I.
It had begun to look as if no one would go to Viola Pitkin's birthday party; it had been snowing for two days, and the drifts in some places were as high as a man's head. Patty Perley had tried to take an interest in the new lace pattern that she was crocheting, and in the paper lamp-shade she was making, for which Ruby Nutting had taught her to make roses that almost smelled sweet, they were so natural, and it was all in vain; and she quite envied Anson, who was trying to draw the buff kitten stuck into the leg of Uncle Reuben's boot. The kitten's squirming and the old cat's frantic remonstrances were preventing the picture from being a success, but Anson was highly entertained, and didn't seem to care whether he went to the party or not. It was just when Patty was feeling irritated by this indifference that Uncle Reuben came in, and she heard him stamping and shaking his clothes in the entry, and saying, "Whew, this is a night!" Then her spirits went down to zero. But the very first thing that Uncle Reuben said when he opened the door was:
"I've told Pelatiah to get out the big sled and hitch up the black mare, and you'll get to your party if the snow is deep. And the sled is large; you'd better pick up all the youngsters you can along the way."
Now that was like Uncle Reuben as he used to be, not as he had been since Dave, his only son, ran away; since then he had not seemed to think there was anything but gloom and sadness in the world. Indeed, Dave's going had taken the heart out of the good times all over Butternut Corner. He was only sixteen, and a good boy—his mother had meant that he should be a minister—but he got into the company of some wild fellows down at Bymport, and of Alf Coombs, a wild fellow nearer home, and then he had run away from home under circumstances almost too dreadful to tell. Burton's jewelry-store at Bymport had been broken into and robbed of watches and jewelry, and the next morning Dave and Alf Coombs had disappeared. They had been seen around the store that night; Dave had not come home until almost morning. The boys had been gone almost two months now, and the suspicion against them had become almost a certainty in most people's minds, and it was reported that the sheriff had a warrant for their arrest, but as yet had not been able to find them.
With such trouble weighing upon them, Patty had felt as if it were almost wicked to wish to go to Viola Pitkin's party, but Aunt Eunice had said, with the quiver about her patient mouth that always came there when she referred to Dave, that the innocent must not suffer for the guilty; and she had told Barbara, the "hired girl," to roast a pair of chickens and make some of her famous cream-cakes also, for it was to be a surprise party, and each guest was to carry a basket of goodies for the supper.
And now Uncle Reuben had planned for them to go, in spite of the snow-drifts; so Patty began to feel that it was not wrong to be light-hearted under the circumstances.
"Take all the youngsters you can pack on," repeated Uncle Reuben, as Patty and Anson settled themselves on the great sled, and Pelatiah cracked his whip over the old horse; "only I wouldn't stop at the foot of the hill"—Uncle Reuben's face darkened suddenly as he said this—"we've had about enough of Coombses."
Patty's heart sank a little, for she liked Tilly Coombs. They were rough and poor people, the Coombs family—"back folks," who had moved to the Corner only the summer before; the father drank, and the mother was an invalid, and it was the son Alf who was supposed to have had an evil influence over Dave. Patty thought it probable that Tilly had been invited to the surprise party, because Ruby Nutting, the doctor's daughter, who had planned the party, would be sure to ask her. Poor people who would be likely to be slighted, and stray animals that no one wanted, those were the ones that Ruby Nutting thought of first.
Along slid the great sled with its jingling bells, and out of her gate at the foot of the hill ran Tilly Coombs—the very first passenger. Patty couldn't help it. She didn't disobey Uncle Reuben's injunction not to stop; Tilly ran and jumped on.
"YOU'LL LET ME GO WITH YOU, WON'T YOU?"
"You'll let me go with you, won't you?" she panted. "I couldn't bear to miss it when she asked me! Some folks wouldn't, but she did. And I never went to a party in all my life! I couldn't bring anything but some doughnuts." Tilly opened her small basket, and by the light of Pelatiah's great lantern Patty saw that eager face darken suddenly. "I made 'em myself, and I'm afraid they're only middling. Doughnuts will soak fat, though, won't they?" she added, anxiously, as Patty gazed doubtfully at the soggy lumps laid carefully in the folds of a ragged napkin. "I never made any before."
It was altogether an affair of first times with Tilly—a happier thing in the way of party-going than of doughnut-making!
"They're very nicely flavored," said Patty, tasting critically, "and where there are so many things nobody will notice if they're not—not so very light."
Tilly's sharp anxious face brightened a little, but she heaved a sigh and covered her doughnuts quickly as the sled stopped to take on Rilly Parkhurst and her cousins, the Stillman boys, and Kathie Loomis, who was visiting Rilly. The Sage boys came next, and Delia Sage, who was sixteen and had taught school, but was just as full of fun as if she were young. It was a merry company; the jingling of the bells was almost drowned in chatter and laughter, and when Ruby Nutting joined it, she was greeted with a cheering that, as Pelatiah said, "must 'a' cracked the mill-pond."
The crowd increased; the baskets were all huddled together upon the seat with Pelatiah, and under the seat, and in the middle of the sled; no one could keep hold of his own, but there was no fear but that they would all know their own when they reached Viola's house.
Ruby Nutting was missed suddenly. She hadn't been as gay as usual; generally Ruby could be depended upon to stir up every one's wits and make the dullest party merry, but to-night she had been sitting in a corner talking in a low tone with Alvan Sage. Now she had disappeared, and Alvan Sage, looking very much surprised and bewildered himself, said that she had slipped off when they were going a little slowly up the hill, just as Pelatiah had held the lantern down to see if there was anything the matter with the horse's foot; she had said she would wait until Horace Barker's sleigh came along; either she thought the sled was too crowded, or she wanted to see some one who was coming with the Barkers. The latter explanation was probable enough, for Chrissy Barker was on the "committee of arrangements," and had helped Ruby about the preparations.
