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THE PIRATE COLONEL AND HIS CAPTIVE.
Drawn by John Gilbert]          [ See A Holiday Romance, page 196.

PART III.
ROMANCE. FROM THE PEN OF LIEUTENANT-COLONEL ROBIN REDFORTH.^*

he subject of our present narrative would appear to have devoted himself to the Pirate profession at a comparatively early age. We find him in command of a splendid schooner of one hundred guns loaded to the muzzle, ere yet he had had a party in honor of his tenth birthday.

It seems that our hero, considering himself spited by a Latin-Grammar-Master, demanded the satisfaction due from one man of honor to another. Not getting it, he privately withdrew his haughty spirit from such low company, bought a second-hand pocket-pistol, folded up some sandwiches in a paper bag, made a bottle of Spanish liquorice-water, and entered on a career of valor.

It were tedious to follow Boldheart (for such was his name) through the commencing stages of his history. Suffice it that we find him bearing the rank of Captain Boldheart, reclining in full uniform on a crimson hearth-rug spread out upon the quarter-deck of his schooner the Beauty, in the China Seas. It was a lovely evening, and as his crew lay grouped about him, he favored them with the following melody:—

The soothing effect of these animated sounds floating over the waters, as the common sailors united their rough voices to take up the rich tones of Boldheart, may be more easily conceived than described.

It was under these circumstances that the lookout at the mast-head gave the word, “Whales!”

All was now activity.

“Where away?” cried Captain Boldheart, starting up.

“On the larboard bow, sir,” replied the fellow at the mast-head, touching his hat. For such was the height of discipline on board the Beauty, that even at that height he was obliged to mind it or be shot through the head.

“This adventure belongs to me,” said Boldheart. “Boy, my harpoon. Let no man follow”; and, leaping alone into his boat, the Captain rowed with admirable dexterity in the direction of the monster.

All was now excitement.

“He nears him!” said an elderly seaman, following the Captain through his spy-glass.

“He strikes him!” said another seaman, a mere stripling, but also with a spy-glass.

“He tows him towards us!” said another seaman, a man in the full vigor of life, but also with a spy-glass.

In fact the Captain was seen approaching, with the huge bulk following. We will not dwell on the deafening cries of “Boldheart! Boldheart!” with which he was received, when, carelessly leaping on the quarter-deck, he presented his prize to his men. They afterwards made two thousand four hundred and seventeen pound ten and sixpence by it.

Ordering the sails to be braced up, the Captain now stood W.N.W. The Beauty flew rather than floated over the dark blue waters. Nothing particular occurred for a fortnight, except taking, with considerable slaughter, four Spanish galleons, and a Snow from South America, all richly laden. Inaction began to tell upon the spirits of the men. Captain Boldheart called all hands aft, and said: “My lads, I hear there are discontented ones among ye. Let any such stand forth.”

After some murmuring, in which the expressions, “Ay, ay, sir,” “Union Jack,” “Avast,” “Starboard,” “Port,” “Bowsprit,” and similar indications of a mutinous undercurrent, though subdued were audible, Bill Boozey, captain of the foretop, came out from the rest. His form was that of a giant, but he quailed under the Captain’s eye.

“What are your wrongs?” said the Captain.

“Why, d’ye see, Captain Boldheart,” returned the towering mariner, “I’ve sailed man and boy for many a year, but I never yet know’d the milk served out for the ship’s company’s teas to be so sour as ’tis aboard this craft.”

At this moment the thrilling cry, “Man overboard!” announced to the astonished crew that Boozey, in stepping back as the Captain (in mere thoughtfulness) laid his hand upon the faithful pocket-pistol which he wore in his belt, had lost his balance, and was struggling with the foaming tide.

All was now stupefaction.

But with Captain Boldheart, to throw off his uniform coat regardless of the various rich orders with which it was decorated, and to plunge into the sea after the drowning giant, was the work of a moment. Maddening was the excitement when boats were lowered; intense the joy when the Captain was seen holding up the drowning man with his teeth; deafening the cheering when both were restored to the main deck of the Beauty. And from the instant of his changing his wet clothes for dry ones, Captain Boldheart had no such devoted though humble friend as William Boozey.

Boldheart now pointed to the horizon, and called the attention of his crew to the taper spars of a ship lying snug in harbor under the guns of a fort.

“She shall be ours at sunrise,” said he. “Serve out a double allowance of grog, and prepare for action.”

All was now preparation.

When morning dawned after a sleepless night, it was seen that the stranger was crowding on all sail to come out of the harbor and offer battle. As the two ships came nearer to each other, the stranger fired a gun and hoisted Roman colors. Boldheart then perceived her to be the Latin-Grammar-Master’s bark. Such indeed she was, and had been tacking about the world in unavailing pursuit, from the time of his first taking to a roving life.

Boldheart now addressed his men, promising to blow them up, if he should feel convinced that their reputation required it, and giving orders that the Latin-Grammar-Master should be taken alive. He then dismissed them to their quarters, and the fight began with a broadside from the Beauty. She then veered round and poured in another. The Scorpion (so was the bark of the Latin-Grammar-Master appropriately called) was not slow to return her fire, and a terrific cannonading ensued, in which the guns of the Beauty did tremendous execution.

The Latin-Grammar-Master was seen upon the poop in the midst of the smoke and fire, encouraging his men. To do him justice, he was no Craven, though his white hat, his short gray trousers, and his long snuff-colored surtout reaching to his heels,—the self-same coat in which he had spited Boldheart,—contrasted most unfavorably with the brilliant uniform of the latter. At this moment Boldheart, seizing a pike and putting himself at the head of his men, gave the word to board.

A desperate conflict ensued in the hammock nettings,—or somewhere in about that direction,—until the Latin-Grammar-Master, having all his masts gone, his hull and rigging shot through and through, and seeing Boldheart slashing a path towards him, hauled down his flag himself, gave up his sword to Boldheart, and asked for quarter. Scarce had he been put into the captain’s boat, ere the Scorpion went down with all on board.

On Captain Boldheart’s now assembling his men, a circumstance occurred. He found it necessary with one blow of his cutlass to kill the Cook, who, having lost his brother in the late action, was making at the Latin-Grammar-Master in an infuriated state, intent on his destruction with a carving-knife.

Captain Boldheart then turned to the Latin-Grammar-Master, severely reproaching him with his perfidy, and put it to his crew what they considered that a master who spited a boy deserved?

They answered with one voice, “Death.”

“It may be so,” said the Captain, “but it shall never be said that Boldheart stained his hour of triumph with the blood of his enemy. Prepare the cutter.”

The cutter was immediately prepared.

“Without taking your life,” said the Captain, “I must yet forever deprive you of the power of spiting other boys. I shall turn you adrift in this boat. You will find in her two oars, a compass, a bottle of rum, a small cask of water, a piece of pork, a bag of biscuit, and my Latin grammar. Go! And spite the Natives, if you can find any.”

Deeply conscious of this bitter sarcasm, the unhappy wretch was put into the cutter and was soon left far behind. He made no effort to row, but was seen lying on his back with his legs up, when last made out by the ship’s telescopes.

A stiff breeze now beginning to blow, Captain Boldheart gave orders to keep her S.S.W., easing her a little during the night by falling off a point or two W. by W., or even by W.S., if she complained much. He then retired for the night, having in truth much need of repose. In addition to the fatigues he had undergone, this brave officer had received sixteen wounds in the engagement, but had not mentioned it.

In the morning a white squall came on, and was succeeded by other squalls of various colors. It thundered and lightened heavily for six weeks. Hurricanes then set in for two months. Water-spouts and tornadoes followed. The oldest sailor on board—and he was a very old one—had never seen such weather. The Beauty lost all idea where she was, and the carpenter reported six feet two of water in the hold. Everybody fell senseless at the pumps every day.

Provisions now ran very low. Our hero put the crew on short allowance, and put himself on shorter allowance than any man in the ship. But his spirit kept him fat. In this extremity, the gratitude of Boozey, the captain of the foretop whom our readers may remember, was truly affecting. The loving though lowly William repeatedly requested to be killed, and preserved for the Captain’s table.

We now approach a change in affairs.

One day during a gleam of sunshine and when the weather had moderated, the man at the mast-head—too weak now to touch his hat, besides its having been blown away—called out,

“Savages!”

All was now expectation.

Presently fifteen hundred canoes, each paddled by twenty savages, were seen advancing in excellent order. They were of a light green color (the Savages were), and sang, with great energy, the following strain:—

As the shades of night were by this time closing in, these expressions were supposed to embody this simple people’s views of the Evening Hymn. But it too soon appeared that the song was a translation of “For what we are going to receive,” &c.

The chief, imposingly decorated with feathers of lively colors, and having the majestic appearance of a fighting Parrot, no sooner understood (he understood English perfectly) that the ship was the Beauty, Captain Boldheart, than he fell upon his face on the deck, and could not be persuaded to rise until the Captain had lifted him up, and told him he wouldn’t hurt him. All the rest of the savages also fell on their faces with marks of terror, and had also to be lifted up one by one. Thus the fame of the great Boldheart had gone before him, even among these children of nature.

Turtles and oysters were now produced in astonishing numbers, and on these and yams the people made a hearty meal. After dinner the Chief told Captain Boldheart that there was better feeding up at the village, and that he would be glad to take him and his officers there. Apprehensive of treachery, Boldheart ordered his boat’s crew to attend him completely armed. And well were it for other commanders if their precautions, but let us not anticipate.

When the canoes arrived at the beach, the darkness of the night was illumined by the light of an immense fire. Ordering his boat’s crew (with the intrepid though illiterate William at their head) to keep close and be upon their guard, Boldheart bravely went on, arm in arm with the Chief.

But how to depict the Captain’s surprise when he found a ring of savages singing in chorus that barbarous translation of “For what we are going to receive,” &c., which has been given above, and dancing hand in hand round the Latin-Grammar-Master, in a hamper with his head shaved, while two savages floured him, before putting him to the fire to be cooked!

Boldheart now took counsel with his officers on the course to be adopted. In the mean time the miserable captive never ceased begging pardon and imploring to be delivered. On the generous Boldheart’s proposal, it was at length resolved that he should not be cooked, but should be allowed to remain raw, on two conditions. Namely,

1. That he should never under any circumstances presume to teach any boy anything any more.

2. That, if taken back to England, he should pass his life in travelling to find out boys who wanted their exercises done, and should do their exercises for those boys for nothing, and never say a word about it.

Drawing the sword from its sheath, Boldheart swore him to these conditions on its shining blade. The prisoner wept bitterly, and appeared acutely to feel the errors of his past career.

The Captain then ordered his boat’s crew to make ready for a volley, and after firing to re-load quickly. “And expect a score or two on ye to go head over heels,” murmured William Boozey, “for I’m a looking at ye.” With those words the derisive though deadly William took a good aim.

“Fire!”

The ringing voice of Boldheart was lost in the report of the guns and the screeching of the savages. Volley after volley awakened the numerous echoes. Hundreds of savages were killed, hundreds wounded, and thousands ran howling into the woods. The Latin-Grammar Master had a spare nightcap lent him, and a long tail-coat which he wore hind side before. He presented a ludicrous though pitiable appearance, and serve him right.

We now find Captain Boldheart with this rescued wretch on board, standing off for other islands. At one of these, not a cannibal island but a pork and vegetable one, he married (only in fun on his part) the King’s daughter. Here he rested some time, receiving from the natives great quantities of precious stones, gold dust, elephants’ teeth, and sandal wood, and getting very rich. This, too, though he almost every day made presents of enormous value to his men.

The ship being at length as full as she could hold of all sorts of valuable things, Boldheart gave orders to weigh the anchor, and turn the Beauty’s head towards England. These orders were obeyed with three cheers, and ere the sun went down full many a hornpipe had been danced on deck by the uncouth though agile William.

We next find Captain Boldheart about three leagues off Madeira, surveying through his spy-glass a stranger of suspicious appearance making sail towards him. On his firing a gun ahead of her to bring her to, she ran up a flag, which he instantly recognized as the flag from the mast in the back garden at home.

Inferring, from this, that his father had put to sea to seek his long-lost son, the Captain sent his own boat on board the stranger, to inquire if this was so, and, if so, whether his father’s intentions were strictly honorable. The boat came back with a present of greens and fresh meat, and reported that the stranger was The Family, of twelve hundred tons, and had not only the Captain’s father on board, but also his mother, with the majority of his aunts and uncles, and all his cousins. It was further reported to Boldheart that the whole of these relations had expressed themselves in a becoming manner, and were anxious to embrace him and thank him for the glorious credit he had done them. Boldheart at once invited them to breakfast next morning on board the Beauty, and gave orders for a brilliant ball that should last all day.

It was in the course of the night that the Captain discovered the hopelessness of reclaiming the Latin-Grammar-Master. That thankless traitor was found out as the two ships lay near each other, communicating with The Family by signals, and offering to give up Boldheart. He was hanged at the yard-arm the first thing in the morning, after having it impressively pointed out to him by Boldheart that this was what spiters came to.

The meeting between the Captain and his parents was attended with tears. His uncles and aunts would have attended their meeting with tears too, but he wasn’t going to stand that. His cousins were very much astonished by the size of his ship and the discipline of his men, and were greatly overcome by the splendor of his uniform. He kindly conducted them round the vessel, and pointed out everything worthy of notice. He also fired his hundred guns, and found it amusing to witness their alarm.

The entertainment surpassed everything ever seen on board ship, and lasted from ten in the morning until seven the next morning. Only one disagreeable incident occurred. Captain Boldheart found himself obliged to put his cousin Tom in irons, for being disrespectful. On the boy’s promising amendment, however, he was humanely released, after a few hours’ close confinement.

Boldheart now took his mother down into the great cabin, and asked after the young lady with whom, it was well known to the world, he was in love. His mother replied that the object of his affections was then at school at Margate, for the benefit of sea-bathing (it was the month of September), but that she feared the young lady’s friends were still opposed to the union. Boldheart at once resolved, if necessary, to bombard the town.

Taking the command of his ship with this intention, and putting all but fighting men on board The Family, with orders to that vessel to keep in company, Boldheart soon anchored in Margate Roads. Here he went ashore well armed, and attended by his boat’s crew (at their head the faithful though ferocious William), and demanded to see the Mayor, who came out of his office.

