Three fishers went sailing out into the west--

Out into the west as the sun went down;

Each thought on the woman who loved him the best,

And the children stood watching them out of the town;

For men must work, and women must weep;

And there's little to earn, and many to keep,

Though the harbor bar be moaning.

Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower,

And trimmed the lamps as the sun went down;

And they looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower,

And the night rack came rolling up, ragged and brown;

But men must work, and women must weep,--

Though storms be sudden, and waters deep,

And the harbor bar be moaning.

[Illustration: THE NIGHT RACK CAME ROLLING UP]

Three corpses lay out on the shining sands

In the morning gleam as the tide went down,

And the women are weeping and wringing their hands,

For those who will never come back to the town;

For men must work, and women must weep,

And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep,--

And good-bye to the bar and its moaning.

THE REAPER'S DREAM

_By_ THOMAS BUCHANAN READ

The road was lone; the grass was dank

With night-dews on the briery bank

Whereon a weary reaper sank.

His garb was old; his visage tanned;

The rusty sickle in his hand

Could find no work in all the land.

He saw the evening's chilly star

Above his native vale afar;

A moment on the horizon's bar

It hung, then sank, as with a sigh;

And there the crescent moon went by,

An empty sickle down the sky.

To soothe his pain, Sleep's tender palm

Laid on his brow its touch of balm;

His brain received the slumberous calm;

And soon that angel without name,

Her robe a dream, her face the same,

The giver of sweet visions came.

She touched his eyes; no longer sealed,

They saw a troop of reapers wield

Their swift blades in a ripened field.

At each thrust of their snowy sleeves

A thrill ran through the future sheaves

Rustling like rain on forest leaves.

They were not brawny men who bowed,

With harvest voices rough and loud,

But spirits, moving as a cloud.

Like little lightnings in their hold,

The silver sickles manifold

Slid musically through the gold.

O, bid the morning stars combine

To match the chorus clear and fine,

That rippled lightly down the line,--

A cadence of celestial rhyme,

The language of that cloudless clime,

To which their shining hands kept time!

Behind them lay the gleaming rows,

Like those long clouds the sunset shows

On amber meadows of repose;

But, like a wind, the binders bright

Soon followed in their mirthful might,

And swept them into sheaves of light.

Doubling the splendor of the plain,

There rolled the great celestial wain,

To gather in the fallen grain.

Its frame was built of golden bars;

Its glowing wheels were lit with stars;

The royal Harvest's car of cars.

The snowy yoke that drew the load,

On gleaming hoofs of silver trode;

And music was its only goad.

To no command of word or beck

It moved, and felt no other check

Than one white arm laid on the neck,--

The neck, whose light was overwound

With bells of lilies, ringing round

Their odors till the air was drowned:

The starry foreheads meekly borne,

With garlands looped from horn to horn,

Shone like the many-colored morn.

The field was cleared. Home went the bands,

Like children, linking happy hands,

While singing through their father's lands;

Or, arms about each other thrown,

With amber tresses backward blown,

They moved as they were music's own.

[Illustration: THE CRESCENT MOON WENT BY]

The vision brightening more and more,

He saw the garner's glowing door,

And sheaves, like sunshine, strew the floor,--

The floor was jasper,--golden flails,

Swift-sailing as a whirlwind sails,

Throbbed mellow music down the vales.

He saw the mansion,--all repose,--

Great corridors and porticos,

Propped with the columns, shining rows;

And these--for beauty was the rule--

The polished pavements, hard and cool,

Redoubled, like a crystal pool.

And there the odorous feast was spread;

The fruity fragrance widely shed

Seemed to the floating music wed.

Seven angels, like the Pleiad seven,

Their lips to silver clarions given,

Blew welcome round the walls of heaven.

In skyey garments, silky thin,

The glad retainers floated in

A thousand forms, and yet no din:

And from the visage of the Lord,

Like splendor from the Orient poured,

A smile illumined all the board.

Far flew the music's circling sound;

Then floated back, with soft rebound,

To join, nor mar, the converse round,

Sweet notes, that, melting, still increased,

Such as ne'er cheered the bridal feast

Of king in the enchanted East.

Did any great door ope or close,

It seemed the birth-time of repose,

The faint sound died where it arose;

And they who passed from door to door;

Their soft feet on the polished floor

Met their soft shadows,--nothing more.

Then once again the groups were drawn

Through corridors, or down the lawn,

Which bloomed in beauty like a dawn.

Where countless fountains leapt alway,

Veiling their silver heights in spray,

The choral people held their way.

There, midst the brightest, brightly shone

Dear forms he loved in years agone,--

The earliest loved,--the earliest flown.

He heard a mother's sainted tongue,

A sister's voice, who vanished young,

While one still dearer sweetly sung!

No further might the scene unfold;

The gazer's voice could not withhold;

The very rapture made him bold:

He cried aloud, with clasped hands,

"O happy fields! O happy bands!

Who reap the never-failing lands.

"Oh master of these broad estates,

Behold, before your very gates

A worn and wanting laborer waits!

Let me but toil amid your grain,

Or be a gleaner on the plain,

So I may leave these fields of pain!

"A gleaner, I will follow far,

With never look or word to mar,

Behind the Harvest's yellow car;

All day my hand shall constant be,

And every happy eve shall see

The precious burden borne to thee!"

At morn some reapers neared the place,

Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace;

Then gathering round the upturned face,

They saw the lines of pain and care,

Yet read in the expression there

The look as of an answered prayer.

A poem like the preceding abounds in beautiful word pictures, which

add to the charm of the imaginary incident which is related.

Here is the first: It is a country road in the harvest season. On

one side, stretching away into the dim distance, lie fields already

reaped; upon the other, a bank, covered with briery vines, rises

steeply into the darkness. The evening star lies close to the

horizon, and in the sky the cold crescent moon hangs like an empty

sickle. In the grass under the bank, with night dews thickly

gathered upon him, lies a poor and weary reaper. His torn clothes,

old and ill-kept, his tanned face, slender figure, and more than

all else the rusty sickle in his hand, show that he has been long

without work, and has suffered in poverty.

The next four scenes are from the reaper's dream:

1. It is a busy afternoon, and in a field of ripening grain reapers

are busy wielding their sickles, but they are not the strong men

who talk with loud, rough voices and bind the sheaves with joke and

laughter; they are gentle spirits moving like clouds, and their

sickles seem like little strokes of lightning as they slide

musically through the golden grain. Their shining hands keep time

to a beautiful song, and often the reapers glance across the

gleaming rows of grain into the rich red of the sunset. The binders

follow the reapers and place the sheaves in gleaming rows, while

behind them follows the great wagon gathering in the fallen

grain,--a wagon not of earth, but built of gold. Beautiful cattle

draw the wain, cattle that tread on silver hoofs and move without

other command than sweet music, or the soft touch of a white-armed

angel. Around the necks of the cattle are white lilies, and from

the horns droop garlands of many-colored flowers, freshly picked

from the dewy grass.

2. A jasper floor on which the grain lies like sunshine, and where

golden flails, falling swiftly, beat out the grain to mellow music,

gleams with increasing brightness.

3. The great mansion shines with its long corridors, its gleaming

porticos and polished pavement, all beautiful and hard and cool.

Inside is spread a fragrant feast to which seven angels sing

invitation with their silver clarions. Softly the invited guests

float in, a multitude in number, but silently as the stars move in

heaven. Sweet music floats around the beautiful room, and smiling

faces nod around the board. Doors are opened and closed without

sound, and the feet of the servants on the polished floor give no

more sound than falling shadows.

4. The groups of angel guests are gathered like flowers upon the

lawn where countless fountains play, and among them, moving here

and there, are the forms of the loved ones who have passed away

before him. His mother, his sister, and one still dearer than

either, sing sweetly and walk among fragrant flowers more beautiful

than his fancy ever painted.

The last scene is the same as the first, except that it is a cold,

chilly morning instead of a damp evening. Some reapers coming near

see lying under the briers the poor old reaper with his upturned

face, peaceful and quiet, now in death, but bearing the look of an

answered prayer.

THE RECOVERY OF THE HISPANIOLA[352-1]

_By_ ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

The coracle--as I had ample reason to know before I was done with

her--was a very safe boat for a person of my height and weight, both

buoyant and clever in a seaway--but she was the most cross-grained

lop-sided craft to manage. Do as you pleased, she always made more

leeway than anything else, and turning round and round was the maneuver

she was best at.

She turned in every direction but the one I was bound to go; the most

part of the time we were broadside on, and I am very sure I never should

have made the ship at all but for the tide. By good fortune, paddle as I

pleased, the tide was still sweeping me down; and there lay the

_Hispaniola_ right in the fair way, hardly to be missed.

First she loomed before me like a blot of something yet blacker than

darkness, then her spars and hull began to take shape, and the next

moment, as it seemed (for, the further I went, the brisker grew the

current of the ebb), I was alongside of her hawser, and had laid hold.

The hawser was as taut as a bowstring, and the current so strong she

pulled upon her anchor. All round the hull, in the blackness, the

rippling current bubbled and chattered like a little mountain stream.

One cut with my sea-gully, and the _Hispaniola_ would go humming down

the tide.

So far so good; but it next occurred to my recollection that a taut

hawser, suddenly cut, is a thing as dangerous as a kicking horse. Ten to

one, if I were so foolhardy as to cut the _Hispaniola_ from her anchor,

I and the coracle would be knocked clean out of the water.

This brought me to a full stop, and if fortune had not again

particularly favored me, I should have had to abandon my design. But the

light airs which had begun blowing from the southeast and south had

hauled round after nightfall into the southwest. Just while I was

meditating, a puff came, caught the _Hispaniola_, and forced her up into

the current; and, to my great joy, I felt the hawser slacken in my

grasp, and the hand by which I held it dip for a second under water.

With that I made my mind up, took out my gully, opened it with my teeth,

and cut one strand after another, till the vessel swung only by two.

Then I lay quiet, waiting to sever these last when the strain should be

once more lightened by a breath of wind.

All this time I had heard the sound of loud voices from the cabin; but,

to say truth, my mind had been so entirely taken up with other thoughts

that I had scarcely given ear.

One I recognized for the coxswain's, Israel Hands, that had been Flint's

gunner in former days. The other was, of course, my friend of the red

nightcap. Both men were plainly the worse of drink, and they were still

drinking. But they were not only tipsy; it was plain that they were

furiously angry. Oaths flew like hailstones, and every now and then

there came forth such an explosion as I thought was sure to end in

blows. But each time the quarrel passed off, and the voices grumbled

lower for a while, until the next crisis came, and, in its turn, passed

away without result.

