wrong to make slaves of these poor people and to treat them so cruelly.
Becoming a priest, he began by giving his own slaves their freedom, and
then he went into the pulpit and preached against the wrong-doings of
his countrymen. This man was the good Father Las Casas, who has been
called the protector of the Indians. But the good work of this one good
man could go but a little way against so many wicked ones. The native
inhabitants rapidly disappeared under the cruel treatment of their harsh
task-masters, and then negro slaves, a hardier race than the red men,
were brought from Africa to take the place of the Indian, in spite of
Father Las Casas and his sermons.
So it happens that in the island of Cuba to-day there are none of the
Indians left. They have long since disappeared. In their place remain
the negroes, who are the descendants of the slaves from Africa, and the
white Cubans, who are descended from the Spanish settlers. But owing to
the climate, the fertility of the soil and other conditions which
surround them, they have grown up to be different men from their Spanish
grandfathers.
Now Spain is a land ruled over by a King, and its lands are in the hands
of a few fortunate men called counts and marquises, so that the poor
people have no land of their own which they may cultivate, and thus earn
their living as our country farmers do. Then Spain requires all of her
boys to become soldiers, and serve the King, who is now only a boy
himself. As the Spanish boys grow up without much education, and never
learn of the liberty enjoyed by the people of other countries, they
think this is all right. But then the King finds that he has more of
these boy soldiers than he can feed, so his ministers say, "Well,
there's that rich island across the sea; if our boys want to go there
and till the soil, they need not serve as soldiers." So many of the
Spanish boys go to Cuba, and often they forget Spain, take a Cuban girl
for a wife, and never go home again. And then their children are Cubans
with Cuban mothers. Cuba is so near to the United States, these Cuban
children often come here, where they learn something about our system of
government, and the education and freedom enjoyed by our people. Then
they go back and tell their brothers and sisters all about it. This has
gone on for a great many years, till these Cubans have become filled
with ideas of liberty and self-government. They do not see why they
should be ruled by a King who lives so far away, and then they do not
see why they should have a King at all. Besides, they say they are taxed
a great deal to support this King and his ministers in Spain, and every
year more Spaniards come to Cuba, and as these are poor and anxious to
work, they occupy all the places which would otherwise be held by the
Cubans. Thus there is a jealousy between the Cubans and the new
arrivals, who soon begin to regard their cousins born in the island very
much as their ancestors regarded the native Indians.
About twenty-eight years ago many of the Cubans got together in the
eastern part of the island, and thinking they could throw off the
Spanish rule, they armed themselves and went into the mountains, where
they fought against the Spanish rule for ten years. At that time the
negroes of Cuba were still slaves, their masters buying and selling them
as though they were cattle instead of human beings. As these black men
were all strong and hardy fellows, the Cubans told them that if they
would help them fight they would give them their liberty. Of course they
were anxious to become free men, and great many of them joined the white
Cubans and fought with them very well. Spain tried hard to put down this
insurrection, but found it very expensive to send her soldiers to fight
a people among the mountains in their own country. At last, after she
had spent a great deal of money and lost a great many of her boy
soldiers, she sent her greatest General, Martinez Campos, with full
power to treat with the rebellious Cubans. He succeeded in communicating
with the revolutionists, and promised them certain reforms in the
administration of their affairs. The Cubans wanted self-government, and,
among other things, they stipulated that the negroes who had fought with
them should be recognized as free men. This did not seem reasonable,
because the negroes who had remained faithful to Spain were still
slaves, while those who had rebelled were to be rewarded. General Campos
agreed, however, and the Cubans laid down their arms. Thus the first
successful blow for freedom was struck, and Spain soon passed laws which
eventually gave the rest of the negroes their liberty.
There followed some sixteen years of comparative peace, although the
Cubans claim that Spain never fulfilled the promises made to them by
Martinez Campos. There were several attempts to make war again, but the
Cubans appear to have been afraid. They are not a fighting people, like
our ancestors, who fought against a tax of threepence on a pound of tea
because they considered it unjust. The Cubans wanted to be let alone,
and often paid their taxes without complaint. But as Spain still sent
her boys as colonists to Cuba, the Cubans found it very hard to compete
with these boys, pay their taxes, and make a living. A great many of
them left the island and came to this country, where they have made
their homes, but always looking across the water, hoping that some day
their island would be free from Spanish rule. Some of the Cubans,
instead of leaving the island took to the woods and became bandits. Thus
things went from bad to worse, until some of the old leaders of the last
war thought the time had arrived to strike another blow for the freedom
of Cuba.
