A LITTLE DREAMER
This dear little Ethel, a dreamer is she,
And sweet are her fancies as zephyrs of morn
That ripple in summer-time over the sea,
Or tangle themselves in the tassels of corn.
She knows what the fairies are talking about
When tiptoe they poise on the rim of a flower;
The snow-birds before her trip fearlessly out,
And gossip away in the cold by the hour.
No poor little kitten comes mewing in vain
To pitying Ethel for shelter and food.
She flies from her prettiest castle in Spain
To play with the baby, who will not be good.
She lives in a beautiful world of her own,
And yet I have heard, and I'm sure it is true,
This dear little dreamer has never been known
To think of herself much; 'tis always of you.
And that's why we love her, and not for the gold
Of her loose waving hair nor the blue of her eyes,
Though the one is more precious than jewels untold,
And the other was borrowed right out of the skies.
And oft as she travels to Nobody's Land—
A wide sunny country, where all things are fair—
Whoever needs Ethel has only to stand
With a word and a smile just in front of her chair.
[ON SKATES.]
BY SHERWOOD RYSE.
It may almost be said of the children of Friesland, a province of Holland, that they learn to skate before they learn to walk. As soon as the Frisian baby can stand upright, if it is winter, the skates are fastened to his little feet, and he is launched upon the glassy surface of the canal. At six years old he—or it may be she, for the girls are treated in just the same manner—is probably an expert skater, and for the rest of his life steel runners are to him almost as familiar a means of getting about as his own feet. The Frieslander, we are told, goes to market on skates, goes to church on skates, and goes love-making on skates, and when he has won his bride the newly wedded couple are escorted to their home by a gay torch-light procession of steel-shod neighbors.
In Holland the races on the ice are regarded as a great festival. Prizes are given, and the winners are heroes for the time. Women sometimes join the men in the races, and not seldom they carry off the prize. Two young women once won a race of thirty miles in two hours, beating several men. Imagine a couple of comely Dutch girls flying along at the speed of a railroad train between short stops, and keeping up the pace for two hours!
And what sport is there to compare with skating on a perfect piece of ice, frozen by a couple of nights' severe cold, and quite free from snow? This quickly formed ice is by far the best, for not only is it the smoothest, but it is also the safest kind of ice. It may crack, perhaps, and bend, but it is so elastic that there is little danger of its breaking. Hark to the ever-changing hum of a hundred pairs of steel blades upon the shining surface of the pond, now swelling, and now almost dying away in the clear, biting air! And mingled with it merry laughter and shouts, with every now and again a half-frightened, half-playful little scream, as some too daring beginner "comes to grief." It is a poor spirit indeed that is not fired by sounds like these when Winter first lays his iron grasp on water and on land.
The art of skating has been brought to such perfection that mere speed is almost despised among our best performers, who devote themselves to that graceful variety of the art known as "figure skating." Among the Northern peoples, however, from whom we originally learned to skate, speed and distance still hold their own. The reason of this is that in those countries skating is necessary for travelling, especially in Holland, which is literally cut up by canals that are frozen for several months every winter. Among us skating is generally done on ponds, and careering round and round a pond, however fast one may go, soon becomes tiresome.
But although we have given up long-distance skating for figures, the fastest time in which a mile is said to have been skated was done by a certain William Clark, of Madison, Wisconsin, who covered the distance in the wonderfully short space of one minute and fifty-six seconds. It is difficult to believe this, and but little less so to credit the "record" of an English skater named Tebbutt, who is reported to have skated a measured mile in two minutes and four seconds.
In France they attempt to teach people to swim by making them lie across a narrow table, and strike out in the most approved manner. It is not recorded, however, that any one thus taught ever entered the water with any confidence in his ability to swim, and it is probable that a Frenchman thus taught would swim about as well as a boy or girl would skate the first time they went on the ice after reading about it. Skating, indeed, like swimming and many other things, can be learned only by practice, but at the same time a few hints may help the beginner over the most slippery places; and if he learns what not to do, he has learned a great deal. Here are a few useful hints:
Do not fall. At the same time do not give up trying because you do fall, or for fear of falling. Young bones carry light weights, and falls do not hurt if they are done properly. It is the backward falls that hurt and are really dangerous. Keep the body slightly bent forward; hold the elbows down by the sides; and, above all, when you feel you are losing your balance, do not throw up your arms and wrench yourself wildly to try and keep your balance. Let balance go to the winds, if it must go, and then you may fall forward on hands and knees with all the grace you are master of. It will not be much, perhaps; but never mind.
