[ANOTHER RIP VAN WINKLE.]
BY MARGARET EYTINGE.
"March!" said Spring. Quickly melting, the ice ran away,
And the frost hurried out of the ground,
And the leaves, brown and dry, dropped with Autumn's "good-by,"
With the wind went a-skurrying round.
And from the deep mud in a low, swampy place
A turtle his long neck thrust out,
And winking and blinking his funny round eyes,
He lazily peered all about.
Then he dragged from the mire—like a snail on his back
He bore it—his box-like abode,
And patiently climbed for an hour or more
Up the bank, till he came to the road.
There an old man he met, who was crooked and gray,
And who walked with a stout oaken cane.
Cried the turtle, "Hello! please tell Ned that I'm here,
And am waiting to see him again."
"Who's Ned?" asked the man. "Just examine my top
(I suppose you have learned how to spell),
And a name and some figures he carved with his knife
When we parted, you'll find on my shell."
The old man he stooped with a grunt, for he was
Decidedly lame in each knee.
And he read, "August 1st, 1820—Ned Mott,"
And then chuckled, "Good gracious! that's me."
"You!" the turtle exclaimed. "Why, Ned Mott is a boy
Whose laugh can be heard for a mile;
With hair brown as earth, and with eyes bright as mine—
You! Excuse me, I really must smile."
"I am he." "It can't be." "Yes, it can. Don't you see,
Many years since you saw him have sped?"
"What's years? I know nothing 'bout years, but I know
That you are not rosy-cheeked Ned.
"He's a boy, and he wears a small cap with a peak,
And in summer picks berries called whortle.
Oh! the stupidest thing is a stupid old man."
"You mistake, 'tis a stupid old turtle.
I'm Ned Mott." "You are not." "If I'm not, I'll be shot."
"Then be shot," and he dropped with a thud,
That sleepy, that ancient, that obstinate turtle,
Head-foremost back into the mud.
[LAWN TENNIS.]
BY SHERWOOD RYSE.
When I say that the game of lawn tennis was invented by an English gentleman some seven or eight years ago, I am quite prepared to hear from some of my readers, whose favorite study is history, that it is much older than that, and was known both in France and England as long ago as the reign of Henry III. And indeed the correction will have much truth in it, for tennis was known even further back than that. People who always want to get at the very beginning of everything claim that the game, or something very like it, was played in the reign of the cruel Emperor Nero, who, you will remember, fiddled while Rome was burning before his eyes. Fiddling, perhaps, was not his only amusement, and it is quite possible that in the interval between one horrible act of cruelty and another, the Emperor indulged in a game of tennis. But Nero is not at all a pleasant person to associate with such a beautiful game, so, if you please, we will leave history to the historians, and see what our modern great-great-grandchild of the old tennis is.
Those of my readers who live in or near large cities will probably know that it is an out-door game played with a racquet and a ball, but for the benefit of those who do not know it, I will give a few hints as to the laying out of the court, and the implements necessary for the game.
First of all, you must have a lawn; not necessarily a perfectly level piece of turf as smooth as a parlor carpet, but a fairly level plot of grass, which a scythe or a mowing-machine can soon put into order. Of course all stones and sticks must be picked up, and if you have a roller at hand, you will improve your lawn greatly by running the roller over it once or twice. When the ground is prepared, get some small pointed sticks and some string, and lay out the "court" according to the lines on the diagram on this page, stretching the string from one stick to another at the distances marked on the diagram. When this is done, get some whitewash and a brush two inches wide, and mark lines on the grass wherever the string passes over it. Then you may pull up the stakes and the string.