PART II.

For four years the game in Virginia, all undisturbed, increased and

multiplied at an astonishing rate. There was no shot to be had in

the Confederacy, and the only way an ardent sportsman, when home on

furlough, could take a shy at the game, was to hammer out from a leaden

bullet long, square blocks, and then cutting off the ends with a knife,

to use a brick to roll these bits on the floor until each pellet became

round enough for use. It would take a man a day, and exhaust all his

patience, to make one pound of shot; and he would naturally be very

chary about using his ammunition, and rarely pull a trigger except

when certain of his game. In most sections of Virginia to fire a gun

was a dangerous pastime, for what with raids, irruptions, incursions

and forays, the people were in a state of siege, and the report of

a firearm was as likely as not to be followed by a bullet from some

traveling soldier, prowling bushwhacker, or passing cavalryman, thrown

just for good luck in the direction of the sound. Then, if it should

happen that a raid was in progress, the shot would attract the

videttes and scouts, and the luckless gunner would find himself in

hostile hands; and if too old or too young for military service, he

might consider himself lucky if he were allowed to depart minus his

fowling-piece and dog.

In the mountains of Virginia the wild turkeys were more numerous than

they ever were before, the various bivouacs furnishing them in winter

with an ample supply of food, while, best of all, they were allowed to

feed unmolested. The water-fowl on the Potomac kept up their ratio of

increase, for except the officers of the gunboats patrolling up and

down the river, none dared to fire a gun. There were hunters of men in

those times scattered along the banks, as well as floating on the bosom

of the blue water. The explosion of a sportsman’s gun, and its smoke,

might serve as an admirable target for the boatswain of an iron-clad

with a crew nearly dead with listlessness and _ennui_, and glad to get

an excuse to blaze away at anything.

In the fall of 1865, those Virginians who loved sporting, and had the

good luck to return to the homes of their youth with their arms and

legs intact, had a rare and royal time among the fur and feather, and

a moderate shot would return in the evening and show such a bag as

the result of the day’s sport as would last the family for a week. A

couple of sportsmen living about ten miles from Culpeper Court House,

Virginia, killed, in one day, eighty-four rabbits and fourteen wild

turkeys. If a gunner can start even half a dozen cotton-tails now in

a long day’s tramp he considers himself fortunate, and he won’t see

a wild turkey in a season’s shooting. I well remember a hunt that I

had in the autumn of 1865, just after the war ended. It was a perfect

day in November, with the morning mists still hanging around the

tree-tops. I had borrowed a double-barrel from one friend, and a good,

staunch pointer named “Josh” from another. I climbed the fence of an

orchard, and put the dog out in a huge field near Warrenton Junction,

where portions of both armies had often encamped. Josh had not gone

seventy-five yards before he came to a dead stand, and with beating

heart I advanced and hied him on. As the birds rose I let fly both

barrels, and--did not touch a feather! Loading up, I again sent Josh

careering over the stubble. In ten minutes he had pointed a covey, and

I again emptied the gun with the same result as before. If ever a dog’s

face expressed contempt Josh’s was surely the one. His dewlaps curled

up, and he absolutely showed his teeth, whether in anger or derision

I never found out. The third time I approached a covey that Josh

had cornered in a big patch of briers, and two more loads were sent

harmless as Macbeth’s sword “cutting the intrenchant air.” This was

enough for that disgusted dog. He sneaked off, and I never laid my eyes

upon him again.

It was no great matter, the birds were so plentiful that I had merely

to walk up and down the field, and I banged away most lustily. All in

vain! I could not touch one. I fired with both eyes open, then with

one shut, and still no partridge lingered on that account. I became

superstitious and fired with both eyes shut. I doubled the charges,

until I swept that meadow with leaden pellets, as a field is cleared

by grape-shot. But there were no dead. At last, in my despair, I would

shoot even if the bird was half a mile off. I went home that evening,

after shooting away about ten pounds of shot, with one solitary

partridge in my game-bag, and this bird, when I flushed him suddenly,

was so scared that he flew from the edge of the field across a fence

and against the trunk of a black-jack tree with such force as to knock

himself silly, and before he could hustle himself away I had jumped the

fence and wrung his neck.

[Illustration: SHOOTING OVER DECOYS.]

There was apparently enough fur and feather in Virginia just after the

war to supply the whole of America with small game, but in one decade

the state of the case was completely altered. First came the invention

of the breech-loader, which enables one to shoot all day without

intermission. The game stood but little chance against these machines

of perpetual destruction. But worse even than the breech-loader was

the old army musket, loaded with a handful of shot, with a lately

enfranchised freedman behind the big end of it. The darkey is a

nocturnal prowler, as much so as a ’coon or ’possum, and his prowls

through meadow, woods and fallow cause him frequently to stumble on the

wary turkey that forgets his cunning as he struts around preparatory

to flying to his roost, generally a dead limb on a lofty tree. He

bags many a molly cotton-tail loping down the road to get his evening

drink at the branch. But it is when “our friend and brother” catches

sight, in the shades of the evening, of a flock of partridges settling

in some field for their night’s rest, that he becomes dangerous. It

is then that the old army musket is converted into a terror, and when

its muzzle bears upon the whole covey squatted in a space that can be

covered by a bandana handkerchief, and its contents are turned loose,

every bird will be either killed or crippled.

[Illustration: RED-HEAD DUCKS AT HOME.]

The freedman’s musket, battered and patched though it be, must look

down upon the handsome, resplendent breechloader as a great orator

does upon the garrulous, loquacious youth who talks upon every subject

at any time, and at any length, while he only opens his mouth to make

knock-down arguments, or to utter words of great import that thrill

and convince. When the reverberating roar of that old A. M. was heard,

it was safe to bet that something that did not come from the barnyard

would fill the shooter’s iron pot that night.

A weather-beaten old darkey said to me once: “It dun cos’ me nearly

five cents to load that air musket, countin’ powder, caps, shot and

everythin’, an’ I ain’t gwine to let er off ’less I knows I’se sartin

to make by de shot.”

The baybird-shooting in the summer, and the duck-shooting outside

the Virginia capes, was at its zenith some fifteen years ago. Then,

too, the canvas-back, that king of water-fowl, before whose name the

gourmand bows in homage, still lingered in the tributaries of the

Chesapeake Bay, but now it is nearly extinct. A sportsman may gun for

a whole winter in the bay and not kill half a dozen “canvas-backs,”

but, if a good shot over the decoys, he can count on the kind known as

the “red-head”--and if he knew how to pull out a few feathers, as does

the professional pot-hunter, he could easily follow that gentleman’s

example and sell them at fancy figures for “canvas-backs,” which in

another decade will be as utterly annihilated as the dodo. Still, great

is the culinary _chef’s_ art, and if he can, by the magic power of his

sauces, herbs and seasonings, pass calf’s head off for green turtle,

and the skillpot for diamond-back terrapin stew, then nobody is hurt.

His patrons enjoy it just the same, and to the average man the red-head

duck tastes as well with his champagne as its incomparable relative.

[Illustration: POTOMAC SHOOTING--OLD STYLE.]

[Illustration: ROBIN-SNIPE.]

Fifteen years ago--even ten years--many an amateur would pack his trunk

with ammunition, and taking steamer for Old Point Comfort, disembark

there, and after a few hours’ wait at the Hygeia Hotel, proceed on his

way to the eastern shore of Virginia by crossing the Chesapeake Bay.

Or he would go outside the capes, and stop at Cape Charles, or Cobb’s

Island. Once at his objective point, he could be certain in the right

season of having his fill of shooting every day at the baybirds.

They were so plentiful that all along the Virginia Broadwater every

oyster-bar or mud-flat would be covered with them, and all the shooter

would have to do would be to make a blind out of sea-grass, place

his decoys around him, and then try his hand on singles, doubles and

flocks, striking them on the turn, while a hundred pair of yellow-legs,

or willet, would not be considered anything out of the way. As it is

now--well, the finest shot in the country could not kill that many

snipe in a week, simply because they are not there to kill. The vast

flocks of robin-snipe that tarried in their migrations along the

shores of the Chesapeake and the Broadwater of the Atlantic coast have

entirely disappeared. The curlew still haunt their favorite places,

but have become so wary that neither blind nor decoys can lure them,

except, indeed, at the earliest dawn of day, before their eyes are

wide open. Half a dozen curlew, between sunrise and sunset, in the

blinds, is something for a sportsman to be proud of, for no crow is

keener-eyed, more suspicious, and keeps a sharper lookout than these

birds. Fifteen years ago I have often killed from thirty to fifty from

sun to sun, at Smith Island or Cape Charles, but now one has to load

his shell with No. 3 shot to bring down the high-circling, distrustful

curlew.

The willet is still fairly plentiful. They lay their eggs and rear

their young in the neighboring sea-meadows, and though preyed upon by

crabs, snakes and raccoons from the time the egg is laid until the bird

is able to fly, they still hold their own. They are such sociable birds

that whenever a flock of snipe is fired into, one of the dead is almost

certain to be a willet.

The ox-eye, another variety of the snipe family, is found in abundance

on the shores and sea-meadows, and they owe their preservation, like

the sandpipers, to their insignificant size. There are no birds in

existence that keep so close together when on the wing as these

ox-eyes. A large flock resembles a solid mass, and dire is the

destruction that a double-barrel makes as it pours forth its contents

of No. 8 shot at point-blank distance and strikes them on the turn. I

asked old Nathan Cobb, of Cobb’s Island, which is outside the Virginia

capes--a pot-hunter of half a century’s experience, who has grown

independent from the proceeds of his gun--what was the greatest number

of snipe he had ever killed by one discharge of his double-barrel.

[Illustration: POTOMAC SHOOTING--NEW STYLE.]

“Wal,” said Nathan, with his Eastern Shore drawl, “I was out gunning

one spring, about thirty years ago, and had a No. 8 muzzle-loader that

would hold comfortably six ounces of shot. I ran in on a solid acre of

robin-snipe on the beach, and fired one load raking them as they fed,

giving them the other barrel as they rose. I picked up three hundred

and two.”

I next asked him the greatest number of brant he had ever killed in one

day over the decoys, with single shots.

“I bagged,” he answered, “about ten years ago, one hundred and seventy

brant, and nearly every one of them was a single shot.”

I can easily believe this, for I have shot in blinds with many

sportsmen, at redhead, shufflers, black duck and brant, and I never yet

saw amateur, professional, or pot-hunter, whose aim was so unerring

and deadly at the flying ducks as Nathan Cobb’s. I do not believe this

score has ever been beaten in this country.

At the present day this same story of the disappearance of the

waterfowl on the Virginia coast and along the Capes becomes dreary from

repetition. It does not pay the sportsman to go to Cobb’s Island now.

I spent three seasons there in the winter, during the “Eighties,” and

found that the brant were so wild that they would not stool. Then I

went to Cape Charles, just outside the Capes, and, though it is a most

inaccessible place, the brant would not come near the decoys.

Two winters ago, I tried Currituck Sound, and found palatial

club-houses open all about that noble sheet of water. Some of these

houses are so splendid in appointment that when you glance around the

elegantly furnished rooms, with their damask curtains, Brussels carpets

and open grates where the anthracite is piled high, it is impossible

to imagine that just outside roll the dark waters of the Sound, while

miles upon miles of barren sea-meadows, marshes and swamp separate the

house from civilization. All of these club-houses are owned by Northern

men--rich in world’s gear, of course--men who count their incomes by

thousands, where ordinary bread-winners of the professions count their

earnings by tens. Think of having in the magazine of a club-house

thirty thousand dollars in guns! Gordon Cumming, starting for a ten

years’ game hunt in the jungles of Africa, or Stanley, setting out to

fight his way through the “Dark Continent,” with countless hordes of

savage “Wawangi” disputing his passage, never had that amount invested

in weapons--and all to kill the wary geese and swift-flying ducks.

Even with such perfection of outfit--with guns of every imaginable

make from the 12 to the 4 bore, and trained gunners to oversee every

arrangement, the clubmen were talking gloomily about the sport fast

deteriorating. Pot-hunters, “duck pirates,” countrymen, freedmen--all

who lived or robbed along the shores of the Sound had their shy at the

ducks, day in and night out, and such a fusillade was never heard since

Burnside stormed and carried Roanoke Island, some miles below, in the

glinting spring days of 1862. I found good enough sport on the private

point of a friend who lived on a large farm by the shores of the Sound.

Still the birds were thinning rapidly.

Last winter’s experience with Currituck made me determine never to go

to that spot again for sport. I do not think I overstate matters when

I say that wildfowl-shooting on the finest grounds in the world is

doomed. Gone are the vast flocks, decimated are the swans and geese

that were so plentiful in certain localities even three short years

ago, and indigo blue are the rich sportsmen who quaff their champagne

in silence and puff moodily at their twenty-five cent cigars as they

think of the meagre bags they have made, and how matters, now so bad,

are always getting worse, thereby proving the old saw which saith

“Nothing can be so bad that it cannot be made worse.” The club men

should, however, be glad that the snipe will always be with them.

