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t is May, almost the end of May indeed, and the Mayflowers have finished their blooming for this year. It is growing too warm for those delicate violets and hepaticas who dare to brave even March winds, and can bear snow better than summer heats.

Down at the edge of the pond the tall water-grasses and rushes are tossing their heads a little in the wind, and swinging a little, lightly and lazily, with the motion of the water; but the water is almost clear and still this morning, scarcely rippled, and in its beautiful, broad mirror reflecting the chestnut-trees on the bank, and the little points of land that run out from the shore, and give foothold to the old pines standing guard day and night, summer and winter, to watch up the pond and down.

Do you think now that you know how the pond looks in the sunshine of this May morning?

If we come close to the edge where the rushes are growing, and look down through the clear water, we shall see some uncouth and clumsy black bugs crawling upon the bottom of the pond. They have six legs, and are covered with a coat of armor laid plate over plate; it looks hard and horny, and the insect himself has a dull, heavy way with him, and might be called very stupid, were it not for his eagerness in catching and eating every little fly and mosquito that comes within his reach; his eyes grow fierce and almost bright, and he seizes with open mouth, and devours all day long, if he can find anything suited to his taste.

I am afraid you will think he is not very interesting, and will not care to make his acquaintance; but let me tell you, something very wonderful is about to happen to him, and if you stay and watch patiently, you will see what I saw once, and have never forgotten.

Here he is crawling in mud under the water this May morning,—out over the pond shoot the flat water-boatmen, and the water-spiders dance and skip as if the pond were a floor of glass, while here and there skims a blue dragon-fly, with his fine, firm wings, that look like the thinnest gauze, but are really wondrously strong for all their delicate appearance.

The dull, black bug sees all these bright, agile insects, and, for the first time in his life, he feels discontented with his own low place in the mud. A longing creeps through him that is quite different from the customary longing for mosquitos and flies. “I will creep up the stem of this rush,” he thinks, “and perhaps, when I reach the surface of the water, I can dart like the little flat boatmen, or, better than all, shoot through the air like the blue-winged dragon-fly.” But as he crawls toilsomely up the slippery stem, the feeling that he has no wings like the dragon-fly make him discouraged and almost despairing; at last, however, with much labor, he has reached the surface, has crept out of the water, and, clinging to the green stem, feels the spring air and sunshine all about him. Now let him take passage with the boatmen, or ask some of the little spiders to dance. Why doesn’t he begin to enjoy himself?

Alas! see his sad disappointment; after all this toil, after passing some splendid chances of good breakfasts on the way up, and spending all his strength on this one exploit, he finds the fresh air suffocating him, and a most strange and terrible feeling coming over him, as his coat of mail, which until now was always kept wet, shrinks, and seems even cracking off, while the warm air dries it.

“O,” thinks the poor bug, “I must die! It was folly in me to crawl up here. The mud and the water were good enough for my brothers, and good enough for me too, had I only known it; and now I am too weak, and feel too strangely to attempt going down again the way I came up.”

See how uneasy he grows, feeling about in doubt and dismay; for a darkness is coming over his eyes,—it is the black helmet, a part of his coat of mail,—it has broken off at the top, and is falling down over his face. A minute more and it drops below his chin, and what is his astonishment to find that, as his old face breaks away, a new one comes in its place, larger, much more beautiful, and having two of the most admirable eyes,—two I say, because they look like two, but each of them is made up of hundreds of little eyes; they stand out globe-like on each side of his head, and look about over a world unknown and wonderful to the dull, black bug who lived in the mud; the sky seems bluer, the sunshine brighter, and the nodding grass and flowers more gay and graceful. Now he lifts this new head to see more of the great world; and behold! as he moves, he is drawing himself out of the old suit of armor, and from two neat little cases at its sides come two pairs of wings folded up like fans and put away here to be ready for use when the right time should come; still half folded they are, and must be carefully spread open and smoothed for use. And while he trembles with surprise, see how with every movement he is escaping from the old armor, and drawing from their sheaths fine legs, longer and far more beautifully made and colored than the old, and a slender body, that was packed away like a spy-glass, and is now drawn slowly out, one part after another, until at last the dark coat of mail dangles empty from the rushes, and above it sits a dragon-fly, with great, wondering eyes, long, slender body, and two pairs of delicate gauzy wings, fine and firm as the very ones he had been watching but an hour ago.

The poor black bug, who thought he was dying, was only passing out of his old life to be born into a higher one; and see how much brighter and more beautiful it is!

And now shall I tell you how (months ago) the mother dragon-fly dropped into the water her tiny eggs, which lay there in the mud, and by and by hatched out the dark, crawling bugs, so unlike the mother that she does not know them for her children, and, flying over the pond, looks down through the water where they crawl among the rushes, and has not a single word to say to them, until, in due time, they find their way up to the air, and pass into the new winged life.

If you will go to some pond, when spring is ending or summer beginning, and find among the water-grasses such an insect as I have told you of, you may see all this for yourselves, and you will say with me, dear children, that nothing you have ever known is more wonderful.

Author of “The Seven Little Sisters.”

This next day is Sunday. It is general inspection day at the prison, and, by invitation of the Captain, we go early to witness the interesting turn-out. It is a real turn-out, for every prisoner in the camp on this day turns out from his quarters, and, with all his household goods about him, waits in the street opposite his barrack until every bed, and blanket, and jackknife, and jewsharp, and fiddle, and trinket, and “wonderful invention” in the prison, is examined and passed upon by the Inspector. Of the latter articles, as I have said, there is an infinite variety, but of necessary clothing there is nothing to spare. A mattress, a blanket or two, a hat, a coat, a pair of trousers and brogans, and an extra shirt, are the sum total of each one’s furniture and wearing-apparel. Every man’s person must be cleanly, and his clothing as tidy as circumstances will permit; and woe to the foolish “native” who has neglected to bathe, or forgotten to exterminate his little brood of domestic animals. A high-pressure scrubbing, or a march about camp in a packing-box, branded “Vermin,” is his inevitable doom. This three hours’ review is an irksome ordeal to the prisoners, but blessed be the man who invented it; for it keeps the doctors idle, and gives an easy life to the gravediggers.

It may be you have somewhere read that “the proper study of mankind is man.” If you believe this, you will be glad to go with me down the lines, and study these people; and if you do this, and keep your eyes open, you will learn something of the real Southern man; and you might waste years among the “Chivalry” and not do that. The “Chivalry” are not Southern men, they are only Southern gentlemen, and counterfeit gentlemen at that. But now we will go down the column.

The first man we meet is not a man. He is only a boy,—a slender, pale-faced boy, with thin, white hands, and wan, sad, emaciated features, on which “Exchanged” is written as legibly as anything that ever was printed. But he will not wait the slow movements of the Exchange Commissioners. The grim old official who has him in charge is altogether too wise to wrangle about the terms of cartels, where the lives of men are in question.

He receives our advances in a shy, reserved way, and it takes many kind words to draw from him more than a monosyllable. But kind words are a power. They cost less, and buy more, than anything else in the world. I never knew one of them to be wasted; and not one is wasted now, for very soon they reach the boy’s heart, and with moistened eye and quivering lip he tells us his story. It is a simple story,—only a little drama of humble life, with no fine ladies in rouge and satins and furbelows, and no fine gentlemen with waving plumes and gilded swords, and shining patent-leathers, dawdling about the stage, or making silly faces at the foot-lights. Its characters are only common people, who do something,—produce something,—and so leave the world a little better for their living in it. But it is only a short story, just a little drama, and I will let it pass before you.

Now the curtain rises, and the play begins.

We see a little log cottage among the mountains, with a few cattle browsing in the woods, and a few acres of waving corn and cotton. Grapevines and honeysuckles are clambering over its doorway, and roses and wild-flowers are growing before its windows, and—that is all. But it is a pleasant little cottage, all attractive without, and all cheerful within. The candles are not lighted, but a great wood-fire is blazing on the hearth, sending a rich, warm glow through all the little room; and the family have gathered round it for the evening. The older brother is mending harness before the fire; the little sister is knitting beside him; the younger brother and another one—nearer and dearer to him than brother or sister—are seated on the low settle in the chimney-corner; and the aged mother is reading aloud from a large book which lies open on the centre-table. We can’t see the title of this book, but its well-worn leaves show that it must be the family Bible. She closes it after a while, and, the older brother laying aside his work, they all kneel down on the floor together. Then the mother prays,—not a fashionable prayer, with big, swelling words, and stilted, high-flown sentences, such as you sometimes hear on a Sunday,—but a low, simple, earnest petition to Him who is her Father and her Friend, who knows her every want, and loves her as one of His dear children.

It is scarcely over when the door opens, and five ruffianly-looking men enter the room. Four of them wear the gray livery of the Rebels; the other is clad in a motley uniform, part gray, part reddish-brown, and the other part the tawny flesh-color which peeps through the holes in his trousers. He looks for all the world like the tall fellow yonder,—farther down the lines,—the one in ragged “butternuts” and tattered shirt, with that mop of bushy black hair, and that hang-dog, out-at-the-elbow look. They both are conscript officers, and the one in the play has come to arrest the two young men, who have refused to obey the conscription.

The older brother rises to his feet, and, with a look of honest scorn and defiance, says: “I will not go with you. No power on earth shall make me fight against my country.” No more is spoken, but two of the soldiers seize the younger brother, and two others advance upon the older one, while the officer—standing by at a safe distance—gets the handcuffs ready. In less time than it takes to tell it, the two other men have measured their length on the floor; but the officer springs backward, and draws his revolver. He is about to fire, when the older brother catches the weapon, and attempts to wrest it from his hand. They grapple for an instant, and the pistol goes off in the struggle. A low scream follows,—but the officer falls to the floor, and the older brother bounds away into the darkness.

In a moment every one is on his feet again; but not a step is taken, not a movement made. Even these hardened men stand spell-bound and horror-stricken by the scene that is before them. There, upon the floor, the blood streaming from a ghastly wound in her neck, lies the fair young girl who was the sunshine of that humble home. The younger brother is holding her head in his lap, and moaning as if his heart were breaking, and the aged mother is kneeling by her side, trying to stanch the streaming blood; but the crimson river is running fast, and with it a sweet young life is flowing,—flowing on to the great sea, where the sun shines and the sweet south-wind blows forever.

The soldiers look on in silence; but the officer speaks at last. “Come,” he says; “it’s all over with the gal. The boy must go with me.”

“He shall not go,” says the mother. “Leave us alone to-night. You can murder him in the morning!”

The look and tone of that woman would move a mountain. They move even these men, for they turn away, and then the scene changes.

Now we see a great wood,—one of those immense pine forests which cover nearly all of Upper Georgia. The baying of hounds is heard in the distance, and upon the scene totters a weak, famished man, with bleeding feet, and matted hair, and torn, bedraggled clothing. He sinks down at the foot of a tree, and draws a revolver. He knows the hounds are close at hand; and, starving, hunted down as he is, he clings to life with all the energy of the young blood that is in him. But soon he staggers to his feet, and puts up his weapon. He says nothing, but the look in his eye tells of some desperate resolve he has taken. He tries to climb the tree, but the branches are high up in the air; his strength fails, and he falls backward. Again he tries, and this time is successful. A moment more and he would have been too late, for the hounds have tracked him far, and now, with wild howls, are right upon him. Down among those furious beasts he would be torn limb from limb in an instant,—and O horror! the branch bends,—his arm trembles,—he is losing his hold,—he is falling! No! he catches by a stouter limb, and once more is in safety. Meanwhile, the hounds are howling hungrily below, and the shouts of men are heard, far away at the westward. He listens, and, drawing himself nearer the trunk of the tree, takes out the revolver. Five charges are left, and every cap is perfect. His life is lost; but for how many lives can he sell it?

The shouts grow louder, and, guided by the cry of the dogs, the men come rushing through the forest. One nears the tree—hears a shot—staggers back—and falls headlong. Another comes on, and another, and still another, and they all give up man-hunting forever! The rest pause, and hide behind trees, warned by the fate of their comrades. Four lives for one! Shall he have another, or shall his last bullet be wasted? At last a man springs into sight, and gains a nearer cover. The pistol cracks,—a rifle-shot cuts the air, and—— It is a dizzy height,—our heads swim, and we turn away, while the scene changes.

Once more we see the little log cottage among the mountains. It is night, and midwinter. The snow lies deep in the woods, and the wind sighs mournfully around the little cabin, and has a melancholy shiver in its voice, as it tries to whistle “Old Hundred” through the key-hole. The same wood-fire is burning low on the hearth, and the same aged mother and little sister are seated before it. The same, and not the same,—for the roses are gone from the young girl’s cheeks, and the mother is wasted to a shadow! The cattle are stolen from the fields, and the last kernel of corn has been eaten. What will keep them from starving? The mother opens the Book, and reads how Elijah was fed by the ravens. Will not the same Lord feed them? She will trust Him!

And again the scene changes. It is the same play, but only one of the players is living. He is the pale-faced boy in the prison. Kindly and gently we say to him: “You look sick; should you not be in the hospital?”

“I think not,—I like the sun,” he answers. “When the colder weather comes, I may have to go there.”

He will go, and—then the curtain will fall, and the little play be over!

Is it not a thrilling drama? With slight variations of scenery, it has been acted in ten thousand Southern homes, with Satan for manager and Jefferson Davis for leading actor and “heavy villain.”

As we go down the lines, we pass the conscript officer I have alluded to. We do not speak with him, for a look at the outside of “the house he lives in” represses all desire to become acquainted with the inside. Virtue and nobleness can no more dwell in such a body as his, than the Christian virtues can flourish in a hyena. The thing is an impossibility, and the man is not to blame for it. His very name is suggestive of what he may come to. Alter one letter of it, and it would be J. B. Hemp,—which, you all know, is the abbreviation for Jerked By Hemp; and that is the usual end of such people.

As we pass this man, the Captain—who is making the rounds with us, while the Lieutenant goes on with the inspection—tells us something about him. He is despised by every one in the camp; and though the Captain makes it a principle to show no ill-will or partiality to any of the prisoners, he has to feel the general dislike to him. He is probably about as mean as a man ever gets to be. A short time ago he planned an escape by the “Air Line”; and, with the help of another prisoner, made a ladder, and hid it away under the floor of his barrack. The Captain found it out, and charged him with it. He denied it stoutly, but the Captain told him to bring out the ladder. With great reluctance, he finally produced it; and, placing it against the side of the barrack, the Captain said: “My man, this is a good ladder,—a very good ladder; and it ought to be used. Now, suppose you let it stand where it is, and walk up and down upon it for a week. The exercise will do you good, and the ladder, you know, was made expressly for you.” The prisoner was immensely pleased at the idea of so light a punishment (attempts to escape, our young folks know, are punished severely in all prisons,) and began the walk, laughing heartily at the “fool of a Yankee,” who thought that sort of exercise any hardship to a man accustomed to using his legs.

