Produced by Annie McGuire
[Illustration: HARPER'S ROUND TABLE]
Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.
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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JULY 23, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.
VOL. XVI.--NO. 821. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
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[Illustration]
CORPORAL FRED.
A Story of the Riots.
BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U.S.A.
CHAPTER I.
It was a warm June evening, and the family was taking the air on the
back porch--father and mother, two stalwart young men, the elder sons,
two slender girls, and a romping boy of nine--the little Benjamin of the
tribe. It was a placid homelike group; father deep in the daily paper
and his easy-chair, mother absorbed in chat with the girls even while
keeping watchful eye on "the baby," the family's pet, pride, and torment
by turns, and the two elder sons sitting on the edge of the porch,
talking in low tone of an event that had called for no little discussion
all over the neighborhood--the strike of the switchmen in the great
freight yards only a block away. Five railway companies rolled their
trains in and out of the thronging, far-spreading metropolis to the
eastward--the great city whose hum and murmur were borne to them on the
soft breeze sweeping inland from the cool blue bosom of the lake. For
two miles along a number of parallel tracks were idly resting now by
hundreds the grimy freight cars of a dozen lines, while the gleaming
steel rails on the "through" tracks, kept cleared from end to end, were
as silent, as deserted, as the long tangents over the boundless prairies
miles to west and south, for, except on the mail trains, over the whole
system since the stroke of five that afternoon not a wheel was turning.
Never before in all their seven years of residence in this homelike
little frame cottage had the Wallace household known such utter silence
at "the yards." They missed the rush and roar of the great express
engines, the clatter of the puffing little "switchers," the rumble and
jar of the heavy freight trains, the dancing will-o'-the-wisp signals of
the trainmen's lights, the clang of bell, and hiss of steam. There was
something unnatural in the stillness, something almost oppressive, and
mother and the girls, glad ordinarily to have both Jim and Fred at home,
seemed weighted with a sense of something strained and troublous in the
situation. Jim had been a railway man for several years, rising by
industry, intelligence, and steadiness, to his present grade as a
freight conductor. Fred, the younger, held a clerkship in the great
"plant" of the Amity Wagon-works. He had received a good High-School
education, while Jim's wages, added to his father's, had supported the
family and built the little suburban home. The elder brother's hands
were browned by long contact with grimy brake and blistering, sun-baked
car roofs. The younger's were white and slender--hands that knew no
labor other than the pen. Both boys were athletic and powerful; Jim,
through long years in the open air and active, energetic life, Fred,
through systematic training in the gymnasium and the camp and armory of
the National Guard, for Fred had been three years a soldier in a "crack"
city regiment, and the corporal's chevrons on his uniform were his
greatest pride. Even in boy days he had begun his training in the cadet
corps of the public school, where military drill, especially the
"setting-up" system of the regular army, had been wisely added to the
daily course of instruction; and while Jim's burly form was a trifle
bowed and heavy, Fred's slender frame was erect, sinewy, and, in every
motion, quick and elastic. "Jim could hug the breath out of you, Fred,
like a thundering big bear if he once got his arms around you, and Fred
could dance all around and hammer you into pulp, Jim, while you were
trying to grip him," was the way the father expressed it, and old
Wallace knew young men in general and his own boys in particular as well
as might be expected of the clear-eyed, shrewd-headed veteran that he
was. He himself had served the Great Western railway faithfully from the
days when it was only the struggling Lake Shore, and now as a
first-class mechanic in the repair shops he was a foreman whom officials
and operators alike respected. He had lived a sober, honest, industrious
life, had reared his family on the principle of mind your own business
and pay as you go, and was looking forward to retiring within a year or
two, and giving his aching old bones the rest they deserved, and
enjoying the fruits of his life of toil, when the long-predicted
irruption began with the strike ordered by the Switchmen's Union.
With anxious face Mr. Wallace was reading the newspaper accounts of the
stormy meetings held the previous night and well along into the dawning
day. Some of the men involved were his life-long friends, others of them
he had known many years. Their names were not among those of the
speakers whose fiery oratory had finally prevailed. They were of the
silent, almost passive element, which, largely in the majority at first,
found itself little by little swinging over under the lash of the more
aggressive, and at last giving reluctant "aye" or sitting in moody
silence rather than face the furious denunciation of the agitators that
followed sharp on every "no." At two o'clock in the morning the members
of the union, three-fourths of whom were originally bitterly opposed to
the project, had passed a resolution that unless certain men discharged
by the management of one of the five roads using the yards were
reinstated by twelve o'clock that day they would quit work to a man, and
tie up the business of that and all the others. At nine in the morning
the committee had waited on the division superintendent with their
ultimatum. The superintendent replied that the three men discharged were
freight handlers who had refused to touch the contents of certain cars
of the Air Line because of some unsettled disagreement between the
officials of that line and their employees. "We know nothing of that
matter," said the superintendent. "It is none of our business. We
employed these men to handle any and all freight run into these yards,
and we have no use for men who refuse to do so. They not only flatly
refused to handle that Air Line stuff, but said they'd see to it that no
one else did. That ended the matter so far as we're concerned. Now you
come and demand that men be restored to work who not only will not work
themselves, but will not let others work. You and I have grown up
together, some of you, at least, in the employment of this road. You,
Morton, and you, Toohey, were switchmen here under me when I was
yard-master six years ago. You know and I know that what you ask is
utterly absurd. No road can do business on any such principles as that.