So no one thought much more about it, although it didn't seem like Ruby to go off without saying anything. The sled party was the first to reach Viola's, and it was great fun to see her perfect surprise and delight when they trooped in. They all thought that Ruby Nutting should have been there then.
Patty had a surprise that was not pleasant. When her basket was carried in the cover was open, the cream-cakes all jammed and half spoiled, and the two fine roast chickens were gone!
"See here, you can catch the thief by his mitten!" cried one of the boys. The rim of the basket was broken, probably by the thief in his haste, and to one sharply jagged end was attached a long, long string of red worsted. "Who has a ravelled mitten?"
The color came and went in Tilly Coombs's sharp, elfish little face; then she thrust her hand into her pocket as if she was thrusting her mittens deep into it. Patty Perley happened to be standing close beside her, and saw her.
Patty was mortified to have come to the surprise party with only a few half-spoiled cream-cakes, but she was kind-hearted, and her first thought was a pitying one.
"They must be so very poor! Tilly wanted them for her sick mother," she said to herself.
How Tilly could have taken the chickens from the basket and where she could have concealed them was a mystery. But Uncle Reuben believed that all the Coombs family were thievish and sly; perhaps he was right, and Tilly was used to doing such things. But even Uncle Reuben would not be very hard upon a girl who had stolen delicate food for her sick mother.
"'Sh!—'sh! don't say anything about it! It is of no consequence," she whispered to some girls and boys who were loudly wondering and guessing about the mysterious theft.
Then they all went into the sitting-room, and the Virginia reel, the old-fashioned dance with which Butternut Corner festivities almost always began, was danced, and no one thought any more of the stolen chickens.
Ruby Nutting had come by this time, and she led the dance, as usual the life of the good time. She had come in Horace Barker's sleigh, and she gayly evaded the wonderings and reproaches of the party she had left. As the dance ended, Berta Treadwell beckoned slyly to Patty. Berta was Viola Pitkin's cousin, who had come all the way from California to visit her; she and Patty had "taken to" each other at once.
"I want you to see such a funny thing!" whispered Berta, drawing Patty out into the back entry. "That queer-looking girl they call Tilly, with the wispy black hair and the faded cotton dress, asked me to lend her a pair of knitting-needles! I got grandma's for her, and she snatched them out of my hands, she was so eager. 'You needn't tell anybody that I asked you for 'em, either,' she said, in that sharp way of hers. I had such a curiosity to know what she was going to do with them that I watched her. After a while, when the reel was begun and she thought no one was looking, she slipped out through the wood-shed into the barn. Come and peep through the crack!"
Patty followed Berta softly through the wood-shed, and looked through a chink in the rough board partition into the barn.
On an inverted bucket, with a lantern hung upon a nail over her head, sat Tilly Coombs diligently knitting. The barn was cold; the cattle's breaths made vapors, and there was a glitter of frost around the beams. Tilly was muffled in a shawl, but her face looked pinched and blue.
"What is she knitting? It looks like a red mitten," whispered Berta. "Is she so industrious? To think of leaving a party on a winter night to go out to the barn and knit! Do you think we ought to leave her there in the cold? I should think she must be crazy!"
Patty was drawing Berta back through the wood-shed eagerly, in silence. Berta had not heard about the ravelled mitten; she did not know that Tilly was trying to knit it into shape again so it would never be known that it was her mitten that was ravelled.
"I know why she is doing it," said Patty, "though I don't see why she couldn't have waited until she got home; but I suppose she is awfully anxious. Berta, don't say that we saw her, or anything about the needles, to anybody. That will be kind to her, and she is so poor. Whatever you hear, don't say anything."
"I'm sure I don't want to say anything to hurt her," answered Berta, a little resentfully, for she did think Patty might have told her all about it. "But I must say I think society in Butternut Corner is a little mixed."
"Ruby asked her," explained Patty. "I think it was right; Tilly never went to a party before."
"Her way of enjoying herself at a party is a little queer," said Berta, unsympathetically.
And Patty thought she did not feel quite so sorry as she had done that Berta was going back to California the next day.
She thought she would tell Ruby Nutting; Ruby would understand, and pity Tilly; but before she had a chance, while Horace Barker was singing a college song and Ruby was playing the accompaniment on the piano, a sudden recollection struck her that sent the color from her face. Aunt Eunice's spoons!
Aunt Eunice had said that there were never spoons enough to go round at a surprise party, and Viola Pitkin's mother was her intimate friend, so she wished to help her all she could, and she put a dozen spoons into the basket—the solid silver ones that had been Grandmother Oliver's—and charged Patty to take care of them. And it was not until she overheard Mrs. Pitkin whisper to Viola that she wasn't sure that there were sauce-plates enough that Patty remembered the spoons.
She had a struggle to repress a cry of dismay, those spoons were so precious! Uncle Reuben had demurred when they were put into the basket, but Aunt Eunice was proud, and always liked to give and lend of her best. Patty felt as if she must cry out and denounce Tilly when she crept slyly in behind broad-backed Uncle Nathan Pitkin and slyly warmed her benumbed hands at the fire. But Patty held her peace; when she had reflected for a few minutes she knew that this was too grave a matter for fourteen-year-old wits to grapple with, and she must tell Uncle Reuben and Aunt Eunice.
Tilly Coombs was drawn into a merry game—Ruby Nutting took care of that—and before long her queer little sharp face was actually dimpling with fun, and her laugh rang out with the gayest! Patty Perley looked at her, and decided that it was a very queer world indeed; for her the joy of Viola Pitkin's party was done.
When they were all dressing to depart, Patty looked involuntarily at Tilly Coombs's mittens; in fact, many furtive glances were cast around at the red mittens by those who remembered the theft of the roast chickens. There were many of them, red being the fashionable color for mittens at Butternut Corner, but apparently they were all sound and whole. Tommy Barker had one mitten with a white thumb, which his blind grandmother had knitted on in place of a torn thumb, and little Seba Sage had but one mitten; but that one was very dark red, not the vivid scarlet of the ravelling.