For keen trading, guileless equivocation and general deviltry commend

me to the “cracker” of the North Carolina Coast. He could discount

the Jersey Yankee upstairs and down-stairs. The typical specimen is

slab-sided and always thin; I never met a fat one yet. Their complexion

shows that they have wrestled for years with “chills,” and their cheeks

are as yellow as a newly-pulled gourd; they drawl in their speech,

look at you with half-shut eyes, are afraid of neither man nor devil,

have no hero-worship in their composition, and are as familiar with

the captain of a yacht as with the roustabout. They are as keen as a

brier, despite their listless, indifferent air, and to them more than

any other cause is due the extermination of the wild fowl in Currituck

Sound. They cleaned out the wild geese by setting steel traps on the

bars. What they did not catch they frightened away.

Mr. William Palmer, the superintendent of the Palmer Island Club,

states, moreover, that the number of sportsmen who come to Currituck

to shoot has increased twenty-five per cent., while the natives have

crowded the Sound with their blinds, and every male “cracker” who can

hold a gun straight is on the watch.

It is true that there are stringent State Laws against the illegal

killing of wild fowl, and also a close season. If these rules were

enforced there would be first-class shooting in Currituck Sound for

years to come, but the laws seem to be completely ignored; there is not

even a pretense of observing them. The law makes a strong provision

against a gun being fired at a duck after sunset, but there are numbers

of murderous, greedy natives who have their skiffs hid in the woods and

swamps in which are the huge ducking guns already referred to. Every

hour during the night can be heard the sullen boom of these swivels

floating across the waters, and the true sportsman, as he listens to

the echoing roar, can only grind his teeth with rage, for he knows

what a slaughter is going on, and how the survivors will take wing and

abandon the Sound for good and all.

But the worst remains to be told. As if steel traps and big guns were

not enough to destroy the wild fowl, the ingenious natives make fires

on the banks of the creeks that run through the marshes, and, as

the ducks float in ricks up to the illuminated waters, the ambushed

assassin gets in his deadly work. Unless the sportsmen who own the

club-houses on the Sound, by concerted action and vast outlay, can

prosecute the offenders, then “Othello’s occupation’s gone.”

My own idea is that these clubs are too exclusive. They should make it

a point to cultivate the _entente cordiale_ with the sportsmen of the

State of North Carolina, and thus, by gaining their co-operation, they

could induce the State authorities to take stringent action against

the law-breakers. Unless this is done the sporting code will remain a

dead letter as far as Currituck is concerned. The people shrug their

shoulders when the subject is mentioned and say, “Those fancy Northern

sportsmen don’t want a North Carolinian to kill a North Carolina duck

in North Carolina waters,” and so on, and so on. Had I the arranging

and the forming of a game protective association of the club men in

Currituck, I would extend a pressing and standing invitation to every

member of the Legislature and every officer of the State Government to

make the club-houses their own, and the Governor and his staff should

be kidnapped every winter, and be made to enjoy the gilt-edge sport of

the “Yankee” clubs.

Seeing in a State paper that the Light-house Board intended to abandon

the Pamlico (N. C.) Light-house, I applied to the Treasury Department

to turn it over to me for a “shooting box.” This was done, and I hope

to have some good sporting in the future.

Southward the sportsmen must make their way, and find more inaccessible

spots than Currituck to establish club-houses. This being the case, the

topography and charts of the regions lying south of Currituck become

interesting to the handlers of the gun. Four miles across the mainland

is that grand sheet of water, the Albemarle Sound, some fifteen miles

wide. Though this sound cannot compare with Currituck for the number

and variety of its waterfowl in past years, at the present time it is

filled with the birds that have been driven by night-shooting away from

Currituck to find safer quarters there. Undoubtedly there will, in the

next few years, be erected many club-houses in Albemarle Sound. Some

twelve miles as the crow flies across the peninsula, another sheet of

water is encountered. This is the Crotan Sound, apparently of about the

area of Currituck. There is an abundance of waterfowl here, and but

few, if any, club-houses, which will, however, soon follow.

Ten miles southward, across a swampy, barren pine country, there

appears the largest and grandest sound of all, the Pamlico. I have

no data to furnish the exact size, but the steamer travels over 100

miles before it arrives at Pamlico Point light, at the spot where the

Pamlico River enters the Sound. Here is the home and haunt of the swan,

and, as they have been but comparatively little hunted, they furnish

fine sport to those who have their own yachts and plenty of time.

There are no spots at Currituck that can afford more exciting sport

or show a greater abundance of all kinds of waterfowl than Pamlico

Point, Porpoise Point, about five miles distant, or Brant Island, some

twelve miles away. The inaccessibility of the place prevents the shore

pot-hunters from disturbing the game, and the “duck murderer,” with his

night-shooting, has not yet put in an appearance.

The water of Pamlico Sound is neutral to the taste; sometimes fresh,

again decidedly saline, but, for most of the time, it is simply

brackish. This condition arises from the fact that the Neuse and

Pamlico Rivers pour fresh waters into its area, while New Hatteras

and Oregon inlets and Core Sound admit the salt waters of the ocean.

This mixture of fresh, brackish and salt waters in a common receptacle

naturally attracts every variety of waterfowl. The red-head and

shuffler haunt the mingling of the fresh-water rivers with the Sound

waters, while the black duck, mallard, and that king of aquatic birds,

the gamest of all--the brant, stay in the vicinity of Oregon Inlet.

In my opinion, within a few years Pamlico Sound is destined to be the

greatest sporting-ground in the country, and the costly and expensive

club-houses at Currituck will be discounted by the new ones at Pamlico

Sound.

How long it will be before the breech-loader in the hands of the

natives and the swivel gun, killing in the night, will drive the wild

fowl out of that extensive region is a question that none can answer.

Many sportsmen who have been forced southward and still southward

during the past years in quest of game hope that Pamlico Sound will

furnish winter sport to last them at least the balance of their days.

[Illustration]

MR. PERKER’S BEAR; OR, MR. BEAR’S PERKER?

BY PRESIDENT BATES.

Since his marriage with Effie Cameron, Mr. Perker has greatly improved

in many respects. In his attire, his wheel, and his general style, Mr.

Perker still retains his proud pre-eminence as the pink of fashion of

the club. Taken all in all, he is the nattiest wheelman that ever sat

on a saddle. But now it is a chastened and refined glory. The little

“loudness,” indicative of an ambition soaring after effects not quite

attainable, which formerly marred Mr. Perker’s brilliancy at times, has

given place to a subdued chasteness, suggesting that he could be still

more elegant if a rival should appear. Plainly he exhibits evidences of

being toned by feminine taste.

Mr. Perker still clings fondly to his bicycle gun, but nowadays he

keeps it in the barn. Mrs. Effie will not permit it to be brought

into the house. I mention this for the tranquilization of visiting

wheelmen, so that they need not hesitate to accept an invitation to

one of the elegant lunches with which Mrs. Effie is wont to regale

the club and its guests on occasions. And pilgrim wheelmen, who have

read ~Outing~ in former years, do not need to be assured that

Mrs. Effie Perker is an altogether charming hostess, and one of the

prettiest and most warm-hearted Scotchwomen that ever made a home happy.

Former readers of ~Outing~ also know that Mr. Perker’s

remarkable dog, Smart, gave promise in his puppyhood of becoming one

of the most intelligent animals in the country. In fact, he achieved

wide notoriety in his early career. He is now famous for sagacity and

accumulated wisdom. As a bicycle hunting dog he is not only peerless,

but the founder of a new race--bicycle hunting dogs--a species of dog

not hitherto known; and several clubs have obtained specimens of his

progeny.

When Mr. Perker was required by the firm to whose interests he

devotes his talents to visit a settlement upon the northern coast of

Lake Michigan, upon business that would occupy him for two or three

weeks, he determined to take with him his dog, his bicycle gun and

his wheel. Mrs. Perker protested mildly; but yielded sweetly upon

hearing Mr. Perker’s solemn promise not to hunt wildcats. For a woman

whose girlhood was spent in the frontier wilds of Canada, Mrs. Perker

entertains a singular apprehension of wildcats--all on Mr. Perker’s

account. Of course, he is a hero in her wifely estimation; but she

does not consider him a wildcat hero. And she has very little faith in

Mr. Perker’s bicycle gun, or in the tried courage and sagacity of Mr.

Perker’s dog Smart, as against wildcats. She mingled with the packing

of Mr. Perker’s clean linen a loving remonstrance against hunting

wildcats; and she mixed with Mr. Perker’s toothbrush and razor a tender

warning against being led by “that fool, Smart,” into danger. Mr.

Perker solemnly promised, with his parting kiss, to take good care of

himself. And he meant it.

When Mr. Perker left the city, in Southern Michigan, the spring was

well advanced. The roads had dried and were ridable, while the trees

were beginning to show yellow-green buds. When, however, he arrived

in the Northern woods, the snow still lingered in patches in the dim

shades of the pine and hemlock forests, and ice clung to the shores

of the lake. The rivers and brooks had cleared themselves, but were

still in spring flood. The sharp frosts at night were followed by warm,

sunny days, and occasionally by a day that remained cold enough not to

melt the surface frost. There was no chance to ride except along the

lake shore, where the sloping sands had frozen smoothly and were firm

when their surface was unmelted. At various distances from the shore,

generally ten to thirty rods, ice-banks, in some places twenty feet

high, had formed in the shoal water, from great fields of drifting

ice being driven upon the coast by the winter gales, and breaking and

piling up their shore edges. Between the ice-banks and the shore sands

the ice was reasonably flat, with a top surface of roughly frozen snow.

Wherever a swollen river discharged into the lake, its freshet had cut

an open channel through the flat ice and through the ice-banks, though

the ice-banks still furnished bridges by which to cross the channels of

the smaller streams.

At that season of the year there was little hunting, for most game

was protected by the game-laws. To be sure the open spaces of water

were visited by flocks of wild fowl flying northward, and there were

rabbits in the woods, and of them Mr. Perker bagged a few. But, as of

old, his hunter’s soul longed for larger game, and only his solemn

promise to Effie prevented his joining the settlers in their wildcat

hunting. There were wolves in the woods--large gray wolves. But it

requires good hunting to get sight of one of these wary prowlers; and

Mr. Perker had not the time to take long tramps into the swamps where

they kept their lairs. The bears had also come out from their winter

sleep, and almost every day Mr. Perker heard of their slaughter. But

bears require skilled hunting, unless one happens upon a specimen by

accident. If there was any one thing more than another that Mr. Perker

longed for it was a bear. He ached for the glory of killing a bear. A

bearskin, captured by his own hand, would elevate him several degrees

in the estimation of the club and would greatly enhance the reputation

of his bicycle gun. But the days of his sojourn in the wilderness were

waning fast, and an encounter with a real live bear still remained the

thing “he long had sought and mourned because he found it not,” as the

hymn-book feelingly remarks. What made his disappointment more bitter

was the fact that everybody in the settlement freely conceded that

Smart undoubtedly possessed all the faculties and qualities of a good

bear dog, except that of finding a bear. Smart, with his master, had

made the acquaintance of every dead bear brought into the settlement,

but the live bears perversely avoided his distinguished society.

Bears have provokingly peculiar ways. When you arm yourself with

rifle, axe, knife and dog, and go hunting expressly for bear society,

every bear in the woods hangs out a sign, “not at home,” and declines

to be interviewed. When you particularly prefer not to be disturbed

in your solitude, as your gun is at home, and you forgot to bring

either axe or knife, and your dog is a mile off, rushing around after

fugacious rabbits, then is the time that the largest and savagest, and

most impudent of all bears is most apt to thrust himself upon your

attention, with alarming indications of begging for a chew.

Mr. Perker had reached the last day of his stay in the settlement. It

was a fine but cold Sunday. There was a moderate northwest wind swaying

the dull evergreen tree-tops and ruffling the gray-blue waters of the

lake, but in the woods and along the shore, sheltered by the bordering

pines and hemlocks, the air was still and just cool enough not to melt

the surface of the frozen sand. Five miles up the shore lived a man

with whom Mr. Perker had done business for the firm. Mr. Perker desired

to call upon him once more, not really on business, but to show him

attention and leave a good impression. This man had a thirteen-year-old

boy who, during a visit to a city the previous summer, had seen cowboys

perform in a circus, and this had fired his youthful spirit with

ambition to lasso something. Mr. Perker thought to win the heart--and

custom--of the father by making the boy a present of a lasso. To this

end he bought a suitable rope, thirty-six feet long. On one end he had

a sailor make a Turk’s-head knot, to prevent its slipping through the

grasp. On the other end was the lasso loop. But, lest the ambitious

youth should accidentally strangle his younger brother, or his father’s

favorite calf or pig, the sailor put a knot in the rope so that the

loop could close sufficiently to hold but not to choke. The rope was

stretched and limbered with oil and wax, making it a very good lasso

for a boy, and strong enough to hold a mule.

Mr. Perker would not go a-hunting on Sunday--he never did. There was,

however, no service till evening, so he determined to ride along the

beach on his wheel, make the visit, return in time for the service,

and start for home on Monday morning. He coiled the lasso and tied it

with a thread, so that he could easily carry it on the head of his

wheel, and though he did not take his bicycle gun, Smart, of course,

accompanied him. The beach sand proved hard and moderately smooth, so

that the riding was fair. He was in good spirits, having succeeded well

in his business, and at peace with the world, and had no thought of

seeing game of any kind.

