strength. We were in the railway restaurant, and I was eating like a
starving man before I had a chance to ask any questions, and then it was
the gentleman who did the asking.
"'Have you come far?' said he.
"'Come far!' said I; 'I was carried past Winter Park. Didn't you know?'
"'I didn't know anything about it,' said he. 'I'm just obeying orders. I
got this telegram only about two hours ago.' And he laid on the table a
telegram which read:
"'TO FRED ROBLIN,
Washington.
"'Mrs. Plant desires you to find Frank Howell, a boy probably
coming North in her car in Train 14. See that he has breakfast and
anything else he wants, and send him on to New York. Telegraph
Seminole Hotel as soon as found.
"'H. S. HAINES,
Vice-President.'
"'That's all right, then,' said I. 'Somebody's found me; I don't know
who it is.'
"'All right!' said he; 'I should say it was. You're the luckiest boy in
the country if Mrs. Plant is looking after you. There goes the bell. Now
is there anything more I can do for you?'
"I told him not a thing more, and he said he would telegraph to my
father, and that of course somebody would meet me in New York. Well,
sir, it was a different ride after that, though the car got colder all
the time. I pulled up all the shades and made things look cheerful, and
unlocked the door, for I wasn't afraid any longer of being put out. And
somebody did meet me. It was a man in livery, and he had a warm overcoat
for me, and took me across the ferry, and put me in a beautiful coach
with two horses, and in a few minutes I was in one of the finest houses
I ever saw in my life, and a beautiful lady was stroking my head.
"'Why, you poor child,' Mrs. Plant said (for the lady was Mrs. Plant),
'what a fright you must have had! But your troubles are over now, for I
shall take you back with me to Florida to-morrow. I was so afraid you
would be starving in the car, as it was all cleaned out.'
"I told her about the crackers I found, and that made her laugh. After a
while I asked her how she had found me out, and why my folks had not
hunted me up.
"'Hunted you up!' she repeated. 'Why, child, we had the whole line
turned upside down looking for you. The whole trouble was that the
superintendent did not get back to Winter Park till late last night, and
no one else knew that you were in my car. But as soon as he returned he
telegraphed the New York office what had happened, and they sent word to
me. It was after midnight then, and Washington was the first place I
could catch the car.'
"Say, did you ever see such a kind lady as Mrs. Plant? She said I was
her guest, because it was her car had carried me off; and that night she
took me to the opera, and the next day we started back for Florida. We
didn't live on crackers on the way down, either, _I_ tell you; nor the
car wasn't cold or dark. I didn't find out till after I got back that
Mrs. Plant thought my folks would be so worried that she'd telegraphed
to a dozen of the agents to find me, and had told them all 'the boy is
to be treated as my guest, wherever found.' And you see how kind Mr.
Plant was about it after he got home. This is the second time he has had
me out to ride with him. Oh, it's jolly, being carried away in a
president's private car--after you're found.
"Some of the boys at the hotel say I was a chump not to tell the
conductor after I found I was carried past, and have him send me home.
But was I? Well, I rather think not. They're jealous, that's all."
A NAUTICAL FIRE-BALLOON.
BY W. J. HENDERSON.
It was blowing fresh from the eastward and southward, and the _Alice
Tree_, under two lower topsails, spanker, and a bit of head-sail, was
roaring along on a taut bowline, and looking well up toward her course.
That was as nearly due east as a good compass, a cool hand at the wheel,
and an honest desire to cross the fiftieth meridian in latitude 40 deg.
30' could make it. All the way from Sandy Hook Light-ship the stanch ship
had leaned to a soldier's wind till the mid-watch of this day, and even
now, under shortened canvas and with weather clews a-tremble, she was
making eight knots an hour on her great circle track. The wind boomed
out of the arching, creamy hollows of the two topsails, and hummed
through the tense shrouds and back-stays.
Out forward the sweeping curve of the clipper bow swung swiftly upward,
with bobstay and martingale dripping with sparkling brine, and again
plunged down with a thunderous roar and a boiling of milk-white foam up
to the hawse-holes. Ever and anon a hissing shower of iridescent spray
would hurtle across the forecastle deck, and lose itself in the smother
of yeasty froth that blew along the lee rail.
