Edwin Landseer.
He was the youngest of the three sons of John Landseer, the eminent engraver, and was born at No. 83 Queen Anne street, London, in March, 1802. The eldest son, Thomas, followed the profession of his father, and in later years, by his faithful engraving after the works of Edwin, he did much to confirm the great fame of his younger brother. Charles, the second son of John Landseer, was a painter of historical subjects, and held the office of Keeper of the Royal Academy during twenty years.
Edwin Landseer had the good fortune to be aided and encouraged in his artistic tastes and studies, even from his babyhood, for there are now in the South Kensington Museum, sketches of animals made in his fifth year, and good etchings which he did when eight years old.
John Landseer taught his son to look to nature alone as his model. When fourteen, he entered the Academy schools, and divided his time between drawing in the classes and sketching from the wild beasts at Exeter Change. He was a handsome, manly boy, and the keeper, Fuseli, was very fond of him, calling him, as a mark of affection, "My little dog boy."
He was very industrious and painted many pictures; the best of those known as his early works is the "Cat's Paw." It represents a monkey using the paw of a cat to push hot chestnuts from the top of a heated stove; the struggles of the cat are useless and her kittens mew to no purpose. This picture was once sold for one hundred pounds; it is now in the collection of the Earl of Essex, at Cashiobury, and is worth more than three thousand pounds. It was painted in 1822.
Sir Walter Scott was in London when the "Cat's Paw" was exhibited, and he was so pleased by the picture that he sought out the young painter and invited him to go home with him. Sir Walter's well-known love of dogs was a foundation for the intimate affection which grew up between himself and Landseer. In 1824, the painter first saw Scotland, and during fifty years he studied its people, its scenery, and its customs; he loved them all and could ever draw new subjects and new enthusiasm from the breezy north. Sir Walter wrote in his journal, "Landseer's dogs are the most magnificent things I ever saw, leaping and bounding and grinning all over the canvas." The friendship of Sir Walter had a great effect upon the young painter; it developed the imagination and romance in his nature and he was affected by the human life of Scotland so that he painted the shepherd, the gillie, and the poacher, and made his pictures speak the tenderness and truth as well as the fearlessness and the hardihood of the Gaelic race.
Landseer remained in the home of his father, until he was a person of such importance that his friends felt that his dignity demanded a separate establishment and urged this upon him. He could not lightly sever his home ties, and it was after much hesitation that he removed to No. 1 St. John's Wood Road, where he passed the remainder of his life. He named his home "Maida Vale," in remembrance of the favorite dog of Sir Walter Scott. It was a small house with a garden and a barn, which he converted into a studio; from time to time he enlarged and improved it, and it became the resort of a distinguished circle of people who learned to love it for its generous hospitality and its atmosphere of joyous content.
The best period of Landseer's life was from 1824 to 1840. In the latter year, he had the first attack of a disease from which he was never again entirely free; he suffered from seasons of depression that shadowed all his life with gloom, and at times almost threatened the loss of his reason.
It is said that Landseer was the first person who opened a communication between Queen Victoria and the literary and artistic society of England. Be that as it may, he was certainly the first artist to be received as a friend by the Queen, who soon placed him on an unceremonious and easy footing in her household.
He was a frequent visitor at the royal palaces and received many rich gifts from both Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Between 1835 and 1866, he painted a great many pictures of the Queen, of the various members of her family and of the pets of the royal household. In 1850 he was knighted and was at the very height of his popularity and success.
With the single exception of Sir Joshua Reynolds, he visited and received in his own house more distinguished persons than any other British artist. He was the intimate friend of Dickens, Chantrey, Sidney Smith, and other famous men.
Landseer had an extreme fondness for studying and making pictures of lions, and from the time when, as a boy, he dissected one, he tried to obtain the body of every lion that died in London. Dickens was in the habit of relating that on one occasion, when he and others were dining with the artist, a servant entered and asked, "Did you order a lion, sir?" as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The guests feared that a living lion was about to enter, but it turned out to be the body of the dead "Nero," of the Zoölogical Gardens, which had been sent as a gift to Sir Edwin.
His skill in drawing was marvelous, and was once shown in a rare way at a large evening party. Facility in drawing had been the theme of conversation, when a lady declared that no one had yet drawn two objects at the same moment. Landseer would not allow that this could not be done, and immediately took two pencils and drew a horse's head with one hand and at the same time, a stag's head with the other hand. He painted with great rapidity; he once sent to the exhibition a picture of rabbits painted in three-quarters of an hour. Mr. Wells relates that at one time when Landseer was visiting him, he left the house for church just as his butler placed a fresh canvas on the easel before the painter; on his return, three hours later, Landseer had completed a life-sized picture of a fallow-deer, and so well was it done that neither he nor the artist could see that it required retouching.
Several portraits of Landseer exist and are well known, but that called the "Connoisseurs," painted in 1865 for the Prince of Wales, is of great interest. Here the artist has painted a half-length portrait of himself engaged in drawing, while two dogs look over his shoulders with a critical expression.
In 1840, Landseer made a quite extended tour in Europe, and that was the only time that he was long absent from Great Britain. In 1853, several of his works were sent to the Exposition in Paris; he was the only English artist who received the great gold medal.
Sir Edwin Landseer was also a sculptor, and though he executed but few works in this art, the colossal lions at the base of Nelson's Monument in Trafalgar Square, London, are a triumph for him. He was chosen for this work on account of his great knowledge of the "king of beasts."
At his death he had modeled but one; the others were copied from it under the care of the Baron Marochetti.
Sir Edwin continued to work in spite of sadness, failing health and sight, and in the last year of his life he executed four pictures, one being an equestrian portrait of the Queen.
He died October 1, 1873, and was buried with many honors in St. Paul's Cathedral. He left a property of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds; the pictures and drawings in his studio were sold for seventy thousand pounds, and all this large sum, with the exception of a few small bequests, was given to his brother Thomas and his three sisters, ten thousand pounds being given to his brother Charles.
I suppose that many of the pictures of Sir Edwin Landseer are well known to the readers of St. Nicholas. "High Life" and "Low Life," "A Highland Breakfast," "Dignity and Impudence," the "Cat's Paw," "The Monarch of the Glen," the "Piper and Nutcrackers," and others, are familiar in the form of prints to many people in many lands, and they are pictures which all must love. It is needless to add any long opinion of the artistic qualities of this master; the critic Hamerton has happily summed up an estimate of him in these words: "Everything that can be said about Landseer's knowledge of animals, and especially of dogs, has already been said. There was never very much to say, for there was no variety of opinions, and nothing to discuss. Critics may write volumes of controversy about Turner and Delacroix, but Landseer's merits are so obvious to every one that he stood in no need of critical explanations. The best commentators on Landseer, the best defenders of his genius, are the dogs themselves; and so long as there exist terriers, deer-hounds, and blood-hounds, his fame will need little assistance from writers upon art."
ONE OF THE LANDSEER LIONS AT THE BASE OF THE NELSON MONUMENT, TRAFALGAR SQUARE, LONDON.
UNDER THE SNOW.
By Lilian Dynevor Rice.
All in the bleak December weather,
When north winds blow,
Five little clovers lay warm together
Under the snow.
"Wait," said they, "till the robins sing;
Wait, till the blossoms bud and spring;
Wait, till the rain and the sunbeams gay
Our winter blanket shall fold away—
Then, we will try to grow."
All in the fragrant May-time weather,
When south winds blow,
Five little clovers crept close together
Under the snow.
Poor, pink babies! They might have known
'Twas only the pear-tree blossoms blown
By the frolic breeze; but they cried, "Oh, dear!
Surely the spring is late this year!
Still, we will try to grow."
All in the sultry August weather,
When no winds blow,
Five little clovers were sad together
Under the snow.
'Twas only the daisies waving white
Above their heads in the glowing light;
But they cried, "Will we never understand?
It always snows in this fairyland—
Yet, we will try to grow."
All in the bright September weather,
When west winds blow,
Five little clovers were glad together
Under the snow.
For now 'twas the muslin kerchief cool,
Of a dear little lass on her way to school.
