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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56642 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]
+
+Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 1896. FIVE CENTS A COPY.
+
+VOL. XVII.--NO. 857. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: "AT LAST I WAS MOVIN' BACK AN' FOR'ARD, LONGER AN'
+LONGER."]
+
+ONCE IN A THOUSAND YEARS.
+
+BY JAMES BARNES
+
+
+It was quite dark. The sun was not high enough as yet to shine down into
+the long narrow crevice up which Professor Jensen and the two boys were
+clambering.
+
+A short distance ahead of them stalked John Coleman, the guide. He was a
+tall thin man with drooping shoulders, and he carried the Professor's
+camera, a heavy pick, and a long-handled shovel as if they were no more
+than feather-weights.
+
+Suddenly the little party turned around a steep wall of shale, and the
+main cañon was in sight. The Professor paused and mopped his forehead.
+"There, boys, there it is," he said, pointing with his finger.
+
+Half-way up the steep side of the cliff, in what looked to be a long
+narrow cleft in the steep descent of rock, stood the home and fortress
+of the ancient cliff-dwellers, which the boys had come so many miles to
+see.
+
+From where they were they could make out nothing but some square windows
+in what appeared to be a line of half-crumbling adobe houses that nearly
+filled the huge shadowy recess.
+
+George Lyman and Carter Randall were two boys of sixteen who had left
+home some two months before under the charge of young Professor Jensen.
+They were making a trip through Arizona and New Mexico in the search of
+fossils and traces of the prehistoric inhabitants. "Bones and
+battle-axes," George called them. Through their acquaintance with an
+army officer at one of the forts they had heard of the guide Coleman,
+who knew more about the habitations of the old cliff-dwellers than
+probably any man in the region, for he had been one of the first
+explorers up in the Glachens and the Black River country.
+
+With this recommendation the Professor had engaged Coleman to guide his
+little party into the Black River cañon, and show them how to reach one
+or two of the more accessible fortresses that the strange, almost
+unknown people had built ages and ages ago.
+
+When they had reached the bottom of the arroyo, and were following the
+shallow stream, John Coleman turned.
+
+"Whar I'm goin' to take ye," he said, "lots of people have bin before.
+It's most cleaned out o' relics, I reckin; but thar, see thar!" He
+turned suddenly, and seized the Professor's arm. "Come here, a few rods
+further," he went on, pointing at the same time, as he waded up the
+stream to the opposite side of the cliff.
+
+The village that the boys had first seen was nothing to that which now
+was plain in sight, under a great beetling brow of stone, that thrust
+out overhead a hundred feet or so into the cañon. It was fully one
+thousand feet from where they stood straight up to the ledge upon which
+this village stood. Sheer and straight it was, without a fissure or the
+chance for a foothold below, and the overhanging mass above marked it at
+once as inaccessible. The sides of the houses could be seen as they
+stood there almost intact, the ends of the roof-beams were plain in
+sight even to the naked eye, and through the field-glass a pile of
+pottery could be made out standing near the entrance to one of the
+larger dwellings.
+
+The Professor gazed in astonishment. "It looks as if it were built
+yesterday," he said.
+
+"How did they get up there?" inquired Carter, as he plashed up
+alongside.
+
+"That's more than I can tell you," answered the Professor, slowly.
+"Major Evans told me of this village, but probably the old method of
+going there has been destroyed by time. In my opinion, no human foot has
+been there in the last thousand years or more."
+
+"I'd like to see what it's like," said George, looking up, with his
+glass to his eye. "I'd like to get in there."
+
+The Professor sighed. "Science would give a great deal to have you," he
+replied; "but come on; we must hurry to reach the small one over
+yonder." He pointed again to the ruins on the other side.
+
+By careful climbing and careful stretching from point to point they at
+last reached the smaller ledge and entered through the narrow opening
+cut in the solid rock. It was as Coleman had reported; there was
+evidence of many visitations before them. Under the thick stifling dust
+they found nothing but some crumbling brick-work, bits of rough earthen
+jars, and a sandal made of straw.
+
+Professor Jensen was outspoken in his disappointment. It was evident
+that the destroying power of nature besides that of man had been at work
+long, long before him.
+
+The village, unlike the one across the chasm, was in a very exposed
+position, and rain and water had helped to work destruction; but over
+there in front of them and some hundred feet above their heads was the
+tantalizing fortress which they could not reach. What treasures it
+possessed! The Professor sighed; a long trip of three or four days had
+been next to fruitless.
+
+Suddenly John Coleman turned and spoke to the Professor quite excitedly.
+"Capt'in," he said, "take that big glass of yourn and look just inside
+that window whar that rafter hangs." He pointed with his lean finger at
+the opposite cliff, and his hand was trembling.
+
+The Professor looked through his glass.
+
+"See anything?" asked the guide, his voice almost quivering.
+
+"Yes," said the Professor, "I see something red."
+
+Coleman drew a long breath. "It's thar yet," he whispered. He turned and
+looked at the group gathered about him as if frightened; then he spoke,
+still beneath his breath, "I put it thar."
+
+The Professor started. "You! you!" he began, but the guide interrupted
+him.
+
+"Yes, fifteen year ago las' spring I've bin thar" (with a wave of his
+arm), "and I've seen things."
+
+The boys stepped forward, and Professor Jensen lowered his glass and
+glanced at the guide from head to foot.
+
+"Tell us," he said, quietly, raising his hand to keep the boys from
+speaking.
+
+The tall man was fairly trembling now. "You won't believe me," he
+faltered; "they never will."
+
+Carter was about to say something, but the elder man suppressed him
+again with a gesture. "We will believe you, John," he said, as quietly
+as he had spoken before; "but how in the world, and where did you start
+from?"
+
+Coleman sat down and clasped his palms together, and the boys and the
+Professor seated themselves quietly also, without a word.
+
+"I'll tell you the hull story," began the guide, looking appealingly
+from one to the other. "But I 'ain't told it for nigh eight years now."
+
+"Go on," said Professor Jensen; "we will listen carefully; it may be
+most important, John. Don't fear to tell it."
+
+"Well," said the guide, beginning slowly, "you know I have lived and
+hunted in this kintry for more'n eighteen years. I come here from the
+East, an' I wa'n't older than either of you two boys." The three
+listeners nodded.
+
+"One day I was huntin' with a party up this here cañon when we
+discovered this town, whar we be now, and t'other one 'cross the way. We
+reached this one easy 'nough, as we done to-day, but some one had been
+'fore us even then--I suspect as they was Injuns," he added,
+parenthetically. "There was three others with me then, no good tellin'
+their names, 'cause they're all dead, but thet comes in the story. We
+was all young an' ventresome, and I sez to Bill Combs-- He was drowned
+rite down thar!"
+
+The guide broke off so suddenly that it was startling. He pointed with
+his finger down to where the little stream was slowly running through
+its sandy bed.
+
+"I've seen it sech," said he, "an' I've seen it from bank to bank, a
+roarin' tearin' river--'tis now at some seasons o' the year."
+
+For a moment the Professor was afraid that the thread of the story was
+going to be lost, but Coleman regained himself in half a moment.
+
+"I was talkin' o' Bill Combs," he said. "We were standin' here whar we
+be now, an' I sez, lookin' over thar, 'Bill, if you lo'ered a man over
+the top of that ere cañon he could git opposite them houses and have a
+good squint at 'em.'
+
+"'I reckin no man dares try it,' Bill sez to me.
+
+"'I can,' sez I."
+
+There was a pause, and Coleman stirred the dust nervously with his foot.
+
+"I reckin the traders at Arequitta thought as how that we was crazy," he
+resumed at last. "But all the money Bill an' me had saved we put in
+rope, an' six months after that we were right up thar." He pointed to
+the top of the opposite cliff. "Three o' us, with three burros an' mor'n
+a thousand feet of rope, an' it warn't none too much. They drove a stake
+inter the ground, an' I tied the end of the rope 'round my arms, an'
+they lo'ered me away.
+
+"At first 'twas kinder easy crawlin' backwards over the steep rock, but
+when I come to the edge an' looked up an' saw 'em so fur off, I tell you
+I felt scared, an' under me I could see the water rushin' an' jumpin' so
+far below. I couldn't hear no sound, but thar it was roarin' an'
+tumblin' up agin the rocks. They shouted somethin' to me, but I couldn't
+hear 'em, an' then I felt them payin' out the rope again. Well, sir,
+thar I hung a-swingin', an' lookin' up I could see nothin' but the rope
+comin' over the round top of the overhangin' rock foot after foot. I
+felt myself goin' down, twisting first one way an' then t'other, until
+all of a sudden thar was a jolt, an' I felt as if my arms were goin' to
+come off the sokits, an' then I stopped quick. Thar I was, sir, not
+mor'n forty feet from whar you see thet big house on the left, rite
+opposite to it. I could look inside o' the winders an' see big bottles
+settin' on the shelves, an' 'long on the ground was a basket full of
+things that looked like gourds. I had some difficulty from turnin'
+round, an' every now and then I'd swing about, for thar was quite some
+breeze flyin' up the cañon. At last the rope twisted so that I could
+hold myself quiet and still. The sun was nigh overhead by this time, an'
+it kinder lit up the shadows back in the lidge; an' what you suppose I
+saw there? Four skeletons, sitting with their backs agin the wall! They
+was kinder 'rapped up in cloth, but I could make out their ha'r--it was
+hangin' over their shoulders."
+
+Coleman paused and clasped his hands.
+
+"It was red, sir! Not black like the Injuns, but red, an' light colored
+like a gal's. Just then I felt a movement on the rope, an' I knowed thet
+they was tryin' to haul me up. I moved a few inches, and then come down
+again. Two or three times I felt them heave, but every time back I come
+to whar I was before. Then I looks up."
+
+He paused.
+
+"I never can forget it! Never, never," he said, half whispering. "The
+rope was frayin' through over the edge o' th' rock; 'twould only take
+two or three minits of thet sawin' to drop a plumb thousand feet onter
+the rocks or down inter the river. Then an idee come into my head, an' I
+swung myself to and fro much as you see children pumpin' in a swing. At
+last I was movin' back an' for'ard, longer an' longer, until once or
+twice I come within most jumpin' distance of the lidge; but I couldn't
+git the rope from 'round my arms. Then suddenly I thought about my
+knife, an' still swinging as hard as I could swing, I got it out; but it
+slipped from my hand, an' down it went; I heard it ring agin the cliff.
+I was goin' forward with a rush jest then, an' it looked as if the
+houses was all comin' out to meet me, an' suddenly I didn't know nothin'
+more."
+
+The Professor was leaning forward expectantly, the boys had grasped
+hands, great beads of perspiration stood on Coleman's forehead. But he
+went on in a low even voice that never changed in its expression.
+
+"When I come to I couldn't at first tell whar I was, but then I saw that
+I was lyin' on my back all kivered up with dust in the middle of a lot
+of brick pots an' rubbish, an' one of my feet was hangin' out over the
+cliff.
+
+"Thar's where I landed," he said, pointing across the cañon. "I wasn't
+much hurt to speak on, an' I got up on to my feet an' looked 'roun' me."
+
+"Well," said the Professor, excitedly, "go on! Go on!"
+
+"It was a queer sight, I tell you," said the guide, resuming. "I had to
+move careful, for everything tiched raised sech a dust that it 'most
+strangled me. Thar was them four skeletons close up agin the wall--you
+can't see them, for they're right behind thet pile o' stones. Jest to
+the left was a big trough made o' wood, in which was some ears o' corn.
+I couldn't tell ye what I'd seen, but thar was speers with stone heds,
+and painted jugs, an' hangin' on a hook was a long cloth coat or
+somethin'; it was fringed with claws o' bears, an' hanged by a string
+was a big tooth, like o' which I never seen. There was a picture o' a
+elephant or sompthin' on the wall, an' a big stick curled like a snake
+with gold eyes--at least, it looked like gold. A heap o' truck was in a
+corner; but inside the houses the dust was so thick an' stiflin' when I
+tiched anythin', thet I'd hev to run out into the air to breathe. So I
+found a flight of steps, an' goin' up them careful, I got to the roof of
+thet big house. Thet lidge runs back mor'n a hundred feet, an' I went
+further in. As I got used to the dryness an' the dark I could see some
+more bodies--skeletons, at least twenty--sittin' close to the wall; they
+was crouched up an' 'rapped about with rough cloth ban'ges; some was
+sewed up in hides. An' then what do you s'pose I foun'?"
+
+There was no answer, and he again resumed, quietly:
+
+"A well, sir! A well, sir! dug into the solid rock, an' down about ten
+or twelve feet, filled with water. I could hear it tricklin'. I bent
+down an' looked in. Settin' on the edge was a cup, green an' shiny after
+I rubbed the dust off it, an' smooth as any plate you ever see. It took
+some trouble to get down to the water, but with a bit of rope thet I
+found still 'round my shoulders I man'ged to get a drink; and then it
+come to me how am I to get out of this place, anyhow?"
+
+It was evident that the best way to get at the end of the story was to
+let the man go on in his own manner, so after a pause, in which no one
+spoke, he continued, his voice sounding monotonous in the dead silence:
+
+"Strange to say, jest then I felt a current o' cool air a-comin' from
+the back o' the lidge beyon' the wall. As I went further in the current
+grew stronger, and the lidge narrowed down so thet I could jest squeeze
+myself 'long by bendin' somewhat careful like. At last I came to a hole,
+an' thar the air was so strong jest as if it war comin' up a chimney,
+only it was as cold as ice. I put the cup into my pocket, an' sounded
+the hole with my rope. It didn't go straight down, but sloped away, an'
+I crawled in it, feet first. It was all pitch dark, but I could make my
+way 'long, slippin' and pushin' with my elbows. All the time the draft
+kept gettin' stronger, but seemed to me it was growin' warmer, too, and
+then--"
+
+Coleman had an exasperating way of stopping when he reached a most
+exciting place. But now he went on quicker, his voice rising with a rush
+of words.
+
+"--I felt somethin' pilin' on my shoulders an' runnin' down my neck, an'
+it was sand! sand! an' the draft an' wind began to die away. At first I
+thought my head would be buried, for the sand ran over my shoulders an'
+almost held my arms; but I found I could keep it back by workin'
+careful, and all the time I was movin' down, feelin' my way with my feet
+before me. It seems to me I must have gone 'long for hours, when all at
+once I seed a little dot of light 'way down ahead. It give me hope, an'
+I pushed 'long, the hole growin' summat bigger, an' the sand pourin'
+past me so I had to fight to keep ahead of it. Jest as I could make out
+the entrance plain, I seemed to slip an' slide 'long, fightin' with my
+arms an' elbows to keep from stiflin', an' then know'd no more.
+
+"When I come to agin I was lyin' on thet slope down thar, an' my clothes
+was torn inter rags, an' thar was nothin' near me but sand an' shale,
+an' no hole at all whar I could have come out of. I had to move careful,
+for the groun' shifted easy when I turned, and thar was the river
+a-roarin' at my feet. Thet's all the story," he continued, "an' it's
+true."
+
+"Where were the other men?" Professor Jensen asked.
+
+"Thet's whar the strange part come in; no one heard tell on 'em again.
+But I found Bill Comb's body rite over whar I pointed out. He may have
+fell over the cliff for all I know, an' they all may hev been drowned
+lookin' for him or me."
+
+"What about the cup?" asked the Professor.
+
+"Oh, I forgot!" said the guide, drawing out a leather wallet attached to
+a string about his neck. "Thet's all that is left of it."
+
+He put into the Professor's hand some fragment of earthenware. It was
+glazed on both sides like the finest Chinese pottery. The Professor
+sighed.
+
+"Don't tell 'em I told you," said the guide. "I 'ain't dare to tell that
+story for eight years, I reckin."
+
+"What is that red thing over there you pointed out?" said Carter.
+
+"Oh!" said the guide, quickly; "thet's a bandanna handkerchief. I tied
+it thar when I first went in."
+
+
+
+
+FRAIDIE-CAT.
+
+
+  I sha'n't tell you what's his name!--
+  When we want to play a game,
+  Always thinks that he'll be hurt,
+  Soil his jacket in the dirt,
+  Tear his trousers, spoil his hat,--
+      Fraidie-cat! Fraidie-cat!
+
+  Nothing of the boy in him!
+  Dasn't try to learn to swim;
+  Says a cow'll hook; if she
+  Looks at him he climbs a tree;
+  Scart to death at bee or bat,--
+      Fraidie-cat! Fraidie-cat!
+
+  Claims there're ghosts all snowy white
+  Wandering around at night
+  In the attic; wouldn't go
+  There for anything I know.
+  B'lieve he'd run if you said "scat!"--
+      Fraidie-cat! Fraidie-cat!
+
+  CLINTON SCOLLARD.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: A MORTAR BATTERY.]
+
+NEW YORK'S DEFENCES ON THE SOUND.
+
+BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.
+
+
+One of the most interesting questions in a recent examination at the
+Royal Naval Academy at Woolwich, England, was: "How would you capture
+New York, approaching by way of Long Island Sound?" There is only one
+question that interests us more, and that is, How would New York's
+defenders along the Sound repel our enemy? The news from Washington that
+thrilled this country only a few days ago, and the possibility that we
+might after all really come to war, make the defence of the greatest
+city of America a problem of the most intense concern to every one of
+us.
+
+Captain Howard Patterson told the readers of the ROUND TABLE, on March
+13th of last year, how New York would be successfully defended from
+Sandy Hook. The arrangements for removing a fleet of men-of-war from the
+waters of New York Bay are so complete that no fair-minded invader could
+really ask for more.
+
+But suppose some one should declare war against us to-morrow, and
+promptly send a fleet to take our richest city. Would the enemy walk
+into the trap so thoroughly prepared for him at Sandy Hook? The chances
+are rather that he would come down from Halifax and try to dodge in by
+way of Long Island Sound, where he thinks that very little has been
+prepared to check his advance. It is true, unfortunately, that the works
+to the eastward of New York are not nearly so efficient as those to the
+southward; yet there would be found in time of need enough men and guns
+to drive back the most formidable invasion any one might undertake.
