Part 5

“Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia gives it briefly,” said Somebody. “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that, whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness--

“‘We, therefore--do solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and that as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce and do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.’”

Mr. Irish Potato

“Oh, goody,” said the boy named Billy. “Baked potatoes for supper--I can smell them--I am certainly grateful to Old Ireland for sending us her wonderful potatoes. I’m going to have cream on mine and eat every bit of the jacket.”

“So shall I,” said Somebody, laughing. “I don’t know of anything more appetizing than a big well-baked potato, but I must tell you, Billy Boy, that the cause for gratitude is the other way around--Ireland has America to thank for potatoes. But we surely owe her a vote of thanks for showing us what a useful article of food we were neglecting to use.”

“Why! Where did the potato come from if not from Ireland--they’re always spoken of as Irish Potatoes--” said the boy named Billy.

“The botanical books have this to say about it,” said Somebody. “Potato--Solanum tuberosa--a native of Chile, Peru, and the Rocky Mountains of North America.

“The potato was taken to England from America in the early part of the 16th century by Sir Francis Drake who saw in it a valuable food for cattle. But when the grain crops failed in 1772 the people, especially those in Ireland, began to grow the potato extensively for food for the people, and as it was so easily raised it soon became very popular, and was eagerly adopted by the Irish as their very own.

“In the United States the growing of early potatoes for northern markets is an important industry as far south as Florida and the Bermudas; but potatoes flourish best in climates which are just too cool for corn. There is a belt of 120,000,000 acres, running from Newfoundland, maritime Canada, and New England, through New York, Pennsylvania, and the American and Canadian Lake region, and by way of the Yukon Valley almost into the Arctic Circle, where potatoes have been found amazingly productive. The giant Idaho and Montana potatoes, which often weigh several pounds, are favorites for baking.

“Growing from seed seldom produces satisfactory potatoes, but seedsmen plant them in the hope of discovering new and desirable varieties, as did Burbank when he grew from seed the potato which bears his name. There are now perhaps a thousand well-developed varieties, while at the time of the American Revolution there were only two, the red and the white. In growing potatoes, the most perfect tubers should be chosen, cut in pieces and planted; the new plants grow from the eyes or buds on the cuttings.

“The cultivation of the potato has played an important part in the history of Europe. In certain parts of Germany it helped to check the famines caused by the Thirty Years’ War. By 1688 it had become the staple food of the Irish peasantry, and the failure of the potato crop in 1845 and the resulting famine started the first great wave of Irish immigration to the United States.”

“I was reading an old poem about that Irish famine the other day,” said the boy named Billy, “where a little boy was begging his mother for just one grain of corn--I felt so sorry for him, but I can see now that he suffered hunger so that all the other children in the world might have good food all their lives--I hope someone gave him a nice hot baked potato before he got too hungry. There’s the dinner gong--Hurrah for the Irish!”

“Hurrah for us, too!” said Somebody.

“Sure,” said the boy named Billy.

Old Abe, the Wisconsin War-Eagle

“Teacher was reading to the class about Old Abe, the war Eagle, today,” said the boy named Billy.

“What about him,” asked Big Sister, “I do not remember anything about him in my United States History.”

“Teacher said he was not really historical--just an incident in the history of the Civil War, but he is most interesting,” said the boy named Billy. “He went through three years of the war and was in the thick of every battle, where he seemed to be having the time of his life, understanding which side he belonged to very well indeed. One day when the Confederate soldiers had been told by their officers to ‘get that old bird’ and they were all firing on him as hard as they possibly could, Old Abe went up in the air and stayed there circling ’round and ’round--screaming his head off, and when the battle was over he went back to his standard minus a few feathers but still all in one piece, as Big Brother says.”

“Wherever did they get him?” asked Big Sister.

“Some people say Old Abe was caught in the spring of 1861 on the banks of the Flambeau River in Wisconsin when the Indians were making their maple sugar, by the son of Chief Thunder-Of-Bees. He climbed to the top of the tall tree where the Eagles had their nest and took the baby bird out when the old ones were away. Others say that he chopped the tree down and had a fight with the old birds, but finally escaped with the little one who was then about as large as a hen. Anyway he got him, and took him home to the children, where he became quite one of the family, until when it was planting time Chief Sky sold him for a bushel of seed corn. A man named Mills then bought him from his owner for five dollars and presented him to a Company of young volunteers who were organizing to go to the front.

“The boys thought Mr. Eagle was great fun, and they made him enlist, by putting the colors around his neck and a shield on his breast so that he was really a living United States Emblem. Then they christened him ‘Old Abe’ in honor of the president, and made a standard for him, and after that wherever his regiment, the 8th Wisconsin, went, there was Old Abe in all his glory, so that the regiment became known as the Eagle Regiment.