Even if these discharged men did not richly deserve their discharge,
what affair is it of yours? You are switchmen. You've never had a
grievance that I know of. You never would have come to me with such a
demand in this world but that you had been bamboozled or bulldozed into
it by fellows who have no earthly connection with you, and whose only
business in life is to go round stirring up trouble among honest men,
living on their contributions, and taking precious good care to keep out
of the way when the clash comes. No, lads. I've been your friend, and
you know it. Between you and injustice of any kind I'm as ready to stand
to-day as ever before, but I'd be no friend of yours. I'd deserve your
contempt as well as that of our employers and the whole people, if I
allowed my freight handlers to dictate to me whose freight they should
handle. Those men courted discharge and they got it. Out they went and
out they stay if I have to handle every pound of freight myself."
There was dead silence a moment in the office. The committeemen stood
uneasily before their old friend and chief; three of them looked as
though they wished they hadn't come and wanted to quit, two were more
determined. It was one of these who spoke.
"Then, Mr. Williams, you refuse to listen to our appeal for justice!"
Mr. Williams whirled around in his chair, sharply confronting the
speaker; his clear blue eyes seemed to look him through and through, a
flush almost of anger swept over his face a moment, and he waited before
he spoke. He had picked up a ruler, and was lightly tapping the edge of
the desk as he tilted back in his chair.
"Your name is Stoltz, I believe. I refuse nothing of the kind, and you
know it. I have listened with more patience than it deserved. None of
these, the old hands, would have hinted at such a thing, and if they and
their fellows will take the advice of a man they've known ten years to
your ten months they'll not again be led by a word-juggler. Now if
there's any other matter any of the rest of you wish to bring up," and
here the Superintendent looked frankly around upon the anxious, almost
crest-fallen faces of the other men, "I'll listen to you gladly, but
you, Stoltz, have been far too short a time an employe of the road to
presume to speak for those who have served it almost as long as I have."
"Yes, and what have they got for it? Do they sit in a swell office, ride
in parlor cars, drive fast horses, sport handsome clothes--" began
Stoltz, sneeringly.
"That's enough, Stoltz. They know that with a railway as with an army
the men can't all be generals and colonels. Say to your friends, boys,"
he continued, in kindly tone, "that when they want anything of the road
hereafter they'll be far more apt to get it by coming themselves than by
sending Stoltz. That's all, then."
"No, it isn't all!" declaimed Stoltz, angrily. "You haven't heard our
side. If those three men ain't back in their places at twelve o'clock,
we of the Switchmen's Union go out to a man," and the spokesman paused
to let this announcement have its due effect. It had.
"So far as one of the Union is concerned he goes out here and now, and
that one," said Mr. Williams, "is yourself. The others will, I hope,
think twice before they act."
"You mean I'm discharged?"
"On the spot," said Mr. Williams, "and there is the door."
For hours that hot June day had the story of that interview sped from
tongue to tongue. The managers of the Switchmen's Union had been shrewd
and wise in naming as members of their committee three of the oldest,
stanchest, and most faithful hands in the employ of the company. They
were sure of a hearing. Then to do the aggressive, this comparatively
new man, Stoltz, was named, together with a kindred spirit of less
ability, and these two men were the backbone, so said the managers, of
the first attack. Stoltz was a German-American of good education, though
deeply imbued with socialistic theories, and a seductive, plausible
speaker on the theme of the wrongs of the laboring man. It was he who,
under the guidance of shrewd agitators and "walking delegates," had been
most active and denunciatory at the switchmen's meetings. Honest
laboring men are slow of speech, as a rule, and fluency often impresses
them where logic would have no effect. The committee came away, two of
them exultant and eager for the fray. They had been disdainfully
treated, said they, sneered at, reviled, and one of them summarily
"fired" as the result of this visit to the magnate. The others were
gloomily silent. It was too late to recede. The javelin was already
thrown. At the stroke of five every man on duty quietly quit his post.
Many left the yard. Others, eager to see what the officials might do,
remained. Stopped at the outskirts of the city, no trains came in. Only
the evening mail crept out, its own crew manning the successive
switches.
It was now 8.45, and barely dark. The western sky was still faintly
illumined. Old Wallace could no longer read, and bent down to take a
hand in the talk between his boys. Silence still reigned in the deserted
yards. Men hovered in muttering groups, and watched the few officials
who flitted about with lanterns in their hands. A rumor was going around
that the management had determined to send out all the night passenger
trains as usual, and the first of these should be along by ten o'clock.
As Mr. Wallace bent over Jim's broad shoulder his wife and daughters
ceased their low chatter. Evidently something was on the old man's mind.
"There's no danger of its spreading to your people, is there, Jim? Would
you go out if they did?"
"Father," said the young man, slowly, "you know the ties by which we are
bound. Suppose now that Fred's regiment were ordered out, would you ask
him would he go?"
Old Wallace looked graver still. "I consider that a very different
proposition," said he. "I was hoping--" he faltered, when a young fellow
in soiled blue flannel garb slipped quietly in through the rear gate,
and coming up to the freight conductor, said the two words,
"Wanted, Jim."
