CHAPTER I.

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OUR YOUNG FOLKS.

_An Illustrated Magazine_

FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.

VOL. I. JANUARY, 1865. NO. I.

HUM, THE SON OF BUZ.

At Rye Beach, during our summer's vacation, there came, as there always

will to seaside visitors, two or three cold, chilly, rainy days,--days

when the skies that long had not rained a drop seemed suddenly to

bethink themselves of their remissness, and to pour down water, not by

drops, but by pailfuls. The chilly wind blew and whistled, the water

dashed along the ground, and careered in foamy rills along the roadside,

and the bushes bent beneath the constant flood. It was plain that there

was to be no sea-bathing on such a day, no walks, no rides; and so,

shivering and drawing our blanket-shawls close about us, we sat down to

the window to watch the storm outside. The rose-bushes under the window

hung dripping under their load of moisture, each spray shedding a

constant shower on the spray below it. On one of these lower sprays,

under the perpetual drip, what should we see but a poor little

humming-bird, drawn up into the tiniest shivering ball, and clinging

with a desperate grasp to his uncomfortable perch. A humming-bird we

knew him to be at once, though his feathers were so matted and glued

down by the rain that he looked not much bigger than a honey-bee, and as

different as possible from the smart, pert, airy little character that

we had so often seen flirting with the flowers. He was evidently a

humming-bird in adversity, and whether he ever would hum again looked to

us exceedingly doubtful. Immediately, however, we sent out to have him

taken in. When the friendly hand seized him, he gave a little, faint,

watery squeak, evidently thinking that his last hour was come, and that

grim Death was about to carry him off to the land of dead birds. What a

time we had reviving him,--holding the little wet thing in the warm

hollow of our hands, and feeling him shiver and palpitate! His eyes were

fast closed; his tiny claws, which looked slender as cobwebs, were

knotted close to his body, and it was long before one could feel the

least motion in them. Finally, to our great joy, we felt a brisk little

kick, and then a flutter of wings, and then a determined peck of the

beak, which showed that there was some bird left in him yet, and that he

meant at any rate to find out where he was.

Unclosing our hands a small space, out popped the little head with a

pair of round brilliant eyes. Then we bethought ourselves of feeding

him, and forthwith prepared him a stiff glass of sugar and water, a drop

of which we held to his bill. After turning his head attentively, like a

bird who knew what he was about and didn't mean to be chaffed, he

briskly put out a long, flexible tongue, slightly forked at the end, and

licked off the comfortable beverage with great relish. Immediately he

was pronounced out of danger by the small humane society which had

undertaken the charge of his restoration, and we began to cast about for

getting him a settled establishment in our apartment. I gave up my

work-box to him for a sleeping-room, and it was medically ordered that

he should take a nap. So we filled the box with cotton, and he was

formally put to bed with a folded cambric handkerchief round his neck,

to keep him from beating his wings. Out of his white wrappings he looked

forth green and grave as any judge with his bright round eyes. Like a

bird of discretion, he seemed to understand what was being done to him,

and resigned himself sensibly to go to sleep.

The box was covered with a sheet of paper perforated with holes for

purposes of ventilation; for even humming-birds have a little pair of

lungs, and need their own little portion of air to fill them, so that

they may make bright scarlet little drops of blood to keep life's fire

burning in their tiny bodies. Our bird's lungs manufactured brilliant

blood, as we found out by experience; for in his first nap he contrived

to nestle himself into the cotton of which his bed was made, and to get

more of it than he needed into his long bill. We pulled it out as

carefully as we could, but there came out of his bill two round, bright,

scarlet, little drops of blood. Our chief medical authority looked

grave, pronounced a probable hemorrhage from the lungs, and gave him

over at once. We, less scientific, declared that we had only cut his

little tongue by drawing out the filaments of cotton, and that he would

do well enough in time,--as it afterward appeared he did,--for from that

day there was no more bleeding. In the course of the second day he began

to take short flights about the room, though he seemed to prefer to

return to us,--perching on our fingers or heads or shoulders, and

sometimes choosing to sit in this way for half an hour at a time. "These

great giants," he seemed to say to himself, "are not bad people after

all; they have a comfortable way with them; how nicely they dried and

warmed me! Truly a bird might do worse than to live with them."

So he made up his mind to form a fourth in the little company of three

that usually sat and read, worked and sketched, in that apartment, and

we christened him "Hum, the son of Buz." He became an individuality, a

character, whose little doings formed a part of every letter, and some

extracts from these will show what some of his little ways were.

"Hum has learned to sit upon my finger, and eat his sugar and water out

of a teaspoon with most Christian-like decorum. He has but one

weakness,--he will occasionally jump into the spoon and sit in his sugar

and water, and then appear to wonder where it goes to. His plumage is in

rather a drabbled state, owing to these performances. I have sketched

him as he sat to-day on a bit of Spiraea which I brought in for him. When

absorbed in reflection, he sits with his bill straight up in the air, as

I have drawn him. Mr. A---- reads Macaulay to us, and you should see the

wise air with which, perched on Jenny's thumb, he cocked his head now

one side and then the other, apparently listening with most critical

attention. His confidence in us seems unbounded; he lets us stroke his

head, smooth his feathers, without a flutter; and is never better

pleased than sitting, as he has been doing all this while, on my hand,

turning up his bill, and watching my face with great edification.

"I have just been having a sort of maternal struggle to make him go to

bed in his box; but he evidently considers himself sufficiently

convalescent to make a stand for his rights as a bird, and so scratched

indignantly out of his wrappings, and set himself up to roost on the

edge of his box, with an air worthy of a turkey, at the very least.

Having brought in a lamp, he has opened his eyes round and wide, and

sits cocking his little head at me reflectively."

When the weather cleared away, and the sun came out bright, Hum became

entirely well, and seemed resolved to take the measure of his new life

with us. Our windows were closed in the lower part of the sash by frames

with mosquito gauze, so that the sun and air found free admission, and

yet our little rover could not pass out. On the first sunny day he took

an exact survey of our apartment from ceiling to floor, humming about,

examining every point with his bill,--all the crevices, mouldings, each

little indentation in the bed-posts, each window-pane, each chair and

stand; and, as it was a very simply furnished seaside apartment, his

scrutiny was soon finished. We wondered, at first, what this was all

about; but, on watching him more closely, we found that he was actively

engaged in getting his living, by darting out his long tongue hither and

thither, and drawing in all the tiny flies and insects which in

summer-time are to be found in an apartment. In short, we found that,

though the nectar of flowers was his dessert, yet he had his roast beef

and mutton-chop to look after, and that his bright, brilliant blood was

not made out of a simple vegetarian diet. Very shrewd and keen he was,

too, in measuring the size of insects before he attempted to swallow

them. The smallest class were whisked off with lightning speed; but

about larger ones he would sometimes wheel and hum for some minutes,

darting hither and thither, and surveying them warily; and if satisfied

that they could be carried, he would come down with a quick, central

dart which would finish the unfortunate at a snap. The larger flies

seemed to irritate him,--especially when they intimated to him that his

plumage was sugary, by settling on his wings and tail; when he would lay

about him spitefully, wielding his bill like a sword. A grasshopper that

strayed in, and was sunning himself on the window-seat, gave him great

discomposure. Hum evidently considered him an intruder, and seemed to

long to make a dive at him; but, with characteristic prudence, confined

himself to threatening movements, which did not exactly hit. He saw

evidently that he could not swallow him whole, and what might ensue from

trying him piecemeal he wisely forbore to essay.

Hum had his own favorite places and perches. From the first day he chose

for his nightly roost a towel-line which had been drawn across the

corner over the wash-stand, where he every night established himself

with one claw in the edge of the towel and the other clasping the line,

and, ruffling up his feathers till he looked like a little chestnut-bur,

he would resign himself to the soundest sleep. He did not tuck his head

under his wing, but seemed to sink it down between his shoulders, with

his bill almost straight up in the air. One evening one of us, going to

use the towel, jarred the line, and soon after found that Hum had been

thrown from his perch, and was hanging head downward fast asleep, still

clinging to the line. Another evening, being discomposed by somebody

coming to the towel-line after he had settled himself, he fluttered off;

but so sleepy that he had not discretion to poise himself again, and was

found clinging, like a little bunch of green floss silk, to the mosquito

netting of the window.

A day after this we brought in a large green bough, and put it up over

the looking-glass. Hum noticed it before it had been there five minutes,

flew to it, and began a regular survey, perching now here, now there,

till he seemed to find a twig that exactly suited him; and after that he

roosted there every night. Who does not see in this change all the signs

of reflection and reason that are shown by us in thinking over our

circumstances, and trying to better them? It seemed to say in so many

words: "That towel-line is an unsafe place for a bird; I get frightened,

and wake from bad dreams to find myself head downward; so I will find a

better roost on this twig."

When our little Jenny one day put on a clean white muslin gown

embellished with red sprigs, Hum flew towards her, and with his bill

made instant examination of these new appearances; and one day, being

very affectionately disposed, perched himself on her shoulder, and sat

some time. On another occasion, while Mr. A---- was reading, Hum

established himself on the top of his head just over the middle of his

forehead, in the precise place where our young belles have lately worn

stuffed humming-birds, making him look as if dressed out for a party.

Hum's most favorite perch was the back of the great rocking-chair,

which, being covered by a tidy, gave some hold into which he could catch

his little claws. There he would sit, balancing himself cleverly if its

occupant chose to swing to and fro, and seeming to be listening to the

conversation or reading.

Hum had his different moods, like human beings. On cold, cloudy, gray

days, he appeared to be somewhat depressed in spirits, hummed less about

the room, and sat humped-up with his feathers ruffled, looking as much

like a bird in a great-coat as possible. But on hot, sunny days, every

feather sleeked itself down, and his little body looked natty and trim,

his head alert, his eyes bright, and it was impossible to come near him,

for his agility. Then let mosquitos and little flies look about them!

Hum snapped them up without mercy, and seemed to be all over the ceiling

in a moment, and resisted all our efforts at any personal familiarity

with a saucy alacrity.

[Illustration]

Hum had his established institutions in our room, the chief of which was

a tumbler with a little sugar and water mixed in it, and a spoon laid

across, out of which he helped himself whenever he felt in the

mood,--sitting on the edge of the tumbler, and dipping his long bill,

and lapping with his little forked tongue like a kitten. When he found

his spoon accidentally dry, he would stoop over and dip his bill in the

water in the tumbler,--which caused the prophecy on the part of some of

his guardians, that he would fall in some day and be drowned. For which

reason it was agreed to keep only an inch in depth of the fluid at the

bottom of the tumbler. A wise precaution this proved; for the next

morning I was awaked, not by the usual hum over my head, but by a sharp

little flutter, and found Mr. Hum beating his wings in the

tumbler,--having actually tumbled in during his energetic efforts to get

his morning coffee before I was awake.

Hum seemed perfectly happy and satisfied in his quarters,--but one day,

when the door was left open, made a dart out, and so into the open

sunshine. Then, to be sure, we thought we had lost him. We took the

mosquito netting out of all the windows, and, setting his tumbler of

sugar and water in a conspicuous place, went about our usual

occupations. We saw him joyous and brisk among the honeysuckles outside

the window, and it was gravely predicted that he would return no more.

But at dinner-time in came Hum, familiar as possible, and sat down to

his spoon as if nothing had happened; instantly we closed our windows,

and had him secure once more.

At another time I was going to ride to the Atlantic House, about a mile

from my boarding-place. I left all secure, as I supposed, at home. While

gathering moss on the walls there, I was surprised by a little green

humming-bird flying familiarly right towards my face, and humming above

my head. I called out, "Here is Hum's very brother." But, on returning

home, I saw that the door of the room was open, and Hum was gone. Now

certainly we gave him up for lost. I sat down to painting, and in a few

minutes in flew Hum, and settled on the edge of my tumbler in a social,

confidential way, which seemed to say, "O, you've got back then." After

taking his usual drink of sugar and water, he began to fly about the

ceiling as usual, and we gladly shut him in.

When our five weeks at the seaside were up, and it was time to go home,

we had great questionings what was to be done with Hum. To get him home

with us was our desire,--but who ever heard of a humming-bird travelling

by railroad? Great were the consultings; a little basket of Indian work

was filled up with cambric handkerchiefs, and a bottle of sugar and

water provided, and we started with him for a day's journey. When we

arrived at night, the first care was to see what had become of Hum, who

had not been looked at since we fed him with sugar and water in Boston.

We found him alive and well, but so dead asleep that we could not wake

him to roost; so we put him to bed on a toilet cushion, and arranged his

tumbler for morning. The next day found him alive and humming, exploring

the room and pictures, perching now here and now there; but, as the

weather was chilly, he sat for the most part of the time in a humped-up

state on the tip of a pair of stag's horns. We moved him to a more sunny

apartment; but, alas! the equinoctial storm came on, and there was no

sun to be had for days. Hum was blue; the pleasant seaside days were

over; his room was lonely, the pleasant three that had enlivened the

apartment at Rye no longer came in and out; evidently he was lonesome,

and gave way to depression. One chilly morning he managed again to fall

into his tumbler, and wet himself through; and, notwithstanding warm

bathings and tender nursings, the poor little fellow seemed to get

diptheria, or something quite as bad for humming-birds.

We carried him to a neighboring sunny parlor, where ivy embowers all the

walls, and the sun lies all day. There he revived a little, danced up

and down, perched on a green spray that was wreathed across the breast

of a Psyche, and looked then like a little flitting soul returning to

its rest. Towards evening he drooped; and, having been nursed and

warmed and cared for, he was put to sleep on a green twig laid on the

piano. In that sleep the little head drooped--nodded--fell; and little

Hum went where other bright dreams go,--to the Land of the Hereafter.

_Harriet Beecher Stowe._

THE VOLUNTEER'S THANKSGIVING.

The last days of November, and everything so green!

A finer bit of country my eyes have never seen.

'Twill be a thing to tell of, ten years or twenty hence,

How I came down to Georgia at Uncle Sam's expense.

Four years ago this winter, up at the district school,

I wrote all day, and ciphered, perched on a white-pine stool;

And studied in my atlas the boundaries of the States,

And learnt the wars with England, the history and the dates.

Then little I expected to travel in such haste

Along the lines my fingers and fancy often traced,

To bear a soldier's knapsack, and face the cannon's mouth,

And help to save for Freedom the lovely, perjured South.

That red, old-fashioned school-house! what winds came sweeping through

Its doors from bald Monadnock, and from the mountains blue

That slope off south and eastward beyond the Merrimack!

O pleasant Northern river, your music calls me back

To where the pines are humming the slow notes of their psalm

Around a shady farm-house, half hid within their calm,

Reflecting in the river a picture not so bright

As these verandahed mansions,--but yet my heart's delight.

They're sitting at the table this clear Thanksgiving noon;

I smell the crispy turkey, the pies will come in soon,--

The golden squares of pumpkin, the flaky rounds of mince,

Behind the barberry syrups, the cranberry and the quince.

Be sure my mouth does water,--but then I am content

To stay and do the errand on which I have been sent.

A soldier mustn't grumble at salt beef and hard-tack:

We'll have a grand Thanksgiving if ever we get back!

I'm very sure they'll miss me at dinner-time to-day,

For I was good at stowing their provender away.

When mother clears the table, and wipes the platters bright,

She'll say, "I hope my baby don't lose his appetite!"

But oh! the after-dinner! I miss that most of all,--

The shooting at the targets, the jolly game of ball,

And then the long wood-ramble! We climbed, and slid, and ran,--

We and the neighbor-children,--and one was Mary Ann,

Who (as I didn't mention) sat next to me at school:

Sometimes I had to show her the way to work the rule

Of Ratio and Proportion, and do upon her slate

Those long, hard sums that puzzle a merry maiden's pate.

I wonder if they're going across the hills to-day;

And up the cliffs I wonder what boy will lead the way;

And if they'll gather fern-leaves and checkerberries red,

And who will put a garland of ground-pine on her head.

O dear! the air grows sultry: I'd wish myself at home

Were it a whit less noble, the cause for which I've come.

Four years ago a school-boy; as foolish now as then!

But greatly they don't differ, I fancy,--boys and men.

I'm just nineteen to-morrow, and I shall surely stay

For Freedom's final battle, be it until I'm gray,

Unless a Southern bullet should take me off my feet.--

There's nothing left to live for, if Rebeldom should beat;

For home and love and honor and freedom are at stake,

And life may well be given for our dear Union's sake;

So reads the Proclamation, and so the sermon ran;

Do ministers and people feel it as soldiers can?

When will it all be ended? 'Tis not in youth to hold

In quietness and patience, like people grave and old:

A year? three? four? or seven?--O then, when I return,

Put on a big log, mother, and let it blaze and burn,

And roast your fattest turkey, bake all the pies you can,

And, if she isn't married, invite in Mary Ann!

Hang flags from every window! we'll all be glad and gay,

For Peace will light the country on that Thanksgiving Day.

_Lucy Larcom._

[Illustration]

THUMBLING:

A STORY FOR CHILDREN.

_The Introduction._

DEAR OLD FRIEND:--We were all sitting round the fire the other evening

after dinner. The evening paper had been read and explained, and the

Colonel was now nursing his wounded arm, and musingly smoking his old

camp-pipe, browned to a rich mahogany in many marches among the sands of

Folly Island, through the rose-gardens of Florida, and over the hills

and valleys of battle-worn old Virginia; I myself, who have never yet

taken kindly to pipes,--though I suppose I shall have to ere many

days,--was dreaming over a fragrant Cabanas; Madame was hard at work

over a pile of the week's stockings; and the children taking their last

frolic about the parlor, preparatory to their unwilling Good-night and

fearful departure to the hated regions above stairs;--when our

neat-handed Bridget entered the room, staggering under the weight of the

monthly parcel of French books, just arrived by express.

You, who live where you can see all the new books as soon as they

appear, can hardly imagine the eagerness with which we poor country

people, far away from publishing-houses and foreign bookstores, welcome

the sight of this monthly parcel. We passed over the green and yellow

duodecimos, glancing at Feval, About, Berthel, Sand, and the rest, each

looking for his particular favorite among the authors, when the

children, whose busy fingers had helped to untie the knots and unwrap

the packages, and who were rummaging with as much eagerness as we,

suddenly discovered a sober octavo, that seemed to promise well; for,

after a hasty look at it, they carried it away to the library-table, and

examined it, for a time, in profound silence. After a while, one little

boy spoke out:--

"O, papa! this must be a real old-fashioned fairy-book, for it is full

of pictures of fairies, and knights, and giants, and dwarfs, and

dragons! Do read it to us, please!"

