[to be continued.]
A Curious Incident.—Horses will form strong attachments for dogs, but it does not often happen that a horse derives any real benefit from having a canine friend. The following case will show that a dog may sometimes return a horse's affection in a very practical manner. A man living in the country had a horse which happened to be turned out just as his carrots were ready for pulling. He also had a dog that was on the best of terms with the horse. One day he noticed that his carrots were disappearing very fast, but he was almost certain that no one had got in and stolen them. Still he determined to watch, and see who was robbing him. His vigilance was rewarded, for he caught the thief in the very act of pulling up the carrots. Then he cautiously followed him from the garden, and found that he went off in the direction of the field where the horse was. Arrived there, the owner of the carrots saw that his horse was the receiver of his stolen goods. The thief was his dog. In some way the dog had discovered that the horse had a partiality for carrots, and was unable to gratify its taste; but with a sagacity that is almost incredible, the dog found the means of obtaining the succulent morsels for his friend, and this he did without scruple at his master's expense. There was something more than instinct in this dog's head. But any one who takes real notice of the habits and curious doings of animals must inevitably come to the conclusion that the theory is not tenable which maintains that animals can not think and reason.
I was very glad when papa brought me the first number of Young People, and told me I should have it every week. When I read the story of Watty Hirzel, the brave Swiss boy, it made me think of a boy I saw last summer in the Tyrol, where I went with papa and mamma. He was helping his father row a boat on the Königs-See, a beautiful lake in the Bavarian Tyrol. I remember him because he had a bunch of Alpine roses and Edelweiss, which he gave to mamma. We had never seen any flowers like them before, and we wondered if there was any pretty English name for the Edelweiss. Mamma thinks that perhaps if I ask Young People I shall find out. It is a white flower, with leaves like velvet, and the little boatman said it grew very high up on the mountains, where the chamois live.
Mamie.
We do not know any pretty English name for Edelweiss. The German name is composed of two words—edel, signifying noble, and weiss, white. If you are studying botany, perhaps you can determine to what family the flower belongs—that is, if you have any carefully pressed specimens.
Will you please tell me why the Bank of England is called "the Old Lady in Threadneedle Street," and who first called it so? I would like to know, too, when the bank was founded, and when the building it now occupies was erected.
Inquisitive Jim.
Will not some of our "young people" send answers to "Jim's" questions?
The picture of Chestnutting in the first number of Young People puts me in mind of our beechnutting parties. On the hill where my papa's house stands there are a large number of beech-trees, and I and my two little brothers have just had a fine frolic gathering the queer three-sided little nuts. A beech forest is very beautiful in autumn, when the golden leaves are fluttering down to the ground, and the smooth, straight tree trunks tower upward like silver-gray giants. When we gathered the nuts we spread some old sheets and blankets under the tree, because the nuts are so very small that otherwise we would never have been able to find them among the heaps of dry leaves. They are nestled in russet-brown burrs, something like chestnuts, and are so abundant that sometimes we get a whole barrelful from one tree. We like them better than chestnuts, and they keep all winter. My brothers and myself always take a pocketful to school to eat with our luncheon. We often find them in the spring among the heaps of last year's leaves, and after they have lain under the snow all winter, they begin to sprout when the first warm days come, and then they are very nice to eat.
I hope the Young People will tell us of some good winter-evening games, for we never know what to do between supper and bed-time. We always learn our lessons for the next day in the afternoon.
Susie H. C.
WIGGLES.
We were scattered about our sitting-room table; the early tea was just over, and a good long evening before us. (Us means papa, Bob, Mamie, and Nelly. I am Nelly, and the eldest of the family—except papa, of course.)
Papa was reading the evening paper—something about stocks, I suppose; Bob had both elbows firmly planted within two inches of the student-lamp, handy for upsetting in case he sneezed; Mamie was looking as doleful as if she had lost her kitten; and I was gazing in the fire and dreaming.
"Wish I had something to do," yawned Bob.
"So do I," said Mamie.
"Play checkers," I suggested.
"No; only two can play that," objected Mamie. "Papa, don't you know something we can play?"