[Illustration: I LOOKED INTO THE CABIN]

On shore I could see the glow of the great campfire burning warmly

through the shoreside trees. Some one was singing a dull, old, droning

sailor's song, with a droop and a quaver at the end of every verse, and

seemingly no end to it at all but the patience of the singer. I had

heard it on the voyage more than once, and remembered these words:

"But one man of her crew alive,

What put to sea with seventy-five."

And I thought it was a ditty rather too dolefully appropriate for a

company that had met such cruel losses in the morning. But, indeed, from

what I saw, all these buccaneers were as callous as the sea they sailed

on.

At last the breeze came; the schooner sidled and drew nearer in the

dark; I felt the hawser slacken once more, and with a good, tough

effort, cut the last fibers through.

The breeze had but little action on the coracle, and I was almost

instantly swept against the bows of the _Hispaniola_. At the same time

the schooner began to turn upon her heel, spinning slowly, end for end,

across the current.

I wrought like a fiend, for I expected every moment to be swamped; and

since I found I could not push the coracle directly off, I now shoved

straight astern. At length I was clear of my dangerous neighbor; and

just as I gave the last impulsion, my hands came across a light cord

that was trailing overboard across the stern bulwarks. Instantly I

grasped it.

Why I should have done so I can hardly say. It was at first mere

instinct; but once I had it in my hands and found it fast, curiosity

began to get the upper hand, and I determined I should have one look

through the cabin window.

I pulled in hand over hand on the cord, and, when I judged myself near

enough, rose at infinite risk to about half my height, and thus

commanded the roof and a slice of the interior of the cabin.

By this time the schooner and her little consort were gliding pretty

swiftly through the water; indeed, we had already fetched up level with

the campfire. The ship was talking, as sailors say, loudly, treading the

innumerable ripples with an incessant weltering splash; and until I got

my eye above the window-sill I could not comprehend why the watchmen had

taken no alarm. One glance, however, was sufficient; and it was only one

glance that I durst take from that unsteady skiff. It showed me Hands

and his companion locked together in deadly wrestle, each with a hand

upon the other's throat.

I dropped upon the thwart again, none too soon, for I was near

overboard. I could see nothing for the moment, but these two furious,

encrimsoned faces, swaying together under the smoky lamp; and I shut my

eyes to let them grow once more familiar with the darkness.

The endless ballad had come to an end at last, and the whole diminished

company about the campfire had broken into the chorus I had heard so

often:

"Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!

Drink and the devil had done for the rest--

Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

I was just thinking how busy drink and the devil were at that very

moment in the cabin of the _Hispaniola_, when I was surprised by a

sudden lurch of the coracle. At the same moment she yawed sharply and

seemed to change her course. The speed in the meantime had strangely

increased.

I opened my eyes at once. All round me were little ripples, combing over

with a sharp, bristling sound, and slightly phosphorescent. The

_Hispaniola_ herself, a few yards in whose wake I was still being

whirled along, seemed to stagger in her course, and I saw her spars toss

a little against the blackness of the night; nay, as I looked longer, I

made sure she also was wheeling to the southward.

I glanced over my shoulder, and my heart jumped against my ribs. There,

right behind me, was the glow of the campfire. The current had turned at

right angles, sweeping round along with it the tall schooner and the

little dancing coracle; ever quickening, ever bubbling higher, ever

muttering louder, it went spinning through the narrows for the open sea.

Suddenly the schooner in front of me gave a violent yaw, turning,

perhaps, through twenty degrees; and almost at the same moment one shout

followed another from on board; I could hear feet pounding on the

companion ladder; and I knew that the two drunkards had at last been

interrupted in their quarrel and awakened to a sense of their disaster.

I lay down flat in the bottom of that wretched skiff, and devoutly

recommended my spirit to its Maker. At the end of the straits, I made

sure we must fall into some bar of raging breakers, where all my

troubles would be ended speedily; and though I could, perhaps, bear to

die, I could not bear to look upon my fate as it approached.

So I must have lain for hours, continually beaten to and fro upon the

billows, now and again wetted with flying sprays, and never ceasing to

expect death at the next plunge. Gradually weariness grew upon me; a

numbness, an occasional stupor, fell upon my mind even in the midst of

my terrors; until sleep at last supervened, and in my sea-tossed coracle

I lay and dreamed of home and the old tavern "Benbow."

It was broad day when I awoke, and found myself tossing at the southwest

end of Treasure Island. The sun was up, but was still hid from me behind

the great bulk of the Spyglass, which on this side descended almost to

the sea in formidable cliffs.

Haulbowline Head and Mizzenmast Hill were at my elbow; the hill bare and

dark, the head bound with cliffs forty or fifty feet high, and fringed

with great masses of fallen rock. I was scarce a quarter of a mile to

seaward, and it was my first thought to paddle in and land.

That notion was soon given over. Among the fallen rocks the breakers

spouted and bellowed; loud reverberations, heavy sprays flying and

falling, succeeded one another from second to second; and I saw myself,

if I ventured nearer, dashed to death upon the rough shore, or spending

my strength in vain to scale the beetling crags.

Nor was that all; for crawling together on flat tables of rock, or

letting themselves drop into the sea with loud reports, I beheld huge

slimy monsters--soft snails, as it were, of incredible bigness--two or

three score of them together, making the rocks to echo with their

barkings.

I have understood since that they were sea lions, and entirely harmless.

But the look of them added to the difficulty of the shore and the high

running of the surf, was more than enough to disgust me of that landing

place. I felt willing rather to starve at sea than to confront such

perils.

In the meantime I had a better chance, as I supposed, before me. North

of Haulbowline Head the land runs in a long way, leaving, at low tide, a

long stretch of yellow sand. To the north of that, again, there comes

another cape--Cape of the Woods, as it was marked upon the chart--buried

in tall green pines, which descended to the margin of the sea.

I remembered that the current sets northward along the whole west coast

of Treasure Island; and seeing from my position that I was already under

its influence, I preferred to leave Haulbowline Head behind me, and

reserve my strength for an attempt to land upon the kindlier-looking

Cape of the Woods.

There was a great, smooth swell upon the sea. The wind blowing steady

and gentle from the south, there was no contrariety between that and the

current, and the billows rose and fell unbroken.

Had it been otherwise, I must long ago have perished; but as it was, it

is surprising how easily and securely my little and light boat could

ride. Often, as I still lay at the bottom, and kept no more than an eye

above the gunwale, I would see a big blue summit heaving close above me;

yet the coracle would but bounce a little, dance as if on springs, and

subside on the other side into the trough as lightly as a bird.

I began after a little to grow very bold, and sat up to try my skill at

paddling. But even a small change in the disposition of the weight will

produce violent changes in the behavior of a coracle. And I had hardly

moved before the boat, giving up at once her gentle dancing movement,

ran straight down a slope of water so steep that it made me giddy, and

stuck her nose, with a spout of spray, deep into the side of the next

wave.

I was drenched and terrified, and fell instantly back into my old

position, whereupon the coracle seemed to find her head again, and led

me as softly as before among the billows. It was plain she was not to be

interfered with, and at that rate, since I could in no way influence her

course, what hope had I left of reaching land?

I began to be horribly frightened, but I kept my head, for all that.

First, moving with all care, I gradually bailed out the coracle with my

sea-cap; then getting my eye once more above the gunwale, I set myself

to study how it was she managed to slip so quietly through the rollers.

I found each wave, instead of the big, smooth, glossy mountain it looked

from shore, or from a vessel's deck, was for all the world like any

range of hills on the dry land, full of peaks and smooth places and

valleys. The coracle, left to herself, turning from side to side,

threaded, so to speak, her way through these lower parts, and avoided

the steep slopes and higher, toppling summits of the waves.

"Well, now," thought I to myself, "it is plain I must lie where I am,

and not disturb the balance; but it is plain, also, that I can put the

paddle over the side, and from time to time, in smooth places, give her

a shove or two toward land." No sooner thought upon than done. There I

lay on my elbows, in the most trying attitude, and every now and again

gave a weak stroke or two to turn her head to shore. It was very tiring,

and slow work, yet I did visibly gain ground; and, as we drew near the

Cape of the Woods, though I saw I must infallibly miss that point, I had

still made some hundred yards of easting. I was, indeed, close in. I

could see the cool, green tree tops swaying together in the breeze, and

I felt sure I should make the next promontory without fail.

It was high time, for now I began to be tortured with thirst. The glow

of the sun from above, its thousandfold reflection from the waves, the

sea-water that fell and dried upon me, caking my very lips with salt,

combined to make my throat burn and my brain ache. The sight of the

trees so near at hand had almost made me sick with longing; but the

current had soon carried me past the point; and, as the next reach of

sea opened out, I beheld a sight that changed the nature of my thoughts.

Right in front of me, not half a mile away, I beheld the _Hispaniola_

under sail. I made sure, of course, that I should be taken; but I was so

distressed for want of water, that I scarce knew whether to be glad or

sorry at the thought; and, long before I had come to a conclusion,

surprise had taken entire possession of my mind, and I could do nothing

but stare and wonder.

The _Hispaniola_ was under her mainsail and two jibs, and the beautiful

white canvas shone in the sun like snow or silver. When I first sighted

her, all her sails were drawing; she was lying a course about northwest;

and I presumed the men on board were going round the island on their way

back to the anchorage. Presently she began to fetch more and more to the

westward, so that I thought they had sighted me and were going about in

chase. At last, however, she fell right into the wind's eye, was taken

dead aback, and stood there awhile helpless, with her sails shivering.

"Clumsy fellows," said I; "they must still be drunk as owls." And I

thought how Captain Smollett would have set them skipping.

Meanwhile, the schooner gradually fell off, and filled again upon

another tack, sailed swiftly for a minute or so, and brought up once

more dead in the wind's eye. Again and again was this repeated. To and

fro, up and down, north, south, east, and west the _Hispaniola_ sailed

by swoops and dashes, and at each repetition ended as she had begun,

with idly-flapping canvas. It became plain to me that nobody was

steering. And, if so, where were the men? Either they were dead drunk,

or had deserted her, I thought, and perhaps if I could get on board, I

might return the vessel to her captain.

The current was bearing coracle and schooner southward at an equal rate.

