* * * * *

The first thing which I wrote, marking in any sense the beginning of what authors are accustomed to call their "literary career"—I dislike the phrase and wish we had a better—was a war story.

As nearly as I can recall the facts, up to this time I had shown no literary tendency whatever, since the receipt of that check for two dollars and a half. Possibly the munificence of that honorarium seemed to me to satiate mortal ambition for years. It is true that, during my schooldays, I did perpetrate three full-grown novels in manuscript. My dearest particular intimate and I shared in this exploit, and read our chapters to each other on Saturday afternoons.

I remember that the title of one of these "books" was "The Shadow of a Lifetime." It was a double title with a heroine to it, but I forget the lady's name, or even the nature of her particular shadow. The only thing that can be said about these three volumes is, that their youthful author had the saving sense not to try the Christian temper of a publisher with their perusal.

Yet, in truth, I have never regretted the precious portion of human existence spent in their creation; for I must have written off in that way a certain amount of apprenticeship which does, in some cases, find its way into type, and devastate the endurance of a patient public.

The war story of which I speak was distinctly the beginning of anything like genuine work for me. Mr. Alden tells me that it was published in January, 1864; but I think it must have been written a while before that, though not long, for its appearance quickly followed the receipt of the manuscript. The name of the story was "A Sacrifice Consumed." It was a very little story, not covering more than four or five pages in print. I sent it to "Harper's Magazine," without introduction or what young writers are accustomed to call "influence;" it was sent quite privately, without the knowledge of any friend. It was immediately accepted, and a prompt check for twenty-five dollars accompanied the acceptance. Even my father knew nothing of the venture until I carried the letter and enclosure to him. The pleasure on his expressive face was only equalled by its frank and unqualified astonishment. He read the story when it came out, and, I think, was touched by it—it was a story of a poor and plain little dressmaker who lost her lover in the army—and his genuine emotion gave me a kind of awed elation which has never been repeated in my experience. Ten hundred thousand unknown voices could not move me to the pride and pleasure which my father's first gentle word of approval gave to a girl who cared much to be loved, and little to be praised; and the plaudits of a "career" were the last things in earth or heaven then occupying her mind.



Afterwards, I wrote with a distinct purpose, and, I think, quite steadily. I know that longer stories went, soon and often, to the old magazine, which never sent them back; and to which I am glad to pay the tribute of a gratitude that I have never outgrown. There was nothing of the stuff that heroines and geniuses are made of in a shy and self-distrustful girl who had no faith in her own capabilities, and, indeed, at that time, the smallest possible amount of interest in the subject.

It may be a humiliating fact, but it is the truth, that had my first story been refused, or even the second or the third, I should have written no more.

For the opinion of important editors, and for the sacredness of market value in literary wares, as well as in professorships or cotton cloth, I had a kind of respect at which I sometimes wonder; for I do not recall that it was ever distinctly taught me. But, assuredly, if nobody had cared for my stories enough to print them, I should have been the last person to differ from the ruling opinion, and should have bought at Warren Draper's old Andover book-store no more cheap printer's paper on which to inscribe the girlish handwriting (with the pointed letters and the big capitals) which my father, with patient pains, had caused to be taught me by a queer old travelling-master with an idea. Professor Phelps, by the way, had an exquisite chirography, which none of his children, to his evident disappointment, inherited.



But the editor of "Harper's" took everything I sent him; so the pointed letters and the large capitals continued to flow towards his desk.

Long after I had achieved whatever success has been given me, this magazine returned me one of my stories—it was the only one in a lifetime. I think the Editor then in power called it too tragic, or too something; it came out forthwith in the columns of another magazine that did not agree with him, and was afterwards issued, I think, in some sort of "classic" series of little books.

I was a little sorry, I know, at the time, for I had the most superstitious attachment for the magazine that, when "I was a stranger, took me in;" but it was probably necessary to break the record in this, as in all other forms of human happiness.

Other magazines took their turn—the "Atlantic," I remember—in due course; but I shared the general awe of this magazine at that time prevailing in New England, and, having, possibly, more than my share of personal pride, did not very early venture to intrude my little risk upon that fearful lottery.

Perhaps this reserve was more natural because "Harper's" published as fast as I could write; which is not saying much, to be sure, for I have always been a slow worker. The first story of mine which appeared in the "Atlantic" was a fictitious narrative of certain psychical phenomena occurring in Connecticut, and known to me, at first hand, to be authentic. I have yet to learn that the story attracted any attention from anybody more disinterested than those few friends of the sort who, in such cases, are wont to inquire, in tones more freighted with wonder than admiration: "What! Has she got into the 'Atlantic'?"

The "Century" came in turn, when it came into being. To this delightful magazine I have always been, and always hope to be, a contributor.



I read, with a kind of hopeless envy, histories and legends of people of our craft who "do not write for money." It must be a pleasant experience to be able to cultivate so delicate a class of motives for the privilege of doing one's best to express one's thoughts to people who care for them. Personally, I have yet to breathe the ether of such a transcendent sphere. I am proud to say that I have always been a working-woman, and always had to be; though I ought to add that I am sure the proposal that my father's allowance to his daughter should cease, did not come from the father.

When the first little story appeared in "Harper's Magazine," it occurred to me, with a throb of pleasure greater than I supposed then that life could hold, that I could take care of myself, and from that day to this I have done so.

One hesitates a little, even in autobiography, about saying precisely this. But when I remember the thousands of women who find it too easy to be dependent on too heavily-weighted and too generous men, one hesitates no longer to say anything that may help those other thousands of women who stand on their own feet, and their own pluck, to understand how good a thing it is to be there.

Of all the methods of making a living open to educated people to-day, the profession of literature is, probably, the poorest in point of monetary returns. A couple of authors, counted successful as the world and the word go, said once:

"We have earned less this year than the fisherman in the dory before the door of our summer home." Perhaps it had been a good year for Jack; possibly a poor one for those other fishers, who spread their brains and hearts—a piteous net—into the seas of life in quest of thought and feeling that the idlers on the banks may take a summer's fancy to. But the truth remains. A successful teacher, a clever manufacturer, a steady mechanic, may depend upon a better income in this country than the writer whose supposed wealth he envies, and whose books he reads on Sunday afternoons, if he is not too sleepy, or does not prefer his bicycle.

When we see (as we have actually done) our market-man driving by our old buggy and cheap horse on holidays, with a barouche and span, we enjoy the sight very much; and when I say (for the other occupant of the buggy has a little taste for two horses, which I am so plebeian as not to share, having never been able to understand why one is not enough for anybody): "But would you be the span-owner—for the span?" we see the end of the subject, and grow ravenously contented.

One cannot live by bread or magazine stories alone, as the young daughter of toil too soon found out. Like other writers I did hack work. My main dependence was on that venerable and useful form of it which consists in making Sunday-school books. Of these I must have written over a dozen; I wince, sometimes, when I see their forgotten dates and titles in encyclopaedias; but a better judgment tells me that one should not be ashamed of doing hard work honestly. I was not an artist at Sunday-school literature (there are such), and have often wondered why the religious publishing societies kept me at it so steadily and so long.

There were tales of piety and of mischief, of war and of home, of babies and of army nurses, of Tom-boys, and of girls who did their mending and obeyed their mothers.

The variety was the only thing I can recall that was commendable about these little books, unless one except a considerable dash of fun.

One of them came back to me—it happened to be the only book I ever wrote that did—and when the Andover expressman brought in the square package, just before tea, I felt my heart stand still with mortification. Fortunately nobody saw the expressman. I always kept my ventures to myself, and did not, that I can remember, read any manuscript of mine to suffering relatives or friends, before publication. Indeed, I carried on the writer's profession for many years as if it had been a burglar's.

At the earliest moment possible I got myself into my little room, and turned both keys upon myself and my rejected manuscript. But when I came to read the publisher's letter, I learned that hope still remained, a flickering torch, upon a darkened universe. That excellent man did not refuse the story, but raised objections to certain points or forms therein, to which he summoned my attention. The criticism called substantially for the rewriting of the book. I lighted my lamp, and, with the June beetles butting at my head, I wrote all night. At three o'clock in the morning I put the last sentence to the remodelled story—the whole was a matter of some three hundred and fifty pages of manuscript—and crawled to bed. At six, I stole out and found the expressman, that innocent and ignorant messenger of joy or woe. The revised manuscript reached the publisher by ten o'clock, and his letter of unconditional acceptance was in my hands before another tea-time.

I have never been in the habit of writing at night, having been early warned against this practice by the wisest of fathers (who notably failed to follow his own advice); and this almost solitary experience of the midnight oil remains as vivid as yesterday's sunset to me. My present opinion of that night's exploit is, that it signified an abnormal pride which might as well have received its due humiliation. But, at the time, it seemed to be the inevitable or even the creditable thing.