Up to windward the sea hardened itself against the luminous horizon in a
steel-blue field of cotton-tufted ridges, leaping and falling in wide
unrest. Overhead sheets of wreathing vapor rushed across the dense blue
sky, and in and out of the rifts the dazzling white sun shot wildly as
if in meteoric flight. Captain Elias Joyce leaned against the weather
rail of his poop deck, and looked contented.
"It'll blow harder before it blows easier, Mr. Bolles," he said to his
mate, "but it'll go to the south'ard."
"Ay, ay, sir," said the mate. "And I reckon we'll do very well as we
are."
"Yes, let well enough alone," said the Captain. "Come, gentlemen, let's
go to dinner."
The gentlemen were Joseph and Henry Brownson, the twin sons of the owner
of the ship. They were making this voyage on a sailing-ship for health
and recreation after a hard struggle with their final examinations at
college. They were well used to the sea, and had served an
apprenticeship in many a hearty dash around Brentons Reef Light-ship and
the Block Island buoy. They were enjoying every minute of their voyage,
but they had yet one great desire to gratify. They wished to get the
Captain to spin them a yarn of some strange experience at sea. Up to the
present time he had refused to accept their hints. But they had not yet
abandoned hope. At the dinner table they renewed the attack, but without
result. When the meal was ended, the Captain filled a pipe, and the
conversation drifted in various channels. Henry spoke of college
celebrations and the foolishness of sending up fire-balloons. The
Captain took the pipe out of his mouth, blew a big cloud of smoke, and
said, reflectively:
"Well, I don't know. I remember once when a fire-balloon turned out to
be a mighty useful thing at sea."
"I'd like to know how," said Joseph.
"Well, if you two young gentlemen won't be bored by hearing a sea yarn,
I'll just spin it for you."
The two young men looked at one another. Bored? Well, that was good,
after all their clever hints.
"It was a matter of thirty years ago," began the Captain, "when I was
only a boy, and was making a voyage much as you gentlemen are, for the
pleasure of it. My father, who was a sea captain, was part owner in the
_Ellen Burgee_, and he thought it would be a good thing for me to go out
and sniff salt air and see blue water. The _Ellen Burgee_ was an
old-fashioned ship, with long single topsails, a mackerel-head bow, and
tumble-home sides. Her stem was rounded out in a big arch, and she had
quarter galleries like a line-of-battle ship. She was a roaring good
sailer, though, and her skipper was likely to use bad language if he
caught her doing anything under eight knots in a breath of air. She had
a handsome cabin, too, had the _Ellen Burgee_, and when the swinging
lamp was shedding its soft yellow light over the polished mahogany
table, the cushioned lockers, the rugs, and the white and gold paint, it
looked like the owner's saloon in a modern schooner yacht. I suppose I
didn't know at that time how comfortable I was, but, looking back now, I
can't say that I was ever any better off on shipboard."
THE CREW GAVE THREE HEARTY CHEERS AS THE BALLOON AROSE.
"The _Ellen Burgee_ was bound from New York for Table Bay. It's not
necessary to go into any account of her cargo, seeing that it has not
anything to do with this story, and that it never arrived at its port of
destination, anyhow, but went to feed fishes. However, that's running
ahead of my reckoning, so I'll just heave to and drift back. We passed
Sandy Hook with a fair wind and all kites flying. We didn't take a tug
every time we went to sea in those days, but used to lie in the
Horseshoe for a favoring breeze. I don't know that there's anything
serious to tell you about, except that we stopped at Bermuda for three
days, and I had my first look at those happy islands. What's more to the
point is that a week later, in latitude 18 deg. 15' N., longitude 56 deg.
30' W., we sighted a derelict brig. She was water-logged and abandoned;
but our old man thought there might be something aboard her worth saving,
and so, as the wind was very light, and we couldn't lose much by backing
our fore-topsail yard for a time, he sent a boat to her. The second mate
went in it, and came back with a cargo of tissue-paper, ink, pens, and a
few other loose things he'd picked up in her cabin. The tissue-paper, he
said, would do for the boy--me--to play with. I laughed at him at the
time, for I didn't see what use the tissue-paper would be to me. But I
made a fire-balloon out of it afterwards, and we were all pretty glad
that we had it aboard.
"We were getting down toward the equator when it fell a dead flat calm.
