CHAPTER XI.

GLOOM AND VICTORY.

Oh, the disheartening days that followed--the constant marching to and fro, the bitter defeats, and the hopeless feeling of being overwhelmed by superior numbers! Oh, the heart-aches and the weariness!

Once more, so to speak, George was on his native heath, for the discouraged and partly shattered army of Washington was in full retreat across the northern part of New Jersey. The men marched or, better, hurried along despondently. It was more like a rabble fleeing before the invaders than a body of fighting-men. The short enlistments were running out; dissatisfaction was everywhere; and very early one morning they had been compelled to evacuate their camp, leaving behind blankets, tents, and even their breakfasts cooking at the fire, for the British had followed them across the Hudson, and were close upon their heels. Fort Washington had been taken, and Fort Lee had been abandoned with everything it contained.

And it was growing cold; the ice had formed in the meadows, and a slight fall of snow lay melting in the muddy roads. Clothing and shoes were scarce; the inhabitants of Newark and other towns came bravely to the rescue. Yet there were many Tories who were praying already for the advance of the British, and it was rumored every day that orders would be received to resume the retreat, for recruiting had almost ceased.

These were trying times for all, but for none more so than for Lieutenant George Frothingham. By sickness and desertion his company had dwindled to scarcely thirty men. All of his gold had gone to help keep the remaining few together.

And now began the weary, weary marching once more. Discouraged and foot-sore, ragged and hungry, the patriot army retreated southward, the British so close upon their rear that oftentimes they would come in full sight, and skirmishes were frequent.

New Brunswick, Princeton, and Trenton successively fell into the hands of the enemy, and at last, on the 8th of December, Washington crossed the Delaware, and, owing to every boat being in the hands of the Americans on the southern shore, the pursuit was abandoned for the time.

Soon, however, was a victory to be given to the shivering army, and Washington was to astonish the eyes of the military world. But this is casting ahead.

"George," said Carter, one snowy afternoon--for Lieutenant Hewes had recovered from his wound and hastened to the front again--"George, to-morrow's Christmas, and although we get no plum-pudding, in my opinion there's something afoot."

"Then I trust that it may be forward," replied George; "this walking backwards in order to face the enemy tires out men's souls and courage."

The two friends were standing close to a small fire, holding out their hands to the welcome glow. In the woods about them roughly built huts showed everywhere, and before each one huddled clusters of hungry-looking men, soldiers of an army that had known nothing but defeat.

"Colonel Roberts was called to attend a council at the General's headquarters, and came back with a smile on his face. That must mean cheering news of some sort, eh?" Carter warmed to his subject. "And haven't you marked the gathering and mending of the flat-boats?"

"Yes," answered George. "It means they will cross the river. I think that it is well known that the Hessians in Trenton stay much abed this weather. But the morrow will show. I'm off to my blanket."

The boys bade each other good-night, and the fire burned low.

At daybreak the next day along the American lines everything was in the bustle of preparation for some great movement. What it was no one knew. Rations were being prepared, powder and balls distributed, the strongest men were being picked out and formed into separate companies, and the weak and sickly were distributed up and down the line of earth-works.

George awoke at the sun's first rays, and was buckling on his sword when Carter Hewes hurriedly entered the hut he shared with Captain Clarkson.

"It is Trenton surely," he whispered; "but there is a chance for us to volunteer for a service that will make the army grateful. I spoke for you as well as for myself. Was I right or not?"

"Of course you were," said George, smiling.

"Here it is," was the reply. "On the way to Trenton is an English baggage-train, eight or ten big wagons filled with stores and plunder--powder, too, perhaps. A spy, a reliable man, has just brought in the news. He says that it is lightly guarded, and that a dozen men with good horses could cross the river up above, and by fast riding intercept and burn it. The General has given his permission."

Somehow as Carter spoke he reminded George of his father, Colonel Hewes.

"I will go," he said. "But how about my Captain, and how to cross the river?"

"Captain Clarkson will be told, and there is a big flat-boat five miles up-stream that we can use. We will start when it is dark this evening." He grasped George's hand.

But it was not until midnight that everything was completed; men had to be chosen, and horses that could travel fast were scarce. But at twelve o'clock ten men, mounted and armed, started west along the river. It was not until dawn that they came across the road from Trenton to the north, for they had been forced to make a wide detour. The spy was with them; objects were growing plainer, and he pointed with his finger.

"There lies Trenton, eight miles away, and the Dutchmen all asleep," he said, "and if my judgment fails me not, our wagon-train is encamped in yonder hollow."

The ten riders crossed a field and entered a forest of small pine-trees; the snow deadened the sound of the horses. Suddenly they came to a clearing, and the guide raised his hand.

"There they are," he said. Before a small frame building ten big wagons were halted in the road. The horses were blanketed and tethered to the wheels; not a guard of any kind was to be seen.

"Hark!" exclaimed one of the troopers. A loud boom sounded from the southward.

"General Washington has crossed the river," said Carter to George, who, mounted on one of Colonel Roberts's horses, was at his elbow.

Another cannon-shot, and then a roaring of them--a constant ripple and crash of sound. Heads appeared at the windows of the frame house, a few figures ran out.

"Charge!" ordered the Captain of the little party.

So sudden was the attack that not a shot was fired. Then and there twenty English soldiers and a score of teamsters surrendered to ten bold Americans. They were disarmed, and penned in the frame house again.

"Don't let us burn the wagons; let us take them in," suggested George.

"Wait and see how it goes over there," said the guide. "Here! Hurry! Harness up! If they retreat, it will be along the highway. I know a wood road we can drive them into."

In a few minutes the heavy wagons had been pulled up the hill and far into the pines. The prisoners were placed underneath and guarded.

"Here comes a man on horseback," said some one from the edge of the thicket.

A dragoon, helmetless and without a coat, tore by on the road below, lashing his horse.

"Hush! Don't cheer," said Carter, sternly. "Here comes another; we have won the day."

Breathlessly the little party watched the fugitives make up the road towards Princeton, and when the last had gone, light-hearted they took their prizes up the road towards Trenton.

"There flies our flag," said Carter, as the houses came in sight. "Three cheers now, men, and with a will!"

Once more did George Frothingham shake hands with Washington.

Five days flew by, and recruits swarmed in. But the British were not idle. George was posting the guards outside of Washington's headquarters on New-Year's night, when the Commander-in-chief accompanied by his staff came walking by. The relief saluted, and the young Lieutenant caught the words, "Retreat is now impossible."

The next day the British advanced on Trenton. They did not force a battle, for it was thought that the Americans would surrender; but the latter retreated to the further side of a little creek called the Assumpinck, and here again commenced the dreary work of digging into the frozen earth, and, strange to say, the order was, "Make all the noise you can."

As soon as the darkness had settled down at night the watch-fires along the line blazed brightly in the woods. Quickly word was passed for the army, now swelled to five thousand men, to form into line. Washington again was about to astonish military eyes.

Under cover of the darkness he slipped across the creek, and marched silently northward by a road unguarded by the British. The men, looking over their shoulders, could see their own camp-fires still burning brightly behind them, for a force of men had been left there to keep them going, and pick and shovel were ringing busily.

Again the British slept on, unconscious of what was happening, and in the early morning an empty camp confronted them. But at the same time his Majesty's forces at Princeton were astonished to see well-formed bodies of troops swinging along the road toward their encampment on the hill about the college buildings.

George's company had halted, and was waiting for the word. It was a very strange sight indeed, for the command was drawn up to the side of a little brook, just across an arched stone bridge.

As the light broadened they could see coming down the road in front of them a line of red standing out brightly against the bare meadows and patches of snow. They did not seem to be afraid of the forces gathered below them in the meadow, for they did not even form a line of battle.

Everything was quiet. A rabbit jumped from a thicket, darted out and bobbed across the field. Some snow-birds twittered in the leafless branches overhead; but soon was the stillness to be broken.

"I declare, I don't think they see what they're about!" exclaimed a soldier.

The fact was, the regiment of British soldiers had taken the Americans at first for Hessians. Soon, however, they were to be undeceived, for a volley from a company off to the right warned the officers, and the Redcoats spread out across the hill-side. A body of Americans at this moment came out of a hollow and met them face to face. It was a mutual surprise, and the fighting began at once. Some horsemen galloped back in the direction of Princeton, one and a half miles or so away. Re-enforcements of the enemy were hurried down the road on a run. The detachment with which George had been standing charged up to join the hand-to-hand fighting at the front.

The battle had opened. Most of the Americans near the stone bridge were raw militia. They could not be made to fire in volleys, but each man apparently fought for himself. They had had little drilling, not having been in the affair at Trenton, and this was their first sight of blood. George saw that exhorting was of no avail. The men were full of fight, but they were not trained to listen. He sheathed his sword, and picked up a musket from the ground.

The Redcoats, advancing in their well-dressed line, came steadily on. The ranks of the militia broke and retreated; only a few stood their ground. A man on horseback rode to the front. He stood up in his stirrups, shouted, and waved his sword about his head.

"Mark ye him there on the gray horse--'tis General Mercer," a voice shouted, as the militia once more began to rally. "Stand firm! stand firm!" the officer was crying. Suddenly his steed reared, and the rider leaped up in the saddle, and, leaning across the big gray's neck, slid to the ground. The horse stumbled and fell immediately, and the General was seen almost alone, parrying the British bayonets with his sword. At last down he went before any one could reach him.

As George, for the nonce a private, was reloading his piece, he saw two soldiers draw back their muskets and plunge the bayonets into the prostrate form. A fury seized him, and with a handful of young militiamen he rushed at the red bristling line. He swung his musket by the barrel and struck to right and left. How he kept from being killed was a miracle, for men fell and shots rang all about him.

Now was the time for help, and, luckily, it came. Washington, at the head of some hurrying troops, pushed forward from the eastward, and the tide of battle turned. The British ran across the stone bridge, and many fled toward the town.

The pursuit was now kept up in two directions. Part of the American forces chased after the retreating British across the bridge toward Trenton, another detachment swept onward toward the town, where the Redcoats had taken refuge in the college buildings. The companies were mixed together by this time--Pennsylvanians, Virginians, New Jerseymen, and New-Yorkers were fighting elbow to elbow.