As soon as you have learned to skate forward, and can travel at a fair rate of speed, you will want to begin cutting figures. Probably in your first attempts you will "cut a figure" that will make people laugh. Let them laugh, and laugh with them. Everything must have a beginning.
Your first figure is one that does not amount to much by itself. In fact, it amounts to just nothing. It is O. When you can make a fairly correct O on one foot, or, better still, on each foot, you will be getting on capitally. But if O amounts to little by itself, make another O on the top of it, and you will have the figure 8. Strike out boldly with one foot, leaning well over to the side so that you make a rapid curve. As soon as the circle is nearly completed, bring the left foot to the front, and pointing it well to the left make another circle as before. You will not make the second circle so easily as the first, but after a little practice you will succeed in making a very fair figure of 8.
This is the only figure that can be made altogether on the inside edge of the blade, and that is not the best way to make it, although it is the easiest. Before you go any farther you must learn the "outside edge." After skating a few yards at a good pace, bring both your feet parallel to one another, and as you skim along without effort, lean your weight first to one side and then to the other. You will find yourself moving along in a serpentine course, and one of your feet will be resting on the outside edge of its skate, and the other on the inside edge. Lift up the foot that is doing inside edge, and see how far you can go on the other foot alone. When you feel that you are losing your balance, or coming to a stop, put the other foot down, and push off again, repeating the outside edge trick with the other foot. After some practice you will be able to start off on outside edge altogether, and by throwing your weight to the side of the foot you are on, you will soon be able to make circles on the outside edge.
Outside edge is the key to figure skating, and having learned that, you may try the "three." This may be done in two ways: (1) a half-stroke inside edge forward, a little turn, and then a stroke outside backward, or (2) outside forward, the turn, and then inside backward. The turn in the middle of the "three" is not easy to describe, but it is not difficult to do. If you think of the shape of the figure, you will soon get the knack of changing from one edge of the skate to the other, and you will never forget it.
Having mastered the "three," you may try the "half double three," which is a "three" and the first part of another one. This sounds easy, but it is not so, for the reason that all your force will be exhausted by the time you have made a good tail to your figure. The "double three" is more difficult still, for the same reason. Now that you have learned the outside edge, you should do the "eight" in the proper way, namely, by making the second circle on outside instead of inside edge.
When you can do "outside edge," "eight," and "three," the best way to learn more difficult figures is to go to the corner of the pond where the best skaters practice, and, watch them. You will thus learn more than a whole book can teach you. Practice and attention to a few simple rules are the only roads to success: (1) When skating on one foot keep the other foot well back, with the toes turned out, and the heel close to that of the other foot; (2) keep your head up—there is no need to look down at the ice; (3) keep your elbows down; (4) straighten the knee after striking out, and keep it straight. Remember that when you are once in motion you increase your speed or alter your direction by simply throwing the weight of your body in the direction you wish to move.
[MY BEAUTIFUL CHILD.]
BY A. L. A. SMITH.
The sun rides in through the golden gates
Of the east with a wealth of light,
And the smiles of gold on valley and wold
Are smiles from his countenance bright.
The flowers and hedges are dashed with dew,
And the birds with tuneful throats
Are flooding the air with melody rare,
In liquid silvery notes.
My beautiful child, may you go forth
Like the sun with a wealth of light,
And purer than gold on valley and wold
Be the smiles from your spirit bright!
Drop words as bright and kind as the dew,
And vie with the woodland throng;
From the heart's deep well let praises swell
In showers of grateful song.
[THE LITTLE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER.]
ADAPTED FROM CHARLES DICKENS.
BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.