He had gone nearly half-way, and was riding quietly and comfortably

along, minding his own business, when he was startled by seeing a large

bear come out of the woods, ahead of him, and walk down to the shore,

where it turned and went leisurely forward, evidently not having seen

him.

Smart, as was his habit, was--very sagaciously--somewhere else when

he was wanted to put himself in danger. If Smart had reasoned that

he did not know that his master would meet a bear but, in case his

master should meet a bear, it would be a great deal safer for him to

be absent, he could not have acted with shrewder wisdom. At that

moment he was a quarter of a mile behind in the woods, enjoying

himself greatly, trying to ram himself down a woodchuck’s hole, at the

bottom of which, his wise nose informed him, a woodchuck either was or

recently had been. He was sternly resolved to have that woodchuck out,

if it took all day. So now and then he would pull out his head to bark,

by way of signaling his master for help, and then ram it down the hole

again, so that the woodchuck couldn’t get out without running down his

yawning throat.

In the absence of Smart, Mr. Perker conceived a brilliant scheme for

the capture of the bear. He would lasso the beast, and then call Smart,

whom he supposed to be somewhere close at hand. So breaking the thread

that kept the coils of the rope together, he opened the loop, slipped

the knotted end under his right thigh, and drew it around the saddle

behind him, holding the knot in his left hand, and then pedaled rapidly

toward the unconscious and innocent forest monarch, the rubber-tired

wheel making no noise. As he was an excellent rider, he could have done

this without using either hand; but he kept his left hand, with the

knotted end of the lasso in it, upon the handle-bar.

He was almost upon the bear, stealing silently upon his prey, when the

bear caught a glimpse of him over his shoulder. Instantly the bear

wheeled about, reared upon his hind legs, exhibited a frightfully open

countenance and spread claws, at least three inches long, in a way that

betokened a warm welcome. At the same time every hair on the animal’s

body seemed to bristle with fury, and it snarled in a blood-curdling

baritone voice, which would have made a fortune for an opera star

villain.

Mr. Perker was not entirely prepared for this reception. It had not

occurred to him that his advances toward a familiar acquaintance would

be met in that way. He hastily concluded not to intrude. But not having

his right hand upon the handle-bar, in a position to put down the

break, it was a great deal easier to wish to stop than to accomplish

it. Therefore, he simply stood on the pedals, and they pitched him

headlong over the handles, right at the bear, like heaving a bag of

bran off a wagon.

It was now the bear’s turn to be astonished. He had not calculated

upon any such method of assault. He was prepared for a fair fight; but

he wasn’t used to having men thrown at him, all doubled up in a wad.

“Take any shape but that, and my firm nerves shall never tremble.”

But _that_ shape!--well, he was the scaredest bear probably ever seen

upon the coast of Lake Michigan. He was so scared that he didn’t have

presence of mind enough to run into the woods; but, with a loud snort

of panic, he scattered the frozen sand straight down the beach.

In falling Mr. Perker somehow gave the lasso loop such a flirt that it

went over the head of the bear and drew about his neck, when he started

to run. Mr. Perker did not intend to do it, and the bear ought not

to have laid it up against Mr. Perker. It was purely an accident--a

liberty with a stranger that Mr. Perker would not have taken under

such circumstances, if he could have helped it. In fact he couldn’t

have lassoed a bear by the neck if the bear hadn’t been surprised by

his header, for a bear on guard is as practiced a boxer as can be

found, and one can no more get a noose about his neck than one can

over a man’s neck with his hands and arms free to fend it off. As it

was, however, the bear was caught; and, as he ran, the knot of the

rope caught under the bicycle saddle, and that machine was dragged,

rattling, bounding, banging and glittering after the flying brute,

adding to his panic, like a tin-pan tied to a dog’s tail.

Mr. Perker scrambled to his feet quicker than he ever did before in his

life. His first instinctive impulse was to ascertain if he was still

alive, with none of his members missing. Having discovered that he was

all there, his next impulse was to run after his beloved wheel, which

he did, shouting like a lunatic for “Smart! Smart!” This did not tend

to lessen the fright, nor diminish the speed of the bear--quite the

contrary.

About twenty rods ahead a small brook had cut a channel through the

flat ice with its spring flood, but the ice-banks were still intact a

dozen rods from the shore, compelling the outflowing flood to find a

channel beneath them. When Mr. Perker first formed the scheme to lasso

the bear he had counted upon this open water to stop the animal in

case he ran that way. Now he expected the bear to either turn into the

woods or else go around the open mouth of the brook on the ice-bank.

But, as may be guessed, Mr. Perker was not familiar with bears. This

bear, frightened half out of his wits by the bicycle clattering at his

heels at the end of the rope, didn’t turn at the brook. On the contrary

he plunged into it and swam across, no doubt with the notion that his

mysterious pursuer could be stopped by the icy water. Clambering out on

the ice on the opposite side, as soon as he got the length of the rope

from the brink the bicycle caught under the ice and anchored him. This

the more easily because the ice upon which he stood was glassy smooth

from the recent overflow, and gave his claws no hold, let him strain,

and yank, and dig in his toes and swear as savagely as he might.

Seeing this Mr. Perker hurried faster and shouted louder, doing his

best to get around the end of the open channel by way of the ice-bank.

He was afraid that the rope would break or be gnawed off and let his

beloved wheel sink where the water was probably twenty feet deep.

Coming around the head of the channel, he ran along the edge of the

ice to get between the bear and the water, and haul up the bicycle.

If he could recover his wheel he would be willing to let the bear

go. Meanwhile he kept shouting for Smart. On his approach the bear

redoubled his efforts to break away, but in vain. Mr. Perker reached

the spot and managed to loosen his wheel from its hold under the ice by

pulling on its handle-bar. It naturally came up out of the water with a

jerk that upset Mr. Perker with great violence, jamming one of his feet

between the spokes as he fell.

The bear now set off again, plunging and snarling, this time toward the

woods, only a hundred feet away, dragging Mr. Perker by the foot, flat

on his back. In hopes of stopping the procession, Mr. Perker flopped

over upon his breast, and tried to dig his hands into the ice. No go.

He only skinned his hands. As he struck the rougher ice it felt hot

from friction, and he turned over again on his back. But it was equally

hot that way. When he struck the sand, it seemed red-hot. It was like

being drawn over a rasp. Luckily the sand was only a few feet wide,

the woods coming down at this point almost to the shore. Here the bear

turned slightly, and in a moment Mr. Perker’s free leg went on one side

of a small tree, while his caught leg went on the other side. The tree

did not break nor his leg pull out by the roots, though Mr. Perker

thought for a moment that it would, and the procession was anchored

again. By way of backing the anchor Mr. Perker threw his arms about the

tree and hugged it with all his might, while he yelled for Smart.

The frightened bear, after a few frantic tugs, became convinced that

he could not get away. Then he turned upon the prostrate and yelling

Perker with dire intent; but the instant the strain slackened on the

rope, Mr. Perker was able to kick, and a single kick freed his caught

foot. Before he could rise, however, the bear would have been upon him

but for an interruption. That interruption was from Smart who came

tearing around the ice-bank and charged bravely to the rescue of his

imperiled master.

Finding that the woodchuck--if there was any woodchuck in the

hole--evidently intended to stay there, Smart paused in the work of

excavation, and sat down to reflect and catch his breath. The instant

he was thus quiet he heard the far-off voice of his master calling him

in a manner that indicated urgency. Smart ran after his master at full

speed, and coming to the spot where Mr. Perker first encountered the

bear, stopped as if he had run against something. His nose whispered

“bear!” to his brain. The hair on his back bristled. Then he heard

Perker shout, and set off on his track again. Coming around the open

channel by way of the ice-bank he caught sight of the bear, and charged

fiercely upon the unknown enemy, intending to incontinently scatter his

vitals all over that part of the coast.

Attacked by the dog, the bear halted in his rush at Mr. Perker, sat

up on his haunches, and bestowed a buffet upon poor Smart that rolled

him over and over, a dozen feet away. Smart, though a remarkably

intelligent dog, did not know much about bears; but that single cuff

taught him much. He caught the general idea immediately, and rushed

behind Mr. Perker for protection, while the bear rushed after him. Mr.

Perker shinned up that small tree very much faster than a boy after

a bird’s nest. By the time he was up his own length, spreading his

legs as wide as he could, to get them higher, Smart, with admirable

strategy, perceiving that the shelter of Mr. Perker’s legs was

withdrawn, ran around the tree, looking for a good place to climb it

also. The bear ran around after Smart. This wound the rope around the

tree; and, when Smart ran off at a tangent, the bear rushing after him

was brought up with such a violent jerk of the noose upon his neck that

he turned end for end and hit Smart with his hind legs, like the snap

of a whip, while every bone in his back cracked. The shock almost

jerked Mr. Perker out of the tree, but he hung on grimly, and crawled

up a few feet farther. By the time he was eight feet from the ground,

however, the tree, which was only as large as a man’s leg at the

bottom, began to bend over with his weight, and he could go no higher.

The dog being out of his reach, the bear now ran back at Mr. Perker,

and rearing up against the tree, tried to reach him. Mr. Perker again

spread his legs wide apart, and drew himself up as far as he could. The

bear cautiously raised himself a little higher and managed to give one

of Mr. Perker’s swaying legs a scratch that drew from him a yell of

pain and fear. Then Smart rushed in and hung upon the bear’s flank, and

the bear and Smart dropped upon Mr. Perker’s wheel. The bear got one

foot through the spokes, and he and Smart went wildly cavorting about

with the wheel, till Mr. Perker’s anguish of mind and failure of muscle

let him drop with a yell upon them, knocking the bear down. He did not,

however, hold the bear down. On the contrary, he executed a prompt

strategic movement, and did not stop rolling over until he brought up

twenty feet away. Smart followed him, with that devotion for which he

is noted, and the bear followed Smart, until snubbed again by the rope.

At this moment, when Mr. Perker most needed repose, his nerves were

startled by the crack of a rifle. The ball sang over his head and

pierced that of the bear, who immediately turned slowly around twice,

and then sank down in a heap, quivering and kicking, whereupon Smart,

with renewed courage, ran in and tugged terribly at one of his ears. As

soon as Mr. Perker could comprehend what had happened, he was grateful.

He thought the voice of the man who ran forward and asked: “Are you

hurt?” was the most welcome sound he had ever heard. He replied that

he was “only just a little out of breath.” This reply, wasn’t strictly

accurate. A sorrier looking object than Mr. Perker has rarely been seen

on Sunday.

The man kicked Smart off the bear’s ear, and then said, looking

curiously at the disconsolate Mr. Perker:

“Why! Mr. Perker! how are you?”

Perker limply took his hand, looked at him, and answered:

“Hello! Smith!”

Then he shook Smith’s hand heartily, for Smith was the identical man he

was going to see. With Smith was the boy to whom Mr. Perker was taking

the lasso. The boy had stood gazing in open-mouthed wonder at the

lassoed bear, at Perker, and at Smart, with which sagacious beast he

had already struck up a treaty of amity and mutual admiration.

Smith noticed the rope and drew it from the neck of the dead bear.

“Was a tame critter, eh?” he asked.

Perker answered with unnecessary heat: “Tame! not by a blamed sight!”

“You wasn’t trying to lead a wild bear into town with a rope, was you?”

asked Smith, grinning.

“That’s what I started to do,” said Perker, seeing that honest

confession was best, “but he came near leading me into his camp.”

Then Perker told the whole story, and Smith sat down and laughed till

exhausted. Finally he slapped Perker on the shoulder and said, with

vast soberness:

“Well, Perker, you’re the pluckiest chap I ever met! You couldn’t have

hired any man about here to undertake that job for ten dollars an hour!”

And he laughed again and fell to skinning the bear, chuckling. Then the

boy wanted to know what he was going to do with the rope. This reminded

Perker and he gave it to him. Never was a boy so thoroughly delighted.

He had a lasso that had actually lassoed and held a wild bear, and a

big one at that!

Perker found his idolized wheel in a sad state. Its rim was

badly buckled, and half a dozen spokes were bent, but after some

straightening and tightening, with Smith’s aid, except for a wet

saddle, rapidly drying, the wheel was as good as ever.

Mr. Smith proposed to cure the skin and send it to Mr. Perker, taking

his city address for that purpose. This pleased Perker immensely; and

they parted with mutual satisfaction.

When Mr. Perker reached the city, he limped home, and Mrs. Effie, while

she tended his hurts, remarked: “Theophilus, you’re too big a fool to

be trusted to go alone into the woods! And the sooner you get rid of

that fool of a dog the longer you’ll be likely to dodge the Foolkiller!”

Mr. Perker did not report this observation to the Club, but Mrs.

Perker’s kitchen-girl reported it to Mrs. Littleweed’s cook, and a

course of pumping, by the Club wits, extracted the other facts from Mr.

Perker.

This is the reason the members, when Mr. Perker proudly exhibits the

bear-skin, sometimes speak of “Mr. Perker’s bear,” and sometimes of

“Mr. Bear’s Perker.”

FAST ICE-YACHTS.

HOW THEY ARE BUILT, RIGGED AND HANDLED.

BY CHARLES LEDYARD NORTON.

