CHAPTER XI.

[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1897, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JANUARY 5, 1897. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVIII.--NO. 897. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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[Illustration]

THE LITTLE BISHOP.

BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN.

It was I who called him the Little Bishop. His name was Phillips Brooks

Sanderson, but one seldom heard it at full length, since "Phil" was

quite enough for an urchin just in his first trousers, and those assumed

somewhat prematurely. He was "Phil," therefore, to the village, but

always the dear lovable Little Bishop to me. His home was in Bonnie

Eagle; it was only because of his mother's illness that he was spending

the summer with his uncle and aunt in Pleasant River. I could see the

little brown house from my window. The white road, with strips of tufted

green between the wheel tracks, curled dustily up to the very door-step,

and inside the wire screen-door was a wonderful drawn-in rug, shaped

like half a pie, with "Welcome" in saffron letters on its gray surface.

I liked the Bishop's aunt; I liked to see her shake the "Welcome" rug

before breakfast, flinging the cheery word out into the summer sunshine

like a bright greeting to the new day; I liked to see her go to the

screen-door a dozen times a day; open it a crack, and chase an imaginary

fly from the sacred precincts within; I liked to see her come up the

cellar steps into the side garden, appearing mysteriously as from the

bowels of the earth, carrying a shining pan of milk in both hands, and

disappearing through the beds of hollyhocks and sunflowers to the

pig-pen or the hen-house.

I had not yet grown fond of the uncle, and neither had Phil, for that

matter; in fact Uncle Abner was rather a difficult person to grow fond

of, with his fiery red beard, his freckled skin, and his gruff way of

speaking--for there were no children in the brown house to smooth the

creases from his forehead or the roughness from his voice.

I was sitting under the shade of the great maple one morning early when

I first saw the Little Bishop. A tiny figure came down the grass-grown

road leading a cow by a rope. If it had been a small boy and a small

cow, a middle-sized boy and an ordinary cow, or a grown man and a big

cow, I might not have noticed them; but it was the combination of an

infinitesimal boy and a huge cow that attracted my attention. I could

not guess the child's years; I only knew that he was small for his age,

whatever it was. The cow was a dark red beast with a crumpled horn, a

white star on her forehead, and a large surprised sort of eye. She had,

of course, two eyes, and both were surprised, but the left one had an

added hint of amazement in it by virtue of a few white hairs lurking

accidentally in the centre of the eyebrow.

The boy had a thin sensitive face and curly brown hair, short trousers

patched on both knees, and a ragged straw hat on the back of his head.

He pattered along behind the cow, sometimes holding the rope with both

hands, and getting over the ground in a jerky way, as the animal left

him no time to think of a smooth path for bare feet. The Sanderson

pasture was a good half-mile distant, I knew, and the cow seemed in no

hurry to reach it; accordingly she forsook the road now and then, and

rambled in the hollows, where the grass was sweeter, to her way of

thinking. She started on one of these exploring expeditions just as she

passed the great maple, and gave me time to call out to the little

fellow, "Is that your cow?"

He blushed and smiled, tried to speak modestly, but there was a quiver

of pride in his voice as he answered, suggestively, "It's--nearly my

cow."

"How is that?" I asked.

"Why, when I drive her twenty-nine more times to pasture 'thout her

gettin' her foot over the rope or 'thout my bein' afraid, she's goin' to

be my truly cow, Uncle Abner says. Are you 'fraid of cows?"

"Ye-e-es," I confessed, "I am, just a little. You see, I am nothing but

a grown-up woman, and boys can't understand how we feel about cows."

"_I_ can! They're awful big things, aren't they?"

"Perfectly enormous! I've always thought a cow coming towards you one of

the biggest things in the world."

"Yes; me too. Don't let's think about it. Do they hook people so very

often?"

"No, indeed; in fact one scarcely ever hears of such a case."

"If they stepped on your bare foot they'd scrunch it, wouldn't they?"

"Yes, but you are the driver, you mustn't let them do that; you are a

free-will boy, and they are nothing but cows."

"I know; but p'r'aps there is free-will cows, and if they just _would_

do it you can't help being scrunched, for you mustn't let go of the rope

nor run, Uncle Abner says."

"No, of course that would never do."

"Does all the cows where you live go down into the boggy places when

you're drivin' 'em to pasture, or does some stay in the road?"

"There aren't any cows or any pastures where I live; that's what makes

me so foolish. Why does yours need a rope?"

"She don't like to go to pasture, Uncle Abner says. Sometimes she'd

druther stay to home, and so when she gets part way there she turns

round and comes backwards."

"Dear me!" I thought, "what becomes of this boy mite if she has a spell

of going backwards? Do you like to drive her?" I asked.

"N--no, not erzackly; but, you see, it'll be my cow if I drive her

twenty-nine more times 'thout her gettin' her foot over the rope and

'thout my bein' afraid," and a beaming smile gave a transient brightness

to his harassed little face. "Will she feed in the ditch much longer?"

he asked. "Shall I say 'Hurrap'? That's what Uncle Abner

says--'_Hurrap!_' like that, and it means to hurry up."

It was rather a feeble warning that he sounded, and the cow fed on,

peacefully. The little fellow looked up at me confidingly, and then

glanced back at the farm to see if Uncle Abner were watching the

progress of events.

"What shall we do next?" he asked.

I delighted in that warm, cozy little "_we_"; it took me into the firm

so pleasantly. I am a weak prop indeed when it comes to cows, but all

the manhood in my soul rose to arms when he said, "What shall _we_ do

next?" I became alert, courageous, ingenious, on the instant.

"What is her name?" I asked, sitting up straight in the hammock.

"Buttercup; but she don't seem to know it very well."

"Never mind; you must shout 'Buttercup!' at the top of your voice, and

twitch the rope _hard_; then I'll call, 'Hurrap!' with all my might at

the same moment."

We did this; it worked to a charm, and I looked affectionately after my

Little Bishop as the cow pulled him down Aunt Betty's hill.

The lovely June days wore on. I saw Phil frequently, but the cow was

seldom present at our interviews, as he now drove her to the pasture

very early in the morning, the journey thither being one of considerable

length and her method of reaching the goal being exceedingly

round-about. Uncle Abner had pointed out the necessity of getting her

into the pasture at least a few minutes before she had to be taken out

again, and though I didn't like Uncle Abner, I saw the common-sense of

this remark. I sometimes caught a glimpse of them at sundown as they

returned from the pasture to the twilight milking, Buttercup chewing her

peaceful cud, her soft white bag of milk hanging full, her surprised eye

rolling in its accustomed "fine frenzy." The frenzied roll did not mean

anything, the Bishop and I used to assure each other; but if it didn't,

it was an awful pity she had to do it, the Bishop thought, and I agreed.

To have an expression of eye that means murder, and yet to be a

perfectly virtuous and well-meaning animal, this is a calamity which, if

fully realized, would injure a cow's milk-producing activities

seriously, I should think.

I was looking at the sun one evening as it dropped like a ball of red

fire into Wilkins's Woods, when the Little Bishop passed.

"It's the twenty-ninth night," he called, joyously.

"I am so glad," I answered, for I had often feared some accident might

prevent his claiming the promised reward. "Then to-morrow Buttercup will

be your own cow?"

"I guess so. That's what Uncle Abner said. He's off to Bonnie Eagle now,

but he'll be home to-night, and mother's going to send my new hat by

him. When Buttercup's my own cow I wish I could change her name and call

her Red Rover, but p'r'aps her mother wouldn't like it. When she b'longs

to me, mebbe I won't be so 'fraid of gettin' hooked and scrunched,

because she'll know she's mine, and she'll go better. I haven't let her

get snarled up in the rope one single time, and I don't show I'm afraid,

do I?"

"I should never suspect it for an instant," I said, encouragingly. "I've

often envied you your bold, brave look!"

He appeared distinctly pleased. "I haven't cried, either, when she's

dragged me over the pasture bars and peeled my legs. Bill Jones's little

brother Charlie says he ain't afraid of anything, not even bears. He

says he would walk right up close and cuff 'em if they dared to yip; but

I ain't like that!"

I told Aunt Betty that it was the Bishop's twenty-ninth night, and that

the big red cow was to be his on the morrow.

"Well, I hope it'll turn out that way," she said. "But I ain't a mite

sure that Abner Sanderson will give up that cow when it comes to the

point. It won't be the first time he's tried to crawl out of a bargain

with folks a good deal bigger than Phil, for he's close, Abner is! To be

sure, Phil's father bought all his stock for him years ago, and set him

up on the farm; perhaps that'll make some difference, now he's died, and

left nothing to his widder. Abner has hired help in July and August, so

he can get the cow to the pasture easy enough without Phil. I wish you'd

go up there to-night, and ask Mis' Sanderson if she'll lend me half her

yeast-cake, and I'll lend her half of mine a Saturday."

I was used to this errand, for the whole village of Pleasant River would

sometimes be rocked to the very centre of its being by simultaneous

desire for a yeast-cake. As the nearest repository was a mile and a half

distant, as the yeast-cake was valued at two cents and wouldn't keep, as

the demand was uncertain, being dependent entirely on a fluctuating

desire for "riz bread," the Edgewood store-keeper refused to order more

than three yeast-cakes a day at his own risk. Sometimes they remained on

his hands a dead loss; sometimes eight or ten persons would "hitch up"

and drive from distant farms for the coveted article, only to be met

with the flat, "No, I'm all out o' yeast-cake; Mis' Simmons took the

last; mebbe you can borry half o' hern, she hain't much of a

bread-eater."

So I climbed the hill to Mrs. Sanderson's, knowing my daily bread

depended on the successful issue of the call. As I passed by the corner

of the barn, I paused behind a great clump of elderberry-bushes, for I

heard the timid voice of the Little Bishop and Uncle Abner's gruff tone.

I did not wish to interrupt nor overhear a family interview, and I

thought they might walk on as they talked; but in a moment I heard Uncle

Abner sit down on a stool by the grindstone as he said:

"Well, now, Phillips Brooks, we'll talk about the red cow. You say

you've drove her a month, do ye? And the trade between us was that if

you could drive her a month without her getting the rope over her foot

and without bein' afraid, you was to have her. That's straight, ain't

it?" The Bishop's face burned with excitement, his gingham shift rose

and fell as if he were breathing hard, but he only nodded assent and

said nothing. "Now," continued Uncle Abner, "have you made out to keep

the rope from under her feet?"

"She 'ain't got t-t-tangled up one s-single time," said Phil, stuttering

in his excitement, but looking up with some courage from his bare toes,

with which he was assiduously ploughing the earth.

"So far, so good. Now 'bout bein' afraid. As you seem so certain of

gettin' the cow, I suppose you hain't been a mite scared, hev you? Honor

bright, now!"

"I--I--not but just a little mite. I--"

"Hold up a minute. Of course you didn't _say_ you was afraid, and didn't

_show_ you was afraid, and nobody knew you _was_ afraid, but that ain't

the way we fixed it up. You was to call the cow yourn if you could drive

her to the pasture for a month without _bein'_ afraid. Own up square

now, hev you ben afraid?"

A long pause, then a faint "Yes."

"Where's your manners?"

"I mean yes sir."

"How often? If it hain't ben too many times mebbe I'll let ye off,

though you're a reg'lar girl-boy, and'll be runnin' away from the cat

bimeby. Has it ben--twice?"

"Yes," and the Little Bishop's voice was very faint now, and had a

decided tear in it.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, sir."

"Has it ben four times?"

"Y-es, sir." More heaving of the gingham shirt.

"Well, you air a coward! How many times? Speak up now."

