Then the man takes it out and sponges it. If it isn't just the right shape all he has to do is wet it, and it will come right. Then he puts on the handle or puts the pieces together, fixing them just so with his fingers and knife. It isn't very hard, but he has to be careful. The soft dishes look real cute. Then they're ready to be burnt the first time.

We walked all around and saw here one man making cups, another, tureens, another, bird-baths, and every imaginable thing that is ever made in porcelain. Then we went down-stairs, through the dark rooms, into where the tall chimneys are. Then I found out they called them kilns. They have at the bottom a prodigious furnace, over that a tremendous oven, where they put the dishes in to bake.

But they don't put them right in just as they are. Oh, no. There were on the high shelves all around, a lot of things called saggers. They look something like bandboxes made of firebrick. The soft dishes are put in them, the lids are put on, and then they are piled up in the oven. Then the men build a big fire in the furnace, and let it burn for several days. When it goes out they let several more days go by for the kiln to cool, and then take out the saggers. When the dishes are taken out they are hard and rough and of a yellowish white. They build the fire after they get them in, and let it out and the kiln cool off before they take them out, because the men have to go in and out the big ovens.

Wouldn't you think a pile of soft plates and saucers would burn all together and stick fast to each other? Well, they don't. There are little things made of hard clay with three bars and three feet, and they put them in between dishes so that one plate has one in it, and the next plate sets on top of that, so that they can't stick together. Did you ever see three little dark spots on the bottom of a saucer? This is what makes them. There are lots and lots of these little stands lying all around everywhere, and broken pieces of them and the clay, scattered like flour all over the ground and floors thick.

We next went into the room back of the kilns. It had shelves all around, too, and there were piles of dishes after the first burning. A lot of women sat on stools on the floor and they were brushing the fire cracks with some stuff out of little bottles. This was to fill them up so that the glazing wouldn't run in.



We went into another room at one side of the first and there's where they did the glazing. They called it dipping. There was a large tank in the middle of the room with a deep red liquid in it. Papa asked the man what it was, and he said it was a secret preparation. The men dipped the dishes in, and they came out a beautiful pink, so pretty that it seemed a pity they couldn't stay so. There were shelves all around this room, too, and there the dishes look like they do when we see them—the pink glazing has turned white.

There is nothing more done to them except the dressing. We had now gone all around, and were almost at the dressing-room where we started. And when we went in again we found that the dressing was nothing but knocking off any rough lumps with a chisel. I remember every bit of it. And every time I look at dishes I think there are ever so many things we use every day and don't know anything about.



ARCHERY FOR BOYS.

Mr. Maurice Thompson has excited all the grown-up boys who loved in their younger days to draw the bow, by his graceful articles on archery for young men and women.



I want to tell the boys who are wide awake how they may, without too much labor and with but little expense, make their own bows and arrows and targets, having their fun, like their elders, in this health-giving and graceful recreation.

In the first place, after you have made your implements for the sport, you must never shoot at or towards anyone; nor must you ever shoot directly upwards. In the one case you may maim some one for life, and in the other you may put out your own eye as an acquaintance of the writer's once did in Virginia.

To make a bow take a piece of any tough, elastic wood, as cedar, ash, sassafras or hickory, well-seasoned, about your own length. Trim it so as to taper gradually from the centre to the ends, keeping it flat, at first, until you have it as in this sketch—for a boy, say, five feet in height: (Fig. A)

This represents a bow five feet long, one and a quarter inches broad in the middle, three-fourths of an inch thick at the centre, and a half-inch scant at the ends in breadth and thickness.

Bend the bow across your knee, pulling back both ends, one in each hand, the centre against your knee, and see whether it is easily bent, and whether it springs readily back to its original position. If so your bow is about the right size. Cut near each end the notch for the string as in this figure: (Fig. B.)



Bevel the side of the bow which is to be held towards you, so that a section of your bow will look like this figure: (Fig. C.)



The back or flat part is held from you in shooting, and the bevelled or rounded part towards you. Scrape the bow with glass and smooth it with sand-paper.

To shape your bow lay it on a stout, flat piece of timber, and drive five ten-penny nails in the timber, one at the centre of your bow, and the others as in figure below, so as to bend the ends for about six inches in a direction contrary to the direction in which you draw the bow: (Fig. D.)



