ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS!!!
was the heading, in conspicuous capitals two inches long, and below this amount was offered, in smaller type, as a reward for the return of a diamond earring lost by one of the summer visitors in Benton, the pretty New Jersey village where these lads lived, and which was a quasi-fashionable seaside resort for three months of the year. Now, however, the broad white beach was given into the hands of those young natives who in the early fall make a business of going carefully over it, rubbing the iridescent sand between their fingers, and seeking for any articles there lost and hidden during the gay warm season.
In grim silence, then, the boys re-read the advertisement which all knew by heart, and Ned Eaton suggested, "Let's take a vote. Those who want Limpy Jem to have a show drop a white shell in my hat, and those who are for freezing him out a purple one."
"Yes, yes, that is a good way; that will be fair." And the members of this hastily formed Beach-Comber's Union turned aside with relief to select their ballots from the deep-sea treasures cast up by the bobbing foam-capped waves.
Five minutes later, then, the polls were open, and Kit looked triumphant and Bert annoyed as both noted that the majority of the voters were endeavoring to conceal dark mussel-shells in their brown little fists. There was no doubt that Jem's fate was sealed, when suddenly a faint shout attracted their attention, and all started at sight of a slender auburn-haired lassie speeding toward them from the direction of the village. "Gee whizz, but it's Eileen Ferguson!" shrieked small Teddy Todd, "and her temper is as fiery as her curly mop."
Certainly there was a dangerous flash in her big gray eyes and a sharp ring in her young voice as, coming nearer, she cried: "So, Kit Bundy, you are playin' the snake in the grass again, are you? You never did like my brother, and now I hear you are tryin' to have him put out of the beach-combin'. Poor Jemmy, who is too sickly to go to the fishin'-banks, and has so looked forward to the fall in hopes of earnin' a few dollars for the mither! I should think ye'd be ashamed of yourself! Dickson, the bathin'-master tould me how you were talkin' to the others; but you won't mind him, will you, boys?" And there was that in the appealing, half tearful glance which the earnest little sister turned upon them that made most of her hearers look sheepish, and become deeply absorbed in stirring up the sand with their toes.
But Kit, was furious. "What?" he roared; "be dictated to by a girl? Not if I know our combers. Go on, fellows, and vote as you intended; while, Miss Impudence, the sooner you take yourself off the better."
Instinctively, however, Eileen turned to young Woolley. "Oh, Bert, Bert!" she wailed, "don't let them throw my Jemmy out. He has had such a dreadful summer, and this—this will break his heart. We need the money so much, and niver did he dream his old friends could treat him so." Then all at once her wrath dissolved in a girlish burst of tears.
"Pepper me if I can stand that, bad luck or not," growled Ned, hurriedly picking up a white shell and flinging it into the hat; and as boys, like older people, are very much akin to a flock of sheep, the majority followed suit, and Jem Ferguson was, as in former years, numbered with the beach-combers, the three purple shells cast by Kit and two of his chums not being sufficient to rule him out.
"A thousand thanks, boys! You are blissid darlints, ivery one of ye—barrin' that trio," exclaimed Eileen, who, though American born, in moments of excitement sometimes betrayed her ancestry by her speech.
When, then, on the morning of September 18th, the combers gathered to commence operations, one of the happiest faces there was that of little "Limpy," hopping briskly along on his crutches, and nodding gay greetings to his old comrades. They found the beach evenly measured off and divided by stakes. The plan of the lads of Benton was to draw lots for their respective portions, a strict though unwritten law being that no one should poach upon another's grounds.
"See, Kit, you and I are neighbors," said Jem, cordially, to young Bundy. "And such fine sections as we have! right in front of the great Naiad Hotel. We have a good chance for the diamond. Oh, but don't I wish I could find it!"
But Kit only growled something about "luck-bird-killers" under his breath, and strode away to his own preserve. Always rather a leader among his companions, he was chagrined by his defeat, and felt injured and annoyed by the cripple's presence.
As the day wore on, however, he found it difficult to keep up his antagonism to cheery Jem, who ignored all rebuffs, and chatted away in the most friendly as well as quaint manner—now about the sea, wondering why it changed its hue from blue to green and green to gray; and now about the fish-hawks circling overhead, and longing to be one of them, that he too might fly off to some warm Southern land before the cold, biting winter came on.
"What a queer un you are!" remarked Kit at length. "What makes you think of such things? Why, I'd a heap rather be a boy than a bird."
"Yes, 'cause you are so big and strong. You can make your way in the world, and your back isn't crooked, and your legs all drawed up. Now I, you see, am neither flesh nor fowl nor good red herring," and Jem cackled a feeble little laugh, but without a tinge of bitterness. How, too, he enjoyed the lunch eaten on the beach, and insisted that every one must taste the pie Eileen had made for him out of "two pertaties and a bit of a lemon."
For three days the weather was perfect, and the combers "made hay while the sun shone," gathering quite a profitable collection of old iron and nails, children's toys, small coins, and inexpensive pins and pieces of jewelry, while Bert Woolley had the good fortune to come upon a silver watch little the worse for its sojourn in the damp sand.
But on the fourth morning there came a change. Heavy clouds obscured old Sol from view, the sea roared with a low ominous undertone, and the wind blew raw and chill from the northeast, making the lads shake and shiver, and seeming to freeze weakly Jem to the very marrow and set his limbs to aching. Then in the night the storm broke, one of those fierce September gales which often sweep the coast, and for forty-eight hours roared and raged without, while the impatient urchins grumbled and raged within.
It was an exceedingly wet world that at last emerged, bright and glistening, after the deluge, but Kit Bundy was early astir and down on the shore to see what havoc the tempest had made. Dead fish, drift-wood, portions of wrecks, and other flotsam and jetsam strewed the beach, up which he slowly sauntered, kicking before him a round stone that bounded merrily across the sand. Presently, in front of the Naiad Hotel, a particularly vigorous kick sent it high in air, and then landed it in a deep hollow worn by the waves. Mechanically Kit paused to lift his improvised plaything from the hole, when something beside it caused him to fall on his knees with a low stifled gasp. Not another sound escaped him, but there was a new and curious expression on his face when he finally rose and almost ran to the boarding-house he and his father called "home." Later in the day the long line of beach-combers were electrified by the message that passed from mouth to mouth, "Kit is the lucky one; he has found the diamond earring."
From far and near the boys hastened to behold the jewel, about which there could not have been more interest had it been the Koh-i-noor itself, and the finder had to point out just where he discovered it in his section, deeply buried a foot from the surface.
"Not so dreadfully hoodooed after all, were you, Kit?" Bert could not resist remarking; but most of the lads swallowed their own disappointment, and congratulated him warmly, while Jem threw his hat in the air, piping,
"Hip, hip, hurrah for Bundy, the prize-winner!"
But the hero of the hour did not appear particularly pleased with these attentions. He grew very red, and turned away, muttering, "Oh, shut up, fellows! It isn't worth makin' such a fuss over."
"Just hear the Rothschild," squeaked Teddy Todd. "One would think he picked up gems every day in the year. I shouldn't be so grumpy if I had had his luck."