I never saw such a calm before or since, except once. The sea looked
like gray oil, its surface was so smooth and glassy. But out of the
southwest there came a swell that kept growing bigger and bigger and
bigger. There was not a breath of wind stirring, and the whoo, whoo,
whoo of the rush of air in the rigging as the ship rolled sounded like
the whistling of some ghostly fog siren. And how she did roll! Every
spar and timber in her groaned and squeaked as if in mortal pain. Pots
and dishes rattled and banged in the galley, and the whole interior of
the ship was filled with strange unaccountable noises. Up above the sky
was a sort of dull yellow, and the sun looked as if it were behind
smoked glass. The old man looked at the barometer, and decided that we
were in for a gale of wind. So he had the ship made snug under
close-reefed main-topsail, a storm jib, and a rag of spanker. In those
clothes she was ready for anything that might come along. We lay there
rolling in that mad fashion until nearly midnight, and, boy as I was, I
thought I should go insane with the deadly, inexorable, heartless
swaying of the helpless fabric. I don't believe any man except a
hardened old sailor--and not many of them--could keep this side of
lunacy if he were becalmed under an equatorial sun in a swell like that
for twenty-six hours.
"However, it ended all of a sudden about midnight. I was in my bunk, but
I couldn't sleep because of the thumping of the cabin-doors on their
hinges. I heard a man come lumbering down to call the Captain, and I
slipped out of bed and into my clothes. I reached the deck in time to
see a sudden glitter of stars in the northwestern horizon, and to feel a
splash of cold wind on my cheek. The next instant the whole air above me
was filled with a series of wild yells, as if a million souls were in
agony. The gale had struck us, and for an instant I felt as if my breath
were driven back into my lungs, so great was the pressure of the wind in
my face. The ship heeled over till her lee scuppers ran two feet deep in
bubbling water.
"'Down with your helm! Hard down!' shouted the Captain.
"Slowly the vessel's head came up, and she righted herself. She was now
close-hauled, and she began to thresh out to windward with a fearful
bellowing of the wind out of the straining main-topsail. There was no
sea yet; on the contrary, the terrific force of the wind cut down the
great swells, and blew the ocean out flat in a sheet of ghostly foam.
But that did not last long. The sea began to run, and the _Ellen Burgee_
began to rear and plunge over the ragged crests, and to thunder down
into the black hollows that looked like clefts extending to the bottom
of the ocean. At daybreak a mad, a crazy sea presented itself to the
sight. The effect of the gale blowing at right angles to the original
swell was to pile up the billows in great writhing pyramidal masses. The
ship labored and groaned fearfully. Tons of water broke over the
forecastle deck, and the Captain was alarmed lest the deck seams should
open. At six bells in the morning watch the main-topsail blew out of the
bolt-ropes with a report like a gun's, and went swirling away into the
flying spoondrift down on our lee quarter. A stay-sail was set to do the
main-topsail's work, but nothing would prevent the ship from falling so
far off at times that the seas broke on her decks in masses. All day
long she was driven by the wind, and pounded by the seas. Our drift was
something frightful, but it was not much out of our course. At four
bells in the first watch, ten o'clock at night--but I forget you know
all the bells--the carpenter reported a foot of water in the hold. Then
began the heart-breaking business of working the pumps. All night long I
heard the weary clank, clank, under-running, as it were, the yelling of
the wind, the roaring of the sea, and the groaning of the stricken ship.
At daylight the gale broke, and a few hours later there was only a
gigantic swell to tell the story of the storm. But the _Ellen Burgee_
had received her death warrant. She was slowly filling under us in spite
of all that we could do. The Captain gave orders to prepare to abandon
ship. The crew was at work at this when a new idea seemed to strike the
skipper.
"'We can't be many miles from St. Paul's Rocks,' he said; and he set to
work to make some calculations. The result was that a man was sent to
the masthead to look for the rocks, sail was made on the ship, and the
pumps were manned again. St. Paul's Rocks, you must know, are a small
cluster of rocky projections, rising at the highest point about sixty
feet above the sea. They are in latitude 56' N., longitude 29 deg. 20'
W., and our old man figured that we weren't over fifteen miles away from
them. Half an hour later the masthead lookout sighted the rocks, and a
little later we sighted them from the decks.
"'My idea is,' said the Captain to the mate, 'to run the ship on the
rocks. That will enable us to save all our dunnage and all the boats,
and give us a breathing-spell to decide what's the next best move.'