Near the small town of Millbank, and just outside the great city of London, there is a little street called Church Street, and a little square called Smith Square, and where this street and square come together there is a row of houses, rented very cheap, and in one of them lived the little girl whose story I shall try to tell you.
She was about fourteen years old at the time I speak of, and her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but her back was so weak, one of her short legs being shorter than the other, and she was so very little—not having grown any since she was seven years old—that she had given herself the name of Jenny Wren, and by this name every one knew her. The queer little figure, as it hopped about, and the queer but not ugly little face, with its bright gray eyes, made her seem wonderfully like the cheerful, quick, tiny brown bird whose name she had chosen.
Jenny's mother was dead, and Jenny's father was a drunkard. If you do not know what misery comes into a home, whether it is a rich or humble one, when the father has the evil habit of drink, then you can hardly understand what a great trouble little Jenny had to bear, and all alone, too, for her bright mind, her true heart, and her skillful little hands were all the friends Jenny had. What could such a little creature do? She printed the words "Room to Let" with a stubbed pen on a piece of white card-board, and hung it in the window; and it had not hung there many hours before there came a knock at the door. The door flew open by a spring which had been touched inside. Across the narrow entry the parlor door stood open, and showed Jenny Wren sitting in a low, old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of work-bench before it. Jenny looked at the handsome young lady standing on the door-step.
"I can't get up," said she, "because my back's bad and my legs are queer, but I'm the person of the house, miss, and won't you come in?"
"You have a room to let?" said the young lady. "My name is Lizzie Hexam, and I want to hire a room."
"Um-m," said Jenny; she was pressing bits of card-board between her teeth. "Take a seat—but would you please to shut the door first? I can't do it very well myself, because my back's so bad and my legs are so queer."
Lizzie Hexam closed the door, and sat down. She looked kindly at the very little creature, who went on with her work a few moments in silence, gumming together with a camel's-hair brush pieces of card-board and thin wood, which had first been cut out in different shapes. There were scissors and small sharp knives, and bright scraps of velvet, silks, and ribbon, lying on the bench.
"You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound," said the little creature, with a quick bird-like glance at her visitor.
"You make pincushions?"
Jenny nodded. "What else do I make, miss?"
"Pen-wipers?"
"Ha! ha! What else? Oh, you'll never guess," laughed Jenny.
"You do something with straw, but I don't know what," said Lizzie, pointing to one corner of the bench.
"Well done!" cried Jenny. "Now I'll tell you. I only make pincushions and pen-wipers to use up my waste, but my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?"
"Bonnets?" said Lizzie, after thinking a moment.
"Yes. Fine ladies' bonnets," Jenny said, with a proud nod. "Dolls. I'm a dolls' dressmaker." She put her tiny hand in a very small apron pocket and drew out a card. "There," said she, "read that."
Lizzie took the card, which looked like this:
Miss Jenny Wren,
Dolls' Dressmaker.
Dolls attended at their own residences.
"I hope it's a good business," said Lizzie, smiling at the little creature.
"No. Poorly paid," said Jenny. "And I'm often pressed for time. I had a doll married last week, and was obliged to work all night to get her ready in time, and it's not good for me, on account of my back being so bad and my legs so queer. And they don't take care of their clothes, and they want new fashions every month. One doll I work for has three daughters. Bless you! she's enough to ruin her husband."
Here Jenny laughed, and gave such a sharp look at Lizzie, and hitched her little chin, as if her eyes and chin worked together by the pulling of a wire.
"Are you always so busy?" Lizzie asked, looking with wonder at the small fingers cutting, gumming, and stitching so fast.
"Oh, busier," said Jenny, tossing her head. "I'm slack just now. I finished a large order for mourning clothes the day before yesterday. The doll I worked for had lost a canary-bird, and she wanted very deep mourning." She laid down her work, and reached for a crutch that leaned against the bench. "Come," said she, "I'll show you the room. It's not large, but it's nice, and very cheap."
They went up a small and narrow staircase, and Jenny threw open a small door, and with one step down they were in a little box of a room, but it was neat as wax, and had one white-curtained window just over the front door. Lizzie hired the room at once, and then followed her queer little landlady down into the parlor again.
