WE will start from New York City. Did you ever take a ride on the
elevated railway? No? Then we will take it this morning. Mount the long
flight of stairs, hurry your ticket into the box in waiting, and push
on rapidly, for the train is coming, and it is always in a hurry. There
stands the man on the platform, ready to open the iron door for us.
Spring on, get your seats, for others are crowding in. Now the door is
shut; "toot! toot! whiz!" we are off again!
We make a great many stops. "Fourteenth street," shouts the man at the
gate, and there is a rush of people to get off, and a rush of people to
get on, and away we go; and in almost less time than it takes to get
our breath, Twenty-third street, or some other, is shouted, and we stop
again.
At last Forty-second street is called, and we hurry off; everybody in
New York is in a hurry. Yet we have reached a quiet place; the New
York Central Depot. "A railroad depot a quiet place!" That astonishes
you, does it? Still it is the truth; I am not sure but you would think
yourself in a great public library, where people move quietly, and
speak low. There is no rush, nor bustle; and the room which we have
entered is so large that there can hardly be a crowd, even when many
people are there. Many doors line one side, and large clock-faces are
set over them; but they keep curious time; no two are alike. If you
watch, however, you will discover that the doors and the clocks are all
named. One is "N. Y. C. & H. R." another is "N. Y. & N. H." and another
is--something else.
The hands of the clock point to the hour and moment that the next train
on that particular road will be ready to leave the depot. All we have
to do is to look for the name of the road on which we want to travel,
and then study the clock over the door. Here is ours, "N. Y. & N. H."
We have still fifteen minutes. Before that time, the door is quietly
opened, and a man whose duty it is to see that we, by no possibility,
make a blunder and board the wrong train, takes his station behind it,
and looks carefully at our tickets as we pass; we are seated and away.
The train moves very rapidly, and the sensation is pleasant. No rocking
motion, and not nearly so much noise as we sometimes find. We chat
together pleasantly, without the feeling that we are talking in a
locomotive boiler, where work is going on. We make frequent stops at
pleasant villages, where green fields stretch out, on either side, and
where the air is sweet with the breath of flowers. One name is called
which makes us stretch our necks from the open windows to get as good
a view as we can. This is New Haven, "the city of elms," and the seat
of Yale College. It is a beautiful city; we can be sure of that, even
from the depot view. But we have not time to linger. Some day we will
stop there, and take a walk around the college. Now we must make all
speed to our destination. At last we hear the name: "Ansonia." And we
seize our wraps, and satchels, and umbrellas, and lunch boxes, and make
haste. What a pretty village! And what a strange one! The river cuts it
in two; makes another village on the other side, which, after all, is
the same village, or looks like it. There are many trees, hiding nice
old-fashioned houses, near which we get glimpses of many flowers. But
the buildings which most attract us to-day are not dwelling houses;
unless indeed a race of giants live in them. They are so large!
Manufactories? Yes, you have guessed it; the State of Connecticut, you
know, is famous for its industry. We have spent so much time in getting
here, that we will not be able to stay long in the great building
to-day. Still, let us stop a few minutes before this queer machine;
it is apparently eating wire. What a stomach it must have! Long coils
of fine wire rush into its mouth with such speed that one can hardly
see the process. How fast it eats! Such large mouthfuls as it takes!
about eight inches of wire at a bite. Now what? No, it doesn't swallow
the wire, it simply bites it off, and sends it on. Not far, for as the
wire is scurrying by a corner, some one of the wicked people who dwell
in this machine, seizes it and bends it double! Poor thing! But as you
would naturally expect, it hurries the faster now. Not two inches away,
it meets another enemy who in sheer ill humor, apparently, seizes it
and in an instant of time has given it such a pinch that its right
side is all crinkled; it will bear the marks of that grasp all its
life! It scuds on, without a groan, intent apparently on getting out of
that country as soon as possible. But no, it is seized again, and the
two ends of its poor body are rubbed hastily and mercilessly against
a rough surface, until they are like needles for sharpness. It takes
but a second, and then the wicked sprite seems to have had revenge
enough, and lets the poor wire pass. There is a little open place for
which the wire is evidently making; it hopes to slip down there out
of sight--hurry! almost there! Alas no, one more sprite reaches out a
long finger, and gives that horrid pinch to the other side! "Maimed for
life!" the poor wire groans, and at last, at _last_, having suffered a
life-time of torture, so it thinks, though really its whole journey has
not taken more than half a minute, it drops breathless and exhausted
into the box below. Let us go around and look at it, poor thing! Why,
how it shines! And what a merry company it has gotten among! Not alone
any more; literally millions of friends of the same outward appearance
as itself. "Hairpins!" you exclaim. Yes, indeed; hairpins for the
million. Can it be possible that the world will ever want them all?
