[Illustration]

  YOUTH

  VOLUME 1  NUMBER 5
  1902
  JULY

An ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL for BOYS & GIRLS

The Penn Publishing Company Philadelphia




  CONTENTS FOR JULY

  FRONTISPIECE (Independence Hall)                                  PAGE

  THE DOUBLE PERIL                          George H. Coomer         157

  LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS (Serial)            Elizabeth Lincoln Gould  161

  THE FENCE MAN                             Mrs. F. M. Howard        166

  WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE (Serial)  W. Bert Foster           170
    Illustrated by F. A. Carter

  MIDSUMMER DAYS                            Julia McNair Wright      179
    Illustrated by Nina G. Barlow

  A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST (Serial)         Evelyn Raymond           181

  FOURTH OF JULY                            W. F. Fox                187

  WOOD-FOLK TALK                            J. Allison Atwood        188

  WITH THE EDITOR                                                    190

  EVENT AND COMMENT                                                  191

  OUT OF DOORS                                                       192

  IN-DOORS (Parlor Magic, Paper V)          Ellis Stanyon            193

  THE OLD TRUNK (Puzzles)                                            195

  WITH THE PUBLISHER                                                 196

       *       *       *       *       *

YOUTH

  _An Illustrated Monthly Journal for Boys and Girls_

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  Copyright 1902 by The Penn Publishing Company.


[Illustration: INDEPENDENCE HALL]




YOUTH

VOL. I  JULY 1902  No. 5




  THE DOUBLE PERIL
  By George H. Coomer


“Nonsense,” said Uncle Hayward; “how people do like to be scared! If a
real Bengal tiger had made his escape anywhere within twenty miles of
here, the whole country would have been up in arms before this time.
I’ve no faith in the story.”

“Well, they are not quite sure of it,” replied the neighbor who had
given the information, “but they think so. The steamer was sunk and
some of the animals were drowned, but it is believed that the big tiger
escaped in the darkness and got ashore.”

“What sort of a show was it?” inquired uncle; “a large menagerie?”

“No, I believe not,” was the answer; “only a few animals that some
company had hired for the season--a tiger, a jaguar, a pair of
leopards, and a few monkeys--that’s what they tell me. The steamer had
a heavy cargo, and went down very suddenly.”

“And they think the tiger made for the woods, eh?” said uncle. “When
did it happen, do you say?”

“Night before last--about five miles down the river. ’Twas a small
steamer going up to Macon. There was no one lost, I hear.”

“Well,” remarked uncle, “a Bengal tiger would be an interesting
neighbor, that’s certain; and I don’t believe he would be long in
making his presence known. However, such stories generally require a
good deal of allowance. As likely as not, there was no tiger aboard of
the steamer, after all.”

“Oh, I reckon there was,” said the neighbor; “but then, of course, we
can’t tell; people like excitement, and when such a rumor gets started
it grows very fast.”

“Yes, that’s true; we shall have a whole menagerie ashore here before
night. When I was a boy, in Maine, there was a story that a lion and an
elephant had made their escape from somebody’s show and taken to the
woods. And, dear me! it spread like the scarlet fever! The children ran
all the way to school and all the way back; and the big girls actually
cried in the entry, they were so frightened. Some of the mischievous
boys would make ‘elephant tracks’ in the road, and this added to
the panic. But we never could hear of any showman who had lost such
animals, and all on a sudden the thing came to nothing. I guess the
tiger story will end in the same way.”

“Why, father,” said Cousin Harold, the fourteen-year-old boy of the
family, “I don’t see why it isn’t likely enough to be true. I almost
hope there is something in it, though I shouldn’t want him to be
killing people’s cattle and things. Just think of it--a big Bengal
tiger, and right here in Georgia, too! How I should like to have a
chance at him with my gun!”

“Why, Harold,” said his mother, “how you talk. If I believed such a
creature to be anywhere in the neighborhood, I’d shut you up in the
smoke-house rather that let you go into the woods.”

“What, and make bacon of a poor fellow?” replied the young lad, gayly.

Uncle Hayward and his family were New England people, who had settled
in Georgia near the Ocmulgee River, where I was now paying them a
really delightful visit. Harold and myself, being very fond of hunting,
spent much time together in pursuit of the various kinds of game to be
found in the region. Many an old “mammy” and many an “Uncle Remus” was
made the happier by the gift of some fat ’coon or juicy ’possum which
we brought down from the tall timber.

Inspired as we were with all the enthusiasm of young sportsmen, the
thought of an escaped tiger had a pleasing excitement for us. We
were, therefore, a little disappointed when another of our neighbors,
stopping for a few minutes as he passed the house, made very light of
the rumor, saying it was only a foolish story to frighten people.

“A tiger would soon make ugly work among the cattle,” he remarked, “and
it would be no joking matter to have one about the neighborhood.”

“That’s true,” replied Uncle Hayward. “I don’t know, though,” he added,
“but I’d risk my big Jersey with him. I’m thinking ’twould be about
‘which and t’other’ between the two, as the saying is.”

Harold and I could subscribe to this opinion very heartily, for it was
not more than a week since that dangerous old Jersey had chased us out
of his pasture, bellowing at our heels as we ran. Nevertheless, he was
a noble fellow to look upon--just as handsome as a horned creature
could be. What a thick, strong neck he had, what a broad, curled front,
and what shapely flanks! Most of the time he spent browsing in the
large pasture some little distance from the house, and it required a
good measure of courage upon the part of the trespasser to cross this
area.

No wonder, then, that Harold and myself made a wide detour, when, half
an hour later, armed with our shotguns, we set out for the woods beyond
the Jersey’s domain. But it is needless to say that our minds were more
taken up with the thought of the tiger than with the fear of our former
enemy. It was just possible that a great, stealthy, tawny shape might
be prowling through the very timber in which we were; and I will not
deny that it required little in the way of sight or sound to set our
hearts beating faster than usual on that day.

After killing a wild-cat, a raccoon, and a number of large fox
squirrels, we turned our steps homeward, not at all sorry to have
made no startling discovery in confirmation of the rumor which had so
interested us in the morning. The truth was, that the deeper we were in
the woods the less pleasure we found in calling up the image of that
escaped tiger!

We were just nearing the Hayward plantation, Harold with the wild-cat
slung over his shoulder and I with the ’coon upon mine, when on a
sudden our attention was arrested by a strange, long-drawn noise, like
the cry of some large animal. It resembled the call of a great cat, but
was deeper and more thrilling than any cat-note that we had ever heard.

I need not say that it startled us; and when, in a few moments, it was
repeated, with the addition of a sort of scream, we looked at each
other with blanched faces: when, clutching our guns more firmly, we
started into a run. I think we had never realized till then that two
boys of fourteen, armed only with light shotguns, could be no match for
a royal tiger, just escaped from his cage and hungry for prey.

Pray, dear reader, do not condemn us hastily, for you would have run,
too.

Our course took us directly across the pasture where the big Jersey had
his range. He was lying down for the time, and we almost stumbled over
him. Springing up and lowering his sharp horns, he took after us with a
kind of yelling roar that bespoke anything but a friendly intention.

We dropped our game and bounded on like a couple of young greyhounds:
but we were far out from the nearest fence, and saw that he must soon
overtake us with his mad, thundering rush. Right ahead of us stood a
scrub oak, with branches near the ground, and into this we sprang just
in time to avoid those terrible horns which would have tossed us like
wisps of straw.

He was so close upon us that it was impossible to secure our guns,
and we dropped them at the foot of the tree, where they fell rattling
between two small rocks, which fortunately protected them from his
trampling hoofs.

Then he besieged us in true form, walking all about our fortress, with
a hoarse, frightful bellowing that sometimes grew to a shriek, and
tearing up the earth with his horns till his whole body was coated with
turf.

“Well,” said Harold, “we are safe enough in this tree, but who wants to
be kept here all night? He is so apt to roar that, even if father or
any of the work folks should hear him, they might not come to see what
the matter was. Besides, it’s a long distance to the house, and the
hill yonder is right in the way.”

So we remained watching our savage jailer, quite forgetting for the
moment the sounds we had just heard from the woods. How long would the
old fellow continue to bellow and fling up the dirt? I was asking some
such question when my cousin uttered a quick exclamation.

“Oh, see! look yonder!” he cried; “there’s the tiger now!”

I looked where he pointed, and my heart gave a thump that was almost
suffocating.

There, creeping close to the ground, was a powerful yellow shape,
marked with jet-black stripes. The ears were flattened, and the long
tail, reaching straight out on a level with the body, had a wavy motion
that I distinctly remember to this hour. Warily, silently, and just
upon the point of making a spring for his victim, the fearful creature
was stealing upon the unsuspicious bull.

Though half paralyzed by the scene, we still retained some presence of
mind. Perhaps a shout might delay the attack, and we gave one with all
the power of our throats.

The monster seemed to hesitate, raising his head a little, as he
crouched in his tracks, and at that moment the old Jersey discovered
him.

In an instant a change came over the scene. Tossing his head in a kind
of fierce surprise, the horned brute faced his foe; then, dropping his
sharp bayonets to a lower level, he plunged toward the intruder.

Evidently the tiger was unprepared for this, but with remarkable
quickness he seemed to take in the situation. Without an instant’s
hesitation, he bounded over to a large boulder which lay near by, and
with the greatest agility leaped lightly to its top, where he stood
regarding the Jersey with wide-open jaws.

“Now’s the time,” said Harold, excitedly; “we must hurry and get our
guns.” And down we went hustling through the thick limbs of the oak.

It was our first impulse to fire at the tiger from the ground where we
stood, but, as the bull kept directly in the way, it was evident that
this would not answer; and, besides, our very terror restrained us; it
might be easier to fire than to kill.

Getting back into the tree with our guns, both of which contained heavy
charges of buckshot, we quickly posted ourselves so as to improve the
first opening for a fair aim. The tiger still crouched upon his rock
of refuge, roaring close in the face of his enemy, yet hesitating to
spring upon him; while the strong-necked old Jersey shook his curly
head and fairly screamed at the yellow brute he was not quite able to
reach.

A bull’s voice in a rage is a strange mixture of frightful sounds, even
more so than a tiger’s.

We had our guns leveled, watching our opportunity. Presently the
striped terror sprang up from his crouching posture, raising himself
threateningly upon his hind feet, with his tawny breast fully exposed.
Since then I have often seen an angry tiger rear himself in the same
way against the bars of his cage. There could not have been a fairer
mark for us, and both our guns spoke at once with a “bang!”

Through the smoke we saw the great brute tip fairly over and fall upon
his back. Then, convulsively, he bounded straight up from the rock two
or three times, and at last, plunging forward, landed directly upon the
bull’s horns.

[Illustration: HIS HORNS PIERCED THE TAWNY SIDE]

The next moment, heavy as he was, he was hurled ten feet in the air,
and when he fell it was only to be tossed again. A dozen or twenty
times he was thus thrown aloft, although after the first minute he was
evidently as dead as he ever could be.

After this the old Jersey appeared to enjoy much in pitching him along
the ground to a considerable distance, following up the body as it
fell, and sending it on before him as if it had weighed no more than a
dead cat.

We were glad to witness this performance, as it occupied the old
fellow’s whole attention, and so gave us an opportunity to slip away
unnoticed, which we very quickly did.

No grass grew under our feet as we ran over the high ground between us
and the house, which, as the plantation was quite large, was nearly a
mile distant.

With scarcely breath enough to relate our story, we told it, to
the astonishment of Harold’s parents, whose thankfulness for our
escape, when they had learned how narrow that escape had been, was
inexpressible.

It required a considerable force of men and boys to recover the body
of the slain tiger in face of the bull’s threatening demonstrations;
but it was nevertheless secured and brought home. It was then found,
upon examination, that our charges of buckshot had undoubtedly done the
business for the fierce brute, so that he must have been nearly dead
when caught upon those stout horns.

“A tiger in the State of Georgia,” said Uncle Hayward; “a true Bengal
tiger! Well, I must own that I was wrong; I thought this morning it was
only a silly story. Boys, you and the bull have done a great thing for
the community!”

“But, oh, the peril!” said Harold’s mother: “suppose we had known it at
the moment! It was a double danger.”

“Yes, mother,” replied Harold; “it was double, but it was that very
thing which saved us. If we hadn’t waked up the Jersey, the tiger would
have had us very soon.”




  LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS
  By ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD

  CHAPTER XIII
  POLLY AND THE MINISTER


 SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

 Polly Prentiss is an orphan who, for the greater part of her life, has
 lived with a distant relative, Mrs. Manser, the mistress of Manser
 Farm. Miss Hetty Pomeroy, a maiden lady of middle age, has, ever since
 the death of her favorite niece, been on the lookout for a little
 girl whom she might adopt. She is attracted by Polly’s appearance and
 quaint manners, and finally decides to take her home and keep her for
 a month’s trial. In the foregoing chapters, Polly has arrived at her
 new home, and the great difference between the way of living at Pomeroy
 Oaks and her past life affords her much food for wonderment.

Sunday was usually a hard day for Polly. In the first place there were
good clothes to be put on and taken care of, and then there was sitting
still in church! Sitting still was the most difficult thing in the
world for Polly.

“In the Manser pew I could wriggle, because it was ’way back and nobody
downstairs saw me, but I guess I’ve got to behave just like grown folks
to-day,” said Polly, anxiously, as she put on the brown cashmere frock
Sunday morning. “But if I listen to the minister most of the time, and
think about Eleanor when I get tired listening, perhaps I can do it.”

It was not so hard after all, for the minister had a pleasant, boyish
face, and he used simple language, which Polly could understand.
Besides that, his sermon was short--the shortest one Polly had ever
heard; she wondered if by any chance the minister could know about
those yellow cakes he was to have for dessert, and felt in a hurry to
taste them. Miss Pomeroy had seen him the day before.

“He looks as if he liked to eat good things,” thought Polly, as the
minister read the closing hymn, “and Miss Pomeroy may have told him
there was citron in them. His cheeks are as red as mine were--redder
than mine are to-day.”

This was comforting, and, moreover, it was true. Polly had been out of
doors very little for the last week, and, besides that, although she
was not unhappy, the thought of Eleanor was continually before her,
and the fear of falling below an unknown standard made her anxious and
troubled many times in the day. So the roses in Polly’s cheeks did not
bloom as brightly as they had at Manser Farm, and the little girl was
greatly encouraged.