Your bow is now finished as far as the wood-work is concerned, and you may proceed to wrap it from end to end with silk or colored twine, increasing its elasticity and improving the appearance. The ends of the wrap must be concealed as in wrapping a fish-hook. Glue with Spaulding's glue a piece of velvet or even red flannel around the middle to mark your handhold. The ends may in like manner be ornamented by glueing colored pieces upon them.

A hempen string, whipped in the middle with colored silk, to mark the place for your arrow nock to be put, in shooting, will make a very good string.

For arrows any light, tough wood, which splits straight, will do. I use white pine, which may be gotten from an ordinary store-box, and for hunting-arrows seasoned hickory. These must be trimmed straight and true, until they are in thickness about the size of ordinary cedar pencils, from twenty-five to twenty-eight inches in length. They must be feathered and weighted either with lead or copper, or by fastening on sharp awl-points or steel arrow-points with wire.

I used to make six different kinds; a simple copper-wrap, a blunt leaden head, a sharp leaden head like a minie bullet, an awl-point wrapped with copper wire and soldered, and a broad-head hunting-arrow.

To make a copper wrap, wrap with copper wire the last half-inch of the arrow until you get near the end, then lay a needle as large as your wire obliquely along the arrow as in this figure: (Fig. E.) Continue the wrapping until you have weighted the arrow sufficiently; draw out the needle and thrust the end



of your wire through the little passage kept by the needle, and draw it tight thus: (Fig. F.)



A blunt leaden head is made by pouring three or four melted buck-shot into a cylinder of paper, wrapped around the end of the arrow, slightly larger at the open end, and tied on by a piece of thread. The wood of the arrow must be cut thus: (Fig. H.)



The paper is put on thus: (Fig. X.)



It should look like this after the metal has been poured in and the paper all stripped off. (Fig. I.)



It should look like this after being sharpened like a minie bullet: (Fig. J.)



An awl-point arrow is made by inserting the point in the end of the arrow, wrapping with copper wire, and getting a tinner to drop some solder at the end to fasten the wire and awl-point firmly together. The awl-point looks like this: (Fig. K.)



The awls (like Fig. L.) are filed like this into teeth-like notches on the part going into the wood, and roundly sharp on the other part thus: (Fig. M.)



These may be shot into an oak-tree and extracted by a twist of the hand close to the arrow-point.



The broad-head hunting-point (Fig. N.) is put on by slitting the arrow and inserting the flat handle of the arrow point, and wrapping it with silk, sinews, or copper wire. These points can be sharpened along the line A B on a whetstone, and will cut like knives. The hunting arrow looks like this: (Fig. O.)



To feather an arrow you strip a goose feather from the quill and, after clipping off the part near the quill-end, you mark a line down the arrow from a point one inch from the nock and, spreading some Spaulding's glue along that line apply the feather, lightly pressing it home with forefinger and thumb. After you have glued on one piece lay aside the arrow and fix another, and so on until the first is set, so that you may put on another piece. When you have fastened these feathers on each arrow lay them aside for ten or twelve hours. The three feathers will look like this: (Fig. P.)



A boy can hardly make a good quiver unless he were to kill some furred animal and make a cylindrical case such as the Indians have, out of its skin. I am afraid that he usually would have to get a harness-maker to make him a quiver out of leather, somewhat larger at the top than at the bottom. It should hold from eight to twelve arrows.

A good target may be made of soft pine, circular or elliptical in shape. In the latter case a line-shot might count, even though it were farther from the centre. Pieces should be tacked to the back of this target at right angles to the grain of the wood. Differently-colored circles or rings, a little more than the width of an arrow, must be painted on this, with a centre twice the width of an arrow. The outer ring counts one, the next two, three, four and so on to the centre, which of course counts highest. By this plan one's score could be told with perfect accuracy.



If an arrow struck on a line between number three and four it counts three and a half. Anything like this rarely happens. The target is fixed upon an easel formed of three pieces of wood fastened together by a string at the top, and it ought to lean back at the top slightly, away from the archer.

The three arrows count seven, nine, ten—twenty-six in all. In target-shooting you should use awl-pointed, wire-wrapped arrows, as they can be easily drawn out of even a wooden target.



