion of the
+household. But, alas! he could not live forever.
+
+One day he sat drooping on his perch, and refused to be enticed away
+from it. He even declined the plump crickets Fred offered him in hopes
+of tempting his appetite.
+
+The next morning he was found dead under his perch. He was mourned
+sincerely by the whole family, from grandma down, and we buried him with
+great ceremony under his favorite post-oak.
+
+Tom sodded his grave, Josie planted a “mourning bride” over it, and Fred
+put up a shingle for a headstone, with this verse on it, which we all
+thought very beautiful:
+
+  “Handy-spandy, Jack-a-Dandy
+  Loves plum-cake and sugar candy.”
+
+
+
+
+        [_This Story began in No. 15._]
+
+                      THE
+
+               YOUNG GAME-WARDEN
+
+              BY HARRY CASTLEMON.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI--[CONTINUED].
+
+Silas was so completely wrapped up in his own affairs that the boys got
+close to him before he was aware of their presence, and it is the
+greatest wonder in the world that he did not shoot one of them in his
+excitement.
+
+He was really alarmed; but when he had taken a good look at the
+newcomers, in order to make sure of their identity, he laid his gun
+across the chair, pushed up his sleeves, and shook both his fists at
+Dan.
+
+“So you thought you would fool your poor old pap this morning, did you,
+you little snipe?” he shouted. “Well, you see what you made by it, don’t
+you?”
+
+“I never tried to make a fool of you,” stammered Dan, who had a faint
+idea that he understood the situation. “I never in this wide world!”
+
+“Hush your noise when I tell you I know better,” yelled Silas; and one
+would have thought, by the way he acted and looked, that he was very
+angry, instead of very much delighted, at the way things had turned out.
+“Here you have been and tramped all over them mountings, and never got a
+cent for it, while I have made a clean twenty-five hundred dollars, if I
+counted it up right on my fingers; and I reckon I did, ’cause your mam
+put in a figger to help me now and then.”
+
+“Why, how did it happen?” exclaimed Joe, who, up to this moment, had not
+been able to do anything but stand still and look astonished.
+
+He knew that his father had captured one of the robbers without help
+from any one, and that was more than fifty other men had been able to
+do, with all their weary tramping.
+
+“The way it happened was just this,” said Silas, who could not stand in
+one place for a single moment. “Hold on there!” he added, turning
+fiercely upon his prisoner, who just then moved uneasily upon the bench,
+as if he were trying to find a softer spot to sit on. “I’ve got my eyes
+onto you, and you might as--”
+
+“Why, father, he can’t get away,” Joe interposed. “You’ve got him tied
+up too tight. Why don’t you let out that rope a little?”
+
+“’Cause he’s worth a pile of money--that’s why!” exclaimed Silas; “and I
+won’t let the rope out not one inch, nuther. You Joe, keep away from
+there.”
+
+“I really wish you would undo some of this rope,” said the prisoner,
+who, like Byron’s Corsair, seemed to be a mild-mannered man. “I have
+been tied up ever since two o’clock, and am numb all over. I couldn’t
+run a step if I should try.”
+
+“Don’t you believe a word of that!” exclaimed Silas. “Come away from
+there and let that rope be, I tell you.”
+
+“Say, father,” said Joe, suddenly, “what are you going to do with your
+captive? Do you intend to sit up and watch him all night long?”
+
+“I was just a-studying about that when you come up and scared me,”
+replied Silas, dropping the butt of his gun to the ground, and leaning
+heavily upon the muzzle.
+
+He never could stand alone for any length of time; he always wanted
+something to support him.
+
+“What do you think I had better do about it? I don’t much like to keep
+him here, ’cause-- Why, just look a-here, Joey,” added Silas, moving up
+to the door, and pointing to some object inside the cabin. “See them
+tools I took away from him?”
+
+The boys stepped to their father’s side, and saw lying upon the table,
+where Silas had placed it, a belt containing a brace of heavy revolvers
+and a murderous-looking knife.
+
+“Now, them’s dangerous,” continued Silas, “and if this feller’s pardner
+should happen along--”
+
+“But he won’t happen along,” interrupted Dan. “Brierly’s squad gobbled
+him.”
+
+The ferryman looked surprised, then disgusted, and finally he turned an
+inquiring glance upon Joe, who said that Dan told the truth.
+
+“You don’t like it, do you?” said the latter, to himself. “It sorter
+hurts you to know that there is them in the world that are just as lucky
+and smart as you be, don’t it? Yes, that’s what’s the matter with pap.
+He don’t want no one else to be as well off as he is.”
+
+And when Dan said that, he hit the nail fairly on the head.
+
+“The other robber is not in a condition to attempt a rescue,” said Joe;
+“but, all the same, I don’t think you ought to keep this man here all
+night. The sheriff is now at Mr. Warren’s house, and it is your duty to
+hand the prisoner over to him at once. Be careful how you point those
+guns this way.”
+
+This last remark was called forth by an action on the part of Silas and
+Dan that made Joe feel the least bit uncomfortable.
+
+While the latter was talking, his hands were busy with the rope; and
+when the prisoner arose from the bench and stamped his feet to set the
+blood in circulation again, his excited and watchful guards at once
+covered his head and Joe’s with the muzzles of their guns.
+
+“Turn those weapons the other way,” repeated Joe, angrily. “You don’t
+think this man is foolish enough to try to run off while his hands are
+tied, do you? Now, father, how did you happen to catch him?”
+
+“It was just as easy as falling off a log,” replied Silas, resuming his
+seat and resting his double-barrel across his knees. “When you and Dan
+went away this morning, I just naturally shouldered my gun, walked up
+the road to the foot of the mounting, and set down on a log to wait for
+game to come a-running past me, just the same as if I was watching for
+deer, you know.”
+
+This was all true; but there was one thing he did that he forgot to
+mention. The only “game” Silas expected to see was Dan Morgan, when he
+returned from the mountain at night, and the ferryman was prepared to
+give him a warm reception. Before he devoted himself to the task of
+holding down that log by the roadside, he took the trouble to cut a long
+hickory switch, and to place it beside the log, out of sight. He meant
+to give Dan such a thrashing that he would never play any more tricks
+upon him.
+
+“Well, about one o’clock, or a little after, while I was a-setting there
+and waiting for the game to come along, I heared a noise in the brush,
+and, all on a sudden, out popped this feller. He was running like he’d
+been sent for, and that’s why I suspicioned him. Of course I didn’t know
+him from Adam, but I asked him would he stop a bit. And he ’lowed he
+would, when he seed my gun looking him square in the eye. I brung him
+home, and your mam she passed out the clothes-line, and I tied him up.”
+
+“Where is mother now?” asked Joe.
+
+“Gone off after more sewing, I reckon,” replied Silas, in a tone which
+seemed to say that it was a matter that was not worth talking about.
+“She helped me figger up what I would get for catching him, and then she
+dug out. I’m worth almost as much as you be now, Joey, and that there
+mean Dan, who wouldn’t stay by and help me, he ain’t got a cent. Now
+don’t you wish you hadn’t played that trick on me this morning?”
+
+“Never mind that,” interposed Joe, who did not care to stand by and
+listen to an angry altercation which might end in a fight or a foot-race
+between his father and Dan. “If we are going to deliver this man to the
+sheriff to-night, we had better be moving.”
+
+“Do you reckon the sheriff will hand over the twenty-five hundred when I
+give up the prisoner?” inquired Silas, as the party walked down the bank
+toward the flat.
+
+“Of course he won’t.”
+
+“What for won’t he?”
+
+“Because he hasn’t got it with him. Perhaps it was never put into his
+hands at all. I haven’t received my share yet.”
+
+“Then I reckon I’d best hold fast to him till I’m sure of my money,”
+said Silas, reflectively. “I guess I won’t take him down to old man
+Warren’s to-night.”
+
+“I guess you will, unless you want to get into trouble with the law,”
+said Joe, decidedly. “If you don’t give him up of your own free will,
+the sheriff will take him away from you.”
+
+Silas protested that he couldn’t see any sense in such a law as that,
+but he lent his aid in pushing off the flat.
+
+Dan, who was almost too angry to breathe, had more than half a mind to
+stay at home; but his curiosity to hear and see all that was said and
+done when the prisoner was turned over to the officers of the law
+impelled him to think better of it. When the flat was shoved off,
+he jumped in and picked up one of the oars.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+We have said that Tom Hallet was so anxious to help his unlucky friend
+Bob in some way that he joined the very first squad that went out in
+search of him.
+
+The man who had the name of being the leader of it was the sheriff’s
+deputy; but the two stalwart young farmers who belonged to his party
+were longer of limb than he was, and they pushed ahead at such a rate
+that the deputy speedily fell to the rear, and stayed there during the
+most of the day.
+
+“Me and Cyrus have come out to win that there reward,” said one of the
+young men, when Tom remonstrated with them for leaving the officer so
+far behind, “and we can’t do it by loafing along like that sheriff does.
+We’ve got a mortgage to pay off on the farm, and we don’t know any
+easier way to raise the money for it than to capture one of them
+rogues.”
+
+But this sanguine young fellow was not the only one who was destined to
+have his trouble for his pains; and what made his disappointment and his
+brother’s harder to bear was the reflection that if they had left Tom’s
+cabin half an hour earlier than they did, they might have succeeded in
+earning a portion of the money of which they stood so much in need.
+
+They were not more than a quarter of a mile away when Brierly’s signal
+guns announced that one of the robbers had been captured. They ran
+forward at the top of their speed, hoping to reach the scene of action
+before the arrest was fairly consummated, but in this they were also
+disappointed.
+
+When they came within sight of the successful party, they found the
+robber securely bound, and Brierly wearing the belt that contained his
+weapons.
+
+“Too late, boys!” exclaimed the guide, who was highly elated over his
+good fortune. “You can’t lay claim to any of our money, if that’s what
+brung you up here in such haste.”
+
+“We don’t care for the money,” panted Tom. “Where’s Bob?”
+
+“That’s so,” said Brierly, who had not bestowed a single thought upon
+the prisoner during the whole forenoon. “Where is he? Say, feller, what
+have you done with him?”
+
+“I have not seen him for two hours,” replied the prisoner. “As soon as
+we found out that the hills were full of men, we set him at liberty, and
+I suppose he made the best of his way home. We didn’t want to keep him
+with us for fear that he would set up a yelp to show where we were
+hiding.”