During the service she could not turn around to see her old friends
up in the dimly lighted gallery, and when the benediction had been
pronounced Miss Pomeroy said she and Polly would sit quietly in the pew
until the minister came out. The little girl looked disturbed, and Miss
Pomeroy laid her hand on Polly’s with a smile.

“You needn’t be afraid of the minister, my dear,” she said, kindly, “he
likes children, and has two little sisters at home.”

Polly smiled faintly in return. When the minister came, and they had
all walked slowly down the aisle together, there was no sign of the
Manser wagon, but Polly was sure she could hear it way up the road; it
had a peculiar rattle, not to be mistaken for any other. The little
girl had a sober face as she climbed up into the seat beside Hiram,
with the minister’s help.

“I’m grateful I’ve got you instead of the preacher,” said Hiram, facing
straight ahead, as soon as Miss Pomeroy and the minister were fairly
launched in conversation. “I’ve always been to church, and I’m a
member, but I’m scared of speaking to ’em; it don’t make any difference
whether they’re young or old. What’s the matter, honey? Don’t you tell
me without you’re a mind to.”

“I thought perhaps I’d see the Manser Farm folks,” said Polly. “I
thought maybe Uncle Blodgett would want to wait, and Aunty Peebles. I
don’t know as Mrs. Ramsdell came if her rheumatism was bad.”

“She was there,” said Hiram, quietly, “I know ’em all by sight, and
once in awhile I have a little talk with Mr. Manser when we’re taking
the horses out of the sheds. But to-day Mrs. Manser hurried him up, and
hustled the three old folks into the wagon as if something was after
her. I shouldn’t have dared to offer Mis’ Ramsdell anything unless
I’d wanted it bit in halves, when she got in,” said Hiram, with a low
chuckle. “She spoke her mind good and free, too: I don’t recall ever
hearing any one speak freer. She was all for waiting to see you.”

“Then I think Mrs. Manser was real mean,” said Polly, with flushed
cheeks. “I don’t suppose she meant to be, but I think she was!”

Hiram reached out his big brown hand and gave Polly’s fingers a
sympathetic squeeze.

“I expect we are about as naughty as we can be, both of us,” he said,
softly, “but I take real comfort in it once in a while. That Manser
woman’s no favorite of mine, nor ever was. I can’t abide her.”

“She took care of me for seven years,” said Polly, with a spasm of
loyalty, forgetting how little of the care had really come on Mrs.
Manser’s shoulders, “and I do try to love her.”

“Love don’t always come by trying,” said Hiram, tranquilly, “but I
suppose it’s no harm to give it a fair chance. And as for those old
folks of yours, you shall see ’em next Sunday, if I have to tole Mr.
Manser down behind the sheds and keep him there.”

Then Hiram puckered his lips and softly whistled “Duke Street” all the
rest of the way to Pomeroy Oaks, while Polly sat beside him, much
cheered and comforted.

Dinner was an exciting meal to the little girl. It was the first time,
as she told Arctura afterward, that Polly had even seen a minister
eat. This minister not only ate with great heartiness, but he talked a
good deal and frequently smiled across the table at her, and he had a
jolly laugh. Polly was glad of that for more than one reason. Arctura
had covered the scratch on her nose with a long, broad strip of black
court-plaster, and this decoration made her naturally prominent feature
more noticeable than ever. She carried her head very high, and bore
the dishes in and out with a stately tread, but her eyes twinkled so
when she looked at Polly that the little girl had much ado to keep a
straight face.

When the dessert came, Polly held her breath while the minister ate
his first mouthful of a yellow cake; he had chosen it instead of one
of Arctura’s “snowflakes.” Miss Pomeroy had tasted one the day before
and pronounced it delicious. The minister ate every crumb, and when the
plate was passed to him a second time, he laughed boyishly.

“These are almost too good,” he said. “I should like to compliment the
cook.”

Miss Pomeroy smiled at Polly.

“My little guest made them,” said she.

“Dear me,” said the minister, heartily. “I shall have to tell my
sisters about this when I go home. One of them must be just about
Mary’s age; she is eight years old.”

“Oh, but I’m going on eleven,” said Polly, eagerly, “only I’m small for
my age, sir.”

“Indeed, that’s very surprising,” and the minister smiled most
cordially at the little cook. Polly was perfectly delighted when Miss
Pomeroy suggested that instead of a nap she might take a walk with the
minister and show him the grounds. Miss Pomeroy was to drive him back
to Deacon Talcott’s house late in the afternoon.

“I will take my nap as usual, Mary, if you think you can look after Mr.
Endicott,” she had said, and the minister and Polly exchanged a glance
of much confidence and friendliness.

They walked about, hand in hand, and there was no doubt that Polly
entertained the minister.

“Miss Pomeroy tells me she hopes you will stay with her for always,”
the minister said, as they stood together looking down at the brook in
a place where it tinkled over some stones. Polly gave a little cry of
delight and squeezed the minister’s hand.

“Oh, did she say it that way?” she asked, earnestly.

“Why, yes,” said the young man, smiling down at her, “didn’t you know
it?”

“She’s a beautiful, kind lady,” said Polly, shaking her brown curls
till they danced, “and I do truly love her, but she’s so tall and quiet
I shouldn’t like to ask her questions all the time, and I have to ask
her a good many--about my clothes and ever so many other things. Now
if it was you, I shouldn’t be a bit afraid, because your eyes look so
young and happy,” said the little girl, frankly. “Miss Pomeroy has sad
eyes, and I’m always afraid I’ll make them sadder. Don’t you see?”

“I think I do,” said the minister, gently, “but I am sure you will help
Miss Pomeroy’s eyes, and not hurt them, by talking freely to her.”

“Yes, sir,” said Polly, doubtfully. “Do your little sisters like to
read, Mr. Endicott? I am reading a book called ‘Seesame and Lilies,’ by
Mr. Ruskin.”

“Phew!” said the minister. “That’s a fine book, Mary, but I should say
it was a little old for you. Who chose it--Miss Pomeroy?”

“No, sir, I chose it myself,” said Polly, proudly, “off the shelf where
all the little books are, under the window. Miss Pomeroy said I could
choose.”

“When we go in the house,” said the minister, as they started on
together, swinging hands, “I’ll show you a book to read; I saw it on
one of the shelves. It’s a big book, but the stories are short. If I
were in your place, Mary, I’d read one of them to-morrow. My little
sisters love them all.”

So it came about that when Miss Pomeroy and the minister drove away
they left on the piazza a little girl whose heart was almost gay, for
the book the minister had chosen, and which Miss Pomeroy had told Polly
she might keep in her own room, was full of delightful pictures, and
on the cover was printed in gold letters. “Wonder Stories, by Hans
Christian Andersen.”

“And mind you try to remember them just as you do the sermon on
Sunday,” the minister had said, as he parted from Polly, “for they
are sure to give you happy thoughts.” And Polly, running to Arctura,
who was seated on the south porch in a chair that rocked with a loud
squeak, cried joyfully:

“Oh, Miss Arctura, the minister has chosen a book for me, one that his
sisters love! And I’m not going to read another word in ‘Seesame and
Lilies’ till I’m most grown up! For Miss Pomeroy said ’twas a wise
thought and an inper--impterposition of Providence!”


  CHAPTER XIV
  IN THE WOODS

Polly’s worry about being satisfactory to Miss Pomeroy had departed
with the minister’s words, down by the brook, but as she lay in bed
the next morning, listening to the birds out in a big elm tree, the
branches of which came near one of her windows, she had some sober
thoughts.

“The reason Miss Pomeroy is going to adopt me,” said Polly, to herself,
“is because she thinks I’m like Eleanor. I’m not like her, inside,
of course, but I’m trying to be. Now, don’t you be a selfish girl,
Polly Prentiss. You’ve got a beautiful home with a lovely, kind lady,
that does things for you all the time, and Miss Arctura and Mr. Hiram
besides, just as good as they can be, and the kittens to play with,
and Daisy out in her stall, and you can go off into the woods this
afternoon, and take the book that the minister’s sisters love, and
perhaps they’ll let you go again some other day.

“And all you’ve got to do,” said Polly, severely, to herself, “is to
stop wanting to run outdoors morning, noon, and night, and wanting to
play with a doll, and wishing somebody’d call you Polly, and not mind
having to eat so much, or lying down on this bed that gets so hot in
the afternoon, and stop being lonesome for the folks at Manser Farm,
and learn how to mend your clothes. I guess that’s about all, and it
isn’t much for a girl that’s going on eleven.”

Polly had a delightful time that afternoon. Arctura had taken in the
snow-white clothes from the line, and informed the little girl that she
had no intention of ironing that day, and would make an excursion into
the woods with her.

“I’ve got a crick in my back,” Miss Green announced, when Polly
descended from her hour on the bed, “and what I need is to get right
down close to nature. I’ll take my old gray shawl and pick me out a
good place to sit in the sun, and I’ll knit on Hiram’s socks while you
run around and see what you can see. Perhaps you can get up a bouquet
to fetch home to Miss Hetty, who knows? And when you feel so minded you
can sit on the shawl alongside of me, and read me out a story, maybe.
It’s a pity Miss Hetty can’t be with us, but she’s no hand to walk; she
hasn’t been overly strong for ten years back, though she can do all
that’s required.”

Polly felt disloyal to Miss Pomeroy, because it was a relief to know
Arctura would be her only companion. Her little heart was full of
affectionate gratitude, but the tall mistress of the house inspired
a good deal of awe as well, while with Arctura Polly had a sense of
comradeship, in spite of the difference in years, and was not afraid to
chatter like a magpie.

By three o’clock the pair were deep in the woods, and Arctura was
enthroned on her gray shawl, spread on a rock that stood like a table
in an open space between giant pines. She had four knitting-needles
and a ball of flaming red yarn in her hands, and looked the picture of
contentment.

“Now,” she said, drawing out a big silver watch from the front of her
gown, and placing it beside her on the shawl, “it’s only a few minutes
past three. You lay your book down here and don’t let me see you again
for an hour, or as near that as you can judge by your feelings. Don’t
stray so far you can’t get back. I’ll holler once in awhile so’s to
keep track of you, but you caper round and see what you find.”

Polly trotted off obediently, and found all sorts of treasures. If she
had not been obliged to respond to Arctura’s loud “Ma-a-a-ry!” three or
four times, it would have seemed to the little girl that she was all
alone in a new world, for the pine grove was unlike the woods through
which Polly had wandered in that far-away time when she lived at Manser
Farm. Those were birches and scrubby oaks, with an occasional hemlock,
and you had to look out for slippery tree-roots, and scratching
underbrush, and boggy places. But this wood had a soft brown carpet
of needles, and a border of beautiful ferns, and here and there were
little cones, and clumps of stems that had belonged to “Dutchman’s
pipes.”

In a little while there would be “wake-robins” and “Solomon’s seal,”
and many other wild wood flowers. Polly saw the first signs of a
venturesome “lady’s slipper.” She gathered long trails of Princess pine
and looped them around her waist, and she picked some of the prettiest
ferns to take home to Miss Pomeroy. There were several cleared places,
like the one which held Arctura’s throne. Polly named one the library
and another the parlor, and in still another there were some stones
which made her think of pillows.

“So I shall name that the bedroom,” she said to Arctura when the call
“Ti-i-i-mes up!” had brought her running back, “and this I think we’d
better call the dining room, don’t you?”

“Seems a sensible name to me,” said Miss Green, approvingly. “Now
suppose you read me out a story. I just looked into your book while you
were off, and here’s one that my eye lit on; suppose we have that.”

The story was “The Ugly Duckling,” and the words were so easy that
Polly read on and on, scarcely ever having to stop for Arctura’s help.
When she had finished it, she drew a long breath and shut the book.

“Isn’t it a beautiful, interesting story, Miss Arctura?” she asked,
eagerly, and her friend nodded with great vigor before she spoke.

“It’s what I call fair,” said Arctura, with decision, “and that’s what
I like in real life or in a story. And that’s why I expect that the
poor folks that get hurt and slammed around and put upon in this world
are going to have crowns of gold and harps of silver and songs of
everlasting praise and joy in the next one; or whatever those things
stand for, to ’em. We’ll have another of those stories next time we
come out a pleasuring together, won’t we?”

Polly assented with joy, and all through the talk that followed, while
she told of her morning’s trip to the village, those delightful words
“next time” rang out their lovely promise in Polly’s happy ears.

She and Arctura walked home arm in arm, although that meant that Polly
had to stretch up, and Miss Green to reach down, but the path was broad
enough for two, and they sang “Marching Through Georgia,” and stepped
gayly along to the brisk measures.

“Slow walking, except for those that have infirmities and are obliged,”
said Arctura, “is a trial of the flesh and spirit, or it might be, if
it ain’t,” and little Polly, with more color in her cheeks than had
been there for days, looked joyfully up at her.

“Oh, Miss Arctura,” she said, fervently, “you do have such splendid
ideas!”

“Don’t try to flatter an old lady of fifty-four, child,” said Miss
Green, shaking her ball of yarn at Polly with pretended severity.
“You turn your mind on those clouds; see how the wind’s backing round
through the north? I can smell the east,” and she sniffed with her nose
well in the air. “We’re in for rain to-morrow, I do believe. It’ll be
just the day for you to write that letter you’re going to send with
the candy, and there’s a number of matters you can help me about, and
if you’ve got any mending to do maybe we’ll find time to sit down
together, and I’ll relate that story about the Square and me.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Polly, as they marched up the driveway, “and I’ve
got to practice with Mr. Hiram, you know. I expect it will be a grand
day!”

[TO BE CONTINUED]

       *       *       *       *       *

    Think not of far-off duties,
      But of duties which are near;
    And, having once begun to work,
      Resolve to persevere.

                         --Anonymous.




  The Fence Man
  By Mrs. F. M. Howard


“Mamma, what is the great, high fence for?” asked a childish voice. “Is
the man afraid we’s will go into his yard?”

“I do not know, dear. It was there before we came.”

“Maybe he thinks we’ll steal his cherries.” Horace straightened
himself, scornfully.

“Huh, I guess we can buy our cherries if we want any,” said Rodney,
with flashing eyes.

“Perhaps other boys have not thought so,” interposed the mother’s
gentle voice; “and since the fence was there before we came, and so
cannot have any possible reference to us, we will not harbor ill will
against our neighbor because of it.”

“Young-ones,” muttered a surly voice on the other side of the high
board fence. “Just my luck to have a pack of young-ones unloaded on me.
Just one degree worse than the widder’s long tongue, I’ll venture. I’m
glad the fence is good and high, and I’ll put a row of pickets on top
of it if they go to climbing.”

