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ALL THE WORLD OVER



INTERESTING STORIES OF TRAVEL, THRILLING
ADVENTURE AND HOME LIFE




BY
ELLA FARMAN, MRS. LUCIA CHASE BELL, FRANK H. CONVERSE, LOUISE STOCKTON,
AND OTHER POPULAR AUTHORS


FULL Y ILLUSTRATED



BOSTON
D. LOTHROP COMPANY
1893.








































COPYRIGHT, 1892,
BY
D. LOTHROP COMPANY.

All r igis reserved.








ALL THE WORLD OVER




ERHAPS one of the most vivid impressions which the tourist receives
upon his entrance into any Spanish city whatsoever, is of its muscular
S beggars-men of enormous.size, with their ruffianly swaggering strength
exaggerated by the national cloak. This garment is of heavy, tufted
'- woollens, long and fringed, almost indestructable, and is frequently worn
to muffle half the face; and the broad slouch hat, usually with a couple of rough
feathers stuck in its band, does not tend to soften the general brigandish effect.
These beggars are licensed by the government, which must reap a goodly revenue
from the disgraceful crowd, as they are numerous, and therefore they pursue their
avocation in the most open manner. They will frequently follow the traveller a
half-mile, especially should they find him to be ignorant of that magic formula of
dismissal which is known to all Spaniards:
Pardon,-for God's sake, Brother!
This-appeal is constantly on the lip of every Spanish lady. She utters it swiftly,
without so much as a glance, a dozen times of a morning on her way to church,
as a dozen gaunt, dirty hands are thrust in her face as she passes ; and hearing it,
the most persistent fellow of them all is at once silenced, and falls back.
Coming in from their kennel-homes among the ruins and the holes in the hills
outside, it is the custom to make an early morning tour of the city before they
take up their stations for the day at the various church and hotel doors. Each seems
to be provided with "green pudding," in his garlic pot, and he eats as he goes
along, and prays as he eats, stopping in front of the great oval patio or court gates
of iron lattice, which guard the mansions of the rich.
At these patio doors he makes a prodigious racket, shaking the iron rods furi-
ously, and all the while muttering his prayers, until some one of the family
appears at a gallery window. Then instantly the mutter becomes a whine, a piti-
ful tale is wailed forth, and alms are dolefully implored "for the love of God."
But although such mottoes as "Poverty is no Crime" are very often painted
on the walls of their fine houses, the probability is that the unmoved Sefiorita
will murmur a swift Pardon, for God's sake, Brother! and retire, to soon appear
again to silence another of the fraternity with the same potent formula.
However, each of the countless horde is sure to gather in centimes sufficient
for the day's cigarettes and garlic, and, in the long run, to support life to a
good old age.










HE Spaniards are a nation of dancers and singers. Every Spanish
Nrp child seems born with the steps, gestures, snappings and clappings
of the national fandango dance, at the ends of his fingers and toes.
A guitar is the universal possession, and every owner is a fine
S player. The solitary horseman, the traveller by rail, takes along his
guitar; and in car, or at cross-roads, he is sure of dancers at the first
thrilling twang. There is always a merry youth and maiden aboard ready to
make acquaintance in a dance, and anywhere the whole household will troop from
the cottage, the plowman will leave his team in the furrow, and the laborer
drop his hoe, for a half-hour's joyous "footing o't."

One of the interesting sights of Toledo is the great city fountain on Street
St. Isabel, near the cathedral. It is a good place to study donkeys and their
drivers, and the lower classes of the populace. The water, deliciously sweet
and cool, is brought from the mountains by the old Moorish-built water-ways,
and flows by faucet. There is no public system of delivery, consequently a good
business falls into the hands of private water-carriers. These supply families at
a franc a month. The poorer households go to and fro with their own water-
jars as need calls, carrying them on their heads. They often wear a cushioned
ring, fitting the head, to render the carrying of the jar an easier matter.

A picturesque article of dress among Spanish men, is the national sash,
a broad woollen some four yards in length, of gay colorings. This is wound three
or four times around the waist, its fringed end tucked in to hang floating, and the
inevitable broad knife thrust within its folds, which also hold the daily supply
of tobacco. A common sight is the sudden stop on the street, a lighting of a
fresh cigarette, a loosening of the loosened sash, a twitch of the short breeches,
and then a tight, snug wind-up, when the lounger moves on again.

Another amusing sight is the picturesque beggar who seems at first glance
to be hanging in effigy against the cathedral walls, so motionless will some of
these fellows stand, hat slouched over the face, the brass government "license"
labelling the breast, a hand extended, and, in many cases, a crest worn prom
inently on the ragged garments, to show that the wearer is a proud descend-
ant of some old grandee family. To address this crested beggar by any other
title than Caballero (gentleman) is a deadly insult.











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S MONG the many small sights of the Plaza about Christmas time, are
the sellers of zambombas, or Devil's Fiddles. This toy, which the
Stranger sometime takes for a receptacle of sweet drinks to be im-
> bibed through a hollow cane, is a favorite plaything with Spanish
children. A skin is stretched over a bottomless jar; into this is
fastened a stout length of sugar-cane, and lo! a zambomba. Its urchin-owner
spits on his palms, rubs them smartly up and down the ridgy cane, when the
skin-drum reverberates delightfully.

The fruit markets are of a primitive sort. The peasant fills his donkey-panniers
with grapes, garlic, melons straw-cased and straw-handled, whatever he has ripe,
and starts for town. Reaching the Plaza, in the shade of the cathedral, he
spreads his cloak, rolling a rim. On this huge woollen plate he arranges his
fruit, weighing it out as customers demand.

From the old Moorish casements, the traveller looks down on the most rudi-
mentary sort of life. He sees no labor-saving machinery. Instead of huge vans.
loaded with compact hay bales, he beholds the donkey hay-train. The farmer
binds a mountain of loose hay on each of his donkeys, lashes them together,
and with a neighbor to help beat the train along, starts for market. These
trains may be seen any day crooking about among the steep mountain-ways.

The student of folk-life notes the shoemakers on the Plaza at work in the
open air. Formerly the sandal was universally worn, with its sole of knotted
hemp, and its canvas brought up over the toe, at which point was fastened a
pair of ribbons about four feet long, and these ribbons each province had its
own fashion of lacing and tying. But now the conventional footgear of Paris
is common, and one buys boots of the fine glossy Cordovan leather for a trifle.

The proprietors of the neighboring vineyards visit the wine shops weekly to
bring full wine-skins, and take such as are emptied. These skins, often with
their wool unsheared, are cured by remaining several weeks filled with wine-oil,
and all seams are coated with pitch to prevent leakage. The wholesale skins
hold about eight gallons, being usually those of well-grown animals. They are
stoutly sewn, tied at each knee, and also at the neck, whence the wine is
decanted into smaller skins by means of a tunnel.









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# HE beggars of Spain are a most devout class. Piety is, with them, the
form under which they conduct business; a shield, and a certificate of
S character. They walk the streets under the protection of the patron
1 saint of the principal church in town, and they formally demand alms
S of you -in the name of that saint. It is Religion that solicits you -
the beggar's own personality is not at all involved; and it is thus that the
proud Spanish self-respect is saved from hurt.

The tourist who has not tarried in French towns, is, at first, astonished to
behold women passing to and fro upon the streets with no head covering what-
ever. Hats and bonnets are rarely seen upon Spanish women of the lower and
middle classes. Those who are street-venders sit bareheaded all day long in their
chairs on the Plaza, wholly indifferent to the great heat and blinding dazzle of
the Spanish sun. About Christmas, dozens of "stands" spring up along the
Plaza. It is at that season that the gypsy girls come in with their roasters
and their bags of big foreign chestnuts ; and they do a thriving business,
for every good Spanish child expects roast chestnuts and salt at Christmas.

Many of the mountain families about Toledo' keep small flocks of sheep--
flocks that, instead of dotting a green landscape with peaceful white, as in
America and Northern Europe, only darken the reddish-brown soil of Spain with
a restless shading of a redder and a deeper hue. These brown sheep are
herded daily down on the fenceless wastes. The shepherd-boys are usually
attended by shepherd-dogs so enormous in size that the traveller often mistakes
them for donkeys. They are sagacious, and do most of the herding, their masters
devoting themselves to the guitar, the siesta, the cigarette, and the garlic pudding.

Toledo, more than any other Spanish city, abounds with interesting bits and
noble examples of the old Moorish architecture, for the reason that it has not
been rebuilt at all, and that few of its ruins have been restored, or even
retouched. Color alone has changed. The city now is of the soft hue of a
withered pomegranate. Turn where you will, your eye is delighted by an ornate
facade, a carved gateway with its small reticent entrance door, a window with
balcony and cross-bars, and everywhere there is the horseshoe arch with its beau-
tiful curve. The old Alcazar is standing, though occupied as a Spanish arsenal,
and on the height opposite is the ruin of a fine Moorish castle.













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t NE of the best "small businesses" in a Spanish city, is that of the
) domestic water-supply. Those dealers who have no donkeys, convey it
to their customers in long wheelbarrows constructed with a frame to
receive and hold several jars securely. Stone jars, with wood stopples
S attached with a cord, are used, the carrying-jars, being emptied into
larger jars in the water-cellars. The peasants have a poetic appellation
for the soft, constant drip of the water from the old aqueducts: The sig/ of the Moor.

With the Spaniard, as with the American, the turkey is a special Christmas
luxury. But the tempting rows of dressed fowls common to our markets and
groceries, are never to be seen. As the holiday season draws very close at hand,
the mountain men come down into the city, driving before them their cackling,
gobbling, lustrous-feathered flocks, bestowing upon them, of course, the usual daily
allowance of blows which is meted out to the patient family donkey. These poultry
dealers congregate upon the Plaza, where they smoke, and chaff, and dicker, keep-
ing their droves in place with the whip; and the buyer shares in the capture
of his flying, screaming, flapping purchase, in company with all the children on
the street, for the turkey market is usually great fun for the Spanish youngster.

In the cold season, one of the morning sights of a Spanish town is the prepara-
tion of the big charcoal braziers outside the gates of the fine dwelling-houses.
The coals are laid and lighted, and then the servant blows them with a large
grass fan until the ashes are white, when he may consider that all deadly fumes
are dissipated, and that it is safe to carry it within to the room it is to warm.

Nearly all the peasants in the near vicinity of cities are market gardeners
on a small scale. They cultivate small plots, and whenever any crop is ripe,
they load their donkey-panniers and go into the cities, where they sell from
house to house. These vegetable-panniers have enormous pockets, and are woven
of coarse, dyed grasses, in stripes and patterns of gaudy blue and red. When
filled, they often cover and broaden the donkey's back to such an extent that
the lazy owner, determined to ride, must sit on the very last section of back-
bone. Some of the streets in Toledo are so narrow that the brick or stone
walls of the buildings have been hewn and hollowed out at donkey-height, to
allow the loaded panniers to pass. The buyers make their bargains from the
windows, a sample vegetable being handed up for inspection.












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\.'XRAVELLERS should deny themselves Spain during December, January
a nd February. The heating apparatus of the American and the English
Si! house is unknown in Spanish dwellings- fireplace, stove, nor fur-
nace. The peasant draws his cloak up to his nose and shivers and
S. owners, while the middle-class family lights a single brazier, and the
household, gathering in one room, hovers over the charcoal smouldering
away in its brass cage, and the cats sit and purr on the broad wooden rim.
These braziers are expensive -constructed of brass and copper- and few families
afford more than one, making winter comfort out of the question, as the floors,
of marble or stone, never get well warmed.

With the coming of pleasant weather Spanish families usually forsake the
blinded, draperied, balconied rooms of the gallery for the secluded and garden-
like patio. This court is often fifty feet square, and in its enclosure there is
generally a fountain; the floor is tiled with marble, there are stately tropic plants
in tubs, and orange and palm-trees are growing. Should the sunshine become too
fierce there are smoothly-running screens and awnings to roof the whole court
in an instant. Some of the old Moorish patios contain quaint wells, dry at
some seasons, but often affording water sufficient for housekeeping needs.

The water-jars come from the famous potteries of Seville, and, made of a
rude red clay, are similar in hue to our plant pots. They are brought in high
loads by oxen-and these pottery carts are often an enlivening feature of the
dull country roads.

The water cellar is not a cellar at all, but a stone-paved room off the patio,
delightfully cool and sloppy of a fiery July day, with the water-carriers unload-
ing, and filling the array of dripping red jars with the day's supply from the
public fountain.

Every Spanish peasant wears a knife in his sash. These knives are usually
about eighteen inches long, with a broad, sharp, murderous blade. The handles
are of tortoise or ivory, often carved richly, or inlaid with figures of the Virgin,
the Saviour, or the crucifix. The knife is kept open by a curious little wheel,
between blade and handle, and is used indiscriminately, to slice a melon or lay
bare a quarrelsome neighbor's heart.











.. EVILLE is celebrated for its oranges and its pottery. Nearly the
whole Spanish supply of water-jars comes from this city; and the
,. outlying country is agreeably dotted with orange orchards, as olive
U-.'.,, .. oases enliven the vicinity of Cordova. The export of the fruit is
'''"' a considerable business. The most delicious orange in the world may
be bought in the streets of Seville for a cent, and the ordinary rate for the ordinary
fruit is four for a cent. In the Christmas season large and selected oranges are
sold in the outdoor booths. They are carefully brought, and temptingly hung in
nets, along with melons cased in straw, fine bunches of garlic, chestnuts,
assorted lengths of sugar-cane, tambourines, zambombas, and such other sweet
and noisy objects as delight the Spanish youngster.

The decorative plant of Spain is the aloe truly decorative, with its base of
long, dark, clear-cut, sword-like leaves, its tall slender trunk often rising twenty
feet high, and its broad candelabras of crimson blooms.

A picturesque industry of Seville is the spinning of the green rope so much
used by Spanish farmers. It is manufactured from the coarse pampas grass of
the plains, and the operation is a very leisurely and social one, requiring three
persons: one to feed the wheel, one to turn it, and a third to receive the
twisted rope.

Plowing, in Spain, is still a very rude performance. The primitive plow of
the Garden of Eden era is yet in use--a sharp crotch of a tree, crudely shod,
however, with iron.

An indispensable article of peasants' costume for both men and women, should
an absence of even two hours be contemplated, is the alforja, or peasant's bag.
This, in idea, is similar to the donkey-pannier--a long, stout, woollen strip
thickly tufted with bunches of red and blue wool, with a bag at either end,
and is worn slung over the shoulder. The pockets of the alforja invariably con-
tain, one a pot of garlic, or green pudding, the other a wine skin.

The mouths of some wine-skins are fitted with a bottomless wooden saucer,
and are lifted to the lips for drinking ; but the preferable and national style is
to catch the stream with the skin held aloft and away at arm's-length.











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CENTRAL point of interest for visitors to Seville is the Cathedral.
Its tower, known as the Giralda, is one of the most celebrated
examples. of sacred Moorish architecture. It was erected in an early
S century, and was considered very ancient when the Spaniards, in
the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, built upon it the fine Cathedral.
In the interior, the Tribuna de la Puorta Mayor is much visited for its lofty
and beautiful sunlight effects, and there are several precious Murillos.
The ascent of the Giralda is usually made by tourists -an agreeable variety in
European climbing, as there are no stairs, the whole progress being by an easy
series of inclined planes of brick masonry. Queen Isabella, not long ago, made
the entire ascent and return upon horseback. From the summit, one views the
whole of Seville, with its dark-green rim of orange gardens, set in the great
flat barrens that stretch out towards Cadiz. A comic sight usual at the foot of
the tower, significant as a sign of the complete contempt in which the Catholic
Spaniard holds all things Moslem and Moorish, is that of a goat belonging to
one of the custodians, tethered from morning till night to a fine old Muezzin bell.

Another noted building is the Tower of Gold, on the banks of the Guadal-
quiver, opposite the Gypsy quarter. Tourists visit it to get the fine architectural
effect of the Cathedral, also for its view of the Bull Ring. It stands on
the site of the old Inquisition, where hosts of Moorish captives were tortured.

The Alcazar, always visited, is an ancient Moorish palace, and is considered,
in point of elegance, second to only the Alhambra. It is now set aside by
the government as the residence of the Queen-mother Isabella.

San Telmo is also much visited. It is the palace of the Due de Montpensier,
known throughout Spain as "the orange man." He owns numerous orange
orchards, and lavishes much time and money on his plantations and hothouses.

Another point of curiosity is known as the House of Pilate. It is said to be
an exact reproduction of the celebrated House of Pilate in Jerusalem. It is
remarkable for some exquisite tiles, and it bears many interesting inscriptions.

Seville presents an odd aspect to the stranger between the hours of three
and six i. M. During this hot interval the streets and shops are deserted,
everybody, even to the beggars, being under cover and asleep.

















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OST of the peasant girls in the vicinity of Spanish cities con-
trive to keep a bit of flower-garden for their own personal
purposes. She is a thriftless lass indeed, who has not at least
one fragrant double red rose in tending, or some other red-
flowered shrub. From Christmas on through the spring fete-days of the Church,
they reap their tiny harvests. During this season every Spanish man and woman
who can, wears a red flower in button-hole or over the ear, and the streets are
thronged with bareheaded, black-tressed peasant and gypsy flower-venders.
Flowers are a part of the daily marketing, and two or three centimos a
centimo is one fifth of a cent--suffice to buy a fresh nosegay. New Year's is
a marked fete in Seville, as then "The Old Queen" in the Alcazar rides out
in state, the Alameda is thronged with carriages, and the whole populace is
a-blossom with red.

A custom noticed by the tourist who lingers about cathedral doors, is one
most observed, perhaps, by the poorer and more superstitious classes. Men and
women dip the fingers, on entrance and departure, in holy water, and wet some
one of the countless crosses which are set in the wall just above the cash-
boxes--the cash-box in Spain being the inevitable accompaniment of the cross.

As in other Spanish cities, the noble Profession of Beggary considers itself
under the protection of the Church, and the entrance to the cathedral is down
a long vista of outstretched hands, the fortunate one at the far end, who holds
aside the matting portiere for you to enter, feeling sure of a fee, however the
others fare. The whole vicinity abounds with loathsome spectacles of disease
and distress, those entirely helpless managing to be conveyed daily into holy
precincts. It is often amusing to witness an adult beggar "giving points" to
some young amateur in the art, the dignity of the national calling evidently
being insisted upon.

An agreeable sight in this city of churches and beggars, is the afternoon
stroll of companies of young priests and students from the convents. They are
very noticeable, as part of the panorama, with their broad, silky shovel hats and
black flowing gowns. Some are scholastic and intent upon their studies even in
the streets, while others evidently take a most young man-of-the-world enjoy-
ment in their cigarettes and the street-sights.



















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EVENUES are collected in most primitive ways by the Span-
ish City Fathers. As there are no important sources of public
income, there are few transactions, however trifling, that do not pay
-./> l tax and toll. Every man is suspected of smuggling and "false
a- returns," and it is a small bunch of garlic that escapes. Burly
officials, often in shirt-sleeves and with club, lounge at all the entrances to the
town, to levy duty upon any chance donkey-pannier or cart bringing in fruit
and vegetables for sale. Frequently there are scenes of confusion, sometimes of
violence. The government is determined that not a turnip, not a carrot, not a
cabbage shall escape the yield of -its due; and it is not to be denied that the
poor farmer hopes fervently to smuggle in a wine-skin or two--a dozen of
eggs, or some other article of price, among his cheaper commodities. As a rule,
he fails; for, suspicious of over-much gesticulation and protestation, the official
is quite likely to tumble out sacks, baskets, bundles and bales, and empty every
one upon the ground, leaving the angry farmer to pick up and load again at
his leisure.

Andalusia is a brown region stretching gravely between Cadiz and Granada.
The effect of this landscape, all in low tones, upon natives of the green lands
of America and England, is most depressing. The soil itself is red, and the
grass grows so sparsely that the color of the ground crops up, giving impres-
sion of general sun-blight, broken here and there by the glimmering moonlight
gray of an olive orchard, or the dark-green of an orange garden. The huts of
the farmers are built of the red clay; the clothing of the population appears
to be of the undyed wool of the brown sheep, while to add to the prevailing
russet hue, the general occupation seems to be that of herding pigs on the
plains -and the pigs are hideously brown also. It is said that they derive
their color from feeding on the great brown bug, or beetle, which abounds in the
soil. The traveller counts these feeding droves by the dozen, each with two lazy,
smoking swineherds.

Travelling by rail over the Andalusian levels, one passes a succession of petty
stations, villages of half a dozen houses each, where the only visible business
appears to be in the hands of women, in the shape of one or two open-air
tables, with pitchers and glasses, and a cow or goat tethered near in order to
supply travellers, as the trains stop, with drinks of fresh milk.










































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ANY of the public buildings of Spanish cities stand as they were
captured from the Moors. Sometimes, as in Cadiz, the town has
/J^"IL received a coat of whitewash; but more frequently the only Spanish
additions and improvements are a few crosses-inlaid in the old cement, or a plas-
ter Virgin niched, in rude contrast, beside some richly wrought Moorish door of
horseshoe form. The town hall of Seville remains to-day as ten centuries ago.

The Spanish towns lie, for the most part, in the valley. The Moors usually
chose the site for their cities with a view to the natural defences of mountain
and river. The hills of course, remain, but the rivers, once full rushing tides,
are now dried into stagnant shallow waters, a natural result in a country long
uncultivated.

A favorite business with the young men among the mountain peasants is the-
breeding of poultry; not alone of fat pullets for the Christmas markets that
is a minor interest so far as enjoyment goes but of choice young game cocks.
--cock-fighting being the staple, everyday national amusement, while the bull-
fight is to be regarded as f6te and festival -"the taste of blood" is a wel-
come ingredient in any Spanish pleasure. All poultry is taken to market
alive; the Il:r -, hanging head downwards, are slung in a bunch at the saddle-
bow, and the cocks are carried carefully in cages. Fowls are not a common
article of food, as in France, but are, instead, a holiday luxury, and the costliest
meat in the market.