+
+If you will look at your map of Long Island Sound you will find several
+small islands scattered between Connecticut and the Long Island shore.
+Chief among them are Fishers and Plum islands. Upon every one of these
+islands mortar batteries will soon be placed, while the channels of the
+Sound itself will be full of submarine mines ten yards apart. For years
+the great drawback to the improvement of our coast defences has been the
+childish confidence of certain inland Congressmen that "American
+ingenuity" will always find a way to defend American interests. The
+haste that is being made to fortify our coasts to-day shows how
+ill-advised that confidence has been. If you speak about "American
+ingenuity" to an army or navy man, he probably will glare at you and
+turn purple. It has been their stumbling block for a very long time.
+Still, we are not quite so unprepared as our enemies believe.
+
+Imagine that the hostile fleet has arrived off the mouth of Long Island
+Sound on its errand of destruction and plunder. Its array of ships
+almost staggers belief. There are twelve battle-ships--veritable
+mountains of iron and steel--armed with rifled cannon of prodigious
+bore and wonderfully long range, as well as smaller guns of every
+degree. With them have come twenty-four armed cruisers, twelve
+torpedo-catchers--boats that run twenty-eight or thirty miles an
+hour--and a swarm of ordinary torpedo-boats that one might well describe
+as innumerable. The proud armada sails westward flaunting the enemy's
+ensign and trailing plumes of black smoke like vast banners. The
+attacking Admiral knows that beneath the dancing waters of the Sound
+there are hidden mines of deadly power, awaiting only the pressure of an
+electric key from the shore or the touch of a passing keel to blow his
+great ships into fragments. He sends out scouts--that is, lines of
+torpedo-boats twenty or thirty feet apart, trying to determine the
+channel. It is the duty of the crews of these swift, light-draught boats
+to drag for and explode the hidden mines, which are submerged at a depth
+of twenty feet so as to strike only the keels of great ships.
+
+Where are the forts that shall check the invaders? From the
+conning-towers of the ships there can be seen no sign of fortification.
+The little islands lie peacefully basking in the balmy sunshine. The
+grass on their round-browed hills quivers gently in the breeze. But
+behind every one of those hills is a modern fort--a gigantic circular
+pit in the sand, with four arms running out from it at right angles. At
+the end of each arm is a pit big enough to hold four rifled mortars.
+These are short, wicked-looking guns that seem like long-range rifled
+cannon sawed off half-way down the barrel. From the moment the
+torpedo-catchers are within five miles the officers of the mortar
+batteries are watching them with range-finders.
+
+Four miles; three and three-quarters; three and a half--then comes a
+thunderous uproar as if a mountain-side had fallen! The mortars on two
+islands send showers of bursting shells that fall upon the group of
+pretty white torpedo-boats, and blot them from the sea. The thing is
+done with startling quickness. Before one can count half a hundred the
+last vestige of the torpedo-destroyers has disappeared beneath the
+waves. The batteries on Plum Island and Fishers Island have rained
+destruction in an awful cross-fire.
+
+[Illustration: Massachusetts. New York. Iowa. Texas. Indiana.
+
+AMERICAN NAVY PROCEEDING UP EAST RIVER TO THE SOUND.]
+
+The hostile Admiral sends out twenty torpedo-catchers in the wake of
+their lost fellows. Let us assume that by hard work, great pluck, and
+good fortune they have counter-mined and cleared the channel, and so
+made the way safe for the big ships. The men in the mortar-pits are
+almost unhurt at first. The opponents have had nothing to guide their
+retaliatory firing but the clouds of smoke from the pits. At last they
+get the range and silence the forts.
+
+[Illustration: Governors Island. New York City. Hell Gate.
+
+Willets Point. Fort Schuyler. Mortar Battery.
+
+THE ENEMY'S FLEET APPROACHING THE NEW YORK END OF LONG ISLAND SOUND.]
+
+The fleet passes on, only a little crippled, but still wary of mines in
+the channel. The ships would be subject to a similar cross-fire from
+mortar batteries on either side of the Sound at every narrow part of the
+channel. Almost the entire journey down the Sound toward New York would
+be under a heavy bombardment. There are at least six places where the
+groups of mortars will be placed. It would not be proper to give their
+location here. There are also very heavy batteries of this description
+on Davids Island, which is a military post near New Rochelle, and on
+Sands Point, Long Island, about sixteen miles east of New York. Then
+there are the fortifications at Willets Point and Fort Schuyler still
+nearer to this city, and at a point where the Sound is only
+three-quarters of a mile wide.
+
+If the enemy should live to come within range of these forts he would
+find that his troubles were only now beginning in earnest. The great
+16-inch rifled guns at Willets Point have a seven-mile range, up past
+Stepping Stone Light and Execution Rock. They could easily dispose of
+any number of torpedo-boats trying to destroy submarine mines. More
+destructive than all these is the "dynamite gun," a tube of steel fifty
+feet long, and with a bore of fifteen inches. This throws a long
+cigar-shaped slug of explosive gelatine, more powerful than dynamite,
+and weighing about two hundred pounds. The shell is driven out of the
+gun by compressed air.
+
+It is not at all likely that we could get together a fleet of
+battle-ships of sufficient numbers to cope with the enemy's great
+squadron. Still, the _Maine_, the _Texas_, and half a dozen other
+fighting ships, each one of which is equal to anything in the foreign
+navy, would be assembled in the Hudson River awaiting the arrival of the
+invaders. As soon as the news of their progress down the Sound was
+telegraphed to this city, they would steam up the East River, take their
+stations within the arc of the forts at Willets Point and Fort Schuyler,
+and add their broadsides to the defence of New York. Is there any fleet
+in the world that could force its way past such an opposition? No
+American thinks so.
+
+
+
+
+RICK DALE.[1]
+
+[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 852.
+
+by KIRK MUNROE.
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+A VERY TRYING EXPERIENCE.
+
+
+"Stop her! Stop the boat, quick! Bonny is overboard!" shouted Alaric,
+frantically, as he realized the nature of the catastrophe that had just
+occurred through his awkwardness. As he shouted he sprang to the
+jib-halyard, and casting it off allowed the sail to come down by the
+run; his sole idea of checking the headway of a sailing craft being to
+reduce her canvas.
+
+He was about to let go both throat and peak halyards, and so bring down
+the big mainsail also, when, with a bellow of rage and a marvellous
+disregard of his lameness, Captain Duff rushed forward and snatched the
+ropes from the lad's hands.
+
+"You thundering blockhead!" he roared. "What d'ye mean by lowering a
+sail without orders? H'ist it again! H'ist it, d'ye hear?"
+
+"But Bonny is overboard," cried Alaric.
+
+"And you want to leave him to drown? Don't ye know that if he's alive
+he's drifted astarn by this time? Ef you had any sense you'd be out in
+the dinghy looking fur him."
+
+Alaric knew that the dinghy was the small boat towing behind the sloop,
+for he had heard the young mate call it by that name, and now he needed
+no further hint as to his duty. He had pushed Bonny overboard, and he
+must save him if that might still be done. If not, he was careless of
+what happened to himself. Nothing could be worse than, or so bad as, to
+go through life with the knowledge that he had caused the death of a
+fellow-being--one, too, whom he had already come to regard as a dear
+friend.
+
+Thus thinking, he ran aft, cast loose the painter of the dinghy, drew
+the boat to the sloop's stern, and dropping into it, drifted away in
+the darkness. He had never rowed a boat, nor even handled a pair of
+oars, but he had seen others do so, and imagined it was easy enough.
+
+It is not often that a first lesson of this kind is taken alone, at
+midnight, amid the tossing waters of an open sea, and it could not have
+happened now but for our poor lad's pitiful ignorance of all forms of
+athletics, including those in which every boy should be instructed.
+
+Without a thought for himself, nor even a comprehension of his own
+peril, Alaric fitted the oars that he found in the bottom of the boat to
+their rowlocks, and began to pull manfully in what he supposed was the
+proper direction. He pulled first with one oar and then with the other;
+then making a wild stroke with both oars that missed the water entirely,
+he tumbled over backwards. Recovering himself, he prepared more
+cautiously for a new effort, and this time, instead of beating the air,
+thrust his oars almost straight down in the water. Then one entered it,
+while the other, missing it by a foot or so, flew back and struck him a
+violent blow.
+
+Up to this time the lad had kept up a constant shouting of "Bonny! Oh,
+Bonny!" or "Hello, Bonny!" but that blow bereft him of so much breath
+that for a minute he had none left with which to shout.
+
+Now, too, for the first time, he gained a vague idea of his own perilous
+situation. There was nothing in sight and nothing to be heard save the
+ceaseless dashing of waters and a melancholy moaning of wind. The sky
+was so overcast that not even a star could extend to him a cheery ray of
+light. The boy's heart sank, and he made another attempt at a shout, as
+much to raise his own spirits as with any hope of being heard. Only a
+husky cry resulted, for his voice was choked, and he again strove to
+row, with the thought that any form of action would be better than
+idleness amid such surroundings.
+
+If his oars seemed vicious before, they were doubly so now that he was
+wearied, and they stubbornly resisted his efforts to make them work as
+he knew they could and ought. At length he let go of one of them for an
+instant while he wiped the trickling perspiration from his eyes. The
+moment it was released, the provoking bit of wood, as though possessed
+of a malicious instinct, slid from its rowlock, dropped into the water,
+and floated away. Alaric made a wild but ineffectual clutch after it
+that allowed a quantity of water to slop into the boat, and gave him the
+idea that it was sinking.
+
+With an access of terror the poor lad sprang to his feet, and forgetful
+of the object that had brought him into his present situation, screamed,
+"Bonny! Oh, Bonny! Save me! Don't leave me here to drown!"
+
+Then a spiteful wave so buffeted the boat that he was toppled over and
+fell sprawling in the bottom. That was the blackest and most despairing
+moment of his life; but even as it came to him he fancied he heard a
+whispered answer to his call, and lifted his head to listen. Yes, he
+heard it again, so faint and uncertain that it might be only the mocking
+scream of some sea-bird winging a swift flight through the blackness.
+Still the idea filled him with hope, and he called again with a cry so
+shrill and long-drawn that its intensity almost frightened him. Now the
+echoing hail was certain, and it came to him with the unmistakable
+accents of a human voice.
+
+Again he shouted: "Bonny! Oh, Bonny!" and again came the answer, this
+time much nearer:
+
+"Hello, Rick Dale! Hello!"
+
+"Hello, Bonny! Hello!"
+
+How could it be that Bonny had kept himself afloat so long? What
+wonderful powers of endurance he must possess! How should he reach him?
+There was but a single oar left, and surely no one could propel a boat
+with one oar. He tried awkwardly to paddle, but after a few seconds of
+fruitless labor gave this up in despair. What could he do? Must he sit
+there idle, knowing that his friend was drowning within sound of his
+voice, and for want of the aid that he could give if he only knew how?
+It was horrible and yet inevitable. He was helpless. Once more was his
+own peril forgotten, and his sole distress was for his friend. Again he
+shouted, with the energy of despair:
+
+"Bonny! Oh, Bonny! Can't you get to me? I'm in a boat."
+
+Then came something so startling and so astonishing that he was almost
+petrified with amazement. Instead of a weak despairing answer, coming
+from a long distance, there sounded a cheery hail from close at hand:
+"All right, old man! I'm coming. Cheer up."
+
+What had happened? Was his friend endowed with supernatural powers that
+enabled him to traverse the sea at will?
+
+Alaric gazed about him on all sides, almost doubting the evidence of his
+senses. Then, with a flutter of canvas and a rush of water from under
+her bows, the tall form of the sloop loomed out of the blackness almost
+beside him.
+
+"Sing out, Rick. Where are you?"
+
+"Here I am. Oh, Bonny, is it you?"
+
+"Yes, of course. Look out! Catch this line."
+
+The end of a rope came whizzing over the boat, and Alaric, catching it,
+held on tightly. He was seated on the middle thwart, and the moment a
+strain came on the line the boat turned broadside to it, heeled until
+water began to pour in over her gunwale, and Alaric, unable to hold on
+an instant longer, let go his hold.
+
+He heard an exclamation of "Thundering lubber!" in Captain Duff's voice,
+and then the sloop was again lost to sight.
+
+Again Alaric was in despair, though he could still hear the shouting of
+orders and a confused slatting of sails. After a little the sloop was
+put about, and a shouting to determine the locality of the drifting boat
+was recommenced. Still it seemed to Alaric a tedious while before she
+approached him for a second time, and Bonny once more sung out to him to
+stand by and catch a line.
+
+"Make it fast in the bow this time," he called, as he flung the coil of
+rope.
+
+Again Alaric succeeded in catching it, and, obeying instructions, he
+scrambled into the bow of the boat, where he knelt and clung to the line
+for dear life, not knowing how to make it fast.
+
+In a moment there came a jerk that very nearly pulled him overboard; and
+the boat, with its bow low in the water from his weight, while its stern
+was in the air, took a wild sheer to one side. Again water poured in
+until she was nearly swamped, and again was the line torn from Alaric's
+grasp.
+
+"You blamed idiot!" roared Captain Duff. "You don't desarve to be saved!
+I'll give ye just one more try, and ef you don't fetch the sloop that
+time we'll leave ye to navigate on your own hook."
+
+As the previous manoeuvres were repeated for a third time, poor
+Alaric, sitting helplessly in his water-logged dinghy, shivered with
+apprehension. How could he hold on to that cruel line that seemed only
+fitted to drag him to destruction? This time it took longer to find him,
+and he was hoarse with shouting before the _Fancy_ again approached.
+
+"He don't know enough to do anything with a line, Cap'n Duff," said
+Bonny, "So if you'll throw the sloop into the wind and heave her to,
+I'll bring the boat alongside."
+
+With this, and without waiting for an answer, the plucky young sailor,
+who had already divested himself of most of his clothing, sprang into
+the black waters and swam toward the vaguely discerned boat. In another
+minute he had gained her, clambered in, and was asking the amazed
+occupant for the other oar.
+
+"It's lost overboard," replied Alaric, gloomily, feeling that the case
+was now more desperate than ever. "Oh Bonny! Why--?"
+
+"Never mind," cried the other, cheerily. "I can scull, and that will
+answer just as well as rowing. Perhaps better, for I can see where we
+are heading."
+
+[Illustration: BONNY COMES TO THE RESCUE.]
+
+Alaric had deemed it impossible to propel a boat with a single oar; but
+now, to his amazement, Bonny sculled the dinghy ahead almost as rapidly
+as he could have rowed. The sloop was out of sight, but the flapping of
+her sails could be plainly heard, and five minutes later the young mate
+had laid his craft alongside.
+
+Captain Duff was too angry for words, and fortunately too busy in
+getting his vessel on her course to pay any attention just then to the
+lad whose awkwardness and ignorance had caused all this trouble and
+delay.
+
+"Skip for'ard," said Bonny, in a low tone, "and I'll come directly."
+
+As Alaric, with a thankful heart, obeyed this injunction, he marvelled
+at the size and steadiness of the sloop, and wondered how he could ever
+have thought her small or unstable.
+
+A few minutes later Bonny, only half dressed, joined him, and said, "If
+you'll lend me your trousers, old man, you can turn in for the rest of
+the night, and I'll stand your watch; mine are too wet to put on just
+yet, and I think you'll be safer below than on deck, anyway."
+
+Like a person in a dream, and without asking one of the many questions
+suggesting themselves, Alaric obeyed. Earlier in that most eventful day
+he had regarded that dark and stuffy forecastle with disgust, and vowed
+he would never sleep in it. Now, as he snuggled shivering between the
+blankets of the first mate's own bunk, it seemed to him one of the
+coziest, warmest, and most comfortable sleeping-apartments he had ever
+known.
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+A LESSON IN KEDGING.
+
+For a long time Alaric lay awake in his narrow bunk, listening to the
+gurgle of waters parted by the sloop's bow, but a few inches from his
+head, and reflecting upon the exciting incidents of the past hour. It
+had all been so terrible and yet so unreal. On one thing he determined.
+Never again would he enter a boat alone without having first learned how
+to row, and to swim also. How splendidly Bonny had come to his rescue,
+and yet how easily! What was it he had called making a boat go with only
+one oar? Alaric could not remember; but at any rate it was a wonderful
+thing to do, and he determined to master that art as well. What a lot he
+had to learn, anyhow, and how important it all was! He had longed for
+the ability to do such things, but never until now had he realized their
+value.
+
+How well Bonny did them, and what a fine fellow he was, and how the
+heart of the poor rich boy warmed toward this self-reliant young friend
+of a day! Could it be but one day since their first meeting? It seemed
+as though he had known Bonny always. But how had the young sailor
+regained the sloop after being knocked overboard? That was
+unaccountable, and one of the most mysterious things Alaric had ever
+heard of. He longed for Bonny to come below, that he might ask just that
+one question; but the mate was otherwise engaged, and the crew finally
+dropped asleep.
+
+Through the remainder of the night the sloop sailed swiftly on her
+course, but she could not make up for that lost hour, and by dawn,
+though she had passed the light on Admiralty Head, and was well to the
+southward of Port Townsend, the very stronghold of her enemies, for it
+is the port of entry for the sound, she was still far from the
+hiding-place in which her Captain had hoped to lie by for the day.
+However, he knew of another nearer at hand, though not so easy of
+access, and to this he directed the vessel's course.
+
+It did not seem to Alaric that he had been asleep more than a few
+minutes when he was rudely awakened by being hauled out of his bunk and
+dropped on the forecastle floor. At the same time he became conscious of
+a voice saying:
+
+"Wake up! Wake up, Rick Dale! I've been calling you for the last five
+minutes, and was beginning to think you were dead. Here it is daylight,
+with lots of work waiting, and you snoozing away as though you were a
+young man of elegant leisure. So tumble out in a hurry, or else you'll
+have the Cap'n down on you, and he's no light-weight when he's as mad as
+he is this morning."
+
+Never before in all his luxurious life had Alaric been subjected to such
+rough treatment, and for a moment he was inclined to resent it; but a
+single glance at Bonny's smiling face, and a thought of how deeply he
+was indebted to this lad, caused him to change his mind and scramble to
+his feet.