A strange sight that George had seen after the re-enforcements under General Washington had been hurried up kept recurring to his mind as he pressed forward. It was one of the small events that force themselves upon the mind in moments of great excitement.

The leader upon whom the fortunes of the country then depended had been regardless of all danger, and had been mixed almost with the hand-to-hand fighters, a conspicuous object on his white horse, but as yet not a ball had touched him.

Colonel Fitzgerald, one of the Irish officers attached to the American service, had ridden up to Washington as soon as the British ranks had broken. George recalled how strange it seemed. The brave Colonel's face was contorting oddly, for he was crying like a baby, the tears rolling down his cheeks, and the sobs almost preventing him from speaking.

"Thank God! thank God!" he said, "your Excellency is safe."

Washington had extended his hand, and replied, quietly, though he was touched by the congratulation, "The day is ours, Fitzgerald."

The men about had cheered as they hurried on. The sleeve of George's coat was hanging in shreds and blackened with the stain of powder. He remembered how he had grasped the muzzle of a musket, and it had seemed to go off almost in his hand. The flint of his own gun had become dislodged during its short use as a club, and was lost. He fruitlessly searched for another as he ran.

The troops of the enemy that had retreated northward had taken refuge within the walls of the historic Nassau Hall. They had smashed in windows, cut loop-holes, and had tried to get some artillery into position.

"Have you a spare flint?" George inquired of a panting figure at his side as they climbed a fence at the back of a small farm-house. The man he addressed turned. It was his fellow-clerk at Mr. Wyeth's, the man whom he had thought a chicken-heart.

"Ah, Frothingham," he said, his pale eyes alight with excitement, "I have, and you are welcome."

George grasped the hand and the extended flint together. "Bonsall," he said, "you are a brave fellow, and I have misjudged you. I must have been a nice curmudgeon in that old counting-house."

"No, no," said the other; "we didn't understand each other, and you thought I was a coward. Mayhap I was. Have you any ball about you?"

George had still some of the King's statue mementos. He handed them to his companion, who placed two or three of them in his mouth, much as a boy might marbles. The two young soldiers advanced and caught up with the line. Some scattering shots rang from the college campus. Bonsall, who was just taking aim, whirled half around, clasped one hand to his breast, and extended the other feebly before him.

"I'm shot," he said, peering blindly into the young Lieutenant's eyes.

George leaped forward and caught the dying boy; he bent over him, and placed his head on his lap.

The pale eyes opened. "Good-by, Frothingham," came the lad's voice in a weak whisper. "In my pocket, here--here."

George thrust his hand inside the threadbare coat. There was an envelope addressed to Mrs. Lucius Bonsall, New York.

"Give it to her," the poor boy said, "with love, with love."

George laid him down on the frozen earth, and now crying himself, much as the Irish Colonel had, he leaned against an elm, and aimed at the windows of Nassau Hall. A battery of artillery was playing at the bottom of the hill, and the masonry shattered from the old brown building. It was too hot for the British, and they fled across the green, down the turnpike toward New Brunswick and Rock Hill, the Americans at their heels.

"'Tis a fox chase," said a starved-looking soldier, with a grin on his unshaven face. "I heard the General say it himself. Hurrah!" Off he dashed.

George did not join in the pursuit, but finding his old friend Thomas and another soldier, they made their way back to the frozen garden, and there dug a grave, and marked the spot where poor Luke Bonsall had fallen.

George looked into the college buildings an hour or so later. Scorched with fire and littered with the remains of a cavalry occupation, vandalism had been at work. Pictures were cut and slashed, and books destroyed, and, strange to say, a cannon-ball had carried away the head of a handsome portrait of his Majesty King George.

The stay of the Continental forces here was short, for the astonished and chagrined Cornwallis was coming up from Trenton. The next day all were on the move to the northward.

George searched for his company, and helped sift the men into something of military shape. It was in horrible confusion, and had suffered many a loss. During all this time he kept thinking of Bonsall's letter, that was in his pocket next to that of his little sister's. It was not long before it was to play quite an important part in our hero's personal history.

Elated with their victories, which had revived the flagging zeal of the citizens, the army had marched to Morristown, and there sought winter-quarters.

They had only been a few days in the shelter of the town, resting from the long marches and the consequences of freezing and fighting at the same time, when Carter Hewes met George on the street.

"Roberts told me to find you," he said. "There are important orders waiting for you."

What could it mean? George furbished up the few brass buttons left on his famous coat, and walked up to the great house where a flag was flying at the top of a rough pole.

Colonel Roberts met him and took him to one side as soon as he had entered, and an aid gave him a written order, which George read hurriedly. There was no explanation; he had been detached from his company, and the whole thing was somewhat confusing. Carter Hewes was waiting at the gate, and threw his arms about his friend's shoulder as soon as he came out on the roadway.

"Is it an order for special duty or a promotion?" he inquired, much excited.

"It is the former," answered George, "but what to do I know not."

To his intense surprise he had been ordered to report to Colonel Hewes, to whom he bore despatches. And where could one suppose? At Stanham Mills! A horse was placed at his disposal; he was to start at once.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

THE BABYHOOD OF DENVER.

BY JULIAN RALPH.

The first cabin in any part of what is now Denver, the capital of Colorado, was that of a hunter and trader, and is thought to have been an Indian's old tepee. It stood in what is now West Denver in 1857. To that neighborhood, in the early summer of 1858, came a party of Georgia men headed by a leader named Green Russell, and hunting for gold on the east slope of the Rocky Mountains. It had been said that some white men had found gold there nine years before, and that three years later some Indians also found a little. Later still a party of traders actually carried some "pay dirt" from there to their homes in Missouri. "Pay dirt," the reader should know, is any form of rock or earth or sand that contains sufficient gold to pay for working it.

Green Russell and his men arrived in June, 1858. If we stop a moment to consider these true founders of Denver, we shall see that they add a new picture to the varied, highly colored gallery of paintings that make the true pictorial history of the growth of our country. We have seen the stolid, dignified Dutchmen sail into New York Harbor with their swords, banners, queer old flint-lock guns, and quaint long pipes. We have seen the grave Puritans assemble in Massachusetts with their sober garments, their stern faces, and their muskets and Bibles carried side by side. We have seen the gorgeously dressed servants of the kings of France and Spain at their work of founding New Orleans, having their wives sent to them in ships, to make their acquaintance and be their wives after they got there. And at St. Louis we came upon the same sort of men who built up Canada--rough, brave boatmen in furs, singing and dancing, and throwing away their money that they earned in pathless forests and in savage Indian camps. When we came to study the birth of Helena, Montana, we saw upon the canvas of history the veteran gold-miner, old at the business, leaving one camp when it ceased to pay, and roaming all over the mountains, with, sharp, ferretlike eyes that saw no beauties in nature--nothing but the dull rocks and the sand in the beds of the streams where gold might be found. Rough, long-haired, bearded, dressed in whatever they could get, these "prospectors" clambered over the mountains, leaving many cities behind them that did not exist until they started them.

And now, at the birth of Denver, we see the life of the immigrants on the plains. We see the caravans of "prairie-schooners," crossing the continent like flights of brown moths, and settling a city as winged things light on a field or on a bed of flowers that offers food. They were miners, or were led by miners, but they were not yet veterans of the far Western type. They were closely followed by absolute strangers to the business--Eastern folk who wanted to pick up gold between their feet. Therefore the newest part of the picture is the life in the caravans of "prairie-schooners."

These were strong four-wheeled wagons, drawn by horses, and covered with canvas tops drawn over a series of half-hoops. In these wagons were beds, clothing, stoves, cooking and eating and drinking utensils, and women, children, and whatever invalid men there were in the train. I could not tell you fairly, in such a short article as this, a tenth part of the general experiences of the people who built up the West by travelling in these trains before the railroads came. Peril surrounded them--peril in many shapes. They were attacked by Indians. They dodged the savages, they fought them, they whipped them or were massacred. They crossed rivers and swollen streams without bridges. They crossed the plains through fearful heat or still more fearful cold. They found no water, or water unfit to drink. They fell sick, they died; cholera overtook some of them, chasing after them all the way from Asia. Their horses were stolen or died or broke down. Their food ran out. There was enough adventure in the journey to fill a lifetime--even to fill an extraordinary lifetime.

Those who reached Denver were a ragged, dust-grimed, tired-out lot, with worn horses, battered wagons, and no immediate desire except to fling themselves on the ground beside the Platte River, in the shade of the cottonwoods, and rest. Stop a moment to think of the courage and condition of those others who went all the way to Oregon! Their courage passes belief. Well, Green Russell and his Georgia men built a hut of logs, and roofed it with mud. When the rain fell it dropped on the roof as water, but it came through the roof as mud. The hut stood by that of the trader, where West Denver stands now. A third hut was built by one Ross Hutchins, and the row or street or village was called Indian Row. Gold was found in the nearby creek, and Russell took some back to Georgia to coax more of his people out to the new camp.

Then there came a party of twenty persons from Lawrence, Kansas. All of Colorado was then Kansas. These new-comers went three miles farther up the river, and washed the sand for gold at a village of their own, which they called Montana. That was in midsummer. In September of the same year, 1858, some of the Georgia men--or perhaps some outsiders--organized a town where East Denver is now, and called it St. Charles. They drew up formal organization papers, and then, not knowing what to do with them, _filed them with themselves_. A month later the Georgians established at Indian Row, now West Denver, formally turned that queer little pin-point on the map into a town, which they called Auraria. A store was added to the village very quickly, and one of the merchants who opened it is alive in Denver to-day. Remember that all this was only a little more than thirty years ago, when some of my readers would have called Mr. Gladstone an old man. Prince Bismarck was fifty years old when this happened.

St. Charles village was a failure, and the founders of Montana soon moved away and joined Auraria. Then came some men, such as are called "hustlers" in the West, and they went to work in mighty earnest to make a city of St. Charles. They agreed that each should build a house, and in less than fifty days (by January, 1859) there were twenty houses standing. They named the place Denver, using the name of an ex-Governor of Kansas Territory, and they gave the town a full set of officials. Then began a great rivalry between Denver and Auraria. Auraria seemed to get the business places. The merchants went there, and there Mr. William N. Byers established the first newspaper--the _Rocky Mountain News_. He and the paper are both active to-day. But little Denver captured the express company when it came, and that ended the rivalry, for all communication with civilization was had through the express company. In 1860 the two towns became one, and were called Denver.

