Produced by Annie McGuire
[Illustration: HARPERS
ROUND TABLE]
Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.
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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.
VOL. XVI.--NO. 811. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
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[Illustration]
HEROES OF AMERICA.
THE FIGHT AT HAMPTON ROADS.
BY THE HONORABLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
[Illustration: Decorative N]
aval battles of the civil war have an immense importance, because they
mark the line of cleavage between naval warfare under the old and naval
warfare under the new conditions. From the days of the defeat of the
Spanish Armada, for two centuries and a half, the fighting at sea was
carried on in ships of substantially the same character--wooden sailing
ships, carrying many guns mounted in broadside. Howard, Drake, Blake,
Tromp, De Ruyter, Nelson, and all the other great admirals, and all the
famous single-ship fighters--whose skill reached its highest expression
in our own navy during the war of 1812--commanded craft built and armed
in a substantially similar manner, and fought with the same weapons and
under much the same conditions.
But in the civil war weapons and methods were introduced which caused a
revolution greater even than that which divided the sailing ship from
the galley. The use of steam, the casing of ships in iron armor, and the
employment of the torpedo, the ram, and the gun of huge calibre,
produced such radically new types that the old ships of the line became
at one stroke as antiquated as the galleys of Hamilcar or Alcibiades.
All of these new engines of war were for the first time tried in actual
combat, and some of them were for the first time invented, during our
own civil war, and the first occasion on which any of the new methods
were thoroughly tested was attended by incidents which made it one of
the most striking of naval battles.
In the Chesapeake Bay, near Hampton Roads, the United States had
collected a fleet of wooden ships; some of them old-style sailing
vessels, others steamers. The Confederates were known to be building a
great iron-clad ram, and the wooden vessels were eagerly watching for
her appearance when she should come out of Gosport Harbor. Her powers
and capacity were utterly unknown. She was made out of the former United
States steam-frigate _Merrimac_, cut down so as to make her fore and aft
decks nearly flat and not much above the water, while the guns were
mounted in a covered central battery with sloping flanks. Her sides and
deck were coated with iron, and she was armed with formidable rifle
guns, and, most important of all, with a steel ram thrust out under
water forward from her bow. She was commanded by a very gallant and
efficient officer, Captain Tattnall.
It was March 8, 1862, when the ram at last made her appearance within
sight of the Union fleet. The day was calm and very clear, so that the
throngs of spectators on shore could see every feature of the battle.
With the great ram came three light gunboats, all of which took part in
the action, harassing the vessels which she assailed; but they were not
factors of importance in the fight. On the Union side the vessels
nearest were the sailing ships _Cumberland_ and _Congress_, and the
steam-frigate _Minnesota_. The _Congress_ and _Cumberland_ were anchored
not far from each other; the _Minnesota_ got aground, and was some
distance off. Owing to the currents and shoals and the lack of wind no
other vessel was able to get up in time to take part in the fight.
As soon as the great ram appeared out of the harbor she turned and
steamed steadily toward the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_, the black
smoke rising from her funnels, and the great ripples running from each
side of her iron prow as she drove steadily through the still waters. On
board of the _Congress_ and _Cumberland_ there was eager anticipation,
but not a particle of fear. The officers in command, Captain Smith and
Lieutenant Morris, were two of the most gallant men in a service where
gallantry has always been too common to need special comment. The crews
were composed of veterans, well trained, self-confident, and proud
beyond measure of the flag whose honor they upheld. The guns were run
out, and the men stood at quarters, while the officers eagerly conned
the approaching ironclad.
The _Congress_ was the first to open fire; and as her volleys flew, the
men on the _Cumberland_ were astounded to see the cannon-shot bound oft
the sloping sides of the ram as haildrops bound from a window-pane. The
ram answered, and her rifle shells tore the sides of the _Congress_; but
for her first victim she aimed at the _Cumberland_, and, firing her bow
guns, came straight as an arrow at the little sloop of war, which lay
broadside to her. It was an absolutely hopeless struggle. The
_Cumberland_ was a sailing ship, at anchor, with wooden sides, and a
battery of light guns. Against the formidable steam ironclad, with her
heavy rifles and steel ram, she was as powerless as if she had been a
row-boat; and from the moment when the men saw the cannon-shot bound
from the ram's sloping sides they knew they were doomed. But none of
them flinched. Once and again they fired their guns full against the
approaching ram, and in response received a few shells from the great
bow rifles of the latter. Then, forging ahead, the _Merrimac_ struck her
antagonist with her steel prow, and the sloop of war reeled and
shuddered, and through the great rent in her side the black water
rushed.
She foundered in a few minutes; but her crew fought her to the last,
cheering as they ran out the guns, and sending shot after shot against
the ram as the latter backed off after delivering the blow. The rush of
the water soon swamped the lower decks, but the men on the upper deck
continued to serve the guns, and fired them until the deck was awash,
and the vessel had not ten seconds of life left. Then, with her flags
flying, her men cheering, and her guns firing, the _Cumberland_ sank. It
was shallow where she settled down, so that her masts remained above the
water. The glorious flag for which the brave men aboard her had died
flew proudly in the wind all that day, while the fight went on, and
throughout the night; and next morning it was still streaming over the
beautiful bay, to mark the resting-place of as gallant a vessel as ever
sailed or fought on the high-seas.
