[to be continued.]
[THE BRIDGE OF AN OCEAN LINER.]
BY FRANKLIN MATTHEWS.
If you should go down into the engine-rooms of one of the ocean fliers, when the ship is going at full speed in mid-ocean, and should feel the heat and see the tremendous activity there, you might think you knew exactly how these modern monsters of the sea were propelled. The engines are the heart of the craft, but there has to be a brain, and you find that on the bridge. The bridge is a platform, walled in by canvas about five feet high, and stretching clear across the ship, usually above the wheel-house. You see the hardest kind of work in the engine-rooms, but on the bridge no one seems to do anything, when you look up there from the deck, but stand around and be dignified. If, however, you can get the Captain to take you on the bridge, and tell you of the amount of work done there, you will soon see that the real work in running a ship is on the bridge. The difference between the work in the engine-rooms and that on the bridge is exactly the difference between manual and mental labor.
THE BRIDGE AFTER A WINTER VOYAGE.
Of course you know in a general way that the steering of the ship is done on the bridge, and that the Captain must have some way of communicating with the engine-rooms. In small ships there are speaking-tubes and jingle-bells, but in the ocean fliers the distance between the bridge and the engine-rooms is too great for these devices. It would be a most difficult task to use a speaking-tube in a howling gale, and make a man nearly three hundred feet away, in a compartment where the roar is like that of a Niagara, hear what you are trying to say. Jingle-bells might get out of order at a critical time. Another agent must be used, and this agent is electricity. When the Captain wants to give orders to the engineer in all large vessels nowadays he telegraphs to him. He practically controls his ship from stem to stern by the use of electricity. Were it not for that, big ships could not be operated. The day of calling out orders is passed, and perhaps this is why the bridge seems to be such a quiet place.
WORKING UP INTO THE WIND ON A RAINY NIGHT.
Let us spend an hour with Captain Randle, of the American liner St. Louis, on the bridge in mid-ocean. He first takes us into the wheel-house. It is a room about ten feet long and ten feet wide, with a curved front. A wheel about three feet in diameter is placed in the centre of the room, and you are surprised to see that the quartermaster keeps turning it almost constantly. You have always thought that he had simply to keep his eye on the floating compass in the box directly in front of him and hold the ship steady on her course. As you look at the compass you see the ship veering now this way and now that as she rolls and plunges, or as one screw turns faster than the other, and thus pulls the ship around. It is hard to make two independent screws go at exactly the same speed, and so this man at the wheel is busy all the time turning the ship straight. He has to fight the waves and the screws and the winds at the same time, and he is a busy man.
This steering-wheel controls the ship by means of a small column of oil in a little tube. By turning the wheel this way or that the oil in the tube is forced up or down, and that opens or closes certain valves in the steam steering-gear four hundred feet away, and the rudder is turned as easily as if a child had done it. In most steamships the steam steering-gear is controlled by hydraulic power—that is, by water—but the use of a column of oil is an improvement.
As you look about, you see fastened to the cornice directly in front of the wheel-man a little scale in black with white lines marked off on it. There is a dial on it, and as the ship rolls you see that this is a device to mark the degree of the roll. You may notice that it takes about a second for every degree of a roll. On each side of the room is another long black gauge, and the dials point to certain figures, generally between ninety and ninety-five. These dials are little electrical devices, showing exactly how many revolutions the screws are making. The Captain at a glance knows what is going on in the engine-rooms.
Over in the corner of the room is another curious electrical device. It is a little box with a clock in it. The Captain tells you it is the machine that controls the whistle in time of fog. The law requires a long blast of the whistle at such times every two minutes. By pressing in a button on this little clock apparatus, and by setting the clock in a certain manner, the whistle is blown automatically for seven seconds every minute. There can be no error of man in that work. Just as sure as every minute comes around that whistle will blow seven seconds. Under the old way, when a man pulled the whistle cord there was no exactness in the work. When the fog is over the button is released, and the whistle stops.
Over on the other side of the room is a little switchboard. It has two sets of three switches. These switches control the side and mast-head lights of the ship. In the old days oil was used for these lights. The coming of electricity changed that. In each of the lanterns now used as a side or mast-head light there are two large electric lamps. Now, as you know, the film often burns out or breaks in these lamps, and suddenly you are in darkness. It would never do to have this happen on shipboard. The light might be out for a long time, and it would not be noticed, and in that time dreadful things might happen. This is obviated by having two lamps in each lantern and an instrument called a "buzzer," which makes a fuss right behind the steersman if one of the lights in a lantern goes out. When the buzzer sounds, the man in charge simply turns on the spare light, and probably not five seconds are lost.
Step out now on the bridge. You will notice that it has three kinds of telegraphs. They consist of circular disks on standards about as high as the hand. Above the disks are handles on frames to which a dial is attached. Inside the disks lights may be placed. The glass surface is divided off into regular spaces on which different words are printed. By moving the handle back and forth the dial points to certain words, and a bell is rung. If the telegraph in use, for example, is that to the starboard engine-room, and the Captain has rung for "half-speed," he knows that his order is being recorded on a similar disk in that room, and that as soon as the engineer down there receives it, he will repeat the order to the bridge, so that the Captain may know instantly that the orders have been received and obeyed.
In addition to two of these telegraphs to the engine-rooms, there is one called the docking telegraph, and one called the steering telegraph. The docking telegraph is used in making fast to or leaving a pier, and the steering telegraph is for use in case the steering apparatus in the wheel-house should break down, and it should become necessary to steer the ship by hand, from the after part of the vessel. On the engine-room telegraph you read these marks: "stop," "stand by," "slow," "half-speed." On the docking telegraph you read: "hold on," "heave away," "not clear," "slow astern," "slow ahead," "all clear," "slack away," "let go." On the steering telegraph you read: "hard-a-port," "port," "steady," "course," "steady," "starboard," "hard-a-starboard." It is through the use of this docking telegraph that you understand why a big ship can come up to her pier in the most deliberate way, occupying sometimes an hour, without any apparent confusion, and, so far as the average person can see, without any one giving orders. The Captain stands on the bridge, and the first officer on the forward deck. The Captain can give orders to the first officer by a simple wave of the hand. He must talk to the officer in charge at the stern by the telegraph. This he is doing constantly, but no one hears him, and few realize what is going on. It is a hard task to bring 11,000 or 12,000 tons of iron up to a given spot, and stop it with its tremendous momentum within a few inches of a certain place. The docking telegraph helps to do this.
In looking about further you see two or three little spigotlike affairs turned under the rail. When you ask about them the Captain will tell you that they are electric arrangements to stop the whistle-blowing device, and to turn on the whistle direct from the bridge. In case of fog, and the whistle of another ship is heard, it is necessary to make certain signals. Turning one of these little spigots cuts off the regular whistle and turns on the sound as long and as often as the Captain desires. After the danger is passed the spigots are turned back under the rail, and the electrical device in the wheel-house continues its regular seven seconds blast. You see on each side also sockets in which to place the lights that are burned, or the bombs that are exploded at sea. When passing ships at night, the St. Louis, for example, burns one red and two blue lights. That tells the other ship the name of the St. Louis. There is a standard on the bridge from which an explosive rocket can be sent up. The noise from such a rocket can be heard six miles, and the rocket is set off by a lanyard, like a cannon.