DOLLY'S SHOES.

I can't help wondering if any of the little maidens who are having so much comfort with their beloved dolls in these Christmas holidays, ever think that somebody must have taken a great deal of pains to dress them up so nicely, and above all, to make the tiny garments and hats and shoes.

The doll's shoes!—so pretty, so daintily shaped, so beautifully stitched and trimmed, so perfectly, faultlessly finished from heel to toe, the "cunningest things" in all dolly's wardrobe—did it ever occur to the girlie "playing mother," to ask where they came from, and by whose dexterous fingers they were fashioned? She knows well enough that when Angelina Christina, or Luella Rosa Matilda Jennette, has worn these out, there are enough to be bought in the toy shops for twenty-five or thirty cents a pair; but who makes them?

That was the question which came into my head one day, and I set to work to find out—doing just what must suggest itself to anybody who wants information, whatever the subject: that is to say, I went to head-quarters, and asked questions.

There are two places in Boston—one a "shoe and leather exchange," and the other the establishment of an importer and dealer in shoe store supplies, where they furnish doll's shoes "to the trade," as the phrase is: one is on Congress street, and the other on Hanover; and the proprietors, Mr. Daniels and Mr. Swanberg, instead of being amused at my errand, very kindly told me what I wanted to know.

Some of the shoes are imported, but they are inferior in style to those made in this country—notwithstanding they come from Paris, and everything from that place is supposed superlatively choice and to be desired, as you are very well aware. In the United States there is one factory—and but one, so far as I could ascertain—which supplies a large quantity, about fifteen hundred dozens, for the American market, sending them to all parts, and furnishing the toy-stores in Chicago and other western cities, as well as New York, Philadelphia and Boston.

This manufactory is at Bordentown, New Jersey, and has been in existence about twelve years, and the value of stock now sent out is about seven thousand dollars a year; so much money for the wee feet that run on no errands, and save no steps for anybody! The wholesale jobbers of course advance the price, and in the retail stores they are higher yet; so that each tradesman through whose hands they pass has his trifle of profit in helping to shoe the feet of the doll-people. They retail from a dollar and a dollar and a quarter a dozen, to three dollars and seventy-five cents, according to the style.



They "run," as the dealers express it, in twelve sizes; the "common doll's shoes" (which means shoes for common dolls) vary, however, from the class made for wax dolls, which have grades peculiar to themselves, being not only extra full and wider in the soles, but numbering fewer sizes, from one to six only. Of the common kind, the slippers and ties run from one to twelve, the others from three, four or five to that number. They come packed in regular sizes, a "full line," as those for children do, or in assorted sizes and styles; in small, square boxes, such as shoe dealers know by the name of "cartoon," which is another word for the French carton, meaning simply that they are made of paste-board. The tiniest is not much more than an inch long, but is a perfectly formed and finished shoe on that miniature scale; and the largest is almost big enough for Mrs. Tom Thumb, measuring about four inches, and it could certainly be worn by many a baby you have seen.

As for the names, they come in this order:—slippers, ties, ankle ties, Balmorals, buttoned boots, Polish buttoned, Polish eyeletted, and Antoinette, which is a heeled, croquet slipper, in which her doll-ship, when engaged in that out-of-door game, can show off her delicate, clocked stockings to advantage.

But what shall I say of the variety in color and trimmings? They are in white and crimson, in buff and blue, in scarlet and purple, in rose color and violet, in bronze and silver and gold, everything but black, for dolls don't like black except in the tips of their gay Balmoral or Polish boots. And the stuff they are made of is such soft material as can only be found in goat and sheep and kid and glove kid, and skivers, which is the name for split leather. I strongly suspected that they were all made of scraps left from large slippers and shoes, but, though this is generally the case, some whole skins have to be used because nothing is ever manufactured for real people boots and shoes and slippers for all kinds of dolls, high and low, rich and poor; to walk in, to dance in, to play croquet in, or to stay at home in; to match their costumes, to match their hair, to match their eyes, to suit them if anything on earth could suit. And every doll could be sure about her "size," for the number is stamped on the bottom of the soles; and I must not forget to say that they have also the "trademark," which is the imprint under the number; this "trade mark" is a pair of boots smaller than anything you can think of.