On a rocky promontory of the Hudson River, a few miles above

Poughkeepsie, there stands, half hidden by the foliage in the summer,

a long, low, neatly painted structure instantly suggestive to the

nautically inclined of boats and their belongings.

But there is an unaccountable lack of the familiar characteristics

of such localities. Even in midsummer there are few, if any, boats

anchored in the cove, or hauled up on the shelving rock that serves

in lieu of a beach. Through the open doors of the boat-house one may,

perhaps, see certain varnishing and rigging operations under way.

There are bundles of sails, coils of rope, rows of blocks, and long,

curiously curved spars resting upon racks--long enough they are to

serve as topgallant-yards for an old-fashioned man-of-war, but no

ordinary sailorman would see any use for them with their nautically

impossible curves and angles, and their unfamiliar and unshipshape

attachments of galvanized iron.

This boat-house, however, is the headquarters of a yacht club that

stands easily at the head of its class in all the world; but its fleet

of racers is dismantled and laid aside in summers when other yachts are

in the height of their glory. This fleet goes into commission only when

the floating fields of new ice are fast welded together, and the river

surface is solid from the Highlands to the Mohawk.

The Hudson River is by no means the only club, though it may not

unfairly be designated as the leading one. At the neighboring towns

of Poughkeepsie, New Hamburg and Newburg, and up stream at Hudson,

Athens, Saugerties, Albany, and elsewhere, are other associations, with

fleets of yachts always eager to try conclusions with their down-stream

rivals. Poughkeepsie, and its immediate vicinity, however, has always

been, and is likely to remain, the headquarters for ice-yachting.

This is due to several favorable conditions, natural as well

as artificial. The river narrows and becomes tortuous at the

Highlands--about forty miles from the sea--and this natural obstacle

largely determines the permanency of ice in the river above. In a

large stream the ice rarely forms across from shore to shore in a

single night. It freezes in bands and patches, which become detached

from the shore and float up and down with the tide until they become

jammed and frozen together. North of the Highlands, too, the average

winter temperature is considerably lower than it is to the southward,

and sharp frosts come earlier and stay later. The beautiful and

picturesque banks, moreover, have since early colonial times proved

attractive to lovers of the country, and the riverside is for many

miles almost continuously occupied by residents who have abundant means

and leisure for such recreations as suit them best. Again, the great

harvest field of the Hudson River ice-crop finds here its southernmost

limit. At this point in the stream the admixture of sea-water renders

the ice more or less unmarketable, and the ice-yachtsmen are therefore

not so likely to be interfered with by the armies of men who are set to

work by the great companies as soon as the ice is thick enough to pay

for cutting and storage.

It is proverbial that no sooner is a good surface formed for

ice-yachting than it is hopelessly buried under a shroud of snow; but

here again nature comes to the rescue, for the latitude is far enough

south to render alternations of frost and thaw probable all through the

winter. Accordingly the white surface soon becomes streaked with gray,

and ere long the yachtsman looks out of a morning and sees his highway

once more practicable for steel runners.

This year engineering science has arrayed itself on the side of the

yachtsman, and has built two huge piers in the river at Poughkeepsie.

Primarily these are intended for the new cantilever railroad bridge,

but incidentally they are welcomed by the winter-sailing clubs, because

they will undoubtedly keep the ice in the river longer than it has

heretofore been in the habit of staying. This is highly important in

their eyes, for not infrequently there are cold “spells” in March which

render the ice available for good sport, provided it could be held in

position long enough to be temporarily re-frozen and prevented from

floating away down stream on the ebb tide.

Despite all these favorable conditions, however, the goddess who

presides over the destinies of ice-yachting is but a coy and fickle

divinity. Sometimes she vouchsafes to her devotees not more than a day

or two of sailing in an entire winter. Often she limits her favors to

ten or fifteen days, and only at rare intervals does she smile upon

them for thirty days, all told. The ice-yachtsman may, therefore, plume

himself upon being the most select and exclusive of all sportsmen. He

cannot, if he would, spend very much time _en voyage_, so he makes up

for it as well as he may by contriving and perfecting all the details

of his craft during her hours of enforced idleness. The result is that

he has evolved a fabric that is a marvel of construction, adapted for

lightness and strength in a wonderful degree.

Many of our readers have never seen an ice-yacht, but probably most

of them have seen and made a common diamond-shaped kite--the simplest

and easiest form of kite known to ingenious boyhood. This frame is

in its general principles of construction identical with that of the

modern ice-yacht, as shown in the working plans published herewith. The

cross-piece corresponds with the runner-plank, the upright represents

the center-timber, and the cord that passes around the whole is

identical with the side-stays. (See Fig. 1.)

It is only necessary to set up a mast at or near the intersection,

rig sails upon it, attach some kind of runners to the ends of the

runner-plank and to the long or aftermost end of the center-timber, and

you will have a very passable model, constructionally speaking, of the

modern ice-yacht. Magnify it a hundred-fold, substitute wire-rope with

turn-buckles for the side-stays, fit the timber ends with cast-metal

caps, bolt everything together with cunningly contrived fittings, mount

her upon a set of hardened iron runners, equip her with a “tailor-made”

suit of sails, launch her on reasonably smooth ice, and, given a

twenty-mile breeze, she will carry you forty miles, or maybe sixty

miles, an hour, if you know how to make her do her best.

It may be remarked in passing that very pretty sport may be had with

model ice-yachts, constructed somewhat after the manner indicated.

Pieces of tin or sheet-iron will do for runners and steering-gear at

a pinch, and if the sails are moderate in area and the center-timber

tolerably long, so that ballast can be suitably adjusted, she will go

like a witch and skim over a mere veneering of ice to the admiration

of all beholders. There are always several days at the beginning of

winter before the ice is available for skating, when model ice-yachts

might be made to do duty instead of the sticks and stones with which

impatient boyhood usually disports itself, thereby ruining the ice for

the legitimate pastimes of colder weather.

In the regions where the ice rarely becomes thick enough for

satisfactory skating, these little ice-yachts may easily afford a

deal of not altogether unprofitable amusement. Model yachts have not

as yet gained much of a foothold in the nonfreezing United States,

but in England, where there are prosperous clubs almost everywhere,

even in Hyde Park, in the heart of London, the conditions are very

favorable. Sails and rigging are all ready and need only to be mounted

upon a suitable frame with runners, steering gear and adjustable

ballast. The average Englishman may probably regard this suggestion

as unwarrantable, because ice-yachting is wholly beyond his range of

experience, but if once he tries it he will find that it opens up

possibilities of seamanship not dreamed of heretofore, and he will

cover the frozen Serpentine with miniature fleets that will rival in

beauty and vastly excel in speed those that dance over its ripples

during the summer months.

[Illustration: FIG. 1.--A KITE-FRAME FOR AN ICE-YACHT.]

In its main features the Hudson River ice-yacht now closely approaches

perfection. Improvements will, of course, be made from time to time

in the minor details of rig, and occasionally some phenomenally fast

boat will be built, the secret of her speed remaining perhaps, in some

degree, unexplained.

A few years ago the lateen rig was simultaneously adopted by the

Hudson River and Shrewsbury (N. J.) clubs, and for a time it bade

fair to supersede the jib and mainsail boats that had long held the

championship pennant. Several very large lateen-rigged yachts were

constructed, notably the _Scud_ of the Shrewsbury, and the _Avalanche_

of the Hudson River Club. Experience has shown, however, that craft of

that size and rig are phenomenally fast only when the wind rises to No.

70 of Beaufort’s scale, that is to say, something nearly approaching a

full-grown hurricane. With such a wind the big lateens are undoubtedly

very fast, but the rarity of such conditions leaves them in the lurch

on ordinary racing days, and it is by no means certain that even in a

hurricane they are sure to win when pitted against a jib and mainsail.

At all events, some of the large lateens have been altered to the sloop

rig, and their owners are not disposed to try back.

On small or moderate sized yachts, however, the lateen is an admirable

rig, and in average racing weather such boats not infrequently distance

their larger competitors. In this connection it may be well to compare

the respective weights of the two rigs as taken by Mr. John A.

Roosevelt, Commodore of the Hudson River Club.

Comparative weights of the _Icicle_ (sloop) and _Avalanche_ (lateen):

_Icicle._ _Avalanche._

Center-timber and box, lbs. 776½ lbs. 768½

Runner-plank and strap, 565 520

Mast, 250 361

Runners, 150 186½

Boom and two blocks, 146½ 451½

Rigging, 125 --

Blocks, -- 93

Rudder-post and tiller, 91 81½

Gaff, 47½ --

Yard, -- 198

Jib-boom and two blocks, 47 --

Blocks, -- 18½

Blocks and halyards, 62 50

Sails, 172 206

--------- ---------

lbs. 2,432½ lbs. 3,007¾

It is seen, therefore, that the lateen outscales her rival by about

575 lbs., the two boats being nearly the same size. Theoretically, the

_Avalanche_ having only a single sail--and that capable of being set

almost as tight and flat as a drumhead--should out-point and out-foot

anything of her size, but practically the extra weight hinders more

than the better fitting canvas helps her.

The “cat-rig,” too, has been tried, but without the good results

anticipated, and a sharpie rig has, it is said, done fairly well with a

small boat on the Shrewsbury.

It may be confidently stated that the sloop rig is the safest to count

upon for allround work, particularly in the largest-sized boats. In

boats of the second and third class the lateen may be used with a

chance, not altogether assured, of superlatively good results.

It is not likely that ice-yachts will ever be built larger than the

present, the _Avalanche_, _Icicle_, _Northern Light_, _Scud_, and their

class, _i. e._, about fifty feet long, and spreading something like 600

square feet of canvas. To sustain such a boat requires comparatively

heavy ice; to drive her at a high rate of speed calls for a living gale

of wind, and to tow her home when becalmed, or collect her scattered

fragments should she chance to be shipwrecked, is a work demanding a

large store of patience and endurance. In average blustering wintry

weather, with a wind not to exceed, say, twenty-five miles an hour,

boats of the second class stand a very fair chance of beating those of

a larger spread and heavier weight.

The art of sailing an ice-yacht is _sui generis_. It is, indeed, of

comparatively modern origin. A generation ago sheets were started

on an ice-yacht when running free, much as they are in an ordinary

sailing-boat, and the singular properties of the close-hauled sail

were not understood. The modern ice-yachtsman never slacks away his

sheet except, perhaps, when he wants to turn a stake with certainty, or

when the ice softens. Given a hard surface and a stiff breeze, he will

outrun the wind in any direction.

One who hears this paradox stated for the first time may be pardoned

for incredulity, nor is it easy in all cases to make clear the

possibility of such a feat. A very large majority of intelligent

people when confronted with the proposition, simply say that it is

impossible and absurd, and are hardly convinced when they actually

see an ice-yacht running straight down the wind, with her pennant

streaming out astern. To yachtsmen. it had been known for several

years that a comparatively light wind would send ice-yachts ahead of

the fast express trains on the Hudson River Railroad. After a time

the mathematical experts heard of it, and they said it could not be

so; they took their little slates and proved their position to the

satisfaction of all properly constituted scientific minds. But this did

not prevent the yachtsmen from sailing faster and faster, and presently

other mathematicians rose up and demonstrated the contrary of the

proposition, thereby showing, for the ten-thousandth time, that all

save the truth can be proven by figures.

[Illustration: FIG. 2.--THE SAILING PARADOX.]

The fundamental principle of sailing an ice-yacht faster than the wind

may be readily demonstrated by means of a very simple mechanical device.

Let A, E, B, F be an open frame, A-B a wire stretched diagonally from

corner to corner, and G a ring running upon the wire. C-D, another

wire, reaches from end to end of the frame, passing also through the

ring G at the intersection of the wires. This second wire (C-D) is

movable back and forth between A-F and E-B, and parallel to them. It is

evident that when C-D is moved the ring G will slide along both wires,

and that while C-D is passing from A-F to E-B, G will slide from A to

B--twice as far, that is, as the distance traversed by C-D, the moving

agent.

[Illustration: SAIL PLAN OF A MODERN ICE-YACHT.]

Now, suppose G to be an ice-yacht; let the movement of C-D across the

frame represent the direction and velocity of the wind and the diagonal

A-B the distance to be traversed. The ice-yacht G moves twice as far,

that is to say, twice as fast as does C-D (the wind) that drives it.

Such is, perhaps, as plain a statement of the conditions as can be

devised. In practice the elements become more complicated. Let Fig.

3 represent a section of frozen river, with the wind blowing across

it in the direction indicated by the arrows. Applying the principle

shown in Fig. 2, an ice-yacht may run from A to B while the wind is

moving across the river from A-F to E-B. It is not the purpose of this

paper to go into the logistics of sailing in general, but any one who

can sail a boat will see at a glance, that with the wind as shown in

Fig. 3, an ordinary boat would sail nearly or quite as fast from C to

D, or from E to F, as she would from A to B. The same rules apply,

of course, to an ice-yacht, but with this important difference, while

an ordinary sailing-boat meets with increasing resistance from the

water the faster she goes through it, an ice-yacht meets less and less

frictional resistance from the ice the faster she goes over it. Again,

if she is pointing more or less toward the wind (as on a line from E to

F), she increases the apparent force of the wind by her own motion. The

only considerable resistance is that offered by spars, rigging, etc.,

in passing through the air, and this is trifling when compared with her

large sail area, and the propulsive energy of even a moderate breeze.

