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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65540 ***

[Illustration:]

  YOUTH

  VOLUME 1 NUMBER 6

  1902
  AUGUST

  _An_ ILLUSTRATED MONTHLY JOURNAL _for_ BOYS & GIRLS

  The Penn Publishing Company Philadelphia




CONTENTS FOR AUGUST


  FRONTISPIECE (Polly’s Letter)             Ida Waugh               PAGE

  A BATTLE WITH A WINDMILL                  Frank H. Coleburn        197

  WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE (Serial)  W. Bert Foster           201
    Illustrated by F. A. Carter

  MARY LANE’S HIGHER EDUCATION              Marguerite Stables       210
    Illustrated by Ida Waugh

  LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS (Serial)            Elizabeth Lincoln Gould  214

  A NOVEL WEAPON                                                     220

  HOW PLANTS LIVE                           Julia McNair Wright      221
    Illustrated by Nina G. Barlow

  A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST (Serial)         Evelyn Raymond           223

  WOOD-FOLK TALK                            J. Allison Atwood        230

  THE OLDEST COLLEGES                                                231

  WITH THE EDITOR                                                    232

  EVENT AND COMMENT                                                  233

  OUT OF DOORS                                                       234

  THE OLD TRUNK (Puzzles)                                            235

  IN-DOORS (Parlor Magic, Paper VI)         Ellis Stanyon            236

  WITH THE PUBLISHER                                                 237


YOUTH

_An Illustrated Monthly Journal for Boys and Girls_

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Copyright 1902 by The Penn Publishing Company

[Illustration: POLLY’S LETTER (Page 218)]




  YOUTH

  VOL. I  AUGUST 1902  No. 6




A BATTLE WITH A WINDMILL

By Frank H. Coleburn


Shortly after I left college, my father died, leaving me, his only son,
so well-nigh penniless that I was very glad, indeed, to accept the
position which Mr. Eller, an old friend of the family, offered me in
his vineyard.

My benefactor’s home was in southern California, a region where the
people’s livelihood depends upon grapes and wine-making.

One day, not long after my arrival, the big windmill, which supplied
the whole winery with water, got out of order and refused to pump.
Mr. Eller examined it carefully, but was unable to learn where the
difficulty lay. He came down from the tank much disturbed, for water
was a great necessity in that dry country.

“Harry,” he said to me, “you’re something of a mechanic, aren’t you?”

“I did pay a little attention to the study at one time,” I answered,
modestly.

“Well, I wish you would try what you can do in the way of fixing that
windmill.”

I promised that I would, and Mr. Eller left me.

After supper that night I secured a hammer and a chisel and started
for the windmill. I had need to make haste if I expected to accomplish
anything that evening, for the days were shortening and already
darkness was falling.

The windmill stood some two or three hundred yards from the house
directly behind the wine cellar. It was about seventy-five feet
high--from the base to the top of the wheel--but in that deceptive
twilight it looked like some giant finger reaching to the sky.

I stuck my tools in my coat pocket and began to climb the long ladder
which stretched to the top of the tank. From thence it would be easy to
reach and manipulate the wheel.

I made the ascent in safety, and after a little stood on top of the
rough boards with which the tank was covered. For some time I stood,
admiring the splendid view and wondering at the extent of country that
came under my gaze, until warned by the ever-increasing gloom that I
was out on business, not pleasure.

I forget just what was the matter with the wheel. Some simple
disarrangement of the machinery which took me but little time to
ascertain and less to remedy. Feeling certain that the mill would now
perform its duty as well as before, I turned to retrace my way. In
doing so I stepped upon a half-concealed trap-door, intended to be used
as a means of ingress into the tank in case of repairs being needed.
This door was old and rotten; its hinges were broken and it rested very
insecurely upon its foundation. Consequently, it was unable to retain
my weight and tilted suddenly. I fell with a prodigious splash into the
water beneath.

There were about two feet of water in the tank. I gurgled and sputtered
and struggled as though there were twenty. However, I quickly regained
my feet, dripping and shivering, and very much confused from my sudden
immersion, but uninjured. I was a prisoner, however.

The tank was about ten feet in height. The sides were perfectly smooth
and afforded no foothold. There was no ladder or other means by which I
could clamber out. I vowed that if ever I built a tank I would provide
in some way for such an emergency as the present.

About three and a half feet above my head was the supply pipe. It
extended a little ways into the tank. If I could only manage to reach
that I might possibly pull myself up and escape. I knew perfectly well
I could not reach it, but hope, like love, is blind to all obstacles,
and I jumped desperately for it. I failed, of course. I didn’t come
within a foot of it. However, after I had continued my effort for some
time I began to feel a comfortable warmth creep over that portion of my
body which was above water. Therefore, in lieu of anything better to
do, I kept on jumping.

By and by my teeth stopped chattering--somewhat--and I stopped leaping
altogether.

“Here’s a pretty mess,” I said to myself. “I wonder how long I’m to
be penned up in this place. Goodness knows my legs are tired enough
already without having to stand on them all night; and I can’t very
well sit down in two feet of water.”

It suddenly occurred to me that I possessed a voice of tolerable
strength and clearness, and that I might make good use of it upon the
present occasion. Accordingly, I gave utterance to a few of the most
startling shouts that probably ever assailed the ears of a mortal. But
they were unsuccessful so far as escape was concerned.

After I had shouted myself hoarse, I waited with patience for the
arrival of a relief party. At the end of five minutes it hadn’t come;
at the end of half an hour I didn’t believe it would come.

“Surely,” I thought, “they must have heard those war-whoops at the
house. At any rate it’s about time Eller started out to hunt me up. He
certainly don’t think it’s going to take me forever to fix his plaguey
windmill.”

I was becoming worried. The prospect of having to remain cooped up in
my present narrow quarters all night was by no means pleasant. The
expectation of having to stand for the next ten hours in two feet of
cold water was not pleasing to a person of my tastes. It might have
done for one of those old-time monks, who were always imposing penances
upon themselves for sins committed, but it was not suited to my
constitution. Most cheerfully would I have resigned my position to any
one expressing a wish for it.

It was now pitch-dark in the tank. The only light I obtained was the
feeble glow of the stars shining through the trap-door. I stood under
this, gazing up wistfully into the heaven so high above me. After a
time my eyes grew heavy, my head fell forward onto my breast, and,
strange as it may appear, I dropped off into a gentle doze. I was
awakened by a slight breeze fanning my cheek.

I opened my eyes dreamily. Overhead I could hear a deep, rumbling,
grating sound; something going up and down, up and down, as it were a
monstrous churn in motion.

“What can that be?” was my ejaculation. I was not left long in
suspense. A perfect deluge of the coldest kind of water came pouring
down over me, drenching me to the skin; giving me, in fact, a regular
shower-bath.

The stream continued without abatement, and I soon recovered
sufficiently from my momentary astonishment and confusion to move out
of the way. No one should say that I did not know enough to come in
when it rained.

As yet I was hardly awake. I stood to one side, getting splashed, and
stupidly staring at the supply pipe, which was belching forth water.
Then the solution of the problem flashed through my brain. The windmill
was pumping.

I was too startled at first to realize my peril. But gradually it
dawned upon me that the water was rising fast, and that if I did not
escape or relief did not come, in the course of a few hours I would be
drowned like a rat in a trap.

I thrust my hand into my trousers pocket and pulled out my knife.
The large blade was open in a second, and I was at work with all my
might trying to dig a hole through the side of the tank. I quickly
saw that my task was hopeless. The wood was soft, but the planks were
very thick, and it would be hours before I could produce the smallest
opening.

I must have something to occupy my attention, else I would go wild. So
I dug on till I broke my blade off short.

I dropped the useless knife into the water. It sunk with a dull splash.
I stood feeling the water slowly creep its way upwards. I calculated
that I had about an hour and a half of life left to me.

The water reached my waist. I threw myself against the walls of my
prison, shouting for help. But none came. The sound of my voice echoed
again and again into my own ears--it reached no others. I thought the
reverberations would never cease. It seemed to me as though the whole
world must have heard that despairing cry.

I listened--every nerve strained to catch some echoing shout. But the
only sound that broke the stillness was the steady, incessant splash,
splash, splash of falling water; and the heavy noise of that great pump
working overhead. I called and listened again. Still no answer.

My past life came up before me like a dream. I could see my mother--my
good mother--as plainly with my mind’s eye, as I had ever seen her with
the flush of life upon her cheek. I remembered the long confidential
talks we had together and the many times she told me to be good and
true and noble, and that was all she would ever ask. Then I recalled
many of the things I had said to her, and, strange to tell, there
dwelt in my recollection not the kisses I had given nor the love I had
bestowed upon her: I could call back only my unkind, cruel remarks, and
the heartbreaks I had caused her. I thought what a wretch I had been,
and did not believe that we could ever meet in heaven.

The water was up to my shoulders now, but I hardly noticed it.

My thoughts turned upon my father--so recently deceased. I remembered
his kind face, his noble brow, those premature wrinkles, and that
iron-gray hair. His failure, which had been the cause of his death, was
more the result of a lack of business instinct than anything else. His
tastes--like mine--had been wholly literary.

The water was up to my neck. Ugh! how icy-cold it was--right from the
bowels of the earth. It seemed to freeze my blood. Ah, how stealthily
it crept up, little by little, inch by inch. It knew it had a victim
in its grasp, and had no fear of being cheated of its prey. In another
moment it would be at my mouth; another instant and it would be all
that I could do to breathe on tiptoe; another short minute and--I
turned and furiously beat again upon my prison wall with both my
fists. What madness! my eyes were almost starting from their sockets;
I imagined that they had the strange, hunted look of a poor rat when
cornered. I could understand the feelings of the little creature now.

My hands fell nerveless to my side. They struck upon something hard in
either pocket of my coat. I thrust them in--almost unconsciously, and
drew forth--the hammer and the chisel.

I uttered a cry of delight, and in another moment I was chiseling away
for dear life under water. In no time I had hacked out two rude steps.
I formed another just above the surface of the water, another still
higher, and another as high as I could reach.

The water was to my nose. I dropped my tools and by the aid of nail and
hand and foot managed to draw myself up step by step, until I could
grasp the edge of the trap-door. Thus much accomplished, it was an
easy matter to lift myself out. I fell, panting and trembling in every
nerve, upon the rough board covering of the tank.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mr. Eller had not heard my shouts for the simple reason that he had
been called by business into Fresno. The men slept in a house too far
distant from the windmill for my cries to reach. Thus it was that I had
been allowed nearly to yell my voice away without attracting attention.

I had had a pretty good scare it must be confessed; so good, indeed,
that I have forever ceased to emulate Don Quixote in any more
adventures with a windmill.

[Illustration: THE MORNING’S TRIAL]




WITH WASHINGTON AT VALLEY FORGE

By W. Bert Foster

CHAPTER XIV

The Occupation of Philadelphia

 SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

 The story opens in the year 1777, during one of the most critical
 periods of the Revolution. Hadley Morris, our hero, is in the employ
 of Jonas Benson, the host of the Three Oaks, a well-known inn on the
 road between Philadelphia and New York. Like most of his neighbors,
 Hadley is an ardent sympathizer with the American cause. When,
 therefore, he is intrusted with a message to be forwarded to the
 American headquarters, the boy gives up, for the time, his duties at
 the Three Oaks and sets out for the army. Here he remains until after
 the fateful Battle of Brandywine. On the return journey he discovers
 a party of Tories who have concealed themselves in a woods in the
 neighborhood of his home. By approaching cautiously to the group
 around the fire, Hadley overhears their plan to attack his uncle for
 the sake of the gold which he is supposed to have concealed in his
 house. With the assistance of Colonel Knowles, who, although a British
 officer, seems to have taken a liking to Hadley, our hero successfully
 thwarts the Tory raid. No sooner is the uncle rescued, however, than
 he ungratefully shuts the door upon his nephew. Thereupon Hadley
 immediately returns to the American army and joins the forces under
 that dashing officer, “Mad Anthony” Wayne. In the disastrous night
 engagement at Paoli our hero is left upon the battlefield wounded.

The sun shining warmly upon his face through the rapidly-drying bushes
which during the night had partly sheltered him, was Hadley’s first
conscious feeling. Then he felt the dull pain in his leg where the
spent ball had become imbedded, and he rolled over with a groan. The
wood lay as peaceful and quiet under the rising sun as though such a
thing as war did not exist. Here and there a branch had been splintered
by a musket ball, or a bush had been trampled by the retreating
Americans. But the rain had washed away all the brown spots from
the grass and twigs, and the birds twittered gayly in the treetops,
forgetting the disturbing conflict of the night.

The boy found, when he tried to rise, that his whole leg was numb and
he could only drag it as he hobbled through the wood. To cover the
few rods which lay between the place where he had slept and the road,
occupied some minutes. The wound had bled freely, and now the blood was
caked over it, and every movement of the limb caused much pain.

Where had his companions gone? When the company rolls were called that
morning there would be no inquiry for him, for he was not a regularly
recruited man. He had been but a hanger-on of the brigade which was so
disastrously attacked during the night, and they would all forget him.
Captain Prentice was far away, and Hadley had known nobody else well
among Wayne’s troops. The fact of his loneliness, together with his
wound and his hunger, fairly brought the tears to his eyes, great boy
that he was. But many a soldier who has fought all day with his face
to the enemy has wept childish tears when left at night, wounded and
alone, on the battlefield.

However, one could not really despair on such a bright morning as this,
and Hadley soon plucked up courage. He got out his pocket knife, found
a sapling with a crotched top, cut it off the proper length, and used
it for a crutch. With this, and dragging his useless musket behind him,
he hobbled up the road in a direction which he knew must bring him to
the American lines, and eventually to Philadelphia. But such traveling
was slow and toilsome work, and he was trembling all the time for fear
he would fall in with the British.

He had not been many minutes on the way, however, when a man stepped
out of the brush beside the road and barred his way. Hadley was
frightened at first; then he recognized the man and shouted with
delight.

“Lafe Holdness! How ever did you come here?”

“Jefers-pelters!” exclaimed the Yankee scout. “I reckon I might better
ask yeou that question, Had. An’ wounded, too! Was yeou with that
brigade last night that got bamfoozled?”

“The British attacked us unexpectedly. Oh, Lafe! they charged right
through our lines and bayonetted the men awful.”

“I reckon. It’s war, boy--you ain’t playin’.” Meanwhile the man had
assisted Hadley to a seat on the bank and with his own knife calmly
ripped up the leg of Hadley’s trousers. “Why, boy, you’ve got a ball in
there--as sure as ye live!”

“It hurts pretty bad, Lafe,” Hadley admitted, wincing when the scout
touched the leg which was now inflamed about the wound.

