YOUNG FOLKS MAGAZINE

  VOLUME 1      NUMBER 1

  1902 MARCH

  _An_ ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL _for_ BOYS & GIRLS

  The Penn Publishing Company   Philadelphia




  CONTENTS FOR MARCH


                                                                   PAGE
  WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE (Serial)  W. Bert Foster            1
    Illustrated by F. A. Carter

  AT THE BEND OF THE TRAIL                  Otis T. Merrill          11

  TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW (Verse)              Mackay                   13

  A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST (Serial)         Evelyn Raymond           14
    Illustrated by Ida Waugh

  MARCH (Poem)                              Bayard Taylor            22

  WOOD-FOLK TALK                            J. Allison Atwood        23
    Illustrated by the Author

  LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS (Serial)            Elizabeth Lincoln Gould  25
    Illustrated by Ida Waugh

  A RAMBLE IN EARLY SPRING                  Julia McNair Wright      31

  WITH THE EDITOR                                                    32

  EVENT AND COMMENT                                                  33

  IN-DOORS (Parlor Magic)                   Ellis Stanyon            34

  THE OLD TRUNK                                                      36

  WITH THE PUBLISHER                                                 37


  YOUNG FOLKS MAGAZINE
  _An Illustrated Monthly Journal for Boys and Girls_

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  Copyright 1902 by The Penn Publishing Company


  Young Folks Magazine

  VOL. I      MARCH 1902      No. 1




  WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE

  By W. Bert Foster


  CHAPTER I

 Unwelcome Guests at the Three Oaks Inn

All day the strident whistle of the locust had declared for a
continuation of the parching heat. The meadows lay brown under the
glare of the August sun; the roads were deep in powdery yellow dust.
The cattle stood with sweating flanks in the shade of the oaks which
bordered the stage track, and although the sun was now declining toward
the summits of the distant mountains, all nature continued in the
somnolence of a summer day.

A huddle of sheep under a wagon shed and the lolling form of a big
collie dog in the barnyard were the only signs of life about the Three
Oaks Inn. Mistress and maids, as well as the guests now sheltered by
its moss-grown roof, had retired to the cooler chambers, and Jonas
Benson, the portly landlord, snored loudly in his armchair in the hall.
Out of this hall, with its exposed beams of time-blackened oak and its
high fanlight over the entrance, opened the main room, its floor sanded
in an intricate pattern that very morning by one of the maids. Across
the hall was the closed door of the darkened parlor.

Had Jonas Benson been of a more wakeful mind this hot afternoon, it is
quite likely that this narrative would never have been written. But
he snored on while behind the closed door of the parlor were whispered
words which, had they reached the ears of the landlord of the Three
Oaks, would have put him instantly on the alert.

The year was 1777, a fateful one indeed for the American arms in the
struggle for liberty--a year of both blessing and misfortune for the
patriot cause. Within its twelve months the Continental army achieved
some notable victories; but it suffered, too, memorable defeats. It
was the year when human liberty seemed trembling in the balance, when
all nations--even France--stood aloof, waiting to see whether the
star of the American Colonies was setting or on the ascendant. The
British army, under Howe and Clinton, occupied New York. Washington
and his little force lay near Philadelphia, then the capital of the
newly-formed confederation. New Jersey--all the traveled ways between
the two armies--was disputed territory, disturbed continually by a sort
of guerilla warfare most hard for the peacefully-inclined farmers and
tradespeople to bear.

Spies of both sides in the great conflict infested the country:
foraging parties, like the rain, descended upon the just and the
unjust; and neighbors who had lived in harmony for years before the war
broke out, now were at daggers’ points. The Tories had grown confident
because of the many set-backs endured by the patriot forces. Many even
prophesied that, when Burgoyne’s army, then being gathered beyond the
Canadian border, should descend the valleys of upper New York and
finally join Howe and Clinton, the handful of Americans bearing arms
against the king would be fairly swept into the sea, or ground to
powder between the victorious British lines.

Jonas Benson was intensely patriotic, and the Three Oaks had given
shelter oft and again to scouts and foraging parties of the Continental
troops. The inn-keeper had given the pick of his horses to the army,
reserving few but such nags as were positively needed for the coach
which went down to Trenton at irregular intervals. There were more than
his staid coach horses in the stable on this afternoon, however, and
the fact was much to his distaste.

There had arrived at the Three Oaks the evening before a private
carriage drawn by a pair of handsome bays and driven by a most
solemn-faced Jehu, whose accent was redolent of Bow Bells. With the
carriage came a gentleman--a fierce, military-looking man, though
not in uniform--who rode a charger, which, so Jonas told his wife,
would have made a saint envious, providing the latter were a judge of
horseflesh. Inside the carriage rode a very pretty girl of sixteen or
seventeen, whose dress and appearance were much different from the
plain country lasses of that region.

“They’re surely gentle folk, Jonas,” Mistress Benson had declared. “The
sweet child is a little lady--see how proud she holds herself. Law!
it’s been a long day since we served real gentles here.”

Jonas snorted disdainfully; he suspected that at heart his good
wife had royalist tendencies. As for him, the American officers who
sometimes made the Three Oaks their headquarters for a few days were
fine enough folk. “I tell ye what, woman,” he said, “they may be great
folk or not; one thing I do know. They possess great influence or
they’d never gotten through the Britishers with them fine nags. And if
the outposts weren’t so far away, I’m blessed if I believe they’d get
away from here without our own lads having a shy at the horses.”

But the Bensons were too busy making their guests comfortable to
discuss them--or their horses--to any length. Colonel Creston Knowles
was the name the gentleman gave, and the girl was his daughter, Miss
Lillian. The driver of the carriage, who served the colonel as valet
as well, was called William, and a more stony-faced, unemotional
individual it had never been the fate of the Bensons to observe. It
was utterly impossible to draw from this servant a word regarding his
master’s business between the lines of the opposing armies.

These visitors were not desired by Jonas. He kept a public house, and,
for the sake of being at peace with everybody, his Tory neighbors
included, he treated all guests who came to the Three Oaks with
unfailing cordiality. But the presence of Colonel Knowles at this time
was bound to cause trouble.

The inn was on the road usually traversed by those in haste to reach
Philadelphia, where, while Washington’s army was posted nearby,
Congress held its session. Many a time in the dead of night there was
the rattle of hoofs on the road, as a breathless rider dashed up to
the door, and with a loud “Halloa” aroused the stable boy. Then in
a few moments, mounted afresh, he would hurry on into the darkness.
These dispatch-bearers of the American army knew they could trust mine
host of the Three Oaks, and that a ridable nag could always be found
somewhere in his stable.

The very night Colonel Knowles arrived at the tavern there was an
occurrence of this kind. And after the dispatch-bearer had gone, and
Jonas and Hadley Morris, the stable boy, stood in the paved yard
watching him disappear on the moonlit road, they saw a night-capped
head at the colonel’s window.

“We’ll have no peace, Had, while yon Britisher’s hereabout,” muttered
the old man.

“I wonder why he has come into this country, so far from New York?” was
the boy’s observation. “He can’t be upon military service, though he be
a colonel in his majesty’s army.”

“He’s here for no good, mark that, Had,” grumbled Jonas. “I’d rather
have no guests at the Three Oaks than men of his kidney.”

“His daughter is a pretty girl, and kindly spoken.”

“That may be--that may be,” testily. “You’re as shortsighted as my old
wife, Had. You’ll both let this Master Creston Knowles throw dust in
your eyes because he’s got a pretty daughter. Bah!”

And Jonas stumbled back to bed, leaving Hadley Morris to retire to his
couch on the loft floor of the stable.

But had these well-founded suspicions been to any purpose, the
inn-keeper surely would have remained awake on the afternoon our story
opens, instead of lolling, sound asleep, in his wide chair in the hall.
Behind the parlor door, not ten feet away from mine host of the Three
Oaks, Colonel Creston Knowles was conversing in a low tone with his
serving man.

“And you say it happened twice during the night, sirrah?” queried
the British officer, who spoke to everybody but his daughter with
sternness.

“Twice, hand it please ye, sir. Hi’m sure the stable was hopened once
hafter the time you was hup, sir, hand another ’orse taken hout. My
life! but Hi thought hit thieves hat first, sir--some o’ them murderin’
cowboys; but the young lad has tends to the ’orses seemed to know them
that came, hand they did not touch hour hanimals, sir.”

“It’s a regular nest of rebels!” exclaimed the colonel, his brow black
enough at the report. “Such places as this should be razed to the
earth. The spies who report to this Mr. Washington and his brother
rebels evidently have free course through the country. They even
exchange their steeds here--and Malcolm’s troop lying less than six
miles away this very day. William!”

“Yes, sir?”

The colonel beckoned him nearer and whispered an inaudible order in
the man’s ear. There was no change of expression upon the servant’s
countenance, and the command might have been welcome or distasteful as
far as an observer could have told. When the colonel ceased speaking,
William rose without a word and tiptoed cautiously to the door. On
pulling this ajar, however, the lusty snoring of Jonas Benson warned
him of the inn-keeper’s presence. He closed the door again, nodded to
the colonel, and vaulted through one of the open windows, thus making
his exit without disturbing the landlord.

But although everybody about the tavern itself seemed to be slumbering,
the colonel’s man found that he could not enter the stable without
being observed. As he came out of the glare of sunshine into the half
darkness of the wide threshing floor, the Englishman suddenly came upon
a figure standing between him and the narrow window at the further
end of the stable. It was the stable boy and he was just buckling the
saddle-girth upon a nervous little black mare whose bit was fastened to
a long halter hanging from one of the cross-beams.

Hadley Morris was a brawny youth for his age, which was seventeen. He
was by no means handsome, and few boys would be attractive-looking in
the clothing of a stable boy. Yet there was that in his carriage, in
the keenness of his eye, in the firm lines of his chin and lip, which
would have attracted a second glance from any thoughtful observer.
Hadley had been now more than a year at the Three Oaks Inn, ever since
it had become too unpleasant for him to longer remain with his uncle,
Ephraim Morris, a Tory farmer of the neighborhood. Hadley was legally
bound to Ephraim, better known, perhaps, as “Miser Morris,” and, of
course, was not permitted to join the patriot army as he had wished.
The youth might have broken away from his uncle altogether had he so
desired, but there were good reasons why he had not yet taken this
decisive step.

He had found it impossible to live longer under his uncle’s roof,
however, and therefore had gone to work for Jonas Benson; but he still
considered himself bound to his uncle, and Jonas grumblingly paid over
to the farmer the monthly wage which the boy faithfully earned. Hadley
found occasion oft and again to further the cause which in his soul he
espoused. It was he rather than the landlord who saw to it that the
fleetest horse in the stable was ready saddled against the expected
arrival of one of those dispatch-bearers whose coming and going had
disturbed Colonel Knowles the night before. As he now tightened the
girth of the mare’s trappings she danced about as though eager to be
footing it along the stage road toward the river.

Hadley was startled by the sudden appearance of the colonel’s servant
in the doorway of the barn.

“So you are riding hout, too?” observed the latter, going toward the
stalls occupied by his master’s thoroughbreds. “There’s a deal of going
back and forth ’ere, hit seems to me.”

“Oh, it’s nothing so lively as it was before the war broke out,” Hadley
explained, good-naturedly. “Then the coaches went out thrice a week to
Trenton, and one of the New York and Philadelphia stages always stopped
here, going and coming. Business is killed and the country is all but
dead now.”

William grunted as he backed out one of the carriage horses and threw
his master’s saddle upon it. “You’re going out yourself, I see.” Hadley
said, observing that the man did not saddle the colonel’s charger.

“Hi’ve got to give the beasts some hexercise if we’re goin’ ter lie
’ere day hafter day,” grumbled William, and swung himself quickly into
the saddle.

The boy went to the open door and watched him ride heavily away from
the inn, with a puzzled frown upon his brow. “He’s never going for
exercise such a hot afternoon as this,” muttered the youth. “There!
he’s put the horse on the gallop. He’s going somewhere a-purpose--and
he’s in haste. Will he take the turn to the Mills, I wonder, or keep
straight on for Trenton?”

The trees which shaded the road hid horse and rider, and leaving the
little mare dancing on the barn floor, Hadley ran hastily up the ladder
to the loft, and then by a second ladder reached the little cupola,
or ventilator, which Master Benson had built atop his barn. From this
point of vantage all the roads converging near the Three Oaks Inn could
be traced for several miles.

Behind the cluster of tall trees which gave the inn its name, a road
branched off toward the Mills. In a minute or less the watcher saw a
horseman dash along this road amid a cloud of dust.

“He’s bound for the Mills--and in a wonderful hurry. What was it Lafe
Holdness told us when he was along here the other day? Something about
a troop of British horse being at the Mills, I’ll be bound.” Then
he turned toward the east and looked carefully along the brown road
on which any person coming from the way of New York would naturally
travel. “Well, there’s nobody in sight yet. If that fellow means
mischief--Ah! but it’s six miles to the Mills and if he continues to
ride like that on this hot day the horse will be winded long before he
gets there.”

He went down the ladders, however, with anxious face, and during the
ensuing hour made many trips to the wide gateway which opened upon the
dusty road. There was not a sign of life, however, in either direction.

