Project Gutenberg's Harper's Young People, December 14, 1880, by Various
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Title: Harper's Young People, December 14, 1880
An Illustrated Monthly
Author: Various
Release Date: January 5, 2014 [EBook #44595]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, DEC 14, 1880 ***
Produced by Annie R. McGuire
[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE
AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY.]
* * * * *
VOL. II.--NO. 59. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.
Tuesday, December 14, 1880. Copyright, 1880, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50
per Year, in Advance.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
MY SISTER'S GRAPES.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."
Perhaps you might not think Uncle Dick a "gentleman"--Aunt Emma did not,
I know, though she kept her mind to herself, being his brother's widow,
and the prudent mother of many children. Uncle Dick lived with them;
that is, if he could be said to live anywhere, being always on the move,
never liking to stay long in one place, and somewhat restless-minded,
as those are who have passed all their life in rambling about the world.
A "rolling stone" he certainly was, though he could scarcely be said to
have gathered no moss, as he had amassed two fortunes, one after the
other: having lost the first, he was now enjoying the second in his own
harmless but rather eccentric way.
I doubt if Aunt Emma really liked him, yet she was always very civil to
him, her chief complaint being that he never would "take his position in
the world"; that is, he avoided her balls, made himself scarce at her
dinner parties, and no persuasion could ever induce him to exhibit his
long, thin, gaunt figure, his brown hands and face, in evening clothes.
What a "guy" he would have looked in them! as we boys always agreed, and
sympathized with him, and not with Aunt Emma. But in his own costume we
admired him immensely. His shooting-jacket, Knickerbockers, and Panama
hat were to us the perfection of comfort and elegance.
As to his cleverness, that also was a disputed point with some folk. But
we had never any doubt at all. And perhaps we were right. "A fool and
his money are soon parted," says the proverb. But when they part to meet
again--that is, when a man can bear the loss of one fortune, and set to
work to make another--the chances are (without any exaggerated
Mammon-worship I say it) that he is _not_ a fool.
"Yes, I have really made two fortunes," said Uncle Dick, as we sat
beguiling a sunshiny day, when the fish refused to bite, by plying him
with innumerable questions, till at last he "rose" like a trout at a
fly. "How old was I when I lost the first one? Well, about twenty-five.
Yes, I remember it happened on my birthday, Michaelmas-day."
"Happened all in one day?" some of us inquired.
"Ay, in a day, an hour, a minute," said Uncle Dick, with his peculiar
smile, half sad, half droll, as if he saw at once all the fun and all
the pathos of life. "And now I remember it was not in the day, but in
the middle of the night. I went to sleep a rich man; by daylight I was a
beggar. Any more questions, boys?"
Of course we rained them upon him by the dozen. He sat composedly,
watching his float swim down the stream, and answered none for ever so
long: Uncle Dick had, when he chose, an unlimited capacity for silence.
"Yes," he said at length, "it was one night in the middle of the
Atlantic on the deck of a sinking ship. There's a saying, boys, about
gaining the whole world and losing one's own soul. Well, I gained then
my soul, though I lost my fortune. And it was all through my sister's
grapes."
Now Uncle Dick was in the habit of talking nonsense--at least Aunt Emma
considered it such. In his long solitude he was accustomed to let his
thoughts run underground, as it were, for a good while, when they would
suddenly crop up again, and he would make a remark, apropos of nothing,
which greatly puzzled matter-of-fact people, or those who liked elegant
small-talk, of which he had absolutely none.
"Your sister's grapes?" repeated one of us, with great astonishment.
"Then you had a sister? Where is she now?"
Uncle Dick looked up at the blue sky--intensely blue it was that day, as
deep and measureless as infinity. "Where is she? I don't know: I wish I
did. But He knows, and I shall find out some time." Then he added,
briefly, "My sister Lily died of consumption when she was fifteen, and I
about ten years old."
"And what about her grapes? Is it a story--a true story?"
"Quite true to me, though all might not believe it. Some might even
laugh at it, and I don't like to be laughed at. No I don't mind; it
can't harm me. I'll tell you, boys, if you like to hear. It may be a
good lesson for some of you."
We did not much care for "lessons," but we liked a story; so we begged
Uncle Dick to tell us this one from the very beginning.
"No, not from the beginning, which could benefit neither you nor me,"
said Uncle Dick, gravely. "I'll take up my tale from the point I
mentioned, when I found myself at midnight on the deck of the _Colorado_
Australian steamer, bound for London, fast going down. And she went
down."
"You with her?"
"Not exactly, or how could I be here sitting quietly fishing? which
seems odd when I think of the hurly-burly of that night. It had come
quite suddenly after a long spell of fair weather, which we found so
dull that we began drinking, smoking, gambling, and even fighting now
and then; for we were a rough lot, mostly 'diggers' who, like myself,
had worked a 'claim,' or half a claim, at Ballarat--worked it so well
that they soon found they had made a fortune, so determined to go to
Europe and spend it.
"I thought I would do the same. I was quite young, yet I had amassed as
much money as many a poor fellow--a clergyman, or a soldier, or an
author--can scrape together in a lifetime; and I wanted to spend it in
seeing life. Hitherto I had seen nothing at all--in civilization, that
is. I never had the least bit of 'fun,' until I ran away from home seven
years before; and very little fun after, for it was all hard work. Now,
having been so lucky as to make my fortune, I meant to use it in
enjoying myself.
"I had never enjoyed home very much. My people, good as they were, were
rather dull, or at least I thought them so. They always bothered me
about 'duty,' till I hated the very sound of the word. They called my
fun mischief; my mischief they considered a crime; so I slipped away
from them, and after a letter or two I gradually let them go, or fancied
they were letting me go, and forgot almost their very existence. I might
have been a waif and stray drifted ashore from the sea or dropped from
the clouds, so little did I feel as if I had any one belonging to me. My
relations, even my parents, had all melted out of my mind; for weeks I
sometimes never once thought of them--never remembered that I had a
father, or mother, or brothers. Lily had been my only sister, and she
died."
Uncle Dick stopped a moment, then continued:
"I don't wish, boys, to put myself forward as worse than I was, or
better. People find their own level pretty well in this world. It's no
good either to puff yourself up as a saint, or go about crying yourself
down as a miserable sinner. In either case you think a great deal too
much about yourself, which is as harmful a thing as can happen to any
man.
"Certainly I was no worse than my neighbors, and no better. I liked
everybody, and most people liked me. I troubled nobody, and nobody
troubled me. I meant to go on that principle when I got back into
civilization, to spend my money, and have my fling. Possibly I might run
down to see 'the old folks at home,' whom we diggers were rather fond of
singing about; but we seldom thought about them. At least I never did,
and they formed no part of my motive for coming to England. I came
simply and solely to amuse myself.
"I had just turned in with the rest--not drunk, as a good many of us
were that night, but 'merry.' One hour after, we turned out, and stood
facing one another--and facing death. A sudden hurricane had risen; one
of our masts had gone overboard; we had sprung a leak; and work as we
might at the pumps, the Captain said he believed we should sink or go to
pieces before morning. He had been drunk too, which perhaps accounted
for our disaster, in a good sound ship and the safe open sea; but he
was sober enough now. He did his best, and when hope was over, said he
should 'go to the bottom with his ship.' And he went. I took his watch
to his widow: he gave it me before he jumped overboard, poor fellow.
"Well, boys, what was I going to tell you? I forget," said Uncle Dick,
drawing his long brown hand across his forehead. "Oh, about the ship
_Colorado_ going down, and all the poor wretches fighting for their
lives in the boats--or out of them, which was about an equal chance. We
could just see one another in the starlight or the white gleam of the
waves--groups of struggling men (happily there was not a woman on
board), some paralyzed and silent, others shrieking with terror, some
sobbing and praying, others only cursing: for heaven, which we all were
straight going to--or hoped to go--seemed to be the last thing we ever
thought of. We only thought of life, dear life--our own lives--nobody
else's.
"People say that a shipwreck brings out human nature in all its
brutality: 'every man for himself, and God--no, not God, but the
devil--for us all.' I found it so. To see those men, old, young, and
middle-aged, some clothed, some half-naked, but all clinging to their
bags, full of nuggets, which they had tied round their waists or held in
their hands, eager to save themselves and their gold, and utterly
reckless of everything and everybody else--it was horrible! Gradually it
dawned upon some of the feebler among them that they would hardly save
themselves, to say nothing of their money. Then they no longer tried to
hide it, but frantically offered a quarter, a half, two-thirds, of their
gold to any one who would help them. But in vain--utterly in vain.
"For me, I was a young fellow--young and strong. I had never faced death
before, and it felt--well, sad and strange. I was not exactly
frightened, but I was awed. I turned from the selfish, brutal, cowardly
wretches around me; they had shown themselves in their true colors, and
I was disgusted at myself for having put up with them so long. I didn't
like even to go to the bottom with such a miserable lot. In truth, it
felt hard enough to go to the bottom at all.
"The biggest of my nuggets I always carried in a belt round my waist,
but the rest of my 'fortune' was in my bag. Most of us carried these
bags, and tried to get with them into the boats, which was impossible.
So some had to let them go overboard, but others, shrieking and praying,
refused to be parted from their 'luggage,' as they called it. They were
_not_ parted, for both soon went to the bottom together. I was not
inclined for that exactly, and so, after a few minutes' thought, I left
my bag behind."
"How much was there in it?" some one asked.
"I don't know exactly, but I guess" (Uncle Dick still used a Yankee
phrase now and then) "somewhere about seven or eight thousand pounds."
We boys drew a long breath. "What a lot of money! And it all went to the
bottom of the sea?"
"Yes, but as the Bible says, 'What will not a man give in exchange for
his soul?' or his life--for my soul troubled me mighty little just then.
