[to be continued.]
MORNING AND EVENING.—Drawn by Mary A. Lathbury.
[BADMINTON.]
BY SHERWOOD RYSE.
It is first cousin to lawn tennis, and it is so like lawn tennis that any one would guess that the two games were closely related. Perhaps most boys and girls would say that Badminton is a slow game, and very childish; and, compared with lawn tennis, perhaps it is. But although it is by no means so robust a game, and requires not nearly so much skill as its cousin, it has many advantages. Lawn tennis is an out-door game, and demands a great deal of space and the best possible light; otherwise it gets sulky. Badminton, on the other hand, can put up with a small space and a moderately good light. Being, as we have said, less robust than the other game, wind does not agree with it. Nevertheless, in still weather it can be played out-of-doors, and in-doors in all weathers.
The small space required is a great advantage that Badminton enjoys. A large part of the population of this great country lives in city houses, whose back yards are perhaps fifty feet long and only half as wide. Not much in the way of games can be done in a city back yard; yet one can play Badminton there. What if it be planted with posts on which the laundress stretches her clothes-line? So much the better. We shall want those posts, if they are conveniently placed, for we have a net to spread. This should be fastened to the posts so that the top of it is five feet from the ground, and a net (or a strip of calico) two feet wide, and as long as the distance between the posts, will be quite large enough.
The court may be marked out with whitening or chalk, and should measure about twenty feet by fifteen on each side of the net. At a distance of five feet from the net, on each side, the service lines are drawn, and then the court is complete.
The implements of the game are merely battledores and shuttlecocks. Very babyish, you will say. But if you can once overcome your pride, and condescend to use such playthings, you will find that the game is not nearly so babyish as you may think it. The battledores should be good ones, strong and heavy, and strung either with catgut, like a tennis racket, or with string. The shuttlecock is greatly improved by being made heavy. Those sold in stores especially for Badminton are already made heavy enough, but the ordinary toy shuttlecocks require a little, a very little, melted lead poured into a hole in the cork. As the lead cools and hardens, the cork closes around it, and holds it tight.
The rules of Badminton are very much like those of lawn tennis, except that every stroke must be "volleyed"—that is, the shuttlecock must be struck before it touches the ground, for of course it will not bound. The "server" must send his first ball so that if it were to fall to the ground it would fall beyond the service line of his opponent's court, and not within it, as in lawn tennis. After the service it may be returned to any part of the opponent's court, and kept up until one of the players fails to return it over the net, or hits it so far that it falls outside of the opponent's court.
The game is counted in the same manner as in lawn tennis—fifteen, thirty, forty, game; with deuce and vantage, when the score is forty all—and the one who first wins six games wins the set. Two, three, or four persons can play at the same time.
With good players, it will frequently happen that the shuttlecock will be kept in the air for several minutes without falling to the ground, and it is interesting to keep count of the number of times that it is thus returned over the net. At the same time it must be remembered that the object of the game is to send the shuttlecock so that the opponent can not return it; hence it will be contrary to the spirit of the game to encourage long rallies by purposely sending easy returns.
[RIGHT THROUGH A BARN.]
BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.
"Rube," said Bun Gates, when they came together one day after breakfast, "did you hear about Squire Cudworth's new barn?"
"Guess there isn't anything more to hear about it. Folks didn't talk of anything else while he was putting it up. Father said it would hold horses enough to run a livery-stable."
"That isn't it. I heard all about it at breakfast. The railroad's goin' to run right through it."
"Right through the barn? I wish they'd run it through the academy, if 'twasn't for spoiling the green."
"It's cut Pop Simmons's orchard right in two, and they've tore away Widow McCue's pig-pen, spite of all Felix and Biddy could do to stop 'em. Now it's the big barn."
"Biggest barn there ever was anywhere around here. It's just awful. Did you ever see a railroad?"
"Only the streak they've made along where this one's going to come. I'll tell you what father said, though."
"What did he say, Bun?"
"He said it was one of old Squire Cudworth's jokes. There was a quarrel between him, and the railroad, and so he put the barn there to keep it from coming through."
"It won't do it, Bun. A railroad'll go right through a hill and not half try."
"Come on, Rube, we'll be late; but father says he guesses the railroad didn't make anything very heavy out of the Squire's joke."