Sunday-school writers did books by sets in those days; perhaps they do still. And at least two such sets I provided to order, each of four volumes. Both of these, it so happens, have survived their day and generation—the Tiny books, we called them, and the Gypsy books. Only last year I was called upon to renew the copyright for Gypsy, a young person now thirty years old in type.

There is a certain poetic justice in this little circumstance, owing to the fact that I never worked harder in my life at anything than I did upon those little books; for I had, madly enough, contracted to supply four within a year.

We had no vacations in those days; I knew nothing of hills or shore; but "spoke straight on" through the terrible Andover weather. Our July and August thermometers used to stand up hard at over ninety degrees, day and night, for nearly a week at a time. The large white mansion was as comfortable as ceiled walls and back plaster could be in that furnace; but my own small room, on the sunny side of the house, was heated seven times hotter than endurance. Sometimes I got over an open register in a lower room, and wrote in the faint puffs of damp air that played with my misery. Sometimes I sat in the cellar itself; but it was rather dark, and one cherished a consciousness of mice. In the orchard, or the grove, one's brains fricasseed quickly; in fact, all out-of-doors was a scene of bottomless torment worthy of a theology older and severer than Andover's.

When the last chapter of the last book was done, it occurred to me to wonder whether I might ever be able to afford to get for a week or two where the thermometer went below ninety degrees in summer. But this was a wild and baseless dream, whose irrationality I quickly recognized. For such books as those into which I had been coining a year of my young strength and heart, I received the sum of one hundred dollars apiece. The "Gypsy" publisher was more munificent. He offered one hundred and fifty; a price which I accepted with incredible gratitude.

I mention these figures distinctly, with the cold-blooded view of dimming the rosy dreams of those young ladies and gentlemen with whom, if I may judge by their letters, our country seems to be brimming over.

"Will you read my poem?" "Won't you criticize my manuscript?" "I would like to forward my novel for your perusal." "I have sent you the copy of a rejected article of mine, on which I venture to ask—," etc., etc. "I have been told that all I need is Influence." "My friends think my book shows genius; but I have no Influence." "Will it trouble you too much to get this published for me?"

"Your Influence—" and so on, and so on, run the piteous appeals which every successful author receives from the great unknown world of discouraged and perplexed young people who are mistaking the stir of youth or vanity, or the ennui of idleness, or the sting of poverty, for the solemn throes of power.

What can one do for them, whom no one but themselves can help? What can one say to them, when anything one says is sure to give pain, or dishearten courage?

Write, if you must; not otherwise. Do not write, if you can earn a fair living at teaching or dressmaking, at electricity or hod-carrying. Make shoes, weed cabbages, survey land, keep house, make ice-cream, sell cake, climb a telephone pole. Nay, be a lightning-rod peddler or a book agent, before you set your heart upon it that you shall write for a living. Do anything honest, but do not write, unless God calls you, and publishers want you, and people read you, and editors claim you. Respect the market laws. Lean on nobody. Trust the common sense of an experienced publisher to know whether your manuscript is worth something or nothing. Do not depend on influence. Editors do not care a drop of ink for influence. What they want is good material, and the fresher it is, the better. An editor will pass by an old writer, any day, for an unknown and gifted new one, with power to say a good thing in a fresh way. Make your calling and election sure. Do not flirt with your pen. Emerson's phrase was, "toiling terribly." Nothing less will hint at the grinding drudgery of a life spent in living "by your brains."

Inspiration is all very well; but "genius is the infinite capacity for taking pains."

Living? It is more likely to be dying by your pen; despairing by your pen; burying hope and heart and youth and courage in your ink-stand.

Unless you are prepared to work like a slave at his galley, for the toss-up chance of a freedom which may be denied him when his work is done, do not write. There are some pleasant things about this way of spending a lifetime, but there are no easy ones.

There are privileges in it, but there are heart-ache, mortification, discouragement, and an eternal doubt.

Had one not better have made bread or picture-frames, run a motor, or invented a bicycle tire?

Time alone—perhaps one might say, eternity—can answer.

* * * * *

[Footnote 5: "A sin once committed, always deserves punishment; and, as long as strict Justice is administered, the sin must be punished. Unless there be an Atonement, strict Justice must be administered; that is, Sin must be punished forever; but, on the ground of the Atonement, Grace may be administered, instead of Justice, and then the sinner may be pardoned."]



LOST YOUTH.

BY R.L. STEVENSON.

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye.

Mull was astern, Egg on the port, Rum on the starboard bow; Glory of youth glowed in his soul: Where is that glory now?

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye.

Give me again all that was there, Give me the sun that shone! Give me the eyes, give me soul, Give me the lad that's gone!

Sing me a song of a lad that is gone, Say, could that lad be I? Merry of soul he sailed on a day Over the sea to Skye.

Billows and breeze, islands and seas, Mountains of rain and sun, All that was good, all that was fair, All that was me is gone.

Originally published in the "Pall Mall Gazette."



THE DIVIDED HOUSE

BY JULIA D. WHITING,

Author of "The Story of Myra," "Brother Sesostris," "A special Providence," and other stories.

When Selucius Huxter had arrived at his last illness, he proved himself more than ever in his life troublesome and wearing. Having a suspicion that his condition was worse than his doctor or children allowed, he gave them no peace until he had extracted an admission that such was the case. Left alone with the doctor at his request, he reproached him.

"Ye might as well told me before as let me lay here thinkin' and stewin' about it. I've lost a sight of strength tryin' to git the truth from ye, and there wa'n't no need. Wall—I suppose I ain't reely dyin' naow, while I'm a-talkin', be I?"

Assured as to that point, he added: "The reason I wanted to know is because I've got to fix my concerns so as to leave 'em as well as I can; and all I want of you is that when you think I'm—wall—if you see there's goin' to be a change, I want you should tell me, so's't I can straighten things right out and git their consent to it." Having promised, the doctor apprised him as the last moments drew near.

"Sho! I want to know! Why, I feel full as well as I did yes'dy and a leetle grain easier, if anythin'."

"I hope this notice does not find you unprepared," observed the doctor.

"Wall, no; I'm prepared as much as I can be, as you may say. I've been a member in good and regular standin' this fifty-five year—and I hain't arrived at my age without seeing there's somethin' in life beside livin'." He paused, then added with an accent of pride, "I don't owe any man a cent, nor never cheated a man of one. Wall, I've had quite a spell to think of things in, durin' my sickness, and I don't know but what I've enjoyed it considerable. Thought of things all along back to when I was a boy. Events come up that I'd clean forgot."

The doctor gone, he called his children in.

"Wall, Armidy, wall, Lucas, the doctor don't seem to think I shall tucker it out much longer. Wall, naow," he exclaimed, quite vexed, "I vow for't if I didn't forgit to ask him how long! Wall, too late naow. He's got out of sight, I s'pose."

Armida stepped to the window, and assured him of the fact.

"Wall, no gret matter. I jist thought if I could git him to fix the time I'd like to see how nigh he'd hit it.

"Naow, I want to fix the property so's't you won't have no trouble with it. No use wastin' money gittin' lawyers here. There ain't no cheatin' nor double-dealin' anywhere to be found amongst the Huxters nor the Lucases; and when you give me your promises to abide by my last will and testament I shall expect you to hold to it jist the same as if it was writ out.

"Naow, about the farm and house. The house, as you know, stands in the middle line of the farm; that is, the north side has a leetle the advantage in hevin' the Jabez Norcross paster tacked unto it, over and above the south half, but it's near enough. That paster don't count for much. Pooty thick with sheep laurel. Wall, seein' the land lies jist as it does, and the house is jist as it is, I propose to divide it even. Lucas, you can have the north half, and Armidy the south, beginnin' right to the front door, and runnin' right through the house and right along down to the river, straight as you can fetch it. Do you agree to my plan?"

Armida and Lucas exchanged glances. "You speak," said Lucas in a low tone.

"No, you," said Armida.

"What you whisperin' about? P'raps you think I can't hear because I'm dyin', but I'd have you to know my hearin' ain't affected a grain. Speak up naow! What is it, Lucas?"

"We were thinkin' of Theodore," said Lucas. "You're leavin' him out, seems so."

"'Tain't 'cause I forgot him; but I give him all I cal'lated to when he quit home five year ago—money; and so I sha'n't leave him anythin'. Wouldn't do him no good, if I did," he said to himself.

"Well, we should feel better if you did," said Armida. "I don't want he should be left out. Neither would mother if she was livin'; she'd feel bad."



"I'll settle it with your ma when I see her. Come, now, what do you say?"

There was a long silence, which Armida broke by saying, "S'posin' him or me was to want to leave the place, I mean for good—get tired of stayin' here to home?"