It was in 1859 that the prairie-schooners going to Denver most nearly resembled great swarms of moths. There had been a money panic in the United States, and hard times followed. This led to a rush for the new gold-fields. The truth was that there was not gold enough to pay the crowds for coming, but two remarkable events happened. In the first place, a miner named Gregory, who had been drifting about in the West, happened just then to come upon rich "diggings" not far away. The people came from the East as in a stampede. Some heard that the finding of gold was a hoax, and turned back to go home, meeting other thousands on their way to the diggings. In the East no one knew what to believe; but just then three newspaper men--Horace Greeley, the great editor, Henry Villard, and A. D. Richardson--arrived in this region, investigated the new diggings, and wrote an account of them for all the world to read. They told how a great many miners were making a great deal of money, and how a much greater number were not finding any gold at all. Then they warned the public not to come in such great numbers. I will repeat in substance what they wrote, as it makes a picture of the surroundings of Denver when it was a tiny baby city.

They said they found 5000 persons in the ravine called Gregory's Diggings. Hundreds poured in daily, and they passed tens of thousands hurrying to the place. For all of these provisions must be carted from the Missouri River, 700 miles, over mere trails, across unbridged streams that were steep banked, miry, or swollen by rains. Part of the way to the Diggings (and to Denver) was across a desert, with wood and grass very scanty and miles apart. To try to cross this desert on foot was madness, suicide, murder. To cross it with teams was only possible to those who knew the way to find grass and water. In early autumn the Diggings would be snowed under and frozen up. Then for six months there would not be work, food, or shelter within 500 miles for the army of men who were fooled into thinking that gold could be picked up like pebbles at the sea-shore. This sensible report did vast good in moderating the rush. There was great misery and hardship, nevertheless, but gold continued to be found, and many towns sprang up around Denver, which became the main city or metropolis of the region. For a time the people called the region Jefferson Territory, though the Kansas people claimed the district around Denver. The people established a territorial government in this way as early as 1859, and in February, 1861, Congress legally established the Territory, and called it Colorado. After that, with many reverses and hardships, the place grew steadily as a city, and as a capital not only of Colorado, but of the whole country between the mountains and the Eastern frontier. It is a beautiful city. It is actually on the plains, and yet at that point the plains are nearly a mile in the air--above the sea-level. This makes the city a great health resort, and brings to it so many Eastern people of wealth and refinement that they have been able to give Denver a great deal of the character of an Eastern city. It is modern, enterprising, and very beautiful. It is full of lovely homes and magnificent hotels, public buildings, theatres, stores, and office structures. It has almost 150,000 population.

I could have gone far back of the birth of Denver to show how the Spaniards explored Colorado before the Puritans landed on Plymouth Rock. It was in 1541 that Vasquez Coronado entered Colorado with his little army, coming from Mexico. In the year of our Revolutionary war a Spanish priest journeyed toward California, sprinkling southern Colorado with the pretty Spanish names now borne by the rivers and mountains and valleys. The immediate neighborhood of Denver came to us in 1804 by the Louisiana Purchase, and two years later Lieutenant Zebulon Pike explored the region. In 1819 Major Stephen S. Long started upon a second exploring expedition that led him literally to the site of Denver, where he camped in July, 1820. Twenty-three years later John C. Fremont, "the Pathfinder," came that way, and found several Indian traders established along the Platte. In 1847 the hardy, enthusiastic Mormons passed over this ground on their way to establish themselves in Utah. It is said, too, that Francis Parkman, the historian, built a camp close to or on the site of Denver when he made his famous journey in 1846. And yet it seems to me that none of these events connects itself so closely with the birth of Denver as the expedition of the gold-hunters from Georgia.

IN THE BARN.

Whenever there's a rainy day They send us to the barn to play From after lunch till supper-time. And there they let us run and climb And tumble in the hay and straw-- Such funny tricks you never saw! We overhaul the piles of junk, We open every battered trunk, And every corner we explore As if we'd never searched before; We play at burglars or at thieves, And crawl along beneath the eaves, Or else we are a garrison Besieged, outnumbered ten to one, And from the windows we repel The foe that hides beyond the well. And sometimes, if there's no one by (If John has gone down to the sty Or to the pasture for the cow, Or--if John's absent, anyhow), We take old Dobbin from the stall-- Which we ought never do at all-- And play at circus, while the horse Plods around a ring, of course, With one of us upon his back; Another makes the long whip crack; A third--the lucky one--is clown; And all the girls have to sit down On seats that have been put about, And they must clap their hands and shout. Oh, circus is the greatest fun! When John goes out, it's always done.

ALBERT LEE.

THE RAVELLED MITTEN.

BY SOPHIE SWETT.

(_In Two Parts_.)

II.

Tilly Coombs watched the sled as it went crunching and jingling up the hill, and then entered her house, with a long sigh that the party was over.

"I'm getting to have good times; they treat me 'most as if I was other folks," she said to herself, happily. She would have liked to tell her mother about the good time, but her father had come home. She heard his querulous voice, and knew that he had been drinking just enough to make it unsafe to disturb him; so she crept softly up to her room--a cold and bare nook under the eaves. She pulled off her ravelled mitten and gazed at it ruefully. "That was an awful queer thing to do!" she said to herself aloud. "And, my! wa'n't it cold in that barn? But nobody saw me--not a soul! Nobody will ever know! The worst of it is, if I had been ketched, then nobody would ever believe that Alf wasn't a thief! An awful queer thing!" For a minute or two Tilly was lost in painful and perplexing reflection. Then she suddenly shook her fist fiercely at her small, crooked reflection in the cracked piece of looking-glass upon the wall. "Tilly Coombs, don't you never darst to think, as long as you live, that anything _she_ did was queer!" she said, in an impressive whisper that echoed from all the empty corners of the dreary little room. And then Tilly tucked a ravelled mitten under the ragged ticking of her bed, and slept in peace.

While she slept, in the great farm-house at the top of Butternut Hill they were still debating whether she should be arrested at once for the theft of the spoons, or whether Patty should try to influence her to confession and the restoration of the property.

It was Aunt Eunice who suggested the latter course. Uncle Reuben believed in stern justice. He said that the Coombs family was a disgrace to the town; the father was drunken and good for nothing, and the son-- His voice broke there; he had always felt that Alf Coombs was to blame for Dave's running away.

"We never heard anything really bad about Alf Coombs until--until he ran away," Anson insisted. Aunt Eunice said she thought Mrs. Coombs seemed like a good woman; and Patty tried to defend Tilly, although it _was_ difficult to explain her knitting up that ravelled mitten! She said Ruby Nutting wouldn't believe anything against Tilly, and you couldn't make her. But Uncle Reuben shook his head over that, and said he was afraid Ruby Nutting wasn't very sensible, and Ruby's father seemed to pity bad folks just as much as good ones, and to take just as much comfort doctoring them--without any pay.

But it was finally decided that Patty should tell Tilly of the proof of her guilt that had been discovered. If Patty failed to influence her, then Aunt Eunice would no longer object to her arrest.

Patty lay awake a long time that night, dreading her mission; she wished she might ask Ruby Nutting to help her, but Uncle Reuben thought it best that no one should be told. When she did sleep she dreamed a dreadful dream, in which Tilly Coombs was being pursued down the long hill, through the great snow-drifts, by an army of spoons with grotesque faces, their mouths made of the initial letter that marked the stolen spoons--O for Oliver, Grandma Barclay's maiden name; they were driving Tilly into the mill-pond, which was open as if it were summer, in spite of the January drifts, and Patty awoke with a start and a cry. But bad as was the fantastic dream, Patty said to herself that the reality was worse.

When Pelatiah opened the back door the next morning, a fine pair of chickens plucked and dressed hung upon the knob. That circumstance seemed mysterious. Why should a thief who would steal a dozen spoons have a weak conscience in the matter of a pair of chickens? Where could Tilly Coombs get a pair of chickens? Patty added these mysteries to the one about the ravelled mitten upon which Tilly had knit and knit and yet worn it unmended, and felt as bewildered as she did when Anson made her listen to something out of the rebus corner of the _Butternut Weekly Voice_. But Uncle Reuben still insisted that it was a clear case; the thief had restored the chickens in order to stifle suspicion about the spoons. As to how the thief became possessed of the chickens, he "didn't think it would trouble Coombses to rob hen-roosts."

So as Patty set out to accuse Tilly of the theft the little spark of hope which the deepened mystery had aroused in her was almost quenched.

Tilly came to the door, and Patty tried to look at her with judicial severity, as she had seen Uncle Reuben look at offenders, but she broke down suddenly at sight of Tilly's beaming, friendly face.

"Oh, Tilly," she cried, "you will give them back, won't you? It was such a dreadful thing to do! But no one shall ever know; Uncle Reuben says so, if you will only give them back."

The warmth and color faded out of Tilly's face until it looked wan and pinched in the morning light.

"It's no matter about the chickens. You needn't even have given those back. Of course it's always terrible to--to take things, but if you'll only give back the spoons."

"_The spoons?_" echoed Tilly, and there seemed to be such genuine bewilderment in her tone that Patty felt inclined to believe Uncle Reuben's accusation that she was sly. "I don't know anything about any spoons."

"Tilly, your mitten caught on the basket and was ravelled, and--and I saw you knitting it up in the barn." Patty's tone was rather pitiful than accusing, but Tilly's face flamed angrily.

"I didn't s'pose you was one to go peeking round and spying on folks," she cried. "I guess I've got a right to do a little knitting anywheres that I'm a mind to, and--and you can't say 'twas a mitten."

"I saw it, Tilly, a red mitten. This is the yarn that was caught on the basket." Polly drew from her pocket the red ravelling, wound upon a bit of paper.

"_Yarn!_" echoed Tilly, contemptuously taking a bit between her thumb and finger. "I call that worsted!"