+
+Just then, the deputy, who had been sitting on a log to recover his
+breath, managed to inquire:
+
+“What have you done with your partners?”
+
+“There were only two of us, and the other man has gone off that way,”
+answered the captive, nodding his head toward an indefinite point of the
+compass.
+
+Tom Hallet had no further interest in the hunt. He stood by and watched
+the officer as he unbound the prisoner and substituted a pair of
+hand-cuffs for the rope with which his arms had been confined, and when
+Brierly’s party started off with their captive, Tom fell in behind them.
+
+He went as straight to his cabin as he could go, and there he found Bob
+Emerson, who was rummaging around in the hope of finding something to
+eat.
+
+“I haven’t had a bite of anything since last night, and you’d better
+believe that I am hungry,” said Bob, after he and Tom had greeted each
+other as though they had been separated for years. “But I am not a bit
+of a hero. I haven’t had an adventure worth the telling.”
+
+“There’s nothing in there,” said Tom, seeing that his friend was casting
+longing eyes toward his game-bag. “I didn’t take much of a lunch with
+me, and I was hungry enough to eat it all. Can you stand it until we get
+home?”
+
+“I’ll have to,” replied Bob. “By-the-way, did you ever see that before?”
+
+As he spoke, he put his hand into his pocket and drew out a soiled and
+crumpled letter, which looked as though it might have been through the
+war.
+
+It was the same precious document that he and Tom had left in Silas
+Morgan’s wood-pile.
+
+“One of the robbers gave it to me last night,” continued Bob, in reply
+to his companion’s inquiring look. “You will remember that Dan Morgan
+lost the letter within a few feet of the log on which he sat when he
+read it, and that when he and Silas went back to find it, they were
+frightened away by something that dodged into the bushes before they
+could get a sight at it, and which they took to be a ghost. Well, it
+wasn’t a ghost at all, but one of the thieves, who had been to the Beach
+after supplies. He found the letter, and read it. Of course he was
+greatly alarmed, and so was his companion; for they couldn’t help
+believing that some one had got wind of their hiding-place. They could
+hardly believe me when I told them that you and I made that letter up
+out of the whole cloth, and that we never dreamed there was any one
+living in the gorge.”
+
+“But we did know it,” said Tom.
+
+“Of course we did after they frightened us, but not before. They spoke
+about that, too. We took them completely by surprise the day we came
+down the gorge. We were close upon their camp before they knew it,
+and for a minute or two they didn’t know what to do. Then one of them
+conceived the idea of making that hideous noise, and when the other saw
+how well it worked, he joined in with him.”
+
+“But didn’t they know that we would be back sooner or later to look into
+the matter?” asked Tom.
+
+“Of course they did, and that was another thing that frightened them.
+They saw very plainly that their hiding-place was broken up, and were
+making preparations to leave it when Silas and Dan put in their
+appearance. The robbers saw and heard them long before they got to the
+camp, and the one who found the letter recognized them at once. It was
+at his suggestion that that ghost was rigged up.”
+
+“But they must have known that they could not scare everybody with that
+dummy,” observed Tom.
+
+“To-be-sure they did, and they were in a great hurry to get away from
+there; but they needed provisions, and by stopping to get them they fell
+into trouble. They took Joe Morgan’s house for a wood-chopper’s cabin,
+and while we were robbing them, they were foraging on Joe. I tell you,
+Tom, it’s a lucky thing for us that we got out of that gorge when we
+did. They were mad enough to shoot us on sight.”
+
+“I don’t wonder at it,” replied Tom. “It would make most anybody mad to
+lose a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in money and securities, no
+matter how he came by them. Where did they catch you? Did they treat you
+well?”
+
+“They treated me well enough,” was Bob’s reply; “but I believe that if
+they had not stood in fear of immediate capture, I should have a
+different story to tell, if, indeed, I were able to tell any. I told you
+nothing but the truth in the postscript I added to their note.”
+
+“I knew they made you write it, and that you did not express your honest
+sentiments when you told us to be in a hurry about giving back that
+valise.”
+
+“I was sure you would understand it: but what could a fellow do with a
+cocked revolver flourished before his eyes by a man who was in just the
+right humor to use it on him?”
+
+“He would do as he is told, of course,” answered Tom. “But do you
+suppose they thought they could get that valise back by threatening
+you?”
+
+“I don’t know what they thought, for they acted as if they were crazy.
+They caught me in less than half an hour after I left you, and it was
+through my own fault. I ran on to them before I knew it; and do you
+imagine I thought ‘robbers’ once? As true as you live, I didn’t. I took
+them for poachers, and told them, very politely, that these grounds were
+posted and they couldn’t be allowed to shoot there, when all on a sudden
+it popped into my head what I was doing. They saw the start I gave, and
+in a second more they had me covered. If I could have got away without
+letting them see that I suspected them, they wouldn’t have said a word
+to me.”
+
+“Well, they covered you with their revolvers; then what?”
+
+“Beyond a doubt, they made a prisoner of me before they thought what
+they were doing, and when they came to look at it, they found that they
+had got an elephant on their hands. Then they would have been glad to
+get rid of me; but they did not see just how they could do it with
+safety to themselves, so they made up their minds to use me.
+
+“At first they thought they would wait and see if anything would come of
+the notice they left on the door of the cabin, and then they thought
+they wouldn’t--that they would hunt up another hiding-place as soon as
+possible; so they ordered me to take them where nobody would ever think
+of looking for them. And I could do nothing but obey.”
+
+“Were you acting as their guide when they released you?”
+
+Bob replied that he was.
+
+“Why didn’t you veer around a bit, and lead them toward the railroad?”
+
+“If I had, I shouldn’t be here now,” answered Bob, significantly. “They
+warned me to be careful about that, and they were so well acquainted
+with the hills that I was afraid to attempt any tricks. We camped over
+on Dungeon Brook last night, and set out again at an early hour this
+morning; but before we had been in motion an hour, we found ourselves
+cut off from the upper end of the hills, and that was the time they made
+up their minds to let me go. They didn’t say so, but still I had an idea
+that they didn’t want me around for fear I would make too much noise to
+suit them.”
+
+“I know they were afraid of it,” said Tom. “The robber that Brierly’s
+squad captured said so.”
+
+“Is one of them taken?” exclaimed Bob, who hadn’t heard of it before.
+“That’s good news. Where’s the other?”
+
+“Don’t know. They separated after they let you go, and Brierly captured
+one of them. Perhaps we shall hear something about the other one now,”
+added Tom, directing his companion’s attention to a large party of men
+who were at that moment discovered approaching the cabin. “We went out
+in squads of four, and there are a dozen men in that crowd.”
+
+“But I don’t see any prisoner among them,” said Bob. “They have all got
+guns on their shoulders, and that proves that they have not seen
+anything of robber number two.”
+
+As the party came nearer, the boys saw that it was made up of citizens
+of Bellville and Hammondsport, who had abandoned the search for the day,
+and were now on their way home.
+
+They were surprised to see Bob Emerson there, safe and sound, and
+forthwith desired a full history of the letter which had been the means
+of bringing about so remarkable a series of events.
+
+Bob protested that he was too hungry to talk, but when he saw the
+generous supply of bread and meat which one of the men drew from his
+haversack, he sat down on a log in front of the cabin and told his
+story.
+
+His auditors declared that the way things had turned out was little
+short of wonderful, adding, as they arose to go, that they were coming
+out again, bright and early the next morning, to resume the search for
+robber number two. They were not going to remain idle at home, they
+said, as long as there were twenty-five hundred dollars running around
+loose in the woods.
+
+When the bread and meat were all gone, and the boys were once more
+alone, Tom wrote the notice which Joe Morgan found pinned to the door of
+the cabin, and then he and Bob set out for Uncle Hallet’s.
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+Although Silas Morgan had received the most convincing proof that he had
+nothing more to fear from the “hant” which had so long occupied all his
+waking thoughts and disturbed his dreams at night, he would not have
+taken one step toward Mr. Warren’s house before morning, had he not been
+urged on by the hope that the sheriff would be ready to pay over his
+money as soon as the robber was given up to him. The desire to handle
+the reward to which he was entitled was stronger than his fear of the
+dark.
+
+“And what shall I do with them twenty-five hundred after I get ’em,
+Joey?” said he. “That’s what’s a-bothering of me now.”
+
+And it was the very thing that was bothering Joe, also. His father had
+always been in the habit of spending his money as fast as he got it, and
+the boy fully expected to see this large sum slip through his fingers
+without doing the least good to him or anybody else.
+
+“I’ll tell you what I _wouldn’t_ do with it,” said Joe, after a little
+hesitation. “I wouldn’t give Hobson any of it.”
+
+“You’re right I won’t!” exclaimed Silas. “He’s got more’n his share
+already. What be you going to do with yours, when you get it?”
+
+“I think now that I shall put it in the bank at Hammondsport,” answered
+Joe. “It will be safe there, and if I am careful of it, it will last me
+until I get through going to school. You don’t want to go to school, but
+you might go into business and increase your capital.”
+
+“That’s it--that’s it, Joey!” exclaimed Silas, who grew enthusiastic at
+once. “I never thought of that. But what sort of business? It must be
+something easy, ’cause I’ve worked hard enough already.”
+
+“Mr. Warren says that there is no easy way of making a living,” began
+Joe; but his father interrupted him with an exclamation of impatience.
+
+“What does old man Warren know about it?” he demanded. “He never had to
+do a hand’s turn in his life.”
+
+“But he don’t know what it is to be idle, and he is busy at something
+every day,” said Joe. “I’ll tell you what I have often thought I would
+do if I had a little money, and I may do it yet, if you don’t decide to
+go into it. The new road that is coming through here is bound to bring a
+good many people to the Beach, sooner or later. As the trout are nearly
+all gone, the guests will have to devote their attention to the bass in
+the lake, and consequently there will be a big demand for boats.”
+
+“So there will!” exclaimed Silas, who saw at once what Joe was trying to
+get at. “That’s the business I’ve been looking for, Joey, and it’s an
+easy one, too. Of course, I can let all my boats at so much an hour, and
+I won’t have nothing to do but sit on the beach and take in my money.”
+
+“And what’ll I be doing?” inquired Dan, who had not spoken before.
+
+“You!” cried Silas, who seemed to have forgotten that Dan was one of the
+party. “You will keep on chopping cord wood, to pay you for the mean
+trick you played on me this morning. You see what you made by it, don’t
+you? I reckon you wish you’d stayed by me now, don’t you? How much will
+them boats cost me, Joey?”