Old Mr. Harding dropped down on a garden seat, wiping the moisture from
his heated brow with a warlike bandana. He had been putting out late
tomato plants, and his back ached; possibly his heart ached, too, for
he was old and lonely. He could have told to a mathematical nicety,
had he had the mind to do so, just why the ugly board fence divided
him from his neighbor, of the quarrel between himself and the fiery
widow, who owned the cottage where the children had come to live, over
a boundary line, the matter of a foot or less of ground between the two
places.

A quarrel is like a tumble weed in its capacity for growing in size,
and, tossed back and forth by the windy tongues of the Widow Barlow,
who gloried in “speaking her mind,” and old Mr. Harding, who cherished
his right to the last word as religiously as a woman, the original
difference had grown to be a very serious thing, indeed.

“I’ll fix her!” he had exclaimed, after the last tilt of words which
occurred between them. “I’ll put up a fence so high she can’t scream
over it, and if she comes inside my yard I’ll buy a dog.”

He thoroughly enjoyed that bit of spite work, and amused himself
immensely in overseeing the ungainly structure as it went up,
completely obstructing the objectionable widow’s view on the east side.

She had no redress, for he had given her the benefit of the disputed
line, and a man could put up bill boards on his property if he wished
to, and he hugged himself to think of her rage and disgust.

He did not in the least overestimate it, and he heard with glee
from the neighbors and the housekeeper the savage onslaughts on his
character which she was making, and it was not long before a moving van
backed up before her door, a “To rent” sign appeared, and Mr. Harding
was alone with victory. He was soured in the operation, it must be
confessed. No man can habitually nurse hatred and spite in his bosom
without becoming contaminated.

When gentle, soft-voiced Mrs. Harding was living, with her generous
heart and hand, her noiseless, unostentatious way of settling a
difficulty, it would have been quite impossible for him to have
indulged in such an exhibition; she would have loved him out of it
insensibly, and have so limbered the widow’s acrimonious tongue with
the oil of kindness that the quarrel would have died at birth; but
it was a sorry day for him when the better part of himself was laid
away under the green in the cemetery, and he was quite free to be his
untrammeled self.

Some way the mother’s voice, as it floated over the top of the ugly
fence, reminded him of her. It was such a gentle, loving voice, with a
flute-like clearness in it which made every word audible.

They had never had any children, he and the wife who would have made
such a tender mother, but he imagined she would have spoken to them
just as this mother was speaking if she had been surrounded by active,
questioning lads and lasses, and his surly mood softened as he heard
them chattering over the treasures of broken china they were finding in
the widow’s refuse heap.

“We’ll build the playhouse right here. The big, high boards will make
such a nice back,” said little Barbara.

“Maybe the man won’t like us to drive nails in his fence,” Rodney
suggested.

“But this side of it is ours,” laughed the mother, softly. “He can only
claim one side of even a nuisance; but you must be careful not to annoy
him with too much noise.”

One side of a nuisance. How truly it was a nuisance, for Mr. Harding
did not admire stockades himself. He had seen the inside of one in war
times, and he had very nearly lost his life in trying to escape from
it. He had an old wound in his leg yet that made him crosser on damp
days than in dry weather, and here he was erecting stockades in his old
age, to keep people out instead of in. It took all his self-control to
keep from being ashamed.

Day after day he heard the childish prattle, and the pounding of nails
as the building of the playhouse went on, sometimes with wrath, at
other times with an almost eager curiosity to see and hear the little
flock at their pretty play.

One day it rained, and silence reigned in the garden. His wound twinged
and prickled all day, and he was in a furious mood toward evening as
he went to straighten up some weak-backed plants that the rain had
lopped over. A kitten was frisking about in a bed of choice strawberry
plants--a saucy, disrespectful kitten which had evidently braved the
terrors of the stockade, as he had done himself in the years gone by.
He hated cats almost as he hated loud-voiced widows--perhaps he was
thinking of the Widow Barlow, and of the joy it would be to take her
as he was taking the kitten (loving little creature, it had never felt
the touch of hatred, and didn’t know enough to run away), and, with one
twist of his avenging arm, sling her over the fence. The kitten went
over, legs and tail wildly outstretched, and little Barbara was at the
window.

“Oh, mamma, he threw my darlin’ kitty right over the fence,” he heard
her shriek, sobbingly, as she ran out and picked up her pet. “Kitty,
kitty, is you killed?” she cried, breathlessly, as the little creature,
stunned for a moment by its fall, closed its eyes and lay limply in her
arms as she ran into the house.

“Mean old thing. If I was a man, I’d thrash him,” said Horace, doubling
his little fists savagely.

“No, no, little ones; we must love him into kindness,” Mrs. Manning
observed, gently. “He is a poor, lonely old man with no one to coax
him into nice ways. See, Kitty isn’t hurt. Give her some milk and she
will soon be quite happy again,” and in ministering to the kitten the
children forgot their revengeful thoughts: but over the fence an old,
cross-grained man went into his finer house with a mean feeling in his
heart which even the thought of the Widow Barlow could not change to a
comfortable complacency.

The rain cleared away and the family were very busy in the garden. The
small plat on the south corner, away from the baleful shadow of the
fence, was full of the roses and shrubs which the Widow Barlow had
planted and tended so carefully, and they were already full of buds.
Mrs. Manning was exceedingly fond of flowers, too, and her bay window
on the west side was full of choice plants.

There was a Papa Manning, but he went early and came late from his
work, too early and late to enter the story as an active factor; one of
those busy men who do business in the city and live in suburban towns
for the sake of health and purer air for the children; but Mr. Harding
did not know this, and supposed his new neighbor to be a widow, and
cherished suspicions accordingly which not even her sweet voice could
quite allay.

“Oh, mamma, come quick. The man has fallen,” screamed Barbara one day,
as she ran in to her mother, her golden curls flying, her blue eyes
full of fright.

“What man, Barbie dear?” Mrs. Manning was in the kitchen making bread,
and a man was an indefinite ingredient to enter into the delicate
operation without proper credentials.

“The old man, mamma. The fence man--he fell right down and groaned.” A
neighbor in distress--that was quite another matter, and Mrs. Manning
ran out hastily, drying her hands on her apron.

“I’ve sprained my ankle, I guess,” growled Mr. Harding, nursing his
wounded leg with a white face full of angry impatience. “Just a bit of
a stone, but enough to turn that confounded weak bone of mine. I feel
like a baby, ma’am, to be upset by such a trifle.”

“Lean on me, sir, and I will help you to rise,” said Mrs. Manning; but
at the first attempt the poor old gentleman nearly fainted.

Fortunately, there were men near at hand, and soon Mr. Harding was
carried into his home by strong hands, and a physician summoned.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Mr. Harding submitted to
suffering with sweet resignation. In his best days gentle Mrs. Harding
needed all her stock of patience to endure him when he was ill, and his
natural proclivities had been reinforced by years of loneliness and
self-indulgence. The housekeeper was at her wits’ end, and strongly
inclined to resign her situation before the end of the first week.

“Sure, ma’am, he’s that cranky there’s no living with him at all,” she
confided to Mrs. Manning, who had brought in a bit of her own delicate
cookery to tempt his capricious appetite. “I make his toast and his
coffee of a mornin’, and he’s ready to eat me when it’s on his table
because the coffee ain’t a-bilin’ and a-sissin’ hot, an’ the egg maybe
has been cooked ten seconds longer than his wife used to cook it for
him.”

“Let me go in and prepare his table while you get the food ready,” Mrs.
Manning suggested. She had waited on just such an invalid once in her
lifetime, and had ideas.

“All right, ma’am. I’ll be right glad of a little help, for he do try
my patience all to frags.”

Mrs. Manning ran home quickly, and returned bringing a dainty tea cloth
and a bouquet of her window flowers in a delicate glass vase, and,
going into the dining room, she soon had the little invalid table a
very poem of neatness and elegance.

“Mrs. Harrihan never set that table, I’ll be bound,” he said, gruffly,
as Mrs. Manning carried it to his bedside.

“Mrs. Harrihan is busy and I am helping her a little,” replied Mrs.
Manning, gently. “Let me raise the shade and make you more comfortable
for your dinner.”

The window looked out upon the staring high fence, over which the roof
and chimney of her own little cottage was visible, and Mr. Harding’s
wrinkled face had the grace to gather a flush.

“Are you a widow, ma’am?” he demanded after a few moments, during which
she had moved about the untidy room, picking up the morning papers,
which he had slung away after reading them, and turning with deft hands
the furniture into more home-like positions. Mrs. Harrihan was a good
housekeeper but a poor home maker.

“A widow? Dear me, I hope not. Haven’t you seen Mr. Manning frolicing
with the children evenings? He comes in the back way, as it saves a
block in coming from the station.”

No, Mr. Harding had not observed a man about the place, and for an
excellent reason--the fence shut off his view of the charming domestic
life of his neighbors completely, and for the first time since its
erection he wished it was back in the lumber yard. He had the grace
to thank her, and to ask her to come again, after Mrs. Harrihan’s
entrance with his dinner, saying that it would taste better with the
flowers to look at, and Mrs. Manning poured his tea and buttered his
toast, with a great pity for him in his loneliness in her warm heart.

It was the flowers at last which accomplished the downfall of the
spitework fence. Acting on the hint of his pleasure in the bouquet on
his dinner table, Mrs. Manning kept him supplied with them in liberal
measure.

Mrs. Barlow’s roses were now in riotous bloom, and every day a fresh
bouquet brightened the sick room. On account of the old wound, the
injured ankle did not readily yield to treatment, and for weeks
Mr. Harding was an unwilling prisoner, forced to look out at that
unyielding expanse of pine until his very soul was sick of it.

He told his grievance in full detail to Mrs. Manning one day with an
apologetic air, not willing that his cheery little neighbor, whom he
was beginning to respect so much, should think that he indulged in high
board fences as a matter of taste.

She heard the story of the Widow Barlow’s delinquencies smilingly, and
contrived to throw such a wide mantle of charity, trimmed with humor,
over the matter that Mr. Harding actually laughed--and at his own folly.

Even little Barbara lost her fear of “the fence man,” and, after
bringing him several bouquets by way of visits of sympathy, she one
day made him a social call with the kitten in her arms, also a ball
and string with which to show off its accomplishments, and old Mr.
Harding actually smiled, and forgot that he hated cats in watching the
frolicsome little creature chasing its tail, the ball, or Barbara as
she ran with the string.

One day there was the sound of pounding and rending on the Harding
premises, and all the children ran excitedly to see.

Carpenters were tearing the spite fence down, and Barbara was in
despair for her playhouse, but her childish heart was comforted,
for Mr. Harding had given orders, and, when the workmen reached the
spot, the boards were sawed down and shaped to match the rest of the
structure, and with the dearest little window cut in, to the child’s
great delight.

With the fence went every vestige of Mr. Harding’s crustiness toward
his new neighbors. Not since his wife’s death had he been so genial
and friendly, and the children were a constant source of interest and
delight. It even came to pass, through Mrs. Manning’s mediation, that
the matter of the boundary line was at last compromised without serious
friction, and Mr. Harding really came to confess, to himself, that even
the Widow Barlow was not so utterly, so irrevocably bad as she might be
after all.




  WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE
  By W. Bert Foster


  CHAPTER XII
  Hadley gets better Acquainted with Col. Knowles


 SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

 The story opens in the year 1777, during one of the most critical
 periods of the Revolution. Hadley Morris, our hero, is in the employ
 of Jonas Benson, the host of the Three Oaks, a well-known inn on the
 road between Philadelphia and New York. Like most of his neighbors,
 Hadley is an ardent sympathizer with the American cause. When,
 therefore, he is intrusted with a message to be forwarded to the
 American headquarters, the boy gives up, for the time, his duties at
 the Three Oaks and sets out for the army. Here he remains until after
 the fateful Battle of Brandywine. On the return journey he discovers
 a party of Tories who have concealed themselves in a woods in the
 neighborhood of his home. By approaching cautiously to the group
 around the fire, Hadley overhears their plan to attack his uncle for
 the sake of the gold which he is supposed to have concealed in his
 house.

The words Brace Alwood uttered were enough to rivet Hadley to the
spot, and, almost within a long arm reach of the men lounging about
the fire, he crouched and listened to the dialogue which followed. The
reason stated by Brace for the presence of the Tories in this place
naturally startled and horrified Ephraim Morris’s nephew. When the old
man was well-known to be a strong Royalist, why should these fellows be
plotting to attack him? At once Hadley was sure that they were after
the money which rumor said Miser Morris kept concealed in his house.

Remembering the incident of the night at his uncle’s house, Hadley
doubted if the men would gain what they hoped for; but Uncle Ephraim
was old and alone, and there was no telling what these rough fellows
might do to gain their ends.

“You’d better make sure the old man is alone, Alwood,” suggested one
of the others, as Brace and his younger brother took seats in the
circle around the fire. “There used to be a boy with Miser Morris--his
nevvy, was it?--who might make us trouble.”

Brace Alwood laughed harshly. “We ought to be a match for an old man
and a boy, I reckon--though Lon, here, tells me Had Morris is pretty
sharp.”

“He made me and Black Sam pole him across the river one night when he
was carrying dispatches to the army,” Lon admitted. “An’ he pretty near
broke my arm just before he left these parts last, too.”

“What army was he carrying dispatches to?” demanded the first speaker.

“Washington’s, of course.”

“But the old man is for the king, you say--worse luck!”

“That doesn’t say the boy is,” Brace remarked. “He’s a perky lad, I
reckon.”

“He may do us harm, then--in slipping away and rousin’ the farmers, I
mean.”

“He’s with the army now,” said Lon.

“And there’s nobody with the old man?”

“Not a soul.”

“Well, we’ll likely have an easy time of it. If he’s got as much as
they say hid away in the house, this night’s work will pay us fine.”

“And settle some old scores, too,” added Brace. “Colonel Knowles will
be revenged on the old scoundrel, I reckon.”

“Ah! I remember what you told us,” said the first man, thoughtfully.
“His Honor is too loyal a man to appear in this matter, though, I take
it?”

Brace laughed shortly. “No doubt--no doubt. He comes here to get
something out of Miser Morris; but the old fox gives nothing away--not
him!”

