[to be continued.]
[HOW TO BUILD A SAIL-BOAT.]
BY F. S. C.
As a matter of course, your ice-boat has been built, rigged, and ironed; and after a variety of mishaps you are fully able to manage her under sail. A locomotive has been raced with, perhaps, and beaten; Bill B. and Charlie A. have the marks still on their shins where the bowsprit stay or runner plank ran against them. A heavy fall of snow or the ice-men will spoil your sailing; no doubt it has come to pass, and you are left out in the cold, with nothing to do but blow your fingers, and blame the snow and the ice-men. After flying along at the rate of a mile a minute in, you might say, unlimited space on a gigantic pair of skates, it is rather a hard matter to be obliged to come down to an ordinary pair, with but a small pond to skate on, at a speed of, say, six miles an hour, and the wind in your favor, too.
But it won't do to brood over your troubles, and lay the blame on the ice-men or the snow.
Why can't you build another boat for the next sailing season, and let your ice-boat go for a little while? You are still on good terms with your friend the carpenter? and you haven't bothered the life out of the blacksmith with the iron-work of your ice-boat? You must call them to your aid again, and also make friends with the painter.
With your experience in boat-building, you ought to make something nice this time. Suppose you try to build a flat-bottomed sail-boat, large enough to hold you and several of your friends. A sail-boat is much harder to build than any that you have yet tried; but that is no reason why you can't do it.
In the first place, you want two pine boards for the sides, twelve feet long, twenty inches wide, and one inch thick, well seasoned, and free from knots or checks. Cut as shown in Fig. 1, using divisions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 to guide you. You must be careful about your measurements, or you will have a leaky boat.
Get a piece of oak for the dead-wood, or stem, eighteen inches long, four inches deep, and six inches thick. Follow the measurements carefully, and take particular notice of the difference between the top and bottom in Fig. 3. The keelson is made of white pine, nine feet long by seven inches deep and five and a half inches wide. Get the curve of the bottom from the side; it commences at the dotted line on Fig. 1, thence aft to section marked 4. You must allow, however, for the mortising in the back of the dead-wood, as shown in the side elevation, Fig. 6. Cut four boards, following the patterns marked 1, 2, 3, 4, Fig. 5; these are intended to mould your boat on. No. 5 is the stern, which is to be made of oak one inch thick, and is a fixture. The others are to be removed just as soon as the bottom is nailed on. Fasten the sides to the dead-wood with good-sized brass screws. Then put the moulds in their respective positions, as marked in plan Fig. 2; bend and nail the sides to them. Screw the stern-piece in place, and turn the boat over, and with plane and straight-edge prepare for putting on the bottom. Use white pine seven-eighths of an inch thick. Fasten with galvanized nails, making the joints as tight as possible.
Cut an opening in the keelson for the centre-board trunk, as shown in Figs. 2 and 4, then nail in position from the bottom. Saw through the bottom board into the keelson, for your trunk comes through, and is flush with the bottom of the boat. Be careful that the ends of the boards are nailed to the keelson at the opening. Take out the moulds, and put inside a ribbon of oak one by three inches. Screw to the sides and bottom. This, you will find, stiffens the sides very much. Also put in ribs of oak one inch square, mortised into the ribbon, and cut off flush with the top of the side, twenty inches apart. These are not absolutely necessary, but will give your craft additional strength. You might get in a heavy storm, you know, or experience severe head-winds.
Thwarts of pine one and three-quarter inches thick are to be placed in next, with the exception of the one amidships. These serve the place of moulds, and keep the sides in place, to be held in position by oak strips underneath them. Screw them to the sides, and the thwarts to them. The forward one serves as mast step, and the after one as support for the rudder-post. Your deck beams are made of oak one inch thick and two inches deep, three forward and one aft. These beams must be cut with curved tops so as to make a crown for your deck, that it may shed water. The stern piece shows the height of the crown aft. Forward of the cockpit it ought to be two inches above the side, then a gradual sweep to the stern. The deck may now be put on, and planed flush with the side. Put an oak ribbon one by three inches on the outside, flush with the top of the deck. Fasten to the sides with brass screws. The lower edge of the ribbon might have a bead cut on it. It makes a finish, you know.
Make the centre-board trunk of pine twenty inches wide, one and three-quarter inches thick, and five feet long; ends one and a half by two inches, fastened in by brass screws; the trunk to be rabbeted, and fitted into the keelson, and running through flush with the bottom. Make the centre-board of yellow pine four feet six inches long, one and a quarter inches thick, and two feet wide, dowelled with galvanized rods. This will stiffen and weight it at the same time. Fasten in the trunk with a pin at the lower end forward. Don't put your deck on before your trunk is in, just because the deck is spoken of first. Speaking of that, you must strengthen the narrow part of the deck with brackets, as shown in Fig. 4.
PLANS OF A SAIL-BOAT.
Now for the blacksmith. Make the rudder-post of iron three-quarters of an inch in diameter, running through gas-pipe, and fastened to the deck and the bottom with collars. (Fig. 7 gives details.) A steel pin through the rudder-post keeps it from falling through. This rests on the collar. The stay irons are screwed to the sides and inside of the oak ribbon; the traveller is fastened to the inside of the stern. Don't forget to put an iron ring on it before it is fastened down. That finishes the iron-work.
