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THE FAMILY DINNER-PARTY.

Drawn by H. L. Stephens.]          [See Our Five Little Kittens, page 533.

ne golden summer afternoon, three good friends were sitting on the broad, flat top of a stone wall, which rose from a river’s brink, all intent upon a little ship. Their names were Harry, Pinkie, and Major Brown.

Of course you know that Harry was a boy; but I dare say you think Pinkie was a small gray cat, and Major Brown a big Newfoundland dog. Not a bit of it. They were Harry’s elder and younger brothers. Their father had given them these queer titles just because he loved them; for Major Brown’s real name was Ned, and as to Pinkie, I have either forgotten or never heard his other name, so we will just call him “Pinkie,” and that will be the long and the short of it.

Such a pretty little ship as they had, with her masts and sails all complete, and a long streamer of red, white, and blue floating from the tallest mast! She was Pinkie’s present on his last birthday; and this very afternoon she was to be christened and launched.

“Now, fellows!” shouted Pinkie, gleefully, “this splendid, clipper-built A No. 1 vessel is ready to sail on her first voyage. Hurrah for the Little Starlight! She’s the ship to go all the way to Panama and back before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’!”

“We must christen her first, of course,” said Harry. “I mean to ask mamma for a little bottle of real currant wine to break on her bows.”

“O Harry, I want to christen her! let me christen her!” cried Ned; and, in his delight at the thought, he got up on the flat stone and jumped round in a circle on one foot.

“But Marie is the one to do it,” answered Harry; “ladies always christen ships.”

“O-h!” said Ned, looking rather dismal for a moment, when Harry proposed that they should run to the house to get their little sister; whereupon Ned brightened up, and they raced off together at such a rate that they very nearly got ahead of themselves.

The town where these children live is in the State of Massachusetts. It is a very beautiful place, and there are a number of lovely country-seats all about it, but I think this place is the very nicest of all. It was also the most remarkable, for the house was built on a darling little island in the middle of a river. The whole island belonged to Mr. Ludlow, their father. Like Robinson Crusoe, he was monarch of all he surveyed, as far as the island went. It was entirely surrounded by a stone wall about two feet high, and was connected with the main-land by a very handsome stone bridge with one fair arch. A velvety lawn sloped gracefully before the house; grand old trees drooped their protecting boughs over the water’s edge, and waved their majestic heads above the gray walls of the fine old family mansion, while away to the south stretched garden, grapery, and orchard.

Presently Harry and Ned appeared on the front steps with their sister. She was a little darling, six years old. In her hand she carried very carefully a mite of a phial, such as is used for homœopathic medicine. It was filled with currant wine, of which it might hold about a thimbleful. Harry’s arms were laden with a dozen ginger snaps, three toy barrels, Shem, Ham, and Japhet out of Noah’s Ark, and a wooden horse with half a head and one leg. This was the cargo and crew. And dear little Major Brown, his eyes sparkling with delight and affection, lugged along his beloved cat Pepper, upside down, determined that he, too, should see the show, sucking his tongue (the Major, not the cat), as hard as he could the whole time.

The moment they appeared, Pinkie rushed towards them, stubbed his toe, went head over heels, never minded it an atom, got up again, and placed himself at the head of the procession; and they all marched to where the Little Starlight lay,—that is, her keel was run into a groove in a long, flat board.

“Now—let—me—see,” said Pinkie, when they were once more comfortably seated on the flat stone; “first of all, we must have some ballast.”

“Ballast? what’s that?” asked Marie.

“Why, stones to keep her steady,” said Pinkie.

“O, but, if you put stones in the dear little ship, she will drown,” said Marie.

“No, she won’t,” said Harry. “Real ships are always ballasted. Major, won’t you jump down and pick up some stones?”

“O, but if I let Pepper go he’ll run away,” objected the Major.

“Well, then, I’ll go myself,” said Harry, good-naturedly, and he jumped down from the wall to the narrow strip of sand that ran along the water’s edge, and soon filled his pockets with small round stones. Then he scrambled up again, and, taking off the cover of the hatchway,—which is a square hole in the deck of a ship where they put down the cargo,—he poured the stones into the hold, and smoothed them very even on all sides. The hatchway was just large enough for his hand to enter. Then some little chips of wood were laid over the stones, and next the poor old wooden horse was poked in. He gave them a good deal of trouble in consequence of his one leg having no joint at the knee; as it was, his tail broke short off; at seeing which, little tender Marie uttered a piteous “O-h!” and the boys burst out laughing, but the poor horse never said a word. Perhaps his having only half a head may account for this.

The barrels followed, and after these the ginger snaps were stuck round helter-skelter, wherever a place could be found, and then the Little Starlight was laden to her fullest capacity. As for Shem, Ham, and Japhet, they were set up on deck by way of a crew, and aired their round buttons of heads there with great dignity and grandeur.

With a merry cheer the boys leaped down upon the sand, and helped Marie after them. The darling ship with her sails all set, and the rudder tied fast to keep her in a straight course, was gently placed in the water, Harry holding her fast by the streamer. With flushing cheeks and eyes growing deeper and bigger, the little company were quite silent for half a moment, then Pinkie said, “Now, Marie.”

“Mustn’t she pray a prayer?” asked Major Brown, who had seen a christening in church.

“Why, no!” almost shouted Pinkie; “children can only pray prayers morning and night. Papa told her what to do”; and once more he said, “Now, Marie.”

Then the little girl raised the tiny bottle high above her head, and cried out in her sweet, singing voice, “Little Starlight, I christen you,” and dashed it on the deck. It shivered into a thousand fragments, greatly astonishing Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and the currant wine gushed over the bows. Harry let go the streamer; the gentle summer breeze swelled the tiny sails, and floated the little ship from the shore, and with a long, loud, ringing cheer the Little Starlight was fairly off on her first voyage.

Truly it was a lovely sight,—the four children watching with eager eyes their dainty craft, the long golden rays of the sun slanting over the velvet grass, on the white frock of little Marie, and touching into ruddy chestnut and gold the waving curls of her brothers. Harry’s great blue eyes were lit with the sweet inward smile that seems born of perfect happiness; and Marie curled her white arms round his neck, and whispered, “O Harry, isn’t our ship a real kitten darling?” As for Major Brown, he only hugged Pepper, right side up this time, and sucked his tongue without saying a word.

But you needn’t suppose they were going to be still very long on such a joyful occasion, for all of a sudden the Major gave his poor sucked tongue a holiday by opening his mouth and uttering a tremendous “Hoo-ray!” and in an instant all four were shouting, laughing, dancing, and clapping their hands. O what fun! “Hoo-ray!” they all cried; “three cheers for the Little Starlight!”

Away she sailed, making cunning little ripples in the water, and what Major Brown called soapsuds round her bows; her streamer flying out in gentle curves, and Shem, Ham, and Japhet standing up stiff and straight, gazing at the scenery with solemn faces. Then Pinkie all at once exclaimed: “Come, fellows, we must walk along the top of the wall, and watch the ship, or perhaps she will drive against the—the—what-u-call-’ems, and get wrecked and lost.”

“O dear, no! no! I don’t want the Little Starlight to get lost!” cried Marie; “please, Pinkie, don’t let her go against the—the—what did you say?”

“Well, but you know ships always have some dreadful adventures,” put in Harry; “and then it’s such fun to be lost on an uninhabited island, and catch oranges and eat monkeys,—no, I mean eat oranges, and catch monkeys; and then there’s guava jelly, you know, and poll parrots,—splendid! and caves and savages, and all sorts of jolly things.”

“Suppose we play that the Little Starlight is going on a voyage to New Orleans,” said Pinkie.

“Well,” answered Harry, “we will; where shall New Orleans be?”

“O, at the roots of the big willow-tree,” answered Pinkie.

“But how can you make her stop there?” asked Marie.

“Why, I shall pull her in with a long willow switch.”

“O-h!” said Marie.

While this conversation was going on, the children were walking along on the top of the wall in Indian file, Pepper following, with his tail bolt upright in the air. To be sure, they might just as well have walked on the grass, but that wouldn’t have been half the fun. Meanwhile the Little Starlight sailed away famously, dipping gracefully to the curling ripples; her streamer floating at the mast-head, and Shem, Ham, and Japhet still industriously admiring the prospect from the deck, as fine as you please.

“I know a piece of poetry about a ship sailing on her first voyage.”

“Tell it,” cried Harry, catching at the drooping bough of a willow, and swinging himself along.

So Pinkie began, “ ‘The Sailing of the Princess,’—but I mean to call it the ‘Starlight,’ wouldn’t you?”

“Of course,” said the others, and Pinkie, looking straight up in the air, as if the poetry was written in the sky, went on:—

The children listened with deep interest to these beautiful lines, and at the end of the last verse Harry and the Major chimed in with three tremendous cheers and a “tiger!” The “tiger” scared Pepper so that he jumped off the wall, and scampered with might and main back to the house, crying, “Meou! meou! ffts! ffts! m-e-a-o-u!” at the top of his voice.

But, oh! ah! dear me! while they were listening to Pinkie, they forgot to watch the Little Starlight, and, dreadful to tell, she was just entering the roughest part of the river. Several quite large stones lay there, and the stream brawled and scolded around them at a great rate. Such rapids were as dreadful and dangerous for the Little Starlight as the rapids of Niagara would be to a real ship.

The poor little ship seemed to be a live thing and to know her terrible danger. She struggled and turned, trembling, quivering,—then, as if giving up all hope, in her despair rushed headlong among the stones. A huge wave—huge to her—curled up, and dashed down on the doomed ship, and crash! she was driven over on her side, and wedged fast between two great stones. Ham, Shem, and Japhet went instantly heels up in the air, and swam off like three great cowards. Perhaps, being made of wood, they couldn’t help swimming, or at least floating, when they were so unexpectedly upset into the water,—anyhow we’ll be good-hearted enough to think so; but the poor Little Starlight was left without a crew, and in great danger of becoming a total wreck, sure enough.

“Oh! oh! oh! what shall we do?” cried all the children, with clasped hands, and eyes nearly starting out of their heads. Then Marie pinched Harry’s arm nearly black and blue in her terror and distress, while Major Brown threw himself flat on his stomach, on the stone wall, and began to cry.

“I tell you! One of us must wade out and save her,” exclaimed Harry; “and I’ve a great mind to do it this very minute.”

“O Harry, you mustn’t!” cried Marie, clinging to him. “You will be drowned!”

“Boo!” retorted Harry; “that river isn’t deep enough to drown a mouse!”

“But the current is very rapid there, Harry,” said Pinkie. “You had better look out, old fellow. Papa won’t like it if you get a ducking.”

No frightening Master Harry, however! His balmorals and stockings were already off; his knickerbockers were rolled up as high as he could get them. The delight of paddling about in the stream, added to the desire of rescuing the little ship, were too much for mortal boy to resist. But the adventurous young monkey had undertaken a feat rather more dangerous than he imagined. Such a wide, shallow river, with a rough, pebbly bed, and swirling mid-rapids, does not offer the most secure footing in the world; and so Harry found as he floundered along, and presently was neatly capsized and tumbled down on all fours; but he dug his fingers in the sand, and scrambled up like a cat on a wall, only to go down head-first again, as the current dashed against his legs. Once more he clawed himself up, and this time stood hard and fast for a moment,—just long enough to make a grab at the Little Starlight, and stagger breathless out of the rapids, holding the ship triumphantly in the air.

“Is she hurt?” shouted Pinkie, dancing up and down in violent agitation.

“Not the least speck,” hailed back Harry; “only Shem, Ham, and Japhet must be drowned, for I don’t see them anywhere.”

“Fiddle! never mind them,” answered Pinkie.

“But it’s my Nooer’s Ork,” whimpered Major Brown.

The dear little fellow meant his “Noah’s Ark,” and it was dreadful to think that the beasts and birds would have nobody to take care of them; the spider would insist on marching in procession side by side with the elephant, instead of bringing up the rear, as it ought.

It couldn’t be helped, however, and Ned consoled himself as well as he could, and soon forgot to grieve for the luckless navigators, especially as Harry threw his arm round his brother’s neck with a kind, “Never mind, Major, you shall have my new peg-top to make up,”—which was such an enchanting promise that the little fellow had to hug and kiss Harry, and say, “Thank you, you good old boy! I love you bester than any one!”

Then Harry put on his stockings and boots, and said his clothes would dry first-rate in the sun, and the children concluded to carry the Little Starlight farther on to a smoother part of the river. They were soon past the rapids, and Harry once more started the precious vessel on her course. When she was fairly under way, he scrambled up on top of the wall like a grasshopper, and they all rushed like the wind down to the big willow-tree, which was quite at the end of the lawn. The great gnarled roots spread out high above the ground, and made comfortable seats from which to watch the Little Starlight floating smoothly down the stream.

While they waited, they chattered away about various things, when all at once Harry exclaimed, “There now! did I ever tell you what a dreadful fright I had last winter, when mother and I were down at Aunt Sally’s?”

“Why, no,” said Pinkie; “let’s hear about it, old fellow.”

“Well,” began Harry, twitching up his knickerbockers, which were still quite wet,—“well, you know mother thought I had better go to school while we stayed, for fear Aunt Sally would go crazy with my noise; and so to school I went,—mad enough, I can tell you. Of course you know I couldn’t have learned a single thing without chewing india-rubber,—of course not. Well, one day I was munching away at the india-rubber as hard as ever I could, and studying that plaguy eight times in the multiplication table, when, all at once, bang! went the master’s ruler on his desk. I gave such a jump! and down went the india-rubber like a flash of lightning! That wasn’t the worst, either; for Cousin Will told me if I swallowed india-rubber it was certain death; so just fancy how I felt!” Here Harry opened his blue eyes very wide, and stared solemnly at the company.

“O, but you didn’t die,—did you, Harry?” cried Marie, looking quite frightened.

“He seems to have come to life again as good as new,” laughed Pinkie. “Go on, old chap.”

“Well, I was in the most awful fix. I didn’t want to die away from mother, and it did seem as if school never would be out. I was so scared, I couldn’t learn ‘eight times’ at all, and the master boxed my ears with the arithmetic because I didn’t know it. I thought it was the most cruel thing that ever was heard of, to box a fellow’s ears when he was dying; and the instant school was out I put for home double-quick, rushed into mother’s room, threw myself into her arms, burst into tears, and sobbed out, ‘O mother, mother! kiss me quick, and bid me good by. I am dying, I know I am!’ ”

At this most affecting climax, Major Brown couldn’t stand it any longer, and, pulling out a very small pocket-handkerchief, he indulged in a series of doleful sniffs, carefully keeping one eye and both ears open so as not to lose an atom of the story.

“Well,” went on Harry, quite affected himself at his own eloquence, “mother asked me what in the world was the matter; and, when I told her, what do you think she did?”

“W-h-a-t?” asked all the rest, staring at Harry, and listening as if they had three pairs of ears apiece.

“Why, she burst out laughing, she almost screamed laughing! and then she hugged me, and kissed me, and told me that india-rubber wasn’t deadly poison, and wouldn’t do me any very tremendous harm; but she advised me not to chew any more. So I wiped my eyes, and ran off to play, and that’s the last I’ve heard of it from that day to this.”

Just as Harry finished his interesting experience with india-rubber, the Little Starlight swept gracefully past the willow, so close that Pinkie could draw her in with his hand.