After the _Cumberland_ sank, the ram turned her attention to the
_Congress_. Finding it difficult to get at her in the shoal water, she
began to knock her to pieces with her great rifle guns. The unequal
fight between the ironclad and the wooden ship lasted for perhaps half
an hour. By that time the commander of the _Congress_ had been killed,
and her decks looked like a slaughter-house. She was utterly unable to
make any impression on her foe, and finally she took fire and blew up.
The _Minnesota_ was the third victim marked for destruction, and the
_Merrimac_ began the attack upon her at once; but it was getting very
late, and as the water was shoal and she could not get close, the ram
finally drew back to her anchorage to wait until next day before
renewing and completing her work of destruction.
All that night there was the wildest exultation among the Confederates,
while the gloom and panic of the Union men cannot be described. It was
evident that the United States ships-of-war were as helpless as
cockle-shells against their iron-clad foe, and there was no question
that she could destroy the whole fleet with ease and with absolute
impunity. This meant not only the breaking of the blockade, but the
sweeping away at one blow of the North's naval supremacy, which was
indispensable to the success of the war for the Union. It is small
wonder that during that night the wisest and bravest should have almost
despaired of the Union.
But in the hour of the nation's greatest need a champion suddenly
appeared, in time to play the last scene in this great drama of sea
warfare. The North, too, had been trying its hand at building ironclads.
The most successful of them was the little _Monitor_, a flat-decked,
low, turreted ironclad, armed with a couple of heavy guns. She was the
first experiment of her kind, and her absolutely flat surface, nearly
level with the water, her revolving turret, and her utter unlikeness to
any pre-existing naval type, had made her an object of mirth among most
practical seamen; but her inventor, Ericsson, never despaired of her.
Under the command of a gallant naval officer, Captain Worden, she was
sent South from New York, and though she almost foundered in a gale she
managed to weather it, and reached the scene of the battle at Hampton
Roads at the hour of the nation's sorest need.
Early the following morning the _Merrimac_ again steamed forth to take
up the work she had so well begun, and to destroy the Union fleet. She
steered straight for the _Minnesota_; but when she was almost there, to
her astonishment a strange-looking little craft advanced from the side
of the big wooden frigate and boldly barred the _Merrimac_'s path. For a
moment the Confederates could hardly believe their eyes. The _Monitor_
was tiny compared to their ship, for she was not one-fifth the size, and
her queer construction and odd look made them look at their new foe with
contempt; but the first shock of battle did away with this feeling. The
_Merrimac_ turned on her foe her rifle guns, intending to blow her out
of the water, but the shot glanced from the thick iron turret of the
_Monitor_. Then the _Monitor_'s guns opened fire, and as the great balls
struck the sides of the ram the plates started and her timbers gave. Had
the _Monitor_ been such a vessel as those of her type produced later in
the war the ram would have been sunk then and there; but as it was her
shot was not quite heavy enough to pierce the iron walls. Around and
around the two strange combatants hovered, their guns bellowing without
cessation, while the men on the frigates and on shore watched the result
with breathless interest. Neither the _Merrimac_ nor the _Monitor_ could
dispose of its antagonist. The ram's guns could not damage the turret,
and the _Monitor_ was able to dexterously avoid the stroke of the
formidable prow. On the other hand, the shot of the _Monitor_ could not
penetrate the _Merrimac_'s tough sides. Accordingly, fierce though the
struggle was, and much though there was that hinged on it, it was not
bloody in character. The _Merrimac_ could neither destroy nor evade the
_Monitor_. She could not sink her when she tried to, and when she
abandoned her and turned to attack one of the other wooden vessels the
little turreted ship was thrown across her path, so that the fight had
to be renewed. Both sides grew thoroughly exhausted, and finally the
battle ceased by mutual consent. Nothing more could be done. The ram was
badly damaged, and there was no help for her save to put back to the
port whence she had come. Twice afterwards she came out, but neither
time did she come near enough to the _Monitor_ to attack her, and the
latter could not move off where she would cease to protect the wooden
ships. Tactically it was a drawn battle, neither ship being able to
damage the other, and both ships being fought to a standstill; but the
moral and material effects were wholly in favor of the _Monitor_. Her
victory was hailed with exultant joy throughout the whole Union, and
exercised a correspondingly depressing effect in the Confederacy, while
every naval man throughout the world who possessed eyes to see saw that
the fight in Hampton Roads had inaugurated a new era in ocean warfare,
and that the _Monitor_ and _Merrimac_, which had waged so gallant and so
terrible a battle, were the first ships of the new era, and that as such
their names would be forever famous.
A HINT.
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
If only you'll think of it, dearie,
When people are vexing and rude,
And be pleasant for two,
When one's scolding at you.
You will conquer the contrary mood.
If only you'll think of it, dearie,
When a certain troublesome elf,
With pease in his shoes,
And a look of the blues,
Comes calling upon you himself--
If _only_ you'll think of it, dearie,
And laugh, like the sun, in his face,
He will scamper away;
You'll be happy all day;
And _I'd_ like to be in your place.
A CHINESE ENTERPRISE.
We are all more or less interested nowadays in China and the Chinese.