Jim's bronzed cheek turned a shade lighter.
"What hour?"
"At once."
And before the others could ask explanation of this scene a bicycle came
flashing up to the same gate, and the tall rider dismounted and strode
quickly toward the party. Young Fred's eyes glistened at sight of him.
"Orders, Sergeant?" he eagerly inquired.
"Yes. Notify your squad to make arrangements with their employers, and
be ready to report at the armory at a moment's notice."
The two brothers stood facing each other a little later, then silently
clasped hands. One at the beck of a secret protective organization, the
other at the call of duty to State and nation, parted at their father's
gate to go their separate ways.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
A BOY'S AQUARIUM.
Boys who live in the city do not, perhaps, get quite the freedom of
action and fun generally that a country boy can, but they do manage to
have a pretty good time, even if they have to work a little harder for
it. It is hard to keep pets in the city. Dogs need a lot of exercising,
birds are apt to be a nuisance to the neighbors, if not to the boy's
family, and yet pets are a necessity to every well-brought-up boy's
happiness.
An aquarium is always dear to every boy's heart. And aquariums are not
impossible in a city house. Fortunately they can be just as well taken
care of in the city as in the country. A medium-sized aquarium which
will hold quite a lot of stuff can be bought for $1.50 or $1.75. This
must be filled with gravel or sand to the depth of four inches. In the
sand must be, securely fastened, some water-grasses, which are for sale
at any of the stores where fish are to be bought. The boys who succeed
best with their aquariums are those who study the matter pretty
thoroughly before they begin, and read up the scientific books of
natural history. The simpler works of this sort contain any amount of
practical information which any boy can apply to his own use.
A porous stone seems to be necessary in the middle of the aquarium. As
for the placing of the water plants, they must be left to the boy's own
taste and judgment. Indeed, the arrangement of the whole aquarium must
be left to the boy who owns it. In this place I must stop and say that
it is foolish for any boy to consult many of his playmates as to how the
thing should be arranged, for when he has asked and received much
advice, he will find that most of it is directly opposed to what he
already knew, and besides is so varied as to be nearly useless. A glass
tube for removing the manure from the sand must be kept beside the
aquarium, if the scavengers, such as pollywogs and snails, fail to do
their duty in cleaning up.
An extremely pretty aquarium has lately been fitted up by a boy about
eleven years old. It is not a very large one, and stands on a small
table near the window of his room--too near, it may be said, for the sun
these summer days having unusual power has caused the untimely death of
two many-tailed Japanese gold-fish and four extremely graceful little
silver-fish. With the exception of this mortality, the death rate has
been quite low. The original occupants of the aquarium before these
recent deaths consisted of two pair of Japanese gold-fish, two pair of
silver-fish, two pollywogs--one small one, who worked busily all day
trying to do his share of the work in keeping the place clean, and one
big fat pollywog, who sadly neglected his duty and spent his time trying
to turn into a frog as quickly as he possibly could. Six snails, who
were put in the aquarium to keep the glass clean, worked hard and
satisfactorily in accomplishing their mission (in the beginning one
snail was at first relegated to this work, but the task was beyond his
power, and, after making a superhuman effort to go the whole round, he
yielded up his life).
The water in the aquarium is changed twice a month, and when that is
done the fish are lifted out very tenderly and carefully with a little
scoop net, and put in a basin near by overnight, until every impurity of
the sand shall have settled and the water is absolutely transparent.
This performance is always one of deep anxiety, and requires unremitting
attention to be sure that everything is replaced exactly as it was
before, so that the fishes will know their home when they get back to
it. There was a lizard put in this aquarium, to begin with, but he
proved of a very quarrelsome disposition, and tried to bite the tails of
the fish, so that he had to be removed to a basin, where he lives a life
of solitude. The pleasure given by this little aquarium has far exceeded
the outlay of money, and many a useful lesson in neatness and care has
been learned in looking out for the needs of the fish.
ANNE HELME.
* * * * *
MOTHER. "Jack, why is it you have so many holes in your pockets?"
JACK. "I guess it's my money which burns through."
PERILS OF THE NEWFOUNDLAND BANKS.
BY W. J. HENDERSON.
It was blowing half a gale from the southward and eastward, and the
Captain said it would be worse before it was better. The _Mohawk_ was
plunging head first over the ragged seas, with a great roaring of
thunderous foam under her hawseholes as she fell into the wide hollows,
and a sickening upward swirl of her lean stem as she rose again to meet
the reeling cliffs of water that swept down upon her out of the windward
gloom. The streamer of brown smoke that rushed from her tall black
funnel went wreathing and shuddering away to leeward, where it seemed to
add a blacker tinge to the gray wall of the hard clouds. The sea was not
yet torn to spoon-drift by the wind; but there was a huge under-running
sweep of swell that made one think that bad weather lay behind the
windward horizon.