"Wall," said her father with a chuckle, "if either of you feels like givin your share to the other, you may. I ain't goin' to leave my old place for either of you to sell to each other nor nobody else. I expect you to live on't."

"Well," now objected Lucas; "s'posin' one of us should git married, then how would it be?"

"Why, live along. Put in and work a leetle harder, maybe. This farm carried a pooty fair number when I was younger. If you should git too numerous you could build on either side. I guess there ain't no gret danger," he added.

As neither offered further objections, Mr. Huxter said: "There's been talk enough, I s'pose. Do you agree to 't?" He waited while each gave an audible "yes." "Naow," said he, "I hain't an earthly thing to hamper me."

The father dead, for the brother and sister no new life began. Armida still skimmed all the milk and made the butter, looked after Lucas as she had before, and Lucas attended impartially to the whole of the farm, and Armida sometimes wondered what difference it made. To be sure the profits were divided with the most rigid exactness; but everything went tranquilly on until more than a year after their father's death, when Armida had a suspicion, confirmed by appearances, that Lucas was becoming interested in a young girl in a neighborhood a few miles away. The spirit of jealousy surely animated poor Armida, for nothing else could have prompted her action. Having ascertained the girl's name, she caused to be conveyed to her the facts, colored for the occasion, relating to the partition of the house and land; and the young woman, having a shrewd eye to the main chance, bluntly told Lucas when next she saw him that she didn't wish the half of a house nor the half of a farm.



Lucas had thought all might go on smoothly with a wife, and had counted on her accepting the situation. Inquiring as to who had meddled in his affairs, he traced the matter back to Armida, and coming home mortified and angry, reproached her in unsparing terms, ending his recital of wrongs with: "I don't know what you did it for, unless you was afraid your half was going to be invaded; and if you feel that way you'd better keep to your side and take care of your own property. I ain't going to interfere."

Armida was powerless to protect herself except with tears, which did not avail with Lucas. She made overtures of peace, such as offering to cook her brother's meals and look after his share of the milk; but was warned to attend to her own business.

Lucas had a new pipe-hole made in the kitchen chimney, and bought a new stove, and hunted up a kitchen table, telling Armida she was welcome to the stove and table they had previously used in common, but he'd thank her to stay on her own side of the room. The situation would have been ludicrous if it had not been grim earnest to the brother and sister. Lucas had a hard side to his character, and he could not forgive his sister's interference. He would not even give Armida advice, but allowed her cows to break into her cornfield and her sheep to stray away, without warning her, though all the while his heart pricked him at sight of her distress. Still all he would do was to suggest that she get a hired man.

Accordingly Armida, in despair, hired an easy-going, good-natured creature that offered his services. He did very well, and Armida got on better, and took courage.

But there was a dreadful blow in store for her. Lucas brought a gang of carpenters to the farm, who instituted repairs on his half of the house. He even went so far as to commit the extravagance of having blinds hung for his sitting-room and front chamber windows, and his half of the front porch was trimmed with brackets, and then the whole of his half of the house painted white, so that his neighbors rallied him on being proud. "Only," as one said, "why don't you extend your improvements right along acrost the house, Lucas? It looks sorter queer to see one-half so fine and the other so slack."

"Armida's free to do she's a mind to," said Lucas. "If she wants to fix up her side, she can. I don't hinder her—"

"Nor you don't help her neither, as I see," said the other.

"I believe in 'tendin' to your own affairs and not interferin' with other folks," Lucas rejoined.

Armida was made very unhappy by these changes and the comments of the neighbors, and would gladly have beautified her half also, but had no money to spend. The farm had fallen behind, and she was pinched for means. She did what she could, taking more care than usual of vines and flowers, and even had an extra bed dug under her front windows, where she had many bright-hued flowers; but as she rose from digging around her plants and surveyed the house—Lucas's side with the new green blinds and the clapboards shining with paint, hers with its stained, weather-beaten appearance and its staring windows—she felt ashamed and discouraged.



She feared her hired man was slack and neglected his work; yet when he threatened to go, and afterward compromised the matter by offering to stay if she'd marry him, at a loss what to do, and partly because she was lonely, she married him. He was a respectable man, whose only fault was laziness, and she hoped that now he would take an interest. When Armida and her husband came back from the minister's and announced to Lucas that they were married, his only comment was, "Well, a slack help will make a shif'less husband."

Years went by, and Armida's side of the house fell more and more into ruin; while Lucas, with what Armida considered cruel carefulness, kept his in excellent repair and occasionally renewed the paint. The contrast was so great that passers-by stopped their horses that they might look and wonder at their leisure. Every glance was like a blow to Armida, so that she avoided her sitting-room and kept herself in the uncomfortable kitchen that was divided by an imaginary line directly through the middle, a line never crossed by her brother, her husband, or herself.

It would have looked absurd enough to a stranger to see this divided room, with the brother clumsily carrying on his household affairs on the one side and the sister doing her work on the other, with often not a word exchanged between them for days together. Absurd it might be, but it was certainly wretched. Armida grew old rapidly. Her husband was a poor stick, and when, as years passed, a touch of rheumatism gave him a real excuse for laziness, he did little more than sit by the fire and smoke.

As Armida sat on the bench under the old russet apple-tree by the back door one day, regretting her evil fate, she heard footsteps approaching, and, pushing back her old sun-bonnet, looked up to see a shabby, shambling, oldish man coming around the side of the house and gazing in at the windows, "What ye doin' there?" said Armida sharply.

The man turned, surveyed her with a smile, then said with a drawl she remembered: "I hain't been gone so long but that I know ye, Armidy. Don't you remember me?"

"Theodore Huxter! Is that you? Well!" and she hurried up to him, and shook hands violently.

"I heard only last week that father was dead," he explained. "I seen a man from this way, and he said he was gone. How long since?"

"More than ten years ago."

"Well, I thought I'd come and see ye."

"I'm glad you did," she said. "But come right in;" and she led the way into the kitchen.

He leaned up against the door and surveyed the room. "I should 'a' s'posed I'd have remembered this room, but what ye done to it? What hev you got two stoves and two tables and all that for, Armidy?"

Armida told him all, winding up her story with a few tears.

"That accounts for the looks of the outside, I s'pose," was his only comment. "I thought it was about the queerest I ever see. It's ridiculous! Why haven't you and Lucas straightened out affairs before this?"

"I can't, and he can't, I s'pose," she said hopelessly; "and everything makes it worse. I wouldn't care so much if he hadn't fixed up the outside the way he did."

"Oh, well now, don't you fret. If I had money—but then I haven't."

"How have you lived sence you left home?" Armida inquired.

"Why, I've had a still, and made essence and peddled it out; but I sold the still to git money to come here, and it took all I had."

"Well now, Theodore, I wish you'd stay here now you've got round again," said Armida with great earnestness. "I've worried about you a sight. I'd be glad to have you, and Lucas would, I know."

To spare a possible rebuff for Theodore, she ran out as she saw Lucas coming to the house to get his supper, and apprised him of his brother's arrival, glad to find he shared her pleasure in it. As Lucas entered the room he shook hands with Theodore, saying, "How are ye?" to which Theodore responded with "How are you, Lucas?"

Theodore was a relief and pleasure to all the family. He observed a strict impartiality. If he split some kindling-wood for Armida, he churned for Lucas. If he took Armida's old horse to be shod, he helped Lucas wash his sheep. He accepted everything, asking no questions after the first evening, but kept an observant eye on all.

Both Lucas and Armida had loved him since their earliest remembrance, and retained their old fondness for him now. He was a welcome guest on either side of the kitchen, and though when he announced of an evening that he was going visiting, and stepped across the line to the other side of the half from where he had been sitting, the owner of the side he honored felt pleased by the distinction, yet the one on the opposite side, though no longer (according to an understood law) joining in the conversation, still had the benefit of Theodore's narratives.



He was busy, too, in his way. He was indefatigable in berry-picking and herb-gathering, selling what Armida and Lucas did not wish, and showing not a little shrewdness. When he had laid a little money together he bought a still, and distilled essences of peppermint, wintergreen, and other sweet-smelling herbs and roots, and when a store was accumulated he filled a basket and departed on a peddling expedition, returning with money in his purse and a handkerchief or ribbon for Armida. Once he bought her a stuff gown, which she came near ruining by weeping over it, it was such a delight.

Lucas remonstrated. "I think you're foolish, Theodore. Why don't you spend your money on yourself? You'd a sight better get you a new coat."

"I'd rather see Armida crying over that stuff," said Theodore, "than have a dozen coats. Nobody knows Armida's good looking, because she's no good clothes. But she is, and when she gets that dress made up and puts it on with that pink ribbon I bought her last time, she'll look as pretty as a pink."