"Which he don't deserve," said outspoken Eileen, who had come down to gather drift-wood. "Oh dear! how unequal things are in this world! If Jem had but drawn that side of the stake instead of the other, we would be fairly spinnin' with the joy, and whiskin' him off to the best doctor in the county. Poor lamb! he scarce slept a wink last night, with the pain in his hip, and oughtn't to be out here to-day."
And the next morning Jem was missing, his sister coming to fill his place, and, with her ready Irish wit, parrying all the boys' jokes on "the first girl comber of Monmouth." But from that time the interest in the beach-combing flagged, and the work soon came to an end.
One afternoon, not long after, a youth, conspicuously conscious of his Sunday clothes and stiff collar, rang the bell of a handsome New York residence, the shining door-plate of which bore the name, "J. C. Landon, M.D." He was admitted by a supercilious colored boy in buttons, who, ushering him into a luxuriantly furnished office, told him to "Wait, the doctor was engaged at present." And he did wait a full half-hour before the physician emerged from an inner apartment, accompanied by a lady who gently supported a young girl, richly attired, and with long fair hair floating on her shoulders, but who limped painfully, and in whose sweet face was an expression of suffering that somehow reminded Kit—for Kit it was—of Jem Ferguson.
"Yes, yes, Mrs. Graham," Dr. Landon was saying. "I see no reason why Miss Ethel should not walk without crutches in time. Science works wonders nowadays. She would get on faster if you could consent to let her go to my sanitarium, but since you are unwilling, I will visit her often and do the best I am able; while I can at least promise that there will soon be no more of the neuralgia that causes such excruciating agony." With which he bowed his visitors out, and, returning, asked briskly, "Well, my lad, what can I do for you? You don't look like an invalid."
"No, sir; I'm pretty hearty," responded Kit, with a grin. "I came because—because I have found this," and without further words he produced a small box and opened it.
"My wife's lost earring! Why, she will be overjoyed!" exclaimed the physician. "But I shall have to turn you over to her, as I am due at the hospital, and haven't a moment to spare. Here, Nero, ask Mrs. Landon to step down to the office." And without more ado the busy man hurried off, leaving the confused and stammering Kit to the tender mercies of the mistress of the mansion.
But these proved very delightful, for not only did the lady shower him with graceful thanks, but ordered up a dainty little collation for his refreshment, which he ate to the sound of the surgeon's praises as sung by Nero, who declared his master to be "De berry bestest doctah in all de United States. Why, sah, he kin mos' raise de dead, and I 'low he makes de lame to walk ebery day, and tinks nottin' ob it"; and, when he finally left the house, it was with a fat roll of greenbacks snugly tucked in his pocket.
This was the hour to which Christopher Bundy had been looking forward, and he proceeded to make the most of it. Of course he went to the theatre, and from a high gallery seat glowed and shivered in sympathy with the hero on the boards, and he followed this up with an oyster-stew in a gayly decorated and illuminated restaurant. But, strange to say, he was not as happy as he should have been, and—it was very queer—the features of "Limpy Jem" would keep rising before him, curiously intermingled with those of the lame girl he had seen that day, while he seemed to hear again a weak voice piping, "That's because you are so big and strong, and your back isn't crooked and your legs all drawn up. I must have the vapors," he concluded, as he tumbled into bed.
The following evening, when Kit stepped off the train at Benton, he was met by a delegation of beach-combers, all shouting: "Hullo, old fellow! Did you get the reward, sure enough? Goin' to stand treat now, ain't yer? Ginger-pop and sodas for the crowd!" and insisted upon bearing him off to drink his health at his expense.
"Wish poor Limpy was here too," remarked Ned Eaton, as he drained his glass of sarsaparilla. "Does any one know how he is to-night?"
"Dreadful bad," answered Teddy Todd. "They think he's dyin'."
"What! Is he so sick as that?" and Kit's voice sounded sharp and unnatural.
"Yes; he took cold that day before the storm; fever set in, and the doctor says he won't get well."
It was nine o'clock, and the little seaside town was settling down to sleepy repose, when a timid knock summoned Eileen to the Fergusons' humble portal. Her eyes were red and swollen, as could be seen by the blazing pine-knot she carried, and her lips quivered as she cried: "Kit Bundy at this hour! What brings you here?"
"To see Jem. Stop, Eileen! Don't say I can't, for I must, indeed I must. I know I've been mean to him and rude to you, but there is something I must tell him before he dies."
There was so much wild anxiety in his manner and imploring in his tone that the curt refusal on the girl's tongue was hushed, and instead she said, "Come, then; only don't stay long," and led the way to the dreary room where Jem lay. A wan smile flitted across his face at sight of his guest, and he murmured:
"Howdy, Kit; do you know, I guess I'll get my wish, after all, and fly away like the luck-birds."
With a low cry, however, the older lad threw himself down beside the bed, and sobbed: "No, no, Limpy; don't say that. You must stop and be comfortable and happy here, for see, this is yours, all yours"; and he flung upon the patchwork quilt the roll of bills paid him by Mrs. Landon.
Jem gasped. "What a big, big lot of money! It's the reward, isn't it—the reward for the diamond? But you mustn't give it to me."
"It belongs to you. I never had any right to the diamond, for—for I found it on your side of the stake, and buried it in my part of the beach."
THEN JEM WHISPERED: "POOR KIT! BUT I'M GLAD YOU'VE TOLD ME."
After this confession there was dead silence for a moment. Then Jem whispered: "Poor Kit! But I'm glad you've told me."
"So am I; though the beach-combers will hiss me out of their company when they know. Here's the hundred and fifty dollars, however, every penny of it; and you, Eileen, must spend it all for your brother"; and he thrust the greenbacks into that astonished maiden's hands.
But Jemmy protested with all his feeble strength, "I cannot, I will not take it all," he said. "You were the finder, even if it was in my portion of sand. But we will divide, half for you and half for me, and then the other fellows need never know. It shall be our secret." And as he was growing dangerously excited, to this arrangement Kit had to consent.
Before leaving, though, he told the sick boy and his sister of the marvellous cures Dr. Landon was said to have made, and of the fair cripple he had seen in his office, concluding with, "Now, Jem, if you could go to his hospital, mebbe science would work some of those wonders on you."
"Oh, if he could, if he only could!" sighed Eileen.
Hope, however, is a great restorative, and the following day Jem was stronger than he had been for some time, which encouraged Kit to take another trip to New York, where he astonished Dr. Landon by suddenly appearing before him and demanding, "Tell me, sir, is seventy-five dollars enough to put a chap in your hospital and get him cured.'"
"Well, that depends," laughed Dr. Landon, much amused. "Who is this chap, and what is his trouble?"
As concisely as possible the boy told the story of lame Jem, but so interesting the kindly physician that he ran down to Benton expressly to see the case, and the result was the new year found the young invalid established in a great airy ward, where the sunshine sifted in through a beautiful lattice-work of window plants, and cheery, bright-faced attendants were ready to answer every call and supply every want.
"It seems like Paradise," said Jem, nestling among the soft pillows, and that proved a truly blissful winter, in spite of some pain and discomfort he had to endure, while he made life-long friends of Mrs. Landon and Mrs. Graham, who paid him frequent visits, and brought him lovely flowers and delicious fruit from the fair-haired Ethel.