Meanwhile the tavern awakened to its ordinary life and bustle. The
last rays of the sun slanted over the mountain tops and the shadows
crept farther and farther across the meadows. The old collie arose
and stretched himself lazily, while the tinkle of sheep bells and the
heavier jangle which betrayed the approach of the cattle cut the warm
air sharply. Even a breeze arose and curled the road dust in little
spirals and rustled the oak leaves. Dusk was approaching to relieve
panting nature.

Jonas awoke with a start and came out upon the tavern porch to stretch
himself. He saw Hadley standing by the gateway and asked:

“Got the mare saddled, Had?”

“Yes, sir. She’s been standing on the barn floor for an hour. One of
the other horses has gone out, sir.”

“Heh? How’s that?” He tiptoed softly to the end of the porch so as to
be close above the boy. “Who’s been here?” he asked.

“Nobody. But the colonel’s man took one of those bays and started for
the Mills an hour ago.”

“I d’know as I like the sound of that,” muttered Jonas. “I wish these
folks warn’t here--that I do. They aint meanin’ no good--”

“Hush!” whispered Hadley, warningly.

From the wide tavern door there suddenly appeared the British colonel’s
daughter. She was indeed a pretty girl and her smile was infectious.
Even Jonas’ face cleared at sight of her and he hastened, as well as a
man of his portliness could, to set a chair for her.

“It is very beautiful here,” Miss Lillian said, “and so peaceful. I got
so tired in New York seeing soldiers everywhere and hearing about war.
It doesn’t seem as though anything ever happened here.”

“I b’lieve something’s goin’ to happen b’fore long, though,” the
landlord whispered anxiously to Hadley, and walked to the other end of
the porch, leaving the two young people together.

“It is usually very quiet about here,” Hadley said, trying to speak
easily to the guest. He was not at all used to girls, and Miss Lillian
was altogether out of his class. He felt himself rough and uncouth in
her presence. “But we see soldiers once in a while.”

“Our soldiers?” asked the girl, smiling.

“No--not British soldiers,” Hadley replied, slowly.

“Oh, you surely don’t call those ragamuffin colonists soldiers, do
you?” she asked, quickly.

A crimson flush spread from Hadley’s bronzed neck to his brow; but a
little smile followed and his eyes twinkled. “I don’t know what you’d
really call them; but they made your grenadiers fall back at Bunker
Hill.”

Miss Lillian bit her lip in anger; then, as she looked down into the
stable boy’s face her own countenance cleared and she laughed aloud.
“I don’t think I’ll quarrel with you,” she said. “You are a rebel, I
suppose, and I am an English girl. You don’t know what it means to be
born across the water, and--”

“Oh, yes I do. I was born in England myself,” Hadley returned. “My
mother brought me across when she came to keep house for Uncle Ephraim
Morris--”

“Who?” interposed Lillian, turning towards him again, with astonishment
in both voice and countenance.

“My mother.”

“No, no! I mean the man--your uncle. What is his name?”

“Ephraim Morris. He is a farmer back yonder,” and Hadley pointed over
his shoulder. “My name is Hadley Morris.”

Before Lillian could comment upon this, or explain her sudden interest
in his uncle’s name, both were startled by an exclamation from the
landlord at the other end of the porch.

“Had! Had!” he called. “He’s coming.”

Hadley left the gate at once and leaped into the road. Far down the
dusty highway there appeared a little balloon of dust, and the faint
ring of rapid hoofs reached their ears. Somebody was riding furiously
toward the inn from the east. Lillian rose to look, too, and in the
doorway appeared the military figure of her father. His face looked
very grim indeed as he gazed, as the others were doing, down the road.

The advancing horseman was less than a quarter of a mile away when, of
a sudden, there sounded a single pistol shot--then another and another.
It was a scattering volley, but at the first report those watching at
the inn could see the approaching horse fairly leap ahead under the
spur of its rider.

“Ha! the scoundrels are after him!” cried the inn-keeper, his fat face
paling.

The colonel’s countenance expressed sudden satisfaction. “Go into
the house, Lillian!” he commanded. “There will be trouble here in a
moment.” He brought out from under his coat tails as he spoke a huge
pistol such as was usually carried in saddle holsters at that day.

Hadley Morris, from the centre of the road, did not see the colonel’s
weapon. He only observed the approaching horseman in the cloud of dust,
and knew him to be a dispatch-bearer aiming to reach the ferry and
Washington’s headquarters beyond. In a moment there loomed up behind
him a group of pursuers riding neck and neck upon his trail. They were
British dragoons and the space between them and their prey was scarce a
hundred yards.


  CHAPTER II

  RELATING A WILD NIGHT RIDE

It did not take a very sharp eye to observe that the horse which
the messenger bestrode was laboring sorely, while his pursuers were
blessed with comparatively fresh mounts. The American had ridden long
and hard, and his steed was in no shape for such a spurt of speed as
it was put to now. The British had kept clear of this road for weeks,
because of the foraging parties from Philadelphia, and, doubtless, the
dispatch-bearer hoped to find at the Three Oaks those who would stand
him well in this emergency.

At least, there would be a fresh horse there, and perhaps a faithful
man or two to help beat off the dragoons until he could escape with
his precious charge. He had no thought that there was a still greater
danger ahead of him. The dragoons were lashing and spurring their
horses to the utmost; and now and again one took a potshot at him; but
there on the porch of the old inn stood Colonel Knowles, waiting with
all the calmness of a sportsman to bring the fleeing man to earth.

Young Hadley Morris did not notice the colonel; he had forgotten his
presence in his interest in the flight and pursuit. But Jonas Benson
saw his guest’s big pistol and realized the danger to the approaching
fugitive. Yet there seemed nothing he could do to avert the calamity.
He dared not openly attack the colonel, for whether the dispatch-bearer
escaped or no, the dragoons would be at the inn in a few moments, and,
there being no such force of Americans in the neighborhood, they might
wreak vengeance on him and his family. The old man was hard put to it,
indeed, in this emergency.

Not so Hadley, however. He was quick of thought and quite as brisk of
action. The charge of galloping horse was but a short distance away,
the American still a little in the lead, when the boy darted back to
the heavy barred gate which shut the yard from the road. The barrier
had been swung wide open and fastened with a loop of rope to a hook in
the side of the house. He slipped this fastening and stood ready to
shut the gate between the fugitive and his pursuers, and thus delay the
latter for a possible few moments.

If the dispatch-bearer got into the yard safely he could leap upon the
back of the black mare now standing impatiently on the barn floor,
and escape his pursuers through the fields and orchard back of the
outbuildings. No ordinary horse would be able to leap the high gate,
and Hadley did not believe the dragoons were overly well mounted. As
the dispatch-bearer dashed up, foam flying from his horse’s mouth and
the blood dripping from its flanks where the cruel spurs had done
their work, it looked to Colonel Knowles as though the American would
ride right by, and he raised his pistol in a deliberate intention of
bringing the man to earth.

But as he pulled the trigger old Jonas stumbled against him and the
ball went wide of its mark. The shot did much harm, however, for it
frightened the already maddened horse, which leaped to one side,
pitching the man completely over its head upon the paving of the yard.
The horse fell, too, but outside the gate, and Hadley was able to slam
the barrier and drop the bar into place before the dragoons arrived.

The explosion of the colonel’s pistol and that officer’s angry shout
warned Hadley of the added and closer danger. He darted to the side of
the fallen messenger. The poor fellow had struggled partly up and was
tearing at his coat. His face was covered with blood, for he was badly
injured by his fall; but one thought kept him conscious.

[Illustration: HE DARTED TOWARD THE FALLEN MESSENGER]

“The papers--the papers, lad!” he gasped. “For General
Washington--quick!”

But he had only half pulled the packet from his inner pocket when he
dropped back upon the flagstones, and, with a groan, lay still.

Hadley seized the precious packet and leaped to his feet. With a
clatter of hoofs and amid a cloud of dust the dragoons arrived at the
yard gate.

“There he is! He’s down--down!” shouted the leader. “We’ve got him
safe! Hi, there landlord! open your gate or we’ll batter it in!”

“They’ve got him safe, that’s a fact,” muttered Hadley, in distress.
“But--but they haven’t got the papers!”

He turned swiftly and ran toward the barn.

“There goes one of them running!” shouted a voice behind. Then a pistol
exploded and Hadley leaped forward as though the ball had stung him,
although it whistled far above his head.

“Look out for that boy!” he heard Colonel Knowles say, and, glancing
back, Hadley saw the officer leaning out of one of the windows which
overlooked the yard. At a neighboring casement the fleeing youth saw
Miss Lillian. Even at that distance, and in so perilous a moment,
Hadley noted that the girl’s face was very pale and that she watched
him with clasped hands and anxious countenance.

One of the dragoons had dismounted and now unbarred the gate. Before
Hadley reached the wide doorway of the great barn the soldiers were
trooping through into the yard.

“The boy has the papers--look after him, I tell you!” he heard the
colonel shout. Then Hadley pulled the great door shut and fastened it
securely on the inside. For an instant he could breathe.

But only for an instant. The dragoons were at the door then, beating
upon it with the hilts of their sabres and pistol-butts, demanding
entrance. Hadley had no weapon had he desired to defend the barn from
attack. And that would be a foolish attempt, indeed. It would be an
easy matter for the dragoons to break down the fences and surround the
barn so that he could not escape, and then beat in the door and capture
him--and with him the papers. He did not know how valuable those
documents might be; but the man now lying senseless in the inn yard had
saved them at the risk of his life; the boy felt it his duty to do as
much.

Colonel Knowles had now come out into the yard and taken command of the
attack. Evidently he was recognized by the British soldiers, despite
his civilian’s dress. He gave orders for a timber to be brought to beat
in the door, and Hadley likewise heard him send two of the soldiers
around the barn to watch the rear. If the boy would escape it must be
within the next few seconds.

He ran back to the rear of the building. Here was another wide door and
he flung it open. The soldiers had not appeared; but the doorsill was
a good eight feet and more from the ground. The barn had been built
on a hillside. Directly below the door was a pen in which hogs were
kept. Eight feet was a good drop, and besides it would be impossible to
escape the soldiers on foot.

A crash sounded at the front of the building. The men had brought up
the timber for a battering ram. The door would certainly be burst
inward before many moments. Hadley ran back to the waiting mare that
already seemed to share his own excitement. He freed her from the
halter and sprang into the saddle. He dared not try getting past his
enemies when the door fell and with a quick jerk of the rein he pulled
the mare around. She trotted swiftly to the rear door which the boy had
flung open; but when she saw the distance to the ground below, her ears
went back and she crouched.

“You’ve got to do it, Molly!” exclaimed the boy, desperately. He
reached to the stanchion at his right hand and seized a riding-whip
hanging there. As the mare continued to back, Hadley brought the lash
down again and again upon her quivering flank. The poor beast was not
used to such treatment, and in her rage and fright she forgot the
danger ahead and leaped straight out from the open stable door.

Hadley stood up in the stirrups when he felt her go. He knew where she
would land, and he believed the feat would be without danger; but he
was ready to kick out of the stirrups and save himself if the little
mare missed her footing.

Fortunately she landed just where her rider had planned. There was a
pile of straw and barn scrapings below the door, and from this Black
Molly rebounded as though from a mattress. She was not an instant
in recovering herself, and, still frightened by the sting of the
whip-lash, darted out through the orchard. Hadley flung away the whip,
and, leaning forward, hugged her neck so as not to be swept off by the
low branches of the apple trees.

There was a wild halloa behind him. The dragoons sent to cut off his
escape had arrived too late; but they emptied their pistols at the
black mare and her young rider.

“They won’t give up so easily,” Hadley muttered, not daring to look
around while still in the orchard. “That Colonel Knowles would rather
die than be outwitted by a boy. I’ll make right for the ferry, and
perhaps I may meet Holdness somewhere on the road. I can give the
papers up to him, and I know he’ll find some way of getting them to
General Washington.”

He pulled Black Molly’s head around and took a nearer slant for the
road. The mare was more easily managed now, and when he reached the
rail fence which divided the orchard from the highway his mount had
forgotten her fright and allowed him to stop and fling down a part
of the fence so that they could get through and down the bank into
the road. Looking back before descending the bank, Hadley saw several
horsemen streaming through the orchard behind him, and, more to be
feared than these, was the party leaving the inn yard and taking to
the very road out upon which he had come. At the head of this second
cavalcade rode Colonel Knowles himself on his great charger, and
Hadley’s heart sank. Black Molly was famed throughout the countryside
for her speed; but that great beast of the colonel’s--evidently brought
from across the sea, and a thoroughbred hunter--would be more than a
match for the little mare in a long chase.

“We must do our best, Molly,” cried the boy, slapping her side with his
palm and riding down into the dusty road. “You can keep ahead of them,
I know, for a short distance, and you must do your best now. It will
soon be too dark for them to see us--that’s a blessing.”

The little mare needed no spur or urging. She clattered along the
darkening road with head down and neck outstretched, Hadley riding with
a loose rein and letting her pick her own way over the track. He could
trust to her instinct more safely than to his own sight. The oaks cast
thick shadows across his path, and now the whole sky was turning a deep
indigo, dotted here and there with star points. There was no moon until
later, and he believed the darkness was more favorable to him than to
his pursuers.

He could hear the thunder of the hoofs behind him, however, and he
patted Molly’s neck encouragingly and talked to her as she ran. “Go it,
girl! you’ve got to go!” he said. “Just make your little feet fly.
Remember the times I’ve rubbed you down, and fed you, and taken you to
water. Just do your very prettiest, my girl, for it’s more than my life
you’ve got to save--it’s these papers, whatever they be.”

And the little mare seemed to understand what he said, for she strained
every effort for speed. She fairly skimmed over the ground, and for the
first mile or more the hoof-beats gained not at all upon them. Then, to
Hadley’s straining ears, it seemed as though the pursuit grew closer.
It was not a mob of hoof-beats which he heard, but the steady, unbroken
gallop of one horse. And it took little intuition for the boy to know
which this leading pursuer was. The great black charger, the colonel’s
mount, had left the dragoons behind, and its stride was now shortening
the distance rapidly between its master and himself.

“Oh, Molly, run--run!” gasped the boy, digging his heels into the
mare’s sides.

Molly was doing her best, but the sound of the black horse’s hoofs grew
louder. The road was not straight or Hadley might have looked back and
seen the colonel bearing down upon him. But the officer could doubtless
follow his prey by the sound of Molly’s feet, quite as accurately as
Hadley could estimate his speed. At this thought, and hoping to put his
pursuer at a disadvantage for the moment, the boy pulled the mare out
upon the level sward beside the road. There Black Molly pattered along
silently: but the boy could hear the thunder of pursuit growing louder
and louder.

Now that the clatter of his own mount’s hoofs were not in his ears,
Hadley was suddenly aware of a new sound cutting the night air. And it
was not from the rear, but from ahead--the loud complaint of ungreased
axles: a low, heavy wagon was coming slowly along the road.

“If it should be Holdness!” gasped the boy. “It sounds like his wagon.”

Around another turn in the crooked road they flashed and then the
creaking of the wheels was quite near. A great covered wagon loomed up
in the dusk, and Hadley uttered a cry of joy.

“Lafe! Lafe Holdness!” he shouted, while yet the wagon was some rods
away.

But the driver of the squeaking vehicle heard him, and there was a
flash of light as he rose up on the footboard and held the lantern
above his head.

“Hi, there! slow down or ye’ll run over me!” drawled a nasal voice.

“The British are after me--I’ve got dispatches!” shouted the boy,
reining in the mare beside the wagon.

“Had Morris, as I’m a livin’ sinner! What ye doin’ here?” Then the
driver cocked his head and listened to the thud of hoofs behind the
flying boy. “They’re arter ye close, lad--an’ Molly’s winded. Quick!
there’s naught but straw in here. It’s your best chance.”

The wagon was still creaking slowly along and Holdness did not stop his
team. He dropped the lantern and dodged back to the rear of the wagon.
There he quickly flung aside the end curtain and then returned to the
driver’s seat.

Hadley had ridden by, but the instant he saw the curtain raised he
wheeled Molly about and aimed her for the end of the huge wagon.
“Quick, girl! You’ve done it before,” muttered the boy, and the little
mare obeyed. The driver did not bring his wagon to a stop, but it was
moving very slowly. Molly had long since learned the trick expected of
her, and she trotted up to the rear of the vehicle, rose in the air,
and landed firmly on the straw-covered bottom.

“Draw the curtain, Had, ’n’ keep yer hand on her nose,” commanded
Holdness, the teamster, without turning his head.

Already the boy had ordered the little mare to lie down and she had
sunk upon the straw. He whipped down the curtain, fastened it, and then
lay down beside the mare with his hand upon her velvety nose, ready to
stifle any desire on her part to whinny when the pursuing horses should
arrive.

And they were here in a moment now. Colonel Knowles, on his great
charger, ahead, and the company of dragoons not many rods behind.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

[Illustration]




  AT THE BEND OF THE TRAIL

  By OTIS T. MERRILL


“Well, hurry back, boy. You’re rather green, you know, to be going out
alone.” The captain winked at Sergeant Mills as Tom Ray turned towards
his horse.

There had been no fighting as yet, and Tom was rather disappointed,
for, to tell the truth, it was love of adventure rather than patriotism
that had induced him to join the little squad of cavalry then
journeying through the heart of the Apache country. They had encamped
in the little valley of the Salt River, in Arizona. The land was dry
and parched. Even the hardy cactus was taking on a leathery hue.

To Tom it was a monotonous view--the yellow earth: that everlasting
Giant Cactus; and occasionally the tall, bleached form of a dead tree,
reaching its arms despairingly upward from the dearth of life below.

With some little impatience he urged the pony into a gallop. In an hour
he must be at the fork of the Salt to receive Custer’s dispatches.
Everybody had wondered why Tom Ray, the only one in the party who
had never heard an Indian war-whoop, should have been chosen for the
work. It was a case of eloquence. Tom pleaded, and the captain--who
wasn’t much afraid of Indians himself--forgot his military caution and
consented.

The first two miles of the journey lay back along their own trail to
the point where a long depression in the plain marked the bed of some
old river. From there he must turn sharp to the right and make for the
foot of the lone gray butte, about whose base wound the west branch of
the Salt. He had started early, and it was not yet four o’clock when
he reached the crossing of the low ground. He paused for a moment and
looked about him.

A large shadow rolled along the ground before him and caught his eye.
From overhead came the shrill cry of an eagle--the same bird who, in
spite of numerous rifle balls, had aroused the admiration of the whole
party on the previous day, by its mad swoops in their direction.

Tom cast a reluctant glance at the distant cottonwood and the huge pile
of sticks saddled in its crotch. The old egg-collecting instinct welled
up strongly within him, but he held the mustang’s head resolutely away.
In his mind he already pictured the impatience of the old scout at the
fork and, hardly daring to take a second look at the nest, he again
brought the little pony to a full gallop.

Cris Wood had been a bearer of government dispatches ever since the
thriving settlement of Hopkins’ Bend could boast of a telegraph wire.
His greeting for the “youngster,” as he termed Tom Ray, was that of an
old friend:--

“What have you been waiting for, t’ give the Indians a chance to scalp
me?”

Tom laughed as he looked at the scant fringe of gray beneath the rough,
worn hat.

“I guess they wouldn’t be paid for their trouble,” he answered, as he
took the well-handled dispatches from the old scout.

“No, not by me,” retorted the latter, grimly. “But, anyway, there’s
only one lot of Indians around, and they’re way over at the crossing,”
referring to a point on Tom’s return journey.

“All right,” responded Tom, amused at the scout’s time-honored attempt
to play on his nerves. “If I see them, I’ll give them the chase of
their lives.”

“You’ll be the front party, most likely, though.”

A few more courtesies were tossed freely from one to the other,
together with what little news had fallen in the way of both before
they parted.

Half an hour later, as the return road before him sank gently to the
lower ground, Tom’s eyes were again drawn instinctively to the tall
cottonwood. Though still distant, he could already see the watchful
eagle silhouetted from its topmost point. The sun was yet high--he
might as well have a look at the nest. With this Tom drew the horse’s
head in the direction of the great cottonwood.

The boy’s approach to the lofty tree was greatly resented by the pair
of golden eagles who had chosen it as a site for their home. A little
ball of cottony down showed itself over the side of the rude structure.
There was at least one eaglet, and Tom knew then that it would be with
no small danger to himself if he chose to investigate. Then there came
to him the misty recollection of the tame eagle which Jack Warren, one
of the cowboys, had brought into camp. With this bit of memory his
hesitation vanished.

The tree was bare and barked. Its lower branches had long since rotted
and now lay on the ground crumbling. Rough knots remained, however,
here and there, and by grasping these Tom was able to make the ascent.
The old birds whirled round the tree in giant spirals. First one and
then the other would suddenly swerve from the circle and sweep past the
boy’s head so close that he would involuntarily throw up his arm in
defence.

When Tom was about thirty feet from the ground all thought of the
infuriated birds was suddenly driven from his mind. At a distance of
perhaps one hundred yards stood an unusually thick clump of cactus.
In the midst of this, peering intently at him, was a dark, bronzed
face--that of an Apache Indian. A wave of terror swept over the boy,
and in his fright he imagined he could even discern the triumphant
expression upon the swarthy visage, as it sank behind the dark barrier.

Then all of a sudden he became cool. He looked for his horse. To his
dismay he discovered that the animal had wandered some little distance
from the tree. Then he realized his danger.

If he descended at once it would be to certain death. His only hope lay
in strategy.

Immediately he again began the struggle upward. All the suppressed
energy of the moment went into the grip of his hands as they took hold
of the rough knots. The eagles became more demonstrative, and more than
once the swish of a powerful wing caused him to duck his head. But of
this he was hardly conscious. When at length he bent over the nest,
under pretense of examining it, Tom’s eyes were in reality strained
in an attempt to locate the enemy. He never knew whether the nest
contained one or two eaglets.

His mustang and the Indian were about the same distance from the tree.
But how was he to reach the animal? A too sudden descent would arouse
suspicion. At length, with every nerve on edge for the trial to come,
he began to work his way down. The eagles, their courage increased with
apparent victory, gave even freer utterance to their rage, and their
shrieks as they swooped past his head rang in the boy’s ears for many
a day afterward. On a sudden thought, as if in mockery, he took up the
cries of the birds, imitating them by long, piercing whistles.

Presently the sound varied, yet to such a slight degree that a listener
might not have noted it. Tip, the pony, however, did seem to notice
it, and at each call would lift his head impatiently and look in the
direction of the tree. Finally, as if by a familiar impulse, he tossed
his head in air, and walked slowly toward the well-known call.

All the while Tom had kept his face in such a direction that the Indian
could not have left his ambush without being discovered. The pony was
now within twenty paces of the tree. By way of distracting the Indian’s
attention, the boy waved his hat and shouted to an imaginary comrade.

Then, fifteen feet from the ground, first throwing a quick glance
at his steed, Tom allowed himself to drop. As he did so the dreaded
war-whoop rang out from the distant clump. To his horror, an answering
call came from just ahead of him. Once on the ground, he darted toward
the horse. A cactus plant, which on ordinary occasions he would
have given a wide berth, brushed sharply against him, yet, in his
excitement, he hardly felt the pain it caused.

In the next instant he had swung into the saddle and wheeled the pony’s
head toward the camp. The first glance ahead, however, revealed the
supple body of an Indian half concealed by a cactus bush. There was
no choice. Striking his spurs into the pony, Tom dashed forward. The
Indian suddenly dropped his rifle and crouched beside a Giant Cactus.
As Tom and the mustang flew past he made a panther-like leap, and
throwing his arms about the boy, tried to drag him from the saddle.
Turning upon him, Tom seized the lithe arms and with all his strength
tried to throw the enemy from him. But the grip of the savage was like
that of a wild animal, and the boy’s most vigorous efforts failed to
break it.

While the Indian and boy were thus struggling, the mustang had made
good some one hundred yards, in spite of the double burden. Though
greatly excited, Tom thought of the six-shooter at his belt, but before
he could reach it a quick movement of the savage pinned his arms to
his side. The boy then worked his hand under the wiry arm which held a
strangling grip on his neck. As he did so, his eyes met a sight that
changed his purpose. He thought a moment of the savage clinging to him.
Then, with all his strength, he wrapped his arms around the Indian and
imprisoned him. The Indian was confused by the change of action, and,
like a wild animal, fought to release himself, for by this time he,
too, saw Sergeant Mills and three other approaching horsemen.

A party of soldiers, wondering at the boy’s delay, had ridden out from
the camp, and they were not a little surprised to see Tom galloping
toward them, carrying what to them was a very odd looking burden. When,
upon nearer approach, this object developed into a full-grown Apache
Indian, their astonishment knew no bounds, and they hastened forward,
lest the prisoner, in his fierce struggles, should escape them.

Ten minutes later, the Indian, bound hand and foot, was brought before
the captain, and at the same time Tom handed over the all-important
dispatches. As he did so, the boy’s spirits reacted from their strained
condition and his sense of humor asserted itself.

“Well, captain,” he said, “I knew that you didn’t want me to be out
alone, so I brought this Indian along, just to keep me company.”




  TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW


    If fortune, with a smiling face
      Strew roses on our way,
    When shall we stoop to pick them up?
      To-day, my friend, to-day.
    But should she frown with face of care,
      And talk of coming sorrow,
    When shall we grieve, if grieve we must?
      To-morrow, friend, to-morrow.

        --_Mackay_




  A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST

  By Evelyn Raymond


  CHAPTER I

  The Storm

“Margot! Margot!”

Mother Angelique’s anxious call rang out over the water, once,
twice, many times. But, though she shaded her brows with her hands
and strained her keen ears to listen, there was no one visible and
no response came back to her. So she climbed the hill again and,
reëntering the cabin, began to stir with almost vicious energy the
contents of a pot swinging in the wide fireplace. As she toiled she
muttered and wagged her gray head, with sage misgivings.

“For my soul! There is the ver’ bad hoorican’ will come, and the child
so heedless. But the signs, the omens! This same day I did fall asleep
at the knitting and waked a-smother. True, ’twas Meroude, the cat,
crouched on my breast; yet what sent her, save for a warning?”

Though even in her scolding, the woman smiled, recalling how Margot
had jeered at her superstition; and that when she had dropped her bit
of looking-glass the girl had merrily congratulated her on the fact;
since by so doing, she had secured “two mirrors in which to behold such
loveliness!”

“No, no; not so. Death lurks in a broken glass; or, at the best, must
follow seven full years of bad luck and sorrow.”

On which had come the instant reproof:

“Silly Angelique! When there is no such thing as luck, but all is of
the will of God.”

The old nurse had frowned. The maid was too wise for her years. She
talked too much with the master. It was not good for women-kind to
listen to grave speech or plague their heads with graver books. Books,
indeed, were for priests and doctors; and, maybe, now and then, for men
who could not live without them, like Master Hugh. She, Angelique, had
never read a book in all her life. She never meant to do so. She had
not even learned a single letter printed in their foolish pages--not
she. Yet was not she a most excellent cook and seamstress? Was there
any cabin in all that northland as tidy as that she ruled? Would
matters have been the better had she bothered her poor brain with
books? She knew her duty and she did it. What more could mortal?

This argument had been early in the day--a day on which the master
had gone away to the mainland and the house mistress had improved by
giving the house an extra cleaning. To escape the soapsuds and the
loneliness, Margot had also gone, alone and unquestioned; taking with
her a luncheon of brown bread and cold fowl, her book and microscope.
Angelique had watched the little canoe push off from the shore, without
regret, since now she could work unhindered at clearing the room of the
“rubbishy specimens” which the others had brought in to mess the place.

Now, at supper time, perfect order reigned, and perfect quiet, as well;
save for the purring of Meroude upon the hearth and the simmering of
the kettle. Angelique wiped her face with her apron.

“The great heat, and May but young yet. It means trouble. I wish--”

Suddenly the cat waked from her sleep, and, with a sharp “meouw,”
leaped to her mistress’s shoulder; who screamed, dropped the ladle,
splashed the stew, and boxed the animal’s ears--all within a few
seconds. Her nerves were already tingling from the electricity in the
air, and her anxiety returned with such force that, again swinging the
crane around away from the fire, she hurried to the beach.

To one so weather-wise, the unusual heat, the leaden sky, and the
intense hush were ominous. There was not a breath of wind stirring,
apparently, yet the surface of the lake was already dotted by tiny
white-caps, racing and chasing shoreward, like live creatures at
play. Not many times, even in her long life in that solitude, had
Angelique Ricord seen just that curious coloring of cloud and water,
and she recalled these with a shudder. The child she loved was strong
and skillful, but what would that avail? Her thin face darkened, its
features sharpened, and, making a trumpet of her hands, she put all her
force into a long, terrified halloo.

“Ah-ho-a-ah! Margot--Mar-g-o-t--Margot!”

Something clutched her shoulder, and with another frightened scream,
the woman turned, to confront her master.

“Is the child away?”

“Yes, yes; I know not where.”

“Since when?”

“It seems but an hour, maybe two--three--and she was here, laughing,
singing, all as ever. Though it was before the mid-day, and she went in
her canoe, still singing.”

“Which way?”

She pointed due east, but now into a gloom that was impenetrable. On
the instant the lapping wavelets became breakers, the wind rose to a
deafening shriek, throwing Angelique to the ground, and causing even
the strong man to reel before it. As soon as he could right himself,
he lifted her in his arms and staggered up the slope. Rather, he was
almost blown up it and through the open door into the cabin, about
which the furnishings were flying wildly. Here the woman recovered
herself and lent her aid in closing the door against the tempest, a
task that, for a time, seemed impossible. Her next thought was for her
dinner-pot, now swaying in the fireplace, up which the draught was
roaring furiously. Once the precious stew was in a sheltered corner,
her courage failed again, and she sank down beside it, moaning and
wringing her hands.

“It is the end of the world!”

“Angelique!”

Her wails ceased. That was a tone of voice she had never disobeyed in
all her fifteen years of service.

“Yes, Master Hugh?”

“Spread some blankets. Brew some herb tea. Get out a change of dry
clothing. Make everything ready against I bring Margot in.”

She watched him hurrying about, securing all the windows, piling wood
on the coals, straightening the disordered furniture, fastening a
bundle of kindlings to his own shoulders, putting matches in the pocket
of his closely-buttoned coat, and she caught something of his spirit.
After all, it was a relief to be doing something, even though the roar
of the tempest and the incessant flashes of lightning turned her sick
with fear. But it was all too short a task; and when, at last, her
master climbed outward through a sheltered rear window, closing it
behind him, her temporary courage sank again.

“The broken glass! the broken glass! Yet who would dream it is my
darling’s bright young life must pay for that and not mine, the old and
careworn? Ouch! the blast! That bolt struck--and near! Ah, me! Ah, me!”

Meroude rubbed pleadingly against her arm, and, glad of any living
companionship, she put out her hand to touch him; but drew it back in
dread, for his sur-charged fur sparkled and set her flesh a-tingle,
while the whole room grew luminous with an uncanny radiance. Feeling
that her own last hour had come, poor Angelique crouched still lower in
her corner and began to say her prayers with so much earnestness that
she became almost oblivious to the tornado without.

Meanwhile, by stooping and clinging to whatever support offered, Hugh
Dutton made his slow way beachward. But the bushes uprooted in his
clasp and the bowlders slipped by him on this new torrent rushing to
the lake. Then he flung himself face downward and cautiously crawled
toward the Point of Rocks whereon he meant to make his beacon fire.

“She will see it and steer by it,” he reflected; for he would not
acknowledge how hopeless would be any human steering under such a
stress.

Alas! the beacon would not light. The wind had turned icy cold and
the rain changed to hail which hurled itself upon the tiny blaze and
stifled its first breath. A sort of desperate patience fell on the man,
and he began again, with utmost care, to build and shelter his little
stock of firewood. Match after match he struck, and with unvarying
failure, till all were gone; and realizing at last how chilled and
rigid he was growing, he struggled to his feet and set them into motion.

Then there came a momentary lull in the storm and he shouted aloud, as
Angelique had done:

“Margot! Little Margot! Margot!”

Another gust swept over the lake and island. He could hear the great
trees falling in the forest, the bang, bang, bang, of the deafening
thunder, as, blinded by lightning and overcome by exhaustion, he sank
down behind the pile of rocks and knew no more.


  CHAPTER II

  SPIRIT OR MORTAL?

The end of that great storm was almost as sudden as its beginning.

Aroused by the silence that succeeded the uproar, Angelique stood up
and rubbed her limbs, stiff with long kneeling. The fire had gone out.
Meroude was asleep on the blankets spread for Margot, who had not
returned, nor the master. As for that matter, the house mistress had
not expected that they ever would.

“There is nothin’ left. I am alone. It was the glass. Ah! that the
palsy had seized my unlucky hand before I took it from its shelf! How
still it is. How clear, too, is my darling’s laugh--it rings through
the room--it is a ghost. It will haunt me always, always.”

Unable longer to bear the indoor silence, which her fancy filled with
familiar sounds, she unbarred the heavy door and stepped out.

“Ah! is it possible--can the sun be setting that way--as if there had
been nothin’ happen?”

Wrecks strewed the open ground about the cabin, poultry coops were
washed away, the cow-shed was a heap of ruins, into which the trembling
observer dared not peer. That Snowfoot should be dead was a calamity
but second only to the loss of master and nursling.

“Ah! my beast, my beauty. The best in all this northern Maine. That the
master bought and brought in the big canoe for an Easter gift to his so
faithful Angelique. And yet the sun sets as red and calm as if all were
the same as ever.”

It was, indeed, a scene of grandeur. The storm, in passing northward,
had left scattered banks of clouds, now colored most brilliantly by
the setting sun and widely reflected on the once more placid lake. But
neither the beauty nor the sweet, rain-washed air, appealed to the
distracted islander, who faced the west and shook her hand in impotent
rage toward it.

“Shine, will you? With the harm all done and nothin’ left but me, old
Angelique. Pouf! I turn my back on you!”

Then she ran shoreward with all speed, dreading what she might find,
yet eager to know the worst, if there it might be learned. With her
apron over her head, she saw only what lay straight before her, and so
passed the Point of Rocks without observing her master lying behind it.
But a few steps further she paused, arrested by a sight which turned
her numb with superstitious terror. What was that coming over the
water? A ghost! a spirit!

Did spirits paddle canoes and sing as this one was singing?

  “The boatman’s song is borne along far over the water so blue,
  And, loud and clear, the voice we hear of the boatman so honest and true;
  He’s rowing, rowing, rowing along,
    He’s rowing, rowing, rowing along--
      He’s rowing and singing his song.”

The subsiding wind wafted to her ears snatches of the jolly little
ballad, in which one could catch the very rhythm and dip of oar or
paddle. Still it was as well to wait and see if this were flesh or
apparition before pronouncing judgment.

It was certainly a canoe, snowy white and most familiar--so familiar
that the watcher began to lose her first terror. A girl knelt in it,
Indian-fashion, gracefully and evenly dipping her paddle to the melody
of her lips. Her bare head was thrown back and her fair hair floated
loose. Her face was lighted by the western glow, on which she fixed
her eyes with such intentness that she did not perceive the woman who
awaited her with such mixed emotions.

[Illustration: A GIRL KNELT IN THE CANOE, INDIAN-FASHION]

But Tom saw. Tom, the eagle, perched in the bow, keen of vision and of
prejudice. Between him and old Angelique was a grudge of long standing.
Whenever they met, even after a brief separation, he expressed his
feelings by his hoarsest screech. He did so now, and, by so doing,
recalled Margot from sky-gazing and his enemy from doubt.

“Ah, Angelique! Watching for me? How kind of you. Hush, Tom; let her
alone; good Angelique, poor Angelique.”

The eagle flapped his wings with a melancholy disdain and plunged his
beak in his breast. The old woman on the beach was not worth minding,
after all, by a monarch of the sky--as he would be but for his broken
wing--but the girl was worth everything, even his obedience.

She laughed at his sulkiness, plying her paddle the faster, and soon
reached the pebbly beach, where she sprang out, and, drawing her canoe
out of the water, swept her old nurse a courtesy.

“Home again, mother, and hungry for my supper.”

“Supper, indeed! Breakin’ my heart with your run-about ways! and the
hoorican, with ever’thin’ ruined; ever’thin’! The master--where’s
he, I know not. The great pine broken like a match; the coops, the
cow-house, and Snowfoot--Ah, me! yet the little one talks of supper!”

Margot looked about her in astonishment, scarcely noticing the other’s
words. The devastation of her beloved home was evident, even down on
the open beach, and she dared not think what it might be further inland.

“Why, it must have been a cyclone! We were reading about them only
yesterday. And Uncle Hugh--did you say that you knew--where is he?”

Angelique shook her head.

“Can I tell anythin’, me? Into the storm he went and out of it he will
come alive, as you have--if the good Lord wills,” she added, reverently.

The girl sprang to the woman’s side, and caught her arm impatiently.

“Tell me, quick! Where is he? where did you last see him?”

“Goin’ into the hoorican, with wood upon his shoulder. To make a beacon
for you. So I guess. But you--tell how you come out alive of all
that?”--sweeping her arm over the outlook.

Margot did not stop to answer, but darted toward the Point of Rocks,
where, if anywhere, she knew her guardian would have tried his signal
fire. In a moment she found him.

“Angelique! Angelique! he’s here! Quick, quick!--He’s--oh! is he dead?
is he dead?”

There was both French and Indian blood in Mother Ricord’s veins, a
passionate loyalty in her heart, and the suppleness of youth still in
her spare frame. With a dash she was at the girl’s side and had thrust
her away, to kneel herself and lift her master’s head from its hard
pillow of rock.

With swift, nervous motions she unfastened his coat and bent her ear to
his breast.

“’Tis only a faint--maybe shock. In all the world was only Margot,
and Margot he believed was lost. Ugh! the hail. See, it is still
here--look! water, and--yes, the tea! It was for you--ah!”

Her words ended with a sigh of satisfaction as a slight motion stirred
the features into which she peered so earnestly, and she raised her
master’s head a bit higher. Then his eyes slowly opened and the dazed
look gradually gave place to a normal expression.

“Why, Margot! Angelique! What’s happened?”

“Oh! Uncle Hugh! are you hurt? are you ill? I found you here behind the
rocks, and Angelique says--but I wasn’t hurt at all. I wasn’t out in
any storm--I didn’t know there had been one, that is, worth minding,
till I came home--”

“Like a ghost out of the lake. She was not even dead--not she. And she
was singin’ fit to burst her throat while you were--well, maybe, not
dead, yourself, but, near it.”

At this juncture, Tom, the inquisitive, thrust his white head forward
into the midst of the group, and, in her relief from her first fear,
Margot laughed aloud.

“Don’t, Tom! You’re one of the family, of course, and since none of the
rest of us will die, to please that broken mirror, you may have to!
Especially, if there’s a new brood out--”

But here Angelique threw up her free hand with such a gesture of
despair that Margot said no more, and her face sobered again,
remembering that, even though they were all still alive, there might
be suffering untold among her humbler woodland friends. Then, as Mr.
Dutton rose, almost unaided, a fresh regret came:

“That there should be a cyclone right here at home, and I not to see
it! See! look! Uncle, look! you can trace its very path, just as we
read. Away to the south there is no sign of it, nor on the northeast.
It must have swept up to us out of the southeast and taken our island
in its track. Oh! I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

The man rested his hand upon her shoulder and turned her gently
homeward. His weakness had left him as it had come upon him, with
a suddenness like that of the recent tempest. It was not the first
seizure of the kind which he had had, though neither of these others
knew it, and the fact added a deeper gravity to his always thoughtful
manner.

“I am most thankful that you were not here; but where could you have
been to escape it?”

“All day in the long cave. To the very end of it, I believe, and see!
I found these. They are like the specimens you brought the other day.
They must be some rich metal.”

“In the long cave, you? Alone? all day? Margot, Margot, is not the
glass enough? but you must tempt worse luck by goin’ there!” cried
Angelique, who had preceded the others on the path, but now faced
about, trembling indignantly. What foolish creature was this who
would pass a whole day in that haunted spot, in spite of the dreadful
tales that had been told of it? “Pouf! but I wear out my old brain
everlastin’, studying the charms that will save you from evil. And
yet--”

“You would do well to use some of your charms on Tom, yonder. He’s
found an over-turned coop and looks too happy to be out of mischief.”

The woman wheeled again and was off up the slope like a flash, where
presently the king of birds was treated to the indignity of a sound
boxing, which he resented with squawks and screeches, but not with
talons, since under each foot he held the plump body of a fat chicken.

“Tom thinks a bird in the hand is worth a score of cuffs! and
Angelique’s so determined to have somebody die--I hope it won’t be he.
A pity, though, that harm should have happened to her own pets. Hark!
what is that?”

“Some poor woodland creature in distress. The storm--”

“That’s no sound belonging to the forest. But it is--distress!”


  CHAPTER III

  AN ESTRAY FROM CIVILIZATION

They paused by the cabin door, left open by Angelique, and listened
intently. She, too, had caught the alien sound, the faint, appealing
halloo of a human voice--the rarest of all cries in that wilderness.
Even the eagle’s screeches could not drown it, but she had had enough
of anxieties for one day. Let other people look out for themselves;
her precious ones should not stir afield again--no, not for anything.
Let the evil bird devour the dead chickens, if he must, her place was
in the cabin, and she rushed back down the slope, fairly forcing the
others inward from the threshold where they hesitated.

“’Tis a loon. You should know that, I think, and that they’re always
cryin’ fit to scare the dead. Come! The supper’s waitin’ this long
time.”

With a smile that disarmed offense, Margot caught the woman’s shoulder
and lightly swung her aside out of the way.

“Eat, then, hungry one! I, too, am hungry, but--hark!”

The cry came again, prolonged, entreating, not to be confounded with
that of any forest wildling.

“It’s from the north end of our own island!”

The master’s ear was not less keen than the girl’s, and both had the
acuteness of an Indian’s, but his judgment was better.

“From the mainland, across the narrows.”

Neither delayed, and a mutual impulse sent them toward the shore, but
again Angelique interposed.

“Thoughtless child, have you no sense? With the master just out of a
faint that was nigh death itself! With nothin’ in his poor stomach
since the mornin’, and your own as empty. Wait; eat; then chase loons,
if you will.”

Mr. Dutton laughed, though he also frowned, and cast a swift, anxious
glance toward Margot. But she was intent upon nothing save answering
that far-off cry.

“Which canoe, uncle?”

“Mine.”

The devoted servant made a last protest, and caught the girl’s arm as
it pushed the light craft downward into the water.

“Ma petite, he is not fit. Believe me. Better leave others to their
fate than that he should overtax himself again, so soon.”

Margot was astonished. In all her life she had never before associated
thought of physical weakness with her stalwart guardian, and a sharp
fear of some unknown trouble shot through her heart.

“What do you mean?”

The master had reached them, and now laid his own hand upon Angelique’s
detaining one.

“There, woman, that’s enough. The storm has shaken your nerves. If
you’re afraid to stay alone, Margot shall stop with you. But let’s have
no more nonsense.”

Mother Ricord stepped back--away. She had done her best. Let come what
might, her conscience was clear.

A few seconds later the canoe pushed off over the now darkening water,
and its inmates made all speed toward that point from which the cry had
been heard, but was heard no more. However, the steersman followed a
perfectly direct course, and if he were still weak from his seizure,
his movements showed no signs of it, so that Margot’s fear for him was
lost in the interest of their present adventure. She rhymed her own
stroke to her uncle’s, and when he rested, her paddle instantly stopped.

“Halloo! hal-l-oo!” he shouted, but as no answer came, said: “Now--both
together.”

The girl’s shriller treble may have had further carrying power than the
man’s voice, for there was promptly returned to them an echoing halloo,
coming apparently from a great distance. But it was repeated at close
intervals, and each time with more distinctness.

“We’ll beach the boat just yonder, under that tamarack. Whoever it is
has heard and is coming back.”

Margot’s impatience broke bounds, and she darted forward among the
trees, shouting: “This way! this way! here we are--here!” Her peculiar
life and training had made her absolutely fearless, and she would have
been surprised by her guardian’s command to “Wait!” had she heard it,
which she did not. Also, she knew the forest as other girls know their
city streets, and the dimness was no hindrance to her nimble feet. In
a brief time she caught the crashing of boughs, as some person, less
familiar than she, blundered through the underbrush and finally came
into view where a break in the timber gave a faint light.

“Here! here! this way!”

He staggered and held out his hands, as if for aid, and Margot clasped
them firmly. They were cold and tremulous. They were, also, slender
and smooth, not at all like the hands of any men whom she was used to
seeing. At the relief of her touch, his strength left him, but she
caught his murmured “Thank God! I--had--given up--”

His voice, too, was different from any she knew, save her uncle’s. This
was somebody, then, from that outside world of which she dreamed so
much and knew so little. It was like a fairy tale come true.

“Are you ill? There; lean on me. Don’t fear. Oh! I’m strong, very
strong, and uncle is just yonder, coming this way. Uncle--uncle!”

The stranger was almost past speech. Mr. Dutton recognized that at
once and added his support to Margot’s. Between them they half led,
half carried the wanderer to the canoe and lifted him into it, where
he sank exhausted. Then they dipped their paddles and the boat shot
homeward, racing with death. Angelique was still on the beach and
still complaining of their foolhardiness, but one word from her master
silenced that.

“Lend a hand, woman! Here’s something real to worry about. Margot, go
ahead and get the lights.”

As the girl sprang from it, the housekeeper pulled the boat to a spot
above the water, and, stooping, lifted a generous share of the burden
it contained.

It had not been a loon, then. No. Well, she had known that from the
beginning, just as she had known that her beloved master was in no
condition to go man-hunting. This one he had found was, probably, dead,
any way. Of course. Somebody had to die--beyond chickens and such--had
not the broken glass so said?

Even in the twilight, Mr. Dutton could detect the grim satisfaction
on her face, and smiled, foreseeing her change of expression when this
seemingly lifeless guest should revive.

They laid him on the lounge that had been spread with blankets for
Margot, and she was already beside it, waiting to administer the herb
tea which had, also, been prepared for herself, and which she had
marveled to find so opportunely prepared.

Mr. Dutton smiled again. In her simplicity the girl did not dream that
the now bitter decoction was not a common restorative outside their
primitive life, and in all good faith forced a spoonful of it between
the closed lips.

“After all, it doesn’t matter. The poor fellow is, doubtless, used to
richer cordials, but it’s hot and strong and will do the work. You,
Angelique, make us a pot of your best coffee, and swing round that
dinner-pot. The man is almost starved, and I’m on the road to follow
him. How about you, Margot?”

“I? Oh!--I guess I’m hungry--I will be--see! He’s swallowing it--fast.
Give me that bigger spoon, Angel--quick!”

“What would you? Scald the creature’s throat? So he isn’t dead, after
all. Well, he needn’t have made a body think so, he needn’t. There,
Margot! you’ve messed him with the black stuff!”

Indignantly brushing the child aside, the woman seized the cup and
deftly administered its entire contents. The stranger had not yet
opened his eyes, but accepted the warm liquid mechanically, and his
nurse hurried to fill a bowl with the broth of the stew in the kettle.
This, in turn, was taken from her by Margot, who jealously exclaimed:

“He’s mine. I heard him first. I found him first; let me be the first
he sees. Dish up the supper, please, and set my uncle’s place.”

So, when a moment later, having been nearly choked by the more
substantial food forced into his mouth, the guest opened his eyes, they
beheld the eager face of a brown-skinned, fair-haired girl very close
to his and heard her joyous cry:

“He sees me! he sees everything! he’s getting well already!”

He had never seen anybody like her. Her hair was as abundant as a
mantle and rippled over her shoulders like spun gold. So it looked in
the lamplight. In fact, it had never been bound nor covered, and what
in a different social condition might have been much darker, had in
this outdoor life become bleached almost white. The weather which had
whitened the hair had tanned the skin to bronze, making the blue eyes
more vivid by contrast and the red lips redder. These were smiling now,
over well-kept teeth, and there was about the whole bearing of the maid
something suggestive of the woodland in which she had been reared.

Purity, honesty, freedom--all spoke in every motion and tone, and, to
this observer, at least, seemed better than any beauty. Presently, he
was able to push her too-willing hand gently away and to say:

“Not quite so fast, please.”

“Oh, uncle! hear him? He talks just as you do! Not a bit like Pierre,
or Joe, or the rest.”

Mr. Dutton came forward, smiling and remonstrating.

“My dear, our new friend will think you quite rude, if you discuss him
before his face so frankly. But, sir, I assure you she means nothing
but delight at your recovery. We are all most thankful that you are
here and safe. There, Margot; let the gentleman rest a few minutes.
Then a cup of coffee may be better than the stew. Were you long without
food, friend?”

The stranger tried to answer, but the effort tired him, and with a
beckoning nod to the young nurse, the woodlander led the way back to
the table and their own delayed supper. Both needed it and both ate it
rather hastily, much to the disgust of Angelique, who felt that her
skill was wasted; but one was anxious to be off out-of-doors to learn
the damage left by the storm, and the other to be back on her stool
beside the lounge. When Mr. Dutton rose, the housekeeper left her own
seat.

“I’ll fetch the lantern, master. But that’s the last of Snowfoot’s
good milk you’ll ever drink,” she sighed, touching the pitcher, sadly.

“What! is anything wrong with her?”

“The cow-house is in ruins; so are the poultry coops. What with falling
ill yourself just at the worst time and fetchin’ home other sick folks,
we might all go to wrack and nobody the better.”

The familiar grumbling provoked only a smile from the master, who would
readily have staked his life on the woman’s devotion to “her people,”
and knew that the apparent crossness was not that in reality.

“Fie, good Angelique! You are never so happy as when you’re miserable.
Come on; nothing must suffer if we can prevent. Take care of our guest
Margot; but give him his nourishment slowly at intervals. I’ll get some
tools, and join you at the shed, Angelique.”

He went out and the housekeeper followed with the lantern, not needed
in the moonlight, but possibly of use at the fallen cow-house.

They were long gone. The stranger dozed, waked, ate, and dozed again.
Margot, accustomed to early hours, also slept soundly, till a fearful
shriek roused her. Her patient was wildly kicking and striking at
some hideous monster which had settled on his chest and would not be
displaced.

“He’s killing me! Help--help! Oh--a--ah!”


[TO BE CONTINUED]




    MARCH


    With rushing winds and gloomy skies
    The dark and stubborn Winter dies;
    Far-off, unseen, Spring faintly cries,
    Bidding her earliest child arise:
                                       March!

    By streams still held in icy snare,
    On southern hillsides, melting bare,
    O’er fields that motley colors wear,
    That summons fills the changeful air:
                                       March!

    What though conflicting seasons make
    Thy days their field, they woo or shake
    The sleeping lids of Life awake,
    And hope is stronger for thy sake,
                                       March!

    _Bayard Taylor_




  WOOD-FOLK TALK

  By J. ALLISON ATWOOD


  THE CROW

What does the crow say? The syllable “caw” repeated several times? I
thought you would say that. A tradition is hard to break; but just
listen for yourself sometime, and you will be convinced that the crow
has been sadly misunderstood. It is “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk,” just as plainly
as one could wish.

Of course, you wonder why one bird should spend all his time calling
out the name of another. Well, that’s just what I want to tell you
about.

It was a long time ago--before any white people had invaded Birdland.
The year had been unusually mild and all the birds had returned from
the south where they spent the winter. So great was the rejoicing
because of the early season that the king had sent invitations far and
wide to a spring reception.

Then what an excitement! For weeks nothing was discussed but the
reception and new spring plumages.

When the day arrived, birds from tree-top and meadow came by the
score--waders, climbers, perchers--in fact, all kinds under the
sun. The table, which, by the way, very closely resembled the
ground, was festooned and hung with arbutus. Before each guest was a
relish--a dainty little worm, served upon an equally exquisite plate
of shellbark. But why torment ourselves with the “bill o’ fare”?
Sufficient to say that it was worthy of the occasion.

At the head of the table sat the king himself, a sturdy little fellow,
nicely dressed in black and white, and wearing a concealed crown of
gold on his head. One of the remarkable things about the king was that
he did not flaunt his royalty before his subjects. Whenever he wore his
crown he always concealed it under a cap of feathers, and trusted that
his actions would speak his worth.

Next to him sat Bob-o-link, a cheerful little dandy, but noted,
nevertheless, for a good deal of courage and common sense. He was the
king’s right-wing bird.

On the other side was Brown Thrasher, dressed in a long-tailed coat of
brown and a beautiful spotted vest. Thrasher was liked for his wit and
sauciness, but on the whole he was a good deal of an adventurer. He had
several times claimed kinship to the Thrushes, but they would have none
of him.

Among other celebrities were Mocking Bird, a great jester and
all-around wit; Quail, the famous toastmaster, and, in fact, all
civilized birds except Night Hawk and Whip-poor-will, who were
ridiculously shy of all public gatherings, and Crow, who had not been
invited.

Of course, it was a great pity that Crow did not receive an invitation,
but, somehow, the king had taken a strong dislike to him. The reason
for this, he told his subjects, was because Crow could not sing, but
it was really because he was black. The king had even hesitated about
inviting Blackbird in spite of his gorgeous rainbow lustre.

Well, to say the least, poor Crow’s feelings were greatly hurt. He was
very sad as he sat high up in a nearby tree and looked down upon the
gay tumult. Crow was a sociable fellow, and, moreover, he was very
hungry. Suddenly a thought came into his cunning black head.

Just as the party was at its merriest, he stood erect and called out in
his loudest tone, “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk!” Instantly there was a confusion.
Thrasher, quickly gathering his coat over his new vest, scurried into
the nearest thicket. Quail, greedily bolting the last of his dessert,
so far forgot his manners as to run straight across the table and hide
himself in the tall grass; while Bob-o-link, checked in the midst of
a brilliant speech, vanished among the nearby reeds. Last of all, the
king, yielding to the universal panic, took wing. In a moment there was
not a bird in sight.

Then Crow, laughing to himself, flew down to the table and made short
work of the feast to which he had not been invited. Just as he was
finishing the last mouthful, King Bird, ashamed of his hasty flight,
returned, ready to confront his deadly enemy. Instead of the expected
Hawk, however, he found only Crow, just then hopping up from the table
and carefully rubbing his bill against the side of a branch.

Oh, what a rage he was in when he saw the trick that had been played
upon them. With a snap of his bill, he flew at Crow like an arrow, and
would undoubtedly have injured him had not the rascal taken instant
flight.

From that day to this, Crow has been an outcast. If you watch him
carefully you will notice how warily he flies, for the smaller birds
have never ceased to torment and abuse him.

King Bird in particular has never forgiven the outrage, and whenever
he hears Crow’s mocking voice calling “Hawk, Hawk, Hawk,” chases madly
after him, crying out, angrily, “Cheat-thief, cheat-thief.”

Sometimes Crow, as he thinks of the feast, laughs exultantly as if to
say, “I got the best of you all that time.”

Whereupon Quail, first glancing proudly at his own sleek form with the
air of one who has not lived in vain, mounts the top of a nearby stump,
and in his clear, shrill voice answers, “Not quite! not--quite!”

[Illustration]




  LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS

  BY ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD


  CHAPTER I

  AN INTERRUPTED STORY

Although it was only five o’clock, and Manser Farm stood on a hill
so that its windows caught the last gleam of the sun on a pleasant
afternoon, the garret was growing dark.

“Is it five or six days it’s been raining without any stop?” inquired
Mrs. Ramsdell, as she dropped the lid of her horse-hair trunk and
turned the key in the lock.

“It’s only three days come six o’clock to-night,” said Aunty Peebles in
her cheery treble. “Don’t you recall we were just going down to supper
Monday when we heard the first drops on the tin roof? And this is only
Thursday.”

“Well, it seems like two weeks, that’s all I’ve got to say about
it,” grumbled Mrs. Ramsdell, as she rose stiffly and whisked her
black alpaca skirt back and forth till every speck of dust had flown
away from it. Most of the specks settled on Grandma Manser who sat
tranquilly knitting in her corner by the south window.

“Do you know where Polly is?” suddenly demanded Mrs. Ramsdell, bending
over the knitter and shouting fiercely in her ear. “Why isn’t she up
here this dull afternoon? The only bright thing there is in this house!
What’s your daughter-in-law keeping her downstairs for?”

“Polly?” repeated Grandma Manser, gently. She had evidently heard only
part of the gusty speech. “Polly told me she was planning to be out in
the woodshed, to help Uncle Sam Blodgett saw and split, this afternoon.
She said she’d be up to recite a piece to us before supper.”

“H’m! I should think it was high time she came, then,” said Mrs.
Ramsdell, crossly. But after a minute her wrinkled face grew still more
wrinkled with the smile that broke over it as she heard a clattering
sound on the garret stairs. A second later a rosy face about which
danced a mop of short brown curls peeped around the old bureau which
hid the stairway from the group gathered near the windows.

“You’re a naughty little piece, that’s what you are, to stay down
in the woodshed with Sam’l Blodgett, instead of coming up here
to entertain us,” cried Mrs. Ramsdell, with twinkling eyes that
contradicted the severity of her tone. “What have you been doing down
there, I’d like to know?”

“I’ve been listening to war stories,” said Polly Prentiss, coming out
from behind the bureau. “I’ve been hearing about Uncle Blodgett’s
nephew who died down South and ‘though but nineteen years of age
displayed great bravery on the field of battle.’ That’s on his
tombstone,” said Polly, seating herself on a little stool close to
Grandma Manser and reaching out her hand to pat Ebenezer, the big
Maltese cat.

“Pretty doings!” grumbled Mrs. Ramsdell, but she smiled at Polly as she
went over to the rocking chair by Aunty Peebles. “We old folks have
been taking things out of our trunks and putting ’em back again just to
keep up heart till you came, except grandma there; she’s kept to her
knitting, so’s not to disturb Ebenezer of his nap, I suppose.”

“Ebenezer’s a splendid cat, if he does like to sleep most of the time,
and looks like Mrs. Manser’s old sack that the moths got into,” said
Polly, with a laugh. “Oh, did any of you know there was a visitor
downstairs?--that Miss Pomeroy with the sharp eyes. Seemed as if
she’d look right through me last Sunday, after church. I guess she’s
pleasant, though.”

“Folks can afford to be pleasant when they own property and have good
clothes to their backs.” said Mrs. Ramsdell. “I don’t know as Hetty
Pomeroy’s disposition would be any better than some other folks’ if
’twas tried in the furnace. Her father had a high temper, I’ve heard.”

“She’s had her trials, Miss Hetty has,” said Aunty Peebles, gently.
“She’s all alone in the world now, excepting for Arctura Green that’s
always worked in the family. You know she was to have had her brother’s
little girl to adopt, and the child died of diphtheria last fall. I
understand it was a great grief to Miss Hetty.”

“What’s she here for in all this rain?” questioned Mrs. Ramsdell,
sharply.

“Why, it’s almost stopped raining,” said Polly stroking Ebenezer, who
stretched out one paw and curved it round her finger without opening
his eyes. “She drove up to the shed to ask Uncle Blodgett to put her
horse in the barn. Then I showed her the way to the sitting-room and,
she said she had an errand with Mrs. Manser, and I’d better run away
soon as I’d called her. I should have, anyway,” said Polly, nodding at
each of her old friends in turn, “for I was anxious to hurry up here,
and tell you about the things Uncle Blodgett’s been telling me.”

Polly’s quick eyes had seen a half-frightened glance exchanged between
Mrs. Ramsdell and Aunty Peebles when she spoke of Miss Hetty’s errand,
but as neither of the old ladies seemed disposed to speak when she
paused, Polly went on, thinking “it’s just one of their mysteries, I
suppose.”

“First, he recited me a poem,” said Polly; “at least, he really recited
it to himself, ‘just to keep his hand in.’ I’m not very good about
remembering poems, but this was by Dr. Goldsmith, Uncle Blodgett said,
and it was all about a Madam Blaize. I asked him the name twice, to be
sure.”

“Never heard of either of ’em,” said Mrs. Ramsdell. “Must both be
fictitious persons. I wonder Samu’l Blodgett never recites poems to us
of an evening. I must say.”

“’Twas only because I happened to be there, picking up the chips,”
exclaimed Polly; “and I don’t know whether Dr. Goldsmith and Madam
Blaize were fick--the kind of persons you said--but she was a grand
lady in the poem. It’s funny, too,” said Polly, showing her dimples;
“in one place it says ‘The king himself has followed her when she has
walked before.’ Of course, he’d have to; isn’t that funny?”

“What else did he recite?” demanded Mrs. Ramsdell.

“He didn’t recite anything else,” said Polly, releasing her fingers
from Ebenezer’s clasp, and springing to her feet, “but he told me a
very exciting adventure he had once, and I can act it all out for you.
You see, he was going home through some thick woods to his log-hut.
We’ll play the bureau is the hut, and just on the edge of the woods. If
you and Aunty Peebles will move your rocking chairs a little farther
apart you’ll make a splendid edge of the woods,” said Polly to Mrs.
Ramsdell, in a coaxing tone, “then I can come through between.”

[Illustration: I CAN ACT IT ALL OUT FOR YOU.]

“Anything to help out,” said the old lady, quickly hitching her chair
away from Aunty Peebles.

“Now I think,” said Polly, squinting up her eyes, “that Grandma Manser
is in just about the right place for the panther.”

“Mercy on us, it’s a wild beast tale,” chuckled Mrs. Ramsdell.

“Grandma Manser, can you snarl like a panther?” asked Polly, bending
over the quiet knitter, whose soft eyes had been following the little
girl’s movements. “It’s in Uncle Blodgett’s adventure, and I’m going to
act it all out, and speak so slow and clear, you’ll hear everything.”

“My yarn’s more used to snarling than I am, dear child,” said Grandma
Manser, smiling up at the earnest face, “but I’ll do my best. You let
me know the right minute, someway.”

“When I point my right arm at you with this stick in my hand, it’s a
gun that never missed,” explained Polly to her assistants, “that’ll be
the time for you to snarl, please.”

Grandma Manser nodded cheerfully, and Polly, gun in hand, ran to her
position behind Mrs. Ramsdell and Aunty Peebles.

“As I was walking slowly along,” said Polly, with her lips pouted
out in imitation of Uncle Blodgett, and the gun over her shoulder,
“suddenly off to the left, not more than a dozen rods from the house,
what should I see, but--”

“Mary!” came a querulous voice from the foot of the garret stairs.
“Mary Prentiss! Are you up there?”

“Yes’m,” answered Polly, as the gun dropped to the floor, and Grandma
Manser, fearing she had mistaken the signal, gave a very mild sound,
meant for a fierce snarl. “Yes’m, I’m here. Do you want me downstairs?”

“No, I’ll mount; I’m used to trouble, and they might as well hear the
news at once,” said the fretful voice, drawing nearer. The stairs
creaked under the slow steps; the little company in the garret waited;
disappointment was on Polly’s face, but the old people looked sad and
anxious.

Mrs. Manser’s tall, thin figure and sallow, discontented face had
a depressing effect on all of them, as she stood in her dark brown
calico, leaning against the old bureau.

“Mary Prentiss,” she said, solemnly, “your chance has come, thanks to
the way I’ve brought you up and kept you clean. Miss Hester Pomeroy,
of Pomeroy Oaks, is coming next Thursday morning to take you home with
her for a month’s trial, and if you do your best and follow all I tell
you, there’s a likelihood Miss Pomeroy will adopt you for good and
all. And now, we won’t have any talk or fuss over it, for I shall need
everybody’s help to get you fit to go in time. We’re going to have
supper early to-night, so you’d better all follow me down right off, to
be on hand.”

Then Mrs. Manser turned and creaked slowly down the stairs, while Polly
looked from the bewildered panther to the trembling edges of the wood
with something very like tears in her brown eyes, and Ebenezer, after a
thorough stretching of all his paws, disappeared around the bureau and
hurried down to his evening meal.


  CHAPTER II

  GETTING READY

It seemed to Polly that no days before ever flew so fast as the ones
between that rainy Thursday afternoon in April and the next Thursday
morning. To be sure, Polly was not accustomed to having new clothes
especially made for her, and the hours spent in being fitted and
re-fitted were just a waste of precious time, in her eyes.

Aunty Peebles was the best dressmaker at Manser Farm. Her fingers were
old and sometimes they trembled, but in her day she had been a famous
seamstress, and even now she could hem a ruffle much better than Mrs.
Manser.

“I don’t know just what the reason is my work looks better than some,”
said Aunty Peebles, flushing with delight, one morning when Polly had
said, “Oh, what bee-yu-tiful even, little bits of stitches you do make!”

“It’s experience, that’s all it is,” said Mrs. Manser, dejectedly,
as she sat gathering the top of a pink gingham sleeve; “if I’d been
brought up to it instead of all the education I had that’s no good to
me now, I should be thankful, I’m sure.”

“She’d never be thankful for anything,” whispered Mrs. Ramsdell, who
was ripping out bastings and constantly encountering knots which had
been “machined in” and did not soothe her temper; “’taint in her, and
you know it, Miss Peebles, well as I do.”

“Mary,” said Mrs. Manser, fretfully, “don’t sit there doing nothing.
Let me see how you’re getting on with that patchwork. My back’s
almost broken, and I’ve got chills. You go and tell Father Manser
to bring in some wood, and then you thread me up some needles, and
fill the pincushion, and I’ve got some basting for you to do. What a
looking square you’ve made of that last one! Well, I don’t
believe Miss Hetty’ll keep you more than just the month, and all this
sewing and these two nice ginghams will go for nothing.”

“I’ll try to behave so she’ll keep me,” said Polly, with a flushed face
as she hurried out to old Father Manser. She returned with him after a
moment. He was a thin little man, who had a kind word for everybody,
but spoke in a husky tone, which Mrs. Ramsdell claimed Mrs. Manser had
“frightened him into with her education when she first married him.”
However that might be, Father Manser never made a statement in his
wife’s presence without an appealing glance toward her for approval.

“Fill up the stove,” said Mrs. Manser, in her most dismal tone, “and
see if you can take the chill off this room, father. I presume, though,
it’s in my bones and won’t come out; I notice the others are warm
enough, for, of course, I’d have heard complaints if they weren’t. Then
you might as well oil the machine and get ready to run up the seams of
those aprons, if your mother ever gets them done.”

“I declare it riles me to see a man doing woman’s work,” said Mrs.
Ramsdell, tugging at a vicious knot, “and doing it all hodge-podge into
the bargain!”

Father Manser, all unconscious of her unfavorable criticism, filled up
the stove, and then set about oiling the sewing-machine. By the time he
had finished, Grandma Manser had put the last careful basting in the
last apron seam, and his work was ready for him.

“Now, don’t make your feet go so fast,” cautioned Mrs. Manser, “and
stop off carefully, so you won’t break the needles the way you did
yesterday, and do keep by the bastings, father. Are your specs on? No,
they aren’t. You put them on, this minute!”

“Yes’m,” said Father Manser, meekly, and when his spectacles were
astride his nose, he was allowed to put his feet on the treadles and
start on his first seam.

“He likes to run the machine,” said Aunty Peebles to Polly. “Seems as
if he thought he’d got his foot in the stirrups and was riding, bold
and free.”

There were many such times for Father Manser during this dressmaking
season, and he enjoyed them, though he knew how much he would miss
Polly when she had gone.

In spite of hours spent in the house instead of out in the sweet
spring weather, in spite of unwonted tasks, and many serious rebukes
from Mrs. Manser, the days flew by instead of dragging slowly along as
little Polly wished they would. “Aunty” Peebles, who had never had a
real niece; “Grandma” Manser, who had no grandchildren; even poor Mrs.
Ramsdell, with her sharp tongue, who had “known all sorts of trials and
seen better days,”--all were friends to Polly, the only friends she
had in the world beside Mrs. Manser, who had brought her up, with much
grumbling, to be sure; kind Father Manser, who sometimes gave her a
stick of candy in the dark; and Uncle Sam Blodgett, with whom she had
such exciting talks, the hero of the adventure, the tale of which was
so suddenly interrupted.

Polly’s heart was sore at the thought of leaving them all; she even
felt sorry that she must say good-bye to poor Bob Rust, the grown man
with a boy’s mind, who could not be depended on to do the simplest
errand.

“He’s scatter-witted, I know,” said Polly to herself, “but I shall miss
seeing Bob, because I’m used to him.”

Thursday morning came all too soon. Miss Pomeroy was to come for Polly
about ten o’clock. At half-past nine Polly, with anxiety written all
over her rosy face, was twirling slowly around in the middle of the
kitchen, while Mrs. Manser regarded her forlornly from her position in
the doorway, with a hand pressed against her forehead.

“I suppose you’ll have to do as you are,” she said at last, with a
heavy sigh. “My head aches so, I’m fit for nothing, or I’d see what
more I could do with that hair of yours. Is that the very flattest
you can get it, Mary? I hope you’re going to remember to answer Miss
Pomeroy when she says ‘Mary’ better than you do me, child. It’s your
rightful name, and, of course Polly’s no kind of a name for a girl to
be adopted by. Did you say you’d done the very best you could with your
hair?”

“Yes’m,” said Polly, twisting her hands together, locking and unlocking
her fingers in evident excitement. “I wet it sopping wet, and then
I patted it all down hard; but it doesn’t stay down very well, I’m
afraid.”

Polly was right; in spots her hair was still damp and sleek on her
little head, but around these satisfactory spots her short curls rose
and danced defiance to brush and water.

“Oh, Ebenezer, I wish I had fur like yours instead of hair!” cried
Polly, but Ebenezer only blinked at her, and retired hastily
behind the stove as if he feared she might attempt an exchange of
head-covering.

“Well,” said Mrs. Manser, dropping into a rocking-chair and clasping
her head with both hands, “all I’ve got to say is, you must do the best
you can by Miss Pomeroy and all of us. You know just how much depends
on Miss Pomeroy’s adopting you. You know what it’ll mean to Father
Manser and me and the old folks that I board for almost nothing to
keep them off the town, if you are adopted. And Grandma--you’re always
saying you’re so fond of her--you’d like her to have one of those new
hearing apparatuses, I should suppose.”

“Oh, yes’m,” said Polly, eagerly, “I do love Grandma Manser so, and I
want her to have the ap-apyoratus. Will it cost a great deal?”

“I don’t just know,” said Mrs. Manser; “but they say Miss Pomeroy’s
going to give five hundred dollars to whatever institution or place she
finds the child she keeps, and a present of money to the folks that
have brought her up. She didn’t mention it to me, but the butcher told
me yesterday ’twas known all about, and she’s been sent for to several
places to see children. But she never took a fancy to one till she saw
you in church with me. She thinks you’ve got a look about the eyes
that’s like Eleanor, that was her brother’s little girl who died last
fall. I guess you’re about as different from her as a child could be,
every other way.”

“I suppose Eleanor was an awful good, quiet little girl, wasn’t she?”
asked Polly, timidly. “Her name sounds kind of still. I don’t believe
she ever tore her clothes, did she?”

“I don’t suppose another such good child ever lived, according to Miss
Hetty’s ideas,” said Mrs. Manser, dismally. “She’d never been here
in town since she was a baby, and the mother’s folks brought her and
Bobby, the twin, one summer to Pomeroy Oaks. As I’ve told you, both
parents died, leastways they were destroyed in an accident, when the
twins were less than a year old.”

“And Bobby lives with his grandpa and grandma now,” said Polly, with
the air of reciting an oft-repeated lesson, “and folks say that saw
him when he was here last winter that he just sits and reads all the
time; he doesn’t care for play or being out-doors much; and he never
makes a speck of dirt or a mite of noise. And when somebody said what
a good child he was, Miss Hetty Pomeroy, she said, ‘Wait till you see
Eleanor!’ So anybody can tell what she must have been,” concluded poor
little Polly, with a gasping breath.

“And so, of course,” said Mrs. Manser, fixing a forlorn gaze on the
little figure in stiffly starched pink gingham, “if you run wild
out-doors, picking flowers and chasing round after the live stock and
wasting time with the birds the way you’ve been allowed to do here,
you’ll lose your chance, that’s all. You came of good folks: your
mother was my third cousin and your father was a well-meaning man,
though he wasn’t forehanded, and always enjoyed poor health. I’ve
brought you up the best I could for over seven years, but I expect
nothing but what Miss Hetty’ll send you back when the month’s up.”

“I’ll try real hard not to lose the chance,” said Polly, earnestly. Her
eyes shone with an odd mixture of determination and fright; there was,
moreover, a decided suggestion of tears, but Mrs. Manser, with her head
in her hands again, failed to notice it.

“It isn’t to be supposed you can take Eleanor’s place,” she groaned.
“You’re willing to fetch and carry, and you’ve got a fair disposition,
but you do hate to stay still. Your father was like that--one of these
restless folks.”

Polly’s face was overcast with doubt and trouble, but she stood her
ground. “I’ll be just as like Eleanor as ever I can,” she said, slowly.
“If I could only ask Miss Pomeroy just what Eleanor would have done
every day, I guess I could do the same. But you’ve told me I mustn’t
speak about Eleanor, because Miss Pomeroy doesn’t want anybody to.”
Polly looked wistfully at Mrs. Manser’s bowed head.

“That makes it harder,” said Polly, when there was no answer to this
half-question, save another groan, “but I guess I can manage someway.”
Her face looked as nearly stern as was possible for such a combination
of soft curves and dimples, but her eyes were misty.

Through the open door the soft air of the April morning blew in to her,
and her little body thrilled with the love of the spring, and living,
growing out-door friends. But if on her behavior depended the bestowal
of Miss Hetty’s princely sum, Manser Farm should have it. In all the
ten years of Polly’s life she had never before heard of such a large
amount of money, except in arithmetic examples, which, as everybody
knows, deal with all things in a bold way, unhampered by probability.

With a final groan, Mrs. Manser rose and went to the door. Then she
turned quickly to Polly.

“Here comes Miss Hetty now, up the road,” she said. “Go and make your
goodbyes to the folks, child, and put on your hat and jacket and then
get your bag, so as not to keep her waiting--she may be in a hurry.”


[TO BE CONTINUED]

       *       *       *       *       *

    Kind wishes and good deeds--they make not poor
    They’ll home again, full laden, to thy door.

      _Richard H. Dana_




  A RAMBLE IN EARLY SPRING

  By Julia McNair Wright


Going out for a walk on some March morning, we find the air soft and
warm, the skies of a summer blue, the water rippling in every little
runnel. We look about, half expecting to see a bluebird perched upon a
fence post, a robin stepping among the stubble. The stems and branches
which appeared dry and dead all the winter have now a fresh exhibition
of life. We can almost see the sap creeping up through their vessels
and distributing vigor where it goes.

Let us go to the woods, to some sunny southern slope where maples grow.

Turning over the light, soft earth, we shall find the maple seeds that
ripened last autumn and are now germinating. The seeds of the maple are
in pairs, which are called keys. They look more like little tan-colored
moths than keys; the distinctly-veined, winged husk is very like the
narrow and veined wings of many moths.

These seeds are winged in order that they may be blown abroad on the
wind and plant new forests farther afield. If they all dropped close
under the shade of the parent tree few would live beyond a year or two.

Where the wing-like husks come together there is a thickening of the
base of each into an ear-like lobe, holding a seed. The wrapping of
this seed softens, the seed enlarges as the embryo within it grows, the
husk is pushed open, and slowly comes forth the baby tree, composed
of two leaves and a stem. These two leaves, although very small, are
perfect and even green in the unopened seed.

They are soft and fleshy; in fact, they are pantries, full of food,
ready for the weak little plant to feed upon until it is strong enough
to forage and digest for itself. Everyone knows that babies must be
carefully fed on delicate food until they get their teeth. The baby
plant also needs well-prepared food.

Between the two leaves is a little white stem. The two leaves unfold,
and in a few days the air and sun have made them bright green. The
stem between them thrusts a little root into the earth; this root is
furnished with hairs. When the root is well-formed and the two seeds
have reached full size, a bud has formed in the axil between them.

This is the growing point of the new tree. This bud presently opens
into a pair of well-formed maple leaves.

As these leaves increase the seed-leaves diminish; the plant is feeding
upon them. The ascending stem presses its first pair of leaves upward,
forms between them two more, and then two more, and thus on.

Small branches are formed by the end of summer, the seed-leaves are
exhausted, and the plant is doing its own work.

Under the trees in March we find many interesting examples of
seed-growth. The feeding or seed-leaves of the young plant are called
cotyledons. All flowering plants have cotyledons; the plants whose
leaves have dividing or radiate veins, and whose stems are woody, or,
at least, not hollow, have two cotyledons; grasses, reeds, corn, and
other grains, lilies, bamboos, all plants with hollow stems and the
leaf-veins parallel have one cotyledon, while pines and trees of their
class have from three to twelve cotyledons, always set in a circle.

The seeds, the new plants, or seedlings of any variety are very
numerous. This is needful, as they are subject to many disasters. They
may be eaten by animals or birds, withered by too great dry heat,
devoured by worms, frozen or ruined by overmuch shade. If plantlets
were not very numerous the varieties of plants would presently die out.

When the March winds shake out the leaf-buds and the seeds in the
ground begin to stir with strong life, we are led to think of the
plant’s host of enemies.

These enemies of the plant will not all begin their work in March, but
they are enlisting, drilling, and furnishing their regiments for the
season’s strife.




  WITH THE EDITOR


In the early days of our country the guest was always honored. Friend
or stranger, the door was thrown open to him, and the circle around the
fireplace parted willingly to receive him. After his comfort had been
assured, however, there came inevitably to the mind of the host the
natural queries--seldom expressed in words--“What is his name? What his
purpose?” Then the wayfarer, his reserve thawing before the friendly
greeting, would just as naturally open his heart and speak of himself.

Such was the old-time hospitality which Hawthorne so quaintly pictures
in “The Ambitious Guest.”

To-day, the railroad and the comparative luxury of travel have made the
wayside visitor a being of tradition, but the primitive impulses of
hospitality and curiosity still survive.

You have opened your doors to us and have welcomed us into that most
sacred of places--the family circle. You do not ask, yet we cannot
but feel, the old question in your kindly gaze. You would know our
name?--our purpose?

Until better advised, we shall call ourselves Young Folks Magazine.

Our purpose is to provide good reading for young people. By good
reading, we mean that which is interesting enough to catch and hold
the attention of the reader, and which, in the end, leaves him better
or wiser for having read it. But it must be interesting, or all its
other virtues fail. The young person, particularly the boy, looks with
distrust upon the story which comes too emphatically recommended as
useful. To him, mere utility is closely related to dullness. With this
knowledge fresh in our memory, we promise at the outset that our pages
shall not be lacking in a keen and healthy human interest.

“But,” we hear our host exclaim, “why another magazine in a time and
country already over-run with literature?”

Just think a moment. Count upon your fingers all the juvenile
periodicals which you know even by name. Compare this supply with
the demand. We are certainly understating the figures when we say
that there are twenty million young people in the United States. Even
the most widely-circulated of these periodicals does not claim half a
million subscribers. We believe it safe to say that of our whole great
nation of young people, not one in ten is yet supplied with a monthly
or weekly periodical. After all, is there not ample room for us at the
American fireside?

Finally, may we not ask of you a little lenience toward our early and
inevitable shortcomings? In return, we promise you that our own most
constant aim shall be, with each succeeding visit, better to deserve
your kindly welcome.

       *       *       *       *       *

In spite of its traditional violence we always look forward to the
first month of spring. All the more do we hail it when, as in the
present case, it brings with it the Easter season. The name Easter is
supposed to have been derived from Oestre, the heathen deity of Spring,
in whose honor the ancient Teutons held their annual festival. Since
the Christian era, however, Easter has been in sole commemoration of
the Resurrection.

During the centuries following its inauguration many quaint customs
have sprung up and passed away. In parts of Ireland there is still a
belief that on Easter morning the sun dances in the sky.

The use of eggs for decoration and as playthings for children at this
season is of very early origin. Nowhere is this observance now so
common as in the capital of our own country. By immemorial custom, on
the Easter holiday, the grounds of the White House are thrown open
to the sport of children, who come from far and near to roll their
Easter eggs across its sloping lawns. It is a pleasant sight to see
the home of the nation’s chief executive so completely in the hands of
frolicking children.




  EVENT AND COMMENT


  The National University

Mr. Andrew Carnegie has offered the sum of ten million dollars to the
government of the United States to endow a national institution for the
promotion of the higher scientific research.

While the generosity of the donor is universally acknowledged, there
are some who question the practical value of the proposed university.

“Why,” they ask, “devote this vast sum to the special education of a
select few, while thousands of our children can only with difficulty
obtain the rudiments of a common education?”

If the endowment in question were intended merely for the present
generation, this question would be difficult to answer. In reality,
however, the very form and nature of the gift show that it is dedicated
not to the individual but to the race; and it is chiefly under the
leadership of the scientific specialist that the race advances. It is
his work rather than the influence of the common schools that has given
to mankind the steam-engine, the telegraph, and the electric light.

Heretofore, however, the development of men like Watt, Morse, Bell, and
Edison has been wholly dependent upon chance and their own phenomenal
perseverance. Who can say how many more of such men have been lost
to the public service through mere want of opportunity? It is this
opportunity that Mr. Carnegie’s gift would insure to coming generations.

As our great military school at West Point supplies the nation with
men educated for military leadership, so this institution will create
and perpetuate a corps of savants, forever at the service of the whole
people.

One cannot but feel that with this gift Mr. Carnegie has exercised an
even wiser forethought than in his many other generous benefactions.


  Wireless Telegraphy

Signor Marconi, by means of his system of wireless telegraphy, has at
length succeeded in transmitting the equivalent of the letter “s” from
Europe to America. A glance at the work of the young inventor, however,
will show that his success is not yet insured.

His system--indeed, we might say all systems--of wireless telegraphy
depends upon the properties of luminiferous ether--that mysterious
medium that is supposed to exist in every known substance. The
discharge of an electric spark produces in this ether a bubble-like
wave which radiates in all directions. It is upon the reception and
recording, at Newfoundland, of this wave, produced at England, that the
success of Marconi’s experiment depends.

Even to the ordinary mind, such a proposition presents innumerable
difficulties. One of the most apparent would be the confusion arising
from two sets of signals operated in the same locality. But just as
we can throw all the rays of a search-light in one direction, Marconi
reflects these waves of ether toward his receiving station.

Perhaps one of the real drawbacks of this system would be the expense
of maintaining a current of sufficient voltage to signal long
distances. Nevertheless, we feel confident that, whether it be from
the brain of Marconi or Tesla, or the united efforts of Orling and
Armstrong, wireless telegraphy is insured to the future.


  The Great Tunnel

We all remember with what wonder the public viewed the construction of
the great suspension bridge between New York and Brooklyn. Remarkable
as was that feat of engineering, a far more difficult one is now under
way. It is proposed to run a continuous tunnel under the North river,
New York City, and the East river, connecting the Pennsylvania Railroad
in New Jersey with the Long Island Railroad at Brooklyn. It is to be
eight miles long. Its chief purpose is to give trains, especially those
from the West, a direct and unimpeded entrance to New York City.

Beginning in the neighborhood of West Hoboken, the tunnel will
penetrate the hard ridge of the Palisades, and continue with a downward
incline until, under the North, or Hudson, river, it will reach a depth
of one hundred feet.

At Thirty-third street, in New York City, it will rise to within
twenty-five feet of the surface, and at this level cross beneath
Manhattan Island, where, at some central point, a large station will be
erected. Proceeding, east, the tunnel will again take a dip to pass the
East river, and come to light on the Brooklyn side in the neighborhood
of the present terminal of the Long Island Railroad.

The work of construction will begin early in the summer of 1902, and
will require a period of three or four years. Its estimated cost is not
less than $40,000,000.


  Isthmian Canal

An important question which has arisen recently is the location of the
future Isthmian canal. Shall it cross at Nicaragua or Panama?

The House of Representatives, on January 9th, 1902, chose the former,
the best reasons being:

The saving of two days in the voyage between our Atlantic and Pacific
ports;

Its healthier climate, and the alleged lesser cost of construction.

The _Engineering Magazine_, on the other hand, sums up the advantages
of the already-undertaken Panama canal as follows:

It is three-fourths shorter, and could be maintained at a cost of
$1,350,000 a year less than the Nicaragua canal, is exempt from fifty
miles of dangerous river navigation, and its completion would require
but half the amount necessary to build the Nicaragua canal.


  The Danish West Indies

On January 24th, 1902, the government of Denmark, through the pen of
their minister in Washington, ceded to the United States the group
of islands known as the Danish West Indies. Unsuccessful attempts to
purchase these islands were made in the years 1869 and 1877.

This last effort which, so far, promises success, was begun two years
ago. The delay has been due to a difference of price. The amount now
agreed upon is believed to be $5,000,000.




  IN-DOORS


  PARLOR MAGIC

  By Ellis Stanyon

The first thing for the student of magic to do is to learn palming,
the art of holding small objects concealed in the hand by a slight
contraction of the palm.

Practice first with a half-dollar. Lay it in the right hand as shown
in Fig. 1. Then slightly contract the palm by pressing the ball of the
thumb inward, moving the coin about with the forefinger of the left
hand until you find it is in a favorable position to be gripped by the
fleshy portions of the hand. Continue to practice this until you can
turn the hand over without letting the coin fall.

[Illustration: Fig. 1.--PALMING COIN]

When this can be accomplished with ease, lay the coin on the tips
of the second and third fingers, steadying it with the thumb, as in
Fig. 2. Then, moving the thumb aside to the right, bend the fingers,
and pass the coin up along the side of the thumb into the palm,
which should open to receive it, and where, if you have followed the
instructions carefully, you will find no difficulty in retaining it.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.--PALMING COIN]

Practice this movement with the right hand in motion toward the left,
as if you really intended to place the coin in that hand. To get the
movement perfect, it is advisable to work in front of a mirror. Take
the coin in the right hand and actually place it in the left several
times; then study to execute the same movement exactly, with the
exception that you retain the coin in the right hand by palming.

The student who desires to become a finished performer should palm the
various objects with equal facility in either hand.

When you can hold a coin properly, as described, practice with other
objects of a similar size. In this case, however, owing to the greater
extent of surface, it will not be found necessary to press the object
into the palm, but simply to close the fingers round it, in the act of
apparently placing it in the left hand.

THE PASS. Second only in importance to the palming is the pass. Hold
the coin between the fingers and thumb of the left hand (Fig. 3), and
then appear to take it in the right by passing the thumb under and the
fingers over the coin.

[Illustration: Fig. 3.--THE PASS]

Under cover of the right hand the coin is allowed to fall into the
fingers of the left, where, by a slight contraction, it may be held
between the first and second joints, or it may be allowed to fall
into the palm proper. The right hand must be closed and raised as
if it really contained the coin, and be followed by the eyes of the
performer; the left falling to the side. This pass should be performed
equally well from either hand.

THE FINGER PALM.--Lay a coin on the fingers as shown in Fig. 4. Then,
in the act of apparently placing it in the left hand, raise the
forefinger slightly and clip the coin between it and the second finger.
The left hand must now close as if it contained the coin, and be
followed by the eyes of the performer, while the right hand disposes of
the coin as may be necessary.

[Illustration: Fig. 4.--THE FINGER PALM]

Following is an illustration of the way in which this sleight can be
employed with good effect.

Place a candle on the table to your left, and then execute the pass as
above described. The thumb of the right hand should now close on the
edge of the coin nearest to itself and draw it back a little; and at
the same time the candle should be taken from the candlestick between
the thumb and fingers of the same hand. (Fig. 5.) The left hand, which
is supposed to contain the coin, should now be held over the candle
and opened slowly, the effect to the spectators being that the coin is
dissolved into the flame. Both hands at this point should be shown back
and front, as the coin, owing to its peculiar position, cannot be seen
at a short distance. You now take the upper part of the candle in the
left hand, then lower the right hand to the lower end and produce the
coin from thence, the effect being that the money is passing through
the candle from one end to the other.

[Illustration: Fig. 5]

TO CHANGE A COIN.--Sometimes, in order to bring about a desired result,
it is necessary to change, or, in conjurer’s parlance, to “ring” a
borrowed or marked coin for a substitute of your own. There are many
ways of effecting this, but having once mastered the various “palms”
the student will readily invent means for himself. The following,
however, is the one generally adopted by conjurers:

Borrow a coin and have it marked. Then take it between the fingers and
thumb of the left hand, as in the pass (Fig. 3), having previously
secreted the substitute in the palm of the right. Now take the coin in
the right hand, and in so doing drop the substitute into the palm of
the left, which you immediately close, and remark, “You have all seen
me take the coin visibly from the left hand. I will now make it return
invisibly.” Saying this, you appear to throw the marked coin into the
left hand, really palming it, and showing your own, which every one
takes to be the original borrowed one. You may now proceed with the
trick in question, disposing of the marked coin as may be necessary.

Let the student practice faithfully the steps here given. He shall then
be prepared to make practical use of them, as we shall endeavor to show
in the next paper.




  THE OLD TRUNK

This department we believe is destined soon to become one of the most
popular features of the magazine. Not only shall we spare no pains upon
our part, but we also earnestly ask your co-operation in providing
puzzles of all shapes and descriptions to bewilder and tangle the
most ingenious of intellects. To each of the first three persons who
shall correctly solve all the following puzzles, we will give a year’s
subscription to Young Folks Magazine, to be sent to any desired address.


  ZIGZAG

  1. A plant, but better known as a beverage.
  2. To cross out.
  3. An instrument for pounding.
  4. A kind of ointment.
  5. Reddish-brown.
  6. To flee from danger.
  7. To breathe out.
  8. A planet.

When these words of six letters are correctly guessed and placed in the
order given, from 1 to 8 will spell the name of a common mineral found
in rocks.

  . . . 1 . .
  . . . . 2 .
  . . . 3 . .
  . . . . 4 .
  . . . 5 . .
  . . . . 6 .
  . . . 7 . .
  . . . . 8 .

  --_Frank F. Rider_


  ENIGMA

I am composed of sixteen letters:

My 2, 9, 6, 8, 16, 12, is a very small but useful household implement.

My 5, 4, 10, 11, 1, 15, is another implement, very common in the
school-room.

My 13, 14, 7, 3, is the part of a person closely in touch with both.

My whole is a building known throughout the land.

  --_Samuel Baird_


  BIRD PIE

  Gtkinle,
  Yulbeaj,
  Orinb,
  Rildbbake,
  Rwco,
  Doshwhurot.

  --_J. F. Stokes_


  ENIGMA

I am composed of seventeen letters:

My 4, 9, 10, 12, grows on an evergreen tree.

My 11, 1, 14, 5, is a small valley.

My 8, 15, 16, 5, is to grow less.

My 17, 3, 7, is a noise.

My 2, 1, 6, 13, is the home of a wild animal.

My whole is a book which you have all, doubtless, enjoyed.

  --_E. L. Barnes_


  DIAGONAL

When the following words of eight letters are guessed correctly and
placed one above the other in the order given, so as to form a square,
the diagonal from the upper left-hand corner to the lower right will
spell the name of one of the most important battles of the Revolution:

  1. Reasonable.
  2. Adherent.
  3. Kind-hearted.
  4. Ensnare.
  5. Goods.
  6. Resonant.
  7. To barter.
  8. One of Longfellow’s poems.

  --_Bessie M_----


  HIDING ANIMALS.

In each of the following sentences there are three hiding animals:

“It must be,” averred Caleb, earnestly, as he gazed at the new easel.

Wampum, a kind of money, used by the Indians, was made ere Cabot
terrified them by his presence.

Morse altered his plans, and accepting the offer, returned from his
foreign travel, knowing it to be for the best.

  --_Margaret West_


  A BUNCH OF KEYS

  A JINGLE

    A key to bear one up the mountain side;
    A key to guard where freedom is denied.
    The third, oft heard to chatter, ne’er in song.
    The fourth beware! ’twill lead to gravest wrong.
    This key his master serves, to ride, to work, to wait;
    This one, spring-hatched, at Christmas meets his fate.

        --_Caroline L_----




Transcriber’s Notes:


A number of typographical errors have been corrected silently.

Archaic spellings have been retained.

Cover image is in the public domain.

The table of contents refers to a "With the Publisher" page that does
not exist in the transcribed image so does not exist in the transcription.