Looking idly abroad as he-crosses the Andalusian plains, the tourist on donkey-
back notices the queer carts that take passengers from one station to another.
These odd omnibuses are but rude carts, two-wheeled, and covered with coarse-
mats of pampas grass, and they are drawn by two, three, four or five donkeys
harnessed tandem. On the rough, movable seats, gentlemen in broadcloth, and
common folk with laced canvas shoes and peasant-bags, huddle together, all eating
from the garlic-pots as they are passed, and drinking from the same wine-skin;
this good fellowship of travellers is one of the unwritten laws of Spain. Mean-
time the sauntering boys of the roadside hop up on the cart behind with the
identical vagrant joy experienced by the American urchin after a like achieve-
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S OU never can be sure when a Spaniard will arrive. Due at noon,
should he meet a guitar, he comes at nightfall; and as it is certain
S that every second Spaniard, walking or riding, will have his guitar
along, it is best not to look for the return of any messenger before
evening. He may have chosen to alight from his donkey and dance an hour,
or he may have elected to sit still and clap and snap a dance in pantomime--
either is exciting and deeply satisfactory- and a fulfilment of one of the obli-
gations of daily life which no true Spaniard can be expected to neglect for any
such simple considerations as promise given, command laid, or bargain made.

A peculiarly gloomy look is lent to the Spanish landscape by the cypress,
sometimes growing in groups, sometimes towering singly in solitude. This tree,
funereal in its best aspect, has a dead, dry, white trunk, and the branches begin
at a height of twenty, thirty, or forty feet, and then drape themselves in a
cone-like monumental mass of purplish green. These gloomy evergreens are common,
and the tourist feels, even if he does not note, the absence of the lively sunny
greens of American and French landscapes, with the bowery shadows that every-
where invite the wayfarer to stop and rest.

The Bergh Societies would find ample range for work in Spain, for the beat-
ing and prodding of the donkey is one of the national occupations. As a rule,
poor Burro is overloaded. A whole family will frequently come down into the
city on his back, and tired though he be with plodding and stumbling and hold-
ing back, the officer at the gate is sure to give him a blow- and a bruise with
his bludgeon of authority as he passes in; and the poor creature sometimes very
justly lies down in the street and dies without warning, allowing his owners to
climb homeward on foot.

Now and then one comes unexpectedly on an example of ancient enterprise
put to use. There are spots in the brown waste which are green and fertile,
because the old irrigating wells have been cleaned out and set in motion-a
pair of wheels studded with great cups operated by means of a pair of poles,
and a pair of donkeys, and a pair of drivers. The land is cut in ditches, and
often the farmer can be seen hoeing his garlic and his cabbages while he stands
in water ankle-deep.


















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REATLY dreaded by the unmarried young Spanish woman is the Beggars'
.i, Curse; and a goodly portion of the beggars' revenue is ensured by
a" this superstitious national fear. The more vicious of the fraternity
keep good watch upon the wealthy young sefioritas and their cavaliers when
they go out for pleasure. They do not follow them, perhaps; instead they take
up their stations around the doors of those restaurants -whence they never are
driven where ladies and their escorts are wont to stop for chocolate, or
coffee, or aguardente, on their return from calls or the theatre, or the Bull Ring.
As the pair are departing, the burly beggar approaches, half barring the way
perhaps, and asks for alms. It is usually bestowed; but he begs insolently for
more; and if it be not forthcoming, a bony and rosaried arm is raised, "the
evil eye" is fastened upon the doomed ones, and the Beggars' Curse-the Curse
of the Unfortunate -which all Spaniards dread, is threatened; and if it be evening,
it is quite probable that the group stand near some crucifix of the suffering
Saviour, with the red light of the street lantern shining down upon its ghastli-
ness, so that the feeling of pious dread is greatly heightened, and a frightened pres-
sure on the cavalier's arm carries the doubled alms into the outstretched hand.

The dress of Spanish people of fashion is singularly artistic and pleasing.
Although Paris styles are now followed by the sefioritas, they still cling to the
national black satin with its lustrous foldings and flouncings, to the effective
ball fringes, and to the mantilla, draping face and shoulder with its heavy black
or white laces, the national red rose set just above the ear. Nor is this too
remarkable under the high broad lights of the Spanish sky, though it might seen
theatrical in our cold, harsh, Northern atmosphere. The dress of the Spanish
gentlemen is as picturesque. The hat is usually a curious, double-brimmed silky
beaver, while the cloak is most artistic in color and in drapery. This cloak,
lasting a life-time, is of fine broadcloth, lined with heavy blue or crimson velvet;
and it is so disposed that the folding brings this gorgeous lining in a round collar
about the neck, while another broad fold is turned over upon the whole long
left side of the garment. The peasant's cloak, of the same cut, is lined with red
flannel, but it is often worn as gracefully. Long trousers are becoming general,
but in some districts the tight pantaloon, slashed at the knee, is still seen, with
its gay garter embroidered with some fanciful motto. One just brought from Spain
bears this legend: There is a girl in this town- with her love she kills me.

















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S OUTHERN Spain is so mountainous that herding naturally becomes
the occupation of the peasantry, rather than tillage. Great flocks
of goats browse and frolic among the rocky heights and along
the steep ravines where it seems hardly possible for the tiny
a L. hoofs to keep foothold; and the traveller often beholds far above
him dozens of these bounding creatures, leaping down the cliffs to drink at
the valley streams. They are generally followed, at the same fearless pace, by
a short-frocked shepherdess as sure-footed as they. Her rough, hempen-soled
shoe, however, yields her excellent support, being flexible and not slippery, like
boot-leather.

Along the narrow mountain highways, the traveller frequently comes upon little
booths built in among the cliffy recesses, like quaint pantries hewn in the rock.
Melons, and grapes, and garlic, and oranges in nets, hang against the wall, and
the heavy red wine of the country is for sale by the glass, also goat's.
milk.

Farming processes go on at all times of year in Spain. Subsistence is a
matter comparatively independent of care and calculation. Crops may be sown
at any time. The whole year round the peasant lights no fire in his earthen,
bowl-like hut of one room. He cooks outside his door, in gypsy fashion. His
furniture consists of some rude wool mattresses, a table, and some stools with
low backs. A few bowls, plates, and knives and forks suffice to set his table. A
kettle and a garlic pot comprise his cooking utensils. Frequently he and his
family are to be seen at meals, leaning their elbows on the table in company,
and sipping like so many cats, from the huge platter of hot garlic soup, crumb-
ling their slices of coarse black bread, as they need. In contrast with this crude
bread of the common people, are the long, fine, sweet white loaves to be had at
the Seville bakeries a bread so cake-like, so delicious, as to require no butter,
even with Americans accustomed to the use of butter with every meal.
The salted butter of American creameries, made to keep for months, is wholly
unknown in Spain, Spanish butter being a soft mass, and always eaten unsalted.
But with his strong garlic and his fine fragrant tobacco, the Spaniard hardly
demands or appreciates the refinements of food, and his tobacco is of the best,
coming from the Spanish plantations in Cuba, and is very cheap, as it enters
the country free of duties.













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OUSEWORK, among the sun-basking, siesta-loving Spaniards, seems
to be not the formidable, systematic matter that it is made in America.
Washing, as well as cookery, is of simplest form. "Blue Monday"
does not follow Sunday in Spain. A necessary garment is washed when needed;
superfluous ones are allowed to accumulate until it is worth while to give a day
to the task. Then, among the peasants, "the washing." is carried to a mountain
torrent, and the garments are rubbed and rinsed in the swift waters, while
picnic fun makes the labor agreeable, as often several families wash in company.
Among townspeople, the work is done in great stone tubs in the patio, or in the
water-cellar. There the goods, repeatedly wetted, are laid upon a big stone table
and beaten with flat wooden paddles. The snowy array of the American clothes-
line is seldom seen. The washed garments are hung upon the table edges, and
held fast by stones or other weights until dried.

A frequent incident in mountain travel is the sight of some stout lazy peasant away
up the heights, holding fast by his donkey's tail to help himself along as the
poor creature scrambles up the zigzag steeps. At the base and along the face
of these rocks cacti grow abundantly, often presenting a beautiful cliff-side of
cacti fifty feet high.

Another sight, not so agreeable, along many a Spanish roadside, is that of the
ancient wooden crosses, erected on the sites where travellers have been mur-
dered by banditti. These roads are often desolate and dreary beyond description,
unfenced, seldom travelled, and set with the constantly recurring stones of the
Moorish road-makers. Leading across brown, treeless wastes, with habitations far
apart, both peasant and tourist would easily wander from these roads, were it not
for those rude mile-stones, which are often the only guide-posts and land-marks.
When a fence is required, a hedge of aloe is usually started.

Spanish children chew sugar-cane as American children munch candy. The
cane is brought from Cuba and is sold everywhere; carried about by venders in
big bundles of handy lengths, to capture all stray centimos.

Not so well patronized is the street dealer in soap old Castile soap for this
business is recognized to be a form of beggary, and though bargains are made
and money paid, the soap is seldom carried away by the purchaser.











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SI VERY male Spaniard is obliged to render three years of military
service; but usually this is no severe hardship, and loving his
ease, he leaves home cheerily enough. The government is rather
embarrassed than served, in the matter of stationing this soldiery,
especially since the close of the Carlist War. The conscripts are set to guard
the palaces, the parks, the national buildings; they are sent to Cuba and
elsewhere, whenever it is possible, in fact all opportunities and pretexts are seized
to set up a soldier on duty, or rather a pair of them, as two are usually to be
seen together. Leave of absence is easily obtained, and but few days of actual
presence and service are required during the third year. However, the military
requirements by the government never relax, as "insurrections" are indigenous
to the country and climate.

As the ancient Moorish doors are still frequent, so is the old form of knock
and admission. The arrival raps smartly at the small door set within the great
nail-studded gate. Presently an eye, a face, appears at the little wicket window
to reconnoitre, to question. Should the examination reveal nothing dangerous or
disagreeable, the latch-string is pulled, and entrance is permitted.

"Burro" must needs appear in all Spanish picture and story, for he is prominent
in all Spanish folk-life. He is to be seen everywhere, with his rude harness
tufted with gay woollens, and big brass nails, moving over the landscape in town
or country--the helpless slave, and abused burden-bearer, seldom petted, even
by the children of the family. There are very handsome mules in Madrid and
a few elsewhere; but the donkey is the national carrier. He is small, brown,
brave, and always bruised. The Spaniards' "Get up!" is a brutal blow between
the eyes. He is seldom stabled, seldom decently fed. He is tethered anywhere -
under the grapevine, by the door, among the rocks, but always at his master's
convenience; and his food is in matter and manner best known to himself.
His harness is heavy and uncomfortable, and his hair is clipped close on his
back where he needs protection most from the burning sun. This clipping is
usually done at the blacksmith's, by a professional clipper, and is a sight of
interest to the lazy populace. Under the great shears Burro's body is often
decorated with half moons, eyes, monograms, garlands -whatever the fancy of
his master, or the clipper, or the bystander may direct. Poor Burro! from first
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N Cordova, a sudden stir in the street often betokens "The Return
S from the Chase"-not, however, the picturesque scattering of the
"meet" after an English fox-hunt, but the arrival home of some
I solitary mule and rider, with a pack of harriers. The huntsman has
.: been riding across country all by himself, his cigarette, and his dogs,
to ferret out some luckless colony of hares in a distant olive orchard.
The rabbits are very mischievous in the young olive plantations, and the hunts-
man and his pack are warmly welcomed by the olive-growers. These Spanish
harriers are a keen-nosed race of dogs; quite as good hunters as the English
fox-hounds. Nearly every breed of dog is found in Spain, except, perhaps, the
Newfoundland. In most Spanish cities the dogs are one of the early morning
sights as they gather in snarling, quarrelsome packs of from fifteen to twenty,
before the doors of the hotels and restaurants, to devour the daily kitchen refuse
-a very disagreeable spectacle; but there seems to be no other street-cleaning
machinery.

The chief streets of a Spanish town are usually thronged with fruit-sellers,
especially the Plaza, where the great portion of the population seems to congre-
gate to lounge and sleep in the sun all day long, naturally waking now and
then to crave an orange, a palmete, or a pomegranate "regular meals appearing
to be a regulation of daily life quite unknown. These fruit sellers are girls, for
the most part, though sometimes there may be seen some old man who has
not been able to procure a beggar's license. Oranges are always plenty. Palm-
etes, a tender, bulbous growth, half vegetable, half fruit, are brought into the
city in January, and are consumed largely by the peasants and beggars, who
strip them into sections, chewing them for their rather insipid sweetish juices.

The Spanish peasant cooks out-of-doors, like a gypsy. Often his kettle is his
only "stove furniture;" in it he stews, boils, fries and bakes. Even in January,
the cold month in Spain, he makes no change in his housekeeping. The
peasants' daily bread is hardly bread at all, but rather a pudding, a batter of
coarse flour, water and garlic, stirred, and boiled, and half baked in his kettle, and
then pressed into a jar. This "garlic pot" he always carries about with him in
his shoulder bag. In the patio apartments of some of the ancient, Moorish-built
houses there are quaint arches with stone ovens, which are sometimes utilized
for cookery.













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DRUNKEN Spaniard is rarely seen, although the "wine-skin" keeps
constant company with the "garlic pot" in the peasant's bag. The
heavy red wine of the country is used as freely as water, being sold
for four cents a wine-skin ; this wine-skin holds a quart or more. Not to drink
with the skin held at arms-length, is to be not Spanish, but French- their
generic name for a foreigner or stranger. Fine and delicate wines are made in
the neighborhood of some of the great vineyards, but they are chiefly for
exportation.

There is a popular saying, that Spanish ladies dress their hair but once a
week. This is on Sunday, when they meet on one another's balconies to chat
and gossip while their maids arrange their coiffures, each maid taking care that
she pat, and pull, and puff until her mistress be taller than her friends, for
height is a Spanish requisite for beauty and style. Certain it is that the tourist
sometimes looks up and beholds this leisurely out-of-doors toilet-making. The glossy
black hair is universal, a fair-haired woman becoming an occasion for persistent
stares, although Murillo, in his time, seems to have found plenty of red-haired
Spanish blondes to paint. Happy is the gazing traveller if he also may listen;
for the music of a high-bred Spanish woman's voice is remarkable, holding in
its flow, sometimes, the tones of a guitar, and the liquid sounds of dropping
water.

Spanish urchins are as noted for never combing their hair as Italian boys are
for never washing their faces. The change of the yellow handkerchief dotted
with big white eyes, which they knot about their heads and wear day and
night, seems to be the only attention they think needful ever to bestow upon
their raven locks.

That Spanish peasant is very poor and unthrifty indeed, who does not con-
trive to own a foot or two of land upon which to grow a choice Malaga grape-
vine. Owning the vines, he erects an out-of-door cellar to preserve his crop-
a simple arbor, upon the slats of which he suspends his clusters for winter use.
Hanging all winter in the current of wind, the bunches of pale-green grapes
may be taken down as late as February, and still be found as plump and
delicious and as full of flavor as when hung. It is in this simple manner that
they are preserved for the holiday markets.








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NE of the most picturesque features of natural scenery which the
: espetraveller comes upon in Southern Spain, is that of the olive orchards,
especially those which cluster about Cordova. As the time of har-
il-a vest draws near, the coloring of these orchards is particularly pleas-
ing. The ripening fruit varies in tint, from vivid greens to gay reds and
lovely purples, while the foliage, of willow-leaf shape, restless and quivering,
is of a tender, shimmering, greenish gray, and the trunks often have a solemn
and aged aspect. Many of these plantations are very ancient indeed, planted
perhaps by the grandsires of the present owners. They are usually a source of
much profit, as the best eating olives are those grown in Spain, and though
the trees come into bearing late, there are orchards which have been known to
yield fruit for centuries.

Each orchard has a guard, or watchman, who tends it the year round, for
the pruning, the tillage, and the watch upon the ripening fruit, demand constant
care. In the harvest season the watch is by night as well as by day, for a
vigorous shake of the branches will dislodge almost every berry, and a thief,
with his donkeys and his panniers, might easily and almost noiselessly strip an
entire orchard in a few hours. The olive guard lives in a hut of thatch or
grass in summer, and in a sort of cave, or burrow, in winter.

The crop is mainly harvested by girls and women, and the scene is like a
picnic all day long, for Spanish girls turn all their labors into merry-making
whenever it is possible to do so. The gray orchards are lighted up with the
rainbow colors of the peasant costumes, and the air is musical with. the donkey
bells, while the overseer, prone on the ground with his cigarette, "loafs and
invites his soul," evidently finding great delight in the double drudgery he con-
trols that of the donkeys and the damsels.

In regard to the great age of olive-trees, a recent writer says: "When
raised from seed it rarely bears fruit under fifty years, and when propagated in
other ways it requires at least from twenty to twenty-five years. But, on the
other hand, it lives for centuries. The monster olive at Beaulieu, near Nice, is
supposed by Risso to be a thousand years old. Its trunk at four feet from the
ground has a circumference of twenty-three feet, and it is said to have yielded
five hundred pounds of oil in a single year."








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ORDOVA, lying in the beautiful valley of the Guadalquiver, sur-
rounded with gardens and villas, is well named the city of Age,
Mellowness, and Tranquility. It abounds with antiquities, and at'
S every turn memories are awakened of old Roman emperors, and
the Arabian caliphs; the gates, the sculptures, the towers, the mullioned
windows and nail-studded doors, the galleried houses and their beautiful patios
fitted for idle life in the soft Andalusian weather, the mosques and the great
bridges are all of those times. Even the streets are named after the old
Roman and Spanish scholars and poets.

The large bridge over the Guadalquiver was originally built by the Roman
Emperor, Octavius Augustus; it was afterwards remodelled by the Arabs.
The gate is very fine which leads into the gypsy quarter. The Moors had
three thousand baths on the banks of the river, but in their day it was a full
shining tide; now it is a muddy current, hardly in need of bridging at all.

The mosques of Cordova are fine, and among them is the greatest
Moslem temple in the world, with its beautiful chapels, its Court of Oranges,
and its wondrous grove of marbles. This mosque, now used for Christian
worship, was erected on the ruins of an old cathedral, which it is said had
been built upon the site of a Roman temple. The Moslem structure was
erected by the Caliph Abdurrahman, in the seventh century, and was a hundred
years in building. The principal entrance is through the Court of Oranges,
where beautiful palms also grow, and other tropical trees. Thence one emerges
among a very forest of marble pillars, where countless magnificent naves stretch
away and intersect, and the shining columns and pilasters spring upward into deli-
cate double horseshoe arches. One marble is shown where a Christian captive,
chained at its base, scratched a cross upon the stone with his nails. In some
sections the ceiling is dazzling with arabesques and crystals. Within the mosque,
in its very centre, rises a fine Catholic church, built in the time of Charles
the Fifth. It contains many illuminated missals and rare old choir books.

The Cordovans, like the people of other Spanish cities, are indebted to the
Moors for the fine aqueducts which bring the cold mountain water across the
valley into the public watering places. These great reservoirs are good points
for observing some phases of folk-life.

















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RANADA, the beautiful city, with beautiful rivers, is named for
a "grenade" or pomegranate. At the time of the Conquest, King
Ferdinand on being assured how valiantly the Moors would defend
their last stronghold, replied, "I will pick out the seeds of this
grenade one by one."

There is a tradition .among the Moors that when the hand carved over the
principal entrance of the Alhambra shall reach down and grasp the key, also
carved there, they shall regain their city, the ancient home of their
caliphs.

The Generalife lies across the valley from the Alhambra. It was the sum-
mer palace of the Moorish sovereigns, and is built on a mountain slope by
the Darro River, and its white walls gleam out from lovely terraced gardens,
and groves of laurel. The grounds abound with fountains and summer houses.

The Alhambra--the great royal castle -a town in itself--is built on a
lovely tree-embowered height, its many towers rising high above the mass of
foliage. From these towers one looks across the vale of the Vega to the spot
where Columbus is said to have turned back, recalled by Isabella, on his
way to seek English aid in his discovery of a New World. From these
towers, too, can be seen the valley in the. distance, where Boabdil, last of the
Moorish Kings, looked back on Granada for the last time; and across the
river, one gazes upon the sombre region of the gypsy quarter, a swarming
town of caves in the hillside.

Two relics of Alhambra housekeeping still remain; a great oven, and a fine
well. Both are utilized by the custodian of the palace. The palace itself has
many beautiful patios. -The finest is known as the Court of Lions, named from
the sculptured figures which support the fountain in the centre. Another is
known sometimes as the Court of the Lake, and sometimes as the Court of
the Myrtles; and still another, entered by subterranean ways, is the Hall of
Divans, the special retreat of the Favorites. There are many others, and all
these patios and halls are bewilderingly beautiful with arabesques, mosaics,
inscriptions and wondrous arches and columns, porticos, vistas, alcoves and
temples-and everywhere elegance of effect indescribable.













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T Granada, whenever it is desired, the proprietor of the Washington
'' Irving Hotel will engage the Gypsy King to come with his
daughters and dance the national dance at the house of one of
S"' the guides. This dance is a most wild and weird performance.
There is an incessant clapping of hands and clatter of castafiets, a sharp
stamping of heels, an agonized swaying of the body and the arms; and often
the castafiets and guitar are accompanied by a wild and mournful wail from
the dancers. The king of the Granada gypsies is said to be the best guitar
player in Spain.

The climb from the city up to the vast Gypsy Quarter, known as the
suburb of the Albaycin, is an adventure of a nightmare sort. The squalor and
horror of the life to be witnessed on the way up along narrow streets swarm-
ing with the weirdest and dirtiest of brown beggars, may not be painted, may not be
written; yet now and then one goes under a superb Arab arch, passes a door
rich with arabesques, or comes upon a group of elegant columns supporting a
roof of mud and rock. The long hillside seems honeycombed with the den-
like habitations of the gitanos, many of whom, among the men, are blacksmiths,
while others work at pottery, turning out very handsome plates and water jars,
while the women weave cloth, and do a rude kind of embroidery, all selling
their wares in the streets in fact the spinning and weaving and sewing is
often carried on in the street itself.

