"Gwo away, ole 'ooman,—gwo away,—doan't speak ter me!" moaned the man, throwing his arms around the body of his boy, and burying his face in the blanket he had wrapped about him.

Brushing her tears away with her apron, the woman turned to James, and said,—"Whar is ye hurted, honey? Leff aunty see."

The little boy opened his jacket, and showed her his side. She could not see the wound, for the blood had glued his shirt, and even his waistcoat, to his body; but she said, kindly,—"Don't fret, honey. 'Tain't nuffin ter hurt,—it'll soon be well. Ole Katy'll borrer a blanket or so frum some o' dese as is done dead, and git ye warm; and den, when she's gub'n a little more water ter de firsty ones, she'll take a keer ob you,—she will, honey; so neber you f'ar."

She went away, but soon came again with the blankets, and, wrapping two about him, and putting another under his head, said,—"Dar, honey, now you'll be warm; and neber you keer ef ole Katy hab borrer'd de blankets. Dey'll neber want 'em darselfs; and she knows it'll do dar bery souls good, eben whar dey is, ter know you's got 'em. So neber keer, and gwo ter sleep,—dat's a good chile. Aunty'll be yere agin in a jiffin."

James thanked the good woman, and, closing his eyes again, soon fell asleep. The sun was right over his head, when old Katy awoke him, and said,—"Now, honey, Aunty's ready now. She'll tote you off ter de plantation, and hab you all well in less nur no time, she will; fur massa's 'way, and dar haint no 'un dar now ter say she sha'n't."

"You can't carry me; I'm too heavy, Aunty," said James, making a faint effort to smile.

"Carry you! Why, honey chile, ole Katy could tote a big man, forty times so heaby as you is, ef dey was only a hurted so bad as you."

Taking him up, then, as if he had been a bag of feathers, she laid his head over her shoulder, and, cuddling him close to her bosom, carried him off to the large mansion he had seen in the distance.

What befell him there I shall tell "our young folks" in the next number of this, their own Magazine.

Edmund Kirke.



THOMAS HUGHES.

The portrait given with the present number of "Our Young Folks" is that of one of England's cleverest writers and best men,—Thomas Hughes. Mr. Hughes is well known throughout all America as the author of those most spirited and truthful books, "School Days at Rugby," and "Tom Brown at Oxford,"—books which all young people, girls as well as boys, ought to read, and which their elders cannot fail to find delightful and profitable. Another volume, "The Scouring of the White Horse," has also been republished in this country, but as its interest is quite local,—the scene being laid in the county of Kent, England, and the principal incidents relating to a festival which took place there,—it has not been so extensively circulated.

Mr. Hughes is the second son of John Hughes, Esq., of Donington Priory, near Newbury, Berks Co., England. He was born October 20, 1823, and received his early education at Rugby under the instruction of the noble Dr. Arnold, who is depicted so beautifully in "School Days at Rugby." In 1841 he entered Oriel College, Oxford, and received his degree of B. A. in 1845. He immediately registered himself as a student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in January, 1848.

Mr. Hughes still pursues the profession of a barrister, in which he stands prominent, and devotes much of his time to the writing and doing of good things. He has been a strong helper in plans for the education and assistance of workmen in his own country, and has always advocated the principles of liberty and justice everywhere. He is one of the truest friends that the United States has in England, and his voice and his pen have never failed to support her cause against that of Rebeldom.



PHYSICAL HEALTH.

TO THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF AMERICA.

The great war will end. Then what magnificent expansion! But what immense responsibilities! Soon they must rest upon you,—your manhood and womanhood. God and the nations will watch you.

A great and good nation is made up of great and good men and women. A strong building cannot be made of weak timbers.

A complete man is composed of a healthy body, a cultured brain, and a true heart. Wanting either he fails. Is his heart false? His strong head and body become instruments of evil. Is his head weak? His strong body and true heart are cheated. Is the body sick? His noble head and heart are like a great engine in a rickety boat.

Our Young Folks are strong and good.

I have studied the life of the young among the better peoples of Europe. It is not flattery to say, that you, my young fellow-countrymen, have the best heads and hearts in the world. The great size of your brains is noticed by every intelligent stranger. The ceaseless activity of those brains is one of the most striking features of American life. American growth, as seen in railways, telegraphs, and agriculture, is tame and slow when compared with the achievements of our schools. And where else among the young are there such organizations for the spread of the Gospel, for temperance, for the relief of the sick and wounded?

But our Young Folks are weak.



Your weakness is in your bodies. Here lies your danger. I see nothing which distresses me so much as the physique of the children in our public schools. Great heads, beautiful faces, brilliant eyes; but with that attenuated neck, thin, flat chest, and languid gait. Look at these two boys, John and Thomas. John is a native Yankee. I found him, without long searching, in one of our public schools. Thomas is an imaginary boy, composed by the artist.

Causes of John's Deformity.

He has lain several hours every night in the position seen in Fig. 3. Much of that ugly pushing forward of the head among girls is produced by thick pillows.

Young people should sleep on hair pillows two inches thick. Ambitious girls and boys throw the pillow aside. This is the other extreme, and wrong. It is unhealthy to lie constantly on the back. You must frequently change to the side. But when you turn upon the side, if you have no pillow, you must either twist the shoulders into a mischievous attitude, or let the head fall down to the level of the shoulder, as seen in Fig. 4. This disturbs the circulation in the neck.



False Positions while sitting.

Another cause of the bad shape of John's spine we find in his bad positions while sitting. Fig. 5 represents the position in which he should sit. You observe his feet rest on the floor. His hips are against the back of the chair. His spine is erect. In this position he may sit two hours without fatigue, provided the chair be a good one. About chairs I shall presently say something.



Fig. 6 shows a position in which I often see John. Do you observe how, with his legs crossed, he must push forward on the seat? The small of the back is no longer supported. The strain will soon produce weakness and pain.

Fig. 7 represents a still worse position. The strain upon the small of the back must not only produce weakness there, but must soon incline the spine to bend backward, while its natural shape at that point is a beautiful curve forward.

Writers on manners say the positions seen in Figs. 6 and 7 are vulgar. In this case, as in most others, propriety and physiology are in harmony.

Positions in School.

Fig. 8 shows a bad posture. Sitting thus three hours a day must soon produce round shoulders. Various devices have been proposed to help the pupil out of this difficulty. Our booksellers furnish a simple rack, which is shown in Fig. 9. It holds one or two books. In Fig. 10 two books are seen resting upon it. Fig. 11 shows the position of the pupil while using the book-rack. An eminent professor in a New-England college said to the assembled students, the other day, "This book-holder will add years to a literary man's life."



Chairs.

I promised a word about chairs. Our manufacturers do not consider health in designing the shape of chairs. The seats are too high, and too nearly horizontal. Boys and girls occupy seats seventeen inches high. A girl twelve years old should have a chair with the seat not more than twelve inches high. For a man even, it should not be more than fifteen or sixteen inches. (These dimensions apply to the front of the seat.) The back part should be at least two inches lower. With this inclination, the sitter will slide backward, against the back of the chair, instead of sliding forward, as he generally does. This sliding forward produces a strain upon the small of the back, and is, in fact, the cause of most of the fatigue in sitting. The width of the chair-seat from front to back should be the same as the height in front.



The chair-back should project farthest forward at that point which corresponds to the small of the back. Instead of this, there is generally at that point a hollow. This error is the cause of much pain and weakness in the lower part of the spine.

Fig. 12 shows an unphysiological chair. It is a fashionable parlor-chair. Fig. 13 is a physiological chair. Two hours in this will fatigue less than half an hour in that.



Walking.

Americans are bad walkers. It is rare to find an exception, even in our army. Among Europeans, and the aborigines of our own continent, a noble mien is not uncommon. I understand the causes of this ugly defect, among our people, but my present purpose is simply to call attention to it, and to point out the remedy.

In English and French books on the military drill and physical training, whole chapters discuss the subject of walking. We are told that this or that part of the foot must touch the ground first,—that the angles must be so and so, &c., &c. I will not say this advice is not right, but I will say that very few have been helped by it.

Look at a good walker. Shoulders, head, and hips drawn well back, and the chest thrown forward. What a firm, vigorous tread! Such a walk may easily be secured by carrying a weight upon the head. An iron crown has been devised for this purpose. It consists of three crowns, one within the other, each weighing about nine pounds. One or all three may be worn at a time.

The water-carriers of Southern Europe, although belonging to the lowest class, have a noble bearing. Certain negroes in the South, who "tote" burdens upon the head as a business, can be readily pointed out in a crowd. The effort required to keep the burden directly over the spine so develops the muscles of the back and neck, that in the absence of the burden the head is carried in a noble, erect attitude.