And at length, when the spring-time came over the land, Bert Woolley and Kit Bundy one evening helped off the cars a very pale but very radiant lad, while the former said,
"See, Limpy, there are all the beach-combers coming to welcome you home."
Cordially the rough youths crowded about their young comrade, healed and restored as though by a miracle, and shook him warmly by the hand, wondering to see in a slight limp the only trace of his former lameness. But the throng parted as an auburn head suddenly flashed through their midst, and Eileen, throwing her arms around her brother, cried:
"Oh, Jem, Jem! this is the happy day for sure—to see you walking on your own two feet, while the father has signed the pledge, and a pair of luck-birds are building their nest in the big pine-tree right forninst our door."
SNOW-SHOES AND SLEDGES.
BY KIRK MUNROE.
CHAPTER XXV.
SERGE DISCOVERS A CURIOUS CAVERN.
At the point where our travellers had again struck the Yukon, nearly 1500 miles from its mouth, it was still a mighty stream two miles wide. Above this they found it bounded on both sides by mountains that often approached to its very waters, where, in sheer precipices hundreds of feet high, they found gigantic palisades, similar to those of the Hudson, which are known as the "Upper Ramparts." On the lower river the sledge party had journeyed over a smooth surface, on which were few obstructions. Their course from Anvik had at first been due north, then northeast, then east, and was now due south, the source of the Yukon towards which they were now travelling being some ten degrees south of its great arctic bend.
Owing to this, they now found themselves confronted by the hardest kind of sledging over rough hummocky ice that was often piled in chaotic ridges twenty and thirty feet high. As the river freezes first at its most northerly point, and this belt of solid ice is gradually extended south, or back toward its source, the floating cakes of its upper reaches, borne by the swift current, are piled on the ever-advancing barrier in confused masses that stretch across the river like windrows.
In the spring, when the ice breaks up and is hurled irresistibly down stream on the swollen current, the same effect is reproduced on a vastly increased scale. Then the upper river breaks first, and a sudden rise of water from some great tributary starts the ice over the still solid barrier below. The huge cakes slide, jam, push, and crash over the still unbroken ice sheet, until they are piled in a vast gleaming mass seventy or eighty feet in height, from a quarter of a mile to one mile in length, and extending from bank to bank.
This mighty gorge must give way at length, and when it does it goes with a roaring fury that is terrifying and grand beyond description. After grinding and tearing onward for several miles, or perhaps less than one, the furious impulse is again checked by another solid barrier, which must in turn be broken down and swept away, its added weight giving increased energy to the mighty force.
So the ice crashes its resistless way down the whole Yukon Valley to Bering Sea, two thousand miles distant, sweeping everything before it, mowing down vast areas of forest, submerging islands, tearing out banks, and leaving everywhere traces of its terrible progress in the shape of huge ice cakes, weighing many tons, stranded high above ordinary water level.
Although Phil Ryder and his companions were not to witness this grand exhibition of one of nature's mightiest forces, they were sadly inconvenienced and delayed by the uncomfortable fashion in which their frozen highway had been constructed some months earlier. If they could have left the river and followed along its banks, they would have done so; but this was out of the question, not only on account of their rugged character, but because on their timbered portions the snow lay many feet in depth, while from the river it had been so blown by strong north winds that for long stretches the ice was barely covered. This enabled the sledge men to walk without snow-shoes, which was a great comfort to all three, but especially to Jalap Coombs, who had not yet learned to use the netted frames with "ease and fluency," as Phil said.
To this light-hearted youth the sight of his sailor friend wrestling with the difficulties of inland navigation as practised in arctic regions afforded a never-failing source of mirth. A single glance at Jalap's lank figure enveloped in firs, with his weather-beaten face peering from the recesses of a hair-fringed hood, was enough at any time to make Phil laugh. Jalap on snow-shoes that, in spite of all his efforts, would slide in every direction but the one desired, and Jalap gazing at a frosty world through a pair of wooden snow-goggles, were sights that even sober-sided Serge found humorous.
But funniest of all was to see Jalap drive a dog-team. This he was now obliged to do, for, while they still had three sledges, they had been unable to procure any Indians at Forty Mile to take the places of Kurilla and Chitsah. So while Phil, who was now an expert in the art of dog-driving, and could handle a six-yard whip like a native, took turns with Serge in breaking the road, Jalap was always allowed to bring up the rear. His dogs had nothing to fear from the whip, except, indeed, when it tripped him up so that he tell on top of them, but they cringed and whined beneath the torrent of incomprehensible sea terms incessantly poured forth by the strange master, who talked to them as though they were so many lubberly sailors.
"Port your hellum! Hard a-port!" he would roar to the accompaniment of flying chunks of ice that he could throw with amazing certainty of aim. Then, "Steady! So! Start a sheet and give her a rap full. Now keep her so! Keep her so! D'ye hear! Let her fall off a fraction of a p'int and I'll rake ye fore and aft. Now, then, bullies, pull all together. Yo-ho, heave! No sojering! Ah, you will, will ye, ye furry sea-cook! Then take that, and stow it in your bread-locker. Shake your hay-seed and climb—climb, I tell ye. Avast heaving!" And so on, hour after hour, while the dogs would jump and pull and tangle their "running rigging," as Jalap named the trace-thongs, and the two boys would shout with laughter.
But while the journey thus furnished something of merriment, it was also filled with tribulations. So bitter was the cold that their bloodless lips were often too stiff for laughter or even for speech. So rough was the way, that they rarely made more than eight or ten miles in a day of exhausting labor. Several dogs broke their legs amid the chaotic ice blocks of the ever-recurring ridges, and had to be shot. Along the palisaded Ramparts it was difficult to find timbered places in which to camp. Their dog feed was running low, and there was none to be had in the wretched native villages that they passed at long intervals.
At length the setting sun of one evening found them at a point where the river, narrowed to a few hundred yards, was bounded on one side by a lofty precipice of rock, and on the other by a steeply sloping bank that, devoid of timber, seemed to descend from an open plateau. They halted beside a single log of drift that, half embedded in ice, was the only available bit of firewood in sight. It was a bleak and bitter place in which to spend an arctic night, and they shivered in anticipation of what they were to suffer during its long hours.
"I am going to climb to the top of the bank," said Serge, "and see if I can't find some more wood. If I do, I'll roll it down; so look out!"
Suiting his action to his words the active lad started with a run that carried him a few yards up the steep ascent. It was so abrupt that he was on the point of sliding back, and dug his heel sharply into the snow to secure a hold. At the same instant he uttered a cry, threw up his arms, and dropped from the sight of his astonished companions as though he had fallen down a well.
Before they could make a move toward his rescue they were more astounded than ever to hear his voice, somewhat muffled, but apparently close beside them.
"I'm all right!" he cried, cheerily. "That is, I think I am, and I believe I can cut my way out. Don't try to climb the bank. Just wait a minute."
Then the bank began to tremble as though shaken by a gentle earthquake, and suddenly a hand clutching a knife shot out from it so close to Jalap Coombs that the startled sailor leaped back to avoid it, stumbled over a sledge, and plunged headlong among his own team of dogs, who were lying in the snow beyond, patiently waiting to be unharnessed. By the time the yelling, howling mass of man and dogs was disentangled and separated, Serge had emerged from the mysterious bank, and stood looking as though he did not quite understand what had happened. Behind him was a black opening into which Phil was peering with the liveliest curiosity.