"The sweetest snow-fall of all," said they;
"We knew our reward would come some day,
If only we'd try to grow!"
NAN'S REVOLT.
By Rose Lattimore Alling.
Chapter V.
he Ferris tea-table was a very cheery board, where good spirits of a most delightful and commendable kind flowed freely. The stiff and solemn Wilders, who "partook of the joys of life furtively," were inclined to be scandalized. Who cared? Not the Ferrises, and so, as has been said, that happy family enjoyed life despite their critical neighbors, and as they all gathered about the scarlet cloth that evening, they looked like a band that ought never to be broken.
Fun and laughter ran so high that the dear, tired father forgot his legal cares and cracked his jokes. These were more or less bad,—but what matter so long as the children thought him "just the darlingest, funniest man in the world." No guest remained long in that genial atmosphere without discovering the source of this sunny family-life, and the true tendency of the current beneath all the froth and ripple of the nonsense.
From father and mother, down to little Claire, it was a family of friends. That was the entire secret. There were no petty animosities, no bickerings; everything was open and above-board. Sincere and loving confidence bound them together. The girls were interested in all their father's cases in court; while he, in turn, listened to all their girlish performances with undivided attention. No new gown or hat was completely satisfactory until he had passed a favorable judgment. Here in his own small court he was "Judge Ferris," in that title's noblest sense. And the mother? She was best sister of all among her daughters,—"Mother and sister and queen,—all in one precious little woman," as Nan said, lifting her off her feet with a vigorous embrace.
But the toast was getting cold, and the festivity began as the plates went 'round. The judicial wrinkles in Mr. Ferris's forehead were pulled out by those radiating from the outer corners of his kind eyes; the mother utterly lost her authority as the mirth rose to a gale; and nobody paid the slightest attention to Lou's request for the honey.
"Nan," said Mrs. Ferris, laughing, "you are the only one who isn't behaving outrageously, so please attend to your sister's wants." But her observant eye did not leave her daughter's thoughtful face, and she asked, during a purely accidental lull in the chatter,—for she sympathized even with moods in her children:—"What is it, dear; what are you thinking about? You seem to be taking the butter-dish into your confidence—we are jealous."
Nan drew her eyes away, and, giving her mother a bright look, she answered: "Why, I was thinking of the time, before we went to boarding-school, when Papa called Evelyn and me to him and asked us which we would rather have him do, scrimp us all our lives on advantages and education, so that he could lay up something for our future, or, instead of dowry or legacy, have our money as we went along, depending upon our ability for the future."
"And we voted as a single man, didn't we?" said Evelyn.
"We did that same, Evelyn; we decided that we wanted but little here below, but that we wanted that little right away!"
"And I recall how magnanimously you promised to share my last crust with me," said Mr. Ferris, hitching Nan's chair nearer to him.
"Yes," continued she, "I'll never desert you. But I was going to say that I don't think I have kept my part of the agreement. You have given me advantages which even richer girls have not had, and I have not done a thing with them yet. I have had a whole year of idleness, and I'm tired of it, and want to go to work."
The family had heard something of this independent mood before, but, as nothing alarming came of it, they received this announcement without any demonstration of surprise; indeed, Mr. Ferris attended to the dissolution of the sugar in his second cup of tea before looking up, and then he said, "Yes?" with a slowly rising inflection.
"Yes!" came from Nan with a short downward one; "Yes, sir, and I have a plan this time, and wish to consult my beloved family before doing anything rash."
"So that you can do it afterward with a clear conscience, I suppose?" ventured her father, wickedly.
"No, I shall do something a hundred times rasher if you oppose this plan, for it is the least revolutionary thing I can think of."
"Well?"—said her father, inquiringly.
"You know how hard Aunt Hettie has tried to induce one of us to come down to New York and spend the winter with her and Uncle Nat, and how we have all begged off because they live so quietly and so far up town, we thought we should simply stagnate? I should like to go there this winter, not, I blush to say, for their sakes alone, but because I wish to study."
NAN FOUND CATHY FILLING A FIREPLACE WITH GOLDEN-ROD. ([SEE NEXT PAGE].)
"What! study more?" groaned Lou, who was only fourteen, and in the toils of cube-root.
"Yes, study more," asserted Nan. "I want to take a course of lessons in a school of design, for I think I may do something in that line that may pay, after a while. Now, observe the latent beauty of my scheme. By spending the winter with them, I shan't need any new clothes—which means that I intend to pay for my lessons out of my own allowance."
"Oh, never mind that, dear child," Mr. Ferris said lovingly.
"Yes, I will mind! That is just what makes us girls so good-for-nothing;—we don't 'mind' enough! I really think it would be fun to actually need a new dress and know I couldn't have it until I earned it—buttons, whale-bones, and braid. Anyhow, if it were not fun, it would be good for my character. Now what do you all think?" and Nan helped herself to cake, observing that the others had finished theirs.
Mr. Ferris, heaving an involuntary sigh, began:
"Well, dear, as you know, your mother and I consider it our duty to bring up our girls so that each can, if the necessity should come, earn her own living; and perhaps the time is here for one to fly out of the nest to try her wings,—ah, me!"
"But that is just what I don't want to do; and one reason I hit upon this plan is that it will take me away from home only one winter, perhaps, and then not among strangers," said Nan.
"But," objected Mr. Ferris, "do you know anything about this school?"
"The Cooper Institute? I should think so. Why, it was reading about this particular branch of decorative art in the newspaper, the other day, that made me think of it."
"Then, little girl," he said fondly, "I think I am pleased with your plan."
When they were all grouped before the fire, and Mr. Ferris had drawn Nan close to him, as though somehow he were about to lose her, Evelyn took her mother's hand in hers and began:
"Papa, don't think I am going to do nothing; I am not like Nan, nor can I do the things she can; but I try to believe each has a special talent, and if I have a passion, it is for housekeeping; and Mother and I have a lovely plan!" And those two exchanged a laughing glance of great portent.
Anything like secrecy immediately aroused in the Ferris family the most vehement denunciation.
"What do you mean?" demanded the chorus.
"Well, then, Mother hasn't the slightest idea what we are going to have for breakfast to-morrow morning, because I am the housekeeper of this house, and I am going to buy everything and plan everything, and pay all the bills,—with a little pecuniary aid from you, Papa,—and make a study of beef and poultry, while Mother is going to do fancy-work and read French novels. But I am only going to learn to do well what ninety-nine girls out of every hundred have to do,—so there!"
"Splendid! splendid!" shouted Mr. Ferris, going over to this oldest of the flock and taking her face lovingly between his hands. "I declare, I don't know of which to be proudest; you mutually surpass each other, my children."
"Wait until after to-morrow morning's breakfast, and I fear you will be able to decide!" called the new housekeeper, as she disappeared to have a consultation with the cook.
All these revolutionary measures were not of the sudden growth that their speedy results seem to indicate. Any girl who enjoys the luxury of aimlessness during that long-desired period after she has "finished," will, sooner or later, encounter that arch-fiend of happiness, satiety,—the Apollyon of those who exist merely to have a "good time." Nan had been reared amidst the most healthy influences, and her vigorous young nature demanded more nourishing rations than those offered by the life she had been leading. However, this longing had only come of late, for she had been most devoted to the pomps and vanities, while her parents had looked on with some anxiety, but held their peace, trusting that she would "come out all right."
Bert's surroundings were different, her home influences being wholly worldly, her mother desiring nothing more of her daughter than that she should move among the best circles, finally making a brilliant marriage. Bert had not only dutifully but eagerly explored those aristocratic precincts, and had enjoyed herself hugely, as she observed everything in her own original and critical way, amusing herself with her own conclusions. Her wit and breeziness made her always welcome, and she could even enliven the clammy atmosphere of a young ladies' luncheon, as there was always sure to be grateful laughter at her end of the table. This success was exhilarating for a while, until she began to discover that she got very little for her pains. She herself needed stimulating; she demanded equal exertion from others; "why should she be interested in uninteresting people?" she should like to know. She didn't find out. She was already very privately admitting to herself that she "would like to shake the best circles from center to circumference." But the poor girl did not know what might be the social result, and to make a break had never occurred to her as a possibility until Nan's audacity suggested it.