By carrying one of these crowns upon the head half an hour two or three times a day, while walking in the garden or through the halls of the house, one may soon become a fine walker. One tenth of the time occupied in learning a few tunes on the piano, given to this exercise, would insure any girl a noble carriage. The crown is not necessary. Any weight which does not press upon the very crown of the head, but about it, will answer the purpose equally well.

Fig. 14 exhibits John as the photographer took him the first time he wore the crown. You observe how his form is changed.

False Positions while walking, in Schools.

Fig. 15 shows the worst of them. This is no exaggeration of what I have seen in our New-England schools. It is not common among scholars to join the hands thus, and carry the body erect. Fig. 16 shows a still worse position. If you stand erect, with your arms hanging by the sides, and then deliberately fold the arms, as in this figure, you will find the points of the shoulders are drawn forward two inches, and the chest much contracted. Experiments prove that the amount of air which the lungs can inhale is reduced fifteen to eighteen per cent when the arms are thus folded.

Fig. 17 secures a good position of the spine, and opens the chest. Fig. 18 is not very seemly, but, practised five minutes two or three times a day, would do much to develop the muscles of the spine, and particularly those of the back of the neck, whose weakness permits the head to droop. This subject I commend to teachers and school-committees.



The Muff.

It draws the shoulders forward, and produces an ugly gait. Let a boy wear a shawl, and hold it together in front with his hands, and he will have the same disagreeable waddle. If he wears it even for one winter, he will learn to stoop. Muffs, shawls, and those cloaks which do not allow the arms to swing freely, should all be thrown overboard. Over-coats should be worn by both sexes.

The arms are almost as necessary in walking as the legs. The first time you are walking with your arms at liberty, stop moving them and hold them by your sides. You will be surprised to find how soon your companion will leave you behind, although you may hurry, twist, wriggle, and try very hard to keep up. One reason for the slow walk among girls is to be found in this practice of carrying the arms motionless. Three miles an hour with the arms still, is as hard work as four miles with the arms free.

I have seen the queens of the stage walk. I have seen a few girls and women of queenly bearing walk in the street and drawing-room. They moved their arms in a free and graceful manner. Could this habit become universal among girls, their chests would enlarge and their bearing be greatly improved. See that girl walking with both hands in her muff. How she wriggles and twists her shoulders and hips! This is because her arms are pinioned. Give them free swing, and her gait would soon become more graceful.

You have seen pictures of our muscles. Those of the upper part of the body, you remember, spread out from the shoulder, in all directions, like a fan. Now if you hold the shoulder still, the muscles of the chest will shrink, the shoulders stoop, and the whole chest become thin and ugly.

But some girls will say, "Swinging the arms must be very slight exercise." True, it is very slight, if you swing the arms but once or ten times, but if you swing them ten thousand times in a day, you will obtain more exercise of the muscles of the chest than by all other ordinary movements combined. Indeed, if I were asked what exercise I thought most effective for developing the chests of American girls, I should reply at once, swinging the arms while walking.

Dio Lewis.



ANDY'S ADVENTURES;

OR THE WORLD BEWITCHED.

Andy's folks had gone to town, and left him at home to take care of the house, watch the garden, and amuse himself.

Andy had a new bow and arrow, and he thought it would be great sport to have nothing to do all the afternoon but to shoot at the robins and woodpeckers.

So, as soon as the wagon was out of sight, and the gate shut, he ran into the orchard, and began the fun. He kept near enough to the house to see if anybody came to the door, and near enough to the garden to see if the pigs got into it; and whenever he saw a bird, he sent an arrow after it. But the robins soon found out what he wanted, and flew away when they saw him coming. Their beautiful red breasts would have been capital marks, if they had only waited for him to get a good shot. The wrens were not afraid, but they were so small he could not hit them. And the swallows kept flying about so, twittering and darting here and there, that he knew he would have to practise a long time before he could take them on the wing. The yellow-birds and blue-birds were so shy, that he could hardly see one in sight of the house. So there was no game left but the woodpeckers.

But woodpeckers are cunning fellows. They run up the trees, and stick in their bills, and hop about, and fly from one tree to another so fast, that it takes a pretty smart boy to hit one. They were tame enough, and would sometimes let Andy come quite near; they would stop pecking a moment, and hold up their red heads to take a good look at him; then they would begin to drum again in the merriest way, making little holes in the old peach-trees, which began to look like wooden soldiers that had gone through the wars and been shot in hundreds of places. But the instant Andy drew the bowstring and took aim, they knew well enough what it meant; and it was provoking to see them dodge around on the bark and get out of sight just in time to let the arrow whiz by them. Then they would go to pecking and drumming again so near, that he wished a dozen times that he had some kind of an arrow that would shoot around a tree and hit on the other side.

At length Andy grew tired of this fun; and he had lost his arrow so many times in the grass, and had to hunt for it, that he got vexed, and thought it would be much better sport to go and shoot a chicken.

Now he did not mean to kill a chicken, and he did not really think he would be able to hit one. But often we do things more easily when we are not trying very hard, than when we are too anxious. So it happened with Andy. He tried his luck on the speckled top-knot, which everybody considered the handsomest chick that had been hatched that summer. He drew his bow, let go the string, and the speckled top-knot keeled over. He ran up to it, very proud, at first, of his good shot, but frightened enough when he found that the chicken only just kicked a little, and then lay quite still.

Andy turned it over, and tried to stand it upon its legs, and thought what he should tell his parents.

"I'll say a hawk flew down and killed it! But I shot at the hawk, and he let it drop, just as he was flying away with it."

This was the story he made up, as he took poor top-knot and laid it down by the well-curb.

He was still wishing to shoot something that was alive, and, seeing the cat creeping along on the fence watching for a mouse, he concluded to try his luck with her. So he drew up, aimed, and fired. Puss was so intent on watching the mouse that she paid no attention at all to the arrow, which struck the rail a little behind her, and glanced off towards the house. Andy heard a sound like shivered glass, and, running up, saw to his dismay that he had broken a window.

Now he had been told never to shoot his arrow towards the house; and how to conceal the accident and avoid punishment he couldn't at first imagine. The glass lay scattered on the pantry shelf, and the hole in the pane was large enough to put his hand through.

"I'll say Joe Beals came and wanted my bow, and because I wouldn't let him have it, he threw a stone at me, and broke the window."

And having made up this story, he searched for such a stone as Joe would be apt to throw, and, having found one, placed it on the pantry floor, to appear as if it had fallen there after passing through the glass.

These accidents made him dislike his bow, and he hung it up in the wood-shed. Then he made a lasso of a string, and caught the cat by throwing the noose over her head. But Puss did not like the sport as well as he did, and gave him such a scratch that he was glad to let her run off with the lasso. Then he thought he would plague the old sow by getting one of her little pink-white pigs; but the instant he had caught it up in his arms, it began to squeal; and the mother, hearing it, ran after him with such a frightful noise, throwing up her great, savage tusks at him, that he dropped it, and ran for his life. She stopped to smell of Piggy, and see if it was hurt; and so he got away, though he was terribly frightened.

Then Andy thought of his toy ship; and having stopped the holes in the sink, and pumped it full of water, he called it his ocean, and launched the "Sea-bird." With a pair of bellows he made wind, and with a dipper he made waves; and by placing a kettle bottom upwards in the middle of the sink he made an island; and the good ship pitched, and tossed, and rolled in a very exciting manner. At length he resolved to have a shipwreck. This he managed, not by putting the ship on a rock, but by putting a rock on the ship. He used for the purpose the stone Joe Beals did not throw through the pantry window, and the "Sea-bird" went down, with all her crew on board. He then opened the holes in the sink, and the tide, going out, left the vessel on her beam-ends, stranded.

It would have been well for Andy if he had been contented with such innocent pastimes, without doing mischief to the cat, or chickens, or pigs, or trying to shoot the pretty birds that fly about the orchards, singing so sweetly, and eating the worms that destroy the trees.

But nothing satisfied him; and to have some better fun than any yet, he determined to stand in the door and scream, "Fire!" He could not imagine greater sport than to see the neighbors come running to put out the fire, and then laugh at them for being duped. He did not consider that they would have to leave their work, and run a long distance, till they were quite out of breath; or that his laughter would be a very mean and foolish return for the good-will they would show in hastening to save his father's house; or that, in case the house should really take fire some day, and he should call for help, people might think it another silly trick, and stay away.

He stood in the door, filled his lungs with a long breath, opened his mouth as wide as he could, and screamed,—"Fire! fire! fire!"

Three times. He thought it so funny, that he had to stop and laugh. Then he took another breath, and screamed again, louder than before,—"Fire! fire! fire! fire! fire!"

Five times; and he heard the echoes away off among the hills; and, looking across the lot, he saw old Mother Quirk hobbling on her crutch.

