CHAPTER III.

TIP'S INTRODUCTION TO MRS. SIMPSON.

On the following morning Tim and Sam were awakened very suddenly by a confused noise which appeared to come from the kitchen below, and which could not have been greater had a party of boys been engaged in a game of leap-frog there.

A woman's screams were heard amid the crashing of furniture as it was overturned, the breaking of crockery, and the sounds of scurryings to and fro, while high above all came at irregular intervals the yelp of a dog.

This last sound caused Tim the greatest fear. A hasty glance around the room had shown him that Tip, who had been peacefully curled up on the outside of the bed when he last remembered anything, was no longer to be seen; and without knowing how it could have happened, he was sure it was none other than his pet who was uttering those cries of distress.

In a few moments more he learned that he was not mistaken, for Tip rushed into the room, his tongue hanging out, his stub of a tail sticking straight up, and looking generally as though he had been having a hard time of it.

Before Tim, who had at once leaped out of bed, could comfort his pet, a voice, sounding as if its owner was sadly out of breath, was heard crying, "Sam! Sam! Sammy!"

"What, marm?" replied Sam, who lay quaking with fear, and repenting the fact that his desire for candy had led him into what looked very much like a bad scrape.

"Did a dog just come into your room?"

"Yes, marm."

"Throw something at him, and drive him out."

For an instant Sam clutched the pillow as if he would obey the command; but Tim had his arms around Tip's neck, ready to save him from any injury, even if he was obliged to suffer himself.

"Why don't you drive him out?" cried Mrs. Simpson, after she had vainly waited to hear the sound of her son's battle with the animal.

"Why--why--why--" stammered Sam, at a loss to know what to say, and trembling with fear.

"Are you afraid of him?"

"No, marm," was the faltering reply.

"Then why don't you do as I tell you?"

"Why--why, Tim won't let me," cried Sam, now so frightened that he hardly knew what he did say.

"Why, what's the matter with the boy?" Tim heard the good woman say; and then the sound of rapid footsteps on the stairs told that she was coming to make a personal investigation.

Sam, in a tremor of fear, rolled over on his face, and buried his head in the pillow, as if by such a course he could shelter himself from the storm he expected was about to break upon him.

Tim was crouching in the middle of the floor, his face close down to Tip's nose, and his arms clasped so tightly around the dog's neck that it seemed as if he would choke him.

That was the scene Mrs. Simpson looked in upon after she had been nearly frightened out of her senses by a strange dog while she was cooking breakfast. She had tried to turn the intruder out of doors, but he, thinking she wanted to play with him, had acted in such a strange and at the same time familiar manner that she had become afraid, and the confusion that had awakened the boys had been caused by both, when neither knew exactly what to do.

Mrs. Simpson stood at the room door looking in a moment before she could speak, and then she asked, "What is the meaning of this, Samuel?"

Sam made no reply, but buried his face deeper in the pillows, while the ominous shaking of his fat body told that he was getting ready to cry in advance of the whipping he expected to receive.

"Who is this boy?" asked the lady, finding that her first question was likely to receive no reply.

Sam made no sign of life, and Tim, knowing that something must be said at once, replied, piteously, "Please, ma'am, it's only me an' Tip."

Sam's face was still buried in the pillows; but the trembling had ceased, as if he was anxious to learn whether his companion could free himself from the position into which he had been led.

"Who are you, and how did you come here?" asked Mrs. Simpson, wonderingly.

Tim turned toward the bed as if he expected Sam would answer that question; but that young man made no sign that he had even heard it, and Tim was obliged to tell the story.

"I'm only Tim Babbige, an' this is Tip. We was tryin' to find a place to sleep last night, when we met Sam, an' after we'd found the cow we went down to the store an' bought some candy, an' when we come back Sam was goin' to ask you to let me sleep in the barn, but you was in bed; so he said it was all right for me to come up here an' sleep with him. I'm awful sorry I did it, an' sorry Tip acted so bad; but if you won't scold, we'll go right straight away."

