Part 1

Produced by Annie R. McGuire

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, AUGUST 4, 1896. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVII.--NO. 875. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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HOW BRADDY'S BROTHER BROUGHT THE NEWS HOME.

BY JULIANA CONOVER.

"Slide! Slide! You'll make it! Hooray! Hooray! Tiger! Siss-boom-ah!"

"Wake up, Bingham, wake up!"

The boy opened his eyes with a start. "Mother! Why, what's the matter?"

"I've been shaking you for fully two minutes, dear. I want you to get up."

"Oh, what made you wake me?" reproachfully. "I was in the middle of a dream that I was playing second base in Tom's place, and was just making the winning run for Princeton."

"Wouldn't you rather see the winning run made than dream about it?"

Bingham sat up; he was wide-awake now.

Mrs. Bradfield smiled. "Yes," she said, "I am going to let you go after all. Tom is so unhappy about it, so feverish and restless, that I am actually afraid of the consequences if he does not hear all about the game, so I have promised him to let you ride to Princeton on your bicycle; it is only twenty-five miles, and part of the way the road is good. You will have to stay all night, but Tom says that you can sleep in his room, and that Frank Porter will look after you."

"Tiger-tiger-tiger! Siss-siss-siss-boom-boom-boom-ah-ah-ah!" shouted Bingo, and he pitched his pillow all across the room. "Trying a new curve," he hastily explained.

In an incredibly short time he was dressed, had had his breakfast, and was ready to start off. He went in to say good-by to his brother. Poor Tom was down with an attack of rheumatic fever. He had come home to spend Sunday, after playing a brilliant game against the Orange Athletic Club, and had been taken ill.

"So unfortunate," his mother said, "just before examination."

"Such hard lack," said Bingo, "just before the Yale game."

Tom had not pitched since Freshman year, but he was fielding and batting in splendid form, and his loss would seriously cripple the nine.

But try as he might to get well, the pain and fever clung to him obstinately, and the day of the game found him, with his temperature at 103°, declaring that if he couldn't play some one must see the game for him. His father was away, his mother couldn't leave him, so there was no one but Bingham, who had sadly resigned himself to his fate, when, as we have seen, his mother suddenly reversed her decision, and his world was filled with sunshine again.

"Go to my room in Witherspoon," said Tom--"you know it--and tell Porter I sent you. He'll take you to Ivy to lunch, and down to the game. Be sure and telegraph, for I must hear, and they'll never get the news in this little out-of-the-way place."

"Are you perfectly sure you know the road, dear, and that it will not be too much for you?" asked Mrs. Bradfield, anxiously, as she watched her youngest son examining his tire and fixing his brake. "I do wish the trains made connections."

"I'd ride fifty miles through anything," said Bingham, his eyes glistening, "to see a Yale game. Good-by, mother. Don't worry. I'll surely telegraph, and will be home early to-morrow morning."

"Good-by, dear. Cheer for Tom, and may the orange and black win the day."

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It was a hilly, sandy road, one of the worst in New Jersey, washed out in many places, and with ruts like trenches, but Bingo scorched and coasted as though it were an asphalt pavement or cinder race-track, and he scarcely slowed up through the whole twenty-five miles, but came into Princeton, the perspiration rolling down his face and his shirt wringing wet. On the campus he met Tom's room-mate.

"Why, if it isn't Braddy's brother," exclaimed Porter, "and steaming like a kettle! Glad to see you, boy. How is poor old Tom?"

"A little better. He sent me up so as to tell him about the game."

"I see. Official reporter for the Redwood _Star_," laughed Porter. "It's mighty hard lines that Tom is laid up. Woods is playing pretty well, but he can't touch the ball--strikes out every time. But come up to the room, little Brad. You'll spend the night, of course?"

Bingham followed Frank Porter up to the well-known room in Witherspoon Hall, and there he washed off the stains of travel as well as he could for asking questions and examining the groups on the wall.