So, while Bert sat on the other side of her father's desk and signed letters in her most elegant hand, "Mitchell & Co., per B.," wondering if the junior members of the firms to which she had been writing would ever guess who "B." was, or if they would conclude it stood for some stupid, round-shouldered Brown or Bates or Baker,—Nan sped down to Cathy's to be the first to announce Bert's business career, as Evelyn's new cares detained her at home.
THE “B.” OF MITCHELL & CO.
Nan found Cathy filling a fireplace with a yellow glory of golden-rod.
"That's lovely!" commented Nan. "But what if you want a fire some of these cool evenings?"
"Why, that's the beauty of my idea; the fire is all ready to light under these, and when we want one all we have to do is to let the whole thing burn up; the golden-rod will be dried by that time, and then I can get more. See?"
"Good; that's sensible; for if there is any thing I hate, it is a grate too fine to have a big, roaring fire in it. You always were an artist in flowers. But that isn't what I came to remark. What do you suppose Bert has done now?"
Then followed a long talk, such as only girls are equal to, during which Bert's clerkship and Evelyn's housekeeping venture were discussed, and Nan's own plans divulged.
"Oh, me!" Cathy sighed hopelessly. "This is all very soul-stirring; I only am behind. I can't dash about and assert myself as you girls do, and besides, I think it is my duty to stay at home with Mother."
This duty Cathy had borne sweetly, for her mother was a doleful companion, who was making the mistake of casting a shadow over this daughter's life because her only other daughter had not been spared to her. This grief and the loss of her husband many years before had not taught her to make the lives of those still left to her as happy as possible; yet Cathy cheerfully made "sunshine in a shady place," while Fred manfully shouldered his father's business, which weighed heavily on his young shoulders.
"But I do want an object in life besides," continued Cathy, "for staying where I am put is only half my duty. If I should relieve Mother of the housekeeping I believe she would die, so I can't follow Evelyn's example. What can I do?" she asked mournfully.
Nan was reflecting that there were three kinds of girls,—those who led, like Bert; those who are led, like Evelyn; and those who must be pushed, like Cathy. "And maybe it is my duty to push," she thought.
"Well, Catherine," she began, settling herself in her chair, "would you really like to earn your own living?"
"Yes; I most certainly should like to do something toward it, for I have often wondered if dear old Fred didn't forego part of his own profits from the nursery for our sakes. Did you girls find out your vocations all alone, without any help or suggestion from others?" she continued.
"Bert did, of course," said Nan. Who ever knew her to take advice from anybody? But Evelyn and I talked all day and all night, and alternately propped each other's falling spirits, and last night the jury of the entire family sat upon us!"
"Oh, yes——" and Cathy sighed again. "But you see I have nobody. Mother wouldn't be interested, and Fred wouldn't hear of such a thing. He thinks a girl should be very feminine, and let her brother support her if she has no father. No, I must get on without sympathy."
"But you shan't! I'm here on purpose to help you as I have been helped. I feel it my duty to pass on the impulse."
"You are a dear, good girl, and I love you," Cathy said gratefully. "I'll be your humble servant and do just what you tell me. I wish I could go to New York with you and take lessons in flower-painting."
"You'd never get rich selling a daisy and a lily and a little buttercup. You would better go to raising golden-rod in your brother's nursery, and then peddle it about the city, filling people's fireplaces at a dollar apiece!"
"I wish I could. Do you know, I should just love to raise flowers——"
"That's it!" screamed Nan delightedly. "Just the thing! Have a hot-house,—cut-flowers for the million,—beat Haas & Schaeffer out of town! You could do it, Cathy; you have exquisite taste in flowers, and everybody will be crazy to have a basket or bouquet from the high-art green-house! We girls will always buy of you,—why, Haas sent me a lot of carnations for the Atwood party without any stems to them——"
"And he never knows enough to have narcissus or daffodils, or any of those stylish flowers!" excitedly broke in Cathy, with dilated eyes.
"And don't you charge quite five dollars apiece for rose-buds either!"
"And I will cut lots of leaves with them; and funeral people shall not have those hideous 'gates ajar' from my establishment!"
But at this both girls burst into a merry laugh, and seriously set about discussing the ways and means.
Cathy decided to find out the cost of such an undertaking, and the business outlook of the project before consulting Fred.
Nan remembered that her father knew a man somehow connected with a green-house in another city.
Cathy mentioned a certain corner of their grounds where she could build hers.
Nan suggested that she go down to Johnson's and see what books there were on the subject; and so on, until at last they parted with a happy sense of lively stir and aim.
But these four fortunes were not made in a day, and the time seemed long before much but discouragement was achieved. Just here is where the masculine pertinacity is valuable. Business results are slow, and the feminine mind chafes at delay, and wants to see the net gain immediately.
Bert found stenography very tedious, if not quite a bore; and there came many days when she would have been willing to slip back into social inertness, and keep to her slippers and book rather than present herself in the dingy office. Although, when once she had conquered, it wasn't so bad, for there was a bright rug on the floor, and a small feather-duster, hung up by a scarlet ribbon, did effective service. Her sense of the humorous also came to her aid, for the expression of relieved suspense she caught on her father's face as she appeared regularly morning after morning amused her, and the one of loving friendliness that began to settle there more than repaid her.
“I PLAY LOUD WALTZES ON THE PIANO, UNTIL THE SILENCE OF THESE SEPULCHRAL ROOMS IS PUT TO FLIGHT.” ([SEE NEXT PAGE].)
On Saturday, at the end of her first week, she found a little pile of silver by her plate. She regarded it curiously for a moment, then inquired doubtfully:
"Is this the exact sum you would have paid to a Mr. Snipkins, had such a person been hired in my place, and done the work I have done?"
"Exactly, Bertha; no more, no less," her father replied, smiling.
"Earned," she murmured, slowly dropping the pieces one by one into her purse. "What a queer feeling! Money for an equivalent given—I don't believe I shall ever spend it!"
Mr. Mitchell looked particularly pleased, as he said: "Ah, you begin to appreciate what a dollar stands for."
Evelyn's table blossomed out into all manner of pretty devices, each studied from a newly purchased cook-book. The butter reposed in beautifully shaped rolls on a feathery bed of parsley; even homely roasted potatoes looked inviting as they lay in a nest made of the snowy folds of a fringed napkin. Mr. Ferris declared he was twice fed by Evelyn's banquets. So it was all very fine until the bills came in at the end of the month; not that daintiness in serving cost anything, but she had erred in other directions. Evelyn was in consternation, for she had confidently supposed she could save a snug little bit from the sum allotted for housekeeping expenses, and this amount she was at liberty to spend as she chose, and she had already chosen to get a dozen tinted finger-glasses, a Japanese bowl for broken ice, another for salad, and so on, until, to her mind's eye, her table was a dream of color and form; but when that eye opened on the grocery bill, and the butcher's bill, and the milk bill, and then on minus six dollars and eighty-five cents, it nearly dropped a tear of shame and disappointment.
"No," she thought, after suppressing her first impulse to ask her mother what to do, "no! If I have been extravagant, I must find out where, and pay for it; and this deficit shall come out of my own allowance. Next month I will do better."
And she did.
Nan wrote from New York, about the middle of November:
"Thanksgiving is coming, but I'm not. As my highest earthly desire is to earn twenty-five dollars, I'm not going to spend that much, especially as I haven't got it, for just two days' pleasure. I may mention, by way of a mere casual remark, that at present there isn't the dimmest possibility of my earning a punched coin this year, unless I happen to take a prize next spring. In my own humble imagination I have already done this and have, of course, chosen the things I shall buy with the money! But I do wish there were no rudiments to learn. They keep one back so! All this week I've devoted the forces of my nature to drawing straight lines and angles, However, I have long suspected that one of my faults was dislike of real hard work, so I am going to 'peg right along,' and lay foundations.
