*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49587 ***

[Illustration: HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE]

       *       *       *       *       *

VOL. II.--NO. 103. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.

Tuesday, October 18, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50
per Year, in Advance.

       *       *       *       *       *

[Illustration: BREAKFAST AND BATTLE.]

THE STORY OF THE NEGRO FORT.

BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.


During the war of 1812-14, between Great Britain and the United States,
the weak Spanish Governor of Florida--for Florida was then Spanish
territory--permitted the British to make Pensacola their base of
operations against us. This was a gross outrage, as we were at peace
with Spain at the time, and General Jackson, acting on his own
responsibility, invaded Florida in retaliation.

Among the British at that time was an eccentric Irish officer, Colonel
Edward Nichols, who enlisted and tried to make soldiers of a large
number of the Seminole Indians. In 1815, after the war was over, Colonel
Nichols again visited the Seminoles, who were disposed to be hostile to
the United States, as Colonel Nichols himself was, and made an
astonishing treaty with them, in which an alliance, offensive and
defensive, between Great Britain and the Seminoles was agreed upon. We
had made peace with Great Britain a few months before, and yet this
astonishing Irish Colonel signed a treaty binding Great Britain to fight
us whenever the Seminoles in the Spanish territory of Florida should see
fit to make a war! If this extraordinary performance had been all, it
would not have mattered so much, because the British government refused
to ratify the treaty; but it was not all. Colonel Nichols, as if
determined to give us as much trouble as he could, built a strong
fortress on the Appalachicola River, and gave it to his friends the
Seminoles, naming it "The British Post on the Appalachicola," where the
British had not the least right to have any post whatever. Situated on a
high bluff, with flanks securely guarded by the river on one side and a
swamp on the other, this fort, properly defended, was capable of
resisting the assaults of almost any force that could approach it; and
Colonel Nichols was determined that it should be properly defended, and
should be a constant menace and source of danger to the United States.
He armed it with one 32-pounder cannon, three 24-pounders, and eight
other guns. In the matter of small-arms he was even more liberal. He
supplied the fort with 2500 muskets, 500 carbines, 400 pistols, and 500
swords. In the magazines he stored 300 quarter casks of rifle powder,
and 763 barrels of ordinary gunpowder.

When Colonel Nichols went away, his Seminoles soon wandered off, leaving
the fort without a garrison. This gave an opportunity to a negro bandit
and desperado named Garçon to seize the place, which he did, gathering
about him a large band of runaway negroes, Choctaw Indians, and other
lawless persons, whom he organized into a strong company of robbers.
Garçon made the fort his stronghold, and began to plunder the country
round about as thoroughly as any robber baron or Italian bandit ever
did, sometimes venturing across the border into the United States.

All this was so annoying and so threatening to our frontier settlements
in Georgia, that General Jackson demanded of the Spanish authorities
that they should reduce the place, and they would have been glad enough
to do so, probably, if it had been possible, because the banditti
plundered Spanish as well as other settlements. But the Spanish Governor
had no force at command, and could do nothing, and so the fort remained,
a standing menace to the American borders.

Matters were in this position in the spring of 1816, when General Gaines
was sent to fortify our frontier at the point where the Chattahoochee
and Flint rivers unite to form the Appalachicola. In June of that year
some stores for General Gaines's forces were sent by sea from New
Orleans. The vessels carrying them were to go up the Appalachicola, and
General Gaines was not sure that the little fleet would be permitted to
pass the robbers' stronghold, which had come to be called the Negro
Fort. Accordingly he sent Colonel Clinch with a small force down the
river, to render any assistance that might be necessary. On the way
Colonel Clinch was joined by a band of Seminoles, who wanted to
recapture the fort on their own account, and the two bodies determined
to act together.

Meantime the two schooners with supplies and the two gun-boats sent to
guard them had arrived at the mouth of the river; and when the
commandant tried to hold a conference with Garçon, the ship's boat,
bearing a white flag, was fired upon.

Running short of water while lying off the river's mouth, the officers
of the fleet sent out a boat to procure a supply. This boat was armed
with a swivel and muskets, and was commanded by Midshipman Luffborough.
The boat went into the mouth of the river, and seeing a negro on shore,
Midshipman Luffborough landed to ask for fresh-water supplies. Garçon
with some of his men lay in ambush at the spot, and while the officer
talked with the negro the concealed men fired upon the boat, killing
Luffborough and two of his men. One man got away by swimming, and was
picked up by the fleet; two others were taken prisoners, and, as was
afterward learned, Garçon coated them with tar and burned them to death.

It would not do to send more boats ashore, and so the little squadron
lay together awaiting orders from Colonel Clinch. That officer, as he
approached the fort, captured a negro, who wore a white man's scalp at
his belt, and from him he learned of the massacre of Luffborough's
party. There was no further occasion for doubt as to what was to be
done. Colonel Clinch determined to reduce the fort at any cost, although
the operation promised to be a very difficult one.

Placing his men in line of battle, he sent a courier to the fleet,
ordering the gun-boats to come up and help in the attack. The Seminoles
made many demonstrations against the works, and the negroes replied with
their cannon. Garçon had raised his flags--a red one and a British
Union-jack--and whenever he caught sight of the Indians or the
Americans, he shelled them vigorously with his 32-pounder.

Three or four days were passed in this way, while the gun-boats were
slowly making their way up the river. It was Colonel Clinch's purpose to
have the gun-boats shell the fort, while he should storm it on the land
side. The work promised to be bloody, and it was necessary to bring all
the available force to bear at once. There were no siege-guns at hand,
or anywhere within reach, and the only way to reduce the fort was for
the small force of soldiers--numbering only one hundred and sixteen
men--to rush upon it, receiving the fire of its heavy artillery, and
climb over its parapets in the face of a murderous fire of small-arms.
Garçon had with him three hundred and thirty-four men, so that besides
having strong defensive works and an abundant supply of large cannon,
his force outnumbered Colonel Clinch's nearly three to one. It is true
that Colonel Clinch had the band of Seminoles with him, but they were
entirely worthless for determined work of the kind that Colonel Clinch
had to do. Even while lying in the woods at a distance, waiting for the
gun-boats to come up, the Indians became utterly demoralized under the
fire of Garçon's 32-pounder. There was nothing to be done, however, by
way of improving the prospect, which was certainly hopeless enough. One
hundred and sixteen white men had the Negro Fort to storm,
notwithstanding its strength and the overwhelming force that defended
it. But those one hundred and sixteen men were American soldiers, under
command of a brave and resolute officer, who had made up his mind that
the fort could be taken, and they were prepared to follow their leader
up to the muzzle of the guns and over the ramparts, there to fight the
question out in a hand-to-hand struggle with the desperadoes inside.

Finally the gun-boats arrived, and preparations were made for the
attack. Sailing-Master Jairus Loomis, the commandant of the little
fleet, cast his anchors under the guns of the Negro Fort at five o'clock
in the morning on the 27th of July, 1816. The fort at once opened fire,
and it seemed impossible for the little vessels to endure the storm of
shot and shell that rained upon them from the ramparts above. They
replied vigorously, however, but with no effect. Their guns were too
small to make any impression upon the heavy earthen walls of the
fortress.

Sailing-Master Loomis had roused his ship's cook early that morning, and
had given him a strange breakfast to cook. He had ordered him to make
all the fire he could in his galley, and to fill the fire with
cannon-balls. Not long after the bombardment began, the cook reported
that breakfast was ready; that is to say, that the cannon-balls were
red-hot. Loomis trained one of his guns with his own hands so that its
shot should fall within the fort instead of burying itself in the
ramparts, and this gun was at once loaded with a red-hot shot. The word
was given, the match applied, and the glowing missile sped on its way. A
few seconds later, the earth shook and quivered, a deafening roar
stunned the sailors, and a vast cloud of smoke filled the air, shutting
out the sun.

The hot shot had fallen into the great magazine, where there were
hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, and the Negro Fort was no more. It had
been literally blown to atoms in a second.

The slaughter was frightful. There were, as we know already, three
hundred and thirty-four men in the fort, and two hundred and seventy of
them were killed outright by the explosion. All the rest, except three
men who miraculously escaped injury, were wounded, most of them so badly
that they died soon afterward.

One of the three men who escaped unhurt was Garçon himself. Bad as this
bandit chief was, Colonel Clinch would have spared his life, but it
happened that he fell into the hands of the sailors from the gun-boat;
and when they learned that Garçon had tarred and burned their comrades
whom he had captured in the attack on Luffborough's boat, they turned
him over to the infuriated Seminoles, who put him to death.

This is the history of a strange affair, which at one time promised to
give the government of the United States no little trouble, even
threatening to involve us in a war with Spain.




A SHORT BEAR STORY.

BY ORVILLE DEANE.


It was my fortune to spend the first twenty years of my life in a region
where black bears were quite numerous. Our little community was often
thrown into excitement by the discovery that Bruin had been engaged in
some before-unheard-of mischief, and not infrequently were all the men
and boys in the neighborhood mustered to surround a piece of woods, and
capture a bear that was known to be there hidden away. Some of these
occasions were full of excitement and danger, and maybe I shall some
time tell about them; but just now I want to relate an experience with a
bear that happened when I was about twelve years old.

It was a part of my business in summer-time to drive the cows to pasture
every morning, and home every night. Like most boys, however, I loved
play a little too well, and sometimes it would be very late before the
cattle would be safely shut up for the night.

One day I had played about longer than usual after school, and when I
reached home it was almost sunset. I persuaded a playmate of about my
own age to accompany me, and started for the pasture. It was something
more than half a mile away, and in getting to it, we followed down an
old road which was now partially unused. But barefoot boys are nimble
fellows, and before it was dark we were at the bars of the pasture.
There stood the cows, as usual, waiting patiently for some one to come
for them, and a little way out from them were the young cattle in a
group. Down went the bars, and the cows started out, when all at once
there was a great confusion among the young creatures. They ran in every
direction, and appeared terribly frightened at something.

