The Project Gutenberg EBook of Harper's Round Table, May 14, 1895, by Various

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Title: Harper's Round Table, May 14, 1895

Author: Various

Release Date: June 24, 2010 [EBook #32961]

Language: English

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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S ROUND TABLE, MAY 14, 1895 ***




Produced by Annie McGuire








[Illustration: HARPERS

ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

       *       *       *       *       *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVI.--NO. 811. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.


       *       *       *       *       *




[Illustration]

HEROES OF AMERICA.

THE FIGHT AT HAMPTON ROADS.

BY THE HONORABLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT.


[Illustration: Decorative N]

aval battles of the civil war have an immense importance, because they
mark the line of cleavage between naval warfare under the old and naval
warfare under the new conditions. From the days of the defeat of the
Spanish Armada, for two centuries and a half, the fighting at sea was
carried on in ships of substantially the same character--wooden sailing
ships, carrying many guns mounted in broadside. Howard, Drake, Blake,
Tromp, De Ruyter, Nelson, and all the other great admirals, and all the
famous single-ship fighters--whose skill reached its highest expression
in our own navy during the war of 1812--commanded craft built and armed
in a substantially similar manner, and fought with the same weapons and
under much the same conditions.

But in the civil war weapons and methods were introduced which caused a
revolution greater even than that which divided the sailing ship from
the galley. The use of steam, the casing of ships in iron armor, and the
employment of the torpedo, the ram, and the gun of huge calibre,
produced such radically new types that the old ships of the line became
at one stroke as antiquated as the galleys of Hamilcar or Alcibiades.
All of these new engines of war were for the first time tried in actual
combat, and some of them were for the first time invented, during our
own civil war, and the first occasion on which any of the new methods
were thoroughly tested was attended by incidents which made it one of
the most striking of naval battles.

In the Chesapeake Bay, near Hampton Roads, the United States had
collected a fleet of wooden ships; some of them old-style sailing
vessels, others steamers. The Confederates were known to be building a
great iron-clad ram, and the wooden vessels were eagerly watching for
her appearance when she should come out of Gosport Harbor. Her powers
and capacity were utterly unknown. She was made out of the former United
States steam-frigate _Merrimac_, cut down so as to make her fore and aft
decks nearly flat and not much above the water, while the guns were
mounted in a covered central battery with sloping flanks. Her sides and
deck were coated with iron, and she was armed with formidable rifle
guns, and, most important of all, with a steel ram thrust out under
water forward from her bow. She was commanded by a very gallant and
efficient officer, Captain Tattnall.

It was March 8, 1862, when the ram at last made her appearance within
sight of the Union fleet. The day was calm and very clear, so that the
throngs of spectators on shore could see every feature of the battle.
With the great ram came three light gunboats, all of which took part in
the action, harassing the vessels which she assailed; but they were not
factors of importance in the fight. On the Union side the vessels
nearest were the sailing ships _Cumberland_ and _Congress_, and the
steam-frigate _Minnesota_. The _Congress_ and _Cumberland_ were anchored
not far from each other; the _Minnesota_ got aground, and was some
distance off. Owing to the currents and shoals and the lack of wind no
other vessel was able to get up in time to take part in the fight.

As soon as the great ram appeared out of the harbor she turned and
steamed steadily toward the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_, the black
smoke rising from her funnels, and the great ripples running from each
side of her iron prow as she drove steadily through the still waters. On
board of the _Congress_ and _Cumberland_ there was eager anticipation,
but not a particle of fear. The officers in command, Captain Smith and
Lieutenant Morris, were two of the most gallant men in a service where
gallantry has always been too common to need special comment. The crews
were composed of veterans, well trained, self-confident, and proud
beyond measure of the flag whose honor they upheld. The guns were run
out, and the men stood at quarters, while the officers eagerly conned
the approaching ironclad.

The _Congress_ was the first to open fire; and as her volleys flew, the
men on the _Cumberland_ were astounded to see the cannon-shot bound oft
the sloping sides of the ram as haildrops bound from a window-pane. The
ram answered, and her rifle shells tore the sides of the _Congress_; but
for her first victim she aimed at the _Cumberland_, and, firing her bow
guns, came straight as an arrow at the little sloop of war, which lay
broadside to her. It was an absolutely hopeless struggle. The
_Cumberland_ was a sailing ship, at anchor, with wooden sides, and a
battery of light guns. Against the formidable steam ironclad, with her
heavy rifles and steel ram, she was as powerless as if she had been a
row-boat; and from the moment when the men saw the cannon-shot bound
from the ram's sloping sides they knew they were doomed. But none of
them flinched. Once and again they fired their guns full against the
approaching ram, and in response received a few shells from the great
bow rifles of the latter. Then, forging ahead, the _Merrimac_ struck her
antagonist with her steel prow, and the sloop of war reeled and
shuddered, and through the great rent in her side the black water
rushed.

She foundered in a few minutes; but her crew fought her to the last,
cheering as they ran out the guns, and sending shot after shot against
the ram as the latter backed off after delivering the blow. The rush of
the water soon swamped the lower decks, but the men on the upper deck
continued to serve the guns, and fired them until the deck was awash,
and the vessel had not ten seconds of life left. Then, with her flags
flying, her men cheering, and her guns firing, the _Cumberland_ sank. It
was shallow where she settled down, so that her masts remained above the
water. The glorious flag for which the brave men aboard her had died
flew proudly in the wind all that day, while the fight went on, and
throughout the night; and next morning it was still streaming over the
beautiful bay, to mark the resting-place of as gallant a vessel as ever
sailed or fought on the high-seas.

After the _Cumberland_ sank, the ram turned her attention to the
_Congress_. Finding it difficult to get at her in the shoal water, she
began to knock her to pieces with her great rifle guns. The unequal
fight between the ironclad and the wooden ship lasted for perhaps half
an hour. By that time the commander of the _Congress_ had been killed,
and her decks looked like a slaughter-house. She was utterly unable to
make any impression on her foe, and finally she took fire and blew up.
The _Minnesota_ was the third victim marked for destruction, and the
_Merrimac_ began the attack upon her at once; but it was getting very
late, and as the water was shoal and she could not get close, the ram
finally drew back to her anchorage to wait until next day before
renewing and completing her work of destruction.

All that night there was the wildest exultation among the Confederates,
while the gloom and panic of the Union men cannot be described. It was
evident that the United States ships-of-war were as helpless as
cockle-shells against their iron-clad foe, and there was no question
that she could destroy the whole fleet with ease and with absolute
impunity. This meant not only the breaking of the blockade, but the
sweeping away at one blow of the North's naval supremacy, which was
indispensable to the success of the war for the Union. It is small
wonder that during that night the wisest and bravest should have almost
despaired of the Union.

But in the hour of the nation's greatest need a champion suddenly
appeared, in time to play the last scene in this great drama of sea
warfare. The North, too, had been trying its hand at building ironclads.
The most successful of them was the little _Monitor_, a flat-decked,
low, turreted ironclad, armed with a couple of heavy guns. She was the
first experiment of her kind, and her absolutely flat surface, nearly
level with the water, her revolving turret, and her utter unlikeness to
any pre-existing naval type, had made her an object of mirth among most
practical seamen; but her inventor, Ericsson, never despaired of her.
Under the command of a gallant naval officer, Captain Worden, she was
sent South from New York, and though she almost foundered in a gale she
managed to weather it, and reached the scene of the battle at Hampton
Roads at the hour of the nation's sorest need.

Early the following morning the _Merrimac_ again steamed forth to take
up the work she had so well begun, and to destroy the Union fleet. She
steered straight for the _Minnesota_; but when she was almost there, to
her astonishment a strange-looking little craft advanced from the side
of the big wooden frigate and boldly barred the _Merrimac_'s path. For a
moment the Confederates could hardly believe their eyes. The _Monitor_
was tiny compared to their ship, for she was not one-fifth the size, and
her queer construction and odd look made them look at their new foe with
contempt; but the first shock of battle did away with this feeling. The
_Merrimac_ turned on her foe her rifle guns, intending to blow her out
of the water, but the shot glanced from the thick iron turret of the
_Monitor_. Then the _Monitor_'s guns opened fire, and as the great balls
struck the sides of the ram the plates started and her timbers gave. Had
the _Monitor_ been such a vessel as those of her type produced later in
the war the ram would have been sunk then and there; but as it was her
shot was not quite heavy enough to pierce the iron walls. Around and
around the two strange combatants hovered, their guns bellowing without
cessation, while the men on the frigates and on shore watched the result
with breathless interest. Neither the _Merrimac_ nor the _Monitor_ could
dispose of its antagonist. The ram's guns could not damage the turret,
and the _Monitor_ was able to dexterously avoid the stroke of the
formidable prow. On the other hand, the shot of the _Monitor_ could not
penetrate the _Merrimac_'s tough sides. Accordingly, fierce though the
struggle was, and much though there was that hinged on it, it was not
bloody in character. The _Merrimac_ could neither destroy nor evade the
_Monitor_. She could not sink her when she tried to, and when she
abandoned her and turned to attack one of the other wooden vessels the
little turreted ship was thrown across her path, so that the fight had
to be renewed. Both sides grew thoroughly exhausted, and finally the
battle ceased by mutual consent. Nothing more could be done. The ram was
badly damaged, and there was no help for her save to put back to the
port whence she had come. Twice afterwards she came out, but neither
time did she come near enough to the _Monitor_ to attack her, and the
latter could not move off where she would cease to protect the wooden
ships. Tactically it was a drawn battle, neither ship being able to
damage the other, and both ships being fought to a standstill; but the
moral and material effects were wholly in favor of the _Monitor_. Her
victory was hailed with exultant joy throughout the whole Union, and
exercised a correspondingly depressing effect in the Confederacy, while
every naval man throughout the world who possessed eyes to see saw that
the fight in Hampton Roads had inaugurated a new era in ocean warfare,
and that the _Monitor_ and _Merrimac_, which had waged so gallant and so
terrible a battle, were the first ships of the new era, and that as such
their names would be forever famous.




A HINT.

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.


  If only you'll think of it, dearie,
    When people are vexing and rude,
  And be pleasant for two,
  When one's scolding at you.
    You will conquer the contrary mood.

  If only you'll think of it, dearie,
    When a certain troublesome elf,
  With pease in his shoes,
  And a look of the blues,
    Comes calling upon you himself--

  If _only_ you'll think of it, dearie,
    And laugh, like the sun, in his face,
  He will scamper away;
  You'll be happy all day;
    And _I'd_ like to be in your place.




A CHINESE ENTERPRISE.


We are all more or less interested nowadays in China and the Chinese.
They are a curious people, and their customs are so different from those
of other nations that to us, who are proud of being civilized, they
sometimes seem quite ridiculous. What civilized nation would provide a
regular home for beggars, for instance--not as a matter of charity, for
all civilized people do that, but purely in the line of business? Yet
the Chinese do this, if the following story told by a German newspaper
is true. According to this journal, the _Kleine Chronik_, a joint-stock
company in Peking erected some years ago a large building termed
Ki-mao-fan, or hen-feather-house. It is to be used as a night refuge for
the begging population of the Celestial city. A monster feather-bed
covers the whole floor of one of the largest rooms. Old and young, all
are admitted without distinction. Each settles down for the night as
comfortably as he can in this ocean of feathers. At first each sleeper
received a small blanket, but it was found, subsequently, that these
blankets very soon disappeared, being probably appropriated by the
servants of the establishment, so an enormous common blanket, full of
round holes through which the beggars at rest on the feathers can thrust
their heads for air, was made, large enough to cover the floor of the
whole room. In the day-time this general blanket is drawn up to the
ceiling by ropes and pulleys, and at night, when all the company are in
their places, it is let down, and then the beggars have to look sharp to
get their heads through one of the holes lest they run a good chance of
being suffocated. The same in the morning, they must be careful to draw
their heads out of the hole at the first stroke of the tomtom, when the
blanket is again lifted from the huge nest lest they be drawn up to the
ceiling and hanged.




THE FORGOTTEN GUNS.

BY EARLE TRACY.


Bascom and Captain Lazaré's boy Narcisse were diving near the croaker
bank.

"Bet you I can stay under twice as long as you can," Bascom said,
as he and Narcisse balanced on the edge of a row-boat.
"One--two--three--jump!"

There was a sharp smack as both boys hit the water at the same instant,
and then the ripples gurgled over them. The black head of Narcisse came
up again very soon, and he puffed and blew. He was a big, thick-set,
older boy than Bascom, but short-winded and inclined toward laziness. He
had time to turn on his back and catch his breath at leisure before
Bascom reappeared. "I was studyin' me 'bout goin' down aftah you," he
drawled.

But Bascom did not answer until he had rested a minute with one hand on
the gunwale of the boat. He was very white. "I--beat--you," he panted at
last. "I--tole you--I would." His breath was coming back to him in big
draughts that he could scarcely swallow.

"Yo' can beat me a-pullin' right now if yo' want to," Narcisse offered
as they climbed into the boat.

Bascom was glad enough to take the oars. He was breathing again, and he
would rather do anything than keep still. He wanted to shout and clap
his hands and jump, but he did not wish to excite the curiosity of
Narcisse. The hot afternoon sun poured generously over them and dried
their bathing-suits into every-day clothes.

A sound of hammering came from one of the schooners at anchor near the
landing. "I hear Captain Tony," Bascom said. "I reckon I'll get out
here."

"I didn't guess yo'd pass by de little _Mystery_," Narcisse answered,
with a good-natured grin. All Potosi was used to Bascom's devotion to
the boat which he and Captain Tony had won by bringing it safely through
the great Gulf storm the year before. Narcisse was no sooner out of
sight, however, than Bascom forgot even the _Mystery_ in the excitement
it had been so hard to suppress.

"Cap'n Tony," he cried, fairly stammering with eagerness--"Cap'n Tony--
I--I--found a buried cannon on the croaker bank!"

"W-w'at?" said Captain Tony, wondering.

"It's all crusted up with barnacles, but I know it's a cannon," Bascom
insisted. "I felt all round it, and inside of it too."

Captain Tony lifted his cap a little and then drew it down over his eyes
again incredulously. "I guess it can't be true," he said at last. "I
have never hear me 'bout any cannon sunk in de bay, an' I know all de
story of ole time."

Bascom was prancing up and down in a perfect fever of impatience. "It
must have been ever so long ago, the pirates or the Spaniards," he said.
"An' if there's a cannon there must ha' been a ship sunk there, an' if
there was a ship there must be a treasure, an' we're not a-goin' to say
nothin' to nobody, but we're a-goin' to fish it all up!"

Captain Tony put a hand on Bascom's shoulder to keep him from squirming.
"Yo' boy," he said, with the warm-hearted indulgence he always felt for
the young waif who had become his business partner, "I doan t'ink me dat
if dere is a cannon dere it will run off--not dis evenin'; an' faw de
treasure, it was without doubt mo' easy to remove. Mos' likely it run
away good w'ile ago."

"Well, I'm goin' to look an' be sure," Bascom said. "We must get the
cannon, anyways, and have her on the _Mystery_."

The Captain chuckled. "Us'es'll raise sail," he said, "an' jus' run out
befo' de breeze dies down." They might more easily have rowed, but Tony
and Bascom seldom went anywhere without the _Mystery_, except on land.

When Narcisse was rowing leisurely toward his father's point on the back
bay, he saw the little _Mystery_ put out from shore and presently cast
anchor at the croaker bank, and he put two and two together clumsily.

"Might 'a' known Bascom wouldn' drown hisse'f like dat faw fun," he
meditated. "He has suah foun' somet'ing." He rested on his oars and
pondered quite a while. "If Bascom has foun' somet'ing, I doan' see why
I didn' fin' it too. Maybe I did. My han' touched bottom, an' I
recollec' I felt somet'ing me. Bascom think he sma't not to have tell,
but I did not tell either, me;" and suddenly Narcisse set to rowing.

After Bascom dropped anchor on the croaker bank, Captain Tony poised
himself and dived. Bascom waited for his reappearance, with hands
clinched. Tony did not stay under as long as the boy had, but he was
almost as excited as soon as he came up.

"I didn' fin' 'em at de firs'," he panted, "but dere are two at de
leas'. I put my han' on dem. It mus' have been a great ship, but, I do
not know 'boud her. It mus' be ver', ver' ole, de mos' ole of all."

"How can we get 'em up?" gasped Bascom.

"Ah," said the Captain, "dat will be de troub'. It will take a win'lass
an' grapplin'-irons an' mo' men. It will be de question if it pay."