More digging of the bare toes in the earth, and one premonitory tear

stealing from under the downcast lids, then:

"A little most every day, and you can keep the cow," wailed the Bishop,

as he turned abruptly and fled behind the barn, where he flung himself

into the green depths of a tansy bed, and gave himself up to unmanly

tears.

I had heard more than I wished, for I had been rooted to the spot, not

so much because of my interest in Phil as that I did not like to vex

Uncle Abner by making him aware of my unintentional presence. I did not

dare seek and comfort my Little Bishop sobbing in the tansy bed, the

brand of coward on his forehead, and, what was much worse, the fear in

his heart that he deserved it. I hurried home across the fields, quite

forgetting my errand, and told Aunt Betty, with tears in my eyes, that I

would rather eat buttermilk bread for a week than have one of Uncle

Abner's yeast-cakes in the house. I acknowledged that he had been true

to his word and had held to his bargain, but I could not forgive his

making so hard a bargain with my timid Little Bishop.

Aunt Betty finally heard from Mrs. Sanderson, through whom all

information was sure to filter if you gave it time, that Uncle

Abner despised a coward, that he considered Phil a regular

mother's-apron-string boy, and that he was "learnin'" him to be brave.

Bill Jones, the hired man, now drove Buttercup to pasture, though

whenever Uncle Abner went to Moderation of Bonnie Eagle, as he often

did, I noticed that Phil took the hired man's place. I often joined him

on these anxious expeditions, and a like terror in both our souls, we

attempted to train the red cow and give her some idea of obedience.

"If she only wouldn't look at us that way we would get along real nicely

with her, wouldn't we?" prattled the dear Bishop, straggling along by my

side; "and she is a splendid cow; she gives twenty-one quarts a day, and

Uncle Abner says it's more'n half cream."

I assented in all this, thinking that if Buttercup would give up her

habit of turning completely round in the road to roll her eyes and

elevate her white-tipped eyebrow, she might indeed be an enjoyable

companion; but in her present state of development her society would not

be agreeable to me even did she give sixty-one quarts of milk a day.

Furthermore, when I found that she never did any of these reprehensible

things with Bill Jones, I began to believe cows more intelligent

creatures than I had supposed them to be, and I was indignant to think

Buttercup could count so confidently on our weakness.

One evening, when she was more than usually exasperating, I said to the

Bishop, who was bracing himself to keep from being pulled into a

way-side brook where she loved to dabble, "Bishop, do you know anything

about the superiority of mind over matter?" No, he didn't, though it was

not a fair time to ask the question, for he had sat down in the road to

get a better purchase on the rope.

"Well, it doesn't signify. What I mean is that we can die but once, and

it is a glorious thing to die for a great principle. Give me that rope.

I can pull like an ox in my present frame of mind. You run down on the

opposite side of the brook, take that big stick, wade right in--you are

barefooted--brandish the stick, and, if necessary, do more than

brandish. I would go myself, but it is better she should recognize you

as a master, and I am in as much danger as you are, anyway. She may try

to hook you, of course, but you must keep waving the stick--die

brandishing, Bishop, that's the idea! She may turn and run for me, in

which case I shall run too; but I shall die running, and Aunt Betty can

bury us under our favorite sweet-apple-tree!"

The Bishop's soul was fired by my eloquence. The blood mounted to our

brains simultaneously, and we were flushed with a splendid courage in

which death looked a mean and paltry thing compared with vanquishing

that cow. She had already stepped into the pool, but the Bishop waded in

towards her, moving the alder branch menacingly. She looked up with the

familiar roll of the eye that had done her such good service all summer,

but she quailed beneath the stern justice of the Bishop's gaze.

In that moment she felt ashamed, I know, of the misery she had caused

that helpless mite. At any rate, actuated by fear, surprise, or remorse,

she turned and walked back into the road without a sign of passion or

indignation, leaving us rather disappointed at our easy victory. To be

prepared for a violent death and receive not even a scratch makes one

fear that one may possibly have overestimated the danger.

Well, we were better friends after that, all three of us, and understood

one another better as the summer grew into autumn and the great maple

hung a flaming bough of scarlet over the hammock. Uncle Abner found the

Bishop very useful at picking up potatoes and gathering apples, but he

was going to leave Pleasant River as soon as the harvesting was over.

One warm evening Aunt Betty and I were borrowing half a yeast-cake, and

incidentally sitting on Mrs. Sanderson's steps at sunset. Buttercup was

being milked on the grassy slope near the shed door. As she walked to

the barn, after giving up her twelve quarts of yellow milk, she bent her

neck and snatched a hasty bite from a pile of turnips lying temptingly

near. In her haste she got more of a mouthful than would be considered

good manners even among cows, and as she disappeared in the barn door I

could see a forest of green tops hanging from her mouth, while she

painfully attempted to grind up the mass of stolen material without

allowing a single turnip to escape.

It grew dark soon after, and we went into the house, but as we closed

the door I heard the cow coughing, and said to Mrs. Sanderson,

"Buttercup was too greedy, and now she has indigestion."

The Bishop always went to bed at sundown, and Uncle Abner had gone to

the doctor's to have his hand dressed, for he had hurt it in some way in

the threshing-machine. Bill Jones came in presently and asked for him,

saying that the cow coughed more and more, and it must be that something

was wrong, but he could not get her to open her mouth wide enough for

him to see anything.

When Uncle Abner had driven into the yard, he came in for a lantern, and

went directly out to the barn. After an hour or more, in which we had

forgotten the whole occurrence, he came in again. "I'm blamed if we

ain't goin' to lose that cow," he said. "Come out, will ye, Hannah, and

hold the lantern? I can't do anything with my right hand in a sling, and

Bill is the stupidest critter in the country."

We all went out to the barn except Aunt Betty, who ran down the path to

see if her son Moses had come home from Saco, and could come up to take

a hand in the exercises.

Buttercup was in a bad way; there was no doubt of it. Something, one of

the turnips, presumably, had lodged in her throat, and would move

neither way, despite her attempts to dislodge it. Her breathing was

labored, and her eyes bloodshot from straining and choking. Once or

twice they succeeded in getting her mouth partly open, but before they

could fairly discover the cause of trouble she had wrested her head

away.

"I can see a little tuft of green sticking straight up in the middle,"

said Uncle Abner, while Bill Jones and Moses held a lantern on each side

of Buttercup's head; "but, land! it's so far down, and such a mite of a

thing, I couldn't git it even if I could use my right hand. S'pose you

try, Bill."

Bill hemmed and hawed, and confessed he didn't care to try. Buttercup's

teeth were of good size and excellent quality, and he had no fancy for

leaving his hand within her jaws. He said he was no good at that kind of

work, but that he would help Uncle Abner hold the cow's head; that was

just as necessary, and considerable safer.

Moses was more inclined to the service of humanity, and did his best,

wrapping his wrist in a cloth, and making desperate but ineffectual dabs

at the slippery green turnip-tops in the reluctantly opened throat. But

the cow tossed her head and stamped her feet and switched her tail and

wriggled from under Bill's hands, so that it seemed altogether

impossible to reach the seat of the trouble.

Uncle Abner was in despair, fuming and fretting the more because of his

own uselessness. "Hitch up, Bill," he said, "and, Hannah, you drive over

to Edgewood for the horse-doctor. I know we can get out that turnip if

we can hit on the right tools and somebody to manage 'em right; but

we've got to be quick about it or the critter'll choke to death, sure!

Your hand's so clumsy, Mose, she thinks her time's come when she feels

it in her mouth, and your fingers are so big you can't ketch holt o'

that green stuff 'thout its slippin'!"

"Mine's little; let me try," said a timid voice, and turning round, we

saw the Bishop, his trousers pulled on over his night-shirt, his curly

hair ruffled, his eyes big with sleep.

Uncle Abner gave a laugh of good-humored derision. "You--that's afraid

to drive a cow to pasture? No, sir; you hain't got sand enough for this

job, I guess!"

Buttercup just then gave a worse cough than ever, and her eyes rolled in

her head as if she were giving up the ghost.

"I'd rather do it than see her choke to death!" cried the Bishop in

despair.

"Then, by ginger, you can try it, sonny!" said Uncle Abner. "Now this

time we'll tie her head up. Take it slow, and make a good job of it."

Accordingly they pried poor Buttercup's jaws open to put a wooden gag

between them, tied her head up, and kept her as still as they could,

while we women held the lanterns.

"Now, sonny, strip up your sleeve and reach as fur down 's you can! Wind

your little fingers in among that green stuff stickin' up there that

ain't hardly big enough to call green stuff, give it a twist, and pull

for all you're worth. Land! what a skinny little pipe stem!"

The Bishop had stripped up his sleeve. It was a slender thing, his arm;

but he had driven the red cow all summer, borne her tantrums, protected

her from the consequences of her own obstinacy, taking (as he thought) a

future owner's pride in her splendid flow of milk--grown to love her, in

a word--and now she was choking to death. Love can put a deal of

strength into a skinny little pipe-stem at such a time, and it was only

a slender arm and hand that could have done the work.

Phil trembled with nervousness, but he made a dexterous and dashing

entrance into the awful cavern of Buttercup's mouth; descended upon the

tiny clump of green spills or spikes, wound his little fingers in among

them as firmly as he could, and then gave a long, steady determined pull

with all the strength in his body. That was not so much in itself, to be

sure, but he borrowed a good deal more from some reserve quarter, the

location of which nobody knows anything about, but upon which everybody

draws in time of need.

Such a valiant pull you would never have expected of the Little Bishop.

Such a pull that, to his own utter amazement, he suddenly found himself

lying flat on his back on the barn floor, with a very slippery something

in his hand, and a fair-sized but rather dilapidated turnip on the end

of it.

"That's the business!" cried Moses.

"I could 'a' done it as easy as nothin' if my arm had been a leetle mite

smaller," said Bill Jones.

"You're a trump, sonny!" exclaimed Uncle Abner as he helped Moses untie

Buttercup's head and took the gag out. "You're a trump, and, by ginger,

the cow's yourn!"

The welcome air rushed into Buttercup's lungs and cooled her parched,

torn throat. She was pretty nearly spent, poor thing! and bent her head

gently over the Little Bishop's shoulder as he threw his arms joyfully

about her neck, and whispered, "You're my truly cow now, ain't you,

Buttercup?"

"Aunt Betty," I said, as we walked home under the harvest moon, "there

are all sorts of cowards, aren't there, and I don't think the Little

Bishop is the worst kind, do you?"

* * * * *

TRYING TO SEE THE WIND.

Did you ever try to see the wind? It is a very pretty experiment, and

one easily performed. In the first place choose a windy day, then secure

a polished piece of metal. (A hand-saw will be the easiest to get.) Hold

the metallic surface at right angles to the direction of the wind. For

example, if the wind is in the north, hold the saw east and west

inclined about forty-five degrees to the horizon. Now look carefully at

the sharp edge, and you will shortly see the wind pouring over it like a

waterfall. Do not try the experiment on a rainy or a murky day.

[Illustration]

TORTOISE-SHELLS.

BY A. V. S. ANTHONY.

It was a bright winter morning, and the air outside was frosty and

still. A young maid sat in her cozy chamber dressing her golden-brown

curls, and as she drew her comb through them she heard a sharp crackling

sound that caused her to put on her "thinking-cap," as was her habit

when anything out of the common occurred, for she liked to reason out

matters in her own quiet way. In her studies she had not as yet reached

any allusion to that subtile power known as electricity, so she

concluded that the sound must have come from the comb, which she thought

was possibly made from the shell of a snapping-turtle. Having settled

the affair comfortably in her mind, she finished her toilet hastily,

that she might lose no time in announcing her discovery to the family at

the breakfast table.

