[to be continued.]
[A TYROLESE NATIONAL DAY.]
Napoleon has many sins to answer for, but there is no one deed of his for which he has been more justly blamed than for the killing of Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolese patriot. From 1363, when Tyrol by inheritance came to belong to Austria, the Tyrolese had never wavered in their devotion to the house of Hapsburg, and therefore when in 1805, by the Peace of Presburg, Austria was forced by Napoleon to cede Tyrol to Bavaria, a thrill of indignation stirred the hearts of the sturdy mountaineers at being against their will forced to change rulers; and when they found that the mild rule to which they had been accustomed was exchanged for severe impositions, taxes, and drafting to fight against their friends the Austrians, it is no wonder they revolted against their oppressors. The Tyrolese are a nation of marksmen, and though ready to fight when occasion requires, they will not endure regular military service such as Bavaria then demanded (being obliged to furnish a certain number of men for the French armies), and, besides, rather prided themselves on their ignorance of military manœuvres. They have a rhyme—
"You say 'tis luck alone when those
Unskilled in tactics beat their foes,
But better 'tis without to win
Than with these tactics to give in,"
and their encounters with the French and Bavarians during the year 1809 only served to confirm them in this belief.
The Archduke John of Austria had been much in Tyrol, and had endeared himself to the people, and when the cession in 1805 forced him to quit the country, he disbanded his Tyrolese army, promising them, however, that if the time should ever come when it would be safe to try and recover their liberty, he would send them word, and become their leader; he also promised to keep up intercourse with the chief Tyrolese, and his favored correspondent was our patriot, Andreas Hofer.
Hofer was an innkeeper in the Passeyr Valley, as his ancestors had been before him, a wine dealer, and horse drover, all of which occupations brought him in contact with people of every rank in life. A Tyrolese innkeeper is a very important person, often serves as a banker for the neighboring settlements, and his house is always the place appointed for political meetings. Hofer's inn was called the "Sand House," and he was known and trusted from one end of Tyrol to the other. He was born in 1767, and was forty-one when chosen leader of the Tyrolese forces.
The Archduke in January, 1809, sent word that he would like to confer with Hofer and other tried friends, and they accordingly went to receive his orders. He directed them to hold themselves ready, promised that they should have due notice when a general rising was to be made, and desired Hofer to let the different districts know, in order that the suddenness of the revolt in so many places at one time might arouse all Germany. The signal was to be the floating of sawdust on the streams, and though more than two months passed before the plan could be carried out, and many were necessarily in the secret, there was never a suspicion excited in the minds of the enemy.
Within three days (from March 31) the whole of Tyrol was in arms, and Hofer captured at Innsbruck and Hall over eight thousand French and Bavarian prisoners; within the next fortnight the whole province was free, and over ten thousand French and Bavarian troops destroyed. The defeat of Austria at Wagram by the French caused a demand that the Austrians should evacuate Tyrol, and though three separate armies were sent against them, Hofer and his brave countrymen routed them all, and Tyrol declared herself free, formed an independent government, and Hofer was declared absolute Dictator.
For some time the Tyrolese fought against a superior foe. In the last battle the women bore arms alongside the men, and nearly four hundred were killed by the enemy's cavalry; but finding resistance vain, Hofer disbanded his forces. Refusing all requests to leave the country and seek refuge in Austria, he went to a lonely hut on the mountain, some miles above his inn. Here, though he remained for over two months, supplied by the peasantry with food, no reward could induce his countrymen to betray him; but one Douay, a traitor, and no Tyrolese, offered to lead a band to the place, and on the 27th of January two hundred men were sent to capture him. They reached his hut after dark, and when he was aware of their presence, he submitted to be ironed, and with his wife, daughter, and little son was marched to Botzen amidst the taunts of the French and the tears of his countrymen. He retained his cheerfulness, though worn with privation, believing that not even Napoleon could condemn him. He was taken under strong escort to Mantua, it not being deemed safe to keep him in Tyrol, and tried by a court-martial. The majority of his judges voted he should be imprisoned; two, that he should be liberated; but Napoleon, then at Milan, sent word that he should be shot within twenty-four hours. Hofer received the news with calmness; and on February 20, 1810, at eleven o'clock, he was led out to execution.
"THE NAUGHTY BOY."—From the Painting by C. T. Garland.