"That's the '95 football team, isn't it? and there's Tom's Freshman nine. I saw the game here with Harvard, which we won, and we had a fire, don't you remember? What's that--the Glee Club? Tom has the picture of the Mandolin Club. Do you think we're going to win to-day? Will Blake pitch?" etc.

Porter answered when Bingo gave him time, for "Braddy's brother" was a great favorite with Tom's friends, and they prophesied a brilliant athletic future for him.

Before going to lunch Porter took him to see the ingenious invention of one of the members of the faculty--of a cannon for shooting curved balls. "It's going to be a great thing in baseball," Porter said. "It will save the pitcher's arm, and give the nine splendid batting practice."

Lunch over, Bingham began to get impatient. Carriages and omnibuses were already rolling down to the grounds, and streams of people were ploughing through the dust.

They stopped at the Athletic Club-house on their way, and all the nine shook hands with Bingo and asked after Tom; but his cup of joy was quite full when Blake, the Captain, told him to come with them and sit on the 'varsity bench.

Dave Hunter and the other Princeton boys looked enviously from the bleachers upon the honored guest, who sat squeezed in between Jack McMasters and Dr. Bovaird, his eyes glued to the diamond and his heart thumping against his ribs.

Princeton came to the bat first, and Williams led off with a clean single to left, and Shaw followed by another to centre.

It was a surprise that took every one's breath away, but they recovered it in time to cheer.

Yale was too easy! They would pound her out of the box, even without the aid of Tom's two and three baggers!

But Jackson flied out to second. Blake, who pitched, but couldn't hit a drop, went out on strikes; and though Williams stole third and Field got his first on balls, their innings closed with a beautiful spectacular catch by Woodward in centre field.

Then Yale came to the bat, and her little handful of "rooters" made the air shiver with their wild barbaric cheer: "Brek-ek-ek-ex! Ko-ax, ko-ax. Brek-ek-ek-ex! Ko-ax, ko-ax. Oh-op, oh-op. Parabalou--Yale!"

In a moment there came a crack of the bat.

"Run it out! run it out!" cried the Yale coach.

Bingo held his breath. It was a hot grounder to second, and Tom wasn't there. Woods fumbled it, and the first error was scored for Princeton.

The next man got his base on balls, all due to his "beautiful eye," the Yale Captain seemed to think. Then Blake rallied and struck Jenkins out; and though Watson brought Smith to third on a sacrifice, the little shortstop fielded the next ball in fine style, and the runner was out.

But Yale proved to be anything but "easy," for though the crowd in white duck trousers on the bleachers cheered themselves hoarse as directed with unremitting energy by their appointed leaders, not a single safe hit, or even an unearned run, was squeezed out of the next four innings; while Yale went in, and by timely sacrifices and well-bunched hits ran her score up to five. Five to nothing, and little Brad would have to telegraph that to Tom.

The grand stand grew very quiet, though here and there were bunches of blue ribbon waving amid the glowing mass of orange and black. The men had stopped explaining the game to their sisters and friends. Let them ask why the same ones who batted the ball had to run, and why they changed sides so often. Their questions fell on the unresponsive air.

Princeton came to the bat for the sixth inning. As Blake walked in from the pitcher's box, tired and discouraged, his eyes fell upon "Braddy's brother" leaning forward, his elbows on his knees. The droop of the strong young shoulders and the strained intense look gave him an added pang. It seemed like wanton cruelty to so bitterly disappoint a boy, and he knew that little Brad was feeling and suffering for two. Bingo tried to smile as the Captain put his arm round him, but it was hard work. His nerves were strung up to such a pitch that he could easily have cried, but one does not often do that at fourteen.

"We'll beat them yet, little Brad," said Blake. "See if we don't."

"We'll have to do it in this inning, then," answered Bingo, "because it's going to rain like everything."