There was a rill nearby, and to this the scout hurried and brought
water back in his cap. With the boy’s handkerchief he washed the dry
blood away and then, by skilful pressure of his fingers, found the
exact location of the imbedded bullet. “Oh, this ain’t so bad,” he
said, cheerfully. “We’ll fix it all right in no time. But ye musn’t do
much walking for some days to come. Yeou can ride, though, and I’ve
got a hoss nearby. First of all, I must git the ball aout and wash the
hole. Ye see, Had, the ball lies right under the skin on the back of
the leg--so. D’ye see?”

“I can feel it all right,” groaned Hadley.

“Well, it’s a pity it didn’t go way through. Howsomever, if you’ll keep
a stiff upper lip for a minute, I’ll get the critter aout. ’Twon’t hurt
much ter speak of. Swabbin’ aout the hole, though, ’ll likely make ye
jump.”

He opened the knife again and, before Hadley could object, had made a
quick incision over the ball and the lead pellet dropped out into his
hand. The boy did not have a chance to cry out, it was done so quickly.
“So much for so much,” said Lafe, in a business-like tone. “Nothin’
like sarvin’ yer ’prenticeship ter all sorts of trades. I ain’t no
slouch of a surgeon, I calkerlate. Now, lemme git an alder twig.”

He obtained the twig in question, brought more water, and then
proceeded, after having removed the pith from the heart of the twig,
to blow the cool water into the wound. Hadley cried out at this and
begged him to desist, but Lafe said: “Come, Had, yeou can stand a
little pain now for the sake of being all right by and by, can’t yeou?
It’s better to be sure than sorry. P’r’aps there warn’t no cloth nor
nothin’ got inter that wound, but ye can’t tell. One thing, there
warn’t no artery cut or ye’d bled ter death lyin’ under them bushes all
night. I ’spect many a poor chap did die in yander after the retreat.
Anthony Wayne’ll have ter answer for that. They say he’s goin’ ter be
court-martialed.”

Having cleaned the wound, Holdness bound it up tightly with strips torn
from the boy’s cotton shirt, and then brought up the horse which he had
hidden hard by. He helped the boy into the saddle and walked beside
him until they were through the American picket lines. The wounded
had been sent on to Philadelphia, for there were few conveniences for
field hospitals. “Yeou take that hoss and ride inter Philadelphy,
Had,” said Holdness. “Leave it at the Queen and take yourself to this
house”--he gave the wounded lad a brief note scrawled on a bit of dirty
paper--“and the folks there’ll look out for ye till the laig’s well.
I’ll git another hoss somewhere else that’ll do jest as well. Yeou
can’t go clean back to Jarsey with your laig in that shape.”

It was a hard journey for the wounded youth, and before he crossed the
Schuylkill and followed Chestnut Street down into the heart of the
town, he was well-nigh spent. He fairly fell off the horse in front of
the Indian Queen Tavern, and the hostler had to help him to the address
which Holdness had given him. Here the good man and his wife--Quaker
folk were they, who greatly abhorred the bloodshed of the war, yet were
stanch supporters of the American cause--took the boy in and cared for
him as though he was their own son. For a night and a day he kept to
his bed; but he could not stand it any longer than that. The surgeon
who was called to attend him declared the wound had been treated very
well indeed by the scout, and that it was healing nicely; so what does
Master Hadley do but hobble downstairs to the breakfast table on the
second morning, determined no longer to cause the good Quakeress,
Mistress Pye, the extra trouble of sending his breakfast up to him.

He was anxious to learn the news, too. Affairs were moving swiftly
these days in Philadelphia. The uncertainty of what the next day might
bring forth forced shops to close and almost all business to cease. The
Whigs were leaving by hundreds; even the men who held authoritative
places in the council of the town had departed, fearful of what might
happen when the redcoats marched in. And that Washington could keep
them out for long, after the several reverses the American troops had
sustained, was not to be believed.

A sense of portending calamity hung over the city like an invisible
cloud. A third of the houses were shut and empty. Many of the others
were occupied solely by servants or slaves, the families having flown
to the eastward. Hadley did not get outside the door of the Pye house
that day, for he was watched too closely. But early on the morning of
the 26th the whole street was aroused by the swift dash of a horseman
over the cobbles; and a cry followed the flying messenger:

“The British are coming!”

The people ran out of their houses, never waiting for their breakfasts.
Was the news true? Had the redcoats eluded the thin line of Americans
that so long had stayed their advance upon the town? Soon the truth was
confirmed. Congress had adjourned to Lancaster. Howe had made a feint
of marching on Reading, and when the Americans were thrown forward to
protect that town the British had turned aside and were now within
sight. They had surprised and overpowered a small detachment left
to guard the approach to Philadelphia, and--the city was lost! His
Excellency was then at Skippack Creek with the bulk of his army, and
the city could hope for no help from him.

Hadley, hobbling on a crutch, but too anxious and excited to remain
longer indoors, soon reached Second Street. From Callowhill to Chestnut
it was filled with old men and children. Scarcely a youth of his own
age was to be seen, for the young men had gone into the army. It
was a quiet, but a terribly anxious crowd, and questions which went
unanswered were whispered from man to man. Will the redcoats really
march in to-day? Will the helpless folk left in the city be treated
as a conquered people? Why had Congress, spurred on by hot-heads,
sanctioned this war at all? Many who had been enthusiastic in the cause
were lukewarm now. The occupation of the town might mean the loss of
their homes and the scattering of those whom they loved.

Here and there a Tory strutted, unable to hide his delight at the
turn affairs had taken. Several times little disturbances, occasioned
by the overbearing manners of this gentry arose, but as a whole the
crowds were solemn and gloomy. At eleven o’clock a squadron of dragoons
appeared and galloped along the street, scattering the crowd to right
and left; but it closed in again as soon as they were through, for
far down the thoroughfare sounded the first strains of martial music.
Then something glittered in the sunshine, and the people murmured
and stepped out into the roadway the better to see the head of the
approaching army of their conquerors.

A wave of red--steadily advancing--and tipped with a line of flashing
steel bayonets was finally descried. In perfect unison the famous
grenadiers came into view, their pointed red caps, fronted with
silver, their white leather leggings, and short scarlet coats, trimmed
with blue, making an impressive display. Hadley, who had seen the
nondescript farmer soldiery of the American army, sighed at this
parade. How could General Washington expect to beat such men as these?
And then the boy remembered how he had seen the same farmers standing
off the trained British hosts at Brandywine, and later at the Warren
Tavern, and he took heart. Training and dress, and food, and good looks
were not everything. Every man on the American side was fighting for
his hearth, for his wife, for his children, and for everything he loved
best on earth.

Behind the grenadiers rode a group of officers, the first a stout man,
with gray hair and a pleasant countenance, despite the squint in his
eye. A whisper went through the silent crowd and reached Hadley’s ear:
“’Tis Lord Cornwallis!” Then there was a louder murmur--in some cases
threatening in tone. Behind the officers rode a party of Tories hated
by every patriot in Philadelphia--the two Allens, Tench Coxe, Enoch
Story, Joe Galloway. Never would they have dared return but under the
protection of British muskets.

Then followed the Fourth, Fortieth and Fifty-fifth regiments--all in
scarlet. Then Hadley saw a uniform he knew well--would never forget,
indeed. He saw it when Wayne held the tide of Knyphausen’s ranks back
at Chadd’s Ford. Breeches of yellow leather, leggings of black, dark
blue coats, and tall, pointed hats of brass completed the uniform of
the hireling soldiery which, against their own desires and the desires
of their countrymen, had been sent across the ocean by their prince
to fight for the English king. A faint hiss rose from the crowd of
spectators as the Hessians, with their fierce mustaches and scowling
looks marched by.

Then there were more grenadiers, cavalry, artillery, and wagons
containing provisions and the officers’ tents. The windows rattled to
the rumbling wheels and the women cowered behind the drawn blinds,
peering out upon the ranks that, at the command of a ruler across the
sea who cared nothing for these colonies but what could be made out of
them, had come to shoot down and to enslave their own flesh and blood.

Hadley could not get around very briskly; but he learned where some
of the various regiments were quartered. The artillery was in the
State House yard. Those wounded Continentals, who had lain in the long
banqueting hall on the second floor of the State House, and who could
not get away or be moved by their friends, would now learn what a
British prison pen was like. Hadley shuddered to think how he had so
nearly escaped a like fate, and was fearful still that something might
happen to reveal to the enemy that he, too, had taken up arms against
the king. The Forty-second Highlanders were drawn up in Chestnut Street
below Third; the Fifteenth regiment was on High Street. When ranks were
broken in the afternoon the streets all over town were full of red or
blue-coated figures.

Hadley hobbled back to the shelter of the Pye homestead and learned
from the good Quaker where some of the officers had been quartered.
Cornwallis was just around the corner on Second Street at Neighbor
Reeves’s house; Knyphausen was at Henry Lisle’s, while the younger
officers, including Lord Rawden, were scattered among the better houses
of the town. A young Captain André (later Major André) was quartered in
Dr. Franklin’s old house. The British had really come into the hot-bed
of the “rebels” and had made themselves much at home.


CHAPTER XV

HADLEY IS CAST OFF BY UNCLE EPHRAIM

The army of occupation brought in its train plenty of Tories and
hangers-on besides the men named, though none who had been quite so
prominent in affairs or were so greatly detested. It now behooved the
good folk of pronounced Whig tendencies to walk circumspectly, for
enemies lay in wait at every corner to hale them before the British
commander and accuse them of traitorous conduct. Hadley Morris,
therefore, although he did not expect to be recognized by anybody in
the town, resolved to get away as soon as his wound would allow.

He could not resist, however, going out at sunset to observe the
evening parade of the conquerors. There was something very fascinating
for him in the long lines of brilliant uniforms and the glittering
accoutrements. The British looked as though they had been simply
marching through the country on a continual dress parade. How much
different was the condition of even the uniformed Continentals!

To the strains of martial music the sun sank to rest, and as the
streets grew dark the boisterous mirth of the soldiery disturbed those
of the inhabitants who, fearful still of some untoward act upon the
part of the invaders, had retired behind the barred doors of their
homes. In High Street and on the commons camp fires were burning, and
Hadley wandered among them, watching the soldiers cooking their evening
meal. Most of the houses he passed were shut; but here and there was
one wide open and brilliantly lighted. These were the domiciles where
the officers were quartered, or else, being the abode of “faithful”
Tories, the proprietors were celebrating the coming of the king’s
troops. Laughter and music came from these, and the Old Coffee House
and the Indian Queen were riotous with parties of congratulation upon
the occupation by the redcoats.

As Hadley hobbled back to Master Pye’s past the tavern, he suddenly
observed a familiar face in the crowd. A number of country bumpkins
were mixing with the soldiery before the entrance to the Indian Queen,
and Hadley was positive he saw Lon Alwood. Whether the Tory youth
had observed him or not, Hadley did not know; but the fact of Lon’s
presence in the city caused him no little anxiety and he hurried
on to the Quaker’s abode. He wondered what had brought Lon up to
Philadelphia--and just at this time of all others?

“The best thing I can do is to get out of town as quick as
circumstances will permit,” thought Hadley, and upon reaching Friend
Pye’s he told the old Quaker how he had seen somebody who knew him in
the city--a person who would leave no stone unturned to injure him if
possible.

“We must send thee away, then, Hadley,” declared the Quaker. “Where
wilt thou go with thy wounded leg?”

“I’ll go home. There isn’t anything for a wounded man to do about here,
I reckon. But the leg won’t hobble me for long.”

“Nay, I hope not. I will see what can be done for thee in the morning.”

Friend Jothan Pye was considered, even by his Tory neighbors, to be
too close a man and too sharp a trader to have any real interest in the
patriot cause. He had even borne patiently from the Whigs much calumny
that he might, by so doing, be the better able to help the colonies.
Now that the British occupied the town, he might work secretly for the
betterment of the Americans and none be the wiser. He had already gone
to the British officers and obtained a contract for the cartage of
grain into the city for the army, and in two days it was arranged that
Hadley should go out of town in one of Friend Pye’s empty wagons, and
he did so safely, hidden under a great heap of empty grain sacks. In
this way he traveled beyond Germantown and outside the British lines
altogether.

Then he found another teamster going across the river, and with him he
journeyed until he was at the Mills, only six miles from the Three Oaks
Inn. Those last six miles he managed to hobble with only the assistance
of his crutch, arriving at the hostelry just at evening. Jonas Benson
had returned from Trenton and the boy was warmly welcomed by him.
Indeed, that night in the public room, Hadley was the most important
person present. The neighbors flocked in to hear him tell of the Paoli
attack and of the occupation of Philadelphia, and he felt like a
veteran.

But he could not help seeing that Mistress Benson was much put out with
him. As time passed the innkeeper’s wife grew more and more bitter
against the colonists. She had been born in England, and the presence
of Colonel Knowles and his daughter at the inn seemed to have fired her
smoldering belief in the “divine right,” and had particularly stirred
her bile against the Americans.

[Illustration: THERE WAS AN OCCASIONAL OUTBREAK IN THE QUIET TOWN]

“I’m sleepin’ in the garret, myself, Had,” groaned Jonas, in an aside
to the boy. “I can’t stand her tongue when she gets abed o’ nights.
I’m hopin’ this war’ll end before long, for it’s a severin’ man and
wife--an’ sp’ilin’ business, into the bargain. She’s complainin’ about
me keepin’ your place for ye, Had, so I’ve got Anson Driggs for stable
boy. And, of course, she won’t let me pay Miser Morris your wage no
more. I didn’t know but she’d come down from her high hosses when them
Knowlses went away, but she’s worse ’n ever!”

“Have the Colonel and Mistress Lillian gone?”

“They have, indeed--bad luck to them!--though I’ve no fault to find
with the girl: she was prettily spoken enough. But the Colonel had been
recalled to his command, I understand. His business with your uncle
came to naught, I reckon. D’ye know what it was, Had?”

Hadley shook his head gloomily. “No. Uncle would tell me nothing. But
the Colonel seemed very bitter against him.”

“And what d’ye think of doing?”

“I’m not fit for anything until this wound heals completely. I can’t
walk much for some time yet. But I’ll go over and see Uncle in the
morning.”

“Ride Molly over. There’s no need o’ your walking about here. And come
back here to sleep. Likely Miser Morris will be none too glad to see
ye. Your bed’s in the loft same’s us’al. Anson goes home at night. The
place is dead, anyway. If this war doesn’t end soon I might as well
burn the old house down--there’s no money to be got by keeping it open.”

On the morrow Hadley climbed upon Black Molly and rode over to the
Morris homestead. Most of the farmers in the neighborhood had harvested
their grain by this time. The corn was shocked and the pumpkins gleamed
in golden contrast to the brown earth and stubble. In some fields he
saw women and children at work, the men being away with the army. The
sight was an encouraging one. Despite the misfortunes and reverses of
General Washington’s army, this showed that the common people were
still faithful to the cause of liberty.