It was the fortunate lot of the head of the family to have been wrecked

on a coral reef. I say fortunate, because "All's well that ends well,"

and inside the reef was a small island, on which he, the head of the

family, had the rare experience of witnessing the catching of turtles

and the removal of their shells by some native fishermen.

Stories of shipwrecked mariners have been so often told that the

incidents of mine need not be repeated here. If, as the Irishman said,

the tale of the _lost_ could be told, it would be quite new and

interesting; but mine was the very ordinary and commonplace.

After the morning meal was over I told the little maid about it, as I

briefly tell you here.

I was on my way to Central America, and had almost reached my journey's

end when our ship was wrecked. We struck the reef about nine o'clock at

night. It was a very dark and thick night, and the waves dashed over us

as we huddled together on the quarter-deck while waiting for daylight to

determine in which direction lay possible safety. When the sun rose the

next morning we saw approaching us a canoe containing four Indians, with

whose assistance we got over the dangerous rocks, and were soon on the

island, which was about ten miles distant from the mainland.

It was a beautiful morning, and after the Indians had made us some hot

coffee and tortillas (an unleavened corn-cake, baked on hot stones),

they went off with the Captain and crew to the wreck, to see if anything

could be saved from it, while I lay under the cocoanut-trees enjoying

the soft tropical air and congratulating myself on my escape.

When the Captain returned, he determined that he had been driven about

twenty-five miles out of his course by a strong current that sets up

northward along the eastern coast of Yucatan, for which he had not made

proper allowance.

Day was the period of rest for the Indians, and as we all needed sleep,

we closed our eyes on the lovely yellow light of the Caribbean Sea, and

stretched ourselves under the shelter of the thatched hut.

Towards sunset the Indians awakened us, and gave us another meal of

coffee and tortillas, with _chile_--an uncommonly hot little green

pepper. The night promised to be fine, and the Indians predicted a good

catch of turtles, as the egg-laying season was nearing its close. So,

after an hour or two of chatting, we went down to the edge of the beach,

and hid ourselves among the tall salt grasses that lined the shore above

high-water mark, where we lay quietly watching the moon rising in its

mysterious way out of the sea. Not a sound was heard, save the soft

murmuring of the waves as they washed over the reef about half a mile

away. We were as still as mice, as the Indians had cautioned us against

talking, for the turtles were shy, and very quick to take alarm. After a

long wait one of the men touched my arm, and pointed to some dark

objects that were slowly crawling out of the water, which was as quiet

as a mill-pond. Those dark objects were five big turtles that had come

ashore to lay their eggs, which are from two to three inches in length,

and sometimes as many as two hundred in number.

[Illustration: WATCHING THE TURTLES COMING OUT OF THE WATER.]

This turtle has a small squat head covered with plates of shell, and has

a jaw like the beak of a hawk. It has four limbs, or flippers--the

hindermost being quite long and winglike--which are armed with a couple

of strong nails, with which it digs holes in the sand when it comes

ashore to lay its eggs, and it is very fierce at such times if

disturbed. When the eggs are laid and carefully covered, Mrs. Turtle

waddles off to the water, and gives no further thought of her two

hundred or more children which she has left behind.

In the course of time the hot sun hatches out the little chelonians, who

burst their shells, and digging their way out of the sand, toddle town

the beach to the sea to begin their careers.

Their food consists of sea-weed, crabs, and fishes, and when they grow

to be about two hundred pounds in weight, and their shells become

valuable, it behooves them to keep their "weather eyes" open for

dark-skinned men when their maternal instincts prompt them to ramble on

shelving beaches by the light of the moon.

When the turtles were well up on the shore, the natives rushed out with

stout poles, and after a sharp tussle succeeded in turning them over on

their backs--no easy task, as they were nearly four feet long, and

weighed several hundred pounds.

Once on their backs they were helpless, as they were unable to regain

their natural position. Long after midnight we added another to our

catch, and then went to rest, leaving the turtles on the beach.

In the morning the natives rolled them over, and after fastening their

flippers to stakes driven into the beach, built a light fire on their

backs, which caused the plates to curl at the edges, under which a knife

was passed and the plates removed, leaving underneath a solid body of

bony substance, which is the real protecting shield.

The fire seemed to cause the turtles much pain, as they moaned in quite

a human way, but the work was soon over, and on being released, the poor

things crawled down the beach and disappeared into the sea. The natives

are very careful not to fatally injure them, as they are not very

numerous in these waters, and would soon be exterminated if

indiscriminately slaughtered, and this is the only variety--the

hawksbill, _Erectmochelys imbricata_, the zoologists call them--that

yields the tortoise-shell of commerce. I was told that a second shell

soon formed, but it grew as one solid mass, and had no commercial value.

There are thirteen of these plates, and the centre one, on a full-grown

specimen, is oftentimes fully fifteen inches long, weighing over half a

pound, and ranging from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in thickness.

The finest shell comes from the Eastern Archipelago, around the Celebes,

and along the coast of New Guinea, and its value depends on its mottled

color; that having a warm transparent yellow tone, with rich brown

spots, is the most sought after, and brings the highest price. It is a

horny substance, much harder, more brittle, and less fibrous than

ordinary horn, and it is very tender, and should not be exposed to

severe cold.

In preparing the plates for manufacturing purposes, they are first

carefully scraped and washed, the rough edges filed off, and then

treated to a bath of boiling water, after which they are subjected to

pressure to flatten them. Great care must be used to avoid overheating

them, as an excess of heat destroys the transparent and translucent

portions, and turns them into a muddy, opaque mass, and thus impairs the

market value, so only the most skilful workmen are intrusted with the

finer grades, as long practice enables them to work the material at a

moderately low temperature.

The shell has an extremely peculiar quality, and with the proper degree

of heat can be fashioned into any desired form, which it retains on

cooling. All the chips, scraps, and filings that come from working the

shells are carefully saved, as they can be softened and pressed into

moulds of various shapes.

When thickness is desired, two surfaces are roughened by rasping, and

the pieces are then plunged into boiling water, which liquefies the

superficial film, and transforms it into a sort of gluey paste, and when

the two pieces are pressed together--sometimes between hot irons--a

solid mass is obtained, without loss of the valuable qualities so much

esteemed. Many cheap compositions and a large amount of stained horn are

on the market, which are sold to the unwary as real tortoise-shell, but

the fraud is easily detected.

The old Romans held the shell in high favor, and used it very freely to

veneer furniture, etc.; and the modern French and German craftsmen

decorate their buhl cabinets with it in connection with gold, silver,

and copper. To-day it is made into many articles of jewelry, chains,

sleeve-buttons, lorgnettes, combs, and other toilet articles. To-morrow

it may be out of fashion, and be laid away with camel's-hair shawls.

CAPTAIN JACK'S CHRISTMAS GIFT.

It was just in the holiday season when Bob and Tommie were delighted to

receive a visit from their old friend Captain Hawkins from the

sea-shore.

"Just thought I'd run up to town for a few minutes," he said, as if it

were necessary for him to explain his presence in town. "You see, I've

got a few nevews an' several thousand gran'children what likes to hear

from me about Christmas-time, so I goes about Bemberton-by-the-Sea, and

all I can find in the shops down thereabouts is the same old things

they've had for the last forty year."

"My! Captain Hawkins," said Bob. "Forty years? Are your nephews and

grandchildren as old as that?"

"Well, pretty nearly," said the Captain, with an uneasy laugh. "Pretty

nearly; and when you get to be forty you get kind of tired o' tin pails

and wooden spades and little red jumpin'-jacks an' doll babbies and

lemon drops. You boys don't understand that, but wait till you get to be

forty year old, and see if I ain't tellin' you the solemnest kind o'

truth."

"I guess you're right," said Bob. "I gave my daddy a fine old

Jack-in-the-box once, and he laughed like everything at first; but he

didn't play with it much, and finally it came back to me again. Pop's

pretty nearly forty."

"Yes, an' I guess he laughed like sixty when he saw that Bob-in-a-box."

"Jack-in-a-box," said Bob, with a smile.

"All the same," retorted the old Captain. "Jack-in-a-box,

Tommie-in-a-box, or Bob-in-a-box! I never could see why they took the

trouble to specify, and if I'd ever have had any children o' my own the

Jack-in-a-box would ha' been named after 'em."

"But, Captain, you were just speaking of your grandchildren," said

Tommie. "How can you have any grandchildren if you haven't had any

children?"

"Oh, that's easy," replied the Captain. "I've adopted 'em. Whenever I

see boy or a girl that strikes me as being grand I adopt 'em and call

'em my grandchildren. I guess I've got most a million of 'em scattered

round."

"And you've come up to get a million Christmas presents for 'em?" cried

Bob, in ecstasy.

"Yep--only there ain't more'n ten of 'em," said the Captain, "that

expects anything. I'm goin' to spend ten cents apiece on 'em, but first

I've got to get the other eight."

Bob looked at Tommie and Tommie looked at Bob. They were really puzzled

to think what the Captain could mean.

"The other eight?" asked Bob.

"Yes," said Hawkins. "You boys ain't the only grandchildren I've got. I

love you, but you ain't the only ones I love. There's at least eight

more. And what do you suppose I'm goin' to give you all for Christmas?"

The boys gave it up.

"Well," said the Captain, in a whisper, "as I was a-comin' up Broadway

a-lookin' into the windows, all of a sudden I see a hoss-car goin' along

without a hoss, and I says goodness gracious that's funny. A hoss-car

without a hoss, an' what was queerest of all, _no trolley_! Boys, it

scaret me. Me who was never scaret before was scaret then. So I says to

a policeman, 'Great scott! Mr. Constable, say, what makes that car go so

fast?' 'It's the cable,' says he. My goodness thinks I, I'm sorry for

the man that has to pull it, but I jumps aboard one of 'em, pays my five

cents, and I have the finest sail from Forty-second Street to the

Battery you ever see. No wind, no steam, nothin' in sight to move you,

but movin' just the same, just as if you was on a sled slidin' down a

hill. It _was fine_. Goin' around by Fourteenth Street you got lurched

like as if you was at sea, an' then with a clear track and no squalls we

just bounded down past Canal and Wall streets to Bowlin' Green, and back

as slick as anything. And I says to myself, Cap'n Hawkins you've struck

it. Don't give the boys no pails, no Jims-in-the-boxes, no spades, no

nothin', but get the whole ten of 'em together and give 'em a ride on

the cable-car whether you're sorry for the feller that pulls the rope or

not. So I'm goin' back to Bemberton for the other eight, and when you

boys are free I want you to join us for a sail from Central Park down

and back, eh?"

VOLCANOES--THEIR MODE OF ACTION AND ORIGIN.

BY NATHANIEL S. SHALER,

PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY AT HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

In endeavoring to set before the reader an account of volcanoes, I find

a difficulty arising from the fact that very few people have had a

chance to see these curious features in the machinery of the earth. In

the United States, except in the far-away island district of Alaska,

there is not one that has been seen by white men in a state of activity.

Many, it is true, exist in the Cordilleran district, between the

Canadian and Mexican line, but these are for the most part inaccessible,

or, if conveniently placed for the tourists' convenience, are not well

suited to show the most important facts of these structures. In writing

about the sea, rivers, mountains, glaciers, or any other class of

natural objects, our country affords admirable means of illustration,

which may serve to convey clear impressions; but the story of volcanoes

has to be told without this help.

It is otherwise in the Old World. In Europe, Ætna and Vesuvius have had

their activity associated with that of the most cultivated people of the

world for about twenty-five centuries; and at many points, as in the

valley of the Po or in central France, there are groups of volcanoes

which are, though no longer active, in a very perfect state of

preservation, within sight of the ways which are traversed by all

sight-seeing travellers.