Mrs. Simpson was by no means a hard-hearted woman, and the boy's explanation, as well as his piteous way of making it, caused her to feel kindly disposed toward him. She asked him about himself; and by the time he had finished telling of the death of his parents, the cruel treatment he had received from Captain and Mrs. Babbige, and of his desperate attempt at bettering his condition, her womanly heart had a great deal of sympathy in it for him.

Then Tim added, as if it was the last of his pitiful story, "Me an' Tip ain't got anybody who cares for us but each other, an' if we don't get a chance to work, so's we can get some place to live, I don't know what we will do." Then he laid his head on the dog's nose, and cried as though his little heart was breaking, while Tip set up a series of most doleful howls.

"You poor child," said the good woman, kindly, "you're not large enough to work for your living, and I don't know what Mr. Simpson will say to your being here very long; but you shall stay till we see what can be done for you, whatever he says. Now don't cry any more, but dress yourself, and come down stairs, and help me clean up the litter the dog and I made. Sam, you lazy boy," she added, as she turned toward her half-concealed son, "get up and dress yourself. You ought to be ashamed for not telling me last night what you were about."

Then patting Tim on the head, the good woman went down stairs to attend to her household duties.

As soon as the sound of the closing door told that his mother had left the room, Sam rolled out of bed, much as a duck gets out of her nest, and said, triumphantly, to Tim, who was busy dressing, "Well, we got out of that scrape all right, didn't we?"

Tim looked up at him reproachfully, remembering Sam's silence when the affair looked so dark; but he contented himself with simply saying, "Yes, it's all right till we see what your father will say about it."

"Oh, he won't say anything, so long as mother don't," was the confident reply; and the conversation was broken there by Tim going down stairs to help Mrs. Simpson in repairing the damage done by Tip.

Before he had been helping her very long, he showed himself so apt at such work that she asked, "How does it happen that you are so handy at such things?"

"I don't know," replied Tim, bashfully, "'cept that Aunt Betsey always made me help her in the kitchen; an' I s'pose it comes handy for a feller to do what he must do."

By the time Sam came down stairs the kitchen presented its usual neat appearance, and he was disposed to make light of his mother's fright; but she soon changed his joy to grief by telling him to go to the spring for a pail of water.

Now if there was one thing more than another which Sam disliked to do, it was to bring water from the spring. The distance was long, and he believed it was unhealthy for him to lift as much weight as that contained in a ten-quart pail of water. As usual, he began to make a variety of excuses, chief among which was the one that the water brought the night before was as cool and fresh as any that could be found in the spring.

Tim, anxious to make himself useful in any way, offered to go; and then Sam was perfectly willing to point out the spring, and to generally superintend the job.

"Tim may go to help you," said Mrs. Simpson, "but you are not to let him do all the work."

Sam muttered something which his mother understood to mean that he would obey her, and the boys left the house, going through the grove of pine-trees that bordered quite a little pond, at one side of which, sunk deep in the earth, was a hogshead, into which the water bubbled and flowed from its bed under the ground.

But Sam was far more interested in pointing out objects of interest to himself than in leading the way to the spring. He showed Tim the very hole where he had captured a woodchuck alive, called his attention to a tree in which he was certain a family of squirrels had their home, and enlarged upon the merits of certain kinds of traps best calculated to deceive the bushy-tailed beauties.

Tim did not fancy this idea of idling when there was work to be done; and as soon as he saw the spring, he hurried off, in the middle of a story Sam was telling about a rabbit he caught the previous winter.

"What's the use of bein' in such a rush?" asked Sam, as, obliged to end his story, he ran after Tim. "Mother don't want the water till breakfast's ready, an' that won't be for a good while yet. Jest come over on this side the pond, an' I'll show you the biggest frog you ever saw in your life, that is, if he's got out of bed yet."

"Let's get the water first, an' then we can come back an' see everything," said Tim, as he hurried on.

"But jest come down here a minute, while I see if I can poke him out of his hole," urged Sam, as he picked up a stick, and started for the frog's home.

Tim paid no attention to him; he had been sent for water, and he did not intend to waste any time until that work had been done. He leaned over the side of the hogshead to lower the pail in, when Sam shouted, "Come here; I've found him."