+
+"Here are your trousers," continued the young mate, "and the quicker you
+can jump into them the better, for we've a jolly bit of kedging to
+attend to, and need your assistance badly."
+
+Filled with curiosity as to what a "jolly bit of kedging" might be, and
+also pleased with the idea that he was not considered utterly useless,
+Alaric hastily dressed and hurried on deck. There the sight of a number
+of Chinamen recalled with a shock the nature of the craft on which he
+was shipped, and for an instant he was tempted to refuse further service
+as a member of her crew. A moment's reflection, however, convinced him
+that the present was not the time for such action, as it could only
+result in disaster to himself and in extra work being thrown upon Bonny.
+
+The sun had not yet risen, and on one side a broad expanse of water was
+overlaid with a light mist. On the other side was a bold shore covered
+with forest to the water's edge, and penetrated by a narrow inlet, off
+the mouth of which the sloop lay becalmed.
+
+Bonny was already in the dinghy, which held a coil of rope having a
+small anchor attached to one end. The other end was on board the sloop,
+and made fast to the bitts.
+
+"When I reach the end of the line and heave the kedge overboard, you
+want to haul in on it," said the young mate, "and when the sloop is
+right over the kedge, let go your anchor. Do you understand?"
+
+"Yes, I think so."
+
+The tide had just turned ebb, and was beginning to run out from the
+inlet as Bonny dropped the kedge anchor overboard, and Alaric, beginning
+to pull with a hearty will on that long wet rope, experienced the first
+delights of kedging. Captain Duff, puffing at a short black pipe, sat by
+the tiller and steered, while the Chinese passengers, squatted about the
+deck, watched the lad's efforts with a stolid interest.
+
+At length the end of the rope was reached, and Alaric, with aching back
+and smarting hands, but beaming with the consciousness of a duty well
+performed, imagined his task to be ended.
+
+"Let go your anchor," ordered Captain Duff.
+
+When this was done, and the cable made fast so that the sloop should not
+drift back when the kedge was lifted, Bonny heaved up the latter and got
+it into the dinghy. Then he sculled still farther into the inlet until
+the end of the long line was once more reached, when he again dropped
+the small anchor overboard, and poor Alaric found, to his dismay, that
+the whole tedious operation was to be repeated. In addition to what he
+had done before, the heavy riding anchor was now to be lifted from the
+bottom.
+
+As the boy essayed to haul in its cable with his hands, Captain Duff,
+muttering something about a "lubberly swab," stumped forward, and
+showing him how to use the windlass for this purpose, condescended to
+hold the turn, while the perspiring lad pumped away at the iron lever.
+When the anchor was lifted, he was directed to again lay hold of the
+kedge-line and warp her along handsomely.
+
+Alaric made signs to the Chinamen that they should help him; but they,
+being passengers who had paid for the privilege of idleness on this
+cruise, merely grinned and shook their heads. So the poor lad tugged at
+that heart-breaking line until his strength was so exhausted that the
+sloop ceased to make perceptible headway.
+
+At this Captain Duff, who was again nodding over the tiller, suddenly
+woke up, rushed among his passengers with brandished crutch, roaring an
+order in pidgin English that caused them to jump in terror, lay hold of
+the line, and haul it in hand over hand.
+
+Three times more was the whole weary operation repeated, until at length
+the sloop was snugly anchored behind a tree-grown point that effectually
+concealed her from anything passing in the sound.
+
+"Nice healthy exercise, this kedging," remarked Bonny, cheerfully, as he
+came on board.
+
+"You may call it that," responded Alaric, gloomily, "but I call it the
+most killing kind of work I ever heard of, and if there is any more of
+it to be done, somebody else has got to do it. I simply won't, and
+that's all there is about it."
+
+"Oh, pshaw!" laughed the young mate, as he lighted a fire in the galley
+stove and began preparations for breakfast. "This morning's job was only
+child's play compared with some you'll have before you've been aboard
+here a month."
+
+"Which I never will be," replied Alaric, "for I'm going to resign this
+very day. I suppose this is the United States and the end of the voyage,
+isn't it?"
+
+"It's the States fast enough; but not the end of the run by a good bit.
+We've got another night's sail ahead of us before we come to that. But
+you mustn't think of resigning, as you call it, just as you are
+beginning to get the hang of sailoring. Think how lonely I should be
+without you to make things lively and interesting--as you did last
+night, for instance."
+
+"I shall, though," replied Alaric, decidedly, "just as quick as we make
+a port; for if you think I'm going to remain in the smuggling business
+one minute longer than I can help, you're awfully mistaken. And what's
+more, you are going with me, and we'll hunt for another job--an honest
+one, I mean--together."
+
+"I am, am I?" remarked Bonny. "After you calling me a pirate, too. I
+shouldn't think you'd care to associate with pirates."
+
+"But I do care to associate with you," responded Alaric, earnestly, "for
+I know I couldn't get along at all without you. Besides, after the
+splendid way you came to my rescue last night, I don't want to try. But
+I say, Bonny, how did you ever manage to get back on board after
+tumbling--after I knocked you into the water? It seems to me the most
+mysterious thing I ever heard of."
+
+"Oh, that was easy enough!" laughed the young mate, lifting the lid of a
+big kettle of rice that was boiling merrily as he spoke. "You see, I
+didn't wholly fall overboard. That is, I caught on the bobstay, and was
+climbing up again all right when you let the jib down on top of me,
+nearly knocking me into the water and smothering me at the same time.
+When I got out from under it you were gone, and a fine hunt we had for
+you, during which the old man got considerably excited. But all's well
+that ends well, as the Japs said after the war was over, so now if
+you'll make a pot of coffee, I'll get the pork ready for frying."
+
+"But I don't know how to make coffee."
+
+"Don't you? I thought everybody knew that. Never mind, though; I'll make
+the coffee while you fry the meat."
+
+"I don't know how to do that, either."
+
+"Don't you know how to cook anything?"
+
+"No. I don't think I could boil water without spoiling it."
+
+"Well," said Bonny, pityingly, "you certainly have got more to learn
+than any fellow old enough to walk alone that I ever knew."
+
+The sloop remained in her snug hiding-place all that day, during which
+her Captain and first mate devoted most of their time to sleeping. The
+Chinamen spent the greater part of the day on shore, while Alaric,
+following Bonny's advice, made his first attempt at fishing. So long as
+he only got bites he had no trouble; but when he finally caught an
+enormous flounder his occupation was gone, for he had no second hook,
+and could not imagine how the fish was to be removed from the one to
+which it was attached. So he let it carefully down into the water again,
+and made the line fast until Bonny should wake. When that happened, and
+he triumphantly hauled in his line, he found, to his dismay, that his
+hook was bare, and that the fish had solved his problem for him.
+
+In the mean time there was much activity that day on board a certain
+revenue-cutter stationed in the upper sound, and shortly after dark,
+about the time the smuggler _Fancy_ was again getting under way, several
+well-manned boats left the government vessel to spend the night in
+patrolling certain channels.
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+MAPLE-SUGAR MAKING.
+
+BY CHRISTINE TERHUNE HERRICK.
+
+
+The advent of the sugaring season is looked forward to with joy by the
+young people in those districts of New England where the sugar-maple
+grows freely. When the sap begins to flow they know that there will be
+fun galore, and they watch eagerly for the first mild days that will
+encourage the farmers to get out the sugar-buckets.
+
+There is something in their anticipation, too, besides the mere thought
+of the regaling of their palates. The running of the sap means the end
+of the winter, with all which that has implied of cold and dreariness
+and isolation. True, there have been periods of glorious cold weather,
+when coasting and skating and straw rides in great sleighs over
+sparkling snow and under brilliant moonlight have made even life in
+winter worth living, but these bright spots have been oases in long
+deserts of dolefulness. There may be poetry and excitement in being
+snow-bound; there are only monotony and discomfort in being slush-bound.
+
+  "When the ways are heavy with mire and rut,
+    In November fogs, in December snows,
+  When the north wind howls, and the doors are shut,
+    There is place and enough for the pains of prose."
+
+And there are other trials unmentioned by the English poet which the
+New-Englander knows only too well. Frozen water-pipes, frozen fingers
+and toes, recurring colds caught in rooms that are too chilly for
+comfort or close and over-heated by coal stoves, and many more
+annoyances that, small enough when taken separately, make a formidable
+sum total when they all come at once.
+
+[Illustration: IN A SUGAR CAMP.]
+
+But now the harbingers of spring are at hand. In sheltered places the
+trailing arbutus has begun to show its fragile blossoms, that "take the
+winds of March with beauty"; there is even here and there a stray
+violet; the mosses in damp places are a deliciously vivid green, and the
+grass is losing its sereness in hollows and on the edge of
+water-courses. The bluebird has been in evidence for some days, the
+song-sparrow's rippling note is heard, and there are rumors that a robin
+has been seen. The ways are still "heavy with mire and rut," but there
+is a not distant prospect of settled roads and good walking. There is a
+suggestion of spring in the air, in spite of the drifts of snow in the
+ravines and in the woods. The young people do not wish to see that snow
+go too fast, for it is essential to a part of their fun. For how could
+they "sugar off" without snow? Even the farmers would prefer hauling the
+sledge that carries the store tub, in which they collect the sap, over
+the snow than over the bare ground.
+
+To the children and young people the thought of "sugaring off" is the
+chief one connected with the maple-sugar season. That is unless they
+live on farms and have to do their part in preparing the sap for market.
+The time means something quite different to the farmer and his men, who
+must tramp through snow and mud from tree to tree of the sugar orchard
+that is generally scattered over hill and dale, and seldom within a
+small radius, who must watch the sap-buckets and empty them before they
+overflow, who must bring the sap from the tree to the sugar-house and
+empty it into the great store tubs that await it. And even then their
+work is but just begun, for the shorter the space between the time the
+sap leaves the tree and its transformation into syrup and sugar, the
+better will be the quality of these. So the sap must not stand long in
+the store tubs before it is turned into the great evaporator over a
+roaring fire, where it is to be changed from what appears to be slightly
+sweetened water into thick, flavorous syrup. The improvement of methods
+in sugar manufacture no longer render it necessary that the boiling sap
+should be watched all night, as the sugar-makers had to do in the old
+days, when the sap was boiled in a great kettle swung over an open fire
+in the woods. Still the work is hard and absorbing, for the season is
+short and no time can be wasted.
+
+The women have their share of the toil. To them it falls to boil down
+the syrup to the proper thickness for sending out as maple molasses or
+as sugar in cakes. They "sugar off" frequently, but it is only to
+ascertain whether the syrup has reached the stage where it can be taken
+from the fire, stirred until it granulates, and then turned into the
+little tins that mould it into the cakes familiar to us all.
+
+That is what "sugaring off" means to the farmer and his wife. It means
+something quite different to the young people who have been planning for
+sugar parties long before the farmer thought of tapping his trees.
+
+A sugar party is not a fall-dress affair. Evening clothes and low-cut
+gowns would be decidedly out of place in the farm-house kitchen, where
+the most important part of the entertainment comes off. The "best
+Sunday-go-to-meeting" garments fulfil all the requirements of the
+toilet.
+
+A sugar party is very elastic so far as numbers are concerned. It may be
+either small or large, although as a rule the old principle of the more
+the merrier holds good here. Both sexes are represented, and the only
+essential qualities in a guest are a social spirit and a good digestion.
+
+The place to thoroughly enjoy sugar-making is on a farm where they
+"sugar off" half a dozen times a day. It is the usual thing for a party
+of young people to arrange for a visit to a farm-house in the height of
+the sugar season, and they throw themselves into the fun of the hour
+with an abandon which proves the injustice of the charge that we, as a
+people, like the English, take our pleasure sadly. The girls and boys
+inspect the flowing of the sap, form a merry escort around the sledge
+that conveys the sap to the sugar-house, hang about the golden syrup
+boiling and bubbling in the big evaporator, and it is a noisy and
+jubilant crowd that gathers around the tin pans filled with snow, upon
+which is poured the smoking syrup that is, by contact with the snow,
+transformed into that delicious compound, "maple wax."
+
+Three or four young people, each armed with a fork, may gather about a
+small pan, where the syrup lies in golden arabesques upon the white
+snow. It is very pretty to look at, very good to taste, and very sticky
+to handle. Unless it has been boiled to a point of brittleness where it
+snaps when touched by the fork--and this is unusual--it will cling to
+the tines in a fashion that gives new and literal meaning to the words,
+"Linked sweetness long-drawn out." The experienced sugar-eater has
+learned enough to give a dexterous turn of the fork that twists the wax
+about the prongs in a compact morsel, while the green hand struggles
+with the strung-out portion that falls to his share, and is forced to
+make desperate appeals for a knife or a spoon to break the tenuous
+fragment.
+
+Even when the wax is on the fork all trouble is not over. The next thing
+is to eat it, and to achieve this operation with the grace and dignity
+one would desire is well-nigh impossible. The subject of the experiment
+looks at her fork and wonders whether it is better to nibble at the
+sugar or to make one huge mouthful of the whole lamp of delight. Woe be
+to her if she pursues the former course! Unless the sugar is
+exceptionally crisp, she will find that she has attached to her teeth
+one end of an unbreakable thread that stretches as do the fibres of a
+stringy Welsh rarebit. She understands how the spider feels when he
+spins a never-ending filament.
+
+Under these circumstances she will probably find her chief consolation
+in the spectacle of her neighbor, who has attempted to take all the
+sugar on his fork at a single mouthful. He has sunk his teeth into the
+sugar, and it holds them as closely as it adheres to the fork. He
+struggles vainly to loosen his teeth or to withdraw the tines. Not until
+he casts dignity to the winds, and taking the fork in both hands, drags
+on it with main strength, does he release himself even partially. Then,
+as the sugar melts in his mouth, he finds himself free once more.
+
+It will readily be imagined that with such scenes as these taking place
+all over the room there is no lack of fun. The amusement may not spring
+from a very high mental source, but it is pure, innocent jollity, and
+everybody enjoys it.
+
+No one knows how much sugar he can devour, and live to tell the tale,
+until he has been on a Vermont farm in sugaring-time. At each sugaring
+off he will eat so much that he will declare he never wishes to see
+maple-sugar again so long as he lives. Nevertheless, when the syrup is
+ready to sugar off again, he is waiting to take his place among the rest
+and eat and eat until he is once more satiated. And this performance he
+repeats half a dozen times a day. Many persons claim that maple-sugar
+thus eaten makes them drowsy, but the fresh outer air soon dispels such
+sleepiness and gives them an appetite for more sugar.
+
+One of the indispensable items of a sugaring off is a dish of pickles.
+The palates that have been surfeited with the cloying sweetness crave
+the relief of the acid. The advocates of the pickle-jar will assure you
+that after a pickle or two one can eat as much sugar as if he had not
+tasted it before, and a little observation and experiment leads one to
+believe that the theory is correct.
+
+A pleasant variety is made by sprinkling the meats of butternuts,
+walnuts, or hickory-nuts on the snow, and covering these with the syrup,
+thus making a toothsome maple nut candy.
+
+All these dainties are sampled at different intervals during the day in
+every household where sugar is made, but when evening comes there is
+usually a gathering of the young people at one or another farm-house.
+The country folk who have social instincts have little terror of long
+walks, and they think nothing of tramping a mile or more "across lots"
+over rough pasture-land, or along frozen roads, to a neighbor's where
+there is to be a sugar party. At such a function there are no
+refreshments demanded except the "maple wax" and pickles. Formality is
+altogether lacking. The guests gather about a long table, on which stand
+the milk-pans full of snow, and dip the syrup from the one big kettle
+boiling on the stove.
+
+When they have satisfied themselves with sweets for the time, at least,
+they fall to playing games--such old-fashioned amusements as Twenty
+Questions, Consequences, Dumb Crambo, or the livelier Fox and Geese and
+Blindman's Buff. Occasionally Parcheesi, Lotto, and Backgammon will have
+their devotees, and rarely there will be games of cards. The party does
+not continue to a late hour. There must be a final sugaring off before
+the assembly breaks up for the night and muffle themselves for their
+long trudge homeward in the white moonlight or under the solemn stars.
+
+
+
+
+AN "OLD-FIELD" SCHOOL-GIRL.
+
+BY MARION HARLAND.
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+Everybody spoke of it as an "old-field school"; but the only field in
+sight was one hundred acres in extent and always under cultivation. On
+the early October morning with which my story begins it was tender green
+with fall wheat growing fast under the warm Virginia sunshine. A
+"worm-fence" of rails separated it from the copse of sassafras and
+chinquapin bushes and scrub-oaks, beyond which was the clearing lying
+about the school-house door. Many generations of scholars had trampled
+this area into dust that had not put forth a blade of grass in the
+month's vacation just ended. But for two tough-lived aspens planted
+close to the steps of the small building there was not a sign of
+vegetation nearer to it than the belt of brushwood. The school-house was
+built of hewn logs, chinked with bits of wood half as long and twice as
+thick as a shingle. The spaces between these billets were filled in with
+mortar in which there was much red clay and little lime. Sun, rain, and
+wind had bleached the mortar to a dirty pink and darkened the logs to
+grayish-black. Upon two sides of the one-roomed building were windows
+running horizontally two-thirds of the way across the walls, and but one
+pane deep. A log had been sawed out, and a single long sash fitted into
+the space thus left. The sash hung from hinges made fast to the log
+above it, and when closed was hooked down to hasps set in the lower log.
+The inner walls and ceiling were plastered with the warmly colored
+mortar used in filling up the chinks. As far up as a boy could reach by
+standing upon a bench the mottled surface was covered with pencillings
+and charcoal scrawls. There was but one movable desk; that stood at the
+head of the room. It had a hinged cover with a padlock attached to it,
+and a wooden arm-chair was beside it. The rest of the room was furnished
+with backless benches of unpainted pine mellow-brown with age, a big
+stove at the right of the teacher's chair, and a row of tall stools
+ranged in front of a sloping shelf made fast to the wall behind the
+desk. Upon these the scholars sat when they had their writing-lessons.