"There are several nice girls in the class, and Aunt Hettie says that I may invite Ruth Manning, who has no home to go to, here to Thanksgiving dinner. I am having a gay time shaking up this quiet house. I play "loud waltzes on the piano," and sing at the top of my voice, which you well know penetrates to the gables of the garret, until the silence of these sepulchral rooms is put to flight. I am also adding worldly touches to these same tombs, and dear Aunty sees how much prettier they look, and wonders she never thought of the little changes I've made. And what do you think—I trimmed her up a bonnet; quite different from her usual head-gear, I can tell you, with really a furtive air of style about it!—and I held her before the glass until I made her own that she liked it; and when I marched her in to show it to Uncle Nat, and commanded him to say it was becoming, he said it looked like one she wore when he was courting her, whereat he kissed her, and she blushed with pleasure. She will wear that bonnet next Sunday, although I think she expects instant excommunication.
"Tell Evelyn I long for the locusts and wild honey she seems to be serving up so charmingly; also that we made a great hit when we made over my brown suit, for it is quite 'the thing.' I think it is splendid of Fred Drake to loan Cathy the money to start her green things.
"I'm going to paper my room with common manilla paper, when I get home, and then put splashes of gilt on it, happy-go-lucky style. I saw a room done so.
"Hug yourselves all around, for
"Your loving
"Nan Ferris."
Yes, Cathy's brother behaved nobly when he once found she was determined; and, when this hitherto gentle and submissive creature announced to him that she could get her house built, heated, and stocked for from six to eight hundred dollars, mentioning other items showing careful study of the subject, and asked if she could not have that amount out of her share of the property, he not only promised to "fix it some way," and chucked her under the chin, as a special mark of tenderness, but offered her the services of a young German boy who was in his employ.
So it was not long before the sound of the hammer was heard in the land, and the first snowflakes of winter fell on countless panes of glass, while her little forest of tender plants sprouted and climbed, and blossomed in the humid air below.
(To be continued.)
LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY.
By Frances Hodgson Burnett.
Chapter XII.
very few days after the dinner-party at the Castle, almost everybody in England who read the newspapers at all knew the romantic story of what had happened at Dorincourt. It made a very interesting story when it was told with all the details. There was the little American boy who had been brought to England to be Lord Fauntleroy, and who was said to be so fine and handsome a little fellow, and to have already made people fond of him; there was the old Earl, his grandfather, who was so proud of his heir; there was the pretty young mother who had never been forgiven for marrying Captain Errol; and there was the strange marriage of Bevis, the dead Lord Fauntleroy, and the strange wife, of whom no one knew anything, suddenly appearing with her son, and saying that he was the real Lord Fauntleroy and must have his rights. All these things were talked about and written about, and caused a tremendous sensation. And then there came the rumor that the Earl of Dorincourt was not satisfied with the turn affairs had taken, and would perhaps contest the claim by law, and the matter might end with a wonderful trial.
There never had been such excitement before in the county in which Erleboro was situated. On market-days, people stood in groups and talked and wondered what would be done; the farmers' wives invited one another to tea that they might tell one another all they had heard and all they thought and all they thought other people thought. They related wonderful anecdotes about the Earl's rage and his determination not to acknowledge the new Lord Fauntleroy, and his hatred of the woman who was the claimant's mother. But, of course, it was Mrs. Dibble who could tell the most, and who was more in demand than ever.
"An' a bad lookout it is," she said. "An' if you were to ask me, ma'am, I should say as it was a judgment on him for the way he's treated that sweet young cre'tur' as he parted from her child,—for he's got that fond of him an' that set on him an' that proud of him as he's a'most drove mad by what's happened. An' what's more, this new one's no lady, as his little lordship's ma is. She's a bold-faced, black-eyed thing, as Mr. Thomas says no gentleman in livery 'u'd bemean hisself to be guv orders by; an' let her come into the house, he says, an' he goes out of it. An' the boy don't no more compare with the other one than nothin' you could mention. An' mercy knows what's goin' to come of it all, an' where it's to end, an' you might have knocked me down with a feather when Jane brought the news."
In fact there was excitement everywhere at the Castle; in the library, where the Earl and Mr. Havisham sat and talked; in the servants' hall, where Mr. Thomas and the butler and the other men and women servants gossiped and exclaimed at all times of the day; and in the stables, where Wilkins went about his work in a quite depressed state of mind, and groomed the brown pony more beautifully than ever, and said mournfully to the coachman that he "never taught a young gen'leman to ride as took to it more nat'ral, or was a better-plucked one than he was. He was a one as it were some pleasure to ride behind."
But in the midst of all the disturbance there was one person who was quite calm and untroubled. That person was the little Lord Fauntleroy who was said not to be Lord Fauntleroy at all. When first the state of affairs had been explained to him, he had felt some little anxiousness and perplexity, it is true, but its foundation was not in baffled ambition.
While the Earl told him what had happened, he had sat on a stool holding on to his knee, as he so often did when he was listening to anything interesting; and by the time the story was finished he looked quite sober.
"It makes me feel very queer," he said; "it makes me feel—queer!"
The Earl looked at the boy in silence. It made him feel queer, too—queerer than he had ever felt in his whole life. And he felt more queer still when he saw that there was a troubled expression on the small face which was usually so happy.
"Will they take Dearest's house away from her—and her carriage?" Cedric asked in a rather unsteady, anxious little voice.
"No!" said the Earl decidedly—in quite a loud voice in fact. "They can take nothing from her."
"Ah!" said Cedric, with evident relief. "Can't they?"
Then he looked up at his grandfather, and there was a wistful shade in his eyes, and they looked very big and soft.
"That other boy," he said rather tremulously—"he will have to—to be your boy now—as I was—wont he?"
"No!" answered the Earl—and he said it so fiercely and loudly that Cedric quite jumped.
"No?" he exclaimed, in wonderment. "Wont he? I thought——"
He stood up from his stool quite suddenly.
"Shall I be your boy, even if I'm not going to be an earl?" he said. "Shall I be your boy, just as I was before?" And his flushed little face was all alight with eagerness.
How the old Earl did look at him from head to foot, to be sure. How his great shaggy brows did draw themselves together, and how queerly his deep eyes shone under them—how very queerly!
"My boy!" he said—and, if you'll believe it, his very voice was queer, almost shaky and a little broken and hoarse, not at all what you would expect an earl's voice to be, though he spoke more decidedly and peremptorily even than before,—"Yes, you'll be my boy as long as I live; and, by George, sometimes I feel as if you were the only boy I had ever had."
“SHE WAS TOLD BY THE FOOTMAN AT THE DOOR THAT THE EARL WOULD NOT SEE HER.”
Cedric's face turned red to the roots of his hair; it turned red with relief and pleasure. He put both his hands deep into his pockets and looked squarely into his noble relative's eyes.
"Do you?" he said. "Well, then, I don't care about the earl part at all. I don't care whether I'm an earl or not. I thought—you see, I thought the one that was going to be the Earl would have to be your boy, too, and—and I couldn't be. That was what made me feel so queer."
The Earl put his hand on his shoulder and drew him nearer.
"They shall take nothing from you that I can hold for you," he said, drawing his breath hard. "I wont believe yet that they can take anything from you. You were made for the place, and—well, you may fill it still. But whatever comes, you shall have all that I can give you—all!"
It scarcely seemed as if he were speaking to a child, there was such determination in his face and voice; it was more as if he were making a promise to himself—and perhaps he was.
He had never before known how deep a hold upon him his fondness for the boy and his pride in him had taken. He had never seen his strength and good qualities and beauty as he seemed to see them now. To his obstinate nature it seemed impossible—more than impossible—to give up what he had so set his heart upon. And he had determined that he would not give it up without a fierce struggle.
Within a few days after she had seen Mr. Havisham, the woman who claimed to be Lady Fauntleroy presented herself at the Castle, and brought her child with her. She was sent away. The Earl would not see her, she was told by the footman at the door; his lawyer would attend to her case. It was Thomas who gave the message, and who expressed his opinion of her freely afterward, in the servants' hall. He "hoped," he said, "as he had wore livery in 'igh famblies long enough to know a lady when he see one, an' if that was a lady he was no judge o' females."
"The one at the Lodge," added Thomas loftily, "'Merican or no 'Merican, she's one o' the right sort, as any gentleman 'u'd reckinize with 'alf a heye. I remarked it myself to Henery when fust we called there."