Rilly Parkhurst whispered to Patty, as she sat down beside her on the sled: "Tilly Coombs has the ravelled mitten! She is trying to cover it with her shawl; it is only a little more than half a mitten!"
Patty smothered an exclamation of doubt, and then she gazed curiously at Tilly's hands; but they were tightly, carefully covered by her shawl.
Could it be that after spending all that time in the cold barn she had failed to knit up her ravelled mitten? Tilly looked as if she had been having a good time. Under the light of Pelatiah's lantern her eyes were shining, her face rippling with smiles. Patty thought with wonder that she had not seen her look so happy—well, certainly not since her brother Alf ran away.
"I must have grown plump at the party!" laughed Ruby Nutting. "One of my mittens is too tight around the wrist." And Patty saw Tilly Coombs nervously fold her shawl more closely about her mittens.
Just before her own door was reached, Tilly Coombs leaned towards Patty and whispered, so that even Anson or Pelatiah should not hear.
"I didn't know there were such good times in the world!" she said, with her face aglow. "And Viola Pitkin's uncle Nathan ate one of my doughnuts!" But Patty shrank away from her.
[A FEMININE SANTA CLAUS.]
BY ZITELLA COCKE.
The Eve of Epiphany or Twelfth-Night brings to the Roman children very much the same experience which Christmas brings to young Americans. It is the time and opportunity for presents, and sometimes for disappointments and even punishments. Upon this occasion, however, it is a benefactress instead of a benefactor who confers the coveted favor. It is not Santa Claus, who, round, red, and good-natured, comes down the chimney with a gift for every child, but a hideous old woman, lean, dark, and sour-visaged, who descends the chimney with a bell in one hand and a long cane in the other. The bell announces her coming, and the cane is especially for the children who have rebelled against parents and teachers, or have been otherwise forgetful of duty. The name of this old crone is Befana, and she brings plenty of good things, in spite of her forbidding countenance and manner, and the good, obedient child may confidently expect a stocking full of dainties. She fills the stocking of the disobedient too, but with ashes! The Festival of the Befana is one of the most fascinating to the children of Rome. Crowds gather upon the thoroughfares and fill up the streets and piazzas, and the beating drums, squeaking whistles, jingling tambourines, and sonorous trumpets show that Roman children can be quite as noisy in honor of the Befana as American children are when they wish to welcome Christmas or celebrate the glorious Fourth. This festival occurs, of course, on the eve of Twelfth-Night, and in addition to the various noises which assail your ears, your eyes are feasted with the most startling and curious spectacles. Very odd and, we can say, very picturesque toys are exhibited on all sides, and the brilliant display of fireworks gives a fascination to things which are in themselves ridiculous and grotesque. Noise, unceasing noise, is the order of the night, and he who can surprise you with the loudest is greeted with peals of laughter and shouts of applause. A whistle or horn is always at your ears.
Nor is the custom of receiving presents on this happy occasion confined to children. The Pope and the Cardinals take part in the rejoicing. Formerly a chalice of gold containing a hundred ducats was presented to the Pope with a Latin address and great ceremony, and the Pope, in accepting it, made his reply in Latin, and graciously allowed the bearer to kiss his foot. This offering was called the Befana Tribute. The ceremony was discontinued in the year 1802; but the Befana Tribute is still offered and accepted. Of course, there are many traditions concerning the Befana, and it is in honor of a tradition that a burning broom is always carried in the processions which celebrate her festival. According to this tradition she is said to have been an old woman, who was engaged in cleaning the house when the three Kings passed carrying presents to the infant Christ; she was called to the window to see them, but she declined to leave her household duties, and said, "I will see them as they return." But the old woman was denied the blessed sight, for they did not return that way, and hence she is represented as waiting and watching for them continually—always standing in the attitude of expectation, with her broom in her hand.
To disguise themselves as this old woman is one of the pranks of the Roman boys during the Befana Festival. With blackened faces and fantastic caps on their heads they stand in the doors with a broom in one hand and a lantern in the other. Around their necks and suspended to their waists are rows of stockings filled with sweet-meats, and also with the reward of evil-doing—the famous ashes! And what do the Roman children say when they see these representations of the Befana?
Well, very much what the American children say when they see the images of their dearly loved Santa Claus!
[A SONG FOR CHRISTMAS EVE.]
BY FRANK DEMPSTER SHERMAN.
Come, draw around the fire,
And watch the sparks that go
All singing like a fairy choir
Into the realms of snow.
Above us evergreen,
With mistletoe in sprays,
And tenderly the leaves between
The holly-berries blaze.
And while the logs burn bright,
Before the day takes wing,
The happy children, gowned in white,
Their merry carols sing.
Then high the stockings lift,
Like hungry beggars dumb.
Good Santa Claus, bring every gift,
And fill them when you come!
[IN THE TOWER OF MANY STORIES.]
BY MRS. LEW. WALLACE.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
he most illustrious name connected with London Tower—high over king, priest, or prince—is the name of Raleigh. There at four different times he was sent, not so much prisoner of England as of Spain. He never lay in the lonesome cell in the crypt called his. His longest term was in the grim fortress Bloody Tower, where his undaunted spirit taught the world
"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage."
GARDEN INSIDE THE TOWER, WHERE RALEIGH WALKED.
He was allowed the freedom of the garden, with a little lodge for a study—a hen-house of lath and plaster, where he experimented with drugs and chemicals, studied medicine and ship-building, kept his crucibles and apparatus, and the near terrace he paced up and down through weary years is to this day called Raleigh's Walk.