But Tim went on with his work; and just as he had filled the pail, and was drawing it up, he heard a cry of fear, accompanied by a furious splashing, which, he knew could not come from a frog, however large he might be.

Dropping his pail, at the risk of having it sink beyond his reach, he looked up just in time to see a pair of very fat legs sticking above the water at that point where the frog was supposed to reside, and to hear a gurgling sound, as if the owner of the legs was strangling.

For a single moment Tim was at a loss to account for the disappearance of Sam, and the sudden appearance of those legs; but by seeing Tip run toward the spot, barking furiously, and by seeing the stick which was to have disturbed the frog in his morning nap floating on the water, he understood that Sam had fallen into the pond, without having had half so much fun with the frog as he expected.

Tim, now thoroughly frightened, ran quickly toward his unfortunate companion, calling loudly for help.

When he reached the bank from which Sam had slipped, the legs were still sticking straight up in the air, showing that their owner's head had stuck fast in the mud.

By holding on to the bushes with one hand, and stretching out the other, he succeeded in getting hold of Sam's trousers, at which he struggled and pulled with all his strength. Although it could hardly be expected that so slight a boy as Tim could do very much toward handling so heavy a body as Sam's, he did succeed in freeing him from the mud, and in pulling him to the surface of the water.

After nearly five minutes of hard work, during which Tip did all he could to help, Tim succeeded in pulling the fat boy into more shallow water, where he managed to get on to his feet again.

A mournful-looking picture he made as he stood on the bank, with the water running from every point of his clothing, while the black mud in which he had been stuck formed a cap for his head, and portions of it ran down over his face, striping him as decidedly as ever fancy painted an Indian.

He was a perfect picture of fat woe and dirt, and if he had not been in such peril a few moments before, Tim would have laughed outright.

He was evidently trying to say something, for he kept gasping for breath, and each time he opened his mouth it was filled with the mud and water that ran from his hair.

"What is the matter?" asked Tim, anxiously. "Are you hurt much?"

"No--no," gasped Sam; "but--but I saw the frog."

This time Tim did not try to restrain his mirth, and when Mrs. Simpson, who had been startled by Tim's cries for help, arrived on the spot, she found nothing very alarming.

Master Sam received a severe shaking, and was led away to be cleaned, while Tim and Tip were left to attend to the work of bringing the water.

At breakfast, where Sam ate so heartily that it was evident he had not been injured by his bath, the question of what should be done about allowing Tim to remain was discussed by Mr. and Mrs. Simpson.

The farmer said that a boy as small as he could not earn his salt, and it would be better for him to try to find a family who had no boys of their own, or go back to Captain Babbige, where he belonged. He argued, while Tim listened in fear, that it was wrong to encourage boys to run away from their lawful protectors, and was inclined to make light of the suffering Tim had told about.

Fortunately for the runaway, Mrs. Simpson believed his story entirely, and would not listen to any proposition to send him back to Selman. The result of the matter was that Mr. Simpson agreed to allow him to remain there a few days, but with the distinct understanding that his stay must be short.

This was even more than the homeless boy had expected, and he appeared so thankful and delighted at the unwilling consent, that the farmer began to think perhaps there was more to him than appeared on the surface, although he still remained firm in his decision that he was to leave the farm as soon as possible.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

CHATS ABOUT PHILATELY.

BY J. J. CASEY.

V.

CEYLON.

In 1857, the first postage stamp was issued in Ceylon. The design was the head of Victoria, to the left, in a circular medallion, printed in lilac, and was of the value of one halfpenny. This solitary stamp was soon after followed by a more extensive series, consisting of the following values and colors: 1_d_., blue; 2_d_., green; 4_d_., red; 5_d_., red-brown; 6_d_., brown-violet; 8_d_., maroon; 9_d_., brown-violet; 10_d_., vermilion; 1_s_., lilac-blue; 1_s_. 9_d_., green; 2_s_., blue. The general design was the head of Victoria; to the left, on an oval disk, the frame-work varying in some of the values.

