Part 3

All turned with a start, and saw that the silent stranger near the door had risen from his seat.

"Gentlemen," he continued, amid the universal hush of amazement, "I must tell you that _I_ am a tailor, and that I object to hear any man speak ill of my trade."

"Do you, really?" cried Hermann, with a laugh. "Well, then, I must tell you that you will either keep a civil tongue in your head, or I'll have to show you the difference between an honest forester and a fellow who lives on cloth clippings and ends of thread."

"Better live on them than on stolen game," retorted the unknown, with biting contempt.

At this last insinuation, honest Hermann--who certainly was said to be not overparticular whether the deer that he shot belonged to the park or to the forest--lost patience altogether, and laid his hand upon his long hunting-knife. But instantly the landlord thrust himself between them.

"Halt there, lad--no bare blades in _my_ house, if you please. I'll tell you a better way to settle it than that. You know our old Bavarian fashion; when two young fellows want to try each other's strength, they join hands and see which can tug the other across the line. Clear a space there, and let us see which is the best man."

The tables and benches were pushed back, a line chalked on the floor, and Hermann and the stranger, seizing each other's hands in a strong grasp, stood foot to foot, awaiting the signal.

Now for the first time it broke upon the foresters that their champion might not have such an easy victory after all, for the supple vigor of the stranger's movements, and the firmness with which he planted his feet, showed that Hermann had his work cut out for him. Hermann himself, feeling the iron grasp of the unknown's long bony fingers, began to think so too; but could any man, much less a tailor, be a match for _him_? Absurd! And he began with a pull that ought to have ended the whole business at once; but somehow it didn't.

Then, stimulated by his comrades' shouts, Hermann put forth all his strength, tugging as if he were uprooting a tree, till the sweat hung in big drops on his forehead, and the veins of his hands stood out like cords. But though the unknown was sorely shaken, across the line he would not come; and at length Hermann paused, exhausted.

Then the watching eyes around saw the stranger's arms stiffen suddenly, and Hermann's huge frame bend slowly forward. Frantically he struggled, but his strength was spent, and forward he slid, inch by inch. Just on the chalk line he made a final effort, and stood firm for an instant; but now the stranger exerted all his force in turn, and pulled him over the line with such a tremendous tug that they both rolled on the floor together.

"Comrade!" shouted the hunters, crowding round the conqueror, "you've done what none of _us_ could ever do. Tell us your name, that we may remember it."

"My parents named me Ferdinand," answered the stranger, with a queer little mocking smile, "but of late folks have taken to calling me Strong Schalk!"

"Strong Schalk!" echoed Hermann, starting from the seat upon which he had sunk dejectedly. "Shake hands, lad; it would have broken my heart to be beaten by a tailor, but I don't mind a bit being beaten by _you_. Come, let us be friends!"

And from that day forth the two men were the best friends imaginable.

HOW TO MAKE A TOY CANOE.

BY C. W. FISHER.

The building of a birch-bark canoe of sufficient size and well enough made for actual use would rather tax the mechanical skill of most boys; but with no better tool than a jackknife, and with a little ingenuity, a small model may be easily made.

There are few localities where the material--the white birch--can not be obtained. The dimensions given here are those of one which hangs above us as we write, and are only given to make the explanations clearer. Of course it can be built of any size, and the young builder may make such other changes in its construction as taste or necessity may suggest.

A tree not more than eight inches through furnishes the best quality of bark, flexible enough to be readily handled, and tough enough to be durable. Woodsmen tell us that in stripping it we should avoid "girdling" the tree--that is, removing the bark the entire distance round--but should leave a piece several inches wide, that the flow of sap shall not be wholly stopped. Having determined upon the size of the canoe (ours is twenty-four inches long), select a part of the tree as free from knots and imperfections as possible. Make two horizontal cuts for three-fourths of the girth, and about two feet apart. Connect these by two vertical cuts at their ends, and peel off the piece between the cuts. This will be of an oblong shape, and about twenty-four inches by eighteen. The bark consists of many layers, and the outside one should be pulled off and discarded, those beneath being much handsomer in color and finish.

The diagram shows the shape in which the piece is to be first marked with pencil, and then cut with knife or shears. The edges from B round to A and C, and from D round to E and F, are next to be joined, and sewed with an X stitch in colored silk or thread. The natural curve of the bark shapes an excellent bottom to the little craft, and a gunwale, which prevents splitting, and gives a more ship-shape appearance to it, is easily prepared by taking a thinner piece than that of which the body of the canoe is made, cutting two strips an inch wide and long enough to extend from A to F, folding them lengthwise, and stitching them as before, crease uppermost, over the edges. A better curve, and perhaps added strength, may be secured by running a small wire under the crease, but this is both troublesome and unnecessary. Two or three thwarts can be made without difficulty from a bit of soft pine, and held in place just under the gunwale by small brads.