In a moment we saw what it was. A large black bear was coming across the
pasture near them. I don't suppose he meant to trouble the cattle, but
that was his nearest way to pass from the woods to a corn field which he
had in view, and he happened to come along there just as we did.

It required no long council of war for us to decide to retreat as fast
as possible, and taking to the road, we made the best time we could
until we came to the top of a little hill. Here we mustered up courage
to stop and look behind us. But there was the bear coming right up the
road after us. We did not look back a second time, you may be sure, and
in a very few moments we burst into my father's kitchen, and when we
could get breath, exclaimed: "A b--a bear! A great big black bear chased
us, and he's coming right up here!"

All that night we dreamed of bears. The cows did not come home, nor did
the bear come after us, as we expected he would; but when father went
down the next morning, he found the bear's tracks in the road, and
following them up, he found where the old fellow had entered the corn
field and taken his supper. Shortly afterward he was shot near the same
place.




CAMEOS.

BY BARNET PHILLIPS.


Personal adornment was the earliest motive that led primitive man to
cultivate other arts than those which were necessary to his existence.
Just as soon as he had killed such wild animals as were dangerous, or
were wanted for food, he probably set about carving some kind of design
on his weapons. After a while, when he found more time, he went straight
away to fashioning ornaments for his own person. If you should go to the
Museum of Natural History in New York city, where the rude implements of
men who lived many thousands of years ago are to be found, you will see
many such early ornaments. Some of these ornaments are of the very
roughest and coarsest kind, and would not be considered either pretty or
becoming to-day. Early man took a small stone, and with infinite trouble
bored a hole through it with a flint; then he strung it on a shred of
sinew, and wore it around his neck. He was probably very selfish about
this simple ornament, and it is quite likely that many years passed
before he made any such beads for his wife, or allowed her to wear them.

Gradually, however, man's artistic tastes were awakened, and he first
cut the sides of the soft stones, then polished them, though many
thousands of years passed before he learned how to engrave on hard
stones. Gem-engraving is so old, however, that it is difficult to give
it a date. You will find very often in collections a hard stone, which
has something engraved on it, belonging to a very ancient period; but
the material was fashioned into some form or other by people who had
lived many centuries before. Cameo-cutting came after gem-engraving, and
those who are learned in such matters tell us that there were cameos
made as early as 162 years before Christ.

Now what is a cameo? It may be a portrait, or a group of figures, or any
design, cut on a hard material, where the work executed in relief, or
the part which stands out, is of a different color from the ground. In
order, then, to make a cameo you must have some hard substance composed
of different layers. Such stones are called banded stones. There are
many minerals, such as the onyx, the carnelian, or sard, where there are
two layers of the same substance one on top of the other, but of
different colors. The upper crust may be pure white or a pale
fawn-color, and the lower layer red, or olive, or black. Then the
contrast is very handsome. In order to get the materials on which
cameos were to be engraved, the Greeks and Romans travelled a great
distance, even as far as India. It is believed that cameo-cutting was at
its greatest state of perfection in the second century of the Christian
era, when the Roman lapidaries, as workers in precious stones are
called, carried on their work.

[Illustration]

But a cameo need not be made of stone, for some of the finest that have
come down to us were fashioned by the Romans by cutting layers of glass
of different colors. It may seem strange to young readers to be told
that although to-day we are very perfect in glass-making, there are a
great many things the Romans could have taught us in this art. Now the
reason why they were so skilled in glass manufacture was because they
used glass as a substitute for porcelain, which was not then invented.
The illustration which accompanies this article represents a very fine
cameo designed by a very great English artist, whose name was John
Flaxman. This cameo, which was cast, was made of white and blue
porcelain, and was probably intended as a decoration for one of those
beautiful urns which Wedgwood, the famous potter, manufactured in
England almost a hundred years ago.

To-day a great many cameos are made, but not out of hard stones. The
shell of the conch, found in Florida and the West Indies, is the
material used. The white surface is cut into the figure and left. The
under layer of the shell, or the ground, which is of a brownish hue when
polished, gives that contrast which a cameo should have. We do not take
as much trouble to make a cameo as did the ancients. They cut the stone
with tiny drills, the points of which are believed to have been
diamonds. The shell cameo being much softer, can be scraped or cut with
small chisels. Of the old cameos there are two famous ones, one cut on
an agate, the other on an onyx. Nothing in modern art is as fine, and
for the one on the onyx, which is known as the Vienna gem, as much as
12,000 gold ducats was paid by the Emperor Rudolph in the sixteenth
century. By the study of ancient cameos a great deal is learned, for
they show us the actual pictures of the dress and costumes of people who
lived more than 1800 years ago. But more than that: on some of these
cameos we have the exact likenesses of great personages, who as Roman
Emperors once ruled the world. In ancient times cameos were used, just
as they are to-day, as ornaments, only the Greeks and Romans, men and
women, wore them set in gold on their shoulders, as they held together
the folds of their flowing draperies.

In the United States there are quite a number of cameo-makers, who cut
good likenesses on shells; but the great art which existed in the time
of Augustus has passed away.




TIM AND TIP;[1]

OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A BOY AND A DOG.

BY JAMES OTIS,

AUTHOR OF "TOBY TYLER," ETC.

CHAPTER XII.

TIP'S DANGER.

[1] Begun in No. 92 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, August 2.


The work of preparing the dinner had occupied so much time that it was
nearly the regular hour for supper before the last boy arose from the
lowly table, and not one of them had any desire to fish or hunt. They
sat around the fire, dodging the smoke as best they could, until the
setting sun warned them that they must get their bedroom work done at
once, or be obliged to do it in the dark.

This task was remarkably simple; it consisted in each boy finding his
blanket, wrapping himself in it, and lying on the ground, all in a row,
like herrings in a box.

Nor did they wait very long for slumber to visit their eyelids, for in
ten minutes after they were ready it came to all, even to Tip, who had
curled himself up snugly under Tim's arm.

Had any of the party been experienced in the sport of "camping out,"
they would have studied the signs in the sky for the purpose of learning
what might have been expected of the weather; but as it was, they had
all laid themselves down to sleep without a thought that the dark clouds
which had begun to gather in the sky were evidences of a storm.

It was nearly midnight, and up to that time not one of them had awakened
from the heavy sleep into which he had first fallen, when Tim became
painfully aware that something was wrong. He had been dreaming that he
was again on the _Pride of the Wave_, that Captain Pratt had thrown him
overboard because he had been trying to steer, and just as he struck the
water he awoke with a start.

The moment his eyes were open he understood the reason for his dream; he
was lying in a large pool of water, and the blanket in which he had
wrapped himself so comfortably was thoroughly saturated with it. At
first he was at a loss to account for this sudden change of condition,
and then the loud patter of rain on the canvas roof told the story
plainly. A storm had come up, and the tent, being on the slope of a
hill, was serving as a sort of reservoir for little streams of water
that were rapidly increasing in size.

Tip, roused by his master's sudden movement, had started from his
comfortable position, and walked directly into the water, very much to
his discomfort and fear; howling loudly, he jumped among the sleepers
with such force as at once to awaken and terrify them.

It required but a few words from Tim to make them understand all that
had happened, for some of them were nearly as wet as he was, and all
could hear the patter of the rain, which seemed to increase in violence
each moment.

A lonesome prospect it was to think of remaining in the tent the rest
of the night, unable to sleep because of the water that poured in under
the canvas, or trickled down through three or four small holes in the
roof.

For several moments none of them knew what to do, but stood huddled
together in sleepy surprise and sorrow, until Tim proposed that since he
could hardly be more wet than he was, he should go out and dig a trench
which would lead the water each side of the tent. But that plan was
abandoned when it was discovered that a hatchet and a spoon were the
only tools they had.

In order to get some idea of the condition of affairs, Tim lighted first
one match and then another; but the light shed was so feeble that
Captain Jimmy proposed building a small fire, which would both
illuminate and heat the interior.

Tim acted upon this suggestion at once. With some newspapers and small
bits of wood that were still dry he succeeded in kindling such a blaze
as shed quite a light, but did not endanger the canvas. But he forgot
all about the smoke, and this oversight he was reminded of very forcibly
after a few moments.

Careful examination showed that the water only came in from the upper or
higher side of the tent, but it was pouring in there in such quantities
that before long the interior would be spread with a carpet of water.

"We've got to dig a ditch along this side, so's the water will run off,"
said Tim, after he had surveyed the uncomfortable-looking little brooks,
and waited a moment in the hope that Bill or Captain Jimmy would suggest
a better plan.

All saw the necessity of doing something at once, and the moment Tim
gave them the idea, they went to work with knives, spoons, or any other
implements they could find. It did not take much time, even with the
poor tools they had, to dig a trench that would carry away any moderate
amount of water, and after that was done, they gathered around the fire,
for consultation.

But by that time they began to learn that smoke was even more
uncomfortable to bear than water. For some time it had been rising to
the top of the tent, escaping in small quantities through the flaps and
holes; but only a portion of it had found vent, and the tent was so full
that they were nearly suffocated.

They covered their eyes, and tried to "grin and bear it"; but such
heroic effort could only be made for a short while, and they were
obliged to run out into the pelting rain in order to get the pure air.

It was no fun to stand out-of-doors in a storm, and, acting on Captain
Jimmy's suggestion, the party returned after a few moments to "kick the
fire out."

But such a plan was of very little benefit, since the embers would smoke
despite all they could do, and out they ran again, seeking such shelter
as they could find under the trees, where it was not long before they
came to the conclusion that camping out in a rain-storm was both a
delusion and a snare.