"Of all the miracles I ever heard of this is the strangest!" he cried. "What does it mean, old man?"
"I don't exactly know," answered Serge: "but I rather think it is a moss blanket. Anyhow, that's an elegant place to crawl into out of the cold. Seems to be plenty of wood too."
Serge was right in his conjecture. What appeared to be the river-bank was merely a curtain of tough, closely compacted Alaskan moss, closely resembling peat in its structure, one foot thick, and reaching from the crest of an overhanging bank to the edge of the river. It had thus held together, and fallen to its present position when the river undermined and swept away the earth from beneath it. That it presented a sloping surface instead of hanging perpendicular was owing to a great number of timbers, the ends of which projected from the excavated bank behind it. Serge had broken through the moss curtain, fallen between these timbers to the beach, and then cut his way out. Now, as he suggested, what better camping-place could they ask than the warm, dry, moss-enclosed space from which he had just emerged.
"I never saw nor heard of anything so particularly and awfully jolly in all my life," pronounced Phil, after the three travellers had entered this unique cavern, and started a fire by which they were enabled to see something of its strange interior. "And, I say, Serge, what a thoughtful scheme it was on your part to provide a chimney for the fire before you lighted it! See how the smoke draws up? If it wasn't for that hole in the roof I am afraid we should be driven out of here in short order. But, hello, old man! Whew—w! what are you throwing bones on the fire for? It reminds me of your brimstone-and-feather experiment on Oonimak."
"Bones!" repeated Serge in surprise. "Are those bones? I thought they were dry sticks."
"I should say they were bones!" cried Phil, snatching a couple of the offending objects from the fire. "And, sure as I live, this log I am sitting on is a bone too. Why, it's bigger than I am. It begins to look as though this place were some sort of a tomb. But there's plenty of wood. Let's throw on some more and light up."
"Toughest wood to cut I ever see," growled Jalap Coombs, who was hacking away at another half-buried log. "'Pears to be brittle, though, and splits easy," he added, dodging a sliver that broke off and flew by his head.
"Hold on!" cried Phil, picking up the sliver. "You'll ruin the axe. That's another bone you're chopping. This place is a regular giants' cemetery."
CHAPTER XXVI.
CAMPING 'MID PREHISTORIC BONES.
So strange and uncanny was the place in which our sledge party thus unexpectedly found themselves, that Phil was for exploring it, and attempting to determine its true character at once; but practical Serge persuaded him to wait until they had performed their regular evening duties, and eaten supper. "After that," he said, "we can explore all night if we choose."
So Phil turned his attention to the dogs, which he unharnessed and fed, while Serge prepared supper, and Jalap Coombs gathered a supply of firewood from the bleached timber ends projecting from the bank behind them. He tested each of these before cutting into it to make certain that it was not a bone, quantities of which were mingled with the timber.
The firewood that he thus collected exhibited several puzzling peculiarities. To begin with, it was so very tough and thoroughly lifeless that, as Jalap Coombs remarked, he didn't know but what bones would cut just as easy. When laid on the fire it was slow to ignite, and finally only smouldered, giving out little light, but yielding a great heat. As Serge said, it made one of the poorest fires to see by and one of the best to cook over that he had ever known.
Although in all their experience they had never enjoyed a more comfortable and thoroughly protected camping-place than this one, the lack of their usual cheerful blaze and their mysterious surroundings created a feeling of depression that caused them to eat supper in unusual silence. At its conclusion Serge picked up a freshly cut bit of the wood, and, holding it in as good a light as he could get, examined it closely.
"I never saw nor heard of any wood like this in all Alaska," he said at length. "Do you suppose this can be part of a buried forest that grew thousands of years ago?"
"I believe that's exactly what it is," replied Phil. "I expect it was some awfully prehistoric forest that was blown down by a prehistoric cyclone, and got covered with mud, somehow, and was just beginning to turn into coal when the ice age set in. Thus it has been preserved in cold storage ever since. It must have grown in one of the ages that one always likes to hear of, but hates to study about, a paleozoic or Silurian or post-tertiary, or one of those times. At any rate I expect it was a tropical forest, for they all were in those days."
"Then like as not these here is elephant's bones," remarked Jalap Coombs. "I were jest thinking as how this one had a look of ivory about it."
"They may be," assented Phil, dubiously, "but they must have belonged to pretty huge old elephants; for I don't believe Jumbo's bones would look like more than toothpicks alongside some of these. It is more likely that they belonged to hairy mammoths, or mastodons, or megatheriums, or plesiosauruses, or fellows like that."
"I don't know as I ever met up with any of them, nor yet heerd tell of 'em," replied Jalap Coombs, simply, "onless what you've just said is the Latin names of rhinocerosses or hoponthomases or giraffees, of which my old friend Kite Roberson useter speak quite frequent. He allus said consarning 'em, though, that they'd best be let alone, for lions nor yet taggers warn't a sarcumstance to 'em. Now if these here bones belonged to any sich critters as them, he sartainly knowed what he were talking about, and I for one are well pleased that they all went dead afore we hove in sight."
"I don't know but what I am too," assented Phil, "for at close range I expect it would be safer to meet one of Mr. Robinson's taggers. Still, I would like to have seen them from a safe place, like the top of Groton Monument or behind the bars of a bank vault. Where are you going, Serge?"
"Going for some wood that isn't quite so prehistoric and will blaze," answered the other lad, who had picked up an axe and was stepping toward the entrance to the cavern.
"That's a scheme! Come on, Mr. Coombs. Let's help him tackle that up-to-date log outside, and see if we can't get a modern illumination out of it," suggested Phil.
So they chopped vigorously at the ice-bound drift-log that had induced them to halt at that point, and half an hour later the gloom of their cavern was dispelled by a roaring, snapping, up-to-date blaze. By its cheerful light they examined with intense interest the great fossil bones that lay scattered about them.
"I should think a whole herd of mammoths must have perished at once," said Phil. "Probably they were being hunted by some antediluvian Siwash and got bogged in a quicksand. How I wish we could see a whole one! But, great Scott! Now we have gone and done it!"
Phil's final exclamation was caused by a crackling sound overhead. The sloping moss roof had caught fire from the leaping blaze, and for a moment the dismayed spectators of this catastrophe imagined that their snug camping-place was about to be destroyed. They quickly saw, however, that the body of the moss was not burning; it was too thoroughly permeated with ice for that, and that the fire was only flashing over its dry under surface.
FOR A SINGLE MINUTE THEY GAZED IN BREATHLESS AWE.
As they watched these fitful flames running along the roof and illuminating remote recesses of the cavern, all three suddenly uttered cries of amazement, and each called the attention of the others to the most wonderful sight he had ever seen. Brilliantly lighted and distinctly outlined against the dark background of a clay bank, that held it intact, was a gigantic skeleton complete in every detail, even to a huge tusk that curved outward from a massive skull. For a single minute they gazed in breathless awe. Then the illuminating flame died out, and like a dissolving picture the vast outline slowly faded from view and was lost in the blackness.
"Was that one of 'em?" gasped Jalap Coombs.
"I expect it was," answered Phil.