She was lifted out tenderly, and set again in her groove in the plank. Then the Major unfastened her hatchway, and all four commenced to unload her cargo. They ate up her cargo,—that is, the ginger snaps,—taking out only one at a time to prolong the pleasure, and nodding and grinning at each other to signify how very enchanting it all was, and what a glorious time they were having. Such fun! don’t you wish you had been one of the party? I do, and that’s a fact; and what’s more, every word of this story is true, and that very Harry, with his curly wig and china-blue eyes, is one of my particular favorites.

I told you they took out one ginger snap at a time, but I forgot to mention that they broke each one into four pieces, dividing them around. Each piece made one good-sized mouthful; so, if you love me, do this sum in arithmetic,—how many mouthfuls did each of them have? I told you in the beginning of the story how many snaps Harry brought out.

Just as the fun was at its height, somebody came softly up behind them, and cried out in a funny, rough voice, “Odds bobbs and buttercups! what are you all at?”

The children started and looked round, and there was Mr. Ludlow, laughing softly to himself at their chatter. Every one of them jumped up to kiss him; and every one of them told him all together about the wonderful cruise of the darling Little Starlight.

The sun was just setting midst purple and rosy clouds. The tiny ripples of the river were crested with gold, while the waveless eddies near the shore were of the color of a rose unutterably delicate and lovely. The beautiful light touched into warmer color the bright faces of the children, as they clung fondly round their stately, handsome father.

And now a silvery-toned bell rang out in the still sunset air. Spite of all the ginger snaps, this must have been an enchanting sound, for the little ones “skipped and tripped and danced and dipped” into the house,—Pinkie carrying the precious Little Starlight in triumph before them. She was laid safely up in dry dock on top of Mr. Ludlow’s desk, while, as for poor Shem, Ham, and Japhet, like Harry’s india-rubber, no one has heard the first grain about them from that day to this. I haven’t,—have you?

Aunt Fanny.

Solomon John agreed to ride to Farmer Jones’s for a basket of apples, and he decided to go on horseback. The horse was brought round to the door. Now he had not ridden for a great while; and, though the little boys were there to help him, he had great trouble in getting on the horse.

He tried a great many times, but always found himself facing the wrong way, looking at the horse’s tail. They turned the horse’s head, first up the street, then down the street; it made no difference; he always made some mistake, and found himself sitting the wrong way.

“Well,” said he, at last, “I don’t know as I care. If the horse has his head in the right direction, that is the main thing. Sometimes I ride this way in the cars, because I like it better. I can turn my head easily enough, to see where we are going.” So off he went, and the little boys said he looked like a circus-rider, and they were much pleased.

He rode along out of the village, under the elms, very quietly. Pretty soon he came to a bridge, where the road went across a little stream. There was a road at the side, leading down into the stream, because sometimes wagoners watered their horses there. Solomon John’s horse turned off too, to drink of the water.

“Very well,” said Solomon John, “I don’t blame him for wanting to wet his feet, and to take a drink, this hot day.”

When they reached the middle of the stream, the horse bent over his head.

“How far his neck comes into his back!” exclaimed Solomon John; and at that very moment he found he had slid down over the horse’s head, and was sitting on a stone, looking into the horse’s face. There were two frogs, one on each side of him, sitting just as he was, which pleased Solomon John, so he began to laugh instead of to cry.

But the two frogs jumped into the water.

“It is time for me to go on,” said Solomon John.

So he gave a jump, as he had seen the frogs do; and this time he came all right on the horse’s back, facing the way he was going.

“It is a little pleasanter,” said he.

The horse wanted to nibble a little of the grass by the side of the way; but Solomon John remembered what a long neck he had, and would not let him stop.

At last he reached Farmer Jones’s, who gave him his basket of apples.

Next he was to go on to a cider-mill, up a little lane by Farmer Jones’s house, to get a jug of cider. But as soon as the horse was turned into the lane, he began to walk very slowly,—so slowly that Solomon John thought he would not get there before night. He whistled, and shouted, and thrust his knees into the horse, but still he would not go.

“Perhaps the apples are too heavy for him,” said he. So he began by throwing one of the apples out of the basket. It hit the fence by the side of the road, and that started up the horse, and he went on merrily.

“That was the trouble,” said Solomon John; “that apple was too heavy for him.”

But very soon the horse began to go slower and slower.

So Solomon John thought he would try another apple. This hit a large rock, and bounded back under the horse’s feet, and sent him off at a great pace. But very soon he fell again into a slow walk.

Solomon John had to try another apple. This time it fell into a pool of water, and made a great splash, and set the horse out again for a little while; but he soon returned to a slow walk,—so slow that Solomon John thought it would be to-morrow morning before he got to the cider-mill.

“It is rather a waste of apples,” thought he; “but I can pick them up as I come back, because the horse will be going home at a quick pace.”

So he flung out another apple; that fell among a party of ducks, and they began to make such a quacking and a waddling, that it frightened the horse into a quick trot.

So the only way Solomon John could make his horse go was by flinging his apples, now on one side, now on the other. One time he frightened a cow, that ran along by the side of the road, while the horse raced with her. Another time he started up a brood of turkeys, that gobbled and strutted enough to startle twenty horses. In another place he came near hitting a boy, who gave such a scream that it sent the horse off at a furious rate.

And Solomon John got quite excited himself, and he did not stop till he had thrown away all his apples, and had reached the corner by the cider-mill.

“Very well,” said he, “if the horse is so lazy, he won’t mind my stopping to pick up the apples on the way home. And I am not sure but I shall prefer walking a little to riding the beast.”

The man came out to meet him from the cider-mill, and reached him the jug. He was just going to take it, when he turned his horse’s head round, and, delighted at the idea of going home, the horse set off at a full run, without waiting for the jug. Solomon John clung to the reins, and his knees held fast to the horse. He called out “Whoa! whoa!” but the horse would not stop.

He went galloping on past the boy, who stopped, and flung an apple at him; past the turkeys, that came and gobbled at him; by the cow, that turned and ran back in a race with them until her breath gave out; by the ducks, that came and quacked at him; by an old donkey, that brayed over the wall at him; by some hens, that ran into the road under the horse’s feet, and clucked at him; by a great rooster, that stood up on a fence, and crowed at him; by Farmer Jones, who looked out to see what had become of him; down the village street, and he never stopped till he had reached the door of the house.

Out came Mr. and Mrs. Peterkin, Agamemnon, Elizabeth Eliza, and the little boys.

Solomon John got off his horse all out of breath.

“Where is the jug of cider?” asked Mrs. Peterkin.

“It is at the cider-mill,” said Solomon John.

“At the mill!” exclaimed Mr. Peterkin.

“Yes,” said Solomon John; “the little boys had better walk out for it; they will quite enjoy it; and they had better take a basket; for on the way they will find plenty of apples, scattered all along either side of the lane, and hens, and ducks, and turkeys, and a donkey.”

The little boys looked at each other, and went; but they stopped first, and put on their india-rubber boots.

Lucretia P. Hale.

Away up in the northern part of Michigan, in a little village, there lived a baby,—her parents’ only one, and therefore the dearest, sweetest, cunningest little creature in all the world. Never before had there been seen such a baby as this. She was the queen, as well as the pet and plaything, of the house. Her wants were anticipated, her wishes obeyed, and she had everything that the heart of a baby could desire. Her little frocks were tucked and embroidered to the very last extreme. She had a beautiful crib to sleep in, a baby-jumper to jump in, a silver cup to drink from, and playthings innumerable to amuse herself with. But there was one thing that she didn’t have, which money was not able to buy, and that was a name. To be sure there were a dozen pet names that she was called by, such as Precious, and Birdie, and Brighty, and Flutterbudget, and Susquehanna, and Troublehouse; but she had no “real truly name,” as her cousin Charley used to say, and which he thought was altogether too bad; and so, in the generosity of his heart, he bestowed upon her the one belonging to his black, curly-tailed dog, Whisk. Little three-years-old Nell was bent upon calling her Jimmy, but her sister Kate, older and wiser by a year, though still innocent of grammar, exclaimed contemptuously, “Why, don’t you know, Nell, Jimmy is a boy’s name, and he’s a girl?”

The uncles, aunts, and friends generally, all brought their favorite names, and laid them, willing offerings, at her feet. One would have her called Beatrice, another Zoraida, another Ethelind, and so on; so that, if they could all have had their will, the little creature would have been fairly smothered under so many. But her father and mother had some objection to them all. Not a single one could be found quite dainty enough for the little lady, so that the probabilities were very strong that one would have to be manufactured expressly for her, or else that she would live all her life and go down to her grave nameless. Meanwhile she smiled on, and if she could only have the usual amount of kisses, and tossings, and rides to Banbury Cross, cared not a straw whether she ever had a name or not.

One day her mother and a friend took her out for a ride in her little carriage. As they were going through the beautiful winding paths of the forest, they came suddenly upon the half-dozen tents of an Indian encampment. These Indians, who are scattered all through the northern part of the State in settlements of their own, often come down to the villages and pitch their tents for a few days, and sell baskets, and berries, and maple sugar, and such things. The encampment was deserted just now, except by one woman, who sat under a pine-tree, embroidering a pair of moccasons with gay-colored beads, and at the same time keeping guard over the empty tents.

“Bushoo,” said the ladies, going up to her.

“Bushoo,” she replied. This was simply the polite way of saying, “How do you do?” in the Pottawatamie dialect. When she saw the baby in her carriage, she smiled, and pointed up towards the tree above her head. Her visitors looked up too, and what do you think they saw? They saw a board, very prettily carved, and with something fastened to the upper side, hanging from one of the branches and swinging about in the wind.

“Oh!” they cried, “there’s a baby! Do take it down and let us see it.” She understood, and laughed, and took it down; and there, sure enough, was a little brown baby, bound firmly to the board, all except its arms, and with its feet resting upon a kind of little shelf. It had been having a fine time up in the tree, with the wind to rock its cradle, and the birds to sing its lullaby, and the leaves to dance and flutter for its amusement. The squirrels came and peeped at it with grave eyes, and wondered what manner of creature it was, and chattered together about what business it had to intrude itself into their busy home, and then went away to their work of gathering nuts. And the baby swung, listening to the birds and the squirrels, and trying to catch the sunbeams that flickered through the leaves.

She had a pair of small, shining, black eyes, which opened as wide as ever they could in wonder at the other pair of big blue ones in the carriage. Little Flutterbudget was for making acquaintance directly. She laughed, and crowed, and held out her little arms; but the brown baby looked gravely back, not understanding such demonstrations at all.

“Suppose you swap babies,” said the friend.

“No, no, my pappoose best”; and the Indian mother hugged the pappoose, board and all, closer to her, as if she was afraid they really meant to carry off her treasure.

“How old is she?”

“Ten moons.”

“Why, that’s just as old as Birdie! What is her name?”

“Winogene.”

“Winogene. That’s a pretty name. What does it mean?” for Indian names always have some meaning. The Indian woman understood English much better than she could speak it, so she looked around for something to help her. A knife was lying on the ground; she took it up and held it in the sunshine, giving it a quivering motion, so that the dazzling rays glanced off in every direction. They caught something of the idea, and, after a few more words, went home, and left the mother to her work and the baby to its swinging.

Arrived at home, Birdie’s mother flew up stairs to the library, where was an old Indian dictionary, and, opening it, she found, “Winogene,—a quivering ray of light.” All that day she kept saying over to herself, “Winogene,—a quivering ray of light”; and at last she exclaimed aloud:—

“That is just what my baby is, and her name shall be Winogene.” And Winogene it was.

There were some wry faces when this decision became known. Some of the aunties and friends thought it was an outrage to hang such a barbarous name upon an innocent little baby that couldn’t help itself at all. If she must have a foreign name, better call her Gretchen, or Hedwig, or even Bridget, than to go to the wild Indians for one. Meanwhile she thrived under it beautifully. She grew out of her babyhood into a healthy, happy, romping child, and her name was prophetic of her sunny spirit. She was, indeed, a ray of light all through the house. Every room seemed brighter when she was in it, and she trailed the sunshine after her wherever she went. It was the delight of her parents and friends to make her happy. Everything that love and wealth could procure for their darling she had. And it did not spoil her. She was growing up in all good and lovely ways,—an affectionate, obedient, happy child.

And how fared it with the other Winogene? Her home was a little, filthy, smoky wigwam. Her clothes were poor and scanty enough, and she often went to sleep at night very hungry; but when the pleasant summer days came she forgot all about that, and was as happy as a bird. Then she lived out of doors. She could climb a tree as nimbly as a squirrel. She knew just where the first flowers would blossom and the first berries ripen. She knew the name of every tree and shrub, of every bird and animal, in the forest. Her father made her a bow and arrows, and taught her how to shoot with them; and her mother taught her to hoe corn and embroider moccasons and leggins. And the little dark Winogene was a happy child too, but in a very different way.

One day as Winny was trundling her hoop in the yard, she saw a company of Indian women and children coming down the street. They were walking solemnly, one behind another, at just such a distance apart, and looking right ahead. Their stiff, straight black hair was flying loosely in their necks. They wore blankets over their heads instead of bonnets, and moccasons upon their feet instead of shoes; and, strapped upon their backs, the women each carried a huge pile of baskets, and occasionally from some basket there peeped out a little, sober, brown face, belonging to a baby whose mother found this the most convenient way of carrying it. This strange-looking cavalcade was by no means an unfamiliar sight to the child; still, when a woman and a little girl left the procession, and came through her father’s gate, she stopped her play and ran in, for she always liked to hear them talk. They had some very pretty open-work baskets to sell, made of splints, and stained with all sorts of bright colors.

“Winogene,” said her mother, “shall I buy you a basket?”

The woman and child both started at the name, and looked at the little girl in surprise.

“Her name Winogene?” she inquired, pointing to Winny.

“Yes.”

“Her name Winogene too,” pointing to her own little girl. The two mothers looked at each other a moment. Each recognized the other, and remembered the meeting under the pine-tree six years before.

“Yes, and I named my baby for yours.” Both laughed, and brought forward their little girls for exhibition. A greater contrast than they presented could scarcely be imagined. The one with her clear complexion, sunny curls, and blue eyes, dressed in a blue muslin frock and white apron, and jaunty little hat,—the other with her dusky skin, and small black eyes shining out from under the straight hair that fell over them, wearing a faded frock, below which were seen a pair of leggins gayly embroidered with beads, and a multitude of strings of gaudy beads, of which she was very proud, around her neck. But each mother still firmly believed her own to be the prettier. The children were shy, and only looked curiously at each other. Their mothers tried to talk, but it was slow work when they had so few words in common. However, Winny’s mother gave them a bundle of clothes, and a bountiful dinner, and bought twice as many baskets as she had any use for; and, just as they were going, Winny brought one of her dolls, the one that could open and shut its eyes, and cry, and gave it to Winogene. I suppose she intended it as part payment for her name. The little wild girl had never seen such a thing before, and did not know what to make of it. She thought it was alive, and was afraid, and clung to her mother. It was a long time before she could be made to comprehend anything about it; but when at last she did, and realized that it was her own, her black eyes danced for joy. She keeps it yet. She has a special corner for it in her mother’s wigwam, and she ties it to the same carved board which was her own cradle, and sets it swinging among the branches, as her mother used to her. She is a heroine in the eyes of her playfellows. They look with wonder and admiration and envy upon her and her treasure, and I suppose there never lived a prouder little pappoose than she.

