[to be continued.]
WILD-BOAR HUNTING IN JAPAN.
BY WILLIAM ELLIOT GRIFFIS.
SPEARING A WILD BOAR.—From an Original Japanese Drawing.
Winter is the harvest-time of the Japanese hunter. The snow-covered ground is a great tell-tale, and the deer, bears, rabbits, and wild hogs can be easily tracked. Though the Japanese hunter often uses a matchlock or rifle, his favorite weapons are his long spear and short sword. He covers his head with a helmet made of plaited straw, having a long flap to protect his neck, and keep out the snow or rain. His feet are shod with a pair of sandals made of rice straw, his baggy cotton trousers are bound at the calves with a pair of straw leggings, and in wet weather he puts on a grass rain cloak. To see a group of hunters stalking through the forests in Japan, as I have often seen them, reminds one of bundles of straw out on a tramp.
I once enjoyed a dinner of fresh boar-steak at the house of a famous Japanese hunter named Nakano Kawachi, who lived in a village at the top of a mountain, between the provinces of Omi and Echizen. I had been travelling all the morning on snow-shoes through the forests of Echizen. The snow was full of tracks of deer, hogs, rabbits, woodchucks, weasels, martens, porcupines, monkeys, and ferrets. The hunters were out in force, and their shouts made the forest ring with echoes. Our path lay through a valley, with rocks on either side.
Just as we were within a mile of a village named Toné, a wild boar, closely pressed by a man with a spear, rushed down through the woods, and around a huge mass of rocks. The hunter, knowing every inch of the ground, sprang round a shorter curve, and reached the path at the end of the gully just as the boar at full trot leaped down. Levelling his long weapon, with all his might he drove the blade with a terrific lunge between the boar's ribs, just back of the heart. So great was the impetus of the swift animal that the hunter was nearly taken off his feet, while the boar turned a complete somersault. We expected to see the blade of the lance snap, or the handle wrench off; but no, steel and wood were too true. The boar struggled and rolled over the bloody snow, but was helpless to get on his feet again. The hunter quietly drew out the steel, wiped it with a bunch of dead leaves, and then, with equal coolness, drew his sword and severed the jugular vein of the dying boar.
By this time the hunter's two sons, who had helped to start the animal from his lair, came down the hill. Passing two strands of rope made of rice straw around the carcass, they inserted a thick bamboo pole under the withes. Then swinging the pole over their shoulders, they started off on a dog-trot to the village, shouting as they went. We followed them, and when near the village gate heard a bedlam of unearthly yells and whoops of triumph from all the boys and girls of the village, who were proud of their famous hunter. We had entered into conversation with him, and learned that his name was Nakano Kawachi.
Our party, at the invitation of the hunter, entered his house, first taking off our shoes. We all sat round the fire, which was in a great square hearth in the middle of the floor, while the chimney was a gaping black funnel in the ceiling. My party consisted of three of my students from the government school of Fukui, my interpreter, a brave soldier named Inouyé, and my body-servant Sahei. The six mountaineers with huge wide snow-shoes, whom I hired for the size of their feet to beat a path in the snow-drift for our party, remained outside with the villagers. They, with their children, stood in crowds outside to catch a sight of me, as they had never seen an American before.
Our host, first unstrapping his sword, carefully wiped and cleansed his spear, which he stands on its iron butt in the corner. We all sit around the fire, on which turnips and rice are boiling and omelet is frying. All around the ceiling from the smoky rafters hang strings of large dried persimmons, almost as sweet and luscious as figs. These we munch while Nakano cuts tenderloin steaks from half the carcass of a boar which he speared the day before. In a few moments seven hungry travellers are watching the sputtering, sizzling boar-steak as it wafts its appetizing odors everywhere, as it seems, but up the chimney.
"Is this the second wild hog you've speared this winter?" asks Iwabuchi, the interpreter.
"No, your honor," answers Nakano; "the snow began to fall ten days ago, and this is the eighth hog I have killed; but yesterday I speared my first boar this winter."
"How long have you been a hunter?"
"Hai! your honor, ever since I was a boy. I speared my first hog when I was fifteen."
"What do you do with the boar's tusks?"
"Hai! your honor, they are the most valuable part of the animal. I sell them to an agent of an ivory-carving shop in Tokio, who comes through these parts in the spring. The Tokio men carve nétsukés from them. They are not as good as ivory, but they do for bimbo [poor men]. My own nétsuké is of boar's tusk."
"Meshi shitaku" (rice is ready), cried the housewife, at this moment, and conversation was suspended. A little table of lacquered wood a foot square and four inches high was set before each man of our party. With chopsticks for the rice and knives for the boar-steak, we partook of the hunter's fare. The march of eight miles in the frosty air, plodding our way through drifts, and stepping on snow-shoes, which furnished good exercise for our legs, had made us ravenously hungry. When full, and all had said "Mo yoroshio" (even enough) to the polite girls who waited on us, we walked out to the front, where a gaping crowd gazed at the American white-face, as if they were at Barnum's, and he was the Tattooed Man. I rushed at them, pretending to catch the children, when they scattered like sheep. In their fright they tumbled over each other, until a dozen or more were sprawling on the snow or had tumbled head-foremost in the drifts. A smile, and the distribution of some sugared cakes of peas and barley, made them good friends again. After an hour's rest we bade the hunter, the villagers, and our snow-shoe men good-by, and resumed our journey in single file over the mountains to Tokio.