[Illustration: THE INSURGENT GENERAL GOMEZ AND HIS STAFF.]
About one year and a half ago, Maximo Gomez, a soldier who had fought in
the ranks and had risen to be a general in the ten years' war, landed on
the east end of Cuba. He was shortly followed by Antonio Maceo, a
mulatto, who had also a command in the last war. They proclaimed a
rebellion against Spain, and called upon all Cubans to join them. It was
not long before they had an army. Spain was slow to understand the
seriousness of the situation, and declared that it was only a negro
uprising which she could easily put down. Of course there were a great
many negroes who flocked to the standard raised by Gomez and Maceo, for
they knew that it was through the Cubans they had gained their liberty.
But the uprising became general throughout the island. Gomez marched his
army from the eastern end of the island to the centre, and then invaded
Matauzas and Havana provinces. On the way he met the Spaniards several
times, but they were unable to check his movements. The old general,
Martinez Campos, who had treated with him seventeen years before, tried
to stop him in his westward march, and finally failed at Coliseo, in
Matauzas province. Then the Spaniards became dissatisfied with their
greatest General, for Martinez Campos spoke the truth, and told Spain
many things which she did not like to hear, and he refused to kill his
prisoners, for he said the Cubans did not kill his soldiers when they
caught them. But the Spaniards thought the Cubans should be killed for
fighting against Spain, so they sent General Weyler with full power to
do as he liked in the island of Cuba. Under the rule of this General
matters have grown very much worse for Spain, and to one who has studied
the situation carefully in the island it looks very much as though the
Cubans were going to gain their independence. The Spaniards hold the
towns, while the Cubans remain in the country. There are no great
battles fought, and while the Spaniards claim that they cannot find the
rebels, the Cubans destroy and lay waste the country, believing that the
Spaniards will eventually get tired and give up trying to rule them, for
Cuba's wealth, they say, is the cause of the yoke she bears, and all
must be destroyed rather than submit again to Spanish rule.
[Illustration: Pedro Muñoz de Sepulveda, Civil Governor of Havana.
General Weyler.
Navarro Fernandez, Commander of the Navy, and his Adjutant.
Señor Pintas, General Weyler's Secretary.
GENERAL WEYLER AS HE LANDED IN CUBA.]
THE PIPER.
BY M. L. VAN VORST.
There's a strange gaunt piper in doublet brown
Comes over the heather and over the sea;
His dwelling is neither in city nor town,
And he pipes for the wee little folk and me.
His hat is high and pointed and green,
With a sprig in the hand from the holly-tree,
And his smile is the merriest ever seen
In the eyes of the wee little folk and me.
He comes at the close of the winter days,
As we sit in the firelight after tea;
He steals from the corner, and smiles and plays
For the tired wee little folk and me.
And what are the tunes that the piper sings
As the strange pipe trembles with melody?--
I'd like to tell you the beautiful things
He tells to the wee little folk and me.
But they fade as soon as the piper goes
To take his journey o'er heather and sea.
Will he come again to us? Nobody knows.
Will you wait with the wee little folk and me?
WHAT THE BEE TOLD ME.
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
The other night, after my children had been tucked away safely in bed, I
was seated in my library reading. The house was very warm, and I opened
the huge window on the south side of the room to let in a little air,
and as I did so a little bee came buzzing in through the slats of the
shutters. I paid no attention to him at first, but after I had taken my
arm-chair again, and had settled back in comfort to resume my story, the
little creature began to buzz about my ears in a fashion which did not
altogether please me.
"Shoo!" I cried, waving my hand gently at him. "Why don't you shoo?"
[Illustration]
Now you may believe me or not, as you please, but the little bee
giggled, and said:
"What shall I shoe? Bees can do lots of things, but they can't shoe.
They are not blacksmiths."
The reply amused and interested me, and I put down my book and gazed at
him without saying a word, waiting for his next remark.
"In fact," the bee continued, "I could tell you a story about that very
point, if you'd listen."
"Go ahead," said I. "I'll be delighted."
And the little bee told me the following story.