“After the war he was taken back to Madison where he had started from three long years before, and was given a perch in the Capitol where he held a reception every day. P. T. Barnum wanted to buy him and so did many others, but he could not be purchased. There wasn’t money enough in the world to buy him.

“In the winter of 1864-5 he was taken to the big fair at Chicago where his photographs were sold for the benefit of sick and wounded soldiers, and he earned in that way 16,000 dollars. In 1876 he was taken to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia where he was greatly admired, and when that was over he was taken home again to his perch in the State Capitol at Madison.

“In 1881 the bird died of old age and the people of Madison had his skin stuffed and mounted on his old perch. There Old Abe stood, looking every inch a war eagle and a hero, until the State House burned.”

“That is a very interesting story,” said Somebody.

“It is in a book called ‘The Great Seal’ by a Mr. J. Cigrand,” said the boy named Billy. “I’m going to read it all when I can read a little better.”

About Clocks

“Look at my new wrist-watch! Mom gave it to me for my birthday--isn’t it a beauty?” said the boy named Billy. “Radium dial ’n all; I can see what time it is in the dark. Handy when I’m on hikes, no more stopping to scratch matches. Stem winder ’n everything.”

“Goodness, Billy,” said Big Sister. “Anyone would think to hear you that there never was a watch like that of yours. We all have watches.”

Billy grinned. “Well,” he said, “I’ve wanted it so long. A fellow _needs_ something to tell time by. Who discovered how to tell time anyhow?”

“The first Caveman, probably,” said Somebody. “He needed to let the ladies of the family know when he was coming home to dinner, so he very likely pointed to the sun, and drew a line in the sand, to tell them that when the sunshine reached that spot he would be home and that dinner better be forthcoming pronto! That was the sundial idea, which was the only way of time-telling for ages. Cleopatra’s needle is supposed to have been one of the big sun dials. But as it was certainly inconvenient not to be able to tell the time on dark days, it was only a matter of time when some more convenient method of recording the hours would be found. When it did appear it was in the shape of the clepsydra, or water thief, a brass bowl with a hole in the bottom, which was floated on top of another bowl full of water, the principle being that when the bowl had filled itself with water an hour had passed, then a slave would empty the bowl, and hit it with a rod to announce the hour.”

“But someone must have sat up all night to watch the bowl and strike the hours,” said the boy named Billy.

“Precisely,” said Somebody, “so they consulted the stars, and discovered that they could divide the night into ‘watches’ of so many hours duration, and then they had different watchmen to sit up with the clepsydra, and announce the hours.

“The Priests of Babylon were very wise men indeed, and it was not long until they had figured out how to divide the years into months and weeks and days and hours and minutes and seconds.

“But it was not until 1581 that a young Spaniard, standing in the Cathedral of Pisa discovered, by watching a swinging lamp, the principle of the pendulum. He noticed that when it moved a short distance, it moved slowly, and that the farther it moved, the faster became the motion, making the long swing in the same time as it did the shorter one. And in this way was the pendulum applied to the making of time-telling machines.

“In the 12th Century there were clocks which struck the hours, but which had no dials or hands, but after the idea of time-telling machines started it traveled fast, and in the 14th Century real clocks began to appear.

“We have not time to go through the whole fascinating story of how the idea progressed, but we know that in Shakespeare’s time there were watches that could be carried in the pocket.”

“Why were they called ‘watches’ instead of clocks,” asked the boy named Billy.

“The clock, or orloge, as they were then called, struck the hours, and the watch was very probably so named from the silent ‘watches of the night’,” said Somebody. “That last is just a guess, but it’s as good as anybody’s guess at that.”

“Who made the first clock in America?” asked the boy named Billy.

“Eli Terry did, in the year 1809,” said Somebody, “and after a time he got Seth Thomas to help him. As soon as people realized what a very great convenience it was to be able to keep accurate time, nobody wanted to be without a clock. And then people began to travel more and needed to have something portable with which to tell time, and so the convenient watches came to be made.

“‘What time is it?’ you ask. Centuries of scientific progress, with vast labor and years of patient study, have been necessary to answer that question. You’ll find that men had to delve into mathematics, the mysteries of astronomy, the wonders of physics and chemistry, before they could force the hands on the dial to tell you when to start for school or to catch your train. As you look at a clock, remember that every time the minute-hand passes from one of its marks to the next, it shows that this huge globe on which we live has covered more than 1,000 miles of its headlong journey.

“And then along came Madame Curie, the brilliant French scientist, and discovered radium, the merest shadow of which makes the dial of your watch luminous for as long as it lasts.

“There is a very famous clock in Strasbourg which not only tells the time of day, but also the day of week, the month, and the position of the moon and the planets. At various times processions of tiny figures cross a stage, including a cock that crows. The day of week is indicated by a separate little figure which takes its place on a tiny platform.

“A watch is perhaps the most wonderful little machine in the world. Packed in a case sometimes no bigger than a twenty-five cent piece and less than a quarter of an inch thick are from one hundred and fifty to eight hundred separate parts. And there you are, Billy Boy!”

“Time for bed,” said Mother. “And don’t linger too long admiring your new watch or it will be time to get up.”

“Goodnight everybody, and Somebody,” said the boy named Billy, “and thanks again, Mom, for the watch. I’ve never before had such a jimdandy birthday gift.”

About Cotton

“Away down South in the land of cotton Cinnamon seed and sandy bottom Look away, look away, look away down South in Dixie,”

sang the boy named Billy.

“Wherever did you dig up that old Dixie song?” Somebody asked, smiling. “I haven’t heard it in years.”

“Bob White’s Grandfather is always singing it,” said the boy named Billy, “and we play soldier to it--it has such a dandy swing to it--listen:

“‘In Dixie Land I’ll take my stand To live and die for Dixie--Look away-- Look away--look away down South in Dixie’

--it’s an old war song, isn’t it?”

“It is one of the old negro melodies which the boys adopted as a marching song in the Civil War,” said Somebody, “and very dear to the hearts of everyone from the ‘land of cotton’.”

“I’ve been meaning to ask something about cotton--Teacher says that if coal is king in America cotton is easily queen. I did not know before that it was so important--I thought you just made house dresses and aprons of it. Bob White says that when he was down South with his folks last winter the fields were all blossomed out white and the people were picking the flowers.”

“Bob should have asked questions about it,” said Somebody, “and in that way he would have found out that the white ‘blooms’ were in reality the ripened cotton, or boll, as it is called. When the cotton has gone to seed it is ready to be picked, and if left to itself would in time blow away in the winds, scattering its seeds just as old Grandfather dandelion does his.

“But it is far too valuable to be left to do that, so it is carefully picked and prepared for market; but valuable as the fibre, the seed, which is deeply embedded in the cotton, is almost more so. But the seed is very hard to get at, and before the cotton gin was invented by Eli Whitney it was a year’s work for one person to clean the seeds from enough cotton to make one bale, but now with the machinery they have it is easy to prepare many bales in one day.”

“Where did it come from?” asked Billy.

“Most of it,” said Somebody, “came from our own Southern States, but it has been grown in Asia and Egypt for centuries, being one of the oldest plants on record.”

“What are some of the uses of cotton?” asked Billy.

“They are so many I couldn’t begin to tell you,” said Somebody, “but all our bed linen is made from it, as well as most of our curtains, and underwear and the dainty things Little Sister wears, as well as the lovely voile dresses that make Mother look like a bunch of posies. It is indispensable for bandages and pads to dress wounds with and for many other things.”

“I think it’s wonderful,” said the boy named Billy, “how many of the things that we use every day just grow.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Somebody, “Mother Nature has put everything we could possibly need, in this good old world of ours, and expects us to use our brains to find out just how to use them.”

“Thanks, Somebody,” said the boy named Billy, “I’m going over to tell Bob White all about those wonderful cotton flowers he thinks he saw!”

About Coral

“Uncle Bob has just returned from California,” said the boy named Billy, “and has brought Big Sister a necklace of very beautiful coral beads; not a bit like the dark red branchy looking ones that she has had since she was a baby! These are rose pink with little hand-carved roses all over them. What sort of a stone is coral, and where is it found? It’s lovely!”

“Strictly speaking,” said Somebody, “although coral has all the appearance of stone it isn’t that at all, although it is just as dangerous to a ship to run aground on a reef of it as it would be to run on the rocks--it’s so jagged and sharp. It is really the bones you might say of living creatures which made their homes in that particular spot for ages and dying have left their skeletons behind them for a monument.

“These little sea animals are called polyps and the coral grows inside their soft outer structure just as your bones do inside your flesh. Among the greatest architects in the world are the little coral-making animals, creatures of shallow water in the warmer seas. Some kinds live all alone, but the commoner ones live in colonies of many individuals united by a stalk with many branches--sort of a family tree you might say--indeed they were once called plant animals. They have a very helpful and economical way of living,” went on Somebody, “for when something good to eat swims or floats within reach of one little polyp’s mouth he sucks it in, swallows it, and all his hungry relatives get the benefit of it.”

“That’s what I’d call being real chummy,” said the boy named Billy. “How do they manage that?”

“They have a sort of family stomach,” said Somebody, “or reservoir into which all food absorbed by the colony goes.”