Now I am coming to the original question—"who makes them?" They are made in large quantities during about six months of the year, accumulating in the summer, ready for the trade, which begins in August, and drops off after the first of January, and is over with for that season by March. In those six working months the factory employs about forty women, and they are mostly invalids or old persons who are not able to do anything but light work, and who receive only small wages, because they are not capable of earning much. So they are generally thin, pale hands and slender fingers which patiently and skillfully fit the patterns, and sew the seams, and do the even nice stitching, and dainty ornamentation, which help to make glad the hearts of the many little girls all over the country, who have found a precious doll, all so daintily shod, among the gifts of their Merry Christmas.



A GLIMPSE OF SOME MONTANA BEAVERS.

Our road passed down along Hell-Gate river, leaving Deer Lodge City some eight miles to the left. As one goes down, the country changes, and occasional pines appear along the banks of the stream, and the landscape becomes much more interesting. At one place, where a tiny tributary flows in, a large community of beavers were building a dam. They were not at all afraid of us, and so we leisurely observed the process, wishing to settle the vexed question as to whether beavers do actually do intelligent mason-work.

They had already sunk a great deal of brush, together with limbs of trees, and were now filling this wicker-work in with earth and rocks which they procured a little distance above on the opposite bank. A beaver would run up, flatten his tail on the mud near the bank, then another beaver would scrape the earth up and upon the tail of the first, and pack it down. After he had his load complete, the carrier-beaver would swim away rapidly; his tail, with the load of earth, floating on the surface, the swift movement of the animal alone keeping it afloat.

The sagacious creature would invariably swim to the right place and dump the load, and then return for another, the stream presenting a scene of great activity, as several of these curious animal-masons were constantly and swiftly passing and repassing each other with their heavy loads.

Others, the carpenters among them, were at work in the thicket opposite, cutting brush. We saw many large trees which had been cut down by them. The stumps looked as though some boy had chopped them down with a dull axe. It is surprising to reflect upon the pertinacity of these creatures which enables them to gnaw down such immense trees, and the wisdom with which they calculate the direction in which the trees will fall.

It is said here that the beavers cut the limbs off from these trees and then sever them into lengths of about three feet each, and after that float them to the center of their pond, sink them to the bottom and fasten them there, where they remain and are used as food during the winter when the pond is frozen over. This is thought to be one of the principal uses of the pond—to provide a pantry which will not freeze. The pond furnishes a depth of water that is always still, and never freezes to the bottom.

Although, after witnessing this almost human sagacity, we had many compunctions, we concluded to shoot one fine animal for his skin. We shot one through the head. His companions immediately disappeared; and before we could secure our wounded beaver he also had dived beneath the waters of their pond, and although we waited sometime in the vicinity, we failed to discover him again. The inhabitants say it is nearly impossible to kill a beaver with a rifle, and never, on any occasion does the trapper shoot one.



HOW LOGS GO TO MILL.



All boys and girls know that boards are made of sawed logs, and that logs are trunks of trees. Few, however, know with what hardship and difficulty the trees are felled, trimmed and carried from the woods where they grow to the mills where they are made into boards.

In the far West, and in the wilds of Maine, are acres upon acres, and miles upon miles, of evergreen forests. One wooded tract in Maine is so vast that it takes an army of choppers twenty years to cut it over. By the time it is done a new growth has sprung up, and an intermediate one is large enough to cut; so the chopping goes on year after year. The first or primeval growth is pine. That is most valuable. After the pines are cut, spruce and hemlock spring up and grow.

Most of the men who live in the vicinity of the lake region work in the woods in the winter. They camp in tents and log huts near the tracts where they are felling trees. All day long, day after day, week after week, they chop down such trees as are large enough to cut, lop off the branches and haul the logs to the nearest water. This work is done in winter because the logs are more easily managed over snow and ice. All brooks large enough to carry them, all rivers, ponds and lakes, are pressed into service and made to convey the ponderous freight towards civilization. All along the shores and in the woods are busy scenes—men, oxen and horses hard at work, the smoke from the logging camps curling among the trees.

Every log has the initial or mark of the owner chopped deep into the wood to identify it. Then, when the ice breaks up, the logs are sent down the brooks to the rivers and through the rivers to the lakes. The logging camps are disbanded, the loggers return to their homes, and the river-drivers alone are left to begin their duties.