I hardly knew I had one till I lost my money; so you see it was a good
riddance perhaps."
We stared. Uncle Dick talked so very oddly sometimes! And then we begged
him to continue his story.
"Well, I was standing waiting my turn to jump into the boat--the last
boat, for two had been filled and swamped. Being young, it seemed but
right to let the older fellows go first; and, besides, I wanted to stick
by the Captain as long as I could. He, I told you, determined to stick
by his ship, and went down with her. He had just given me his watch, and
his last message to his wife, and I was trying, as I said, to keep
quiet, with all my wits about me. For all that, I seemed to be half
dreaming, or as if I saw myself like another person, and felt rather
sorry for myself to be drowned on my twenty-fifth birthday--drowned just
when I had made my fortune, and was going home to spend it.
"Home! the word even had not crossed my lips or my mind for years. As I
said it, or thought it--I can't remember which--all of a sudden I seemed
to hear my mother's voice, clear and distinct through all the noise of
the storm. And, boys, what do _you_ think she said? Nothing wonderful,
nothing strange. Only, '_Richard, how could you take your sister's
grapes?_'
"It flashed upon me like lightning: something that happened when I was
only ten years old, and yet I remembered it as if it happened yesterday.
I saw myself--young wretch!--with the bunch of grapes in my hand, and my
mother, with her grave, sad eyes, as, passing through the dressing-room
into my sister's bedroom, she caught me in the act of stealing them. I
could hear almost through the open door poor Lily's short feeble cough:
she died two days after. The grapes had been sent her by some friend.
She had so many friends! I knew where they were kept; I had climbed up
to the shelf and eaten them all.
"Many a selfish thing had I done, both before I left home and afterward:
why should this little thing, long forgotten, come back now? Perhaps
because I was never punished for it. My mother, who at any other time
might have boxed my ears, or taken me to father to be whipped, did
nothing, said nothing except those few words of sad reproach, '_How
could you take your sister's grapes?_'
"I heard them through the horrible tumult of the winds and waves, and
poor souls struggling for life. _My_ life--what had I made of it? If I
went to the bottom of the sea, I and all my money, who would miss me?
who would care? Hardly even my mother. If she ever heard of my death
to-night, she might drop a tear or two, but nothing like the tears she
shed over my sister, who in her short life had been everybody's comfort
and joy, while I--
"'Mother!' I cried out, as if she could hear me these many thousand
miles off--'mother, forgive me, and I'll never do it any more!'
"I had not said this when I was ten years old, and took the grapes, but
I said it, sobbed it, at twenty-five, when the 'it' implied many a
selfishness, many a sin, that my mother never knew. Yet the mere saying
of it seemed to relieve me, and when directly afterward some one called
out from the boat, 'Jump in, Dick; now's your turn,' I jumped in to take
my chance of life with the rest.
"It was given me. I was among the eighteen that held on till we were
picked up--almost skin and bone, and one of us raving mad from
thirst--by a homeward-bound ship, and landed safely in England. No,
boys, don't question me. I won't tell you about that time; I can't."
It was not often Uncle Dick said, "I can't"; indeed, it was one of his
queer sayings that "can't" was a word no honest or brave lad ought to
have in his dictionary. We turned away our eyes from him--he seemed not
to like being looked at--and were silent.
"Well, I landed, and found myself walking London streets--not the rich,
healthy, jolly young fellow who had come to have his fling there, but a
poor shattered wretch almost in rags, and just a bag of bones. All that
remained of my fortune were the few nuggets which I had sewed into my
belt. I turned them, not without some difficulty, into food and clothing
of the commonest kind, to make my money last as long as I could. I did
not want to come home quite a beggar: if I had been, I should certainly
never have come home at all.
"By mere chance--for I had altogether forgotten times and seasons--the
day I came home was a Christmas morning. The bells were ringing, and all
the good folk going to church--my mother, too, of course. We met at the
garden gate. She did not know me, not the least in the world, but just
bowed, thinking it was a stranger coming to call, till I said, 'Mother!'
And then--
"Well, boys, that's neither here nor there. It's a commonplace saying,
but one can't hear it too often, or remember it too well, that whatever
else we have, we never can have but one mother. If she's a good one,
make the most of her; if a middling one, put up with her; if a bad one,
let her alone, and hold your tongue. You know whether I have any need to
hold my tongue about your grandmother.
"But I can't talk about her, or about that Christmas-day. We did _not_
go to church, and I doubt if we ate much Christmas dinner; but we talked
and talked straight on up to ten o'clock at night, when she put me to
bed, and tucked me in just as if I had been a little baby. Oh, how
pleasant it was to sleep in sheets again--clean, fresh sheets--and have
one's mother settling the pillow, and taking away the candle!
"My room happened to be that very dressing-room behind the nursery where
Lily died: I could see the shelf where the grapes had stood, and the
chair I climbed to reach them. With a sort of childish awe I recalled
everything.
"'Mother,' I said, catching her by the gown, as she said good-night and
kissed me, 'tell me one thing. What were you doing on my last birthday?
that is, if you remember it at all?'
"She smiled: as if mothers could forget their boys' birthdays, even such
scapegrace boys as I had been! Then a very grave look came into her
face.
"'I was clearing out this room, turning it into a bedroom for any stray
bachelor, little thinking the first would be you, Richard; but I did
think of you, and, to tell you the truth, I was thinking of something
very naughty you once did--here, in this very room.'"
"'And you said, over again, How could I take my sister's grapes? I
_heard_ it, mother--heard it in the middle of the Atlantic.' Then I told
her the whole story.
"Now, boys, I ask nobody to believe it, but she believed it--to the day
of her death. It made her happy to believe it, to think that in some
mysterious way she had helped to save me, as mothers never know how or
when some word of theirs may save their wandering sons.
"For I was a wanderer still: I staid with her only a month, while my
nuggets lasted; then I worked my way back to Australia, and began again
in the same way, and yet a new way--new in one thing, at least, that on
every Sunday of my life I wrote home to my mother. And when at length I
came home, too late for her, alas! it was, I hope, not quite too late
for the rest of you. Bad is the best, maybe, but I've tried to do my
best."
"Oh, Uncle Dick!"--for he had been as good as a father to some of
us--sent us to school and to college, and, what we liked a great deal
better, taken us fishing and shooting, and given us all sorts of fun.
"So, boys," said he, smiling at our demonstrations of affection--and yet
he liked to be loved, we were sure of that--"you have a sneaking
kindness for me, after all. And you don't think me altogether a villain,
even though I did take my sister's grapes?"
NOTE.--It may interest readers to know that this incident is really
"founded on fact"--one of those inexplicable facts that one
sometimes meets with in real life, which are stranger than anything
we authors invent for our "stories."
[Illustration: "I DON'T WANT A SWITCH IN MY 'TOCKING, SANTA CAUS."]
[Begun in No. 58 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, December 7.]
TOBY TYLER;
OR, TEN WEEKS WITH A CIRCUS.
BY JAMES OTIS.
CHAPTER II.
TOBY RUNS AWAY FROM HOME.
Toby could scarcely restrain himself at the prospect of this golden
future that had so suddenly opened before him. He tried to express his
gratitude, but could only do so by evincing his willingness to commence
work at once.
"No, no, that won't do," said Mr. Lord, cautiously. "If your uncle
Daniel should see you working here, he might mistrust something, and
then you couldn't get away."
"I don't believe he'd try to stop me," said Toby, confidently; "for he's
told me lots of times that it was a sorry day for him when he found me."
"We won't take any chances, my son," was the reply, in a very benevolent
tone, as he patted Toby on the head, and at the same time handed him a
piece of pasteboard. "There's a ticket for the circus, and you come
around to see me about ten o'clock to-night. I'll put you on one of the
wagons, and by to-morrow morning your uncle Daniel will have hard work
to find you."
If Toby had followed his inclinations, the chances are that he would
have fallen on his knees, and kissed Mr. Lord's hands in the excess of
his gratitude. But not knowing exactly how such a show of thankfulness
might be received, he contented himself by repeatedly promising that he
would be punctual to the time and place appointed.
He would have loitered in the vicinity of the candy stand in order that
he might gain some insight into the business; but Mr. Lord advised that
he remain away, lest his uncle Daniel should see him, and suspect where
he had gone when he was missed in the morning.
As Toby walked around the circus grounds, whereon was so much to attract
his attention, he could not prevent himself from assuming an air of
proprietorship. His interest in all that was going on was redoubled, and
in his anxiety that everything should be done correctly and in the
proper order he actually, and perhaps for the first time in his life,
forgot that he was hungry. He was really to travel with a circus, to
become a part, as it were, of the whole, and to be able to see its many
wonderful and beautiful attractions every day.
Even the very tent ropes had acquired a new interest for him, and the
faces of the men at work seemed suddenly to have become those of
friends. How hard it was for him to walk around unconcernedly; and how
especially hard to prevent his feet from straying toward that tempting
display of dainties which he was to sell to those who came to see and
enjoy, and who would look at him with wonder and curiosity! It was very
hard not to be allowed to tell his playmates of his wonderfully good
fortune; but silence meant success, and he locked his secret in his
bosom, not even daring to talk with any one he knew lest he should
betray himself by some incautious word.
He did not go home to dinner that day, and once or twice he felt
impelled to walk past the candy stand, giving a mysterious shake of the
head at the proprietor as he did so. The afternoon performance passed
off as usual to all of the spectators save Toby. He imagined that each
one of the performers knew that he was about to join them; and even as
he passed the cage containing the monkeys he fancied that one
particularly old one knew all about his intention of running away.
Of course it was necessary for him to go home at the close of the
afternoon's performance, in order to get one or two valuable articles of
his own--such as a boat, a kite, and a pair of skates--and in order that
his actions might not seem suspicious. Before he left the grounds,
however, he stole slyly around to the candy stand, and informed Mr. Job
Lord, in a very hoarse whisper, that he would be on hand at the time
appointed.
