Part 1

* * * * *

VOL. III.--NO. 107. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR CENTS.

Tuesday, November 15, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50 per Year, in Advance.

* * * * *

FAREWELL.

"It's growing late," said the honey-bee; "Winter's no sort of weather for me; I'll hurry away to the hive." "It's growing cold," said the bustling fly; "There's going to be plenty of snow by-and-by, And how will a poor fly thrive?"

The cricket piped, "The season is old, Leaves and grasses are turning to gold; It's a queer world that changes so; My chirp has lost its musical tones, And the north wind bites to my very bones; I think I had better go."

The squirrel said, "It is growing chill; The windfalls have gone to the cider-mill; But there's many a chestnut burr Ready to burst at the frost's first touch. If snow flies soon, _I_ sha'n't mind much, Wrapped in my thickening fur."

"The best of the year," trilled the lingering thrush, "Has left us behind; there's a tender hush Brooding o'er meadow and dell; Our nests are all empty, our birdlings have flown; There is nothing to keep us at home, I must own; There's nothing to sing but 'Farewell.'"

"LUCK."

"Just like his luck!" half of the boys said, when Charlie Foster won the State Scholarship.

They had made the same remark when his name had been sent in by the principal of the school to the superintendent as his best scholar. In all likelihood these same old school-fellows will keep on saying, "Just like his luck!" if Charlie ever becomes a Judge, or a Senator, or if he marries happily, or makes a fortune. Every step upward is attributed by some men and boys to that unknown quantity called "luck." And curiously enough, just as "Like his luck" is used to account for the success of one's friends, so "Just like my luck" is used to explain our own failures.

"It is just my luck! There was not a single question about anything I knew. I had crammed up the capitals of the States, square root, and the conjugations, and I was asked about mountain ranges, compound interest, and the fifth declension. I always was unlucky!"

In all this talk about "luck" is there not a good deal of inconsistency? We never employ the word to account for our own successes or somebody else's failures. When the said Charlie Foster misses a catch at base-ball, or catches a crab in a race, we do not cry, "How unlucky he is!" but, "What a muff that Charlie Foster is!" and when we ourselves manage to get on the roll of honor, we resent with virtuous indignation any congratulations on our luck. "Luck, indeed!" we growl; "there was no luck at all. It was just hard work, and nothing else."

Moreover, this talk about luck is, in the first place, somewhat unmanly, not to say cowardly. To trust to luck is a confession that one can not do anything by one's own labor or one's own intellect. It is really, my boy, an acknowledgment that you have no independence of character, no strength of will, no patience, and no perseverance. It is a sure confession of carelessness and idleness. "I'll study this thing or that thing, and trust to luck for the rest," you say, and the result is you are nowhere in the examination.

So in everything we undertake. If we neglect to take ordinary pains, if we omit ordinary prudence, no luck ever saves us from disaster.

Trusting in luck is a very different thing from trusting in Providence. Providence aids those who aid themselves, and just in proportion as they do their work honestly and conscientiously. Luck is a kind of capricious spirit which is expected to set at naught all the laws of nature for our advantage, or to our disadvantage, without the slightest apparent reason why it should intervene at all. If there is such a thing, that can either make or mar us, our first duty is not to be its slave, but to make ourselves its master.

We must not stand like beggars at a street corner until luck drops a few coppers into our hats. We must be a law unto ourselves, and not mere playthings of chance. Let us be honest enough to acknowledge our own mistakes. The grumbler who laments,

"I never had a slice of bread, Cut nice and smooth and long and wide, But fell upon the sanded floor, And always on the buttered side,"

fancies himself unlucky. If he were honest, he would blame himself for not keeping good hold of his bread and butter, and if he thought about it, he would see that falling on the buttered side was a natural result of the way in which he was holding it.