“Dost know the name of yon ship, Mayor?” asked Boldheart, fiercely.

“No,” said the Mayor, rubbing his eyes, which he could scarce believe when he saw the goodly vessel riding at anchor.

“She is named the Beauty,” said the Captain.

“Hah!” exclaimed the Mayor, with a start. “And you, then, are Captain Boldheart?”

“The same.”

A pause ensued. The Mayor trembled.

“Now, Mayor,” said the Captain, “choose. Help me to my Bride, or be bombarded.”

The Mayor begged for two hours’ grace, in which to make inquiries respecting the young lady. Boldheart accorded him but one, and during that one placed William Boozey sentry over him, with a drawn sword and instructions to accompany him wherever he went, and to run him through the body if he showed a sign of playing false.

At the end of the hour, the Mayor reappeared more dead than alive, closely waited on by Boozey more alive than dead.

“Captain,” said the Mayor, “I have ascertained that the young lady is going to bathe. Even now she waits her turn for a machine. The tide is low, though rising. I, in one of our town-boats, shall not be suspected. When she comes forth in her bathing-dress into the shallow water from behind the hood of the machine, my boat shall intercept her and prevent her return. Do you the rest.”

“Mayor,” returned Captain Boldheart, “thou hast saved thy town.”

The Captain then signalled his boat to take him off, and, steering her himself, ordered her crew to row towards the bathing-ground, and there to rest upon their oars. All happened as had been arranged. His lovely bride came forth, the Mayor glided in behind her, she became confused and had floated out of her depth, when, with one skilful touch of the rudder and one quivering stroke from the boat’s crew, her adoring Boldheart held her in his strong arms. There her shrieks of terror were changed to cries of joy.

Before the Beauty could get under way, the hoisting of all the flags in the town and harbor, and the ringing of all the bells, announced to the brave Boldheart that he had nothing to fear. He therefore determined to be married on the spot, and signalled for a clergyman and clerk, who came off promptly in a sailing boat named the Skylark. Another great entertainment was then given on board the Beauty, in the midst of which the Mayor was called out by a messenger. He returned with the news that Government had sent down to know whether Captain Boldheart, in acknowledgment of the great services he had done his country by being a Pirate, would consent to be made a Lieutenant-Colonel. For himself he would have spurned the worthless boon, but his Bride wished it and he consented.

Only one thing further happened before the good ship Family was dismissed, with rich presents to all on board. It is painful to record (but such is human nature in some cousins) that Captain Boldheart’s unmannerly cousin Tom was actually tied up to receive three dozen with a rope’s end “for cheekiness and making game,” when Captain Boldheart’s Lady begged for him and he was spared. The Beauty then refitted, and the Captain and his Bride departed for the Indian Ocean to enjoy themselves forevermore.

Charles Dickens.

Who that has read the story of our Lord’s life on earth but has wished to visit the land where he lived and died? What boy or girl that would not like to see the stable where the Saviour was born, and where the shepherds and the wise men of the East came to see and worship the wondrous infant; the humble village where he lived when a boy; the place where stood the temple in which the child Jesus argued with the grave and learned men; the spot where he sat when he blessed the children, and invited them to come to him; the mount on which he prayed, and taught the people; the rough way over which he dragged the heavy cross; the hill on which he was crucified; the tomb in which he was buried, and in front of which sat the angels, when the sorrowing women went to mourn the dead, and found the Lord restored to life; the place from which he ascended to heaven whilst his disciples stood looking up at him? Hardly a boy or girl who reads this but would like to see those places.

So, from the time when those things took place down to the present time, those who believe in Christ have loved that land. From that time until now, Palestine has been called the Holy Land, and Jerusalem, where the events in the history of our Lord mostly took place, has been the Holy City. Christians went to Jerusalem, and visited with reverence the Saviour’s tomb, just as children visit the graves of their dead parents whom they loved, to think of the kindness of those whom they will never see again on earth. Every year they came,—first by hundreds, and then, as the Christian religion spread over the world, by thousands. A church was built over the Holy Sepulchre, as the cave in the rock was called where it was supposed the Lord was buried; and people from all nations where the Christian religion was believed brought presents to beautify and enrich this church. Nearly six hundred years after the crucifixion, the Holy City was captured by the fire-worshippers of Persia, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and all the other Christian temples were destroyed, and more than ninety thousand Christians murdered. A few years afterwards the fire-worshippers were themselves driven out by the Arabs, who held possession of the Holy City for nearly four hundred years. During that time the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was rebuilt, and Christian pilgrims came by thousands every year to visit it.

Then came the Turks, a fierce and cruel race, who drove out the Arabs and Christians, destroyed the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and attempted to destroy the sepulchre itself. The Christians would not leave a place so dear to them, and came, in spite of threats and torture, to worship at the tomb of the Lord. They were treated with great cruelty, their worship broken in upon with rude insults and blows, the ministers of religion dragged by the hair of the head to prison, and the most shocking barbarities committed upon them. Of the thousands of pilgrims who yearly went to Jerusalem, less than one third came back to their homes,—the remainder having fallen victims to Turkish cruelty.

More than a thousand years after the crucifixion, and when the sufferings of the Christians in Palestine were at their worst, a pilgrim named Peter came to Jerusalem. He was a small, thin man, who had led a life of prayer and fasting in the neighborhood of his native city of Amiens, in France, and from his solitary life and religious habits was known as Peter the Hermit. No sooner had he reached the Holy City, than he was seized by the brutal Turks, beaten and spit upon, kicked like a dog, and at last thrown into prison. There he saw his fellow-Christians dying of want and misery in gloomy dungeons, and weeping bitter tears for the home and friends they would never see again. Peter was at last allowed to go free, and he sought to kneel at the Holy Sepulchre, now a mass of ruins defiled by the infidel Turks. He was driven back with blows and curses, and it was only after repeated attempts that he succeeded in reaching the place he had journeyed so far and endured so much to see. Turning away in grief and anger, Peter the Hermit made a vow that he would rouse all Europe to the rescue of the Christians in Jerusalem, and the restoration of the holy places to Christian care.

He returned to Europe, and went to Rome, where, having first obtained the permission of the Pope, who was then acknowledged as the head of the Christian Church, he set out on his mission of summoning the Christian nations to the deliverance of the Holy City from the cruel rule of the infidels. Barefoot and bareheaded, his thin body wrapped in a long robe of coarse woollen, bound around his waist with a woollen rope, and mounted on a mule, he rode from city to city, from nation to nation. Storms could not stop him; hunger and thirst he welcomed as part of his mission; he turned aside neither for rough roads nor rougher men. Everywhere he lifted the cross before the people, and everywhere he told the sorrowful tale of the sufferings of those who visited the land where Christ died upon the cross. Through the plains of Italy, over lofty mountains and dangerous passes of the Alps, amid the cities and villages of France, he went, until everywhere the sad story of Jerusalem was known, and the eloquent hermit came to be looked on as a holy man, who had been inspired from heaven to rouse Christendom against the heathen. His coming was looked for with eagerness, his preaching was listened to by crowds, and, when he went, hundreds followed him on his way.

One day, mounted on his mule, he rode to the gate of a castle, and, dismounting, entered the great hall, where the prince and his guests were feasting. The long table was covered with meats and wines served by liveried retainers and pages. The prince and the more noble of his guests were seated at a table at the upper end, on a floor raised a little above that of the rest of the hall. When a page handed them meat or drink, he knelt on one knee, in reverence for the high rank of those he was serving. The floor was strewn with rushes instead of carpets. The wall at the end where sat the prince and his chief guests was hung with cloth, worked by the needle with pictures of hunting and battle scenes. Against the bare walls of the remainder of the hall were hung swords, spears, and shields, with perches on which sat hawks wearing gay caps, and with jingling bells on their feet. On the rushes lay dogs, waiting for the remains of the feast to be thrown to them. A minstrel sat apart, playing a harp, and singing a love-song of gallant knights and fair ladies. The guests feasted, drank, and talked, paying but little attention to the singing. They disputed about their hawks and hounds, told of the battles they had fought, and of the countries they had visited.

At that moment Peter the Hermit entered, leaning on his staff. One of the servants, seeing that he was a pilgrim, hastened to get him a place at the lower end of the table,—for in those days the pilgrim was always welcome to food and shelter in the houses of great men. But Peter lifted up his hand, and exclaimed with a loud voice, fixing his eyes on the prince: “Arise, O prince! You feast, and your fellow-Christians perish of hunger. You drink the rich wine, and they die of thirst. You listen to harping and idle singing, whilst their groans fill their miserable dungeons. You dwell in strong castles and rich palaces, when the holy brethren in the city of the Saviour are without a covering for their heads, and the very tomb of the Lord is spoiled and defiled by the heathen. Shame on this idle revelry! Up, and draw your swords for the cause of Christ and the rescue of the Holy Sepulchre!”

Every man turned in his seat, and looked at the bold intruder. The prince arose in great wrath, and asked: “Who is the daring man that thus, insults me in my own hall?”

Then Peter folded his hands humbly on his breast, and replied, “I am but a poor hermit, a returned pilgrim from the despoiled and desecrated Holy City; but I bear with me the prayers and imploring cries of thousands of suffering and dying brethren. I have stood by the tomb of Him who died for us; and I have a mission to summon you all, as you would merit the salvation won by that death, to take up the sword and the cross in defence of our faith.”

The song of the minstrel ceased, the feast was forgotten, as the Hermit told with burning words and passionate tears the story of Christian wrongs. When he had done, prince and warriors sprang to their feet, grasped their swords, and with one voice vowed to avenge the wrongs of their brethren.

On another day, in a large and richly decorated church in France, the people had crowded to hear a great preacher, who, it was said, was rousing the people as the like had not been since the days of the Apostles. The religious service was a grand ceremony. The altar blazed with lights, bloomed with flowers, and sparkled with jewels. A long line of priests, clothed in gorgeous vestments, repeated the prayers, bowed reverently to the altar, and swung censers of burning incense, the perfumed smoke of which rose in clouds. A hundred sweet voices chanted grand hymns, whilst the organ filled the church with its majestic strains. Then there was silence, as the great preacher slowly and painfully toiled up the steps of the pulpit. A small, thin man, feeble with much travel and fasting, but with eyes lit up with enthusiasm; bareheaded and with naked feet, his only garment a coarse woollen robe, his only ornament a heavy cross bound to him by a woollen rope. It was Peter the Hermit.

Slowly turning his look over all the church; over the vaulted and carved roof above; over the sea of eager faces beneath; to the gilded organ, the pictured walls, and the altar with its blaze of lights and wealth of jewels and flowers; to the rich vestments of the officiating priests and then to his own poor robe, he at last fronted the people again, and sadly said: “Well it is that here there is a temple fit for the service of God, for in the land of the Saviour’s birth the house of the Lord is made desolate. Well that here the altar glows with light, for there the shrine is in darkness. Well that here the Most High can be worshipped with all the pomp and ceremony of the church; for in the birthplace of that church its children are beaten with stripes, their blood poured out like water, and the holy offices of their religion exchanged for mockery and insult. Men of France! the wails of your dying brethren in Palestine rise above the chant of your choristers; I hear their shrieks in the loudest strains of your organ. You worship with joined palms and bent heads; worship now with clenched hands and sharp swords! And you, holy priests, lay aside your rich vestments, and put on the pilgrim’s frock; put away the jewelled vessels of the altar, and, seizing the cross, lead the people to the succor of the Christians in Jerusalem, to the deliverance of the holy places! Let the old and feeble minister here at the altar, the young and able bear the altar towards Jerusalem. Let the women and children send up their prayers for the good cause, the men aid it with their good swords.” The preacher ceased. The service was over. The procession of priests left the church, and the people crowded around the hermit, who now walked with slow steps to the door, where he mounted his mule, and, amid the tears and blessings of the throng, rode forth on his journey.

Night was closing in on a village of poor cottages at the foot of the hill on which stood the strong castle of a powerful baron. Those who lived in the cottages were the serfs, or bondsmen, of the baron, tilling his land, and living on part of the proceeds. Hard-worked all day, poorly clad, and living in miserable homes, their lot could scarcely be much worse. They were treated no better than the cattle, and were considered to be but little better by the proud noble that commanded and owned them. It was hardly probable that any tale of suffering could move them, seeing how wretched was their own condition.

Through the gloom came slowly riding the hermit on his mule. The poor villagers saw him coming, and went out to meet him. Poor as they were, he was poorer. Wretchedly clothed themselves, his one garment was even coarser and more wretched. Their scanty fare was gladly shared with the holy man, and sufficed for his wants. The frugal meal over, the peasants hurried to an open place beyond the village, a fire of brushwood was kindled, and in its light the hermit stood, whilst, in the homely language best understood by his hearers, he told them the oft-repeated story of the Holy City. Never was that story told to more eager and sympathetic listeners. They forgot their own sorrows in the sorrows of the pilgrims. They thought nothing of their miserable homes, when they heard the desolate condition of the holy places described; and when the hermit finished his speech, as the red flames died away into smouldering ashes, they raised tumultuous cries to be led, though they were armed with nothing but their pickaxes and spades, against the unbelievers.

And so, for more than a year, Peter the Hermit wandered from castle to church, from church to hamlet, from hamlet to city, everywhere repeating the same story, everywhere invoking vengeance on the infidel oppressor, and everywhere firing the hearts of the people with irrepressible military ardor.

In the month of November, 1095, an immense number of people gathered in the pretty town of Clermont, in Southern France. All ranks and conditions of men were represented in the motley assemblage,—solemn priests in long gowns, valiant knights cased in iron armor, soldiers carrying bows and axes, citizens with full purses, and peasants with no money and but poor garments. Pope Urban II. had called a general council to consider the sufferings of the Christians in Palestine, and to it the people flocked by thousands from all parts of France and Italy. So great was the crowd, that the town could hold but a small portion of them, and they camped out in the fields and on the hillsides around. Hundreds of tents, each with a flag fluttering from its peak, or from a staff near by, showed where the knights and nobles lay. The poorer folk gathered at night around the fires kindled in the open air, and slept with no other covering than the sky. Every day meetings were held in the fields and in the squares, where the priests preached about the sufferings of the Christians in the Holy Land, and where the people wept over those sufferings, and vowed to succor and revenge them.