Mr. Lord patted him on the head, gave him two large sticks of candy,
and what was more kind and surprising, considering the fact that he wore
glasses, and was cross-eyed, he winked at Toby. A wink from Mr. Lord
must have been intended to convey a great deal, because, owing to the
defect in his eyes, it required no little exertion, and even then could
not be considered as a really first-class wink.
That wink, distorted as it was, gladdened Toby's heart immensely, and
took away nearly all the sting of the scolding with which Uncle Daniel
greeted him when he reached home.
That night, despite the fact that he was going to travel with the
circus, despite the fact that his home was not a happy or cheerful one,
Toby was not in a pleasant frame of mind. He began to feel for the first
time that he was doing wrong; and as he gazed at Uncle Daniel's stern,
forbidding-looking face it seemed to have changed somewhat from its
severity, and caused a great lump of something to come up in his throat
as he thought that perhaps he should never see it again. Just then one
or two kind words would have prevented him from running away, bright as
the prospect of circus life appeared.
It was almost impossible for him to eat anything, and this very
surprising state of affairs attracted the attention of Uncle Daniel.
"Bless my heart! what ails the boy?" asked the old man, as he peered
over his glasses at Toby's well-filled plate, which was usually emptied
so quickly. "Are ye sick, Toby, or what is the matter with ye?"
"No, I hain't sick," said Toby, with a sigh; "but I've been to the
circus, an' I got a good deal to eat."
"Oho, you spent that cent I give ye, eh, an' got so much that it made ye
sick?"
Toby thought of the six pea-nuts which he had bought with the penny
Uncle Daniel had given him; and, amidst all his homesickness, he could
not help wondering if Uncle Daniel ever made himself sick with only six
pea-nuts when he was a boy.
As no one paid any further attention to Toby, he pushed back his plate,
arose from the table, and went with a heavy heart to attend to his
regular evening chores. The cow, the hens, and even the pigs, came in
for a share of his unusually kind attention; and as he fed them all, the
big tears rolled down his cheeks, as he thought that perhaps never again
would he see any of them. These dumb animals had all been Toby's
confidants; he had poured out his griefs in their ears, and fancied,
when the world or Uncle Daniel had used him unusually hard, that they
sympathized with him. Now he was leaving them forever, and as he locked
the stable door, he could hear the sounds of music coming from the
direction of the circus grounds, and he was angry at it because it
represented that which was taking him away from his home, even though it
was not as pleasant as it might have been.
Still, he had no thought of breaking the engagement which he had made.
He went to his room, made a bundle of his worldly possessions, and crept
out of the back door, down the road to the circus.
Mr. Lord saw him as soon as he arrived on the grounds, and as he passed
another ticket to Toby, he took his bundle from him, saying as he did
so, "I'll pack up your bundle with my things, and then you'll be sure
not to lose it. Don't you want some candy?"
Toby shook his head; he had just discovered that there was possibly some
connection between his heart and his stomach, for his grief at leaving
home had taken from him all desire for good things. It is also more than
possible that Mr. Lord had had experience enough with boys to know that
they might be homesick on the eve of starting to travel with a circus;
and in order to make sure that Toby would keep to his engagement he was
unusually kind.
That evening was the longest Toby ever knew. He wandered from one cage
of animals to another; then to see the performance in the ring, and back
again to the animals, in the vain hope of passing the time pleasantly.
But it was of no use; that lump in his throat would remain there, and
the thoughts of what he was about to do would trouble him severely. The
performance failed to interest him, and the animals did not attract
until he had visited the monkey cage for the third or fourth time. Then
he fancied that the same venerable monkey who had looked so knowing in
the afternoon was gazing at him with a sadness which could only have
come from a thorough knowledge of all the grief and doubt that was in
his heart.
[Illustration: TOBY AND HIS NEW FRIEND--DRAWN BY W. A. ROGERS.]
There was no one around the cages, and Toby got just as near to the iron
bars as possible. No sooner had he flattened his little pug-nose against
the iron than the aged monkey came down from the ring in which he had
been swinging, and, seating himself directly in front of Toby's face,
looked at him most compassionately.
It would not have surprised the boy just then if the animal had spoken;
but as he did not, Toby did the next best thing, and spoke to him.
"I s'pose you remember that you saw me this afternoon, an' somebody told
you that I was goin' to join the circus, didn't they?"
The monkey made no reply, though Toby fancied that he winked an
affirmative answer; and he looked so sympathetic that he continued,
confidentially:
"Well, I'm the same feller, an' I don't mind telling you that I'm
awfully sorry I promised that candy man I'd go with him. Do you know
that I came near crying at the supper table to-night; an' Uncle Dan'l
looked real good an' nice, though I never thought so before. I wish I
wasn't goin', after all, 'cause it don't seem a bit like a good time
now; but I s'pose I must, 'cause I promised to, an' 'cause the candy man
has got all my things."
The big tears had begun to roll down Toby's cheeks, and as he ceased
speaking the monkey reached out one little paw, which Toby took as
earnestly as if it had been done purposely to console him.
"You're real good, you are," continued Toby; "an' I hope I shall see you
real often, for it seems to me now, when there hain't any folks around,
as if you was the only friend I've got in this great big world. It's
awful when a feller feels the way I do, an' when he don't seem to want
anything to eat. Now if you'll stick to me, I'll stick to you, an' then
it won't be half so bad when we feel this way."
During this speech Toby had still clung to the little brown paw, which
the monkey now withdrew, and continued to gaze into the boy's face.
"The fellers all say I don't amount to anything," sobbed Toby, "an'
Uncle Dan'l says I don't, an' I s'pose they know; but I tell you I feel
just as bad, now that I'm goin' away from them all, as if I was as good
as any of them."
At this moment Toby saw Mr. Lord enter the tent, and he knew that the
summons to start was about to be given.
"Good-by," he said to the monkey, as he vainly tried to take him by the
hand again; "remember what I've told you, an' don't forget that Toby
Tyler is feelin' worse to-night than if he was twice as big an' twice as
good."
Mr. Lord had come to summon him away, and he now told Toby that he would
show him with which man he was to ride that night.
Toby looked another good-by at the venerable monkey, who was watching
him closely, and then followed his employer out of the tent, among the
ropes and poles and general confusion attendant upon the removal of a
circus from one place to another.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
CAMBRIDGE SERIES
OF
INFORMATION CARDS FOR SCHOOLS.[1]
* * * * *
No. 4.--About Jack Frost.
BY W. J. ROLFE, A.M.
With the single exception of water, all substances expand, or become
larger, when heated, and contract, or become smaller, when cooled. This
is seen in metals better than in most other bodies. An iron ball which
when cold will just pass through a certain ring will not do so after
being put in boiling water. The tires of carriage wheels before being
put on are heated in a fire, in order that their contraction in cooling
may make them bind more tightly. On a railroad a little space is left
between the ends of the rails to allow them to expand. If this were not
done, their lengthening in hot weather would bend them outward or
inward, so that they would not be exactly parallel, and this might be
the cause of serious accidents. It has been proved that Bunker Hill
Monument--a granite pile 220 feet high--is bent to one side by the
expanding of the opposite side when the sun shines upon it; and similar
changes must take place in every tower, or steeple, or other tall
structure exposed to the sun's rays.
The least change in the temperature of any material produces a change in
its size, though not in its _weight_; and if one part is heated or
cooled more than another, the _shape_ of the whole must be somewhat
altered.
Water contracts until it is cooled down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit--that
is, 40 degrees of our common thermometers, or 8 degrees above the
freezing-point--and then it expands until it freezes. This is a wise
provision of nature. If water kept on contracting with cold, it would
begin to freeze at the bottom, where the coldest portions of it would
settle by their weight, and this would go on until it was all frozen, so
that in winter our lakes and rivers would become solid masses of ice.
This would kill all fishes and other animals in the water, and all the
heat of summer would not suffice to liquefy these great bodies of ice.
As it is, the water begins to freeze at the surface, and the layer of
ice keeps the water below it from freezing; for though the ice is itself
cold, a wall of it will keep out the cold as well as a wall of stone or
brick.
The force with which water expands in freezing is almost irresistible.
The freezing of half a gill of water in a confined space will lift a
weight of several tons. A thick iron bomb-shell filled with water will
be split open by the freezing of the liquid as it would be by a charge
of gunpowder. In winter the water-pipes in our houses are often burst by
the freezing of their contents. In some parts of England advantage is
taken of this property of water in the slate quarries. Large blocks of
slate are placed where the rain will fall upon their edges. The water
works its way between the layers, freezes, and splits the mass into thin
plates.
Jack Frost has done a good deal of this rock-splitting on his own
account. A large part of the soil of our world has been made by the
freezing of water in the cracks and crevices of rocks. Mountains have
thus been rent asunder and pulverized, and the work goes on every
winter. And after the soil has been formed, it is broken up and crumbled
by the action of frosts and thaws. Jack Frost is a good helper to the
ploughman and the farmer.
He works also on a grander scale than this. In many parts of the earth,
as you know, there are great rivers of ice called _glaciers_. They not
only look like rivers, but they flow like them, though so slowly that we
can not see the motion. In the course of a year they move only a few
hundred feet, but with mighty force, grinding the sides and bottom of
the valley as they go, breaking off huge masses of rock, and bearing
them along, together with smaller stones, earth, and mud. Thus they are
gradually tearing down the hills and filling up the valleys.
Ages ago vast glaciers swept in this way over a large portion of the
Northern hemisphere, and in many places we can see how they ground and
scratched the sides of mountains and surfaces of rocks on their way. The
big stones known as "bowlders" that abound in many parts of the country
were brought and dropped by these moving masses of ice, and in some
cases we can tell just where they came from, perhaps hundreds of miles
away.