A few weeks after, as Winny was playing in the yard, she looked up and saw another company of Indians coming. As they came opposite her father’s house, a grotesque little figure left the procession and came towards her. She recognized Winogene at once, but she laughed aloud as she recognized also one of her own muslin frocks, which, without hoops, almost dragged upon the ground, and her own old doll, which the little girl was carrying perched upon her back. She was leading a beautiful fawn by a cord, and, running up to Winny, she put the cord into her hand.

“This for you,” was all she said; and before Winny had time to recover from her surprise enough to thank her she was back, walking solemnly along in file with the rest. I don’t know which is the happier of the two girls,—the one with her doll, or the other with her fawn, which is as tame and loving as a kitten, and her constant companion everywhere.

And so occasionally the pathways of the two Winogenes cross each other, and perhaps will long continue to, for they live not very many miles apart; but how different will be their lives! One will grow up amidst all the refinements of civilization. No pains will be spared to make her an educated, useful, and Christian woman. The other will be perfectly content to hoe the corn, and cook the meat, and do cunning embroidery, with no thought of any higher life. She may learn to read, for the government provides schools and teachers for them; but it will do her very little good, for she likes to climb trees and pick berries so much better, and her father and mother do not care whether she learns or not. Ah! the two Winogenes will have very little in common but their names.

H. A. F.

Our five little cats one day decided to have a dinner-party,—a real Thanksgiving dinner; and they all sat round in a circle on their tails to consult about it.

Little Pickey spoke first: “We must have old Watch; he would look grand, and shake paws so politely with all our friends. Perhaps he would bring a bone or two from his underground pantry in the garden, and that would help, if the mice and rats should be scarce.”

“Then the poor little white cat must come,” said Maltie, “for her back is broken, and her kittens, they say, have gone on a long voyage. It may cheer her up a bit, poor thing!”

By this time all the kittens were speaking at once. To us it would have sounded only “Mew, mew”; but to them it was “Blackey,” and “Mouser,” and “Tiptoe,” and “Dumbey,” and “Cry-baby,” and “Scratcher” must come, “and—and—” but here Tiger, the little striped cat, will make herself heard; so, giving Maltie a bite, and Spotty a scratch, and boxing Whitey’s ears, she lets them know that all must be still and listen to her. This is a very foolish way for little Tiger to behave; for now, instead of smiling-faced brothers and sisters, she has only snarling and fierce little cats, all around her, and I fear that whatever she says won’t sound pleasant. Poor little foolish puss! she don’t seem to know that, but begins to speak,—“Mew, mew, mew, meau-au-au-au-au, meau-au-au.” If you don’t understand cat language, I will tell you that this means, “We must invite Fanny and Willie, who so kindly washed us in the street mud-puddle to keep us from having the cholera.” Then Tiger stopped, showing all her white teeth, and whisking her tail wildly, in excitement at this bright idea.

Each kitten had opened her mouth for a mew or a growl, when the old mother cat commanded silence with a look, and began to speak. “Long before you were born, children, I lived far away in what is called Yankee Land. In the great house where I was born, only the relations of the family were invited to the Thanksgiving dinner, and my mother and grandmother said it had always been so, and always should be among those who had any family pride and aristocracy. Now, our family is a large and highly respectable one,—very aristocratic; but, I grieve to say, in the course of years it has become scattered all over the earth, and many of its members are so changed that we should not know them. Indeed, I have heard that some are without tails, and some are so large and strong that they can carry away calves as easily as I do mice. They live so many miles away that we cannot go to invite them; but I am sure our friend, the wind, who plays such nice games with us among the leaves, will do us that service.

“As I hear that some of our relatives are very fierce, and may even eat us if we have not enough food on the table, I shall send them word to bring their own provisions; then they will surely have just what they like.”

All the kittens received these remarks with applause; and the wind, just then whistling round the corner, was called in and readily agreed to carry the invitations.

The wind, as we all know, is one of the swiftest travellers in the world. He needs no horses, nor cars, nor boats, but whistles merrily along over mountain, valley, and sea, as much as to say, “How foolish men are to make so much work out of what is only play!” It is well that he thinks it play; for to carry the pussy-cat’s invitations he must take a very long journey,—all over the great world on which we live.

Off he starts on his errand, over the wide, blue sea, pausing now and then at some pleasant island, and even at that one where live the poor little cats without tails. On, on he hurries to great deserts, where he whirls the sand in clouds before him; then down deep in dark woods where men have never been; but even there live some of our pussy’s relations. He creeps along the swamps, where we should sink neck-deep in thick mud, and rushes over the prairies, waving the tall grass and flowers; and in every one of these places the wind has found some of the cat’s family to invite to the dinner.

Poor little pussies! I’m afraid they will want to run away from their strange relatives when the day comes. But we shall see. Thanksgiving is almost here, and old puss and her friends have worked hard and collected a large store of rats and mice, and the little ones have stolen many a nice bit of meat from the kitchen. These treasures are all hidden under the barn, and will be brought out into the grove, where the table is to be laid; for they have no room large enough to accommodate such a party.

The morning has arrived, and the little cats, with paws and faces carefully washed, are impatiently waiting for the company. They would climb the trees to look out in the distance for their guests; but mamma says it would soil their paws, and besides it wouldn’t be proper; so they only eye the dishes wistfully, and now and then growl at each other, they are so tired waiting.

Suddenly two great, glaring eyes look in at them between the trees. Each little cat scampers to a hiding-place, while the air is filled with a strange roar. What can this roar mean? Hark! it is their own language, though fearfully loud. Each little cat pricks up her poor, trembling ears to catch the words: “Is this where I am invited to dinner?” So it is only their first guest that has caused them such fright. Immediately mother puss steps politely forward, bowing, and the stranger introduces himself as Mr. Lion, from Africa, and leads in his wife and their son Whelp, who, though but six months old, is larger than puss and all her family taken together. “We have brought but a small addition to your dinner,” roars the Lion, throwing down four antelopes.

“Small, did he say?” whispers Pickey to Mouser. “Why, they are the biggest rats I ever saw, and with horns too! Where can he have caught them?”

But now Mouser is called up to talk with her cousin, Whelp Lion; and they are soon on the most friendly terms, and Mouser has asked him where his father got those “big rats.”

Little Whelp is very polite, so he doesn’t laugh at her mistake, but tells her how all night long his father and mother lay under the tangled bushes by the dark stream near their home, until they heard the soft tread of these same little antelopes coming down to drink. “But the rest of the story father didn’t tell me,” said Whelp; “I think he must have caught them as you do the rats, for the next morning I saw them lying close to my bed, when mother waked me to get ready to come here.”

While all this talking is going on, other guests have arrived; so we must leave Whelp and Mouser to entertain each other, and look around us.

Why, really, the grove is quite full! The table is loaded with monkeys and birds and rabbits and squirrels and calves and sheep, and even one great scaly alligator. I wonder who brought that; and don’t you wonder who can bite through its tough skin,—tougher even than your thickest shoes?

But the dinner-bell—a long “Meau-au-au-au”—has sounded, and we must content ourselves with observing the company after they are seated at table. They are arranged by families. First are the brown and yellow Lions that have come from far over the sea. Their home is in the deep, dark forests, where the light of the sun is almost shut out by the thick leaves, and where men have never been. They are the lords of that country, and all the other beasts bow before them, and call them kings; so little Whelp, you see, belongs to the royal family.

Next is seated the Panther, or, as he prefers to be called, the Silvery Lion of America, with his two younger brothers, Dusky and Tawney. They dropped down from the trees only a minute ago, right into the midst of the party; and it is old Silvery who brought the alligator which he is now tearing in pieces with his sharp teeth and claws, giving, now and then, some more tender parts to his brothers who haven’t yet the strength to bite through the hard skin. This family have long, slender bodies, though short and stout legs; and we may hear Tawney remarking to his neighbor, Mr. Lynx, that he has often been through a whole grove by leaping from tree to tree, and not touching the ground. “You should have seen Silvery drop down on that alligator yesterday, as he lay asleep in the swamp. Why, he hadn’t even time to wake up, before we had dragged him up on the tree, dead as you see him now.”

Mr. Lynx puts on a very fierce look, saying, “Nothing new to me, sir; you can’t tell me or my family anything new about leaping. You should have seen us yesterday, when the hunters were after us! Why, my wife and I went ten feet at every bound, and—”

“Hunting,—did you speak of hunting?” growls the next neighbor, before Mr. Lynx can say another word. “I have the best way of hunting. I do it all myself. When a man tries to hunt me, I turn and tear him in pieces; and as for the deer and monkeys, why, I make short work with them.”

The poor little Manx cat, who sits near by, shakes herself almost under the table with fright.

Then a fierce, growling voice from the other end of the table breaks in with, “I do better than that! I don’t wait for men to come to me, I go to them. You should see me in their villages. They do not try to fight, they only run and hide; but I find them out! I find them out!” and he shows all his fierce white teeth, and grins horribly.

At this the poor kittens can control themselves no longer, and up go their tails over their backs as big as any squirrel’s. They had been sitting on them ever since their cousin Manx came in, so that she might not feel bad at having none; but now their terror has overcome their politeness.

“O, they are so thin!” whispers Maltie to little Manx. “I know they will eat us up before they go. If they do have such pretty stripes and spots, I don’t like them.”

But Mr. Lion has noticed their fright, and has already cautioned their savage visitors, Mr. Leopard and Mr. Tiger, to be more gentle, or all their smaller relations will run away.

So there is no cause for fear, little pussies; they are only trying to show off, as we have seen many persons do who should be wiser.

Still Mr. Leopard is carrying on a low conversation with his next neighbor, little Miss Jaguar, while Mr. Tiger sits sullen and silent, and we hear now and then,—“We hid in the bushes,—sprang—tore—killed,—how good monkeys’ tails are with antelopes’ legs,” &c., &c. They must be telling about their hunts; but we won’t attend to them now, for before us are the young beauties among cats,—Misses Tortoise, Angola, Maltese, Egyptian, and dear little Miss Manx, whose pretty head and gentle manner fully make up for her lack of tail. There are the famous “Cheshire cats,” grinning from ear to ear; and perhaps “Puss in Boots” is round that corner, but I can’t see. Their talk is of rats and mice and milk, and even of ribbons for the neck, and I think I hear old Mrs. Tabby speaking of a scarlet collar with a bell; but there is so much talking now, I may mistake her. Still of one thing I am sure,—little Blackey is telling Mouser, that, if she will just slip under the table with her where it is dark, she will show the little fires which she keeps in her fur, and which don’t burn her at all. They are sliding quietly down, when old mother puss rises to speak.

After some hesitation, being unused to public speaking, she tells the company that matters of a strictly private nature, family matters, will now be brought before them for discussion; among others the question, “Why cats, when giving fine concerts at night, have old shoes and such worthless articles thrown to them, instead of nice meat, as a reward? How this great mistake of mankind is to be remedied.”

As these questions are best discussed in private, it is requested that all who do not belong to the family will leave the grove.

Since we have been so decidedly requested, I suppose we must go, and therefore cannot report the discussion of these important family matters. We can only hope that they won’t eat each other up before the dinner is ended, and that all may return safely to their homes.

When our pussy disappears next Thanksgiving day, we shall know where she has gone. We won’t tell her that we have found out her secret, for it might trouble her, poor little puss!

M. L. A.

“His name is Force,” squeaked the little traveller, “but for the sort of person that he is, I cannot exactly say, your Royal Highness, seeing that he is sometimes as great as a giant, and at others as fine as a thread; only that he is the worst used and best-natured individual in your Majesty’s dominions; for there is not a ship or a house, a road or a garden, made, or a dinner got, or so much as a cup of water drawn, without his help. He is wanted to do everything, every minute of the day, all over the earth; and he does it without grumbling; and now mark how he is paid! Every time that he gives anybody a neighborly lift, from sawing a stick of wood to dragging a train, he disappears. He is destroyed. All day long he is smashed, blown up, choked, your Royal Highness, under your Royal Highness’s very nose,—under everybody’s nose,—made away with, done for, murdered, used up, in a hundred thousand places all at once, by Christians and heathens all alike,—which your Majesty will see is quite improper. For, if it is so very bad to choke, blow up, and murder a man once, how much worse to do all these things to a person all the time! and if your Highness would protect even a thief from such abuse, how is it that there is nobody to say a word for poor Force, who wags your very heads for you? and whose blame is it?”

When the little traveller said, “Whose blame is it?” he looked hard at the King. The King was quite thrown out of countenance,—for here was a very bad case, you see, made out against somebody,—and he looked severely at the Lord High Fiddlestick, because it was understood that, when anything happened to be right, the credit was due to the King; but when anything was wrong, the blame fell to my Lord High Fiddlestick. As the King looked severe, the courtiers looked severe also, and as if—come now, this was really too bad, and a little the worst thing they had heard yet about my Lord High Fiddlestick. But my Lord High Fiddlestick only crossed his pink slippers comfortably one over the other, and said:—

“Your Majesty, there is no one to blame here. The gentleman is quite right and entirely wrong.”

The little traveller jumped up. He was wrapped from head to heels in a long overcoat, full of pockets. Out of one pocket he took a bit of iron and a hammer. He laid the iron on a table, and pounded it with the hammer. “There!” he said, “Force did that; but now where has he gone, my Lord High Fiddlestick?” Then he pulled at his mustache, and stamped his foot, and got out a saw and a piece of wood, and had off an end of the wood before you could wink. “Force did that, too,” said the little traveller; “but, if he did not die in the doing of it, can you tell me where he is now, my Lord High Fiddlestick?” Then he drew out a pistol, and, aiming at the third leg of the King’s extension table, sent a bullet at it as savagely as if it had been the Lord High Fiddlestick himself.

“Force did that, too,” screamed the queer, angry little man, “and now where is he? I am not to be put off with a riddle about being quite right and entirely wrong. If he is dead, as you are to blame for whatever happens in this country, you ought to be hung at once; and if he is not dead, I will trouble you to show him to me.”

“Good Mr. Traveller,” answered my Lord High Fiddlestick, picking up the saw, “will you feel of that? It is cold,—is it not? and the wood,—that is cold, too. Well, now suppose you saw us off another bit of wood. Thank you. Feel now of the wood. Is it cold, just as it was before? No? You mean to say that it is warmer? Touch the saw. That is warmer, too. Very good. Here are your iron and your hammer. Will your Majesty touch them? You see they are cold enough. Now, my friend, favor us with a little more of that lively pounding which you say your friend Force died to do. How are your iron and hammer? I declare!—feel, your Majesty,—they are both warm. Now for the pistol. Here is a target,—but stop! feel the bullet. It is cold, of course. Fire away! Very good. You, or your friend Force, hit the target fairly; but the bullet! feel it, Mr. Traveller. Your Majesty perceives that it is quite hot,—this bullet which was cold a moment ago!”

“What if it is?” growled the traveller.

My Lord High Fiddlestick put his hands in the pockets of his green satin gown, and laughed.