Now, my dear friend, you know that my youngsters have a most insatiate

appetite for, and a most thorough appreciation of, real fairy stories,

as they call them. But they are pitiless judges; they can hardly tire of

Blue Beard, and Beauty and the Beast, and the Arabian Nights; but they

turn up their little noses in contempt at the _moral_ fairy stories,

which some of their kind aunts have attempted to impose upon them. I

myself have a secret dislike for those sham stories which deceive you

into believing you are hearing about real fairies and giants, only to

tell you, at the end, that the good fairy is no other than Cheerfulness,

Industry, or some sister virtue, and that the giant is Luxury,

Ill-Temper, or some kindred vice. Yet the children are severer critics

than I. They will have nothing whatever to do with the good fairies who

have no magical power, and who live in their own little bodies; nor with

the wicked giants who, they can see at once, have none of the attributes

of the giants of old. They swallow the pill once, thinking it a

sugar-plum; but after finding it to be a pill, no amount of sugar

coating will make it anything but medicine. And all boys and girls are

alike in this, and will be so, let us hope, to the end of time. Even we

old fellows recall those old-time stories with something of the same

awe-struck admiration, and something of the same unquestioning belief,

with which we listened to them, I don't know how many years ago. We

sneer at the improbabilities and inconsistencies of modern fiction; but

who thinks of being startled at the charming incongruities, the bold but

fascinating impossibilities, of Cinderella, and Aladdin, and Puss in

Boots? Don't we in our heart of hearts still believe that, a long time

ago, before men grew too wicked for them, the gentle fairies really

lived in their jewelled palaces under ground, and came out, now and

then, to protect the youth and beauty they loved from giants, and

dragons, and malicious genii, and all manner of evil things? I declare I

should be ashamed of myself if I did not; and I am sure that none of us,

who are good for anything, have altogether lost that old belief; and

when we look back at those days of young romance, and remember the

thrill with which we read of Bluebeard's punishment, and Beauty's

reward, we feel that it would be better for us if they had more of that

old childlike faith. And so I encourage my youngsters to read and listen

to, over and over again, the same old stories that, when I was a boy,

warmed my young imagination, and to eschew the dismal allegories with

which well-meaning but short-sighted writers try to supply the places of

Jack the Giant-killer and all his marvellous family. And so I was almost

as pleased as the children, when I saw, from its quaint and grotesque

pictures, that their treasure-trove was really a book of real

old-fashioned fairy stories.

Of course, nothing would do but that the bedtime should be put off, and

that I should read one, at least, of the stories to the young folks. As

my selection won their unqualified admiration, and they are, as I have

said, good critics, I send it to you for the benefit of your little

people. Your studies in the Norse languages have perhaps made you

familiar with the original of it; but I think it will be new to most

boys and girls.

Your old chum,

PHILIP.

_The Story._

I.

Once upon a time there was a peasant, who had three sons, Peter, Paul,

and John. Peter was tall, stout, rosy and good-natured, but a stupid

fellow; Paul was thin, yellow, envious, and surly; while Jack was full

of mischief, pale as a girl, but so small that he could stow himself

away in his father's jack-boots; and so he was called Thumbling.

All the wealth the poor peasant had was his family; and so poor was he,

that it was a very feast-day in his cottage if only a penny happened to

jingle there. Food was very high then, and wages low; so, as soon as the

three boys were big enough to work for themselves, the good father was

obliged to urge them to leave the cottage where they were born, and to

go out into the world to seek their fortune.

"In foreign lands," he said, "across the sea, bread could always be had,

even if it took hard work to get it; while at home, in spite of all

their toil, they were never sure of a crust for the morrow."

Now it happened that, not a mile from the woodman's hut, there was a

magnificent wooden palace, with twenty balconies and six beautiful

windows. And directly opposite these windows there sprang up, one fine

summer's night, without the least warning, an immense oak, whose leaves

and branches were so thickly clustered together, that one could hardly

see in the king's house. It was no easy task to cut down this enormous

tree, for it was so tough that it turned the edge of every axe that was

wielded against it; and for every branch that was lopped off, or root

that was plucked up, two instantly grew in its place. In vain did the

king promise three bags of golden crowns to any one who would rid him of

his troublesome neighbor; it was of no use at all; and he had at last to

light his palace with candles, in broad daylight.

Nor was this the poor king's only trouble. Although the surrounding

country was so rich in springs and brooks, that they frequently gushed

out of the solid rock itself, yet in the royal gardens they couldn't

get a drop of water. In summer time, the king and all his court had to

wash their hands in beer, and their faces with mead, which was not

convenient, if it was pleasant. So that at last the king promised broad

lands, heaps of money, and the title of Lord Marquis, to anybody who

would dig a well in his court-yard deep enough to give a supply of water

all the year round. In spite, however, of these magnificent promises, no

one could get the reward; for the palace was on a lofty hill, and after

digging a foot under ground there was a solid granite rock, as hard as

flint.

Now these two troubles disturbed the king so much, that he couldn't get

them out of his head. Although he was not a very great monarch, yet he

was as obstinate as the Emperor of China himself. So one fine day he hit

upon this wise plan. He caused an enormous placard to be prepared, with

the royal arms magnificently displayed at the top; and in it he

promised, to whoever would cut down the troublesome oak-tree, and dig

him a satisfactory well, no less rewards than the hand of his only

daughter, and the half of his kingdom. This placard was posted up on the

palace-gate, and copies all over the kingdom. Now, as the princess was

as beautiful as the morning, and the half of a kingdom by no means to be

despised, the offer was enough to tempt any one; and there shortly came

to the palace, from Sweden and Norway, from Denmark and Russia, from the

continent and from the islands, a host of sturdy suitors, with axe on

shoulder and pick in hand, ready to undertake the task. But all that

they hacked and hewed, picked and hollowed, was labor lost. At every

stroke the oak grew harder, and the granite no softer; so that the most

persevering had at last to give up in despair.

II.

One fine day, about this time, when everybody all over the land was

talking of this wonderful affair, and everybody's head was full of it,

our three brothers began to ask each other why, since their father

wished them to do so, they shouldn't go out into the world to seek their

fortune. They didn't hope for any great success, nor did they expect the

hand of the princess, or the half of the kingdom. All they wished for

was a good place and a kind master; and who could say they wouldn't find

them both somewhere at the court? So they decided to try their luck; and

after receiving the blessing of their good father, they started off,

with stout hearts, on their way to the king's palace.

Whilst the two older brothers were slowly trudging along, Thumbling

scampered up and down the road like a wild thing, running backwards and

forwards like a sportive dog, spying here, there, and everywhere, and

noticing everything that was to be noticed. Nothing was too small for

his sharp little eyes, and he kept constantly stopping his brothers to

ask the why and the wherefore of everything: why the bees dived into the

fragrant flower-cups? why the swallows skimmed along the rivers? why the

butterflies zigzagged capriciously along the fields? To all these

questions Peter only answered with a burst of stupid laughter; while

the surly Paul shrugged his shoulders, and crossly bade the little

Thumbling hold his tongue, telling him he was an inquisitive little

simpleton.

As they were going along, they came to a dense forest of pines, that

covered the crest of a mountain, on the top of which they heard the

sound of a woodman's axe, and the crackling of branches as they fell to

the ground.

"That is a very strange thing," said Thumbling, "to be cutting trees on

the top of a mountain like this."

"It would astonish me very much to find that you were not astonished at

everything," answered Peter, in a sour tone; "everything is wonderful to

simpletons. I suppose you never heard of woodcutters."

"It's all the same to me what you say," said Thumbling; "but I am going

to see what is going on up there."

"Be off with you!" cried Paul; "tire yourself all out, and that will be

a good lesson to you, for wanting to know more than your big brothers."

Thumbling didn't trouble himself much with what his big brothers said,

but started for the place whence the noise seemed to come, and, after

much hard climbing and running, he arrived at the top of the mountain.

And what do you suppose he found there? You would never guess, and so I

will tell you. A MAGIC AXE, that all by itself was hacking away at one

of the tallest trees on the mountain.

"Good morning, Mistress Axe," cried Thumbling. "Doesn't it tire you to

be chopping all alone there at that old tree?"

"Many long years I have been waiting for you, my son," replied the axe.

"Very well, ma'am, here I am!" said Thumbling; and without being

astonished at anything, he seized the axe, put it in the stout leather

bag he carried over his shoulder, and gayly descended to overtake his

brothers.

"What marvel did Master Moonstruck see up there?" asked Paul, looking at

Thumbling with a very scornful air.

"It _was_ an axe that we heard," answered Thumbling, slyly.

"I could have told you so beforehand," said Peter; "and here you are

now, all tired out, for nothing. You had better stay with us another

time."

A little farther along, they came to a place where the road was hollowed

with extreme difficulty out of a mass of solid rock; and here, in the

distance, the brothers heard a sharp noise, like that of iron striking

against stone.

"It is very wonderful that anybody should be hammering away at rocks

away up there!" remarked Thumbling.

"Truly," said Paul, "you must have been fledged yesterday! Didn't you

ever hear a woodpecker pecking at the trunk of an old tree?"

"He is right," added Peter, laughing; "it must be a woodpecker. Stay

with us, you foolish fellow."

"It's all the same to me," answered Thumbling; "but I am very curious to

see what is going on up there." So he began to climb the rocks on his

hands and knees, while his two brothers trudged along, making as much

fun of him as possible.

When he got up to the top of the rock, which was only after a deal of

hard work, what do you suppose he found there? A MAGIC PICKAXE, that,

all alone by itself, was digging at the hard stone as if it were soft

clay; and digging so well, that at every blow it went down more than a

foot in the rock.

"Good morning, Mistress Pickaxe," said Thumbling. "Doesn't it tire you

to be delving alone there, hollowing away at that old rock?"

"Many long years I have been waiting for you, my son," answered the

pickaxe.

"Very well, ma'am! here I am," replied Thumbling; and, without being

astonished at anything, he seized the pick, took it off its handle, put

the two pieces in the stout leather bag he carried over his shoulder,

and gayly descended to overtake his brothers.

"What miracle did his Worship see this time?" asked Paul, in a surly

tone.

"It _was_ a pickaxe that we heard," answered Thumbling, slyly; and he

plodded along, without any more words.

A little farther along, they came to a brook. The water was clear and

fresh, and, as the travellers were thirsty, they all stopped to drink

out of the hollows of their hands.

"It is very wonderful," said Thumbling, "that there should be so much

water in this little valley. I should like to see where this brook

starts from."

But to this the only answer was from Paul, who said gruffly to his

brother, "We shall soon see this inquisitive fellow climbing up to

Heaven, and asking questions of the angels themselves."

"Very well!" says Thumbling; "it's all the same; and I am very curious

to see where all this water comes from."

So saying, he began to follow up the streamlet, in spite of the jeers

and scoldings of his brothers. And lo and behold! the farther he went,

smaller and smaller grew the brook, and less and less the quantity of

water. And when he came to the end, what do you think he found? A simple

nut-shell, from the bottom of which a tiny stream of water burst out and

sparkled in the sun.

"Good morning, Mistress Spring," cried Thumbling. "Doesn't it tire you

to be gushing away there all alone in your little corner?"

"Many long years I have been waiting for you, my son," replied the

spring.

"Very well, ma'am! here I am," said Thumbling; and without being

astonished at anything, he seized the nut-shell, plugged it up with

moss, so that the water shouldn't run out, put it in the stout leather

bag he carried over his shoulder, and gayly descended to overtake his

brothers.

"Do you know now where the brook starts from?" shouted Peter, as soon as

he saw him.

"Yes, brother Peter," replied Thumbling; "it came out of a little hole."

"This boy is too bright to live," grumbled Peter.

But Thumbling quietly said to himself, and rubbed his hands meanwhile,

"I have seen what I wanted to see, and I know what I wanted to know; let

those laugh who wish."

III.

Shortly after this, the brothers arrived at the king's palace. The oak

was stouter and thicker than ever; there was no sign of a well in the

court-yard; and at the gate of the palace still hung the imposing

placard that promised the hand of the princess, and the half of the

kingdom, to whoever, noble, gentleman, or peasant, should accomplish the

two things his Majesty so ardently desired. Only, as the king was weary

of so many fruitless attempts, which had only resulted in making him

more despairing than before, he had ordered a second and smaller placard

to be pasted directly above the large one. On this placard was written,

in red letters, the following terrible words:

"_Be it known, by these presents, that, in his inexhaustible goodness,

his Majesty, the King, has deigned to order, that whosoever does not

succeed in cutting down the oak, or in digging the well, shall have his

ears promptly stricken off, in order to teach him the first lesson of

wisdom_,--TO KNOW HIMSELF."

And, in order that everybody should profit by this wise and prudent

counsel, the king had caused to be nailed around this placard thirty

bleeding ears, belonging to the unfortunate fellows who had proved

themselves ignorant of the first lesson of wisdom.

When Peter read this notice, he laughed to himself, twisted his

mustaches, looked proudly at his brawny arms, whose swollen veins looked

like so many pieces of blue whipcord, swung his axe twice around his

head, and with one blow chopped off one of the biggest branches of the

enchanted tree. To his horror and dismay, however, there immediately

sprang forth two more branches, each bigger and thicker than the first;

and the king's guards thereupon immediately seized the unlucky

woodcutter, and, without any more ado, sliced off both his ears.

"You are an awkward booby, and deserve your punishment," said Paul to

his brother. Saying this, he took his axe, walked slowly around the

tree, and, seeing a large root that projected from the soil, he chopped

it off with a single blow. At the same instant, two enormous new roots

broke from the ground; and, wonderful to relate, each one immediately

shot out a trunk, thickly covered with foliage.

"Seize this miserable fellow," shouted the furious king; "and, since he

did not profit by the example of his brother, shave off both _his_ ears,

close to his head!"

No sooner said than done. But now Thumbling, undismayed by this double

misfortune, stepped bravely forward to try his fortune.

"Drive this little abortion away," cried the king; "and if he resists,

chop off his ears. He will have the lesson all the same, and will spare

us the sight of his stupidity."

"Pardon, gracious Majesty!" interrupted Thumbling. "The king has passed

his word, and I have the right to a trial. It will be time enough to cut

off my ears when I fail."

"Away, then, to the trial," said the king, with a heavy sigh; "but be

careful that I don't have your nose cut off to boot."

Thumbling now drew his magic axe from the bottom of his stout leather

bag. It was almost as big as he was, and he had no little difficulty and

trouble in standing it up, with the handle leaning against the enchanted

tree. At last, however, all was accomplished; and stepping back a few

steps, he cried out, "Chop! chop!! chop!!!" And lo and behold! the axe

began to chop, hew, hack, now right, now left, and up and down! Trunk,

branches, roots, all were speedily cut to bits. In fact, it only took a

quarter of an hour, and yet there was such a heap, a monstrous heap of

wood, that the whole court had nothing else to burn for a whole year.

When the tree was entirely cut down and cleared away, Thumbling

approached the king, (who, in the mean time, had sent for the princess,

and caused her to sit down by his side, to see the wonderful thing,)

and, making them both a low bow, said:--

"Is your Majesty entirely satisfied with his faithful subject?"

"Yes, so far so good," answered the king; "but I must have my well, or

look out for your ears!"

All went then into the grand court-yard. The king placed himself on an

elevated seat. The princess sat a little below, and looked with some

anxiety at the little husband that Heaven seemed to have sent her. He

was not the spouse she had dreamed of, certainly. Without troubling

himself the least in the world, Thumbling now drew the magic pickaxe

from his stout leather bag, calmly put it together, and then, laying it

carefully on the ground in the proper place, he cried:--

"Pick! Pick!! Pick!!!"

And lo and behold! the pick began to burst the granite to splinters, and

in less than a quarter of an hour had dug a well more than a hundred

feet deep, in the solid rock.

"Does your Majesty think," asked Thumbling, bowing profoundly, "that the

well is sufficiently deep?"

"Certainly," answered the king; "but where is the water to come from?"

"If your Majesty will grant me a moment longer," rejoined Thumbling,

"your just impatience shall be satisfied." So saying, he drew from his

stout leather bag the nut-shell, all covered as it was with moss, and

placed it on a magnificent fountain vase, where, not having any water,

they had put a bouquet of flowers.

"Gush! Gush!! Gush!!!" cried Thumbling.

And lo and behold! the water began to burst out among the flowers,

singing with a gentle murmur, and falling down in a charming cascade,

that was so cold that it made everybody present shiver; and so abundant,

that in a quarter of an hour the well was filled, and a deep trench had

to be dug to take away the surplus water; otherwise the whole palace

would have been overflowed.

"Sire!" now said Thumbling, bending gracefully on one knee before the

royal chair, "does your Majesty find that I have answered your

conditions?"

"Yes! my _Lord Marquis Thumbling_," answered the king; "I am ready to

give you the half of my kingdom, or to pay you the value of it, by

means of a tax my loyal subjects will only be too happy to pay. As to

giving you the princess, however, and calling you my son-in-law, that is

another question; for that doesn't depend upon me alone."

"And what must I do for that?" asked Thumbling proudly, ogling the

princess at the same time.

"You shall know to-morrow," replied the king; "and meanwhile you are my

guest, and the most magnificent apartment in the palace shall be

prepared for you."

After the departure of the king and princess, Thumbling ran to find his

two brothers, who, with their ears cut off, looked like cropped curs.

"Ah! my boys," said he, "do you think now I was wrong in being

astonished at everything, as you said, and in trying to find out the why

and wherefore of it?"

"You have had the luck," answered Paul coldly; "Fortune is blind, and

doesn't always choose the most worthy upon whom to bestow her favors."

But Peter said, "You have done well, brother; and with or without ears,

I am delighted at your good fortune, and only wish our poor old father

was here to see it also."

Thumbling took his two brothers along with him, and, as he was in high

favor at court, that very day he secured them good situations.

IV.

Meanwhile, the king was tossing uneasily on his magnificent bed, and

broad awake. Such a son-in-law as Thumbling didn't please him overmuch,

so he tried to see if he couldn't think of some way of breaking his

word, without seeming to do so. For people that call themselves honest,

this is by no means an easy task. Put a thief between honor and

interest, you won't find him hesitate; but that is because he _is_ a

thief. In his perplexity, the king sent for Peter and Paul, since the

two brothers were the only ones who could enlighten him on the birth,

character, and disposition of our hero. Peter, who, as you remember, was

good-natured, praised his brother warmly, which didn't please the king

overmuch; but Paul put the king more at his ease, by trying to prove to

him that Thumbling was nothing but an adventurer, and that it would be

ridiculous that so great a monarch should be under obligations to such a

contemptible fellow.