+
+A locust--"a dry-weather fly," the people thereabouts called it--had
+perched on the sill of the sunniest window, and sang shrilly. But for
+his chirp the room was very still until two men pushed back the door and
+strolled up the aisle. Their steps started up queer echoes, like
+whispers and titters, that chased one another from one corner to
+another; the locust stopped singing.
+
+"Mrs. Duncombe sent a couple of women over yesterday to sweep and
+scrub," said the elder of the men. "It all looks fairly decent, I
+think."
+
+He seated himself upon the teacher's desk, swinging one leg over a
+corner of it, the other foot upon the floor, and looked around the room,
+a smile half-humorous, half-pensive showing his white teeth and lighting
+up his eyes. He had a noble face; his age may have been fifty; his hair
+was iron-gray. As from the force of early habit he had pulled off his
+hat at the door, and now held it in his left hand, while with his right
+he tapped his boot with his riding-whip. This was Major Duncombe, of
+Greenfield, a fine specimen of the Virginia planter of 1840.
+
+"All the learning I carried with me to college was flogged into me
+here," he went on, musingly. "Old Byars Lowton reigned supreme from this
+desk then. I have heard my father say that when Byars applied for the
+place, Colonel Barton, of Hurley, my nearest neighbor, said to him,
+'Young gentleman, you are young and inexperienced. We should like to
+know something of your proposed principles of government. How do you
+mean to manage your school?' 'By switch and suasion, sir,' said Byars;
+'_specially switch_.' The speech got him a berth he held for forty
+years, and in all that time his hand never lost its cunning"--laughing
+good-humoredly.
+
+His companion had thrown himself into the wooden arm-chair, and while
+listening to the Major made good use of his eyes in scrutinizing room
+and contents. He smiled at the concluding sentence, a smile that curved
+his mouth upward and drew his brows together, deepening a crease which
+was always between them. "We shall not disagree there, I reckon," he
+said. "Martinet practice in the school-room is the wisest in the
+long-run."
+
+He had a way of jerking out his words that agreed with the impression
+his face and frown made upon a girl who sat upon the floor in a far
+corner of the room, with a book upon her knees. She had made a nook for
+herself by setting one bench upon the top of another, and, herself
+unseen in the shadow, surveyed the two men through the space left
+between the benches. She knew one well, and the other was undoubtedly
+the new teacher who was to take charge of the school the next Monday.
+Her father had said the day before that he was at Greenfield. He had
+been in college with young Mr. Duncombe, and the families were old
+friends.
+
+He was shorter than the Major by half a head, and slight in build. His
+head was large in proportion to the rest of the body; his forehead broad
+and thatched with straight straw-colored hair; his eyes were large, and
+a queer faint blue in color. When he spoke he pursed up his mouth and
+wagged his head slightly from side to side; in walking he swung his arms
+and held his head high. Like the instructor of the "switch and suasion"
+story, he looked very young, not over two-and-twenty.
+
+Unaware of the disapproving gaze of the mouselike eyes, the new-comer
+resumed, "I was brought up in the old way myself, and see no reason to
+depart from it."
+
+The Major's eyes ran over the slight figure and twinkled roguishly.
+"There will be some strapping fellows--pretty hard cases too--in the
+school, who might not be easy to drive," he said. "They are tolerably
+good boys in the main, if taken in the right way, with no more spirit
+than one likes to see in lads of their age. You'll have no trouble with
+the girls."
+
+"I'm not so sure of that. They need flogging as much as their brothers,
+sometimes more, and take advantage of the public sentiment that shields
+them. As it does everywhere."
+
+"I should hope so indeed!" answered the Major, promptly. "I have never
+laid the weight of a finger upon one of my daughters. My boys"--the
+twinkle returning to his eyes--"will tell you that I have licked them
+out of their boots times without number. That is the reason they are so
+well grown. Their sinews are strengthened and lengthened by exercise.
+Eh? What is it?"
+
+The stranger had started up and pointed to the distant corner. "Who is
+that over there? Somebody has been eavesdropping!"
+
+Before the terrified girl could scramble to her feet the two men were
+looking down at her over the uppermost bench.
+
+[Illustration: "DON'T LOOK SO SCARED, CHILD! WE ARE NOT HUNTING YOU."]
+
+"Why! why! why!" uttered the Major. "Flea, is it you? What are you
+skulking in the corner for like an old hare in a hollow? Don't look so
+scared, child! We are not hunting you."
+
+She was pulling herself up. She had been sitting with one foot doubled
+under her, and it had gone to sleep. She dropped a courtesy, first to
+the Major, then to his companion.
+
+"I'm sorry, sir, but I didn't s'pose anybody would be here. I've often
+been here before. To read all alone, you know. Mother doesn't mind."
+
+"What book is that?--the Bible?"
+
+"No, sir; Shakespeare."
+
+"So-ho-o!" The Major reached a long arm over the upper bench and brought
+up a large book that had lost the outer covers, the fly-leaves, and the
+title-page. "Where did this come from?"
+
+"Father bought it at Mr. Harrison's sale, year before last. One back was
+off, and he said I might have it."
+
+"And you've read the other back off since? How far have you got in it?"
+
+"I've been through it twice and a half times."
+
+"Twice and a half times, eh?"--with a whistle. "How old are you, may I
+ask?"
+
+"Twelve and a half, sir."
+
+"You are fond of fractions, it seems. Flea, this is Mr. Tayloe, who is
+going to teach you something besides Shakespeare next week. You saw Mr.
+Grigsby this morning, Mr. Tayloe. This young lady who has read
+Shakespeare twice and a half times and is twelve and a half years old is
+his daughter."
+
+The girl courtesied again; Mr. Tayloe nodded and pursed up his mouth.
+The Major resumed his kindly raillery, dipping at random into the
+dogeared book with the look and touch of one familiar with its contents.
+
+"What have you been reading to-day, my fractional damsel?"
+
+"King Henry Fifth, sir."
+
+"Whose son was he?"
+
+"King Henry Fourth's, sir."
+
+The girl was now quite at home with him and her subject. Her sallow face
+warmed and dimpled with enjoyment of the mock examination. She stood
+erect, her arms crossed upon the upper bench, her eyes dancing with
+amusement.
+
+"Let me see. He was a nice, steady, well-behaved young fellow?"
+
+"Very nice, sir, but he wasn't a bit steady. He was right wild before he
+got to be King. After that he was _splendid_."
+
+"Humph! Didn't he steal the crown from the old gentleman's head before
+the breath was out of his body? I don't call that nice behavior."
+
+"Because he thought his father was dead," cried the girl, forgetting
+jest and herself in defence of her hero. "If he had been dead, the crown
+would have belonged to his son. When Prince Henry found out that his
+father was only in a faint and was coming to, don't you remember how he
+knelt down and begged pardon, and said,
+
+          'There is your crown,
+  And He that wears the crown eternally--'
+
+That meant God, you know,
+
+  'Long guard it yours?'
+
+It wouldn't be fair to lay _that_ up against him, sir."
+
+The Major laid the book gently upon the bench, sighing as he did it.
+"You are right, my child," he said, in an altered tone. "An older book
+than Shakespeare says, 'Remember not the sins of my youth.' We won't be
+hard upon your dear Prince Hal. Your father tells me he is going to send
+three of you to school."
+
+"Yes, sir. Bea and Dee and me."
+
+"_What!_" ejaculated Mr. Tayloe, with a short, sharp laugh. He had not
+spoken during the Shakespearean talk, but fidgeted about the aisle,
+inspecting the notches and initials cut in the benches, and frowning at
+the inscriptions upon the walls. "And you called her 'Flea,' didn't
+you?" he continued. "I never heard anything more ridiculous. Haven't
+they Christian names?"
+
+"Very Christian, I believe," answered the Major, invincibly
+good-natured. "At least I can answer for Dee, who was christened
+'David.' I was his godfather. And your name, Flea, is--"
+
+"Felicia, sir," said the girl, as he hesitated, "and my sister's is
+Beatrice."
+
+Mr. Tayloe's laugh was almost a vulgar sniff, and he walked to the door,
+as if impatient to be gone.
+
+"Well, good-morning to you," said the Major to Flea. "We won't interrupt
+your reading any longer. Mr. Tayloe is very much gratified to know that
+he will have such an intelligent and industrious scholar. You will be a
+comfort and a pride to him."
+
+"Possibly Mr. Tayloe may take a different view of the case," observed
+that gentleman, as they mounted the horses they had left tied to the
+aspen-trees. "I am afraid that young person will have to forget a great
+deal before she can learn anything. She is puffed up with the notion
+that she is a prodigy. I would wager my head that she suspected we would
+go to the school-house to-day, and planned to be found there with her
+Shakespeare. But what could one expect from the child of a father who
+turns an eleven-year-old girl loose in Shakespeare, and a mother who has
+her daughters christened Felicia and Beatrice, and nicknames them Flea
+and Bea?"
+
+"Oh, come, now! you are hard upon my worthy overseer and his wife,"
+rejoined the Major, diverted by the teacher's indignation. "They are
+excellent folks who mind their own business, attend church regularly,
+and mean to have their children well educated. Grigsby is a man of
+remarkable intelligence for his position--a great reader and a clear
+thinker. As to the nicknames, it is a trick of this region to deck up
+children in fancy names, and then, as if they were ashamed of the
+sentimentality, to make the high-sounding titles ridiculous by nicking
+and contorting them. The more absurd the nickname the tighter it
+sticks."
+
+Mr. Tayloe made no immediate answer. They had left the copse flanking
+the school-house play-ground, and were pacing between the banks of a
+sunken red-clay road, topped by pines, when he broke the silence:
+
+"The old-field school is a horrible leveller of social distinctions.
+Where else would your children and Mr. Barton's meet, as equals, those
+of an illiterate overseer? These things must be right in a so-called
+republic, but I confess they go against the grain with me."
+
+"They dry straight," said the Major, oracularly. "If the planter's
+children cannot keep abreast, if not ahead, of the overseer's, they must
+fall behind in the race. In this country every man ought to have a fair
+chance."
+
+When the sound of hoofs and voices died away upon her ears, Flea Grigsby
+pushed aside her barricade and came out of her hiding-place. Her fear in
+building it was that some mischievous boy or passing negro might peep in
+at the school-house door and disturb her reading and thinking.
+
+Now that she had left her shadowy nook, it could be seen that she was
+tall for her age, thin, and dark. She had out-grown her frock of mixed
+blue homespun--"Virginia cloth," as it was called. Children then wore
+their skirts down to their heels. Flea's had been let down three times,
+each letting-down registering itself in a band of unfaded stuff, yet the
+hem left exposed a pair of slim ankles and bare brown feet. She had
+shoes and stockings at home for Sunday and holiday wear, and her mother
+had notified her yesterday that she was "getting too old to go to school
+barefoot." At home she and three younger children ran upon naked soles
+(except on Sundays) from the 1st of May to the 1st of November, and
+revelled in their freedom from cramping shoes.
+
+Her cheeks were burning and her heart was thumping with vainglorious
+delight, such as she had never felt before. Major Duncombe--"the
+illustrious Major Duncombe," as she called him in her quaint bookish
+way--had pronounced her "industrious and intelligent." She hoped that he
+would say it at his own supper-table that evening, and that her dear
+Miss Em'ly would hear it. She could fancy how Miss Em'ly's eyes would
+flash and her pretty mouth smile at praises of the scholar who "just
+adored her."
+
+Long afterward Flea recalled and thought it strange, in view of what
+happened in later months, that she should have thought so much of Miss
+Em'ly that October afternoon when she sat dreaming happily upon the log
+door-step of the school-house, the hundred-acre field of wheat at her
+right stretching away almost to the river, and before her, beyond the
+play-ground and belt of brushwood, the dark forest, in the depths of
+which she felt almost as much at home as in her father's house.
+
+The day was unseasonably warm, and in the sultry stillness the
+dry-weather flies were fiercely defying the threats of a cloud that was
+rising from the west to swallow up the sun. The log door-step was quite
+hot to the girl's bare feet. The leaves of the scrub-oaks were
+red-brown, and those of the sumac scarlet, although there had been no
+frost as yet, and the colors dulled as the sunshine left them. The aspen
+leaves lay back against their stems, exposing their white linings. Every
+breath of air was hushed, as if the unrolling cloud were a gray blanket
+and suffocating the earth.
+
+Presently a low growl of thunder seemed, as it passed, to deaden the
+calm.
+
+"We are going to have a shower," Flea said, aloud, looking up.
+
+She did not budge. She could not get home before the rain, and she was
+extremely comfortable where she was. Wrapping her bare arms about her
+knees--another of her "ways"--she hugged herself and her fancies, caring
+nothing for heat or threatening storm. From babyhood she had created a
+world of her own, and lived in it at least half of the time. She called
+this dreaming, for the lack of a better term, "playing ladies." Nobody
+else knew of the play, much less of the "ladies" in it. She believed
+that she had invented it, and in it she always took the chief part.
+
+In her present day-dream Major Duncombe was a conspicuous actor, and the
+school-room was the stage. Under the new teacher prizes would be
+offered, and she would win them all. She had read of such things, and of
+examination day. She would coax her mother into giving her a new Swiss
+muslin frock--not an old one of Bea's. She had never had a really new
+Sunday frock of her very own. Bea grew as fast as she, and could not be
+outstripped. The frock would have a full "baby waist," low in the neck,
+and short-sleeved. There must be a pink ribbon sash with fringed ends.
+And perhaps her mother might buy for her a pair of India-cotton
+stockings, and slippers with rosettes upon them. At the imagination she
+hugged her knees the harder. She did not own a pair of "bought"
+stockings. Bea had but two pairs, and wore them upon grand occasions.
+
+Thus dressed, she would leave her modest seat in the school-room and
+walk up the aisle when Major Duncombe, in his finest manner, called up
+"Miss Felicia Grigsby" to receive, first one, then another of the
+prizes offered for--say, reading, writing, history--and there ought to
+be a fourth. Four were none too many. Oh, for Shakespeare, of course!
+When all had been given, the Major would make a speech.
+
+"Ladies and gentlemen," he would say, in his deep round voice, "as our
+revered preceptor will bear me witness" (here he would bow to Mr.
+Tayloe, who would bow and smile), "I told him six months ago that our
+fair young friend here would prove herself the most intelligent and
+industrious of his pupils. He is proud of her, ladies and gentlemen, and
+you and I, and indeed everybody in this county is--(or would 'are' sound
+better?)--justly proud of our distinguished citizen, Miss Felicia Jean
+Grigsby."
+
+Then she would courtesy very low and gracefully, and say, in a voice
+mellow with emotion (another bookish phrase she had picked up), "You do
+me too much honor, I assure you, sir."
+
+A tremendous roar of thunder awoke her. At the ripping and rending of
+the laden clouds the rain rushed down in a volume, washing out the view
+of everything in the landscape except the nearest bushes and the
+aspen-trees.
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Flea was a hardy, country-bred child, and as little afraid of thunder,
+lightning, and flood as of the loneliness of the deserted school-house.
+She laughed low and gleefully as she drew her skirt up to her knees and
+stuck out both thin brown legs in the warm rain, wriggling her toes
+contentedly in the shower-bath. A broad reddish pool was spread out in
+front of the door in three minutes, and the heavy drops plashing into it
+raised tiny bobbing bubbles.
+
+"They are fairies dancing at a ball!" ejaculated Flea. "How featly they
+foot it!"
+
+The rain poured on, the dull rumble on the roof stirring up hollow
+echoes in the room behind her; the fairies danced more and more wildly
+as a sharp shower of hail mixed with the rain-drops. The falling pellets
+stung Flea's legs, and she drew them in, still laughing, drying them
+imperfectly with a blue cotton handkerchief she took from her pocket.
+Sitting further back out of the spray, she doubled her legs under her to
+warm them.
+
+The rain streamed steadily, beating the wind down; the sky darkened
+slowly, with no alternations of lighter glimpses. In happy
+unconsciousness of the lapse of time, Flea waited patiently for the
+"holding-up" that could not be far away.
+
+"When it rains so hard, it doesn't last long," she thought, surprised to
+find herself yawning.
+
+The monotonous patter upon the roof, the dash and drip from the
+unguttered eaves, had made her drowsy. She would take a short nap, and
+find it clear upon awakening. Then there would be a merry tramp through
+the puddles, and pines, and wet old-field broom-straw, to her supper at
+sunset.
+
+She shut the door, went back to her corner, and stretched herself upon a
+bench, putting the bulky Shakespeare under her head for a pillow.
+
+"What rich and strange dreams I ought to have!" she murmured; shut her
+eyes and took up the examination-day scene where she had left it off.
+
+Yes, that would be just the right thing to say. She must speak
+distinctly so that other people would hear it as well as the dear Major,
+who would stand there smiling down at her:
+
+"You do me too--much--honor--I--assure--"
+
+The soughing of the weak gusts in the aspen-boughs, the plashing from
+the eaves, and the thud upon the clap-boarded roof, steady as a
+drum-beat, had made quick work of waking dreams.
+
+An hour went by. The wind shifted to the east and blew the door ajar,
+but the interior was no lighter for the opening. Darkness settled within
+and without the lonely building--a night in which there would be neither
+moon nor star to light the child, should she awake, to attempt the
+measured mile that lay between the school-house and her home.
+
+Before preceding her thither I must try to explain to the young reader
+of this generation what was the social position of an overseer upon a
+Virginia plantation at a time when all the house and field servants were
+negro slaves. The overseer was as white as his employer, but much nearer
+the slave's level, unwilling as he might be to admit it, and his social
+rank suffered accordingly.
+
+The Duncombes were too secure in their position in State, county, and
+neighborhood to be supercilious to inferiors, and too sensible not to
+appreciate the fact that the Grigsbys were most respectable in their
+walk of life. The father was a faithful and valuable official upon the
+great estate which comprised five of the best farms upon the river. Miss
+Emily and Miss Eliza were often at the overseer's house upon one errand
+or another, and sat for half an hour in as friendly chat with Mrs.