Your hull is now done, with the exception of a few minor details. The combing of the cockpit is to be made of half-inch oak three inches high. Nail to the edge of the deck inside. The bitt for the bowsprit to be stepped in runs through the deck and into the keelson. Calk the seams with oakum and white lead, and give the hull a priming coat of paint. Then go ahead and get out your spars. Take the measurements from the side elevation at the bottom of the page. Make the spars of yellow pine. Running rigging, three-eighth-inch Manila rope; standing rigging, half-inch Manila rope. Brass rings on masts; smaller ones on jib-stay. Sails of yacht drill. Two rows of reefing points. Jib-sheets to run through eyelets, then aft to cleats near the stern. Make a spreader for the topmast-stays three feet long; good stiff wire three-sixteenths of an inch will do. Turn an eye at either end, and run stay through it.
Paint the hull black, inside drab, oak ribbon dark red, and beading yellow. If you like, you may put on a water-line. Varnish spars, combing, and deck. As for the latter, you had better paint that buff.
[OUR NINE-POUNDER.]
BY GEORGE H. COOMER.
While I belonged to the whaling bark Hector, cruising in the Gulf of Guinea, and occasionally touching upon the coast, there would now and then come to our knowledge some incident connected with the slave-trade, and more than once our curiosity was excited by the sight of suspicious vessels.
We learned, among other things, that the most notorious craft of the slaver fleet was a Brazilian brig called the Dom Pedro, having a crew of seventy men, with a pivot twenty-four-pounder and four carronades.
Time after time this brig had been chased by the English cruisers, yet always escaped; and it was very evident that she must have poured golden fortunes into the hands of a number of unscrupulous individuals at Rio Janeiro.
Of such matters we often conversed in the forecastle, while the proximity of the African coast tended to vivify our conceptions of the secret and dreadful traffic of which we had heard and read so much.
Among our foremast hands were two colored men, both hailing from the New England sea-port where the bark belonged, and as well known there as the captain himself, although they had originally been slaves at the South. Recognized as "Black Abe" and "Yellow Jack," they ranked with the best of the Hector's crew; able, willing, and full of jollity. The idiom of the plantation still clung to them, but for years they had followed the sea, and each had a wife and family in our village.
It was with a marked abhorrence that the two blacks would advert to the villainous business of the coast, as if dreaming of some possible but very improbable contingency by which they themselves might yet be consigned to the ghastly hold of a slaver. Of course they could entertain no serious apprehension of the kind, yet the passing thought was natural; and more than once, under the shadow of some sultry African headland, or in view of a vessel of mysterious character, the simple fellows were teased by their white shipmates with good-natured jokes in this direction.
But how little did any of the bark's company imagine the episode which was in reality at hand!
The Hector having made a somewhat fortunate cruise wanted at length but one or two whales. In quest of these she ran up the Bight of Benin; and here, close in with the coast, we presently raised a large school.
Our three boats were lowered, and we commenced a long and weary chase, the wildness of the game making it almost impossible to arrive within striking distance.
The general direction of the pursuit being to windward, the bark could follow us only by short tacks, so that, after a time, her topmasts alone were visible above the horizon; and at sunset, the atmosphere having become somewhat hazy, she was wholly out of sight. Nor from the mate's boat, in which I was, could we discern either of the two others, so widely had the chase scattered the three consorts.
About five miles off, however, was a vessel of some kind, nearly or quite becalmed, which might be a merchantman, a whaler, a man-of-war, or perhaps something of more questionable character.
"I guess," said Mr. Gale, the mate, "that the old man and Mr. Orne have pulled back to the bark. At all events, we may as well give it up first as last, for it's—"
"There she blows!" called Yellow Jack, looking off to starboard. And "There she blows!" said Black Abe, as a second spout ascended, close to the first; for the two colored men were both of our boat's crew.
The whales, three in number, which had come to the surface not a quarter of a mile off, may have made a portion of the dispersed school we had pursued. This time they appeared unsuspicious, and we approached very near them. Our oars had been laid aside, and we had taken silently to our paddles, all of us standing carefully up, and each plying his noiseless implement.
Suddenly there was a rushing sound close beside us, a cataract of water tumbled against the boat, and a fourth whale, shooting his square head twenty feet high, "breached," as the sailors call the movement, not ten yards from our gunwale. Impelled toward us by his momentum, he fell with his under-jaw just grazing the side of our poor little craft.
Confused, or, as whalemen call it, "galleyed," by the accident of his position, the monster, instead of turning away from us, started straight on, overturning and crushing the boat, and leaving us in the water, his three hitherto motionless companions gliding off almost as rapidly as himself.
It was one of those accidents to which whalemen are always liable, and which no watchfulness can avert.
Six in number, we clung to the wreck of the boat, confident that the Hector would pick us up in the morning, should not the unknown vessel, which was still in sight, anticipate her in so doing.
As it grew dark, however, the stranger, who seemed to have scarcely any wind, and so but very gradually neared us, was lost to view. Presently a very faint concussion broke the evening air, and we knew that the Hector, perhaps some twelve or fifteen miles off, had fired her nine-pounder to make us aware of her position. Probably Captain Phillips, our commander, and Mr. Orne, the second mate, had long since returned to the vessel, where our own absence must cause some anxiety.
Twice after this during the night the signal was repeated. At length the day broke, and not more than a mile off we saw the becalmed stranger of the previous evening, with a light breeze just beginning to fill his sails.
As he came up within a cable's length of us, we were surprised at the number of his crew; and it was with a kind of startled curiosity that, as his vessel—a large, rakish, full-rigged brig—rolled lazily in the groundswell, we caught glimpses of a heavy cannon mounted amidships on her deck, so high that it could be fired over her low bulwarks.
She might have run directly for us, and taken us on board by means of lines, but her captain preferred rather to lower a boat. None of us liked the appearance of things, and all glanced instinctively at Black Abe and Yellow Jack.
From the mingled tongues upon the brig's deck, in several of which we were hailed, we judged her crew to be composed chiefly of Spaniards and Portuguese, with a sprinkling of English or Americans.
The boat was manned with armed sailors, and as she came up to us, one of her hands, who acted as spokesman in English for the others, commanded Jack and Abe to get on board of her. The poor terrified fellows refused; but the ruffians pricked them with their bayonets, and threatened them with instant death in case of further hesitation.
"We want nothing of the rest of you," said the hard-featured villain who had first spoken; "your ship will pick you up by-and-by, and we can't be bothered with saving a parcel of blubber-hunters; but we take wool and ivory wherever we can find them."
The feeble resistance of the two colored men was speedily overcome, and, wounded and bleeding, they were dragged into the boat, Mr. Gale and the rest of us expostulating vainly as we lay helpless on the floating boards.
Poor Abe! poor Jack! we saw them forced up the gangway of the sharp, saucy brig, and driven upon her deck. It was a spectacle at which Mr. Gale shed tears of grief and rage, while the indignation of his remaining crew equalled his own. We thought of the families of the kidnapped men—the simple wives and the little dark children who would be looking for the two stout colored tars when the Hector should get home.
"That brig," said the mate, "I think, is the Dom Pedro. I would rather have lost all I shall make on this voyage than have had such a thing happen. The miserable, cowardly villains!"
A few hours later a boat from the Hector picked us up; but when we reached our vessel, the slaver was out of sight. With a freshening breeze, she had stood along the coast, the tall tree-tops of which were barely discernible from aloft, and would doubtless enter some neighboring inlet or river's mouth, where her living freight might be in waiting.
For three days on board the Hector little was talked of but our two hapless shipmates and their wretched fate. In the mean while, however, remaining upon the same cruising ground, we secured the amount of oil required to fill the vessel.
The last of our blubber was boiled out in the night; and at daybreak next morning we heard the report of guns, as if some vessel were pursued and fired upon by another.
As the sky lighted up, we made out a brig under full sail, standing directly toward us, and presently saw that she was chased by a ship. The firing, however, had now ceased; probably from the fact that the fugitive had widened the distance between herself and her pursuer. We were standing easily along under short sail, and the two strangers were rapidly coming up astern of us, each crowding all his canvas in the exciting trial of speed.
"That's the villain," cried Mr. Gale, looking steadily through his glass—"the very scoundrel that stole my men. But he'll get away, after all. That British sloop of war can't sail with him—he's run her out of gunshot already!"
All who had been in the mate's boat saw that the coming brig was indeed the kidnapper of poor Jack and Abe. Her low black hull and symmetrical spars were not to be mistaken.
Again the pursuing ship essayed two or three shots from her bow guns, but the distance was evidently too great, and once more she ceased firing. There could be no doubt that the piratical slaver would escape her, and the excitement and chagrin of our own crew became intense.
The fleeing vessel passed within a furlong of us, and was soon ahead. What a tempting mark she presented, with those long and tapering yards and jaunty topmasts!
Captain Phillips was a man of quick impulses and determined resolution. The scoundrels who had insulted him by stealing his men were close under his eyes, and almost within pistol-shot. The ship of war in chase could not cripple the brig by her distant fire. He glanced about the Hector's decks, and a bare possibility suggested itself.
"Get ready that nine-pounder!" he cried. "Mr. Orne, have up the powder. You'll find three or four cannon-balls down there too. And now bear a hand, for there's no time to lose."
Mr. Orne, taking with him a couple of the crew, ran below, and five minutes later, the long nine—an old but somewhat handsome gun—stood grimly ready for action, having within it a heavy charge of powder and two well-fitting balls.
The Hector's course was altered for the occasion, so that the gun could be brought to bear on the brig from what is called a "swing port," and then all save the captain stepped back while he arranged his aim.
"When I give the word," he said to Mr. Gale, who held the match, "don't lose a fraction of an instant—let her go at once."
How keenly he squinted along that trusty old gun! How carefully he raised or depressed its breech! Now it was an inch too high, now an inch too low.
"Ah! there! there!" he muttered; "no!—yes!—that's it!—just a little!—just a frac— Let her go!"
The gun almost parted its breech tackles with the recoil, as the charge burst from the muzzle, tearing our nerves with its noise.
"I haven't hit her!" cried the captain, springing to the side, and gazing almost wildly at the brig—"haven't touched her. Load up again! Where's your powder? Load up, load up!"
"Hold on, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Gale. "Look! look! What's the matter with her foretopmast? It's going, sir—it's going."
As he spoke, the foretopmast of the slaver leaned heavily to leeward; then, like a falling tree by a river's brink, went swashing into the water.
The game was up with the fast-sailing brig. Confounded by the disaster, her crew attempted no revenge upon us, as they might have done, with their pivot cannon; and in less than half an hour the Dom Pedro, as she proved to be, was a prize to the pursuing sloop of war. Both our nine-pound balls had taken effect aloft.
It was found that the Brazilian brig had on board no less than five hundred slaves, among whom, to our great joy, were discovered Black Abe and Yellow Jack. The captain of the British cruiser delivered over to us our two shipmates; while with the rest of the blacks, the prisoners, and the prize, he prepared to bear away for Sierra Leone, where the wretched Africans would once more breathe the air of freedom.
How happy were Abe and Jack! How they laughed and cried, danced and wept! And oh! the tales they told us of the miserable slave brig!
In two months thereafter we arrived home with a full ship; and when the Hector had been hauled in at the pier head, it did us all good to see four little colored children, followed by their mothers, come running down to the water-side to be folded in the arms of the warm-hearted fellows who so short a time before must utterly have despaired of such a meeting.
"Dar's de ole gun dat saved us," said Abe, to his little family, indicating the nine-pounder.
"An' dar's de man dat aimed it," responded Jack, with a grateful look toward Captain Phillips.
And so they went up the wharf.
[THE NEWSBOYS' HOME,]
AND HOW IT HELPED JOE.
BY F. E. FRYATT.
"Here's yer five o'clock e-dishun, Post, Express, an' Commercial—full account of Gen-er-ull Garfield on the tow-path!" shouted three urchins, planting themselves directly before a portly old gentleman who was slowly puffing up stairs to the elevated railway.
"Clear out, you little scamps!" grumbled the besieged, adding, more amiably, as he caught sight of the youngest of the three, "give me a Post, sonny, and change this quarter."
"Thankee, sur," said Joe Brown, the lucky competitor, diving into the deepest of pockets for the needful coppers, then dashing pell-mell after his comrades in pursuit of a probable customer.
"Post, Express, an' Commercial—full account of Gen-er-ull Garfield!" still rang the cry an hour later, while in and out, up and down and across the streets, darted the lithe, eager little fellows, until the crowd began to thin out, the papers were nearly all sold, and a distant bell reminded them that if they wanted their six-cent supper, it was high time to be off for the Lodging-House.
Let us follow them as they hasten to the lofty brick building which stands on the triangle formed by the meeting of New Chambers, Duane, and North William streets. The great doors are wide open; we pass in with Joe, his two comrades, and half a score of bustling, laughing lads, mount two long flights of stone steps, and enter the large lecture or school room on the second story, with its rows of desks and benches, and the convenient lockers or closets against the walls.
BEING REGISTERED.
One by one, in orderly fashion, the boys step within the iron railing, state their names, ages, and parentage to the clerk, receive numbered keys to their lockers, and pass on.
Here a lad locks up his bundle of unsold papers until after supper, another his blacking-box and brushes, a third his hat and jacket; then away for the lavatory, with its long ranges of foot and plunge baths, and its shining basins under the bright copper faucets.
Business must be unusually brisk, or the demands of the "inner man" unusually lively, if one may judge by the celerity with which the boys appear, brushed and combed and ruddy-faced, for supper.
"Hurry up, Bill, and get yer ticket," cried Joe, passing up to the desk, and depositing twelve cents for bed and supper, then taking his place at the end of the line that was already on the move.
"Sixty, sixty-one, two, three, four," calls the Superintendent as the boys file past, and the tramp of descending feet comes to us through the open doorway.
AT SUPPER.
By the time we reach the dining-room, with its expanse of polished floors and high column-supported ceiling, seventy or eighty boys are seated at long tables, which present an inviting appearance with their white enamelled cloths, platters piled high with bread, and rows of capacious bowls steaming with fragrant tea.
What a busy scene it is for the time! the bread mountains diminish like snow before the sun, the tea fountains vanish like rain on thirsty soil, and the young women attendants, in their neat dresses and aprons, pass to and fro continually with their renewing bread trays and flagons of tea and syrup.
The majority of the boys laugh and chatter like magpies, but here and there sits a silent little news merchant, whose mind, absorbed with visions of "extras," hurries him on to the wished-for future.
See, there they go, half a dozen of them, with quick steps and anxious faces; they will notify the watchmen that they must keep late hours, and pay the required trifle for retaining their locker keys beyond time. Up to midnight their shrill cries will ring through the gas-lighted thoroughfares of the great city, while many—or, indeed, most—of the young readers of this paper are dreaming happy dreams in bed.
It is now nearly eight o'clock, supper is over, and the boys disperse for the short evening left them before bed-time; for all must be within-doors at half past nine, or pay a fine.
THE GYMNASIUM.
Some of the boys go out for a walk, others, I am sorry to say, to spend their earnings at the cheap theatres and shows of the city; but the sensible ones drop their spare pennies or silver coins into the odd-looking savings-bank near the door, and hasten up stairs to the reading-room or the gymnasium. Let us follow some of them to the latter.
What a jolly place it is! One could have no end of fun with its horizontal and parallel bars, its rings, ladders, and flying trapeze: it is better than a circus.