Ever and anon the propeller would leap out of the water, and as it
revolved in the air, set the ship full of rumbling quivers. Most of the
passengers--and they were not many, for it was not one of the big
"liners"--lay below decks in the unspeakable agony of early seasickness,
for the ship was not long out, and had just reached the edge of the
Newfoundland banks. A few of the ocean travellers, however, mostly men
who had seen salt spray before, sat huddled in their rugs under the lee
of the deck-house, conversing upon such cheering topics as collisions,
and icebergs, and leaks. One who had not crossed the sea before, but who
was free from sickness, said,
"I am told that we are now on the banks of Newfoundland, where foolish
men go in small sailing-vessels to fish."
"Foolish you may well call them," said an old voyager, "for they lie
there in thick weather and thin without making a sign of their presence.
I remember once, steaming slowly through a dense fog on a great
Cunarder, we heard the fog-horn of a single sailing craft, and presently
that ceased. A minute later the fog lifted, and there were thirty sail
of them within the circumference of a mile. I tell you, those fellows
are--"
"Sail ho!" cried the lookout forward, and several passengers sprang to
their feet. They knew that it was out of the common order of things on a
merchant steamer to make a noise about a passing sail, such fussiness
being left to men-of-war that have nothing more to do. They crowded to
the rail of the ship, and far ahead they saw what seemed to be a small
sloop staggering over the big seas under very scant canvas. The lookout
and the officer on the bridge exchanged some words, from which the
passengers learned that the sailor made the vessel out to be in
distress.
"Call away the whale-boat!" cried the officer, and in a moment the
boatswain's pipe was screeching, and three or four seamen trotted aft in
their oilskins.
"A rescue!" exclaimed the new voyager. "I had no hope that I should ever
be so fortunate as to see such a thing."
"I'm not so certain that you'll regard it as good fortune," said an old
voyager. "Sometimes these things are tragic, especially in a rising
gale, when your own boat's crew may be lost in the attempt."
"Do you think it may come to that?"
"Ay, man, it may in such a sea; but let us hope for the best. See, we
are coming abreast of the cripple. But we must cross to the other side;
our ship will go to windward of her." And marvelling at the old
voyager's sea lore, the new one went with the others to the
weather-rail, where the force of the gale came upon them and beat their
breath back into their nostrils.
"Heaven's mercy!" exclaimed the new voyager, "but it is a sad sight."
She was a little schooner of some fifty tons. Her foremast had been
carried away about ten feet above the deck, and had taken with it her
jib-boom and her maintopmast. The forecastle deck was a litter of broken
timbers and tangled cordage that washed pitiably from side to side as
the waters rolled over the splintered rail, or sobbed through its gaping
seams. The mainboom was lashed amidships, and a jib-headed storm trysail
was sheeted aft. A spare jib had been set from the mainmast head to the
stump of the foremast, and under these two cloths the poor maimed craft
was desperately striving to keep her shattered head to the threatening
seas. High up in the main rigging flew the United States flag, union
down, poor Jack's red, white, and blue cry for help. There was an
ominous heaviness about the fall of her bows into the restless hollows
that told the Captain of the MOHAWK that she had not long to live.
"We'll send a boat for you," he roared down the wind, as his steamer
slipped slowly ahead.
The hapless wretches on the schooner waved their hands and uttered a
faint cheer. The whale-boat was lowered away when the _Mohawk_ was half
a mile to windward of the wreck. The buoyant little craft leaped over
the waves, disappearing between them, and then tossing high in air on
their foamy crests.
"It's all a wonder to me that she doesn't capsize," said the new
voyager.
"A good whale-boat will outlive a poor ship," said the veteran.
[Illustration: THE PASSENGERS SAW THE WHALE-BOAT SWEEP DOWN UNDER THE
STERN OF THE SCHOONER.]
And now watching with their glasses the passengers saw the whale-boat
sweep down under the stern of the schooner, and round up under her lee,
while the bowman stood up and hurled a line to one of the schooner's
people. By the aid of this the whale-boat was dropped under the lee
quarter of the cripple, and at each upward swing of the smaller craft
one of the shipwrecked marines contrived to tumble into her. Six men and
a boy of some fifteen years they were. Meanwhile the steamer was dropped
slowly down until she was within a fair pull of the schooner. The
whale-boat came leaping and dancing over the seas, the men laying down
their broad backs to the oars, and the white smoke of the spray flying
on either bow. It was no small task to get the men out of the boat
without crushing her like paper against the iron side of the steamer as
it swung downward, yet by patience and seamen's skill it was
accomplished. The whale-boat was hoisted to her davits, and the _Mohawk_
resumed her voyage, while the shipwrecked men were taken below to be
given warm drinks, food, and dry clothing.
"Will not their schooner drift about in the path of passing ships?"
asked the new voyager.
"No, I fancy not," said the veteran; "she will--look!" At that instant
the little schooner's stem rose high into the air, where it hung poised
for a moment. Then she was swiftly absorbed by the pitiless sea, and her
fluttering ensign made a bright spot above a patch of angry green for a
moment and was gone.
"I never saw a sadder sight," said the new voyager, gazing with humid
eyes upon the blank sea.
"There is none sadder," replied the veteran passenger.
They all returned to their snug seats under the lee of the deck-house,
and for a long time were lost in meditation. Then the new voyager looked
up and said, "I should like to hear their story."
"That is possible," answered the veteran; "come."
The Captain of the _Mohawk_ was found and the request made. He sent for
the skipper of the lost schooner, and said: "Do you feel able now to
tell me your story? If so, these gentlemen also would like to hear it."