As for the latter's sailing, it was so wild and intermittent, and she

hung each time so long in irons, that she certainly gained nothing, if

she did not even lose. If only I dared to sit up and paddle, I made sure

that I could overhaul her. The scheme had an air of adventure that

inspired me, and the thought of the water-breaker beside the fore

companion doubled my growing courage.

Up I got, was welcomed almost instantly by another cloud of spray, but

this time stuck to my purpose; and set myself, with all my strength and

caution, to paddle after the unsteered _Hispaniola_. Once I shipped a

sea so heavy that I had to stop and bail, with my heart fluttering like

a bird; but gradually I got into the way of the thing, and guided my

coracle among the waves, with only now and then a blow upon her bows and

a dash of foam in my face.

I was now gaining rapidly on the schooner. I could see the brass glisten

on the tiller as it banged about; and still no soul appeared upon her

decks. I could not choose but suppose she was deserted. If not, the men

were lying drunk below, where I might batten them down, perhaps, and do

what I chose with the ship.

For some time she had been doing the worst thing possible for

me--standing still. She headed nearly due south, yawing, of course, all

the time. Each time she fell off her sails partly filled, and these

brought her in a moment right to the wind again. I have said this was

the worst thing possible for me; for helpless as she looked in this

situation, with the canvas cracking like cannon and the blocks trundling

and banging on the deck, she still continued to run away from me, not

only with the speed of the current, but by the whole amount of her

leeway, which was naturally great.

But now at last I had my chance. The breeze fell for some seconds very

low, and the current gradually turning her, the _Hispaniola_ revolved

slowly round her center, and at last presented me her stern, with the

cabin window still gaping open, and the lamp over the table still

burning on into the day.

The mainsail hung drooped like a banner. She was stock-still, but for

the current.

For the last little while I had even lost; but now, redoubling my

efforts, I began once more to overhaul the chase.

I was not a hundred yards from her when the wind came again in a clap;

she filled on the port tack and was off again, stooping and skimming

like a swallow.

My first impulse was one of despair, but my second was toward joy. Round

she came till she was broadside on to me--round still till she had

covered a half, and then two thirds, and then three quarters of the

distance that separated us. I could see the waves boiling white under

her forefoot. Immensely tall she looked to me from my low station in the

coracle.

And then, of a sudden, I began to comprehend. I had scarce time to

think--scarce time to act and save myself. I was on the summit of one

swell when the schooner came stooping over the next. The bowsprit was

over my head. I sprang to my feet and leaped, stamping the coracle under

water. With one hand I caught the jib-boom, while my foot was lodged

between the stay and the brace; and as I still clung there panting a

dull blow told me that the schooner had charged down upon and struck the

coracle, and that I was left without retreat on the _Hispaniola_.

I had scarce gained a position on the bowsprit, when the flying jib

flapped and filled upon the other tack, with a report like a gun. The

schooner trembled to her keel under the reverse; but next moment, the

other sails still drawing, the jib flapped back again and hung idle.

This had nearly tossed me off into the sea; and now I lost no time,

crawled back along the bowsprit, and tumbled head foremost on the deck.

I was on the lee side of the forecastle, and the mainsail, which was

still drawing, concealed from me a certain portion of the after-deck.

Not a soul was to be seen. The planks, which had not been swabbed since

the mutiny, bore the print of many feet; and an empty bottle, broken by

the neck, tumbled to and fro like a live thing in the scuppers.

Suddenly the _Hispaniola_ came right into the wind. The jibs behind me

cracked aloud; the rudder slammed to; the whole ship gave a sickening

heave and shudder, and at the same moment the main-boom swung inboard,

the sheet groaning in the blocks, and showed me the lee after-deck.

There were the two watchmen, sure enough: red-cap on his back, as stiff

as a handspike, with his arms stretched out like those of a crucifix,

and his teeth showing through his open lips; Israel Hands propped

against the bulwarks, his chin on his chest, his hands lying open before

him on the deck, his face as white, under its tan, as a tallow candle.

For awhile the ship kept bucking and sidling like a vicious horse, the

sails filling, now on one tack, now on another, and the boom swinging to

and fro till the mast groaned aloud under the strain. Now and again,

too, there would come a cloud of light sprays over the bulwark, and a

heavy blow of the ship's bows against the swell: so much heavier weather

was made of it by this great rigged ship than by my home-made, lopsided

coracle, now gone to the bottom of the sea.

At every jump of the schooner red-cap slipped to and fro; but--what was

ghastly to behold--neither his attitude nor his fixed teeth-disclosing

grin was anyway disturbed by this rough usage. At every jump, too, Hands

appeared still more to sink into himself and settle down upon the deck,

his feet sliding ever the farther out, and the whole body canting toward

the stern, so that his face became, little by little, hid from me; and

at last I could see nothing beyond his ear and the frayed ringlet of one

whisker.

At the same time, I observed, around both of them, splashes of dark

blood upon the planks, and began to feel sure that they had killed each

other in their drunken wrath.

While I was thus looking and wondering, in a calm moment, when the ship

was still, Israel Hands turned partly round, and, with a low moan,

writhed himself back to the position in which I had seen him first. The

moan, which told of pain and deadly weakness, and the way in which his

jaw hung open, went right to my heart. But when I remembered the talk I

had overheard from the apple barrel, all pity left me.

I walked aft until I reached the mainmast.

"Come aboard, Mr. Hands," I said ironically.

He rolled his eyes round heavily; but he was too far gone to express

surprise. All he could do was to utter one word: "Brandy."

It occurred to me there was no time to lose; and, dodging the boom as it

once more lurched across the deck, I slipped aft, and down the companion

stairs into the cabin.

It was such a scene of confusion as you can hardly fancy. All the

lockfast places had been broken open in quest of the chart. The floor

was thick with mud, where ruffians had sat down to drink or consult

after wading in the marshes round their camp. The bulkheads, all painted

in clear white, and beaded round with gilt, bore a pattern of dirty

hands. Dozens of empty bottles clinked together in corners to the

rolling of the ship. One of the doctor's medical books lay open on the

table, half of the leaves gutted out, I suppose, for pipe-lights. In the

midst of all this the lamp still cast a smoky glow, obscure and brown as

umber.

I went into the cellar; all the barrels were gone, and of the bottles a

most surprising number had been drunk out and thrown away. Certainly,

since the mutiny began, not a man of them could ever have been sober.

Foraging about I found a bottle with some brandy left, for Hands; and

for myself I routed out some biscuit, some pickled fruits, a great bunch

of raisins, and a piece of cheese. With these I came on deck, put down

my own stock behind the rudder head, and well out of the coxswain's

reach, went forward to the waterbreaker, and had a good, deep drink of

water, and then, and not till then, gave Hands the brandy.

He must have drunk a gill before he took the bottle from his mouth.

"Ay," said he, "by thunder, but I wanted some o' that!"

I had sat down already in my own corner and begun to eat.

"Much hurt?" I asked him.

He grunted, or, rather, I might say, he barked.

"If that doctor was aboard," he said, "I'd be right enough in a couple

of turns; but I don't have no manner of luck, you see, and that's what's

the matter with me. As for that swab, he's good and dead, he is," he

added, indicating the man with the red cap. "He warn't no seaman,

anyhow. And where mought you have come from?"

"Well," said I, "I've come aboard to take possession of this ship, Mr.

Hands; and you'll please regard me as your captain until further

notice."

He looked at me sourly enough, but said nothing. Some of the color had

come back into his cheeks, though he still looked very sick, and still

continued to slip out and settle down as the ship banged about.

"By the bye," I continued, "I can't have these colors, Mr. Hands; and,

by your leave, I'll strike 'em. Better none than these."

And, again dodging the boom, I ran to the color lines, handed down their

cursed black flag, and chucked it overboard.

"God save the king!" said I, waving my cap.

He watched me keenly and slyly, his chin all the while on his breast.

"I reckon," he said at last--"I reckon, Cap'n Hawkins, you'll kind of

want to get ashore, now. S'pose we talks."

"Why, yes," says I, "with all my heart, Mr. Hands. Say on." And I went

back to my meal with a good appetite.

"This man," he began, nodding feebly at the corpse--"O'Brien were his

name--a rank Irelander--this man and me got the canvas on her, meaning

for to sail her back. Well, _he's_ dead now, he is--as dead as bilge;

and who's to sail this ship, I don't see. Without I gives you a hint,

you ain't that man, as far's I can tell. Now, look here, you gives me

food and drink, and an old scarf or ankecher to tie my wound up, you do;

and I'll tell you how to sail her; and that's about square all round, I

take it.

"I'll tell you one thing," says I: "I'm not going back to Captain Kidd's

anchorage. I mean to get into North Inlet, and beach her quietly there."

"To be sure you did," he cried. "Why, I ain't such an infernal lubber,

after all. I can see, can't I? I've tried my fling, I have, and I've

lost, and it's you has the wind of me. North Inlet? Why, I haven't no

chi'ce, not I! I'd help you sail her up to Execution Dock, by thunder!

so I would."

Well, as it seemed to me, there was some sense in this. We struck our

bargain on the spot. In three minutes I had the _Hispaniola_ sailing

easily before the wind along the coast of Treasure Island, with good

hopes of turning the northern point ere noon, and beating down again as

far as North Inlet before high water, when we might beach her safely,

and wait till the subsiding tide permitted us to land.

Then I lashed the tiller and went below to my own chest, where I got a

soft silk handkerchief of my mother's. With this, and with my aid, Hands

bound up the great bleeding stab he had received in the thigh, and after

he had eaten a little and had a swallow or two more of the brandy, he

began to pick up visibly, sat straighter up, spoke louder and clearer,

and looked in every way another man.

The breeze served us admirably. We skimmed before it like a bird, the

coast of the island flashing by, and the view changing every minute.

Soon we were past the high lands and bowling beside low, sandy country,

sparsely dotted with dwarf pines, and soon we were beyond that again,

and had turned the corner of the rocky hill that ends the island on the

north.

I was greatly elated with my new command, and pleased with the bright,

sunshiny weather and these different prospects of the coast. I had now

plenty of water and good things to eat, and my conscience, which had

smitten me hard for my desertion, was quieted by the great conquest I

had made. I should, I think, have had nothing left me to desire but for

the eyes of the coxswain as they followed me derisively about the deck,

and the odd smile that appeared continually on his face. It was a smile

that had in it something both of pain and weakness--a haggard, old man's

smile; but there was besides that, a grain of derision, a shadow of

treachery in his expression as he craftily watched, and watched, and

watched me at my work.