When the class in arithmetic was called up that fore-noon, Bun Gates and Rube Hollenhouser went down to the foot of it, one after the other, for the first time that academy term. When they got there and could have a good look at each other's slates, they each knew what sort of a picture the other could make of Squire Cudworth's big barn, with something full of fire and smoke and steam smashing into it at both ends.
The afternoon wore away, a little at a time, until it was all gone, but every boy they knew had heard of what was coming to Squire Cudworth's barn by that time, and at least a dozen of them wanted to go and have a look at it.
Squire Cudworth was standing at the corner of the barn, a very large, fat, rosy-faced man, with his hands in his pockets, and he looked as if he were waiting for something. He chuckled all over, and they could hear him jingle the money in his pockets as he recognized the boys.
"That's the railroad, boys. Them's the ties, and some call 'em sleepers. The rails are glued down on 'em. You'll see some men come along pretty soon with great bundles of iron rails in one hand and pots of glue in the other. They're 'most here now. By to-morrer night that barn of mine won't be a safe place for hosses. It's awful, boys—jest awful!"
"How do you s'pose they'll get through the barn?" asked Bun.
"Can't say. I've kep' 'em off long as I could. That's what I'm here for now. We don't need any railroad in Prome Centre. That's what I told 'em. If they'd only dig the creek out good and deep, so it would be of some use. They wouldn't, though, and I might as well have built my barn right in the middle of the creek."
Every boy in the crowd was listening to him, but not one of them could see what there was in it all that made the old Squire chuckle so. Three or four asked,
"Does it go through on Friday?"
"Day after to-morrer, boys. I shall be out of breath by that time. Have to go home and go to bed, and put all my hosses in the old barn up on the hill. You'd all better be here then. Tell all the other boys. Have 'em all come." Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, and the bunches of keys and the small change jingled merrily, as if the Squire were making fun of the railroad, or the boys, or of his misfortunes.
"We'll all be here," said Rube. "Boys, there'll be something worth seeing, sure's you live."
They were most of them at one place or another along the track before school next morning, and at the noon recess they compared notes of the matters they had seen—men spiking down rails with big hammers, for instance, instead of glue-pots. It was a great time for a lot of boys who had never seen anything of the kind before, and Rube Hollenhouser stirred up their envy a little. He said:
"Dolf Zimmerman's been on a railroad. He told me all about it. There was an accident, too, and he'd have been killed as dead as a hammer if he'd been there."
"Dolf Zimmerman!" exclaimed a fellow who lived away at the upper end of the village. "Who cares for him? He's travelled, that's all. This railroad of ours is going to run right through Cudworth's barn. I guess he wouldn't want to be riding on it just then."
There was a general agreement with that opinion, but the boys who lived at places below Zimmerman's store all found an errand in there before the day was over. Some of them only bought a cent's worth of something, and looked at Dolf, but three or four asked him questions right out, and it was Felix McCue who got the most out of him. The Widow McCue never traded at Zimmerman's, and it was a bold thing for Felix to walk in and ask of Dolf over the counter,
"What's the price of yer bist Jayvy coffee?"
"Thirty-five cents a pound."
"That's what I wanted to know. Do yiz think it'll be any chaper after the railroad gits through the barrn?"
"Oh, you get eout! You don't want any coffee."
"Don't I, thin? I don't belave ye know any more about a railroad than I do meself. Come on, b'yes. He's been humbuggin' ye."
Rube Hollenhouser afterward stood up manfully for Dolf Zimmerman's reputation as a traveller, and all the cows in Prome Centre went to their pastures very early the next morning. That was Friday, and it was to be the last day of the mortal life of Squire Cudworth's big barn, and there were a good many older people, as well as very young ones, who were willing to hurry through their breakfasts, and walk over to see what the Squire was going to do about it. Everybody knew more or less about the quarrel between him and the railway company, and there was not a doubt in the minds of his fellow-citizens but what he had beaten the corporation in every point but the one of keeping his barn.
There he was, when Rube and Bun and little Jeff Gates, and a crowd of other boys and their brothers and sisters, and some of their fathers and mothers and aunts and uncles, began to swarm around and look at him. There was the Squire, indeed, and his face was redder than ever, and Bun Gates remarked,
"I say, Rube, how he does jingle!"
"Yes, but haven't they made that railroad jingle? They've nailed down the rails 'most up to the stable-door on each side. If an engine should come now, it could run its nose against the barn."
