stopping and getting a meal if I could; but as I went by a pasture I saw
a man driving some cows through an opening in the fence. He saw me also,
and hurrying about his work, he came walking toward me. I now perceived
that my costume was a pass-word to people's hearts.
"Good-mornin', lad," hailed the farmer, who was a man past middle age.
"Goin' off to sea again, be ye?"
"Yes," I replied, stepping to the fence. "Am I on the right road for
Stonington?"
"Air ye in the navy?" he asked, without replying to my question.
"No; but I'm to ship aboard the _Young Eagle_ below."
"Oh, privateersman, eh? More money in it, I reckon. But there's no lack
of glory in the sarvice. I have a son aboard the _Constitution_. He was
in her when she fit the _Guerrière_. When I think of it, I allus feel
like cheerin'."
And then and there the farmer took off his hat and gave three lusty
cheers--in which, despite myself, and not knowing anything about the
subject, I joined.
"My name is Prouty," the old farmer went on. "And my son's name is
Melvin Prouty. Ye'll hear tell on him afore long. He's got promoted
already. He's a quartermaster."
"Good!" I exclaimed, for notwithstanding my sailor's rig, I was
supposing a quartermaster must be next to a commodore at least.
"Well, I won't keep ye. Good-luck and good-by," he said, extending his
rough hand across the fence.
I shook it warmly, and picking up my small bundle, trotted down the
hill. I covered some two miles more before I stopped at a farm-house for
breakfast. Here I was received with as much honor as if my short
stopping was to cast a blessing. I found that I had to adopt some
subterfuge; and when asked what vessel I had served in, I replied, and
with truth, "the _Minetta_, from Baltimore," and that I was bound to
join the _Young Eagle_. Her fame evidently had spread broadcast, and I
cannot forget the envious looks that were cast at me by a couple of
youngsters, who requested to know if I had any pictures on my arms. As I
had none, and had seen them on my voyage, and often before that, pricked
into the skins of the sailors on the wharves, I determined to remedy
this defect as soon as possible.
The goodwife of the house where I got my first meal insisted upon my
carrying away enough to stock me for a voyage of two or three days; but
it was mostly pie, for which I care little.
The main road was so well travelled that there was no mistaking it now.
My legs, as well as my heart, seemed gifted with a desire to get ahead,
and every one I met had for me a kindly wave of the hand, and would have
questioned me breathless had I not made haste and hurried on.
By four o'clock that afternoon I had mounted to the top of the hill, and
there I caught a glimpse of the ocean, and stretching to the westward,
the blue sound. Oh, how the picture comes to me! The wide sparkling sea;
here and there a white sail dotted on it, and the breeze, that was from
the south, bringing the smell of it to my nostrils and setting my heart
beating and thumping in my throat. Overhead a great hawk spun about in
widening circles. I knew how he felt, for was not I free, and the world
before me at my feet?
Out of pure joy and the loftiness of my spirits, I threw the Portugee
cap into the air and caught it as it fell. And nothing would do but I
must start at a headlong pace down the hill, jumping the water-bars and
kicking my heels behind me as if I were a colt escaped from a pasture.
By the time that I had entered the houses that clustered about the
outskirts of the town it grew dusky, and I began to feel a trifle tired,
for I had covered the distance of some thirty miles that day.
As the dwellings became thicker and I could see the clustering lights of
the business portion of the town (it was past twilight), I felt a little
trepidation. People had not paid so much attention to me as they had
farther up the country, and I had run across one or two sailor-men,
dressed much as I was (save the cap), who had hailed me good-naturedly.
But I longed for a bed and a warm cup of coffee, and seeing a citizen
leaning over a fence, smoking meditatively, I inquired my way to the
best inn.
"I should 'a' reckoned that you'd 'a' known them all by this time, lad,"
he said; "but the best hotel is the United States, down near the
wharves. Keep straight ahead."
Now the groups of sailor-men had increased; to all appearances they had
gained possession of the freedom of the town of Stonington. They seemed
to have captured the prettiest girls, or bargained to drink the place
dry, for from a grog-shop a number of them reeled out, arm in arm,
singing a song to a tune that I learned to know and sing well afterwards
myself--"Hull's Victory"--and the sound of fiddles and dancing were to
all sides.