This notion of luck very often arises from a mixture of conceit and jealousy. We do not like to allow that another has more talent than we have, and has used his faculties better. He has, however, if we examine his career, been more studious, more careful, more observant. It would be much more noble of us, instead of repeating like parrots the word "luck," meaning thereby that he has got a reward which he does not deserve, to candidly say, "He has deserved all he has won; he is the better fellow."

Another evil arising from this talk about luck is that at last we actually believe in it. Once under the influence of this notion, we exercise no caution or foresight. "Luck," we say, "will bring us through." Fortunately for our future and permanent success, luck does nothing of the sort. In the long-run, luck is nowhere. You may have heard of games of chance--gambling games, as they are styled--and of lotteries and the like. You have heard of people being lucky at them. The professional gambler and lottery-keeper know better than that; they know that even in throwing dice there is very little luck. The man who is lucky to-day is unlucky to-morrow: it is in reality skill or trickery and not luck that enables the professional gambler to pursue his career.

Lucky people, in fact, are people who have thoroughly trained themselves for the battle of life. They have eyes open to perceive a coming danger, and have learned how to avoid it; they recognize a difficulty, and know how to overcome it; they see an opportunity, and know how to make use of it; and they are ready, with all their faculties alert, to seize it before it has gone forever. Their success is visible to every eye, and arrests our attention at once. What we do not see, very often what we will not see, but deliberately shut our eyes to, is the foresight they exercise, the careful training they have undergone, the long practice which has made them perfect.

There is nothing brilliant or showy about this practice and training, and therefore we have not noticed them. But they are there, nevertheless. To all of us, every day of our lives, opportunities present themselves which pass without our heeding them, or, if we see them, without our having the courage and skill to avail ourselves of them. We let them fly, never to return, because we are not ready, and then we cry, "Just like our luck!" As Shakspeare says,

"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, But in ourselves, that we are underlings."

Away with your notions of luck. Be manly, and trust to work. Do your duty, and let luck do its worst.

THE TALKING LEAVES.[1]

An Indian Story.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

CHAPTER VII.

[1] Begun in No. 101, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

Before Steve Harrison and his friend left the ruins of the ancient town behind them, they had decided that they were going away from a complete solitude--a place where even wild Indians did not very often come.

It looked desolate enough, with its scattered inclosures of rough stone, not one of them with any roof on, or any sign that people had lived there for a hundred years at least. The windows in the tumbling walls had probably never had either sash or glass in them, and the furniture, used by the people who built the village, whatever it may have been, had long since disappeared.

It could never have been a very large or populous town, but it could hardly at any time have had a wilder-looking set of inhabitants than were the party of men who drew near it at about the time when Steve and Murray were killing their cougar.

Two tilted wagons, a good deal the worse for wear, apparently pretty heavily laden, and drawn by six mules each, were accompanied by about two dozen men on horseback. Their portraits would have made the fortune of any picture-gallery in the world. Everybody would have gone to look at such a collection of bearded desperadoes.

They were not Indians, nor were they dressed as such. They were attired in every fashion except well and cleanly. If the odds and ends of several clothing stores had been picked up after a fire, and then worn about out, and patched and mended with bits of blankets and greasy buckskin, something like those twenty odd suits of clothes might have been produced; that is, if the man who tried to do it could have had these for a pattern. If not, he would have failed.

The men themselves were as much out of the common way as were the clothes they wore, but they had somehow managed to keep their horses and mules in pretty good condition.

Horses and mules are of more importance than clothing to men who are as far away from tailors and civilization as were these new-comers in the neighborhood of Steve's mine.

If Steve had seen them he would probably have trembled for the "Buckhorn," for Murray would at once have told him that these men were miners.

That was nothing against them, certainly, and they must have been daring fellows to push their hunt for gold so far beyond any region known to such hunters.

One look at their hard, reckless faces would have convinced anybody about their "daring." They looked as if they were ready for anything.

So they were, indeed, and it is quite probable a man of Murray's experience would have guessed at once that they were ready for a good many other things besides mining.