On the tenth day of the council, the people began to gather, early in the morning, towards the great square of Clermont. From the hills at the base of the Puy de Dôme they poured down in a torrent, and from the plain of the Limagne they swept up in a flood. Great nobles in silken robes heavy with golden ornaments rode at the head of their vassals, their silken banners and flowing plumes waving, and their ornaments of bright gold flashing in the sunlight. Knights who had fought many a battle rode, their strong armor rattling and their long swords clanking, at the head of troops of half-armed warriors, who sang rough songs and uttered rude jests as they went. Cardinals and bishops in vestments of rich material, bright with gold and jewels, rode slowly along on their mules, attended by trains of priests, chanting hymns. Then came the rabble of people, men and women, and not a few children, running, pushing, and crowding each other to get first at the place of meeting. On they came, until the square was wedged with people,—all struggling to get closer to the great platform in the centre, which was hung with cloth of bright colors, and from the corners of which fluttered gay pennons. Heralds, with their tunics embroidered with devices, marshalled the crowd in order as they pressed into the square, and from time to time made proclamation by sound of trumpet as they were directed by the great nobles present. Messengers on swift horses pushed through the throng, and galloped from noble to noble. At last the great multitude filled the square and the streets leading to it, until there was no more room. The bishops and priests, bearing crosses of silver and gold, swinging censers of burning incense, and singing anthems and Latin hymns, passed around to the side of the platform. The nobles sat on their horses directly in front, with their men-at-arms at their back, the spear-heads of the warriors gleaming like a constellation of stars. The people of lower rank and the peasants filled up the space beyond, and pushed to get nearer the front, until driven back by the spears of the soldiers.

On the platform in the middle of the square stood a throne, and on this sat Pope Urban, the cardinals being seated on stools and benches by his side. When the time for opening the meeting arrived, the heralds blew their trumpets, and commanded silence.

Then, from behind the Pope dressed in robes of silk and velvet, sparkling with gold and jewels, and from behind the cardinals with their furred gowns and broad red hats with hanging tassels, came a small, spare man, wearing a coarse woollen robe, tied around the waist with a woollen rope, from which hung a heavy cross. His head was bare and his feet naked. Slowly he walked to the front of the platform, for he was thin from long fastings and feeble from weary journeyings; but his eyes were keen, and lit with enthusiasm. At sight of that well-known figure a whisper ran through the crowd: “It is Peter of Amiens,—Peter the Hermit.”

Slowly and solemnly he lifted the heavy cross he wore, until it was stretched at the full length of his arms above his head. All those before him, rich and poor, bent their heads. Then his voice rang out, strong and clear: “Behold the cross of Christ, the emblem of our religion! Who here is ashamed of that holy sign? Who would not defend it with his life?” He paused, and lowered the cross. Slowly and with tremulous voice he commenced the sad story of Christian sufferings in the Holy Land. Every head was stretched forward to listen, and every breath was hushed to catch his words. Then his tones became louder. He pictured the pilgrims, wearied with their journey, by land and sea, of hundreds or thousands of miles, seeking the places where the Saviour had walked, the hill on which he had suffered, the cave where he was buried; and the listening thousands felt as if they too had come, footsore and weary, to seek the tomb of the Lord. In sorrowful words he described the desolation of the holy places, the destruction of the temples, the desecration of the Holy Sepulchre; and every head was bowed in shame. With burning indignation he told of the barbarous indignities inflicted on priest and pilgrim,—the cruel stripes, the gloomy dungeons, the shocking deaths, that awaited the Christian in the land which gave birth to his religion. The knights drew their swords, the soldiers grasped their spears, and the peasants clutched their stout sticks with a firmer gripe.

He suddenly ceased, and turned back to his seat. The cardinals rose to make way for him, and bowed in reverence as the eloquent pilgrim passed. The immense crowd in front of the platform was greatly agitated.

Pope Urban descended from his throne, and came to the front of the platform. His commanding presence, and the splendid robes of his office, formed a striking contrast to the thin and poorly clad hermit who had just spoken. With eager attention the excited multitude awaited his decree and exhortation. They had not long to wait. With fiery eloquence he referred to the story of Christian wrongs repeated by the hermit, and then exhorted them to remedy those wrongs. He told the kings and princes to summon their armies; the knights to grasp their lances and draw their swords; the common people to string their bows and shoulder their pikes; the feeble, the women, and the children to send up their prayers, and all unite for the deliverance of the Holy Sepulchre from the hands of the infidel. He concluded with the solemn declaration of Christ, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me. Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive a hundred-fold, and shall inherit everlasting life.”

He had scarcely spoken the last word, when from every part of the crowd arose one tremendous shout, “It is the will of God! It is the will of God!”

“It is the will of God,” exclaimed Pope Urban, “and, with that as your rallying cry, you shall march to victory.”

The people became wildly excited. They clamored to be led at once against the infidels. The Pope raised his hands in blessing, and the crowd knelt humbly to receive the blessing. Adhemar, Bishop of Le Puy, who sat on the platform, knelt before the Pope, and asked leave to join the army on its march to Palestine. The Pope gave permission, and, as a mark of the service to which he had devoted himself, fastened on the Bishop’s shoulder two strips of red cloth in the form of a cross. The powerful Count of Toulouse followed the example of the Bishop of Le Puy, and also received the cross. The idea was eagerly adopted by the multitude. Priests and monks went everywhere through the crowd, fastening crosses to the shoulders and breasts of the people, blessing them, and receiving their vows to join the Crusade, or expedition in defence of the cross. Then the meeting broke up in haste, every one eager to go home and prepare for his journey to the Holy Land.

Thus originated the First Crusade.

Its history can only be briefly given here. The knights and warriors set about their preparations for the expedition; but it was a long journey to take, and the organization of so large an army as was necessary for the service was a work of much time. It was not until the summer following that the grand army was ready to march. In the mean time the common people became so excited by the preaching of the monks, that they would not wait for the soldiers. Seizing such weapons as they could procure,—some being armed with swords and spears, others with bows and arrows, still others with scythes and axes, and thousands with nothing but clubs,—over a hundred thousand men set out from France under the command of Peter the Hermit, a priest named Gottschalk, and a knight known as Walter the Penniless. They were a disorderly crowd, without discipline or proper leaders. Passing through Germany, Hungary, and Bulgaria, quarrelling among themselves and with the people along the way, they at last arrived at Constantinople, and passed over the straits into Asia Minor. There they attacked the Turks; a desperate fight took place, and only three thousand out of the hundred thousand were left alive. Peter the Hermit was among those who escaped.

Late in the summer, the grand army of the Crusaders set out from France and Italy, numbering over one hundred thousand horsemen and six hundred thousand people on foot, of whom many were women. They reached the neighborhood of Constantinople in the spring of 1097, and were there joined by Peter the Hermit and the remnant of his army. Their march through Asia Minor was a succession of battles; and it was not until June, 1099, that they arrived before Jerusalem, only sixty thousand armed men remaining of the immense multitude that set out on the Crusade. For more than a month the crusaders surrounded Jerusalem, unable to effect an entrance through or over its strong walls. At last one desperate attack was made, the crusaders climbed the walls, sword in hand, shouting, Dieu le veut! or “God wills it”; the Turks were slaughtered on the walls and in the streets, and thus the first crusade ended with the capture of the Holy City.

J. H. A. Bone.

There was once a boy named Giles, who lived with an old aunt in an out-of-the-way place by the side of a mountain, his father and mother being dead. Every one who knew him used to make a dupe of him because he was artless and credulous, and never had an opinion of his own. Still he was always good-natured and jolly, and, being possessed of quite a jaunty manner, he was nicknamed by his companions Corporal Giles.

One morning a mischievous comrade made him believe that, if the wool was shorn from his sheep, and set to float in the mill-pond near by, the rays of the sun would cause it to rise into the air and form clouds; and that myriads of fleeces could frequently be seen suspended under the blue sky, which would descend in due time to the owners, changed into precious pearls. So pleased was Giles with the idea of having the wool of his flock all converted into pearls, that he immediately commenced to cut off the crispy material and cast it into the pond. It happened that the miller was unusually busy grinding that forenoon, so that a large portion of a year’s growth of the fleece of the good dame’s flock, her chief support, was drawn down under the wheel and lost before the young speculator was detected in his thriftless enterprise.

The next day Giles was called up early by his aunt, and thus addressed: “I give you liberty to go into the world, and seek your fortune. You are no longer of any service to me. My crumbling bones are getting tired of being knocked about with hard work, and I shall soon lie down to rest in the grave. Our kind neighbors will make my dying bed comfortable. Go; God bless you! But take this silver thimble with you, and when you are in trouble put it on the middle finger of your left hand, and rub it in the palm of your right hand, and it will always bring the good fairy Cheer-up to assist you. But do not forget any of the directions, or it will be of no avail.” So saying, she gave him the silver thimble, and, kissing him good by, retired to her bedroom, and prayed that her nephew might meet with good success, and return to her again improved by the experience that Providence might have in store for him.

Taking with him some bread and cheese, and a bottle of beer, our young hero started off to seek his fortune in the great world. Pretty soon he heard a hen clucking to her chickens; but he supposed she said to him, “Talk, talk, talk, talk!”

“Very well,” said Giles, “I am willing to talk, if any one will tell me what to say.”

Then he skipped along till he came to a group of alder-trees, and, espying one which was slender and straight, he cut it down with his jack-knife to make a cane; but in doing this he startled a mocking-bird in the vicinity, who sang, as Giles thought, “What a row! What a row!”

“Perhaps this is what I ought to say,” mused the little traveller, and he began to repeat the language of the mocking-bird.

To the fences, walls, and pastures he passed, this speech seemed to afford perfect satisfaction; for none of them found any fault, and once, when he spoke with rather a forcible emphasis, the words were laughingly echoed back by a distant cliff, which so encouraged Giles that he went on, more than ever pleased with his success. In the course of half an hour he came to a brook, which—being out of humor on account of a recent rain giving it more water to carry than it liked—murmured and spoke ill of him when it heard him talking; but he took no notice of its complaint, and continued his journey, jocosely remarking that brooks were apt to run on people if they got in their way.

By and by he entered a village, and saw a stout porter at an inn door, who called out, as a coach drove up, “I’ll carry your trunk for a dime! I’ll carry your trunk for a dime!”

“What a row! What a row!” said Giles, in hearing of the porter, whereby the latter was so enraged, that he caught the little fellow and whipped him, making him promise he would never say so again as long as he lived.

“What shall I say?” asked Giles, as he started off.

“Say, ‘I’ll carry your trunk for a dime!’ ” replied the porter.

Then Giles went on, repeating these words with every step, but enjoying the prospect as it richly opened to his wondering eyes in his progress. What a wide world it seemed to him! Never before had he left his flock by the mountain-side to visit a neighboring place, never had he been more than a mile or two from his cottage home; and he now found his playmates had greatly deceived him in respect to the geography of the land he was travelling through. He saw no “jumping-off place” corresponding to what had been described to him. The azure above his head was the same azure which rounded over his own fields, and reflected itself at a fearful depth in the mill-pond on whose margin he had so often angled; the clouds were the same in shape and color; the trees did not vary in stature; the flowers had tints of yellow, blue, red, and pink, precisely like those he had gathered for his aunt’s earthen vases; the new-mown grass imparted to the breeze its accustomed odor; the sparrows twittered, the quails whistled, the horses whinnied, the roads forked off as crookedly,—and yet all this contrary to the account of others, who had filled his head with marvellous stories of giants, fairies, and witches; of whole towns of men and women of Liliputian size; of flowers as large as California trees; of roads running over high houses; of Brobdingnaggian ants riding on terrible avalanches; of cities as large as New York located under gigantic cabbage-leaves; of fierce snow-storms in midsummer, and of things in general as topsy-turvily turned as possible. Indeed, the fear these fabrications had nursed in his bosom began to give place to confidence; and happy was the beat of his pulse as he bounded along, and now and then lashed with his cane the thick foliage which dangled above him, to illustrate the freedom and buoyancy of his feelings.

Looking ahead, he saw in the distance a circus-train approaching, and a large elephant in the front. “What a tremendous sheep is this!” thought Giles, who had never seen one of these pachyderms before. Still, undaunted at the apparition, he kept up a vigorous pace, calling loudly, “I’ll carry your trunk for a dime! I’ll carry your trunk for a dime!” But the elephant, who happened to have a sensitive disposition, regarded this as an insult, and, taking hold of the youth with his proboscis, shook him until he promised never again to utter in his hearing such insolent language.

“Now tell me what I shall say,” said Giles, after he had promised the elephant.

“Say,” replied he who carried the proboscis, and who at that moment chanced to see a goose and gander coming out of a barnyard,—“say, ‘I see one goose and one gander! I see one goose and one gander!’ ”

“O, that I can say like an actor,” said Giles; and on he went, repeating the words, and every now and then switching the high thistles or grasses or the drooping branches that happened to come within the easy sweep of his cane. By and by the road forked off in equal angles to the right and left, and he was in a quandary which he ought to take. There stood a guide-post at the corner, but Giles had never seen one before, and, having heard so much about the strange beings he should encounter in the great world, it is no wonder that he imagined the post to be a spare animal stationed there as a sort of sentinel. “He has two square ears,” said Giles to himself, “open to each road, so that he can hear what is said by travellers coming either way.”

Then he examined the ears, and noticed that they were adorned with large black letters. “Frogopolis, 3½ miles,” he soon made one to read, and “Hobolinkum, 4 miles,” the other. “These,” thought our hero, “are evidently the names of two places to which these two roads lead, but which will do best by a stranger I am unable to decide. I wish that some one would offer his opinion on the subject.”

Just at that moment a flock of blackbirds flew up from a meadow, and commenced to chatter in a very sociable manner. Giles was not long in interpreting their language; for, as plainly as any one could articulate it, they cried out, so that the very welkin rung with their accents, “Go to Hobolinkum! Hobolinkum, Hobolinkum, go to Hobolinkum! quick as you can, quick as you can! Giles, Giles, Giles, go to Hobolinkum!” But, as he was about to start in that direction, a party of frogs across the way interposed, “Better go to Frogopolis! better go to Frogopolis! Kutter a chunk! kutter a chunk! go to Frogopolis!” and he retraced his steps, and started on the other road. But the blackbirds, seeing this, sang with increasing force, “Go to Hobolinkum! Hobolink-link-link-Hobolinkum-linkum-linkum. Go to—go to—go to—Hobolinkum-inkum-inkum-inkum!”