It was only a few steps now to the United States Hotel, and I turned
from the street and entered. A number of loungers were on the broad
veranda. A group of men--one in a cocked hat and blue coat with brass
buttons--were sitting about a table on which there was much to drink,
and they were not slighting it.
But here no one gave me more than a glance, and I entered the
coffee-room, where I found a corner and placed my little bundle at my
feet. A hubbub of conversation and much strong tobacco filled the place,
and the waiters were so busy that I did not know enough to insist upon
gaining their attention, and no one sought me out. I had sat there but a
few minutes when I became engrossed, listening open-mouthed to a group
of seamen talking within a short distance of me. One of them was telling
of the action between the _Hornet_ and the _Peacock_, and he
interspersed his talk by constantly calling to those about him to drink
the health of "Lawrence, the bravest officer that ever trod a deck."
I here learned that a man may be a hero by mere reflected glory, for
each one who drank with him nodded to the speaker as if Lawrence were
his name. Suddenly I perceived that a man in a long apron was standing
at my elbow.
"What is the order, messmate?" he asked familiarly.
I replied by asking for some coffee, and stating that I would like to
get a room for the night. This evidently caused him some surprise.
"Rooms come high," he replied, looking at me, "but I can get you the
coffee, right enough."
I had seen one of the sailors, in paying his reckoning, wave back the
change due him into the waiter's palm, so when the man returned, I
offered him one of the gold pieces in my pocket. He looked at it
curiously, bit it, and took it over to a table and showed it to some of
the sailors. The man to whom he handed it rang it on the bottom of the
upturned plate.
"Good gold," he said, "and French. I've seen 'em often."
Whether he told the value of it or not I do not know, but soon the
waiter returned with a half-handful of silver coin. I waved it back at
him, and the man's eyes grew large. He returned to the sailors and spoke
to them.
"Just back from a cruise, I dare say," said one, looking over his
shoulder at me, but not addressing me.
"He doesn't look it," replied another. "But one can't tell nowadays.
There was a girlish-looking lad--" Here the man began a yarn in a low
voice, and I buried my face in my coffee-cup, and almost scalded my
throat, for it was steaming hot.
At this moment the waiter returned.
"I've got a room for you, messmate," he said, "and the best one in the
house. If you've got your box ashore, I'll take it up myself."
"No, thanks," I replied. "I have nothing with me," hiding at the same
time my little bundle with my feet.
I noticed that the man was looking very carefully at my hands. Although
they were not soft exactly, as they had been hardened by the chopping of
wood and the handling of hoe and spade, the life of the sailor-man
stamps the hands so distinctly to the eye of a close observer that there
is no chance for wrong in judging.
"Will you follow me? I'll show you up to the room," said the waiter-man.
I picked up my bundle and squeezed it under my arm, and followed him out
of the room, creating no little comment, I dare say, for not a few
craned their necks to get a look at me. In the hallway my guide stopped
and spoke to a large florid person in a stained satin waistcoat.
"Here is the lad who wishes a room, Mr. Purdy," he said.
The big man looked at me from head to foot.
"It will cost two dollars, and we will give you your breakfast. Is it a
lark of yours, lad? Eh? I know of a sailor with money giving a dollar
bill to a cow to chew on for a cud. But it's your game to play the
gentleman, eh?"
"I trust I am as much a gentleman as any one under your roof," I
returned, hotly.
"Heighty-tighty! what have we here?" the landlord said. "I forget. The
price is three dollars, and it's the last room in the house. I had
partly engaged it to a _gentleman_ in a cocked hat, but he has failed to
appear. Pay in advance, please, or you don't ship for the night."
I gave him one of the gold pieces. He slipped it into his pocket without
comment, and told the servant to show me up stairs. The room was quite
large and comfortable, the soft bed with the white sheets looked
inviting, and I was so stiff and tired from my walking that I tumbled
out of my clothes and drew the covers over me.
I thought that I should go to sleep at once, but as is often the case,
thoughts prevent the proper closing of the eyelids, as if they were the
doors of the mind. What was I to do on the morrow? It was full eight
days ahead of the time that I had promised to meet Plummer, and I had
but four gold pieces. A thrill of fright took hold of me when I thought
that perhaps my uncle might follow me and fetch me back with him. The
noise of shouting and loud talking below in the tap-room, and the
singing and chattering on the streets, continued for a long time; and I
tossed uneasily.