[Illustration: FIG. 3.--THE SAILING PARADOX IN PRACTICE.]

In sailing an ice-yacht there is none of the vexatious handling of

ropes unavoidable in an ordinary sailing-boat. The sheets usually take

care of themselves in going about, and the steersman has only to move

his tiller a little to starboard or port to secure instant obedience

and an eagle-like swoop of the yacht in the desired direction. In

high winds, however, the yacht is apt to lift her weather runner

clear of the ice, upon which she at once becomes unmanageable and

must be brought down to her bearings as soon as possible. If properly

balanced she should shortly do this of her own accord, but during the

few seconds when she has the bit between her teeth she may do untold

mischief.

The astonishing rapidity with which an ice-yacht under control may

be handled was well instanced last winter in an encounter between

the _Polaris_ and _Arrow_, as indicated in the diagram, Fig. 4. The

_Polaris_ was running dead before the wind, heading to pass a space

of open water where ice-cutters were at work, when her steersman

became aware of the _Arrow_ approaching on his starboard hand at a

fearful rate of speed, but with her weather runner in the air, and

evidently with the bit between her teeth. A collision was imminent,

for the _Polaris_ could not bear away in either direction; on one

side was open water and on the other was the _Arrow_, too near to be

passed astern. Under the circumstances it was instinct rather than a

process of reasoning that led Commodore Roosevelt to jam his helm hard

a-starboard and send the _Polaris_ spinning on her center, making a

complete revolution almost within her own length (see Fig. 4). She

did it, and was on her former course again almost before any one knew

what had happened, her jib-boom barely clearing the after leach of the

_Arrow’s_ mainsail as she passed astern of her. Such a gyration as

this is justifiable only in extreme cases, for of course everything is

subjected to a sudden and tremendous strain, and if nothing gives way

it speaks well for the perfection of equipment.

Sometimes an ice-yacht will perform this maneuver on her own

responsibility and without an instant’s warning, and this is especially

true of the smaller class of lateen-rigged boats. With them, however,

damage is less likely to result, as the strains are proportionately

less severe.

Sailing on the wind is a comparatively simple matter, though, of

course, where a number of boats are breaking tacks, as in a thrash

to windward on a regatta day, a quick eye and a steady hand are

indispensable if collisions are to be avoided and the most made of

every turn.

Running down the wind, however, calls for the more skillful seamanship,

and involves a closer calculation of chances. Not many years ago,

when a fleet of ice-yachts sailed down the wind, it was a straight run

with lifted sheets, but after a while some bright fellow discovered

that by putting his boat on the wind at her very best point for speed,

she would in a few seconds attain a maximum velocity. Then, bearing

away, she would run sometimes for several minutes _through_ the wind,

her pennant flying out astern, and she sliding past her free-sailing

competitors at an astonishing rate.

[Illustration: FIG. 4.--A CLOSE CALL.]

Fig. 5 roughly shows the comparative courses of two ice-yachts, A

running dead to leeward and B tacking after the method described. The

proportions between the tacks across the wind and the runs through

it cannot be preserved on so small a map; but it is evident that B

traverses a far longer course. That she invariably beats A, other

things being equal, is the unanimous testimony of all practical ice

sailors. In other words, if a balloon could be persuaded to drift down

the wind at a convenient height above the ice, B could let it have a

fair start, and could, if properly handled, sail completely around it

in a run of two or three miles.

This “proper handling,” however, is not so simple as it seems. It

involves an intimate knowledge of and sympathy with one’s boat. Her

best point of sailing varies with every variation in the force of the

wind, and her skipper should know by instinct exactly when she is doing

her very best under existing conditions. She must not be forced so that

she will lift her weather runner clear of the ice, for the moment that

runner lifts the grip of the lee runner weakens, and the yacht is in

danger of making leeway. She must not be turned too sharply, for the

rudder checks her headway, and so does the lateral resistance that she

encounters while changing directions. A knowledge of the course is of

vital importance. Instead of the currents and tide-rips of summer,

the winter yachtsman must be familiar with the “windrows,” air-holes,

cracks, ice-imbedded drift-wood, and the like, that beset his course.

After every storm these are liable to change and new obstructions from

similar causes likely to appear. Hence every tack must be calculated to

a nicety, so that the next change of direction can be made to the best

advantage.

When running for the stake it is important to gauge headway so that

the turn can be made without being carried too far beyond the mark;

and here again a personal knowledge of the boat and her whims is

indispensable for nice seamanship. In the excitement of the moment one

may readily lose control, and it is said to be a good plan to slack

away the peak halyards a trifle just before rounding. This enables the

rudder to act with certainty, and as soon as the turn has been made the

halyards can be again hauled taut. This operation necessitates the best

modern appliances in the way of hoisting-tackle, for the halyards all

lead aft to the “box,” and one man should be able to slack away or haul

taut with one hand. Then, of course, there are all the devices known to

sailing experts intensified a hundred-fold by the altered conditions.

[Illustration: FIG. 5.]

An absolutely even start can always be had since the contestants can

be held at anchor till the signal is given, though, of course, the

windward position gives an advantage. Once under way seamanship and

knowledge of the course begin to tell, and bold maneuvering may quite

as often win a race as in the slower evolutions of regular sailing

craft. The swiftness with which any plan can be executed renders the

game extremely exciting. One sees an opponent making a short and

seemingly unnecessary tack. The natural results must be comprehended

instantly or, peradventure, one may find one’s self presently forced

to yield the right of way when every second is of the last importance.

It is jockeying, perhaps, but when one knows that by crowding a

dangerous rival a trifle he will be forced to tack a mile farther on

by an insurmountable windrow, one were more than mortal to resist the

temptation. It calls for quick thinking and equally quick action to

sail an ice-yacht successfully and well in a modern regatta; but the

excitement is of the wildest description, and all the accessories are

fascinating in the extreme to one who has robust health and does not

care a rap for exposure in a northern midwinter.

Our frontispiece is from an instantaneous photograph which caught the

_Northern Light_ (holder at the time of the Challenge Pennant) just

as she was rounding the home stake, off Poughkeepsie, on Valentine’s

Day, 1887. She was probably moving at the rate of twenty miles an hour

when the picture was taken. The sleet thrown up by her lee runner can

be seen flying off astern. Her weather runner was, in fact, just clear

of the ice at the moment, though so slightly as to be imperceptible in

the picture. This is probably the best photograph of a moving ice-yacht

that has ever been taken.

Every year sees improvements in fittings and rig. The “Haggarty hoist”

is now used on the mainsails of the best boats instead of the ordinary

mast-hoops. This hoist consists of a series of metal clamps attached to

the luff of the sail and engaging a wooden cleat shaped like a T-rail

and fastened vertically to the after-side of the mast.

To secure a better “set” the luff of the sail is no longer doubled

over on itself, but instead, a canvas binding is sewed on. This gives

three thicknesses of canvas instead of five thicknesses, as was often

the case under the old system, and, consequently, the sail stretches

along the mast, where the greatest hoisting strain falls, and where any

inequality is most readily taken up without causing wrinkles elsewhere.

The elliptical box, with its comfortable cushions and its central

hand-rail for the passengers to grasp in case of need, is suggestive

of luxury but in itself it is largely delusive, for no position is

less endurable than a half-reclining one with the head raised, as was

formerly unavoidable. To render the sitting position possible the iron

tiller is now given an upward curve, so that the steersman can sit with

his legs across the center-timber, the tiller swinging freely above his

knees. This posture, however, necessitates some sort of a backboard,

and the best appears to be an upholstered iron frame, as shown in Fig.

6.

[Illustration: FIG 6.--A BACK-REST.]

The flat extensions, A A, pass under the cushion, and a firm back

and brace is thus supplied. Another device is to make the central

portion of the side of the box higher than the rest, with a narrow

cushion to fit, effecting the same end. This matter of cushions is

not mere luxury. The rapid passage of the runners over any save the

very smoothest of ice produces a jarring motion that speedily becomes

unendurable wherever the person rests against a hard or angular

surface. In previous articles it has been suggested that stout

chair-seats, with arms and back, might be adjusted to the center-timber

in connection with a foot steering-gear, similar to those used in

canoes. Such seats could be fastened anywhere on the center-timber by

means of thumb-screws, thus moving the weight forward or aft according

to the special conditions of wind or weather.

The season for ice-yachting in the latitude of New York rarely begins

before January and often holds off until February. The daily morning

papers always mention the condition of the ice on the preceding

day, and by taking an early morning train one may easily reach the

sailing-ground by noon or shortly after. The weather, in New York is no

criterion of that north of the Highlands. It is often raining on the

coast when the sky is clear and the weather fine in the interior. When,

therefore, good ice is announced by the papers, the correct thing to do

is to take the next train to Poughkeepsie, irrespective of weather. You

may be disappointed, for wind and temperature are proverbially fickle;

but if you have reasonably good luck you may see the finest ice-yachts

in the world, and learn by personal observation how they are managed.

THE LAKE CHAMPLAIN YACHT CLUB.

FREDERIC G. MATHER.

“This is a great day for Lake Champlain,” said a rustic who had been

discussing with his fellow the difference between a cat-boat and a

sloop. “I may not know the difference, but there’s plenty about here

who do--and I say, ‘Hurrah for old Champlain! anyhow.’”

The rustic, like many others who are right, spoke better than he knew.

It was a mild morning in September last. Rain had fallen all through

the neighborhood, and more was to come according to that never failing

test--the low-hung clouds which still covered the eastern slopes of the

Adirondacks and refused to lift even when an occasional ray of sunshine

gave them every chance. From the opposite shore of New York the early

morning hours were watched with intense interest. The alternate layers

of mist and mountain showed also stretches of lake, and the larger

objects in Burlington appeared through the rifts--the whole making

nature’s _mise en scène_ for what was to come.

And, indeed, it was a great day. The Lake Champlain Yacht Club was

organized May 16, 1887, with a constitution, by-laws and sailing

regulations patterned closely after those of the New York Yacht Club.

Its rules for sailing were no stricter than its rules for uniforms.

In a word, at the time of the regatta everything that experience and

enterprise could suggest had been in preparation for sixteen months

under the guidance of such gentlemen as W. Boerum Wetmore, commodore;

W. A. Crombie, vice-commodore; J. Gregory Smith, president; W. S. Webb,

first vice-president; Henry Ballard, second vice-president; Joseph

Auld, secretary, and Horatio Hickok, treasurer. An executive committee

of thirty included not only the above but also such names as H. J.

Brookes, H. Le Grand Cannon, H. H. Noble, Jacob G. Sanders, J. A.

Averill, A. C. Tuttle, W. H. H. Murray and Alvaro Adsit--all of them

well-known sailors upon fresh water; while the total membership of two

hundred took in navigators as far to the southward as Albany and New

York. In fact, it will be noticed that many of the names are those of

New Yorkers who spend the summer months along the shores of Champlain,

and one enthusiastic member, Robert W. Rogers, comes all the way from

New Orleans. Among the members who have not, according to popular

belief, made any aquatic record is G. F. Edmunds, the U. S. Senator

from the State of Vermont.

Thus all that hard work, good discipline and natty uniforms could do

had been done. The day was a great one because it would bring what

had been attempted to a practical test. The lake is about one hundred

miles long with a breadth varying from half a mile at the southern end

to twenty miles (including islands) at the northern end, so that the

greatest stretch of clear water from east to west is ten miles, and

the longest unobstructed sweep lengthwise is forty miles. There is no

perceptible current, although the drainage is northward into the valley

of the St. Lawrence. The prevailing winds are from the south, with

occasional winds from the north and, near the shores, frequent puffs

that come down through the notches in the Green Mountains on one side

and the Adirondack Mountains on the other. Given, then, such a lake not

so steady for sailing purposes as Long Island Sound, the chain of the

Great Lakes, or even the inland lakes of Chautauqua, Seneca and Cayuga

with their low-crowned banks, and yet less treacherous than smaller

mountain lakes, like George and Memphremagog--to find the craft that

will sail it best with speed and safety. This was the problem that had

been discussed and solved and solved over again for months, and which

had now come to the point where all theories must show their value or

cease to be entertained.

Yachting on Lake Champlain was a plant of slow growth. It was hardly an

exotic, because some kind of craft had been known there for 250 years.

The xebecs of the early French gave way to the sloops and schooners

of the English; and the latter, in the decline of commerce, have been

followed by the “long-lakers,” and the Canadian square-sail galleys

of to-day. Sail boats of uncertain age, and still more uncertain

origin, have flitted about the lake for generations; but nothing was

ever evolved from them that met the requirements of the modern yacht.

It was reserved for the Rev. W. H. H. Murray to bring thither some of

the ideas that he had gathered among the oystermen along the coast of

Connecticut and to adapt them to a fresh-water lake. Everyone credits

Mr. Murray, better known as “Adirondack,” with calling attention to the

broad expanse of lake opposite Burlington that had not been used as it

might be by sails and hulls of modern cut; and everybody agrees that

the present yacht club is the outcome of his earlier efforts, although,

in many respects, it has outgrown what he developed and contended for

at the first. So Mr. Murray shall have the credit in these pages.