The woman drove away; the look on her handsome, common face half frightened, half fierce. Mr. Havisham had noticed, during his interviews with her, that though she had a passionate temper and a coarse, insolent manner, she was neither so clever nor so bold as she meant to be; she seemed sometimes to be almost overwhelmed by the position in which she had placed herself. It was as if she had not expected to meet with such opposition.
"She is evidently," the lawyer said to Mrs. Errol, "a person from the lower walks of life. She is uneducated and untrained in everything, and quite unused to meeting people like ourselves on any terms of equality. She does not know what to do. Her visit to the Castle quite cowed her. She was infuriated, but she was cowed. The Earl would not receive her, but I advised him to go with me to the Dorincourt Arms, where she is staying. When she saw him enter the room, she turned white, though she flew into a rage at once, and threatened and demanded in one breath."
“‘SHALL I BE YOUR BOY, EVEN IF I’M NOT GOING TO BE AN EARL?’ SAID CEDRIC.”
The fact was that the Earl had stalked into the room and stood, looking like a venerable aristocratic giant, staring at the woman from under his beetling brows, and not condescending a word. He simply stared at her, taking her in from head to foot as if she were some repulsive curiosity. He let her talk and demand until she was tired, without himself uttering a word, and then he said:
"You say you are my eldest son's wife. If that is true, and if the proof you offer is too much for us, the law is on your side. In that case, your boy is Lord Fauntleroy. The matter will be sifted to the bottom, you may rest assured. If your claims are proved, you will be provided for. I want to see nothing either of you or the child so long as I live. The place will unfortunately have enough of you after my death. You are exactly the kind of person I should have expected my son Bevis to choose."
And then he turned his back upon her and stalked out of the room as he had stalked into it.
Not many days after that, a visitor was announced to Mrs. Errol, who was writing in her little morning room. The maid, who brought the message, looked rather excited; her eyes were quite round with amazement, in fact, and being young and inexperienced, she regarded her mistress with nervous sympathy.
"It's the Earl hisself, ma'am!" she said in tremulous awe.
When Mrs. Errol entered the drawing-room, a very tall, majestic-looking old man was standing on the tiger-skin rug. He had a handsome, grim old face, with an aquiline profile, a long white mustache, and an obstinate look.
"Mrs. Errol, I believe?" he said.
"Mrs. Errol," she answered.
"I am the Earl of Dorincourt," he said.
He paused a moment, almost unconsciously, to look in to her uplifted eyes. They were so like the big, affectionate, childish eyes he had seen uplifted to his own so often every day during the last few months, that they gave him a quite curious sensation.
"The boy is very like you," he said abruptly.
"It has been often said so, my lord," she replied, "but I have been glad to think him like his father also."
As Lady Lorridaile had told him, her voice was very sweet, and her manner was very simple and dignified. She did not seem in the least troubled by his sudden coming.
"Yes," said the Earl, "he is like—my son—too." He put his hand up to his big white mustache and pulled it fiercely. "Do you know," he said, "why I have come here?"
"I have seen Mr. Havisham," Mrs. Errol began, "and he has told me of the claims which have been made——"
"I have come to tell you," said the Earl, "that they will be investigated and contested, if a contest can be made. I have come to tell you that the boy shall be defended with all the power of the law. His rights——"
The soft voice interrupted him.
"He must have nothing that is not his by right, even if the law can give it to him," she said.
"Unfortunately the law can not," said the Earl. "If it could, it should. This outrageous woman and her child——"
"Perhaps she cares for him as much as I care for Cedric, my lord," said little Mrs. Errol. "And if she was your eldest son's wife, her son is Lord Fauntleroy, and mine is not."
She was no more afraid of him than Cedric had been, and she looked at him just as Cedric would have looked, and he, having been an old tyrant all his life, was privately pleased by it. People so seldom dared to differ from him that there was an entertaining novelty in it.
"I suppose," he said, scowling slightly, "that you would much prefer that he should not be the Earl of Dorincourt."
Her fair young face flushed.
"It is a very magnificent thing to be the Earl of Dorincourt, my lord," she said. "I know that, but I care most that he should be what his father was—brave and just and true always."
"In striking contrast to what his grandfather was, eh?" said his lordship sardonically.
"I have not had the pleasure of knowing his grandfather," replied Mrs. Errol, "but I know my little boy believes——" She stopped short a moment, looking quietly into his face, and then she added, "I know that Cedric loves you."
"Would he have loved me," said the Earl dryly, "if you had told him why I did not receive you at the Castle?"
"No," answered Mrs. Errol; "I think not. That was why I did not wish him to know."
"Well," said my lord, brusquely, "there are few women who would not have told him."
He suddenly began to walk up and down the room, pulling his great mustache more violently than ever.
"Yes, he is fond of me," he said, "and I am fond of him. I can't say I ever was fond of anything before. I am fond of him. He pleased me from the first. I am an old man, and was tired of my life. He has given me something to live for. I am proud of him. I was satisfied to think of his taking his place some day as the head of the family."
He came back and stood before Mrs. Errol.
"I am miserable," he said. "Miserable!"
He looked as if he was. Even his pride could not keep his voice steady or his hands from shaking. For a moment it almost seemed as if his deep, fierce eyes had tears in them. "Perhaps it is because I am miserable that I have come to you," he said, quite glaring down at her. "I used to hate you; I have been jealous of you. This wretched, disgraceful business has changed that. After seeing that repulsive woman who calls herself the wife of my son Bevis, I actually felt it would be a relief to look at you. I have been an obstinate old fool, and I suppose I have treated you badly. You are like the boy, and the boy is the first object in my life. I am miserable, and I came to you merely because you are like the boy, and he cares for you, and I care for him. Treat me as well as you can, for the boy's sake."
He said it all in his harsh voice, and almost roughly, but somehow he seemed so broken down for the time that Mrs. Errol was touched to the heart. She got up and moved an arm-chair a little forward.
"I wish you would sit down," she said in a soft, pretty, sympathetic way. "You have been so much troubled that you are very tired, and you need all your strength."
It was just as new to him to be spoken to and cared for in that gentle, simple way as it was to be contradicted. He was reminded of "the boy" again, and he actually did as she asked him. Perhaps his disappointment and wretchedness were good discipline for him; if he had not been wretched he might have continued to hate her, but just at present he found her a little soothing. Almost anything would have seemed pleasant by contrast with Lady Fauntleroy; and this one had so sweet a face and voice, and a pretty dignity when she spoke or moved. Very soon, by the quiet magic of these influences, he began to feel less gloomy, and then he talked still more.
"Whatever happens," he said, "the boy shall be provided for. He shall be taken care of, now and in the future."
Before he went away, he glanced around the room.
"Do you like the house?" he demanded.
"Very much," she answered.
"This is a cheerful room," he said. "May I come here again and talk this matter over?"
"As often as you wish, my lord," she replied.
And then he went out to his carriage and drove away, Thomas and Henry almost stricken dumb upon the box at the turn affairs had taken.
Chapter XIII.
Of course, as soon as the story of Lord Fauntleroy and the difficulties of the Earl of Dorincourt were discussed in the English newspapers, they were discussed in the American newspapers. The story was too interesting to be passed over lightly, and it was talked of a great deal. There were so many versions of it that it would have been an edifying thing to buy all the papers and compare them. Mr. Hobbs read so much about it that he became quite bewildered. One paper described his young friend Cedric as an infant in arms,—another as a young man at Oxford, winning all the honors, and distinguishing himself by writing Greek poems; one said he was engaged to a young lady of great beauty, who was the daughter of a duke; another said he had just been married; the only thing, in fact, which was not said was that he was a little boy between seven and eight, with handsome legs and curly hair. One said he was no relation to the Earl of Dorincourt at all, but was a small impostor who had sold newspapers and slept in the streets of New York before his mother imposed upon the family lawyer, who came to America to look for the Earl's heir. Then came the descriptions of the new Lord Fauntleroy and his mother. Sometimes she was a gypsy, sometimes an actress, sometimes a beautiful Spaniard; but it was always agreed that the Earl of Dorincourt was her deadly enemy, and would not acknowledge her son as his heir if he could help it, and as there seemed to be some slight flaw in the papers she had produced, it was expected that there would be a long trial, which would be far more interesting than anything ever carried into court before. Mr. Hobbs used to read the papers until his head was in a whirl, and in the evening he and Dick would talk it all over. They found out what an important personage an Earl of Dorincourt was, and what a magnificent income he possessed, and how many estates he owned, and how stately and beautiful was the Castle in which he lived; and the more they learned, the more excited they became.
