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, AUGUST 6, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.
VOL. XVI.--NO. 823. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.
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[Illustration]
GREAT MEN'S SONS.
THE SON OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.
BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.
It was all glory and glitter one bright day in Babylon. It was that
eventful morning, ages and ages ago, when the armies of the East and the
armies of the West, with the _epigonoi_, or brilliant young "sons of the
King," twenty thousand in line, with horse-archers and foot-archers, and
slingers and spearmen, and war-elephants and war-chariots, and all the
galleys and barges of the King's navy, marched and countermarched,
sailed and manoeuvred, all in honor of one very small boy, who was yet
a very important one.
He sat under a gorgeous canopy upon the gleaming portico of the palace
of the kings at Babylon, and clapped his hands, and crowed his praises,
and laughed aloud in glee, as spears were tossed and shields were
clashed aloft, and soldiers shouted and generals saluted, and princes of
vassal nations bowed themselves to the ground in homage and
admiration--all in honor of this very small boy with a very great name.
For he was Alexander, the Shield, the Great Lord, Blessed, That liveth
forever. He was constitutional King of Macedon, Captain-General of
Greece, Lord of Egypt, and monarch of Asia. He was the son of Alexander,
King of Macedon, called by men the Great and Conqueror of the World.
But Alexander the Great was dead. And in the palace of the kings whose
empire he had conquered, the palace in which Belshazzar had feasted and
Cyrus had ruled, and in which the all-conquering Macedonian had died at
thirty-two, this helpless baby, less than a year old, and who had never
seen his father of the mighty name, held the sovereignty that Alexander
the Great had established.
It was a vast possession. It stretched from Greece to India, from Egypt
to Siberia; it was such as only a genius could have conquered and only a
genius could rule. With Alexander dead and only a baby as its lord it
was already in danger. But Roxana the Queen said, boldly, "My boy shall
be King," and all the "Companions of Alexander," as his generals and
ministers were called, echoed her words: "The boy shall be King!" And so
it came to pass that at the great display in Babylon the little son of
Alexander was honored and sainted and adored as the successor of his
imperial father.
But Alexander the Great had died too soon. He had wonderful plans as to
what he would do if he had lived, but none at all as to what was to be
done if he should happen to die. He did die--suddenly--in the year 323
B.C. And thereupon each one of his leading generals, or "Companions,"
declared that _he_ was the man to step into Alexander's shoes, and have
the charge of the empire and the care of the young King until the boy
should come of age.
So they began to quarrel among themselves and to make things very
uncomfortable for the Queen Roxana in the splendid palace at Babylon,
until finally little Alexander's grandmother, the Princess Olympias,
declared that _she_ would take charge of the King and his empire. This
made the generals angry with Olympias, who was a very determined and a
very vindictive old lady, and things became more mixed up than ever. But
the Princess Olympias had considerable power, and she managed to get
possession of little King Alexander and his mother, and to have them
brought, under a strong body-guard, from province to province and from
camp to camp from one end of the empire to the other, until they reached
her home in western Greece.
Gradually the quarrelling generals who were fighting for the possession
of Alexander's empire were reduced, by victory or death, to five. And of
these five the most ambitious and determined was Cassander, the regent
of Macedon. He hated Alexander the Great; he hated the son of Alexander;
for the father had slighted him when living, and the son, by living,
stood in his way. He had determined to be the head of the empire, and he
did not rest until he had forced his rivals, the fighting generals, into
a bitter quarrel for supremacy, that led to a long and bloody war.
It was during this war that little King Alexander's grandmother, the
Princess Olympias, set out to punish Cassander. While he was fighting in
southern Greece, she gathered an army in northern Greece and attempted
to invade Macedon and get possession of its capital city, Pella. But
Cassander was a shrewd young general; he seized all the ships he could
get together and sailed up the AEgean Sea so quickly that before Olympias
knew it he had landed his army and got between her and the road that led
to Pella. Thereupon the old Princess, being afraid to risk a battle,
shut herself up with her slender army and the little Alexander and his
mother in the city of Pydna, an old town of Macedon lying at the head of
what is now called, on your map of Turkey in Europe, the Gulf of
Salonica. It is in the walled town of Pydna that, in the year 316 B.C.,
we get our second brief glimpse of the son of Alexander, now a little
boy of seven.
It was a beautiful spot in which that old town of Pydna was built; it
stood three miles from the sea, in a fair and fertile region, and almost
in the shadow of that grand old hill Mount Olympus, the home of the gods
of Greece.
It was anything but a beautiful home for little King Alexander, however,
when he found himself locked behind its thick walls. For Cassander, the
Macedonian, marched his soldiers against it, and dug a great trench all
around it, and set up all the dreadful old-time war-engines about it,
and determined either to batter down its walls or starve out its
inhabitants.
It was a terrible siege. Provisions gave out, and poor little Alexander
went to bed hungry many a night. The horses, the mules, and the dogs
were killed for food. The great war-elephants, having nothing to eat but
sawdust, grew too weak to be of any use, and, with their useless
drivers, were killed and eaten by the soldiers.