Not so great a success were the Venetian blinds that he bought second-hand and gave to Armida to hang in the sitting-room. They proved to be in sorry condition, and Theodore was much mortified. Being a handy creature, he managed to patch them up so that, though they could not be rolled up, they looked very well from the outside; and, as he philosophically remarked:

"What more do you want, Armidy? A room you never set in, you don't want any light in."

There was one thing that Theodore would not do. He would not, as he said, fellowship with Jerry, Armida's husband. "Tell you, Armidy," he would say, "I can't put up with a man like him."

"Some folks call you shif'less, Theodore," Armida retorted with bitterness.

"Well, I am," he allowed; "but the difference is—I'm lazy, but work, my fashion; but he's lazy, and don't work at all."

Though he disdained Jerry, he would rather do his tasks than see Armida's interests suffer; and when he was not occupied with his still or peddling, he busied himself on her side of the farm. Lucas would at any time give him a helping hand rather than see Theodore hurt himself, and so Armida's fences were mended and sundry repairs on her barns and out-houses made. Lucas was still as stiff as ever, and the help given was always to oblige Theodore, who laughed to himself but said nothing.

He once attempted to wheedle Lucas into painting at least all of the front of the house, but Lucas was not to be moved. Disappointed in that, Theodore brought home a pot of yellow paint when returning from his next expedition, and painted his sister's half of the kitchen floor, in spite of her remonstrating that Lucas wouldn't like it, though she acknowledged it looked pretty, and in spite of Lucas's vexation at finding the room ridiculous.

"No more ridiculous than it was before," Theodore assured him; "it couldn't be. Besides," he added, as an afterthought, "I'll bring it plumb up to the middle, and neither of you will be trespassin' on the other's side. I noticed one of your chairs was a leetle grain onto Armidy's side the other night, and that ain't right."

In the middle of an afternoon, as Lucas was ploughing out his corn, he heard a "Hello!" to which, when it had been two or three times repeated, he replied, though without looking around. Presently he heard some one coming, in a sort of scuffling run, and breathing heavily, and looked over his shoulder to see Theodore, who dropped into a walk as he spied him, and gasped: "Lucas! Say! Stop! Look here!"

"Well?" said Lucas, and pulled up his horse.

"I'm too old to run like this, that's a fact," said Theodore, mopping his face and leaning up against the plough. "There's a queer piece of work for us to do, Lucas. Armidy's all smashed up on the road, right down here on that second dip, and I guess Jerry is stone dead, and we must fetch 'em up just as soon as we can."

Lucas made no comment, but mechanically unfastened the horse and turned toward the house, his brother stumbling behind, quite exhausted by the hurry and fatigue of the hour.

As they went Lucas said: "How did you come to know of it?"

"Well, it was cur'us," said Theodore. "You know I had old Sam this morning, bringing in a little jag of wood for Armidy, and lengthened out the traces to fit the old waggin. Well, all I know about it is what I guess. I see from the looks they must 'a' concluded to go to the village with some eggs and so on, 'cause you can see in the road where they smashed when the basket flew out; and Jerry didn't know no more than to hitch up into the buggy without shortenin' the traces, and you know how that would work. Well, the cur'us thing is that I was out in the paster mowin' some brakes—here, let me hitch up this side, while you do the other—and I heard somebody or somethin' comin' slam-bang, and I looked up—I wa'n't near enough so as to see who 'twas nor anythin'—and I looked up, and see 'em comin' like hudy, down one of them pitches. Thinks said I, well, there's a hitch-up that's goin' to flinders—and just then the forward wheel struck a big stone, and I see the woman and man and all fly inter the air and come down agin, and the hoss went."

"Where's the horse now?" said Lucas.

"I don't know, and I don't care. Tell ye, best put a feather-bed in the bottom of this waggin, because her arm's broke for certain, and I don't know what else. I'll fetch it—if you've got some spirits."

"Yes," said Lucas, "I'll fetch some;" and both hurried into the house, and soon came out again and hastened off.

"How did you know who 'twas?" Lucas inquired, with solemn curiosity fitting the occasion.

"Why, I didn't; but I knew when they didn't offer to git up, whoever 'twas wanted help, and I put across the lot to 'em, and sure enough 'twas Armidy and Jerry. I looked her over, and see by the way she lay that one of her arms was broke, anyway, and stepped over to where Jerry was, and sir! he was as dead as Moses! Head struck right on a big stone and broke his neck—his head hung down like that," letting his hand fall limply from the wrist.

"Does she know?" said Lucas.

"No, and I hope she won't for a spell. She hadn't come to when I left her."

Lucas struck the horse with the end of the reins to urge him on.

"There, now you can see 'em," said Theodore, rising in his seat and pointing down the road. Lucas followed his example, and looking before them they could see both husband and wife lying motionless in the road.



Between them they soon lifted poor Armida into the wagon, and laid her on the bed as tenderly as might be, eliciting a groan by the operation.

"Best give her some?" said Lucas, bringing a bottle of brandy from out his pocket. "Come to think of it, best not. She won't sense it so much if she don't realize."

A brief examination of Jerry was sufficient. The brothers exchanged glances and shakes of the head. "And to think," said Theodore, as they regarded the body, "that it was only this morning I said to Armidy there was one tramp too many in the house, meaning me, and now to have my words brought before me like this! 'Twasn't anything but a joke, but I hope she won't remember it against me."

"Well, first thing we've got to do is to get her to the house," said Lucas.

Armida having been made as comfortable as the present would allow, and Jerry having been brought up and consigned to the best chamber, as befitted his state, Lucas hastened after the doctor and Aunt Polly Slater. The doctor found Armida in a sad case. "Though I don't think," he assured the brothers, "if she isn't worried she will be hard sick. She's naturally rugged, and it's merely a simple fracture of the forearm. The sprained ankle will be the most tedious thing, but I must charge you to keep her in ignorance of her husband's death."

Theodore helped Aunt Polly in caring for Armida, and never was woman more tenderly cared for. Many were the lies he was forced to tell, as Armida was first surprised, then indignant, at Jerry's apparent neglect.

"Even Lucas has come to the door and looked at me," she complained, "and Jerry ain't so much as been near me."

Theodore was fain to concoct a story about a strained back that would not allow Jerry to rise from the bed. When it was deemed prudent to tell her, the task fell to Theodore, who was very tender of his sister, remembering that though he considered Jerry a shiftless, poor shack of a creature, Armida probably had affection for him. She took her loss very quietly.

"He was always good to me," she said, "and he cared for me when no one else did."

"You're wrong there," Theodore remonstrated.

"I used to tell myself I was," she replied sadly. "I knew I give the first offence, but Lucas never would 'a' done as he did by the house if he'd cared for me."

Lucas heard the reproach where he stood out of sight in the little entry that led to Armida's room, listening to the brother and sister as they talked together within. He often lingered there, wishing to enter, but not daring to; longing to atone for the unhappiness he had caused his sister, but not knowing how to set about it. Now, taking Theodore into his confidence, he set to work to obliterate all outward signs that made it "the divided house," leaving to his brother the task of keeping it from Armida. As she querulously inquired what all the hammering and pounding that was going on in front of the house meant, Theodore had a story ready about the steps to the front porch being so worn out that Lucas had to have some new ones, "or else break his legs goin' over them." The smell of paint was accounted for by Lucas "havin' one of his spells of gittin' his side painted over agin;" on which Armida gave way to tears, until her brother comforted her by saying it didn't make much difference, a new coat couldn't make it any whiter than it was.

It was a great day when Armida was pronounced well enough to eat breakfast in the kitchen. Hobbling out with the aid of Theodore's arm, she stepped on the threshold, and looked over to where Lucas stood by his window. He greeted her with, "How are ye, Armidy?" but did not leave his place.

"It seems good to git out of my bedroom," said Armida; then stopped, gazed about her, and sank into a convenient chair, exclaiming, "What does it mean?"

For both her and Lucas's old stoves were gone, and a new one stood directly before the middle of the chimney, with its pipe running into the old pipe-hole that they used before the house was divided. The coffee-pot steamed and bubbled over the fire, and a platter of ham and eggs stood on the hearth, while the table, set for breakfast, stood exactly in the centre of the room; the dividing line had been wiped out by the paint-brush, and Lucas's side shone with yellow paint like her own.

"What does it mean?" she cried, trembling and clutching at Theodore's arm. Theodore said nothing, but slipped out of the room, and Lucas, after an awkward pause, said: "Armidy, I wanted, if you was willin', that we should quit doin' as we have done and have things together as we used to. Seems as if it would be pleasanter, and if you can forgive what I've done, I'll try to make it up to ye."

"Why, Lucas!" was all she could say.

"I know I hain't done by ye like a brother," said Lucas, anxious to get his self-imposed humiliation over, "and I'm sorry, and I'd like to begin over again."