"Couldn't us'es do it by ourselves?" Bascom pleaded. His whole little
self-dependent life had strengthened his tendency to look out for
himself. The more there were to work for the treasure the more there
would be to share it.

"No," said the Captain. "Tek a pile of men to raise dose cannon."

"Then," put in Bascom, eagerly--"then le's ask Captain Lazaré an'
Narcisse to help. Me an' Narcisse was here together when I found 'em."

The Captain knit his brows and looked up the bay. "I guess dat a good
idea," he said. "Lazaré prett' sharp, but dey won't be much chance faw
anyt'ing but straight wo'k. I see dey's a-raisin' sail on de
_Alphonsine_."

"I'll row across an' speak to him when he passes," said Bascom.

But there was no need; Lazaré's schooner headed toward them from the
first. As it came slowly about and anchored close to theirs Captain Tony
gave Bascom a swift, inquiring glance, but Bascom shook his head. Then
he shouted cheerfully,

"Ho there!"

"It strange dat yo' are jus' wheah we come," Lazaré said. "Did Bascom
fin' it too?"

"Find what?" said Bascom, on his guard.

"At de bottom, w'en yo' was divin'," continued Lazaré, coolly. "Narcisse
he fin' somesing, an' I t'ought me I bettah jus' to come an' see w'at to
do 'boud it."

"Narcisse didn't find nothin'," Bascom exclaimed, hotly. "He didn't stay
under a second. If he thinks he found anythin', what color was it, an'
how did it feel? Was it dead? An' where did it come from?"

"I didn' want to drown myse'f like yo'," Narcisse answered. "I was faw
gettin' home and tellin'."

"No you wa'n't," cried Bascom, fuming. "You know you wa'n't a-studyin'
about nothin'. You didn't look like you'd ever seed anythin' in your
life."

"De way is," said Lazaré, "dat de one was jus' as big a fool as de
odder. Dey both come 'long pertendin', instead of talkin' it ovah like
men an' agreein' to share it. Have yo' been down yet, Tony, to see w'at
yo' t'ink?"

"Yes," said Tony; "I been down. Us'es was sayin', Bascom an' me, dat
maybe yo'-all like to go in wid us raisin' dose cannon." Bascom pulled
his sleeve, but he went right on. "Dere may be a little money in sellin'
'em faw a show, an' den Bascom he say he want one on de _Mystery_."

Bascom looked relieved, and Narcisse disgusted, but there was nothing to
gather from Captain Lazaré's face.

"Dat was w'at I t'ought," he said. "Dere ain't nosing goin' on, an'
anysing we can make is dat much ahead."

It was in this spirit that work was begun the next day. Not a word was
said about the possibility of treasure, yet everyone knew that they were
treasure-hunting. In these haunts of the old pirates children were
brought up on legends of buried gold. But Bascom became perfectly
absorbed in the guns. They could not be accounted for. No one in all the
country remembered seeing or hearing of the wreck of a war-vessel in the
bay. Nothing like that had happened during the war; the bay was too
shallow for any modern ships. Its shoals were what had made it so
attractive to the pirates, but the fate of all the pirate boats was
known, and none had ever been lost there, nor had they ever sunk a
victim inside the islands. Everything pointed to the old discoverers,
the Spaniards and the Frenchmen. Bascom, who had taken small interest in
the history of that or any other region, began to cram his mind eagerly
with everything in the shape of legend or record or theory until the
early days of the coast were at his fingers' ends.

The bay was thick with boats to watch the raising of the first gun. It
had taken a long time to get the grappling-irons fastened. There was not
a suit of diving armor to be had, and the men were obliged to go down
again and again before they could pry the gun far enough out of its hard
bed of shells to be grasped. When at last they felt it yielding to the
windlass there was a big cheer, and then a breathless pause. The gun
came on deck coated with shells and almost choked with barnacles and
rust. Bascom flung himself atop of it and began to scrape. The others
crowded over him. But there were no distinguishing marks. What he could
disclose of the gun's surface showed it to be of some alloy similar to
bronze. It was simply formed, and though not like any modern gun,
neither Bascom with his new knowledge, nor anyone else who saw it, could
find anything by which to guess its age. Of all the queer things that
from time to time had made their appearance in Pontomoc Bay it was the
most mysterious.

"You should sell it to some big museum," said a New Orleans man who had
come aboard from his row-boat.

"They'll have to pay us'es our price before they gets it," Bascom said;
"things don't come so cheap that have been laid by and saved so keerful
for hundreds and hundreds of years."

"They are mo' of them down there," began Captain Lazaré, whose gray hair
was wet and clinging to his hard old head from diving to superintend.
"Le's not be a-wastin' time, boys."

"I would bring up everything there is in the way of wreckage," added the
gentleman; "it may help to identify the guns."

But nothing that was ever said or found threw any light. The fragments
of worm-eaten timber which they brought up seemed to have been rudely
hewn, and riveted with wooden pegs for bolts. It was old, old, old--and
there the story ended.

On the day that they were raising the sixth gun, the last they ever
found, Bascom and Narcisse went down as usual. Bascom had been under
longer, and was just about to rise when the hook under the lifted end of
the cannon was repelled by something hard. He dug down, and his hand
felt what was unmistakably the corner of a chest. Narcisse caught sight
of the motion and put his hand in too, then he sprang up, pushing Bascom
down with his foot while he rose.

"I foun' a chest!" he gasped, coming up. "I foun' the treasure!"

"Wheah? How big?" cried Lazaré, and they crowded round the boy. But some
one noticed the blank water and raised another cry,

"Where's Bascom?"

Captain Tony drew one deep breath, thrust his hands above his head, and
sprang into the water. Narcisse stood still a moment, big eyes big with
horror, then he followed overboard.

[Illustration: THE CAPTAIN REAPPEARED AND LIFTED BASCOM'S HEAD ABOVE
WATER.]

It seemed a breathless age before the Captain reappeared and lifted
Bascom's limp head above water. A dozen hands pulled them on deck and
fell to work on Bascom.

"He'll come out," prayed the Captain through his teeth; "he got to come
out. My boy--Bascom--"

Narcisse climbed up the schooner's side, but no one noticed him, and he
hung in torture outside the group surrounding Bascom.

"He'd run his arm under de end of de cannon and de grapplin'-hook,"
Captain Tony was saying, "an' dey had settle back onto him, an' he had
not the strength lef' to pull out. I doan' understan' how it could have
settle on him like dat; but he will come out. He got to come out."

Narcisse, hearing all this, sneaked away into the cabin. He had had no
wish to hurt Bascom even when he pushed him down; it was just the
temptation to be ahead for once.

At last there was a step down the ladder. Captain Tony came and sank
onto the bench opposite. He did not see Narcisse; he was talking to
himself, and his voice trembled. "My little pa'dnah," he said; "he was
so wil' 'boud dat treasure--an' proud 'boud dem ole cannon. T'ink of dat
little chap weatherin' de big sto'm wid me. He was the stuff--"

Narcisse reached over and clutched timidly at the Captain's leg. "Ain't
dere--no chance--lef'?" he begged.

Tony started, and gazed at the boy and tried to speak, but his voice
broke into a sob. He reached over and patted Narcisse. "He--he comin'
out," he said. "He be all right. I couldn' get long widout him."

Narcisse shrank back again, the better part of him ashamed to receive
Tony's kindness. A moment later he crept past and went on deck. A few of
the men still hovered around Bascom, who lay on the deck, very white,
very sick, very washed-looking, but open-eyed and breathing. Most of
them, however, were busy again, at the windlass, and were just hauling
up the last gun. It had to be lifted before the treasure could be gotten
out, but no time was given to it after it was landed on the deck. Only
Bascom, who, in spite of his weakness, wanted to be where he could watch
the raising of the treasure, was brought and pillowed on it, an old
tarpaulin being folded over to keep him from feeling the shells.

The chest had been so deeply bedded under the gun that it was the
hardest of all to raise; but at last it began to come, and Bascom
struggled up from his gun to watch it swing, dripping, to the deck. It
was wooden, oblong in shape, and very heavy; the edges were worn off and
crumbling.

"If it hadn' been covered so deep it wouldn' have keep so well as it
has," said Captain Lazaré, waving the other men back, but trying not to
look eager or excited.

Captain Tony bent over it with him. "I doan' see the fastenin'," he
said. "I guess we cut into him. It will be ver' easy at dis end." And he
began chipping where the wood was most decayed.

It was the only thing to do, and yet, as the men stood with gaping
mouths waiting for the lid to yield, Bascom felt a new ache at his heart
to see the uncouth relic damaged. A great chunk of it gave way, and
every one bent forward. Still there was nothing to be seen but wood.
Lazaré caught the axe from Tony's hand and gave the thing a mighty blow
that sent a dull rent through it. He pried it apart with the blade and
laid it open. He had split in two a block of solid wood.

"It--it was one of the old gun-carriages!" cried Bascom, and sank back
upon his austere pillow.

Captain Tony lifted his cap a little, and then pulled it down over his
eyes again. Stooping, he measured the two sections of wood. Then,
turning to Lazaré, he asked, "Is it a fair divide?"

Lazaré covered his feelings with a comical shrug, but Narcisse and both
the crews looked whipped with disappointment, and eyed the innocent old
block resentfully. Bascom motioned to have it brought alongside his gun.

"I don't see," he said, afterward, "what better an old party like that
could have done, comin' from so far, than to bring his comforts with him
instead of presents for folks he didn't know."

Bascom never told what Narcisse had done to him under water, and the gun
that had had a share in it was used to keeping its own counsel. It and
its comrades were left in his care, and when he saw that they would be
awkward ballast on the _Mystery_, they were piled together on Tony's
beach to wait a purchaser. The faith which Bascom had had in them staid
with him, although public interest in them died out, and they were
forgotten again. But Bascom was always working with them, and polishing
them, and talking to them when he had the time.

"It's queer how you all staid there so quiet, and waited hundreds an'
hundreds an' hundreds of years--just for me," he said to them. "I wisht
I could only find out where you come from, and what you're calculatin'
for me to do. You didn't come for nothin', I make sure of that."

But the guns with all their sleeping possibilities of voice lay still.




MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE.

BY AGNES LITTLETON.


Part III.

[Illustration: Decorative T]

he next morning at ten o'clock two frightened and trembling maidens
presented themselves at the door of Miss Briggs's house on Madison
Avenue. It was all out of order, to be sure, for them to be calling at
such an hour, for it was the time appointed for their lessons, and
yesterday had been a holiday also on account of the fair; but Miss
Briggs's word was to a certain extent law in the family, and governesses
and masters were asked to defer their coming.

The mothers of Millicent and Peggy had little idea as to why their
cousin wished to see them, for neither girl dared to confess her
atrocious deed. In fact, Millicent herself did not know of Peggy's poem.
Peggy was putting off the evil moment as long as possible, when she
should be forced to give an account of what she had done.

She was really very much ashamed of herself. She had lain awake half the
night thinking of what a rude, unladylike, childish trick she had been
guilty.

"From first to last it has been silly," she groaned. "It was perfectly
hateful of me to make Milly send her poetry and turn her into a
laughing-stock, even though no one knows it was she who wrote them, and
it was ridiculous for me to put that one in about Cousin Appolina. And
it isn't very funny, either. I might have made a better one while I was
about it. Oh dear! oh dear! I wish I hadn't been born a joker! I'll
never get to England now, not for years and years, for papa declares he
won't take me himself until I have finished school. And when he hears
about this, for, of course, Cousin Appolina will tell the whole family,
what _will_ he say! Oh, oh! Unfortunate wretch that I am!"

Thus Peggy. Millicent, in the mean time, across the street, was in a no
less unhappy frame of mind.

"What can it be?" said she to herself. "Cousin Appolina could not have
found out then about the slippers, for she seemed to be in a very
pleasant mood when she came to the poetry-table. What in the world made
her buy all the poems? She must have come upon one that she liked, or
one that she didn't like, that made her buy them all. Probably that she
didn't like, but which one, I wonder?"

But as I have said, they rang Miss Briggs's door-bell, punctual to the
moment. James, the melancholy footman, seemed even more solemn than
usual as he ushered them up the stairs to the door of Miss Briggs's
library.

"Miss Reid and Miss Margaret Reid," he announced, in a sepulchral voice,
and withdrew, leaving them to their fate.

Miss Briggs sat at her desk writing. She gave the girls a cold
good-morning, and motioned them to be seated. She continued to write,
and her quill pen travelled briskly across the page, scratching loudly.
Millicent's heart sank. The slippers were placed in reproachful
prominence upon the top of the desk. The poems were not to be seen.

After some minutes' silence, broken only by a deep-drawn sigh from
Milly, a warning cough from Peggy, and the scratching of the quill, Miss
Briggs turned in her chair and faced them. She removed the spectacles
which she had worn when writing, and raised her lorgnette. The girls
thought that no stern judge in the days of witchcraft could have
appeared more formidable. She scrutinized them piercingly, coldly,
judicially. Then she spoke.

"I have asked you to come to me, young ladies, that some small matters
may be cleared up. Who wrote that poetry?" It was not the slippers
entirely, then. It was "To a Pearl in an Oyster-shell"; and Peggy would
go to England. Millicent's eyes were on the ground, the color came and
went in her cheeks, her head drooped.

"I did," she faltered.

"Just as I thought. No one but you, you silly scrap of sentiment, would
be guilty of writing such trash. It is now consigned to its proper
destination;" and she pointed to a large scrap-basket which the girls
had not before noticed, and which was filled to overflowing with the
ill-fated booklets. "I have looked through them all, and find nothing
but harmless trash, with one exception. As you may suppose, it is this
one;" and from under some papers on her desk she drew another.

"I suppose it is the sonnet to 'A Pearl in an Oyster-shell,'" gasped
Millicent. "I am sorry, Cousin Appolina, that it went in. I--"

"Pearl in an oyster-shell? Nonsense! What do I care about pearls in
oyster-shells? Do not try any of those evasions with me; they are of no
use. I am shocked, pained, astonished that one of my own kith and kin,
the daughter of my cousin Van Aspinwall Reid, should have been guilty of
such--such--well, words fail me!--such gross impertinence!"

Millicent forgot her misery, and stared at Miss Briggs in astonishment.
"I don't know what you mean, Cousin Appolina, unless it is the
slippers."

"Slippers! Yes, you may well allude to the slippers, but the next time
you send my gifts to be sold pray be more careful. I drew one of them on
my foot this morning and felt the crunch of paper in the toe. I examined
the paper, and found it to be this."

Miss Appolina rose and held a small white card toward Millicent. This is
what was written upon it:

     "For Millicent, with love and good wishes for a Merry Christmas
     and Happy New Year, from her cousin, Appolina Briggs."

"I notice that the check which I sent with the slippers was carefully
removed. _That_ did not go to the fair," added Miss Briggs, grimly, as
she again seated herself.

Millicent burst into tears. All this time Peggy's mind was busy. A
terrible temptation stared her in the face. No one seemed to suspect her
of having written the lines about her cousin; if she did not confess it,
who would know it?

After all, it would do no further harm to Millicent's prospects if
Cousin Appolina continued to think that she wrote them, for she would
not be chosen to go to England now under any circumstances on account of
the slippers.

Should Peggy remain quiet and let it pass? Not a creature but herself
knew what she had done, and it would be easy enough to continue to hide
it.

"Cousin Appolina," said Millicent, finding her voice at last, "I am so
sorry! You see, I hadn't worn the slippers, for the ones you gave me
before are still as good as new, and I had nothing to send to the fair,
for I don't do any fancy-work, and I thought--perhaps--you wouldn't
mind. I didn't notice the paper."

"Evidently not; but what if the shoes had fallen into other hands than
mine? What if-- But all this amounts to nothing compared with your
positive outrageousness in writing those lines about me and sending them
to be sold."

"Cousin Appolina, what do you mean?" cried Millicent. "I didn't mean
you."

"Mean me?" repeated Miss Briggs, in wrath. "To whom, then, were you
referring? Is there _another_ Miss Appolina B.?"

"I can't imagine what you are talking about, honestly, Cousin Appolina,
but I really did not mean that you were the pearl in the oyster-shell. I
wrote it about some one else."

"Pearl in the oyster-shell! Do not dare to mention that pearl or that
oyster-shell again. I am tired of hearing of them both. And do not
pretend that you do not understand me, Millicent. You are not so stupid
as all that, though I must say you were extraordinarily dull of
comprehension when you sent those verses to the fair, and it was
astonishingly like you to do it, too. No, this is what I am referring
to. Now, what have you to say for yourself?"

She thrust the unlucky booklet at her cousin, and began to walk the
floor.