Its convenient position, immediately neighboring to the most beautiful

scenery and the greatest treasures of antiquity, has made Vesuvius the

volcano of all others which people are likely to see. Probably a hundred

climb it for one who ascends any other cone. This is true of our own

countrymen who travel as well as those of Europe. This choice of

Vesuvius as the volcano of pilgrimage is fortunate, for the reason that

though by no means a great specimen of its kind, it is perhaps the most

useful to the student of all the thousands that have been examined and

described by observers of volcanic phenomena. Therefore, as we should

begin our inquiry by seeing what occurs in a volcanic outbreak, and the

consequences of these explosions, we will make our study on this

beautiful cone.

It is characteristic of this most amiable of volcanoes that of late

years it has been in many frequent slight eruptions. The greater number

of craters lie sleeping for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years,

until they break forth with a fury that sends desolation to the country

for miles from the point where the discharge takes place. But Vesuvius,

which in its early years was given to furious storms, such as that which

overwhelmed Herculaneum and Pompeii eighteen centuries ago, has now

become so mild-mannered that men till their vineyards in a fearless way

on the slopes which lead up to the crater.

It was my good fortune, about fifteen years ago, on one of several

visits to Vesuvius, to find it in an excellent state for an inquiry,

which showed me more of what goes on in an eruption, and led to a better

insight into the nature of the work than has often been seen by the

geologist. There was a slight eruption in progress during the night;

from the windows of my lodging in Naples I could see the successive

puffs of fire from the crater coming regularly, several each minute. On

the following morning there was a strong northerly wind blowing, which

made me hope it would be possible to approach the edge of the opening

without danger from the falling stones.

Climbing the long way which leads from the railway station on the shores

of the bay, through the gardens, villages, and vineyards, I came at

length to the observatory which has been established on the border of

the area which is reasonably safe in times of trouble. Here I learned

that the instruments which show the tremblings of the earth, the small

earthquakes which are not perceived by our bodies, indicated that the

cone was in a state of constant trembling. The observers who watch this

apparatus thought it likely that some time during the day the cone would

be blown away in a violent eruption, such as now and then sends the

upper part of this and many other volcanoes flying into bits before the

fierce blast of the escaping vapors.

My way lay across a wide field of lava and cinders to the place where

the steep slope of the upper cone rose to the level where the crater was

bombarding the sky with the rapidity of a well-served cannon. The climb

up this cone, composed of the bits of lava which had been blown into the

air and had fallen down again to the earth, was very laborious. The

slope was as steep as a house roof. It took three steps to gain each

foot in height. Now and then a stronger blast from the crater would

shake the heap, so that it was hard to keep the ground that had been

gained. It took a long hour to win the height of four or five hundred

feet.

[Illustration: "CREEPING TO THE SHARP EDGE OF THE CRATER, I SAW INTO THE

VERY MOUTH OF THE VOLCANO."]

Creeping to the sharp edge of the crater, and peering cautiously into

the cavity, I saw into the very mouth of the volcano. The cup-shaped

depression was about three hundred feet in diameter, and perhaps half

that depth; it passed downward into a well-like pipe, perhaps sixty feet

across. The lower part of the pit was, even in the bright sunlight,

evidently red-hot. The sides of the pipe were white-hot. On this lower

part of the pit, which shone like the eye of a furnace, a mass of very

fluid lava was lashing up and down, now rising until it filled the

bottom of the basin with its fiery tide, again sinking until it was out

of sight.

Each time the lava rose up into the basin it swelled quickly in its

middle part, and in the twinkling of an eye it was broken by an

explosion of such violence that a quantity of the fluid rock was tossed

in fragments high into the air. As this sped upward and downward, it had

a chance partly to cool, so that as it fell on the edge of the cone

opposite to where I was the roar of its striking was very suggestive of

what would happen if the wind should die away.

Although the circumstances were such as made it hard to observe closely,

I had no difficulty in seeing that the vapor which blew out at each

explosion was steam. As it came forth, it was of the steel-blue color

which we see just where the steam comes from the safety-valve of a very

hot boiler. As it rose in the crater it soon became white, and as it

whirled around me it had the well-known odor of steam, mingled with that

of sulphur. In a word, it was evident that it was the vapor of water

which was the cause of the explosions.

After I had watched this fascinating scene for about half an hour, with

much inconvenience from the heat of the earth and from the shaking of

the ground on which I lay, the explosions, which were at first at the

rate of three or four each minute, became more and more frequent and

violent, and the strong wind began to die away, so that a speedy retreat

was necessary to escape the bits of lava, which were now falling

heavily. Looking back from the base of the cone, I noted that the

explosions came faster and faster, so that it sounded as a continuous

roar. It was just as when a locomotive starts on its journey. At the

outset we can count the puffs; as the cylinders move faster and faster

the escape sounds perfectly continuous.

From the base of the cinder cone there flowed out a small lava stream.

This lava was evidently full of steam, which poured forth from all parts

of the surface. This is seen in all eruptions. Clouds of steam hung over

the streams of lava. They are often visible ten miles or more away from

the current of molten rock. In a great eruption the steam given forth

from the crater often forms, as it condenses, into rains, that fall in

fearful torrents about the cone. It is evident, in a word, that the

explosions of volcanoes are formed by the escape of the vapor of water.

They are, indeed, like the explosions of boilers.

The question now arises as to the way in which this steam gets into the

lava. This we can decide by a simple bit of study of the facts. Taking a

map which shows the positions of several hundred active volcanoes, we

find at once that they are all situated on the sea floor, from which

they rise to form islands on its surface; or, when they are on the

continents, they are never more than two hundred and fifty miles from

the ocean. This shows that the activity of a volcano is, in some way,

related to the sea-water. The only way in which we have been able to

reasonably conceive of the sea bringing about volcanic explosions will

now be described.

On the sea floor there is a constant laying down of

sediments--limestones, sandstones, etc. We know by the parts of the old

sea floor that have been uplifted into dry lands that such beds have

been formed, to the thickness in all of one or two hundred thousand

feet. These beds are made of small bits of rocky matter and fragments of

dead animals and plants. These bits do not fit closely together, and the

interspaces are filled with sea water, so that as much as one-twelfth of

the rock is usually made up of the fluid in which it was formed. As the

ages go on, these beds, with the water which they hold, are buried

deeper and deeper by the newer rocks which are laid down upon them,

until it may be that they are thus brought to lie twenty miles or more

below the surface of the solid earth.

Next let us see as to the heat to which these rocks, with their

imprisoned water, are exposed. We know, from a great number of studies

which have been made in mines that for each mile we go downward in the

earth there is an increase in heat, differing a good deal in different

places, but on the average amounting to about one hundred degrees.

Therefore, at the depth of twenty miles the imprisoned water would have

a temperature of about two thousand degrees. In other words, it would be

about as hot as the melted iron that comes from the blast-furnace. Thus

heated, the water of the tiny cells of the rock would tend to explode

with something like the intensity of gun-powder when it was fired; but

as it is sealed in by the great thickness of the rock above, it cannot

_burst_ into vapor--just as in the steam-boiler the water stays as a

fluid even when it is heated twice as hot as it needs be to become steam

when it is not confined.

Let us now suppose that a rift, or, as geologists call it, a fault, is

formed in the rocks leading from the surface downward to the level where

this very explosive water lies. We can readily fancy that at once the

fluid would flash into steam; and as this occurred in the myriads of

little cavities in the rocks, which were so heated that they tended to

become melted, great quantities of the beds would be forced along with

the escaping steam in the form of lava. We see also that this would

account for the fact that when the lava comes to the surface of the

earth it is commonly filled with steam. When it rises quickly to the

air, it is blown to fine dust by the expanding vapor; or if it does not

fly to pieces, the little bits of water expand into bubbles, forming

pumice or lava, so full of little cavities that it will float on the

water like cork.

This view as to the origin of volcanoes, although it would not be

accepted by all the students of these strange features of the earth,

seems most probable, for the reason that it accounts for the fact that

all the seats of present volcanic activity are on the floor of the seas

or near their borders, and that the extinct volcanoes which we have had

a chance to study lost their activity at a time when, by the changes in

the shape of the land, the sea was moved away from the region where they

were found. We easily perceive that it is only where, as in the sea,

beds are being laid down, one on top of another, that the heat is rising

in the rocks, and the water in their crevices becoming hotter; beneath

the land the rocks are always becoming less heated, so that the water

which they contain is constantly cooling down.

I have spoken of the water contained in the very heated rocks as if it

remained in the state of fluid. It is likely that, when in its very hot

state, it may be changed into its gases, oxygen and hydrogen, of which

it is composed, and that these gases would again become the vapor of

water as they rose toward the surface and were somewhat cooled. This and

other matters of chemical detail which go on in the wonderful laboratory

of the under-earth do not hinder our believing that volcanoes are due to

the escape of the water which is constantly being buried in the rocks as

they are built. So large is the amount of this water which lies thus

buried that probably it amounts to somewhere near as much as is held in

all the seas. Were it not for the return of the buried fluid through the

volcanoes, the oceans would doubtless be much smaller than they are.

They might, indeed, have long since disappeared in the crevices of the

earth.

A LOYAL TRAITOR.

A STORY OF THE WAR OF 1812 BETWEEN AMERICA AND ENGLAND.

BY JAMES BARNES.

CHAPTER XI.

THE SWORD-FISH AND THE WHALE.

Now again we had changed our course, and were going before the wind

directly to the westward. The breeze was light, and better for a small

vessel than for a heavy, deep-laden man-of-war, and we might have run

away in safety if we chose. That something was up, however, that meant

adventure no one could help seeing.

Orders were given, without any bawling or shouting, to get down the

top-gallant masts on deck. The crew worked like ants. (I loved them for

the way they went about it.) The yards were lowered to the deck as

quickly as if they were clothes-poles in a drying-yard. I had never seen

anything done so neatly and with such despatch. Our headway decreased,

of course, as we lost the use of our upper sails.

Mr. Spencer, who was aloft, reported to the deck: "We're hidden now,

Captain Temple," he said. "She might pass within a quarter of a mile of

us and never see us."

Purposely I had stepped close to him as he spoke to the Captain, and the

latter's reply was as astonishing to me as it apparently startled the

officer. Temple was eagerness in every line of his face. He struck his

right fist into the palm of his left.

"The closer the better," he exclaimed. Then he turned. "What are the

soundings?" he inquired of the bow-legged man who had hastened up. (I

have forgotten to state that we had been heaving the lead for the last

half-hour.)

"Six fathoms, sir, and shoaling; here it is, sir."

"Prepare to lower away the long-boat, Mr. Bullard," the skipper ordered,

after a glance at the lead. "Mount the forward swivel in her, pick a

crew, take a boat's compass, and make off due west. Mr. Spencer, you

will take command of her. A word with you."

Every one looked at the Captain in astonishment, but no one asked a

question or put in a word. As I was one of the crew of the long boat, I

helped to get her ready and swing her overboard. The swivel was lashed

on the forward gratings, and half a dozen muskets were handed down to

her, and we shoved off. Mr. Spencer was pale and nervous. As we left the

brig's side we saw that her helm had been put hard down, and that she

once more was headed north. There was just enough wind to move her

slowly through the water. In three minutes she was lost to sight.

We had been resting on our oars, and now Mr. Spencer spoke for the first

time.

"Make no noise," he said. "Pull slowly, straight ahead."

We gave way, trying our best to silence the thumping in the row-locks.

So light was the breeze that we could have kept apace of a vessel's

sailing. For ten minutes we rowed on, and then we stopped again, and

Spencer spoke.'