They are a curious people, and their customs are so different from those
of other nations that to us, who are proud of being civilized, they
sometimes seem quite ridiculous. What civilized nation would provide a
regular home for beggars, for instance--not as a matter of charity, for
all civilized people do that, but purely in the line of business? Yet
the Chinese do this, if the following story told by a German newspaper
is true. According to this journal, the _Kleine Chronik_, a joint-stock
company in Peking erected some years ago a large building termed
Ki-mao-fan, or hen-feather-house. It is to be used as a night refuge for
the begging population of the Celestial city. A monster feather-bed
covers the whole floor of one of the largest rooms. Old and young, all
are admitted without distinction. Each settles down for the night as
comfortably as he can in this ocean of feathers. At first each sleeper
received a small blanket, but it was found, subsequently, that these
blankets very soon disappeared, being probably appropriated by the
servants of the establishment, so an enormous common blanket, full of
round holes through which the beggars at rest on the feathers can thrust
their heads for air, was made, large enough to cover the floor of the
whole room. In the day-time this general blanket is drawn up to the
ceiling by ropes and pulleys, and at night, when all the company are in
their places, it is let down, and then the beggars have to look sharp to
get their heads through one of the holes lest they run a good chance of
being suffocated. The same in the morning, they must be careful to draw
their heads out of the hole at the first stroke of the tomtom, when the
blanket is again lifted from the huge nest lest they be drawn up to the
ceiling and hanged.
THE FORGOTTEN GUNS.
BY EARLE TRACY.
Bascom and Captain Lazare's boy Narcisse were diving near the croaker
bank.
"Bet you I can stay under twice as long as you can," Bascom said,
as he and Narcisse balanced on the edge of a row-boat.
"One--two--three--jump!"
There was a sharp smack as both boys hit the water at the same instant,
and then the ripples gurgled over them. The black head of Narcisse came
up again very soon, and he puffed and blew. He was a big, thick-set,
older boy than Bascom, but short-winded and inclined toward laziness. He
had time to turn on his back and catch his breath at leisure before
Bascom reappeared. "I was studyin' me 'bout goin' down aftah you," he
drawled.
But Bascom did not answer until he had rested a minute with one hand on
the gunwale of the boat. He was very white. "I--beat--you," he panted at
last. "I--tole you--I would." His breath was coming back to him in big
draughts that he could scarcely swallow.
"Yo' can beat me a-pullin' right now if yo' want to," Narcisse offered
as they climbed into the boat.
Bascom was glad enough to take the oars. He was breathing again, and he
would rather do anything than keep still. He wanted to shout and clap
his hands and jump, but he did not wish to excite the curiosity of
Narcisse. The hot afternoon sun poured generously over them and dried
their bathing-suits into every-day clothes.
A sound of hammering came from one of the schooners at anchor near the
landing. "I hear Captain Tony," Bascom said. "I reckon I'll get out
here."
"I didn't guess yo'd pass by de little _Mystery_," Narcisse answered,
with a good-natured grin. All Potosi was used to Bascom's devotion to
the boat which he and Captain Tony had won by bringing it safely through
the great Gulf storm the year before. Narcisse was no sooner out of
sight, however, than Bascom forgot even the _Mystery_ in the excitement
it had been so hard to suppress.
"Cap'n Tony," he cried, fairly stammering with eagerness--"Cap'n Tony--
I--I--found a buried cannon on the croaker bank!"
"W-w'at?" said Captain Tony, wondering.
"It's all crusted up with barnacles, but I know it's a cannon," Bascom
insisted. "I felt all round it, and inside of it too."
Captain Tony lifted his cap a little and then drew it down over his eyes
again incredulously. "I guess it can't be true," he said at last. "I
have never hear me 'bout any cannon sunk in de bay, an' I know all de
story of ole time."
Bascom was prancing up and down in a perfect fever of impatience. "It
must have been ever so long ago, the pirates or the Spaniards," he said.
"An' if there's a cannon there must ha' been a ship sunk there, an' if
there was a ship there must be a treasure, an' we're not a-goin' to say
nothin' to nobody, but we're a-goin' to fish it all up!"
Captain Tony put a hand on Bascom's shoulder to keep him from squirming.
"Yo' boy," he said, with the warm-hearted indulgence he always felt for
the young waif who had become his business partner, "I doan t'ink me dat
if dere is a cannon dere it will run off--not dis evenin'; an' faw de
treasure, it was without doubt mo' easy to remove. Mos' likely it run
away good w'ile ago."
"Well, I'm goin' to look an' be sure," Bascom said. "We must get the
cannon, anyways, and have her on the _Mystery_."
The Captain chuckled. "Us'es'll raise sail," he said, "an' jus' run out
befo' de breeze dies down." They might more easily have rowed, but Tony
and Bascom seldom went anywhere without the _Mystery_, except on land.
When Narcisse was rowing leisurely toward his father's point on the back
bay, he saw the little _Mystery_ put out from shore and presently cast
anchor at the croaker bank, and he put two and two together clumsily.
"Might 'a' known Bascom wouldn' drown hisse'f like dat faw fun," he
meditated. "He has suah foun' somet'ing." He rested on his oars and
pondered quite a while. "If Bascom has foun' somet'ing, I doan' see why
I didn' fin' it too. Maybe I did. My han' touched bottom, an' I
recollec' I felt somet'ing me. Bascom think he sma't not to have tell,
but I did not tell either, me;" and suddenly Narcisse set to rowing.
After Bascom dropped anchor on the croaker bank, Captain Tony poised
himself and dived. Bascom waited for his reappearance, with hands
clinched. Tony did not stay under as long as the boy had, but he was
almost as excited as soon as he came up.
"I didn' fin' 'em at de firs'," he panted, "but dere are two at de
leas'. I put my han' on dem. It mus' have been a great ship, but, I do
not know 'boud her. It mus' be ver', ver' ole, de mos' ole of all."
