HARE AND HOUNDS.
have never taken part in "Hare and Hounds," but I feel as if I had, because in the first place, I have read Tom Brown, and in the second place, I have a brother who is devoted to athletics, and who has just returned from a "run" with his club. It is just like a real hunt, only all the animals are human beings; two boys are hares, and carry bags full of scraps of paper, which they scatter as they go; any number of boys are the hounds, and follow this paper scent; two boys are the whippers-in, who call the "pack" together with great tin horns; one boy is master of the hunt, and does nothing in particular, though he is supposed to arrange everything.
My brother got up at an unearthly hour on the morning of his hunt, in order to meet his fellow-dogs and their prey at the Grand Central Depôt at nine o'clock. I am sure that he was over an hour before time, though he will not own to more than a quarter of it; I know that he had a jolly time, anyway. But I will give his report in his own words.
"Such fun! We ran twelve miles—twelve miles! Just think of it! Why, we got way up round Spuyten Duyvel—from High Bridge, you know; but first, you know, we all met at the depôt; then when we got to High Bridge we went to the hotel and changed our things. We started from there. We only intended to run twelve miles, but the hares took us twenty; they meant to take us up to Yonkers, they said. Never mind; they got the worst of it—they had to run the fastest, you know. Didn't we tear through the country!—up hill and down dale, over stone walls and brambles and down swamps; one fellow got up to his knees in water. We lost the scent once, near a railroad track, and it took us about five minutes to find it.
"The hares had colored papers, pink, blue, white, and yellow, and they looked quite pretty scattered all over the ground.
"The people about the country seemed to take a great deal of interest in us; one or two told us which way the hares had gone; a policeman too, near High Bridge, told us. They seemed to understand all about it. I thought they'd think we were crazy—a whole lot of fellows in white caps tearing through the country in that way.
"Oh, that reminds me: two little boys asked one of our fellows what we were going after. 'Two men.' 'What have they done?' 'Stolen our watches;' and they stood staring after us with their eyes and mouths as wide open as—as—oh, anything.
"Oh, I must tell you: one time just as we were going along the road we heard a tremendous noise on the other side of the fence; we thought it was one of the whippers-in blowing the horn—it sounded exactly like it—and we turned round, and there we saw a little donkey coming hee-hawing over the hill after us—a pretty little gray donkey; then one of the whippers-in blew the horn, and the donkey was just delighted—tickled to death; he hee-hawed and capered about, and ran alongside of the fence, wanted to join us—had a fellow-feeling, I suppose. Just then a little girl came running out of a house, calling him; she was afraid we were going to hurt him, or something, I suppose; and when we looked back again he was standing still, just as quiet as could be, and the little girl had her arms around his neck. It made me think of Titania, in Shakspeare, you know.
"We did have a run, I can tell you. One of our fellows got hungry, and stopped at a farm-house, and got some bread and goose. I wish I'd thought of it too. Some of the country we went through was beautiful—up by the Hudson. We could see the river winding along, and catch glimpses of the Palisades—perfectly beautiful. We couldn't have had a better day, just cold enough, and not too cold.
"We were awfully tired, though, and hungry—you'd better believe it! Why, it was two o'clock when we got back to the hotel, and we had started at ten, you know—four hours. Didn't we go for that dinner just as soon as we'd changed our things!—they'd kept it waiting for us since twelve. Didn't we eat! Turkey, cranberry sauce, potatoes, cider, coffee, pumpkin pie, and I don't know what besides. We were almost too hungry to enjoy it at first, but we did eat. I had two plates of turkey and four cups of coffee; the coffee was pretty weak, but we made up for it by taking enough. I think we must have scared those hotel people. The man and his wife and daughter waited on us, and we did carry on so—firing things at each other, you know; and then after dinner we went up in the parlor and played and sung college songs, 'Upidee' and 'Cocachalunk,' and all those things. Such a row as we made!
"But coming home in the Elevated was the worst. How those fellows did carry on! Just imagine—about twenty of us—my gracious! what a noise we did make! We kept the car in a roar. One fellow would go 'Ee-oh,' and then another fellow would go 'Oh-ah,' and then they'd all go together. One of the fellows put his head out of the window, and another fellow immediately dragged him in and began patting his hair down as if it was a wig, you know. We made puns on each other's names, and whistled and sang, and oh! carried on like sixty. One man with a black beard laughed at us ready to kill himself, and a brakeman on the back platform was grinning from ear to ear.