Blake looked up. The clouds were piling on top of one another black as night in the west, a tremendous wind had sprung up, and the dust was blowing a mile a minute. "Whew!" he whistled, "it looks like a cyclone; we _will_ have to do it this time--sure." And he walked over to coach.

Williams was at the bat; two balls were called, then a strike; another ball. "Good eye--steady now--steady"--then a burst of applause, for his eye had proved true, and he took his base to the stimulating strains of the triple cheer.

"Lead off--lively--look out--now you're _off_!" yelled Blake, and he was off, hurling himself at second with a reckless disregard of life and limb.

"Safe!" declared the umpire, and the sky-rocket cheer broke loose again.

Shaw gritted his teeth and held his bat in a vise. He too was watching the clouds, and knew that this might be their last chance. He had made one hit. Why couldn't he make another? And he did--a short one to right. And when Jackson followed by a foxy little bunt, the field almost went wild. Three men on bases and none out.

Blake went to the bat, and as he did so he turned and looked at Braddy's brother; and he said afterwards that if ever a man had been inspired by a glance, he had been that day--"and it wasn't a girl, either." Such eager hope and earnest faith shone in little Brad's face that no one could have helped making a home run, and that's what happened to Blake, and he only realized the miracle as he dived for the home-plate, while the long cheer, and the short cheer, and the locomotive cheer, and the distant thunder all combined to bring to his consciousness the stupendous fact that he had made himself immortal.

It was surely Princeton's inning, for Field made his first two-bagger, and was brought in on a bad overthrow. Then, with two men out, Green got his base on balls, stole second and third, and reached home on another single by Williams, and the score stood 6 to 5 when Yale came to the bat.

Would the rain hold off for ten minutes more? It was doubtful. But Blake was determined not to lose any time, and strike after strike was called amid the wildest enthusiasm, and in one, two, three order the New Haven men were retired, just as the storm, which had been gathering, so ominously, burst.

There was a stampede from the bleachers, ladies crowding into the grand stand and men making for the cage. The small boys dropped from trees and fences, and the ripping thunder, blinding lightning, and pelting rain had it all their own way for full fifteen minutes; and all that time "Little Brad" glowed like a miniature sun on the 'varsity bench, where the nine sat in cheerful resignation.

But the game wasn't over, for the sky cleared with the same violence it had shown in clouding over, and though every one felt that _somewhere_ there must have been a fearful ravaging storm, Princeton had fortunately only gotten the edge of it. The umpire declared himself ready, and Princeton went to the bat, only, like Yale, to go out in one, two, three order.

"The fatal seventh!" groaned the _alumni_, as they saw the Yale Captain take his base on balls.

"The fatal seventh!" said Braddy's brother, under his breath, as Watson took his base on a bad error.

Alas, the fatal seventh! For though the next man flied out to short stop, and the next to third base, Atkinson made a clean two-bagger, and the blue in the grand stand broke out as the patches of sky had done, and the frog chorus held a jubilee, for Yale had tied the score, and Yale luck would surely do the rest. But with Atkinson jumping about on second, and Watson leading off daringly at third, Blake pitched three straight strikes, and saved the day.

Neither scored in the eighth inning, and the ninth commenced in that hushed suspense which makes one wonder whether a close game pays. But Braddy's brother knew that Princeton would win; and when, with one out, Blake took his base on balls, and Field made a safe hit, he moistened his pencil to write the telegram to Tom on his score-card, but waited long enough to see Woods, for the first time in the season, send the ball over centre-field's head, and Blake and Field come home.

Yes, Princeton had won; for though Yale batted hard, the tigers fielded the swift balls with a coolness born of confidence, and as the last man went out on a foul fly, the crowd rushed on the diamond in a frenzy of enthusiasm, and the faint "Brek-ek-ek-ex! Ko-ax, ko-ax!" came to an abrupt end.

Bingo did not even stop to see the boys, but hurried out of the grounds and tore uptown waving his score-card with the 8 to 6 telegram written on it.