"I'm just as much a transgressor as you be," said Armida, anxious to spare him. "If I hadn't said what I did, I 'spose you'd married Ianthe, and like as not had a family round ye."

"I don't know as I care now," said Lucas; "I have felt hard to ye; but I see Ianthe last March"—he laughed—"and I didn't mourn much that her name wa'n't Huxter. But that's neither here nor there. If you feel as if you could git along with two old brothers to look after instead of one, and overlook what's passed—"

"I'd be glad to, Lucas, if you won't lay up anything against me."

"Well, then;" and coming to her side Lucas bent over her, and, to her great surprise, kissed her. Turning away before she could return the kiss, he opened the back door and called to Theodore.

As Theodore came in, Lucas said: "If you had a shawl round ye, Armidy, wouldn't you like to git out a minute before breakfast?" and without waiting for an answer, he brought her shawl and wrapped it round her, then put on her bonnet.

"Can't you and I," he said to Theodore, "make a chair and take her out? You hain't forgot sence you left school, hev you?"

Locking their hands together they formed what school-children call a chair, and lifting Armida between them, carried her through the hall, out at the front door, down the walk to the gate, and turned round, while Theodore bade his sister look up at the house. Armida obeyed. She saw the house glistening with paint, her side of it as white as Lucas's, and blinds adorning her front windows, while the front porch, with new-laid floor and steps and bristling with brackets, was, in her eyes, the most imposing of entrances.

Could it be true? she asked herself, and shut her eyes; then glanced again, then looked at her brothers, who were both silent, Theodore smiling with joy, while Lucas looked gravely down at her.

"Oh, Lucas!" she cried, throwing her arms around his neck, "you done this for me!"

"I told you I was sorry, Armidy," he said.



SCIENTIFIC KITE-FLYING.

BY CLEVELAND MOFFETT.

On the long peninsula that separates New York Bay from Newark Bay, there is, among other things, a red house by an open field, in which lives the king of kite-flyers. Every one in Bayonne, the town which covers this peninsula, knows the red house by the open field; for scarcely a day passes, winter or summer, that kites are not seen sailing above this spot—sometimes a solitary "hurricane flyer," when the wind is sweeping in strong from the ocean; sometimes a tandem string of seven or eight six-footers, each one fastened to the main line by its separate cord. And wonderful are the feats in kite-illumination accomplished by Mr. Eddy (the king aforesaid) on holiday nights, especially on the Fourth of July, when he keeps the sky ablaze with gracefully waving meteors, to the profound awe or admiration of his fellow-townsmen.

If you enter the red house and show a proper interest in the subject, Mr. Eddy will take you up to his kite-room, where skyflyers of all sorts, sizes, and materials range the walls—from the tiniest, made of tissue paper, to nine-footers, with lath frames and oil-cloth coverings. Hanging from the ceiling is one of the queer Hargrave kites, which looks like a double box, and seems as little likely to fly as a full-legged dining-table; yet fly it will, and beautifully too, though by a principle of aeroplanes only recently understood.

Then Mr. Eddy will show you the room where, with the help of his deft-fingered wife, also a kite enthusiast, he spends many hours developing and mounting photographs taken from high altitudes, with a camera especially constructed to be swung and operated from the kite cord.

Until one talks with a man like Mr. Eddy—though, indeed, there is no one just like him—one does not realize what a large and important subject this of scientific kite-flying is. Many men of distinction have devoted years of their best energies to experiments with kites. Mr. Eddy himself is a scientist first, last, and always; for the sake of a new observation he will send up a tandem of kites when the thermometer is below zero, or stand half a night at his reeling apparatus, getting records of the thermograph.



Perhaps I shall do best to begin by giving some useful information to those who may contemplate constructing a modern scientific kite. The first thing that should be done by such a person, be he boy or man, is to rid his mind of all his preconceived notions about kites, for it is almost certain that they are incorrect. To begin with, the scientific kite has no tail. A few years ago people would have laughed at any one who attempted to send up a kite without a tail. But the question is now no longer even open with the scientific kite-flyers, who not only send up tailless kites with the greatest ease, but do so under conditions which, to kites with tails, would be impossible: for instance, in dead calms and in driving hurricanes. The tailless kite, sent from the hands of a master, will fly in all winds.

It is true that kites with tails have given good results in experimental work; but the tails are annoying and an unnecessary weight, and may better be dispensed with. Every boy has had the vexatious experience of sending up a kite in a light breeze with a tail made light in proportion, only to find that, on reaching stronger air currents above, the kite has begun to dive and grow unmanageable. Then, when he has taken the kite down and added a heavier tail, he has found the breeze at the ground insufficient to lift the extra load; and so, between two difficulties, has had to give up his sport in disgust. This is the one serious defect of kites with tails, that they cannot adapt themselves to wind currents of varying intensities; whereas the tailless kites do so without difficulty. And in tandem flying, which is the backbone of the modern system, the weight of a half dozen or more heavy tails would be a serious impediment, to say nothing of the perpetual danger of the different tails getting entangled in the lines.

HOW TO MAKE A SCIENTIFIC KITE.

It is important, then, to know how to make a scientific tailless kite, such as is used by the experts at the Smithsonian Institution, or at the Blue Hills Conservatory near Boston, for it must not be supposed that kite-flying is merely an idle pastime; it is a pleasure doubtless for boys, but it is also a field of serious experiment and observation for men. The information I here present, including practical directions as well as interesting theories, was obtained from Mr. Eddy himself, and may be regarded as strictly accurate.



It is much better for amateurs to begin with a kite designed to fly in strong winds, as it is a long and delicate task to learn to manage the variety with extra wide cross-stick meant for ascension in calms. The two sticks which form the skeleton should be of equal lengths, say six feet; and should cross each other at right angles at a point on the upright stick eighteen per cent. of its length below the top. This point of crossing is of great importance, and was only located by Mr. Eddy after months of wearisome experiment. He was misled in his earlier efforts at tailless kite-making by the example of the Malay kiter-flyers, who are reputed to be the most skilful in the world, and who cross the sticks much nearer the middle of the upright one. In a six-foot kite the two sticks, equal in length, should cross at about thirteen inches from the top of the upright stick; and the same proportion should be observed for kites of other dimensions. At the point of crossing, the sticks should be slightly notched, and strongly bound together with twine tied in flat knots. Driving a nail or screw through the sticks, to bind them, weakens the frame at the point of greatest strain.

As material for the sticks Mr. Eddy has found clear spruce better than any other wood. Bamboo is bad, because it bends unevenly at the joints. White pine is not tough enough, and cypress is both too brittle and too flexible. The hard woods, like ash, hickory, and oak, are too heavy; in scientific kite-flying, even so small a weight as a quarter of an ounce may make all the difference between failure and success. All winds are broken by frequent brief intervals of calm, and a kite must rely on its lightness to outride these. Whoever contemplates going seriously into kite-flying will do well to provide himself with a store of suitable sticks by purchasing a straight-grained, well-planed spruce plank, free from knots, and having it sawed on a circular saw into sticks five-sixteenths and seven-sixteenths inches in thickness, to be cut later into such lengths as he may choose.



The two sticks (there are never more than two) having been fastened firmly together, the cross-stick must be sprung backward; so that, when finished, the kite will present a convex or bulging surface to the wind. It might be imagined that a concave surface to the wind would be better; and indeed this has been tried. But it has invariably proved that with a concave surface the kite receives too much of the breeze and becomes quite uncontrollable. The amount of spring that must be given the cross-piece is in proportion to its length, Mr. Eddy's rule being to spring the cross-stick, by means of a cord joining the two ends like a bow, until the perpendicular between the point of juncture of the two sticks and the centre of the cord is equal to one-tenth of the length of the cross-stick, or a little more than one-tenth, if the kite is to be flown in very high winds.

It is of the first importance to keep the two halves of the kite on the right and the left of the upright stick perfectly symmetrical. And this is by no means an easy matter. It often happens in bending the cross-stick that, owing to differences in the fibre and elasticity of the wood, one side bends more than the other, with the result that the two halves present different curves and consequently unequal wind areas. To offset this difficulty, and also to strengthen the skeleton, Mr. Eddy's practice is to add a bracing piece at the back of the cross-stick—a piece about one-fourth of the length of the cross-stick itself, and of the same width and thickness. If the two halves of the kite are already quite symmetrical, he places this bracing stick with its centre directly even with the point of juncture of the two large sticks, its two ends being fastened with twine to the cross-stick, about nine inches on either side of the crossing-point. But if one half of the cross-stick shows a greater bend than the other, he places the longer arm of the bracing piece toward the side that bends the most, thus presenting a greater leverage against the wind on that side than on the other, and so equalizing things.

