Title: Harper's Round Table, November 3, 1896
Author: Various
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Harper's Round Table, November 3, 1896" ***


[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1896. FIVE CENTS A
COPY.

VOL. XVIII.--NO. 888. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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[Illustration: ONE PORTRAIT BEFORE WHICH MY MOTHER USED TO STAND AND
WEEP.]

A LOYAL TRAITOR.

A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

BY JAMES BARNES.

     Memories of John Hurdiss, of Stonington, Connecticut, written by
     himself, in order to ease his mind and, incidentally, to interest
     any one who might enjoy an unembellished narrative, told by a pen
     untried but truthful. It represents the labor of spare moments
     taken from a busy life, and is dedicated to those who may bear the
     writer's name. He therefore craves a kind indulgence.--J. H.

     EDITOR'S NOTE.--The manuscript from which the following
     auto-biographical story is printed was found in an old desk that
     had been hidden away in the garret of a shipping-office in the town
     of Stonington, Connecticut. It narrowly escaped being destroyed at
     the time of discovery. Parts of it required a great deal of care in
     the putting together, as the mice had unfortunately commenced their
     work of destruction. However, it has been deciphered without loss
     of a paragraph, and, it is to be hoped, contains sufficient that
     will interest the reader. John Hurdiss is well remembered by one or
     two of Stonington's oldest inhabitants, although he moved from that
     town to the West some time in the forties. His grandchildren (for
     whom he probably wrote the story) are now given a chance to read of
     the strange adventures of their ancestor under three flags. The
     mystery which is referred to, and which has little to do with the
     story itself, perhaps, we leave for their unravelling. Thus,
     without further preamble, it is presented as it came from his pen
     and in his words. The main title is taken from one of Captain
     Hurdiss's own expressions; the titles to some of the chapters had
     to be supplied, as the original author left them in blank.


Chapter I.

AB INITIO.

In sitting down to write a tale in which I myself am the central figure
and most prominent actor, I cannot help at first feeling a fear that any
one who perchance shall read all that is to follow (if I ever succeed in
the finishing of it) will judge me a person whose opinion of himself is
high in the extreme.

While possessing the proper self-respect, without which no man is ever
truthful or successful, I do not claim to have accomplished anything
for the reason that I am gifted beyond the ordinary. I am not. But
circumstances of my early youth gave to me chances for adventure, and
fate probably led me, under the guiding hand of Providence, through much
that is outside of the usual walks of life.

Although, as I write, I am only in late middle age and hale and hearty,
all that I intend to record seems long ago indeed. Yet truthfully, and
in such ways as memory recalls it, do I intend to put it down. If I am
discursive, it is because I am led away by the vividness with which my
eye puts the scenes again before me; that is all there is to it.

In going over many events of the past in the half-waking hours at
night--a habit I have long been prone to--I have felt, often, my
heart-beats quicken, and more than once I have scarce restrained an
inclination to speak or to cry aloud in accordance with my feelings.
Perhaps the placing of all this upon paper may reduce the intensity with
which I relive a life that is gone. And thus, to begin:

My earliest childhood's recollection is of a warm summer's day. I know
it was warm, because the sand in which I was playing sparkled and shone
as it ran through my fingers, and the long stretch of beach, whose
whiteness dazzled my eyes, was hot to the touch of my bare feet. A great
brown curly dog playing up and down the water's edge makes part of the
picture, and an old colored mammy, crooning softly to herself, was
shading my head with the green branch of a tree. Then a tall man with
gray hair came and lifted me on his shoulder and carried me through a
wood whose trees seemed to touch the clouds; then out of the shadows, by
a path through a meadow (in which were some great fierce hogs that
frightened me most dreadfully), up to a large house, where a beautiful
woman took me in her arms and kissed me and called me pet names that I
was glad to hear. This, I say, is the first day of all my life that I
can remember--which is beginning at the beginning, and no mistake.

Gradually it came to me, so that I can remember it, that I began to love
things. I loved my beautiful mother, who spoke to me in a language very
different from that of the three old colored people whom I saw every
day, namely, Aunt Sheba, Ann Martha, and Ol' Peter; and I loved them
also, and I loved the dog.

I seemed to understand the two kinds of speaking very well (my mother's
and the rest of the world's, I mean), although I did not know that one
was French and the other darky English pure and simple.

The tall man, whom I sometimes called "_père_," and at others "daddy,"
was not always with us. Very often it was long months between his
visits, and he generally remarked how I had grown and how much heavier I
had become since last he had lifted me up on his shoulder.

Then came the time when I began to think--strange thoughts that were
never answered, because for the most part I confided them to no one
except, maybe, to the brown curly dog, who was called "Maréchal" by my
mother, and "Maa'shal" by the colored people. Like myself, he seemed to
understand either language perfectly, and replied to each in his own
fashion.

I well remember the day I first began to wonder at the vastness of the
world. It was upon an occasion when my father and Ol' Peter took me for
a sail in a _tremendous_ boat that they afterwards hauled up on the
beach out at the mouth of the river--this is very clear in my mind--and
the next morning after this excursion I went down with my mother to the
end of the little wharf, and lo and behold! a great ship was lying at
anchor in the broad stretch of water beyond the reedy point of land. My
mother was crying softly, and my father kissed her, and me, too, over
and over again. Then he stepped in a boat rowed by dark men with beards
on their faces, and put off to the ship, spread her sails like a great
bird and swept out into the bay.

When she had gone beyond the point, and we could no longer see a tall
figure standing on the after-deck waving his hat, my mother burst out
crying harder than ever, and we went back to the house. I never saw my
father again.

I call him "my father," in thus looking back at the great spring-time,
because I always think of him as such, and because I bear his name. Long
years afterwards I learned much that this story will tell, if it goes on
to the end, but it is now too early to indulge in explanations--I must
relate things as they come to me.

Well, when I was six or seven years of age--when these first days I have
touched on were even then but a memory--I began to enjoy life in new
ways. I had never a play-mate but the dog, who had grown too old for
romping; but my mother would read long and wonderful stories to me in
her beautiful low voice, in French, of course, and I, listening,
pictured the outside world as something strange and beautiful, and just
waiting and yearning for _my_ coming to see it and enjoy it.

The ships that sailed up and down the bay, long distances off, were all
bound somewhere that only _I_ knew, and my thoughts would follow them to
enchanted islands where fairies and beautiful creatures lived, and where
wonderful birds sang from the branches of wonderful trees. I had begun
to study with my mother about this period. Dull work it often appeared
to be, and I dare say many a rebellion had to be put down and many an
outbreak silenced, although I can recollect no chastisements. But at
last, before I was ten years old, I would take a book, and followed by
the sedately plodding Maréchal, seek a shady spot down at the point,
where I read myself to sleep often enough.

Of course now, by this time, I knew that the name of the river on which
our plantation bordered was the Gunpowder, that the blue waters were the
waters of Chesapeake Bay, that I lived on the shores of Maryland, and
that the ships were bound not to fairy islands (except now and then when
I _wanted_ them to be), but to Baltimore and Annapolis and Havre de
Grace, and to a dozen other places whose inhabitants sought their living
by trading and sailing on the sea.

I had also heard from Ol' Peter that there had been a war between our
country and another, named England, and that a great man named
Washington had once stopped at this very house in which we lived. Ol'
Peter described to me the surrender of Cornwallis (at which he had been
present, according to accounts); but my mother's talk and all she read
about was of France, that I gradually came to believe must have been the
most beautiful country in the world. Yet my mother always spoke as if
France were dead, which puzzled me not a little. Of a truth, there were
many things that puzzled me in those days. I had so many times received
the answer, "You will learn all some day--_On vous dira tout ça un de
ces jours, mon petit_," that at last I learned to hold back my
curiosity, or to answer with my own imagination.

Our neighbors, who were not very neighborly, lived at long distances
from us. They had no children, and up to my tenth year I had never
exchanged a thought with any one of my own age. To tell the truth I am
afraid my mother did not encourage the people near us to be very
friendly, and I suppose that they talked much, and perhaps said spiteful
things about her. I can remember how I began to notice that she seldom
walked farther than the rose-bush at the end of the garden path, and
that she was growing thinner and thinner, yet more beautiful every day.

We led a very simple existence, living mostly on what we raised in the
garden and what Ol' Peter brought back from the "cross-roads"--a
collection of three houses five or six miles distant from our
plantation.

But I was growing big and strong for my age--so strong, indeed, that I
could handle the heavy oars when Peter and I went out on the river to
tend the nets; and never shall I forget the first time I was allowed to
fire the old fowling-piece that occasionally brought a fat canvas-back
duck, lusciously reeking of wild celery, to grace our table.

The furnishings of the big house we lived in I can recall in detail;
they were very rich, although there were no carpets in any of the rooms
except in the room my mother slept in. But there were great nail-studded
chairs, and two carved oak sideboards, and a wonderful clock, upon
which, by-the-way, I took my first lesson in geography; it was shaped
like a golden earth, with the hours marked upon its circumference, and a
hand that pointed them out as each came around in turn.

The rooms upstairs were empty, except for some packing-cases and
rubbish--all but one small chamber, to which my mother alone had the
key, and which contained a great iron-bound chest that I stood much in
awe of. In the wide hallway downstairs were three portraits; one before
which my mother often used to stand and weep (I knew it to be he who had
sailed away in the ship and used to carry me on his shoulder). The
second was a handsome pale-faced man whose hair fell in long ringlets
over his steel armor, and who looked forth, very proud and haughty, from
his piercing gray eyes that would follow one even out of the door on to
the piazza. (I have often peered around the corners to see if they would
discover me, and they never failed in it.) The third was a beautiful one
of a woman whom I thought to be my mother. One day she told me, however,
that it was not--that it was her twin sister, at which I marvelled.

A score or so of books were in a great case in one of the bare front
rooms, some of them bound in handsome leather bindings and filled with
fine engravings. What would I not give to possess them now!

One day was so much like another that, were it not for the seasons that
flew by quickly, the world would have apparently been standing still;
but that the oars were becoming less heavy and the distances not so
great. Very soon I tended the nets alone or wandered along the shore
with the old flintlock fowling-piece over my shoulder; ducks, or perhaps
a wild goose or a swan, during the spring and fall, were always ready to
be cooked, hanging in the spring-house at the end of the garden.

I began to roam farther and farther in my lonely excursions. Poor old
Maréchal would follow me no longer than reached the shadow of the house.

I suppose that many people who travelled by the coach that passed the
cross-roads every day wondered who the boy was that used to stand with a
tall gun beside him at a fence corner, silently watching the lumbering
vehicle go down the highway in a cloud of dust. I must have presented a
quaint sight, no doubt, for my clothes were of home manufacture and I
kept growing out of them. But the buttons, I recollect, on the rough
cloth, were very beautiful, and inscribed with the same crest that was
painted on one corner of the portrait with the flowing brown hair; these
buttons played an important part in subsequent adventures, and I would
give a finger to possess one at the present writing. But I am forging
ahead of my story. To get back to it in quick order:

One day my mother and I and Ol' Peter mounted the rickety wagon to which
our one lone mule was harnessed, and drove to the cross-roads. It was
the first time that I could remember my mother leaving the plantation. I
did not know then that it was on my account that she was making this
departure, but I can see it plainly enough in looking over the time. A
question that I had asked of her some days before had more than probably
decided her upon doing so.

"Mamma," I had inquired, "are we always going to live here?"

I remember that she had looked at me strangely, and the next day the
preparations were made for the great change. It is little things that
occasion them usually in life, I notice.

When the coach stopped at the cross-roads tavern, the passengers gazed
at us most curiously. The guard nudged his companion and whispered
something, and a tall man in an officer's uniform politely handed my
mother to a seat inside. Then the horn blew, the driver touched up the
horses, and away we went.

I began to feel frightened. We passed houses and plantations with
hundreds of colored people working in the fields, and at last, a little
past noonday, we entered the town of Baltimore, and drove to an inn. The
sight of so many people and of boys of my own age playing in the
streets, the near-by glimpses of the shipping at the wharfs, thrilled
and excited me; and as we descended from the coach, I held fast to my
mother's skirt and would have hidden. The landlord of the inn hastened
out and received us with the greatest consideration. After some bowing
and scraping, and many orders to the negro servants, he turned from my
mother, and poking out his finger in my direction, addressed a question
to me, to which I falteringly replied in a manner that was evidently
unintelligible, from the look on his face. I must have spoken French in
my embarrassment.

We did not stay long at the inn--two or three days at the most; then we
went to live in a little house that my mother had rented at the corner
of the street. Aunt Sheba and the two other servants joined us. It was
my mother's intention to go back to the plantation for the rest of the
property she had left behind her; but she put off the expedition time
after time, although she often spoke of doing so as if it were a duty
neglected.

Now I went to school at a Mr. Thompson's, a cross-faced, snuffy
individual, who wondered at my knowledge of Latin and marvelled at my
simplicity. But it did not take me long to adapt myself to
circumstances. After I had fought two or three battles with the lads of
my own age, they decided that I was better as a friend than as an enemy,
and I grew, more than likely, to think and behave as any one of them.

And so two years went by--two years like those of any boy's
life--playing along the wharfs, climbing into orchards, talking with the
fishermen, swimming, racing, fighting, and all. But my poor mother could
now hardly leave her room; she passed most of her time in a chair by the
window waiting for me, I take it. The people were very kind to her, and
the doctor who lived near the inn used to come and see her frequently.
Major Taliaferro (pronounced "Tolliver") was a devoted attendant; he was
Captain of the county train-band. He and I grew very friendly;
by-the-way, he was the officer who was so polite to us on the
stage-coach. One afternoon when I returned from school I found my mother
sitting talking to a gentleman whom I recognized as a Mr. Edgerton, a
well-known lawyer of the neighborhood (he afterwards went to the
Legislature, I might record, and became well known).

Upon my entrance the gentleman regarded me most curiously, and when he
left bowed low at the door. The next week was to be the saddest and
perhaps the most misfortunate of all my life.

I was seated on the hard little bench in Mr. Thompson's school-room,
longing to be back once more with my old gun and my boat paddling along
the marshy shore of the Gunpowder, when a shadow fell across the
threshold. I looked up; it was the doctor. I cannot recollect his name,
which is a pity, as I would like to set it down; but he was a kind man,
and I am grateful to him. He stepped quickly to Mr. Thompson's side and
whispered a few words in his ear. The latter coughed and looked at me
over the great bows of his spectacles; then he called my name.

The doctor caught me by the hand, and I followed him out into the sunny
street.

"Be a brave lad; be a brave lad, John," he repeated.

He almost dragged me up the road, so fast he walked, and a nameless fear
coming into my heart, I began to sob aloud. There were two or three
people gathered in front of our little house. Back in the garden I saw a
strange sight. It was Ol' Peter leaning across the picket-fence; his
head was bowed on his arms, and his shoulders were moving up and down.
The people spoke in whispers as we went up the little path. Once inside
the door the doctor bent down and kissed me on the forehead.

"Be a brave lad, my son," he said. "Your mother has left us"-- He turned
away without finishing something he was going to say.

It did not require the sight of Aunt Sheba's tearful face beside me to
tell what had happened. I knew it with a chill all through me; boy that
I was, I fainted dead away. After a while, when I came to myself, they
brought me to the room and left me there.

The second day afterwards was the funeral. It seemed to me that all of
the town was present--from curiosity, mayhap, the largest part; yet,
since she had come to the town, my mother's gentle manner had made her
many friends. The doctor said she had long suffered from trouble of the
heart.

But I could scarcely realize what had happened. What it meant to me of
course I did not know.

It was the fall of the year. The blackbirds were chattering in the
hedges, and off in the fields a bob-white had begun to pipe his cheery
whistle. It was all the same, but there was a great blank somewhere. I
could not even cry. My heart and senses were deadened by my sorrow, and
yet I felt angry, as if I had been robbed.

When we returned to the house after the funeral, Mr. Edgerton, the
lawyer, was waiting.

"I have here Madam Hurdiss's warrant to examine her effects, and the key
to a certain strong-box which she has directed me to open and take care
of," he said. "We will start for the Gunpowder to-morrow morning. You
will go with us, doctor?"

My kind friend nodded. "The young gentleman will accompany us," he
replied, with a hand on my head. "He is the party most interested."

"Of course," returned the lawyer. "And we will start early."

Then he said something about its being "a most interesting case," and
the two gentlemen left the room. That night, for the third time, I
sobbed myself to sleep, Aunt Sheba holding my hand and crooning the old
Congo song that had lulled me many times on her wide bosom.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]



[Illustration: ADVENTURES WITH FRIEND PAUL]


Friend Paul has crossed the Atlantic in a small vessel with all the
things he has bought, and you and he will explore the country together.