"And are your mittens yarn?" cried Tilly, eagerly. "Because that would prove--"

"I never said they were," said Tilly, quickly, the color deepening in her cheeks, "I never said anything about them, and I sha'n't show them to anybody. And I never saw your old spoons in all my born days--so there!" Tilly would have shut the door, but Patty prevented her.

"Oh, Tilly, I'm afraid you don't realize. Uncle Reuben will send a sheriff to arrest you. And the girls have thought so much of you--especially Ruby Nutting."

"You needn't say a word about _her_." Tilly swallowed a lump chokingly. "You needn't tell her, nor anything. She hasn't got anything to do with it. She's give me all the chance I've had to get good times, and her father has been awful good to us; and now I suppose they won't be any more. But--but poor folks must expect to be called thieves, and took up. The worst is, now they'll be sure Alf broke into that store, and he didn't! no more'n your cousin did! No, that isn't the worst. The worst is that Miss Farnham, the milliner, won't have me now! She was going to take me half a day to do chores and help her; 'twas an awful good chance! It chirked mother right up to think we were going to be so much like folks, and now--" Tilly kept her voice steady, but it was by a strong effort.

"Tilly, it might come right now if you would only tell all about it," said Patty, earnestly. "It seems as if there were some mystery."

"You go 'long home!" cried Tilly, fiercely, and slammed the door upon Patty. Her sharp, hard, little features were working convulsively, and Patty heard a long sob inside the door.

She went home feeling more strongly than ever that there was a mystery, and pleaded earnestly for Tilly. Aunt Eunice joined her, and promised to go and see Tilly's mother, and talk with her about the matter if Uncle Reuben would delay his sterner measures.

They might not have been able to persuade him to do so--his bitter grief for his son had served to harden him against Alf Coombs's relatives--if nature had not seemed to take Tilly's part and enforced a delay; the heavy snow-fall was followed by a pouring rain and what they called at Butternut Corner an old-fashioned January thaw. Uncle Reuben was a mill-owner, and his property was threatened by the freshet, so he had no time to think of Tilly Coombs.

Aunt Eunice had a touch of her old enemy rheumatism, and could not go down to confer with Mrs. Coombs, and so the matter remained unsettled.

On the very first day when the sun shone out Ruby Nutting came up the hill to ask Patty to take a walk. It made no difference that they would go over shoe in mud with every step. Ruby wouldn't take no for an answer; that was the way with Ruby; besides, she said that this was something very particular. When they reached the foot of the hill Patty found herself being led into the road which bordered the old mill-pond, and she shrank back.

"Yes, we're going to miser Jensen's house, but you needn't be afraid; he has gone away for the winter. There won't be any more clothes-lines or hen-roosts robbed now. And that makes me think. Oh, Patty, what _did_ your aunt think of those chickens that were tied to her door-knob? And what did you think of losing your nice roasted ones? But I didn't mean to tell you that I took them until you had seen poor Tramp. Your aunt liked Tramp; she will forgive me when she knows I took them for him."

"_You_ took them--for Tramp?" repeated Patty, in bewilderment. "I heard that Tramp was mad!"

Tramp was an old dog which had roamed the streets of Butternut Corner and Bymport for years, making his home for a week or two at one place or another, as the fancy seized him, generally welcome, for he was a favorite.

"He had one of his fits, convulsions, in the street at Bymport; he has often had them at our house, poor fellow! It seemed as if he came there when one was coming on, knowing that we would take care of him. Some foolish person raised a cry of mad dog, and people chased him with pistols and clubs; he ran up here, and they lost track of him. That night on your sled Alvan Sage told me that he had heard a dog whining, as if in pain, in the miser's house; he said no one dared to go near, because they thought it must be the mad dog. That was a week after they had driven poor Tramp out of Bymport, and I thought of him suffering and without food, and I seized the first basket I could lay hands on, and pulled out a pair of roast chickens. I thought I never should get there through the drifts! I borrowed a lantern at Jake Nesmith's, and it really wasn't far, but the drifts were so deep! The poor dog's leg had been hurt by a stone or a club so he could hardly move, and he was half frozen and starved. Tilly, if you could have seen him eat your chickens, I know you would have thought it better than to have them for the party! I built a fire--luckily there was wood in the cellar--and I've been there every day in all the rain to take care of him. Papa has been with me, and to-morrow we're going to send Tramp to my Uncle Rufus at Bethel, who is very fond of dogs, and will take great care of him. We couldn't take him home, because Aunt Estelle is so nervous, and she wouldn't believe he wasn't mad. I knew you would like to see old Tramp."

"But--but the ravelled mitten!" faltered Patty, who couldn't as yet "see through things."

"How did you know about that?" asked Ruby, in astonishment. "I caught my mitten on your basket in my haste to get the chickens, and the edge was all ravelled off, and--the very queerest thing that ever happened!--some one knit it on again--with yarn. The mittens are worsted; see the difference." Ruby held up the mended mitten, with an edge of coarse yarn, to Patty's gaze. "It was done at the party! I think it must have been Grandma Pitkin who did it. Perhaps it had dropped from my pocket in the dressing-room, and she saw it. Wasn't it kind of her? I must go and thank her."

Patty tried to say "it wasn't Grandma Pitkin; it was Tilly Coombs," but there was a lump in her throat that choked her. And it happened that they just then reached a turn in the road and saw a girl's figure ahead of them. She walked from side to side of the road, keeping her eyes on the ground, and occasionally prodding into it with a stick which she carried.

"It's Tilly Coombs, and she seems to be searching for something," said Ruby.

Patty darted on ahead, and seized Tilly around the neck with both arms. Even then Patty saw how pitifully worn and pale the girl had grown. What had been only a little comedy to Ruby, pleasant because she had so happily relieved the dog's sufferings, had been almost a tragedy to Tilly Coombs.

"Tilly, can you ever forgive me?" said Patty, struggling with a tendency to cry. "I know all about it--how you knitted the mitten to keep Ruby from being found out, and how you bore it all and didn't tell."

"You hain't been telling _her_?" said Tilly, anxiously. "I don't think she knows she lost the spoons. I saw that she came down this road that night, and I've been hunting for them. I ain't going to have a mite of trouble come on her. She's been different to me from what anybody ever was before, not looking down on me as if I was the dirt under her feet. And her father, too, he's come and come to see mother when he knew there wa'n't a cent to pay him with. I _have_ bore a sight"--Tilly's strained voice threatened to break--"but I can bear more. I won't have trouble come to her if I can help it. You _hain't_ been telling her all about it?"

Ruby came up to them before there was time for an answer.

"Hunting for something, Tilly?" she asked, easily. "I'm afraid you won't find it in all this mud."

"No--no, I hain't found them," stammered Tilly, uncertain whether Ruby knew about the spoons. "But"--and her face lighted with sudden eagerness--"I've found something queer; you see if it isn't queer." Tilly turned back, running before them up to the door of the miser's little house. "No, it isn't the tracks," she added, as Ruby hurriedly explained about the dog. "It's the door-stone; it looks as if it had been moved lately. If you are looking along on the ground, as I was, you notice it."

"Well, what if it has?" asked Ruby, wondering, and a little impatient.

"Somebody might have hidden something there," said Tilly, whose longing to find the spoons was evidently desperate.

"Some of the miser's treasures or his clothes-line booty," cried Ruby, gayly, for miser Jensen was suspected of petty thieving, and Butternut Corner breathed more freely when his summer sojourn was over. "Girls, let's pry the stone up!"

"I tried to, alone, but I couldn't," said Tilly, eagerly bringing a long stake from the tumble-down fence.

The three girls tried for a long time with their united strength. The stone was flat and not very heavy, but was unwieldy, while Tramp, let out of the house, barked and capered with excitement in spite of his injured leg.

When at last the stone was overturned, there was indeed something snugly tucked into a hole dug beneath it--a bundle tied up in a bandana handkerchief. Miser Jensen always wore old-fashioned bandana handkerchiefs. When the girls opened it they found it filled, not with spoils of the Butternut Corner clothes-lines, but with watches and jewelry, most of it marked with the name of Burton, the Bymport jeweller, whom Dave Perley and Alf Coombs were suspected of having robbed.

Patty burst into tears of joy.

"It was miser Jensen who robbed the store! Tilly, don't you see what it means? No one can ever say it was the boys again!"

Tilly trembled in all her thin little frame, but her face was alight with joy. "I know where they are! I can tell now," she said, proudly, "Alf wrote to me. They are both in my cousin's store in L----; it's a jewelry store. It was because Alf liked to see watches and things fixed that he was always at Burton's, and so they suspected him. Dave didn't want to be a minister or a farmer; that was why he ran away, but he wants to come home; he says it doesn't pay to run away; and now he can!"

All the cloud lifted from Butternut Hill. Patty could go home and tell Uncle Reuben and Aunt Eunice; it seemed to her too good to be true.

They forgot all about the spoons; even Tilly forgot them. And when Aunt Eunice heard the good news, she said she didn't care anything about the spoons, but she would do everything she could to make amends to Tilly Coombs for the unjust suspicions.

The spoons were found the very next day. Jake Nesmith, the blacksmith, saw the corner of the napkin in which they were wrapped sticking out of a mud-puddle. Ruby had pulled them out of the basket with the chickens, and dropped them in the snow.

Wheels had gone over them, and they had to be sent down to Burton's to be bent into shape--that was all.

Alf Coombs is still in his cousin's store, where he does well, but Dave has come home to Butternut Hill. He says he isn't sure that he shall ever be a minister or a farmer, but he is sure he shall never be wild again. The awful suspicion that fell upon him cured him of that. Miser Jensen was found and arrested, and confessed the theft; he escaped from prison, but there is no fear that he will ever return to Butternut Corner. Dr. Nutting wished to send Tilly to the Academy with Ruby--the whole story of the ravelled mitten was told after the spoons were found; no one could expect a human girl like Patty to keep it--but Tilly thought she had a knack for millinery, and she liked to be independent, and Miss Farnham wanted her; she says she is a good business woman, although she is only fifteen.