What it was his duty to do where his advisers were equally divided in urging their advice, Giles did not pretend to know. Many wiser heads in such a case might consult some doctor’s Moral Philosophy; but our young traveller simply sat down on a flat stone, and consulted his luncheon and beer bottle. Then, being somewhat refreshed and enlivened, he determined to get up, and abide by the counsel of whichever party spoke first.

As down went the last drop of beer, up jumped the corporal, and up flew the blackbirds, who proved their right to “the floor” by loudly recommending progress in the direction of Hobolinkum.

“They have both their say and their way,” said Giles, as he skipped along, gayly mimicking the frogs, who were now remonstrating against his choice; assuring them that, though they were doubtless very good frogs in their way, they were a second or two too late, and that it would be for their interest to select a chorister that arose a little earlier in the morning.

He had not proceeded far when a crow alighted on a rock by the wayside; and bowed to him as he passed. But Giles took no notice of the bird, and walked on, repeating the words which the elephant gave him, and flourishing his alder cane as jauntily as ever.

“Whoa! whoa!” cried the crow.

“What do you want me to stop for?” asked Giles.

Whereupon the crow informed him that he only wished him to have the benefit of some good counsel, which was that he should keep his eyes open wherever he might be.

“I am an aged person,” said he, “having seen nearly a hundred years; being the oldest inhabitant in the neighborhood, except a veteran toad that was blasted out of a granite ledge in Quincy, who claims an antiquity paralleled only by the Chinese nation, and avers that the hard chair he sat in for five hundred centuries constitutes a part of a letter of a distinguished firm in Boston, standing out in bold relief over the store door. By learning the art of bilateral vision perfectly, I have come to be promoted to the office of generalissimo of cornfields, which gives me complete command of all the growing maize in the country. I find there is a great difference among farmers. Some of them are up with us in the use of their eyes; but others are green enough to imagine that, if they stuff an old pair of breeches with salt hay, and run a couple of broom-hulks through the arms of a coat inherited by a colony of spiders for a dozen of years, and tie somebody’s grandfather’s tall hat to the collar, and hang the uncouth effigy against a bean-pole in the middle of the cornfield, it will keep all the corvine family at a respectful distance. But we know better than to be afraid of such a stand-still curiosity, or of the small windmill and knocker that are sometimes added to give a lifelike appearance to it; and, if men looked as sharply as we crows do, they would detect many a smile on our faces as we stole away from the scare-nobody, pretending we were eager to escape to our nests, where we trembled, not through fear, but from the exhilarating thought of returning to the corn and having a good feast as soon as the farmer left. Afraid of an effigy? Caw! caw! caw! All we dread is a farmer’s eye when we notice under it a round, black hole; for then, if there is any virtue in wings, we are sure to get the benefit of it speedily. Many a young crow has paid dear for his rashness in venturing too near a farmer with a black stick on his shoulder; for it is well understood, among our tribe, that the black hole is observed under the eye of those only who carry the black stick. But whether you see black sticks, black snakes, or black-legs, be sure and remember the counsel of an old experienced friend,—Keep your eyes open.”

So saying, the crow flew away, and Giles proceeded onward, turning over in his mind the words of the crow, and not forgetting what the elephant had told him to repeat. For two or three hours nothing occurred worthy of record; but presently he found himself in a busy village, where the people dressed vainly, and seemed to have a remarkably favorable opinion of themselves. The gentlemen and ladies who were promenading the streets, and enjoying the pleasant weather, were much amused at what Giles said, one of them observing that it reminded him of a song, very easily learned, of one hundred and sixty-nine verses, the first verse being, “Reviled, evil Ottoman, a motto live deliver!” and all the others differing from this only by inflection; but this song had an advantage over Giles’s, because, when the one hundred and sixty-nine verses were sung, the singers could begin at the end of the last word, and sing the whole song backwards to the beginning, and it would be exactly the same song as before.

No one on the streets seemed to take offence at what Giles was repeating; but as he was passing a tailor’s shop that stood in his way, which was very large and nice, and had its doors invitingly open, he thought he would step upon the threshold, and take a good peep at the summer cloths which were profusely piled upon the counter. Now it happened that the tailor was a foppish man, who plumed himself upon the twirl of his mustache and the stylish cut of his dress, and that he was smoothing a garment with his goose when Giles poked his harmless head in, and called out, “I see one goose and one gander! I see one goose and one gander!”

Now, there being no second person in the room, the tailor flew into a stormy passion at the supposed indignity of the intruder.

“I will teach you better than to call me a gander!” said he, snatching up his heavy shears with the intention of cutting off a portion of the boy’s tongue. Taking to his heels in fright, and pale as a ghost, Giles believed that his last hour had come; nor was he inclined to change his mind on that point when his fashionable foe followed him, and sprung his shears at him, accompanying the grating music with guttural threats which the poor youth too well understood. “If this was only one of the four-and-twenty tailors that went to kill a snail,” thought he, “I shouldn’t have to run; but, O dear! there is no use in wishing.”

Then it suddenly occurred to him that his aunt had given him a magic thimble for protection in danger; and he lost no time in taking it from his pocket, putting it on the middle finger of his left hand, and rubbing it in the palm of his right. Then the good fairy Cheer-up appeared, and told him to fear nothing; bidding him turn around and confront the tailor. Taking courage, Giles obeyed the fairy; but when his pursuer came up, and caught hold of him, his shears melted like tallow, and sank into the sand. Surprised at the strangeness of this phenomenon, he feared to do anything to injure the boy, and promised to release him on the condition that he would never utter such language again within hearing of a first-floor tailor.

Giles consented to do this, if the tailor would supply him with something to say instead. The tailor then looked around, and espying a heavily laden cart, drawn by three yoke of oxen, having its tongue loosened by the severe strain, told him he might say, “What a loose tongue! What a loose tongue!”

“O, I can say that like an actor,” returned Giles; and again he was pursuing his way as merrily as ever, never getting tired of repeating his words, and keeping hold of his thimble with one hand, so as to be ready to call up the good fairy when he should happen to fall into danger. Occasionally he met somebody on the way, and instead of staring at him mutely or with a smile when he passed, as had been the case before, he was surprised at the remark which nearly every one now made, “I should think so!” wondering if they had all agreed to utter the same thing to him. Presently he came to a place where an auctioneer was volubly announcing his wares. Giles stepped up to the block, and called out, “What a loose tongue! What a loose tongue!” But before you could think “Jack Robinson,” the agile auctioneer jumped down from his rostrum, and, seizing the poor fellow, gave him three or four sound boxes on the ears before he succeeded in bringing Cheer-up to his aid and preventing further violence.

“What am I offered, gentlemen,” asked the auctioneer, “for a scrubby little animal of the genus monkeyo-homo, bright eyes, round cheeks, and a voice as melodious as a hand-organ? Going—going—he is sure to be knocked off at some bid, if he don’t promise never again to make use of such language to a well-behaved gentleman like me.”

“I promise I will not,” said Giles; “but what shall I say?”

At this moment the auctioneer, seeing a couple of eagles dart off from the roof of a church, answered, “Say, ‘Eagles have wings and fly away! Eagles have wings and fly away!’ ”

“Indeed, I can say that like an actor,” said Giles; and once more he was on his way rejoicing.

But a few paces beyond there was a notorious gambling-saloon, and, hearing an altercation within, Giles stopped at the door, and, opening it, took a peep at the inmates. The gamblers, on hearing the door open, ceased their dispute, and looked around to see who was entering; and one of the number, who was out of sorts, having just lost a large bag of eagles at vingt-et-un, as soon as he heard the young traveller pronounce the words, “Eagles have wings and fly away!” dashed at him with his cane, asking him what he meant by taunting a man of his stature with such nonsense. And again poor Giles had to submit to a whipping, for in his fright he put the thimble on the wrong finger, and the fairy did not come to his succor.

“Will you promise now to forget these words, young busybody?” asked the gambler, when he thought he had brought the offender to repentance.

“Indeed, indeed I will!” replied innocent Giles; “but pray tell me what to say.”

“Say,” replied the other, “ ‘They’ll all come back again! They’ll all come back again!’ ”

“O, I can say that like an actor,” said Giles; and he did bestow upon its utterance quite a dramatic inflection, as he went on his way, punishing the low-hanging branches over his head as though they were the bodies of criminals exposed at the gibbet, and bruising the tall herbs and grasses without mercy.

The afternoon was now fast spending, and he began to think of a supper and lodging for the night. “There is certainly no harm,” said he to himself, “in asking if I can be accommodated at the next farm-house.” But it turned out that the man of the house had gone away to market with some early pease, and the housewife, fearing from his strange appearance that he might be demented, would not let him stay.

It was a long distance to the next house, and when Giles arrived at it, behold it was untenanted! So, catching up the words which the gambler had put into his mouth, he went along, relieving the monotony of his speech with an occasional whistle, and now and then making an agreeable bow at a tree, or post, or bird which happened to be perched near.

A hundred rods brought him to a thrifty-looking cottage under a hill, surrounded by a large apple-orchard, whose trees had been almost entirely stripped of their leaves by caterpillars. The owner stood leaning against a fence, conversing with his wife, lamenting the waste which had been caused by these voracious worms, and thanking his stars that they had at last disappeared.

“They are hanging in their wee hammocks, father,” said the farmer’s little daughter.

“I don’t care where they hang,” replied the farmer, “if they will hang till the doctors give them up for dead, and never come to my orchard again.”

“They’ll all come back again! They’ll all come back again!” cried Giles, in a laughing, jaunty tone.

“They will,—will they?” replied the farmer, sarcastically; and he caught hold of the boy, and shook him so that he could no more steady his hand to manage the magic thimble than an aspen leaf could hold a dew-drop in a gust of wind.

“They will,—will they?” and with this he gave him another shaking.

“Don’t whip him!” interposed the little girl; “he didn’t mean the caterpillars.”

But to no purpose was this remonstrance. The farmer was too much exasperated to give up until his theory of retribution was carried out, when he made Giles take back the offensive speech, and promise never to utter a word of it in his hearing again.

“What shall I say now?” asked the young traveller, as he was starting off.

“Say,” replied the farmer, looking at his corn, from which he expected a large crop, “ ‘How the ears stick out! How the ears stick out!’ ”

“O,” said Giles, “I can say that like an actor”; and on he went, repeating the words, his heart beating as happily as ever. Presently he came to a green where some boys were playing ball, two of whom were engaged in a warm dispute about their game.

“You caught it on the second hop,” said one.

“I didn’t,” said the other, “it was on the first hop.”

“You are a donkey,” said the first.

“How the ears stick out! How the ears stick out!” cried Giles at this moment, as he came up to the scene of strife.

The words were no sooner spoken than the boy who was called a donkey caught hold of Giles, and whipped him soundly until the latter succeeded in getting hold of the magic thimble, and bringing Cheer-up to his aid, who caused the arms of the enraged boy to fall powerless, so that he let his captive go, making him promise, however, that he would never address such saucy language to a young gentleman who had read Virgil without a pons asinorum, and who “could show how the three angles of a triangle were equal to two right angles right smartly,” and was able to “blow an ace of hearts through a pack of cards, and put to bed the king, queen, knave, and constable in a manner to astonish the natives!”

“And now tell me what I shall say,” said our hero, as he was about to resume his travelling.

The boy, hearing one of his comrades remark that he should like to see him blow an ace of spades through the pack, answered, “Let Patrick have the spades! Let Patrick have the spades!”

“O, I can say that like an actor,” said Giles.

By and by he came to a barn where a maiden was milking a cow. Giles asked her for a drink of milk, and she filled up a pint measure and gave it to him. She also filled his beer bottle to take with him. Draining the measure, he said, “This is quite enough for my supper; for one who is travelling to see the world and find his fortune must not think too much of what he has to eat.” Then, thanking the maid for her kindness, he went onward.

Presently he found himself near a shop where there were groceries, farming-utensils, and all the et-ceteras that are usually kept for sale in a country store. But a few minutes previous the shopkeeper had detected and overhauled a man who was carrying away a couple of spades which he had stolen from the store. He had recovered the stolen property, and was giving the offender a lecture on the immorality of theft, when Giles stepped into the store, saying, “Let Patrick have the spades! Let Patrick have the spades!” whereupon both men took hold of him in a fury,—the shopkeeper asking whether he made it a business to defend petty larceny; the thief inquiring if he meant to call him Patrick, when he had as good a Yankee name as could be found in any family-Bible in Yankeedom.

By protesting his innocence in that naïve manner which rarely, if ever, can be counterfeited to perfection by the guilty, Giles avoided the climax of the whipping, and, chucking to his cane to go on (indulging in the fancy that it was a pony he was driving), made his exit, at heart as gay as ever.

“Hold, hold!” called out the shopkeeper, “not so fast. Promise, before you leave, you will never utter those words again, my lad!”

“What, then, shall I say?” asked Giles.

“Say,” replied the shopkeeper, looking around at his stock of farming-utensils, of which he had made large sales that day,—“say, ‘One rifle and one rake left! One rifle and one rake left!’ ”

“That I can say like an actor,” said Giles, accompanying the assertion with an inflection of the language to be repeated that would do credit to a teacher of elocution.

It was now so dark that our traveller determined to stop in the next barn he came to, and rest for the night; for he had already asked in vain for a lodging from two or three women in whose minds suspicions were awakened by his strange appearance, and he thought it would be less trouble to make a snug little hollow in the sweet hay to cuddle in, than to procure a lodging in a bed which, after all, might not be clean, at the expense of so much asking. So, as soon as he came to a barn, he opened the door, and, thrusting in his head, listened. A horse was nibbling oats in one corner; that was certain; but that was the only noise he heard. “This,” thought Giles, “is a crack place (unconscious of his pun) to sleep in, and I know by the sound of the horse’s chewing that he wants me to share the inn with him.” And the animal undoubtedly was well pleased when Giles entered and lay down on the hay; for he plainly made more ado over his oats than before, and even struck his right fore-hoof on the floor as if to affirm beyond a question that mine quadruped host was gratified and honored by his company.