SEEKING HIS FORTUNE.
BY MRS. W. J. HAYS.
A boy sat whistling on a fence. He was a lad of twelve years, and worked at all sorts of odd chores on the river farm, which sent most of its produce down to the city on the barges which one sees on the Hudson River, headed by little steam-tugs, and which are commonly called "tows." This boy, Tom Van Wyck, was a poor boy, and worked hard; he did not much care for the beautiful hills which encompassed the winding, gleaming river, nor the fair and fertile fields beyond, but he had an adventurous and daring spirit, which just now was working up in the manner of yeast when it is pushing its way through the mass of unbaked bread. All sorts of bubbles were bothering his brain, and foremost was the wish to leave his country home, and go to the great city of which he had heard so much, but about which he knew little. Aunt Maria, he was sure, would never say "yes" to his project. She looked upon the city as a great den of thieves, and she did not want Tom to go there; but he was tired of being a farm hand, and thought it would be fine to stand behind a counter, to wear kid gloves on a Sunday, to be able to buy good broadcloth and shining boots—indeed, with one bound to be a merchant prince whose grandeur should be the town talk.
He had not very clear ideas as to how all this was to be attained, but he knew he could work hard; he had read how many a poor boy had struggled up to fame, and he meant to try, anyhow. And now, as he sat on the fence whistling, he was considering a plan of action. There was no use in being too tender-hearted. He would have to leave Aunt Maria without asking permission. True, the little red house by the hill was a snug little home, and his aunt toiled hard to make it so; but would he not come home to her with silks and diamonds which should so outshine her best alpaca that it would only do for common use? Often down at the dock he had talked with the men on the boats, but he knew none of them other than as Jack and Bill. His proposed plan was to leave some night quietly, get on a barge, go to the city, and secure work; then write home to Aunt Maria, and make his peace with her. Perhaps if Aunt Maria had known all these thoughts, she might have been less harsh when Tom scolded about farm-work, and called it drudgery; but she had a scornful way of sniffing at him and his ideas, which made Tom more and more close and reserved. On this very day, when the momentous project was ripening, she had said he was lazy, that "a rolling stone gathered no moss," that the "boy was father to the man," and that if all he could do was to whistle and whittle, he had better go over to Squire Green's and help them shuck their corn.
"Shuck corn! In a week's or a month's time he'd show her what he could do."
It was a clear October night, calm and beautiful, and Tom rose softly, tied his best suit up in a bundle with a couple of shirts, took off his shoes—he had not undressed—slipped down stairs, unfastened the door, which, however, was only latched, and crept out into the moonlight. He paused to count the few silver pieces in his little well-worn purse, took one long look at the red house, and especially at the window where little Jane's yellow head was oftenest to be seen—for Aunt Maria was mother as well as aunt to these two motherless children—and away he went. If he had any qualms of conscience, they were soon forgotten in the excitement of the moment. The walk was not a long one to the river-side, and he had made a right guess as to the time the night boat would land. One by one a sleepy head appeared from the sheds as the boat neared the wharf, but despite the moonlight, no one noticed him particularly as he slipped stealthily on board, and to his great relief the truck was soon shipped, the gang-plank drawn up, and the steamboat making its white furrow through the sparkling water. He was too wide-awake now to think of sleeping, and after paying his fare, sat down to watch the progress of the boat. By-and-by the moon sank, and it was dark; the chilly dawn soon came, and then long rows of sparkling lights appeared; the tall spires of the town; the masts of the shipping; the flitting ferry-boats, each with its green or scarlet blaze of lantern; rows of house-tops; docks; wharves; flag-staffs; sheds. This, then, was the great city of his hopes.
Now there was a stirring and calling; a rush of men to the work of unlading; a heaving of ropes, winding of cables, shouts, curses, the rattling of carts on the piers, the tinkle of bells on the cars, the roar of escaping steam, the scream of whistles, and the foul smells of garbage and bilge-water. He watched the men at their work, he saw the passengers come out, with sleepy eyes and sodden faces, and take their departure. He too must go—but where? He wandered off the pier in a maze. Where should he go? what should he do in all this crowd of strange faces? He was hungry, and stopped at an apple stand, where a woman in a huge cap and plaid shawl sold him an apple and a molasses cake. He asked her if she knew where he could get work.
"Shure an' I don't. It is hard enough to find it for my boy Jim, lettin' alone sthrangers."
He went up to a man pitching boxes on a cart, and asked him the same question.
"Be off, now! none of your nonsense with me," was the reply.
To a dozen he spoke, and with little variety in the replies.