"Well, Captain," began the wrecked skipper, "it's a common enough story,
that's a fact, sir, and I reckon it hasn't anything in it that you never
heard before, though perhaps some of your passengers here never got
nearer to it than a newspaper at a breakfast table. That was the
schooner _Mary Anthony_, from Gloucester, and I'm her master--that is, I
was--Joshua Clark by name, and the boy's my son on his first v'yage.
That schooner was about all I had in the world, gentlemen, for I owned
her myself, and when she went down a little while ago the hard work of
seventeen years went down with her. But I s'pose I mustn't complain,
because we take our lives and fortunes in our hands whenever we come out
to the Banks to fish, and that's a fact. We got under way from
Gloucester on as sweet a morning as ever you saw, gentlemen, with a
whole-sail breeze from the southwest. The _Mary Anthony_ was a smart
sailer, though I do say it, and she wasn't long in getting the land
below the horizon, and that's a fact. When we reached the Banks we found
a fairly large fleet on the ground, and we were soon at work among the
best of them. It isn't worth while trying to describe the mere matter of
fishing to you, gentlemen, because, of course, that isn't what you want
to hear about. It's enough for me to say that we'd been on the Banks
three days and had very good luck before the accident befell us. I
s'pose, Captain, you didn't see anything of a fog last night, did you?"
"No; we must have been well outside of it."
"Two steamers passed us before the fog set in, and of course they had no
trouble keeping clear of the fleet. Yesterday afternoon I slipped away
to the southward of the rest of them, some half a dozen miles, following
a school of fish, and all of a sudden I saw the fog coming up. I made up
my mind that there wasn't any use of going back, and so I lay to right
where I was. The fog came down thicker than cheese, and not long
afterward the heavy swell set in from the southward and eastward, and I
knew there was weather brewing. So I had all the dories got aboard and
stowed amidships. The swell kept on increasing, and the fog was so thick
you couldn't see the length of the schooner. It was just after three
bells in the midwatch when I heard a yell from my lookout. Before I
could tumble out of my bunk there was a tremendous thump that threw me
half-way across my cabin. I jumped on deck just in time to see the huge
black hull of a steamer towering above us. She slipped away into the
fog, and was gone. There were a few shouts from her deck, but we neither
saw nor heard any more of her.
"I sprang forward to see what damage had been done. I found my little
schooner had been mortally hurt, gentlemen, and that's a fact. The
foremast, as you must have noticed, had been snapped off about ten feet
above the deck, and had carried a lot of our rig with it. But that was
not all. The wreckage from aloft had fallen so that something--the
foretopmast, I suppose--had smashed our dories into kindling wood. I
sent my mate below, and he came back with the report that we were taking
in water through half a dozen seams forward. I set two hands at work to
try to stop the leaks, while the rest of us cleared away some of the
wreckage. Meanwhile the swell had increased so that we were rolling
dreadfully, and there was great danger that some one would be hurt by
the loose timbers. I'm thankful, however, that we escaped that
misfortune. Toward daylight the wind rose and blew the fog off. I saw
that we were in for a blow, and I decided to run toward the land as long
as I dared. I set the canvas that you saw, and started her off ahead of
the gale. All hands were sent to the pumps, but in spite of our hardest
work the water gained on us. The gale increased and the sea rose, and
then I found that the schooner was so heavy with the water in her that
she was in great danger of being pooped--that is, gentlemen, having a
sea break over her stern and sweep her decks. That would have been the
end of us, and not a soul would have known what had become of us, for,
you see, we had no boats to take to, they being smashed. So there was
nothing to do but to heave her to and wait, hoping that some ship might
come along and take us off. Gentlemen, it's cruel hard to work at the
pumps till your arms are numb and your back feels as if it were being
cut with a saw, and still to know that your vessel is settling under
you, and that in a short time she must go down. I tell you we cast
mighty anxious looks around the horizon every time we rose on a sea; and
we felt like cheering when we saw the smoke from your funnel down in the
west. Then came another time of anxiety before we were sure you were
coming our way, and even after that we weren't positive that you would
take us off."
"What!" exclaimed the new voyager; "is it possible that there are men so
inhuman as to leave fellow-creatures on a sinking vessel?"
"There are a few such fellows on the sea," said the Captain of the
schooner; "but I don't think any of them sail under the flag that your
Captain ran up to his peak when he saw our signal of distress."
THE SWEETMEAT AGE.
Long ago when the moon was one big pie
For all little boys to eat,
Then some of the stars were sugar-plums,
And some of them raisins sweet;
Then the glorious sun was a custard pudding
Served up in a vast blue dish;
And the whole of the sea was soda-water
Half filled with ice-cream fish;
The great round earth was a luscious peach,
The grass was the puckery fuzz--
If it doesn't seem true to all and each,
Let him believe it who does--
Then the mountain-peaks were chocolate drops,
And the icebergs Roman punch;
And the dark storm-clouds rained lemonade--
People dug up the mud for lunch.
When it hailed, the hailstones were fine popcorn,
And pulverized sugar it snowed;
And the brooks as they ran by the candy-trees
With lovely root-beer o'erflowed.
