Part 1

Produced by Annie R. McGuire

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VOL. III.--NO. 135. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR CENTS.

Tuesday, May 30, 1882. Copyright, 1882, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50 per Year, in Advance.

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THE BIG BLAST AT THE STONE QUARRY.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

It was Friday afternoon, right in the middle of May, and it seemed as if the wide front door of Prome Centre Academy would never get through letting out just one more squad of boys or girls. It was quite the customary thing for Felix McCue to have to wait a little later than the rest.

Miss Eccles was a faithful teacher, and she had often told Felix what an interest she took in him; but he could have heard it a great deal more thankfully at any other time than just after school, and when he knew the other boys were waiting for him. He knew they were, because he had showed them his slate in the arithmetic class, and they had read on it, in big letters, "Got something to tell you. Big."

He had printed every word of it, and he was glad he had done so now, for if he had not he would have been all alone when he at last got outside of the great door. He did not do that, either, until Miss Eccles had looked him in the face for ten of the longest minutes, and talked to him, with a ruler in one hand and a book in the other.

Felix had listened, and he had said "yessum," very respectfully, every time she mentioned George Washington or Benjamin Franklin, but for all that he was only three seconds in reaching the open air, after she said:

"You may go now, Felix, but I hope you will bring no more bumble-bees into this school-room."

"Yessum," and he was off so quickly that he did not hear Miss Eccles, who was trying hard not to laugh right out, and saying to herself:

"The queer little rogue! To think of his telling me, 'Plaze, mum, thim bees knew just the wans to go for; ye cudn't have picked out betther b'ys to have 'em light on.' And what I'm to do with him puzzles me. He's one of the brightest boys in the whole school."

At that moment Felix was walking away from the academy with a boy of about his own size on either side of him.

"B'ys," he was saying, "did yez know me uncle Mike was boss at the shtone quarry?"

"I did," said Bun Gates, on his left; and Rube Hollenhouser, on the right, inquired, almost anxiously, "Was that the big news you kept us waiting for?"

"Was it that, indade? No; but he was along the green this very noon, while I was hidin' Pete Mather's hat in the big maple-tree, and he towld me if I wanted to see the biggest blast of rock that iver was touched off at wan firing, I'd betther be where I could see the shtone quarry a little before noon to-morrow."

That was big enough news to satisfy anybody. The quarry was only a mile or so down the creek, and not a long distance from the bank. It had not been worked for some years, but Mr. Mike McCue was known to be a contractor for the new railroad, and Felix was his nephew. There was perfect confidence to be put, therefore, in the tidings; but Felix added:

"He bid me not tell everybody, for they don't want a crowd around. I asked him wud it be safe on the wather, and he said, 'Yes, it wud, or in it, or undher it, or on the far side of it.' So that's the way we'd betther go."

It was a trifle doubtful which of the ways suggested by his uncle was the one Felix recommended adopting, but Bun instantly exclaimed:

"We can get old Harms's boat. He'll lend it to me any day. It'll hold half a dozen."

"Kape shtill about it, thin. Mebbe Uncle Mike doesn't want to scare the village. He said they'd all hear it whin it kem."

"Loud as that?" said Rube. "Are they going to blast the whole quarry at once?"

"That's what I asked him, and he said, 'No; ownly the wist half of it.' It's the new powdher they're putting in. None of your common shooting powdher at all. It's a kind that bursts fifty times at wance."

There was a touch of silence after that utterance, for there were strange stories in circulation as to the explosive power of the new invention the railroad men were using. Rube Hollenhouser had heard old Squire Cudworth say that a "hatful of it would blow up the Constitution of the United States"; and if that were true, what would not be the effects of a wagon-load or so touched off all at once upon the stone quarry?

Bun and Rube were no sooner back from driving their cows that night than they both went over to the blacksmith's house, and secured the loan of his boat. Of course they told him what they wanted it for, and he said, instantly:

"Is that so, boys? Tell you what I'll do. I'd like to see that blast. I'll go myself. Plenty of room in the boat."

"What shall we do when we get to the mill-dam?" asked Bun. "The quarry's away below the pond."

"We can get another boat below the dam. If we can't, we can haul mine around it in five minutes."

The boys had been considering this problem at that very moment, but one look at Harms the blacksmith was enough to convince any one of his bodily ability to drag any boat on that creek around anything. He was tremendously large and strong, and curly-headed and good-natured. Everybody liked him, and he had more gray beard and mustache than any other man in Prome Centre.

"It's all fixed, then," said Rube.

"I told Deacon Chittenden about it when I drove his cows in for him, and he said right away that Katy and Bill could go. They won't take up any room."

"Plenty of room. Let 'em come. I'd just like to see how far that new powder can blow a rock. Glad you told me. We'll start in good season to be there."

So far everything had worked to a charm; but while Bun Gates told his mother at the supper table what was going to happen, his brother Jeff spoke right out, "Mother, may I go?"

"Yes," said his mother.

And Aunt Dorcas added at once, "Certainly, and Lois too. But, Almira, you or I, or both of us, had better go along to take care of them."

Bun said something about the size of Harms's boat, but Aunt Dorcas silenced him with: "Don't I know how many she can carry? Besides, I'm bound to see that quarry blown up, just for this once."

So Bun was put down; but when they all got out in front of the gate an hour or so after breakfast next morning, there was Rube Hollenhouser in front of his gate, and Felix McCue and little Biddy McCue were with him, and right across the street were Mrs. Chittenden and Katy Chittenden and Bill, and Bun said to himself, "If we had my speckled pig and Chittenden's brindled cow, and if Harms took his dog, the boat'd be 'most full."

Aunt Dorcas and Mrs. Chittenden began to think the party was growing pretty large, but there was no need of it; for when they reached the creek, near the bridge, there stood old Harms, and the first word he spoke was:

"I kind o' guessed how it'd be. Mornin', ladies. Glad we've got a good load for both boats. You get in with me, and the boys can handle t'other one."

It was just like Harms. In another minute he remarked: "Git in now, and we'll shove off."

Aunt Dorcas was already in the very front seat of that boat, and Mrs. Chittenden was in the middle, trying to balance herself. She made William sit beside her, and they two made the boat look wider, there was so much extra room on that seat.

The other boat, the one Harms had borrowed, was almost half a size larger, and it had a cargo this time; for Lois Gates and Katy Chittenden were on the front seat, and behind them were Felix and Biddy. Rube was on the rowing seat, and Bun and Jeff were in the stern.

It was a grand ride down the creek, but when they came out on the mill-pond, Mrs. Chittenden exclaimed:

"I'd no idea it was so wide. Dear me! If I had dreamed of any such risk as this, I'd never have come."

"Nonsense!" said Aunt Dorcas. "If Mr. Harms's end of the boat keeps above water, all the rest will."

"He's a very heavy man," sighed Mrs. Chittenden.

So he was, and when they reached the drag way, around the mill-dam, and saw him put a roller on the grass and gravel, and drag those boats around, one after the other, on the roller, and put them in the water below, they understood that his weight counted for something.

Three-quarters of a mile further down the creek; and now it grew wide and ran slowly, and seemed to have formed a habit of being generally deeper. The easterly bank sloped away from the water's edge, becoming higher and steeper the further they drifted down. It was Biddy McCue who first shouted:

"Yon's the quarry. See the min on the ridge above? Uncle Mike said there might be less than a hundred of thim."

It looked as if there were at least a score or two, and the bald, perpendicular front of the great limestone ledge was worth looking at for a moment.

"Katy," said Lois, eagerly, "do you see the quarry? That's what they're going to blow away."

"Dear me!" exclaimed Mrs. Chittenden. "Mr. Harms, is there any danger?"

"Not unless there's an awful pile of that new powder behind those rocks. What they want to do is to tumble the upper front of the ledge over, so it'll fall into the quarry and they can get at it. I'd just like to see a rock like that come down, pretty nigh a hundred feet."