Once upon a time, a great many years ago, the Queen of the bees
sent to the Lord High Treasurer of her kingdom for his annual
report, and when it came she was very much surprised to find that
the treasury contained about half as much treasure as she had
supposed.
"Where is the rest of the money?" she demanded in severe tones.
"We haven't had it, your Majesty," said the Lord High Treasurer.
"Haven't we earned it?" she asked.
"Yes," replied the Lord High Treasurer. "But we haven't been able
to sell all the honey we've made. We've been too industrious."
"It is impossible to be too industrious," said the Queen. "Send
the Trade Secretary here."
The Trade Secretary came at once, and bore out all that the Lord
High Treasurer had said. The bees had made more honey than they
could sell.
"Then we must have a mass-meeting and tell all the beeple," she
observed.
"The what?" I asked, interrupting the bee's story.
"The beeple. You folks are people. We bees are beeple," explained my
little visitor.
I laughed, and he continued:
"Tell the beeple," said the Queen, "and at once, because when they
read your report and see how little profit we have gained for our
labors this year they may become suspicious. If we tell them at
once, as soon as we have discovered it ourselves, they cannot
complain."
And so the mass-meeting was called, and ten thousand bees gathered
before the royal hives.
[Illustration]
The Queen undertook to tell the beeple herself.
"Most beloved subjects," said she, as she emerged from the royal
hive amid the enthusiastic buzzing of the beepulace, "I have been
going over the report of my Trade Secretary during the past week,
and I regret to say that the showing is not satisfactory."
A murmur of disappointment greeted the announcement.
"We have not been idle, your Majesty!" cried one of the workers.
"I myself have flown from flower to flower for five hours a day
every day during the season, and I can testify that all my friends
and neighbors have kept themselves equally busy."
"I have nothing to complain about on that score," returned her
Majesty, graciously. "Indeed, you have all been most industrious.
Even the drones have droned to my satisfaction."
"Have we then worked too hard?" queried another.
"It would seem so," returned her Majesty. "Either that or after a
fashion which might be termed unprofitable. We have manufactured
seventeen million pounds of honey in the last year, and after all
the demands of the honey-eaters have been fulfilled we find
ourselves with ten million pounds on hand."
"It proves how useful we do-nothing bees are," said one of the
drones. "Had we worked, the supply would have been twice as great,
and instead of having ten million pounds of honey more than we
need, we should have twenty-seven million pounds of it upon our
antennæ."
"We've got no business with antennæ, anyhow," growled another
drone. "Why can't we have beetennæ, and be done with it?"
"All of this!" cried the Queen, impatiently, "is apart from the
question. Whether we have antennæ, beetennæ, or flytennæ, we have
made too much honey."
[Illustration]
"Then let us rest for a year," sighed one of the drones. "It's
mathematics that if one does enough work in one year to last for
two years, he's done two years' work in one, wherefore let him
take a year off and travel for his health."
"Not so!" cried the Queen. "The Lord High Commissioner of the
Police will arrest the drone who has spoken so unreasonably, and
suggested such an unbeely practice as idleness. Put him in the
darkest dungeon of the Bee-stile, and feed him upon iced water and
cold biscuit crumbs for twenty-four hours."
"Mercy!" cried the drone. "Mercy, your Majesty! I was only
thoughtless."
"You do well," quoth the Queen, "to appeal to my mercy, and I will
be merciful. I will remit half of the sentence. Lock him up for
twenty-four hours, but do not feed him at all."
[Illustration]
The thoughtless drone was arrested and taken away, and the Queen
resumed.
"It's not that we work too hard," she said. "It is that we make
too much of one kind of thing. If the honey consumers only want
ten million pounds of honey, it is foolish for us to make twenty
million pounds of it, and I think we should turn our attention to
other fields."
"I did," said one. "I brought a country doctor five dollars by
stinging a small boy."
"How often have I told you not to sting small boys?" frowned the
Queen.
[Illustration]
"I couldn't help it, your Majesty," returned the bee, humbly. "I
was flying along a garden path, and the small boy came running up;
he ran so fast he collided with me, and ere I knew it my stinger
had penetrated his flesh."
"You had no business to have your stinger out," said the Queen.
"Oh yes, your Majesty," explained the bee, "I had to have it out,
for I had come to that garden to sharpen it upon the grindstone of
the boy's father. Had the boy been looking where he was going, it
would not have happened."