Ah! that was the time, in the long ago,
When children worked hard, tooth and tongue;
But most of them suffered from overfed stomachs,
And, somehow, they all died young.
R. H.
WINNING A WATERMELON.
Scratchbones is certainly not a very elegant name, and yet the animal to
whom it belonged, a very ragged-looking mule, was proudly claimed by its
owner, Goliath Washington Jackson, an equally ragged-looking Southern
darky, to be the philosopher of the mule tribe. Why he claimed this has
never been definitely settled, and whenever any question was put to
Goliath regarding the excellence of Scratchbones's intelligence, the
reply would be something like this:
"Yes, sah! How I know dat mule am intelligent? He! he! he! but dat's
funny. You 'member de ole school-massa? Well, sah, he owned dat mule
once, an' neber feeded 'im up to de handle. One day Scratch was hungrier
dan usual, an' he chewed de ole man's books. He neber forgot dat
eddication." And here Goliath would chuckle to himself.
Our town recently received an innovation in the shape of a splendidly
asphalted street, and one very hot day, shortly after its completion,
Goliath drove up to the door of the hardware store with Scratchbones.
Coming in, he began boasting, as usual, of his wonderful mule, and how
well he stood the hot weather. None of us young fellows cared to
question the heat, and as for the mule, we thought it was either stand
it or lie down. He evidently preferred to stand, for there he stood in
the blazing sun staring blankly down the street.
Goliath had dropped in to make some purchases, which, of course,
necessitated a great deal of talk and time. In the mean while
Scratchbones was patiently waiting in the hot sun outside, scarcely
budging, unless it was an occasional switch of his tail. A thunder-storm
had been brewing, and when Goliath finally started for the door down
came the rain, sending up steam from the hot street. Nothing suited him
better than to have an excuse to further regale us with a list of his
mule's remarkable talents. Among the many, he spoke of his ability to
drive Scratchbones, and how well he obeyed him. Now, while this talk had
been going on, I had occasionally glanced at Scratchbones, and he seemed
uneasy, especially since the rain had started, and was nervously
switching his tail back and forth. I thought it was on account of the
storm, but casually glancing at him, I noted something that made me
smile, and, slipping off my seat, I quietly told the other boys.
"Goliath," I said, "I'll wager a large, juicy watermelon that your mule
won't obey you if I tell him not to."
"Ha! ha! ha! He! he! youse is foolin' dis yere ole man, Massa Harry."
"No, no, I mean it. All I'll do is to say something to myself, and your
mule won't budge when you say 'gee,' but simply wag his tail."
"It's done, Massa Harry. I'se'll take dat wager, but de melon has to be
de largest you can git."
"All right," I said. And as it had stopped raining, Goliath proceeded to
his wagon, and, climbing up on the seat, picked up the ropes he called
reins and shouted, "Gee up dere, Scratch." But, as I predicted, Scratch
never moved a leg, but only switched his tail.
"Gee up dere; what's de mattah wif youse?" But not a move did that mule
make. We stood in the doorway laughing so heartily that Goliath grew
suspicious, and climbing down, walked slowly around the mule and wagon,
doubtless to discover if we had played him a trick.
Everything appeared all right, and getting on the wagon, he tried it
again. "Get along dere, Scratch, you long-eared bone-yard. Gee up!"
It was useless; Scratch wouldn't move, and Goliath, with a woe-begone,
puzzled expression on his face, clambered down and surveyed old
Scratchbones. His eyes wandered along every stitch of the harness, and
finally down to Scratch's feet. A very curious look covered his face,
and stooping, he discovered the reason why Scratch wouldn't gee.
Scratchbones and the wagon had stood so long on that new asphalt, and
unfortunately in a place made softer than the rest by the sun, that he
actually had sunk _into_ it, and the tarry stuff had gathered around his
hoofs. The rainfall cooled it off, hardening it, and consequently both
mule and wagon were locked to the street.
Goliath was mad, and claimed we had put up the joke on him. However, he
lost the melon, and as it took an hour or so to dig Scratch out, we made
him get it, and finally got him into good humor, but told him never to
boast of his wonderful mule.
"I's done boastin' of dat mule. Neber no more, massas, dat mule done
need no one to boast of 'im. He done show how proud he am when he can't
stan' in de street widout gettin' stuck on 'imself."
HUBERT EARL.
A MEAN MAN.
A French paper tells of a man who ought to be set down as the meanest
man of his time. His name is Rapineau, and he is the happy father of
three children. His chief claim to meanness lies in the fact that he has
lately discovered a plan to reduce his weekly expenditure. Every
morning, when sitting down at table, he makes the following proposal:
"Those who will go without breakfast shall have twopence." "Me--me!"
exclaim the youngsters in chorus. Rapineau gives them the money and
suppresses the breakfast. In the afternoon, when the children were
anxiously expecting their first meal, Rapineau calls out, "Those who
want their dinner must give twopence;" and they all pay back what they
received in the morning for going without their breakfast, and in that
way Rapineau saves a meal a day.
JOHN KILBURNE'S FORT.
BY JAMES OTIS.
Seven miles from that settlement in the province of New Hampshire which
is now known as Keene, John Kilburne built, in the year 1754, a log
house of such strength and so well adapted for defence that his
neighbors spoke of it as a "garrison," and more than one ridiculed the
idea of erecting a fort when only a dwelling-house was required.
It troubled stout-hearted John Kilburne not one whit that his
acquaintances found subject for mirth in the precautions he took against
a savage foe. "In case the Indians do make an attack upon me and mine, I
shall be in better condition to receive them in a building of this kind
than in one erected flimsily, and if they do not, my wife and two boys
will sleep all the more soundly for knowing I have protected them from
possible intruders." This the owner of the "garrison" repeated again and
again, until finding he would make no other reply to their bantering,
his friends ceased to speak derisively of the structure.
In one year from the time the fortlike house had been built John
Kilburne had good cause for satisfaction with himself. England was again
at war with the French regarding her possessions in the New World, and
the Indians were making indiscriminate attacks upon the settlers in the
easternmost provinces.
Benjamin and Arthur Kilburne, sons of John and Martha his wife, although
but fourteen and twelve years of age respectively, were well versed in
the use of fire-arms, for in those days the assistance of even the
children of a household might become necessary. Rumors of Indian
depredations were rife, yet they felt little fear of an attack. Within
the walls of the "garrison" their father and themselves would be able to
hold in check a large body of savages, and be exposed to but little
danger.
The crops had been harvested; the cattle were inside the stockade, where
was ample food for them in case of a siege, and where they would serve
as food if the larder of the house needed replenishing.
Early on the morning of the 9th of October John Pike, his wife, and two
sisters arrived at the "garrison" with a pitiful tale. The Indians had
killed Daniel Twitchel and Jacob Flynt the night previous, and the
visitors had but just escaped from their home before it was set on fire
by the cruel enemy.
"I doubt not they will make an attack here before another day, friend
Kilburne, yet I beg shelter of you, and my rifle may not come amiss."
"You would be welcome to stay, even though unarmed," was the hearty
reply. "The garrison is large enough for all, and I would that Daniel
Twitchel had spent more time strengthening his own dwelling against an
attack instead of trying to find flaws in the way I chose to provide for
my family. Ben, you and your brother had better mould bullets. It will
serve to keep you in-doors, and no one can say how much ammunition may
be needed."
As the boys set about the task, Mr. Kilburne listened again to the sad
news brought by his neighbor. There was nothing to be done in the way of
making ready for defence, because that had been attended to when no
danger threatened.
John Pike had not finished giving his story in detail, when Mrs.
Kilburne, who had stepped out of the house to get water from the pump,
which stood close at hand, sprang back suddenly, her face so pale that
there was no necessity of asking the cause of her alarm.
The two men were at the loop-holes in an instant, and that which he saw
caused Mr. Kilburne to say sharply:
"Ben, I leave the north side of the house to you and your brother. Our
lives may depend upon your vigilance, and there is to be no waste of
ammunition; every bullet must strike its target. Mary," he added, to his
wife, "you and your friends will keep the spare guns loaded, and finish
what the boys have left undone at the fire. I do not--"
"It is a regular army that has come upon us," Mr. Pike interrupted. "I
have counted not less than forty savages in the edge of the thicket, and
there must be as many more on either side of the house!"
It was learned later that the enemy numbered a hundred and seventy, all
well armed.
Ben and Arthur were peering eagerly out through loop-holes cut on each
side of the shuttered window, and the former was the first to discharge
his weapon.
"I saw a head over the top of the stockade," he said, in reply to his
father's question.
"Their number is so large that they will likely put on a bolder front
than usual," Mr. Kilburne muttered to himself, and despite the strength
of the "garrison," he felt decidedly anxious regarding the result of the
attack.
During an hour the men and boys remained on watch, while the women
attended to their portion of the work, and hardly a sound was heard,
save when the brothers whispered together. After the first shot had been
fired the enemy remained completely hidden in the thicket which
surrounded the house.
Then, and almost at the same instant, each of the watchers discharged
his weapon. On either side of the stockade plumed heads had suddenly
come into view, and a hundred bullets struck the building.
There was a low moan from that portion of the room where Mr. Kilburne
was stationed; but owing to the reports of the fire-arms, it was not
heard by the inmates.
The first intimation the defenders had that one of their number had
fallen under the heavy fire was when Ben turned to take up the spare gun
his mother had placed by his side, and saw his father lying on the floor
with a thin stream of blood issuing from his lips.
"Oh, father!" he cried, as he ran toward the wounded man; but when he
would have raised the dear head he was motioned away:
"Remember your mother, my boy! You can do me no good, and now there is
additional reason why you should not neglect your duty."
By this time Mrs. Kilburne was at her husband's side, and Ben took his
station at the loop-hole once more; but the tears blinded him, until it
became necessary to brush them away before he could see the
feather-bedecked bodies which were here and there upon the stockade
ready to leap into the enclosure.
During the next half-hour neither of the boys had an opportunity to so
much as glance toward their father. Should the enemy succeed in getting
into the enclosure, the result might, and probably would, be fatal to
the defenders of the house.
John Pike made valiant battle, nor were the boys lacking in skill and
courage. More than one of the foe had met death before he could leap
down from the top of the stockade, and four who did succeed were met by
bullets while creeping up close to the building, where the timbers would
shelter them from the deadly aim of those within.