+
+“I should think that ten or a dozen skiffs would be enough to begin
+with,” answered Joe, “and they will cost you between three and four
+hundred dollars; but you would have enough left to rent a piece of
+ground of Mr. Warren and put up a snug little house on it.”
+
+“Then I’ll be a gentleman like the rest of ’em, won’t I?” exclaimed
+Silas, gleefully.
+
+“No, you won’t,” said Dan, to himself. “That bridge ain’t been built
+yet, and I don’t reckon Hobson means to have it there. He is going to
+bust it up some way or ’nother, and I’m just the man to help him, if
+he’ll pay me for it. Everybody is getting rich ’cepting me, and I ain’t
+going to be treated this way no longer!”
+
+Silas was so completely carried away by Joe’s plan for making money
+without work that he could think of nothing else. He forgot how
+determined and vindictive Dan was, and how easy it would be for him to
+place a multitude of obstacles in his way, but Joe didn’t.
+
+The latter knew well enough that Dan intended to make trouble if he were
+left out in the cold, but what could be done for so lazy and unreliable
+a fellow as he was? That was the question.
+
+While Joe was turning it over in his mind, he led the way through Mr.
+Warren’s gate and up to the porch, where he found his employer sitting
+in company with the sheriff and both Uncle Hallet’s game-wardens. The
+deputy was in an upper room, keeping guard over the other prisoner.
+
+Of course, Tom and Bob, who were greatly surprised as well as delighted
+to see Joe and his party, wanted to know just how the capture of robber
+number two had been brought about, and while Joe was telling the story,
+the sheriff marched the captive into the house and turned him over to
+his deputy.
+
+Then he came back and sat down; but he did not put his hand into his
+pocket and pull out the reward, as Silas hoped he would.
+
+“This has been a good day’s work all around,” said Tom, who was in high
+spirits. “The next time there is any detective work to be done in this
+county, Bob and I will volunteer to do it. We can catch more criminals
+by sitting still and writing letters, than the officers can by bringing
+all their skill into play.”
+
+The sheriff laughed, and said that was the way the thing looked from
+where he sat.
+
+“The fun is all over now,” continued Tom, “and to-morrow we will go to
+work in earnest. You will be on hand, of course?”
+
+Joe replied that he would.
+
+“By-the-way,” chimed in Bob, “did this robber of yours have a gun of any
+description in his hands when he was captured?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Then, Joe, you and I are just that much out of pocket. The guns are
+gone up.”
+
+“What has become of them?”
+
+“They are out in the hills somewhere,” answered Bob. “When the robbers
+made up their minds that they had better let me go, one of them had my
+gun and the other had yours; but the robber Brierly captured says that
+the weapon impeded his flight, and so he threw it away. Whereabouts he
+was in the hills when he got rid of it, he can’t tell. No doubt your gun
+was thrown away also, and the chances are not one in a thousand that we
+shall ever find them again.”
+
+While this conversation was going on, Silas Morgan, who stood at the
+foot of the steps that led to the porch, kept pulling Joe by the
+coat-sleeve, and whispering to him:
+
+“Never mind the guns. Tell the sheriff that I’m powerful anxious to see
+the color of them twenty-five hundred.”
+
+Joe paid no sort of attention to him, and finally Silas became so very
+much in earnest in his endeavors to attract the boy’s notice, that the
+officer saw it; and when there was a little pause in the conversation,
+he said, carelessly:
+
+“Oh, about the reward, Silas--”
+
+“That’s the idee,” replied the ferry-man, who thought sure that he was
+going to get it now. “That’s what I’m here for. You have got the
+bugglars in your own hands now, and I don’t reckon you would mind
+passing it over, would you?”
+
+“I?” exclaimed the sheriff. “I haven’t got it. I have never had a cent
+of it in my possession.”
+
+“Then who’s going to give it to me?” demanded Silas, who wondered if the
+officer was going to cheat him out of his money.
+
+“Well, you see, Silas,” said the sheriff, “the reward is conditioned
+upon the arrest and conviction of the burglars. They have been arrested,
+and their conviction is only a matter of time; but you can’t get your
+money until they are sentenced.”
+
+“And how long will that be?”
+
+“The court will sit again in about six weeks. As some of the money was
+offered by the county, and the rest by the men who lost the jewelry and
+things that were found in that valise, you will get your reward from
+different parties, unless they hand it over to me to be paid to you in a
+lump.”
+
+“That’s the way I want it,” said Silas, who was very much disappointed.
+“I’m going into business.”
+
+“What sort of business?” inquired Mr. Warren.
+
+“I am going to keep a boat-house down to the Beach.”
+
+“Well now, Silas, that’s the most sensible thing I have heard from you
+in a long time,” said Mr. Warren. “I’ll rent you a piece of ground big
+enough for a garden, and you can set yourself up in business in good
+shape, build a nice house, and have money left in the bank. If you
+manage the thing rightly, you and Dan ought to make a good living
+of it.”
+
+“Who said anything about Dan?” exclaimed Silas.
+
+“I did. Of course you can’t ignore him because you are wealthy. He wants
+a chance to earn an honest living, and he needs it, too. He’s a strong
+boy, a first-rate hand with a boat, knows all the best fishing-grounds
+on the lake, and would be just the fellow to send out with a party who
+wanted a guide and boatman. You can easily afford to pay him a dollar a
+day for such work as that.”
+
+“Well, I won’t do it,” said Silas, promptly. “He’s a lazy,
+good-for-nothing scamp, Dan is, and I won’t take him into business along
+of me.”
+
+“But you will hire him, and give him a chance to quit breaking the game
+law and make an honest living,” said the sheriff. “By-the-way, Silas,
+I guess you had better bring up those setters, and save me the trouble
+of going after them.”
+
+“What setters?” exclaimed Silas, who acted as if he were on the point of
+taking to his heels. “I ain’t got none. I took ’em down to the hotel and
+give ’em up.”
+
+“I am glad to hear it, because it will save me some trouble,” replied
+the officer. “I have had my eyes on those dogs ever since you got hold
+of them, and I should have been after them long ago if I had known where
+to find the owner. Don’t do that again, Silas. Honesty is the best
+policy, every day in the week.”
+
+“If you will leave your business in my hands, I will attend to it for
+you, and you will not have to go to Hammondsport at all,” continued Mr.
+Warren.
+
+And Joe was glad to hear him say it, because it showed him that the
+gentleman did not intend that his father should squander all his money,
+if he could help it.
+
+“It is too late in the season for you to do anything with your boats
+this year, but I will give you and Dan a steady job at chopping wood,
+and if you take care of the money you earn, instead of spending it at
+Hobson’s bar, you can live well during the winter. If the reward is not
+paid over to you by the time spring opens, I will advance you enough to
+start you in business and build your house. Then I think you had better
+give Dan a chance.”
+
+“So do I,” whispered Tom, to his friend Bob. “Dan has lived by his wits
+long enough, and if Silas doesn’t begin to take some interest in him,
+the sheriff will have a word or two to say about those setters. I can
+see plainly enough that he intends to hold that affair over Silas as a
+whip to make him behave himself.”
+
+“Do you think Silas will ever have the reward paid him in a lump?” asked
+Bob.
+
+“No, I don’t, because he doesn’t know enough to take care of so much
+money. Joe can get his any time he wants it, for Mr. Warren knows that
+he will make every cent of it count.”
+
+Then, aloud, Tom said:
+
+“Well, Bob, seeing that we’ve got to get up in the morning, we had
+better be going home. Come over bright and early, Joe, and we will take
+your things back to your cabin.”
+
+“And I will send up another supply of provisions,” said Mr. Warren.
+
+Joe thanked his employer, bade him good-night, and led the way out of
+the yard.
+
+For a time he and his party walked along in silence, and then Silas, who
+began to have a vague idea that he had been imposed upon in some way,
+broke out, fiercely:
+
+“What did old man Warren mean by saying that if I didn’t get all my
+money by the time spring comes, he would advance enough to set me up in
+business?” Silas almost shouted. “Looks to me like he’d ’p’inted himself
+my guardeen, and that he means to keep a tight grip on them twenty-five
+hundred, so’t I can’t spend it to suit myself. That’s what I think he
+means to do, dog-gone the luck!”
+
+Joe thought so, too, and he was glad of it. If that was Mr. Warren’s
+intention, Joe’s mother would be likely to reap some benefit from the
+reward; otherwise, she would not.
+
+  [TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+EIGHT GOOD RIDDLES.
+
+
+Feet have they, but they walk not--stoves.
+
+Eyes have they, but they see not--potatoes.
+
+Teeth have they, but they chew not--saws.
+
+Noses have they, but they smell not--teapots.
+
+Mouths have they, but they taste not--rivers.
+
+Hands have they, but they handle not--Clocks.
+
+Ears have they, but they hear not--cornstalks.
+
+Tongues have they, but they talk not--wagons.
+
+
+[Illustration:
+
+_Teacher_--“I am sorry, William, to have to whip a big boy like you.
+It grieves me terribly.”
+
+_William_--“It don’t grieve you half as much as it does me.”]
+
+
+
+
+CREAM OF THE COMICS.
+
+  “Brisk as a bee.”
+  --_Boswell’s Life of Johnson_.
+
+
+  --In the drama of life the clerk plays a counter-part.
+
+  --Why is a whisper forbidden in polite society? Because it isn’t
+aloud.
+
+[Illustration: AN ILLUSTRATED TALE.]
+
+  --A tinsmith in the country has a sign which reads:
+  “Quart measures of all shapes and sizes sold here.”
+
+  --Customer: “Is your bread nice and light?”
+  Baker’s boy: “Yessum; it only weighs nine ounces to the pound!”
+
+  --“Home, Sweet Home”--a bee-hive.
+
+  --The egotist lives on an I-land.
+
+  --The Bank of England--a fog-bank.
+
+  --“April showers bring forth May flowers.”
+  Said Flora to her brother Bob: “Robert, dear, what do April showers
+    bring forth?”
+  Said Bob: “Umbrellas, of course!”
+
+  --“Don’t you find the people around here very sociable?” asked
+    Cobwigger of a new neighbor.
+  “Yes, indeed, I do,” was the hearty response. “Only a moment ago I met
+    a beggar, and he held out his hand to me.”
+
+  --“Pa,” said little Jimmie, “I was very near going to the head of my
+    class to-day.”
+  “How is that, my son?”