These stamps were all unperforated, that is, not separated by little round holes, and except the 1/2_d_., were printed on paper having a star as a water-mark in the paper, a star being on each stamp in the sheet.

In 1861, perforation of the sheets was introduced, and we find all the values named above, except the 1/2_d_. and the 1_s_. 9_d_., perforated, with no change in the color. In 1863, the 1/2_d_., 6_d_., 9_d_., and 1_s_., printed without water-mark, were perforated. In 1864, all the values thus far enumerated, excepting the 1_s_. 9_d_., were printed on paper with water-mark CC and crown--Crown Colony. In 1867, the 2_d_. was printed in yellow, the 5_d_. in green, and the 10_d_. in orange, and a 3_d_. of new design, printed in rose, was introduced. In 1869, the 1_d_. stamp appeared in a new dress.

In 1872, the rupee became the sole standard of value, with decimal subdivisions. The rupee was divided into 100 cents, the cent of Ceylon being nearly equal to one-half cent of our money. In conformity with this change of currency, an entirely new issue of stamps took place. The general design was as formerly, the frame-work of each stamp differing in details. The values and colors are: 2_c_., bistre; 4_c_., gray-blue; 8_c_., yellow; 16_c_., lilac; 24_c_., green; 36_c_., blue; 48_c_., rose; 96_c_., gray-green. Later, the series was supplemented by three additional values--34_c_., 64_c_., and 2_r_. 50_c_.

For official purposes some of the values had the word "Service" printed upon them. The values so utilized were 1_d_., 2_d_., 3_d_., 6_d_., 8_d_., 1_s_., and 2_s_.

In 1861, a series of stamped envelopes of exquisite design was put in circulation. The colors corresponded to the colors of the adhesives, and were of the following values: 1_d_., 2_d_., 4_d_., 5_d_., 6_d_., 8_d_., 9_d_., 1_s_., 1_s_. 9_d_., 2_s_. These envelopes were afterward suppressed, and a single value, four cents, issued. Another change was made in the design of this value, which now corresponds to the old 5_d_.

Postal cards were introduced in 1872, value 2_c_., in lilac, and lately Postal Union cards of the value of 6_c_. and 8_c_. were placed in use. There have also been several series of fiscal stamps, ranging in value as high as 1000 rupees.

Ceylon is an island in the Indian Ocean, separated on the northwest from continental India by the Gulf of Manaar. It is 271 miles long from north to south, and in its greatest width 137 miles. In 1505, the Portuguese adventurer Almeida landed at Colombo, the present capital, and found the island divided into several kingdoms. In 1517, the first Portuguese settlement was effected, and gradually the whole western coast was in possession of Portugal. The fanatical zeal and remorseless cruelty of the Portuguese led to their downfall, when, after several attempts, the Dutch finally succeeded in driving the Portuguese from the country.

The first intercourse of the English with Ceylon took place in 1763. On the breaking out of war between Great Britain and Holland, an English force was sent to Ceylon, and in 1796 succeeded in gaining possession of the coasts. The interior was still ruled over by the native Kings; but in 1815 the last of them, a tyrant of the worst type, was captured, and subsequently died in exile, ending with him a long line of sovereigns, whose pedigree can be traced through upward of two thousand years. About the same time, by treaty, the whole island came into possession of the English.

The language of about seventy per cent. of the people is Cingalese, and of the remaining people, save the Europeans, the language is Tamil. The stamp-collector, who has the two-cent postal card, will find the English inscriptions on the card in both these languages.

THE LITTLE DOG-CATCHER.

BY MARY D. BRINE.

Jamie was thinking. Well, what of that? Boys often think, don't they? No, indeed, that's just what they don't do; at least Jamie couldn't remember when he had seated himself deliberately to make a business of thinking before this occasion. And now he sat with a puzzled face, and a line between his eyes, so deep in thought that neither the coaxing fore-paws of Nep the dog nor the sound of clinking marbles could arouse him. The question with Jamie was just this: Should he continue to hide Neppie from the eye of man, and thus be happy in the secret knowledge that at last he owned a pet of his very own, who came and went at his bidding, and gave him love for love, or should he take him to the dog pound and earn his thirty cents as well as the others who rejoiced in the title of "dog-catcher"?