+Grigsby as if she had belonged to their visiting-list. Every spring and
+autumn she was sent for from Greenfield to help with the cutting out and
+making up of the clothes for the army of servants, who must be looked
+after and cared for as if they were children. Sometimes Mrs. Grigsby did
+not return to her home for several days, receiving cordial kindness from
+all of the Duncombes.
+
+The night was chilly after the hail-storm, and the rain had not ceased.
+All the children, except Flea, were clustered in "the chamber," where
+was a glow of heat and light.
+
+The fire was getting so hot that Bea pushed her chair and set the
+candle-stand further away from it, and demanded of Calley (short for
+Caledonia) "what she was thinkin' about to let the baby roast his brains
+by crawlin' so close to the hearth!"
+
+"He'll ketch fire, if you don't mind," she added. "Move him to the other
+side of the room."
+
+"Do it yourself," retorted the checks-player. "It's my turn now, an' I
+can't stop for nothin'. One, two, three!"
+
+"We'll see 'bout that, my lady, when ma comes in," said the other, in an
+elder-sisterly tone, and a step in the passage giving notice of the
+threatened "coming," Calley missed the marble she had meant to catch
+upon the back of her hand, and turning over on her side, made a long arm
+to drag the baby by his frock away from the hearth.
+
+Thus suddenly attacked in the rear, the luckless infant lost his balance
+and pitched over upon his forehead. The thump was followed by a terrific
+howl.
+
+"I declar' you children are enough to w'ar anybody's life out of her!"
+exclaimed Mrs. Grigsby, picking up the screaming child and beginning to
+rub his forehead hard with the palm of her hand--"to scatter the
+bruise," she would have said if asked why she did it. "Thar, thar,
+deary! ma's sugar pie! I should 'a' thought some on you might 'a'
+hendered him from ketchin' sech a fall as that. Calley, give me one o'
+them sugar rags to stop his mouth!"
+
+The sugar rags were small squares of old linen or muslin, in which were
+tied up cold boiled rice or stale bread and brown sugar. Each was of the
+shape and size of a marble, and, before it was given to the baby, was
+dipped in milk, or, if milk were not at hand, in water. The smallest
+Grigsby's howl subsided into a queer whine, like that of a choking
+puppy, and this into an intermittent grunt, as his mother trotted him on
+her knee, holding the sugar rag in his mouth all the while.
+
+"I come in to arsk ef any you children has any idea whar your sister
+Flea is," she was saying, when she could talk down the baby. "I've been
+a-callin' of her upsta'rs an' down-sta'rs an' all over the place, an'
+she ain't nowhar to be foun'. Your pa he's gone to the stable to see ef
+she's crawled up inter the hay-lof', or some sech outlandish place, an'
+gone to sleep. That chile's as wild as a hawk. You never know what
+she'll be up to nex'. She'll get los' sure 'nough some o' these days,
+an' then _thar_ it will be!"
+
+"She's got the right name," giggled Bea. "She's jest like a flea--when
+you put your finger on her, she ain't there."
+
+"It's no laughin' matter, I ken tell you, Mr. Dee!" retorted his mother,
+as Dee's snicker answered his sister's giggle. "Well, pa," as her
+husband entered, "any sign o' her?"
+
+Mr. Grigsby, a tall lean man with sandy hair and whiskers, who looked
+and spoke like a person with more sense and far more education than the
+wife he had married fifteen years before for her pretty face and good
+housekeeping, stalked up to the hearth, shaking the wet from his coat
+into the fire, after the manner of a huge water-dog. Dee drew back to
+escape from the flying drops, and Bea put her embroidery behind her.
+Neither ventured to complain. Their father was kind and just to them,
+but he was master in his own house, and not to be trifled with when his
+face was as black as they now saw it. His voice was naturally harsh, and
+he had a touch of the Scotch "burr" in his speech. He spoke roughly and
+angrily:
+
+"Sign of her? No! Things have come to a pretty pass if all of you
+together can't keep the run of one child while I'm off on the plantation
+working like a horse to put bit and sup into your mouths. Chaney tells
+me she saw her go off towards the woods right after dinner, with a book
+under her arm and her knitting in her hand. Have any of you seen her
+since?"
+
+The children looked from one to the other, and then to their mother, who
+looked at them in the same way. Nobody said a word. Mr. Grigsby reached
+up for a lantern that stood on the chimney-piece, opened it, and lighted
+the candle within with a coal taken from the fire with the tongs. He
+snapped to the lantern door, crossed the room in three strides, and in
+another minute was heard outside shouting to Dick to saddle his horse
+and bring him around.
+
+When the horse was ready he whistled up a couple of dogs, and swung
+himself into the saddle. As he did so, a voice called shrilly to him,
+and his wife ran out into the rain, throwing her apron over her head as
+she came.
+
+"Pa! pa! stop!" she panted. "Bea says she's 'most certain Flea's gone to
+see Miss Em'ly. The child's jes distracted after her, you know, an' Bea
+says she was sayin' this mornin' how she'd promised to gether a heap o'
+life-everlastin' for Miss Em'ly to stuff a piller with. Bea says sure's
+you're born thar's whar the run-mad thing has gone to, an' they've kep'
+her all night on 'count o' the rain, Bea says."
+
+Mr. Grigsby's patience and temper were often tried by his children's
+mother. Sometimes he spoke his mind to her. Oftener he did not express
+his feelings in words. They found vent now in a single harsh "Pshaw!" a
+Scotch snort, which she might have divided equally between herself and
+her oracle, Bea. As he blew it out he struck his spur into the horse's
+side and vanished into the rainy darkness, the dogs racing after him.
+
+"I never see your pa more heady'n he is to-night," sighed the mother,
+returning to the waiting group that filled the lighted front door. "He's
+hard's a rock when he's sot upon anything."
+
+The hard head was turned in the direction of Greenfield. The father
+might "pshaw" at Bea's suggestions and her mother's conclusions, but his
+sound sense told him they had given him a likely clew to the whereabouts
+of the missing child. If she had carried what he named in his
+displeasure "old-field trash" to "the house," she would have been
+detained there by the storm. Miss Emily made a pet of the lassie, and
+they might take it for granted that her family knew where she was. She
+got caught in a snow-storm up there last winter, and Miss Emily would
+not let her go home for three days. The idea became more and more
+plausible as he pushed on, the dogs at his heels, his big umbrella over
+his head. By the time the lights of the great house on the hill
+glimmered through the straight lines of rain, he was quite sure he
+should find his daughter under that safe shelter.
+
+He rode to the stable and put his horse under cover, then made his way
+to the front door. It stood wide open, and so did that of the
+drawing-room, the broad red light flashing out into the hall telling
+that a fire had been kindled there.
+
+A burst of music from the drawing-room arrested Mr. Grigsby's hand as he
+raised it to the knocker. Miss Emily and Miss Eliza were singing at the
+piano, and a man's voice joined in with theirs. The listener's knowledge
+of music was slight, but he had a good ear, and he knew that the
+unfamiliar voice was remarkably fine. It was strong and clear and sweet,
+and each word was articulated distinctly. The three were singing one of
+Moore's melodies arranged as a fugue, or, as unmusical people used to
+call it, "a chasing tune."
+
+  "Meet me by moonlight alo-o-o-ne,"
+
+sang Miss Emily's small voice, as tunefully as a bobolink. And while she
+went on with
+
+  "And then I will tell thee a tale,"
+
+Miss Eliza took up "Meet me by moonlight alone."
+
+Before they could begin the second verse Mr. Grigsby let the knocker
+fall smartly, and Major Duncombe himself came out into the hall.
+
+"Ah, Mr. Grigsby!" he said, cordially, but looking surprised.
+"Good-evening. Walk in. Nothing the matter, I hope?"
+
+"I hope not, sir. But I was in hope of finding my little girl here.
+Fl--Felicia, my second daughter. She has not come home, and I thought
+she might have come up here on some errand or other, and been kept by
+the rain."
+
+In the hush that followed his knock what he said was heard plainly in
+the drawing-room, and all the home party, headed by Miss Emily, now
+appeared, questioning and anxious.
+
+Miss Emily flew up to the overseer, her blue eyes large, her red lips
+apart. She was out of breath and quite pale with alarm.
+
+[Illustration: "WON'T YOU ALL GO RIGHT OFF AND LOOK FOR HER?"]
+
+"What _did_ you say, Mr. Grigsby? _Is_ my little scholar lost? She isn't
+here. She hasn't been here all day--no, not for a _week_ and more. Oh,
+the _poor_ little dear! I _hope_ nothing has happened to her. Won't you
+_all_ go right off and look for her?"
+
+She wrung her tiny white hands, and turned, first to her father, then to
+her grown brother, and lastly to Mr. Tayloe, who was nearest to her.
+"Can't _I_ go too?" she pleaded, and her eyes had real tears of real
+distress in them. A little more and she would be crying outright.
+
+Three or four people began to speak all at once, but Mr. Tayloe's voice
+arose above the rest.
+
+"Isn't that the child we saw at the school-house to-day, Major? We left
+her there at half past three, Mr. Grigsby. She must have been caught
+there by the rain."
+
+In some way which nobody could have explained his cool, matter-of-fact
+manner was like a wet blanket upon the excitement caused by the news of
+the child's disappearance. Even Mr. Grigsby felt for an instant that
+much ado had been made over a very little matter. Miss Emily tittered
+nervously.
+
+"How _very_ clever in you to recollect it, Mr. Tayloe!" gazing
+gratefully at him. "_Please_, papa, order ever so many of the men to go
+right _straight_ after her with lights and blankets and hot coffee and
+things, and bring her _right_ here. I can find some dry clothes for her,
+and she can sleep in my room, and--"
+
+"That will do, Emily," said her father, quietly. "Joe"--to the colored
+footman who had been summoned by the knocker--"tell Jack and Emmanuel to
+get lightwood knots, and Cæsar to have my gig ready at once. Mr.
+Grigsby, I will go with you. As Mr. Tayloe suggests, we shall probably
+find the child at the school-house."
+
+Mr. Grigsby's eyes and ears were quick. He was near enough to Miss Emily
+to overhear her say in an undertone to Mr. Tayloe:
+
+"Won't you go, too, _please_? It will be a _real_ favor to me."
+
+The overseer faced her abruptly. "Excuse me, Miss Emily, but I hope you
+won't persuade Mr. Tayloe to go out this wet night. There is no need
+whatever for him to do it. Indeed, Major Duncombe, if you will kindly
+let one of the hands go along with a lightwood torch, it is all I could
+ask. I am very sorry to cause such a disturbance."
+
+"I shall go, if Major Duncombe will allow me, because it is Miss
+Duncombe's desire," said Mr. Tayloe, stiffly.
+
+It would be foolish and useless to discuss the matter further. The canny
+Scotchman knew the impropriety of disputing with one who was now a
+member of his employer's family. With a brief "good-night" to the
+ladies, he went off to get his horse.
+
+[TO BE CONTINUED.]
+
+
+
+
+FROM CHUM TO CHUM.
+
+BY GASTON V. DRAKE.
+
+IX.--FROM BOB TO JACK.
+
+
+  LONDON, _July_ --, 189-.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+DEAR JACK,--Pop wants me to keep a dairy of this trip, and I told him I
+would, but it takes an awful pile of time to do it and write letters
+home too, so it's come down to this: Either you've got to keep these
+letters I'm writing to you, and let me have 'em type-written when I get
+back, or I've got to keep the dairy, and if I keep the dairy you don't
+get any more letters. I'll keep on writing until you let me know what
+you're going to do about it, because I guess maybe you'll say all right,
+go ahead. I don't see much sense in keeping dairys, but Pop says that
+boys that go abroad ought to, because they see lots and lots of things
+they never saw before and ought to remember. "What's the matter with
+remembering them?" said I, and he said: "Oh, you can't. Once there was a
+man who really remembered all he saw and heard, and when he got to be an
+old man his memory held so much it bulged his head out, and he had to
+have his hats built for him at ruinous expence."
+
+Speaking of expence reminds me. The money they have over here is fine.
+My allowance when I'm home is ten cents a week, and over here Pop gives
+me sixpence. It's a clear gain of two cents a week, and I'm mighty glad
+I wasn't getting a quarter a week, because then Pop says he'd have made
+it a shilling, and I'd have lost a cent every week, because a shilling's
+only worth twenty-four cents. I hate to spend my allowance here though.
+I don't wonder English people get awful rich. It's easier to save than
+it is at home because over here when you spend money you feel as if you
+were spending your collection of coins, which you don't like to do. I've
+spent two bully coins already. One of 'em had George the Third's head on
+it, and the other was a Queen's Jubylee sixpence.
+
+There's other money too, and lots of gold in sight. The five-dollar gold
+piece and the Queen all go by the same name, the sovereign, though some
+people call it the pound so as to extinguish it from the Queen. I
+haven't seen her yet, and I don't know as I want to. They say she wears
+bonnets just like all other women, and doesn't go round with regal
+things on at all. I don't see what fun there is in seeing a Queen if she
+don't carry a wand in her hand and wear a crown on her head.
+
+There's lots of nonsense in the pictures we've seen of these royal
+personages anyhow. The other day when Pop and I were coming home from
+the bank in a handsome cab we passed a carriage with the Prince of
+Whales in it. He's going to be King some day if he has luck and he
+didn't look any more like a Prince than Sandboys. I've seen Sandboys
+look a great sight more hortier than he did, and as for the feathers
+he's always said to wear he didn't have a feather about him. I guess
+we've got Indians at home that can give him points on feathers and not
+half try.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+But I tell you you can tell Americans every time even if you can't tell
+a Prince or a Duke from a hotel-keeper. I was sitting in the office the
+other day looking at the hotel elevator. They have two of 'em in every
+hotel because one of 'em seems to be out of order, and a lady came up to
+me and said she guessed from my spockling black eyes I was a little
+Italian boy, and I said "Nit," and then she knew right away that I was
+one of those bad American boys without any manners, but I didn't care
+and I mayn't have good manners, but I don't wear a beaver hat the way
+her boy did. It's the funniest thing you ever saw how the kids over here
+go into beavers as soon as they cut their teeth, and sailor collars. I
+thought I'd die when I saw that lady's son get into the elevator with
+his beaver and sailor collar on and a little coat that Pop says is
+called a Eatin' jacket that stops at his waist so's to make it handy to
+spank him. I found out afterwards though that he was a great sight
+better than he looked. When his Ma said my manners was bad he sort of
+looked up in the air and winked at the roof of the elevator and I had it
+in for him when I met him alone in the hall. I thought he'd be easy but
+he wasn't. I knocked his hat off but I had to stop there because while
+he had good manners enough when his mother was around he didn't have any
+when he was alone in the hall with me and I tell you we had a time of it
+until Pop came along and pulled us apart. There wasn't much damage done
+except to his beaver hat and we made it up afterwards and I sort of like
+him next to you. When he heard that I'd saved up and had almost three
+shillings he told me about a fine place near the hotel where they had
+tarts for sale and my what a gorge we did have on buns.
+
+Since I wrote you about the town we've seen quite a lot of things but
+I've been kind of disappointed in 'em. We went to the British Museum the
+other day and I expected to see walruses and British Lions and John
+Bulls and unicorns and things like that but they didn't have anything
+worth looking at except mummies. There was some Elgin marbles Pop was
+anxious to see and I wanted to see 'em too because I'm fond of marbles
+but when we came to them they weren't our kind of marbles at all, only
+statchuary and great big slabs of figures with broken noses and things
+like that. There wasn't a thing in the whole place to compare with the
+circus museums we have at home except the mummies and they were fine,
+though there wasn't a live one in the place. We saw the mummy of
+Cleopatra who used to be the Queen of Egypt about a million years ago,
+and I must say if she looked like that I'm glad I wasn't alive then.
+Bogie men aren't in it with people like Cleopatra. She was a fearful
+looking lady but it was fun looking at her mummy and thinking how she'd
+been a Queen once and now wasn't anything but a side show to a museum.
+It sort of makes you satisfied to be a plain American with nothing ahead
+of you but being President when you think how the Kings and Queens of
+those times weren't allowed to keep quiet in their sarcophaguses, as
+they call the boxes mummies are buried in, but have to be trotted out to
+amuse people. Pop says it's an outrage to disturb a lady like that and I
+agree with him. I'd hate like anything to be hauled out for a museum a
+thousand years from now and have people look at me and say O my. That
+Bob Drake! I thought he was a better looking boy than that. But after
+all it's the only kind of circus these English boys have and I suppose
+it's better than none. Pop says they don't know what a three ringed
+circus is over here and I'm sorry for them, though I must say the
+circuses home in New York every year are making me cross-eyed trying to
+see all that is going on at once.
+
+To-morrow we're going out to the Zoo, and next time I write to you I
+hope to tell you all about it. Somehow or other I expect great things
+from the Zoo, but I'm afraid that after we get there we'll find that it
+isn't a bit like the Zoos we are used to. It'll probably be made up of a
+lot of books and old pictures instead of interesting things like
+monkeys.
+
+  Yours ever,
+  BOB.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]
+
+
+The seventh annual in-door games of the New England Interscholastic
+Athletic Association, under the auspices of the Boston Athletic
+Association, were held a week ago Saturday in Mechanics' Hall, Boston.
+The games were very interesting and exciting, and unusually well
+contested. About three hundred personal entries were had from schools
+scattered throughout Massachusetts and other New England States, and
+fully 4000 people were present as spectators. This is a record both for
+competitors and spectators which no scholastic meeting in this city has
+ever approached.
+
+It was evident from the outset that the race for points was to be close.
+Four schools--English High, Hopkinson's, Worcester High, and Worcester
+Academy--were out in earnest for the big championship shield, but
+English High succeeded in carrying off the shield by one point, getting
+17-3/5 points to Worcester Academy's 16-3/5.
+
+[Illustration: M. C. O'BRIEN.]
+
+Three new records were made, one was equalled, and one established.