“Ah, Mr. Traveller, you have not learned yet all the tricks of your friend Force. Just now he pounded a cold bit of iron with a cold hammer. Then he was gone, nowhere to be seen,—dead, you said! but you found Heat in the iron and the hammer. You sawed a cold piece of wood with a cold saw. That done, whisk! Force was lost; but there was Heat in the wood and saw. You fired your cold bullet at a cold target. Off went Force, but there was Heat again in the bullet. Whenever you lose Force you find Heat. What does that mean? You say that Force is sometimes a giant. Did it ever occur to you that he may be a giant with two heads under his hood? Let us follow this giant a little farther. He is pulling a train at the rate of thirty miles an hour. You put on the brakes, the train stops. Force is gone from the engine, but what do you find at the wheels, where the brake rubbed on them? Why, so much heat that you see fire and sparks; and the engine-driver sends a man to rub grease on the wheels of the train. Why? Because, if the wheels turn around with difficulty, the engine cannot pull the train so fast; Force, who should give all his attention to urge the engine, must give a part of his strength to the wheels; and just as much as he gives to the wheels, just so much is lost to the engine.”

“As if every school-boy did not know that!” growled the little traveller.

“Wait a minute,” said my Lord High Fiddlestick. “You say every school-boy knows that; but, when Force goes to the wheels, what shape does he take? He is there, turning the wheels in spite of themselves, and the engine is missing him, and these ungreased wheels show that he is there. How? By their heat. You miss Force from the engine. The last time he was seen, he was going to the ungreased wheels. You go to the wheels. You see no Force there, but a stranger; but if it is the giant Force that you have lost from the engine, this stranger will be a giant; if Force is at his pygmy tricks, the stranger will be a dwarf; and in either case he will tell you his name is Heat. While you are staring at him, you observe something familiar about him, and you say, ‘Pray, Mr. Heat, have I not seen you before, somewhere about the engine? You are the fireman, perhaps!’ ‘Exactly,’ answers Heat, ‘I was in the fire under the boiler.’ Under the boiler! Why, that is where our lost Force came from. Put it all together. You put Heat under the boiler, and Force comes out, and pulls the train. You miss Force, and, when you go to look for him, you find Heat in his place. Is it not reasonable, good Mr. Traveller, to think that, as Heat can turn into Force, Force can turn back into Heat again?”

“Your Royal Highness,” cried the little traveller, jumping up in a great rage, “I hope your Royal Highness won’t listen to such stuff as this. Heat a person, indeed! Heat is a fluid, and it is called caloric. I see my Lord High Fiddlestick is laughing, but he won’t laugh long. Here is the dictionary, and the word in it to prove what I say; and the ungreased wheels were hot because they turned so hard that some of their caloric was squeezed out of them; and when the hammer came down hard on the iron, some of the caloric was squeezed out of that, and all the old philosophers say so; and if you want us to believe that Force is not burned in the fire, and blown off from the engine, and crushed under the wheels, but is turned into Heat, you must make us swallow the dictionary and the old philosophers first.”

“I see I must tell you a little story,” answered my Lord High Fiddlestick, gently. “As my friend Count Rumford and your friend Force were one day boring a cannon, Count Rumford tried to pick up some of the brass chips that Force had just cut off, and discovered that they were hotter than boiling water. Brass is not generally hotter than boiling water. Before we go farther, perhaps you will tell us, Mr. Traveller, what had happened to these chips.”

“Why, the boring had squeezed so much caloric fluid into these chips,” answered the traveller.

“Then, of course,” said my Lord High Fiddlestick, “if the brass chips held so much more heat-fluid than they ever held before, they must be altered in some way. If you are going to put, say, a quart of heat-fluid in chips that only held a pint before, you must alter your chips. But Count Rumford found, that the chips were not altered; that is, if you are right, Mr. Traveller, a pint could hold a quart; and he thought that was tougher to swallow than the old philosophers. So he took a hollow tube of brass, called a cylinder. In it he put a flat piece of hard steel. The steel was almost as large as the cylinder, so that it could just turn around the steel. He put the cylinder in a box filled with water. A horse was made to turn the cylinder round and round. The piece of steel rubbed hard all the time on the bottom of the brass cylinder. The brass grew warm, and the water grew warm. Count Rumford and a great many people stood watching it curiously. The cylinder turned and turned, all the time growing hotter. The water all the time grew hotter, too; and, at the end of two hours and a half, the water was so hot that it boiled. Now, Mr. Traveller, what makes water boil?”

“Heat,” answered the little man, sulkily.

“Well, there was no Heat here,” cried my Lord High Fiddlestick,—“only Force; and Force made the water boil. Own up, Mr. Traveller. It begins to look as if Heat and Force were the same person.”

“I shall not own anything of the sort,” answered the little man. “Pray, my Lord High Fiddlestick,” catching up the hammer and bringing it down hard on the iron, “how did Force turn into Heat then?”

“This iron,” said my Lord, “is made of what we call atoms,—tiny particles, too small to be seen separately.”

“Bosh!” snorted the traveller.

“These atoms,” said the Lord High Fiddlestick, “are held fast together by a liking they have for each other,—an attraction that we call cohesion. Force strikes this iron with the weight of the hammer. He jars the iron; he jars, he stirs, the atoms;—they can stir, although their band of cohesion holds them so close that they look as if they were stuck tight together. The hammer is down. You would say, Force is dead. I say, he has gone in among those atoms; he is carrying on the stir and jar from one atom to the other. “Stop!” says Cohesion, trying to hold them fast. “Go on!” cries Force. The atoms of iron cannot get away from one another, but they can move. Force makes them move and struggle. When you struggle, you get warm. When the atoms of iron struggle, they make what my friend, Lord Bacon, calls the fire and fury of Heat. They actually get farther away from each other; and this is why philosophers will tell you that heat makes a body larger. This hard, solid iron is actually a little larger than when it was cool, because the atoms have succeeded in getting farther from each other. Now, all the King’s horses, and all the King’s men, if you could set them to tug on each side of this little bit of iron, have not strength to do that. It required a great force, stronger than all the King’s horses and men. But who did pull the atoms? Heat. Then Heat is Force, or perhaps I should say motion; for, when we struck this iron with the hammer, and it became warmer, what had happened really? Why, the motion of the arm and hammer that struck it went in among the atoms of iron, and they moved and pulled a little away from each other. What we call Heat was really their motion; and so—”

“Stuff!” interrupted the traveller. “When a man comes down to atoms, he must be hard up for proofs.”

“Comes down to atoms!” exclaimed my Lord High Fiddlestick, opening a window. Outside, the sill was covered with fresh-fallen snow, which my Lord High Fiddlestick scraped up in his hands.

“Can anything be softer than this snow?” he asked. “Well, the pull and strain that brought the water-atoms together to make as much snow as I hold here would pitch a ton of stone over a precipice two thousand feet deep. Come down to atoms, indeed! Pray, let me show you a few of the things that atoms can do.”

“My Lord,” interrupted the King, in a hurry, “I observe that dinner is ready, and the beefsteak on the table. If the steak gets cold, according to your philosophy, it will grow smaller; and then, perhaps, there will not be enough to go round. Let us go to dinner, and hear what the atoms can do another time, my Lord High Fiddlestick!”

Louise E. Chollet.

Do you know Mother Nature? She it is to whom God has given the care of the earth, and all that grows in or upon it, just as he has given to your mother the care of her family of boys and girls.

You may think that Mother Nature, like the famous “old woman who lived in the shoe,” has so many children that she doesn’t know what to do; but you will know better when you become acquainted with her, and learn how strong she is, and how active; how she can really be in fifty places at once, taking care of a sick tree, or a baby flower just born; and, at the same time, building underground palaces, guiding the steps of little travellers setting out on long journeys, and sweeping, dusting, and arranging her great house, the earth. And all the while, in the midst of her patient and never-ending work, she will tell us the most charming and marvellous stories,—of ages ago when she was young, or of the treasures that lie hidden in the most distant and secret closets of her palace,—just such stories as you all like so well to hear your mother tell, when you gather round her in the twilight.

A few of these stories which she has told to me, I am about to tell you, beginning with that one whose title is printed at the beginning of this article.

I know a little Scotch girl, she lives among the Highlands. Her home is hardly more than a hut; her food, broth and bread. Her father keeps sheep on the hillsides, and, instead of wearing a coat, wraps himself in his plaid for protection from the cold winds that drive before them great clouds of mist and snow among the mountains.

As for Jeanie herself (you must be careful to spell her name with an ea, for that is Scotch fashion), her yellow hair is bound about with a little snood; her face is browned by exposure to the weather; and her hands are hardened by work,—for she helps her mother to cook and sew, to spin and weave.

One treasure little Jeanie has, which many a lady would be proud to wear. It is a necklace of amber beads,—“lamour beads,” old Elsie calls them; that is the name they went by when she was young.

You have perhaps seen amber, and know its rich, sunshiny color, and its fragrance when rubbed; and do you also know that rubbing will make amber attract things somewhat as a magnet does? Jeanie’s beads had all these properties, but some others besides, wonderful and lovely; and it is of those particularly that I wish to tell you. Each bead has inside of it some tiny thing, encased as if it had grown in the amber, and Jeanie is never tired of looking at and wondering about them. Here is one with a delicate bit of ferny moss shut up, as it were, in a globe of yellow light. In another is the tiniest fly, his little wings outspread and raised for flight. Again, she can show us a bee lodged in one bead that looks like solid honey, and a little bright-winged beetle in another. This one holds two slender pine needles lying across each other, and here we see a single scale of a pine cone, while yet another shows an atom of an acorn-cup, fit for a fairy’s use. I wish you could see the beads, for I cannot tell you the half of their beauty. Now, where do you suppose they came from; and how did little Scotch Jeanie come into possession of such a treasure?

All she knows about it is, that her grandfather, old Kenneth, who cowers now all day in the chimney-corner, once, years ago, when he was a young lad, went down upon the sea-shore, after a great storm, hoping to help save something from the wreck of the “Goshawk,” that had gone ashore during the night; and there, among the slippery sea-weeds, his foot had accidentally uncovered a clear, shining lump of amber, in which all these little creatures were embedded. Now, Kenneth loved a pretty Highland lass, and, when she promised to be his bride, he brought her a necklace of amber beads. He had carved them himself out of his lump of amber, working carefully to save in each bead the prettiest insect or moss; and thinking, while he toiled hour after hour, of the delight with which he should see his bride wear them. That bride was Jeanie’s grandmother; and when she died last year, she said, “Let little Jeanie have my lamour beads, and keep them as long as she lives.”

But what puzzled Jeanie was, how the amber came to be on the sea-shore; and, most of all, how the bees and mosses came inside of it. Should you like to know? If you would, that is one of Mother Nature’s stories, and she will gladly tell it. Hear what she answers to our questions:—

“I remember a time, long, long before you were born,—long, even, before any men were living upon the earth; then these Scotch Highlands, as you call them, where little Jeanie lives, were covered with forests,—there were oaks, poplars, beeches, and pines; and among them one kind of pine, tall and stately, from which a shining yellow gum flowed, just as you have seen little drops of sticky gum exude from our own pine-trees. This beautiful yellow gum was fragrant, and, as the thousands of little insects fluttered about it in the warm sunshine, they were attracted by its pleasant odor,—perhaps, too, by its taste,—and, once alighted upon it, they stuck fast, and could not get away, while the great yellow drops, oozing out, surrounded and at last covered them entirely. So, too, wind-blown bits of moss, leaves, acorns, cones, and little sticks, were soon securely embedded in the fast-flowing gum; and, as time went by, it hardened and hardened more and more. And this is amber.”

“That is well told, Mother Nature, but it does not explain how Kenneth’s lump of amber came to be on the sea-shore.”

“Wait, then, for the second part of the story.

“Did you ever hear that, in those very old times, the land sometimes sank down into the sea, even so deep that the water covered the very mountain-tops; and then, after ages, it was slowly lifted up again, to sink indeed, perhaps, yet again and again?

“You can hardly believe it, yet I myself was there to see, and I remember well when the great forests of the north of Scotland—the oaks, the poplars, and the amber-pines—were lowered into the deep sea. There, lying at the bottom of the ocean, the wood and the gum hardened like stone, and only the great storms can disturb them as they lie half buried in the sand. It was one of those great storms that brought Kenneth’s lump of amber to land.”

If we could only walk on the bottom of the sea, what treasures we might find!

Author of “The Seven Little Sisters.”

There was to be a picnic at the Grove, to which all the young folks in the Vale were going.

“There’ll be music by the band, and dancing on the green, and swinging in the swings under the trees; we’re to carry our own luncheons, and have such a nice time!” said Emma Reverdy. “And you must certainly go, Father Brighthopes! We can’t do without you. We are going over early in the morning, to be gone all day.”

“All day!” repeated the old clergyman, pleasantly. “You forget, my child, that I am no longer young. Much as I love the company of children, I fear I should become very weary before night.”

“I have thought of that too,” cried Emma; “and I’ll tell you what we can do. If you don’t like to go over when the teams go, we can go in the boat, and I am sure that will be a great deal pleasanter. The picnic is to be just across the river from Mr. Dobson’s farm; there is a good boat at the Grove, and some of the boys can bring it over to the bend for us. That will save you a long ride around the dusty roads and over the old bridge. That’s the way a lot of us went last year, and it was so nice!”

“Well, we will wait till the day comes, and then see what arrangements have been made, and what the weather is,” said Father Brighthopes, in a way that signified to the delighted Emma that he would go.

She was up early on the morning of the picnic, to see what the weather promised; and her heart sang within her as joyously as the birds sang in the dewy orchard, when she saw the sky clear and blue, and felt the cool breezes on her cheek.

“O, it’s such a day for a picnic!” she said, running to meet Father Brighthopes as he came from his room. “The boat is coming for us at eleven o’clock; and you are to be brought back the same way, just when you please. You are not to get tired at all, you know.”

“Who is to bring the boat?”

“Jason Jones and Burt Thorley; they jumped at the chance, when I asked them.”

“At eleven o’clock?”

“Yes; they are to be at the bend, waiting for us.”

“Well,” said Father Brighthopes, “we mustn’t disappoint them after they have taken so much trouble, nor keep them waiting long.”

It was but a short walk to the bend, and prompt at the appointed hour Emma and her old friend were on the spot. The boat had not come; but they found seated under a willow-tree on the shore Miss Thorley and a number of her pupils, some of whom had been waiting there an hour,—Burt and Jason having agreed to take them to the Grove at ten, and then come back for Father Brighthopes.

“Now if this isn’t mean!” exclaimed Emma. “Father Brighthopes was so particular not to keep them waiting, and now he has got to wait for them!”

“Don’t be too eager to blame them,” said the old clergyman, “for we do not know by what accident they may have been detained. Perhaps they could not get the boat.”

“O yes, they could!” cried Kate Orley. “They have gone down the river with it already. Laura and I were the first ones here, and we saw them. It was before the time; and they asked if Miss Thorley had come, and when I said no, they said they were going to have a little fun, and they would be back in a few minutes. That was over an hour ago, and we haven’t seen anything of them since.”

“O, I’m as vexed as I can be!” and Emma wrung her hands, while she stood on the bank and strained her eyes to catch a glimpse of the returning boat. “If I don’t give it to those boys when they do come! The idea of treating Father Brighthopes in this way! After their promise to me, too, repeated over and over!”