The wind, serving us to a desire, now hauled into the west. We could run

so much the easier from the northeast corner of the island to the mouth

of the North Inlet. Only, as we had no power to anchor, and dared not

beach her till the tide had flowed a good deal farther, time hung on our

hands.

The coxswain told me how to lay the ship to; after a good many trials I

succeeded, and we both sat in silence over another meal.

"Cap'n," said he, at length, with that same uncomfortable smile, "here's

my old shipmate, O'Brien; s'pose you was to heave him overboard. I ain't

partic'lar as a rule, and I don't take no blame for settling his hash;

but I don't reckon him ornamental, now, do you?"

"I'm not strong enough, and I don't like the job; and there he lies, for

me," said I.

"This here's an unlucky ship--this _Hispaniola_, Jim," he went on,

blinking. "There's a power of men been killed in this _Hispaniola_--a

sight o' poor seamen dead and gone since you and me took ship to

Bristol. I never seen sich dirty luck, not I. There was this here

O'Brien, now--he's dead, ain't he? Well, now, I'm no scholar, and you're

a lad as can read and figure; and, to put it straight, do you take it as

a dead man is dead for good, or do he come alive again?"

"You can kill the body, Mr. Hands, but not the spirit; you must know

that already," I replied. "O'Brien there is in another world, and maybe

watching us."

"Ah!" says he. "Well, that's unfort'nate--appears as if killing parties

was a waste of time. Howsomever, sperrits don't reckon for much, by what

I've seen. I'll chance it with the sperrits, Jim. And now, you've spoke

up free, and I'll take it kind if you'd step down into that there cabin

and get me a--well, a--shiver my timbers! I can't hit the name on't;

well, you get me a bottle of wine, Jim--this here brandy's too strong

for my head."

Now, the coxswain's hesitation seemed to be unnatural; and as for the

notion of his preferring wine to brandy, I entirely disbelieved it. The

whole story was a pretext. He wanted me to leave the deck--so much was

plain; but with what purpose I could in no way imagine. His eyes never

met mine; they kept wandering to and fro, up and down, now with a look

to the sky, now with a flitting glance upon the dead O'Brien. All the

time he kept smiling and putting his tongue out in the most guilty,

embarrassed manner, so that a child could have told that he was bent on

some deception. I was prompt with my answer, however, for I saw where my

advantage lay; and that with a fellow so densely stupid I could easily

conceal my suspicions to the end.

"Some wine?" I said. "Far better. Will you have white or red?"

"Well, I reckon it's about the blessed same to me, shipmate," he

replied; "so it's strong and plenty of it, what's the odds?"

"All right," I answered. "I'll bring you port, Mr. Hands. But I'll have

to dig for it."

With that I scuttled down the companion with all the noise I could,

slipped off my shoes, ran quietly along the sparred gallery, mounted the

forecastle ladder and popped my head out of the fore companion. I knew

he would not expect to see me there; yet I took every precaution

possible; and certainly the worst of my suspicions proved too true.

He had risen from his position to his hands and knees; and though his

leg obviously hurt him pretty sharply when he moved--for I could hear

him stifle a groan--yet it was at a good, rattling rate that he trailed

himself across the deck. In half a minute he had reached the port

scuppers, and picked out a coil of rope, a long knife, or rather a

short dirk, discolored to the hilt with blood. He looked upon it for a

moment, thrusting forth his under jaw, tried the point upon his hand,

and then, hastily concealing it in the bosom of his jacket, trundled

back again into his old place against the bulwark.

That was all that I required to know. Israel could move about; he was

now armed; and if he had been at so much trouble to get rid of me, it

was plain that I was meant to be the victim. What he would do

afterward--whether he would try to crawl right across the island from

North Inlet to the camp among the swamps, or whether he would fire Long

Tom, trusting that his own comrades might come first to help him, was,

of course, more than I could say.

Yet I felt sure that I could trust him in one point, since in that our

interests jumped together, and that was in the disposition of the

schooner. We both desired to have her stranded safe enough, in a

sheltered place, and so that, when the time came, she could be got off

again with as little labor and danger as might be; and until that was

done I considered that my life would certainly be spared.

While I was thus turning the business over in my mind, I had not been

idle with my body. I had stolen back to the cabin, slipped once more

into my shoes, and laid my hand at random on a bottle of wine, and now,

with this for an excuse, I made my reappearance on the deck.

Hands lay as I had left him, all fallen together in a bundle, and with

his eyelids lowered, as though he were too weak to bear the light. He

looked up, however, at my coming, knocked the neck off the bottle, like

a man who had done the same thing often, and took a good swig, with his

favorite toast of "Here's luck!" Then he lay quiet for a little, and

then, pulling out a stick of tobacco, begged me to cut him a quid.

"Cut me a junk o' that," says he, "for I haven't no knife, and hardly

strength enough, so be as I had. Ah, Jim, Jim, I reckon I've missed

stays! Cut me a quid, as'll likely be the last, lad; for I'm for my long

home, and no mistake."

"Well," said I, "I'll cut you some tobacco; but if I was you and thought

myself so badly, I would go to my prayers, like a Christian man."

"Why?" said he. "Now, you tell me why."

"Why?" I cried. "You were asking me just now about the dead. You've

broken your trust; you've lived in sin and lies and blood; there's a man

you killed lying at your feet this moment; and you ask me why! For God's

mercy, Mr. Hands, that's why."

I spoke with a little heat, thinking of the bloody dirk he had hidden in

his pocket, and designed, in his ill thoughts, to end me with. He, for

his part, took a great draught of the wine, and spoke with the most

unusual solemnity.

"For thirty years," he said, "I've sailed the seas, and seen good and

bad, better and worse, fair weather and foul, provisions running out,

knives going, and what not. Well, now I tell you, I never seen good come

o' goodness yet. Him as strikes first is my fancy; dead men don't bite;

them's my views--amen, so be it. And now, you look here," he added,

suddenly changing his tone, "we've had about enough of this foolery. The

tide's made good enough by now. You just take my orders, Cap'n Hawkins,

and we'll sail slap in and be done with it."

All told, we had scarce two miles to run; but the navigation was

delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow

and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely

handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am

very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot; for we went about and

about, and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness

that was a pleasure to behold.

Scarcely had we passed the heads before the land closed around us. The

shores of North Inlet were as thickly wooded as those of the southern

anchorage; but the space was longer and narrower, and more like, what in

truth it was, the estuary of a river.

Right before us, at the southern end, we saw the wreck of a ship in the

last stages of dilapidation. It had been a great vessel of three masts,

but had lain so long exposed to the injuries of the weather that it was

hung about with great webs of dripping seaweed, and on the deck of it

shore bushes had taken root, and now flourished thick with flowers. It

was a sad sight, but it showed us that the anchorage was calm.

"Now," said Hands, "look there; there's a pet bit for to beach a ship

in. Fine flat sand, never a catspaw, trees all around of it, and flowers

a-blowing like a garding on that old ship."

"And once beached," I inquired, "how shall we get her off again?"

"Why, so," he replied: "you take a line ashore there on the other side

at low water; take a turn about one o' them big pines; bring it back,

take a turn round the capstan, and lie-to for the tide. Come high water,

all hands take a pull upon the line, and off she comes as sweet as

natur'. And now, boy, you stand by. We're near the bit now, and she's

too much way on her. Starboard a little--so--steady--starboard--larboard

a little--steady--steady!"

So he issued his commands, which I breathlessly obeyed; till, all of a

sudden, he cried: "Now, my hearty, luff!" And I put the helm hard up,

and the _Hispaniola_ swung round rapidly, and ran stem on for the low

wooded shore.

The excitement of these last maneuvers had somewhat interfered with the

watch I had kept hitherto, sharply enough, upon the coxswain. Even then

I was still so much interested, waiting for the ship to touch, that I

had quite forgot the peril that hung over my head, and stood craning

over the starboard bulwarks and watching the ripples spreading wide

before the bows. I might have fallen without a struggle for my life, had

not a sudden disquietude seized upon me, and made me turn my head.

Perhaps I had heard a creak, or seen his shadow moving with the tail of

my eye; perhaps it was an instinct like a cat's; but, sure enough, when

I looked round, there was Hands, already halfway toward me, with the

dirk in his right hand.

We must both have cried out aloud when our eyes met; but while mine was

the shrill cry of terror, his was a roar of fury like a charging

bull's. At the same instant he threw himself forward, and I leaped

sideways toward the bows. As I did so I let go of the tiller, which

sprang sharp to leeward; and I think this saved my life, for it struck

Hands across the chest and stopped him, for the moment, dead.

Before he could recover, I was safe out of the corner where he had me

trapped, with all the deck to dodge about. Just forward of the mainmast

I stopped, drew a pistol from my pocket, took a cool aim, though he had

already turned and was once more coming directly after me, and drew the

trigger. The hammer fell, but there followed neither flash nor sound;

the priming was useless with sea-water. I cursed myself for my neglect.

Why had not I, long before, reprimed and reloaded my only weapons? Then

I should not have been as now, a mere fleeing sheep before this butcher.

Wounded as he was, it was wonderful how fast he could move, his grizzled

hair tumbling over his face, and his face itself as red as a red ensign

with his haste and fury. I had no time to try my other pistol, nor,

indeed, much inclination, for I was sure it would be useless. One thing

I saw plainly: I must not simply retreat before him, or he would

speedily hold me boxed into the bows, as a moment since he had so nearly

boxed me in the stern. Once so caught, and nine or ten inches of the

bloodstained dirk would be my last experience on this side of eternity.

I placed my palms against the mainmast, which was of a goodish bigness,

and waited, every nerve upon the stretch.

Seeing that I meant to dodge, he also paused; and a moment or two passed

in feints on his part, and corresponding movements upon mine. It was

such a game as I had often played at home about the rocks of Black Hill

Cove; but never before, you may be sure, with such a wildly beating

heart as now. Still, as I say, it was a boy's game, and I thought I

could hold my own at it, against an elderly seaman with a wounded thigh.

Indeed, my courage had begun to rise so high that I allowed myself a few

darting thoughts on what would be the end of the affair; and while I saw

certainly that I could spin it out for long, I saw no hope of any

ultimate escape.