“I don’t believe I’d like that very well,” said Billy. “One fellow might have to eat all the things he didn’t care about and another would get all the pie.”

“I do not suppose the polyp has much to boast of in the way of the sense of taste,” laughed Somebody, “but you’ve got to admit that he does his duty as he sees it without shirking.”

“I should say he does,” said Billy. “What else does he do besides working for the good of his family?”

“He has a quite important hand in making the ‘beauteous land,’” said Somebody. “The Great Barrier Reef of Australia, extending a thousand miles along the coast and in some places from one to three miles wide, was made entirely by the Polyps. Also the keys of Florida, as well as the Everglades, are made entirely upon coral foundation.”

“That is very interesting,” said the boy named Billy. “But if there is so much of it why is it so expensive?”

“There’s only one kind that is precious,” said Somebody. “That is the _corallium rubrum_ of the Mediterranean Sea. It was once supposed to be endowed with sacred properties of a mysterious nature; the Mandarins of China wear coral buttons made from it as their badge of office. There is also a very rare black coral which makes its home in the warm water of the Great Australian Barrier Reef. The Italians are the greatest coral workers, making a most valuable industry of making jewelry and buttons and other small articles.

“There’s a lot more to learn about this subject, but that’s all I am able to tell you just now,” said Somebody.

“Thanks,” said the boy named Billy. “I’ll read up on it.”

The Star-spangled Banner

The boy named Billy came running into the house one morning, full of the joy of living and singing at the top of his voice, “O, long may the star-spangled banner still wave, o’er the land of the free-ee and the home of the brave.”

“Get a step-ladder, Billy. You’ll never reach that ‘land of the free’ any other way,” advised Big Sister.

“Well, say,” said Billy grinning, “I’m not a prima donna; it takes a real voice to climb up there. I love it, but I wish there were not so many high places in it. Francis Scott Key never thought of me when he wrote it, that’s sure.”

“Francis Scott Key hadn’t a thing to do with it, silly-Billy,” said Big Sister. “How do you learn your history anyhow?”

“Well, Somebody, please tell me who did write it then?” asked Billy. “That’s what teacher said anyway.”

“Perhaps it was not made quite clear to you, Billy Boy, that the words only were written by Francis Scott Key. You’re not alone in wishing that it was not quite so difficult; when I come to that high note I always stand on tiptoe and I’ve never struck it yet, and nine out of ten people have the same difficulty; yet I love it, as we all do.

“As to who really wrote it there seems to be no clear record, some crediting it to Dr. Samuel Arnold, an Englishman, but others claim it for John Stafford Smith, who made it over from an old French composition. Anyway, it was used as a popular song in England for some years and was used in other ways also.

“In 1798 it was used by Robert Treat Paine in a political way, for a song called ‘Adams and Liberty.’

“Everyone knows how the words came to be written. It was in the Summer of 1814 when we were at war with England; the British under General Ross appeared in the vicinity of Washington and after overcoming feeble resistance took the capital and set fire to the White House and some other public buildings. The President and the Cabinet fled, while pretty Dolly Madison bundled up the most precious White House treasures, including Washington’s picture and the original draft of the Declaration of Independence and carried them to safety. Then the British prepared to bombard Baltimore from the sea and attack it from the land side. Francis Scott Key was sent with a friend to the British Fleet to get a prisoner of war. As the British were about to attack the town and the Fort he was not allowed to return, and you may imagine how anxiously he watched for the dawn to come and with what joy, when the mists rolled away that he beheld the starry banner still flying from the fort. With the tears of thankfulness streaming down his cheeks he wrote the first stanza of his now world-famous song and later in the day, when he had returned to the city, he finished the poem.

“It was first printed under the name of ‘The Bombardment of Fort McHenry,’ in the Baltimore American and immediately became very popular.”

“It’s a great song,” said the boy named Billy, “but I think almost anyone could have written a great song under those conditions--if he could write at all.”

“Yes indeed,” agreed Somebody.

About Umbrellas

“It’s raining, Billy,” called Mother from upstairs, “take your umbrella when you go to school.”

“O Mother, _please_” said the boy named Billy, “I just _hate_ to carry an umbrella--_whoever_ invented the old things anyway?”

“I guess old Mr. Toad invented the idea when he hunched under the first toadstool; and next after him was an honorable Chinese gentleman who got his idea from the branches of the umbrella tree.

“In olden times no one but those of royal family were allowed to use the umbrella, and then only as a protection from the sun, as they were made only of the daintiest silks and brocades, and even of rice paper,” said Somebody.

“It did not seem to occur to anyone that it could be used as a protection against the rain until early in the eighteenth century, when it was introduced in England. Even then people hesitated to use it on account of the ridicule it called forth.”