+O'Brien, E. H.-S., put the 16-pound shot 37 feet 3-1/2 inches, which is
+7-1/2 inches better than his performance of 1895; and Mills of Berkeley
+took one-fifth of a second off the record for the 1000-yard run. The
+chief record-breaker, however, was W. M. Robinson, of Worcester Academy.
+He ran in the 40 and 300 yard distances, and won both. In the first
+event he ran three heats in record time, 4-4/5 sec., which is within
+one-fifth of a second of the world's record. In the longer distance he
+lowered W. D. Fuller's record of last year by one second, the new time
+being 35-1/5 sec. This young man will surely be heard from when he gets
+into college.
+
+INTERSCHOLASTIC IN-DOOR GAMES OF THE B. A. A., MARCH 21, 1896.
+
+  Event.                 Performance.       Winner.
+  40-yard dash                 4-4/5 sec.  W. M. Robinson, Worcester
+                                             Academy.
+  300-yard run                 35-1/5 "    W. M. Robinson, Worcester
+                                             Academy
+  600-yard run           1 m.  27-1/5 "    R. F. Hanson, English
+                                             High-School.
+  1000-yard run          2 "   33     "    E. W. Mills, Berkeley.
+  45-yard low hurdles           5-4/5 "    R. C. Seaver, Brookline
+                                             High-School.
+  Half-mile walk         3 "   33-3/5 "    A. L. O'Toole, English
+                                             High-School.
+  Running high jump      5 ft.  6    in.   A. N. Rice, Noble's.
+  Pole vault             9   " 10     "    B. Johnson, Worcester
+                                             Academy.
+  Putting 16-lb. shot   37 "    3-1/2 "    M. C. O'Brien, English
+                                             High-School.
+
+Table of Points[2]
+
+                      Firsts.  Seconds.   Thirds.   Total.
+  English High          3         1/5      2-1/5    17-3/5
+  Worcester Academy     3         1/5      1-1/5    16-3/5
+  Hopkinson                     2-1/5      1-1/5     5-3/5
+  Noble's               1         1/5        1/5     5-3/5
+  Worcester High                2          1         5
+  Berkeley              1                            5
+  Brookline             1                            5
+  Phillips Andover              1-1/5      1-1/5     3-3/5
+  Cambridge H. and L.           1          1         3
+  Cushing Academy               1                    2
+  Chauncy Hall                  1                    2
+  Medford High                             1         1
+
+[2] Firsts count 5; seconds, 2; thirds, 1.
+
+The games opened with the 40-yard dash. Contrary to custom, the second
+men in the preliminary heats were to be given a chance in the
+semi-finals. Perhaps this accounted for the unusual amount of spirit
+shown. Four men equalled the record, 4-4/5 seconds, and Robinson of
+Worcester Academy did it three times. It looked as though the record
+would have to break in the final heat, with so many fliers, and every
+one was standing up to see it done, for that is the only record that has
+not been broken since the games were instituted, and to lower it by a
+fifth meant to equal the world's record. The six sprinters got off
+together, and kept well bunched all the way, except Robinson, who
+sneaked ahead at the 20-yard mark, and finished two yards in front of
+the field.
+
+A double line of competitors took their places to start in the 1000-yard
+run. It was seven times around the track to the finish, but the racing
+began at the crack of the pistol. George Dow took the pole, with E. W.
+Mills, of Berkeley School, and W. F. Porter, of Chauncy Hall, close
+behind, and D. T. Sullivan, of Worcester High, running fifth or sixth.
+On the third lap Mills and Porter both passed Dow, and Sullivan, who had
+been playing a waiting game, dropped out with a broken shoe-lace. This
+was a severe blow to the chances of Worcester High, who has held the
+championship shield for two years. There was apparently some
+understanding between Mills and Porter, for when they once got in front
+of Dow they ran side by side, and thereby easily kept him behind. At the
+last turn Mills and Porter made a dash for the tape, and Mills got there
+first by a scant six inches, taking one-fifth of a second off the
+record. Dow made third, with the rest twenty yards behind.
+
+When Delaney was debarred from the walk, O'Toole was looked upon as a
+sure winner. At the crack of the pistol he, with Rudickhauser and Mohan,
+all three for E.H.-S., started to the front. They profited by the
+example of Mills and Porter, and kept all spurters well behind them. On
+the last lap, however, Mohan and Rudickhauser were both ruled off, and
+then A. Lockwood, of Worcester Academy, who had been trying for three
+minutes to get by the bunch, worked himself abreast of O'Toole, and
+furnished a most exciting finish. It would have been a dead heat except
+that Lockwood broke into a run in almost his last step. He was ruled
+out, as was Malletts of Boston Latin, who had been at his heels
+throughout the race. Then G. Thacher, of Hopkinson, crossed the line,
+and was very much surprised to learn that he was second.
+
+About this time excitement began to show itself in the English High and
+Worcester Academy sections. Worcester had 6 points, and English High 5,
+with Worcester High out of the reckoning. English High was sure of the
+shot, and Worcester was sure of the pole vault; while the 300 and 600
+were in grave doubt, and the hurdles and high jump were conceded to
+other schools.
+
+The 300-yard trials were run next, and the final of that event furnished
+the best race of the day. It was another case of Carleton _vs._
+Robinson. Robinson had the advantage of position on the scratch, and
+took the pole. At every turn it seemed as if Carleton would pass him,
+but each time Robinson spurted just a little more, and held the place.
+At the last corner Carleton made a grand attempt to pull out first
+place, but Robinson held his own, and broke the tape a foot ahead of
+Carleton, and also broke Carleton's newly made record, establishing a
+new one of 35-1/5 seconds--a record that Wefers might find hard to smash
+on a similar track.
+
+The first heat of the 600 was an easy race. W. Dadnum, of Worcester
+High, was first, J. J. Purtell, English High's crack, a leisurely
+second, and C. Boyle, of Worcester High, third. Albertson of Worcester
+High, who won the event last year, followed Purtell's example, and just
+jogged around until the last lap, when he moved up to second, J. H.
+Hartwell, of the other Worcester school, leading. But on the last lap
+two other boys moved up too--R. F. Hanson, of English High, and Mills,
+who had won the 1000. Just at the last turn they both slipped by the
+napping Albertson, who awoke to the fact that he had not qualified for
+the final. This was the third first place that Worcester High had
+counted on which had slipped through her fingers. Another waiter was
+W. A. Applegate, of Cambridge High, in the third heat. He ran sixth
+until the last lap, and then, as if he had just realized that he was in
+a race, tore round the corners, and pulled down the field, and finished
+first. Burdan of Newton was second, and Cook of Chelsea third. With
+Albertson out of the final, it looked like an easy thing for Purtell.
+But there was a big spill in the first lap. Hartwell, who was leading,
+fell on the third corner. Purtell, Dadnum, and Burdan fell with him.
+Hanson and Boyle dodged the heap, but Applegate, who was waiting again,
+wasn't affected by it. Boyle was leading now, twenty yards ahead of
+Hanson. Hanson realized that for his school to get the shield this race
+must be won. Slowly but surely he overhauled Boyle, and at the last turn
+dove forward and came in ahead. Meanwhile Applegate was tearing through
+the crowd with one of his thrilling finishes, and made third place.
+Hanson's work was the pluckiest of the day.
+
+[Illustration: R. C. SEAVER.]
+
+In the 45-yard low-hurdle race Chauncy Seaver, of Brookline High-School,
+was expected to win with ease, and he did not disappoint his friends,
+although pushed hard in the final by Mason of Worcester High. As the
+45-yard hurdle race over three hurdles 2 feet 6 inches high had never
+been run before, Seaver was credited with the record of 5-4/5 sec. Last
+year a record of 6 sec. was made for the distance over four hurdles 2
+feet 6 inches high. A. N. Rice had no trouble in winning the jump with a
+height of 5 feet 6 inches. Five men tied for second at 5 feet 4 inches,
+drew for the cups, and divided the points. In the weight event M. C.
+O'Brien put the 16-pound shot nearly five feet farther than his nearest
+competitor.
+
+The last events of the programme were the team races, the teams being
+composed of four men each, one of whom ran 390 yards. In the relay race
+between Worcester High and Worcester Academy the latter's team won,
+doing the distance in 3 min. 20-4/5 sec, which has never been equalled
+before.
+
+The Englewood High and Hyde Park schools' dual in-door athletic meeting,
+in the University of Chicago's gymnasium, resulted in an overwhelming
+victory for the former, the score being 70 to 27. The figures were not
+quite up to the standard of Eastern performances, but some of the
+records are creditable. I give the winners only: 35-yard run--Trude,
+Hyde Park High-School, 4-3/5 sec.; half-mile run--Teetzle, E.H.-S., 2
+min. 15-4/5 sec.; 1-mile run--Hodgman, E.H.-S., 5 min. 12-3/5 sec.;
+35-yard hurdle race--Teetzle, E.H.-S., 5-2/5 sec.; half-mile
+walk--Parker, H.P.H.-S., 3 min. 50 sec.; running high jump--Thayer,
+E.H.-S., 5 ft. 2-3/5 in.; standing broad jump--Flacken, E.H.-S., 9 ft. 7
+in.; running broad jump--Teetzle, E.H.-S., 19 ft. 7 in.; pole vault--H.
+Boyce, H.P.H.-S., 8 ft. 6 in.; putting 12-lb. shot--Flacken, E.H.-S., 36
+ft. 11-1/2 in. The sixteen-lap relay race was the most exciting event on
+the programme, and went to Englewood, the time being 4 min. 51 sec.
+Eight men from each school took part, running in pairs for relays of two
+laps.
+
+Interest in track athletics seems to be developing very rapidly in the
+West, if we may judge from the formation of new leagues and athletic
+associations. What ought to prove an exceedingly important
+interscholastic organization has just been started by the schools of St.
+Paul and Minneapolis. It is called the Twin City Dual Interscholastic
+League, and its first field-meeting will be held at the Hamline Fair
+Grounds, May 29th. The events selected for the card are the 100-yard
+dash, pole vault, one-mile run, 120-yard hurdle, putting shot, one-mile
+bicycle, running high jump, half-mile run, throwing hammer, running
+broad jump, standing high jump, standing broad jump, 220-yard hurdle,
+440-yard dash, and 220-yard dash. The first place in each event will
+count six points, the second three, and the third one. The school
+winning the highest number of points will earn a cup, and if it succeeds
+in holding it for three years it will keep the trophy.
+
+I want to enter my usual protest against this list of events, because it
+contains such absurd features as the standing jumps, and because,
+apparently for no especial reason, six points are awarded to winners of
+first place, instead of five points. After very careful calculations,
+and after many years of experience, athletes and managers best qualified
+to determine such questions have decided that five points for first
+place and one point for third place make the closest ratio and the most
+just. For second place the figures are still in dispute. The colleges
+have adopted two, but many school associations believe that three points
+show a closer relation between first and second, admitting at the same
+time, however, that the ratio of three to one is not a fair one as
+between second and third.
+
+It is a difficult problem to settle; difficult and complicated enough
+without having new associations coming along with new ratios. Therefore
+I think that if the managers of the new Twin City League will ponder
+over this situation for even a short time they will realize that if for
+the sake of uniformity only it will be well for them to bring their
+highest mark down to five points. As for the figure for second honors, I
+am personally in favor of two points. For one reason, I believe that the
+college athletes who adopted the 5-2-1 ratio did so after considerable
+study of the situation, and possibly brought statistics and mathematics
+into the discussion to help them.
+
+Before the point system was in vogue, the method at the Mott Haven games
+was to reckon results by firsts and seconds. Thus if Yale had four
+firsts and no seconds while Harvard had one first and eight seconds,
+Yale won, of course. By points (5-2-1) the score would have been in
+Harvard's favor 21 to 20; or if the ratio were 5-3-1 it would have been
+29 to 20! Third place was not counted unless there was a tie on firsts
+and seconds; and seconds, it is evident, were only desirable in case of
+a tie on firsts, for then the college with the most second-place winners
+won the day.
+
+No combination of firsts and seconds such as I have just suggested ever
+came about, so far as I know; but it was figured that if any such result
+ever did come about, there would be dissatisfaction in the aggregation
+that took the large number of second places. It was admitted by all
+that such a team--as a team--would represent a higher standard of
+efficiency and development; and as the contests at Mott Haven or the
+Berkeley Oval are contests among teams, and not among individuals, it
+was decided that a more equable method of adjusting the score that
+settles the victory must be invented. The point system was then
+proposed, and those who undertook to discover what the ratio is between
+athletes in competition, so as to show in figures the relative value of
+one position to another in the order that the mathematical sum should
+demonstrate the respective merit of each team as a body, decided that
+this ratio was as five is to two and as two is to one. Their solution
+may be incorrect, but it is the closest yet offered, and ought to be
+accepted wherever points are used in scoring.
+
+  THE GRADUATE.
+
+
+
+
+THE PUDDING STICK.
+
+     This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
+     Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the
+     subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor.
+
+
+I was finishing my last talk to you, when who should walk in but one of
+the very mothers about whom I was writing. She is a darling, this old
+schoolmate and friend of mine, but she is just now rather depressed in
+her mind, and a good deal out of health, and this makes her fussy and
+fidgety. She was very much interested in the talk about chaperonage, and
+declared that she never allowed her Elsie, or her Jack or Dick either,
+to go anywhere unaccompanied by an older person. "The boys agree with
+me," she said, "that they have a better time when Cousin Molly goes
+along than they possibly could have without her. As for me," she sighed,
+"I am getting to be so nervous and melancholy that I am a kill-joy, and
+I stay in my room even when we have guests at home."
+
+In there came, with rosy cheeks and flying ribbons and the prettiest
+eyes in the room, my friend's daughter Katharine. "Now," said
+Katharine--and as she spoke the spring sunshine and the spring fragrance
+seemed to fill the room, needing not the great bunch of daffodils she
+laid upon my lap to give me a realization that spring was really
+here--"I've planned everything; papa has given me the money, and you,
+dear auntie, must flourish your pudding stick over mamma's head till she
+consents to go away for a trip. Mamma needs a change. We girls are
+giving up our new spring gowns, and making our old ones over, for this
+has been a bad year in business, in papa's line at least, and we must
+economize. Our gift is to fit the dear lady out becomingly. The rest of
+the money will pay for her tickets, and we want her to go to Cousin
+Kitty's, away off in Vermont, and be a girl again." Katharine poured
+this out in a torrent, hardly pausing for breath. Her color came and
+went; she was earnest and eloquent. I listened, and softly clapped my
+hands.
+
+I looked at the elder Katharine. Mamma's eyes were shining. There was a
+far-away look in them, as of one who was remembering pleasant times and
+scenes. "To be a girl again!" she whispered.
+
+"You will go, won't you, dear?" I asked, anxiously.
+
+She hesitated a second, and then said, "Yes, if you all wish it so very
+much, I will take a vacation, and perhaps I'll come back very much more
+like myself. I owe something to daughters who are so dear and loving,
+and I _am_ tired."
+
+We didn't dwell on the subject any longer then. On the contrary, we
+spoke of Katharine's hat, and of the pretty and sensible fashion girls
+have adopted of removing their hats in public places, where the great
+plumed things are in the way of people's eyes. It is so easy to take off
+one's hat and hold it, and the girls' bright heads look so homelike and
+attractive that one is very glad for the march which common sense and
+good manners have made side by side.
+
+  MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: HARTFORD TIRES]
+
+
+
+
+Arnold
+
+Constable & Co
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_SPRING STYLES AND DESIGNS._
+
+Suits & Wraps
+
+Ladies' Walking-Dresses.
+
+Tailor-Made Suits.
+
+Top Coats, Capes.
+
+_Paris styles in fancy Silk Gowns, Batiste and Grenadine Waists, Silk
+Skirts, Wraps, and Garments._
+
+_Orders for Easter Gowns and Spring Suits will receive prompt
+attention._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Broadway & 19th st.
+
+NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THOMPSON'S EYEWATER]
+
+
+
+
+Absolutely Pure.
+
+[Illustration: ROYAL BAKING POWDER]
+
+The
+
+Careful
+
+Housewife
+
+will use
+
+no other.
+
+ROYAL BAKING POWDER CO., 108 WALL ST., NEW-YORK.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration]
+
+  Little Bo Peep (she fixed her sheep
+    So fate could not abuse them--)
+  Stuck Cupid Hair Pins in their tails,
+    And then they couldn't lose them.
+
+It's in the TWIST.
+
+RICHARDSON & DELONG BROS., Philadelphia, Pa.
+
+Makers of the famous DELONG Hook and Eye.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+PRINTING OUTFIT 10c.
+
+Sets any name in one minute; prints 500 cards an hour. You can make
+money with it. A font of pretty type, also Indelible Ink, Type Holder,
+Pads and Tweezers. Best Linen Marker; worth $1.00. Mailed for 10c.
+stamps for postage on outfit and catalogue of 1000 bargains. Same outfit
+with figures 15c. Outfit for printing two lines 25c. postpaid.
+
+Ingersoll & Bro., Dept. No. 123. 65 Cortlandt St., New York.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: BICYCLING]
+
+     This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the
+     Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our
+     maps and tours contain much valuable data kindly supplied from the
+     official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen.
+     Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L.A.W., the
+     Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership
+     blanks and information so far as possible.
+
+
+[Illustration: Copyright, 1896, by Harper & Brothers.]
+
+Continuing the trip from Albany to Buffalo, we leave Utica in the
+morning, and proceed by what is called the old turnpike to New Hartford.
+The road is moderately level, but is sandy in places, and when out of
+the village limits the rider will, of course, take to the side path.
+Passing through New Hartford, and taking the right fork at the western
+extremity of the town, run on to Kirkland through Middle Settlement, a
+distance of five and a quarter miles. Here the road for the first three
+miles is moderately good, and there is a cinder side path for part of
+the distance. Between Middle Settlement and Kirkland it becomes a little
+more hilly, and the road changes to loam.