Well, while things stood thus, suddenly the _Hispaniola_ struck,

staggered, ground for an instant in the sand, and then, swift as a blow,

canted over to the port side, till the deck stood at an angle of

forty-five degrees, and about a puncheon of water splashed into the

scupperholes, and lay in a pool between the deck and bulwark.

We were both of us capsized in a second, and both of us rolled, almost

together, into the scuppers; the dead red-cap, with his arms still

spread out, tumbled stiffly after us. So near were we, indeed, that my

head came against the coxswain's foot with a crack that made my teeth

rattle. Blow and all, I was the first afoot again; for Hands had got

involved with the dead body. The sudden canting of the ship had made the

deck no place for running on; I had to find some new way of escape, and

that upon the instant, for my foe was almost touching me. Quick as

thought I sprang into the mizzen shrouds, rattled up hand over hand, and

did not draw a breath till I was seated on the crosstrees.

I had been saved by being prompt; the dirk had struck not half a foot

below me, as I pursued my upward flight; and there stood Israel Hands

with his mouth open and his face upturned to mine, a perfect statue of

surprise and disappointment.

Now that I had a moment to myself, I lost no time in changing the

priming of my pistol, and then, having one ready for service, and to

make assurance doubly sure, I proceeded to draw the load of the other,

and recharge it afresh from the beginning.

My new employment struck Hands all of a heap; he began to see the dice

going against him; and after an obvious hesitation, he also hauled

himself heavily into the shrouds, and, with the dirk in his teeth, began

slowly and painfully to mount. It cost him no end of time and groans to

haul his wounded leg behind him; and I had quietly finished my

arrangements before he was much more than a third of the way up. Then,

with a pistol in either hand, I addressed him.

"One more step, Mr. Hands," said I, "and I'll blow your brains out! Dead

men don't bite, you know," I added, with a chuckle.

He stopped instantly. I could see by the working of his face that he was

trying to think, and the process was so slow and laborious that, in my

new-found security, I laughed aloud. Then with a swallow or two, he

spoke, his face still wearing the same expression of extreme perplexity.

In order to speak he had to take the dagger from his mouth, but, in all

else, he remained unmoved.

"Jim," says he, "I reckon we're fouled, you and me, and we'll have to

sign articles. I'd have had you but for that there lurch: but I don't

have no luck, not I; and I reckon I'll have to strike, which comes hard,

you see, for a master mariner to a ship's younker like you, Jim."

I was drinking in his words and smiling away, as conceited as a cock

upon a wall, when, all in a breath back went his right hand over his

shoulder. Something sang like an arrow through the air; I felt a blow

and then a sharp pang, and there I was pinned by the shoulder to the

mast. In the horrid pain and surprise of the moment--I scarce can say it

was by my own volition, and I am sure it was without a conscious

aim--both my pistols went off, and both escaped out of my hands. They

did not fall alone; with a choked cry, the coxswain loosed his grasp

upon the shrouds, and plunged head first into the water.

Stevenson was not one of the men who can write only one sort of

thing. The numerous little poems contained in the first volume of

this series show his sympathetic knowledge of children, while his

essays prove that he could handle serious subjects in a most

masterly manner. The extract from _Treasure Island_ which you have

just been reading displays his skill in still another field--the

writing of stories of pure adventure.

One of the striking things in all Stevenson's writings is his power

of vivid description, his ability to make us see things. Nor does

he make us wait while he gives us page-long descriptions; he

suggests pictures to us with a few words. It may be safely said of

descriptions, when they are part of a story, that those which are

given in the fewest words, if those few words are the right ones,

are most effective. Stevenson fully grasped this fact, and that is

the reason he is able to bring all his scenes before us so vividly,

without wearying our patience.

FOOTNOTES:

[352-1] From _Treasure Island_.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER[381-1]

_By_ GRACE E. SELLON

Near the town of Haverhill, Massachusetts, in the old homestead of his

father's family, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier was born December 17,

1807. Like all the other children who generation after generation had

come to live in this Quaker dwelling, he was brought up in simple,

useful ways, and was early given his full share of the duties about the

farm. No matter how sharply the cold of the harsh New England winter

pierced his homespun clothes, the snow must be shoveled from the paths,

firewood must be brought, the stalls in the barn must be littered, and,

worst task of all for him, seven cows must be milked. Yet there was

plenty of fun to be had, too. When the snow fell so heavily that it

blocked all the roads and closed in tightly about the house, the two

Whittier boys found it exciting work to dig their way to the outside

world.

When the early twilight fell and passed into night, the boys with their

sisters joined the group gathered about the great hearth, and there

listened to stories of Indians, witches and Christian martyrs, and to

many another weird or adventurous tale told by the older members of the

family. While they were being thus entertained, the blaze of the red

logs went roaring up the chimney,

"The house-dog on his paws outspread

Laid to the fire his drowsy head,

The cat's dark silhouette on the wall

A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;

And, for the winter fireside meet,

Between the andirons' straddling feet,

The mug of cider simmered slow,

The apples sputtered in a row,

And, close at hand, the basket stood

With nuts from brown October's wood."

All too soon this pleasant time came to an end, and the boys must go to

their bare, unheated room upstairs. There, the poet has written,

"Within our beds awhile we heard

The wind that round the gables roared,

With now and then a ruder shock,

Which made our very bedsteads rock.

We heard the loosened clapboards tost,

The board-nails snapping in the frost;

And on us, through the unplastered wall,

Felt the lightsifted snowflakes fall;

But sleep stole on, as sleep will do

When hearts are light and life is new;

Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,

Till in the summer-land of dreams

They softened to the sound of streams.

Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,

And lapsing waves on quiet shores."

In the warm season, though there was much to do in helping plant and

harvest the crops, there were good times to be had in climbing to the

top of Job's hill, next to the house, where the friendly oxen were

pastured, or in gathering berries or nuts, or in watching the birds,

bees and squirrels as they worked or played about their homes. It was

these delights of his childhood that the poet was calling to

remembrance when he wrote _The Barefoot Boy_, which may be found

elsewhere in these volumes.

[Illustration: WHITTIER'S BIRTHPLACE]

Probably there are few country lads to-day who know so little as did the

Whittier boys of the common sights and pleasures of city life. The

strict Quaker belief regarding children's amusement barred them from

most of the enjoyment familiar to the young people in the great world

that lay beyond their home. So little were they acquainted with the

forbidden attractions at the circus that one time when President Monroe

visited Haverhill, Greenleaf (as the poet was known in his home),

looking next day for traces of the presence of the great man, whom he

had not been allowed to see, came upon the tracks of an elephant that

had been in town with a traveling menagerie, and in his ignorance

believed that these were the footsteps of the famous visitor. The

theater, so the children were taught, was to be shunned as a place of

wickedness. Once when Greenleaf was visiting in Boston he was asked to

go to a play by a lady whom he met in the home where he was staying.

When he found that the lady was an actress, he became so much afraid of

being led into sinful ways that, not daring to remain longer, he started

off at once for home.

Though young Whittier was a wide-awake boy and eager to learn, there was

only the district school, held for a few weeks each winter, for him to

attend. Yet an opportunity was not lacking for bringing to light his

poetic gift. One of his schoolmasters, who lived for part of the term in

the Whittier home, used to read to the family from various interesting

books, and one night chose for their entertainment a volume of Burns's

poems. As the lines of the much-loved Scotch poet fell from the reader's

lips, the young boy listened as he had never before listened in his

life. His own power awakened and responded warmly to that of the older

poet. From that hour, whether he was at home or at school, he found

great pleasure in writing verses, which he often showed to his young

friends. Thus it was that his older sister Mary was able, all unknown to

him, to send off one of his poems to the Newburyport _Free Press_. When

the paper containing the verses came, the young poet read the lines over

and over again, almost too dazed to recognize them as his own. This

contribution was followed by another made to the same paper. By this

time the editor's interest had been so much aroused that, learning from

the postman of the author's whereabouts, he traveled to Haverhill to

visit him. This editor was no other than William Lloyd Garrison, who

later became famous as a leader of the cause of abolition. He urged

strongly that the boy's education be continued. Perhaps his words would

have counted for nothing, however, had it not been that somewhat later

the editor of the Haverhill _Gazette_, in which some of young Whittier's

verses had been published, entreated the boy's parents to send him to

the new Haverhill Academy. His father's consent having been gained,

Greenleaf learned from a man who worked on the farm how to make

slippers, and thus he became able to pay his own expenses during a term

at the Academy. By teaching school in the winter, and by helping to keep

the books of a Haverhill merchant, he was able to provide for a second

term. Thus was completed his regular schooling.

In the meanwhile his friend Garrison had kept an eye on him, and at the

close of 1825 secured for him the editorship of _The American

Manufacturer_, a weekly magazine published in Boston. Young Whittier

entered with great interest into the work, contributing articles on

politics and temperance as well as numerous poems. Though he received

only nine dollars a week, he was able, when called back to Haverhill in

1829, by his father's illness, to give about one half of what he had

earned to help remove the mortgage on the farm.

He remained at home until his father's death in 1830, editing for a time

the Haverhill _Gazette_ and sending to the _New England Review_, of

Hartford, Connecticut, various poems and articles. So much favor did

these find with the editor, George D. Prentice, that he invited the

young writer to fill his position during a temporary absence. The offer

was highly complimentary, for the _Review_ was the principal political

journal in Connecticut supporting Henry Clay. However, Whittier was well

prepared for the work, for he had become acquainted with the leaders and

with the chief interests of the Whig party while editing the

_Manufacturer_, and was himself an enthusiastic follower of Clay. His

common sense and shrewd but kindly reading of human nature, united with

a high sense of honor and justice, enabled him to fill this responsible

position with marked success until his failing health forced him to give

it up in January, 1832.

There was much reason for Whittier to look for success in political

life, for his editorial work had made him widely known as a man of sane

and practical views, and he was so highly regarded in the district where

he lived that had he reached the required age of twenty-five, he would

in all probability have been made a candidate for Congress in 1832. Thus

it was that although he had published more than a hundred favorably

received poems between 1828 and 1832, he wrote in the latter year: "My

prospects are too good to be sacrificed for any uncertainty. I have done

with poetry and literature."