"Uncle Mike," said Felix, "told us he'd blown up hapes of stone in his day, but he'd niver fired a blast like this wan."

"Misther Harms, what wud become of us all if the powdher worruked the wrong way?"

"What way would that be?" said Mr. Harms.

"The other way. I mean, if instead of blowing out the front of the rock, it lift that all shtanding where it is, and blew out the country to the back of it?"

Before the big blacksmith could answer this question, Aunt Dorcas, who had been looking at her watch, remarked:

"Half-past eleven o'clock. If that thing's going to go off before dinner-time, it's got to go pretty soon."

"Boys," shouted Rube, "see 'em run! There's only one left on the ridge."

"That's me uncle Mike," said Felix, proudly. "He always touches off the big blasts himself, and thin there's no powdher wasted."

"He's running too," said Bun. "He's afraid the new powder might get ahead of him."

"Look now, all of you!" shouted Mr. Harms. "Biggest blast ever heard of around these parts."

They hardly breathed for the next few seconds, but Aunt Dorcas had her watch in her hand, and she was just saying, "Half a minute," when a little puff of smoke and dust shot up at the top of the limestone ridge. It was followed by other little puffs--nobody could tell how many, for they were all smothered in a sudden cloud that arose for many feet. The broad front of stone leaned suddenly out, as if it wished to look down and see what was going on in the old quarry below. Then it lost its balance at the same instant, and toppled swiftly over. A huge, dull, booming report went out from the cloud of smoke and dust on the summit, and that was followed by another great burst of thunderous, crashing sound, as the masses of solid stone came down upon the rocky level below.

It all went by before Aunt Dorcas could look at her watch, and she was just about to do so, when everybody else shouted "Oh!" and there was a loud splattering splash in the water between the two boats. The only "flying rock" sent out by the great blast had narrowly missed doing serious mischief. It had not been a very large one, but only one human being in either of those boats failed to dodge and lean the other way. That Mr. Harms did not dodge or lean accounted for the fact that his boat was only rocked to and fro a little, but for five minutes afterward Aunt Dorcas was compelled to scold those seven children for tipping their boat over, "without any kind of reason for it. The stone never came nigh you."

Still it was a good thing that the water was only two feet deep, and that the weather was nice and warm.

"B'ys," said Felix McCue, the moment he got his feet on the bottom, and stood up, dripping, and holding up Biddy, "did yez iver see a blast like that?"

"Oh, Bun!" screamed Lois, "are there any more stones coming? Was it the blast that upset us?"

"Mother! mother!" sputtered poor Katy Chittenden, "did it blow you over too?"

"Rube," said Bun, "Jeff isn't scared a mite. Are you? I ain't."

"Scared?--no," said Rube. "I wouldn't have missed it for anything, and all we've got's a ducking."

The big blacksmith did a good deal toward restoring a comfortable state of mind all around; but he could not make out that the other boat-load were in a comfortable state of body; and so they set out for home. Long before they got there, however, Katy said to Lois,

"If it wasn't for my new bonnet strings, I wouldn't care," and Lois replied:

"Yes; but think how that rock looked when it let go and tumbled over. It was awful! I'm satisfied."

HANDEL AND "THE MESSIAH."

BY MRS. JOHN LILLIE.

On February 23, 1685, there was born in Halle, Saxony, to an honest surgeon named Handel, a son, whom he christened George Frederick, and who was destined half a century later to become the first musician in the world.

Little Handel's father abhorred music. As soon as the boy began to show an aptitude for it, his father took him away from school, for fear that some one would teach him his notes. Whether among teachers or scholars I don't know, but the boy found a friend who contrived to procure for him a little dumb spinet, and this he secreted in an attic, and learned not only his notes from it, but how to use his fingers in practicing. Still his father opposed him, and but for a certain visit he paid, his genius might have been long hidden in the dull house at Halle.

The elder Handel was invited to visit his son who was in the service of the great Duke of Saxe-Weissenfels, and young George, knowing music was to be heard, if not easily learned, in that place, determined to go too. So he ran after his father's carriage so far that the parent's stern heart relented, and he was taken in.

