Produced by Annie McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, APRIL 30, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVI.--NO. 809. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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[Illustration]




HEROES OF AMERICA.

THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS.

BY HONORABLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT.


[Illustration: Decorative W]

hen in 1814 Napoleon was overthrown and exiled to Elba, the British
troops that had followed Wellington into southern France were left free
for use against the Americans. A great expedition was organized to
attack and capture New Orleans, and at its head was placed General
Pakenham, the brilliant commander of the column that delivered the fatal
blow at Salamanca. In December a great fleet of British war-ships and
transports, carrying thousands of victorious veterans from the
Peninsula, and manned by sailors who had grown old in a quarter of
century's ocean warfare, anchored off the great lagoons of the
Mississippi Delta. The few American gunboats were carried after a
desperate hand-to-hand struggle, the troops were landed, and on the 23d
of December the advance-guard of two thousand men reached the banks of
the Mississippi, but ten miles below New Orleans, and there camped for
the night.

It seemed as if nothing could save the Creole City from foes who had
shown in the storming of many a Spanish walled town that they were as
ruthless in victory as they were terrible in battle. There were no forts
to protect the place, and the militia were ill armed and ill trained.
But the hour found the man. On the afternoon of the very day when the
British reached the banks of the river the vanguard of Andrew Jackson's
Tennesseeans marched into New Orleans. Clad in hunting-shirts of
buckskin or homespun, wearing wolf-skin and coon-skin caps, and carrying
their long rifles on their shoulders, the wild soldiery of the backwoods
tramped into the little French town. They were tall men, with sinewy
frames and piercing eyes. Under "Old Hickory's" lead they had won the
bloody battle of the Horseshoe Bend against the Creeks; they had driven
the Spaniards from Pensacola: and now they were eager to pit themselves
against the most renowned troops of all Europe.

Jackson acted with his usual fiery, hasty decision. It was absolutely
necessary to get time in which to throw up some kind of breastworks or
defences for the city, and he at once resolved on a night attack against
the British. As for the British, they had no thought of being molested.
They did not dream of an assault from inferior numbers of undisciplined
and ill-armed militia, who did not possess so much as bayonets to their
guns. They kindled fires along the levees, ate their supper, and then,
as the evening fell, noticed a big schooner drop down the river in
ghostly silence and bring up opposite to them. The soldiers flocked to
the shore, challenging the stranger, and finally fired one or two shots
at her. Then suddenly a rough voice was heard exclaiming, "Now give it
to them, for the honor of America," and a shower of shell and grape fell
on the British, driving them off the levee. The stranger was an American
man-of-war schooner. The British brought up artillery to drive her off,
but before they succeeded Jackson's land troops burst upon them, and a
fierce, indecisive struggle followed. In the night all order was
speedily lost, and the two sides fought singly or in groups in the
utmost confusion. Finally a fog came up, and the combatants separated.
Jackson drew off four or five miles and camped.

The British had been so roughly handled that they were unable to advance
for three or four days, until the entire army came up. When they did
advance it was only to find that Jackson had made good use of the time
he had gained by his daring assault. He had thrown up breastworks of mud
and logs from the swamp to the river. At first the British tried to
batter down these breastworks with their cannon, for they had many more
guns than the Americans. A terrible artillery duel followed. For an hour
or two the result seemed in doubt; but the American gunners showed
themselves to be far more skilful than their antagonists, and gradually
getting the upper hand, they finally silenced every piece of British
artillery. The Americans had used cotton bales in the embrasures, and
the British hogsheads of sugar, but neither worked well, for the cotton
caught fire, and the sugar hogsheads were ripped and splintered by the
round shot, so that both were abandoned. By the use of red-hot shot the
British succeeded in setting fire to the American schooner which had
caused them such annoyance on the evening of the night attack; but she
had served her purpose, and her destruction caused little anxiety to
Jackson.

Having failed in his effort to batter down the American breastworks, and
the British artillery having been fairly worsted by the American,
Pakenham decided to try an open assault. He had ten thousand regular
troops, while Jackson had under him but little over five thousand men,
who were trained only as he had himself trained them in his Indian
campaigns. Not a fourth of them carried bayonets. Both Pakenham and the
troops under him were fresh from victories won over the most renowned
marshals of Napoleon, and over troops that had proved themselves on a
hundred stricken fields the masters of all others in continental Europe.
At Toulouse they had driven Marshal Soult from a position infinitely
stronger than that held by Jackson, and yet Soult had under him a
veteran army. At Badajos, Ciudad Rodrigo, and San Sebastian they had
carried by open assault walled towns whose strength made the
entrenchments of the Americans seem like mud walls built by children,
though these towns were held by the best troops of France. With such
troops to follow him, and with such victories behind him in the past, it
did not seem to Pakenham possible that the assault of the terrible
British infantry could be successfully met by rough backwoods riflemen
fighting under a General as wild and untrained as themselves.

He decreed that the assault should take place on the morning of the 8th.
Throughout the previous night the American officers were on the alert,
for they could hear the rumbling of artillery in the British camp, the
muffled tread of the battalions as they were marched to their points in
the line, and all the smothered din of the preparation for assault. Long
before dawn the riflemen were awake, and drawn up behind the mud walls,
where they lolled at ease, or, leaning on their long rifles, peered out
through the fog toward the camp of their foes.

At last the sun rose and the fog slowly lifted, showing the glorious
array of the scarlet British infantry. As soon as the air was clear
Pakenham gave the word, and the heavy columns of red-coated grenadiers
and kilted Highlanders moved steadily forward. From the American
breastworks the great guns opened, but not a rifle cracked.
Three-fourths of the distance was covered, and the eager soldiers broke
into a run: then sheets of flame burst from the breastworks in their
front as the wild riflemen of the backwoods rose and fired, line upon
line. Under the sweeping hail the head of the British advance was
shattered, and the whole column stopped. Then it surged forward again
almost to the foot of the breastworks; but not a man lived to reach
them, and in a moment more the troops broke and ran back.

Mad with shame and rage, Pakenham rode quickly among them to rally and
lead them forward, and the officers sprang around him, smiting the
fugitives with their swords, and cheering on the men who stood. For a
moment the troops halted, and again came forward to the charge; but
again they were met by a hail of bullets from the backwoods rifles. One
shot struck Pakenham himself. He reeled and fell from the saddle, and
was carried off the field. The second in command was wounded, and then
all attempts at further advance were abandoned, and the British troops
ran back to their lines. Another assault had meanwhile been made by a
column close to the river, the charging soldiers rushing right up to the
top of the breastworks: but they were all killed or driven back. A body
of troops had also been sent across the river, where they routed a small
detachment of Kentucky militia; but they were, of course, recalled when
the main assault failed.

For the first time in a quarter of a century the British soldiers, the
men who had conquered the conquerors of Europe, had met defeat. Andrew
Jackson and his rough riflemen had worsted in a fair fight a far larger
force of the best of Wellington's veterans, and had accomplished what no
French marshal and no French troops had been able to accomplish
throughout the long war in the Spanish Peninsula. For a week the sullen
British lay in their lines; then, abandoning their heavy artillery, they
marched back to the ships and sailed again for Europe.




IMPORTANT NOTICE.

TO THE READERS OF "HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE."


HARPER'S ROUND TABLE? We imagine how puzzled and surprised a great
throng of you are when your favorite HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE suddenly puts
on a new dress and wears a new name. Yet it is the very same paper which
has been your favorite ever since you first read it--the same, except
that it has taken on some additional features of interest, and will be
more pleasing to you than ever.

Of course you wish to know why a change has been made, and what the
Editor means to give you in the ROUND TABLE which will make up for the
disappearance of YOUNG PEOPLE. The ROUND TABLE will be so big and bright
that it will accommodate more young people than you can count--all, in
fact, who belong to the wonderful Order you all love. Listen to our
programme for the future:

Serial stories by our best authors, short, timely, and entertaining
articles, and the regular departments will be continued. You will find
that not one of the attractions is omitted. The only alteration in the
periodical, beyond the title and make-up, is to be found in the
additional departments. Something new has been added which is sure to
interest everybody.

Part of this addition is the athletic department, entitled
Interscholastic Sport. This department is to be conducted by "The
Graduate," who is an experienced writer and student of scholastic
athletics, and who, while following the course of school athletics all
over the United States, will give you many valuable suggestions on
physical training. Another part of this addition, which will be sure to
please you just now especially, is a department on Bicycling, which will
contain charts and maps showing pleasant bicycle trips in or near the
large cities of the United States. This department will be under the
editorship of an expert wheeler, who will have the assistance of the
officers of the League of American Wheelmen. Besides these features the
type will be changed so that about two hundred words will be added to
each page of the paper, thus increasing the amount of letter-press by
nearly one-fourth. You will now receive nearly one-quarter again as much
reading matter as heretofore for the same amount of money. You will
approve of this, we know.

But why give the paper another name? Because the Order of the Round
Table, founded by HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE four years ago, has grown to
such enormous proportions, has spread so far and wide, has gone into so
many corners of the States of the Union, and European countries as well,
that it demands some definite recognition, as one of the largest
organizations of its kind in the world. But the title HARPER'S ROUND
TABLE means something more than this. It not only acknowledges the
growth, the power, and the interest of the Order of the Round Table, but
it is the journal which goes into the home of its readers as they sit
about the family "round table" of an evening. It brings with it reading
of interest to the children and to the young men and women of the
family, as well as to the parents; and its purpose is to introduce and
maintain in the family of this nineteenth century some of the manly
qualities, some of the chivalry, honesty, and uprightness which have
made the Table Round of King Arthur so famous in history. HARPER'S ROUND
TABLE represents the chivalry of brother to sister and sister to
brother, children to parents and parents to children, in this present
day. It maintains that all the good qualities of King Arthur's Order are
equally applicable and necessary in the family circle of to-day, and it
purposes to stand for them week by week. The ROUND TABLE, therefore, is
not only the title of a great organization of young Americans, but it
also stands for a periodical which should be a welcome visitor in every
family circle. Its readers will find in its pages amusement, interest,
instruction, as well as suggestions of what courtesy and courage mean,
and what they can accomplish. HARPER'S ROUND TABLE is HARPER'S YOUNG
PEOPLE in a larger form, with its field broadened and its interest
increased. You will endorse this change, not only for itself, but
because it also furnishes you with more reading matter than was promised
you when you subscribed for HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.




A CHANGE OF FORTUNE.


          "Oh, the days when I was happy!"
          Sighed a pensive little Jappy,
  As the crystal tears rolled down and washed the color from his cheek.
          On the table in my study
          Sweetly smiling, round, and ruddy.
  Many years he had been standing in a china jar unique.

          Now, alas! his smile was faded.
          His expression worn and jaded.
  And his bursting heart found utterance in a woful lamentation:
          "Oh, that from my proud position,
          Highest goal of my ambition,
  I should ever stoop to suffer such a sad humiliation!

          "Once I was caressed and flattered,
          Rich or poor, it little mattered.
  Young and old, from babe to grandsire, every one must have a 'Jap.'
          And alike by tastes æsthetic,
          Grave or humorous or poetic,
  I was hailed, and all-triumphant, lived and throve in Fortune's lap.

          "Then--ah me!--the reigning fashion,
          Every artist had a passion
  For displaying me in pictures, and the studios were my own.
          Now, to claim their whole attention,
          One whom I am loath to mention
  Comes, an upstart, a usurper, and ascends my rightful throne.

          "Hard it is my grief to smother,
          Bitter thus to see another
  Wear my honors! Artists paint him, poets his perfections praise.
          Everywhere his visage hated
          Greets me. He is fondled, fêted.
  Worst of all, he rules the children as did I in other days.

          "Nevermore shall I be happy,"
          Said the weeping little Jappy,
  "Nevermore my days be merry, and my slumbers soft and downy.
          I shall live, but all unheeded,
          Quite cut out and superseded
  By that precious, omnipresent pet and paragon, _the Brownie_!"

  MARGARET JOHNSON.




OFF WITH THE MERBOY.

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.

CHAPTER II.

THE START.


[Illustration: Decorative J]

immieboy grabbed up his blue suit and in a very few minutes was arrayed
in it, but on his return to the aquarium to join the goldfish he found
it empty.

"Dear me!" he cried, "I wonder if he can have gone off without me."

"No, he hasn't," came a silvery voice from behind him.

Jimmieboy turned sharply about, and there, sitting upon the sofa arrayed
in his red bathing-suit, sat a beautiful boy of about his own age and
size, with great masses of golden hair falling over his shoulders.

"Hullo!" said Jimmieboy, as soon as he had recovered from his surprise.
"Who are you?"

"I am your goldfish," laughed the boy. "Or, rather, I was. I am now my
true self. I am a merboy, as, in fact, all goldfish are. See?" he added,
holding up what Jimmieboy had taken for feet. "I have a tail like a fish
instead of feet."

Jimmieboy was delighted. He had heard all about mermen and mermaids, but
merboys were something new.

"Now," said the merboy, as a tremendous lashing of something in the
aquarium began to ruffle up the water therein, "come along. Get into my
carriage and we shall start."

[Illustration: STARTING OFF.]

Mute with astonishment, Jimmieboy could do nothing but obey, and
entering a huge vehicle that floated upon the surface of the water in
the aquarium--which had, singularly enough, taken on tremendous
proportions--the merboy gave a whistle, and they were off. The carriage
had the appearance of a superb shell lined with mother-of-pearl, and
studded all over with the most costly and lustrous jewels, and soon
passing out from the limits of the aquarium, Jimmieboy found himself
bounding over a great body of water, drawn by a pair of gayly
caparisoned dolphins, which the smiling merboy guided with two golden
ribbons.

"How do you feel?" asked the merboy, as, after driving along for several
minutes, the travellers passed out of sight of land.

"First rate," said Jimmieboy. "This is lots of fun."

"I'm glad you find it so," returned the merboy, with a smile of relief.
"I was afraid you were not enjoying yourself very much. You looked a
little anxious. Were you anxious?"

"Not exactly," replied Jimmieboy. "But it did sort of bother me when I
thought of what might happen if this wagon should upset."

"Don't see anything you need to bother about in that," said the merboy,
giving the near dolphin a flick with his whip for shying at a buoy.
"It's twice as safe as driving on land. The land is hard, and if you
were thrown out of a wagon there the chances are you'd be hurt; but here
it is very different. Falling out here would be like tumbling into a
feather bed. The water is very soft."

"I understand that, of course," said Jimmieboy, with a smile. "But what
I was worrying about chiefly was that the water here is very deep. It
must be two or three times over my head, and I can't swim. I can only
wade."

"What of it? I don't see anything in that to worry about," retorted the
merboy. "I might just as well get timid when we are near the shore
because I can't wade."

"Wouldn't I be drowned?" asked Jimmieboy.

The look which the ex-goldfish gave Jimmieboy as the latter said this
was one of reproach. He was evidently deeply hurt by Jimmieboy's remark.

"You aren't a polite boy, I think," he said. "The idea! Wouldn't you be
drowned! Let me ask you a question. If you were invited out to dinner by
a person you knew, do you think while you were sitting at his table
you'd go hunting about in your head for some _if_ that would end in your
starving to death? Wouldn't you know that being invited to eat with that
man you'd get your dinner all right?"

"Certainly," said Jimmieboy. "But what has that got to do with it?"

"Plenty," snapped the merboy. "You are my guest, and I look after all
the details, such as swimming and so forth, just as your other host
would look after all the details, such as eating and so forth. If you
are going to be a scarecat I'll drive right back home again, for I don't
like cats of any kind."

"I'm not afraid," said Jimmieboy. "I trust you, Mermy."