With the two sticks and the brace all thus properly in place, a supporting frame for the paper or cloth is formed by running, not cord, but fine picture wire, over the tips of the sticks, notched to hold it in place, in the ordinary way. Then, with a thin, clear paste made of starch, the paper may be laid on, care being taken to paste the edges so as to leave a certain amount of slack or looseness in the part of the kite below the cross-stick, so that each of the lower faces will present concave wind surfaces. To preserve the required equilibrium, it is important that the amount of looseness in the paper be equal on the two sides; and in order to keep it so, it is necessary to measure exactly the amount allowed.



Those who wish to make many kites will do well to buy thin manilla paper, as wide as possible, having the dealer roll off for them seven hundred or eight hundred feet, say a yard in width, which will insure a cheap as well as an abundant supply. For strong winds and large kites it is best to use cloth as the covering. It should be sewed to the frame, and, if carefully put on, will do service for years. Silk, of course, is the ideal material; but its costliness puts it beyond ordinary means, and common silesia, such as is used in dress linings, is almost as good. Whatever the material, the kite should be fortified at the corners by pasting or sewing on quadrants of paper or cloth, so as to give double thickness at the points most liable to injury. A finished six-footer should not weigh over twenty ounces, if covered with paper; or twenty-five ounces, if covered with cloth. Mr. Eddy has made a six-footer for calm flying as light as eight ounces.

HOW TO SEND UP A KITE.

There is only one way to learn the practical art of kite-flying, and that is to begin and do the thing yourself—with many mishaps and disappointments at the outset. One of Mr. Eddy's practices when sending kites up in very light winds or in an apparent calm, is to reel out two hundred yards or so of cord in a convenient open space, leaving kite and cord on the ground until ready to start. Then, by taking the cord at the extreme distance from the kite, and beginning to run with it, he gets it quickly into the upper air currents, which are always stirring more than those at the surface. It is sometimes necessary to run for a considerable distance before the kite reaches a sustaining current; but a real kite enthusiast will not mind taking trouble; indeed he had better abandon the whole business if he does. It is worth noting that even in a dead calm a kite may be kept up indefinitely as long as the flyer is willing to run with the cord at the rate of about five miles an hour.

In flying kites tandem there is always to be guarded against the danger of a breaking of the cord. Few people realize how hard a pull is exerted by a series of kites well up in the air. A strain of twenty-five or thirty pounds on the cord is not uncommon; and not only the strength of the cord, but the way of attaching it, is of great importance. There should be two strings (never more), fastened to the upright stick at its lower end and at the point of crossing, the upper length being about one-third of the lower one, and the two being adjusted so that, when taut, the kite takes an angle of about twenty degrees with the ground—which means that the kite goes up almost straight overhead, the string making an angle of about seventy degrees with the ground.



In sending up a series of kites to fly tandem, it is best to head the line with a small kite, three or, four feet in diameter, and gradually increase the size until a diameter of six feet is reached for the one sent last. This arrangement makes it possible to hold the upper kites by lighter cord, the heavier kites being reserved for the half of the line nearest to the ground; and thus there is a material lessening of the load to be borne. The first kite should be well up, say five hundred feet, before the second is attached to the line. But after that they maybe sent at closer intervals, sometimes with only a few hundred feet between them—say two hundred feet in light winds, and five hundred feet in heavy winds. Each kite in a tandem should have a length of at least one hundred feet of cord from the main line, and great care should be exercised in knotting fast the individual lines.

The best way of starting a second kite, after the first is well up, is to pay out about a hundred feet of cord for the tandem line, attaching one end of this to the main cord and the other to the second kite, which is left lying on the ground back downward. Then pay out the main line evenly until the tandem line begins to lift. As the pendent kite is borne higher and higher, it will swing for a while in a horizontal position; but will presently begin to flutter and sail sideways, and then finally come up more and more, until the wind catches it and it shoots up like a bird into its proper position. In fact, once the first kite is securely up, the others will fly themselves by merely being attached to the main line as described. Of course each fresh kite increases the pull on the main line, and the line must be made proportionately stronger as the tandem is increased.

RUNAWAY TANDEMS.

Mr. Eddy has had some remarkable experiences with escaping kites. One day at Bayonne, in July, 1894, while he was flying a tandem of eight kites in a northwest wind blowing eighteen miles an hour, the main line broke with a loud snap, and the kites sailed away towards Staten Island with the speed of an escaped balloon. One can scarcely conceive the rapidity with which a line of kites like this travels over the first four or five hundred feet after its release. An ice-boat goes no faster, and one might as well pursue the shadow of a flying cloud as chase that string. At the time of the escape the top kite, a four-footer, was up nearly a mile, and the other seven were flying at a good elevation. The consequence was that although, as invariably happens in such cases, they began to drop, the lowest kite did not strike the ground until it had been carried about a quarter of a mile, to the New Jersey shore of the Kill von Kull, which is half a mile wide at this point. Here kite number eight, a six-footer, caught in a tree and held the line for a few seconds until its own cord broke, under the strain, and set the other kites free. This check had lifted the other kites, and they now flew right bravely across the water, not one of the seven wetting its heels before the farther shore was reached. Then the lowest of them came to the ground, in its turn putting a brief check on the others. But its cord soon broke under the strain, and the six still flying went sailing over the trees of Staten Island, hundreds of people watching them as they flew—six tailless kites driving along towards New York Bay, the main line trailing behind over lawns and house-tops.

Then a queer thing happened. As the loose end of the main line trailed along, it whipped against a line of telegraph wires with such violence as to wind itself around the wires again and again, just as a whip-lash winds round a hitching-post when whipped against one. The result was that the runaway kites were finally anchored by the main line, and held fast until their owner, coming in quick pursuit on ferryboat and train, could secure them.

On another occasion, two of Mr. Eddy's kites flying in tandem broke away, and started out to sea, the dangling line passing over a moored coal barge on which a man was working. Feeling something tickle his neck, the man put up his hand quickly and touched the kite-cord. Greatly surprised, he seized the cord and made it fast; and he was not at all disposed to give up the kites when Mr. Eddy claimed them. There is no property, indeed, so hard to prove and recover as a runaway kite. For one thing, there is absolutely no telling how far a runaway kite will sail before landing. Mr. Eddy estimates that when the main line breaks, a kite well up in a twenty-five mile breeze will travel, before alighting, a distance equal to twelve times its height from the ground. This means that a kite straight over the Battery, in New York City, and a mile in the air, driven by a stiff south wind, might land in Yonkers if the cord broke. There is, by the way, an old-time ordinance on the statute book, prohibiting the flying of kites in any part of New York City below Fourteenth Street. This, however, did not prevent Mr. Eddy from taking recently a series of unique photographs (some of them are reproduced in this article), by means of a tandem of kites sent up from a high building near the City Hall Park. The only complication that resulted was a fierce contention among a crowd of idlers and gamins over the possession of one of the kites, which came down accidentally and lodged in one of the Park trees.



THE LIFTING POWER OF KITES.

A tandem of six or eight six-foot kites exerts a pull of thirty pounds or more on the main line; but it must not be assumed that such a tandem would lift and carry through the air a weight of thirty pounds. The weight of thirty pounds would be carried a short distance; but as the weight moved off, there would be a sudden lessening of the resistance on the line, and so of the wind pressure against the kites, which would soon cause them to sink. A tandem of strong kites in a good breeze might be made to operate a sort of jumping apparatus which, after being carried a short distance, would anchor itself to the ground until the renewed strength of the kites lifted it up again for another jump. But all kite experts are agreed that a kite's power for lifting loads clear of the ground must be enormously increased according as the distance to which the load is to be lifted is increased. It would be possible, for example, to build a tandem of kites strong enough to lift a man clear of the ground, supposing him to be swung in a basket from the main line. This, indeed, has been actually accomplished. September 18, 1895, in England, Captain Baden-Powell was lifted to a height of one hundred feet on a kite-string supported by five large hexagon kites. But Mr. Eddy calculates that to lift a man of the same weight (one hundred and fifty pounds) to a height of fifteen hundred feet, with a wind blowing at the same rate (twenty miles an hour), would require seven kites with upright and cross-sticks not less than sixty-four feet each in length.

The only other instance on record where a man has been lifted by a kite-cord was in the experiment of the great Australian kite expert, Hargrave, who, on November 12, 1894, placed himself in a sling seat attached to a tandem of his wonderful box kites, and was swung sixteen feet clear of the earth. The entire load, including the seat and appurtenances, amounted to two hundred and eight pounds. Mr. Eddy calculates that six of his bird-shaped kites, twenty feet in diameter, would lift a man and basket in safety to a height of one hundred feet, assuming the wind to be blowing steadily at twenty miles an hour.



THE METEOROLOGICAL USE OF KITES.