"How can we get 'em up?" gasped Bascom.
"Ah," said the Captain, "dat will be de troub'. It will take a win'lass
an' grapplin'-irons an' mo' men. It will be de question if it pay."
"Couldn't us'es do it by ourselves?" Bascom pleaded. His whole little
self-dependent life had strengthened his tendency to look out for
himself. The more there were to work for the treasure the more there
would be to share it.
"No," said the Captain. "Tek a pile of men to raise dose cannon."
"Then," put in Bascom, eagerly--"then le's ask Captain Lazare an'
Narcisse to help. Me an' Narcisse was here together when I found 'em."
The Captain knit his brows and looked up the bay. "I guess dat a good
idea," he said. "Lazare prett' sharp, but dey won't be much chance faw
anyt'ing but straight wo'k. I see dey's a-raisin' sail on de
_Alphonsine_."
"I'll row across an' speak to him when he passes," said Bascom.
But there was no need; Lazare's schooner headed toward them from the
first. As it came slowly about and anchored close to theirs Captain Tony
gave Bascom a swift, inquiring glance, but Bascom shook his head. Then
he shouted cheerfully,
"Ho there!"
"It strange dat yo' are jus' wheah we come," Lazare said. "Did Bascom
fin' it too?"
"Find what?" said Bascom, on his guard.
"At de bottom, w'en yo' was divin'," continued Lazare, coolly. "Narcisse
he fin' somesing, an' I t'ought me I bettah jus' to come an' see w'at to
do 'boud it."
"Narcisse didn't find nothin'," Bascom exclaimed, hotly. "He didn't stay
under a second. If he thinks he found anythin', what color was it, an'
how did it feel? Was it dead? An' where did it come from?"
"I didn' want to drown myse'f like yo'," Narcisse answered. "I was faw
gettin' home and tellin'."
"No you wa'n't," cried Bascom, fuming. "You know you wa'n't a-studyin'
about nothin'. You didn't look like you'd ever seed anythin' in your
life."
"De way is," said Lazare, "dat de one was jus' as big a fool as de
odder. Dey both come 'long pertendin', instead of talkin' it ovah like
men an' agreein' to share it. Have yo' been down yet, Tony, to see w'at
yo' t'ink?"
"Yes," said Tony; "I been down. Us'es was sayin', Bascom an' me, dat
maybe yo'-all like to go in wid us raisin' dose cannon." Bascom pulled
his sleeve, but he went right on. "Dere may be a little money in sellin'
'em faw a show, an' den Bascom he say he want one on de _Mystery_."
Bascom looked relieved, and Narcisse disgusted, but there was nothing to
gather from Captain Lazare's face.
"Dat was w'at I t'ought," he said. "Dere ain't nosing goin' on, an'
anysing we can make is dat much ahead."
It was in this spirit that work was begun the next day. Not a word was
said about the possibility of treasure, yet everyone knew that they were
treasure-hunting. In these haunts of the old pirates children were
brought up on legends of buried gold. But Bascom became perfectly
absorbed in the guns. They could not be accounted for. No one in all the
country remembered seeing or hearing of the wreck of a war-vessel in the
bay. Nothing like that had happened during the war; the bay was too
shallow for any modern ships. Its shoals were what had made it so
attractive to the pirates, but the fate of all the pirate boats was
known, and none had ever been lost there, nor had they ever sunk a
victim inside the islands. Everything pointed to the old discoverers,
the Spaniards and the Frenchmen. Bascom, who had taken small interest in
the history of that or any other region, began to cram his mind eagerly
with everything in the shape of legend or record or theory until the
early days of the coast were at his fingers' ends.
The bay was thick with boats to watch the raising of the first gun. It
had taken a long time to get the grappling-irons fastened. There was not
a suit of diving armor to be had, and the men were obliged to go down
again and again before they could pry the gun far enough out of its hard
bed of shells to be grasped. When at last they felt it yielding to the
windlass there was a big cheer, and then a breathless pause. The gun
came on deck coated with shells and almost choked with barnacles and
rust. Bascom flung himself atop of it and began to scrape. The others
crowded over him. But there were no distinguishing marks. What he could
disclose of the gun's surface showed it to be of some alloy similar to
bronze. It was simply formed, and though not like any modern gun,
neither Bascom with his new knowledge, nor anyone else who saw it, could
find anything by which to guess its age. Of all the queer things that
from time to time had made their appearance in Pontomoc Bay it was the
most mysterious.
"You should sell it to some big museum," said a New Orleans man who had
come aboard from his row-boat.
"They'll have to pay us'es our price before they gets it," Bascom said;
"things don't come so cheap that have been laid by and saved so keerful
for hundreds and hundreds of years."
"They are mo' of them down there," began Captain Lazare, whose gray hair
was wet and clinging to his hard old head from diving to superintend.
"Le's not be a-wastin' time, boys."
"I would bring up everything there is in the way of wreckage," added the
gentleman; "it may help to identify the guns."
But nothing that was ever said or found threw any light. The fragments
of worm-eaten timber which they brought up seemed to have been rudely
hewn, and riveted with wooden pegs for bolts. It was old, old, old--and
there the story ended.
On the day that they were raising the sixth gun, the last they ever
found, Bascom and Narcisse went down as usual. Bascom had been under
longer, and was just about to rise when the hook under the lifted end of
the cannon was repelled by something hard. He dug down, and his hand
felt what was unmistakably the corner of a chest. Narcisse caught sight
of the motion and put his hand in too, then he sprang up, pushing Bascom
down with his foot while he rose.