On the other hand, some of Jack Frost's work is of the minutest and most
delicate sort. With what exquisite patterns in ice he adorns the glass
of our windows in winter! All that fine tracery is made up of tiny
crystals, the lines and angles of which are more exact than a jeweller
could cut them on a gem. Every snow-flake is a mass of such crystals, of
many forms, yet all variations of one pattern. Let the flakes fall upon
a piece of dark cloth, and you can sometimes see with the naked eye that
they are regular six-pointed stars, but with a common magnifying-glass
you can examine them much better. All ice is composed of these crystals
closely packed together; and if a sunbeam is allowed to shine through a
piece of it, the melting of the crystals makes the interior look as if
it were studded with lovely little transparent flowers with six petals.
In Russia a palace was once built of ice, and all the furniture and
decorations were of the same material. It was very wonderful and very
beautiful, but not so wonderful or so beautiful as the natural structure
of the ice itself.
The change from water to ice is a familiar one to us, but to the
ignorant natives of the tropics it seems almost like a miracle. It is
only within a few years that ice has been imported into these tropical
countries, and at first it was as great a curiosity as solid mercury or
quicksilver would be here. This liquid metal, which is used in
thermometers, does not freeze in our country, except very rarely in the
coldest weather of the extreme north; but in the arctic regions this
often occurs, and the solid mercury can be hammered and wrought like
silver. Spoons might be made of it, but they would instantly melt if put
into ice-cold water.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] By special arrangement with the author, the cards contributed to
this useful series, by W. J. ROLFE, A.M., formerly Head-Master of the
Cambridge High School, will, for the present, first appear in HARPER'S
YOUNG PEOPLE.
[Illustration: A FORECASTLE YARN.]
HOW A SAILOR RODE WITH THE CZAR.
A FORECASTLE YARN.
BY DAVID KER.
"The queerest scrape as ever I got into," said old Jack Hawkins, "was
when I was quite a young chap, makin' my fourth voyage to Rooshia.
_That's_ a queer place, mates, if you like! and the lingo's as queer as
the country. I'd larned to talk it a bit by the time I'm tellin' on, for
one of our crew was a Rooshian, and I picked it up from him. But I tell
ye, 'twas as tough a job as shapin' yer course in a fog, with no sun to
take a hobservation by. When you want to say 'Thank you,' you've got to
sing out 'Blackguard are you,' which don't sound purlite nohow. Then
they call a speech a 'wretch,' and a visitor a 'ghost' (the last sort o'
visitor _I_ should like), and instead of 'Indeed!' they say 'Sam Daly';
and some o' their own names are things like 'Comb-his-hair-off,' and
'Blow-my-nose-off.'[2]
"Altogether it's a queer, twistified kind o' lingo, jist what you might
expect from foreign lubbers. What riled me most when I fust went over
was that everybody kep' on callin' me a _mattrass_, and I'd punched two
or three fellers' heads for it afore I found out that 'mattrass'
[matross] is their word for a sailor. Jist think o' that, now!
"I can remember as well as if 'twas only yesterday what an outlandish
place St. Petersburg seemed when I fust set foot in it. Coachmen in blue
frocks and red sashes, nurses with pasteboard crowns on, church towers
plated with gold, policemen with swords by their sides, house porters
rigged out in sheep-skin, wooden houses painted green and yeller--fact,
there was no end to the queer sights all about. And when I got to know
their talk a bit, it seemed quite as outlandish to hear 'em call each
other 'John the son of Peter,' or 'Paul the son of James,' 'stead o'
handlin' one another's names ship-shape.
"And then, again, talk o' bein' _thick_! why, this here plank 'ud be a
joke to 'em. If one of our frigates was to be stuck all over with
Rooshians' heads, she wouldn't want no armor-platin'! Now I'll jist
tell yer a thing as I seed with my own eyes, and you can believe it or
not, as you like. One day when we was a-lying in the river alongside o'
the Ostroff Quay, our old man calls up a Rooshian lad that used to do
odd jobs for him, and gives him two twenty-kopeck pieces (which are much
the same as an English sixpence, or a 'Merican dime), tellin' him one on
'em's to go for bread, and t'other for 'baccy--which was all plain
sailing enough, one would think.
"Well, away goes Dmitri, and doesn't come back. So then the old man he
sings out for me, and he says, 'Hawkins,' says he, 'just go and see
what's gone with Dmitri. I'll be bound the young dog has made a mess of
that job.'
"So off I goes to the shop where we used to buy our things, and right at
the very door I comes upon Mr. Dmitri, scratchin' his head, and lookin'
as if he'd clean lost what few wits he ever had.
"Says I to him, 'Hollo, mate, what's up?'
"Says he, 'What ever am I to do? I've gone and _mixed_ the two pieces,
and now I don't know which was the one for the bread, and which was the
one for the 'baccy.'[3]
"But I must coil up the slack o' my yarn, or I'll never git it all in;
so now to tell yer 'bout that scrape o' mine.
"Right on the river-bank, near the Hadmiralty Building, there's a
stattey of Peter the Great, put up by the Hempress Catherine 'bout a
hundred years ago; and a real grand affair it is--for Rooshia. It stands
on a big block o' gray granite, as was dragged all the way from Finland
o' purpose. Peter's on a rearin' horse, pointin' across the river to
where he fust began buildin' the town; and there's a sarpent crumpled up
under his horse's feet, in sign of his ridin' the high horse over the
heathenish ways o' the country.
"Well, I was passin' this stattey one night, comin' back from a
jollification with some o' my chums, when (I don't know how it was) it
came into my head all to once what a joke it 'ud be to climb up and sit
upon the horse. So I scrambles over the railin', and up I goes.
"It was no easy job climbin' over the slippery granite, I can tell yer;
but presently I got hold o' the sarpent's tail, and then o' the horse's,
and worked my way up as if I was climbin' the shrouds. The horse's
hind-quarters was a ticklish bit, but I managed it somehow, and there I
sat, cheek by jowl with old Peter, as snug as you please.
"But it warn't quite so snug in another minute or two; for a cold wind
came sweepin' up from the river, and with that and the cold metal I was
sittin' on, my very teeth rattled in my head. Time to be gittin' down
agin, thinks I.
"Jist then I diskivered that 'git down' was easier said nor done. I
couldn't turn round, and I couldn't see where to put my feet without it;
and as for slidin' down at haphazard, 'tain't likely I'd try _that_,
with a five-and-twenty foot fall 'tween me and the pavement. Fact, I was
in a regular fix; and afore I could make up my mind what to do, I heerd
the tramp of a police patrol. Jist as they passed one fellow shouted,
'Hollo!' and they all stopped. I kept mum, hopin' they hadn't seen me;
when what must I do but give a sneeze fit to wake the whole town!
"'I thought so,' cries the chap. 'Come down, you fellow, come down
directly.'
"'All very fine sayin' come down,' says I, 'but how the dickens am I to
do it?'
"'He must be an Englishman,' says one. 'Ivan, go for a ladder.'
"The ladder came, and up scrambled two fellows, and hauled me down like
a sack o' flour. I was too numbed by this time to show fight, even if it
had been any good; so the fellers jist marched me straight off to the
watch-house, and locked me up for the night.
"Next mornin' I was had up afore the Judge; and when the old chap sees
me, he says, with a grin, 'Aha! Angliski matross' [an English sailor],
as if _that_ was quite enough to account for whatever I might have done.
When he'd heard the charge he axed if I spoke Rooshian, and finding I
did, arter a fashion, he told me to spin my yarn. So I paid it out
pretty much as you have it now.
"At every word I said the old fellow rubbed his hands and chuckled like
anythin'; and the minute I'd done, he jist lay back in his chair, and
laughed as if he'd bust all to bits.
"'Well,' says he, wipin' his eyes, 'that's the best story I've heard
this year, or my name's not Phillipoff. But you really must not play
such tricks _here_, my man; so I'll fine you five rubles [$3.75], and
mind you don't do it again.'
"'Five rubles!' says I; 'that's a pretty high fare for a ten minutes'
ride.'
"'Can't be helped,' says he: 'if you _will_ ride with the Czar, you must
expect to pay first-class fare.'
"'All right,' says I, 'here's the money; but the next time I ride with
the Czar I'll git out afore they come round for the tickets.'"
FOOTNOTES:
[2] For the benefit of Mr. Hawkins's readers it may be as well to state
that the real words are "blagodareu," "retsch," "gosst," "f'samom
dalay," "Komisâroff," "Lomonôsoff."--D. K.
[3] A fact.
A WONDERFUL RAILROAD.
BY F. E. FRYATT.
"Oh, children, I have made such a wonderful discovery this afternoon on
my shopping tour!" said Miss Thornton, laying off her bonnet and
seal-skin, as she addressed an eager group of youngsters.
"What is it? what is it?--do tell us!" chorussed all the little
Thorntons, gathering excitedly around her.
"Yes--wait a moment. Here, Nell, take my things up stairs; Harry,
shoulder these packages, and go with her, and Bert will stir up the
fire, while Edith runs down stairs and tells Bridget to serve dinner
precisely at seven. Then we'll have my travels' history."
A little later, as they all sat before the blazing grate, with the red
fire-light flickering on their faces, Miss Thornton commenced in a
serious manner: "Once upon a time, just about a year ago, a benevolent
gentleman was walking through one of the busiest thoroughfares in our
city. It was Christmas-eve, and very late, when he saw twenty or thirty
little girls and boys hurrying out of a great shop famous for its
Christmas toys and gift counters of every description. The poor young
things looked so pale and thin, and there was such a haggard expression
on their small faces, that a strange pain filled his heart, and a
longing to help these little cash boys and girls set him to thinking.