It was in the reign of King James the First—the cruel and cowardly—and never in his peerless prime was Raleigh greater than in the fourteen years that sentence of death hung over his head. His prison was a court to which men crowded with delight. Queen Anne sent gracious messages to him, and Prince Henry rode down from Whitehall to hear the old sailor tell of green isles with waving palms like beckoning hands, hints of wonderful plumage, hissing serpents in tropic jungles, barbarian cities built of precious stones, and of rivers running over sands of gold, all waiting for the English conqueror to come and make them his own.
After a morning of high converse the Prince cried out, "No man but my father would keep such a bird in such a cage," and when the young listener fell ill the Queen would have him take nothing but Raleigh's cordial, which, she said, had saved her life.
His best biographer writes: "Raleigh was a sight to see; not only for his fame and name, but for his picturesque and dazzling figure. Fifty-one years old, tall, tawny, splendid, with the bronze of tropical suns on his leonine cheek, a bushy beard, a round mustache, and a ripple of curling hair which his man Peter took an hour to dress. Apparelled as became such a figure, in scarf and band of richest color and costliest stuff, in cap and plume worth a ransom, in jacket powdered with gems, his whole attire from cap to shoe-strings blazing with rubies, emeralds, and pearls, he was allowed to be one of the handsomest men alive."
In the eleventh year of his bondage he finished the first part of the History of the World. He wrote what men will not let die, invented the modern war-ship, and from the turrets of Bloody Tower looked across the vast blue plain of ocean and directed operations in Virginia and Guiana. He was a guiding light to his beloved England; proud and brilliant heroes deferred to him, sought his advice; charming women were charmed by the most courtly of courtiers, and all felt him to be a man whom the government could not afford to spare. He knew more than any other person living about the New World offering endless riches to the Old, and his services were at the King's command. While prisoner to the crown he sailed with five ships under royal orders for the region of the Orinoco, the land of promise unfulfilled. The golden city lighted by jewels was a vanishing illusion ending in bitter disappointment.
Years before, in 1609, he had written to Shakespeare, whom he called, "My dearest Will":
"Great were our hopes, both of glory and of gold, in the kingdom of Powhatan. But it grieves me much to say that all hath resulted in infelicity, misfortune, and an unhappy end.... As I was blameworthy for thy risk, I send by the messenger your £50, which you shall not lose by my overhopeful vision. For its usance I send a package of a new herb from the Chesapeake, called by the natives tobacco. Make it not into tea, as did one of my kinsmen, but kindle and smoke it in the little tube the messenger will bestow ... it is a balm for all sorrows and griefs, and as a dream of Paradise.... Thou knowest that from my youth up I have adventured for the welfare and glory of our Queen, Elizabeth. On sea and on land and in many climes have I fought the accursed Spaniard, and am honored by our sovereign and among men ... but all this would I give, and more, for a tithe of the honor which in the coming time shall assuredly be thine. Thy kingdom is of the imagination, and hath no limit or end."
The dreams of the Admiral far outran any possibility, and the mines of Guiana proved a cheat equal to the yellow clay of the Roanoke. Peril of life, fortune, and the varied resources of genius and valor were not enough to insure success, and a failure in the paradise of the world probably hastened the sentence for which Philip III. of Spain clamored.
The charges of treason against Raleigh were pure invention; but on his return from South America he was arrested, committed to the Tower, and the warrant for execution was signed without a new trial, while men from the streets and ships came crowding to the wharf, whence they could see him walking on the wall. He was advised to kill himself to escape the shameful sentence of James I., but he solemnly spoke of self-murder, and declared he would die in the light of day and before the face of his countrymen. In the field of battle, on land and on sea, he had looked at death too often to tremble now.
His farewell letter to his wife is one of the sweetest. I wish I had space for it all. It concludes:
"The everlasting God, Infinite, Powerful, Inscrutable; the Almighty God, which is Goodness itself, Mercy itself; the true light and life—keep thee and thine, have mercy on me, and teach me to forgive my persecutors and false witnesses, and send us to meet again in His Glorious Kingdom. My own true wife, farewell. Bless my poor boy. Pray for me, and let the good God fold you both in His arms. Written with the dying hand of sometime thy husband, but now, alas! overthrown.
"Yours that was, but not now my own,
"W. Raleigh."
In his final imprisonment Lady Raleigh was not allowed a share. When she caught his youthful fancy it was as Elizabeth Throckmorton, maid of honor to Queen Elizabeth.
"Sweet Bess" was a favorite there among ladies of gentle blood. The flatterers of the dazzling court fluttered round the lovely young girl, conspicuous for beauty and grace; slender, fair, golden-haired. Her sighs were only for the sea-captain who expected to crown her with glory won by his sword, and riches, the spoil to be fought for in many lands. She was his loyal wife to the end, always pleading for pardon, defiant before King and court, where she appeared daily in her husband's cause, "holding little Wat by the hand." When her petition was refused, she was not afraid to call down curses on the head of the tyrant, who heeded not her wrath or her grief.
The water-way from the Thames is a dark passage under whose arch a pale procession of ghosts of the murdered may easily be fancied as coming up out of the past. Beneath it went Raleigh from prison to hear his sentence in Westminster Hall; from the King's Bench he was sent to Westminster Abbey. Crowds thronged to watch him pass, and from the carriage window he noticed his old friend Burton, and invited him to Palace Yard next day to see him die.
THE TRAITORS' GATE.
The warrant came on a dark October morning, 1618. Raleigh was in bed, but on hearing the Lieutenant's voice he sprang lightly to his feet, threw on hose and doublet, and left his room. At the door he met Peter, his barber, coming in. "Sir," said Peter, "we have not curled your head this morning." His master answered with a smile, "Let them comb it that shall have it." The faithful servant followed him to the gate insisting on the service. "Peter," he asked, "canst thou give me any plaster to set on a man's head when it is off?"