"Ah!" said the Queen, smiling with pleasure; "that is different.
If you taught the small boy a lesson you worked to some purpose,
and you are forgiven. I don't see, however, how you still live if
you really stung the child. Pray explain."
"He was a tender little chap--that is all," said the bee. "And I
had no trouble in pulling my sting out of his soft little cheek.
It was like a peach."
Again the Queen smiled. "I am pleased with you," she said, and
then turning again to the assembled multitude, she resumed her
speech.
"Now that we know what our trouble is, shall we not act
accordingly? Shall we continue year in and year out wasting our
valuable time in the making of honey that nobody wants, or shall
we look about for something new to do which, after we have made
all the honey that is needed, shall still keep us busy, so that
people seeing us shall be able to call us 'the busy bees' as of
yore? What is the will of my subjects?"
"Let us branch out! Let us do other things," buzzed the beepulace.
"I knew my confidence in your judgment was not misplaced," cried
the Queen, joyously. "It now remains for us to decide what, and I
here to-day in the presence of you all as witnesses proclaim my
intention to give the hand of my eldest daughter to that one of
you who shall suggest the scheme that shall seem best for our new
line of action."
[Illustration]
"Suppose it's won by a lady bee?" cried a woman's-rights bee in
the throng. "She won't want your daughter's hand."
"She shall have the hand of my eldest son," replied the Queen bee,
with a smile.
The reply seemed to satisfy the woman's-right's bee, and the Queen
having retired to her royal cell, the crowd broke up, and the
various members of it betook their way to their respective hives
to cogitate upon the problem presented by the Queen.
[Illustration]
On the day following the royal proclamation was found posted all
over Beeland, in which it was announced that a committee,
consisting of the Queen, the Trade Secretary, and the Lord High
Treasurer of the country would receive the various plans
presented, go over them carefully, and on Christmas day following
make known whatever decision they might have reached. This method
was satisfactory to all hands, and the bees busied themselves for
ten and fifteen hours a day thinking up schemes. It was a long
time to think, but bees have very small heads, and they had to
think quite as much as that daily to reach any conclusion at all.
Some of them got very sick with brain-fever from trying to think
too much, and one little worker went crazy because he was so
foolish as to cogitate for forty-nine hours without rest. Many of
the lighter-headed bees soon gave it up, but the wiser ones,
thinking moderately and not too deeply all at once, soon had their
schemes mapped out and placed in the committee's hands, or
antennæ.
The autumn went rapidly. Christmas came, and the committee
examined the plans that were presented.
"I must say," the Queen said, with a sigh, after reading a large
number of foolish schemes, "it doesn't seem to me that my subjects
are as bright as they might be. The idea of this fellow suggesting
that we go into the 'horse-bothering business'!"
The Trade Secretary laughed. "What on earth is the
'horse-bothering business'?" he asked.
"He wants individual bees to hire themselves out to farmers with
slow horses," said the Queen. "Their duty is to bother the horses
until they get skittish and try to run."
"Hoh!" laughed the Lord High Treasurer; "what a donkey that bee
must be!"
"Here's another," observed the Trade Secretary, opening a sealed
envelope. "He wants us to go into the carrier-pigeon business. He
says there is nothing can strike a bee-line so accurately as a
bee, and adds that he thinks a whole swarm ought to be able to
earn from fifteen to twenty dollars a month at it."
"How very foolish," said the Queen, impatiently. "It would take a
whole swarm a month to carry a single message a mile. I do hope
that isn't going to turn out to be the best suggestion of all, for
I should be most unhappy if I had to give the hand of my eldest
daughter to a bee like that."
"You may relieve your mind on that score," said the Trade
Secretary. "I have just found another which is much better. This
bee suggests that when we are not gathering honey and making
honey-combs, it wouldn't be a bad thing to fly about barber-shops
and gather hair and make hair-combs."
"I think that is very foolish," said the Queen. "Why do you think
it is better than the horse-bothering and the carrier-pigeon
plans?"
"It's no more foolish, and twice as funny," explained the Trade
Secretary.
"That is very true," said the Queen.
"Here's another that's funnier yet," said the Lord High Treasurer.
"This one says that we might gather curry and make curry-combs."
The Queen laughed outright. "I think they'd better start a comic
paper," she said.