"Seems like somethin' orter be done," said Mr. Hobbs. "Things like them orter be held on to—earls or no earls."
But there really was nothing they could do but each write a letter to Cedric, containing assurances of their friendship and sympathy. They wrote those letters as soon as they could after receiving the news; and after having written them, they handed them over to each other to be read.
This is what Mr. Hobbs read in Dick's letter:
"Dere frend: i got ure letter an Mr. Hobbs got his an we are sory u are down on ure luck an we say hold on as longs u kin an dont let no one git ahed of u. There is a lot of ole theves wil make al they kin of u ef u dont kepe ure i skined. But this is mosly to say that ive not forgot wot u did fur me an if there aint no better way cum over here an go in pardners with me. Biznes is fine an ile see no harm cums to u Enny big feler that trise to cum it over u wil hafter setle it fust with Perfessor Dick Tipton. So no more at present
"Dick."
And this was what Dick read in Mr. Hobbs's letter:
"Dear Sir: Yrs received and wd say things looks bad. I believe its a put up job and them thats done it ought to be looked after sharp. And what I write to say is two things. Im going to look this thing up Keep quiet and Ill see a lawyer and do all I can And if the worst happens and them earls is too many for us theres a partnership in the grocery business ready for you when yure old enough and a home and a friend in
"Yrs truly, Silas Hobbs."
"Well," said Mr. Hobbs, "he's pervided for between us, if he aint a earl."
"So he is," said Dick. "I'd ha' stood by him. Blest if I didn't like that little feller fust-rate."
The very next morning, one of Dick's customers was rather surprised. He was a young lawyer just beginning practice. As poor as a very young lawyer can possibly be, but a bright, energetic young fellow, with sharp wit and a good temper. He had a shabby office near Dick's stand, and every morning Dick blacked his boots for him, and quite often they were not exactly water-tight, but he always had a friendly word or a joke for Dick.
That particular morning, when he put his foot on the rest, he had an illustrated paper in his hand—an enterprising paper, with pictures in it of conspicuous people and things. He had just finished looking it over, and when the last boot was polished, he handed it over to the boy.
"Here's a paper for you, Dick," he said; "you can look it over when you drop in at Delmonico's for your breakfast. Picture of an English castle in it, and an English earl's daughter-in-law. Fine young woman, too—lots of hair—though she seems to be raising rather a row. You ought to become familiar with the nobility and gentry, Dick. Begin on the Right Honorable the Earl of Dorincourt and Lady Fauntleroy. Hello! I say, what's the matter?"
The pictures he spoke of were on the front page, and Dick was staring at one of them with his eyes and mouth open, and his sharp face almost pale with excitement.
"What's to pay, Dick?" said the young man. "What has paralyzed you?"
Dick really did look as if something tremendous had happened. He pointed to the picture, under which was written:
"Mother of Claimant (Lady Fauntleroy)."
It was the picture of a handsome woman, with large eyes and heavy braids of black hair wound around her head.
"Her!" said Dick. "My, I know her better'n I know you!"
The young man began to laugh.
"Where did you meet her, Dick?" he said. "At Newport? Or when you ran over to Paris the last time?"
Dick actually forgot to grin. He began to gather his brushes and things together, as if he had something to do which would put an end to his business for the present.
"Never mind," he said. "I know her! An I've struck work for this mornin'."
And in less than five minutes from that time he was tearing through the streets on his way to Mr. Hobbs and the corner store. Mr. Hobbs could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses when he looked across the counter and saw Dick rush in with the paper in his hand. The boy was out of breath with running; so much out of breath, in fact, that he could scarcely speak as he threw the paper down on the counter.
"Hello!" exclaimed Mr. Hobbs. "Hello! What you got there?"
"Look at it!" panted Dick. "Look at that woman in the picture! That's what you look at! She aint no 'ristocrat, she aint!" with withering scorn. "She's no lord's wife. You may eat me, if it aint Minna—Minna! I'd know her anywheres, an' so'd Ben. Jest ax him."
Mr. Hobbs dropped into his seat.
"I knowed it was a put-up job," he said. "I knowed it; and they done it on account o' him bein' a 'Merican!"
"Done it!" cried Dick, with disgust. "She done it, that's who done it. She was allers up to her tricks; an' I'll tell yer wot come to me, the minnit I saw her pictur. There was one o' them papers we saw had a letter in it that said somethin' 'bout her boy, an' it said he had a scar on his chin. Put them two together—her 'n' that there scar! Why, that there boy o' hers aint no more a lord than I am! It's Ben's boy,—the little chap she hit when she let fly that plate at me."
Professor Dick Tipton had always been a sharp boy, and earning his living in the streets of a big city had made him still sharper. He had learned to keep his eyes open and his wits about him, and it must be confessed he enjoyed immensely the excitement and impatience of that moment. If little Lord Fauntleroy could only have looked into the store that morning, he would certainly have been interested, even if all the discussion and plans had been intended to decide the fate of some other boy than himself.
Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and Dick was all alive and full of energy. He began to write a letter to Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl. They were in the midst of this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick.
"Say," he said, "the feller that give me the paper, he's a lawyer. Let's ax him what we'd better do. Lawyers knows it all." Mr. Hobbs was immensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick's business capacity.
"That's so!" he replied. "This here calls for lawyers."
And leaving the store in the care of a substitute, he struggled into his coat and marched down-town with Dick, and the two presented themselves with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison's office, much to that young man's astonishment.
If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind and a great deal of spare time on his hands, he might not have been so readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much, and he chanced to know Dick, and Dick chanced to say his say in a very sharp, telling sort of way.
"And," said Mr. Hobbs, "say what your time's worth a' hour and look into this thing thorough, and I'll pay the damage,—Silas Hobbs, corner of Blank street, Vegetables and Fancy Groceries."
"Well," said Mr. Harrison, "it will be a big thing if it turns out all right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord Fauntleroy; and at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating. It appears there has been some dubiousness about the child. The woman contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and aroused suspicion. The first persons to be written to are Dick's brother and the Earl of Dorincourt's family lawyer."
And actually, before the sun went down, two letters had been written and sent in two different directions—one speeding out of New York harbor on a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying letters and passengers bound for California. And the first was addressed to T. Havisham, Esq., and the second to Benjamin Tipton.
And after the store was closed that evening, Mr. Hobbs and Dick sat in the back-room and talked together until midnight.
(To be concluded.)
INVERTED.
By John B. Tabb.
"Bicycles!—Bicycles!"
Nay; to shun laughter,
Try cycles first,
And buy cycles after;
For surely the buyer
Deserves but the worst,
Who would buy cycles, failing
To try cycles first!
A LAKE GEORGE CAPSIZE.
By Edward Eggleston.
A QUIET ROW ON THE “BROAD LAKE.”
Lake George can be the calmest and loveliest sheet of water that ever was shut in by mountain walls, but like all mountain lakes it is very fickle. If you have never seen it "cut up its didos," you do not yet really know our Lake. In the fall, when the tourists have gone and the hotels and cottages are quiet, Lake George now and then gets into a great rage and becomes quite sublime.
One day in the latter part of October, there came into our bay a trim little sloop-rigged sailboat, with three men aboard. They were after the ducks that always make Dunham's Bay a resting-place on their long autumn journey to the southward. This little yacht, if I may call it one, had not been long in view when there broke upon the lake a fierce, cold, north wind, driving the whitecaps up into the bay like a frightened flock of sheep.
The sailboat could now stand only the mainsail, and even with that it reeled and tumbled about fearfully in the hands of its unskilled crew, and two or three times it was nearly driven ashore, for the men seemed quite unable to make it beat up into the wind.