THE DAILY OBSERVATION.
These are the appliances that you see on the bridge. There is constant work there. The log is being kept all the time; the floating compass in the wheel-house is compared with the standard compass outside every half-hour. When a change in course is made, all the compasses on the ship are compared. Every morning at daylight the whip's position is worked out by the north star, and every day at 11.30 o'clock the dead reckoning of the position of the ship is handed to the Captain by the junior officers. All the officers are required to be on the bridge ten minutes later when the daily observation is made. Day and night there is constant activity there.
"How do you know in a fog," I asked of Captain Randle, "which way the sound of another vessel comes from?"
"I stand square in the centre of the bridge with my face exactly to the front," he replied; "and I have trained my sense of hearing so accurately that I can tell which ear the wave sound strikes first as it rolls by. It is rare that we mistake the direction from which a sound comes."
This shows how delicate and at the same time how responsible the task of running a big steamship is.
[A FLORAL BALL.]
BY EMMA J. GRAY.
Why not give one, girls, on your next birthday night?
The entire house, including the halls, should be trimmed with asparagus and Japanese lanterns. From the drawing-room ceilings suspend inverted cones of asparagus, and as pendants from these fasten Japanese lanterns. String evergreen around the stair bannisters and halls. Indeed, make of your house, including the dining-room, a sort of fairy bower, on which the Japanese lanterns at happy intervals cast light and color.
The orchestra should be hidden in a tiny forest, and their music should be jolly, light, and pretty. Among the numbers have the "Dance of the Flowers" by Tschaikowsky. Follow this with several flower dances. Example, "The Sweet-Pease Waltz." The girls' costumes should be white tarlatan, effectively trimmed with sweet-pease. The boys should have sweet-pea boutonnières.
The Pansy Cotillion.—For this dance wear crêpe lissè, tarlatan—indeed, any flimsy material you choose, but it must be one of the pansy colors; and as the pansy has so many shades of brown, yellow, purple, deep rose, etc., the variety which would mingle as the several figures are given would result in a kaleidoscopic effect of color and beauty.
Perhaps a few solo dances could be arranged. If so, have a Cowslip dance, when the little maiden should be frocked in pale yellow, or the Heliotrope, with a frock of lilacs. Another might dance the Forget-Me-Not, and wear a gown of blue. While still another dance might be termed the Water-Lily, which would necessitate a frock of white and gold, and the blue and pink water-lilies are comparatively rare. Whichever flower is represented should be worn either on the hair or on the dress.
Then should come the Wild-Flower Minuet, when daisies, buttercups, clover, chiccory, violets, honeysuckle, and other wild flowers could vie with each other in the stately, graceful movements. Follow the minuet with the Butterfly promenade and dance. In this a large number should engage, as it is quite proper there should be butterflies flitting from flower to flower. Whatever dance is decided to appropriate to the butterflies, they should select their own partners from any of the flowers they please. The butterflies will wear almost as many colors as the pansies, and silver, gold, or other butterflies should be fastened on their shoulders or on other parts of their costume.
[THE ATTRACTION OF LEVITATION.]
BY H. G. PAINE.
"Oh, dear!" said little Johnny Frost,
"Sleds are such different things!
When down the hill you swiftly coast
You'd think that they had wings;
"But when uphill you slowly climb,
And have to drag your sled,
It feels so heavy that you'd think
'Twas really made of lead.
"And all because an Englishman,
Sir Isaac Newton named,
Invented gravitation, and
Became unduly famed;
"While if he had reversed his law,
So folks uphill could coast,
It seems to me he would have had
A better claim to boast.
"Then coasting would all pleasure be;
To slide up would be slick!
And dragging sleds downhill would be
An awful easy trick!"
[STORIES OF PRESENCE OF MIND.]
BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS.
IN THE TOWER OF BERKELEY MANOR.
Catharine Burton was waiting in the hall, when Dr. Langsdale came from her father's room.
"Why don't you obey my orders?" he demanded. "I thought you were in bed an hour ago."
"I wanted to hear the latest news," she said, smiling apologetically. "How is he now, doctor?"
"Just as before—sleeping. He will come around all right, always provided he has absolute quiet. I am more alarmed about you. You have not slept for two nights, and your nerves are like the strings of a tuned violin. You must go straightaway to bed. And don't neglect taking that sleeping draught I gave you. Now, good-night."
And Dr. Langsdale turned into his own room, near Mr. Burton's, so that the nurse could have him at the sick man's bedside in an instant. Catharine went slowly toward her apartments in the tower. Her whole body ached with weariness. Three days before her father was stricken suddenly, and Dr. Langsdale was called by telegram from New York city. She had not slept because, until that afternoon, it was uncertain whether her father would live or die. And he was all she had in the world.
Her bedroom was low-ceilinged and quaintly furnished, with three deep windows looking out over the Hudson. Berkeley Manor stood on the very edge of the Palisades, and its tower rose two hundred feet above the rocky shore of the river. She threw herself into one of the huge curving window divans, and, with her eyes upon the village that straggled over the opposite hill, watched its lights vanish one by one. She sat there nearly an hour, and then, remembering the doctor and his medicine, went to her dressing-table. She sat in the chair in front of its low mirror and wondered how she could be so wakeful, how her mind could be so active, when she had been sleepless so long. As she thought, she stared vaguely into the mirror, without seeing anything. It was so turned that there was a reflection of the floor half-way under the big bed. She presently became conscious that two small, bright circles were shining from the darkness under there.
"The cat," she thought, looking more closely.
She was about to call it, when she saw, a little further down, a streak of brightness. The image in the glass was gradually getting clearer as her eyes grew accustomed. Slowly, but with awful distinctness, she traced the outlines of a man lying under the bed. From the shine of his eyes, she thought he was looking straight at her. She fell back in the chair so that he no longer could see the reflection of her face. She felt as if the blood were leaving the surface of her body and freezing solid around her heart.
"I must not faint," she thought, hurriedly. "I must do something. He does not know I have seen him. He thought he was hidden by the darkness. What shall I do? What shall I do?"
She went back to the window and leaned far out. There was some comfort even in getting her head out of that room. Her thoughts were running in circles like a flock of bewildered chickens. She could not think of anything definite. Disconnected bits of stories she had read about people in this position raced through her brain, but she could bring back nothing helpful.
"I'll ring the bell," she said to herself at last, and half started away from the window. Then she remembered that the bell had been so muffled that its sound would not reach the ears of the sleeping servants. Again her thoughts whirled round and round, getting nowhere. And again a definite idea flashed. "I'll go and lock the door on the outside. He will be locked in. Before he can get the door broken down, I will have them all here."
This pleased her so much that she was stronger, more courageous. "Yes," she thought, glancing at the key which was on the inside. "I can change it to the outside easily. Where he is lying he cannot see what I am about."
She went to the closet and pretended to be searching for something.
"Pshaw!" she exclaimed, in a vexed tone, and went on toward the door. Her hand was on the key, when she stopped and shivered. "I forgot father," she thought. "If I lock this man in and go for help there will be a terrible uproar. It will surely awaken father and alarm him. And Dr. Langsdale said that would be fatal. The man will fight, the revolver will go off, and perhaps some one will be killed."