Old Mother Quirk was just about the queerest woman in the world. She had a nose as crooked as a horn, and almost as long. It crooked down to meet her chin, and her chin crooked up to meet her nose. And some people said she could hold the end of a thread between them, when she wished to twist a cord with both hands,—although I doubt it. Her face was so full of wrinkles, that the smallest spot you could think of had at least twenty in it. Her eyes were as black as charcoal, and as bright as diamonds. She was very old; and her back was bent like a bow; and her hair was perfectly white, and as long and fine as the finest kind of flax; and she was so lame that she could never walk without her crutch.

She was a good woman though, people said, and knew almost everything. She could tell when it would rain to-morrow, and when it would be fair. She would shut her eyes, and tell you all about your friends at a distance; describe them as plainly as if she saw them, and inform you if anything pleasant or unpleasant had happened to them. She knew more about curing the sick than the doctors did; and once when Andy had hurt his foot by jumping upon a sharp stub, and it was so sore for a week that he could not step, and it had been poulticed and plastered till it was as white and soft as cheese-curd, Mother Quirk had cured it in three days, by putting on to it a bit of dried beef's gall, which drew out a sliver that the doctors had never thought of. She was always ready to help people who were in trouble; and now, when Andy screamed fire, she was the first to come hobbling on her crutch.

"What is burning, Andy?" she cried, as she came through the gate. "Where is the fire?"

"In the bottom of the well!" replied Andy, laughing till his side ached. "O, ho, ho! why don't you bring some water in a thimble, and put the well out? O, ho, ho! Mother Quirk!"

There was fire in the old woman's eyes just then, if not in the well. It flashed out of them like two little streams of lightning out of two little jet-black clouds. She lifted her crutch, and I am not sure but she would have struck Andy with it, if she had not been too lame to catch him.

"Put the well out, ho, ho, ho!" laughed Andy, hopping away.

"I would put you in, if I could get hold of you!" said Mother Quirk, shaking her crutch at him. "You wouldn't be dancing around so on that foot of yours, if I hadn't cured it for you, and this is the thanks I get for it!"

That made Andy feel rather ashamed; for he began to see how ungrateful it was in him to play the old woman such a trick.

"It isn't the first time you've made me run for nothing, with my poor old crutch," she went on, as he stopped laughing. "The other day you told me your mother was sick abed, and wanted to see me; and I left everything and hobbled over here; and didn't I find her ironing clothes in the kitchen, as well a woman as she ever was in her life, you little rogue!"

Andy laughed again at the recollection. "You was smoking your pipe," said he, "with your old black cat in your lap, and 't was fun to see you jump up and catch your crutch!"

"Fun to you! but do you think of my poor old bones? I'm almost a hundred years old," said Mother Quirk; "and shall I tell you what I've learnt all this time? I've learnt that the meanest thing in the world is to treat ill those who treat you kindly; and that the worst thing is lying."

Andy was sobered again, and the old woman continued:—

"What if everybody and everything should lie? What if we could never know when to believe what our friends and neighbors tell us? What if my crutch should lie, and, when I lean on it, break and let me fall?"

"I think it would be fun!" said Andy.

"And what if the ground you stand on should not be the ground it appears to be, but a great pit, and should let you fall into it when you think you are walking on the grass? Suppose that everything was a lie, that nothing was what it pretends to be, that the whole world should trick and cheat us?" cried the old woman, raising her voice.

"I should like to see the spot!" said Andy, giggling again.

"Should you?" almost shrieked the old woman, with a terrible look.

"Yes!" and Andy grinned at a safe distance.

"Then try it!" exclaimed Mother Quirk.

And holding her crutch under her shoulder, she brought her hands together with a loud slap. Although Andy was at least three yards off, it seemed to him exactly as if she had boxed his ear. He was almost knocked down, and his head hummed like a beehive; but he could not, to save his life, tell which ear had been boxed, nor which he ought to rub. For a minute, he kept whirling around, as dizzy as a top. Then a voice cried, "Catch that rabbit!"

J. T. Trowbridge.

(To be continued.)



WINNING HIS WAY.

CHAPTER I.

FIRST YEARS.

Many years ago, before railroads were thought of, a company of Connecticut farmers, who had heard marvellous stories of the richness of the land in the West, sold their farms, packed up their goods, bade adieu to their friends, and with their families started for Ohio.

After weeks of travel over dusty roads, they came to a beautiful valley, watered by a winding brook. The hills around were fair and sunny. There were groves of oaks, and maples, and lindens. The air was fragrant with honeysuckle and jasmine. There was plenty of game. The swift-footed deer browsed the tender grass upon the hills. Squirrels chattered in the trees and the ringdoves cooed in the depths of the forest. The place was so fertile and fair, so pleasant and peaceful, that the emigrants made it their home, and called it New Hope.

They built a mill upon the brook. They laid out a wide, level street, and a public square, erected a school-house, and then a church. One of their number opened a store. Other settlers came, and then, as the years passed by, the village rang with the shouts of children pouring from the school-house for a frolic upon the square. Glorious times they had beneath the oaks and maples.

One of the jolliest of the boys was Paul Parker, only son of Widow Parker, who lived in a little old house on the outskirts of the village, shaded by a great maple. Her husband died when Paul was in his cradle. Paul's grandfather was still living. The people called him "Old Pensioner Parker," for he fought at Bunker Hill, and received a pension from government. He was hale and hearty, though more than eighty years of age.

The Pensioner was the main support of the family; but by keeping a cow, a pig, turkeys and chickens, by selling milk and eggs, which Paul carried to their customers, they brought the years round without running in debt. Paul's pantaloons had a patch on each knee, but he laughed just as loud and whistled just as cheerily for all that.

In summer he went barefoot. He did not have to turn out at every mud-puddle, and he could plash into the mill-pond and give the frogs a crack over the head without stopping to take off stockings and shoes. Paul did not often have a dinner of roast beef, but he had an abundance of bean porridge, brown bread, and milk.

"Bean porridge is wholesome food, Paul," said his grandfather. "When I was a boy we used to say,—

'Bean porridge hot, Bean porridge cold,— Bean porridge best Nine days old.'

The wood-choppers in winter used to freeze it into cakes and carry it into the woods. Many a time I have made a good dinner on a chunk of frozen porridge."

The Pensioner remembered what took place in his early years, but he lost his reckoning many times a day upon what was going on in the town. He loved to tell stories, and Paul was a willing listener. Pleasant winter-evenings they had in the old kitchen, the hickory logs blazing on the hearth, the tea-kettle singing through its nose, the clock ticking soberly, the old Pensioner smoking his pipe in the arm-chair, Paul's mother knitting,—Bruno by Paul's side, wagging his tail and watching Muff in the opposite corner rolling her great round yellow eyes. Bruno was always ready to give Muff battle whenever Paul tipped him the wink to pitch in.

The Pensioner's stories were of his boyhood,—how he joined the army, and fought the battles of the Revolution. Thus his story ran.

"I was only a little bigger than you are, Paul," he said, "when the red-coats began the war at Lexington. I lived in old Connecticut then; that was a long time before we came out here. The meeting-house bell rung, and the people blew their dinner-horns, and ran up to the meeting-house and found the militia forming. The men had their guns and powder-horns. The women were at work melting their pewter porringers into bullets. I wasn't old enough to train, but I could fire a gun and bring down a squirrel from the top of a tree. I wanted to go and help drive the red-coats into the ocean. I asked mother if I might. I was afraid that she didn't want me to go. 'Why, Paul,' says she, 'you haven't any clothes.' 'Mother,' says I, 'I can shoot a red-coat just as well as any of the men can.' Says she, 'Do you want to go, Paul?' 'Yes, mother!' 'You shall go; I'll fix you out.' As I hadn't any coat she took a meal-bag, cut a hole for my head in the bottom, and made holes for my arms, cut off a pair of her own stocking-legs, and sewed them on for sleeves, and I was rigged. I took the old gun which father carried at Ticonderoga, and the powder-horn, and started. There is the gun and the horn, Paul, hanging up.

"The red-coats had got back to Boston, but we cooped them up. Our company was in Colonel Knowlton's regiment. I carried the flag, which said, Qui transtulit sustinet. I don't know anything about Latin, but those who do say it means that God who hath transported us will sustain us, and that is true, Paul. He sustained us at Bunker Hill, and we should have held it if our powder had not given out. Our regiment was by a rail-fence on the northeast side of the hill. Stark, with his New Hampshire boys, was by the river. Prescott was in the redoubt on the top of the hill. Old Put kept walking up and down the lines. This is the way it was, Paul."

The Pensioner laid aside his pipe, bent forward, and traced upon the hearth the positions of the troops.

"There is the redoubt; here is the rail-fence; there is where the red-coats formed their lines. They came up in front of us here. We didn't fire a gun till they got close to us. I'll show you how the fire ran down the line."

He took down the horn, pulled out the stopper, held his finger over the tip, and made a trail of powder.

"There, Paul, that is by the fence. As the red-coats came up, some of us began to be uneasy and wanted to fire, but Old Put kept saying, 'Don't fire yet! Wait till you can see the white of their eyes! Aim at their belts!'"