Millicent read the verses:

  "Who is a dame of high degree?
  Who's always scolded little me?
  Who is a sight strange for to see?
                      Miss Appolina B.

  "Who cannot with her friends agree?
  Who loves to feed on cakes and tea?
  Who prides herself on her pedigree?
                      Miss Appolina B.

  "Who'll soon set sail across the sea?
  Who will not take her cousins three?
  Who is an ancient, awful she?
                      Miss Appolina B."

"Who else would have written that about the 'cousins three'" thundered
Miss Briggs, as she walked. "And, besides, you have already confessed
that you are the author of the rhymes. What more is needed? As for my
pedigree, is there a better one in all New York? I may be ancient and I
may be awful, but at least I am aristocratic. Cakes and tea forsooth!
You have had the last cakes and tea you will ever have in my house.
Margaret"--suddenly stopping in front of Peggy--"Margaret, I have
decided that you shall be the one to go abroad with me. I have made up
my mind to that, now that Millicent has confessed that she wrote the
poetry. Yesterday I was in doubt as to which one of you had written it,
so I requested you both to come to me, but in the mean time I have read
the other poems, and even before Millicent acknowledged it, I knew that
they had emanated from no pen but hers! No one else could have been
capable of such trash. We will sail, Margaret, on the 1st of June."

Still, Peggy held her peace. She would wait and see what Millicent said.
Millicent, too, was silent. At first her astonishment upon reading the
verses deprived her of the power of speech. Who in the world could have
written them, and how did they get among her poems at the fair? She felt
stupefied; but slowly a glimmering of the truth dawned upon her.

She knew that the author of the lines was either her sister or her
cousin.

It did not seem like Joan to do it, and yet it was not possible that it
could have been Peggy or she would boldly confess it now. It must be
Joanna. Whichever it was, Millicent would not speak. The innocent had
suffered for the guilty before this. There was no chance whatever of her
being chosen for England on account of the slippers, therefore she would
not spoil the prospects of the others. She could suffer for two offences
as easily as for one.

She rose, placed the verses upon Miss Briggs's desk, and stood before
her relative.

"I am very sorry," she said; "I did not know those verses were there.
I--I--apologize with all my heart. May I go now?"

"Yes, you may go, and do not come to the house again until you at least
appear to be more ashamed of your conduct. You are absolutely
unrepentant, I see. Go! Margaret, my dear, I should be glad to have you
stay and talk over our trip."

Millicent left the house feeling as if she were walking in a dream. What
could it all mean? Of course it was Joan. What a strange thing for the
child to do! And how cleverly she had hidden it!

When she was told of the transaction at the fair, of how Cousin Appolina
had bought all the poems, she had only laughed and thought it a good
joke, and was glad that Millicent's poetry was appreciated. And she went
off to school that morning as light-heartedly as possible. Her last
words had been:

"I hope you will get through all right with Cousin Appolina, Milly
darling, and I _hope_ she hasn't found out about the slippers, and that
you will be the one to go to England."

And yet it must have been Joan, for Peggy would certainly have confessed
had it been she.

Millicent walked slowly homeward. The French teacher was awaiting her,
and her singing master was to come directly afterward, but her lessons
did not receive very close attention that day.

In the mean time Peggy was left with her cousin.

"I am astonished at Millicent," said Miss Briggs, as the door closed. "I
always suspected that she was silly, but I never supposed she could be
impertinent. I shall not mention it in the family, Margaret, and I shall
be obliged to you if you will not either. I would not for the world have
either her father or yours know what--what she has said about me."

Still, Peggy was strangely silent. She was glad that it was not to be
told. She had less compunction about not confessing if the family were
not to know it. Now they would merely think it a whim of Cousin
Appolina's that she was the one chosen for the voyage.

She did not enter with great heartiness into the plans for the summer,
and Miss Briggs soon dismissed her.

"But come in again at five o'clock and have some 'cakes and tea,'" she
said, with great meaning. "My poor cakes and tea! Oh, it was outrageous!
I shall never pardon Millicent."

So Peggy went home, or rather to her uncle's house, for the girls shared
the school-room there. After lessons were over, and they were left alone
together, Peggy broke the silence.

"Did you write those lines to Cousin Appolina, Mill?"

"No; of course not, Peggy. It must have been Joan."

"Do you really think so?"

"Yes; and I feel dreadfully about it. Not so much because I will lose
the trip, but because she has been so deceitful. I can't understand it.
To think, too, of your being the one to go, after all."

"But why didn't you tell Cousin Appolina that you didn't write it?"

"It wasn't worth while. I knew it must have been either you or Joan, and
I thought if you did it you would say so. If Joan did it--well, Peggy, I
didn't want to. I feel dreadfully about Joan's having done it. I shall
talk to the child, and-- But I can't bear to think she did it, and I
would rather have Cousin Appolina think it was I than little Joan."

"You are very generous," said Peggy.

"No, I am not. I shouldn't be the one to go, anyhow. Of course the whole
thing is terribly dishonorable, but I must save Joan."

Peggy said nothing for a long time. Then she asked, "What time does Joan
get home to-day?"

"Not until late, for she is going to lunch with one of the girls, and
then to the Dog Show with her."

"Well, I must go home. I'll see you again before the day is over." And
Peggy departed to her own house. "What a good girl Millicent is," she
thought. "I have laughed at her and made endless fun of her for her
poetry-making, I have thought she was stupid over her lessons, and not
half as bright or as much to be admired as myself, and here she is ten
times more generous, ten times more honorable, ten times better than I
am in every way. I am a wretch, a conceited, deceitful, mean, stuck-up,
and everything else that is horrible wretch. But I don't want to give up
and tell Cousin Appolina that I did it."

At twenty minutes of five that afternoon Peggy again appeared in
Millicent's room. An odor of smoke filled the air, and Milly seemed to
be wrestling with the tongs and some burning paper at the fireplace.

"What are you doing?" asked Peggy, much surprised. "Building a fire this
warm day?"

"I--I--am burning my--my poetry," replied Millicent, struggling with her
tears as well as with the tones. "I am never going to write another
line. Every one laughed so that I don't believe there is much real
poetry in it, and I am never, never going to write again. What a horrid
smell that m-morocco c-cover makes!"

Peggy would have laughed had she been in a happier frame of mind. As it
was, she said, solemnly: "Open the window and leave the room to air off,
Mill. I want you to come out with me. I am going to Cousin Appolina's."

"But I can't go there, Peggy. You know she told me not to come again."

"You must, Milly. You really must. I will be responsible for it. I can't
go alone. You _must_ go with me."

Finally Millicent put on her hat, and for the second time that day the
two set forth for their cousin's house.

Miss Briggs was in her drawing-room. The tea tray had just been placed
before her, the celebrated cakes reposed in the old silver cake basket
conveniently at hand, the man had left the room, when again the Misses
Reid were announced.

Miss Briggs looked up and raised her lorgnette.

"You have made a mistake," she said. "I am not at home to Millicent."

"Yes, you are, Cousin Appolina!" cried Peggy, rushing forward and
causing a bronze Hermes to totter as she brushed past it--"yes, you are
more at home to Milly than you are to me. For she didn't write them,
Cousin Appolina. She didn't write the lines about you. I have brought
her with me to hear me confess. She is as innocent as--as that piece of
statuary. I wrote the verses. _I_ did!"

For a moment there was an alarming silence, but Peggy, having once begun
her confession, courageously continued.

"I did it to frighten Milly. I put it in the box, but 'way underneath,
for her to see when the poems came home. I thought it would be such fun
to watch her when she read it, and found it had been to the fair with
the others. Of course it was just my luck to have you find it, but, it
was a silly, foolish thing to do, just as it was perfectly horrid of me
to make Milly send her own verses to the fair. That was my fault, too. I
urged her to do it just to get some fun out of it, and I didn't get a
bit.

"Then this morning, when you thought Milly had written them all, and she
didn't say anything, I thought I would let it pass, for I wanted
dreadfully to go to England, and I knew that her chances were over on
account of the slippers. Well, I was firm about it for an hour or so,
and then I found how generous Milly was to say nothing, and she thought
Joan had done it, and was going to scold her, and-- Oh, well, I don't
think it pays to deceive! I never was so unhappy in my life as I have
been to-day. Milly, you dear old soul, say you forgive me!"

During this long speech Millicent had time to think the matter over. Her
chief feeling was one of thankfulness that it was not Joanna who had
done this thing. And Millicent had a sweet nature and never harbored
anger very long.

Of course it was a dreadful thing for Peggy to have done, but her cousin
knew how dearly she loved a joke, and though it had been wrong for her
to deceive Miss Briggs and herself this morning, she had not kept it up
long, and it was easy to see that she was sorry enough for it now.

So when Peggy asked her to forgive her, Millicent's answer was a warm
kiss.

"And have I nothing to forgive?"

It was Miss Briggs who put the question.

"Yes, of course you have, Cousin Appolina! I am terribly sorry that I
ever did such a thing. It was rude, impertinent, everything that was
bad. I hope you will forgive me. Of course it is all true, but I needn't
have said it."

"True?"

"Why, yes. You know you are a dame of high degree, and you have always
scolded me, and in your winter bonnet and big fur cape you
were--er--well, a sight rather strange for to see. And it is perfectly
true you are soon going to set sail across the sea and you won't take us
all three, and sometimes, you know, Cousin Appolina, you don't agree
very well, especially with me. And you do love cakes and tea, but so do
I, so that isn't anything. And you say yourself you pride yourself on
your pedigree."

"And no one has a better right. But there is one line that you have left
out. You called me an _ancient, awful she_!"

Peggy paused.

"I know," she said, slowly, "that was dreadful, but--but it is partly
true. I suppose you can't truthfully call yourself very young, Cousin
Appolina, and sometimes you can be very awful."

Another pause.

"You may both go home," said Miss Briggs.

And they went.

[Illustration: MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE]

On the 1st of June Miss Appolina Briggs sailed for England, accompanied
by her maid and by her young cousin, Joanna Reid. And Millicent and
Peggy stood on the wharf and waved them a sad farewell.

THE END.




SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.

BY KIRK MUNROE.


CHAPTER XXI.

A YUKON MINING CAMP.

The supper provided by the hospitable miners was a good one, and
heartily did our travellers enjoy it; but while they are appeasing the
extraordinary appetites that they acquired somewhere in the Alaskan
wilderness, let us take a look at this most northern of American mining
camps.

To begin with, although it is at the junction of Forty Mile Creek and
the Yukon River, it is not in Alaska, but about twenty miles east of the
boundary in Northwest Territory, which is one of the sub-divisions of
Canada. The most recent name of this camp is "Mitchell," but all old
Yukon miners know it as Camp Forty Mile. At the time of Phil Ryder's
visit it contained nearly two hundred log cabins, two stores, including
the one that he established in the name of his friend, Gerald Hamer, two
saloons, both of which were closed for the season, and a small cigar
factory. Although the winter population was only about three hundred, in
summer-time it is much larger, as many of the miners come out in the
fall and return before the 15th of June, at which date, according to
Yukon mining law, every man owning a claim must be on the ground or it
may be "jumped."

Forty Mile is what is known as a placer camp, which means that its gold
is found in minute particles or "dust" in soft earth, from which it can
be washed in sluices or rockers. Into one of these a stream of water is
turned that sweeps away all the dirt and gravel, allowing the heavier
gold to sink to the bottom, where it is caught and held by cross-bars or
"riffles."

Although gold has been discovered at many points along the Yukon and its
branches, the deposit at Forty Mile is the richest yet worked, and has
paid as high as $300 to a man for a single day's labor; $12,000 worth of
gold was cleared by one miner in a three months' season, and a $500
nugget has been found; but most of the miners are content if they can
make "ounce wages," or sixteen dollars per day, while the average for
the camp is not over $8 per day during the short season of that arctic
region.

Sluices can only be worked during three or four months of summer-time;
then come the terrible eight or nine months of winter when the mercury
thinks nothing of dropping to 60° or 70° below zero, and the whole world
seems made of ice. Strange as it may appear, the summer weather of this
region is very hot, 85° in the shade, and 112° in the sun being
frequently reached by the mercury. During the summer months, too, the
entire Yukon Valley is as terribly infested with mosquitoes as is any
mangrove swamp of the tropics. Thus the hardy miner who penetrates it in
his search for gold is made to suffer from one cause or another during
every month of the year.

In spite of the summer heat the ground never thaws to a depth of more
than five or six feet, below which it is solidly frozen beyond any point
yet reached by digging. Under the dense covering of moss, six to
eighteen inches thick, by which the greater part of Alaska is
overspread, it does not thaw more than a few inches. Consequently the
most important item of a Yukon miner's winter work is the stripping of
this moss from his claim in order that next summer's sun may have a
chance to thaw it to working depth.

There were no women nor children at Forty Mile, and there were few
amusements, but there was plenty of hard work in both summer when the
sun hardly sets at all, and in the winter when he barely shows his face
above the southern horizon. Besides the laborious task of
moss-stripping, the miner must saw out by hand all lumber for sluices
and rockers. He must build his own cabin and fashion its rude furniture,
besides doing all of his own house-work and cooking. He also expects to
do a certain amount of hunting and trapping during the winter months, so
that his time, unless he be very lazy, is fully occupied. But lazy men
are not apt to reach Forty Mile, for the journey from Juneau, in
southern Alaska, which is the largest city in the Territory, as well as
the nearest outfitting point for the diggings, is so filled with peril
and the roughest kind of hard work as to deter any but men of the most
determined energy.

At Juneau, Yukon travellers provide themselves with an outfit of
snow-shoes, sledges, tents, fur clothing, provisions, and whatever else
seems to them necessary. Starting in the early spring they proceed by
boat to the Chilkat country, seventy miles distant, and to the head of
Chilkoot Inlet. From there they set forth on a terrible mountain climb
over snow many feet in depth, where they are in constant danger from
avalanches, and cross the coast range by a pass that rises 3000 feet
above timber line. On the opposite side they strike the head-waters of
the Yukon, which they follow through a series of six lakes, sledging
over their still ice-bound waters, and rafting down their connecting
links, in which are seething rapids, dark gorges, and roaring cañons,
around which all goods must be carried on men's backs. After some 200
miles of these difficulties have been passed, trees must be felled,
lumber sawed, cut, and boats constructed for the remaining 500 miles of
the weary journey.

As it would not pay to transport freight by this route, all provisions
and other supplies for the diggings are shipped from San Francisco by
sea to St. Michaels, where they are transferred to small river steamers
like the _Chimo_, and so after being many months on the way, finally
reach their destination. By this time their value has become so enhanced
or "enchanted," as the miners say, that Phil Ryder found flour selling
for $30 per barrel, bacon at 35 cents per pound, beans at 25 cents per
pound, canned fruit at 60 cents per pound, coarse flannel shirts at $8
each, rubber boots at $18 per pair, and all other goods at proportionate
rates. Even sledge dogs such as he had purchased at Anvik for $5 or $6
each were here valued at $25 apiece.

In view of these facts it is no wonder that the news of another steamer
on the river bringing a saw-mill to supply them with lumber, machinery
with which to work the frozen but gold-laden earth of their claims, and
a large stock of goods to be sold at about one-half the prevailing
prices, created a very pleasant excitement among the miners of that
wide-awake camp.

On the day following his arrival, and after a careful survey of the
situation, Phil rented the largest building in the place, paying one
month's rent in advance, and giving its owner an order on Gerald Hamer
for the balance until the time of the _Chimo_'s arrival. This building
had been used as a saloon, and was conveniently located close by the
steamboat landing facing the river. Into it the sledge party moved all
their belongings, including the seventeen wolf-skins, which now formed
rugs for their floor as well as coverings for several split-log benches.
Serge and the two Indians at once started up the river with the sledges
for a supply of firewood, which was a precious article in Forty Mile at
that time, leaving Phil and Jalap Coombs to clean the new quarters and
render them habitable; while the latter, with a sailor's neat deftness,
attended to this work, Phil busied himself with a pot of black paint and
a long breadth of cotton cloth. At this he labored with such diligence
that in an hour's time a huge sign appeared above the entrance to the
building and stretched across its entire front. On it, in letters so
large that they could be plainly read from the river, was painted the
legend, "Yukon Trading Company, Gerald Hamer, Agent."

This promise of increased business facilities was greeted by a round of
hearty cheers from a group of miners who had assembled to witness the
raising of the new sign, and when Jalap Coombs finished tacking up his
end one of these stepped up to him with a keen scrutiny. Finally he
said. "Stranger, may I be so bold as to ask who was the best friend you
ever had?"

"Sartain you may," replied the sailorman, "seeing as I'm allers proud to
mention the name of old Kite Roberson, and likewise claim him for a
friend."