"The gentleman had two wee darlings of his own; he knew they were at
this very moment tucked away, rosy and warm, in their snowy bed in the
nursery, and he wished these tired young folks were as happily placed.
"'Shameful!' said he to himself; 'every one of you ought to have been in
bed four hours ago. Something ought to be done--something _shall_ be!'
"Just by the merest chance I went into that very store this afternoon,
and what do you think I saw? The tiniest, prettiest little railroad you
could imagine."
"A toy railroad?" queried Bert.
"Not at all; a veritable railroad running all around the store, filled
with freight, passengers, and--money."
"Oh, aunty, 'upon your word and honor,' honest, now, was it a _real_
true railroad with cars on it?" cried Harry.
"Yes, it is a real, wide-awake, lively, business, working road, as true
as I sit here."
"Oh!" chorussed all the little Thorntons, in amazement.
"What made it go?" asked Harry.
"Who were the passengers?" chimed in Nellie.
"Could I ride on it, aunty?" asked Bert.
"Anyway, I should think it would run over folks, or trip them up,"
suggested Edith.
"Come, now, if you will give me 'elbow room,' and not crowd so, I'll
tell you everything I saw, and explain it as clearly as possible," said
Miss Thornton, smiling at the children's eager curiosity. "One day last
year I went to that same store to purchase a bonnet; the place was
thronged with customers at every counter; the floor-walkers were
shouting, the girl clerks screaming 'C-a-a-sh!' 'Che-ck!' cash-girls and
cash-boys with little baskets were running in every direction, calling
out their numbers in reply. Such a jostling, crowding, noisy place I was
never in."
"Well?" said Harry, with an air of deep interest.
"To-day I was very pleasantly surprised to find it as quiet and orderly
as one could wish; just as many customers, to be sure, but none of the
dreadful noise and confusion of last year--and all owing to this
wonderful little railroad."
"Do tell us all about it, aunty," begged Harry, forgetting he was
interrupting.
"Well, I heard a soft humming noise somewhere overhead, and looking up,
there were a dozen or more little cars with polished wheels running on
tracks that shone like silver. Each car was about eight inches long,
just big enough for a couple of fairies to ride in. They were the cutest
little things, and ran along their shining roads like magic; no horses,
pulleys, nor wires to draw them. Some of them went right to the dépôt
without stopping; others stopped at their stations just as the big
'elevated' cars do."
"I've guessed it: they went by steam," shouted Bert, triumphantly.
"No, not by steam," said Aunt Elinor.
"Then they're wound up like my mouse clock," cried Harry.
"No, it isn't that."
"I mean to go there and find out," said Bert.
"Some of these cars had curious wire cages hanging beneath them. A dozen
of these were running along at full speed to their stations. I ought to
tell you just here that the odd little 'cubby-house' where the cashier
receives and changes money is the place where these cars take on and
deposit their passengers and freight. The double track commences at the
north, and sweeps around the store till it comes to the south end of the
box which serves as the dépôt. This railway, made of bright steel, is
just high enough from the floor to let a tall man pass under without
knocking his hat off. These little cages reminded me of the car of a
balloon, they swung along so airily. But what do you think? There was an
ugly black bear in one of them. He looked ferocious enough to eat one,
and his eyes fairly glittered as he rode past me. In the next car was a
solemn baby-elephant, with immense ears, funny twinkling little eyes,
and a very respectable trunk. Then came a pair of jumping-jacks, a
savings-bank, two monkeys, a woolly dog, and some lop-eared rabbits, and
these were followed by a company of wooden soldiers, some more
elephants, two gray cats, and a sedate-looking parrot. The animals kept
coming, till I made up my mind to find out the Noah's ark where they
were coming from. I hadn't far to go before I found myself in one of the
toy departments, in the midst of which stood a great fat jolly old Santa
Claus loaded down with Christmas toys, and all powdered with snow.
'Oho!' thought I, 'my merry old saint, I've found you out: _you're_ the
president of this new railroad.' He must have read my thoughts, or else
I fancied he gave me a knowing wink out of one of his blue eyes, as much
as to say, 'Don't tell the children.'"
"Oh, Aunt Elinor, but you have told us already," screamed Nell, with
delight.
"Well, well, after watching another menagerie embark on the railroad, I
followed the crowd into the next department. Oh, Nell, you and Edith
would have clapped hands for joy: it was like a glimpse into
fairy-land--dolls here, dolls there, dolls everywhere. As for the
railroad, it was crowded, up-trains and down-trains."
"Oh, aunty, tell us how they were dressed!" cried Edith.
"One was a bride. I begged the clerk to stop the little car, and let me
have a good look at her ladyship. She wore a lovely princesse robe of
cream-colored satin, trimmed with lace and pearl-bead fringe; an
exquisite veil and a wreath of orange blossoms covered her golden curls.
In another car sat a very pretty little lady, with a real seal-skin hat,
cloak, and muff, and diamond earrings; her cheeks were as red as roses.
A baby doll in a long white dress sat in front of her."
"Oh, aunty, a baby doll, without any hair on its head, and only two
teeth like Min's?"
"Yes, Nell; and, by-the-way, it didn't look unlike our Min: the same
little round eyes and pudgy nose--yes, and the two teeth exactly like
hers."
"All this time, Aunt Elinor, you haven't told us what made the cars go,
and what stops them," said Edith, thoughtfully.
"What a forgetful aunty I am! This is the way it is done. Harry Thornton
wants to buy a dog; he has a fifty-cent piece; he stops at a toy counter
over which is marked Station D, and selects a nice black-and-tan--"
"No, a Newfoundland, aunty."
"Well, a Newfoundland. He hands fifty cents to the young woman clerk.
What does she do? She takes the car down off the track, using a
long-handled contrivance like a fork to do it. She places Mr.
Doggy--Carlo, if you please--in the lower wire cage, the money and her
cash-book in the top car; then places the car and its baggage on the
down-town track, and away it rushes. You see, one end of the track is
higher than the other, making a gentle descent, down which the little
car glides. A young lad hands Mr. Carlo over to the wrapping clerk, and
in a second or two, all wrapped from top to toe in tissue-paper, he
makes his appearance in car D, bound on the up-town track for Station D.
He makes the trip in ten seconds."
"But what makes him stop just at Station D?" inquires Harry.
"A small steel peg under the car, called a brake, is fixed just where it
will fit in a notch on the steel road, and every station car is provided
with one."
"I know it now," exclaimed Edith. "It was the benevolent gentleman who
said in the beginning of your story that the cash boys and girls ought
to have been in bed hours ago. He was the one who invented it--the
railroad, I mean. Who was he, aunty?"
"I am sorry I can not tell you his name; but he is a very bashful
person," replied Aunt Elinor.
"I'll tell you who it is," shouted Harry, with an air of triumph: "it's
old Santa Claus. Hurrah for old Santa Claus!"
"_Some_ one's Santa Claus, undoubtedly, little man; but whose?--that is
the question."
[Begun in YOUNG PEOPLE No. 58, December 7.]
MILDRED'S BARGAIN.
A Story for Girls.
BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.
* * * * *
CHAPTER II.
A clamor of young voices greeted Mildred's entrance into the tiny hall
of the cottage. Three small boys and a girl of nine caught hold of the
elder sister.
"Oh, Milly, do hurry tea!" and, "Oh, Milly, who came up to the gate?"
and, "Oh, mamma said Milly was to go at once to her. She is in the
parlor."
Mildred kissed each little face, and then, disengaging herself from
them, pushed open the parlor door, while the children scampered off to
assist the one old servant in her preparations for the evening meal.
Mrs. Lee was lying on the parlor sofa when her daughter entered, while
near her stood a tall, hard-featured woman, who was displaying an open
bundle of silks and laces, shawls and ribbons. The glittering array was
spread all about the poor widow, who glanced at her eldest daughter with
a mixture of hope and perplexity. Mrs. Lee was one of those women who
take everything in life from a despondent point of view. She had begun
her married life a fresh, pretty girl who had known very little real
care or sorrow, but with no mental or spiritual force to meet even the
trifling ups and downs of existence. She loved her children dearly, but
in them she saw only so many additional causes for worry. When her
husband died she had turned almost instinctively to Mildred as a sort of
guide and counsellor, and the young girl had grown accustomed to be the
controlling influence at home.
"My darling," Mrs. Lee exclaimed, as Mildred came up to her side, "do
explain to this--lady that I don't want any of her things. Indeed,
madam, we can't buy any of them;" and Mrs. Lee turned her face rather
fretfully from her troublesome visitor.
Mildred gave the peddler a grave look of rebuke, but she said, civilly
enough: "Please bring your things into the next room; I will talk to you
there. My mother is not well enough to be disturbed."
The woman had very quickly measured Mildred's power. Moreover, she
fancied she detected in the slim, pretty young girl a more promising
customer than the wearied, faded lady on the sofa; so she was by no
means unwilling to gather up her things and follow Mildred into the
little room which served as dining and school room, where her mother's
piano, the children's books, and her own sewing-machine were kept.
"Now, miss," began the woman at once, shaking out some of her most
brilliant wares, "do just have a look--not to _buy_ unless it suits ye,
but just to see what's pretty. Now here's _just_ the thing would do you
for your life--a gray silk you couldn't match in all Milltown; and
cheap--as cheap--"
"No, thank you," said Mildred, coldly, turning away from the dazzling
offer. "I shall be _so_ glad if you'll put up your things. I'm tired,
and the children want their tea."
"Well, well," said the woman, with a coarse affectation of good-humor,
"it'll take me a minute or two; but first just cast your eye over that
bit of silk--gray's your color; you're just pink and white and soft
enough for it, and it's only thirty dollars for twenty yards--enough to
make a dress now, and a jacket next spring. And I'll tell you how I
manage with young ladies like you: I take _easy pay_--weekly
installments, don't you see? But law! it's so little at a time--only
fifty cents a week--keeps me waiting more'n a year; and you may say you
get a year's wear out of your dress for nothing."
