Here is a tolerably easy way to make a stage-curtain that will "go up with a flourish," and come down either quickly or slowly, as may be wished. It is easily kept in order, and readily repaired when damaged.
Above the stage, at the front, set up a stout cross-beam. Let the curtain be of some opaque stuff that will fold well. Fasten its upper edge firmly to the front of the cross-beam. Weight the lower edge of the curtain with a long roller some inches wider than the curtain. Sew to the curtain, on its wrong side, perpendicular rows of rings set at suitable distances apart, and in level lines across. The more rows, the more evenly will the curtain fold. Tie a strong thin cord about the roller in a line with each perpendicular row of rings, and pass each cord through its proper rings. On the bottom of the cross-beam above the several rows of rings, fasten large smooth rings to be used instead of pullies. Pass the cords up through the large rings, and gather them at one end of the beam. Then fasten the ends of the cords to a rope, taking care while doing this that the curtain is down, and hanging properly, and that all the cords are drawn equally tense. There should be a stout pin or hook at the side of the curtain, to which the rope is to be fastened when the curtain is drawn up. Take notice that the cords are of different lengths and must be free from knots. The curtain should not touch the stage, and may be kept in place by fixing the ends of the roller in iron rings or between pegs.
Two Ways of Carrying the Mail.
The frontispiece to this number of St. Nicholas shows how the mails were carried in winter over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada before the Union Pacific Railroad was finished (1869), and how they are carried now. In 1867, to the perils of the snow and wind and of mountain travel, were added dangers from desperadoes, white as well as red, so that mail deliveries were few and far between, and very irregular, while too often both the carriers and their packs were lost. Slow as the old way was, however, the snow sometimes makes the new way even slower. In spite of miles and miles of snow-sheds and snow-fences, and ever so many steam snow-plows, the railroad is blocked now and then until a way can be dug through huge heaps of drift. Thus, sometimes, whole days are lost on the steam road, when a man might be speeding and coasting on his queer foot-gear, over the snow-crust like the wind, to reach the destination perhaps a week ahead of the snorting snowed-up monster. However, year by year, as sheds and fences and other preventions are multiplied, railroad delays caused by snow become fewer and fewer.
Georgetown, D. C.
Dear St. Nicholas: I was so much pleased with the little figure of a nun in the November number, that I made eight like it. I have been taking the St. Nicholas ever since it came out, and think it gets nicer every time it is published. I am not quite seven years old, but I composed all of this letter.
John Wm. Mitchell.