+  “Why, a big word came all the way down to me, and if I could only have
+    spelled it, I should have gone clear up.”
+
+  --Mamma (coaxingly): “Come, Bobby, take your medicine now, and then
+    jump into bed!”
+  Bobby: “I do not want to take my medicine, mamma.”
+  Father (who knows how to govern children) “Robert, if you don’t take
+    your medicine at once, you will be put to bed without taking it at
+    all.”
+
+  --A little girl in Charles Street, Boston, has an old-fashioned doll
+    which has the following words worked in red silk letters on its
+    sawdust-stuffed body:
+
+    “Steal not this doll for fear of shame,
+    For here you see the owner’s name.
+
+      “PRISCILLA ALDEN.”
+
+  --A little grammar found in an old garret in Portsmouth, N.H., has an
+    illustration representing the difference between the active, passive
+    and neuter verbs. It is a picture of a father whipping his boy. The
+    father is active, the boy is passive, and the mother, sitting by
+    herself on a stool, looking on, but doing nothing, is neuter.
+
+  --“Here, Johnnie, what do you mean by taking Willie’s cake away from
+    him? Didn’t you have a piece for yourself?”
+  “Yes; but you told me I always ought to take my little brother’s
+    part.”
+
+  --Young physician (who has just lost a patient, to old physician):
+    “Would you advise an autopsy, doctor?”
+  Old physician: “No; I would advise an inquest.”
+
+  --“Pause!” cries the sire unto the lad,
+    “Let judgment teach you sense.”
+  “I will,” he answers, “when I’ve had
+    Enough experience.”
+
+  --Doctor: “Now, my little man, you take this medicine and I will give
+    you five cents.”
+  Young America: “You take it yourself, and I will go you five cents
+    better.”
+
+  --Mistaking the door, young Mr. Cipher walked into the dentist’s
+    office instead of the doctor’s.
+  “Doctor,” he groaned, “I’m in bad shape. My head aches all the time,
+    and I can’t do anything with it.”
+  “Yes, yes,” said Doctor Toothaker, cheerfully. “I see; big cavity in
+    it; must be hollow; you’ll need to have it filled.”
+  And, seeing his mistake, young Mr. Cipher apologized and went out,
+    and told it all around as a capital joke on the dentist.
+
+
+[Illustration: JOHNNIE’S FIRST FISHING EXCURSION OF THE SEASON.
+
+  What he caught at the pond.
+
+  What he caught when he got home!]
+
+
+
+
+OUR LETTER BOX.
+
+
+DECLINED.--A Sad Catastrophe--A Stage-Driver’s Story--My Dog Carlo--The
+Children’s Celebration--Flossie’s Letter--The Scotch Yacht
+Thistle--Brave Dog Nero and his Friends--Our First Boat Ride--Little
+Sam, a Tale of Long Ago--Penny.
+
+Q. K.--The first fire insurance office in the United States was
+established at Boston in 1724; the first life insurance at Philadelphia
+in 1812.
+
+J. E. M. AND R. B. G.--Every requisite for admission to the West Point
+Military Academy was fully detailed in No. 12 of the last volume, which
+will be mailed to any address upon the receipt of 6 cents.
+
+OLD READER.--1. The oldest daily newspaper in this country is the North
+American and United States Gazette, founded in 1771, and still published
+in Philadelphia. 2. There may be some curiosity dealer in your city who
+would be willing to purchase the ancient paper in your possession.
+
+YUM YUM.--Boulak is the port of Cairo, Egypt, being situated on the
+right bank of the Nile, one mile northwest of that city, of which it
+forms a suburb. A noble museum of antiquities is situated at Boulak,
+and the latest additions to its treasures are the mummies described in
+No. 22.
+
+F. E. N.--Level is a term applied to surfaces that are parallel to that
+of still water, or perpendicular to the direction of the plumb-line; and
+when it is desired to ascertain the altitude of any specified locality,
+the level of the ocean’s surface is always taken as the standard from
+which such reckoning is made.
+
+ALEX.--The easiest and most skillful methods of killing setting and
+preserving insects were set forth in Nos. 18, 27, 47, 48, 49 and 50 of
+Vol. III. The process of making the “killing bottle” is too lengthy to
+be reproduced here, but is given in full in the first-mentioned issue,
+under the heading “Herme’s Museum.”
+
+W. B. W.--By closely studying the construction and solution of the
+puzzles printed from week to week in this paper, any boy of average
+intelligence will have no difficulty in mastering them in a
+comparatively short time. A very interesting article on this subject was
+presented under the title of “An Instructive Pastime,” in No. 22 of Vol.
+VII.
+
+CLARENCE B.--There is only one source of alcohol--the fermentation of
+sugar or other saccharine matter. Sugar is the produce of the vegetable
+world. Some plants contain free sugar, and still more contain starch,
+which can be converted into sugar. The best vegetable substances,
+therefore, for yielding alcohol are those that contain the greatest
+abundance of sugar or of starch.
+
+A SUBSCRIBER, H. C. J. AND S. O. K.--Boys aged from fourteen to eighteen
+years are eligible to appointment to the United States Naval Academy at
+Annapolis, Md. The limit of age for those enlisting on the government
+training ships is from fifteen to eighteen years. Both of these branches
+of the service are open to any American youths capable of passing the
+physical and mental examinations required of all applicants.
+
+H. S. W.--The Bible informs us that Tubal-Cain, the son of Lamech and
+Zillah, was the “instructor of every artificer in brass and iron,” and
+on that account he is considered the first blacksmith of which there is
+any record. Respecting the tools used by him there is no mention made by
+historians. Jabal, another son of Lamech, “was the father of such as
+dwell in tents and of such as have cattle,” and his brother Jubal “of
+all such as handle the harp and organ.”
+
+FRANKLIN SCHOOL.--We prefer to refrain from publishing medical recipes,
+such as pimple removers and the like, always advising a consultation
+with a first-class physician, who will prescribe some blood-purifying
+compound for the relief or cure of the trouble. In our younger days,
+a mixture of molasses, cream tartar and sulphur was considered a
+sovereign remedy for skin eruptions, and a weak solution of alcohol or
+ammonia a most excellent annihilator of “blackheads.”
+
+HARKINGOPITCHER.--1. The originator of puzzles is not known, nor is it
+at all probable that the mystery surrounding their inception will ever
+be cleared away. The fabled founder is the Sphinx of Egypt, who,
+the mythologists inform us, propounded the first enigma. 2. It is an
+invariable custom to notify our readers of the appearance of new serial
+stories, and therefore you will receive due notice of those written by
+your favorites, when we conclude to publish them.
+
+THEO. H.--The action of machines used for making ice consists in
+evaporating ether, or any similar volatile liquid, in a vacuum, and
+again condensing the vapor to liquid, so as to be used afresh. Fifty-two
+degrees of cold is thus easily obtained, and the machines used for the
+purpose can produce several tons of ice each day in the hottest
+countries. Much artificial ice is now made by compressing atmospheric
+air, and by this method a freezing temperature is obtained on vessels
+employed in carrying fresh meats from distant countries.
+
+INK BOTTLE.--1. Mineralogists apply the term “pyrites” to a large group
+or family of minerals, compounds of metals with sulphur, or with
+arsenic, or with both. The name was originally given to the sulphuret of
+iron, known as iron pyrites, in consequence of its striking fire with
+steel (from the Greek _pyr_, fire), and it was used for kindling powder
+in the pans of muskets before gun-flints were introduced. Iron pyrites
+is commonly of a bright brass-yellow color, and is found crystallized in
+cubes, dodecahedrons and many other forms. It is a very widely diffused
+and plentiful mineral, and seems to belong almost equally to all
+geological formations. 2. Eagle cents issued in 1858 are of no value to
+collectors, because they lack rarity. 3. Your exchange is too trivial.
+
+J. B. D., of Chicago, kindly informs us that he has been able to get a
+slight shock from a telegraph battery in the following manner: “On every
+learner’s instrument there are two binding-posts, and to one of them is
+joined a wire from the battery; a small file is fastened to the other;
+the key is closed, and then the other wire of the battery is taken in
+your wet fingers, and, with the other hand, also wet, upon the file,
+the wire is run along the surface of the file, and a shock results.”
+
+WALTER R.--What is known as the registry system is intended to secure to
+valuable mail-matter in its transition through the mails the utmost
+security within the province of the Post Office Department. The fee on
+any registered matter, domestic or foreign, is fixed at ten cents on
+each parcel or letter, to be affixed in stamps, in addition to the
+postage. The money-order system is intended to promote public
+convenience, and to secure safety in the transfer through the mails of
+small sums of money. The rates may be ascertained by inquiring at a
+local office.
+
+AN ADMIRER OF G. D.--1. Two French scientists, Captain Renard and
+M. Tissaudier, have invented a balloon whose motive power is
+electricity. The dynamo machine used by them is an intensely
+concentrated bichromate battery of one and a half horse-power. It is
+very light, weighing but 121¼ pounds. Several successful experimental
+trips have been made in this machine, and the inventors claim that by
+using all the battery power, they were enabled to navigate against the
+wind. They may be over-sanguine, but expect, after making some
+improvements in the balloon, to attain a speed of from fifteen to twenty
+miles an hour. 2. Constant base-ball practice will harden the hands.
+No artificial preparation is used by professionals.
+
+PARXIE.--John Howard, an Englishman, made on May 8, 1854, the greatest
+running long-jump, with weights, 29 feet 7 inches; without weights, the
+highest record is 23 feet 3 inches, made by M. W. Ford, August 14, 1886.
+Standing long-jump with weights, 14 feet 5½ inches, G. W. Hamilton,
+October 3, 1879; without weights, 10 feet 10½ inches, M. H. Johnson,
+September 4, 1884. Running hop-step-and-jump. 48 feet 8 inches,
+T. Burrows, October 18, 1884; standing hop-step-and-jump, with weights,
+40 feet 2 inches, D. Anderson, July 24, 1865; without weights, 31 feet
+10 inches, Gavin Tait, 1862. These are world’s records. The best
+one-mile amateur bicycle record--2.35 2-5--was made by W. A. Rowe,
+October 23, 1885. He has beaten this record--2.29 4-5--since he became a
+professional.