Just now certainly they were thinking of something else.

"Bill," said the foremost rider to a man a little behind him, "we were wrong to leave the trail of them army fellers. We're stuck and lost in here among the mountains."

"It looks like it. We'll hev to go into camp, and scout around till we find a pass. But it wasn't any use follerin' the cavalry arter we found they was bound west."

"That's so. It won't do for us to come out on the Pacific slope. It's Mexico or Texas for us."

"We'd better say Santa Fe."

"They'd make us give too close an account of ourselves there. Some of the boys might let out somethin'."

"Guess it's Mexico, then. That isn't far away now. But I wish I knew the way down out of this."

The ruins, strange and wonderful as they were, did not seem to excite any great degree of curiosity among those men. They talked about them, to be sure, but in a way which showed that they had all seen the same sort of thing before during their wild rovings among the mountains and valleys of the great Southwest.

Just such ruins are to be found in a great many places. We do not even know how many, and nobody has been able yet to more than guess by whom they were built or when.

Mere ravines and gorges and cañons would not do for this party. They must find a regular "pass," down which they could manage to take their horses and mules and wagons. Even before they halted, several of them had been looking and pointing toward what Murray had spoken of as "the western gap."

That was the opening through the ranges which had been for a moment such a temptation to Steve Harrison.

"It's west'ard, Bill, but it may hev to do for us."

"It may take us down, to some lower level, or it may show us a way south."

"The great Southern Pass is down hereaway somewhar."

"Further east than this. We ought to strike it, though, before we cross the border."

"Mexico ain't a country I'd choose to go inter, ef I hed my own way, but we've got to go for it this time."

But whatever may have been their reason for seeking Mexico, they were just now a good deal puzzled as to the precise path by means of which they might reach it. It was getting late in the day, too, for any kind of exploration, and the mule-teams looked as if they had done about enough.

So it came to pass that the ruined village of the forgotten people was once more occupied.

Did they go into the houses? No. It was the man called Bill who said it, but all the rest of them seemed to feel just as he did, when he remarked:

"Sleep in one of them things? No, I guess not--not even if it was roofed in. They were set up too long ago to suit me."

That stamped him as an American, for there is no other people in the world that hate old houses. No real American was ever known to use an old building of any kind a day longer than he could help. He would as soon think of wearing old clothes just because they were old.

The ground near the ruins was covered with fragments of stone and fallen masonry, but there was a good camping ground between that and the trees from which Murray and Steve had fired at the buck.

"It's the loneliest kind of a place, Captain Skinner," said Bill, just after he had helped turn the mules loose on the grass.

"I wish I knew just how lonely it is. I kind o' smell something."

"Do ye, Cap?"

Every such band of men has its "Captain," of some kind, and sometimes very good discipline and order is kept up. But Captain Skinner was hardly the man anybody would have picked out for a leader, before seeing how the rest listened to what he said, and how readily they seemed to obey him.

He was the shortest, thinnest, ugliest, and most ragged man in the whole party; and just at this moment he did not appear to be carrying any arms except the knife and pistol in his belt.

"If I don't smell it, I can see it. Look yonder, Bill."

"That's so!--blood!"

It was the spot on which the buck had fallen, and in a moment more than half a dozen men were looking around in all directions.

They understood all they saw, too, as well as any Indians in the world, for in less than five minutes Captain Skinner said: "That'll do, boys. We must follow that trail. Two white hunters. They killed the buck. Both wore moccasins; so they ain't fresh from the settlements. There's something queer about it. They were on foot, and they carried off their game."

It was indeed very queer, and it would not do to let any such puzzle as that go by unsolved. So, while several men were ordered out after game, and several more were left to guard the camp, Captain Skinner himself, with Bill and five others, armed to the teeth, set out at once on the trail of Murray and Steve Harrison.