But how pretty they are; and how smooth and fine their points are!
Besides, those horrible pinches which we thought were simply vents for
ill-humor, were to put those convenient crinkles into the pins, and
help them perform their duty in life. In short, the dabs, and pinches,
and grindings, hard as they were to bear, were the very things which
shaped a mere bit of wire into a useful member of society.
And, when one thinks of it, what a bit of time it took--this
preparation--compared with the time which they will now spend in
usefulness! No wonder the hairpins in the great box shone brightly when
at last they began to understand it all. The question is, little Pansy
Blossoms, can you and I, as we stand looking at them, and thinking of
all this, learn a lesson which will apply to our _human_ rubs, and
pinches, and sharp places? If this be so, then we shall be well repaid
for going, and seeing, and thinking.
"OLD ABE."
SOME years ago a man in the West saw an eagle lighting frequently upon
a spot high among the rocks. Observing her movements he saw her nest
was there and she was raising her family in that palace of rocks.
"Now," he thought, "is the time for me to find out if this grand bird
can be tamed." His neighbors said it could not be done.
He quietly resolved to try. But how to get an eaglet was the question.
Day after day he would go alone and examine the rocks to see if there
was not some way of getting to the nest. There seemed to be none. It
was a ledge, almost smooth, and one hundred feet high where the nest
was. No ladder would reach it, and if he should go around and climb to
the top, he would not be near, as it was many feet down.
One night as he lay thinking the thing over, a thought struck him. "I
will go to the top, fasten a rope and let myself down and capture one
and climb up again."
In the morning he was a bit wiser and said: "Now if something _should_
happen while I am down there pocketing a young eagle, I might need both
hands; in that case how could I climb up? I'll tell the secret to John
and Joe Grimes." So they went around to the top of the ledge where they
could look over down to the nest.
The old eagle was gone; but there were the five children, talking
together at a great rate, not thinking who were near by listening to
their conversation and about to knock at their door.
The next moment as they looked up they saw a man coming down by a rope
fastened about his body. He seized one and was being drawn up when
suddenly the Mother Eagle seeing from far away in the sky an enemy
enter her home, and, coming like a flash, dashed upon the robber and
would have torn his eyes out; but he fought desperately with his long,
sharp knife.
One of his blows almost severed the rope. John and Joe, however, tugged
bravely at the other end and their friend with his prize was soon safe
but panting at their feet. It is said that when he saw how nearly he
came to cutting the rope in two and falling a hundred feet, his hair
became instantly white from terror.
The young eagle was taken home and tenderly raised and became as tame
as any fowl in the barnyard. It grew to immense size--would fly away
out of sight among the clouds, but always return at meal-time and
behave like any respectable person. He thought much of his friends;
not so much of his friends' enemies. And he had his way of showing his
friendship.
And now you need not be surprised to be told about the queer things
that the eagle, "Old Abe," did in the War of the Rebellion in 1861-65;
how he actually went South with a Western regiment in which were some
of his friends, and during battles would fly high and hover over his
favorite regiment to cheer it on!
[Illustration: THAT PALACE OF ROCKS.]
After the battle he would come down and walk among the soldiers and
line with them.
The war over, he came back with his regiment and was received like any
loyal soldier, with great honor; and his State appropriated a sum to
maintain him comfortably in his after years.
There are over thirty references in the Bible to eagles. They are
remarkable. A concordance can point them all out. Hunt them up.