In half an hour the tent was so nearly freed from smoke that they sought
its shelter again, and when they were housed once more, they presented a
very forlorn appearance.

At first they decided that they would remain awake until daylight; but
as the hours rolled on, this plan was abandoned, for one after another
wrapped himself in his blanket, concluding he could keep his eyes open
as well lying down, and proved it by going to sleep at once.

They did not sleep very soundly, nor lie in bed very late. When they
awakened, it was not necessary to look out-of-doors in order to know if
it was raining, for the water was falling on the thin shelter as hard
and as persistently as if bent on beating it down.

[Illustration: SHORT RATIONS.]

As soon as the boys were fairly out of bed they began to ask how
breakfast could be cooked, and what they were to have in the way of
food, all of which questions Tim answered in a way that left no chance
for discussion. He cut eleven slices of bread, spread them thickly with
butter, placed over that a slice of cake, and informed the party that
they would begin the day with just that sort of a breakfast. Of course
there was some grumbling, but the dissatisfied ones soon realized that
Tim had done his best under the circumstances, and they ate the bread
and cake very contentedly.

That forenoon was not spent in a very jolly manner, and the afternoon
was a repetition of the forenoon, save that at supper-time Tim gravely
informed them that there was hardly enough cooked provisions for
breakfast.

Unfortunately for them, the boys were not as sleepy when the second
night came, and the evening spent in the dark was not a cheerful one.
The rain was still coming down as steadily as ever, and they had ceased
to speculate as to when it would stop. It was after they had been
sitting in mournful silence for some time that Bill Thompson started
what was a painful topic of conversation.

"How long will the victuals last, Tim?"

"They're 'most gone now, 'cept the pork an' 'taters, an' the eggs, that
I never thought of until a minute ago."

"If it would only stop rainin', Jim could go out fishin', an' I could go
out huntin', an' in a day we could get more'n the crowd of us could eat
in a week. I'll tell you what I will do"--and Bill spoke very earnestly:
"I'll take Tip an' go out alone in the mornin', whether it rains or
not."

"Why not all go?" said Tim, pleased with the plan. "Supposin' we do get
wet, what of that? We can get dry again when the sun does come out, an'
it'll be better'n stayin' here scrouchin' around."

There were a number of the boys who were of Tim's way of thinking, and
the hunting party was decided upon for the following day, regardless of
the weather.

After breakfast next morning some of the boys who had been the most
determined to join the hunting party, the night before, concluded to
wait a while longer before setting out, and the consequence was that no
one save Tim, Bill, and Bobby had the courage to brave the drenching
which it was certain they must get.

This time Bill had a more effective weapon than the one he used at the
bear-hunt. He had borrowed a fowling-piece of quite a respectable size,
and had brought with him a supply of powder and shot.

Bill covered the lock of the gun with the corner of his jacket to
prevent the cap from getting wet, and on they went, rapidly getting
drenched both by the rain and by the water which came from the branches
of the trees.

For some time Tip steadily refused to run among the bushes, but after
much urging he did consent to hunt in a listless sort of way, barking
once or twice at some squirrels that had come out of their holes to
grumble at the weather, but scaring up no larger game.

Just at a time when the hunters were getting discouraged by their ill
luck, Tip commenced barking at a furious rate, and started off through
the bushes at full speed.

Bill was all excitement; he made up his mind that they were on the track
of a deer at least, and he was ready to discharge his weapon at the
first moving object he should see.

After running five minutes, during which time they made very little
progress, owing to the density of the woods, Bobby halted suddenly, and
in an excited manner pointed toward a dark object some distance ahead,
which could be but dimly seen because of the foliage.

Bill was on his knee in an instant, with gun raised, and just as he was
about to pull the trigger, Tim saw the object that had attracted Bobby's
attention.

He cried out sharply, and started toward Bill to prevent him from
firing, but was too late. Almost as he spoke, the gun was discharged,
and mingled with Tim's cries could be heard the howling of a dog.

"You've shot Tip! you've shot Tip!" cried Tim, in an agony of grief, as
he rushed forward, followed by Bill and Bobby, looking as terrified as
though they had shot one of their companions.

When Tim reached the spot from which the cries of pain were sounding, he
found that his fears were not groundless, for there on the wet leaves,
bathed in his own blood, that flowed from shot-wounds on his back and
hind-legs, was poor Tip. He was trying to bite the wounds that burned,
and all the while uttering sharp yelps of distress.

Tim, with a whole heart full of sorrow such as he had never known
before, knelt by the poor dog's side, kissing him tenderly, but
powerless to do anything for his suffering pet save to wipe the blood
away. His grief was too great to admit of his saying anything to the
unfortunate hunter who had done him so much mischief, and poor Bill
stood behind a tree crying as if his heart was breaking.

Each instant Tim expected to see Tip in his death struggle, and he tried
very hard to make the dog kiss him; but the poor animal was in such pain
that he had no look even for his master.

It was nearly fifteen minutes that the three were gathered around the
dog expecting to see him die, and then he appeared to be in less pain.

"Perhaps he won't die after all," said Bill, hardly even daring to hope
his words would prove true. "If we could only get home, Dr. Abbott would
cure him." Then, as a sudden thought came to him, he turned quickly to
Bobby, and said, eagerly: "Run back to the camp as quick as you can, an'
tell the fellers what has happened. Have them get everything into the
boat, so's we can get right away for home."

Bobby started off at full speed, and Tim, now encouraged to think that
Tip might yet recover, began to look hopeful.

Bill set to work cutting down some small saplings, out of which he made
a very good litter. On this Tip was placed tenderly, and with Bill at
one end and Tim at the other, they started down the path toward the
camp. To avoid jolting the dog, thus causing him more pain, they were
obliged to walk so slowly that when they reached the beach the boys were
putting into the boat the last of their camp equipage.

Each of the party wanted to examine poor Tip, but Bill would not permit
it, because of the delay it would cause. He arranged a comfortable place
in the bow where Tip could lie, and another where Tim could sit beside
him, working all the time as if each moment was of the greatest
importance in the saving of Tip's life.

At last all was ready, the word was given to push off, and the campers
rowed swiftly toward home.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




PETER'S POSTAL CARD.

BY SYDNEY DAYRE.


Peter Keens was in most respects a very good boy; but he had one fault,
which, though it might not at first thought seem a very grave one, can
never be indulged in without bringing many worse ones in its train, and
sadly lowering the whole tone of a boy's character. He was full of
curiosity--that curiosity which leads one to be always prying into the
affairs of others. The boys at school of course knew his failing, and
found in it reason for playing many a trick upon him, which is not to be
wondered at. One day, when a number of the older boys had remained
after hours to consult on the formation of a club, he crept into the
entry and listened at the door. They found out that he was there, and
all got out of a window, and locked Peter in, keeping him prisoner until
after dark, when he was let out, frightened and hungry.

The next morning he was greeted on the play-ground by shouts of "Spell
it backward!" He could not guess what was meant, and was still more
puzzled as they continued to call him "Double--back--action,"
"Reversible-engine," and other bits of school-boy wit. He begged them to
tell him, and at last some one suggested, in a tone of great disgust,
"Spell your name backward, booby, and then you'll see."

He did, and he saw: _Keens_--backward.

But he was not yet ready to cultivate straightforward spelling. That
club still bothered him; he could not give up his strong desire to find
out its secrets. By dint of much listening and spying he gathered that
it was to meet one night in a barn belonging to the father of one of the
boys, and he made up his mind to be there. He crept near the door as
darkness closed in, and listened intently. They were inside surely, for
he could hear something moving about; but he wanted to hear more than
that, so he ventured to raise the wooden latch. It made no noise; he
cautiously opened the door a trifle, and peeped in. It was dark and
quiet, so he opened it wider. It gave a loud grating creak; a scurry of
quick footsteps sounded on the floor, and then a white thing suddenly
rose before him, tall and ghostly. In an agony of fright and horror, he
turned to run, but the thing with one fearful blow struck him down,
trampled heavily over him, and sped away with a loud "Ba-ha-ha-ha-a-a!"

As Peter limped home, muddy, battered, and bruised, he wondered if any
of the boys knew that Farmer Whippletree's wretched old billy-goat was
in the barn that night.

They did.

"How did you leave William, Peter?" he was asked at least twenty times
in the course of the next day. In the grammar class a boy who was called
on for a sentence wrote, "A villain is more worthy of respect than a
sneak."

"Oh no, not quite that," remarked the teacher, "but--neither can be a
gentleman."

On a morning in early July he received as usual the family mail from the
carrier at the door, and carried it to his mother, examining it as he
went. A postal card excited his curiosity; it was, he knew, from his
aunt, in whose company he was to go to the mountains, and he was anxious
to know what she said. But one of his friends was waiting for him to go
and catch crabs and minnows for an aquarium, and as the morning hours
are the best for such work, they were in a hurry. So he slipped it into
his pocket to read as he went along, intending to place it where it
might be found on the hall floor when he came back, that his mother
might be deceived into thinking it had been accidentally dropped there.

But he forgot all about it before they had gone twenty steps. He spent
the morning at the creek, and the afternoon at his friend's house,
returning home in the evening. As he passed through the hall to his
mother's room, the thought of it suddenly flashed on his mind. He felt
in his pocket, with a sinking at his heart, but the card was gone.

Where? He could not pretend to imagine, as he thought of the roundabout
ramble he had taken. He got up early the next morning, and carefully
hunted over every step of the ground, but all in vain. It would have
been well if he had gone at once to his mother, and confessed what he
had done; but he delayed, still cherishing a hope of finding what he had
lost, and the longer he waited, the more impossible it became to tell.
He remembered that a boy had once said to him, "A sneak is sure to be a
coward."

More than a week after this, Peter was sitting on the piazza one evening
after tea, reading to his mother, when his friend of the creek
expedition came in.