"The scamp is so vain," continued the malicious Paul, "that he thinks he

is stout enough to manage a giant; and you can use this vanity of his to

get rid of him. In the neighboring country there is an ugly Troll, who

is the terror of the whole neighborhood. He devours all the cattle for

ten leagues about, and commits unheard-of devastation everywhere. Now

Thumbling has said a great many times that, if he wanted to, he would

make this giant his slave."

"We shall see about this," said the king, who caught at the insinuation

of the wicked brother, and thereupon sent the two brothers away, and

slept tranquilly the rest of the night.

The next morning, when the whole court was called together, the king

ordered Thumbling to be sent for; and presently he made his appearance,

white as a lily, ruddy as a rose, and smiling as the morn.

"My good son-in-law," said the king, emphasizing these words, "a hero

like yourself cannot marry a princess without giving her a present

worthy of her exalted rank. Now there is in the neighboring woods a

Troll, who, they say, is twenty feet high, and who eats a whole ox for

his breakfast. This fine fellow, with his three-cornered hat, his golden

epaulettes, his braided jacket, and his staff, fifteen feet long, would

make a servant indeed worthy of a king. My daughter begs you to make her

this trifling present, after which she will see about giving you her

hand."

"That is not an easy task," answered Thumbling; "but, if it please your

Majesty, I will try."

So saying, he went down to the kitchen, took his stout leather bag, put

in it the magic axe, a loaf of bread, some cheese, and a knife, and

then, throwing all over his shoulder, started off for the woods. Peter

whimpered, but Paul chuckled, thinking that, his brother once gone, he

should never see him back again.

Once fairly in the forest, Thumbling looked around to right and left;

but the grass was so thick that he couldn't see anything, so he began to

sing at the top of his voice,--

"Master Troll, Master Troll!

I defy you to appear!

I must have you, body and soul,

Master Troll, Master Troll!

Show yourself, for I AM HERE!"

"AND I AM HERE!" cried the giant, with a terrible shout. "Wait a minute,

and I will only make a mouthful of you!"

"Don't be in a hurry, my good fellow," replied Thumbling, in a little

squeaking voice, "I have a whole hour to give you."

When the Troll came to the place where Thumbling was, he looked around

on every side, very much astonished at not seeing anything. At last,

lowering his eyes to the ground, he discovered what appeared to be a

little child, sitting on a fallen tree, with a stout leather bag between

his knees.

"Is it you, pigmy, who woke me up from my nap?" growled the Troll,

rolling his great red eyes.

"I am the very one," replied Thumbling, "I have come to take you into my

service."

"He! he!" laughed the giant, who was as stupid as he was big, "that is a

good joke indeed. But I am going to pitch you into that raven's nest I

see up there, to teach you not to make a noise in my forest."

"_Your_ forest!" laughed Thumbling. "It is as much mine as it is yours,

and if you say a word more, I will cut it down in a quarter of an hour."

"Ha! ha!" shouted the giant, "and I should like to see you begin, my

brave fellow."

Thumbling carefully placed the axe on the ground, and said, "Chop!

chop!! chop!!!"

And lo and behold! the axe begins to chop, hew, hack, now right, now

left, and up and down, till the branches tumble on the Troll's head like

hail in autumn.

"Enough, enough!" said the Troll, who began to be alarmed. "Don't

destroy my forest. But who the mischief are you?"

"I am the famous sorcerer THUMBLING," answered our hero, in as gruff a

voice as his little body was capable of; "and I have only to say a

single word to chop your head off your shoulders. You don't know yet

with whom you have to do."

The giant hesitated, very much disturbed at what he saw. Meanwhile,

Thumbling, who began to be hungry, opened his stout leather bag, and

took out his bread and cheese.

"What is that white stuff?" asked the Troll, who had never seen any

cheese before.

"That is a stone," answered Thumbling. He began to eat as eagerly as

possible.

"Do you eat stones?" asked the giant.

"O yes," replied Thumbling, "that is my ordinary food, and that is the

reason I am not so big as you, who eat oxen; but it is also the reason

why, little as I am, I am ten times as strong as you are. Now take me to

your house."

The Troll was conquered; and, marching before Thumbling like a dog

before a little child, he led him to his monstrous cabin.

"Now listen," said Thumbling to the giant, after they were fairly

seated, "one of us has got to be the master, and the other the servant.

Let us make this bargain: if I can't do whatever you do, I am to be your

slave; if you are not able to do whatever I do, you are to be mine."

"Agreed," said the Troll; "I should admire to have such a little servant

as you are. It is too much work for me to think, and you have wit enough

for both; so begin with the trial. Here are my two buckets,--go and get

the water to make the soup."

Thumbling looked at the buckets. They were two enormous hogsheads, ten

feet high and six broad. It would have been much easier for him to drown

himself in them than to move them.

"O, ho!" shouted the giant, as he saw his hesitation; "and so you are

stuck at the first thing, my boy! Do what I do, you know, and get the

water."

"What is the good of that?" replied Thumbling, calmly; "I will go and

get the spring itself, and put that in the pot."

"No! no!" said the Troll; "that won't do. You have already half spoiled

my forest, and I don't want you to take my spring away, lest to-morrow I

shall go dry. You may attend to the fire, and I will go and get the

water."

After having hung up the kettle, the giant put into it an ox cut into

pieces, fifty cabbages, and a wagon-load of carrots. He then skimmed the

broth with a frying-pan, tasting it every now and then, to see if it was

done. When all was ready, he turned to Thumbling, and said:--

"Now to the table. We'll see if you can do what I can there. I feel like

eating the whole ox, and you into the bargain. I think I will serve you

for dessert."

"All right," said Thumbling; but before sitting down to the table, he

slipped under his jacket his stout leather bag, which reached down to

his feet.

The two champions now set to work. The Troll ate and ate, and Thumbling

wasn't idle; only he pitched everything, beef, cabbage, carrots, and

all, into his bag, when the giant wasn't looking.

"Ouf!" at last grunted the Troll; "I can't do much more; I have got to

unbutton the lower button of my waistcoat."

"Eat away, starveling!" cried Thumbling, sticking the half of a cabbage

into his bag.

"Ouf!" groaned the giant; "I have got to unbutton another button. But

what sort of an ostrich's stomach have you got, my son? I should think

you were used to eating stones!"

"Eat away, lazy-bones!" said Thumbling, sticking a huge junk of beef

into his bag.

"Ouf!" sighed the giant, for the third time; "I have got to unbutton the

third button. I am almost suffocated; and how is it with you, sorcerer?"

"Bah!" answered Thumbling; "it is the easiest thing in the world to

relieve yourself; and so saying he took his knife, and slit his jacket

and the bag under it the whole length of his stomach.

"It is your turn now," he said to the giant; "do as I do, you know, _if

you can_."

"Your humble servant," replied the Troll; "pray excuse me! I had rather

be your servant than do that; _my_ stomach don't digest steel!"

No sooner said than done; the giant kissed Thumbling's hand in token of

submission, and taking his little master on one shoulder, and a huge bag

of gold on the other, he started off for the king's palace.

V.

They were having a great feast at the palace, and thinking no more of

Thumbling than if the giant had eaten him up a week before; when, all of

a sudden, they heard a terrible noise that shook the palace to its very

foundations. It was the Troll, who, finding the great gateway too low

for him to enter, had overturned it with a single kick of his foot.

Everybody ran to the windows, the king among the rest, and there saw

Thumbling quietly seated on the shoulder of his terrible servant.

Our adventurer sprang lightly to the balcony of the second story, where

he saw his betrothed, and, bending gracefully on one knee, he said:--

"Princess, you asked me for a slave; I present you two."

This gallant speech was published the next morning in the Court Gazette;

but at the moment it was said it was quite embarrassing to the poor

king; and as he didn't know how to reply to it, he drew the princess one

side, and thus addressed her:--

[Illustration]

"My child, I have now no possible excuse for refusing your hand to this

daring young man; sacrifice yourself, my darling, to your country;

remember that princesses do not marry to please themselves."

"Pardon me, father," answered the princess, courtesying; "princess or

not, every woman likes to marry according to her taste. Let me defend my

rights as I think best."

"Thumbling," added she, aloud, "you are brave and lucky; but that is not

enough alone to please women."

"I know that," answered Thumbling; "it is necessary besides to do their

pleasure, and submit to their caprices."

"You are a witty fellow," said the princess; "and since you understand

me so well, I am going to propose another trial to you. You need not be

alarmed, for this time you will only have me for an antagonist. Let us

try and see who will be the sharpest and quickest, and my hand shall be

the prize of the battle."

Thumbling assented, with a low bow, and followed the court into the

great hall of audience, where the trial was to take place. There, to the

affright of all, the Troll was found, sprawling on the floor; for, as

the hall was only fifteen feet high, the poor fellow couldn't get up. On

a sign of his young master, he crawled humbly to him, happy and proud

to obey. It was Force itself, in the service of Wit.

"Now," said the princess, "let us begin with some nonsense. It is an old

story that women are not afraid to lie; and we will see which of us will

stand the biggest story without objection. The first one who says,

'_That is too much_,' will be beaten."

"I am always at the service of your Royal Highness," answered Thumbling;

"whether to lie in sport, or to tell the truth in sober earnest."

"I am sure," began the princess, "that you haven't got a farm half as

beautiful as ours; and it is so large, that, when two shepherds are

blowing their horns at each end of it, neither can hear the other."

"That is nothing at all," said Thumbling; "my father's farm is so large,

that, if a heifer two months old goes in at the gate on one side of it,

when she goes out at the other she takes a calf of her own with her."

"That don't surprise me," continued the princess; "but you haven't got a

bull half as big as ours; a man can sit on each of his horns, and the

two can't touch each other with a twenty-foot pole."

"That is nothing at all," replied Thumbling; "my father's bull is so

large, that a servant sitting on one of his horns can't see the servant

sitting on the other."

"That don't surprise me," said the princess; "but you haven't got half

so much milk at your farm as we have; for we fill, every day, twenty

hogsheads, a hundred feet high; and every week, we make a pile of cheese

as high as the big pyramid of Egypt."

"That is nothing at all," said Thumbling. "In my father's dairy they

make such big cheeses, that once, when my father's mare fell into the

press, we only found her after travelling seven days, and she was so

much injured that her back was broken. So to mend that I made her a

backbone of a pine-tree, that answered splendidly; till one fine morning

the tree took it into its head to grow, and it grew and grew until it

was so high that I climbed up to Heaven on it. There I looked down, and

saw a lady in a white gown spinning sea-foam to make gossamer with. I

went to take hold of it, and snap! the thread broke, and I fell into a

rat-hole. There I saw your father and my mother spinning; and as your

father was clumsy, lo and behold, my mother gave him such a box on the

ear, that it made his old wig shake----"

"_That is too much!_" interrupted the princess. "My father never

suffered such an insult in all his life."

"She said it! she said it!" shouted the giant "Now, master, the princess

is ours!"

VI.

But the princess said, blushing: "Not quite yet. I have three riddles to

give you, Thumbling; guess them, and I will obey my father, and become

your wife without any more objections. Tell me, first, what that is

which is always falling, and is never broken?"

"Oh!" answered Thumbling, "my mother told me that a long time ago; it is

a waterfall."

"That is so," interrupted the giant; "but who would have thought of

that."

"Tell me, next," continued the princess, with a slight trembling in her

voice, "what is that that every day goes the same journey, and yet never

returns on its steps?"

"Oh!" answered Thumbling, "my mother told me that a long time ago; it is

the sun."

"You are right," said the princess, pale with emotion. "And now for my

last question, which you will never guess. What is that that you think,

and that I don't think? What is that we both think, and what is that we

neither of us think?"

Thumbling bent his head, and seemed embarrassed; and the Troll whispered

to him: "Master, don't be disturbed. If you can't guess it, just make a

sign to me, and I will carry off the princess, and make an end of the

matter at once."

"Be silent, slave!" answered Thumbling. "Force alone can do nothing, my

poor friend, and no one ought to know it better than you. Let me have my

own way."

"Madame," said he then to the princess, in the midst of a profound

silence, "I hardly dare guess; and yet in this riddle I plainly perceive

my own happiness. I dared to think that your questions would have no

difficulty for me, while you thought the contrary; you have the goodness

to believe that I am not unworthy to please you, while I have hardly the

boldness to think so; finally," added he, smilingly, "what we both think

is, that there are bigger fools in the world than you and I; and what we

neither of us think is, that the king, your august father, and this poor

giant have as much--"

"Silence!" interrupted the princess; "here is my hand."

"What were you thinking about me?" asked the king; "I should be

delighted to know."

"My dear father," said the princess, embracing him, "we think that you

are the wisest of kings, and the best of fathers."

"It is well!" replied the king, loftily; "and now I must do something

for my subjects. Thumbling, from this moment you are a Duke!"

"Long live Duke Thumbling! long live my master!" shouted the giant, with

a terrific roar, that sounded like a clap of thunder breaking over the

palace. But, luckily, there was no harm done, save badly frightening

everybody, and breaking all the windows.

VII.

It would be unnecessary to give a full account of the wedding of the

princess and Duke Thumbling. All weddings are alike; the difference is

in what follows after them. Nevertheless, it would be improper in a

truthful historian not to say that the presence of the Troll added a

great deal to the magnificent display. For instance, when the happy

couple were returning from the church, the giant, in the excess of his

joy, found nothing better to do than to take the royal carriage on the

top of his head, and to carry the wedded pair back to the palace. This

is an incident worth noting, because it doesn't happen every day.

At night there was a splendid feast at the palace, with suppers,

orations, poems, fireworks, illuminations, and everything. Nothing was

wanting, and the joy was universal. Everybody in the palace laughed,

sung, ate, or drank, save one man, who, seated sullenly alone in a dark

corner, amused himself in a very different way from everybody else. It

was the surly Paul, who rejoiced that his ears had been cut off, because

he had become deaf, and consequently couldn't hear the praises all were

showering on his brother. On the other hand, he was unhappy, because he

couldn't help seeing the happiness of the bride and bridegroom. So he

rushed out into the forest, where the bears speedily made an end of him;

and I wish a like punishment to all envious people like him.

Thumbling was such a little fellow that it was hard work for his

subjects to respect him; but he was so wise, so affable, and so kind,

that he very soon conquered the love of his wife, and the affection of

all his people.

After the death of his father-in-law, he succeeded to the throne, which

he occupied fifty-two years, without anybody ever having thought of a

revolution; a fact that would be incredible, if it were not attested by

the official records of his reign. He was so wise, says history, that he

always divined what could best serve or please the humblest of his

subjects, while he was so good, that the pleasures of others constituted

his greatest happiness. He only lived for others.

But why praise his goodness? Is not that the virtue of all men of

intelligence and wit? Whatever others may say, _I_ don't believe there

are such things as good brutes here on earth; I speak now of featherless

brutes that go on two legs. When a man is brutal, he cannot be kind and

good; when a man is good, he cannot be brutal;--believe my long

experience, which has learned it. If all blockheads are not

vicious,--and I think they are,--all wicked men are necessarily foolish.

And that is the moral of this story, if you can't find a better one. If

you will find me a better, I will go and tell it to the Pope of Rome

himself.

_From the Finnish._

[Illustration]

THE RED-COATS.

There was commotion in Leafland. All the cities of the Great Republic

were smitten with sudden dismay. Oakwich, Mapleton, Ashby, Elmthorpe,

Beechworth, Sumachford, Nutham, trembled from centre to circumference.

There were hurried consultations, desperate resolutions rejected as soon

as adopted, eager inventories taken of domestic property, and a fearful

looking-for of coming calamity. For, on the fine September morning when

the sun poured out golden showers, and Leafland sat fair and smiling in

robes of green, and so the whole universe was golden-green, there came a

messenger flying from the North country,--a wandering Wood-thrush,

deserted, draggled, and forlorn, faltering on weary wing through the

lovely lanes of Leafland. The men begged him to tarry; the women

promised him the daintiest tidbit in the sweetest bower on the sunniest

bough; and the little Leaf-people clapped their tiny hands, and danced

on the tips of their tiny toes for glee. For so admirably managed in

Leafland are the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Foreign

Affairs, that you might think the Leaflanders had solved the great

problem of universal brotherhood. The stranger that is within their

gates is all one with him who is bone of their bone and flesh of their

flesh. No sooner does a foreigner enter their borders, than he is

presented with the freedom of all their cities. They provide for his

wants, protect him from danger, and cherish his home as tenderly as if

he were one of themselves. Robin the Red-breast and shy little Veery,

Pewee the plaintive and cheerful Chewink, Long-sparrow, Bluebird, and

sweet Chickadee, all glide freely in and out of their green and golden

halls, flit through their winding streets, and take part in all their

delights. Nor have the Leaflanders any trouble to understand

bird-language. They have not, like the old Ger-men, eaten the hearts of

birds, but by a more excellent way have they entered into all their

secrets. Through long summer days and the silence of dewy nights, they

lean so lovingly over them, they stir so softly around the still

bird-cradles, they coo so tenderly to the sweet egg-nestlings and the

helpless baby-birds, that one heart-language springs up between them,

and shines familiarly through all foreign phrase. Nor is it the birds

alone who take out naturalization-papers in Leafland. All manner of

nations and peoples partake of its hospitalities and remember it for

blessing. You have only to be pure-hearted, and you may become at once a

Leaflander.

So it came to pass that the Leaflanders were sore grieved at heart to

see the weary Wood-thrush deaf to all their entreaties, and bent alone

on pursuing his solitary way. But as he wheeled slowly above their

heads, as he seemed just about to vanish into the blue distance, they

heard his faint voice--whether in terror or weakness they could not

tell--only the words fell distinctly on their ears,--

"_I see! I see! I see! The Red-coats are coming!_"

Faint and far and clarion-clear, it trembled through Leafland, low but

ominous. Mapleton heard it and wondered; Elmthorpe and Ashby and Nutham

repeated it, looking into one another's eyes for a meaning. Proud old

Oakwich tried to assume a grave aspect, but was inwardly at her wits'

end. "The Red-coats are coming." All the ancient men and women,

great-great-great-great-grandfathers and grandmothers, whose childhood

lay wellnigh lost in the infinite past of April days, said it over to

each other with thin, quavering voices; but all their experience gave

them no key to the mysterious message. Then the post-riders were brought

into requisition. The whole corporation of Gale, Breeze, Zephyr, & Co.,

Express Company, all their clerks, agents, and errand-boys, were sent to

and fro through the Commonwealth, to see if any one anywhere had a

little light to bestow upon the subject. Alas! the light came all too

soon, and brought infinite sighing and sobbing. A thought suddenly broke

loose in Oakwich, and up spake an old Oakwichian. "Oh! and oh! and woe

is me for my miserable land now, now about to be bereft of her children!