+
+H. C. H.--In early days the coining of copper money for New Jersey was
+given by law to Walker Mould, Thomas Goodsby and Albion Cox. There were
+two mints, one at Elizabethtown and the other at Morristown. These coins
+display on their obverse a horse’s head, usually facing right, with a
+plow below it, and the legend is “Nova Cæsarea.” The date is placed in
+several positions. On the reverse is a shield, with the motto
+“E Pluribus Unum” around the border. In ordinary condition, these
+coppers are worth from ten to fifty cents. The rarest varieties are
+those having the date under the beam, which are worth $100 each: with
+the General Washington bust, $150 each; and with “Immunis Columbia,
+1786” for obverse, $50. Doubtless the one in your possession is a common
+variety.
+
+GRAPE CITY.--1. The modern express traffic was originated by William F.
+Harnden, on March 4, 1839. At first he carried the packages himself from
+place to place in a satchel; but his patrons grew in number until he had
+to establish an office in each city, with a daily messenger each day.
+Previous to this, all such packages had been sent by friends, or by
+special messengers. 2. The precise time of the invention of the
+telescope, as well as the name of its inventor, is unknown. Prior to the
+end of the thirteenth century, glass lenses were in use for the purpose
+of assisting the eye in obtaining distinctness of vision. Galileo is
+generally credited with being the first who constructed a telescope by
+which he was enabled to make many of the great discoveries upon which
+the science of astronomy stands for its foundation. 3. By good business
+methods you can doubtless build up a trade such as that stated.
+4. Inquire at a book store.
+
+KICKAPOO.--1. At the beginning of the eleventh century it is said that
+the Northmen attempted to plant a settlement in the locality known as
+Rhode Island. In 1614, Block, the Dutch navigator, explored it, and the
+Dutch traders afterward, seeing the marshy estuaries red with
+cranberries, called it Roode Eylandt, “red island,” afterward corrupted
+into the name it now bears. Roger Williams, a Welsh-Puritan minister,
+pastor of a church at Salem, was banished from the colony of
+Massachusetts, fled to the head of Narraganset Bay, and there, with a
+few followers, planted the seed of the commonwealth of Rhode Island in
+1636. The place selected by him for settlement he called Providence.
+2. The first wife of Julius Cæsar was named Cornelia; the second was
+Pompeia, a relative of the noted Pompey; and the third was Calpurnia.
+3. Napoleon Bonaparte was born at Ajaccio, Corsica, August 15, 1769,
+and died May 5, 1821, at St. Helena, to which island he had been exiled
+after the battle of Waterloo.
+
+NEMO.--The recipe for making a copying-pad and the ink used thereon was
+given in No. 2, vol. V. --E. D. AND AUTHOR. We are fully supplied with
+literary material by experienced writers. --SOLOMON C. Acrobats do not
+use any artificial preparation to increase their suppleness. Constant
+practice is the secret of the agility displayed by them. --W. B. The
+construction of a photographic camera was detailed in No. 13, Vol. IV;
+while the making of blue prints formed the subject of an article in No.
+51, Vol. II. --NINTH AVENUE. Interesting articles on the subject of
+electricity have been presented in Nos. 3 and 4, Vol. VI, and 16, Vol.
+VII. --SUBSCRIBER. An ingenious, painstaking boy can construct a very
+neat æolian harp by following out the directions given in No. 16 of the
+fifth volume. --COPPERHEAD. 1. The drawing of the binder shows
+considerable ingenuity, and is doubtless novel and useful enough to
+warrant patenting. 2. One of the simplest and best forms of the canvas
+canoe was illustrated and described in No. 37, Vol. VI. In this and the
+previous number another kind is represented. --W. C. H. Any study can be
+mastered if the student is persevering and ordinarily intelligent.
+--D. P. H. 1. None of the curiosities in your possession are of any
+special value. 2. The gold coin will pass at its face value. 3. Nos. 2
+and 18, Vol. II, are out of print. Three dollars per year is the regular
+subscription price of GOLDEN DAYS. 4. The magazine is out of print.
+--BUCKSKIN BOB. This paper has always been sold by us at a uniform rate
+of six cents per copy. --W. M. K. Tan the small skins according to the
+directions published in No. 7, Vol. IV. --S. C. Yes. --J. A. W. Place
+the matter in the hands of a lawyer. --W. G. W. The addition of a small
+quantity of japan dryer to printing ink will make it dry quickly.
+--CHESTNUTS. A boy of eleven should confine his reading to more useful
+literature than novels, leaving those to be perused at a maturer age.
+--COW BOY. There is such a series of juvenile books. Make inquiry at a
+book store. --GOLDEN CROSS. A first class bookseller can obtain for you
+the books of travels written by Stanley and Livingstone. --MIDDY
+(Washington). The length of a ship’s cable is about 720 feet. --B. O. S.
+No premium is offered for 1819 quarter-dollars, Hong-Kong coins or
+French centimes.
+
+  [->] Several communications have been received which will be
+  answered next week.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+UNCONDITIONALLY WARRANTED TO GIVE SATISFACTION!
+
+  [Illustration: WOOD’S PENOGRAPH
+  THE ILLUSTRATION SHOWS THE EXACT SIZE OF PENOGRAPH.]
+  WOOD’S PENOGRAPH!
+
+[->] *WOOD’S PENOGRAPH* consists of a first-class DIAMOND-POINTED
+FOURTEEN-CARAT gold pen, and the only fountain holder ever constructed
+which is _unconditionally warranted to give satisfaction_. It needs no
+wiping and no dipping for ink, and it is carried in the pocket always
+ready for use on any kind of paper. The Penograph is totally unlike the
+McKennon, Livermore, T. Cross, and other Stylographic so-called pens,
+which have a rigid point incapable of making shaded lines. Hitherto a
+really desirable two-nibbed gold pen and fountain holder has been an
+expensive luxury in which comparatively few could indulge. The retail
+price of this Penograph is $3. It is warranted to be the _par
+excellence_ of all fountain pens, and we place it within easy reach of
+every one by the following liberal offer:
+
+Every Subscriber to GOLDEN DAYS for One Year can have this valuable
+Fountain Pen sent to them postpaid by adding to the subscription price
+one dollar--in other words, send us $4.00, and we will send postpaid
+*Wood’s Penograph* and GOLDEN DAYS for one year. In this way you will be
+getting the *Penograph* for one dollar, or one year’s subscription to
+GOLDEN DAYS for one dollar, just as you please to look at it. Either way
+you get a bargain. [->] The money must be sent direct to this office.
+
+Address
+
+JAMES ELVERSON,
+
+Publisher GOLDEN DAYS, Phila., Pa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  JUST THE BOOK FOR STUDENTS.
+
+  *Military Dictionary*
+
+  --and--
+
+  *GAZETTEER*
+
+  Comprising
+
+*Ancient and Modern Technical Terms, Historical Accounts of all North
+American Indians, as well as Ancient Warlike Tribes. Also, Notices of
+Battles from the Earliest Period to the Present Time, with an Appendix
+containing the Articles of War.*
+
+  --by--
+
+  THOMAS WILHELM,
+
+  (_Captain Eighth Infantry._)
+
+  *656 Pages, Bound in Blue Cloth.*
+
+We have arranged with the publishers for a limited number of this book,
+and will send
+
+*It and “Golden Days” one year on receipt of $3.25.*
+
+Money must be sent by the subscriber direct to this office--not through
+any agent. Address
+
+  JAMES ELVERSON,
+    Publisher “Golden Days,”
+      PHILADELPHIA, PA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+*OUR PREMIUM KNIFE!*
+
+[Illustration: {penknife} GOLDEN DAYS]
+
+Ivory handle, beautifully finished, EXACTLY AS ILLUSTRATED. Made to our
+own order, and can *only* be had by subscribing to “GOLDEN DAYS.”
+
+[->] We will make this Knife *a Present* to any one who sends us THREE
+DOLLARS
+
+*For One Year’s Subscription to “Golden Days.”*
+
+[->] The money must be sent *direct* to this office. Address
+
+*JAMES ELVERSON*, Publisher “GOLDEN DAYS,” Phila., Pa.
+
+
+Special Notice.--WHEN TEN CENTS FOR REGISTERING IS SENT, we consider
+ourselves responsible for the safe delivery, though we have sent several
+thousand Knives and Penographs without one in a thousand being lost.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Notices of Exchange.
+
+
+[->] The publisher will positively take no responsibility concerning
+exchanges effected by means of this department, neither will the
+reliability of exchangers be guaranteed. To avoid any misunderstanding
+in the matter, it would be advisable for those contemplating exchanging
+to write for particulars to the addresses before sending the articles
+desired.
+
+[->] Exchange notices containing offers of or for _shot-guns_,
+_air-guns_, _pistols_, _rifles_, _poisons_, _dangerous chemicals_,
+_animals_, _odd numbers of papers_, _valueless coins and curiosities_,
+_birds’ eggs_, or “offers”, will _not_ be inserted.
+
+*Exchange Notices conforming with the above rates are inserted free of
+charge.*
+
+L. Boyd, N.E. cor. 18th and Hamilton Sts., Philadelphia, Pa., a set of
+boxing gloves and a book by Verne, for a miniature sailboat, 2 feet
+long.
+
+S. A. Chevalier, No. 366 Columbus Ave., Boston, Mass., 49 photo
+negatives of notable yachts, buildings, etc., for an electrical outfit,
+a cornet, or a banjo.
+
+J. Hirsch, Box 212, Corpus Christi, Texas, a collection of sea
+curiosities for stamps.
+
+E. T. Warner, 155 S. 5th St., Brooklyn, N.Y., Vols. VI, VII (complete)
+and VIII (to date) GOLDEN DAYS, and 20 books by Castlemon and Alger,
+for other books by Castlemon, Alger, Otis or Ellis.
+
+L. G. Banks, 92 Maple Ave., 31st Ward, Pittsburg, Pa., a magic lantern
+with lens, lamp and 12 views, and “Robinson Crusoe,” for a Model
+printing press.
+
+H. J. West, 1610 Hollins St., Baltimore, Md., a magic lantern with 13
+slides, in a leatherette box, for a pair of 3-pound Indian clubs and a
+pair of 3-pound dumb-bells.
+
+R. F. Baird, 205 Wylie Ave., Pittsburg, Pa., Vol. VII GOLDEN DAYS, for a
+Waterbury watch.
+
+E. D. Flugel, 134 E. 109th St., N.Y. city, a large bagatelle board with
+marbles, for a collection of not less than 300 foreign stamps only.
+(City offers only.)