Being weary, Giles soon fell asleep, and dreamed. He thought he was lying on a meal-chest in his aunt’s kitchen, watching her frying flapjacks at the fire. She kept dipping out the fluid dough with the same iron spoon that was bought when Giles was a baby, and deposited it on the griddle; then turned over the simmering cakes; then took them off, they being nicely browned; then rubbed the griddle with a pork rind, and dropped bits of batter over the surface, put on more of the light dough, and browned another panful, O, how lusciously! But she seemed doing this for a long time, and presently she looked around at him, when he saw with astonishment that her eyes were green! Then he shouted out, and awakened; and as true as he was alive he beheld before him his aunt’s eyes, on the hay, gleaming with a weird green hue, and flashing like two Koh-i-noors!—or, rather, he thought they were his aunt’s,—so he put his thimble on his finger, and summoned Cheer-up to disenchant the premises. But Cheer-up, when she came, laughed at him for being scared at a cat, and vanished again. Then Giles, ascertaining that it was a real cat, and not his aunt’s spirit, that was the cause of the alarm, coaxed the stealthy visitor, who began to purr very softly, to come and take a lodging in his hollow; and the landlord in the stall, rejoicing that he now had two guests in his house, gave the floor as many thumps with his hoof to express his gratification, and all three went to sleep,—one to dream again of the dear home he had left; the second, of the fabled grain-land where there are thousands of mills haunted by tens of thousands of well-fed mice; and the third, of endless verdant pastures, where the bee never comes to suck the honey from the clover, and the letting down of the lane-bars to call to harness never grates upon the ear all the day long.

The dawn had driven its chariot of fire nearly up to the eastern horizon, the birds had ventilated their warbling throats with many an ante-breakfast roundelay, the drowsy cows in the yard had arisen from their nocturnal lair and lazily stretched themselves, and the maid was drawing the pattering milk into the pail, when Giles opened his eyes, and, bidding his room-mates good by, begged from the maid a draught of milk for his morning meal, and a fresh supply for his bottle, and, thus simply equipped, commenced another day’s travel.

For a long time he met with no adventure that was of sufficient import to claim a record here; and he was actually beginning to think that travelling might after all turn out to be dull business when the first day’s adventures were past, and that perhaps it would be better to stop with some honest farmer, and ask to be hired to work, when he arrived at a little wood where a gay young spendthrift had camped overnight, being out on a hunting excursion, and had, while asleep, been robbed of everything he had with him except his fowling-piece, on which he had been lying. It was just as the unfortunate huntsman was fully realizing his loss that jolly Giles passed by, crying out, “One rifle and one rake left! One rifle and one rake left!”

“You insignificant chatterbox!” exclaimed the huntsman, “you don’t call me a rake with impunity”; and upon this he proceeded to administer to the young traveller a pommelling such as he honestly thought was deserved for the impudence; but being a man vain of his speech, and interspersing the castigation with several long-spun witticisms, Giles had ample time to rub his thimble and secure the assistance of Cheer-up before he was made to smart very extensively for his ill-starred language; though the plaintiff openly declared his intention of exterminating the defendant, unless he would promise not to address “such peppery phraseology to an unlucky larker again.”

“O, I promise,—indeed I promise,” said Giles; “but please tell me what I shall say.”

The huntsman’s attention was at that moment attracted towards a swallow’s nest in a hole dug in a sandy jut above him, where the domestic tranquillity of the inmates was interrupted by a dashing beau swallow, who was insisting upon the abdication of the established husband to make room for his consequential self; therefore he replied, “Say, ‘One swallow too many! One swallow too many!’ ”

“O, I can say that like an actor,” said Giles; and quite like an actor he walked away, taking short steps (which are always genteel), and quite like an actor he talked away, though it was the same lingo said over and over,—a fault, by the way, that many other folks are guilty of, and therefore we must consider it at least very excusable in Giles, whose educational advantages were very limited.

He went on for some time without meeting with men, women, or children, there being a large wood to pass through, uninhabited save by birds and animals. But with some of these he stopped and chatted, and not by any means unprofitable were these conversations; for much information he gained therefrom that he was thankful for and resolved to put in practice. A squirrel, for instance, informed him of a low dram-shop at the further end of the woods, where they sold all kinds of dangerous liquors, and advised him not to stop there to drink. “For,” said the squirrel, “there is nothing but evil in the vile stuff.”

“Why do they drink it, if it is vile?” asked the innocent youth.

“That is what we sedate squirrels would like to know,” replied the other.

Giles could not help feeling ashamed that he belonged to the same race with those who besotted themselves with maddening drinks, and, bidding the squirrel good by, continued on his way. As he drew near the dram-shop, he walked a little faster than usual, and fastened his eyes on a cloud that stood like a mountain in the horizon. “To look at temptation is to partially yield to it,” said Giles. “The best way is to avoid it entirely, if one can, and fix one’s attention on something beyond and above us that is pure.” The cloud Giles was gazing at was one of that kind called by persons of science the cumulus cloud, but popularly known as a thunder-head; and he thought he discovered in it a great deal of beauty.

“I wish I had a ladder to lead up to its summit!” said he to himself; and thus were his thoughts engaged when he at last looked down, and saw before him a man leisurely walking along in a zigzag fashion. Giles laughed outright at this queer spectacle. “I wonder,” thought he, “if he imagines he is engineering for a Virginia fence!” But Giles had never before seen an intoxicated wretch, and he did not know that this was one; but up he stepped to him, and sang out, “One swallow too many! One swallow too many!”

“War’s ’at you zay?” interrogatingly growled the angered man; and with a sudden spasmodic gesture he clutched hold of Giles’s coat, and bestowed upon him two or three awkward blows by way of preparation. Then, raising his fist to a maximum height, he gave notice in the maudlin vernacular. “Thunder-bo-o-o-olts strike,—poo-oo-orly paid zhoe-oo-oo-ma-kers strike,—an’ now take care, all nations, ’nd Rooshy’n partiklr, for the modern Napo-o-o-leon’s go’n’ to strike!” And very much as we sometimes in a dream fall from an eminence, and yet touch the ground as lightly as a bit of down from an eider-duck, dropped the formidable fist of the pugilist, not however upon Giles, but down harmlessly by his own loins. Then, thinking that he had completely subjugated the enemy by this vigorous punishment, he made him promise never again to make use of the offensive language to a respectable man.

“But what shall I say, Mr. Engineer?” asked Giles.

The man told him to say, “I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!”

“O,” said Giles, “I can say that like an actor”; and off he started again as blithely as a bird on the wing.

This time he met a great many people, and they all appeared pleased with what he repeated, as Giles inferred from their good-natured looks and pleasant remarks, when he passed them. “Why, there is nothing I have said,” said he to himself, “that has gratified folks more than these words”; and he uttered them with increasing distinctness.

In the course of an hour or so he happened to pass by a bakery having lights in the front windows, of very large size. Now, just as he passed, a roguish truant threw a stone at one of the lights, and broke it, but darted off around a corner without being seen by either the baker or Giles. When the stone struck the window, the baker looked up, and saw Giles walking along, and heard him say, “I beg your pardon! I beg your pardon!” whereupon he rushed out, seized him, and inquired whether begging a man’s pardon for breaking a ten-dollar light would mend the window, adding a few cuffs to awaken the supposed offender to a realizing sense of the enormity of his misdemeanor. In vain did Giles declare his innocence, for he had virtually confessed his guilt to the baker by asking his pardon; and as he had no money to pay for the broken glass, he was informed by the baker that the latter would “take it out of him in jailing.” Then poor Giles began to cry, and lament the hour he left his safe home to fall into the snares of the wicked world, where, as he found, the wise cheated the foolish, and the innocent suffered in innumerable ways for the knowing ones. “Do let me go,” said he, piteously; “let me go back to my dear, dear aunt, and tend her flock, and do her errands. I will never throw any more wool into the mill-pond,—never, never!”

But our little hero, guiltless though he was of wrong, could not make the baker believe in his innocence, and he was put in jail on complaint of breaking the window-light. It was a wonder, the reader will say, that Giles did not think of his magic thimble all this while, but somehow or other he forgot it, surely; but no sooner was he locked into the dark cell than it came to mind, and in a twinkling of an eye, as he rubbed the rough head in his hand, helpful Cheer-up appeared before him, the prison lock flew open, and Giles ran out, wiping away his bitter tears. The jailer, astonished at this, asked how it happened. Giles told him it was done by a fairy; and the jailer, fearing him when he said this, permitted him to depart, advising him to try to behave himself, and avoid all further scrapes.

“I wasn’t shut up for breaking a window,” explained Giles, “or for doing anything wrong, but because I said, ‘I ask your pardon!’ But I will never say so again, if you will please tell me what to say.”

The jailer, chancing then to see two or three bugs, having green wings, crawling on Giles’s feet (he was barefoot), replied humorously, “Say, ‘See to the green-backs! See to the green-backs!’ ”

“O, I can say that like an actor,” said Giles, and on he went, none the less jolly for having been to jail; for he knew the jail was no disgrace further than it served as a true index to guilt, and that he had not suffered for wrongdoing, but from adverse circumstances.

And now our hero, who was surprised to find the world so large,—for he had expected to come to its end after travelling a few miles,—was destined to meet with an adventure of more importance to him than any or all he had met with before. He had passed through two or three small villages, never forgetting to repeat the words the jailer gave him, as he went on; but nothing especial had occurred, and night was closing over hill and dale, when he entered quite a large town and sat down on the steps of a church to rest. But, being more fatigued than he supposed, he fell asleep, and did not awake till the church clock announced the hour of twelve. Then up he jumped, and went through the streets, calling out clearly, “See to the green-backs! See to the green-backs!”

Now it fell out that a man returning home from a caucus overheard him, and, supposing he meant the money in the bank, informed some policemen of the fact; and they all hastened to the bank, and, sure enough, found two robbers in the act of carrying off all the money from the safe. It was as much as the robbers could do to escape, and glad enough were they to do this, though they had to leave behind them the money, which was saved, every dollar of it.

There was, of course, great excitement in the town from this event, and in the morning everybody was inquiring to what accident the detection of the theft and the security of the money were due. The caucus-man described the little barefooted boy with a straight stick, and explained how he had given him the warning that led to the timely discovery; and this news was soon so well circulated that a great number of people, including even women and children, were on the search for Giles at an early hour, in all sections of the village. But Giles had gone through the more thickly settled portion of the village, and had stopped in a barn to sleep, about half a mile from the bank; and here he was finally found by the officers of the bank, who were eager to reward him for the seasonable alarm he had given, by which a large amount of money was saved to that institution.

“I was sent to jail for no crime of my own,” soliloquized Giles, “and now I am going to be rewarded for no merit of my own; and so it is that Providence makes recompense.”

The president of the bank then asked those present how much they thought the boy ought to receive as a reward for what he had done. Upon this, one named one hundred, another two hundred, another three hundred, and still another four hundred dollars.

You may be certain that Giles’s eyes were never larger than when he heard these immense sums mentioned as presents to him; but when the president decided to add the one, two, three, and four hundred together, and give him a thousand dollars, and also a splendid carriage with four white horses, he was fairly overcome with his good fortune.

“And now let me hasten back to the home I left,” said he, “and never leave it again.” So when the thousand dollars were placed in his possession, and the carriage came up, he hired a driver, who drove him speedily to his cottage home by the side of the mountain, reaching it just as his aunt was going out to give her pigs their dinner. The old dame was as much beside herself with joy, when informed of the good luck of her nephew, as she had been with fear when she first saw the grand carriage and four drive up to her front door.

And now would you like to know how Giles took care of his horses and money?

As to the horses, he turned them all to pasture, and, after he had learned to manage them well, he took out his old aunt to ride in the grand carriage every week, and showed her many things that she had never seen before; and the money he rolled up and put into a box, and concealed the box among some rubbish in the garret, and every rainy day he would go up there, take it out, and count it over; but whether he still counts it over there, or has invested it in petroleum, I cannot tell; nor am I sure that the horses are not changed, by this time, into several acres of good tillage land, or, like Baucis and Philemon, into respectable trees; but if the latter transformation be true, we will indulge the hope that, when the trees are cut down and corded, the matter may be fully recorded in history.

Willy Wisp.

Mr. and Mrs. Littlefield live in a large white house with a garden in front of it, where peonies, marigolds, and phlox grow in great abundance. There are two barns, and horses, cows, pigs, hens, chickens, ducks, geese, and all sorts of delightful things; but the nicest thing about the house, inside or out, is Anna Maria. There used to be a number of children at the Littlefields’, but now there are five little graves in the churchyard, and only one little girl at home. The neighbors think Mrs. Littlefield spoils her, but I am not sure about it; at any rate, she can’t help it. You see, when Anna Maria cuts up one of her mother’s embroidered collars to make a cape for her doll, or when she goes down in the swampy meadow, and, leaving her new shoes sticking there, comes walking into the kitchen in her stocking-feet, making little muddy marks on the nice clean floor, and looking all the time as tranquil as a May morning, her mother thinks of her children in the churchyard, how good they always are, how their feet never stray into forbidden places, and their hands never touch what doesn’t belong to them; and so, instead of telling Anna Maria that little girls who do so are always put in a dark closet for half an hour, she says: “Well, there, it’s no matter. Dolly’s got a pretty cape, and mother can buy plenty of collars”; or,—“Bless the dear child! Just look at her now! Here, Lizzie, run get her a clean pair o’ stockings.”

One day the parish “called” a new minister. The first time he preached all the people went to church to see how they liked him. The Littlefields went, of course, and they took Anna Maria. She was about five years old then, and had never been to church before; but, to the great delight of her parents, she behaved as well as if she were fifty.

At dinner that day, Mr. and Mrs. Littlefield said to each other that they liked the new minister very much.

“And I like him too,” said Anna Maria.

“Do hear her now!” said her mother. “She never took her eyes off his face all the time he was preaching. Did you understand what he said, dearie?”

But dearie wasn’t going to commit herself, so she only shook her head in a wise manner, and repeated that she liked him.