All her strength destroyed, all her loveliness laid desolate!"

Straightway throughout Leafland rose the voice of wailing, "Woe! woe!

woe! for the miserable land!" but none of them knew what they were

crying for; only the Oakwichian began it, and nothing better occurred to

them to do than to join in; which soon made the sunny day overcast, and

all the people walking in Netherworld where it approaches Leafland

wrapped their old cloaks about them, and said spitefully, "What a

disagreeable, raw east-wind it is, to be sure!"

But by and by, when their throats were quite dry and sore with wailing,

one of the Mapletonians, a very sensible young woman, quite famous

indeed for her wisdom, bethought herself to inquire what it was all

about. Then there was a very pretty outburst of indignation. For a

moment they forgot their grief, and, what was still worse, their good

manners, and turned upon the unfortunate young woman.

"And so you set yourself above your betters, and fiddle while Leafland

is burning!" cried one.

"And pray, Miss Wiseacre," asked another, "how came _you_ to know so

much more than any one else? Who told _you_ that nothing was the

matter?"

"Oh! if women would only mind the house, and not meddle with what does

not belong to them!" exclaimed a third.

All very unjust as you see, for surely the destruction of Leafland

concerned the women as much as the men, and poor "Miss Wiseacre" had not

so much as made an assertion,--only asked a question. However, the

Leaflanders must be excused, because they were quite beside themselves

with terror, and, moreover, a question is sometimes more exasperating

than fire and sword.

But the old Oakwichian was more reasonable, and, ever glad, even in the

article of death, to disseminate useful knowledge, interposed. "I will

tell you what the matter is," he said. "Well I remember in the far-away

past, in the sunny summer-days that will return, alas! no more,"--here a

burst of sorrow prevented speech, but he presently recovered

himself,--"how a little maid used to walk in Netherworld, and rest under

the shadow of our greatness, toying with the light. She was a favorite

with every one hereabouts. Gold was her hair like a spun sunbeam, blue

her eyes like our own June sky, and her voice might sing the lowest

lullaby of the Red Mavis, or his song to his love in her nest. Sometimes

the little maiden looked up wistfully to us, her eyes all a-gleam with

her glowing fancies. Then we pelted her with sunshine, and caressed her

with shade, and then she was happiest of all. But sometimes she brought

with her hateful things, tasks and tools, useless, awkward, bungling,

sharp weapons, that hurt her tender fingers, long cords that she pulled

aimlessly back and forth, huge books with harsh names, that blurred her

dear eyes and gloomed her bright face. First we tried to shame and then

to woo her away from them, but some invisible old dragon stood over her,

and forced her on; and so we learned at length to watch and wait till

the hated task was over. Thereby we learned many strange and wonderful

things; but this alone is to the purpose, that I surely recall how for

many days she kept reading about the Red-coats, and I peeped down over

her shoulder, as we swayed in the dance one afternoon, and saw pictures

of these same Red-coats, a great destroying army, fierce and fell, who

burn villages, and talk piously, and slay men, women, and children. Them

has friend Wood-thrush verily seen, and against them he strove to warn

us. But, ah! what avails it? What can we do, or whither shall we flee!

Can a nation take wing like a Wood-thrush? Can Leafland flit about like

a Swallow? And who should warrant us that the Red-coats should not

pursue us to remotest fastnesses? Nay, they may be even now upon us.

Woe! woe is me! We were Leaflanders; Oakwich was, and the great glory of

the Elmthorpians! But now we be all dead men!"

At this, the Leaflanders only paused long enough to upbraid the young

woman. "See now whether anything is the matter!" and immediately fell to

upon their despair.

"A nation in ruins!" cried the statesman. "Leafland falls from its lofty

summit, and I live to see the day."

"I behold the gods departing from Leafland," spake the scholar. "This is

the end of the fates of Leafland."

"Now I do not care for your gods and your fates and your what-all,"

sobbed a nervous little lady. "I never could see that they were of any

use in housekeeping; but who shall watch over the tender birdlings when

we are gone?"

"And never any more dances! Forever, never, never, forever!" You may

know it was a belle said that.

"Dances are but the vanity of this world," moaned a sedate matron; "but

woe for my dear pet Aphides, with their six hundred thousand children,

who will be dead before they are born!"

"Bother your six hundred thousand children!" growled a crusty

philosopher. "If they _are_ dead, it is the only good thing ever I heard

about them. It might be worth while to have one's country crashing about

one's ears occasionally, for the sake of being well rid of such trash.

Here are all our laboratories broken up, and the sun's occupation gone,

and you making a to-do about a parcel of babies!"

"O the sweet sunshine!" wept a poet, but most musically,--"the warm,

delicious sunshine, that our hungry souls can feed upon no more, nor

ever fill our drinking-cups with nectared dew!"

And so in Mapleton and Sumachford and through all Leafland was nothing

heard but the voice of lamentation, and nothing seen but floods of

tears, and nothing thought of but how to avert or escape the threatened

calamity; and, in their terror and trouble, the Leaflanders almost lost

their fine tempers, and were often on the brink of quarrelling; and the

people walking in Netherworld met each other under blue cotton

umbrellas, and exclaimed, "What a spell of weather!" and altogether it

was very uncomfortable, both in Leafland and Netherworld.

Just at this time a gay young Chipmonk appeared upon the scene,--a

careless, dashing, saucy fellow, very popular among the young

Leaflanders of the rapid sort. He came skipping and frisking into

Nutham, as his manner was, both pockets full of corn which he had

_confiscated_, he remarked significantly, from a field down yonder. He

nodded jauntily right and left, and then disposed himself comfortably in

a corner, and began cracking his dainties in a very free-and-easy

manner, not noticing the woe-begone aspect of his friends. All at once,

however, he awoke to a realizing sense of things, and showed his

sympathy after his own fashion, by giving a sudden flirt with his tail,

and calling out, irreverently, "What's the row?"

Amid tears and sighs, the sad story was related to him, in all its

length and breadth and thickness; but, instead of the answering tear and

sigh which his auditors expected, he only thrust his paws into his

pockets, and whisked his tail over his back in frantic convulsions of

laughter; muttering, as breath came to him in the pauses, "O, what a

gony! For that matter, O, what a pack of gonies!"

Now the Leaflanders were quite too well-bred ever to have used or heard

so barbarous a word as "gony." Nevertheless, reason and instinct both

taught them, as it will teach all people of refined sensibilities, that

to be called a gony is to be called something very disagreeable; and if

anything can heighten the unpleasant sensation, it is to be called "a

pack of gonies." Consequently the Leaflanders began to look at each

other blankly, and even to suspect that possibly they had been making

fools of themselves. But Chipmonk did not leave them long in suspense.

"Your terrible Red-coats are your own selves," he cried. "I have heard

of people being frightened by their own shadow; but never, in all my

born days, did I hear of any one being frightened by his own shine."

"Now will you explain yourself?" cried one of the young ladies, her

curiosity getting the better of her chagrin. All the old men and the

young men were longing to know, but were too proud to ask; but the

question being asked for them, they were glad enough to crowd in, and

hear the answer.

"It is only this, and nothing more," answered Chipmonk, ejecting a

pine-seed from his mouth. "You are all going to have a new suit of

clothes, more splendid than you ever saw in your lives,--yellow and

brown and spotted, and all manner of magnificent colors, but chiefly

red; and then you will be Red-coats, won't you? Wood-thrush came from

north, where the tailoring began; and he saw it, and told you. It is a

sign for him to be up and flying. He thought it would be his excuse for

declining your invitation, instead of which you all went thrusting your

heads into a bramble-bush. O my!"

"But say, Chipmonk, do you know this? Are you sure of it? It seems too

good news to be true."

"Well, all I can say is, I have lived here, man and boy, nigh on to

forty months; and I know it always _has_ happened about this time. I am

young for a Chipmonk; but I was in full career long before the oldest

crone among you was born; and if there is anything hereabouts that I

don't know, you may take your affidavit it isn't worth knowing." And he

sat back, and betook himself once more to his "confiscated" corn with

the most indifferent superiority.

Oh! but there was gladness then in Leafland, you may be sure. All their

sadness was turned to rejoicing; and even then the work of

transformation--called, in squirrelicular, "tailoring"--began. Old and

young, men and maids, felt a glory in their blood. All the essence of

the summer-long sunshine seemed to pour itself into their hearts. From

one end of Leafland to another was only singing and dancing and delight.

Mapleton crowned herself with a golden crown, and Oakwich wreathed her

brows with the sunset. All the beauty of the past was dull and sombre to

this new splendor, this royal magnificence, born of the ineffable light.

A poet and a publisher walked through the Essex woods one October

afternoon; and they remarked that the foliage was very brilliant this

year, which was quite true; but if I had not been born, you never would

have known all about it.

_Gail Hamilton._

[Illustration]

THE COLOR-BEARER

[Illustration]

Was a fortress to be stormed:

Boldly right in view they formed,

All as quiet as a regiment parading:

Then in front a line of flame!

Then at left and right the same!

Two platoons received a furious enfilading.

To their places still they filed,

And they smiled at the wild

Cannonading.

"'T will be over in an hour!

'T will not be much of a shower!

Never mind, my boys," said he, "a little drizzling!"

Then to cross that fatal plain,

Through the whirring, hurtling rain

Of the grape-shot, and the minie-bullets' whistling!

But he nothing heeds nor shuns,

As he runs with the guns

Brightly bristling!

Leaving trails of dead and dying

In their track, yet forward flying

Like a breaker where the gale of conflict rolled them,

With a foam of flashing light

Borne before them on their bright

Burnished barrels,--O, 't was fearful to behold them!

While from ramparts roaring loud

Swept a cloud like a shroud

To enfold them!

O, his color was the first!

Through the burying cloud he burst,

With the standard to the battle forward slanted!

Through the belching, blinding breath

Of the flaming jaws of Death,

Till his banner on the bastion he had planted!

By the screaming shot that fell,

And the yell of the shell,

Nothing daunted.

Right against the bulwark dashing,

Over tangled branches crashing,

'Mid the plunging volleys thundering ever louder!

There he clambers, there he stands,

With the ensign in his hands,--

O, was ever hero handsomer or prouder?

Streaked with battle-sweat and slime,

And sublime in the grime

Of the powder!

'T was six minutes, at the least,

Ere the closing combat ceased,--

Near as we the mighty moments then could measure,--

And we held our souls with awe,

Till his haughty flag we saw

On the lifting vapors drifting o'er the embrasure!

Saw it glimmer in our tears,

While our ears heard the cheers

Rend the azure!

Through the abatis they broke,

Through the surging cannon-smoke,

And they drove the foe before like frightened cattle!

O, but never wound was his,

For in other wars than this,

Where the volleys of Life's conflict roar and rattle,

He must still, as he was wont,

In the front bear the brunt

Of the battle.

He shall guide the van of Truth!

And in manhood, as in youth,

Be her fearless, be her peerless Color-Bearer!

With his high and bright example,

Like a banner brave and ample,

Ever leading through receding clouds of Error,

To the empire of the Strong,

And to Wrong he shall long

Be a terror!

_J. T. Trowbridge._

THE LITTLE PRISONER.

PART I.

ON THE BATTLE-GROUND.

We--grandma, "our young folks," and I--live up here among the hills, in

a quaint, old-fashioned farm-house,--older than any of the "old folks"

now living; and every day, when the sun goes down, we gather around the

great wood fire in the sitting-room, and talk and tell stories by the

hour together. I tell the most of the stories; for, though I am only a

plain farmer, going about in a slouched hat, a rusty coat, and a pair of

pantaloons so old and threadbare that you would not wear them if you

were in the ash business, I have mingled with men, seen a great many

places, and been almost all over the world.

My own children like my stories, because they think they are true, and

because they are all about the men I have met, and the places I have

seen, and so give them some glimpses of what is going on in the busy

life outside of our quiet country home; but I do not expect other young

folks to like them as well as my own do,--for their own father will not

tell them. However, I am going to write out a few of the many I know, in

the hope that they may give some trifling pleasure and instruction to

boys and girls I have never seen, and who gather of evenings around

firesides far away from the one where all my stories are first told.

As I sit down to write by this bright, blazing fire, the clouds are

scudding across the moon, and the wind is moaning around the old house,

shaking the doors, and rattling the windows, and snapping the branches

of the great trees as if a whole regiment of young giants were cracking

their whips in the court-yard. On just such a night a wounded boy lay

out on the Wilderness battle-ground!

You have heard of that great battle; how two hundred thousand men met in

a dense forest, and for two long days and nights, over wooded hills, and

through tangled valleys, and deep, rocky ravines, surged against each

other like angry waves in a storm. And you have heard, too--what is very

pitiful to hear--how, when that bloody storm was over, and the sun came

out, dim and cold, on the cheerless May morning which followed, thirty

thousand men--every one the father, brother, or friend of some young

folks at home--lay dead and dying on that awful field. Amid such a host

of dead and dying men, you might overlook one little boy, who, all that

starless Friday night, lay there wounded in the Wilderness. I do not

want you to overlook him, and therefore I am going to tell you his

story.

He was a bright-eyed, fair-haired boy of twelve, the only son of his

mother, who was a widow. He used to read at home of how little boys had

gone to the war, how they had been in the great battles, and how great

generals had praised them; and he longed to go to the war too, and to do

something to make himself as famous as the little boy who fought on the

Rappahannock. For a long time his mother was deaf to his

entreaties,--and he would not go without her consent; but at last, when

a friend of his father raised a company of hundred-days men in his

native town, she let him join as a drummer-boy in the regiment.

The first battle he was in was the terrible one in the Wilderness. His

regiment shared in the first day's fight, but he escaped unharmed; and

all that night, though tired and hungry, he went about in the woods

carrying water to the wounded. The next morning he snatched a few hours'

sleep, and that and a good breakfast refreshed him greatly. At ten

o'clock his regiment moved, and it kept moving and fighting all that

day, until the sun went down; but, though a hundred of his comrades had

fallen around him, he remained unhurt.

The shadows were deepening into darkness, and the night was hanging its

lanterns up in the sky, when the weary men threw themselves on the

ground to rest. Overcome with fatigue, he too lay down, and, giving one

thought to his mother at home, and another to his Father in heaven, fell

fast asleep. Suddenly the sharp rattle of musketry and the deafening

roar of cannon sounded along the lines, and five thousand rebels rushed

out upon them. Surprised and panic-stricken, our men broke and fled;

and, roused by the terrible uproar, James--that was his name--sprang to

his feet, but only in time to catch in his arms the captain, who was

falling. He was shot through and through by a minie ball.

James laid him gently on the ground, took his head tenderly in his lap;

and listened to the last words he had to send to his wife and children.

Meanwhile, yelling like demons, the Rebels came on, and passed them.

Then he could have escaped to the woods, but he would not leave his

father's friend when he was dying.

Soon our men rallied, and in turn drove the enemy. Slowly and sullenly

the Rebels fell back to the hill where James and his friend were lying.

There they made a stand, and for half an hour fought desperately, but

were at last overborne and forced back again. As they were on the eve of

retreating, a tall, ragged ruffian came up to James, and demanded the

watch and money of the captain.

"You will not rob a dying man?" said the little boy, looking up to him

imploringly.

"Wall, I woan't!" was the Rebel's brutal reply, as he aimed his bayonet

straight at the captain's heart.

By a quick, dexterous movement, James parried the blow; but, turning

suddenly on the poor boy, the ruffian, with another thrust of his

bayonet, ran him directly through the body. His head sunk back to the

ground, and he fainted.

How long he lay there unconscious he does not know, but when he came to

himself the moon had gone down, and the stars had disappeared, and

thick, black clouds were filling all the sky. It did not rain, but the

cold wind moaned among the trees, and chilled him through and through.

He tried to rise, but a sharp pain came in his side, and for the first

time he thought of his wound. Passing his hand to it, he found it was

clotted with blood. The cold air had stopped the bleeding, and thus

saved his life. Though the bayonet had gone clear through him, his hurt

was not mortal, for no vital part was injured.

He thought of the captain, and spoke his name; but no answer came. Then

he reached out his hand to find him. He was there, but his face was

cold,--colder than the cold night that was about them. He was dead.

The wounded lay all around, and all this while their cries and groans,

as they called piteously for water, or moaned aloud in their agony, came

to his ear, and went to his very soul. He had heard their cries the

night before, as he crept about among them in the thick woods; but then

they had not sounded so sad, so pitiful, as now, and that night was not

so cold, so dark, so cheerless as this was. Soon he knew the full extent

of their agony. An intolerable thirst came upon him. Hot, melted lead

seemed to run along his veins, and a burning heat, as of a fire of hot

coals kindling in his side, almost consumed him. He cried out for help,

but no help came,--for water, but still he thirsted. Then he

prayed,--prayed to the Good Father, who he knew was looking pitifully

down on him through the thick darkness, to come and help him.

And He came. He always comes to those who ask for Him. Soon the clouds

grew darker, the wind rose higher, and the rain--the cooling, soothing,

grateful rain--poured down in torrents. It wet him through and through,

but it eased his pain, cooled the fever in his blood, and he slept! In

all that cold and pelting storm he slept!

It was broad day when he awoke. The sun was shining dimly through the

thick masses of gray clouds which floated in the sky, but the wind had

gone down, and the rain was over. The moans of the wounded still came

to him, but they were not so frequent, nor so terrible, as they were the

night before. Many had found relief from the rain, and many had ceased

moaning forever.