"Load that swivel and get ready with those muskets," he ordered.

I heard him mutter something in which I caught the words "tomfoolery"

and "nonsense," and I looked back over my shoulder. A half-dozen

perplexed-looking marines were grouped in the bow, and three sailors

were ramming home a charge in the swivel.

"Lads," said Mr. Spencer, "it's Captain Temple's orders to fire into

that frigate and get away, if we can. It all depends upon yourselves and

the way this boat is handled whether we are blown out of the water, or

cut to pieces, or escape with whole skins. I want no talking in the

boat."

The man beside me on the thwart pulled his shirt over his head, and

several others did likewise. They sat there bare from the waist up, and

their torsos looked like those of the men in some of the old engravings

in the handsome books I had read at Marshwood.

We were pulling slowly ahead now, and for fully a quarter of an hour we

rowed without a break. Then Mr. Spencer called for oars, and we drifted

a long time.

"Listen!" said one of the men in the bow, suddenly. He was bending over,

with his hand making a hollow back of his ear. Half of the crew did

likewise. For a minute I could hear nothing. Then I detected a groaning

sound and a ripple of the water. It was the noise of a vessel's sailing.

"I can see her, sir," the bowman said in a hoarse whisper. "She's not

five cable-lengths away."

The Lieutenant rose to his feet, and I could see that his hand was

trembling as he fumbled in the breast of his jacket. He pulled a

boatswain's whistle out and put it to his lips. But before he blew he

spoke calmly.

"Bring that gun to bear on her," he said.

"Blow her out of water," spoke up the man beside me, with a chuckle.

What utter foolishness it seemed to me even then (and of a truth it

probably was that anyhow) to attack a frigate in a long-boat armed with

six muskets and a broadside that you could carry in the crown of your

hat! But no one seemed to flinch.

"Give way softly," whispered Mr. Spencer, taking the tiller himself from

the cockswain. Then, without warning, the silver pipe shrilled out, and

he bawled at the top of his voice, as if he were commanding a ship's

crew, instead of a handful of mystified seamen in a cockle-shell: "All

hands on deck there, and lively! There's a vessel here astern of us!

Port your helm!" He answered this order himself with an, "Ay, ay, sir,"

and leaning forward shouted, "Fire!"

Close to the water a great shape could be seen. The little gun

slap-banged, and almost jumped overboard with the recoil. The six

muskets rang; and, animated more by the gesture of Mr. Spencer's hand

than the word, we laid back on the oars. We took perhaps some forty

strokes or more, when the Lieutenant called for us to cease, with a

sound of a hiss betwixt his teeth. The huge shape was now astern of us

on the port hand close too. We had rowed across her bow! Now so tense

was every nerve, and at such a tension was my mind, that I remembered

everything I heard and saw so that I can repeat it to a dot.

The shot and volley had been followed by a confused cry and a great

to-do from the direction of the frigate. Now we could hear a confused

jumble of accents, and above it the cries of a man's voice in agony,

"Oh, oh, I'm killed!" it said distinctly. Then a voice commanded

silence, and we could make out every word that passed.

"Can you see anything ahead there, you men forward?" asked a voice so

close that it appeared to be directed towards us.

"No, sir; not a thing, sir!" was the answer. If anything, it sounded

closer than the first.

Then cool and distinct we caught the following orders, as we sat there

holding our breaths, and our hearts beating so loudly that we nearly

rocked the boat.

"Ready about! Ready! Ready! Put your helm down, quartermaster."

"Helm's alee, sir."

"Haul taut! Mainsail, haul!" (An anxious waiting pause.) "Head braces!

Haul well taut! Let go, and haul!"

So firmly were these words impressed upon me that I never had to learn

afterwards the orders for tacking ship.

Now followed a rumbling sound and some shouts and orders, and then a

crash and an explosion that ripped the fog and cut great gashes of red

flame through the gray opaque wall.

"Gee!" said the man next to me, with a shiver, "if that had caught us,

eh!"

"Good-by, Mary Ann!" said the man in front, looking back over his

shoulder.

Mr. Spencer was leaning forward. "They think we're off there," he

whispered, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. "Lads, you did well."

Now all was silence again, and the frigate gathered headway to the

north. We staid where we were.

But now, if I shall live to be a hundred, I can never get one sound from

my ears. To the eastward, and beyond the English vessel, sounded the

shrilling of a fife. The first bars of "Yankee Doodle" was the tune it

played. I almost leaped up to my feet, but the music was soon ended, for

a rattling swingeing crash followed a burst of blurred red flame. I

could smell the smoke from the frigate's broadside that reached us now.

But it was not she that spoke the second time.

"Kill-Devil's got the weather-gauge of her, by Moses!" said the sailor

next to me, putting his arm about my neck and giving me a hug.

"Silence in the boat there," ordered Mr. Spencer, angrily.

A roaring crash and confusion of explosions followed. The men in the bow

began to laugh hysterically, and even Mr. Spencer joined them.

"The _Young Eagle_'s got under her quarter. She'll rip her hide," he

laughed. "Hark! did you hear that? It's the long twelve. Don't cheer,

you fools!"

It was well he had given this order, for the men were about to burst

into a shout. One of them dropped his oar, and was roundly reprimanded

for it. But now a multitude of sounds came from the direction of the

fighting-vessels. Groans and orders, cries and firing, and above them

all the comments from close about me, that in my ignorance I did not

exactly understand.

"Old Johnny Bull's missed stays," roared Mr. Spencer, laughing. "It's

the sword-fish and the whale. Stab her again, Captain Temple, stab her

again!"

A distinct broadside was heard, and then a cheer, followed by a confused

roaring, with high treble shrieks, like a countertenor's note in a

chorus.

"Bleed, bleed, bleed," muttered the man next to me.

"That was our cheer," gurgled the cockswain, sawing to and fro in his

narrow little box; but no sooner had he spoken than a crash louder and

brighter colored than any of the rest ripped out.

"The frigate's broadside!" gasped Mr. Spencer.

All was silence now.

"Heaven help us, they've sunk her!" the Lieutenant said, hoarsely.

No sound for full five minutes.

Three or four shots now, and then silence again. It appeared to me that

the fog had lessened. A fine drizzle was falling; and we could see the

outlines of a vessel not a quarter of a mile away from us.

"Pull for your lives!" cried Mr. Spencer. "Pull for your lives!"

We gave way together, and the heavy boat was soon hitting up a good pace

and burying her nose as she rose and fell on the seas. The Lieutenant

took a glance at the small compass, and headed us toward the northwest.

"We're close to Long Island," he said. "I can't make out the _Young

Eagle_ at all. That ship's the Britisher."

We had rowed but a few minutes longer when, as if by a miracle, the mist

cleared away and the sun shone out. Clear and distinct a big vessel lay

off to the eastward. The hated emblem of St. George flew at her peak.

"I thought as much," remarked Mr. Spencer to the cockswain. "She's

grounded on the sand bank. That's what Temple counted on."

But hurrah! to the windward of the British vessel was a sight that gave

us joy. There was the _Young Eagle_, eating up into the wind, with her

jib-boom hanging, and one of her yards aslant. Somehow Temple had found

time to get up his top-gallant masts again, for they were both in place.

But now those on board the frigate had espied us; that was plain enough.

She was not so large a vessel as she had first seemed, being of the

smaller class, carrying probably not over thirty-two guns at the most.

She was badly cut up from the effects of her encounter with the brig,

however. Her foretopmast was gone, her mainyard was over the side, and

all her running-gear in great confusion. If Captain Temple had been an

officer of the regular navy he might have deserved cashiering for such a

foolhardy bit of business as attacking a powerful vessel when he might

have escaped. He was the only one on board the privateer, however, who

had reckoned her at less than forty-four guns, and besides this, after

his glance at the lead he knew where he was, and could have pricked his

position to a certainty on the map. I know that now.

As Mr. Spencer had said, he surely must have counted on the proximity of

the sand bar. If the frigate had been taking careful soundings, she

would never have got on to it.

The fresh wind that had spoiled the fog was coming from the northward (I

can recall no day in my seafaring life when it blew from so many

different points as it had in the last ten hours). But I am wandering

from the recital of what occurred, and now to pick it up again.

As I have stated, the frigate had seen us, and proof positive was not

wanting, for a puff of smoke from one of the guns of her forward

division leaped from her side, and the ball came spattering along toward

us.

"Oh, shoot the shot!" laughed one of the bowmen. We were missed by fully

a cable's length.

But the wind was against us, and with a good light to observe our

progress I noticed that we were making slow headway. The long-boat was

intended to be rowed by six oars of a side. Now, owing to the extra men

that we carried, there was only room for ten men to do the pulling; and

by some mistake the oars that we were wielding were not all of the same

length, some of the cutter's having been put in by mistake. The weight

of the swivel caused us to be well down by the head, moreover, and the

cockswain had to mind his eye to keep headed straight. All idea, of

course, of our getting back to the brig that day at least was done for,

and to save ourselves we were making for the shore of Long Island,

distant about three miles. But we were not out of range of the guns on

the frigate, and consequently we were yet in danger.

"Come aft here, you men in the bow!" ordered Mr. Spencer. "She'll row

better. Here, stir a foot!"

He looked back, and just as he did so there came another puff of smoke.

I saw the ball smash into the top of a wave, strike the water again, and

then, slightly deflected, it came right for us. I saw this first, and

backed water, giving a shout of fear. The men in the bow gave a leap

forward and tumbled in among us, sprawling over our heads and shoulders,

and bruising shins and elbows.

If the shot had struck four inches lower we would have been sunk then

and there. It caught the gunwale forward, just abreast of the grating on

which the swivel was lashed. The poor fellow pulling the bow oar on that

side gave a shriek and dropped his oar, clasping both hands about his

head. I looked back and saw the blood trickling over his shoulders and

through his fingers. A splinter had almost scalped him. We yawed about

and shipped the top of a sea, and it looked like the end of matters, for

we were out away to within eight inches of the water, and the bow badly

stove and broken.

"Cast loose that gun and heave it overboard, two of you," roared Mr.

Spencer. "The rest all aft. No! Steady! Debrin, you and Jones keep your

place, and pull, do ye hear, pull."

I laid back with all my might, and so did the man next to me. The brave

lad in the bow had recovered from the shock of his flesh-wound, and with

another fellow cast off the lashings of the swivel and dumped it over

the side. I can never forget the sight of that gory man working there

with his broad naked back red from his head to his waist. As soon as it

was finished he tumbled weakly across the thwart. The men in the

stern-sheets were baling with their hands, and one was using Mr.

Spencer's cocked hat with great effect, while Jones and I were giving

way at top strength and keeping with a great effort the seas from

broaching us. As the weight was now in the stern, we could ride, bar

accidents, in half safety. And the oars were taken up again. The bowman

bent over and tied up his wounded comrade's head with his neckerchief,

and for this the other thanked him as he might for some slight courtesy.

But a new terror threatened us.

Two successive shots that had been fired at us during the confusion went

wide, but now we saw that they were lowering away a great barge over the

Englishman's side, and that the men were sliding down into her.

"Heigh! Look there! The _Young Eagle_'s coming down to pick us up,

lads," cried Mr. Spencer, turning about in response to a touch on his

elbow from the cockswain. "Pull now, and get down to it!"

He headed the long-boat more to the westward, and we could see that the

_Young Eagle_ had repaired some of her damage, and had tacked in the

direction we were going. She would have passed almost within range of

the frigate, but all at once the latter vessel gained sternway (her

top-sails had been aback for some few minutes), and she worked off the

bar. Our hopes of rescue fell. Turning on her heel, she made out to meet

our brig. Now we perceived that the frigate's sides were gashed, and two

or three of her ports astern had been knocked into one big opening. But

the barge was after us! Every man rowing in our boat could count her

strokes. There was no use of making light of it! She was gaining at

every jump, lifting high above the top of a sea, and now and again

almost disappearing.