[Illustration: "WHY, MATEY, DON'T YOU REMEMBER THE OLD BRIG 'BETSY?"]

"I thought so!" cried the delighted miner, thrusting out a great hairy
paw. "I thought I couldn't be mistook in that figger-head, and I knowed
if you was the same old Jalap I took ye to be that Kite Roberson
wouldn't be fur off. Why, matey, don't you remember the old brig
_Betsy_? Have you clean forgot Skiff Bettens?"

"Him that went into the hold and found the fire and put it out, and was
drug up so nigh dead from smoke that he didn't breathe nateral agin fur
a week? Not much I hain't forgot him, and I'm nigh about as glad to see
him as if he were old Kite hisself!" exclaimed Jalap Coombs, in joyous
tones. Then he introduced Mr. Skiff Betten, ex-sailor and now Yukon
miner, to Phil, and pulled him into the house, and there was no more
work to be got out of Jalap Coombs that day.

Phil had also been recognized. That is, Mr. Platt Riley had asked him if
he were the son of his father, and when Phil admitted the relationship,
told him that he had a father to be proud of every minute of his life.
Didn't he know? for hadn't he, Platt Riley, worked side by side with Mr.
John Ryder prospecting in South Africa, where every ounce of grit that a
white man had in him was bound to show itself? "To be certain he had,
and now he was proud to shake the hand of John Ryder's son, and if there
was anything John Ryder's son wanted in that camp why he, Platt Riley,
was the man to get it for him."

So our sledge travellers found that even in that remote mining camp,
buried from the world beneath the snows of an arctic winter, they were
among friends. This, coupled with all that they had undergone in
reaching it, made it seem to them a very pleasant and comfortable place
in which to rest awhile.

And it was necessary that they should stay there for a time. They must
cultivate friendly business relations with the miners on Gerald Hamer's
account, and find out what class of goods were most in demand; for never
until now had Phil realized the responsibility with which he had been
entrusted. He must prepare a full report to send back by Kurilla and
Chitsah, who could not be tempted to venture any further away from their
homes. The dogs must be well rested before they would be fitted for the
second and most difficult half of the long journey. Above all, Phil felt
that, as representative of the Yukon Trading Company, he must be on hand
to meet the agents of its old-established rival, and defend his far-away
friend from the false reports they were certain to spread concerning
him.

He wondered why Goldollar and Strengel did not appear, and dreaded to
meet them; but at the same time longed to have the disagreeable
encounter over with as quickly as possible. So many times each day did
he gaze long and fixedly across the broad white plain of the Yukon. At
length, on the eighth day after their arrival at Forty-Mile, his eye was
caught by some moving black dots that he felt certain must be the
expected sledges.


CHAPTER XXII.

THE NEW ARRIVAL AT FORTY MILE.

The man known as Strengel was probably as great a rascal as could be
found in all Alaska. His sole object in shipping aboard the steamer
_Norsk_ at San Francisco had been to make his way, by fair means or
foul, to the Yukon gold fields, of which he had gained extravagant
ideas. On the night before the _Norsk_ left St. Michaels he stole from
the chests of several of his shipmates such small sums of money as they
contained, slipped into a canoe, and deserted the ship. He remained in
hiding until she sailed, and then, claiming to have been discharged at
his own request, offered his services to Gerald Hamer in exchange for a
passage to Forty Mile. This proposition being accepted, and Strengel
regularly shipped as one of the _Chimo_'s crew, he made a secret
proposal to the old company through one of its clerks, who happened to
be Simon Goldollar, to so delay and cripple Gerald Hamer's expedition,
that he should be forced to abandon it. In attempting to carry out this
programme he was foiled by Phil Ryder's quick wit and prompt action.

Making his way back to St. Michaels, after Phil set him ashore at the
Pastolik wood-yard, Strengel fell in with Jalap Coombs, and, in company
with Goldollar, so managed the money affairs of that unsuspecting sailor
that he was unwittingly made to defray all their expenses to Forty Mile,
though he only expected to accompany them a short distance up the river.
Strengel's sole object was still to reach the gold fields; while
Goldollar was intent on winning a reputation for himself by forestalling
Gerald Hamer at Forty Mile, and at the same time inflicting what injury
he could on Phil Ryder. From the outset they agreed to rid themselves of
Jalap Coombs at some point so far up the river that he must necessarily
remain where they left him for the rest of the winter. They learned at
Nulato that the _Chimo_ was frozen in at Anvik, but took care that this
information should not reach Jalap Coombs, whom they soon afterwards so
cruelly deserted.

As they travelled beyond the point where they left him, the well-mated
pair had such frequent and bitter quarrels, that when Simon Goldollar
fell seriously ill, Strengel did not hesitate to rob him of what money
he carried and desert him at a native village near the abandoned
trading-post of Fort Yukon. Before doing this he discharged the Indians
who had come with them from Nulato, and sent them back, telling them
that he should remain with his sick friend until he recovered or died.
As soon as they were gone he engaged other natives, and set out for the
diggings that had for so long been the goal of his desires.

He planned to enter Forty Mile under a new name, and as a traveller from
one of the interior Hudson Bay trading-posts, who was ignorant of the
lower Yukon, its people, and its happenings. He was confident that Jalap
Coombs would never appear to contradict him, and almost equally certain
that Simon Goldollar would never reach Forty Mile. If by a miracle he
should recover from his illness he was helpless to continue his journey
before the boats came up in the summer, by which time the man who had
robbed and deserted him would be lost to sight amid the season's rush of
prospectors. In the mean time he had plenty of money to live on until he
should meet with an opportunity for making a strike of some kind.

Thus it was that on a pleasant day of late January Mr. Strengel
approached the mining camp of Forty Mile, riding comfortably in Jalap
Coombs's own sledge, with a light heart, and no intimation of aught but
an agreeable reception by its citizens. But in all his carefully worked
out plans he had made several miscalculations.

It had never occurred to him that there was any other route than the one
he had followed by which this point might be reached from the lower
river. Nor did he believe it possible that any word of Gerald Hamer's
expedition could have come up the river unknown to him. Finally, his
gravest mistake lay in supposing the population of this camp to be of
the same lawless class as is to be found in most Western mining camps,
and believing that here he should meet only with as great rascals as
himself. In this he displayed great ignorance of Forty Mile, which was
wholly in the hands of honorable old-time miners, who had framed a
simple set of laws for the regulation of their isolated little community
that they were determined should be respected. They had chosen one of
their own number as Judge, and from his decisions they allowed no
appeal. They had also elected a Marshal, whom they loyally assisted in
the discharge of his duties. Several lawless characters had already been
driven from the camp, and many others warned not to venture within its
limits.

As Forty Mile had received warning of the expected coming of Goldollar
and Strengel, and had learned many interesting things concerning the
previous history of these gentlemen, their arrival was eagerly
anticipated. Thus, upon Phil Ryder's announcement that sledges were
coming up the river, an expectant throng was quickly gathered at the
landing.

Mr. Strengel fired several shots from his rifle as he drew near, and was
surprised that his salute was not answered in kind. He was, of course,
gratified to observe the sensation that his approach was creating, and
undertook to arouse some enthusiasm among the silent spectators by
yelling: "Hurrah for Forty Mile! Hurrah for the diggings! Hurrah for our
side!" Then, as his sledge reached the bank, and he sprang out, he
cried, in tones meant to convey hearty good-fellowship:

"How are you, boys? You bet I'm mighty glad to see white men again after
camping with a lot of low-lived Injuns for more than two months. You
see, I've just come down from Pierre's House in the Porcupine. My name's
Bradwick, and--"

Here the speaker's fluent words seemed suddenly to fail him, his face
turned pale, and his eyes were fixed in a bewildered stare. He had
caught sight of the Yukon Trading Company's sign.

"Ha, ha!" he laughed, recovering himself with an effort. "Seeing the
name of an old friend who's long since dead kinder give me a turn. But,
as I was saying--"

"Yes, you were just about to tell us what had become of Goldollar,"
interrupted Mr. Platt Riley, who had received word from Phil that the
new-comer was Strengel.

"Goldollar!" stammered the stranger, at the same time starting as though
he had been shot. "Goldollar!" he repeated, reflectively; "I don't know
the name; never heard it before in my life. I think I mentioned that I'd
just come down from Pierre's House on the Porcupine, and hadn't seen a
white man since leaving there. There wasn't no one of that name at
Pierre's House when I left. What do you mean? Who is Goldollar, anyhow?"

"He's a feller that we heard was coming up from below with a dog train,"
replied Mr. Riley, deliberately, at the same time gazing full in
Strengel's face. "And we didn't know but what you and him might have met
up and concluded to travel together."

"How could you hear of him?" inquired the new-comer. "I didn't know
there was any way for news to reach Forty Mile in the winter."

"Oh, we might have heard by mail, or telegraph, or seen it in the daily
papers, or a dozen other ways. Anyhow, we did hear it, and that another
feller was along with him. So of course when we saw you coming up the
river--"

"You didn't hear that the other fellow's name was Bradwick, did you?"
interrupted the stranger.

"No, that wasn't the name. It wasn't so good a name as that."

"Well, then, you didn't hear that I was coming with him; for Bradwick is
my name, and I don't know nothing about any Goldollars, though I hope to
find out something about them right here in these diggings," replied Mr.
Strengel, boldly, and with attempted jocularity. "Now, seeing that I'm
tired, and cold, and hungry," he added, "supposing we adjourn to some
place that's warmer than out here in the snow, and better suited for
making acquaintances."

"All right," replied Mr. Riley. "We don't know much about Goldollars
ourselves, but we'll try and teach you all we do know, and at the same
time put you in the way of meeting acquaintances. As you say, though,
this is a cold place for talking, so I suppose you might as well come up
to my select family boarding-house for the night, seeing as it ain't
overcrowded just at present. Then in the morning we'll look round for a
place that'll suit you better."

So the new-comer walked away with Mr. Platt Riley, while the spectators
of this interesting meeting chuckled and winked significantly, and
remarked:

"Ain't the Judge a honey cooler, though? He ain't the kind that'll hang
a man first and try him afterwards. Not much; that ain't his style. Fair
play's his motter, and turn the rascals out every time."

It is needless to say that during the interview just described Phil,
Serge, and Jalap kept themselves out of sight.

All that evening a constant stream of visitors flowed in and out of Mr.
Platt Riley's cabin. Each wore an expression of expectancy and
suppressed mirth, and each bowed gravely without trusting himself to
speak when introduced to Mr. "Bradwick." It was also to be noticed that
none of them shook hands with him; when he complained of this to his
host he was gravely informed that hand-shaking was not one of the
customs of the camp.

On the whole, his impressions of Camp Forty Mile were so unpleasant,
that he fully determined to get his dog teams in motion the very next
day, and push on further up the river. It was only upon the urgent
request of Mr. Platt Riley that he consented to delay his departure long
enough to attend a public meeting of the greatest interest to all Yukon
miners, that was to be held first thing in the morning.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




RABBITS.

THEIR CARE, AND HOW TO BUILD THEIR HOUSES.

BY E. CHASE.


The first rabbit I had I put in a wooden box. Not knowing anything about
his habits, I nailed laths over the front to keep him in. The next
morning I was very much surprised to find that bunny had gnawed his way
out, and was busily engaged in eating up my last rose-bush.

The next house I built for him was against the back-yard fence. In front
of the house I tacked wire netting, and in addition made a yard for him
in which to run about, taking good care to cover over the top, so "brer
rabbit" could not escape by jumping out. I thought I had him secure this
time, but when I was at school he burrowed out under the fence, and ate
up all the neighbors' flowers. My first week's experience was certainly
very trying on my pocket-book.

[Illustration: DIAGRAM OF THE HOUSE AND YARD.]

Rabbits make very interesting pets if one knows how to take care of
them. The house shown in the accompanying diagram proved to be a very
serviceable one. It is divided into two "rooms," and has a small run
attached. The floor of the house should be provided with sliding pans,
which will make clearing an easy matter. In order to keep all dampness
from the house it is necessary to raise it a few inches from the ground.
In winter--that is, in very severe weather--it would be best to carry
this house in-doors. In order to keep the rabbits from burrowing out, it
is necessary to drive down stakes, about two feet long, close together,
all around the yard. A box sunk in the earth at the further end of the
yard, with an opening so that bunny can go in and out, is a luxury that
he will greatly appreciate.

For feeding rabbits, give them oats, corn, all kinds of greens, carrots,
raw sweet-potatoes, tea-leaves (after they come from the teapot), and
milk. I have heard it said that rabbits do not drink, but this is a
mistake, as I have had over sixty rabbits at a time, and never knew of
one that did not drink.

It is considered best to keep the buck away from the doe until the young
are a month old, as he is apt to trample them. The number of young
varies from four to eight. They are born without fur, and their eyes are
shut. It usually takes ten days for them to open their eyes and get
their coats. The first little fellow who ventures from the nest is
regarded to be the smartest one of the litter.

I have only been able to discover three species of rabbits--the Angora,
with long silky hair; the lop-eared, with very long cars which drag on
the ground; and the common rabbit, with which most of us are familiar.

Rabbits are very good barometers in their way. Before a storm they will
become unusually frisky. Although the sky may be clear, if you see your
pets kicking up their long hind-legs you may make up your mind there
will be a shower within a few hours.

A noted French scientist recently experimented with the different small
animals as to which could stand the greatest amount of cold. He decided
that the rabbit could, for he locked one up overnight in a cake of ice,
and the next morning the rabbit hopped out, feeling very well, and with
a tremendous appetite. In spite of this notable gentleman's discovery, I
have had three valuable rabbits frozen stiff during a siege of cold
weather.

[Illustration: LOP-EARED RABBITS AT HOME.]




KNICKERBOCKER GRAYS.

BY ANNE HELME.

"IN TIME OF PEACE PREPARE FOR WAR."


[Illustration: IN COLUMN OF COMPANIES.]

The clear tones of the bugle sound through the big arsenal, and there is
a rush of small gray-clad boys carrying guns to their proper places.
Again it sounds attention! Assemble! And a long line is formed of
apparently motionless statues. Then comes the roll-call. As in the
regular army, the First Sergeant in command calls out the name. His
voice is not stentorian, and neither are the answers, but there is a
very effective military tone and ring to them, and answering every
purpose. The orders are given by the different boys in command--First,
Second, and Third Corporal, First, Second, and Third Sergeant, First,
Second, and Third Lieutenant, Sergeant-Major, Color-Sergeant, Captain,
Adjutant, and Major.

[Illustration: THE MAJOR.]

[Illustration: THE MAJOR AND HIS OFFICERS.]

To one who is not conversant with the manual of arms, the commands given
are somewhat bewildering; but so well trained are the boys that they
answer, and some with military precision, and present arms and carry
arms in a delightful manner, eminently military, not always
satisfactorily, for the small boys in command have sometimes to repeat
their orders, and occasionally Captain Hoyt, the officer in command, and
also an officer of the United States army, has to enforce the orders in
a more far-reaching voice and authoritative manner.

[Illustration: THE DRUMMER.]

The Knickerbocker Grays is a private organization intended to instruct
the sons of New-Yorkers in the knowledge of drilling. It is managed by
several ladies, who give their personal supervision to it. The class
meets twice a week during the winter season in the arsenal of the
Seventy-first Regiment, at Thirty-fourth Street and Park Avenue. The
ages are limited, no boy under seven being allowed to enter. The uniform
is gray, with black trimming, and all the military rules as to the
number of straps, epaulettes, and accoutrements are rigidly adhered to.
The boys learn to march well, although it is a comical sight to see some
of the very small boys carrying their muskets and making superhuman
efforts to keep time. Perhaps the pathetic note in the picture adds the
finishing touch in the little drummer-boy, who, clad in the same
uniform, drums with might and main. He is paid to drum, but there is a
look of pride and delight in his profession which quite prevents any
thought of pity at the contrast in his lot to those of the boys of his
own age who go into the drill merely for the sake of occupation and
amusement.

The boys love Tuesday and Friday afternoons, and although the stimulus
of the medal given to the one who does not miss a single drill has
something to do with the wonderful attendance, still it would be
difficult to keep the boys away even without having the prize to look
forward to. To answer to the name in roll-call is counted necessary,
and many a boy who has been far too sick to go to school or study finds
it quite possible to be on hand to answer to his name, even if, after a
few marches around the armory, his legs do get tired and he has to be
excused.