"I want to send this to Redwood," he panted, elbowing his way into the office.

"Sorry," was the short answer, "can't do it; the storm has broken all the wires down in that part of the State."

Bingo's face fell. What should he do? Tom was waiting for the news, and would not be able to sleep until he heard. There was only one way of getting it to him, and that was--_to ride home_. The road would be bad, very bad;--he might be half the night getting there, but he had promised to let Tom know, and he would keep his promise at all costs. Having made up his mind, he was not going to let anything deter him. He would have loved to linger and talk over the great game, but with that rough long lonely ride before him it would not do to waste time. So he went for his wheel, only stopping on the campus long enough to ask Billy Appleton to tell Porter he had gone.

"Why, you're crazy!" exclaimed Appleton, "Stark, staring mad. The roads will be in a fearful condition. Come, don't be an idiot, Brad. Tom can wait till to-morrow morning."

But Braddy's brother shook his head. "You don't know how Tom feels, and I promised to let him hear to-night. If I break my wheel or puncture my tire I can walk; but I'll get there somehow, or bust."

"Well, you have sand, if you do lack sense," laughed Appleton, "and I hope you'll make it. I'll tell Port. Give my love to old Tom. We missed him to-day, of course; but didn't Blake play a magnificent game?"

Bingo nodded, and started off. For ten miles the road was comparatively good, and as long as the light lasted he managed to avoid the man-holes, and to steer clear of fallen trees and loose stones; but by eight o'clock it was dark. His lantern kept going out, the hills seemed like the Matterhorn, and the valleys were choked with the débris of the storm.

"I _must_ have smashed my wheel that time!" exclaimed poor Bingo, as he got up from his second header, badly bruised. "I've a great mind to go back; the roads get worse and worse."

Then he thought of Tom, and how, not knowing the 8 to 6 score, he might lie awake all night fancying that Princeton had been beaten.

That would never do, and though it took all the sand that the boy had in his composition, he started off bravely again to carry the news home. All the memorable night rides of history seemed to him pure fun in comparison with this twenty-five-mile bicycle ride in the wake of a cyclone, the object of which was just as important as was that of Paul Revere, or Sheridan, or of the men who brought the news from Ghent to Aix. It was "too easy to gallop." Here he took another header, and his tire, which had sustained several slight punctures, suddenly collapsed.

Bingo sat down and actually laughed. The situation was hopeless to absurdity. It must be nine o'clock, and he had started before six, and there were still five miles to be gotten over somehow. But again the thought of the 8 to 6 score spurred him on, and dragging the wheel, which seemed to weigh tons, he trudged manfully through the sand, splashing in and out of puddles and climbing up and down hills, until the joyful sight of his own front gate at last rewarded him.

Then with a wild whoop he dropped the bicycle and sprinted up the road to the house. Three or four windows opened simultaneously.

"Eight to 6, 8 to 6!" shouted Bingo. "Tiger-siss-boom-ah! 8 to 6."

"In Princeton's favor?" cried his mother.

"Sure!" screamed back the boy, and in another moment Bingo had rushed upstairs into his brother's room to find Tom, flushed with fever, waving an old Princeton banner and cheering like mad. And to show what college spirit is, not until Bingo had described the whole game did his mother have the heart to ask him about the storm and how he had gotten home.

Blake's home run was so much more important. Why, the ride seemed nothing to him now.

"You really ought not to have done it, dear," said Mrs. Bradfield. "It was a terrible risk--and to come all alone--after such a storm."

Bingo laughed, and said nothing.

THE MAKING OF CANNON PROJECTILES.

BY FRANKLIN MATTHEWS.

For twenty-five years the men who make material used in warfare have been engaged in the sharpest kind of a contest between themselves. On the one side they have been trying to make armor so tough and strong that it could withstand the heaviest shots, and on the other side they have been trying to make projectiles, which is another name for big bullets, that will go through this armor. Sometimes the armor men have been ahead, and sometimes the projectile men have been foremost. The armor men have usually forced the fighting, and then the projectile men have matched them. At present the projectile men say they are ahead, and that the armor men must make armor tougher and harder or they will be beaten.