It was easy enough to follow those two pairs of footprints as long as they were made in the grass. After they got upon rocky ground, it was not so easy, and the miners did not get ahead so fast; but they did not lose the trail for a moment. Indeed, it was about as straight in one direction as the nature of the ground would permit.

"Two fellers out yer among these ere mountains, all by themselves," growled Bill, as they drew near the ledge at the head of the deep cañon.

"We don't know that they're all alone yet," said Captain Skinner. "They carried that deer somewhere."

"Right down yonder, Captain. They stopped here to rest from kerryin' of it, and I don't blame 'em, if they'd got to tote it down through that thar cañon."

"It's a deep one, no mistake."

"Captain, look yer!" suddenly exclaimed one of the men. "We've lit on it this time."

"The ledge? I wasn't looking at that."

A perfect storm of exclamations followed from every pair of lips in the party. Such a ledge as that they had never seen before, old mine-hunters as they were. But each one seemed inclined to ask, just as Murray had asked of Steve, what could be done with it. Gold enough, but nothing to get it out of the rock with, and no where to carry it to. It was a sad problem for men who cared for nothing in the wide world but just such ledges and just such gold. What was the use of it?

Steve Harrison never knew it, but his mine was of a good deal of use to him and Murray just then. It kept Captain Skinner and his men looking at it long enough for them to get nearly back to the camp of the Lipans.

"It won't do, boys," said Captain Skinner at last. "We're wasting time. Come on."

They followed him, every man turning his head as he did so to take another look at the yellow spots that shone here and there in the quartz. Their way down the ravine was made with care and circumspection, for they did not know at what moment they might come in sight of "those two fellers and their deer."

It was well for them, probably, that they were cautious, for, after a good deal of steep climbing, just as they were about to clamber down one of the rocky "stairs," the man called Bill exclaimed, "Captain, thar it is!"

"The deer? They've left it. I see it."

"More'n that further down."

"A big-horn! And there's a painter lying beside it!"

"More'n that, Cap. They didn't give up that thar game for nothin'."

"Lay low, boys. Git to cover right away. Red-skins!"

There was no difficulty in hiding among the rocks and bowlders, and the miners were out of sight in a moment.

They could see, though, even if they were not seen, and they were soon able to count a dozen Indian warriors leading three pack-ponies as far up the ravine as four-footed beasts could go.

"Wonder if they've wiped out the two fellers," said Bill.

"Looks like it. Or they may have captured 'em. Lost their game, if they haven't lost their scalps. Wonder what tribe of red-skins they are, anyhow."

There was a better reason than that why No Tongue and Yellow Head did not come back with their friends, but it was just as well that Captain Skinner and his miners did not understand it.

"Captain," whispered one of the men, "shall we let drive at 'em? We could pick off half of 'em first fire."

"Not a shot. All we want jest now is to be let alone. I don't mind killing a few red-skins."

"Mebbe they killed the two fellers."

"Likely as not. I'm kind o' glad they did. That there ledge is ours now. Let 'em carry off their game, and then we'll climb back. I reckon I know now how we'd best work our way down to the level those Indians came from."

The Lipans made short work of loading their ponies, and the moment they were out of sight, the miners began their climb out of that cañon. There was no good reason why they should follow the Lipans.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

Charlotte Corday is remembered as the assassin of the wicked Marat. No one was ever more cruel than Marat. He was one of the worst of the French Jacobins at Paris, who in 1793 practiced every kind of crime. They professed to be freemen, but were tyrants more cruel than Nero. They filled Paris with murders, executions, and every kind of misery. No one's life or property was safe, and Marat, who was now their leader, constantly urged them to new cruelty. He seemed to the people of Paris and all the world a savage monster who could only live amidst bloodshed and crimes, and had begun in France what is known as the "Reign of Terror."