Crowds gathered round to see him, and for a time everything went right merrily; but after going up and down the ladder, from sunrise to sunset, for four days,—stopping only for his customary meals,—he went to the Captain, saying: “I ca’n’t stand this no more, no how. Guv me arything else,—the rail, the pork-barril, the dungeon, bread and water,—arything but this! Why, my back, and knees, and hams, and calves, and every jint and bone in me, is so sore I ca’n’t never walk agin.”

The Captain pitied the fellow, and deducted one day, leaving only two to be travelled. But he pleaded for another. “Tuck off another, Captin’,” he said, “and I’ll tell ye who holped me make the ladder.” Here his natural meanness cropped out; even the good-natured Captain was angered; but he only said to him: “I don’t want to know. It is your business to get out, if you can. I don’t blame you for trying, for I’d do the same thing myself. But it’s my duty to keep you in, and to punish you for attempting to get out. I shall do my duty. Finish the six days; and then, if you make another ladder, I’ll give you twelve.” The Captain knew what prisoner he referred to, and, sending for him, charged him with helping to make the ladder. “Then the mean critter has telled on me, Captin’?” “No, he has not,” he replied; “I wouldn’t let him. When you were a boy in your part of the country, and other boys told tales about you, what did you do with them?” “Whaled ’em like time, Captin’,” answered the man; “and if ye’ll only shet yer eyes to ’t, I’ll whale him.” “I can’t allow such things in the prison,” said the Captain; “and besides, the fellow will be lame for a fortnight, and wouldn’t be a match for you in that condition. Let him get limber, and then, if you don’t whale him, I’ll make you walk the ladder for a month.”

The result was, the conscript officer received a sound thrashing; and did not commit another act worthy of punishment for a week. However, on the day after the Captain related this anecdote, I saw him going the rounds of the camp with a large board strapped to his shoulders, on which was painted “Thief.” He had stolen from a comrade, and that was his punishment.

The Captain is relating to us various instances in which prisoners have taken the “Air Line” out to freedom, when a young “native,” with a jovial, good-natured face, and a droll, waggish eye, says to us: “Speakin’ of the ‘Air Line’ over the fence, stranger, reminds me of Jake Miles takin’ it one night to Chicago. Ye see, Jake was fotched up in a sandy kentry, and never afore seed a pavin’-stone. Well, he travilled that route one dark night, and made his bed in a ten-acre lot, with the sky for a kiverlet. It rained ’fore mornin’, and Jake woke up, wet through, and monstrous hungry. Things warn’t jist encouragin’, but Jake thought anything better ’n the prison,—and the fact ar, stranger, though we’se treated well, and the Captain’s a monstrous nice man, I myself had ’bout as lief be outside of it as inside. The poet had this place in his eye, when he said, ‘Distance lends enchantment to the view.’ Howsomever, Jake didn’t give up. He put out, determined to see what this Yankee kentry ar’ made of, and soon fotched up ’longside of a baker’s cart in Chicago. The driver was away, and Jake was hungry; so he attempted to enforce the cornfiscation act; but ’fore he got a single loaf, a dog sprung out upon him. Jake run, and the dog arter him; and ’fore long the dog kotched him by the trousers, and over they rolled in the mud together. They rolled so fast you couldn’t tell which from t’ other; but Jake felt the pavin’-stones under him, and tried to grab one to subjugate the critter. But the stone wouldn’t come up,—it was fastened down! Finally, Jake got away; and, wet and hungry, and with only one leg to his trousers, tuck a stret line back to camp, declarin’ he’d rather be shot up yere, than go free in a kentry whar they let loose the dogs, and tie up the pavin’-stones!”

“That story will do to tell, my friend,” we remark; “but you don’t expect us to believe it?”

“B’lieve it!” he answers; “why, stranger, thar’s heaps o’ men yere as never seed a pavin’-stone.”

That is true, but they are not the ignorant, degraded people they are generally represented to be. The most of them are “poor whites,” but so are many people at the North, and in every other country. They have no free schools, and it is that fact which makes the difference between them and our Northern farmers. But even with that disadvantage, at least one half of them can read and write, and many of them are as intelligent as any men you ever spoke with. They are all privates, but there are scores of lawyers, and doctors, and teachers, and clergymen among them. Farther down the lines is Dr. Bronson, who was Demonstrator of Anatomy in the Medical College of Louisiana; and here is a picture of a gentleman who was Clerk of the Texas Senate. Though a prisoner, (he has since been released,) he has done more for the country than at least six Major-Generals you know of. For three days and nights he went through incredible dangers, that he might blot out his record of treason. And he did it nobly. God bless him for it! Some day I may tell you the story, but now I must go on with you through the prison.

This old man, near upon seventy, with thin, gray hair, only one eye, a ridged, weather-beaten face, and a short jacket and trousers, is “Uncle Ben.” He was one of Morgan’s men, and was captured while on the raid into Ohio. “You are an old man to be in the war,” we say to him. “What led you into it?”—“Love of the thing,” he answers. “I allers had to be stirrin’. I’m young enough to ride a nag yet.” Talking further with him, we learn that he is a nurse in the hospital, and considers himself well treated. “I never fared better in my life,” he says, “but I’d jist as lief be a ridin’ agin.”

Most of the men of Morgan’s command—and there are twenty-two hundred in the prison—are wild, reckless fellows, who went into the war from the love of adventure, or the hope of plunder. They would rather fight than eat, and give the keepers more trouble than all the others in the camp. They are constantly devising ways of escape; and one dark night, about a year ago, nearly a hundred of them took the Underground Line, and got safely into Dixie. Here is a representation of the route. It was formerly a fashionable thoroughfare, but the raising of the barracks has intercepted the travel, and broken the hearts of the stockholders.

As we go on a little farther, a tall fellow, with seedy clothes and a repulsive countenance, calls to the Captain, “I say, Captin’, I say.” The Captain stops, and answers, “Well?” “I’se willing to take the oath,” says the man. The Captain’s face flushes slightly. He is not angry,—only indignant; but the man withers as he answers: “Willing! Such a man as you talk of being willing! You’ve shed the best blood in the world, and you are willing! Go down on your marrow-bones,—come back like the prodigal son,—and then the country will take you,—not before.” “I’ll do anything that’s wanted,” says the man. “Very well; go to the officer, and put down your name,” answers the Captain;—adding to us, as we pass on, “That fellow is a great scamp, as thorough a Rebel as any one in the camp.”^*

“This is my last Sunday here, Captain,” says a well-clad, intelligent-looking man, as we go on down the lines. “I’m glad to hear it,” replies the Captain; “I thought you’d come over to our side.” In answer to some questions which we put to him, the man explains that he is about enlisting in the Navy. He says he has been “on the fence” for some time, anxious to serve the country, but unwilling to fight against his home and his kindred. At last he has compromised the matter by enlisting for an iron-clad; in which, if his shots should happen to hit his friends, he may be tolerably certain that theirs will not hit him! With a full appreciation of his bravery, the Camp Douglas artist has drawn him here, with back to home and country, and his face to the bounty and the iron-clad.

But from among this army of original characters—and almost all uncultivated men are more or less original—I can particularize no more. Nearly all are stout, healthy, and fine-looking, although there are many mere boys among them. Their clothing is generally badly worn, and scarcely any two are dressed alike. The prevailing material is the reddish-brown homespun so common at the South; but many have on Uncle Sam’s coats and trousers, their own having given out, and these being supplied by the government.

Among the scores that I conversed with, not one complained of harsh treatment, and many admitted that they fared much better than at home. The irksomeness of confinement is all that they object to. Some of them “talked fight,” but much the larger number would like peace at any price. The re-election of Mr. Lincoln they regard as the death-blow of the Confederacy. Within ten days after the result of the November election was known among them, nearly eight hundred applied to take the oath of allegiance.

After inspection is over, the prisoners go to dinner; and then such as choose attend divine service, which is performed in the barracks by their own chaplains. These are interesting gatherings, but they are so much like our own religious meetings, that I shall not attempt to describe them. But other things about the prisoners, and about the camp, that may interest you, I shall try to tell in the next number of “Our Young Folks.”

Edmund Kirke.

It was a wild story that came to Trip’s ears, and no wonder she was frightened out of what few little wits she had. For as she came around the rock a whole troop of her schoolmates sprang up to meet her, and one cried one thing, and one another, but the burden of their song seemed to be, “The railroad! the railroad! O, have you heard?”

“Yes,” said little Trip, unconcernedly; “I know there is a railroad going to run in Applethorpe.”

“O, but that’s nothing! It’s going to run right through your house!” exclaimed Olive.

“Right through your front door!” added Martha.

“Now I don’t believe that,” replied Trip. “A railroad can’t get through a door.”

“Why, of course,” said Olive, “they’ll take the door out; they’ll pull the house down. A railroad is too big,—it’s as big as a meeting-house.” Olive had very hazy notions about railroads, never having seen one.

“I don’t believe there’s going to be any railroad,” meditated Trip, after a pause, choosing what seemed the quickest and surest way of saving the front door.

“O, yes there is! I heard my father,—why, my father knows all about it. It’s coming now.”

“And, Trip, if I was you,” said Olive, in a low, impressive voice, “I wouldn’t stay at school to-day. I would go straight home and put my boxes and things together so’s to save them. I expect they’ll tear the house down right away. I shouldn’t wonder if they had it all teared down by the time you get home.”

Now was Trip’s heart in a flutter all day, though she resolutely refused to go home. She even persisted in her professed doubt as to whether there was going to be any railroad at all; but in the depths of her quaking heart she saw already the dear old house torn quite away, and herself and all the family forced to rove homeless over the world. So it is no wonder she was a little absent-minded that day, and missed two words in spelling, for which she cried vigorously all noon-time, with a little under-wail for the lost house.

But as she came down the lane at night, behold! there was the house as whole as ever,—that was one comfort. No wandering about in the darkness to-night, at least. And there, too, was Jack turning summersets under the Balm-of-Gilead tree, and Lillo frisking about frantically, as if no ruin impended. So Trip plucked up heart a little, and asked Jack what it was all about, and “Is the railroad going to tear our house all down, Jack Straws?”

Jack Straws, thus appealed to, left standing on his head, and tried his feet by way of variety, thrusting both fists under her chin, one after the other, as an appropriate way of saying, “No, Trip-up. I wish ’t was.”

“Well, there,” sighed Trip, greatly relieved; “I knew ’t wasn’t. But Olive and all the girls said the railroad was coming, and I must pack up my clothes.”

“But ’tis coming, so pack away.”

“Why, what?—when?—where are we going?”

“Well, how should you like the barn, say? The hay is soft, and we should be handy to milk; and then there are the horned oxen to do the dairy-work.”

But seeing Trip’s dismayed face, he repented himself. “No, Trip, the line was laid out, and it ran right through our front door. That’s a fact now. I saw the stake driven down right before the front door. But father went to see them, and told them, besides moving the house, it would cut the farm in two halves, sir, and make trouble; and what do you think they’ve done, sir?” Here Jack interposed a summerset by way of taking breath.

“Stopped the railroad, I guess,” said Trip, breathlessly.

“No, sir. Whisked it off one side, and are going slam-bang through the peach-trees. We’ve saved the house, but we’ve lost the garden. All the currant-bushes are making farewell visits, and the hop-toads are breaking up housekeeping.”

“Jack,” said Trip, solemnly, “do you care?”

“Care? No! I’m gladder’n ever I was before since I was born, and don’t remember anything.”

“So am I. I shouldn’t like to live in the barn, but I should like to have the railroad run through the garden.”

But the older people were not at all glad. The dear old trees had to come down, and their dear old roots to come up. The dear old pinks that had bloomed for unremembered years left their last sweetness in the soil. All the robins’ nests were rifled, and the robins did not know what to make of it. Kitty Clover came out to refresh herself with a roll in the catnip, and there was no catnip there. Prince Hum came down to dip his dainty beak into the humming-bird balm, and saw only a gang of rough men digging away with all their might and main. As for Trip, she sat on a stone, and watched and wondered. When they told her the road must be levelled, she thought a man would come with a great scythe, and slice off the hills like a loaf of brown-bread, and lay the slices in the hollows,—which was not strange, seeing it was only a little while since she had learned that, when people bought land, they did not take it up and carry it home. But after a while the railroad was completed. The hill had been dug out, the sleepers placed, the rails fastened, the road fenced, and the first train was to run through. Jack put on his Sunday jacket, and went with his father to the brown old house that served for a station. Gerty had made a good fight to accompany them, but it was not thought best. “Cars is no place for girls,” had lordly Jack declaimed, sleeking down his elf locks before his looking-glass, and rioting in his pride of sex.

“I should like to know, didn’t Aunt Jenny say ’t was just as nice as a parlor, and didn’t Aunt Jenny go in the cars?” asked Gerty, decisively.

“Now I’m ready,” said Jack, rather abruptly, but very wisely, changing the subject.

“And I think there won’t be many will look nicer,” said little Trip, admiringly, drawing her tiny fingers over the velvet jacket.

“Now you mind,” said Jack, who would miss the keenness of his triumph if his sisters should not witness it; “you go and sit on the rock out there, and see me when I go by.”

“Yes,” said Gerty, forgetting her momentary dissatisfaction, “we will.”

“And don’t you go straying away, because they’ll come so fast, if you’re not there, you can’t get back before they’ll be all gone, and then you won’t see me. I shall whiz by just like a flash.”

“O,” said Trip, “I shall look just as tight!” And so she did; for though from their rock by the well they could see miles of railroad in each direction, she scarcely dared turn her head for fear in that moment the wonderful train should flash by, and she not see it. But after a half-hour’s waiting, a black speck appeared at the end of the long line; it grew bigger and bigger; all the family came out to see it; volumes of smoke rose and rolled backwards from it; there was a rattle and a roar and a din. Gerty and Trip instinctively shrunk back, but it had already passed them; and there, on the platform of the last car, stood Jack, holding on by the door, bowing and smiling, and proud as Lucifer.

O, what a grand and glorious thing it was to be a boy, and ride in that wonderful train! and what a comparatively tame and humiliating thing it was to be a girl, and just sit on a rock and see him go by!