This was somewhat disheartening, but of course he could not expect success at once. He must keep up a stout heart, so on he walked. It was a fine clear morning, but the air seemed to him heavy with bad odors, and he had never seen such filth as lay in the streets before him. The children looked wan and wizened and old, the grown people cross and care-worn; but by-and-by the streets improved; he came to the region of shops, where it was somewhat cleaner, and now every window attracted his gaze. There was so much to look at that he forgot himself until hunger again attacked him. One window was most inviting—raw oysters reposing in their shells, boiled eggs, salad, strings of sausages, and a juicy array of pies. He went in and asked the price of a dinner. "Fifty cents," was the reply of a personage whose florid countenance and well-oiled locks looked unctuous.
Tom glanced at his purse in a corner. It was all he possessed, so he turned away. A little farther on was another window of the same sort, only the pies looked drier, and the viands staler; and as an ornament, flanked by beer bottles, was a queer, dwarfish-looking man built of empty oyster shells. He peered into the shop, and looked so hungry, that a man shouted at him in a manner that was not meant to be unkind, but which startled him much: "Vat for you comes here, hey? Can you open oyshters? Ve vant some one to open two or tree hundert; ve have one supper here to-night—the 'Bavarian Brüders' meet. If you can do the vork, you may have von goot sqvare meal." Tom hardly understood the man, but the gestures aided him, and putting his bundle down, he set to work on the cellar steps. Talk of farm-work being drudgery any more! In the pure, sweet October air they were gathering apples for the cider-press to-day. Tom remembered well what would have been his portion, as he sat on the dirty cellar steps and pegged away with his oyster-knife. It took him a long while to get the right touch, to clip off the muddy edge of the shells, to pry into the bivalve without injury to the luscious morsel within, and then to slip it into the big tin pail at hand. He got a bad cut in the palm as he did it, but he bound it up with his handkerchief, finished his score, and asked the man for his dinner.
"You tink I gif you von plate und knife und fork und napkin; no, go to vork at the oyshters, und here is brod a blenty." So he had to take his meal as he could get it on the cellar stairs, but he stowed away enough to satisfy him before he again started on his travels. The food revived his drooping spirits, and he made bold to ask more people for work. Some shook their heads without a word; some said, "No, my boy," in a kind sort of way that made a lump come in his throat; others told him to go to the place assigned to evil spirits; and others again stared at him and passed on. This was not very promising. It was now late in the day, and he was far from the steamboat landing. He knew nobody, and was just wondering where he should pass the night, when a boy with a box strung by a leathern strap over his shoulder jostled him. He was a rough fellow, about his own age, but there was a twinkle in his eye which emboldened Tom to speak to him.
"Do you know where I can get any work to do?"
The boy put his fingers aside of his nose, winked violently, and made a grimace, but said nothing.
"I'm in earnest," said Tom. "I want work badly."
"Yes, in my eye!" was the response, regarding Tom's more decent apparel.
"Oh, but I do. What is your trade?"
"Now see here, feller-citizen, if you've any idea of comin' on my beat, I jist warn ye ye'd better git at once," and he shook his fist in Tom's face to make the reply more emphatic.
"But I have not," said Tom, anxiously. "I only want work of some sort, and a decent lodging. I'm just from the country, and don't know a soul in this town; besides, I've hurt my hand, and it pains a good deal."
"Let's see. I'm a crack doctor on all the fellers' cuts."
Tom unbound his hand, and the youthful Æsculapius gazed at it with great interest.
"That'll knock you up yet," was the comforting diagnosis, with a wise shake of the head. "Bad place to git a cut. Jim Jones had one jist in that spot, and it festered, and hurt him so he had to go to the hospital."
"Pshaw!" said Tom.
"Ye'd better get yer granny to poultice it."
"I tell you I don't know a human being in this city, and I haven't an idea where I am going to sleep to-night."
The boy surveyed him doubtfully.
"You might go to the station-house."
"Not if I know it," said Tom, whose visions of grandeur, though dimmer, were not to be brought down so low.
"Then there's the Newsboys' Lodging-House."
"Could I get in there? But I don't know the way."
"Come along with me; I'll show yer. I sleep there most o' the time."
This was, indeed, unforeseen good fortune, and Tom embraced it heartily. As they walked along, Tim got out of him his whole story; and when it was finished, he said to him: "You were a big fool to leave a good home and try your luck here. For one that swims, a hundred sinks. Why, half the time I'm hungry, and the way we fellers gits knocked about is jist awful."
They reached the Lodging-House, and Tom, with his companion's aid, registered his name, got his ticket, and secured a bed. He was so tired he could hardly speak, and the pain in his hand was increasing. In the morning his friend had gone. The matron seeing his suffering dressed his hand, and led him on to tell her who he was and what was his errand to the city. Kindly and patiently, she pointed out to him the great wrong of his beginning, the wickedness of leaving his aunt in ignorance of his whereabouts, the mistake of supposing that it was an easy matter to work one's way up from obscurity to places of trust and honor; that if his endeavors were sanctioned by those in authority over him, and kind friends were willing to assist him and procure him occupation, he yet would find that it would only be by patient labor and constant effort that he could maintain himself, and that larks ready cooked no longer dropped into open mouths. All this and more came home to the sorrowful Tom with great force, for the dirt and jargon of the city were to him very distasteful. His castles were crumbling as he wended his way again to the docks. It was a weary time he had to find the boat which would carry him back, and it was with a grieved spirit that he found himself again at the door of the little red house by the hill. Grieved and weary and hungry, Aunt Maria, whose eyes were red with weeping, perceived him to be, and with wonderful wisdom she kept down her questions, and silently made him comfortable. Little Jane was full of curiosity, and more than one neighbor put their heads in to have a word to say.