[Illustration: THE “GYPSIE,” PHELPS & SON, BURLINGTON, VT.]

[Illustration: THE “VIRGINIA”--PETER THUST, ST. JOHNS, CANADA.]

It had occurred to Mr. Murray that the type of oyster-boat known on

Long Island Sound as the “sharpie,” would fill all the conditions

on Champlain noted above. The sharpie was the successor of the old

V-shaped punts, or “flat-iron” scows, that brought the earlier oysters

to market. When the demand for more bivalves led to the transplanting

of Southern oysters to Long Island Sound, the larger boat, the sharpie,

was produced, as the one which would combine cheapness, light draught,

broad bottom, ready handling with the sail or oar, sea-worthiness, and

fair sailing qualities.

[Illustration: THE “FLYAWAY”--DR. W. S. WEBB.]

[Illustration: COMMODORE’S LAUNCH “DOLPHIN.”]

So Mr. Murray constructed the _White Wings_ in Connecticut, and brought

it to Burlington to show his faith in his new theory. We may quote

liberally from his description of a sharpie adapted for use on Lake

Champlain. The length over-all is 50 feet; depth, 4 feet amidships;

extreme width of deck, 12 feet; length of center-board, 16 feet; width,

5 feet; distance between masts, 30 feet; sail-area, 200 to 300 yards;

length of foremast, 50 feet; length of mainmast, 47 feet. The sails are

laced to small booms, or the sprit can be used. The sails can be of

strictly “leg-o’-mutton” shape or “clubbed” in form, which is desirable

when a large spread of canvas is demanded, because it allows a large

sail area, and, at the same time, keeps the major section of the sail

low down, where the wind-pressure should be located. These boats are

decked and staved in hard woods--oak, cherry, birch or Southern pine.

White pine is of course allowed, but it is soft and liable to be

marred by indentations. The sides are of white pine plank, 2 inches

in thickness, 8 inches wide, and from 16 to 20 feet in length. Such

plank-work is easily shaped, and makes a strong boat. The bottom is

of Southern pine, finest quality, 2 inches thick and 6 wide, and the

stern-piece of best white oak, with plenty of size to it. Fourteen feet

abaft the stem is the front of the cabin, and the length of cabin is

adapted to suit service. If for home sailing, it can be twelve feet,

divided amidships into two apartments--one for men, the other for

women. The front section of each apartment, say 4 × 5, is fitted with

a lavatory like a Pullman car; height of cabin, six feet in the clear.

This gives an elevation of sides above deck-line of, say, two feet,

three sides to be built in two or three panels which can be opened

inward in fair weather, and buttoned to cabin roof. The cabin is thus

converted, at will, into a charming sitting-room, in which ladies and

children can be protected from the sun, and yet enjoy the sight of

water and mountains beyond. If the boat is intended for cruising, the

cabin can be made longer, say twenty-two feet. This would still leave

a large cockpit, and accommodate a party of a dozen with berths and

tables for sleeping and eating, whether the weather was fair or foul.

The table-leaf can be hinged to the center-board case, so as to hang

vertically to it and take up no room when not in use. Berths, on bed

frames, made of wicker, 6 × 2 feet, are hinged to the cabin sides,

and like the table, hang pendant when not in use. Cook’s galley,

immediately ahead of the cabin, is entered by a hatch of large size,

say 3 × 4 feet, built to be slid forward in close-fitting grooves, so

that in rough weather it would be practically water-tight. The cabin

should be of quartered oak or cherry, or any desirable wood. Fifty

chairs can be placed in the cabins and cockpit.

Such were the boats of which Mr. Murray wrote: “They are well adapted

to meet the wants of amateurs, and will do much to make yachting a

popular recreation to a degree never hitherto realized.” The appearance

of the _White Wings_ led to the building of other sharpies, and an

organization under the name of the Sharpie Yacht Club of Burlington

became the nucleus of the present yacht club.

Since Burlington boasts no canoe or rowing clubs, it was Mr. Murray’s

idea to combine all the boating interests as a part of a general scheme

which should take charge of all kinds of sports and pastimes natural to

such a magnificent body of inland water, and yet the boating section of

the club was to be devoted to sharpies--the model to which Mr. Murray

still pins his faith. As the club grew it showed decided tendencies

toward a regular yacht club. This carried with it the erection of

a $5,000 club-house on one of the best wharves in the harbor at a

point about which all the boating tendencies of the lake might rally,

the expenses of membership being only $10 yearly with no financial

responsibility beyond this figure.

As an illustration of the very effective and concise way of doing

things, it will be of interest to repeat a statement that was posted

upon the bulletin board: “The regatta committee will announce before

each race in which direction the course shall be sailed, which will

depend upon the wind. If the course is first to the north from the

club-house, all yachts will pass to the right of all rounding marks,

leaving them on their port sides. In case an overlap exists between

two yachts when both of them, without tacking, are about to pass a

mark on the required side, then the outside yacht must give the inside

yacht room to pass clear of the mark. A yacht shall not, however,

be justified in attempting to establish an overlap and thus force a

passage between another yacht and the mark after the latter yacht has

altered her helm for the purpose of rounding. When a yacht is in danger

of running aground, or of touching a pier, rock or other obstruction,

and cannot go clear by altering her course without fouling another

yacht, then this latter shall on being hailed by the former, at once

give room, and in case one yacht is forced to tack or to bear away in

order to give room, the other shall also tack or bear away, as the

case may be, at as near the same time as is possible without danger of

fouling.”

The regatta should have taken place on the first Tuesday in August,

and that will be the date hereafter; but last year it was postponed

till September 21, in the hope that certain new boats might be finished

and enter the races. The _Nautilus_, the most eagerly expected of all,

failed to appear. We will make note of her later on.

[Illustration: SHARPIE YACHT “BURLINGTON”--JOSEPH AULD AND OTHERS,

BURLINGTON, VT.]

It was required in every instance that there should be three starters

or no race. The club course of about 8-5/16 miles commenced on a line

inside the breakwater and at right angles to the club-house, round the

south end of the breakwater, south of Rock Dunder, south of Juniper

Ledge buoy, west end of Juniper Island, north end of breakwater to

starting line. This was the course for the first class sailing yachts

(33 feet and upward), the time not to exceed 2¾ hours. The first prize

was $60, and the second $20.

[Illustration: W. S. WEBB, FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT.

W. A. CROMBIE, VICE-COMMODORE. JOSEPH AULD, SECRETARY.

]

There had been a brush, a few days before, for the championship

pennant. The _Flyaway_, a sloop built by Lawler, of Boston, for Dr.

W. S. Webb. had covered the course in 1h. 30m. 42s. Next came the

_Ripple_, a sloop built and owned by Adsit and Bigelow, in 1h. 32m.

50s.; and last came the sharpie, _White Wings_, built under Murray’s

eye, and owned by C. B. Gray, her time being 1h. 48m. 30s. The same

boats started in the first class race, except that the sharpie,

_Burlington_, owned by Joseph Auld and others, having less freeboard

and an improved stern, took the place of the _White Wings_. Time

allowance was waived by the _Ripple_ and the _Burlington_. The _Ripple_

came over the line first and held the lead till, on rounding Juniper

Island, she was passed by the _Flyaway_. Then came a very close

contest, the _Ripple_ afterward claiming she would have won if she had

had the time allowance. The elapsed time was: _Flyaway_, 1h. 45m. 3s.;

_Ripple_, 1h. 46m. 33s. The _Burlington_ was becalmed and withdrew.

By this time a drizzling rain had set in; but the yachtsmen and their

friends had had enough taste of the sport to want more. The second

class race was for sailing yachts measuring between 20 and 33 feet.

The prizes were $45 and $15. The course was the club course, omitting

the turning of Juniper Ledge buoy--distance, 7⅓ miles, to be covered

in 2¾ hours. There were five starters, and the prospects were for the

best race of the day. But the rain beat down the wind; the race became

a drifting match, and was postponed till the next day. The starters

were: the _White Wings_, sharpie; the _Agnes T._, a sloop owned by T.

A. Taft; the _Princess_, a sloop owned by R. W. Rogers; the _Puritan_,

a sloop owned by W. C. Witherbee, and the _Eagle_, a schooner-rigged

keel-boat owned by W. S. Hopkins. The same yachts were allowed to sail

in the postponed race on the following day, but only the _Agnes T._

appeared. She sailed over the course in 1h. 14m. 25s. Two entries of

the day before were barred out because they did not start at that time.

There was still more rain and still less wind when the third class

yachts (under 20 feet) were called. The course was 5-13/16 miles,

starting around the north end of the breakwater, thence about Rock

Dunder, and homeward around the south end of the breakwater. Two hours

was the time limit; and the prizes were $30 and $10. The only starter

was the sloop _Goat_, owned by W. C. Witherbee--and so the race was

declared off.

[Illustration: THE BURLINGTON Y. C. HOUSE.]

But no amount of rain or lack of wind could keep back the steam and

naphtha launches of under 50 feet from racing for the $100 cup offered

by Commodore Wetmore. The course was around the north end of the

breakwater, north of Appletree buoy, south of Proctor’s shoal buoy and

around the south end of the breakwater, a distance of 7 1-5 miles. The

time limit was 1½ hours. Four of the starters finished the race; the

fifth, the _Idlewild_, owned by Averill & Kellogg, having passed the

first buoy only. The starters, together with their owners and elapsed

time, were these: the _Nymph_, Dr. W. S. Webb, 41m. 55s.; the _Cecil_,

Myers & Clough, 49m. 33s.; the _Adonis_, J. B. Tressidder, 52m. 14½s.;

the _Comus_, R. W. Rogers, 58m. 17s. It was evident from the start that

the _Nymph_ would win--but there was a very exciting contest for second

place, the _Cecil_ finally leading the _Adonis_. In figuring the result

the Isherwood rule was used, because the lengths of all the boats were

less than 50 feet. If they had been more than 50 feet, the Emory rules

of the American yacht club would have held. The Isherwood rules provide

that the speed in knots per hour is divided by the cube root of the

length on the waterline of the yachts respectively, and the quotients

represent, relatively, the merits of the different yachts. Based on

this rule, the ratios were: _Nymph_, 1.13; _Cecil_, 0.97; _Adonis_,

0.91.

The _Nymph_ is 46 feet long, 8 feet beam, and 3 feet draught. She

divides with the _Dolphin_, owned by Commodore Wetmore, the honor of

being the fastest steam launch on the lake. The _Dolphin_ is 42 feet

long, with the same beam and draught as the _Nymph_. On October 15

there was a test of speed between the two for the champion pennant of

the lake. The _Nymph_ won by 11½s. over a 7-mile course, there being no

time allowance. On November 1 another race over a course of 6½ miles

was won by the _Dolphin_ by 32½s. We may look for good time from both

the _Dolphin_ and the _Nymph_ in the steam race of 1889.

[Illustration: COMMODORE B. WETMORE.]

The greatest race of all came off upon Saturday, September 22, the

second and final day of the regatta. This was for the $500 cup made

by Tiffany, and presented by the ladies of Burlington. It is an

elaborately-made punch-bowl, with a fine engraving, on the outside,

of the harbor of Burlington. According to the rules of the club, “the

Ladies’ Cup” shall be a perpetual challenge, and shall be sailed for

each year by the yachts belonging to the members of the club at their

annual regatta. The course shall be about ten miles, and the sailing

allowances, etc., shall be governed by such rules of the club, as

from time to time may obtain. The course, etc., may be changed from

time to time by the regatta committee as the exigencies of the club

may require. They, or their successors in office, are made custodians

of the cup for the club, and shall award the same each year to the

successful yacht; which yacht shall have its name and the date of the

regatta engraved on the cup by the committee, and shall hold it until

the next annual regatta, giving bonds to the committee in the sum of

$600 for the safe keeping of the same. Any damage or loss to the cup

while in the possession of a yacht shall be appraised and deducted

by the committee from the bond on the return of the cup, which shall

be one week before the next annual meeting. Owners of yachts failing

to return the cup at the time specified, shall sacrifice their bonds

and cease to be members of the club. A yacht holding the cup and not

competing for its possession, is considered as having competed and

lost. In all races, at least three yachts must start or no race, unless

a race has been postponed; but should the yacht which is in possession

of the cup be a competitor, she may sail the course, without this limit

as to the number starting.

The wind being from an unfavorable quarter, the course of 9⅞ miles was

reversed. It led from the south end of the breakwater, south of Rock

Dunder, south of Juniper Ledge buoy, west of Juniper Island, north

of Appletree buoy, and around the north end of the breakwater. Eight

yachts entered the lists; the _Flyaway_, the _Agnes T._, the _Ripple_,

the _White Wings_, the _Burlington_, the _Gypsie_, Phelps & Son, the

_Surprise_, Joseph Labelle, and the _Virginia_, Peter Thust, the two

latter being Canadians. There was a splendid start, the eight boats all

crossing the line within a space of 1m. 14s. They kept well together,

and on turning the Ledge buoy they were so closely bunched as to be in

each other’s way. Then came more than four miles of beating. The _White

Wings_ capsized in trying to house her jib, and the Canadian boats

gave up the fight. The _Agnes T._ had led thus far with a prospect of

winning, because she was allowed 2m. 10s.--a figure that would have

given her the race over the _Flyaway_ the day before. But her narrow

beam kept down the area of her sails, and she dropped out, while the

_Flyaway_ spread her gaff-topsail and shot ahead. The _Burlington_ held

her port tack well into the broad lake, the _Gypsie_ tacking nearly as

long. It was evident the race belonged to the _Flyaway_ or the _Agnes

T._ The latter was 6½m. behind in turning the Appletree buoy. Then the

race homeward was commenced. The _Flyaway_ set her jib-topsail, and the

_Agnes T._ set her spinnaker. It was to be a very close thing--for the

_Flyaway_ had allowed her rival 2m. 26s., and the _Gypsie_ 9m. 50s. Had

not the spinnaker gone overboard, the _Agnes T._ might have won.