John Eliot wrote: "There is no parallel to the fortitude of Raleigh. Nothing petty disturbed his calm soul in ending a career of constant toil for the greatness and honor of his country. The hero who created a New England for Old England was fearless of death, the most resolute and confident of men, yet with reverence and conscience."
The executioner was deeply moved by the matchless spirit of the martyr. He knelt and prayed forgiveness—the usual formula at the block or scaffold. Raleigh placed both hands on the man's shoulders and said, "I forgive you with all my heart. Now show me the axe." He carefully touched the edge of the blade to feel its keenness, and kissed it. "This gives me no fear. It is a sharp and fair medicine to cure all my ills." Being asked which way he would lie on the block, he answered, "It is no matter which way the head lies, so that the heart be right." Presently he added, "When I stretch forth my hands, despatch me." There were omissions in his last speech, but we may be sure they were noble utterances. He prayed in an unbroken voice, and begged his friends to stand near him on the scaffold so they might better hear his dying words. Which being done, he concluded, "And now I entreat you all to join with me in prayer that the great God of Heaven, whom I have grievously offended—being a man full of vanity, and having lived a sinful life in all sinful callings, having been a soldier, a captain, and a sea-captain, and a courtier, which are all places of wickedness and vice—that God, I say, would forgive me and cast away my sins from me, and that He would receive me into everlasting life. So I take my leave of you making my peace with God.
"Give me heartily of your prayers," he repeated, turning right and left. The headsman cast down his own cloak that the victim might kneel on it after laying off his velvet robe. An act which reminds us of the happy chance for like courtesy that made Raleigh's fortune when he was a boyish adventurer in the train of Sussex; a beautiful youth watching the state barge of Queen Elizabeth.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
The supreme moment came; the great captain, never greater than in death, stretched out his palsied hands. The deathman hesitated. "What dost thou fear, man? Strike, strike." One blow—a true one—and the murder was done. There were those standing near who saw his face as it had been the face of an angel. Courtier, historian, poet, seaman, soldier, his was "the noblest head that ever rolled into English dust."
The wasted body was laid under the altar of St. Margaret's, the church of the House of Commons, across the way from Westminster, with only a small tablet to mark his resting-place.
Sweet Bess, who shared his glory and his prison-house, and with little Wat had walked the terrace with him, does not lie beside him. I do not know where that fond and faithful heart went to dust, but I do believe that in the final day, for which all other days are made, true love will find its own, and they will be reunited for evermore.
I saw no monument to Raleigh in Westminster Abbey. The fame of the colonizer of Virginia belongs to us of the New World, and in 1880 a memorial window was placed there at the expense of Americans in London. Canon Farrar's address at the unveiling was a brilliant review of Raleigh's life and varied fortunes in the most glorious portion of the Elizabethan era. It concluded with an earnest appeal to the England of Queen Victoria and the America of Lincoln and of Garfield to stand shoulder to shoulder under the banner of the cross.
[HOW TO ENTER THE ARMY.]
BY GENERAL O. O. HOWARD, U.S.A.
(In Two Papers.)
II.
THE MILITARY ACADEMY.
The usual method for a boy to obtain a commission in the army is to pass through the four years' course of study, and graduate at the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York.
Receiving a diploma upon completing this course, he is by law appointed by the President a Second Lieutenant in some branch of the four military divisions of service—Engineers, Artillery, Cavalry, or Infantry. Cadets are annually admitted to the Military Academy by appointment. Each Congressman has the right to request one for a resident of his district, the Secretary of War giving the appointment. Ten are also appointed by the President, selecting at large from anywhere in the United States. Besides these, each Territory and the District of Columbia are entitled to one. This would allow about 400 cadets, but the course is so severe that the number becomes very much reduced. Last June the corps numbered 285; but including the entering class of 103 the present number is only 336 cadets. Application to Washington can be made at any time. It will be placed on file in the office of the Secretary of War, and notice sent to the representative of that district whenever a vacancy occurs. The application must give the full name of the young man, date of birth, and permanent residence. Appointments are required to be made one year in advance of date of admission, except that, in case of death or other cause, vacancies may occur; then they may be filled in time for the next annual examination. At present candidates appear for mental and physical examination before a board of officers convened at the military post nearest their respective places of residence on the first day of March annually. The successful candidates will be admitted to the Academy without further examination upon reporting in person to the superintendent at West Point before 12 m. on the 15th day of June. Candidates selected to fill the vacancies unprovided for by the March boards, and those which may occur afterwards, will be instructed to report at West Point for examination early in June. After admission at West Point, cadets must sign an engagement to serve the United States eight years, and take and subscribe the Oath of Allegiance. They agree to obey all legal orders of their superior officers.
Cadets admitted must be between seventeen and twenty-two years of age, and five feet or more in height, and unmarried. They must be well versed in reading, writing, and spelling, so as to spell correctly from dictation a considerable number of test words; in arithmetic enough to be able to take up at once the higher branches without further study of arithmetic; and have a thorough knowledge of the elements of English grammar; of descriptive geography, particularly that of the United States, and of the history of the United States.
We thus see that it is in the common branches that the boy desiring to go to West Point must especially perfect himself to be able to enter; but a student of higher mathematics and other collegiate studies has a better chance for class standing, when the different subjects are taken up, after entering, and rapidly pushed to completion. The first year algebra, geometry, trigonometry, and surveying are completed; analytical geometry, use of logarithms, rhetoric, and English language studied, with French commenced; besides, the practical instruction in military drill and discipline is demanded. There are marchings to every exercise, to mess-hall, chapel, and recitations. Fencing, bayonet, and gymnastic drills come the first year.
The second year analytical and descriptive geometry and calculus, with method of "least squares," are completed. French is finished, and also several weeks of Spanish, drawing, and practical military training and bridge-building.