There were twelve good men behind those long white sweeps, and they

rowed a light boat with speed in her. We were making for the shore now,

and grunting with the weight we put into every backward swing. Mr.

Spencer was talking to us after the fashion of a cockswain to a racing

crew, calling out continually:

"Lift her, boys! That's the ticket! Pull altogether," and so forth.

My mouth grew so dry that I could not swallow, and I could feel my head

roll backward and forward. Presently I began to row with my eyes shut,

for it seemed an effort to keep my lids from falling. One of the men in

the stern began to spatter us with water to refresh us, for the sun was

blistering hot by this time. The Lieutenant stopped his cackling.

The stroke oars were being helped at their work by two men pushing as

the rowers pulled. I caught a dim sight of this, and wished that some

one could lay hold of my sweep with me, for my forearms pained, and I

felt gone in the pit of my stomach. How long we rowed that way I do not

know, but suddenly I was awakened, as it were, by hearing Mr. Spencer

say:

"Lads, you have held your own. Keep at it!" Then in a lower tone he

added, "Get ready with those muskets."

This speech had called me to my senses, and it was almost with a shock

of surprise that I found myself keeping up the stroke. My eyes had been

closed so long that the light dazzled me, and at first I could see

nothing, but I felt better than I had before I closed them. And now to

say something that is of interest. A refreshment often comes to a man

whose muscles have apparently expended all their strength, and thus it

was with me. I was working on my heart and nerves alone, on the very

life of me, as it were, and to keep this up too long means ruin; that is

its limitation. When my eyes could focus, what little breath I had

almost checked.

There was the English barge _not three hundred yards astern_! A

despairing look behind me, and I saw that the shore was yet a half-mile

off. The sea was breaking in little rolls of white on every hand, and we

were in shoal water that had a peculiar yellowish look. I noticed Mr.

Spencer kicking off his boots.

I closed my eyes again, for the sweat stung them, and I felt a blackness

coming over me. But just then the crack of a musket sounded in front of

me. It was followed by another, and a little action began, for the

English boat was answering. I was wide-awake once more now, but in a

dream apparently. The marines would stand up and fire, and then squat

down and load again. I could hear the English bullets sing past.

"Ouch!" exclaimed the cockswain, all at once, as if he had dropped

something on his toe.

A ball had struck him on the fleshy part of the thigh, and he sat there

rubbing it and talking in such a comical way that the man on the thwart

next to me laughed outright in a hoarse, jarring fashion.

[Illustration: A BREAKING WAVE CATCHING US UNDER THE QUARTER WE ROLLED

OVER FAIRLY.]

We were in the surf by this time, and the British barge was

half-pistol-shot away, when No. 5 on the starboard hand fell over in a

faint; the cockswain got another ball, this time in the wrist, that

caused him to let go the tiller, and a breaking wave catching us under

the quarter, we rolled over fairly end for end with a clatter. When I

came up, there was a tremendous seething and bubbling in my ears, and

putting out my arm I managed to catch hold of the tiller-hooks of the

overturned boat, and hung on with all my might.

"Help me!" cried a voice. I looked about, and saw the wounded seaman

weakly swimming alongside. I extended my hand to him, and observed that

eight or ten others were holding fast with straining fingers to the

long-boat.

The English barge was backing in carefully and with skill. We were not a

cable's length from shore, and making for it hand over hand, swimming

with the ease of a porpoise, was Mr. Spencer. I knew it was he by the

gleam of gold lace on his high collar. But the seaman had grasped me so

tightly that I lost my hold, and there came to me the sense that I was

drowning, and did not care at all.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

A FAIRY FÊTE.

BY EMMA J. GRAY.

"I'm to be a fairy god-mother to-night," were Mabel's words, as, sitting

in the large Indian chair, her eyes glistened with anticipation.

"What will you wear?"

"Oh, one of Millie's old costumes. You may remember that three years ago

she took part in the fairies' dream!"

"Yes, I remember."

"Well, by a little alteration the same frock and wings will do for me."

"Are you to have anything to say?"

"I'm to have everything to say. And I'm to wear a crown with a big star

in the centre," and up went her hand to indicate the place. "And my

wings are showered with diamond dust, and my dress--oh-h, it dazzles my

eyes under gas-light! You ought to see the silver spangles!"

"What's the entertainment for, Mabel?"

"Oh, just to amuse people. It is to be given in Mrs. R's---- parlor. Lots

of folks will be there. It will be simply gorgeous! You know it's the

fad now to have a magician or something to entertain one's friends, and

I'm to be sacrificed to-night."

And then up the merry girl jumped to practise a violin solo.

Every reader of HARPER'S ROUND TABLE is familiar with the tales of Hans

Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, but it is possible that every one does

not appreciate what delightful entertainment they would make. Therefore

when Ralph and Margaret wonder what their league could give to replenish

the treasury, select an appropriate fairy-tale, and while your committee

are making the business arrangements, the persons who are to take part

should be busy with rehearsals, so that when the night of entertainment

arrives, and the house is packed to overflowing, no one will be covered

with shame and confusion of face.

Among many wonderful tales worthy of particular mention is "Little Ida's

Flowers," because it is capable of charming representation and

necessitates many characters. It may be given at any time of the year.

_Characters:_

LITTLE IDA, _a short girl_.

STUDENT, _a tall boy_.

FIRST FAIRY.

SECOND FAIRY.

PRIVY COUNCILLOR, _a boy representing a middle-aged man_.

THE READER, _a girl_.

YELLOW LILY, _a girl_.

BLUE CROCUS, _a boy_.

FLOWERS, _girls and boys_.

BUTTERFLIES, _girls and boys_.

SCENE FIRST.--A library, showing a table, lamp, easy-chairs, sofa, one

very high chair representing a throne. Ida, costumed as a little girl,

walks toward the Student, who is seated on the sofa, and holds towards

him a bunch of flowers.

[Illustration]

_Ida_. "My poor flowers are quite dead. They were so pretty yesterday,

and now all the leaves are withered. Why do the flowers look so faded

to-day?"

_Student_. "Do you know what's the matter? The flowers have been at a

ball last night, and that's why they hang their heads."

_Ida_. "But flowers cannot dance!"

_Student_. "Oh yes! When it grows dark and we are asleep they jump about

merrily. Almost every night they have a ball."

_Ida_. "Can children go to this ball?"

_Student_. "Yes, quite little daisies and lilies-of-the-valley."

_Ida_. "Where do the beautiful flowers dance?"

_Student_. "Have you not often been outside of the town gate, by the

great castle where the King lives in summer, and where the beautiful

garden is with all the flowers? You have seen the swans which swim up to

you when you want to give them bread crumbs. There are capital balls

there, believe me!"

_Ida_. "I was out there in the garden yesterday with my mother, but all

the leaves were off the trees, and there was not one flower left. Where

are they?"

_Student_. "They are within the castle. As soon as the King and all the

court go to town, the flowers run out of the garden into the castle and

are merry. You should see that. The two most beautiful roses seat

themselves on the throne, and then they are King and Queen; all the red

coxcombs arrange themselves on either side, and stand and bow; they are

the chamberlains. Then all the pretty flowers come, and there is a great

ball. The blue violets represent little naval cadets; they dance with

hyacinths and crocuses, which they call young ladies; the tulips and the

great tiger-lilies are old ladies who keep watch that the dancing is

well done and everything goes on with propriety."

No sooner is this last word uttered than a sound of music is heard.

Enter two Fairies, who stand one on either side of little Ida, and

waving their wands over her, sing:

"Oh, listen, listen! your eyes shall glisten

With pleasure and love and jubilee."

_First Fairy_. "She looks surprised."

_Second Fairy_. "She has dropped her flowers."

_First Fairy_. "She would better sit down."

_Second Fairy_. "Follow me."

Whereupon Ida follows the Second Fairy's lead, who waves her to a seat

by the Student's side, and immediately the fairies walk to the opposite

end of the room. As they walk gay music is heard louder and yet louder,

and in run the Flowers, as the Student has described, the two most

beautiful roses seating themselves on the tall chair which represents

the throne.

This scene will allow for a large number of girls and boys, and each

should be costumed so that no one can make mistake as to what flower

they are exhibiting. When all are in the room dancing begins, and

continues for half an hour; as the Flowers retire they make obeisance to

the King and Queen. And all having now gone but the Fairies, the King

asks the First Fairy to dance with him, and the Queen the Second Fairy

to dance with her, and after a short dance they also retire, and Ida and

the Student are again alone.

_Ida_. "But is nobody there who hurts the flowers for dancing in the

King's castle?"

_Student_. "There is nobody who really knows about it."

_Ida_. "Can the flowers out of the botanical garden get there? Can they

go a long distance?"

_Student_. "Yes, certainly. If they like they can fly. Have you not seen

the beautiful butterflies--red, yellow, and white? They almost look like

flowers, and that is what they have been."

[Illustration]

Once again gay music is heard, and in come the fairies dancing, followed

by a train of dancing butterflies, costumed in red, yellow, and white.

After dancing for ten minutes the butterflies retire, and the fairies

wave their wands to Ida and the Student, and sing,

"We be fairies of the wood,

And spend our time, on doing good."

Then they immediately touch their wands to the floor, and the First

Fairy draws a ring at the feet of Ida, and the Second Fairy at the feet

of the Student, and then they retire.

_Ida_. "How can one flower talk to another? For you know flowers cannot

speak."

_Student_. "That they cannot, certainly; but then they can make signs.

Have you not noticed that when the wind blows a little the flowers nod

at one another, and move all their green leaves? They can understand

that just as well as we when we speak together."

_Ida_. "That is funny." And she laughs.

Enter the Privy Councillor, who has come to pay a visit, and sits down

on the sofa by the Student's side.

_Privy Councillor_. "How can any one put such notions into a child's

head? They are stupid fancies!"

_Ida_. "What the Student told about the flowers seemed very droll." And

picking up her nosegay, which had been scattered over the floor, she

looks tenderly on it while saying, "The flowers are tired because they

have danced all night." And then walking to a table on which stands a

doll's bed, she lays them in and puts the coverlet over them. The whole

evening through she can not help but think of what the Student has told

her.

SCENE SECOND.--Ida's bedroom. Ida in bed. The night-lamp burning on the

table.

_Ida_. "I wonder if my flowers are still lying in the doll's bed? How I

should like to know!" She raises herself a little, and looks at the

door, which stands ajar. Within lie the flowers. Ida puts her head down

on her pillow.

[Illustration]

Enter two Fairies. They walk directly to her bed, and stand one on

either side of Ida's head, slowly waving their wands over her. Piano

music is softly played, and Ida goes to sleep.

An unseen person now reads the following dream, which may be acted as

far as is deemed advisable:

"Ida listened, and then it seemed to her as if she heard some one

playing in the next room. Now all the flowers are certainly dancing in

there! 'Oh, how glad I should be to see it!' But she dared not get up.

"'If they would only come in,' thought she. But the flowers did not

come, and the music continued to play beautifully. Then she could not

bear it any longer, for it was too pretty. She crept out of her little

bed, and went quietly to the door and looked into the room. Oh, how

splendid it was!