+
+F. L. Shipley, Box 275, Creston, Ia., Vols. LVII and LVIII “Youth’s
+Companion” and Vol. VIII (up to date) GOLDEN DAYS, for a printing press
+and outfit.
+
+H. B. Cochran, 345 N. 12th St., Phila., Pa., a Waterbury watch, a font
+of newspaper type, and 2 books, for a book on mineralogy and natural
+history or specimens of minerals.
+
+E. Rudolphy, 389 S. Halsted St., Chicago, Ill. Vol. VII “Harper’s Young
+People,” for a photo tripod.
+
+H. A. Eastman, Box 1080, Keene, N.H., a printing press and 5 fonts of
+type, for a telegraph key and sounder.
+
+J. Tracy, Conneaut, Ohio, a maple-shell snare-drum with ebony sticks,
+for any vol. of GOLDEN DAYS prior to the fifth.
+
+M. Graham, Grove City, Pa., a magic lantern with 35 slides, a panorama,
+a 3x4 printing press with type, a telephone and a cabinet of tricks,
+for a telegraph instrument with batteries.
+
+L. Randall, 1825 Garrison Ave., St. Louis, Mo., a collection of over 300
+foreign and U.S. postage stamps and a collection of postmarks, for a
+Waterbury watch.
+
+W. P. Simpson, Box 773, Jacksonville, Fla., Vol. VII GOLDEN DAYS, a pair
+of roller skates and a set of books, for a silver watch or a press and
+outfit.
+
+C. W. Hurst, 1825 Fitzwater St., Phila., Pa., Vols. I, II and III GOLDEN
+DAYS, a xylophone, a magic lantern with 24 slides, and a stamp
+collection in an album, for the best offer of bicycle sundries.
+
+T. J. McMahon, 41 Thomas St., N.Y. city, Vols. III, IV and V GOLDEN
+DAYS, for best offer of a musical instrument.
+
+S. M. Johnson, Lock Box 172, Round Rock, Texas, a $25 brass B-flat
+cornet with A and B crooks, for a 5x7 self-inking printing press and
+material.
+
+J. Atwell, 10 W. Jefferson St., Syracuse, N.Y., a pair of nickel-plated
+extension roller skates and bag, for a banjo.
+
+G. Frick, 2908 Fairhill St., Phila., Pa., a 48-inch steel-spoked
+rubber-tired bicycle, a watch, Vol. VII GOLDEN DAYS, and “Tom Brown at
+Oxford,” for a Star bicycle.
+
+C. E. Mason, 656 Franklin St., Phila., Pa., an International album
+containing stamps and about 5,000 loose ones, a New Rogers scroll saw,
+and 2 pairs of nickel-plated ice and roller skates, for a 26-bracket
+nickel-rimmed banjo, or a guitar, or photo materials.
+
+G. Barker, 504 W. 129th St., N.Y. city, 7 books by Castlemon, Kingston
+and Dickens, for a violin and instruction book. (City offers preferred.)
+
+Z. A. Stegmuller, 56 E. 25th St., N.Y. city, a game, a small steam
+engine, a silver watch and a gold pen-holder, for a self-inking printing
+press with type, or a rowing machine. (City and Brooklyn offers only.)
+
+J. W. Edwards, 197 Hamilton Ave., Brooklyn, N.Y., a 16-foot
+flat-bottomed skiff with centreboard, sail, oars and oarlocks, for a 46
+or 48-inch rubber-tired steel-spoked bicycle.
+
+J. J. Morrow, 94 Pennsylvania Ave., Allegheny, Pa., a 3-lens microscope
+with a few mounted specimens, for Vols. V and VI GOLDEN DAYS.
+
+C. H. Montayre, 145 W. 11th St., N.Y. city, a self-inking printing press
+and full outfit, for a 6x6 canvas tent. (City offers preferred.)
+
+F. Blake, Lock Haven, Pa., a telegraph outfit, for a $10 watch, or a set
+of boxing gloves, or a pair of 12-pound dumb-bells.
+
+L. H. Reamy, 113 River St., Zanesville, Ohio, a polyopticon, for the
+best offer of GOLDEN DAYS prior to Vol. VI.
+
+C. V. Gibson. Box 1026, Natick, Mass., a 2½ x 4 printing press with
+cards, 200 postmarks. 1400 foreign and U.S. stamps, and a pair of
+skates, for a flute, a banjo, a violin and bow, or a cornet.
+
+C. Perry, Ithaca, N.Y., a $25 upright engine, for a scroll saw with
+lathe attachment.
+
+L. M. Geer, Box 663, Corry, Pa., Vols. II, III and IV “Harper’s Young
+People,” Vols. XLI, XLII and XLIII “Youth’s Companion,” a magic lantern
+with 12 slides, 6 books and 2 pairs of skates, for a rubber-tired
+steel-spoked bicycle.
+
+G. V. Bacon. 52 Dudley St., Boston, Mass., a Ruby magic lantern, a set
+of carving tools, and a set of drawing instruments, for a pair of
+fencing foils.
+
+G. Medina, Room 360, Prod. Ex. Bldg., N.Y. city, a complete $40 camping
+outfit, for a ½-nickeled bicycle with ball bearings.
+
+C. O. Henbest, Marshall, Ill., Vol. V or VI GOLDEN DAYS, or a printing
+press, for a collection of stamps.
+
+F. A. Magee, Maiden, Mass., Vol. IV GOLDEN DAYS, a canvas canoe,
+a printing press, 200 stamps, 200 postmarks, a pair of opera glasses,
+a magnifying glass and 200 good story papers, for a large press or a
+bicycle.
+
+E. C. Cary, Box 147, N.Y. city, a New Rogers scroll saw with drill, saws
+and patterns, a hand-inking 2¼ x 3¼ printing press, with type, ink,
+furniture, etc., for a violin and bow, with or without case.
+
+N. J. Waite, 401 Giddings Ave., Cleveland, Ohio, Vol. VII GOLDEN DAYS,
+for any kind of electrical goods.
+
+J. Clay Collier, Fort Smith, Ark., Vol. V and part of Vol. VII GOLDEN
+DAYS, for books by Castlemon or Cooke.
+
+F. Vansant, 770 St. Peter St., Baltimore, Md., $15 worth of books, for
+an 8x8x8 wall tent.
+
+J. W. Robertson, 1180 Harvard St., Chicago, Ill., a collection of stamps
+and 4 books, for a pair of opera glasses or a printing press with type.
+
+C. A. Lutz, Cane Spring, Ky., Vols. II (a few numbers missing). III, IV,
+V, VI (all bound, without covers) and VII (unbound) “Harper’s Young
+People,” for volumes of GOLDEN DAYS or telegraphic apparatus.
+
+G. Moulton, Virginia, Ill., an ebony 13-keyed B-flat clarionet, for a
+watch.
+
+W. R. Clickner, Andover. Kans., a $25 5x8 printing press and outfit,
+for a rubber-tired bicycle.
+
+C. Peck, 71 35th St., Chicago, Ill., 8 books by Reid and others, and a
+pair of ice skates, for a Morse telegraph outfit.
+
+R. Buck, Sea Isle City, N.J., “Ragged Dick Series,” (6 volumes), for a
+telegraph key, sounder and outfit.
+
+F. Schafer, 307 S. 3d St., Brooklyn, E.D., N.Y., a pair of opera glasses
+with case, and a fife, for a mandolin, or a banjo with 24 brackets (N.Y.
+or Brooklyn offers preferred).
+
+F. Horton, Westfield, Pa., 2 volumes of “Youth’s Companion,” and a pair
+of roller skates, for a banjo.
+
+W. A. Sherwood, Lutherville, Md., a magic lantern with 12 slides and a
+font of job type, for rare foreign and U.S. stamps.
+
+W. A. Pickering, Box 797, Eureka Springs, Ark., a ¼-horse-power steam
+engine, for a nickel-plated B-flat cornet.
+
+E. H. Gilbert, Lock Box 21, Glens Falls, N.Y., 2 pairs of skates and
+“Don Quixote,” for a pair of opera glasses with case.
+
+L. A. Cox, Verden, Ill., Vols. V, VI and VII GOLDEN DAYS, for a banjo.
+
+R. F. Greene, Box 232, Arkansas City, Kans., Vol. LVIII “Youth’s
+Companion” and 2 books, for any bound volume of GOLDEN DAYS except the
+sixth.
+
+H. J. Hendrickson, 214 W. Market St., York, Pa., 950 foreign stamps and
+700 foreign and domestic postmarks, for a collection of minerals.
+
+C. V. B. Gettz, Moore’s, Pa., a $35 gas engine (⅓-horse-power), for
+a bicycle (American Challenge preferred).
+
+H. H. Sellers, 73 Exchange St., Bangor, Me., a 10-keyed ocarina,
+a 6-keyed clarionet, 6 books and a stylographic pen, for a cornet.
+
+C. W. Valentine, Millville, N.J., a volume of “Youth’s Companion,” “Tom
+Brown’s School-days” and a bagatelle board, for carpenters’ tools.
+
+A. Spring, Jr., White Plains, N.Y., a magic lantern with 23 slides,
+for Vol. I or II GOLDEN DAYS (bound).
+
+J. G. Ross, Mariner’s Harbor, Staten Island, N.Y., a 12-foot
+round-bottomed row-boat with centreboard and oars, for a photographic
+outfit, a bicycle or a press.
+
+J. C. Hubbard, 22 E. Main St., Battle Creek, Mich., a hand-inking press
+and a collection of curiosities, for type and material, or volumes of
+GOLDEN DAYS prior to the fourth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Children Cry for Pitcher’s Castoria.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+C. A. Wise, Gobleville, Mich., a pair of nickel-plated roller skates and
+a guitar, for the best offer of foreign and U.S. stamps.
+
+H. A. Hammond. Box 276, Peabody, Mass., Vols. V and VI, or VI and VII
+GOLDEN DAYS, for a fountain or stylographic pen.
+
+R. A. Weston, W. Mt. Vernon, Me., 300 numbers of “Youth’s Companion,”
+Vols. II, III and IV “Harper’s Young People,” Vol. VII GOLDEN DAYS,
+3 books, 100 varieties of stamps, a pair of ice skates and a game, for
+a rubber-tired steel-spoked bicycle.
+
+C. H. Dunham, 1098 Washington St. (Suite 12), Boston, Mass., a pair of
+roller skates, a Holly scroll saw with saws and patterns, and Vol. VII
+GOLDEN DAYS, for a bicycle (Mass. offers preferred).