News, too, of an encouraging nature had come from the north. The battle
of Bennington and the first battle of Stillwater had been fought.
The army of Burgoyne, which was supposed to be unconquerable, had
been halted and, even with the aid of Indians and Tories, the British
commander could not have got past General Gates. News traveled slowly
in those days, but a pretty correct account had dribbled through the
country sections; and there was still some hope of Washington striking
a decisive blow himself before winter set in.

The signs of plenty in the fields as he rode on encouraged Hadley
Morris, who had seen, of late, so many things to discourage his hope in
the ultimate success of the American arms. When he reached his uncle’s
grain fields he found that they, too, had been reaped, and so clean
that there was not a beggar’s gleaning left among the stubble. He rode
on to the house, thinking how much good the store of grain Ephraim
Morris had gathered might do the patriot troops, were Uncle Ephraim
only of his way of thinking.

As he approached the house the watch dog began barking violently, and
not until he had laboriously dismounted before the stable door did
the brute recognize him. Then it ran up to the boy whining and licked
his hand; but as Uncle Ephraim appeared the dog backed off and began
to bark again as though it were not, after all, quite sure whether to
greet the boy as a friend or an enemy. Evidently the old farmer had
been in like quandary, for he bore a long squirrel rifle in the hollow
of his arm, and his brows met in a black scowl when his gaze rested on
his nephew’s face.

“Well, what want ye here?” he demanded.

“Why, Uncle, I have come to see you--”

“I’m no uncle of yours--ye runaway rebel!” exclaimed the old man,
harshly. “What’s this I hear from Jonas Benson? He says ye are not at
his inn and that he’ll no longer pay me the wages he promised. If that
doesn’t make you out a runaway ’prentice, then what does it mean?”

“Why, you know, Mistress Benson is very violent for the king just now--”

“Ha!” exclaimed the farmer. “I didn’t know she had the sense to be.
It’s too bad she doesn’t get a little of it into Jonas.”

“Well, she doesn’t want me around. And Jonas can’t pay two of us.”

“She wouldn’t have turned ye off if ye’d stayed where ye belonged,
Hadley Morris. Oh, I know ye--and I know what ye’ve been doing of
late,” cried the farmer. “Ha! lame air ye? What’s that from?”

“I got a ball in my leg--”

“I warrant. Crippling yourself, too. Been fighting with the ‘ragamuffin
reg’lars,’ hey? An’ sarve ye right--sarve ye right, I say!” The old
man scowled still more fiercely. “And now that you’ve got licked, ye
come back home like a cur with its tail ’twixt its legs, arskin’ ter be
taken in--hey? I know your breed.”

“If you don’t want me here I can go away again,” Hadley said, quietly.

“What would I want ye for? You’re a lazy, good-for-nothing--that’s
what ye air! There’s naught for ye to do about the farm this time
o’ year--an’ crippled, too. Ye’d never come back to me if that ball
hadn’t hit ye. Ye’d stayed on with that Mr. Washington ye’re so fond
of talking about. Ha! I’m done with ye! Ye’ve been naught but an
expense and a trouble since your mother brought ye here--and she was an
expense, too. I’m a poor man; I can’t have folks hangin’ ter the tail
o’ my coat. Your mother--”

“Suppose we let that drop, sir,” interrupted Hadley, firmly, and his
eyes flashed. “Everybody in this neighborhood knows what my mother was.
They know that she worked herself into her grave in this house. And if
she hadn’t begged me to stay here as long as I could be of any use to
you, I’d never stood your ill treatment as long as I did. And now,”
cried the youth, growing angrier as he thought of the slurring tone his
uncle had used in speaking of the dead woman, “it lies with you whether
you break with your last relative on earth or not. I will stand abuse
myself, and hard work; but you shan’t speak one word against mother!”

“Hoity, toity!” exclaimed the old man. “The young cock is crowing, heh?
Who are you that tells me what I should do, or shouldn’t do?” Hadley
was silent. He was sorry now that he had spoken so warmly. “Seems to
me, Master Hadley, for a beggar, ye talk pretty uppishly--that’s it,
uppishly! And you are a beggar--ye’ve got nothing and ye never will
have anything. I’ll find some other disposal to make of my farm here--”

“I’m not looking for dead men’s shoes!” flashed out the boy again.
“You’ve had my time, and you’ve a right to it for three years longer.
If you want to hire me out as soon as my wound is well, you can do so.
I haven’t refused to work for you.”

“Yah!” snarled the old man. “Who wants to hire a boy at this time
of the year? The country’s ruined as it is--jest ruined. There’s no
business. I tell you that you’re an expense, and I’d ruther have your
room than your company.”

Hadley turned swiftly. He had clung to Black Molly’s bridle. Now he
climbed upon the horse block and, in spite of his wound, fairly flung
himself into the saddle. “You’ve told me to go, Uncle Ephraim!” he
exclaimed, with flaming cheeks. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” and,
pounding his heels into the mare’s sides, he set off at a gallop along
the path, and in a moment was out of sight of the angry farmer.

There was bitterness in the boy’s heart and angry tears in his eyes as
Black Molly fled across the pastures and out upon the highway. Hadley
Morris did not really love his uncle. There was nothing lovable about
Miser Morris. The boy had been misjudged and his mother spoken ill
of--and that fact he could not forget. He had tried for a year and a
half to keep from a final disagreement with Uncle Ephraim; but to no
avail. The old man did not consider Hadley old enough to judge for
himself, or to have any opinions of his own. The times were such that
children grew to youth and young men to manhood very rapidly. When the
fathers went to the war the sons became the providers and defenders of
the household; if the fathers did not go, the sons were in the ranks
themselves. Questions were not asked regarding age by the recruiting
officers, providing a youth looked hearty and was able to carry a
musket. And Hadley felt himself a man grown in experience, if not in
years, after the exciting incidents of the past few weeks.

“I am able to judge for myself in some things,” he told himself,
pulling Molly down to a walk, so as to ease his leg. “If Uncle would
accept the fact that I have a right to my own opinion, as he has a
right to his, we never would have quarreled. I’d never gone over to
the Three Oaks to work. And then I’d never seen any active service, I
s’pose. He’s got only himself to thank for it, if he did not want me to
join the army.

“But now, I reckon, there isn’t anything left for me to do but that.
Jonas can’t have me and keep peace in the family; and I wouldn’t stay
after the way Mistress Benson talked last night--no, indeed. I’ll go
to some of the neighbors. They’ll give me a bite to eat and a place to
sleep till my leg gets well enough for me to walk. Then I’ll go back to
the army.”

He so decided; but when Jonas heard his plan he vetoed it at once.
“What, Had!” cried the old innkeeper, “d’ye think I’ll let a nagging
woman drive you away from here to the neighbors? Nay, nay! I’m master
here yet, and she is not really so bad, Had. She doesn’t begrudge ye
the bite and sup. Stay till your leg is well.”

“But I shall not feel comfortable as long as I stay, Jonas,” declared
the boy.

“And how long will that be? Your leg is mending famously. If you could
but ride ye’d be fit to go into battle again now. Ah, lad, I’m proud of
you--and glad that it was part through me ye went to the wars. I can’t
go myself; but I can give of what I have, and if the mistress does
not like it she can scold--’twill make her feel better, I vum.” Then
he looked at Hadley curiously. “You’re anxious to get back to General
Washington again, eh, lad?”

“I wish I had hunted up Captain Prentice, or Colonel Cadwalader, when
I got out of Philadelphia, instead of coming over here,” admitted the
youth.

“Then start back now,” Jonas said. “Ride Molly--she knows ye, and ye’ll
get back in time to be of some use, mayhap, for I heard this morning
that there’s a chance of another battle in a day or two.”

“Take Molly, sir?” cried the astonished boy.

“Yes. Most of my horses have already gone to the cause. I’ve got a
packet of scrip, as they call it, for ’em, but it’s little worth the
stuff is now, and perhaps it will never be redeemed. But I’m a poor
sort of a fellow if I mind that. You take Molly. I know if you both
live you’ll come back here. And if she is killed--”

The innkeeper stopped, for his voice had broken. He was looking hard at
the boy’s flushed face, and now he reached up and gripped Hadley’s hand
with sudden warmth. The youth knew that it was not the thought of the
possible loss of Black Molly that had choked the worthy innkeeper, but
the fear that, perhaps, her rider would never come back again.

“I’ll take her, Jonas--and thank you. I’ll be happier--better content,
at least--away from here. Uncle doesn’t want me, nor does he need me;
and certainly Mistress Benson doesn’t wish me about the inn. So I’ll
take Molly, and if all comes well you shall have her back safe and
sound.”

“That’s all right--that’s all right, Had!” exclaimed the other,
quickly. “Look out when them army smiths shoe her. She’s got just the
suspicion of a corn on that nigh fore foot, ye know. And take care of
yourself, Had.”

He wrung Hadley’s hand again and the boy pulled the little mare around.
There was nothing more to be said; there was nothing to keep him back.
So Hadley Morris rode away to join Washington’s forces, which then lay
idle near the beleaguered city.


[TO BE CONTINUED]

[Illustration]




Mary Lane’s Higher Education

By Marguerite Stables


Mrs. Lane dropped down on the door-step and fanned herself with her
apron. “It does beat all,” she said, aloud to herself, “how trifling
these heathens are. Here I am paying seven dollars a week to this
miserable Chinaman to do nothing but the cooking, and now if he doesn’t
slip off without a word and leave me to do all the work.”

“Don’t bother about it, mamma,” answered Mary Lane, with an abstracted
air, “_pingo_, irregular, we can eat, _pingere_, anything. It’s too hot
to worry, _pinxi_, _pinctum_.”

Mary meant to be kind, but as she hunched her shoulders over her book
again, her mother’s trials were entirely out of her mind. But for once
in her life the overworked woman’s patience forsook her. “I’ve got to
bother,” she said, wearily, “what with a houseful of city boarders,
and this being quarterly conference and the ministers coming here to
dinner, and that heathen away. I can’t let it go, I’ve got to bother.”
Then she arose and walked away quickly so her plaints should not
disturb her daughter’s studying.

A few moments later a gentle knock was heard at the door, and--“Mamma
says she would like to have screens put into her windows, Mrs. Lane,”
said a crisp-looking young girl who put her head into the door, “and
the water won’t run upstairs, and we need more--why, what in the world
is the matter?” she finished abruptly, for poor Mrs. Lane had put down
her pitcher, looking as if this was the last straw.

“Everything is the matter,” the tired woman answered, and motioned the
girl into the hall to explain that all her troubles seemed to have
culminated that morning and that the ministers were to be there for
dinner.

“Can’t you get any one to help you?” the girl asked, looking
inquiringly through the door at Mary.

“No, she’s too busy studying; I wouldn’t have her stop preparing for
her Latin examination for anything; she is going to have a higher
education, you know,” she added, with a touch of pride.

The youthful summer boarder looked down at the tired little woman
with a bright smile. “Oh, Mrs. Lane, I’m coming right in to help you,
myself,” she said; “I just love to do things in the kitchen, honestly
I do,” commencing to take off her rings and rolling up her sleeves, as
she saw Mrs. Lane had not fully grasped what she had said.

“No, you must not stay in this hot place,” the woman said, noticing
the stiff collar and freshly starched duck skirt; “and, besides,” she
continued, to herself, as she remembered how some of her boarders, last
summer, had tried to have a candy-pull and had set the house on fire,
“I can’t be bothered now showing her. I know how these city girls work.”

But by this time the “city girl,” unconscious of Mrs. Lane’s thoughts,
had one of the latter’s big kitchen aprons tied around her waist and
was waving a wooden spoon by way of punctuating her orders.

“Now, Mrs. Lane, I’m the new hired girl, Blanche is my name, and
although I have no recommendation from my last place to give you, I
assure you I am honest and willing. You don’t know how I just love to
get a chance to fuss around a kitchen; it is such a change from the
grind of--” Here the potatoes boiled over and she flew to take off the
lid.

The morning wore away much more peacefully for Mrs. Lane than it had
begun. Many steps were saved her by the “new girl’s” watchfulness, and
there were even several bursts of merry laughter from the buttery,
which dispelled more clouds than the real assistance did.

“I may not be so skilled in making bread and doing the useful things,”
Blanche apologized, “for I have taken only the ‘classical course’
in cookery. Nettie and I spent last summer down at Aunt Cornelia’s
while the rest of the family were in Europe, and she told us we could
do whatever we pleased, and what do you suppose we chose? I chose
puttering around the kitchen, and Nettie took to hoeing the weeds out
of the vegetable garden. And it was such fun!”

The ministers came earlier than they were expected, and Mrs. Lane was
hurried out of the kitchen to put on her good dress, with a pledge to
secrecy as to the force in the culinary department.

By dinner-time, the Chinaman, having unexpectedly put in his
appearance, was waiting on the table as if nothing had happened, but
Mrs. Lane was too nervous and apprehensive at first even to notice how
different the table looked. There were roses everywhere, a gorgeous
American Beauty at each place, and the fish globe in the centre of the
table was full of them; but they were all of one variety. Mrs. Lane
thought secretly that when the larkspurs and hollyhocks were so fine it
did seem a pity not to mix a few in just to give it a little style. She
had grave doubts as to the salad when she saw it brought on, although
she was bound to admit the yellow-green lettuce looked very pretty,
garnished with the bright red petals; but when she tasted it she was
reassured. She could not make out what it was made of, but she only
hoped it seemed as palatable to every one else as it did to her.

The boarders were all delighted with this new departure, and attributed
it to the presence of the ministers, consequently they warmed toward
them with a friendliness born of gratitude, and the ministers in their
turn did their utmost to return the graciousness and courtesy of
the boarders, till the board might have been surrounded by a picked
number of congenial friends, so beautifully did everything progress.
“Brother” Mason eyed the array of forks and spoons at his plate
somewhat suspiciously, wondering if he had them all and was expected to
pass them along, but Blanche clattered hers so ostentatiously that he
noticed she had the same number and was satisfied.

The success of the next course was due to Mrs. Lane, for the “new
girl” explained to the mistress that meats and vegetables did not come
in the “classical course.” “Brother” Hicks talked so volubly about
foreign missions that Mary did not notice that even the currant jelly
was made to do its part in developing the color scheme of the table and
that it matched the roses as exactly as if it had been made after a
sample. But when the cake was brought in and set before her to be cut
she thought at the first glance it was another flower piece, but she
saw the quick, approving glance shot from her mother to Miss Blanche,
and suspected the new boarder might have suggested its design. It was
set on the large, round wooden tray used to mash the sugar in. Even
the frosting was tinted an American Beauty pink, and around its base
a garland of the same glowing roses. Through the jumble of irregular
verbs and the rules for indirect discourse the secret suddenly dawned
upon her. It was the city girl who walked with her head so high and
wore such beautiful dresses who had made the dinner such a success,
while she--but that was different, she was preparing for college.