"There was no night-lamp burning, but still it was quite light; the moon

shone through the window in the middle of the floor. All the hyacinths

and tulips stood in two long rows. On the floor all the flowers were

dancing very gracefully round one another, making perfect turns, and

holding one another by the long green leaves as they swung round. But at

the piano sat a great yellow lily, which little Ida had certainly seen

in summer, for she remembered its manners in playing, sometimes holding

its long yellow face to one side, sometimes to the other, and nodding in

tune to the music. (Enter a tall girl, representing a yellow lily.)

"No one noticed little Ida. Then she saw a great blue crocus hop into

the middle of the table where the doll's bed stood. (Enter a boy,

costumed to represent a blue crocus.)

"There lay the sick flowers, but they got up directly and nodded to the

others to say that they wanted to dance too.

"Then it seemed as if something fell down from the table. Ida looked

that way. It was the birch rod which was jumping down! And a wax doll,

with just such a broad hat as the Councillor wore, sat upon it. The

birch rod hopped about among the flowers, for it was dancing the

mazourka; and the other flowers could not manage that dance because they

were too light and unable to stamp like that.

"The wax doll on the birch rod all at once became quite great and long,

and said: 'How can one put such things in a child's head? Those are

stupid fancies.' And then the wax doll was exactly like the Councillor

in the broad hat, and looked just as yellow and cross as he. But the

flowers hit him, and then he shrank up again and became quite a little

wax doll. That was very amusing to see, and Ida could not restrain her

laughter. The birch rod went on dancing, and the Councillor was obliged

to dance too; it was no use, he might make himself great and long, or

remain the little yellow wax doll with the big black hat. Then the other

flowers put in a good word for him, and the birch rod gave over.

"Then the door opened and a great number of splendid flowers came

dancing in. (Enter roses of all sorts and Butterflies, dancing.)

"Ida could not imagine whence they had come; these must certainly be all

the flowers from the King's castle. First of all came two glorious

roses, and they had little gold crowns on; they were a King and a Queen.

Then came the prettiest coronations, and they bowed in all directions.

Great poppies and peonies blew upon pea-pods till they were quite red in

the face. The blue hyacinths and the little white snowdrops rang just as

if they had bells. All danced together, and all the flowers kissed one

another. It was beautiful to look at.

"At last the flowers wished one another good-night."

No sooner is good-night uttered than the Fairies motion to the flowers

to keep perfectly still, and point their wands at Ida.

_First Fairy_. "She sleeps, her breathings are not heard."

_Second Fairy_. "Her fragrant tresses are not stirred."

_First Fairy_. "Hasten hither, King and Queen."

_Second Fairy_. "Roses, sweet that we employ."

And immediately the quartette step to the front of the stage and sing a

good-night song.

At the close of which all dance--even Ida, who wakens by the jollity.

Exeunt.

* * * * *

A GOOD TIMEPIECE.

Here is a fish story, for the truth of which we cannot vouch, but which

all fishermen young or old will enjoy. It comes from an English journal,

the Northampton _Daily Reporter_.

Last spring, while a party of tourists were fishing "up North," a

well-known lawyer lost his gold watch from the boat in which he was

sitting. Last week he made another visit to the lakes, and during the

first day's sport caught an eight-pound trout. His astonishment can be

imagined, when he found his watch lodged in the throat of the trout. The

watch was running, and the time correct. It being a "stem-winder," the

supposition is that in masticating his food the fish wound up the watch

daily.

THE NEW YEAR.

The clock struck twelve in the tall church tower,

And the old year slipped away,

To be lost in the crowd of phantom years

In the House of Dreams that stay

All wrapped in their cloaks of gray.

Then swift and sweet o'er the door's worn sill

Came the youngest child of Time,

With a gay little bow and a merry laugh,

And a voice like bells achime,

Challenging frost and rime.

He found there was plenty for him to do,

The strong and the weak were here,

And both held out their hands to him

And gave him greetings dear,

The beautiful young new year.

"You must bring us better days," they said,

"The old year was a cheat."

Which I think was mean when the year was dead;

Such fate do dead years meet,

To be spurned by scornful feet!

"I bring you the best a year can bring,"

The new-comer stoutly spake,

"The chance of work, the gift of trust,

And the bread of love to break,

If but my gifts you'll take!"

The noblest thing a year can lay

In the lap of you or me,

The brave new year has brought this day,

It is Opportunity,

Which the wise are quick to see.

MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

SAVING A TORPEDO-BOAT.

ONE OF THE OLD SAILOR'S YARNS.

BY W. J. HENDERSON.

It was a day of southwesterly weather, one of those days on which shower

follows shower across the murky and writhing sky, and the air feels like

water atomized. The boys had grown tired of sitting in the house, and

having donned oil-skins and rubber boots, they had gone down to the pier

in hope of seeing some interesting sight at sea. They found the Old

Sailor in his favorite position, and sat down beside him. He too was

clad in oil-skins, and was shaking his head in solemn discontent because

he could not get a good view of the ocean. The sea-water was quite cold

and the rain was much warmer; consequently the surface of the great deep

was covered with a wavering veil of light gray mist, through which the

eye could not penetrate more than two hundred and fifty yards.

A few minutes after the boys sat down another thunder-storm broke, and

rain fell in torrents. The lightning flashed fiercely and the thunder

bellowed mightily. Suddenly, in the very height of the tumult, out of

the curtain of the gray mist came a wild, unearthly shriek, rising in

pitch and intensity each second. The boys started to their feet, pale to

the lips, and gazing at the Old Sailor with appealing eyes. The next

instant a long, low, lean, olive-colored hull shot out of the mist. From

two funnels, one forward and one aft, great streamers of oily black

smoke went swirling away over the stern, while under the bows a snowy

jet of gleaming spray spurted high along the craft's sides. From her

crouching stern the water sprang outward and upward in a boiling wave,

lashed into silver and emerald by the whizzing screws. She shot past the

end of the pier, not a hundred yards away, with her whistle shrieking

wildly as she went. The boys had barely time to catch the outline of her

and to see the crouching figure of the seaman who tried to peer into the

mist ahead of her, before she had hissed out of sight, and left only the

troubled wake to tell the story of her passage.

"What was that?" gasped Henry, when he could catch his breath.

"That, my son," said the Old Sailor, solemnly, "were the United States

torpedo-boat _Cushing_, bound fur Sandy Hook, an' no time to spare."

"But I should think she'd be in danger of running into some vessel."

"Oh, they can stop her an' back her in twice her own length," said the

Old Sailor.

"But why does she go so fast?" asked George. "Do they wish to get out of

the rain?"

"No, I reckon they ain't afraid o' rain," said the Old Sailor, with a

grave sidewise movement of his head. "But mebbe she are in the same fix

as the torpedo-boat _Hop-lo_ were at the battle o' Yalu, w'ich the same

I were her bosun's mate, an' also, moreover, kep' her from sinkin'."

"Oh, tell us about that!" exclaimed George.

"W'ich are the werry identical thing wot I'm agoin' fur to come fur to

do. It so happened as how I were in Hong-kong w'en that misfortinate

disagreeability atwixt China and Japan come to a head. Pussonally I

'ain't never had no werry high respeck fur a Chinaman, but w'en I

l'arned as how my friend Li Hung-Chang were a-offerin' double wages an'

double prize-money fur American sailors to ship in the Chinese navy,

w'y, sez I to myself, sez I, 'Ef I don't get killed, a Chinaman's money

are as good as a Jap's, an' there's twicet as much on 't; an' ef I do

get killed, w'y, I reckon as how I won't be no deader under one flag

than under t'other.' An' with that I ups an' I ships. An' they orders me

to a bloomin' torpedo-boat.

"I won't say as the _Hop-lo_ weren't a werry good boat, though she'd

orter been called the Hop-hi, seein' as she were a thirty-knot boat, one

o' the best ever built by old Thorneycroft in England. She looked a good

deal like this 'ere _Cushing_ wot jes scooted past, 'ceptin' as how she

were higher in the bows an' used to get more down by the stern w'en she

were goin' fast, w'ich the same it were owin' to that I saved her. As I

said afore, it were at the battle o' Yalu wot it happened. I ain't

agoin' far to make no circumstigious attempt fur to tell the story o'

that battle; 'cos w'y, w'en you're into a battle you don't know nothin'

'bout it. All I knowed was that the torpedo-boats in gineral was

a-cruisin' around outside o' the battle-ships, like so many porpoises in

the wake o' whales. The Admiral, w'ich the same I could see him without

glasses, were a-prancin' around on one leg an' sendin' up signals every

minute. Waal, the fight was on putty soon, an' ye couldn't see a thing

'ceptin' smoke. The noise o' them big guns was enough to skeer ye blue,

but that are not wot I started out fur to tell ye. We got orders fur to

launch a torpedo at one o' the Japanese battle-ships, an' we went an'

done it. Wot that there torpedo hit I never rightly knowed--but it

didn't hit that battle-ship. But she hit us with one o' her five-inch

guns right under the starboard bow an' blowed a bloomin' big hole below

our water-line.

[Illustration: "WEI! WEI! WE GO DLOWNEE NOW ALLEE SAMEE STONEE!"]

"'Wei! Wei!' yells the Cap'n, a pug-faced Chinaman with one eye. 'We go

dlownee now allee samee stonee! Wei! Wei!'

"An' with that the hull crew took to catterwaulin' an' squealin' like a

lot o' pigs at feedin'-time.

"'Avast there, ye leather-faced slobs!' sez I to them, sez I. 'Run the

bloomin' boat on the beach!'

"'Melican man biggee foolee!' screamed the Cap'n. 'Beachee allee samee

twently mile.'

"'Waal, go ahead, anyhow!' sez I to he, sez I, 'an' don't be layin'

still here. They'll shoot your bloomin' boat full o' holes an' make a

marine sponge out o' her,' sez I, jes like that, him bein' Cap'n with

epaulets on, an' me a bosun's mate with nothin' finer 'n a quid o'

'baccy. Werry good. I rings the bell myself an' the engineer starts her

ahead full speed. It weren't two minutes afore we was out o' the wust o'

the fight, but them there Chinks was still scared blue. Nex' minute they

was scared bluer than ever, fur up comes a feller yellin' like a Bowery

boy at a four-story fire:

"'We sinkee! Sinkee!'

"'Wei! Wei!' screamed the Cap'n; 'we sinkee; allee samee sharkee eat us!

Wei! Wei!'

"'Shut up, ye doughnut-headed son of a sea-cook!' sez I to he, sez I.

'What makes ye think we'll sink?'

"'Watee comee in chop-chop; allee samee whole ocean come! Welly bad!

U-u-u-gh!'

"'Wei! Wei!' begin the Cap'n agin, jumpin' up an' down like he thought

he was a jig-dancer in a variety show.

"'Stow yer jaw-tackle there, ye moon-eyed monkey!' sez I, to he, sez I,

me havin' lost my respeck for him, though he were a Cap'n an' wore a

sword, w'ich the same it didn't cut no ice. 'Man the pumps, ye batherin'

screechers!'

"Waal, o' course that weren't edzackly the right kind o' order to give;

'cos w'y, she were a modern torpedo-boat an' her pumps was run by steam;

but anyhow it started 'em goin'. Chunk-chunk! chunk-chunk! chunk-chunk!

they pounded along fur a little while, and then one on 'em stopped all

on a suddent, with a big crack.

"'Wei! Wei!' squeals the Cap'n.

"'Shut up, ye molasses-colored parrot!' sez I to he, sez I, 'or I'll

stick ye into one o' yer own torpedo-tubes an' pull the string.'

"'Melican man welly wicked,' he muttered, as he walked forward.

"'Wot are the matter below there?' sez I.

"'Pumpee brokee!' hollered the engineer.

"'Both on 'em?'

"'No, only onee. He heap much brokee. No go any moree.'