He could not rise, but, after long and painful effort, he succeeded in

turning over on his side. Then he had a view of the scene around him. He

lay near the summit of a gentle hill, at whose base a little brook was

flowing. At the north it was crowned with a dense growth of oaks and

pines and cedar thickets, but at the south and west it sloped away into

waving meadows and pleasant cornfields, already green with the opening

beauty of spring. Beyond the meadows were other hills, and knolls, and

rocky heights, all covered with an almost impenetrable forest, and there

the hardest fighting of those terrible days was done. A narrow road,

bordered by a worm-fence (Western boys know what a worm-fence is), wound

around the foot of the hill, and led to a large mansion standing half

hidden in a grove of oaks and elms, not half a mile away. Before this

mansion were pleasant lawns and gardens, and in its rear a score or more

of little negro houses, whose whitewashed walls were gleaming in the

sun. This was the plantation--so James afterwards learned--of Major

Lucy, one of those wicked men whose bad ambition has brought this

dreadful war on our country.

The scene was very beautiful, and, looking at it, James forgot for a

moment the darker picture, drawn in blood, on the grass around him. But

there it was. Blackened muskets, broken saddles, overturned caissons,

wounded horses snorting in agony, and fair-haired boys and gray-haired

men mangled and bleeding,--some piled in heaps, and some stretched out

singly to die,--lay all over that green hillside! Here and there a

crippled soldier was creeping about among the wounded, and, close by, a

stalwart man, the blood dripping from his dangling sleeve, was wrapping

a blue-eyed, pale-faced boy in his blanket. "Don't cry, Freddy," he

said; "ye sha'n't be cold! Yer mother'll soon be yere!" But the boy gave

no answer, for--he was dead!

"He don't hear you," said James. "He isn't cold now!"

"I'se afeard he ar',--he said he war. Oh! ef his mother know'd he war

yere! 't would break her heart,--break her heart!" moaned the man, still

wrapping the blanket about the boy.

James closed his eyes to shut out the painful scene, and the thought of

his own mother came to him. Would it not break _her_ heart to know he

was wounded? to hear, perhaps, that he was dead? He must not die; for

her sake, he must not die! ONE only could help him, and so he prayed.

Again he prayed that the Good Father would come to him, and again the

Good Father came!

"What is _ye_ a doin' yere, honey,--a little one loike ye?" asked a kind

voice at his side.

He looked up. It was an old black woman, dressed in a faded woollen

gown, a red and yellow turban, and a pair of flesh-colored stockings

which Nature herself had given her. She was very short, almost as broad

as she was long, and had a face as large round as the moon,--and it

looked very much like the moon when it shines through a black cloud;

for, though darker than midnight, it was all over light,--that kind of

light which shines through the faces of good people.

"I am wounded; I want water," said the little boy, feebly.

"Ye shill hab it, honey," said the woman, giving him some from a bucket

she had set on the ground.

"Guv some ter _my_ lad," cried the man who sat by the dead boy; "he's

been a cryin' fur it all night--all night! Didn't ye yere him?"

"No, I didn't, massa. I hain't been yere more'n a hour, and a tousand's

a heap fur one ole ooman ter 'tend on," she replied, filling a gourd

from the bucket, and going with it to the dead boy.

She stooped down and held the water to his lips, but in a moment started

back, and cried out in a frightened way,--"He'm dead! _He_ can't drink

no more!"

"He hain't dead!" yelled the man, fiercely; "he sha'n't die! Guv _me_

the water, ole 'ooman."

With a trembling hand, he tried to give it to his son. He held it to the

boy's lips for a moment, then, dropping the gourd, and sinking to the

ground, he cried out,--"It'll kill his mother,--kill his mother! Oh!

oh!"

"He'm better off, massa," said the woman, in a voice full of pity; "he'm

whar he kin drink foreber ob de bery water ob life."

"Gwo away, ole 'ooman,--gwo away,--doan't speak ter me!" moaned the man,

throwing his arms around the body of his boy, and burying his face in

the blanket he had wrapped about him.

Brushing her tears away with her apron, the woman turned to James, and

said,--"Whar is ye hurted, honey? Leff aunty see."

The little boy opened his jacket, and showed her his side. She could not

see the wound, for the blood had glued his shirt, and even his

waistcoat, to his body; but she said, kindly,--"Don't fret, honey.

'Tain't nuffin ter hurt,--it'll soon be well. Ole Katy'll borrer a

blanket or so frum some o' dese as is done dead, and git ye warm; and

den, when she's gub'n a little more water ter de firsty ones, she'll

take a keer ob you,--she will, honey; so neber you f'ar."

She went away, but soon came again with the blankets, and, wrapping two

about him, and putting another under his head, said,--"Dar, honey, now

you'll be warm; and neber you keer ef ole Katy hab borrer'd de blankets.

Dey'll neber want 'em darselfs; and she knows it'll do dar bery souls

good, eben whar dey is, ter know _you's_ got 'em. So neber keer, and gwo

ter sleep,--dat's a good chile. Aunty'll be yere agin in a jiffin."

James thanked the good woman, and, closing his eyes again, soon fell

asleep. The sun was right over his head, when old Katy awoke him, and

said,--"Now, honey, Aunty's ready now. She'll tote you off ter de

plantation, and hab you all well in less nur no time, she will; fur

massa's 'way, and dar haint no 'un dar now ter say she sha'n't."

"You can't carry me; I'm too heavy, Aunty," said James, making a faint

effort to smile.

"Carry you! Why, honey chile, ole Katy could tote a big man, forty times

so heaby as you is, ef dey was only a hurted so bad as you."

Taking him up, then, as if he had been a bag of feathers, she laid his

head over her shoulder, and, cuddling him close to her bosom, carried

him off to the large mansion he had seen in the distance.

What befell him there I shall tell "our young folks" in the next number

of this, their own Magazine.

_Edmund Kirke._

THOMAS HUGHES.

The portrait given with the present number of "Our Young Folks" is that

of one of England's cleverest writers and best men,--Thomas Hughes. Mr.

Hughes is well known throughout all America as the author of those most

spirited and truthful books, "School Days at Rugby," and "Tom Brown at

Oxford,"--books which all young people, girls as well as boys, ought to

read, and which their elders cannot fail to find delightful and

profitable. Another volume, "The Scouring of the White Horse," has also

been republished in this country, but as its interest is quite

local,--the scene being laid in the county of Kent, England, and the

principal incidents relating to a festival which took place there,--it

has not been so extensively circulated.

Mr. Hughes is the second son of John Hughes, Esq., of Donington Priory,

near Newbury, Berks Co., England. He was born October 20, 1823, and

received his early education at Rugby under the instruction of the noble

Dr. Arnold, who is depicted so beautifully in "School Days at Rugby." In

1841 he entered Oriel College, Oxford, and received his degree of B. A.

in 1845. He immediately registered himself as a student at Lincoln's

Inn, and was called to the bar in January, 1848.

Mr. Hughes still pursues the profession of a barrister, in which he

stands prominent, and devotes much of his time to the writing and doing

of good things. He has been a strong helper in plans for the education

and assistance of workmen in his own country, and has always advocated

the principles of liberty and justice everywhere. He is one of the

truest friends that the United States has in England, and his voice and

his pen have never failed to support her cause against that of Rebeldom.

[Illustration]

PHYSICAL HEALTH.

TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF AMERICA.

The great war will end. Then what magnificent expansion! But what

immense responsibilities! Soon they must rest upon you,--your manhood

and womanhood. God and the nations will watch you.

A great and good nation is made up of great and good men and women. A

strong building cannot be made of weak timbers.

A complete man is composed of a healthy body, a cultured brain, and a

true heart. Wanting either he fails. Is his heart false? His strong head

and body become instruments of evil. Is his head weak? His strong body

and true heart are cheated. Is the body sick? His noble head and heart

are like a great engine in a rickety boat.

_Our Young Folks are strong and good._

I have studied the life of the young among the better peoples of Europe.

It is not flattery to say, that you, my young fellow-countrymen, have

the best heads and hearts in the world. The great size of your brains is

noticed by every intelligent stranger. The ceaseless activity of those

brains is one of the most striking features of American life. American

growth, as seen in railways, telegraphs, and agriculture, is tame and

slow when compared with the achievements of our schools. And where else

among the young are there such organizations for the spread of the

Gospel, for temperance, for the relief of the sick and wounded?

_But our Young Folks are weak._

[Illustration: Fig. 1 John. Fig. 2 Thomas.]

Your weakness is in your bodies. Here lies your danger. I see nothing

which distresses me so much as the physique of the children in our

public schools. Great heads, beautiful faces, brilliant eyes; but with

that attenuated neck, thin, flat chest, and languid gait. Look at these

two boys, John and Thomas. John is a native Yankee. I found him, without

long searching, in one of our public schools. Thomas is an imaginary

boy, composed by the artist.

_Causes of John's Deformity._

He has lain several hours every night in the position seen in Fig. 3.

Much of that ugly pushing forward of the head among girls is produced by

thick pillows.

Young people should sleep on hair pillows two inches thick. Ambitious

girls and boys throw the pillow aside. This is the other extreme, and

wrong. It is unhealthy to lie constantly on the back. You must

frequently change to the side. But when you turn upon the side, if you

have no pillow, you must either twist the shoulders into a mischievous

attitude, or let the head fall down to the level of the shoulder, as

seen in Fig. 4. This disturbs the circulation in the neck.

[Illustration: Fig. 3. Fig. 4.]

_False Positions while sitting._

Another cause of the bad shape of John's spine we find in his bad

positions while sitting. Fig. 5 represents the position in which he

should sit. You observe his feet rest on the floor. His hips are against

the back of the chair. His spine is erect. In this position he may sit

two hours without fatigue, provided the chair be a good one. About

chairs I shall presently say something.

[Illustration: Fig. 5. Fig. 6.]

Fig. 6 shows a position in which I often see John. Do you observe how,

_with his legs crossed_, he must push forward on the seat? The small of

the back is no longer supported. The strain will soon produce weakness

and pain.

Fig. 7 represents a still worse position. The strain upon the small of

the back must not only produce weakness there, but must soon incline the

spine to bend backward, while its natural shape at that point is a

beautiful curve forward.

Writers on manners say the positions seen in Figs. 6 and 7 are vulgar.

In this case, as in most others, propriety and physiology are in

harmony.

_Positions in School._

Fig. 8 shows a bad posture. Sitting thus three hours a day must soon

produce round shoulders. Various devices have been proposed to help the

pupil out of this difficulty. Our booksellers furnish a simple rack,

which is shown in Fig. 9. It holds one or two books. In Fig. 10 two

books are seen resting upon it. Fig. 11 shows the position of the pupil

while using the book-rack. An eminent professor in a New-England college

said to the assembled students, the other day, "This book-holder will

add years to a literary man's life."

[Illustration: Fig. 7. Fig. 8.]

_Chairs._

I promised a word about chairs. Our manufacturers do not consider health

in designing the shape of chairs. The seats are too high, and too nearly

horizontal. Boys and girls occupy seats seventeen inches high. A girl

twelve years old should have a chair with the seat not more than twelve

inches high. For a man even, it should not be more than fifteen or

sixteen inches. (These dimensions apply to the front of the seat.) The

back part should be at least two inches lower. With this inclination,

the sitter will slide backward, against the back of the chair, instead

of sliding forward, as he generally does. This sliding forward produces

a strain upon the small of the back, and is, in fact, the cause of most

of the fatigue in sitting. The width of the chair-seat from front to

back should be the same as the height in front.

[Illustration: Fig. 9. Fig. 10.]

The chair-_back_ should project farthest forward at that point which

corresponds to the small of the back. Instead of this, there is

generally at that point a hollow. This error is the cause of much pain

and weakness in the lower part of the spine.

Fig. 12 shows an unphysiological chair. It is a fashionable

parlor-chair. Fig. 13 is a physiological chair. Two hours in this will

fatigue less than half an hour in that.

[Illustration: Fig. 11. Fig. 12. Fig. 13.]

_Walking._

Americans are bad walkers. It is rare to find an exception, even in our

army. Among Europeans, and the aborigines of our own continent, a noble

mien is not uncommon. I understand the causes of this ugly defect, among

our people, but my present purpose is simply to call attention to it,

and to point out the remedy.

In English and French books on the military drill and physical training,

whole chapters discuss the subject of walking. We are told that this or

that part of the foot must touch the ground first,--that the angles must

be so and so, &c., &c. I will not say this advice is not right, but I

will say that very few have been helped by it.

Look at a good walker. Shoulders, head, and hips drawn well back, and

the chest thrown forward. What a firm, vigorous tread! Such a walk may

easily be secured by carrying a weight upon the head. An iron crown has

been devised for this purpose. It consists of three crowns, one within

the other, each weighing about nine pounds. One or all three may be worn

at a time.

The water-carriers of Southern Europe, although belonging to the lowest

class, have a noble bearing. Certain negroes in the South, who "tote"

burdens upon the head as a business, can be readily pointed out in a

crowd. The effort required to keep the burden directly over the spine so

develops the muscles of the back and neck, that in the absence of the

burden the head is carried in a noble, erect attitude.

By carrying one of these crowns upon the head half an hour two or three

times a day, while walking in the garden or through the halls of the

house, one may soon become a fine walker. One tenth of the time occupied

in learning a few tunes on the piano, given to this exercise, would

insure any girl a noble carriage. The crown is not necessary. Any weight

which does not press upon the very crown of the head, but _about_ it,

will answer the purpose equally well.

Fig. 14 exhibits John as the photographer took him the first time he

wore the crown. You observe how his form is changed.

_False Positions while walking, in Schools._

Fig. 15 shows the worst of them. This is no exaggeration of what I have

seen in our New-England schools. It is not common among scholars to join

the hands thus, and carry the body erect. Fig. 16 shows a still worse

position. If you stand erect, with your arms hanging by the sides, and

then deliberately fold the arms, as in this figure, you will find the

points of the shoulders are drawn forward two inches, and the chest much

contracted. Experiments prove that the amount of air which the lungs can

inhale is reduced fifteen to eighteen per cent when the arms are thus

folded.

Fig. 17 secures a good position of the spine, and opens the chest. Fig.

18 is not very seemly, but, practised five minutes two or three times a

day, would do much to develop the muscles of the spine, and particularly

those of the back of the neck, whose weakness permits the head to

droop. This subject I commend to teachers and school-committees.

[Illustration: Fig. 14. Fig. 15. Fig. 16. Fig. 17. Fig. 18.]

_The Muff._

It draws the shoulders forward, and produces an ugly gait. Let a boy

wear a shawl, and hold it together in front with his hands, and he will

have the same disagreeable waddle. If he wears it even for one winter,

he will learn to stoop. Muffs, shawls, and those cloaks which do not

allow the arms to swing freely, should all be thrown overboard.

Over-coats should be worn by both sexes.

The arms are almost as necessary in walking as the legs. The first time

you are walking with your arms at liberty, stop moving them and hold

them by your sides. You will be surprised to find how soon your

companion will leave you behind, although you may hurry, twist, wriggle,

and try very hard to keep up. One reason for the slow walk among girls

is to be found in this practice of carrying the arms motionless. Three

miles an hour with the arms still, is as hard work as four miles with

the arms free.

I have seen the queens of the stage walk. I have seen a few girls and

women of queenly bearing walk in the street and drawing-room. They moved

their arms in a free and graceful manner. Could this habit become

universal among girls, their chests would enlarge and their bearing be

greatly improved. See that girl walking with both hands in her muff. How

she wriggles and twists her shoulders and hips! This is because her arms

are pinioned. Give _them_ free swing, and her gait would soon become

more graceful.

You have seen pictures of our muscles. Those of the upper part of the

body, you remember, spread out from the shoulder, in all directions,

like a fan. Now if you hold the shoulder still, the muscles of the chest

will shrink, the shoulders stoop, and the whole chest become thin and

ugly.

But some girls will say, "Swinging the arms must be very _slight_

exercise." True, it is very slight, if you swing the arms but once or

ten times, but if you swing them ten thousand times in a day, you will

obtain more exercise of the muscles of the chest than by all other

ordinary movements combined. Indeed, if I were asked what exercise I

thought most effective for developing the chests of American girls, I

should reply at once, _swinging the arms while walking_.

_Dio Lewis._

ANDY'S ADVENTURES;

OR THE WORLD BEWITCHED.

Andy's folks had gone to town, and left him at home to take care of the

house, watch the garden, and amuse himself.

Andy had a new bow and arrow, and he thought it would be great sport to

have nothing to do all the afternoon but to shoot at the robins and

woodpeckers.

So, as soon as the wagon was out of sight, and the gate shut, he ran

into the orchard, and began the fun. He kept near enough to the house to

see if anybody came to the door, and near enough to the garden to see if

the pigs got into it; and whenever he saw a bird, he sent an arrow

after it. But the robins soon found out what he wanted, and flew away

when they saw him coming. Their beautiful red breasts would have been

capital marks, if they had only waited for him to get a good shot. The

wrens were not afraid, but they were so small he could not hit them. And

the swallows kept flying about so, twittering and darting here and

there, that he knew he would have to practise a long time before he

could take them on the wing. The yellow-birds and blue-birds were so

shy, that he could hardly see one in sight of the house. So there was no

game left but the woodpeckers.

But woodpeckers are cunning fellows. They run up the trees, and stick in

their bills, and hop about, and fly from one tree to another so fast,

that it takes a pretty smart boy to hit one. They were tame enough, and

would sometimes let Andy come quite near; they would stop pecking a

moment, and hold up their red heads to take a good look at him; then

they would begin to drum again in the merriest way, making little holes

in the old peach-trees, which began to look like wooden soldiers that

had gone through the wars and been shot in hundreds of places. But the

instant Andy drew the bowstring and took aim, they knew well enough what

it meant; and it was provoking to see them dodge around on the bark and

get out of sight just in time to let the arrow whiz by them. Then they

would go to pecking and drumming again so near, that he wished a dozen

times that he had some kind of an arrow that would shoot around a tree

and hit on the other side.

At length Andy grew tired of this fun; and he had lost his arrow so many

times in the grass, and had to hunt for it, that he got vexed, and

thought it would be much better sport to go and shoot a chicken.

Now he did not mean to kill a chicken, and he did not really think he

would be able to hit one. But often we do things more easily when we are

not trying very hard, than when we are too anxious. So it happened with

Andy. He tried his luck on the speckled top-knot, which everybody

considered the handsomest chick that had been hatched that summer. He

drew his bow, let go the string, and the speckled top-knot keeled over.

He ran up to it, very proud, at first, of his good shot, but frightened

enough when he found that the chicken only just kicked a little, and

then lay quite still.

Andy turned it over, and tried to stand it upon its legs, and thought

what he should tell his parents.

"I'll say a hawk flew down and killed it! But I shot at the hawk, and he

let it drop, just as he was flying away with it."

This was the story he made up, as he took poor top-knot and laid it down

by the well-curb.

He was still wishing to shoot something that was alive, and, seeing the

cat creeping along on the fence watching for a mouse, he concluded to

try his luck with her. So he drew up, aimed, and fired. Puss was so

intent on watching the mouse that she paid no attention at all to the

arrow, which struck the rail a little behind her, and glanced off

towards the house. Andy heard a sound like shivered glass, and, running

up, saw to his dismay that he had broken a window.

Now he had been told never to shoot his arrow towards the house; and how

to conceal the accident and avoid punishment he couldn't at first

imagine. The glass lay scattered on the pantry shelf, and the hole in

the pane was large enough to put his hand through.

"I'll say Joe Beals came and wanted my bow, and because I wouldn't let

him have it, he threw a stone at me, and broke the window."

And having made up this story, he searched for such a stone as Joe would

be apt to throw, and, having found one, placed it on the pantry floor,

to appear as if it had fallen there after passing through the glass.

These accidents made him dislike his bow, and he hung it up in the

wood-shed. Then he made a lasso of a string, and caught the cat by

throwing the noose over her head. But Puss did not like the sport as

well as he did, and gave him such a scratch that he was glad to let her

run off with the lasso. Then he thought he would plague the old sow by

getting one of her little pink-white pigs; but the instant he had caught

it up in his arms, it began to squeal; and the mother, hearing it, ran

after him with such a frightful noise, throwing up her great, savage

tusks at him, that he dropped it, and ran for his life. She stopped to

smell of Piggy, and see if it was hurt; and so he got away, though he

was terribly frightened.

Then Andy thought of his toy ship; and having stopped the holes in the

sink, and pumped it full of water, he called it his ocean, and launched

the "Sea-bird." With a pair of bellows he made wind, and with a dipper

he made waves; and by placing a kettle bottom upwards in the middle of

the sink he made an island; and the good ship pitched, and tossed, and

rolled in a very exciting manner. At length he resolved to have a

shipwreck. This he managed, not by putting the ship on a rock, but by

putting a rock on the ship. He used for the purpose the stone Joe Beals

did not throw through the pantry window, and the "Sea-bird" went down,

with all her crew on board. He then opened the holes in the sink, and

the tide, going out, left the vessel on her beam-ends, stranded.

It would have been well for Andy if he had been contented with such

innocent pastimes, without doing mischief to the cat, or chickens, or

pigs, or trying to shoot the pretty birds that fly about the orchards,

singing so sweetly, and eating the worms that destroy the trees.

But nothing satisfied him; and to have some better fun than any yet, he

determined to stand in the door and scream, "Fire!" He could not imagine

greater sport than to see the neighbors come running to put out the

fire, and then laugh at them for being duped. He did not consider that

they would have to leave their work, and run a long distance, till they

were quite out of breath; or that his laughter would be a very mean and

foolish return for the good-will they would show in hastening to save

his father's house; or that, in case the house should really take fire

some day, and he should call for help, people might think it another

silly trick, and stay away.

He stood in the door, filled his lungs with a long breath, opened his

mouth as wide as he could, and screamed,--"Fire! fire! fire!"

Three times. He thought it so funny, that he had to stop and laugh.

Then he took another breath, and screamed again, louder than

before,--"Fire! fire! fire! fire! fire!"

Five times; and he heard the echoes away off among the hills; and,

looking across the lot, he saw old Mother Quirk hobbling on her crutch.

Old Mother Quirk was just about the queerest woman in the world. She had

a nose as crooked as a horn, and almost as long. It crooked down to meet

her chin, and her chin crooked up to meet her nose. And some people said

she could hold the end of a thread between them, when she wished to

twist a cord with both hands,--although I doubt it. Her face was so full

of wrinkles, that the smallest spot you could think of had at least

twenty in it. Her eyes were as black as charcoal, and as bright as

diamonds. She was very old; and her back was bent like a bow; and her

hair was perfectly white, and as long and fine as the finest kind of

flax; and she was so lame that she could never walk without her crutch.

She was a good woman though, people said, and knew almost everything.

She could tell when it would rain to-morrow, and when it would be fair.

She would shut her eyes, and tell you all about your friends at a

distance; describe them as plainly as if she saw them, and inform you if

anything pleasant or unpleasant had happened to them. She knew more

about curing the sick than the doctors did; and once when Andy had hurt

his foot by jumping upon a sharp stub, and it was so sore for a week

that he could not step, and it had been poulticed and plastered till it

was as white and soft as cheese-curd, Mother Quirk had cured it in three

days, by putting on to it a bit of dried beef's gall, which drew out a

sliver that the doctors had never thought of. She was always ready to

help people who were in trouble; and now, when Andy screamed fire, she

was the first to come hobbling on her crutch.

"What is burning, Andy?" she cried, as she came through the gate. "Where

is the fire?"

"In the bottom of the well!" replied Andy, laughing till his side ached.

"O, ho, ho! why don't you bring some water in a thimble, and put the

well out? O, ho, ho! Mother Quirk!"

There was fire in the old woman's eyes just then, if not in the well. It

flashed out of them like two little streams of lightning out of two

little jet-black clouds. She lifted her crutch, and I am not sure but

she would have struck Andy with it, if she had not been too lame to

catch him.

"Put the well out, ho, ho, ho!" laughed Andy, hopping away.

"I would put you in, if I could get hold of you!" said Mother Quirk,

shaking her crutch at him. "You wouldn't be dancing around so on that

foot of yours, if I hadn't cured it for you, and this is the thanks I

get for it!"

That made Andy feel rather ashamed; for he began to see how ungrateful

it was in him to play the old woman such a trick.

"It isn't the first time you've made me run for nothing, with my poor

old crutch," she went on, as he stopped laughing. "The other day you

told me your mother was sick abed, and wanted to see me; and I left

everything and hobbled over here; and didn't I find her ironing clothes

in the kitchen, as well a woman as she ever was in her life, you little

rogue!"

Andy laughed again at the recollection. "You was smoking your pipe,"

said he, "with your old black cat in your lap, and 't was fun to see you

jump up and catch your crutch!"

"Fun to you! but do you think of my poor old bones? I'm almost a hundred

years old," said Mother Quirk; "and shall I tell you what I've learnt

all this time? I've learnt that the meanest thing in the world is to

treat ill those who treat you kindly; and that the worst thing is

lying."

Andy was sobered again, and the old woman continued:--

"What if everybody and everything should lie? What if we could never

know when to believe what our friends and neighbors tell us? What if my

crutch should lie, and, when I lean on it, break and let me fall?"

"I think it would be fun!" said Andy.

"And what if the ground you stand on should not be the ground it appears

to be, but a great pit, and should let you fall into it when you think

you are walking on the grass? Suppose that everything was a lie, that

nothing was what it pretends to be, that the whole world should trick

and cheat us?" cried the old woman, raising her voice.

"I should like to see the spot!" said Andy, giggling again.

"Should you?" almost shrieked the old woman, with a terrible look.

"Yes!" and Andy grinned at a safe distance.

"Then try it!" exclaimed Mother Quirk.

And holding her crutch under her shoulder, she brought her hands

together with a loud slap. Although Andy was at least three yards off,

it seemed to him exactly as if she had boxed his ear. He was almost

knocked down, and his head hummed like a beehive; but he could not, to

save his life, tell which ear had been boxed, nor which he ought to rub.

For a minute, he kept whirling around, as dizzy as a top. Then a voice

cried, "Catch that rabbit!"

_J. T. Trowbridge._

(_To be continued._)

WINNING HIS WAY.

CHAPTER I.

FIRST YEARS.

Many years ago, before railroads were thought of, a company of

Connecticut farmers, who had heard marvellous stories of the richness of

the land in the West, sold their farms, packed up their goods, bade

adieu to their friends, and with their families started for Ohio.

After weeks of travel over dusty roads, they came to a beautiful valley,

watered by a winding brook. The hills around were fair and sunny. There

were groves of oaks, and maples, and lindens. The air was fragrant with

honeysuckle and jasmine. There was plenty of game. The swift-footed deer

browsed the tender grass upon the hills. Squirrels chattered in the

trees and the ringdoves cooed in the depths of the forest. The place was

so fertile and fair, so pleasant and peaceful, that the emigrants made

it their home, and called it New Hope.

They built a mill upon the brook. They laid out a wide, level street,

and a public square, erected a school-house, and then a church. One of

their number opened a store. Other settlers came, and then, as the years

passed by, the village rang with the shouts of children pouring from the

school-house for a frolic upon the square. Glorious times they had

beneath the oaks and maples.

One of the jolliest of the boys was Paul Parker, only son of Widow

Parker, who lived in a little old house on the outskirts of the village,

shaded by a great maple. Her husband died when Paul was in his cradle.

Paul's grandfather was still living. The people called him "Old

Pensioner Parker," for he fought at Bunker Hill, and received a pension

from government. He was hale and hearty, though more than eighty years

of age.

The Pensioner was the main support of the family; but by keeping a cow,

a pig, turkeys and chickens, by selling milk and eggs, which Paul

carried to their customers, they brought the years round without running

in debt. Paul's pantaloons had a patch on each knee, but he laughed just

as loud and whistled just as cheerily for all that.

In summer he went barefoot. He did not have to turn out at every

mud-puddle, and he could plash into the mill-pond and give the frogs a

crack over the head without stopping to take off stockings and shoes.

Paul did not often have a dinner of roast beef, but he had an abundance

of bean porridge, brown bread, and milk.

"Bean porridge is wholesome food, Paul," said his grandfather. "When I

was a boy we used to say,--

'Bean porridge hot,

Bean porridge cold,--

Bean porridge best

Nine days old.'

The wood-choppers in winter used to freeze it into cakes and carry it

into the woods. Many a time I have made a good dinner on a chunk of

frozen porridge."

The Pensioner remembered what took place in his early years, but he lost

his reckoning many times a day upon what was going on in the town. He

loved to tell stories, and Paul was a willing listener. Pleasant

winter-evenings they had in the old kitchen, the hickory logs blazing on

the hearth, the tea-kettle singing through its nose, the clock ticking

soberly, the old Pensioner smoking his pipe in the arm-chair, Paul's

mother knitting,--Bruno by Paul's side, wagging his tail and watching

Muff in the opposite corner rolling her great round yellow eyes. Bruno

was always ready to give Muff battle whenever Paul tipped him the wink

to pitch in.

The Pensioner's stories were of his boyhood,--how he joined the army,

and fought the battles of the Revolution. Thus his story ran.

"I was only a little bigger than you are, Paul," he said, "when the

red-coats began the war at Lexington. I lived in old Connecticut then;

that was a long time before we came out here. The meeting-house bell

rung, and the people blew their dinner-horns, and ran up to the

meeting-house and found the militia forming. The men had their guns and

powder-horns. The women were at work melting their pewter porringers

into bullets. I wasn't old enough to train, but I could fire a gun and

bring down a squirrel from the top of a tree. I wanted to go and help

drive the red-coats into the ocean. I asked mother if I might. I was

afraid that she didn't want me to go. 'Why, Paul,' says she, 'you

haven't any clothes.' 'Mother,' says I, 'I can shoot a red-coat just as

well as any of the men can.' Says she, 'Do you want to go, Paul?' 'Yes,

mother!' 'You shall go; I'll fix you out.' As I hadn't any coat she took

a meal-bag, cut a hole for my head in the bottom, and made holes for my

arms, cut off a pair of her own stocking-legs, and sewed them on for

sleeves, and I was rigged. I took the old gun which father carried at

Ticonderoga, and the powder-horn, and started. There is the gun and the

horn, Paul, hanging up.

"The red-coats had got back to Boston, but we cooped them up. Our

company was in Colonel Knowlton's regiment. I carried the flag, which

said, _Qui transtulit sustinet_. I don't know anything about Latin, but

those who do say it means that God who hath transported us will sustain

us, and that is true, Paul. He sustained us at Bunker Hill, and we

should have held it if our powder had not given out. Our regiment was by

a rail-fence on the northeast side of the hill. Stark, with his New

Hampshire boys, was by the river. Prescott was in the redoubt on the top

of the hill. Old Put kept walking up and down the lines. This is the way

it was, Paul."

The Pensioner laid aside his pipe, bent forward, and traced upon the

hearth the positions of the troops.

"There is the redoubt; here is the rail-fence; there is where the

red-coats formed their lines. They came up in front of us here. We

didn't fire a gun till they got close to us. I'll show you how the fire

ran down the line."

He took down the horn, pulled out the stopper, held his finger over the

tip, and made a trail of powder.

"There, Paul, that is by the fence. As the red-coats came up, some of us

began to be uneasy and wanted to fire, but Old Put kept saying, 'Don't

fire yet! Wait till you can see the white of their eyes! Aim at their

belts!'"

While Pensioner was saying this, he took the tongs and picked a live

coal from the fire.

"They came up beautifully, Paul,--the tall grenadiers and light-infantry

in their scarlet coats, and the sun shining on their gun-barrels and

bayonets. They wer'n't more than ten rods off when a soldier on top of

the hill couldn't stand it any longer. Pop! went his gun, and the fire

ran down the hill quicker than scat! just like this!"

He touched the coal to the powder. There was a flash, a puff of smoke

rising to the ceiling, and filling the room.

"Hooray!" shouted Paul, springing to his feet. Muff went with a jump

upon the bureau in the corner of the room, her tail as big as Paul's

arm, and her back up. Bruno was after her in a twinkling, bouncing

about, barking, and looking round to Paul to see if it was all right.

[Illustration]

"There, grandpa, you have made a great smut on the hearth," said Mrs.

Parker, who kept her house neat and tidy, though it was a crazy old

affair.

"Well, mother, I thought it would please Paul."

"S-s-s-s-si'c!" Paul made a hiss which Bruno understood, and went at

Muff more fiercely. It was glorious to see Muff spit fire, and hear her

growl low and deep like distant thunder. Paul would not have Muff hurt

for anything, but he loved to see Bruno show his teeth at her, and see

how gritty she was when she was waked up.

"Be still, Paul, and let Muff alone," said Paul's mother.

"Come, Bruno, she ain't worth minding," said Paul.

"They have got good courage, both of 'em," said the pensioner; "and

courage is one half of the battle, and truth and honor is the other

half. Paul, I want you to remember that. It will be worth more than a

fortune to you. I don't mean that cats and dogs know much about truth

and honor, and I have seen some men who didn't know much more about

those qualities of character than Muff and Bruno; but what I have said,

Paul, is true for all that. The men who win success in life are those

who love truth, and who follow what is noble and good. No matter how

brave a man may be, if he hasn't these qualities he won't succeed. He

may get rich, but that won't amount to much. Success, Paul, is to have

an unblemished character,--to be true to ourselves, to our country, and

to God."

He went on with his story, telling how the British troops ran before the

fire of the Yankees,--how they re-formed and came on a second time, and

were repulsed again,--how General Clinton went over from Boston with

reinforcements,--how Charlestown was set on fire,--how the flames leaped

from house to house, and curled round the spire of the church,--how the

red-coats advanced a third time beneath the great black clouds of

smoke,--how the ammunition of the Yankees gave out, and they were

obliged to retreat,--how General Putnam tried to rally them,--how they

escaped across Charlestown Neck, where the cannon-balls from the British

floating batteries raked the ranks! He made it all so plain, that Paul

wished he had been there.

The story completed, Paul climbed the creaking stairway to his narrow

chamber, repeated his evening prayer, and scrambled into bed.

"He is a jolly boy," said the pensioner to Paul's mother, as Paul left

the room.

"I don't know what will become of him," she replied, "he is so wild and

thoughtless. He leaves the door open, throws his cap into the corner,

sets Bruno and Muff to growling, stops to play on his way home from

school, sings, whistles, shouts, hurrahs, and tears round like all

possessed."

If she could have looked into Paul's desk at school, she would have

found whirligigs, tops, pin-boxes, nails, and no end of strings and

dancing dandy-jims.

"Paul is a rogue," said the Pensioner. "You remember how he got on top

of the house awhile ago and frightened us out of our wits by shouting

'Fire! fire!' down the chimney; how we ran out to see about it; how I

asked him 'Where?' and says he, 'Down there in the fireplace, grandpa.'

He is a chip of the old block. I used to do just so. But there is one

good thing about him, he don't do mean tricks. He don't bend up pins and

put them in the boys' seats, or tuck chestnut-burs into the girls'

hoods. I never knew him to tell a lie. He will come out all right."

"I hope so," said Mrs. Parker.

Paul could look through the crevices between the shingles, and the

cracks in the walls, and behold the stars gleaming from the unfathomable

spaces. He wondered how far they were away. He listened to the wind

chanting a solemn dirge, filling his soul with longings for he knew not

what. He thought over his grandfather's stories, and the words he had

spoken about courage, truth, and honor, till a shingle clattering in the

wind took up the refrain, and seemed to say, Truth and honor,--truth and

honor,--truth and honor,--so steadily and pleasantly, that while he

listened the stars faded from his sight, and he sailed away into

dream-land.

Paul was twelve years old, stout, hearty, and healthy,--full of life,

and brimming over with fun. Once he set the village in a roar. The

people permitted their pigs to run at large. The great maple in front of

the Pensioner's house was cool and shady,--a delightful place for the

pigs through the hot summer days.

Mr. Chrome, the carriage-painter, lived across the road. He painted a

great many wagons for the farmers,--the wheels yellow, the bodies blue,

green, or red, with scrolls and flowers on the sides. Paul watched him

by the hour, and sometimes made up his mind to be a carriage-painter

when he became a man.

"Mr. Chrome," said Paul, "don't you think that those pigs would look

better if they were painted?"

"Perhaps so."

"I should like to see how they would look painted as you paint your

wagons."

Mr. Chrome laughed at the ludicrous fancy. He loved fun, and was ready

to help carry out the freak.

"Well, just try your hand on improving nature."

Paul went to work. Knowing that pigs like to have their backs scratched,

he had no difficulty in keeping them quiet. To one he gave green legs,

blue ears, red rings round its eyes, and a red tail. Another had one red

leg, one blue, one yellow, one green, with red and blue stripes and

yellow stars on its body. "I will make him a star-spangled pig," Paul

shouted to Mr. Chrome. Another had a green head, yellow ears, and a red

body. Bruno watched the proceedings, wagging his tail, looking now at

Paul and then at the pigs, ready to help on the fun.

"Si'c!--si'c!--si'c!" said Paul. Bruno was upon them with a bound. Away

they capered, with Bruno at their heels. As soon as they came into the

sunshine the spirits of turpentine in the paint was like fire to their

flesh. Faster they ran up the street squealing, with Bruno barking

behind. Mr. Chrome laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. All the

dogs, great and small, joined Bruno in chase of the strange game. People

came out from the stores, windows were thrown up, and all hands--men,

women, and children--ran to see what was the matter, laughing and

shouting, while the pigs and dogs ran round the square.

"Paul Parker did that, I'll bet," said Mr. Leatherby, the shoemaker,

peeping out from his shop. "It is just like him."

An old white horse, belonging to Mr. Smith, also sought the shade of the

maple before the Pensioner's house. Bruno barked at him by the hour, but

the old horse would not move for anything short of a club or stone.

"I'll see if I can't get rid of him," said Paul to himself.

He went into the barn, found a piece of rope, tied up a little bundle of

hay, got a stick five or six feet long, and some old harness-straps. In

the evening, when it was so dark that people could not see what he was

up to, he caught the old horse, laid the stick between his ears and

strapped it to his neck, and tied the hay to the end of the stick; then

it hung a few inches beyond old Whitey's nose. The old horse took a step

ahead to nibble the hay,--another,--another,--another! "Don't you wish

you may get it?" said Paul. Tramp,--tramp,--tramp. Old Whitey went down

the road. Paul heard him go across the bridge by the mill, and up the

hill the other side of the brook.

"Go it, old fellow!" he shouted, then listened again. It was a calm

night, and he could just hear old Whitey's feet,--tramp,--tramp,--tramp.

The next morning the good people of Fairview, ten miles from New Hope,

laughed to see an old white horse, with a bundle of hay a few inches

beyond his nose, passing through the place.

"Have you seen my horse?" Mr. Smith asked Paul in the morning.

"Yes, sir, I saw him going down towards the bridge last evening," Paul

replied, chuckling to himself.

Mr. Smith went down to the mill and inquired. The miller heard a horse

go over the bridge. The farmer on the other side heard a horse go up the

hill. Mr. Smith looked at the tracks. They were old Whitey's, for he had

a broken shoe on his left hind foot. He followed on. "I never knew him

to go away before," he said to himself, as he walked hour after hour,

seeing the tracks all the way to Fairview.

"Have you seen a white horse about here?" he asked of one of the

villagers.

"Yes, sir; there was one here this morning trying to overtake a bundle

of hay," the man replied, laughing. "There he is now!" he added.

Mr. Smith looked up and saw old Whitey, who had turned about, and was

reaching forward to get a nibble of the hay. Mr. Smith felt like being

angry, but the old horse was walking so soberly and earnestly that he

couldn't help laughing.

"That is some of Paul's doings, I know. I'll give him a blessing when I

get back."

It was noon before Mr. Smith reached New Hope. Paul and Bruno were

sitting beneath the maple.

"Where did you find old Whitey?" Paul asked.

"You was the one who did it, you little rascal?"

"Did what?"

"You know what. You have made me walk clear to Fairview. I have a mind

to horsewhip you."

Paul laughed to think that the old horse had tramped so far, though he

was sorry that Mr. Smith had been obliged to walk that distance.

"I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Smith, but old Whitey has made our

door-yard his stamping-place all summer, and I thought I would see if I

could get rid of him."

"Well, sir, if you do it again I'll trounce you," said Mr. Smith as he

rode away, his anger coming up.

"Wouldn't it be better for you to put him in a pasture, Mr. Smith? Then

he wouldn't trouble us," said Paul, who knew that Mr. Smith had no right

to let old Whitey run at large. Paul was not easily frightened when he

had right on his side. The people in the stores and at the tavern had a

hearty laugh when they heard how old Whitey went to Fairview.

Mr. Cipher taught the village school. He was tall, slim, thin-faced,

with black eyes deeply set in his head, and a long, hooked nose like an

eagle's bill. He wore a loose swallow-tailed coat with bright brass

buttons, and pants which were several inches too short. The Committee

employed him, not because he was a superior teacher, but they could get

him for twelve dollars a month, while Mr. Rudiment, who had been through

college, and who was known to be an excellent instructor, asked sixteen.

There was a crowd of roistering boys and rosy-cheeked girls, who made

the old school-house hum like a beehive. Very pleasant to the passers-by

was the music of their voices. At recess and at noon they had leap-frog

and tag. Paul was in a class with Philip Funk, Hans Middlekauf, and

Michael Murphy. There were other boys and girls of all nationalities.

Paul's ancestors were from Connecticut, Philip's father was a Virginian.

Hans was born in Germany, and Michael in Ireland. Philip's father kept a

grocery, and sold sugar, molasses, tobacco, and whiskey. He was rich,

and Philip wore good clothes and calf-skin boots. Paul could get his

lessons very quick whenever he set about them in earnest, but he spent

half his time in inventing fly-traps, making whirligigs, or drawing

pictures on his slate. He could draw admirably, for he had a quick eye

and natural ability. Philip could get his lessons also if he chose to

apply himself, but it was a great deal easier to get some one to work

out the problems in arithmetic than to do them himself.

"Here, Paul, just do this question for me; that is a good fellow."

It was at recess.

"No; Cipher has forbid it. Each one has got to do his own," said Paul.

"If you will do it, I will give you a handful of raisins," said Philip,

who usually had his pockets full of raisins, candy, or nuts.

"It wouldn't be right."

"Come, just do that one; Cipher never will know it."

"No!" Paul said it resolutely.

"You are a mean, sneaking fellow," said Philip with a sneer, turning up

his nose.

Philip was a year older than Paul. He had sandy hair, white eyelashes,

and a freckled face. He carried a watch, and always had money in his

pocket. Paul, on the other hand, hardly ever had a cent which he could

call his own. His clothes were worn till they were almost past mending.

"Rag-tag has got a hole in his trousers," said Philip to the other boys.

Paul's face flushed. He wanted to knock Philip's teeth down his throat.

He knew that his mother had hard work to clothe him, and felt the

insult. He went into the school-house, choked his anger down, and tried

to forget all about it by drawing a picture of the master. It was an

excellent likeness,--his spindle legs, great feet, short pants, loose

coat, sunken eyes, hooked nose, thin face, and long bony fingers.

Philip sat behind Paul. Instead of studying his lesson, he was planning

how to get Paul into trouble. He saw the picture. Now was his time. He

giggled aloud. Mr. Cipher looked up in astonishment.

"What are you laughing at, Master Funk?"

"At what Paul is doing."

Paul hustled his slate into his desk.

"Let me see what you have here," said Cipher, walking up to Paul, who

spat in his fingers, and ran his hand into the desk, to rub out the

drawing; but he felt that it would be better to meet his punishment

boldly than to have the school think that he was a sneak. He laid the

slate before the master without a line effaced.

"Giving your attention to drawing, are you, Master Paul?" His eyes

flashed. He knit his brows. The blood rushed to his cheeks. There was a

popping up of heads all over the school-room to get a sight of the

picture.

The boys laughed aloud, and there was a tittering among the girls, which

made Cipher very angry. "Silence!" he roared, and stamped upon the floor

so savagely that the windows rattled. "Come out here, Sir. I'll give you

a drawing-lesson of another sort." He seized Paul by the collar, and

threw him into the space in front of his own desk. "Hold out your hand."

Paul felt that he was about to receive a tremendous thrashing; but he

determined that he would not flinch. He held out his right hand, and

spat! came the blow from a heavy ferule. His hand felt as if he had been

struck by a piece of hot iron.

"The other, sir."

Whack! it fell, a blow which made the flesh purple. There was an Oh!

upon his tongue; but he set his teeth together, and bit his lips till

they bled, and so smothered it. Another blow,--another,--another,--which

were hard to bear; but his teeth were set like a vice. There was a

twitching of the muscles round his lips; he was pale. When the blows

fell, he held his breath, but he did not snivel.

"I'll see if I can't bring you to your feeling, you good-for-nothing

scape-grace," said the master, mad with passion, and surprised that Paul

made no outcry. He gave another round, bringing the ferule down with

great force. Blood began to ooze from the pores. The last blow spattered

the drops around the room. Cipher came to his senses. He stopped.

"Are you sorry, sir?"

"I don't know whether I am or not. I didn't mean any harm. I suppose I

ought not to have drawn it in school; but I didn't do it to make fun. I

drew you just as you are," said Paul,--his voice trembling a little in

spite of his efforts to control it.

The master could not deny that it was a perfect likeness. He was

surprised at Paul's cleverness at drawing, and for the first time in his

life saw that he cut a ridiculous figure wearing that long, loose,

swallow-tailed coat, with great, flaming brass buttons, and resolved

upon the spot that his next coat should be a frock, and that he would

get a longer pair of pants.

"You may take your seat, sir!" he said, puzzled to know whether to

punish Paul still more, and compel him to say that he was sorry, or

whether to accept the explanations, and apologize for whipping him so

severely.

Paul sat down. His hands ached terribly; but what troubled him most was

the thought that he had been whipped before the whole school. All the

girls had witnessed his humiliation. There was one among them,--Azalia

Adams,--who stood at the head of Paul's class, the best reader and

speller in school. She had ruby lips, and cheeks like roses; the golden

sunlight falling upon her chestnut hair crowned her with glory; deep,

thoughtful, and earnest was the liquid light of her hazel eyes; she was

as lovely and beautiful as the flower whose name she bore. Paul had

drawn her picture many times,--sometimes bending over her task,

sometimes as she sat, unmindful of the hum of voices around her, looking

far away into a dim and distant dream-land. He never wearied of tracing

the features of one so fair and good as she. Her laugh was as musical as

a mountain-brook; and in the church on Sunday, when he heard her voice

sweetly, softly, and melodiously mingling with the choir, he thought of

the angels,--of her as in heaven and he on earth.

"Run home, sonny, and tell your marm that you got a licking," said

Philip when school was out.

Paul's face became livid. He would have doubled his fist and given

Philip a blow in the face, but his palms were like puff-balls. There was

an ugly feeling inside, but just then a pair of bright hazel eyes,

almost swimming with tears, looked into his own. "Don't mind it, Paul,"

said Azalia.

The pain was not half so hard to bear after that. He wanted to say, "I

thank you," but did not know how. Till then his lips had hardly

quivered, and he had not shed a tear; now his eyes became moist; one

great drop rolled down his cheeks, but he wiped it off with his

coat-sleeve, and turned away, for fear that Azalia would think that he

was a baby.

On his way home the thought uppermost in his mind was, "What will mother

say?" Why tell her? Would it not be better to keep the matter to

himself? But then he remembered that she had said, "Paul, I shall expect

you to tell me truthfully all that happens to you at school." He loved

his mother. She was one of the best mothers that ever lived, working for

him day and night. How could he abuse such confidence as she had given

him? He would not violate it. He would not be a sneak.

His mother and the Pensioner were sitting before the fire as he entered

the house. She welcomed him with a smile,--a beautiful smile it was, for

she was a noble woman, and Paul was her darling, her pride, the light,

joy, and comfort of her life.

"Well, Paul, how do you get on at school?" his grandfather asked.

"I got a whipping to-day." It was spoken boldly and manfully.

"What! My son got a whipping!" his mother exclaimed.

"Yes, mother."

"I am astonished. Come here, and tell me all about it."

Paul stood by her side and told the story,--how Philip Funk tried to

bribe him, how he called him names,--how, having got his lessons, he

made a picture of the master. "Here it is, mother." He took his slate

from his little green bag. The picture had not been effaced. His mother

looked at it and laughed, notwithstanding her efforts to keep sober, for

it was such a perfect likeness. She had an exquisite sense of the

ludicrous, and Paul was like her. She was surprised to find that he

could draw so well.

"We will talk about the matter after supper," she said. She had told

Paul many times, that, if he was justly punished at school, he must

expect a second punishment at home; but she wanted to think awhile

before deciding what to do. She was pleased to know that her boy could

not be bribed to do what his conscience told him he ought not to do, and

that he was manly and truthful. She would rather follow him to the

church-yard and lay him in his grave beneath the bending elms, than to

have him untruthful or wicked.

The evening passed away. Paul sat before the fire, looking steadily into

the coals. He was sober and thoughtful, wondering what his mother would

say at last. The clock struck nine. It was his bedtime. He went and

stood by her side once more. "You are not angry with me, mother, are

you?"

"No, my son. I do not think that you deserved so severe a punishment. I

am rejoiced to know that you are truthful, and that you despise a mean

act. Be always as you have been to-night, and I never shall be angry

with you."

He threw his arms around her neck, and gave way to tears, such as Cipher

could not extort by his pounding. She gave him a good-night kiss,--so

sweet that it seemed to lie upon his lips all through the night.

"God bless you, Paul," said the Pensioner.

Paul climbed the creaking stairs, and knelt with an overflowing heart to

say his evening prayer. He spoke the words earnestly when he asked God

to take care of his mother and grandfather. He was very happy. He looked

out through the crevices in the walls, and saw the stars and the moon

flooding the landscape with silver light. There was sweet music in the

air,--the merry melody of the water murmuring by the mill, the cheerful

chirping of the crickets, and the lullaby of the winds, near at hand and

far away, putting him in mind of the choirs on earth and the choirs in

heaven. "Don't mind it, Paul!" were the words they sung, so sweetly and

tenderly that for many days they rang in his ears.

_Carleton._

[Illustration]

NEW-YEAR CAROL.

[Illustration]

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Little children, down the turnpike goes the year,

Down through every dell,

All the bells of all the country in its ear:

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Through the meadows and the woods, o'er the plain,

Past where children dwell,

All the children, some in joy and some in pain:

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Is it from a belfry, or the beating heart

Of the year, this swell,

Solemn like the steps of friends who have to part?

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Little children's homes in heaven and on earth,

All have hearts to tell

How good actions overflow the year with mirth:

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!

And it needeth not a steeple's voice to say,

What a dreary knell

Hearts are ringing as their goodness flies away:

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell!

Down the turnpike for you comes another year;

Children, treat it well:

Naught but goodness brings to homes right jolly cheer:

Ding, Dong, Bell!

_John Weiss._

FARMING FOR BOYS.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE, AND WHAT OTHERS MAY DO IN THE CULTIVATION OF FARM

AND GARDEN,--HOW TO BEGIN, HOW TO PROCEED, AND WHAT TO AIM AT.

NO. I.

There is an old farm-house in the State of New Jersey, not a hundred

miles from the city of Trenton, having the great railroad which runs

between New York and Philadelphia so near to it that one can hear the

whistle of the locomotive as it hurries onward every hour in the day,

and see the trains of cars as they whirl by with their loads of living

freight. The laborers in the fields along the road, though they see

these things so frequently, invariably pause in their work and watch the

advancing train until it passes them, and follow it with their eyes

until it is nearly lost in the distance. The boy leans upon his hoe, the

mower rests upon his scythe, the ploughman halts his horses in the

furrow,--all stop to gaze upon a spectacle that has long ceased to be

either a wonder or a novelty. Why it is so may be difficult to answer,

except that the snorting combination of wheels, and cranks, and fire,

and smoke, thundering by the quiet fields, breaks in upon the monotonous

labor of the hand who works alone, with no one to converse with,--for

the fact is equally curious, that gangs of laborers make no pause on the

appearance of a locomotive. They have companionship enough already.

This old wooden farm-house was a very shabby affair. To look at it, one

would be sure that the owner had a particular aversion to both paint and

whitewash. The weather-boarding was fairly honeycombed by age and

exposure to the sun and rain, and in some places the end of a board had

dropped off, and hung down a foot or two, for want of a nail which

everybody about the place appeared to be too lazy or neglectful to

supply in time. One or two of the window-shutters had lost a hinge, and

they also hung askew,--nobody had thought it worth while to drive back

the staple when it first became loose.

Then there were several broken lights of glass in the kitchen windows.

As the men about the house neglected to have them mended, or to do it

themselves by using the small bit of putty that would have kept the

cracked ones from going to pieces, the women had been compelled to keep

out the wind and rain by stuffing in the first thing that came to hand.

There was a bit of red flannel in one, an old straw bonnet in another,

while in a third, from which all the glass was gone, a tolerably good

fur hat, certainly worth the cost of half a dozen lights, had been

crammed in to fill up the vacancy. The whole appearance of the windows

was deplorable. Some of them had lost the little wooden buttons which

kept up the sash when hoisted, and which anybody could have replaced by

whittling out new ones with his knife; but as no one did it, and as the

women must sometimes have the sashes raised, they propped them up with

pretty big sticks from the wood-pile. It was not a nice sight, that of a

rough stick as thick as one's arm to hold up the sash, especially when,

of a sultry day, three or four of them were always within view.

Then the wooden step at the kitchen door, instead of being nailed fast

to the house, was not only loose, but it rested on the ground so

unevenly as to tilt over whenever any one stepped carelessly on its

edge. As the house contained a large family, all of whom generally lived

in the kitchen, there was a great deal of running in and out over this

loose step. When it first broke away from the building, it gave quite a

number of severe tumbles to the women and children. Everybody complained

of it, but nobody mended it, though a single stout nail would have held

it fast. One dark night a pig broke loose, and, snuffing and smelling

around the premises in search of forage, came upon the loose step, and,

imagining that he scented a supper in its neighborhood, used his snout

so vigorously as to push it clear away from the door. One of the girls,

hearing the noise, stepped out into the yard to see what was going on;

but the step being gone, and she not observing it, down she went on her

face, striking her nose on the edge of a bucket which some one had left

exactly in the wrong place, and breaking the bone so badly that she will

carry a very homely face as long as she lives. It was a very painful

hurt to the poor girl, and the family all grieved over her misfortune;

but not one of the men undertook to mend the step. Finally, the mother

managed to drive down two sticks in front of it, which held it up to the

house, though not half so firmly as would have been done by a couple of

good stout nails.

Things were very much in the same condition all over the premises. The

fence round the garden, and in fact all about the house, was dropping to

pieces simply for want of a nail here and there. The barn-yard enclosure

was strong enough to keep the cattle in, but it was a curious exhibition

of hasty patch-work, that would hurt the eye of any mechanic to look at.

As to the gates, every one of them rested at one end on the ground. It

was hard work even for a man to open and shut them, as they had to be

lifted clear up before they could be moved an inch. For a half-grown

boy to open them was really a very serious undertaking, especially in

muddy weather. The posts had sagged, or the upper staples had drawn out,

but nobody attended to putting them to rights, though it would not have

been an hour's job to make them all swing as freely as every good

farm-gate ought to. The barn-yard was a hard place for the boys on this

farm.