Hadley had heard enough to assure him that the Tories were actually
going to attack his uncle, Royalist though he was. With silent tread he
crept away from the place, crossed the pasture to the road, and getting
on Black Molly’s back, sent her flying toward the inn. He was fearful
for Uncle Ephraim’s safety, but it was useless for him to ride and warn
the old man. He must arouse the farmers--or such of them as were at
home--and bring a band to oppose the men with Brace Alwood. There would
be some lack of enthusiasm, however, when it was learned that the Tory
renegades were attacking one of their own kind; it was a case of “dog
eat dog,” and most of the neighbors would scarce care if the old man
was robbed.

But Hadley rode swiftly toward the Three Oaks Inn, determined to raise
a rescuing party at all hazard. It was evening and the men usually
centered there to hear the news and talk over the war and kindred
topics, and the boy was quite confident of getting some help. Besides,
what he had heard while lying hidden in the grove made him believe that
Colonel Creston Knowles was partly the cause of this cowardly attack
by the Tories upon Uncle Ephraim, and if the British officer was still
at the inn the boy determined that he should not go unpunished for
instigating the crime.

The American farmers about the inn had borne with the British officer
more because he was Jonas Benson’s guest than aught else. Before being
sent by Lafe Holdness on this last errand to the army, Hadley knew that
many of the neighbors spoke threateningly of the British officer, who,
apparently, knew no fear even in an enemy’s country. If they should be
stirred up now, after the disaster to the American forces, when feeling
would be sure to run high, Colonel Knowles would find himself in very
dangerous quarters. For the moment Hadley did not think of the danger
to Mistress Lillian. He was only anxious for his uncle’s safety and
enraged at Colonel Knowles for the part he believed the officer had in
the plot to rob--and perhaps injure--the farmer.

In an hour, so Brace Alwood said, they would attack the lonely
homestead of the man whom the whole countryside believed to be a miser.
Hadley had good reason to know that his uncle was possessed of much
wealth, whether rightfully or not did not enter into the question now;
but the money was no longer in the house--of that he was confident.
Enraged at not finding it, the Tories might seriously injure Ephraim
Morris. With these tumultuous thoughts filling his brain, the boy rode
into the inn yard, let Black Molly find her old stall herself, and was
on the steps of the inn before those in the kitchen had time to open
the door, aroused though they had been by the rattle of the mare’s
hoofs.

“It’s a courier!” cried some one. “What’s the news?”

“It’s that Hadley Morris!” exclaimed Mistress Benson, showing little
cordiality in her welcome. Jonas was not in evidence, and there was no
other men in the kitchen.

“Where is Master Benson, madam?” demanded Hadley of the innkeeper’s
wife. “I want him to help me--and all other true men in the
neighborhood. There is a party of Tories up the road yonder, and they
are going to attack Uncle Ephraim’s house and rob him this very night.”

“Tories!” gasped the maids.

“King’s men!” exclaimed Mistress Benson. “And why should they wish to
plague Master Morris, Hadley? He is loyal.”

“That Brace Alwood is at their head. They are bent on robbery. Nobody
will be safe now, if they overrun the country. Where is Master Benson,
I say?”

“He is gone to Trenton,” declared one of the frightened women. “There
is no man here but Colonel Knowles’ servant.”

“Then he is here yet?” cried the boy, and pushing through the group
of women, he entered the long hall which ran through the inn from
the kitchen to the main entrance. His coming had evidently disturbed
the guests. Colonel Knowles stood in the hall by the parlor door, a
candlestick held above his head that the light might be cast along the
passage, his daughter, clinging to his sleeve, stood behind him.

“Whom have we here?” demanded the British officer.

“It is Hadley Morris, father!” exclaimed the girl, first to recognize
the youth.

Hadley approached without fear, for his indignation was boundless.
“It is I, Colonel Knowles,” he said, his voice quivering with anger.
“I have come back just in time to find that, unable to bring my uncle
to such terms as you thought right, you have set Brace Alwood and his
troop of villainous Tories upon the old man. But I tell you, sir, I
will arouse the neighborhood, and if Uncle Ephraim is injured, you
shall be held responsible!”

The officer took a stride forward and seized the boy by the arm. He
waved the crowd of women back. “Return to your work!” he commanded.
“Mistress Benson, call William.” Then he said to Hadley: “Master
Morris, step into the parlor here and tell me what you mean. I am in
the dark.”

Hadley began to think that perhaps he had been too hasty in his
judgment. He stepped within the room. He did not speak to the officer’s
daughter, but she stared at him with wide open, wondering eyes. Then
in a few sentences he told how he had discovered the plot against his
uncle.

“Who are these Alwoods?” demanded the Colonel, when he had finished.

“Alonzo Alwood is the boy who came here once to see you, father,”
Lillian interposed, before Hadley could reply. “Do you not remember?
He told you that Master Morris was about to carry dispatches to Mr.
Washington again, and asked you to help stop him in his journey.”

“Ah!” exclaimed Hadley. “He did try to halt me. But your servant, sir,
stopped him. Have I to thank--?”

“Mistress Lillian, sir,” said the Colonel, shortly, but a smile
quivered about his mouth. “I am in the enemy’s country, as you advised
me once, Master Morris, and I would not be a party to the young man’s
plan. So this Brace Alwood is his brother?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And they connect my name with their raid upon that--that old man?”

“They do, sir.”

“Then to prove to you, Master Morris, that I am not in their
confidence, or they in mine, I will ride back with you.” At the instant
the man-servant entered. “William, saddle my horse and one of the bays
for yourself--instantly! I will join you at once, Master Morris. If
you have other men in the neighborhood on whom you can depend in this
emergency, arouse them.”

Hadley, feeling that his impulsiveness had caused him to accuse Colonel
Knowles wrongfully, ran out again without a word. While William, as
silent as ever, saddled the officer’s black charger and another animal
for himself, the boy took the saddle off Black Molly and threw it upon
one of the other horses in the stable. Then he clattered over to the
nearest neighbor’s house and routed out the family. But the only men
folk at home were two half-grown boys, and when their mother learned
that there were Tories in the neighborhood she refused to allow them to
leave her and the younger children. So he rode on to the next homestead
and brought back with him to the inn but one man to join the party.
Colonel Knowles and his servant were awaiting their coming in the road
before the door of the Three Oaks.

“Lead on, Master Morris!” commanded the officer. “You know the way by
night better than I.”

“But there are only four of us,” began Hadley, doubtfully.

“We can wait for no more if what you have told me is true. They will be
attacking the old man by now.”

The quartette rode off at a gallop and little was said until they
turned into the farm path which led through the pastures and fields to
the Morris homestead. Then the neighbor was riding nearest Hadley’s
side and he whispered: “Hey, Morris, suppose this should be a trap?
Suppose the Britisher should be playing us false?”

Hadley tapped the butt of the pistol beneath his coat. “Then he’ll get
what’s in this first--and do you take William,” the boy whispered.
“But I do not believe Colonel Knowles will play us false. These Tory
blackguards are nothing to him.”

The ring of the horses’ hoofs announced their coming before they were
within shot of the house, around which the rascals under Brace Alwood
had assembled. But no shots were fired, for Colonel Knowles was ahead
and his mount was recognized by Lon in the light of the huge bonfire
which had been built in front of the farmer’s door. Part of the Tories
were already inside the house, ransacking the dwelling from cellar
to garret, while Ephraim was tied hard and fast to one of his own
chairs, and Brace Alwood, with cruel delight in the farmer’s terror,
was threatening to hold the old man’s feet in the flames on the hearth
if he did not divulge the hiding place of his gold. Colonel Knowles’
coming struck the entire party of marauders dumb.

“What are you doing here, you scoundrels?” exclaimed the officer,
almost riding into the farmhouse in his rage, and laying about him with
the riding whip he carried.

The men shrank away in confusion. Even Brace Alwood, the bully, was
cowed. “The old miser’s got more money than is good for him,” whined
Alwood. “And his nephew is off with the rebels--”

“Sirrah!” exclaimed the colonel, sharply. “Here is his nephew with me.
And it matters not what his nephew may be, in any case; the man himself
is for King George, God bless him!--or so I understand.”

“Yes, yes, Master!” squealed the farmer from the chair where he was
tied. “I am for the king. I told these villains I was for the king. It
is an outrage. I cannot help what my rascally nephew is--I am loyal.”

“And as for his money,” continued the colonel, savagely, “you’d work
hard and long before you got any of it--and what you got would likely
not be his, but belong to those whom he has robbed!” At that Uncle
Ephraim recognized his rescuer, and he relapsed into frightened
silence. “Come out of that house and go about your business!” commanded
the officer. “Let me not find any of you in this neighborhood in the
morning; and think not I shall forget this escapade. Your colonel shall
hear of it, Alwood.”

Somebody released the farmer from his uncomfortable position, and he
followed the bushwhackers to the door, bemoaning his fate. The men
clattered out and, evidently fearing the power of Colonel Knowles,
hurried away toward the river. When Uncle Ephraim saw his woodpile
afire, he rushed out and began pulling from the flames such sticks as
had only been charred, or were burning at one end, all the time railing
at the misfortune that had overtaken him. The neighbor looked on a
minute and then said, brusquely:

“I’ve little pity in my heart for such as you, neighbor Morris--a man
that will take sides against his country.”

“And I’ve little pity for you, either,” Colonel Knowles declared,
when the first speaker had ridden away, “for you are a dishonest old
villain!”

He and William wheeled their horses and followed the bridle path
back to the highway; but Hadley, much troubled by what he had heard,
remained to help put out the fire in the woodpile. His uncle did not
speak to him, however, but when the last spark was quenched by the
water which the boy brought from the well, he went into the house and,
fairly shutting the door in his nephew’s face, locked and barred it!

“Well!” muttered Hadley, “I don’t need a kick to follow that hint that
my company’s not wanted,” and he rode back to the inn, feeling very
sorrowful. Evidently his uncle was angry with him. But more than all
else was he troubled by the words he had heard Colonel Knowles address
to Ephraim Morris. The British officer had broadly intimated that the
farmer was a thief!

On his return to the inn he was so tired that he did not think of
supper, and, instead of going into the house, tumbled into his couch
in the loft and dropped to sleep almost instantly. The next morning
Master Benson did not arrive, and the mistress of the inn met Hadley
with a very sour face and berated him well for the manner in which he
had burst in upon her guests the night before.

“You are spending more than half your time with Washington’s ragamuffin
army,” quoth she; “you’d better stay with them altogether. I cannot
have my guests disturbed and troubled by such as you.”

Hadley was inclined to take her berating good-naturedly, for he knew at
heart that she was a kindly woman, and that, when Jonas was at home,
she would not dare talk so. But she had really engaged a neighbor to
perform his tasks, and, learning that Jonas was not expected back for
a week or more, Hadley saw that it was going to be very unpleasant for
him in the neighborhood meanwhile. Even his uncle did not care for his
company, and he could not eat the bread of idleness at the Three Oaks
Inn. There were three or four men starting to join Washington’s forces,
and he determined to accompany them, sorry now that he had returned at
all.

He did not feel at liberty to take one of the Bensons’ horses this
time, and so started afoot for the vicinity of Philadelphia. The roads
were full of refugee families, and, although he could not learn of any
real battle having been fought, the country people had evidently lost
all hope of Washington staying the advance of the British. Hadley and
his comrades traveled briskly, reaching the vicinity of Warren’s Inn
early on the morning of the 16th and joined General Wayne’s forces just
as the downpour of rain which spoiled the operations of that day began.




  CHAPTER XIII
  WITH “MAD ANTHONY” WAYNE


On this 16th day of September, the opposing forces--Howe’s army led by
Lord Cornwallis and the Americans by Anthony Wayne--met in conflict
near the Warren Inn. Since Brandywine, when, because of Sullivan’s
defeat, Washington had been forced to retreat to Chester, the armies
had been maneuvering on the Lancaster pike; but nothing more serious
than skirmishes had resulted. But this conflict near the old inn was
a close and sharp engagement, and it would have been general had not
the rain which was falling become a veritable deluge. The arms and
ammunition were rendered almost useless, and the Americans had to
retreat again.

[Illustration: WAYNE QUICKLY RALLIED HIS MEN]

Bitterly did Hadley Morris grieve as, through the mud and downpour, he
trudged in the ranks of his countrymen. Somebody sought him out on the
march. It was Captain Prentice, relieved for the time of his command
because of his wound; yet he had been near all day to encourage the men
and was able still to wield his sword.

“Eh, boy, I knew you would come back!” he said, smiling. “Your blood’s
up, and you’ll not sit at peace in the chimney-corner till this bloody
war is settled one way or ’tother.”

Hadley told him what had occurred at his uncle’s house, and at the
inn where he worked. “You did right to come back to fight with us,”
Prentice said. “And you’ll see fighting enough with ‘Mad Anthony.’
Where he goes there is fighting always--that is his business. And a
braver or better general does not command on our side, despite the
slanders that are told about him. Ah, Hadley, these adventurers and
politicians with His Excellency are what keep us back. They so fear to
see a good man win that they will do all they can to ruin him. Why, do
you know, they are trying to throw some of the blame for Sullivan’s
blunder, down there at Brandywine creek, upon Anthony Wayne, although
he fought with all the stubbornness a man ever displayed, and held off
Knyphausen and his Hessians all day--until, in fact, he learned of the
defeat in his rear, and that the rest of the army was retreating.

“We were too busy ourselves that day, Master Morris, to know much about
what went on excepting directly in front of us,” Prentice continued,
with a smile. “But now that the matter is history, for history is
being made rapidly these days, we can get at the truth pretty easily.
Colonel Cadwalader, who, by the way, has gone to Philadelphia to
look out for his private interests, and several other officers, were
discussing the Brandywine engagement yesterday. The colonel, naturally,
is a strong opponent of Sullivan and a warm adherent of General Wayne,
for the former has too many political friends, and the latter is a
plain, out-and-out fighter. Wayne is a Pennsylvania man, you know;
has been a farmer over near Easton ’most all his life--though they
do say he traveled north once, surveying land. He is somewhere about
thirty-three years old now.

“He brought his own regiment into the army--the Fourth Pennsylvania,”
continued the captain, getting away from the real matter under
discussion, but holding Hadley’s attention, nevertheless, “and he has
been advanced to brigadier-general for conspicuous gallantry. They call
him ‘Mad Anthony’ and claim he is reckless and thoughtless; but it’s
a pity we haven’t more such mad men in the army. You have seen to-day
how the troops love him and what they will do for him. This handful of
muddy, half-starved creatures would charge the whole of Howe’s army if
Anthony Wayne were at their head! Did you get a glimpse of him to-day,
Morris?”