There's a race for you already on that long ladder rising from one side of the room, crossing over, and coming down on the other slantwise. Johnnie Wilson has started at the north end, Billy Jones at the south end. There they go, hand over hand! Now they meet overhead in the middle. I declare, Billy's feet touch the floor first: he has beaten by three rounds.
"Hurrah for Billy! three cheers for Billy Jones!" shout the boys who are watching them.
Yonder three lads are trying their strength lifting iron weights in the corner. Tough work they find it, and soon leave to take a look at a comrade who hangs by his feet from a horizontal bar.
Now he swings back and forth before the little group, who are eager to risk their necks in the wonderful experiment.
See! he lets go, and with a dexterous swing catches by his hands, and drops safe and sound before his admirers.
This is nothing to what is going on yonder, where two boys are performing prodigious feats on the flying trapeze, squirming and twisting, and turning somersaults, hanging by their chins, then by their toes, and then by each other, until the looker-on trembles and grows dizzy.
Let us look for wee Joe Brown; he is not here, neither is he in the reading-room below-stairs, where a dozen or more youngsters are amusing themselves quietly, some reading story-books and illustrated papers, others playing checkers or dominos.
I'll tell you where Joe is. He is one of the early birds. Since four o'clock in the morning, when he went out for his daily papers, only when he ate his simple meals, his busy little feet have paddled about the great city, his childish voice has shrilled forth the familiar cry, "Sun, Herald, an' Tri-bune, Post, 'Xpress, an' Commercial," until, too sleepy to read, too weary for even the fascination of watching the flying "trapezeists," he sought the solid comfort of the dormitory.
THE DORMITORY.
Look in at the long tiers of beds one above another, like berths in a steam-boat. In number 69 you will find Joe sleeping the sleep of the innocent and weary.
Would not the young people like to hear how Joe happens to be in the Newsboys' Home? I'll tell you. It all came about through Lenny Williams, who is a "call-boy" at one of the small theatres up town, and lives at the Duane Street Lodging-House.
Very late one stormy night in midwinter, as he was coming home from his work, he fancied he heard a child sobbing, and stopping, he discovered by the feeble flickering light of a gas lamp a small figure crouching in the low doorway of one of the old-fashioned shops of that quarter.
His heart gave a great bound of pity and sympathy for the poor homeless little creature so tattered and forlorn. His own jacket was wet without, but within it was dry and warm. To pull it off and place it around the shoulders of the shivering child was but the work of an instant.
"Get up on your pins, little 'un, an' come along with me," said Lenny, assisting him, and buttoning the jacket close under his throat.
With difficulty the poor child, whom you must have guessed before this was Joe Brown, rose and limped along, for he was stiff with cold and weak with hunger.
Before they reached the Lodging-House, Lenny won from him his pitiful story—how, driven from home by the cruelty of his drunken father and step-mother, he had wandered the streets from day to day, managing by dint of begging and running errands, and sleeping in dark corners known only to the wretched and homeless, to keep soul and body together while the fine weather lasted.
A kind old apple woman only yesterday had given him a basket, and some matches to sell; but then came the cold, pitiless rain, and nobody wanted to buy anything; so he had strayed from street to street, until he had lost his way in the dark, and sat down, utterly worn out and famished, where Lenny found him.
"Yes, chicken," said Lenny, as he finished his sad story, "you'd hev froze to death as sure as a gun. But cheer up; here we're home at last."
Never will Joe forget the glow and warmth of the "drying-room" into which he was led. There were three other boys there hanging up their wet clothes to dry.
And wasn't the bath warm and delightful into which they plunged him!
For a long time Joe could not understand why there should be a clean, whole shirt, a jacket and trousers, socks and shoes, all ready for such a poor miserable little stranger.
And the bowl of hot bread and milk, what a luxury it was!—surely he must be in heaven, the place where all good, unhappy boys go when they die. Perhaps he had really died, out in that pitiless storm, and was there? He rubbed his eyes, and expected to see wings, and was disappointed at not finding them.
The books of the institution tell how the seven-year-old child, deserted by his inhuman parents, was taken within the sheltering doors of the Lodging-House; but in another book the recording angel has written how a simple "call-boy" on that dark night did the will of his heavenly Master.
That night Joe had a blessed sleep in his little bed with its nice sheets and downy "comfortables," so that when he woke the next morning he was a new little man; but after breakfast he was happier than a king, for the Superintendent loaned him a small sum of money to buy some newspapers.
Two or three of the boys volunteered to teach him "lots" about selling them; and they did, for before night he had sold two sets of morning and evening papers.
A prouder, more independent little fellow than Joe can not be found anywhere, because he not only earns his meals and lodging, and helps a comrade occasionally, but every night drops pennies or nickels into savings-box No. 90.
This he has been doing for some months; at the end of each he receives ten per cent. interest.
Joe, being studious and ambitious, faithfully attends the evening schools; he does not mean to grow up to be an ignorant, useless man; besides, he must make the most of his time, for he indulges in the dream of a happy home in the country, and though he hasn't told me, I am sure he is saving up that money to buy a good stock of books to take with him.
[LITTLE BIDDY'S BIRTHDAY.]
BY CHARA B. CONANT.
"Mother, can I have a birthday?"
"A birthday?" asked Mrs. Keaney, pausing in the midst of her washing, and looking down, half bewildered, half amused, at her little daughter.