The score stood--

_Elapsed_ _Corrected_

_Time._ _Time._

H. M. S. H. M. S.

Flyaway 2 03 19 2 03 19

Agnes T. 2 09 10 2 06 44

Gypsie 2 17 20 2 07 30

Burlington 2 16 28 2 22 55

It should be stated that the _Burlington_ was obliged to give an

allowance of 6m. 27s. to the winner--thus making her fourth, although

she was third in elapsed time. As soon as the _Flyaway_ crossed the

line there was a welcome from all the steam-whistles in and about the

harbor, such as old Champlain had never heard before.

Now came an incident that showed the _esprit de corps_ of the new

yacht club. Many of the older clubs do not venture upon the Corinthian

race, wherein every boat must be sailed by its owner, assisted solely

by members of the club to which he belongs. Even if the members want

a race of this sort, it is only after years of hard work and constant

sailing contests, that it will be worth the trouble. But Commodore

Wetmore had with him upon the _Dolphin_--the official boat--Col. W.

A. Crombie, vice-commodore; Chester Griswold, fleet captain; Joseph

Auld, secretary; Maj. M. B. Adams, U. S. Engineers; Captain Abbott,

of the 6th U. S. Cavalry, and one or two civilians, who were also

land-lubbers. It was suggested to the commodore that it was of no use

to start the Corinthian race because there could be none--the _Agnes

T._ alone offering to sail. But the commodore blew his whistles, the

proper flag appeared on the club-house, and the race was started in

good form--all except the boats. Then the Commodore delivered himself:

“I propose to let everybody know that we go through the forms of

starting every race, whether there is anybody to start or not. Next

year every boatman and every visitor will know just what to expect. It

is better to start our first regatta right and educate everybody up to

the proper way to do these things.”

The final whistle was blown and the first annual regatta of the Lake

Champlain Yacht Club was over; and over with great credit, thanks more

particularly to the energetic Regatta Committee, W. Boerum Wetmore,

Chester Griswold and H. Le G. Cannon, of New York, and Elias Lyman and

Lieut. A. S. Cummins, of Burlington. Then the sharpies, cutters, sloops

and cats sailed away; and if you were “handy there” you must have heard

the old refrain taken up and echoed back from the hills!--

[Illustration: THE “AGNES T.”--T. A. TAFT.]

“Watch her! catch her!

Jump up in a ju-ba-ju;

Give her sheet and let her howl,

We’re the boys to put her through.

Oh! you ought to hear her howling

When the wind is blowing free.”

Among the sailing-yachts that did not race, were--the _Emily_, Rev. C.

H. Kimball, of Hartford, Conn.; and the _Champlain_, J. Armor Knox, of

New York. The list would not be complete without a mention of three

screw-yachts: the _Sappho_, owned and sailed by the ever-hospitable Dr.

W. S. Webb; the _Scionda_, which knows every reef and bay of Champlain,

under the guidance of the genial commodore, Jacob G. Sanders; and the

_Alexandria_, upon whose decks and within whose cabins Mr. Alexander

Macdonald, of St. Johns, dispensed true Canadian hospitality, and added

much to the social features of the regatta by the presence of his

guests, Mayor Macdonald, U. S. Consul Bertrand, and Mr. Charles Aspin,

of St. Johns, and Judge Davidson, Col. and Mrs. Bond, Miss Bond, Miss

Wood, and Miss Grant, of Montreal.

It is hoped, and rather expected, that another year we may see a race

for steam yachts. The _Sappho_ is 104 feet long, 15 feet beam and 7

feet 6 inches in draught. The _Scionda_ is 98 feet long, 17 feet beam

and 6 feet in draught. The _Alexandria_ is about 85 feet long, with a

beam and draught nearly the same as the _Scionda_. She is built not

so much for speed as for porpoise and other fishing off the coast of

Newfoundland, and all of her arrangements and appliances are of the

most complete and compact kind. An engine, from Providence, R. I.,

gives the motive-power.

The new yacht club starts with all the advantages that the experience

of the older clubs can offer. It is really the pioneer of strict

yachting on the inland waters of the United States. Even on salt water

the history of yachting commences with the New York Yacht Club less

than fifty years ago; and all the developments of the present day date

from within the past twenty years. The pioneer of clubs in New England,

the Boston, was not formed till 1865. The South Boston was formed in

1868; and the Bunker Hill and the Portland in 1869. At the latter

date there were only fifteen clubs in the United States--all of them

on salt water. So the new club enters the lists not much behind the

others in age, and with every inducement and opportunity to avoid their

mistakes, and to profit by their success. In these days of steam-power

the yachtsmen are the only ones left to keep alive the tone and vigor

of the old-time seamanship which was the theme of song and story. And

when the American navy finds its reserve--as it surely will--in the

well-trained yachtsmen of the day, then the Champlain Club will offer

aid that is worth having upon a lake that saw the transit of arms for

more than 200 years.

But the Lake Champlain Yacht Club is thus early in the process of

changing from its original design and scope. We have already seen

how it has grown beyond the sharpie. In spite of schooner or barque

rigs and lower freeboards and more cutter-like sterns the sharpies

that entered the races showed that they were both out-pointed and

out-footed by the sloops. In other words, they failed to hold that grip

upon the water that all boats must have when beating. Their narrow

beams also keep down the area of their sails. As racers, therefore,

the regatta showed them to be failures--although they are safe, roomy

and comfortable boats for cruising. The accident to the _White Wings_

should not tell against the sharpie model, for even a broader beamed

boat is liable to go over when a gybe comes along and the booms and the

ballast are on the same side of the keel. In running before the wind,

however, the sharpie proves to be a safe and a fairly speedy boat.

The other extreme--to which the club seems to be tending--is the

salt-water sloop of the latest design. Such an one, the _Nautilus_,

was expected to be ready for this regatta, but it will surely be on

hand next year, prepared to beat all comers, if what is claimed can be

proved. The hull floats a mile or two down the lake, and the spars and

boom are laid aside till another season. Burgess, of Boston, finished

the lines, and they are very nearly those of the _Volunteer_, the

defender of the _America’s_ Cup, but on a smaller scale. The length

on deck is 53 feet, and on the waterline 40 feet. The beam is 15 feet

and 3 inches, and the draught is 5 feet--or about 13 feet with the

12-foot center-board down. The color is white, but the gunwales are of

oak, and the combings are of mahogany. Steel rigging is used. The mast

is 42 feet high, and the topmast is 34 feet more, a total of 76 feet

from the deck. From the step of the mast to the end of the bowsprit is

39 feet, while the boom is 47 feet long. This makes the lower edge of

the sail-plan triangle 86 feet. With a single rig of sails spread the

_Nautilus_ will carry about 350 square yards, but if the flying-jib,

the spinnaker, and other extra sails are included, the area will reach

about 700 square yards.

Of course the building of the _Nautilus_ is tentative. It remains to be

seen whether as much sail area as can be spread to the steady breezes

of salt water can be spread with profit, or even with safety, to the

comparatively unsteady and uncertain winds of an inland lake that is

surrounded by mountains. The American Canoe Association has proved,

on a smaller scale, that big sails on a mountain-locked lake are to

be avoided. Experience has shown that a moderate area of sail, well

handled, wins the day; but there are times when a light wind gives

the race to the man who has the largest area. The same experience is

likely to come to the yacht club, and our prediction is that it will

soon be shown that the _Nautilus_ has too many and too large sails for

her hull, and that by the time of the regatta in August she will appear

with a smaller area. But if the _Nautilus_ can go through the narrow

pass in the lake known as Split Rock, with its varying currents of air

and water, and its sudden and terrific squalls from off Whallon’s bay,

then she can do anything; for that is the test of seamanship, according

to the old sailors on the lake. Such a severe trial, however, should

not be asked of the _Nautilus_, or of any other new boat that is built

for the same purpose. Her mission is not so much to tempt Providence as

to mark an era in the advancement of yachting upon the unsalted waters.

Whatever may be thought of Burlington as a place of winter resort, it

is certain that it is developing into a more popular place for the

passing of the warmer months. Instead of the winter carnivals we have

not only yacht-racing, but all the other pleasures that the water can

afford. While the principal rivers of the New York shore are bounded

by rocks, those on the Vermont shore are bounded by long bars of sand.

To the northward of Burlington the Lamoille sends out a long sand-bar

on which, with a little assistance by men, a drive has been formed to

one of the larger islands. It goes by the name of the Sandbar Bridge.

Then there is the Winooski, or Onion River, which empties into the lake

seven or eight miles south of the Lamoille River, and a mile or so

north of Burlington. The river rises close to the Connecticut River,

on the southern borders of Vermont breaks through the range of the

Green Mountains and shows caves at Duxbury and many other points along

the slope of the Camel’s Hump. The river, in fact, runs through the

valley between Mansfield and the Camel’s Hump, and presents a series of

surprises to the tourist.

Burlington was in the old seigniory of La Manaudiere on both sides

of the Lamoille River, and belonged to Pierre Rainbault, who was one

of the French victims at the time of the conquest of Canada by the

English. Burlington has many beautiful spots, and the monuments to

Lafayette and Allen are especially worth visiting. The isolated rock

Dunder, only a mile or two off from the wharves, has always been an

object of mystery, many claiming that it was the original boundary

between the French and English Indians. Then there is Juniper Island,

on which the United States has established a light-house, and the

breakwater which forms the real harbor of the city except when, as

occasionally happens, the waves break down the breakwater itself. Only

a short distance down the lake are Shelburne town, and the neighboring

resort known as Cedar Beach. Then we come to the extensive grounds,

thousands of acres in area, recently purchased by the Vanderbilts and

their connections, and now developed into most beautiful parks and

all kinds of driveways, that would do credit to cities of much larger

growth.

Indeed, Burlington is the city which Edward Everett Hale recently

described as a fitting answer to Matthew Arnold’s strictures upon the

homeliness of Americans and their surroundings. Mr. Hale spoke of the

new hospital in Burlington, and its fund of half a million dollars, and

said: “If this be a commonplace monument, let us thank God that we live

in a commonplace land.” He spoke of the public library with its choice

collections, and was informed that it was a question whether there were

three or four paupers in the poorhouse. Then Mr. Hale went on to say:

“This is so distinguished a condition of affairs that I should not dare

tell that story in any social science congress in Europe. It would be

set down as a Yankee exaggeration. People would say it was impossible.

It is not impossible, because the men and women of Burlington have

known how to give themselves to the administration of the wealth in

common.”

THE BREAKING OF WINTER.

BY PATIENCE STAPLETON.

“That’s the fust funerel I’ve went to sence I was a gal, but that I

drove to the graveyard.”

“I dunno as that done the corp enny good.”

“An’ seems all to onc’t I miss old Tige,” muttered the first speaker

half to herself.

It was snowing now, a fine mist sifting down on deep-drifted

stone-walls and hard, shining roads, and the tinkle of sleigh-bells,

as a far-away black line wound over the hill to the bleak graveyard,

sounded musical and sweet in the muffled air. Two black figures in the

dazzling white landscape left the traveled road and ploughed heavily

along a lane leading to a grove of maples, cold and naked in the winter

scene.

“They say Ann Kirk left a good prop’ty,” said the first speaker, a

woman of fifty, with sharp black eyes, red cheeks, few wrinkles and

fewer gray hairs in the black waves under her pumpkin hood. She pulled

her worn fur cape around her neck and took a new grasp on her shawl,

pinning it tight. “Ann an’ me used to take a sight of comfort driving

old Tige.”

The man, her companion, grunted and went sturdily ahead. He was

enveloped in a big overcoat, a scarf wound around his neck and a

moth-eaten fur cap pulled down over his ears. His blue eyes were watery

from the cold, his nose and chin peaked and purple, and frost clung to

the short gray beard about his mouth.

“Who’ll git the prop’ty?” panted the woman. She held her gown up in

front, disclosing a pair of blue socks drawn over her shoes.

“Relashuns, I s’pose.”

“She was allus so savin’, keepin’ drippins for fryin’, and sellin’

nearly every mite of butter they made; an’ I’ve heered the Boston

relashuns was extravagant. Her sister hed on a black silk to the

funerel to ride to the grave in; I guess they are well-to-do.”

“Dunno,” gruffly.