"Waal, then, old Kite didn't make no mistake when he said a tagger warn't a sarcumstance."
"It must have been all of twenty feet high," remarked Serge, reflectively.
For more than an hour they talked of the wonderful sight, and Phil told what he could remember of the gigantic hairy mammoth discovered frozen in a Siberian glacier, and so perfectly preserved that sledge-dogs were fed for weeks on its flesh.
As they talked their fire burned low, and the outside cold creeping stealthily into camp turned their thoughts to fur-lined sleeping-bags. So they slept, and dreamed of prehistoric monsters; while Musky, Luvtuk, Amook, and their comrades restlessly sniffed and gnawed at the ancient bones of this strange encampment, and wondered at finding them so void of flavor.
Glad as our sledge travellers would have been to linger for days and fully explore the mysteries of that great moss-hidden cavern, they dared not take the necessary time. It was already two weeks since they had left the mining-camp, winter was waning, and they must leave the river ere spring destroyed its icy highway. So they were off again with the first gray light of morning, and two days later found them at the mouth of the Pelly River, the upper Yukon's largest tributary, and two hundred and fifteen miles from Forty Mile.
One evening they spent in the snug quarters of Harper, the Pelly River trader, who was the last white man they could hope to meet before reaching the coast.
From the Pelly River trader our travellers gained much valuable information concerning the routes they might pursue and the difficulties they had yet to encounter. They had indeed heard vaguely of the great cañon of the Yukon, through which the mad waters are poured with such fury that they can never freeze, of the rocky Five Fingers that obstruct its channel, the Rink and White Horse rapids, and the turbulent open streams connecting its upper chain of lakes; but until this time they had given these dangers little thought. Now they became real, while some of them, according to the trailer, were impassable save by weary detours through dense forests and deep snows that they feared would delay them beyond the time of the river's breaking up.
"What, then, can we do?" asked Phil.
"I'll tell you," replied the trader. "Leave the Yukon at this point; go about fifty miles up the Pelly, and turn to your right into the Fox. Ascend this to its head, cross Fox Lake, Indian Trail Lake, Lost Lake, and three other small lakes. Then go down a creek that empties into the Little Salmon, and a few miles down that river to the Yukon. In this way you will have avoided the Five Fingers and the Rink Rapids, and found good ice all the way. After that keep on up the main river till you pass Lake Le Barge. There again leave the Yukon, this time for good by the first stream that flows in on your right. It is the Tahkeena, and will lead you to the Chilkat Pass, which is some longer, but no worse than the Chilkoot. Thus you will avoid most of the rough ice, the great cañon, and all the rapids."
"But we shall surely get lost," objected Phil.
"Not if you can hire Cree Jim who lives somewhere up on the Fox River to go with you, for he is the best guide in the country."
So the next morning Phil and his companions again set forth, this time up the Pelly River, with all their hopes for safety and a successful termination to their journey centred upon the finding and hiring of Cree Jim, the guide.
[to be continued.]
FLORA, QUEEN OF SUMMER.
A MEDLEY.
BY CAROLINE A. CREEVEY AND MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
Characters.
| Blanche Howe, President of the Ninepin Club. |
| Felicia Deforest, Secretary of the Ninepin Club. |
Members.
Morna Rowland, Lucille Taylor, Christabel Mason, Sophia Pratt, Annette Simpson, Helen Fairchild, Agnes Stowe.
Alice Trowbridge, a classmate, not a member of the Club; an Old Woman; a Maid; Birds.
| Eight Blue Birds | { four little girls } | |
| { four little boys } | ||
| Six Yellow Birds | { three little girls } | The Kindergarten Class. |
| { three little boys } | ||
| Six Red Birds | { three little girls } | |
| { three little boys. } |
Scene.—A drawing-room in Mrs. Ames's private boarding-school. The Ninepin Club is holding one of its regular meetings. The question for discussion is A Summer Fête. The President is in the chair.
Time.—The 30th of May.
Blanch (raps for order). The Club will come to order, and hear the minutes of the last meeting. The Secretary will please rise.
Felicia (rises and reads). The Ninepin Club met in the drawing-room for its usual weekly meeting. After the minutes of the last meeting had been read and approved, there being no business on hand, and no question to discuss, one of the members produced a box of cake and fruit just received from home, and the Club enjoyed a fine feast. The box was the more appreciated, as the members had dined that day off corned beef and cabbage, which bill of fare, it was voted, should never be allowed in the members' future homes. It was voted that thanks should be sent to the member's mother for the box. Lucille announced that she was expecting a box soon, and would treat the Club at their next meeting.
Blanche. You have heard the report. As many as approve will say aye.
All. Aye!
Blanche. The President would like to inquire if the member who was expecting the box to-day has received said box.
Lucille. I am sorry to say, Miss President, and members of the Club, that the box has been unaccountably delayed.
Blanche. It may come to-day?
Lucille. It may. And if it does, the members will be notified to attend a midnight meeting in my room.
Blanche. That is satisfactory. The Club accepts with thanks Lucille's invitation. Girls, you must put on your bedroom slippers, and come in perfect silence. If any member is absent, on account of not being able to pass the section teacher's open door, she shall be commiserated, and her share of cake and fruit shall be sent to her next day. Is there any other business?
Morna. I think we ought to consider whether Alice shall be asked to join the Club. Not that I want her, goodness knows, but yesterday Miss Foster spoke to me about her. She said we didn't seem to associate with her much.
Annette. Miss Foster spoke to me too. She thought Alice was a good girl, and only needed to be brought out.
[Several of the girls speak at once, excitedly.]
Helen. Oh no, we don't want her.
Christabel. She would just spoil the Club.
Sophia. To me she is positively disagreeable.
Felicia. She dresses so plainly.
Helen. And does up her hair horridly.
Christabel. She is scared out of her wits if we just speak to her. I asked her the other day where her home was, and she looked awfully funny, and didn't answer a word.
Morna. I don't exactly like her face. I wouldn't trust her.
Sophia. That's it. I don't believe she is sincere.
Annette. And she hasn't had a box since she came.
Blanche. Order! You know Alice wouldn't be a bit congenial to me. But we will take a vote. Somebody make a motion.
Felicia. I move that Alice Trowbridge be not admitted to this Club.
Helen. I second the motion.
Blanche. All in favor say aye.
All. Aye!
Blanche. There, that is settled. But, girls, I advise you to pay a little attention to Alice outside of the Club, just so that the teachers won't notice. Miss Foster is awfully sharp. She pries about a good deal more than there's any call for her to. I shall ask Alice to walk with me pretty soon.
Agnes. Noble, self-sacrificing president! I will follow your example.
Lucille. I too.
Sophia. Suppose we all walk with her. Then Miss Foster can't say anything.
Christabel. I wish Miss Foster would mind her own business.
Blanche. Well, do not let's talk about this disagreeable subject any more. We were to have a paper on "Summer." Is the member prepared?
Morna (rises and reads). I must beg pardon for having no paper prepared, but I have had so many headaches lately I have been warned by Dr. Louise not to work so hard. Instead of a paper, I have a proposal. The Doctor says we ought to live out-of-doors more than we do. Let us have a summer fête—something that is quaint and original.
Blanche. It occurs to me that we might have a picnic and dress in peasant costume.