[ANDREW JACKSON WASHINGTON JONES.]
AS BLACK AS BLACK COULD BE.
Andrew was quite as black a little colored boy as if he had been well painted, and his mammy was in the habit of telling him that he was as lazy as he was black, a fact which Andrew Jackson never took the trouble to deny.
He had not a very clear idea of the proper definition of the word lazy; but even though he never made any attempt to correct the error into which his mother had fallen, he believed he could point out at least a dozen boys who were really indolent, while he was only what might be called tired.
He looked upon such work as carrying wood and water as something especially adapted to cultivate the muscles of older people, but decidedly injurious to boys of his age. Therefore whenever he saw anything at home which indicated the possibility of his being set at work, he always had immediate and urgent business which called him as far away as he felt able to walk, and he could go a long distance, however warm the day, when he believed he was fleeing from labor.
But one day Andrew Jackson Washington Jones's father came home with a very long and stout willow switch in his hand, and told the ever-tired little darky that it was his intention to "use it upon his back, shuah," if a certain pile of wood was not split and into the shed by sunset.
Andrew would have turned pale if his skin had not been quite so dark, for from the way his father spoke, he was quite certain he would be just cruel enough to carry his threat into execution; and he went out by the wood-pile wondering which would be the hardest—to do the work or receive the promised whipping.
He had just made up his mind that he would rather have the willow cut up by his back than to cut that pile of wood with the dull axe, while all the other boys were out cat-fishing; and he was already smarting from anticipation when another and more horrible thought came to him. He would probably not only be obliged to feel the willow, but to do the work also, and he was discouraged.
"Daddy'll lick me fo' a fac', an' mammy will tear round drefful till it's done," he said, musingly, and he shivered at the thought. "Dar's gwine to be no rest fo' dis chile till dat yere wood am cut."
If Andrew had only ceased discussing matters with himself then, and set to work in earnest on that unlucky wood-pile, all would have been well, and one little colored boy would not have been missing from home that night. But he continued the discussion until he had decided to do the task, and afterward concluded that he could, by trying remarkably hard, catch just one cat-fish, and yet have the wood in the shed before the sun got through work and went to bed.
"Keep remembrancin' dis yere switch," cried his mother, when she saw him feel of the axe, then put his best bone clappers in his pocket, and start in the direction of the wharves.
Andrew nodded his head and shrugged his shoulders as if he had it ever before his eyes, but hurried on.
If he had attacked the wood-pile with half the energy that he started for the cat-fish, all would have been well with both him and the wood, for he walked along at a really rapid rate, considering how tired he always was.
At the wharves he saw none of his friends, but a steamer was there taking on freight, and to Andrew's mind it would be quite as interesting to examine her as to catch three or even four cat-fish.
His wanderings on board, unchecked by any of the officers because there was a possibility he might be a passenger, led him to the furnace-room, which was entirely deserted. A cozy seat made of rough boards was just beside the open door of the furnace, from which the heat was escaping in very welcome quantities, and Andrew popped into it, smiling as he thought of the difference between cutting the wood and sitting there where he was so thoroughly comfortable.
"Talk 'bout dat yere wood-pile," he muttered, and then he was sound asleep, while the light of the glowing coals played about his face, causing it to assume all shades from a light bronze to an intense black.
ASLEEP IN THE FURNACE-ROOM.
No boy ever slept more soundly than did Andrew Jackson Washington Jones then, and none ever awoke more quickly than he when a heavy hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he was pushed on to the iron floor in anything rather than a gentle manner.
"G-'way from me, g'way—" and then he stopped speaking that he might open his mouth wide with astonishment as he saw a man, a very big, stout man, looking at him angrily.
"What are you doing here?" asked the big party, whom Andrew would have known to be the fireman, if he had been better acquainted with steamboat life.
"I's gwine cat-fishin' fur a spell," said the boy, his eyes opening wide as he closed his mouth to speak.
"Cat-fishin'! Perhaps you're runnin' this craft, and are goin' to take her out on a fishin' cruise?"
The sneer which accompanied the words was lost on the boy, as, suddenly thinking of the neglected work, he replied, in a dazed sort of way:
"Daddy's gwine to lick me now fo' a fac'."
"He won't do it half as quick as I will," roared the fireman, evidently enraged by the astonished way in which the boy stared at him, his eyes seeming to increase in size each moment.