All this struggle grew out of the war between Germany and France a quarter of a century ago. The experts noticed then that the cannons and powder were wasting a great deal of force, because the projectiles they threw couldn't begin to carry all the energy of the weapons. At once scientific men began to make a study how to produce projectiles that would do the full work of the guns, and year by year they have been improving these enormous bullets, until now marvellous results have been reached. A writer who made a study of these results said, not long ago, that the weight of the projectiles in a broadside in 1779 from the _Bonhomme Richard_, Paul Jones's famous flag-ship, which carried forty-two guns, weighed only fifty-seven more pounds than the shot of one of the 10-inch guns of our present second-class battle-ship _Maine_. The broadside of the guns of our famous old _Constitution_, in her fight in 1812 with the _Java_, weighed sixty-three pounds less than the shot of one of the 12-inch guns on the _Monterey_ of the new navy. The twenty-three guns of the well-known _Pensacola_, the ship that did marvellous work in running by the batteries at New Orleans in 1862, in our civil war, threw less in a single discharge than two of the 13-inch guns of our first-class battle-ship _Indiana_ could throw to-day. There is no use in having big guns and improved powder unless you have strong and tough projectiles to convey the power of the guns and powder against the target at which you are shooting. The experts put this in a different way by saying that the projectile is "the vehicle of the energy of the gun." This is a dry and scientific way of saying that there is no use in having a giant's strength if you have only pebbles to throw. We can all understand that.

There is no secret about the making of the big cannons in these days. There are many secrets, however, in the making of the powder used in these guns. There is much more secrecy in the way the projectiles are made. In fact, so secret is the process by which these enormous bullets are made that not even the naval officers, who are stationed at the factories where they are produced to see that each projectile answers the requirements, are allowed to witness the process of manufacture. The naval officers are not supposed to know what goes into the make-up of these bits of steel, except in a general way, nor how they are hardened so that they may pierce thick plates of toughened steel. I am sure, therefore, that those of you who read this will not expect me to reveal these secrets. Even if I knew them--and I confess that I don't--I couldn't be expected to tell them, and I am inclined to think that, after all, as is the case with secrets usually, they wouldn't be of much use to us after we did find them out. They would be as dry and as uninteresting as the hardest kind of a problem in arithmetic or algebra. When all would be told, we should probably find that they consisted of a lot of strange letters and figures, such as they use in chemistry, and there would be no pleasure in reading about that.

Still there are many things about projectiles that are common property, and we may talk about them freely. Every one must know that projectiles are made from hardened billets of steel, and that they are heated and rolled and pounded until they are of the desired shape and strength. Certain chemicals are put into them to give the steel additional strength, and the most careful adjustment, even to a one-thousandth part of an inch, is made when the projectiles are shaped finally. The test of the size and shape of these missiles is so thorough that the most delicate work is necessary in finishing them. You look at a 13-inch shell. It is probably three feet high, and weighs about 1100 pounds. It is anything but a delicate-looking object, and certainly the work it is intended to do is not delicate. A 13-inch shell, which is the largest size made in this country, is about as robust an affair as human skill has yet devised. To test such a shell two slender steel rings are used. One is two-thousandth part of an inch larger in diameter than the required size of the shell, and the other is two-thousandth part of an inch smaller. The larger ring must pass freely over the projectile, and the smaller ring must not pass over it. When one thinks of the difficulty of pounding or rolling a heated piece of ordinary steel into such a perfect shape, he can see what a delicate task it must be. But think how much more difficult it must be when certain alloys are put into the steel to make it so rough that it can be made to pass through a plate of hardened armor, say seventeen inches thick. Probably no more delicate mechanical work exists than in shaping these projectiles.