"Here is a card I found, addressed to you, Mrs. Keens," he said. "It
must be the one you were hunting for last week, Pete."

She took it in some surprise, failing to observe the color which mounted
to Peter's face as he saw it. As she read it, a troubled expression
overspread her own.

"Ten days old, this card," she exclaimed. "'Wednesday, the 14th'--what
does it mean, Peter?" She passed it to him, and he read as follows:

  "_July_ 3.

     "MY DEAR RUTH,--I write to give you ample notice of a change in our
     plans in consequence of Robert's partner desiring to take a trip
     late in the season, obliging us to go early. So Robert, having
     finished his business in Canada, is to meet us on Wednesday, the
     14th, at Plattsburg. Shall stop for Peter on the evening of the
     13th. Please have him ready.

  "KATHERINE."

This was the 13th. Peter stared at his mother in dismay.

"I do not quite understand yet," she said. "Where did you get this card,
Philip?"

"I found it just now in the arbor where I have my museum; it had slipped
behind a box. You lost it the day we played there, didn't you, Pete?"

"How came you to have it there, Peter?"

"I--it was in my pocket, ma'am, and I dropped it, I suppose."

"_Why_ was it in your pocket? Why didn't you bring it to me?"

"I wanted--I was just going to read it."

Phil touched his hat, and quietly took his departure. Mrs. Keens said no
more, but looked again at the dates on the card.

At this moment a hack drove up, from which issued a most astonishing
outpouring of noisy, laughing, chattering blue-flannelled boys, followed
by a mother who looked just merry enough to be commander of such a merry
crew.

"Hurrah! Hurrah! Pete, we're off! All ready? We can only stay two
hours."

"Such a tent--_big_, striped, and a flag to it; and--"

"Father's going to let us boys shoot with a gun."

"_Isn't_ it jolly to have two weeks less to wait?"

Peter did not look at all jolly, as through his half-bewildered mind
struggled a dim perception of the dire evil the loss of that card might
have worked for him. When the clamor of greeting and questioning had
somewhat subsided, Mrs. Keens said, slowly:

"No, Peter is _not_ ready;" and the tone of her voice sent a heavier
weight down into his heart, and a bigger lump into his throat. "Your
card has only just reached me, Katherine."

"Oh dear! dear!" His aunt shook her head in distress, and five boy faces
settled into blank dismay. "Why, why, surely you don't mean, Ruth--eh?
Can't you hurry things up a little? Boys don't need much, you know!
Or--can't he be sent after us?" Peter followed his mother to the
dining-room as she went to order a hasty lunch for the travellers.

"Mother, can't I?--_can't_ I?" he sobbed.

She put her arms around him, with streaming eyes, feeling the keenness
of the disappointment for him as deeply as he ever could feel it for
himself.

"Oh, my boy! my boy! my heart is sad and sore that you should be mean
and sly and deceitful, and not for once only, but as a habit. No, it is
your own doing, and you must abide by the consequences. I never could
have brought myself to punish you so, but you have punished yourself,
and I trust it may be the best thing which could have happened to you."




[Illustration: "WHAT ARE THE WILD WAVES SAYING?"--FROM A PAINTING BY
C. W. NICHOLLS.]




WHAT ARE THE WILD WAVES SAYING?


The story of Paul Dombey and his sister Florence is one of the sweetest
and most pathetic stories Charles Dickens ever told. One can scarcely
think of these children--motherless (the mother died when Paul was
born), and Florence worse than fatherless, for her father had never
forgiven her birth six years before that of the wished-for son, and had
never given her a kind word or look, living in the great, comfortless,
lonely Dombey house, and finding all their happiness in each
other--without tears. For it was to the sister so cruelly neglected and
despised that Paul turned from the very first. It was she who on the day
of his christening won from him his first laugh. "As she hid behind her
nurse, he followed her with his eyes, and when she peeped out with a
merry cry to him, he sprang up and crowed lustily, laughing outright
when she ran in upon him, and seeming to fondle her curls with his tiny
hands while she smothered him with kisses." And as he grew out of
babyhood, much as it displeased the father (who would have had his idol
care for no one but himself), little Paul was never content save when
his sister was by his side.

A pale, delicate, old-fashioned child he proved to be, this boy whom Mr.
Dombey proudly thought would in years to come be his partner in the
immense business of which he had been the only head for twenty years,
but which then would be, as in old times, "Dombey & Son"; and in spite
of all the care that money could procure for him, he gradually grew
weaker and weaker. Mr. Dombey believed in "money," and in but little
else, and would have taught his little son also to believe in its
all-sufficient power, but the child was wiser than the father. "If it's
a good thing," said he, "and can do anything, I wonder why it didn't
save me my mamma; and it can't make me quite well and strong either." At
last it was decided that he should be sent to the sea-side, in hopes
that the fresh sea-air would bring the health and strength that could
not be found at home. And with him, of course, went Florence.

"But the boy remaining as weak as ever, a little carriage was got for
him, in which he could lie at his ease, and be wheeled to the sea-shore.
Consistent in his odd tastes, the child set aside the ruddy-faced lad
who was proposed as a drawer of this carriage, and selected instead his
grandfather--a weazen old crab-faced man in a suit of battered oil-skin,
who had got tough and stringy from long pickling in salt-water. With
this notable attendant to pull him along, and Florence walking by his
side, he went down to the margin of the ocean every day. 'Go away, if
you please,' he would say to any child that came to bear him company.
'Thank you, but I don't want you.' Then he would turn his head and watch
the child away, and say to Florence, 'We don't want any others, do
we?--kiss me, Floy.' His favorite spot was a lonely one far away from
most loungers; and with Florence sitting by his side at work, or reading
to him, or talking to him, and the wind blowing on his face, and the
water coming up among the wheels of his bed, he wanted nothing more.

"One time he fell asleep, and slept quietly for a long time. Awaking
suddenly, he listened, started up, and sat listening. Florence asked him
what he thought he heard. 'I want to know what it says,' he answered,
looking steadily into her face. 'The sea, Floy--what is it that it keeps
on saying?'

"She told him it was only the noise of the rolling waves.

"'Yes, yes,' he said. 'But I know that they are always saying
something--always the same thing. What place is that over there?' He
rose up, looking eagerly at the horizon.

"She told him that there was another country opposite; but he said he
didn't mean that: he meant farther away--farther away."

There was a strange, weird charm for little Paul in the ever-restless
ocean, and the winds that came he knew not whence and went he knew not
whither.

"If you had to die," he said once, looking up into the face of his odd,
shy friend Mr. Toots, "don't you think you would rather die on a
moonlight night, when the sky was quite clear, and the wind blowing, as
it did last night? Not blowing, at least, but sounding in the air like
the sea sounds in the shells. It was a beautiful night. When I had
listened to the water for a long time, I got up and looked out. There
was a boat over there, in the full light of the moon--a boat with a sail
like an arm, all silver. It went away into the distance, and it seemed
to beckon--to beckon me to come."

Poor little Paul! It was not long before he obeyed the fancied summons,
for soon after this visit to the sea-shore the gentle, loving little
fellow died--died with his arms about his sister's neck; and almost his
last words were, as he smiled at his mother's spirit waiting to bear him
to heaven: "Mamma is like you, Floy. I know her by the face."




THE TALKING LEAVES.[2]

An Indian Story.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

CHAPTER III.

[2] Begun in No. 92 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, August 2.


"Talking leaves?" said Ni-ha-be, as she turned over another page of the
pamphlet in her lap, and stared at the illustrations. "Can you hear what
they say?"

"With my eyes."

"Then they are better than mine. I am an Apache. You were born white."

There was a little bit of a flash in the black eyes of the Indian
maiden. She had not the least idea but that it was the finest thing in
all the world to be the daughter of Many Bears, and it did not please
her to find a mere white girl, only Indian by adoption, able to see or
hear more than she could.

Rita did not reply for a moment, and a strange sort of paleness crept
across her face, until Ni-ha-be exclaimed:

"It hurts you, Rita! It is bad medicine. Throw it away."

"No, it does not hurt."

"It makes you sick?"

"No, not sick. It says too much. It will take many days to hear it all."

"Does it speak Apache?"

"No, not a word."

"Nor the tongue of the Mexican pony men?"

"No. All it says is in the tongue of the blue-coated white men of the
North."

"Ugh!" Even Ni-ha-be's pretty face could express the hatred felt by her
people for the only race of men they were at all afraid of.

There were many braves in her father's band who had learned to talk
Mexican-Spanish. She herself could do so very well, but neither she nor
any of her friends or relatives could speak more than a few words of
broken English, and she had never heard Rita use one.

"There are many pictures."

"Ugh! Yes. That's a mountain, like those up yonder. There are lodges,
too, in the valley. But nobody ever made lodges in such a shape as
that."

"Yes, or nobody could have painted a talking picture of them."

"It tells a lie, Rita. And nobody ever saw a bear like that."

"It isn't a bear, Ni-ha-be. The talking leaf says it's a lion."

"What's that? A white man's bear?"

Rita knew no more about lions than did her adopted sister, but by the
time they had turned over a few more pages their curiosity was aroused
to a high degree.

Even Ni-ha-be wanted to hear all that the "talking leaves" might have to
say in explanation of those wonderful pictures.

It was too bad of Rita to have been "born white" and not to be able to
explain the work of her own people at sight.

"What shall we do with them, Ni-ha-be?"

"Show them to father."

"Why not ask Red Wolf?"

"He would take them away and burn them. He hates the pale-faces more and
more every day."

"I don't believe he hates me."

"Of course not. You're an Apache now, just as much as Mother Dolores,
and she's forgotten that she was ever white."

"She isn't very white, Ni-ha-be. She's darker than almost any other
woman in the tribe."

"We won't show her the talking leaves till father says we may keep them.
Then she'll be afraid to touch them. She hates me."

"No, she doesn't. She likes me best, that's all."

"She'd better not hate me, Rita. I'll have her beaten if she isn't good
to me. I'm an Apache."

The black-eyed daughter of the great chief had plenty of self-will and
temper. There could be no doubt of that. She sprang upon her mustang
with a quick, impatient bound, and Rita followed, clinging to her
prizes, wondering what would be the decision of Many Bears and his
councillors as to the ownership of them.

A few minutes of swift riding brought the two girls to the border of the
camp.

"Rita, Red Wolf!"

"I see him. He is coming to meet us, but he does not want us to think
so."

That was a correct guess. The tall, hawk-nosed young warrior, who was
now riding toward them, was a perfect embodiment of Indian haughtiness,
and even his sister was a mere "squaw" in his eyes. As for Rita, she was
not only a squaw, but was not even a full-blooded Apache, and was to be
looked down upon accordingly.

He was an Indian and a warrior, and would one day be a chief like his
father. Still, he had so far laid aside his usual cold dignity as to
turn to meet that sisterly pair, if only to find out why they were in
such a hurry.

"What scared you?"

"We're not scared. We've found something. Pale-face sign."

"Apache warriors do not ask squaws if there are pale-faces near them.
The chiefs know all. Their camp was by the spring."

"Was it?" exclaimed Ni-ha-be. "We have found some of their talking
leaves. Rita must show them to father."

"Show them to me."

"No. You are an Apache. You can not hear what they say. Rita can. She is
white."

"Ugh! Show leaves now."

Ni-ha-be was a squaw, but she was also something of a spoiled child, and
was less afraid of her brother than he may have imagined. Besides, the
well-known rule of the camp, or of any Indian camp, was in her favor.
All "signs" were to be reported to the chief by the finder, and Ni-ha-be
would make her report to her father like a warrior.

Rita was wise enough to say nothing, and Red Wolf was compelled to
soften his tone a little. He even led the way to the spot near the
spring where the squaws of Many Bears were already putting up his
"lodge."

There was plenty of grass and water in that valley, and it had been
decided to rest the horses there for three days before pushing on deeper
into the Apache country.

The proud old chief was not lowering his dignity to any such work as
lodge pitching. He would have slept on the bare ground without a blanket
before he would have touched one pole with a finger. That was "work for
squaws," and all that could be expected of him was that he should stand
near and say "Ugh!" pleasantly when things were going to please him, and
to say it in a different tone if they were not.

Ni-ha-be and Rita were favorites of the scarred and wrinkled warrior,
however, and when they rode up with Red Wolf, and the latter briefly
stated the facts of the case--all he knew of them--the face of Many
Bears relaxed into a grim smile.

"Squaw find sign. Ugh! Good!"

"Rita says they are talking leaves. Much picture. Many words. See!"

Her father took from Ni-ha-be and then from Rita the strange objects
they held out so excitedly, but to their surprise he did not seem to
share in their estimate of them.

"No good. See them before. No tell anything true. Big lie."

Many Bears had been among the forts and border settlements of the white
men in his day. He had talked with army officers, and missionaries, and
government agents. He had seen many written papers and printed papers,
and had had books given him, and there was no more to be told or taught
him about nonsense of that kind. He had once imitated a pale-face friend
of his, and looked steadily at a newspaper for an hour at a time, and it
had not spoken a word to him.

So now he turned over the three magazines in his hard brown hand with a
look of dull curiosity mixed with a good deal of contempt.

"Ugh! Young squaws keep them. No good for warriors. Bad medicine. Ugh!"

Down they went upon the grass, and Rita was free to pick up her despised
treasures, and do with them as she would. As for Red Wolf, after such a
decision by his terrible father, he would have deemed it beneath him to
pay any further attention to the "pale-face signs" brought into camp by
two young squaws.

Another lodge of poles and skins had been pitched at the same time with
that of Many Bears, and not a great distance from it. In fact, this also
was his own property, although it was to cover the heads of only a part
of his family.

In front of the loose "flap" opening which served for the door of this
lodge stood a stout, middle-aged woman, who seemed to be waiting for
Ni-ha-be and Rita to approach. She had witnessed their conference with
Many Bears, and she knew by the merry laugh with which they gathered up
their fallen prizes that all was well between them and their father. All
the more for that, it may be, her mind was exercised as to what they had
brought home with them which should have needed the chief's inspection.

"Rita!"

"What, Ni-ha-be?"

"Don't tell Mother Dolores a word. See if she can hear for herself."

"The leaves won't talk to her. She's Mexican white, not white from the
North."

Nobody would have said, to look at her, that the fat, surly-faced squaw
of Many Bears was a white woman of any sort. Her eyes were as black and
her long jetty hair was as thick and coarse and her skin was every shade
as dark as were those of any Apache housekeeper among the scattered
lodges of that hunting party. She was not the mother of Ni-ha-be. She
had not a drop of Apache blood in her veins, although she was one of the
half-dozen squaws of Many Bears. Mother Dolores was a pure Mexican, and
therefore as much of an Indian, really, as any Apache or Lipan or
Comanche--only a different kind of Indian, that was all.

Her greeting to her two young charges--for such they were--was somewhat
gruff and brief, and there was nothing very respectful in the manner of
their reply. An elderly squaw, even though the wife of a chief, is never
considered as anything better than a sort of servant, to be valued
according to the kind and quantity of the work she can do.

Dolores could do a great deal, and was therefore more than usually
respectable, and she had quite enough force of will to preserve her
authority over two such half-wild creatures as Ni-ha-be and Rita.

"You are late. Come in. Tell me what it is."

Rita was as eager now as Ni-ha-be had been with her father and Red Wolf;
but even while she was talking, Dolores pulled them both into the lodge.

"Talking leaves!"

Not Many Bears himself could have treated those poor magazines with
greater contempt than did the portly dame from Mexico.

To be sure, it was many a long year since she had been taken a prisoner
and brought across the Mexican border, and reading had not been among
the things she had learned before coming.

"Rita can tell us all they say by-and-by, Mother Dolores. She can hear
what they say."

"Let her, then. Ugh!"

She turned page after page in a doubtful way, as if it were quite
possible one of them might bite her; but suddenly her whole manner
changed.

"Ugh!"

[Illustration: "RITA, THE LEAVES HAVE SPOKEN TO HER."]

"Rita," exclaimed Ni-ha-be, "the leaves have spoken to her."

She had certainly kissed one of them. Then she made a quick motion with
one hand across her brow and breast.

"Give it to me, Rita; you must give it to me."

Rita held out her hand for the book, and both the girls leaned forward
with open mouths to learn what could have so disturbed the mind of
Dolores.

It was a picture: a sort of richly carved and ornamented doorway, but
with no house behind it, and in it a lady with a baby in her arms, and
over it a great cross of stone.

"Yes, Dolores," said Rita, "we will give you that leaf."

It was quickly cut out, and the two girls wondered more and more to see
how the fingers of Dolores trembled as they closed upon that bit of
paper.

She looked at the picture again with increasing earnestness. Her lips
moved silently, as if trying to utter words her mind had lost. Then her
great fiery black eyes slowly closed, and the amazement of Ni-ha-be and
Rita was greater than they could have expressed, for Mother Dolores sank
upon her knees, hugging that picture. She had been an Apache Indian for
long years, and was thoroughly "Indianized"; but upon that page had been
printed a very beautiful representation of a Spanish "Way-side Shrine of
the Virgin."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




A FOREST FIRE.


This year the forest fires have been more extensive and more destructive
than usual, especially in Michigan, where not a drop of rain had fallen
for nearly eighty days. The fire, when once started, rushed on through
green trees and dry trees, through corn fields and clover fields, at the
rate of twenty miles an hour. Swamps full of stagnant water were dried
up in a flash. Horses galloped wildly before the flame, but were
overtaken by it, and left roasting on the ground. Trees two miles
distant from the flames had their leaves withered by the heat. Some
sailors who were out on the lake found the heat uncomfortable when they
were seven miles from shore. Of course, wherever the lake was near,
people tried to reach it. One farmer put all his family into his wagon,
and started off. The fire was so close that the sparks burned holes in
the children's dresses. Just then the tire came off one of the wheels.
Usually, when this accident happens, the wagon has to stop, for the best
of wheels generally fall to pieces in a few rods when they have lost
their tires; but this wheel stood seven miles of jolting and bumping, up
hill and down, over roots and ruts, while the frightened horses were
galloping like mad creatures. Another farmer had gathered his neighbors
about him to assist him in threshing his wheat. While the great machine
was doing its work, the alarm was given that the woods were on fire.
Hastily putting horses to the machine and to a wagon, the farmer and his
friends abandoned homestead and newly gathered crop, and made an effort
to save the valuable threshing-machine, even if all else must go. Before
they gained the road a mare with a colt at her heels came madly
galloping toward them, and becoming entangled among the horses attached
to the machine, blocked their progress. The fire was almost upon them.
The men cut the traces and let the horses go, but the great
threshing-machine, to whose very existence fire was a necessity, had to
be abandoned to the fury of the devouring element.

[Illustration]

In the lake, people waded into the water up to the neck; then they were
safe indeed from the flame, but almost choked by the smoke, while the
sparks fell on them like snow-flakes in a heavy storm. Thousands of
land-birds were suffocated as they flew before the flames, or were
drowned in the lake. Bears and deer in their terror sought the company
of man. A man and a bear stood together up to their necks in water all
night, and the man said that the bear was as quiet as a dog. Two other
bears came and stood close to a well from which a farmer was flinging
water over his house. Our artist saw a very pathetic scene: the flames
had swept away the homestead, and when the wave of fire had passed, no
living thing remained but the faithful house-dog, which had crouched
down in a ditch. It went again to its old place, and neither hunger nor
solitude could persuade it to quit the ruins where its master had
perished. It stood at its post, faithfully guarding the charred timbers
of what a short time before had been a happy home.




A FOLDING CAMP-STOOL.


[Illustration: Fig. 1.]

Girls and boys who are looking for a useful and tasteful holiday gift
for mother, aunt, or elder sister, may unite in the making of the
folding camp-stool, which we illustrate below. It is made of black
walnut rods, joined, with hinges and with a broad cross-bar. On the top
of the cross-bar is fastened a leather handle, by which to carry the
stool when folded (Fig. 2). The upright wooden rods in the back are
hinged to and support the cane seat, as shown by Fig. 1. The other upper
rods are pushed into the notches on the under side of the seat in
unfolding the chair. A leather satchel may be added, as in the
engraving, but this is not necessary. The seat is covered with a
four-cornered piece of brown woollen Java canvas, embroidered in cross
stitch with fawn-colored filling silk in three shades. Ravel out the
threads of the canvas from the last cross stitch row to a depth of an
inch and a quarter, fold down the canvas on the wrong side so as to form
loops a quarter of an inch deep on the edge, and catch every ten such
loops together with a strand of fawn-colored silk in three shades, for a
tassel, which is tied with similar silk. Cut the tassels even, and
underlay the cover with a thin cushion.

[Illustration: Fig. 2.]




[Illustration: OUR POST-OFFICE BOX.]


Have dolls gone out of fashion? Very few of our little girls mention
them in their letters. We hope that there are dolls and play houses and
lovely little tea sets, just as there used to be, and we shall be glad
to have the younger ones write about them. How many of you are learning
to decorate china, and which little girls have painted the prettiest
cups and saucers for mamma's birthday? What are the boys doing in these
bright days of autumn? Marbles, tops, balls, hoops, and such toys are
always the style, we know, among the boys. Which boy has drawn the best
map? Who has made the finest work-box or bracket with his scroll-saw?
Write about these things.

Now that the long evenings are coming, you may tell us, if you please,
about your home amusements. Hands up! Every uplifted hand is the sign
that its owner knows a pleasant evening game, and Our Post-office Box
will be delighted to hear how it is played, so that all the young people
may play it if they wish to do so.

And now one word more to exchangers. Listen, please. Try to confine your
exchanges to useful, unique, valuable, or beautiful things of which you
are making collections. As we have said before, in every case exchangers
should write to each other, and arrange the exchange, settle the
postage, and determine the details before they trust their articles to
the mail or express. Every day brings us complaints, and some of them
very bitter ones, from boys and girls who accuse others of having
treated them unfairly. This would be made impossible if there were
always an exchange of views before the exchange of goods. Hereafter we
shall publish no notices of withdrawal from our exchange list. When your
supplies are exhausted it would be well for you to notify your
correspondents, for the reason that several weeks must elapse before we
can publish your notice of withdrawal, and all that time you, though
innocent, are exposed to the suspicion of being either dishonest or
careless.

       *       *       *       *       *

  EAGLE GROVE, IOWA.

     Not seeing any letters from this place, I thought I would write and
     tell you about my pets. I am a little girl nine years old, and live
     on a farm, and have to depend on my pets for playmates, as my
     little brother is dead, and I have no sister. I have a little gray
     kitten which I call Maggie, and my dog is a shepherd, and I call
     him Brave. He will speak for something to eat, and shake hands with
     me, and when I am at school, will watch until school is out, and
     then come and meet me. I have a little colt named Rosa, and a
     little calf named Mera, and a black cow named Mink. Our hired man
     takes YOUNG PEOPLE this year, and I want to take it next. I read
     all the little letters, and I think that "Susie Kingman's Decision"
     was splendid, and I hope "Tim and Tip" will be as good. I thought
     Jimmy Brown's monkey was funny. I do wish he would tell us some
     more of the monkey's tricks. My ma is writing this for me, but I
     tell her what to say, as it is such hard work for me to write.

  ETHELYN I. G.

It is in order for any little girl to employ her mother as an
amanuensis, and if she dictates the letter, we consider it her own.

       *       *       *       *       *

  PARIS, FRANCE.

     We left Lucerne August 2, and crossed the Brünig Pass as far as
     Sarnen, where the horses were watered. We only stopped there
     fifteen minutes. The next place we slopped at was Lungern, and we
     reached Brienz for the night. We took a funny big row-boat, and two
     men to row it across to Giessbach Falls, and reached Interlachen
     August 3. We drove to Grindelwald, and saw two glaciers; and August
     11 we came to Berne, saw the Bears' Den, the distant snow
     mountains, and the Cathedral clock. We heard the organ, which was
     the finest I ever heard, more beautiful than the organ in Lucerne.
     We drove one afternoon in the woods, and saw some chamois that are
     kept by the city. We left Berne, and came back to Lucerne. There we
     staid till the snow fell on all the mountains near the lake, and it
     was very cold.

     September 1, we left Lucerne, and came to Bâle. On the journey,
     part of the way the train went in the water, for it had rained a
     long time, and the country was flooded. The peasants stood about
     talking and trying to save their gardens and fences. Two or three
     little children at one of the houses were being carried along over
     the water on a big horse. There was one little village saved from
     flooding by their cutting large drains through the principal roads.

     When we reached Bâle the river Rhine was overflowing its banks, and
     it was rushing down and carrying great trees, parts of houses,
     fences, etc., along with it. There was great fear that it would
     carry away the old bridge, and the firemen of the city put large
     piles of railroad irons to weight it down, so that it should not be
     floated down the river, and carried away from its supports. The
     cellar of one of the buildings was full of stores, iron safes,
     etc., and they bricked up the doors to keep out the water. One
     street was so flooded that they made a board plank-walk above the
     water.

     We saw the Münster, and the cloister walk, and curiosities in the
     tower of the Münster. In one room they had old musical instruments,
     and books, with the music in them written in all the old ways. In
     the Museum we saw Holbein's sketches. He was born in Bâle, and they
     are proud of his pictures. We liked a sketch of two lambs and a
     bat. At the Zoological Gardens we saw a fish-otter. He twirled
     round and round in the water, would dive and swim and turn
     somersaults.

     September 4, we left Bâle by the night train for Troyes, France.
     There we got into a funny little "'bus," drove to a little hotel,
     and had our coffee and milk. We saw the Cathedral, and then took
     the train for Foutainebleau.

  HARRY G.

       *       *       *       *       *

  SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA.

     We take HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, and like it very much. We liked the
     "Two-headed Family," but wished it had been a continued story. "Tim
     and Tip" is a very nice story so far, but I hope it will not end so
     sadly as "Toby Tyler" did, by Tip's getting killed. I liked "Phil's
     Fairies" very much, and "Aunt Ruth's Temptation." We would like to
     have the violin which some one offered for exchange, but have not
     got enough curiosities to make four or five dollars' worth. This is
     our first letter to YOUNG PEOPLE. We have taken it from the first
     number. I have two King Charles spaniels, and they are very clever.
     I have a great deal of pleasure in teaching them tricks.

  HELEN T. F. and JOSEPH M. N.

       *       *       *       *       *

  WASHINGTON, D. C.

     I have returned from my summer vacation, which I spent in Virginia.
     My baby brother was very glad to see me. I have four pets--a red
     bird, goat, pigeons, and a little dog. I drive my little brother
     out in my goat-wagon. When papa left me in the country, on his way
     home, the cars ran off the track, and smashed the tender, and he
     was six hours detained in the hot sun. I was waiting every day to
     hear from home, to know whether he was hurt, but no one was
     injured. When my brother and I were coming home, a mule got on the
     track, and delayed the freight train, so that we were seven hours
     behind time, and I did not get home in time to see the President's
     funeral.

  W. H. T.

How thankful you must be that your dear father escaped unhurt!

       *       *       *       *       *

  HILLHURST, WASHINGTON TERRITORY.

     I am a little girl seven years old. I have taken YOUNG PEOPLE since
     Christmas, and like it ever so much. This is the first letter I
     have ever written. I have lived in New Tacoma ever since I was one
     year old, until about two months ago. I am now living in the
     country, fourteen miles from New Tacoma. I like it much better than
     I did in town, for there are so many pretty ferns, leaves, and
     mosses, and other things too. I read so many letters from little
     boys and girls who write to YOUNG PEOPLE, I thought I would write
     one. I hope you will print this. I want to surprise papa. He does
     not know I am writing this. I will show it to him when it is
     printed.

  ANNA S. H.

Your writing was so large and plain, dear, that we enjoyed reading your
first letter.

       *       *       *       *       *

  WEST WINSTED, CONNECTICUT.

     Have you room for another in Our Post-office Box? As I was picking
     grapes yesterday morning, I was surprised at finding a double one
     about one inch long. I must tell you of a kitten that I found last
     evening. I was sitting out-of-doors, and I heard a poor little
     kitten mew. It was nearly dead with hunger. I took it in and fed
     it, and now it is getting so that it feels itself quite at home. I
     like YOUNG PEOPLE very much, and am very eager for it to come. I
     only wish that it would come every day instead of every week. I
     _hope_ this will be published, as I have never seen one of my
     letters in print.

  HENRY J.

       *       *       *       *       *

  LEBANON, PENNSYLVANIA.

     I am thirteen years old, and live in Lebanon. There is a small
     creek running near our house, and there I go to procure subjects
     for my microscope. I do a great deal of experimenting in
     philosophy. I examined a specimen of larvæ of a dragon-fly, so my
     teacher said. But it don't look a bit like larvæ. It was about half
     an inch long, and the size (in thickness) of a cambric needle.
     Under a microscope it presents an appearance I could not describe.
     I would like to send it to the President of the Natural History
     Society, but it must be kept in water, and so could not be easily
     sent.

     I like YOUNG PEOPLE very much, particularly "Tim and Tip." I don't
     think Tip was so much of a bear-dog, after all.

  FRANK B.

       *       *       *       *       *

  BARABOO, WISCONSIN.

     Papa says YOUNG PEOPLE has been a great benefit to us children, and
     I for one think the world of it. I have been intending to write to
     the Post-office Box for a long time. I will be eleven years old
     next New-Year's, and I have a little sister who will soon be able
     to read YOUNG PEOPLE too.

     We children are now busy gathering hickory-nuts and butternuts and
     the beautiful autumn leaves, and when these pleasures are over, our
     out-door fun will be about finished until coasting-time. It is
     delightful out-of-doors now. Papa often goes out with us. We find
     lovely flowers in the early spring, as soon as the snow goes away,
     and later we search for wild strawberries, and then in their turns
     come the raspberries, plums, and blackberries, so that all the year
     there is something sweet and bright to invite us under the blue
     sky. The birds sing for us on our rambles, and we often see
     squirrels frisking around in the trees, and sometimes we startle a
     rabbit, and see him run for his home. Last spring a beautiful red
     fox fled past us, not more than twenty feet away. Papa said the
     hounds were after him, and as he was near his den in the rocks, he
     did not mind our presence.

     Yesterday we observed as the funeral day of our dead President, and
     it was very mournful. The two posts of the G. A. R., and all the
     other societies, with brass music, fifes, and drums, marched
     through the streets, and great crowds of people gathered in the
     court-house and church, as the day was rainy. I suppose it was a
     sad day over the whole country, but nobody could feel as sorrowful
     as the President's children and their mamma and grandma were
     feeling.

  NETTIE J.

We hope that poor hunted fox escaped in safety to his home, and we are
of the opinion that he had nothing to fear from you. You have given us a
very pleasant sketch of your life. You ought to have bright eyes and
plump rosy cheeks after so much exercise in the fresh air and sunshine.
Did you find the beautiful bitter-sweet, with its clustering berries, on
your autumnal expeditions, and did you bring home great bunches of
golden-rod and aster, as well as of autumn leaves? We always load our
arms with more treasures than we know what to do with when we go to the
woods or the pleasant country lanes at this season. Far back in our
memory are pictures of autumn walks we used to take with our little
companions on Friday afternoons, a kind teacher going with us, and
helping us discover the most charming places. Only those pupils who had
been perfect the whole week were allowed to join these delightful
parties. We learned a good deal about botany in our walks, and our love
for nature grew deep and true.

       *       *       *       *       *

     In reply to the Holly Springs branch of the Natural History Society
     I give below a brief synopsis of the katydid.

     The katydid is an American grasshopper of a transparent green
     color, named from the sound of its note. The song that the katydid
     sings is produced by a pair of taborets, one in the overlapping
     portion of each wing-cover, and formed by a thin transparent
     membrane stretched in a strong frame. The friction of the frames of
     the taborets against each other, as the insect opens and shuts its
     wings, produces the sound. During the day it hides among the leaves
     of the trees and bushes, but at early twilight its notes come forth
     from the groves and forests, continuing till dawn of day. These
     insects are now comparatively rare in the Atlantic States, though
     the writer has heard their noise at night, indicating that they
     were not rare in the hills back of Nyack and Verdritge Hook, better
     known as Rockland Lake Point, on the Hudson River. In some parts of
     the West their incessant noise at night deprives people of their
     sleep. From good authority I can state that katydids are found only
     in North America. They are called "grasshopper-birds" by the
     Indians, who are in the habit of roasting and grinding them into a
     flour, from which they make cakes, considered by them as
     delicacies. The katydid is interesting in captivity, and if fed on
     fruits, will live thus for several weeks. Like other grasshoppers,
     after the warm season they rapidly become old, the voice ceases,
     and they soon perish.

     I would suggest that some of our members learn all they can about
     the golden-rod, and send what they find out about it to the
     Post-office Box.

  President C. H. WILLIAMSON,
  293 Eckford St., Brooklyn, N. Y.

       *       *       *       *       *

Most of you have known what it is to be awakened in the night by the
tolling of fire-bells, or perhaps you have been frightened by hearing
somebody rushing past the door shouting "Fire! fire!" at the top of his
voice. It is always an alarming and thrilling experience, and none of us
ever grow used to it. But if you have read in this number the article
entitled "A Forest Fire," and have looked at the picture of the lonely
dog lingering beside the ruins of his home, you are sure that no fire
you have ever seen was so dreadful as that. Think of the poor birds
scorched, or blown to sea and drowned, and the wild animals so terrified
that for the time they grew tame! One little girl of whom we heard was
determined to save her canary-bird, so she took it with her, under some
carpet which her father kept wet while the family crowded close together
beneath its thick folds. The poor pet was dead when they at last were
able to stir from their shelter. Hundreds of children who had
comfortable homes like yours were deprived of them during those dreadful
days of smoke and wind and flame.

We are permitted to make some quotations from a private letter written
by a young lady to a friend in Brooklyn:

  PORT SANILAC, MICHIGAN.

     You asked some of us to write a vivid account of the fire to you,
     but to do so goes entirely beyond the power of my pen. It was
     simply _awful_! During those dreadful days I was too frightened to
     know what I was doing. I cried every time I would think that just
     as we had got a home it would all be swept away in a minute. I was
     nearly sick when the danger and excitement were over.

     The heat was perfectly unbearable. It seemed as if we would
     suffocate unless we could get a free breath of fresh air. The air
     was just as if it had come from an oven, and the leaves on our
     trees in front of the house are as brown as if they had been put
     into an oven and baked, and this even after all the rain we have
     had since.

     It was so dark here on the Monday after you left that we lit our
     lamps at two o'clock, and at five I went out of the door to go into
     the office, and I could not see my hand before my face, and so hot!
     It was enough to make stouter hearts than mine quail. Most of the
     people here had their trunks packed. We did not, because we felt,
     if our house went, we did not care for anything else. My eyes ache
     so that I can not see to write much in the evenings now, or to do
     any work. I send you some papers giving fuller descriptions of the
     calamity than I can.

  EVA.

There is a great deal of suffering in this part of Michigan, and it will
take a great many hands and heads to relieve it. It will be a long time
before the farms can be in good order again, the homes rebuilt, the
schools and churches once more erected. Cold weather is coming. We hope
you will ask your parents and teachers if they can not suggest to you
some way of helping the poor people there. They need tools, books, food,
clothing, and in fact everything which makes life comfortable. Boys and
girls can have a share in the privilege of aiding them, if they really
wish it, for in a great undertaking like this we can all help if we try.

       *       *       *       *       *

  TROY, ALABAMA.

     This is my second letter to YOUNG PEOPLE. Everybody here is so
     sorry about the death of the President. Our post-office and
     court-house are draped in mourning. All the business of the town
     was suspended on Friday, September 23, and there were addresses in
     the evening by some of the orators of the place.

  EDDIE M.

The sorrow at the death of our dear President has been universal. We are
sure all the boys who read Our Post-office Box will grow up better and
stronger men if they learn all they can about James A. Garfield, who was
a noble boy before he became a great and good man.

       *       *       *       *       *

  VERONA, NEW JERSEY.

     I have taken YOUNG PEOPLE for a long time, and like it very much,
     as I think everybody must who reads it. The stories that I prefer
     are "Aunt Ruth's Temptation," "Penelope," "The Violet Velvet Suit,"
     "A Bit of Foolishness," the Jimmy Brown stories, and Aunt
     Marjorie's "Bits of Advice." I have spent the summer at Verona, but
     am soon going home to Brooklyn. I have two brothers and one sister,
     all younger than myself. I will be very much obliged if you will
     tell me what Queen Victoria's last name was both after and before
     her marriage?

  ETTA.

The family name of the royal family of England is Guelph, and the Queen,
being a queen, did not take her husband's name when she was married, as
other ladies do. We do not wonder that you did not know the Queen's
name, as neither she nor any of her family ever use it. And we do not
wonder that you feel an interest in knowing all you can about this good
Queen, who has won every American heart by the sympathy she has shown us
in our great trouble this summer.

       *       *       *       *       *

  SOUTH GLASTENBURY, CONNECTICUT.

     Most of the girls who write to you seem to love cats. I hate them.
     I think they are very treacherous, and incapable of caring for
     anything but their own comfort. I have never had one, and never
     mean to. My pet is a noble St. Bernard dog, named Bruno.

  AUGUSTA C.

You are in good company in your liking for dogs. Prince Bismarck has a
magnificent hound, which accompanies him everywhere. Sir Walter Scott
was devoted to dogs, so that he grieved very deeply if any of his
favorites died. But why hate poor puss? She has her good points too, and
we hope some of the girls who love her will write us a letter or two in
her defense.

       *       *       *       *       *

  KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI.

     I have taken HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE from the first, and have all the
     numbers except one or two. I liked "Toby Tyler" ever so much, and
     think the new story is fully as good. I have a canary-bird that I
     am trying to tame. I let him fly around in the room for five or ten
     minutes every day. But as this is my first letter, I will say
     good-by for this time.

  LIDA K.

       *       *       *       *       *

  WESTFIELD, NEW JERSEY.

     We live in a small town on the Central Railroad of New Jersey. We
     moved here last spring. My brother and I planted potatoes, corn,
     peas, and other vegetables. The corn did very nicely, but the
     drought spoiled everything else. We planted on shares with papa,
     and he paid us for half the vegetables we raised. My brother takes
     YOUNG PEOPLE, and I always read it all through, and enjoy Our
     Post-office Box very much indeed. While we were up the Hudson last
     summer, a little bird built a nest between the sash and blind, and
     the hen laid four eggs in it, but did not brood them, because my
     sister put her hand in the nest. I have five cats; their names are
     Brian, Peggy, Lulu, Daisy, and Satan. I have no doubt you think
     Satan a very funny name, but the reason we called him that is
     because when he was a very small kitten he caught a young chicken,
     and he is perfectly black. I think I will close, as I am tired of
     writing, and think my letter long enough.

  WILLIAM D. W. L.

No doubt the money which you earned by your labor was more precious than
an equal amount would have been had it simply been given you by your
father.

       *       *       *       *       *

     I have a little incident for Our Post-office Box. One day mamma
     sent to the store for some raisins. When she received them, she
     began to look them over and select some for her cake, and in them
     she found a snail shell. Mamma put it in her fernery, and the next
     morning was surprised to find that the shell was resting upon a
     twig of cranberries. She thought papa had taken great pains to put
     it there, and she looked more closely. She saw that there was a
     live snail in it. The new-comer lived in the fernery three months.
     One day, when the glass was off, it crawled away, and was lost. Do
     you suppose it was a Spanish snail?

     Shell marl or pitcher-plants (Sarracenia, mamma says), for pressed
     sea-weeds or shells from the Gulf of Mexico. Please write to
     arrange exchange.

  ANGIE B. WOOD, Westbury, Cayuga Co., N. Y.

If your raisins came from Spain, no doubt your little guest came from
the same place.

       *       *       *       *       *

NANCY.--Thanks for your little story, but the adventure is hardly of
sufficient importance to print. If you wish the manuscript returned,
please send your address.

       *       *       *       *       *

C. Y. P. R. U.

The Postmistress has looked into the history of the word _hoiden_,
concerning which a correspondent inquires. It is derived from the German
_heyde_, which means heath or country place. Originally used to describe
a rude (in the sense of rustic or home-bred) fellow, it has come to mean
a wild, awkward, and romping girl. The received modern spelling is
hoiden, but Churchill, Young, and Milton spelled it hoyden.

The study of language is very interesting. Words are pictures conveying
ideas to the eye of the mind almost as vividly as the artist's brush and
colors convey them to the eye. From one generation to another, words
change their social positions. _Fellow_, for instance, was once highly
respectable. It is now a term of contempt. A very thoughtful writer says
that "words once refined, elegant, and even solemn, come in process of
time to suggest trivial, vulgar, or ludicrous thoughts or images." In
fact, words are continually dropping out of use or gradually altering
their signification, and, more slowly, new words, like new coins from
the mint, are finding their way into circulation.

The Postmistress was in a public conveyance one day, no matter when, no
matter where. She was in a brown-study. But it was not so brown that her
eyes and ears were shut to her neighbors. Beside her sat two
fine-looking young people, who were making the most of spare moments. He
was listening; she was reading. She read charmingly, with the right
shadings to her phrases, and the tones of her voice were very musical.
Still the Postmistress thought they had made a mistake in bringing their
book with them, and reading aloud then and there. The persons themselves
enjoyed it, but some of their neighbors were annoyed. An old gentleman
who was reading the morning paper was disturbed by her inflections, and
more than one young gentleman stared fiercely at him. It would have been
better for both to have conversed in a low tone over the reading of the
past or about the reading of the future than in the reading of the
present to have in any way infringed on the rights of the travelling
public.

Have any of you ever kept a home journal? It is a very pleasant thing to
have a family book in which every day somebody writes the interesting
events of the day. It is not necessary that the writing shall be done by
one person in particular, although, for the sake of convenience, a
sister or brother may be the chief scribe. The book should be kept in
the sitting-room, free to all; and if the lesser and larger family
happenings are set down in it from day to day, it will deepen in
interest as time goes on. Keep a list of visitors, a record of
excursions, a notice of birthdays, and, in brief, the story of your
family life, in this home journal, and you will find it worth the
trouble.

       *       *       *       *       *

The articles in this number specially designed for the C. Y. P. R. U.
are "The Story of the Negro Fort" (illustrated), by George Cary
Eggleston; an article on "Cameos" (illustrated), by Barnet Phillips; and
a pretty piece of fancy work for boys and girls, with two illustrations.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUZZLES FROM YOUNG CONTRIBUTORS.

No. 1.

HIDDEN FLOWERS.

1. Put the bread in the pan, Sibyl. 2. Flo, "Xerxes" is our subject in
composition to-morrow. 3. Oh, Maggie, do you know what's on your lip?
Ink. 4. "Don't pop Pyrenees Mountains into Switzerland," said a country
teacher to a rather stupid pupil. 5. "What is the reason of your mild
temperament, Paddy?" said a gentleman to an Irish laborer. "Well, sir,
the fact is, I take the world aisy, as it goes." 6. "Forever Ben and I
will live together," said the devoted little sister. 7. Kate, Alice,
Rose, Mary, and I were all up early this morning. 8. "Jess, am I never
to see your face again?" exclaimed a poor child, who had wandered from
home, as he thought of his kind elder sister.

  OTTAWA.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 2.

ENIGMA.

              In red, not in blue.
              In three, not in two.
              In ice, not in snow.
              In wind, not in blow.
              In east, not in north,
              As I gayly go forth.
  My whole is a river in Europe, my dears,
  And few among rivers I count as my peers.

  NED EMPKHE.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 3.

THREE EASY CHARADES.

1. My first I am. My second the tiger is.

2. My first is hard. My second is soft. My whole is sweet, and accounted
a treat.

3. My first is a tree. My second is the product of a tree. My whole is a
fruit which resembles the fruit of my first.

  JER. Z. CITY.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 4.

BEHEADINGS.

Behead a careless action, and leave a medicine. Behead an edible root,
and leave a neuter verb. Behead a small room, and leave a beast of
burden. Behead a piece of neglect, and leave an important errand. Behead
a hurry, and leave grain. Behead what is firm, and leave an article of
furniture.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 5.

DIAMOND.

1. A consonant. 2. The cry of a sheep. 3. A rod for measuring. 4. A
generation. 5. A vowel.

  A. H. E.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 6.

CHARADE.

  A word of five letters I am,
  Come puzzle me out if you can.
  My first and last are alike, I declare.
  My second and fourth are also a pair.
  Spell backward or forward, I read both alike.
  Behead and curtail me, I'll come before night.

  G. W.

       *       *       *       *       *

ANSWERS TO PUZZLES IN No. 100.

No. 1.

Nat, rat, mat, bat, cat, hat, fat, sat.

No. 2.

Aztec.

No. 3.

      G           E
    A L E       A D A
  G L A R E   E D W I N
    E R R       A I D
      E           N

No. 4.

The River Path.

No. 5.

Catamount.

       *       *       *       *       *

Correct answers to puzzles have been received from F. K. Durham,
"Prince," "Aged Fifteen," C. T., "Queen Bess," Rose, A. R. Slade,
Charlie B., Alice B., Maggie S., Albert J. Bulson, William H. White,
John H. Busch, Jun.

       *       *       *       *       *

[_For exchanges, see third page of cover._]




[Illustration: MRS. STUBBS. "Good gracious, child! I wish you wouldn't
wear that tin cup; it makes you look like a common Hand-organ Monkey."]




A GREEDY SNAKE.


Our garden in Ceylon had been laid out by a Dutch gentleman, and
consisted of terraces upon terraces out upon a hill-side. On these
terraces grew the most splendid mango and nutmeg trees. The garden was
famous then, and is still, for its wealth of fruit and spice trees. One
morning I was walking leisurely down the stone steps leading from an
upper terrace, when I saw at the foot a most horrible sight, that made
me quickly retrace my steps. But curiosity and pity mastered disgust,
and I turned to look at what I had fled from. I crept silently toward
the snake, and threw a stone at it; but it never moved, for it was
busily engaged swallowing a frog. I thought to release its unfortunate
prey, and threw another stone, with more force than before, but the
snake--a cobra, as I discovered--steadily continued its meal. Finding I
could do nothing, and dreading what the cobra might do when its appetite
was appeased, I slowly ascended the stone steps. When I reached the top
I turned to look again. Every vestige of the poor frog had vanished, and
the snake was gliding sleepily away. About three months afterward my
husband killed a snake, and from the description he gave me of it--for I
was ill at the time--I fancy it must have been the same greedy snake
that I had seen devouring the unhappy frog.

Now one more story, and I have done. Snakes are very fond of eggs, and
are great enemies to poultry. We noticed that a wise old hen used to lay
her eggs in the clothes-basket, or sometimes on the top of the bed, and
wondered at the reason. Often we discovered whole shells of eggs that
were quite empty, and could not account for so strange a fact, nor could
we get any eggs but those the wise old hen laid in the clothes-basket or
on the bed-top. The poultry-house was very comfortably arranged for the
convenience of its occupants. Baskets full of straw were made for the
hens, but still this wise old hen preferred laying her eggs in a more
public place. The reason we discovered at last, for we set a servant to
watch. A snake had hidden itself in the leafy roof that covered the
hen-house, and would watch its opportunity. As soon as the hen had
deposited her egg and left the basket, it glided down and sucked its
contents, leaving the empty shell with a small hole from which it had
drawn the juicy meat.

Probably the wise old hen had discovered her enemy, and sought refuge in
the clothes-basket. Much as she disliked the intrusion of human folk,
she preferred their presence to the snake's. But the reptile was doomed.
We watched for him, and had him quickly dispatched.

We no longer had to complain after this, and the wise old hen left off
paying visits to the basket, and we were no longer disturbed by her
cackle.




THE YORKTOWN PUZZLE.

BY J. NUGENT.


To solve this puzzle, first find the names of the nineteen different
articles composing the picture. Then write these names under one another
in such a manner that the initials from the top downward shall spell the
day and month on which the battle of Yorktown was fought. When this is
done, take every letter composing the names of the nineteen articles,
and, using each letter only once, spell the names of sixteen notable
officers who fought for the American cause in the Revolution.

[Illustration]





End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Young People, October 18, 1881, by Various

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 49587 ***