One dark night, through a secret doorway in the city wall, a little
party crept softly out of Pydna and went down toward the port. It was
the Princess Olympias, with the little King and his mother, accompanied
by a few followers. Grown desperate by failure and famine, they had
planned to escape on a swift galley which was waiting for them in the
harbor. Silently they moved forward, but before they had gone a mile a
breathless messenger met them. "Back, back to the city," he cried; "back
ere you are all made prisoners! Cassander has discovered your plan. The
galley is captured, and men lie in wait at the port to seize and slay
you all."
Hurriedly the fugitives returned to the city. Then, unable longer to
stand the horrors and privations of a besieged town, Olympias the
Princess and little King Alexander, her grandson, surrendered to
Cassander, after getting him to promise to do them no harm.
But those were days when such promises did not amount to much. For the
lying Cassander speedily went back upon all his promises. He had the
ambitious old Princess killed, and he imprisoned Alexander and his
mother in the gloomy old citadel at Amphipolis, an important city of
Macedon, on the river Strymon, three miles back from the sea, at the
head of what is now called, on your map of Turkey in Europe, the Gulf of
Orfani.
Here in this massive and gloomy old citadel of Amphipolis ("the city
surrounded by water"), where the boy was kept close prisoner for five
years, we get our last glimpse of the son of Alexander. For when
Cassander learned that there was a movement on foot to set the young
King free and make him King indeed, he sent to Glaucius, the commander
of the citadel, a swift messenger bearing a fearful message. It was an
order to make away with Alexander and his mother as speedily and as
secretly as possible.
The dreadful work was done. How, when, or where none knows to this day.
The "taking off" of the thirteen-year-old King of Macedon was as great a
tragedy and as complete a mystery as was the murder of the English
Princes in the Tower of London eighteen hundred years later.
So the last of the race of Alexander was cut off. Cassander and the
generals made themselves kings, and the Macedonians held sway in the
East until the growing power of Rome overshadowed and absorbed all that
was left of the once mighty empire of Alexander the Great.
It is evident that the son of the conqueror possessed little of the
pluck and spirit of his famous father, who was a governor at fourteen, a
general at sixteen, a king at eighteen, a conqueror at twenty. The
strength of his father's name was great, and had the little Alexander
been of equal valor he might have changed the history of the world.
But he did not. The life that began in glitter and glory in the splendid
palace at Babylon, tasted privation and misery behind the gates of
Pydna, and went out in secrecy and death in the grim dungeons of
Amphipolis.
It is a sad story, but the son of Alexander was not the only "sad little
prince" in the history of the world. His story is simply more notable,
and perhaps more pathetic, than that of other unfortunate boys because
of the greatness and splendor of his father's name, and because not even
the shadow of that mighty name could save from sorrow, pain, and death
the short young life that should rather have been full of pleasure and
of promise, and should have made itself a power in the union of races
and the history of the world.
COBWEB LANE.
BY FRANKLIN MATTHEWS.
The most curious and interesting highway that I know of is Cobweb Lane,
and I very much doubt if any of my readers ever heard of it. I am sure,
however, that some of them have been in it in the daytime, but strangely
enough they have never seen it, for the peculiar reason that Cobweb Lane
doesn't exist in the daytime. It only exists at night. It isn't some
out-of-the-way and quaint place in London, as, at first thought, its
name might indicate, but it is in the most conspicuous place in Greater
New York. I'll let you into the secret--I am quite sure it is a secret
with me--and tell you where it is and what it is.
Cobweb Lane is nothing more nor less than the promenade on the Brooklyn
Bridge. It doesn't exist until after midnight, because not until then do
the strands that hang from the big cables resemble the huge cobwebs that
have suggested the name Cobweb Lane. The moon has to be in just the
right position; the great cities of New York and Brooklyn must have gone
to bed and left numerous lights, some in full glare and some turned
down; the water in the river below must have a thin veil of mist hanging
over it, and then, in the stillness of the night, if you will walk over
the bridge you will see Cobweb Lane.
[Illustration: YOU ARE NOW AT THE BEGINNING OF COBWEB LANE.]
There is East Cobweb Lane and West Cobweb Lane. The first is on the
Brooklyn side of the bridge and the other is on the New York side. As
you walk out on the promenade and look over the cities and the beautiful
harbor, perhaps you soon will turn your eyes to the top of one of the
towers as you approach it. You are now at the beginning of Cobweb Lane.
The four big cables curve down from the top and hide themselves in some
masonry at your feet, and when you look up the narrow spaces between
them, as they reach away before you, the eye catches sight of strands of
steel rope, woven regularly and gracefully, hanging from the cables and
extending to the structure on which you are standing. These strands,
when the moon shines just right, partly obscured and lying low in the
south, are like the filmy threads of a monster cobweb spun in the sky.
Just as you are entranced with this fairy picture, and are wondering
where the big spider must be, you look ahead of you on the promenade,
and, as if coming from some hidden passage, you see a cloud of vapor.
