[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE
AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY.]
* * * * *
VOL. II.--NO. 59. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.
Tuesday, December 14, 1880. Copyright, 1880, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50
per Year, in Advance.
* * * * *
[Illustration]
MY SISTER'S GRAPES.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "JOHN HALIFAX, GENTLEMAN."
Perhaps you might not think Uncle Dick a "gentleman"--Aunt Emma did not,
I know, though she kept her mind to herself, being his brother's widow,
and the prudent mother of many children. Uncle Dick lived with them;
that is, if he could be said to live anywhere, being always on the move,
never liking to stay long in one place, and somewhat restless-minded,
as those are who have passed all their life in rambling about the world.
A "rolling stone" he certainly was, though he could scarcely be said to
have gathered no moss, as he had amassed two fortunes, one after the
other: having lost the first, he was now enjoying the second in his own
harmless but rather eccentric way.
I doubt if Aunt Emma really liked him, yet she was always very civil to
him, her chief complaint being that he never would "take his position in
the world"; that is, he avoided her balls, made himself scarce at her
dinner parties, and no persuasion could ever induce him to exhibit his
long, thin, gaunt figure, his brown hands and face, in evening clothes.
What a "guy" he would have looked in them! as we boys always agreed, and
sympathized with him, and not with Aunt Emma. But in his own costume we
admired him immensely. His shooting-jacket, Knickerbockers, and Panama
hat were to us the perfection of comfort and elegance.
As to his cleverness, that also was a disputed point with some folk. But
we had never any doubt at all. And perhaps we were right. "A fool and
his money are soon parted," says the proverb. But when they part to meet
again--that is, when a man can bear the loss of one fortune, and set to
work to make another--the chances are (without any exaggerated
Mammon-worship I say it) that he is _not_ a fool.
"Yes, I have really made two fortunes," said Uncle Dick, as we sat
beguiling a sunshiny day, when the fish refused to bite, by plying him
with innumerable questions, till at last he "rose" like a trout at a
fly. "How old was I when I lost the first one? Well, about twenty-five.
Yes, I remember it happened on my birthday, Michaelmas-day."
"Happened all in one day?" some of us inquired.
"Ay, in a day, an hour, a minute," said Uncle Dick, with his peculiar
smile, half sad, half droll, as if he saw at once all the fun and all
the pathos of life. "And now I remember it was not in the day, but in
the middle of the night. I went to sleep a rich man; by daylight I was a
beggar. Any more questions, boys?"
Of course we rained them upon him by the dozen. He sat composedly,
watching his float swim down the stream, and answered none for ever so
long: Uncle Dick had, when he chose, an unlimited capacity for silence.
"Yes," he said at length, "it was one night in the middle of the
Atlantic on the deck of a sinking ship. There's a saying, boys, about
gaining the whole world and losing one's own soul. Well, I gained then
my soul, though I lost my fortune. And it was all through my sister's
grapes."
Now Uncle Dick was in the habit of talking nonsense--at least Aunt Emma
considered it such. In his long solitude he was accustomed to let his
thoughts run underground, as it were, for a good while, when they would
suddenly crop up again, and he would make a remark, apropos of nothing,
which greatly puzzled matter-of-fact people, or those who liked elegant
small-talk, of which he had absolutely none.
"Your sister's grapes?" repeated one of us, with great astonishment.
"Then you had a sister? Where is she now?"
Uncle Dick looked up at the blue sky--intensely blue it was that day, as
deep and measureless as infinity. "Where is she? I don't know: I wish I
did. But He knows, and I shall find out some time." Then he added,
briefly, "My sister Lily died of consumption when she was fifteen, and I
about ten years old."
"And what about her grapes? Is it a story--a true story?"
"Quite true to me, though all might not believe it. Some might even
laugh at it, and I don't like to be laughed at. No I don't mind; it
can't harm me. I'll tell you, boys, if you like to hear. It may be a
good lesson for some of you."
We did not much care for "lessons," but we liked a story; so we begged
Uncle Dick to tell us this one from the very beginning.
"No, not from the beginning, which could benefit neither you nor me,"
said Uncle Dick, gravely. "I'll take up my tale from the point I
mentioned, when I found myself at midnight on the deck of the _Colorado_
Australian steamer, bound for London, fast going down. And she went
down."
"You with her?"
"Not exactly, or how could I be here sitting quietly fishing? which
seems odd when I think of the hurly-burly of that night. It had come
quite suddenly after a long spell of fair weather, which we found so
dull that we began drinking, smoking, gambling, and even fighting now
and then; for we were a rough lot, mostly 'diggers' who, like myself,
had worked a 'claim,' or half a claim, at Ballarat--worked it so well
that they soon found they had made a fortune, so determined to go to
Europe and spend it.
"I thought I would do the same. I was quite young, yet I had amassed as
much money as many a poor fellow--a clergyman, or a soldier, or an
author--can scrape together in a lifetime; and I wanted to spend it in
seeing life. Hitherto I had seen nothing at all--in civilization, that
is. I never had the least bit of 'fun,' until I ran away from home seven
years before; and very little fun after, for it was all hard work. Now,
having been so lucky as to make my fortune, I meant to use it in
enjoying myself.