"I foun' a chest!" he gasped, coming up. "I foun' the treasure!"
"Wheah? How big?" cried Lazare, and they crowded round the boy. But some
one noticed the blank water and raised another cry,
"Where's Bascom?"
Captain Tony drew one deep breath, thrust his hands above his head, and
sprang into the water. Narcisse stood still a moment, big eyes big with
horror, then he followed overboard.
[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN REAPPEARED AND LIFTED BASCOM'S HEAD ABOVE
WATER.]
It seemed a breathless age before the Captain reappeared and lifted
Bascom's limp head above water. A dozen hands pulled them on deck and
fell to work on Bascom.
"He'll come out," prayed the Captain through his teeth; "he got to come
out. My boy--Bascom--"
Narcisse climbed up the schooner's side, but no one noticed him, and he
hung in torture outside the group surrounding Bascom.
"He'd run his arm under de end of de cannon and de grapplin'-hook,"
Captain Tony was saying, "an' dey had settle back onto him, an' he had
not the strength lef' to pull out. I doan' understan' how it could have
settle on him like dat; but he will come out. He got to come out."
Narcisse, hearing all this, sneaked away into the cabin. He had had no
wish to hurt Bascom even when he pushed him down; it was just the
temptation to be ahead for once.
At last there was a step down the ladder. Captain Tony came and sank
onto the bench opposite. He did not see Narcisse; he was talking to
himself, and his voice trembled. "My little pa'dnah," he said; "he was
so wil' 'boud dat treasure--an' proud 'boud dem ole cannon. T'ink of dat
little chap weatherin' de big sto'm wid me. He was the stuff--"
Narcisse reached over and clutched timidly at the Captain's leg. "Ain't
dere--no chance--lef'?" he begged.
Tony started, and gazed at the boy and tried to speak, but his voice
broke into a sob. He reached over and patted Narcisse. "He--he comin'
out," he said. "He be all right. I couldn' get long widout him."
Narcisse shrank back again, the better part of him ashamed to receive
Tony's kindness. A moment later he crept past and went on deck. A few of
the men still hovered around Bascom, who lay on the deck, very white,
very sick, very washed-looking, but open-eyed and breathing. Most of
them, however, were busy again, at the windlass, and were just hauling
up the last gun. It had to be lifted before the treasure could be gotten
out, but no time was given to it after it was landed on the deck. Only
Bascom, who, in spite of his weakness, wanted to be where he could watch
the raising of the treasure, was brought and pillowed on it, an old
tarpaulin being folded over to keep him from feeling the shells.
The chest had been so deeply bedded under the gun that it was the
hardest of all to raise; but at last it began to come, and Bascom
struggled up from his gun to watch it swing, dripping, to the deck. It
was wooden, oblong in shape, and very heavy; the edges were worn off and
crumbling.
"If it hadn' been covered so deep it wouldn' have keep so well as it
has," said Captain Lazare, waving the other men back, but trying not to
look eager or excited.
Captain Tony bent over it with him. "I doan' see the fastenin'," he
said. "I guess we cut into him. It will be ver' easy at dis end." And he
began chipping where the wood was most decayed.
It was the only thing to do, and yet, as the men stood with gaping
mouths waiting for the lid to yield, Bascom felt a new ache at his heart
to see the uncouth relic damaged. A great chunk of it gave way, and
every one bent forward. Still there was nothing to be seen but wood.
Lazare caught the axe from Tony's hand and gave the thing a mighty blow
that sent a dull rent through it. He pried it apart with the blade and
laid it open. He had split in two a block of solid wood.
"It--it was one of the old gun-carriages!" cried Bascom, and sank back
upon his austere pillow.
Captain Tony lifted his cap a little, and then pulled it down over his
eyes again. Stooping, he measured the two sections of wood. Then,
turning to Lazare, he asked, "Is it a fair divide?"
Lazare covered his feelings with a comical shrug, but Narcisse and both
the crews looked whipped with disappointment, and eyed the innocent old
block resentfully. Bascom motioned to have it brought alongside his gun.
"I don't see," he said, afterward, "what better an old party like that
could have done, comin' from so far, than to bring his comforts with him
instead of presents for folks he didn't know."
Bascom never told what Narcisse had done to him under water, and the gun
that had had a share in it was used to keeping its own counsel. It and
its comrades were left in his care, and when he saw that they would be
awkward ballast on the _Mystery_, they were piled together on Tony's
beach to wait a purchaser. The faith which Bascom had had in them staid
with him, although public interest in them died out, and they were
forgotten again. But Bascom was always working with them, and polishing
them, and talking to them when he had the time.
"It's queer how you all staid there so quiet, and waited hundreds an'
hundreds an' hundreds of years--just for me," he said to them. "I wisht
I could only find out where you come from, and what you're calculatin'
for me to do. You didn't come for nothin', I make sure of that."
But the guns with all their sleeping possibilities of voice lay still.
MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE.
BY AGNES LITTLETON.
Part III.
[Illustration: Decorative T]
he next morning at ten o'clock two frightened and trembling maidens
presented themselves at the door of Miss Briggs's house on Madison
Avenue. It was all out of order, to be sure, for them to be calling at
such an hour, for it was the time appointed for their lessons, and
yesterday had been a holiday also on account of the fair; but Miss
Briggs's word was to a certain extent law in the family, and governesses
and masters were asked to defer their coming.