Lucille. How would you like a mountain laurel party?
Agnes. Oh, Lucille! just the thing. Girls, we could ask for a hall-holiday, and have a Queen, and cover her with lovely pink and white blossoms.
Blanche. How many would like a laurel party? Raise your hands.
[All raise their hands.]
Sophia. Let's appoint a committee to get it up.
Christabel. Do you suppose we could let Alice in on that?
Annette. Oh, bother that tiresome girl! No, we can't.
[A knock on the door. All hush, and sit up very straight. Helen unlocks and opens the door. An Old Woman enters. She stoops, leans heavily on a cane, and limps. She has on a long black cloak, and wears a large poke bonnet. Adjusting glasses on her nose, she scans the club members, then hobbles up to the President.]
Old Woman. Good-afternoon. Might I sit down and visit you a few minutes? (Helen places a chair.) Thank you, dearie. You see, it's hard for me to stand. I'm pretty lame. But I can get about very well. Oh yes; very well, considering. You don't know me, I suppose?
Blanche. I think not. Perhaps you have got into the wrong place?
Old Woman. Isn't this the Ninepin Club?
Blanche. Yes.
Old Woman (chuckling). It's the right place. Oh yes, it's the right place. The Ninepin Club is where I was bound for.
Christabel. A most extraordinary person.
Old Woman. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Oh, I see, nine of you. That's why you are the Ninepin Club. Quite a coincidence. (Shakes her head gravely.) But I thought there were ten in your class. How does it happen that you're one short?
Blanche. If you please, we would like to know what right you have to question our Club. Who are you, please?
Old Woman. Certainly, certainly. What's my name and where's my home? My name is Granny Playfair, and I am the general Club regulator. Whenever a Club is established, I look after it, d'ye see?
[The girls appear much mystified.]
Blanche. Well, Granny Playfair?
Granny. And knowing about the Ninepin Club, I have come to regulate it.
Blanche. But how did you know about our Club? The members are pledged to secrecy.
Granny. How did I know? Well, there's where I am pledged to secrecy. It's a mighty good thing for Clubs that I regulate them, though. Little birds of the air sometimes tell me things.
Blanche. But, are you sure that our Club needs regulating?
Granny. Quite sure. Your Club is wrong all through.
Blanche. I have made a special study of Cushing's Manual, and we are quite parliamentary.
Granny. Well, I'm glad of that. (Shakes her head.) Oh, but you do need regulating. And I shall do it. Never fear. Now let me see, you were talking about summer. Would you like to see how the birds keep summer? That would help you a little.
Several of the Girls. Oh yes, indeed.
Granny (knocks on the floor. Door opens, and enter two little children dressed in blue). Come in, my birds. Are all the other birds assembled to do my bidding?
Blue Birds:
We heard you call, yes, one and all,
And we were sent, we two;
So now, dear Lady, tell us, please,
What you would have us do;
For every little blue bird is
Devoted quite to you.
Granny. Then fly, and find us the wood where the laurel grows thickest.
[Exeunt birds.]
Helen (aside). This is an interesting Old Woman, but I can't make her out.
Agnes. Nor I, one bit.
Granny. Shall I tell you my dream, young ladies?
Girls. Oh! do tell us your dream.
I SAW A FIGURE HUDDLED IN A CORNER.
Granny. I was passing through a long, deserted hall, when I heard sounds as of some one sobbing. In a side room, whose door was just ajar, entering, I saw a small figure huddled in a corner. The room was dark, and I drew a shutter, letting the light in upon a young girl. Yes, she was crying. I went softly to her, and touched her on the shoulder. "What ails you, dearie?" I said. "Oh, I am not in it," she wailed. I took a seat, and drew the poor child to me, and stroked her forehead, and chafed her little cold hands. "Not in what, sweetheart?" I said. "Not in the Club," she answered. "They are all in it but me." "But why are you not in it?" I said. And she answered. "Because my dresses are sober and old-fashioned. I am not bright and witty. I am plain. I believe I am dull in my studies, because the girls look at me so. I am frightened, and can't recite even when I know the lesson. Oh, I have not one friend in the class." My little dear fell to crying again, and I had to take her in my arms, and kiss her, and comfort her a long time before she could tell me all of her story. "My mamma is dead," she said. "Those girls don't know how dreadful it is to lose their mammas. My uncle takes care of me, and he won't send me boxes of sweets, because he thinks they are hurtful. And he thinks girls ought to dress plainly and inexpensively. He has money enough. I have some money of my own, which my mother told my uncle to take care of for me till I was of age. If only I could make my uncle understand that I can't bear to be different from the rest of the girls. When the other girls go home in vacations, I stay here with the housekeeper. My uncle says I ought to be thankful for so good a home. But I'm not thankful. Oh, Granny, I want my mamma!"
Well girls, you may believe me, this poor child's story touched me very much, and I thought how I could help her. I asked her uncle's address and kissed her, and told her that Granny would be her friend, and we went out of that lonely dark room, her little heart comforted. Then I wrote to that uncle, and the result was— But here come the Birds.
Blanche (to the other girls). It begins to dawn on me what Granny's dream means.
Morna. It's Alice, of course.
Granny. Hush!
[Enter Birds. Eight blue birds, six red birds, six yellow birds. Each carries a cluster or wreath or basket of pink laurel.]
Granny. Go back, little birds, and find Flora, your Queen.
[They rush off and return dragging a large chair draped with green cloth. Then they scamper out again. Granny blows a toy whistle. The door opens, and enter Alice, beautifully dressed in white, a wreath of roses on her head, a small wand tipped with a rose in her hand. On each side of her a blue bird walks. Behind, in pairs, all the others march. They go once around the room, and escort Alice to her throne. Granny rises and makes a low bow.]
"HAIL, FLORA, QUEEN OF SUMMER!"
Granny. Hail, Flora, Queen of Summer!
Hail, Flora, Queen off Summer! all Nature speaks your praises;
She spells them in her violets, and twines them with her daisies.
For you the lances lift of countless gallant grasses!
To you all fragrant odors drift, where'er your footstep passes.
Come make your subjects glad, these loyal hearts that love you!
Nor let a single-thought be sad, while bright the skies above you.
Granny. And now, my birds, have you not an offering for your Queen?
[The birds march gayly around the room: as they pass Flora, each set pauses.]
Blue Birds:
This time instead of laurel we bring you violets.
Yellow Birds:
And we have gathered roses, the flower for coronets.
Red Birds:
And we the little lily bells no loving heart forgets.
Granny. You see, dear Flora, how we all love you.
Flora. Thanks.
For the violets and the roses,
The laurel bright and rare,
And for the valley-lilies sweet,
And the flowers all so fair,
As well as for your loving words,
I thank you, Granny; thank you, Birds.
And now, as I am Queen, I may invite you all to a little feast. The Birds will serve it. Strawberries and cream, cake and bonbons. As mistress of the fête, I am happy to serve the lovely Ninepin Club. Birds, help the girls.
Blanche. Girls, do eat these lovely things if you can. As for me, they would choke me.
Felicia. I cannot eat them.
Granny. You must not refuse, girls. Flora would be hurt.
