THE WANDERING COW.
"The cow has escaped from the Ark!" cried Noah—"the cow has escaped from the Ark!
And wandered away and hid from the day somewhere in the nursery dark;
So, Billie, be careful, and, Jimmie, go slow; 'twould be horridly awful I vow,
If you in your gropings should happen to step on a poor little dun-brown cow
"Now where shall we look for a little dun cow—just where is she likely to be?
Far off in the camp of the soldiers tin or swimming hard by in the sea—
A-swimming with joy in the saw-dust waves and tossing the boats on her horns,
Or solemnly chewing the lacquered manes of the Japanese unicorns?
"Or else do you think she has clambered up the sides of the mantel-piece,
And there, to the tick of the nickel clock, is taking a moment of ease?
Or, horrible thought, oh, terrible thought! must we fearsomely search for her
In the zinc flue-pipe that leads far down through the nursery register?
"Do you think that perhaps she has wandered off and has tumbled adown the stairs,
Or can she be up on the bureau there a-combing her painted hairs?
Is she down in the kitchen or up on the roof, or hid in the attic cold,
Or has she run off to the music-box to list to the "Warrior Bold"?
"Oh, where, oh, where would a dun cow go? Pray tell me if you can," cried Noah,
"The rain's coming on, and I want to close up and bolt fast my Arkian door.
'Twould never do to be caught in the rain out there on the cold wet moor,
For her color's not fast, and if it comes off she'll be a done cow for sure."
Carlyle Smith.
[FROM CHUM TO CHUM.]
BY GASTON V. DRAKE.
XV.—FROM JACK TO BOB.
White Mountains.
DEAR BOB,—I haven't written for some time because I tried an experiment over in the bowling-alley one day week before last which wasn't pleasant. I tried to put my finger in between two of the balls and get it out again before anything happened and couldn't, so I've had to have my whole hand swathed in a bandage ever since, and that's why Sandboys is writing this letter for me. It was too bad it happened the way it did, because we've been having a bowling turnement, and our side was way ahead when I smashed my finger, and we got beaten on the last game by five pins. Sandboys says when he was young his life was saved by a bowling-ball. It was before all the panthers that used to be thick in these mountains had all died out. They used to play havick with this part of the country eating up all the sheep and cows and horses and even tourists with good money in their pockets, and very few families living hereabouts dared to have their windows open at night in the summer-time for fear a panther might jump in and devour them up, even on the top floor. He says they are wonderful jumpers those panthers. He has seen one go up Mount Washington in sixty-three springs, and come down in twenty-nine, and as for jumping from the piazza of this hotel up into the cupola he says that would be about as easy for a healthy panther as falling off a chair would be to you or me. He lived over at a place called Littleton at that time and had a room in the top floor of his father's house. It was in midsummer and an awfully hot night, but being afraid of the panthers that were prowling around, when he went to bed he shut his window and his shutters up tight. Three or four times some of the panthers tried to break through and banged up against the shutters pretty hard, but without success, and finally an hour went by without any more attempts being made, and forgetting that strategy was one of the panther's strong points Sandboys thought they'd gone away and that it would be safe to open his window and get a breath of fresh air because his room had become like an oven, being right under the roof. So he opened the window softly and threw the shutters wide, peeping carefully out first to see if there were any panthers in sight. Unfortunately he looked down into the yard and didn't see the wild animal sitting on top of the telegraph pole across the street, waiting for his pray. "Good," said Sandboys, "they're all gone. I can get a chance to cool off." And he crept back into bed leaving the window wide open, and then the trouble began. He'd hardly got into bed when there came a fearful bang on the side wall just over him. The horrid beast that had been perched on the telegraph pole opposite had jumped across the street, through the window and landed ker-flump against the wall. Fortunately the force of the bang stunned the panther for a minute and Sandboys had presence of mind enough to snatch his pillow out of its case and to pull the pillow-case over the panther's head. It was the work of an instant, as the story-books say, and then he was off. That is, Sandboys was off. He fled through the window, dropped down to the soft earth and made a bee-line for the hotel. "Why did you go to the hotel?" I asked. "Because," he replied, "nobody else ever went there and I thought that would be the last place in which an animal with ingenious instinctiveness would think of looking for me."