The mothers of Millicent and Peggy had little idea as to why their
cousin wished to see them, for neither girl dared to confess her
atrocious deed. In fact, Millicent herself did not know of Peggy's poem.
Peggy was putting off the evil moment as long as possible, when she
should be forced to give an account of what she had done.
She was really very much ashamed of herself. She had lain awake half the
night thinking of what a rude, unladylike, childish trick she had been
guilty.
"From first to last it has been silly," she groaned. "It was perfectly
hateful of me to make Milly send her poetry and turn her into a
laughing-stock, even though no one knows it was she who wrote them, and
it was ridiculous for me to put that one in about Cousin Appolina. And
it isn't very funny, either. I might have made a better one while I was
about it. Oh dear! oh dear! I wish I hadn't been born a joker! I'll
never get to England now, not for years and years, for papa declares he
won't take me himself until I have finished school. And when he hears
about this, for, of course, Cousin Appolina will tell the whole family,
what _will_ he say! Oh, oh! Unfortunate wretch that I am!"
Thus Peggy. Millicent, in the mean time, across the street, was in a no
less unhappy frame of mind.
"What can it be?" said she to herself. "Cousin Appolina could not have
found out then about the slippers, for she seemed to be in a very
pleasant mood when she came to the poetry-table. What in the world made
her buy all the poems? She must have come upon one that she liked, or
one that she didn't like, that made her buy them all. Probably that she
didn't like, but which one, I wonder?"
But as I have said, they rang Miss Briggs's door-bell, punctual to the
moment. James, the melancholy footman, seemed even more solemn than
usual as he ushered them up the stairs to the door of Miss Briggs's
library.
"Miss Reid and Miss Margaret Reid," he announced, in a sepulchral voice,
and withdrew, leaving them to their fate.
Miss Briggs sat at her desk writing. She gave the girls a cold
good-morning, and motioned them to be seated. She continued to write,
and her quill pen travelled briskly across the page, scratching loudly.
Millicent's heart sank. The slippers were placed in reproachful
prominence upon the top of the desk. The poems were not to be seen.
After some minutes' silence, broken only by a deep-drawn sigh from
Milly, a warning cough from Peggy, and the scratching of the quill, Miss
Briggs turned in her chair and faced them. She removed the spectacles
which she had worn when writing, and raised her lorgnette. The girls
thought that no stern judge in the days of witchcraft could have
appeared more formidable. She scrutinized them piercingly, coldly,
judicially. Then she spoke.
"I have asked you to come to me, young ladies, that some small matters
may be cleared up. Who wrote that poetry?" It was not the slippers
entirely, then. It was "To a Pearl in an Oyster-shell"; and Peggy would
go to England. Millicent's eyes were on the ground, the color came and
went in her cheeks, her head drooped.
"I did," she faltered.
"Just as I thought. No one but you, you silly scrap of sentiment, would
be guilty of writing such trash. It is now consigned to its proper
destination;" and she pointed to a large scrap-basket which the girls
had not before noticed, and which was filled to overflowing with the
ill-fated booklets. "I have looked through them all, and find nothing
but harmless trash, with one exception. As you may suppose, it is this
one;" and from under some papers on her desk she drew another.
"I suppose it is the sonnet to 'A Pearl in an Oyster-shell,'" gasped
Millicent. "I am sorry, Cousin Appolina, that it went in. I--"
"Pearl in an oyster-shell? Nonsense! What do I care about pearls in
oyster-shells? Do not try any of those evasions with me; they are of no
use. I am shocked, pained, astonished that one of my own kith and kin,
the daughter of my cousin Van Aspinwall Reid, should have been guilty of
such--such--well, words fail me!--such gross impertinence!"
Millicent forgot her misery, and stared at Miss Briggs in astonishment.
"I don't know what you mean, Cousin Appolina, unless it is the
slippers."
"Slippers! Yes, you may well allude to the slippers, but the next time
you send my gifts to be sold pray be more careful. I drew one of them on
my foot this morning and felt the crunch of paper in the toe. I examined
the paper, and found it to be this."
Miss Appolina rose and held a small white card toward Millicent. This is
what was written upon it:
"For Millicent, with love and good wishes for a Merry Christmas
and Happy New Year, from her cousin, Appolina Briggs."
"I notice that the check which I sent with the slippers was carefully
removed. _That_ did not go to the fair," added Miss Briggs, grimly, as
she again seated herself.
Millicent burst into tears. All this time Peggy's mind was busy. A
terrible temptation stared her in the face. No one seemed to suspect her
of having written the lines about her cousin; if she did not confess it,
who would know it?
After all, it would do no further harm to Millicent's prospects if
Cousin Appolina continued to think that she wrote them, for she would
not be chosen to go to England now under any circumstances on account of
the slippers.
Should Peggy remain quiet and let it pass? Not a creature but herself
knew what she had done, and it would be easy enough to continue to hide
it.
"Cousin Appolina," said Millicent, finding her voice at last, "I am so
sorry! You see, I hadn't worn the slippers, for the ones you gave me
before are still as good as new, and I had nothing to send to the fair,
for I don't do any fancy-work, and I thought--perhaps--you wouldn't
mind. I didn't notice the paper."
"Evidently not; but what if the shoes had fallen into other hands than
mine? What if-- But all this amounts to nothing compared with your
positive outrageousness in writing those lines about me and sending them
to be sold."
"Cousin Appolina, what do you mean?" cried Millicent. "I didn't mean
you."