There is something approaching, surely. You wonder at once if the spider
that could have strung this web in the air would have hot breath, and it
is not until you hear a noise and are conscious that a train of cars has
passed you that you begin to realize that it really isn't a spider
chasing along one of the paths of his web after you, in the hope of
catching you and making of you a very choice morsel of a fly.
For nearly five years I have been going over the Brooklyn Bridge night
and day, and it seems to me that every few days I see something in the
arrangement of the details of the structure that I never saw before. It
is a constant delight to watch the bridge under the varying conditions
that affect it from day to day. One can see, for example, how carefully
the wires for the electric lights are strung. They are almost within
reach of any person walking across the structure, and yet there is
absolutely no danger from them. It is interesting to watch the bracing
of the structure, how the big and little stays slope now this way and
that, and to note just where they change in their slanting direction. It
is also interesting at the dead of night to see the workmen splice one
of the car cables, taking out some broken strand and weaving in another.
I always like to see the workmen paint these cables. The men walk along
the tracks with pots of red paint in their hands. They have great mitts
of lamb's wool on their hands, and they use these for brushes. They dip
their hands in the paint, and then run them along the cables until the
paint is transferred from the hands to the cable. It is dangerous work,
for not only must the workmen guard against falling between the ties to
the water below, but they must face the danger of being run over, for
every minute a train of cars comes along.
I like to see the care that is taken of the stations. Every Sunday
morning at two o'clock the workmen get out a hose and wash the
terminals, just as sailors wash the decks of a ship. Once every four
years the structure is painted in every part. It is fascinating to see
the painters swinging in their chairs far up one of the cables or along
the strands that make the cobwebs at night. Every eight months a new
flooring has to be laid down on the driveway, and so you see there is
something going on constantly on the bridge that is worth watching.
I do not intend to tell anything about the bridge in the way of
statistics. The well-known facts as to length and height and cost and
power to resist strains may be found in any of the newspaper almanacs.
But there is one feature about the bridge that I do not think is well
known, and which has interested me greatly. I think it will be news to
most persons that up in the towers where the big cables rest there are a
series of steel rollers over which the cables pass. Each cable rests in
a sort of a cradle as it goes through the top of the towers, and under
each of these cradles are forty-three steel rollers, four and a half
feet long and three and one-half inches in diameter. It is well known
that the heat and cold elongate and contract the cables, and most of
those persons who know about these rollers think that they have been
placed there to allow the cables to lengthen or shorten themselves
according as the weather is hot or cold. They are in error on this
matter, however, for the rollers are placed in the towers merely to
equalize the strain on the bridge. The contraction and expansion are
equal on both sides of a tower, and so there would be no need of them on
that account.
If, however, there should be a great weight on one side of the bridge
and not on the other, then these rollers come into use. Under these
conditions the weight of the cables, and the structure they support, is
thrown down the inside of each tower straight to its foundations.
Another thing I like to watch about the bridge is the slip joint exactly
in the centre. There are two others of these joints, one between each
tower and the land anchorage, but the most interesting one is in the
centre. When a train of cars passes, you can see the joint expand and
contract three-eighths of an inch, and even when a carriage passes on
the roadway you can see it move a little. These slip joints are
necessary chiefly because of the heat and cold. In summer the cables are
fifteen inches longer between the towers than in the winter. The bridge
structure is cut in two in the middle, and an arm is fastened to one of
these ends. It slips into an opening in the other end, and moves back
and forth as any expansion or contraction occurs. I noticed one day last
winter, when the greatest crush in the history of the bridge occurred,
and when it was estimated that 2500 tons of human beings were
distributed along the bridge at one time, that this slip joint in the
middle was drawn out at least fifteen inches because of the unusual
weight. As each cable, however, is intended to sustain a weight of
12,000 tons, this great crush was a small matter. Still, the constant
motion of the bridge that seems so solid and inflexible is well worth
studying.
I am also very fond of watching the structure sway in a high wind. I was
talking with one of the guards recently, who had been on the bridge
since the day it was opened. He said that early one morning, in the
first high wind that came after the opening, he looked over to the New
York side and apparently saw one of the biggest chimneys in town bending
this way and that, and he stood there transfixed, waiting for it to
fall. It didn't fall, although it bent far over, and he thought it must
be wonderful mortar that could hold so many bricks together. Suddenly he
noticed that the chimney was exactly in a line with one of the vertical
strands from the cables, and he saw at once that it was the bridge and
not the chimney that was swaying. The guard was unprepared for such a
situation. Of course the bridge was moving only a few inches from side
to side, but when this man measured by a chimney a mile away it seemed
to move as much as the chimney apparently had been moving.
This guard said he had been all through the civil war, and had faced
death a hundred times in battle, but he never was so frightened as on
this occasion. He actually expected to see the bridge go down at any
moment, but he stood at his post until relieved. When he got home later
in the morning his wife asked him why he was so pale, and he said that
he had to go and lie down for several hours to recover from the shock.
Nowadays no one thinks anything of a slight swaying of the bridge in a
fierce wind, but to my mind it is one of the most interesting things
about the bridge to watch.
Soon after the bridge was opened word came to Chief Engineer Martin that
Barnum was going to march his entire herd of elephants, with the famous
Jumbo at their head, across the bridge some night. There was no tariff
for elephants, and the Barnum agents hoped that the authorities would
refuse to allow the herd to pass over. That would give the Barnum people
a chance to say that Jumbo was so big that the authorities of the bridge
were afraid to let him cross the structure, and the circus people forsaw
a splendid advertisement.
Mr. Martin wasn't to be caught napping, and he was on hand when the
herd approached. The man in charge offered to pay for crossing, but Mr.
Martin said there was no charge for elephants, and that the man could
take them over at his own risk. Mr. Martin stipulated that the elephants
should be kept at regular intervals. But when the animals got out on the
roadway, a train passing over frightened them, and, with Jumbo to lead
them, they gathered in a group and trumpeted fiercely. Finally the
keepers got them to go on, but they were so timid that they crowded each
other all the way over. Mr. Martin ran out to the centre to watch the
effect on the slip joint, and found that the weight amounted to nothing.
Ever since that day elephants by the hundred would not cause the bridge
officials any concern. Mr. Barnum's elephants got over in safety, but
there was no Jumbo advertisement to be had out of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Chief Engineer Martin of the bridge once said to me, when I asked him if
he could not tell me some of the interesting things about it that
usually escaped the ordinary observer:
"There isn't much to be said. The bridge is a very prosaic thing."
I have no doubt it is to Mr. Martin. He concerns himself with abstract
mathematical formulas a good deal. He knows about the tangents and sines
and cosines and curves and strains and all that, which some of us
grown-up people studied about in college, and have been glad to forget
in our humdrum lives since. When I asked Mr. Martin, however, if he knew
where Cobweb Lane was, he smiled, and said he didn't. He showed in that
way that the bridge was a very prosaic thing to him; but I am sure that
if you take no thought of mathematics, and look for the beautiful and
interesting things about the bridge, you will be convinced that the
bridge is not prosaic after all. A visit to Cobweb Lane will prove it.
THE WESTBRIDGE BURGLAR ALARM.
BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.
"I wonder we didn't think of it long ago. Why, we can sit in our rooms
and talk to each other as well as if we were together. The whole outfit
won't cost us more than fifteen dollars."
Tom Dailey began to drum telegraphic dots and dashes on the table with
the ends of his fingers. He had just unfolded to his two particular
chums his plan of connecting all their houses with a telegraph line, and
the boys agreed that a telegraph line was precisely the thing they
needed.
"I'm ready to begin right away," said Harry Barker. "The sooner we have
it working, the better."
"It's very easily learned," Tom continued. "You can learn the alphabet
in an hour or two, and after a week's practice you can read the sounder
slowly. Our houses stand just right for it, too."
Tom was certainly correct about that. Their houses were in a cluster in
the suburbs of Westbridge, two on one side of the broad avenue, and one
just across the way, with only about five hundred feet of space between
them.
"It would be a grand thing," Joe said, after deliberating a little, "but
I don't know whether I can get father to advance me the cash. That canoe
about used up my money, and I may have trouble to get any money for a
while."
"No, you won't!" Tom exclaimed, very decidedly. "You'll not have any
trouble at all to get money for a telegraph line. I've thought that all
out. You see, this thing is not just a toy to play with; it's for real
use. You know what the worst drawback is to living here half a mile out
of town; it's burglars, isn't it? That's what we always have to be
looking out for, specially since they broke into your house two years
ago, and took all your silverware. And I'd like to know what better
burglar alarm we could have than a telegraph line between our houses."
The three families all took kindly to the telegraph idea, for they said
that it would be a great convenience to them in asking and answering
questions, and would save them many a step. Besides, if a burglar should
visit any of the houses it would be such a consolation to know that they
could call assistance in a few seconds. Tom and Harry put little tables
close by their beds to hold the key and sounder, but Joe had to make
other arrangements. His mother was afraid to have the wire so close to
his head for fear it might conduct the lightning when there was a
thunderstorm, so it was decided that his work-room over the kitchen
should also be his telegraph-office. That was the room where he kept his
printing-press and his carpenter's bench, and the turning lathe that he
had saved up for months to buy.
This work-room was too far from Joe's sleeping-room for him to hear the
click of the sounder if the other boys should call him at night; but
Harry got his friend the operator to help put up the line, and the
operator made an ingenious arrangement by which a little electric bell
was rung in the work-room whenever any of the keys were used. By leaving
the door open this bell could be heard.
"Ain't it grewh!" Harry clicked off after the boys had been practising a
few days, meaning to say "Ain't it great!"
"Biggryf thirg out," Tom ticked in reply, imagining that he had said
"Biggest thing out."
But they soon did better than that, and in the course of a week or two
they were talking over the wire almost as glibly as though they were in
the same room. Their mothers and sisters were delighted with it, for
Mrs. Dailey found that without the trouble of going out she could ask
Mrs. Barker just how much flour to put in those new ginger-snaps, and
the girls made frequent appointments to walk down town together--all by
telegraph.
The line was so successful that the boys had to talk with their
schoolmates about it, and through them the news reached the reporter of
the Westbridge _Eagle_, and he put a paragraph in the paper about it.
"Our young townsmen Tom Dailey and Harry Barker and Joe Bailey," the
_Eagle_ said, "have added materially to the comfort and safety of their
respective families by putting up a telegraph line and burglar alarm
between their houses. It is a regularly equipped line, with an office in
each house. Td is the office call of young Dailey, Hb of Barker, and Jb
of Master Bailey. The instruments are in the boys' sleeping-rooms,
except Barker's; he uses his workshop for the purpose, and an electric
bell gives warning when he is wanted. Burglars will give those three
houses a wide berth in the future."
"Give us a wide berth!" Tom exclaimed. "Well, I guess they will! They
wouldn't have any chance at all. Father always keeps a revolver in his
room, and I have my baseball bat. Now mind, fellows, if we hear a
burglar at night, we send an alarm first thing, and the minute we get an
alarm we call our fathers. I guess a burglar would soon wish he was
somewhere else."
"I have a baseball bat all ready at the head of the bed too," said
Harry. "Do you suppose it would kill a man to hit him over the head with
it, Tom? I shouldn't like to kill a man, not even a burglar. I guess I'd
give him a rap over the shoulders. But I'm afraid father would fire some
bullets into him before I had a chance."
"I almost wish we'd have a chance," Joe put in. "But, of course, there
won't be any burglars around, now that we're all ready for them."
However, burglars are a little uncertain in their ways, and it is not
well to feel too secure. Perhaps it was even while the boys were talking
that two rough-looking fellows had their heads together in the back room
of a disreputable saloon in Westbridge making plans. One was older than
the other, and the younger had a copy of the Westbridge _Eagle_ in his
hands, occasionally reading a little here and there. These two fellows
were burglars in a small way; and burglars, like other people, get a
great deal of information out of the newspapers. When they see that
"John Smith and family have gone to the Catskills; the house is closed
for the summer," they find it more interesting news than the latest
election returns.
"Oh, pshaw!" the younger burglar exclaimed, as his eye fell upon the
paragraph about the boys' telegraph line--only he used language better
suited to a burglar sitting in a saloon; "those fellows have put up a
burglar alarm."
"What, at the three houses!" the other exclaimed. "Let me see;" and he
snatched the paper rudely from the younger man's hand. "Oh, my, my, my!"
he went on, after he had read the paragraph; "that's the neatest thing I
ever saw in my life." And he leaned back in his chair, and chuckled as
merrily as if he had been an honest man.
"I don't see anything to laugh about," said the younger. "We've spent
over a week getting the lay of the land out there, and now all that
labor is lost. We'll have to try somewhere else."
"Will we?" said the older man, chuckling again. "You only think so
because you're young at the business. Jest leave this thing to me, my
child. I know'd we'd have an easy job out there, but I didn't think
they'd take so much trouble to make it easier for us."
The rest of their talk was in too low a tone to be overheard; but about
one o'clock the next morning Tom Dailey and Harry Barker were both
aroused at the same moment by the furious clicking of their sounders.
"Td," "Hb," the instruments were calling, and in a second or two both
boys were sending back the answering,
"Ay, ay! Ay, ay!"
"Help! Burglars! Jb," both sounders said at once. The message was
repeated, and then all was still. Evidently Joe Bailey had left the key
and taken up his baseball bat.
It was quick work for Tom and Harry to arouse their fathers and tell
them that there were burglars over at Baileys'. Hasty toilets were made,
and the four sallied out, father and son from each house.
"Isn't it lucky we put up that burglar alarm!" Tom whispered to his
father as they hastened across the avenue. "Now you see what a lot of
use it is. We'll have those burglars just as sure as they're born. You
and I can watch one side of the house, while Harry and his father watch
the other, and there's no possible way for them to escape."
Tom was suddenly silenced by the ominous click of a revolver. They were
in the Bailey grounds now, and Mr. Dailey had caught sight of two forms
moving among the shrubbery.
"Stop there!" Mr. Dailey said, in a low but very determined voice, his
cocked revolver pointing at the two forms. "Stop there! If you move
you're a dead man!"
"It's all right, Dailey," came the reassuring answer. "I'm Barker, and
this is Harry with me. We'll capture those burglars over at Baileys' if
we're smart about it."
Mr. Barker also had a revolver in his hand, and Harry, like Tom, carried
a baseball bat.
"Now I guess they see what use the burglar alarm is," Tom found a chance
to whisper to Harry. "But say, we must be careful where we hit them. I
don't think we ought really to kill one of them; better strike for their
shoulders and arms."
In a minute more Tom and his father were stationed where they could
watch the front and one side of the Bailey house, and Harry and his
father commanded the rear and the other side. No one could possibly
leave the house without being seen.
The strangest thing about it was that there was no light in the house,
not a sound to be heard, no sign that anything unusual was going on.
After a few minutes the watchers began to feel uneasy about this. Mr.
Dailey moved cautiously down toward the other corner.
"Hey, Barker!" he called, in a suppressed voice. "Any signs of a light
around there?"
"Not a bit," Mr. Barker replied. "Not a sound inside, either."
"I don't like that," Mr. Dailey said. "There may have been murder as
well as robbery. Keep a sharp eye out, and I'll give an alarm at the
front door."
Bang! bang! bang! went Mr. Dailey's boot against the front door. No
answer. Bang! bang! again.
"Hello!" said Mr. Bailey's voice at the second-story window.
"It's all right, Bailey," Mr. Barker shouted. "We're Barker and Dailey,
with the two boys, and we're all armed. You'd better come down and open
the door. They can't possibly escape."
"Who can't?" said the voice at the window.
"The burglars," said Mr. Dailey. "They must be still in the house."
"Wait a minute," said the voice at the window. And those outside heard a
footstep on the stair, and in a moment the front door was thrown open.
Mr. Bailey had a revolver in his hand when he opened the door, and he
was in a great state of excitement, though he had seemed very cool when
he was at the window.
[Illustration: "EVERYTHING'S UPSIDE DOWN HERE," HE SAID, HOLDING THE
LAMP ABOVE HIS HEAD.]
"Everything's upside down here," he said, holding the lamp above his
head; "hats and coats all gone from the hat-rack, chairs upset, doors
left open. They must have been all through the lower part of the house."
"I'll go into the dining-room with you to see whether they've got the
silver," said Mr. Dailey. "They may be in there yet. We have the outside
well watched."
The two men found everything in confusion in the dining-room. Burglars
had broken spoons and forks that they suspected of being plated, and
left the pieces lying on the floor. Buffet drawers had been pulled open
and ransacked, and all the valuable silver was gone. So were some fine
pieces of cut glass, and other valuable things. Just as the two men were
about to extend their search to the kitchen, Joe came down stairs,
rubbing his eyes.
"I'm afraid we are too late, Joe," Mr. Dailey said, "but your message
brought us over in a hurry."
"My message!" Joe exclaimed, thoroughly awake now. "What message, sir?"
"Why, your message by telegraph, telling us there were burglars in the
house."
Joe looked thoroughly bewildered now.
"But I have sent no message, sir!" he replied. "I didn't know there were
any burglars in the house, and I've not been near the key to-night."
"How is that!" Mr. Dailey exclaimed; "you have sent no message! A call
for help certainly came over the wire. Go up and look at your
instruments as quick as you can, Joe, and see whether they've been
tampered with."
Joe struck a light and went up to his work-room, and returned in a
moment looking more bewildered than ever.
"It's very strange," he said, "but my bell has been disconnected, so I
couldn't have heard a call if one had come. I'm sure I left it all right
when I went to bed."
"Not strange at all!" Mr. Dailey snapped; and Joe had never heard him
speak so sharply. "We're a pack of fools, that's all. There are burglars
in my house, at this minute, Bailey, unless I'm very much mistaken, and
in Barker's too. I must get home; so must Barker."
The developments of the next ten minutes were highly interesting. Mr.
Dailey and Mr. Barker both hurried to their homes, with Tom and Harry,
and each found that burglars had been in his house while he was away. In
each place the work had been done in the same way, evidently by the same
men. Hats and coats were gone, and all the solid silver, and the cut
glass, and many other things.
But no burglars were to be found in either place. They had done their
work and escaped.
"This is the most mysterious thing I ever saw!" Tom said to his father,
after they had searched the house and taken account of their losses.
"You say Joe didn't send a call for help, but it certainly came over the
wire. And I don't see yet how you knew while we were over at Baileys'
that there were burglars in our house."
"Don't you?" There was a lot of sarcasm in Mr. Dailey's tone. "I should
think the inventor of a private burglar alarm might see through a little
thing like that. One of the burglars knew how to send a message; now do
you see?"
"I don't quite understand it even then, sir," Tom answered.
"Oh, it's plain enough," Mr. Dailey explained. "They knew all about your
wretched burglar alarm, and the paragraph in the paper told them your
signal calls. They robbed Bailey's house first, then disconnected Joe's
bell, and sent out the call for help. Of course they knew that we would
hurry over, leaving our own houses unprotected. As soon as the call was
sent they stepped out and came over and robbed our houses at their
leisure, knowing that we had gone to Baileys'. I suppose they're sitting
somewhere now laughing at us."
Mr. Dailey was quite right about that. The two burglars were at that
moment dividing their plunder in an empty barn, and laughing over their
work.
"Give me a private telegraph line when you want to do a job up slick,"
said the older man, handing out a cut-glass pitcher, "specially when
there's a newspaper to tell you the office calls. We don't have such
luck as that often."
The Westbridge boys have learned from experience that it is hardly safe
to ask Tom or Joe or Harry how he likes telegraphing; and the private
burglar alarm has gone out of business.
CORPORAL FRED.
A Story of the Riots.
BY CAPTAIN CHARLES KING, U. S. A.
CHAPTER III.
The situation along the line of the Great Western at four o'clock this
sultry afternoon was indeed alarming. "No violence," said the leaders of
the strike, "will be countenanced, though of course we cannot guarantee
that it won't occur. Our men are bitter at the refusal to comply with
their just demands, and they have thousands of friends and sympathizers
whom we can't control." Whether friends of the striking switchmen and
trainmen or not, there could be no question about the number of
so-called sympathizers. They swarmed to the yards from every slum in the
city, a host of tramps and thugs, vagabonds and jail-birds, re-enforced
by bevies of noisy, devil-may-care street boys, and scores of
shrill-voiced, slatternly women. The men who ventured to handle switches
under instructions of the yard foremen were stoned and driven off. Loyal
train hands who had refused to strike and came out with the mail and
express trains were hooted, jeered, and assaulted, despite the deputy
marshals and the widely scattered police. Some strange apathy chained
the city authorities and its battalions of uniformed and disciplined men
who were held in reserve at the police stations, while the pitiably
small force, distributed by twos and threes along ten miles of
obstructed track, made only shallow pretence of resistance to the
efforts of the mob or of protection to the objects of its wrath. Mail
trains and some few passenger trains, heavily guarded, had managed to
crawl through the howling throng, and this partial success of the
management served to fan the flame of fury, and every window was smashed
by volleys of stones and coupling-pins in the last train to be pulled
through. The track behind it was suddenly and speedily blocked by the
overturning, one after another, of dozens of freight-cars. The rioters,
guided by graduates of the yard, now worked in most effective and
systematic fashion. There was no need of assaulting switchmen when they
could so readily block the tracks. The last train got in at noon. At 2
P.M. no trains, even the mails, could get either in or out.
Then the authorities had to take a hand. The law of the United States
prohibited any interference with the carriage of its mails. The railway
officials represented their tracks blocked by mobs and obstructed by
overturned cars, spiked switches, and unspiked rails. A wrecking train,
under guard of both police and deputy marshals, was pushed out to clear
the way. The rioters jeered the deputies and cheered their friends among
the police. The work was attempted, but was not done. Fifty deputies
couldn't cover four miles of mob, and five hundred police winked at
personal acquaintances in the shouting, seething throng, and contented
themselves with occasional hustling of some manifestly friendless tramp
or the vigorous arrest of some vagrant boy.
Prominent business men in a body went to the Mayor and demanded action.
Others had already wired the Governor. The Colonels of the city
regiments who had, of their own accord, warned their men to be in
readiness, got their orders for service at 3.50 in the afternoon, and at
4.45 Corporal Fred came bounding in across the threshold of his home to
kiss his mother and sisters good-by and hasten into town where, ready
packed, was his knapsack with his blanket, uniform, arms, and
ammunition, at the regimental armory.
The roar of the multitude at the yards only a block away rose hoarse and
vibrant on the sultry air. The dust was sifting down in smothering
clouds. Drawn thither by curiosity numbers of women and children had
gathered at the upper end of the street, and were thronging the porches,
windows, and even the roofs of the frame houses that covered the
neighborhood. "What ever you do, mother," said Fred, "keep away from the
crowd, and keep the girls at home. Has Jim been in?"
"No, he hasn't come back," was the almost tearful answer. "Your father
said he would try to find him when he went to the shops after dinner. I
wish he had kept away from those meetings. No good can ever come of such
rioting."
"I haven't a moment to lose, mother," said Fred, kissing away the tears
now brimming in her eyes, "but I must go across the tracks to get to the
cable-cars, and he may be there. If so, I'll try to make him promise to
come home."
It was a tearful group the gallant young fellow left behind him on the
narrow porch, as he strode swiftly up the street. Some fifty yards away
he turned and waved his hat to them, then disappeared among the groups
of women excitedly, nervously watching the proceedings. The throng grew
denser as he neared the white rod gates that were lowered to close the
crossing with every sign of coming train or switch engine. Ordinarily
they were rising and falling and their warning gongs trilling every
other minute, but not once this long June day had their white fingers
ceased to point straight to the zenith. At the crossing a solitary and
perspiring policeman was swinging loosely his club and occasionally
drawling "Come, get back out of this," and laying benevolent hand on the
nearest spectator; but where one fell back a dozen surged forward, and
the entire crossing was in the possession of a throng of strike
sympathizers, among whom Fred failed to recognize more than three or
four real railway men. Prominent among the more active and determined at
the very front, however, he caught sight of a man named Farley, a
brakeman, who was often one of Jim's own crew. He was shouting and
gesticulating to friends in the second-story windows of a saloon across
the tracks, a rendezvous of men who, at ordinary times, rarely drank a
drop of liquor. The ground-floor was invisible to the throng. "Come out
here, you fellers," he was saying. "I tell you they're going to try to
clear these side-tracks, and we'll need every man of you."
Farley was right in his prophecy. The managers realized that it would
take much longer to right the overturned freight-cars than to draw away
the long trains of empty or half-loaded cars at the sides, and so clear
a track or two for the mails and passengers. At the crossing of Allen
Street there were ten parallel tracks, those in the middle--numbers five
and six--being the through tracks. Freight-cars by the dozen on tracks
four and seven had been toppled over so as to completely block all four,
and, as Farley spoke, down the long vista towards the city and over the
heads of the throng the smoke of locomotives could be seen puffing
steadily towards them. With car-loads of such guards as they could
command--deputy marshals picked up and sworn in anyhow--the railway
officials were coming to make the attempt. Fred had reached the spot at
the most exciting hour of the day. He should, perhaps, have pushed on
through the crowd and hastened on to the cable road, but it occurred to
him that an account of the situation up to the last moment might be of
use to his officers, or that he might find a quicker way of getting to
town on a switch engine. Then, too, he longed to speak with Jim and get
him to go home. He determined, therefore, on a few minutes' delay.