“My child, my dear Emma,” said the old clergyman, in gentle, persuasive tones, “are we to be vexed at such a trifle as this? Have we forgotten all our good resolutions? I am contented to wait here under this shady tree. Come, let us all sit on the ground, and—what shall we do, Grant? for I see you have an idea.”

“I think it’s a good chance to practise one of your lessons, sir,” said Grant, who had just arrived, having been to town that morning, and got leave of absence from his employers. “If a thing can’t be helped, we must make the best of it.”

The bright and cheerful way in which he said this delighted the old clergyman, and put everybody in good humor except Emma, who was covered with shame and blushes.

“How silly it was in me to get out of patience! I hope you can forgive me,” throwing herself on the grass by her old friend’s side.

“Most sincerely, my child, since it was not on your own account, but for my sake, that you so wished the boat was here.” And he stroked her hair.

“Yes, but it was partly on my own account,—for my own credit,” Emma frankly confessed. “It was I that made the arrangement, and brought you here, and I felt a pride in having everything go off nicely, and it seemed to me that I was somehow to blame if anything went wrong. But I don’t care now. We’ll make the best of it, as Grant says. And the way to do that is for us all to be as happy as we can, and sit around while you talk to us a little.”

“The tide is turning,” said Grant, watching the river. “If they don’t come up with the boat pretty soon, they’ll find it hard rowing against the current. I tried it once.”

“Fortunately we have our baskets with us, and, if they don’t come,” said Miss Thorley, “we can have a little picnic of our own here under the tree.”

“And I am sure,” Father Brighthopes added, “we shall all learn another useful lesson from this circumstance, and so have occasion, perhaps, to be thankful that it occurred.

“If Grant had not reminded us that we were to make the best of things, we might have found it very unpleasant to be kept waiting here. And what if we had urgent business, and could not afford to lose the time? We can imagine a hundred circumstances which would make our situation extremely disagreeable. And you cannot live many years in the world, my children, without seeing how much suffering is occasioned by the failure of people to keep their appointments.

“I talked to you lately about politeness; and I might have told you that there is no greater impoliteness than this. A friend sends you word that he is coming to visit you. Your heart beats with joyous expectation, as you prepare a welcome for him. Perhaps you had other plans in view for that day, but you postpone them for his sake. You were going away, maybe, but you will stay at home gladly to receive him. You stay at home; you watch the clock and the gate, how anxiously! all the forenoon and half the afternoon; and then what bitterness of disappointment succeeds to your happy anticipations, if the friend who raised your hopes and gave you so much trouble does not come.”

“What if he couldn’t?” said Emma. “What if some accident happened to prevent him from coming, when it was too late to send you word?”

“Why, then, nobody will be so ready to excuse him as you, my dear child, and to regret that you for a moment felt vexed with him. But if, when you next see him, he says, carelessly, ‘O, that day? did you expect me? I quite forgot about it; I couldn’t come very well; I thought of something else I had to do,’—the fact being that some other pleasure drew him away,—what, then, do you think of that person’s friendship?”

“I know just such people, and I hate to have anything to do with them,” cried Emma.

“There was a man going to hire me once,” said Grant, “and he kept me running to his office to see him, telling me that such and such a day he would be ready to talk with me and decide; but he was never ready; and he made me lose more time, and wear out more shoe-leather, than the place was worth,—thinking, I suppose, that a poor boy’s time and trouble were of no consequence.”

“I hope you made a good thing out of it in the end, my son. You saw how wrong it was to trifle with people in this way, and resolved, I hope, never to injure another as that selfish, thoughtless man injured you.

“O my children, we must be thoughtful of others, and do to them as we would have them do to us. It is for our own interest to do so; for no person ever got on well in life, and acquired solid prosperity and happiness and friends, who kept his promises only when he found it convenient to keep them. Many a lad is set on the high-road to fortune by his conscientious punctuality in all matters of business and friendship; and many another with fine talents, but lacking this golden trait, has found life but a succession of disappointments and failures. For how can one who is untrustworthy expect to be trusted? And after you have lightly broken your word, how can you hope that others will value it?

“But, my children, you are not to keep your engagements merely because it is for your interest to do so. That is a base motive. But let the love of truth, and a sincere regard for the welfare and rights of others, inspire all your actions. Then you can never do wrong; then, my dear young friends, you will have within yourselves that integrity of heart and peace of mind which are of more value to the possessor than all the honors and riches the world can give.”

At this moment a frantic-looking creature, with loosened hair and dress, came running towards the willow-tree from the road. It was Mrs. Thorley in search of her son,—that excellent woman having just heard from a passer-by that he was lost in the river.

“O, he is drowned! he is drowned!” she exclaimed, rushing to the water’s edge. “Why don’t somebody go?—why don’t you drag the river?”

Father Brighthopes endeavored to pacify her. Just then music was heard over the water.

“That’s the band playing at the Grove!” cried Laura Follet. “The dancing will all be over before we ever get there. Why didn’t we go in wagons?”

“That dreadful boat! that dreadful boat!” said Mrs. Thorley. “How cruel to send my poor boy off in it!”—for she could never think that any blame attached to her son.

Grant whispered to Emma that he was going down the river to look for the missing boys, and slipped away. We will also take advantage of the interruption to learn, if possible, what had become of them.

On arriving at the Grove, Burt and Jason ran at once for the boat. They were far more eager, I am sorry to say, to have a little sport on the water, than they were to bring Father Brighthopes and his companions to the picnic. They rowed down to the bend in high glee, and were delighted to learn that Miss Thorley was not there.

“We’ll just have time,” Burt said, “to go down to Fenno’s flats and get some cat-o’-nine-tails.”

It was high tide then. A gentle current was running up the river, however, and they had to row against it.

“It will be all the easier rowing back,” said Jason.

On reaching the flats where the flags grew, Burt said, “How funny it is this water is never salt! The tide comes up from the sea, don’t it?”

“Yes,” replied Jason; “but the fresh water of the river is always running, and when the tide comes in it pushes back the fresh water, and, before the salt water gets up as far as here, the tide turns again.”

“Wouldn’t it be splendid to go down till we find the line where the salt and fresh water meet?” said Burt. “Let’s try it; we’ll leave the cat-o’nine-tails till we come back.”

“But Miss Thorley and the first boat-load will be waiting for us.”

“Who cares? Let ’em wait! She’s my aunt, and I don’t mind her. We’ll be back, anyway, in time for the old minister; then we can take ’em all over at one load. Ha! there ain’t no current now,”—Burt always said ain’t no,—“and the water is just as smooth!”

Jason thought that, if Burt was willing to take the responsibility of keeping his aunt waiting, there was nothing more to be said. So the two boys rowed and rowed, stopping only to taste the water now and then, to see if they had found salt.

“We must go back now,” said Jason, at length; “for the old minister will be there by the time we shall.”

“ ’Twon’t hurt him none to wait a little, if we ain’t there,” replied Burt, dipping his fingers in the stream. “He’ll want to rest after his walk. The salt water can’t be much further, and I’m bound to strike it. It’s such easy rowing now!”

“I should say easy!” cried Jason. “Look! the current is running the other way!”

Burt stoutly denied this assertion; but by resting on their oars, and watching the drooping grass on the water’s edge, and the floating bubbles and specks, they discovered that the tide had not only turned, but that it was already flowing fast towards the sea.

“There ain’t no salt-water line!” then said Burt. “Come to think, the salt and fresh water would mix, so a fellow couldn’t tell where one begun and where the other left off. I believe the water is some salt now!” tasting again. “Well, we’ve done what we set out to, and now we’ll go back like greased lightning.”

Having thus flattered his pride with the idea that they had accomplished their object, he pulled the boat around, while Jason backed water, and then began to row with all his might up the stream.

“This ain’t very much like greased lightning, though!” remarked Jason. “Anyhow, ’tain’t my idea of greased lightning.”

“What! don’t you see how we cut through the water?”

“We go through the water pretty fast, but we move by the shores slow enough.”

“That’s ’cause the tide is running so. Who’d ever have thought it would turn so quick? Hold on!” cried Burt; “you’re pulling too hard for me! Don’t you see we’re going right in shore?”

“There’s less current near the shore,” said Jason. “But you’re a smart one, to let my rowing pull you around!”

“ ’Tain’t you, it’s the current!” grumbled Burt, growing angry.

“Why don’t the current swing me around?” retorted Jason.

“By sixty, it shall!” almost screamed his companion, red with rage and rowing.

Then the boys began to pull against each other furiously, so that the boat went from right to left, as one or the other got the advantage, making a wake like the sea-serpent’s. Thus they wasted a great deal of strength, besides losing their tempers. Twice they ran aground, and finally Burt broke a thole-pin. The oar came suddenly against his breast, and he fell over backwards into the bow of the boat.

“O, my shoulder! I’ve broke my shoulder!” he cried out.

“You’re always killed if you get the least mite hurt! What did you break that thole-pin for? I wouldn’t touch a boat if I didn’t know better how to row.”

At this taunt, Burt was so much enraged, that, standing up in the boat, and lifting his oar, he would have struck Jason on the head with it, if the latter had not thrown up his own oar to catch the blow. During this altercation, the boat was, of course, going swiftly down with the tide.

“Come!” said Jason; “ ’stead of picking a quarrel with me, you’d better be whittling down the broken end of that thole-pin.”

“I won’t, if we drift out to sea!” And Burt began to cry.

“Great baby!” said Jason.

He mended the thole-pin, and then pulled both oars, keeping near the shore, and making very slow progress indeed until they reached the bridge, under which the compressed current was rushing at a furious rate.

“There’s no use of my trying to row up there without you’ll help me,” said Jason.

“Ye ain’t quite so smart as ye thought ye was!” muttered Burt; and he sullenly took one of the oars.

But even with their united strength they were unable to make headway against the swift and dangerous flood, which seized the boat the moment it approached the narrow channel under the bridge, and hurled it back, and whirled it around, and swept it again and again down the stream.

“Hello!” said a voice from the bridge, after they had quite given up in despair. “What are you doing there?”

The speaker was Grant Eastman. Seeing the difficulty of their situation, he ran to a fisherman’s house near by, and borrowed a long rope, which he dropped into the water from the upper side of the bridge, holding one end, while the other floated down to the boys below. Holding on by this they pulled the boat up through the torrent, and so passed the bridge. The river was wider and smoother above; and Grant, having returned the borrowed rope, took both oars, and rowed back up to the bend.

“Go ashore, boys!” he said, as he landed. “You’ve had your turn, and now I’m master of this boat. Go and comfort your mother, Burt.”

The truants obeyed grumblingly; and Grant, taking on board first Father Brighthopes, then Miss Thorley, and finally all the young people except Burt and Jason,—there was no room for them, he said; he would come back for them,—rowed across the river, and up the little creek which led to the landing by the Grove.

J. T. Trowbridge.

A little sunbeam was out one day, looking for some work to do; for, although sunbeams seem to laugh and play all the time, they manage to accomplish a great deal of labor, and they do it so pleasantly that it looks to others, and seems to themselves, only play.

It discovered, upon a small mulberry-tree that grew upon the lawn at some distance from the house, some caterpillars’ eggs, small and silvery white. They looked, indeed, as if some fanciful fairy had commenced a piece of delicate embroidery which she had forgotten to finish. But, if the fairy had forgotten them, God had not. The little warm sunbeam wrapped them in its golden mantle, and the gentle breezes fondled them with their invisible arms, and the soft dew and rain drops kept them clean and moist.

They well repaid this care, for each tiny egg, no larger than the smallest glass beads with which you decorate your dolls, swelled and burst, and out crawled a tiny black worm, and began to eat voraciously its cradle walls, for want of something better. I really do not think that if it had hunted for a week it could have found nicer food; for you must remember that a worm is not like a little boy or girl, and if you had given it bread and milk, or even cake, I am quite sure it would have turned up its nose—if it had a nose—at you, and gone on quietly munching its cradle. Tastes differ, you know.

Do you think that the pretty sunbeam, when it saw the delicate egg hatch into a squirming, black, hungry worm, tore off its golden mantle, and that the perfumed breezes screamed, and stopped rocking the green cradle, and ran away to get out of sight of the little reptile? No such thing! The sunbeam drew her mantle more lovingly over it, and kissed it with her warm lips, and the sisterly breezes stole softly up to peep at it, and gently swing its cradle; for, although it must be confessed that it was not very handsome, it was still a perfect little worm, very good of its kind, and just what the dear Father in heaven intended it should be. The little worm was satisfied also. It was kept warm by the sunbeam, and found plenty of food if it could ever have eaten enough; but it ate and ate, and still was hungry, and ate again, until the green leaf was all eaten up but the bones,—nothing left but a dry skeleton. Then the worm, which had grown larger and stronger, squirmed, and wriggled, and crawled off to another fresh leaf, and there commenced his dinner, as hungry as if he had not already eaten up his cradle and his house.

In a few days he made a pause,—seemed to stop to consider for a few moments what in the world to do, for he found his little black coat quite too small for his increased dimensions, and it would not answer to eat any more.

So he stopped and reflected awhile, and then commenced a singular squirming and wriggling, and lo! his black coat had burst open upon the back, and he wriggled out of it, and appeared to his friends, the sunbeam and breezes, in a fine new suit of dark gray.

He could not stop long to be admired, for the new suit was larger, and he found himself as hungry as ever, so fell to eating again.

He was now quite a large worm, and kept his face clean all the time, without the help of the rain-drops, who thought it was their especial business, and ate faster and seemed to enjoy his dinner better than ever before.

The gray worm was next destined to receive a new idea. To this time it had only thought of comfort; but one day a gay dandy of a fly came along, with a bright green body and shining, silken wings, and he called to see what was moving upon the little mulberry-tree. “Pooh! nothing but worms,”—and away he sailed to find companions more in harmony with his own aërial life.

The caterpillar raised his head from the leaf for the first time, and gazed with wonder, admiration, and longing after the beautiful fly that looked to his eyes like an angel, and repeated his words, “Nothing but worms!” and sighed as he saw his dark gray coat and looked upon his squirming companions. “True, we are nothing but worms. We were made to be nothing but worms, and it is not well to grieve over that which we cannot help, but try and be as good worms as we can.” So he commenced squirming again, and, by and by, crack! went his dark gray coat with a terrible rent in the back; and when he wriggled out of it to see what was the matter, lo! there was another new suit of clothes ready made to his form, still a little lighter, prettier, and larger than the other.

The good worm was very thankful, and not a little surprised, but at the same time extremely hungry; so he again commenced eating with all his strength. Thus passed his life. A bird came one day, and ate and carried away several of his companions, but this did not trouble him. He admired the bird and its swift flight with a patient longing, and then turned contentedly to his green dinner again.

Then a spry, noisy cricket came to make a call, and made him jump with nervous fright every time he spoke, his voice was so shrill. He was a little saucy too, and swung himself about in a lordly manner, and talked in a very contemptuous tone about poor, crawling worms, and pitied them, and wished they could have had a happier lot.

The caterpillar wished so too, in his patient way; for he was very humble, and did not know it was not at all polite in the cricket to speak in that manner; but when he was gone his face brightened, and he felt more cheerful, and softly admitted to himself that it was not altogether pleasant to have visitors that felt above his own rank in life.

Then some little girls came along, that were searching for flowers,—little, rosy, bright-eyed darlings like the little ones that read this story. They were afraid of the poor caterpillar, and wanted to poke him with a stick, only they dared not, and called him a horrid old thing, and wished he was dead. The poor caterpillar felt sorry and more humble than ever, although he could not think what he had done to deserve such treatment.