A far nobler mission, however, and greater usefulness than he could have

planned for himself lay before Whittier. It was not political success

that was to draw forth the greatness of his nature. The strong and

fearless interest with which his friend Garrison had begun to champion

the abolition of slavery in the United States appealed to him, he felt

with all his heart that the cause was right, and, closing his eyes to

the bright promise of political success, he chose to unite himself with

the scorned and mistreated upholders of freedom. After thorough

consideration and study, he wrote and published in 1833 the pamphlet

_Justice and Expediency_, in which he set forth fully the arguments

against slavery. This was the first of his strong and stirring protests

against oppression. From that time until the close of the Civil War his

fervent, fearless love of liberty voiced itself through ringing verses,

in constant appeals to the conscience of the nation. The greatness of

this influence, as it worked silently in men's hearts, who can estimate?

[Illustration: JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

1807-1892]

Whittier's part in the anti-slavery struggle was not always a quiet one.

On one occasion, when in company with a famous but unpopular English

reformer he was to address an audience on the subject of abolition, he

was attacked by a mob while passing quietly along the street with a

friend, and narrowly escaped being tarred and feathered. Somewhat later

he was set upon in another town by a crowd armed with sticks and stones

and other missiles, from which he fled with more haste than dignity. It

was while he was editor of the _Freeman_ that Pennsylvania Hall, where

the Philadelphia Abolitionists held their meetings, was burned by a mob,

and the papers from Whittier's editorial room in this building were used

to help start the blaze.

In 1836 the farm at Haverhill had been sold, and a cottage was bought in

Amesbury near the Quaker meetinghouse. It was in this quiet place, under

the loving care of his mother and sister, that Whittier made his home

after resigning his position with the _Freeman_. These two women were in

their way as unselfishly devoted to the cause of freedom as was the poet

himself, for they encouraged his loyalty and bore privation

uncomplainingly. In the darkest hour of their need, when it seemed as if

their home must be mortgaged, Whittier was invited to become a

contributor to the _Atlantic Monthly_, then being founded, and thus the

long period of want was brought to an end.

After the death of his mother, in the following year (1858), Whittier's

association with his sister Elizabeth became even closer than before,

though they had always shared each other's hopes and interests with

unusual sympathy and understanding. When she died, in 1864, it seemed to

him that part of his life had gone with her. It was with this grief

still fresh in his mind that he wrote the best known of his poems,

_Snow-Bound, A Winter Idyl_, in which he pictures in the most simple and

lifelike manner the quiet loveliness of his childhood home. With

especial tenderness he tells of the much-loved sister, and lets his

mingled grief and hope of reunion be seen:

"As one who held herself a part

Of all she saw, and let her heart

Against the household bosom lean,

Upon the motley-braided mat

Our youngest and our dearest sat,

Lifting her large, sweet, asking eyes,

Now bathed within the fadeless green

And holy peace of Paradise.

Oh, looking from some heavenly hill,

Or from the shade of saintly palms,

Or silver reach of river calms,

Do those large eyes behold me still?

With me one little year ago:--

The chill weight of the winter snow

For months upon her grave has lain;

And now, when summer south-winds blow,

And brier and harebell bloom again,

I tread the pleasant paths we trod,

I see the violet-sprinkled sod,

Whereon she leaned, too frail and weak,

The hillside flowers she loved to seek,

Yet following me where'er I went

With dark eyes full of love's content.

The birds are glad; the brier-rose fills

The air with sweetness; all the hills

Stretch green to June's unclouded sky;

But still I wait with ear and eye

For something gone which should be nigh,

A loss in all familiar things,

In flower that blooms, and bird that sings.

And yet, dear heart! remembering thee,

Am I not richer than of old?

Safe in thy immortality,

What change can reach the wealth I hold?

What chance can mar the pearl and gold

Thy love hath left in trust with me?

And while in life's late afternoon

Where cool and long the shadows grow,

I walk to meet the night that soon

Shall shape and shadow overflow,

I cannot feel that thou art far,

Since near at need the angels are;

And when the sunset gates unbar,

Shall I not see thee waiting stand,

And, white against the evening star,

The welcome of thy beckoning hand?"

After the death of Elizabeth Whittier, the Amesbury home was cared for

by the poet's niece. During the remaining years of his life Whittier

passed his time here or in the country. He lived in comparative comfort,

for the publication of _Snow-Bound_ in 1866 had brought very good

returns. These were years of great peace, in which he remained actively

interested in the affairs of the nation, yet liked most to dwell upon

the beauty of nature and especially upon the thought of God's goodness

that must triumph over all the evil in the world. _Among the Hills_ and

the collections _Tent on the Beach_ and _At Sundown_ were produced in

the last period; but his religious poems seem best to represent his

thought and feeling in the closing years. From these were taken the

beautiful verses _At Last_, read as the poet passed away from earth,

September 7, 1892.

Though Whittier remained throughout his life a Quaker not only in dress

and speech but in belief and character, yet with his quietness and

quaint simplicity was blended no severity nor gloom. He had a great love

of fun, which alone can account for his mischievous habit of teasing,

and for his keeping such pets as the little bantam rooster that aroused

the household each morning with its crowing, and the parrot "Charlie"

that swore when excited, stopped the horses in the street with its cries

of "whoa," and nipped the ankles of unwary visitors. Then, too, he was

always attractive to children, and often preferred their society to that

of older people. But above all else, with each succeeding year he became

more just and compassionate towards others. The kindliness of his nature

was untouched by the sorrow and sickness that he bore. "Love--love to

all the world," he would often repeat in his last years, and the sweet

influence of the benediction is felt by all who read his life and works:

"Best loved and saintliest of our singing train,

Earth's noblest tributes to thy name belong.

A lifelong record closed without a stain,

A blameless memory shrined in deathless song."[390-2]

FOOTNOTES:

[381-1] The poetical quotations given in this article are from

_Snow-Bound_.

[390-2] From an ode written by Oliver Wendell Holmes upon the death of

Whittier.

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

Plain indeed was the little home among the hills of Western

Massachusetts, near the town of Cummington, where was born on November

3, 1794, the first great American poet, William Cullen Bryant. His

father was a physician of scholarly tastes, and his mother, though not

highly educated, was a woman of much practical wisdom. Both parents were

kind and affectionate, but followed the custom of that time in treating

their children with a strictness unknown to American boys and girls of

to-day. Even small acts of disrespect or disobedience were promptly

punished, and to aid in the work of correction the Bryant home as well

as that of almost every neighbor was provided with a good-sized bundle

of birch sticks hanging warningly on the kitchen wall. As the poet

himself tells us in a sketch of his early life, the children looked upon

the older people of the family with so much awe that they could not go

to them freely nor act naturally in their presence.

This severity in his home must have made young Bryant, who was by nature

grave and thoughtful, even more serious. Then, too, his mental powers

developed with surprising quickness, so that by the time he had reached

his teens, he was thinking and expressing himself upon subjects usually

discussed by men rather than boys. Having begun to write verses when

only nine years old, he had had enough practice in this kind of exercise

to compose when thirteen years of age a satirical poem addressed to

President Jefferson, because of his part in passing the Embargo Act by

which New England commerce had been greatly injured. These verses were

published and met with a ready sale. But far more remarkable as an early

expression of genius was _Thanatopsis_, written several months before

Bryant's eighteenth birthday. This poem deals with the subject of death

with such deep thoughtfulness and in such a stately and powerful style

that although it did not appear until six years later, it was even then

believed to have been written by the poet's father, who had sent it to

the publisher.

Though he was thoughtful beyond his years and had shown unusual poetic

power, young Bryant was in other ways quite an ordinary boy. He was

quiet and studious in the school room, but was active enough in the

games played outside. Of the sports enjoyed by himself and the other

boys of the district school, he writes: "We amused ourselves with

building dams across the rivulet, and launching rafts made of old boards

on the collected water; and in winter, with sliding on the ice and

building snow barricades, which we called forts, and, dividing the boys

into two armies, and using snowballs for ammunition, we contended for

the possession of these strongholds. I was one of their swiftest runners

in the race, and not inexpert at playing ball, but, being of a slight

frame, I did not distinguish myself in these sieges." Sometimes, on long

evenings, Cullen and his elder brother Austin would play that they were

the heroes of whom they had read in the _Iliad_, and, fitted out with

swords and spears and homemade armor, they would enact in the barn the

great battles of the Trojan War.

[Illustration: WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

1794-1878]

Not only the _Iliad_, but other carefully chosen works of literature

were discovered by the boy in his father's library, and he read widely

and well. It proved that this reading had to take the place of a much

hoped-for course at college. After attending Williams College for only

two terms, he left there, expecting to enter Yale, but was forced to

give up his plan, owing to his father's inability to supply him with the

necessary means. He did not let this great disappointment overcome him,

however, but a few months later began the study of law, with the result

that in 1815 he was admitted to the bar.

It is a fact well worth noting that at the very beginning of his career

as a lawyer, on the day when he was walking from his home to the little

village where he was to start his practice, having learned, in his doubt

and loneliness, a great lesson in faith, he wrote the beautiful poem

that shows his genius at its best, and probably more than any other made

him famous, the ode _To a Waterfowl_.

When a little boy, he had prayed, in his simple way, that he might be a

great poet, and though he had outgrown the prayer, his desire was

unchanged. More than this, he had now produced two works that

undoubtedly showed genius. It is not surprising, then, that in a few

years a literary career was opened to him and he was able to give up the

law, for which he had no especial liking.

In 1825, after his marriage to a Miss Fairchild of Great Barrington, he

removed from that town to New York. There he became editor of the _New

York Review_ and _Athenaeum Magazine_; and a year later he accepted the

position of assistant editor of the _Evening Post_, a newspaper with

which he remained for the rest of his life, assuming in 1829 the office

of editor-in-chief. Though his contributions to this paper were not a

poet's work, they enabled him to unite his literary power with his deep

interest in the political concerns of the country, and for many years to

help direct public opinion during the most critical periods in the

history of the new nation. More than this, while steadily provided with

a good income he could spend his leisure hours among the quiet country

scenes where he found inspiration for his greatest works, his simple

nature poems.

The busy years of his life as a journalist were several times

interrupted by travel. Besides visiting Mexico, Cuba and various parts

of the United States, he made six voyages to Europe, and on the fourth

extended the journey to Egypt and the Holy Land. His _Letters of a

Traveller_ and _Letters from the East_ tell of the impressions he

received in these countries.

Besides translating the _Iliad_ and the _Odyssey_ and writing the two

fairy stories in verse, _Sella_ and _The Little People of the Snow_,

Bryant undertook no poetic work of any length. The poems for which his

name is most honored are the little lyrics in which the calm and beauty

of nature tell us of truths that never change. Among these, some that

are best liked by readers both young and old are _The Yellow Violet_,

_The Fringed Gentian_, _A Forest Hymn_, _The Planting of the Apple

Tree_, _Robert of Lincoln_, _The Gladness of Nature_, _March_ and _To a

Waterfowl_.