So the railroad was finished, and the grown-up people found it was not so bad after all; for the cars passed through a “cut” so deep that the engine smoke-stack hardly reached the top, and you only knew they were there by the sound. “And if the well does not cave in,” said Trip’s father, “we shall be as good as new.” And the well never did cave in, though it stood on the very edge of the cut. The garden trotted over to the other side of the house, and did not mind it at all. The currants and the raspberries and the blackberries held their own, and some fine new peach-trees more than made good the loss of the old. “Besides,” said Jack, who had been continually prowling along the railroad ever since the first surveyors appeared, and who doubtless knew more about it than any of the directors, “what do you think? There are blackberries no end along the track. It’s my opinion the engine sows ’em.” “And there are strange flowers that I never saw here anywhere before,” added Gerty. There was also a continual running to see the swiftly-passing trains. A dozen times a day the sweet farm-silence was broken in upon by its roar and rush, and so many times wildly sped all the little feet over the velvet turf to the well, to gaze at the ever-charming sight. Lillo caught the fever, and carried it to extremes. “Cars!” rung through the house at the approach of every train, and at the cry out leaped Lillo, past the well and down the bank, barking furiously, and tearing along beside the train till it emerged from the cut, when he would return, wagging his tail, and looking up into the children’s faces as proud and happy as if he had done some great thing. What he evidently meant was, “You make great talk about your swift cars, but you see I am not afraid of them. I can keep up with them, yes, and chase them away.” Indeed, he was so on the alert that at any time Jack had only to say, “Cars, Lillo!” and away Lillo would rush pell-mell to the opening by the well, and execute several fine barks and great leaps before he would discover that he had been imposed upon.

The poultry about the farm did not take things so bravely as Lillo. The little yellow, downy goslings, which are the loveliest, sweetest things you ever saw, only they will grow up into geese in such a hurry; and the white little chickens, almost as soft and pretty; and the poor little slender-legged turkeys, that are not pretty at all, and have much ado to keep their feeble breath in their feeble bodies,—waddled and scampered and tottered over the grass, and never took a thought of the railroad; but after they became respectable fowls, and went on their travels in the neighboring pastures, dangers began to thicken. “It’s car-time. Run, Jack, run, Gerty, and see where the chickens are!” More than once all precautions were in vain. The heavy train thundered on into the very midst of the flocks. The chickens, surprised, took to their wings and escaped; but the dainty turkeys tiptoed along, wild with fright, yet loath to leave their dignity and run, and—let me not sadden your young hearts with tidings of catastrophe, but simply say that for a week thereafter Jack and Gerty and Trip had Thanksgiving dinners. One morning Jack rushed up to the open window, crying, “Mother Goose is on the track, and the down-train is coming!” Mother Goose was an old gray goose that had been kept in the family a long time in consideration of past services. Great-great-great-very-great-grandchildren had been hatched and hatcheted, and still Mother Goose waddled her serene way over the farm, and bathed herself in the brook, and grandmothered the successive broods without fear or favor. They all rushed out to the railroad side. Yes, her hour was surely come at last. There she sat between the rails, calmly surveying these new-fangled notions, and wondering, I suppose, what would turn up next by way of improvement, and on came the terrible engine, dragging its terrible train, ignorant of Mother Goose and her meditations. Nonsense! What can a smart young engine, however energetic, do against a sensible old goose, with all her wits about her? Mother Goose was not going to be put down by that upstart, not she! She just sat still, bobbed her head a little as each car came up, and bade them all defiance. When the train had passed over her, she remained quiet a moment to show that she was not nervous, then arose, shook herself, looked over her shoulder as who should say, “Seems to me I heard something,” quietly stepped upon the rail, flopped down on the outside, and waddled off with a placid but profound contempt for all such flummery. You may be sure she had a royal dinner that day, and I make no doubt added a very sarcastic chapter to her Memoirs of my Life and Times before she went to bed at night.

But so many curious and remarkable things happened at the farm-house in consequence of that railroad, that I have not now room to tell them. If you care to know them, however, I will tell you more another time.

Gail Hamilton.

After the sad fate of Rover, there came a long interval in which we had no dog. Our hearts were too sore to want another. His collar, tied with black crape, hung under a pretty engraving of Landseer’s, called “My Dog,” which we used to fancy to be an exact resemblance of our pet.

The children were some of them grown up and gone to school, or scattered about the world. If ever the question of another dog was agitated, papa cut it short with, “I won’t have another; I won’t be made to feel again as I did about Rover.” But somehow Mr. Charley the younger got his eye on a promising litter of puppies, and at last he begged papa into consenting that he might have one of them.

It was a little black mongrel, of no particular race or breed,—a mere common cur, without any pretensions to family, but the best-natured, jolliest little low-bred pup that ever boy had for a playmate. To be sure, he had the usual puppy sins;—he would run away with papa’s slippers, and boots, and stockings; he would be under everybody’s feet, at the most inconvenient moment; he chewed up a hearth-broom or two, and pulled one of Charley’s caps to pieces in the night, with an industry worthy of a better cause;—still, because he was dear to Charley, papa and mamma winked very hard at his transgressions.

The name of this little black individual was Stromion,—a name taken from a German fairy tale, which the Professor was very fond of reading in the domestic circle; and Stromion, by dint of much patience, much feeding, and very indulgent treatment, grew up into a very fat, common-looking black cur dog, not very prepossessing in appearance and manners, but possessed of the very best heart in the world, and most inconceivably affectionate and good-natured. Sometimes some of the older members of the family would trouble Charley’s enjoyment in his playfellow by suggesting that he was no blood dog, and that he belonged to no particular dog family that could be named. Papa comforted him by the assurance that Stromion did belong to a very old and respectable breed,—that he was a mongrel; and Charley after that valued him excessively under this head; and if any one tauntingly remarked that Stromion was only a cur, he would flame up in his defence,—“He isn’t a cur, he’s a mongrel,” introducing him to strangers with the addition to all his other virtues, that he was a “pure mongrel,—papa says so.”

The edict against dogs in the family having once been broken down, Master Will proceeded to gratify his own impulses, and soon led home to the family circle an enormous old black Newfoundland, of pure breed, which had been presented him by a man who was leaving the place. Prince was in the decline of his days, but a fine, majestic old fellow. He had a sagacity and capacity of personal affection which were uncommon. Many dogs will change from master to master without the least discomposure. A good bone will compensate for any loss of the heart, and make a new friend seem quite as good as an old one. But Prince had his affections quite as distinctly as a human being, and we learned this to our sorrow when he had to be weaned from his old master under our roof. His howls and lamentations were so dismal and protracted, that the house could not contain him; we were obliged to put him into an outhouse to compose his mind, and we still have a vivid image of him sitting, the picture of despair, over an untasted mutton shank, with his nose in the air, and the most dismal howls proceeding from his mouth. Time, the comforter, however, assuaged his grief, and he came at last to transfer all his stores of affection to Will, and to consider himself once more as a dog with a master.

Prince used to inhabit his young master’s apartment, from the window of which he would howl dismally when Will left him to go to the academy near by, and yelp triumphant welcomes when he saw him returning. He was really and passionately fond of music, and, though strictly forbidden the parlor, would push and elbow his way there with dogged determination when there was playing or singing. Any one who should have seen Prince’s air when he had a point to carry, would understand why quiet obstinacy is called doggedness.

The female members of the family, seeing that two dogs had gained admission to the circle, had cast their eyes admiringly on a charming little Italian greyhound, that was living in doleful captivity at a dog-fancier’s in Boston, and resolved to set him free and have him for their own. Accordingly they returned one day in triumph, with him in their arms,—a fair, delicate creature, white as snow, except one mouse-colored ear. He was received with enthusiasm, and christened Giglio; the honors of his first bath and toilette were performed by Mademoiselles the young ladies on their knees, as if he had been in reality young Prince Giglio from fairy-land.

Of all beautiful shapes in dog form, never was there one more perfect than this. His hair shone like spun glass, and his skin was as fine and pink as that of a baby; his paws and ears were translucent like fine china, and he had great, soft, tremulous dark eyes; his every movement seemed more graceful than the last. Whether running or leaping, or sitting in graceful attitudes on the parlor table among the ladies’ embroidery-frames, with a great rose-colored bow under his throat, he was alike a thing of beauty, and his beauty alone won all hearts to him.

When the papa first learned that a third dog had been introduced into the household, his patience gave way. The thing was getting desperate; we were being overrun with dogs; our house was no more a house, but a kennel; it ought to be called Cunopolis,—a city of dogs; he could not and would not have it so; but papa, like most other indulgent old gentlemen, was soon reconciled to the children’s pets. In fact, Giglio was found cowering under the bed-clothes at the Professor’s feet not two mornings after his arrival, and the good gentleman descended with him in his arms to breakfast, talking to him in the most devoted manner:—“Poor little Giglio, was he cold last night? and did he want to get into papa’s bed? he should be brought down stairs, that he should”;—all which, addressed to a young rascal whose sinews were all like steel, and who could have jumped from the top stair to the bottom like a feather, was sufficiently amusing.

Giglio’s singular beauty and grace were his only merits; he had no love nor power of loving; he liked to be petted and kept warm, but it mattered nothing to him who did it. He was as ready to run off with a stranger as with his very best friend,—would follow any whistle or any caller,—was, in fact, such a gay rover, that we came very near losing him many times; and more than once he was brought back from the Boston cars, on board which he had followed a stranger. He also had, we grieve to say, very careless habits; and after being washed white as snow, and adorned with choice rose-colored ribbons, would be brought back soiled and ill-smelling from a neighbor’s livery-stable, where he had been indulging in low society. For all that, he was very lordly and aristocratic in his airs with poor Stromion, who was a dog with a good, loving heart, if he was black and homely. Stromion admired Giglio with the most evident devotion; he would always get up to give him the warm corner, and would sit humbly in the distance and gaze on him with most longing admiration,—for all of which my fine gentleman rewarded him only with an occasional snarl or a nip, as he went by him. Sometimes Giglio would condescend to have a romp with Stromion for the sake of passing the time, and then Stromion would be perfectly delighted, and frisk and roll his clumsy body over the carpet with his graceful antagonist, all whose motions were a study for an artist. When Giglio was tired of play, he would give Stromion a nip that would send him yelping from the field; and then he would tick, tick gracefully away to some embroidered ottoman forbidden to all but himself, where he would sit graceful and classical as some Etruscan vase, and look down superior on the humble companion who looked up to him with respectful admiration.

Giglio knew his own good points, and was possessed with the very spirit of a coquette. He would sometimes obstinately refuse the caresses and offered lap of his mistresses, and seek to ingratiate himself with some stolid theological visitor, for no other earthly purpose that we could see than that he was determined to make himself the object of attention. We have seen him persist in jumping time and again on the hard, bony knees of some man who hated dogs, and did not mean to notice him, until he won attention and caresses, when immediately he would spring down and tick away perfectly contented. He assumed lofty, fine-gentleman airs with Prince also, for which sometimes he got his reward,—for Prince, the old, remembered that he was a dog of blood, and would not take any nonsense from him.

Like many old dogs, Prince had a very powerful doggy smell, which was a great personal objection to him, and Giglio was always in a civil way making reflections upon this weak point. Prince was fond of indulging himself with an afternoon nap on the door-mat, and sometimes, when he rose from his repose, Giglio would spring gracefully from the table where he had been overlooking him, and, picking his way daintily to the mat, would snuff at it, with his long, thin nose, with an air of extreme disgust. It was evidently a dog insult, done according to the politest modes of refined society, and said as plain as words could say,—“My dear sir, excuse me, but can you tell what makes this peculiar smell where you have been lying?” At any rate, Prince understood the sarcasm, for a deep angry growl and a sharp nip would now and then teach my fine gentleman to mind his own business.

Giglio’s lot at last was to travel in foreign lands, for his young mistresses, being sent to school in Paris, took him with them to finish his education and acquire foreign graces. He was smuggled on board the Fulton, and placed in an upper berth, well wrapped in a blanket; and the last we saw of him was his long, thin Italian nose, and dark, tremulous eyes looking wistfully at us from the folds of the flannel in which he shivered. Sensitiveness to cold was one of his great peculiarities. In winter he wore little blankets, which his fond mistresses made with anxious care, and on which his initials were embroidered with their own hands. In the winter weather on Zion Hill he was often severely put to it to gratify his love of roving in the cold snows; he would hold up first one leg, and then the other, and contrive to get along on three, so as to save himself as much as possible; and more than once he caught severe colds, requiring careful nursing and medical treatment to bring him round again.

The Fulton sailed early in March. It was chilly, stormy weather, so that the passengers all suffered somewhat with cold, and Master Giglio was glad to lie rolled in his blanket, looking like a sea-sick gentleman. The Captain very generously allowed him a free passage, and in pleasant weather he used to promenade the deck, where his beauty won for him caresses and attentions innumerable. The stewards and cooks always had choice morsels for him, and fed him to such a degree as would have spoiled any other dog’s figure; but his could not be spoiled. All the ladies vied with each other in seeking his good graces, and after dinner he pattered from one to another, to be fed with sweet things and confectionery, and hear his own praises, like a gay buck of fashion as he was.

Landed in Paris, he met a warm reception at the Pension of Madame B——; but ambition filled his breast. He was in the great, gay city of Paris, the place where a handsome dog has but to appear to make his fortune, and so Giglio resolved to seek out for himself a more brilliant destiny.

One day, when he was being led to take the air in the court, he slipped his leash, sped through the gate, and away down the street like the wind. It was idle to attempt to follow him; he was gone like a bird in the air, and left the hearts of his young mistresses quite desolate.

Some months after, as they were one evening eating ices in the Champs Elysées, a splendid carriage drove up, from which descended a liveried servant, with a dog in his arms. It was Giglio, the faithless Giglio, with his one mouse-colored ear, that marked him from all other dogs! He had evidently accomplished his destiny, and become the darling of rank and fashion, rode in an elegant carriage, and had a servant in livery devoted to him. Of course he did not pretend to notice his former friends. The footman, who had come out apparently to give him an airing, led him up and down close by where they were sitting, and bestowed on him the most devoted attentions. Of course there was no use in trying to reclaim him, and so they took their last look of the fair inconstant, and left him to his brilliant destiny. And thus ends the history of Prince Giglio.

Harriet Beecher Stowe.

My friend Jacques went into a baker’s shop one day to buy a little cake which he had fancied in passing. He intended it for a child whose appetite was gone, and who could be coaxed to eat only by amusing him. He thought that such a pretty loaf might tempt even the sick. While he waited for his change, a little boy six or eight years old, in poor, but perfectly clean clothes, entered the baker’s shop. “Ma’am,” said he to the baker’s wife, “mother sent me for a loaf of bread.” The woman climbed upon the counter (this happened in a country town), took from the shelf of four-pound loaves the best one she could find, and put it into the arms of the little boy.