He had lived just as God made him to live, and had always been good and humble.

I think he would have been very sad, if the good little sunbeam had not come and kissed and caressed him, and cured his little aching heart, for there is nothing like love to cure heart troubles. Note that down, little ones; and where you see a poor, forlorn, crying child, be like the kind sunbeam, and find some work to do there in loving and curing the little aching heart or finger, as the case may be. Love is better than salves or plasters.

At last, one day, a troop of yellow butterflies came hovering past on silken wings, looking like second cousins to the sunbeams.

They did not notice the caterpillar, and indeed he did not expect such condescension; but he could not help gazing at them, while a longing greater than he could contain seized him to join those beautiful creatures. But this he could not do, and he felt sad, and almost despised his low condition. He had been as a worm as perfect as worm could be, but the glimpses he had obtained of a higher and nobler life had quite disgusted him with his present state of existence. His ravenous hunger ceased, and he felt that he must die.

He spun a silken cord, making it as strong as he could, and fastened one end around his body, and attached the other to the under side of the leaf; and, gazing in the direction in which the beautiful pageant had disappeared, he swung himself off into the air, determined in death, if not in life, to float in the atmosphere.

Here he swung for eight days in a languid, dreamy state, warmed by the sunbeam and rocked by the breezes, unconscious of the lapse of time or of his own individual existence. But at the end of that period a crack in his light gray coat aroused him, and the sunbeam sparkled and laughed for joy, and performed with the zephyr a merry dance, in which the caterpillar unconsciously joined, being carried in the arms of the frolicsome zephyr before he had fairly got his sleepy eyes open. And when he had got wide awake, so that he could look around to see what the fuss was about, what do you think he saw the very first thing? Four beautiful golden wings, so much like the friendly sunbeam, bordered with black, dotted with yellow, and covered with the tiniest and most elegant feathers, but so small, of course, that you could not see them. And they were his own! He could move them slowly back and forth, but could yet scarcely believe the evidence of his senses.

No wonder the sunbeam laughed and the breezes danced to witness the joyful surprise of the little sylph; for they had known of his sorrow, and had pitied and loved him in his humility. And now he had found his reward, and the sunbeam sparkled and shone upon him, and the breezes gently fanned him to dry his beautiful wings and teach him to use them; and it was not many minutes before he was floating off to play with them and the little troop of brother and sister butterflies that had been transformed around him by the aid of other sunbeams and other breezes. No more munching mulberry-leaves on a single bush, but sipping honey-dew from the cups of a thousand lovely flowers; floating up towards the soft clouds above the tallest trees, and fully realizing the bliss of an aërial existence!

Mrs. O. D. Miller.

Guy Morgan came in with rapid step and an impetuous manner. His mother looked up from her work. There was a round red spot in each cheek, and an ominous glitter in his eyes. She knew the signs. That naturally fierce temper of his had been stirred in some way to a heat that had kindled his whole nature. He threw down his cap, threw himself on an ottoman at her feet, and then he said, with a little of the heat of his temper in his tone, “Never say, after this, that I don’t love you, mother.”

“I think I never did say so,” she answered, gently, as she passed her hand over the tawny locks, and brushed them away from the flushed brow. “But what special thing have you done to prove your love for me just now?”

“Taken a blow without returning it.”

She bent over and kissed him where he sat. He was fifteen years old, a great, tall fellow, with muscles like steel; but he had not grown above liking his mother’s kisses. Then she said, softly, “Tell me all about it, Guy.”

“O, it was Dick Osgood. You know what a mean, bullying fellow he is anyhow. He had been tormenting some of the younger boys,—nagging them till I couldn’t stand it. They are every one afraid for their lives where he is. I told him he ought to be ashamed of himself, and tried to make him leave off, till, after a while, I s’pose he got stirred up, for he turned from them, and coming to me he struck me in the face. I believe the mark of his claws is there now”; and he turned toward her the other cheek, which he had kept carefully away from her up to this time. She saw the marks clearly, and she trembled herself with sympathy and secret indignation.

“Well,” she said, “and you—what did you do?”

“I remembered what I had promised you for this year, and I took it,—think of it, mother,—took it, and never touched him. I just looked into his eyes, and said, ‘If I should strike you back, I should lower myself to your level.’ He laughed a great scornful horse-laugh, and said he, ‘You hear, boys, Morgan’s turned preacher. You’d better wait, sir, before you lecture me on my behavior to the little ones, till you have pluck enough to defend them. I’ve heard about the last impudence I shall take from a coward like you.’ The boys laughed, and some of them said, ‘Good for you, Osgood!’ and I came home. I had done it for the sake of my promise to you; for I’m stronger than he is any day; and you know, mother, whether there’s a drop of coward blood in my veins. I thought you were the one to comfort me; though it isn’t comfort I want so much either. I just want you to release me from that promise, and let me go back and thrash him.”

Mrs. Morgan’s heart thrilled with silent thanksgiving. Her boy’s temper had been her greatest grief. His father was dead, and she had brought him up alone, and sometimes she was afraid her too great tenderness had spoiled him. She had tried in vain to curb his passionate nature. It was a power which no bands could bind. She had concluded, at last, that the only hope was in enlisting his own powerful will, and making him resolve to conquer himself. Now, she thought, he had shown himself capable of self-control. In the midst of his rage he had remembered his pledge to her, and kept it. He would yet be his own master,—this brave boy of hers,—and the kingdom of his mind would be a goodly sovereignty.

“Better heap coals of fire on his head,” she said, quietly.

“Yes, he deserves a good scorching,”—pretending perversely to misunderstand her,—“but I should not have thought you would have been so vindictive.”

“You know well enough what kind of coals I meant, and who it was that said, ‘If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink.’ I cannot release you from your promise until the year for which you made it is over. I think the Master who told us to render good for evil understood all the wants and passions of humanity better than any other teacher has ever understood them. I am sure that what he said must be wise, and right, and best. I want you to try his way first. If that fails, there will be time enough after this year to make a different experiment.”

“Well, I promised you,” he said, “and I’ll show you that, at least, I’m strong enough to keep my word until you release me from it. I think, though, you don’t quite know how tough it is.”

Mrs. Morgan thought she did know just about how “tough” it was to boy nature to be called a coward; but she knew, also, that the truest bravery on earth is the bravery of endurance.

“Look out for the coals of fire,” she said, smilingly, as her boy started off for school the next morning. “Keep a good watch, and I’m pretty sure you’ll find them before the summer is over.”

But he came home that night depressed and a little gloomy. He felt as if his prestige were gone. There had always been a sort of rivalry between him and Dick Osgood, and now the boys seemed to have gone over to the stronger side, and he had that feeling of humiliation and disgrace which is as bitter to a boy as the sense of defeat ever is to a man.

The weeks went on, and the feeling wore away a little. Still that blow, unavenged and unatoned, rankled in Guy’s mind, and made him unsocial and ill at ease. His mother watched him with some anxiety, but she did not interfere. She had the true wisdom to leave him to learn some of the lessons of life alone.

At length came the last day of school, succeeded next day by a picnic, in which all the scholars were to join, superintended by their teachers. Guy Morgan hesitated a little, then concluded to go. The place selected was a lovely spot, known in all the neighborhood as “the old mill.” It was on the banks of the Quassit River, where the stream ran fast, and the grass on its brink was green, and great trees with drooping boughs shut away the garish July sunlight.

Among the rest were Dick Osgood and his little sister Hetty,—the one human being whom he seemed really and tenderly to love. The teachers’ eyes were on him for this one day, and he neither ventured to insult the older scholars or bully the little ones. He and Guy kept apart as much as they conveniently could; and Guy entered into the spirit of the day, and really enjoyed it more than he had enjoyed anything for the past two months.

Dinner was spread on the grass, and nothing taken at home on civilized black walnut, and from regulation dishes, was ever tasted with half the zest which went to the enjoyment of these viands, eaten with pewter spoons out of crockery of every hue and kind. They had enjoyed themselves like boys and girls, and like nothing else; for that full, hearty capacity for enjoyment is one of the things which youth takes away when it goes “with flying feet,” and “which never come again.”

They made dinner last as long as they could, and then they scattered here and there,—some swinging in hammocks, some lounging on the grass, and a group standing on the bridge a few rods above the falls, and playing at fishing. Among these latter were Dick Osgood and his sister. Guy Morgan was at a little distance with one of the teachers, pulling to pieces a curious flower, and talking botany. Suddenly a wild, wild cry rose above the sultry stillness of the summer afternoon and the hum of quiet voices round,—Dick Osgood’s cry: “She’s in, boys! Hetty’s in the river, and I can’t swim. O, save her, save her!—will no one try?”

Before the words were out of his lips, they all saw Guy Morgan coming on with flying feet,—a race for life. He unbuttoned coat and vest as he ran, and cast them off as he neared the bridge. He kicked off his summer shoes, and threw himself over. They heard him strike the water. He went under, rose again, and then struck out toward the golden head which rose just then for the second time. Every one who stood there lived moments which seemed like hours.

The boys and Mr. Sharp, the teacher with whom Guy had been talking, got a strong rope, and, running down the stream, threw it out on the water just above the falls, where Guy could reach it if he could get so near the shore—if. The water was very deep where Hetty had fallen in, and the river ran fast, fast. It was sweeping the poor child on, and Dick Osgood threw himself upon the bridge, and sobbed and screamed like one gone mad. When she rose the third time, she was near the falls. A moment more and she would go over, down on the jagged, cruel rocks beneath. But that third time Guy Morgan caught her,—caught her by her long, glistening, golden hair. Mr. Sharp shouted to him. He saw the rope and swam towards it, his strong right arm beating the water back with hammer-strokes; his left motionless, holding his white burden.

“O God!” Mr. Sharp prayed, fervently, “keep him up, spare his strength a little longer,—a little longer!”

A moment more and he reached the rope, clung to it desperately, and boys and teacher drew the two in over the slippery edge, out of the horrible seething waters, and took them in their arms, both silent, both motionless. Mr. Sharp spoke Guy’s name, but he did not answer. Would either of them ever answer again?

Teachers and scholars went to work alike for their restoration. It was well there was intelligent guidance, or their best endeavors might have failed. Guy, being the stronger, was the first to revive.

“Is Hetty safe?” was his anxious question.

“Only God knows,” Mr. Sharp answered, solemnly. “We are doing our best.”

It was almost half an hour more before pretty Hetty opened her blue eyes. Meantime Dick had been utterly frantic and helpless. He had sobbed, and groaned, and cried, and prayed even, in a wild, incomprehensible fashion of his own, which perhaps the pitying Father, who forgets no sparrow even, understood and answered. When he heard his sister’s voice, he was like one beside himself with joy, until Mr. Sharp quieted him by a few low, firm words, which were audible to no one else.

Some of the larger girls arranged one of the wagons, and, getting into it, received Hetty in their arms.

Mr. Sharp drove Guy Morgan home. When they reached his mother’s gate, Guy insisted on going in alone. He thought it might alarm her to see some one helping him; besides, he wanted her a few moments quite to himself. So Mr. Sharp drove away, and Guy went in. His mother saw him coming, and opened the door.

“Where have you been?” she cried, seeing his wet, disordered plight.

“In Quassit River, mother, fishing out Hetty Osgood.”

Then, while she was busying herself in preparations for his comfort, he quietly told his story. His mother’s eyes were dim, and her heart throbbed chokingly.

“O, if you had been drowned, my boy, my darling!” she cried, hugging him close, wet as he was, as if she would hold him back from all dangers forever. “If I had been there, Guy, I couldn’t have let you do it.”

“I went in after the coals of fire, mother.”

Mrs. Morgan knew how to laugh with her boy, as well as how to cry over him. “I’ve heard of people smart enough to set the river on fire,” she said, “but you are the first one I ever knew who went in there after the coals.”

The next morning came a delegation of the boys, with Dick Osgood at their head. Every one was there who had seen the blow which Dick struck, and heard his taunts afterwards. They came into the sitting-room, and said their say to Guy before his mother. Dick was spokesman.

“I have come,” he said, “to ask you to forgive me. I struck you a mean, unjustifiable blow. You received it with noble contempt. To provoke you into fighting, I called you a coward, meaning to bring you down by some means to my own level. You bore that, too, with a greatness I was not great enough to understand. I do understand it now. I have seen you—all we boys have seen you—face to face with Death, and seen that you weren’t afraid of him. You fought with him and came off ahead; and we all are come to do honor to the bravest boy in town, and I to thank you for a life a great deal dearer and better worth saving than my own.”

Dick broke down just there, for the tears choked him.

Guy was as grand in his forgiveness as he had been in his forbearance.

Hetty and her father and mother came afterwards, and Guy found himself made a hero of before he knew it. But none of it all moved him as did his mother’s few fond words, and the pride in her joyful eyes. He had kept, with honor and with patience, his pledge to her, and he had his reward. The Master’s way of peace had not misled him.

Louise Chandler Moulton.

XIV.

“We had completed our sledge a second time, and were about giving it a second trial, when we were startled by a loud noise; and there, down upon the sea, coming round the nearest point of the island, were five savages on five sledges, with five trains of dogs. ‘At last,’ thought we, ‘our time has come. We will be murdered now for certain, and then eaten up by the dogs afterwards.’

“ ‘O!’ exclaimed the Dean, ‘if our poor mothers only knew where we were!’

“Dangerous as appeared to be our situation, I could still not help asking the Dean whether he did not think it would be quite as much to the purpose if we only knew where we were ourselves,—to which, however, he made no reply, for the savages were close upon us. Seizing our weapons, we prepared to defend ourselves, since there was no use trying to run away, as the dogs would be atop of us before we could reach the hut.

“But there was not the least use of our being so much alarmed, for the savages soon convinced us that they meant no harm. They would not let their dogs come near us, but kept them off, and, stopping, tied them fast. Then, without any weapons in their hands, they came up to us in a most friendly manner, all yeh, yeh-ing at a terrible rate. So we took the five of them right off up to the hut, and now our fears were turned into rejoicing, and thus in an instant had Providence turned our sorrow into joy.

“Our savage visitors proved to be all just as singular-looking creatures, and were as curious about us and about everything we had, as Eatum had been. Their faces were on a broad grin all the time.

“Having learned something of their language from Eatum, as I told you before, we contrived to make them understand, with the aid of a great many signs, how the ship had been wrecked, and how we got first to the ice and then to the land,—for this they were most curious about,—and they were greatly puzzled to know how we came to be there at all. After this they treated us quite affectionately, patting us on the back, and exclaiming, ‘Tyna, tyna,’ which we knew to mean ‘Good, good,’ as Eatum had told us. Then Eatum wanted to show himself off in our language, and, pointing to us, he said, ‘Hunter plenty good, plenty eat get. All same,’ (pointing to himself by way of illustration, and thus finishing it,) ‘tyna? yeh, yeh, yeh!’ which was the way he had of laughing, as I told you before, and all the rest ‘yeh, yeh-ed’ just like him. One of them we called at once ‘Old Grim,’ because he ‘yeh, yeh-ed’ with his insides; but no laugh ever showed itself in his face. After their curiosity was satisfied, they imitated Eatum, and began to call loudly, ‘drinkum’ and then ‘eatum,’ ‘yeh, yeh-ing’ as before in a very lively manner; so that, what with their ‘yeh, yeh-ing’ and ‘eatum and drinkum,’ there was quite a merry time of it. Meanwhile, however, we were busying ourselves to satisfy their wants, and it was not long before our visitors were as full as they could hold. It was a curious sight to see them eat. They would put one end of a great chunk of meat in the mouth, and, holding tight to the other end, they would cut it off close up to the lips. Our seal-blubber they treated in the same way. Of this blubber they seemed to be very fond; and, indeed, all people living in cold climates soon grow fond of fat of every kind. It is such strong food, which people require there as much as they do warm clothing, and in great quantities too. The people living in the Arctic regions have little desire for vegetable food; and the savages there eat nothing but meat, fish, and fat.