"Well, we did have a day of it, I can tell you—but won't we all be as stiff as bricks to-morrow!"
I will only add that I do wish I had been one of those boys; but—I am glad that I wasn't that hotel-keeper.
THE SCHOOL-CHILDREN'S WELCOME.
Saturday, December 20, was a splendid holiday for the school-children of Philadelphia. All through the week they had been reading of the receptions given to General Grant in honor of his return from his journey around the world, and now they were to take part in a welcome of their own.
There was, in the first place, a grand street procession of boys, to the number of nearly four thousand—quite an army, in fact—who marched in four great divisions, each headed by a band. The boys were well drilled, and stepped gayly to the music, with soldier-like bearing and precision. As the General rode between their lines he was greeted with enthusiastic cheers. No doubt he was as much gratified by this boyish welcome as by the grand military display that attended his entry into the city.
After reviewing the lads, General Grant was escorted to the Academy of Music, where almost as many school-girls as there were boys in the procession were assembled to give him a reception of a gentler kind. It must have been a pretty sight—more than three thousand lassies, all in their teens, and all in their best attire. As soon as he appeared, two thousand sweet voices joined in the grand melody of "Hail to the Chief!" which was sung with enthusiasm and fine effect. The General acknowledged the courtesy in a short address. Several other speeches were made, interspersed with patriotic songs.
Of all the festivities of the week, the one General Grant will probably remember with most pleasure will be the reception given him by the boys and girls of the public schools.
"OLD PROBABILITIES."
The next time the Professor came, it was in a dense fog. The morning was so damp and disagreeable that we hardly expected to see him. He did not disappoint us, but seemed to have come almost before the sun was fairly up, it was so dark.
"What makes a fog?" asked Gus.
"I meant to have talked about something else, Gus," answered the Professor; "but you have chosen a subject for me. It is a very good one, too, and quite suitable to the occasion. Fogs are nothing more nor less than clouds. They usually float aloft, a mile or more, high, but sometimes drift down to the ground and lie all around us. They are so light that they rise and fall from very slight causes, when there is no wind. A brisk breeze soon drives them off."
"But what are clouds made of?" inquires May, who has become such a favorite with the Professor that she never hesitates to stop him when she wants anything explained.
"Clouds, May, are made up of small particles of water or vapor slightly chilled. When vapor or steam is hot, it can not be seen, but is invisible like the air. You have noticed the steam from a tea-kettle. Near the spout it is hidden, but a little farther off, where it has got cooled by mixing with the air, it begins to look gray, like a cloud. If the kettle be allowed to boil a long while, so that a large quantity of steam is formed, it will collect on the walls and window-panes, where, becoming thoroughly chilled, it turns again to water, the same as it was when first poured into the kettle. So it is with the clouds out-of-doors; when the sun comes out bright and hot, it dries them up, as we say; that is, it heats them so much that they become invisible. Cool air mingling with them brings them into sight again; and, if cool enough, it condenses."
"Oh dear!"
The Professor laughs. "There can be no doubt about it, May, science is full of big words. We will say that the cool wind makes the clouds heavy by squeezing them together, and sends them down in drops of rain. This is called condensing."
May rewards the Professor for his simple explanation with such a bright glance that he proceeds with an illustration.
"You have made soap-bubbles, and seen how they will float around in the air, and sometimes be wafted clear up above the trees, until they get broken, when they come down drops of water. The particles of vapor that form clouds are little bubbles, or hollow spheres filled with air. When a cold wind crushes them, they become solid, unite with one another, and fall as rain-drops. Cold water is much heavier than air; but water made hot by fire or by the sun, and turned into vapor, is lighter. In time of a fog the vapor is just warm enough to have the same weight as the air, so that it neither rises nor falls, but remains quietly near the ground."
"Professor," remarked Joe, "did you not say that when the sun came out bright and hot, it dried up the fog? and is not the fog the very thing that keeps the sun from coming out?"
"Yes, my dear; but fogs usually gather at night, and when the sun rises in the morning, he goes to work at once to heat them up and make them disappear. But when he finds them very thick, and is hindered by cold air, he may be a good part of the day in working his way through, or he may even have to go down before he is able to show himself. Generally, however, he gets help from the wind, and then the fog goes off in a hurry."