The river-drivers are the men who travel with the logs from the beginning of their journey till they are surrendered to the saw-mills. Each wears shoes the soles of which are thickly studded with iron brads an inch long; and each carries a long pole called a "pick-pole," which has a strong sharp-pointed iron spike in the end. This they drive into the wood, and it supports and steadies them as they spring from log to log.

Their first duty is to collect "the drive." The logs which form "the drive" are packed together and held in place by a chain of guard-logs which stretches entirely around the drive, forming what is called "the boom." The guard-logs are chained together at the ends about two feet apart. The guard is always much larger than the boom of logs, so that the shape of the boom may be changed for wide or narrow waters.

At the head of each boom is a raft which supports two large windlasses, each of which works an anchor. On this head-work about thirty river-drivers take up their position to direct the course of the boom.

To change its position or shape, ten of the drivers spring into a boat or bateau; one takes a paddle at the bow; eight take oars; and one, at the stern, holds the anchor. They row with quick strokes toward the spot where the anchor is to be dropped, the cable all the time unwinding from the windlass.

"Let go!" shouts the foreman.

Splash! goes the anchor overboard.

The boat then darts back to the head-works. Out spring the men to help turn the windlass to wind the cable in. They sing as they work, and the windlass creaks a monotonous accompaniment as "Meet me by moonlight," or the popular "Away over yonder," comes floating over the rippling water.



Meanwhile another bateau has been out with another anchor; and as both windlasses turn, the boom swings toward the anchorage, and thus is so much further on its way.

Though the men sing as they work, and make the best of their mishaps with jests and laughter, they often carry homesick hearts. In cold and stormy weather their hardships are great, an involuntary bath in the icy water being an event of frequent occurrence. Also their work demands a constant supply of strength which is very trying; frequently a head wind will drive them back from a position which it has taken several days to gain, and all the toil of fresh anchorages must be repeated.

The most dangerous part of the work is "sluicing" the logs. When the boom reaches the run which connects the lake or river with the dam through the sluice of which the logs must pass, the chain of guard-logs is detached, and fastened in lines along both sides of the run, and the rafts are drawn off to one side and anchored to trees. The river-drivers, armed with their pick-poles, are then stationed along the run, on the dam, wherever they may be needed.

The liberated logs now come sailing along, their speed quickening as they near the sluice. When they reach it they dart through, their dull, rapid, continuous thud mingling with the roar of the water. How they shoot the sluice! log after log—two, six, a dozen together—pitching, tossing, struggling, leaping end over end; finally submitting to destiny and sailing serenely down the river toward another lake.

Meanwhile the river-drivers with their long poles and quick movements, looking not unlike a band of savages, have enough to do, with steady feet, and eyes on the alert. For of all the vast array of logs—and I once saw twenty-four thousand in one drive—not one goes through the sluice but is guided on to it by one or more of the drivers. They often ride standing on the floating logs, conducting this, pushing that, hurrying another, straightening, turning and guiding; and just before the log on which a driver stands reaches the sluice, he springs to another.

Woe to him if his foot should slip, or his leap fail! He would be crushed among the logs in the sluice, or dashed among the rocks in the seething water.



After all the logs are safely sluiced, the chains of the guards are slipped, the rafts are broken up, and these, windlasses and all, follow the logs. Then the boats are put through the sluice. Sometimes, when the dam is high, some of the river-drivers go through in the boats—a dangerous practice, this; for often the bateaux have gone under water, entirely out of sight, to come up below the falls, and more than once have lives been lost in this foolhardy feat.



A boom generally passes from three to six dams, and sometimes takes four months to reach the mills.

Occasionally the logs become jammed in the rivers, and must wait for more water; if this can be supplied from a lake above, the difficulty is easily remedied.

In the spring of 1880, a jam occurred at Mexico in Maine. The logs were piled forty feet above the water and covered an extent of area as large as an ordinary village. This great jam attracted visitors from all parts of the country until the spring freshets of the next year could supply the river with water sufficient to loose them and bear them on their way.

——-

At the present time, July, 1880, the jam is still there. I saw the driving and sluicing as I have described it, in May, 1880. It was very interesting.—S. B. C. S.

THE END