"Are you alone all day?" said Lizzie. "Don't any of the children in this street—"
"Oh, don't!" said Jenny, with a little cry, as if the word had pricked her. "Don't talk to me of children! I can't bear children! Oh, I know their tricks and their manners!" She said this with an angry shake of her tiny right fist close before her eyes. "Always running about and screeching, they are; always playing and fighting; always skip-skip-skipping on the walk, and chalking it for their games. And that's not all"—shaking her little fist as before. "They go a-calling names through a person's key-hole, and imitating a person's back and legs. Oh, I'll tell you what I'd do to punish 'em if I could. There's doors under the church in the square, black doors leading into dark vaults. I'd like to open one of those doors, and cram 'em all in; and then I'd lock the door, and blow in pepper through the key-hole."
The little creature stopped, quite out of breath.
"Blow in pepper!" said Lizzie. "Why should you do that?"
"To set 'em snee-ee-eezing, and make their eyes water; and then I'd mock 'em through the key-hole, just as they mock a person through a person's key-hole. No; no children for me. Give me grown-ups."
From all this the little dressmaker's new lodger could very well understand that the children of the street, who were strong and well, and could romp and play merrily all day, had not been as thoughtful and kind as they might have been to little Jenny Wren, whose life was so unlike and so much braver than theirs.
In a few days the two girls had become warm friends. Lizzie, who was eighteen years old, earned her living by working in a seamen's outfitter; that is, a shop where sailors' clothes are made. During the daytime Lizzie was away at her work, and Jenny sat at her little work-bench at home, except when she had to peg away on her little crutch to the milliners', or the doll shops, or to the house of some customer for whom she had dressed a doll. At night-fall, when her work was done, the dolls' dressmaker would lean back in her little low arm-chair, with her arms crossed, and sing in a sweet, thoughtful voice, and wait for Lizzie, who at about the same time would come out of her shop in Millbank, and hurry along in the sunset by the river-side until she came to Church Street, and the small house, and the small housekeeper who loved her so much.
"Well, Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie," Jenny would say, breaking off in her song, "what's the news out-of-doors?"
"SOMETIMES A VISITOR WOULD DROP IN."
"And what's the news in-doors?" Lizzie would answer, laying her gentle hand on the bright hair, which grew very long and thick and wavy on the head of the little dolls' dressmaker. Then they would have tea together, Lizzie spreading the cloth on the low work-bench, because Jenny could sit at that more easily than at the table, and while they ate they would talk over the day and its work. After supper, Lizzie would move Jenny, chair and all, so that she could look out over the square and into the evening sky, and then sit down beside her. Sometimes a visitor would drop in, perhaps one of Jenny's patrons who took an interest in her, or who had an order to give the little dressmaker.
"This is what I call the best time of the whole day," said Jenny one night, when they were sitting in the pleasant twilight; and then she continued, in a soft, low tone, "I wonder, Lizzie, how it happens that sometimes when I am working here, all alone, in the summer-time, I smell flowers. It isn't a flowery place, you know—it's anything but that. And yet as I sit at work I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses until I think I see them in great heaps—bushels of them around me on the floor—and I put down my hand and expect to make them rustle. I smell the white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among, for I've seen very few flowers indeed in my life, my Lizzie-Mizzie-Wizzie."
"You must find it very pleasant, my dear Jenny."
"So I think when it comes. And the birds I hear! Oh!" cried the little creature, holding out her hand and looking up, "how they sing!"
As Jenny talked in this way, with her hand raised, and her eyes wide and bright, she looked quite beautiful, Lizzie thought. They sat silent for some moments, until they heard a shaky, shuffling step on the sidewalk.
Then Jenny spoke in such a different voice. "That's my child coming home, and my child's a bad, troublesome child."
Jenny was speaking of her drunken father. She always called him her child. It seemed as if the little creature felt that the name "father" would in some way be wronged and spoiled in her own thoughts if she gave it to the poor wretch who stumbled over the door-sill where they sat. The name "child" seemed to give her a sort of patience to bear her trouble.
"I would rather you didn't see my child," Jenny said; and Lizzie rose and went up stairs.