Mrs. Lane was complacent and happy the remainder of the evening and
less tired than she had been for many days, and when the ministers took
their leave of her the Presiding Elder said, “I shall remember this
evening and the beautiful repast you have given us for a long time to
come, Sister Lane.”

[Illustration: “I SHALL REMEMBER THE BEAUTIFUL REPAST FOR A LONG TIME
TO COME, SISTER LANE,” SAID THE PRESIDING ELDER]

Blanche’s bright eyes sparkled with fun, and Mary, although she could
not have told why, felt just a bit uncomfortable. “Isn’t it interesting
to know that our English words _transfer_ and _translate_ come from the
same root?” she said, presently, in her own mind trying to vindicate
herself for not helping her mother.

“Oh, don’t,” broke in Blanche, laughingly, “talk about the dirty old
roots under ground when we have these glorious flowers that grow on
top.”

It had grown too dark for any one to see the pity in Mary’s smile for
this frivolous city-bred girl who wasted her time on amusements and
learning a little chafing-dish cooking, and didn’t even know what a
Latin root was.

Blanche’s mother was kept in her room the next day with a headache,
so Blanche’s time was divided between taking care of her invalid and
lending a hand to Mrs. Lane till she could get another cook. Mrs. Lane
had never expected Mary to help her; knowing how hard her own life
had been, she was trying to fit her for a teacher, but as she watched
Blanche flying about the house, setting the table, rolling out her
cheese straws, running up and down to her mother’s room with a patch of
flour on her curly hair, and singing gayly about her work, her tired
eyes followed the young girl wistfully. It would be worth a great deal,
she admitted, to have a daughter like that, even if she had not a word
of Latin in her head. But, of course, the higher education could not be
interfered with by the old-fashioned way of bringing up a daughter, and
Mary took to books.

“I am going to college this fall if I pass the entrance examinations,”
Mary announced at the lunch table, with just a touch of superiority in
her tone. She could not have explained just why she felt so resentful
toward the city girl.

“Are you going East, or will you stay out here on the coast?” Blanche
asked, as if it were the most every-day thing to go to college.

“I have not decided yet, for I shall be the only girl anywhere around
here who has gone to college,” she answered, nibbling one of Blanche’s
cheese straws with an evident relish.

“Have another,” Blanche interrupted, passing her the plate with a hand
that showed two burns and a slight scald. “We used to serve them with
tamales when our friends came down from town to the trial foot-ball
games.”

“Why, I thought you lived in San Francisco?” Mary said, looking up in
surprise.

“I do,” Blanche answered, “but I’ve been down at Stanford the last four
years, and have just finished this last semester.”

Mary’s eyes almost popped out of her head. “Why,” she began,
incredulously, “I thought you--you--” She did not like to say she had
thought that the sunny-faced girl before her had no appreciation of
education because she liked to do useful, domestic things, too.

“You thought I could do nothing but cook?” Blanche finished, laughingly.

But Mary did not answer. Blanche Hallsey was certainly not much older
than she, and yet, with all her college education, she had been in the
kitchen all that hot morning, kneading bread and scouring silver for
Mrs. Lane.

“If you decide to go to Stanford, I can write to some of the girls to
look out for you,” Blanche went on, for she had not noticed Mary’s
attitude of superiority the last few days.

“Oh, would you, please?” Mary Lane pleaded, in a tone that would have
greatly surprised her mother had she heard it, for not even she guessed
how the fear of going among strangers for the first time in her life
had been haunting her diffident little girl.

It was several days, however, before Mary, with her forehead puckered
into knots over the “ablative absolute,” could bring herself to knock
at Miss Hallsey’s door, and ask for a little assistance.

But that was the beginning of the end of Mary Lane’s priggishness,
and the first step toward a higher education in the true sense of the
word. She passed her entrance examinations with honors, due, perhaps,
to the patient coaching she received during the rest of the summer from
Blanche Hallsey. She learned, too, besides irregular verbs, a great
many other things fully as useful, topping off with what the college
girl called “a classical course in cookery.”




CHEERFULNESS


    A merry heart, a smiling face,
        Are better far than sunny weather;
    A noble life and charming grace,
        Like leaves and flowers, grow well together.

    --_Carter._




LITTLE POLLY PRENTISS

BY ELIZABETH LINCOLN GOULD


CHAPTER XV

ARCTURA’S STORY

[Illustration]

 SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

 Polly Prentiss is an orphan who, for the greater part of her life, has
 lived with a distant relative, Mrs. Manser, the mistress of Manser
 Farm. Miss Hetty Pomeroy, a maiden lady of middle age, has, ever since
 the death of her favorite niece, been on the lookout for a little
 girl whom she might adopt. She is attracted by Polly’s appearance and
 quaint manners, and finally decides to take her home and keep her
 for a month’s trial. In the foregoing chapters, Polly has arrived at
 her new home, and the great difference between the way of living at
 Pomeroy Oaks and her past life affords her much food for wonderment.
 In the meantime Miss Pomeroy has inwardly decided that she will keep
 Polly with her, but as yet she has not spoken to the little girl of
 her intention.

Arctura’s prediction came true, for the first sound Polly heard when
she woke the next morning was a soft, steady patter on her window-pane;
the trunk of the elm tree was wet and black as if it had been raining
all night. Polly was reminded of that stormy afternoon not quite two
weeks ago when she had sat close to Uncle Blodgett in the old shed at
Manser Farm and heard him tell about his brave young nephew who had
gone to the war and died for his country.

“I wonder if they miss me?” thought the little girl at Pomeroy Oaks.
“Maybe they do, because they used to say I made all the noise there
was in the house. It seems a pretty long time till next winter, but
if I get real well acquainted with Miss Pomeroy so I can tell her
that my loving the Manser Farm folks won’t make me stop wanting to be
like Eleanor, maybe she’ll let me go to see them by Thanksgiving. I
wonder how my rag dollie likes it up in the garret in that tight box
where Mrs. Manser put her. I expect she’s lonesome, poor dolly! And
Ebenezer--I don’t persume anybody gets down on the floor to play with
him, because they’ve all got rheumatism except Mrs. Manser, and she has
pains in her head.”

There was no trip to the village for Miss Pomeroy and Polly that
morning. Toward noon Hiram drove off in the light wagon, holding a
large umbrella over his head, and returned well splashed with mud an
hour or so later.

Polly spent part of the morning in the library with Miss Pomeroy,
darning some stockings and a rent in the old red frock. Miss Pomeroy
had a book in her hands, but almost every time the little girl looked
up from her work she found the keen, gray eyes fixed on her face, and
it made her uneasy. She thought there must be something unsatisfactory
about her appearance, for her kind friend looked grave and troubled.
Polly decided to speak.

“My hair isn’t quite as flat as it is sometimes,” she ventured, after a
long silence. “Mrs. Manser used to say that she believed Satan got into
it when the weather was damp, and perhaps he does. I suppose the nicest
folks all have straight hair, don’t they, Miss Pomeroy?”

The only answer was a smile and a stroke of the brown curls, and Polly
was instantly confirmed in her opinion, while Miss Hetty’s mind was far
away.

“But, perhaps, as I get more and more like Eleanor, my hair will change
just as my cheeks are changing,” she thought, hopefully. “And I think
I’m stretching out a little bit, too, practicing the way Ebenezer did.”

The library was a delightful room, but the hour with Arctura before the
kitchen fire in the afternoon had a different sort of charm for Polly.

“You’re so comfortable, Miss Arctura,” she said, confidingly, to Miss
Green, when they were fairly settled with their work. Polly’s task was
an iron-holder, and that of her hostess the flaming sock designed for
Hiram’s ample foot. Miss Pomeroy was in her room, writing letters; she
had many correspondents in the world outside the little town, and they
kept her busy. Besides that, she had a purpose in leaving Polly with
the faithful Arctura a good deal of the time.

“The child is happier with you, and I want her to be happy,” she said,
with perfect frankness. “She’s a little afraid of me for some reason,
and though it hurts my vanity, I don’t want to hurry her confidence. I
believe I shall win it in time.”

“Of course, you will,” said Arctura, stoutly. “I can’t quite make her
out sometimes. She’ll seem real gay for a few minutes and then sober
down all of a sudden, as if she remembered something. She’s just as
anxious to please you as ever a child could be. Do you suppose that
Manser woman could have scared her any way? Told her you were set on
having her act any particular way, or anything?”

Miss Pomeroy’s life had been singularly apart from the current of
village gossip; she stared blankly at this suggestion and then shook
her head.

“It wouldn’t be possible,” she said, decidedly. “Mrs. Manser never
spoke to me until I waylaid her after church that Sunday, three or
four weeks ago. And there is nobody to tell her anything of me or
my ways of living. She simply knows that I took a fancy to Mary,
and--since yesterday--that I wish to adopt her.”

“M-m,” said Arctura, softly, as Miss Pomeroy turned away. “I shouldn’t
want to be too sure what folks know and what they don’t, in any place
where there’s a post-office, two meat-men, and a baker’s cart.”

“I’ve written my letter to go with the candy to-morrow morning,” said
Polly, as she basted a strip of turkey-red binding around a square of
ticking after Miss Green’s instructions. “It took me ’most an hour and
a half by the big clock, and I made four blots and had to look in the
dictionary three times, and now I expect it’s just full of mistakes. I
carried it to Miss Pomeroy, but she said she wanted Aunty Peebles to
have the first reading of it, and she helped me seal it with a great
splotch of red sealing-wax, and marked it with her big stamp.”

“Won’t it mix ’em all up to see a ‘P’ on the letter?” inquired Arctura.
“Why, no; what am I thinking of? ‘P’ stands for Prentiss just as well
as Pomeroy.”

“Yes, and for--for other names, too,” said Polly, remembering just in
time. “Polly Perkins--that’s in your song--it stands for both of her
names.”

“To be sure it does,” said Arctura. Then the chairs rocked in silence
for a few minutes. Arctura stole a glance at the face so near hers. The
little mouth was shut firmly, but there was a downward droop at the
corners, and it certainly appeared to Arctura that something glistened
in the long lashes that hid the great brown eyes.

“H-m--it’s a kind of a dull day for little folks and big folks, too,”
she said, poking vigorously at the ashes in the grate with her back to
Polly. “I don’t know as there’ll ever come a better time for me to tell
you about the Square and me when I was your age.”

When she turned around the brown eyes were shining to match the eager
voice, and Arctura smiled with satisfaction.

“This occurred forty-five years ago,” she began, briskly. “I might as
well break it to you that I’m all but fifty-five. I suppose you’ve met
folks as old as that, haven’t you?”

“Why, everybody at Manser Farm is ever and ever so much older, except
Mrs. Manser and Father Manser, and Bob Rust,” said Polly, earnestly.
“They’re all traveling on toward their end, Uncle Blodgett says, and
he doesn’t care how soon he gets his marching orders for the heavenly
land, but I care,” and the brown curls danced, “for I just love Uncle
Blodgett.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Arctura, heartily. “Well now, about the
Square and me. You see, my mother--‘marm,’ we all called her--was a
notable cook. I don’t approach her on pie crust nor muffins, and there
was a sort of rye drop cake,” said Miss Green, lowering her voice,
“that nobody but her could ever make. And she was a great one to invent
cake receipts, and then invite folks in to take a dish of tea in the
afternoon and test the new cake.

“The Square’s wife was a good deal younger than he--she’d only be
seventy if she was alive to-day, while he was eighty-five when he
died--and she’d often accept marm’s invitations, and come to our old
house--’twas burned years ago--and spend the best part of an afternoon
just as friendly as you please. Not that ’twas any great come down,
either,” said Arctura, with proper pride, “for my marm was of excellent
stock, and I’m the first woman in the family records to work for pay.

“But that’s nothing to do with the story. One morning when John and I
were starting off for school--Hiram was only a baby--marm gave us each
an errand to do on the way. I can remember I stood barefoot in the
grass--what did you say?” as Polly made a sound.

“Nothing but ‘oh!’” said Polly, quickly. “I didn’t mean to interrupt,
Miss Arctura.”

“Never mind, I’m glad to have you take an interest,” said the
story-teller. “I can remember standing there in the grass waiting
for John, and saying over and over to myself, ‘Please, Mrs. Pomeroy,
marm sends her compliments and would like to have--no, that isn’t
right--please, Mrs. Pomeroy, marm sends her compliments and would be
happy to have you take tea with her this afternoon.’

“Pretty soon John came running out, and we took hold of hands and
started for school. John said marm had told him to get an ounce of
camphor at the store, and he was wishing she’d said a pound instead of
such a stingy little mite, and I had to set forth to him how much an
ounce of camphor could do before he was anyways reconciled.

“We had nearly two miles to go to school, and that morning when we got
to the fork in the woods I ran across lots to get there quicker, and
John went on down to the store. It was way out at the corners, not
where the Burcham block is now,” explained Arctura. “Folks expected the
village would grow this way, but it went the other.

“I ran to the front door, as marm had charged me to, and reached up
for the knocker and gave it a good bang. And what should I see but
the Square, instead of Mrs. Pomeroy that I was prepared for. He was
tall and stern looking, and my ideas just fled away when I saw him,
but I managed to remember my manners. I dropped a courtesy and said,
‘Please, marm wants Mrs. Pomeroy’s tea, and she’d be happy to have her
compliments this afternoon.’”

“Then it came over me what I’d said, and with being scared and all I
began to cry. And the Square just reached down and took my hand and led
me into the house, and Mrs. Pomeroy understood the message right off,
and said she’d be most happy to come. The Square kept hold of my hand
all the time, and when the message was straightened out he said, ‘May I
walk with you as far as our ways lie together, my little maid?’”

“Oh, wasn’t that beautiful!” cried Polly. “‘May I walk with you as far
as our ways lie together, my little maid?’ That’s something like Mr.
Shakespeare’s works that Uncle Blodgett has.”

“’Twas pretty fine talk, I think myself,” said Miss Green, “and ’twas
followed up by finer, though I can’t recall anything else word for
word. But we kept together hand in hand, he taking long strides and I
running alongside, as you might say, till we reached a house where the
Square had to stop. He took off his hat to me when he said good-bye
and shook my hand, and said, ‘I beg you to accept this trifling
remembrance, my little maid,’ and when I came to, there was a shining
gold-piece in my hand.”

“‘I beg you to accept this trifling remembrance, my little maid,’”
repeated Polly. “I think that’s even beautifuller than what he said at
first. I guess Uncle Blodgett and Grandma Manser, too, would like to
hear that. They love beautiful language.”