But the little ones too (las ninas) add largely to the family income, as they dance
for the visitor; the traveller and his guide being always invited to enter the
caves. These gypsy children dance with much spirit, and they also sing many
beautiful old ballads of Spanish prowess. The most beautiful ones among the
girls are early trained to practice fortune-telling.

With their dances, their songs, their fortune-telling, their importunate, imperious
begging, and their rude industries, these Granada gypsies live here from century to
century, in swarms of thousands, never attempting to improve their condition,
but boasting, instead, of the comfort of their dismal caves as being cool in
summer and warm in winter. It is plain that they consider themselves and their
Quarter "a part of the show," and hardly second in interest to the Alhambra
itself.









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ARDLY is there a Spanish town of note, that does not possess its
great Bull Ring; and there are scores of inferior Bull Circuses
f throughout Spain. There is but a slight public sentiment against
the brutal sport which is the favorite Sunday recreation of the whole
nation. Spanish kings and queens for many centuries have sat in the royal
boxes to applaud, and many of the Spanish noblemen of the present time
breed choice fighting bulls on their farms, and there is the same mad admiration
of the agile, skilful espado or bull slayer, as a hundred years ago. To be
a fine picador or banderillo, is to be sure of the praise and the presents of the
entire populace. Men, women and children go; the amphitheatre is always
crowded and always the crowd will sit breathless and happy to see six or
eight bulls killed, and three times that count of horses--the rich and the
nobles on the shady side under the awnings, the peasants sweltering and
burning in the sun. It is the picador who rides on horseback to invite with
his lance the attacks of the bull as he enters the arena; it is the capeador
who springs into the arena with his cloak of maddening red or yellow, to dis-
tract the bull's attention from the fallen horseman ; it is the banderillo who
taunts the wounded creature with metal-tipped arrows, the barbs of which
cannot be extracted, or with his long pole leaps tauntingly over the back of
the confused creature; but it is the gorgeous cspado with his sword, entering
the arena, at last, who draws all eyes. With his red flag he plays with the
bull as a cat with the mouse, until the amphitheatre is mad for life blood; then
with a swift, graceful stroke he ends all, -his superb foe lies dead, and he turns
from him to meet the wild shower of hats, cigars, flowers, fans, purses that
beats upon him from all sides-it is a scene of unimaginable exultation, for
there are glad cries and plaudits, and royalty itself throws the bull-slayer a
golden purse and a pleased smile, and the beautiful Spanish sefioritas lavish
upon him the most bewildering attentions.

The Spanish boy is born with a thirst for this sport. Their favorite game
is Toro. One lad mounts on his fellow's back to take the part of the picador
and his horse; another, with horns of sticks, represents the bull; and the rest
are capeadors banderillos, and escodas, while the audience of adult loungers look
on with fierce excitement. It is in this fierce, popular street sport that the
future champions of the Bull Ring are trained and developed -to be an escoda
is usually the height of a Spanish boy's ambition.









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OWHERE in Spain are you refreshed with the restful sound of water,
sometimes soft, sometimes gay, as in Granada. You hear the flow of
the Darro over its stones and rocks, you hear the splash of fountains,
the gay hurry of mountain brooks, the soft sound of springs-everywhere
flow, or gurgle, or drip. You hear it on the tree bordered and bowered
Alameda in your moonlit walks, and you hear it through the windows of your
fonda, or hotel, when you wake. It is everywhere about the Alhambra heights,
and the Generalife terraces. The Spaniards call this continuous water-sound,
"The Sigh of the Moor."

Most of the young Spanish women as well as the men, are accomplished
guitar-players. The guitar belongs in story to the Sefiorita, along with her
mantilla and her fan. It usually hangs on her casement, brave with ribbons
and gay wool tufts and all manner of decorations, and by moonlight she will
come out upon the balcony to answer her cavelier's serenade with a song as
sweet as his own. You feel the atmosphere of the Spanish night vibrating all
about you, as you stroll along the moonlit street, with the low, soft, delicate
twinkle of a hundred guitars, the players half-hidden in the dim patio
balconies.

It is often the custom to.drive the goats from door to door to be milked, and
often an accustomed goat, tinkling its bells, will go along the street, stopping
of its own will and knowledge at the doors of its customers, and knocking
smartly with its horns should no one appear. The servant of the house comes
out into the street and milks the desired quantity, while the "milkman"
lounges near by with his cigarette.

Often it is as amusing to watch the dogs of the beggars by the
churches as the men themselves. While the noble Caballeros, Don Miguel and
Don Pedro, exhausted with the saying of prayers and the much asking of
centimos, have fallen asleep in the shade, their respective dogs remain
awake to glare at each other with true professional jealousy, and to growl and
snap, should a chance stranger drop a coin in one hat and not in the other.
The begger is the last sight, as well as the first, which greets the traveler in
Spain.














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QUEEN LOUISA AND THE CHILDREN.


BY MARY STUART SMITH.


UEEN LOUISA of Prussia was the mother of come, or some pretty gift. A sweet little girl ad-
William I., Emperor of Germany, and although vanced to give the queen a bunch of flowers, and
she has been dead over sixty years her one hun- Louisa was so struck with the child's loveliness that
dredth birthday was celebrated elaborately through- she stooped down and kissed her on the forehead.
out her son's do- Mein Gott!" ex-
minions, with al- claimed the horrified
most as many rejoic- mistress of cere-
ings as we made monies. "Whathas
here over the one your majesty done ?"
hundredth birthday r. Louisa was as artless
of these United and simple as a child
States. herself. What?"
When a child said she, is that
Louisa was very ,r wrong? Must I
beautiful, and as she never do so again ?"
grew up did not dis- But the prince,
appoint the promise f her husband, was no
of those early days. fonder of show and
She was married ceremony than her-
to Frederick Wil- ----- self, and asserted
liam, Crown Prince -manfully the right
of Prussia,when only of his wife and him-
seventeen years of :-- self to act like other
age, and brought affectionate people,
down upon herself a :'.- in spite of being king
sharp rebuke from and queen.
the proud mistress This royal pair
of ceremonies for had eight children,
the love she showed \ '' and upon these
to a little child as :children was lav-
she was making her ished every care and
public entry into 1 / attention. Itissaid
Berlin, preparatory -that every night the
to the solmnization king and queen went
of her marriage. It together to visit their
happened thus: QUEEN LOUISA. sleeping children af-
The streets were thronged with people who had ter they had been put into their little beds, and many
come to catch a glimpse of the fair young bride, a time wer: they surprised by a bright pair of wide-
while every now and then select persons would step awake eyes smiling back upon them a look of love in
forward and present complimentary poems of wel- return. Queen Louisa used to say, The children's








QUEEN LOUISA AND THE CHILDREN.


world is my world," nor were the little creatures slow
to reciprocate the love she gave.
You know Christmas is observed in Germany
with peculiar reverence, and is a season set apart for
mirthful recreation among all classes, but more es-
pecially for the enjoyment of children. Berlin is gay
with Christmas trees and a brilliant array of toys
etc., for at least a week beforehand.
Like other parents the king and queen found de-
light in preparing pleasant surprises for their little
ones. While engaged in choosing presents for them,
on one occasion they entered a top-shop where a
citizen's wife was busy making purchases, but recog-
nizing the new-comers she bowed respectfully and
retired. The queen addressed her in her peculiarly
winning way and sweet voice. Stop, dear lady,
what will the stall-keeper say if we drive away his
customers ? She then inquired if the lady had come
to buy toys for her children, and asked how many
little ones she had. Hearing there was a son about
the age of the Crown Prince, the queen bought some
toys and gave them to the mother, saying, Take
them, dear lady, and give them to your crown prince
in the name of mine."
But I must tell you a yetprettier story, showing the
queen's fondness for making children happy.
There lived in Berlin a father and mother, who from
some cause were so poor, and low-spirited besides,
that when the holiday came which all children love
best, they quietly resigned themselves to having noth-
ing to give their little ones. What can be more sad
than a house which no Kriss Kringle visits ? Just
think of it! They told their children that there was
to be.no Christmas tree for them this year. The little
boy and his sister had been led to believe that the
Christ-kind or Christ-child provides the tree and
the gifts which are placed on tables round it; only
ornaments, sweets and tapers are hung upon the
branches. Under this disappointment the children, in
the innocent simplicity of their faith, sought the aid of
the good Christ-kind in their own way.
Christmas Eve came, and the poor troubled parents
looked on with wonder as they beheld their children
hopping and skipping about with joy, although they
were to be the only children for whom no Christ-
mas tree would be lighted, nor pretty gifts provided.
Still in high spirits they watched at the window, and
clapped their hands when the door-bell rang, exclaim-


ing: Here it comes !" The door was opened and a
man-servant appeared, laden with a gay tree and
several packets, each addressed to some member of
the family.
There must be some mistake said the mother.
No, no cried the boy, "it is all right. I wrote
to the good Christ-kind, and told him what we wanted,
and that you could not buy anything this year."
The parents enjoyed the evening with their child-
ren and afterwards unravelled the mystery. The
postmaster, astonished by a letter evidently written
by a very young scribe and addressed to the Christ-
kind, had sent it to the palace with a respectful inquiry
as to what should be done with a letter so strangely
directed. Queen Louisa read it and, as a handmaid
of the Christ-kind, she answered his little children.*
Lousia's sympathies were ever ready to flow for
the sorrows of childhood, which so many grown peo-
ple will not stoop to even notice.
One day as the king and queen were entering a
town, a band of young girls came forward to strew
flowers and to present a nosegay. Her majesty in-
quired how many little girls there were. "Nine-
teen," replied the artless child; "there would have
been twenty of us but one was sent back home be-
cause she was too ugly."
The kind queen feeling for the child's mortification
sent for her and requested that she might by all
means be allowed to join in the festivities of the day.
Nor did Louisa slight the boys.
She was one day walking in the streets of Char-
lottenburg, attended by a lady-in-waiting; a number
of boys were running and tumbling and playing
somewhat rudely, and one of them ran up against the
queen. Her lady reproved him sharply, and the
little fellow looked frightened and abashed. The
queen patted his rosy cheek, saying: "Boys will be
a little wild; never mind, my dear boy, I am not
angry." She then asked his name and bade him
give her compliments to his mother. The child knew
who the lady was, and besides having the pleasant
memory of her gracious speech and looks received
a lesson in politeness which he never forgot.
Sometimes the royal children were allowed to have
a party, and this indulgence young princes and prin-
cesses enjoy just as much as other juveniles. A
queer anecdote is told of the only daughter of the
Mrs. Hudson's Life of Queen Louisa.








QUEEN LOUISA AND THE CHILDREN.


famous Madame de Stael, in relation to one of these
entertainments.
The little lady was about ten years of age, but
had already imbibed many opinions and prejudices.
At all events she had a high idea of her own im-
portance, and was totally wanting in respect for her
superiors in rank. She was apt to be very rude in
her manners and in her remarks. On this occasion
she took offence at something which the little Crown
Prince said or did to her, and very coolly gave him
a sharp box on the ear, upon which he ran crying to
his mother and hid his face in the folds of her dress.
As mademoiselle, when remonstrated with, showed
not a particle of concern, and refused to say she was
sorry, she was not invited again, and her learned
mamma found that she must keep her daughter at
home until she taught her better manners.*
The annual fair at Paretz, the king's beloved coun-
try home, took place during the merry harvest-time.
A number of booths were then put up near the vil-
lage, and besides buying and selling there was a
great deal or dancing and singing going on, and all
sorts of games and sports. It was then that the
wheel of fortune was turned for the children's lottery.
Lots of cakes and fruit were set round in order, which
Sir George Jackson.


were given away according to the movements of a
pointer, turned by the wheel.
Queen Louisa encouraged the children to crowd
around her on these occasions ; she could not bear
to see them afraid of her, and placed herself beside
the wheel, in order to secure fair play and to watch
carefully that she might make some amends for the
unkindness of fortune. She had her own ample
store of good things which she dispensed among the
unlucky children, many of whom thought more of the
sweet words and looks of the queen than of any-
thing else she could give them. Moreover she was
glad to have a chance of leading even one of her little
subjects to be generous and self-denying. For, while
she liked to see them all happy, she at the same
time interested herself in giving pleasantly little
hints as to conduct that might be of lasting benefit.
All her life Queen Louisa watched beside the
wheel in a higher sense. She overlooked the whole
circle of which she was the centre, anxiously seeking
to hold out a helping hand to any whom she saw
likely to be ruined by losses in the great lottery of
real life.
Is it matter for wonder then that German chil-
dren still cherish her memory, and delight to place
flowers upon vase or tomb that bears her name?













THE PLAYTHING OF AN EMPRESS.


BY M. S. P.


D OUBTLESS the readers of GRAMMAR SCHOOL
have heard it said that Men and Women are
only children of a larger growth." No matter how
stately the grand ladies that we often meet with may ap-
pear, you may be very sure that they sometimes envy the
pleasures of children, who have no thoughts about
fine houses and servants, and a hundred other cares.
Even wearing a crown does not bring happiness; the
dignity it entails often becomes burdensome.
Once a young prince, who had everything that he
could possibly want given him,-books, jewels, play-
things of inconceivable variety, horses and dogs, in
fact all the nice things that you can imagine to bring
him pleasure, -was observed by his attendants to be
standing by the window, crying. When asked the
cause of his tears he replied that he was unhappy be-
cause he could not join the boys in the street who
were making mud pies !
The Indians who use the bow and arrow say that
the proper way to keep the strength of their bows is
to unstring them after use and let them relax. So it
is with those whose minds or bodies are engaged in one
long strain of work ; they must be relaxed or they be-
come useless. The late Pope of Rome was a very
dignified old man, and was also surrounded by
learned and great men. He rode in a gilded coach
drawn by four horses, and was in public a very grand
and stately person. But I read the other day that
the old gentleman and some of his cardinals were
once seen playing ball in his garden, for the purpose
of amusing a-little boy.
More than a hundred years ago the great country
east of Germany, known as Russia, was ruled by the
Empress Anne. It is a very cold country and the
winter is very long. The capital is St, Petersburg,
and through it the river Neva runs. This river
freezes in winter, and the ice is frequently so solid
that it will bear up an army of several thousand men
with all their heavy guns and mortars, and these be


discharged without so much as cracking the ice,
At the close of the year 1739, during an extremely
cold winter, the empress ordered one of her archi-
tects to build an Ice Palace. The great square in front
of the royal palace was chosen for its site. Blocks of
the clearest ice were selected, carefully measured,,
and even ornamented with architectural designs..
They were raised with cranes and carefully placed in
position, and were cemented together by the pouring:
of water over them. The water soon froze and
made the blocks one solid wall of ice. The palace
was fifty-six feet long, seventeen and one half feet:
wide, and twenty-one feet high. Can you imagine
anything more beautiful than such a building made
of transparent ice and sparkling in the sun ?
It was surrounded by a balustrade, behind which
were placed six ice cannon on carriages. These can-
non were exactly like real metal ones, and were so,
hard and solid that powder could be fired in them.
The charge used was a quarter of a pound of pow-
der and a ball of oakum. At the first trial of the
cannon an iron ball was used. The empress with all
her court was present, and the ball was fired. It
pierced a plank two inches thick at a distance of
sixty feet.
Besides these six cannon in front of the palace,
there were two ice mortars which carried iron balls
weighing eighty pounds with a charge of one quarter
of a pound of powder. Then, too, there were tNo~
ice dolphins, from whose mouths a flame of burning
naptha was thrown at night with most wonderful ef-
fect. Between the cannon and dolphins, in front of
the palace, there was a balustrade of ice ornamented
with square pillars. Along the top of the palace
there was a gallery and a balustrade which was orna-
mented with round balls. In the centre of this stood
four beautiful ice statues.
The frames of the doors and windows were painted
green to imitate marble. There were two entrances








THE PLAYTHING OF AN EMPRESS.


to the palace, on opposite sides, leading into a square
vestibule which had four windows. All the windows
were made of perfectly transparent ice, and at night
they were hung with linen shades on which grotesque
figures were painted, and illuminated by a great num-
ber of candles.
Before entering the palace one naturally stopped
to admire the pots of flowers on the balustrade, and
the orange trees on whose branches birds were perch-
ing. Think of the labor and patience required to
make such perfect imitations of nature in ice !
Standing in the vestibule, facing one entrance and
having another behind, one could see a door on
either hand. Let us imagine ourselves in the room
on the left. It is a sleeping-room apparently, but if
you stop to think that every article in it is made of
ice you will hardly care to spend a night there;
and yet it is said that two persons actually slept on
the bed there for an entire night. On one side is a
toilet-table. Over it hangs a mirror, on each side of
which are candelabra with ice candles. Sometimes
at night these candles were lit by being dipped in
naptha. On the table is a watch-pocket, and a vari-
ety of vases, boxes, and ornaments of curious and
beautiful design. At the other side of the room we
see the bed hung with curtains, furnished with sheets
and a coverlid and two pillows, on which are placed
two night-caps. By the side of the bed on a foot-
stool are two pairs of slippers. Opposite the bed is
the fireplace which is beautifully carved and orna-
mented. In the grate lie sticks of wood also made
of ice, which are sometimes lighted like the candles
by having naptha poured over them.
The opposite room is a dining-room. In the cen-
tre stands a table on which is a clock of most won-
derful workmanship. The ice used is so transparent
that all the wheels and works are visible. On each
side of this table two beautifully carved sofas are
placed, and in the corners of the room there are stat-
ues. On one side we see a sideboard covered with a
variety of ornaments. We open the doors and find


inside a tea-set, glasses and plates which contain a
variety of fruits and vegetables, all made of ice but
painted in imitation of nature.
Let us now go through the opposite door and no-
tice the other curious things outside the palace. At
each end of the balustrade we see a pyramid with an
opening in each side like the dial of a clock. These
pyramids are hollow, and at night a man stands in-
side of them and exhibits illuminated pictures at the
grand openings.
Perhaps the greatest curiosity of all is the life-like
elephant at the right of the palace. On his back sits.
a Persian holding a battle-axe, and by his side stand
two men as large as life. The elephant, too, is hol-
low, and is so constructed that in the daytime a
stream of water is thrown from his trunk to a height
of twenty-four feet, and at night a flame of burning
naptha. In addition to this, the wonderful animal is
so arranged that from time to time he utters the most
natural cries. This is done by means of pipes into
which air is forced.
On the left of the palace stands a small house,
built of round blocks of ice resembling logs, inter-
laced one with another. This is the bath-house,
without which no Russian establishment is complete.
This bath-house was actually heated and used on sev-
eral occasions.
When this wonderful ice-palace was completed it
was thrown open to the public, and such crowds came
to see it that sentinels were stationed in the house to
prevent disorder.
This beautiful palace stood from the beginning of
January until the end of March. Then, as the
weather became warmer, it began to melt on the south
side; but even after it lost its beauty and symmetry as
a palace it did not become entirely useless, for the
largest blocks of ice were transferred to the ice-
houses of the imperial palace, and thus afforded
grateful refreshment during the summer, as well as a
pleasant reminder of The Plaything of an Em-
press."







CHARLIE'S WEEK IN BOSTON.


CHARLIE'S WEEK IN BOSTON.


BY CHARLES E. HURD.


CHARLIE was going to Boston.
The ceaseless clatter of his little copper-toed
boots over all the bare places in the house, and the
pertinacious hammering he kept up upon everything
capable of emitting sound, rendered it impossible for
his mamma or the new baby to get any rest, and so
it was that the decision came about. Aunt Mary,
who had lent her presence to the household for the
preceding fortnight, was to return home the following
day, and with her, after infinite discussion, it was
decided that he was to go for a week.
The momentous news was withheld from Charlie
until the next morning, for fear of the result upon his
night's sleep, but it was injudiciously let out by Aunt
Mary before breakfast, the effect being to at once
plunge the young gentleman into the highest state of
excitement. He had played go to Boston a thou-
sand times with his little cart and wheelbarrow, but
to take such a journey in reality was something he
could hardly imagine possible.
"Am I going to Boston, real 'live? he wildly in-
quired. "Where's my rubber boots, and my little
chair, and my cart, and I want my piece of gum
mamma tooked away, and where's my sled ? "
"But, Charlie," said Aunt Mary, persuasively, you
are not going now, and you don't want to take all
those things. There isn't any snow in Boston, and
good little boys don't chew gum. You must have
some breakfast."
I don't want any breakfast. I want to go to Bos-
ton. I got to go, now you said so."
"Yes, but you must have something to eat first.
It would make you sick to ride so far without eating.
And then you must have a nice bath, and put on
your new suit that papa bought last week. You've
plenty of time."
But Charlie, generally good to mind, was thor-
oughly demoralized by the new turn in affairs, and
had to be brought to the table by main force.
It's like taking a horse to water," said Aunt


Mary. "You can get him to the trcugh, but you
can't make him drink without he likes. Charlie,
have a nice large griddle-cake ? "
Griddle-cakes were Charlie's weak point, but in a
time like this he rose superior to the temptation.
"Don't want griddle-cakes; don't want bread;
don't want toast; don't want anything. I want to
get right down out of my little chair, and go to Bos-
ton, awful quick !"
"The child will be down sick if he goes away on
an empty stomach," said grandma from her bed-
room, where she could see all that transpired at the
table. "Can't you make him eat? "
It's all very well to say 'Make him eat,' but he
won't," said Aunt Mary. "You might just as well
make a squirrel sit down and eat in a respectable
manner."
"Let him go till he gets hungry, then," said his
father. "He'll come to it soon enough. There's no
danger of his starving."
If Charlie had been a grown man, with whiskers,
and going to some European Court as Minister Ex-
traordinary, he couldn't have felt the importance of
his prospective journey more, or been more weighed
down by the preparations for it. The train which
was to carry him did not start until two o'clock, and
in the six hours which intervened his little tongue was
in constant motion, and his little feet tramping up and
down stairs, getting ready."
But you're only going to stay for a week, you
know, Charlie," said Aunt Mary, dismayed at the heap
of toys he had industriously gathered in a corner of
the sitting-room for transportation, and you'll see
so many pretty things that you won't care for any of
these."
I want to carry my wheelbarrow. I will be cross
if I don't carry my wheelbarrow. And my cunnin'
little cunnin' watlin' pot, and my high chair, and some
more."
"But Aunt Mary couldn't get them into her trunk,






CHARLIE'S WEEK IN BOSTON.


and the railroad man wouldn't let Charlie take them
into the cars. Put them all away nicely, and then
Charlie will have them when he comes home."
It required a great deal of judicious argument,
intermingled with promises, to gain the point, and
final success was only achieved by a formal agreement,
to which grandma was made a witness, by virtue of
which Charlie was to become the possessor of "a
speckled rocking-horse, just like Johnny Baker's,
with real hair ears, and a tight tail, that boys couldn't
pull out." This compact having been made, Charlie
submitted to the washing and dressing process with
comparative good grace.
An exceedingly light dinner preceded the start,
varied by excursions to the front door to see if the
depot stage was coming. It came at last, and, after
the leave-taking, Charlie and Aunt Mary were packed
in among half a dozen others. The whip cracked,
the coach gave a sudden lurch, and then dashed
down the street at the heels of the horses, who seemed
anxious to get to the station at the earliest possible
moment. There was just time to get tickets and seats
before the train started.
If Charlie was unmanageable before, he was doubly
so now. At every stopping-place he made desperate
efforts to get out of the car, and once or twice, in
spite of Aunt Mary's efforts, very nearly succeeded.
He dropped his hat out of the window ; he dirtied
his face beyond redemption with dust and cinders ;
he put cake crumbs down the neck of an old lady
who had fallen asleep on the seat just in front, and
horrified the more staid portion of the passengers in
the car by a series of acts highly inconsistent with
the rules of good breeding, and the character of a
nice boy.
Boston was reached at last, and the perils of pro-
curing a hack and getting safely home in it were
surmounted. So thankful was Aunt Mary that she
could have dropped upon her knees on the sidewalk
in front of the door; but she managed to control her
feelings, paid the hackman his dollar, still keeping a
tight grip upon Charlie, and, despite his struggles to
join the distant audience of a hand-organ, managed
to get him safely into the house, where he was at
once delivered over to the other members of the
household.
I never, never, never will go out of the house with
that child again !" she declared, half crying, and


sinking into a chair without taking her bonnet off.
"He's enough to kill anyone outright. No wonder
they wanted to get rid of him at home It'll be a
mercy if he don't drive us all crazy before the week
is out. One thing is certain, they'll have to send for
him. '11 never take him home again."
"Why didn't you drug him, Aunt Mary," asked
Tom, with a great show of sympathy. "Iwould."
I declare I would have done anything, if I had
only known how he was going to act! You may
laugh and think it's all very funny, but I just wish
you'd some of you try it yourselves. Where is he
now ? If he's out of sight a single minute he'll be in
some mischief. There he goes now "
The last declaration of Aunt Mary was preceded
by a series of violent bumps, followed by a loud
scream from the bottom of the basement stairs. A
grand rush to the spot revealed Charlie lying at the
foot, beating the air with his legs, with a vigor that
at once dispelled all fears as to his serious injury.
He was picked up and borne into the kitchen by the
cook, where the gift of a doughnut soon dried his
tears, and he was returned to the sitting-room to
await the ringing of the bell for tea.
Has he had a nap to-day? asked grandmother.
"Nap I should think the child would be dead for
want of sleep. I don't believe he's winked to-day! "
"He looks like it now, anyway," said Tom, who
was holding him in his arms.
Sure enough, his eyelids were beginning to droop,
and a moment after the half-eaten doughnut dropped
from his loosened fingers upon the carpet.
Carry him up to my room, Tom, and lay him
upon my bed. Don't for mercy's sake hit his head
against anything. We shan't have any peace if he
gets awake again."
Slowly and carefully Tom staggered under his little
burden up-stairs, and laid it upon the clean white
coverlet of Aunt Mary's bed.
"That will do," said Aunt Mary, who had followed
close behind. He's thoroughly tired out, and no
wonder. You may go down now and I will take care
of him, dear little fellow."
With careful fingers she untied the laces of his little
boots, and pulled them off. The stockings came
next, and the hot little feet were released from con-
finement. The tiny jacket was then removed, the
tangled hair put back, and then, with a sponge wet in






CHARLIE'S WEEK IN BOSTON.


cool water, the dirty, sweaty little face was softly
bathed until it became quite presentable again.
"There she said at last, surveying him with a
feeling of satisfaction, he will sleep at least a couple
of hours. By that time I shall get rested, and can
manage him better. I suppose it's because he's so
tired, and everything is new."
With this apology for Charlie in her heart, and a
half remorseful feeling for her lately displayed impa-
tience, she descended the stairs to the dining-room,
where the rest of the family were already seated at
the table.
A few minutes later, and while she was deep in an
account of matters and things at Charlie's home, the
cook came up-stairs in something of a fluster.
"Plaze, ma'am, there's something on the house."
"Something on the house ? "
"Yes. McKillop's boarders across the way are all
at the windows, an' the men is laughing' and the
women frightened."
With one accord a sudden and informal adjourn-
ment to the parlor window was made, the result being
a verification of the cook's statement.
What on earth can be the matter ? said grand-
mother.
At this moment Mrs. McKillop, after a series of
incomprehensible gestures, which nobody could trans-
late with any clearness, dispatched her girl across the
street.
There's a child, ma'am," she exclaimed, in breath-
less excitement, a baby, walking about on the out-
"tide of your house like a fly he's- Howly Father "
This sudden exclamation was caused by the descent
of a flower pot, which, coming with the swiftness of a
meteor, missed the head of the speaker by less than
a hand's-breadth, and crashed into a thousand pieces
on the front steps.
The situation was taken in at once. With a suc-
cession of screams Aunt Mary flew up the stairs two
at a time. By this a crowd was rapidly gathering.
Bring out something to catch him in if he falls,"
shouted a fat old gentleman, pushing his way to the
front.
Grandmother caught a tidy from the arm of the
sofa, and, snatching a volume of Tennyson from the
centre-table, rushed frantically into the street, closely
followed by Tom with a feather duster.
A single glance told the whole story. There sat


Charlie, utterly innocent of clothing save a shirt of
exceeding scantness, on the very edge of the broad
projection below the third-story window, his legs dan-
gling in space, watching with delighted interest the
proceedings of the excited crowd in the street below.
No one knows what might have happened, for, at that
moment, while a hot discussion was being carried on
among the gathered spectators, as to the propriety of
sounding a fire alarm for a hook and ladder company,
the arms of Aunt Mary came through the window,
and closed upon him like a pair of animated pincers.
There was a brief struggle, productive of a perfect
shower of flower-pots, and then, amid a hurricane of
shouts and cheers, the little white body and kicking
legs disappeared within the room. When, two min-
utes later, the entire household, with a fair sprinkling
of the McKillop boarders, had reached the scene,
they found Charlie shut up in the wardrobe, and Aunt
Mary in hysterics, with her back against the door.
If he stays here a week we shall have to board up
the windows, and keep a policeman," said grand-
mother, that night, after Charlie had been guarded
to sleep on the sitting-room lounge, with the door
locked. "We shall have to have watchers for him,
for I would no more dare to go to sleep without some
one awake with him than I would trust him with a
card of matches and a keg of gunpowder. And that
makes me think: we musn't leave matches where he
can get them; and, father, you'll have to go down
town the first thing in the morning, and see about an
insurance."
Notwithstanding the universally expressed fears,
Charlie slept like a top all night, and really behaved
so well the next morning that it was deemed safe to
give him an airing, and introduce him to the sights of
Boston. Right after dinner he was taken in hand,
and dressed and curled and frilled as he never had
been before, creating serious doubts in his own mind
as to whether he was really himself, or another boy of
about the same size and general make.
At half-past two o'clock the party set out, Aunt
Mary on one side, tightly grasping Charlie's hand, and
on the other a female friend, especially engaged for
the occasion. Tom followed on behind as a sort ol
rear guard, ready to be called upon in case of emer.
agency.
First the Public Garden was visited. Hardly had
half'the circuit of the lake been made, when Charlie,






CHARLIE'S WEEK IN BOSTON.


attracted by one of the gayly painted boats which was
moored a few feet from the shore, broke loose and
made a sudden dash to reach it, to the utter ruin of
his stockings and gaiters. In vain Aunt Mary coaxed
and. remonstrated and threatened; in vain she at-
tempted to hook him out with the handle of her para-
sol; he was just out of reach and he kept there. He
was brought out by one of the gardeners at last, who
seemed to look up-
on it as an excel-
lent joke. Tom,
who had lagged be-
hind, was sent back
after dry stockings
and Charlie's sec-
.ond-best shoes,
which, when
brought, were
changed in the ves-
tibule of the Public
Library, and the
line of march again ,,
taken up. The ,!, ,
deer on the Com- ,',
mon were fed, ---
Punch and Judy
viewed and criti-
tized, and the thou-
sand and one vari- .,,
ous objects in the '"'l
vicinity visited. ____-
Charlie was de- --.
lighted with every- --'----'i'-
thing, but through l--
and above all one MOUNTED UPON THE BACK OF THE
grand desire and
determination rode rampant-the desire and deter-
mination to enter into possession of the promised,
but as yet unrealized, wocking-horse."
Down Winter Street to Washington, in the great,
sweeping crowd of men, women and children; past
the gorgeous dry goods stores; past candy and apple
stands; past all sorts of strange and funny and bewil-
tering things, Charlie was slowly dragged, a helpless
and unwilling prisoner. He only broke silence once.
Passing a window filled with braids and chignons, and
doubtless taking them for scalps, he inquired with
considerable interest if "Indians kept store there."


AR


Oh what a lovely silk! ejaculated Aunt Mary's
friend, coming to a sudden stop before one of the
great dry goods emporiums on Washington Street.
Aunt Mary stopped, too. The pattern was too
gorgeous to be lightly passed. She raised her hand
to remove her vail, forgot her charge for a moment,
and when she looked again Charlie had disappeared.
"Charlie Charlie Why, where is he? she ex-
claimed, pale with
fright. "I thought
S"you had hold of
'N t him "
s' I dropped his
Sand not a minute
_, .'" ago, to be sure my
pocket hadn't been
i' -. picked. I thought
you would look out
for him."
S, \ In vain they
searched; in vain
t h e y questioned
clerks and police-
men and apple-wo-
.men. Nobody had
seen such a boy,
and yet everybody
SI seemed to think
that they certainly
should remember
-i ,,;;, --- if they had. It
l li ijI"" was now half past
four. And Tom,
'li;'lllit'l"'~-~~7 --- L ~who might have
GEST AND REALIST LOOKING HORSE." helped them so
much, was gone !
"Perhaps," suggested a pitying apothecary's clerk,
with a very small moustache and very smooth hair,
perhaps the young man Tom has taken him home."
There was a small spark of comfort in this sugges-
tion and, though unbelieving, the two hurried home-
wards, only to find Tom sitting on the doorstep, lazily
fanning himself, and hear his surprised ejaculation:
"Why what have you done with Charlie ?"
He's lost said Aunt Mary, bursting into tears.
"He'll get run over, or carried away, or something
terrible will happen to him. I shall never have
another minute's peace while I live "







CHARLIE'S WEEK IN BOSTON.


Tom listened impatiently to the details of the
story, told by both together, and, tossing his fan into
the hall, started down the steps.
Don't fret till I come back. He's all right some-
where, and I'll bring him home with me."
I'm going back. I can't stay here. I can help
search," said Aunt Mary, still in tears, and her loyal
companion avowed her determination to stand by her.
Tom had hurried away without stopping to listen,
and was now out of sight; but the two wretched
women, heated, footsore and wearied, followed reso-
lutely after. The scene of the mysterious disappearance
was at last reached, and again the oft repeated in-
quiries were made, but with the same result.
Here is where I was intending to bring him," said
Aunt Mary, pausing mournfully before the window of
a toy-bazar crowded with drums, guns, trumpets and
wooden monkeys. "He had talked so much about
his rocking-horse, the poor lost lamb And now-"
The sentence was never finished, for, with a half
hysterical shriek, she dropped her parasol upon the
sidewalk and rushed into the store, where the appari-
tion of a curly head of flaxen hair, slowly oscillating
back and forth, had that instant caught her eye. It
was Charlie, sure enough, in the highest feather,
mounted upon the back of the largest and realest-
looking horse in the entire stock of the establishment,
whose speed he was endeavoring to accelerate by the
aid of divers kicks and cluckings, while the proprie-
tor and unemployed clerks looked admiringly on.
Aunt Mary, despite her regard for appearances,
hugged him and cried over him without stint, and
finally made a brave attempt to scold him, but her
heart failed her, at the very outset.
He's been here nigh upon two hours," said the
proprietor, as he made change for the coveted horse.
He came in alone and went right to that horse, and
there he's stuck ever since. I don't let boys handle
'em much without I know they're going to buy, but
he made me think so much of a little fellow I lost a
year ago that I let him do just as he liked."
No mishap occurred in getting Charlie home this
time. The toyman's boy was sent for a hack, and,
with the rocking-horse perched up by the side of
the driver, and the doors tightly closed, nothing hap-
pened beyond what happens to ordinary boys who
are carried about in hacks. Some little difficulty was
experienced in getting him out on arrival home, for


it appeared that he had formed the plan on the way
of taking his horse into the coach and making a tour
of the city by himself. He could not in any manner
be satisfied of the impossibility of such an arrange-
ment, and was at last taken out in a high state of in-
dignation by the driver, who expressed a vehement
wish to himself that "he had such a young one!"
Nothing took place worthy of mention before bed-
time, with the exception, perhaps, of the breaking of
the carving-knife, and the ruin of Aunt Mary's gold
pen in an attempt to vaccinate his new acquisition.
For three days peace-comparative peace -reigned
in the household. From morning till night, in season
and out of season, Charlie was busy with his horse,,
astride of it, or feeding it, or leading it to water, or
punishing it for imaginary kicks and bites, and so.
keeping out of mischief; but with the dawn of the:
fourth he awoke, apparently for the first time, to a
realization of the fact that he was not lying in his own
little bed, and a sudden flood of homesickness rolled
over his soul, drowning out rocking-horse, hand-organs,
Tom's music-box, and each and every Bostonian de-
light which, until that moment, had led him captive.
From that moment his mourning was as incessant
and obstinate as that of Rachael. He sat on the
top stair, and filled the house with wailings. Cakes,
candy and coaxings were alike in vain, and even a
desperate promise of Tom's--to show him a whole
drove of elephants, had no more effect upon him, to
use the cook's simile, than the wind that blows."
No human being can endure it any longer,"
declared grandma, and in that statement every mem-
ber of the household cordially agreed.
That fact having been established without dis-
cussion, but one thing remained to do; to get him
home in as good condition as when he left there.
One can hardly do that," said Tom. He's got
a rag on every finger but one, and I don't know how
much court-plaster about him."
Notwithstanding, the afternoon train saw Charlie
on board, under the double guardianship of Aunt
Mary and Tom, and at five o'clock he was in his
mother's arms.
"The silence in the house was a thousand times
worse than the sound of his little feet," she said, with -
her eyes full of tears, "and made me think of that
possible time when I should never hear them any
more."




































eJohimy'9 a druiner aud drms for the King.'
~Z 3E C v













A WONDERFUL TRIO.


BY JANE HOWARD.


IN a little stone hut among the mountains lived
Gredel and her son Peterkin, and this is how
they lived : They kept about a dozen goats; and all
they had to do was to watch them browse, milk them,
and make the butter and cheese, which they partly
ate and partly sold down in the village, or, rather,
exchanged for bread. They were content with bread,
butter, and cheese; and all they thought about was
the goats. As for their clothes, it would be impossi-
ble to speak of them with patience. They had no
ambition, no hope, no thought beyond the day, and
no sense of gratitude towards yesterday. So they
lived, doing no harm, and effecting little good; care-
less of the future, and not honestly proud of any-
thing they had done in the past.
But one day Gredel (who was the widow of a
shepherd that had dropped over the edge of a cliff)
sat slowly churning the previous day's milk, while
Peterkin sat near her, doing nothing at all, thinking
nothing at all, because head nothing to ponder over,
and looking at nothing at all, for the goats were an
everyday sight, and they took such capital care of
themselves that Peterkin always stared away over
their heads.
Heigho suddenly exclaimed Gredel, stopping
in her churning; and Peterkin dropped his stick,
looked at his mother slowly, and obediently repeated,
" Heigho "
"The sun rises," said Gredel, "and the sun sets;
the day comes, and the day goes ; and we were yes-
terday, and we are to-day, and we shall be for some
tomorrows ; and that is all, all, all."
Said Peterkin, Mother, what is there in the
world ? "
"Men and women," repeated the wise parent;
goats, and many other things."
But is it the end of life to get up, watch goats,
eat and drink, and fall asleep again ? Sometimes I
wonder what is on the other side of the hill."
Who can say what is the end of life ? asked


slow-thoughted Gredel. "Are you not happy ?"
Yes. But there is something more."
"Do you not love me- your mother? "
"Yes. But still I think think think."
Love is enough," said Gredel, who had passed
more than half way through life, and was content to
rest.
"Then it must be," said Peterkin, "that I want
more than enough."
"If so, you must be wicked," remarked Gredel;
"for I am at peace in loving you, and you should be
content in loving me. What more do you want?
You have enough to eat--a warm bed in winter--
and your mother who loves you."
Peterkin shook his head.
"It will rain to-night," said Gredel ; and you will
be warm while many will be shivering in the wet."
Gredel was quite right; for when the sun had set,
and the heavens were all of one dead, sad color,
down came the rain, and the inside of the hut looked
very warm and comfortable.
Nevertheless, Peterkin still thought of the some-
thing beyond the mountain,. and wondered what it
might be. Had some wise one whispered in his ear,
he must have learnt that it was healthy ambition,
which helped the world and the worker at the same
time.
Soon it began to thunder, and Peterkin lazily
opened the wooden shutters to look at the lightning.
By this time Gredel, having thanked Providence
for a large bowl of black bread steeped in hot goat's
milk, was nodding and bobbing towards the flaming
wood fire.
Mother mother here comes something from this
world !"
And what comes from the world ? "
Something like three aged women, older than
you are a very great deal. Let me wait for another
flash of lightening. Ha! The first has a big stick;
the second has a great pair of round things on her







A WONDERFUL TRIO.


eyes ; and the third has a sack on her ba;c, bit it i;
as flat as the palm of my hand, and car. h.ve rinol-
ing in it."
"Is there enough bread, and cheese, and n 11lI
and salt in the house?- We must ci:r-i..l.r"
Aye," answered Peterkin; "there
is plenty of each and all."
"Then let them come in, if they ,
will," said Gredel. "But they shall L
knock at the door first, for we go not
out on the highways and in the by-
ways to help others. Let them come
to us -good. But let us not go to
them, for they have their business,
and we have ours; and so the world
goes round "
"They are near the door," whis-
pered Peterkin, "and very good old
women they look."
The next moment there was a very
soft and civil tapping at the door.
"Who goes there ?" asked Peterkin.
"Three honest old women," cried a
voice.
"And what do three honest old
women want?" called Gredel.
"A bit of bread each," replied the
voice, "a mug of milk each, and one
corner for all three to sleep in until
in the morning up comes the sweet
yellow sun."
"Lift up the latch," said Gredel.
"Come in. There is bread, there is
milk, and a corner laid with three /'
sacks of thistle down. Come in, and
welcome."
Then up went the latch, and in
stepped the three travellers. Gredel
looked at them without moving; but
when she saw they were pleasant in
appearance that their eyes were
keen in spite of their many wrinkles,
and that their smiles were very fresh and pleasant
notwithstanding the lines about their mouth, lazy but
good-hearted Gredel got up and made a neat little
bow of welcome.
Are you sisters ?" she asked.
"We are three sisters," answered the leader, she


V r. r ::ni.: .


commonly called Sister Pansy."
"And I," added the third, who carried the bag,
" am styled Sister Satchel."
Your mother and father must have been a good-
looking couple," said Gredel, smiling.
"They were born handsome," quoth Trot, rearing
her head proudly, and they grew handsomer."







A WONDERFUL TRIO.


How came they to grow handsomer?" asked
Peterkin, who had been standing in a corner.
"Because they were brisk and hurried about,"
replied Pansy, and never found the day too long.
But pray, sir, who are you ?"
I am Peterkin, son of Gredel."
"And may I ask what you do ? inquired Trot.
Watch the goats."
And what do you do when you watch the goats ?"
"Look about."
"What do you see when you look about ?" asked
Sister Pansy.
"The sky, and the earth, and the goats."
"Ah said Pansy, "it is very good to look at the
sky, and truly wise to look at the earth, while it is
clever to keep an eye on the goats ; but Peterkin -
Peterkin you do not look far enough "
"And when you look about," queried Sister
Satchel, "what do you pick up?"
"Nothing," said Peterkin.
"Nothing! echoed the visitor. What! not even
an idea?"
"What is an idea ? asked Peterkin.
"Oh, oh, oh said the three sisters. Here is
Peterkin, who not only never picks up an idea, but
actually does not know what one is "
"This comes of not moving about," said Trot.
"Of not looking about," said Pansy.
"And of not picking up something every day,"
said Satchel. "And a worse example I, for one,
never came across."
"Nor I "Nor I echoed the other sisters.
Whereupon they all looked at Peterkin, and seemed
dreadfully serious.
"Why, whatever have I done ? he demanded.
"That's just it said the sisters. What have
you done ?"
"Nothing! exclaimed Peterkin, quite with the
intention of justifying himself. Nothing at all !"
Ah said Trot, that is the truth, indeed; what-
ever else may be wrong done nothing at all !"
"Nothing! "Nothing repeated Satchel and
Pansy, in a breath.
Dear me said Peterkin.
Whereupon Gredel, half-frightened herself, and
partly indignant that her boy should be lamented
over in this uncalled-for manner, said, "Would you
be pleased to take a seat?"


Certainly said Trot. Still I, for one, would
not think of such a thing until your stools were
dusted."
Gredel could not believe her eyes, for actually Trot
raised one end of her stick and it became a brush,
with which she dusted three stools.
"I think, too," said Sister Pansy, looking out
sharp through her spectacles, "that if we were to
stop up that hole in the corner we should have less
draught. As a rule, holes are bad things in a house."
So off she went, and stopped up the hole'with a
handful of dried grass she took from a corner.
Bless me !" said Satchel; "here are four pins on
the floor!"
Whereupon she picked up the pins and popped
them into her wallet. Meanwhile Gredel looked on,
much astonished at these proceedings.
"I may as well have a rout while I am about it,"
said Trot, beginning at once to sweep up.
"Cobwebs in every corner!" cried Pansy; and
away she went, looking after the walls.
No wonder you could not find your wooden
spoon," remarked Satchel; "why, here it is, most
mysteriously up the chimney "
There was such a dusting, sweeping, and general
cleaning as the place had never seen before.
"This is great fun! said Peterkin; "but how it
makes you sneeze "
"Here, dame Gredel," cried Satchel; "I have
picked up all the things you must have lost for the
last three years. Here is your thimble; and now
you can take the bit of leather off your finger. Here
are your scissors, which will cut cloth better than
that knife; and here is the lost leg of the third stool
-so that I can now sit down in safety."
Why," exclaimed Peterkin, the place looks
twice as large as it did, and ten times brighter.
Mother, I am glad the ladies have come."
"I am sure, ladies," said the good woman, "I
shall never forget your visit."
To tell the truth, however, there was something
very ambiguous in Gredel's words.
There said Trot; and now I can sit down in
comfort to my bread and milk."
And very good bread and milk, too," said Satchel.
I think, sisters, we are quite fortunate to fall upon
this goodly cot."
"Yes," remarked Trot, they are not bad souls,







A WONDERFUL TRIO.


this Gredel and Peterkin; but, they sadly want mend- A good lad," remarked Pansy to Gredel, "but he
ing. However, they have good hearts, and you know must look about him."
that those who love much are forgiven much; and "Truly," said Satchel. "And, above all, he must
indeed I would sooner eat my supper here than in pick up everything he comes *.vross, when he can do
some palaces you and I, sisters, know something so without robbing a neighbor, and he may steal all
about." his neighbor knows, without depriving the gentle-
Quite true !" assented the others, "quite true I" man of anything."
And so they went on talking as though they had Then Peterkin, feeling as light as a feather, started
been in their own house and no one ,ut themselves off down the hillside, the three old sisters chatting,
in the room. Gredel listened w.;: astonishment, and whispering, and chuckling in a very wonderful man-
Peterkin with all his ears. .oo delighted even to be ner. So, when they were quite in the valley, Peter-
astonished. kin said, Please you, I will leave you now, ladies;
"Now this," thought 'e, "' homes of their knowing and many thanks for your coming." Then he very
something of what goes cni beyond the Great Hill as civilly touched his tattered cap, and was turning on
far away as I can see." his battered heels, when Sister Trot said, "Stop!"
"Time for bed," suddenly said Dame Trot, who and he turned.
evidently was the leader, "if we are to see the sun Peterkin," she said, "thou art worth loving and
rise." thinking about, and for your kindness to us wander-
The sisters then made themselves quite comfort- ers we must ask you to keep something in remem-
able, and tucked up their thistle-down beds and brance of our visit. Here, take my wonderful stick
home-spun sheets with perfect good humor, and believe in it. You know me as Trot, but grown-
up men call me the Fairy Work-o'-Day." Peterkin
Peterkin awoke cheerily, and he was dressed even made his obeisance, and took the stick.
before the sun appeared. He made the fire, set the "I will never lose it! said he.
table, gave the place a cheerful air, and then opened "You never will," said Trot, "after once you know
the door to look after the goats, wondering why he how to use it."
felt so light and happy. He was soon joined by the "Well," said sister Pansy, I am not to be beaten
three sisters, who made a great to-do with some cold by my sister, and so here are my spectacles."
water and their washing. I shall look very funny in them," said Peterkin,
"Is it good to put your head souse in a pail?" eyeing them doubtfully.
asked Peterkin. "Nay; nobody will see them on your nose as you
Try it," replied Dame Trot. mark them on mine. The world will observe their
So by this time, quite trusting the old women, he wisdom in your eyes, but the wires will be invisible.
did so, and found his breath gone in a moment. By-the-by, sister Pansy is only my home-name; men
However, he enjoyed breathing all the more when he call me Fairy See-far; and so be good."
found his head once more out of the pail, and after "As for me," said the third sister, "I am but the
Pansy had rubbed him dry with a rough towel, younger of the family. I could not be in existence
which she took out of Satchel's wallet, he thought he had not my sisters been born into the world. I am
had never experienced such a delightful feeling as going to give you my sack; but take heed, it were
then took possession of him. Even since the previ- better that you had no sack at all than that you should
ous night he felt quite a new being, and alas! he fill it too full; than that you should fling into it all
found himself forgetting Gredel-his mother Gredel, that you see; than that you should pass by on the
who loved him and taught him only to live for to-day. other side when, your sack being full, another human
And shall I show you down the hill-side ? asked being, fallen amongst thieves, lies bleeding and want-
Peterkin, when the three sisters had taken their por- ing help! And now know that, though I am some-
ridge and were sprucing themselves for departure. times called Satchel, my name amongst the good
"Yes," said dame Trot, "and glad am I thou hast people is the Fairy Save-some."
saved us the trouble of asking thee." Good by," suddenly said the three sisters. They







A WONDERFUL TRIO.


smiled, and instantly they were gone--just like
Three Thoughts.
So he turned his face towards home, with sorrow in
his heart as he thought of the three sisters, while hope
was mixed with the sadness as he glanced towards
the far-off mountain which was called Mons Futura.
Now, Peterkin had never cared to climb hiilsides,
and, therefore he rarely went down them if he could
help it, always lazily stopping at the top. But now
the wonderful stick, as he pressed it upon the ground,
seemed to give him a light heart, and a lighter pair of
heels, and he danced up the hillside just as though
he were holiday-making, soon reaching home.
"See, mother," said Peterkin, "the good women
have given me each a present- the one her stick, the
second her glasses, and the third her wallet."
"Ho !" said Gredel. "Well, I am not sorry they"
are gone, for I am afraid they would soon have made
you despise your mother. They are very pleasant old
people no doubt, but rude and certainly ill-bred, or
they would not have put my house to rights."
"But it looked all the better for it."
"It looked very well as it was."
"But the world goes on and on," said Peterkin.
Gredel shook her head. Humph she said, a
stick, an old pair of spectacles, and a sack not worth
a dime When people give gifts, let them be gifts
and not cast-offs."
"Anyhow," said Peterkin, "I can tell you that the
stick is a good stick, and helps you over the hill
famously. I will keep it, and you may have the sack
and the spectacles."
"Let us try your spectacles," cried Gredel. Oh /"
,he said, trying them on carelessly. "These are the
most wonderful spectacles in the world," she went on;
"but no more civil than those three old women."
What do you mean, mother? "
"I see you, Peterkin -and a very sad sight, too.
Why, you are lazy, careless, unwashed, and stupid ;
and a more deplorable object was never seen by hon-
est woman."
Poor Peterkin blushed very much ; but'at this point,
his mother taking off the glasses, he seized and placed
them before his own eyes. Oh!" he exclaimed.
What now ?" asked Gredel in some alarm.
"Now I see you as you are and a very bad
example are you to set before your own son Why,
you are careless, and love me not for myself but your-


self, or you would do your best for me, and send me
out in the world."
What ? and dare you talk to your mother in such
fashion? Give me the spectacles once more!" and
she clapped them on again. "Bless me she con-
tinued, the boy is quite right, and I see I am selfish,
and that I am making him selfish a very pretty
business, indeed! This is to be thought over," she
said, laying aside the spectacles.
By this time Peterkin had possessed himself of the
stick, and then, to his amazement, he found it had
taken the shape of a spade.
"Well," said he, as here is a spade I think I will
turn over the potato-patch." This he did; and com-
ing in to breakfast he was admonished to find how
fine the milk tasted. "Mother," said he, "here is a
penny I have found in the field."
"Put it in the bag," said Gredel.
He did so, and immediately there was a chink.
Over he turned the sack, and lo! there were ten
pennies sprinkled on the table.
"Ho, ho said Peterkin, "if, now, the bag increases
money after such a pleasant manner, I have but to
take out one coin and cast it in again, and soon I
shall have a fortune." He did so; but he heard
no chinking. He inverted the bag again, and out
fell the one coin he had picked up while digging the
potato-patch.
"This, now, is very singular," he said; "let me
put on the spectacles." This done, Ha !" he cried,
" I see now how it is. The money will never grow in
the sack, unless one works hard; and then it increases
whether one will or not."
Meanwhile Gredel, taking up the stick, it took the
shape of a broom, and upon the hint she swept the
floor. Next, sitting down before Peterkin's clothes,
the stick became a needle, and she stitched away
with a will.
So time rolled on. The cottage flourished, and
the garden was beautiful. Then a cow was brought
home, and it was wonderful how often fresh money
changed in the wallet. Gredel had grown handsomer,
and so also had Peterkin. But one day it came to
pass that Peterkin said: Mother, it is time I went
over the great hill."
"What! canst thou leave me ?"
"Thou didst leave thy father and mother."
Gredel was wiser than she had been, and so she






A WONDERFUL TRIO.


quietly said : "Let us put on the spectacles. Ah 1
I see," she then said, a mother may love her son,
but she must not stand in his way as he goes on in
the world, or she becomes his enemy."
Then Peterkin put on the spectacles. "Ah! I
see," said he, a son may love his mother, but his love
must not interfere with his duty to other men. The
glasses say that every man should try and leave the
world something the better for his coming; that many
fail and but few succeed, yet that all must strive."
"So be it," said Gredel. Go forth into the world,
my son, and leave me hopeful here alone."
"The glasses say that the sense of duty done is the


greatest happiness in the world," said Peterkin.
Then Gredel looked again through the glasses.
I see," said she; "the glasses say it is better to
have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
Go forth into the world, my son: we shall both be
the happier for having done our duty."
So out into the world went Peterkin.
What else is there to tell? Why, who can write of
to-morrow ?
By the way, you should know that amongst the
very wise folk sister Trot is known as Industry,"
sister Pansy as "Foresight," while honest Satchel is
generally called Economy."


- -- ---
Oti LLi


__ ___


IbJ "%__ i


Q;lr ~ )KL ~PL;I.1L




























TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


BY ROSSITER JOHNSON.


ONE afternoon I went over to see Fred Bar-
nard, and found him sitting on the back steps,
apparently meditating.
What are you doing?" said I.
Waiting for that handkerchief to dry," said he,
pointing to a red one with round white spots, which
hung on the clothes-line.
"And what are you going to do when it's dry?"
said I.
Tie up my things in it," said he.
Things! What things ? "
0, such things as a fellow needs when he's trav-
eling. I'm going to seek my fortune."
Where are you going to seek it ? said I.
"I can't tell exactly- anywhere and everywhere.
I'm going till I find it."
"But," said I, "do you really expect to turn over
a stone, or pull up a bush, or get to the end of a
rainbow, and find a crock full of five-dollar gold
pieces ?"
O, no !" said Fred. Such things are gone by
long ago. You can't do that nowadays, if you ever
could. But people do get rich nowadays, and there
must be some way to do it."
Don't they get rich mostly by staying at home,
and minding their business," said I, "instead of
going off tramping about the world ? "


Maybe some of them do," said Fred; "but my
father has always staid at home, and minded his busi-
ness, and he hasn't got rich; and I don't believe he
ever will. But there's uncle Silas, he's always on the
go, so you never know where to direct a letter to him;
and he has lots of money. Sometimes mother tells
him he ought to settle down; but he always says,
if he did he's afraid he wouldn't be able to settle
up by and by."
I thought of my own father, and my mother's
brother. They both staid at home and minded their
own business, yet neither of them was rich. This
seemed to confirm Fred's theory, and I was inclined
to think he was more than half right.
I don't know but I'd like to go with you," said I.
I don't want you to," said Fred.
Why," said I, in astonishment; "are we not good
friends ? "
0, yes, good friends as ever," said Fred; "but
you're not very likely to find two fortunes close to-
gether ; and I think it's better for every one to go
alone."
Then why couldn't I start at the same time you
do, and go a different way ? "
That would do," said Fred. I'm going to start
to-morrow morning." And he walked to the line,
and felt of the handkerchief.






TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


I can take mother's traveling-bag," said I. "That
will be handier to carry than a bundle tied up."
"Take it if you like," said Fred; "but I believe
there's luck in an old-fashioned handkerchief. In all
the pictures of boys going to seek their fortunes, they
have their things tied up in a handkerchief, and a
stick put through it and over their shoulder."
I did not sympathize much with Fred's belief in
luck, though I thought it was possible there might
be something in it; but the bundle in the handker-
chief seemed to savor a little more of romance, and
I determined that I would conform to the ancient
style.
Does your father know about it ? said I.
Yes; and he says I may go."
Just then Fred's father drove around from the
barn.
I'm going away," said he to Fred, "to be gone
several days. So, if you go in the morning, I shall
not see you again until you return from your travels."
And he laughed a little.
"Well, I'm certainly going to-morrow morning,"
said Fred, in answer to the "if."
"You ought to have a little money with you," said
Mr. Barnard, taking out his wallet.
No, sir, I thank you," said Fred; "but I'd rather
not have it."
His father looked surprised.
I think it's luckier to start without it," said Fred,
in explanation.
Very well! Luck go with you !" said Mr. Bar-
nard, as he drove off.
Do you think it best to go without any money
at all ? said I. It seems to me it would be better
to have a little."
"No," said Fred; "a fellow ought to depend on
himself, and trust to luck. It wouldn't be any fun at
all to stop at taverns and pay for meals and lodging,
just like ordinary travelers. And then, if people saw
I had money to pay for things, they wouldn't believe
I was going to seek my fortune."
Why, do we want them to know that ?" said I.
Ido," said he.
"That isn't the way the boys in the stories do,"
said I.
And that's just where they missed it," said Fred
"or would, if they lived nowadays. Don't you see that
everybody that wants anything lets everybody know


it ? When I'm on my travels, I'm going to tell every
one what I'm after. That's the way to find out where
to go and what to do."
Won't some of them fool you," said I, "and tell
you lies, and send you on the wrong road ? "
"A fellow's got to look out for that," said Fred,
knowingly. "We needn't believe all they say."
What must we take in our bundles ? said I.
I'm going to take some cookies, and a Bible, and
a tin cup, and a ball of string, and a pint of salt,"
said Fred.
"What's the salt for ?" said I.
"We may have to camp out some nights," said
Fred, and live on what we can find. There are lots
of things you can find in the woods and fields to
live on ; but some of them ain't good without salt -
mushrooms, for instance." Fred was very fond of
mushrooms.
And is the string to tie up the bags of money ? "
said I not meaning to be at all sarcastic.
0, no said Fred ; "but string's always handy to.
have. We may want to set snares for game, or tie up.
things that break, or catch fish. And then if you
have to stay all night in a house where the people
look suspicious, you can fix a string so that if any one
opens the door of your room, it'll wake you up."
If that happened, you'd want a pistol -wouldn't
you ?" said I. "Or else it wouldn't do much good to
be waked up."
I'd take a pistol, if I had one," said Fred ; "but
I can get along without it. You can always hit 'emr
over the head with a chair, or a pitcher, or something.
You know you can swing a pitcher full of water
around quick, and not spill a drop; and if you should
hit a man a fair blow with it, wouldd knock him
senseless. Besides, it's dangerous using a pistol in a
house. Sometimes the bullets go through the wall,
and kill innocent persons."
We don't want to do that," said I.
No," said Fred ; "that would be awful unlucky."
Then he felt of the handkerchief again, said he
guessed it was dry enough, and took it off from the
line.
Fred," said I, "how much is a fortune ?"
That depends on your ideas," said Fred, as he
smoothed the handkerchief over his knee. "I should
not be satisfied with less than a hundred thousand
dollars."







TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


I ought to be going home to get ready," said I.
"What time do we start ? "
Five o'clock exactly," said Fred.
So we agreed to meet at the horse-block, in front
of the house, a minute or two before five the next
morning, and start simultaneously on the search for
fortune.
I went home, and asked mother if there was a red
handkerchief, with round white spots on it, in the
house.
I think there is," said she. "What do you want
with it ?"
I told her all about our plan, just as Fred and I
had arranged it. She smiled, said she hoped we
would be successful, and went to get the handkerchief.
It proved to be just like Fred's, except that the
spots were yellow, and had little red dots in the mid-
dle. I thought that would do, and then asked her
for the salt, the cup, and the cookies. She gave me
her pint measure full of salt, and as she had no cookies
in the house, she substituted four sandwiches.
But," said I, "won't you want to use this cup
before I get back?"
I think not," said she, with a twinkle in her eye,
which puzzled me then, but which afterward I under-
stood.
I got my little Bible, and some twine, and then went
into the yard to hunt up a stick to carry the bundle
on. I found a slender spoke from an old carriage-
wheel, and adopted it at once. "That," said I to
myself, as I handled and "hefted it, would be just
the thing to hit a burglar over the head with."
I fixed the bundle all ready for a start, and went
to bed in good season. Mother rose early, got
me a nice breakfast, and called me at half past
four.
"Mother," said I, as feelings of gratitude rose
within me at the excellence of the meal, how does
a camel's-hair shawl look ? "
I don't know, my son," said she. I never saw
one."
Never saw one said I. "Well, you shall sce
one, a big one, if I find my fortune."
Thank you," said mother, and smiled again that
peculiar smile.
Fred and I met promptly at the horse-block. He
greatly admired my stick ; his was an old hoe-handie,
sawed short. I gave him two of my sandwiches for


half of his cookies, and we tied up the bundles snugly,.
and slung them over our shoulders.
How long do you think it will take us ? said I.
Maybe three or four years maybe more,"
said he.
Let us agree to meet again on this spot five years.
from to-day," said I.
All right! said Fred; and he took out a bit of
lead pencil, and wrote the date on the side of the block.
The rains and snows will wash that off before the
five years are up," said I.
Never mind we can remember," said Fred.
"And now," he continued, as he shook hands with
me, "don't look back. I'm not going to; it isn't
lucky, and it'll make us want to be home again.
Good-bye "
"Good-bye Remember, five years," said I.
He took the east road, I the west, and neither
looked back.
I think I must have walked about four miles with-
out seeing any human being. Then I fell in with a
boy, who was driving three cows to pasture, and we
scraped acquaintance.
Where y' goin' ? said he, eyeing my bundle.
A long journey," said I.
Chiny ? said he.
Maybe so -maybe not," said I.
What y' got 't sell ? said he.
"Nothing," said I; "I'm only a traveler not a
peddler. Can you tell me whose house that is ?"
That big white one ? said he; that's Hath-
away's."
It looks new," said I.
Yes, 'tis, spick an' span," said he. Hathaway's
jest moved into it; used to live in that little brown
one over there."
Mr. Hathaway must be rich," said I.
Jolly I guess he is wish I was half as rich,"
said the boy. Made 's money on the rise of prop'ty.
Used to own all this land round here, when 'twas a
howlin' wilderness. I've heard dad say so lots o'
times. There he is now."
Who ? -your father ? said I.
No ; Hathaway." And the boy pointed to a very
old, white-headed man, who was leaning on a cane, and
looking up at the cornice of the house.
He looks old," said I.
He is, awful old," said the boy. "'Can't live







TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


much longer. His daughter Nancy '11 take the hull.
Ain't no other relations."
How old is Nancy ? said I; and if I had been a
few years older myself, the question might have been
significant; but among all the methods I had thought
over of acquiring a fortune, that of marrying one was
not included.
"0, she's gray-headed too," said the boy, "'n
deafer 'n a post, 'nd blind 's a bat. I wish the old
man couldn't swaller a mouthful o' breakfast till
he'd give me ,alf what he's got." And with this
charitable expression he tmarLer with the cows into
the lane, and I saw him no more.
While I was meditating on the venerable but not
venerated Mr. Hathaway and his property, a wagon
came rumblin; along behind me.
: Do:'t you want to ride ? said the driver, as I
stepped aside to let it pass.
I thanked him, and climbed to a place beside him
-on the rough seat. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and
wore a torn straw hat. He had reddish side-whiskers,
and has chin needed shaving, badly.
Got far to go ?" said he, as the team started up
,again.
I expect to walk all day," said I.
Then you must get a lift when you can," said he.
"' Don't be afraid to ask. A good many that wouldn't
invite you, as I did, would let you ride if you asked
them."
I promised to remember his advice.
Ever drive a team ? said he.
Not much," said I.
I want a good boy to drive team," said he. Sup-
pose you could learn." And then he began to talk to
the horses, and to whistle.
How much would you pay? said I.
I'd give a good smart boy ten dollars a month and
board," said he. Git ap, Doc "
How much of that could he save? said I.
Save eight dollars a month easy enough, if he's
careful of his clothes, and don't want to go to every
circus that comes along," said he.
I made a mental calculation : Eight times twelve
are ninety-six-into a hundred thousand -one thou-
sand and forty-one years, and some months. 0, yes !
interest-well, nearly a thousand years." Then I
said aloud, "I guess I won't hire; don't believe I'd
anake a very good teamster."