TOM TELLS THE STORY OF HIS DAY IN THE CITY.—Drawn by J. Hodgson.
A year afterward, as Tom, Ned Green, and Jonas were busy husking corn in the calm stillness of the fall, when the stacks were all about them, like Indian wigwams, and the stubble only of the golden pumpkins was left in the field, and the beautiful river wound itself away in the distance, bearing all kinds of craft, Tom told them about his day in the city, and said he had concluded that the country was good enough for him, and he meant to be a farmer all the days of his life.
A GREAT CATHEDRAL.
I remember well, when a child, hearing the Cathedral of St. Peter, in Rome, spoken of as being so immense that I thought of an ideal cathedral little less than a mountain in size, and the dome to be seen only as if looking at the stars. When the real cathedral was seen, of course that exaggerated idea had then long been tempered to something like the reality. Yet it was not without a certain pleasure to find that to get a good view, particularly of the dome, it was necessary for me to go from it several miles—to the Pincian hill, or a terrace of the beautiful Villa Doria-Pamfili. The latter view is one of the finest, as nothing else of all Rome is seen. The cathedral stands on the site of Nero's Circus, where many Christians were martyred, and where the Apostle Peter is said to have been buried after his crucifixion. In the year 90 an oratory was built there, and in 306 Emperor Constantine erected a church. It was the grandest of that time, and exceeded in size all existing cathedrals except two, yet was only half the size of the present building.
This cathedral was begun in 1506, and after forty years all the foundations were not built. Then Michael Angelo, though seventy-two years old, was persuaded to be the architect. His predecessor had wasted four years in making a model of the proposed edifice, at a great cost, but he, with marvellous energy, completed his model in a fortnight. Though the work went rapidly on, he knew he could not live to see his cathedral finished, and he patiently made a wooden model of the great dome of exact proportions. From this model his idea was carried out. Twenty popes came and went, pressing the work to completion; eighteen architects planned and replanned, and expended $100,000,000, brought from the four quarters of the globe; and a hundred and fifty years rolled around before St. Peter's was finished. Sixtus V. employed six hundred men, night and day, ceaselessly at work upon the dome.
The cathedral was consecrated on the 18th of November, 1626, the thirteen-hundredth anniversary of a similar rite in the first cathedral. It covers 212,321 square feet of ground, nearly twice the area of the next largest cathedral, that of Milan, which is a little larger than St. Paul's, of London. Its length is about equal to two ordinary city blocks, its width to that of a short block, and its total height that of a long block, or a little less than the height of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. The circumference of the base of the dome is such that two hundred ten-year-old boys and girls clasped hand to hand would just about stretch around it. The dome rests upon four buttresses, each seventy feet thick, and above them runs a frieze carved in letters as high as a man. Then, one above another, are four galleries, from the lower one of which a fine view of the inside of the church can be had.
The little black things seen crawling on the pavement away down below are grown men and women. The whole inside of the dome is of mosaic-work, and set in this are mosaics of the evangelists—colossal figures, you may know, as the pen which St. Luke holds is seven feet long.
The roof of the cathedral is reached by means of an easy slope, up which one could ride on a donkey. Emerging on the roof, all Rome is seen, the country from the mountains, and the blue Mediterranean Sea in the distance. The roof holds a number of small domes, and dwellings for the workmen and custodians, who live there with their families. But stranger still is a fountain fed from the rain caught upon the roof. There we would be as high as the top of many church steeples, but away above us, like a whole mountain, would rise the dome, with a little copper ball on the summit. If our courage and knees did not fail us, we would ascend to that ball by staircases between the internal and external walls of the dome, and find it large enough to hold a score of persons.
So vast is the cathedral's interior that it has an atmosphere of its own—in winter slowly losing the heat of the preceding summer, and in summer slowly warming up for another winter. In cold weather the poor of Rome go there for comfort, as a Roman winter sometimes brings frosty days and ice. A traveller says he once saw a great sheet of ice around the fountain before the cathedral, and some little Romans awkwardly sliding on it. For the sake of doing what he never thought to do in Rome, he took a slide with them. The mosaic pictures, statues, and monuments are almost numberless, and the pavement of colored marble stretches away from the doors like a large polished field. Formerly, on Easter and June 28, the dome, façade, and the colonnades of the cathedral were illumined in the early evening by the light of between four and five thousand lamps. It was called the silver illumination, and is described as having been very grand and delicate. Suddenly, on a given signal, four hundred men, stationed at their posts, exchanged the lamps for lighted pitch in iron pans fastened to the ribs of the dome. Then the dome shone afar as a splendid flaming crown of light.