To the best of my recollection I had not lost myself in sleep at all
when I heard some stumbling and laughing out in the hall; then the door
to my room was pushed open, and a hand shielding a candle, the light of
which dazzled my eyes so that at first I could not see clearly, extended
through the doorway. A man entered, talking loudly to some one who was
following him.
"Come in, come in, Bullard; and don't drop that bottle for the life of
you."
A thick growling voice answered. "I've had all the bottle I want,
Captain Temple," were the words I caught, and the second man came in. He
also carried a candle.
"What is it you wish to discuss with me, sir, that we couldn't say
before McCulough?" he went on.
"It's just this," replied the one addressed as Captain Temple (I
recognized him as the officer who had sat on the piazza): "McCulough
thinks to tie us down in some way, because he happens to own a few
planks of the ship. Now I--"
The speaker had placed the light on the mantel-piece, and the other man
did the same with his candle, snuffing it a little with his fingers as
he did so; but what had broken off Captain Temple's speech was the sight
he had caught of me sitting bolt-upright in the bed and blinking, I dare
say, like a startled owl.
"In the name of Davy Jones, what is this?" he said. "What are you doing
in my room?"
"It's a drunken sailor-man," said the larger one, holding one of the
candles over his head. "Kick him out where he belongs. They're getting
too high and mighty, anyhow."
The Captain, seeing my bundle lying on the floor, sent it flying through
the open doorway down the hall, and the other man, with a stroke of his
foot, swept up the rest of my belongings.
"Get out of this, you swab!" said the Captain, "or I'll keelhaul you
well. No chin music, now! Come, get out!"
I was mighty angry by this time.
"I'm no swab or no drunken sailor, I'll have you understand," I replied;
"and this is my room, and I paid for it."
The Captain muttered a curse and the other man commenced to grin.
"I'll spit you like a goose!" the former roared. "How dare you talk to
me like that!"
He drew his sword and made one or two passes at me. Of course I do not
suppose it was his real intention to inflict an injury, but the point
came dangerously close to my throat. I had drawn the covers to my chin.
"Don't kill him, Captain; don't kill him," snickered the big one.
At this, moved by some impulse, I jumped to the floor. There was a
narrow poker leaning against the empty fireplace. Shaking with fear, I
picked it up and fell into the position of defence. The big man's
laughter changed to an impatient tone.
"Rout him out, the impudent rascal," he said, "and I'll boot him down
the stairway!"
The Captain could not reach me across the bed, so he came about the
foot-board. He made a quick pass at me as if he would give me a good
slap with the back of his sword. I parried it, and aiming a quick stroke
at his head, I sent his cocked hat flying across the room. His return to
this showed that he intended me some harm, for he lunged straight at my
breast. Again I parried, and a second time the Captain lunged. He had
gotten the point of his sword a little too far down this time, and I got
over it a bit with the poker. I remembered the disarming-stroke that my
uncle had shown me so often. With a quick turn of the wrist I caught his
blade aright and absolutely hurled it from his hand. It clattered across
the floor, and lunging forward, I caught him just below the shoulder
with the point of the poker. Had it been a cutlass or a small sword, it
would have surely run him through! As it was it staggered him, and he
sat down backwards in the empty fireplace.
The big man was roaring down the hallway for help, and I could hear a
charge being made up the stairs. The Captain looked up at me, however,
curiously.
"Where on the big green earth did you learn that?" he said.
I was so full of emotion and fear of the consequence of my action that I
could not speak, and stood there panting. A dozen faces had appeared at
the doorway. The Captain extended his hand.
"Give us a lift, lad," he said. "I'm badly grounded."
I pulled him out of the fireplace, and a strange picture we must have
presented, I in my shirt, and he slapping me good-naturedly between the
shoulders so hard that it set me coughing.
"No harm done, friends," he said, addressing the crowd, that had now
half filled the room. "Some pleasantry between me and this young
gentleman. Bullard, you old squillgee, gather the lad's trousseau from
the hall, and fetch it in here."
Affirming that it was just a joke, he and the Captain cleared the room
and gathered up my things. The short man was looking at me curiously.
"Gadzooks!" he said, "but that was a master-stroke! Who are you and
where do you come from?"