"They've got to do it, Rube. They've got to smash it right through."
"I say, Bun, the stable's full of men. They're working at something. Hear 'em hammer?"
"There's another lot around outside. See 'em?"
"Hear 'em in the barn! Wonder 'f they'd let us in."
"Guess not. I don't want to go in, neither. Hey! What's that?"
Every face in the gathering crowd was suddenly turned toward the north, as if one pull had fetched them all around at the same instant. Not that they saw anything, but that the deafest man among them could hear the whistle of the coming locomotive. It would be the first of its kind ever seen in Prome Centre, and now it was gathering itself, they all knew, for a rush down that track at Squire Cudworth's barn.
More boys were coming, and they all asked questions the moment they could get their breaths after they reached the crowd and had one look at the barn. It was there yet, and so was the Squire, but there had been another awful whistle, up north, beyond Pop Simmons's orchard.
"Rube," said Bun, "those fellows are just a-jerking that stable out of its boots. They're h'isting the roof off now."
"Hear 'em hammering inside? There's something going on. Don't they just swarm, though, and can't they work!"
It was a simple fact that the railway company had sent a good many men to take care of the last obstacle in its way, and Squire Cudworth's joke lasted to the very end. He began to grow redder and redder in the face. Then he jingled more than ever for a minute, and then he stopped jingling altogether, for just then it seemed as if the whole side of the stable was stripped off at a push or two. The roof was already off. One minute more and the ends were gone, doors and all, and a well-dressed, gentlemanly person stepped out along the track.
"Boys!" shouted Rube. "There's the railroad now. Inside the stable."
"If they haven't put down a track right where the floor was!" said Bun.
There sounded another tremendous shriek from beyond the orchard, and a cloud of smoke and steam began to move along over the tree-tops.
"Here she comes, boys!"
"She's a-coming! She's a coming!"
"Hark, Rube," said Bun. "What's that man saying to Squire Cudworth?"
They heard him, and he said it very politely.
"Quick work, eh, Mr. Cudworth?"
"Sharp. Far as you've gone. Think you'll get the whole of it off to-day?"
"Off? Oh no. Don't you see? We're making a station-house out of the main barn. Just the thing. Set it up a little higher; that's all. Quite a saving of money to the company."
"Bun," said Rube, "did you ever see old Squire Cudworth look so angry as he does now? Guess they must have got the joke on him somehow."
"It'll make him sick if they have."
"Hey! She's 'most got here!"
They were all holding their breaths for the next minute or so, for there was the first locomotive they had ever seen outside of a picture, and it was whistling and coughing and ringing its bell and backing and starting and doing everything but dance, right through where Squire Cudworth's stable had been.
"Rube, they're not going to pull down any more of the barn."
"Tell you what, though, they never'd have got through the way they did if they hadn't laid some track inside and knocked the doors down."
"Course they wouldn't. I say, old Squire Cudworth's going home."
"Hear the 'cademy bell! Did you know it was nine o'clock? What'll we say to Miss Eccles?"
"I don't care so much, Rube. She won't get a roomful till this crowd gets there. There's about as many girls as boys."
"Black marks all 'round. She's seen a railroad before, or she'd have been here herself. I ain't so sorry as I was about that barn. Do you know what's a station-house?"
"I guess I do, but we'd better stop after school and ask Dolf Zimmerman."
At the supper table that evening, Bun Gates heard his father say to his mother: "Squire Cudworth? Oh yes, he got a good price for his barn. What made him sick was the railway superintendent thanking him for building them so nice a station-house, just where they wanted it. He tried to laugh, but he couldn't, and everybody else did."
"GOOD-MORNING!"
[AN UNDER-GROUND ESCAPE.]
BY W. W. FENN.
Snap, my little fox-terrier, was the most affectionate and devoted dog I ever remember. It mattered not where I went, he was sure to be close to my heels, and the thicker the crowd, the closer he kept to them. For the three years that I lived in London, in all our wanderings I never once missed him or had any trouble with him.
As far as possible, dogs are prohibited from travelling on the under-ground railway; but as I had constantly to travel by it from King's Cross to Paddington, and Snap's habit of keeping close being well known to the officials, they winked at his accompanying me.
On a certain afternoon, being, as usual, on my way to Paddington, and a train being due at King's Cross, I made a rush for it, and reached the platform just as a train was coming into the station.