Before Andrew Jackson Washington Jones had any idea as to what was about to be done, the man had seized him by the collar of his jacket, and he felt blows compared with which those from the willow switch would have been pleasure.
"Now shovel over that coal," shouted the man, as he released his hold of Andrew Jackson's collar so suddenly that the boy spun around against the iron-clad sides of the room like a top in a box.
"Mammy says I's to come right back," blubbered Andrew, as he rubbed coal dust over his face in his efforts to wipe his eyes.
"It'll be quite a spell before you do get back, for the steamer left the dock ten minutes ago."
"Den I mus' shinny along, fur I carn't stay here," said Andrew, hurriedly, as he started toward the door.
"Come back here," and the man made sure he would obey by catching him by the jacket, and pulling him toward him. "Didn't you hear me say that the boat had left the dock? We're two miles away by this time."
"Wha—wha—wha'll I do?" and Andrew Jackson burst into a fresh flood of tears, as the most lonely feeling he ever had in his life came over him.
"You'll take hold of that shovel and exercise it as lively as you know how," replied the man, and from the way in which he spoke Andrew did not think it prudent to make any objections.
Shovelling coal in the hot furnace-room of a steamer is work by the side of which almost any other seems like mere play, and if Andrew Jackson Washington Jones could suddenly have been carried back to that wood-pile he would have attacked it with an energy that would have astonished his mother.
But he was not there, which was his own fault, and he was obliged to shovel coal, which was the fault of the ill-natured fireman, both of which facts made of Andrew Jackson as miserable a little colored boy as ever strayed into mischief for the sake of a few cat-fish.
For nearly two hours—and he would not have been surprised had he been told two days had passed—he shovelled coal, while the perspiration rolled down in streams from his face, and to add to his misery he lost his valued clappers through the grating. Then the fireman said:
"Now, then, boy, we're going to stop pretty soon, and you'd better get on deck if you want to go ashore; for you're only about twenty miles from home now, and at the next stopping-place you'll be fifty miles away."
Andrew dropped that shovel as if it had suddenly become hot, and when the steamer stopped he was the first person who landed, having carelessly stepped on the mate's foot, and been thrown ashore by him before the gang plank was out.
The moment he was fairly on his feet he started up the pier toward the town at a speed that would have persuaded his mother he had a fit, could she have seen him, and it was not until he got into the very centre of the village that he attempted to form any plan as to the future.
There he was, twenty miles from home, without any money, and his clappers lost. His hands were blistered, his clothes covered with cinders and coal dust, and he was more thoroughly hungry and tired than he ever remembered being before.
He looked down the road which a gentleman told him led to his home, and as he thought of that wood-pile twenty miles away, it seemed as if it would have been happiness indeed if he could only be there cutting it up and carrying it into the shed. He was hungry too, wonderfully hungry, but fortunately an old lady gave him two doughnuts and three crackers after she heard his story, and then she told him he was a cruel, wicked boy for not having done as his father had commanded him.
He knew it was necessary for him to trudge along if he ever wanted to get home, and every lazy bone in his body rebelled against the exercise.
He walked and walked until he thought he must have gone fully a hundred and seventeen miles, and yet there was no sign of a town, while it had grown as dark as it well could be on a moonlight night.
He sat down by the side of the road to rest, but he heard so many strange noises, and fancied he saw so many horrible things, that he was forced to go on again, although his legs were so tired it seemed as if they would drop from his body, and his feet were very sore.
There was one thing he could do, which was to cry, and he set about that work with more real energy than he had ever set about anything before.
He roared so that the woods fairly rang with the echoes, and the night birds peered out very carefully to see what the matter was. But all his crying did not take him one inch nearer home, and the sound of his own voice actually frightened him.
After he had walked what ought to have been another hundred miles, and thought he should surely die from fatigue, he heard sounds in the rear which caused his heart to stand almost still, while he expected every moment to be killed and scalped.
No such fearful fate awaited him, however, for the horrible noise he heard was simply the driver of an ox-team singing to cheer himself on his journey.
It was singular how sweet that music sounded after Andrew knew what it was, and he ran back to meet the team rather than wait for it to come to him.