“Our guests did not leave off eating until each had consumed a quantity of food equal at least to the size of his head; and then they grew drowsy, and wanted to ‘singikpok,’ which we knew from Eatum meant sleep; and in ‘singikpok’ we were glad enough to indulge them, although greatly to our inconvenience, for they nearly filled our hut.

“The savages slept very soundly for a while; but one by one they woke up, and, as soon as their eyes were open, they fell to eating again until they were satisfied, and then in a minute afterwards they were fast asleep. This they kept up for about two days, and you may be sure they made away with a great deal of our provisions before they were done with it.

“When they had thoroughly gorged themselves, and slept all they could, they were ready to start off again; and now we found that they had come to take us away, which we were very glad of, although they were such singular-looking people, and we could understand so little of what they said, or knew so little of what their designs might be concerning us. But, whatever these might be, it gave us an apparent chance of escape, which was not to be thrown away, as it might be the only one we would ever have. Besides, the savages never once asked us if we would go with them, but began to bundle up our furs, food, and blubber, and everything else we had, as if resolved to take us whether or no. At first we felt a little alarm,—without expressing it, however; but, seeing how good-natured they were about it, and how considerate they appeared to be for us, we had no further fear, but trusted them entirely.

“The five sledges, were pretty heavily loaded with our property; but off we started at length, I riding with Eatum, while the Dean was on the sledge of ‘Old Grim.’ The Dean carried his ‘Delight,’ of course, while I held on to ‘Old Crumply.’ Nor were our ‘palm and needle,’ and jack-knife, that had done such good service, forgotten. Indeed, we brought away everything.

“Of course we were very much rejoiced to get away from the Rock of Good Hope, even although our fortunes were yet very uncertain; still it had been our rock of refuge and safety, and, in our thankfulness, we could but cast upon it a look of tender regret at parting from it. Together there the Dean and I could but remember that we had achieved many triumphs, which were to us a source of great pride, and would always continue to be as long as we lived; while, on the other hand, if we had suffered many discomforts and sorrows, these would not, we knew, linger long in the memory. Besides, on the Rock of Good Hope, and in the hut we were leaving, we had learned to know each other, and to love each other, and to be bound together by a strong bond of friendship, which, as it was formed in adversity, was not likely to be broken.

“But in thinking of what was before us, we had soon to give up thinking of what was behind us, and to let the Rock of Good Hope, and the hut, and the life we had led there, with its struggles and trials and triumphs, pass away as some vague and shadowy dream; for on we sped, with our caravan of sledges, over the frozen sea,—the dogs all lively, and galloping away with their bushy tails curled over their backs, and their heads up; their savage drivers crying to them, now and then, ‘Ka, ka! ka, ka!’ and snapping their whips to keep them at a brisker run, and all the while talking to each other in a loud voice,—sometimes, as we could clearly understand, about ourselves, sometimes whether they should go off on a bear-hunt. Occasionally one of the teams would scent a seal-hole, and away the dogs would rush towards it as hard as they could go, all the other teams following after, pell-mell; and, when they reached the hole, it was all the hunters could do, by whipping and shouting and scolding, to keep all the teams from coming atop of each other, and getting all into a snarl. Once this happened with two of the teams. The dogs all became tangled in each other’s traces, the sledges got locked together, and the animals fell to fighting, one team against the other, in a most vicious manner.

“This was a very novel mode of travelling, and we enjoyed it greatly, even although it was pretty cold and the journey was very long. It seemed strange to us to be thus wandering without chart or compass over the great ice-desert on the sea; for all around us was nothing but a great plain of whiteness, only broken here and there by an iceberg, which glittered like a great diamond in the bright sunshine.

“We must have gone at least sixty or seventy miles before we made a single halt; and then we came to the village where these singular people lived. It was not on the land, but out on the frozen sea over which we had travelled. As we approached, the dogs ran very fast; and this was the first I knew of when we were coming. ‘Igloo, igloo!’ exclaimed Eatum, pointing, when we neared the village. As I had already learned that igloo meant hut, in their language, I was much rejoiced; for I was very tired with the long journey, and cold besides.

“We soon came up to the village, which proved to be only a collection of huts made of frost-hardened snow. There were in all six of them. Several more hunters were there, who came out to meet us; and their dogs rushed out too, making a great noise; and, when we had halted, a number of women joined them, all dressed in furs just like the men, and also children dressed in the same way, and all very anxious about us, and all yeh, yeh-ing a great deal. Indeed, we made such a commotion in the village as never was seen before. But everybody appeared to be kindly disposed towards us, and into one of the huts we were both taken immediately, and down we sat on the floor of the hut, which was covered all over with bear-skins. There were two lamps in it, almost exactly like ours, and two pots were hanging over them. We had soon a good meal, and very quickly after that were sound asleep; and even although it was a snow hut, and among savages, we were thankful in our very heart of hearts. And our thankfulness was because we were among human beings once more, and felt no longer as if we were wholly cast away from the world; and we felt hopeful that through these savages would come means of escape to our homes. We felt thankful, too, that they treated us so kindly,—the women especially; for, savages though they were, they were possessed of much feeling and sympathy. One of the women made the Dean go to sleep with his head in her lap, which it was easy to see he did not like a bit; and, before this, she had fed him with her own fingers, and, while he was sleeping, she stroked his bright hair away from his handsome face. Another of the women treated me very much in the same way; but being older, and not handsome, like the Dean, I didn’t come in for so many favors.

“Then, besides that, the women took off our damp fur stockings, and gave us dry ones before we went to sleep; and they seemed to want to do everything they could for us, so that we soon became convinced they meant us no harm. The woman who was particularly kind to me was the wife of Eatum; and the Dean and I at once called her Mrs. Eatum, which made them all ‘yeh, yeh,’ very much; and they got to calling her that too, as near, at least, as they could pronounce it, which was, ‘Impsuseatum.’ Her right name was Serkut, which means ‘little nose’; Eatum’s right name was Tuk tuk, that is, reindeer, because he could run very fast. There were two young Eatums; and when I began to play with them, I grew in great favor with the Eatum family.

“The Dean was quite as well off for patrons as I, being specially taken care of by a woman whose husband had been one of our rescue party. Her name I forget now, but it meant ‘Big-toes,’ so what with nursing by ‘Little-nose’ and ‘Big-toes,’ and with plenty of seal meat to eat, the Dean and I got on finely. The name of Big-toes’ husband was Awak, which means walrus. He was a fine hunter, and had plenty of dogs. These dogs, I should mention, were always allowed to run loose about the village; and, no matter how cold it was, they slept on the snow. But their harness had to be taken off, else they would eat it; and everything eatable was buried out of sight in the snow, or brought inside the hut.

“After we had been eating, and sleeping, and enjoying the hospitality of these savages about three days, a young hunter whose name was Kossuit, which meant that he was a little dark fellow, came driving into the village (he had been out prospecting for a hunt), proclaiming, in a very loud voice, that there was a great crack in the ice, and that it was alive with walrus and seal. There was immediately a great stir, and a great harnessing of dogs, and hunting up of whips, and getting together of harpoons and spears and lines. Everybody was going on the hunt, that is, all the men and boys. When all was ready, Eatum came to me, and said, ‘Ketchum awak, ketchum pussay, you go?’ meaning, would we go with them, and catch walrus and seals. Of course we said ‘yes,’ and off we started at a wild pace; the Dean riding with Kossuit, while I rode with Eatum. We had to go a good many miles before we came to the crack; and, when we reached it, we found it to be as Kossuit had described it. As soon as the savages saw the crack, they stopped their dogs, which was done by crying, ‘Eigh, eigh, eigh!’ to them, and whipping them fiercely if they did not mind soon enough. The dogs being now fastened by running the points of the runners into the snow, the hunters went forward with their lines and spears and harpoons; and, by approaching the side of the crack very cautiously, they managed, at length, to get near enough to throw their harpoons into the animals when they came up to the surface to breathe. Their mode of capturing them was almost the same as that which we employed in catching seals, after finding it out for ourselves. And thus you see how all people subjected to the same conditions of life will naturally be led to the same way of providing for our wants,—our senses being given to us all, whether savage or civilized, for the same purpose. I have showed you already how, in our mode of starting a fire, in our lamp, pot, and other domestic implements, our clothing, harpoon, &c., we had imitated these savages unconsciously; and, the more I was with them, the more I saw how much we were like them.

“Knowing how we killed the seal, it is not necessary to tell you how the savages managed; and catching the walrus was just the same, only more difficult, for the walrus is several times larger than the seal. You know the walrus are those huge marine animals, living in the Arctic seas, that have long white tusks, and look so fierce. They make a very loud and very hideous noise; and in the summer, like the seals, they come up on ice, or on the rocks along the shore, in great numbers, to bask and sleep in the sun.

“It is enough to say there was a great deal of sport, and a great deal of excitement, not unmixed with danger. One of the hunters got a line tangled around his legs, and was whipped over into the water, where he was not noticed, except to be laughed at, but all the hunters went on with what they were about, letting him shift for himself,—little caring, as it appeared, whether he drowned or not; and I really believe he would have drowned, had it not been for the assistance of the Dean and myself. This was the first time I had observed how reckless these people were of their lives.

“There were in the party altogether nine sledges, with one good hunter to each sledge. Five of them were old men and four were young men, besides which there were six boys of various ages; and these, with the Dean and myself, made seventeen. By helping each other all round, we caught seven seals and three walrus,—all of which we skinned and quartered, and put on the sledges; and then we returned to the village, walking back, however, as the load on the sledges was too heavy to allow us to ride. When we reached the village, the women came out to meet us, talking very much, and yeh, yeh-ing louder than ever; and now I observed that they took all the game we had captured, and butchered it, the men doing nothing at all but look after their dogs. It was thought to be a disgrace for a man to do any work about his hut.

“The Dean and I had taken our full share in the hunt, and won much admiration. Before, they had treated us with a kind of pity, but now they had great respect for us. Eatum said, ‘Much good hunter you’; and now, seeing that we were good hunters, they were going to marry us right off, that we might have wives to cut up our seals when we brought them home, which proposition put us in a great embarrassment. If we refused, they might be offended, as was very natural; so I accepted their proposition at once, without a moment’s hesitation, appearing as if I was very glad, and thought it a great compliment indeed; but at the same time I told them, with a very grave face, that all our relatives lived in a far-off country, to which we were obliged to go as soon as a ship came along; and, of course, when we did go, the wives they gave us would go with us. As none of the young women were willing to take us on these conditions, although not very flattering to us, we got out of the scrape without offending anybody. At first the Dean was quite indignant, but afterwards he laughed, and said, ‘Why, just think of it! Mrs. Hardy and Mrs. Dean in seal skin-breeches and long boots,—a jolly idea indeed!’ But one of the girls was fond enough of the Dean for all, only she mustn’t show it; for these people are mighty particular about that. When all is arranged by the parents, the girl is obliged, even then, to say she won’t have her lover. So the lover has to steal up, and take her unawares, and run off with her bodily. Of course, if she really likes the fellow, and wants to get married to him, he has an easy time enough of it; but if, on the other hand, she dislikes him, she can readily enough get away from him.

“Old Grim (whose right name was Metak, meaning eider-duck) had an adventure of this sort, as they told me, which resulted very differently from what usually happens. He was then quite a young man, but, having caught a seal, he thought it was time he had a wife. Meanwhile a wife had been provided for him by his father, who had made the bargain with the girl’s father. The girl was told who her husband was to be, but it would have been against all rules to tell her when he was coming after her. Well, as I have said, having caught his first seal, Metak made up his mind to have a wife to butcher it for him; so he set out for the snow hut of his lady-love’s father, where the dusky-faced girl was lying fast asleep in her nest of furs. As it was contrary to law for any girl to be captured in a hut, but must be taken on the wing, as it were, Metak had to wait for her to come out, which she finally did, and passed very near a deep bank of snow, behind which her lover was lying, shivering with cold, and crying with impatience. Quick as a fox to pounce upon the unsuspecting rabbit was Metak to pounce upon the unsuspecting girl. He seized her, and started for his sledge. She screamed, she pulled his hair, she tore his fur, she bit his fingers; but the valiant Metak held manfully to his purpose, and would not let her go. He reached the sledge, and put her on it; he tied her there, and, springing on himself, he whipped up his dogs, and started for his home. But the refractory damsel would not stay tied. Watching a favorable opportunity, when Metak was not looking, she cut the lashings with her teeth, seized the whip out of Metak’s hands, pushed Metak off the sledge, and sent him sprawling on the snow; and then she whirled the dogs around, and fairly made them fly again on the backward track to her father’s hut, where she crawled once more into her nest of furs, and where the luckless Metak was ever afterwards content to let her stay, satisfied that he was no match for her.

“This story was told by Eatum one evening in the snow hut, while Old Grim was present, and it was evidently a standing joke against him. He didn’t seem to relish it at all, for he went out of the hut as if driven away by their shouts of laughter. I could not understand the language well enough to fully appreciate the story at the time, but afterward I got Eatum to repeat it to me. It proved that the name Old Grim, that the Dean and I had given Metak, was even more appropriate than we thought; for it seemed that he was generally known as the man who laughed with his insides without the help of his face.”

Dear Sis,—

O, we’ve hurrahed and hurrahed and hurrahed ourselves hoarse! Such a bully time! You’d better believe the old horses went some! And that hay-cart went rattle and bump, rattle and thump,—seemed as if we should jolt to pieces! But I’ve counted myself all over, and believe I’m all here! Bubby Short’s throat is so sore that all he can do is to lie flat on the floor and wink his eyes. You see we cheered at every house, and they came running to their windows, and some cheered back again, and some waved and some laughed, and all of them stared. But part of the way was through the woods.

This morning, Billy, and Bubby Short, and I, went over to Aunt Phebe’s of an errand, to borrow a cup of dough. I wish mother could see how her stove shines! And while we were sitting down there, having some fun with Aunt Phebe’s little Tommy, Uncle Jacob came in and said, “Mother, let’s go somewhere.”

She said, “Thank you! thank you! we shall be very happy to accept your invitation. Girls, your father has given us an invitation! Boys, he means you too!”

“But you can’t go,—can you?” Uncle Jacob cried out, and made believe he didn’t know what to make of it. O, he’s such a droll man! “I thought you couldn’t leave the ironing,” says he.

“O yes, we can!” Hannah Jane said; and “O yes, we can!” they all cried out.

Aunt Phebe said it would be entirely convenient, and told her girls to shake out the sprinkled clothes to dry.