“CHARLIE BROUGHT THE BOW OF THE BOAT TO THE MAN IN THE WATER AND TOOK HIM ABOARD.” ([SEE NEXT PAGE.])
While the gale was thus running into the bay, my young friend Charlie Fraser, with a boy's love for excitement, came and asked permission to go out in my rowboat, to see "what kind of a rough-water boat she might be." Though I knew him to be both a good oarsman and a good swimmer, and though the boat had always behaved admirably in a sea, I hesitated, until he proposed not to venture beyond Joshua's Rock, which marks the line between the bay and the "broad lake," as the people call it at this point. After I had let him go, I reproached myself for trusting a boy of sixteen in a gale that was momently increasing in violence. But Charlie did not care to risk too near an approach to the broad lake; he soon saw that there was danger of swamping even in the bay, and therefore he put about for home. In passing the sailboat, which was laboring hard among the rushing, roaring whitecaps, he had shouted to the young men to take in a reef; but they kept the whole mainsail flying, though they had to place all the ballast up to windward and then to sit in a row upon the windward gunwale of the boat to keep it from upsetting. Finding that the gale, which continued to rise, would certainly upset them in spite of all their exertions, one of them eased off the sheet, while the man at the tiller at the same moment brought the boat's head into the wind. This left all the weight of the ballast and the men on one side, with no balancing force of wind in the sail, and the light sloop tipped completely over in the direction opposite to the one they had feared. The sail lay flat upon the water, with one poor fellow under it, while another, encumbered with a big overcoat, was floundering in the waves; the third succeeded in climbing to the upper side of the capsized sloop and sitting astride of it. The wild, frightened cries of the young men rose above the hissing of wind and the roaring of waves, and Charlie brought his boat around and rowed for them. The waves jerked one of his oars from the rowlock, but he soon had it in its place, and was pulling as a strong boy can pull when cries of drowning men are in his ears.
"Help! quick! I'm going! Oh, help! help!" rang in his ears and spurred him to do his utmost, as he headed straight for the sailboat, disregarding the waves that broke now and then into his own boat.
OBVERSE. REVERSE.
When Charlie got up to the wreck, he presented the bow of his boat first to the man who had emerged from under the sail. This young man took hold, then lost his grip and went down as the water tossed the boat; and Charlie held on to the seat to keep from being pitched after him. Then the man came up, gurgling, sputtering, and getting a new hold on the boat succeeded in scrambling in. Holding the boat into the teeth of the wind, Charlie then brought the bow to the other man in the water, and so took him aboard. There were now three people and a great deal of water in the boat; and Charlie concluded that it had all it would carry, and that it would be necessary to land his two passengers before taking the stout young man who maintained an uneasy perch on the capsized yacht. Shouting some words of encouragement to him, Charlie started for the shore; but the young man on the boat, benumbed by his ducking and the icy wind, and perhaps discouraged at seeing the rowboat leave him, fell off the capsized yacht into the water with a cry for help. Charlie put back just in time to grab him as he again let go his hold, and began to sink. But the rowboat had all it would bear in such a sea, and before taking him aboard, it was necessary to make the others throw overboard their wet coats and overcoats. Then the stout young man was pulled in over the stern, and Charlie soon brought the rowboat, staggering under its load of four persons and a great weight of water, safely to dock. A little while after, the three dripping duck-hunters were drying by the kitchen fire.
"I was under the sail," said one of them to me, "and if the boat hadn't come to our help just when it did, it would have been the end of me."
A New York gentleman who heard of this affair wrote to the office of the United States Life Saving Service, at Washington, asking for the silver medal of the Government for Charlie Fraser. Of course there was a great deal of formality to be gone through with; affidavits were made by eye-witnesses, and filed away at Washington, and there the matter rested for months. Meantime Charlie had no recognition of his act except a letter from the mother of one of the young men, though he had, I suppose, what was better—the consciousness of having done his duty manfully in a pinch. One administration at Washington went out, and another came in, and we concluded that the medal had been forgotten. But one day there came to Charlie a very large official envelope, in the corner of which there was boldly printed "Treasury Department." It was also marked "Official Business," and was addressed in big letters and looked very impressive. The inside of it seemed equally important, and it read:
"Mr. Charles M. Fraser:
Sir: I have the pleasure to transmit herewith a silver life-saving medal which has been awarded you under authority of section 7 of the Act of June 20, 1874, section 12 of the Act of June 18, 1878, and section 9 of the Act of May 4, 1882, in recognition of your courage and humanity in saving three persons from drowning October 25, 1884.
"I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
D. Manning,
"Secretary."
And the same day there reached him by express the silver medal in a neat case.
A ROCKY MOUNTAIN HERMIT.
(Concluded.)
By Alfred Terry Bacon.
HEAD OF THE BISON, OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. [[SEE NEXT PAGE.]]
One evening my quiet hermitage seemed more silent than ever before. That small dog, Gip, slept soundly on the earthen floor, tired out with a long day's run through the park. I had just chased away a friendly striped snake that had squirmed in through a mouse-hole and settled itself comfortably, wishing to make its home with me. The field-mice trooped silently about the room in dozens, over the table and under the chairs,—but there is no defense against them. The other night they had the impudence to sit on my pillow and pull out my hair for their nests. "Their tameness is shocking to me," as Alexander Selkirk, the original Robinson Crusoe, complained of the beasts on his island.
Plotting against the mice, without lighting a lamp I sat by the doorway as the darkness deepened, for the night was too warm and too fine for lamp-light. The long midsummer twilight faded to a narrow band of gray just over the mountain-peak; and looking out, I could hear none of the familiar sounds of the wilderness—even the murmuring pine-woods were hushed in the perfectly calm night. But presently a soft splashing sound came from the pool in the brook behind the house. It reminded me that for nearly a year I had been living within fifty steps of a colony of beavers, and had not yet seen a single one of them; for they are never out by daylight and I am never out by night.
The brook which runs through the park dwindles to a very small stream after the summer heat has melted all the snow from the peak; and there would be too little water for the beavers to swim in if they had not built a number of solid dams across the stream, making as many pretty ponds, where they and the muskrats and the wild ducks lead a jolly life together. There is a chain of five of these beaver-ponds, which begins quite near the house. Often in the early morning, we see places where they have been at work all night, mending their dams, cutting down willow bushes, and even felling trees of some size with a smooth cut that a skillful woodman might be proud of; but all day long there is never a sound of work in the silent village. So, hearing something plunging into the pond in the late twilight, I stole to the bank and looked through an opening in the willow thicket. There by the dim light I saw their round, dark bodies swimming around and around and up and down the pond as silently as fishes, with only a gentle splash now and then as they dipped beneath the surface. It must have been a holiday evening with them, for they were taking a rest from their hard work, and it seemed in the darkness as if they were only playing together in the water.
But I had only a little time to watch them, for some slight noise or the scent of the enemy soon spread an alarm, and in a moment every beaver had disappeared from the pond.
Some years ago, we used to read that all the beavers would soon be killed; for beaver fur had long been fashionable, and the price of every skin was very high. It is strange that the life and happiness of millions of little animals in the backwoods of America and Siberia should depend on the whims of the grand ladies of Paris and London; but so it is. When the beaver fur went out of favor, and the slaughter of the Alaska seals began, the beavers increased wonderfully in all the Western creeks and rivers. But if the Princess of Wales should happen to fancy a garment of beaver fur, woe to the unhappy little beavers of the Rocky Mountains! Thousands of other grand ladies must follow the fashion, and thousands of beavers must furnish the fur.