My, but Sandboys is wise, but it didn't work. The panther soon recovered from his stun and after pawing at it for a minute managed to get the pillow-case off his head, and began to look around for Sandboys. He looked under the bed, and in the wardrobe and maybe in the bureau drawers. Nobody knows where he didn't look, and finally seeing that the door was still locked he of course knew that Sandboys had escaped by the window which shows you what sagacious animals panthers can be when they try. Well, when the panther saw that, he was mad. When panthers start out to pray they want to pray, and if they don't pray they want to know why, being, as I said, sagacious. So he says to himself it's Sandboys or nothing for supper and out he starts in pursuit and as luck would have it, being hungry, he thought he'd stop at the hotel a minute and take a bite out of the landlord. He stopped and the first thing he knew was that he was face to face with Sandboys. Sandboys was nonplussed—which is Latin for rattled—for a minute and so was the panther, for Sandboys was the last person he expected to find there. The panther's surprise was Sandboys' chance and he took it. He rushed from the room before the panther had recovered and was soon on the top floor whence, by a back staircase he rushed down, and out into the night. But the panther started in pursuit as usual. As he ran along Sandboys reasoned thus: "Nobody who has ever been to that hotel once, ever was known to go back again. I'll go back and delude the beast," which he did, but the door was locked and he had to take refuge in the bowling-alley. But the panther knew a thing or two and as Sandboys went in one door of the alley and locked the door after him and threw the keys away, he climbed in the window at the other end and there they were again, face to face: Sandboys at one end of the alley, the panther at the other and all was dark except one could see the glittering eye of the other. The panther was delighted. Everything seemed to be going his way and Sandboys was in despair. Escape seemed impossible. "I'll play with him," thought the panther and he took one step and crouched, smiling softly to himself when all of a sudden Sandboys thought, "Here I'm the champion bowler of this town, it's my only chance." The panther took another step and crouched. Sandboys took a ball. "I'll aim between his eyes and hit his nose," said Sandboys and he let go. It was dark, but it was a strike. The ball rolled thunderously down the alley. The panther didn't know what it was, and the first thing he knew as he laid his nose flat in the middle of the alley the ball came crashing into it, broke his neck and he lay dead, and Sandboys was saved.
How's that for an adventure?
Yours truly Jack per Sandboys.
P.S. (in an almost unreadable hand). I don't know what Sandboys has told you in this letter from me, but whatever it is, the head waiter says it must be a exagravation because Sandboys is given to exagravations—by which I mean he draws the long bow when he tells things about himself. Love to all,
Jack.
LONDON ATHLETIC CLUB GROUNDS.
The spring meeting of the London Athletic Club was held on the club grounds at Stamford Bridge on April 11th. There were three scholastic events on the card, and as they do things somewhat differently in England from the way we do them over here, it may be interesting to the readers of this Department to hear of how this meeting was conducted. The first event for the schools was a 120-yard hurdle race on turf over ten hurdles 3 ft. 6 in. high. The English hurdles are fixed firmly in the ground, so that hitting an obstacle there means a fall—and this happened at these games to at least one man in each heat. After all, however, it seems a better arrangement than our way, for it compels the racers to jump the hurdles, and if a fall does result it is a good deal more like sport to fall on turf than to carry away several ounces of cinders in one's face and arms. As may be seen from the accompanying illustration, the course is laid towards the grand stand, instead of past it, which does not afford so good a view of a race as might otherwise be the case.
One pleasant feature of the occasion was that the in-field was kept perfectly clear. None but the half-dozen officials whose business required their presence there were allowed inside the track. Another improvement over our method was that the contestants came out for their heats without any clownlike bath-robes about them, and trotted down to their stations unassisted and unaccompanied by a horde of attendants, trainers, or rubbers. Their costumes, too, were more sightly than those seen in America, each man's shirt being provided with quarter sleeves. In many cases the hem of the sleeves and the bottoms of the running trousers were trimmed with the school colors, and the emblem, when the contestant wore any, was generally small and inconspicuous. In America, as we all know, there is frequently more emblem than athlete. The crouching start has not yet become popular in England; in fact, in all these races only one man leaned on his hands. The rest stood up, and they were by no means as steady on their marks as they would have been if they had adopted the American method of starting.
The hurdle-race was run in two heats and a final, and resulted in a win for Pilkington of Clifton School, who, I take it, is a relative of the Cambridge athlete who came over last fall with the English team that competed against Yale. His time was 17-2/5 sec., which is very fast over turf, and which he could doubtless improve upon on a cinder track. The best interscholastic record for the same event in this country was made by E. C. Perkins, of the Hartford High-School, at the Connecticut H.-S.A.A. games in '94, and was 17 sec. Jarvis of Bedford was second, and Kember of Ramsgate was third.
On the programme this race was set down as "120 yards hurdles Public Schools Championship Challenge Shield," with the additional information that the shield was "presented by Godfrey and Cecil Shaw." The former will be remembered as having given Stephen Chase a hard tussle over the hurdles at the international games last fall. In addition to this championship shield, which stands for a number of years, and on which the winner each year presumably has his name engraved, there was a first prize of a silver cup and a second prize of a silver beaker. This idea of having a challenge shield is an excellent one, as it adds an incentive to true sportsmanship, and makes the honor of winning the race greater than it would otherwise be. It would be a good fashion to introduce challenge cups and shields in this country.
The quarter-mile was run in three heats and a final. This was also for a championship challenge cup, and for three individual prizes. Harrison of Haileybury, who had the honor of seeing his name set down on the programme as the "holder" of the challenge cup, because he won it last year, was not fast enough on this occasion to maintain his supremacy. He took second place in his heat, and as his time for second was the fastest second of any of the heats, he was allowed to run in the finals, the programme stating that "First in each heat, and fastest second, to start in final." In this last heat were Holland and Hardie of Giggleswick, Davison of Sutton Valence, and Harrison. Davison ran too easily at first, and was some fifteen yards behind the rest at the 220 mark; but he then came away in great style. He was too late, however, to catch Holland, who won in 53-2/5 sec., with Davison second, and Hardie third. The best American interscholastic time for this event was made by T. E. Burke, the champion, in 1894, at the New England interscholastic games, when he was at the Boston English High-School.