Somehow then the woman remembered that glossy silk, and that she had

never had one. Then this sister’s husband, how attentive he was leading

his wife out to the sleigh, and she had seen them walking arm-in-arm

the past summer, when no man in Corinth ever offered his arm to his

wife unless it were to a funeral and they were first mourners. “Silas

never give me his arm but the fust Sunday we were merried,” she

thought; “bein’ kind to wimmen wan’t never the Lowell’s way.” A sharp

pain in her side made her catch her breath and stop a moment, but the

man paid no heed to her distress. At the end of a meadow on a little

rise looking down a long, shady lane, stood a gray old farm-house, to

which age had given picturesqueness and beauty, and here Maria Lowell

had lived the thirty years of her married life. She unlocked the door

and went into the cold kitchen where the fire had died down. A lean cat

came purring from under the table, and the old clock seemed to tick

more cheerily now the mistress had returned.

“A buryin’ on Christmas Eve, the minister said, and how sad it were,

and I felt like tellin’ him Ann an’ me never knowed Christmas from enny

other day, even to vittles, for turkeys fetched better prices then, an’

we sold ourn.” She went into a frozen bedroom, for Corinth folks would

have thought a man crazy to have a fire in a sleeping-room except in

sickness; she folded her shawl and cape and laid them carefully on the

feather bed, covered with its gay quilt, the fruit of her lonely hours.

Mechanically she set about getting supper, stirring the fire, putting

a pan of soda biscuits in to bake, and setting a dish of dried-apple

sauce and a plate of ginger cookies on the table. “Berried on Chrismus

Eve, but little she ever thought of it, nor me, and little of it Jimmy

hed here to home.”

She looked at her biscuits, slammed the oven door, glanced cautiously

around to see if Silas, who had gone to milk the cow, were coming;

then drawing her thin lips tighter, went back into the cold bedroom.

With ruthless hand tearing open an old wound, she unlocked a drawer

in the old mahogany bureau and took out something rolled in a

handkerchief--only a tiny vase, blue and gilt, woefully cheap, laughed

at by the cultured, scorned by the children of to-day. She held it

tenderly in her cold hand and brought back the memory that would never

die. It was years and years ago in that very room, and a little child

came in holding one chubby hand behind him, and he looked at her

with her own bright eyes under his curly hair. “Muver, Jimmy’s got a

s’prise.” She remembered she told him crossly to go out of the cold

room and not bother her. She remembered, too, that his lip quivered,

the lip that had yet the baby curve. “It was a present, muver, like the

minister sed. I got candy on the tree, but you didn’t git nawthin’,

and I buyed you this with my berry money.” The poor little vase in

that warm chubby hand--ay, she forgot nothing now; she told him he was

silly to spend good money on trash, and flung the vase aside, but that

grieved childish face came back always. Ah, it would never fade away,

it had returned for a quarter of a century. “I never was used to young

ones,” she said aloud, “nor kindness,” but that would not heal the

wound; no self-apology could. She went hurriedly to the kitchen, for

Silas was stamping the snow off his feet in the entry.

“I got fifty dollars for old Tige,” he said, as he poured his tea into

his saucer to cool; “he was wuth it, the honest old creetur!”

The little black-eyed woman did not answer; she only tightened her

lips. Over the mantel where the open fireplace had been bricked up, was

a picture in a narrow black frame, a colored print of Washington on a

fine white horse, and maidens strewing flowers in his pathway.

“When Tige was feelin’ good,” continued Silas, “he’d a monstrous

likeness to thet hoss in the pictur, monstrous! held his hed high an’

pranced; done you good to see him in Bath when them hosses tried to

parss him; you’d a thort he was a four-year-old! chock full of pride.

The hackman sed he was a good ’un, but run down; I don’t ’low to

overfeed stock when they ain’t wurkin’.”

“Ourn has the name of bein’ half starved,” muttered the woman.

Silas looked at her in some surprise. “I ginerelly gits good prices for

’em all the same.”

“We ginerelly overreach every one!”

“Goin’ to Ann’s funerel hez sorter upset ye, M’ri: Lord, how old Tige

would cavort when Jim would ride him; throw out his heels like a colt.

I never told the hackman Tige was eighteen year old. I ain’t over

pertikler in a hoss trade, like everybody else. He wun’t last long I

calc’late now, for them hack horses is used hard, standin’ out late

nights in the cold an’--”

“Was the Wilkins place sold out ter-day?” said the woman hastily, with

agonizing impatience to divert his thoughts to something else.

“Yes, it were,” chuckled Silas, handing his cup for more tea, “an’

they’ll have ter move ter Bosting. You was ginning me for bein’ mean,

how’d you like to be turned outer doors? Ef I do say it, there ain’t no

money due on my prop’ty, nor never was.”

“Who air you savin’ it fur?” said Maria, quietly. She sat with downcast

eyes tapping her spoon idly on her saucer; she had eaten nothing.

“Fur myself,” he growled, pushing his chair back. He lit a pipe and

began to smoke, his feet at the oven door.

Outside it was quite dark, snow and night falling together in a dense

black pall. Over the lonely roads drifted the snow, and no footfall

marred it. Through drear, silent forests it sifted, sifted down, clung

to cheery evergreens, and clasped shining summer trees that had no

thought for winter woes; it was heaped high over the glazed brooks

that sang, deep down, songs of summer time and gladness, like happy,

good old folks whose hearts are ever young and joyous. Over the wide

Kennebec, in the line of blue the ferry-boat kept open, the flakes

dropped, dropped and made no blurr, like the cellar builders of temples

and palaces, the rank and file, the millions of good, unknown dead,

unmentioned in history or the Bible. The waves seething in the confined

path crackled the false ice around the edges, leaped upon it in

miniature breakers, and swirled far underneath with hoarse murmur. In

the dark water something dark rose and fell with the tide. Was there a

human being drifting to death in the icy sea? The speck made no outcry;

it battled nobly with nature’s mighty force. Surely and slowly the high

wharfs and the lights of Bath faded; nearer grew the woods of Corinth;

the ferry landing and the tavern-keeper’s lamp.

“I heered suthin’ on the ferry slip,” said a little old man in the

tavern, holding his hand behind his ear.

“Nawthin’, night’s too black,” said the tavern-keeper; “you’re allus a

hearin’ what no one else do, Beaman.”

No star nor human eye had seen the black speck on the wild water, and

no hand lent it aid to land.

In ugly silence Silas smoked his pipe, while equally still, Maria

washed the dishes. She stepped to throw the dish-water outside the door

and then she heard a sound. The night was so quiet a noise traveled

miles. What was it, that steady smothered thud up the lane where so

seldom a stranger came? Was it only the beating of her heart after all?

She shut the door behind her and hurried out, wrapping her wet cold

hands in her apron. Suddenly there came a long, joyful neigh!

“How on airth did that critter git home?” cried Silas, jumping to his

feet.

Nearer, nearer, in a grand gallop, with tense muscles and quivering

limbs, with upraised head and flying mane, with eager eyes, nearer,

in great leaps thrusting time and distance far behind, came that

apparition of the night.

“Oh, my God!” cried the woman wildly, “old Tige has come home--come

home to this place, and there is one living thing that loves it!”

The light flared out from the open door. “How on airth did he git

across the river?” said Silas, querulously. “An’ how am I goin’ to git

him back in this weather?”

There he stood, the noble old horse that her boy had raised from a

colt, had ridden, had given to her when he went away. “Mother,” her

boy had said, “be good to old Tige. If ever father wants to sell him,

don’t you let him. I’d come back from my grave if the old horse was

abused--the only thing I loved, that loved me in this place I cannot

call a home. Remember he has been so faithful.”

Ay, he had been faithful, in long, hot summer days, in wide, weary

fields, in breaking the stony soil for others’ harvest, in bringing

wood from the far forest, in every way of burden and work.

He stood quivering with cold, covered with ice, panting after his

wild gallop; but he was home, poor brute mind! That old farm was his

home: he had frolicked in its green fields as a colt, had carried a

merry-voiced young master, had worked and rested in that old place;

he might be ill-treated and starved, he did not grieve, he did not

question, for it was home! He could not understand why this time the

old master had not taken him away; never before had he been left in

Bath. In his brute way he reasoned he had been forgotten, and when his

chance came, leaped from the barn, running as horse never ran before,

plunged off the wharf into the black waves, swam across and galloped to

his home.

“If there is a God in Heaven, that horse shall not go back!” cried

the woman fiercely; “if you take him from here again it shall be over

my dead body! Ay, you may well look feared; for thirty years I have

frozen my heart, even to my own son, and now the end’s come. It needed

that faithful brute to teach me; it needed that one poor creature that

loved me and this place, to open the flood-gates. Let me pass, and I

warn you to keep away from me. Women go mad in this lonely, starved

life. Ay, you are a man, but I am stronger now than you ever were. I’ve

been taught all my life to mind men, to be driven by them, and to-night

is a rising of the weak. Put me in the asylum, as other wives are, but

to-night my boy’s horse shall be treated as never before.”

“But M’ri,” he said, trembling, “there, there now, let me git the

lantern, you’re white as a sheet! We’ll keep him if you say so; why

hadn’t you told me afore?”

She flung him aside, lit the lantern and then ran up to an attic

chamber under the eaves. “M’ri, you hain’t goin’ to kill yourself?” he

quavered, waiting at the foot of the stairs. She was back in a moment,

her arms full of blankets.

“What on airth!”

“Let me alone, Silas Lowell, these were my weddin’ blankets. I’ve saved

’em thirty years in the cedar chist for this. They was too good for you

and me; they air too poor fur my boy’s horse.”

“But there’s a good hoss blanket in the barn.”

“The law don’t give you these; it mebbe gives you me, but these is

mine.”

She flung by him, and he heard the barn door rattle back. He put on his

coat and went miserably after her.

“M’ri, here’s yer shawl, you’ll git yer death.” The barn lit by the

lantern revealed two astonished oxen, a mild-eyed cow, a line of hens

roosting on an old hay-rack and Maria rubbing the frozen sides of the

white horse. “Put yer shawl on, M’ri, you’ll git yer death.”

“An’ you’d lose my work, eh? Leave me, I say, I’m burning up; I never

will be cold till I’m dead. I can die! there is death ’lowed us poor

critters, an’ coffins to pay fur, and grave lots.”

Silas picked up a piece of flannel and began to rub the horse. In

ghastly quiet the two worked, the man watching the woman, and looking

timorously at the axe in the corner. One woman in the neighborhood,

living on a cross-road where no one ever came, had gone mad and

murdered her husband, but “M’ri” had always been so clear-headed! Then

the woman went and began piling hay in the empty stall.

“You ain’t goin’ to use thet good hay fur beddin’, be ye, M’ri?” asked

Silas in pathetic anxiety.

“I tell you let me be. Who has a better right to this? His labor cut it

and hauled it; this is a time when the laborer shall git his hire.”

Silas went on rubbing, listening in painful silence to the click of the

lock on the grain bin, and the swish of oats being poured into a trough.

“Don’t give him too much, M’ri,” he pleaded humbly, “I don’t mean ter

be savin’, but he’ll eat hisself to death.”

“The first that ever did on this place,” laughed the woman wildly.

Then standing on the milking-stool she piled the blankets on the

grateful horse, then led him to the stall where she stood and watched

him eat. “I never see you so free ’round a hoss afore,” said Silas;

“you used to be skeered of ’em, he might kick ye.”

“He wouldn’t because he ain’t a man,” she answered shrilly; “it’s only

men that gives blows for kindness!”

“Land of the living!” cried Silas, as a step sounded on the floor, and

a queer figure came slowly into the glare of light by the lantern, a

figure that had a Rembrandt effect in the shadow--an old man, lean and

tall, shrouded in a long coat and bearing on his back a heavy basket.

“You can’t be a human creetur, comin’ here to-night,” said Maria;

“mebbe you’re the Santy Claus Jim used to tell on as the boys told him;

no man in his senses would come to Sile Lowell’s fur shelter.”

“M’ri’s upsot,” said Silas meekly, taking the lantern with trembling

hand; “I guess you’ve got off the road; the tavern’s two mile down

toward the river.”

“You’ve followed the right road,” said Maria; “you’ve come at a day of

reck’nin’; everythin’ in the house, the best, you shall have.”

She snatched the light from Silas and slammed the barn door, leaving

Tige contentedly champing his oats, wondering if he was still dreaming,

and if his wild swim had been a nightmare followed by a vision of

plenty. In the kitchen Maria filled the stove, lit two lamps and began

making new tea.

“Thet was a good strong drorin’ we hed fur supper, M’ri,” said Silas,

plaintively, keenly conscious of previous economies; “’pears to me you

don’t need no new.” She paid no heed to him, but set the table with the

best dishes, the preserves--Silas noted with a groan--and then with

quick, skillful hand began cutting generous slices of ham.

“I hope you’re hungry, sir?” she asked eagerly.

“Wal, I be, marm,” said the stranger; “an’ if it ain’t no trouble, I’ll

set this ere basket nigh the stove, there’s things in it as will spile.

I be consederable hungry, ain’t eat a bite sence yesterd’y.”

Silas’s face grew longer and longer; he looked at the hamper hopefully.

That might contain a peddler’s outfit and “M’ri” could get paid that

way.

“An’ I hain’t money nor nawthin’ to pay fur my vittles ’less there was

wood-sawin’ to be done.”

“Wood’s all sawed,” said Silas bitterly.