While Pensioner was saying this, he took the tongs and picked a live coal from the fire.

"They came up beautifully, Paul,—the tall grenadiers and light-infantry in their scarlet coats, and the sun shining on their gun-barrels and bayonets. They wer'n't more than ten rods off when a soldier on top of the hill couldn't stand it any longer. Pop! went his gun, and the fire ran down the hill quicker than scat! just like this!"

He touched the coal to the powder. There was a flash, a puff of smoke rising to the ceiling, and filling the room.

"Hooray!" shouted Paul, springing to his feet. Muff went with a jump upon the bureau in the corner of the room, her tail as big as Paul's arm, and her back up. Bruno was after her in a twinkling, bouncing about, barking, and looking round to Paul to see if it was all right.



"There, grandpa, you have made a great smut on the hearth," said Mrs. Parker, who kept her house neat and tidy, though it was a crazy old affair.

"Well, mother, I thought it would please Paul."

"S-s-s-s-si'c!" Paul made a hiss which Bruno understood, and went at Muff more fiercely. It was glorious to see Muff spit fire, and hear her growl low and deep like distant thunder. Paul would not have Muff hurt for anything, but he loved to see Bruno show his teeth at her, and see how gritty she was when she was waked up.

"Be still, Paul, and let Muff alone," said Paul's mother.

"Come, Bruno, she ain't worth minding," said Paul.

"They have got good courage, both of 'em," said the pensioner; "and courage is one half of the battle, and truth and honor is the other half. Paul, I want you to remember that. It will be worth more than a fortune to you. I don't mean that cats and dogs know much about truth and honor, and I have seen some men who didn't know much more about those qualities of character than Muff and Bruno; but what I have said, Paul, is true for all that. The men who win success in life are those who love truth, and who follow what is noble and good. No matter how brave a man may be, if he hasn't these qualities he won't succeed. He may get rich, but that won't amount to much. Success, Paul, is to have an unblemished character,—to be true to ourselves, to our country, and to God."

He went on with his story, telling how the British troops ran before the fire of the Yankees,—how they re-formed and came on a second time, and were repulsed again,—how General Clinton went over from Boston with reinforcements,—how Charlestown was set on fire,—how the flames leaped from house to house, and curled round the spire of the church,—how the red-coats advanced a third time beneath the great black clouds of smoke,—how the ammunition of the Yankees gave out, and they were obliged to retreat,—how General Putnam tried to rally them,—how they escaped across Charlestown Neck, where the cannon-balls from the British floating batteries raked the ranks! He made it all so plain, that Paul wished he had been there.

The story completed, Paul climbed the creaking stairway to his narrow chamber, repeated his evening prayer, and scrambled into bed.

"He is a jolly boy," said the pensioner to Paul's mother, as Paul left the room.

"I don't know what will become of him," she replied, "he is so wild and thoughtless. He leaves the door open, throws his cap into the corner, sets Bruno and Muff to growling, stops to play on his way home from school, sings, whistles, shouts, hurrahs, and tears round like all possessed."

If she could have looked into Paul's desk at school, she would have found whirligigs, tops, pin-boxes, nails, and no end of strings and dancing dandy-jims.

"Paul is a rogue," said the Pensioner. "You remember how he got on top of the house awhile ago and frightened us out of our wits by shouting 'Fire! fire!' down the chimney; how we ran out to see about it; how I asked him 'Where?' and says he, 'Down there in the fireplace, grandpa.' He is a chip of the old block. I used to do just so. But there is one good thing about him, he don't do mean tricks. He don't bend up pins and put them in the boys' seats, or tuck chestnut-burs into the girls' hoods. I never knew him to tell a lie. He will come out all right."

"I hope so," said Mrs. Parker.

Paul could look through the crevices between the shingles, and the cracks in the walls, and behold the stars gleaming from the unfathomable spaces. He wondered how far they were away. He listened to the wind chanting a solemn dirge, filling his soul with longings for he knew not what. He thought over his grandfather's stories, and the words he had spoken about courage, truth, and honor, till a shingle clattering in the wind took up the refrain, and seemed to say, Truth and honor,—truth and honor,—truth and honor,—so steadily and pleasantly, that while he listened the stars faded from his sight, and he sailed away into dream-land.

Paul was twelve years old, stout, hearty, and healthy,—full of life, and brimming over with fun. Once he set the village in a roar. The people permitted their pigs to run at large. The great maple in front of the Pensioner's house was cool and shady,—a delightful place for the pigs through the hot summer days.

Mr. Chrome, the carriage-painter, lived across the road. He painted a great many wagons for the farmers,—the wheels yellow, the bodies blue, green, or red, with scrolls and flowers on the sides. Paul watched him by the hour, and sometimes made up his mind to be a carriage-painter when he became a man.

"Mr. Chrome," said Paul, "don't you think that those pigs would look better if they were painted?"

"Perhaps so."

"I should like to see how they would look painted as you paint your wagons."

Mr. Chrome laughed at the ludicrous fancy. He loved fun, and was ready to help carry out the freak.

"Well, just try your hand on improving nature."

Paul went to work. Knowing that pigs like to have their backs scratched, he had no difficulty in keeping them quiet. To one he gave green legs, blue ears, red rings round its eyes, and a red tail. Another had one red leg, one blue, one yellow, one green, with red and blue stripes and yellow stars on its body. "I will make him a star-spangled pig," Paul shouted to Mr. Chrome. Another had a green head, yellow ears, and a red body. Bruno watched the proceedings, wagging his tail, looking now at Paul and then at the pigs, ready to help on the fun.

"Si'c!—si'c!—si'c!" said Paul. Bruno was upon them with a bound. Away they capered, with Bruno at their heels. As soon as they came into the sunshine the spirits of turpentine in the paint was like fire to their flesh. Faster they ran up the street squealing, with Bruno barking behind. Mr. Chrome laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. All the dogs, great and small, joined Bruno in chase of the strange game. People came out from the stores, windows were thrown up, and all hands—men, women, and children—ran to see what was the matter, laughing and shouting, while the pigs and dogs ran round the square.

"Paul Parker did that, I'll bet," said Mr. Leatherby, the shoemaker, peeping out from his shop. "It is just like him."

An old white horse, belonging to Mr. Smith, also sought the shade of the maple before the Pensioner's house. Bruno barked at him by the hour, but the old horse would not move for anything short of a club or stone.

"I'll see if I can't get rid of him," said Paul to himself.

He went into the barn, found a piece of rope, tied up a little bundle of hay, got a stick five or six feet long, and some old harness-straps. In the evening, when it was so dark that people could not see what he was up to, he caught the old horse, laid the stick between his ears and strapped it to his neck, and tied the hay to the end of the stick; then it hung a few inches beyond old Whitey's nose. The old horse took a step ahead to nibble the hay,—another,—another,—another! "Don't you wish you may get it?" said Paul. Tramp,—tramp,—tramp. Old Whitey went down the road. Paul heard him go across the bridge by the mill, and up the hill the other side of the brook.

"Go it, old fellow!" he shouted, then listened again. It was a calm night, and he could just hear old Whitey's feet,—tramp,—tramp,—tramp.

The next morning the good people of Fairview, ten miles from New Hope, laughed to see an old white horse, with a bundle of hay a few inches beyond his nose, passing through the place.

"Have you seen my horse?" Mr. Smith asked Paul in the morning.

"Yes, sir, I saw him going down towards the bridge last evening," Paul replied, chuckling to himself.

Mr. Smith went down to the mill and inquired. The miller heard a horse go over the bridge. The farmer on the other side heard a horse go up the hill. Mr. Smith looked at the tracks. They were old Whitey's, for he had a broken shoe on his left hind foot. He followed on. "I never knew him to go away before," he said to himself, as he walked hour after hour, seeing the tracks all the way to Fairview.

"Have you seen a white horse about here?" he asked of one of the villagers.

"Yes, sir; there was one here this morning trying to overtake a bundle of hay," the man replied, laughing. "There he is now!" he added.

Mr. Smith looked up and saw old Whitey, who had turned about, and was reaching forward to get a nibble of the hay. Mr. Smith felt like being angry, but the old horse was walking so soberly and earnestly that he couldn't help laughing.

"That is some of Paul's doings, I know. I'll give him a blessing when I get back."

It was noon before Mr. Smith reached New Hope. Paul and Bruno were sitting beneath the maple.

"Where did you find old Whitey?" Paul asked.

"You was the one who did it, you little rascal?"

"Did what?"

"You know what. You have made me walk clear to Fairview. I have a mind to horsewhip you."

Paul laughed to think that the old horse had tramped so far, though he was sorry that Mr. Smith had been obliged to walk that distance.

"I didn't mean any harm, Mr. Smith, but old Whitey has made our door-yard his stamping-place all summer, and I thought I would see if I could get rid of him."