"'Keep the other one at it,' sez I.

"Then I goes down below myself fur to see where the bloomin' trouble

were. Waal, it were not no cheerin' sight wot I seed down there. The

water sartainly were a-pourin' into the blessed old pot at a werry

discouragin' gait, and the one pump were not able for to gain any ground

on it. So sez I to myself, sez I, 'I got to git this 'ere water out o'

her somehow, or else I'm agoin' to git more water 'n I want myself.' So

sez I, 'How are I going fur to persuade this 'ere water fur to run out

o' this 'ere weasel?' An' the werry minute I sez it, I seed how 'twere

to be done. I jumps on deck an' I sings out fur the crew o' the

three-pounder rapid-fire gun.

"'Stan' by here, ye clay-colored scaramouches, an' git the gun below!'

"'Wei! Wei!' begins the Cap'n, and with that I ups an' grabs him by the

pigtail. I hauled him forrad an' I made him fast by that pigtail to the

ring o' the starboard anchor.

"'Now,' sez I, 'ye howlin' son o' darkness, if I hear another sound out

o' ye, I'll heave to an' let go the anchor.'

"'Melican man welly wicked,' he moaned.

"I got the gun down into the hold of her, an' I run it away aft. Then I

loaded it an' p'inted it at the lowest part of her starn. The haythen

set up a werry commojious amount o' weepin' an' whoopin' w'en they seed

wot I were a-doin'; 'cos w'y, they thort it would make two holes an'

sink the boat jes that much faster. But I pulled the trigger an' blowed

a bloomin' big hole into her starn right alongside o' the rudder-post

an' underwater. The water did come in right off, an' the Chinks broke

fur the deck an' commenced to cast off the boat falls. I stood at the

door o' the fire-room, an' sez I to the engineers an' firemen, sez I:

"'Turn her up to her hottest gait, an' mind that I'll shoot the first

man that leaves his post.'

"W'ich the same I would 'a' done it; 'cos w'y, they might as well 'a'

ben shot as drownded.

"'Now, ye gallopin' haythen,' sez I to they, sez I, 'shovel coal fur yer

lives. Hop, now, hop! Fill the furnaces full; put a ton o' lead on the

safety-valve; turn on the forced draught, an' turn up the screws till

they make the water hot astarn on us.'

"Waal, my sons, ye never in all yer born days seed any such hustlin'. It

warn't fifteen minutes afore they had the furnaces red-hot, an' the

screws was agoin' round at the rate o' a hundred an' thirty-seven turns

a minute. It took the wessel a little while to git agoin', but in ten

minutes she were a-vibratin' like a fiddle-string, so that she jes

actooally hummed like one. An' go! Waal, ye 'ain't never seed nothin'

like it in water. W'y, the waves goin' past her looked like the tracks

o' one o' Farmer Hulick's harrows. Then my scheme beginned fur to work.

I told ye that the _Hop-lo_ always went down by the starn when she got

to goin' fast, didn't I?"

"Yes," answered both boys.

"Waal, that were what I were countin' on partly--that an' her speed. The

water inside o' her commenced fur to run out o' the hole wot I'd blowed

in her starn. More come in the hole forrad an' flowed aft, so w'en she

got to goin' at a twenty-five-knot gait, wot come in forrad couldn't

stop; but jes ran right through her an' out the hole in the starn. The

faster she went the faster the water went through her, but it couldn't

stop inside, an' so it didn't get no deeper. Say, ye ort to seed the

faces o' them Chinamen w'en they seed how my scheme were a-workin'! W'y,

them fellers mos' killed theirselves a-heavin' coal on an' keepin' her

goin' faster an' faster. The Cap'll he come down below, looked at the

water a-runnin' through her, an' sez he to me, sez he,

"'Melican man biggee head.'

"'Werry good,' sez I to he, sez I; 'but wot I want o' you is silence,

an' that o' the werry quietest sort.'

"'Allee lightee,' sez he.

"'Now,' sez I, 'you stay down here an' keep these bloomin' engineers an'

firemen at work, an' I'll go an' do the navigatin'.'

"So I left him there, an' I went up an' headed the boat fur the port o'

Yu-hi, where I knowed there were a ship-yard an' we could git hauled out

an' repaired. An' in an hour the bloomin' harbor were right over our

bow. An' now I were puzzled agin; 'cos w'y, ef I stopped her she'd sink,

an' ef I run her onto the beach the way she were agoin', I'd smash her

all to splinters no bigger'n rope-yarns. While I were a-walkin' around

on the deck an' a-worryin', I tuk a look ahead through the marine-glass,

an' blow me fur a pickled oyster ef I didn't see the werry way out o' my

trouble."

"What was it?" asked Henry, excitedly.

"A marine railway wot they hauls out wessels on fur to repair 'em. There

wasn't nothin' on to it, an' there was the rails runnin' with a nice

slant right down into the water. Waal, I headed her right fur it, an' I

opened up the whistle an' let out a yell that would wake the town.

People came out runnin' like they was crazy, an' wavin' their hands fur

me to stop her; but I didn't pay no 'tention. I hadn't time fur to stop.

I put my head down the hatchway an' yelled,

"'All hands on deck!'

"Up come the blatherin' chinks a-fallin' all over each other, an' w'en

they seed how we was headin', they squealed dreadful.

"'Wei! Wei!' sez the Cap'n.

"An' bein' tired o' that, I jes ketched him by the pigtail an' swung him

overboard an' let him swim ashore. The next minute we struck the marine

railway head on, going square atween the rails, jes as I counted to do.

An' o' course we skated our whole length right up the tracks.

"'Over all hands?' I yelled.

"The Chinamen came to life an' seemed to understan', fur over they went,

an' had chocks under her quicker'n ye could say 'ahoy'; an' there she

were, comf'able an' snug as an old woman in bed, with all the water run

out o' her, an' nothin' to do but to plug up the holes an' get to sea

agin. But d'ye s'pose them bloomin' beggars was grateful to me, fur wot

I done fur 'em? Not a bit. They court-martialled me fur firin' on my own

wessel."

[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]

The All-Boston Interscholastic Football Team for 1896 is as follows:

J. W. HALLOWELL, _Hopkinson's_ end.

F. GILLISPEE, _Brookline High_ tackle.

F. W. LOWE, _Boston Latin_ guard.

F. R. HUTCHINS, _Brookline High_ centre.

O. TALBOT, _Brookline High_ guard.

W. D. EATON, _English High_ tackle.

E. W. MANAHAN, _English High_ end.

G. A. SAWIN, _Cambridge Manual_ quarter-back.

W. B. BOYCE, _Brookline High_ half-back.

CATO THOMPSON, _Cambridge Manual_ half-back.

A. STILLMAN, _Hopkinson's_ full-back.

[Illustration: E. W. MANAHAN, End.]

[Illustration: F. W. LOWE, Guard.]

[Illustration: W. B. BOYCE, Half-back.]

[Illustration: F. GILLESPIE, Tackle.]

[Illustration: OLIN TALBOT, Guard.]

[Illustration: G. A. SAWIN, Quarter-back and Captain.]

[Illustration: W. D. EATON, Tackle.]

[Illustration: J. W. HALLOWELL, End.]

[Illustration: A. STILLMAN, Full-back.]

[Illustration: C. M. THOMPSON, Half-back.]

[Illustration: F. R. HUTCHINS, Centre.]

The substitutes are W. Murphy, English High, end; C. W. Jaynes,

Hopkinson's, tackle; C. Shea, Hopkinson's, guard; R. Hazen, Cambridge

Manual, centre; E. F. Sherlock, English High, quarter-back; G. L.

Huntress, Hopkinson's, half-back; T. F. Teevens, Boston Latin,

full-back.

In picking a representative All-Boston Team the first consideration

given to the individual has been his ability to play his position as

near perfection as it is proper to expect. The player who has displayed

the most talent in this direction has earned the title to become a

member of this team. To reach a standard above the average an All-Boston

player must necessarily have the essential qualities that define a

football expert--namely, courage, pluck, reliance, and a true conception

of collective strength.

For quarter-back, that most important position so difficult to fill

satisfactorily, there is only one choice, and that is George A. Sawin,

of Cambridge Manual. He has exemplified the execution of accurate

passing and the propagation of complicated trick plays, born of natural

aptitude and experience. Cambridge Manual was reputed to have the most

intricate formation plays of any team in the league, and their ultimate

successful completion depended entirely on Sawin's steadiness. That he

never slipped up was proved by the prosperity that attended the team.

Sawin's station on the defence is directly behind the centre, where he

can close up holes at either side of the pivot of the line. As a tackler

his real value is felt, for he backs up the line and makes it

impregnable. Sawin has done all the punting for his team, and whenever a

kick was wanted he exchanged places with a half-back to receive the

ball. His long punts were constantly commented on, and no one in the

league excelled him.

The command of the team should also be assumed by Sawin, not alone

because of his point of vantage in the field, but for his excellence as

a strategist, and as a leader who inspires confidence in his players,

and exacts their respect.

The centre of the line can well be taken care of by Hutchins of

Brookline, who, for a centre, has been unusually active throughout the

season. He has outclassed every centre that faced him, though outweighed

in many cases. His football personality lies in his strength to make a

pathway for a rusher and his conspicuousness in tackling back of the

line.

No one guard has given evidence of having star abilities, and there are

several ranking on about the same plane. Talbot of Brookline High, who

was substitute on last year's All-Boston team, is inferior to nobody

now, and easily takes a permanent place. He has had excellent coaching

from an old Harvard guard all the season, and it is no wonder that he

exhibits all the capabilities of a finished guardsman. For the other

guard the competition is much closer, but should go to Captain Fred

Lowe, of Boston Latin, who has had three years' experience, and in that

time has always stood at the front.

There is no disputing the fact that the tackle positions belong to Eaton

of English High and Gillispee of Brookline High. Eaton was a member of

the All-Boston team a year ago as guard, but exigencies arising, he was

moved to tackle, and his all-round proclivities cropped out there, where

he has played the same aggressive, straight-forward game that

characterized him in '95. As a rushing linesman he can claim superiority

over any man who stood on the scholastic gridiron this fall.

Gillispee of Brookline High has proved his worth as a tackle as the

season advanced. He has earned his position by hard, untiring effort,

and in every game he has been prominent in smashing interference and

making his position invulnerable.

With Hallowell, of Hopkinson's, and Manahan on the ends, the team would

have an almost perfect line. Hallowell occupied a similar position last

year, and has sustained his reputation this season. He was the most

difficult end in the league to circle, for he can wade through the most

compact interference and nail the runner.

Manahan has played tackle all the year, but this was because he found a

better end player than a tackle. His position is end, where he

demonstrated last season his talents, and where he should have been this

fall. As it was, he played an excellent game at tackle, although

generally handicapped by the weight of his opponent. The players in this

team to whom the burden of rushing the ball would fall are Cato

Thompson, Cambridge Manual, Walter B. Boyce, Brookline, and A. Stillman,

Hopkinson's.

Thompson and Boyce, the half-backs, are good at line-breaking or end

plays. The former is especially clever at sprinting around the

extremities of the line, and has exceptional speed. Boyce is the best

individual back in the association, and his bucking the line has been

Brookline's chief mode of gaining ground. Both players are fine

defensive workers, and would aid Sawin on the line. Stillman gets placed

not so much for his rushing game as his fearless punting. He can always

be relied upon to follow his interference closely, and goes into a hole

like a shot. Teevens of Boston Latin pushes Stillman for the position,

as he is the surer at gaining through the line.

The following tables complete the records of the New York, Connecticut,

and Cook County football leagues:

N.Y.I.S.A.A. FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP.