[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE
AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY.]
* * * * *
VOL. II.--NO. 64. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.
Tuesday, January 18, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50
per Year, in Advance.
* * * * *
[Illustration: DUTCH SLEIGH-RIDING.]
WHO GOT THE MITTEN?
BY ROSE TERRY COOKE.
"DEER ANT ROXY,--Ive hed consider'ble many calls for mittins along
back this Winter: mostly they're wove goods, thet dont last no
time. Its come into my head that mabbe you'd jest as lives make a
leetle suthin to buy snuff an' handkerchers with, odd times, and
reklectin you used to be a master hand to knit this is for to say
that ef you'd fall to and knit a lot of them two-threaded mittins
we boys set by so, why I could sell 'em for ye--on commission. Ef
you're agreeble why drop me a line to 117 Blank St St Josephs, you
see its mostly drovers and sech wants 'em.
"Yours to command,
"JOHN JACKSON."
"The lands sakes!" ejaculated Miss Roxy Blair, as she laid down her
spectacles after reading this letter. "John was allers the beateree for
gumption. I allers said he'd make a spoon or spile a horn, an' I do
b'lieve it's the spoon. Well said! I've got full twenty run o' blue yarn
I spun last year, an' some red: guess there won't be no white wanted in
them parts. I'll set to an' get a lot more red over to Miss Billins's.
Wonder ef she'd git wind on't, and go to makin' mittins herself?--she
beats all to question folks up. I'll tell her I'm a-goin' to teach Nance
to knit; and so I be: 'ta'n't no lie. I will teach her to knit an' help
on the mittins. It'll be suthin for her to do nights, 'stead of readin'
all the newspaper scraps she can pick up."
Nancy Peck was Miss Roxy's bound girl; the old lady lived alone in a
small brown house on a hill-side far above Bassett; a grass-grown track
ran by the house, through the woods that clothed the hill-top, over and
away into the heart of the Green Mountains.
Little Nancy had been bound out to Miss Roxana only about a year when
John Jackson's letter reached Bassett. Miss Roxy was getting old;
rheumatism had laid hold of her, and she could not hobble up and down
hill to the village any longer: so she resolved to take a young girl
into her house to wait on her.
"'Twon't cost a great deal," she said to herself. "There's the gardin
a'n't half planted; she can drop potaters as well as a man, and hill 'em
up too; and I can set more beans outside the fence; when Isr'el comes up
to spade the gardin, he can fix up a place for more beans, and Ingin
meal's cheap. Fact is, anyway, I durstn't be up here alone no longer,
and hirin' some feller or 'nother to do arrands would cost more'n it
come to. There's ma's old gownds can be cut over for her, sech as is too
ragged for me."
Having made up her mind, the old lady persuaded a neighbor who sometimes
drove by her house to mill to take her in, and leave her at the
poor-house, which was on his way, until he came back with his grist.
When he returned he found two passengers, for Miss Roxy had fixed on
Nancy for an experiment.
"'Twas Hobson's choice," she explained to Mr. Tucker, as they drove
along; "there wa'n't no other gal there. She's real small, but Miss
Simons says she's spry an' handy, and she ha'n't got nobody belongin' to
her, so's't I sha'n't be pestered with folks a-comin' round."
In six months little Nancy had become so useful that she was formally
bound out to the old lady, and now she went to school in summer half a
day, and had learned to read and write tolerably. She was very lonesome
in that solitary house. There were children at the poor-house whom she
played with, tended, and loved, but Miss Roxy had not even a cat; and
when Nancy, in the longing of her loving little heart, took a
crook-necked squash out of the shed, tied a calico rag about its neck,
and made a dolly of it to be company for her in the little garret where
she slept, Miss Roxy hunted it up--for she kept count of everything she
had--boxed Nancy's ears soundly, and cut up poor little yellow Mary Ann,
and boiled her in a pot for pies.
Until the mitten business began, Miss Roxy found it hard to find enough
work for the child's active fingers to do; but after that she had no
trouble in keeping the little girl busy, as poor Nancy found out to her
sorrow. The evenings of spring, when she used to love to sit on the
door-step with her apron over her head, and listen to the frogs peeping
in a swamp far below, were now spent in winding hanks of yarn, or
struggling, with stiff little fingers, to slip the loops off one needle
and on to another, her eyes tired with the dull light of a tallow
candle, and her head aching with the effort to learn and the slaps her
dullness earned from Miss Roxy's hard hands. It was worse as summer came
on, and she had to knit, knit, all the time, with not a minute to get
new posies for her garden. Only by early dawn did she get her chance to
watch the blue liverwort open its sunny cup; the white eggs of bloodroot
buds come suddenly out of the black ground; the tiny rows of small
flowers that children call "Dutchman's breeches" hang and flutter on
their red stems; the azure sand-violet, dancing columbine, purple
crane's-bill, lilac orchis, and queer moccasin flower make that hidden
corner gay and sweet.
Even when school began, she had to work still. Miss Roxy was determined
to send a big box of double-knit mittens to John Jackson before winter
set in; and as fast as they were finished they were dampened, pressed,
and laid away in the old hair trunk in the garret where Nancy slept.
Poor little girl! she hated the sight of mittens, and this summer a wild
wish came into her head, that grew and grew, as she sat alone at her
knitting, until it quite filled head and heart too.
A child from the city, spending the summer near Bassett, came now and
then to school as a sort of pastime, and brought with her a doll that
really went to sleep when you laid it down: shut its bright blue eyes,
and never opened them until it was taken up!
It seemed to lonely little Nancy that such a doll would be all anybody
could want in the world. If only Nancy had such a dear lovely creature
to sleep in her bed at night, and sit up in the door beside her while
she knit, she knew she would be perfectly happy; but that could never
be. However, after much dreaming, wishing, and planning, one day a
bright and desperate idea came across her. That night she asked a great
many questions of Miss Roxy, who at last gave her a sharp answer, and
told her to hold her tongue; but the child had found out all she wanted
to know and did not mind the crossness.
Next morning she got up very early, and stealing across the garret, took
an old book from a dusty pile on a shelf, then with a pair of scissors
she had brought up overnight she cut out a blank leaf, and pinned it,
carefully folded, into the pocket of her dress.
She did not go out-of-doors at the school recess, but took the pen with
which she had been writing her copy, and smoothing the paper out, wrote
this queer little letter:
"DEER GENTILMAN,--I am a poor little gurl who nits mittins for Miss
Roxy. I am bound out and I havent got no folks of my own, not so
much as a verry smal baby. I wish I had a dol. I am real lonesum.
wil you send mee a dol. My naim is Nansy Peck, and I live to Mis
Roxy Blair's house in Baset Vermonte. I nit this mittin. when I am
big I wil pay for the dol.
"NANSY PECK."
The letter once written, and waved up and down under the desk to dry,
the paper was pinned into her pocket again, and when the next pair of
mittens she knit were done, pressed, caught together with a bit of yarn,
and sent up, by her, to the trunk, the daring and odd little note was
slipped safely inside one of them, and lay there several months
undiscovered.
One bitter cold day, at the end of the next November, a young man came
hastily into John Jackson's shop in St. Joseph.
"Hullo!" he said. "I want a pair of those knit mittens of yours. I'm
ordered off to the Denver station, and they do say it's colder 'n blazes
there. Handling express packages ain't real warm work anyhow!"
And so, while little Nancy, washing potatoes for dinner, wondered who
had got her mitten with the letter in it, Joe Harris, Adams Express
Agent for Denver, was cramming the pair into his pocket. The next week a
snow-squall with a gale and a half of wind swooped down on Denver with
all fury, and the new agent's teeth chattered and his hands smarted as
he stood waiting for the train that had just whistled; he pulled the
heavy mittens out of his overcoat pocket, twitched them apart, and
sticking his left hand into one of them, found the note. He had no time
to look at it then, for there was work on hand; but that evening, in the
bare little room at the hotel, he took the letter out of his pocket,
and, big strong man that he was, two great tears hopped out of his eyes
on to the eager, anxious little letter.
"By jinks! she shall have her dolly!" he exclaimed, fetching his fist
down on the rickety table, where his lamp stood, with a thump that
almost sent lamp and all to the floor. But how to get it? Denver was no
place then, whatever it is now, to buy dolls, and Joe was much disturbed
at it; but it happened that the very next week he was recalled to St.
Louis on some business which must be seen to in person; so, just as soon
as his errand was done, he went about to all the toy-shops until he was
satisfied at last with a doll. And well he might be! the dolly was of
bisque, with movable eyes and real golden hair, joints in her arms and
legs, and a face almost as lovely as a real baby; for a baby doll it
was, in long clothes, with little corals to tie up its sleeves, and tiny
socks on its feet. Joe had it boxed up carefully, directed to Miss Nancy
Peck, at Bassett, Vermont, and then stepped into the express office,
told the story, and read the letter. The Superintendent had little girls
of his own.
"It shall go free all the way there," he said, and wrote on the outside:
"Pass along the dolly, boys! get it there by Christmas, sure. Free.
X.Y.Z."
So the doll-baby began its journey; and the story Joe Harris told at St.
Louis was told and retold from one messenger to another, and many a
smile did it rouse on the tired faces; and here one man tied on a gold
dollar wrapped in paper and tucked in under the box lid, and there
another added a box of candy, and another a bundle of gay calico for a
child's dress, and one a picture-book, each labelled "Merry Christmas
for Nancy," till the agent at the last large town had to put all the
things into a big box, and pack the corners with oranges.
Can any words tell what Nancy thought when that box climbed up to her
from Bassett on Mr. Tucker's wagon--the very same wagon that brought her
from the poor-house? Luckily for her, Miss Roxy could not leave her bed,
where she had lain a month now with acute rheumatism; for when she heard
Nancy's story she was angry enough to box her ears well, and did scold
furiously, and call the poor child many a bad name for her "brazen
impudence," as she called it. But what did Nancy care when at last, with
an old hatchet, she had pried off the box lid, and discovered its hidden
treasures! Miss Roxy was glad enough of a sweet ripe orange, and stopped
scolding to eat it at once; but Nancy could not look at another thing
when the doll box was opened at last, and the lovely sleeping baby
discovered. The child could not speak. She threw her apron over her
head, and ran into the garret. Miss Roxy smiled grimly under her orange.
"Little fool!" said she; "what upon airth does she want to cry for?"
But all the expressmen smiled when each one read a quaint little letter
dropped soon after into the Bassett Post-office, and directed "To all
the adams express Gentlemen betwene Basset and st louis Miss." It was
duly forwarded along the line, and ran thus:
"DERE GENTLEMEN,--I know by the Laybels how good everyboddy was,
and the doly is goodest of All, but everything is good. I Thank you
ten thowsand times. I am so glad, the Things was splendidd!
"NANSY PECK."
THE YOUNG TIN-TYPERS.
PART II.
"Now," said Jim, "to-day is Thursday, and if you can mix the sensitive
bath, I will go down town and buy the other things that we need. Then
to-morrow we can prepare everything, and Saturday--oh, just think!--we
can take a picture."
After Jim started off, Fred went to the dark chamber, which was a large
closet in their work-room, and at once set about preparing the mystic
solution to sensitize the plate.
He first took some rain-water, and let it drip through a filter paper
placed in a glass funnel, to remove all the impurities that might be
suspended in it. Then he added the crystals of nitrate of silver; then a
few grains of iodide of potassium were added, when, to his surprise, a
yellow powder began to form. However, he put the mixture aside to
saturate, as the Professor had directed him, having first stirred it
with a small glass rod, and went to study his lessons for the next day.
He had not been studying long before Jim entered, and with a very grand
air placed several small parcels on the table. He was about to explain
their contents, when he suddenly broke out in a wild fit of laughter.
"Why, Fred, what have you done to yourself?" said he.
Fred looked up from his book, and found, to his great disgust, a number
of heavy black spots on his hands and coat. "Well, I don't see what that
is," he said.
"I do," said Jim: "you have been and spattered yourself with silver, and
the sunlight has turned it black. You are in a nice fix, for nothing
will take it off."
"The coat was only a work jacket," said Fred, "and I don't care a bit
about my hands. But let us see what you have bought."
"In the first place," said Jim, opening his packages, "here are some tin
plates--great big fellows, too, and all for fifty cents. And here is
some collodion. These green crystals are sulphate of iron, and the man
says we must keep them in a very tight bottle, because if the air gets
at them they will spoil. He told me they were made of old nails and
sulphuric acid. Do you believe it? These green crystals we must dissolve
in water before using. This stuff in the bottle is acetic acid. Doesn't
it smell queer? And here is some hyposulphite of soda; and that's all.
Now let's get to work."
The two hours were now over, and Fred returned to his silver bath, and
let it run through a filter, when, by rule, the bath was ready. It was
placed in a flask, and tightly corked.
"Now, Jim," said Fred. "I guess we would better leave everything until
Saturday, because to-morrow we have an examination in algebra, and ought
to cram for that to-night; and to-morrow afternoon is the ball match,
and in the evening we shall be tired."
At last Saturday morning came, bright and sunny, and the two boys began
in earnest the task of taking a picture.
Fred had procured a tall narrow glass vessel to hold the silver bath,
and a glass dipper with which to suspend the plate, and having mixed the
developing and fixing solutions, the boys were at last ready.
"Now you pour on the collodion," said Jim, "and put the plate in the
bath, while I get the camera in position and adjust the focus."
"What are you going to take?" asked Fred.
"I guess I'll try old Spriggins's back yard," answered the other. "He's
got a big grape-vine arbor there that will take immense."
Fred, left to himself, poured the collodion over the plate, and gently
tilted it from side to side. The liquid did not flow evenly, but lay in
rings and streaks all over the surface.
"Why didn't we try the Professor's gum-arabic, and save collodion!" he
exclaimed. But not discouraged by failure, he tried again, and by sheer
luck succeeded in making a smooth surface. In about five seconds he put
the plate in the bath, and awaited the result. When he removed it,
instead of being finely coated with silver, the plate appeared cracked,
greasy, and spotted.
"Oh, misery!" he cried, "the bath is all full of yellow stuff. What
shall I do?"
Hearing this, Jim returned to the laboratory, and with his usual
calmness simply said, "Filter."
Fred did so, and in a few moments a clear bath was again obtained.
"How did that happen, I wonder?" said Fred.
"I don't believe you allowed the collodion time enough to set," was the
answer. "Let me try this time."
After a good deal of trouble with the collodion, Jim finally prepared a
smooth plate, which he allowed to wait thirty seconds, and then
carefully lowered it into the silver bath. After a few seconds he raised
it, and found it covered with streaks.
[Illustration: OLD SPRIGGINS'S GRAPE ARBOR.]
"Put it back," said Fred; and in it went. In about thirty-five seconds
more, it was of that fine opal tint mentioned by the Professor. It was
then placed in the slide and carried to the camera. Jim pulled out his
watch, and with a forced smile to hide his nervousness said, "Go," and
Fred drew up the sliding door. When the plate had been exposed long
enough, as he thought, Jim cried, "Time," the door was closed, the slide
taken from the camera, and the boys returned with it to the dark
chamber.
The plate was then taken from the slide, and Fred, seizing a bottle,
poured its contents over the opaline surface.
"As if by magic--" Jim began.
"Nothing appears," continued Fred, as he saw in astonishment every trace
of silver disappear from the plate, and the bare tin surface left
exposed. "I can't see through that," he added, in dismay.
"I can," answered Jim: "you were in such a hurry that you poured on the
fixing solution instead of the developer, and of course that has
dissolved everything."
Jim then prepared another plate with great care, placed it in the
camera, exposed it for such time as he thought fit, and returned with it
to the dark chamber. Removing it from the slide, he carefully poured on
the developer. By degrees the cloud on the surface dissolved, and a
picture slowly appeared, very imperfect, but still a picture.
[Illustration: GLASS BATH AND DIPPER.]
"Isn't that splendid?" said Fred, enthusiastically; "it's just as
natural as life."
Jim, cool and quiet as usual, washed the plate well with water, and
cautiously poured on the fixing solution, when the yellow coating of the
picture vanished, and old Spriggins's grape arbor came out in clear,
sharp lines.
"Now, Fred," said he, "you calm down a little, and varnish this."
"All right," answered Fred; and having lighted the spirit-lamp, he
poured on the varnish, and held the plate over the flame; but, alas!
there was a fizz, a vile smell, a great deal of smoke, and the pretty
picture was a mass of paste.
"I won't have anything more to do with this part of the work," said
Fred, impatiently, throwing the spoiled plate on the floor. "I can play
doctor's shop, and mix up solutions as well as anybody, but this endless
dipping, washing, and drying takes more patience than I possess. I shall
leave that to you, Jim."
"One more trial, and a perfect picture," answered Jim, quietly.
The next attempt proceeded smoothly up to the varnishing-point, when Jim
said he would do it without the aid of heat. The picture was accordingly
varnished and stood away to dry, when after a few minutes it was found
to be covered with a white film which entirely obscured it. Fred
declared he would never try again, but Jim, more persevering, decided to
heat the plate a little, and see what happened. He passed it gently over
the spirit-lamp flame, when, to his great relief, the cloud vanished,
and the picture re-appeared, increased in brightness, and covered with a
coating thick enough to protect it from scratches.
These boys had many other mishaps and disappointments before they became
skillful enough to be sure of obtaining a good picture. They learned,
too, that rules in books sound very easy, but that much practice and
experience are required to carry them out successfully. But having by
care and perseverance once conquered all obstacles, they had no end of
fun copying pictures for friends and school-mates.
Having become very fair tin-typers, they are now ambitious to take
negatives on glass, and print from them. If they succeed in doing this
well, some day they may tell you all about it, if you are interested
enough to listen.
[Begun in No. 58 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, December 7.]
TOBY TYLER;
OR, TEN WEEKS WITH A CIRCUS.
BY JAMES OTIS.