"I want that thirty cents, that's one thing sure and certain," thought Jamie, "an' if I don't get it by luggin' Neppie to the pound, I won't get it anyway, and that's just another certain sure thing. I sha'n't get rich waitin' fur Aunt Betty to give me a cent now and then; and there's Tom Blake got his pockets full half the time. But when a fellow cares for a dorg, he kinder hates to go back on 'im. And Nep cares for me, too, and he wouldn't think I'd be such a mean chap. Now if Aunt Betty didn't hate dorgs so bad, I'd ask her to let me keep 'im fair an' square, and then I shouldn't have to be 'fraid he'd bark every minute, and let folks know I was hiding 'im here under this old box, tied, poor old feller, so he can't move hardly. There comes Jack Jones. Wish he'd keep away, and let a feller think a moment in peace."

Along came Jack, jingling some money in his hand. "Hello, Jim, whose dorg yer got?"

Jamie passed his arm caressingly about the dog's neck, and replied, "Mine, of course; who d'yer think, Jack Jones?"

"Ain't yer goin' to take him to the pound? See here," displaying three silver tens in his soiled palm to Jamie's envious brown eyes. "Got 'em at the pound just now for catching a dorg. Goin' to the circus to-night. Big show, I tell yer. Can't yer come along?"

Jamie's eyes began to widen and grow shiny. The circus? Oh, _wouldn't_ he like to go! But Aunt Betty only kept a little store, and had hard work to keep herself and chubby-faced little nephew in bread and butter, and as for giving him money to go to the circus, why, Jamie knew he might as well hope to catch stars. So he only shook his head, and Jack passed on with the parting advice, "Better sell that dorg, and earn thirty cents, and come along."

Again Jamie plunged deeply into thought, forgetting to pet and fondle his four-footed companion according to his usual custom during these stolen visits.

About ten days before our introduction to the little boy, a lady living in one of the handsome houses out on one of the avenues, where each house has its own garden, and where there is always a sweet suggestion of real country, happened to look out of her window one morning, and exclaimed, anxiously: "There is that dog again, Bridget. What shall we do to get rid of him? He'll be sure to bite Nellie some day, and it is a shame the dog-catchers don't come out here."

Then she went in haste down to the front gate, and Bridget followed with the gardener's rake and hoe, with which to "shoo" the intruder away. Although he was frightened, yet Mr. Dog did not seem inclined to leave the fence a little further down; and no wonder, for there was little Miss Nellie, the three-year-old baby, sticking her wee fat hand through the railing, and smilingly feeding the four-footed tramp with the cake mamma had just given her. Poor, hungry, strange dog! no friends, no home: no wonder it was hard for him to leave the only friend he had found in his vagrant life.

But despite Nellie's cry, "Me love doggie," the rake and hoe did valiant duty, and the intruder was driven away.

Just then Master Jamie came whistling along, returning from an errand for Aunt Betty.

"Here, boy," called the lady, "I'll give you ten cents if you'll only catch that horrid dog, and take him to the pound, or anywhere away from here. They'll give you thirty cents if you take him to the pound. He doesn't seem to belong to anybody, so you can earn your money, if you like, quickly."

Without much trouble, Jamie secured the dog, and lifted him in his arms, glad of the chance for making the promised sum. But before he had gone very far he found the dog so gentle and inclined to be so playful that he began to think it would be nice if he could only keep him all the time. It seemed such a pity that a nice dog like that should go to the pound. Jamie's warm little heart rebelled against anything so dreadful, and by the time he had reached his own street his mind was fully made up; and so the new pet had been hidden all this time, while Jamie had paid him many a stolen visit in his secluded home.

But at last it seemed impossible to keep the secret any longer from Aunt Betty, and this is why we found Jamie thinking so intently, and troubling himself with a question to him very serious.