“Yes, sir. And I think him a fine figure of a man,” declared the boy,
enthusiastically.

“He is that, indeed. A man of more forceful facial expression I
never saw, and his dark eyes are always sparkling--either in fun or
with earnestness. Anthony Wayne is an ‘all or nothing’ man--he is
never lukewarm, as are some of these fellows who have obtained their
commissions from Congress. What if he does brag? Why, Morris, if we’d
done what he has, and were masters of the science of war as he is, we’d
brag ourselves!”

“But why do they try to drag him into the trouble over the Brandywine
defeat?” queried the boy.

“Why? Ask me why a mangy, homeless cur always snarls at the heels of a
dog that is well bred. ’Tis always so. Jealousy is at the bottom of
all these cabals and plots with which the army is troubled. Even His
Excellency is not free from the arrows of their hate. And, as I tell
you, Sullivan has too many political friends. They wish to attract
attention from his mistakes to somebody else, and they fall upon
General Wayne and call him reckless. Reckless, forsooth! His fighting
that day when he faced those Hessians was marvelous.

“Nobody,” pursued Prentice, warmly, “unless it was His Excellency
himself, realized how exceedingly well placed my Lord Howe’s troops
were for defence on the left bank of the Brandywine. Greene selected
our position--the position of the main army. I mean, at Chadd’s
Ford--and it was well. Wayne was there. Sullivan, as the senior
Major-General, commanded the left wing. Wayne’s line was three miles
long, and the farthest crossing, which he did not cover, Sullivan was
supposed to watch.

“You and I, Morris, were too busy in our little corner to know these
facts at that time. But it has all come out now, and, just because a
certain Major Spear was either a fool or a coward, Sullivan’s flank was
turned and the army routed.”

“What had Major Spear to do with it?” asked Hadley, interested despite
the mud and rain through which they continued to plod.

“I’ll explain. Early on the day of the battle,--the 11th, you
know,--Howe and Cornwallis marched for the forks of the Brandywine,
where there are easy fords. Evidently they intended to do exactly what
they did do--cross the river and march down on our side, doubling
Sullivan’s wing back upon the main army. For a maneuver in broad
daylight it was childish; but it won because of this man Spear.

“Colonel Bland had been ordered to cross at Jones’ Ford to find out
what the British were about. He sent back word--there can be no doubt
of this, although Sullivan’s friends have tried to deny it--that
Cornwallis was surely marching for the upper crossings. His Excellency,
learning of this report, threw Wayne across the river to attack Grant
and Knyphausen, while Sullivan and Greene were to engage the flanking
column of Britishers. Why, if things had gone right, we’d have cut the
two divisions of the enemy to pieces!” declared the captain, bitterly.

“But it was not to be. A part of Wayne’s troops had already forded
the river when this Major Spear, who had been reconnoitering in
the direction of the forks, reported no sign of the enemy in that
direction. What the matter was with the man I don’t know--nobody seems
to know; but Sullivan should have known whether he was to be trusted or
not. The general, on his own responsibility, halted his column and sent
word to His Excellency that the first report of the British movements
was wrong--Cornwallis was not in the vicinity of the Brandywine forks.
Naturally this put the Commander-in-Chief out, and, fearing a surprise,
he withdrew Wayne’s men from across the river. The Hessians followed;
but they got no farther. Mad Anthony held them in check.

“While we were fighting so hard down there by Chadd’s Ford, Sullivan
was doing nothing at all. About one o’clock, it seems, a man named
Cheney rode into Sullivan’s division and reported that the British had
crossed the river and had reached the Birmingham meeting-house. That
was some distance then on Sullivan’s right. But the general still stuck
to his belief in Major Spear, and instead of sending out a scouting
party, put aside the report as valueless.

“This ’Squire Cheney is something of a man in his township--lives
over Thornbury way, they tell me--and it angered him to be treated
so superciliously by Sullivan. So what does he do but spur on to
headquarters and inform General Washington himself. The report could
scarcely be believed by the Commander-in-Chief and his staff, and
you cannot blame them. Everybody knew how much depended on the day’s
action, and that Sullivan should make such a terrible blunder was past
belief.

“Your friend Colonel Cadwalader told me about it afterward. ‘If you
doubt my word, put me under arrest until you can ask Anthony Wayne or
Persie Frazer if I am a man to be believed!’ said Cheney, getting red
in the face. The staff--some of the young men, it seemed--had laughed
at the queer figure the old fellow cut on his horse. ‘I’d have you know
that I have this day’s work as much at heart as e’er a one of ye!’
quoth Cheney, and at that His Excellency ordered a change of face, and
part of the army moved up to the support of Sullivan.

“You know what happened after that. You saw the fugitives and
the wounded when you rode to Philadelphia, Hadley. It was a sad
day, and all because one man made a mistake,--either foolishly or
willfully,--and another man did not consider the fate of the first city
in the land of sufficient importance to have every report brought to
him corroborated. Sullivan must bear the brunt of this thing,--as his
men bore the brunt of the enemy’s charge--because he was in command at
that end of the line. But they’re trying to make out that Anthony Wayne
could have saved the day with his troops had he wished. They’d not talk
so bold had they faced those bloody Hessians as we did.”

“It seems awful that there should be friction in an army of patriots,”
Hadley said, thoughtfully. “They are all patriotic--they all desire the
freedom of the Colonies.”

“What some of them desire it would be hard to say,” declared Prentice,
gloomily. “And we are not patriots until we win. We’re rebels now--and
rebels we shall go down into history unless the Great Jehovah Himself
shall strike for us and give us a lasting victory over the British. I
tell you, boy, I am discouraged.”

And it was a discouraged column of 1,500 men who marched that night to
Tredyfrrin, where Wayne had been ordered by the Commander-in-Chief “to
watch the movements of the enemy, and, when joined by Smallwood and the
Maryland militia, to cut off their baggage and hospital trains.”

On the 19th, after waiting in vain for Smallwood’s reinforcements,
Wayne again crossed the river, and was, at Paoli, able to advance
within half a mile of Howe’s encampment. He reported to General
Washington that the enemy was then quietly washing and cooking. The
British seemed to consider this advance on Philadelphia more in the
light of a picnicing party than anything else. To his commander,
however, Wayne said that the enemy was too compactly massed to be
openly attacked by his small force, and begged that the entire army
might come to his aid and strike a heavy blow. But neither Smallwood’s
brigade nor any other division of the American forces arrived to aid
the little party at Paoli on that day, nor the one following.

Scouts brought in the tale that Howe was about to take up his line of
march, and so, as the night of the 20th drew near, Wayne determined to
attack in any case, reinforcements or not. The watchword that night
in the American camp was, “Here we are and there they go!” and the
troops were eager to follow their beloved leader into the very heart
of the British encampment. It was believed that the night attack was
unsuspected by the British, but it proved later that vigilant Tories
had wormed the information from somebody on Wayne’s staff and hastened
with it to the British camp.

So confident was Wayne that his plans were unsuspected that, when
informed by a friendly citizen, between nine and ten in the evening,
that a boy of the neighborhood, who had been in the British camp during
the day, had overheard a soldier say that “an attack on the American
party would be made during the night,” Mad Anthony would not credit it.
It did not seem probable that if such an attack was being considered by
the British leaders, it would be common camp talk.

However, believing that surplus precaution would do no harm, he
multiplied his pickets and patrols and ordered the troops to repose
on their arms, and, as it was then raining, made the men put their
ammunition under their coats. He was thus prepared to meet an attack or
withdraw, as circumstances might direct.

Ere this, Captain Prentice had been sent to headquarters, almost by
force, indeed, because his wound had become inflamed, and Hadley,
being simply a volunteer, was obliged to take pot-luck where he found
it, and was even without a blanket or pouch in which to carry his
rations. He would have been more comfortable on picket duty that night,
only volunteers were not trusted in such serious matters; and perhaps,
if he had been, the youth would not have gotten out of the terrible
engagement alive.

Somewhere about eleven o’clock, rumor had it that the British were on
the move. Wayne believed that the enemy would attack his right flank,
and immediately ordered Colonel Humpton, his second in command, to
wheel his line and move off by the road leading to the White Horse
Tavern. Meanwhile, General Gray, in command of three British regiments
and some dragoons with Tory guides, approached Paoli. The British were
ordered to withhold their fire and to depend altogether on the bayonet.
At midnight, two hours before the time fixed for his own advance on
Howe’s force, Wayne learned that his pickets had been surprised.

Colonel Humpton had not obeyed, nor did he do so until the third
order reached him. The artillery moved without loss or injury, but
the remainder of the army was in confusion, and, when charged by the
British, the affair became almost a rout. An English officer who was
present at the attack afterward wrote:

“It was a dreadful scene of havoc. The Americans were easily
distinguished by the light of the camp fires as they fell into line,
thus offering Gray’s men an advantage. The charge was furious, and all
Wayne’s efforts to rally his men were useless. They were driven through
the woods two miles, and nearly a hundred and seventy men were killed.”

With those about him, inspired as they were with fear of the bayonet,
and confused by the darkness, Hadley Morris ran blindly through the
woods to escape the death which followed him. The awful sabre-like
bayonets of the British muskets he did escape; but a half-spent ball
imbedded itself in the flesh of his leg above the knee and brought him
at last to earth. The others streamed by and left him. He feared he
would be captured and perhaps sent to the prison hulks in New York Bay;
but both pursued and pursuer passed him by, and he was saved in the
darkness.

He could not travel with the ball in his leg, and so he lay down again
under some bushes, and, despite the wound and his fright, dropped
off into slumber, and slept just as soundly as he would had war and
bloodshed been farthest from his thoughts.

[TO BE CONTINUED]


 Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
                                            --Edward Everett.




  MIDSUMMER DAYS
  By Julia McNair Wright


The production of seed is the chief object of plant life. Upon this
depends the continuance of the vegetable world, and therefore all
animal existence. From the elephant to the mouse, from the whale to the
minnow, from the eagle to the humming-bird, life is conditioned upon
the constant return of “the herb-bearing fruit whose seed is in itself.”

In every minute particular the flower is constructed to insure the
production of sound seed. The first form of this seed is the tiny ovule
in the germ. Ovules cannot grow into seeds, unless they are brought in
contact with the pollen, which must arrive at them by way of the stigma.

The pollen of flowers is a most fine, delicate dust. It must be
conveyed without injury in the most delicate manner. Many flowers are
exceedingly high up, as on climbing vines, or growing on tree-tops,
peaks, or house-tops. Many other plants are very low down, lying close
to the ground, as the bluets, chickweed, arbutus, partridge-berry, and
others. A large number of plants are in positions inaccessible to man
or the larger animals.

Man excepted, the larger animals seem generally to have a destructive
mission to plants, devouring, breaking, or trampling down. Men
themselves are often ruthless destroyers of beautiful plants, and seem
to care for and conserve only what concerns human convenience.

Here, then, we have the problem of plants fixed in their places,
needing carriers for their pollen to distant plants of their own
kind, at the exact period of maturity. The carriers must be able to
go high or low, into all manner of different localities; they must be
delicately made, so that they will not injure the plants which they
visit, capable of carrying the frail pollen grains unharmed, and they
must have some object of their own in these visitations, which shall
infallibly secure their doing of the work required. Finally, let us
remember that the pollen of flowers is but seldom spread where it is
easy to secure it. The buttercup lavishly expends a golden saucer of
pollen; the lily has a wide-open door, near which hangs the antlers,
like so many ready bells. On the other hand, how long and narrow are
the throats of the morning-glories and honeysuckles; how tiny are the
tubes of mint, thyme, and clover; how fast-closed is the mouth of the
snap-dragon; how narrow the fox-glove’s throat. Pollen-carriers must
be able to secure the dust so jealously kept, and must be afforded a
reward for their trouble.

What form of animal life meets all these conditions? But one--the
insect. It is generally light and delicate in structure, active,
winged; its life is conterminous with that of flowers; they are spring
and summer guests. The slender shape and the long, slim mouth organs
of the insect can penetrate and gently force open flower tubes and
the fast-shut lips of corollas; the velvet coats and fine, waving
antennæ will receive and carry uninjured the precious dust, and the
insect habit of constant roaming from bloom to bloom assures the
accomplishment of its important errand.

Not all insects, but a few widely-distributed families, are the chosen
partners of the flowers; these are the various tribes of bees, moths,
and butterflies, with some help from a few others.

“Nothing for nothing” seems to be a law of nature. What does the flower
offer to the insect for its services as pollen distributer? Honey,
which is the chief food of flying insects, also wax, and pollen for
its private use at home. The miller, we know, takes toll from the flour
he grinds.

To secure insect visitants, the flower provides honey; almost all
flowers secrete some dainty juices. As shopkeepers set up signs to
inform the public of their wares, so the flowers hang forth signs;
these are the brilliant corollas, or parts highly colored which take
the place of corollas.

Another bid for visits is made by perfume, which attracts insects as
being generally associated with honey. Many flowers have inconspicuous
corollas, or are hidden under foliage, or so placed as to risk being
neglected; these call attention by fragrance, as the mignonette, the
violet, or arbutus. Others, as the lilies, have large and attractive
corollas, yet add perfume to size and color, to insure the securing of
insect attention and help.

[Illustration: PLANTS AND THEIR PARTNERS]

Plants which depend upon moths, or any night-flying insects, have
usually strong perfume and pale color, as white or light lemon color,
which can easily be seen in twilight. The odor attracts the insect in
its direction; and on a nearer approach the flower is seen.

Most flowers have peculiarly bright streaks, spots, or other markings,
in the direction of the honey, and the honey is placed at the bottom
of the stamens, thus the insect is attracted just where he should go.
The tiger lily has its startling red spots; the arum its lines of red
and green; the morning-glory its vivid stripes, the jonquil its ruffled
bi-colored crown, and the beauty-of-the-night its bright purple centre.

When the pollen is ripe for carrying, all the parts of the flower
are at their best: the perfume is the strongest, the coloring the
brightest, the nectar most abundant.

On these hot July days, when the sun draws out the richest fragrance
and lights up the most brilliant colors, watch the bees and
butterflies. The bee seeks the clover on one trip, mignonette on
another, lilies on a third. The butterflies have no hive returning to
mark their work, but you can count their visits, a dozen or more to
flowers of one kind before they investigate the sweets of flowers of
some other kind.

So, the plant’s partners, while gathering honey for their daily needs,
toil unthinkingly to perpetuate the very flowers upon which their
existence depends.