Blanche. Well, then. But, first, as President of the Club, let me speak. I confess our fault. We have been harsh, cold, and cruel. We have treated our classmate shamefully. But believe me, Granny, we did not suppose we were inflicting pain. We were inexcusably thoughtless. For one, I ask Alice—
Granny. Flora, your Queen.
Blanche. I ask Flora's forgiveness. And I want some one in the Club to make a motion that Alice—Flora—be asked to join the Club.
Annette. I make that motion, and I want to say that I agree with our President in thinking we have acted shamefully. Forgive me, if you can, Alice—Flora. I mean.
Agnes. I second the motion, and I want to say that I never was so ashamed of anything in my life.
Blanche. All in favor of this motion say aye.
All. Aye!
Blanche. Now let us go and ask the Queen if she will join us and forgive us.
Flora (whose voice trembles a little):
I have nothing to pardon, 'twas all a mistake.
And the sweetest amends you are willing to make;
Hereafter, dear girls, we'll be comrades and friends,
Till, unclouded, our life at this pleasant school ends.
Granny. Kiss the Queen, dearies, and then eat your cake and cream. It is Flora's box. You see now the result of the dream. Instead of sending a box, the uncle, who is really at heart very kind, sent a liberal sum of money, and Flora directed this feast to be purchased.
[All the girls kiss Flora, who beams gratefully upon them.]
Granny (to the birds). Sit right on the floor, you sweet birdies, and you shall have a share in the good things. I must go now. My duty as grand regulator is done.
Christabel (laying down her plate). Girls, I have my suspicions about that funny old woman. Let's catch her, and see if she isn't somebody in disguise.
[All the girls run to Granny with shouts and laughter. They pull off the bonnet, cape, spectacles, and cloak. Their teacher, Miss Foster, stands revealed.]
Christabel. I knew it. I knew it. You dear! You dear! What a lesson you have taught us! I shall never forget it.
Morna. So much better than reading us a long lecture.
Miss Foster. But you deserved the lecture.
Lucille. Yes, we did.
Miss Foster. I hope, dear girls, you have learned the lesson once for all your lifetime. Let the main business of this Club be to add comfort and cheer to a sad heart. But you will have to change the name of your Club; you cannot be ninepins any more.
This Department is conducted in the interest of Amateur Photographers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Camera Club Department.
PAPERS FOR BEGINNERS, NO. 2.
FOR THE DARK ROOM.
To those who have a room specially devoted to photographic work and materials the only suggestion to them will be to adopt for their rules and laws:
I. A label and place for everything, and everything in its place with its label.
II. Keep everything clean and free from dust.
These two directions for arranging and caring for a dark room will save hours of labor, and many spoiled plates.
The lighting of the dark room is the first thing which should engage our attention. If the developing is done at night, the stopping out of actinic rays will be avoided; but if in the daytime, care must be taken to shut out all direct rays of light. If the plate is kept in the direct rays of the red light, diffused light will not harm the plate. By diffused light is meant the stray gleams which come through a crack, or a door that does not shut tight enough so but what light shows around the edge.
There are many makes of lantern of all grades and prices in the market, and care should be taken in buying one that it is perfectly light-tight. An actinic ray from the lantern striking the plate will fog it. Most of the lanterns are made for using kerosene. A lantern in which the lamp screws into the bottom is not as light-safe as one which sets wholly inside the lantern, though there is less odor and grease from the kerosene. The trouble with a kerosene lamp is that the confined air soon becomes heated, causing the oil to lose its density, and it oozes out, not only making an unpleasant smell, but greasing the lantern. It will be found much more agreeable to remove the lantern and substitute in its place a candlestick and candle. The one known as the camping or soldier's candlestick is just the thing for a dark lantern. It is a little over two inches high, and made of brass, and costs only fifteen cents.
Adamantine candles are the best, as they last twice as long, and do not melt and run down the sides like the parraffine or tallow candles.
One needs two trays for developing—one 4 x 5 and another 5 x 8. The smaller tray can be used when one has only two or three plates to develop, and both trays where one has quite a number. The two trays are necessary also in transferring the plate from one solution to another, if the developing does not work satisfactorily. The tray for the hypo-sulphite of soda or fixing solution should be 5 x 8, so that two 4 x 5 plates can be fixed at one time.
The developing-trays should be of hard rubber or celluloid, and the hypo-tray of amber glass, so that there shall be no mistaking the developing for the hypo tray.
A four-ounce glass graduate is needed for measuring liquids, and if one has no scales, the dry chemicals should be weighed in the right proportions for use when they are purchased. The hypo can be put up in half-pound packages, and this quantity of fixing solution prepared at one time.
A glass funnel is needed for pouring solutions from trays into bottles, and also for holding the filtering-paper when filtering solutions. The funnel should be fluted, for the ribs make passages for the liquid to pass through the sides of the paper, letting the sediment settle at the bottom of the paper.
If one has not the advantage of running water for fixing and washing plates it is better to have a washing box in which to place the developed negatives. The regular washing box is made of zinc, which does not rust. The inside rack, which holds a dozen plates, is adjustable by thumb-screws for different-sized plates. The box has a small tube at one of the lower corners, to which a rubber hose is attached from the faucet, the water is turned on, and comes up from the bottom of the box, circulates between the plates, and runs out through an overflow spout at the top of the box.
The box containing the plates can be transferred from one pail or tub to another, or set on the floor, while the water is changed, without danger of breaking or scratching. A boy who is handy with tools can make a washing box that will answer every purpose.
The cost of the articles mentioned in this article are as follows: Candlestick for lantern, 15 cents; a 4 x 5 developing-tray, 50 cents; a 5 x 8 developing-tray, 72 cents (the price for these trays is for either rubber or celluloid); amber glass tray for hypo, 35 cents; glass graduate (4 oz.), 25 cents; fluted glass funnel (4 oz.), 15 cents; zinc washing-box, $2.25.
OFF WITH THE MERBOY.
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE DRAWER.
immieboy clambered up the side of the bureau with some difficulty too, because he was now so small that the bureau was not so easy to climb. In a few minutes, however, he was comfortably fixed inside the drawer, and the Wizard, taking the key from the lock, followed him. Once inside he touched a spring on the side of the drawer, and with a bang it shut itself.
"There we are," said the Wizard, locking the drawer from the inside. "How do you like it, Jimmieboy?"
"It's awfully dark," said the little fellow. "I can't see an inch in front of my face."
"Then take my hand," said the Wizard, "and I'll lead you to where it is light."
Jimmieboy did as he was told, and the two little creatures groped their way along in the dark until the Wizard found a small door. Turning the knob to this he threw it wide open, and Jimmieboy looking through it saw a beautiful garden in which sweetly perfumed fountains were plashing merrily, and through which there were scattered beds and beds of the loveliest and withal the most singular-looking flowers he had ever seen.
"My!" he cried in an ecstasy of delight. "Isn't this magnificent!"
"Oh, yes—pretty good," said Thumbhi. "I suppose when one sees it for the first time it must look like the most beautiful place in the world, but to one whose prison it has been it isn't quite so beautiful. You never heard my song,
"'I would rather be free in a dungeon cell
Than a captive at large in a flowered dell.'
"Did you?"
"No," said Jimmieboy, "I never did. How does it go?"