“O, now,” said Uncle Jacob, “who’d have thought of your saying ‘yes.’ I expected you couldn’t leave.”

Then they kept on talking and laughing. O, they are all so funny here! Uncle Jacob tried to get off without going; but at last he said, “Well, boys, we must catch Old Major.”

That’s the old gray horse, you know. And we were long enough about it. For, just as we got him into a corner, he’d up heels, and away he’d go. And once he slapped his tail right in my face. But after a while we got him into the barn.

Then pretty soon Uncle Jacob put on a long face, and looked very sober, and put his head in at the back kitchen door, and said he guessed we should have to give up going, after all, for the mate to Old Major had got to be shod, and the blacksmith had gone away.

“Harness in the colt, then,” Aunt Phebe said. “No matter about their matching, if we only get there!”

That colt is about twenty years old. He’s black, and short, and takes little stubby steps; and he’s got a shaggy mane, that goes flop, flop, flop every step he takes. But Old Major is bony, and has a long neck, like the nose of a tunnel. Such a span as they made! What would my mother say to see that span!

They were harnessed in to the hay-cart. A hay-cart is a long cart that has stakes stuck in all round it. We put boards across for benches. Aunt Phebe brought out a whole armful of quite small flags, that they had Independent Day, and we tied one to the end of every stake.

Such a jolly time as we did have getting aboard! First all the baskets and pails full of cake and pies were stowed away under the benches, and jugs of water, and bottles of milk, and lemons to make lemonade, and ice done up in a rug, and a hatchet, and some boiled eggs, and apples and pears, and some bathing-clothes. Then uncle called out, “Come! where is everybody? Tumble in! tumble in! Where’s little Tommy?”

Then we began to look about and to call “Tommy!” “Tommy!” “Tommy!” At last Bubby Short said, “There he is, up there!” We all looked up, and saw Tommy’s face part way through a broken square of glass,—I mean where the glass was broken out. He said he couldn’t “turn down, betause the roosted was on his feets.” You see he’d got his feet tangled up in Lucy Maria’s worsteds.

“O dear!” Lucy Maria said; “all that shaded pink!”

When they brought him down, Uncle Jacob looked very sober, and said, “Why, Tommy! Did you get into all that shaded pink?”

Then Tommy made us all laugh. He said he was taking down the “gimmerlut to blower a hole with.” Next he began to cry for his new hat; and when he got his new hat, he began to cry for a posy to be stuck in it. That little fellow never will go anywhere without a flower stuck in his hat. Aunt Phebe says his grandmother began that notion when her damask rose-bush was in bloom.

After we were all aboard, Uncle Jacob brought out the teakettle, and slung it on behind with a rope. He said maybe mother would want a cup of tea. Then they laughed at him, for he is the tea-drinker himself. Next he brought out a long pan.

“Now that’s my cookie-pan!” Aunt Phebe said. “You don’t cook clams in my cookie-pan!”

He made believe he was terribly afraid of Aunt Phebe, and trotted back with it just like a little boy, and then came bringing out an old sheet-iron fireboard.

“Is this anybody’s cookie-pan?” said he, then stowed it away in the bottom of the cart. Bubby Short wanted to know what that was for.

“That’s for the clams,” Uncle Jacob said.

But we couldn’t tell whether he meant so. We never can tell whether Uncle Jacob is funning or not. I haven’t told you yet where we were bound. We were bound to the shore. That’s about six miles off. The last thing that Uncle Jacob brought out was a stick that had strips of paper tied to the end of it.

“That’s my flyflapper!” Aunt Phebe said. “What are you going to do with my flyflapper?”

He said that was to brush the snarls off little Tommy’s face. Tommy is a tip-top little chap; but he’s apt to make a fuss. Sometimes he teased to drive, and then he teased for a drink, and then for a sugar cracker, and then to sit with Matilda, and then with Hannah Jane. And, every time he fretted, Uncle Jacob would take out the flyflapper, and play brush the snarls off his face, and say, “There they go! Pick ’em up! pick ’em up!” And that would set Tommy a-laughing. Tommy tumbled out once, the back end of the cart. Billy was driving, and he whipped up quick, and they started ahead, and sent Tommy out the back end, all in a heap. But first he stood on his head, for ’twas quite a sandy place. I drove part of the way, and so did Bubby Short. We didn’t hurrah any going. Some men that we met would laugh and call out, “What’ll you take for your span?” And sometimes boys would turn round, and laugh, and holler out, “How are you, teakettle?” I think a hay-cart is the best thing to ride in that ever was. Just as we got through the woods, we looked round and saw Billy’s father coming, bringing Billy’s grandmother in a horse and chaise. Then we all clapped. For they said they guessed they couldn’t come.

When we got to the shore, the horses had to be hitched to the cart, for there wasn’t a tree there, nor so much as a stump. The girls ran about to find shells, and we took off our shoes and stockings the minute we jumped out, and rolled up our trousers legs, and Uncle Jacob called to us to come help him dig the clams. Billy carried the clam-digger, and I carried the bucket. Isn’t it funny that clams live in the mud? How do you suppose they move round? Do you suppose they know anything? Uncle Jacob struck his clam-digger in everywhere where he saw holes in the mud; and as fast as he uncovered the clams we picked them up, and soon got the bucket full.

Then he told us to run like lamplighters along the shore, and pick up sticks and bits of boards. “Bring them where you see a smoke rising,” says he.

O, such loads as we got, and split up the big pieces with the hatchet! Uncle Jacob had fixed some stones in a good way, and put his iron fireboard on top, and made a fire underneath. Then he spread his clams on the fireboard to roast. O, I tell you, sis, you never tasted of anything so good in your life as clams roasted on a fireboard!

And he put some stones together in another place, and set on the teakettle, and made a fire under it,—to make a cup of tea for mother, he said. Tommy kept helping make the fire, and once he joggled the teakettle over. Aunt Phebe and the girls sat on the rocks, the side where the wind wouldn’t blow the smoke in their eyes. But Billy’s grandmother had a soft seat made of seaweed and the chaise cushions, and Billy’s father read things out of the newspaper to her. He said they two were the invited guests, and mustn’t work.

It took the girls ever so long to cut up the cakes and pies, and butter the biscuits, and make lemonade. I know I never was so hungry before! The clams were passed round, piping hot, in box covers and tin-pail covers, and some had to have shingles. You’d better believe those clams tasted good! Then all the other things were passed round. O, I don’t believe any other woman can make things as good as Aunt Phebe’s! Georgianna had a frosted plum-cake baked in a saucer; and, every time she moved her seat, Uncle Jacob would go too, and sit close up to her, and say how much he liked Georgie, she was the best little girl that ever was,—a great deal better than Aunt Phebe’s girls. Then Georgianna would say, “O, I know you! you want my frosted cake!” Then Uncle Jacob would pucker his lips together, and shut up his eyes, and shake his head so solemn! He keeps everybody a-laughing, even Billy’s grandmother. He was just as clever to her! picked out the best mug there was to put her tea in,—Aunt Phebe don’t carry her good dishes, they get broken so,—and shocked out the clams for her in a saucer. When you get this letter, I guess you’ll get a good long one. After dinner we scattered about the shore. ’Twas fun to see the crabs and frys and things the tide had left in the little pools of water. And I found lots of blanc-mange moss. We boys ran ever so far along shore, and went in swimming. The water wasn’t very cold.

When it was time to go home, Uncle Jacob drummed loud on the six-quart pail, and waved his handkerchief. And the wind took it out of his hand, and blew it off on the water. Billy said, “Now the fishes can have a pocket-handkerchief.” And that made little Tommy laugh. Tommy had been in wading without his trousers being rolled up, and got ’em sopping wet. Just as we were going to leave, a sail-boat went past, quite near the shore, with a party on board. We gave them three cheers, and they gave us three cheers and a tiger; then they waved, and then we waved. Uncle Jacob hadn’t any pocket-handkerchief, so he caught Georgianna up in his arms, with her white sunbonnet on, and waved her; then the people in the boat clapped.

O, we had a jolly time coming home! In the woods we all got out and rested the horses, and I came pretty near catching a little striped squirrel. I should give it to you if I had. Did you ever see any live fences? Fences that branch out, and have leaves grow on them? Now I suppose you don’t believe that! But it’s true, for I’ve seen them. In the woods, if they want to fence off a piece, they don’t go to work and build a fence, but they bend down young trees, or the branches of trees, and fasten them to the next, and so on as far as they want the fence to go. And these trees and branches keep growing, and look so funny, something like giants with their legs and arms all twisted about. And every spring they leaf out the same as other trees, and that makes a real live fence. My squirrel was on that kind of fence. I wish it was my squirrel. He had a striped back. I got close up to him, that is, I got quite close up,—near enough to see his eyes. What things they are to run!

Coming home we sang songs, and laughed; and every time we came to a house we cheered all together, and waved our flags. Everybody came to their windows to look, for there isn’t much travelling on that road. O! I’m so out of breath, and so hoarse! But I’m sorry we’ve got home, I wish it had been ten miles. Now I hear them laughing and clapping over at Aunt Phebe’s. What can they be doing? Now Uncle Jacob is calling us to come over. Bubby Short’s jumped up. He says his throat feels better now. I wonder what Uncle Jacob wants of us. We must go and see. Good by, sis. This letter is from your brother Dorry.

Mrs. A. M. Diaz

Dr. Th. Kullak.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.—No. 57.

DOUBLE ACROSTIC CHARADE.

Findmeout.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.—No. 59.

CHARADES.
No. 60.

ENIGMAS.

I am composed of 76 letters.

My 14, 3, 46, 24, was a famous poet, contemporary with Horace.

My 11, 2, 18, 10, 19, 27, was a hero who fought in the Trojan War.

My 15, 26, 33, 4, 16, was another name for Odin.

My 63, 8, 52, 76, 41, 39, was a German god, called “The Good.”

My 30, 70, 1, 37, 9, 22, 13, 59, 64, was the sacred plant of the Druids.

My 45, 12, 60, 74, 56, presided over marriage.

My 25, 73, 53, 56, 42, 75, was the wife of Odin.

My 58, 61, 72, 34, was cup-bearer to the gods.

My 49, 28, 40, 32, was called “The Thunderer.”

My 38, 67, 52, 31, 23, was stolen by Paris.

My 17, 55, 20, 29, 5, was the Greek who persuaded the Trojans to draw the wooden horse into Troy.

My 54, 46, 71, 50, 16, 41, was a Hindoo deity.

My 47, 69, 35, 62, 40, 20, was a famous ferryman.

My 43, 7, 9, 59, 21, 17, were slaves.

My 48, 35, 68, 51, 71, is the abode of departed spirits.

My 6, 75, 62, was presided over by Mars.

My 57, 12, 65, 74, 1, was a king of Lydia.

My 36, 55, 24, 19, was a celebrated queen of Carthage.

My 44, 53, 71, 33, 14, 60, was presided over by Minerva.

My whole is an oft-quoted couplet written by Lord Byron.

Cosie.

Je suis composé de 33 lettres.

Mon 19, 7, 28, 8, 13, 36, 3, on entends dans l’été.

Mon 12, 17, 29, 27, 2, presque tous les garçons étudent.

Mon 33, 7, 11, 15, 18, 23, est très chaud.

Mon 9, 24, 31, 21, 5, 14, n’est pas aujourd’hui.

Mon 16, 26, 21, 18, 22, 10, 33, sont très agréable à manger.

Mon 25, 17, 32, 27, 30, 6, est indispensable à ceux qui ecrivent.

Mon 4, 7, 1, 24, on employe dans le jardinage.

Mon 20, 17, 26, 7, 12, 3, il faut toujours tenir.

Mon tout est un proverbe dont on doit se rappeller au mois de mars.

F. S.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.—No. 65.

J. H.

PUZZLE.
No. 64

ANSWERS.

Annie, of Stamford, Conn., writes thus agreeably:—

Victorine. Choose the subjects of your puzzles wherever you please.

Miles Standish. How about the historical articles, the Exposition, the mountains, &c.?

Coralie. You left out several words in your question, and we cannot understand it.

This explains itself:—

Our correspondent should bear in mind that no rule can be guaranteed as absolute and without exceptions, even in figures, which—although it is said of them that they “won’t lie”—do tell very contradictory stories sometimes.

Filbert, Zeo, Little Ruthie, L. W. K., Orena, Cherry Blossum (Um?!), Susan (the “Voices” speak to older readers than ours), Pickwick, Red Squirrel, F. L. F., J. M., Nettie (quite right), Mabel, Emma F. P. (quite right, quite right!), Pelican Society, Dixie, Bow-wow (not so good as usual), Clara (too late), Scribbler, Frank, Nellie of Germantown, Willy and Ida, Blue-Bell Clifford. Thanks, one and all, for special favors.

St. Clair. We shall print most of your letter soon.—Try if you cannot find out the reason for the dislike you speak of, and write to us about it, please.

Albert Du V. The materials used in making glass are named in our articles about Nathaniel Nye,—published last year.—Why shouldn’t a lady fish, if she wants to?—The Bridge of Sighs is in Venice.—Needles were invented in Spain at a time of which no record is known; they were first introduced into England about 1565.—If you read the prophetical books of the Bible, and also Kings and Chronicles, you will learn about Mt. Carmel.

Herbert. Mrs. Conant did not write “The Seven Little Sisters.”—Your other question has been answered four or five times.

Dora. Learn to spell and to use capitals rightly, instead of asking silly questions about beaux and flirtations. You have no business with such foolish nonsense.

Fanny S. F. explains a way of arranging cuts so that an attempt on the part of the drawer to take advantage by calculating may be met without resort to the trick described by P. H. C., which certainly, if practised “in earnest,” would be no better than cheating. She says that you should take two cuts of nearly equal length, and, placing the end of the shorter at the middle of the longer (like a T), hold them at this joint between the thumb and finger. If the drawer tries to measure with his eye, in order to be sharp, he will almost always mislead himself, and find that he has drawn differently from what he expected. In this there is no attempt at deceit, and so it is well enough to try it.

Hautboy. A good anagram should only make few words, but sensible ones, from its subject.

Edith. The question you ask was answered some months ago.

L. Howard. We do not know the address.

Willy Wood. We think favorably of fencing.

Zep. They are imaginary persons.—When one is snubbed, or slighted, or “cut,” he is said to be “sent to Coventry.”

Adèle. The rebus will not quite do.—The initials you mentioned were quoted by mistake.

Gamma. The questions which you ask about Freemasonry we cannot answer. Look among the people you know until you find some thoroughly trustworthy and respected man who is a Mason, and then ask him. So much as anybody can tell you he will, we have no doubt.

Pencil. Such a question as you ask has been frequently answered here.—The rebus is too far-fetched.

Katie B. (1.) The gentleman goes first. (2.) Not in the daytime, unless in a crowd or awkward place. (3.) Introduce a gentleman to a lady.

Caspar. Dropped.

Enella. Your song is very well written, but we don’t approve of wine and its praises.

Good little boy! Guessed it right the first time,—didn’t you? “The love of money is the root of all evil,”—that’s the August proverb, sure enough. Now try this one. And when you have found it out, remember it, and act in accordance with it.

Mis-spelled words and printer errors have been fixed.

[The end of Our Young Folks. An Illustrated Magazine for Boys and Girls. Volume 4, Issue 9 edited by J. T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom]