Chapter 1

MUSIC AND MANNERS.

The boys at Mr. Morton's select school were not the only people in Laketon who were curious about Paul Grayson. Although the men and women had daily duties like those of men and women elsewhere, they found a great deal of time in which to think and talk about other people and their affairs. So all the boys who attended the school were interrogated so often about their new comrade, that they finally came to consider themselves as being in some way a part of the mystery.

Mr. Morton, who had opened his school only several weeks before the appearance of Grayson, was himself unknown at Laketon until that spring, when, after an unsuccessful attempt to be made principal of the grammar school, he had hired the upper floor of what once had been a store building, and opened a school on his own account. He had introduced himself by letters that the school trustees, and Mr. Merivale, pastor of one of the village churches, considered very good; but now that Grayson's appearance was explained only by the teacher's statement that the boy was son of an old school friend who now was a widower, some of the trustees wished they were able to remember the names and addresses appended to the letters that the new teacher had presented. Sam Wardwell's father having learned from Mr. Morton where last he had taught, went so far as to write to the wholesale merchants with whom he dealt, in New York, for the name of some customer in Mr. Morton's former town; but even by making the most of this roundabout method of inquiry he only learned that the teacher had been highly respected, although nothing was known of his antecedents.

With one of the town theories on the subject of Mr. Morton and Paul Grayson the boys entirely disagreed: this was that the teacher and the boy were father and son.

"I don't think grown people are so very smart, after all," said Sam Wardwell, one day, as the boys who were not playing lounged in the shade of the school building and chatted. "They talk about Grayson being Mr. Morton's son. Why, who ever saw Grayson look a bit afraid of the teacher?"

"Nobody," replied Ned Johnston, and no one contradicted him, although Bert Sharp suggested that there were other boys in the world who were not afraid of their fathers--himself, for instance.

"Then you ought to be," said Benny Mallow. Benny looked off at nothing in particular for a moment, and then continued, "I wish I had a father to be afraid of."

There was a short silence after this, for as no other boy in the group had lost a father, no one knew exactly what to say; besides, a big tear began to trickle down Benny's face, and all the boys saw it, although Benny dropped his head as much as possible. Finally, however, Ned Johnston stealthily patted Benny on the back, and then Sam Wardwell, taking a fine winter apple from his pocket, broke it in two, and extended half of it, with the remark, "Halves, Benny."

Benny said, "Thank you," and seemed to take a great deal of comfort out of that piece of apple, while the other boys, who knew how fond Sam was of all things good to eat, were so impressed by his generosity that none of them asked for the core of the half that Sam was stowing away for himself. Indeed, Ned Johnston was so affected that he at once agreed to a barter--often proposed by Sam and as often declined--of his Centennial medal for a rather old bass-line with a choice sinker.

Before the same hour of the next day, however, nearly every boy who attended Mr. Morton's school was wicked enough to wish to be in just exactly Benny Mallow's position, so far as fathers were concerned. This sudden change of feeling was not caused by anything that Laketon fathers had done, but through fear of what they might do. As no two boys agreed upon a statement of just how this difference of sentiment occurred, the author is obliged to tell the story in his own words.

Usually the boys hurried away from the neighborhood of the school as soon as possible after dismissal in the afternoon, but during the last recess of the day on which the above-recorded conversation occurred Will Palmer and Charley Gunter completed a series of a hundred games of marbles, and had the strange fortune to end exactly even. The match had already attracted a great deal of attention in the school--so much so that boys who took sides without thinking had foolishly made a great many bets on the result, and a deputation of these informed the players that it would be only the fair thing to play the deciding game that afternoon after school, so that boys who had bet part or all of their property might know how they stood. Will and Charley expressed no objection; indeed, each was so anxious to prove himself the best player that in his anxiety he made many blunders during the afternoon recitations.

As soon as the school was dismissed, the boys hurried into the yard, while Grayson, who had lately seen as much of marble-playing as he cared to, strolled off for a walk. The marble ring was quickly scratched on the ground, and the players began work. But the boys did not take as much interest in the game as they had expected to, for a rival attraction had unexpectedly appeared on the ground since recess: two rival attractions, more properly speaking, or perhaps three, for in a shady corner sat an organ-grinder, on the ground in front of him was an organ, and on top of this sat a monkey. Now to city boys more than ten years of age an organ-grinder is almost as uninteresting as a scolding; but Laketon was not a city, organ-grinders reached it seldom, and monkeys less often; so fully half the boys lounged up to within a few feet of the strangers, and devoured them with their eyes, while the man and the animal devoured some scraps of food that had been begged at a kitchen door.

Nobody can deny that a monkey, even when soberly eating his dinner, is a very comical animal, and no boy ever lived, not excepting that good little boy Abel, who did not naturally wonder what a strange animal would do if some one disturbed him in some way. Which of Mr. Morton's pupils first felt this wonder about the organ-grinder's monkey was never known; the boys soon became too sick of the general subject to care to compare notes about this special phase of it; but the first one who ventured to experiment on the monkey was Bert Sharp, who made so skillful a "plumper" shot with a marble, from the level of his trousers pocket, that the marble struck the monkey fairly in the breast, and rattled down on the organ, while the monkey, who evidently had seen boys before, made a sudden jump to the head of his master, and then scrambled down the Italian's back, and hid himself so that he showed only as much of his head as was necessary to his effort to peer across the organ-grinder's shoulder.

"Maledetta!" growled the Italian, as he looked inquiringly around him. As none of the boys had ever before heard this word, they did not know whether it was a question, a rebuke, or a threat; but they saw plainly enough that the man was angry, and although most of them stepped backward a pace or two, they all joined in the general laugh that a crowd of boys are almost sure to indulge in when they see any one in trouble, that any one of the same boys would be sorry about were he alone when he saw it.

The organ-grinder began munching his food very rapidly, as if in haste to finish his meal, yet he did not forget to pass morsels across his shoulder to his funny little companion, and the manner in which the monkey put up a paw to take the food amused the boys greatly. Benny Mallow thought that monkey was simply delightful, but he could not help wondering what the animal would do if a marble were to strike his paw as he put it up. Animals' paws are soft at bottom, reasoned Benny to himself, and marbles shot through the air can not hurt much if any; the result of this short argument was that Benny tried a "plumper" shot himself; but the marble, instead of striking the monkey's paw, went straight into the mouth of the organ-grinder, who was just about to take a mouthful of bread.

Up sprang the Italian, with an expression of countenance so perfectly dreadful that Benny Mallow dreamed of it, for a month after, whenever he ate too much supper. All the boys ran, and the Italian pursued them with words so strange and numerous that the boys could not have repeated one of them had they tried. Every boy was half a block away before he thought to look around and see whether the footsteps behind him were those of the organ-grinder or of some frightened boy. Sam Wardwell stumbled and fell, at which Ned Johnston, who had been but a step or two behind, fell upon Sam, who instantly screamed, "Oh, don't, mister: I didn't do it--really I didn't."

On hearing this all the other boys thought it safe to stop and look, and when they saw the Italian was not in the street at all, they felt so ashamed that there is no knowing what they would have done if they had not had Sam Wardwell to laugh at. As for Sam, he was so angry about the mistake he had made that he vowed vengeance against the Italian, and hurried back toward the yard. Will Palmer afterward said that he couldn't see how the Italian was to blame, and Ned Johnston said the very same thought had occurred to him; but somehow neither of the two happened to mention the matter, as they, with the other boys, followed Sam Wardwell to see what he would do. Looking through the cracks of the fence, the boys saw the Italian, with his organ and monkey on his back, coming down the yard; at the same time they saw nearly half a brick go up the yard, and barely miss the organ-grinder's head. The man said nothing; perhaps he had been in difficulties with boys before, and had learned that the best way to get out of them was to walk away as fast as possible; besides, there was no one in sight for him to talk to, for Sam had started to run the instant that the piece of brick left his hand. The man came out of the yard, looked around, saw the boys, turned in the opposite direction, and then turned up an alley that passed one side of the school-house.

He could not have done worse; for no one lived on the alley, so any mischievous boy could tease him without fear of detection. He had gone but a few steps when Sam, who had hidden in a garden on the same alley, rose beside a fence, and threw a stick, which struck the organ. The man stopped, turned around, saw the whole crowd of boys slowly following, supposed some one of them was his assailant, threw the stick swiftly at the party, and then started to run. No one was hit, but the mere sight of a frightened man trying to escape seemed to rob the boys of every particle of humanity. Charley Gunter, who was very fond of pets, devoted himself to trying to hit the monkey with stones; Will Palmer, who had once helped nurse a friendless negro who had cut himself badly with an axe, actually shouted "Hurra!" when a stone thrown by himself struck one of the man's legs, and made him limp; Ned Johnston hurriedly broke a soft brick into small pieces, and threw them almost in a shower; and even Benny Mallow, who had always been a most tender-hearted little fellow, threw stones, sticks, and even an old bottle that he found among the rubbish that had been thrown into the alley.

Suddenly a stone--there were so many in the air at a time that no one knew who threw that particular stone--struck the organ-grinder in the back of the head, and the poor fellow fell forward flat, with his organ on top of him, and remained perfectly motionless.

"He's killed!" exclaimed some one, as the pursuers stopped. In an instant all the boys went over the fences on either side of the alley, but not until Paul Grayson, crossing the upper end of the alley, had seen them, and they had seen him.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

FORDING A RIVER IN CENTRAL ASIA.

BY DAVID KER.

I have heard many complaints made of the impossibility of sleeping in a railway car, and have wondered much how those who made them would have fared if compelled to spend, not one night, but twelve or fourteen in succession, in crossing the roadless plains and hills of Central Asia in a Russian cart, whose whole progress is a series of jolts that might dislocate the spine of a megatherium, flinging one at every turn against the corner of a box, or the broad shoulders of the Tartar driver. The correct way of preparing for a journey in this primitive region is to half fill your cart with hay, lay your baggage upon it as a kind of pavement, and cover the whole with a straw mattress, upon which you recline, walled in with rolled-up wrappers to keep you from being absolutely battered to bits against the sides of the vehicle. You then provide yourself with a hatchet and a coil of rope, as an antidote to the inevitable coming off of a wheel two or three times a day during the whole journey, and thus fore-armed, you are, as the Russians significantly say, "ready to _chance it_."

After a night of such travel as this, with all its attendant bumps, bruises, and overturns, among the hills on the frontier of Bokhara, my English comrade and I find ourselves nearing the once famous city of Samarcand, and getting forward much more easily now that the plain is fairly reached at last. But what we gain in comfort we lose in picturesqueness. For several miles our course lies through the wet, miry level of the rice fields, and we leave them only to emerge upon a wide waste of bare gravel, amid which the once formidable current of the "gold-giving Zer-Affshan" has shrunk to a single narrow channel, the only fine feature of the landscape being the dark purple ridge beyond, upon which, in June, 1868, was fought the battle that decided the fate of Bokhara.

But commonplace as it looks, every foot of this region is historic ground. Here stood the centre of a mighty empire, drawing to itself all the pomp and splendor of the East, in days when marsh frogs were croaking upon the site of St. Petersburg, and Indians lighting their camp fires upon that of New York. The very earth seems still shaking with the march of ancient conquerors, and one would hardly wonder to see Alexander's Macedonians coming with measured tramp over the boundless level, or low-browed Attila, with the light of a grim gladness in his deep-set eyes, waving on five hundred thousand horsemen with the sweep of his enchanted sabre. But mingled with these memories comes the thought of one who surpassed them both--a little, swarthy, keen-eyed, limping man, known to history as Timour the Tartar, who crushed into one great whole all the jarring kingdoms of Asia, only that they might melt into chaos again the moment that mighty grasp was relaxed by death.

* * * * *

"We must get out here, David Stepanovitch!"

The shrill call sweeps away my visions, and I look up to find myself in front of a tiny hut--a mere speck in that wilderness of gravel--beside which three or four wild-looking figures are grouped around a huge _arba_ (native cart), conspicuous by its immense breadth of beam, and its gigantic wheels, seven good feet in diameter.

Mourad hastily explains that to attempt fording the river in our little post-cart will be certain destruction to our baggage, and that we must shift to the arba, which, light, strong, and, thanks to its great breadth, almost impossible to overturn, seems made for this roadless region, as the camel is for the desert.

The transfer is soon effected, but it takes some time to secure our packages against the tremendous shaking which awaits them, and our careful henchman goes over his work three times before he can persuade himself to let go. But the reckless Bokhariotes, who care little if we and all our belongings go to the bottom, provided they get their money, cut him short by leaping onto the front of the huge tray, and heading right down upon the river.

We make five or six lesser crossings before coming to the real one, the Zer-Affshan, like Central Asian rivers generally, being given to wasting its strength in minor channels; but even these run with a force and swiftness that show us what we have to expect. At length, after a comparatively long interval of bare gravel, the two Bokhariotes suddenly plant themselves back to back, with their feet against the sides of the cart. The huge vehicle halts for a moment, as if to gather strength for its final leap, and then rushes into the stream.

And now comes the tug of war. The wheels have barely made three turns in the water when the great mass trembles under a shock like the collision of a train, and to our bewildered eyes the river appears to be standing perfectly still, and we ourselves to be flying backward at full speed.

Deeper and deeper grows the water, stronger and stronger presses the current. Already the little post-cart following in our wake is almost submerged, and the water is battering against the bottom of the arba, and splashing over our feet as we sit. More than once the horses stop short, and plant their feet firmly, to save themselves from being swept bodily away, and the roar of the chafing pebbles comes up to us like the tramp of a charging squadron.

In the midst of the din and hurly-burly, the lashing water, and the blinding spray, a terrible thought suddenly occurs to me. "By Jove! all my sugar's in the bottom of my store chest. It'll be all melted, to a certainty."

"Shouldn't wonder," remarks my friend, with that quiet fortitude wherewith men are wont to bear the misfortunes of other people. "However, you can get some more at Samarcand; and, after all, a trunk lined with sugar will be worth exhibiting at home--if you ever get there."

For the next few minutes it is "touch and go" with us; but even among Asiatics nothing can be spun out forever. Little by little the water grows shallower, the ground firmer, the strain less and less violent, till at length we come out upon dry land once more, decant the contents of the arba back into the cart, reward our pilots, and are off again.

THE TUG OF WAR

This is an old English game, which has become a favorite athletic exercise in almost all countries, as a trial of strength and endurance. In England it used to be called "French and English," from the ancient rivalry that existed between the two nationalities. Our picture shows how the game is played. Care should be taken to have a stout rope, and the players should be divided so that each party may as nearly as possible be of equal strength. The party that pulls the other over a line marked on the ground between them is the winner in the game. Sometimes a string is tied on the rope, and when the game begins this string should be directly over the dividing line. It often happens that the parties are so evenly matched that neither can pull the string more than an inch or two over the line; and then it becomes a trial of endurance, and the question is which side can hold out the longer.

Among the Burmese the "tug of war" is a part of the religious ceremonies held when there is a scarcity of rain. Instead of rope, long, slender canes are twisted together, and spokes are thrust through to give a firm hold. The sides are taken by men from different quarters of a town, or from different villages. Each side is marshalled by two drums and a harsh wind-instrument, which make a hideous noise. A few priests are generally seen squatting on the ground near by, chewing the betel-nut, and reading their laws, which are printed on slips of palm leaf. Every now and then they give a shout of encouragement. Each side tries to pull the other over the line, amid shouts and cries of the most vigorous description. It makes no difference which side wins the day, as victory to either party is supposed by the superstitious natives to bring the wished-for rain. Continued drought does not discourage them from repeating the ceremony time after time; and when the rain comes at last they firmly believe it is in answer to their incantations.

FOUND IN A FROG.

BY MISS VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON,

AUTHOR OF "THE CATSKILL FAIRIES."

The sun had risen when Gita awoke. She lived at the top of a tall old house with her grandmother, and both were poor. When she had put on her thin cotton gown, and smoothed her hair with her small brown hands, Gita ran down stairs lightly; and these stairs--some crooked stone steps in a dark passage--would have broken our necks to descend. She came out in a narrow street with the tall houses almost meeting overhead, and steep paths or flights of steps leading down to the shore. The town was Mentone, in the south of France, with the boundary line of Italy not half a mile distant. At one end of the street was visible the blue sky, and two churches, yellow and white, on an open square, with towers, where the bells were ringing.

Gita felt in her pocket for a crust of hard bread, and began to eat. This was her breakfast, and if she had been richer she would have drunk a little black coffee with it. As it was, she paused at the fountain, where the women were gossiping as they drew water in buckets, and placed her mouth under the spout.

Raphael came along, and greeted her. Raphael, a tall young fellow with bright eyes, a face the color of bronze, and a little black mustache, was the son of a merchant who kept goats and donkeys for the visitors who came here every year. The goats furnished rich milk for the invalids to drink, while the ladies and children rode the donkeys. Gita found Raphael very handsome.

He wore a curious straw hat with the brim turned up, a shirt striped with red, blue pantaloons, and a yellow sash about his waist. One could see he esteemed himself rather a dandy. In turn Raphael found Gita the prettiest girl of his acquaintance, with her large black eyes, brown face, and white teeth. Besides, Gita was amiable, and did not mock at him when he walked on the Promenade on Sunday with his hat on one side, and a cigarette in his mouth.

"I have asked the consent of my parents to our marriage," said Raphael. "They refuse, unless you have a dower of at least a hundred francs. We must wait."

Gita sighed and shook her head as she pursued her way down to the shore. In these countries the young people must obtain the consent of their parents to marry, and the bride should have a dowry. Gita had not a penny; Raphael's father might as well have asked him to bring the moon as one hundred francs.

Grandmother was seated under an archway, with her little furnace before her, roasting chestnuts. Grandmother, a wrinkled old woman, with a red handkerchief wound about her head, was a chestnut merchant. The sailors, children, and Italians coming over the border bought her wares, and when she was not employed in serving them she twisted flax on a distaff.

"Raphael's father needs a dowry of one hundred francs," said Gita, as grandmother gave her a few chestnuts.

"Ah, if you were a lemon girl!" said grandmother, beginning to twist the flax.

Gita poised a basket on her head, took a white stocking from her pocket, and began to knit as she walked away. The women of the country carry all burdens on their heads. You may see a mother with a mound of cut grass on her head, dandling a little baby in her arms as she moves along. Grandmother had been a lemon girl in her day, but Gita was not strong enough. The lemon girls bring the fruit on their heads many miles, from the lemon groves down to the ships, when they are sent to America and other distant lands.

When you next taste a lemonade at a Sunday-school picnic, little reader, remember how far the lemon has travelled to furnish you this refreshing drink.

Gita went along the shore knitting, her empty basket tilted on her head. The blue Mediterranean Sea sparkled as far as the eye could reach, and broke on the pebbles of the beach in waves as clear as crystal. Soon she turned back toward the hills, following a narrow path between high garden walls, passed under a railroad bridge, and entered an olive garden. She worked here all day, gathering up the little black olives which fall from the trees, much as children gather nuts in the woods at home. Other women were already at work; their dresses of gay colors, yellow and red, showed against the gray background of the trees. A boy beat the branches with a long pole. Gita began to work with the rest. She did not think much about the olive-tree, although it was a good friend. She was paid twenty sous a day to gather the berries from the ground, which were then taken to the crushing mill up the ravine to be made into oil. Gita ate the green lemons plucked from the trees as a child of the North would eat apples, but she loved the good olive-oil better. When the grandmother made a feast, it was to fry the little silvery sardines in oil, so crisp and brown.

The olive-tree is a native of Asia Minor, and often mentioned in the Bible. Some of the trees in the garden where Gita now worked were so old that the Romans saw them when they conquered the world.

At noon the olive-pickers paused to rest. Gita went away alone, and ate the handful of chestnuts given her by grandmother. When she returned to the town at night she would have another bit of bread and a raw onion. She seated herself on the edge of the ravine, and thought about Raphael as she munched her nuts. Below, this path traversed the ravine, and climbed the opposite slope to the wall of a pretty villa, one of the houses occupied for the winter by rich strangers. Gita looked at the villa, with its window shaded by lace curtains, balconies, and terraces, where orange-trees were covered with little golden balls of fruit.

"If I were rich like that I would have soup every day, sometimes made of pumpkin and sometimes with macaroni in it," she thought.

Then she turned over a stone with her heavy shoe, and it rolled down the hill. Gita uttered a cry. The stone had covered a hole at the root of the olive-tree where she sat, far away from the other workers. In the hole she saw a green frog; she dropped on her knees to look at it more closely. Yes, it was a green frog. How did it come there? She touched it with her fingers; the frog did not move or croak. Then she took it out carefully. The frog was one of those pasteboard boxes which appear each year in the shop windows of Paris for Easter presents, in company with fish, lobsters, and shells.

Gita raised the lid. Inside were bank-bills and a lizard. She knew lizards very well; they were always whisking over the stone walls; but then those were of a sober brown tint, while this one was white until she lifted it, when it sparkled like a dewdrop. The lizard was an ornament made of diamonds. Gita held her breath and closed her eyes. She believed herself asleep. Soon she rose, took the box in her hand, and crossing the ravine, began to climb the path to the villa above.

As she reached the door a pony-carriage drove up. A big servant with many buttons on his coat told her to go away. Gita paused, holding the box. The pale lady in the carriage, who was wrapped in furs, motioned her to approach. Quickly the girl ran forward and held out the frog.

"I found it in a hole at the foot of the olive-tree," she explained. "It must belong to this house."

The lady took the box and opened it, emptying the contents on her lap. There lay the diamond lizard, and the roll of French bank-notes.

"You see that Pierre was a dishonest servant, although nothing was found on him," said the lady to those about her. "He must have hidden this box in the olive grove to return from Nice later and find it."

Gita listened with her mouth and eyes wide open. The lady looked at her and smiled.

"You are a good girl," she said.

Then she selected one of the bills and gave it to Gita. It was a note of one hundred francs.

"Now I can marry Raphael!" she cried.

Raphael was standing beside grandmother's chestnut-roaster when both saw Gita running toward them, her cheeks red, and her eyes flashing like stars. She had to tell all about the frog, not only to them, but to the neighbors. As for grandmother, she could not hear the story often enough. When she had been a lemon girl no such luck had befallen her.

"Who would have thought of finding a wedding dowry in a frog?" laughed Raphael.

Gita and Raphael are soon to be married in the yellow church on the hill. The olive-pickers in the grove seek for something beside the dark berries; they hope to find a green frog under a stone, containing money and a diamond lizard; but this will never again happen.

JAPANESE LIFE.

The Japanese is the cleanest of mankind. Cleanliness is, so to speak, more than godliness with him. Though he has no soap, he washes all over at least once a day--he worships but once a week. His candles are made of vegetable wax. He uses a cotton coverlet, well stuffed and padded, for bed-covering and mattress. A sort of stereoscope case--made of wood--makes his pillow. He resorts to that, and so do his wife and daughters, that their carefully arranged hair may not be disarranged during sleep. No head-covering is worn by the Japanese. No nation dresses the hair so tastefully. Usually it is with the men shaved in sections. They are coming now to wear it in European fashion. They are adopting all European customs.

On levée day I saw the reception at the Mikado's palace in Yeddo. Every one presented had to come in European full dress. That dress does not become the Japanese figure. He looks awkward in it. His legs are too short. The tails of his claw-hammer coat drag on the ground, and the black dress trousers wrinkle up and get baggy around his feet. His European-fashioned clothes have been sent out ready-made from America or England, and in no case did I notice anything approaching to a good fit. Yet he smiled and looked happy, though he could not get his heels half way down his Wellington boots, and his hat was either too large or too small for his head. He always smiles and looks pleasant. Nothing can make him grumble, and he has not learned to swear. He is satisfied to be paid his due, and never asks for more. As a New York cabman he would be a veritable living curiosity.

WHERE DID POTATOES COME FROM?

Nobody knows precisely where the potato came from originally. It has been found, apparently indigenous, in many parts of the world. Mr. Darwin, for instance, found it wild in the Chonos Archipelago. Sir W. J. Hooker says that it is common at Valparaiso, where it grows abundantly on the sandy hills near the sea. In Peru and other parts of South America it appears to be at home; and it is a noteworthy fact that Mr. Darwin should have noted it both in the humid forests of the Chonos Archipelago and among the central Chilian mountains, where sometimes rain does not fall for six months at a stretch. It was to the colonists whom Sir Walter Raleigh sent out in Elizabeth's reign that we are indebted for our potatoes.

Herriot, who went out with these colonists, and who wrote an account of his travels, makes what may, perhaps, be regarded as the earliest mention of this vegetable. Under the heading of "Roots," he mentions what he calls the "openawk." "These roots," he says, "are round, some large as a walnut, others much larger. They grow on damp soils, many hanging together as if fixed on ropes. They are good food, either boiled or roasted."

At the beginning of the seventeenth century this root was planted, as a curious exotic, in the gardens of the nobility, but it was long ere it came into general use. Many held them to be poisonous, and it would seem not altogether unreasonably so either. The potato is closely related to the deadly-nightshade and the mandrake, and from its stems and leaves may be extracted a very powerful narcotic. In England prejudice against it was for a long time very strong, especially among the poor.

[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 47, September 21.]

"MOONSHINERS."

BY E. H. MILLER.