Promotion is eagerly looked forward to, and there is an immense amount
of pleasant rivalry over who shall be promoted to be Sergeant, Corporal,
and the other officers. The Color-Sergeant carries the colors around
with a most heroic disregard to fatigue, while the four boys who make up
his body-guard look at him most admiringly, and not in the least
enviously. Round and round the hall they go, while the notes of the drum
rattle out the time to keep. The officers give their commands, and the
companies go from right to left as they are bidden. The officers look
very stern, and the soldiers themselves seem thoroughly impressed at the
importance of their duty, although the boy nature will crop out at
times, and there are occasionally ebullitions of sheer good nature and
animal spirit which would hardly do in the regular army. Of course each
boy intends fully to be a soldier, and if a war should break out it is
to be feared that a number of young recruits would insist upon being of
service to their country.

The awkward squad is as amusing as all awkward squads always are, but is
only to be seen at the commencement of the winter. It is composed
entirely of beginners, who have to attain a certain degree of efficiency
before they can be put with the others. But as the American boy is very
imitative, he soon learns, and at the end of the term it would be
difficult for any one to pick out the boys who had only belonged for one
winter. The Captains and Lieutenants are fine, manly-looking fellows,
and their plumed caps and glittering accoutrements are extremely
becoming. They have a full sense of the dignity of their position, as
why should they not have, when promoted from the ranks, step by step, to
the proud office which they now hold? They have not bought their
commissions, but have earned them by good, conscientious work. The boy
who shirks, fools, and carries on has the mortification of staying a
private, while his comrade goes steadily upward. The two officers in
charge, Captain Hoyt and assistant, have, the boys complain, regular
lynx eyes, and sometimes find out trifling acts that are not compatible
with military discipline, much to the surprise of the fellows
themselves. When a boy is promoted, his promotion receives no end of
congratulation and applause from his fellow-soldiers, and it is doubtful
if a prouder moment can come in any man's life than comes to the boy
when he is put in command of the Knickerbocker Grays.

There is considerable emulation among the different companies. The
Grays, by-the-way, are divided into four companies, A, B, C, and D, and
each officer endeavors to have his company the best of all. And woe be
to the boy who _is_ insubordinate. However, cases of real
insubordination are extremely rare, for the boys soon catch the spirit
of true military life, and realize that the commands given must be
obeyed at once and without any question. It is contended, and with
reason, that one of the best features of the drill is this very spirit
of discipline, which every mother knows is one of the most difficult
things in the world to inculcate in boys.

[Illustration: "RIGHT FORWARD, FOURS RIGHT."]

The first movements of the regiment are quite picturesque. After the
roll-call the First Sergeant in command calls out "Count fours!" in
other words dividing off four boys at a time; if they are more than make
even fours, the Second or Third Sergeant takes the extra boys and
reports with them to the Color-Sergeant, who takes them for his guard.
"Right four, fours right," is then called, and the boys take their
positions. The First Sergeant faces about and salutes his Captain. When
the Captain has returned his salute, the Sergeant takes his post two
paces behind the company. Now is heard the tread of feet, and the
Captain to whose company the colors belong commands "Carry arms! Present
arms!" Then the Color-Sergeant and the body-guard march in front of the
company, and the Color-Sergeant takes his place two paces to the left of
the Third Sergeant, who is on the left guard of his company--and the
drill begins.




[Illustration: THE PUDDING STICK]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
     Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on
     the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address
     Editor.


Do I ever have the blues? Why, Lottie, what a question to come from a
girl of sixteen? Am I to infer that you do, at your age, with the world
a blaze of beauty, and your feet so light and your heart so young that
you ought to go skipping instead of walking, if only you dared to let
the gladness of your life overflow.

But girls _do_ have the blues, insists Gretchen, at my elbow; and she
adds that they have reasons enough: that they are not always understood,
that they have fancies and thoughts which they cannot always explain,
that, in short, girls are not always as happy as they look.

Granting that this may be true of some girls, what are they to do? As a
person not subject to these disagreeable visitations, I can speak with
the sort of authority the doctor has when he enters the room of a
patient. The doctor need not have a fever in order to prescribe for it.
In fact, he will prescribe more successfully if he be well himself. The
blues make the person suffering from their presence extremely
uncomfortable, and her discomfort in a subtle way acts upon others, so
that nobody is quite cheerful in her neighborhood. People who are "blue"
are quite often cross as well, and are unable to accept pleasantly the
ups and downs of every day. Now, when you think of it, you must admit
that it is a very humiliating experience to be cross, for cross people
are 'disagreeable, and none of us wishes to be _that_.

The best way to get rid of the blues is not to own that they have you.
Put on your hat and go for a walk. Call on a friend and take her the
piece of music you are to try together, or the book you have just
finished, which you would like to lend her. Do something kind for
somebody, and stop thinking about yourself. The greatest waste of time
in this world, dears, is to think too much about one's self. Mrs.
Browning gives the right idea in her poem, "My Kate," where she says,

  "'Twas her thinking of others made you think of her."

Don't laugh at me, girls, when I tell you that half the low spirits one
hears of springs from a very prosaic source. That pound of chocolates,
that rich pudding, that piece of frosted cake, all of them very
delicious, but all very indigestible, are to blame, in most instances,
for a young girl's depression. Try what Emerson called "plain living and
high thinking," and see how cheery life will become.

One of my girls writes that she had a vexatious little problem. She has
been accustomed to correspond freely with one or two friends--boys of
her own age--and "people tell her it is wrong." My dear child, pray
explain whom you mean by "people," and what they have to do with it?

Of course you do not write letters to any one without your mother's
approval, and I suppose your mother reads your letters, that you love to
share all those you receive with her, and that you show her those you
write. If you do this, nobody else is concerned. A girl should write no
letters, and should receive none, which she is not only willing but very
glad to show to her mother. When she has had the great misfortune to
lose her mother, then her aunt, or her elder sister, or some kind
matronly friend should be her confidante. It makes no difference to whom
she writes, if only she does it openly, and with the sympathy, advice,
and loving approval of those who are older than she, and able to guide
her.

[Illustration: Signature]




OFF WITH THE MERBOY.

BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.


CHAPTER IV.

THE BUREAU OF INFORMATION.

[Illustration: Decorative J]

immieboy took the reins in hand, and the Merboy sprang lightly out of
the carriage, and by means of his tail wiggled himself to where the
bureau stood. He opened the top drawer, and from where he sat Jimmieboy,
who was watching him with a great deal of interest, could see that it
was divided up into sections, in each of which lay a dozen or more large
envelopes, each fat with contents of some kind or another.

"I guess this must be the information I want about your lockjaw," said
the Merboy, picking up an envelope. "Yes," he continued, as he took
great slips of paper out of it. "It is. This envelope tells how to take
spots out of carpets. Ha! ha! Listen to this: 'To remove an ink stain
from the parlor carpet, take a pair of shears and cut out the spotted
part.' That's good advice. Here's another telling how to start a fire.
It says: 'First build your fire, and then procure a match. Any kind of
match will do except one that has already been used. Light the match and
apply the burning end to the kindling. If the kindling ignites, the fire
is started. If it does not, light another match and apply the burning
end to the kindling. Keep this up until the kindling does ignite!'"

[Illustration: JIMMIEBOY SAW A HUGE WHALE RUSHING DOWN TOWARD THEM.]

As the Merboy finished reading this a great commotion was heard in the
water directly overhead, and looking up Jimmieboy saw a huge whale
rushing headlong down toward him. At first he was a little frightened,
but as the whale drew nearer and smiled pleasantly at him his fear for
some reason or another disappeared entirely.

"Hullo, Merby," said the Whale. "What are you doing?"

"I'm after information," returned the Merboy, shaking the extended
flipper of the Whale.

"So am I," returned the Whale. "I'm in great trouble."

"Indeed?" said the Merboy. "What's the matter?"

"I got into a fight with some whalers in the Arctic Ocean, and one of
'em threw a harpoon at me, and it stuck in my back. I want to get it
out, but I don't know how. Which drawer has information for Whales in
it?"

"I don't know," replied the Merboy. "I'm trying to find out what's the
matter with Jimmieboy here. I'm afraid he's got lockjaw, but the only
thing the bureau has told me so far is how to take spots out of carpets
and start fires."

"What nonsense!" said the Whale. "Let me try it, will you? I'm suffering
like everything."

"Certainly," said the Merboy, standing aside. "There isn't any special
hurry about our case."

The Whale smiled gratefully and grabbed up an envelope. Opening it he
extracted a slip of paper, and read:

"'To make a good peach pie get ten ripe sliced peaches, a tin plate, and
enough dough to cover first the bottom of the plate and the top of the
peaches. Put the whole into a hot oven and cook until done.'"

"Ho!" laughed the Merboy.

"This bureau's a nuisance," said the Whale. "The idea of telling a
sea-monster with a harpoon in his back how to make peach pie."

Here he selected another envelope. This one contained a slip which read:
"It is not polite to sneeze in company. If you like to sneeze, and are
going out to an evening party, contrive to do all your sneezing before
you go. If during the evening party you feel a sneeze coming on, rub the
bridge of your nose, or press the middle of your upper lip with your
forefinger, and the desire to sneeze will disappear."

"Nice advice to give a Whale," sneered the monster. "Where is my upper
lip I'd like to know, or my forefinger for that matter? If I don't catch
the right answer this time I'll hit that bureau with my tail and knock
it all to pieces."

The Whale made one more effort. This time the slip he took out read, "If
your teeth ache go to the dentist and have them pulled."

"That's a little nearer right," said the Merboy.

"I don't see how," retorted the Whale. "I haven't a toothache. I have a
backache. Shall I go and get my back pulled?"

"No," said the Goldfish, "but perhaps you could get the harpoon pulled."

The Whale's face wreathed with smiles.

"That's so," he said, eagerly. "Wonder I didn't think of that before.
It's a good idea. The bureau is some use after all--though if it hadn't
been for you, Merby, I'd never have discovered it."

"Oh, yes you would," said the Merboy. "After you had thought it over a
little while you'd have seen what was meant. Information isn't any good
unless you think about it a little."

"Well, I'm obliged to you just the same," said the Whale, backing off.
"It's pretty hard to think when one has a harpoon in his back. I suppose
you don't know where I can find a dentist, do you?"

"No, I don't," said the Merboy. "I've never had occasion to use one."

"Oh, well, I suppose there are such things, and so I'll set about
finding one. Good-by," said the Whale, and off he started in search of a
dentist.

"He's a very dull creature," said the Merboy, returning to the bureau.
"He never thinks much even when he hasn't a harpoon in his back. Now for
our trouble again. This envelope looks as if it might tell us."

Again was the little fellow doomed to disappointment. All the
information contained in this envelope related to the killing of
potato-bugs, and the best way to keep mosquitos from biting.

"This is the worst failure of a bureau of information I ever saw, or
else I don't know how to manage it," he said. "Suppose you try it,
Jimmieboy. You may have better luck."

Jimmieboy dropped the reins and alighted from the carriage. Walking to
the bureau he opened the second drawer and found it full of books. They
were very handsome books on the outside, and if one could judge from
their titles they were attractive inside too. One of them, for instance,
was named _The Porpoise of the Mediterranean, or A Minnow's Adventures
on the Coast of Africa_. Another was labelled _Poems of A. Swordfish_.
Another was called _Jellyfish Jingles_, a title which so interested
Jimmieboy that he opened it and read some of them. In a minute he threw
his head back and laughed loudly, opening his mouth as widely as
possible in his mirth. He was so amused that he couldn't keep his lips
closed.

"Listen to this," he said; "it's called 'The Unfortunate Tale of the
Polliwog:'

  "The small sea-toad he climbed a tree
    One windy summer's day,
  And through the water chanced to see
    A pollywog grown gray;
  Whereat he cried, 'Oh, Pollywog,
    Come tell me, sir, I pray,
  How is it you are not a frog
    And yet have grown so gray?'

  "'Because,' the Pollywog replied,
    His visage turning pale;
  'Because,' and here he deeply sighed,
    And sadly wagged his tail;
  'Because,' he added, as the tide
    Grew wavy in the gale;
  'Because I shed but tears; I've tried
    But cannot shed my tail.'"

"That's pretty good," said the Merboy, with a smile, noticing with a
great deal of relief that Jimmieboy had at last opened his mouth. "Are
there any more?" he added, just to see if Jimmieboy's cure were final.

"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "Here's one about 'A Sad Sea-Dog.'

  "Oh, the sad sea-dog he has no fin,
    And he never moves, they say.
  He sits as still as a piece of tin,
  And he's never known to smile or grin,
    Or to wipe his tears away.

  "His chief delight is to bark and growl,
    And to yelp and screech and snap;
  He does not mind if the wild winds howl,
  He never will stir for fish or fowl,
    And cares not what may hap.

  "He shakes his flippers and wags his jaws,
    Delights in the awful gale,
  He breaks each one of the ocean's laws,
  And no one lives that can make him pause,
    From sharks to the mammoth whale.

  "And it's all because a fisherman--
    A man with a great green eye--
  Mistook him once for his black-and-tan,
  And whistled to him, and called him 'Fan,'
    In the days long since gone by.

  "When a sea-dog's name is Anthony
    Montgomery Varian,
  'Tis apt to sour his spirit to be
  Miscalled as upon that day was he
    By a mean land name like Fan!"

"I should think so," said the Goldfish. "It's like being christened
Algernon at church and being known as Petie in school."

"I don't wonder he sulked," said Jimmieboy.

"Nor I," said the Merboy. "But, say, Jimmieboy, you are cured of your
lockjaw, aren't you?"

"Dear me, I forgot!" said Jimmieboy. "I wasn't going to open my mouth
under water at all."

"Why not, pray?" asked the Merboy.

"For fear of swallowing the ocean," replied Jimmieboy.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the Merboy. "Why, you couldn't swallow a drop of it,
much less the whole of it, the way I've fixed it. Is that all you were
doing--just holding your month shut?"

"That's all," said Jimmieboy.

"Well, well! The idea!" said the Merboy. "You ought to have known
better."

"Well, I didn't," said Jimmieboy, glad to find that it was not really
necessary to keep his mouth closed.

"Apparently not--and it took the bureau of information to cure you.
That's a very useful bureau."

"Very," said Jimmieboy. "I'd like to go through some of the drawers if
we have time. Have we?"

"Lots," said the Merboy, taking the brush on the top of the bureau and
fixing his hair with it. "We have ten times as much time as there is
really."

"How can that be?" asked Jimmieboy.

"Well, never mind now," said the Merboy. "But some time you ask your
papa how long a dream a boy can have who is asleep only ten seconds. You
will be surprised at what he tells you. I once had a dream lasting forty
years in a nap that was less than a minute long. So go ahead. You have
plenty of time, and I dare say you will find lots of valuable
information in the bureau. I will be back in a few minutes."

"You aren't going to leave me, are you?" asked Jimmieboy.

"No. I'm only going to drive the Dolphins around to the stable. I'll be
right back."

The Merboy entered the carriage again and drove off, while Jimmieboy
turned his attention to the bureau of information. As he turned, his eye
caught sight of two little drawers that he had not noticed before on
either side of the mirror which surmounted the bureau. He tried to open
the right-hand drawer, but found it locked. The left-hand one opened
easily, and in it Jimmieboy found a little golden key. This, as it
turned out, was the key to the other drawer, and which, no sooner had
the key turned in the lock, slid out as though pushed by a spring, and
from it jumped the funniest little old man Jimmieboy had ever seen,
hardly taller than his thumb, and dressed from head to foot in beautiful
garments of silver and gold. In his left hand the little old man carried
a jewelled staff, and his right hand he extended to Jimmieboy, as much
as to say,

"Why, howdy do? I'm very glad to see you."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]




[Illustration: INTERSCHOLASTIC SPORT]


Although the New York athletes will by no means have a walk-over at the
Berkeley Oval next Saturday, when the N.Y.I.S.A.A. and the L.I.I.S.A.A.
contend for the Intercity championship in track athletics, they will
certainly carry off the honors of the day, and they ought to do it by a
good score. New York has better material this year than has Brooklyn,
and the schools here have been devoting more time and energy to field
sports than their rivals have across the Bridge. In fact, the
Long-Islanders have shown a certain lack of interest in the Intercity
contest which of itself is sufficient to betoken defeat. The relay race
between the New York and Brooklyn Interscholastic teams was to have been
run off at the Wilson and Kellogg games on April 27th, and a large
number of enthusiasts gathered at the Oval to witness the sport in spite
of the heavy downpour of rain. The hours passed, however, and no
Brooklyn racers appeared. Not even a word of explanation came, and the
race had to be postponed. It was thought at first that the Brooklyn team
did not come over on account of the storm, but I learned the next day
that the reason of its non-appearance was due to the fact that there was
no team to come. Not enough candidates had applied at the Brooklyn trial
heats for the managers to choose four capable runners. The very least
these managers could have done, under the circumstances, would have been
to notify the New York Interscholastic authorities of this fact. Young
sportsmen, as well as older ones, should remember that one of the first
considerations among amateurs is to fulfil engagements that have been
entered upon, or if this is found to be impossible, to give ample and
timely notice to their opponents of their inability to do so.