Her thoughts were flying straight along and to a purpose as she stood there with the door closed and her hand upon the key. They reached the end in an instant, and she almost smiled, it was so simple. Instead of opening the door she locked it, and tried the handle to make sure. She took the key out and almost ran to the window. She sent the key whirling out over the Hudson. She was shut in with the burglar, behind a door which she could not unlock and he could not easily break down. She fell into the window-seat and lost consciousness.
A ROUGH-LOOKING MAN WAS SHAKING HER.
When she opened her eyes a rough-looking man was shaking her.
"Where's the key to that door, miss," he said, gruffly.
"I threw it out of the window," she answered, her voice trembling. She was looking straight at the man, and his eyes shifted.
"What did you do that for?" he asked at last, as if dazed.
"I did it on purpose." Her courage was coming back, now that the man was actually before her, the danger actually on. "I saw you under the bed when I was sitting at the table there. My father is sick down stairs. The slightest excitement would kill him. I thought of several things. The only thing to do was to lock you and myself in so that neither could get out. If I had locked you in there would have been a great noise when I brought the others to attack you. If I had locked you in and gone away and left you for the night you would have tried to break the door down some time before morning, and that would have made a noise."
The burglar was listening with rage, wonder, admiration following one another in his expression. She was glad to see that wonder and admiration were winning over rage. The idea of what she had done seemed to please him.
"Well, I—" He did not finish, which she took as another good sign. He threw himself into a chair, crossed his legs, and put something away in his inside coat pocket.
"Thank you," she said, smiling faintly. "I feel much better now."
The burglar fidgeted, as he invariably did when she fixed her eyes squarely upon him. "But I don't see, miss," he began—"I don't see how you've helped yourself much, after all. What's to prevent me from breaking that door down?"
"Well, I'll explain it to you," she said. She was making desperate efforts to get on friendly terms with him. "You cannot possibly break that door without rousing everybody. There are three men-servants, and there is Dr. Langsdale. They will come up here armed. You cannot kill all of them. One of them will be sure to kill or wound you. And if you are wounded, you will be captured. And if you are captured after killing somebody, why, you'll—I don't know just what the law is."
"Why, I'll hang, miss," said the burglar, laughing at his own grim humor.
"Well, you don't want to get killed or to hang, do you?" went on Miss Burton. She was now feeling almost at ease. "So this is my offer: If you will stay quietly here until five o'clock, the servants will be astir. I'll ring the bell, and when my maid comes I'll ask her to go and get the extra key and unlock the door. I'll send her away, and take you downstairs and let you out myself. And so that you won't have your night for nothing, I'll give you the hundred dollars I have in my purse in the drawer over there—that, or anything else you want."
She was waiting eagerly for his answer, smiling persuasively at him. He kept his eyes down, shifted in the chair, crossed and recrossed his legs. He rose, went to the window, and leaning out, looked down. He came back and stood before her.
"How do I know that you will not play a sharp trick on me, and then get me into trouble?" he said, trying to make his voice rough.
"I promise that I will deal fairly, if you will. I don't break promises. But if that is not enough, remember, if there were to be any noise, it would kill father."
"I'll go you," he said, after he had looked out of the window again and had examined the heavy door. "And here's my hand on it."
Miss Burton, of Berkeley Manor, without hesitating, took the hand of Mr. Burglar.
An embarrassing wait of five hours was before them. Under the new excitement she was wide-awake. She realized that she must keep him in good humor. She drew him out, made him tell her about himself, his struggles, his plans, his hopes. And, under the flag of truce, this enemy of society sat at his ease, talking freely, trying to win the approval of the beautiful brave young woman. As the hands of the little clock on the mantel neared five he reminded her, roughly apologizing for keeping her up. She pulled the bell-cord and went on talking to him. At the first quarter past five he got up himself and pulled the cord again. Soon there was a knock. The footman's voice answered the query.
"Oh, it's you, John," said the young woman, "Will you get the extra key and unlock the door? I am locked in."
When John was heard putting in the extra key Miss Burton motioned the burglar toward the closet. When the door was unlocked she opened it, thanked the footman, and closed it again. Through the half-open closet door she saw that the burglar had his hand in the pocket of his coat. She called him out, pointed toward the pocket and the hidden hand, and smilingly shook her head. The burglar flushed at being caught doubting her, and took his hand out quickly and awkwardly. She got the money from her purse and held it toward him. He hung his head and made no motion to take it.
"Take it," she said, gently; "it may help you on to—to some other kind of a life. I give it to you freely. I think you have earned it, in a way."
She pressed the money into his hand. She led the way down the stairs, through the deserted hall and the conservatory, and so to the door into the gardens. He hesitated in the doorway, and glanced at her quickly. She held out her hand.
"Good-by," she said, smiling frankly and kindly. "And—and—please do the best you can—for my sake."
He looked humble and miserable as he just touched her fingers and hurried away. Miss Burton went back to her tower-room. She was tired in mind as well as in body, and she knew that she would sleep soundly without the medicine. Her heart was light. She was thinking that she had saved her father, and, perhaps, another.
[THE GRIND.]
BY JULIANA CONOVER.
"Look at old Atkins, Sleep, reading again. George! he must be soured on life to do that."
"Oh, he's a freak," answered "Sleep" Forsyth, yawning and stretching himself, "or he couldn't glue his nose to an old book while the team was practising. I haven't any use for grinds. Hang this German! 'Meine Mutter ist krank, und mein Vator'—How did the Welsh Rarebit do to-day, Doggy?"
"Pretty slick. We worked that new trick in great shape; it ought to be a sure thing against Williston. Well, I suppose I might as well tackle these sentences too. 'My mother's a crank'—nice sentiment that. Do you think Travers keeps his eye on the ball, Sleep? 'Meine Mutter'—Hurrah! there goes the old bell at last!"
St. James was not a very large school, averaging only about a hundred and fifty boys, but it had a great football team, whose record was the envy of all the other schools in that part of the country; and yet, though the masters were all intensely interested in its success, they were in the very act, when my story opens, of passing resolutions which might have the most disastrous effect upon the prospects of the season.
"I am sorry to be obliged to take this step," said Dr. Langford, the Rector, "but it really seems necessary if we wish to keep up the standard of scholarship in the school. Not only the dull boys, but the bright and naturally studious ones are neglecting their work shamefully, and becoming absolutely demoralized by this craze about football. Would you believe it, Mr. Watson, but Robert Fitzhugh in class to-day actually translated the line, 'Manes indium cursim ludo facto recipiunt,' in this way, 'The hair of the players, the game being finished, immediately received a cutting.'"
The masters all laughed, it was so characteristic of the right tackle.
"The plan will be worth trying, at all events," continued Dr. Langford. "I fancy, though, it will cause great consternation." And it did.
"Wake up, Sleep! Have you heard the game they have sprung on us?" cried Buck Graham, bursting in upon Forsyth. "It's outrageous; it's unconstitutional; it's—it's—low-down," he spluttered, pounding the table with his fist. "They say—Mr. Watson told Travers and Sargent, so it's straight—that the Doctor has made a new rule, and every fellow who doesn't get over sixty in classics will have to stop playing football."
"Well, I'll be—kicked!" ejaculated Sleep Forsyth. "That will finish poor old Buff Miller."
"It knocks us all out," said Graham, indignantly, "except the Welsh Rarebit. The fellows are having a mass-meeting in the gym about it now; they're in a fearful way. Come on over, Sleep."
The gymnasium was filled with an excited crowd of boys, all talking at once, and breathing out, like Saul of old, threatenings and slaughter. The inherent "meanness" of the new law went without saying, but how to circumvent it was the grave question.
"We might send in a petition in good Latin," suggested Fitzhugh.
"Yes; you write it," jeered Doggy Parker. "How about 'the hair of the players getting a cutting'? That's the way Fitz translated the sentence about the shades receiving the gladiator after the contest, Atkins," turning to a tall boy who was leaning against the bars, "to the Doctor, too. Wasn't it a bad break? I believe that's the reason he's put up this game on us."
"Well, it's all up with football," said Captain Miller, gloomily. "How can any one expect a team to play decently if they have to grind like so many old machines?"
"You'd better order patent duplex-burner, double-reflecting spectacles for us, instead of shoes and sweaters, Buff," said George Fluellen, the Welsh Rarebit, sarcastically, "and make 'Arry 'Arris coach us in Latin daring practice. Instead of ''Es a-'oldin' 'is man,' say, 'Agite!'—Line up!"
"We might just as well cancel all our dates," interrupted Lewis, the right end, "if we have to start in and dig old Greek roots like ground-hogs. What's the use of coming to school if you can't play football without studying?"
This was clearly the sentiment of the meeting, and it was expressed in as revolutionary language as they dared adopt, and for the next few days the spirit of rebellion was so rife that the masters had to resort to severe measures in order to maintain their authority; but the boys soon came to the conclusion that the Doctor's law was like that of the Medes and Persians, and that their best policy would be to submit with a good grace, for the day of the great game with Williston was rapidly approaching.
"I say, Atkins," said Doggy, putting his head sheepishly in at the door of the Grind's room, "could you help a fellow a little? I've got to know this stuff to-morrow, and the Welsh Rarebit's busy."
"Of course; come right in," answered Atkins, shutting his book. "I've been over it all once, so I ought to be able to help you."
They sat down to the Æneid together, Doggy groaning as though in severe pain; but the next morning he came smiling out of recitation, and shook up Sleep Forsyth to tell him that "Atkins was no end of a good fellow, even if he were a 'grind.'"
That evening Atkins was besieged by shamefaced members of the team who wanted help in their classics, help which he freely gave; and it became a regular thing for him to coach them in their uphill work, and his patience and good-nature roused their gratitude to such an extent that they rewarded him by confiding all their football hopes and aspirations, generally in the middle of a difficult passage which they were laboriously construing.
"Old Atkins really knows a thing or two," announced Buck Graham, condescendingly. "He agrees with me that the interference is too loose, and that we don't play quick enough. It's no end of a pity he goes in so for study. He might have made something out of him."
"'Maria aspera juro'—Maria swears loudly," read Buff Miller, the big centre rush. "I should think she might over such stuff. Did you see that beautiful run Paddy made to-day?"
"Yes," answered Atkins, "it was great. That means, 'I call the harsh seas to witness,' Buff."
"No, does it? I was afraid my translation was a little free. Don't you think Paddy dodges better than Doggy? But Doggy tackles and bucks the centre better. 'Maria aspera juro'—Maria, no, the seas, I call to witness—I let one or two men through to-day, didn't I?"
"I thought you played a fine block game. But let's hurry and finish this. Fitz is coming with his Latin soon."
So it went on day after day, the football team pitying the 'poor old grind,' while under his coaching they developed memories and logical faculties and almost powers of application, while their game grew daily stronger, and their scores against the little teams which they played larger, for the burning of the midnight oil over the classics did not seem to hurt their "condition" a bit more than the exclusive discussion of plays.
Few seasons pass, however, without being overshadowed by some misfortune, and just ten days before the important game Buck Graham was "snowed under" in a "scrimmage," and when they unearthed him from beneath the human pile they found that his leg was so badly wrenched that his playing again was out of the question. It was a fearful blow to the team, and Captain Miller, with the pessimism of youth, instantly gave up all hope of the championship.
"There's not another full-back in the school," he said. "Fluellen's good at a place kick, but he can't punt; and Forsyth punts pretty well, but a funeral's quicker than he is." And he shook his head gloomily, while poor Buck Graham lay on the lounge gazing ruefully at his bandaged leg and bemoaning his luck.
"Sleep, will you do me a favor?" said Atkins, the following afternoon, blushing with embarrassment. "Will you come out with me behind Harris's house while I try my hand at punting! I used to play full-back on the 'We Get There's,' in Bedford, when I was a little chap."
"You could have knocked me down with a feather," exclaimed Sleep, that evening, "when he said that! Old Grind Atkins going solemnly out to practise kicking was as good a joke as—"
"Your winning a hundred-yard dash!" interrupted Doggy. "Did you run his balls, Sleep?"
"Not much. Why, man, that Grind kicked as if he had never seen a Latin grammar; he kicked like all possessed. I'll be shot if he didn't almost outpunt Buck Graham himself."
"No!" cried Doggy, springing up. "No! Why on earth didn't you tell us that sooner? Where's Miller? Where's Sargent? Come on, Sleep; why, it's the best news of the season."
"Why didn't you come out before?" asked Miller, confronting the blushing fraud.
"I didn't think I could do anything; and when you had Buck you didn't need any one else."
So Graham's place was filled, and by no poor substitute either, for Atkins was found to have concealed a magnificent head for football behind a mass of useless classical lore.
He not only kicked well, but charged the line like a whole battery, and sent the scrub flying while he ploughed his way through for a touch-down.
"Oh, Tommy, Tommy Atkins,
You're a very foxy one!"
sang, or rather shouted, the boys, after a particularly fine play, and Dr. Langford congratulated himself upon the success of his plan, for he was as glad to see Atkins entering into the athletic spirit as he was to hear the brilliant recitations which the team made.
The 15th of November dawned clear and cold, and a hundred and fifty boys awoke to the realization that one of the many crises of their lives had come.
The great game was played on the home grounds this year, so there was nothing to do but wait for the Williston contingency, which arrived at one o'clock, fifty strong, with all the appropriate accompaniments of tin horns, banners, and popular songs; and when the red and white sweaters made their appearance on the gridiron field, the "Rah! rah! rah! Williston!" quite owned the place. The enthusiasm changed sides, however, when the St. James team came out, for though they were plastered and bandaged, and shock-headed and disreputable, they came out to win. There was a little preliminary practice, and then the two captains declared themselves ready.
Williston won the toss and chose the west goal and the wind. The St. James team pulled off their old navy-blue sweaters and fell into position—Osborne, left end; Bates, left tackle; Travers, left guard; Miller (Captain), centre; Sargent, right guard; Fitzhugh, right tackle; Lewis, right end; Fluellen, quarter-back; Parker, McKloskey, half-backs; Atkins, full-back.
Brown was full-back and captain on the Williston team, and he scattered his men carefully over the field. The whistle blew, and the crowd drew their last easy breath, for they knew that the next two hours would bring a "nerve storm."
Miller kicked off, and the ball was caught and downed by Williston.
Then the teams lined up for the first scrimmage. "4, 3, 7, 92," cried Brown, and the little half-back bucked the centre like a man; but Buff stood firm. Twice they tried to break through the line, and twice they were downed in their tracks. Then the ball was passed back to Brown, and he made his first punt. The crowd watched in breathless suspense to see if Atkins would fumble, for no one felt sure of such a new star. But the Grind caught it squarely, and started off, dodging, doubling, butting over, and gaining twenty yards before he was finally downed.
It was a beautiful run, and the grand stand rang with the cheers for "Tommy Atkins," who blushed and grinned as he went back to his place.
Then Doggy was shot through the centre for ten yards, and Paddy for five. Sargent went round the end for three, Travers plunged for five more, and amid frantic applause and a mad flutter of navy blue, Doggy broke through the right tackle, and, well guarded by Miller and Sargent, dashed down the field, and was only brought to earth by Brown on Williston's ten-yard line.
"Line up," cried Buff, giving the signal. "We've got to score now."
Doggy went at the centre like a battering-ram, but Williston had braced for the charge. Then they tried a trick with Bates, but that failed too. Atkins dropped back for a kick, but it was only a bluff, for Doggy took the ball, and when the heaving, swaying, struggling mass went down, the right half-back was lying, with his wind temporarily knocked out, but safely across the fatal line.
The Welsh Rarebit kicked a clean goal, and the St. James boys relieved their pent-up feelings. It was on such occasions that Forsyth's claims to popularity and latent genius justified themselves.
"John Brown's football team is looking for a hole,"
he improvised, smiling cheerfully at the discomfited Willistonians.
"John Brown's football team is looking for a hole,
John Brown's football team is looking for a hole—"
the crowd had joined in at the top of their lungs—
"While we go scoring on."
Buck Graham, hobbling on crutches along the side lines, was radiant, for Atkins seemed to remember all his "pointers," and to be playing really scientific football. The poor fellow ached to go in himself, but that being impossible, it did his heart good to see the substitute holding up the honor of the school.
The game wasn't won yet, however, for though the defensive work of the Williston team had not been very strong, they commenced to play a snappy aggressive game which St. James found hard to block. Bates and Fitzhugh had their hands full with the two tackles, who were as tricky as they were quick, twice getting fifteen yards on alleged "holding in the line."
They forced the ball by small gains slowly down the field, until they had it on the twenty-yard line, and there it staid for two downs. Then Brown dropped back for a try at goal, and the next minute the ball went sailing over the bar to a triumphant chorus of Williston cheers.
There was twenty minutes more of fluctuating fortune and harrowing suspense, for the ball changed hands several times on fumbles and fouls, and the two backs punted freely, but the first half ended with the score still six to five.
During the intermission the schools kept up a constant fire of songs and cheers, for their spirits were away above par. Even Williston was not sufficiently depressed by the lead of one point. They thought it still "anybody's game," but most probably theirs.
The second half commenced amid great enthusiasm, for both teams were warming to their work, and playing in a style that no college eleven need be ashamed of; and as the alumni on the benches watched the steady interference, the good runs, clean tackles, and long kicks, they shook their heads wisely, and prophesied of each one, "That man will make the Harvard, Yale, or Princeton 'varsity sure."
"Look!" cried Buck Graham, excitedly. "There goes Brown round the end! Ah, Doggy has him!"
Yes, Doggy had him, and, what was still better, the ball too. Then St. James settled down to score, and by short hard rushes and clever tricks they worked the ball down, actually down to the ten-yard line, and there they lost it on a claim of foul—for off-side play. It was hard luck, and Sleep Forsyth groaned aloud.
Williston punted, and the lightning-express ends went down the field like trolley-cars; but they could not "rattle" Atkins, and St. James put the ball in play once more. Five yards, a desperate scrimmage, and then a wild shout of joy, and the air was full of fluttering red and white, and all the dark blue flags were furled, for it was Brown and not Paddy who, when the tangled mass rolled off, was found clasping the ball.
Buck Graham got up, leaning heavily on his crutches. It was perhaps Williston's last chance, and she would certainly make the most of it.
Three yards—ten yards—five yards—the ball was working towards the goal, was getting perilously close. Then St. James rallied; the rush-line stood like a stone wall, and the foxy little Welsh Rarebit stopped a very keen trick and made the prettiest tackle of the day.
Two downs. Captain Brown gave his signal and dropped back for another goal from the field; but Miller, dear old fat Buff, broke desperately through and blocked the kick.
There was a second of wild confusion, and then the crowd saw the long legs of Tommy Atkins making for the goal, the oblong leather well under his arm.
THE WHOLE GERMAN ARMY COULDN'T HAVE STOPPED HIM.
Of course he made his touch-down—the whole German army couldn't have stopped him then. And when the Welsh Rarebit kicked the goal you would have thought that the reign of terror had come again; you could almost hear the throats crack; and yet when time was called, and the score still stood 12 to 5, there was voice enough left for a deafening roar, which only boiled down slowly, gradually into an intelligible cheer.
Then Sleep Forsyth, his face purple with excitement, stood up on the highest bench and managed to make himself heard above the din.
"Now, boys," he shouted, "here's to the old Grind, and let everybody sing!"
At this command the crowd joined hoarsely in, led by the thoroughly waked up Sleeper.
"Oh, Tommy, Tommy Atkins,"
they sang with cracked and gasping voices—
"You're a great and noble one;
You're a credit to the classics,
For you made a brilliant run.
May your drop-kick never fail you,
May your aim be ever true.
Three cheers for old Grind Atkins,
Here's St. James's love to you."
"I think," said Dr. Langford, smiling as he congratulated the happy Captain, "that the equilibrium of the school has at length been satisfactorily adjusted since Atkins has become a football hero."
Big Buff Miller beamed from ear to ear. "It's a finest kind of a grind on us," he said, "and we're proud to acknowledge it, though Doggy says it's too bad a pun."
[HOW A DEBT WAS PAID.]
An ingenious method of paying one's debts has just come to light in England. It seems that a certain person had long been in debt to his shoemaker, and the latter was becoming angry at the delay. Calling upon the delinquent he spoke to him in no very gentle manner.
"But, my good fellow," the debtor replied, "I have no money, but I will give you an order on Mr. H——, who has been in my debt for ever so long. Here, take this sealed packet, but don't let him perceive that you know anything of its contents."
The shoemaker, in great hopes, betook himself to Mr. H——, and handed him the missive, which ran as follows:
"Dear H——, the bearer, an unfortunate but honest man, has lost his wife and children during the last week, and is, besides, threatened with imprisonment for debt. Persuaded that you will gladly seize the opportunity to assist a poor man in distress, I commend him to your kindness. Yours, sincerely, C——."
H—— gazed with emotion at his visitor, and pressed thirty shillings on his acceptance. The shoemaker departed in a happy frame of mind, little suspecting that he had been taken for a beggar.
BY W. H. GIBSON.
mong my somewhat numerous correspondence from young people, I recall several wondering inquiries about a certain fat floundering "beetle," as "blue as indigo"; and when we consider how many other observing youngsters, including youngsters of larger growth, have looked upon this uncouth shape in the path, lawn, or pasture, will speculate as to its life history, it is perhaps well to make this floundering blue beetle better acquainted with his unappreciative neighbors.
THREE VIEWS OF HELPLESS BEETLES.
What are the lazy blue insects doing down there in the grass, for there are usually a small family of them. With the exception of their tinselled indigo-blue coat, there is certainly very little to admire in them. But what they lack in beauty they make up for in other ways. There are many of their handsomer cousins whose history is not half as interesting as that of this poor beetle that we tread upon in the grass. His neighbor insect, the tiger-beetle, running hither and thither with legs of wonderful speed, and with the agility of a fly on the wing, readily escapes our approach; but this clumsy, helpless blue beetle must needs plead for mercy by his color alone, because he has no means to avert our crushing step. A little girl who met me on the country road recently summed up the characteristics of the blue beetle pretty well. The portrait was unmistakable. "I've got a funny blue bug at home in a box that I want to show you," said she; "he's blue and awful fat, and hasn't got any wings, but when you touch him, he just turns over on his back, and trembles his toes and leaks big yellow drops out of his elbows." I have shown her beetle—three views of him, in fact—about the natural size, one of them on his back and "leaking" at his elbows, for such is the infallible habit of the insect when disturbed—a trick which has also given him the name of the "oil beetle." He is also known as the indigo beetle.
But of what use can such a queer beetle be to himself or any one else, a beetle that is not only without wings, but is so fat and floundering that he can hardly lift his unwieldy body from the ground, and which, upon being surprised, can only "play possum," and exude great drops of oil (?) upon our palm as we examine him.
But as he pours the vials of his wrath upon us he would doubtless fain have us understand that he was not always thus unable to take care of himself, that he was not always the clumsy crawling creature that he now is. As he lies there on his back, the yellow oily globules of surplus "elbow grease" swelling larger and larger at his leaky elbows, and one by one falling on the paper beneath him, we may almost fancy the monologue which might be going on in that blue head of his.
"Yes, I am indeed a clumsy creature," he might be saying, as he stares upward into our faces with fixed indigo eyes, "and my cumbersome body is a burden. But I was not always what you now see. Ah, you should have seen me as a baby! Was there ever such a lively, acrobatic, venturesome plucky baby as I, even when I was a day old? Shall I tell you some of my feats? Everybody knows me as I am now; but I have taken care that few shall learn my earlier history. It takes a sharp eye to follow my pranks of babyhood, and no one has been smart enough to do it yet, but I will at least let you into the secret of my life as far as it has been found out. I am little over a year old. I was born under a stone in a meadow last April, when I crept out of a golden-yellow case so small that you could hardly see it. I believe your books say I was about a sixteenth of an inch long at that time. Ah! when I think of what I was and what I could do then, and look at what I am now, I sometimes wonder whether that lively babyhood of mine has not all been a mocking dream."
DOWN AMONG THE BUTTERCUP LEAVES.
"Do you wonder that I am as blue as indigo, and am occasionally forced to resort to my oil-tank to still the troubled waters of my later experience? Well, as I was saying (pardon this fresh display of tears), when I crept out of that filmy egg-sac I was just ready for anything, and spoiling for adventure. I found myself with a slender, agile body of thirteen joints, and three pairs of the sprightliest spiderlike legs you ever saw, each tipped with three little sharp claws. Now I knew that these long legs and claws were not given to me at this early babyhood for nothing, so I looked about for something to try them on. I had not a great while to wait, for as I crept along through the grass roots beneath the edge of the stone, I heard a welcome sound, which is music to all babies of my kind. I remembered having heard the same music in my dreams while inside the little yellow case, but now it seemed louder than ever, and in another minute I was almost blown off my feet by the breeze which the noise made, and a great black hairy giant, as big as a house, pounced down, just outside the stone. He had a great black head, and six enormous legs as big round as trees. Think how a bumblebee would look to a wee baby not half as big as a hyphen in one of your books. Did I run when I saw him coming? Not a bit of it. I just waited until he came close to me, and then I jumped on his back, and put those eighteen little claws of mine to good use as I crept over his great spiny body, and finally found a snug resting-place beneath it. And then I waited, clinging tightly with my clutching feet. In another moment I had begun to take my first outing; and did ever baby have such a ride, and to such music! After the bumblebee had remained under the stone a little while he turned and went out again. No sooner did he get to the edge than he spread his great buzzing wings, and away we went over the world, higher and higher, miles high, over big oceans and mountains. I could see them all beneath me as I clung to the underside of the bee. I believe I must finally have got dizzy and faint, for I remember at last finding myself at rest in a queer thicket of greenish poles with big yellow balls at the top of them, and great giant leaves fringed with long glistening hairs. They told me afterward it was a willow blossom."
AN ADVENTUROUS BABY.
"It seemed a very good place to rest, so I dropped off from my bee and remained. Everywhere about me, as I looked, the air was yellow with these blossoms, and full of the wing-music of the bees. But, as I have said, I was a restless baby, and having had a taste of travel I soon tired of this idle life, and began to get ready for another ride. My chance soon came. This time it was a honey bee. She alighted in the flower next to mine, but I quietly piled over and clutched upon her leg, and was soon snugly tucked away under her body, with my flat head between its segments. And now for the first time I began to feel hungry; and what was more natural than to take a bite from the tender flesh of this bee, so easily available? I did it, and liked it so well that I adopted this bee for my mother for quite a long while, taking many, many long rides every day, and always coming back to the prettiest little house on a bench under the trees. This was a sort of bee hotel, with many hundreds of guests. It was all partitioned off inside into little six-sided rooms, and the walls were so thin that you could see through them. Indeed, I soon came to like this little home so well that one morning I decided that I would not leave it again. I had begun to get tired of my roving life. I saw a lot of little white fat babies tucked away in some of these little rooms, and this very bee which I had adopted as my mother was engaged in bringing food to some of these babies and sealing them up in their nests. This was enough for me. I concluded to bring my roving habit to a close, and become a bee baby in truth; so watching for my opportunity, I loosened my clutch upon the mother bee, and dropped into one of the little rooms."
THE ADOPTED HOME.
"Then I became sleepy, and can tell you nothing more than that when I woke up I didn't know who or what I was. My six spider legs had gone, and I had a half-dozen little short feet instead; and instead of the sprightly ideas of my baby days, the thought of such a thing as even moving was a bore. But I was hungrier than ever, and the first thing I did was to fall upon another fat youngster who disputed the room with me, and make short work of him. That was breakfast. When dinner-time came, I found it right at my mouth. That busy mother of mine had fully supplied my wants, and packed my room full to the ceiling with the most delicious fragrant bread of flowers made of pollen and honey.
"Oh, those were good old times, with all I wanted to eat all the time, and everything I ate turning to appetite! Too soon, too soon I found myself getting drowsy again, and I can only remember awakening from a queer dream, to find even my six tiny legs gone, and what is worse, my mouth also. While wondering, and hoping that this was but a troubled vision, I was plunged into sleep again, and dreamt that I was locked up in a mummy-case for over a week. And now comes the end, the cycle of my story. From this nightmare mummy-case I finally awoke—awoke, and emerged as you now see me. Do you wonder that I have had the blues ever since at the memory of those honeyed days, now forever fled? Instead of sporting aloft in airy skyward flights, I am now a miserable groundling. Instead of sweet fragrant bread of flowers, I am now forced to break my fast on acrid buttercup leaves. But I shall live again, with joys several hundred times multiplied, live again in my children, for whose jolly time in the autumn I shall soon lay my plans—golden promises—here in the ground beneath the buttercup leaves, close to a burrow where lives a burly bumblebee.