In the old castle at Weissenfels he quickly found out which of the inmates were musical, and soon made friends with them. One day, after the chapel service, he jumped on to the organ stool, and played in such an astonishing manner that the Duke, who was still lingering in the chapel, sent up to inquire who was playing. The boy and his indignant father were summoned: but the Duke's evident delight in the child's music softened old Handel's heart. He gave his consent to his son's musical education, and almost from that moment George Frederick Handel became known as a musician.

I can not tell you anything more of his childhood or youth but that he studied very hard, and that, like every true genius, he was humble while he was learning. We must skip over many years to the time when he went to England; for there he produced his greatest works, and to this day the English reverence him as their own.

George I., King of England, you know, had been Elector of Hanover, and so he as well as his successor felt a strong interest in Handel. The latter went to England in 1710, and there he found that much attention was paid to Italian music. Operas were very fashionable. They were quite a novelty then. Fine ladies and gentlemen filled the opera-house. They crowded the greenrooms behind the scenes, and chatted and talked at the "wings," as if they were in a drawing-room. Fashion governed nearly everything, and so Handel, realizing this, set to work upon an opera. He wrote _Rinaldo_ in fourteen days, and it was produced at Drury Lane with a splendor that created great excitement throughout London. We never hear _Rinaldo_ now, but its airs are beautiful, and one of these, "Lascia ch'io Pianga," lingers in the heart of every one who hears it.

Well, Handel began to teach the Prince of Wales's daughters, to write a great deal of music, and to be very much the fashion, and very famous. So he roused the jealousy of petty people, and, strange as it may seem, opinions differed to such an extent, and such a fuss was made, that society was divided into two factions. One party favored a distinguished musician named Buononcini, and the other Handel. The war raged, and during it a wit and poet named John Byrom wrote the following verse, which has since been famous:

"Some say, as compared to Buononcini, That Mynheer Handel's but a ninny; Others aver that he to Handel Is scarcely fit to hold a candle. Strange all this difference should be 'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee."

Handel's genius, however, was not to be suppressed by any such foolish contentions. He worked on as usual, and in 1749 produced the work with which his name is most associated, the oratorio of _The Messiah_.

I do not think you can go into any part of England without finding people who love _The Messiah_. It used to seem to me it was the one work every one knew about. And it is well worthy of such general knowledge. In it are airs that must move every Christian heart. It seems to teach so many things--reverence, love, hope, and a glimpse of a heaven that has in it God's many mansions. When I hear it sung it always seems to me that the voices are those of the angels who sang on Bethlehem's plains, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men."

I want to tell you something about oratorios in general; that is, how they originated, and what they are as musical works. Oratorios, strictly speaking, are dramatic and musical compositions where the parts are sung without scenery or special costume, and they are on sacred subjects.

Dramatic representations of sacred stories are as old as Christianity. In the Middle Ages they were very common. At times of public rejoicing they were given, or during any special season, like Advent or Lent, and so far were they recognized as part of public life that the government or special societies paid their expenses.

These old performances were very roughly put on the stage, but gradually from them grew an idea of a distinctly musical and dramatic sacred work. In Germany, "Passion Music" was written. In Italy, it had long been thought of and given; finally, the oratorio as we have it now was developed by various great composers.

Let us consider the oratorio for a moment as represented by Handel's _Messiah_. The most famous part perhaps is the "Hallelujah Chorus." Hear this sung by thousands: do you not thrill with joy and praise? As the music swells on, with its bursts of melodious exultation, we feel ourselves lifted away from everything common and base. Then take the sweeter and softer airs: "Behold the Lamb of God," "With His stripes we are healed," and then the great chorus, "For unto us a Child is born," with the rush and sweep of the "Wonderful." Where do we seem to be? With the shepherds watching on that star-lit plain; with Mary at the cradle of her Divine Child; with the Wise Men offering up their gifts of frankincense and myrrh in that illumined stable. The light of God's glory dazzles us as we listen, and we can only echo in our humble hearts, with our heads bowed, that repeated joyous "Wonderful!"