While it is gratifying to see such active interest displayed by the New
York schools in out-door sport, it is also to be regretted, as I have
had occasion to say before in this department, that so much of this
interest should be turned in one direction. The New York school-boys
have taken up track and field sports to so large an extent that baseball
has suffered materially this spring, and tennis has practically been
dropped. Such a state of affairs must surely bring evil results. It is a
condition that cannot last long, but while it does last it works
considerable harm. The genuine interests of field sports are not
advanced by excessive indulgence. It is best to encourage every game
that the season favors, and to attempt to do well in all branches of
sport than to excel in but one. Such an excellence can be but ephemeral.
In New England the school-boys are wiser in this respect. They endeavor
to develop themselves in all branches. Only a few days ago Mr. D. S.
Sanford, principal of the Brookline High-School, told me that from
statistics he had prepared he had learned that twenty per cent. of the
boys at the High-School play football, fifteen per cent. play baseball,
fifteen per cent. take part in track athletics, and forty per cent. (of
the boys and girls) play tennis. Fifty per cent. take part in no
athletic games at all. From what I have observed in and around Boston I
should judge that the athletic efforts of most of the other New England
schools are distributed in a similar ratio. And yet, with only fifteen
per cent. of the boys indulging in track athletics, they manage to make
pretty fair records!

In Brooklyn baseball has not been allowed to suffer neglect because of
track athletics, and so the race for the Long Island championship
promises to be interesting. The teams are evenly matched with but one or
two exceptions. Pratt Institute has no nine in the field, and Bryant &
Stratton's is practically out of the race, having already been defeated
a number of times. The St. Paul's team has a decided advantage over most
of the other nines in the Association in that it is mainly composed of
experienced players, most of whom were members of last year's nine. Hall
is pitching well, and has good support. The Brooklyn High's team is made
up wholly of raw material, with the exception of Captain Brum, but the
men are working hard, and will do well before the season closes. One
good feature in this year's High-School athletics is the barring out of
all questionable candidates, the two forfeited championships of last
year having evidently proved a salutary lesson. The Brooklyn Latin has
one of the strongest nines in the league, and will probably make a
strong bid for the pennant. Captain Litchfield is playing good ball at
third, and both Goodwin and Sleven are doing good work at short-stop and
first base respectively. Hall, of last year's Poly. Prep. team, is
pitching, and Watt, formerly of Bryant & Stratton's, is catching.

The Adelphi Academy has turned out a better set of players than it had
last year, and promises to make a good record. The team is made up
pretty much of new material, but the men are working hard. Jewell and
Simpson alternate in the box, with Forney as back-stop. Byers at first
and Graff at third are capable players. Poly. Prep. is laboring under
the disadvantage of an unfavoring faculty--a group of honest gentlemen
who have not yet caught up with the fact that athletics have come to
stay, and are, in moderation, a part of every educational system. As the
school officers take no interest whatever in the sport, the players are
working along as best they can under these adverse circumstances, and
they are fortunately getting good support from their fellows. The
authorities have gone further than being passive in their attitude
toward athletics by ruling that Stevenson, the Captain of the nine,
shall only play in league games. This is all very well if Stevenson
neglects his studies for baseball, but as far as I am able to learn,
such is not the case. Dunne is pitching fairly well, but to be
successful he must get better control over the ball. Noyes, who is
acting as substitute Captain, is putting up a steady game at second, and
McKay is doing well at first. The other players are new. The out-field
is weak, but the team work at times is fairly good, and the men
certainly have a spirit and energy which are commendable.

Even a casual observer cannot fail to notice how much more is done for
interscholastic sport in New England than in New York and its vicinity.
Not only do Harvard and Yale universities take an active interest in the
work of the young men whom they expect to gather into their own ranks,
but even the Boston Athletic Association, which cannot hope to derive
any material benefit from its exertions, offers cups and medals for
interscholastic events, and does all that is possible to aid and advise
the Boston school-boys. It seems to me that the New York Athletic Club
could do worse than follow the B.A.A.'s good example. As far as I know,
the N.Y.A.C. does nothing in the interest of school sports. To be sure,
my indefatigable friend Evert Wendell performs enough good service as
referee at scholastic contests to make up for many of the club's
shortcomings; but Mr. Wendell does this purely as a lover of sport, and
not as a representative of the club. Many of the best athletes of the
N.Y.I.S.A.A. are members of the N.Y.A.C. They ought to get together in
the near future, and, with the aid and advice of Mr. Wendell, endeavor
to get the managers of the N.Y.A.C. to show more active interest in the
exceedingly good work now being done by the schools.

In Boston, all the Interscholastic Committee meetings are held in the
B.A.A. club-house on Exeter Street, and every winter the club holds an
in-door meeting for the especial benefit of the thirty schools that
compose the New England League. The silver cup which the B.A.A. has
offered this year to be played for for five years by the school baseball
teams is a fine trophy, and cannot fail to act as an incentive to the
young players of the league. Harvard's work for the schools is even more
active. Seven years ago the university was instrumental in forming the
New England I.S.B.B.A., and in 1891 it organized the Interscholastic
Lawn Tennis Association, whose fifth annual tournament was held on
Jarvis Field, Cambridge, May 4th and 6th, with an entry list of over
fifty names. The prizes offered each year are a gold medal or a cup to
the winner, a racquet to the runner-up, and a championship banner to the
school whose team scores the largest number of points. This year the cup
is a handsomely engraved piece of silverware in the shape of a pitcher
with one handle. As a general thing, I do not believe in medals and cups
as inducements to young men to enter into amateur sports. The pure love
of the game should be sufficient to call out their best efforts. But
there is no doubt that interest in their early efforts, expressed in
some such material way by associations of older players is a good thing,
and it is certainly a strong incentive to a general participation in
athletics for many boys who might otherwise be too indolent or too
disinterested to discover and develop their own capabilities. This once
done, however, there is no school-boy who is not enough of a true
sportsman not to keep on, regardless of any possible material advantages
or rewards. The mere title of champion is the most precious prize to be
won in any field.

That Harvard's efforts for the promotion of tennis in the New England
schools have been successful there is no doubt. At the first tournament,
held in 1891, R. D. Wrenn, now the national champion, then in the
Cambridge Latin School, was the winner, and he helped earn the pennant
for his school. The following year Malcolm Chace met Clarence Budlong in
the Interscholastic finals, and, after a hot match, Chace took first,
and carried the banner to the University Grammar School of Providence.
Budlong won in 1893, but only after a hard struggle with Ware, of the
Roxbury Latin, who came up again in 1894 and carried off all the honors,
including the championship banner for the school making the highest
number of points. Ware's second victory in the finals last week entitles
him to a position among the leading young players of the country, and I
have no doubt that he will win at Newport in the Interscholastic
tournament this summer.

Jarvis Field afforded a beautiful sight while the tournament was going
on last week. There were twenty-two courts in use during the preliminary
rounds, and a goodly number of spectators stood around to watch the
players. I was most interested in Ware's work, and gave most of my
attention to his play. He was in three matches the first day, and won
them all. He first met Edwards, who is a strong player, and who made him
do some sharp work in the second set. Ware is particularly good on hard
drives, and it is really inspiring to see him smash the ball at the back
line, and come within a few inches of it every time. But Henderson was
lively, and returned many of the champion's swiftest drives; he would
have made a better showing if he had been more accurate in his placing.
Later Ware defeated Bartlett and Seaver, both in two straight sets,
three of which were love sets. Fitz showed great improvement in form
over last year, and reached the semi-finals. He is a rising young
player, and will be heard from next year. On Monday, the 6th, Ware
played in the semi-finals and the finals and won the cup. Newton High
took the pennant offered for the school winning the greatest number of
points.

[Illustration: W. T. LAING. N. W. BARKER.

ANDOVER ACADEMY'S TWO RECORD RUNNERS.]

Arrangements are being made to bring about a meeting between the
track-athletic teams of Phillips Andover and Worcester academies. As yet
no date has been set for the games, but if the two schools can come to
an understanding on certain minor points, it is probable that they will
be held at Worcester during the week previous to the big Interscholastic
meeting at Cambridge in June. The games will be most interesting, for
both the Worcester and Andover academies have strong teams. Readers of
this department will remember that the Worcester Academy took second
place, with 141 points, at the in-door meeting in Boston last March, and
Andover won the Interscholastics in June last year. The programme of the
dual games will be the same as the Intercollegiate order of events, and
only three candidates will be entered from each school. Worcester's best
sprinter, Clark, has been ill, and will not run again this year, and so
Senn or Barker of Andover will have a better chance for the 100 and 220.
Barker, however, is inclined to be indolent, and is not careful or
regular in his training. Laing of Andover is pretty sure to win the
mile. He won that event in the Interscholastics last June in 4.32-2/5,
but as he is twenty-one years old this year, he is debarred from
competing on Holmes Field in June. This I.S.A.A. rule would not affect
his status in the Worcester-Andover games, however, and Laing will there
try to lower his record. Holt will take the shot event for Andover, and
Malby, his schoolmate, will probably get second. Holt should also win
the hammer throw. Lorraine of Andover will do no better than to secure a
place in the 440, which will be won by Judd of Worcester, if he runs.
But Judd may reserve himself for the half-mile, which he is sure to
take. As Andover has no good men in the jumps, Worcester should get 10
points or more there, and Johnson of Worcester will easily take the pole
vault, having a record of 10 feet 8 inches. Barker will give Hine a
close race over the low hurdles, and may win. Hine took the event at the
Interscholastics last year. These dual games will be an excellent thing
for the advancement of the sport, and I hope some of the other large
schools, situated at a distance from one another, will take up the idea
and arrange similar meetings.

A field meeting of Pacific Coast amateurs was held at the Olympic Club
Grounds, San Francisco, April 20th, and the school-boys who entered made
a very good showing. The games were held for the benefit of the
University of California team, now in the East, and the young athletes
of the A.A.L. compared very favorably with the men who have come on to
joust with Yale, Princeton, and Pennsylvania. Jackson of the Oakland
High-School won the mile run in 4 min. 38-3/5 sec., with Brown of the
University of California second. Brown led in the last lap until the
stretch, when Jackson spurted and won by the very narrow margin of ten
inches. Jenks, O.H.-S., won the quarter in 52-3/5 secs. by ten or twelve
yards, with two university men, Barnes and Parkhurst, behind him. Cheek,
the captain of the O.H.-S. team, got second in the broad jump, covering
21 feet, and cleared 10 feet 2-1/2 inches in the pole vault. McConnell,
O.H.-S., cleared 5 feet 3 inches in the high jump, and took second in
the event. The Pacific Coast scholars may well be proud of these
achievements in a competition with men so much older and more
experienced than themselves.

  THE GRADUATE.




[Illustration: THE PUDDING STICK]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
     Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on
     the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address
     Editor.


Ailsie Bond came to see me on last Saturday afternoon, and I noticed at
a glance that something was wrong. I knew it by her very step and her
look. Ailsie is one of my darlings, such a bright, brave girl, always
just where one expects to find her, the sweetest, dearest, sunniest of
companions. But she was under a cloud last week. Let me add that she is
sixteen years old, and a school-girl.

"I am so homesick," she said, sitting in her favorite corner of the
lounge, with her elbow resting on a cushion. "Here I've kept up for
months working hard and learning ever so much, and feeling every day
that father and mother are so good in sparing me to stay away so long,
and in giving me these advantages, and now, when the last school term of
the year is almost ended, examinations coming on, and then so soon home,
sweet home and a long vacation, I can't _stand_ it. I want my mother. I
want to sleep in my own little room. I want to hug the baby. I want to
count the silver, and dust the parlor, and keep the library in order,
and run to meet my father when he comes home from the office. Oh, I know
it is silly!" she said, laughing and crying both at once, "but I can't
help it. I'm homesick, and I'd rather have the toothache. It wouldn't
hurt any more."

There was no use in arguing with dear Ailsie, so I comforted her as best
I could. You girls who are away at school know all about it. The
homesick hours must come, and you wouldn't be really home-loving girls
if you didn't have them. But if one never went away from home, she
couldn't have the joy of going back there, and being met at the station
by her big brother, and having father and mother welcome her, and the
little ones show how much they had grown in her absence, even the cat
and dog showing their delight that one they had missed was with them
again. Poor puss, and poor collie and terrier, I often wonder at _their_
dumb wonder and speculation as to what has become of their friends when
somebody in the house goes off and stays away a long while. They cannot
talk, but they purr or wag their tails, and all but laugh when the
friends return. Yes, girls, brace up, as your brothers say. A half-hour
at home will console you for the homesickness you suffer from when
absent. Keep up your courage, and at the worst remember that

                "The darkest day,
  Live till to-morrow will have passed away."

The woods are perfect dreams of beauty in these May days, and what with
the dogwood blossoms shining in starry splendor, and the laurel getting
ready to bloom, and the orchards drifting their pink-and-white blossoms
on the softly caressing winds, the world is a beautiful place. Be on the
lookout for exquisite things and you will surely find them. It is a pity
to go blindly through so much splendor. Use your eyes and _observe_;
every day will show you something new.

Did you ever notice how cunningly some birds hide their nests, weaving
them of twigs just the color of the ground, and then sitting on their
eggs almost in your sight, yet so unobtrusively that you discover them
only by accident? The little sociable wrens, less timid and more
friendly, build their nests by the very house door, and are not afraid
to let you have a peep at their pretty housekeeping. Birds are
interesting neighbors to my mind.

Anna C. asks what you must have at an afternoon tea. You _may_ have
anything you choose, sandwiches, small cakes, salads, ices, candies,
and, of course, tea served with cream and sugar, or with thin slices of
lemon and sugar. But you _must_ have, or, rather, you need only have, if
you wish, tea and very thin, daintily served slices of bread-and-butter.
The idea of afternoon tea is merely a light refreshment about five
o'clock in the afternoon, when you may have a few moments' pleasant chat
with the family and your friends, and when what you eat and drink is a
delicate accompaniment to the conversation. Among the most acceptable
sandwiches are those made with a crisp green lettuce leaf between thin
slices of bread-and-butter, the lettuce salted and sprinkled with
vinegar, or of very dainty brown bread with cottage cheese thinly spread
on the two inner sides.

[Illustration: Signature]




ADVERTISEMENTS.




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[Illustration: Royal Baking Powder]




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Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York.

_The above works are for sale by all booksellers, or will be sent by the
publishers, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States, Canada,
or Mexico, on receipt of the price._




[Illustration: If afflicted with SORE EYES use Dr. ISAAC THOMPSON'S EYE
WATER]




=A Request.=--Readers of _Harper's Round Table_ will please mention the
paper when answering advertisements contained therein.




[Illustration: BICYCLING]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the
     Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject,
     besides inquiries regarding the League of American Wheelmen, so
     far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Bicycling
     Department.


[Illustration: Map]

The map this week marks out one of the several different ways of going
from New York to Stamford, Connecticut, or any of the points along the
way. A good ride for an ordinary bicycle-rider who is not out to cover
distance, but wants to reach a certain point, stop for dinner and
return, is to go from Fifty-ninth Street to Portchester, which is about
twenty-five miles, making in all a fifty-mile run. This route may be
extended if the rider is looking for a longer distance, as far as
Stamford, which is perhaps about thirty-two miles from 110th Street. The
road is an uncomfortable one to ride over until the rider is well out of
the city, but after that it is reasonably good, except for the hills
before going into New Rochelle, and before going into Mamaroneck.

The rider should enter Central Park at Fifty-ninth Street and Eighth
Avenue; thence diagonally over to the Eastern Drive, leaving the Park at
its northern end; up Lenox Avenue to 128th Street; then east to Third
Avenue, and then across the Third Avenue Bridge. Half a block north of
the bridge turn to the right on the southern Boulevard; follow the
southern Boulevard east to Union Avenue, something more than a mile,
with Belgian block pavement all the way. At Union Avenue it is well to
leave the southern Boulevard, because the macadamized road is so full of
holes, and otherwise in very bad condition. Go on Union Avenue about
one-half mile north over mud ruts, and come out upon Westchester Avenue.
Here the rider has sixteen blocks of Belgian block pavement eastward.
After this comes a badly macadamized road, which has several descents
and short sharp hills for about three blocks to Fox Street; thence go on
a fairly good road, improving all the way, to the village of West Farms,
where you cross the Bronx River and come out on the old Boston Post
Road. From here the road is macadamized and is very good, and the rider
should keep to it all the way to Stamford. Or he may turn right just out
of Bronxdale and go down to New Rochelle through Westchester,
Baychester, etc. In either case the road is the same after leaving New
Rochelle.