“When I got to school,” continued Arctura, after an appreciative
smile at Polly, “John was in the middle of a group of children on the
green. He’d taken off his coat and was showing ’em his first pair of
‘galluses’--bright red, they were, about the shade of this very yarn.
One of the children ran up to me and said, ‘I suppose your brother John
thinks he’s a man now, for he says his suspenders are just like your
father’s.’”

“I never answered her, but I just opened out my palm to let her see
the gold-piece, and I said, ‘The Square walked with me ’way to Mrs.
Brown’s, and gave me this.’”

“John had considerable interest for the boys that day, but the girls
were all taken up with me, and for weeks afterward when we got tired
playing, somebody’d say, ‘Arctura, now you tell about your marm’s
message, and the Square walking part way to school with you.’”

“Oh, I think it was ever so much more interesting than John’s
suspenders,” said Polly, breathlessly. “I never heard anything so
wonderful that happened to a little girl, Miss Arctura.”

Miss Green loosened the ruffle at her neck and slowly drew up a slender
chain on the end of which something dangled.

“Suspenders wear out, even the best of ’em,” she said, softly leaning
toward her little guest. “You look at that. My father bored a hole in
it, and marm gave me this chain that was her marm’s, and I’ve worn it
from that day to this.”

“And mind you,” said Miss Green, as Polly looked with awe at the little
gold-piece, kept shining by Arctura’s loving care, “whenever the Square
was a mite cross or unreasonable those last years, from his mind
getting tangled, I’d put my hand over this little dangling thing, and
I’d say to myself, ‘Arctura Green, who gave you the proudest day you
ever knew as a little girl?’ and ’twould warm my heart up in a minute.
There’s some that forgets, but, with all my faults, I ain’t one of the
number.”


CHAPTER XVI

POLLY’S LETTER

When Father Manser returned from his trip to the post-office the next
evening he found the residents at Manser Farm, with the exception of
his melancholy spouse, gathered in the kitchen. Mrs. Manser had gone
to bed with a headache, but her absence failed to cast a gloom over
the company. It was the most cheerful evening that had been known
since Polly left them, for Uncle Blodgett had not only read the weekly
“Sentinel” in so clear a tone that even Grandma Manser, near whom he
sat, could hear, but he had, after urging, recited several poems.

“I admire to hear battle-pieces,” said Aunty Peebles, just as the door
swung open to admit Father Manser. “When you spoke that ‘Charge of the
Light Brigade’ it gave me chills all along my spine, and made me feel
as if I could step right forth to war.”

“I expect you wouldn’t be a very murderous character, though, come to
get you on the field of battle,” said Uncle Blodgett, good-naturedly.
“Now, there’s Mis’ Ramsdell, I reckon she’d make a good fighter if she
was put to it.”

“I come of war stock,” said Mrs. Ramsdell, her black eyes snapping, and
nostrils dilating as she acknowledged the compliment. “My father and
his three brothers were in the war of 1812, and back of that their
parents and uncles were in the thick of ’76, and led wherever they
were.”

“Ain’t you kind of reckless, speaking of ‘parents’ that way?” inquired
Uncle Blodgett. “Did your grandmarm conduct a regiment, or what was her
part in the proceedings?”

Mrs. Ramsdell directed a look of withering scorn at her old friend, but
her eye caught sight of a package in Father Manser’s hand and she was
suddenly alert.

“What you got there?” she demanded, and at once all the old heads
turned toward the new-comer.

Usually they took no special note of Father Manser’s return, as there
were scarcely ever any letters, and they well knew the paper must be
Mrs. Manser’s spoil for the evening.

“It’s a box,” said Father Manser, turning the package over and over in
his hand.

“We can all see that,” said Mrs. Ramsdell, sharply.

“And it seems to be directed to Miss Anne Peebles,” proceeded Father
Manser, taking no offence.

Aunty Peebles began to tremble with excitement as the box was handed
to her, and a flush rose in the other old faces as the group closed
in around the table, so that the lamp might shed its light on this
surprising package.

“If you could wait till I’ve taken the paper in to Mrs. Manser, I’ve
got a sharp knife that would cut those fastenings,” said Father Manser,
wistfully. “Her door’s closed, and I won’t be but a minute. I won’t
speak of the package, and I’ll mention that the fire needs more wood,
for I see it does.”

“I’ll wait,” said Aunty Peebles, and spurred by a “Hurry up, then, for
goodness’ sake!” from Mrs. Ramsdell, Father Manser sped off with the
paper.

“It’s Polly’s writing,” said Uncle Blodgett, after a long squint at
the address on the brown paper covering of the box. “I’ve got one of
her exercises that the teacher said she might keep--one of that last
batch, if I haven’t lost it.”

Uncle Blodgett drew from his coat pocket a long, flat wallet, and took
out of it a piece of paper carefully creased and bearing evidences of
frequent handling. He spread it out close to the box, so that all might
see.

“You mark that cross on the T,” he said, triumphantly. “She begins it
with a kind of a hook, different from most that you’d see. I--I noticed
it the day she made me a gift of the paper,” said Uncle Blodgett, as he
replaced his treasure in the wallet.

“The box is from Polly Prentiss,” cried Mrs. Ramsdell in Grandma
Manser’s ear. “I guess your daughter-in-law’s made a mistake about
her forgetting us, after all.” Then the old lady put her arm through
Grandma Manser’s and pressed her fiercely as if to make amends for this
reference to the doubting one. “’Taint as if she was your daughter,
dear heart,” she said, remorsefully.

When the string had at last given way--Father Manser had slashed it
recklessly in half a dozen places in his haste--and the box cover was
lifted, there lay the letter on which Polly had spent so much time and
thought, with seven chocolate drops on it. Aunty Peebles passed the box
around and each of the company took a piece of candy; even Bob Rust had
his portion, which he carried to his favorite seat near the door into
the shed, and handled as if it were something rare and wonderful, as,
indeed, it was to him.

Father Manser set his wife’s piece carefully aside. Nobody failed for a
moment to understand little Polly’s loving thought for them all. Below
the letter lay row after row of the chocolates, but they could wait.

“Now we’ve--ahem!--eaten part of the message,” said Uncle Blodgett,
gruffly, “suppose you read us the rest of it, Mis’ Peebles. Seems to be
some time since we’ve heard direct from the child.”

Aunty Peebles’s voice quavered many times during the reading, and there
was a frank use of handkerchiefs at some points, but the interest in
Polly’s letter never flagged.

 “Dear folks at Manser Farm,” read Aunty Peebles, “this is a beautiful
 place and every one is very kind to me. How do you all do, and is
 Ebyneezer well and the other Animals? The minister came to dinner
 Sunday, that was why I was so late and you had gone, but I heard the
 Wagon up the hill. This is a beautiful place, with big trees, and in
 the house there are books and books and Cabbynets with kurous Shells
 and other things. And there is silver that shines, and my bed and
 chairs are white with a pink Strype. Mrs. Manser, I am being careful
 of my Close and I allways wear an apron. There are two little kittens
 here. Their names are Snip and Snap.

 “When folks have such a beautiful place I guess they do not care much
 about going out-doors, but there is a Pyaza and I walk on that a great
 deal, beside I have been to walk down the road most every day with
 Miss Pomeroy and she is just as good to me! And once I have been in
 the Woods with Miss Arctura, and she said ‘next time,’ so that means
 we are going again. Mr. Hiram that is her brother can resite pieces
 and he is teaching me On Linden when the Sun was Low, Uncle Blodgett
 do you know that piece? He says he would give all his boot buttons
 to hear you resite Mr. Shakespeer’s Works. I do not think I have
 spelled that name right. Perhaps I can see you all before Christmas,
 but perhaps I cannot, for I am going to be adopted. Do you miss me,
 Grandma Manser and Mrs. Ramsdell? Do you miss me, Uncle Blodgett? and
 Aunty Peebles do you miss me? This is a beautiful place, and I read
 and sew and play with the kittens and Miss Pomeroy says I am a quiet
 little girl, Mrs. Manser. Father Manser do you remember giving me
 Pepermints? I hope you will all like this Candy. I have been to the
 Village once with Miss Pomeroy, but I did not see any folks I knew.

 “I hope Grandma Manser will have her ear Trumpet pretty soon. Aunty
 Peebles I love that Cushion I look at it very many times, and Uncle
 Blodgett Mr. Hiram will have that knife fixed for a Present he says.
 Now I must say Goodbye with heaps and heaps of love. I put Aunty
 Peebles’ name on this because she admires to get things through the
 Post Office.

  “Mary Prentiss.”

 “Miss Pomeroy is not going to look at this. I am trying to be just
 like Ellynor, but I expect I am not. Will you please call me Polly to
 yourselves? Nobody here knows it ever was my name.”

The last few lines were evidently written in great haste. Polly had run
upstairs to add them when she found the letter would not be inspected.
There was a short silence when the last word had been read. Mrs.
Ramsdell fidgeted in her chair.

“She seems to be real contented and happy, don’t she?” said Father
Manser, looking from one to another for confirmation of his views. “I
guess they’re mighty kind to her.”

“Kind! who wouldn’t be kind to that darling little thing, I’d like to
know?” snapped Mrs. Ramsdell. “But she’s grieving for all the folks
she’s been used to, and trying not to let anybody know it. It isn’t
that we’re such remarkable folks, but it’s because she’s such a loving
little thing; that’s the reason of it.”

“What do they mean by keeping her housed up so?” demanded Uncle
Blodgett, sternly. “They’ll have her sick of a fever next thing we
know. Out-doors has been the breath of her living and her joy. I guess
what those folks need is somebody to make a few points clear to ’em.
What was this Eleanor the child talks of, that she should be set up for
a pattern? Wa’n’t she mortal like all the rest of us?”

“Mrs. Manser says Miss Pomeroy thought she was perfection,” ventured
Father Manser, as nobody else seemed prepared with an answer. “She used
to talk with Polly about her, every day before she went, advising her
what she’d better do--Mrs. Manser did.”

“I’ll warrant she did,” said Uncle Blodgett, bitterly. “That’s the
whole root of the trouble. Now, you mark my words, all of you women
folks”--Uncle Blodgett evidently included poor Father Manser in his
summing up--“I’m going to have speech with that Pomeroy woman before
many more days have gone over my head, and I’m going to set a few
things straight. As for having that child carry the weight of this
whole establishment, leaks, ear-trumpets, shingles, and all on her
mind, and try to live up to nobody knows what--I won’t stand it!”

“What do you plan?” asked Mrs. Ramsdell, with unwonted respect.

“I shall fare down to the village with Father here,” said Uncle
Blodgett, indicating the object of his choice with a careless nod, “and
if she doesn’t happen to drive in that morning, I shall foot it to
Pomeroy Oaks. My legs are good for a little matter of three miles or
so.”

“It’s a good four miles, as I remember it,” muttered Mrs. Ramsdell.

“Well, call it four, then,” roared Uncle Blodgett in a sudden fury.
“Call it five or six or ten if you’ve a mind. My legs are good for it,
I tell ye. And if I have to foot it there,” he added, turning quickly
on poor Father Manser, “you may say to your wife I’ve gone a-visiting
an old friend for the afternoon. If Polly Prentiss ain’t an old friend,
I haven’t got one in this world.”

Uncle Blodgett sat heavily down in his chair, exhausted by his unwonted
outbreak, but Mrs. Ramsdell stepped over to him and held out her hand.

“If I was five years younger,” said the old lady, whose age nobody
knew, “I’d put on my bonnet and shawl and foot it with you!”


[TO BE CONTINUED]




A Novel Weapon


In her interesting book, _A Woman Tenderfoot_, Mrs. Ernest
Thompson-Seton gives a stirring account of her fight with a
rattlesnake, in which she, the victor, was armed with a very novel
weapon--a frying-pan.

“The rattler stopped his pretty gliding motion away from me and seemed
in doubt. Then he began to take on a few quirks. ‘He is going to coil
and then to strike,’ said I, recalling a paragraph from my school
reader. It was an unhappy moment!

“I knew that tradition had fixed the proper weapons to be used against
rattlesnakes: a stone (more, if necessary), a stick (forked one
preferred), and, in rare cases, a revolver. I had no revolver. There
was not a stick in sight, and not a stone bigger than a hazelnut; but
there was the rattler. I cast another despairing glance around and saw,
almost at my feet and half hidden by sage brush, several inches of
rusty iron--blessed be the teamster who had thrown it there. I darted
towards it, and, despite tradition, turned on the rattler, armed with
the goodly remains of a--frying-pan.

“The horrid thing was ready for me with darting tongue and flattened
head--another instant it would have sprung. Smash! on its head went my
valiant frying-pan and struck a deadly blow, although the thing managed
to get from under it. I recaptured my weapon and again it descended
upon the reptile’s head, settling it this time.

“Feeling safe, I now took hold of the handle to finish it more quickly.
Oh! that tail--that awful, writhing, lashing tail. I can stand Indians,
bears, wolves, anything but that tail, and a rattler is all tail,
except its head. If that tail touches me I shall let go. It did touch
me. I did not let go. Pride held me there, for I heard the sound of
galloping hoofs. Whiskers’ empty saddle had alarmed the rest of the
party.

“My snake was dead now, so I put one foot on him to take his scalp--his
rattles, I mean--when horrid thrills coursed through me. The uncanny
thing began to wriggle and rattle with old-time vigor. But, fortified
by Nimrod’s assurance that it was ‘purely reflex neuro-ganglionic
movement,’ I hardened my heart and captured his ‘pod of dry peas.’”




HOW PLANTS LIVE

By Julia McNair Wright


In the hot August days, when the air scarcely stirs, the birds sit
silent in their coverts, the cattle stand under the thickest shade or
knee-deep in the ponds. Only the insects seem to rejoice in the burning
rays of the sun, and gayly hover around the splendid profusion of
flowers.

In this season we may make various studies in plant life. Seated upon
some shady veranda, we have the glory of the garden spread out before
us. Or we may be on some hill, tree-crowned, not far from the sea;
we find within hand reach golden-rod, asters, milfoil, blazing-star,
indigo. Looking down the gentle slope to the level land, we see
black-eyed Susan flaunting beside St. John’s wort and wild snap-dragon.
Yonder, the little brooklet slips along without a ripple, cherishing on
its border loosestrife and jewel-weed. Out in the roadway, defiant of
the summer dust, almost in the wheel track, the mullein lifts its dry,
gray foliage and unfolds its tardy pairs of clear yellow bloom beside
that exquisite flower, the evening primrose, of which the harsh, dusty
stem and leaves are such rude contrast to the fragrant salvers of pale
gold--the blossom of one night.

We have ample opportunity in some or all of these to study the motion,
food, and some of the varied products of the plant world.