"This way," replied the Wizard, and then he repeated these lines:
"'I would rather be free in a dungeon cell
Than a captive at large in a flowered dell;
I would rather be free 'neath a load of chains
Than a prisoner roaming the country lanes.
I would rather be free in an ice-bound cave
Than to sit on a throne as another's slave;
For all the great blessings with which man's blest
'Tis freedom, sweet freedom that I love the best.'"
"That's a pretty song," said Jimmieboy. "And I think maybe you are right. I feel that way myself sometimes. Once in a while when I'm told I can't do something, I feel that way. I always want to do that thing more than ever."
"You are just like me, then—though really I didn't think much about freedom and how nice it was, and what a dreadful thing captivity was, until I had a little chat one night with a song-bird. She was cooped up in a cage, and sometimes she nearly broke her wings flattering up against the bars of it trying to get out. As I watched her I wondered how she could sing so happily when she was shut up that way, and I asked her about it. She answered me softly, 'It isn't I that is happy. It is my song that is happy because it is free.' And then she sang this little verse to me:
"Though they shut me close in these brazen bars,
Though they keep me a captive long,
Yet my notes will rise
Till they touch the skies.
No man can imprison my song."
"I've always felt sorry for birds in cages," said Jimmieboy, when the Wizard had spoken. "And I've wondered, too, how they could sing so sweetly when all the day long they were locked up with nothing to do but jump from one perch to another, or swing in that little swing at the top of the cage."
"Well, there's one thing that's nice about their lives," said the Wizard. "They don't have anybody to quarrel with. I think that's very fine."
"That's true," said Jimmieboy. "And then, too, when one bird wants to swing there isn't any other little bird that he has to give up to; but I'd rather be free, and take my chances of getting the swing, wouldn't you?"
"Rather!" ejaculated the Wizard. "But, my dear fellow, we are wasting time. The Merboy will be back in a few minutes, and if you want to see all the wonders of this place we must hurry. Come. Let's go out into the garden."
The queer little fellow leading the way, the two new friends went out of the drawer. As they sauntered along, Thumbhi reached out his hands and plucked two pretty flowers from a bush at the side of the path, and putting one of them in his mouth handed the other to Jimmieboy.
"You must be hungry by this time," he said. "Eat that."
"Flowers aren't good to eat, are they?" asked Jimmieboy.
"Cauliflowers and the flowers of this garden are. That is nothing but a biscuit-bush I plucked those from. Didn't you ever see a biscuit-bush?"
"Never," said Jimmieboy; "though I should think they'd be very nice."
"They are," said the Wizard.
"How do you make them grow?" asked Jimmieboy in surprise.
"Simple enough," said Thumbhi. "Take the Buckwheat-cake bush, for instance. Buckwheat cakes are nothing more than cooked buckwheat, so instead of planting the seeds raw we plant them cooked, and when they grow up and sprout, instead of putting forth raw buckwheat out come the cakes. Try one."
Jimmieboy needed no second bidding, for as the Wizard spoke he had reached over to the buckwheat-cake bed, and plucked a half-dozen hot, steaming cakes.
"My!" ejaculated Jimmieboy, as he swallowed the first one, somewhat greedily, perhaps, for he was very hungry. "My! How sweet they are."
"Aren't they!" said the Wizard. "And why shouldn't they be? We water the Buckwheat-cake bushes with maple syrup."
The idea was so overpoweringly lovely that Jimmieboy could not find words to express his delight over it. He simply let his eyes open a little wider, but the twinkle in them showed the Wizard how he felt.
"Now here," said the Wizard, tapping a little door in a curious-looking summer-house—"here is where we keep our tools. They are the funniest tools you ever saw in your life. They do all their own work. I'll introduce you to some of them. Mr. Rake!"
"Well?" came a voice from within. "Well, what's wanted? If you are the gravel path you might as well trot away. I can't smooth you off to-day, and if you are the weed path, I've asked Mr. Hoe to attend to you. I'm having trouble with my teeth."
"It's I—Thumbhi," said the Wizard.
"Oh," came the answer. "Why didn't you say so."
Here the door was opened, and the Rake hopped out.
"Good-morning," he said. "I didn't know it was you or I wouldn't have kept you waiting. Who is your young friend?"
"Jimmieboy," returned the Wizard. "This is his first visit, and I didn't know but what you'd show him how you do your work."
"I'd be very glad to," said the Rake, "but it's impossible this morning. I spent all day yesterday raking the candy field, and it has made my teeth ache like seventy-two—which is twelve more than like sixty; but if he's fond of jokes I can give him a few. Why is a—"
"Well, really," said the Wizard, who knew the Rake's jokes were very bad, and who was therefore anxious to spare Jimmieboy the trouble of hearing them, "we don't like to bother you. We'll run along—"
"No bother, I assure you," said the Rake. "I know it by heart. Why is a trolley-car like a grindstone without any handle?"
"I couldn't possibly guess," said Jimmieboy, with a grin.
"They don't either of them smoke cigarettes, of course," said the Rake. "I should think anybody could have told that. Now, can you tell me why a—"
"Thumbhi!" came a voice in the distance.
"Excuse me for a minute," said Thumbhi. "I think I hear somebody calling me," and he was off.
"You'd better follow him, Jimmieboy," said the Rake, kindly. "Don't lose sight of him for an instant. This is his way of getting rid of you. He brought you in here to tell you his history, didn't he?"
"Yes," said Jimmieboy.
"Well, he hasn't got one," whispered the Rake. "He hasn't got one, and he never had one, and this having himself called away is only one of his tricks. Keep your eye on him or you're lost."
JIMMIEBOY STARTED IN PURSUIT.
With this the Rake slammed the door of the tool-house, and Jimmieboy turning about peered down the path at the Wizard, who was running as fast as his legs could carry him. Jimmieboy started in pursuit—and what a pursuit it was! Like the wind they ran, mile after mile round and round the garden, through forests that turned up on the road here and there, and once in awhile with great bounds jumping over rivers and mountains, until finally Thumbhi turned suddenly, ran backwards directly past Jimmieboy, and before the little visitor had time to turn around was lost to sight.
Jimmieboy was now quite lost. He had no idea as to his whereabouts. The garden had long since disappeared, and so fast had he run the boy had failed to notice in what direction he had come.
"Humph!" he said, seating himself by the road to catch his breath. "Here's a muddle. I wonder where the Merboy is?"
"Here I am," came a subdued little voice that sounded miles away. "Take the first door to your right, open it, and you'll find me."
Jimmieboy started up and walked, it seemed to him, for hours, but no door appeared anywhere until, just as the sun was setting, he came to a big oak-tree with a little bit of a door half-way up its trunk.
"I wonder if that's it?" said the puzzled boy, scratching his head.
"Yes," came the voice from the inside. "Climb up and come in."
"I can't climb 'way up there," said Jimmieboy.
"Then we'll let the door down," returned the voice behind the door. Sure enough down came the door. Jimmieboy opened it and walked in, and there was the Merboy only he had become a goldfish in the aquarium in the nursery again, and was swimming around as unconcernedly as if nothing had ever happened.
"Wasn't it queer?" said Jimmieboy, as he told the story to his father.
"Very," said his father, "but queer things often happen to boys who eat as much fruit cake as you do."
Which was the only explanation of his strange adventure that Jimmieboy ever got.