After this desperate struggle there was a lull in the storm of battle,
and Arthur said, in a low tone, as he stood with his eye to the
loop-hole,
"Is father badly wounded?"
"I fear so. The blood was gushing from his mouth when I saw him, and
he--"
"I will take your place, my son, while you bid your father good-by for
evermore in this world," Mrs. Kilburne said, in a voice half stifled
with emotion, as she pushed Ben gently aside.
His father was dying, and he could stop only for an instant to receive a
last pressure of the enfeebled hands!
When Ben returned he was heroically drying his eyes, that he might
resume his duty as sentinel, and Mrs. Kilburne motioned Arthur to follow
his brother's example.
"It is hard father should be the one sacrificed," Ben said, huskily, to
his mother, not able to glance toward her. "But one bullet has found its
way into the building, so Master Pike says, and that entered his body,
instead of mine."
"It is not for us to repine, my son. Remember that He doeth all things
well. I now look to you and Arthur for protection, and you can best show
your grief by doing as your father would have you do this day."
"I wish those painted fiends would show themselves again; there is some
little satisfaction in shooting them down."
"Vengeance should not be in your mind at this moment. It is necessary to
fight that our lives may be saved, but only for such purpose. Revenge
will not lessen the blow or soothe your father's pain."
Then the wife was by her husband's side, and Arthur at his station as
watcher.
During the next ten minutes the sound of hatchets against the logs of
the stockade could be heard, and then three of the heavy timbers fell
inward.
"Now stand steady!" Pike shouted. "They will make a rush, expecting to
overpower us by press of numbers, and we must be prepared."
The two boys ran to that side of the house which was most sorely
threatened, and had hardly gained new positions when the assault was
made.
It was now a question of loading and discharging their muskets as
rapidly as possible, only delaying sufficiently long to take careful
aim, and when half an hour had passed Ben heard, as if in a dream, Mrs.
Pike say to her husband, as she handed him a gun,
"John Kilburne is at rest!"
The boy bravely forced himself to forget, for the time being, the sorrow
which had come upon him; and when the conflict was hottest, a shrill cry
of pain burst from John Pike's lips as he swayed to and fro an instant,
and then fell backward to the floor dead.
"You and I must do the work of four now!" Arthur cried, as if thinking
his brother needed encouragement. "Take care of that fellow near your
corner; once he is on the other side of the house we shall be smoked
out."
A musket-shot was the answer, and as the stifling cloud in the dwelling
was increased yet more, the danger pointed out by Arthur had been
dispelled.
Now Mrs. Kilburne was at one of the loop-holes, using her husband's
weapon with wonderful skill, and when the enemy beat a hasty retreat,
unable to face longer the deadly hail poured upon them, she said to her
brave sons:
"It may be possible we have driven them back."
"Not yet," Ben replied, gravely. "There are so many that they will not
abandon the attack now, but be the more eager for our blood. How is the
powder holding out?"
"Mrs. Pike was bringing another keg from the cellar when her husband was
killed. I have heard your father say he had enough in the house to
withstand a siege of a week."
"Two of the oxen are dead," Arthur cried, as he looked hastily through
one of the apertures at the rear of the house. "How did they get out of
the barn? I am certain all the cattle were fastened in the stalls when
neighbor Pike came."
Ben rushed to his brother's side.
"Some of the Indians have gained shelter there!" he cried, nervously.
"Go back to mother, and I will watch here."
He had hardly spoken when three savages were seen coming cautiously out
of the building, and again the discharge of the muskets in the room
prevented the besieged from hearing any movement or words from each
other.
It was an hour past noon when the defenders of the "garrison" had
another opportunity for rest, and then, while the women watched, Ben and
Arthur cooled the heated barrels of the muskets by pouring water through
them.
[Illustration: RUNNING OUT QUICKLY HE FILLED ONE BUCKET.]
Before the work had been completed the supply of the precious liquid was
exhausted, and without an intimation to his mother or brother of what he
was about to do, Ben unbarred the door. Running out quickly, he filled
one bucket, and was in the act of stepping upon the threshold, when the
single report of a gun was heard, and he staggered forward, his face
growing pale beneath the grime of powder.
Arthur had fastened the door again before he paid any attention to his
brother, and then with heavy heart he stepped to the side of his mother,
who was cutting off the sleeve of the coat, which was red with blood.
"It is only a flesh-wound; bind it up quickly, and I will get to work
again," Ben said, with an effort to speak cheerily. "Thinking they have
killed another of us, the savages will make one more attempt to carry
the house by storm."
It was as he had feared; before the wound was properly bandaged Arthur
and Mrs. Pike were firing with the utmost rapidity, and Ben joined them
while the blood was yet running in a tiny stream down his side.
This time the enemy displayed more courage, and were less eager to
shelter themselves against the shower of bullets. They ran directly up
to the walls of the house, having made their way through the break in
the stockade, and not until nearly sunset did the two boys and their
mother have an opportunity to cease from the struggle.
During this time Mrs. Pike and her sisters did their full share of the
work by cooling the spare guns, reloading the weapons as rapidly as they
were discharged, or darting from one unprotected loop-hole to another to
make certain the savages were not adopting new tactics, and in a corner
of the room lay the lifeless bodies of the two victims.