"Well," said papa, folding up his paper, "let me see. Bob, take yourself out of the lamp. Play 'Recondite Forms.'"
"What's recondite?" growled Bob.
"Recondite means hidden, concealed, and this game is called 'Recondite Forms' because— But you will understand it better after you have played it. I want pencils and some rather thin paper."
Bob and Mamie collected the pencils, I brought a supply of French note-paper from my desk, and we all drew our chairs about the table, ready for work.
Papa took a pencil, and made a kind of wiggle, like No. 1 in the picture; then he laid over that another sheet of paper, which was thin enough to allow the pencil mark to show through; this he carefully traced, so as to have an exact copy, and did the same with two other sheets; then gave us each one, and told us to see what kind of a picture we could make out of it; we might add to the line as much as we pleased, but we must not alter nor cross it.
"Oh," said Bob, "I don't know what to make!"
"Hush!" said Mamie; "I want to think."
Then silence reigned—at first puzzled, but afterward busy.
"I've got it!" shouted Bob, dropping his pencil.
"So've I," echoed Mamie.
"Now for a grand exhibition!" said papa, collecting the papers, and laying them in a row on the table.
Bob had made a parrot out of his "wiggle," papa a graceful floating figure, Mamie a high-heeled shoe, and I a fool with cap and bells.
"Now," said papa, "do you see why this is called 'Recondite Forms'? In this first line all the other figures were hidden, and it took only a few pencil strokes to bring them out."
"Yes, I see," said Bob. "Now let's try some more wiggles."
"Wiggles!" said papa; "I don't know but that's a better name than the other."
"Oh yes; re-con-dite is awful hard," said Mamie.
"Wiggles it is, then," said papa.
And "wiggles" it has been ever since. I will add, for the benefit of those outside my own small circle, that instead of French note-paper, the common white wrapping-paper, such as grocers use in tying up parcels of tea, is just as good for the purpose, and a great deal cheaper. With several sheets of this, and two or three lead-pencils, "wiggles" may be played for a whole evening.
In the picture No. 6 is a new "wiggle" for you to try your hand upon. See what you can make of it, and in the next number I will give you my idea.
Hats.—The felt hat is as old as Homer. The Greeks made them in skull-caps, conical, truncated, narrow, or broad-brimmed. The Phrygian bonnet was an elevated cap without a brim, the apex turned over in front. It is known as the cap of Liberty. An ancient figure of Liberty in the times of Antonius Livius, a.d. 115, holds the cap in the right hand. The Persians wore soft caps; plumed hats were the head-dress of the Syrian corps of Xerxes; the broad-brim was worn by the Macedonian kings. Castor means a beaver. The Armenian captive wore a plug hat. The merchants of the fourteenth century wore a Flanders beaver. Charles VII., in 1469, wore a felt hat lined with red, and plumed. The English men and women in 1510 wore close woollen or knitted caps; two centuries ago hats were worn in the house. Pepys, in his diary, wrote: "September, 1664, got a severe cold because he took off his hat at dinner;" and again, in January, 1665, he got another cold by sitting too long with his head bare, to allow his wife's maid to comb his hair and wash his ears; and Lord Clarendon, in his essay, speaking of the decay of respect due the aged, says "that in his younger days he never kept his hat on before those older than himself, except at dinner." In the thirteenth century Pope Innocent IV. allowed the cardinals the use of the scarlet cloth hat. The hats now in use are the cloth hat, leather hat, paper hat, silk hat, opera hat, spring-brim hat, and straw hat.
Sponges.—The coarse, soft, flat sponges, with large pores and great orifices in them, come from the Bahamas and Florida. The finer kinds, suitable for toilet use, are found in the Levant; the best on the coast of Northern Syria, near Tripoli, and secondary qualities among the Greek isles. These are either globular or of a cup-like form, with fine pores, and are not easily torn. They are got by divers plunging from a boat, many fathoms down, with a heavy stone tied to a rope for sinking the man, who snatches the sponges, puts them into a net fastened to his waist, and is then hauled up. Some of the Greeks, instead of diving, throw short harpoons attached to a cord, having first spied their prey at the bottom through a tin tube with a glass bottom immersed below the surface waves.