"I think you would ; and it's good wages," said he.
Nobody but Methuselah could get rich at it,"
said I.
"Rich?" said he. "Of course you couldn't get
rich teaming. If that's what you're after, I'll tell you
what you do: plant a forest. Timber's good property.
The price of it's more than doubled in ten years past,
and it '11 be higher yet. You plant a tree, and it '11
grow while you sleep. Chess won't choke it, and the
weevil can't eat it. "You don't have to hoe it, nor
mow it, nor pick it, nor rotate it, nor feed it, nor churn
it, nor nothing. That's the beauty of it. And you
plant a forest of trees, and in time it '1 make you a
rich man."
How much time ?" said I.
"Well, that piece of timber you see over there,-
that's Eph Martin's; he's going to cut it next season.
The biggest trees must be-well, perhaps eighty
years old. You reckon up the interest on the cost of
the land, and you'll see it's a good investment. I
wish I had such a piece."
Why don't you plant one ?" said I,
O, I'm too old My grandfather ought to have
done it for me. Whoa! Doc. Whoa! Tim."
He drew up at a large, red barn, where a man and
a boy were grinding a scythe. I jumped down, and
trudged on.
After I had gone a mile or two, I began to feel
hungry, and sat done on a stone, under a great oak
tree, to eat a sandwich. Before I knew it I had eaten
two, and then I was thirsty. There was a well in a
door-yard close by, and I went to it. The bucket was
too heavy for me to lift, and so I turned the salt out
of my cup in a little pile on a clean-looking corner
of the well-curb, and drank.
The woman of the house came to the door, and took
a good look at me; then she asked if I would not rather
have a drink of milk. I said I would, and she brought
a large bowlful, which I sat down on the door-step
to enjoy.
Presently a sun-browned, barefooted boy, wearing
a new chip hat, and having his trousers slung by a
single suspender, came around the corner of the house,
and stopped before me.
Got any Shanghais at your house ? said he.
No !"
Any Cochins? "
No "







TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


Any Malays? "
No !"
"What have you got ?"
"About twenty common hens," said I, perceiving
that his thoughts were running on fancy breeds of fowls.
Don't want to buy a nice pair of Shanghais -do
you?" said he.
I couldn't take them to-day," said I.
Let's go look at them," said he; and I followed
him toward the barn.
This is my hennery," said he, with evident pride,
as we came to a small yard which was inclosed with
a fence made of long, narrow strips of board, set up
endwise, and nailed to a slight railing. Inside was
a low shed, with half a dozen small entrances near
the ground.
"Me and Jake built this," said he. "Jake's my
brother."
He unbuckled a strap-that fastened the gate, and
we went inside. A few fowls, of breeds unfamiliar to
me, were scratching about the yard.
Don't you call them nice hens ? said he.
"I guess they are," said I; "but I don't know
much about hens."
Don't you ? said he. "' Then I'll tell you some-
thing about them. There's money in hens. Father
says so, and I know it's so. I made fifty-one dollars
and thirteen cents on these last year. I wish I had
a million."
"A million dollars," said I, "is a good deal of
money. I should be satisfied with one tenth of that."
I meant a million hens," said he. "I'd rather
have a million hens than a million dollars."
I went through a mental calculation similar to the
one I had indulged in while riding with the teamster :
"Fifty-one, thirteen almost two thousand years.
Great Caesar! Yes, Great Caesar sure enough! I
ought to have begun keeping hens about the time
Cassius was egging on the conspirators to lay out that
gentleman. But I forgot the interest again. Call it
fifteen hundred."
Let's go in and look at the nests," said the boy,
opening the door of the shed.
The nests were in a row of boxes nailed to the wall.
He took out some of the eggs, and showed them to
me. Several had pencil-writing on the shell, intended
to denote the breed. I remember Gaim, Schanghy,
and Cotching.


"There's a pair of Shanghais," said he as he went
out, pointing with one hand while he tightened the
gate-strap with the other, "that I'll sell you for five
dollars. Or I'll sell you half a dozen eggs for six
dollars."
I told him I couldn't trade that day, but would cer-
tainly come and see him when I wanted to buy any-
fancy hens.
If you see anybody," said he, as we parted, "that
wants a nice pair of Shanghais reasonable, you tell
'em where I live."
I will," said I, and pushed on.
Money in hens, eh ?" said I to myself. "Then..
if they belonged to me, I'd kill them, and get it out
of them at once, notwithstanding the proverb about.
the goose."
After some further journeying I came to a roadside
tavern. A large, square sign, with a faded picture of
a horse, and the words SCHUYLER'S HOTEL, faintly
legible, hung from an arm that extended over the road.
from a high post by the pump.
I sat down on the steps, below a group of men who.
were tilted back in chairs on the piazza. One, who.
wore a red shirt, and chewed a very large quid of
tobacco, was just saying, -
Take it by and through, a man can make wages,
at the mines, and that's all he can make."
Unless he strikes a big nugget," said a little man
with one eye.
He might be there a hundred years, and not do
that," said Red Shirt. I never struck one."
And again he might strike it the very first day,"
said One Eye.
Again he might," said Red Shirt; "but I'd rather
take my chances keeping tavern. Look at Schuyler,
now. He'll die a rich man."
The one who seemed to be Schuyler was well worth
looking at. I had never seen so much man packed
into so much chair; and it was an exact fit--just
enough chair for the man, just enough man for the
chair. Schuyler's boundary from his chin to his toe
was nearly, if not exactly, a straight line.
Die rich ? said One Eye. He's a livin' rich ;
he's rich to-day."
If any of you gentlemen want to make your for-
tune keeping a hotel," said Schuyler, I'll sell onr
easy terms."
How much, 'squire ? said Red Shirt.







TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


" O H ET E OAD, I THE NVLST, AND N.lTHER LOOKiD BACK. -See page 61.


Fifteen," answered Schuyler.
Fifteen thousand-furniture and all ? said One
-Eye.
Everything," said Schuyler.
Your gran'f'ther bought the place for fifteen hun-
dred," said One Eye. But money was wuth more
then."
While listening to this conversation, I had taken
out my cookies, and I was eating the last of them,
when One Eye made his last recorded remark.
Won't you come in, sonny, and stay over night ? "
said Schuyler.
Thank you, sir," said I ; "but I can't stop."
"Then don't be mussing up my clean steps,"
said he.
I looked at him to see if he was in earnest for I
was too hungry to let a single crum fall, and could
not conceive what should make a muss. The whole
'company were staring at me most uncomfortably.
Without saying another word, I picked up my stick
and bundle, and walked off.
Thirteen thousand five hundred," said I to myself,
slowly, in three generations four thousand five
hundred to a generation. I ought to have come over


with Christopher Columbus, and set up a tavern for
the red-skins to lounge around. Then maybe if I
never let any little Indian boys eat their lunches
on the steps, I'd be a rich man now. Fifteen thou-
sand dollars-and so mean, so abominably mean-
and such a crowd of loafers for company. No, I
wouldn't keep tavern if I could get rich in one gen-
eration."
At the close of this soliloquy, I found I had in-
stinctively turned towards home when I left Schuyler's
Hotel. "It's just as well," said I, "just as well!
I'd rather stay at home and mind my business, like
father, and not have any fortune, if that's the way
people get them nowadays."
I had the good luck to fall in with my friend the
teamster, who gave me a longer lift than before, and
sounded me once more on the subject of hiring out to
drive team for him.
As I passed over the crest of the last hill in the
road, I saw something in the distance that looked
very much like another boy with a bundle over his
shoulder. I waved my hat. It waved its hat. We
met at the horse-block, each carrying a broad grin the
last few rods of the way.








TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


"Let's see your fortune," said I, as I laid my
bundle on the block.
"Let's see yours," said he, as he laid his beside it.
"You started the plan," said I; so you tell your
adventures first."
Thereupon Fred told his story, which I give nearly
in his own words..
He traveled a long distance before he met with
any incident. Then he came to a house that had
several windows boarded up, and looked as if it might
not be inhabited. While Fred stood looking at it,
and wondering about it, he saw a shovelful of earth
come out of one of the cellar windows. It was fol-
lowed in a few seconds by another, and another, at
regular intervals.
I know how it is," said Fred. Some old miser
has lived and died in that house. He used to bury
his money in the cellar; and now somebody's digging
for it. I mean to see if I can't help him."
Going to the window, he stooped down and looked
in. At first he saw nothing but the gleam of a new
shovel. But when he had looked longer he discerned
the form of the man who wielded it.
Hello said Fred, as the digger approached the
window to throw out a shovelful.
Hello Who are you ? said the man.
I'm a boy going to seek my fortune," said Fred.
" What are you digging for ? "
Digging for a fortune," said the man, taking up
another shovelful.
May I help you ? said Fred.
Yes, if you like."
"And have half ? "
"Have all you find," said the man, forcing down
his shovel with his foot.
Fred ran around to the cellar door, laid down his
bundle on the grass beside it, and entered. The
man pointed to an old shovel with a large corner
broken off, and Fred picked it up and went to
work.
Nearly half of the cellar bottom had been lowered
about a foot by digging, and the man was lowering
the remainder. With Fred's help, after about two
hours of hard work, it was all cut down to the lower
level.
Fred had kept his eyes open, and scrutinized every
shovelful; but nothing like a coin had gladdened his
sight. Once he thought he had one, and ran to the


light with it. But it proved to be only the iron ear
broken off from some old bucket.
I guess that'll do," said the man, wiping his brow,
when the leveling was completed.
Do ? said Fred, in astonishment. Why, we
haven't found any of the money yet."
"What money ? "
"The money the old miser buried, of course."
The man laughed heartily. "I wasn't digging for
any miser's money," said he.
"You said so," said Fred.
"0, no! said the man. I said I was digging
for a fortune. Come and sit down, and I'll tell you
all about it."
They took seats on the highest of the cellar steps
that led out of doors.
You see," continued the man, my wife went down
cellar one day, and struck her forehead against one
of those beams ; and she died of it. If she had lived
a week longer, she'd have inherited a very pretty
property. So I've lowered the cellar floor; and if I
should have another wife, her head couldn't reach the
beams, unless she was very tall -taller than I am. So
if she inherits a fortune, the cellar won't prevent us
getting it. That's the fortune I was digging for."
"It's a mean trick to play on a boy; and if I was
a man, I'd lick you," said Fred, as he shouldered his
bundle and walked away.
Two or three miles farther down the road he came
to a small blacksmith shop. The smith, a stout, mid-
dle-aged man, was sitting astride of a small bench
with long legs, making horseshoe nails on a little
anvil that rose from one end of it.
Fred went in, and asked if he might sit there a
while to rest.
"Certainly," said the blacksmith, as he threw a
finished nail into an open drawer under the bench.
"How far have you come ? "
I can't tell," said Fred ; "it must be as much as
ten miles."
"Got far to go ?"
I don't know how far. I'm going to seek my for-
tune."
The smith let his hammer rest on the anvil, and
took a good look at Fred. "You seem to be in
earnest," said he.
"I am," said Fred.
Don't you know that gold dollars don't go rolling







TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


up hill in these days, for boys to chase them, and we
haven't any fairies in this country, dancing by moon-
light over buried treasure ? said the smith.
0, yes, I know that," said Fred. "But people
get rich in these days as much as ever they did.
And I want to find out the best way to do it."
"What is that nail made of ? said the smith, hold-
ing out one.
Iron," said Fred, wondering what that had to do
with a boy seeking his fortune.
"And that hammer ?"
"Iron."
"And that anvil?"
Iron."
Well, don't you see," said the smith, resting his
hammer on the anvil, and leaning over it toward
Fred, don't you see that everything depends on
iron ? A farmer can't cultivate the ground until he
has a plow; and that plow is made of iron. A
butcher can't cut up a critter until he has a knife;
and that knife is made of iron. A tailor can't make
a garment without a needle; and that needle is made
of iron. You can't build a ship without iron, nor
start a mill, nor arm a regiment. The stone age,
and the brass age, and the golden age are all gone
by. This is the iron age; and iron is the basis of all
wealth. The richest man is the man that has the
most iron. Railroads are made of iron, and the rich-
est men are those that own railroads."
"How can one man own a railroad?" said Fred,
amazed at the vastness of such wealth.
Wel1, he can't exactly, unless he steals it," said
the smith.
I should like to own a railroad," said Fred ; and
he -:... i,_.: what fun he might have, as well as profit,
being conductor on his own train; but I didn't come
to steal; I want to find a fortune honestly."
Then look for it in iron," said the smith. Iron
in some form always paves the road to prosperity."
"Would blacksmithing be a good way?" said
Fred.
Now you've hit it," said the smith. "I haven't
got rich myself, and probably never shall. But I
didn't take the right course. I was a sailor when I
was young, and spent half my life wandering around
the world, before I settled down and turned black-
smith. I dare say if I had learned the trade early
enough, and had gone and set up a shop in some


large place, or some rising place, and hadn't always
been so low in my charges, I might be a rich man."
Fred thought the blacksmith must be a very enter-
taining and learned man, whom it would be pleasant
as well as profitable to work with. So, after thinking
it over a few minutes, he said, -
Do you want to hire a boy to learn the business ? "
I'll give you a chance," said the smith, "and see
what you can do." Then he went outside and drew
in a wagon, which was complete except part of the
iron-work, and started up his fire, and thrust in some:
small bars of iron.
Fred laid aside his bundle, threw off his jacket, and
announced that he was ready for work. The smith
set him to blowing the bellows, and afterward gave
him a light sledge, and showed him how to strike the
red-hot bar on the anvil, alternating with the blows of
the smith's own hammer.
At first it was very interesting to feel the soft iron
give at every blow, and see the sparks fly, and the bars,
and rods taking the well-known shapes of carriage-irons.
But either the smith had reached the end of his polit-
ical economy, or else he was too much in earnest
about his work to deliver orations; his talk now was
of saggingg" and "upsetting," and countersink-
ing," and taps," and dies "- all of which terms he
taught Fred the use of.
Fred was quick enough to learn, but had never
been fond of work; and this was work that made the
sweat roll down his whole body. After an hour or
two, he gave it up.
I think I'll look further for my fortune," said he;:
this is too hard work."
"All right," said the smith; "but maybe you'll
fare worse. You've earned a little something, any-
way ;" and he drew aside his leather apron, thrust his
hand into his pocket, and brought out seven cents;
which Fred accepted with thanks, and resumed his
journey.
His next encounter was with a farmer, who sat in
the grassy corner of a field, under the shade of a
maple tree, eating his dinner. This reminded Fred
that it was noon, and that he was hungry.
How d'e do, mister ? said Fred, looking through
the rail-fence. I should like to come over and take
dinner with you."
You'll have to furnish your own victuals," said
the farmer.







TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


That I can do," said Fred, and climbed over the
fence, and sat down by his new acquaintance.
Where you bound for ?" said the farmer, as Fred
opened his bundle, and took out a sandwich.
Going to seek my fortune," said Fred.
You don't look like a runaway 'prentice," said
the farmer; "but that's a curious answer to a civil
question."
It's true," said Fred. "I am going to seek my
fortune."
Where do you expect to find it ? "
I can't tell I suppose I must hunt for it."
Well, I can tell you where to look for it, if you're
in earnest; and 'tain't so very far off, either," said
the farmer, as he raised the jug of milk to his mouth.
Fred indicated by his attitude that he was all-atten-
tion, while the farmer took a long drink.
In the ground," said he, as he sat down the jug
with one hand, and brushed the other across his
mouth. "There's no wealth but what comes out of
the ground in some way. All the trees and plants,
all the grains, and grasses, and garden-sass, all the
brick and stone, all the metals--iron, gold, silver,
copper-everything comes out of the ground. That's
where man himself came from, according to the Bible:
'Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.'
And the first primary foundation of it all is agri-
culture. Hewson, the blacksmith, pretends to say
it's iron; and he maintained that side in the debat-
ing club at the last meeting. But I maintained it
was agriculture, and I maintain so still. Says I, 'Mr.
President, what's your tailor, and your sailor, and
your ship-builder, and your soldier, and your black-
smith going to do without something to eat ? [Here
the farmer made a vigorous gesture by bringing down
his fist upon his knee.] They can't eat needles, nor
spikes, nor guns, nor anvils. The farmer's got to
feed 'em, every one on 'em. And they've got to
have a good breakfast before they can do a good
day's work, and a dinner in the middle of it, and a
supper at the end of it. Can't plow without iron ?'
says I. 'Why, Mr. President, in Syria and there-
abouts they plow with a crooked limb of a tree to
this day. The gentleman can see a picture of it
in Barnes's Notes, if he has access to that valuable
work.' And says I, 'Mr. President, who was first in
the order of time Adam the farmer, or Tubal Cain
the blacksmith ? No, sir ; Adam was the precursor of


Tubal Cain; Adam had to be created before Tubal
Cain could exist. First the farmer, and then the
blacksmith ;- that, Mr. President, is the divine order
in the great procession of creation.' "
Here the farmer stopped, and cut a piece of meat
with his pocket-knife.
"Boy," he continued, "if you want a fortune, you
must dig it out of the ground. You won't find one
anywhere else."
Fred thought of his recent unpleasant experience
in digging for a fortune, and asked, Isn't digging
generally pretty hard work."
"Yes," said the farmer, as he took up his hoe, and
rose to his feet ; "it is hard work ; but it's a great:
deal more respectable than wandering around like a
vagrant, picking up old horse-shoes, and hollering
'Money !' at falling stars."
Fred thought the man was somehow getting per--
sonal. So he took his bundle, climbed the fence, and'
said good-bye to him.
He walked on until he came to a fork of the road,
and there he stopped, considering which road he would
take. He could find no sign-board of any sort, and
was about to toss one of his pennies to determine the
question, when he saw a white steeple at some dis-
tance down the right hand road. It's always good
luck to pass a church," said he, and took that road.
When he reached the church, he sat down on the
steps to rest. While he sat there, thinking over all
he had seen and heard that day, a gentleman wearing
a black coat, a high hat, and a white cravat, came
through the gate of a little house almost buried in
vines and bushes, that stood next to the church. He
saw Fred, and approached him, saying, -
Whither away, my little pilgrim ? "
I am going to seek my fortune," said Fred.
Haven't you a home ?"
Yes, sir."
Parents ?"
Yes, sir."
Are they good to you ?"
0, yes, sir."
Then you are fortunate already," said the gentle-
man. "When I was at your age, I had neither home
nor parents, and the people where I lived were very
unkind."
"But my father isn't rich," said Fred; "and he
never will be."







TWO FORTUNE-SEEKERS.


"And you want to be rich ?" said the gentleman.
Yes, sir. I thought I'd try to be," said Fred.
What for ? "
'What for? Why why so as to have the
money."
And what would you do with the money, if you
had it?"
I'd- I'd use it," said Fred, beginning to feel that
he had come to debating school without sufficiently
understanding the question.
"Do you see that pile of large stones near my
barn ?" said the gentleman. "I'll give you those,
and lend you a wheelbarrow to get them home."
I thank you," said Fred ; "but I don't want them.
They're of no use."
0, yes, they are You can build a house with
them," said the gentleman.
But I'm not ready to build a house," said Fred.
"I haven't any land to build it on, nor any other
materials, nor anything to put into it; and I'm not
old enough to be married and keep house."
Very true, my son and if you had a cart-load of
money now, it wouldn't be of any more value to you
than a cart-load of those building stones. But, after
you have been to school a few years longer, and
trained yourself to some business, and made a man of
yourself, and developed your character, then you will
have tastes, and capacities, and duties that require
money; and if you get it as you go along, and always
have enough to satisfy them, and none in excess to
encumber you, that will be the happiest fortune you
can find."
Fred took a few minutes to think of it. Then he
said, -
I believe you have told me the truth, and set me
on the right track. I will go home again, and try to
make a man of myself first, and a rich man afterward."


Before you start, perhaps you would like to come
into my house and get rested, and look at some
pictures."
Fred accepted the invitation. The lady of the
house gave him a delicious lunch, and he spent an
hour in the clergyman's study, looking over two or
three portfolios of prints and drawings, which they
explained to him. Then he bade them good-bye,
shouldered his bundle, and started for home, having
the good fortune to catch a long ride, and arriving
just as I did.
What I've learned," said he, as he finished his
story, is, that you can get rich if you don't care for
anything else; but you've either got to work yourself
to death for it, or else cheat somebody. You can get
it out of the ground by working, or you can get it out
of men by cheating. But who wants to do either ? I
don't. And I believe it isn't much use being rich,
any wa6y."
Then I told Fred my adventures. "And what
I've learned," said I, "is, that you can get rich
without much trouble, if you're willing to wait all
your life for forests to grow and property to rise.
But what's the use of money to an old man or an
old woman that's blind and deaf, and just ready to
die ? Or what good does it do a mean man, with a
lot of loafers round him? It can't make him a
gentleman."
And meditating upon this newly-acquired philoso-
phy, Fred and I went to our homes.
Mother," said I, I've got back."
Yes, my son, I expected you about this time."
But I haven't found a fortune, nor brought your
camel's-hair shawl."
It's just as well," said she; "for I haven't any-
thing else that would be suitable to wear with it."


1
';;;








THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS PIES.


THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS PIES.


BY E. F.