Although Mr. Eddy began flying kites as a diversion, he soon saw that there were more serious reasons for continuing his experiments. Having long been interested in meteorological problems, it occurred to him that good results might be obtained by sending aloft, on kite-strings, self-registering thermometers and apparatus for indicating the direction and strength of the air currents. On February 4, 1891, he sent up what is believed to be the first thermometer ever attached to a kite for scientific purposes. This was at nine o'clock in the evening on a cold winter's night, the thermometer registering ten degrees Fahrenheit at the ground. On reading the record after the descent, the thermometer was found to mark six degrees Fahrenheit, which indicated, according to the recognized law of decrease of temperature, that the kite had been sent to a height of one thousand feet. The law is that in ascending from the earth the temperature falls one degree for every two hundred and fifty feet; but subsequent experiments convinced Mr. Eddy that it was by no means to be relied upon as an indication of the height of kites. Not that the law is false; but it holds good only when the meteorological conditions above are the same as at the earth's surface, which is very far from being the case always.

Out of these experiments Mr. Eddy evolved an important theory which has since been abundantly verified. Seeing the frequent variations in the thermometric readings from what the law had led him to expect, he concluded that these were due to meteorological variations overhead; and that changes in the weather, say the approach of warm waves or cold waves, make themselves felt in the air strata above the earth's surface several hours before they can be detected at the surface. Observations extending over months at the Blue Hills Observatory, near Boston, and elsewhere, have abundantly confirmed this theory.

With this fact established, it followed, in Mr. Eddy's opinion, that it was perfectly possible to use kites in making weather prognostications; and, indeed, he has been doing this himself for several years with the best results. Whenever his kite-thermometers, sent to a fixed height which he determines independently by a specially devised kite-quadrant, show actual readings which are either warmer or cooler than the theoretical readings, he prophesies that the weather will, within a few hours, become warmer or colder at the earth's surface, and these prophecies are fulfilled in a large majority of cases. If the kite-thermometers show exactly the temperature which the law would call for, he prophesies that there will be no change in the weather.



It has also been demonstrated that kites may be used by meteorologists to indicate the approach of storms, which they foretell by a sudden and continuous veering over a considerable arc, usually about sixty degrees. This veering begins usually six or seven hours before a storm, and often as much as twelve hours. And another sure sign of a storm is the continuous and sudden dropping of the kites followed by a quick recovery, which shows that the wind is blowing in gusts interspersed with periods of calm.

In making a series of meteorological experiments which he conducted at the Blue Hills Observatory, Mr. Eddy often employed as many as eight or ten kites; and in August, 1895, he sent up twelve kites on one line, three of them being nine-footers. This is probably the largest number of kites ever sent up in tandem; and although on this occasion the line carried only the thermographs suspended in a basket, the whole weighing not more than two pounds, a very much larger load might have been carried, had it been desired.



Among many other curious things about the wind observed by Mr. Eddy, is the fact that the night winds are by far the steadiest and most satisfactory for kite-flying. On this account much of his work with kites has been done in the darkness, although he uses lanterns on the lines to assist him in locating the kites. It has also been demonstrated that the force of the wind increases steadily as the distance from the earth increases. Archibald proved this conclusively, by suspending a series of wind-measuring instruments at intervals along the main line, their registration showing almost invariably greater wind pressure at the higher altitude. Mr. Eddy has furthermore noted that, while the early morning wind is usually very light at the earth's surface, it is almost invariably good aloft; and he has again and again verified the well-established fact that all clouds herald their approach and are accompanied by increased wind velocity.

THE HIGHEST FLIGHT EVER MADE BY A KITE.

The modern system of flying kites tandem was devised by Mr. Eddy in 1890, although it was hit upon two years later independently by Dr. Alexander B. Johnson, the distinguished surgeon of the Roosevelt Hospital in New York. The tandem system makes it possible to send kites to far greater altitudes than had ever been previously attained. And here the best record is undoubtedly held by one of Mr. Eddy's tandems, sent aloft at Bayonne, on November 7, 1893. Mr. Eddy began to send up the kites at 7:30 A.M.; but, being hampered by light breezes from the east, found he was kept busy until half-past three in the afternoon in getting nine kites aloft. He had paid out nearly two miles of cord, when the top kite, a little two-footer, stood straight over the spar buoy in Newark Bay. The lowest kite, a six-footer, was hovering some distance inland from the shore, on a line from the shore to Mr. Eddy's house (where the end of the line was anchored) measuring fifty-five hundred feet by the surveyor's map. Taking two observations from the two ends of this base line, Mr. Eddy's kite-quadrant showed angles of thirty-five and sixty-six degrees; and these data, by simple methods of triangulation, were sufficient to determine the altitude of the kite, which was found to be five thousand five hundred and ninety-five feet—or something over one mile. The kites were seen by hundreds of persons during the fifteen hours that they remained up, the experiment coming to an abrupt end at ten o'clock that night by the blowing away of the two upper kites in the increasing wind. The escaped kites disappeared in Newark Bay, along with three thousand feet of the line.



Much interest attaches from a scientific point of view to experiments designed to test how great an altitude may be reached by kites; and for a year past Mr. Eddy has been working in this direction for the Smithsonian Institution, the hope being that he will ultimately succeed in sending kites two miles above the earth's surface. Professor Langley has been following these experiments with great interest, and has furnished Mr. Eddy with a special quality of silk cord which, it is believed, will give better results in meteorological observation than the ordinary hempen twine or rope. The great difficulty that Mr. Eddy finds in the way of making his kites reach great altitudes, is the pull on the cord, which increases greatly as the kites rise higher. It is probable that a tandem of fifteen or twenty big kites, reaching to a mile above the earth's surface, would exert a pull of one hundred pounds; while at a height of two miles they might, Mr. Eddy thinks, exert a pull of three hundred and fifty pounds; and at a height of three miles, a pull of seven hundred pounds. However great the pull, it is essential to successful flying that the man in control be able to let out or reel in the main line with great rapidity, and it is evident that a dozen men could not by hand alone accomplish this if the kites were sent as high as might be. It is likely, therefore, that, as the importance of scientific kite-flying becomes more widely understood, some simple dummy engine will be devised for rapidly turning the windlass on which the main line is wound.

Mr. Eddy has made frequent experiments with rain-kites, which he used for the first time in November, 1893. It is true that Franklin sent up a flyer during a shower, but in his case the rain was merely an accident accompanying the electric storm, which was his only concern. Mr. Eddy, however, has sent up kites in the rain for the purpose of studying cloud altitudes and other meteorological phenomena; and by this means he has discovered what was not previously believed to be true: that clouds sometimes sink to within six hundred feet of the earth's surface without actually coming down to it. In fact, Mr. Eddy has had kites disappear in a cloud at a height of only five hundred and sixty-eight feet. It has sometimes happened that clouds settling toward the earth have obscured the kites gradually, the top one becoming invisible first, and then the others in succession. Mr. Eddy has found that by such indications he is able to foretell the approach of fog four or five hours before it reaches the earth's surface, so slowly do the clouds settle through the air strata.



It is best to make rain-kites of oil-skin or paraffine paper, as the ordinary paper or cloth becomes saturated with the dampness and very heavy, thus lessening the buoyancy of the line. So penetrating is the dampness of clouds, even without a rain-storm, that the wooden frames sometimes become warped and the paste seams soak open.

DRAWING DOWN ELECTRICITY BY A KITE-STRING.

The scientific kite-flyer will find much to tempt him into the field of electricity; and will be able, not only to duplicate Dr. Franklin's historic experiment of bringing down sparks from the heavens, but may go far beyond this, taking advantage of the greater knowledge of electricity at his disposal and the superior apparatus. In the summer of 1885, Alexander McAdie, at the Blue Hills Observatory, got strong sparks at the earth's surface from a wire connected with a kite whose surface had been coated with tinfoil so as to form an electric collector. He also, by the brightness and increased lengths of the sparks obtained, proved that the electric force in the atmosphere is very greatly increased with the approach of thunder clouds; and also that this force increases steadily as the kites reach greater altitude, and vice versa. Indeed Mr. Eddy and others who have conducted similar experiments, have found the electric force so strong at certain altitudes as to make the manipulation of the conducting wire a source of considerable danger.

On October 8, 1892, Mr. Eddy made an important advance in electrical experiments with kites, by using a collector quite separate from the kites themselves, which were merely used in tandem to support the line on which the collector was swung and raised to any desired altitude. By this arrangement any accident that might befall one of the kites is less likely to ruin the whole experiment.