It is very important that the explorer be exceedingly careful at first,
and that he watch the treacherous climate. Many white men in Africa have
lost their lives by their own rashness. They go in the sun all day long
after flowers, butterflies, insects, birds, or animals, and they perish
in a few days, victims of the tropical climate. In the next place, one
must not drink spirits. Many lives along the coast have also been lost
on that account. The buoyant spirit of youth is quite enough to carry
you through all kinds of hardships. It is very nice for every young
fellow to rough it, to go through hardships, to have plenty of walking,
to eat all kinds of food, to paddle or row. If he does these, he will
have plenty of health for the future and no dyspepsia.

The explorer in a wild country should be always on the alert, and think
that there is danger lurking everywhere--that an enemy in the shape of a
man, or of a wild beast, or of a snake is hiding behind every tree; he
must look inside of his hat, on the ground upon which he treads, and in
scores of other places, for venomous reptiles or insects.

One has to be patient among savage tribes. One must be very slow to
anger, must use great forbearance, and adapt himself to their ways of
thinking, remembering always that their ways are not his ways,
especially in regard to time, for they seem to think that what can be
done one day will be better done the next. In a word, they have no idea
whatever of the value of time. Be kind and sympathetic with them. Never
do an unjust thing. Act in such a way that they will believe implicitly
in your word. Nevertheless, use great firmness, never show any sign of
fear; otherwise you are doomed. Use force only in the last extremity.
Pay in beads or with other trinkets for everything you get. Never take
food by force, for in no country, including our own, would farmers
tolerate a band of strangers plundering their fields and killing cattle
to feed themselves. They would rise in a body to drive those thieves or
marauders away. So we must not find fault with the poor natives when
they rise in arms against the travellers and their followers who come to
plunder their fields and forage their country.

As I have told you, the explorer has to be wary, to look out for danger
everywhere. So Friend Paul thought a great deal of his rifles and guns
and revolvers--they were his friends. A brace of revolvers always lay
under my head, and were used as pillows. When I suspected danger, I
slept with them in the belt round my waist. A couple of rifles were
always lying by my side or within my arms during my sleep. I slept with
my boots on, so as to be ready at once in case of emergency or sudden
attack. During the daytime I never went anywhere without carrying my
revolvers, and then I had a rifle or shot-gun in my hand--just as a man
carries his umbrella.

No matter how friendly a people appeared, I thought a sudden attack
might be made at any time. In my pouch or bag were at least fifty
cartridges for rifles, and the same number for my revolvers.

I had a breech-loading rifle which I loved better than all my other
rifles, for it was a most powerful weapon. I could use it with either
steel-pointed bullets or shells. I named the rifle "Bull-dog." The only
fault I found with Bull-dog was that it was very heavy to carry, for it
weighed sixteen pounds.

When I carried Bull-dog I had a feeling that I was with my best friend,
one upon which I could rely in case of great danger, no matter how huge
or fierce the wild animal might be. That feeling always gave me
confidence, and I aimed with great steadiness, for my faith in the power
of Bull-dog was unbounded, and I knew I had a shot to spare in case of
wounding the animal.

Bull-dog was well known among my hunters. They looked at it with wonder,
and were always glad when Bull-dog was going with us. They used to say:
"Bull-dog never misses, but brings death in its path. The elephants,
leopards, gorillas, and hippopotami fall dead when hit by its bullets."
My men knew Bull-dog among all my rifles, and there was always rejoicing
among them when I said to one of them, "Go and fetch Bull-dog from my
hut, and carry it for me until we reach the hunting-ground," or when I
started with it.

Bull-dog was so heavy that by the end of the day my shoulders,
especially the left one, felt sore. In the course of time that left
shoulder had become quite black from the effects of carrying it or other
guns. A gun that is quite light the first hour becomes heavier every
hour afterwards, and very heavy by the end of the day.

       *       *       *       *       *

Now that we have become acclimatized, and have learned the language, we
must bid good-by to the sea-shore King.

After many wanderings I came to a very wild tribe who knew the use of
fire-arms. The natives were kind-hearted toward me. I had been left
there by the people of another tribe, who immediately afterwards
returned to their country. The King loved me, and after I had remained
with him for a while and hunted, and thought it was time to leave, he
called a great council, and after a whole day of deliberation it was
agreed that Mienjai--a man of great bravery--and other men should take
me and my outfit to another tribe further inland.

We left. The path had been much neglected on account of war; in many
places it could be seen but indistinctly, and in other places we had to
guess our way through a dense jungle before we found it again.

The third day we lost our way, and after wandering through the forest
for quite a while Mienjai saw a path, and said: "Let us follow it. I
think it is a hunting-path, and that it leads to one of the villages of
the tribe to which we are going." So we took the path, and soon we came
to another, which was much used by people. When Mienjai saw this he
smiled, and his big mouth seemed to open from ear to ear, and at the
same time showed two rows of teeth, the upper and lower incisors, or
front teeth, being filed to a point.

[Illustration: FRIEND PAUL ENTERS THE NATIVE VILLAGE.]

After walking in the path for about two hours we came to a village,
which barred the way. The village was fenced all round with high poles,
upon many of which were skulls of wild beasts. The gate was closed, and
we could hear the sound of many voices inside. Mienjai shouted to the
people that he was Mienjai, the nephew of Rabolo, that we were friendly,
and that they must let us in. Two men came to the gate, and after
holding a conversation with Mienjai and my men they let us in.

How strange and wild-looking these two men appeared! Each carried an
old-fashioned flint-gun. Their faces and bodies were painted with
different colors. Each had round his waist a leopard-skin belt. They
looked at me with amazement. I had long black hair, which fell on my
shoulders, and this filled them with wonder. The houses of the village
were built of the bark of trees; they had no windows and only one door.
At the end of the street, which was not very long, there was a great
crowd of people, and every man had one of those trade flint-guns. I did
not like the looks of the people with those guns, for I would rather see
natives armed with spears, even with poisoned arrows, than with guns.

Then we passed by the idol-house, and I saw a big idol, of the size of a
human being and representing a woman. How ugly she looked! One of her
cheeks was painted yellow, the other white; she held in her hand a
stick.

Not far from the idol was a big veranda, under which my men put down
their loads and, leaving me alone, went toward the crowd. Soon after,
three bunches of plantains, a goat, two fowls, and six eggs were put at
my feet.

The King sent word that he could not see me that day. The next day he
came and asked me why I came to his country. I replied: "King, I heard
your village was filled with great hunters. I want to go into the forest
with them, for I wish to kill all the wild beasts I can and stuff them.
I want to kill all the birds I can and stuff them. Then I want to catch
all the butterflies and insects I can and keep them." The King looked at
me with wonder, and spoke to Mienjai, saying, "Does the spirit mean what
he says?" After a little while he said, "Yes, I will give to the Moguizi
the best hunters of our tribe."

[Illustration: "HE WILL BE ONE OF YOUR HUNTERS," SAID THE KING.]

The following morning he called his people and said, "We must provide
hunters for the Moguizi who has come to live among us." Then he shouted:
"Men who are brave and who are not afraid of wild beasts, come forward.
Where is Okili?" shouted the King. Okili then came forward. A fine
fellow Okili, I thought, as I surveyed him from head to foot. He was
tall and slender. His limbs were strong, he had a keen eye, his body was
tattooed all over. Then the King shouted, "Where is Mbango?" Then Mbango
came forward. He was quite the opposite of Okili, short of stature and
stout. I looked at him and saw that his eyes were full of daring, and
that he appeared to be gifted with great determination. He was just the
right kind of man I would choose to go with me. "He will be one of your
hunters," shouted the King. Then Mbango went by the side of Okili.

"Macondai, where are you?" cried the King. Macondai came forward. His
body was covered with scars. He was a great warrior who had seen many
fights and had many times been wounded. After I took a look at him he
went to where Mbango and Okili were. Then I heard the King call for
Niamkala. Niamkala was a gray-headed warrior who had seen many fights.
He was a great elephant-hunter, and wore a belt upon which were hung
the tails of twenty-three elephants which he had killed. He was a
grim-looking warrior and hunter who did not seem to be afraid of
anything. After I had eyed him he went to where the other hunters who
had preceded him stood. "I do not see Fasiko," said the King. "Where is
he?" "Here he comes," shouted the people. Fasiko came forward. He was
covered with fetiches and charms. He was a man celebrated for
leopard-hunting. He wore a necklace of the teeth of the leopards he had
killed. I liked his looks. I said to myself this fellow is cool-headed.
After I looked at him he joined the other hunters. "Ogoola!" shouted the
King. "Why do you keep in the background? Come forward; be not bashful."
Ogoola looked every inch a hunter. He wore a belt adorned with trophies
of the wild animals he had killed. "I do not see Obindji," said the
King, inquiringly, to his people. They answered: "He will arrive this
evening. He was not at the plantation when you sent word." Then suddenly
they all shouted, "Here he comes!" Obindji was a favorite slave of the
King, a mighty hunter, and he looked like it. His front teeth were filed
sharp to a point. Obindji was somewhat lame, for he had been badly
wounded years before by a leopard he had shot, but which had strength
enough to spring upon him, fortunately falling dead as its claws
fastened in his legs.

"Where is Makooga?" shouted the King. "Here I am," responded a small man
in the crowd. After pushing his way through, he stood before the King.
He was very short, not over five feet three inches in height. "Moguizi,"
said the King to me, "never mind his size; his heart knows no fear; he
is a good shot; he is daring, and one of the best hunters we have. No
one can come nearer game than he does. He is like a snake." Makooga went
where the other hunters were.

"A fine set of fellows they are," I said to myself as I looked at them
all. Then the King said, "Okili must always be by the side of the
Moguizi."

Then I said to them: "Men with brave hearts, be not afraid of me. I am
your friend. We are going to live in the forest and hunt wild beasts
together. You are men; I can see it by your faces. Come to my house. I
have something for you--beads for your wives and brass rods for you, and
powder also." They all shouted! "You are a good Moguizi. We will go with
you wherever you say, and we will kill big game. You will see if we are
men or not."

Then the King said: "These men will follow you wherever you go, Moguizi.
They know every tree, every path of the forest. They know where the game
is to be found." Then, addressing them, he said: "Go make your guns
ready; see that their flints are right so that they do not miss fire,
and cook food enough for three or four days. Be here in two days." They
followed me to my house, and I gave to each what I promised. At night I
called the King, gave him a brand-new flint-gun, two brass kettles, ten
brass rods, and several bunches of beads. He was delighted, and took
hold of my foot as a token of submission, which meant that he would obey
me.

  PAUL DU CHAILLU.



HAROLD WHITE'S PERIL.

BY G. T. FERRIS.


"I tell you, Captain Heald, this is an awful responsibility you're
shouldering. Not one, but two hundred lives hang on it. General Hull
could never have meant his orders to be absolute. At such times
something must be left to the commanding officer. He must know better
than a superior two hundred miles away."

The swarthy brows of Kinzie, the Indian trader, who knew redskin nature
better than any other man at Fort Dearborn, were puckered with anger and
contempt. It was the hour for a quick-witted and resolute soldier, not
for a timid martinet, the slave of the letter and not of the spirit of
his orders. The commander of that little garrison of fifty, many of whom
were non-effectives, was "a round peg in a square hole"--and a hole,
too, that yawned big and deep for human life.

"You're not a military man," was the peevish answer. "My business is to
obey orders and not reason on them. The General has determined to
withdraw all garrisons from outlying posts, and I must do my duty at any
risk."

"At risk to yourself, yes! but not to helpless women and children and a
lot of sick soldiers not able to pull a trigger or stagger five miles in
a broiling sun," John Kinzie retorted, quickly. And pointing through the
gate of the palisade, he continued: "Look at those savages on the beach
watching like vultures. A thousand lie within call of a war-whoop. How
many scalps would remain at the end of an hour if you put yourself in
their hands? D'ye think Black Partridge would have said those words last
night if there had been a ray of hope?[1] You have ample stores and
ammunition, and can hold out for a month or more behind these timber
walls. Anything else is madness. As for me," said the trader, with an
air of noble pride, "the danger is less. So I don't speak for myself or
mine. I have dealt with every tribe for two hundred miles about. I have
never tricked a savage in trade. They have eaten of my dish and drunk of
my cup, and found shelter under my roof. My wife has been a guardian
angel to their sick and needy. But be sure of one thing: friendship for
the Kinzies will never save the life of any other pale-face at the hands
of a redskin."

[1] Captain Heald, commanding Fort Dearborn, had received despatches by
an Indian runner from General Hull, commanding the Americans at Detroit
in the war of 1812, directing him to destroy his surplus ammunition,
divide his stores among the Indians as a peace-offering, evacuate the
post, and, trusting his safety to a savage escort, fall back within the
American lines. On the day after the council where he had, in opposition
to the remonstrances of his junior officers, announced his purpose of
prompt obedience, Black Partridge, a Pottawattamie chief who had always
been a friend of the Americans, stalked into his quarters, and threw the
medal he had received from Congress on the table with these words:
"Father, I come to give you back the medal I wear. It was given me by
the Americans in token of our friendship. But our young men are resolved
to bathe their hands in the blood of the whites. I cannot hold them
back, and I will not wear a token of peace while I am compelled to act
as an enemy."

"Mr. Kinzie must decide for himself whether he will accompany the troops
or not if he is so sure of his Indian friends," said the Captain, stung
by the words of the other. "We march at nine to-morrow morning," and he
turned on his heel into the parade-ground. As he passed through the
groups of settlers who had sought shelter in the fort, and noticed the
look of foreboding stamped on every face, he was almost inclined to
change his purpose, though the soldiers were even then dismantling the
arsenal and knocking in the heads of the spirit-barrels.

John Kinzie walked rapidly to the head of a sand knoll which gave him a
wide view of the scene. Groups of dark figures were scattered over the
shining beach as if they were statues of copper, or they waded in the
ripples of the beautiful blue lake, throwing water at one another with
loud laughter. One could scarcely have fancied that close to the edge of
this sportive mood the spirit of murder hid in ambush with cocked rifle
and sharp hatchet. A mile away lay the Indian camp, which had grown five
times bigger within as many days, like an assemblage of huge ant-hills,
with the ants thickly swarming about. But it must be time for Harold
White to return, and he passed to the rear of the palisades, where the
men, rolling the casks through the underground sally-port, were emptying
the powder and whiskey into the river. Just across the stream opposite
the fort, set in the midst of green trees and fields, were his home and
warehouses. He had sent his young clerk, a lad of fifteen, with a
message to Mrs. Kinzie, for he had preferred to have his family stay in
their own house till the last moment.

"Did ye ever hear tell of such a 'fool' business as this, Bill?" he
heard one soldier say to another, shaking his fist in the direction of
the fort. "I guess mighty few of us will hev as much hair on our heads
this time to-morrer."

"I don't keer for myself," said the other, gloomily; "a soldier's got to
buck agin the wuss thing as comes without sayin' a word. But I'm
a-thinkin' of the old 'oman and the little gals."

Mr. Kinzie saw the canoe shoot from under a clump of bushes and skim
swiftly across the narrow river, to-day a black and unattractive body of
muddy water, but at that time a pellucid stream where fish leaped to the
angler's bait.

"To-pee-nee-be's messenger has come," said Harold, "and brings word that
the two big canoes will cross to-night from St. Joseph to take off the
family at sunrise."

"Thank God!" cried the trader, fervently, for sure as he felt for
himself of the comparatively friendly feeling of the savage horde
gathered there, he knew Indian nature too well to trust it when mad with
the thirst for blood-shed. The chief of the St. Joseph band had a few
days before warned him of treachery, and offered to convey his wife and
children across the lake to his own village. "Harold, you must stay with
Mrs. Kinzie in the canoes," said he. "I shall march with the troops, and
do what I can. Perhaps I may have some influence till if comes to the
worst. I depend on you. I know what your wish is, but you must forego it
now. You've had your taste of Indians already. Remember, you only
escaped by the skin of your teeth last spring."

"Yes," was Harold's reply; "and I shall never be happy till I've--" He
bit the words off short, but the boy's smooth face was a man's in its
stamp of passion and resolve, for the frontier lads often got old in
will and courage before their chins grew beards. Some of the legends of
boys' doings in the annals of Indian warfare are as stirring as the
stories of Homer's heroes. Harold had had righteous cause for his
feelings. Four mouths before, on a bright spring day, a score of
Pottawattomies had entered the house of his uncle, about two miles up
the river from the fort, and asked for food. Their tongues were
friendly, but their eyes sullen.