Jumping into a compartment, I looked to see if the dog was with me, but to my dismay, as a porter slammed the door and the train began to move, I observed Snap on the platform, running wildly up and down looking for me. Suddenly he saw me at the window, but it was too late; and as we entered the darkness of the tunnel, I heard him give a despairing bark.
I felt angry with myself for not looking after him more carefully, and resolved to get out at the next station and go back for him. But how had he missed me? I could not understand it, for he had never done such a thing before. Five minutes brought us to Gower Street, and a train then due took me back in another five minutes to where I had started from.
"Have you seen my dog?" I asked of a porter there who knew me.
"Your dog, sir?" answered the man. "Oh yes, to be sure. You left him behind, didn't you? Well, as the train went into the tunnel, I saw him jump from the platform and follow it."
"What!" I said; "he wasn't following it when we reached Gower Street."
"Wasn't he? Then I expect he's still in the tunnel. The train went too fast for him to keep up with it."
"He'll be run over!" I exclaimed, very nervous for Snap's safety.
"Tell you what, sir. I'll go and get permission, if you like, from the inspector to take a lantern and see if we can find him."
I thanked the man, and he started off to get the necessary permission, which the inspector gave, after saying something about people having no right to bring dogs into the station. Together the man and I then went into the tunnel.
The unaccustomed darkness, to say nothing of the perils of such an expedition, inspired me with considerable dread, and I kept tight hold of my guide's arm. When we had advanced some two or three hundred yards along the under-ground highway, or rather "low" way, the lights of an up-train became visible. As it went by and we stood still for a minute, the roar and rattle were not calculated to dispel my nervousness. They were terrible—deafening. Immediately it had passed, the porter cried out,
"Look there, sir—look; there he goes!"
He was pointing toward the red danger light at the tail of the receding train, and there, sure enough, was Snap scampering after it at a pace which no one could have given a fox-terrier credit for. I began to call and whistle as loudly as I could, but my voice was drowned by the hissing whir and rattle going on. Just then another engine hove in sight on our line of rails, and we had rapidly to step back into one of the recesses, or man-holes, as I believe they are called. When this second train had shot past us, there again, to our astonishment, was Snap galloping after it. He had not observed us, of course. We then walked on some little way further along the tunnel, and in a minute another up-train passed us, and there once more was the dog behind it.
"How ridiculous," I cried, "and yet how painful, to see the poor little beast tearing to and fro for dear life in this way! He will surely be run over before long."
But the reason was obvious: he could not keep up with the speed of the train, and by the time it had distanced him, another probably passed in the opposite direction, when, confused by the noise and turmoil, he turned immediately and pursued that. It seemed to me simply marvellous that he had escaped the wheels even so far in these agonizing efforts to find me.
As the lights of the next engine came in view, I resolved to give the last carriage just time to pass, and then to rush out, and, if possible, to intercept my poor pet, for I expected him again to return with that. I was not mistaken, and as I slipped from the man-hole in front of the dog, the porter held his lantern so that its light fell full upon my form. Snap instantly recognized, me, and with one bound and a breathless yelp landed on my breast, and clasping me tightly round the neck with his two fore-legs as if they had been the arms of a loving child, he rubbed his wet nose excitedly against my face. Terrified well-nigh unto death, gasping and exhausted, and all the time uttering a plaintive little wail of delight, he lay almost motionless in this position for several minutes, while his affectionate heart beat like a small sledge-hammer against mine. This simple but intense demonstration of canine devotion, in the gloomy depths of the under-ground, with only the faint rays of the porter's lamp to illuminate the scene, was very touching.
"You have got a noble little chap there, sir," said the man, as he led the way cautiously back to the platform. "He was worth a bit of trouble to find, and no mistake."
"Quite true, my friend," I answered, "and I'll take good care for the future to pop him under my arm when I travel on the Metropolitan Railway again."
"I reckon he won't give ye the chance, sir," said the man. "I know a bit about dogs, and I shouldn't wonder if he fights shy of the stations altogether after this."
The man was right, for never since that day have I been able to induce Snap to come within yards of the head of the railway station stairs. Coax and cajole him as I will, he always resists. He looks up at me with such a pitiful expression, as much as to say, "Why, you wouldn't risk losing me again, would you?" That I have at last conceded the point to him you will readily understand, for I need hardly add that if I had a strong regard for my dog before, it has grown into a real and strong affection now.