Motion? What motions have plants other than as the wind sways them?
True, there is an upward motion: they grow up inch after inch, foot
after foot, the law of growth overcoming the law of gravitation. The
sap rises in the vessels by root-pressure, by capillary attraction, by
the forming of a vacuum in the leaf-cells, by evaporation, and so the
climbing sap builds up the plant. This getting up in the world is not a
trifle in plant life any more than in human life.

Many a plant seems to have an extreme ambition to rise, and if its
stem proves too weak to support any decided advancement in growth, it
takes measures to secure aid. It twines, bodily, perhaps, around the
nearest support, as do the trumpet-creeper and honeysuckle; it modifies
leaves into tendrils, as does the sweet pea; it puts forth aerial roots
at its nodes, as does the ivy; it elongates a leaf stem to wrap around
and around some proffered stay, as does the clematis, or diverts a bud
for such purpose, as the grape-vine.

Other plants of lowlier mind creep along the ground. The prince’s pine
forms a strong, thick mat, cleaving to every root, twig, grass-stem, in
its way, striking rootlets here and there, until only a strong hand and
a firm wrench can drag it from the earth, its mother. Cinque-foil and
its cousin, strawberry, send out runners from all sides, which root and
shoot up new plants until the whole bed is a solidarity, and would so
remain did not the thankless plants keep all the food and moisture for
themselves, and deliver over the runners to death by starvation.

The walking fern has a most original way of getting over the ground. It
bends its slender frond and starts a root by extending the tip of the
mid-rib; so it sets up a new plant and is anchored fast on all sides
by its rooted frond tips, covering the ground with a rich carpet of
verdure. The variety of runners along the ground is as great as the
climber. All motion of the plant is a form of growth. The plant grows
by day and by night, but more by day, as light and heat are incentives
to growth.

Interesting as is the study of plant motion, let us forsake it and
consider for a little plant food. The plant receives food from earth,
water, and air. The earth gives the plant sulphur, iron, soda,
magnesia, phosphorus, and other mineral substances. These are all fed
to the plant in a solution of water.

From the rain the plant receives as food hydrogen and forms of ammonia.

From air the plants absorb carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and ammonia; very
much of the first, little of the second, and very little of the others.

When plants grow out-of-doors, the winds, dews, and rains free the
leaves from accumulations of dust which obstruct the pores and hinder
the receiving of food. In very dry and dusty seasons we notice that the
plants become sickly from the stopping of the pores. Plants need clean
skins as human beings do.

House plants should be well washed all over now and then, to admit of
their getting their proper amount of food from the air.

[Illustration: INSECT EATERS]

Certain classes of plants use a portion of animal food. We are
accustomed to the idea of animals eating plants, but when we see the
tables turned, and the plants eating animals, that is queer, indeed!
The animal food of the “flesh-eating,” or carnivorous, plants is really
the juice sucked from the bodies of insects.

The sun dew, common in marshes, expands a little, sticky, pink-green
shirt-button of a leaf, on which are numerous stiff hairs. The clear
drops of gum attract insects to the leaf, and they are held by the feet
or wings. Their struggles cause the leaf to fold together, when the
hairs pierce the body of the insect and drink up the juices. When only
a dry husk remains the leaf opens and the wind shakes the shell away.

The pitcher-plant invites insects by a honey-like secretion. They fall
into the liquid stored in the pitcher and are thus drowned, because,
owing to numerous downward-pointing hairs in the throat of the pitcher,
they cannot climb back. Easy is the descent into evil! The acrid liquid
in the pitcher digests the bodies of the insects, turning them into
plant food. Flies, ants, gnats, little beetles, are often caught, but
bees very seldom. Bees have their own affairs to attend to, and cannot
go picnicing into pitcher-plants.

[Illustration]




A DAUGHTER OF THE FOREST

By Evelyn Raymond


Chapter XVI

Science and Superstition


 SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS.

 Brought up in the forests of northern Maine, and seeing few persons
 excepting her uncle and Angelique, the Indian housekeeper, Margot
 Romeyn knows little of life beyond the deep hemlocks. Naturally
 observant, she is encouraged in her out-of-door studies by her uncle,
 at one time a college professor. Through her woodland instincts, she
 and her uncle are enabled to save the life of Adrian Wadislaw, a youth
 who, lost and almost overcome with hunger, has been wandering in the
 neighboring forest. To Margot the new friend is a welcome addition
 to her small circle of acquaintances, and after his rapid recovery
 she takes great delight in showing him the many wonders of the forest
 about her home. But finally, after many weeks, the uncle decides,
 because of reasons which will be known later, that it would be better
 for Margot if Adrian left them. Accordingly, he puts the matter before
 the young man, who, although reluctant to leave his new friends,
 volunteers to go. Under the guidance of Pierre Ricord, a young Indian,
 the lad sets out for the nearest settlement. The journey for the most
 part is made by water, and while attempting to shoot the rapids of the
 stream which they have been following their canoe is dashed against a
 rock and both occupants are thrown into the seething whirlpool.

For an instant Adrian closed his eyes that he might not see the
inevitable end. But--was it inevitable? At the logging camp he had
heard of just such accidents as this and not all of them were fatal.
The water in its whirling sometimes tossed that which it had caught
outward to safety.

He flung himself prone and extended the pole. Pierre’s body was making
another circuit of that horrible pit, and when--if--should it? The
drowning boy’s head was under the current, but his legs swung round
upon its surface, faster and faster, as they drew nearer the centre.

Then--a marvel! The long pole was thrust under the invisible arms,
which closed upon it as a vise.

“Hold! hold! I’ll pull you out!”

But for the hard labor of the past few weeks, Adrian’s muscles could
not have stood the strain. Yet they did, and as he drew the nearly
senseless Pierre upon the rock beside himself, his soul went up in such
glad thanksgiving as he had never known or might know again. A life
saved. That was worth all things.

For an hour they lay there, resting, recovering; then Pierre himself
stood up to see what chance there was for a fuller deliverance. He was
a very sober and altered Pierre, and his drenched clothing added to the
forlornness of his appearance.

“Nothing left but--us. Came nigh bein’ only you. Say, Adrian, I
sha--shan’t forget it.”

“How are we going to get ashore?”

“’Tisn’t much harder ’n Margot’s stepping-stones. Done them times
enough.”

Again Adrian was grateful for his forest experience; but he asked with
some anxiety:

“Suppose you are strong enough to do it?”

“Isn’t any supposin’ about it. Got to. Might as well died in the pool
as starve on this rock.”

Adrian didn’t see that there was much better than starvation before
them, even if they did reach shore, but he kept his fear to himself.
Besides, it was not probable that they had been saved from the flood to
perish in the forest. They would better look at the bright side of the
situation, if they hoped to find such.

“I can jump them.”

“So can I.”

“Don’t let go that pole. I mean to keep that as long as I live--’less
you want it yourself. If you do--”

“No, Pierre. It belongs to you, and doubly now. Which should go
first--you or I?”

“Draw lots. If that one falls in, the other must fish him out. Only we
won’t try it on this side, by the pool.”

They carefully surveyed the crossing, almost as dangerous an affair as
shooting the rapids had been. Yet, as Pierre had said, they “had to.”

Adrian picked a bit of floating weed that had swept within his reach
and broke it into unequal portions. The shortest bit fell to him, and
with as cheerful a “Here goes!” as he could muster he sprang for the
next stone. He made it more easily than he had hoped, and saw that
his best chance lay in looking straight ahead to the next landing
point--and the next--never down at the swirling river.

“Landed. Come!”

Pierre was heavier but more practiced than his mate, and in a few
seconds the two stood together on the shore, regarding the ruins of
their boat and thinking of what they would not have for supper.

All at once Pierre’s eye brightened.

“Say! there’s been a camp here. Not so long ago, either. See that
barrel in the brush? There’s an old birch shed yonder. Hurrah!”

They did not linger, though Adrian kept hoping that something from
their lost outfit might be tossed outward toward them, even as Pierre
had been; but nothing came in sight, and he reached the dilapidated
shed only a few feet behind the other.

“There’s a bed left still, but not such a soft one. And there’s pork in
that barrel. Wonder the hedgehogs haven’t found it.”

But as Pierre thrust his nose into the depths of the cask he understood
the reason of its safety.

“Whew! even a porkypine wouldn’t touch that. Never mind. Reckon our
boots’ll need greasing after that ducking, or mine will, and it’ll
answer. Anything under the shed?”

“Don’t see anything. Wait. Yes, I do. A canvas bag hung up high. Must
have been forgotten when the campers left, for they took everything
else. Clean sweep. Hurrah! it’s beans!”

“Good! Beans are good fodder for hungry cattle.”

“How can you eat such hard things? Should think they’d been resurrected
from the pyramids.”

“Well, I don’t know ‘pyramids,’ but I do know beans, and how to cook
them. Fall to. Let’s get a fire. I’m near froze.”

“Fire? Can you make one?”

“I can try and--I’ve got to. When needs must, you know.”

Adrian hastily collected some dry twigs and decaying chips and heaped
them in the sunniest place, but for this was promptly reprimanded by
the shivering Pierre.

“Don’t you know anything at all? Wood won’t light, nor burn after
’tis lighted, in the sunshine. Stick up something to shade the stuff,
whilst--”

He illustrated what he did not further say by carefully selecting some
hard stones and briskly rubbing them together. A faint spark resulted
and a thistledown caught the spark. To the thistledown he held a dried
grass blade and another. By this small beginning they had soon a tiny
blaze and very soon a comforting fire.

When they were partially dried and rested, said Pierre:

“Now, fetch on your beans. While they’re cooking, we’ll take account of
what is left.”

Adrian brought the bag, refraining from any questions this time. He
was wondering and watchful. Pierre’s misadventures were developing
unsuspected resources, and the spirits of both lads rose again to the
normal.

“You’re so fond of splitting birch for pictures, split me some now for
a bucket, while I sharpen this knife again. Lucky for me, my pocket
buttoned, else it would have gone to the bottom of that pool. Got
yours?”

“Yes. I didn’t fall in, you know.”

“Then I don’t ask odds of anybody. I’d rather have a good ax, but when
I can’t get my rather I take the next best thing.”

Adrian procured the strips of birch, which grows so plentifully to hand
in all that woodland, and when Pierre had trimmed it into the desired
shape he deftly rolled it and tied it with stout rootlets, and behold!
there was a shapely sort of kettle, with a twig for a handle. But of
what use it might be the city lad had yet to learn.

Pierre filled the affair with water and put into it a good handful of
the beans. Then he fixed a crotched stick over his fire and hung the
birch kettle upon it.

“Oh! don’t waste them. I know. I saw Angelique soak them, as they did
at camp. I know, now. If we can’t cook them we can make them swell up
in water, and starving men can exist on such food till they reach a
settlement. Of course, we’ll start as soon as you’re all right.”

“We’ll start when we’re ready. That’s after we’ve had something to eat
and made our new canoe. Never struck a spot where there was likelier
birches. ’Twon’t be the first one I’ve built or seen built. Say! seems
as if that God that Margot is always saying takes care of folks must
have had a hand in this. Don’t it?”

“Yes, it does,” answered Adrian, reverently. Surely, Pierre was a
changed and better lad.

Then his eyes rested on the wooden dinner-pot, and to his astonishment
it was not burning, but hung steadily in its place and the water in
it was already beginning to simmer. Above the water-line the bark
shriveled and scorched slightly, but Pierre looked out for this and
with a scoop made from a leaf replenished the water as it steamed away.
The beans, too, were swelling and gave every promise of cooking--in
due course of time. Meanwhile, the cook rolled himself over and about
in the warmth of the fire till his clothes were dry and all the cold
had left his body. Also, he had observed Adrian’s surprise with a
pardonable pride.

“Lose an Indian in the woods and he’s as rich as a lord. It’s the
Indian in me coming out now.”

“It’s an extra sense. Divination, instinct--something better than
education.”

“What the master calls ‘woodcraft.’ Yes. Wonder how he is, and all of
them? Say, what do you think I thought about when I was whirling round
that pool, before I didn’t think of anything?”

“Your sins, I suppose. That’s what I’ve heard comes to a drowning man.”

“Shucks! Saw the mére’s face when she broke that glass. Fact. Though
I wasn’t there at the time. And one thing more; saw that ridiculous
Xanthippé, looking like she’s never done a thing but warble. Oh, my!
how I do wish Margot’d sell her.”

“Shall I help you get birch for the canoe now? I begin to believe you
can do even that, you are so clever.”

This praise was sweet in Pierre’s vain ears and had the result which
Adrian desired, of diverting the talk from their island friends. In
their present situation, hopeful as the other pretended to find it, he
felt it best for his own peace of mind not to recall loved and absent
faces.

They went to work with a will, and will it was that helped them;
else with the poor tools at hand they had never accomplished their
undertaking. Indeed, it was a labor of considerable time. Not only was
that first meal of boiled beans cooked and eaten, but several more of
the same sort followed. To vary these, Pierre baked some, in the same
method as he had boiled them, or else in the ashes of their fire. He
even fashioned a sort of hook from a coat button, and with cedar roots
for a line, caught a fish now and then. But they craved the seasoning
of salt, and even the dessert of blueberries which nature provided
them could not satisfy this longing, which grew almost intolerable to
Adrian’s civilized palate.

“Queer, isn’t it? When I was at that lumber camp I nearly died because
all the meat, or nearly all, was so salt. Got so I couldn’t eat
anything, hardly. Now, just because I haven’t salt I can’t eat, either.”

“Indians not that way. Indians eat one thing same’s another. Indian
just wants to live; don’t care about the rest. Indian never eats too
much. I’m all Indian now.”

Adrian opened his eyes to their widest, then threw himself back and
laughed till the tears came.

“Pierre, Pierre! Would you had been ‘all Indian’ when you tackled
Angelique’s fried chicken. Um-m! I can taste it now.”

But at length the new canoe was ready. They had put as few ribs into
it as would suffice to hold it in shape, and Pierre had carefully sewn
it with the roots of the black cedar, which serves the woodsman for so
many purposes where thread or twine is needed. They had made a paddle
and a pole as well as they could with their knives, and, having nothing
to pack except themselves and their small remnant of beans, made their
last camp-fire at that spot and lay down to sleep.

But the dreams of both were troubled; and in the night Adrian rose
and went to add wood to the fire. It had died down to coals, but his
attention was caught by a ring of white light upon the ashes, wholly
distinct from the red embers.

“What’s that?”

In a moment he had answered his own question. It was the phosphorescent
glow from the inner bark of a half-burned log, and further away he
saw another portion of the same log making a ghostly radiance on the
surrounding ground.

“Oh! I wouldn’t have missed that for anything. Mr. Dutton told me of
beautiful sights he had witnessed and of the strange will-o’-the-wisps
that abound in the forest. I’ll gather some of the chips.”