+
+Running westward through Kirkland, proceed by the main turnpike to
+Vernon, passing through Lairdsville, a distance altogether of eight and
+a quarter miles. At Vernon do not cross the track, but keep on on the
+left side, running through Oneida Castle direct into Oneida by crossing
+the track, or if you intend to keep straight on do not cross the track,
+but proceed direct to Canastota, six and a half miles from Oneida
+Castle. Here it is possible to keep straight on to Chittenango, but the
+road will be found far better if the track is crossed at Canastota and
+the route as marked on the accompanying map followed, as in this way one
+or two hills are avoided. Chittenango is a good place to stop for an
+hour's rest if you have not already stopped at Oneida or at Canastota;
+but perhaps, if the trip is to be spread over a whole day, Canastota is
+the best place to stop for dinner. Leaving Chittenango, the road runs
+direct to Fayetteville, eight miles from Chittenango, and thence runs
+into Syracuse, passing through DeWitt. The last part of the way the
+roads are rather hilly, or what is called rolling. They are in
+reasonably good condition, the road-bed being of loam and gravel. On
+entering Syracuse you will find yourself on East Avenue. Proceed along
+this to East Genesee Street and to the Globe Hotel.
+
+By referring to the map you will find that on the secondary or fair
+bicycle roads many a side trip can be made, and the map will prove of
+use to persons who may not have the Albany-Buffalo trip in mind
+particularly. For example, the route is clear from Utica to Rome,
+running through Whitesboro and Oriskany. In like manner it is easy,
+though by a somewhat roundabout route, to get to Cazenovia. The road
+running direct from Chittenango to Cazenovia is not a good one, and is
+hilly. It will pay the rider, especially if he has time, to proceed to
+Fayetteville, and then run down to Cazenovia, following the railroad on
+the route marked on the map. A pleasant variation of the ride would be
+to cross the railroad after leaving Oneida Castle, run through Oneida,
+and follow the fair bicycle road out to South Bay, running along the
+edge of the lake through Bridgeport, thence turning southward, passing
+through Manlius, and reaching the main route at Fayetteville again.
+
+     NOTE.--Map of New York city asphalted streets in No. 809. Map of
+     route from New York to Tarrytown in No. 810. New York to Stamford,
+     Connecticut in No. 811. New York to Staten Island in No. 812. New
+     Jersey from Hoboken to Pine Brook in No. 813. Brooklyn in No. 814.
+     Brooklyn to Babylon in No. 815. Brooklyn to Northport in No. 816.
+     Tarrytown to Poughkeepsie in No. 817. Poughkeepsie to Hudson in No.
+     818. Hudson to Albany in No. 819. Tottenville to Trenton in No.
+     820. Trenton to Philadelphia in No. 821. Philadelphia in No. 822.
+     Philadelphia-Wissahickon Route in No. 823. Philadelphia to West
+     Chester in No. 824. Philadelphia to Atlantic City--First Stage in
+     No. 825; Second Stage in No. 826. Philadelphia to Vineland--First
+     Stage in No. 827; Second Stage in No. 828. New York to
+     Boston--Second Stage in No. 829; Third Stage in No. 830; Fourth
+     Stage in No. 831; Fifth Stage in No. 832; Sixth Stage in No. 833.
+     Boston to Concord in No. 834. Boston in No. 835. Boston to
+     Gloucester in No. 836. Boston to Newburyport in No. 837. Boston to
+     New Bedford in No. 838. Boston to South Framingham in No. 839.
+     Boston to Nahant in No. 840. Boston to Lowell in No. 841. Boston to
+     Nantasket Beach in No. 842. Boston Circuit Ride in No. 843.
+     Philadelphia to Washington--First Stage in No. 844; Second Stage in
+     No. 845; Third Stage in No. 846; Fourth Stage in No. 847; Fifth
+     Stage in No. 848. City of Washington in No. 849. City of Albany in
+     No. 854; Albany to Fonda in No. 855; Fonda to Utica in No. 856.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: STAMPS]
+
+     This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin
+     collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question
+     on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address
+     Editor Stamp Department.
+
+
+I am frequently asked by Round Table correspondents whether it would be
+a good speculation to buy the lower values of the Columbian issue, which
+are still on sale at many post-offices. I always answer No! for any
+values less than the 50c. All the dealers and speculators and a large
+number of collectors have loaded themselves down with these stamps.
+However great the demand, the supply will be ample. Everybody is alive
+to the value of stamps to-day, but eight years ago it was quite
+different. _Then_ was the time to buy; but how few availed themselves of
+the opportunity. Compare the prices of to-day with those of 1888:
+
+                                   1888.     1896.
+  Set State Department, unused,   $49.50   $287.00
+   "  Exec.      "        "         6.00     49.00
+   "  Navy       "        "         5.00     40.00
+   "  Agri.      "        "         3.50     27.65
+   "  1870 Grille,        "        21.30    216.00
+  1861 3c. Pink,          "          .25     25.00
+  1869 Set,               "         9.95     87.85
+  1870 12c. Grille,       "         2.50     75.00
+   "   24c.   "           "         5.00    100.00
+
+Not only U.S. stamps, but the higher value stamps of almost every other
+country have advanced in similar ratio. It is the old story over
+again--"Buy when every one wants to sell, and sell when every one wants
+to buy." It sounds as easy as "Buy cheap and sell dear"; but how hard it
+is in practice.
+
+     R. PARHAM.--No premium.
+
+     EDITH F. MORRIS, 95 Third Avenue, New York city, wishes to exchange
+     stamps.
+
+     O. T. ALDRICH.--The editor of this Department is not a dealer in
+     either stamps or coins.
+
+     E. HILL.--It is impossible to give any general rule for the
+     detection of the thousands of different counterfeits. In general
+     terms it may be said that to-day only the valuable stamps are
+     counterfeited. Formerly (1862 to 1880) even common stamps were
+     counterfeited. My advice to young collectors is not to buy valuable
+     stamps from irresponsible persons. Go to a responsible dealer for
+     this class of stamps. Some counterfeits are so well made that only
+     an expert can detect them.
+
+     E. L. SNYDER.--The prices quoted are those at which you can buy
+     from dealers.
+
+     C. H. PECK.--The 5c. 1847 U.S. is worth 70c.
+
+     G. S. VAN SCHAICK.--There are no grilled U.S. post-cards.
+
+     A. D. F.--No premium on the coins mentioned.
+
+     E. C. WOOD.--Adhesive U. S. Revenues were first used in 1862.
+     Periodical stamps have usually come over from Europe. See ROUND
+     TABLE, March 10, 1896.
+
+     CLARENCE G. MICHAELIS, 3 North Twenty-first Street, East Orange,
+     N.J., wishes to exchange stamps.
+
+     J. S. GREEN.--The Japanese stamp is still in use. The colonial and
+     continental money are still plentiful, and can be bought in most
+     instances for 10c. or 15c. each.
+
+     R. Q. P.--The stamps described are Revenue stamps.
+
+     C. S. POMEROY.--There are three minute varieties of the 3c. green
+     U.S. There are three varieties in the triangles of the present
+     stamps. See ROUND TABLE, May 14, 1895.
+
+     F. H. CULBERTSON.--The U. S. currency 3c. to 50c. can be bought at
+     double face. Circulated or crumpled copies are worth face only.
+
+     T. EBAUGH.--I cannot repeat prices on lists of U.S. coins. See
+     ROUND TABLE for December 17, 1895, and January 14, 1896. English
+     coins are not collected in this country. The stamp is a French
+     revenue. No value. The coin is Spanish, worth 25c.
+
+     MAX BECKER.--"Post Obitum" U.S. stamp of 1877 is worth $4. Grilled
+     stamps are those stamps bearing an impression in blank stamp which
+     is designed to cut the fibre of the paper, such as the 1868 U.S.,
+     the Peruvian 1874, etc. Stamps issued by a province of a State are
+     called "provincial issues."
+
+     E. L.--Spanish coin worth its weight in silver only.
+
+     N. D. HOLLER.--The Peru is an envelope stamp cut square. The Mexico
+     is a seal, not a stamp.
+
+     M. ELSBERG.--The Buda-Pesth post-cards are good for postage only
+     when printed on the regular government post-cards.
+
+     C. BECKLY.--Your coin is Grecian, over 2000 years old. It is
+     common. The blackness is caused by oxydization or rust.
+
+     A. L. GREENE.--Nevada 5c. stamp is worth 25c.
+
+     H. W. F.--There is no 6c. 1858 Canada. If you mean sixpence, it is
+     worth $5. The U.S. stamps are worth from 8c. to 50c. apiece. We do
+     not give addresses, etc., of dealers in this column. Any dealer
+     will send you a circular of U.S. stamps.
+
+     KARL WETHERBEE.--The 3d. New South Wales 1806 is worth $1.50. The
+     1861 U.S. 12c. is worth 25c. The half-cent 1804 is worth $4, if in
+     good condition.
+
+     J. HULL.--Condition counts for everything in rare stamps. At the
+     last great auction sale an unused New Brunswick shilling sold for
+     $80. A used copy (comparatively common) sold for $110. The unused
+     had small, and the used large margins.
+
+  PHILATUS.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Wonderful Florida Springs.
+
+     I live on the east bank of the famous Ocklawaha River, six miles
+     from the wonderful Silver Springs. The waters of the springs are
+     clear, and the beautiful shining bottom is plainly seen, while
+     numerous varieties of fish swim and dive into the deep sink-holes.
+     One of these sinks is fifty feet deep, and many are evidently
+     connected in a continuous chain of sinks that are found between
+     this place and Ocala in the pine woods.
+
+     We had a good laugh over the story of "Kizner's Pet Sheep."
+
+  PERCY F. LISK.
+  CONNER, FLA.
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS.
+
+
+
+
+Chosen by the
+
+Government
+
+[Illustration]
+
+The War Department proposes to test the bicycle thoroughly for army use,
+and recently advertised for proposals for furnishing five bicycles for
+the purpose. Result: Bids from $50 to $85 each for other machines; our
+bid of $100 each for Columbias, their invariable price. And the
+Government selected
+
+[Illustration: Columbia]
+
+Bicycles
+
+STANDARD OF THE WORLD
+
+The experts who made the choice decided that Columbias were worth every
+dollar of the $100 asked for them.
+
+If you are willing to pay $100 for a bicycle, why be content with
+anything but a Columbia?
+
+POPE MANUFACTURING CO., Hartford, Conn.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THOMPSON'S EYEWATER]
+
+
+
+
+WALTER BAKER & CO., limited.
+
+Established Dorchester, Mass., 1780.
+
+Breakfast Cocoa
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Always ask for Walter Baker & Co.'s
+
+Breakfast Cocoa
+
+Made at
+
+DORCHESTER, MASS.
+
+It bears their Trade Mark
+
+"La Belle Chocolatiere" on every can.
+
+Beware of Imitations.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+LAUGHING CAMERA. 10c.
+
+The latest invention in Cameras. You look through the lens and your
+stout friends will look like living skeletons, your thin friends like
+Dime Museum fat men, horses like giraffes, and in fact everything
+appears as though you were living in another world. Each camera contains
+two strong lenses in neatly finished leather case. The latest
+mirth-maker on the market; creates bushels of sport. Catalogue of 1,000
+novelties and sample camera 10c., 3 for 25c., mailed postpaid. Agents
+wanted.
+
+Robert H. Ingersoll & Bro.,
+
+Dept. No. 27. 65 Cortlandt St., New York.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+THE
+
+BALTIMOREAN PRINTING-PRESS
+
+has earned more money for boys than all other presses in the market.
+Boys, don't idle away your time when you can buy a self-inking
+printing-press, type, and complete outfit for $5.00. Write for
+particulars, there is money in it for you.
+
+THE J. F. W. DORMAN CO.,
+
+Baltimore, Md., U.S.A
+
+
+
+
+Postage Stamps, &c.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+=300= fine mixed Victoria, Cape of G. H., India, Japan, etc., with fine
+Stamp Album, only =10c.= New 80-p. Price-list =free=. _Agents wanted_ at
+=50%= commission. STANDARD STAMP CO., 4 Nicholson Place, St. Louis, Mo.
+Old U. S. and Confederate Stamps bought.
+
+
+
+
+GOLD FREE!
+
+Grand Prize Contest! 112 var. So. Am., West Indies, U. S., etc. A
+beauty! 10 cts. silver; 3 for 25 cts. If you send for this packet and
+ask for our grand approval sheets at 50 per cent. com., you will receive
+FREE a handsome present, and learn all about our wonderful GOLD OFFER.
+
+Rugby Stamp Co., 4465 Greer Ave., St. Louis, Mo.
+
+
+
+
+=STAMPS.= Confederate free if you send for our Approval Sheets at 50 per
+cent. commission. Enclose 2c. stamp, and give reference.
+
+DIAMOND STAMP CO., Germantown, Pa.
+
+
+
+
+$117.50 WORTH OF STAMPS FREE
+
+to agents selling stamps from my 50% approval sheets. Send at once for
+circular and price-list giving full information.
+
+C. W. Grevning, Morristown, N. J.
+
+
+
+
+125
+
+dif. Gold Coast, Costa Rica, etc., 25c.; 40 U. S., 25c. Liberal com. to
+agents. Large bargain list free. F. W. MILLER, 904 Olive St., St. Louis,
+Mo.
+
+
+
+
+STAMP DEALERS.
+
+Agents w't'd at =50%= com.
+
+W. SAAM, 1708 Amsterdam Ave., N. Y. City.
+
+
+
+
+STAMPS! 100 all dif. Barbados, etc. Only 10c. Ag'ts w't'd at 50% com.
+List free. L. DOVER & CO., 1469 Hodiamont, St. Louis, Mo.
+
+
+
+
+Writing Letters.
+
+
+II.
+
+This series of articles on letter-writing is addressed to the Knights,
+but others may look over their shoulders and profit by the hints.
+
+Use good stationery--that is, paper and envelopes of white or tint.
+Avoid gaudy designs. If you can afford an embossed monogram, have it
+small. If you have any printing at all on your paper have it embossed,
+preferably in dark blue, and modest, plain letters. But it is not at all
+necessary that stationery be embossed. Good form does not require it.
+What we urge you to avoid using are leaves torn from a memorandum-book,
+unsized paper that is made of straw, gaudy envelopes too large for the
+paper, and some firm's letter or note headings. Stationery is
+inexpensive. Better write only two letters a year and have them worthy
+of you than to write a hundred on ill-fitting and ill-finished paper.
+
+When you begin a letter, do it with your street, number, city, and
+State. Then follow with the date. Have the last-named correct. Don't
+guess at it, and don't knowingly date your letters back, in order to
+make your correspondent think you have answered more promptly than you
+have. By such an act you utter an untruth. Besides, your deception is
+almost always seen and noted.
+
+If you live in a small town, give the State. We receive many letters
+from people who do not observe this common-sense rule. We find your
+letter dated "Mount Vernon." The post-mark oh the envelope is
+indistinct. We look in the Postal Guide--an effort for you that you have
+no right to put your correspondent to, and one he might have been saved
+had you written your letter as you should have done--and there find
+twenty-four Mount Vernons! Then you wonder why you receive no reply!
+
+If you live in a large city, give street and number every time you
+write. It does not matter if the postman lives next door to you and
+brings you everything directed to your name. How do your correspondents
+know that? We do not like to post a valuable letter addressed to "John
+Smith, Chicago, Ill." He may get it, but we have misgivings. And then,
+because you gave your address in one letter, don't say: "Oh, he knows
+where I live. I gave my address in my letter of last week." Yes, so you
+did, and the letter of last week is filed away where it will take
+trouble and time to find it, and get from it information that you ought
+to have given.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Florida Seminoles.
+
+     Since my short article on "Biscayne Bay and its Marvels" was
+     published I have received several letters requesting me to write
+     all I know about southern Florida and the Everglades.
+
+     The Seminole Indians are a great attraction during the winter to
+     the southeast coast of Florida. During the summer they traverse the
+     wilds of the Everglades in search of game, which they sell during
+     the winter to the winter visitors at West Palm Beach. The squaws
+     have been busy making moccasins and leggings, and the bucks have
+     been skinning and tanning the hides of deer, alligators, and other
+     game.
+
+     The Seminoles, or most of them, are very fond of strong drink, or
+     "wyomie," as it is called in Indian parlance. Many of them can
+     write their names, and some can write notes. They are becoming more
+     civilized in their mode of dress. Here is a note one Indian wrote.
+     I give it as a specimen.
+
+  NOVEMBER 20, '95.
+
+     Whiskey Man, Sir, I tell you, you whiskey man, you good man, sir,
+     you likes me, and my name, Jackson Charlie. Me send whiskey, big
+     quart whiskey. See you 6th next month; me come see you; me pay you
+     $1.25. Me sell you buckskin, smoking skin.
+
+  JACKSON CHARLIE.
+
+     The Seminoles own their farms. One of their camps is a very
+     interesting object. They kill and smoke deer-meat, tan the hides,
+     and sell them. There was an Indian school recently established on
+     the east coast. It will be a great benefit if it is continued. One
+     of the interesting Indians at Palm Beach is Little Tom Tiger. Last
+     spring he was cut in the forehead by a bottle hurled at his head by
+     a bad Indian. His father, old Tommie Jumper, dressed the wound and
+     told him he must not touch a drop of wyomie for ten months. When he
+     is spoken to about it, he will count the ten months on his fingers
+     and say, "Ten months soon be up, and I drink wyomie again."
+
+  HARRY R. WHITCOMB.
+  UMATILLA, FLA.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Amateur Newspaper Makers.
+
+How familiar this sounds: Louis O. Brosie, publisher of the _Little
+Magnet_, Pittsburg, says that when he began his paper, two years ago, he
+sent out 100 sample copies, expecting to get from them a large number of
+subscriptions. Instead he got four. People were afraid to pay their
+money, expecting the paper would last only a few months. But Sir Louis
+triumphed at last. He got subscriptions and advertisements, and expects
+to continue his paper. He printed a Good Will Mite, and some months ago
+sent us $2. He now prints 500 copies.
+
+William C Meintzer, Easton, Md., wants to join an amateur press
+association, especially one in Maryland. To do the latter he should
+write to the secretary of the Maryland Club of the N. A. P. A., G.