F LORIS shut up her book, and looked at mam-
ma. "Mamma, I wish we could be s'prised
Christmas "
Surprised." It was a moment before mamma
understood. "It is somewhat difficult," she said
then, "to surprise little girls who feel at liberty
to go to mamma's drawers at any time, and to untie
all the packages when the delivery-man comes. In a
small house like this people have to help surprise
themselves."
Who wants to help surprise theirselves !" ex-
claimed little Katy. You ought to be cunning,
mamma, and hide things ; a 'truly' hide you
know-and not just in bureau drawers."
"That's not what I mean at all, Katy," said Floris.
" Mamma, I mean a surprise, and not our Christmas
presents. Of course, Katy and I know what they'll
be, or most know. It'll be our new hats, or some
aprons, or something we'd had to have any way, and
just one of the every-day Christmas presents besides 3
a book, or a horn of candy. I most know mine'll be
a silver thimble this year, 'cause I lost my old one,
and I heard you tell papa that Katy 'd better have a
workbox, so's to s'courage her to learn sewing more.
Now, see 'f 'tain't so."
Mamma sat before her little daughters, her guilt
confessed in her looks.
Not that we blame you, mamma," added Floris,
kindly. "I'm old enoughh now to know that if Santa
Klaus brings us anything, he comes round before-
hand, and gets every cent they cost out of papa--
great Santa Klaus, that is "
But what did you mean by a surprise, Floris ?"
"0, I d'no, quite," answered Floris. "But I
thought I sh'd like to have something happen that
never had before; something planned for me 'n' Katy
that we didn't know a breath about, and there was no
chance of prying into, so that wouldd honestly s'prise
us. I never was s'prised in my life yet, mamma. I
always found out some way."
Mrs. Dewey smiled. She went out to prepare


dinner, and nothing more was said; and Miss Floris
took up her book with a sigh.
But at night, while she was buttoning the two white
night-dresses, Mrs. Dewey returned to the subject.
"My little daughters, if you will keep out of the
kitchen to-morrow, all day, I think I can promise that
something very strange and delightful shall happen
on Christmas."
Four little feet jumped right up and down, two little
faces flew up in her own, four little hands caught hold
of her, four bright eyes transfixed her indeed, they
came pretty near having the secret right out of her on
the spot.
"O,mamma! Whatisit?"
You must be very anxious to be 'truly s'prised,' "
remarked mamma.
Floris saw the point. She subsided at once. She
smiled at mamma with the first elder-daughter smile
that had ever crossed the bright child-face.
"I guess I shall be 'truly s'prised' if we arn
s'prised," she said, with a funny little grimace, as she
laid her head on the pillow.
Now, remember, it is to be a 'truly keep-out,' "
warned Mrs. Dewey. "You are not to enter the
kitchen at all-not once all day to-morrow."
Why, surely, mamma Dewey, you are not to do
anything towa'ds it before breakfast," reasoned little
Katy.
I shall at least notice whether I am obeyed."
What'll happen if we don't ? inquired Katy.
Nothing'll happen then," said mamma, quietly.
The little voices said no more, and mamma went
down stairs. They said not a single word more, be-
cause the little Deweys were so constructed that had
there not been a standing command that they should
not speak after mamma closed the door, their little
pink tongues would have run all night; but they
squeezed each other's hands very tightly, and also
remained awake somewhat longer than usual.
Mrs. Dewey smiled next morning to see her daugh-
ters seated at their lessons in that part of the sitting-







THE LITTLE CHRISTMAS PIES.


room furthest from the door that opened into the
hall and thus into the kitchen. They never once
directly referred to last night's conversation ; but they
were extremely civil to her personally, most charm-
ingly civil, obedient, and thoughtful. Indeed, Katy's
little round shingled head would bob out into the hall
almost every time mamma's step was heard. "You
must let me bring you anything I can, mamma- any-
thing I can, 'thout going into the kitchen, I mean."
But, to Katy's disappointment, mamma wished no
assistance. Floris offered to go down town, if mamma
needed. But mamma wished-nothing that Floris could
do. However, to their delight, they saw the delivery-
man, when he came, taking down lots of orders in his
book. "Would it be w'ong to listen in the hall ?"
Katy whispered. "'Cause I could hear everything
she told him, 'f I was a-mind to."
Floris told her it would be very wrong.
The elder little girl studied, and played, and sang,
and amused her doll all the morning, and refused to
listen to any pleasant sound she heard from the
kitchen. She shut her little nose, also, against a sud-
den whiff of deliciousness as some door opened. She
even went to the well, and brought hard water for her
room, because the rain water would have taken her
near the forbidden regions.
But little Katy was as restless as a bee. She had
a thousand errands through the hall. When Floris
reprimanded her, she said she didn't 'tend to go a-near
the kitchen door. Floris looked out often; but, at
last, the little one settled on the hall stairs with her
paint-box, and the elder sister felt at rest.
But even to her it finally grew a long forenoon. Be-
fore ten o'clock she found herself infected with the
same restlessness. Then the various sounds which she
heard distracted her, such busy sounds she would,
at last, have given almost anything to know what was
going on out there.
The mantel clock was just striking eleven when the
hall door unclosed, and Katy's plump little person
partially appeared.
Come here, quick, quick or she'll be back. I've
found out, Flory !"
0, have you Why, Katy Dewey I Floris over-
curned the music-stool as she ran. Katy, her head
turned listeningly toward the kitchen door, blindly
crowded a spoonful of something into her mouth.
"There isn't that 'licious good ? 0, Floris, such


things as I have seen out there the box of raisins
is down on the table, and all her extrach Lubin
bottles. I couldn't stay to look much; but, Floris,
there's twelve of the most beautiful mince patties-
0, the most beautiful! all iced, and 'Merry Christ-
mas,' in pink sand, on every one, and there's twelve
more in the iron ready to fill -wasn't that I gave
you crammed with raisins !"
Floris's eyes danced. Kit Dewey, I'll bet we're
going to have a Christmas party--a party of little
boys and girls What else was there, do tell rhe "
"O, I d'no; there was heaps of raisins and,
mebbe, there was ice cream ;" suddenly remembering
Floris's fondness for that delectable.
Floris knew better than that; but still her eyes
danced. Suddenly they heard the back kitchen door,
and, as suddenly, Floris turned white. The mince-
spoon, Katy! You've brought the mince-spoon!
Mamma'll know! "
Katy's little mouth dropped open.
Quick! She's coming this way !"
Floris softly got into the sitting-room, so did Katy.
"Where is the spoon ?" hurriedly whispered the
elder girl.
I stuffed it under the stair carpet, where that rod
was up."
They could hear mamma coming through the hall.
But she came only part way. After a pause, she
returned to the kitchen.
Katy, what if she's found it ? "
She couldn't."
They stole out into the hall. The spoon was gone!
O, Katy I'll bet you left it sticking out said
Floris, and burst into tears. Katy did the same.
With one accord they ascended the stairs to their
room.
When, with red eyes, they came down to dinner,
they found mamma in the dining-room as placid as
usual. The kitchen door was wide open. After
dinner Floris was requested to wipe the dishes. Her
work took her into every part of the kitchen domains,
and her red eyes peered about sharply ; but nothing
unusual was to be seen- not one trace of the beau-
tiful patties, not a raisin-stem, even !
Christmas day came and went. Floris had her
silver thimble, and Katy her work-box. The dinner
table was in the usual holiday trim. But the little
frosted pies, with the pink greetings, were not brought







THE STRANGERS FROM THE SOUTH.


forward -no, and not one word was said concerning
them, not even by mamma's eyes.
At night they cried softly in their little white bed,
after mamma had gone down. And, Floris, I 'mem-
ber now, there was something else, under a white
cloth, like a plate of kisses, I thought," sobbed Katy,
her wet little face pressed into the pillows; "and I
shall always think she was going to make fruit-
cake, for there was citron all cut up, and there was
almonds -"
Don't, Katy! I don't want to hear it! I can't


hear it!" said Floris, in a thick voice; "and don't
let us disobey mamma more by talking."
But what did become of the beautiful, frosted, pink-
lettered little pies would you like to know ?
Floris and Katy cannot tell you; for never yet
have mamma and her little daughters exchanged a
word upon the subject -but I think I can. At least
I was told that a factory-weaver's family, where there
were several little girls, had the most lovely of patties,
and kisses, and sugar-plums sent them for their
Christmas dinner last year.


THE STRANGERS FROM THE SOUTH.


BY ELLA FARMAN.


UNLESS I take a long half mile circle, my daily
walk to the post-office leads me down through
an unsavory, wooden-built portion of town. I am
obliged to pass several cheap groceries, which smell
horribly of sauer-krait and Limburg cheese, a res-
taurant steamy with Frenchy soups, a livery stable,
besides two or three barns, and some gloomy, window-
less, shut-up buildings, of whose use I haven't the
slightest idea.
Of course, when I go out in grand toilet, I take
the half mile circle. But, being a business woman,
and generally in a hurry, I usually go this short way
in my short walking-dress and big parasol ; and, prob-
ably, there is an indescribable expression to my nose,
just as Mrs. Jack Graham says.
Well, one morning I was going down town in the
greatest hurry. I was trying to walk so fast that I
needn't breathe once going by the Dutch groceries;
and I was almost to the open space which looks away
off to the sparkling river, and the distant park, and the
forenoon sun, I always take a good, long, sweet
breath there, coming and going, when my eye was
caught by a remarkable group across the street.
Yes, during the night, evidently, while the town
was asleep, there had been an arrival--strangers
direct from the Sunny South.
And there the remarkable-looking strangers sat, in


a row, along the narrow step of one of the mysterious
buildings I have alluded to. They were sunning
themselves with all the delightful carelessness of the
experienced traveler. Though, evidently, they had
been presented with the liberty of the city, it was just
as evident that they didn't care a fig for sightseeing-
not a fig, either, for the inhabitants. All they asked
of our town was its sunshine. They had selected the
spot where they could get the most of it. Through
the open space opposite the sun streamed broadly;
and the side of a weather-colored building is so
warm !
What a picture of dolce far niente, of "sweet-do-
nothing," it was I stopped, hung my parasol over
my shoulder, there was a little too much sunshine
for me, -- and gazed at it.
O, how you do love it You bask like animals I
That fullness of enjoyment is denied to us white-skins.
What a visible absorption of luster and heat You
are the true lotus-eaters "
The umber-colored creatures I suppose they are
as much warmer for being brown, as any brown sur-
face is warmer than a white one. I never did see
sunshine drank, and absorbed, and enjoyed as that
was. It was a bit of Egypt and the Nile life. I could
not bear to go on.
Finally, I crossed the street to them. Not one of






THE STRANGERS FROM THE SOUTH.


them stirred. The eldest brother was standing, lean-
ing against the building. He turned one eye on me,
and kept it there. At his feet lay a bulging, ragged
satchel. Evidently he was the protector.
The elder sister, with hands tucked snugly under
her folded arms, winked and blinked at me dozily.
The little boy with the Nubian lips was sound asleep,
-a baby Osiris, his chubby hands hiding together
between his knees for greater warmth. The youngest
sister, wrapped in an old woolen shawl, was the only
uncomfortable one of the lot. There was no doze nor
dream in her eyes yet -poor thing, she was cold I
I didn't believe they had had where to lay their
heads during the night. Liberty of a city, to one
kind of new arrivals, means just that, you know.
Sundry crumbs indicated an absence of the conven-
tional breakfast table. Poor little darkies I
"Children," I said, like a benevolently-disposed
city marshal, "you mustn't sit here in the street."
"We's gwine on soon, mistis," said the protector,
meekly.


"I 'low we ain't, Jim The big sister said this
without any diminution of the utter happiness of her
look.
It's powerful cold coming' up fru the norf, mistis.
I mls' let 'em warm up once a day," said Jim.
Up through the north! Pray, where are you
going? "
Jim twisted about. He looked down at the toe of
his boot, reflectively.
I ex-pect, I ex-pect-"
"You spec, Jim! You allers spectin'! Mistis,
we's free-we kin go anywhars "
I suspect there had been a great deal of long-
suffering on the part of Jim. He burst out like flame
from a smoldering fire,-
"Anlywhzars / That's what ails niggas Freedom
means anywhars to 'em, and so they're nuffin' nor
nobody. You vagabon', Rose Moncton, you kin't go
anywhars much longer-not 'long o' me!
"0, you white folksy Jim I 'low this trompin'
was yer own plan. When you finds a town whar it's







THE STRANGERS FROM THE SOUfH.


any show of warm, I'll hang up my things and stay,
and not afore--ye hyar that! I 'low I won't see
Peyty and Kit a-freezin' "
She scowled at me, she actually did, as if I froze
her with my pale face and cool leaf-green dress, and
kept the sun off her, talking with that "white folksy
Jim."
I fancied Jim was hoping I would say something
more to them. I fancied he, at least, was in great
need of a friend's advice.
Where did you come from ?" I asked him. But
the other head of the family answered, -
Come from nuff sight warmer place than we's
goin' anywhars."
Rose is allers techy when she's cold, mistis,"
Jim apologized. "Ole Maum Phillis used fer to say
as Rose's temper goose-pimpled when the cold air
struck it. We kim from Charleston, mistis. We's
speckin' to work out some land for ourselves, and
hev a home. We kim up norf to git wages, so as we
kin all help at it. I'd like to stop hyar, mistis."
Hyar! I 'low we's going' soufard when we gits
from dis yer, you Jim," sniffed "Rose Moncton," her
face up to the sunshine.
Poor Jim looked care-worn. I dare say my face
was tolerably sympathetic. It felt so, at least.
Mistis," the fellow said, she's kep us tackin' souf
an' norf, souf an' norf, all dis yer week, or we'd been
somewhars. She don't like de looks of no town yet.
We's slep' roun' in sheds six weeks now. I gits
sawin' an' choppin', an' sich, to do once a day, while
dey warms up in de sun, an' eats a bite. Den up we
gits, an' tromps on. We's got on so fur, but Rose
ain't clear at all yit whar we'll stop. Mistis, whar is
de warmest place you knows on ? "
I thought better and better of myself as the heavy-
faced fellow thus appealed to me. I felt flattered by
his confidence in me. I always feel flattered when a
strange kitty follows me, or the birdies hop near for
my crumbs. But I will confess that no human vaga-
bond had ever before so skillfully touched the soft
place in my heart. Poor, dusky wanderer he looked
so hungry, he looked so worn-out, too, as a head of a
family will when the other head pulls the other way.
"Well, Jim, the warmest place I know of is in my
kitchen. I left a rousing fire there ten minutes ago.
You all stay here until I come back, which will be in
about seven minutes; then you shall go hcie with


me, and I will give you a good hot dinner. You may
stay all night, if you like, and perhaps I can advise
you. You will be rested, at the least, for a fresh
start."
Rose Moncton lifted her listless head, and looked
in my face. Laws said she. "Laws! said
she again.
Jim pulled his forelock to me, vailed the flash in his
warm umbery eyes with a timely wink of the heavy
lids. He composed himself at once into a waiting
attitude.
I heard another "Laws!" as I hastened away.
"That young mistis is done crazy. She'll nebber
kim back hyar, 'pend on dat!" Such was Rose's
opinion of me.
I opened my ears for Jim's. But Jim made nc
reply.
Father and mother had gone out of town for two
days. Our hired girl had left. I really was "mistis'
of the premises. If I chose to gather in a circle o6
shivering little niggas" around my kitchen stove,
and heat that stove red-hot, there was nobody to say
I better not.
I was back in five minutes, instead of seven. Jirr
stood straight up on his feet the moment he dis-
covered me coming. Rose showed some faint signs
of life and interest. "'Clar, now, mistis Kim
along, den, Jim, and see ye look to that there verlise.
Hyar, you Kit!" She managed to rouse her sister
with her foot, still keeping her hands warmly hidden,
and her face to the sun.
But the other head took the little ones actively.in
charge. Come, Peyty, boy! come, Kit! we's gwine
now "
Peyty opened his eyes how starry they were 1
"O, we goin', mo' ? Jim, I don't want to go no mo' !'
"Ain't gwine clar thar no, Peyty, boy; come, Kit-
only to a house to warm the Peyty boy come,
Kit !"
Kit was coming fast enough. Eut Peyty had to
be taken by the arm and pulled up. Then he stepped
slowly, the tears coming. The movement revealed
great swollen welts, where his stiff, tattered, leather
shoes had chafed and worn into the fat, black little
legs. Is dat ar Mistis Nelly ?" he asked, opening
his eyes, wonderingly, at the white lady.
Rose had got up now. A sudden quiver ran over
Ier face. No, Peyty. Mis't' Nelly's dead, you







THE STRANGERS FROM THE SOUTH.


know. Wish we's back to Mas'r Moncton's, and
Mist' Nelly libbin', an' Linkum sojers dead afore
dey cum! "
There was a long sigh from everybody, even from
Jim. But he drew in his lips tightly the next moment.
Some niggas nebber was worf freein'. Come along,
Peyty, boy-ready, mistis."
I walked slowly along at the head of the strangers
from the south. Little feet were so sore, Peyty
couldn't walk fast. Kit's big woman's size shoes
were so stiff she could only shuffle along. Jim's toes
were protruding, and I fancied he and Rose were as
foot-sore as the little ones. I dare say people looked
and wondered ; but I am not ashamed to be seen with
any kind of children.
I took them around to the back door, into the
kitchen, which I had found unendurable while baking
my bread and pies. The heated air rushed out against
my face as I opened the door. It was a delicious
May-day ; but the procession behind me, entering,
proceeded direct to the stove, and surrounded it in
winter fashion, holding their hands out to the heat.
Even from Jim I heard a soft sigh of satisfaction.
Poor, shivering children of the tropics I drew up
the shades. There were no outer blinds, and the
sun streamed in freely.
There, now. Warm yourselves, and take your
own time for it. Put in wood, Jim, and keep as much
fire as you like. I am going to my room to rest for an
hour. Be sure that you don't go off, for I wish you
to stay here until you are thoroughly rested. I have
plenty of wood for you to saw, Jim."
I brought out a pan of cookies. I set them on the
table. Here, Rose, see that Peyty and Kit have
all they want. When I come down, I'll get you some
dinner."
The poor children in stories, and in real life, too,
for that matter, always get only bread and butter--
dear me, poor dears When I undertake a romance
for these waifs in real life, or story, I always give.them
cookies cookies, sweet, golden, and crusty, with
sifted sugar.
I left them all, even to Jim, looking over into the
pan. My rich, sugary jumbles, and plummy queen's
cakes? When I saw their eyes dance-no sleep in
those eyes now -I was glad it wasn't simply whole-
some sandwiches and plain fried cakes, as somebody
at my elbow says now it ought to have been. I


would have set out a picnic table, with ice-cream and
candies, for those wretched little niggas," if I could !
I nodded to them, and went away. It is so nice, after
you have made a child happy, to add some unmistaka-
ble sign that it is quite welcome to the happiness !
I knew there was nothing which they could steal.
I expected they would explore the pantry. I judged
them by some of my little white friends. But the silver
was locked up. China and glass would hardly be
available. If, after they had stuffed themselves with
those cookies, they could want cold meat, and bread
and butter, I surely shouldn't begrudge it. Then I
thought of my own especial lemon tart, which stood
cooling on the shelf before the window; but I was
not going back to insult that manly Jim Moncton by
removing it.
Just as I was slipping on my dressing-gown up in
my own cool, quiet chamber, I caught a faint sound
of the outside door of the kitchen. Something like a
shriek, or a scream, followed. Then there was an
unmistakable and mighty overturning of chairs. I
rushed down. At the very least I expected to see my
romantic "Rose Moncton with her hands clenched
in brother Jim's kinky hair. With loosened tresses,
without belt or collar, I appeared on the scene.
What did I see ? Why, I saw Phillis, Mrs. Jack
Graham's black cook, with every one of my little
'niggas in her arms -heads of the family and all !
There they were, sobbing and laughing together, the
portly Phillis the loudest of the whole. One of Mrs.
Jack's favorite china bowls lay in fragments on the
floor.
Phillis called out hysterically as she saw me. Jim
discovered me the same moment. He detached him-
self, went up to the window, and bowed his head down
upon the sash. I saw the tears roll down his cheek
and drop.
Laws, Miss Carry dese my ole mas'r's niggers !
dey's Mas'r Moncton's little nigs, ebery one dey's
runned roun' under my feet in Mas'r Moncton's
kitchen many a day down in ole Carline bress em
souls She hugged them again, and sobbed afresh,
The children clung to the old cook's neck,and waist, and
arms like so many helpless, frightened black kittens.
Phillis at last recovered her dignity. She pointed
them to their chairs. She picked up the pieces of
china in her apron. "Done gone, anyhow -dese
pickaninnies gib ole Phillis sich a turn It mose like







WI' WEE WINKERS BLINKIN'.


seeing' Mas'r Moncton an' Miss Nelly demselves.
Whar you git 'em, Miss Carry?"
I told her.
Bress your heart, Miss Carry Len' me a cup,
and git me some yeast, and I'll bring Misfis Graham
ober, an' I'll be boun', when she sees dat ar lubly
little Peyty, she'll hire him to to- to- lor I she'll
hire him to look into his diamint eyes."
I know she herself kissed tears out of more than
one pair of "diamint eyes" while I was getting the
yeast. I heard her.
O, Maum Phillis I heard Jim say. "You think
we'll hire out roun' hyar ?"
Could we, Maum Phillis ?" pleaded Rose, her
voice soft and warm now. "We's done tired out.
I'm clean ready to drop down in my tracks long this
yer blessed stove, and nebber stir anywhars "
Bress you, chilluns You hev tromped like sojers,
clar from ole Carline Spec it seems like home,
finding' one of de old place hands- Phillis knows.
Dar, dar don't take on so. Miss Carry, she'll bunk


you down somewhar it's warm, and thar you stay an"
rest dem feet. I'll send my mistis ober, and dey
two'll pervide fer ye on dis yer street; dis yer one ob
de Lord's own streets."
Well, do you think Mistis Graham and Mistis Carry-
dishonored Maum Phillis's faith in them ?
No, indeed! The family found homes on "de
Lord's own street." Jam is coachman at Squire
Lee's. Peyty is at the same place, taken in at first.
for his sweet disposition, and "diamint eyes," I sus-
pect. He is now a favorite table-waiter.
Kit is Maum Phillis's right-hand woman. Rose is
our own hired girl. She is somewhat given to sleep-
iness, and to idling in sunny windows, and to scorch-
ing her shoes and aprons against the stove of a
winter's evening. But, on the whole, she is a good
servant; and we have built her a bedroom out of
the kitchen.
I have never regretted crossing the street to speak
to the strangers from the south.


WI' WEE WINKERS BLINKIN'.


BY J. E. RANKIN, D. D.


WI' wee winkers blinkin',
Blinkin' like the starn,
What's wee tottie thinking ?
Tell her mither, bairn.
On night's downy dream-wings,
Where's the bairnie been,
That she has sic seeming
In her blinkin' een ?

Let her mither brood her,
Like the mither-doe;
When enough she's woo'd her,
She maun prie her mou':
Let her mither shake her,
Like an apple bough,
Frae her dreams to wake her: -
That's our bairnic now!


There! I've got her crowin'
Like the cock at dawn;
Mou' wi' fistie stowin',
When she tries to yawn :
She'll na play the stranger
Drappit frae the blue,
Lest there might be danger
Back she sud gae through !

She's our little mousie,
In this house born,
That I tumble tousie,
Ilka, ilka morn:
She's her mither's bairne,
Only flesh an' blood;
Blinkin' like the starnie
Through a neebor cloud.


























































































LUCY'S PET.



















THE CHILDREN' SHOES.


BY BLANCHE B. BAKER (nineyears' old).


F OUR pairs of little shoes
All in a row;
Four pairs of little shoes
For to-morrow.

Four pairs of little shoes
Worn every day;
Four pairs of little shoes
Ready for play.

Four pairs of little shoes
By the fire's glow;


Four pairs of little shoes
White at the toe.

Four pairs of little shoes
Travelling all day;
Four pairs of little shoes
Resting from play.

Four pairs of little shoes
Waiting for day;
Four pairs of little shoes
Never go astray!


ETHEL'S EXPERIMENT.

BY I3. E. E.


WHITE flakes on the upland, white flakes on
the plain,
Frost bon-bons in meadow, in garden, in lane;
And wise little Ethel the strangest of girls -
Puts on her grave thinking-cap, shakes her brown
curls,
And talks to herself, in a curious way,
Of snow and a ball aud a hot summer's day! "
Then, down to the brook, where the gnarled willows
grow,
And the ice-covered reeds stand like soldiers in row,
Our brave little girl trudges off all alone,
And rolls a large snow-ball just under the stone
That lies on the brink of the streamlet, and then
In this wise begins her soliloquy: When
The Fourth of July comes, what fun it will be
To have all this snow tucked away, for you see
Nobody will guess how it came there, but me "


Green leaves on the upland, green leaves on the plain,
And bluebirds and robins and south winds again.
The brook in the meadow is wide awake now,
And fragrant bloom drops from the old willows
bough,
When Ethel remembers her treasure, her prize,
That under the edge of the great boulder lies;
And stealthily creeping close down to the brink,
Where the slender reeds quiver now what do you
think
Our little girl found ? Why, never a trace
Of the snow-ball-- 0 no but just in its place
A tiny white violet, sweetest of sweet,
Because of the coverlid over its feet
Through all the long winter And Ethel's mamma,
When she heard the whole story said, Truly we are
No wiser than children. We bury our grief,
And find in its hiding-place Hope's tender leaf "







CINDERS: THE FORTUNE CARL FOUND IN THE ASHES.


CINDERS:

THE FORTUNE CARL FOUND IN THE ASHES.


BY MADGE ELLIOT.


HOW artful the wind was that cold March morn-
ing, hiding away every now and then, pretend-
ing to be quite gone, only to rush out with a fearful
howl at such unexpected moments that Carl was
nearly blown off his feet each time.
But he struggled bravely forward, bending his head
to the blast, and holding his brimless hat on with one
hand, while he carried his battered tin pail in the
other.
There was not a gleam of fire in the wretched room
he had just left; and Tony and Lena, his little sisters,
wrapped in the old piece of carpet that served them
for a blanket, were almost crying with hunger and
with cold.
They would have cried outright if Carl had not
kissed them, and said, Never mind, young uns -
wait till I can give you each a regular bang-up lace
hankercher to cry on, then you may cry as much as
you please."
Father and mother had died within a week of each
other, when February's snows were upon the ground,
leaving these three poor children without money and
without friends a bad way for even grown-ups to be
left.
So Carl, poor boy, found himself, at ten years of
age, the head of a family.
Of course he became a newsboy.
Almost all heads of families ten years and under,
become newsboys.
Twenty-five cents given him by an old woman who
sold apples and peanuts, and who, by the way, was
not much better off than he was himself, started him
in business.
But the business, I am sorry to say, scarcely paid
the rent, leaving nothing for clothing, food and fire,
three very necessary things,-be a home ever so
humble.
So every morning, almost as soon as the day


dawned and I can tell you day dawns very quickly
in a room where the window hasn't a scrap of shade
or curtain before he went down town for his stock
of morning papers, Carl started out to bring homir
the family fuel.
This consisted of whatever sticks and bits of wool
he could find lying about the streets, and whatever
cinders and pieces of coal he could pick from th
ash-barrels and boxes.
If the weather was at all mild, Tony, the eldest
sister, and the housekeeper, went with him, and helped
him fill the old pail.
She carried a forlorn-looking basket, that seemed
ashamed of the old piece of rope that served for its
handle, and stopped on her way home at several
houses, where the servant girls had taken a fancy to
the gray-eyed, shy little thing, to get the family mar-
keting.
But alas! very very often the supply fell far short
of the demand, for the winter had been a very sever 2
one, and everybody had such a number of calls from
all sorts of needy people, that they could afford t3
give but little to each one.
This particular March morning Carl wentout alone,
wondering as he went when the fortune was going
to turn up."
For these poor children, shut out from dolls,
fairy-books, and all things that make childhood merry
and bright, used to while away many an hour, talking
of a fortune which the brother had prophesied
would one day be found in the ashes.
At different times this dream took different shapes.
Sometimes it was a pocket-book, oh! so fat with
greenbacks, sometimes a purse of gold, sometimes a
diamint ring: but, whatever it should prove to be,
Carl was convinced, "felt it in his bones," he said,
it would be found, and found hidden among the
cinders.







CINDERS: THE FORTUNE CARL FOUND IN THE ASHES.


Once he had brought home a silver fork, scooped,"
as he called it in newsboy's slang, from an ash-heap
in an open lot.
On this fork the family had lived for three days.
Once he rescued a doll, which would have been
.lovely if it had had a head ; and at various times there
were scraps of ribbon, lace and silk, all of which
served to strengthen the belief that something wonder-
ful must "turn up at last.
Cricky how that old wind does holler," said Carl
to himself, as he toiled along, an' it cuts right
through me, my jacket's so thin an' torn I'd mend
it myself if I only knew how, and somebody'd lend
me a needle and thread.
Don't I wish I'd find the fortune this morning!
I dreamt of it last night-dreamt it was a bar of
gold, long as my arm, and precious thick, too.
"Guess I'll go to that big bar'l afore them orful
high flat houses that's allus full of cinders.
"It's lucky for us them big bugs don't sift their
ashes! Wewouldn't have no fire if they did, -that's
what's the matter."
So he made his way to the "big bar'l," hoping no
,one had been there before him, and, leaning over
without looking, put his cold, red hand into the ashes,
but he drew it out again in a hurry, for, cold as it was,
it had touched something colder.
"Hello cried Carl, "what's that? It don't feel
'zactly like the bar of gold," and, dropping on his
knees, he peeped in.
A dirty little, shaggy, once-white dog raised a pair
of soft, dark, wistful eyes to his face.
"Why I'm blessed," said Carl, in great surprise,
"if it ain't a dog. Poor little beggar! that was his
nose I felt, an' wasn't it cold ?"
"I s'pose he's got in among the ashes to keep
warm; wot pooty eyes he's got, just like that
woman's wot give me a ten cent stamp for the Tribune
the other day, and wouldn't take no change. Poor
old feller Are you lost? "
The dog had risen to its feet, and still looking
pleadingly at Carl, commenced wagging its tail in a
friendly manner.
"Oh! you want me to take you home," continued
Carl. I can't 'cause I dunno where you live, and
my family eats all they can git theirselves they're
awful pigs, they are," and he laughed softly, an'
*couldn't board a dog nohow."


But the dog kept on wagging his tail, and as soon
as Carl ceased speaking, as though grateful for even
a few kind words, it licked the cold hand that rested
on the side of the barrel.
That dog-kiss won the poor boy's heart completely.
"You shall go with me," he cried impulsively. "Jest
come out of that barrel till I fill this pail with cin-
ders, and then we'll be off. He kin have the bones
we can't crack with our teeth ennyhow," he said to
himself, not a very cheerful prospect, it must be
confessed, for the boarder.
The dog, as though he understood every word,
jumped from the box, and seated himself on the icy
pavement to wait for his new landlord and master.
In a few moments the pail was full, and the boy
turned toward his home, running as fast as he could,
with the dog trotting along by his side.
See wot I foun' in the ashes,' he cried, bounding
into the room. Here's the fortune alive an' kickin'.
Wot you think of it?"
Oh, wot a funny fortune! said Tony, and "Wot
a funny fortune repeated little Lena.
"It's kinder queer, -the pocket-book an' the di-
mint ring a-turnin' into a dog!" Tony continued.
" But no matter, if we can't buy nothing' with him, we
can love him, poor little feller "
"Poor littlee feller repeated Lina. "He nicer
than dollie'ithout a head, ennyhow. Wecan lub him."
An' now, Carl," said the housekeeper, "you make
the fire, an' I'll run to market, for it's most time you
went after your papers."
And away she sped, to return in a few minutes with
five or six cold potatoes, a few crusts of bread, and
one bone, with very little meat and that gristle -
clinging to it.
And this bone think if you can of a greater act
of self-denial and charity-the children decided with
one accord should be given to Cinders," as they had
named the dog on the spot.
That night, after Carl had sold his papers, and
come home tired but hopeful, for he had made thirty
cents clear profit to save toward the rent, they all
huddled together, with doggie in the midst of them,
around the old iron furnace that held their tiny fire.
Presently the Head of the Family began whistling
a merry tune, which was a great favorite with the
newsboys.
Imagine the astonishment of the children when







CINDERS: THE FORTUNE CARL FOUND IN THE ASHES.


Cinders pricked up his ears, rose on his hind legs,
and, after gravely walking across the room once,
began to walk round and round, keeping perfect time
to the music !
"Hurrah! hurrah!" shouted Carl, his eyes spark-
ling. "Look at that! look at that! Tony, it 'tis the
fortune after all an' I did find it in the ash-box! "
"Why, wot do you mean, Bub ?" cried Tony, al-
most as excited as her brother. Wot do you mean,
.an' ware's 'the fortune ?'"
"Why there, right afore your eyes. I mean Cin-
,ders is one o' them orful smart hundred-dollar dogs
wot does tricks. He's bin lost by that circus wot
went away night afore last, an' he's bin lost a-purpose
to make my dreams come true I'll take him out the
fust fine day, an' we'll bring home lots of stamps.
You see if we don't! "
I'll sell the papers," said Tony, by this time quite
as excited as her brother; I kin do it, Carl. 'Ere's
the morning' Herald, Sun, Times an' Tri-bune!'"
imitating the shrill cry of the newsboy, and doing it
very well, too, an' the fellers'll be good to me, 'cos
I'm your sister, an' they like you."
You're a brick, Tony said Carl, an, for sich a
:small brick the brickiest brick I ever knowed; but I
kin sell 'em myself in the morning an' you kin take
'em in the afternoon, for that's the time Cinders an'
me must perform. 'Monseer Carlosky an' his werry
talented dog Cinders, son of the well-known French
performing poodle Cinderella.' How's that, Tony ? O
I've read all about 'em on the circus bills, and that's
the way they do it. Yes, you'll have to take the
papers in the afternoon, cos then's when the swell
boys an' gals is home from school, -'cept Saturdays,
then we'll be out most all day."
Dance more, Tinders, dance more i here broke in
little Lena; but Cinders stood looking at his master,
evidently waiting for the music.
So Carl commenced whistling--did I tell you he
whistled like a bird ? and Cinders once more
marched gravely across the room, and then began
waltzing again in the most comical manner.
He had evidently been trained to perform his tricks
just twice ; for when the music ceased this time he
proceeded to stand on his head, and then sitting up
on his hind legs, he nodded politely to the audience,
and held out one of his paws, as much as to say,
"Now pay if you please."


The poor children forgot hunger and cold in their
delight, and that miserable room resounded to more
innocent, merry laughter that night than it had heard
for many long years, perhaps ever before.
Cinders got another bone for his supper-the
others had nothing and then they all went to bed,
if lying on the bare floor, with nothing for a pillow
can be called going to bed, and dreamed of "the
fortune found at last in the ashes.
The next afternoon, which fortunately was a fine
one, for March having come in like a lion was pre-
paring to go out like a lamb," Carl came racing up
the crazy stairs, taking two steps at a time, and, toss-
ing a bundle of evening papers to Tony, he whistled
to Cinders, and away they went.
Poor Carl looked shabby enough, with his toes
sticking out of a pair of old shoes a part of the
treasures "scooped" from the ash-heap and not
mates at that, one being as much too large as the
other was too small, his tattered jacket and his brim-
less hat.
But Cinders followed him as faithfully as though
he had been clad in a costly suit of the very latest
style.
Turning into a handsome, quiet street, Carl stopped
at last before a house where three or four rosy-cheeked
children were flattening their noses against the panes
of the parlor windows, trying to see a doll which
another rosy-cheeked child was holding up at a win-
dow just opposite.
Now Cinders, ole feller said Carl, while his
heart beat fast, "do your best. BONES! and he
began to whistle.
At the first note Cinders stood up on his hind legs,
at the second he took his first step forward.
At the beginning of the fourth bar the waltz began;
and by this time the rosy-cheeked children had lost
all interest in the doll over the way, and were all
shouting and calling "Mamma!" and the cook and
chambermaid had made their appearance at the area
gate.
The march and waltz having been gone through
with twice, Cinders stood on his head suree" said
the cook, "I couldn't do it better myself "-tumbled
quickly to his feet again, nodded affably once to the
right, once to the left, and once to the front of him,
and held out his right paw.
He's the cliverest baste ever I seen," said the







CINDERS: THE F( RTUNE CARL FOUND IN THE ASHES.


chambermaid, "so he is and she threw a five cent
piece in Carl's old hat; and, at the same moment the
window was opened, and out flew a perfect shower of
pennies, while the little girl across the way kept shout-
ing, "Come here, ragged little boy! Come here,
funny doggie! Oh, why don't you come here? "
And, making his best bow to his first audience,
Carl went over to the doll's house, and was received
by the whole family, including grandpa and grandma,
with great delight and laughter, and was rewarded at
the end of his entertainment with much applause,
three oranges, and a new ten cent stamp.
That afternoon Cinders earned one dollar and
three cents for his little master; and I can't describe
to you the joy that reigned in that small bare room
when Carl, in honor of his debut as Monseer Carl-
osky" brought in, and spread out on a newspaper on
the floor, a wonderful feast! Real loaf of bread,
bought at the baker's, bottle of sarsaparilla at the
grocer's, and peanuts, apples, and a hunk of some
extraordinary candy from the old woman who kept a
stand at the corner, and who had started Carl as a
newsboy. She also received her twenty-five cents
again, with five cents added by way of interest.
"Why! didn't they look when they see me a-order-
in' things, and payin' for 'em on the spot!" said
"Monseer," with honest pride, as he carved the loaf
with an old jackknife.
As for Cinders, no meatless bone, but half a pound
of delicious liver, did that remarkable dog receive,
and more kisses on his cold, black nose than he knew
what to do with.
After that, as the weather grew finer and finer, and
the days longer, Carl and his dog wandered farther
and farther, and earned more and more money every
day, until the little sisters rejoiced in new shoes, hats


and dresses, and the housekeeper had a splendid bas-
ket- not very large, of course- with a handle that
any basket could be proud of, and actually did go to
m, .'et, fair and square, and no make believe about it.
And Carl presented himself with a brand-new suit
of clothes, from the second-hand shop next door, in-
cluding shoes that were made for each other, and a
hat with a brim.
By-and-by the cheerless room was exchanged for a
pleasanter one; and the story of the fair-haired Head
of the Family, and the fortune he found in the ashes,
took wings, and returned to him laden with blessings.
And five years from that bleak March morning,
when Cinder looked up so pleadingly in the boy's
face, Carl found himself a clerk in the counting-room
of a generous, kind-hearted merchant.
"A boy who worked so hard and so patiently to
take care of his little sisters," this gentleman said to
his wife, "and who was ready to share his scanty
meals with a vagrant dog, must be a good boy, and
good boys make good men."
And Tony and Lena, both grown to be bright,
healthy, merry girls, befriended by many good women,
were going to school, taking care of the house, earn-
ing a little in odd moments by helping the seamstress
who lived on the floor below, and still looking up with
love and respect to the Head of the Family.
Cinders, petted and beloved by all, performed in
public no more, but spent most of his time lying by
the fire in winter, and on the door-step in summer,
waiting and listening for the step of his master.
So you see Carl was right.
He did find his fortune among the ashes.
But would it have proved a fortune had he been a
cruel, selfish, hard-hearted boy ?
Ah! that's the question.


1:,,,


"- 7" i


''






TOM'S CENTENNIAL.




TOM'S CENTENNIAL.

A FOURTH OF JULY STORY.

BY MARGARET EYTINGE.



00,-; -..4
$ ,- 2.

._.,- -







S"AL cent-tennial"
said his little sister
4 4 r V .\ .x .- P Caddy, that won't be
anything great."
S,- Pooh! you don't understand -
-' *' ne o Centennial don't
,mean anything about money. Centennial means 'per-
taining to, or happening every hundred years'-if

SYa hundred years ago this magnificent Republic of
I America, gentlemen of the jury," he continued, mount-
ing a garden-chair, and making the most absurd gest-
.: .-ures, was declared free and independent, and its
-, brave citizens determined not to drink tea unless they

Atlantic went marching home to the tune the old cow
-~died on."
X"'.1 ,' a tune was that ? asked Caddy.
S"Gentlemen of the jury," said Tom, "I'm aston-
... ished to find such ignorance in this great and enlight-
ened country. The name of that memorable tune was
S URRAH To-morrow's the Fourth of July and still is, as eYour Honor well knows, Yankee Doo-
i l the glorious Fourth! shouted Tom Wallace, dle ;" and the orator, descending from the chair,
careering wildly around [ne flower garden, as a Roman commenced whistling that famous melody.
candle he held in his hand, evidently unable to contain Well, then," said Caddy, after a moment'
itself until the proper time, went off with a fizz and a thought, "if a Centinal is something about a hundred
pop and flashed against the evening sky, and it's years old, Aunt Patience is one, for she's a hundred
going to be the greatest Fourth that ever was known, years old to-morrow she told me so and she feels


---- ilYY-iY I







TOM'S CENTENNIAL.


real bad 'cause she can't go to the green to see the
fire-works, on 'count of the pain in her back, and Faith
ain't got any shoes or hat, and the flour's 'most gone,
and so's the tea, and she says 'the poor-house
looms.' "
"'The poor-house looms,' does it?" said Tom
laughing ; and then he stuck his hands in his pockets,
and hummed "Hail Columbia in a thoughtful man-
ner.
I say, Frank," he called out at last, going up on
the porch, and poking his head in at a window, what
are you doing ? "

'The king was in the parlor, counting out his money,'"

answered Frank.
How much, king ? "
Twenty thirty thirty-five," said Frank, one
dollar and thirty-five cents. How do you figure ? "
"Two, fifteen. Come out here, I want to tell you
something."
Frank, who was two years younger than Tom. ap
peared.
What's up ? he asked, throwing himself into the
hammock which hung from the roof of the porch, and
swinging lazily.
Would it break your heart, and smash the fellows
generally, if we didn't go to the meeting on the green
to-morrow evening, after all the fuss we've made about
it?"
That? asked Frank, in a tone of surprise, as-
suming a sitting position so suddenly that the ham-
mock-hammocks are treacherous things-gave a
sudden lurch, and landed him on the floor.
Tom's laughter woke all the echoes around.
"Forgive these tears," he said, as he wiped his
eyes, and now to business. You know not, perhaps,
my gentle brother, that we have a centenarian, or as
Caddy says, a centinal among us ? "
A centinal ? said Frank, stretching himself out
on the floor where he had fallen.
"A centenarian, or centinal, whichever you choose,
most noble kinsman, and she lives on the outskirts of
this town. Her name- a most admirable one -is
Patience. Her granddaughter's another admirable
one Faith.
"Patience has the rheumatism. Faith has no shoes.
They want to see some fire-works, and hear some


Fourth of July being centinals they naturally
would.
"What say you? Shall we and our faithful clan,
instead of swelling the ranks of the militia on the
green, march to the humble cottage behind the hill,
and gladden the hearts of old Patience and young
Faith with a pyr-o-tech-nic display?"
"Good! said Frank, who always followed the
lead of his elder brother.
And Good echoed Caddy; but don't spend all
your money for fire-works. Give some to Aunt Pa-
tience, 'cause she's the only centinal we've got."
And she'll never be another," said Tom,

"' While the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.' "

So on the evening of the Fourth the people of
Tomstown were somewhat astonished to see the
young Centennial Guards march down the principal
street, pass the green, where extensive preparations
for festivities had been made, and keep on up the hill
until, beginning to descend on the other side, they
were lost to sight.
At the head marched Frank with his drum. Caddy
came directly behind him with a bunch of brilliant
flowers. The others carried flags, Chinese lanterns,
and boxes of fire-works, while Captain Tom flew here
and there and everywhere, trying to keep an almost
hopeless task the mischievous company in some-
thing like order.
Where away ? shouted Uncle Al an old sailor
home for the holiday--as the guards passed his
door.
To Aunt Patience-our own special Centennial,"
Frank shouted back with a tremendous roll of the
drum.
Uncle Al, always ready for fun, pipe in mouth, fell
in line, waving his tarpaulin on the end of a stick, and
Ex, his yellow dog, and Ander, his black one, followed
after, grinning and wagging their tails.
Then the butcher's boy, and his chum the baker's
boy, who were going by, turned and joined the pro-
cession, and away they all went, hurrahing, laughing
and drumming, to the door of the very small cottage.
Bless my heart !" said Aunt Patience, who was
sitting in a wooden arm-chair on the stoop, and who,
hearing faintly, poor, dear, deaf old soul, the noise of







TOM'S CENTENNIAL.


the approaching "guards," had been thinking the frogs
croaked much louder than usual, "what's this ?"
And bare-footed, brown-eyed Faith came out with
wonder written all over her pretty face.
Three cheers for our special Centennial !" shouted
the boys; and they gave three with a will, as Caddy
placed her flowers in the old woman's hand.
Now for the pyr-o-tech-nic display! commanded
Captain Tom ; and for nearly an hour Roman candles
fizzed, blue-lights popped, torpedoes cracked, pin-
wheels whizzed, and fire-crackers banged.
Old Patience said it was worth living a hundred
years to see.


And as the last fire-work went up a rocket and came
down a stick, the gallant company formed in single
file, and, marching past Aunt Patience, each member
bade her "good-night," and dropped some money in
her lap.
As for Uncle Al that generous, jolly, warm-
hearted old sailor, his gift was three old-fashioned
silver dollars ; one for himself, one for Ex, and one
for Ander.
"No one should think," he said, "that his dogs
were mean dogs."
Then away they all went again, hurrahing, shouting,
and drumming like mad!