"Thank you," said the merboy, dropping one rein to squeeze Jimmieboy's
hand. "Thank you very much. You will find your confidence is well
placed, for as long as you are with me as my guest you can stand on your
head miles deep in water without being in any danger of drowning. Why,
if you couldn't, I never should have thought of bringing you along, for
in a very few minutes we come to a turn in our road and then we shall
drive down under the water three miles and a half, and, what is more,
you won't even know you are under water unless I tell you."

So Jimmieboy was reassured on the one point concerning which he had been
a little timid, and he proceeded at once to enjoy everything he saw. In
silence they drove on and on, and as the ocean was as smooth as glass
they covered a great many miles in a few minutes. Suddenly the merboy
reined in his dolphins with a sharp jerk, which caused the carriage to
stop with such suddenness that Jimmieboy was nearly thrown out of his
seat.

"What's the matter?" cried Jimmieboy, a little alarmed at this sudden
stoppage. "Nothing wrong?"

"No," said the merboy, shortly. "But there might have been. Look ahead
of you there."

Jimmieboy did as he was told, and saw in an instant why the merboy had
stopped short. A great big ocean steamer was ploughing its way through
the waves at a tremendous rate of speed directly across their path.

"Don't you see?" said the merboy, as the steaming monster passed on,
leaving a great strip of white foam behind it; "we were nearly run down
that time. It is dreadful the way these steamers are allowed to ignore
the safety of the rightful occupants of the seas. On land, when a
railroad crosses a driveway, they make the trains go over or under a
road in many places, and where they don't do that, they make them put up
fences or bars and station men to signal people who are driving of the
approach of trains. Out here they are perfectly lawless. They cross our
drives on the level always, and never yet has one of the steamers
whistled or rung a bell to warn a fish to get out of its way."

"It doesn't seem right, does it?" said Jimmieboy.

"No, it doesn't," replied the merboy; "and the meanest part of it all is
the steamship people don't care. If I had my way they'd be compelled to
fence in their routes all the way over, and station signal-men in boats
at road crossings to warn us of impending danger. Why, if it hadn't been
for our own police, police that we have to pay ourselves, you and I
would have been run down just now."

"You don't mean to say you have police out here on the ocean?" said
Jimmieboy.

"Yes," said the merboy; "several of 'em. In fact, we have about a
million of 'em altogether. You land people call 'em porpoises. Ever see
a porpoise?"

"Lots of them," Jimmieboy replied. "They come up our river sometimes,
and papa has told me lots of stories about them, but he never said they
were policemen."

"They aren't police-_men_," laughed the merboy. "They are police-fish.
What did he ever tell you about them?"

"Oh--well--he said he'd seen schools of them jumping about in the water
when he was crossing the ocean on one of those big boats," said
Jimmieboy; "and one of them, he said, followed his ship for four days
one time. The reason why I remember about it particularly is that he
told me, maybe, if I would be a very good boy, he'd try to get me one
for a pet that I could tie a chain to and lead around when we went
rowing some time."

The merboy laughed.

"The idea!" he said. "As if a porpoise could be treated like a poodle!
That shows how little you land people know about porpoises. Did your
father say they went about in schools?"

"That's what he told me," said Jimmieboy, meekly. "Don't they?"

"Humph!" said the merboy. "Don't they! Well, let me tell you one thing.
Don't you ever let a porpoise hear you say he goes about in schools.
Leave schools to minnows and moss-bunkers and children. Why, my dear
boy, porpoises know too much to go about in schools. They'd be much more
likely to go about in colleges, if they went in anything of the sort.
Didn't you ever hear the story of the Porpoise and the Land-sage?"

"I never did." Jimmieboy answered. "I never heard of a land-sage either.
What is a land-sage?"

"A land-sage is a creature like a man. In fact, he is a man, and he
lives on the land, and thinks he knows everything, when in reality he
only knows land things."

"But isn't it good to know land things?" Jimmieboy asked.

"Oh yes--in a way," said the merboy, patronizingly. "But just because
you know land things doesn't make you the wisest thing in the world.
It's a great deal better to know sea things, because if you know sea
things you know more than you do if you only know land things. There's
three times as much sea as land in the world, and so, of course,
sea-sages are three times as wise as land-sages. What's more, you who
live on the land don't begin to hear of a half of a millionth part of
the things that happen under the sea, while we who live under the sea
can get all the land news we want by tapping your Atlantic cable."

"Why, so you can," said Jimmieboy. "I never thought of that."

"Of course you didn't. You haven't got the kind of mind that thinks that
kind of thoughts," sneered the merboy. "You people think you are great
when you are able to sit at your breakfast tables in New York on Friday
morning and talk about what has happened in London that same Friday
afternoon--and it is rather smart to be able to do that, I admit--but
what do you know about what has been going on in Sealadelphia, or
Sharkargo, or Whalington, or Moss-bunkerton? Not a thing, I'll warrant.
But these sea creatures know all you know, and all their own news
besides. So, you see, when a land-sage begins swapping knowledge with a
sea-sage he finds himself 'way behind."

"And what was the story about the Porpoise and the Land-sage?" asked
Jimmieboy.

"Well, as I remember it," said the merboy, "it went this way:

"THE PORPOISE AND THE LAND-SAGE.

  "A Land-sage once, who thought he knew
    All that there was to know,
  Went out to sea without a crew,
    And floated to and fro.
  And then, before he was aware
    Just what he was about,
  A fearful wind did straightway tear
    His jib and mainsail out.

  "I'm all at sea!" he moaned and cried;
    "Oh dear, what shall I do!
  Would that I'd never come outside
    Without my gallant crew."
  Just as he spoke a Porpoise came.
    The Land-sage cried, "What, ho!
  Where are you from, and what's your name?
    Hullo there, you! Hullo!"

  "What do you wish?" the Porpoise said
    In accents soft and meek.
  "I'd like to be at home in bed--
    What language do you speak?"
  "Sea-doggerel," the Porpoise then
    Made answer with a grin,
  "Unless I speak with Englishmen,
    And then I speak in Finn."

  "Perhaps," the Land-sage then observed,
    "You can enlighten me
  By telling me-- I'm much unnerved--
    Just where I chance to be."
  "Of course I can," the fish said. "You,
    I think 'tis very clear,
  Are out of sight of Manitou
    And just about off here."

  "Pray do not mock me," quoth the sage;
    "I'm truly badly off,
  And 'tis not right one of your age
    At one like me should scoff.
  I am the most enlightened man
    That e'er the world did see;
  So help me home, sir, if you can,
    And tell me where I be."

  "You make me laugh," the Porpoise said.
    "Why should you come to me?
  If you've all knowledge in your head,
    I truly cannot see
  Why you should ask a Porpoise, who
    Is ignorant and plain,
  What in this instance you should do
    To get back home again?

  "But I will tell you what I'll do:
    If you will shed some light
  Upon a few things--one or two--
    I'll get you back all right."
  "A bargain!" cried the Land-sage, loud.
    "I pray you do begin."
  "I will," the Porpoise said, and bowed.
    "Why do you wear a chin?

  "Why have you hair upon your head?
    And why do men wear cuffs?
  And why are cannon-crackers red?
    And why is cream in puffs?
  Why can't you swim on mountain-tops?
    And why is water wet?
  And why don't hens, like lambs, have chops?
    And why don't roosters set?"

  "The Land-sage paled as to his cheek.
    "I cannot say," said he.
  "Then why does Friday come each week?
    And why do maids drink tea?
  Oh tell me why all kittens mew?
    And why do little boys,
  When with their daily tasks they're through,
    Make such a dreadful noise?

  "The Porpoise waited for the sage
    To answer, but in vain.
  It filled the wise man full of rage
    To have to flunk again.
  Whereat the Porpoise, with a sneer
    And very scornful glance,
  Remarked: "You're very dull, I fear.
    I'll give you one more chance.

  "Tell me one thing I never heard
    In all my life before,
  And I will pass to you my word
    To see you safe ashore.
  But don't be rash, oh, sage," said he.
    "Take all the time you need
  To think of what to tell me
    That's truly new indeed."

  "The Land-sage thought and thought all day,
    He thought the long night through,
  But not an idea came his way
    That he was sure was new;
  And finally, in great despair,
    He thought that he would see
  What could be done to ease his care
    By simple flattery.

  "And so he spoke, "Oh, Mr. P----,
    Oh, Porpoise, sleek and trim,
  The thought has just occurred to me
    My wisdom's rather slim;
  But I believe a creature that
    'S as beautiful as you
  Can't have the heart to let a flat
    Like me die in the blue."

  "You think me so?" the Porpoise said.
    "I do!" the sage replied.
  "You have the purest classic head
    I ever have espied.
  Your eyes are truly lovely,
    And your mouth is full of grace,
  And nothing nobler can one see
    Than is your noble face."

  "The Land-sage ceased; the Porpoise smoled
    And winked his eyes of blue.
  "You've won, professor. You have told
    Me something truly new.
  I never heard my beauty praised
    In all my life before."
  And then his good right fin he raised
    And towed the sage ashore."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE.

BY AGNES LITTLETON.

Part I.


Outside, the house was simply one of a long row of brownstone houses
which line many of the New York streets, but the room in which Millicent
Reid was sitting this fine spring afternoon had an individuality of its
own.

"The girls" were Millicent and Joanna Reid.

Millicent was nearly seventeen, and with her cousin Peggy, who lived
across the street, studied with a governess and various masters, but
Joanna, or Joan, as she was frequently called, went to school. At this
very moment she burst into the room, carrying a pile of school books,
which she flung on the table with a resounding crash.

"It is to be on the 30th of April, and we are all asked to send just as
much as we can, and Mrs. Pearson said anything would do," said Joanna,
as she pulled off her gloves.

"Oh, don't, Joan!" exclaimed Millicent, who had a pencil in her hand,
and had hastily thrust a morocco-bound book under the sofa pillow when
her sister entered. "You do startle me so. What is to be on the 30th of
April?"

"The fair, of course. Now don't pretend you don't know anything about
it, when the Pearsons have talked of nothing else for weeks."

"I have had other things to think of," returned Millicent, with dignity.
"For one thing, I am wondering which of us three Cousin Appolina will
take with her to England. If she only would choose me! And then--oh,
there are other things!" And she nibbled the end of her pencil.

Millicent was Joanna's only sister, and she had beautiful golden hair,
large blue eyes, and poetic tendencies. Joan was very sure that the
morocco-bound book, of which she had caught a glimpse more than once
when it was thrust away just as it had been this afternoon, contained
poems--actual poems.

Joan gazed at her sister, as she lay back among the big cushions, with
pride and admiration not unmixed with envy. She would so love to write
poetry herself, but next best to that was having a sister who could do
it. She only wished that Milly would let her see something that she had
written. She could then assure her cousin, Peggy Reid, with absolute
knowledge of facts, that her sister was a poetess. Now she could only
darkly hint upon the subject, and it was not altogether satisfactory,
for she felt confident that Peggy did not believe her.

But at present the fair was the all-absorbing topic, and Joanna returned
to the charge. "We shall have to send something, Milly, for Mrs. Pearson
said she depended upon us, and it is for such a good object she said she
knew we would help her all we could. It is to furnish the new chapel,
you know: to get a lee--lack--luck--something for them to read the Bible
on. What is it, Milly?"

"A 'lectern,' I suppose you mean."

"Yes, that's it--'lectern'; and a big Bible to put on it, and lots of
Prayer-books and Hymnals to stick around the church, and some vases for
flowers, and a brass cross and foot-stools, and lots of other things
they need. Mrs. Pearson said we must try to send as many fancy articles
as we could to the fair, and try to sell some tickets."

"I have no time to make anything, and besides I don't do any
fancy-work," said Millicent; "and if you don't mind, Joan, I wish you
would go. I am very busy just now."

"You don't look a bit busy. What are you doing? Nothing but biting a
pencil. I wish you would tell me what you were doing when I came in,
Mill."

"If you only would not call me 'Mill' or 'Milly'! I simply detest it. As
long as I have a good name, I do wish I could be called by it."

"I promise and vow I will always call you Millicent, full length, if you
will only tell me what you were doing when I came in."

"I can't, Joan. Do go away. It was--nothing of any importance."

"Oh, Milly--I mean Millicent--please, _please_ tell me! I do so want to
know, and I am only your own little sister, who never did you any harm,
and who wants to know so much. Won't you tell me?"

Joanna had slipped down on the floor by her sister's side. One arm she
threw across Millicent, the other went under the sofa pillow. In a
moment the morocco blank-book was in her hand. She clutched it tightly.
If she only dared draw it out, run away with it, and read it! Peggy
would have done it without any hesitation whatever, but then Joanna was
not Peggy.

Millicent looked at her pensively. Sympathy is pleasant, particularly to
a poet, and she felt sure that Joan, if any one, would appreciate some
of the beauties of her verse.

"I really believe I will," she said at length; "only, Joan, I don't want
Peggy to know anything about it. Peggy does laugh so at everything. Not
that there is anything to laugh at in these little poems of mine--for
they are real poems, Joan. Do you know I actually write poetry? Did you
ever have any idea of it?"

"I am not a bit surprised," declared Joan. "In fact, I was almost sure
of it. I am so glad you are going to let me see them. They are in this
book, aren't they? Oh, Milly--I mean Millicent--think of your being a
poetess! Do hurry up. Shall I read them myself, or will you read them
to me?"

"I will read them aloud. I can do it with more expression, probably, for
I know just where to put the emphasis, and it makes a great difference
in poetry. I often think that if I could only take them myself to the
editors of the magazines and read the poems to them, they would be more
apt to take them."

"Of course they would. But do you mean to say, Millicent, that you have
really sent anything to the magazines?"

"Certainly I have. I want recognition, but somehow they don't seem to
suit."

"How hateful!" exclaimed Joan, with a sympathy that warmed her sister's
heart. "But do hurry up and read them. I am dying to hear what you have
written."

Millicent opened the book and turned over the pages. She could not quite
decide which she should choose as her first selection. Before she had
made it, however, there was a tap at the door, and then, without waiting
for a reply, a tall girl of sixteen came into the room.

Again the morocco-bound book went under the sofa pillow, and Joanna
could not suppress an exclamation of disappointment.

"What's the matter? What's up?" said their cousin Peggy, glancing
quickly from one to the other. "Secrets? Now that's not a bit fair, to
have secrets from me. I've got oceans of things to talk about; but,
first of all, I met the postman just as I was coming in, and he gave me
this for you, Mill. This huge envelope, and addressed in your own
handwriting. It's awfully mysterious, and I am just about wild with
curiosity. You must tell me what it is."

A blank look came over Millicent's face, but she took the letter and
said nothing.

"Oh, come, now, aren't you going to tell us?" continued Peggy. "I'll
never tell."

"Do, Millicent!" urged Joanna. "If it's--if it has anything to do with
what we were talking about when Peggy came in, you may as well tell. I
want Peggy to know about it, and I'm sure she would like to hear them
too."

"Hear them? What in the world is it? Oh, I know! I know!" cried Peggy:
"you have been writing and sending things to the magazines! Oh, Milly,
_do_ show me!"

Millicent looked at her long and doubtfully. "Will you never, never
tell?" she asked at last.

"Never, on my oath!"

"I believe I will tell you, then, for I do think it is the meanest thing
in those editors, and I just want to see what they have said this time,
whether they have answered my note."

She opened the envelope and drew forth several papers, one of which
appeared to be a printed one.

"No, they haven't. They have just sent the same old slip they always do,
thanking me ever so much for sending the poems, and it may not be
because they are not good that they send them back, but because they
have so many things on hand. Oh dear, I think they might have answered
it!"

"What did you say in your note?" asked Peggy.

"Oh, I told them that I thought these poems were perfectly suited to
their magazine, and so they are. And I asked them to tell me of a good
place to send them if they couldn't take them. I do think the man might
have had the politeness to answer my note."

"Well, do let us hear them," put in Peggy, briskly. "I am wild to know
what they are like."

Millicent again looked at her doubtfully. But in a moment she took a
more upright position on the sofa, and holding her pretty head a little
to one side, she remarked:

"This is a little poem on something which is very familiar to us, but I
like the idea of idealizing familiar things." Then she paused. "Oh, I
don't believe I can read it, after all," she said, in an embarrassed
way; "it is very hard to read your own productions."

"Then let me read it," cried Peggy, attempting to seize the paper.

"No, no! I would rather do it myself than have you," said Millicent, and
presently she coughed hesitatingly and began. "It is about the mosquito,
and is called

"LINES TO A MOSQUITO.

  "When day is done, and darkness comes shadowing down the way,
  And Night with her rustling winglets blots out the garish day,
  We hear the song of an insect, singing its musical lay.

  "Oh, insect with wings that flutter! Oh, insect on murder intent,
  Oh, creature, we'd love thee dearly if thou wert not on bloodshed
      bent!
  And we'd bear with thy visits gladly, we e'en would be content.

  "Then cease thy busy prattle, and cease thy dangerous stings,
  Learn, learn to be meek and lamblike like other less-harmful things.
  Till we hail with joy thy coming, thy coming on peaceful wings!"

Here the poem ended, and the reader paused for the applause which she
felt to be her due. Peggy had turned aside, and was leaning her head
upon her hand so that Millicent could not see her face. Joan was the
first to speak.

"Millicent, how perfectly lovely! Did you really do it all yourself? You
are the smartest thing I ever knew. That beginning was just too perfect.
Somehow it reminded me of something else."

"Longfellow, probably," said Millicent "'When day is done, and darkness
comes shadowing down the way,' is suggestive of him."

"All except the 'shadowing,'" said Peggy.

"No; I made that word up," returned Millicent, with complacency. "Poets
are obliged to coin words sometimes. What do you think of the poem,
Peggy?"

"Wonderful!" replied her cousin, in a stifled voice. "How did you think
of asking a mosquito to be like a lamb?"

She turned away again, and her shoulders shook convulsively.

"Do read the other!" cried Joan, enthusiastically. "I don't see how you
ever make them rhyme so beautifully."

"Oh, that is easy enough," said Millicent, much pleased. "Whenever I
don't know just what to put I look in my rhyming dictionary for a word."

"Rhyming dictionary?" repeated Peggy, at last uncovering a crimson face.
"Do poets use rhyming dictionaries?"

"Of course. They are obliged to very often, and it saves so much time
and thought, you know. Now this is a sonnet. It is my favorite form of
verse. I suppose you both know that a sonnet must be just fourteen
lines?"

"Oh, I know," agreed Peggy, amiably, "and there are other rules about
it, too."

"Well, that one is the most important, about the fourteen lines. I don't
pay much attention to the other rules. I think rules hamper you when you
are composing."

"Oh!" said Peggy.

"This is Called 'A Sonnet to the Moth Miller,'" continued Millicent:

  "Oh, little creature, made so fair, so white,
    What seekest thou about my closet door?
  To see thee fills no soul with deep delight,
    Thy coming almost all men do deplore.
  So silent and so fatal is thy task
    We haste to catch thee, bring the camphor forth,
  To kill thee quite stone-dead is all we ask,
    Thou little quiet woollen-loving moth!
  We crush thee, cast the atoms to the wind,
    Stamp underfoot, and tread thee with the heel.
  Oh, tell me! Dost thou really truly mind?
    Can little frail white creatures like thee feel?
  What are thy thoughts, and what emotions thine?
    To know thy feelings, dear white moth, I pine!"

When Millicent's pathetic voice ceased there was silence in the room,
and then from the table upon which Peggy's head was resting came peal
after peal of laughter.

[Illustration: PEGGY FAIRLY SHRIEKED WITH LAUGHTER OVER THE POEM.]

"Oh, do excuse me, Milly!" she cried, as soon as she could speak. "I
didn't mean to laugh, but it struck me as so awfully funny, don't you
know. 'About your closet door,' and bringing the--the--camphor forth.
Oh, oh, moth-balls are better, and you might have put in something about
the smell! Ha, ha, ha!" and Peggy fairly shrieked with laughter as she
held her side and rocked to and fro. "Oh, do excuse me! But--but-- I
can't h--help it! It's--the funniest thing I ever heard! At least it
isn't really, but it just struck me so. And--and--if you can tread a
moth under your--your heel, you're terribly smart. Oh, Mill, Mill!"

"There!" said Millicent, rising, and thrusting her papers into a drawer
in her desk, and turning the key with an angry snap. "I knew just how it
would be. I believe you would laugh at my funeral."

"Oh no, indeed, I wouldn't. Milly--not at your funeral. But really, you
know, it just struck me. I think the rhymes are perfectly splendid.
Don't you, Joan?"

"Indeed I do," cried Joanna; "and I don't see what you saw to laugh at.
I think they are beautiful, Millicent. Aren't you going to read some
more?"

"No, indeed. Never!"

"I wish you would write a poem about Cousin Appolina," said Peggy.
"Hateful thing! She might take at least one of us abroad with her, if
not all three. She has such loads of money, and no one to spend it on
but herself."

"Probably she _will_ take one of us," observed Joan.

"It won't be me, then," said her cousin, positively, but
ungrammatically; "she hates me like fury. It will be one of you. Well,
it wouldn't be much fun to dance attendance on Cousin Appolina if she
should happen to have a cranky fit. Mill, I know you are mad, for you
haven't spoken a word since I laughed. Do forgive me. And, tell me, what
are you going to send to the fair?"

"I have nothing to send," replied Millicent, rather shortly.

"Send your poems! Brilliant idea!" exclaimed the incorrigible Peggy.
"Have them printed on separate slips of paper, and sign some queer name,
and say a member of the congregation wrote them, and see how they take."

"I don't care to have you make any more fun of me and my writings," said
Millicent, with great dignity.

"No fun, honor bright! Only I wish you would put in one about Cousin
Appolina Briggs. If you don't, I believe I will. You could lend me your
rhyming dictionary to do it with, and I believe I could write a poem as
well as--anybody. But haven't you got anything on hand that you don't
want, in the way of fancy-work, that you might send?"

"I have those worsted slippers Cousin Appolina gave me for Christmas.
They are in the box, just as she sent them."

"The very thing! Who wants her old worsted slippers? And fairs are
always full of them. And you will have your poems printed and send them,
won't you, dear child?"

Her cousin did not see the gleam of mischief which came into Peggy's
eyes as she said this. Millicent was pondering the situation too deeply.
Peggy had never dreamed until now that she would take the proposition
seriously.

"I believe I will," said the poetess, after some minutes' pause,
interrupted only by the admiring Joanna, who urged her sister to act
upon Peggy's suggestion. "It would give me the recognition I want. They
can be sold at five cents a copy, and if I see people buying I shall
know that they are liked, and then some day I might have some published
in a book. Thank you ever so much, Peggy, for thinking of it. I will
sign them 'Pearl Proctor,' just as I do those that I send to the
magazines, and no one will ever know who it is. I will have them
type-written on attractive paper. And I will send Cousin Appolina's
shoes. She won't be home from Washington until after the fair, and she
will never know. They had really better be doing some good."

"She wouldn't recognize them, anyhow; she is so near-sighted that even
that gold lorgnette wouldn't discover her own stitches. Well, good-by,
girls. I'm going."

Unknown to her cousins, Peggy slipped away with the rhyming dictionary
under her arm. She had discovered it on the table, and the opportunity
was too good to be wasted.

She crossed the street to her own home and retired to her own room, from
which she did not emerge for an hour or more. At dinner that night her
family, had they looked at her with attention, might have discovered an
additional expression of mischief in her eyes and a satisfied look on
her face. But fortunately one's family are not apt to notice.

"If I thought there was the least chance of Cousin Appolina choosing me
to go abroad, I might not run the risk," she said to herself; "but she
wouldn't take me on any account. Besides, she'll never hear of this, and
it will be such fun to paralyze Milly. Just fancy her taking me in
earnest, and sending her poems to the fair! Oh, oh! What a dear old
innocent she is! It is a shame to tease her, but I just can't help it.
Pearl Proctor! Pearl Proctor! what naughty deed is about to be
perpetrated in thy name!"

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.

A Sequel to "The Fur-Seal's Tooth."

BY KIRK MUNROE,

AUTHOR OF "DORYMATES," "CAMPMATES," "RAFTMATES," "CANOEMATES," ETC.


CHAPTER XVII.

JALAP COOMBS'S FOURTEEN PAIR OF FEET.

[Illustration: Decorative O]

f course, Mr. Coombs, you can't expect us to go back to St. Michaels
now," began Phil, as a preliminary to unfolding his scheme for the
discomfiture of Simon Goldollar and his unprincipled companion.

"Why not?" demanded the sailor, who had not for a moment expected
anything else. "As soon as I found ye I were to bring ye to St.
Michaels, and keep ye there till your father comes. Them's orders, and
to disobey 'em would be mutiny, nigh as I kin make out."

"That would be all right if you had found us; but you haven't."

"Eh?" queried Jalap Coombs. "I hain't found ye?"

"Certainly not," laughed Phil. "Instead of you finding us, we have found
you. If you had struck us at Anvik, it is possible that we might have
gone back with you, but as we have found you some four hundred miles
from there, we shall certainly do nothing of the kind. You see, to begin
with, we are under the greatest of obligations to Captain Hamer, who,
by-the-way, is one of the finest men I ever met."

Here Phil told of the terrible experience he and Serge had undergone in
Bering Sea, and of their gallant rescue by Gerald Hamer, all of which
the absorbed listener now heard for the first time.

"Now," continued the lad, "we have left him just recovering from a
dangerous illness, and unfitted to travel for some months. If he can't
get word out to the coast before spring he will be a heavy loser. So
Serge and I have undertaken to carry and deliver the message for him.
Our entire outfit, down to the very clothing we wear, was furnished by
him on that condition. It is also our duty to try and defeat the plans
of his enemies, who are also our enemies, and now seem to have become
yours as well. So you see we are in honor bound to push on with all
speed. Besides all this, we certainly ought to be able to reach Sitka
long before my father can get away from there, and so save him a long,
tedious, and useless journey."

"I'm not so sartain of that," demurred Jalap Coombs. "For ye've been
trying to make Sitka long's ever I've knowed ye, which is going on a
year now, and hain't come anywhere nigh to it yet. Still, as my old
friend Kite Roberson useter say, 'Jalap, my son, allers steer by
sarcumstances; for as a gineral thing they'll p'int straighter'n a
compass,' and I am free to admit that your present sarcumstances is
p'inting pretty direct towards Sitka. But how do ye propose to
sarcumvent the villyans what run off with my dogs?"

"Now you are talking straight business," laughed Phil. "As I understand
it, the main object of those fellows is to capture the next season's
trade of the Yukon Valley, and especially of the diggings at Forty Mile,
by taking advance orders at lower rates than the old company has ever
before offered. Even then their prices are certain to be exorbitant, and
with Gerald Hamer's list I am certain I can underbid them. But that
won't be of any use unless we can be first in the field, for after the
orders are given and contracts signed those other chaps could laugh at
us and our prices. So our only hope is to reach Forty Mile ahead of
them."

"Which ye can't do it without wings or steam," objected Jalap Coombs,
"seeing they's got two good days' start."

"I wouldn't care if they had six days' start," answered Phil. "I am
confident that we could still beat them with just ordinary snow-shoes
and sledges and plain every-day North American dogs. They have gone
around the great arctic bend of the Yukon, haven't they? And so have a
journey of at least seven hundred miles ahead of them before they reach
Forty Mile."

"Yes," replied Jalap. "They said as it were the only navigable channel."

"Well, it isn't, for I know of another that is equally good, and two
hundred miles or so shorter. You see, there is a big river coming from
the southeast and emptying into the Yukon somewhere in this vicinity,
called the Tananah."

"That's right," assented the sailor, "for I've already passed its mouth
twice about half-way between here and where the _St. Michaels_ is friz
in."

"Good enough," said Phil. "Now by following this Tananah for two or
three hundred miles, and taking up one of its eastern branches that is
called the Gheesah, or some such name, and crossing a divide, we can
strike the head-waters of Forty Mile Creek."

"And sail down with the current, run into port under a full press of
canvas, and capture the market afore the enemy heaves in sight!"
exclaimed Jalap Coombs, enthusiastically, his practical mind quick to
note the advantages of Phil's scheme. "But what's to become of me?" he
added, anxiously. "Kin ye fit me out with a new pair of feet?"

"Certainly we can," replied Phil, promptly. "We can fit you out with
fourteen new pair, and will guarantee that thus provided you will be
able to travel as fast as the rest of us."

"Fourteen pair o' feet?" repeated Jalap Coombs, reflectively, "and slow
shoes on every pair? Seems to me, son, you must be calkilating to run me
under a kind of a santipede rig, which it looks like the strain on the
hull would be too great. As for navigating fourteen pair of slow shoes
all to once, I don't reckon old Kite hisself could do it. Still, if you
think it can be did, why, go ahead and try it on. I'm agreeable, as the
cat said after he'd swallowed the cap'n's wife's canary."

So Phil's plan was adopted without a dissenting voice, and from that
moment Jalap Coombs said nothing more about a return to St. Michaels.

That very evening, leaving Serge to see what could be done for the
sailor-man's lameness, and taking Kurilla with him to act as
interpreter, Phil visited several Indian huts. At these he finally
succeeded in purchasing enough furs and moose-hide for a huge
sleeping-bag, which the several squaws, who, under promise of a liberal
recompense in tea, undertook its construction promised should be ready
by morning. Phil also bought an immense pair of arctic sleeping-socks,
and an extra supply of snow-goggles.

When he told Kurilla of their change of plan, and that they intended
going up the Tananah, the latter replied, dubiously: "Me plenty don't
know um. Maybe git lose. Yaas."

"Oh, that'll be all right," answered Phil, cheerfully. "You'll plenty
know um before we get through with um, and whenever you don't know which
way to go, just come and ask me."

When he returned to the house he found Serge boiling with indignation.
"Do you know," he cried, "that Mr. Coombs has walked all the way from
St. Michaels without pads in his boots, because those other fellows told
him his feet would toughen quicker if he didn't use them? The
consequence is they are simply raw from blisters, and every step he
takes must be like treading on knives."

"It has been tedious at times," admitted Jalap Coombs. "And under the
sarcumstances I don't know but what I'd rather have one pair of feet
than fourteen, or even half the number."

"Isn't it good to have old Jalap with us once more?" asked Phil of
Serge, after they had turned in that night.

"Indeed it is; but do you notice how he has changed?"

"I should say I had. He is like a salt-water fish suddenly dropped into
a fresh-water pond. He'll come out all right, though, especially if we
can only get his feet into shape again."

That night the mercury fell to 59° below zero, and the next morning even
Phil, impatient as he was to proceed, had not the heart to order men or
dogs out into that bitter air before sunrise. With that, however, the
mercury began slowly to rise, and when it had crept up 19°, or to only
40° below, the young leader declared the weather to be warm enough for
anybody. So he ordered the sledges to be got ready, and when the one
drawn by his own team came dashing up to the door, he announced that Mr.
Coombs's fourteen pair of feet were at his service. He also politely
requested the sailor-man to crawl into a big fur-lined bag with which
the sledge was provided, and make himself comfortable.

"But, Phil," demurred the other, "I ain't no passenger to be tucked up
in a steamer-cheer on deck. I'm shipped for this v'y'ge as one of the
crew."

"Very well," replied Phil. "Then of course you will obey orders without
a murmur, for I remember hearing you say, when we were aboard the
_Seamew_, that even if a captain were to order his whole crew to knit
bedquilts or tidies, they'd be bound to obey to the best of their
ability."

"Sartain," admitted the other. "I got that from old Kite Roberson, which
bedquilts _and_ tidies were his very words." Then, without further
remonstrance, the crippled sailor stepped to the sledge, slid feet first
into the big bag, and lay there like an animated mummy, with the hood of
his parka drawn close about his face. Its encircling fringe of long wolf
hair, added to his preternatural gravity of countenance, gave him such a
comical expression that the boys could not help shouting with laughter
as Kurilla cracked his great whip and the dogs sprang away with their
new burden.

Phil took the lead, as usual, and when they reached the mouth of the
Tananah, which, on account of its broad expanse, there was no chance of
mistaking, he turned into it without hesitation, and in a few minutes
they had taken their last view of the Yukon for many a long day.

At its mouth the Tananah is nearly three miles broad, or as wide as the
Yukon itself, and is filled with islands, on which are stranded
quantities of uprooted trees of greater size than any seen on the Yukon
above that point.

The bitterness of the cold continued unabated, and the sledge party had
hardly lost sight of the Yukon ere the young leader heard himself hailed
from the rear, and paused to see what was wanted.

"I say, Cap'n Phil," began Jalap Coombs, with chattering teeth, "is it
your orders or desire that your men should freeze to death?"

"Certainly not," laughed the lad.

"Then, sir, I has the honor to report that this member of the crew is
already froze solid half-way up, with ice making fast through the
remainder of his system."

"That is entirely contrary to orders," replied Phil, sternly, "and must
be stopped at once. So, sir, put your helm to port, and run for yonder
timber."

Half an hour later poor Jalap was being outwardly thawed by a roaring
fire of great logs, and inwardly by cupful after cupful of scalding tea,
which moved him to remark that, according to his friend Kite Roberson,
tea and coffee were the next best things to observations of the sun for
determining latitude.


CHAPTER XVIII.

CHRISTMAS ON THE TANANAH.

"Look here," said Phil, referring to the mate's last surprising
statement, "wasn't your friend Mr. Robinson in the habit of drawing the
long bow?"

"No," replied Jalap Coombs, in surprise at the question; "he couldn't
abide 'em."

"Couldn't abide what?"

"Bows, nor yet arrers, since when he were a kid some boys put up a game
on him that they called William Tell, which allers did seem to me the
foolishest game, seeing that his name warn't William, but Kite, and he
warn't expected to tell anything, only just to stand with a pumpkin on
his head for them to shoot their bow-arrers at. Waal, the very fust one
missed the pumpkin and plunked poor Kite in the stummick, after which he
didn't have no use for a long bow nor a short bow, nor yet a bow of any
kind."

"I don't blame him," laughed Serge. "But we would very much like to know
how he determined latitude by tea and coffee."

"Easy enough," was the reply. "You see, tea is drunk mostly in cold
latitoods similar to this, and coffee in warm. The higher the latitood,
the hotter and stronger the tea, and the less you hear of coffee. At
forty-five or thereabouts they's drunk about alike, while south of that
coffee grows blacker and more common, while tea takes a back seat till
you get to the line, where it's mighty little used. Then as you go south
of that the same thing begins all over again; but there's not many would
notice sich things, and fewer as would put 'em to practical use like old
Kite done."

"Mr. Coombs," said Phil, "you sound pretty well thawed out, and if that
is the case we'll get under way again."

"Ay, ay, sir!" responded the mate, thrashing his long arms vigorously
across his chest to restore circulation, and then slipping resignedly
into his fur bag. "Anchor's apeak, sir." And away sped the sledges up
the broad level of the Tananah.

Every member of the party had by this time become so thoroughly broken
in to his duties, that when they made camp that night the promptness
with which it was prepared, as well as the ensuing comfort, was a
revelation to Jalap Coombs, who declared that there had been nothing
like it in the camps of the other party.

"Of course not," said Phil, "for they haven't got Serge Belcofsky along,
so how could their comfort equal ours?"

At this Serge, covered with confusion, replied, "Nonsense, Phil! You
know it is because we have got such capital campmen as Kurilla and
Chitsah with us."

At this the face of the elder Indian beamed with pleasure. He did not
exactly understand the conversation; but believing that he ought to make
some reply, he pointed to Jalap Coombs, and looking at Phil, remarked:

"You fadder. Yaas."

But the journey up the Tananah was by no means an unbroken record of
swift movings from one comfortable camp to another, or of jokes and
pleasantries. The days were now at their shortest, so that each could
boast only about four hours of sunlight, and even that was frequently
obscured by fierce storms, when the howling winds cut like knives, and
it required every ounce of Phil Ryder's pluck as well as Serge
Belcofsky's dogged determination to keep the little party in motion. The
feet of the poor dogs were often so pierced by ice slivers that their
tracks were marked with blood. The older and more experienced would bite
at these and pull them out. Others would howl with pain, while some
would lie down and refuse to work until they were put in boots, which
were little bags of deer-hide drawn over their feet and fastened with
buckskin thongs.

It was a journey of constant and painful struggle and of dreary
monotony, each day being only the same endless succession of ice-bound
river, snow-covered hills, and sombre forest. Especially depressing was
the night of the 24th of December, when, with an icy wind moaning
through the tree-tops of the subarctic forest, and the shivering dogs
edging toward the fire for a share of its grateful warmth, Phil and
Serge and Jalap Coombs reminded each other that this was Christmas eve.
Never before had Phil spent one away from home, nor had the others ever
been so utterly removed from the cheering influences of the joyous
season. So Phil described what he knew was taking place in far distant
New London at that very hour, and Serge told of merry times in quaint
old Sitka, while Jalap Coombs recalled many a noble plum duff that had
graced Christmas feasts far out at sea, until they all grew homesick,
and finally crawled into their sleeping-bags to dream of scenes as
remote from those surrounding them as could well be imagined.

As they always selected a camping-place, and prepared for the long night
by the last of the scanty daylight or in the middle of the afternoon, so
they always resumed their journey by the moonlight or starlight, or even
in the darkness of two or three o'clock the next morning. On Christmas
morning they started as usual many hours before daylight, and, either
owing to the vagueness of all outlines or because his thoughts were far
away, the young leader mistook a branch for the main river, and headed
for a portion of the mighty wilderness that no white man had ever yet
explored.

About noon they passed a forlorn native village of three or four
snow-covered huts, the occupants of which gazed at the unaccustomed
sight of white travellers in stolid amazement. They had gone nearly a
mile beyond this sole evidence of human occupation to be found in many a
weary league when Phil suddenly stopped.

"Look here!" he exclaimed, "what do you two say to going back, making a
camp near that village, and having some sort of a Christmas after all?
It doesn't seem right for white folks to let the day go by without
celebrating it somehow."

As the others promptly agreed to this proposition the sledges were faced
about, and a few minutes later the music of Musky's jingling bells again
attracted the wondering natives from their burrows.

Camp was made on a wooded island opposite the village, and while the
others were clearing the snow from a space some fifty feet square, and
banking it up on the windward side, Phil took his gun and set forth to
hunt for a Christmas dinner. An hour later he returned with four arctic
hares and a brace of ptarmigan or Yukon grouse whose winter plumage was
as spotless as the snow itself.

He found Serge and Jalap Coombs concocting a huge plum duff, while from
the brass kettle a savory steam was already issuing. Kurilla and Chitsah
had chopped a hole through four feet of ice and were fishing, while a
few natives from the village hovered about the outskirts of the camp
watching its strange life with curious interest.

They were very shy, and moved away when Phil approached them, seeing
which he called Kurilla and bade him tell them that a present would be
given to every man, woman, and child who should visit the camp before
sunset.

At first they could not comprehend this startling proposition, but after
it had been repeated a few times the youngest of them, a mere boy,
uttered a joyous shout and started on a run for the village. A few
minutes later its entire population, not more than twenty-five in all,
including babes in arms, or rather in the hoods of their mother's
parkas, came hurrying over from the mainland filled with eager
expectancy.

[Illustration: "KIKMUK."]

To every man Phil presented a small piece of tobacco, to every woman a
handful of tea, and to every child a biscuit dipped in molasses. With
each present he uttered, very distinctly, the word "Christmas." At
length one child, though whether it was a boy or a girl he could not
make out, for their fur garments were all exactly alike, looked up with
a bashful smile and said, "Kikmuk." In a minute all the others had
caught the word, and the air rang with shouts of "Kikmuk," mingled with
joyous laughter.

Then they all trooped back to the village, shouting "Kikmuk" as they
went, and so long as they live the word will be associated in their
minds with happiness and good-will. Three of them, a man and two women,
afterwards returned, bringing with them a pair of dainty moccasins, a
fox-skin, and an intestine filled with melted fat, which they timidly
presented to Phil, Serge, and Jalap Coombs respectively. The last-named
regarded his gift rather dubiously, but accepted it with a hearty
"Kikmuk," and remarked that it would probably be good for his feet,
which it afterward proved to be.

These three were invited to dine with Kurilla and Chitsah, an invitation
which they accepted, and so became the guests of the Christmas dinner.
On their side of the fire the feast consisted largely of the fish the
Indians had just caught, to which were added unstinted tea and a
liberal supply of the plum duff. On the other side were mock-turtle
soup _à la can_, baked fish, rabbit fricassee, roast grouse, plum duff,
hard bread, tea, and cocoa--all of which combined to form what Phil
pronounced to be the very best Christmas dinner he had ever eaten, in
which sentiment Serge and Jalap Coombs heartily concurred.

Even the dogs were given cause to rejoice that Christmas had at length
come to their snowy land by receiving a double ration of dried fish,
which put them into such good spirits that they spent the greater part
of the night in a rollicking game of romps. On the Indian side of the
fire unwonted good cheer so overcame the shyness of the villagers that
the man ventured to ask questions regarding the intentions and
destination of this sledge party of strangers. When these were stated by
Kurilla he remained silent for a minute. Then he delivered a long and
animated speech.

As a result of this, and when it was finished, Kurilla left his own side
of the fire, and, approaching Phil, said,

"You go Forty Mile?"

"Yes. We all going to Forty Mile, of course."

"No like um Tananah?"

"Certainly I like the Tananah well enough. I shall like it better,
though, when we have seen the last of it."

"No can see um now."

"Why not? There it is right out yonder."

"No. Him Kloot-la-ku-ka. Tananah so" (pointing to the way they had
come). "You go so way" (pointing upstream); "get lose, mebbe; no fin;
plenty bad. Yaas."

So, all on account of keeping Christmas, and trying to bring a little of
its joy into the hearts of those children of the wilderness, Phil's
mistake was discovered before its consequences became disastrous, and he
was once more enabled to place his little party on the right road to
Sitka.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




LIFE-BLOOD OF A GREAT CITY.

HOW NEW YORK GETS ITS WATER.

BY JULIAN RALPH.


The furnishing of water to millions of human beings in a city, and the
arrangements for giving it to them as they want it, whether merely by
the glassful or in the profusion with which it is used in a brewery, are
among the most wonderful achievements of civilization. Imagine the way
men live when they break their way into a new country; that is the only
manner in which we can measure the convenience of a modern water supply.
I have seen the settlers on the Canadian plains walking a quarter of a
mile--perhaps half a mile--to the Bow River to fill a bucket with water
with which to cook and with which to supply drink to a household.
Bathing, as we understand the term, was only to be done by going to the
same river and plunging in--daring the few months when the river water
was warm. Thus it must have been with the first Hollanders who settled
Manhattan Island. In time they dug wells in the ground, and then came
that more lavish use of the splendid fluid, attended by such economy as
used to lead the Dutch mothers to scold the children with that
admonition we still may hear in the country, "Do you think the
servant-girl has nothing to do but to carry water up stairs for you to
waste it as you do?"

Did the reader ever see a medical or anatomical chart of the human body,
showing the arteries and veins that carry the blood from our hearts to
every main and every minute part of our bodies? How like a tree it
looks, with its main stem or trunk, with its great branches, with its
delicate boughs and switches and twigs. Well, a Croton-water chart of
the system by which a river is brought to our bedrooms, instead of our
having to go to the river with our buckets, would be just such another
complicated, marvellous, treelike object, only I really think it would
be more astonishing in one sense, because it is so wholly the hard
brain-work of man instead of the mysterious divine creation of the
Almighty, whose works are so profound that their wonders do not surprise
us so much as when man produces something a tenth part or a thousandth
part as extraordinary.

If we could cut away all the earth of the island, leaving the
water-mains bare, and if we could tear down all the buildings of the
city so as to allow the water-pipes to stand up, bare and naked, just as
they now stand up in their covers of brick and plaster, I suppose the
sight of that wonderful forest of big and little pipes would be as
surprising as anything that any human being ever saw. Just try to fancy
Manhattan Island all under a tangle of towering pipes and crisscrossed
tubes, and then, while we are about it, just fancy a lot of savages
landing here and tampering with those pipes until one of them should
touch some cock and turn on the water. What a rain there would be, in
big streams and middling streams and tiny little streams, out of
millions of fixtures! No shower bath that was ever conceived or heard of
would compare with it. And yet--see how small and weak man is, after
all--it would not begin to equal an ordinary rain-storm.

Of water mains--or big pipes sunk in the streets to distribute the
Croton water from the reservoirs--there are no less than 715 miles, but
when the reader thinks how at every twenty-five feet smaller pipes
branch out of the mains to carry the water to every floor of every
building and sometimes to every office or room, he will see that of
smaller pipes there must be tens of thousands of miles, making up that
grand tree which is as much the "tree of life" of a great city as the
arterial system is the tree of life of each of our bodies. To carry off
the water that courses through all these thousands of miles of pipes we
have 456 miles of sewers--or much bigger pipes; some of which men can
walk through or even paddle a boat in.

[Illustration: AQUEDUCT TUNNEL UNDER THE HARLEM.]

One hundred and fifty years ago, when New York was considered rather an
ancient town, the people got their water for drinking from the
"collect," where the Tombs prison stands, and from the little springs
and streams that ran into that pond. A very few had wells, public or
private, near their houses. It was not until 1750 that pumps were set up
to make the getting of water easier. It will surprise the reader to know
that hundreds of these old wells still remain upon the island. Two or
three still have pumps affixed to them, and are used for giving drink to
horses, but the rest are covered over and, in most cases, their
existence is forgotten. It is not possible, even in case of war, when
our water supply might be cut off, that we will ever revert to the use
of these wells, for they yield a polluted water that is as bad to drink
as poison. Just before the Revolutionary War a man named Colles built a
little reservoir above the City Hall, but it yielded such bad water that
the people who could afford to do so bought water that was hawked in the
streets from carts. It was not until 1842, when we had a population of
350,000 souls, that New York got its water systematically and in such
plenty that mothers did not scold their children and Mayors did not
remonstrate with the people for wasting it.

[Illustration: MAP OF CROTON AQUEDUCT.]

[Illustration: RESERVOIR IN CENTRAL PARK.]

New York has never been a boastful city. It never has filled the world
with the noise of its greatness or the parade of its wonderful
achievements. Its Broadway is the longest thoroughfare in Christendom, I
believe; its suspension-bridge is only excelled by one bridge of another
kind; its actual size and population are second to those of but one
city; but such facts one must glean from the encyclopædias and the
letters of travellers. The New-Yorkers say nothing about them. Therefore
it is but little known that the aqueduct which carries our water to us
is the greatest--many times the greatest--tunnel in the whole world. It
is more than thirty-three miles in length, and far from being a mere
trench, averages a depth of 170 feet below the surface, and is in places
380 feet underground. It is from ten to thirteen feet high, and averages
nearly as great a width. Its way is hewn through solid rock in places,
and it is everywhere built of brick and granite. It passes under several
rivers, and at the Harlem River, the northern boundary of this island,
it is in the shape of a siphon upside down, sloping for 1300 feet under
the river, and then rising 400 feet straight up through the Manhattan
Island bank of the stream. It cost nearly $27,000,000, and it brings,
without pumping, by the incline of the tunnel, nearly 100 gallons of
water a day for each of the 1,900,000 persons in the city, or about
171,000,000 gallons of water a day for all of us. It is a solid cube of
water running at the rate of two miles an hour, eight or ten feet thick,
and ten or a dozen feet high.

[Illustration: THE OLD WAY.]

We are in the habit of saying that the water we drink comes from Croton
Lake, thirty miles north of the city in Westchester County, but that is
only a part of the truth. The fact is, that Croton Lake was made by
damming the Croton River when our system was begun in 1835-42. We now
take that water, and the water of several other lakes, ponds, and rivers
that are in a great valley or depression in the earth called the Croton
watershed. We keep stored up and ready for use about 17,000,000,000
gallons of water in the following natural and artificial reservoirs:
Croton Lake, Lake Mahopac, Lake Gilead, and Kirk Lake, Middle Branch,
East Branch, Bog Brook, and Barrett Pond. Their names sufficiently
describe the character of these great goblets of crystal water which
nature and man have arranged for the needs of the great city. But these
are so insufficient that, although it is believed we could draw
250,000,000 gallons a day even in dry weather, we are going to take into
our system three more reservoirs, which will allow us to store
13,000,000,000 gallons more than we can store at present. And as even
these will not long supply our growing needs, we are about to build the
greatest dam the world ever saw. It is already called the Quaker Bridge
dam. It is to be built five miles south of Croton Lake, back of the town
of Sing Sing, where the great State-prison is. It will be a great
pyramidal-shaped wall of solid masonry 264 feet high, and 1500 feet
long, and will cost, the officials think, at least $6,000,000. When it
is finished, a magnificent rich farming country will be flooded and
turned into one immense glass of water for old Father Knickerbocker (as
we call our patron saint) and his children. The water that will bank up
against that dam will rise up over many, many farms and houses and barns
and villages for a distance of no less than sixteen miles, and the
present dam at Croton Lake will be thirty-five feet under the surface of
the water. Now we store 17,000,000,000 gallons of water, but then we
will have a liquid treasure of 84,600,000,000 gallons.

We are apt to think about water as free because Nature evidently
intended that it should cost no more than fresh air. And so it is free,
so long as we are satisfied to use very little, and to go and dip up
that very little out of a stream and carry it to our homes. But when
we demand the full fruits of modern civilization, when we insist
upon the building of huge dams and vast reservoirs and tunnels and
pumping-stations, we must buy the water they bring in order to pay for
the cost of the convenience. What we pay in New York amounts to about
$1.75 a head for every man, woman, and child in the city, or more than
$3,000,000 a year. This great tax, called the "water rents," is used to
pay the interest on the debt we owe for our aqueduct, to keep the system
in repair, and to swell a sinking fund which we have established. The
water rents are not paid according to the amount of water each person
uses, but for the quantity that passes into each house, office building,
factory, brewery, and stable. The house-owners each pay between four
dollars and eighteen dollars a year, and the men who use great
quantities--such as brewers, makers of mineral water, sugar refiners,
and the like--in the course of their business all pay special rates,
which seem very large indeed when we read the sums in print.




[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

     This department is conducted in the interest of Amateur
     Photographers, and the editor will be pleased to answer any
     question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should
     address Editor Camera Club Department.


MEMORY ALBUMS

What a wonderful thing the memory is! Grandmamma, who counts, perhaps,
her threescore years and ten, sees a piece of faded calico, and her mind
goes back to the time when, a little girl of eight, she was dressed in a
new gown, of which this faded scrap is a remnant, and taken to town for
"general training." She sees again the soldiers and the officers in
their uniforms, she almost smells the cards of gingerbread, and hears
the bustle and stir in the streets. She may not have thought of this
special day for long, long years, but this bit of calico has brought it
all back to her memory.

Since the advent of cameras into nearly every family one has the
opportunity of making actual pictures of festal occasions which occur,
such as the birthday parties, the family picnics, John's new bicycle and
his first unsuccessful attempt to ride it, the Hallowe'en frolic, the
Christmas tree--any special day or event can be preserved in gelatine,
and in a few years these pictures will have for one more interest and
value than many made from much finer negatives. Now we want to suggest
to our young amateurs that they start memory albums at once.

Begin the album by looking over your collection of plates, and select
such as have been made on special occasions. From these make prints, and
be sure and look up the exact date on which the picture was taken. Do
not reject a "memory picture" because it is not as clear a plate or the
grouping as artistic as one could desire. For the album itself, buy the
album leaves which are almost as cheap as card mounts, and they can be
added to from time to time as one makes new pictures. Arrange your
pictures in chronological order--that is, the earliest date first, etc.,
marking under each picture its proper date.

A person who has used a camera for two or three years will find he has
quite a number of "memory pictures," and one who starts a memory album
should make it a rule to add the pictures to his collection as soon as
they are made. One can use blue prints for such albums, for a good blue
print seldom fades or discolors, while aristo or albumen prints, unless
very carefully finished, are apt to grow yellow or discolor. In
after-years our memory albums will be considered of as much value as any
of our possessions.

     SIR KNIGHT ALFRED C. BAKER asks "If he can become a member of the
     Camera Club, and what are the duties of a member?" We shall be
     very glad to enroll Sir Alfred a member of our Camera Club, and as
     he says he owns two or three cameras, and finishes his own
     pictures, he will doubtless be a great addition to our club. The
     duties of a member have never been exactly defined, but we expect
     our members to take an active interest in the work, and they are
     requested to send to the club any new or improved way of doing
     anything in photography. We also want each one of our members to
     become a _specialist_ along some special line of photographic
     work. We hope soon to organize a correspondence and exchange club.
     Sir Alfred would like to correspond on photography with some of
     the members of the club. He has also a Kombi camera which he would
     like to sell or exchange.




THE MERRIEST TIME.

  The merriest time? Why, kite-time,
    Or the time for playing ball;
  Or maybe you like rolling hoop
    The very best of all.

  But, "Here's my own opinion,"
    With a little laugh, cries Moll.
  "The best is when I take a walk,
    And carry my parasol.

  "When muffs are packed in camphor,
    And tippets put away,
  When you needn't always wear your cloak
    In the middle of the day.

  "Yes, I declare, the merriest time."
    With a dimpling laugh, says Moll,
  "Is when I go to take a walk,
    And carry my parasol."

  M. E. S.




A MESSENGER-BOY'S ADVENTURE.[1]

BY EDWARD W. TOWNSEND.


Danny Cahill had been a district messenger for a year, and it seemed to
him that he had been on every street and across every park in the great
city of New York. Mr. Kean, who had helped him to become a newsboy, had
secured him a position in a down-town messenger office, where he could
easily learn his duties, and gradually became acquainted with the city,
for most of his "calls" there were from offices which wanted messengers
for short errands, and he was only occasionally sent far up town. But
after six months he was transferred to an office in the fashionable part
of the city, near Fifth Avenue, and then he began to go on long journeys
which gave him rides on the elevated roads from one end of the city to
the other; "from the Battery to the Harlem River," as the saying is.

The work was hard, though, and more so for Danny, because, after or
before his long hours on duty, he went every day or night to the school
in the Newsboys' Lodging-house where he lived. If he had been on night
duty, no matter how late he had been up, nor how many miles he had
walked, he was at school the next morning, and if on day duty, he did
not go to bed until he had attended the night class. I cannot say that
Danny liked this, for he would much rather have gone with the other boys
on their pleasure excursions about the city, but Mr. Kean had urged
Danny to put in all the time he could spare in school. He promised him
that if he did so he would find him a better position when he was far
enough advanced to take one.

One evening, when it was nearly time for Danny to go off duty, a
messenger call came in the office, and as he was "next" he had to answer
it. It took him to a big fashionable house where he had often been
before, and he expected as usual to have a short errand with a note to
some neighboring house or shop. But when a servant let him into the big
hall he was soon joined by a maid who gave him a bundle to carry, and
told him he was to take it, and pilot her to the Tenement Mission,
"wherever that may be," said the maid, crossly.

Danny knew well enough where it was, for it was situated only a few
blocks from the place he once called "home," where he had lived with his
uncle who had made him beg, and whom he had never seen since the day he
escaped, by Mr. Kean's aid, from the policeman who had arrested both him
and his uncle.

What he could not understand was what so grand a house as he was then in
could have to do with the Tenement Mission, and he said so to the maid
when they were on the street walking toward the Third Avenue elevated
station.

"I don't wonder at your surprise," said the maid. "The lady in charge of
that nasty mission is the young lady of our house, and I'm her maid.
What she wants to go down among those trash for I'm sure I don't know."

"Say," exclaimed Danny, in amazement, "de yer mean dat Barstow lives
where we's just come from?"

"Sure, Miss Barstow," answered the maid, "but how do you know?"

"Everybody down dare where I useter live knows her, and calls her 'a
tenement angel,'" Danny replied. "But she don't dress grand--not so
grand as you."

The maid laughed at this, and then said: "Well, she has a right to dress
as she pleases, and go where she pleases, I suppose; but I don't know
what right she has to telegraph me to come down there with jelly and
wine and broth that you have in that bundle. I'll just tell her that I
ain't going to nurse any of her poor sick she's so fond of, if I have to
give up my place."

"Say, I guess she isn't tinkin' dat you won't nurse nobody," Danny said,
"because she'd get fooled, for I don't believe you'd know how."

"And I don't want to know how," snapped the maid.

When the Tenement Mission was reached Miss Barstow was not there, but a
note had been left for the maid directing her to come, with the
messenger, to an address which was given.

"Where is the place?" asked the maid, showing Danny the note.

"Oh, dat's a back tenement-house in Roosevelt Street," Danny answered.
"Dare is Italians dare," he added, for he knew the place well, his old
home with his uncle having been in the same block.

"Is it any worse than this?" the maid asked, in a voice which showed she
was getting frightened.

"Dis is Fift' Avenue compared to dat," Danny said.

The girl began to whimper, and said at last, "I won't go. I'm scared to
death already. I won't go to her nasty sick poor, and get the small-pox
and everything else."

At first Danny did not know what to do. He tried to persuade the maid to
go, but she was thoroughly frightened now, and half hysterical. Finally
Danny took up the bundle, saying: "Well, I'm going, anyway. If Miss
Barstow wants dese things she is goin' to have dem, and you can do what
you like. I don't tink you are much good except for show, anyhow."

"I'll stay here until some one comes and takes me home," cried the girl,
as Danny went out of the mission.

It was dark by this time, but Danny knew the way perfectly. He found the
low narrow entrance to the front tenement, went through that to a little
stone-paved court where there was one gas-lamp, and was crossing that
when a couple of men stopped him, and demanded roughly to know what he
had in the bundle.

"Never you mind," he answered. "It's for Miss Barstow, not for mugs like
you."

The men slunk away without any more threats. They were none too good,
but they, like nearly all the people in that neighborhood, had been won
to respect Miss Barstow, and anything which belonged to her was almost
sacred in their eyes.

Danny continued on across the dimly lit court into the dark entrance of
the rear tenement. At the door of the room which Miss Barstow's note had
described Danny knocked softly, and was admitted by her, a tall, plainly
dressed, handsome young woman, whose kindly face was at that moment
clouded by anxiety. She seemed surprised to see the messenger alone, and
after taking the bundle from him and placing it in a chair, she stepped
out in the hall, closing the door so that their voices would not disturb
the sick people inside, and heard Danny's story of the maid's fright and
desertion.

Miss Barstow was silent for some time before she said, and there was no
anger in her voice:

"Perhaps I was wrong to send for her. I would not have done so, but all
my assistants are busy. But," she added, after a pause, "I must have
some assistance until the doctor comes again."

"Say, what's de matter wid me helpin' you, lady?" asked Danny, promptly.

Miss Barstow looked at him in the half-light the hall lamp gave, and
then said, quickly, "Yes. Go and put my maid on a car that will take her
home, and then come back here."

Danny did so, and was pretty soon back in the sick-room with Miss
Barstow and her two patients. The room was poor, very poor, but better
than the one he had lived in with his uncle. There were a bed and a cot,
some chairs, a rough table, a cook stove, and a few cooking and table
dishes.

In the bed was an Italian woman, and in the cot her daughter, a girl
about twelve years old. Both were sick with a fever only too common in
the tenement district. The husband and father was a fruit peddler, who
had what is called an "all-night" stand on the Bowery. The man and his
wife alternated with each other in attending the stand, and it was
exposure to the cold wet nights that had brought on the woman's fever.
The girl had been a scholar in the day-school for tenement children in
Miss Barstow's Mission, but she had attempted to take her mother's place
at the stand when the woman was taken sick, and she, too, soon came down
with the fever.

It was while making inquiries about her absent scholar that Miss Barstow
had found the patients both in bed, and having only the rough care the
man could give them during the few hours he could leave his stand. Danny
was soon at work under Miss Barstow's orders, and both the patients had
some dainty food and wine, and every attention to make them comfortable.
Before the Doctor arrived both mother and daughter were sleeping
quietly, and Danny found himself whispering the story of his life to
Miss Barstow, who, it seemed to him, had the kindest way of asking
questions and understanding what he told her of any person in the world.
The Doctor smiled when he came in at midnight and saw them, and Danny
blushed proudly when the lady told the Doctor that her messenger had
proved to be a good nurse and a very interesting companion.

The Doctor ordered Miss Barstow to go home, saying he would wait there
until the husband came. When Miss Barstow had paid Danny, she asked him
which way he was going. "I'm goin' to see you home, sure," Danny
answered, gallantly.

They had left the tenements, and were walking up Roosevelt Street, when
a man standing by a lamp-post stared at Danny, and then exclaimed:

"Oh, you little rascal! I've caught you at last! Come along home with
me," and he grabbed the boy roughly by the shoulder.

It was Danny's uncle. "You've got fine clothes, and are with a fine
lady, while your poor old uncle who had always given you a good honest
home is starving," he exclaimed.

Some men who had been lounging about the corner ran up, and Cahill
declared over and over to them that his boy had run away from an honest
home, and should be taken back and help to support his old uncle, who
was sick.

Danny, who had a notion that his uncle really had some sort of right
over him, was sick and disheartened at the prospect of going back to his
old life, but he had had his liberty too long to be willing to give it
up without a struggle. He was a stout youngster; his constant exercise
as a messenger-boy kept him in good physical condition, and he made a
good resistance to his uncle's efforts to drag him away.

As he was struggling, Miss Barstow ran to him and asked, "Is this the
man you told me of--your uncle?"

"Sure; dis is de mug, and he's no good," Danny answered, as he fought.

"Let that boy go," she said to Cahill, sternly.

"Not for you," responded Cahill, surlily.

Miss Barstow stepped to where the light fell on her face, and turning to
the crowd of men, said: "Some of you must know me. I want you to make
that man let this boy go."

"It's Miss Barstow," one of the men exclaimed. Then he added, "What you
say goes down here, lady, mostly, but not in this case. Cahill has a
right to the boy's wages. He's a good man, and the kid ain't going to
get no harm by going along with him."

[Illustration: DANNY DISCOMFITS THE ASSAILANT.]

Miss Barstow's knowledge of this class taught her that the men had all
been drinking, and she knew that the situation was serious. She had
often been warned that she was in danger of just such experiences as
this, but until now had been saved from danger by the respect that the
tenement people felt for her. But these were not even tenement people of
the lowest kind. They belonged to the class of idlers who skulked about
the saloons in that neighborhood at night, and begged during the day. As
she was debating what she should do, Danny managed to trip his uncle
hard and break away from him. He ran to Miss Barstow, snatched her
umbrella from her hand, jumped between her and the man, and told her to
run. One of the half-drunken men lurched toward Danny, but suddenly
halted when Danny brought the silver head of the umbrella down on the
fellow's head with a whack. That was more than he expected, and while
they stood irresolute Danny and Miss Barstow hurried away, Danny keeping
between her and the enemy, swinging the umbrella threateningly. They
reached the elevated-road station without further molestation, and Danny
then found to his surprise that the woman who had been so brave while
there was any danger was now white and trembling, and nigh to fainting.

"It was not that I was afraid," she said, "but it shows me that there is
danger for me down there, and that I must give up my night work there."

"Why, lady," said Danny, "I taut it was a picnic; anyway it was good fun
when I cracked dat mug's nut wid dis umbrella. He'll know he was in a
fight to-morrow."

Danny went to Miss Barstow's door with her, and thought that would be
the last he would hear of the adventure. Three days later, while he was
sitting in the messenger office, a man called on him, who explained that
he was the lawyer for Miss Barstow's society which supported the
Tenement Mission. He had had Cahill and the men who had been with him
that night arrested, and Danny was wanted as a witness against them in
the Police Court.

"And now," said the lawyer, when he had explained about the arrest,
"tell me all you can about yourself, and your relations with Cahill.
Miss Barstow tells me that Cahill may have some legal right to your
wages, and if he has we want to give you another guardian. What would
you think of me as your guardian?"

Danny did not know what sort of a thing a guardian might be, and the
lawyer explained. It was Miss Barstow's wish, he added, that Danny
should have a proper legal guardian, and he would look into the matter,
and do all that was necessary to protect Danny's rights.

So it came about, after Danny had signed a lot of legal papers, and
there had been a lot of petitions and motions, that one day Danny was
told that the law had taken notice of such an unimportant little chap as
he was, and Miss Barstow's agent had become his guardian, and Uncle
Cahill had no claim on Danny's liberty or his modest little account in
the Bowery Savings-bank. Danny's comment was:

"I never taut I'd get to be such a swell mug as to have a guardeen all
by me lonely. De first ting you know I'll be runnin' for President."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The previous articles in this series, published in HARPER'S
YOUNG PEOPLE, are "A Street-Waif's Luck," No. 792, "Danny Cahill,
Newsboy," No. 803.




[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]


The action of the Interscholastic Athletic Association in passing the
law prohibiting bicycle-races at all future in-door meetings held under
the rules of the I. S. A. A. cannot be too highly commended. It was, of
course, the logical outcome of the occurrences of the past four months,
but nevertheless the promptness with which the evil was abolished is
praiseworthy. Bicycle-races as an in-door sport should be universally
done away with. What games in the past season have not been marred by
accidents and collisions in that event? The culmination was the carrying
away of W. G. Dann in an ambulance after he had broken his collar-bone
at the Brooklyn Poly. Prep. games last March. It is to be hoped, now
that the good work has been begun, that in the near future some of the
other peculiar features of in-door meetings will receive proper
attention at the hands of the legislators. I do not believe that
Olympian Zeus--or whatever enlightened heathen god it was who invented
and fostered track athletics--ever intended that sprints and
shot-putting should be held under a roof. He surely would have drawn the
line at bicycles, had he known anything about them. He wisely preferred
the less-murderous four-horse chariot. But, to my mind, track athletics
were never intended as an in-door sport. The gymnasium is not a
hippodrome. But more of that later. Let us be thankful for one thing at
a time.

I am not opposed to what some timid people call "rough and dangerous"
sport. Football should be encouraged, by all means, although it may
justly be termed "rough and dangerous" for young men who do not know how
to play. It is not dangerous for those who do know the game and have
been trained to take part in it. Yet under no circumstances is it a
sport adaptable to evening clothes and kid gloves. If it were, we should
not care for it as we do. But bicycle-racing--and I am speaking now
essentially of in-door racing on a flat floor--is just as dangerous for
experts as it is for the ignorant and the novice. More so, perhaps; for
a novice's timidity will protect him from any attempt at riding through
an iron girder. The dim light of an armory makes it difficult for a
rider to judge angles and distances, especially when the track he is
circling is marked solely by a chalk line on a slippery floor. In an
open field, on a cinder track well rolled and well fenced, it is a very
different matter. Should a rider fall there, his injuries are limited to
a few scratches at the worst, and surgical assistance is unnecessary in
such a case. As to sprinting and putting the shot on a board floor,
these events are more incongruous than harmful. And if custom has made
them popular as in-door sports, I am willing to defer to the dictum of
Custom, until Experience shall step in and pronounce her verdict.

Another good rule adopted at this same meeting of the I. S. A. A. was
that proposed by Syme of Barnard, to prevent, when possible, two boys
from the same school starting in the same trial heat. It is,
unfortunately, not uncommon for two boys from the same school to
deliberately pocket a rival runner, especially in events like the 220,
the half-mile, and the mile. Such practices are beneath the dignity of
amateurs, and it is somewhat of a disgrace that any rule should be
required to prevent it. But if the managers were forced to recognize
this unsportsmanlike tendency on the part of even a few contestants, it
is to their credit that they adopted measures to put a stop to it.
Nothing in sport to-day is more important than to maintain a broad and
honest spirit of fair play, for without such a spirit interscholastic
athletics, and every other kind of athletics, are bound to deteriorate.

While speaking of this, I am reminded of rumors current in Brooklyn to
the effect that one of the schools in the Long Island Interscholastic
League has secured track athletes and baseball players by offering them
half tuition, and in one case free tuition, as an inducement to attend
that particular institution. This is a very ugly story, and should not
be credited unless very positive proof of its veracity can be adduced.
The only ground for the rumors, that I have been able to discover so
far, is that the individuals in question attended other schools last
year. But that fact is by no means sufficient to warrant the assertion,
or even the insinuation, that the change they made was influenced by a
financial consideration. If the report is unfounded, it is almost as
reprehensible an offence against honest sportsmanship to circulate it as
to be guilty of the dishonest practices alleged. As the matter stands
now, there is no doubt that somebody--either the school in question or
the other members of the league--is suffering under an injustice.

[Illustration: THE NEW YORK INTERSCHOLASTIC CUP.]

There are just ten days for practice left before the Interscholastics.
The many school games of the past two weeks have shown that there is
much new material in the field, and that it will not be so easy to pick
the winner of the championship as might have been supposed earlier in
the season. The struggle for supremacy promises to be more interesting
this spring than ever, and I have little doubt that several records will
be considerably bettered. Barnard, of course, will make a desperate
endeavor to carry off the honors of the day, and thus secure a full
title to the Interscholastic Cup. This school will be represented by a
strong team, which gives good promise of equalling the record of last
year's champions, although three of those 1894 point-winners are not
back this year. Of the 38 points which won the day for Barnard last
May, Rogers made 16; Simpson, 6; and Feigenspan, 1--in all 23, or almost
two-thirds of the total victorious score. Thus, if victory perches on
the Harlem banners next week, it will be due in a large measure to the
development and acquisition of new material.

At the semiannual field day of the Academic Athletic League of the
Pacific Coast, held at the Olympic Club Grounds, San Francisco, on March
16th last, the Oakland High-School and the Berkeley High-School, with 52
points each to its credit, tied for first place, and the championship
was consequently awarded to the former for having been the winner the
previous year. The struggle, as may well be imagined, was a close and
exciting one throughout, there being no event, except perhaps the shot,
hammer, and mile run, that was not hotly contested to the end. The
O.H.-S. has been the Coast champion for sixteen years past, and if
Cheek, the captain of the team, had entered this year, no doubt the
score would have been very different. Cheek is a promising all-round
athlete. In addition to vaulting and jumping he puts the shot 33 feet,
throws the hammer over 100 feet, runs the 100 in 11 seconds, gets over
the high hurdles in 17-1/2 seconds, and the low hurdles in 28 seconds.
The reason given for his non-entry into these sports is that his team
was so much stronger than that of any of the other schools in the
league, that the O.H.-S. preferred to contest the games without his aid,
and so decide the day by a few points only. This experiment proved a
most risky one. If the B.H.-S. had won the Relay race, they would have
taken the championship by the score of 55 to 48. Such a self-sacrificing
and eminently sporting spirit as Cheek's is something I have not yet
observed in the East. The rules governing the contests of the A.A.L. are
somewhat different from those of other leagues. The team of each school
is limited to seven boys, and six more are allowed to enter for the
Relay race, which counts as an extra event, and gives 10 points to the
winner, 6 points to second, and 2 to third. There is some advantage in
this limitation, but I should think that in many cases it would operate
unjustly. Nevertheless, it is a great preventer of that worst feature of
our Eastern track-athletic games--countless trial heats necessitated by
unlimited and unrestricted entries.

The high hurdles were the occasion for a hot struggle between Dawson,
O.H.-S., and Hoppin, B.H.-S. Dawson had never run the full course
before, and this was only his fifth attempt at clearing the sticks, but
he ran well and breasted the tape in 19-1/2 seconds, with Hoppin at his
heels. In the first heat of the low hurdles Hoppin won in 31-1/2
seconds. Dawson fell at the seventh, but picked himself up quickly and
finished, thus qualifying for the finals, which he won in 31-1/2
seconds, with Hoppin third. Dawson will no doubt improve greatly within
the next year, and I confidently look forward to see him smash some
Coast records. He takes the hurdles without the suggestion of an effort,
and although only 5 feet 5 inches tall, he gets in the seven steps
without any trouble. He trained for the half-mile earlier in the spring,
and so attained good endurance. Another boy with this quality strongly
developed is Hanford, the O.H.-S. sprinter. He is slow at starting, but
his endurance is such that he has been known to do 50 yards in 6-1/5
seconds on a dirt track, then walk back to the start, get on his mark
and repeat the performance; and do this again a third and fourth time.
He took the 220 in 25-1/5 seconds, without being pushed, but came in a
foot behind Lippmann, B.H.-S., in the 100 on account of his slowness in
getting away from the mark. In the field events the B.H.-S. walked away
with everything, taking all the points in the hammer and shot events.
They got first in the broad jump and pole vault, and tied for the high
jump. In the hammer, Lynch, B.H.-S. threw 104 feet and won, and was
going to try for a record, when the attention of the judges, for some
reason, was distracted by the exciting Relay race, and so Lynch lost his
chances and his rights. He is said to have done 125 feet in practice. On
the whole the day was a notable success, and the scholars of California
showed themselves sportsmen of the true stripe in the enthusiasm and
energy which characterized the occasion.

COMPARATIVE TABLE OF NEW YORK AND SAN FRANCISCO INTERSCHOLASTIC
MEETINGS.

            I. S. A. A. Games at the Berkeley Oval,
                   New York, May 5, 1894.

  Event.                      Winner.           Performance.

  100-yard dash               Rogers                10-2/5 s.
  220-yard dash               Simpson               23-3/5 s.
  120-yard hurdles            Beers                 16-2/5 s.
  220-yard hurdles            Syme                  27-1/5 s.
  Half-mile run               Irwin-Martin     2 m. 10-1/5 s.
  Mile run                    Veiller          5 m.  1-1/5 s.
  Running high jump         { Rogers   }       5 ft. 9     in.
                            { Baltazzi }
  Running broad jump          Beers           19  "  5     "
  Pole vault                  Whitney         10  "
  Putting 16-pound shot
  Putting 12-pound shot       Ball            39  "  1     "
  Throwing 12-pound hammer    Ball           110  "  3-1/2 "


              A. A. L. Games at Olympic Club Grounds,
                   San Francisco, March 16, 1895.

  Event.                      Winner.         Performance.

  100-yard dash               Lippmann            10-4/5 s.
  220-yard dash               Hanford             25-1/5 s.
  120-yard hurdles            Dawson              19-1/4 s.
  220-yard hurdles            Dawson              31-1/2 s.
  Half-mile run               Russ          2 m.  20-2/5 s.
  Mile run                    Jackson       5 m.   5-1/2 s.
  Running high jump           McConnell     5 ft.  3 in.
  Running broad jump          Lloyd        18  "   6 "
  Pole vault                  Woolsey       9  "   2 "
  Putting 16-pound shot       Lloyd        32  "   8 "
  Putting 12-pound shot
  Throwing 12-pound hammer    Lloyd       104  "   5 "

It is interesting to note the records made on this occasion, and to
place them alongside of the performances of our Eastern scholars. The
accompanying table will show that, even with almost a year's advantage
in the comparison, the Californians are behind the New-Yorkers in every
event. In many events, of course, the records of both leagues are better
than the performances made on these two specific occasions; but the
comparison goes only to show that in a contest between Eastern and
Western schools, could such a one be arranged, there would be but
little doubt this year as to the probable winners. Perhaps some day
such a meeting may be brought about. What might be called the first
step in that direction has already been taken by the California State
University team, which is coming East next month to take part in the
Intercollegiate games at Mott Haven. In a year or so the Pacific coast
schools may get up enthusiasm and enterprise enough to follow the
example of the college men and seek new laurels in the East.

It is possible that the universal interest in track and field sports,
which has so rapidly developed in the last two years, will prove harmful
to baseball and tennis. Already I have heard several complaints from
captains of nines that it is difficult to get candidates to come out and
try for positions on the team, because almost every boy who has any
ambition for athletic honors is running or jumping, or otherwise
training his muscles that he may take part in contests which offer
material reward for success. In other words, gold, silver, and bronze
medals are more tempting than a proprietary interest in a champion
pennant. If it is true that an appreciable number of boys go into track
athletics not for the sport, but for the medals, the sooner medals are
done away with the better. But it does not seem possible that this can
be so. It is more probable that baseball and tennis have been
superseded, to a certain extent, by track and field sports because of
the nature of the latter. A boy can go out and run or jump or put the
shot all by himself at almost any time of the day. But he cannot go into
an open field and play baseball with himself, nor can he go to a
tennis-court and play tennis with himself. In one case he must secure
one opponent at least, and in the other he must gather a dozen or more
companions. To be sure, these objections are not very valid in New York,
but I have no doubt the charm of individuality has tempted a good many
boys to indulge in track sports. If baseball and tennis have suffered
thereby it is all the more reason why baseball and tennis enthusiasts
should strive by every means in their power to organize good nines and
train good tennis-players--for it is an unhealthy tree that puts all
its vitality into one branch.

There is talk of changing the constitution of the New England I.S.A.A.
in order to allow scholars over twenty-one years of age to compete in
games held under the rules of that association. The subject will be
brought up for discussion and probably decided at the meeting to be held
in Boston day after to-morrow, May 2d. The motion should be
unconditionally defeated, and the constitution left unaltered. Except
for very unusual reasons, a man twenty-one years old has no business
being in school. He ought to be at work or in college. If, however, he
still lingers about the school-room, there is no reason why special laws
should be enacted for his benefit. He deserves to be discriminated
against. Besides, there are probably not more than half a dozen men of
that age in all the schools of the New England League, and these can
certainly spend their time to better advantage in studying than at
foot-racing and jumping. It is unfair to allow grown men to enter into
competition with younger men, and I earnestly hope that those who
control the policy of the N.E.I.S.A.A. will realize this, and
unceremoniously shut the men out.

At the annual in-door meeting of the New England I.S.A.A., held in
Boston last month, there were 342 entries, representing thirty
preparatory schools. This would seem to show that there is even more
interest in track athletics in Boston than there is in New York. The
result of the meeting was most satisfactory, inasmuch as five records
were broken, one was equalled, and a new record was established. The
team races were a new feature, and as rival schools were purposely
matched against one another the contests proved most interesting and
exciting. The Worcester High-School managed to retain the championship
of the Association by scoring 19 points; the Worcester Academy took
second place with 14-1/2 points. This prowess was not relished or
appreciated by the boys of the Boston schools, who are not by any means
anxious to see the pennant float over any city but the Hub; yet it has
been evident for some time that any one who wants to defeat these
Worcester school-boys will have to get up very early in the morning and
travel remarkably fast.

THE GRADUATE.




[Illustration: STAMPS]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp collectors,
     and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the
     subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor
     Stamp Department.


Since the discovery of the variety of the twelve-cent United States
stamp illustrated last week, many collectors have sought to find other
varieties in the same issue, thinking that if a new plate was made for
the twelve cents it was likely that other new ones were engraved for
different values. Thus far no further discoveries have been made.

The one, two, five, and ten cent values of the new United States
newspaper stamps have thus far been issued.

In the three-cent stamp of the 1857 issue, the "Outer Line" variety
consists of a fine line running all around the stamp. Each of the stamps
has a line on the side, but in the variety an additional fine line
appears at both the top and bottom, the perforation sometimes destroying
one of them. The outer-line variety is not as scarce as the price given
would indicate.

The high values of United States envelopes are now a thing of the past,
the department no longer printing any value higher than five cents on
the envelopes.

Many stamp papers say that only the one, two, and three cent values of
the new postage-stamps have been issued and printed, but the ten has
also been sent out.

It would not be surprising to many collectors if the current issue of
United States stamps, which were first printed by the Bureau of
Engraving, should be catalogued as a separate issue before many years,
there being many points of difference between those first put out and
what the bureau is now printing. The colors, perforation, and gum are
now much superior to the first printings, and smaller things than these
have caused stamps to be separately catalogued.

Another question that puzzles many collectors is the difference between
wood-engraved and typographed stamps. Typographed means set and printed
from type, so the United States officially sealed stamps of this variety
are printed with regular type, while the lithographed are printed from
stones, the designs being engraved, and thus fancy and very different
from the type-set stamp.

A new stamp paper will shortly be issued from Boston. It will have a
good financial backing, and it is expected to be one of the leading
publications in the philatelic line.

Since the last catalogue added the varieties of United States stamps on
ribbed paper, it has caused collectors to hunt for them, but probably
with little success, as they are very scarce. Ribbed paper is a variety
of wove, having lines running up or down or across, and showing on the
back of stamp.




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[Illustration]

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[Illustration]

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[Illustration: If afflicted with SORE EYES use Dr. ISAAC THOMPSON'S EYE
WATER]




[Illustration: BICYCLING]

     This department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the
     Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject,
     besides inquiries regarding the League of American Wheelmen, so
     far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Bicycling
     Department.


[Illustration: Map]

This department will, so far as possible, publish maps and descriptions
of various bicycle routes in the vicinity of different important cities
in America.

The map this week is of New York city. It shows at once just what can be
done with a bicycle in New York, what are the best ways of getting out
of the city, and where the best streets for wheeling are through its
whole length. Most of the black roads are of asphalt pavement, but of
course the Riverside Drive, West Seventy-second Street, and the long
avenues above the Park, as well as those in the Park, are of macadam. It
will pay wheelmen, or boys and girls who expect to be wheelmen or
wheelwomen soon, to tear out this page and keep it for reference, for by
careful study it will show how to avoid pavement, so far as possible, in
getting from one part of the city to another.

To begin with the East Side below Fourteenth Street. The wheelman's
object must be to get to Second Avenue as directly as possible. He
should then go up Second Avenue, which is asphalted to Twenty-second
Street, turn east into Lexington, and go up the latter to Thirty-second
Street. Here is the beginning of Murray Hill, and the asphalt stops. He
has two blocks to ride on Lexington, and then turning west he has half
an avenue block uphill to Park Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street. From
here he has almost a clear asphalted or macadamized road out of New
York. He turns through to Madison Avenue on any street from Thirty-four
to Fortieth, goes down the paved hill between Forty-first and
Forty-second streets on Madison Avenue, and then keeps on the latter
till he turns through Fifty-eighth Street, crosses Fifth Avenue, and if
a dry day enters the Park, or if too soon after rain passes west up
Fifty-ninth Street.

Suppose it has rained recently. The bicycler keeps to Fifty-ninth Street
till he reaches the Boulevard at Eighth Avenue. He should then take the
right side of the Boulevard going out till he reaches Ninety-sixth
Street, when he must cross to the left side, owing to the fact that the
Boulevard is as yet only paved on the west side from here out. At 108th
Street the asphalt stops, and he must either go through that street to
the Riverside Drive or keep on the Boulevard, which from here to 125th
Street is in bad condition, awaiting asphalt pavement. If he takes the
drive he should turn east and go down a very steep but short hill on
122d Street, just opposite Grant's Tomb, into the Boulevard, and as soon
as he comes to 125th Street a long and pretty steep hill confronts him.
It is not difficult, however, if taken slowly, since the macadam is
good, and the hill a steady incline. At 154th Street, which is
asphalted, he should turn east to St. Nicholas Avenue, which is better
here than below, though the macadam is old. Keeping on St. Nicholas
Avenue he soon comes into the Boulevard again at 168th Street, which is
here called Kingsbridge Road, and is newly macadamized. By making this
slight detour at 155th Street the rider avoids going down the hill back
of Trinity Cemetery, and up another bad one on the Boulevard. If he is
going up the Hudson he should turn east at 181st Street, through a bad
two hundred yards of the latter, cross the Harlem on Washington Bridge,
(2), and turn north into Featherbed Lane. This is necessary, because the
Kingsbridge Road at the foot of the hill, which begins at 181st Street,
is in a very bad condition as far as Spuyten Duyvil.

On the west side of the city down-town it is the rider's first object to
get to Eighth Avenue as directly as possible. He then has a clear course
out. Starting from the Grand Central Station, a good seven-mile ride is
to go, as already described, up the Boulevard to 106th Street, then
turn east to the Park, and come back to the Plaza. On a dry day one of
the most beautiful, perhaps _the_ most beautiful, ten-mile ride in
America is from the Grand Central, as described, to the Plaza, thence
through the Park to West Seventy-second Street to Riverside Drive, by
Grant's Tomb to Claremont, at the end of the Drive, and back, turning
east through 108th Street to Boulevard to 106th Street, thence east to
the Park, and so down.




[Illustration: 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.


While we are discussing our favorite books, I want to tell you something
about the treasury of rich and rare literature which you and I and
everybody may be free of in opening the covers of our Bibles.

Is it your habit, dear child, to read a few verses or a chapter of the
best of books every day, perhaps before you leave your room in the
morning, or before you go to bed at night? Have you your very own Bible,
and do you keep it in your room, and just where you can easily put your
hand upon it? Each of us should have her own Bible, for this is not a
book to share with others. If we are studying a foreign language we
should have, in addition to our English Bible, a French or German or
Italian Bible, a Bible in the language we are trying to learn, and by
reading in it every day we will greatly add to our vocabulary, and find
ourselves rapidly growing used to the looks and sounds of the most
familiar words.

No single book in the world has so many interesting features as the
Bible, partly because it is a library or collection of books in itself,
written by many different authors, in different periods of the world.
The Old Testament, which some people neglect, is full of the most
exciting and beautiful stories. There is the story of Job, one of the
very oldest in literature, telling how this "man in the land of Uz had
seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke
of oxen, and a very great household, and was the greatest of all the men
of the East." By a series of calamities, robbers, fires, earthquakes,
and cyclones, Job lost all his wealth, in the twinkling of an eye; and
then follow a wonderful series of chapters in which he and his three
friends and the Lord God, "out of a whirlwind," discuss the situation.
There are the stories of David and Saul, of David and Goliath, of David
and Jonathan, of David and Absalom; indeed the whole history of David is
a succession of amazing stories most splendidly told. Coming down from
David are the stories of Solomon and the great temple he built, "a
mountain of snow and gold"; and then we have the narratives of Nehemiah
and Ezra; of Daniel and his wonderful life; of the three friends who
were thrown into a fiery furnace, but stepped out unhurt; of many others
whom I cannot mention here. Long before David's days we find the
beautiful story of Ruth; and we have the story of little Samuel, and of
Samuel grown to be a man and a prophet. We have in the old Testament the
histories of Elijah and of Elisha, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

I simply cannot endure the thought that any of my girls are to be
ignorant of the charm of the Old Testament. I want them to feel as I do
about the "mountains of Gilboa," and the "dew of Hermon," and the
fastnesses of Moab; I want them to know Edom and Philistia and Salem and
Tyre and Sidon and the cedars of Lebanon. And I _don't_ want them ever
to go fumbling and stumbling around through the Bible, not knowing where
to find their places, peering about after Second Kings in Deuteronomy,
and looking for the Psalms and the Proverbs away over in Malachi. Learn
the order of the books, my dears, and fix it in your minds by often
reading the Bible, just as you would read any other book, only with the
feeling that it will give you an amount of pleasure and profit that no
other book can. There are, of course, many books based upon the Bible,
and among them are such volumes as _Bible Stories for the Young_,
published by Harper & Brothers, a very attractive little book to lie
beside your Bible.

[Illustration: Signature]

       *       *       *       *       *

A GOOD CHILD

is usually healthy, and both conditions are developed by use of proper
food. The Gail Borden Eagle Brand Condensed Milk is the best infant's
food; so easily prepared that improper feeding is inexcusable and
unnecessary.--[_Adv._]




ADVERTISEMENTS.




No Secret About It.

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know they can always depend upon it as being exactly the same. It
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its place in Consumption and all wasting diseases.

_Don't be persuaded to accept a substitute!_

Scott & Bowne, N. Y. All Druggists. 50c. and $1.




_PUZZLE PENKNIFE, 10c._

[Illustration]

Best steel Blade concealed in nickel handle. Press the button and it
opens. Worth 25c. as a knife and $5.00 as a puzzle. A sample of our 1000
Bargains, mailed postpaid with Cat. for 10c.

ROBT. H. INGERSOLL & BRO, 65 CORTLANDT ST. N. Y. CITY.




Awarded

Highest Honors--World's Fair.

[Illustration: DR. PRICE'S CREAM BAKING POWDER]

MOST PERFECT MADE.

A pure Grape Cream-of-Tartar Powder. Free from Ammonia, Alum, or any
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[Illustration]

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AND

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50 cents and $1.00.

All Druggists.

TARRANT & CO., Chemists, N. Y.




Postage Stamps, &c.




[Illustration]

=STAMPS!= =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.




[Illustration]

100 all dif. Venezuela, Costa Rica, etc., only 10c.; 200 all dif. Hayti,
Hawaii, etc., only 50c. Ag'ts wanted at 50 per ct. com. List FREE!

=C. A. Stegmann=, 2722 Eads Av., St. Louis, Mo.




=50= var., all dif., 5c.; 12 var. Heligoland, 15c.; 6 var. Italy, 1858
to 1862. 5c.; 3 var. Hanover, 5c.; 35 var. C. American, 50c. Agents
wanted.

F. W. MILLER, 904 Olive St., St. Louis, Mo.




=100= all different, China, etc., 10c.; 5 Saxony, 10c.; 40 Spain, 40c.;
6 Tunis, 14c.; 10 U. S. Revenues, 10c. Agts. wtd., 50% com.; '95 list
free.

CRITTENDEN & BORGMAN CO., Detroit, Mich.




=FREE 15 varieties=; to all sending for approval sheets 50% commission.
References required. =FRANK W. ALDEN, Waterville, Me.=




=FREE= 8 Japan and India Stamps, 2c.; 100 all different, 10c.; 6
Sardinia, 5c.; 8 Samoa, 10c.

J. A. WILSON, 1108 Fairmount Ave., Phila., Pa.




=BEST= Approval Sheets at 50% dis.; send at once.

OHIO STAMP CO., Carthage, Ohio.




=POSTAGE DUES.=--50c. brown, 30c. red, 90c. each; the two for $1.75.
=Diamond Stamp Co., Germantown, Pa.=




=STAMPS= Catalogue value $5, 30c.; List. 2c.

Old Colony Stamp Co., Plainville, Mass.




=CARDS= Send 2c. stamp for Sample Book of all the FINEST and LATEST
Styles in Beveled Edge. Hidden Name, Silk Fringe, Envelope and Calling
CARDS FOR 1895. WE SELL GENUINE CARDS, NOT TRASH. =UNION CARD CO.,
Columbus, Ohio.=




[Illustration: If afflicted with SORE EYES USE Dr. ISAAC THOMPSON'S EYE
WATER]




WISER THAN A WIZARD.

A Rare Combination of Natural History, Folk-lore, Charade, and Riddle,
with Prizes to those who Unravel Most of the Forty Queer Questions.


Once there lived a very wicked King, a brother of the original
Bluebeard. (1) He had an only daughter called Minnehaha. (2) She was a
very obedient girl in every respect save one--she would not hearken to
the suit of Harry Hotspur, (3) whom her father had determined she must
marry. Continuing in her refusal, her father threatened to imprison her
in the Plenty Perplexing Puzzle Palace, known as the Four Pi's, (4) the
residence of the English Merlin. (5) Finally a compromise was
effected--the princess was to marry that man, be he prince or beggar,
who should present a query to the King's Wizard which he could not
answer. If, however, the Wizard did answer correctly, the propounder of
the query was to lose his head.

All the details being fixed, a band of naturalists on their way to the
Island of the Moon (6) stopped to try their fortunes. In turn they asked
for the edible English philosopher, (7) the species of mollusk that is
used in all printing-offices, (8) the bird that is always in evening
dress, (9) the bird (10) that sometimes brings corns on your feet, the
animal that cannot say no, (11) the insect that fills the new Boston
Public Library to the number of many thousands, (12) and the fish (13)
that everybody seeks after. As the Wizard replied to all correctly, he
chopped off the heads of the questioners. Then Dick the Scholar (14)
arrived, and demanded the Story of Molorchos. (15) As soon as the story
had been related, Dick's head followed the others into the basket. Next
came the Knight of the Lions, (16) singing:

  "A hundred and fifty if rightly applied
  To a place where the living did once all abide--
  Or a consonant joined to a sweet-singing bird--
  Will give you a name that you've oftentimes heard.
  Which 'mong your friends at least one person owns;
  It's a rival of Grey, and as common as Jones." (17)

The Wizard was wise.

A quartet of historians now made their appearance; they asked,
respectively, for the statesman (18) who has always been a thorn in the
side of Americans; the Colonial general (19) who might have been used to
close the Revolution; the American poet (20)whose mouth was larger than
his head; and the New England doctor (21) for which the city of
Philadelphia is famed.

Once more the King's agent triumphed. Next came the most learned (22) of
all the Romans, who asked for Molly Maguires. (23) "You are only fit to
wear a steeple-crowned hat," (24) said the wise man when he had given
the required explanation, "but I will be lenient with you."

Just now a beautiful song is heard. It is sung by the Prince of the Ode,
(25) and it runs as follows:

  "My first makes all Nature appear with one face,
  At my second are music, beauty, and grace;
  And if this charade you cannot e'er guess,--
  Throwing my whole at your head,-- I'll take the princess." (26)

But he didn't. The princess remained for another. A poor knight from the
Land of Cakes (27) inquired for Tom of Lincoln, (28) but he did not live
long enough to use the information when it was given him. An arrogant
fellow who imagined the princess was his, said, "Tell me, if you can, to
whom did the flying tapestry belong?" (29) That was the last question
this man ever propounded. A tall minstrel, who reminded one of the Snow
King, (30) presented this:

  "My first we oft lend to each other in turn,
    To borrow it would be exceedingly droll;
  My next near my first you may often discern.
    In my first too, alas! you perhaps find my whole." (31)

"Tell me where I can find the Key of Russia?" (32) inquired a bold
adventurer. The Wizard told him, and, brave as he was, he lost his head
completely.

"I am here to seek the First Gentleman of Europe," (33) said a young
gallant. "You are on the road to him," rejoined the Wizard.

A jolly old chap, who resembled the King (34) noted for his penmanship,
walking up slowly, shouted:

"What insects (35) does everybody sleep on?"

The princess was yet to be won.

Jack-amend-all (36) then said, "Who was the first Lady Magistrate?" (37)
After poor Jack was despatched, there came up the citizen (38) of New
Jersey who laid plans to kill King George III., but fired some British
naval stores instead. He said this business of trying to get the
princess was coming to be so hazardous that, old as he was, he would
have to be allowed to ask four questions or none at all. The Wizard
agreed readily.

"Who (39) made the first use of steam-power in printing?" he asked, and
the Wizard answered promptly.

"In what city (40) was the first republican government in America
established?" The Wizard again answered promptly.

The man began to look grave. Half his chances were gone. Summoning
courage, he propounded this: "The name of the wife (41) of an English
admiral who tried to get state secrets from an American gentleman by
arranging some social games of whist." The Wizard related the incident,
with names of all parties, without an instant's hesitation. The sweat
began to start on the man's face. Only one chance remained. "Name the
prince, (42) afterwards king of England," said he, desperately, "whose
wife sucked the poison from his arm when he had a narrow escape from
assassination while on his way home from a Crusade."

The Wizard named the prince and finished the Jerseyman in the same
breath.

After that he was without a job for a time. The princess's conditions
seemed so hard that, unless she modified them, she was likely, as the
Wizard expressed it, "to die an old maid." He was about to give the
princess up to that fate when Queen Dick (43) entered.

"Where do you come from?"

"From Frisco." (44)

"What do you want?"

"To win the Princess Minnehaha. Answer this:

"T U A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A A." (45)

"Well, what is it, anyhow?" asked the Wizard.

"Something that you'll find very prominently printed in a book that you
and most other people own," replied the suitor.

"Are the letters printed in the book in this form?" inquired the Wizard,
getting a bit scared, and trying to gain time.

"In this style and order, yes; but there are other letters and words
between them. Come, shall I have the princess?"

The Wizard took five minutes, and gave it up. Dick won the princess, and
in the bounteousness of his heart invited all the Knights and Ladies of
the Round Table to visit him and see who was wiser than the Wizard.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is needless to say where you can find answers to the foregoing
questions. Of course those that demand animals' names have plays upon
either the meaning or pronunciation of those names. The nicknames were
once generally applied. Where names of persons are wanted there is, as
you scarcely need be told, a double meaning to those names, as, General
Wool--were the name used--might be referred to as the soldier that
everybody wears in winter, etc. The verses are riddles--and very clever
ones. In questions 1, 2, 4, 32, 44, etc., explain briefly the meaning or
origin of the numbered word or words. All who have not passed their 18th
birthday are asked to send an answer. Grown people may help you find
solutions. Make a list of the questions by numbers, giving each a line
and writing one below the other. Do _not_ write out the story. Fasten
your sheets together. Write your name at the top of the first sheet.
Mail answers on May 10, to HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, New York--no other
address is needed--and put the words Puzzle Answer in the lower
left-hand corner of the envelope. Answers, with prize awards, will be
announced as early as possible, and the prizes forwarded at once.

The prizes are: To the best, $10 in money, and $15, also in money,
divided among a few other best solvers. Excellence consists in correct
answers and correct spelling, but does not refer to penmanship.




Lost Diamond Prize Awards.


The "Lost Diamond" puzzle proved an ideal contest. It was a trifle
difficult, to be sure, but it had so much information in it that nobody
who failed of a prize had his or her labor for naught. One solver, who
lives in Pennsylvania, found all the answers save one, and got the first
prize of $10 as his reward. His name is James L. Péquignot. A Minnesota
solver secured the second prize, which in this case is made $3. His name
is Eugene T. Hawkins. The balance of the prize money is divided among
the following eight contestants, $1.50 to each: Saida N. and Frank T.
Hallett, of Rhode Island; John Morton Espey and Elizabeth R. McIlvaine,
of Pennsylvania; Helen E. Allis, Junius Browne, and Russell M. King, of
New York, and J. Lawrence Hyde, of the District of Columbia.

A wide range was allowed in the answers. Indeed, any answer was accepted
that could be found in the story, and for which authority was furnished
or could be found. All were treated alike in this, and the contest
rendered slightly easier for all. Here are answers by numbers:

1. Grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.
2. Charles Farrar Browne (Artemus Ward). 3. School; academy. 4. Edmund
March Blunt. 5. Robert Burns. 6. "Do Nothing;" Louis Fifth. 7. Eliza
Cook. 8. On the Threshold. 9. George Gale. 10. Peter Bang. 11. Andrew
Bell. 12. Red tape. 13. Alice French (Octave Thanet). 14. Adolphus
Washington Green. 15. Frank Beard. 16. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 17.
Skin and bone; William Mahone. 18. Cat; _Macbeth_, act i., scene 7. 19.
Allan Woodcourt; _Bleak House_. 20. Elias Howe. 21. Balls; from the coat
of arms of the Medici family, the money loaners of Florence; origin of
the three gilt balls over a pawnbroker's shop. 22. John Knox. 23. The
Hermit of Niagara Falls; drowned while bathing, June, 1831. 24. Private
theatricals. 25. Harriet Beecher Stowe. 20. Josiah Gilbert Holland. 27.
Helen Hunt Jackson; vicinity of Manitou, Col. 28. Basket; _Merry Wives
of Windsor_, act iii., scene 3; Sir John Falstaff. 20. Elizabeth. 30.
Steppes. 31. Thomas Hood. 32. Cape. 33. Task; William Cowper. 34.
Gilbert White. 35. Roger Long. 36. Thomas Day. 37. Francis Scott Key.
38. Lucy Stone. 39. Mary Berry. 40. Joanna Koerton Bloch. 41. William
Black. 42. James Rains. 43. _House of Seven Gables_, by Nathaniel
Hawthorne. 44. Edward Bird. 45. Captain Robert Gray. 46. William and
Mary, Williamsburgh, Va., 1693. 47. Salmon P. Chase. 48. Carpet; apple.
40. Mr. Smuggins; _Sketches by Boz_. 50. A Roundabout Journey; Charles
Dudley Warner. 51. Sir Thomas More: _Utopia_; statement made by Erasmus:
also said to be _A Tale of a Tub_, by Jonathan Swift. 52. Ridgway
Knight. 53. John Bright; Robert Peel.




[Illustration]

Writing to the Round Table.


  SOMERSET EAST, CAPE COLONY, SOUTH AFRICA.

     I am going to tell you about Somerset East, the South African town
     in which I live. It is snugly situated at the foot of a large and
     pretty mountain called the Bush-berg. There are a good many kloofs
     or deep ravines in it which are filled with bushes. The mountain
     is a very fine place for picnicking. At the top of each kloof
     there is a steep precipice, over which there is a small waterfall.
     The town is supplied by the water of one of these kloofs. It is
     conducted by pipes to the town. At one time the mountain was
     inhabited by leopards, but they have been driven away. There are a
     good many bucks and monkeys which live in the kloofs.

     I should have told you at first that this mountain lies to the
     north of the town. To the south is the Fish River. It is only a
     small river, and has hardly any water in it except in the rainy
     season. Now that I have told you something about Somerset East, I
     will tell you something about myself. I am fourteen years of age.
     My chief sports are playing football and cricket. I am also very
     fond of shooting, fishing, and swimming. I am also greatly
     interested in collecting stamps. I have a good many varieties in
     an album, and would be very glad to exchange stamps with any one
     who would write to me.

  GEORGE D. CHAPLIN.

Please tell us about your fruits, and at what season of the year they
are ripe. Also about plants, flowers, and birds common with you.




Round Table Chapters.


Here are records of more Chapters:

No. 679.--The Will Carleton, of Downsville, Wis. John Cassidy,
Downsville.

No. 680.--The Captain Charles King Chapter, of St. Louis, Mo. It is an
international corresponding Chapter, and would like members from all
foreign countries, especially from India, the West Indies, Japan, China,
and Africa. The initiation is a coin or stamp that equals five cents in
United States money. Dues are five cents for three months, in advance.
It would like to enroll Captain Charles King as an honorary member, with
his consent. The president is Henrietta B. Walker, of Hendersonville,
N. C. Walter Kruckman is vice-president, and Arnold Kruckman is
secretary and treasurer, care of Missouri Pacific Telegraph Department;
Sixth and Locust streets, St. Louis.

No. 681.--The G. A. Henty Chapter, of Cleveland, O. Officers are F. A.
Goodwin, president, and Andrew Neil, secretary. Other members are Louis
Falkner, Harry Harding, Robert Matthews. Rear 7 Eagle Street, Cleveland.

No. 682.--The Belvidere Chapter, of Daretown, N. J. Joseph S. Cook,
Margaretta E. Paulding, Albert D. Paulding, Charles E. Richman. Other
members are Sara C. Clayton, Josephine S. Paulding, and James W.
Richman.

No. 683.--The Granite State Literary Society, of Concord, N. H. John
Leighton, Margarita Rolins, Edith Freeman, Grace Hood, Morton M. Cheney,
president, 81 North State Street.

No. 684.--The "I. H. N." Chapter, of Winchester, Mass. Cassie Sands,
Edith Richburg, Marion Simmonds, Pearl Maclaughlin. It meets
semi-monthly, at the homes of the members, and its object is to help
others and have a good time. Chapter address, 25-1/2 Myrtle Street.

No. 685.--The Phoenix Amusement Chapter, of Appleton, Wis. Officers
are Benjamin Barrett, Charles Hattersly, and George Stansburg. Its
object is the cultivation of literature and social amusement. It would
like to correspond with other Chapters. 791 Lawrence Street.

No. 686.--The Lincoln Chapter, of Toledo, O. R. E. Richardson, 519
Congress Street.




Ivory Soap

It Floats

"Wax Yellow," "Light May Green," "Fashionable Brown," and "Fine Orange"
are artificial soap colors, used by manufacturers.

Do you not prefer your soap as you prefer your butter, of good natural
color?

THE PROCTER & GAMBLE CO., CIN'TI.




Get a Glass!

Quick!!

[Illustration]

There's lots of snap and vim in this HIRES' ROOTBEER. There's lots of
pleasure and good health in it, too. A delicious drink, a temperance
drink, a home-made drink, a drink that delights the old and young. Be
sure and get the genuine

HIRES'

Rootbeer

A 25 cent package makes 5 gallons. Sold everywhere.

The Chas. E. Hires Company, Philadelphia, Pa.




EASILY EARNED.

NO MONEY NEEDED.

Models for Boys, Girls, Ladies, Gentlemen are included

[Illustration]

The offer is open to every boy, every girl--to everybody. Cameras. Air
Rifles, Shot-Guns, Tents, Stamp Collections, etc, may be obtained by
same easy, pleasant method. Full particulars free of

ALPHA PUBLISHING CO., 212 Boylston St., Boston, Mass.




HOOPING-COUGH

CROUP.

Roche's Herbal Embrocation.

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

E. Fougera & Co., 30 North William St., N. Y.




CARD PRINTER =FREE=

[Illustration]

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. Sample mailed FREE
for 10c. stamps for postage on outfit and large catalogue of 1000
Bargains.

R. H. Ingersoll & Bro. 65 Cortlandt St. N. Y. City




[Illustration: If afflicted with SORE EYES USE Dr. ISAAC THOMPSON'S EYE
WATER]




[Illustration]

Commit to Memory

the best things in Prose and Poetry, always including good Songs and
Hymns. It is surprising how little good work of this kind seems to be
done in the Schools, if one must judge from the small number of people
who can repeat, without mistake or omission, as many as Three good songs
or hymns.

Clear, Sharp, Definite,

and accurate Memory work is a most excellent thing, whether in School or
out of it, among all ages and all classes. But let that which is so
learned be worth learning and worth retaining. The Franklin Square Song
Collection presents a large number of

Old and New Songs

and Hymns, in great variety and very carefully selected, comprising
Sixteen Hundred in the Eight Numbers thus far issued, together with much
choice and profitable Reading Matter relating to Music and Musicians. In
the complete and varied

Table of Contents,

which is sent free on application to the Publishers, there are found
dozens of the best things in the World, which are well worth committing
to memory; and they who know most of such good things, and appreciate
and enjoy them most, are really among the best educated people in any
country. They have the best result of Education. For above Contents,
with sample pages of Music, address

Harper & Brothers, New York.




UNCLE SILAS'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE EVIL ONE.


[Illustration: 1]

Jocko makes a bolt for the woods to escape a cruel master.

[Illustration: 2]

Finds a nice box which is just the place to hide in;

[Illustration: 3]

But soon discovers his mistake, to the delight of Uncle Silas, who finds
his trap sprung,

[Illustration: 4]

And bags what he thinks a fine buck rabbit.

[Illustration: 5]

Visions of a savory stew present themselves as he takes poor Jocko
homewards,

[Illustration: 6]

Which are about to be realized, when Jocko

[Illustration: 7]

Makes a second bolt for liberty,

[Illustration: 8]

And so did Silas and Chloe.




CONSOLATION.


MAMIE (_crying_). "Oh, Tommie, my doll fell in the fire and got all
burnt up! The prettiest one I had, too!"

TOMMIE (_just in from school_). "Don't cry, Mamie. Philosophy says
matter can't be destroyed. Your doll is here yet, only it's not in the
same form."




PAINTED TO MATCH.


"Our library is a lovely room," said Robbie. "It's painted green."

"That's to match your papa, I guess," said Fred. "My papa says he's the
greenest man he knows."




A NEW BUSINESS.


"What does your daddy do for a living?" asked Benny, whose father is an
author.

"He's a stockbroker," said Johnny. "What's yours?"

"He's a pen-wiggler," said Benny.




MOLLIE'S APPEAL.


"I do wish you'd read to me, grandmamma," said Mollie. "I don't care
much for the stories, but your voice is sweeter'n merlasses."




A WISH.


  I wish I lived in Topsytown,
  Where things are always upside down;
  I'd love it much, for then, you see,
  Too much mince pie'd be good for me.




WALLIE'S JOKE.


"Just see that baby putting that little iron car in his mouth. What do
you suppose he thinks it is?" asked the visitor.

"Guess he's heard it's a chew-chew car," said Wallie.




THE TROUBLE.


"I hate a sore throat," said little Jack. "They're very nice to keep you
home from school, but they're horrid when you come to swallow buckwheat
cakes."




"Well, Jimmieboy, I see your papa has put you in a book."

"He tried to," returned Jimmieboy, "but I guess he didn't get me all in.
I'm too big."




AN EXPLANATION.


"I wonder why it is that most little boys don't want to go to bed when
the time comes?" said Mr. Simpkins.

"Guess it's because they don't know enough," said Willie. "Now I like to
go to bed because I go right to sleep, and I have heaps of fun dreaming
I'm a pirate or a giant killer--and it's safe as a church, because even
if you get killed you're alive again in time for breakfast."




GETTING AT THE FIGURES.


Jimmieboy is studying arithmetic, and has done very well so far. The
other day his father took him in his lap, and giving him a squeeze,
said, "Dear little boy, you don't know how much I love you."

"Yes, I do," said Jimmieboy; "I love you $2,000,000 worth. You weigh
three times as much as I do, so you love me three times as much as I do
you. That's $6,000,000 worth."






End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, April 30, 1895, by Various