Ducking, dodging, and squeezing, he made his way through the crowd to
Farley's side.
"Jerry," said he, "I hate to see one of Jim's men in this. Surely he and
you ought to keep out of the yards. Where is he?"
"He has kept out of the yards so far," answered Farley, with an angry
oath and glaring eyes. "But the time's come for them that are men to
show it, and them that don't step out and fight for their rights now are
skulkers and sneaks--skulkers and sneaks," he shouted, and the crowd
roared approval. Out through the densely-packed mass of humanity across
the tracks something came shoving and surging, and presently, welcomed
by a cheer, a dozen burly men burst into view and came striding out upon
the right of way, Jim Wallace among them. Pale with excitement and
apprehension Fred sprang towards him.
[Illustration: "JIM, FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE TAKE NO PART IN THIS RIOTING!"]
"Jim--brother--think what you're doing! For Heaven's sake take no part
in this rioting! Go to mother and the girls. They're all alone."
"Go yourself, Fred," answered the elder, thickly. To Fred's dismay he
saw that his big brother, his pride and protector for many a boyish
year, had been drinking, and was flushed and unbalanced as a result. "Go
yourself and keep out of harm's way. I'm in this to stay now. I'm not
the man to see my brothers wronged and abused and robbed of their
rights. You go to them, Fred. Why are you not at the office?" he added,
with sudden suspicion in his glittering eye.
"I'm here to find you," said Fred, evasively. "Mother is crying because
of her anxiety about you. Father has been searching. Do come out of
this, Jim, and home with me."
But a yell of wrath and defiance drowned the boy's words, and as though
with one simultaneous impulse the mob heaved and surged and broke into a
run. The engines had switched to the side tracks a block away, and,
protected by armed guards on the tender, the pilot, and footboard, were
coupling on to the standing trains. Fred felt himself swept along,
tugging at his brother's arm. Half a dozen agile men edged out of the
crowd and dove under the cars to which the foremost engine was now
attached. Shriek went the whistle, clang the bell, back leaped the
guards, some of them swarming up the freight-car ladders. The engine
jetted smoke and steam and backed promptly away, but a roar of triumph
and derision went up from the mob. Only one car followed it. The
strikers had drawn the coupling-pins of the rest.
Two of the deputies, Winchesters in hand, had clambered to the roofs of
the second and third cars, and now as their comrades were trundled away
there they stood irresolute. Instantly those cars were the centre of a
jeering, howling mob. Instantly stones, coupling-pins, and mud began to
fly. Throwing themselves flat upon their faces, the luckless fellows
sought to escape the storm. Missiles hurled by the mob on one side came
raining down into the faces of their fellows on the other, and even as
Fred was imploring his brother to come away now and at once, a rock,
hurtling over the nearest car, struck the roof and bounded into the
throng below, cutting a gash on the younger brother's white forehead,
and striking him senseless to the earth, just as some untaught,
undisciplined fool among the deputies pulled trigger and fired.
Whistling overhead the bullet went hissing away up the tracks the signal
for a mad rush of men and boys. An instant more and only three forms
occupied the ground where a hundred were struggling but the moment
before--Jim Wallace and a fellow-trainsman bending over the senseless,
bleeding form of brother Fred.
"They've shot him! They've killed him!" howled the retreating crowd.
"Down with the deputies! Kill 'em! hang 'em!" were the furious yells.
Three or four policemen came running up to assist the fallen. An old
gray-haired man dropped the lever of the switch engine, calling to his
assistant to watch it, and ran forward along the tracks, wild anxiety in
his eyes, and in another moment, brushing aside the bluecoats, old
Wallace threw himself upon his knees and raised the blood-stained face
of his boy to his heaving breast. "In God's name," he cried, his lips
piteously quivering, "how came he here? Why is he not at the office?"
There was a moment of silence. Covering his face in his hands, big burly
Jim turned almost sobbing away. A young man leaping across the tracks
caught the last question as he joined them, and it was his voice that
was heard in answer. "Because they've discharged him, Mr. Wallace, as
they have me, for obeying orders to join our regiment at once."
And as though recalled to his senses by a comrade's words, Corporal Fred
faintly opened his eyes and looked up and saw his father's face. "Don't
let mother know," he murmured. "It might frighten her for nothing. Help
me over to the cable road, Charley; we've got to hurry to the armory."
And then the crowd came swarming back even as a little boy, escaped for
the moment from watchful eyes at home and drawn by eager curiosity to
the gates, now ran sobbing back to tell the dreadful news he had heard
among the women in the crowd--that brother Fred was shot and killed.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
OAKLEIGH.
BY ELLEN DOUGLAS DELAND.