"Harold," said his uncle Lee, "go over the river with Beaubien and feed
the horses," but his look said, "Paddle as fast as you can to the fort
for help." The Frenchman and he had scarcely gotten well into the stream
before there came the spit of bullets, and then came a continuous
crackle, with the shrieking of women and children, and then silence.
Harold, left friendless, found a protector in Mr. Kinzie; but his heart
flamed always hot with that memory. The Kinzie family would be as safe
without him, and he was swept by his rash fancies as if his will were a
soap-bubble.

The sun hung in the sky, on the fatal August morning, a burnished copper
ball. Scarcely a breath heaved the dark surface of the lake, and no
laughter of light danced in the sparkle of a crest. A pallor lay on the
sandy levels and ridges of the beach similar to the upturned face of
some one dead. Nature had set the stage for the tragedy of man. The
little column left the fort at nine o'clock, a small company of friendly
Indians in the van, then the caravan of transport wagons, loaded with
rations and with women, children, and sick soldiers, then a few armed
settlers, then a meagre uniformed platoon of less than two-score
fighting-men. A double column of Pottawattomies formed on either side.
As they began to move, the soldiers presented arms to the flag
fluttering down from its staff. They might have spoken the words of the
gladiators when they trooped into the arena in olden time, "_Ave, Cæsar!
morituri te salutamus_" (Hail, Cæsar! we, the death-doomed, salute you).
It is even a historical fact that the band played the Dead March when
that funeral procession tramped out on the road of destiny between walls
of living bronze.

Harold, armed with a double-barrelled rifle, had hidden behind a big
sand knoll near the gate. When John Kinzie helped his family into their
frail barks of safety he had marked the absence of the lad, but there
was no time to think further or search, for there was much business
afoot. Harold saw his guardian now expostulating with Indian chiefs, now
urging some special course on Captain Heald, who marched with his
detachment, now encouraging the trembling women in the wagons. And so
the column wended its slow course over the burning sand away from the
fort.

Suddenly came other sounds than the distant drone of trumpet and tuba.
Surely that was gun-firing. There could be no mistake, indeed, for
punctuating the muffled roar was heard the long-drawn "wow-wow-wow" of
the whooping savages. The hour had come. A mile and a half from the
fort, where now stands a memorial tablet under an old cottonwood-tree in
the thick of the princeliest residences of a great city, the cloud had
burst. From behind the sand ridge which divided the prairie from the
beach five hundred warriors had sprung suddenly to their feet, like
arrows drawn to the head, and poured in a hail-storm of bullets, to
which the treacherous escort added their quota. Harold had stood for
some time spellbound by his own thoughts and fears, but the trance was
now broken. He ran hot-foot toward the scene of the struggle. Each step
brought the sights and sounds of the massacre clearer. Shrieks, yells,
the rumble of the firing, dark forms leaping like madmen with uplifted
arms, or bending like wild-beasts over objects on the sand. It was a
tumult of horror beyond words. After a little the confusion lessened,
and there was a pause, followed by the howl of triumph which is the
Indian's pæan of victory. Harold, primped out by his wild run, had
hidden behind a sand hill for breath, within a stone's-throw of the
scene, for the savages, absorbed in their work of death, had not noticed
his advancing figure. One wagon, from which now came the wail of a sick
child, had escaped their fierce handiwork, and three warriors with bare
tomahawks bounded toward it. The boy, taking steady aim, discharged both
barrels of his rifle, and one of the red men fell. Every nerve tense
with excitement, Harold sprang forward with his clubbed gun, and,
catching a tomahawk cut on the barrel, dashed the butt into the head of
the nearest savage. As the latter fell with closing eyes, it was with a
thrill of satisfaction, strangely blended with awe, as if some higher
power had struck by his hand, that the boy recognized the face of the
leader of the savages who had slain his uncle and his family. The next
moment he was half throttled by a clutch about his throat.

"Boy my prisoner; make no noise," he heard as the iron grip loosened. It
was the voice of Black Partridge, who, an unwilling actor in the
tragedy, had by his craft, as afterwards turned out, saved several lives
on this occasion. Mr. Kinzie, Captain Heald, and another officer, with
their wives and a few others, had escaped the slaughter, and were
captives. As for the rest, their mutilated bodies lay dead on the sands
down to the very water's brink, where their road had been.

"Perhaps not able to save Harold, for boy kill warriors," continued the
friendly chief. "Better crawl through grass like Indian back to fort,
and hide in cellar till dark; then swim cross to Kinzie's." So he led
his charge to the edge of the rank prairie-grass with, "See Black
Partridge bym-by."

Bending in his covert, Harold retreated stealthily as a coyote to the
empty fort. As he passed through the gate into the dismal solitude, with
all its suggestions of recent life and cheer, his heart quivered afresh
with the sense of what it all meant. He knew the subterranean secrets of
the fort well; and knew, too, that some of the Indians were likely to
stray back at any time. Both block-houses of the post had deep stoned
cellars, from which were exits into the underground sally-port opening
on the river bank. He could easily hide himself here among the rubbish
and lumber, and perhaps find something to eat. He did indeed discover
some scraps of bread and bacon, and, better yet, a retreat to elude the
keenest eye down in that dusky cavern. As the day waxed the heat grew
stifling, but there was a well in the cellar which relieved his thirst.
In fumbling about the place for the pump-handle, he found several
barrels apparently undisturbed. He marvelled what they could be, and by
some blind instinct did not make his hiding-place here, but selected a
spot protected by a mound of empty boxes close to a little timber gate
which opened into the sally-port.

He heard the yells and shouts of the Indians outside and above as they
roamed about everywhere, searching for the "fire-water," which they
loved so well. They had indeed been doubly infuriated because the
commandant had ordered the destruction of the whiskey and the powder.
They fancied that some might have escaped, and were hunting for it like
hounds on the scent. Harold could now and then construe an Indian word,
and he thought of the barrels so near at hand. He had felt a broken
candle in one of the boxes where he hid, and this he now lit from his
flint and steel. As he groped his way, peering at the cellar bottom, he
perceived several black trails converging toward the heap of casks. He
blew out his light with a gasp, and a breath of ice stirred the roots of
his hair and chilled his marrow as the truth flashed on him. Some of the
soldiers had left full powder-barrels and a train to destroy the
careless savages, if possible, should they go down with lighted candle
or torch. Harold crawled back to his ambush, and tugged with all his
might at the little timber gate; but the bolts were rusty with damp and
disuse.

While he struggled he heard the outcries of the Indians nearer and
nearer, and their thick tongues showed they had already found whiskey, a
beginning which promised the ransacking of every rat-hole in the fort
for more. With the strength of despair he struggled with the obstinate
bolts, and, just as they began to creak a little in their rusty sockets,
a dozen savages, doubly intoxicated with liquor and with the slaughter
of the inhabitants of the fort, tumbled down the stone stairs at the
other end of the cellar. With candles flaming in their hands, with faces
and bodies hideously painted, and with eyes glowing in the flare of the
lights like live coals, they looked like nothing less than the demons
which Harold remembered to have seen in some of the Bible picture-books
of that period.

[Illustration: HAROLD'S ESCAPE INTO THE TUNNEL.]

The boy's only thought now was to force the gate, escape into the
tunnel, and close the mouth again behind him. That was his one chance of
escape. The maddened red-skins, their eyes glittering in the weird
light, waving their glittering candles from which smoulders of burnt
wick were dropping, chanting some sort of exultant song, ran about the
cellar as if they were the figures of a monstrous nightmare. Their eyes
at last fell on the pyramid of barrels, and they darted at the expected
treasure-trove. Harold had never ceased tugging frantically at the gate,
and when the bolts jangled back and he slid the barrier, it seemed his
dangerous companions must have heard. Luckily the blissful thought of
"fire-water" made them blind and deaf to all else. He passed the portal,
softly closed it again, and sped with whirling senses up the dark
passage. But the strain had been too great, and he collapsed in a dead
faint, with a crash in his ears as if the earth had been shattered to
its core.

       *       *       *       *       *

When Harold recovered his senses a disk of light in front marked the
outlet to sunshine, but in the rear the tunnel was choked, and his legs
were tangled fast in a mass of earth and débris. He extricated himself
and made his way to the entrance, sore but sound of bone. One of the
block-houses had been blown to fragments, and the other partly tumbled
into ruins, while about fifty of the savages had been slain or terribly
maimed. Groups of Indians stood in the distance sobered and
awe-stricken. When he crossed to the Kinzie mansion after dark, he found
the captives there under guard, but the captors altered into a merciful
mood. Black Partridge had improved the occasion to impress on their
minds that the awful catastrophe was a divine punishment for their
treachery.



STRIKING "PAY DIRT."

BY ANNIE HAMILTON DONNELL.


"No beans? Why, Thanny!" The rich creamy spoonful dripped back into the
tureen. Millia Thacher's tired face put on astonishment as a garment.
"No _beans_?"

"Well, that's what I said, wasn't it?" her brother snapped across at
her. "I don't know's the world has got any call to stand still because I
don't want 'em, either. I don't want any dinner."

"Why, Thanny!"

"Well, I don't. That's all there is to it."

"But, Thanny, I've got rhubarb pie. I made it a purpose, and I guess
it's real good. You ain't going to slight that, Thanny?"

"Milly Thacher, for pity's sake do stop Thannying me! Anybody'd think I
was ten years old instead of twenty. There! I'm sorry. I'll be a good
boy now."

He reached his long arm across the table, and touched Millia's face with
big, contrite fingers very gently. The sudden remorse softened the
morose lines in his face, and lifted for a minute the cloud upon it. It
was a strong enough, comely enough young face, its chin rounded out
boldly, and the clean-cut mouth above was not at all weak. But Nathan
Thacher's face was listless and discouraged, and altogether unhappy.

He pushed away his chair, rasping it over the uneven floor as if the
discord accorded with his mood.

"It's no use, Milly; I'm going to give it up. It's no _use_."

"Oh no, Thanny--no, no! You're only tired out and down-spirited this
morning, that's all. You don't feel like yourself. The idea of us
_giving it up_!" She laughed nervously, with a little shrill, hysterical
note in her voice. "Why, we've got to keep right on, Thanny Thacher,
just as we promised father we'd do. We've got to keep the old farm
running--"

"Till it runs down hill into the poorhouse. It's more'n two-thirds down
now."

"I don't care! Then we've got to pull it up again. We promised father."

Millia's defiance had the thrill and surrender of a sob in it, and
suddenly she sank down into a heap on the kitchen floor and cried in
smothered dreary abandon.

The door being open, Nathan looked out, across Millia's huddled
shoulders, at the bare stretch of rough uncultivated acres. The scant
unthrifty grass divided the honors with rocks and underbrush. There was
nothing beautiful nor "sightly" nor encouraging in the prospect, and
Nathan Thacher's mouth puckered into a low whistle of contempt. He
whistled still louder, and shuffled his feet about to drown the low
monotony of Millia's sobs, filling the little room drearily.

"Hush up, Milly; there's a good girl," he said at last, prodding her arm
gently. "What's the good of wasting all that salt water? Salt may go
up."

He made a sorry attempt at laughing, and strode past her out of the
door. The girl sat on the floor, rocking back and forth with even
swaying motion for a long while. The cheerless world outside oppressed
her through the net-work of her fingers and chilled her heart. Pitifully
distinct she saw the same barren stretch of fields that Nathan had
seen--the same sparse, worn-out vegetation. It looked as forlorn, as
discouraging, as it had to him. But Millia Thacher's troubled soul held
stubbornly to its one anchor of unswerving loyalty to the poor old farm,
and of faith to their promise--Thanny's and hers--to poor old "father."

Give it up? Never! Oh, no, not. They must stand by the farm. Thanny must
work--she must work.

She got up hastily, and peered out across the fields in the eager hope
of seeing Thanny with old Bess ploughing. Surely he would plough to-day;
yes, there he was, but walking idly, moodily, about, with stooped-over
shoulders, like an old man.

Poor Thanny! He hadn't wanted, anyway, to be a farmer, and after his
brave little beginning out in the world--after father died--it had been
hard to come home and settle down on the old "run-out" farm among the
stumps and rocks and the meagre timothy heads.

Poor Thanny! Millia watched him with loving eyes. He looked so dismal in
the dismal setting of stubbly fields, backgrounded by the dull sky, that
she had no heart to upbraid him. Poor Millia!

The little kitchen wore its late-afternoon spick-and-span dress, and
Millia sat in it, humming a little brave tune over her mending-box, when
Nathan came hurrying, springing in. There was rare buoyancy in his step,
and Millia wailed, astonished.

"Why, Thanny!" she cried, as soon as he got within hearing range.

Nathan Thacher's tanned face radiated excitement and triumph from every
feature. His eyes were shining. Into Millia's hands he thrust a bit of
jagged rock.

[Illustration: "LOOK AT THAT, MILLY--GOLD!"]

"Look at that, Milly--_gold_!"

"My goodness me, Thanny!"

"_Gold_, I tell you--g-o-l-d! Milly Thacher, there's gold on this
farm--do you hear? It's under your face and eyes, in that rock. It's in
all the rocks."

He laughed shrilly, executing shuffling dance steps around her chair.

"Thanny Thacher, you ain't in your right mind! You scare me."

"Milly Thacher, it's the live truth! Dan Merriweather thought so as long
ago as he worked for father, but father didn't believe it, nor I either.
I didn't think there could be any such good luck. But there is--there
is!" The boy's face was radiant. "Dan's an old Forty-niner, and he ought
to know. I didn't believe him, though--not till this afternoon, when I
found that rock. Seeing's believing, and can't you see? Can't you see
all those little gold grains, Milly Thacher, if you've got half an eye?
They're _there_. All we've got to do is to get 'em out. I guess I know
gold when I see it!"

Millia held the little rock in limp, unbelieving fingers. She saw the
tiny sparkles in it; but--_gold!_ Visions of wealth and luxury and rest
hurried through her brain, of Thanny looking happy and satisfied again,
and of herself--plain, tired little Milly--wearing becoming clothes, and
letting her roughened fingers grow smooth and white. Perhaps she would
wear soft kid gloves; people did who had gold. Perhaps Thanny would too;
Thanny's hands were slender and shapely. Luxuries read of and dreamed of
appealed suddenly to her dazzled vision as possible, probable realities;
people with gold on their farms had such things, of course.

Nathan broke in upon her dreaming:

"They found gold on a farm over in Bentley. Over Easton way, too. I
guess it's all over these parts. Anyhow, it's on the Thacher farm!" He
laughed jubilantly. Then he pocketed the little sparkling pebble, and
said, briskly: "Don't you wait supper for me, Milly. I'm going down to
the Forks to see Amasa Flagg. He can advise me some about working the
vein. Amasa knows everything."

Working the vein! How mysteriously important it sounded to Millia as she
sat there, confused and awed! Could that be Thanny--_Thanny!_--swinging
along with great springy strides, his shoulders unstooped, and
importance and energy trailing in a little wake behind him?

Would Amasa Flagg advise him to dig a mine--Millia's thoughts were
couched in familiar words--and wear a candle in his hat, and burrow
round in the earth in unsafe places? My goodness me!--would there be
real miners round the place, perhaps wanting to board right in the
family?

In the midst of things Millia fell asleep.

Nathan came home at night rather sobered, but still confident. There was
gold there; how much nobody could prophesy till it could be looked into
systematically, and that took money. There was no money on the Thacher
place, and Nathan scorned any suggestion of borrowing.

So the money must be earned. When that was done, he would sink a shaft
and find his gold. When that was done--the money earned! Well, it looked
a little appalling just at first; but Nathan Thacher had his grandfather
Thacher's courage, once aroused, and he set his teeth for the struggle.

"Crops," Amasa Flagg had said, succinctly.

Nathan had thought of his barren waste fields, and gasped inwardly.
Well, crops, then, if crops it must be; but what?

"Corn," the oracle had declared. "There's money in sweet-corn, now 't
them factories are runnin full tilt over to Easton. They want all they
can git. You won't make no mistake if you plant your fields full of it,
an' I calc'late you'll find that the nighest road to your gold-mine. I
calc'late so. But you'll have to hustle considerable, an' make your hoe
fly real stiddy. You can't make a corn crop payin' without you do
everything thorough. You've got to hustle, my boy, early 'n' late!"

And how Nathan Thacher hustled those long hot summer days! How, from
daylight to sunsetting, he delved and toiled in his fields, working
miracles in them with slow stubborn courage! He lost courage once or
twice, but Millia never knew it. She watched his eager determined face
steadily, and always read quiet resolution in it, and, as the weeks
multiplied to months, a new expression of self-respect that delighted
her soul.

"Thanny's losing his old down-spirited looks," she would muse happily
over her work. "He holds up his head straight and kind of proud now;
but, my goodness me, how he is working!"

And Millia, too, worked. She hurried through with her house duties, and
went out to the fields with Nathan to do whatever lighter work he would
let her do out there. Side by side the brother and sister toiled, seeing
the waste places bloom under their eyes, and gradually the rough acres
smooth out into beautiful thrifty corn rows.

Millia walked between them in cool evenings, and let her skirts flip the
tiny stalks gently. They grew tall, and she could nudge them in friendly
greeting as she passed down and up between them.

Of course all this success came only out of the hardest possible
wrestling with nature. There went before it weeks of mighty work with
drag and pick, wresting out rocks and uprooting stumps and weeds. Only
Grandfather Thacher's grim persistence, descended like a mantle on
Nathan's aching young shoulders, carried those hard days. The neighbors
helped at odd times, and Nathan repaid them in rainy intervals. So at
last the two big fields were smooth and ready for the ploughing, that
left them seamed with long ridges wavering gently away into perspective.
How good the upturned earth had smelled to Millia! She stood outside and
drew in long satisfying whiffs of it.

It was so good to see the old place thriving at last--to smell it and
watch it and be proud of it. Millia forgot all about the gold-mine some
days.

Nathan never did. He repaired the fences to keep intruders out. He drew
out loads upon loads of dressing for his land from stores of hitherto
wasted fertility beneath the old barns. He nurtured and tended and
worked unstintingly, but always with the glitter of the gold grains in
his rocks before his eyes. Nathan never forgot. He studied books on
mining in the evening until his tired head nodded over the blurring
letters. Once, when the corn was all planted, and there was a little
interval of rest, he went to a city, a day's trip distant, and had his
little samples of glistening rock assayed. It was when he came home from
that journey that Millia thought she could detect a little look of
disappointment in his face, and perhaps a faint crestfallen note in his
voice. But she forgot about it soon, because they were so busy weeding
the corn rows.

One evening, when the green stalks towered more than elbow-high around
them, Thanny and Milly walked through the rows, talking to each other
across them. They both looked happy. Milly's small thin face had rounded
out a little, and turned to a golden brown. She walked with little quick
jubilant steps. The old farm looked so beautiful to-night! What would
father say?

Suddenly she began to laugh. In front of her dangled her scarecrow--the
work of her own hands--mincing and bowing to her ludicrously. A slight
breeze stirred his hempen hair and swayed his coat skirts. It was
Thanny's coat and Thanny's hat and Thanny's trousers and boots. He was
an unwieldy, unflattering travesty of Thanny, with, oddly enough, his
stooped shoulders, and old air of depression and gloom. Had Thanny
bequeathed them to Milly's scarecrow, for once and all?

For to-night Thanny's shoulders were not stooped, and his whole
expression was cheery and manly.

He stopped too and laughed.

"My goodness me! Thanny, ain't he a beauty?" giggled Milly, delightedly.

"Milly," Thanny said, "that's me. I've been watching myself this long
time--stooped over and hangdog and down in the mouth. I've been seeing
myself the way you and other folks used to see me, and--well, it was
kind of a bitter pill, but I took it, and I guess it's done me good. I
guess so."

The summer days swelled the sweet-corn kernels and brought the ears to
their perfection. It was almost time to cut them and carry them away to
the factory, when one day Nathan found Millia among the rows, and
stopped to put both his big hands on both her shoulders with unusual
gentleness. Looking up into his face, she thought how serenely happy it
seemed.

"Milly," he said, laughing a little in quiet triumph, "they offered me
eighty dollars an acre for this corn to-day."

"Why, Thanny!"

"Yes'm; and I took it." He walked away, down one row and up another.
Then he faced her again. "Milly, we've struck pay dirt a'ready. We've
found the gold," he said.

"Why, Thanny! Why, I thought--" And then Milly caught his sudden
sweeping gesture, comprehending all the golden stalks of corn, row after
row, and understood. "Why, yes!" she cried; "so it is, Thanny
Thacher--it's our gold!"

"Yes," Thanny said, thoughtfully, as they walked home together, and
there was quiet contentment in his voice. "Yes, I guess it's all right.
The assayer said there wasn't enough gold in the rocks to make it worth
while, but there's gold in the old sod, Milly. We've struck 'pay dirt.'"



A FAIR RETORT.


It is quite as hard as ever to get ahead of Pat. This was proved the
other day during a trial in an English court-room, an Irish witness
being examined as to his knowledge of a shooting affair.

"Did you see the shot fired?" the magistrate asked, when Pat had been
sworn.

"No, sorr. I only heard it," was the evasive reply.

"That evidence is not satisfactory," replied the magistrate, sternly,
"Stand down!"

The witness proceeded to leave the box, and directly his back was turned
he laughed derisively. The magistrate, indignant at the contempt of
court, called him back, and asked him how he dared to laugh in court.

"Did ye see me laugh, your Honor?" queried the offender.

"No, sir; but I heard you," was the irate reply.

"That evidence is not satisfactory," said Pat, quietly, but with a
twinkle in his eye.

And this time everybody laughed, even the magistrate.



DANIEL WEBSTER'S SCHOOL DAYS.

BY ALBERT LEE.


The house where Daniel Webster boarded while he was a scholar at the
Phillips Academy, Exeter, still stands at the corner of Water and
Clifford streets, in that little New Hampshire town. The external
appearance of the building has been changed somewhat; the protruding
logs in the back part of the house have been covered with planed boards,
and the large old-fashioned chimney that stood until within a few years
has been torn down, but the little room on the second floor is still in
about the same condition as it was in the days when Webster studied
there.

He was fourteen years of age when brought by his father to Exeter and
placed in charge of Mr. Clifford, a worthy gentleman of the town. The
precise date of Daniel Webster's entrance at the academy is the 25th of
May, 1796. It was the first time that the boy had been away from home,
and he describes his feelings himself as follows: "The change
overpowered me. I hardly remained master of my own senses among ninety
boys, who had seen so much more and appeared to know so much more than I
did." When Webster's father had bidden his son farewell, he said to Mr.
Clifford that "he must teach Daniel to hold his fork and knife, for
Daniel knows no more about it than a cow does about holding a spade."

From all accounts this comparison must have been a good one, for Daniel
Webster's table manners were so rude that it is said that the other boys
who boarded at Mr. Clifford's requested the latter to send Webster away.
But Mr. Clifford, of course, never for a moment considered this, and
knowing that young Webster was of a most sensitive disposition, he tried
to correct the lad by example rather than by advice and remonstrance.
Webster was accustomed to hold his knife and fork in his fists; one day
Mr. Clifford held his own knife and fork in the same way, and continued
doing so at intervals, until Webster saw how ungraceful it was, and
corrected himself.

Daniel Webster was not much of a success as a student while at Exeter.
He admits this in his autobiography. He seemed unable to recite in a
room full of boys; and although he spent many hours in study, he could
never, having learned his lesson, make a good recitation. The strangest
thing of all, however, is that he could not be induced to speak in
public; and when the day came on which it was usual for his class to
declaim, although he had learned his piece, he was utterly incapable of
rising from his seat when his name was called. "The kind and excellent
Buckminster," says Webster in his autobiography, "sought especially to
persuade me to perform the exercise of declamation, like other boys, but
I could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, yet when the day
came when the school elected to hear declamations, when my name was
called and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself
from it. Sometimes the instructors frowned; sometimes they smiled. Mr.
Buckminster always pressed and entreated most winningly that I would
venture, but I could never command sufficient resolution. When the
occasion was over, I went home and wept bitter tears of mortification."
To think that such should have been the nature of the boy who afterward
became so famous an orator, and whose speeches, as a man, have become
classical, and whose presence "has graced the courts of justice in the
national halls of legislation"!

Daniel Webster was so greatly discouraged at this inability to declaim
before his comrades, and by the treatment he received at the hands of
his fellow-students because of his awkwardness and shyness, that at the
end of his first term he said to Dr. Abbott, the principal, that he
thought he would not return after Christmas. The principal knew very
well that Webster's rustic manners and coarse clothing had been the
cause of the misconduct of the other boys toward him, and he therefore
encouraged Webster to remain in school, and assured him that he was a
better scholar than most of the boys in his class, and he promised the
lad that if he would return at the commencement of the next term, he
would be placed in a higher class, where he should "no longer be
hindered by the boys who cared more for play and dress than for solid
improvement." Webster says that these were the first encouraging words
that he had ever received with regard to his studies, and because of
them he resolved to return to school, and to work with all the ability
he possessed.

But in spite of his best determinations, Webster was never able to do
well in the class-room, and he therefore left Phillips Academy after
having attended its classes for nine months. His father placed him then,
in February, 1797, in charge of the Rev. Samuel Wood at Boscawen, who
prepared him for college. Even with Mr. Wood young Webster's success as
a student was not very great, for at the end of a year the reverend
gentleman said to his pupil, "I expected to keep you till next year, but
I am tired of you, and I shall put you into college next month."

Daniel Webster went to Dartmouth College, and there he did much better,
both in his studies and in his intercourse with his fellow-students, and
he managed a number of times to speak in public.



THE AMERICAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS.

A JAPANESE MATINÉE.

BY EMMA J. GRAY.


The members of the Senior Class in the Frotinbas Institute wished to
give a complimentary entertainment to their friends. There were many
informal suggestions and discussions as to the character of the
entertainment, and had not a class meeting been called, such a condition
of affairs might have been kept up indefinitely. But the meeting decided
matters, for then the different suggestions were formally examined,
weighed, and voted upon. That receiving the most votes being a Japanese
matinée.

The question now settled, committees were appointed to complete
arrangements, so that at the time of entertainment there would be
neither balk nor anxiety.

To the girls were given the important duties of decoration and
refreshment, the boys declaring that "girls had a knack at such things,"
and therefore there was not the slightest use of their blundering
awkwardness.

While the boys on their part promised to furnish sufficient and clever
amusement. And when the day of days at last arrived, for everything is
sure to come in time, and too soon sometimes, no sky could be bluer, nor
sunshine give heartier welcome, for it was a perfectly delicious
atmosphere. As a consequence, therefore, the new gymnasium, in which
this pretty entertainment was held, was crowded to its utmost limit.
Such a wealth of charming girls and manly boys! There were older people
there, too--mothers and fathers, whose love for their children made them
sure to come and see how they did things, and, indeed, to be quite
honest, we must not fail to mention the dearest of dear little people,
whose chubby dimpled hands would clap with all their baby might, and
whose gleeful laugh, whenever their big brothers or sisters would
particularly delight them, would spread contagion through the entire
audience.

All the girls looked quaint and interesting in Japanese costume. Some of
these had been hired, and others made at home by the nimble fingers of
the wearers. In order to learn how to do things, the girls carefully
examined the portraits of Japanese women, and also received many ideas
from a large Japanese emporium. At this place they made all their
purchases, even to such small though important items as hair-pins, for,
notwithstanding that none of the girls were over sixteen, each had her
hair rolled, and altogether dressed in the Japanese fashion. This
hair-dressing effected an enormous change, for instead of a cloud of
windy curls, long waving hair, or braids, to which we were accustomed,
the smoothly arranged and fantastically decorated locks seemed odd
indeed, and gave the girlish faces an almost unnatural look, as though
they were masquerading after the fashion of their baby sisters when they
roguishly look through grandmother's spectacles. But notwithstanding the
change wrought by upturned hair, there was no change in their winsome
manner, and therefore every guest was instantly won.

The gymnasium had been arranged to represent a salon. The boys and girls
hall contributed some of the furnishing, such as bric-à-brac and
hangings, the sort that could be most safely conveyed from home, others
had been hired, and some of the less expensive articles, for
example--large paper parasols, balloons, cotton crêpe materials, and
fans--had been bought. The tone of the room was perfect, indicating the
thought with which the different articles had been selected and placed.

There was a raised platform, so that the tricks, which were the prime
feature of the entertainment, could be seen. This platform was
artistically decorated, and chairs, screens, tables, gauze hangings, and
all the accessories required by the exhibitors were conveniently near.
To the left of the platform there stood an upright piano, on which low
music was played throughout the performance.

[Illustration]

The hour stated for the matinée was three in the afternoon, and as most
of the guests were present, it opened promptly with a succession of
college songs furnished by a mandolin quartet, after which the following
tricks, were shown.

It will be noticed that many of these tricks are already familiar, and
very easily executed, when you know how. We will hope the accompanying
explanation will stimulate some readers to try

THE NUT TRICK.

The shell must be prepared before the performance. Remove the kernel by
boring a hole, or opening the nut at one end. Take out the contents by
the aid of a lady's hat-pin, and instead of the kernel, slip in a short
piece of scarlet-colored baby-width ribbon. Then putty or wax the
opening over, and color the putty or wax with a dye, crayon, or paint
the exact shade of the nut. The nut being thus prepared, you may now lay
it on the table before your friends, and present a bunch of many-colored
ribbons of the same width and length to them. Ask that some one select
any piece he choose; you must have a don't-care air, as though it didn't
make any difference to you which piece was chosen. While, on the
contrary, you care so much, that should a wrong selection be made you
must at once tell an interesting story, which will help your friends to
forget that the ribbon has already been selected, and you should make
use of this opportunity to offer the ribbons over again. This time the
selection will likely be correct. It would be wise to have the majority
of pieces of ribbon the color of the piece in the nut, as that color
would catch the eye first and stand a better chance of being taken.

The right ribbon now being chosen, make a great point of looking at it;
hold it up at arm's length, so that all the audience may see it. Then
ask the party who made the selection to put it back in the bunch with
the others and mix them all up to please himself. When he has finished,
face the bunch of ribbons, and loudly repeat, three times over, "Ribbon,
go into the nut." Then ask your friend to go forward and take the little
hammer which he will find on the table and crack the nut open. When the
nut is opened, sure enough inside is a scarlet ribbon.

BURN A LADY'S HANDKERCHIEF, BUT RETURN IT WHOLE AGAIN.

This requires a tin cylinder about eight inches in diameter and twelve
inches in height. Into this put a perfectly fitting tin vessel, which is
divided strictly in half. When this vessel is slid inside of the
cylinder the whole does not look unlike a canister with a cover at each
end. Having the handkerchief, hold it so that everybody sees it, and
talk fluently, keeping the body constantly in motion, indeed making so
many motions that no one has noticed that you have packed this
handkerchief in the upper division of the tin vessel, and that, as you
are walking towards the candle, you have turned the cylinder upside
down, and that also the handkerchief you are now holding is really not a
handkerchief at all, but a thin piece of muslin you have prepared to
simulate a handkerchief. Pour on it a few drops of alcohol, which will
help it to burn even more rapidly; tear it, if you think it more
effective. When the owner thinks that her handkerchief is forever
destroyed, cleverly manage to invert the cylinder, take out the
handkerchief, shake it well, holding it so that all the audience sees
that it is not even scorched, and then return it to the lady.

THE BOWL TRICK.

Fill a tiny tumbler with water and cover it with a bowl. Then state you
will drink the water in the tumbler underneath without moving the bowl.

Of course the company do not believe you, and you ask all to turn their
backs, or close their eyes, if they will promise not to look, until one
of the party counts ten. Immediately they have turned their backs, or
closed their eyes, you pick up another glass of water and hastily
swallow a few mouthfuls. They hear the sound, but no one can look until
ten is counted. By that time the glass from which you drank is hidden
again, and the company catch you wiping your moist lips. Undoubtedly one
of the number will be so suspicious that he will lift the bowl to see,
and then is your opportunity, for you at once pick up the glass and
drink, saying, as you put it down, "_I_ didn't touch the bowl."

AN IMPOSSIBLE JUMP.

Take a gentleman's hat, and, turning it around so that every one sees
it, ask your friends whether, if you put it on the floor, they could
jump over it. Of course they will answer "yes." Then stand it close to
the wall, and tell them not to all try at once, but take their turn to
jump.

TURN A GOBLET UPSIDE DOWN WITHOUT SPILLING THE WATER.

Fill a glass goblet so as not to allow any water to drop over the edge.
Cover the top with a piece of paper; on the paper put your hand, and
turn the goblet rapidly over; then remove the hand. The upward pressure
of the air will prevent the water from spilling.

THE HAT OMELET.

Everybody who enjoys tricks is no doubt familiar with this. It is very
easy to do.

First state that you are about to make an omelet. Then break three eggs
into the hat, and appear to add a little milk and flour, after which
shake all together and hold the hat over a lighted lamp, candle, or gas.
After a few moments lift out the hot flaky omelet and pass it to your
friends, otherwise they will think they have been deceived.

The secret is the omelet was cooked on the range, and was in the hat
when you commenced to exhibit the trick, the hat being held too high for
the audience to see inside. The eggs were not full, only the shells, the
contents having been previously drawn through a tiny aperture at one
end. Laugh and talk a great deal, and it will not be noticed that you do
not put in the corn-starch and milk; also let a real egg drop, as if by
accident, on a plate standing on the table before you, or let a
table-spoon or knife fall. This will attract all eyes and further
prevent discovery. As in other tricks, you should practice it before
showing it to your friends.

THE WONDERFUL CARAFE.

[Illustration]

An empty carafe is brought by your confederate. This you should rinse
and drain in the presence of your audience in order to satisfy them that
there is really no mistake, that the carafe is positively empty. After
it has well drained dry it, wiping it around with the greatest care. In
the towel which your confederate brought you he also brought a bladder,
in which was a weak preparation made up of spirits of wine, sugar, and
water. In this way the carafe is filled without the audience detecting.
The glasses are already in position, and in each one has been put a drop
or two of flavoring extract, such as pineapple, lemonade, orange,
peppermint. The magician then inquires if any one would like a glass of
lemonade, and being answered in the affirmative, he pours the same from
the carafe by filling the glass in which the drops of lemonade extract
have been placed. In like manner he will give a glass of orangeade, or
whatever drink corresponds to the extract in the glasses.

THE VANISHING TEN-CENT PIECE.

Put this coin in the palm of your hand and take pains to let everybody
see it. Then state that if any one of the audience will call out
"Vanish" it will disappear.

The reason why is because the nail of your middle finger is covered with
white wax, and closing the hand forcibly the coin instantly fastens
itself to it. You must then open the hand wide and show that the
ten-cent piece has really gone.

The tricks now being over, the audience rose to congratulate their young
entertainers and also to exchange a few words with one another, and in
so doing many of them did not discover that refreshments were about to
be served until they were asked to take seats at the small tables that
had most mysteriously appeared.

[Illustration]

The refreshments were very simple, being only vanilla and strawberry
rolled wafers, and delicious tea. The tea was, of course, poured into
the prettiest of Japanese cups, and carried on richly decorated trays on
which were laid divers colored Japanese napkins, while the graceful,
cordial, Japanese-robed young girls added an indescribable charm.

And thus closed this dainty, interesting entertainment amid the pleasant
chatter of the happily seated, congenial company.



THE NORMAL EYE.

BY JNO. GILMER SPEED.


If six persons casually thrown together look at the moon when it is high
in the heavens, and each be asked how large the moon seems to be, it is
more than likely that the questioner will receive six different answers.
This probably would not be the case if the moon were near the horizon
and just rising or just setting.

The differences in the answers to the first query will be due to the
perfect or imperfect action of the various eyes. The comparative
uniformity of the answers in the second instance would be due to the
nicer adjustment of the eyes by seeing at the same time with the moon
familiar objects on the earth, such as houses and trees, which would
afford a standard of measurement.

Many persons old and young have remarked what I have just noted. I have
often observed such differences of vision, but never gave any particular
thought to the matter until the beautiful gilded statue of Diana on top
of the lofty tower of the Madison Square Garden was erected as a
weather-vane. The arrow of the chaste huntress points in the direction
of the prevailing wind.

To me the statue, when it was first erected, seemed at least ten feet
tall. To another of my friends it seemed a trifle smaller, and so did
the appearance vary, until the sixth of my companions said that to him
the statue seemed no larger than a good-sized doll--that is, about two
feet in height.

Then we turned to the moon, and here again were six opinions. They
varied from between attributing to the moon the size of a barrel-head,
eighteen inches in diameter, and the size of a breakfast plate, about
seven and a half inches. I was puzzled and interested, and as I saw
larger than any of my friends, I was afraid that my eyes were in some
way out of focus.

Next day I went to an optician to ascertain whether or not I had normal
vision. I was put through the usual tests of reading, without the aid of
glasses, sentences in different-sized letters. Then the optician
declared that I saw with most unusual accuracy. I was puzzled at this,
for I regarded Mr. Augustus St. Gaudens, who had made the weather-vane
statue of Diana, as the most gifted sculptor in America, and Mr.
Stanford White, the designer of the tower upon which the statue stands,
as one of our most accomplished architects. These gentlemen could not
have made a mistake, I thought, for surely they did not mean that Diana
should have to one standing on the ground the appearance of a giantess.

It happened that the shop of the optician I consulted was in the
neighborhood of Madison Square. Looking from the windows, one could see
Diana changing her front as the spring winds shifted. Still she seemed
at least ten feet in height. I turned to the optician.

"Have you normal vision?" I asked.

"I am not so fortunate," he replied.

"Is there any one here whose vision has been frequently tested, and
about which there can be no doubt?"

A young man was sent for, and I was told that his eyesight was as
perfect as human eyesight ever gets to be. I took him to the window and
pointed out Diana, who now seemed in the act of shooting her arrow
directly over our heads, and was therefore facing us.

"How large does she look?" I asked.

"Oh, she is too large," he responded, with a laugh; "she seems fully ten
feet high to me." Here was confirmation of my own opinion.

I then went to Mr. St. Gaudens. He told me frankly that the statue was
too large, and that it was to be replaced by a smaller one--five feet
shorter, a diminished replica. With the modelling he was entirely
satisfied, as are all other competent art critics, I believe, but he was
convinced that the statue was too tall.

I asked him what the custom was in determining how much a figure that
was to be placed at an elevation should be exaggerated. He told me that
in modelling ordinary statues a platform could be made of the same size
as the base upon which the finished work was to rest, and that then the
sculptor's sense of proportion would guide him. In this case, however,
where a statue was to be placed at an elevation of 325 feet, such a test
was impracticable.

Hence the proportions had to be determined by a scale-drawing which
showed all the various parts of the building and tower in relation to
each other and to the whole. This drawing was modified until it
completely satisfied the sense of proportion of both architect and
sculptor. Such a method, however, appears not to have been exact enough
to have prevented two of our ablest men from falling into a costly error
of judgment.

By marking off a base-line for one side of a right-angled triangle, and
letting another side of the triangle be the height of the tower, the
length of the hypothenuse, or third side of the triangle, which would
also have been the line of vision, could have been easily calculated.
Then if another right-angled triangle be constructed, the hypothenuse of
which is just as long as the normal human vision can see without
diminishing an object of the size that it is desirable that the elevated
object should appear when fixed in place, then the height of this given
object would be to the hypothenuse of the second or subsidiary triangle
as the hypothenuse of the larger triangle is to the height of the
desired object. That is, if the normal vision will reach accurately 200
feet, that would be the hypothenuse of the second triangle. Suppose,
then, that the hypothenuse of the first triangle be 500 feet, and it was
desired that the elevated object should appear six feet high; then the
architect would have to make it fifteen feet high for the proper result
to be attained.

By applying such a plain mathematical rule as this the costly mistakes
made in New York might have been obviated, and by its aid it can be
determined at any time just how much an elevated object should be
exaggerated so that it will look of a natural size. Such a rule as this
can be applied by any school-boy who has mastered his trigonometry; but
there are few, if any, architects who resort to calculations to
determine a mere matter of size when it does not relate to the strength
of the structure. The strength of walls and floors is of course
calculated with mathematical nicety, but those matters of construction
and ornamentation which only affect the appearance of buildings are
determined by the taste and the sense of proportion of the designer.

And it may be that it is scarcely worth while for architects and
designers to take any greater pains than they do to arrive at
mathematical accuracy in those things which, after all, have only an
æsthetic value. The first Diana on the tower was too large; but if a
thousand had been randomly gathered in Madison Square Garden, and a
census of their opinions taken, it would probably have been found that
the vote stood something like this: 50 would have thought the statue 15
feet high; 100, 10 feet; 200, 8 feet; 200, 6 feet; 200, 5 feet; 100, 4
feet; 100, 3 feet; 50, 2 feet.

The statue, which was at an elevation of 325 feet from the ground, was
really 18 feet in height. The present statue, which has replaced the one
of which I have been speaking, is 13 feet high.

The percentage of persons having normal vision is very small, and those
who by the use of glasses or spectacles correct such defects are also
comparatively small, if we except those who realize the impairment of
their vision as they realize, after the meridian of life has been
passed, the impairment of other faculties. Children, as a rule, have
normal vision; but I am assured by numerous practical opticians that not
more than ten per cent. of the men and women who have passed their
twenty-first birthday still have normal vision; and when a person has
got beyond forty-five and can still see with the accuracy of youth, then
that person affords so exceptional a case as to be worthy to be placed
among the living curiosities. A small percentage of persons with
abnormal vision see large, but, as a rule, eyes that are not as they
should be see objects in a diminished form.

This being the case, an architect who has a normal vision, or corrects
his vision by the aid of properly adjusted spectacles, and whose sense
of proportion is also of a high order, will very likely continually be
designing things that only a small percentage of those who are to look
at them will be capable of appreciating. Out of a thousand grown persons
who see his accurately proportioned work, one hundred will see it with
normal eyes, and two hundred more, perhaps, will see it with eyes
corrected by spectacles. Three hundred will therefore view his work as
he does himself, and seven hundred, not knowing that their vision is
defective, will judge that his work has been badly done. Therefore,
build he ever so well, he is building only for a small minority. The
children, with eyes ordinarily in a normal condition, should be the best
friends an architect could cultivate, for they, in one sense, at least,
usually have the capacity to look upon his work and say whether it be
well done or not. But, unfortunately, about the time that young people
reach an age when they begin to think seriously about art and
architecture, the great majority of them also begin to lose that normal
sight, without which distant objects can no longer be seen in accurate
proportions. Or perhaps the architects might impress upon all those who
criticise their work that a consultation with an oculist and a call upon
a spectacle-maker would enable a critic to reform his adverse judgment.
Such a course would be a good thing both for the eye specialist and the
optician. But if an architect himself have defective vision, he can
either design his structure by mathematical rules, or do for himself
what has just been suggested for his critics. At any rate, the
statistics available, and these are to a large extent only approximated,
show that the eyesight of Americans is getting all the time more
defective, and lead to the conclusion that in the course of a few more
years the exceptional person will be the one who does not wear
eye-glasses or spectacles or squint impertinently through the "monocle,"
that distinguishing mark of English and Continental dandyism.



[Illustration: The Remarkable Adventures of Sandboys]

THE LAST BEAR OF THE SEASON.


[Illustration]

When the boys, after a long and tedious railway journey from the hot
city to the cool wooded mountain country, arrived at the much-beloved
hotel where they had spent several very happy summers, the first person
to greet them was Sandboys, the curly-headed hall-boy with the twinkling
eyes and rapid-running feet. Sandboys, as they entered the great,
comfortable hotel office, was in the act of carrying a half-dozen
pitchers of iced water up stairs to supply thirsty guests with the one
thing needful and best to quench that thirst, and in his excitement at
catching sight once again of his two little friends, managed to drop two
of them with a loud crash upon the office floor.

"It's Sandboys," said Jack, gleefully. "I was afraid we wouldn't see him
this year. He's been studying theelygy."

"He'll never be any kind of a preacher," returned Bob, with a laugh at
the idea. "He can't hardly open his mouth without tellin' a fish story
or a bear story, and I don't think his kind of stories would do for
sermons."

At any rate, whatever the cause might have been, there Sandboys was,
plying his old vocation, and apparently no further along in the study of
theology than he had been when, a year before, he had bade the boys
"good-by forever," with the statement that as he was going to be a
missionary, the chances were they'd never see him again.

"I don't see why the proprietor of this hotel keeps a careless hall-boy
like that," said a cross old lady, upon whose dress Sandboys had managed
to spill some of the water.

"Well, you will see in a few days," returned an old maid who was sitting
at her side, sharply. "Those two boys as has just come in is fearful
noisy and lively, and that Sandboys last summer was the only person
around here as could keep 'em quiet. When he wasn't around they was
a-climbin' all over the men and a-settin' in the laps of all the
ladies."

"They look movey an' noisy," said the cross old lady, eying Jack and Bob
narrowly. "Whose boys be they?"

"They're cousins--their fathers is brothers. Their last name's Drake,"
replied the old maid.

"Humph!" sneered the cross old lady. "Seems to me, if they behaves as
you say they do, they'd oughter been named Gander. Gander's a good name
for all boys, 'pears to me, anyhow, a-squawkin' an' a-sissin' around all
the time."

But Bob and Jack and Sandboys were blissfully unconscious of the
severity of the old lady's criticism, and had eyes for the moment for
none but each other.

"Hull-lo!" cried Sandboys, joyfully. "You back again?"

"Looks so, don't it?" said Jack.

"Didn't expect to see you, though, Sandboys," said Bob. "Thought you'd
be off preachin'. Given up theelygy?"

"Sorter," said Sandboys. "Didn't like the prospect o' bein' et by
Samoans and Feejees, so I thought I'd stick to bell-boyin' another
season, anyhow; but I'll see you later, boys. I've got to hurry along
with this ice-watter. It's overdue now, an' we've got the kickin'est lot
o' folks here this year you ever see. One man here the other night got
mad as hooky because it took forty minutes to soft bile an egg. Said two
minutes was all was necessary to bile an egg softer'n mush, not
understandin' anything about the science of eggs, where hens feeds on
pebbles."

"Pebbles?" cried Jack, astounded at the idea.

"Certainly. Pebbles," reiterated Sandboys. "Nothin' extryordinary about
that. Chickens has got to eat somethin', and up in these here States o'
New Hampshire an' Vermount there ain't much left for 'em after we human
bein's has been fed except pebbles, in which the soil is partickerlarly
fertile. Well, when a hen fed on pebbles comes to lay eggs, cobblestones
ain't in it with 'em for hardness, so's when you come to bile 'em it
takes most a week to git 'em soft--an' this feller kicked at forty
minutes. Most likely he's swearin' around upstairs now because o' the
delay in gettin' his ice-watter; and 'tain't more'n two hours since he
sent for it, neither."

With this, Sandboys, gathering up the remaining pitchers of water,
bounded up the first flight of stairs like an antelope and disappeared,
while Bob and Jack went with their parents in to supper, to which they
did full justice, for their luncheon on the train that day had been very
scrappy and meagre.

They did not see Sandboys again that night, for they were pretty well
tired out with their day's exertions, and most reluctantly obeyed their
parents' commands to tumble into bed at an early hour. But the next
morning they were down bright and early, and there in the office,
humming softly to himself, sat Sandboys, patiently awaiting such
summonses as might come to him from the awakening guests above.

"It's nice to see you again, boys," he said, as they greeted him.
"Somehow the hotel 'ain't seemed natural without you. It's been too
sorter peaceful an' quiet like; but now that you're back, I reckon the
band'll begin to play a few tunes. All been well?"

"First rate," said Jack. "How about you?"

"Pretty good," said Sandboys. "'Ain't had much to complain about. Had
the measles in December, and the mumps in February; an' along about the
middle o' May the whoopin'-cough got a holt of me; but as it saved my
life, I can't kick about that."

Here Sandboys looked gratefully at an invisible something--doubtless the
recollection in the thin air of his departed case of whooping-cough, for
having rescued him from the grave.

"That's queer," put in Bob, looking curiously at his old friend. "I
don't see how whoopin'-cough could save anybody's life. Do you, Jack?"

"I guess I don't," replied Jack; "but it isn't queer if it saved
Sandboys's life, because somehow or other queer things happen so often
to him that they've stopped being queer to me."

"Well, I must say," said Sandboys, with a pleased laugh at Jack's
tribute to the wondrous quality of his experiences, "if I was a-goin' to
start out to save people's lives generally I wouldn't have thought a
case o' whoopin'-cough would be of much use; but as long as I'm the
feller that has to come up here every June an' shoo the bears out o' the
hotel, I ain't never goin' to be without a spell o' whoopin'-cough along
about that time if I can help it."

"What do you mean by shooing out the bears?" asked Jack.

[Illustration]

"It's part o' my business," said Sandboys. "I told you once before about
how the bears come down from the mountains in winter and sleep here in
the hotel rooms, an' lead a reg'lar hotel life among 'emselves, until
the snow melts, when we have to drive 'em out. They climb in the windows
of the cupola generally, burrowin' down to it through the snow, an'
divide up the best rooms in the house, an' enjoy life out o' the wind
an' storm, snug 's bugs in rugs. Last June there must ha' been a hundred
of 'em here when I got here, an' one by one I got rid of 'em. Some I
smoked out; some I deceived, gettin' 'em to chase me out through the
winders, an' then doublin' back on my tracks an lockin' 'em out. Others
I gets rid of in other ways; but it's pretty hard work, an' when night
comes I'm generally pretty well tired out.

"By actual tally this June I shood a hundred an' three bears off into
the mountains. When the hundred an' third was gone I searched the house
from top to bottom to see if there was any more to be got rid of; every
blessed one of the five hundred rooms I went through, and not a bear was
left that I could see. I tell you, I was glad, because there was a
partickerlarly ugly run of 'em this year, an' they gave me a pile o'
trouble. They hadn't found much to eat in the hotel, an' they was
disapp'inted an' cross. As a matter of fact, the only things they found
in the place they could eat was three sofy cushions an' the hotel
register, which don't make a very hearty meal for a hundred an' three
bears.

[Illustration]

"All this time I was sufferin' like hooky with bad spasms of
whoopin'-cough, an' that made my work all the harder. So, as you can
guess, when I found there warn't another bear left in the house, I just
threw myself down anywhere and slept. My! how I slept! I don't suppose
anything ever slept the way I did. And then what do you suppose
happened? As I was a-lyin' there unconscious, a great big black hungry
bruin that had been hidin' in the bread-oven in the bake-kitchen, where
I didn't think of lookin' for him, came saunterin' up, lickin' his chops
with delight at the idee of havin' me raw for his dinner. I lay on,
unconscious of my danger, until he got right up close, an' then I waked
up, an' openin' my eyes, saw this great black savage thing gloatin' over
me. He was sniffin' my bang when I caught sight of him."

"Mercy!" cried Bob.

"There was no use o' askin' for mercy from him," retorted Sandboys, with
a convincing shake of his head. "He was too hungry to think o' bein'
merciful."

"'Oh lor!' says I, as I gave myself up for lost. 'This here's the end o'
me;' at which the bear looked me straight in the eye, licked his chops
again, an' was just about to take a nibble, when, 'whoop'! I had a spasm
of whoopin'. Well, I guess you boys knows what that means. There ain't
nothin' more uncanny, more terrifyin', in the whole run o' human noises
than the whoop o' the whoopin'-cough. At the first whoop the bear jumped
back ten feet. At the second he put for the door; but stopped and looked
around, hopin' he was mistaken, when I whooped a third time; and the
third did the business. That third whoop would ha' scared Indians. It
was awful. It was like a tornady runnin' through a fog-horn; an' when he
heard that, Mr. Bear started on a scoot up those hills that must have
taken him ten miles before I quit coughin'.

"An' that's why I says that when you've got to shoo bears for a livin',
an attack o' whoopin'-cough ain't the worst thing in the world to have
when you can use it. Anyhow, it saved my life from the last bear of the
season, an' I'm thankful to it."

Which Bob and Jack thought it was no less than proper that Sandboys
should be; but they didn't tell him so, for at that moment he was
summoned to find number 433's left boot, which the bootblack had left at
number 334's door, by some odd mistake.



[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]


Lawrenceville has never started the year with so few old football men
back again in school. Nine of last year's players have not returned.
Among those who are on hand are Cadwalader and Richards, the guards.
Richards has been out for practice only about two weeks, but he is
rapidly getting into his old form. Mattis, who was disabled at full-back
last year, came out early, and was appointed temporary captain; but he
has now been forced to give up playing, owing to an injury to his knee,
and Richards has been appointed permanent captain. Righter, who was
elected to the office at the close of the season last fall, did not
return to school, and is now at Amherst College.

[Illustration: THE LAWRENCEVILLE FOOTBALL TEAM.]

Compared with those of former years, the rush-line will be light,
averaging, perhaps, between 157 and 160 pounds. Cadwalader is the
heaviest man on the team. Ross, Pinkerton, and Dana have been tried at
centre, and the last-named appears at present to be capable of the best
work in that position, although he lacks experience. Cadwalader and
Richards will of course be worth more than they were last year, both men
being extremely valuable as ground-gainers. For tackles, S. Dodds and
James are the leading candidates. Dodds played on the second team last
fall, and should become a strong player under coaching this year. James
may be looked upon as fairly sure of making his position.

As to the rest of the team, there is considerable uncertainty. At
present Little and Dudley are playing at the ends, and are as good as
four other candidates for those positions. C. Dodds, who was substitute
full-back last year, might be developed into a good end rusher, but he
is now being played at full-back and right half-back. At quarter Arrott,
who pitched for the nine last year, has been doing fairly good work, but
it seems probable that he will be superseded by De Saulles, a brother of
the '94 quarter-back now at Yale. De Saulles is quick, a sure tackler,
and, with experience and maturity, will doubtless become the equal of
his brother.

There is a large number of candidates for the half-back
positions--Willing, Wells, Kafer, Adams, and McCord. The latter two may
eventually get the positions, while Kafer, a brother of last year's
full-back, and C. Dodds may be held for the full-back positions.

Much good material will doubtless be developed, however, by the various
house teams, which are practising daily, and some men may be taken from
them for the first eleven. The games of importance played so far have
been against the Princeton scrub twice, Lawrenceville losing, 18-6 and
18-0. It should be remembered, however, that this scrub team scores
almost daily on the Princeton 'varsity. Lawrenceville has defeated the
New Jersey A.C., 8-4, and St. Paul's, Garden City, 28-0. The St. Paul's
team is considerably heavier than that of Lawrenceville, but they have
not so far developed the team-work which is such a strong feature of the
Jersey-men's game. Their men start very quickly, and their half-backs
are real sprinters, but they are not sufficiently shielded by
interference, and when they came in contact with the Lawrenceville men
they were unable to make such gains as they did against Berkeley, whom
they defeated 50-0.

A few weeks ago this Department had occasion to comment upon certain
unsportsmanlike features of athletics in Wisconsin, and called
particular attention to the fact that the Madison High-School had at one
time allowed certain members of the University of Wisconsin to play upon
its football team. It was also said at that time that the Madison
High-School was "a great boaster of championships." The latter phrase
seems to have given greater offence to the athletes at Madison H.-S.
than anything else, for the Department is in receipt of a letter from
the captain of the M.H.-S. football team, in which he admits that "we
had on our last year's team two players who were taking studies at the
U. of W.," but, he adds, "we never boast."

It is to be regretted that the Madisonians should have misunderstood the
sense in which the word "boast" was used in this Department. We never
had any intention of citing them as vainglorious. Those students at
Madison who have read, or are now reading, Homer will find the
expression "to boast" very frequently used by the old Greeks, and always
in a good and proper sense. If they will look in the Century Dictionary
they will find, among a number of definitions, the following: "Boast
(II., 2.): to glory or exult in possessing; have as a source of pride."
It was in the sense that Madison H.-S. had many championships as a
source of pride that they were spoken of in this Department as boasters
of championships. In the same sense we may very justly call Andover a
boaster of championships. Lawrenceville School is a boaster of
championships; the Oakland High-School, in California, is a boaster of a
great many championships; the Berkeley School in this city is a boaster
of championships; so, likewise, is the English High-School in Boston.
There is nothing in these statements for any schools to take offence at.

Concerning the two players of the Madison High-School team last year who
were members of the University of Wisconsin while they played as
school-boys on the school team, the captain of the Madison High-School
gives a frank and detailed statement of their connection both with the
school and with the University. He adds: "True it is they were members
of the U. of W., but they were only there on condition, and, on the
other hand, were full-fledged members of our school until their
graduation day. They were the only ones in the history of our teams that
were members of both schools at the same time. You can judge for
yourself whether or not we were justified in playing both of these men."

Any one with the slightest conception of the ethics of sport will be
able to judge of this question at once, and will unfailingly decide that
the Madison High-School was certainly not justified in any way whatever
in playing these two men. Just as soon as these students were enrolled
as members of the University, no matter if they only took fifteen
minutes' instruction a year at the University, they were disqualified
from having any connection whatsoever with High-School athletics.

In an affair of this kind there can be no half-way conditions. If you
allow such men as these on school football teams, what is to prevent
University students from taking one hour a week at the High-School in
order that they may play football on the High-School team? The latter
would be just as much a student of the High-School as the two men who
have caused Madison's athletics to suffer charges of unsportsmanship.

I feel sure that a little thought on this subject will convince the
captain of the Madison High-School football team, and all the members of
his school, that what I say is perfectly just. He has asked me to
correct the statement made in the same issue that "the Madison
High-School football team has never been defeated." I do so at once. It
has been defeated. I ought to have known at the time, from experience,
better than to write any such sentence as that.

[Illustration: J. S. BUSH,

HARTFORD HIGH-SCHOOL.

Half-back.]

[Illustration: K. A. STRONG,

HARTFORD HIGH-SCHOOL.

Half-back.]

The New Britain High-School football team, which has made such a good
record so far this year, is going to make a strong bid for the
championship of the Connecticut League. I am writing this just before
the important game with Hartford, which will have been played by the
time this week's ROUND TABLE is published; but even if New Britain
suffers defeat at the hands of Hartford, I feel sure that it will not be
without putting up a strong fight.

Towers, at centre, is aggressive on the attack, but weak in defensive
work, and does not get into the interference. Corbin, right guard, on
the other hand, gets into the interference well, but is a weak tackler.
Alling, on the other side of centre, is a sharp, aggressive player.
Flannery and McDonough are both old players, and are the best two men in
the line, invariably making their distance when the ball is given to
them. Porter, at end, is one of the best players in that position in the
Connecticut High-School League. He is very fast in getting down the
field, and breaks through the interference cleverly. Griswold, at the
other end, is a good tackler, but in other respects his playing is only
fair.

Captain Meehan, quarter-back, runs his men with good judgment, is a good
tackler, passes well as a rule, but occasionally makes costly fumbles.
Brinley, at half-back, is a green player, but a fast runner, and will do
very much better as soon as he learns to follow his interference. Fitch,
the other half-back, has this same fault, and is not much of a tackler,
but he seems to have the knack of making gains around the end.
O'Donnell, at full-back, is a fair punter, a good line-backer, and a
good tackler. He is beyond doubt the best player on the team, and plays
as well as many a college man in the same position. Take it all in all,
the New Britain team has a strong heavy line, but the half-backs run too
high, and do not pay enough attention to following their interference,
and the whole aggregation is too careless at tackling.

The star player among the Chicago High-Schools is beyond any doubt
Teetzel, of the Englewood High-School, whose portrait we published in
this Department last week. It is deeply to be deplored that any charges
of professionalism should have been brought against him, and it seems
that these should either be proved at once or entirely withdrawn and
hushed. In the recent game between Englewood and Lake View, Teetzel
proved himself a giant. At the outset it looked for a time as if Lake
View were going to have the best of the argument; they forced the ball
rapidly down the field and scored. But Englewood took a sharp brace at
this point, and had everything their own way for the rest of the
afternoon, winning, 28-6.

There have been a number of squabbles among the High-School teams of
Chicago, and most of the disputes seem from this distance to be of a
most childish nature. The true reason for all the trouble appears to be
a fear of defeat, which evidences, on the other hand, an unhealthy
desire for victory that bodes no good to the welfare of sport in that
section. I am glad to learn that the Board of Managers at the recent
League meeting decided that English High and North Division must play
out their game which was scheduled for two weeks ago but was not played.

All of the Games played in the Cook County League on October 22 were won
by large scores. North Division defeated Northwest Division, 48-0, but
the latter team was so poor that the game was devoid of interest.
Johnson made several splendid runs, one for 100 yards and another for 90
yards, both resulting in touch-downs. Friedlander showed himself as
expert, as ever as an end, although he did not have many chances. Manual
lost to Hyde Park, 42-0. Hyde Park's team-work was excellent, and the
best individual play was done by Ford, a new man at end. The other
games, of the day, at least those that were not forfeited, developed no
good men, and displayed little of interest to football enthusiasts.

Contrary to expectations, Shady Side Academy and Kiskiminetas, of the
Pittsburg Interscholastic League played their first game on October 24,
and the latter won by the large score of 20-0. To be sure, Shady Side
was handicapped by the loss of Beeman, who was unable to play, and who
is usually one of the strongest ground-gainers of the eleven; and
Arundell, their full-back, ought never to have gone on the field, while
Dravo was in about as equally poor condition.

From the start the play was mostly in S.S.A.'s territory, and a very few
moments after the ball was started Kiskiminetas had scored a touch-down
and kicked a goal. Shady Side made a desperate effort to stop the game
of their opponents, but the Saltsburgh men were a heavier lot, and sent
their interference around Humbird's end for continual gains. Their
system of interference was excellent, and Shady Side found it almost
impossible to break into it. Thus before the end of the first half the
home team had scored two touch-downs, kicking both goals.

In the second half, although S.S.A. worked hard, Kiskiminetas gained
gradually and pushed the ball slowly down the field, until McColl scored
another touch-down. The Pittsburg half-backs, even when they had the
ball, were apparently unable to advance it very far, Geer not being
hardened to the game yet, and Dravo, as already mentioned, being in poor
condition. The line also did not hold together as it should, and Kelso,
the Kiskiminetas right tackle, went through it frequently for good
gains. Toward the end of the second half, however, Shady Side made a
desperate stand and held their opponents well.

The Kiskiminetas eleven is unusually strong this year, averaging over
150 pounds. Montgomery is a wonderfully good end rusher, and prevented
any runs being made through his territory by breaking up the
interference every time and downing the runner. Kelso is a splendid
ground-gainer, and dashed seemingly at will through the Shady Side line.
McConnell did good work for the Pittsburg team, and by his fine tackling
prevented Kiskiminetas from scoring on more than one occasion. The
playing of Kirke, S.S.A., was one of the features of the game; he
repeatedly broke up the magnificent interference of the opposing eleven,
and worked hard from start to finish.

In the second half G. McConnell was put in at full-back, and it is to be
regretted that he is not heavier, for he has the making of a good
player. When he has put on a few more pounds he will make a good running
full-back or a plunging half. He is especially good at starting quickly.
The next game between these two elevens will be played on the Shady Side
Academy grounds, November 16, and should be very interesting, for
between now and then the Shady Side team ought to be able to develop
some team-work, in which at present they are slightly deficient.

     HARRY LOGAN, PINE GROVE, PA.--Yes.

     ALBERT CURRIER, IOWA CITY.--Rule 9 of the Football Rules of 1896
     states that "A goal consists in kicking the ball in any way, except
     by a punt, from the field of play over the cross-bar of the
     opponents' goal." For greater detail see Lewis's _Primer of College
     Football_ (Harper and Brothers, 75 cents).

"TRACK ATHLETICS IN DETAIL."--ILLUSTRATED.--8VO, CLOTH, ORNAMENTAL,
$1.25.

  THE GRADUATE.

       *       *       *       *       *

A School of Squid.

     I spent seven weeks of my vacation in Searsport, Maine. One day my
     father proposed to go fishing in the bay. We got a boat and rowed
     to a spot noted for cunners. Soon my father began to pull in his
     line. I followed his example. When the supposed fish reached the
     surface we found they were not fish, but squid. They threw water
     upon us, and threw out a poisonous inklike substance, which luckily
     did not hit us.

     We did not take the squid into the boat, but let them drag over the
     stern as we rowed ashore. We looked over the side of the boat, and
     away down in the water we could see a large school of them. They
     rose to about four feet from the surface. One of them grasped the
     largest of the prisoners and endeavored to pull him away. The line
     proved too strong, and he gave up the task.

     It is very interesting to watch squid swim. When swimming forward,
     the ten arms are laid in such a position as to form a point. The
     caudal fin is now its propeller. When swimming backwards the caudal
     fin is carefully folded over the body. Water is then forced through
     the siphon, which sends the body backward. The squid's head is so
     joined to the body that it appears like a pivot. The body is
     covered with black specks, which are little sacs of pigment that
     expand and contract. The general color is white.

  WILLIAM J. PUTNAM, R.T.K.
  DORCHESTER, MASS.

       *       *       *       *       *

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THE NEW YORK SUN _on April 11, 1896, said of_

HARPER'S

PERIODICALS

They are handsome and delightful all, and are as friends that one is
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and entertain. They are the well-known and well-liked literary and
artistic chronicles of the time. They are a credit to their publishers
and to the discernment of the public that approves them. May they
continue to be as admirable as they have been and as they are. Better
could hardly be wished for them.

       *       *       *       *       *

FOR SALE EVERYWHERE.



[Illustration: BICYCLING]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the
     Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our
     maps and tours contain many valuable data kindly supplied from the
     official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen.
     Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L.A.W., the
     Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership
     blanks and information so far as possible.


There are so many questions constantly being sent in to us, asking how
to get out of New York on a wheel, that, in spite of the fact of maps
already published showing the exits from New York, it seems advisable to
give, in brief form, a description of the two or three roads which are
at all rideable.

There are but three ways to go northward. One runs from 59th Street and
Central Park to 110th Street, thence out Seventh Avenue to 116th Street.
Here, turning left into St. Nicholas Avenue, it continues to Tenth
Avenue, thence crossing the cable and running to Kingsbridge Road. In
time we shall be able to run out direct to Kingsbridge over the new
bridge, down the long hill beyond 181st Street, but for some time this
road has been in a state of construction and repair that was enough to
give bicyclers nervous prostration. It has been advisable, therefore, to
cross at 181st Street on Washington Bridge, thence following Featherbed
Lane to Macomb's Dam Road, to Fordham Landing Road, to Sedgwick Avenue,
to Bailey Avenue, to Kingsbridge, and thence out of the city along the
Hudson to Yonkers. This is the main road up the Hudson on all routes,
long or short. It is the best road from the start, and for many reasons
the wheelman is advised to take it even when he is bound southward and
eastward. A mile or more on a bicycle is nothing compared to the
difficulties of getting over a bad road, and any rider will prefer five
good miles to one very bad one. A map of this route is published in
HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, No. 810.

This is what renders the other two routes out of New York undesirable as
compared with what the Kingsbridge will be when it is completed. The
second in order of importance as good road is that which leaves 59th
Street and runs through the Park to Seventh Avenue, thence proceeds to
the new 155th Street bridge. Cross this and run out Jerome Avenue,
through Morrisania to Jerome Park, along the old aqueduct for a bit,
thence through South Yonkers, Bronxville, Tuckahoe, to White Plains. The
road here is not good in any part. The Avenue is badly macadamized, and
here, as elsewhere in this part of New York, the road-bed is torn up
with repairs, and new plans and works for the system of roads which some
day, when we are all dead and wheeling has gone out of fashion, will
make the northern exits of New York the finest in the world. However,
this is the road to take if you are bound up the valley or series of
valleys lying between the Hudson River ridges and the western ridges of
Westchester. Certain routes out this way are rideable. The others are
not to be thought of under any circumstances if pleasure is the object
in view.

The third exit is further to the east, and runs from 59th Street, as
follows: Leave Central Park and run into Fifth Avenue from the Park at
the exit where the asphalt begins on the avenue; thence run out to 120th
Street, turning west to Morris Avenue, to 124th Street; then, turning
back, eastward to Fifth Avenue, to 135th Street, and thence to Madison
Avenue, crossing the bridge. After crossing, turn left to Mott Avenue.
From this point the run to White Plains is pretty bad work, being over
hilly, rough roads, with nothing of interest at hand for the eye to rest
on. The route is to 162d Street; thence east and south to 161st Street,
turning left into Washington Avenue, to Third Avenue, to Fordham
Railroad station, at the left a few blocks on. Crossing the bridge here,
turn right into Webster Avenue and run direct to Williamsbridge.



BUILDING A STATUE.


Modelling the clay for a statue is one of the most fascinating,
interesting, and, at the same time, instructive sights. From the moment
the preliminary frame-work is constructed to the final delicate
finishing-touches of the sculptor, the work progresses through many
stages. It is seldom that we think of the time and labor spent on such
works of art.

The sculptor who undertakes a commission to model, let us say, an
equestrian statue of colossal size, to be erected in commemoration of
some great General, finds a long task before him. In the first place, he
reads up the General's life, obtains all the information possible of his
characteristics, habits, etc. Then he procures all the photographs of
him that he can, and after careful study of them he works up a number of
pencil sketches, until he strikes a typical pose that he hopes will be
satisfactory. Then comes the production of the miniature model. This he
deftly works into shape with clay or wax. Oftentimes these small models
are carried to a nearly perfected stage, and it is in these that the
genius of the sculptor asserts itself.

From the lump of clay which his fingers have flattened, trimmed, rounded
off, the little model issues forth as a nucleus, from which its gigantic
brother is to come. With the proportions laid out in the small one, the
sculptor sketches his iron frame-work for the full-size model. On a
platform of heavy beams he constructs this frame-work, which, when
complete, has an anatomical look about it; but it would be a difficult
matter to find in the seemingly crazy arrangement of twisted iron and
the wire ropes, with blocks of wood tied on them, anything resembling
anatomy.

The skeleton frame has to be exceedingly strong; for should any part
give way later with the weight of the damp clay, it would doubtless
involve the beginning of the work all over again. With the frame
complete and tested as to its strength, the clay is built up around it,
careful attention being given to each minute detail, especially to the
anatomical ones. From the beginning, in the use of the clay, it is
essential to keep it damp, and all through the construction water is
applied through a hose-pipe with a sprinkler attached. This wetting-down
is extremely important, for should the clay get dry, it would crumble
like dirt, or crack, thus ruining the work.

The figure of the General is modelled nude, and brought to a high
finish. A live model is employed for the purpose, and he poses astride a
dummy horse in the position the sketch and miniature model call for.
After the figure is finished, even to the curve of each muscle,
equipments are put on the dummy horse, and the model dresses himself in
the General's costume and again takes the pose. The sculptor then
proceeds to dress the General and his horse. With his many different
tools he slowly shapes the clothing in the new clay that he has
ruthlessly slapped on the exquisite modelling underneath. Bit by bit the
various garments assume form and develop under the ready hand of the
master, every little fold or crease being carefully worked up. The
likeness is the most important part, however, and great attention is
paid to the face. In this it is necessary to combine so many things
besides likeness that the task is at times almost discouraging.

Months have been required to accomplish the work, and all through it the
sculptor has been studying the history of his subject, reviewing his
results, altering them to suit his tastes, until finally he lays down
his tools and calls his work finished. Plaster casts are then taken of
the model, and from these the bronze casting is made.

If a marble statue is ordered, the sculptor sometimes prefers to model
on a small scale and then to put his model in the hands of skilful
cutters in marble, who carry the work as far as they can judiciously,
when it is again taken up by the sculptor, who finishes it, putting in
the lines that proclaim his genius and commend it to the world as a work
of art. When this is done, the small original model must be finished up
to the highest point of the sculptor's ability. Usually, the first
modelling is done in the clay, life size, as this allows of alterations
that may suggest themselves during the advancement of the work.

  HUBERT EARL.



[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

     Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly
     answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to
     hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.


HOW TO MAKE "DOUBLES."

A photographic operation which gives a great deal of amusement is the
making of "doubles." A double photograph is one in which the same person
is represented twice, both portraits being taken on the same plate.
Doubles are made in the ordinary camera, the only apparatus needed being
some device by which either part of the lens or part of the plate-holder
is covered. This being done, the person to be photographed takes his
position before the camera, half the plate is exposed, and the shutter
closed. The subject then changes his position to the opposite side, and
the other half of the plate is exposed. When the picture is developed it
will look as if made by one exposure.

One way of making doubles is to have a box which will fit the front of
the camera so that it will project about three inches beyond the front
of the lens. A double door opening exactly in the middle of the box
should be fitted to the front of the box. The doors should meet in a
close straight line, so that when closed there will not be any danger of
light getting into the camera before the plate is exposed. Care must be
taken that the doors meet on a line exactly in the middle of the lens,
so that when either door is opened only half the lens will be in
operation.

Another and simpler way is to cut a plate-holder slide exactly in half,
arrange the camera, close the shutter, put in the plate-holder, take out
the slide, and slip the half-slide in its place. Make the exposure, take
out the half-slide and put in the plate slide, pose the subject for the
other half of the picture, and take out the slide and put the half-slide
in the holder over the part which has already been exposed.

In arranging for the picture it is more convenient to fix on some line
or small object which shall come in the centre of the plate when the
exposure is made. The subject to be photographed should stand at least
nine or ten inches one side of this central point, for if the drapery of
the dress overlaps, the picture will show a blur.

In making the exposure great care must be taken not to move the camera,
as if it is moved even the very least bit, a blurred line will appear in
the picture showing just where the two exposures join. The focus must
not be changed unless a plain background is used. In making the
exposures for the two pictures the time of both must be equal. This is
more necessary for an exposure made out-of-doors than for one made in
the house. If the exposures are unequal in time the negative will be
unequal in development, and, as a consequence, half of it will be
lighter than the other.

Many interesting and amusing pictures may be made by the means of double
photographing. A person may be taken playing checkers or chess with
himself, reading to himself, taking his own picture, offering himself
something to eat, etc. An amusing picture might be made of a person
begging of himself, the first picture being taken in his ordinary
walking dress, and the second dressed in ragged clothes and holding out
his hat for alms.

[Illustration: AT WAR WITH HIMSELF.]

In the accompanying picture the subject is fighting a duel with himself.

     SIR KNIGHT FREDERICK CLAPP sends a print, and asks the reason of
     the spots on the negative from which it is made, and when the next
     photographic competition is to be conducted. The spots on the
     negatives which make the print imperfect are caused either by bits
     of film or dirt in the developer settling on the film, or by
     air-bubbles forming on the surface of the plate when it is covered
     with the developer. In either case the developer is prevented from
     acting on the film, and causes spots which have the effect of
     halation. Small round holes in the negatives are caused by dust on
     the plate. The time of the photographic contest has not yet been
     decided. It will be announced in this column as soon as
     arrangements are completed.

     SIR KNIGHT CALVIN FARRAR sends a print of the interior of the log
     cabin built for the recent celebration in Cleveland. Please accept
     thanks for same.

     SIR KNIGHT RICHARD C. LORD asks for a formula for developer for
     snap-shots and for time exposures. See answer to Sir Charles
     Lusenkamp for formula in No. 886. The J. C. tabloids make a fine
     developer for instantaneous exposures.

     "QUAD," Pittsburg, Pa., sends a print from a film, and asks what
     gives it its mottled appearance. As far as one can judge from the
     blue print, the mottling is due to imperfect fixing, or the film
     was left too long in the developer without rocking. There is no
     remedy for the film.

     SIR KNIGHT E. D. BALL, Spartansburg, S. C., sends a print, and
     wishes to know what is the reason of the yellowish-brown color. The
     trouble is in the toning-bath. Test it with blue litmus-paper. If
     it turns the litmus-paper red, add enough bicarbonate of soda, a
     little at a time, until it turns the red color back to blue. Use
     the bicarbonate of soda in solution.

     EDWARD BRAGTON, 87 West Thirty-second Street, Bayonne, N. J.;
     RACHEL KELSEY, Baraboo, Wis.; WILLIAM T. KELSEY, Baraboo, Wis.;
     J. L. GOODMAN, 807 Broderick Street, San Francisco, Cal.; H. T.
     COOPER, 2416 Harriet Avenue, Minneapolis, Minn.; E. LESTER CROCKER,
     Tarrytown-on-Hudson, N. Y.; JOHN H. CHAMBERLAIN, 6 Franklin Avenue,
     Dayton, O.; ARTHUR P. LAZARUS, 756 South Hope Street, Los Angeles,
     Cal.; FRED. W. LONG, 416 West Adams Street, Muncie, Ind.; FRED. D.
     ROSE, 405 South High Street, Muncie, Ind.; HARRY R. PATTY, 2533
     Michigan Avenue, Los Angeles, Cal.; WM. H. WHITE, JUN., Pembroke
     Avenue, Norfolk, Va.; GEORGE E. HOLT, Moline, Ill., wish to become
     members of the Camera Club.

     LADY LESLEY ASHBURNER, Media, Pa., would like to correspond with
     members of the Camera Club. Lady Lesley asks for directions for
     making enlargements, as she did not find it in No. 801, as
     directed; also how to make ferro-prussiate paper. Look again at No.
     801. The article is entitled "Bromide Enlargements." Directions for
     making ferro-prussiate paper may be found in Nos. 797, 823, and
     828.



Arnold

Constable & Co

       *       *       *       *       *

Paris Lingerie.

_Peignors, Matinées, Jupons,_

_Chemise du Nuit._

SILK PETTICOATS,

CORSETS.

       *       *       *       *       *

CHILDREN'S WEAR.

_School Frocks, Jackets,_

_Reefers, Long Coats._

       *       *       *       *       *

Broadway & 19th st.

NEW YORK.



Postage Stamps, &c.



[Illustration]

The neatest and most attractive Stamp Album ever published is =The
Favorite Album for U. S. Stamps=. Price 25c. (post free 30c.).

Catalogue of U. S. Stamps free for the postage, 2c. Complete Catalogue
of all Stamps ever issued, 10c. Our Specialty: =Fine Approval Sheets= at
low prices and 50% commission.

R. F. ALBRECHT & CO.,

90 Nassau Street, New York.



[Illustration: STAMPS]

100, all dif., & fine =STAMP ALBUM=, only 10c.; 200, all dif., Hayti,
Hawaii, etc., only 50c. Agents wanted at 50 per cent. com. List FREE!
=C. A. Stegmann=, 5941 Cote Brilliant Ave., St. Louis, Mo.



STAMPS

=10= stamps and large list =FREE!=

L. DOVER & CO., 1469 Hodiamont, St. Louis, Mo.



1872.

1c. 2c. & 3c. National Bank Note Co. Print, 20c.

P.S. Chapman, Box 151, Bridgeport, Ct.



[Illustration]

EARN A GOLD WATCH!

We wish to introduce our =Teas and Baking Powder=. Sell 50 lbs. to earn a
=Waltham Gold Watch and Chain=; 25 lbs. for a =Silver Watch and Chain=; 10
lbs. for a =Gold Ring=; 50 lbs. for a =Decorated Dinner Set=; 75 lbs.
for a =Bicycle=. Write for a Catalog and Order Blank to Dept. I

W. G. BAKER,

Springfield -- Mass.



JOSEPH GILLOTT'S

STEEL PENS

Nos. 303, 404, 170, 604 E.F., 601 E.F.

And other styles to suit all hands.

THE MOST PERFECT OF PENS.



HOME STUDY.

A thorough and practical Business Education in Book-keeping, Short-hand,
etc., given by =Mail= at student's home. Low rates. Cat. free. Trial
lesson 10c. Write to

BRYANT & STRATTON, 85 College Bldg., Buffalo, N.Y.



PISO'S CURE FOR CONSUMPTION

CURES WHERE ALL ELSE FAILS.

Best Cough Syrup. Tastes Good. Use

in time. Sold by druggists.



Big Grape and Apple Harvests.

     I live in the centre of the great grape belt of the south shore of
     Lake Erie. Some years ago one saw nothing but wheat and barley in
     this region, with corn and grass on the hills to the south, but
     within ten years all has been changed. Now the whole country,
     hill-side and all, is one vast vineyard. Few raise anything else in
     their fields. I know one vineyard, twenty miles west of here,
     containing 300 acres. The vines stretch away almost as far as one
     can see.

     At this season grape-pickers come here in vast crowds. They are
     from the cities, and are a picturesque lot of folk. They dress in
     every fashion, and represent almost every nationality. They board
     themselves and live cheaply. Our fields are just now full of these
     pickers--thousands of men, women, boys, girls--and our streets are
     full of wagons carting the grapes to the railway stations for
     shipment. Although your maps show us bordering on Lake Erie, water
     transportation is impracticable from here. The banks of the lake
     here are high and rocky, and speed on water is too slow for
     perishable fruit. Besides, one could go only to Buffalo or
     Cleveland by lake, and the great grape markets are Philadelphia,
     New York, and Chicago.

     This year there is so much fruit other than grapes that the latter
     bring very low prices, and growers are despondent. Apples--"New
     York apples" are famous, you know--are so plentiful that people are
     not picking them at all. The trees are breaking with the load of
     them. They rot on the ground. One cannot even give them away.
     Thousands of bushels are useless, and every one says: "Oh, if some
     people in the cities only had them! We would rather see them do
     somebody good." Do you who live in the cities have to pay anything
     for apples now? If you do, it seems strange to us, for we can get
     nothing for them. They do not fetch enough to pay railway freights,
     not to mention picking and packing. The same is true of grapes
     almost. Activity reigns, but so do "the blues." I think almost any
     business is better than grape-growing.

  ERNEST SPENCER.
  BROCTON, N. Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mounting Bird-feather Collections.

     In your issue of September 22 last Sir Knight Jay F. Hammond asked
     how to mount his bird-feather collections. I send a copy of the way
     Mrs. Brightwen describes her method, taken from her "More About
     Wild Nature."

  RAYMOND A. BEARDSLEE, R.T.K.
  HARTFORD, CONN.

     "The feathers should be mounted in a blank album of about fifty
     pages, eleven inches wide by sixteen, so as to make an upright page
     which will take in long tail feathers. Cartridge-paper of various
     pale tints is best, as one can choose the ground that will best set
     off the colors of the feathers. Every other page may be white, and
     about three black sheets will be useful for swan, albatross, and
     other white-plumaged birds.

     "The only working-tools required are sharp scissors and a razor,
     some very thick strong gum arabic, a little water, and a duster in
     case of fingers becoming sticky.