"The mate agreed that it was a great scheme. The Captain went aloft to
pick out a place to run the ship ashore. He found a good spot where her
bow would wedge up on the rocks, so that she would not slip off and
sink, and he headed her for it. She struck pretty hard, and the
foretop-gallant-mast went by the board, taking the flying jib-boom along
with it; but we did not mind that, for we found that the ship had taken
the ground for nearly half her length, and was in what you might call a
mighty comfortable berth for a sinking craft. Two of our boats were
smashed by the falling spars, but the long-boat was all right, and that
was what the Captain counted on to take us off the rocks.
"Now the nearest land to St. Paul's Rocks is the north-eastern extremity
of Brazil, Cape St. Roque, and that's something over 500 good sea miles
away. I was only a small boy, but I had sense enough to know that a
voyage of that length in a ship's boat would be a desperate undertaking,
and even if successful, sure to embrace terrible hardship and exposure.
The Captain and the mate knew it, too, and they decided to remain right
where they were for a few days on the chance of sighting a passing ship.
That was a mighty poor chance, too, for very few vessels pass within
sighting distance of St. Paul's Rocks. The great circle track from
England to the Cape of Good Hope lies between fifty and sixty miles to
the westward of them, and vessels are more likely to deviate to the
westward of the track than to the eastward. Every sensible navigator
gives those rocks a wide berth, anyhow. It was when I heard the Captain
and the mate talking those matters over that I conceived my great
fire-balloon scheme. I didn't say a word, but fished out a lot of stout
wire that was aboard the ship, got my stock of tissue paper together,
and set about making one of the biggest fire-balloons on record. It was
a whopper, and no mistake, for, you see, I wanted it to have carrying
and travelling power. When I had it finished, I secured a stout bottle.
Then I wrote this brief and direct message on a piece of brown paper:
"'The ship _Ellen Burgee_ is on St. Paul's Rocks. All hands safe
and well, but would like to get away.'
"I put that in the bottle and corked it up tight. Then with a stiff
piece of wire and a square of red bunting I made a flag, which I stuck
up on top of the cork. Next I made a wire bridle, and swung the bottle
below the neck of the balloon, so far down that the flag could not catch
fire. I ballasted the bottom of the bottle first, and experimented with
it so that it would float upright, even with the weight of wire hanging
to it. The Captain saw me at work, and said,
"'What are you up to, Elias?'
"'Oh,' I said, 'I'm getting up a balloon ascension to kill time.'
"That night, as luck would have it, there was a nice gentle
southeasterly breeze, and I made ready to send up my balloon. The
Captain and the crew gathered around me and chaffed me a little, but I
didn't mind that.
"'What's the bottle for?' asked the mate.
"'Just for a sort of ballast,' I answered.
"'What do you have the flag for?' asked one of the men.
"'Oh, for instance,' I answered, in school-boy fashion.
"I now lighted the flare in the neck of my balloon, and had the pleasure
of seeing my contrivance slowly but surely inflated with the heated air.
In good time it was ready to rise, and as I released it, to my intense
satisfaction it gently rose toward the sky, carrying the bottle with it.
"'Hooray for the Fourth o' July!' cried one of the sailors, and the crew
gave three hearty cheers.
"Then they all stood about, watching it as it soared away into the
nor'west like a comet.
"'If some ship sights that thing,' said one old fellow, 'she'll think a
picnic has got lost.'
"'By the great hook block!' exclaimed the mate, 'maybe they'll hunt
around and find us.'
"'If that should happen,' said the Captain, 'it would turn out that your
sport paid, Elias.'
"'Yes, sir,' said I, smiling, and rubbing my hands behind my back.
"Well, we're pretty near the end of this yarn now, gentlemen. I watched
that fire-balloon till it faded out of sight in the nor'west, and then I
turned in and dreamed all night about ships picking up bottles with
messages in them, and saving shipwrecked crews. And the next day I did
nothing but go aloft and look for a sail, but not one hove in sight. The
following day I did the same thing, and that night I think I cried a
little because no vessel appeared. On the third day I didn't go aloft
till after breakfast, and then I nearly burst my lungs screaming, 'Sail
ho!' Sure enough, there was a vessel about twenty miles off to the
nor'west. The Captain had a big fire started on the rocks, and sent a
good column of smoke into the air. The vessel rose, and in a couple of
hours we saw plainly that she was heading right for us. Maybe we didn't
all dance for joy! In another hour she hove to abreast of the rocks and
sent a boat. The officer in charge of it stepped out, and holding up my
bottle with a tangled mass of wire and pulp, said,
"'How did you get this thing out there?'