Two coats of thin shellac give a beautiful, and lasting finish to the work, and one is really surprised at the pretty result of so slight an expenditure of time and labor. Suspended from a hook or an archway by bright ribbons attached to the prow, stern, and sides, and filled with dried grapes, or, better still, lined with a shaped tin vessel containing moss and planted with ferns, the canoe becomes a graceful household ornament, as well as a charming reminder of a summer's holiday.

OUR BULL-FIGHT.

BY JIMMY BROWN.

I'm going to stop improving my mind. It gets me into trouble all the time. Grown-up folks can improve their minds without doing any harm, for nobody ever tells them that their conduct is such, and that there isn't the least excuse in the world for them: but just as sure as a boy tries to improve his mind, especially with animals, he gets into dreadful difficulties.

There was a man came to our town to lecture a while ago. He had been a great traveller, and knew all about Rome and Niagara Falls and the North Pole, and such places, and father said: "Now, Jimmy, here's an opportunity for you to learn something and improve your mind go and take your mother and do take an interest in something besides games."

Well, I went to the lecture. The man told all about the Australian savages and their boomerangs. He showed us a boomerang, which is a stick with two legs, and an Australian will throw it at a man, and it will go and hit him, and come back of its own accord. Then he told us about the way the Zulus throw their assegais--that's the right way to spell it--and spear an Englishman that is morn ten rods away from them. Then he showed a long string with a heavy lead ball on each end, and said the South Americans would throw it at a wild horse, and it would wind around the horse's legs, and tie itself into a bow-knot, and then the South Americans would catch the horse. But the best of all was the account of a bull-fight which he saw in Spain, with the Queen sitting on a throne, and giving a crown of evergreens to the chief bull-fighter. He said that bull-fighting was awfully cruel, and that he told us about it so that we might be thankful that we are so much better than those dreadful Spanish people, who will watch a bull-fight all day, and think it real fun.

The next day I told Mr. Travers about the boomerang, and he said it was all true. Once there was an Australian savage in a circus, and he got angry, and he threw his boomerang at a man who was in the third story of a hotel. The boomerang went down one street and up another, and into the hotel door, and upstairs, and knocked the man on the head, and came back the same way right into the Australian savage's hand.

I was so anxious to show father that I had listened to the lecture that I made a boomerang just like the one the lecturer had. When it was done, I went out into the back yard, and slung it at a cat on the roof of our house. It never touched the cat, but it went right through the dining-room window, and gave Mr. Travers an awful blow in the eye, besides hitting Sue on the nose. It stopped right there in the dining-room, and never came back to me at all, and I don't believe a word the lecturer said about it. I don't feel courage to tell what father said about it.

Then I tried to catch Mr. Thompson's dog, that lives next door to us, with two lead balls tied on the ends of a long string. I didn't hit the dog any more than I did the cat, but I didn't do any harm except to Mrs. Thompson's cook, and she ought to be thankful that it was only her arm, for the doctor said that if the balls had hit her on the head they would have broken it, and the consequences might have been serious.

It was a good while before I could find anything to make an assegai out of; but after hunting all over the house, I came across a lovely piece of bamboo about ten feet long, and just as light as a feather. Then I got a big knife blade that hadn't any handle to it, and that had been lying in father's tool chest for ever so long, and fastened it on the end of the bamboo. You wouldn't believe how splendidly I could throw that assegai, only the wind would take it, and you couldn't tell when you threw it where it would bring up. I don't see how the Zulus ever manage to hit an Englishman; but Mr. Travers says that the Englishmen are all so made that you can't very well miss them. And then perhaps the Zulus, when they want to hit them, aim at something else. One day I was practicing with the assegai at our barn door, making believe that it was an Englishman, when Mr. Carruthers, the butcher, drove by, and the assegai came down and went through his foot, and pinned it to the wagon. But he didn't see me, and I guess he got it out after a while, though I never saw it again.

But what the lecturer taught us about bull-fights was worse than anything else. Tom McGinnis's father has a terrible bull in the pasture, and Tom and I agreed that we'd have a bull-fight, only, of course, we wouldn't hurt the bull. All we wanted to do was to show our parents how much we had learned about the geography and habits of the Spaniards.