The third year philosophy is substituted for mathematics, analytical mechanics, astronomy, and wave-motion being finished. The cadets take chemistry, electricity, mineralogy, and geology; also military drawing, drill regulations, and practical engineering, with signalling.
The fourth year has military engineering, fortifications, and art of war; also constitutional, international, and military law, history, practical instruction in astronomy, and the study of ordnance and gunnery. All this time the cadet is constantly subject to the life and duties of a soldier, just as far as his studies will permit. Infantry drill in squad, company, and battalion, cavalry and artillery drill, guard duty, parades, reviews, and other ceremonies are incessant. The cadet's life is more than a busy one. So hard is it, that out of one hundred candidates who enter seldom more than fifty graduate.
But a boy of sound body and good constitution, with suitable preparation and good natural capacity, and aptitude for study, industrious, persevering, and of an obedient and orderly disposition, with a correct moral deportment, will not fail to receive the reward of his four years' labor in a commission in the United States army.
THE PRESIDENTIAL APPOINTMENTS DIRECT FROM CIVIL LIFE.
The third way a commission is sometimes obtained is by direct appointment to a Second Lieutenancy by the President, who has the power, and exercises it when vacancies occur over and above those filled by cadet graduates of West Point, and by candidate non-commissioned officers from the ranks. In the case of the President having appointed a civilian to fill a vacancy, the appointee is called upon to pass an examination, mentally and physically. The subjects of examination are the common English branches, also history, geometry, surveying, international and constitutional law. If accepted, after a critical and extensive trial he is passed by the examining board, he will receive a commission from the President, either in the cavalry or infantry; and after serving some little time with his regiment he will usually be sent to the Infantry and Cavalry School at Fort Leavenworth for a post-graduate course. Surgeons, undergoing a most thorough examination, are appointed First Lieutenants directly into the service, as are often Paymasters and Judge-Advocates with the rank of Major.
SUBSEQUENT SUCCESS.
We have brought our young man through the three different doorways to the position of a commissioned officer of the lowest grade, viz., a Second Lieutenant. His subsequent success as an officer will depend upon himself. The usual promotion is, as a rule, according to seniority, i. e., the ranking man of one grade goes to the next higher, except in case of war, when the best man is selected to fill a position of higher rank according as he is believed to be fit therefor. Though regular promotion may be slow, an officer has many other channels of success.
The highest cadets in class rank, perhaps four or five, go into the Engineer Corps, where their work is mainly among civilians, and their promotion rapid. The Ordnance Corps is filled by special competitive examination of Second Lieutenants of the army; the successful receive the rank of First Lieutenant on entering the corps. The departments of the Quartermaster, Commissary, Paymaster, Judge-Advocate, and Adjutant-General are filled from the lines of officers, giving to the appointed increased rank and pay. There are many special details open to industrious officers; between thirty and forty being selected for colleges; some for military attaches at foreign courts; also others for aides-de-camp to generals; and for places of importance in Washington.
Officers are required to study extensively, and pass examinations for every promotion. The diploma from the Infantry and Cavalry School will entitle the holder to promotion for five years without further examination. The profession of an army officer may not be so remunerative pecuniarily as one of like study and preparation in civil life; but perhaps, with the one exception of the ever-impending danger or prospect of active service, his is as comfortable and satisfying as that of the average professional or business man.
The pay of a Second Lieutenant, whose age varies from twenty-one to twenty-eight, is, in infantry, $116.67 per month, and in cavalry $125 per month, together with advantages of groceries at cost price, coal at about one-half the usual cost, and quarters free.
Thus we cannot help feeling that the young man who strives for success in the army, from the ranks of a private soldier up, will feel amply repaid, particularly if he receives a commission, and then continues to make a good soldierly reputation.
Usually where a son is desirous of entering the army through any open door, his parents immediately inquire concerning his surroundings. Are they favorable to good morals? Are they conducive to a religious life? The answer is that good morals are required at the outset; but of course in barrack life as it is a young man would be likely to be influenced by the example of his comrades. In some companies there could be no fault to find. In others he would encounter much roughness of speech—perhaps as much as in the forecastle of a ship. As to religion there is nothing necessarily hindering, no more than in railroading, in working in large out-door gangs, in manufactories, or elsewhere in the world.
The young man as a Christian is always called upon to resist temptation, and I do not think it harder in the army than elsewhere; for everywhere temptations must be met and overcome. There are many decided Christian officers and soldiers—perhaps as large a proportion as are to be found in other business careers.
[A MOTHER GOOSE FAIR.]
BY AGNES BAILEY ORMSBEE.
Here is a new idea for a fair in costume for the Fresh Air Fund or some other charity, and one not too hard to get up. Did you ever hear of an evening with Mother Goose and her friends? Well, the idea is to have the attendants of the booths and tables appear in characters taken from Mother Goose's immortal jingles, with the dear kindly old face of Mother Goose welcoming all. To give such a fair the air of a social gathering, it is a good plan to have Mother Goose, the old woman with rings on her fingers and bells on her toes, the old man clad all in leather, and poor old Robinson Crusoe receive the guests, being introduced by little Tommy Trot, after Solomon Grundy has taken the tickets as each one enters.
This reception committee should be impersonated by some of your mothers and fathers, who would be willing to lend themselves for the interest they naturally take in the object of your efforts. Or else the older young people might enjoy the ceremony. The costumes would not be hard to make. Mother Goose should wear a short dark red, blue, or brown plain gown, a black apron, a white or gay-colored kerchief, and a white cap with a wide frill. The costume of the musical old woman should be similar, except her cap should be a high conical colored one trimmed with tiny bells. Bells should border her dress and be sewed to her shoe-tops, and her hair should be powdered. A cape, also bell-trimmed, might be substituted for the kerchief. The leather man should wear a coat and hat covered with the heavy paper which imitates alligator-skin, wear high-topped boots, and carry an umbrella in one hand and a cane in the other.