+Edward Harrison, 708 Fidelity Building, Baltimore, who is president,
+vice-president, or secretary of half a dozen or so other amateur clubs,
+and wants to make the acquaintance of other Baltimore and Maryland
+members of the Order. E. M. Wallace, Monmouth, Ill., wants to hear from
+publishers of amateur newspapers.
+
+_Wheat Sheaf Leaflets_ is the name of a new quarterly which we have
+received bearing the compliments of the scholars and teachers of Wheat
+Sheaf School, the names of those teachers being Misses A. C. Cocker and
+Elizabeth Baillie. The paper, a neat eight-page one, is filled with
+letters written to the Priscilla Chapter, formed of pupils of the
+school, preceded by a song and an explanation of what the Chapter is.
+Modesty forbids the editors, but it does not forbid us, saying that the
+Priscilla is among the very best Chapters in the Order, whose work in
+the way of correspondence, collections, etc, has been helpful and
+practical. The price of _Leaflets_ is five cents a copy, and its address
+is Wheat Sheaf School, Frankford, Philadelphia, Pa.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A Very Clever Kink.
+
+Two men declared they could name the prettiest rural drive in all
+England. The dispute waxing warm, they agreed to write out the route
+each thought to be the prettiest and hand their respective slips of
+paper to a third party. They did this, and when the disinterested third
+party, in the presence of the disputants and a few of their respective
+friends, opened the sealed papers it was found that one had written:
+"Coventry to Stratford-on-Avon, by the way of Kenilworth, Leamington,
+and Warwick." And the other: "Stratford-on-Avon to Coventry, by the way
+of Warwick, Leamington, and Kenilworth."
+
+Of course a general laugh followed, but when it subsided, one disputant,
+a little piqued that he had not won beyond further cavil, remarked with
+some warmth that he could name to the other disputant and his friends
+there present the amount of a certain nobleman's fortune, doing so in
+plain terms, in no enigmatical phrase, and yet they, in thirty minutes'
+time, could not name the amount in pounds sterling. Everybody present
+knew the nobleman mentioned, and all were desirous of learning the
+amount of his wealth--a sum which the speaker, through supposed business
+relations, was thought to be in a position to know.
+
+Challenged to name the sum, the man read the following, from _Macbeth_,
+Act V., Scene V.:
+
+                          If thou speak'st false,
+  Upon the next tree shalt thou hang alive,
+  Till famine cling thee: if thy speech be sooth,
+  I care not if thou dost for me as much.
+  I pull in resolution; and begin
+  To doubt the equivocation of the fiend,
+  That lies like truth: "Fear not, till Birnam wood
+  Do come to Dunsinane:"--and now a wood
+  Comes toward Dunsinane.--Arm, arm, and out!--
+  If this, which he avouches, does appear.
+  There is nor flying hence, nor tarrying here.
+  I 'gin to be a-weary of the sun,
+  And wish the estate o' the world were now undone.--
+  Ring the alarum bell!--Blow wind, come wrack!
+  At least we'll die with harness on our back.
+
+At the end of the half-hour the challenged party gave up. Need they have
+done so had _you_ been present to help them?
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]
+
+     Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly
+     answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to
+     hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.
+
+
+TINTED TRANSPARENCIES.
+
+Every amateur, no matter how successful he may be, now and then spoils a
+sensitive plate. Though the plate is rendered useless for a negative, it
+can be made into a pretty transparency with very little trouble. The
+spoiled plate must first be cleaned from the blackened silver. This is
+done by placing it in a solution called "Fanner's Reducer," which is
+prepared as follows:
+
+  Potassium ferricyanide      3 grs.
+  Hyposulphite of soda       30  "
+  Distilled water             4 oz.
+
+Leave the plate in this solution till the silver is all dissolved and
+the gelatine film which covers the plate is perfectly clear. Rinse it
+thoroughly in running water, and immerse it for three minutes in a
+sensitive bath made of
+
+  Bichromate of ammonium    48 grs.
+  Distilled water            4 oz.
+
+The plate may be cleared from the silver by a white light, but it must
+be immersed in the sensitive bath by a red light and dried in the dark,
+as it will discolor if exposed to the light. To make a positive picture
+on this prepared plate one must have a positive from which to print, and
+a paper print may be used, if one does not wish to make a positive on
+glass.
+
+Print till the shadows are a deep brown and detail well out, then wash
+in clear water till all the brown tone has disappeared, and set the
+plate up to dry. When dry immerse in a color bath composed of 1/2 oz. of
+China blue, 1/4 oz. of oxalic acid, and 1 pint of water. The plate
+should be left in the coloring solution till it is a deeper tint than
+desired when dry, then wash in several changes of water till the water
+shows no trace of the coloring matter, and dry in a place free from
+dust. Place a cover glass over the film side of the transparency, and
+bind first with adhesive strips, which can be bought ready prepared, and
+then with ribbon, or one may use the frames which are made specially for
+transparencies.
+
+Any color may be used instead of the China blue. Dragon's blood,
+carmine, green, mauve (which makes a beautiful violet tint), or any
+color which one prefers. It is very little trouble to make these
+transparencies, and they repay one for the work.
+
+     A member of the Camera Club asks how long eikonogen may be kept if
+     it is placed in a tin box; what kind of pictures are the best for
+     prizes; how engravings can be copied on celluloid; how to take a
+     picture with the camera pointed toward the window. Eikonogen
+     crystals are best preserved in a tightly stoppered glass bottle.
+     Eikonogen in solution may be kept a long time by the addition of
+     acid sulphite of soda, if the bottles are filled full and well
+     stoppered. Glass stoppers are better than corks. The kind of
+     pictures which are best for prize competitions depends on the style
+     of pictures for which prizes are offered. If the prize is for
+     figure studies, a single figure is better than a group, and a
+     simple subject much more attractive than one "dressed up" for the
+     occasion. In landscape pictures an extended view, unless unusually
+     fine, rarely wins even honorable mention. In making landscape
+     studies, for the picture as a picture, one cannot do better than to
+     study the best works of landscape artists, which are always to be
+     seen through photographic copies. It will be noticed that painters
+     follow the advice of Sidney Smith, and "take short views." Will our
+     correspondent please explain what he means by "engravings copied on
+     celluloid"? To take a picture with the camera pointed toward the
+     window use a non-halation plate and a small diaphragm. One way in
+     which to take a picture with the camera pointed toward the window
+     is to take a picture with the curtain or shutter closed, then open
+     them and make an exposure for the window which is, of course, much
+     shorter than for the interior. Our correspondent sends this formula
+     for eikonogen developer, which he says keeps a long time, and gives
+     more contrast than most developers: Sulphite of soda crystals, 180
+     grs.; hot water, 6 oz. When thoroughly dissolved add 60 grs. of
+     eikonogen. No. 2. Carbonate of potassium, 75 grs.; water 2 oz. To
+     develop take 3 oz. of No. 1 and 1 oz. of No. 2. In preparing
+     eikonogen developers the ingredients should be added to hot water,
+     and the eikonogen left till all the rest are dissolved.
+
+     MISS SARA L. MERRICK asks how to print photographs on
+     writing-paper, and if plain salted paper can be bought ready
+     sensitized. Plain salted paper cannot be bought ready prepared, but
+     it is easy to prepare after the formula given in the ROUND TABLE,
+     Nos. 796 and 803. To print on writing-paper, sensitize a strip at
+     the top of the sheet of paper, using unglazed paper, then print as
+     on any other paper, taking care that all parts, except where the
+     picture is to appear, are covered with black needle paper. The
+     whole of the sheet can be put into the toning solution, or simply
+     the part sensitized.
+
+     SIR KNIGHT STEPHEN W. HURST, Newark, N.J., asks for directions for
+     making lantern slides. Sir Stephen will find directions in Nos. 798
+     and 799 (February 12 and 19), and later we shall give some new
+     ideas on making and using lantern slides.
+
+     SIR KNIGHT JOHN DUNHAM asks how to transfer a negative of a steamer
+     to another negative. A note was sent to Sir John asking him to
+     explain just what he wished to do, and the query would be answered,
+     but the letter was returned, though bearing the address given, 1733
+     Vine Street, Philadelphia, Pa. If Sir John means transferring to a
+     clean glass, directions will be found in No. 856; if not, will he
+     kindly write again and explain a little more fully what he wishes
+     to know? There is no process by which a negative can be transferred
+     by electricity.
+
+     MISS FLORA J. WHEELER wishes to know what kind of a camera to
+     purchase, as she purposes to learn photography. A hand camera is
+     usually considered best for the beginner, as it is much easier
+     handled and managed than a tripod camera. A 4 by 5 is a good size
+     to begin with, and the lens may be used both for scenery and for
+     making figure studies. Most amateurs, unless far advanced in the
+     art, use only two lenses--one for portraiture, and the other for
+     out-door work. The beginner should use one lens, and learn what it
+     can do and cannot do before trying different lenses. With every
+     camera directions are given for its use, and also for developing
+     and printing. The papers for beginners published in the Camera Club
+     column will be found helpful. No. 1 was published in No. 812 (May
+     21, 1895). Any questions which Miss Wheeler wishes to ask in regard
+     to her work will be answered in this column.
+
+     SIR KNIGHT FREDERICK G. CLAPP asks what makes the zigzag streaks on
+     the film of a negative after it has been intensified, and if the
+     yellowish-olive color to which the plates turn when intensified
+     should wash out. Did Sir Frederick soak the negative in water
+     before immersing it in the intensifying solution? The plate should
+     be soaked till the film is wet, and when placed in the intensifier
+     it should be kept gently moving so that the chemicals may act
+     evenly. Try this method, and let the editor know the results. The
+     olive color of the negative does not always wash out, but, unless
+     too deep, does not injure the printing qualities of the plate.
+
+     SIR KNIGHT HENRY WENS, who asks for formula for stripping films
+     from broken plates, will find full directions in this number of the
+     Camera Club.
+
+
+LETTERS FROM PRIZE-WINNERS.
+
+Sir Knight Joseph Lovering writes: "Please accept my thanks for the
+check for $15 which you sent me for the prize in the photographic
+contest. I did not expect my picture to take a prize, and I was very
+much gratified when I received your letter." Sir Joseph took first prize
+in marines. Sir Joseph also asks if he will be allowed to compete next
+year, and if it is allowable to enter pictures in more than one class.
+Yes, to both questions.
+
+Sir Knight Luke Murdock writes: "I received the prize sent me by Harper
+& Brothers, and although I tried to have my pictures look as nice as
+possible, I was much surprised that I took a prize. I was very much
+pleased, and I thank you heartily, and will endeavor to spend the money
+to the best advantage in a photographic line." Sir Knight Luke took
+second prize for Junior figure studies in Junior Class. His picture was
+entitled, "I Won't Stand Still."
+
+Mrs. Nils Holm, Patron, who took second prize in figure studies Senior
+Class, writes that she never competed before, and was both surprised and
+pleased at her success, and should make more vigorous efforts than ever
+before.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: IVORY SOAP]
+
+    Brisk exercise, a good quick rub,
+  An Ivory-Soap-and-water scrub,
+    With nerves restrung and muscles tense
+  The woman's new in every sense.
+
+Copyrighted, 1896, by The Procter & Gamble Co., Cin'ti.
+
+
+
+
+PRINTING OUTFIT 10c.
+
+[Illustration]
+
+[Illustration: G.A.R. 25c.]
+
+[Illustration: Brownies 10c.]
+
+For printing cards, marking linen, books, etc. Contains everything shown
+in cut. Type, Tweezers, Holder, Indelible Ink, Ink Pad, etc. Thoroughly
+practical for business or household use and a most instructive
+amusement. Sent with catalogue illustrating over 1000 Tricks and
+Novelties, for 10c. in stamps to pay postage and packing on outfit and
+catalogue. Same outfit with figures 15c. Large outfit for printing two
+lines 25c.
+
+=Brownie Rubber Stamps=--A set of 6 grotesque little people with ink pad;
+price, postpaid, 10c.
+
+G. A. R. series Rubber Stamps, 12 characters. Makes all kinds of
+Battles, Encampments and other military pictures, 25c. postpaid. Address
+
+ROBERT H. INGERSOLL & BRO.
+
+Dep't No. 62. 65 Cortlandt St., New York.
+
+
+
+
+BREAKFAST--SUPPER.
+
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+
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+
+COCOA
+
+BOILING WATER OR MILK.
+
+
+
+
+=AMERICAN FLAG. Its History and Development.= 52 pages; 26 lithographs in
+5 colors. Price, 10c., postpaid. =E. M. DAVIS, Mt. Vernon, New York.=
+Agents wanted in every school.
+
+
+
+
+=A NEAT BOX=, containing 12 mineral specimens from Millard County, Utah,
+including genuine gold and silver ore, copper, onyx, etc., postpaid to
+any address for 25 cts. J. A. ROBINSON, Clear Lake, Utah.
+
+
+
+
+HOOPING
+
+COUGH
+
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+
+_Can be cured_
+
+by using
+
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+
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+
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+EDWARD & SON, Props., London, Eng. Wholesale, E. FOUGERA & CO., New York
+
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+
+
+CARDS
+
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+Envelope and Calling Cards ever offered for a 2 cent stamp. These are
+GENUINE CARDS, NOT TRASH. UNION CARD CO., COLUMBUS, OHIO.
+
+
+
+
+CARDS
+
+FOR 1896. 50 Sample Styles AND LIST OF 400 PREMIUM ARTICLES FREE.
+HAVERFIELD PUB. CO., Cadiz, Ohio.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: THOMPSON'S EYEWATER]
+
+
+
+
+By KIRK MUNROE
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Snow-Shoes and Sledges
+
+A Sequel to "The Fur-Seal's Tooth." Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth,
+Ornamental, $1.25.
+
+     Brimful of adventures admirably recorded. The young folks will take
+     delight in it.... We confess to having read every word of the
+     journal with as much interest as we once read "Robinson Crusoe" or
+     the "Swiss Family Robinson."--_Christian Intelligencer_, N. Y.
+
+     A book which will hold the interest of its readers from beginning
+     to end.--_N. Y. Evening Post._
+
+_BY THE SAME AUTHOR:_
+
+=THE FUR-SEAL'S TOOTH.--RAFTMATES.--CANOEMATES.--CAMP-MATES--DORYMATES.=--
+Each one volume. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1.25.
+
+=WAKULLA.--THE FLAMINGO FEATHER.--DERRICK STERLING.--CHRYSTAL, JACK & CO.
+and DELTA BIXBY:= Two Stories. Each one volume. Illustrated. Square,
+16mo, Cloth, $1.00.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: April Fool]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HADN'T SEEN IT.
+
+"My Pa says you can have your photograph took now so as to show nothing
+but your skeleton," said Bob.
+
+"What's a skeleton?" asked Jack.
+
+"I don't know exactly," said Bob, "but everybody has one."
+
+"I haven't," returned Jack. "Leastways, if I have, I haven't never seen
+it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A YANKEE'S IDEA OF THE ALPS.
+
+An American was stopping in Rome, and one day he overheard some
+Europeans boasting about the beauty of the scenery of Europe. It grew so
+tiresome at last that he turned around and politely joined in the
+conversation, incidentally introducing some remarks about the grandeur
+of the Rocky Mountains, their height, etc.
+
+"But," said one of the Europeans, "surely, Mr. American, you must have
+crossed the Alps Mountains when you came to Rome! What did you think of
+them?"
+
+"Why, now you speak of them, I do remember passing over some rising
+ground, something that would probably require a tow-horse if a
+street-car line ran over it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+BOBBIE'S LATEST JOKE.
+
+"I saw a pair of gaiters the other day that the bravest man living
+wouldn't dare to wear," said Bobbie.
+
+"What kind were they?" asked Tommie.
+
+"Alligators," said Bobbie.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A REMEDY.
+
+"Poor little baby!", said Ethel, sympathizingly, as her new brother
+wept. "Mamma, why don't you give him some of that smoothing syrup?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A GOOD REASON.
+
+"I don't see why you sent me to bed for being just impudent," sobbed
+Wilbur.
+
+"It is very easily explained," said his father. "You are impudent
+because you got out of bed on the wrong side this morning. I want you to
+go to bed for an hour, and then see if you can't get out on the right
+side."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A pun-loving little chap went to school the other morning with a dirty
+face, and when the teacher asked him why he didn't wash it, he said,
+
+"Why, ma'am, I've got such a cold in my head I was afraid the water
+would freeze on my face."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+HE TURNED.
+
+"Right face! Left face! About face!"
+
+The little fat red-faced sergeant bawled out his orders and watched the
+line of feet as the raw recruits endeavored to follow them out. To his
+astonishment, one pair of feet, more noticeable on account of their
+extra large size, never turned. Without taking his eyes off these feet,
+the little sergeant bawled out a second order, "About face!" He could
+see that all the feet except those he watched turned in obedience.
+Rushing up to the owner, a little fellow, he seized him by the shoulder,
+shouting, "Why don't you turn with the rest?"
+
+"Why, I did," replied the trembling recruit.
+
+"You did, eh? Well, I watched your feet, and they never moved."
+
+"It's the shoes they gave me, sir," said the poor fellow. "They're so
+large that when I turn my feet turns in them."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+QUITE A DIFFERENCE.
+
+MAMMA. "I'm afraid my Polly is a very obstinate little girl."
+
+POLLY. "No, I isn't, mamma; I'm a strong character."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION.
+
+TEACHER. "Can any little boy tell me which is the longest day in the
+year?"
+
+BILLY. "Some fellows say the day before Christmas is, and some say the
+day before the Fourth of July."
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: AN EASTER ENTERTAINMENT--AS VIEWED FROM THE GALLERY.
+
+"OH, CHIMMIE! THERE'S SHEEPS AND CHICKENS AND GREEN TREES, AND THE GRASS
+IS COVERED WID DIAMONDS, AND A BEAUTIFUL LADY CARRYING A MILK-PAIL WID
+YELLER HAIR; HOLD ME UP JUST A MINIT LONGER, AND I'LL BLOW YER IN FER A
+WHOLE PIE."]
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, March 31, 1896, by Various
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 56642 ***