TIRED OUT.—Drawn by A. B. Frost.
THE LYNX.
An ugly and savage member of the great cat family is the lynx, a creature very numerous in Canada and in the wild forests of our most northern States. It is found all over Northern Europe as well, and in Germany and Switzerland; a smaller variety, called the swamp lynx, is also an inhabitant of Persia, Syria, and some portions of Egypt.
The Canada lynx is a beast about three feet long, with a short stubbed tail, and might easily be mistaken for a large wild-cat. Its fur, which is short and very thick, and of a beautiful silver gray, is much used for muffs, tippets, and fur trimming. The lynx is a cowardly beast, and seldom attacks anything larger than hares, squirrels, and birds. It will sometimes rob a sheep-fold, as the gentle and pretty lambs have no means of defense against its terrible claws.
It is very much hunted for its valuable fur, and some years thousands of these beautiful skins are sent to market. The ears are very curious, having a tuft of bristling hair on the very point; indeed, this ear ornament is a distinguishing characteristic of all the varieties of the lynx tribe.
LYNX TREED BY DOGS.
The large and powerful dogs which are found in Canada and the northern portions of Michigan, Minnesota, and other border States, where they are used as train dogs to drag the mail sledges over vast wastes of snow during the winter, are natural enemies of the lynx, and pursue it furiously through the snow-bound forests. Their loud barking often warns the hunter before he himself catches sight of the game that the desired prize is treed, and awaits its fate, with arched back and fur bristling, after the manner of an enraged cat.
The Canada lynx is a very stupid beast, and easily trapped—a method of catching it generally adopted by the Hudson Bay Company, as in this way its beautiful fur is uninjured by bullets.
The European lynx is a much larger, stronger, and more ferocious beast than its Canadian brother. Its great hairy paws are like those of the lion and tiger, which, strange as it may seem, are also members of the pussy-cat family. It lives in wild Siberian forests (where large numbers of trappers subsist on the proceeds of its valuable fur), in Norway and Sweden, in Switzerland, and also in other countries where wild forests exist. Vast numbers roam through the steppes of Asia and the uninhabited portions of the Eastern world.
So much is this creature dreaded in Switzerland for its depredations on the flocks that the shepherds whose sheep feed on the mountain pastures do all in their power to exterminate this cruel enemy of their fold, and a prize is offered by the government for every one killed.
Driven by hunger, the European lynx will often attack deer and other large animals. A story is told of a lynx in Norway which, much against its will, was forced to take a furious ride on the back of a goat. The winter had been very severe, and failing to find food in the forests and rocky barrens, a young lynx spied a flock of goats feeding among the dry stubble of a field. Giving a quick spring, it landed on the back of a large goat, with the purpose of tearing open the arteries of its neck—its method of killing large animals. But the goat, feeling its unwelcome rider, set out at a gallop for the farm-yard, followed by the whole herd, all bleating in concert. The claws of the lynx had become so entangled in the heavy beard of its intended victim that escape was impossible, and the farmer by a skillfully aimed shot put an end to its life.
Patience is largely developed in the lynx. It will lie stretched out for hours, on a branch of a tree, watching for its prey. If anything approaches, it crouches and springs. Should the rabbit or bird escape, the lynx never pursues, but slyly creeps back to its branch, and resumes its patient watch.
When captured very young, lynxes may be tamed, and have been known to live on friendly terms with domestic animals, such as dogs and cats. But they are never healthy away from their native woods, and usually die in a short time. Even in the wild state the lynx is short-lived, and is said rarely to reach the age of fifteen years. In confinement the lynx never thrives. Specimens kept in menageries never become friendly, but grow sullen and suspicious. Spending the day in sleep, at night they walk restlessly up and down their cage, giving vent to hideous howls and yells.
The glistening, piercing eyes of the lynx were formerly the subject of strange superstitions. In the days of Pliny it was known to the Romans by the same name it still bears. Specimens were first brought to Rome from Gaul (the country now called France), and so terrible was the glaring eye that it was said to be able to look through a stone wall as through glass, and to penetrate the darkest mysteries. Hence, no doubt, the expression "lynx-eyed," which is so often used to indicate keen and sharp watchfulness from which nothing can escape.
THE DEAD-LETTER OFFICE.
BY MRS. P. L. COLLINS.
Of course, dear readers, all of you have heard of the Dead-letter Office at Washington, and I suppose you have the same vague idea that I had until I went there and learned better—that it is a place where letters are sent when they fail to reach those for whom they are intended, and are thence returned to the writers. Really, now, I believe this is what most grown-up people think too; but in truth, it is such a wonderful place that I am sure you will be surprised when I tell you of some of the things you may find there, and I think when you come to Washington it will be one of the first places you will wish to visit.