"But I have not told you all of my history, and will leave you to fill in the blank spaces, even as some of the scientists have to do."
[YOUNG FOLKS' SAVINGS.]
Young folks—boys and girls, say from ten or twelve to fifteen—almost never think of saving or putting by any of the little money that comes into their hands at so juvenile an age or for some years later. If they should think of forming a saving habit they would defer it until they had grown up, until they had got out of college, until they had begun life for themselves. Not a few of their parents may have the same opinion, may believe that children should not concern themselves in any way about money; that such concern belongs to maturity alone, and is unhealthy, positively hurtful to the very young by making them mercenary, in the end avaricious, even miserly.
There is no danger of this kind in our country, where the tendency is all in the opposite direction. In the Old World it is wholly different. Money is so scarce there generally that the few among the common people who get possession of any are inclined to hoard it. Here money is comparatively plenty. An American miser is seldom found. Certainly no native boy is in peril of becoming miserly because he puts by a few dollars every few weeks or months, instead of spending every cent that falls into his hands, often for things that do him more harm than good.
He may not save, because he has so little to save. But if he once begins he will be surprised to see how the little will grow, what a sum it will amount to after a while. He can scarcely keep trace of its growth if he tries to. It will prove a sort of Jack and his Bean Stalk, growing perpetually by night as well as by day, when he sleeps no less than when he wakes, while he thinks of it and when he forgets all about it. Money saved works a wonder, and, with interest added, becomes a miracle.
Many fathers make their boys a regular allowance—so much a week or a month, according to their means and their best judgment. Ordinarily the allowance is expended speedily, and another one looked for. Thus their money exists in the future, not in the present, and therefore has no existence really. All this is changed when part of the allowance is put by. The allowance steadily and regularly increases.
Boys, or girls either, do not need to have any financial training and business knowledge to save money. They can commence very early, years before they have entered their teens or have arrived at anything like the age of discretion. Their opportunity for investment is ever at hand; they have neither to wait for nor to seek it. It involves no risks, no uncertainties. The opportunity, the place, is the savings-bank, to be found in the smallest town or village, and in multiplied form in every city of any rank. Such banks generally pay from 3½ to 4½ per cent. interest per annum, and while this seems small, it is surprising how it will foot up in a short season, as any young person may ascertain, and as innumerable young persons have already ascertained. The banks are almost always safe, being founded for the good of the people, for the encouragement of the poor, for the establishment of thrifty habits, and being bound by rigorous, cautious, conservative rules that are seldom infringed. The smallest deposits, those that seem most insignificant—deposits of ten, even of five cents, are received, so that any child may become a depositor, if so minded. Cents soon augment into dollars, and a few dollars into hundreds through careful nursing and judicious attention. Fifty dollars will yield at 4 per cent. $2 a year; a hundred dollars, $4; and, interest upon interest added, will exceed all common calculation. Very young people rarely have any regular expenses, so that when they undertake the battle of life they are well equipped for it monetarily, and with very little effort. Their accumulation has been wellnigh unconscious, and is singularly satisfactory. The return is great for the small labor and diligence involved, and resembles play more than work.
Girls are less prone to saving than boys are, for they are as a rule less provident, less practical, less disposed to look ahead, less concerned about their own maintenance, naturally. But they have precisely the same chances, the same facilities, the same inducements. Girls of an independent turn of mind, who are hopeful of a career, as many are in these days, should follow the example of their brothers in saving, and they will be well rewarded.
Money is material, of course, but the material affects the mental quickly. If a comparison be made between the boys who have established the saving habit and those who have not established it, the former will be found to have many advantages. Saving includes much looking after, a sense of proportion, self-confidence, the adaptation of means to ends. It fixes responsibility. Boys who have saved for a special purpose, to buy something that they particularly wanted, and that costs more than they felt they could afford, know how grateful it was to achieve their object, and how speedily it was gained. Such saving is an example of what the regular habit of saving ensures to the mind and the character of the regular saver. The effect is complete instead of partial, permanent instead of transitory. The habit of early saving works a gradual revolution; it is an extra education, a species of commonplace magic which the readers of Harper's Round Table need but practise to realize fully. On it and its direct results may hang much of their future success.
Junius Henri Browne.
[ZINTKA LANUNI ("LOST BIRD").]
BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.
The battle of Wounded Knee was fought on Wounded Knee Creek, near Pine Ridge Agency, December 29, 1890. Its only Indian survivor was a baby girl, five months old, found on January 1, 1891, snugly wrapped in her pappoose blanket, and almost covered with snow. The little one lay close to her dead mother, whose body was pierced by two rifle balls. The little waif was adopted by General L. W. Colby of the army, and may be seen at his home in Beatrice, Nebraska. She has been christened Marguerite Elizabeth, but the Indians call her Zintka Lanuni—Lost Bird. Our soldiers did not seek this fight; it was forced upon them by the Indians, who, in their turn, had a fear that they were to be carried away into slavery when disarmed by order of our government.
"Fight!" cried the dusky Chief of the Sioux,
"Fight! it is all we have left to do;
The white man snatches our arms away,
He drives us forth from our tents to-day.
Seize the hatchet, the axe, the brand,
Rise, my braves, for a last great stand.
What if his rifles gird us round,
We'll dare the worst on our own home ground.
These pale-faced warriors soon forget
The promise to which their hands are set;
We may not trust their worthless pledge;
Oh, for the tomahawk's lightning edge!
Fight, my braves!" cried the Chief of the Sioux,
"Fight! 'tis the sole thing left to do."
And women and men rushed madly on
To strive till the winter day was gone.
A hopeless fight from morn till night;
The winter darkness veiled the sight
Of desperate mothers with babes on backs,
Wounded and dying in their tracks;
Of a little band with axe and knife,
Facing bullets in savage strife.
No man could open their eyes to see
That the savage onslaught need not be,
That friends were forced to be deadly foes,
Till the red field hid its shuddering woes,
When night came down, and soft and free
Fell the snows on the plain of Wounded Knee.
Dying and dead, young men and old,
Lying there, stark and grim and cold,
A sorrowful tale, too often told.
Ambush and battle and storm at last
Were ended; the Indian's fears had passed.
Safe to his happy hunting-ground
His way the dusky Chief had found.
The pitying conquerors buried the dead.
A faint, faint cry their footsteps led
To a wee thing nestled under the snow,
Snug, as her mother three days ago,
Had borne her close in her blanket's fold.
But wellnigh perished with hunger and cold,
The poor little Indian baby lay,
Till the dawn of the fourth drear winter day.
Child of the battle, infant waif,
Beside her poor dead mother safe.
Zintka Lanuni, the sweet lost bird,
Lives with her captors to-day, and, stirred
By tenderest love, a gentle heart
Gives her of cup and loaf a part.
She is growing up in the white man's tent,
Daughter and princess, her childhood spent
In learning and knowing the dearest things,
This little lost bird, whose feeble wings,
Too weak to fly, one day were furled
In a rough small nest, by snows impearled.
Zintka Lanuni, all blessings be
With the little lost bird of Wounded Knee.
[THE IMP OF THE TELEPHONE.]
BY JOHN KENDRICK BANGS.
II.—IN THE IMP'S ROOM.
"Dear me!" ejaculated Jimmieboy, as his eye first rested upon the Imp. "That's you, eh?"