These poems, when studied, are sure to reveal the simplicity and

sincerity not only of Bryant's love for nature, but of his character as

a man. They show the freedom from affectation that marks alike his

writings and his everyday life. He followed almost sternly his high

ideals both of moral right and literary correctness, and this has made

him seem somewhat cold and formal. But probably all who can read most

clearly the meaning of his life and works feel that so true-hearted a

man could not have been lacking in warm and generous kindliness.

TO A WATERFOWL

_By_ WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

NOTE.--"He says in a letter that he felt, as he walked up the

hills, very forlorn and desolate indeed, not knowing what was to

become of him in the big world, which grew bigger as he ascended,

and yet darker with the coming on of night. The sun had already

set, leaving behind it one of those brilliant seas of chrysolite

and opal which often flood the New England skies; and, while he was

looking upon the rosy splendor with rapt admiration, a solitary

bird made wing along the illuminated horizon. He watched the lone

wanderer until it was lost in the distance, asking himself whence

it had come and to what far home it was flying. When he went to the

house where he was to stop for the night, his mind was still full

of what he had seen and felt, and he wrote these lines, as

imperishable as our language, _To a Waterfowl_."--Parke Godwin, in

Biography of Bryant.

[Illustration: THY FIGURE FLOATS ALONG]

Whither, 'midst falling dew,

While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,

Far through their rosy depths dost thou pursue

Thy solitary way?

Vainly the fowler's eye

Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,

As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,

Thy figure floats along.

Seek'st thou the plashy brink

Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,

Or where the rocking billows rise and sink

On the chafed ocean side?

There is a Power whose care

Teaches thy way along that pathless coast--

The desert and illimitable air--

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned,

At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end;

Soon shalt thou find a summer home and rest,

And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend,

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven

Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone,

Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread alone,

Will lead my steps aright.

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

_By_ GRACE E. SELLON

Besides giving to the United States her great president, Abraham

Lincoln, the year 1809 also bestowed upon us one of the most gifted and

warmly esteemed of American authors, Oliver Wendell Holmes. It was in a

pleasant home in Cambridge, not far from the great university in which

he was to serve ably for so many years, that Holmes was born. His mother

was a bright and sociable little woman, well liked for her lively ways

and quick sympathy, and his father, though a grave and scholarly man,

was of a kindly nature. Both parents were descended from families that

were looked upon as among the best in New England, and this became a

matter of no little pride to their son.

The old colonial house where his boyhood and youth were spent contained

a well-chosen library. Here, he has written, "he bumped about among

books from the time when he was hardly taller than one of his father's

or grandfather's folios." Yet he did not read many of these volumes

thoroughly. He liked to "read _in_ books rather than _through_ them" and

would hunt out a paragraph here and there that especially pleased and

satisfied him. The collections of sermons were always passed by, the

lives of pious children met with the same neglect, and even _The

Pilgrim's Progress_ seemed to picture the world as such a cruel,

gloomy place that this great book too was shunned.

[Illustration: OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

1809-1894]

The truth was that, being a lively and cheerful boy, he rebelled against

the dark and fear-awakening religion preached by his father, a

Congregational minister, discussed by visiting pastors and taught in

many of the books that he avoided in the library. He seemed to know by

instinct which of the clergymen who called at his father's home were

kindly and friendly, and which of them looked on children as "a set of

little fallen wretches," and for the forlorn looks and solemn ways of

the latter he had an especial dislike. "Now and then," he has written,

"would come along a clerical visitor with a sad face and a wailing

voice, which sounded exactly as if somebody must be lying dead upstairs,

who took no interest in us children, except a painful one, as being in a

bad way with our cheery looks, and did more to unchristianize us with

his woebegone ways than all his sermons were like to accomplish in the

other direction." In fact, he might have pleased his father by becoming

a minister if a certain preacher that he knew had not, to use his own

words, "looked and talked so like an undertaker."

But the dreary sermons, the visits of the long-faced clergymen and the

drill in the Catechism were only shadows that came and went. Most of the

time young Holmes was as light-hearted a boy as was to be found in all

New England. He liked best of all to go hunting, carrying on such trips

an old gun of the kind used in the Revolution. A good many of his hours

at home were spent in working with tools, and thus he became skilful

enough to carve out of wood a skate on which he learned to travel about

on the ice. He was active and industrious at school, too, and he made

such a good record there that though he whispered a great part of the

time he got along peaceably with the school-master. The only serious

troubles that he had came from two great fears. Many times after he had

gone to bed at night he would be awakened by ghosts or evil spirits

mysteriously roaming through the house. Perhaps he was ashamed to tell

of this dread to his mother or father, and so the foolish belief that

there might be ghosts about stayed with him through boyhood. His other

fear was of the doctor's visits. In helpless terror he would look on

while the old physician pronounced his doom and began to measure out the

bitter medicine.

In his fifteenth year Holmes left the school at Cambridgeport to attend

Phillips Academy, at Andover, and in the following year, 1825, entered

Harvard College. During his four years at Harvard he took quite as

active an interest in the social life of the college as in his classes.

He joined the society known as the Knights of the Square Table, and at

the lively meetings of the club, where wine and wit passed freely about

the table, he was introduced to a kind of gayety undreamed of in his

quiet home. In a humorous description of himself, given at this time in

a letter to a former classmate at Andover, he writes:

"I, then, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Junior in Harvard University, am a

plumeless biped of the height of exactly five feet three inches when

standing in a pair of substantial boots made by Mr. Russell of this

town, having eyes which I call blue, and hair which I do not know what

to call.... Secondly, with regard to my normal qualities, I am rather

lazy than otherwise, and certainly do not study as hard as I ought to. I

am not dissipated and I am not sedate, and when I last ascertained my

college rank, I stood in the humble situation of seventeenth scholar."

After graduating from Harvard, Holmes entered the Dane Law School at

Cambridge. He did not feel at all sure, however, that he wished to be a

lawyer, and at the end of a year he had so far lost interest in his

studies that he gave them up. As the physician's calling seemed much

more to his liking, he took two courses of study in a private school of

medicine. This preparation was not, of course, sufficient to fit him for

a larger practice, so a trip to Europe where he could study under the

great professors of the School of Medicine at Paris became necessary.

Accordingly, his parents, at some sacrifice to themselves, provided him

with the required means, and he set sail from New York in the spring of

1833.

During the two years spent abroad, Holmes gave himself up wholly to his

chosen study. "I am more and more attached every day to the study of my

profession.... I am occupied from morning to night, and as every one is

happy when he is occupied, I enjoy myself as much as I could wish," he

wrote home. This period of hard work, however, was interrupted by summer

vacations spent in the countries along the Rhine, in England and in

Italy.

Early in 1836, the young physician established himself in Boston.

Perhaps it was that people thought him too much of a wit to take their

troubles seriously, or perhaps it was that he was better fitted to

teach than to practice the doctor's art. At any rate, his success was

very moderate. He was very glad, then, to be appointed Professor of

Anatomy at Dartmouth College in 1838, a position that he held until

1840. About this time, too, he received prizes for some _Medical Essays_

that are even to-day regarded as valuable. Thus he was gradually fitting

himself for the honorable office offered him in 1847, that of Professor

of Anatomy and Physiology in the Medical School of Harvard University.

For thirty-five years Holmes filled this position with the greatest

success. He was given the fifth hour in the day as his lecture period

because he was the only one able to hold the attention of students who

had already been listening to four long and difficult lectures. He

enlivened the dry subject with funny stories, droll comparisons and

interesting descriptions, teaching while he entertained.

In 1840 the young doctor had married Amelia Lee Jackson, daughter of a

highly respected Boston family. His wife was of so gentle and tactful a

nature that their home was always a well-ordered and pleasant place of

rest for the busy doctor, where unwelcome visitors and other annoyances

were not allowed to take his time. Yet he was never too much occupied to

find pleasure in what interested his wife and his three children.

During all these years when the profession of medicine had been of chief

concern to him, and even before he had begun his medical studies, he had

occasionally written poems that won a good deal of praise from friends,

but brought no widespread notice. From his very earliest years he could

feel very keenly and remember the melody of verse. "The low, soft chirp

of the little bird heard in the nest, while his mother is brooding over

him," he has written, "lives in his memory, I doubt not, through all the

noisy carols of the singing season; so I remember the little songs my

mother sang to me when I was old enough to run about, and had not

outgrown the rhymes of the nursery." He enjoyed writing poems for the

yearly meetings held by his college class long after their graduation,

and he made several contributions to the Harvard _Collegian_. Just once

in these early years had his fame traveled far, and that was the

occasion when he wrote _Old Ironsides_. The frigate _Constitution_ that

had served the country so well was to be done away with as a useless

vessel. Learning of this, Holmes penned in haste the stanzas that

stirred the nation's feelings and saved the old boat from destruction.

It came, then, as a surprise to the American people, when upon the

founding of the _Atlantic Monthly_ in 1857, the name of Holmes was

signed to the articles that probably were most popular of all published

in that magazine, to which the greatest literary men in the country were

contributing. _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_, was the title of

the delightful series of humorous essays in which the author seemed

really to be talking to his readers. A sort of story bound the numbers

together. In the fourth issue appeared, perhaps, the best poem written

by Holmes--_The Chambered Nautilus_. This was a favorite with him and

was one of those poems of which he said: "I did not write it, but it was

written through me," for he believed it to be a work of inspiration.

_The Autocrat_, which is Holmes' greatest work, was followed by two

similar but inferior series, _The Professor at the Breakfast Table_ and

_The Poet at the Breakfast Table_. Between the last two series he had

published in 1861 his novel _Elsie Venner_, followed in 1867 by _The

Guardian Angel_, and in 1885 by _A Mortal Antipathy_. The first of these

novels is considerably the best, but none of them ranks high, for they

all deal with unusual people who because of weird inherited traits of

mind are forced to go through strange if not impossible experiences.

Still another kind of writing was attempted by Holmes. In 1878 he

completed a biography of his intimate friend, the historian Motley, and

in 1884 wrote a life of Emerson. These are not, however, among his best

productions. _Over the Teacups_, similar to the _Breakfast Table_

papers, appeared in 1890, and was his last important work.