"I had never enjoyed home very much. My people, good as they were, were
rather dull, or at least I thought them so. They always bothered me
about 'duty,' till I hated the very sound of the word. They called my
fun mischief; my mischief they considered a crime; so I slipped away
from them, and after a letter or two I gradually let them go, or fancied
they were letting me go, and forgot almost their very existence. I might
have been a waif and stray drifted ashore from the sea or dropped from
the clouds, so little did I feel as if I had any one belonging to me. My
relations, even my parents, had all melted out of my mind; for weeks I
sometimes never once thought of them--never remembered that I had a
father, or mother, or brothers. Lily had been my only sister, and she
died."
Uncle Dick stopped a moment, then continued:
"I don't wish, boys, to put myself forward as worse than I was, or
better. People find their own level pretty well in this world. It's no
good either to puff yourself up as a saint, or go about crying yourself
down as a miserable sinner. In either case you think a great deal too
much about yourself, which is as harmful a thing as can happen to any
man.
"Certainly I was no worse than my neighbors, and no better. I liked
everybody, and most people liked me. I troubled nobody, and nobody
troubled me. I meant to go on that principle when I got back into
civilization, to spend my money, and have my fling. Possibly I might run
down to see 'the old folks at home,' whom we diggers were rather fond of
singing about; but we seldom thought about them. At least I never did,
and they formed no part of my motive for coming to England. I came
simply and solely to amuse myself.
"I had just turned in with the rest--not drunk, as a good many of us
were that night, but 'merry.' One hour after, we turned out, and stood
facing one another--and facing death. A sudden hurricane had risen; one
of our masts had gone overboard; we had sprung a leak; and work as we
might at the pumps, the Captain said he believed we should sink or go to
pieces before morning. He had been drunk too, which perhaps accounted
for our disaster, in a good sound ship and the safe open sea; but he
was sober enough now. He did his best, and when hope was over, said he
should 'go to the bottom with his ship.' And he went. I took his watch
to his widow: he gave it me before he jumped overboard, poor fellow.
"Well, boys, what was I going to tell you? I forget," said Uncle Dick,
drawing his long brown hand across his forehead. "Oh, about the ship
_Colorado_ going down, and all the poor wretches fighting for their
lives in the boats--or out of them, which was about an equal chance. We
could just see one another in the starlight or the white gleam of the
waves--groups of struggling men (happily there was not a woman on
board), some paralyzed and silent, others shrieking with terror, some
sobbing and praying, others only cursing: for heaven, which we all were
straight going to--or hoped to go--seemed to be the last thing we ever
thought of. We only thought of life, dear life--our own lives--nobody
else's.
"People say that a shipwreck brings out human nature in all its
brutality: 'every man for himself, and God--no, not God, but the
devil--for us all.' I found it so. To see those men, old, young, and
middle-aged, some clothed, some half-naked, but all clinging to their
bags, full of nuggets, which they had tied round their waists or held in
their hands, eager to save themselves and their gold, and utterly
reckless of everything and everybody else--it was horrible! Gradually it
dawned upon some of the feebler among them that they would hardly save
themselves, to say nothing of their money. Then they no longer tried to
hide it, but frantically offered a quarter, a half, two-thirds, of their
gold to any one who would help them. But in vain--utterly in vain.
"For me, I was a young fellow--young and strong. I had never faced death
before, and it felt--well, sad and strange. I was not exactly
frightened, but I was awed. I turned from the selfish, brutal, cowardly
wretches around me; they had shown themselves in their true colors, and
I was disgusted at myself for having put up with them so long. I didn't
like even to go to the bottom with such a miserable lot. In truth, it
felt hard enough to go to the bottom at all.
"The biggest of my nuggets I always carried in a belt round my waist,
but the rest of my 'fortune' was in my bag. Most of us carried these
bags, and tried to get with them into the boats, which was impossible.
So some had to let them go overboard, but others, shrieking and praying,
refused to be parted from their 'luggage,' as they called it. They were
_not_ parted, for both soon went to the bottom together. I was not
inclined for that exactly, and so, after a few minutes' thought, I left
my bag behind."
"How much was there in it?" some one asked.
"I don't know exactly, but I guess" (Uncle Dick still used a Yankee
phrase now and then) "somewhere about seven or eight thousand pounds."
We boys drew a long breath. "What a lot of money! And it all went to the
bottom of the sea?"
"Yes, but as the Bible says, 'What will not a man give in exchange for
his soul?' or his life--for my soul troubled me mighty little just then.
I hardly knew I had one till I lost my money; so you see it was a good
riddance perhaps."
We stared. Uncle Dick talked so very oddly sometimes! And then we begged
him to continue his story.
"Well, I was standing waiting my turn to jump into the boat--the last
boat, for two had been filled and swamped. Being young, it seemed but
right to let the older fellows go first; and, besides, I wanted to stick
by the Captain as long as I could. He, I told you, determined to stick
by his ship, and went down with her. He had just given me his watch, and
his last message to his wife, and I was trying, as I said, to keep
quiet, with all my wits about me. For all that, I seemed to be half
dreaming, or as if I saw myself like another person, and felt rather
sorry for myself to be drowned on my twenty-fifth birthday--drowned just
when I had made my fortune, and was going home to spend it.
"Home! the word even had not crossed my lips or my mind for years. As I
said it, or thought it--I can't remember which--all of a sudden I seemed
to hear my mother's voice, clear and distinct through all the noise of
the storm. And, boys, what do _you_ think she said? Nothing wonderful,
nothing strange. Only, '_Richard, how could you take your sister's
grapes?_'
"It flashed upon me like lightning: something that happened when I was
only ten years old, and yet I remembered it as if it happened yesterday.