"Yes, mother. I have birthdays, don't I, just the same as Mabel Ray?"
"Shure there's no mistake about that, darlint," laughed her mother, resuming her work. "Eight years ago next week you came into this throublesome world. That's two things we have in common wid the rich, innyhow—the day of our birth, an' the day of our death."
"But, mother," persisted Biddy, her big blue eyes rounder still with eagerness, "can't I have a party on my birthday? Mabel Ray had one last week; Eliza told me so. An' she had ice-crame, an' cake wid raisins in it, an' a wax doll what opens its eyes, an' lots o' children come to play wid her. An', oh, mother—"
"Sakes alive, Biddy! what's got into you?" said her mother, gazing down at her with a mingling of pride, amusement, and regret. No bonnier child than Biddy could you find anywhere. Her complexion was a pure red and white, her hair chestnut, falling in natural curls over her shoulders, her mouth as sweet a rose-bud as Mabel Ray's.
"She's as pretty as inny lady's child of them all," thought her mother; "an' as gintle an' good." But aloud she said, decidedly:
"Honey, you're talkin' nonsinse. I've hard work enough to kape us both in bread an' mate, let alone clothes, widout givin' parties for you. Ice-crame an' cake, indade! It's a nigger waiter you'll be wantin' nixt, to be openin' the door for your stylish frinds," she went on, chuckling, as she wrung out one of Mrs. Ray's embroidered white skirts.
"Oh, mother, I know you couldn't give me such a party. But I thought I might have just a few little frinds in to play wid me, an' we'd have some crackers, an' some ginger cookies maybe; and thim two pinnies you gave me would buy candy an' nuts. An' if—"
"An' who do you want to invite, may I ax?" said the mother, trying not to laugh.
"Oh, mother, if I could ask poor little Jim Swaney, the boy what lives acrost the way—he's lame, you know; an' little Annie his sister. They're so poor, an' the father gets drunk, an' bates thim awful. I'd like thim to have a good time for onst."
"Bliss your little heart!" said the mother; "you shall have thim in an' wilcome, an' I'll buy some cookies to trate thim wid, and maybe something besides. But don't you ask another child in this neighborhood; they're a bould, bad set, as you know, and it's sorry I am we have to live in the midst of thim."
"No, mother, I won't; but I do wish I could ax some of the girls I go to school wid. There's Sally Flynn, and Jenny Dean, an' Mary Connor, and Ann Gormly, an' Kitty Fay, an'—"
"Saints presarve us!" cried Mrs. Keaney. "Do you want to bring all New York in on me? No, no, honey, I can't affoord such a party as that. Be off to school now, like a good child, and don't bother me no more."
But the pleading face of her little girl, the only child she had, haunted Mary Keaney, and when, later in the day, some unexpected work arrived from a lady to whom Mrs. Ray had recommended her, she resolved at once to gratify her darling.
"It comes only onst a year," she said, "an' she's the only child I've got. I'll buy 'em some cookies an' gingerbread, an' a half-dozen limons to make some limonade wid; an' I hope they'll be satisfied, for I can't do no more."
So Biddy, to her great joy, was allowed to invite half a dozen little girls, her most "intimate" friends, to her "party," which would take place Thursday afternoon of the following week.
When Mrs. Keaney took Mrs. Ray's clothes home Thursday afternoon, she told Eliza, the chamber-maid, as a good joke, about her little girl's "party" and the expected guests.
Thursday afternoon came, and about four o'clock "Lame Jim" and his sister arrived, and were received by Biddy, fresh and sweet as a pink in her clean cambric frock, with a rose-colored ribbon tied above her shining hair. Mrs. Keaney had but two little rooms in the third story of a tenement-house, but though poor and scantily furnished, they were kept as clean and sweet as broom and scrubbing-brush could make them.
How happy little Jim was! How his sweet wan face brightened like a pale flower brought into the sunshine! Mrs. Keaney placed him in her one rocking-chair, and gave him and little Annie a drink of milk and a goodly slice of bread and butter straightway, for she knew how little they had to eat at home.
And soon arrived the six girls all together; and what a merry clatter of tongues there was in that little kitchen! They were just as happy as if they had worn silk dresses and kid slippers—happier, perhaps. Soon all were engaged in a merry game of "hide the thimble," Jim as active as any one, hopping nimbly about on his crutches. At last they found the thimble snugly hid in his pocket, where Kitty Fay had cunningly slipped it, unknown even to the boy himself.
Game followed game in quick succession, until Mrs. Keaney, who had been looking on smiling, ordered them into the bedroom.
"Guess she's settin' the table," said Mary Connor: "I hear the dishes rattlin';" and hereupon they all fell a-chuckling. A few moments after, they were called into the next room.
"Ain't it jist illegant?" whispered Ann Gormly to Sally Flynn. "Look at the sugar-cookies! and, oh my! there's limonade. I smell it."
"Can't you behave?" said Sally, reprovingly. "One 'ud think you'd niver been to a party before."
"No more I haven't," said Ann, quite above concealment. "Oh, goody, Sally, there's slices of mate atween the bread an' butter!"
"Ain't she a greedy?" whispered Sally to Jenny.
"Poor thing! they say she's most starved at home," said kindly little Jenny. "Her father's been out of work these three months."