"Well, sir, if you do it again I'll trounce you," said Mr. Smith as he rode away, his anger coming up.

"Wouldn't it be better for you to put him in a pasture, Mr. Smith? Then he wouldn't trouble us," said Paul, who knew that Mr. Smith had no right to let old Whitey run at large. Paul was not easily frightened when he had right on his side. The people in the stores and at the tavern had a hearty laugh when they heard how old Whitey went to Fairview.

Mr. Cipher taught the village school. He was tall, slim, thin-faced, with black eyes deeply set in his head, and a long, hooked nose like an eagle's bill. He wore a loose swallow-tailed coat with bright brass buttons, and pants which were several inches too short. The Committee employed him, not because he was a superior teacher, but they could get him for twelve dollars a month, while Mr. Rudiment, who had been through college, and who was known to be an excellent instructor, asked sixteen.

There was a crowd of roistering boys and rosy-cheeked girls, who made the old school-house hum like a beehive. Very pleasant to the passers-by was the music of their voices. At recess and at noon they had leap-frog and tag. Paul was in a class with Philip Funk, Hans Middlekauf, and Michael Murphy. There were other boys and girls of all nationalities. Paul's ancestors were from Connecticut, Philip's father was a Virginian. Hans was born in Germany, and Michael in Ireland. Philip's father kept a grocery, and sold sugar, molasses, tobacco, and whiskey. He was rich, and Philip wore good clothes and calf-skin boots. Paul could get his lessons very quick whenever he set about them in earnest, but he spent half his time in inventing fly-traps, making whirligigs, or drawing pictures on his slate. He could draw admirably, for he had a quick eye and natural ability. Philip could get his lessons also if he chose to apply himself, but it was a great deal easier to get some one to work out the problems in arithmetic than to do them himself.

"Here, Paul, just do this question for me; that is a good fellow."

It was at recess.

"No; Cipher has forbid it. Each one has got to do his own," said Paul.

"If you will do it, I will give you a handful of raisins," said Philip, who usually had his pockets full of raisins, candy, or nuts.

"It wouldn't be right."

"Come, just do that one; Cipher never will know it."

"No!" Paul said it resolutely.

"You are a mean, sneaking fellow," said Philip with a sneer, turning up his nose.

Philip was a year older than Paul. He had sandy hair, white eyelashes, and a freckled face. He carried a watch, and always had money in his pocket. Paul, on the other hand, hardly ever had a cent which he could call his own. His clothes were worn till they were almost past mending.

"Rag-tag has got a hole in his trousers," said Philip to the other boys.

Paul's face flushed. He wanted to knock Philip's teeth down his throat. He knew that his mother had hard work to clothe him, and felt the insult. He went into the school-house, choked his anger down, and tried to forget all about it by drawing a picture of the master. It was an excellent likeness,—his spindle legs, great feet, short pants, loose coat, sunken eyes, hooked nose, thin face, and long bony fingers.

Philip sat behind Paul. Instead of studying his lesson, he was planning how to get Paul into trouble. He saw the picture. Now was his time. He giggled aloud. Mr. Cipher looked up in astonishment.

"What are you laughing at, Master Funk?"

"At what Paul is doing."

Paul hustled his slate into his desk.

"Let me see what you have here," said Cipher, walking up to Paul, who spat in his fingers, and ran his hand into the desk, to rub out the drawing; but he felt that it would be better to meet his punishment boldly than to have the school think that he was a sneak. He laid the slate before the master without a line effaced.

"Giving your attention to drawing, are you, Master Paul?" His eyes flashed. He knit his brows. The blood rushed to his cheeks. There was a popping up of heads all over the school-room to get a sight of the picture.

The boys laughed aloud, and there was a tittering among the girls, which made Cipher very angry. "Silence!" he roared, and stamped upon the floor so savagely that the windows rattled. "Come out here, Sir. I'll give you a drawing-lesson of another sort." He seized Paul by the collar, and threw him into the space in front of his own desk. "Hold out your hand."

Paul felt that he was about to receive a tremendous thrashing; but he determined that he would not flinch. He held out his right hand, and spat! came the blow from a heavy ferule. His hand felt as if he had been struck by a piece of hot iron.

"The other, sir."

Whack! it fell, a blow which made the flesh purple. There was an Oh! upon his tongue; but he set his teeth together, and bit his lips till they bled, and so smothered it. Another blow,—another,—another,—which were hard to bear; but his teeth were set like a vice. There was a twitching of the muscles round his lips; he was pale. When the blows fell, he held his breath, but he did not snivel.

"I'll see if I can't bring you to your feeling, you good-for-nothing scape-grace," said the master, mad with passion, and surprised that Paul made no outcry. He gave another round, bringing the ferule down with great force. Blood began to ooze from the pores. The last blow spattered the drops around the room. Cipher came to his senses. He stopped.

"Are you sorry, sir?"

"I don't know whether I am or not. I didn't mean any harm. I suppose I ought not to have drawn it in school; but I didn't do it to make fun. I drew you just as you are," said Paul,—his voice trembling a little in spite of his efforts to control it.

The master could not deny that it was a perfect likeness. He was surprised at Paul's cleverness at drawing, and for the first time in his life saw that he cut a ridiculous figure wearing that long, loose, swallow-tailed coat, with great, flaming brass buttons, and resolved upon the spot that his next coat should be a frock, and that he would get a longer pair of pants.

"You may take your seat, sir!" he said, puzzled to know whether to punish Paul still more, and compel him to say that he was sorry, or whether to accept the explanations, and apologize for whipping him so severely.

Paul sat down. His hands ached terribly; but what troubled him most was the thought that he had been whipped before the whole school. All the girls had witnessed his humiliation. There was one among them,—Azalia Adams,—who stood at the head of Paul's class, the best reader and speller in school. She had ruby lips, and cheeks like roses; the golden sunlight falling upon her chestnut hair crowned her with glory; deep, thoughtful, and earnest was the liquid light of her hazel eyes; she was as lovely and beautiful as the flower whose name she bore. Paul had drawn her picture many times,—sometimes bending over her task, sometimes as she sat, unmindful of the hum of voices around her, looking far away into a dim and distant dream-land. He never wearied of tracing the features of one so fair and good as she. Her laugh was as musical as a mountain-brook; and in the church on Sunday, when he heard her voice sweetly, softly, and melodiously mingling with the choir, he thought of the angels,—of her as in heaven and he on earth.

"Run home, sonny, and tell your marm that you got a licking," said Philip when school was out.

Paul's face became livid. He would have doubled his fist and given Philip a blow in the face, but his palms were like puff-balls. There was an ugly feeling inside, but just then a pair of bright hazel eyes, almost swimming with tears, looked into his own. "Don't mind it, Paul," said Azalia.

The pain was not half so hard to bear after that. He wanted to say, "I thank you," but did not know how. Till then his lips had hardly quivered, and he had not shed a tear; now his eyes became moist; one great drop rolled down his cheeks, but he wiped it off with his coat-sleeve, and turned away, for fear that Azalia would think that he was a baby.

On his way home the thought uppermost in his mind was, "What will mother say?" Why tell her? Would it not be better to keep the matter to himself? But then he remembered that she had said, "Paul, I shall expect you to tell me truthfully all that happens to you at school." He loved his mother. She was one of the best mothers that ever lived, working for him day and night. How could he abuse such confidence as she had given him? He would not violate it. He would not be a sneak.

His mother and the Pensioner were sitting before the fire as he entered the house. She welcomed him with a smile,—a beautiful smile it was, for she was a noble woman, and Paul was her darling, her pride, the light, joy, and comfort of her life.

"Well, Paul, how do you get on at school?" his grandfather asked.

"I got a whipping to-day." It was spoken boldly and manfully.

"What! My son got a whipping!" his mother exclaimed.

"Yes, mother."

"I am astonished. Come here, and tell me all about it."

Paul stood by her side and told the story,—how Philip Funk tried to bribe him, how he called him names,—how, having got his lessons, he made a picture of the master. "Here it is, mother." He took his slate from his little green bag. The picture had not been effaced. His mother looked at it and laughed, notwithstanding her efforts to keep sober, for it was such a perfect likeness. She had an exquisite sense of the ludicrous, and Paul was like her. She was surprised to find that he could draw so well.

"We will talk about the matter after supper," she said. She had told Paul many times, that, if he was justly punished at school, he must expect a second punishment at home; but she wanted to think awhile before deciding what to do. She was pleased to know that her boy could not be bribed to do what his conscience told him he ought not to do, and that he was manly and truthful. She would rather follow him to the church-yard and lay him in his grave beneath the bending elms, than to have him untruthful or wicked.

The evening passed away. Paul sat before the fire, looking steadily into the coals. He was sober and thoughtful, wondering what his mother would say at last. The clock struck nine. It was his bedtime. He went and stood by her side once more. "You are not angry with me, mother, are you?"