+
+R. H. Stickney, Valparaiso, Ind., a stereoscope with 16 views, a magic
+lantern with views and photographic attachment, a dark lantern and a
+book by Kingston, for a 7x9 wall tent.
+
+B. M. Wilson, 1824 Ridge Ave., Phila., Pa., an International album with
+100 stamps, and Vol. V GOLDEN DAYS, for a banjo.
+
+E. S. Harvey, Ridge, Ohio, a hand-inking press with roller, furniture
+and a font of type, and a book, for an International stamp album or
+stamps.
+
+J. Meighan, Jr., 386 Garden St., Hoboken, N.J., a pair of skates, for a
+catcher’s mask.
+
+C. Bagley, 10 Olive St., Lynn, Mass., a pair of skates, Vols. IV, VI and
+VII GOLDEN DAYS and a lot of musical instruments, for a rubber-tired
+bicycle (Mass. offers preferred).
+
+E. F. Balinger, Mt. Union, Ohio, 2 vols. of GOLDEN DAYS, a pair of
+roller skates, a telegraph key and sounder, an Indian bow and arrows,
+and some books and magazines, for a cornet with crooks.
+
+S. L. Taylor, 333 Columbus Ave., Boston, Mass., a collection of 350
+foreign stamps in an album, 900 traders, a magic lantern with 20 or 30
+slides, and 5 books, for a B-flat cornet, a banjo, or a cork-handled
+tennis racquet.
+
+J. E. Ackerman, Jr., 7 Nassau St., N.Y. city, a nickel-plated bicycle
+saddle and bell, for a Duryea saddle (style, A or C).
+
+F. H. Meyers. 38 Bleecker St., N.Y. city, Vols. IV, V, VI and VII GOLDEN
+DAYS, Vol. LIV “Youth’s Companion,” a vol. of “St. Nicholas,” 5 books;
+a magic lantern with slides, and 2 games, for a rubber-tired
+steel-spoked bicycle.
+
+C. F. Souder. Box 199, Toledo, Ohio, a violin and bow, and Vol. VII
+GOLDEN DAYS, for a banjo.
+
+C. W. Howell, 646 Kentucky St., Lawrence, Kans., an accordion,
+a Waterbury watch, and a puzzle, for a complete telegraph outfit.
+
+W. T. Cook, Royersford, Pa., 5 books by popular authors for any bound
+vol. of GOLDEN DAYS prior to the fifth.
+
+W. H. Field, 234 Ferry St., Easton, Pa., a Holly scroll saw and a set of
+tenpins for a wall or other tent large enough for four persons.
+
+P. J. McConomy, 38 N. Prince St., Lancaster, Pa., Vols. I and II (a few
+numbers missing) and V and VI (complete) GOLDEN DAYS, for a piccolo with
+at least 4 keys.
+
+O. C. Cornwell, Girard, Kans., Vols. VI and VII GOLDEN DAYS, 8 books,
+a pair of skates, 5 games, a set of drawing Instruments, and 500 foreign
+and U.S. stamps, for a self-inking printing press, or a silver watch.
+
+W. Bell, Box 154, Norfolk, Va., Vols. I, II, III, IV and V GOLDEN DAYS,
+for a Holly steam engine or a collection of 1500 to 2000 stamps.
+
+G. E. Montgomery, Westernport, Md., Vols. VI and VII GOLDEN DAYS and
+“Ames’ Mastery of the Pen,” for standard works on physiology and hygiene
+or a field glass.
+
+C. C. Moore, 76 3d Place, Brooklyn, N.Y., a magic lantern with 16
+slides, and a printing press with 2 fonts of type, for an instantaneous
+camera and outfit.
+
+W. Willson, 561 Lorimer St., Greenpoint, Brooklyn. N.Y., a magic lantern
+with 12 slides for a pair of 9 or 9½ nickel-plated roller skates.
+
+D. A. Trapp, 113 E. Maxwell St., Lexington, Ky., a collection of over
+1200 stamps in an international album for a No. 2 or 3 Baltimorean press
+and outfit.
+
+H. Edwards, 147 E. 114th St., N.Y. city, a magic lantern with 12 slides,
+and a hand-inking printing press, without type, for a set of boxing
+gloves.
+
+F. Rowell, Stamford, Conn., Vols. VI and VII GOLDEN DAYS, and some
+books, games and stamps, for Indian grammars, or histories of North
+American Indians, or Indian relics.
+
+J. E. Caldwell, Sego, Kans., a $3 piccolo, a set of boxwood chessmen,
+and a box of water-color paints, for the best offer of GOLDEN DAYS.
+
+W. McIntosh, East Smethport, Pa., a 10x14 hand-inking press, with 20
+fonts of type, 2 sticks, galley, leads, etc., for a 50 to 52-inch
+bicycle.
+
+J. H. Cunningham, Room 507 Hamilton Building, Pittsburg, Pa., a pair of
+ice skates and “Tom Brown’s School Days” for a learners’ book on
+shorthand.
+
+W. McVeagh. 831 W. 3d St., Williamsport, Pa., a New Rogers scroll saw
+for Vol. I or IV GOLDEN DAYS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  A LIMITED NUMBER
+  OF
+  *Volumes IV, V and VI*
+  “GOLDEN DAYS,”
+  Bound in Cloth.
+
+Price, $4.00 each.
+
+  ADDRESS,
+  JAMES ELVERSON,
+  Publisher, Philadelphia, Pa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+*From the Daily News, Genesee, N.Y.*
+
+We wish we could impress upon the mind of every father how cheaply he
+could make the home circle doubly attractive by subscribing for the
+GOLDEN DAYS, decidedly the most valuable and most interesting pictorial
+newspaper we ever saw, not only for the children, but for the entire
+family. For the sake of his children we sincerely urge every father to
+send to the office for a specimen copy, when he can see for himself the
+great value it will be in his family, and he will thank us in his heart
+for calling his attention to it. Address James Elverson, publisher,
+GOLDEN DAYS, corner and Spruce Streets, Philadelphia, Penna.
+
+
+OUT OF THE MANY EARNEST AND EMPHATIC ENDORSEMENTS OF “GOLDEN DAYS,”
+WE PRINT THE FOLLOWING:
+
+
+*A GOOD OPINION FROM REV. G. E. STROBRIDGE,*
+
+_Pastor St. John’s M. E. Church, New York city._
+
+GOLDEN DAYS has been coming regularly to my house since its first
+number. It is always welcome. The children wait with impatience its
+weekly arrival, and even interrupt their meals to tear off its wrapper
+and scan its attractive pages. It is generously illustrated, and as to
+its reading matter, it is bright, breezy, instructive, and, best of all,
+pure. The most careful parent may dismiss anxiety while his happy child
+is absorbed in its columns.
+
+A feature that adds to the paper an especial value is a weekly
+discussion of the International Sunday-school Lesson. This is given in a
+pleasant narrative style by Rev. D. P. Kidder, D.D., for many years
+editor of the Sunday School Advocate, and editor and writer of books for
+children. His widely-known name is a sufficient assurance that these
+lessons thus conducted will continue to be learned, clear and
+interesting.
+
+
+*From the West Philadelphia Press.*
+
+GOLDEN DAYS.--This weekly journal for young people has reached a
+circulation that embraces the entire country. Indeed, there is hardly to
+be found a village or hamlet in the newest of the States or in our far
+Western Territories in which GOLDEN DAYS is not a welcome visitor. The
+proprietor and editor, Mr. James Elverson, determined from the first to
+make it a journal that should please and at the same time instruct the
+young, and he has been completely successful. There is no weekly paper
+published in this or the Old World that so covers the field for the
+youthful mind as GOLDEN DAYS. There is nothing heavy about it--nothing
+prosy or difficult to comprehend in the matter it contains. Its stories
+are graphic, entertaining and by the best writers, while each number has
+articles especially prepared on subjects of practical interest to boys
+and girls by authors whose fame in the arena of natural history,
+science, biography and art is national. Add to all these excellencies
+and attractions the fact that no impure line or thought ever stains its
+pages, and it must be acknowledged that GOLDEN DAYS is pre-eminently
+fitted to become the intellectual and pleasant companion of the young in
+the American household.
+
+
+*From the Sunday Courier, York, Pa.*
+
+The remarkable success attained by GOLDEN DAYS, the boys’ and girls’
+periodical published by Mr. James Elverson, Philadelphia, is a most
+encouraging evidence that pure and healthful literature is not incapable
+of attracting the eager interest of “Young America.” Mr. Elverson seems,
+in fact, to have gauged the taste of the average child of our day with
+wonderful accuracy, as there appears to be but one opinion as to the
+universal popularity of this excellent periodical. So far as parents are
+concerned, its success should be a matter for general congratulation,
+as scrupulous care is evidently observed in excluding from its pages
+everything that could be considered as in any way tending to vitiate the
+minds of the young. On the other hand, its contents are far superior in
+vividness of interest for the little ones to those sensational
+publications which are the source of so much anxiety to all who have
+children to educate. GOLDEN DAYS, in fact, appears to have struck the
+golden mean in juvenile literature, and it affords us sincere pleasure
+to be able to chronicle its conspicuous popularity.
+
+
+*From the Advocate of Peace, Boston.*
+
+GOLDEN DAYS.--“To merit is to insure success” is certainly verified in
+the publication of GOLDEN DAYS, by James Elverson, Philadelphia. This
+admirable _weekly_ for the youth of this great land is now
+well-established, and has an increasingly large and well-deserved
+patronage. Its readers are not treated with trashy matter, but with
+pictures and puzzles and stories of thrilling adventure and useful
+knowledge. GOLDEN DAYS is supplanting a poisonous literature, and
+performing a wholesome mission in this day, when too much good seed
+cannot be sown by the friends of humanity.
+
+
+*From the Congregationalist and Boston Recorder.*
+
+Among juvenile periodicals, we think GOLDEN DAYS likely to take high
+rank for variety, instructiveness, vivacity and freedom from
+objectionable characteristics. We have examined several numbers, and it
+seems to be well edited and likely to deserve and win popularity.
+
+
+*ANOTHER FROM REV. D. M’CARTNEY,*
+
+_Pastor Clinton Avenue M. E. Church, Kingston, N.Y._
+
+I have examined sample copies of GOLDEN DAYS, and most heartily indorse
+it as meeting a felt want. Notwithstanding the large number of papers we
+subscribe for now, it looks as if GOLDEN DAYS would have to be added to
+the number, as my children are enraptured with it.