"I am very sorry," said Milly, still persistent; "I do not want the
dress. I must take off my things. I am just up from the store."
"The store!" echoed the woman, eying her sharply. "Mr. Hardman's, I
suppose? Yes, you're just the kind of pretty, genteel young figure they
like to get. Now I dare say you are in the mantle department."
[Illustration: MILDRED'S TEMPTATION--DRAWN BY JESSIE CURTIS SHEPHERD.]
"Some part of the day," said Milly, shortly. The woman was busy tying up
her parcel, folding the gray silk so that its sheen caught Milly's eye
perpetually. It _was_ a pretty silk, the young girl thought. Oh, why
couldn't she have _just_ such a dress to wear at Miss Jenner's party,
instead of her old, often-washed white muslin! But Milly resolutely shut
such a wild ambition out of her mind, and tried to look uninterested
while the woman continued:
"Why, you must be earning at least five or six dollars a week down to
Hardman's. He's good pay, I know. Fifty cents wouldn't be much. Well,
well," she added, turning the pretty silk back and forth in shining
ripples, "I'll find an easy sale for this anywheres: only I must say,
_as a friend_, you're making a mistake."
A half-pang of regret shot through Milly's mind as the woman tied up the
last article in her parcel, and the gray silk disappeared from view.
During the busy occupations of the evening her mind kept recurring to
the peddler's visit and her tempting offer. Before she went to bed she
had made a rapid calculation of how long it would take her to save the
required sum out of her earnings. It took nearly all she and her mother
could earn to feed the four hungry little mouths as well as their own,
and to keep a respectable roof over their heads.
"Still," argued Milly, "I work so hard, why shouldn't I have at least
_fifty cents_ a week for my clothes, and such a good silk, too! And to
look well at Miss Jenner's!"
Visions of an impossible future, in which Miss Jenner would adopt all
her little brothers and sisters, filled Mildred's mind, completely
shutting out the fact that girlish vanity was at the root of her desire
to possess the gray silk. Unfortunately Mildred had never been
accustomed to go with her little perplexities to her mother, and so it
did not now occur to her to seek any advice. Mrs. Lee was always "too
tired" or too "blue" to be "bothered," and while Mildred had learned a
habit of self-restraint and reserve, the younger children looked to her
for every suggestion, so that Milly felt quite capable of governing her
own actions when she was allowed to govern theirs. By the time the young
girl awoke, she had, as she thought, reasoned herself into a belief that
the most foolish mistake of her life was in letting that gray silk slip
out of her possession. The sight of her limp old muslin in the wardrobe
did not lessen this regret, nor did her mother's bemoaning at breakfast
that "Milly would look a fright at Miss Jenner's party" help matters in
the least.
"If you could only at least _look_ like your father's daughter," sighed
Mrs. Lee, "no knowing what might come of it."
Milly echoed these words over and again as she walked down to the store,
varying them with her own unwise reflections. She was a little late, and
received a half-sneering reprimand from "Mr. Tom" as she passed him at
the desk. It was her duty to go to the mantle department, which was in a
sort of L off the main part of the store. Milly, after hurriedly laying
aside her things, turned toward the cloak-room. No other sales-woman
was in it, but there, seated at the side, an expression of vulgar
audacity on her face, was the peddler of last night!
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
EMBROIDERY FOR GIRLS.
BY SUSAN HAYES WARD.
No. III.
[Illustration]
The Pilgrim women who sailed in the _Mayflower_ brought with them the
very old stitch, a magnified view of which is given in Fig. 11. I have
seen a picture wrought by one of these same Pilgrim Mothers--rows of
houses and trees something like this (you could any of you draw better),
with a meeting-house in the middle; but the houses and trees were a
marvel of crewel-work, the background of silk, all in this ancient
stitch, which is also found in old Persian and Turkish embroidery. I
know an old lady who has used it from her childhood, who calls it
"pocket-book" stitch; it is really a kind of "fagotting," and there are
remnants of old petticoats and curtains still to be found in
out-of-the-way country towns of New England, exquisitely worked in this
most economical of stitches, which, for convenience, I shall call the
New England stitch. Turn the work over and you will see how economical
the stitch is: all the wool, except just enough at the outline to catch
in the stuff, shows on the upper side. By pushing your needle first
toward you and then from you, as seen in Fig. 10, you get that pretty
twisted look which you see very much enlarged in Fig. 11. The Janina
stitch, as given in HARPER'S BAZAR, November 6, seems to be an imitation
of this, though much inferior in effect and ease of working.
[Illustration: FIG. 10.]
[Illustration: FIG. 11.]
The design here given (Fig. 12) is suitable for a tidy, bureau-cover,
curtain, or mantel lambrequin. For a bureau-cover take nice Russia
crash, allow twelve inches to hang over each side, _besides_ enough for
fringe. Three flowers like the two in Fig. 12 are enough for crash of
ordinary width. Trace off the pattern on a piece of paper, repeat the
left-hand flower at X, stopping at R, and omitting the spray marked S.
You can finish off the stem at R with Fig. 13 if you prefer. When your
pattern is all ready on the paper, trace it on the crash, in the middle
of the twelve inches, according to directions in No. II. This figure,
designed expressly for the girls who read these articles, can be worked
according to the directions for color given below, in New England
stitch, or in three shades of one color, in either New England or stem
stitch, following the same gradations of color.
A genuinely old design used one hundred and fifty years ago will be sent
to the girl under sixteen who first reports having finished the
embroidery of Fig. 12, according to directions, in New England stitch.
COLORS.
A, very light yellow-green; B and C, darker shades; _a_, very light
salmon pink; _b_ and _c_, darker shades; _l_, light yellow; _n_, old
gold; _m_, an intermediate shade of yellow.
Every other flower might be worked in old blues.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.]
[Illustration: FIG. 12.]
[Illustration: THE POST-OFFICE BOX.]
The readers of YOUNG PEOPLE, whose letters give assurance of the
pleasure and instruction they have received from the paper during the
past year, will doubtless be glad to put others in the way of sharing in
their enjoyment. This they can most easily do by speaking of the paper
to their friends and acquaintances, showing them copies of it, and
advising them to subscribe for the new volume. By thus extending its
circulation they will be working for their own interest; because the
larger the list of subscribers is, the better able the publishers will
be to increase the beauty and attractiveness of the paper.
* * * * *
The next issue of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE will be a beautiful Christmas
number. The serial stories and the Post-office Box will be omitted, and
the entire contents will be suited to the holiday season. There will be
a charming Christmas story, entitled "HOW IT ALL HAPPENED," by Miss
Alcott, with illustrations by Jessie Curtis Shepherd; "WHEN THE CLOCK
STRUCK TWELVE," a play for Christmas-eve, by Edgar Fawcett; a beautiful
double-page Christmas picture by Thomas Nast; music; and other pretty
things to please our young readers. The number will be inclosed in a
special cover, designed by W. A. Rogers, and printed in dark red ink.
* * * * *
We must again call the attention of our correspondents to the fact that
the Post-office Box can not be made a medium for buying or selling
curiosities, stamps, or articles of any kind. Neither can we print
requests for the address of any correspondent.
The requests for exchange should be made as short as possible. We can
not publish lists of eggs, stamps, minerals, and other things; but would
advise boys and girls to make out a neat list of the articles they have
to exchange, and those they desire in return, and have copies always
ready to send in answer to the letters they receive.
Requests for exchange are often accompanied by lengthy conditions, but
we can not make room to print them, and shall invariably leave them for
the exchangers to settle among themselves. In sending specimens great
care should always be taken to mark them distinctly, and to state the
locality from whence they came, otherwise the recipient may become the
possessor of some valuable curiosity, and be unaware of its character.
Our puzzle contributors will please remember that a puzzle, in order to
be accepted, must be not only good, but must have a solution not already
used in YOUNG PEOPLE, and contain no slang, and no obsolete words. Read
over your contributions and correct them carefully before sending them
to YOUNG PEOPLE, as the misuse of a single letter spoils an otherwise
excellent puzzle.
* * * * *
MONTREAL, CANADA.
I am a little boy nine years old. I have been ill in bed for ten
weeks, but now I am getting better.
I had a little dog named Bogey, but he bit a policeman, and we had
to send him away.
We have lots of snow here now, and the sleigh-bells are tinkling
all day. I wish I was well enough to have a snow-ball fight with
the other boys. Now they have plenty of coasting and snow-shoeing
and tobogganing, and it is great fun.
I can read all of YOUNG PEOPLE myself. I wish it would come
oftener.
BERTIE G.
* * * * *
NEW YORK CITY.
I want to tell the readers of YOUNG PEOPLE how to make a bran
pudding for the Christmas dinner. It is the nicest kind of pudding.
Select some little gifts, pretty or ridiculous, for each person
expected. Wrap them neatly, and write upon each the name, and a few
lines appropriate to the present and the receiver. Place them in a
large tin pan, and cover them with dry clean bran. After all the
other good things have been served, have this placed before papa,
and he will take out each package with a spoon, and read the name
and verse aloud. Shouts of laughter and expressions of delight
greet each one as the parcels are opened. If mamma or aunty will
help write the verses, they can be made very funny, and be a jolly
ending to a Christmas dinner. It is a dessert very much better than
plum-pudding for little folks.
BESSIE GUYTON.
* * * * *
GLASGOW, SCOTLAND.
I get YOUNG PEOPLE every week, and I am so pleased when it comes! I
liked "The Moral Pirates" very much.