"Is there no way," asked Gus, "of knowing when the wind will spring up, and give us some clear cold weather? Ted Wynant's cousin has an ice-boat, and we are all waiting for a ride on the river."
"There is Old Probabilities," said Jack; "but he can only tell a day or two ahead, and seems rather uncertain at that, and afraid to express a decided opinion. It is a little this or a little that, a little cloudy or a little cooler, and the wind is to blow a little in nearly every direction. Most people laugh when they talk about him, as if he was not of much account, or had grown stupid in his old age. If he would only foretell a hurricane or a deluge, and bring it around, why, then we would know what he is good for."
"Such a test would be rather costly," said the Professor, smiling. "It is better to give the old gentleman a little time to establish his reliableness; for in truth he is yet very young—a mere child of eight or ten years. And considering that he undertakes to forewarn our whole country as to the coming weather, so that everybody will have time to get ready for it, we must admit that he is doing all that his age warrants."
"Where does he live?" asked Gus.
"We have been talking somewhat absurdly," replied the Professor. "Instead of a single person, there is what is called the United States Signal Service, which has been in operation eight or ten years, and comprises some two hundred or more men, scattered all over the country, from Maine to California, and from the Gulf of Mexico away out to the Northwestern lakes. The men at these various stations watch the weather very closely, and at a particular time every day send word regarding it by telegraph to the main office at Washington, where the different reports are carefully studied, and an opinion formed as to what the weather is likely to be in different sections of the country during the next twenty-four hours or more, and the result is then published in the daily newspapers and at the numerous post-offices throughout the land. The matter is yet somewhat uncertain, and occasionally mistakes are made."
"But will they ever get so that they can tell exactly every time?"
"We hope so. The warnings given are usually right, and are becoming more and more reliable every year. In 1872 it was estimated that about seventy-seven out of a hundred of them were found to be correct; more recently they have been declared accurate about ninety times in a hundred. So, you see, good progress is being made; and the Signal Service system is becoming very useful to the nation, for property and life can often be saved from destruction when the approach of a severe storm is known.
"The New York Herald has encouraged the study of the weather for many years, and its managers now send word to England by the Atlantic cable when a storm is to be expected there. They have lately sent notice of so many ugly ones, which have promptly arrived, that our English cousins are complaining of the unfair treatment of the Herald."
"Are they really so absurd?" asked Jack.
"Yes," said the Professor; "they facetiously intimate that when Providence controlled the weather they fared well enough; but that since the Herald has undertaken to run that department they have been doomed to storms, fogs, and rain. To give an instance of the faith, Jack, that the English people put in our Signal Service, there is a story told of an English lady who last autumn desired to give a lawn party. The season was an unusually rainy one, and such entertainments had, in consequence, been given up. The lady, however, sent her invitations, and calmly announced that the day she had selected would be clear. When asked how she had dared to take such a risk, she replied, 'There was no risk whatever; I had telegraphed to the man in New York.'"
The children all laughed, and it was some time before the Professor could quiet them sufficiently to add the few words that concluded his little lecture.
"The most violent storms have been found generally to whirl in circles, and are called cyclones. In some parts of the world they are very disastrous. One occurred in India in 1864 that destroyed 45,000 lives in a single day. Ten years earlier, when the English and French were at war with Russia, a storm was observed to begin in France and to be moving eastward. Timely warning was sent to the allied fleet in the Black Sea. The storm came with such terrific violence that, had it not been expected, it would probably have destroyed one of the most splendid navies that ever rode the waters, and perhaps have changed the issue of the war."
TROUBLE IN THE PLAY-ROOM.
"I don't care—I'm just as mad as I can be. To keep me in just for a little rain! I won't be good—I won't play with my dolls. I'm going to whip every one of them, and put them to bed this very minute."
Such a little termagant as Bessie Hatch looked at that moment, with her black eyes flashing, her hands clinched, and her cheeks like two flaming poppies! Half irritated, half amused, Annie, the Irish nurse, regarded her for a moment.