Probably you have never written a great many letters, and I do not doubt that each one had its envelope neatly addressed by your father or mother, while you stood by to see that it was well done. I hope, too, that in due time your letters had the nice replies they deserved. You would have been much disappointed if any of them had been "lost in the mail," as people say, wouldn't you? You will not forget your stamp, I am sure, after I have related the following incident:
There was once a little girl, only ten years old, who was spending six months in the city of New York, just previous to sailing for Europe. Her heart was filled with love for her darling grandpapa, whom she had left in New Orleans, and she wrote to him twice every week. Her letters were in the French language; at least, the one that I saw was, and it began "Cher Grandpère cheri." She said, "I hope that you have received the slippers I embroidered for you, and the fifteen dollars I sent in my last letter to have them made." But, alas! the package containing the slippers had reached the "cher grandpère cheri," while the letter and money were missing. Then this old gentleman wrote to the Dead-letter Office, and said that it was the only one of his granddaughter's letters he had ever failed to receive; that it could not have been misdirected; and his carrier had been on the same route for many years, so he knew him to be honest; therefore the money must have been mysteriously swallowed up in the D. L. O.
What was to be done? Do you imagine the Dead-letter Office shook in its shoes?
Not a bit of it. It turned to a big book, and found a number which stood opposite the little girl's letter, and then straightway laid hands upon the letter itself, and forwarded it to the indignant "grandpère."
Now why all this trouble and delay, and saying of naughty things to the D. L. O., without which he might never have seen either his letter or his money? Simply this: the dear child had dropped her letter into the box without a stamp.
You will be surprised to learn that something over four millions of letters are sent to the Dead-letter Office every year.
There are three things that render them liable to this: first, being unclaimed by persons to whom they are addressed; second, when some important part of the address is omitted, as James Smith, Maryland; third, the want of postage. All sealed letters must have at least one three-cent stamp, unless they are to be delivered from the same office in which they are mailed, when they must have a one or a two cent stamp, according to whether the office has carriers or not.
For the second cause mentioned above about sixty-five thousand letters were sent to the Dead-letter Office during the past year; for the third, three hundred thousand, and three thousand had no address whatever.
When these letters reach the Dead-letter Office, they are divided into two general classes, viz., Domestic and Foreign, the latter being returned unopened to the countries from which they started.
The domestic letters, after being opened, are classed according to their contents. Those containing money are called "Money Letters;" those with drafts, money-orders, deeds, notes, etc., "Minor Letters;" and such as inclose receipts, photographs, etc., "Sub-Minors." Letters which contain anything, even a postage-stamp, are recorded, and those with money or drafts are sent to the postmasters where the letters were first mailed, for them to find the owners, and get a receipt. From $35,000 to $50,000 come into the office in this way during the year; but a large proportion is restored to the senders, and the remainder is deposited in the United States Treasury to the credit of the Post-office Department.
When letters contain nothing of value, if possible they are returned to the writers. There are clerks so expert in reading all kinds of writing that they can discern a plain address where ordinary eyes could not trace a word. For instance, you could not make much of this:
A dead-letter clerk at once translates it:
Mr. Hensson King,
Tobacco Stick,
Dorchester County,
Maryland.
In haste.
And such spelling! Would you ever imagine that Galveston could be tortured into "Calresdon," Connecticut into "Kanedikait," and Territory into "Teartoir"?
Recently the Postmaster-General has found it necessary to issue very strict orders about plain addresses, and a great many people have tried to be witty at his expense. I copied this address from a postal card:
Alden Simmons,
Savannah Township,
Ashland County, State of Ohio;
Age 29; Occupation, Lawyer;
Politics, Republican;
Longitude West from Troy 2°;
Street Main
No. 249;
Box 1008.
Color, White;
Sex, Male;
Ancestry, Domestic.
For President 1880, U. S. Grant!
About once in two years there is a sale of the packages which are detained in the office for the same reason that letters are. All the small articles are placed in envelopes, on which are written brief descriptions of their contents. Any one is allowed the privilege of examining them before purchasing. There are thousands of these packages, containing almost everything you can think of. I glanced over an old catalogue, and selected at random half a dozen things that will give you an idea of the endless variety: Florida beans, surgical instruments, cat-skin, boy's jacket, map of the Holy Land, two packages of corn starch, and a diamond ring—in truth, as the chief of the D. L. O. says in his report, "everything from a small bottle of choice perfumery to a large box of Limburger cheese."
But there were two things that nobody would ever buy, so this great institution was obliged to keep them. One was a horrid, grinning, skeleton head, that had been sent to Dr. Gross, the eminent Philadelphia surgeon; but the box being nailed so that the postmaster could not examine its contents without breaking it, he was obliged to charge letter rates of postage, which the doctor refused to pay; consequently it found a proper resting-place in the house appropriated specially to dead things.
Occupying the same shelf are several glass jars containing serpents of various sizes preserved in alcohol. These snakes were received at the D. L. O. in two large tin cans, the ends of which were perforated to admit air. They were addressed to a professor in Germany. It could not be ascertained at what office they had been mailed. There were seventeen in all, but some of the smaller ones were dead.
System, punctuality, industry, belong to the Dead-letter Office. It seems to embrace every other branch of business, and, as I have shown you, even to know how to treat such unwelcome guests as a nest of live serpents.