"Mean me?" repeated Miss Briggs, in wrath. "To whom, then, were you
referring? Is there _another_ Miss Appolina B.?"
"I can't imagine what you are talking about, honestly, Cousin Appolina,
but I really did not mean that you were the pearl in the oyster-shell. I
wrote it about some one else."
"Pearl in the oyster-shell! Do not dare to mention that pearl or that
oyster-shell again. I am tired of hearing of them both. And do not
pretend that you do not understand me, Millicent. You are not so stupid
as all that, though I must say you were extraordinarily dull of
comprehension when you sent those verses to the fair, and it was
astonishingly like you to do it, too. No, this is what I am referring
to. Now, what have you to say for yourself?"
She thrust the unlucky booklet at her cousin, and began to walk the
floor.
Millicent read the verses:
"Who is a dame of high degree?
Who's always scolded little me?
Who is a sight strange for to see?
Miss Appolina B.
"Who cannot with her friends agree?
Who loves to feed on cakes and tea?
Who prides herself on her pedigree?
Miss Appolina B.
"Who'll soon set sail across the sea?
Who will not take her cousins three?
Who is an ancient, awful she?
Miss Appolina B."
"Who else would have written that about the 'cousins three'" thundered
Miss Briggs, as she walked. "And, besides, you have already confessed
that you are the author of the rhymes. What more is needed? As for my
pedigree, is there a better one in all New York? I may be ancient and I
may be awful, but at least I am aristocratic. Cakes and tea forsooth!
You have had the last cakes and tea you will ever have in my house.
Margaret"--suddenly stopping in front of Peggy--"Margaret, I have
decided that you shall be the one to go abroad with me. I have made up
my mind to that, now that Millicent has confessed that she wrote the
poetry. Yesterday I was in doubt as to which one of you had written it,
so I requested you both to come to me, but in the mean time I have read
the other poems, and even before Millicent acknowledged it, I knew that
they had emanated from no pen but hers! No one else could have been
capable of such trash. We will sail, Margaret, on the 1st of June."
Still, Peggy held her peace. She would wait and see what Millicent said.
Millicent, too, was silent. At first her astonishment upon reading the
verses deprived her of the power of speech. Who in the world could have
written them, and how did they get among her poems at the fair? She felt
stupefied; but slowly a glimmering of the truth dawned upon her.
She knew that the author of the lines was either her sister or her
cousin.
It did not seem like Joan to do it, and yet it was not possible that it
could have been Peggy or she would boldly confess it now. It must be
Joanna. Whichever it was, Millicent would not speak. The innocent had
suffered for the guilty before this. There was no chance whatever of her
being chosen for England on account of the slippers, therefore she would
not spoil the prospects of the others. She could suffer for two offences
as easily as for one.
She rose, placed the verses upon Miss Briggs's desk, and stood before
her relative.
"I am very sorry," she said; "I did not know those verses were there.
I--I--apologize with all my heart. May I go now?"
"Yes, you may go, and do not come to the house again until you at least
appear to be more ashamed of your conduct. You are absolutely
unrepentant, I see. Go! Margaret, my dear, I should be glad to have you
stay and talk over our trip."
Millicent left the house feeling as if she were walking in a dream. What
could it all mean? Of course it was Joan. What a strange thing for the
child to do! And how cleverly she had hidden it!
When she was told of the transaction at the fair, of how Cousin Appolina
had bought all the poems, she had only laughed and thought it a good
joke, and was glad that Millicent's poetry was appreciated. And she went
off to school that morning as light-heartedly as possible. Her last
words had been:
"I hope you will get through all right with Cousin Appolina, Milly
darling, and I _hope_ she hasn't found out about the slippers, and that
you will be the one to go to England."
And yet it must have been Joan, for Peggy would certainly have confessed
had it been she.
Millicent walked slowly homeward. The French teacher was awaiting her,
and her singing master was to come directly afterward, but her lessons
did not receive very close attention that day.
In the mean time Peggy was left with her cousin.
"I am astonished at Millicent," said Miss Briggs, as the door closed. "I
always suspected that she was silly, but I never supposed she could be
impertinent. I shall not mention it in the family, Margaret, and I shall
be obliged to you if you will not either. I would not for the world have
either her father or yours know what--what she has said about me."
Still, Peggy was strangely silent. She was glad that it was not to be
told. She had less compunction about not confessing if the family were
not to know it. Now they would merely think it a whim of Cousin
Appolina's that she was the one chosen for the voyage.
She did not enter with great heartiness into the plans for the summer,
and Miss Briggs soon dismissed her.
"But come in again at five o'clock and have some 'cakes and tea,'" she
said, with great meaning. "My poor cakes and tea! Oh, it was outrageous!
I shall never pardon Millicent."
So Peggy went home, or rather to her uncle's house, for the girls shared
the school-room there. After lessons were over, and they were left alone
together, Peggy broke the silence.
"Did you write those lines to Cousin Appolina, Mill?"
"No; of course not, Peggy. It must have been Joan."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes; and I feel dreadfully about it. Not so much because I will lose
the trip, but because she has been so deceitful. I can't understand it.
To think, too, of your being the one to go, after all."
"But why didn't you tell Cousin Appolina that you didn't write it?"
"It wasn't worth while. I knew it must have been either you or Joan, and
I thought if you did it you would say so. If Joan did it--well, Peggy, I
didn't want to. I feel dreadfully about Joan's having done it. I shall
talk to the child, and-- But I can't bear to think she did it, and I
would rather have Cousin Appolina think it was I than little Joan."