Mary Keaney, hospitable-hearted soul, had not been able to content herself with the bill of fare she at first meditated. The table was bountifully spread with sandwiches, cookies, molasses-cake, rosy-cheeked apples, and a plate of gay-colored candy in the centre.
Biddy's cheeks were like roses, and her eyes like stars. Was there ever such a mother, and such a "party"? The good cheer soon set all the little tongues going, while Mrs. Keaney watched the "fun," well pleased, and kept the plates and glasses filled.
In the midst of their festivity Mrs. Keaney was called down stairs. She came up in a few moments with something wrapped up in her apron.
The children were too absorbed to notice her, but when in a few moments she appeared bearing a big earthen platter exultingly aloft, what a shout went up from all the little throats!
"Ice-crame! ice-crame!" Even demure Sally joined in the cry; and Ann Gormly nearly fell out of her chair in her joyful excitement.
"Oh, mother! mother! have you given all your money for my party?" cried Biddy, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and feeling a pang of self-reproach amid her transports.
"My lamb, who sent it I don't know, but I mistrust Mrs. Ray. An' look at the illegant cake wid the dape white frostin', an' the Charlotte-Russys too!" she added, setting two other dishes on the table. The children sat a moment dumb with admiration, then set up another shout.
"The man said he'd a horrible job to find the place, an' I reckon it's the first time ice-crame an' Charlotte-Russys found their way to Rid Lane!" said Mrs. Keaney, who scarcely knew whether to laugh or cry herself.
"Oh, mother, wasn't it lovely in Mrs. Ray?"
"Troth it was, darlint. It must be Eliza tould her, and—"
"Scarcely were the words out of her mouth, when a loud rap at the door made her start.
"Sakes alive! I hope nobody's come to say the ice-crame wint to the wrong place!" She opened the door; there stood John, Mrs. Ray's colored man.
"Good-evenin', Mrs. Keaney," surveying her with a condescending smile. "Here's a package for Biddy, with Miss Mabel's love. Sorry to be so late, but I had a number of other errands, and it was hard to find the place. Good-evenin'," and before Mrs. Keaney could speak, he was gone, anxious to escape a reproof from his mistress for his delay.
With trembling fingers Mrs. Keaney undid the strings, while the little group looked breathlessly on. But when at last she brought out a doll—a lovely wax doll, with golden hair and large brown eyes—a cry of admiration broke from all but Biddy. She stood speechless, with flushed cheeks and dilated eyes, gazing up at the doll.
"Och, darlin', where's your tongue?" cried Mrs. Keaney. "Such a swate doll, dressed up so illegant, an' she can open an' shut her eyes! Look, honey, look! Why, what are you crying for?"
"It's too beautiful!" sobbed little Biddy. "Everythin's so beautiful, I don't know what to do.'"
That night, as Biddy lay in her bed, while her mother was tucking her in, she said, with a long sigh, "Oh, mother! mother! I'm so glad I've had a birthday! I'll niver forget it as long as I live! Oh, mother, wasn't it jist beautiful?"
"Yes, dear," said Mrs. Keaney. But a little jealous pang gnawing at her heart made her add, "I couldn't give you ice-crame, darlin', nor wax dolls, but—"
Biddy threw both her arms round her mother's neck. "Oh, mother! dear, darlin' mother! what you did was most of all. Oh, there niver was a mother like mine!"
A tear rolled down the mother's cheek. What reward could be sweeter than those loving words, the clasp of those little arms about her neck? And so ended Biddy's happy birthday.
[PHIL'S FAIRIES.]
BY MRS. W. J. HAYS,
Author of "Princess Idleways," etc.
Chapter I.
THE WIND HARP.
"Oh, Lisa, how many stars there are to-night! and how long it takes to count just a few!" said a weak voice from a little bed in a garret room.
"You will tire yourself, dear, if you try to do that; just shut your eyes up tight, and try to sleep."
"Will you put my harp in the window? there may be a breeze after a while, and I want to know very much if there is any music in those strings."
"Where did you get them, my darling?"
"From Joe."
"Joe, the fiddler?"
"Yes, he brought me a handful of old catgut; he says he does not play any more at dances; he is so old and lame that they like a younger darky who knows more fancy figures, and can be livelier. He is very black, Lisa, and I am almost afraid of him; but he is so kind, and he tells me stories about his young days, and all the gay people he used to see. Hark! that is my harp; oh, Lisa, is it not heavenly?"
"I don't know," said poor tired Lisa, half asleep, after her long day's work of standing in a shop.
Phil's harp was a shallow box, across which he had fastened some violin strings rather loosely; and Phil himself was an invalid boy who had never known what it was to be strong and hardy, able to romp and run, or leap and shout. He had neither father nor mother, but no one could have loved him more or have been any gentler or more considerate than was Lisa—poor, plain Lisa—who worked early and late to pay for Phil's lodging in the top of the old house where they lived, and whose whole earthly happiness consisted in making Phil happy and comfortable. It was not always easy to do this, for Phil was a strange child: aside from the pain that he suffered, he had odd fancies and strange likings, the result of his illness, and being so much alone. And Lisa could not always understand him, for she lived amongst other people; rough, plain, careless people, for whom she toiled, and who had no such thoughts as Phil had.