Tom McGinnis's sister Jane, who is twelve years old, and thinks she knows everything, said she'd be the Queen of Spain, and give Tom and me evergreen wreaths. I got an old red curtain out of the dining-room, and divided it with Tom, so that we could wave it in the bull's face. When a bull runs after a bull-fighter, the other bull-fighter just waves his red rag, and the bull goes for him and lets the first bull-fighter escape. The lecturer said that there wasn't any danger so long as one fellow would always wave a red rag when the bull ran after the other fellow, and of course we believed him.

Pretty nearly all the school came down to the pasture to see our bull-fight. The Queen of Spain sat on the fence, because there wasn't any other throne, and the rest of the fellows and girls stood behind the fence. The bull was pretty savage; but Tom and I had our red rags, and we weren't afraid of him.

As soon as we went into the pasture the bull came for me, with his head down, and bellowing as if he was out of his mind. Tom rushed up and waved his red rag, and the bull stopped running after me, and went after Tom, just as the lecturer said he would.

I know I ought to have waved my red rag, so as to rescue Tom, but I was so interested that I forgot all about it, and the bull caught up with Tom. I should think he went twenty feet right up into the air, and as he came down he hit the Queen of Spain, and knocked her about six feet right against Mr. McGinnis, who had come down to the pasture to stop the fight.

The doctor says they'll all get well, though Tom's legs are all broke, and his sister's shoulder is out of joint, and Mr. McGinnis has got to get a new set of teeth. Father didn't do a thing to me--that is, with anything--but he talked to me till I made up my mind that I'd never try to learn anything from a lecturer again, not even if he lectures about Indians and scalping-knives.

THE OLD MILL.

Oh, the merry mill-stream it is sparkling and bright As it runs down the hill-side in shadow and light; Now it circles in pools, and now throws a cascade, And laughs out in high glee at the leap it has made.

With its ripples are mingled on many a day The shouts and the laughter of children at play; And many a picnic is joyously spread On its banks, where the green branches wave overhead.

But the jolliest place is the old ruined mill, With the great wooden water-wheel, solemn and still; Once it whirled round and round with the rush of the stream, Till a new mill was built to be driven by steam.

Now the children climb over its big wooden spokes But the wheel into motion they never can coax; They may clamber and push, they may tug with a zest, They can not awake the old giant from rest.

And perhaps, if it only could speak, it would say: "After all the hard labor I've done in my day, It is pleasant to know that the children may still Find their happiest times in the old ruined mill."

Are you sorry, little folks, that your vacation weeks are flying away so rapidly? They fairly race, says Lottie C., when the second week of August has come. So they do; but I am sure Lottie would not like a whole year without school or studies. Fred H. is making a collection of butterflies, and finds the occupation very interesting. Etta R. has never until this summer seen the ocean; she likes to hear the roar of the breakers, and to watch the great waves rolling in upon the shore. Tom P., whose mother has been ill, has been taking care of her, there being no girls at home. Well done, Tom. The boy who is kind and thoughtful in his manner to mother is manly, and on the way to make a gentleman. That is what a gentleman is, boys--just a _gentle man_. Think of it. Pauline C. has been reading Mrs. Browning's poems in her vacation. She has spent her time very wisely. And you, Edward and Priscy, Charles and Kate, Theodore and Isabel, Lulu and Minnie, and all the dear girls and boys who come clustering around me even in my dreams, I am glad when I think how busy and bright you are, and when I hear how you are trying every day to do right and be good. Our Post-office Box has been crowded lately with your sparkling letters, but it is very elastic; so, little Sunbeams, keep on shining.

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ORION, ILLINOIS.

I am a little boy seven years old. I have a canary-bird named Dicky, who sings the day long. I had two pet rabbits, named Bunny and Snowflake. On the Fourth of July a dog caught Snowflake and killed him. I felt very bad about it. Papa buried it in the yard, and I am going to put a head-stone at its grave. Papa says a neat board, with "Snowflake" on it, will do. I have two little chickens named Specky and Blackie; and mamma got another rabbit, and his name is Darling. He is as white as snow, and his eyes are red as fire. I feed them on clover, bread, cabbage, and some nice tender grass. I can read in the Second Reader. I am going to school this winter. I can print on my slate. Do you like to get letters from little boys? If you do, I guess I will write another some time. Good-by. I like "Mr. Stubbs's Brother" ever so much.

S. P. D.

Poor little Snowflake! If I were you, dear, I would plant a rose-bush beside his grave. What dreadful things have happened to some of our pets! Of course I like to hear from little boys, and you must write again when you are in the Third Reader.

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PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA.