The next question to settle is about the booths. These should be rather small, so that there can be quite a number of them, and so that the articles for sale could in a measure be also in character. The slight wooden frame of the booths and their counters or tables should be hidden under drapings of cheese-cloth, cotton crépon, silkolene, or tissue-paper, each one being of single or harmonizing colors, pale lemon color and heliotrope, pink and blue, orange and black, being especially showy by electric or gas light. For the special decoration there should be placed high on the front of each booth a placard, being a characteristic quotation descriptive of the booth and its contents. This is an excellent chance for a handy boy or girl to do some fancy lettering. Supposing the central booth should have this rhyme:
"There was an old woman tossed up in a basket
Ninety times as high as the moon;
And where she was going I couldn't but ask her,
For in her hand she carried a broom.
"'Old woman, old woman, old woman,' quoth I,
'Whither, O whither, O whither so high?'
'To sweep the cobwebs off the sky!'
'Shall I go with you?' 'Aye, buy-and-buy.'"
I am sure your friends will excuse the pun in the last line, and, what's more to the purpose, will take the hint. Trimming the booth and displayed on its counter you must have brooms of all sizes.
You see there is a multitude of simple things you can make yourselves that will be appropriate for this booth, and much that will be contributed easily and willingly, and, best of all, they will be articles that every one will be glad to buy. I think the secret of success in such a fair is not to have too costly articles for sale. It is astonishing how quickly dollars grow from dimes, quarters, and halves, and how easily these small coins slip out of friendly purses. The chief young lady in charge of this broom booth should be dressed to represent the famous old woman, and each of her helpers should wear miniature brooms made of a few broom-splints and a toothpick for badges.
Another booth should be decorated with pictures of our tabby friends, corresponding to the jingle, "I love little pussy, her coat is so warm," while its contents should entice buyers with a display of animal toys of every kind—cotton flannel elephants dear to childish hearts, dogs, pussies, a whole flock of Mary's lambs, horses, and mechanical bears, if you should be so fortunate as to have the latter donated.
A third booth should be devoted to dolls dressed in every style and paper dolls, both of which are always saleable. Who ever found a little girl's heart so full that it would not admit one more doll-child to the play-house family? This booth could be draped with butterflies and festoons of the stars and stripes, and have for its motto,
"Hush, baby, my doll, I pray you don't cry."
The merry jingle of "Humpty Dumpty" is fitting for a table devoted to Easter eggs and cards, Easter bonbons, and other timely trifles, and could be easily allowed to include stationery, menu cards, pen-wipers, and all the pretty conceits agreeable to use when writing one's thanks for an Easter gift.
"Needles and pins, needles and pins," is the motto for a table where should be shown dainty doilies, tea-cloths, bits of drawn-work, and all the pretty pieces of needle-work it is possible for your skilful fingers to make, or kind friends to give you. Do not fail to try and get enough toy watches, tiny pins, beads, and ornamental trifles—things that make a good time, you can say, because "Hickory, dickory, dock," etc., is such a pretty legend for a booth, especially with an old-fashioned tall clock to add to the decorations.
"Daffo-down-dilly has come to town
In a fine petticoat and a green gown,"
is a charming verse for a flower, which the smiling faces of girls in costumes representing flowers will yet further decorate.
"Handy Spandy Jack-a-Dandy
Loves plum-cake and sugar-candy,"
should be the jingle for the candy table, and the boys and girls can exercise their ingenuity in appearing in character—one a chocolate cream, another a striped stick, another a pink peppermint, and so on. But whatever you do, do not forget the little kindergarteners in your households. They are so proud of their bits of work, and would be so glad to give something for the poor sick babies. Take the mats and sewing-cards, and make them into sachet-bags, pin-trays, blotters, cornucopias, needle-books, "scratch-my-backs," with ribbons and fringed papers. Let the verse over these childish offerings be,
"I saw a ship a-sailing,
A-sailing on the sea;
And, O, it was all laden
With pretty things for thee,"
and trim the booth with the paper chains, stars, and the like; also the work of the little ones.
MOTHER GOOSE AND SOME OF HER CHARACTERS.
In order that such a fair as this shall be a success and not wear every one out, you must divide yourselves into groups, with an older lady or ladies to direct your work. If you belong to the broom booth, do not change your mind and try to be a flower-girl at the last moment. If you are lucky enough to have given you, or to make something suitable for the needle-work table, turn it over to that group, and do not dictate how it shall be placed. Give your attention to making your own booth a success. It is wise to ask some one who is older to take charge of the fitting up of the booths. He can manage better than you, especially if a carpenter is employed, and you can pour forth your soul on the decorations. There are plenty of characters in Mother Goose's jingles for every one to have one appear in, but it is no harm if there are several of a kind. "Betsy Brooks and Tommy Snooks," "The butcher, the baker, the candle-stick-maker," "Three wise men of Gotham," "Father Graybeard," "Tommy Grace with the pain in his face," are groups which can appear together, and by acting in character and repeating often the jingles that belong to them, add to the fun.
Thus far it would be possible to have the fair in a private house, if any one is so generous as to offer hers. But if you can have a hall or chapel you can offer yet greater variety. Arrange to keep seats in the centre of the hall, and have tableaux and songs for an hour. If it is possible, drill those of you who can sing, or perhaps some singer would volunteer to accompany the tableaux. Otherwise ask some one who reads nicely to recite the words appropriate to each tableau. "Little Bo-peep" appears as the curtain rises, looking for her sheep, while "Polly Flinder" will make two tableaux, one for each two lines of the rhyme. "Georgie Porgie" should appear kissing a tiny girl, and, in the second, running away when a group of school-girls come in sight. "Seesaw, Margery Daw," is another pretty tableau. "Bobby Shaftoe" should show his faithful little maid waiting for him, while the second one shows Bobby's return. When this is done by two yellow-haired children it is effective. "Old King Cole and his fiddlers three," "Little Jack Horner," "Simple Simon," "Ba-ba, Black Sheep," "Little Miss Muffett," "Tom, Tom, the piper's son," and "When I was a bachelor," are all capable of being arranged in tableaux. There are two editions of "Mother Goose" published, with the words set to music, and with pictures that would give suggestions for costumes.