I saw myself--young wretch!--with the bunch of grapes in my hand, and my
mother, with her grave, sad eyes, as, passing through the dressing-room
into my sister's bedroom, she caught me in the act of stealing them. I
could hear almost through the open door poor Lily's short feeble cough:
she died two days after. The grapes had been sent her by some friend.
She had so many friends! I knew where they were kept; I had climbed up
to the shelf and eaten them all.
"Many a selfish thing had I done, both before I left home and afterward:
why should this little thing, long forgotten, come back now? Perhaps
because I was never punished for it. My mother, who at any other time
might have boxed my ears, or taken me to father to be whipped, did
nothing, said nothing except those few words of sad reproach, '_How
could you take your sister's grapes?_'
"I heard them through the horrible tumult of the winds and waves, and
poor souls struggling for life. _My_ life--what had I made of it? If I
went to the bottom of the sea, I and all my money, who would miss me?
who would care? Hardly even my mother. If she ever heard of my death
to-night, she might drop a tear or two, but nothing like the tears she
shed over my sister, who in her short life had been everybody's comfort
and joy, while I--
"'Mother!' I cried out, as if she could hear me these many thousand
miles off--'mother, forgive me, and I'll never do it any more!'
"I had not said this when I was ten years old, and took the grapes, but
I said it, sobbed it, at twenty-five, when the 'it' implied many a
selfishness, many a sin, that my mother never knew. Yet the mere saying
of it seemed to relieve me, and when directly afterward some one called
out from the boat, 'Jump in, Dick; now's your turn,' I jumped in to take
my chance of life with the rest.
"It was given me. I was among the eighteen that held on till we were
picked up--almost skin and bone, and one of us raving mad from
thirst--by a homeward-bound ship, and landed safely in England. No,
boys, don't question me. I won't tell you about that time; I can't."
It was not often Uncle Dick said, "I can't"; indeed, it was one of his
queer sayings that "can't" was a word no honest or brave lad ought to
have in his dictionary. We turned away our eyes from him--he seemed not
to like being looked at--and were silent.
"Well, I landed, and found myself walking London streets--not the rich,
healthy, jolly young fellow who had come to have his fling there, but a
poor shattered wretch almost in rags, and just a bag of bones. All that
remained of my fortune were the few nuggets which I had sewed into my
belt. I turned them, not without some difficulty, into food and clothing
of the commonest kind, to make my money last as long as I could. I did
not want to come home quite a beggar: if I had been, I should certainly
never have come home at all.
"By mere chance--for I had altogether forgotten times and seasons--the
day I came home was a Christmas morning. The bells were ringing, and all
the good folk going to church--my mother, too, of course. We met at the
garden gate. She did not know me, not the least in the world, but just
bowed, thinking it was a stranger coming to call, till I said, 'Mother!'
And then--
"Well, boys, that's neither here nor there. It's a commonplace saying,
but one can't hear it too often, or remember it too well, that whatever
else we have, we never can have but one mother. If she's a good one,
make the most of her; if a middling one, put up with her; if a bad one,
let her alone, and hold your tongue. You know whether I have any need to
hold my tongue about your grandmother.
"But I can't talk about her, or about that Christmas-day. We did _not_
go to church, and I doubt if we ate much Christmas dinner; but we talked
and talked straight on up to ten o'clock at night, when she put me to
bed, and tucked me in just as if I had been a little baby. Oh, how
pleasant it was to sleep in sheets again--clean, fresh sheets--and have
one's mother settling the pillow, and taking away the candle!
"My room happened to be that very dressing-room behind the nursery where
Lily died: I could see the shelf where the grapes had stood, and the
chair I climbed to reach them. With a sort of childish awe I recalled
everything.
"'Mother,' I said, catching her by the gown, as she said good-night and
kissed me, 'tell me one thing. What were you doing on my last birthday?
that is, if you remember it at all?'
"She smiled: as if mothers could forget their boys' birthdays, even such
scapegrace boys as I had been! Then a very grave look came into her
face.
"'I was clearing out this room, turning it into a bedroom for any stray
bachelor, little thinking the first would be you, Richard; but I did
think of you, and, to tell you the truth, I was thinking of something
very naughty you once did--here, in this very room.'"
"'And you said, over again, How could I take my sister's grapes? I
_heard_ it, mother--heard it in the middle of the Atlantic.' Then I told
her the whole story.
"Now, boys, I ask nobody to believe it, but she believed it--to the day
of her death. It made her happy to believe it, to think that in some
mysterious way she had helped to save me, as mothers never know how or
when some word of theirs may save their wandering sons.
"For I was a wanderer still: I staid with her only a month, while my
nuggets lasted; then I worked my way back to Australia, and began again
in the same way, and yet a new way--new in one thing, at least, that on
every Sunday of my life I wrote home to my mother. And when at length I
came home, too late for her, alas! it was, I hope, not quite too late
for the rest of you. Bad is the best, maybe, but I've tried to do my
best."
"Oh, Uncle Dick!"--for he had been as good as a father to some of
us--sent us to school and to college, and, what we liked a great deal
better, taken us fishing and shooting, and given us all sorts of fun.
"So, boys," said he, smiling at our demonstrations of affection--and yet
he liked to be loved, we were sure of that--"you have a sneaking
kindness for me, after all. And you don't think me altogether a villain,
even though I did take my sister's grapes?"
NOTE.--It may interest readers to know that this incident is really
"founded on fact"--one of those inexplicable facts that one
sometimes meets with in real life, which are stranger than anything
we authors invent for our "stories."