There lived in the country a young girl whose intended husband, it is said, had been put to death at the suggestion of Marat. Her name was Charlotte Corday. She was about twenty-five years old, fond of reading and study, tall and beautiful, when she resolved to kill Marat. If she could destroy the monster, she thought she would save the republic and revenge her lost lover. In July, 1793, Charlotte bade her father good-by in a short note, and set out from a friend's house at Caen on her journey to Paris. She hoped to make her way into the famous club of the Jacobins, and stab Marat in the midst of his guilty companions.

Early on the second morning after she had reached Paris she went to the Palais Royal, bought a knife, and drove to the house of Marat. He had been for some time unwell, and unable to join his companions at the Jacobin Club. Charlotte was refused admittance, and went away disappointed. She went back to her hotel, wrote a short note to Marat, telling him that she wished to see him on business of importance to France, and once more returned to his house. She sent up the note. Marat read it, and ordered her to be admitted. He was in his bath; Charlotte stood alone before her victim. It was the 13th of July, 1793, about eight in the evening.

She told him of some events at Caen. Marat asked the names of the deputies from Caen, and began to write down a list of them to have them put to death. The guillotine was an instrument then employed to cut off people's heads; and Marat said, "Let them all be guillotined."

"Guillotined!" exclaimed Charlotte, with horror, and plunged the knife into Marat's heart.

"Help!" he cried; "help, my dear!"

His housekeeper and some others ran into the room. He was seen lying covered with blood, and Charlotte standing motionless beside him.

A crowd gathered around the house; they carried her away to prison. She was brought to trial before the Revolutionary judges, and showed no signs of emotion or fear. "It was I that killed Marat," she said. She was condemned to death. She wrote to her father, asking his forgiveness for having given her life to her country. On the 15th of July she was led through the streets of Paris to the scaffold. Many of the people followed her with applause and cries of sympathy. She smiled as her head was cut off, looking beautiful even in death.

Marat, her victim, was buried by his fellow Jacobins with a great display. His body was covered with flowers, and his bust or statue appeared in every part of Paris. The Reign of Terror went on for two years longer. The murders and executions were fearful. But at last Robespierre, Marat's successor, was killed, and the murderers were punished. Marat's four thousand busts were thrown down, and his grave dishonored.

As for Charlotte Corday, she was a murderess roused to madness by the crimes of her victim.

HOW "THE BABY" WENT NUTTING, AND WHAT CAME OF IT.

BY KATE UPSON CLARK.

"Beats all," said good old Mr. Hurlbut to good old Mrs. Hurlbut, as he laid down the paper from which he had been reading--"beats all what mizzable little fellers some o' them poor children in the city be. It seems a good many folks on farms, like us, Sereny, have took 'em in 'n' kep' 'em a spell. Must 'a done the poor little things good. Law! makes me feel bad."

Good Farmer Hurlbut took off his spectacles and wiped them with great thoroughness. He was thinking not only of the little newsboys, and the other poor children of whom he had been reading, in the city, fifty miles away, but of a certain little boy of his own and "Sereny's," who had gladdened their home for nine short years, and then had died, leaving them desolate indeed, but with a warm place in their hearts for all his kind.

Presently Farmer Hurlbut spoke again, and, it seemed to Aunt Sereny, rather irrelevantly:

"Lots o' nuts this year up in the north pastur. The clump o' chestnuts is fuller 'n ever--the biggest chestnuts I ever see; 'n' up higher there's more walnuts 'n' butternuts than you ever see in your life. Guess we'll have to go over and get George's folks 'n' Eliza Jane 'n' the girls, 'n' have a picnic some warm day up there, and gather 'em."

"Yes, we must," assented kind Aunt Sereny.

"It would be sorter nice for them poor little fellers in the city to take a day off in the woods so," continued Farmer Hurlbut, jerking his thumb toward the paper from which he had been reading.

"Yes, it would," concurred Aunt Sereny.

"But," went on Farmer Hurlbut, with a puzzled expression, "how to get at 'em--that's the question."

"I should think so," said Aunt Sereny, whose sole mission in life was to agree and to smooth over and to dispense peace generally.