"'Out where?' demanded our Captain.
"'We picked it up forty miles nor'west of you.'
"'Hurrah for my fire-balloon!' I cried. 'And was the message all right?'
"'Of course. Ain't we here?'
"And he handed my message to our Captain, who threw his arms around me,
and exclaimed:
"'You little angel! You'll be a sailor yourself some day.'
"And sure enough," said Captain Elias Joyce, rising from the table, "he
told the living truth."
[Illustration: THE PUDDING STICK]
This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on
the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address
Editor.
If I were you I would make up my mind, once for all, never to talk about
ailments. A headache or neuralgia or a cough is hard enough to bear in
one's own case; there is no need of troubling other people about it.
Among so many girls there are no doubt those who are not always well,
and there may be some who have to suffer a great deal of pain, but the
pain must be kept in its place, which is in the background, not the
forefront of conversation.
Talk always of pleasant things, if you can, and of what is interesting
to others rather than of what concerns yourself. The mistake often made
by invalids is that their world being narrowed by confinement to their
rooms or by the care their illness makes necessary, they fancy that
their aches and pains, the medicines they have to take, and the diet
they are obliged to be contented with are as important to other people
as to themselves. This is a point to guard against. Let nothing about
liniments and pills and prescriptions creep into your talk, for though
you are an invalid to-day, you expect to be well to-morrow or next week,
and illness is only temporary, while health is the rule, and the state
to look forward to with eagerness and hope.
It is worth while for us all, even when suffering pain, to refrain from
frowning and wrinkling up our faces, and saying impatient words. Every
passing thought and feeling write themselves upon the countenance, and
the young girl is making day by day not only the woman she will be in
character later on, but the woman she will be in looks. Handsome or
plain, agreeable or the opposite, the woman of forty is dependent for
her looks on the girl of fourteen. You owe an amount of thought and
consideration to the woman you are going to be, and the friends who will
love her, and so you must not let needless lines and furrows come to
your pretty brows, but keep your foreheads smooth, and do not draw your
lips down at the corners, nor go about looking unhappy. It is possible,
even when bearing much pain, to wear a tranquil expression if one will,
but remember that the tranquil mind in the end can conquer pain.
Crossing town the other day in haste to catch a train, the horse-car was
three times blocked by great vans which stood upon the track. The
van-drivers appeared to be unloading their goods in a very leisurely
manner; to us in the car, with the precious minutes slipping away like
grains of sand in the hour-glass, they seemed exceedingly slow and
unhurried. I looked about on my fellow-passengers. Some had flushed and
angry faces, some could not sit still, but tapped the floor with their
feet, and uttered exclamations, and looked at their watches. One or two
stepped out with their bags and walked hastily onward. But a dear old
lady in the corner of the car was a pattern of sweetness and amiability,
and I heard her observe to her neighbor, "We will probably lose our
train, but at this time of the day there are trains every half-hour, and
it's never well to be put out by little accidents of this sort." She had
the right philosophy.
Through life when little things go wrong it will be wise to accept the
situation without fretting, and by maintaining composure, you will often
be able to set them right again.
Mina K. asks whether it is proper to allow a friend whom she happens to
meet in a public conveyance to pay her car fare and ferriage. As a rule
it is not proper. The meeting is an incident, and does not affect the
relative positions of either friend. Each should pay for herself,
precisely as if she had not met the other. Of course, this rule is
equally and perhaps more imperative when a girl happens to meet a man
whom she knows, her friend or her brother's chum. He should not offer to
pay for her, nor should she accept the offer if he make it. The only
exceptions to this rule are such as commonsense indicate. A girl will
not make a fuss nor quarrel about a matter of five cents with an elderly
acquaintance, who might easily be her father or mother. Generally
speaking, however, each person pays her own way, except when in company
with others by invitation, and where she is the guest of her
entertainer, who does not permit her to be at expense when sight-seeing
or jaunting about.
[Illustration: Signature]
GREAT STATE PAPERS.
OUR LAWS AND PROCLAMATIONS.
BY HENRY CLEMENT HOLMES.