"Indade, but it's a swate timper you have, Bessie Hatch; and I hope for your own sake it'll be minded afore you grow up. It's not I will be lettin' you out, when your ma lift particular orders you wasn't to go if it rained. Just hear how the storm's batin' agin the windows. Your cousin won't expect you at all. Oh, bate your dolls as much as you like!" as Bessie made an angry rush toward them; "it won't hurt their feelin's much, I guess. There's Baby cryin'!" she added, suddenly, and hastened toward the room at the end of the hall.
Bessie meantime had snatched her largest doll from the chair where she was reposing, and belabored her soundly with a piece of whalebone that lay near at hand. Then, after shaking her heartily, she tossed her on to the bed, where she lay with her black eyes shut, as if overcome by her feelings. She was a very handsome wax doll, with chestnut hair done up like a lady's in puffs and curls. She had a somewhat haughty expression, carried her head a little to one side, and was dressed in the "latest style." Grace, a porcelain-headed doll, dressed simply in a blue muslin and a white apron, received her punishment next, and was deposited by Miss Augusta's side.
But Winnie, dear Winnie, Bessie's favorite doll, could she have the heart to punish her this way?—Winnie, with her golden-brown curls and beautiful hazel eyes, and her dear little face rounded and moulded like a child's. How lovely was her smiling mouth! With what confiding affection she seemed to look up at Bessie, as the latter took her up in a hesitating way! But the recollection of her lost pleasure came back to her, and with it the spite and anger that had animated her a moment before. Winnie received her whipping like the rest; but instead of tossing her on the bed, Bessie set her back in her little chair, turning her face to the window that she might not see it.
Somehow her anger seemed to have spent itself with that last whipping, and a feeling of shame was creeping into her little heart. She had intended to go through her baby-house, chastising all its inmates, but instead she took a picture-book, and lay down on the lounge by the window.
How quiet everything seemed! Annie had carried Baby down stairs to feed him. She heard no sound but the murmur of the sewing-machine in the next room, where Jane Kennedy, the seamstress, was working. She felt drowsy and sleepy. Slowly her head sank down among the cushions of the lounge, and the drooping eyelids closed.
A rustling sound near her made her open them with a start, and in a minute more she was sitting bolt-upright, staring with all her eyes. For there stood a little figure no taller than Winnie, dressed in a white fleecy robe trailing on the ground. Her soft black hair reached to her feet, and over it she wore a wreath that sparkled like dew-drops in the sun.
"A FROWN WAS ON THE FAIRY'S BROW."
Some fear mingled with Bessie's admiration as she gazed upon her. For a frown was on the fairy's brow, and the dark eyes she fixed upon the child were full of displeasure.
Tap, tap, tap, came the sound of little feet approaching. Bessie looked round, then shrank back, terror-stricken. Well she might, for her dolls Augusta and Grace had somehow found the use of their limbs, and were rapidly nearing the lounge. But they paused not far from the fairy, and reached out their little hands to her with a supplicating gesture.
"Kind fairy! good fairy!" they said, in shrill piping voices, "avenge the wrong done to us. That child, who calls herself our mother, has beaten us cruelly, just because she had nothing else to vent her spite upon; we had done no harm in any way. Punish her, good fairy; make her sorry for having treated us so."
"I will give her into your hands," said the fairy, gravely. "See that you punish her as she deserves."
Bessie, who lay trembling and burning with mingled fear and shame, now rallied her courage, and raised her head again. She could not help laughing at the idea of her own dolls punishing her.
"You foolish little fairy!" she said, laughing; "I could manage them both with one hand; and if—"
She stopped aghast, for the fairy raised her wand, and it flashed like a dazzling sunbeam full in the child's eyes. She covered them with her hands, glancing up just in time to see the fairy float away on her silver wings.
But how came she, Bessie, on the floor, and why did it seem like a great meadow stretching around her? The lounge had become a mountain, and the ceiling of the room looked nearly as broad as the sky.
It was the same room, the same familiar objects, only how monstrous everything had grown! Was that immense building in the corner her baby-house?
Bessie's little head swam; her heart beat tumultuously. A light mocking laugh near her made her glance quickly round.
Who was this tall figure in a trailing gray silk, looking down at her with severe triumph in her black eyes? That chestnut hair, that beautiful red and white complexion—could this be Augusta, her own doll?
With a scream of terror, Bessie was darting away, but waxen fingers seized her tender little arm, closing tightly upon it. Oh, how they hurt! She struggled and kicked, but could not get away.
"Let me go!" she cried out; "I'll pay you off well, Miss Augusta, if you don't. Remember, you're my doll—"
"Pay me off!" cried Augusta, with another shrill laugh. "You poor silly midget! don't you know how the fairy's wand has changed you? Why, you don't reach to my knee. No; I am going to pay you off, and handsomely too. Grace, bring that piece of whalebone directly."
"If you dare!" cried Bessie; but Grace clattered up toward her, her stolid countenance fairly beaming. Bessie tried to dodge behind Augusta, but she held her tightly by both arms.
"Lay it well over her shoulders, Grace; make 'em tingle!" she cried; and thick and fast fell the blows, while poor Bessie writhed and protested and threatened in vain. When Grace's arm was tired, Augusta took her turn. After beating Bessie to her heart's content, she seized the child by her shoulders, and shook her till her head fairly turned round.
"There!" she said, tossing her on to the doll's bed in the corner; "lie there, miss, till Winnie comes. Poor thing! she's gone away to cry somewhere, but as soon as she comes back she shall have her chance. Come, Grace, we will go for a walk."
She walked haughtily away, followed by the admiring Grace. Poor Bessie lay sobbing and crying. Her shoulders and back were smarting, her little arms black and blue from the pressure of Augusta's fingers.
"I'll run away and hide somewhere," she said at last.
Creeping off the bed very cautiously, she was stealing away, when something seized her again. She gave a cry of despair, and looking up, saw Winnie's sweet face.
"Who are you?" she asked. "Are you a new doll?" holding her gently but firmly.
"Oh, Winnie!" said Bessie, and hid her face in shame. Augusta came mincing up with a triumphant air, and related the action of the fairy.
"Now it's your turn," she said, handing the whalebone to Winnie. But she tossed it indignantly aside.
"Strike her! Never! No; I would rather remember her kindness to me. Don't cry, little mother," she added, stooping to kiss her. "If the fairy comes again, I will ask her to change you back."
"No, no!" cried Augusta and Grace, in a terrible fright, but Bessie did not hear. She was sobbing with her face in Winnie's neck.
"Oh, Winnie! Winnie! how can you be so kind? I would rather you gave me a beating."
But Winnie wiped her eyes, and smiled so brightly on her that Bessie's heart began to revive a little. Ere long they were playing together, and it would have been rare sport for any child to see Winnie wheeling Bessie in a tiny tin cart no bigger than a match-box. Then they had a grand game of hide-and-seek in the stocking basket Annie had left on the floor. Grace soon joined them, while Augusta, quite gracious by this time, sat eying them complacently from her arm-chair.
"Bessie! Bessie! your mamma's come in, and wants to see you."
Bessie started up, rubbing her eyes. She looked in a dazed sort of way at Annie, then at the corner where she kept her dolls. There they sat, all three in a row as usual.
"Who put them there—my dolls? Did they really whip me?" she asked, confusedly. Then she blushed, and hung her little head.
"Who put thim there? Why, I reckon they got tired of lying on the bed, and walked over to their chairs," said Annie, with a mischievous gleam in her eye.
"You put them there," said Bessie; but she wished she could feel quite sure. Catching up her darling Winnie, she walked off to her mother's room.
All the rest of that day Bessie treated Augusta and Grace with the utmost respect; and when she had undressed them and put them to bed, she lingered as if anxious to say something. At last she stooped down and whispered: "I don't believe it's true; but I'll never whip you or get into such a passion again. I didn't know how ugly it was till I saw you behave so yourselves. And please, if it is true, don't ask the fairy to make me little again, for I mean to be good now."
As for Winnie, darling Winnie, she lay all night in Bessie's arms, her head hugged close to her breast. And the piece of whalebone stood bolt-upright in Bessie's match-box, where she had stuck it that it might always remind her of the lesson of that day.
THE CHILDREN'S WELCOME TO GENERAL GRANT.—Drawn by A. B.
Frost.—[See page 94.]
HOW AUNT PAM BECAME A SMUGGLER.
BY MRS. FRANK McCARTHY.
My name is Tom Barnes, and I live on the other side of the river, just far enough from New York to go there once in a while with pa to a show. That's all the city's good for, anyway. We can't get up shows here very well; but when it comes to other fun, we can beat you city folks all hollow. You see, you haven't got the things to work with that we have—the woods and water and things. But I'll tell you about Aunt Pam—her name is Pamela, I think, but we call her Pam for short. She wasn't ever married, though I guess she's old enough. Somebody once said Aunt Pam was an old maid; but that can't be, for old maids are always cranky, and get out of bed backward every morning. Now Aunt Pam was never cranky in her life; and I know she gets out of bed like everybody else, for I've slept with her many a time. And nobody in their senses would call Aunt Pam old, and you'd better believe she's jolly. The house ain't anything without Aunt Pam.
My sisters are all girls, you see, and so taken up with worsted-work, and practicing, and one thing and the other, that I don't know what I'd do without Aunt Pam. I tell her everything; but I couldn't about the smugglers' cave, because the fellows wrote it all down in black and white, and we took a solemn promise to keep it a secret. We all live close to the water; and having everything handy, we made up our minds we'd make a smugglers' cave. We got to work lively; and while some of the fellows were digging out the bank, others chopped down small trees and bushes, and made a covered archway to crawl under, so that the opening of the cave couldn't be seen. We pulled the young twigs and vines down over the chopped ones, rolled logs inside for seats, and things began to look quite ship-shape.
It was no easy job, I can tell you. We worked like beavers to get the cave the way we wanted it; but when it was done, it was what you may call hunky-dory. Bill Drake's father had a flat-bottomed boat that we got into and rowed along shore. We rigged up a sail; but there was something the matter with it, and it kept flopping about, and wasn't much good, but anyhow it looked nice. We never went far from shore. We weren't afraid, but we didn't care to. Smugglers always kept along shore.
We all had blue shirts, and pulled our caps down over our eyes to look fierce. And Bill Drake kept an old pipe of his father's in his mouth; it hadn't any tobacco in it, but it was a real pipe, so we made Bill captain. The thing was to get lots of traps into the cave to look like smuggled goods. We fished up old bathing pieces and bits of broken bottles, and Bill brought down a red petticoat; but the best of all was Aunt Pam's shawl.
Now I'd scorn to do a mean or sneaking thing, especially to Aunt Pam, but she didn't seem to care a button for that shawl. I didn't think it was worth twopence. She used to wear it in all sorts of weather, and it looked to me as if it was patched up out of bits that she hadn't any other use for. I'm sure she'd worn it since she was a baby. I could remember seeing that shawl around as long as I could remember anything, and it was just the thing for our cave. It was kind of like a Turk's best turban as to color; and when it was fixed over Bill Bates's bathing suit, and one corner hung down over the rock, it made the cave look bully. I went into Aunt Pam's room one morning, and found it thrown over the foot of the bedstead, like an old blanket, and I carried it off to the cave.
When I came home from school, I saw Aunt Pam out walking with a worsted thing that one of my sisters made for her, and I thought it was enough sight handsomer in the way of a shawl. I went on down to the cave, and when I got home again there was a regular hullabulloo in the house.
The girls were ransacking the closets, Aunt Pam was flying around like a hen with its head cut off, and everybody was turning everything inside out. "Maybe Tom's seen it," said mamma. "Tom, have you seen your aunt Pam's shawl?"
"That old thing she used to wear around?" I said.
"Old thing!" they all shrieked together. "Why, it's a camel's-hair shawl; it's worth five hundred dollars."
"Oh no!" I said. "I beg your pardon; there wasn't the hair of a camel, or even a cat, in the shawl that I mean; it was just sewed together on the wrong side like a bed-quilt."
"That was it, you ridiculous boy," said my sisters. "Have you seen it?"
"Seen it!" said I; "I've only seen it every day since I was born, and yet I remember it well." I went whistling away, and they began to rush around again for that shawl.
I felt pale under my whistle. Five hundred dollars! who'd 'a thought it? Down in the smugglers' cave! Goodness gracious! No wonder it looked just the thing. No wonder we all cottoned to that shawl from the start.
"I always told you something would happen to it," said mamma to Aunt Pam. "You flung it around like an old rag."
"That was the comfort of it," said Aunt Pam. "It couldn't be hurt. It could be worn in all weathers—to a wedding or a funeral, to church or to a clam-bake. It was always in the fashion, and everybody knew what it was worth."
"Except me," I said, under my breath.
"Oh, my beautiful shawl!" said Aunt Pam, beginning all at once to feel the full shock of her loss. The tears rolled out of her dear old eyes, and my sisters began to snivel, as they always did.
Mamma said it must be looked into, and for a moment I was scared. I thought of the smugglers' cave.
"What must be looked into?" I said.
"Why, the loss of the shawl," said mamma. "It must have been stolen out of the house."
Our up-stairs girl was passing through the room when ma said that, and she turned red and pale.
"Did you notice Maggie?" mamma said, when the door was shut.
"Oh, mamma!" we all cried out, for we thought the world of Maggie. I couldn't help wondering how it was she was so red and flustered, while I was as cool as a cucumber. Aunt Pam declared she wouldn't have Maggie's feelings hurt for the world; and I said she was innocent, in a deep low solemn voice, but nobody paid any attention to me. Then I stopped to think before I went on. How could I betray my comrades and the whereabouts of the cave? I remembered the last piece I spoke in school, and how I hollered out the words,
"O for a tongue to curse the slave
Whose treason, like a deadly blight,
Comes o'er the councils of the brave,
And blasts them in their hour of might!"
Could I be that traitor? No indeed—not much! Yet here was a dreadful row in the house, and the only way to mend matters was to get that shawl again as soon as possible. I resolved to get it that very night, and when I listened to an advertisement that Aunt Pam had written out for the paper, I saw my way clear. She said no questions would be asked if the article was promptly returned. That settled it. I went up to my room, and wrote out the following in a disguised hand:
"Secrit and konfidenshal—the shawl's all right."
I waited till after supper, slipped it under Aunt Pam's door, and going out the back way I took a cross-cut down to the shore. Now pa won't let us go out at night to play, and I think that's a mistake, because we can't get used to the dark if we don't. The whole world looked queer somehow to me by starlight. The moon hadn't come up yet, and at first I could hardly see my hand before my face. I never saw such ugly shadows, and once I had to stop and get breath before I could make up my mind to pass a clump of old mulberry bushes. Once in a while I heard a crackle behind me like a footstep, but I didn't look back. I knew my only chance was to plod ahead, no matter how my heart thumped or my knees shook. I thought of everything I could to bolster me up—of dear old Aunt Pam and poor little Maggie. But the sound of the waves on the beach was awful! They roared like so many wild beasts. It was as black as ink on the water, and the twinkle of the light-house seemed a hundred miles away. It was so lonely and wild that my heart was in my throat. And suppose, thinks I, when I get in the cave, the waves come up and devour me? Suppose somebody has crawled in there to sleep, some tramp or something, and he should catch me by the leg? Or the bank should tumble in on top of me? All my spunk was gone, and I turned to run, when, bunk! I came into something behind me.
"Ow!" I screamed, and "Oh!" exclaimed somebody, and wasn't I glad to find it was dear old Aunt Pam. She scared me, though, for she was as white as any sheet, and grabbing me in her arms, she began to cry over me.
"Tell me all, Tom," she said. "I got your note, and I followed you. You bad, wicked, dear little wretch, tell me everything. If the shawl's got lost, never mind, Tom; I don't care; only tell me, and come back home."
Poor, dear Aunt Pam! she told me afterward she thought I had done something to the shawl, and ran away in my fright. We were both pretty well broke up, and I couldn't help crying a little bit myself. But of course I couldn't go home now without the shawl. I began to feel as brave as a lion now Aunt Pam was there. The thing was to get her out of the way while I went into the cave. It looked awful down there in the hollow, and the wind was getting up, the water swashed around, and I couldn't help thinking there might be a tramp in there. All at once a bright thought struck me. Aunt Pam wasn't afraid of tramps; she wasn't afraid of anything. And, after all, it was her shawl. If it was worth having, it was worth going after. But how about betraying the boys? Another bright thought struck me. I'd make Aunt Pam one of us. She could say the words over after me, and she could crawl in and get the shawl, while I kept guard outside: and if anybody says Aunt Pam is old after that, they must be crazy. She said all the words solemnly, one after another; then she crawled in, and dragged out every blessed thing she could lay her hands on. I put 'em all back the next morning, and the best of it all was that Aunt Pam never gave us away. She just told the folks she found the shawl herself, and she did, you know—didn't she?