In 1886, accompanied by his daughter, he spent four months in Europe,

chiefly in England. The warm welcome and high honor given him by the

English people were very gratifying to the aged professor. He was always

at his best when talking, and so brilliant and easy was his wit that had

not politeness forbidden he could have entertained a roomful of people

during a whole evening. This fact as well as his literary achievements

made him popular everywhere.

On the occasion when he received a degree of honor from Cambridge

University, the young collegemen greeted him by singing at the tops of

their voices a song of "Holmes, sweet Holmes;" and on a similar occasion

at Oxford one of the students, making good use of the title of a poem

especially known to Holmes' young readers, asked from the gallery

whether the Doctor had come in the "One-Hoss Shay." It is likely that

the worthy old gentleman was quite as pleased with this hearty good will

as with the more dignified tributes received during his memorable visit.

After 1890, Holmes wrote only occasionally. Yet he continued to take his

usual walks and to answer a part of his large correspondence, leaving

the rest to a secretary. Now and then he would go to a concert or to a

dinner among friends, and in other ways he showed himself remarkably

active. In fact, he had not become feeble in mind or body when death

quietly came to him, October 7th, 1894.

Though the brightness of his wit makes Holmes one of the most

entertaining of writers it is his deep kindness that gives to what he

has written an even greater power and attractiveness. More than all

else, he tried both in his writings and in his everyday living to drive

away the shadows of all kinds of suffering, and to share with others the

cheerfulness of his own genial nature.

"Long be it ere the table shall be set

For the last breakfast of the Autocrat,

And love repeat with smiles and tears thereat

His own sweet songs that time shall not forget."[405-1]

FOOTNOTES:

[405-1] Whittier's ode on the eightieth birthday of Holmes.

THE CUBES OF TRUTH

_By_ OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

Listen, Benjamin Franklin.[406-1] This is for you, and such others of

tender age as you may tell it to.

When we are as yet small children, long before the time when those two

grown ladies offer us the choice of Hercules,[406-2] there comes up to

us a youthful angel, holding in his right hand cubes like dice, and in

his left spheres like marbles. The cubes are of stainless ivory, and on

each is written in letters of gold--TRUTH. The spheres are veined and

streaked and spotted beneath, with a dark crimson flush above where the

light falls on them and in a certain aspect you can make out upon every

one of them the three letters, L, I, E.

The child to whom they are offered very probably clutches at both. The

spheres are the most convenient things in the world; they roll with the

least possible impulse just where the child would have them. The cubes

will not roll at all; they have a great talent for standing still, and

always keep right side up. But very soon the young philosopher finds

that things which roll so easily are very apt to roll into the wrong

corner, and to get out of his way when he most wants them, while he

always knows where to find the others, which stay where they are left.

Thus he learns--thus we learn--to drop the streaked and speckled globes

of falsehood, and to hold fast the white angular blocks of truth. But

then comes Timidity, and after her Good-nature, and last of all

Polite-behaviour, all insisting that truth must _roll_, or nobody can do

anything with it; and so the first with her coarse rasp, and the second

with her broad file, and the third with her silken sleeve, do so round

off and smooth and polish the snow-white cubes of truth, that, when they

have got a little dingy by use, it becomes hard to tell them from the

rolling spheres of falsehood.

The schoolmistress[407-3] was polite enough to say that she was pleased

with this, and that she would read it to her little flock the next day.

But she should tell the children, she said, that there were better

reasons for truth than could be found in mere experience of its

convenience, and the inconvenience of lying.

Yes--I said--but education always begins through the senses, and works up

to the idea of absolute right and wrong. The first thing the child has

to learn about this matter is, that lying is unprofitable--afterwards,

that it is against the peace and dignity of the universe.

1. What does the stainless ivory in the cubes indicate?

2. What is the meaning of the veins, streaks, and spots and the

dark crimson flush in the spheres?

3. Are the letters L, I, E, always visible? Does this mean that

lies are not always known to be lies to the person who tells them,

or that they may deceive the person to whom they are told?

4. Does Dr. Holmes mean to imply that it is natural for a little

child to lie when he says that the spheres are the most convenient

things in the world?

5. What does Dr. Holmes mean when he says that the spheres are apt

to roll into the wrong corner?

6. How does Timidity teach a child to lie? How does Good-nature

lead him to lie? What are some of the "polite lies" that help to

make the cubes roll?

7. Which cuts most deeply a substance upon which it is rubbed--a

rasp, a file, or a silken sleeve?

8. Which causes the most lies, Timidity, Good-nature or

Polite-behavior?

9. Do you think the schoolmistress is right? If so, what better

reasons are there for telling the truth than mere convenience and

the inconvenience of lying?

10. What do you understand by "against the peace and dignity of the

universe?"

11. Do you think the schoolmistress would agree with the Autocrat

in his last statement as to the way in which children are taught

the difference between right and wrong?

12. Do you think if a child is first taught that lying is

unprofitable he will without further assistance learn that lying is

wrong in itself?

13. Do you gain from the whole selection the idea that all lies,

even the polite lies of society and the common and apparently

harmless lies of business life, are always and wholly wrong?

FOOTNOTES:

[406-1] _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_ is the most famous and the

best of the prose works of Oliver Wendell Holmes. It consists of a

series of rambling talks on a great variety of subjects, addressed to

the people who sit at his table in a boarding house. Holmes himself is

the "Autocrat," and his sparkling talks are full of wit and wisdom.

Among those who regularly sit at the Autocrat's table is a schoolboy,

whom he calls Benjamin Franklin, and to whom he tells this beautiful

story of the Cubes of Truth.

[406-2] When the old Greek hero, Hercules, was a youth, and nearing

manhood, two women appeared to him, both offering beautiful gifts. One

of the women was Duty, the other Pleasure. Hercules chose to accept the

gifts of Duty and to follow her. The opportunity to make this choice did

not come till he was old enough to understand. In Holmes' beautiful

allegory the cubes and spheres are presented long before that time, even

in early childhood.

[407-3] The schoolmistress is one of the most lovable of the characters

introduced by Mr. Holmes into _The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_. At

first she appears only at intervals, but in the book her love story and

her marriage to the Autocrat afford the chief interest.

THE LOST CHILD

_By_ JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

I wandered down the sunny glade

And ever mused, my love, of thee;

My thoughts, like little children, played,

As gayly and as guilelessly.

[Illustration: DOWN THE SUNNY GLADE]

If any chanced to go astray,

Moaning in fear of coming harms,

Hope brought the wanderer back alway,

Safe nestled in her snowy arms.

From that soft nest the happy one

Looked up at me and calmly smiled;

Its hair shone golden in the sun,

And made it seem a heavenly child.

Dear Hope's blue eyes smiled mildly down.

And blest it with a love so deep,

That, like a nursling of her own,

It clasped her neck and fell asleep.

[Illustration]

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

_By_ GRACE E. SELLON

Down the street, about a mile from the center of Cambridge,

Massachusetts, stands a square, three-story colonial dwelling house,

sheltered by pines and great English elms and surrounded by flowering

shrubs. In this home, for many years known as Elmwood, the great

American poet and essayist was born February 22, 1819, and it was here

that he lived during the greater part of his life. In the woods and

meadows that lay about Elmwood in the poet's childhood he spent much

time, for he liked especially to be out-of-doors; and so it was that in

his earliest years he began to feel the great love for flowers, birds

and trees that made him able in later life to show to the readers of his

poems how much beauty there is in the very commonest things of nature.

However, all of the things he liked were not out-of-doors. In his

father's library were more than three thousand books, and he began when

only a small boy to choose for himself favorite authors. He seems to

have been unusually fond of books, for in a little note written when he

was eight years old,--his first letter, so far as any one knows,--he

tells his brother, "I read French stories," and adds in a postscript, "I

have got three books." The next year, in a letter to the same brother he

writes, "I have got quite a library."

After learning his letters and other simple things at an elementary

school, Lowell was sent when about nine years old to a higher school,

where he was thoroughly taught Latin, and otherwise prepared for his

entrance into Harvard College in 1834. He was then only fifteen years of

age, yet he had such decided tastes in his studies that he was not

always willing to give attention to the work required in his college

courses, but would follow his own inclinations in his reading. The

result was, that though he gained such a reputation among his

class-mates for appreciation of literature and ability in original

composition that he was made one of the editors of _Harvardiana_, the

college paper, and was chosen in his senior year to write the class

poem, yet he was looked upon with growing disapproval by his

instructors, because of his irregular ways. At length, it is told, he

completely disgraced himself, on the day he was chosen class poet, by

rising at the close of the evening prayer service and bowing solemnly to

right and left. As punishment for this and all preceding misconduct, he

was sent to Concord to continue his studies under a private teacher, and

was not allowed to return to Harvard until after classday. Nevertheless,

he wrote his poem and later had it printed, for his friends, in a little

pamphlet.

[Illustration: JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

1819-1891]

After receiving his degree from Harvard in 1838, Lowell decided upon the

law as the profession most suitable for him to follow, for at that time

a literary career in the United States held out no assurance of a

living, even to the best writers. In the preceding year he had written

to his intimate friend Shackford: "I thought your brother Charles was

studying law. I intend to study that myself, and probably shall be Chief

Justice of the United States." This modest prediction, however, was not

to be fulfilled, for after completing a course at the Harvard Law School

in 1840 and practicing with but slight interest and success for two

years, he gave up the law for a more congenial occupation.

His letters to his confidants "Shack" and Loring during the years at

college show his aspiration to become a poet. He reports from time to

time his progress in verse making and comments more or less favorably on

his "effusions." This writing of _pottery_--as it pleased him to call

it--continued with more serious interest after his graduation, so that

in 1840 he was ready to publish a volume of verse entitled "A Year's

Life."

The same year was marked by another event of special importance,--his

engagement to Maria White, a young woman who was herself a poet and who

was deeply interested in all the movements of thought that were making

toward freedom and justice before the Civil War. Her influence upon

Lowell was to strengthen greatly his confidence in his own best powers

as a man and a poet and to help develop in him the broad, kind

democratic feeling for his fellow-men that most endears him to his

readers. This growth of the poet's character seems the more remarkable

when it is considered that his father, a Unitarian minister, was a man

who, though most generous and well-meaning in his regard for others, was

well enough content with conditions in his country to feel little

sympathy with the reforms then being urged for securing fuller liberty

and equality. In his new enthusiasm Lowell turned away from the

influence of his younger days and became devoted to the cause of

abolition.