The doctor always takes off his hat to Tilly Coombs, while he gives only a careless nod to the other fifteen-year-old girls. The minister, who is his great friend, and hears a good deal about Butternut Corner people through him, does so too, and just now the young people of the Corner are making preparations for another birthday surprise party. They have hired the new Town-hall, because the little house at the foot of the hill wouldn't begin to hold Tilly's troops of friends, and everything is to be in the very best style that is known to Butternut Corner, because they want Tilly to feel that she is "just like other folks."

The All-Boston interscholastic football eleven for 1895 is as follows:

JACK HALLOWELL, _Hopkinson_ end. J. J. PURTELL, _English High-School_ tackle. L. WARREN, _Cambridge High-School_ guard. G. CALAHAN, _English High-School_ centre. W. D. EATON, _English High-School_ guard. R. C. SEAVER, _Brookline High-School_ tackle. LEE BEARDSELL, _Cambridge High-School_ end. A. D. SAUL, _Cam. High-School_ quarter-back. T. H. MAGUIRE, _Boston Lat. School_ half-back. A. C. WHITTEMORE, _Eng. H.-S._ half-back. C. WATSON, _Cam. High-School_ full-back.

The substitutes for this team are S. W. Lewis, Brookline High-School, end; A. P. Martin, Hopkinson, tackle; Oliver Talbot, Brookline High-School, guard; Brayton, Boston Latin School, centre; E. H. Sherlock, English High-School, quarter-back; and W. W. Aechtler, Brookline High-School, back.

The first requirement that has been considered in selecting the players for this representative All-Boston eleven has been sand. By sand is meant not only physical fearlessness, but even more than that--the moral courage to go into every game and play the hardest kind of football to the end, whether the team is winning or is being overwhelmingly beaten. That is the spirit that is worth more to a team than muscle or science, for without it muscle and science are powerless. It is that which has had more influence than anything else in determining the selection of the All-Boston team. Not that the eleven _sandiest_ boys have been chosen, but the eleven who combine sand and skill in the best ratio. There are no quitters in this combination.

For centre, there is no doubt that Calahan of English High is the most capable man. His playing is as aggressive and lively as any boy's in the League; for he makes himself felt in tackle and end plays, and opens up holes in beautiful style for his backs. The best man for substitute centre would be Brayton of Boston Latin. Warren of Cambridge High is probably the best guard the League has ever developed. He has unlimited sand and endurance, understands the theory of his position perfectly, and is a most valuable rusher and interferer. Close behind him in prowess comes Eaton of English High. Before this year he has played centre, but now he has turned out to be a powerful guard. English High's surest play was to rush Eaton through the other guard. When the referee would call "third down, three yards to gain," Eaton almost invariably would make it first down. Far behind these two guards, but next best, is Talbot of Brookline.

For tackles, one is easily decided on; that is Seaver of Brookline High, who has played a steady, sandy, reliable game throughout the year. The other tackle is harder to choose. I give the place to Purtell of English High, because, while not so valuable a man on the attack as Martin of Hopkinson, his defence is much more reliable. At end one man has shown a decided superiority in all the duties of the position; that, is Hallowell of Hopkinson. He keeps his eye on the ball every moment that it is in play, gets down on kicks beautifully, and I doubt if the aggregate gains round his end in all the League games would amount to ten yards. The other end I give to Beardsell of Cambridge High. He is not so brilliant as Lewis of Brookline High, but is much steadier and more aggressive. Lewis is apt to weaken when his team is losing ground, while Beardsell can be depended upon at any stage of the game.

Everybody admits that Arthur Saul, of Cambridge High, is the best quarter-back of the year, and everybody is full of praise for his plucky work. Not since the days when Bob Wrenn played quarter for this same team have such hard tackling and clever passing been seen. In only one thing does Sherlock of English High, his nearest rival, outclass him; that is in running his team. But giving signals, while very important, is not essentially the duty of a quarter-back, as in many of the 'varsity teams some other player calls them. And Saul is far and away ahead of all the other quarters in every other respect.

The trio of backs I would select are Whittemore of English High, Maguire of Boston Latin, and Watson of Cambridge High. On offence, it would not matter much just who took the middle position; but on defence Whittemore and Maguire should play rush-line half-backs, and Watson full-back, for he is the surest man to tackle and handle punts. All three of these men can kick well; but the brunt of this work would fall to Maguire, as he gets the ball away much more quickly than the others. Whittemore and Watson could both buck the centre, and all three are exceptionally good 'round-the-end men. For substitute half we have Aechtler of Brookline, who is just a trifle behind the others. It is his weak defence that deprives him of a regular place.

Maguire should be Captain of this team. After his work with the Boston Latin team there can be little doubt of his capability. To be sure, Calahan was Captain of the winning team, and did all manner of fine work in that capacity. But his team was much better supported by the school, and had the services of a thoroughly competent coach, while Maguire did all the work of getting his team together. Moreover, Maguire has the advantage of position and of experience, having been Captain part of last season. And Calahan has never been really put to the test, as his men have always been victorious, and never even in danger of losing a game. In Maguire the team would have a courteous, energetic, brainy Captain, and, above all, a Captain for whom they would always instinctively do their best work.

The standing of the teams in the Senior League is as follows:

Games Games Games Points Points Won. Lost. Tied. Won. Lost. E. H. S. 5 0 0 56 14 Hop. 4 1 0 40 36 B. L. S. 3 2 0 14 14 B. H. S. 2 3 0 22 16 C. H. & L. 0 4 1 8 40 C. M. T. S. 0 4 1 14 36

SCORES OF GAMES PLAYED.

English High 4 -- Brookline 0 English High 18 -- Hopkinson 6 English High 4 -- Boston Latin 0 English High 16 -- Cambridge High and Latin 0 English High 14 -- Cambridge Manual 8 Hopkinson 6 -- Boston Latin 2 Hopkinson 6 -- Brookline High 4 *Hopkinson 6 -- Cambridge High and Latin 8 Hopkinson 16 -- Cambridge Manual 6 Boston Latin 6 -- Brookline 0 *Boston Latin 0 -- Cambridge High and Latin 4 Boston Latin 6 -- Cambridge Manual 0 Brookline High 18 -- Cambridge High and Latin 0 *Brookline High 4 -- Cambridge Manual 0 Cambridge High 0 -- Cambridge Manual 0

* Protested; ordered to be played over; forfeited by Cambridge.

The standing in the Junior League is:

Games Games Games Points Points Won. Lost. Tied. Won. Lost. Somerville High 5 0 1 106 10 Newton High 4 1 1 69 32 Chelsea High 4 2 0 76 74 Roxbury Latin 3 3 0 82 41 Dedham High 1 3 1 16 40 Hyde Park High 1 4 1 20 84 Roxbury High 0 5 0 6 70

The results of the New York, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut Interscholastic League schedules are here given for the purpose of record:

NEW YORK I.S.F.B.A.

FIRST SECTION.

Cutler 24 -- Hamilton 0 Trinity 16 -- Columbia Grammar 0 Trinity 54 -- Hamilton 0 Trinity 24 -- Cutler 4

Colombia Grammar forfeited to Cutler.

SECOND SECTION.

Berkeley 30 -- Barnard 0 Berkeley 34 -- De La Salle 0

Barnard forfeited to De La Salle.

FINAL GAME.

Berkeley 38 -- Trinity 0

PHILADELPHIA I.S.F.B.A.

October 18 -- De Lancey 22 -- Adelphi 6 " " Penn Charter 68 -- Cheltenham 0 " " Germantown 30 -- Haverford 0 " 25 -- De Lancey 34 -- Haverford 0 " " Germantown, by forfeit from Cheltenham. " " Penn Charter 28 -- Adelphi 0 November 1 -- Penn Charter 54 -- De Lancey 0 " " Cheltenham 40 -- Haverford 0 " " Germantown 12 -- Adelphi 2 " 8 -- Adelphi 12 -- Haverford 4 " " De Lancey 34 -- Cheltenham 0 " 15 Germantown 18 -- De Lancey 6 " " Penn Charter 34 -- Haverford 0 " " Cheltenham 4 -- Adelphi 0 " 22 -- Germantown 6 -- Penn Charter 4

CONNECTICUT I.S.F.B.A.

NORTHERN DIVISION.

October 26 -- Hartford 22 -- New Britain 12 " " -- Norwich F. A. 4 -- Conn. Lit. Inst. 4 " 30 -- Conn. Lit. Inst. 14 -- Norwich F. A. 0 November 2 -- Hartford 22 -- Conn. Lit. Inst. 0

SOUTHERN DIVISION.

October 26 -- Bridgeport 14 -- Hillhouse H.-S. 4 " " -- Meriden 54 -- Waterbury 0 November 2 -- Bridgeport 42 -- Meriden 0

FOR THE CHAMPIONSHIP.

November 9 -- Bridgeport 10 -- Hartford 10 " 16 -- Bridgeport 4 -- Hartford 4 " 28 -- Bridgeport 16 -- Hartford 12

If we may judge from the number of protests continually cropping up in the New York League, there must be something radically wrong with school sport in this town. The unhealthy desire to win seems to characterize the young athletes of New York to a far greater extent than the healthy spirit of indulging in sport for sport's sake. The greed for medals and pennants seems to overshadow the true object of all these contests, and this develops a spirit of professionalism, which, if not smothered at once, will, in a very short while, put an end to every kind of inter-school contests that are now known.

When I speak of the greed for medals I am not talking at random. I am telling of what I know. Last spring, at some games on the Berkeley Oval, two young men who were tied for second place in a certain event sat on the turf near where I stood, talking over the commercial aspect of their prowess. They were trying to arrange a deal. One proposed to the other to surrender second place if his rival would allow him to keep the medal. The second mercenary, however, would not agree to this. He, too, wanted the medal, and was perfectly willing that the first "sport" should take the "empty honor" of second place. Both athletes being therefore so morally corrupt, no deal could be arranged as to who should have the medal, and they were thus forced by their very spirit of unsportsmanship to decide the tie by actual contest. This is a true story, in spite of its apparent enormity, and I know the names of both young men.

When such a spirit exists among individuals, it is easy to see how entire teams may be led into a misconception of the ethics of sport. I have no doubt, too, that a good many young men look upon it as clever work to evade the rules and to compass an end in some unfair way, provided they can do it without entailing punishment. A great deal of this sort of thing doubtless started from ignorance, but nowadays it is done because former breaches of honesty have been allowed to pass unpunished. This sort of thing could not happen if the principals of the schools were unanimous in their determination to keep sport clean and absolutely honest. There are two or three head-masters, I know, who feel this way, but the others wink at a great many small infractions, and by so doing encourage greater ones which they know nothing of.

Now that athletics have become such an important feature in the life of American boys and men, I believe that it is just as important for school athletes to be instructed and advised in these matters as it is in any other branch of endeavor where morals and honesty and similar qualities are involved. The trouble is that young men hitherto have been left entirely too much to shift for themselves in athletics. It is not to be expected that they should always do the right thing, and so those who are responsible for these young men are to blame if they have not counselled them as they should.

In other words, the time has now come when every school that recognizes athletics must recognize that there is a moral as well as a muscular development to be looked to, and those pedagogues are unfaithful to their trusts who do not give a greater amount of attention to the former than they do to the latter.

To bring a general discussion to a point with specific examples, let me cite St. Paul's School, Concord, and Lawrenceville. At both of these institutions the professors give personal attention to sport, and there are especial and particular men--men of position, education, integrity--in charge of the moral side of the scholars' athletic development. Because of the clamlike attitude of the authorities of St. Paul's, I know less of the particular methods in vogue up there. But with the conditions at Lawrenceville I am familiar.

Several years of experience there have shown the authorities that the sports of the students can be kept in better condition if expert players are detailed to manage the coaching and the games, but yet they do not believe in hiring a man for the football season regardless of his character and career in college. Since 1889 the policy of Lawrenceville has been to have men as instructors who were not only the best all-'round athletes of their college, but also the best scholars, and held in high esteem for character. In 1889, for instance, George, Princeton's centre-rush, went to Lawrenceville to teach mathematics. After school hours he coached the football team, following up the players day after day throughout the season. This is done in the just conviction that boys should be taught how to play as well as how to study. Two years ago Mr. George retired from active work in football, and is now only an adviser, holding his position in the mathematical department.

In 1893 Lawrenceville secured Street, who played with Garfield on the Williams team for three seasons, and received the cup given to the man who made the best record in athletics during his college course. Street was engaged to teach Latin and English, and incidentally he has taken up the control of athletics. To him has been intrusted the responsibility of allowing certain men to engage in football and baseball; he gets up all the plays the boys use; he also follows up the team every day in its practice, being practically Captain at all times, except when a match-game is in progress. Street is a man of most excellent character, and will not allow boys on the various teams to use profane language for a moment.

Evert unfair dodge and trick which a boy exhibits is instantly stopped, and the men are urged to play perfectly straight, honest ball. Such a thing as slugging, therefore, is unknown. The same thing is done in the baseball season. This year Ward, the Princeton player, went to the school to teach mathematics. He was the Latin salutatorian of his class last year, and won the Fellowship in Mathematics, besides being considered the brightest man Princeton has graduated in fifteen years. He is to help the Lawrenceville students in football and baseball just as Street is doing.

Now the point of this recital is to show that Lawrenceville has at present on its pedagogic staff representatives of five large college teams, each one of whom is known as well for the honesty as for the quality of the game he played on the field. I believe that the future of our college athletics rests with the schools that are this year, and next year, and so on, sending out to the larger institutions men who will control the athletic organizations. Boys who learn bad tricks in schools will play them in a more outlandish and stronger way when they reach college teams. I believe, therefore, that it is the duty of schoolmasters to see to it that their wards are instructed in the ethics of sport as well as in the rule of three; for boys who have been left to themselves to learn, and have learned to win by unfair means, will turn out badly, as far as their future in athletics is concerned, and they may then justly look back to their school days, and blame those whose duty it was to teach them the truth of sport. Beneath the surface of these words are a wanting and a suggestion which I sincerely trust may be heeded and accepted.

It is pleasant to learn that all the world is not hunting after medals, and that the spirit of true sportsmanship is still alive in the land--even if it is in the minority! As a consequence of my sermons of the last few weeks I have received a number of letters. One correspondent says: "I won a swimming match once, and got a ribbon for it, and I prize that just as highly as though it were a gold medal. I think the old Grecian and Roman method of awarding wreaths a striking lesson for this age, and I hope they will play a prominent part in the forth-coming Olympian games."

The poor showing made by the Cambridge Manual-Training School team this fall was largely due to poor management. They had for manager and coach a graduate who knew nothing of football nor of training a team. As a consequence, they went into the games a pitifully overworked and spiritless set, depending upon fantastic tricks to win victories. The futility of it caused the appointment of a coach who had played football and understood the game. It was too late, however, to do any better than tie the demoralized Cambridge High team in the Thanksgiving-day game.

Owing to a delay in the receipt of the photographs, the announcement of the All-New-York interscholastic football team has been necessarily postponed until next week.

THE GRADUATE.

ADVERTISEMENTS.

Highest of all in Leavening Strength.--Latest U.S. Gov't Report.

Arnold

Constable & Co

* * * * *

CHILDREN'S Wear.

* * * * *

Reduction in Price.

Children's Dancing-School Dresses.

Children's School Frocks.

Children's Coats.

Reefers.

* * * * *

Broadway & 19th st.

NEW YORK.

A Doll Chart

Something new for the little folks. A chart by which dresses to fit any doll can be quickly and easily cut by children--affording a never-ending source of pleasure and amusement while it furnishes an early

Lesson in Dressmaking

Dresses cut to fit dolls of any size. Cut is but 1-16 actual size of chart. Sent post-paid on receipt of 20c. in silver.

A. C. CHAMPLIN, 151 N. 15th Street, Philada., Pa.

PRINTING OUTFIT 10c.

Sets any name in one minute; prints 500 cards an hour. YOU can make money with it. A font of pretty type, also Indelible Ink, Type, Holder, Pads and Tweezers. Best Linen Marker; worth $1.00. Sample mailed FREE for 10c. stamps for postage on outfit and large catalogue of 1000 Bargains. Same outfit with figures 15c. Larger outfit for printing two lines 25c. post-paid,

Ingersoll & Bro. 65 Cortlandt St., N. Y. City

This Department is conducted in the interest of Bicyclers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject. Our maps and tours contain much valuable data kindly supplied from the official maps and road-books of the League of American Wheelmen. Recognizing the value of the work being done by the L. A. W., the Editor will be pleased to furnish subscribers with membership blanks and information so far as possible.

Having now given the better part of a dozen of the finest bicycle trips in the vicinity of Boston, Massachusetts, we must turn our attention to the completion of the trip from New York to Washington. The reader, by referring to the note at the foot of this column, will there be able to find in what numbers of HARPER'S ROUND TABLE the stages from New York to Philadelphia were printed. We therefore take up the route from Philadelphia, the first stage being from Market and Broad streets, Philadelphia, to Compassville, a distance of forty-five miles. Leaving City Hall by Broad and Twenty-second streets, proceed to Hamilton, thence by Twenty-fifth Street to T. A. B. Fountain, thence to Fifty-second Street, and there run into the Lancaster Pike, which is a fine road for many miles from Philadelphia. Nine miles out you pass through Ardmore. Then continuing on the Lancaster Pike a short two miles, you run through Bryn-Mawr, and four miles further on pass through Wayne. You should keep to the Lancaster Pike, crossing the railroad at Eagle. After passing through Devon there is some hilly work until Paoli is reached. All this time the rider has kept to the Lancaster Pike, but it would be wiser for him to leave the Pike and bear to the left at a fork less than a mile out of Paoli and just before reaching the West Chester Intersection. The route then runs by a straight and fine road out to Downington, where by a sharp turn to the right you cross the tracks and again join the Lancaster Pike. The run from Downington to Coatesville is direct and unmistakable. If the rider desires, he can put up here for the night. If he is doing 60 to 100 miles in a day, he can stop here for the noon meal. But it is wiser for both to go on to Compassville. On leaving the hotel you should run along by the railroad track almost due north, having crossed the main line at right angles. The road winds about somewhat, and there are one or two hills out to Wagontown, but with care and some inquiry there is no difficulty in getting started on the road which runs quite direct to Compassville, making a distance of forty-five miles from Philadelphia. Compassville is a reasonably good place to spend the night, the hotel being clean and the food good.

The direct route from Philadelphia to Washington leaves the Lancaster Pike at Paoli, and taking the left fork just beyond that town, runs out to West Chester, and thence through Sager's Mills, Chad's Ford, Double Bridge, to Wilmington. This route to Washington is shorter, but for several reasons the longer route, of which we have above given the first stage, is far more interesting to the bicycle tourist. In the first place, the road is better. Then the hills are much less frequent. Furthermore, the rider passes through much historic territory connected with the Rebellion, and the field of Gettysburg is easily included; and, finally, the scenery and the towns through which you pass are far more interesting.

NOTE.--Map of New York city asphalted streets in No. 809. Map of route from New York to Tarrytown in No. 810. New York to Stamford, Connecticut, in No. 811. New York to Staten Island in No. 812. New Jersey from Hoboken to Pine Brook in No. 813. Brooklyn in No. 814. Brooklyn to Babylon in No. 815. Brooklyn to Northport in No. 816. Tarrytown to Poughkeepsie in No. 817. Poughkeepsie to Hudson in No. 818. Hudson to Albany in No. 819. Tottenville to Trenton in No. 920. Trenton to Philadelphia in No. 821. Philadelphia in No. 822. Philadelphia--Wissahickon Route in No. 823. Philadelphia to West Chester in No. 824. Philadelphia to Atlantic City--First Stage in No. 825; Second Stage in No. 826. Philadelphia to Vineland--First Stage in No. 827; Second Stage in No. 828. New York to Boston--Second Stage in No. 829; Third Stage in No. 830; Fourth Stage in No. 831; Fifth Stage in No. 832; Sixth Stage in No. 833. Boston to Concord in No. 834. Boston in No. 835. Boston to Gloucester in No. 836. Boston to Newburyport in No. 837. Boston to New Bedford in No. 838. Boston to South Framingham in No. 839. Boston to Nahant in No. 840. Boston to Lowell in No. 841. Boston to Nantasket Beach in No. 842. Boston Circuit Ride in No. 843.