"No, my son. I do not think that you deserved so severe a punishment. I am rejoiced to know that you are truthful, and that you despise a mean act. Be always as you have been to-night, and I never shall be angry with you."

He threw his arms around her neck, and gave way to tears, such as Cipher could not extort by his pounding. She gave him a good-night kiss,—so sweet that it seemed to lie upon his lips all through the night.

"God bless you, Paul," said the Pensioner.

Paul climbed the creaking stairs, and knelt with an overflowing heart to say his evening prayer. He spoke the words earnestly when he asked God to take care of his mother and grandfather. He was very happy. He looked out through the crevices in the walls, and saw the stars and the moon flooding the landscape with silver light. There was sweet music in the air,—the merry melody of the water murmuring by the mill, the cheerful chirping of the crickets, and the lullaby of the winds, near at hand and far away, putting him in mind of the choirs on earth and the choirs in heaven. "Don't mind it, Paul!" were the words they sung, so sweetly and tenderly that for many days they rang in his ears.

Carleton.



NEW-YEAR CAROL.



Ding, Dong, Bell! Little children, down the turnpike goes the year, Down through every dell, All the bells of all the country in its ear: Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell! Through the meadows and the woods, o'er the plain, Past where children dwell, All the children, some in joy and some in pain: Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell! Is it from a belfry, or the beating heart Of the year, this swell, Solemn like the steps of friends who have to part? Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell! Little children's homes in heaven and on earth, All have hearts to tell How good actions overflow the year with mirth: Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell! And it needeth not a steeple's voice to say, What a dreary knell Hearts are ringing as their goodness flies away: Ding, Dong, Bell!

Ding, Dong, Bell! Down the turnpike for you comes another year; Children, treat it well: Naught but goodness brings to homes right jolly cheer: Ding, Dong, Bell!

John Weiss.



FARMING FOR BOYS.

WHAT HAVE THEY DONE, AND WHAT OTHERS MAY DO IN THE CULTIVATION OF FARM AND GARDEN,—HOW TO BEGIN, HOW TO PROCEED, AND WHAT TO AIM AT.

NO. I.

There is an old farm-house in the State of New Jersey, not a hundred miles from the city of Trenton, having the great railroad which runs between New York and Philadelphia so near to it that one can hear the whistle of the locomotive as it hurries onward every hour in the day, and see the trains of cars as they whirl by with their loads of living freight. The laborers in the fields along the road, though they see these things so frequently, invariably pause in their work and watch the advancing train until it passes them, and follow it with their eyes until it is nearly lost in the distance. The boy leans upon his hoe, the mower rests upon his scythe, the ploughman halts his horses in the furrow,—all stop to gaze upon a spectacle that has long ceased to be either a wonder or a novelty. Why it is so may be difficult to answer, except that the snorting combination of wheels, and cranks, and fire, and smoke, thundering by the quiet fields, breaks in upon the monotonous labor of the hand who works alone, with no one to converse with,—for the fact is equally curious, that gangs of laborers make no pause on the appearance of a locomotive. They have companionship enough already.

This old wooden farm-house was a very shabby affair. To look at it, one would be sure that the owner had a particular aversion to both paint and whitewash. The weather-boarding was fairly honeycombed by age and exposure to the sun and rain, and in some places the end of a board had dropped off, and hung down a foot or two, for want of a nail which everybody about the place appeared to be too lazy or neglectful to supply in time. One or two of the window-shutters had lost a hinge, and they also hung askew,—nobody had thought it worth while to drive back the staple when it first became loose.

Then there were several broken lights of glass in the kitchen windows. As the men about the house neglected to have them mended, or to do it themselves by using the small bit of putty that would have kept the cracked ones from going to pieces, the women had been compelled to keep out the wind and rain by stuffing in the first thing that came to hand. There was a bit of red flannel in one, an old straw bonnet in another, while in a third, from which all the glass was gone, a tolerably good fur hat, certainly worth the cost of half a dozen lights, had been crammed in to fill up the vacancy. The whole appearance of the windows was deplorable. Some of them had lost the little wooden buttons which kept up the sash when hoisted, and which anybody could have replaced by whittling out new ones with his knife; but as no one did it, and as the women must sometimes have the sashes raised, they propped them up with pretty big sticks from the wood-pile. It was not a nice sight, that of a rough stick as thick as one's arm to hold up the sash, especially when, of a sultry day, three or four of them were always within view.

Then the wooden step at the kitchen door, instead of being nailed fast to the house, was not only loose, but it rested on the ground so unevenly as to tilt over whenever any one stepped carelessly on its edge. As the house contained a large family, all of whom generally lived in the kitchen, there was a great deal of running in and out over this loose step. When it first broke away from the building, it gave quite a number of severe tumbles to the women and children. Everybody complained of it, but nobody mended it, though a single stout nail would have held it fast. One dark night a pig broke loose, and, snuffing and smelling around the premises in search of forage, came upon the loose step, and, imagining that he scented a supper in its neighborhood, used his snout so vigorously as to push it clear away from the door. One of the girls, hearing the noise, stepped out into the yard to see what was going on; but the step being gone, and she not observing it, down she went on her face, striking her nose on the edge of a bucket which some one had left exactly in the wrong place, and breaking the bone so badly that she will carry a very homely face as long as she lives. It was a very painful hurt to the poor girl, and the family all grieved over her misfortune; but not one of the men undertook to mend the step. Finally, the mother managed to drive down two sticks in front of it, which held it up to the house, though not half so firmly as would have been done by a couple of good stout nails.

Things were very much in the same condition all over the premises. The fence round the garden, and in fact all about the house, was dropping to pieces simply for want of a nail here and there. The barn-yard enclosure was strong enough to keep the cattle in, but it was a curious exhibition of hasty patch-work, that would hurt the eye of any mechanic to look at. As to the gates, every one of them rested at one end on the ground. It was hard work even for a man to open and shut them, as they had to be lifted clear up before they could be moved an inch. For a half-grown boy to open them was really a very serious undertaking, especially in muddy weather. The posts had sagged, or the upper staples had drawn out, but nobody attended to putting them to rights, though it would not have been an hour's job to make them all swing as freely as every good farm-gate ought to. The barn-yard was a hard place for the boys on this farm.

No touch of whitewash had been spread over either house, or fence, or outbuilding, for many years, though lime is known to everybody as being one of the surest preservers of wood-work, as well as the very cheapest, while it so beautifully sets off a farm-house to see its surroundings covered once a year with a fresh coat of white. The hen-house was of course equally neglected, though whitewash is so well known to be an indispensable purifier of such places, materially helping to keep away those kinds of vermin that prevent poultry from thriving. In fact, the absence of lime was so general, that the hens could hardly pick up enough to make egg-shells. Had they laid eggs without shells, the circumstance would have mortified the hens as much as it would have surprised the family. As it was, their only dependence was on the pile of lime rubbish which was left every spring after whitewashing the kitchen. The women who presided there did manage to fix up things once a year. They thought lime was good to drive away ants and roaches, and so they and the hens were the only parties on the premises who used it.

There were many other things about this farm-house that were quite as much neglected,—more than it is worth while at present to mention, unless it be the wood-pile. Though there were two men on the farm, and several well-grown boys, yet the women could rarely prevail on any of them to split a single stick of wood. The wood for the house caused great trouble,—it was difficult to get it at all. Then when it did come, it was crooked and knotty, much of it such as a woman could not split. Yet whenever a stick or two was wanted, the females of the family must run out into the shed to chop and split it. They never could get an armful ahead, such was the strange neglect of one of the most indispensable comforts of housekeeping. If the female head of the family had only thought of letting the male portion go a few times without their dinners, it is more than likely they would have brought them to terms, and taught them that it was quite as much their duty to split the wood as it was hers to cook their dinners. But she was a good, easy creature, like most of the others. They had all been brought up in the same neglectful way, just rubbing along from day to day, never getting ahead, but everything getting ahead of them.

This farmer's name was Philip Spangler, and he was unlucky enough to have a hundred acres in his farm. The word unlucky is really a very proper one; because it was unlucky for such a man as Philip that he should have so much more land than he knew how to manage, and it was equally unlucky for the land that it should have so poor a manager. The man was perfectly sober, and in his own way was a very industrious one. He worked hard himself, and made every one about him do the same. He was what is known as a "slaving farmer,"—up by daylight, having all hands up and out of doors quite as early as himself, and he and they stuck to it as long as they could see to work. With him and them it was all work and no play. He had no recreations; he took no newspaper, had no reading in the house except the children's school-books, the Bible, and an almanac,—which he bought once a year, not because he wanted it, but because his wife would have it.