A few days afterward the minister came to see Mrs. Littlefield. Anna Maria went into the parlor with her mother, and, stationing herself directly in front of him, watched every word that came out of his mouth. Mrs. Littlefield and he had a great deal to say about the “warm spell” they had been having, and a number of other things; but, as soon as she got an opportunity, Anna Maria inquired, “Why don’t you talk as you did Sunday?” at the same time gesticulating wildly with both arms in the air.

“Dear, dear!” exclaimed Mrs. Littlefield, and her face was about the color of the peonies in the garden; but before she could say anything more the minister burst into a fit of laughter, and she was only too glad to join him. After that, he talked a great deal to Anna Maria, and when he went away, he said, “Will you come and see me sometime, my little friend?”

“O yes, sir,” said she, “I’ll come to-morrow.” So, the next morning, mindful of her promise, she asked, “Will you take me to see the minister to-day, mother?”

“Why, my blessing, mother’s got the cheeses to ’tend to, and half a hundred other things to do; but we’ll go some day.”

Now, if she were only five years old, Anna Maria had lived long enough to discover that the time specified by her mother meant just the same thing as never. So when her father came home that night, with the men and oxen and two great loads of hay, she ran out to the barn, and said: “Father, will you take me to see the minister to-morrow?”

“Well, well, that is a pretty good one! Ask me to go galivanting about the country in haying-time! Come, let’s go and get some supper,” lifting her on his shoulder as he spoke.

“Run, father, run!” said she, drumming on his head; and poor Mr. Littlefield, who had thought himself almost too tired to walk home beside the oxen, pranced clumsily across the yard and into the house.

Now Anna Maria didn’t intend to give up the visit to her clerical friend for all the cheeses that ever were made, or all the hay that ever was cut; and the next day, when her mother was taking her afternoon nap, she went up to the room that contained the Littlefield best clothes, and there, after much rummaging of drawers and closets, she brought to light her hat trimmed with blue ribbon, and her little blue parasol. The silk sack which she wore on great occasions did not come to hand, but Mrs. Littlefield’s Sunday mantilla did; so she arrayed herself therein, feeling that her mother would willingly lend it to her, as she was going to make calls. If you had seen the mantilla on Mrs. Littlefield, you would have called it a small one, for it reached just to her waist; but on Anna Maria it looked very large indeed,—the fringe almost touched the ground. Much pleased with her appearance, she set out on her way down the long, dusty, sunny road. She had not the least idea where the minister lived, but, reasoning after a natural fashion, she thought it must be near the church, and accordingly in that direction she bent her steps, trudging bravely along until she came within sight of the steeple; and then, rightly judging that he would be as likely to live on one side of the church as the other, she opened the gate of a little brown cottage, went up the gravel walk, and inquired of a lady who sat reading on the piazza if the minister lived there.

“No, dear,” said she; then, looking at her attentively, “Why, where did you come from? What is your name?”

“Anna Maria Littlefield,”—backing towards the gate as she spoke.

“Well, but what are you doing, child? Your mother doesn’t know you are wandering about so, I am sure.”

“I’m galivanting,” said Anna Maria, “and I guess I must be going. Good afternoon, ma’am,” and she slipped through the gate, shutting it, and setting off again at a quick pace for fear the lady should follow her.

The church stood back from the road, and had a green slope of grass in front, with two little paths on each side, made by the feet of the good people who came there every Sunday. Up the road there were apple-trees leaning over the stone fences, and an old white horse stumbling slowly along, and cropping the short, dusty grass, but not a house in sight! Then, for the first time, the little pilgrim cast a look behind, though not a long one; she was a trifle discouraged, but not in despair, so she went up and sat on the lowest step of the church to rest herself and wait till some one should come along who could tell her how to find the minister. Ten minutes passed, seeming to Anna Maria like so many hours, and nobody went by but the old horse, who looked up at her, shook his head, and then suddenly trotted off, as if he felt it his duty to go and inform some one, at once, that a little girl was sitting on the church-steps, and something must be done about it. At last she heard the sound of approaching wheels. Yes, there was a chaise coming, and it might be the minister going home, or her father coming to look for her. It must be either one or the other; so, with hope in her heart, she ran down to the road. The chaise drew up just as she had expected, but, alas! the gentleman who leaned out was no one she had ever seen before.

“What is it, little girl?” said he.

“I want the minister,”—and there was a tremble in her voice.

“What?” said the gentleman, in surprise. “Did your mother send you, dear?”

“No, but he asked me to come and see him, and I don’t know where he lives”; and she looked up in his face piteously.

Then, of course, he asked her name, and on hearing it exclaimed, “Why, Littlefield’s house is a mile and a half away! You must be pretty well tired, poor child”; and he jumped out of the chaise, put her in, got in again himself, and drove off in less time than it takes to tell of it.

“We shall pass right by the minister’s, and I’ll leave you there. I’m going to the cars, or I would take you home,” said he.

“O, thank you, sir, I’d rather you wouldn’t,” said Anna Maria.

They rode along very quickly for a little while, then the chaise stopped before the minister’s house. The gentleman lifted her out, holding her a minute in his arms to give her a kiss and say good by, opened the gate, and then drove off faster than ever.

Anna Maria went up the steps and knocked by the side of the door, which stood wide open,—such a very little knock that she had to repeat it two or three times, and still nobody came. Then she thought it was time to go in. She looked into the nearest room; there was no one there. She went along a little farther to a door that stood half open, stepped in, and there was the minister. He was writing just as hard as he could, and took no notice of his little visitor, who stood half concealed by the door, and overcome by an unusual fit of shyness. Suddenly he caught sight of her as he was dipping his pen in the ink, ready for a fresh start.

“Why, who is this?” said he; then, as he stepped forward a little, “Ah, my little friend! Is your mother with you, dear?”—coming to meet her with a pleasant smile.

“No sir, I came alone,” said Anna Maria, quite reassured by his voice, and ready to sit on his knee, tell him all her adventures, and answer as many questions as he had to ask.

Then he called Mrs. Green, and told her that she must make him something particularly nice for tea, because he had company. Mrs. Green kept house for the minister, and cooked his dinners for him.

“Well, I never!” she said, coming in to look at Anna Maria. “She certainly dooz beat all!”

When tea was ready, instead of something very nice, they found a great many nice things. Mrs. Green put a chair for Anna Maria close to the minister’s, and after he had got two great books to put in it, so that her head might be a little above the table, they sat down, and had a delightfully social time.

“Perhaps she ought not to eat this,” said the minister, stopping in the act of passing the plum-cake to Anna Maria, and looking up at Mrs. Green, who was standing behind her.

“O, she has pretty much what she likes at home, I guess,” said Mrs. Green. “Seems as if Mrs. Littlefield couldn’t make enough of her; she’s lost five children, you know, sir.”

Anna Maria was well aware that she didn’t have plum-cake every time she asked for it, but thought it best to let the first part of the remark go without comment. As Mrs. Green finished speaking, however, she looked up in surprise, saying, “Why, no, they’re not lost. Mother knows where they are, and so do I. They’ve got little white stones at the head of their beds,—and they’re very happy down there,” she added, after a minute’s pause.

The minister felt that, if she were somewhat wrong as to locality, the idea was quite correct; so he smiled kindly at her, patting the little hand that lay on the table, and making no attempt at corrections. As soon as tea was over, the chaise came to the door, because the minister said, “Mother may be anxious”; and Mrs. Green helped Anna Maria to dress, laughing heartily to see how funny she looked in Mrs. Littlefield’s mantilla. Anna Maria did not exactly understand the cause of her mirth, and, fixing her dark eyes upon her in disapproval, said at last, soberly, “Mother wears it to church Sundays.”

“Why, bless you!” said Mrs. Green, “ ’tain’t the mantilla I’m a laughing at,—it’s you, you funny little toad!”

Then they got into the chaise, and set out in fine spirits. The minister’s horse seemed to feel that there was no need to be in a hurry such a fine summer night, so the stars were shining in the quiet sky before they arrived at home. Mrs. Littlefield was at the gate, of course, looking anxiously up and down the road; but Mr. Littlefield and the other inmates of the house had dispersed in various directions, to look for Anna Maria in all sorts of improbable places, as people are apt to do on such occasions. Mrs. Littlefield’s exclamations of joy and thankfulness were too many to be repeated here; but she found time in the midst of them to hope that “the child” hadn’t given the minister much trouble.

“I don’t know when I’ve been so much pleased, Mrs. Littlefield,” said he,—which was perfectly true; and when the young folks who read this story are as old as the minister, they will understand why the visit of a little child gave him more pleasure than that of the wisest person in his parish could possibly have done.

G. Howard.

The tricks described in my former lessons depended for their effect more on the apparatus used than on any skill on the part of the performer. In stage tricks, this must always be the case, as sleight of hand shows to but little advantage in a large room; there the most brilliant tricks, or at least those that are most applauded, are such as can be seen as well at a distance as near by; and, as conjurers are but human after all, they naturally choose what will bring them most praise. Even those who profess to accomplish everything by sleight of hand practise, in fact, but little of it,—the only difference between their performance and that of others being that they bring their apparatus on the stage only at the moment they want to use it, instead of displaying it all at once, as has been the usual custom.

For a parlor, however, a proficiency in sleight-of-hand is absolutely necessary. My readers are, I presume, by this time, adepts at palming, in which I instructed them so long ago; therefore on that subject I need say nothing further, but will pass at once to

The first thing necessary for the proper performance of card tricks is a facility in making what is known as the Pass; that is, the pack being divided into two parts, which are merely separated by placing one finger of either hand between them, to cause the lower pack to pass over the upper so that the top one becomes in turn the bottom; this, of course, any one could do, but to do it in such a way that it will not be perceived is altogether a different matter.

The easiest way of learning this is to get some one who knows how to teach you the movement, and then practise it; but as it is sometimes difficult to find such a person, or, having found, to persuade him to teach you, I will try to explain it. There are several ways of “making the pass,” and as some prefer one, and some another, I will content myself with describing the several methods, and leave my readers to choose that which they find the easiest to execute.

Having the pack, I will suppose, in the left hand, divide it into two parts by raising about one half of it with the right hand, and then place the third finger of the left hand between the parts; the first, second, and little fingers of that hand will then be on the top of the upper pack, which is held by these three fingers on top and the one at the bottom as if in a vise (as in Fig. 1). Then with the thumb and the second and third fingers of the right hand seize the two ends of the lower packet (as in Fig. 2). The forefinger and little finger of this hand have nothing at all to do. The pack having been arranged as I have described, everything is in readiness to make the pass, which is done in this way. The right hand presses the lower pack into the fork formed by the junction of the thumb and forefinger of the left hand; at the same time the upper packet is raised by the fingers of the left hand, until it assumes an upright position, as shown in Fig. 3. In this position it is held whilst the right hand lifts the under packet, until it stands horizontally. The two packs are now facing each other as shown in Fig. 4 (the right hand is still over the pack, but, in order to better show the position of the cards, it is drawn with dotted lines.)

That which was the upper pack is now dropped on the palm of the left hand, by simply closing the hand and withdrawing the fingers; the lower packet (or that which was the lower) is then placed on the pack which is in the palm. The position of the cards is now completely reversed.

Having practised this method of making the pass until able to make it at least six times in a minute, you may then essay

Place the pack in whichever hand is the more convenient, holding it in such a way that the thumb lies over the back of the pack. Place the forefinger and little finger under the pack, and with the second and third fingers divide the pack into two parts.

The lower packet is now held by the four fingers, whilst the thumb goes over the back of the upper pack. Now raise the four fingers, and with them the under packet, pushing the upper pack, which you must prevent slipping by holding it at the root of the thumb.

When you have raised the lower packet quite clear of the upper one, you let that which was on top fall on the hand, and bring down the one that was the lower on top of it, at the same time disengaging your fingers.

This is one of the most difficult manipulations conceivable, and requires an immense deal of practice to acquire it.

The simplest, and, to my mind, the best way of making the pass with one hand is the method I will now describe.

Hold the pack in the hand (either right or left, it matters not which) in such a way that the ends of the forefinger and thumb rest on the top edges of the pack. Separate the pack into two parts by placing the little and largest fingers between the pack. Next place the third finger under the pack. The pack is now in the position shown in Fig. 5, the upper packet being held at the end by the tips of the forefinger and thumb, and the under one by the other three fingers.

To reverse the position of the pack, lift the upper packet, and then, by extending the fingers that hold the under one, it will be in the position of Fig. 6; all then that remains to be done is to let the packet held by the thumb and forefinger fall on the palm of the hand, and bring the other pack on top of it by closing the fingers that hold it.

The movement is now accomplished, and the fingers may be withdrawn. These manipulations, when once you become familiar with them, will be found to be quite simple, and by no means difficult of execution.

There are several other methods of making the pass, but I think those I have given will suffice.

When performing card tricks, it is sometimes convenient not merely to know what card has been drawn, but also to know in advance what will be drawn. At first glance this may appear very wonderful to my readers, and be suggestive of those curious advertisements we so often see in the daily papers, which relate to “the likeness of the future husband or wife shown, lucky numbers foretold,” &c., &c.; but there is no “occult-science” business about the conjurer’s foreknowledge; the only science he knows and uses is the science of humbug; and when perchance he wants to know beforehand what cards Messrs. Smith, Brown, and Jones will draw, he makes up his mind what they shall draw, and arranges it so that they do draw them; in fact he forces them to take just what he pleases, and when you, my young friends, have obliged some amiable conjurer, the pink of politeness, by drawing “any card you choose,” you have, in doing this, drawn just what he chose and prearranged. Although it may seem rather difficult thus

yet it is not a very hard matter, as I will now try to explain.

The cards which are to be forced are placed at the bottom of the pack, which is then shuffled in such a way as not to disturb those cards. Having by thus shuffling the pack persuaded the audience that there is no pre-arrangement of the cards, you make the pass, and by this move bring the chosen cards into the centre of the pack. These cards, remember, are now at the bottom of the upper packet, which overlaps the under one, as seen in Fig. 7. As we approach the person who is to draw the card, we slide along the cards of the upper packet by means of the thumb of the left hand, spreading it out like a fan, and contriving it in such a way that the card you want to force presents itself to the person about to draw, just at the moment his hand is extended to take one.

I am afraid I have not made this very clear, but it is the best I can do, and my readers will have to be satisfied with the explanation.