My friend Jacques then first observed the thin and thoughtful face of the little fellow. It contrasted strongly with the round, open countenance of the great loaf, of which he was taking the greatest care.

“Have you any money?” said the baker’s wife.

The little boy’s eyes grew sad.

“No, ma’am,” said he, hugging the loaf closer to his thin blouse; “but mother told me to say that she would come and speak to you about it to-morrow.”

“Run along,” said the good woman; “carry your bread home, child.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” said the poor little fellow

My friend Jacques came forward for his money. He had put his purchase into his pocket, and was about to go, when he found the child with the big loaf, whom he had supposed to be half-way home, standing stock-still behind him.

“What are you doing there?” said the baker’s wife to the child, whom she also had thought to be fairly off. “Don’t you like the bread?”

“O yes, ma’am!” said the child.

“Well, then, carry it to your mother, my little friend. If you wait any longer, she will think you are playing by the way, and you will get a scolding.”

The child did not seem to hear. Something else absorbed his attention.

The baker’s wife went up to him, and gave him a friendly tap on the shoulder. “What are you thinking about?” said she.

“Ma’am,” said the little boy, “what is it that sings?”

“There is no singing,” said she.

“Yes!” cried the little fellow. “Hear it! Queek, queek, queek, queek!”

My friend and the woman both listened, but they could hear nothing, unless it was the song of the crickets, frequent guests in bakers’ houses.

“It is a little bird,” said the dear little fellow, “or perhaps the bread sings when it bakes, as apples do.”

“No, indeed, little goosey!” said the baker’s wife; “those are crickets. They sing in the bakehouse because we are lighting the oven, and they like to see the fire.”

“Crickets!” said the child; “are they really crickets?”

“Yes, to be sure,” said she, good-humoredly. The child’s face lighted up.

“Ma’am,” said he, blushing at the boldness of his request, “I would like it very much if you would give me a cricket.”

“A cricket!” said the baker’s wife, smiling; “what in the world would you do with a cricket, my little friend? I would gladly give you all there are in the house, to get rid of them, they run about so.”

“O ma’am, give me one, only one, if you please!” said the child, clasping his little thin hands under the big loaf. “They say that crickets bring good luck into houses; and perhaps if we had one at home, mother, who has so much trouble, wouldn’t cry any more.”

“Why does your poor mamma cry?” said my friend, who could no longer help joining in the conversation.

“On account of her bills, sir,” said the little fellow. “Father is dead, and mother works very hard, but she cannot pay them all.”

My friend took the child, and with him the great loaf, into his arms, and I really believe he kissed them both. Meanwhile, the baker’s wife, who did not dare to touch a cricket herself, had gone into the bakehouse. She made her husband catch four, and put them into a box with holes in the cover, so that they might breathe. She gave the box to the child, who went away perfectly happy.

When he had gone, the baker’s wife and my friend gave each other a good squeeze of the hand. “Poor little fellow,” said they, both together. Then she took down her account-book, and, finding the page where the mother’s charges were written, made a great dash all down the page, and then wrote at the bottom, “Paid.”

Meanwhile my friend, to lose no time, had put up in paper all the money in his pockets, where fortunately he had quite a sum that day, and had begged the good wife to send it at once to the mother of the little cricket boy, with her bill receipted, and a note, in which he told her she had a son who would one day be her joy and pride.

They gave it to a baker’s boy with long legs, and told him to make haste. The child, with his big loaf, his four crickets, and his little short legs, could not run very fast, so that, when he reached home, he found his mother for the first time in many weeks with her eyes raised from her work, and a smile of peace and happiness upon her lips.

The boy believed that it was the arrival of his four little black things which had worked this miracle, and I do not think he was mistaken. Without the crickets, and his good little heart, would this happy change have taken place in his mother’s fortunes?

From the French of P. J. Stahl.

CHAPTER V.
THE NIGHT-HAWKS.

Mr. Shell was proprietor of the New Hope Oyster Saloon. He got up nice game suppers, and treated his customers to ale, whiskey, and brandy. Philip loved good living, and often ate an oyster-stew and a broiled quail, and washed it down with a glass of ale, late at night in Mr. Shell’s rooms, in company with three or four other boys. After supper they had cigars and a game of cards, till midnight, when Mr. Shell put out his lights and closed his doors, often interrupting them in the middle of a game. That was not agreeable, and so the young gentlemen hired a room over the saloon, fitted it up with tables and chairs, and organized a club, calling themselves “Night-Hawks.” Philip was the chief hawk. They met nearly every evening. No one could get into their room without giving a signal to those within, and they had a secret sign by which they knew each other in the dark.

At first they enjoyed themselves, playing cards, smoking cigars, drinking ale, sipping hot whiskey-punch, and telling stories; but in a short time the stories were not worth laughing at, the games of cards were the same thing over and over, and they wanted something more exciting.

It was the fall of the year. There was rich fruit in the orchards and gardens of New Hope, russet and crimson-cheeked apples, golden-hued pears, luscious grapes purpling in the October sun, and juicy melons. The beehives were heavy with honey, and the bees were still at work, gathering new sweets from the late blooming flowers. Many baskets of ripe apples and choicest pears, many a bunch of grapes, with melons, found their way up the narrow stairs to the room of the Night-Hawks. There was a pleasing excitement in gathering the apples and pears under the windows of the unsuspecting people fast asleep, or in plucking the grapes from garden trellises at midnight. But people began to keep watch.

“We must throw them off our track. I’ll make them think that Paul does it,” said Philip to himself one day. He had not forgotten the night of Daphne’s party,—how Paul had won a victory and he had suffered defeat. Paul was suspected; he was the leader of the choir, and was getting on in the world. “I’ll fix him,” said he.

The next morning, when Mr. Leatherby kindled the fire in his shoe-shop, he found that the stove would not draw. The smoke, instead of going up the funnel, poured into the room, and the fire, instead of roaring and blazing, smouldered a few moments and finally died out. He kindled it again, opened the windows to let in the air, but it would not burn. He got down on his knees and blew till he was out of breath, got his eyes filled with smoke, which made the tears roll down his cheeks. The shop was a mere box of a building, with a low roof; so he climbed up and looked into the chimney and found it stuffed with newspapers. Pulling them out, he saw a crumpled piece of writing-paper. He smoothed it out. “Ah! what is this?” said he; and, putting on his spectacles, he read, “North 69°, East 140 rods to a stake; South 87°, West 50 rods to an oak-tree.”

“That is Paul Parker’s figuring, I reckon. I always knew that Paul loved fun, but I didn’t think he would do this!” said Mr. Leatherby to himself, more in sorrow than in anger.

“Good morning, Mr. Leatherby,” said Philip, coming up at that moment. “What is the matter with your chimney?”

“Some of you boys have been playing a trick upon me.”

“Who, I should like to know, is there in New Hope mean enough to do that?” Philip asked.

“Who’s figuring do you call that?” Mr. Leatherby asked, presenting the paper.

“Paul Parker’s, as sure as I am alive! You ought to expose him, Mr. Leatherby.”

“I don’t like to say anything against him. I always liked him; but I didn’t think he would cut up such a shine as this,” Mr. Leatherby replied.

“Appearances are deceptive. It won’t do for me to say anything against Paul, for people might say I was envious; but if I were you, Mr. Leatherby, I’d put him over the road,” said Philip, walking on.

Mr. Leatherby thought the matter over all day, as he sat in his dingy shop, which was only a few rods from Mr. Chrome’s, where Paul was painting wagons, singing snatches of songs, and psalms and hymns. Mr. Leatherby loved to hear him. It made the days seem shorter. It rested him when he was tired, cheered him when he was discouraged. It was like sunshine in his soul, for it made him happy. Thinking it over, and hearing Paul’s voice so round, clear, full, and sweet, he couldn’t make up his mind to tell anybody of the little joke. “After all, he didn’t mean anything in particular, only to have a little fun with me. Boys will be boys,”—and so Mr. Leatherby, kind old man that he was, determined to keep it all to himself.

When Paul passed by the shop on his way home at night, he said, “Good evening, Mr. Leatherby,” so pleasantly and kindly, that Mr. Leatherby half made up his mind that it wasn’t Paul who did it, after all, but some of the other boys,—Bob Swift, perhaps, a sly, cunning, crafty fellow, who was one of Philip’s cronies. “It would be just like Bob, but not at all like Paul, and so I won’t say anything to anybody,” said the mild old man to himself.

Miss Dobb’s shaggy little poodle came out, barking furiously at Paul as he passed down the street. Paul gave him a kick which sent him howling towards the house, saying, “Get out, you ugly puppy.” Miss Dobb heard him. She came to the door and clasped the poodle to her bosom, saying, “Poor dear Trippee! Did the bad fellow hurt the dear little Trippee?” Then she looked savagely at Paul and as she put out her hand to close the door, she seemed to clutch at Paul with her long, bony fingers, as if to get hold of him and give him a shaking.

Trip wasn’t hurt much, for he was out again in a few minutes, snapping and snarling at all passers-by. Just at dark he was missing. Miss Dobb went to the door and called, “Trip! Trip! Trip!” but he did not come at her call. She looked up and down the street, but could not see him. The evening passed away. She went to the door many times and called; she went to Mr. Shelbarke’s and to Mr. Noggin’s, but no one had seen Trip. She went to bed wondering what had become of him, and fearing that somebody had killed or stolen him.

But in the night she heard him whining at the door. She opened it joyfully. “Where have you been, you dear little good-for-nothing darling Trip?” she said, kissing him, finding, as she did so, that all his hair had been sheared off, except a tuft on the end of his tail. She was so angry that she could not refrain from shedding tears. The puppy shivered, trembled, and whined in the cold, and Miss Dobb was obliged to sew him up in flannel. He looked so funny in his coat, with the tuft of hair waving on the end of his tail, that Miss Dobb laughed notwithstanding her anger. In the morning she went out to tell her neighbors what had happened, and met Philip.

“Good morning. I hope you are well, Miss Dobb,” he said politely.

“Yes, I am well, only I am so vexed that I don’t know what to do.”

“Indeed! What has happened?”

“Why, somebody has sheared all of Trip’s hair off, except a tuft on the end of his tail, which looks like a swab. It is an outrageous insult. Trip had a beautiful tail. I would pull every hair out of the villain’s head, if I knew who did it.”

“Who was it that kicked your dog last night, and called him an ugly puppy?” Philip asked.

Miss Dobb remembered who, and her eyes flashed. Philip walked on, and came across Bob Swift, who had been standing round the corner of Mr. Noggin’s shop, listening to all that was said. They laughed at something, then stopped and looked at Mr. Noggin’s bees, which were buzzing and humming merrily in the bright October sun.

That night Mr. Noggin heard a noise in his yard. Springing out of bed and going to the window, he saw that a thief was taking the boxes of honey from his patent hives. He opened the door and shouted, “Thief! Thief!” The robber ran. In the morning Mr. Noggin found that the thief had dropped his hat in his haste. He picked it up. “Aha! ’Pears to me I have seen this hat before. Paul Parker’s, as sure as I am alive!” he said. It was the hat which Paul wore in Mr. Chrome’s paint-shop. Everybody knew it, because it was daubed and spattered with paint.

Mr. Noggin went to his work. He was a well-meaning man, but shallow-brained. He knew how to make good barrels, tubs, and buckets, but had no mind of his own. He put on his leather apron, and commenced driving the hoops upon a barrel, pounding with his adze, singing, and making the barrel ring with

Mr. Noggin was rattling on in that fashion when Miss Dobb, followed by Trip, entered the shop.

“Well, I declare! That is the first time I ever saw a pup with a shirt on,” said Mr. Noggin, stopping and looking at the poodle sewed up in flannel.

“That is Paul Parker’s doings,—I mean the shearing,” said Miss Dobb, her eyes flashing indignantly.

“Paul’s work! O ho! Then he shears pups besides robbing beehives, does he?” said Mr. Noggin. He told Miss Dobb what had happened.

“It is your duty, Mr. Noggin, to have him arrested at once. You are under imperative obligations to the community as a law and order abiding citizen to put the sheriff upon his track. He is a hypocrite. He ought to be pitched out of the singing-seats head first.” So Miss Dobb wound Mr. Noggin round her finger, and induced him to enter a complaint against Paul.

CHAPTER VI.
PAUL’S FRIENDS.

For five months Paul had been leader of the choir, and so faithfully were his duties performed, so excellent his drill, and so good his taste and mature his judgment, so completely were the choir under his control, that the ministers from the surrounding parishes, when they exchanged with Rev. Mr. Surplice, said, “What glorious singing they have at New Hope!” It was so good, that people who never had been in the habit of attending church hired pews,—not that they cared to hear Mr. Surplice preach and pray, but it was worth while to hear Azalia Adams and Daphne Dare sing a quartette with Paul and Hans Middlekauf, and the whole choir joining in perfect time and in sweetest harmony.

Paul believed that a thing worth doing at all was worth doing well. His heart was in his work. It was a pleasure to sing. He loved music because it made him happy, and he felt also that he and Azalia and Daphne and all the choir were a power for good in the community to make men better. Farmer Harrow, who used to work at haying on Sunday, said it was worth a bushel of turnips any time to hear such sweet singing. So his hired man and horses had rest one day in seven.

In the calm moonlight nights Paul often lay wide awake, hour after hour, listening with rapture to the sweet music which came to him from the distant woods, from the waterfall, from the old maple in front of the house, when the red leaves, tinged with gorgeous hues, were breaking one by one from the twigs, and floating to the ground, from the crickets chirping the last lone songs of the dying year, and from the robins and sparrows still hovering around their summer haunts. It was sweet to think of the pleasant hours he had passed with Azalia and Daphne, and with all the choir; and then it was very pleasant to look into the future, and imagine what bliss there might be in store for him;—a better home for his mother in her declining years,—a better life for himself. He would be a good citizen, respected and beloved. He would be kind to all. He wished that all the world might be good and happy. When he became a man, he would try and make people good. If everybody was as good as Azalia, what a glorious world it would be! She was always good, always cheerful. She had a smile for everybody. Her life was as warm and sunny and golden as the October days, and as calm and peaceful as the moonlight streaming across his chamber. Sweet it was to think of her,—sweeter to see her; sweetest of all to stand by her side and unite his voice to hers, and feel in his soul the charm of her presence. In his dreams he sometimes heard her and sat by her side.

Sometimes, while thus lying awake, watching the stars as they went sailing down the western sky, his thoughts went beyond the present into the unseen future, whither his father and grandfather had gone. They sang when on earth, and he thought of them as singing in heaven. Sometimes he gazed so long and steadily toward the heavenly land, that his eyes became dim with tears, so sweet and yet so sad the sounds he seemed to hear,—so near and yet so far away that land.

So the days went by, and the calm and peaceful nights, bringing him to October,—the glorious harvest month.

And now suddenly people looked shyly at him. There were mysterious whisperings and averted faces. He met Squire Capias one morning on the street. “Good morning,” said Paul; but the lawyer walked on without reply. He passed Miss Dobb’s house. She sat by the front window, and glared at him savagely; and yet she seemed to smile, but her countenance was so thin, wrinkled, and sharp, and her eyes so fierce, her smile so fiendish, that it put him in mind of a picture he once saw in a horrible story-book, which told of a witch that carried off little children and ate them for breakfast. Paul thought that Miss Dobb would like to pick his bones. But he went on to his work, rejoicing that there were not many Miss Dobbs in the world.

While hard at it with his paint-brush, Mr. Ketchum entered. He was a tall, stout man, with black, bushy whiskers, and so strong that he could take a barrel of cider on his knees and drink out of the bunghole. He was a sheriff. The rowdies who fell into his hands said it was no use to try to resist Mr. Ketchum, for he once seized a stubborn fellow by the heels, and swung him round as he would a cat by the tail, till the fellow lost his breath and was frightened half out of his wits.

“I have called in to ask you to walk up to Judge Adams’s office on a matter of business,” said Mr. Ketchum.

“With pleasure, sir,” said Paul, who, now that he had become a surveyor of land, had been called upon repeatedly to give his testimony in court.

They entered Judge Adams’s office, which was crowded with people. Mr. Noggin, Miss Dobb, Philip, and Bob Swift were there. A buzz ran round the room. They all looked upon Paul.

“You have been arrested, Paul, and are charged with stealing honey from Mr. Noggin’s beehives. Are you guilty or not guilty?” said Judge Adams.

“Arrested!—arrested for stealing!”—Paul exclaimed, stupefied and astounded at the words of the judge. It was like a lightning-stroke. His knees became weak. He felt sick at heart. Great drops of cold and clammy sweat stood upon his forehead. Arrested! What would his mother say? Her son accused of stealing! What would everybody say? What would Azalia think? What would Rev. Mr. Surplice say? What would his class of boys in the Sunday-school say, not about him, but about truth and honor and religion, when they heard that their teacher was arrested for stealing?

His throat became dry, his tongue was parched. His voice suddenly grew husky. His brain reeled. His heart one moment stood still, then leaped in angry throbs, as if ready to burst. He trembled as if attacked by sudden ague, then a hot flash went over him, burning up his brain, scorching his heart, and withering his life.

“What say you, are you guilty or not guilty?”

“I am innocent,” said Paul, gasping for breath, and sinking into his seat, taking no notice of what was going on around him. He was busy with the future. He saw all his hopes of life dead in an instant,—killed by one flash. He knew that he was innocent, but he was accused of crime, arrested, and a prisoner. The world would have it that he was guilty. His good name was gone forever. His hopes were blighted, his aspirations destroyed, his dreams of future joy—all had passed away. His mother would die of a broken heart. Henceforth those with whom he had associated would shun him. For him there was no more peace, joy, or comfort,—nothing but impenetrable darkness and agony in the future. So overwhelmed was he, that he took no notice of Mr. Noggin’s testimony, or of what was done, till he heard Judge Adams say: “There are some circumstances against the accused, but the testimony is not sufficient to warrant my binding him over for trial. He is discharged.”

Paul went out into the fresh air, like one just waking from sleep, numbed and stupefied. The words of the judge rang in his ears,—“Circumstances against the accused.” The accused! The prisoner! He had been a prisoner. All the world would know of it, but would not know that he was innocent. How could he bear it? It was a crushing agony. Then there came to him the words of the psalm sung on Sunday,—

So he was comforted in the thought that it was for his good; but he couldn’t see how. He resolved to bear it manfully, conscious of his innocence, and trusting in God that he would vindicate his honor.

He went home and told his mother all that had happened. He was surprised to find that it did not shock her, as he supposed it would.

“I know you are innocent, Paul,” she said, kissing him. “I am not surprised at what has happened. You are the victim of a conspiracy. I have been expecting that something would happen to you, for you have been highly prospered, and prosperity brings enemies. It will all come out right in the end.” Thus his mother soothed him, and tried to lift the great weight from his heart.

He was innocent, but half of the community thought him guilty. “He did it,—he did it,”—said Miss Dobb to all her neighbors. What should he do? How could he establish his innocence? How remove all suspicion? Ought he to resign his position as leader of the choir? or should he retain it? But the committee of the society settled that. “After what has happened, you will see the propriety of giving up your position as leader of the choir,” said they. “Also your class in the Sunday-school,” said the Superintendent.

O, how crushing it was! He was an outcast,—a vile, miserable wretch,—a hypocrite,—a mean, good-for-nothing fellow,—a scoundrel,—a thief,—a robber,—in the estimation of those who had respected him. They did not speak to him on the street. Colonel Dare, who usually had a pleasant word, did not notice him. He met Daphne Dare, but she crossed the street to avoid him. How terrible the days! How horrible the nights! He tossed and tumbled, and turned upon his bed. There was a fire in his bones. His flesh was hot. His brain was like a smouldering furnace. If he dropped off to sleep, it was but for a moment, and he awoke with a start, to feel the heat burning up his soul with its slow, consuming flame.

At evening twilight he wandered by the river-side to cool his fever, dipping his hand into the stream and bathing his brow. He stood upon the bridge and looked over the railing into the surging waters. A horrible thought came over him. Why not jump in and let the swollen current bear him away? What use was it to live, with his good name gone, and all the future a blank? He banished the thought. No, he would live on and trust in God.

He heard a step upon the bridge, and, looking up, beheld Azalia. She had been out gathering the faded leaves of autumn, and late-blossoming flowers, in the woods beyond the river. “Will she speak to me?” was the question which rose in his mind. His heart stood still in that moment of suspense. She came towards him, held out her hand, and said, “Good evening, Paul.”

“Then you do not turn away from me?”

“No, Paul, I don’t believe that you are a thief.”

Tears came to his eyes as he took her proffered hand,—tears which welled up from his heart and which saved it from bursting. “O Azalia, if you had turned from me, I should have died! I have suffered terrible agony, but I can live now. I am innocent.”

“I believe you, Paul; and I shall still be as I have been, your friend,” she said, as she passed on across the bridge.

His heart was so full of gratitude that he could not utter his thanks. He could only say in his heart, “God bless her.” It was as if he had met an angel in the way, and had been blessed. He stood there while the twilight deepened, and felt his heart grow strong again. He went home. His mother saw by the deep-settled determination on his face, by his calmness, and by his sad smile, that he was not utterly broken down and overwhelmed by the trouble which, like a wave of the sea, had rolled upon him.

“There is one who does not pass me by; Azalia is still a friend,” he said.

“There are several whom you may count upon as being still your friends,” she replied.

“Who are they, mother?”

“God and the angels, my son.”

So she comforted him, telling him that the best way to put down a lie was to live it down, and that the time would surely come when his honor and integrity would be vindicated.

When they kneeled together to offer their evening prayer, and when his mother asked that the affliction might work out for him an eternal weight of glory, he resolved that he would, with God’s help, live down the lie, and wait patiently, bearing the ignominy and shame and the cold looks of those who had been his friends, till his character for truth and honesty was re-established. He was calm and peaceful now. Once more he heard sweet music as he lay upon his bed. Through the night the winds, the waterfall, the crickets, seemed to be saying with Azalia, “We are still your friends,—still your friends—your friends—your friends!”

Carleton.

A PRISONER.

A little boy, reading once by his grandmother’s knee, came upon a page half filled with stars. Turning away from the book, he asked his grandmother what the stars meant.

“Almost anything you please, child,” she answered. “The author means you shall read that part of the story just as you like.”

“But that isn’t the way to tell a story!” exclaimed the little boy; “it ought to be all written out.”

“It is all written out—in the stars,” said the good old lady; and, though questioned again and again, she only smiled and answered, “It is all written out—in the stars. You will know it all by and by.”

A year afterwards the aged lady went to heaven; and the little boy was told that the whole of her long and beautiful life was written in the stars,—in a great record-book kept by the angels. Then he understood how it was that a story could be written in the stars; and how the story of all of our lives, whether written here or not, is recorded there, to be read by and by to the assembled universe. So a portion of my story, about the disinterested kindness of old Katy, and the bravery and self-sacrificing devotion of her little grandson, is written in the stars,—among the countless deeds of heroic goodness which their long oppressed race has done for us, their oppressors; and if I tell you no more about it here, it will all be told you there by the angels.

James had fully recovered from his wound, and was about setting out for the Union lines, when, just at sunset of a pleasant day in June, nearly a month after the events narrated in the last chapter, the clattering of horses’ hoofs was heard in the court-yard of the old mansion; and, going hastily to the windows, the little boy and his companions saw a score or more of cavalrymen, in great slouched hats and blue uniforms, dismounting near the doorway.

“Hurrah!” he shouted, as he caught sight of the glorious color which drapes the sky in beauty, and lends the hue of heaven to even the wretched product of the shoddy-mills,—“they are our own men,—Ohio boys! Hurrah!”

“No, honey,” said old Katy, dejectedly, after a long pause, and a long look at the strange soldiery, “dey’m Mosby’s men! Run, Robby,—ter de corncrib! Run! Dey’m arter you! Hide away in de loft till dey’m gone! Granny’ll fotch you suffin’ ter eat. Ef she ca’n’t,—lib on de corn! Run!”

“Blood,” it is said, “is thicker than water”;—and, in her anxiety for the last of her kin, the good old woman may have forgotten the danger to the friendless Union lad at her side; and who can blame her if she did? What had she received from any of his race, that in such a moment should make her think of him?

Robby darted away, but not a second too soon; for as he disappeared from the room, the library door swung open, and a dozen tall, bearded men, in rusty regimentals and mud-incrusted cavalry-boots, with great spurs jangling at their heels, and heavy sword-blades clanking on the floor at their every step, entered the room.

“Quarters and supper; quick, old woman!” shouted the leader, throwing himself into a chair, and tossing his hat upon the centre-table. “We’re almost starved.”

“We’se nuffin’,—nuffin’ fur sich gemmen as you is,” said old Katy, with something of an emphasis on the last words.

“You lie, you black Venus. Get us supper at once, or we’ll make a meal of you!” cried the cavalryman, striking his sword a heavy blow on the floor.

With no manifestation of alarm, the old woman quietly said there was nothing in the house except a little corn and a little jerked beef; but if his delicate palate could relish such viands, he was welcome to them.

With a loud oath the trooper cried out, “Hurry it up; any fare will do for starving men.”

James meanwhile had slunk away into his little room, where he hoped to remain unobserved; but when the meal was about over, he heard the rough voice of the leader calling out: “Where is the little fellow in blue, old woman? Bring him out. I want to see him.”

Old Katy gave no answer; but, knowing concealment to be impossible, James stepped boldly forward, and said, “I am here, sir.”

“You’re not Major Lucy’s son,—who are you?” asked the trooper.

“I am an Ohio boy, sir,” replied James, coolly but respectfully.

“An Ohio boy!” shouted the officer, bringing his hand down heavily upon the table. “A young Yankee whelp!”

“I am a Yankee, sir,—not a whelp. In Ohio we think none are dogs but traitors,” said the little boy, the angry blood mounting to his face, and his voice ringing out clear and strong as the notes of a bugle.

Amazed by the boldness of the lad, the trooper dropped his fork, and said, in a milder tone: “You’re an impudent young devil. But—do you know what we do with Yankee boys out here?”

“Yes, sir. Some you shoot from behind fences,—some you hang after they surrender; but you never whip us in a fair fight, unless you are two to our one.”

Springing to his feet, the trooper grasped the boy by the arm, and pulled him upon his knee, roaring out with a great oath as he did so: “You’re the bravest little fellow I ever knew. You’re worth any two men in my regiment. I swear you shall enlist with me.”

“ ’List wid you, Cap’n!” cried old Katy, who had listened with breathless interest to the conversation. “And you has a mudder, Cap’n, and you wus a little boy onst jess like him! ’List wid you!”

“And why not, Aunty?” said the Captain. “If I had a regiment of such boys, in a week I’d drive Grant into the Potomac.”

“But you ca’n’t mean to tuck him, Cap’n! He hab a mudder, Cap’n—a pore, lone mudder, dat doant know but he’m dead, and he’m jess gwine ter har, Cap’n,—jess a gwine ter har. I’se been a nussin’ him all o’ dis time fur dat,—eber sence de big battle, when he was hurted so bad; you ca’n’t mean ter tuck him wid you, Cap’n,—you ca’n’t mean dat!”

“I do mean that, so you shut up, old woman, and bring in some blankets for the men. The boy and I will sleep in this bed.”

Remonstrance and entreaty were alike unavailing, and with a heavy heart old Katy did as she was bidden. The next morning, before the sun was up, the squad, with James mounted on the back of the Captain’s horse, rode away to the head-quarters of the guerilla Mosby.

Edmund Kirke.

By this time the party found themselves so well chilled as to make an indoor lodgment of some kind desirable. The kitchen being prohibited ground, for that day at least, Uncle Benny pioneered the way to the barn, where the boys were glad enough to wrap themselves in horse-blankets, and, burying their legs deep in the hay, they were presently more comfortable than when sitting in everybody’s way around Mrs. Spangler’s smudgy stove. Uncle Benny, covering himself with a huge buffalo-robe, sat down upon a low meal-chest, and, leaning back against the front of the manger, crossed his legs as comfortably as if sitting by the fire-place. Very soon the hired man came in. He had been left for the day unprovided with work, simply because it rained; that being sufficient to take his employer off to the village, to sit until the weather cleared up, listening to the unprofitable conversation of a country tavern. But his wages went on just as if he had been at work.

It was therefore a strange company of idlers thus assembled in the barn, not one having anything to do. The hired man might have easily found enough to employ him in the barn, or shed, or at the wood-pile, while it rained, and when it ceased for the afternoon, he could have busied himself out of doors, had he been disposed to seek for tasks that his employer had neglected to provide. But he was one of that sort of helpers who do nothing not distinctly set before them,—a sort, by the way, that no good farmer will ever employ. This man, seeing a gate open which he knew ought to be shut, would never think of closing it unless some one told him to do so. Unless he stumbled over a hoe or any other tool which some one had left in the path, he would be the last to stop and pick it up, and carry it where he knew it belonged. He required, in fact, as much looking after as any of the boys. Uncle Benny used to say of this man, that he was the most unprofitable kind of hand to have on a farm.