HOW MOTHER ROBIN CALLED A NEW MATE.
BY E. JAY EDWARDS.
A friend of mine has a robin's nest that he guards with very great care, and about which he tells a story to all the young and old people who call upon him.
"There is a romance," he says, as he shows you the nest, "about this, and if you want to hear it, I will tell it to you."
"It was a good many years ago," my friend begins, "that this nest was made. There came one morning early in April two robins to the big fir-tree in front of my window. One of them had, as sure as you live, a club-foot, and he hobbled about upon it in a very lively manner, and I know that it was this one—Mr. Robin, I call him—that fixed upon the precise place for the nest. For he whetted his bill upon a bough a great many times, and then he danced upon it with one foot and the other, as though trying its strength, and at last he flew up to Mrs. Robin, who was standing on the limb above looking at him. My window was open, and I heard him peeping the gentlest little song to her that you can imagine. Then she jumped down upon the limb, rubbed her bill upon it, and danced, while he looked at her, and after she had done these things she sang the same little melody. After that they flew away with great speed, and the next that I saw of them they were working with might and main, bringing twigs, moss, twine, and all sorts of things, until at last they had the nest made."
Now my friend, when he gets so far in his story, always stops a moment and laughs, though you can not see anything to laugh at. But he looks closely at you, and just as soon as he observes the surprise that your eyes show, he says: "I ought to say right here that my mother had a very choice piece of lace, a collar or something of that sort, that was washed and put out upon a little bush to dry on the very day that Mr. and Mrs. Robin decided to build the nest in the fir-tree. A great fuss was made that evening because the lace collar could not be found, and mother wanted the police called, so that the thief might be arrested and the collar got back, for that collar was worth, I have heard, a great many dollars. But the police never found the thief.
"Now I will go on, with my story," always continues my friend, and he generally takes the nest in his hands at this time. "Well, after this nest—this is the very one I hold in my hand—was built, you never saw a more attentive lover than this Mr. Robin. He would hop about with his club-foot, and seem to put his eye right upon an angle-worm's cave every time he flew down to the ground, and you might see him from early morning to sunset flying back and forth with his mouth full of good things for Mrs. Robin, and he would feed her as she sat upon the nest.
"One day he seemed specially excited and happy; you could hear him singing in the tree more loudly than before, and I could see from my window the cause of his joy. Four yellow mouths were put up to receive the dainties he had brought, and then I knew that the little robins had come. Well, old Mr. Robin was so excited that he did not see our cat stealthily coming, as he was pulling away at a very long angle-worm. Pussy had him in her mouth before he could even give a warning cry, and the last I saw of Mr. Robin was the club-foot that hung out of Puss's mouth.
"By-and-by Mrs. Robin seemed to get hungry, and I heard her uttering two strange notes that I had never heard before, and which seemed to me to sound just as though she was saying, 'Come here! come here!' Of course that was not what she said, but I have no doubt that the notes meant just that, and that every robin that might have heard them would have understood them as a call for help. But no robin came. It rained all that day, and poor Mrs. Robin kept up that cry, and her young ones continually thrust their bills from beneath her body, and opened them. I could not help them, of course, for little birds would rather starve than be fed by any one but their parents.
"Now I am coming to the strangest part of my story," my friend always says when he reaches this point. "The next morning was clear, and I happened to be up early. Old Mrs. Robin had begun her plaintive call. Suddenly I saw a great many robins—not less than twenty, I should say—that had come together from some place, and rested upon the branches of a great elm-tree that was only a few yards away from the fir-tree. Of all the noises I ever heard from birds, those that these robins made were the strangest. At last they were quiet, and two of them flew off to the fir-tree, and cautiously made their way to the nest. Mrs. Robin looked at them, and sang a little trill. One of the visitors, with much shaking of his head, sang something in reply, and then the other one did the same thing. Mrs. Robin repeated her trill, and then she hopped up to the branch above, and sang another note or two, and the smaller of the two robins took his place beside her. Then the other robin flew away to his companions, and after singing a little, they all went off together.
"When I looked back to the nest, Mrs. Robin sat there perfectly quiet, and, not more than a minute after, the new Mr. Robin brought a worm, and he was from that time until the little ones got their feathers and flew off as kind and attentive to Mrs. Robin as had been poor old club-footed Mr.
"Now isn't this a pretty love story?" my friend inquires, and of course you say it is, and then ask him why he laughed, and what his mother's lace collar had to do with it, and he will answer you in this way:
"Look in the nest. See what lies on the bottom, where the little robins nestled. I got the nest after they all flew away together, and there in the bottom was my mother's lace collar, not good to wear any longer, so I have let it stay there ever since. Do you suppose young robins ever had such a costly bed?"
CHARLEY BENNET'S GHOST STORY.
BY MRS. MARGARET EYTINGE.
"It is a sin to steal a pin,
As well as any greater thing,"
sang little Al Smith, in a loud, shrill voice.