There are many little hills between Pelham Bridge and New Rochelle, the
longest being in Neptune Park, just south of New Rochelle village. The
road is macadamized and in excellent order. There is a steep descent
about four blocks long as you approach Larchmont Manor, with a
corresponding hill to climb as you enter the village. There are three
hills, each about three blocks long, between Larchmont Manor and
Mamaroneck, the road being macadamized all the way. North of Mamaroneck
the road is macadamized and kept in excellent condition as far as Rye.
The road from Rye, thence around the north of Portchester, thence to
bridge at Bryan River, sharp turn to right here, and thence to
Greenwich, is a well-kept macadam. The rider may stop at Greenwich, if
he choose, but the run to Stamford to the north of Coscob at the head of
Coscob Bay is a good one. The country is rolling rather than hilly.
There are no specially steep hills in this district.

At New Rochelle a stop may be made at the Hugenot House, after a run of
fourteen miles. By taking the turn to the right indicated on the map
just before entering Portchester, instead of turning sharp to the left
and following the bicycle route, the rider may run into Portchester and
stop at the Irving or the West End Hotel, while at Stamford the Stamford
House is in the centre of the town, and furnishes a suitable
stopping-place for the end of the journey.

     NOTE.--Map of New York city asphalted streets in No. 809. Map of
     route from New York to Tarrytown in No. 810.




[Illustration: STAMPS]

     This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp collectors,
     and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the
     subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor
     Stamp Department.


Since the finding of the variety in the twelve-cent stamp of the United
States, illustrated a short time ago, the collectors have been
industriously seeking for varieties in the other values in the same
series, and not without results, as two varieties are now mentioned in
other stamps, one of them being the seven-cent of the 1872 issue, and
the other in the current two-cent stamp.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The first variety discovered is shown in the accompanying illustrations,
these showing the lower left-hand corners of the seven-cent stamp. In
Fig. 2 a very fine line will be noticed around the two points of the
bulb, these being absent in the other variety. As the seven-cent stamp
is somewhat scarce, young collectors will hardly be in a position to
sort a number over to look for the variety.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

The other variety which has been found is shown in the two cuts given,
these representing the triangular ornaments in the upper corners of the
current two-cent stamps. In the ordinary or common variety the lines run
across the ornaments, while in the new variety the lines stop at the
frame of the triangles, thus causing them to show clearer. As there are
a great number of plates used for printing the two-cent values, the new
variety will probably be found in profusion, and it is interesting to
hunt for them.

A recent despatch from Washington stated that the Attorney-General had
given it as his opinion that foreign postage-stamps were securities, and
therefore came under the law in relation to counterfeiting. This
opinion, it would seem, would stop the using of stamp cuts of any kind
in this country, but the publishers have as yet taken no notice of the
matter.

The four, five, and fifteen cent values of the United States 1890 issue
have been found in an unperforated state.

In the first issue of United States envelopes, in giving the various
dies of the three-cent value the catalogue gives the width of the labels
in millimetres as showing the dies. The label is the space at top of
stamp enclosing the word "Three," and in measuring you take from each
side of the label, in some dies the label being curved, and in some it
is straight on the ends.

     LOUIS A. DYAR.--There is no half-penny English postage stamp of a
     dark blue color. A complete catalogue of all stamps can be had of
     any dealer for about fifty cents. All English stamps issued
     between 1858 and 1887 had letters in the corners. The first stamp
     on the sheet was lettered A. B. in the upper corners, B. A. in the
     lower corners. The next stamp was lettered A. C. in the upper,
     C. A. in the lower, and so on. In addition each plate had a
     separate number.

     R. F. J.--We cannot give addresses in this column. Apply to any
     stamp dealer if you do not find a satisfactory advertisement in
     the advertising columns of this paper.

     F. SMITH.--The two stamps described by you are very rare
     Confederate locals. The New Orleans is worth from $2 to $5,
     according to the color of the ink and paper. You do not describe
     it sufficiently to determine whether it is the regular issue or
     one of the red on blue paper. The other stamp is the Mobile black,
     sold by dealers at $40 each. You are to be congratulated.

     A. K.--Yes. All United States stamps are increasing in value.

     K. C. B.--The 1838, 1845, 1847 United States cents are sold by
     dealers at from five to fifteen cents each, according to
     condition. There is one 1838 cent in which this date is struck
     over the date 1836. That is a rare coin, and is worth $6.

     FRED. W. COON.--The Cape of Good Hope stamps made in 1861 are
     woodcuts made for an emergency. The one penny blue and fourpenny
     red of this issue are "errors," and are worth $250 each.

     ALBERT CURRIER.--The value of the two locals which are catalogued
     at $35 and $20 respectively, which you wish to sell, depends
     largely on their condition. This department cannot tell what a
     dealer ought to give for them. If one dealer will not buy at your
     price, perhaps another will, but remember dealers expect to, and,
     in fact, must make a profit.

     M. B. W.--The United States Internal Revenue stamps on the back of
     old photographs have no value as a rule. Many millions were used
     every year for a long time. This is especially true of the
     one-cent stamps, except the one marked Playing Cards.

       *       *       *       *       *

THE SECOND SUMMER,

many mothers believe, is the most precarious in a child's life;
generally it may be true, but you will find that mothers and physicians
familiar with the value of the Gail Borden Eagle Brand Condensed Milk do
not so regard it.--[_Adv._]




ADVERTISEMENTS.




Physicians

prescribe Scott's Emulsion of Cod-liver Oil and Hypophosphites because
they find their patients can tolerate it for a long time, as it does not
upset the stomach nor derange the digestion like the plain oil.

Scott's Emulsion is as much easier to digest than the plain oil as milk
is easier to digest than butter. Besides, the fish-fat taste is taken
out of the oil, and it is almost palatable. The way sickly children,
emaciated, anĉmic and consumptive adults, gain flesh on Scott's Emulsion
is very remarkable.

_Don't be persuaded to accept a substitute!_

Scott & Bowne, N. Y. All Druggists. 50c. and $1.




MONARCH

King of all Bicycles.

[Illustration]

TRADE-MARK.

Five Styles. Weights, 18 to 25 Pounds.

Prices, $85 and $100.

MONARCH CYCLE CO.

Factory and Main Office, Lake and Halsted Sts., Chicago.

Eastern Branch: 79 Reade St., & 97 Chambers St., N.Y.

The C. F. GUYON CO., Ltd., Managers.




[Illustration]

Sick Headache

AND

Constipation

are quickly and pleasantly

cured by

Tarrant's Effervescent Seltzer Aperient.

The most valuable family remedy for

Disordered Stomach

and Impaired Digestion.

50 cents and $1.00. All Druggists.

TARRANT & CO., Chemists, N. Y.




       *       *       *       *       *

Postage Stamps, &c.

       *       *       *       *       *




[Illustration]

_STAMPS!_ _300_ fine mixed Victoria, Cape of G. H., India, Japan, etc.,
with fine Stamp Album, only =10c.= New 80-p. Price-list =free=. _Agents
wanted_ at =50%= commission. STANDARD STAMP CO., 4 Nicholson Place, St.
Louis, Mo. Old U. S. and Confederate Stamps bought.




[Illustration]

100 all dif. Venezuela, Costa Rica, etc., only 10c.; 200 all dif. Hayti,
Hawaii, etc., only 50c. Ag'ts wanted at 50 per ct. com. List FREE!

=C. A. Stegmann=, 2722 Eads Av., St. Louis, Mo.




=50= var., all dif., 5c.; 12 var. Heligoland, 15c.; 6 var. Italy, 1858
to 1862, 5c.; 3 var. Hanover, 5c.; 35 var. C. American, 50c. Agents
wanted.

F. W. MILLER, 904 Olive St., St. Louis, Mo.




=100= all different, China, etc., 10c.; 5 Saxony, 10c.; 40 Spain, 40c.;
6 Tunis, 14c.; 10 U. S. Revenues, 10c. Agts. wtd., 50% com.; '95 list
free.

CRITTENDEN & BORGMAN CO., Detroit, Mich.




=POSTAGE DUES.=--50c. and 30c., at 70c each; the pair for $1.25.
=Diamond Stamp Co., Germantown, Pa.=




PUZZLE PURSE.

[Illustration]

A first-class morocco purse with nickel frame and clasp. Can't be opened
without the secret; worth 25c. as a purse and $5.00 as a "brain
cracker." As sample of our 1000 Bargains we mail it postpaid with large
Catalogue for 10c.

INGERSOLL & BRO., 65 CORTLANDT ST., N. Y. CITY.




[Illustration: If afflicted with SORE EYES USE Dr. ISAAC THOMPSON'S EYE
WATER]




=HARPER'S CATALOGUE= thoroughly revised, classified, and indexed, will
be sent by mail to any address on receipt of ten cents.




Twenty-three Puzzle Awards and Answers.


The West carried off the honors in the Twenty-three Club Contest, and
they are high honors, for the questions were very difficult. The answers
follow. The authority for most of them is Mr. Joseph West Moore's
_History of the American Congress_, just published.

1. Nathaniel Macon. 2. Benjamin Harrison, great-grandfather of
ex-President Benjamin Harrison. 3. John Hancock. 4. James Oglethorpe. 5.
Gen. John Newton. 6. Jonathan Edwards. 7. Miles Standish; Gov. William
Bradford. 8. Eliphalet Nott. 9. Thos. H. Benton. 10. Thomas Corwin. 11.
Gen. Sam Houston. 12. James Otis. 13. George Washington. 14. Davy
Crockett. 15. Geo. B. Roberts. 16. James Fitch. 17. Jared Ingersoll. 18.
Thomas Godfrey. 19. Bayard Taylor. 20. Charles Ellet. 21. Robt. R.
Livingston. 22. Anne C. de la Luzerne. 23. Henry D. Thoreau. 24. George
Inness. 25. Henry Inman. 26. John Adams. 27. William Lloyd Garrison. 28.
Oliver Hazard Perry. 29. Stephen A. Douglas. 30. Timothy Ruggles.

Longfellow credits Miles Standish with the sending back of the
snake-skin, and the "S" in his name is needed to get the second answer:
but the act is also credited to Governor William Bradford. Hence both
were accepted. George Inness is the correct answer to Number 24, for the
puzzle was particular to say "the late."

The first prize, for sending correct answers to the greatest number of
questions, was won by Alga Fawcett, of Minnesota, and is $10 in money.
Two second prizes of $3 each are awarded to John Morton Espey, of
Pennsylvania, and Frances C. Bliven, of distant Washington. Two third
prizes of $1 each are given to John H. Blair, of New York (Ithaca), and
Walter Johnson, of Minnesota. And nine Columbian half-dollars, as fourth
prizes, are sent to Marion Miller, of Maryland; Marguerite Clow, of
Minnesota; Edmund Rice, Jr., of Washington; Harold D. Sampson and
Kenneth Burton, of Wisconsin; Gertrude G. Wilcox, of Massachusetts;
Esther Neilson, of Pennsylvania; Mary T. Porter, of New York, and Katie
Bartholow, of Maryland.

The first prize winner got 25 correct answers; the second, 24; the
third, 23, and the Columbian half-dollar winners, 22 and 21.

If the last names of the twenty-three members of the Club be rightly
arranged the initials spell "The Landing of the Pilgrims." Prizes of
bound volumes of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE were offered for finding this
sentence, no regard being had for the number of names found. The winners
are: Pennsylvania, William F. Campbell; Wisconsin, Harold D. Sampson and
Kenneth Burton; Washington, Edmund Rice, Jr.; Illinois, Alice Enright;
New England, Helen C. Hopkins; Minnesota, Alice E. Dyar; Michigan, Henry
Martin Jones; Indiana, James Gibbons; New York and New Jersey, Mary T.
Porter (New York); Missouri and Kansas, Mary T. Robinson; Tennessee,
Frank Hopkins; Manitoba, Jules E. Marjoribanks; and "at large," Pansy
Caldwell, of Alabama, and Maddie C. Marshall, of South Carolina.




Round Table Chapters.


No. 687.--The Washington Chapter, of Warsaw, Ill. Phillip Dallam, Willie
Hoffman. Box 106, Warsaw.

No. 688.--The Grove Literary and Musical Chapter, of New York city.
Hattie Lovell; Edythe G. Hathaway, 67 Horatio street.

No. 689.--The Whittier Chapter, of Englewood, Ill. Percy Wilkinson,
Raymond Hathaway, Stearns Bushnell, Herbert Snider. Other members are
Morey Porter, George Ray, William Mueller. Its meetings are held on
Friday. Chapter address, 439 Englewood Avenue.

No. 690.--The Charleston Stamp Exchange Chapter, of Charleston, S. C. It
desires to correspond with other stamp exchange Chapters, and would like
members from other cities. Chapter address, James E. Nestor, 26 Pinckney
Street.

No. 691.--The El Dora Social Club, of San Francisco, Cal. J. J. Cohn,
George Dreck, George Rosenberg, S. Michels. Other members are Edward
Blanchard, Al Williams, Aaron Lewis, Dave and Hyman Caro. Its object is
social amusement, and it would like members from all parts of the globe.
Chapter address, 669 McAllister Street.

No. 692.--The Margaret Sangster Chapter, of Salem, Mass. Bessie Fabens,
Katherine Wardwell, Grace Oliver; Eleanor Little, 40 Chestnut Street.




Kinks.


No. 83.--DOUBLE ACROSTIC.

  1. Clotted blood.
  2. Smooth.
  3. A circle.
  4. A denomination of money.
  5. Superficial contents.
  6. Time of day.
  7. An enclosure.

The initials and finals, read downward, give the names of two countries.

  SIMON T. STERN.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 84.--AN EASY DIAMOND.

1. A letter. 3. A verb. 3. To crush. 4. A verb. 5. A letter.

  ADA JEMPSON.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 85.--A RIDDLE.

  Animal, nor vegetable,
    Nor mineral am I;
  A natural product, I exist
    From two to six feet high.
  I am not she, I am not he.
    But just between the two,
  You'll often see me take my place,
    And sometimes hear me too.
  I have no breadth, I have no length,
    I'm neither thin nor thick,
  I'm used to show a faithful love,
    And mark a traitor's trick.
  I'm mentioned oft in Holy Writ,
    Both in the Old and New,
  And strongly recommended there
    By holy men and true.

  J. M. C.

       *       *       *       *       *

No. 86.

  My first is in house, but not in barn,
  My second is in sock, but not in darn,
  My third is in love, but not in hate,
  My fourth is in worm, but not in bait,
  My fifth is in eight, but not in six,
  My last's in slab, and likewise in sticks,
  My whole an author is whose name and worth
  Are known and cherished over all the earth.

  HORACE F. MAYOR.




Answers to Kinks in No. 808.

King, French, Swett, Bangs, Sangster, Henderson, Patterson, Stuart,
Pyle, Lillie, Munroe, Curtis, Otis, Gibson, Brooks.

       *       *       *       *       *

Priscilla.

       *       *       *       *       *

BOYS' NAMES.

1. Sam, 2. Lew, 3. Adam, 4. Ed, 5. Rob, 6. George, 7. Andy, 8. Andrew,
9. Dan, 10. Lee.




College Yells and Colors.


The TABLE is indebted to many members for replies to the question asked
by "M. T." about college yells and colors.

Amherst.--"Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Rah! Amherst!"--Purple and white.

Annapolis.--Navy blue and old-gold.

Bowdoin.--"B-o-w-d-o-i-n Rah, Rah, Rah."--White.

Hamilton.--"Rah! rah! rah! Ham-il-ton, zip rah boom!"--Rose pink.

Johns Hopkins.--"Hullaballoo, Kanuck, Kanuck! Hullaballoo, Kanuck,
Kanuck! Hoorah! Hoorah; J. H. U.!"--Black and blue.

Lafayette.--"Rah! Rah! Rah! Tiger Lafayette!"--Maroon and white.

Lehigh.--"Hoo, ray ray! Hoo, ray ray! Ray ray ray, Lehigh!"--Brown and
white.

Leland Stanford Junior University.--"Rah-Rah-Rah (three times)
Stanford!"--Cardinal.

Oberlin.--"Hi!-O!-Hi!-O!-Hi-O!-Hi!-Hi!-O! Hi! O-ber-lin!"--Crimson and
gold.