I was drawing on part of my clothing, and a fit of embarrassment had
hold of me. Now why I spoke as I did I cannot account for.
"My name is Debrin," I replied, taking the name that my uncle was known
by at Miller's Falls. "I've come to ship on board the _Young Eagle_. Cy
Plummer spoke to me about her."
The Captain threw back his head and laughed.
"You'll ship all right, lad. I'm Temple, of the _Young Eagle_. What's
your first name?"
"John," I answered.
"Go below, Bullard, and make out articles for this lad to sign--John
Debrin, instructor in small arms. Never knew of one in a privateer
before, but I'll create one."
Then and there he made me show him what I knew about handling a weapon.
In fact he treated me as if I were altogether his equal, and I soon lost
any feeling of discomforture. As this is the only time that I ever saw
Captain Temple in such a mood, I have dwelt on it. But to shorten this
part of my chronicle: I signed the articles that Bullard brought up with
him, and insisted upon giving up my room, which the Captain apparently
took with reluctance, and I slept on the floor in a corner of the
hallway.
From my clothes Temple must have judged me a seaman, for he asked no
questions on that head, and apparently was satisfied with the
explanation that I came from Chesapeake Bay, had sailed in the brig
_Minetta_, and had been taught swordsmanship by an old Frenchman.
I awakened in the morning with the puzzled consternation of one unused
to find himself in new surroundings, and with the feeling that last
night's goings-on had been a dream. A glance at the paper in my pocket,
however, proved that it was not.
A strange day was before me. I seemed destined in life to be a mystery
to the people whom I met, and circumstances kept up this position for
some time to come, as will be proven. The landlord and the serving-men
at the hotel treated me with such deference that had I been more of a
sailor-man and less of an innocent, my head might have been turned, and
I dare say I should have swaggered dreadfully--to be honest, I may have
done so as it was.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
THE SCIENTIFIC USE OF KITES.
BY H. H. CLAYTON,
OF THE BLUE HILL METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATORY.
Kite-flying has been a pastime and a pleasure for many generations of
boys and, indeed, of men. In China and Malay it is one of the chief
sports for men. In China kites are made in strange and fantastic shapes,
and are flown in great numbers on fête-days and holidays. It seems
strange that some of the forms of Chinese and Malay kites were not long
ago imported and used by our boys.
[Illustration: METHOD OF FLYING SERIES OF KITES.]
But kites are useful for science as well as for sport; and this
scientific men are now finding out. Inventors and engineers have
discovered that kites present interesting problems for experiment and
study. Men who watch the air and the sky find that kites are useful in
getting records of what is going on far above the earth's surface.
Nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, in 1749, the idea of using kites
for a scientific study of the air occurred to two young men in Scotland.
They were Alexander Wilson and Thomas Melvill. They made half a dozen
large paper kites as strong and as light as the materials would permit.
They began by raising the smallest kite, which, being exactly balanced,
soon mounted steadily to its utmost limit, carrying up a line, very
slender, but of sufficient strength to command it. In the mean time the
second kite was made ready. Two assistants supported it in a sloping
direction between them, with its face to the wind, while a third person,
holding part of the line in his hand, stood at a good distance directly
in front. Then the extremity of the line belonging to the kite already
in the air was hooked to a loop at the back of the second kite, which,
being now let go, mounted superbly. In a little time it took up as much
line as could be supported with advantage, thereby allowing its
companion to soar at an elevation proportionately higher. All the kites
were sent up, one by one, in this manner, the upper kite reaching an
amazing height, according to the writer who described the experiment. It
disappeared at times among the white summer clouds. The pressure of the
breeze upon so many surfaces attached to the same line was found too
great for a single person to withstand, and it became necessary to keep
the mastery over the kites by additional help. In order to learn about
the warmth and the coolness of the air aloft, these young investigators
fastened thermometers to the kites. The thermometers had bushy tails of
paper, and were let fall from some of the higher kites by gradual
singeing of a match-line. However, these young men probably did not
learn much in this way, because a thermometer sinking slowly or rapidly
to the ground would change its temperature. The kites were found to be
capable of useful scientific work, but self-recording instruments to be
sent up with the kites were not then invented.
Two years later than the experiment described above, as every boy knows,
or ought to know, Benjamin Franklin, by sending up a kite during a
thunder-storm, and collecting a charge of electricity, proved that
electricity is the same as lightning.
For another hundred years kites were used only as toys. Then came the
present age of wonderful inventions, beginning about fifty years ago.
For the first time instruments were invented which could be lifted into
the air, and could make on a sheet of paper a record of all the changes
through which they passed while aloft. In 1883 Mr. E. Douglas Archibald,
in England, used kites for sending up instruments to measure how much
stronger the wind was aloft than near the ground. In 1890 Mr. McAdie
used kites as did Benjamin Franklin, in order to study the electricity
in the air. By sending kites tied to a string around which was wound
fine copper wire, he found that sparks would fly from the wire to his
finger, even when the sky was clear. When a thunder-storm came in sight
the sparks became so strong that it was thought best to bring the kites
down, on account of the danger. Within the last ten years M. Richard of
Paris, and Mr. Fergusson of Blue Hill Observatory, have made instruments
so simple and so light that at Blue Hill Observatory we now have
instruments weighing less than three pounds, which record on a single
sheet of paper how cool or warm the air is, how damp it is, how dense it
is, and how fast it moves. One of these instruments, lifted by several
kites all tied to the same line is easily sent up a mile or more above
the top of the hill from which the kites are flown. On August 1, 1896,
an instrument weighing three pounds was sent 6700 feet above the top of
Blue Hill, near Boston. It was then 7333 feet above the level of the
sea, or more than a thousand feet higher than the fop of Mount
Washington, the highest mountain in New England. The highest kite was
then higher than the instrument by more than a hundred feet.
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN FROM A KITE ABOVE THE BLUE HILL
OBSERVATORY, MASSACHUSETTS.]
Mr. W. A. Eddy, of Bayonne, New Jersey, has used the kites successfully
at Blue Hill and at Boston for taking photographs of the surrounding
country from a height of several hundred feet in the air. The camera is
fastened to the kite-string, and the exposure of the plate is made by
pulling a second string which hangs from the camera to the ground. One
of the photographs, taken several hundred feet above Blue Hill, is shown
here. The picture gives the Blue Hill Observatory and the country for
several miles around.
Mr. J. Woodbridge Davis proposed to use kites for sending life-lines to
vessels wrecked near the coast, and devised kites for this purpose which
could be steered to any point nearly in a line with the wind.
[Illustration: HARGRAVE KITE IN THE AIR.]
The largest kite ever built was lately made by Mr. Lamson at Portland,
Maine. This kite was built on the plan of Hargrave's kite, shown in one
of our pictures, except that the cells were curved, and various other
improvements made in construction. This kite was 32 feet long, and had
900 square feet of surface. It weighed about 150 pounds, and lifted a
dummy-man weighing 150 pounds several hundred feet into the air. Then
the cord broke, and kite and dummy floated off into an adjacent swamp.
To see the air lift such weights astonishes most people, because in the
quiet of our rooms we move through the air without an effort, and it
even fails to support the lightest and downiest feather. But give the
air enough motion and it will lift anything made by man. In the terrific
wind of a tornado houses are lifted and burst like egg-shells. Even
locomotives are not too heavy for such winds to lift. A locomotive is
said to have been lifted in a tornado at St. Louis and carried fifteen
feet. At Blue Hill we find that the kites in a wind that blows 10 miles
an hour lift about two ounces for each square foot of surface; in a
25-mile wind they lifted about a pound for each square foot; and in a
40-mile wind, nearly three pounds for each square foot.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
The recent interest in kites has brought about a great improvement in
their forms. The Malays discovered that a diamond-shaped kite
constructed with two sticks could be made steady in the wind, and could
fly without a tail if the cross-sticks were bent backward and tied with
a cord so as to hold them in the shape of a bow. A writer in the
_American Boys' Handy-Book_ calls a kite of this form a Dutch kite,
indicating that it has been flown for a long time in Holland. Mr. W. A.
Eddy, of New Jersey, is one of the first persons who have attempted to
improve the kite for scientific use. He did this by making a kite with
the bowed cross-sticks longer and nearer the top than they are in the
Malay or the Dutch kite. Mr. Eddy's kite is illustrated in Fig. 1.
[Illustration: FIGS. 2, 3, 4.]