"You are very generous," said Peggy.
"No, I am not. I shouldn't be the one to go, anyhow. Of course the whole
thing is terribly dishonorable, but I must save Joan."
Peggy said nothing for a long time. Then she asked, "What time does Joan
get home to-day?"
"Not until late, for she is going to lunch with one of the girls, and
then to the Dog Show with her."
"Well, I must go home. I'll see you again before the day is over." And
Peggy departed to her own house. "What a good girl Millicent is," she
thought. "I have laughed at her and made endless fun of her for her
poetry-making, I have thought she was stupid over her lessons, and not
half as bright or as much to be admired as myself, and here she is ten
times more generous, ten times more honorable, ten times better than I
am in every way. I am a wretch, a conceited, deceitful, mean, stuck-up,
and everything else that is horrible wretch. But I don't want to give up
and tell Cousin Appolina that I did it."
At twenty minutes of five that afternoon Peggy again appeared in
Millicent's room. An odor of smoke filled the air, and Milly seemed to
be wrestling with the tongs and some burning paper at the fireplace.
"What are you doing?" asked Peggy, much surprised. "Building a fire this
warm day?"
"I--I--am burning my--my poetry," replied Millicent, struggling with her
tears as well as with the tones. "I am never going to write another
line. Every one laughed so that I don't believe there is much real
poetry in it, and I am never, never going to write again. What a horrid
smell that m-morocco c-cover makes!"
Peggy would have laughed had she been in a happier frame of mind. As it
was, she said, solemnly: "Open the window and leave the room to air off,
Mill. I want you to come out with me. I am going to Cousin Appolina's."
"But I can't go there, Peggy. You know she told me not to come again."
"You must, Milly. You really must. I will be responsible for it. I can't
go alone. You _must_ go with me."
Finally Millicent put on her hat, and for the second time that day the
two set forth for their cousin's house.
Miss Briggs was in her drawing-room. The tea tray had just been placed
before her, the celebrated cakes reposed in the old silver cake basket
conveniently at hand, the man had left the room, when again the Misses
Reid were announced.
Miss Briggs looked up and raised her lorgnette.
"You have made a mistake," she said. "I am not at home to Millicent."
"Yes, you are, Cousin Appolina!" cried Peggy, rushing forward and
causing a bronze Hermes to totter as she brushed past it--"yes, you are
more at home to Milly than you are to me. For she didn't write them,
Cousin Appolina. She didn't write the lines about you. I have brought
her with me to hear me confess. She is as innocent as--as that piece of
statuary. I wrote the verses. _I_ did!"
For a moment there was an alarming silence, but Peggy, having once begun
her confession, courageously continued.
"I did it to frighten Milly. I put it in the box, but 'way underneath,
for her to see when the poems came home. I thought it would be such fun
to watch her when she read it, and found it had been to the fair with
the others. Of course it was just my luck to have you find it, but, it
was a silly, foolish thing to do, just as it was perfectly horrid of me
to make Milly send her own verses to the fair. That was my fault, too. I
urged her to do it just to get some fun out of it, and I didn't get a
bit.
"Then this morning, when you thought Milly had written them all, and she
didn't say anything, I thought I would let it pass, for I wanted
dreadfully to go to England, and I knew that her chances were over on
account of the slippers. Well, I was firm about it for an hour or so,
and then I found how generous Milly was to say nothing, and she thought
Joan had done it, and was going to scold her, and-- Oh, well, I don't
think it pays to deceive! I never was so unhappy in my life as I have
been to-day. Milly, you dear old soul, say you forgive me!"
During this long speech Millicent had time to think the matter over. Her
chief feeling was one of thankfulness that it was not Joanna who had
done this thing. And Millicent had a sweet nature and never harbored
anger very long.
Of course it was a dreadful thing for Peggy to have done, but her cousin
knew how dearly she loved a joke, and though it had been wrong for her
to deceive Miss Briggs and herself this morning, she had not kept it up
long, and it was easy to see that she was sorry enough for it now.
So when Peggy asked her to forgive her, Millicent's answer was a warm
kiss.
"And have I nothing to forgive?"
It was Miss Briggs who put the question.
"Yes, of course you have, Cousin Appolina! I am terribly sorry that I
ever did such a thing. It was rude, impertinent, everything that was
bad. I hope you will forgive me. Of course it is all true, but I needn't
have said it."
"True?"
"Why, yes. You know you are a dame of high degree, and you have always
scolded me, and in your winter bonnet and big fur cape you
were--er--well, a sight rather strange for to see. And it is perfectly
true you are soon going to set sail across the sea and you won't take us
all three, and sometimes, you know, Cousin Appolina, you don't agree
very well, especially with me. And you do love cakes and tea, but so do
I, so that isn't anything. And you say yourself you pride yourself on
your pedigree."
"And no one has a better right. But there is one line that you have left
out. You called me an _ancient, awful she_!"
Peggy paused.
"I know," she said, slowly, "that was dreadful, but--but it is partly
true. I suppose you can't truthfully call yourself very young, Cousin
Appolina, and sometimes you can be very awful."
Another pause.
"You may both go home," said Miss Briggs.
And they went.
[Illustration: MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE]
On the 1st of June Miss Appolina Briggs sailed for England, accompanied
by her maid and by her young cousin, Joanna Reid. And Millicent and
Peggy stood on the wharf and waved them a sad farewell.
THE END.
SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.
BY KIRK MUNROE.