This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor.

Probably most of you have heard of Helen Keller, but I have seen and talked with her, and to see Helen and hear her sweet voice, which she, dear child, cannot hear, is to have an experience which you never can forget. "Come and take a cup of tea with me, and meet Helen Keller," wrote my dear friend, and I went.

It was on a winter day, late in the afternoon, when I entered my friend's drawing-room. I saw, sitting beside her teacher, a fair young girl, perhaps fifteen years old. Helen is straight and robust. She carries herself finely, her head held up, her shoulders thrown back. Her little hands are very white and finely shaped, with tapering fingers, which are to her what eyes and ears are to us. Helen sees and hears with those wonderful delicate hands of hers, and everything they tell her is reflected in an instant on her sweet sensitive face. She has a very merry laugh, and responds in a moment to the moods of others, whether they are happy or sorrowful moods. Helen has fair curling hair and a lovely complexion, and you would select her in any group of girls for her beauty and air of grace and distinction. Better than looks is, what her teacher says she possesses, a very sweet, patient, and loving disposition. You discover this as you watch her, for there is so much sunshine in her face, and her manners are so gentle and natural. Then, too, she is very quick to express her thanks for any kindness shown, or gift presented to her, and at any bit of fun her laugh is like a peal of silvery bells.

Helen Keller was a baby not two years old when she had the illness which shut her into darkness and silence for the rest of her life. With sight gone and hearing gone, it seemed as if a very mournful fate would be hers. At eight years of age she was deaf, dumb, and blind, and knew no more than some little docile animal, for nobody had found out how to waken up her brain, or to enable her to communicate her ideas to her fellow-creatures.

It was at this period that her father and mother brought their little girl to Boston, to place her in an institution designed for such helpless children as she was then. Here she came under the immediate care of the lady who has ever since been her friend, sister, and teacher. Miss Sullivan says she had not taught Helen a single week before she was aware that she had an extraordinary pupil. The child learned so fast that her progress was amazing. Something of what Helen has gained you will understand, girls, when I tell you that she reads beautifully in the raised type the blind spell out with their fingers, that she writes a clear, fine, strong hand, operates perfectly three different typewriters, and is now beginning French and German in addition to her English studies. She writes a very creditable letter in French, and translates fables and stories with ease.

Her contact with the world is, of course, through touch, and her senses of smell and taste are acute. She lays her fingers on the lips of the one speaking to her, and rapidly repeats whatever is said, answering at once as any other child would, only Helen's answers are usually quicker and brighter than those of girls of her age. Her teacher talks with her by means of the mute alphabet, taking Helen's hand in her own, and in this way Helen "sees" all sorts of things, Miss Sullivan being her interpreter. When Miss Sullivan is talking to Helen, the latter has a look of the most genuine attention; her whole face is full of interest. You forget that she cannot see, so alert and alive are the features.

Every day this dear young girl writes in her journal, and she puts into this book just the same confidences, and tells it the same happy stories, which other girls write and tell in their diaries. Helen Keller is a happy, contented, merry girl. I am glad I know her, and I wish you all might know her too.

AN OUNCE OF PREVENTION

is cheaper than any quantity of cure. Don't give children narcotics or sedatives. They are unnecessary when the infant is properly nourished, as it will be if brought up on the Gail Borden Eagle Brand Condensed Milk--[_Adv._]

ADVERTISEMENTS.

Postage Stamps, &c.

STAMPS! =300= fine mixed Victoria, Cape of G. H., India, Japan, etc., with fine Stamp Album, only =10c=. New 80-p. Price-list =free=. _Agents wanted_ at =50%= commission. STANDARD STAMP CO., 4 Nicholson Place, St. Louis, Mo. Old U. S. and Confederate stamps bought.

100 all dif. Venezuela, Bolivia, etc., only 10c.; 200 all dif. Hayti, Hawaii, etc., only 50c. Ag'ts w't'd at 50% com. List FREE! =C. A. Stegmann=, 594l Cote Brilliante Ave., St. Louis, Mo

300

STAMPS FOR $l.00, all different, some quite rare.

KEUTGEN BROTHERS, 322 Broadway, N. Y.

A NEW SECRET SPOKEN LANGUAGE.

Can be learned in the evening. Book, 25 cents.

N. L. COLLIMER, Washington, D.C.

500

Mixed Stamps, 20 cts.; 100 varieties, 15 cts. Agents wanted at 50%. Reference required. List free.

F. W. H. MOYER, Bethlehem. Pa.

FINE APPROVAL SHEETS. Agents wanted at 50% com. P. S. Chapman, Box 151, Bridgeport, Ct.

STAMPS! 100 all dif. Barbados, etc. Only 10c. Ag'ts w't'd at 50% com. List free. L. DOVER & CO., 1469 Hodiamont, St. Louis, Mo.

Timely Warning.

The great success of the chocolate preparations of the house of =Walter Baker & Co.= (established in 1780) has led to the placing on the market many misleading and unscrupulous imitations of their name, labels, and wrappers. Walter Baker & Co. are the oldest and largest manufacturers of pure and high-grade Cocoas and Chocolates on this continent. No chemicals are used in their manufactures.

Consumers should ask for, and be sure that they get, the genuine Walter Baker &. Co.'s goods.

WALTER BAKER & CO., Limited,

DORCHESTER, MASS.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

OF THE AWARD ON

=GILLOTT'S PENS= at the CHICAGO EXPOSITION.

=AWARD=: "For excellence of steel used in their manufacture, it being fine grained and elastic; superior workmanship, especially shown by the careful grinding which leaves the pens free from defects. The tempering is excellent and the action of the finished pens perfect."

Approved: JOHN BOYD THACHER, _Chairman Exec. Com. on Awards_.

BREAKFAST--SUPPER.

EPPS'S

GRATEFUL--COMFORTING.

COCOA

BOILING WATER OR MILK.

CARDS

The FINEST SAMPLE BOOK of Gold Beveled Edge, Hidden Name, Silk Fringe, Envelope and Calling Cards ever offered for a 2 cent stamp. These are GENUINE CARDS, NOT TRASH.

UNION CARD CO., COLUMBUS, OHIO.

FREE.

Comic return envelopes. Sleight of Hand exposed. List of 600 gifts. Album of cards. Send 2c. stamp for postage.

Address Banner Card Co., Cadiz, Ohio.

Highest Award

WORLD'S FAIR.

SKATES

CATALOGUE FREE.

BARNEY & BERRY, Springfield, Mass.

HOOPING-COUGH

CROUP.

Roche's Herbal Embrocation.

The celebrated and effectual English Cure without internal medicine. Proprietors, W. EDWARD & SON.

London, England.

E. Fougera & Co., 30 North William St., N.Y.

An Appeal for a School-house.

Come, dear readers of the Table--Ladies, Knights, Patrons, and their friends--let us make possible the laying of the corner-stone of Good Will School next spring. The task is not a difficult one. It can be accomplished in this way:

Get one subscriber to HARPER'S ROUND TABLE. Remit the $2 for it for one year. Attach the accompanying Coupon. Say in your letter that you wish the 50 cents turned into the Fund. And the thing is done. The Fund is complete. The corner-stone will be laid. The boys will have an industrial school-house. The Order will have performed a grand, a chivalrous deed.

At this holiday-time every person who reads these lines has it within his or her power to build this school-house. Because, if _you_ get the one subscriber, the house will be built. If you do not, it will not--not now. All depends on you.

Go out and ask your friends about it. Ask them to help you get the subscriber. Your parents and teachers will help you. Ask them to do so. Set your heart on getting this one subscriber. Go to a Sunday-school or church committee, a day school, some well-to-do man or woman who has young persons in the household. Ask the well-to-do neighbor. Relate the merits of the paper, and show a sample copy and Prospectus. We furnish them free. Ask us to do so.

But do more than this. Relate the story of Good Will. Tell the person whom you are asking to subscribe why you want the subscription, and why you want it now. Tell him or her that Good Will Farm, while in Maine, takes boys from any part of the country, and is therefore not a local but a national enterprise. Say that it is a house for an industrial school that the Order is to build. The Farm is in good hands, and the school itself will be well conducted. Our task is only to put up the building, not to conduct the school. Say that during the last few years--two or three--more than 700 poor boys have applied for admission to Good Will, and had to be refused it for lack of room. These boys were deserving. Say further that if you get the subscription the school will be built, and, by turning a house now used for the school into a dwelling, more boys can be taken--boys of five, six, and seven years of age, who are now homeless, may be given homes, school advantages, and a chance to become useful Christian men.

During the next two weeks will _you_ get this subscription? Talk it up--and get it. The appeal is not made to the Order. It is made to _you_. If you do not wish to cut out the coupon, make a pen one nearly like it, ask us for duplicates, or send on the subscription without a coupon, simply saying that you got it to help the school, and that you want 50 cents of the $2 given to the Fund. Be sure to give the subscription address, and your own name for the Honor Roll.

Come on, dear friends, let us build this school-house.

THIS COUPON

Will be received by the publishers of HARPER'S ROUND TABLE as

when accompanied by an order for a NEW subscription to HARPER'S ROUND TABLE and One Dollar and Fifty Cents. The intent of this Coupon is to pay you for inducing another person, _not now a subscriber_, to subscribe for HARPER'S ROUND TABLE for one year. This Coupon has nothing whatever to do with your own subscription; that is, with the copy you expect to read next year, it matters not in whose name it be ordered, and will not be accepted in payment for any part of it. It is good for its face in the hands of any person who performs the work indicated, whether said person is a subscriber or not. HARPER & BROTHERS.

* * * * *

The St. Ives Puzzle Contest.

The St. Ives story excited much interest. To new readers we must explain that it was a tale of the man who came from St. Ives, related to the famous person bound for that place. There were four riddles in it, and the rest of the questions were double meanings of names, chiefly geographical. On the journey the man of wives said he saw "an island of Greece that wouldn't hold water"--Poros; and speaking of the character of his many children, the man said not one was "an island off the Mexican coast"--Angel.