One of the old man’s principles was, never to have a hand about him who required telling more than once to do anything. Another was, that, as he provided a place for everything, so when an axe, a hoe, a spade, or any other tool had been used, it must be put immediately back in its place, that when next wanted it might be found, and that any hand who refused to obey this law was not worth employing. These excellent ideas he took great pains to impress on the minds of the boys, teaching them the value of order, method, and regularity. He did once or twice undertake to lay down the law to Mr. Spangler also; but the latter showed so much indifference, even going so far as to say that he always found it too much trouble to put things in their places, unless it was a horse, that he gave him up as incorrigible.

The boys were often surprised, as well as amused, at the nice precision with which Uncle Benny lived up to his favorite law of a place for everything, and everything in its place. He would often send them up into his chamber to get something out of his tool-chest. Though it was full of tools and other matters, yet he seemed to have a perfect chart of the whole contents imprinted on his memory. He could tell them the exact spot that every tool occupied, which draw held the screws, which the four-penny or six-penny nails, which held the carpet-tacks, and so on to the very bottom. He often said that he could go to it in the dark and lay his hand on anything he wanted. The boys always found things exactly where he said they were. Their experience with this tool-chest was so novel, that it made a great impression on them, and they insensibly fell into the old man’s orderly habits about keeping things in their proper places.

If Uncle Benny had felt that he had any authority over the hired man, he would have soon put him to work; for he had a habit of never letting anybody stand idling about him when there was anything to do. The man’s example, moreover, was hurtful to the boys. Between him and Mr. Spangler the boys would have been in a fair way to grow up complete slovens; for boys, in a general way, are literal imitators of the good or evil that may be set before them.

Uncle Benny had a hard contest to counteract the effect of these daily patterns of bad management. But his manner was so kind and sociable, he cultivated their boyish affections so assiduously, he entered so fully into all their thoughts, and sympathies, and aspirations, and he was so ready to answer their numerous questions, as well as to lend them his tools whenever they asked him, that in the end they looked up to him as by all odds the best man on the place. The last good turn, of buying for them the very kind of knife that they had so long coveted, fixed him immovably in their affections. It was a small matter for him, but a very great one for them.

It is thus that the education of a child begins. The school-room, and the teacher who may be there enthroned, are very far from being the only means. It goes on without reference to the alphabet, and even in advance of it. It begins, as some one has beautifully said, “with a mother’s look,—with a father’s smile of approbation, or sign of reproof,—with a sister’s gentle pressure of the hand, or a brother’s noble act of forbearance,—with handfuls of flowers in green and daisied meadow,—with birdsnests admired, but not touched,—with creeping ants, and almost imperceptible emmets,—with humming bees,—with pleasant walks and shady lands,—and with thoughts directed in sweet and kindly tones and words, to incite to acts of benevolence, to deeds of virtue, and to the source of all virtue, to God himself.”

The very tones of Uncle Benny’s voice, his lessons of instruction upon every-day topics, his little kindly gifts, his confidences, his commendations, and sometimes his reproofs, were all important agencies in the education of these neglected boys. He lent them books and papers to read, taught them lessons of morality, and was constantly directing them to look upward, to aspire, not only as men, but as immortal beings. The school-room would have been highly advantageous to them; but, seeing that they were allowed only a winter’s attendance there, they had an able mentor in the good old man whose lot had been cast among them.

These four had not been long in their comfortable quarters in the barn, when Tony broke silence by saying: “Uncle Benny, you said that you would tell us how a poor boy should make a beginning. Will you tell us now?”

“Ah, Tony,” replied the old man, “there are fifty ways in which to make a beginning. But the first steps in any beginning that will go on prosperously and end happily are these. Fear God, honor your parents, be strictly honest, never violate your word, nor do any act which, if it afterwards become known, will cause you to feel ashamed. You saw that pedler-boy. He must have made a beginning with but little more than a shilling, perhaps not so much. But he must have had pluck as well as the shilling, for the shilling would have done but little for him without the pluck to set it going. No matter how small, it was a beginning; and if a boy never begins, he will never come to anything useful. He turned his shilling into dollars, his dollars into merchandise, such as you saw in his basket, and then his merchandise into more dollars still. That boy will be sure to prosper. I have no doubt that he has money saved up somewhere. A beginning shows that a boy is in earnest to do something, that he has a head, and is not, like a fiddler, all elbows. If it set him thinking, it will keep him thinking, and this thought will improve his chances by detecting errors and showing him how to avoid them. Half the poor outcasts of this world are made so because they hadn’t the pedler-boy’s courage,—the courage to begin. Had they made a start, they might have prospered as well. You are both desirous of doing something to make money.”

“Yes, indeed!” shouted the boys with one voice.

“Well,” replied Uncle Benny, “a farm is a poor place for even a smart boy to make money on, unless the farmer has heart and soul enough to give him a chance. That don’t happen as often as it should, for farmers think too much of what only themselves want, and too little of what their boys do. This farm is about as poor a one, I fear, for the boys to make money on it, as any one I ever saw, unless Mr. Spangler thinks, as I do, that they ought to have a chance.”

“Won’t you ask father, some day, to let us try?” inquired Joe.

“But I don’t want to stay here,” added Tony. “I want to go to the city, to New York or Philadelphia, and make money there.”

Uncle Benny was surprised at hearing this avowal from Tony King. It was the first intimation he had ever received that Tony wanted to quit farm life for city life. Though he was aware that the poor fellow had no living friends,—at least none that he knew to be living,—as the last of them, his father’s brother, had gone to the West some ten years before, and had not been heard of since, yet he had not suspected Tony of having even thought of quitting the farm.

He could not help mentally agreeing with him, that for an ambitious boy the prospect was not encouraging. He was surrounded by one of those combinations of unfriendly circumstances that almost invariably drive boys from the country to seek their fortunes in the city. No attractions were set before him to make the farm a pleasant home. It seemed as if Mr. Spangler had wholly forgotten that he had himself once been a boy, for he evinced no sympathy with the young minds around him. His own sons had no recreations of his suggesting or providing. Their holidays occurred only when it rained. No one had thoughtfully supplied them with fishing-lines, though there was capital sport within a walk of two miles. What little they could do at fishing was always done in a hurry, sometimes in the rain, sometimes on a Sunday. Those were the only times when they could be spared from work. If they set snares for rabbits or muskrats, they were the rude contrivances which their schoolmates had taught them to make. They had no pets, for they had never been taught a loving disposition,—no pigeons, no chickens, no beehive, not even a dog. The home affections had been so sadly neglected, that even in the hearts of the Spangler boys there was an unsatisfied blank. In Tony’s there was a still greater one, for he was an orphan.

There was also quite a noticeable difference between the treatment extended to the boys and that which the girls received. The three boys slept in a great garret room, a rough, unfinished apartment, hung round with cobwebs, and open enough to permit the wasps to enter and build long rows of nests. There was nothing to educate the eye to neatness or order,—no curtains to the windows, no carpet on the floor, no chairs on which to sit while dressing or undressing, no looking-glass or washstand,—nothing, in short, to give a cheerful aspect to the place in summer, or to make it comfortable in winter. Any room seemed good enough for the boys.

Yet there was a better chamber on the floor below, carpeted and furnished. But though strangers never came to that house for entertainment, still it was too good a room for the boys. Thus their personal comfort was neglected. They saw nothing around them to make home attractive, nothing to invest it with charms exceeding those of all other places. Hence a disposition sprang up to look abroad for comfort, for counting the chances of doing and living better in a new location. There was a growing anxiety for the time to arrive when they should be free to quit an occupation which they upon whom rested the highest obligation to make it agreeable had made distasteful.

On the other hand, the girls in this household occupied one of its best chambers, carpeted and furnished, with a dressing-bureau, chairs, and tables, with curtains to the windows, and a variety of other accessories. It is true that there is a natural aptitude in women for making even bare walls attractive,—for collecting around them conveniences and elegances of their own devising, and with very meagre materials investing their especial chamber with an air of snugness, cleanliness, and comfort beyond the capacity of the other sex. Such tendencies are inherent in women. But the materials for achieving these results must to some extent be placed within their reach. Here the girls were provided with the essentials,—a rag carpet, it is true, and quite decrepit chairs and tables,—but their native taste contributed the rest. But from the boys even these essentials were withheld; and being deficient in the housekeeping instinct, they lived on in their comfortless garret, conscious of its deficiencies, but without the tact necessary to supply them. If others observed this, it did not matter; it was only the boys’ room, and was good enough.

Moreover, of a stormy day, when out-of-door work was impossible, the kitchen was always large enough to contain the girls without their being in anybody’s way; but there was never room for the boys. They had wet clothes, muddy shoes, and were complained of as sitting down in the most inconvenient places round the fire. But it was because no others had been provided for them. They soon learned they were not welcome there,—the room wherein, of all others, a farmer’s boy conceives he has the right of entrance and domicile, was made so unpleasant that they generally kept away from it. They were treated too much as inferiors, as of no account except being good for so much work. It is such neglect, such treatment as this, that drives hundreds of well-meaning and deserving boys from the farm to the city. No doubt there are many who live through it all, and remain at home. No doubt there are farmers’ sons who develop superior talents for some particular branch of science or art, for the successful practice of which a great city is the only remunerative field. It may be proper for such to leave the farm, as every man should go where he feels he is most wanted, and the world may be benefited by such enlargement of their field for usefulness. They are evidently born for some other pursuit than that of farming.

It was this general neglect that was working on Tony’s active mind so strongly as to lead him to think of adventuring on a city life. Though he knew nothing of the risks of that, yet he understood the discomforts of this. Boy-like, he was willing to encounter the former, though unknown, in order to escape from the latter, which he knew too well. The exhortations of Uncle Benny had so generally ended in a condemnation of Mr. Spangler’s mode of farming, without effecting any marked improvement in the management, that Tony began to despair of an amendment in which he could participate. All boys who happen to be born on farms are not calculated to make good farmers. Some are so constitutionally organized that their tastes and talents run in another direction. Taking that, they succeed; but adhering to the farm, they would fail. Others dislike farming because of its hard work,—no one whose duty it is taking pains to diversify that work by interweaving amusement or recreation, or the stimulant of juvenile profit. Others can see in farming no prospect of becoming rich.

But Tony did not belong to either of these classes. He had been born in the country, had no aversion to hard work, and would prefer remaining on a farm; but he was getting tired of Mr. Spangler. It was singular, however, that, while thinking of making a change, it had never occurred to him to go away and engage with a really good farmer, where he would be sure to learn the business thoroughly. Instead of entertaining this sensible idea, he had thought only of a plunge into the city. But Tony was young in the experiences of this world, and had much to learn.

The dissatisfaction thus manifested by Tony to the farm life around him was a new difficulty for Uncle Benny to smooth away. Heretofore he had had only Spangler’s lapses and mismanagement to contend with, but here was trouble in a new quarter. Yet his concern for the welfare of these boys was so great, and he was so well satisfied that they could do pretty well at farm life if there was any way of making them contented, that he resolved to do his utmost toward counteracting these unexpected symptoms of restlessness. He was quite pleased that the youngest boy, Bill Spangler, came into the barn just in time to hear Tony’s remark about quitting the farm, as he too would have the benefit of his reply.

As the old man was a great reader, he generally carried a newspaper of some kind in his pocket, from which he was in the habit of reading aloud to the boys any article that struck him as being likely to amuse or instruct them. Sometimes, when they had been debating or discussing a topic with him, he would produce a paper containing an article on the very subject they had been talking about, and on his reading it aloud, they found in it a remarkable confirmation of what he had already told them. As it was in a newspaper, the boys considered that it must be true, and as it always supported him in his views, they wondered more and more how the old man came to know so much, as well as always to be right. These readings became so popular with the boys, that, whenever a chance offered, they uniformly inquired if there was not something more in the paper that was worth hearing.

The fact was that Uncle Benny, discovering how tractable these boys were, and how much they needed the right kind of instruction, had subscribed for two or three papers which he knew contained such reading as would be useful to them. After examining them himself, he would select some subject discussed or explained in them, which he thought would be important for the boys to understand, and then, putting the paper into his pocket, would give them, on the first suitable occasion, a verbal account of the matter, or start a discussion about it. After it had been pretty thoroughly debated and turned over, he would produce the paper and read the article aloud. Of course it confirmed all that he had been saying, and as it was in print—for they saw it there—it clinched the argument beyond dispute, and must be so.

But this little stroke of ingenuity was not adopted by Uncle Benny for the purpose of impressing his audience with an exalted idea of his superior knowledge or wisdom, but merely as an attractive mode of interesting their minds in subjects with which it was important that they should become well acquainted. It was surprising how much his method of proceeding interested them. There has been a great deal said of the usefulness of farmers’ clubs, and of the addresses delivered before them. No one will doubt their having done good service to the farming community, or that the more of them we have, the better it will be for us; but, considering the size of Uncle Benny’s audiences, and the general lack of knowledge pervading them, it may be doubted whether his lectures, delivered sometimes in the barn, sometimes on the rider of a worm fence, sometimes even when hoeing up weeds, were not quite as productive of good as many others having not only larger audiences, but greater pretensions.

His system had another advantage. The boys always wanted to see the newspaper for themselves, to have it in their own hands. This was exactly one of the results the old man was desirous of bringing about, as they were sure to read over the articles he had himself read aloud, besides studying the remaining contents. As he had great faith in the value of agricultural papers among farmers’ boys, as well as among farmers too, he kept the boys supplied with all the reading of this kind they desired.

Now it happened, oddly enough, when Tony King said he wanted to give up farming and go to the city, that Uncle Benny had that very week been reading an article in a newspaper which spoke about farmers’ boys rushing into the city. The old man, being equally opposed to their making such a change, laid it down to Tony very plainly indeed. He told him the idea was absurd; that he didn’t know what was best for him; that his great want was to learn to be contented where he was, and to wait until he was at least five years older and wiser before he thought any more of changing. Then, by way of settling the matter, he drew the paper from his pocket and read as follows:—

“The very worst thing a country boy can do is to leave the farm and come to the city, in hopes of doing better. Yet they come here every week by dozens, giving up good places where they are well taken care of, and pitch in among a crowd of strangers who take no notice of them, or give short answers when they are applied to for a situation, or even a small job. They take it for granted that there is always plenty to do here, and that it is an easy thing to get a situation in a store or counting-house, where there is little to do and good pay for doing it. They see that the clerks and shop-boys who sometimes come among them in the country are all well-dressed and smart-looking fellows, with plenty of money in their pockets, which they spend as freely as if there was no end to it,—gunning, boating, hiring carriages to drive the girls about, &c. They think that these smart clerks must have a capital life of it in the city. They also now and then hear of a poor country boy who went into a city store and made a fortune, in a very short time. Thus they get to envying the life of the town boys, and are uneasy and restless until they make the trial of finding out how difficult and dangerous such a life is. They see only the bright side of the picture.

“But all these boys are greatly mistaken. It may look very genteel and easy to stand behind a counter and do nothing but measure out goods, but it is close and confining labor nevertheless. If it is cleaner work than scraping up a barn-yard or currying down a horse, it is not half so wholesome. Besides, it is not an easy matter to get a situation in a store. Our city is full of boys born among us, whose parents find great difficulty in obtaining places for them. Many of these boys go into stores and offices without getting a dollar of pay. The privilege of being taught how to do business is considered compensation enough,—they actually work for nothing and find themselves. Our store-boys have no time for play. They have no green fields to look at or ramble over, nothing but dust, and mud, and hot bricks, with quite as much real hard work as the country boys, only it is of a different kind. What boy of the right spirit would desire to come here and merely run of shop errands all day, learning nothing but how to go about town, when he could stay in the country, sure to learn how to get a living? Besides, a boy here is surrounded by temptations to ruin, and the poorer he is, the more certain are they to lead him astray. Where one such does well, there are two who turn out thieves or vagabonds. We say to you, boys, stay on the farm where you are. If you are determined to come, don’t come without you have some friend here who will receive you into his house, provide you with employment, and take care of you. But anyhow, wait until you are older, say twenty-one at least. Then, if you don’t think better of it, you will be somewhat able to fight your way, for here it is nothing but fighting.”

As the old man read this very deliberately, the boys listened with the utmost attention. “There!” said he, when he had finished, “that man knows what he says. He lives in the city, and understands about it. You see that he advises you exactly as I do.”

This unexpected confirmation had a powerful effect on the minds of all the boys. It applied so directly to Tony’s case, as to make him think differently of the chances of a city life. As usual, he wanted to see the article for himself, and, beginning to read it aloud to the other boys, the old man left the barn, thinking that a little free conversation on the subject among themselves would do no harm.

Author of “Ten Acres Enough.”

CHAPTER XXVII.
AN AQUA-ARBOREAL JOURNEY.

It may appear strange, incredible, absurd, that such a journey, for however short a distance, should have been attempted by human beings. No doubt to many it will appear so, and will be set down as ludicrously improbable. Twenty minutes passed in the shadowy gloom of a South American forest would strip the idea of travelling among the tree-tops of much of its improbability. In many places such a feat is quite possible, and comparatively easy,—perhaps not so “easy as rolling off a log,” but almost as much so as climbing to the top of one. In the great montaña of the Amazon there are stretches of forest, miles in extent, where the trees are so matted and interlaced as to form one continuous “arbor,” each united to its immediate neighbors by natural stays and cables, to which the meshes formed by the rigging of a ship are as an open network in comparison. In the midst of this magnificent luxuriance of vegetable life, there are birds, beasts, and insects that never set foot upon the ground;—birds in a vast variety of genera and species; beasts—I mean quadrupeds—of many different kinds; insects of countless orders; quadrumana that never touched terra firma with any of their four hands; and, I had almost added, man. He, too, if not exclusively confining himself to the tops of these forest-trees, may make them habitually his home, as shall be seen in the sequel.

It was no great feat, then, for the Mundurucú and his acolyte to make a short excursion across the “spray” of the forest, since this is the very timber that is so tied together. There was even less of danger than in a tract of woods growing upon the highlands or “Campos.” A fall into the Gapo could only entail a ducking, with a brief interruption of the journey.

It does not follow that their progress must be either swift or direct. That would depend upon the character of the trees and their parasites,—whether the former grew close together, and whether the latter were numerous and luxuriant, or of scanty growth. To all appearance, Nature in that spot had been beneficent, and poured forth her vegetable treasures profusely.

The Indian, glancing through the branches, believed there would be no more difficulty in getting to the other side of the belt of timber that separated them from the open water, than in traversing a thicket of similar extent. With this confidence he set forth, followed by his less experienced companion. Both began and continued their monkey-like march in the most profound silence.

They knew that it was possible and easy for the alligator to bear them company; for although they were forced to pass through an almost impervious thicket, down on the water it was altogether different. There was nothing to impede the progress of the saurian, huge as it was, except the trunks of the trees.

To tell the truth, it was a toilsome trip, and both the travellers were weary of it long before coming within sight of the open water on the opposite side. Often were they compelled to carry their own weight on the strength of their arms, by hoisting themselves from tree to tree. Many a détour had they to make, sometimes on account of the impenetrable network of creepers, and sometimes because of open water, that, in pools, interrupted their route.

The distance to be traversed was not over two hundred yards. At starting they knew not how far, but it proved about this measure. If they had made their calculation according to time, they might have estimated it at half a score of miles. They were a good hour and a half on the journey; but the delay, with all its kindred regrets, was forgotten, when they saw the open water before them, and soon after found themselves on the selvage of the submerged forest.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A TIMELY WARNING.

On arriving among the outside trees, our explorers, homeward bound, saw something to cheer them,—something besides the bright sun and the shining waters of the Gapo. It was the sapucaya, still bearing its stupendous fruit, the friends they had left behind them. The Paraense appeared to be counting them, as if to make sure that all were still safe upon the tree. Perhaps he was only intent on the discovery of one, or, having discovered, was feeding his eyes upon her form, slender and graceful in the distance. He would have shouted to apprise them of the safety of himself and companion, had not a sign from the latter, accompanied by a few muttered words, counselled him to hold his peace.

“Why not, Munday?”

“Not a word, young master. We are not yet out of the woods; the jacaré may hear us.”

“We left it far behind in the igarápe.”

“Ah, true! Who knows where he may be now? Not the Mundurucú. The monster may have followed us. Who knows? He may be at this moment within twenty yards, waiting for us to come back into the water.”

As he spoke, the Indian looked anxiously behind him. He could discover no cause of alarm. All was still under the shadow of the trees. Not even a ripple could be seen upon the sombre surface of the water.

“I think we’ve given it the slip,” remarked Richard.

“It looks so,” responded the Indian. “The Mundurucú hears no sound, sees no sign. The jacaré should still be in the igarápe.”

“Why should we delay any longer? Several hours have elapsed since we left the sapucaya. My uncle and everybody else will be out of all patience. They will be distracted with sheer anxiety. They look as if they were. Though we have a good view of them, I don’t suppose they see us. If they did, they would be hailing us, that’s certain. Let us take to the water, and rejoin them.”

The Mundurucú, after looking once more to the rear, and listening for a few moments, replied, “I think we may venture.”

This was the cue for young Trevannion, and, lowering himself from the limb on which he was supported, the two almost at the same instant committed themselves to the flood. Scarce had they touched the water when their ears were assailed by a shout that came pealing across the Gapo. It neither startled nor surprised them, for they could not fail to comprehend its meaning. It was a cheer sent forth from the sapucaya, announcing their reappearance to the eyes of their anxious companions. Stimulated by the joyous tones, the two swimmers struck boldly out into the open water.

Richard no longer thought of looking behind him. In a hasty glance directed towards the sapucaya, as he rose after his first plunge upon the water, he had seen something to lure him on, at the same time absorbing all his reflections. He had seen a young girl, standing erect within the fork of the tree, throw up her arms as if actuated by some sudden transport of joy. What could have caused it but the sight of him?

The mind of the Mundurucú was far differently employed. His thoughts were retrospective, not prospective. So, too, were his glances. Instead of looking forward to inquire what was going on among the branches of the sapucaya, he carried his beardless chin upon his shoulder, keeping his eyes and ears keenly intent to any sight or sound that might appear suspicious behind him. His caution, as was soon proved, was neither unnatural nor superfluous, nor yet the counsel given to his companion to swim as if some swift and terrible pursuer were after him; for although the Indian spoke from mere conjecture, his words were but too true.

The swimmers had traversed about half the space of open water that lay between the sapucaya and the submerged forest. The Indian had purposely permitted himself to fall into the wake of his companion, in order that his backward view might be unobstructed. So far, no alligator showed itself behind them, no enemy of any kind; and in proportion as his confidence increased, he relaxed his vigilance. It seemed certain the jacaré had given up the chase. It could not have marked their movements among the tree-tops, and in all likelihood the monster was still keeping guard near the opening of the igarápe. Too happy to arrive at this conclusion, the Indian ceased to think of a pursuit, and, after making an effort, overtook the young Paraense, the two continuing to swim abreast. As there no longer appeared any reason for extraordinary speed, the swimmers simultaneously suspended the violent exertions they had been hitherto making, and with relaxed stroke kept on towards the sapucaya.

It was fortunate for both that other eyes than their own were turned upon that stretch of open water. Had it not been so, the silent swimmer, far swifter than they, coming rapidly up in their rear, might have overtaken them long before reaching the tree. The shout sent forth from the sapucaya, in which every voice bore a part, warned them of some dread danger threatening near. But for late experience, they might not have known on which side to look for it; but, guided by this, they instinctively looked back. The jacaré, close behind, was coming on as fast as his powerful tail, rapidly oscillating from side to side, could propel him. It was fortunate for the two swimmers they had heard that warning cry in time. A score of seconds made all the difference in their favor, all the difference between life and death. It was their destiny to live, and not die then in the jaws of the jacaré. Before the ugly reptile, making all the speed in its power, could come up with either of them, both, assisted by willing hands, had climbed beyond its reach, and could look upon it without fear from among the branches of the sapucaya.

CHAPTER XXIX.
IMPROVISED SWIMMING-BELTS.

The huge saurian swam on to the tree,—to the very spot where Richard and the Mundurucú had climbed up, at the forking of the stem. On perceiving that its prey had for a second time got clear, its fury seemed to break all bounds. It lashed the water with its tail, closed its jaws with a loud clattering, and gave utterance to a series of sounds, that could only be compared to a cross between the bellowing of a bull and the grunting of a hog.

Out in the open light of the sun, and swimming conspicuously upon the surface of the water, a good view of the reptile could now be obtained; but this did not improve the opinion of it already formed by Richard. It looked, if possible, uglier than when seen in shadow; for in the light the fixed leer of its lurid eye, and the ghastly blood-colored inside of the jaws, at intervals opened, and showing a triple row of terrible teeth, were more conspicuous and disgusting. Its immense bulk made it still more formidable to look upon. Its body was full eight yards in length, and of proportionate thickness,—measuring around the middle not less than a fathom and a half; while the lozenge-like protuberances along its spine rose in pointed pyramids to the height of several inches.

No wonder that little Rosa uttered a shriek of terror on first beholding it; no wonder that brave young Ralph trembled at the sight. Even Trevannion himself, with the negro and Tipperary Tom, regarded the reptile with fear. It was some time before they felt sure that it could not crawl up to them. It seemed for a time as if it meant to do so, rubbing its bony snout against the bark, and endeavoring to clasp the trunk with its short, human-like arms. After several efforts to ascend, it apparently became satisfied that this feat was not to be performed, and reluctantly gave up the attempt; then, retreating a short distance, began swimming in irregular circles around the tree, all the while keeping its eye fixed upon the branches.

After a time, the castaways only bent their gaze upon the monster at intervals, when some new manœuvre attracted their notice. There was no immediate danger to be dreaded from it; and although its proximity was anything but pleasant, there were other thoughts equally disagreeable, and more important, to occupy their time and attention. They could not remain all their lives in the sapucaya; and although they knew not what fortune awaited them in the forest beyond, they were all anxious to get there.

Whether it was altogether a flooded forest, or whether there might not be some dry land in it, no one could tell. In the Mundurucú’s opinion it was the former; and in the face of this belief, there was not much hope of their finding a foot of dry land. In any case, the forest must be reached, and all were anxious to quit their quarters on the sapucaya, under the belief that they would find others more comfortable. At all events, a change could not well be for the worse.

Munday had promised them the means of transport, but how this was to be provided none of them as yet knew. The time, however, had arrived for him to declare his intentions, and this he proceeded to do; not in words, but by deeds that soon made manifest his design.

It will be remembered that, after killing the macaws, he had tapped the seringa, and “drawn” two cups full of the sap,—that he had bottled it up in the pots, carefully closing the lids against leakage. It will also be remembered, that he had provided himself with a quantity of creepers, which he had folded into a portable bundle. These were of a peculiar sort,—the true sipos of the South American forest, which serve for all purposes of cordage, ropes ready made by the hand of Nature. On parting from the seringa, he had brought these articles along with him, his companion carrying a share of the load. Though chased by the jacaré, and close run too, neither had abandoned his bundle,—tied by sipos around the neck,—and both the bottled caoutchouc and the cordage were now in the sapucaya. What they were intended for no one could guess, until it pleased the Indian to reveal his secret; and this he at length did, by collecting a large number of nuts from the sapucaya,—Ralph and Richard acting as his aids,—emptying them of their three-cornered kernels, restoring the lids, and then making them “waterproof” by a coating of the caoutchouc.

Soon all became acquainted with his plans, when they saw him bind the hollow shells into bunches, three or four in each, held together by sipos, and then with a stronger piece of the same parasite attach the bunches two and two together, leaving about three feet of the twisted sipos between.

“Swimming-belts!” cried Ralph, now for the first time comprehending the scheme. Ralph was right. That was just what the Mundurucú had manufactured,—a set of swimming-belts.

CHAPTER XXX.
ALLIGATOR LORE.

For an hour the castaways remained in the tree, chafing with impatience and chagrin that their awful enemy still kept his savage watch for them in the Gapo below, gliding lazily to and fro, but ever watching them with eager, evil eye. But there was no help for it; and by way of possessing their souls in more patience, and making time pass quicker, they fell to conversing on a subject appropriate to the occasion, for it was the jacaré itself, or rather alligators in general. Most of the questions were put by Trevannion, while the answers were given by the Mundurucú, whose memory, age, and experience made him a comprehensive cyclopædia of alligator lore.