Supposing them to have practised until they are perfect in making the pass and forcing cards, they may now essay a trick; and, to make up for the dry details of this article, I will explain one of the prettiest, most surprising, and by all odds the most popular card-trick known. It has a variety of titles, but, as one will answer as well as another, I will call it

Four or five cards having been drawn by the audience, they are put back in the pack, which is then placed in a small metal card-case, fitted with a cork, that just goes into the neck of a decanter.

The decanter is made of clear white glass, and filled with water; and the audience are allowed to examine both it and the card-case before they are called into use.

The cards being in the case, and the case fixed on the decanter, the performer asks the first person who drew a card to tell him the name of it.

“Seven of hearts,” I will suppose the answer is.

“Will you be kind enough to ask the seven of hearts to come up?”

“Seven of hearts, come up.”

And, to the astonishment of all, that card comes up out of the pack, and is immediately handed to the audience, that they may see there is no string attached to it.

“The next card that was drawn,—yours, sir? Will you please call it by name, and tell it to come up?”

“Three of spades, come up.”

The card, like its predecessor, obeys, and comes out of the pack, and so with the two following. The fifth card yet remains.

“What was your card, sir?”

“The Queen of diamonds.”

“Please tell it to come up.”

“Queen of diamonds, come up.”

“There, sir, you see how it obeys.—Why, that is very strange, the card does not obey, something must be wrong! Oh! I beg pardon, sir, what did you say your card was?”

“Queen of diamonds,” answers the one who drew it, pleased at last to have puzzled a conjurer.

“Ah, my dear sir, with a Queen you must use a little ceremony. Let me see what the effect of my addressing her will be. Will your Majesty condescend to honor this company with your august presence?

“Ah, now she makes her appearance.”

Now, how do my readers imagine these cards are made to appear? By some very complicated apparatus? by an ingenious arrangement of springs? Nothing of the sort; by a piece of plain black sewing-silk, which passes along the stage to the hands of an assistant, who pulls it at the moment the audience order the cards to “come up.”

“By a piece?” exclaims one of my readers; “by several pieces, I should say, as there are five cards.”

“By a piece,” I still insist; and now I will explain how the string is fixed.

Take a piece of fine black sewing-silk, three or four yards long, and make a knot in one end of it. Next thread a needle with this silk, and lastly run the needle and silk through the top of a card, at about the centre of it: the knot will prevent the silk going through, or, to still better secure it, you may sew it on to the top of the card.

Now take twelve or fifteen cards, and place the one to which the silk is attached on top of them, letting the silk lie over the top edges. If now you take a duplicate of the last card you are to force, and press it down on top of the silk into this pack of twelve, the silk will be carried with it, as shown in Fig. 8 in which the dotted lines show the course of the thread; and if, when it is fairly down, the end of the silk marked A is pulled, the card will naturally come up.

When you are about to show this trick, you arrange previously a pack of twelve, with a silk attached in the manner described, and then place on top of the silk duplicates of the cards you are to “force,” putting the last first, next to the last second, and so on. This packet, with the cards and silk, all ready to be pulled, you lay on your table. When you commence the trick, begin by “forcing” the cards you want drawn. This being done, place the pack on the table alongside the prepared pack, and take your decanter and card-case, about which there is no preparation, out to the audience for examination. When they have satisfied themselves that there is no deception about these, return to your table, pick up the prepared packet, place it on the back of the other pack, and put both into the case.

Your part of the business is now over; the rest of the trick depends on your assistant.

P. H. C.

And when we have explored the promenade garden, and rested for a while on one of the seats with which it is furnished, out into the park we go once more, to examine some of the curious things that are to be seen there. We pass by a beautiful palace, which, as we are informed by one of the polite and intelligent policemen by whom the grounds are guarded, is the palace of the Bey of Tunis, a great African prince. About it we see sentries in strange uniforms, wearing turbans on their heads, and armed with weapons curiously carved and inlaid. Here is a little village of tents pitched by Bedouins from the deserts of Arabia; and these wild Arabs, in their picturesque costumes, make a brilliant contrast with the green foliage and turf. Leaving these, our attention is directed to a building in which ice is made by a patent freezing process. One might naturally expect that the ice turned out by this apparatus would be in a mashed and half-fluid condition, like that which remains in an ice-cream freezer when the mould is removed; but, on the contrary, it is moulded in bars four or five feet long and a foot square, and these bars are as transparent and pure as the great blocks with which our American ice-houses are supplied from the clear inland lakes. Wonders follow upon wonders in this park of fairy-land; and not the least among them is this process of obtaining ice by means of steam.

From ice to diamonds it is easy to go in a breath; for have you not often observed on some frosty morning of winter, after a thaw, how the branches of the trees are laden down with great chains of diamonds, hung upon them by King Frost during the night? And so it is that, not far from the building in which ice is manufactured by steam, there is a workshop in which the most beautiful diamond jewelry is made. Here all the processes of cutting and setting diamonds are carried on; and it is to this place that ladies appear to be attracted more than to any other, perhaps, in the grounds.

By and by we come to a large mound, which has rooms hollowed out within it; and here are aquaria in which curious fishes are kept, as well as an aquarium for frogs. On entering the mound we see some large glass grottos, the frames of which are very ingeniously contrived in imitation of rough rock-work. These are the aquaria, and in them swim a great variety of curious and beautiful fishes, brought from countries both far and near. But still more interesting than these is the aquarium in which the frogs are kept. Before this numbers of young people may generally be seen,—and a good many older people too,—watching the gambols of the frogs, which, with their queer pranks, bear a very singular resemblance to human beings engaged in a bathing-frolic. Sometimes they will chase one another through the water like boys. They play at “leap-frog” over one another’s heads from the rocks of the aquarium, diving here and there with wonderful speed and ease; and then they will come up again, and, climbing upon the ledges of the rock, will sit there as gravely as stout old aldermen, sometimes crossing one leg over the other, and holding their heads on one side with a meditative air. The gambols of these creatures are really so curious and interesting that we remain looking at them for a long while. In a state of nature frogs are animals whose habits it is not easy to observe, on account of their usual haunts being among reeds and in muddy pools of water; but in this beautiful clear aquarium they appear to great advantage,—seeming, indeed, to take pride in displaying their feats of wonderful activity and adroitness to the visitors who daily come to see them.

Well, I think you will agree with me that by this hour we have seen a good deal for our twenty cents, and that it is time for us to seek some refreshment and rest. Let us look in at the restaurants, then, which are arranged under the veranda by which the outer oval is surrounded, and which offer, in themselves, not the least curious of the sights to be seen in this very curious place. Here the people of all the nations that have come to take part in the exhibition have their own cook-shops, in which they cook their own peculiar viands, each after the fashion of his own country. What would you say now to visiting the Chinese restaurant, and calling for some roast dog, or rat pie, both of which are considered luxuries in their own country,—at least by that singular people? Better not try the experiment, I think; rat pie can hardly be a tempting dish, even when served up on a sumptuous China plate. Perhaps these Egyptians who are squatting around here could treat us to some crocodile’s eggs, or to a steak of hippopotamus from the Nile. That would be rather heavy feeding, you say, and so it would; and as the very same objection applies to pork-and-beans, not to mention pumpkin pie, we will only just look in at the American restaurant, the steam arising from which seems to waft one back home across the sea. Spain and Italy have delicious fruits in their restaurants, and they are curious in salads and famous for their olive oil. But, so far as cookery goes, I believe the French have the advantage over all; and so to the French restaurant we go, where we get all manner of nice things for a moderate price, and thus we finish our day.

And now the evening is well advanced. The great exhibition building is closed for the night, but the park is all aglow with lights, making an illumination which is really grand to see. Look back upon it now, as our carriage rattles us across one of the bridges over the Seine, and I think you will say that we have had full value, to-day, for our twenty cents.

Charles Dawson Shanly.

“Well now, Dr. Hardhack, doesn’t our Emily look beautiful?” said Emily’s mother and grandmother and aunt, all in one breath.

Emily had come home from her long abode in the country, and had brought her friend Pussy Willow with her; and they were sitting together now, a pair of about as rosy young females as one should wish to see of a summer day.

Dr. Hardhack turned round, and glared through his spectacles at Emily.

“Pretty fair,” he said; “pretty fair! A tolerable summer’s work, that!”—and he gave a pinch to Emily’s rosy cheek. “Firm fibre, that! real hard flesh, made of clover and morning dew,—none of your flabby, sidewalk, skinny construction.”

“Well now, Doctor, we want you to tell us just what she may do,—just how much. I suppose you know, now she’s got into a city, she can’t dress exactly as she did up in the country.”

“I see, I see,” said Doctor Hardhack; “I take at once.”

“You see,” said Aunt Zarviah, “there isn’t a thing of all her clothes that she can wear, having been all summer in those loose sacks, you know. She’s sort o’ spread out, you see.”

“I should think so,” said Doctor Hardhack. “Well, my advice is, that you begin gradually screwing her up; get her corsets ready, with plenty of whalebone and a good tough lace; but don’t begin too hard,—just tighten a little every day, and by and by she’ll get back to where all her things will fit her exactly.”

“But, Doctor, won’t that injure her health?” said the mamma.

“Of course it will, but I fancy she’ll stand it for one winter; it won’t quite kill her, and that’s all we doctors want. If it suits you all, it does me, I’m sure. What should I do for my bread and butter, if all the girls of good families kept on living as these two have been living this summer? I really couldn’t afford it, in a professional point of view.”

“Well, I have something on this point to say,” said Emily. “I wouldn’t lose my health again for anything that can be named.”

“O pooh, pooh! I’ve heard a deal of talk of this sort before now. When patients are first up from a sickness, how prudent they mean to be!

“Thank you, Doctor,” said Miss Emily; “but I think that poetry doesn’t apply to me, if you please. I hope I’m not of that family.”

“Well,—but seriously, Doctor, you must tell us just how much it will do for Emily to do,” said the mamma. “One doesn’t want to give up the world entirely, and yet one doesn’t want to lose one’s health.”

“I see,” said the Doctor; “I appreciate the case entirely. Well, let her begin with the opera twice a week, and one German, kept up till daylight. In one week she will feel stronger than ever she did, and declare that nothing hurts her; then she can take two Germans, and then three, and so on. Fact is,” said the Doctor, “of all the devices of modern society, none is so good for the medical practice as these Germans; my best cases are made out of ’em; they unite all the requisites for forming first-rate patients that keep on our hands for months and years, and are as good as an annuity to us. I’m not a fool, madam. I must look ahead for my bread and butter next spring, you see.”

“But, Doctor, I’m not going to Germans at all,” said Emily, stoutly. “I know now what life is, and what health is worth, and I’m not going to waste it in that way. Besides, I’m going to try to live for something better.”

“Live for something better!” said the Doctor. “What sort of talk is that for a young lady in the first New York society? What is there to live for better? I thought of it the other night when I was at a confirmation at Grace Church, and saw a whole bevy of pretty creatures, who all were engaging to ‘fight manfully under Christ’s banner,’ and thought where they would be before spring. Whirling round all night in a low-necked dress is the kind of fighting they do; and then I’m called in as hospital surgeon to the dear disciples when they are carried off the field exhausted. I know all about it. You can’t, of course, live for anything better. You couldn’t, for the world, be called singular, and be thought to have odd notions,—could you? That would be too horrible.

“Now I knew a rich New York girl once who took to bad courses. She would go round visiting the poor, she would sit up with sick people, and there was no end to the remarks made about her. People clearly saw how wicked it was of her to risk her health in that way,—how late hours and bad air and fatigue would certainly undermine her health,—and she was quite cast out of the synagogue. You mustn’t breathe bad air or over-exert yourself, unless you do so from a purely selfish motive; then it’s all right and proper,—this is our New York gospel.”

Pussy Willow’s blue eyes were open very wide on the Doctor as he spoke, and there was a laugh in them, though she did not laugh otherwise. The Doctor caught the expression, and shook his cane at her.

“O, you needn’t sit there looking mischievous, miss. What do you know of life? You’re nothing but a country girl, and you know no more of it than the bobolinks and chip-squirrels do. You’ll soon learn to be ashamed of your roses, and to think it’s pretty to have bad health. I’ll bet a copper that you’ll begin a course of corsets in a fortnight, and by spring we shall send you back to your milk-pails as white and withered as Miss Emily there. It’s astonishing how fast we can run a girl down, taking one thing with another,—the corsets, and the hot rooms with plenty of gas escaping into them from leaky tubes, and then operas and Germans for every night in the week. Of course it’s a charity to give you a good stiff dose of it; it’s hospitality, you see.”

“Now, Doctor Hardhack, you dreadful man,” said Emily, “you must just stop this talk. I brought Pussy down here on purpose to have somebody to help me to live better than I have lived. We shall just take a peep or two at New York sights, but we are not going into the gay world.”

“Ta, ta, ta! don’t tell me,” said the Doctor, shaking his cane playfully at her; “you won’t be so unfair as to cut me in that way. I shall hear of you yet,—you’ll see”; and so the Doctor departed.

“What a droll man he is!” said Pussy.

“It’s just his way,” said Emily’s mother; “he’s always running on in this strange way about everything. For my part, I never know half what he means.”

“It is tolerably plain what he means,” said Emily. “You must do exactly contrary to what he tells you,—as I shall; so, aunty, don’t trouble yourself to try to alter my things, unless it be to let them all out, for I’m going to keep all the breathing-room I’ve got, whether I have a pretty waist or not. I’d rather have color in my cheeks, and a cheerful heart, than the smallest waist that ever was squeezed together.”

“Such a pity one couldn’t have both!” said Aunt Zarviah. “Your cousin Jane was in here last week with her new bismarck silk, and it fits her so beautifully! Somebody said she looked as if she’d been melted and poured into it; there wasn’t a crease or a wrinkle! It did look lovely!”

“Well, Aunt Zarviah, I must try some other way of looking lovely. Maybe, if I am always gay and happy, and in good spirits, and have a fresh bright face, it may make up for not looking as if I had been melted and poured into my clothes.”

To do Emily justice, she showed a good deal of spirit in her New York life. She and Pussy agreed to continue together their course of reading and study for at least two hours a day; then they both took classes in a mission Sunday-school, which was held in the Church of the Good Shepherd, and they took up their work in real good earnest.