A great many solvers wrote to ask if a mistake had not been made in Question No. 2, "because there were not one hundred words in the paragraph." No mistake was made. The "99th" word is the one preceding the c--100. Here are the answers:

1, Wake; 2, Be just before you are generous; 3, Fife; 4, Tietar; 5, Vilaine; 6, Wigtown; 7, Bureau; 8, Poros; 9, Net and Racquet; 10, Fad; 11, There is no wisdom like frankness; 12, Oka; 13. Mercury (quicksilver); 14, Gull: 15, Yule; 16, Sasa; 17, Angel; 18, Faro and Fortune; 19, Lard; 20, Book; 21, Clinch; 22, Palm; 23, Box-car.

Of the twenty-three questions in the story, twenty-one were correctly answered by William C. Thayer, aged 13, Michigan, and Pearl A. Coyle, aged 13, Pennsylvania. The former missed Nos. 13 and 23, and the latter Nos. 2 and 23. We divide the $10 prize between them, giving $5 to each. The other $15 of the $25 offered is divided among other high solvers thus: Frederic W. Darling and Joslyn Z. Smith, New York (Buffalo); Royal J. Davis. Indiana; Edward L. Lyon, New York; J. M. Espey and Nora B. Tucker, Pennsylvania, $2 each; and Ethel Ruth Sherman, New York; Mabel Josephine Frye, District of Columbia; and Amy Erickson, Wisconsin, $1 each. The money has been forwarded, and reached most of the winners by Christmas day.

* * * * *

The Quarter is in the Fund.

DEAR KNIGHTS AND LADIES,--I am a great black dog, and I have more to do with the Round Table Department than you imagine. I have helped one of your contributors prepare scores of articles for you, and you have me to thank for their briefness. Whenever a manuscript threatened to become too long, I would insist on having a door opened for me, or would beg for a drink of water. So that my wants might be supplied a long story had to be cut short.

I am a lazy old fellow, but I am as good as I can be, and goodness means everything with people, and dogs as well. Some little children who once had a society called "Peacemakers" let me join their club because I never fight.

I am glad to hear that you are to build an Industrial School for the Good Will Farm boys, for they have a Band of Mercy, and have promised to be kind to all dumb animals. This means that when everything does not go just right in the neat shops you are to fit up for them, they will not lose their tempers and throw their tools at any stray cat or dog which happens near. Kind boys will make kind men; and I think that all the pets that read the ROUND TABLE ought to raise a fund to help build that school for their mutual friends. I enclose twenty-five cents for this purpose. If I were a dog that could perform a great many tricks I would send a larger amount, but I will leave such an honor to my accomplished brothers. I suppose the little dogs would consider a dime as their proper offering; and, by-the-way, what if we adopt that as our standard? Will all the pets--dogs, kitties, rabbits, lambs, biddies, birds, ponies--which are interested in boys who are bound to ever protect them send ten cents for that Good Will School?

I suppose my letter will be published as long as it is the first from a dumb animal; but the rest of you must not be disappointed if yours do not appear in print. This magazine is for children, and they like it too well to give it over to us. However, I should not be surprised if the most interesting letters should be printed; and perhaps the pet that writes the most pleasing one will receive a reward--a pretty collar, it may be. Hoping to see a long list of "pet names" in the contributors' list for the School Fund, I will now say

Bow-wow, BILLY. BATH, ME.

P. S.--Any pet that wishes boys to keep on abusing them should not send their dimes.

B.

Any questions in regard to photograph matters will be willingly answered by the Editor of this column, and we should be glad to hear from any of our club who can make helpful suggestions.

One of our Round Table patrons sends the following formula for a soda developer, which he says he has used successfully for years:

Hot Water 10 oz. Sulphite of Soda Crystals 2 " Sal Soda Crystals 2 " Bromide Potassium 30 grs.

This will take about twelve hours to dissolve. Keep bottle tightly corked, and it will keep for two or three years, and be as good as if not better than when first made. To use, take 5 oz. of cold-water, 1 oz. of this solution, and 12 grs. of pyrogallic acid. This quantity will develop four 5 by 8 plates, or half a dozen 4 by 5 plates.

Several of our members have asked for formulas for developing solutions, and will find the above to give excellent results. In our answers to queries will be found a formula for hydroquinon and eikonogen developer, and either of those formulas will give excellent negatives.

SIR KNIGHT WILLIAM F. TOBEY asks when the prizes are to be announced, and the grade of bromide paper most used by amateurs. The prizes will be announced as soon after the close of the competition as the judges are able to examine the pictures. The grade of bromide paper most used by amateurs is that made by Eastman & Co., of Rochester, N.Y. They make a bromide paper, called platino-bromide, which gives beautiful results. The use of bromide paper is recommended for winter, as by its use one is practically independent of sunlight.

SIR KNIGHT JOHN BYRNE, of California, asks what is the best camera for beginners. A hand camera is the best for a beginner, and one that is fitted for glass plates instead of film. With a hand camera one can use a tripod, and make time pictures without the complex swing-back, which is always more or less trouble to a beginner. A good size is a camera that takes a 4 by 5 picture.

SIR KNIGHT ALISON MARTIN, who sent a collection of fine photographs to the contest, asks if those pictures which do not take a prize can be criticised. If Sir Knight Alison could see the quantity of pictures which have been sent in he would at once see that special criticism of each picture would involve more time and space than could be given to the Camera Club Department. After the contest closes there will be a general criticism or description of the pictures submitted.

SIR KNIGHT MILTON E. PEASE, of Suffield, Connecticut, wants the address of some firm where he can get good supplies, and also wishes the formula for a good developing solution. Sir Knight Milton will find reliable firms in Boston and New York, any one of which will send price-list on application. The editor is not familiar with firms in Springfield, Connecticut, but would advise sending to some town near Suffield, as the charges are much less for transportation. A good developing solution is made as follows: Solution No. 1. Water, 10 oz.; sulphite of soda, 2 oz.; eikonogen, 165 grs.; hydroquinon, 80 grs.; and add enough water to make the solution up to 8 oz. Solution No. 2. Water, 10 oz.; carbonate of potassium, 1 oz.; sodium carbonate, 1 oz.; and enough more water to make the solution up to 16 oz. For developing take 1 oz. of No. 1, 1 oz. of No. 2, and 4 oz. of water.

SIR KNIGHT EDWIN V. GRISWOLD asks what kinds of trays to use for developing, fixing, and toning. The best developing trays are made of rubber, but celuloid makes a very good tray. An amber glass tray is the best for a fixing-tray, as, being so unlike the other trays, one never mistakes the hypo-tray for any other. A white porcelain tray is usually chosen for a toning-tray.

A CORRESPONDENT OF ENGLEWOOD, N.J., who does not sign name, asks a good and cheap way to make a developer. Our correspondent will find his question answered in the answer to Sir Knight Milton Pease in this number, and also at the beginning of this column.

This Department is conducted in the interest of stamp and coin collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department.

The new U. S. Postage-due stamps are printed in aniline colors, and if wet the colors run badly. Do not soak any of them, as that would ruin them. The higher values of these stamps (30 and 50 cents) are still scarce, as many post-offices had large stocks of the old issue, or of the lower values (1, 2, 3, 5, and 10) of the current issue.

Proofs and essays of U. S. stamps are advancing in value rapidly. A few years ago they brought nominal prices only.

Unused U. S. stamps, with the original gum well centred, are worth from 30 per cent. to 50 per cent. more than when gum has been soaked off, or when not evenly centred.

F. BOGGS.--Write to any of the firms mentioned in our advertising columns.

E. S. D.--Dealers ask 20c. for the 1835 dime.

J. S. POWELSON.--The 2c. 1869 can be bought for 8c.

RUTH E. CHAMBERLIN.--The 1804 half-cent is quoted at 15c.

GLEN CARTER.--"Helvetia" stamps are those of Switzerland from 1862 to date. They are worth from 1c. to $1 each, according to scarcity.

JOHN H. CAMPBELL.--The last issue of Mexico are the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 12, 15, 20, and 50 centavos; 1, 5, and 10 pesos.

F. WALDRON.--The prices quoted are those _asked_ by dealers, not the prices paid by dealers for them. Address firms mentioned in our advertising columns.

R. S. C.--In die A, 1887, 2c. green U. S. envelope the bust points to the space between the third and fourth "tooth" of the edge. In die B, the common die, the bust points to space between second and third "tooth."

BEN B. WOOSTER.--It is frequently difficult to distinguish the two dies of the 1851 U.S. 1c. stamp, as they were printed with very small margins. The 1851 extra line U. S. 3c. is identical with the 1851 die, but perforated. The extra line is at top and bottom only.

A. C. G. WILLIAMS.--Die B, fawn, star watermark, is very common, and worth very little. The rare envelope has the die C stamp. In this the head of Washington is egg shaped.

JOSIE S. GREY.--There is no 1775 Washington U. S. cent. For the prices of the cents and half-cents see ROUND TABLE No. 842. The other coins and tokens mentioned have no premium value. I do not know the "Veto" token.

E. M. FAREWELL.--Old English telegraph and revenue stamps are not collected in this country.

A. J. SELOVER.--The flying eagle cent, 1856, is worth $5. The other dates do not bring any premium.

A. WALTER.--No premium on the coins mentioned.

S. M.--The legend "One Hundred Years" appears on the stamps of New South Wales.

H. B. BARBER.--The only way is to buy an illustrated catalogue, which will give you prices also.

Have you noticed when discussing household affairs with other ladies that each one has found some special use for Ivory Soap, usually the cleansing of some article that it was supposed could not be safely cleaned at home.

THE PROCTER & GAMBLE CO., CIN'TI.

GEO. F. CRANE,

90 Nassau St.,

NEW YORK,

will pay cash for collections or scarce stamps.

BAKER sells recitations and PLAYS

23 Winter St., Boston

CATALOGUES FREE.

THE

BALTIMOREAN PRINTING-PRESS

has earned more money for boys than all other presses in the market. Boys, don't idle away your time when you can buy a self-inking printing-press, type, and complete outfit for $5.00. Write for particulars, there is money in it for you.

THE J. F. W. DORMAN CO.,

Baltimore, Md., U.S.A.

FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

* * * * *

"HARPER'S ROUND TABLE" FOR 1895