No touch of whitewash had been spread over either house, or fence, or

outbuilding, for many years, though lime is known to everybody as being

one of the surest preservers of wood-work, as well as the very cheapest,

while it so beautifully sets off a farm-house to see its surroundings

covered once a year with a fresh coat of white. The hen-house was of

course equally neglected, though whitewash is so well known to be an

indispensable purifier of such places, materially helping to keep away

those kinds of vermin that prevent poultry from thriving. In fact, the

absence of lime was so general, that the hens could hardly pick up

enough to make egg-shells. Had they laid eggs without shells, the

circumstance would have mortified the hens as much as it would have

surprised the family. As it was, their only dependence was on the pile

of lime rubbish which was left every spring after whitewashing the

kitchen. The women who presided there did manage to fix up things once a

year. They thought lime was good to drive away ants and roaches, and so

they and the hens were the only parties on the premises who used it.

There were many other things about this farm-house that were quite as

much neglected,--more than it is worth while at present to mention,

unless it be the wood-pile. Though there were two men on the farm, and

several well-grown boys, yet the women could rarely prevail on any of

them to split a single stick of wood. The wood for the house caused

great trouble,--it was difficult to get it at all. Then when it did

come, it was crooked and knotty, much of it such as a woman could not

split. Yet whenever a stick or two was wanted, the females of the family

must run out into the shed to chop and split it. They never could get an

armful ahead, such was the strange neglect of one of the most

indispensable comforts of housekeeping. If the female head of the family

had only thought of letting the male portion go a few times without

their dinners, it is more than likely they would have brought them to

terms, and taught them that it was quite as much their duty to split the

wood as it was hers to cook their dinners. But she was a good, easy

creature, like most of the others. They had all been brought up in the

same neglectful way, just rubbing along from day to day, never getting

ahead, but everything getting ahead of them.

This farmer's name was Philip Spangler, and he was unlucky enough to

have a hundred acres in his farm. The word _unlucky_ is really a very

proper one; because it was unlucky for such a man as Philip that he

should have so much more land than he knew how to manage, and it was

equally unlucky for the land that it should have so poor a manager. The

man was perfectly sober, and in his own way was a very industrious one.

He worked hard himself, and made every one about him do the same. He was

what is known as a "slaving farmer,"--up by daylight, having all hands

up and out of doors quite as early as himself, and he and they stuck to

it as long as they could see to work. With him and them it was all work

and no play. He had no recreations; he took no newspaper, had no reading

in the house except the children's school-books, the Bible, and an

almanac,--which he bought once a year, not because he wanted it, but

because his wife would have it.

What was very singular in Mr. Spangler's mode of managing things, when a

wet day came on, too rainy for out-of-door work, he seemed to have no

indoor employments provided, either for himself or hands to do, having

apparently no sort of forethought. On such occasions he let everything

slide,--that is, take care of itself,--and went, in spite of the rain,

to a tavern near by on the railroad, where he sat all day among a crowd

of neighboring idlers who collected there at such times; for although it

might be wet enough to stop all work in the fields, it was never too wet

to keep them away from the tavern. There these fellows sat, drinking

juleps, smoking pipes, or cigars that smelt even worse, and retailing

among each other the news of their several neighborhoods.

What Spangler thus picked up at the tavern was about all the news he

ever heard. As to talking of farming, of their crops, or what was the

best thing to raise, or how best to carry on this or that branch of

their business,--such matters were rarely spoken of. They came there to

shake off the farm. Politics was a standing topic,--who was likely to be

nominated on their ticket,--whether he would be elected,--and whether it

was true that so-and-so was going to be sold out by the sheriff. It was

much to Spangler's credit, that, if at this rainy-day rendezvous he

learned nothing useful, he contracted no other bad habit than that of

lounging away a day when he should have been at home attending to his

business. It was much after the same fashion that he spent his long

winter's evenings,--dozing in the chimney-corner,--for the tavern was

too far away, or he would have spent them there.

Now it somehow happens that there are quite as many rainy days in the

country as in the city. But those who live in the latter never think of

quitting work because it snows deep or rains hard. The merchant never

closes his counting-house or store, nor does the mechanic cease to labor

from such a cause; they have still something on hand, whether it rain or

shine. Even the newsboys run about the streets as actively, and a

hundred other kinds of workers keep on without interruption.

If the laboring men of a large city were to quit work because of a hard

rain, there would be a loss of many thousand dollars for every such day

that happened. So also with a farmer. There is plenty of rainy-day work

on a farm, if the owner only knew it, or thought of it beforehand, and

set his men or boys to do it,--in the barn, or cellar, or wood-shed. If

he had a bench and tools, a sort of workshop, a rainy day would be a

capital time for him to teach his boys how to drive a nail, or saw a

board, or push a plane, to make a new box or mend an old one, to put a

new handle in an axe or hoe, or to do twenty such little things as are

always wanted on a farm. Besides saving the time and money lost by

frequent running to the blacksmith or wheelwright, to have such trifles

attended to, things would be kept always ready when next wanted, and his

boys would become good mechanics. There is so much of this kind of light

repairing to be done on a farm, that, having a set of tools, and knowing

how to use them, are almost as indispensable as having ploughs and

harrows, and the boys cannot be too early instructed in their use. Many

boys are natural mechanics, and even without instruction could

accomplish great things if they only had a bench and tools. The making

of the commonest bird-box will give an ambitious boy a very useful

lesson.

It seemed that Mr. Spangler was learning nothing while he lived. His

main idea appeared to be, that farming was an affair of muscle

only,--that it was hands, not heads, that farmers ought to have; and

that whoever worked hardest and longest, wasted no time in reading,

spent no money for fine cattle or better breeds of pigs, or for new

seeds, new tools or machines, and stuck to the good old way, was the

best farmer. He never devoted a day now and then to visiting the

agricultural exhibitions which were held in all the counties round him,

where he would be sure to see samples of the very best things that good

farmers were producing,--fine cattle, fine pigs, fine poultry, and a

hundred other products which sensible men are glad to exhibit at such

fairs, knowing that it is the smart men who go to such places to learn

what is going on, as well as to make purchases, and that it is the

agricultural drones who stay at home. The fact was, he had been badly

educated, and he could not shake off the habits of his early life. He

had been taught that hard work was the chief end of man.

Of course such a farmer had a poor time of it, as well as the hands he

employed. He happened to be pretty well out of debt, there being only a

small mortgage on his farm; but he was so poor a manager that his hard

work went for little, in reality just enough to enable his family to

live, with sometimes very close shaving to pay interest. As to getting

rich, it was out of the question. He had a son whose name was Joe, a

smart, ambitious boy of sixteen years old; another son, Bill, two years

younger; and an orphan named Tony King, exactly a year younger than Joe;

together with a hired man for helper about the farm.

Mr. Spangler had found Tony in the adjoining county. On the death of his

parents, they being miserably poor, and having no relations to take care

of him, he had had a hard time among strangers. They kept him until old

enough to be bound out to a trade. Mr. Spangler thinking he needed

another hand, and being at the same time in such low repute as a farmer

and manager that those who knew him were not willing to let their sons

live with him as apprentices, he was obliged to go quite out of the

neighborhood, where he was not so well known, in order to secure one. In

one of his trips he brought up at the house where Tony was staying, and,

liking his looks,--for he was even a brighter boy than Joe Spangler,--he

had him bound to him as an apprentice to the art and mystery of farming.

In engaging himself to teach this art and mystery to Tony, he undertook

to impart a great deal more knowledge than he himself possessed,--a

thing, by the way, which is very common with a good many other people.

Altogether it was a hard bargain for poor Tony; but when parents are so

idle and thriftless as to expose their children to such a fate as his,

they leave them a legacy of nothing better than the very hardest kind of

bargains.

In addition to this help, about a year after Tony took up his quarters

with Mr. Spangler, there came along an old man of seventy, a sort of

distant relation of the Spanglers, who thenceforward made the farm his

home. Mr. Spangler and his wife called him "Benny," but all the younger

members of the family, out of respect for his age, called him "Uncle,"

so that in a very short time he went by no other name than that of

"Uncle Benny," and this not only on the farm, but all over the

neighborhood.

Uncle Benny turned out to be the pleasantest old man the boys and girls

had ever been acquainted with. It was no wonder they liked him, for he

was very fond of children, and like generally begets like. He was a very

different sort of character from any about the farm. He had been well

educated, and being in his younger days of a roving, sight-hunting

disposition, he had travelled all over the world, had seen a multitude

of strange men and strange things, and had such a way of telling what he

had thus picked up as never to fail of interesting those who heard him.

Sometimes of a long winter evening, when he was giving accounts of

foreign countries, or how people lived in our great cities, or how they

carried on farming in other parts of our country, he talked so

pleasantly that no one thought of being sleepy. On such evenings, before

he came to live on the farm, Mr. Spangler would often fall asleep on his

chair in the chimney corner, and once or twice actually tipped over

quite into the ashes; but now, when Uncle Benny got fairly under way,

there was no more going to sleep. Mr. Spangler pricked up his ears, and

listened better than if any one had been reading from a book.

Then Uncle Benny had a way of always putting in some good advice to both

men and boys, and even to the girls. He had read and travelled so much,

that he had something appropriate for every event that turned up.

Indeed, every one was surprised at his knowing so much. Besides this, he

was very lively and cheerful, and as fond of fun as could be, and seemed

able to make any one laugh whenever he chose to indulge in a joke.

In addition to all this, he was uncommonly handy with tools. Though an

old man, and not strong enough to do a full day's work at mowing or

hay-making, because of stiff joints, yet he could potter about the house

and barns, with a hatchet, and saw, and a nail-box, and mend up a

hundred broken places that had been neglected for years before he came

to live there. If he saw anything out of order, a gate with no latch, a

picket loose in the garden fence, or any other trifling defect about the

premises, he went to work and made all right again. He even mended the

broken lights in the kitchen windows, and got rid of all the old hats

and bonnets that had been stuffed into them. He put on new buttons to

keep up the sashes, and so banished the big sticks from the wood-pile

that had been used to prop them up. He said they were too ugly even to

look at.

It was Uncle Benny who nailed up the loose door-step which the pig had

rooted away from its place, causing Lucy Spangler to fall on the edge of

a bucket and break her nose. Lucy came out to thank him for doing the

thing so nicely; for ever since the accident to her nose, she had been

very skittish about putting her foot on the step.

"Ah, Lucy," said Uncle Benny, "I wish I could mend your nose as easily."

"Indeed I wish so too," replied Lucy.

Inside of the house were numerous things that wanted looking after in

the same way. There was not a bolt or a latch that would work as it

ought to. All the closet locks were out of order, while one half the

doors refused to shut. In fact there were twenty little provocations of

this kind that were perpetual annoyances to the women. Uncle Benny went

to work and removed them all; there was no odd job that he was not able

to go through with. Indeed, it was the luckiest day in the history of

that farm when he came to live upon it, for it did seem that, if the

farm were ever to be got to rights, he was the very man to do it. Now,

it was very curious, but no one told Uncle Benny to do these things. But

as soon as he had anchored himself at Mr. Spangler's he saw how much the

old concern was out of gear, and, providing himself with tools, he

undertook, as one of his greatest pleasures, to repair these

long-standing damages, not because he expected to be paid for it, but

from his own natural anxiety to have things look as they ought.

The boys watched the old man's operations with great interest, for both

Joe and Tony were ambitious of knowing how to handle tools. One day he

took hold of the coffee-mill, which some clumsy fellow had only half

nailed up in the kitchen, so that, whenever the coffee was ground,

whoever turned the crank was sure to bruise his knuckles against the

wall. Mrs. Spangler and her daughters of course did all the grinding,

and complained bitterly of the way the mill was fixed. Besides, it had

become shockingly dull, so that it only cracked the grains, and thus

gave them a miserably weak decoction for breakfast. Now, Uncle Benny had

been used to strong coffee, and couldn't stand what Mrs. Spangler gave

him. So he unshipped the mill, took it to pieces, with a small file

sharpened up the grinders, which by long use had become dull, oiled its

joints, and screwed it up in a new place, where it was impossible for

the knuckles to be bruised. It then worked so beautifully, that, instead

of every one hating to put his hand on the crank, the difficulty was to

keep the children away from it,--they would grind on it an hour at a

time. Such a renovation of damaged goods had never before been seen on

Spangler's premises.

_Author of "Ten Acres Enough."_

(_To be continued._)

AFLOAT IN THE FOREST:

OR, A VOYAGE AMONG THE TREE-TOPS.

CHAPTER I.

THE BROTHERS AT HOME.

Twenty years ago, not twenty miles from the Land's End, there lived a

Cornish gentleman named Trevannion. Just twenty years ago he died,

leaving to lament him a brace of noble boys, whose mother all three had

mourned, with like profound sorrow, but a short while before.

"Squire" Trevannion, as he was called, died in his own house, where his

ancestors for hundreds of years before him had dispensed hospitality.

None of them, however, had entertained so profusely as he; or rather

improvidently, it might be said, since in less than three months after

his death the old family mansion, with the broad acres appertaining to

it, passed into the hands of an alien, leaving his two sons, Ralph and

Richard, landless, houseless, and almost powerless. One thousand pounds

apiece was all that remained to them out of the wreck of the patrimonial

estates. It was whispered that even this much was not in reality theirs,

but had been given to them by the _very respectable_ solicitor who had

managed their father's affairs, and had furthermore _managed_ to succeed

him in the ownership of a property worth a rental of three thousand a

year.

Any one knowing the conditions under which the young Trevannions

received their two thousand pounds must have believed it to be a gift,

since it was handed over to them by the family solicitor with the

private understanding that they were to use it in pushing their fortunes

elsewhere,--anywhere except in Cornwall!

The land-pirate who had plucked them--for in reality had they been

plucked--did not wish them to stay at home, divested, as they were, of

their valuable plumage. He had appropriated their fine feathers, and

cared not for the naked bodies of the birds.

There were those in Cornwall who suspected foul play in the lawyer's

dealings with the young Trevannions,--among others, the victims

themselves. But what could they do? They were utterly ignorant of their

late father's affairs,--indeed, with any affairs that did not partake of

the nature of "sports." A solicitor "most respectable,"--a phrase that

has become almost synonymous with rascality,--a regular

church-goer,--accounts kept with scrupulous exactness,--a man of honest

face, distinguished for probity of speech and integrity of heart,--what

could the Trevannions do? What more than the Smiths and the Browns and

the Joneses, who, notwithstanding their presumed greater skill in the

ways of a wicked lawyer world, are duped every day in a similar manner.

It is an old and oft-repeated story,--a tale too often told, and too

often true,--that of the family lawyer and his confiding client,

standing in the relationship of robber and robbed.

The two children of Squire Trevannion could do nothing to save or

recover their paternal estate. Caught in the net of legal chicanery,

they were forced to yield, as other squire's children have had to do,

and make the best of a bad matter,--forced to depart from a home that

had been held by Trevannions perhaps since the Phoenicians strayed

thitherward in search of their shining tin.

It sore grieved them to separate from the scenes of their youth; but the

secret understanding with the solicitor required that sacrifice. By

staying at home a still greater might be called for,--subsistence in

penury, and, worse than all, in a humiliating position; for,

notwithstanding the open house long kept by their father, his friends

had disappeared with his guests. Impelled by these thoughts, the

brothers resolved to go forth into the wide world, and seek fortune

wherever it seemed most likely they should find it.

They were at this period something more than mere children. Ralph had

reached within twelve months of being twenty. Richard was his junior by

a couple of years. Their book-education had been good; the practice of

manly sports had imparted to both of them a physical strength that

fitted them for toil, either of the mind or body. They were equal to a

tough struggle, either in the intellectual or material world; and to

this they determined to resign themselves.

For a time they debated between themselves where they should go, and

what do. The army and navy came under their consideration. With such

patronage as their father's former friends could command, and might

still exert in favor of their fallen fortunes, a commission in either

army or navy was not above their ambition. But neither felt much

inclined towards a naval or military life; the truth being, that a

thought had taken shape in their minds leading them to a different

determination.

Their deliberations ended by each of them proclaiming a resolve,--almost

sealing it with a vow,--that they would enter into some more profitable,

though perhaps less pretentious, employment than that of either

soldiering or sailoring; that they would toil--with their hands, if need

be--until they should accumulate a sufficient sum to return and recover

the ancestral estate from the grasp of the avaricious usurper. They did

not know how it was to be done; but, young, strong, and hopeful, they

believed it might be done,--with time, patience, and industry to aid

them in the execution.

"Where shall we go?" inquired Richard, the younger of the two. "To

America, where every poor man appears to prosper? With a thousand each

to begin the world with, we might do well there. What say you, Ralph?"

"America is a country where men seem to thrive best who have _nothing_

to begin the world with. You mean North America,--the United States,--I

suppose?"

"I do."

"I don't much like the United States as a home,--not because it is a

republic, for I believe that is the only just form of government,

whatever our aristocratic friends may say. I object to it simply because

I wish to go south,--to some part of the tropical world, where one may

equally be in the way of acquiring a fortune."

"Is there such a place?"

"There is."

"Where, brother?"

"Peru. Anywhere along the Sierra of the Andes from Chili to the Isthmus

of Panama. As Cornish men we should adopt the specialty of our province,

and become miners. The Andes mountains will give us that opportunity,

where, instead of gray tin, we may delve for yellow gold. What say you

to South America?"

"I like the thought of South America,--nothing would please me better

than going there. But I must confess, brother, I have no inclination for

the occupation you speak of. I had rather be a merchant than a miner."

"Don't let that _penchant_ prevent you from selecting Peru as the scene

of mercantile transactions. There are many Englishmen who have made

fortunes in the Peruvian trade. You may hope to follow their example. We

may choose different occupations and still be near each other. One

thousand pounds each may give both of us a start,--you as a merchant of

goods, I as a digger for gold. Peru is the place for either business.

Decide, Dick! Shall we sail for the scenes rendered celebrated by

Pizarro?"

"If you will it--I'm agreed."

"Thither then let us go."

In a month from that time the two Trevannions might have been seen upon

a ship, steering westward from the Land's End, and six months later both

disembarked upon the beach of Callao,--_en route_ first for Lima, thence

up the mountains, to the sterile snow-crested mountains, that tower

above the treasures of Cerro Pasco,--vainly guarded within the bosom of

adamantine rocks.