University of Alabama.--"Rah, hoo, ree! Universitee! Rah, hoo! Wah, hoo!
A. C. U.!"--Crimson and white.

University of California.--"Rah! Rah! Rah! Cali-forn-i-a U. C. Berk-lee
Zip-Boom-ah!"--Blue and gold.

University of Chicago.--"Chi-ca-go! Chi-ca-go! Chi-ca-go go!
Go-it-Chi-ca! Go-it-Chi-ca! Go-it-Chi-ca-go!"--Maroon.

University of Michigan.--"U. of M. Hurrah! Hurrah! Hoo-rah! Hoo-rah!
Michigan! Michigan! rah! rah! rah!"--Maize and blue.

University of Pennsylvania.--"Rah! Rah! Rah! Penn-syl-vani-ah!"
(seldom used). "'Ray! 'Ray! 'Ray! Penn-syl-vani-a!" (short and
sharp). This is the most common form. "Hoo-rah! Hoo-rah! Hoorah!
Penn-syl-va-ni-ah-h-h!" Each syllable is strongly accented, and the "ah"
prolonged.

Following are sporadic, borrowed from no one knows where

THE OLLY-KAZOOK.

  Olly-kazook-Alack! Alack!
  Olly-kazook-Alack! Alack!
  Hoorah! Hoorah! Penn-syl-va-ni ah!

THE OWSKI-WOW-WOW.

  Owski-wow-wow!
  Whisky-wow-wow!
  Holy-muckeli!
  Kentuckyi!
  Pennsylvanyi!

These last two are not the Pennsylvania yells, strictly speaking, but
they are used at nearly all games, etc., for a change now and then.
Another prime favorite is a melancholy chant.

"Oh me! Oh my! How we blacked the Tiger's eye!" The colors are red and
blue.

University of Vermont.--"Rah, rah, rah, rah, rah, rah! U. V. M.! rah,
rah!"--Straw and darkgreen.

University of Virginia.--"Rah-rah-rah, Uni-v! Rah-rah-rah, ver-si-tee!
Ver-gin-i-a!"--Navy blue and orange.

Vanderbilt.--"Vanderbilt, Rah, Rah, Rah! Whiz Boom! Zip-Boom, Rah, Rah,
Rah!"--Black and old-gold.

Vassar.--Rose and gray

Wesleyan.--"Rah, Rah, Rah Rah, Wes-lei-an-a! Rah Rah Rah Rah
Rah!"--Cardinal and black.

West Point.--"Rah! Rah! Ray! Rah! Rah! Ray! West Point! West Point!
Armay!"--Black and gray.

Thanks are due to the following for the information given. Grant Knauff,
Jun., F. M. E., R. H., Clara Rompano, Harold Simonds, R. C. Wente,
Dudley S. Steele, A. D. J., Isabelle Willis, B. F. E. Lantie V. Blum,
Harry B. Reese, and V. J. Smith.




Want Corner.


Samuel Byers, Sandiford, Philadelphia, sends the TABLE an account of a
trip which he and about twenty young friends made to New York last
winter. His account is admirably written. His grammar, construction, and
penmanship are away above the average for his age. He tells about visits
made by his jolly party to the Art Museum, to an ocean ship, and many
other places. We do not print his letter in full, because he describes
sights that are already quite familiar, by description at least. We know
his party had a good time, for it called at Franklin Square, and a look
at the jolly faces demonstrated it. Sir Samuel belongs to a Chapter
which wants correspondents everywhere, specially about moths, minerals,
and flowers. Write him for names of individual members. You can get some
good correspondents among them of both sexes.

Harrie O. Bender, 5903 Tulip Street, Wissinoming, Philadelphia, Station
F., is, we think, a member of the same Chapter as the preceding--the
Sylvia. At any rate, the Sylvia has the same wants. It seeks to make a
collection of pressed flowers from all over the world. Won't you help
it? Of course it sends flowers in return. Hubbard Marsh asks how to cure
the skins of small animals. Won't some member ask a taxidermist and send
the information in the form of a Table morsel? We will print it with due
acknowledgment and thanks. The TABLE is in receipt of a long letter from
its old friend, Janet Cowley, whose present address is care W. E. Moxon,
Bungalow, Sherwood Road, Toowong, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.
Writing in January, she says the weather is oppressively hot--such is
the difference in seasons. She also says that the Table's other
Karnerunga friend, Constance Smith, is married and living in Sydney.
Lady Janet promises to answer all her American correspondents as early
as their number and her time permits.




[Illustration: THE CAMERA CLUB]

     Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly
     answered by the editor of this column, and we should be glad to
     hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.


It is a fortunate thing for the would-be amateur photographer that a
dark-room, used exclusively for photographic work, is not one of the
"must-haves" of photography. If it were, there would doubtless be very
few amateurs, especially among the young people.

To make the work of arranging a temporary dark-room simple and easy, the
materials should be kept all together and in as compact a form as
possible. For storing the chemicals and trays a wooden box eighteen
inches long, twelve inches wide, and eight or ten inches high will be
found a convenient size for holding all the material necessary to use
for developing.

A rack to hold the bottles should be made of a piece of half-inch board
half the size of the bottom of the box. In this board cut holes the size
of the bottles containing the solutions for developing. Fasten this
board securely to the inside of the box, about four inches from the
bottom. The bottles will fit in the holes, and there will be no danger
of breaking or spilling their contents when carrying it from one place
to another. Square bottles should be used for the hypo, and round
bottles for the developers. Five bottles will be enough for the
chemicals--one for the hypo, one for old and one for new developer, one
for the restrainer, and one for the accelerator. Have the labels on the
bottles large and distinct, and make the box on the outside "POISONS."

The trays can be placed one inside the other and put into the box by the
side of the bottles. The glass funnel should be turned over the top of
one of the bottles, and unless the lantern is an extra size, there will
be plenty of room to set it in the box. Nail a strip of leather across
the box for a handle. A piece of board an inch or two larger all round
than the top of the box will serve for a cover when the box is not in
use.

With one's materials in this convenient and portable form it is a simple
matter to get ready for developing, and when one has finished it is but
a moment's work to replace the materials and put them away. This plan of
storing materials not only saves a great deal of time and trouble, but
often prevents mistakes in developing.

In preparing for developing get everything ready before the plates are
taken into the dark-room. Always be particular to place the hypo trays
in the same place each time you develop plates, and you will never make
the mistake of putting a negative into the hypo instead of the
developer.

Keep all the trays and bottles wiped clean. The trays should be
thoroughly rinsed each time after using, so that no trace of hypo from
the fixing tray may come in contact with the developing tray.

The amateur more than perhaps any other person should cultivate habits
of neatness, carefulness, and exactness.




[Illustration: Ivory Soap]

At all grocery stores east of the Rocky Mountains two sizes of Ivory
Soap are sold; one that costs five cents a cake, and a larger size. The
larger cake is the more convenient and economical for laundry and
general household use. If your Grocer is out of it, insist on his
getting it for you.

THE PROCTER & GAMBLE CO. CIN'TI.




Tastes good as it goes down, does good when it gets down.

[Illustration: HIRES' Rootbeer]

makes the children rosy-cheeked, keeps the parents healthful, helps the
old folks carry their years lightly. A 25c. package makes the whole
family happy.

CHAS. E. HIRES CO.,

PHILADELPHIA.




[Illustration]

Kombi

Camera

$3.50

SMALLEST CAMERA MADE

Carry it in your pocket. Size 1-5/8 x 2 in. Weight 4 oz. takes 25
pictures with one loading. Made of seamless metal, oxidized silver
finish. Size of picture 1 in. sq. The simplest camera made. Any boy or
girl can use it. Every instrument fully guaranteed. Not a toy, but a
practical camera. The Kombi complete. $3.50. Roll of film (25 exposures)
20 cts. extra. We develop your negatives if desired. Illustrated Booklet
Free.

Alfred C. Kemper, Mnfr., 208 Lake st., Chicago

BRANCHES--LONDON: 36 Oxford st., W.

BERLIN: 10 Taubenstrasse, W.




HOOPING-COUGH

CROUP.

Roche's Herbal Embrocation.

The celebrated and effectual English Cure without internal medicine.
Proprietors, W. EDWARD & SON, Queen Victoria St., London, England.
Wholesale of

E. Fougera & Co., 30 North William St., N.Y.




[Illustration]

BASE BALL, HOW TO PLAY IT.

A Great Book, contains =all= the rules; also the =secret= of pitching
curved balls, and to bat successfully. Rules for Football and Tennis.
Every player should have it. Entirely new and handsomely illustrated.
This =Great Book Free= to any one sending us =10= cents to pay postage.
=Also= Catalogue Guns, Revolvers, Musical Instruments, Magic Tricks.
=All for l0c. Order quick.= For =$1.25= we will send =Our Base Ball
Outfit=, consisting of 9 Caps, 9 Belts, 1 Ball, 1 Bat. =BATES SPORTING
CO., 100 High St., Boston, Mass.=




[Illustration]

CARD PRINTER =FREE=

Sets any name in one minute; prints 500 cards an hour. YOU can make
money with it. A font of pretty type, also Indelible Ink, Type Holder,
Pads and Tweezers. Best Linen Marker; worth $1.00. Sample mailed FREE
for 10c. stamps for postage on outfit and large catalogue of 1000
Bargains.

R. H. Ingersoll & Bro. 65 Cortlandt St. N.Y. City




[Illustration: If afflicted with SORE EYES USE Dr. ISAAC THOMPSON'S EYE
WATER]




_PUZZLE PENKNIFE, 10c._

[Illustration]

Best steel Blade concealed in nickel handle. Press the button and it
opens. Worth 25c. as a knife and $5.00 as a puzzle. A sample of 1000
Bargains, mailed postpaid with Cat. for =10c.=

ROBT. H. INGERSOLL & BRO., 65 CORTLANDT ST., N.Y. CITY.




=DEAFNESS & HEAD NOISES CURED= by my =INVISIBLE= Tubular Cushions. Have
helped more to good =HEAR=ing than all other devices combined. Whispers
=HEAR=d. Help ears as glasses do eyes. =F. Hiscox=, 853 B'dway, N.Y.
Book of proofs =FREE=




[Illustration]

_Ten Old Songs._

The brief list given below names ten songs from each Number of the
Franklin Square Song Collection. This is only one-twentieth, by the
Arithmetic, of the round Two Hundred to be found in each Number, or of
the Sixteen Hundred in the Eight Numbers thus far issued.

=No. 1.= All Together, Annie Laurie, Blue Bells of Scotland, Bonnie
Doon, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean; Home, Sweet Home; Last Rose of
Summer, Long, Long Ago; Old Oaken Bucket, When the Swallows Homeward
Fly.

=No. 2.= Flow Gently, Sweet Afton; Ever of Thee, Juanita, Kathleen
Mavourneen, Killarney, Mary of Argyle, Speak Gently, The Long Weary Day,
Twickenham Ferry, What is Home without a Mother?

=No. 3.= Ah! I have Sighed to Rest Me, A Life on the Ocean Wave, Be Kind
to the Loved Ones at Home, Blue Juniata; Chime Again, Beautiful Bells;
Do They Miss Me at Home? In Happy Moments, Old House at Home, Rain Upon
the Roof, The Vacant Chair.

=No. 4.= Dublin Bay, Happy Are We To-Night, Boys: Keller's American
Hymn, Ossian's Serenade, Rock Me to Sleep, Mother; Search Through the
Wide World, Sweeter than the Breath of Morning, Trancadillo, When the
Bloom is on the Rye.

=No. 5.= All Among the Barley, Ben Bolt, Fair Land of Poland, Home
Again, Maryland, My Maryland; Speed, My Bark; Thou Art So Near and Yet
So Far; Tramp, Tramp, Tramp; When I Come; Within this Sacred Dwelling.

=No. 6.= Alice Gray, Andreas Hofer, Eyes So Blue and Dreaming, Faded
Flowers, Listen to the Mocking Bird, Jamie's on the Stormy Sea, Men of
Harlech, Rockaway, She Wore a Wreath of Roses, Tenting on the Old Camp
Ground.

=No. 7.= Cousin Jedediah, Gentle Annie, Hark, I Hear an Angel Sing;
Irish Emigrants Lament, Touch the Harp Gently, Love's Golden Dream; The
Years Creep Slowly by, Lorena; O Give Me but My Arab Steed, The Star of
Glengary.

=No. 8.= Chimes of Zurich, Flow, Rio Verde; There's a Good Time Coming,
I'd Weep with Thee, Lone Starry Hours, Lovely Nancy, Johnny Schmoker,
Mermaid's Evening Song, Old Easy Chair by the Fire, The German
Fatherland.

Sold Everywhere. Price, 50 cents; Boards, 60 cents; Cloth, $1.00. Full
contents of the Several Numbers, with Specimen Pages of favorite Songs
and Hymns sent, without cost, to any address.

Harper & Brothers, New York.




OPENING OF THE CIRCUS SEASON.

AN ACT "NOT DOWN ON THE BILLS."


[Illustration]

[Illustration]

[Illustration]




IT DIDN'T WORK.


It isn't always safe for a small boy to take his father's jokes and
games too seriously. This was shown very plainly at one time by the
experience of an Englishman and his son upon a railway journey which
they took together. While the little fellow was gazing out of the open
window his father slipped the hat off the boy's head in such a way as to
make his son believe that it had fallen out of the window. The boy was
very much upset by his supposed loss, when his father consoled him by
saying that he would "whistle it back." A little later he whistled, and
the hat reappeared. Not long after the little lad seized upon his
father's hat, and flinging it out of the window, shouted, "Now, papa,
whistle your hat back again!"




A DAINTY FOR ELEPHANTS.


If there is anything in the world that an elephant loves better than a
peanut it is an orange, and if any boy who reads this wishes, when he
goes to the circus, to give the massive creature an especial treat,
instead of paying five cents for a bag of peanuts to put in the
elephant's trunk, let him purchase for the same money one good-sized
orange, and present that to the small-eyed, flat-eared monster. A number
of years ago, in a book which was called _Leaves from the Life of a
Special Correspondent_, Mr. O'Shea, the author of the book, gave the
following description of an adventure he had with a herd of elephants.
Said he: "A young friend asked me once to show him some elephants, and I
took him along with me, having first borrowed an apron and filled it
with oranges. This he was to carry whilst accompanying me in the stable,
but the moment we reached the door the herd set up such a
trumpeting--they had scented the fruit--that he dropped the apron and
its contents, and scuttled off like a scared rabbit. There were eight
elephants, and when I picked up the oranges I found I had twenty-five. I
walked deliberately along the line, giving one to each. When I got to
the extremity of the narrow stable I turned, and was about to begin the
distribution again, when I suddenly reflected that if elephant No. 7 in
the row saw me give two oranges in succession to No. 8 he might imagine
he was being cheated, and give me a smack with his trunk--that is where
the elephant falls short of the human being--so I went to the door and
began at the beginning as before. Thrice I went along the line, and then
I was in a fix. I had one orange left, and I had to get back to the
door. Every elephant in the herd had his greedy gaze focussed on that
orange. It was as much as my life was worth to give it to any one of
them. What was I to do? I held it up conspicuously, coolly peeled it,
and ate it myself. It was most amusing to notice the way those elephants
nudged each other and shook their ponderous sides. They thoroughly
entered into the humor of the thing."




ARITHMETIC.


MAMMA. "Suppose you have four apple-dumplings, Willie, and you eat
three, then what do you have?"

WILLIE. "Nightmare."




IN MEMORIAM.


  My broken soldiers, made of lead,
  Are buried in the garden bed,
  And lovely flowers o'er them play,
  For this is Decoration day.




TOMMY'S PROGRESS.


MAMMA. "You may open your school report, Tommy, and tell me how you have
been doing this week."

TOMMY. "Oh, here is the highest mark, mamma, a 1."

MAMMA. "And what is that for, Tommy?"

TOMMY. "Days absent, 1."




JOHNNY'S COUNTING.


JOHNNY. "Mamma, I can count all the way up to twelve."

MAMMA. "And what comes after twelve, Johnny?"

JOHNNY. "Recess."




AN APPEAL.


"Papa," said Jennie, climbing upon her father's knee, "don't you think
that 'stead o' ten cents a week you could give me fifteen?"

"Well, I don't know, my dear," was the answer. "What do you want of the
extra five cents?"

"I thought my dollie was old enough to have a 'lowance, and I want to
give it to her."




A POSSIBLE EXPLANATION.


"I know how Columbus made that egg stand up," said Wilbur. "He had it
hatched first."





End of Project Gutenberg's Harper's Round Table, May 14, 1895, by Various

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