Of course a fair without refreshments is a good deal like plum-pudding without currants and raisins, and even here Mother Goose comes to our aid. What do you say to "Jack and Jill" drawing the lemonade at the well in small pails, and then pouring it into glasses? Would it not add to the fun if part of the evening Jack's head should be mended with brown paper? "Little Tommy Tucker" must not be forgotten, and should have a stand to himself, where he can sing for your supper, and offer sandwiches of every sort neatly wrapped in waxed paper and fancy crackers. Close at hand "Mary Morey" should give you a chance to tell her story while you drink your chocolate and eat your sandwich.
A pretty booth should have for sale fancy cakes, loaves, and buns, while its attendants should ring a bell, and sing, "Hot cross buns," etc. "Little maid, pretty maid, wilt thou be mine," etc., is an appropriate legend for the ice-cream corner, while "Sing a song of sixpence," with as many waiters as may be in black dresses and red sleeves for blackbirds, would add a finishing touch to the evening with Mother Goose, if it is thought best to undertake a hot supper to coax the nimble sixpences for the poor children's holiday.
The New York Interscholastic Athletic Association publishes a monthly paper, which is called the Interscholastic Record, and is edited by a board composed of one member from each of the schools represented in the Association. It is fair for the general public to assume that the opinions expressed by the Record are official and endorsed by the rank and file of the members of the Association, and, consequently, of the New York schools. But in justice to the true and straightforward sportsmen of New York, of which there are many in the schools, I want to say to the readers of the Record in other cities that the opinions expressed by the paper are by no means those of the better element among the scholastic athletes of this city.
The Editor-in-Chief of the Record is Mr. William J. Ehrich, of the Harvard School. Mr. Ehrich attended the College of the City of New York for a term in 1894, but for some reason did not continue his course, and returned to the Harvard School. He caught upon their baseball nine last spring, and was protested by the De La Salle Institute because Section I of Article X. of the N.Y.I.S.A.A. constitution states that no member of any school is eligible to compete in any athletic contest who has been enrolled as a member of any college. Mr. Ehrich was fully cognizant of this law when he played. Mr. Freeland, the principal of the Harvard School, must have been fully cognizant of this law. Nevertheless, Ehrich played. The result of this has been that at a recent meeting of the Arbitration Committee of the N.Y.I.S.A.A., the Harvard School was found guilty of fraud, the penalty for which is expulsion from the Association.
In commenting upon this action of the Committee the Record says: "Now that the football season is practically over, the delegates to the I.S.A.A. have found it necessary to 'keep the pot boiling' by rehashing old protests and concocting new ones. For example, the time-honored protest against Harvard School for playing Ehrich on her baseball team last spring is being resurrected. This protest was, we are certain, finally decided and buried last June immediately after the baseball season closed. Being a party directly interested in the failure of the protest, we do not care to discuss the question of its validity. Suffice it to say, that after riding in the bicycle-races of eight scholastic and interscholastic athletic meetings, and receiving his medals for these races; after playing on the Harvard baseball team in every game but the last without having his well-known attendance at C.C.N.Y. brought up against him—after all this, we ask, is there any right or reason in protesting Ehrich for playing in the championship games between De La Salle and Harvard?"
It is possible that Mr. Ehrich did not write this himself, but whether he did or not, the statement is certainly not published without his knowledge and consent, and he is consequently severely censurable for such an expression of opinion. It is contrary to the spirit of amateurism, it is harmful to the best interests of honesty in school sport, and it is insidious in that it may lead younger boys to believe that such statements are just and correct. And another thing: Mr. Ehrich has no business to criticise the action of the N.Y.I.S.A.A. in the paper which claims to be the official organ of that Association.
But this is not the worst offence committed by the Record against amateur and school sport. Farther along in the editorial column we read: "If we had our choice all those technical rules governing athletics in the schools would be stricken out of the constitution; and any bona fide member of a school who is under age would have a right to compete in the games. We have frequently heard intelligent fellows say that this would not do, as the college athletes would come back to school to compete. It evidently never occurred to them that an athlete would much prefer competing in college, and that an athlete whom it would pay a school to support would be able to do very well at a college." Among the "technical rules" that Mr. Ehrich and the Record do not like is the one which caused the conviction of the Harvard School for fraud. This easily accounts for the opinion expressed. But the rule is not a "technical" one. It is a very practical rule, a very good rule, and a necessary rule, and the Association was perfectly right in enforcing it.
And now, parents and guardians, and principals of the New York schools—Dr. White, Mr. Lyon, Messrs. Wilson and Kellogg, Mr. Freeland, Dr. Cutler—all of you, is not it time that you should look into this? What does the editor of the Record mean when he says that "an athlete whom it would pay a school to support would be able to do very well at a college"? I beg of you to consider this! Does any New York school "support" any athlete? If so, do you know of it? And is there any doubt as to what sporting men understand by the term "to do very well"? Is it possible that the Record suggests to the lurking professional spirit in certain school athletes that there is money "in it" for the boy who will go to college and try to enter sport for money? Does the Record believe this of the colleges? Does the experience of the editor of the Record at his own school lead him to believe that there is money to be had for playing baseball at college?
My own opinion about this editorial is that the young man who wrote it did not realize what he was saying. I don't think he meant to convey the idea which his words clearly state. But even if he did not, he has done a great wrong to the schools of this city, and the Association under whose name these dreadful fallacies are published should interfere at once.