[Illustration: "I DON'T WANT A SWITCH IN MY 'TOCKING, SANTA CAUS."]
[Begun in No. 58 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, December 7.]
TOBY TYLER;
OR, TEN WEEKS WITH A CIRCUS.
BY JAMES OTIS.
CHAPTER II.
TOBY RUNS AWAY FROM HOME.
Toby could scarcely restrain himself at the prospect of this golden
future that had so suddenly opened before him. He tried to express his
gratitude, but could only do so by evincing his willingness to commence
work at once.
"No, no, that won't do," said Mr. Lord, cautiously. "If your uncle
Daniel should see you working here, he might mistrust something, and
then you couldn't get away."
"I don't believe he'd try to stop me," said Toby, confidently; "for he's
told me lots of times that it was a sorry day for him when he found me."
"We won't take any chances, my son," was the reply, in a very benevolent
tone, as he patted Toby on the head, and at the same time handed him a
piece of pasteboard. "There's a ticket for the circus, and you come
around to see me about ten o'clock to-night. I'll put you on one of the
wagons, and by to-morrow morning your uncle Daniel will have hard work
to find you."
If Toby had followed his inclinations, the chances are that he would
have fallen on his knees, and kissed Mr. Lord's hands in the excess of
his gratitude. But not knowing exactly how such a show of thankfulness
might be received, he contented himself by repeatedly promising that he
would be punctual to the time and place appointed.
He would have loitered in the vicinity of the candy stand in order that
he might gain some insight into the business; but Mr. Lord advised that
he remain away, lest his uncle Daniel should see him, and suspect where
he had gone when he was missed in the morning.
As Toby walked around the circus grounds, whereon was so much to attract
his attention, he could not prevent himself from assuming an air of
proprietorship. His interest in all that was going on was redoubled, and
in his anxiety that everything should be done correctly and in the
proper order he actually, and perhaps for the first time in his life,
forgot that he was hungry. He was really to travel with a circus, to
become a part, as it were, of the whole, and to be able to see its many
wonderful and beautiful attractions every day.
Even the very tent ropes had acquired a new interest for him, and the
faces of the men at work seemed suddenly to have become those of
friends. How hard it was for him to walk around unconcernedly; and how
especially hard to prevent his feet from straying toward that tempting
display of dainties which he was to sell to those who came to see and
enjoy, and who would look at him with wonder and curiosity! It was very
hard not to be allowed to tell his playmates of his wonderfully good
fortune; but silence meant success, and he locked his secret in his
bosom, not even daring to talk with any one he knew lest he should
betray himself by some incautious word.
He did not go home to dinner that day, and once or twice he felt
impelled to walk past the candy stand, giving a mysterious shake of the
head at the proprietor as he did so. The afternoon performance passed
off as usual to all of the spectators save Toby. He imagined that each
one of the performers knew that he was about to join them; and even as
he passed the cage containing the monkeys he fancied that one
particularly old one knew all about his intention of running away.
Of course it was necessary for him to go home at the close of the
afternoon's performance, in order to get one or two valuable articles of
his own--such as a boat, a kite, and a pair of skates--and in order that
his actions might not seem suspicious. Before he left the grounds,
however, he stole slyly around to the candy stand, and informed Mr. Job
Lord, in a very hoarse whisper, that he would be on hand at the time
appointed.
Mr. Lord patted him on the head, gave him two large sticks of candy,
and what was more kind and surprising, considering the fact that he wore
glasses, and was cross-eyed, he winked at Toby. A wink from Mr. Lord
must have been intended to convey a great deal, because, owing to the
defect in his eyes, it required no little exertion, and even then could
not be considered as a really first-class wink.
That wink, distorted as it was, gladdened Toby's heart immensely, and
took away nearly all the sting of the scolding with which Uncle Daniel
greeted him when he reached home.
That night, despite the fact that he was going to travel with the
circus, despite the fact that his home was not a happy or cheerful one,
Toby was not in a pleasant frame of mind. He began to feel for the first
time that he was doing wrong; and as he gazed at Uncle Daniel's stern,
forbidding-looking face it seemed to have changed somewhat from its
severity, and caused a great lump of something to come up in his throat
as he thought that perhaps he should never see it again. Just then one
or two kind words would have prevented him from running away, bright as
the prospect of circus life appeared.
It was almost impossible for him to eat anything, and this very
surprising state of affairs attracted the attention of Uncle Daniel.
"Bless my heart! what ails the boy?" asked the old man, as he peered
over his glasses at Toby's well-filled plate, which was usually emptied
so quickly. "Are ye sick, Toby, or what is the matter with ye?"
"No, I hain't sick," said Toby, with a sigh; "but I've been to the
circus, an' I got a good deal to eat."
"Oho, you spent that cent I give ye, eh, an' got so much that it made ye
sick?"
Toby thought of the six pea-nuts which he had bought with the penny
Uncle Daniel had given him; and, amidst all his homesickness, he could
not help wondering if Uncle Daniel ever made himself sick with only six
pea-nuts when he was a boy.
As no one paid any further attention to Toby, he pushed back his plate,
arose from the table, and went with a heavy heart to attend to his
regular evening chores. The cow, the hens, and even the pigs, came in
for a share of his unusually kind attention; and as he fed them all, the
big tears rolled down his cheeks, as he thought that perhaps never again
would he see any of them. These dumb animals had all been Toby's
confidants; he had poured out his griefs in their ears, and fancied,
when the world or Uncle Daniel had used him unusually hard, that they
sympathized with him. Now he was leaving them forever, and as he locked
the stable door, he could hear the sounds of music coming from the
direction of the circus grounds, and he was angry at it because it
represented that which was taking him away from his home, even though it
was not as pleasant as it might have been.
Still, he had no thought of breaking the engagement which he had made.
He went to his room, made a bundle of his worldly possessions, and crept
out of the back door, down the road to the circus.
Mr. Lord saw him as soon as he arrived on the grounds, and as he passed
another ticket to Toby, he took his bundle from him, saying as he did
so, "I'll pack up your bundle with my things, and then you'll be sure
not to lose it. Don't you want some candy?"
Toby shook his head; he had just discovered that there was possibly some
connection between his heart and his stomach, for his grief at leaving
home had taken from him all desire for good things. It is also more than
possible that Mr. Lord had had experience enough with boys to know that
they might be homesick on the eve of starting to travel with a circus;
and in order to make sure that Toby would keep to his engagement he was
unusually kind.
That evening was the longest Toby ever knew. He wandered from one cage
of animals to another; then to see the performance in the ring, and back
again to the animals, in the vain hope of passing the time pleasantly.
But it was of no use; that lump in his throat would remain there, and
the thoughts of what he was about to do would trouble him severely. The
performance failed to interest him, and the animals did not attract
until he had visited the monkey cage for the third or fourth time. Then
he fancied that the same venerable monkey who had looked so knowing in
the afternoon was gazing at him with a sadness which could only have
come from a thorough knowledge of all the grief and doubt that was in
his heart.
[Illustration: TOBY AND HIS NEW FRIEND--DRAWN BY W. A. ROGERS.]
There was no one around the cages, and Toby got just as near to the iron
bars as possible. No sooner had he flattened his little pug-nose against
the iron than the aged monkey came down from the ring in which he had
been swinging, and, seating himself directly in front of Toby's face,
looked at him most compassionately.
It would not have surprised the boy just then if the animal had spoken;
but as he did not, Toby did the next best thing, and spoke to him.
"I s'pose you remember that you saw me this afternoon, an' somebody told
you that I was goin' to join the circus, didn't they?"
The monkey made no reply, though Toby fancied that he winked an
affirmative answer; and he looked so sympathetic that he continued,
confidentially:
"Well, I'm the same feller, an' I don't mind telling you that I'm
awfully sorry I promised that candy man I'd go with him. Do you know
that I came near crying at the supper table to-night; an' Uncle Dan'l
looked real good an' nice, though I never thought so before. I wish I
wasn't goin', after all, 'cause it don't seem a bit like a good time
now; but I s'pose I must, 'cause I promised to, an' 'cause the candy man
has got all my things."
The big tears had begun to roll down Toby's cheeks, and as he ceased
speaking the monkey reached out one little paw, which Toby took as
earnestly as if it had been done purposely to console him.
"You're real good, you are," continued Toby; "an' I hope I shall see you
real often, for it seems to me now, when there hain't any folks around,
as if you was the only friend I've got in this great big world. It's
awful when a feller feels the way I do, an' when he don't seem to want
anything to eat. Now if you'll stick to me, I'll stick to you, an' then
it won't be half so bad when we feel this way."
During this speech Toby had still clung to the little brown paw, which
the monkey now withdrew, and continued to gaze into the boy's face.
"The fellers all say I don't amount to anything," sobbed Toby, "an'
Uncle Dan'l says I don't, an' I s'pose they know; but I tell you I feel
just as bad, now that I'm goin' away from them all, as if I was as good
as any of them."
At this moment Toby saw Mr. Lord enter the tent, and he knew that the
summons to start was about to be given.
"Good-by," he said to the monkey, as he vainly tried to take him by the
hand again; "remember what I've told you, an' don't forget that Toby
Tyler is feelin' worse to-night than if he was twice as big an' twice as
good."
Mr. Lord had come to summon him away, and he now told Toby that he would
show him with which man he was to ride that night.
Toby looked another good-by at the venerable monkey, who was watching
him closely, and then followed his employer out of the tent, among the
ropes and poles and general confusion attendant upon the removal of a
circus from one place to another.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
CAMBRIDGE SERIES
OF
INFORMATION CARDS FOR SCHOOLS.[1]
* * * * *
No. 4.--About Jack Frost.
BY W. J. ROLFE, A.M.
With the single exception of water, all substances expand, or become
larger, when heated, and contract, or become smaller, when cooled. This
is seen in metals better than in most other bodies. An iron ball which
when cold will just pass through a certain ring will not do so after
being put in boiling water. The tires of carriage wheels before being
put on are heated in a fire, in order that their contraction in cooling
may make them bind more tightly. On a railroad a little space is left
between the ends of the rails to allow them to expand. If this were not
done, their lengthening in hot weather would bend them outward or
inward, so that they would not be exactly parallel, and this might be
the cause of serious accidents. It has been proved that Bunker Hill
Monument--a granite pile 220 feet high--is bent to one side by the
expanding of the opposite side when the sun shines upon it; and similar
changes must take place in every tower, or steeple, or other tall
structure exposed to the sun's rays.
The least change in the temperature of any material produces a change in
its size, though not in its _weight_; and if one part is heated or
cooled more than another, the _shape_ of the whole must be somewhat
altered.
Water contracts until it is cooled down to 40 degrees Fahrenheit--that
is, 40 degrees of our common thermometers, or 8 degrees above the
freezing-point--and then it expands until it freezes. This is a wise
provision of nature. If water kept on contracting with cold, it would
begin to freeze at the bottom, where the coldest portions of it would
settle by their weight, and this would go on until it was all frozen, so
that in winter our lakes and rivers would become solid masses of ice.
This would kill all fishes and other animals in the water, and all the
heat of summer would not suffice to liquefy these great bodies of ice.
As it is, the water begins to freeze at the surface, and the layer of
ice keeps the water below it from freezing; for though the ice is itself
cold, a wall of it will keep out the cold as well as a wall of stone or
brick.
The force with which water expands in freezing is almost irresistible.
The freezing of half a gill of water in a confined space will lift a
weight of several tons. A thick iron bomb-shell filled with water will
be split open by the freezing of the liquid as it would be by a charge
of gunpowder. In winter the water-pipes in our houses are often burst by
the freezing of their contents. In some parts of England advantage is
taken of this property of water in the slate quarries. Large blocks of
slate are placed where the rain will fall upon their edges. The water
works its way between the layers, freezes, and splits the mass into thin
plates.
Jack Frost has done a good deal of this rock-splitting on his own
account. A large part of the soil of our world has been made by the
freezing of water in the cracks and crevices of rocks. Mountains have
thus been rent asunder and pulverized, and the work goes on every
winter. And after the soil has been formed, it is broken up and crumbled
by the action of frosts and thaws. Jack Frost is a good helper to the
ploughman and the farmer.
He works also on a grander scale than this. In many parts of the earth,
as you know, there are great rivers of ice called _glaciers_. They not
only look like rivers, but they flow like them, though so slowly that we
can not see the motion. In the course of a year they move only a few
hundred feet, but with mighty force, grinding the sides and bottom of
the valley as they go, breaking off huge masses of rock, and bearing
them along, together with smaller stones, earth, and mud. Thus they are
gradually tearing down the hills and filling up the valleys.
Ages ago vast glaciers swept in this way over a large portion of the
Northern hemisphere, and in many places we can see how they ground and
scratched the sides of mountains and surfaces of rocks on their way. The
big stones known as "bowlders" that abound in many parts of the country
were brought and dropped by these moving masses of ice, and in some
cases we can tell just where they came from, perhaps hundreds of miles
away.
On the other hand, some of Jack Frost's work is of the minutest and most
delicate sort. With what exquisite patterns in ice he adorns the glass
of our windows in winter! All that fine tracery is made up of tiny
crystals, the lines and angles of which are more exact than a jeweller
could cut them on a gem. Every snow-flake is a mass of such crystals, of
many forms, yet all variations of one pattern. Let the flakes fall upon
a piece of dark cloth, and you can sometimes see with the naked eye that
they are regular six-pointed stars, but with a common magnifying-glass
you can examine them much better. All ice is composed of these crystals
closely packed together; and if a sunbeam is allowed to shine through a
piece of it, the melting of the crystals makes the interior look as if
it were studded with lovely little transparent flowers with six petals.
In Russia a palace was once built of ice, and all the furniture and
decorations were of the same material. It was very wonderful and very
beautiful, but not so wonderful or so beautiful as the natural structure
of the ice itself.
The change from water to ice is a familiar one to us, but to the
ignorant natives of the tropics it seems almost like a miracle. It is
only within a few years that ice has been imported into these tropical
countries, and at first it was as great a curiosity as solid mercury or
quicksilver would be here. This liquid metal, which is used in
thermometers, does not freeze in our country, except very rarely in the
coldest weather of the extreme north; but in the arctic regions this
often occurs, and the solid mercury can be hammered and wrought like
silver. Spoons might be made of it, but they would instantly melt if put
into ice-cold water.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] By special arrangement with the author, the cards contributed to
this useful series, by W. J. ROLFE, A.M., formerly Head-Master of the
Cambridge High School, will, for the present, first appear in HARPER'S
YOUNG PEOPLE.
[Illustration: A FORECASTLE YARN.]
HOW A SAILOR RODE WITH THE CZAR.
A FORECASTLE YARN.
BY DAVID KER.
"The queerest scrape as ever I got into," said old Jack Hawkins, "was
when I was quite a young chap, makin' my fourth voyage to Rooshia.
_That's_ a queer place, mates, if you like! and the lingo's as queer as
the country. I'd larned to talk it a bit by the time I'm tellin' on, for
one of our crew was a Rooshian, and I picked it up from him. But I tell
ye, 'twas as tough a job as shapin' yer course in a fog, with no sun to
take a hobservation by. When you want to say 'Thank you,' you've got to
sing out 'Blackguard are you,' which don't sound purlite nohow. Then
they call a speech a 'wretch,' and a visitor a 'ghost' (the last sort o'
visitor _I_ should like), and instead of 'Indeed!' they say 'Sam Daly';
and some o' their own names are things like 'Comb-his-hair-off,' and
'Blow-my-nose-off.'[2]
"Altogether it's a queer, twistified kind o' lingo, jist what you might
expect from foreign lubbers. What riled me most when I fust went over
was that everybody kep' on callin' me a _mattrass_, and I'd punched two
or three fellers' heads for it afore I found out that 'mattrass'
[matross] is their word for a sailor. Jist think o' that, now!
"I can remember as well as if 'twas only yesterday what an outlandish
place St. Petersburg seemed when I fust set foot in it. Coachmen in blue
frocks and red sashes, nurses with pasteboard crowns on, church towers
plated with gold, policemen with swords by their sides, house porters
rigged out in sheep-skin, wooden houses painted green and yeller--fact,
there was no end to the queer sights all about. And when I got to know
their talk a bit, it seemed quite as outlandish to hear 'em call each
other 'John the son of Peter,' or 'Paul the son of James,' 'stead o'
handlin' one another's names ship-shape.
"And then, again, talk o' bein' _thick_! why, this here plank 'ud be a
joke to 'em. If one of our frigates was to be stuck all over with
Rooshians' heads, she wouldn't want no armor-platin'! Now I'll jist
tell yer a thing as I seed with my own eyes, and you can believe it or
not, as you like. One day when we was a-lying in the river alongside o'
the Ostroff Quay, our old man calls up a Rooshian lad that used to do
odd jobs for him, and gives him two twenty-kopeck pieces (which are much
the same as an English sixpence, or a 'Merican dime), tellin' him one on
'em's to go for bread, and t'other for 'baccy--which was all plain
sailing enough, one would think.
"Well, away goes Dmitri, and doesn't come back. So then the old man he
sings out for me, and he says, 'Hawkins,' says he, 'just go and see
what's gone with Dmitri. I'll be bound the young dog has made a mess of
that job.'
"So off I goes to the shop where we used to buy our things, and right at
the very door I comes upon Mr. Dmitri, scratchin' his head, and lookin'
as if he'd clean lost what few wits he ever had.
"Says I to him, 'Hollo, mate, what's up?'
"Says he, 'What ever am I to do? I've gone and _mixed_ the two pieces,
and now I don't know which was the one for the bread, and which was the
one for the 'baccy.'[3]
"But I must coil up the slack o' my yarn, or I'll never git it all in;
so now to tell yer 'bout that scrape o' mine.
"Right on the river-bank, near the Hadmiralty Building, there's a
stattey of Peter the Great, put up by the Hempress Catherine 'bout a
hundred years ago; and a real grand affair it is--for Rooshia. It stands
on a big block o' gray granite, as was dragged all the way from Finland
o' purpose. Peter's on a rearin' horse, pointin' across the river to
where he fust began buildin' the town; and there's a sarpent crumpled up
under his horse's feet, in sign of his ridin' the high horse over the
heathenish ways o' the country.
"Well, I was passin' this stattey one night, comin' back from a
jollification with some o' my chums, when (I don't know how it was) it
came into my head all to once what a joke it 'ud be to climb up and sit
upon the horse. So I scrambles over the railin', and up I goes.
"It was no easy job climbin' over the slippery granite, I can tell yer;
but presently I got hold o' the sarpent's tail, and then o' the horse's,
and worked my way up as if I was climbin' the shrouds. The horse's
hind-quarters was a ticklish bit, but I managed it somehow, and there I
sat, cheek by jowl with old Peter, as snug as you please.
"But it warn't quite so snug in another minute or two; for a cold wind
came sweepin' up from the river, and with that and the cold metal I was
sittin' on, my very teeth rattled in my head. Time to be gittin' down
agin, thinks I.
"Jist then I diskivered that 'git down' was easier said nor done. I
couldn't turn round, and I couldn't see where to put my feet without it;
and as for slidin' down at haphazard, 'tain't likely I'd try _that_,
with a five-and-twenty foot fall 'tween me and the pavement. Fact, I was
in a regular fix; and afore I could make up my mind what to do, I heerd
the tramp of a police patrol. Jist as they passed one fellow shouted,
'Hollo!' and they all stopped. I kept mum, hopin' they hadn't seen me;
when what must I do but give a sneeze fit to wake the whole town!
"'I thought so,' cries the chap. 'Come down, you fellow, come down
directly.'
"'All very fine sayin' come down,' says I, 'but how the dickens am I to
do it?'
"'He must be an Englishman,' says one. 'Ivan, go for a ladder.'
"The ladder came, and up scrambled two fellows, and hauled me down like
a sack o' flour. I was too numbed by this time to show fight, even if it
had been any good; so the fellers jist marched me straight off to the
watch-house, and locked me up for the night.
"Next mornin' I was had up afore the Judge; and when the old chap sees
me, he says, with a grin, 'Aha! Angliski matross' [an English sailor],
as if _that_ was quite enough to account for whatever I might have done.
When he'd heard the charge he axed if I spoke Rooshian, and finding I
did, arter a fashion, he told me to spin my yarn. So I paid it out
pretty much as you have it now.
"At every word I said the old fellow rubbed his hands and chuckled like
anythin'; and the minute I'd done, he jist lay back in his chair, and
laughed as if he'd bust all to bits.
"'Well,' says he, wipin' his eyes, 'that's the best story I've heard
this year, or my name's not Phillipoff. But you really must not play
such tricks _here_, my man; so I'll fine you five rubles [$3.75], and
mind you don't do it again.'
"'Five rubles!' says I; 'that's a pretty high fare for a ten minutes'
ride.'
"'Can't be helped,' says he: 'if you _will_ ride with the Czar, you must
expect to pay first-class fare.'
"'All right,' says I, 'here's the money; but the next time I ride with
the Czar I'll git out afore they come round for the tickets.'"
FOOTNOTES:
[2] For the benefit of Mr. Hawkins's readers it may be as well to state
that the real words are "blagodareu," "retsch," "gosst," "f'samom
dalay," "Komisâroff," "Lomonôsoff."--D. K.