"I believe so," replied the Imp, standing on his left leg, and twirling around and around until Jimmieboy got dizzy looking at him. "I was me when I got up this morning, and I haven't heard of any change since. Do I look like what I told you I looked like?"
"Not exactly," said Jimmieboy. "You said you had lilac-colored hair, and it's more like a green than a lilac."
"You are just like everybody else naming your colors. People are very queer about things of that sort, I think. For instance," said the Imp, to illustrate his point, "you go walking in the garden with one of your friends, and you come to a rose-bush, and your friend says, 'Isn't that a pretty rose-bush?' 'Yes,' say you; 'very.' Then he says, 'And what a lovely lilac-bush that is over there.' 'Extremely lovely,' say you. 'Let's sit down under this raspberry-bush,' says he. Well, now you think lilac is a delicate lavender, rose a pink, and raspberry a red—eh?"
"Yes," said Jimmieboy. "That's the way they are."
"Well, maybe so; but that lilac-bush and rose-bush and raspberry-bush are all the same color, and that color is green, just like my hair; you must have thought I looked like a rainbow or a paint shop when I told you about myself?"
"No," said Jimmieboy. "I didn't think that, exactly. I thought, perhaps, you were like the pictures in my Mother Goose book. They have lots of colors to 'em, and they are not bad looking, either."
"Well, if they are not bad looking," said the Imp, with a pleased smile, "they must be very much like me. But don't you want to come in?"
"I'm not small enough," said Jimmieboy; "but I'll eat that apple you spoke about, and maybe it'll make me shrink, though I don't see how it can."
"Easy enough. Haven't you seen a boy doubled up after eating an apple? Of course you have; perhaps you were the boy. At any rate there is no reason why, if an apple can work that way, it can't work the other. It's a poor rule that won't work both ways, and an apple is pretty good, as a rule, and so you have it proved without trying that what I say is true. Here's the apple; eat it as quickly as you can and give me the core."
Jimmieboy took the dainty piece of fruit in his hand and ate it with much relish, for it was a very sweet apple, and he was fond of that sort of thing. Unfortunately, he liked it so well that he forgot to give the core to the Imp, and, when in a moment he felt himself shrinking up, and the Imp asked for the core, he was forced blushingly to confess that he had been very piggish about it, and had swallowed the whole thing.
"I've half a mind not to let you in at all!" cried the Imp, stamping his foot angrily upon the floor, so angrily that the bells rang out softly as if in remonstrance. "In fact, I don't see how I can let you in, because you have disobeyed me about that core."
"I'm surprised at you," returned Jimmieboy, slightly injured in feeling by the Imp's behavior. "I wouldn't make such a fuss about an old apple-core. If you feel as badly about it as all that, I'll run down into the kitchen and get you a whole apple—one as big as you are."
"That isn't the point at all," said the Imp. "I didn't want the core for myself at all. I wanted it for you."
"Well, I've got it," said Jimmieboy, who had now shrunk until he was no taller than the Imp himself, not more than two inches high.
"Of course you have, and if you will notice it is making you grow right back again to the size you were before. That's where the trouble comes in with those trick apples. The outside makes you shrink, and the core makes you grow. When I said I wanted the core I meant that I wanted it to keep until we had had our trip together, so that when we got back you could eat it, and return to your papa and mamma just as you were in the beginning. Just run to the parlor mirror now and watch yourself."
Jimmieboy hastened into the parlor, and climbing upon the mantel-piece gazed into the mirror, and, much to his surprise, noticed that he was growing fast. He was four inches high when he got there, and then as the minutes passed he lengthened inch by inch, until finally he found himself just as he had been before he ate the apple.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?" he asked, when he returned to the telephone.
"I don't know," said the Imp. "It's really too bad, for that's the last apple of that sort I had. The trick-apple trees only bear one apple a year, and I have been saving that one for you ever since last summer, and here, just because you were greedy, it has all gone for nothing."
"I'm very sorry, and very much ashamed," said Jimmieboy, ruefully. "It was really so awfully good, I didn't think."
"Well, it's very thoughtless of you not to think," said the Imp. "I should think you'd feel very small."
"I do!" sobbed Jimmieboy.
"Do you, really?" cried the Imp, gleefully, "Real weeny, teeny small."
"Yes," said Jimmieboy, a tear trickling down his cheek.
"Then it's all right," sang the Imp, dancing a lovely jig to show how glad he felt. "Because we are always the way we feel. If you feel sick, you are sick. If you feel good, you are good, and if you feel sorry, you are sorry, and so, don't you see, if you feel small you are small. The only point is, now, do you feel small enough to get into this room?"
"I think I do," returned Jimmieboy, brightening up considerably, because his one great desire now was not to be a big grown-up man, like his papa, who could sharpen lead-pencils, and go out of doors in snow-storms, but to visit the Imp in his own quarters. "Yes," he repeated, "I think I do feel small enough to get in there."
"You've got to know," returned the Imp. "The trouble with you, I believe, is that you think in the wrong places. This isn't a matter of thinking; it's a matter of knowing."
"Well, then, I know I'm small enough," said Jimmieboy. "The only thing is, how am I to get up there?"
"I'll fix that," replied the Imp, with a happy smile. "I'll let down the wires, and you can come up on them."
Here he began to unwind two thin green silk-covered wires that Jimmieboy had not before noticed, and which were coiled about two small spools fastened on the back of the door.
"I can't climb," said Jimmieboy, watching the operation with interest.
"Nobody asked you to," returned the Imp. "When these have reached the floor I want you to fasten them to the newel-post of the stairs."
"All right," said Jimmieboy, grasping the wires, and fastening them as he was told. "What now?"
"Now I'll send down the elevator," said the Imp, as he loosened a huge magnet from the wall, and fastening it securely upon the two wires, sent it sliding down to where Jimmieboy stood. "There," he added, as it reached the end of the wire. "Step on that; I'll turn on the electricity, and up you'll come."
"I won't fall, will I?" asked Jimmieboy, timidly.
"That depends on the way you feel," the Imp answered. "If you feel safe, you are safe. Do you feel safe?"
"Not very," said Jimmieboy, as he stepped aboard the magnetic elevator.
"AT LAST," EJACULATED THE IMP.
"Then we'll have to wait until you do," returned the Imp, impatiently. "It seems to me that a boy who has spent weeks and weeks and weeks jumping off plush sofas onto waxed hard-wood floors ought to be less timid than you are."
"That's true," said Jimmieboy. "I guess I feel safe."
"All aboard, then," said the Imp, pressing a small button at the back of the room.
There was a rattle and a buzz, and then the magnet began to move upward, slowly at first, and then with all the rapidity of the lightning, so that before Jimmieboy had an opportunity to change his mind about his safety he was in the Imp's room, and, much to his delight, discovered that he was small enough to walk about therein without having to stoop, and in every way comfortable.
"At last!" ejaculated the Imp, grasping his hand and giving it an affectionate squeeze. "At last you are here. And now we'll close the door, and I'll show you my treasures."
With this the door was closed, and for a moment all was dark as pitch: but only for a moment, for hardly had Jimmieboy turned around when a flood of soft light burst forth from every corner of the room, and the little visitor saw upon every side of him the most wonderful books, toys, and musical instruments he had ever seen, each and all worked by electricity, and apparently subject to the will of the Imp, who was the genius of the place.