What was very singular in Mr. Spangler's mode of managing things, when a wet day came on, too rainy for out-of-door work, he seemed to have no indoor employments provided, either for himself or hands to do, having apparently no sort of forethought. On such occasions he let everything slide,—that is, take care of itself,—and went, in spite of the rain, to a tavern near by on the railroad, where he sat all day among a crowd of neighboring idlers who collected there at such times; for although it might be wet enough to stop all work in the fields, it was never too wet to keep them away from the tavern. There these fellows sat, drinking juleps, smoking pipes, or cigars that smelt even worse, and retailing among each other the news of their several neighborhoods.

What Spangler thus picked up at the tavern was about all the news he ever heard. As to talking of farming, of their crops, or what was the best thing to raise, or how best to carry on this or that branch of their business,—such matters were rarely spoken of. They came there to shake off the farm. Politics was a standing topic,—who was likely to be nominated on their ticket,—whether he would be elected,—and whether it was true that so-and-so was going to be sold out by the sheriff. It was much to Spangler's credit, that, if at this rainy-day rendezvous he learned nothing useful, he contracted no other bad habit than that of lounging away a day when he should have been at home attending to his business. It was much after the same fashion that he spent his long winter's evenings,—dozing in the chimney-corner,—for the tavern was too far away, or he would have spent them there.

Now it somehow happens that there are quite as many rainy days in the country as in the city. But those who live in the latter never think of quitting work because it snows deep or rains hard. The merchant never closes his counting-house or store, nor does the mechanic cease to labor from such a cause; they have still something on hand, whether it rain or shine. Even the newsboys run about the streets as actively, and a hundred other kinds of workers keep on without interruption.

If the laboring men of a large city were to quit work because of a hard rain, there would be a loss of many thousand dollars for every such day that happened. So also with a farmer. There is plenty of rainy-day work on a farm, if the owner only knew it, or thought of it beforehand, and set his men or boys to do it,—in the barn, or cellar, or wood-shed. If he had a bench and tools, a sort of workshop, a rainy day would be a capital time for him to teach his boys how to drive a nail, or saw a board, or push a plane, to make a new box or mend an old one, to put a new handle in an axe or hoe, or to do twenty such little things as are always wanted on a farm. Besides saving the time and money lost by frequent running to the blacksmith or wheelwright, to have such trifles attended to, things would be kept always ready when next wanted, and his boys would become good mechanics. There is so much of this kind of light repairing to be done on a farm, that, having a set of tools, and knowing how to use them, are almost as indispensable as having ploughs and harrows, and the boys cannot be too early instructed in their use. Many boys are natural mechanics, and even without instruction could accomplish great things if they only had a bench and tools. The making of the commonest bird-box will give an ambitious boy a very useful lesson.

It seemed that Mr. Spangler was learning nothing while he lived. His main idea appeared to be, that farming was an affair of muscle only,—that it was hands, not heads, that farmers ought to have; and that whoever worked hardest and longest, wasted no time in reading, spent no money for fine cattle or better breeds of pigs, or for new seeds, new tools or machines, and stuck to the good old way, was the best farmer. He never devoted a day now and then to visiting the agricultural exhibitions which were held in all the counties round him, where he would be sure to see samples of the very best things that good farmers were producing,—fine cattle, fine pigs, fine poultry, and a hundred other products which sensible men are glad to exhibit at such fairs, knowing that it is the smart men who go to such places to learn what is going on, as well as to make purchases, and that it is the agricultural drones who stay at home. The fact was, he had been badly educated, and he could not shake off the habits of his early life. He had been taught that hard work was the chief end of man.

Of course such a farmer had a poor time of it, as well as the hands he employed. He happened to be pretty well out of debt, there being only a small mortgage on his farm; but he was so poor a manager that his hard work went for little, in reality just enough to enable his family to live, with sometimes very close shaving to pay interest. As to getting rich, it was out of the question. He had a son whose name was Joe, a smart, ambitious boy of sixteen years old; another son, Bill, two years younger; and an orphan named Tony King, exactly a year younger than Joe; together with a hired man for helper about the farm.

Mr. Spangler had found Tony in the adjoining county. On the death of his parents, they being miserably poor, and having no relations to take care of him, he had had a hard time among strangers. They kept him until old enough to be bound out to a trade. Mr. Spangler thinking he needed another hand, and being at the same time in such low repute as a farmer and manager that those who knew him were not willing to let their sons live with him as apprentices, he was obliged to go quite out of the neighborhood, where he was not so well known, in order to secure one. In one of his trips he brought up at the house where Tony was staying, and, liking his looks,—for he was even a brighter boy than Joe Spangler,—he had him bound to him as an apprentice to the art and mystery of farming.

In engaging himself to teach this art and mystery to Tony, he undertook to impart a great deal more knowledge than he himself possessed,—a thing, by the way, which is very common with a good many other people. Altogether it was a hard bargain for poor Tony; but when parents are so idle and thriftless as to expose their children to such a fate as his, they leave them a legacy of nothing better than the very hardest kind of bargains.

In addition to this help, about a year after Tony took up his quarters with Mr. Spangler, there came along an old man of seventy, a sort of distant relation of the Spanglers, who thenceforward made the farm his home. Mr. Spangler and his wife called him "Benny," but all the younger members of the family, out of respect for his age, called him "Uncle," so that in a very short time he went by no other name than that of "Uncle Benny," and this not only on the farm, but all over the neighborhood.

Uncle Benny turned out to be the pleasantest old man the boys and girls had ever been acquainted with. It was no wonder they liked him, for he was very fond of children, and like generally begets like. He was a very different sort of character from any about the farm. He had been well educated, and being in his younger days of a roving, sight-hunting disposition, he had travelled all over the world, had seen a multitude of strange men and strange things, and had such a way of telling what he had thus picked up as never to fail of interesting those who heard him. Sometimes of a long winter evening, when he was giving accounts of foreign countries, or how people lived in our great cities, or how they carried on farming in other parts of our country, he talked so pleasantly that no one thought of being sleepy. On such evenings, before he came to live on the farm, Mr. Spangler would often fall asleep on his chair in the chimney corner, and once or twice actually tipped over quite into the ashes; but now, when Uncle Benny got fairly under way, there was no more going to sleep. Mr. Spangler pricked up his ears, and listened better than if any one had been reading from a book.

Then Uncle Benny had a way of always putting in some good advice to both men and boys, and even to the girls. He had read and travelled so much, that he had something appropriate for every event that turned up. Indeed, every one was surprised at his knowing so much. Besides this, he was very lively and cheerful, and as fond of fun as could be, and seemed able to make any one laugh whenever he chose to indulge in a joke.

In addition to all this, he was uncommonly handy with tools. Though an old man, and not strong enough to do a full day's work at mowing or hay-making, because of stiff joints, yet he could potter about the house and barns, with a hatchet, and saw, and a nail-box, and mend up a hundred broken places that had been neglected for years before he came to live there. If he saw anything out of order, a gate with no latch, a picket loose in the garden fence, or any other trifling defect about the premises, he went to work and made all right again. He even mended the broken lights in the kitchen windows, and got rid of all the old hats and bonnets that had been stuffed into them. He put on new buttons to keep up the sashes, and so banished the big sticks from the wood-pile that had been used to prop them up. He said they were too ugly even to look at.

It was Uncle Benny who nailed up the loose door-step which the pig had rooted away from its place, causing Lucy Spangler to fall on the edge of a bucket and break her nose. Lucy came out to thank him for doing the thing so nicely; for ever since the accident to her nose, she had been very skittish about putting her foot on the step.

"Ah, Lucy," said Uncle Benny, "I wish I could mend your nose as easily."

"Indeed I wish so too," replied Lucy.

Inside of the house were numerous things that wanted looking after in the same way. There was not a bolt or a latch that would work as it ought to. All the closet locks were out of order, while one half the doors refused to shut. In fact there were twenty little provocations of this kind that were perpetual annoyances to the women. Uncle Benny went to work and removed them all; there was no odd job that he was not able to go through with. Indeed, it was the luckiest day in the history of that farm when he came to live upon it, for it did seem that, if the farm were ever to be got to rights, he was the very man to do it. Now, it was very curious, but no one told Uncle Benny to do these things. But as soon as he had anchored himself at Mr. Spangler's he saw how much the old concern was out of gear, and, providing himself with tools, he undertook, as one of his greatest pleasures, to repair these long-standing damages, not because he expected to be paid for it, but from his own natural anxiety to have things look as they ought.

The boys watched the old man's operations with great interest, for both Joe and Tony were ambitious of knowing how to handle tools. One day he took hold of the coffee-mill, which some clumsy fellow had only half nailed up in the kitchen, so that, whenever the coffee was ground, whoever turned the crank was sure to bruise his knuckles against the wall. Mrs. Spangler and her daughters of course did all the grinding, and complained bitterly of the way the mill was fixed. Besides, it had become shockingly dull, so that it only cracked the grains, and thus gave them a miserably weak decoction for breakfast. Now, Uncle Benny had been used to strong coffee, and couldn't stand what Mrs. Spangler gave him. So he unshipped the mill, took it to pieces, with a small file sharpened up the grinders, which by long use had become dull, oiled its joints, and screwed it up in a new place, where it was impossible for the knuckles to be bruised. It then worked so beautifully, that, instead of every one hating to put his hand on the crank, the difficulty was to keep the children away from it,—they would grind on it an hour at a time. Such a renovation of damaged goods had never before been seen on Spangler's premises.