From the large closet that served as her bedroom, Lisa often heard Phil talking, talking, talking, now to this thing, now to that, as if it were real, and had a personality; sometimes his words were addressed to a rose-bush she had brought him, or the pictures of an old volume she had found on a stall of cheap books at a street corner, or the little plaster cast that an image-seller had coaxed her to purchase. Then, again, he would converse with his knife and fork or plate, ask them where they came from, how they were made, and of what material. No answer coming, he would invent all sorts of answers, making them reply in his own words.
Lisa was so used to these imaginary conversations that they did not seem strange to her.
Phil had, too, a passion for music, and would listen intently to the commonest strains of a hand-organ, and Lisa had given him a little toy harmonica, from which he would draw long, sweet tones and chords with much satisfaction.
Old Joe, who blackened boots for some of the lodgers, had heard the child's attempts at music, and had brought his violin, and played for him. One day, happening to leave it for a while on the window-ledge, Phil's quick ear had detected a low vibration from the instrument. This circumstance, and something he had read about a wind harp, had given him the wish to make one—with what success he was anxious to find out, when Lisa laid it in the open window for him.
A soft south wind was blowing, and as Phil spoke, it had stirred the loose strings of the rude Æolian harp, and a slight melodious sound had arisen, which Phil had thought so beautiful. He drew his breath even more softly, lest he should lose the least tone, and finding that Lisa was really asleep, propped himself up higher on his pillows, and gazed out at the star-lit heavens.
He often talked to the stars, but very softly and wonderingly, and somehow he could never find any answers that suited him; but to-night, as the breeze made a low soft music come from his wind harp, filling him with delight, it seemed to him that a voice was accompanying the melody, and that the stars had something to do with it; for, as he gazed, he saw a troop of little beings with gauzy wings fluttering over the window-ledge, and upon the brow of each twinkled a tiny star, and the leading one of all this bevy of wee people sang:
"Come from afar,
Here we are! here we are!
From yon Silver Star,
Fays of the Wind,
To children kind."
"How lovely they are!" thought Phil; "and so these really are fairies. I never saw any before. They have wings like little white butterflies, and how tiny their hands and feet, and what graceful motions they have as they dance over my harp! They seem to be examining it to find out where the music comes from; but no, of course they know all about it. I wonder if they would talk to me?"
"'HOW LOVELY THEY ARE!' THOUGHT PHIL."
"Of course we will be very glad to," said a soft little voice in reply to his thoughts.
"I was afraid I would frighten you away if I spoke," said Phil, gently.
"Oh no," replied the fairy who had addressed him; "we are in the habit of talking to children, though they do not always know it."
"And what do you tell them?" asked Phil, eagerly.
"All sorts of nice things."
"Do you tell them all they want to know?"
"Oh no," laughed the fairy, with a silvery little voice like a canary-bird's. "We can not do that, for we do not know enough to be able to: some children are much wiser than we. I dare say you are."
"Indeed I am not," said Phil, a little sadly; "there are so many things that puzzle me. I thought that perhaps, as you came from the stars, you knew something of astronomy."
"What a long, long word that is!" laughed the fairy again. "But we are wind fairies; and yet the Father of the Winds is called Astræus—that sounds something like your long word, does it not?"
"It sounds more like Astrea, and that means a star."
"Why, where did you learn so much?"
"I saw it in a big book called a dictionary."
"Another long word. Doesn't your head ache?"
"Sometimes, not now. I have not any books now, except picture-books."
"Did you ever have?"
FAST ASLEEP.
"Oh yes; when papa was living we had books, and pictures, and many beautiful things; but there was a great fire, and all sorts of trouble, and now I have only Lisa. But Lisa does not understand as papa did; it was he showed me that word in the dictionary."
"Oh, don't say that great ugly word again! Shall I tell my friends to make some more music?"
"Yes, please."
The wind fairy struck her little hands together, and waved her wings. In a moment the little white troop danced over the strings of the harp, and brought out sweet, wild strains, that made Phil nearly cry for joy. They seemed to be dancing as they did it, for they would join hands and sway to and fro; then, parting, they wound in and out in graceful, wreath-like motions, and the tiny stars on their foreheads flashed like diamonds. Up and down they went, the length of the strings, then across, then back again; and all the time the sweet wild music kept vibrating. "How lovely! how lovely!" said Phil, when there was a pause.
"I am so glad you like it!—we often make music for people, and they hardly hear it," said the fairy.
"I do not see how they can help hearing," said Phil.
"Why, I'll tell you how: we frequently are in the tree-tops, or whirling about low bushes; every soft breeze that blows has some of our music in it, for there are many of us: and yet very few people pay any attention to these sounds."
"When the wind screams and roars in winter, is it you, then, who does that too?" asked Phil.
"Oh no," said the fairy, rustling her wings in some displeasure. "We are of the South Wind only, and have no such rude doings: I hope I may never have any work to do for the North Wind, he is so blustery. Now it is time you went to sleep, and we can not stay longer, for if the moon rises we can not see our star-beams, and might lose our way. We will just fan you a little, and you will soon be in dreamland."
As she spoke, Phil saw her beckon to her troupe, and they all flocked about him, dazzling him so with their starry coronets that he was forced to shut his eyes, and, as he closed them, he felt a gentle wafting as of a hundred little wings about his forehead, and in another moment he was asleep.