"That's the best idea yet," cried the Trade Secretary,
enthusiastically, for he was a great flatterer. "Let us decide on
that, and then your Majesty can keep your eldest daughter's hand
as a reward for some future competition."
"No," said the Queen, shaking her head; "that would never do. I
shall not enter into this competition at all. The others would
say, and very properly too, that I was partial to my own plan, and
couldn't be a good judge of its merit. No; you must leave my plans
out altogether."
And so they went on examining the plans, none of which seemed any
better or funnier than the ones I have mentioned, until they came
to what appeared to be a grand scheme.
"I suggest," wrote one little bee, "that we keep on making honey
just the same, only instead of putting it together in one great
lot, all tasting alike, let us keep different kinds in different
combs. For instance, let one swarm gather from roses and make rose
honey; another can sip the nectar from the violet and make violet
honey; another can get the essence of the mint and mix it with
pepper and make peppermint honey, and so on. Let us have honey of
all flavors--vanilla, sarsaparilla, and so on--and then we shall
never make too much. There never was too much soda-water in the
world, because if you get tired of one kind you can drink another
kind. I heard a little girl who was a soda-water expert say so,
and it was from her remark that I got the idea. If I've won,
please let me know, and I'll come up to the palace and get the
hand of the Queen's eldest daughter; and if you'll send me word
early enough in the day, with the size of her hand, I'll bring a
nice little glove to put on it. P. S.--Do we get only one hand, or
does the whole daughter go with it?"
"Magnificent!" cried the Queen, in ecstasy, clapping her antennæ
together. "We must award the prize to him."
"I think so myself," said the Trade Secretary, "he is certainly
the most original."
"And a good business bee, too," said the Lord High Treasurer.
"What he asks about the whole daughter proves that."
"And a good husband he'll make," said the Queen, with a pleased
expression. "His thinking about her gloves proves that. Are there
any others?"
[Illustration]
"Only one," said the Trade Secretary. "From a bee who signs
himself 'A Poet.'"
"Oh, he can't win!" said the Queen, impatiently, for she had the
idea which many wiser people have that poets are lazy.
"Not likely," said the Lord High Treasurer. "I still think, your
Majesty, that we ought to read what he suggests."
"Very well; no doubt you are right. What is it he says?" said the
Queen, with a look of resignation on her face.
[Illustration]
So they read the suggestion of the little poet bee, and this is
the way it went:
"We have made too much plain honey
For the people's ready money;
And the only way to keep our daily toil from being waste
Is to give them something neater,
Something purer, something sweeter,
Something quite the like of which they never yet have had a taste.
"Shall we then spend all our hours
Sipping up the sweets of flowers,
Sipping sweets of which they tell us that they don't want any more?
Or shall we set our forces
Seeking out some other sources
Which will yield a store of honey of a kind not known before?
"Oh, I know where there is nectar
Fit for Jupiter or Hector;
'Tis a sweet no bee has ever tried to put into his comb.
'Tis a sweet I say of which, sir,
In the mansions of the rich, sir,
Or the poorest is the sweetest of the sweets of any home.
"Tis the nectar of the kisses
Of the babies--learn what bliss is!--
Gather that and put it into all the honey that you can,
And you'll find e'en the Immortals
Thronging daily at your portals
With rich jewels for the product that will follow from my plan."
[Illustration]
There was a long silence when the Trade Secretary had finished
reading the poet's suggestion. The Queen wiped her eyes. She was
manifestly touched by the sentiment of the poet's little verse.
Finally the Lord High Treasurer spoke.
"I'm not much of a judge of poetry," he said, "so I won't say much
about the verse, except that I don't think he ought to have lugged
Hector in just for the sake of a rhyme; but I do think it is a
beautiful idea. I kissed a baby once in a country garden, and it
was so fearfully sweet that all the flowers tasted like lemons for
months afterwards."
"I have had the same experience," said the Queen, softly.
"Me too!" said the Trade Secretary. "The plan is a fine one."
"But is it finer than the other one?" asked the Queen. "I, as a
mother, think it is."
"I, as a business bee, think not," said the Lord High Treasurer.
"Well, I, as a business bee and a father, can't make up my mind,"
sighed the Trade Secretary. "It's very unfortunate. One ought to
be better than the other, but I can't decide which is the one."
"They can't both have my eldest daughter's hand," sighed the
Queen.
"No," said the Lord High Treasurer, with a dubious shake of his
head.