In riding over the green turf of the open country, one sees everywhere white objects which so reflect the strong sunshine that they almost dazzle the eye. These are the bleaching skulls of the buffaloes that used to roam in thousands through this region. Every one has read how, only fifty years ago, millions of buffaloes wandered over nearly half of the United States; now there are no great herds except in the Territory of Montana, and from that territory more than a hundred thousand skins have been sent to the East in a year. For nearly every skin that is sent away, about half a ton of fine meat is left to decay on the prairie. It is a reckless waste of animal life, and I am sorry to say that our government does very little to stop it. Within ten years there will be no more great herds of buffaloes in the United States. Small bands of them will linger hidden away in valleys, but by the time some boys who read this have lived to be old men, the American bison will probably be seen only where it is kept as a curiosity; just as the one little band of aurochs—the last descendants of the wild cattle which used to roam over all Europe—is kept by the Emperor of Russia. Still, even now, at times, single buffaloes or small bands of them will wander back here to their old grazing-grounds. Last summer a party of hay-makers saw a band of a dozen or more in a remote valley behind the peak. And a few days later, one of our neighbors at the nearest ranch, beyond the mountains, was sitting in the doorway of his snug home one morning, after an early breakfast, when to his astonishment, a great buffalo bull came trotting easily along within a hundred yards of the door. He would hardly have been more surprised had an elephant or a rhinoceros happened in for a morning call; for he had never seen a buffalo, nor had he ever expected to see one at his own ranch. But his surprise left him breath enough to shout, "A buffalo! a buffalo!" The house was full of men just in from the work of gathering beef-cattle for shipment; and at the startling word, every man seized the nearest rifle or pistol or shot-gun, and dashed away to join the chase; only one or two stopping hastily to throw a saddle on a horse. As soon as the chase began, the big beast ran swiftly into the thicket along the creek, and was able to keep out of sight for some time. The chase was long and exciting, but the buffalo's pursuers were too many for him. Some followed up his trail, while others watched the outskirts of the thicket; and at last one of the best marksmen among them, catching sight of the big black body, took a quick line aim and brought the buffalo down with a single bullet; so all the inhabitants of the ranch were feasted with buffalo-meat as long as it could be kept from spoiling. But where the great herds range, there is no such excitement about killing them.
One day a young fellow from the East was listening eagerly with me to the yarns of an old buffalo-hunter, and as the hunter finished his story, the young man said:
"It must be tremendously exciting sport, John!"
"Well, I'll tell you how it is," said John. "It's about as exciting as if you were to go out into the corral and shoot a dozen of those old dairy-cows with a pistol."
With a swift horse, trained to the business, and a heavy revolver, a man who can aim truly may often ride into a herd of buffaloes, overtaking them one by one when they are running their hardest, and, riding close beside them, can put his bullets into the hearts of dozens of them in a single day's hunt. That is the reason why the bison is the first of all the wild animals to disappear at the approach of civilized man—it can not possibly escape from a swift horseman.
“A COLONY OF BEAVERS.”
The most abundant game animals among the mountains are the deer. The white-tailed deer is small and much like the antelope in color, but has a far more sleek and handsome coat. The black-tailed or mule deer is twice as large as its white-tailed cousin, and wears a quaker-colored coat, which in summer is tinged with brown. Sometimes, on horseback, I have met the deer in the mountains without giving them any alarm, and we have stood and gazed at one another at our leisure, just to satisfy curiosity. But they know that a man on foot or carrying a rifle is a dangerous creature, and they never stop long to look at him. Usually, even before the hunter catches sight of them, they have seen him. They do not bound away through the forest with a jump and a crash; but, even if taken by surprise, they vanish away between the yellow trunks of the pines as silently as the shadow of the low swooping vulture slides across the grass. They dart so noiselessly through the dark woods that in the distance they seem more like a troop of flying spirits than a herd of animals.
HEAD OF A MULE DEER.
In those parts of the mountains which are so rocky and rough that few animals can approach them, and on the high barrens where the snow lies late in summer, the beautiful big-horn sheep live undisturbed. It is only when they come down to the streams for water, that the hunter can have a fair chance of shooting them. They are swift and handsome animals. Their heads are crowned with ribbed and curving horns larger than those the broad-horned Texas cattle carry. Their coats are not woolly, but are covered with glossy brown hair, shading off in the lower parts to a white as pure as the snow-drifts among which they live. There are no animals, excepting the Swiss chamois and other wild goats, that can run and jump among jagged rocks as they do; and it is useless for any man or beast to try to chase them on the mountain-tops. But a few weeks ago, before the boys went out to work with the cattle, two of them were searching for horses in a cañon opening westward from the valley, and Gip was trotting along behind them, when a turn in the trail suddenly showed them a flock of wild sheep climbing a steep path up the rocky side of the cañon. Both men took quick aim and fired, and the flock went bounding on toward their home among the crags, with one fine young buck lagging behind, his leg broken by a bullet. Yet no man may hope to overtake a wild sheep among the rocks, even though the sheep has but three legs to go on; so, after wounding their fine game, it seemed as if they must lose him. But just as they were making up their minds to the disappointment, Gip took in the trouble with one quick glance and ran to their aid. He has never been taught to hunt, but he is a very wise dog, and does very well without training. He went scrambling up over the rocks ten times faster than a man could go, and soon headed off the wounded sheep. Now Gip is small, and a wild sheep is very large, and tall like a deer; and it seemed impossible that so little a dog could stop it. But the sheep naturally lowered its head to bring its horns to bear on the dog; and Gip, seeing its head within reach, gave a snap at its nose and hung on for dear life, though he was almost lifted from the ground. Even a mountain sheep can not be very nimble with a broken leg, and a dog on the end of its nose; so the boys soon climbed up after him, and when near enough not to endanger the plucky little dog, they ended the sheep's life with another shot. And so, for many days, all the men at the cabin lived on mutton finer even than the famous mutton that is fattened on the English downs.
Not long ago, old Frank, the man who lives alone at the ranch on the western side of the mountains, had the good fortune to come upon two little wild lambs in open ground, where he could easily overtake them; for they were only a few days old. Being a lone man and fond of pets, he carried them home in his arms and fed them every day with milk, until they became as tame as kittens. When they grew to be large sheep, their perfect tameness made them famous curiosities even in the Far West; but they were much greater curiosities when their owner took them to the Eastern States,—for I doubt if a tame big-horn sheep had ever before been seen in an American city. The great price which the rare animals brought well paid the man for all his trouble.
Any of the grazing and browsing animals which live in the Far West may easily be tamed if they are caught young. The antelope and deer are not uncommon pets at the frontier ranches; the mountain sheep and elk can be tamed as readily, but it is more difficult to catch them.
Nearly all the men on the ranches of Wyoming are engaged in the cattle business; and they are so accustomed to throwing the lasso in catching the free cattle and horses, that when they come on the young wild animals, they have little trouble in roping them. The cow-boys, when they are sociable about the roaring hearth-fires in winter, have many curious stories to tell about capturing every kind of wild animal with their ropes. Sometimes when a few of them are away together gathering cattle, they will come on a bear, and, even if unarmed, it is easy for the boys to throw one or two ropes around the bear and hold it until some armed man comes to finish the work. The only trouble is in finding a horse brave enough to run near a bear while his rider throws the rope. One man, very skillful with the rope, has told me how he lassoed a mountain lion. Those great cats are so greedy that when they find a carcass, they will eat until they are stupid and slow in their movements, like a boa constrictor when it is filled with food; so, when this cow-boy found a large old lion just finishing its dinner, he had no difficulty in throwing a noose over its head and dragging it after his horse until another man came up to end its life.
HEAD OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD SHEEP.
Soon this queer, lonely way of living will come to an end for me. Often every day shall I look down the valley, hoping to see the white canvas top of the prairie-schooner heave in sight on the pass leading in from the open country. When all the cow-boys have finished gathering cattle and come home to the peak, the old cabin will be crowded and lively enough. Then the rest of the summer will be filled with hard work in getting together the fat beef-steers and driving them a long journey to the Pacific Railroad, where they will be loaded on trains and carried away to feed the beef-eaters of America and England.
The curlew is still whistling under the plum-bushes not far away, so that the dog sometimes starts up to see who calls him; but now all the fragrant plum-blossoms have fallen away and the small green fruit hangs in clusters. Midsummer has gone; with it came the scorching southeast wind which turns the grass to hay and kills the flowers like a November frost. And, since they are dead, the wilderness is too lonely. While they lived, they were society enough for a hermit; they smiled a sweet good-morning at every sunrise, and filled the evening twilight with fragrance which carried my thoughts away to an old New England home and to happy days spent long ago in gathering forest flowers on the Connecticut hills. There has been enough of hermit life for one year. It has been pleasant; but the end of it will be pleasant, too.