The oxen and the man were going directly past his home, though it would, of course, be some time before they reached there, and the boy who went for cat-fish rather than chop wood was to be allowed to ride over all level places in the road, and down hill. Up hill he must walk, for the load was heavy, and the patient oxen had about all they could draw without him.
If the driver of that team was to be believed, Andrew Jackson had walked about four miles; but the boy felt certain that either the man was mistaken or was wickedly concealing the truth.
The journey was not ended until noon of the next day, and it surely seemed as if it had been all up hill, so often was Andrew called upon to get down and walk.
His father and mother were both out hunting for him when he arrived home, and the way he made that wood fly, tired and hungry though he was, should have been a caution to any lazy boy. It was all cut and in the shed when his parents got home, but nevertheless the willow switch was well worn, and from that day forth Andrew Jackson Washington Jones was nearly, if not quite, cured of being lazy.
[THE BOY WHO COULD NOT BE HURT.]
BY DAVID KER.
I.
Many many years ago, about the time that Hendrick Hudson was smoking his first pipe with the Manhattan Indians on the site of New York, a group of school-boys were assembled one quiet summer evening in front of a house in the quiet little Swedish village of Hornelen.
"That's where the nest is, up there by the corner of the highest window," said one. "But who's to get it?"
"Oh! can't you really, Karl?" piped a poor little pale-faced cripple in the centre of the group. "That's just the egg I've been wanting ever so long. Can't you get it somehow?"
"I wish I could, little one, if only for your sake; but I've tried it twice, and got nothing but a good tumble for my pains."
"And so has Austrian Moritz here—haven't you, old fellow?" cried another, clapping the shoulder of a slim, dark-haired boy, who was spending his holidays at Hornelen with one of his father's Swedish friends.
"True enough," said Moritz von Arnheim, with a grimace. "But here comes Johnny Banner, and he'll do it if any one can."
"Hurrah for the boy who can't be hurt!" shouted several voices, as a big square-built lad, with a bold, bluff, sunburned face, joined the group. "Why, Johnny, man, how dusty you are!"
"And so would you be, if you'd just been run over by a wagon," grunted Johnny.
"Run over by a wagon!" echoed the boys, staring.
"Just so. You see, I was up in the big elm yonder, having a swing on one of the boughs, when Farmer Jansen, not seeing me, let fly at a rook that had perched there, and put a charge of shot through my cap. Look here;" and he held up the riddled cap to view.
"Another escape, I declare," laughed Moritz. "We shall have to call you 'Jack-of-Nine-Lives,' at this rate."
"So then, as you may think," pursued Johnny, "I came down again faster than I went up, and got into the road just in time to meet old Nils, the carrier, rattling along at his usual slap-dash pace. In trying to avoid him, I slipped and fell right before the cart, and horse and cart and all went merrily over me. Luckily, I had fallen lengthwise, so that the wheels went on each side of me, and here I am, all right."
"Well, old boy," cried Karl, "here's another chance for you. Try if you can get those eggs up yonder for little Olaf. None of us can."
The words were hardly spoken, when Banner was over the fence, and the next moment he was seen scrambling up the side of the house by the notches which time and weather had made in the masonry. Once he slipped, and came down with a run; but he only set his hard mouth a little more firmly, and went to work again. Inch by inch he worked his way upward, the boys holding their breath as they watched him, until at length a general shout proclaimed that he had got a firm hold of the ivy.
Once there, the rest was easy. Another minute brought him within reach of the nest, and the eggs were carefully stowed away in a kind of pouch in the breast of his jacket.
Just then the village school-master came by, and seeing what was going on, cried, indignantly,
"You cruel boy! it would serve you right if you were to fall and injure yourself."
The words were truer than he intended, for Banner, startled by the shout, lost his hold and fell headlong to the ground. A cry of horror burst from the lookers-on, who were all over the fence in an instant, and the old teacher, dismayed at the effect of his rebuke, was not the hindmost. But to their amazement they found that "the boy who could not be hurt" had deserved his name once more. He had alighted upon a heap of straw, and though stunned and slightly bruised, was otherwise not a whit the worse.
"All right, boys," said he, faintly, "the eggs aren't broken, anyhow. Here, Olaf." And he put his prize into the trembling hands of the little cripple, who was crying bitterly.
"God bless thee, my brave lad!" said the old teacher, losing all his anger in honest admiration of the boy's courage. "Thou art one who will be heard of yet."