For some moments after Jack had left him, Jamie thought over the matter, hesitating between the pound and Aunt Betty in regard to his favorite, until at last the dog, which Jamie had named Nep, reminded his master of his presence by poking his cold nose as far into Jamie's neck as possible, and laying his fore-paws gently upon his arm. The boy could not resist that, and in a moment he had squeezed Neppie's breath almost out of his body, and exclaimed, "I'll just keep you, you darling; you shall stay with me." Then bravely he walked into Aunt Betty's store, with the dog close at his heels, and made a full confession.

The old lady looked unusually prim and severe just at that moment, owing to an unprofitable customer, who had only littered the counter, and left no pennies behind. So it happened that Jamie had come at the wrong time with his request; but he didn't know it, you see, and he plunged into the business at once, and stammered through to the end, while Aunt Betty looked over her spectacles, and eyed him and the trembling dog severely.

"Keep that creetur? No, sir; not a bit of any such thing. Get him away from here this very instant. The idee--a dog in my shop! Massy sakes alive! Shoo, sir! shoo! _Go out_, dog, this minute."

An emphatic shake of her foot convinced poor Nep that the old lady was not the friend Jamie had been; and Jamie himself, with a sorrowful face, took his abused treasure back to the old box.

"I'll have to take yer to the pound to-morrer, old fellow," he whispered in Nep's ear, and went back to the store.

That night it rained hard, and the wind blew a gale; and little Jamie, remembering his captive pet, thought he would plead once more with Aunt Betty for the dog.

"Just this one night, auntie, please let him come in out of the wet, and to-morrow I'll take him to the pound, and give you the thirty cents."

Now Aunt Betty's heart wasn't all ice, by any means, and she did pity the poor animal out in the storm. So she finally consented that for this one time he could sleep inside, and she hoped never to see him again.

Then Nep was called in, and told to lie under the table; and as Jamie soon after lighted his little lamp and went to bed, the old lady closed her shop window, and sat down to read the paper. Before she knew it, her tired eyes had closed, and she was in the land of Nod.

It was only a few moments, however, before she felt something tugging violently at her dress, and the sound of barking greeted her ears as she opened her eyes. The lamp had burned low down, but by its dull glow she discovered that it was the dog that had awakened her, and that he was then doing his best to squeeze his body between the floor and a low-seated lounge near the fire-place. Then Aunt Betty saw a slender tongue of flame and smoke creep from under the sofa, and knowing that she had put one or two old papers behind there the day before, she sprang up with a cry to Jamie, and drawing the sofa out, placed her foot upon the blazing papers.

Then the terrified Jamie remembered that after he had lighted his lamp he had tossed the still burning match into the empty grate, as he supposed, but instead of that it must have fallen behind the sofa, with the result as above. It had taken some time for the flame to fairly burn; but Aunt Betty and Jamie would have fared badly, I'm afraid, if it had not been for the faithfulness and watchfulness of the good little dog that had aroused Aunt Betty's ire so greatly only that afternoon. It was very careless of Jamie, and a lesson to him, but it brought one good result for him, after all, for Nep didn't go to the pound the next day, nor any day, in fact. And as Aunt Betty said the other morning, while feeding Jamie's pet with her own hands, "For all she couldn't abide dogs and sich, yet there was sich things as being onreasonable, and that she never would be, not if she knew it."

THE LITTLE GIRL AND THE BIRD.

BY ELIZABETH A. DAVIS.

"It's going to rain, you dear little bird: Fly into your house; don't stop for a word."

"Yes, I saw a black cloud as I sat on the tree, But I care not for rain--I have feathers, you see."

"You have feathers, I know, but your little pink feet Will be numb with the cold when the cruel rains beat."

"Oh no; I shall tuck them up snugly and warm, Close under my body, all safe from the storm."

"But the branches will rock, and the dark night will come: Oh, do, little bird, fly away to your home!"

"Never fear, pretty one, as I rock I shall sing, And how soundly I'll sleep with my head 'neath my wing!"

"Oh, birdie, dear birdie, I'd like much to know How you're always so happy, blow high or blow low."

"Don't you know we've a Father who cares for me? And that is the reason I'm happy and free."

PENELOPE.

BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.