He did so, and they made a fairy-like radiance over his palm; but
while he was intently studying them, he felt his hand rudely knocked
up, so that the bits of wood flew out of it.

“Pierre, stop that!”

“Don’t you know what that is? A warning--a sign--an omen. Oh! if I had
never come upon this trip!”

“You foolish fellow! Just as I thought you were beginning to get sense.
Nothing in the world but decayed bark and chemical--”

Pierre stopped his ears.

“I was dreaming of the mére. She came with her apron to her eyes and
her clothes in tatters. She was scolding--”

“Perfectly natural.”

“And begging me--”

“Not to eat so many half-baked beans for supper.”

“There’s something wrong at the island. I saw the cabin all dark. I saw
Margot’s eyes red with weeping.”

“No doubt, Tom has been into fresh mischief and your mother has
punished him.”

Pierre ignored these flippant interruptions, but rehearsed his dismal
visions till Adrian lost patience and pushed him aside.

“Go, bring an armful of fresh wood: some that isn’t phosphorescent, if
you prefer. That’ll wake you up and drive the megrims out of your mind.”

“’Tis neither of them things. ’Tis a warning. They were all painted
with black, and all the Hollow creatures were painted, too. ’Tis a
warning. I shall see death before I am--”

Even while he maundered on in this strain, he was unconsciously obeying
the command to fetch wood, and moved toward a pile left ready. Now, in
raking this together, Adrian had, also, swept that spot of ground clean
and exposed; and what neither had observed in the twilight was plainly
revealed by the glow and shadows cast by the fire.

This was a low, carefully-made mound that, in shape and significance,
could be confounded with no other sort of mound, wherever met. Both
recognized it at once, and even upon Adrian the shock was painful; but
its effect upon superstitious Pierre was far greater. With a shriek
that startled the silence of the forest he flung himself headlong.


CHAPTER XVII

DIVERGING ROADS

“Get up, Pierre. You should be ashamed of yourself!”

It needed a strong and firm grasp to force the terrified lad to his
feet, and even when he, at last, stood up he shivered like an aspen.

“A grave!”

“Certainly, a grave. But neither yours nor mine. Only that of some poor
fellow who has died in the wilderness. I’m sorry I piled the brush upon
it, yet glad we discovered it in the end.”

“Gla-a-ad!” gasped the other.

“Yes, of course. I mean to cover it with fresh sods and plant some of
those purple orchids at its head. I’ll cut a cedar headstone, too, and
mark it so that nobody else shall desecrate it as we have done.”

“You mustn’t touch it. It’s nobody’s--only a warning.”

“A warning, surely, that we must take great care lest a like fate come
on us; but somebody lies under that mound and I pity him. Most probable
that he lost his life in that very whirlpool which wrecked us. Twice
I’ve been upset and lost all my belongings, but escaped safe. I hope
I’ll not run the same chance again. Come--lie down again and go to
sleep.”

“Couldn’t sleep; to try in such a haunted place would be to be
‘spelled’--”

“Pierre Ricord! For a fellow that’s so smart at some things, you are
the biggest dunce I know, in others. Haven’t we slept like lords ever
since we struck this camp? I’m going to make my bed up again and turn
in. I advise you to do the same.”

Adrian tossed the branches aside, then rearranged them, lapping the
soft ends over the hard ones in an orderly row which would have pleased
a housewife. Thus freshened, his odorous mattress was as good as new,
and stretching himself upon it he immediately went to sleep.

Pierre fully intended to keep awake, but fatigue and loneliness
prevailed, and five minutes later he had crept close to Adrian’s side.

The sunshine on his face and the sound of a knife cutting wood awoke
him; and there was Adrian whittling away at a broad slab of cedar,
smiling and jeering, and in the best of spirits, despite his rather
solemn occupation.

“For a fellow who wouldn’t sleep, you’ve done pretty well. See--I’ve
caught a fish and set it cooking. I’ve picked a pile of berries, and
have nearly finished this headstone. Added another accomplishment to my
many--monument-maker. But I’m wrong to laugh over that, though the poor
unknown to whom it belongs would be grateful to me, I’ve no doubt. Lend
a hand, will you?”

But nothing would induce Pierre to engage in any such business. Nor
would he touch his breakfast while Adrian’s knife was busy. He sat
apart, looking anywhere rather than toward his mate, and talking over
his shoulder to him in a strangely subdued voice.

“Adrian.”

“Well?”

“Most done?”

“Nearly.”

“What you going to put on it?”

“I’ve been wondering. Think this: ‘To the Memory of My Unknown
Brother.’”

“Wh-a-a-t!”

Adrian repeated the inscription.

“He was no kin to you.”

“We are all kin. It’s all one world--God’s world. All the people and
all these forests, and the creatures in them. I tell you, I’ve never
heard a sermon that touched me as the sight of this grave in the
wilderness has touched me. I mean to be a better, kinder man, because
of it. Margot was right--none of us has a right to his own self. She
told me often that I should go home to my own folks and make everything
right with them: then, if I could, come back and live in the woods,
somewhere, if I felt I must. But I don’t feel that way now. I want
to get back and go to work. I want to live so that when I die--like
that poor chap yonder--somebody will have been the better for my life.
Pshaw! why do I talk to you like this? Anyway, I’ll set this slab in
place, and then--”

Pierre rose, and still without looking Adrian’s way, pushed the new
canoe into the water. He had carefully pitched it, on the day before,
with a mixture of the old pork grease and gum from the trees, so that
there need be no delay at starting.

Adrian finished his work, lettered the slab with a coal from the fire,
and rewatered the wild flowers he had already planted.

“Aren’t you going to eat breakfast first?”

“Not in a graveyard,” answered Pierre, with a solemnity that checked
Adrian’s desire to smile.

A last reverent attention, a final clearing of all rubbish from the
spot, and he, too, stepped into the canoe and picked up his paddle.
They had passed the rapids and reached a smooth stretch of the river
where they had camped, and now pulled steadily and easily away, once
more upon their journey south. But not till they had put a considerable
distance between themselves and that woodland grave, would Pierre
consent to stop and eat the food that Adrian had prepared. Even then,
he restricted the amount to be consumed, remarking with doleful
conviction:

“We’re going to be starved before we reach Donovan’s. The food stick
burnt off and dropped into the fire last night.”

Adrian remembered that his mate had spoken of it at the time, when by
some carelessness they had not secured the crotched sapling on which
they hung their birch kettle.

“Oh! you simple thing. Why will you go through life tormenting yourself
with such nonsense? Come--eat your breakfast. We’re going straight to
Donovan’s as fast as we can. I’ve done with the woods for a time. So
should you be done. You’re needed at the island. Not because of any
dreams, but because the more I recall of Mr. Dutton’s appearance the
surer I am that he is a sick man. You’ll go back, won’t you?”

“Yes; I’m going back. Not because you ask me, though.”

“I don’t care why--only go.”

“I’m not going into the show business.”

Adrian smiled. “Of course, you’re not. You’ll never have money enough.
It would cost lots.”

“’Tisn’t that. ’Twas the dream. That was sent me. All them animals in
black paint, and the blue herons without any heads, and--my mother came
for me last night.”

“I heartily wish you could go to her this minute. She’s superstitious
enough, in all conscience, yet she has the happy faculty of keeping her
lugubrious son in subjection.”

Whenever Pierre became particularly depressing, the other would rattle
off as many of the longest words as occurred to him. They had the
effect of diverting his comrade’s thoughts.

Then they pulled on again, nor did anything disastrous happen to
further hinder their progress. The food did not give out, for they
lived mostly upon berries, having neither time nor desire to stop and
cook their remnant of beans. When they were especially tired, Pierre
lighted a fire and made a bucket of hemlock tea, but Adrian found cold
water preferable to this decoction; and, in fact, they were much nearer
Donovan’s, that first settlement in the wilderness, than even Pierre
had suspected.

Their last portage was made--an easy one, there being nothing but
themselves and the canoe to carry--and they came to a big dead water
where they had looked to find another running stream; but had no sooner
sighted it than their ears were greeted by the laughter of loons, which
threw up their legs and dived beneath the surface in that absurd manner
which Adrian always found amusing.

“Bad luck again!” cried Pierre, instantly; “never heard a loon but--”

“But you see a house. Look! look! Donovan’s, or somebody’s, no matter
whose. A house, a house!”

There, indeed, it lay, a goodly farmstead, with its substantial cabins,
its out-buildings, its groups of cattle on the cleared land, and--yes,
yes--its moving human beings, and what seemed oddest still, its teams
of horses.

Even Pierre was silent, and tears sprang to the eyes of both lads as
they gazed. Until that moment neither had fully realized how lonely and
desolate had been their situation.

“Now for it! It’s a biggish lake, and we’re pretty tired. But that
means rest, plenty to eat--everything.”

Their rudely built canoe was almost useless when they beached it at
last on Donovan’s wharf, and their own strength was spent. But it
was a hospitable household to which they had come, and one quite used
to welcoming wanderers from the forest. They were fed and clothed and
bedded, without question; but, when a long sleep had set them both
right, tongues wagged and plans were settled with amazing promptness.

For there were other guests at the farm; a party of prospectors going
north into the woods to locate timber for the next season’s cutting.
These would be glad of Pierre’s company and help, and would pay him
“the going wages.” But they would not return by the route he had come,
though by leaving theirs at a point well north, he could easily make
his way back to the island.

“So you shot the poor moose for nothing. You cannot even have his
horns,” said Adrian, reproachfully. “Well, as soon as I can vote, I
mean to use all my influence to stop this murder in the forest.”

The strangers smiled and shrugged their shoulders. “We’re after game
ourselves, as well as timber, but legislation is already in progress
to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of the fast-disappearing moose
and caribou. Five hundred dollars is the fine to be imposed for any
infringement of the law, once passed.”

Pierre’s jaw dropped. He was so impressed by the long words and the
mention of that, to him, enormous sum, that he was rendered speechless
for a longer time than Adrian ever remembered. But, if he said nothing,
he reflected sadly upon the magnificent antlers he should see no more.

Adrian’s affairs were, also, speedily and satisfactorily arranged.
Farmer Donovan would willingly take him to the nearest stage route;
thence to a railway would be easy journeying; and by steam he could
travel swiftly, indeed, to that distant home which he now so longed to
see.

The parting of the lads was brief, but not without emotion. Two people
cannot go through their experiences and dangers, to remain indifferent
to each other. In both their hearts was now the kindliest feeling and
the sincere hope that they should meet again. Pierre departed first,
and looked back many times at the tall, graceful figure of his comrade;
then the trees intervened and the forest had again swallowed him into
its familiar depths.

Then Adrian, also, stepped upon the waiting buckboard and was driven
over the rough road in the opposite direction.

Three days later, with nothing in his pocket but his treasured knife,
a roll of birch bark, and the ten-dollar piece which, through all his
adventures, he had worn pinned to his inner clothing, “a make-peace
offering to the mater,” he reached the brownstone steps of his father’s
city mansion.

There, for the first time, he hesitated. All the bitterness with
which he had descended those steps, banished in disgrace, was keenly
remembered.

“Can I, shall I, dare I go up and ring that bell?”

A vision floated before him. Margot’s earnest face and tear-dimmed
eyes; her lips speaking:

“If I had father or mother anywhere--nothing should ever make me leave
them. I would bear everything--but I would be true to them.”

An instant later a peal rang through that silent house, such as it had
not echoed in many a day. What would be the answer to it?


[TO BE CONTINUED]




_Wood-Folk Talk_

By J. ALLISON ATWOOD

ROBIN’S RED BREAST


Although you are all in the habit of referring to Robin as “Redbreast,”
do you not often wonder why the baby Robin always has a spotted breast
so very different from his parent? True, he does not keep it very long,
but why, then, should he wear it at all?

At one time Robin did not live in our yards and orchards as he does at
present, but remained in the deeper woods, as his cousin Wood-thrush
does now. In those times, of course, he did not have his bright
red breast, but was clothed in a spotted plumage very similar to
Wood-thrush. To narrate much of Robin’s history would make a very long
story, but we can at least tell what brought about the change in his
dress.

Besides being first cousins, Robin and Wood-thrush had lived close
together all their lives, and it is only natural that they should be
fast friends, as they were, until that eventful year when Bluebird
arrived in Birdland.

Of course, from the very first, folks made a great deal of fuss over
this newcomer, and the wonder of it is that Bluebird’s head was not
turned by the attentions showered upon him instead of remaining the
same modest fellow he is to-day.

Naturally, everyone wished to be as well acquainted as possible with
the beautiful stranger, but in spite of his courageous song of “Cheer!
cheer!” there was always a touch of sadness about Bluebird which folks
could not understand, so that they never felt quite at home in his
presence.

Now, among the birds who thus wished to become intimate with Bluebird,
there was no one more conspicuous than Robin. Indeed, some folks
thought that he made himself ridiculous by the way he toadied to the
newcomer. But even this talk did not deter him. When, therefore, he
learned later that Bluebird and himself were members of the same
family, he could not conceal his pride. But he had no more reason to be
proud than Wood-thrush, for he, too, was a relative of Bluebird.

Still, as time went on, Robin thought more and more of his new cousin,
and it was noticed that he paid less attention than formerly to the
other birds. Most of them, of course, did not mind this, for they
thought that he would soon come to his senses and be the same hearty
fellow he had been before Bluebird came. But, instead, Robin became
prouder than ever, and the way he followed and imitated Bluebird
would certainly have provoked that person had he not been a model of
patience.

He soon moved his nest from the thicket near his cousin Wood-thrush
to the apple-tree next to Bluebird’s home. This caused so much hard
feeling between Robin and Wood-thrush that they have ever since built
their nests in very different localities. But this isn’t all, and here
comes the event which changed the former’s whole life.

Until this time Robin had always worn a spotted breast, but no sooner
did he move to his new home than he decided to have a vest of red
like Bluebird’s. But with all his pains he could not make himself as
handsome as his cousin, for, like many folks when they try to imitate
others, he overdid it. Instead of Bluebird’s delicate tint of carmine,
he had taken on a less pretty though showier red, and, unlike the
other, he wore it over his entire breast in a way that made some folks
say that he showed very poor taste, indeed.

Now, at this last assumption of Robin, Birdland was outraged, and the
indignation spread so widely that Kingbird had almost decided to banish
him. It was not until then that Robin, terrified at the suggestion,
saw how foolish he had been, and he very quickly came to his senses.
First of all, he went around to all his old friends whose feelings he
had hurt and apologized so sincerely that, we are happy to say, every
one of them, except, perhaps, Wood-thrush, who could not forget the
red vest, were glad to extend a friendly wing to him, now that he had
gotten over his sudden pride.