+
+
+BISHOP BOWMAN,
+
+_Of the Methodist Episcopal Church, writes:_
+
+  ST. LOUIS, Nov. 26, 1880.
+
+I have examined with great interest several numbers of GOLDEN DAYS, and
+am much pleased with them. We greatly need all such publications for our
+young people, to save them from the corrupting trash that meets them on
+every side. I wish you great success in this worthy Christian
+enterprise.
+
+
+*FROM REV. O. C. DICKERSON,*
+
+_Pastor of Congregational Church, Belleplain, Iowa._
+
+ED. GOLDEN DAYS.--All hail! As a sterling friend of the young, your
+enterprise wakes loud echoes.
+
+
+*REV. RICHARD NEWTON, D.D.,*
+
+_Pastor of the P. E. Church of the Epiphany, Philadelphia, says:_
+
+From what I have seen of GOLDEN DAYS, it strikes me very favorably.
+There is a high tone of morality about it which is calculated to exert a
+very wholesome influence on the young people who read it.
+
+
+*From the Roman Citizen, Rome, N.Y.*
+
+A MODEL PAPER.--Two years ago, we informed the readers of the Citizen
+that a long-felt want was to be supplied--viz., a paper was to be
+printed which would give the young people (boys and girls) plenty of
+good reading without corrupting their morals or vitiating their
+tastes--in other words, would furnish them with stories which would
+gratify their love of adventure without inspiring in them a desire to
+imitate impossible heroes, and tempting them to desert their homes in
+search of adventures which never occur outside of blood-and-thunder
+papers and story books. The paper we allude to--GOLDEN DAYS--promised
+this, and we have carefully watched it for two years to see how its
+pledge would be redeemed. We are glad to be able to state it has
+exceeded our most sanguine expectations. While it has been constantly
+filled with stories and sketches of the most fascinating character,
+we have never seen a sentence in it which we could have wished to have
+omitted.
+
+
+*From the Episcopal Recorder.*
+
+GOLDEN DAYS.--We commend this as the best of the class of publications
+to which it belongs, and as being essentially different from all that
+are contemporaneous with it. And if it shall prove to be like Moses’ rod
+when turned into a serpent, and swallow up the serpent-rods of all
+cunning magicians of evil, and then become a rod of power for working
+good in the home, in the school, and wherever youth are found, we shall
+rejoice.
+
+
+*From the Christian Register, Boston.*
+
+GOLDEN DAYS is well worthy the examination of parents who wish to
+provide their children with a large amount of carefully-prepared
+miscellany, at once entertaining, instructive and clean. It is edited
+with ability, and shows a quick sympathy with the pleasures of the young
+people, and a clear outlook for their welfare.
+
+
+*From the Maryland School Journal.*
+
+GOLDEN DAYS (Elverson, Philadelphia) has fulfilled its promise, and is
+in every respect a suitable weekly paper to put into the hands of young
+boys and girls. We have carefully watched each number since the start,
+and have seen in it nothing to censure and much to praise.
+
+
+*From the Floyd Co. Advocate, Charles City, Iowa.*
+
+GOLDEN DAYS, published by James Elverson, of Philadelphia, is a new
+first-class paper for boys and girls. Provide them with good,
+entertaining reading, and they will grow up good men and women.
+
+
+*From Town Talk, Mansfield, Ohio.*
+
+James Elverson, Philadelphia, publishes a handsome illustrated and
+interesting youth’s paper called GOLDEN DAYS. It should find a welcome
+in every home for the young folks, for the reading is wholesome, and
+such literature should be encouraged by prompt subscriptions. If the
+youngsters catch a glimpse of it they will find they need it as a
+recreation after study hours.
+
+
+*From The Home and Sunday-School, Dallas, Texas.*
+
+We can heartily recommend GOLDEN DAYS as one of the purest and most
+charming juvenile magazines we have seen. It is wholly free from
+corrupting influences--fresh, instructive, and eagerly welcomed by the
+boys and girls. Having seen nothing in it to censure and much to praise,
+we hope it may have the wide circulation it merits.
+
+
+*From the Christian Advocate, Pittsburg, Pa.*
+
+GOLDEN DAYS comes to us in a magazine form, making a beautiful and
+interesting volume. This journal numbers among its contributors probably
+more popular writers of serial stories for youth than any juvenile
+publication in the country.
+
+
+*From the Presbyterian Banner, Pittsburg, Pa.*
+
+A great advance has been made within the last twelve months in a very
+important agency for good--the publication of cheap, and, at the same
+time, unexceptionable and attractive reading matter. For a long time the
+want has been seriously felt for something more than mere denunciation
+to overcome the growing evil of the demoralizing literature--cheap and
+vile--that has been scattered broadcast over the land. That want has
+been measurably supplied, in part, by the publication of standard
+English classics, at marvelously low prices, and in part by the issue of
+low-priced but superior periodicals, attractive in appearance and
+contents, and suitable for both young and old. We invite special
+attention to the latest enterprise in the latter department--GOLDEN
+DAYS, for boys and girls, James Elverson, publisher, Philadelphia. It is
+a handsome juvenile journal, of sixteen pages (over eight hundred a
+year), filled with stories, sketches, anecdotes, poetry, puzzles, and
+humorous items, making up a total that will delight and at the same time
+instruct the boys and girls from eight to eighty. The pictorial
+embellishments are unsually fine, and far in advance of the coarse
+deformities in the flashy sheets that are displayed on the news-stands
+to horrify every refined passer-by.
+
+
+*From the Baltimore Gazette.*
+
+The remarkable success attained by GOLDEN DAYS, the boys’ and girls’
+periodical, published by Mr. James Elverson, Philadelphia, is a most
+encouraging evidence that pure and healthful literature is not incapable
+of attracting the eager interest of “Young America.” Mr. Elverson,
+seems, in fact, to have gauged the taste of the average child of our day
+with wonderful accuracy, as there appears to be but one opinion as to
+the universal popularity of this excellent periodical. So far as parents
+are concerned, its success should be a matter for general
+congratulation, as scrupulous care is evidently observed in excluding
+from its pages everything that could be considered as in any way tending
+to vitiate the minds of the young. On the other hand, its contents are
+far superior in vividness of interest for the little ones to those
+sensational publications which are the source of so much anxiety to all
+who have children to educate. GOLDEN DAYS, in fact, appears to have
+struck the golden mean in juvenile literature, and it affords us sincere
+pleasure to be able to chronicle its conspicuous popularity.
+
+
+*From the Methodist, New York.*
+
+James Elverson, Philadelphia, publishes a handsome, illustrated and
+interesting youth’s paper, called GOLDEN DAYS. It should find a welcome
+in every Christian home for the young folks, for the reading is
+wholesome, and such literature should be encouraged by prompt
+subscriptions. If the youngsters catch a glimpse of it, they will find
+they need it as a recreation after study-hours.
+
+
+*From the Baptist Record, Jackson, Miss.*
+
+A specimen number of GOLDEN DAYS has fallen into our hands. This is a
+paper for boys and girls, and, from the cursory examination we have been
+enabled to give it, we think it deserving of support.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+           *       *       *       *
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Illustrations:
+
+Readers who are unable to use the fully illustrated html version of
+this text may wish to view some individual images, located within the
+“images” directory of the html file. The major illustrations are:
+
+  Cover                         pic01.jpg
+  Linda’s Crazy Quilt           pic03_full.jpg
+  In Search of Himself          pic07.jpg
+  Mamie’s Letter to Heaven      pic10b.jpg
+  Striking out for Themselves   pic11.jpg
+  Jack-A-Dandy                  pic15.jpg
+
+
+Layout of Advertising Pages:
+
+inside front:
+
+  +---------------+---------------+-------------------------------+
+  |    Sapolio    |“Advertisements|   Malaria       Yellow Fever  |
+  |               | inserted...”  |                               |
+  |               +---------------+         Ayer’s Pills          |
+  +---------------+Practical Joke +---------------+---------------+
+  //              //              //              //              //
+  |               | Ready Binder  |               |               |
+  |               +---------------+               |               |
+  +---------------+               |    Stamps     |               |
+  |   Vol. VII    +---------------+---------------+               |
+  | “Golden Days” |      Pitcher’s Castoria       | Hammock Chair |
+  +---------------+-------------------------------+---------------+
+
+
+inside back:
+
+  +---------------+---------------+---------------+---------------+
+  |                     Wood’s Penograph          |               |
+  +---------------+                               |  (exchanges)  |
+  |   Military    |                               |               |
+  |               +---------------+---------------+               |
+  |  Dictionary   |      Our Premium Knife        |               |
+  |               |                               |               |
+  +---------------+---------------+---------------+  (exchanges)  |
+  //              //              //              //              //
+  |               |  (exchanges)  |  (exchanges)  +---------------+
+  |  (exchanges)  +-------------------------------+    Volumes    |
+  |               |      Pitcher’s Castoria       | IV, V and VI  |
+  +---------------+-------------------------------+---------------+
+
+
+back cover (three columns, all Testimonials)
+
+
+Errata (noted by transcriber)
+
+Missing or incorrect punctuation was silently corrected. Typographical
+errors in the advertising sections were left unchanged; those in the
+main text were corrected. Both are noted here.
+
+  Advertising, Front Section:
+    For es heavy Mustache, Whiskers, or hair
+      [_probably “forces”: letter invisible_]
+    Advertisements inserted ... agate measurement).
+      [_no opening parenthesis_]
+    *PAKET* of *FOREN STAMPS*  [_as printed_]
+
+  Linda’s Crazy Quilt
+    I declare for ’t!” she added  [close quote missing]
+
+  In Search of Himself
+    curved from the jaws like cimetars.  [_spelling unchanged_]
+
+  In a Menagerie
+    I stopped as usual at Bessie’s cage  [_elsewhere “Bessy”_]
+
+  Stories of Dumb Creatures
+    the other boys will throw stones at him.’ [” for ’]
+
+  Jack Stanwood
+    the street vender of physic  [_spelling unchanged_]
+
+  The Young Game-Warden
+    “It sorter hurts you to know  [I sorter]
+    You have got the bugglars in your own hands now
+      [_spelling unchanged_]
+
+  Testimonials
+    The pictorial embellishments are unsually fine
+      [_spelling unchanged_]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Golden Days for Boys and Girls, by Various
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GOLDEN DAYS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27287-0.txt or 27287-0.zip *****
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