Now do you not think a musician who could make any Christian heart full of such reverence and love ought always to be honored? I like to think of Handel revered as he is now. His life was not happy in many ways. Many things troubled him. He used to sit hours playing on his organ, and I have no doubt trying to reconcile himself to the blindness which fast came upon him. He had many friends, but no family ties of his own. He wrote on unceasingly, and some other time I may tell you more of his work. Just now I have had space only to speak of his greatest oratorio.

It was on April 6 that _The Messiah_ was given at Covent Garden, and Handel attended the performance. He came home to his house in Brook Street very weary, and there, eight days later, he died, April 14, 1759. His grave is in Westminster Abbey.

MR. STUBBS'S BROTHER.[1]

[1] Begun in No. 127, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

BY JAMES OTIS,

AUTHOR OR "TOBY TYLER," "TIM AND TIP," ETC.

CHAPTER IX.

MR. STUBBS'S BROTHER.

It was so near the time for the circus to begin that Toby was obliged to hurry considerably in order to distribute among his friends the tickets the skeleton had given him, and he advised Abner to remain with Mrs. Treat while he did so, in order to escape the crowd, among which he might get injured.

Then he gave his tickets to those boys who he knew had no money with which to buy any, and so generous was he that when he had finished he had none for himself and Abner.

That he might not be able to witness the performance did not trouble him very greatly, although it would have been a disappointment not to see Ella ride; but he blamed himself very much because he had not saved a ticket for Abner, and he hurried to find Ben that he might arrange matters for him.

The old driver was easily found, and still more easily persuaded to grant the favor which permitted Abner to view the wonderful sights beneath the almost enchanted canvas.

From one menagerie wagon to another Toby led his friend as quickly as possible, until they stood in front of the monkeys' cage, where Mr. Stubbs's supposed brother was perched as high as possible, away from the common herd of monkeys, which chatted familiarly with every one who bribed them.

Toby was in the highest degree excited; it seemed as if his pet that had been killed was again before him, and he crowded his way up to the bars of the cage, dragging Abner with him, until he was where he could have a full view of the noisy prisoners.

Toby called to the monkey as he had been in the habit of calling to Mr. Stubbs, but now the fellow paid no attention to him whatever. There were so many spectators that he could not spend his time upon one unless he were to derive some benefit in return.

Fortunately, so far as his happiness was concerned, Toby had the means of inducing the monkey to visit him, for in his pocket yet remained two of the doughnuts Mrs. Treat had almost forced upon him; and remembering how fond Mr. Stubbs had been of such sweet food, he held a piece out to the supposed brother.

Almost instantly that monkey made up his mind that the freckle-faced boy with the doughnut was the one particular person whom he should be acquainted with, and he came down from his perch at a rapid rate. So long as Toby was willing to feed him with doughnuts he was willing to remain; but when his companions gathered around in such numbers that the supply of food was quickly exhausted, he went back to his lofty perch, much to the boy's regret.

"He looks like Mr. Stubbs, an' he acts like him, an' it must be his brother sure," said Toby to himself as Abner hurried him away to look at the other curiosities. When he was at some distance from the cage he turned and said, "Good-by," as if he were speaking to his old pet.

During the performance that afternoon Abner was in a delightful whirl of wonder and amazement; but Toby's attention was divided between what was going on in the ring and the thought of having Mr. Stubbs's brother all to himself as soon as the performance should be over.

He did, however, watch the boy who sold pea-nuts and lemonade, but this one was much larger than himself, and looked rough enough to endure the hardships of such a life.

Toby was also attentive when Ella was in the ring, and he was envied by all his acquaintances when she smiled as she passed the place where he was sitting.

Abner would have been glad if the performance had been prolonged until midnight; but Toby, still thinking of Mr. Stubbs's brother, was pleased when it ended.

He and Abner waited by the animals' cages until the crowd had again satisfied their curiosity; and as the last visitor was leaving the tent, old Ben came in, followed by Mr. and Mrs. Treat, both in exhibition costume.