Author of "Ten Acres Enough."

(To be continued.)



AFLOAT IN THE FOREST:

OR, A VOYAGE AMONG THE TREE-TOPS.

CHAPTER I.

THE BROTHERS AT HOME.

Twenty years ago, not twenty miles from the Land's End, there lived a Cornish gentleman named Trevannion. Just twenty years ago he died, leaving to lament him a brace of noble boys, whose mother all three had mourned, with like profound sorrow, but a short while before.

"Squire" Trevannion, as he was called, died in his own house, where his ancestors for hundreds of years before him had dispensed hospitality. None of them, however, had entertained so profusely as he; or rather improvidently, it might be said, since in less than three months after his death the old family mansion, with the broad acres appertaining to it, passed into the hands of an alien, leaving his two sons, Ralph and Richard, landless, houseless, and almost powerless. One thousand pounds apiece was all that remained to them out of the wreck of the patrimonial estates. It was whispered that even this much was not in reality theirs, but had been given to them by the very respectable solicitor who had managed their father's affairs, and had furthermore managed to succeed him in the ownership of a property worth a rental of three thousand a year.

Any one knowing the conditions under which the young Trevannions received their two thousand pounds must have believed it to be a gift, since it was handed over to them by the family solicitor with the private understanding that they were to use it in pushing their fortunes elsewhere,—anywhere except in Cornwall!

The land-pirate who had plucked them—for in reality had they been plucked—did not wish them to stay at home, divested, as they were, of their valuable plumage. He had appropriated their fine feathers, and cared not for the naked bodies of the birds.

There were those in Cornwall who suspected foul play in the lawyer's dealings with the young Trevannions,—among others, the victims themselves. But what could they do? They were utterly ignorant of their late father's affairs,—indeed, with any affairs that did not partake of the nature of "sports." A solicitor "most respectable,"—a phrase that has become almost synonymous with rascality,—a regular church-goer,—accounts kept with scrupulous exactness,—a man of honest face, distinguished for probity of speech and integrity of heart,—what could the Trevannions do? What more than the Smiths and the Browns and the Joneses, who, notwithstanding their presumed greater skill in the ways of a wicked lawyer world, are duped every day in a similar manner. It is an old and oft-repeated story,—a tale too often told, and too often true,—that of the family lawyer and his confiding client, standing in the relationship of robber and robbed.

The two children of Squire Trevannion could do nothing to save or recover their paternal estate. Caught in the net of legal chicanery, they were forced to yield, as other squire's children have had to do, and make the best of a bad matter,—forced to depart from a home that had been held by Trevannions perhaps since the Phoenicians strayed thitherward in search of their shining tin.

It sore grieved them to separate from the scenes of their youth; but the secret understanding with the solicitor required that sacrifice. By staying at home a still greater might be called for,—subsistence in penury, and, worse than all, in a humiliating position; for, notwithstanding the open house long kept by their father, his friends had disappeared with his guests. Impelled by these thoughts, the brothers resolved to go forth into the wide world, and seek fortune wherever it seemed most likely they should find it.

They were at this period something more than mere children. Ralph had reached within twelve months of being twenty. Richard was his junior by a couple of years. Their book-education had been good; the practice of manly sports had imparted to both of them a physical strength that fitted them for toil, either of the mind or body. They were equal to a tough struggle, either in the intellectual or material world; and to this they determined to resign themselves.

For a time they debated between themselves where they should go, and what do. The army and navy came under their consideration. With such patronage as their father's former friends could command, and might still exert in favor of their fallen fortunes, a commission in either army or navy was not above their ambition. But neither felt much inclined towards a naval or military life; the truth being, that a thought had taken shape in their minds leading them to a different determination.

Their deliberations ended by each of them proclaiming a resolve,—almost sealing it with a vow,—that they would enter into some more profitable, though perhaps less pretentious, employment than that of either soldiering or sailoring; that they would toil—with their hands, if need be—until they should accumulate a sufficient sum to return and recover the ancestral estate from the grasp of the avaricious usurper. They did not know how it was to be done; but, young, strong, and hopeful, they believed it might be done,—with time, patience, and industry to aid them in the execution.

"Where shall we go?" inquired Richard, the younger of the two. "To America, where every poor man appears to prosper? With a thousand each to begin the world with, we might do well there. What say you, Ralph?"

"America is a country where men seem to thrive best who have nothing to begin the world with. You mean North America,—the United States,—I suppose?"

"I do."

"I don't much like the United States as a home,—not because it is a republic, for I believe that is the only just form of government, whatever our aristocratic friends may say. I object to it simply because I wish to go south,—to some part of the tropical world, where one may equally be in the way of acquiring a fortune."

"Is there such a place?"

"There is."

"Where, brother?"

"Peru. Anywhere along the Sierra of the Andes from Chili to the Isthmus of Panama. As Cornish men we should adopt the specialty of our province, and become miners. The Andes mountains will give us that opportunity, where, instead of gray tin, we may delve for yellow gold. What say you to South America?"

"I like the thought of South America,—nothing would please me better than going there. But I must confess, brother, I have no inclination for the occupation you speak of. I had rather be a merchant than a miner."

"Don't let that penchant prevent you from selecting Peru as the scene of mercantile transactions. There are many Englishmen who have made fortunes in the Peruvian trade. You may hope to follow their example. We may choose different occupations and still be near each other. One thousand pounds each may give both of us a start,—you as a merchant of goods, I as a digger for gold. Peru is the place for either business. Decide, Dick! Shall we sail for the scenes rendered celebrated by Pizarro?"

"If you will it—I'm agreed."

"Thither then let us go."

In a month from that time the two Trevannions might have been seen upon a ship, steering westward from the Land's End, and six months later both disembarked upon the beach of Callao,—en route first for Lima, thence up the mountains, to the sterile snow-crested mountains, that tower above the treasures of Cerro Pasco,—vainly guarded within the bosom of adamantine rocks.

CHAPTER II.

THE BROTHERS ABROAD.

This book is not intended as a history of the brothers Ralph and Richard Trevannion. If it were so, a gap of some fifteen years—after the date of their arrival at Cerro Pasco—would have to be filled up. I decline to speak of this interval of their lives, simply because the details might not have any remarkable interest for those before whom they would be laid.

Suffice it to say, that Richard, the younger, soon became wearied of a miner's life; and, parting with his brother, he crossed the Cordilleras, and descended into the great Amazonian forest,—the "montana," as it is called by the Spanish inhabitants of the Andes. Thence, in company with a party of Portuguese traders, he kept on down the river Amazon, trading along its banks, and upon some of its tributary streams; and finally established himself as a merchant at its mouth, in the thriving "city" of Gran Para.

Richard was not unsocial in his habits; and soon became the husband of a fair-haired wife,—the daughter of a countryman who, like himself, had established commercial relations at Para. In a few years after, several sweet children called him "father,"—only two of whom survived to prattle in his ears this endearing appellation, alas! no longer to be pronounced in the presence of their mother.

Fifteen years after leaving the Land's End, Richard Trevannion, still under thirty-five years of age, was a widower, with two children,—respected wherever known, prosperous in pecuniary affairs,—rich enough to return home, and spend the remainder of his days in that state so much desired by the Sybarite Roman poet,—"otium cum dignitate."

Did he remember the vow mutually made between him and his brother, that, having enough money, they would one day go back to Cornwall, and recover the ancestral estate? He did remember it. He longed to accomplish this design. He only awaited his brother's answer to a communication he had made to him on this very subject.

He had no doubt that Ralph's desire would be in unison with his own,—that his brother would soon join him, and then both would return to their native land,—perhaps to dwell again under the same roof that had sheltered them as children.

The history of the elder brother during this period of fifteen years, if less eventful, was not less distinguished by success. By steadily following the pursuit which had first attracted him to Peru, he succeeded in becoming a man of considerable means,—independent, if not wealthy.

Like his brother, he got married at an early period,—in fact, within the first year after establishing himself in Cerro Pasco. Unlike the latter, however, he chose for his wife one of the women of the country,—a beautiful Peruvian lady. She too, but a short while before, had gone to a better world, leaving motherless two pretty children, of twelve and fourteen years of age,—the elder of the two being a daughter.

Such was the family of Ralph Trevannion, and such the condition of life in which his brother's epistle reached him,—that epistle containing the proposal that they should wind up their respective businesses, dispose of both, and carry their gains to the land that had given them birth.