I have a brother a year younger than I am, and we each have a pet
cat. His is all black except its paws, which are white, so we call
it White Socks. Mine is all gray, and its name is Jenny. We have a
very pretty little collie dog named Tyne.
I have four dolls, and a black doll for their nurse. I have never
been to school. We have a governess. I like to read the letters in
the Post-office Box very much, and I should like to know if I am
the first little girl who has sent a letter from Scotland.
PEGGIE M.
The Post-office Box has received numbers of letters from Scottish lads
and lassies.
* * * * *
MEDFORD, MASSACHUSETTS.
I have taken YOUNG PEOPLE only a little while, and I like it so
much I would be very sorry not to have it now. When my papa brings
it home I take it to school, and my teacher reads it to the
scholars. There are fifty in our school.
HOWARD L.
* * * * *
HUTCHINSON, KANSAS.
We had a present of a pair of white mice. They had four little
ones, but my sister killed one of them. The mice have red eyes and
pink feet. The mother mouse is very kind to the little ones. She
picks them up in her mouth as a cat does her kittens. They are not
large enough to eat yet, but the big ones eat cookies and apples,
and drink milk. We have a tin cage to keep them in.
I do not go to school. Mamma teaches my sister and me at home. I
am eight years old.
MARY B. M.
* * * * *
OTTAWA, CANADA.
There are some very fine buildings in this city. The Parliament
House and Departmental Buildings are situated on a beautiful hill
about two hundred feet high. All three are built of marble. The
ground, which is tastefully laid out with lawns and flower beds, is
in the form of a square, with the Parliament House in the centre,
and a Departmental Building on either side. From the rear of the
Parliament House there is a fine view of the Chaudière Falls and
the surrounding country.
A bridge joining the provinces of Quebec and Ontario has just been
completed, which is the second largest bridge in the world.
EDWARD L.
* * * * *
DANVILLE, ILLINOIS.
I want to tell the Post-office Box of the fun I had this afternoon.
We met at two o'clock, and went to the river. We coasted a long
while on the large hills, then we went on the ice. The river is
frozen hard, and the skaters took some of us riding on the ice. We
had a splendid time. Afterward we went back to the hills, and built
a large bonfire. The flames were about eight feet high, and we
hurrahed and shouted. We went home about five o'clock.
I can not express in words how much I like YOUNG PEOPLE. The
stories and pictures are elegant.
Will you please tell me which was the first railroad in the United
States?
COLMORE S.
The first railway in the United States was constructed in 1826 from the
quarries of Quincy, Massachusetts, to the nearest tide-water. The cars
were drawn by horses. The second American railroad was laid in 1827,
from the coal mines of Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, to the Lehigh River.
With branches and turn-outs it was thirteen miles long. It was operated
by gravity. Mules were used for drawing back the empty cars. The first
passenger railway was the Baltimore and Ohio, fifteen miles of which
were opened in 1830. During the first year the cars were drawn by
horses, but in 1831 the first locomotive built in America was put on the
track. It had an upright instead of a horizontal boiler. On its trial
trip it drew an open car at the rate of eighteen miles an hour, from
Baltimore to Ellicott's Mills. The next passenger line built was the
Mohawk and Hudson, from Albany to Schenectady.
* * * * *
FORT WARREN, BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS.
I have taken HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE ever since No. 9, and I like it
very much. I think "The Moral Pirates" and "Old Times in the
Colonies" are the best stories.
We have a pet cat named Frisky, and she wears a very large ruffle
around her neck, like Queen Elizabeth. We had two dogs, but we
sent them away because there were too many about the Fort. Army
posts are so dull, that we like to get all the pets we can.
Will you please tell me who first discovered the Antarctic
Continent?
CHESTER MAXWELL W.
The Antarctic Continent was discovered in January, 1840, by Captain
Wilkes, of the United States navy, who was commander of an exploring
expedition toward the south pole. He traced the coast for some distance,
but was prevented from landing by the great masses of ice along the
shore. In 1841, Sir James Ross, who commanded a British expedition,
penetrated still farther south, and discovered Mount Erebus, which is
the most southern volcano, so far as known, and which at the time of its
discovery was throwing out smoke and flame. He also discovered Mount
Terror, which is in appearance an extinct volcano.
* * * * *
SARATOGA SPRINGS, NEW YORK.
I shall be twelve years old next February. Willie W. and I got up a
company of soldiers, and had a big parade in November. The
Drum-Major was a boy very oddly dressed. The newspaper here said
our parade made a smile on more faces than one. We do not expect to
parade again until next summer; then, when all the city boys are up
here, we will show them our regiment.
NASH R.
* * * * *
NEWMAN, GEORGIA.
My uncle sends me YOUNG PEOPLE from Macon, and I like it so much! I
am eight years old, but I have never been to school. My little
cousin and I recite our lessons at home. I have a little pony named
Dolly.
FREDDIE B.
* * * * *
HERMAN, MINNESOTA.
I have received so many letters from parties wishing to exchange
for my petrified buffalo's tooth that I hardly know what to do. I
only had two specimens. But I have sent a number that were not
petrified. I hope the correspondents will see this letter, and know
why they did not receive just what they expected. I can not answer
all the letters I have received now, but will do so as soon as
possible.
THEODORE H. PATCHEN.
* * * * *
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA.
For my winter sport I go to my uncle's sugar plantation, and see
them make sugar. I have a pony and a colt up there, and have lots
of fun.
MONROE V.
* * * * *
I would like to exchange a few Hot Springs diamonds, and also some
seeds of the cotton-plant, for ocean curiosities, shells, or Indian
relics. My pa procured these diamonds at the Hot Springs of
Arkansas last summer.
Pa has a jug which was taken from a mound thirty feet high. There
were trees growing on the mound three feet in diameter. I asked pa
how old the jug was, and he said the Mound-Builders put it there
four thousand years ago, more or less.
ANNIE SIDNEY DUFFIE,
Princeton, Arkansas.
* * * * *
My grandpa sends us HARPER'S WEEKLY and YOUNG PEOPLE, and papa
says, "It is the best reading we could have for our little ones."
We children hope never to miss a number of our dear YOUNG PEOPLE.
We keep them all nice, and some time we will have them bound.
If all the little folks who read this paper could come out here,
we could get them plenty of curiosities. The winters here are very
quiet, but in the summer the town is full of strangers.
I have some pressed ferns and leaves I will send to any little
folks who would like them.
AGNES, P. O. Box 19,
Forest Lake, Washington County, Minnesota.
* * * * *
The following exchanges are also offered by correspondents:
United States internal revenue stamps for United States and foreign
postage stamps.
CHARLES E. BARBOUR,
150 Centre Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
* * * * *
Flower seeds.
GERTY M. LOTHROP,
Topsfield, Washington County, Maine.
* * * * *
Sea-shells and minerals.
BYRON HUFF,
P. O. Box 171, Newton Centre, Massachusetts.
* * * * *
Birds' eggs.
W. K. POST,
21 North Washington Square, New York City.
* * * * *
Brazilian, Canadian, and Cuban stamps for a solid piece of flint
the size of an egg.
WILLIAM NALDRETT,
501 East Eleventh Street, New York City.
* * * * *
Postage stamps.
TOMMIE SAMUELS,
Care of G. W. Newman & Co.,
Emporia, Kansas.
* * * * *
Pressed ferns for autumn leaves or moss.
H. P. G., P. O. Box 1138,
Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minnesota.
* * * * *
Minerals and stamps for minerals and feathers.
HALLIE CRENSHAW,
Care of Postmaster, Marengo, Iowa County, Iowa.
* * * * *
French and English coins.
W. B. SHOBER, Cumberland, Maryland.
* * * * *
Postage stamps.
H. C. PEARSON,
Fishersville, Merrimac Co., New Hampshire.
* * * * *
Postage stamps.
F. W. TREADWAY,
169 Jennings Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.
* * * * *
Postage stamps and postmarks.
CHARLES CARTER,
P. O. Box 1167, Titusville, Pennsylvania.
* * * * *
Shells and quartz for minerals.
MAGGIE CRESWICK,
2912 Clark Avenue, St. Louis, Missouri.
* * * * *
United States postmarks and pieces of the Washington Monument for
foreign stamps, shells, coins, minerals, or relics.
MABEL A. J. CORNISH,
310 First Street, S. E., Washington, D. C.
* * * * *
A piece of rhinoceros skin for iron, lead, silver, or gold ore, or
for petrifactions.
GEORGE L. OSGOOD, JUN.,
2 Divinity Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
* * * * *
Postage stamps and specimens of petrified wood for stamps. Old
issues of United States and South American stamps especially
desired.
J. R. BEDFORD,
5 Spencer Place, Fourth Avenue, New York City.
* * * * *
Postmarks for minerals, Indian relics, or curiosities of any kind.
WILLIAM BRYANT,
171 Clermont Avenue, Brooklyn, New York.
* * * * *
Postage stamps, stamped envelopes, and postal cards, especially
with readers of YOUNG PEOPLE in foreign countries.
EDWIN T. COLE,
804 Mahantongo Street, Pottsville, Pennsylvania.
* * * * *
Any natural product of Western New York for rice and cotton as
taken from the field, or for the moss found on trees in the
Southern States.
CLIFTON B. GATES,
Ellington, Chautauqua County, New York.
* * * * *
Sea-shells, postage stamps, and curiosities.
PETER WELCH,
276 Bridge Street, Brooklyn, New York.
* * * * *
Rare stamps or minerals for foreign coins.
SIDONIA STIEN,
125 East Sixty-ninth Street, New York City.
* * * * *
Rare foreign and United States stamps for ocean curiosities and
Indian relics.
JOHN A. MUNO,
Lock Box 68, Evanston, Cook County, Illinois.
* * * * *
United States War Department and foreign stamps for birds' eggs.
JOSEPH R. HASKIN,
Fort Preble, Portland, Maine.