I want to tell you about a smart little girl named Hebe at our school. She is only six years old. One day Miss S. said, "What does c-a-n-e spell, Hebe?" Hebe said she didn't know. Then Miss S. said, "What do gentlemen walk with?" and Hebe said, "Ladies." Another time one of the teachers was hearing her spell, and she couldn't spell one word right; but at last she did. The teacher asked why she didn't spell it that way at first, and she said, "Oh, I knew it all the time, only I was just hugbugging."

LUCY P. W.

What a droll little scholar! She must make the class quite merry.

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WATERLOO, IOWA.

I have taken YOUNG PEOPLE from the first number, and have read the letters in the Post-office Box with great interest, but have never before ventured to write one myself; but now I thought I would write and tell you about my trip on the Fourth of July across Iowa. Monday evening I went alone to Cedar Rapids, and in the morning papa took me in his mail-car, and I rode with him to Council Bluffs over the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad. It is a beautiful prairie country, with occasional belts of timber on the streams. We everywhere saw splendid farms, with fine houses and barns and large herds. We passed through an Indian reservation near Tama City. The Indian men were out with their fish-poles and guns, and their squaws were hoeing in the fields, while the boys, like true American boys, were playing with fire-crackers. We passed, near Ames, the State Agricultural College and Farm. Marshalltown and Boone are thriving towns on this route. At Boone we came to Iowa's vast coal field, and we passed several mines; it is "soft" coal. Near Moingona I saw the little house where Kate Shelley lives, and crossed the long bridge that she crept over at night and in a terrible storm to warn a coming train of danger. The last twenty miles of our trip are the most interesting. On the right are the "bottom" lands of the Missouri, with the highlands of Nebraska in the distance. On our left are the "bluffs," rising perhaps two hundred feet, and taking many curious shapes. Once we came in sight of the great river, and I can now understand why it is called the "Big Muddy." At nearly every station on the route the people were out to celebrate the Fourth; flags were flying, bands playing, and the small boys and fire-crackers were everywhere. I hope they all had a pleasant, time; I know I did. As I have never seen a letter in the YOUNG PEOPLE from Waterloo, I hope you will like mine well enough to print it.

MARY F. M.

We are all glad when our correspondents describe their pleasant trips, and tell what they have seen when away from home. I think Mary's letter shows that she took notice of what was worth looking at in her Fourth-of-July journey across Iowa.

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BRECKSVILLE, OHIO.

I was ten years old December 20, 1881, and live in Cleveland, but I am staying here for my vacation. It is a very pretty country village. I like very much to ride on the hay wagon, but the hay is damp to-day, and can not be taken in. I am in the Fourth Reader at school. I would have been in the Fifth, only, when I came from Brooklyn, New York, I was put back on account of the difference in the schools. I like the West better than the East. I am getting stouter every day. I have a brother seven years old, named Sumner.

LINCOLN S.

I think it is great fun to ride on top of a load of hay. It makes one feel quite proud to be so high up in the world.

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PEEKSKILL, NEW YORK.

I have taken HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE a year and a half, and like it very much. My home is on the State Camp Ground, but we moved away when the soldiers came there. We moved the 16th of June; I was sorry to come away. I do not like it where we live now; it is a little cooped-up place on the edge of Peekskill. I am the only girl of the family, but I have four brothers. The week of the Fourth of July we all went over on a high hill overlooking the camp ground to see the fire-works. We can not hear the music very plainly, because of the hill in front of us. I have been over to the camp six times since we moved. We have a pet cat that can catch fish. One day last summer two of my brothers were out rowing in a boat, and the cat was with them, and when they were quite a way out in the creek she jumped overboard and swam ashore.

A. G. C.

Pussy was an exception to cats in general. They seldom like to wet their dainty feet. It must be very pleasant to have four brothers to take care of and pet their only sister. I hope yours are very fond of you, and that you are kind and good to them.

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BRIGHTON, SUSSEX, ENGLAND.

I am an English boy nine years old. I have a sister named Eva; she is four years old; and I have also a jolly little brother named Harold, and he is two. I have only one pet, a canary, whose name is Dick; he sings very loud. A friend of my father's, who used to go to school with him, lives in Philadelphia, and he sends me the numbers of YOUNG PEOPLE every month. I do enjoy reading them, and I think Jimmy Brown's stories are capital. When I went to the Zoological Gardens in London I saw Jumbo have his bath; his keeper had to give him a good scolding before he would go in. It was so deep he dived down quite out of sight. I hope you will print this. I have just got over an illness, and can not go out much. Good-by.

PERCY WILLIAM S.

By this time Percy is, I hope, quite well and strong again. We like to receive pleasant words from little friends across the water.

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SHOPIERE, WISCONSIN.