[3] A fact.
A WONDERFUL RAILROAD.
BY F. E. FRYATT.
"Oh, children, I have made such a wonderful discovery this afternoon on
my shopping tour!" said Miss Thornton, laying off her bonnet and
seal-skin, as she addressed an eager group of youngsters.
"What is it? what is it?--do tell us!" chorussed all the little
Thorntons, gathering excitedly around her.
"Yes--wait a moment. Here, Nell, take my things up stairs; Harry,
shoulder these packages, and go with her, and Bert will stir up the
fire, while Edith runs down stairs and tells Bridget to serve dinner
precisely at seven. Then we'll have my travels' history."
A little later, as they all sat before the blazing grate, with the red
fire-light flickering on their faces, Miss Thornton commenced in a
serious manner: "Once upon a time, just about a year ago, a benevolent
gentleman was walking through one of the busiest thoroughfares in our
city. It was Christmas-eve, and very late, when he saw twenty or thirty
little girls and boys hurrying out of a great shop famous for its
Christmas toys and gift counters of every description. The poor young
things looked so pale and thin, and there was such a haggard expression
on their small faces, that a strange pain filled his heart, and a
longing to help these little cash boys and girls set him to thinking.
"The gentleman had two wee darlings of his own; he knew they were at
this very moment tucked away, rosy and warm, in their snowy bed in the
nursery, and he wished these tired young folks were as happily placed.
"'Shameful!' said he to himself; 'every one of you ought to have been in
bed four hours ago. Something ought to be done--something _shall_ be!'
"Just by the merest chance I went into that very store this afternoon,
and what do you think I saw? The tiniest, prettiest little railroad you
could imagine."
"A toy railroad?" queried Bert.
"Not at all; a veritable railroad running all around the store, filled
with freight, passengers, and--money."
"Oh, aunty, 'upon your word and honor,' honest, now, was it a _real_
true railroad with cars on it?" cried Harry.
"Yes, it is a real, wide-awake, lively, business, working road, as true
as I sit here."
"Oh!" chorussed all the little Thorntons, in amazement.
"What made it go?" asked Harry.
"Who were the passengers?" chimed in Nellie.
"Could I ride on it, aunty?" asked Bert.
"Anyway, I should think it would run over folks, or trip them up,"
suggested Edith.
"Come, now, if you will give me 'elbow room,' and not crowd so, I'll
tell you everything I saw, and explain it as clearly as possible," said
Miss Thornton, smiling at the children's eager curiosity. "One day last
year I went to that same store to purchase a bonnet; the place was
thronged with customers at every counter; the floor-walkers were
shouting, the girl clerks screaming 'C-a-a-sh!' 'Che-ck!' cash-girls and
cash-boys with little baskets were running in every direction, calling
out their numbers in reply. Such a jostling, crowding, noisy place I was
never in."
"Well?" said Harry, with an air of deep interest.
"To-day I was very pleasantly surprised to find it as quiet and orderly
as one could wish; just as many customers, to be sure, but none of the
dreadful noise and confusion of last year--and all owing to this
wonderful little railroad."
"Do tell us all about it, aunty," begged Harry, forgetting he was
interrupting.
"Well, I heard a soft humming noise somewhere overhead, and looking up,
there were a dozen or more little cars with polished wheels running on
tracks that shone like silver. Each car was about eight inches long,
just big enough for a couple of fairies to ride in. They were the cutest
little things, and ran along their shining roads like magic; no horses,
pulleys, nor wires to draw them. Some of them went right to the dépôt
without stopping; others stopped at their stations just as the big
'elevated' cars do."
"I've guessed it: they went by steam," shouted Bert, triumphantly.
"No, not by steam," said Aunt Elinor.
"Then they're wound up like my mouse clock," cried Harry.
"No, it isn't that."
"I mean to go there and find out," said Bert.
"Some of these cars had curious wire cages hanging beneath them. A dozen
of these were running along at full speed to their stations. I ought to
tell you just here that the odd little 'cubby-house' where the cashier
receives and changes money is the place where these cars take on and
deposit their passengers and freight. The double track commences at the
north, and sweeps around the store till it comes to the south end of the
box which serves as the dépôt. This railway, made of bright steel, is
just high enough from the floor to let a tall man pass under without
knocking his hat off. These little cages reminded me of the car of a
balloon, they swung along so airily. But what do you think? There was an
ugly black bear in one of them. He looked ferocious enough to eat one,
and his eyes fairly glittered as he rode past me. In the next car was a
solemn baby-elephant, with immense ears, funny twinkling little eyes,
and a very respectable trunk. Then came a pair of jumping-jacks, a
savings-bank, two monkeys, a woolly dog, and some lop-eared rabbits, and
these were followed by a company of wooden soldiers, some more
elephants, two gray cats, and a sedate-looking parrot. The animals kept
coming, till I made up my mind to find out the Noah's ark where they
were coming from. I hadn't far to go before I found myself in one of the
toy departments, in the midst of which stood a great fat jolly old Santa
Claus loaded down with Christmas toys, and all powdered with snow.
'Oho!' thought I, 'my merry old saint, I've found you out: _you're_ the
president of this new railroad.' He must have read my thoughts, or else
I fancied he gave me a knowing wink out of one of his blue eyes, as much
as to say, 'Don't tell the children.'"
"Oh, Aunt Elinor, but you have told us already," screamed Nell, with
delight.