“Now,” said Emily, “I am not going to give my class just the odds and ends and parings of strength which I have left after I have spent almost all in amusing myself; but I mean to do just the other way, and spend the strength left from really useful things in amusing myself.”

The girls kept a list of their classes, and used regularly every week to visit the families from which the children came. In the course of these visits they found much else to do. They saw much of the life of the poor; they saw paths daily opening before them in which the outlay of a little time and a little money enabled them to help some poor struggling family to keep up a respectable standing; they learned the real worth of both time and money; and the long walks they took in all weathers in the open air kept up their strength and vigor. They went occasionally of an evening to some of the best sights in New York, and they saw what was really worth seeing; but they did not make a winter’s work of rushing from one amusement to another.

On the whole, the two girls, in spite of Doctor Hardhack, proved that a temperate, sober, healthy, useful life might be led even in the higher circles of New York.

Doctor Hardhack used to pretend to fly into a passion when he saw them,—shook his stick at them wrathfully, exclaiming, “What is to become of me if you go on so?” and threatening to denounce them. “It’s a conspiracy against our bread and butter, the way these girls go on,” he said. “I sha’n’t have a shadow of a case in Miss Emily, and I’m an abused man.”

So passed a pleasant winter, when one morning all New York waked up in arms. Emily’s father brought home the newspaper,—there was a war; Emily’s brother came rushing in all out of breath,—“The New York Seventh has got to be off in a twinkling. Girls, good by.” But I must leave more about this until next month.

Harriet Beecher Stowe.

This was Mrs. Peterkin. It was a mistake. She had poured out a delicious cup of coffee, and, just as she was helping herself to cream, she found she had put in salt instead of sugar! It tasted bad. What should she do? Of course she couldn’t drink the coffee; so she called in the family, for she was sitting at a late breakfast all alone. The family came in; they all tasted, and looked, and wondered what should be done, and all sat down to think.

At last Agamemnon, who had been to college, said, “Why don’t we go over and ask the advice of the chemist?” (For the chemist lived over the way, and was a very wise man.)

Mrs. Peterkin said, “Yes,” and Mr. Peterkin said, “Very well,” and all the children said they would go too. So the little boys put on their india-rubber boots, and over they went.

Now the chemist was just trying to find out something which should turn everything it touched into gold; and he had a large glass bottle into which he put all kinds of gold and silver, and many other valuable things, and melted them all up over the fire, till he had almost found what he wanted. He could turn things into almost gold. But just now he had used up all the gold that he had round the house, and gold was high. He had used up his wife’s gold thimble and his great-grandfather’s gold-bowed spectacles; and he had melted up the gold head of his great-great-grandfather’s cane; and, just as the Peterkin family came in, he was down on his knees before his wife, asking her to let him have her wedding-ring to melt up with all the rest, because this time he knew he should succeed, and should be able to turn everything into gold; and then she could have a new wedding-ring of diamonds, all set in emeralds and rubies and topazes, and all the furniture could be turned into the finest of gold.

Now his wife was just consenting when the Peterkin family burst in. You can imagine how mad the chemist was! He came near throwing his crucible—that was the name of his melting-pot—at all their heads. But he didn’t. He listened as calmly as he could to the story of how Mrs. Peterkin had put salt in her coffee.

At first he said he couldn’t do anything about it; but when Agamemnon said they would pay in gold if he would only go, he packed up his bottles in a leather case, and went back with them all.

First, he looked at the coffee, and then stirred it. Then he put in a little chlorate of potassium, and the family tried it all round; but it tasted no better. Then he stirred in a little bichlorate of magnesia. But Mrs. Peterkin didn’t like that. Then he added some tartaric acid and some hypersulphate of lime. But no; it was no better. “I have it!” exclaimed the chemist,—“a little ammonia is just the thing!” No, it wasn’t the thing at all.

Then he tried each in turn some oxalic, cyanic, acetic, phosphoric, chloric, hyperchloric, sulphuric, boracic, silicic, nitric, phosphoric, nitrous nitric, and carbonic acids. Mrs. Peterkin tasted each, and said the flavor was pleasant, but not precisely that of coffee. So then he tried a little calcium, aluminum, barium, and strontium, a little clear bitumen, and a half of a third of a sixteenth of a grain of arsenic. This gave rather a pretty color; but still Mrs. Peterkin ungratefully said it tasted of anything but coffee. The chemist was not discouraged. He put in a little belladonna and atropine, some granulated hydrogen, some potash, and a very little antimony, finishing off with a little pure carbon. But still Mrs. Peterkin was not satisfied.

The chemist said that all he had done ought to have taken out the salt. The theory remained the same, although the experiment had failed. Perhaps a little starch would have some effect. If not, that was all the time he could give. He should like to be paid and go. They were all much obliged to him, and willing to give him $1.37½ in gold. Gold was now 2.69¾, so Mr. Peterkin found in the newspaper. This gave Agamemnon a pretty little sum. He sat himself down to do it. But there was the coffee! All sat and thought awhile, till Elizabeth Eliza said, “Why don’t we go to the herb-woman?” Elizabeth Eliza was the oldest daughter. She was named after her two aunts,—Elizabeth from the sister of her father, Eliza from her mother’s sister. Now the herb-woman was an old woman who came round to sell herbs, and knew a great deal. They all shouted with joy at the idea of asking her, and Solomon John and the younger children agreed to go and find her too. The herb-woman lived down at the very end of the street; so the boys put on their india-rubber boots again, and they set off. It was a long walk through the village, but they came at last to the herb-woman’s house at the foot of a high hill. They went through her little garden. Here she had marigolds and hollyhocks, and old maids, and tall sunflowers, and all kinds of sweet-smelling herbs, so that the air was full of tansy-tea and elder-blow. Over the porch grew a hop-vine, and a brandy-cherry tree shaded the door, and a luxuriant cranberry-vine flung its delicious fruit across the window. They went into a small parlor which smelt very spicy. All around hung little bags full of catnip, and peppermint, and all kinds of herbs; and dried stalks hung from the ceiling; and on the shelves were jars of rhubarb, senna, manna, and the like.

But there was no little old woman. She had gone up into the woods to get some more wild herbs, so they all thought they would follow her,—Elizabeth Eliza, Solomon John, and the little boys. They had to climb up over high rocks, and in among huckleberry-bushes and blackberry-vines. But the little boys had their india-rubber boots. At last they found the little old woman. They knew her by her hat. It was steeple-crowned, without any vane. They saw her digging with her trowel round a sassafras-bush. They told her their story,—how their mother had put salt in her coffee, and how the chemist had made it worse instead of better, and how their mother couldn’t drink it, and wouldn’t she come and see what she could do? And she said she would, and took up her little old apron with pockets all around all filled with everlasting and pennyroyal, and went back to her house.

There she stopped, and stuffed her huge pockets with some of all the kinds of herbs. She took some tansy and peppermint, and carraway-seed and dill, spearmint and cloves, pennyroyal and sweet marjoram, basil and rosemary, wild thyme and some of the other time,—such as you have in clocks,—sappermint and oppermint, catnip, valerian, and hop; indeed, there isn’t a kind of herb you can think of that the little old woman didn’t have done up in her little paper bags, that had all been dried in her little Dutchoven. She packed these all up, and then went back with the children, taking her stick.

Meanwhile Mrs. Peterkin was getting quite impatient for her coffee.

As soon as the little old woman came, she had it set over the fire, and began to stir in the different herbs. First she put in a little hop for the bitter. Mrs. Peterkin said it tasted like hop-tea, and not at all like coffee. Then she tried a little flagroot and snakeroot, then some spruce gum and some carraway and some dill, some rue and rosemary, some sweet marjoram and sour, some oppermint and sappermint, a little spearmint and peppermint, some wild thyme, and some of the other tame time, some tansy and basil and catnip and valerian, and sassafras, ginger, and pennyroyal. The children tasted after each mixture, but made up dreadful faces. Mrs. Peterkin tasted, and did the same. The more the old woman stirred, and the more she put in, the worse it all seemed to taste.

So the old woman shook her head, and muttered a few words, and said she must go. She believed the coffee was bewitched. She bundled up her packets of herbs, and took her trowel, and her basket, and her stick, and went back to her root of sassafras, that she had left half in the air and half out. And all she would take for pay was five cents in currency.

Then the family were in despair, and all sat and thought a great while. It was growing late in the day, and Mrs. Peterkin hadn’t had her cup of coffee. At last Elizabeth Eliza said, “They say that the lady from Philadelphia who is staying in town is very wise. Suppose I go and ask her what is best to be done.” To this they all agreed it was a great thought, and off Elizabeth Eliza went.

She told the lady from Philadelphia the whole story,—how her mother had put salt in her coffee, how the chemist had been called in, how he tried everything, but could make it no better, and how they went for the little old herb-woman, and how she had tried in vain, but her mother couldn’t drink the coffee. The lady from Philadelphia listened very attentively, and then said, “Why doesn’t your mother make a fresh cup of coffee?” Elizabeth Eliza started with surprise. Solomon John shouted with joy; so did Agamemnon, who had just finished his sum; so did the little boys, who had followed on. “Why didn’t we think of that?” said Elizabeth Eliza; and they all went back to their mother, and she had her cup of coffee.

Lucretia P. Hale.

Robert Schumann.

DOUBLE ACROSTIC CHARADE.

ILLUSTRATED REBUS.—NO. 21.

Our Boy.

CHARADES.
No. 22.

ENIGMA.
No. 24.

I am composed of 55 letters.

My 49, 39, 20, 55, 33, 16, 21, is a strait in the Mediterranean Sea.

My 23, 32, 15, 22, 41, is a river in Russia.

My 1, 9, 29, 30, 50, is a town in France.

My 45, 37, 42, 44, 51, is a group of small islands north of Scotland.

My 20, 4, 33, 16, 26, is a river of France.

My 20, 46, 28, 7, is a small lake in Sweden.

My 22, 8, 32, 5, 2, 31, 18, 52, 48, is a town in the northern part of England.

My 11, 40, 12, 6, 23, is a small lake in Africa.

My 3, 41, 20, 38, 41, 31, 3, 15, 2, is a river in Illinois.

My 40, 35, 19, 53, 43, 52, 6, 17, 23, is a city in Ohio.

My 34, 54, 13, 5, 25, is a small lake in Minnesota.

My 10, 37, 52, 14, 9, 29, 24, 47, is a city in the northern part of Kentucky.

My 32, 6, 40, 27, 17, 50, 39, 36, 11, is a mountain in Massachusetts.

My whole is an old saying.

Helen W.

PUZZLE.
No. 25.

ANSWERS.

Our Letter Box receives a great many epistles which would be met with more than a passing acknowledgment, if editors were not the busiest persons in the world. But it makes us feel that we are on thoroughly good terms with our great circle of little readers, when they write to us so familiarly of the pleasant things they have been doing, and are still about.

One little girl tells us of a happy day she spent at Niagara; here a sister gives a copy of a letter from her brother, a boy-soldier, who fell in the terrible war which after all was so gloriously ended; there is a little Kentucky girl’s story of her letter to the soldiers, sent in a box containing “turkeys and socks, and ever so many nice things,” and which found its way to her own father, ill in the hospital; several send us specimens of their school compositions; one or two “a piece of poetry which was not intended to be published, at first,”—(dear little folks, your magazine would not be the treasure to you that it is, if we published anything but the best efforts of those who have been studying and practising for years the art of writing well,)—and occasionally comes a letter the least bit in the world fault-finding, to which we do not object at all, as neither magazines nor people are supposed to be absolutely perfect.

It is somewhat amusing to read the various judgments which are expressed about the puzzles. A “middling smart boy” in Buffalo says they are almost all too hard for him, and too hard to be guessed by any but “very ingenious boys and girls,”—of whom we judge there is a large majority among our readers, as most of the puzzles are sent in by the “young folks” themselves,—while others write that they are too easy, and that there are not enough of them.

Meanwhile, as our young public are proving their satisfaction with their magazine by swelling its subscription list, we shall continue to do in their behalf the best we can, welcoming always any suggestion they may make, whether it can be acted upon or not.

Florence A. McK. You are right in thinking that the first syllable of the name which we write Goethe, is printed Gö or Goͤ in German, but you are not right in thinking it is pronounced Ga. The sound heard in that syllable is not an English sound, and so it can only be conveyed to the eye by a reference to the nearest sound with which we are acquainted; and, if you consult any good German grammar or dictionary, you will find that the pronunciation we gave—much like the u in “hurt”—is the best that can be given in letters. Ga-the is certainly wrong.

A Correspondent wishes the boys and girls to know about a game called Blowing the Feather, which he thinks very interesting.

“Gathering May Apples,” is not quite up to the mark, but we thank the author for much kindly expressed interest.

David Copperfield. You will never know who built the first boat, we fancy.—Let us see the dialogue.

This poem should be read and remembered at this season of snowy sports, and, as it came too late for a more prominent place, we have put it here, where we hope all our readers will see it and profit by it:—

Agatha H. We are limited to no set of writers: we take the best that is offered only.

Starlight. “Pray for them which despitefully use you.”

A. Strit—r. Your verses and rhymes are good, but you have not written a poem.

Belle Langley. You may try, certainly; but do not expect much.

Hautboy. The new one is a little too involved, we think. It is neatly done.

L. V. H. Not quite.

Mrs. Isaac A. P. Thanks for your letter, as well as for the specimen of verse.

Herbert F. R. has written “A Child’s Wish,” which is so pleasant in its way, that we print it here:—

Mary A. H. writes:—

(1.) We do not know; she is probably from thirty-five to forty years of age. (2.) Her best poem is probably to be considered “The High Tide”; of her philosophical poems “Divided” is the finest, we think, while her best lyrical writing is in the “Songs of Seven.” (3.) We cannot tell you. (4.) We have already printed a good deal on this subject, of which some of our readers think altogether too much. (5.) Decidedly. (6.) No. (7.) If we can get first-rate problems.

C. A. B. (Philadelphia.) Please to try a long rebus. Your geographical ones are excellently sketched, but rather short.—It is Gibraltar, not ter.

If you have all guessed that last month’s puzzle was “Throw physic to the dogs,” you are quite ready to try your skill at another one. And here it is, drawn by Mr. Day, directly from the First Scene in the Fifth Act of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

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 4 edited by J. T. Trowbridge and Lucy Larcom]