  A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST
  By Evelyn Raymond


  CHAPTER XIV
  A Dead Water Tragedy


 SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

 Brought up in the forests of northern Maine, and seeing few persons
 excepting her uncle and Angelique, the Indian housekeeper, Margot
 Romeyn knows little of life beyond the deep hemlocks. Naturally
 observant, she is encouraged in her out-of-door studies by her uncle,
 at one time a college professor. Through her woodland instincts, she
 and her uncle are enabled to save the life of Adrian Wadislaw, a
 youth who, lost and almost overcome with hunger, has been wandering
 in the neighboring forest. To Margot the new friend is a welcome
 addition to her small circle of acquaintances, and after his rapid
 recovery she takes great delight in showing him the many wonders of
 the forest about her home. But finally, after many weeks, the uncle
 decides, because of reasons which will be known later, that it would
 be better for Margot if Adrian left them. Accordingly, he puts the
 matter before the young man, who, although reluctant to leave his new
 friends, volunteers to go. Under the guidance of Pierre Ricord, a
 young Indian, the lad sets out for the nearest settlement. Once in the
 woods, however, they decide to remain there for a while. During their
 wanderings the two had become separated for a time and then it is that
 Adrian hears a noise which makes his pulse beat faster. It is the call
 of a moose.

But Pierre, also, had heard that distant “Ugh-u-u-ugh!” and instantly
paused.

His own anxiety was lest Adrian should not hear and be still.
Fortunately, the wind was in their favor and the sensitive nostrils
of the moose less apt to scent them. Having listened a moment, he
dropped his pack so softly that, heavy as it was, it scarcely made the
undergrowth crack. His gun was always loaded, and, now making it ready
for prompt use, he started back toward his companion. The Indian in
his nature came to the fore. His step was alert, precise, and light as
that of any four-footed forester. When within sight of the other lad,
listening and motionless, his eye brightened.

“If he keeps that way, maybe--Ah!”

The moose call again, but farther off. This was a disappointment, but
they were on good ground for hunting and another chance would come.
Meanwhile, they would better make all haste to the thoroughfare. There
would be the better place, and out in the canoe they’d have a wider
range.

“Here, you. Give me the boat. Did you hear it?”

“Did I not? But you had the gun!”

“Wouldn’t have made any difference if you’d had it. Too far off. Let’s
get on.”

Adrian lifted the pack and dropped it in disgust. “I can’t carry that
load!”

Pierre was also disgusted--by the other’s ignorance and lack of
endurance.

“What you don’t know about the woods beats all. Haven’t you seen
anybody pack things before? I’ll show you. When there’s big game handy
is no time to quarrel. If a pack’s too heavy, halve it. Watch and learn
something.”

Pierre could be both swift and dexterous if he chose, and he rapidly
unrolled and divided the contents of the cotton tent. Putting part into
the blanket, he retied the rest in the sheeting, and now neither bundle
was a very severe tax.

“Whew! What’s the sense of that? It’s the same weight. How does
‘halving’ it help?”

Pierre swung the canoe upon his head and directed:

“Catch hold them straps. Carry one a few rods. Drop it. Come back
after the other. Carry that a ways beyond the first. Drop it. Get
number one. All time lap over, beyond, over, beyond. So.”

With a stick he illustrated upon the ground, and, wasting no further
time nor speech, clasped his gun the tighter under his arm and trotted
forward again.

Adrian obeyed instructions, and though it seemed, at first, a waste to
go back and forth along the carry as he had been directed, found that,
in the end, he had accomplished his task with small fatigue or delay.

“Another bit of woodcraft for my knowledge box. Useful elsewhere, too.
Wish I could get through this country as fast as Pierre does. But he’ll
have to wait for me, anyway.”

For a time Adrian could easily trace the route of his guide by the
bruises the canoe had given the leaves and undergrowth; but after
a while the forest grew more open and this trail was lost. Then he
stopped to consider. He had no intention of losing himself again.

“We are aiming for the south. Good. All the big branches of these
hemlocks point that way--so yonder’s my way. Queer, too, how mossy the
tree trunks are on the north side. I’ve heard that you could drop an
Indian anywhere, in any forest, and he’d travel to either point of the
compass he desired with nothing to guide him but his instinct. Wish I
was an Indian! Wish, rather, I had my own compass and good outfit that
went over in my canoe. Hurrah! There’s a glimmer of water. That’s the
thoroughfare. Now a dash for it!”

Adrian was proud of his new skill in finding his way through a
trackless forest, but, though he duly reached the stream, he could not
for a time see anything of Pierre. He did not wish to shout, lest the
moose might be near and take fright, but at last he did give a faint
halloo, and an answer came at once. Then a boat shot out from behind a
clump of alders and made down the river toward him.

The current was swift and strong, and there was considerable poling to
be done before it touched the shore and Pierre stepped out.

“I’ve been looking round. This is as good a place to camp to-night as
we’ll find. Leave the things here, and might as well get ready now.
Then we can stay out all day and come back when we like.”

“But I thought we were to go on up thoroughfare. Why stop here at all?
Other camping places are easy to find.”

“Are they? Ask a few more questions. Good many things go to making
right sort of camp. Dry ground, good water to drink, firewood,
poles--Oh! shucks! If you don’t know, keep still and learn.”

This was excellent advice, and Adrian was tired. He decided to trust
to the other lad’s common sense and larger experience, and, having so
decided, calmly stretched himself out upon the level bank of the stream
and went to sleep.

Pierre’s temper rose still higher, and after he had endured the sight
of Adrian’s indolence as long as possible he stepped to the river and
dipped a bucket of water. Then he returned and quietly dashed it over
the drowsy lad. The effect was all that Pierre desired.

“What did you do that for?”

“Take this axe and get to work. I’ve chopped long enough. It’s my
turn--or would be, only I’m after moose.”

Adrian realized that he had given cause for offense and laughed
good-naturedly. His nap had rested him much more than his broken sleep
of the night under the rocks, and the word “moose” had an inspiration
all its own.

“I’ve cut the firewood. You get poles for the tent. I’ll get things
ready for supper.”

Adrian laid his hand dramatically upon his stomach. “I’ve an inner
conviction already that dinner precedes supper.”

“Cut, can’t you?”

“Cut it is.”

In a few moments he had chopped down a few slender poles, and,
selecting two with forked branches, he planted these upright on a
little rise of the dryest ground. Across the notches he laid a third
pole, and over this he stretched their strip of sheeting. When this was
pegged down at a convenient angle at the back and also secured at the
ends, they had a very comfortable shelter from the dew and possible
rain. The affair was open on one side, and before this Pierre had
heaped the wood for the fire when they should return after the day’s
hunt. Together they cut and spread the spruce and hemlock boughs for
their bed, arranging them in overlapping rows, with an added quantity
for pillows. Wrapped in their blankets, for even at midsummer these
were not amiss, they hoped to sleep luxuriously.

They stored their food in as safe a spot as possible, though Pierre
said that nothing would molest it, unless it might be a hungry
hedgehog; but Adrian preferred to take no risks. Then, with knives
freshly sharpened on the rocks, and the gun in hand, they cautiously
stepped into the canoe and pushed off.

“One should not jump into a birch. Easiest thing in the world to split
the bottom,” its owner had explained.

Adrian had no desire to do anything that would hinder their success,
therefore submitted to his guide’s dictation with a meekness that would
have amused Margot.

She would not have been amused by their undertaking, nor its but
half-anticipated results. After a long and difficult warping-up the
rapids, in which Adrian’s skill at using the sharp-pointed pole that
helped to keep the canoe off the rocks surprised Pierre, they reached a
dead water, with low, rush-dotted banks.

“Get her into that cove yonder and keep still. I’ve brought some bark
and I’ll make a horn.”

There, while they rested and listened, Pierre deftly rolled his strip
of birch bark into a horn of two feet in length, small at the mouth
end, but several inches wide at the other. He tied it with cedar
thongs, and, putting it to his lips, uttered a call so like a cow moose
that Adrian wondered more and more.

“Hm-m! I thought I was pretty smart, myself; but I’ll step down when
you take the stand.”

“Sh-h-h! Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t breathe if you can help it.”

Adrian became rigid, all his faculties merged in that one desire to
lose no sound.

Again Pierre gave the moose call, and--hark! what was that? An
answering cry, a far-away crashing of boughs, the onrush of some big
creature, hastening to its mate.

Noiselessly Pierre brought his gun into position, sighting one distant
point from which he thought his prey would come. Adrian’s body dripped
with a cold sweat, his hands trembled, specks floated before his
staring eyes, every nerve was tense, and, as Margot would have said, he
was a-thrill “with murder,” from head to foot! Oh! if the gun were his,
and the shot!

Another call, another cry, and a magnificent head came into view. With
horns erect and quivering nostrils, the monarch of that wilderness
came, seeking love, and faced his enemies.

“He’s within range--shoot!” whispered Adrian.

“Only mad him that way. Sh! When he turns--”

“Bang! bang! bang!” in swift succession.

The great horns tossed, the noble head came round again, then bent,
wavered, and disappeared. The tragedy was over.

“I got him! I got him that time! Always shoot that way, never--”

Pierre picked up his paddle and sent the canoe forward at a leap. When
there came no responding movement from his companion he looked back
over his shoulder. Adrian’s face had gone white, and the eagerness of
his eyes had given place to unspeakable regret.

“What’s the matter? Sick?”

“Yes. Why, it was murder! Margot was right.”

“Oh, shucks!”

Whereupon Pierre pulled the faster toward the body of his victim.




  CHAPTER XV
  SHOOTING THE RAPIDS


Three months earlier, if anybody had told Adrian he would ever be
guilty of such “squeamishness,” he would have laughed in derision. Now,
all unconsciously to himself, the influence of his summer at Peace
Island was upon him, and it came to him with the force of a revelation
that God had created the wild creatures of His forests for something
nobler than to become the prey of man.

“Oh! That grand fellow! His splendidly defiant, yet hopeless, facing of
death! I wish we’d never met him!”

“Well, of all fools! I thought you wanted nothing but a chance at him
yourself.”

“So I did, before I saw him. What if it had been Madoc?”

“That’s different.”

“The same. Might have been twin brothers. Maybe they were.”

“Couldn’t have been. Paddle, won’t you?”

Adrian did so, but with a poor grace. He would now far rather have
turned the canoe about toward camp, yet railed at himself for his
sudden cowardice. He shrank from looking on the dead moose as only an
hour before he had longed to do so.

They were soon at the spot where the animal had disappeared, and,
pushing the boat upon the reedy shore, Pierre plunged forward through
the marsh. Adrian did not follow, till a triumphant shout reached him.
Then he felt in his pocket and, finding a pencil with a bit of paper,
made his own way more slowly to the side of his comrade, who, wildly
excited, was examining and measuring his quarry. On a broad-leaved rush
he had marked off a hand’s width, and from this unit calculated that:

“He’s eight feet four from hoof to shoulder, and that betters the
King by six inches. See! His horns spread nigh six feet. If he stood
straight and held them up, he’d be fifteen feet or nothing! They spread
more’n six feet, and, I tell you, he’s a beauty!”

“Yes. He’s all of that. But of what use is his beauty now?”

“Humph! Didn’t know you was a girl!”

Adrian did not answer. He was rapidly and skillfully sketching the
prostrate animal, and studying it minutely. From his memory of it alive
and the drawing, he hoped to paint a tolerably lifelike portrait of
the animal; and a fresh inspiration came to him. To those projected
woodland pictures he would add glimpses of its wild denizens, and in
such a way that the hearts of the beholders should be moved to pity,
not to slaughter.

But, already, that sharpened knife of Pierre’s was at work, defacing,
mutilating.

“Why do that, man?”

“Why not? What ails you? What’d we hunt for?”

“We don’t need him for food. You cannot possibly carry those horns any
distance on our trip, and you’re not apt to come back just this same
way. Let him lie. You’ve done him all the harm you should. Come on. Is
this like him?” and Adrian showed his drawing.

“Oh! It’s like enough. If you don’t relish my job, clear out. I can
skin him alone.”

Adrian waited no second bidding, but strolled away to a distance and
tried to think of other things than the butchering in progress. But
at last Pierre whistled, and he had to go back or else be left in the
wilderness to fare alone as best he might. It was a ghastly sight. The
great skin, splashed and wet with its owner’s blood, the dismembered
antlers, the slashed-off nose,--which such as Pierre considered a
precious tid-bit,--the naked carcass, and the butcher’s own uninviting
state.

“I declare, I can never get into the same boat with you and all
that horror. Do leave it here. Do wash yourself,--there’s plenty of
water,--and let’s be gone.”

Pierre did not notice the appeal. Though the lust of killing had died
out of his eyes, the lust of greed remained. Already he was estimating
the value of the hide, cured or uncured, and the price those antlers
would bring could he once get them to the proper market.

“Why, I’ve heard that in some of the towns folks buy ’em to hang their
hats on. Odd! Lend a hand.”

Reluctantly, Adrian did lift his portion of heavy horns and helped
carry them to the birch. He realized that the quickest way of putting
this disagreeable spot behind him was by doing as he was asked. He was
hopeless of influencing the other by any change in his own feelings,
and wisely kept silence.

But they hunted no more that day, nor did they make any further
progress on their journey. Pierre busied himself in erecting a rude
frame, upon which he stretched the moose skin to dry. He also prepared
the antlers and built a sort of hut, of saplings and bark, where he
could store his trophies till his return trip.

“For I shall surely come back this same way. It’s good hunting ground
and moose feed in herds. Small herds, course, but two three make a
fello’ rich. Eh?”

Adrian said nothing. He occupied himself in what Pierre considered a
silly fashion, sketching, studying “effects,” and carefully cutting big
pieces of the birch bark that he meant to use for canvas. To keep this
flat during his travels was a rather difficult problem, but finally
solved by cutting two slabs of cedar wood and placing the sheets of
bark between these.

Whereupon Pierre laughed and assured the weary chopper that he had had
his trouble for his pains.

“What for you want to carry big lumber that way? Roll your bark. That’s
all right. When you want to use it, put it in water. Easy. Queer how
little you know about things.”

“All right. I was silly, sure enough. But thanks for your teaching.
Maybe, if you were in my city, I might show you a thing or two.”

Both lads were glad, however, when night came, and, having cooked
themselves a good supper and replenished their fire, they slept as
only such healthy lads can sleep; to wake at sunrise, ready for fresh
adventures, and with the tragedy of the previous day partly forgotten,
even by Adrian. Then, after a hearty breakfast, they resumed their trip.

Nothing eventful occurred for some time after. No more moose appeared,
and, beyond winging a duck or two and fishing now and then, Pierre kept
his hunting instincts down. In fact, he was just then too lazy to exert
himself. He felt that he had labored beyond all reason during the past
summer and needed a rest. Besides, were not his wages steadily going
on? If Adrian was silly enough to paint and paint and paint all day,
this old tree and that mossy stump, he was not responsible for another
man’s stupidity. Not he. The food was still holding out, so let things
take their course.

Suddenly, however, Adrian realized that they were wasting time. He
had made sketches on everything and anything he could find, and had
accumulated enough birch bark to swamp the canoe, should they strike
rough water; and far more than was comfortable for him to carry over
any portage. So he one morning announced his intention of leaving the
wilderness and getting back to civilization.

“All right. I go with you. Show me the town, then I’ll come back.”

“Well, as you please. Only I don’t propose to pay you any longer than
will take us, now by the shortest road, to Donovan’s.”

“Time enough to borrow that trouble when you see it.”

But Pierre suggested that, as Adrian wished to learn everything
possible about the woods, he should now take the guidance of affairs,
and that whenever things went wrong, he, Pierre, could point the way.
He did this because, of late, he fancied that his young employer had
taken a “too top-lofty” tone in addressing him; and, in truth, Adrian’s
day dreams of coming fame and his own genius were making him feel
vastly superior to the rough woodsman.

They had paddled over dead water to a point where two streams touched
it, and the question rose--which way?

“That!” said Adrian, with decision, pointing to the broader and more
southern of the two.

“Good enough.”

For a moment the leader fancied there was a gleam of malice in
his hireling’s eye, but he considered it beneath his notice and
calmly turned the canoe into the thoroughfare he had chosen. It was
wonderfully smooth and delightful paddling. In all their trip they had
not found so level a stream, and it was nothing but enjoyment of the
scenery that Adrian felt; until it seemed to him that they had been
moving a long time without arriving anywhere. “Haven’t we?” he asked.

“Oh! we’ll get there soon, now.”

Presently things began to look familiar. There was one
curiously-shaped, lightning-riven pine, standing high above its
fellows, that appeared like an old friend.

“Why, what’s this? Can there be two trees, exactly alike, within a
half-day’s rowing? I’ve certainly sketched that old landmark from every
side, and--Hello! yonder’s my group of white birches, or I’m blind. How
queer!”

A few more sweeps and the remains of the camp they had that morning
left were before them, and Pierre could no longer repress his glee.

“Good guide, you! Trust a know-it-all for a fool.”

“What does it mean?” demanded Adrian, angrily.

“Nothing. Only you picked out a run-about, a little branch of river,
that wanders out of course and then comes home again. Begins and ends
the same. Oh! you’re wise, you are.”

“Would the other lead us right?”

“Yes.”

“But it turns north. We’re bound south.”

“That’s no matter. Can’t a river turn, same as run-about?”

“I give up. You guide. I’ll stick to my brush.”

This restored affairs to the ground which Pierre considered proper,
and, having paused long enough to eat a lunch, they set out afresh. The
new track they followed ascended steadily, and it proved a difficult
stream to warp up; but the ascent was accomplished without accident,
and then the surface of the land altered. Again they reached a point
where two branches met, and Pierre explained that the waters of one
ran due north, but the other bent gradually toward the south and in a
little while descended through one of the most dangerous “rips” he had
ever seen.

“Only saw them once, either. When I went as far as Donovan’s with the
master, year before last.”

“Didn’t know he ever came so far from the island.”

“Why, he goes once every summer, or fall, as far as that New York of
yours. Likely he’ll be going soon again.”

“He does! Queer he never mentioned it.”

“Maybe. I’ve a notion, though, that the things he don’t say are more
important than what he does. Ever shoot a rip?”

“No. I’ve tried and failed. That’s how I happened to get lost and
wandered to Dutton’s.”

“He’s the boss hand at it. Seems as if the danger fired him up. Makes
him feel as I do when I hunt big game. He didn’t need my help, only
fetched me along to take back some truck. That’s how he picked me out
to show you. He knew I knew--”

“And I wish I knew--lots of things!”

“One of ’em might be that round that next turn comes the first dip.
Then look out.”

The stream was descending very perceptibly, and they needed no paddling
to keep them moving. But they did require to be incessantly on the
watch to guard against the rocks which obstructed the current, and
which threatened the safety of their frail craft.

“You keep an eye on me and one on the channel. It’ll take a clear head
to carry us through, and no fooling.”

Adrian did not answer. He had no thought for anything just then but the
menace of those jagged points; which seemed to reach toward them as if
to destroy.

Nor did Pierre speak again. Far better even than his silent companion
could he estimate the perils which beset them. Life itself was the
price which they would pay for a moment’s carelessness, but a cool
head, a clear eye, and a steady wrist--these meant safety and the proud
record of a dangerous passage wisely made. A man who could shoot those
rapids was a guide who might, indeed, some time demand the high wages
Adrian had jeered at.

Suddenly the channel seemed barred by two opposing boulders, whose
points lapped each other. In reality, there was a way between them, by
the shortest of curves and of but little more than the canoe’s width.
Pierre saw and measured the distance skillfully, but he had not counted
upon the opposing force of the water that rushed against them.

“Look--out! Take--”

Behind the right-hand rock seethed a mighty whirlpool, where the river,
speeding downward, was caught and tossed back upon itself, around and
around, mad to escape yet bound by its own power.

Into this vortex the canoe was hurled, to be instantly overturned and
dashed to pieces on the rock.

On its first circuit of the pool, Adrian leaped and landed upon the
slippery boulder--breathless, but alive! His hand still clasped the
pole he had been using to steer with, and Pierre--? He had almost
disappeared within the whirling water, that tossed him like a feather.

[TO BE CONTINUED]




             FOURTH OF JULY


    Fling out our banner to the breeze,
      Our glorious stripes and stars;
    Unfurl our flag, o’er land and seas--
      Our nation’s stars and bars!
    The emblem of our birthright wave,
      O’er hill, and vale, and plain,
    Till over every patriot grave
      Our flag shall float again.

    We sing to-day a nation’s pride,
      Sung through an hundred years,
    Yet pause to bless the brave who died,
      And mingle smiles with tears;
    For ’neath the hill and on the plain
      The fallen heroes sleep,
    And while we sing our glad refrain
      Their mem’ry still we keep.

    Thanks be to Him who rules on high,
      For this, our festal day--
    Who holds the sparrows as they fly,
      And guides a nation’s way;
    May Freedom e’er maintain her cause,
      Unstained by passion’s wars,
    And Freedom e’er proclaim her laws
      Beneath the stripes and stars.

                               --W. F. Fox.




  Wood-Folk Talk
  By J. ALLISON ATWOOD


  AUK’S MYSTERY.

Without doubt most persons, should we ask them where Auk might be
found, would laugh at us. “Auk?” they would say; “why he’s been dead
for over half a century.” This seems very likely, since he has been
neither seen nor heard of for a long time. But let me whisper a word in
your ear: “Auk is still alive.” But why should he hide this way? Well,
there is a very good reason for it, as you will see.

To our mind Auk was badly treated. He was certainly not to blame for
being unattractive: neither was it his fault that he was clumsy. He
had lived on the shore of the Great South Bay for years, and supported
himself comfortably by his industry. But he was kept from making
friends by his awkward manners. It is easy enough for us to see the
meaning of the word awkward now, even if it is spelled with a “w”
instead of a “u,” but that is of little importance.

Auk was a fisherman, and all his time, when not resting, was spent on
the water. Although, as we have said, he was clumsy on land, Auk was a
very graceful swimmer. More than that, he could stay under the water a
long time, so that few fish, indeed, escaped him. This, of course, made
many birds dislike him. They feared that there would be no fish left
for them. To avert this danger, the Heron family, Tern, and most of the
Gulls--all, in fact, except Black-head, who was too happy to quarrel
with anyone--called a council. They would get rid of Auk.

On the water, they knew, they could not harm him in the least: he was
far too good a swimmer for that. But on the land he would be at their
mercy. As every one knows, Auk could not fly. He had been growing too
heavy of late years.

So Tern proposed that the birds wait until night, when it was Auk’s
habit to go back on the shore quite a way from the water to sleep. If
they attacked him there he would be an easy prey.

As soon as the sun had gone down Auk’s enemies gathered on the shore
just below the long sand-bar. About dark Sandpiper at the suggestion of
Night-Heron, stole quietly along the shore to learn if Auk was asleep.
It took him but a few minutes to reach the spot where the great bulky
fellow rested while sitting bolt upright. So excited was Sandpiper that
his heart beat wildly, and he had hardly gotten half way back when he
called out to his friends, “Asleep! Asleep!”

Now Auk, even when in a sound slumber, always kept his ears wide
open. That’s how he happened to hear Sandpiper’s piping voice telling
the other birds that he was asleep. At first he thought he had been
dreaming, but when he saw the dark forms down on the sand-bar he
realized the truth and knew that he was in peril.

Greatly frightened, Auk hurried to the water, as was his habit in all
danger. It was well he did, for, in the next instant. Blue Heron,
Tern, and a host of others came flying swiftly toward him. In another
moment Auk dived headlong into the sea and swam rapidly away, while his
enemies stood on the shore crying out in their disappointment.

       *       *       *       *       *

Years passed and Auk was forgotten. Everyone supposed that he had
long ago fallen prey to some enemy. Then, one night, Birdland was
astonished. Night-Heron had been to the far north for some time past.
Suddenly he came bursting in upon them. His eyes were wide open with
wonder. All he could say was the word “Quok! Quok!” which everyone knew
was his way of saying “Auk,” Night-Heron being slightly tongue-tied.
After he had gotten over his excitement the birds learned of his trip
to Granite Island. Whom do you suppose he found there? It was no less a
person than Auk.

At first folks thought Night-Heron’s mind had been wandering. But when
he became calmer, and related his discovery, they could no longer
refuse to believe him. All the old anger of the fishing birds seemed to
arouse itself again. For years and years they had thought Auk was dead,
and now they learned that he was still living and probably laughing at
their stupidity.

Quickly gathering together, they started north. This time he would not
escape them. It took many days of tiresome flight, but at last they
could see Granite Island in the dim distance ahead of them. As they
drew near, their anger increased and their cries cut the air. Just try
to imagine their feelings then, when, upon nearer approach, they found
that Auk was not there.

The truth was that Black-head had flown ahead of the party and warned
Auk of his danger. Now he was circling high in air, and every now and
then he would break out in laughter: “Gone! Ha! ha! ha! Gone! Ha! ha!
ha!”

But this defeat only hardened the purpose of the fishing birds. They
still continue to hunt for Auk. Watch any of them if you will while on
the sea-shore. See how tirelessly Tern is searching as he skims over
wave after wave. Will he ever find Auk? At any rate, he will not give
up. But then, when we think of the broad expanse of the Great North
Ocean, and its many rocky islands, we cannot but feel that Auk is
pretty safe after all. He has found a good hiding-place somewhere.

You who have been believing that Auk has been extinct for half a
century, now know that it is not so. But where is he? There is only one
whom you can ask: that is Black-head. He will tell you nothing. Try it
and see. His only reply is a laugh: “Gone! Ha! ha! ha! Gone! Ha! ha!
ha!”

       *       *       *       *       *

  Nay, speak no ill; a kindly word
    Can never leave a sting behind;
  And, oh, to breathe each tale we’ve heard,
    Is far beneath a noble mind;
  For oft a better seed is sown
    By choosing thus a kindlier plan;
  Then if but little good we’ve known,
    Let’s speak of all the good we can.

                                   --Anonymous.




[Illustration: WITH THE EDITOR]

  WITH THE EDITOR


There is no holiday which appeals so directly to the boy as does the
Fourth of July. Easter with its spirit of hopefulness, Thanksgiving
with its bounty of turkey, or even Christmas with all its cheer and
good will, does not, for some reason, reach the same depths of the boy
nature as does the boom and sizz of fire crackers. There is something
of the savage in him which delights in this almost barbaric method of
commemorating the courage of his forefathers; for the Fourth of July is
pre-eminently a day of courage.

Without doubt we all admire bravery, but, while we are honoring those
who so willingly exposed themselves to the bullet and bayonet, let us
not lose sight of that courage which, though silent, was in reality the
strength of the American Revolution--the courage born of conviction. It
was this spirit which spoke through Richard Henry Lee when he proposed
that the United Colonies, with a few poorly-armed troops, should
renounce their allegiance to the most powerful nation in the world. It
was this which prompted John Adams to second the movement in Congress,
and there, by his eloquence, to uphold it day after day in the face of
an opposition so strong that Jefferson compared it with the ceaseless
action of gravity.

The desire for independence was not bred of impulse. No one foresaw the
danger of thus defying England more clearly than those who cried out
for the separation. They knew that it would expose them, individually
and collectively, to all the penalties of treason. But they had become
convinced that it was right, and, to them, that fact was sufficient.

Seemingly there is something of elasticity in this moral courage which
leaps over obstacles before which mere physical courage would halt.
Under the warmth of this spirit, with the strength of Patrick Henry,
John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson behind it, the opposition slowly
melted away, until, on July 4, 1776, the entire body declared for the
Declaration.

The representatives of the thirteen colonies had assembled in the old
State House at Philadelphia. An anxious throng, from far and near, had
gathered about the rough brick walls, for within was being discussed
the momentous question of their liberties. Of a sudden, the ponderous
bell overhead awoke and sent its pealing echoes from river to river,
and at the same instant, as from one voice, a wild, excited cheer burst
forth from the crowd below, to be taken up in every city in the land.
Thus, in one of the darkest hours of their history, the colonies had
declared themselves independent of a nation which had considered them
all but conquered.

Now, when we celebrate the one-hundred-and-twenty-sixth anniversary
of our country’s birth, let us remember and honor those who made it
possible. There is still, and will ever be, a call for the same moral
courage which, in the face of such overpowering obstacles, built our
nation. Not only on the Fourth of July, but during every day of the
year, let us keep their example before us.




  EVENT AND COMMENT


  Seventeen-Year “Locust”

An occurrence sufficiently rare to awaken interest, which has taken
place during the past month, is the arrival of the seventeen-year
cicada, commonly, though improperly, termed locust.

These insects, which since the year 1885 have spent their entire lives
in the ground, have, during the past six weeks, appeared in great
numbers in various localities throughout the country.

In any of these areas, if we observe the ground closely, we will see
it dotted here and there with small holes. Through these the cicadas,
after living underground for seventeen years, have now made their way
to the surface. Here, with the shedding of the old shell, they take on
a pair of wings, and after a short but noisy life of perhaps six weeks,
they die. But in the meantime they have laid the eggs which insure a
future brood of cicadas.

The recording of the periodical visits of this insect dates as far back
as 1633, when, it is stated, that a swarm was observed by the Puritans
at the Plymouth Colony in Massachusetts.

For many years our knowledge of the cicada, because of its underground
habits, has been extremely limited, but at a comparatively recent
date the Biological Survey at Washington has made a series of careful
investigations, resulting in a very full history of the life and habits
of this curious insect.

       *       *       *       *       *

Among other facts relating to the cicada, brought out by the research,
is that, as is the case of many creatures of which we know little, the
damage done by it to agriculture has been greatly overestimated.


  The Boer War Ended

War in South Africa was formally brought to an end when, on May 31st,
the Boer delegates at Pretoria signed the documents containing the
terms of surrender.

The war began on October 11th, 1899, and has lasted two years seven
months and twenty-one days. It has cost England $1,200,000,000, besides
which they have suffered a loss of 21,966 killed and 75,000 prisoners
and wounded.

The estimated loss of the Boers is 19,000 lives and 40,000 captured.

The greatest force of troops which England had in the field at any one
time was 280,000, while estimates of the Boer army vary from 25,000 to
50,000.

       *       *       *       *       *

The terms of peace allowed to the Boers are, perhaps, the best ever
offered to a conquered people. Among its conditions are: Immunity
from war indemnity, the substitution of representative for military
administration, and a gift of fifteen millions of dollars for the
re-stocking of their farms.


  The Cuban Republic

On May 20th, Governor-General Wood, according to his instructions from
the President of the United States, turned over to President Palma and
his Congress the government and control of the island of Cuba.

During the impressive ceremony President Palma, amid the cheers of the
spectators, expressed his thanks to the Government of the United States
for the fulfillment of its pledges and its kindly services to the new
republic.

According to the _Boston Herald_, “the American flag was never more
highly honored than when it was hauled down by Governor-General Leonard
Wood from the Government building at Havana.”

       *       *       *       *       *

There is probably no parallel in history of this act of the United
States in which a nation, after having won so rich a territorial prize
in war, eventually turned it over to its people for free government.


  The New Trains

One of the most significant railway trials ever held in this or any
country was that recently made between New York and Chicago, by the
special train of the Pennsylvania Railroad and the “Twentieth Century”
of the New York Central.

Although the two trains went by widely separate routes, they covered
the required distance, over nine hundred miles, in the same time to the
minute--19 hours and 57 minutes.

This is three minutes less than the schedule time allowed, and is fully
three hours faster than any speed previously made over the same course.

       *       *       *       *       *

As these new trains are now regularly on the schedules of their
respective roads, the race will hereafter be an every-day occurrence,
and we may look forward even to the lowering of this record.


  Foreign Immigration

During the month of May the total number of immigrants arriving at New
York was between 85,000 and 90,000.

This exceeds any monthly record for the past twenty years. The majority
of the new arrivals were from Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Russia. In a
count of 51,000 immigrants it was found that 14,000 could neither read
nor write.

       *       *       *       *       *

Although at present this does not promise much for the standard of
American citizenship, we can reasonably hope that in time our system of
education will convert their descendants, at least, into very useful
citizens.




[Illustration: OUT OF DOORS]

  OUT OF DOORS


The great event at the recent intercollegiate athletic meeting held in
New York, was the hundred-yard run made by Duffy, Georgetown’s little
sprinter, who covered the distance in the remarkable time of 9 3-5
seconds. This has been a long-coveted speed among runners, and is very
likely to stand for some time as the world’s record.

The outcome of the meeting in points was as follows: Harvard, 34; Yale,
30; Princeton, 27.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the time of writing interest in the rowing world centers in the
regatta of the Inter-collegiate Rowing Association, to be held at
Poughkeepsie, on June 21. Here Cornell, Columbia, Pennsylvania,
Wisconsin, Georgetown, and Syracuse will enter eight-oar crews, in
addition to which the first three will make entry in the four-oar
contest. All but Georgetown will also participate in the Freshman race.

       *       *       *       *       *

Oarsmen in this country are interested in learning that the American
Henley has been decided upon as an annual feature in the rowing world.
This is the result of the meeting of the American Rowing Association,
which held its session in New York on May 10th.

The event will be held annually in July on the Schuylkill River, at
Philadelphia, and will be so arranged as not to interfere with the
schedules of the colleges, in order that each one may be able to enter
a crew.

       *       *       *       *       *

As the season of college base-ball draws to a close the facts indicate
that Harvard has had the best team in the field. Second to her, to the
surprise of many, comes the University of Illinois, who has defeated
Yale, Princeton, and Pennsylvania, and was only beaten by Harvard by a
score of 2 to 1.

Both Annapolis and West Point, considering the difficulties under which
they practice, have made such a good showing that we naturally look
forward to their taking a more prominent place on the diamond in future.

       *       *       *       *       *

In spite of the fact that polo is only locally well known in this
country, it has already taken a strong hold upon the people. An
evidence of this may be found in the American team which went over to
London to compete with the best English players. During their stay the
visitors will be royally entertained, and will remain in England to
observe the coronation.

Interest in the games has been increased because of the fact that they
will be attended by King Edward, who has always been an enthusiastic
supporter of the sport.




[Illustration: IN-DOORS]

  IN-DOORS

  PARLOR MAGIC
  By Ellis Stanyon

 The first of this series of papers on Magic, commencing with the March
 number, included directions to the beginner for Palming and the Pass.


Tricks with Handkerchiefs.--For the following experiments, you will
require three fifteen-inch silk handkerchiefs, an ordinary small
sliding match-box, a candle in a candlestick, and a conjuring wand;
also a false finger and a conjuring pistol, hereafter described.

       *       *       *       *       *

You prepare for the series of tricks by rolling up one of the
handkerchiefs very small and pushing it into the match-box, which you
open about one inch for the purpose; another is rolled up and placed
behind the collar on the left-hand side of the neck; and the last is
loaded into the false finger and placed in the right-hand trousers
pocket. You are now ready to commence.

       *       *       *       *       *

Handkerchief and Candle.--“Ladies and gentlemen, the following
experiment was suggested to me at the age of twelve, while studying
chemistry. I then learned that all matter was indestructible. Proof of
this, as you are well aware, is afforded with an ordinary candle. You
may light a candle at one end and let it burn to the other, but you
do not destroy the matter of which it is composed. What really takes
place is the formation of new substances, as hydrogen, carbon, water,
etc., which any of the text books on chemistry will explain. I will,
however, give you one striking illustration.”

Pick up the match-box and, while taking a match therefrom, push the
handkerchief into the right hand, and throw the box down on the table.
Take the candle from the candlestick and place it in the right hand,
which masks the presence of the handkerchief. You now appear to take
something from the flame of the candle with the left hand, which you
close as if it really contained an article. Open the hand slowly,
looking surprised to find that you have failed and remark: “Well,
really, I cannot understand this. I am generally successful with this
trick. Oh! I know what is the matter. You see, I am using the left
hand. If you do things left-handed they can’t possibly be right. I will
try the right hand.” Saying this, you place the candle in the left
hand and immediately produce the handkerchief from the flame, closing
the hand as before. It now only remains for you to open the hand and
develop the silk slowly.


To Fire a Handkerchief into a Gentleman’s Hair.--For the purpose of
this trick you will have to make use of what is known as a conjuring
pistol, which, being in constant use in magical surprises, I will
describe. It consists of an ordinary pistol fitted with a conical tin
tube eight inches long. The mouth of this tube is about two inches in
diameter, and is supplied with a tin cup one and one-half inches deep,
having its outer edge turned over all around so as to afford a ready
grip to the palm. The conical tube is fitted with an inner tube to keep
it firm on the barrel of the pistol (Fig. 10).

[Illustration: Fig. 10]

Taking up the pistol, you place the two handkerchiefs, which look like
one, in the cup; push them well down and remark: “I shall now fire
direct at the gentleman’s head, and after the shot the handkerchief
will be found firmly imbedded in his hair, and will, not unlikely, be
seen protruding from one of his ears. It just depends on the force of
the shot, you know, and I need hardly say I loaded the pistol myself,
and am totally ignorant of firearms. Are you ready, sir? Then good-by!”
Place the muzzle of the pistol in the left hand while you shake hands
with the gentleman. In taking the pistol back into the right hand
to fire it, you leave the cup behind in the left hand, and, at the
instant you pull the trigger, you drop it into the pocket on the left
side. When discharging the pistol you will, of course, stand with your
right side to the audience.

You now ask the gentleman to take the handkerchief from his hair,
telling him that it is just behind his left ear; and, while he is
trying to find it, you stand with your hands in your trousers pockets,
telling him to make haste, you cannot wait all evening. When he has
tried some time and failed to find it, you take your hands from your
pockets, having got the false finger into position between the second
and third fingers. Showing the hands back and front (the addition of
the extra finger will not be noticed), you pass them several times over
the head of the gentleman, then, lowering them to his head, you detach
the finger and draw out the handkerchief. The false finger is then laid
down on the table under cover of the handkerchief.

[Illustration: Fig. 11]

The finger is made of thin spun brass, painted flesh color. It is quite
hollow from tip to root, and is shaped for fitting between the second
and third fingers (Fig. 11). It can be used in many tricks, and is
really an indispensable accessory to the amateur magician.




[Illustration]

  THE OLD TRUNK


The following are the names of the winners of May puzzle contest:

  Harrie C. Knightly, Randolph, Mass.
  R. E. Williams, Bloomington, Ill.
  Leslie W. Quirk, 614 Jefferson St., Madison, Wis.

       *       *       *       *       *

Answers to June Puzzles.

1. Diamond, pearl, opal, topaz, ruby, amethyst.

2.        O
        A P T
      A L T A R
    O P T I C A L
      T A C I T
        R A T
          L

3. Dewey.

4. Systematic, phlegmatic, chromatic, acroamatic, diplomatic, pragmatic.

5. Rock-dock-lock-clock.

6.  S A L A D
    A L I C E
    L I V R E
    A C R I D
    D E E D S

7. “Practice makes perfect.”

8. Lance.

The first five perfect solutions were received from:--

Elizabeth Warren, Harry J. Sanford, Eleanor M. Lavine,
Mary Folsom Pierce, John L. Crawford.

       *       *       *       *       *

UNBOUNDED STATES.

The names of these states are mixed up. Can you straighten them?

  Nisniscow.
  Naidnai.
  Nitmanose.
  Nicolraaif.
  Nazoair.
  Naaiiousl.

  --Charles C. Lynde.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE MENAGERIE.

In the following paragraph there are the names of twenty
animals--spelled backwards.

It accidentally happens that the lumber now occasionally found in oil
regions every six or seven years is such that no Occidental country
produces. I am sure editors so agree. So omitting any explanation, I
merely state the fact. Tippoo-Tib bargains for all of it. Overflowing
with oil it is always in a bad muss. Oporto is the place to which it
is shipped. When it arrives whole machines are made from it, giving, I
presume, employment to many persons who are constantly on the go during
business hours, the parents and children working side by side. All
sorts of religionists there mix, Ebionites even being found among them,
who strive and fret to make converts to their faith, and they, as those
at the Po let names weigh more than deeds. I would not say this did I
know it to be false.

--R. E. Williams._

       *       *       *       *       *

DIAMOND.

1, a consonant; 2, a serpent; 3, juvenility; 4, consumed;
5, a consonant.

                                             --Lillian C----.

       *       *       *       *       *

A NOVEL ACROSTIC.

If the words indicated below be written one beneath another, the finals
will spell a national holiday, and the initial letters will form the
plural of something which is used on that day.

  A leaf of blank paper.
  A dye.
  A kind of ancient poetry.
  Part of the head.
  An animal.
  A fresh water fish.
  Likewise.
  A leader.
  A boy’s name spelled backwards.
  A large bird.
  A small brook.
  Cunning.

    --Katherine D. Salisbury.




[Illustration: WITH THE PUBLISHER]

  WITH THE PUBLISHER

  YOUTH
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  Earning Her Way                  By Mrs. Clarke Johnson
  Her College Days                 By Mrs. Clarke Johnson
  A Maid at King Alfred’s Court    By Lucy Foster Madison
  A Maid of the First Century      By Lucy Foster Madison
  A Yankee Girl in Old California  By Evelyn Raymond
  My Lady Barefoot                 By Evelyn Raymond
  Dorothy Day                      By Julie M. Lippmann
  Miss Wildfire                    By Julie M. Lippmann
  An Odd Little Lass               By Jessie E. Wright
  An Every-day Heroine             By Mary A. Denison
  Uncrowning a King                By Edward S. Ellis, A. M.
  At the Siege of Quebec           By James Otis
  In the Days of Washington        By William Murray Graydon
  On Woodcove Island               By Elbridge S. Brooks
  Under the Tamaracks              By Elbridge S. Brooks
  The Wreck of the Sea Lion.       By W. O. Stoddard
  The Young Financier              By W. O. Stoddard
  True to His Trust                By Edward S. Ellis, A. M.
  Comrades True                    By Edward S. Ellis, A. M.
  Among the Esquimaux              By Edward S. Ellis, A. M.
  The Campers Out                  By Edward S. Ellis, A. M.
  The Young Gold Seekers.          By Edward S. Ellis, A. M.
  Andy’s Ward                      By James Otis
  Chasing a Yacht                  By James Otis
  The Braganza Diamond             By James Otis
  The Lost Galleon                 By W. Bert Foster
  Exiled to Siberia                By William Murray Graydon
  The Lost Gold Mine               By Frank H. Converse
  A Cape Cod Boy                   By Sophie Swett
  Making His Mark                  By Horatio Alger, Jr.
  The Young Boatman                By Horatio Alger, Jr.
  The Odds Against Him             By Horatio Alger, Jr.




Transcriber’s Notes:

A number of typographical errors have been corrected silently.

Archaic spellings have been retained.

Irregular closing quotes were not modernized.

Page 191 number of 51,000 immigrants is unreliable as the “1” is unclear.

Spelling of “Seesame and Lilies” has been corrected to “Sesame and Lilies”.

Cover image is in the public domain.