"Very good sentiment, but very poor rhyme," drawled Hen Rowe (whose father was a poet), patting the singer's flaxen head in a patronizing manner.
"Talking of stealing," said Charley Bennet, dropping the pumpkin he was turning into a lantern, "did I ever tell you fellers about the time I went down to old Pop Robins's to steal apples, and came back past the barn where the horse-thief hung himself years and years ago, 'cause he knew the constables—they called 'em constables in those times—were after him, and that he'd be hung by somebody else if he didn't? No? Here's a ghost story for you, then, and I hope it will be a warning to you all never to take anything that doesn't belong to you, 'specially apples.
"You see, Billy Evans and I were staying with our folks at the hotel in Bramblewood that summer, and about two miles away was Pop Robins's farm. He used to bring eggs and chickens and vegetables and fruit to the hotel; and, oh my! wasn't he stingy?—you'd better believe it. He wouldn't even give you two or three blackberries, and if you asked him for an apple, he'd tremble all over. A reg'lar old miser he was, with lots of money, and a bully apple orchard. 'Let's go there some night and help ourselves,' says Billy Evans, one day. 'Dogs,' says I. 'Only one,' says he; 'I know him, and so do you—old Snaggletooth; I gave him almost all the meat we took for crab bait the day we didn't catch any.' 'All right,' says I.
"But when the night we'd agreed on came, Billy had cousins—girls—down from New York, and he had to stay home and entertain them. I don't care much for girls myself, and I was afraid they might want me to help entertain them too, so I made up my mind to go down to Pop Robins's alone. It was a splendid night; the moon shone so bright that it was almost as light as day. I scudded along, whistling away, until I got within half a mile of the orchard, and then I stopped my noise and walked as softly as possible, till I came to the first apple-tree. I shinned up that tree in a jiffy (old Snaggletooth didn't put in an appearance), filled my bag with jolly fat apples, and slid down again. But when I came to lift the bag up on my shoulder, I found it was awful heavy to carry so far, and I was just agoing to dump some of the apples out, when I remembered all of a sudden that if I cut across the meadow to the plank-road, I could get back to the hotel in a little more than half the time it would take to go the way I came.
"So I shouldered my load, and was nearly across the meadow before I thought of the haunted barn at the end of it. It wasn't a nice thing to remember; but I wasn't agoing to turn back, ghost or no ghost, and I tried to whistle again, when all at once that thing Al Smith was singing just now popped into my head, and says I to myself, 'That's so, Charles F. Bennet; you and your chums may think it's great fun to help yourselves to other people's apples and water-melons and such things, but it's just as much stealing as though you went into a man's house and stole his coat.' It doesn't seem as bad when you're going for 'em; but when you're coming back, up a lonely road, all alone, at ten o'clock at night, a lot of stolen apples on your back, and a haunted barn not far off, it seems worse.
"'THERE IT IS,' SAYS BARNEY."
"All the same, I held on to the apples. And when I faced the barn I determined I'd whistle if I died in the attempt; but, boys, I don't believe anybody could have told that 'Yankee Doodle' from 'Auld Lang Syne.' I tell you my heart jumped when I passed the tumble-down old place; but it stood still when, as I marched up the plank-road, I heard a step behind me. I wheeled around in an instant, but there was nothing to be seen. The moon shone as bright as ever, but there was nothing to be seen! 'I must have imagined it,' says I to myself, and I walked a little faster, listening with all my might, and sure enough pat, pat, pat, came the step after me. Again I wheeled round. Not a thing did I see. And again I started on, the apples growing heavier and heavier. Pat, pat, pat, came the step. It wasn't like a human step. That made it more dreadful. 'It must be the ghost,' I thought; and I don't mind telling you, fellers, I never was so frightened in my life. The time I fell overboard was nothing to it. I made up my mind, when I reached the bridge that crossed a little brook near our hotel, I'd streak it (I hadn't exactly run yet, for I was saving my strength till the last). But before I got to the bridge, says I to myself—and I must have said it out loud, though I didn't mean to—'Perhaps he wants the apples.'
"'Apples!' repeated a hoarse voice, with a horrid laugh.
"I tell you, boys, those apples flew, and I flew too. Over the bridge I went like lightning, and ran right into Barney Reardon, one of the stable-men, who was coming to look for me. 'Something has followed me,' I gasped, 'from the haunted barn—the ghost!' 'Did you see it?' says he. 'No,' says I, 'though I turned round a dozen times to look for it. But I heard it pat, pat, pat, behind me all the way.' 'And it's behind you now,' says Barney, bursting into a loud laugh. I jumped about six feet. 'There it is,' says Barney, roaring again, and pointing to—Pop Robins's tame raven! The sly old thing looked up at me, nodded its shining black head, croaked 'Apples!' and walked off. It had followed me from the barn, and every time I wheeled quickly round, it hopped just as quickly behind me, and so of course I saw nothing but the long road and the moonlight on it. But I never want to be so scared again, and if ever any of you boys go for anything belonging to other people, don't you count me in."
"What became of the apples?" asked Jerry O'Neil.
"If you'd 'a been there I could have told you," said Charley.