* * * * *
Fossils, gold, silver, and iron ore, and cocoons of the _Atticus
cecropia_, for minerals, coins, fossils, Indian relics, or skulls
of birds or animals.
FLETCHER M. NOE,
165 N. Ala. Street, Indianapolis, Indiana.
* * * * *
Twenty-five foreign stamps or minerals for fossils and minerals.
THOMAS W. GILBERT,
23 Park Row (Room 37), New York City.
* * * * *
Danish stamps and Chinese coin for any other foreign stamps or
coin.
GEORGE C. CODDING,
Petaluma, Sonoma County, California.
* * * * *
Postage stamps from Brazil, Hong-Kong, or Japan, for minerals.
E. G. LATHERS,
P. O. Box 29, Pelhamville, New York.
* * * * *
OLIVE W. H.--We do not know. You would better write to some of our
exchanges, or to some dealer in stamps.
* * * * *
ARTHUR N.--Write and ask your question of the correspondent herself. Her
address was given in YOUNG PEOPLE No. 53.
* * * * *
MARGUERITE.--If you wish the cover, title-page, and index to HARPER'S
YOUNG PEOPLE, Volume I., sent to you by mail, you must send forty-eight
cents to the publishers. The amount will be received in clean, unused
United States postage stamps of any denomination.
* * * * *
J. M.--A translation of the hieroglyphs on the New York Obelisk is given
in the London _Athenæum_ of March 13, 1880, which you will find at any
of the large reading-rooms. The same translation is reprinted in a
volume entitled _The Obelisk and Freemasonry_, published by J. W.
Bouton, 706 Broadway, New York city.
* * * * *
"SUBSCRIBER," RADNOR, OHIO.--All of Willson's School Readers are
published by Messrs. Harper & Brothers. There are eight in the series.
They run in regular order from the First to the Fifth, and there are
besides three Intermediate Readers. We do not know to which one you
refer.--We can not print your request for exchange, as you give no
address.
* * * * *
O. W. S.--We can give you no information in regard to the offer you
inquire about, as we never heard of it.
* * * * *
FRED W.--The subscription price of HARPER'S MONTHLY, WEEKLY, and YOUNG
PEOPLE, to one address, for one year, is eight dollars and fifty cents.
* * * * *
F. F.--We can not tell you what to buy for your mother's Christmas
present, for we do not know as well as you, who are near her, what kind
of a present would please her the best. But we would advise you to think
very carefully, and if you can remember any pretty thing she has
expressed a wish for, or any little comfort which you suspect she has
gone without in order that she might get something for you, try to give
her that. Do not spend your money for a trinket, but get something
pretty and useful at the same time, like a handsome work-basket or a
soft worsted breakfast shawl, and every time mamma uses it she will be
sure to remember her little girl's loving thoughtfulness much more
tenderly than if you give her vases or other parlor ornaments which will
be stood away on the mantel-piece.
* * * * *
W. S. HUTCHINSON, WILLIAM L. BETTON, G. A. J., AND OTHERS.--You can get
a very good illustrated catalogue of postage stamps by sending
twenty-five cents to Scott & Co., 146 Fulton Street, New York city.
* * * * *
HATTIE KERR.--If you keep your crabs well fed with bits of raw beef or
raw fish, never allowing them to get hungry, they will be more likely to
leave the other inhabitants of your aquarium in peace.
* * * * *
HELEN E. V.--Parrakeets will eat all kinds of seeds. They like orange
seeds very much. They will also eat fruit of all kinds, and sometimes
will bite a bit of cracker like a parrot. You can also give them English
walnuts for variety. In Cuba large flocks of parrakeets, ninety or a
hundred birds together, often settle on the orange-trees, and make sad
havoc with the ripe fruit, which they tear to pieces to find the seeds.
They are especially fond of the Cuban sour orange, a fruit which is
rarely brought to this country, and large numbers of these beautiful
little birds may always be found around the wild orange-trees in the
Cuban forests.
* * * * *
H. N.--The ribs of a canoe should lie parallel to the moulds.--A drawing
or design may be enlarged by using a pantograph. It requires, however,
some practice to make a neat drawing with one of these instruments.
* * * * *
Favors are acknowledged from May and Fannie Fairlamb, Harry Woolcott,
Eugenia McGarrah, E. C. S., Anna Brown, Sadie D., Harry MacC., Mettie
F., Kinney Offutt, Edith C., Theodore F. Bayles, Boyd Ramsey, Aimee
Ruggles, Hattie F. Holcroft, Jennie Hughes, L. M. and E. Smith, Eddie
Beeson, Fannie V. Cross, DuBois Carpenter, Tillie Strang, Fred, Mamie E.
Thornton, Lucia C. Daniels, Marie R., Walter P. Hiles, Gerald M. Bliss,
Lillie E. Brewster, George B. Donnelly, J. H. Shaw, Maggie Poindexter,
Lillian A. Atkins, J. F. W.
* * * * *
Correct answers to puzzles are received from Annie M. W., Cal I. Forny,
C. H. McB., Howard B. Lent.
* * * * *
PUZZLES FROM YOUNG CONTRIBUTORS.
No. 1.
HALF-SQUARE--(_To Zelotes_).
To listen to. To consume. A preposition. In mineralogy.
MARK MARCY.
* * * * *
No. 2.
RHOMBOID.
Across.--A wading bird. To prepare for publication. A tree. A metallic
vein.
Down.--A letter. A verb. A girl's name. Part of a window. An adverb. A
nickname. A letter.
ZELOTES.
* * * * *
No. 3.
ENIGMA.
My first is in anger, but not in ire.
My second in stove, but not in fire.
My third is in dress, but not in cloak.
My fourth is in mist, but not in smoke.
My fifth is in earth, but not in soil.
My sixth is in puzzle, but not in foil.
My seventh is in lion, but not in beast.
My eighth is in festival, not in feast.
My ninth is in ocean, never at rest,
But not in the ships which toss on its breast.
Many have perished in seeking me,
And still I remain a mystery.
OWLET.
* * * * *
No. 4.
TRIPLE ACROSTIC.
An artery. Circular. A craze. Primals--part of the body. Centrals--to
flow. Finals--a girl's name. Primals and finals combined, a fleet of war
vessels.
BOLUS.
* * * * *
No. 5.
DOUBLE ACROSTIC.
A French heroine. A saint. A French statesman and orator. A Greek
orator. One of the nine Muses. A German poet. Primals and finals spell
the name of a famous Roman.
DAME DURDEN.
* * * * *
No. 6.
EASY SQUARES.
1. First, a tribute. Second, to submit. Third, a sneering look. Fourth,
a musical instrument.
C. I. F.
2. First, a wild animal. Second, otherwise. Third, a continent. Fourth,
hindermost.
3. First, a means of cleanliness. Second, formerly. Third, exploits.
Fourth, a plague.
J. B.
4. First, a grain. Second, a metal. Third, a small rope. Fourth,
extremes.
EDITH.
* * * * *
ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN NO. 56.
No. 1.
1. Virginia creeper. 2. Flag. 3. Sage. 4. Dock. 5. Cowslips. 6.
Egg-plant. 7. Pink. 8. Beech. 9. Yew. 10. Fir.
No. 2.
C O R S E
O R I E L
R I G I D
S E I N E
E L D E R
No. 3.
Charlemagne.
HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.
SINGLE COPIES, 4 cents; ONE SUBSCRIPTION, one year, $1.50; FIVE
SUBSCRIPTIONS, one year, $7.00--_payable in advance, postage free_.
The Volumes of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE commence with the first Number in
November of each year.
Subscriptions may begin with any Number. When no time is specified, it
will be understood that the subscriber desires to commence with the
Number issued after the receipt of the order.
Remittances should be made by POST-OFFICE MONEY-ORDER OR DRAFT, to avoid
risk of loss.
Volume I., containing the first 52 Numbers, handsomely bound in
illuminated cloth, $3.00, postage prepaid: Cover, title-page, and index
for Volume I., 35 cents; postage, 13 cents additional.
HARPER & BROTHERS,
Franklin Square, N. Y.
WAITING MARGERY.
With a gay little watch that does not go,
So that the time she can always know--
For you never can be mistaken, I think,
When a watch or a clock doesn't stir a wink--
Never doubting that he'll he true,
Margery waits for Little Boy Blue.
Little Boy Blue walks in the lane,
Beside the tailor's Mary Jane,
With never a thought, when _she_ beguiles,
Of waiting Margery's patient smiles.
"For they always say men never are true,
And _I_ am a man," says Little Boy Blue.
THE HAPPY FAMILY.
Mr. Dickens and Mr. Dan!
Happier family never ran,
Rushing to gladden a mother's heart,
Than these two darlings, never apart.
Mr. Dan is the house police--
With might and main he keeps the peace;
While Mr. Dickens sits and purs,
Man-like, among his worshippers.
THE HAPPIEST FOLKS.
I think the dolls are the happiest folks--
Nobody plagues them with practical jokes;
They have a nice house, with a parlor-maid,
And the rent of it never has to be paid;
They wear their best clothes whenever they please,
And have nothing to do but to take their ease.
MOTHER AND CHILD.
CHILD SPEAKS.
"That mother in the picture
Never, never scolds;
All the day her little boy
In her arms she holds."
MOTHER ANSWERS.
"Don't you wish, my laddie,"
And the mother smiled,
"That you were as gentle
As that pictured child?"
BETTY'S ANSWER.
Write a letter, aunty,
Say you _know_ I'll come
To the children's party--
Think I'd stay at home?
Why, they'll have some candy,
And some strawberry ice,
Angel cake, I rather think--
Everything that's nice.
Say I'm surely coming--
They are so polite--
They might think I wouldn't
If you didn't write.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Harper's Young People, December 14,
1880, by Various
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