Much experience with the kite-collector has convinced Mr. Eddy that there is always in the air overhead, at all times of the year and in all weathers, an abundant, practically a boundless, supply of electricity. It has never yet happened to him to send his collector up to even so low a height as four hundred feet without getting a spark in his discharge-box at the earth. He has discovered, however, that the greater the amount of moisture in the air, the greater is the height to which he must send the collector before getting the first spark. There is no doubt that large quantities of electricity might be obtained by hoisting large collectors, supported by strong flying tandems, to considerable altitudes, and drawing off the supply at the earth by means of a system of transformers which would lower the electricity from the dangerously high tension at which it discharges down the wire, to a voltage that could be handled with safety. In his experiments thus far, Mr. Eddy has discharged the copper wire leading from his collector into a wooden box containing a pasteboard wheel with darning-needle axle and tinfoil edges. The axle is grounded, and the copper wire from the collector placed near the tinfoil periphery of the wheel, so as to discharge its sparks through the intervening distance, and by the shock cause the wheel to turn.

THE USE OF KITES IN PHOTOGRAPHY.

One of the most interesting applications of the kite, but a thoroughly practical one, is its use in photography. This has been entirely developed within the past year or two; indeed the first kite-photograph taken on the American continent was one made by Mr. Eddy's camera on May 30, 1895. Although some attempts in this direction had been previously made in Europe, this was the first clearly focused kite-photograph obtained. The previous ones had been blurred, owing to defects in the devices for swinging the camera apparatus from the kite-cord, and for loosening the shutter. Mr. Eddy's apparatus will be better understood from the accompanying cut than from any description. In a general way it is a wooden frame capable of holding the camera, and terminating behind in a long stick or boom, by means of which the camera is made to point in any desired direction or at any angle. This is arranged before sending up the apparatus, the boom being properly placed and held in position by means of guy cords from the main kite-line. A separate line hangs from the spring of the camera shutter, with which is also connected a hollow ball of polished metal supported in such a way that it will drop from its position, five or six feet through the air, when the camera cord is pulled. The purpose of this ball is to allow the operator on the ground to be sure that the camera has responded to his pull and that the desired photograph has been taken. He is assured of this, having given the pull, on seeing the flash made by the polished ball in its fall.

All this being arranged, it is only necessary to send the camera up to any desired altitude and pull the camera cord, in order to get photographs of wide-stretching landscapes, extensive cities, like New York, and panoramas of every description. Such photographs could not but be of the greatest value to geologists, mountain climbers, surveyors, and explorers. And they must possess particular interest for students of geography and for map-makers.

POSSIBLE USE OF KITES IN WAR.

It is obvious, too, that kite-photographs might be of great value in time of war, since a detailed view of an enemy's lines and fortifications might be thus obtained; while at sea a perfected kite-photographing apparatus might be of great value in recording the approach of an enemy's ships. Mr. Eddy regards it as perfectly possible to send up a tandem of kites from the deck of a man-of-war, with a circular camera, such as has already been devised, attached to the main line, and an apparatus for snapping all the shutters simultaneously; and photograph, not only the whole horizon as seen from the deck of a vessel, but, because of the greater elevation, many miles beyond. A battle-ship provided with this photographing device would enjoy as great an advantage as if it were able at will to stretch out its mainmast into a tower of observation a mile high.

It is true that some of the lenses in the circular camera, the ones facing the sun, might give imperfect pictures; but in whatever position the sun might be, at least one hundred and eighty degrees of the horizon would be clearly photographed. And by taking such observations in the early morning, and again in the middle of the afternoon, it would be possible to cover the whole circuit, and thus be aware of the approach of an enemy's ships long before they would have been visible to a telescope used on the deck. In such a circular camera each lens would be numbered, and the position of each would be accurately determined with regard to the points of the compass by the use of guy-cords stretching from the main line to the framework of the apparatus. Thus, on looking at the number of a lens, the photographer would immediately know from which direction any vessel whose image was shown might be coming.

Nor is the use of the kite in war limited to the services it would render in photography; it might easily do more than that, and become a most efficient and novel engine of destruction. As has been shown, it is merely a question of carpenter work to send up a tandem of kites that will swing a heavy load high in the air. Suppose that load were dynamite, with an arrangement for dropping it over any desired spot. Mr. Eddy suggests that this might be effected by means of a slow match made by soaking a cotton string in saltpetre, which would be lighted on despatching the load of dynamite, and would burn at a regular rate, say one foot in five minutes, so that the length of the match could be timed to meet the necessities of the case. On burning to its end, the match would ignite a cord holding the dynamite in a pasteboard receptacle, one side of which would fall down like the front of a wall-pocket as soon as the restraining cord was burned through; and immediately the dynamite in the box would be launched toward its destination. Mr. Eddy has already carried out an experiment similar to this, in setting loose from high elevations tiny paper aeroplanes. With a little practice he found he could start the slow match with such precision as to cause the aeroplanes to burst out into flight at any desired altitude. This interesting and beautiful experiment was performed for the first time by Mr. Eddy on February 22, 1893, when he sent off from a height of one thousand feet forty aeroplanes, their forward edges weighted with pins for greater stability.

Assuming such an arrangement made for discharging a load of dynamite, Mr. Eddy calculates that, with a twenty-mile breeze, six eighteen-foot kites would lift fifty pounds of the explosive a quarter of a mile in the air and suspend it over a fort or beleaguered city half a mile distant. It would thus be perfectly possible, supposing the wind to be in the right direction, to bombard Staten Island with dynamite dropped from kites sent up from the Jersey shore. It is evident that, for purposes of bombardment, a tandem of kites possesses several advantages over the war balloon. Kites are much cheaper. Then it would be far more difficult to disable them than to disable a balloon, since they offer a smaller mark to the enemy's guns; and even if one or two were destroyed, the others would still suffice to carry the dynamite. Finally, the kites may be sent up without risk to the lives of those who directed them, which is not the case with the balloons.

Another interesting and important application of the modern kite has been conceived by Professor J. Woodbridge Davis, principal of the Woodbridge Boys' School, in New York, who is one of the most famous kite-flyers in the world, in addition to being a distinguished scientist and mathematician. It was Professor Davis who invented the dirigible kite several years ago, three strings allowing the operator to steer the kite from right to left at will or to make it sink to earth. Having perfected this curious kite, which is of hexagon shape, is covered with oiled silk, is foldable, portable, and has a tail, Professor Davis turned his attention to his more recent and important discovery of the dirigible buoy, which bids fair to do much to lessen the dangers of shipwreck. For months past Professor Davis, assisted by Mr. Eddy, has been experimenting on the Kill von Kull with this buoy, and has obtained most encouraging results. There are two kinds, both being designed to be attached to kite lines and drawn over the water by the power of the kite. The simpler variety is merely a long wooden tube about three inches in diameter and shaped very much like a gun projectile, with a cone of tin dragging behind to give steadiness. It is for use only when the wind is blowing in exactly the direction in which it is designed to send a message or carry a rope. It will be observed that, in a large number of cases when ships are driven on rocks, the wind is blowing toward the shore, and in such cases a line of kites would readily carry one of these buoys ashore with the important words inside or the still more important rope following after.

Not satisfied, however, with this buoy, Professor Davis sought some means of making kites draw a load across the water in any direction desired, regardless of the way the wind might be blowing; and, after much thought and calculation, he hit upon what is now known as the Davis buoy, an object that has become familiar to dwellers at Bergen Point and Port Richmond, from the frequent experiments on the Kill that have been carried on during the past year. This form of buoy is much larger than the other, being three or four feet in length; and its essential feature is a deep iron keel that projects below out of the block of wood forming the body. It is evident that this keel will tend to keep the buoy headed in any given direction; and stability of position is further assured by the presence of guy-ropes attached to the main line of the kite. Each buoy is provided with three of these ropes, which, by being lengthened or shortened, may cause the buoy to form any desired angle with the kite-cord, and to keep it. Professor Davis has entirely succeeded in making the kites drag the buoy along the water in various directions in the very strongest gales—in fact, under precisely the conditions that would assist when the buoys would be needed for life-saving service from wrecks. And he is positive that, with further experiment, he will be able, by moving along the shore until a tacking angle is reached, not only to send lines, food, or messages to a disabled vessel from the shore, but to bring back by the same kites and the same buoy other lines and messages from the people in distress.

Considering the important offices of which it has already been proved capable, and the possibility which these suggest of many other practical applications, it is clear that the kite is no longer to be regarded as simply a toy. And this, in turn, suggests anew the familiar truth that, after all, nothing in this world is of small consequence.



A DRAMATIC POINT.

BY ROBERT BARR,

Author of "In the Midst of Alarms," "A Typewritten Letter," etc.

In the bad days of Balmaceda, when Chili was rent in twain, and its capital was practically a besieged city, two actors walked together along the chief street of the place towards the one theatre that was then open. They belonged to a French dramatic company that would gladly have left Chili if it could; but being compelled by stress of war to remain, the company did the next best thing, and gave performances at the principal theatre on such nights as a paying audience came.