The Indian, according to his own account, was acquainted with five or six different kinds of jacaré. They were not all found in one place, though he knew parts of the country where two or three kinds might be found dwelling in the same waters; as, for instance, the jacaré-uassú (great alligator), the same as was then besieging them, and which is sometimes called the black jacaré, might often be seen in the same pool with the jacaré-tinga, or little alligator. Little jacaré was not an appropriate name for this last species. It was four feet long when full grown, and he knew of others, as the jacaré-curúa, that never grew above two. These kinds frequented small creeks, and were less known than the others, as it was only in certain places they were found. The jacarés were most abundant in the dry season. He did not suppose they were really more numerous, only that they were then collected together in the permanent lakes and pools. Besides, the rivers were then lower, and, as there was less surface for them to spread over, they were more likely to be seen. As soon as the echente commenced, they forsook the channels of the rivers, as also the standing lakes, and wandered all over the Gapo. As there was then a thousand times the quantity of water, of course the creatures were more scattered, and less likely to be encountered. In the vasante he had seen half-dried lakes swarming with jacarés, as many as there would be tadpoles in a frog-pond. At such times he had seen them crowded together, and had heard their scales rattling, as they jostled one another, at the distance of half a mile or more. In the countries on the lower part of the Solimoës, where many of the inland lakes become dry during the vasante, many jacarés at that season buried themselves in the mud, and went to sleep. They remained asleep, encased in dry, solid earth, till the flood once more softened the mud around them, when they came out again as ugly as ever. He didn’t think that they followed this fashion everywhere; only where the lakes in which they chanced to be became dry, and they found their retreat to the river cut off. They made their nests on dry land, covering the eggs over with a great conical pile of rotten leaves and mud.

The eggs of the jacaré-uassú were as large as cocoa-nuts, and of an oval shape. They had a thick, rough shell, which made a loud noise when rubbed against any hard substance. If the female were near the nest, and you wished to find her, you had only to rub two of the eggs together, and she would come waddling towards you the moment she heard the noise. They fed mostly on fish, but that was because fish was plentiest, and most readily obtained. They would eat flesh or fowl,—anything that chanced in their way. Fling them a bone, and they would swallow it at a gulp, seizing it in their great jaws before it could reach the water, just as a dog would do. If a morsel got into their mouth that wouldn’t readily go down, they would pitch it out, and catch it while in the air, so as to get it between their jaws in a more convenient manner.

Sometimes they had terrific combats with the jaguars; but these animals were wary about attacking the larger ones, and only preyed upon the young of these, or the jacaré-tingas. They themselves made war on every creature they could catch, and above all on the young turtles, thousands of which were every year devoured by them. They even devoured their own children,—that is, the old males did, whenever the mai (mother) was not in the way to protect them. They had an especial preference for dogs,—that is, as food,—and if they should hear a dog barking in the forest, they would go a long way over land to get hold of him. They lie in wait for fish, sometimes hiding themselves in the weeds and grass till the latter come near. They seized them, if convenient, between their jaws, or killed them with a stroke of the tail, making a great commotion in the water. The fish got confused with fright, and didn’t know which way to swim out of the reptile’s reach. Along with their other food they ate stones, for he had often found stones in their stomach. The Indian said it was done that the weight might enable them to go under the water more easily.

The Capilearas were large animals that furnished many a meal to the jacarés; although the quadrupeds could swim very fast, they were no match for the alligator, who can make head with rapidity against the strongest current. If they could only turn short, they would be far more dangerous than they are; but their neck was stiff, and it took them a long while to get round, which was to their enemies’ advantage. Sometimes they made journeys upon land. Generally they travelled very slowly, but they could go much faster when attacked, or pursuing their prey. Their tail was to be especially dreaded. With a blow of that they could knock the breath out of a man’s body, or break his leg bone. They liked to bask in the sun, lying along the sand-banks by the edge of the river, several of them together, with their tails laid one on the other. They would remain motionless for hours, as if asleep, but all the while with their mouths wide open. Some said that they did this to entrap the flies and insects that alighted upon their tongue and teeth, but he (the Mundurucú) didn’t believe it, because no quantity of flies would fill the stomach of the great jacaré. While lying thus, or even at rest upon the water, birds often perched upon their backs and heads,—cranes, ibises, and other kinds. They even walked about over their bodies without seeming to disturb them. In that way the jacarés could not get at them, if they wished it ever so much.

There were some jacarés more to be dreaded than others. These were the man-eaters, such as had once tasted human flesh. There were many of them,—too many,—since not a year passed without several people falling victims to the voracity of these reptiles. People were used to seeing them every day, and grew careless. The jacarés lay in wait in the bathing-places close to villages and houses, and stole upon the bathers that had ventured into deep water. Women, going to fetch water, and children, were especially subject to their attack. He had known men, who had gone into the water in a state of intoxication, killed and devoured by the jacaré, with scores of people looking helplessly on from the bank, not twenty yards away. When an event of this kind happened, the people armed themselves en masse, got into their montarias (canoes), gave chase, and usually killed the reptile. At other times it was left unmolested for months, and allowed to lie in wait for a victim.

The brute was muy ladim (very cunning). That was evident enough to his listeners. They had only to look down into the water, and watch the movements of the monster there. Notwithstanding its ferocity, it was at bottom a great coward, but it knew well when it was master of the situation. The one under the sapucaya believed itself to be in that position. It might be mistaken. If it did not very soon take its departure, he, the Mundurucú, should make trial of its courage, and then would be seen who was master. Big as it was, it would not be so difficult to subdue for one who knew how. The jacaré was not easily killed, for it would not die outright till it was cut to pieces. But it could be rendered harmless. Neither bullet nor arrow would penetrate its body, but there were places where its life could be reached,—the throat, the eyes, and the hollow places just behind the eyes, in front of the shoulders. If stabbed in any of these tender places, it must go under. He knew a plan better than that; and if the brute did not soon raise the siege, he would put it in practice. He was getting to be an old man. Twenty summers ago he would not have put up with such insolence from an alligator. He was not decrepit yet. If the jacaré consulted its own safety, it would do well to look out.

CHAPTER XXXI.
A RIDE UPON A REPTILE.

After thus concluding his long lecture upon alligators, the Indian grew restless, and fidgeted from side to side. It was plain to all, that the presence of the jacaré was provoking him to fast culminating excitement. As another hour passed, and the monster showed no signs of retiring, his excitement grew to anger so intense, as to be no longer withheld from seeking relief in action. So the Mundurucú hastily uprose, flinging aside the swimming-belts hitherto held in his hands. Everything was put by except his knife, and this, drawn from his tanga, was now held tightly in his grasp.

“What mean you, Munday?” inquired Trevannion, observing with some anxiety the actions of the Indian. “Surely you are not going to attack the monster? With such a poor weapon you would have no chance, even supposing you could get within striking distance before being swallowed up. Don’t think of such a thing!”

“Not with this weapon, patron,” replied the Indian, holding up the knife; “though even with it the Mundurucú would not fear to fight the jacaré, and kill him, too. Then the brute would go to the bottom of the Gapo, taking me along. I don’t want a ducking like that, to say nothing of the chances of being drowned. I must settle the account on the surface.”

“My brave fellow, don’t be imprudent! It is too great a risk. Let us stay here till morning. Night will bring a change, and the reptile will go off.”

“Patron! the Mundurucú thinks differently. That jacaré is a man-eater, strayed from some of the villages, perhaps Coary, that we have lately left. It has tasted man’s blood,—even ours, that of your son, your own. It sees men in the tree. It will not retire till it has gratified its ravenous desires. We may stay in this tree till we starve, and from feebleness drop, one by one, from the branches.”

“Let us try it for one night?”

“No, patron,” responded the Indian, his eyes kindling with a revengeful fire, “not for one hour. The Mundurucú was willing to obey you in what related to the duty for which you hired him. He is no longer a tapuyo. The galatea is lost, the contract is at an end, and now he is free to do what he may please with his life. Patron!” continued the old man, with an energy that resembled returning youth, “my tribe would spurn me from the malocca if I bore it any longer. Either I or the jacaré must die!”

Silenced by the singularity of the Indian’s sentiment and speech, Trevannion forbore further opposition. No one knew exactly what his purpose was, though his attitude and actions led all to believe that he meant to attack the jacaré. With his knife? No. He had negatived this question himself. How then? There appeared to be no other weapon within reach. But there was, and his companions soon saw there was, as they sat silently watching his movements. The knife was only used as the means of procuring that weapon, which soon made its appearance in the form of a macana, or club, cut from one of the llianas,—a bauhinia of heaviest wood, shaped something after the fashion of a “life-preserver,” with a heavy knob of the creeper forming its head, and a shank about two feet long, tapering towards the handle. Armed with this weapon, and restoring the knife to his tanga, the Indian came down and glided out along the horizontal limb already known to our story. To attract the reptile thither was not difficult. His presence would have been a sufficient lure, but some broken twigs cast upon the water served to hasten its approach to the spot. In confidence the jacaré came on, believing that by some imprudence, or misadventure, at least one of those it had marked for its victims was about to drop into its hungry maw. One did drop,—not into its maw, or its jaws, but upon its back, close up to the swell of its shoulders. Looking down from the tree, his companions saw the Mundurucú astride upon the alligator, with one hand, the left, apparently inserted into the hollow socket of the reptile’s eye, the other raised aloft, grasping the macana, that threatened to descend upon the skull of the jacaré. It did descend,—crack!—crash!—crackle! After that there was not much to record. The Mundurucú was compelled to slide off his seat. The huge saurian, with its fractured skull, yielded to a simple physical law, turned over, showing its belly of yellowish white,—an aspect not a whit more lovely than that presented in its dark dorsal posterior. If not dead, there could be no doubt that the jacaré was no longer dangerous; and as its conqueror returned to the tree, he was received with a storm of “Vivas,” to which Tipperary Tom added his enthusiastic Irish “hoor-raa!”

CHAPTER XXXII.
TAKING TO THE WATER.

The Mundurucú merited congratulation, and his companions could not restrain their admiration and wonder. They knew that the alligator was only assailable by ordinary weapons—as gun, spear, or harpoon—in three places; in the throat, unprotected, except by a thin, soft integument; in the hollow in front of the shoulders, and immediately behind the bony socket of the eyes; and in the eyes themselves,—the latter being the most vulnerable of all. Why had the Indian, armed with a knife, not chosen one of these three places to inflict a mortal cut or stab?

“Patron,” said the Indian, as soon as he had recovered his breath, “you wonder why the Mundurucú took all that trouble for a macana, while he might have killed the jacaré without it. True, the knife was weapon enough. Pa terra! Yes. But it would not cause instant death. The rascal could dive with both eyes scooped out of their sockets, and live for hours afterwards. Ay, it could have carried me twenty miles through the Gapo, half the distance under water. Where would old Munday have been then? Drowned and dead, long before the jacaré itself. Ah, patron, a good knock on the hollow of its head is the best way to settle scores with a jacaré.”

And as if all scores had been now settled with this fellow, the huge saurian, to all appearance dead, passed unheeded out of sight, the current of the Gapo drifting it slowly away. They did not wait for its total disappearance, and while its hideous body, turned belly upward, with its human-like hands stiffly thrust above the surface, was yet in sight, they resumed their preparations for vacating a tenement of which all were heartily tired, with that hopeful expectancy which springs from a knowledge that the future cannot be worse than the present. Richard had reported many curious trees, some bearing fruits that appeared to be eatable, strung with llianas, here and there forming a network that made it easy to find comfort among their branches. If there had been nothing else to cheer them, the prospect of escaping from their irksome attitudes was of itself sufficient; and influenced by this, they eagerly prepared for departure.

As almost everything had been already arranged for ferrying the party, very little remained to be done. From the hermetically closed monkey-cups the Mundurucú had manufactured five swimming-belts,—this number being all that was necessary, for he and the young Paraense could swim ten times the distance without any adventitious aid. The others had their share of empty shells meted out according to their weight and need of help. Rosa’s transport required particular attention. The others could make way themselves, but Rosa was to be carried across under the safe conduct of the Indian.

So when every contingency had been provided for, one after another slipped down from the fork, and quietly departed from a tree that, however uncomfortable as a residence, had yet provided them with a refuge in the hour of danger.

Mayne Reid.

CHARADES.

ARITHMETICAL PUZZLES.

If the width of a barn is 32 feet, and the height is 8 feet 3 inches more at the ridge than at the eaves, what is the length of the rafters?

Charlie.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.—No. 10.

P. B. P.

TRANSPOSITIONS.

5. Make a word of four syllables by repeating and transposing these letters: Imps.

6. Mary was asked her favorite plant; she replied, Emu-grain.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.—No. 11.

ENIGMAS.

I am composed of 15 letters.

My 14, 9, 7, 2, is a small, purblind animal.

My 8, 12, 4, 3, is not now.

My 1, 6, 5, 15, is a name for dress.

My 1, 13, 10, is very sticky.

My 11, 9, 14, is a boy’s nick-name.

My whole is a general who never fought a battle.

F. E. W.

I am composed of 11 letters.

My 4, 9, 1, 11, is of all earthly places the sweetest.

My 6, 2, 5, of all forest-roamers the fleetest.

My 10, 2, 8, 3, is blacker than the blackest slave

Our Union army tries to save.

My 4, 8, 7, though not, like him, from Ham descended,

Has much of Ham in his nature blended.

My 10, 4, 11, 1, is to Ham still more nearly related

(You’ll find that fact in the Bible stated).

My 1, 9, 2, is heard as the milkmaid fills her pail,

Though not from the “cow with the iron tail.”

My 4, 5, 1, is what girls should be able to do,

Before they are half so old as you.

My 7, 5, 11, 10, 5, is what you all must surely be,

If you have not by this time unriddled me.

My whole is a poet of fame more eternal

Than any whose rhymings appear in this journal;

Whose verses are sung by the whole English nation,

And form the substratum of all education.

Eddie.

I am composed of 14 letters.

My 10, 11, 4, 5, is the end of some persons.

My 9, 10, 11, 4, 6, 14, is what men-of-war do.

My 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, is a favorite bird.

My 10, 13, 12, 14, is a common flower.

My 3, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, is used in factories for winding thread.

My 6, 7, 3, 14, 10, is grave.

My 9, 10, 11, 6, 14, is a small culinary vessel.

My 14, 10, 10, 7, 1, is a mistake.

My 6, 14, 8, 12, 14, 6, we have five of.

My whole is a famous old book for boys.

W. U.

ANSWERS.

8. The 10 x 20. Difference $1.20.

9. The corners were cut off thus:—

10. 1 sheep, 5 cows, 94 geese.

2. On a frolic.

3. Persist.

4. (Words.) Parliament,—Old England,—lawyers,—astronomers,—Abe Lincoln,—destruction,—ruin,—will be,—fate,—monarch,—bother Uncle Sam.

6. It’s a miss-giving.

7. Right (write) about face.

8. One is an analyzer (Ann Eliza) and the other is a charlatan (Charlotte Ann).

9. When it is needed (kneaded).

10. Confervæ (Confer V).

DON QUIXOTE.

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

Illustrations have been relocated due to using a non-page layout.

Some photographs have been enhanced to be more legible.

[The end of Our Young Folks. An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls. Vol 1, Issue 5 edited by John Townsend Trowbridge, Gail Hamilton and Lucy Larcom]