     "Each page is to receive the feathers of only one bird. A common
     wood-pigeon is an easy bird to begin with, and readily obtained at
     any poulterers. Draw out the tail feathers and place them quite
     flat in some paper until required; do the same with the right wing
     and the left, keeping each separate, and putting a mark on each
     that you may know which they contain; the back, the breast, the
     fluffy feathers beneath--all should be neatly folded in paper and
     marked, and this can be done in the evening or at odd times; but
     placing the feathers on the pages ought to be daylight work, that
     the colors may be studied. Now open the tail-feather packet, and
     with the razor carefully pare away the quill at the back of each
     feather, leaving only the soft web, which will be perfectly flat
     when gummed upon the page. When all the packets are thus prepared
     (it is only the quill feathers that require the razor), then we may
     begin.

     "I will describe a specimen page. Towards the top of the page place
     a thin streak of gum, lay upon it a tail feather (the quill end
     downwards), and put one on each side. The best feathers of one wing
     may be put down, one after the other, till one has sufficiently
     covered the page, then the other wing feathers may be placed down
     the other side; the centre may be filled in with the fluffy
     feathers, and the bottom can be finished off with some breast
     feathers neatly placed so as to cover all quill ends."

       *       *       *       *       *

Kinks.

No. 46.--CHARADE.

  My first has been a friend of man
  Forever since the world began;
  It rules by day, and well it might,
  And is not lost in depths of night.
  My second is a bank of sand--
  'Tis got from birds of sea and land.
  My last a pronoun has been made.
  When letter H has been mislaid.
  My whole the squatter's heart doth tease,
  And doth his pocket often squeeze.
  Whole comes by day and stays by night,
  In spite of many a scornful slight.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 47.--FOR MATHEMATICIANS.

A merchant receives $3 of every $5 owing him on book debts amounting to
$15,000 (which debts are five per cent. more than his liabilities), and
$3.75 of every $5 on $6000 of running debts his due. Find his
liabilities if he pays dollar for dollar.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 48.--WORD SQUARE.

1.

  Three musketeers of art, and this is one.
  You'll spot him if you've seen "Trilby" done.

2.

  If you are this, how many ills you'll shun
  If you in youth your ways have well begun.

3.

  If wounded in this by bite or shot of gun,
  There is no hope, and now your course is run.

4.

  The fourth is here, the Christian name of son
  Which indicates a free or candid one.

5.

  I'm lost now for a terminal "un,"
  And hampered thus is certainly no fun.
  So take this as it is, dear "Kink"y folks,
  A synonym you'll find for yellow yolks.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 49.--EASY RIDDLE IN PROSE.

We lived in a brook, and were five in number. We were taken out, once on
a time, and we never got back again. Four of us were lost--hopelessly
lost--and nobody knows what became of us. But the fifth took a rapid
journey in the midst of much excitement, brought up at the end of the
journey in the queerest place any of our family has ever been before or
since, I think, and if I were able to come to you now I would be worth
thousands and thousands of dollars. What am I, who were my brothers, and
why can't I realize some of these thousands?

       *       *       *       *       *

Answers to Kinks.

No. 41.--A PROSE CHARADE.

A potato gun, made from a goose-quill, a wooden piston, and had "wads"
of sliced potato.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 42.--POLITICAL QUESTIONS.

1. Isle of Man. 2. Captain John Smith. 3. Secretary Thompson. 4. Edward
Everett.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 43.--A STAR.

Caul. Clap. Balm. Pulp. Mall.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 44.--SINGLE ACROSTIC.

Assay. Nerve. Death. Reply. Ensue. Worth. Japan. Acute. Caper. Knack.
Slave. Order. Niche.--Andrew Jackson.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 45.--Oliver Wendell Holmes.

       *       *       *       *       *

Questions and answers.

"H. E."--For want of space we cannot publish stamp-exchange notices.
"J. H. K." writes: "Will you please inform me how to obtain autographs,
and give me hints in the art of collecting autographs from such people
as Governors?" Autograph-collecting is not an "art." The ways to get
autographs are three: Ask the people whose autographs you want for them;
trade with other collectors; buy them. Many persons are fond of
cataloguing autograph-collectors as "fiends," but they do not mean all
they say. Nine out of every ten famous persons are rather gratified at
receiving requests for autographs. Write a brief note, say frankly what
you want, enclose a self-addressed and stamped envelope, and two
cards--the stamps because it is your business, and you should pay the
cost of it; and the cards in order that your collection may be uniform.
But mere signatures are not highly regarded. Manuscripts and letters are
much more to be prized. Do not, however, make requests that put persons
whom you do not know to any considerable trouble, or that require them,
in order to grant your favor, to give up for nothing anything that has
real money value.

"History" asks: "What was it about Queen Victoria that was just
celebrated?" It was this; King George III. had reigned, on the day of
his death, 59 years and 95 days. The day came recently when Queen
Victoria had reigned 59 years and 96 days. That 96th day, when she began
on the longest reign in English history, if not in any history, was
celebrated. The next oldest living sovereign, in point of length of
reign, is Francis Joseph of Austria--1848. Other long English reigns,
after George III., were those of Ethelred II., 37 years; Henry I., 35
years; Henry III., 56 years; Edward I., 35 years; Edward III., 50 years;
Henry VI., 39 years; Henry VIII., 38 years; and Elizabeth, 44 years.
Victoria has not reached the age attained by George III., who died in
his 83d year. She is nearly of the age reached by George II., who died
in his 77th year. The houses of Normandy, Plantagenet, Lancaster, York,
Tudor, and the Stuarts were not very long-lived. The House of Hanover,
to which Queen Victoria belongs has given to Britain the most venerable
sovereigns in the persons of George II., George III., William IV., and
Victoria. Elizabeth, the most venerable scion of the House of Tudor,
died in her 71st year. She died in 1603, and from that year back to
Alfred, over 700 years, no English king or queen reached 70 years. One
of the notable events in the life of Queen Victoria was the celebration
of her "jubilee," in 1887, marking the completion of fifty years' reign.
Only three English monarchs lived to celebrate a jubilee year--Henry
III., Edward III., and George III.

Anna W. Auspach, 3326 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, Pa., is interested in
pressed flowers and monograms, and wants to hear from you, and Thomas C.
Gurnee, 443 Hancock Street, Brooklyn, N. Y., wants to receive sample
copies of amateur papers. Harry W. Jones: The button which you
describe--red, white, and blue, with a very small centre, a raised edge,
and the ribbon lying in close folds, the whole being smaller than a
silver dime--is that of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion. Why
"never seen in the button-hole of any save men well advanced in years"
is explained by the fact that it is an order of the officers and
ex-officers of the army, navy, and marine corps of the United States
during the civil war of now thirty years and more ago. There are twenty
commanderies in as many States. The order numbers about 8500 members.

"Cedar Rapids."--A cyclopædia that is a recognized authority, issued in
1895, says the true source of the Yukon River has not yet been
ascertained. It gives the river's length at about 2000 miles. The
Mississippi is 2800 miles long, and the Mississippi and Missouri, which,
as this cyclopædia says, should be considered as one river, and not the
division as made, 4200 miles long--the longest river in the world.
"H. P. B." writes to us: "Will you be so kind as to give me some
information about the stage, what salaries are paid to actors, and what
is the work that has to be done by them? How can one become an actor,
and to whom should one apply?" Write to the Empire School of Acting,
Empire Theatre, New York. Charles Field: Address Jerome K. Jerome, care
_The Idler_, London, England; Bret Harte, care A. P. Watt, Hastings
House, Norfolk Street, London, England; and Gen. John B. Gordon,
Atlanta, Ga.



[Illustration: STAMPS]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin
     collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question
     on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address
     Editor Stamp Department.


United States revenue stamps are advancing in price by leaps and bounds.
The following is the list of new prices for 1897. Where no price is
given, the old prices remain:

          First Issue.        Unperf.     Perf.
      1c. Playing-cards        $15.00     $2.50
      1c. Proprietary           10.00
      1c. Telegraph             10.00
      2c. Playing-cards          7.50
      2c. Proprietary            6.00
      3c. Playing-cards         35.00      8.00
      4c. Playing-cards                    8.00
      6c. Proprietary                     50.00
     10c. Power of Attorney     15.00
     25c. Bond                   5.00
     25c. Warehouse Receipt      2.00      1.00
     40c. Inland Exchange        7.50
     50c. Surety Bond            6.00
    $1.00 Passage Ticket         8.00      7.00
    $1.30 Foreign Exchange      35.00      1.25
    $1.60 Foreign Exchange      10.00      2.50
    $1.90 Foreign Exchange      50.00      1.50
    $2.00 Probate of Will       15.00      1.50
    $2.50 Inland Exchange       25.00
    $3.50 Inland Exchange       40.00
    $5.00 Probate of Will       12.50      1.00
   $15.00 Mortgage              25.00      7.50
   $20.00 Probate of Will       60.00     35.00
   $25.00 Mortgage              25.00      5.00
   $50.00 Internal Revenue      10.00      4.00
  $200.00 Internal Revenue      30.00     20.00

Second Issue.

    $1.30              $7.00
    $1.60              17.50
    $1.90               5.00
   $20.00              15.00
   $25.00              17.50
   $50.00              15.00
  $200.00             110.00
  $500.00      (not priced.)

Third Issue.

  $20.00              $17.50

Sixth Issue--Proprietary.

                    Violet P.    Green P.
  10c.                $10         $2.50
  50c.                 20         25.00
  $1                  100        150.00
  $5 (not priced.)

  1878 Issue.    Silk P.     Wmk.    Roul'td
   5c.             $4        $3        $50
  10c.                       15

On October 1, the Washington Post-office had the following Columbian
stamps on sale:

  $2 Columbians, 3002
  $4 Columbians, 3437
  $5 Columbians, 4581

As the same stamps have been offered by dealers and brokers in New York
at various discounts (up to twenty-five per cent.) from face value, it
is hardly possible that these values will command a premium for many
years to come.

A new issue of Tonga stamps will be ready early in November. The set
consists of values from 1/2d. to 5s.

The larger post-offices have received vast quantities of the
letter-sheets (now discontinued), Columbian 1c., 2c., and 5c. envelopes,
2c. 1890 adhesives, and a lot of odds and ends.

Argentine, Sweden, and South American stamps will probably show large
advances in the 1897 catalogues.

  PHILATUS.



[Illustration: Ivory Soap]

The best is not always low in price, but the housekeeper can have the
best soap without extravagance.

Ivory Soap costs little, but experienced persons know that no other can
do the same work and do it as well.

THE PROCTER & GAMBLE CO., CIN'TI.



FOOTBALL AND OTHER SPORTS

       *       *       *       *       *

A PRIMER OF COLLEGE FOOTBALL

By W. H. LEWIS. Illustrated from Instantaneous Photographs and with
Diagrams. 16mo, Paper, 75 cents.

     There is probably no other man in America who has had as much
     football experience or who knows more about the game than Mr.
     Lewis.... Of value not only to beginners, but to any one who wishes
     to learn more about football.... We heartily recommend it as the
     best practical guide to football we have yet discovered.--_Harvard
     Crimson_, Cambridge.

     Written by a man who has a most thorough knowledge of the game, and
     is in language any novice may understand.--_U. of M. Daily_,
     University of Michigan.

     Will be read with enthusiasm by countless thousands of boys who
     have found previous works on the subject too advanced and too
     technical for beginners.--_Evangelist_, N. Y.

     Beginners will be very grateful for the gift, for no better book
     than this of Mr. Lewis's could be placed in their hands.--_Saturday
     Evening Gazette_, Boston.

_New Edition of_

CAMP'S AMERICAN FOOTBALL

By WALTER CAMP. New and Enlarged Edition. 16mo, Cloth, $1.25.

     The progress of the sport of football in this country, and a
     corresponding growth of inquiry as to the methods adopted by
     experienced teams, have prompted the publication of an enlarged
     edition of this book. Should any of the suggestions herein
     contained conduce to the further popularity of the game, the object
     of the writer will be attained.--_Author's Preface._

_BY THE SAME AUTHOR:_

FOOTBALL FACTS AND FIGURES. Post 8vo, Paper, 75 cents.

TRACK ATHLETICS IN DETAIL

Compiled by the Editor of "Interscholastic Sport" in HARPER'S ROUND
TABLE. Illustrated from Instantaneous Photographs. 8vo, Cloth,
Ornamental, $1.25. In "HARPER'S ROUND TABLE Library."

     A good book to put into the hands of the athletically inclined. It
     is capitally illustrated with instantaneous photographs, and is
     full of expert and sound advice and instruction.--_Outlook_, N. Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

HARPER & BROTHERS, Publishers, New York



[Illustration]

A MATTER OF DIRECTION.

  A little boy met on his way to school
  A savage old bear in the forest cool.
  "Which way is he going?" growled Bruin, aside.
  "The same way as you, sir," the laddie replied.

       *       *       *       *       *

"I wonder why they call that a lady-bug?" queried Harry.

"Because it's got good manners and behaves itself, and doesn't go
shouting around like a boy, I guess," said Polly.

       *       *       *       *       *

HUMBUGS AMONG ANIMALS.

One who has deeply studied the habits of animals has discovered that
there are humbugs among them.

In military stables horses are known to have pretended to be lame in
order to avoid going to a military exercise. A chimpanzee had been fed
on cake when sick; after his recovery he often feigned coughing in order
to procure dainties.

The cuckoo, as is well known, lays its eggs in another bird's nest, and,
to make the deception surer, it takes away one of the other bird's eggs.
Animals are conscious of their deceit, as is shown by the fact that they
try to act secretly and noiselessly; they show a sense of guilt if
detected; they take precautions in advance to avoid discovery; in some
cases they manifest regret and repentance. Thus bees which steal
hesitate often before and after their exploits, as if they feared
punishment.

A naturalist describes how his monkey committed theft. While he
pretended to sleep, the animal regarded him with hesitation, and stopped
every time his master moved or seemed on the point of awakening.

       *       *       *       *       *

BICYCLE LINGO.

FRED. "The route I have in mind extends about two miles along the
Hudson."

SMALL BROTHER. "Where does the tree stop?"

EDITH. "Where are you going to spend your vacation?"

BESSIE. "Mamma wanted to go to the Falls, but papa said that if she went
to a bicycle academy she could see all the falls she cared to."

       *       *       *       *       *

"Ha!" said Wallie, jeering at Maude for being a girl, "you can't ever be
President of the United States."

"I know I can't," retorted Maude, "and I don't believe you can, either.
You'd talk too much to get elected."

       *       *       *       *       *

A COW'S MOO.

A very small girl was learning to write. Her teacher ruled the slate and
set her "copies," and Lucy took great pains with the pot-hooks and round
o's with which she began. One day the teacher set down something new for
Lucy to copy. M--o--o--Moo.

"What is it?" asked Lucy, with a puzzled look.

"That is 'Moo.' The noise a cow makes, Lucy. See, it is made up of
pot-hooks and round o's, just what you have been learning on."

So Lucy sat down and prepared to copy "Moo." But she did it in a queer
way. She made an M at the beginning of each line, and followed each M
with a whole string of o's all across the slate, like this, Mooooo.

"But that isn't right, Lucy," said the teacher, when the little girl
showed her the slate. "You must copy the word as I have written it.
So--Moo."

Lucy looked at the teacher's copy, and then at her own attempts, and
then she shook her head decidedly.

"Well, I think mine _is_ right, Miss Jones," she said. "For I never saw
a cow that gave such a short 'Moo' as you wrote down!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Well, Tommie, I suppose you are the smartest boy in your class?"

"Yes, sir," said Tommie. "Teacher says I'm too smart."

       *       *       *       *       *

A GRATEFUL MILLIONAIRE.

The recent troubles in Africa have called public attention to a large
number of interesting persons living in the southern portion of that
continent. Among others who have been conspicuously noticed is Mr.
"Barney" Barnato, who has made a great fortune in Africa, and of whom a
Cape Town journal tells the following interesting anecdote: When a boy
Mr. Barnato went to the London Jews' Free School, which has produced so
many leading Jews of the day. When he left, his teacher, who was much
attached to him, gave him a penny and his blessing. The years rolled by,
the friendless youth had made his wonderful career in South Africa, and
the little "Barney" had become a personage. About the time when half
London and Paris were going crazy over the flotation of the Barnato
Bank, "Barney" was seized with a fancy to visit his old school-master.
With great difficulty he managed to hunt up the old man.

"Do you recollect," he said, when they met--"do you recollect giving
your little 'Barney' a penny when he left school thirty years ago? Here
it is back again, and with compound interest," and therewith he handed
the school-master a check for £105.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Popper," said Sammie, "I'm writing a letter to Jimmie Perkins about my
turkle. How many k's are there in turkle?"

       *       *       *       *       *

"I'm going to be a piano-tuner when I grow up," said Walter. "You can
bang on the keys and take it all apart as much as you please, and _get
paid for doing it, too_."





*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Harper's Round Table, November 3, 1896" ***

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