But we, who are better acquainted with him, must admit that Robin never
did quite conquer his pride. Everybody knows that he is one of the best
hearted of birds, and that whenever any danger threatens Birdland he is
always among the first to defend it. But the influence of Bluebird has
refined him to such an extent that there is little doubt in our mind
that he still thinks his other cousins, the Thrushes, in spite of their
splendid musical ability, are backwoodsmen, so to speak.

Fortunately, however, there is one thing which will forever keep him
from forgetting his plainer kinsmen, and that is the fact that his
children, until they are several months old, are made to wear the same
spotted plumage which he once wore.

And it is this which shows Robin’s pride more than anything else.
Should you approach his nest when it contains young, you will see
how mortified he is, for he fears that you will take them for
Wood-thrushes. And what a fuss he does make? He flies almost in our
faces, as if to show us that they are his children. And how anxious his
voice is as he calls to them to “Speak! speak!” Just as if young Robins
could tell us that they are not Wood-thrushes!




THE OLDEST COLLEGES


The University of Oxford, England, is said to have been founded by
King Alfred in 872. The University of Paris was founded by King Philip
II about 1200. The first college of the University of Cambridge was
founded by Hugo, Bishop of Ely, in 1257. The first German university
was founded at Prague in 1348. The University of Edinburgh was founded
in 1582. Trinity College, Dublin, was incorporated by royal charter in
1591. Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., was founded in 1636. Yale
University was founded in 1700 at Saybrook, Conn., and removed to New
Haven in 1716. William and Mary College was established in 1617, at
Williamsburg, Va., and its charter was granted in 1693.

The first common schools established by legislation in America were in
Massachusetts in 1645. The first town schools were opened at Hartford,
Conn., prior to 1642.

       *       *       *       *       *

The loftiest active volcano is Popocatapetl; it is 17,748 feet above
sea level, and has a crater three miles in circumference and 1,000 feet
deep.




BOB WHITE


    Whose voice is that that wakes me from sleep,
    As soon as the day begins to peep--
    Now under the wall, and now in the hay,
    Now in the meadow, piping away?
            Why, that’s Bob White.

    He seems as fond of his common name
    As humans who’ve attained to fame;
    But he isn’t conceited, not a mite.
    Though he wakes us up before it is light
            To call “Bob White.”

    Our Robert has just two notes, that’s all;
    But many a bird might envy his call,
    So rich and full, so joyous and free;
    For a matin singer, there’s none to me
            Like dear Bob White.

    “Wake up!” we hear from among the sheaves;
    “There is work to do, and old Time leaves
    The laggard and lazy on the way;
    The best time for work is this very day,
            And I’m Bob White.”

    --_Eleanor Kirk._




[Illustration: WITH THE EDITOR]


August is the high-tide month of outdoor life. At this season, young
folks, in preparation for the new school term, are hurried off to
draw their last breath of vacation at the country, the seashore, or
mountains, and the older people, wherever it is possible, leave their
work and join the children on the court and field. Athletics supplant
business and study.

The habit of taking physical exercise can be traced as far back as the
time of Homer. With the old Greeks, systematic gymnastics was a part
of the young person’s education. Further than that, it even became a
matter of legislation, and to this fact can be attributed the splendid
physiques which are portrayed in the old Greek statues.

At Athens, the government erected public gymnasiums. In connection with
them were medical attendants whose duty it was to prescribe the special
kind of exercise needed by each pupil. To show still further the regard
for athletics at that time, it might be said that both Plato and
Aristotle believed that public gymnasiums were essential to a perfect
nation.

Athletics now are regarded in a different light. Very few of us go
through the tedious systematic drill necessary to a perfect physical
condition. By many, indeed, the exercise of the entire year is crowded
into the short space of a fortnight, and then it is taken only as
recreation.

A better form of the practice is found in what we might term team
athletics, but even here we lack the wise purpose of the ancients. The
object in this case is to develop a squad of athletes, generally those
already well gifted by nature, to compete with and defeat another such
team of picked men. As a consequence, in the great effort to produce
a winning crew or eleven, the especial needs of the individual are
forgotten.

So, notwithstanding the fact that every one is welcomed as a candidate
for these teams, the final result is to turn out, perhaps, a score
of exceptionally well drilled men, while hundreds of others, who, in
reality, most need the exercise thus afforded, are content to fill the
grand stands and cheer their men to victory.

Undoubtedly, team athletics does much good. It stimulates a greater
interest and brings more men into the field than any other influence;
but it still falls short of the ideal purpose of athletics--to get
everyone, gymnasts or invalids, to develop their bodies with the same
systematic care with which they train their minds.

Physical exercise must not be considered merely as a form of recreation
or a detail in the making of an athletic team, but rather in the light
of a training which, in the future, will have a very telling effect
upon our lives. Even if we can never hope to lower a track record or
win a place upon the gridiron, we should not wholly surrender the field
to those who already excel: but see that a corner of it, at least, is
left for those who are not born athletes--those who, in fact, are most
in need of exercise.




Event and Comment


The King’s Illness

Almost on the eve of the coronation in London came the announcement of
the serious illness of King Edward. Falling suddenly upon the people,
as it did, the news put a stop to the preparations for a spectacular
display seldom, if ever, equaled.

Thousands of carpenters, painters, and decorators were putting on the
finishing touches all along the path of the triumphal procession.
Sixty thousand troops had received orders to guard the route, while at
Spithead an immense fleet was preparing for a grand naval review.

For a time following the announcement the world waited anxiously for
news. Happily, the worst anticipations were not realized, and the
recovery has been so speedy that already the time for the coronation
has been decided upon. It will take place between August 12th and 15th
of this year.

       *       *       *       *       *

In comment of the occurrence we quote the London _Spectator_ as follows:

“While contemplating the events of the last few days, it is impossible
not to be struck by the fact that the sympathy felt for the king will
have a marked effect on the future position of the dynasty--an effect
which will last far beyond the life of the king. It is a commonplace
that men do not so much love those who confer actual benefits upon
them as those with whom they have sympathized and suffered. The king
will be more to the nation after his illness than he was before.”


The “Finland”

The largest vessel ever built in this country was the “Finland,”
recently launched at Cramp’s shipyard in Philadelphia. Her length is
580 feet, while the width and depth are 60 and 42 feet respectively.
The gross tonnage is 12,000 tons, or about 400 tons greater than either
the “St. Paul” or “St. Louis,” the next largest vessels built by
Cramps. The “Finland” will make her first transatlantic voyage early in
the year 1903.

       *       *       *       *       *

The “Great Eastern,” constructed some fifty years ago, had a length of
680 feet, and was finally destroyed for the reason that she was too
large for ordinary use. The advance in the science of steam navigation,
however, has been so great since that time that shipbuilders no longer
have any fear of making vessels too large for use.


Philippine Affairs

Concerning the proclamation of amnesty issued at Manila on July 4th, we
quote _Public Opinion_:

“It declares the insurrection in the Philippines at an end and peace
established in all parts of the archipelago, except the country
inhabited by the Moro tribes. Complete amnesty is granted all persons
in the Philippines who have participated in the insurrection. This
includes as well those concerned in the outbreaks against Spain as
early as August, 1896, and extends pardon to natives who may have
violated the laws of warfare, but not to persons already convicted of
criminal offenses.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The Fourth of July, 1902, will be well worthy of its precedent if it
has brought with it a lasting and praiseworthy end of the Philippine
trouble.


The King’s Dinner

One feature of the coronation festivities which was not interfered
with was the king’s dinner to the poor. It took place on July 5th, and
tables were set in four hundred places throughout the country. Here
liberal provision was made for the banqueting of over half-a-million
people. The greatest number gathered in any one place was 14,000.

       *       *       *       *       *

It is very creditable to King Edward that in the preparation for
festivities of such a magnificent nature, he did not forget the poor,
but wished them, also, to join in the general celebration.


The Petrified Ship

A rumor which is beginning to arouse interest in the northwest, is
founded upon a story told by the Alaskan Indians. According to them,
they have discovered in the vicinity of the Porcupine river, near the
Arctic circle, the remains of a gigantic petrified ship, whose length
approaches 1,200 feet. It is situated upon a hill some thousands of
feet above sea level. An expedition is now on foot to investigate.

       *       *       *       *       *

Although there is little use in anticipating these researches, the
rumor at least serves to remind us how much of the world is as yet
unexplored and what great room there still is for new discoveries.




[Illustration: OUT OF DOORS]


The two great aquatic events in the college world this season, were
the Inter-collegiate regatta, at Poughkeepsie, on the Hudson, and the
Yale-Harvard race at New London.

In the former, Cornell again demonstrated Coach Courtney’s ability to
turn out a winning crew by taking first place. Not far behind came the
sturdy Westerners, Wisconsin, followed closely by Columbia. Then came
Pennsylvania, Syracuse, and Georgetown in the order named.

Besides winning the Varsity race, Cornell also carried off the honors
in the Four-oar and Freshman races.

At New London, on June 26th, Yale won because of her greater endurance.
For the first half-minute Harvard had a little the lead, but soon, in
spite of her plucky efforts, the superior strength of Yale told. The
latter then pulled slowly away from Harvard, gaining a lead which at
the finish had grown to four lengths.

A fitting and interesting termination of the rowing season would have
been a race between Yale and Cornell.

       *       *       *       *       *

The deciding base-ball game between Yale and Harvard proved to be the
most exciting one of the series. In the ninth inning, with the score
tied, Yale’s men were put out in rapid succession, and Harvard, by some
clever batting and base-running, enabled Mathews to cross the plate
with the winning run.

       *       *       *       *       *

In the Round Robin tennis tournament at the Crescent Athletic Club,
Wright defeated Hobart by a score of 6-4, 8-6. In the other games, the
Wren brothers, although neither of them were up to their usual form,
showed that they will be a consideration in this year’s championship.

       *       *       *       *       *

At the Traver’s Island swimming contest, E. C. Schaeffer established
new American records for both the 220-yard and half-mile events. The
time of the former was 1 min. 19 3-5 sec., beating the previous record,
held by H. H. Reeder, by 2 2-5 sec.

In the half-mile race Schaeffer broke five records--the 330-yard,
550-yard, 660-yard, 770-yard, and 880-yard. The time of the 880-yard,
or half-mile, event was 13 min. 27 2-5 sec.

       *       *       *       *       *

Most Americans were not surprised to hear the outcome of the polo games
in England. In the last game the American team was defeated by a score
of 7-1. This gave the entire series to the English. Sometime, perhaps,
when polo is more widely played in this country and there are more
candidates for an All-American team, we may make a better showing.
Until then we must acknowledge England’s superiority.




[Illustration: THE OLD TRUNK]


ANSWERS TO JULY PUZZLES

1. Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, California, Arizona, Louisiana.

2. Cat, mule, cow, lion, ox, ’coon, deer, moose, rabbit, wolf, opossum,
rat, camel, pig, dog, ape, ibex, otter, antelope, kid.

3.

      Y
    B O A
  Y O U T H
    A T E
      H


4.

  =F=lylea=F=
  =I=ndig=O=
  =R=ondra=U=
  =E=a=R=
  =C=a=T=
  =R=oac=H=
  =A=ls=O=
  =C=hie=F=
  =K=ca=J=
  =E=m=U=
  =R=il=L=
  =S=l=Y=

The first five perfect solutions were received from

  Harry Yates,
  Dora Makay,
  Mary Folsom Pierce,
  Ellsworth Wright,
  L. M. Lawrence.


SQUARE WORDS

  A mazazine.
  A fine clay.
  Radical.
  A teacher.
  Part of the body.

  --_Katherine D. Salisbury._


HIDDEN BIRDS

In each of the following sentences are two hidden birds. Can you find
them?

1. I see a gleaner, and he is her only son.

2. If Kit ever does mew, rent is due.

3. “I can spar, row, and fence, sir,” Ed Bird said.

4. Formerly all arks floated on the river Obi, now almost unknown.

5. Just hear! He always lieth! Rush him!

6. Laugh, awkward fellow, laugh, for this is your day, but, lo! on the
morrow you will be in tears.

  --_Charles C. Lynde._


PRESIDENTS

In the following are the names of two Presidents of the United States:

Nsncoowlnaglihnti.

  --_Percival C. Lancefield._


DIAMOND

        .       A consonant.
      . . .     A vehicle.
    . . . . .   A beast of burden.
  . . . . . . . A noted man.
    . . . . .   To set again.
      . . .     A quantity.
        .       A consonant.

  --_Julia E. C._


THE ESCAPE

A Northern soldier was captured while visiting a friend in the South
during the Civil War. He was tried and condemned to be shot at
daybreak, as a spy, in spite of the protestations of his host. During
the night a letter, after passing through the hands of his captors, was
delivered to him. In the morning the room in which he had been confined
was empty. He had escaped. The letter, which was in the handwriting of
the owner of the house, furnished the clue to the escape. Can you see
how? It was as follows:

“Kamby says Edith is worse. You asked me to write if she began to fail,
and I am complying with your request. So, if the Union of the North can
spare you, come. Do not delay, for Edith is very ill. Remember, she is
waiting for you.

  “Most sorrowfully,
  “Adjutant Thomas.”

  --_Leslie W. Quirk._




[Illustration: IN-DOORS]

PARLOR MAGIC

By Ellis Stanyon


THE HANDKERCHIEF CABINET.--This very useful piece of apparatus should
be in the repertoire of every amateur magician, as it is available
for producing, changing, or vanishing a handkerchief. Its secret lies
in the fact that it contains two drawers, bottom to bottom, the lower
one being hidden by a sliding panel. When standing on the table the top
drawer only is visible, and the cabinet looks the picture of innocence,
but if turned over and stood on its opposite end, the sliding panel
falls, exposing the hidden drawer, and hiding that which for the time
being is at the bottom. (Fig. 12.) The cabinet is about two inches
square by four inches high.

[Illustration: Fig. 12.]

If required for production, you proceed as follows: Having placed a
silk handkerchief in the concealed drawer, introduce the cabinet, take
out the empty drawer, and give it for examination. Replace the drawer,
secretly turn over the cabinet, and place it on your table. You now go
through any form of incantation you please, open the drawer, and take
out the handkerchief.

If you desire to vanish the handkerchief, you will have it placed in
the drawer by one of the spectators, and while going to the table turn
over the box. When the drawer is opened the handkerchief will have
disappeared.

Should you wish to change one handkerchief for another, you will,
beforehand, conceal, say, a red handkerchief in the cabinet; then,
taking a white one, have it deposited in the upper drawer, turn over
the cabinet as before, pull out the now uppermost drawer, and produce
the red handkerchief.

From the foregoing description it will be obvious that the cabinet is
capable of being used in conjunction with many tricks.




Transcriber’s Notes:


A number of typographical errors have been corrected silently.

Irregularities in closing quotes have not been modernized.

Archaic spellings have been retained.

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.

“A Novel Weapon” was added to the original Table of Contents.

Cover image is in the public domain.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 65540 ***