VOLUME NINE

_Stories of To-day_

P. F. COLLIER & SON CORPORATION NEW YORK

Copyright, 1912 By P. F. COLLIER & SON

Copyright, 1918 By P. F. COLLIER & SON

“Brother Rabbit’s Cradle,” Joel Chandler Harris; Copyright, 1904, by McClure, Phillips & Co. “A Story of Decoration Day for the Little Children of To-day,” Elisabeth Harrison; Copyright, 1895, by Elizabeth Harrison. “The Taxes of Middlebrook,” R. S. Baker; “The Cure of Fear,” N. Duncan; “A Christmas Adventure,” J. E. Chamberlin; “Chased by the Trail,” Jack London; “Big Timber Beacon,” J. L. Mathews; “How Hilda Got a School,” Lelia Munsell; “The Second String,” J. B. Connolly; “Holding the Pipe,” A. W. Tolman; “The Travelling Doll,” Evelyn S. Barnett; “The Idea That Went Astray,” Pauline C. Bouvé; “Gravity Gregg,” I. O. Rankin; “Jonnasen,” D. L. Sharp; “In the Oven,” R. W. Child; “On a Slide-Board,” R. Barnes; “On a Tight Rope,” A. W. Tolman; “The Call of the Sea,” F. Palmer; “Down the Incline,” C. N. Hood; “Drasnoe Pipe-Line,” A. S. Pier; “Manuk Del Monte,” R. Thomas; Copyright, 1898, 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1907, 1908, 1909, by Perry Mason Co. “The Fore-Room Rug,” Kate Douglas Wiggin; Copyright, 1895, by Kate Douglas Riggs; used by permission of and by arrangement with the publishers, Houghton, Mifflin Company. “The Imp and the Drum,” Josephine Daskam Bacon; From “The Imp and the Angel,” Copyright, 1901, 1907, by Charles Scribner’s Sons. “The Foreman,” S. E. White; Copyright, 1903, by S. S. McClure Co.; 1904, by Stewart Edward White. “The Cost of Loving,” F. O. Bartlett; Copyright, 1912, by P. F. Collier & Son. “Ladybird,” Edith Barnard; Copyright, 1906, by P. F. Collier & Son. “The Gray Collie,” Georgia W. Pangborn; by permission from “Interventions”; Copyright, 1911, by Charles Scribner’s Sons. “Cressy’s New Year’s Rent,” Albert Lee; Copyright, 1896, by Harper Bros.

Acknowledgments of permissions given by authors and publishers for the use of copyright material appear in Volume 10

MANUFACTURED IN U. S. A.

TC

CONTENTS

PAGE

Brother Rabbit’s Cradle _Joel Chandler Harris_ 7 The Little Baxters Go Marketing _Tudor Jenks_ 18 A Story of Decoration Day for the Little Children of To-day _Elizabeth Harrison_ 23 The Taxes of Middlebrook _Ray Stannard Baker_ 30 The Cure of Fear _Norman Duncan_ 43 A Christmas Adventure _J. E. Chamberlin_ 55 Chased by the Trail _Jack London_ 66 Big Timber Beacon _John L. Mathews_ 79 How Hilda Got a School _Lelia Munsell_ 90 The Imp and the Drum _Josephine D. Bacon_ 99 The Second String _James B. Connolly_ 116 Holding the Pipe _Albert W. Tolman_ 128 The Travelling Doll _Evelyn Snead Barnett_ 137 The Doll Doctor _E. V. Lucas_ 152 The Idea that Went Astray _Pauline C. Bouvé_ 168 Gravity Gregg _Isaac Ogden Rankin_ 171 Jonnasen _Dallas Lore Sharp_ 179 In the Oven _Richard W. Child_ 186 On a Slide-Board _Robert Barnes_ 192 The Call of the Sea _Frederick Palmer_ 201 On a Tight Rope _Albert W. Tolman_ 213 Down the Incline _Charles Newton Hood_ 220 The Cost of Loving _Frederick O. Bartlett_ 225 Ladybird _Edith Barnard_ 241 The Drasnoe Pipe-Line _Arthur Stanwood Pier_ 255 Manuk Del Monte _Rowland Thomas_ 269 The Man Without a Country _Edward Everett Hale_ 279 The Foreman _Stewart E. White_ 315 The Gray Collie _Georgia W. Pangborn_ 328 The Fore-Room Rug _Kate Douglas Wiggin_ 340 Cressy’s New-Year’s Rent _Albert Lee_ 359 Mr. O’Leary’s Second Love _Charles Lever_ 370

THE ROSE AND THE RING _William M. Thackeray_ 389

I. Shows How the Royal Family Sat Down to Breakfast 393 II. How King Valoroso Got the Crown, and Prince Giglio Went Without 397 III. Tells Who the Fairy Blackstick Was, and Who Were Ever So Many Grand Personages Besides 402 IV. How Blackstick Was Not Asked to the Princess Angelica’s Christening 407 V. How Princess Angelica Took a Little Maid 410 VI. How Prince Giglio Behaved Himself 415 VII. How Giglio and Angelica Had a Quarrel 423 VIII. How Gruffanuff Picked the Fairy Ring Up, and Prince Bulbo Came to Court 429 IX. How Betsinda Got the Warming-Pan 436 X. How King Valoroso Was in a Dreadful Passion 443 XI. What Gruffanuff Did to Giglio and Betsinda 447 XII. How Betsinda Fled, and What Became of Her 456 XIII. How Queen Rosalba Came to the Castle of the Bold Count Hogginarmo 462 XIV. What Became of Giglio 466 XV. We Return to Rosalba 480 XVI. How Hedzoff Rode Back Again to King Giglio 488 XVII. How a Tremendous Battle Took Place, and Who Won It 493 XVIII. How They All Journeyed Back to the Capital 503 XIX. And Now We Come to the Last Scene in the Pantomime 509

ILLUSTRATIONS

THERE WAS NO GOING HOME FOR HIM, EVEN TO A PRISON

The Man Without a Country

_Frontispiece illustration in color from the painting by Nella F. Binckley_

A GUSH OF WATER FOLLOWED, BURYING THE SLED AND WASHING THE DOGS FROM THEIR FEET

Chased by the Trail

_From the drawing by George Giguère_

“I’M NOT YOUR DOCTOR. I’M A DOLL’S DOCTOR.”

The Doll Doctor

_From the drawing by Carton Moorepark_

“THREE OF US WERE RIDING DOWN THE SLOPE OF THE GREAT, GRASSY HILLS”

Manuk Del Monte

_From the drawing by W. H. D. Koerner_

“DOES MR. CRESSY LIVE HERE?”

Cressy’s New-Year’s Rent

_From the drawing by Edwin J. Meeker_

BULBO WAS BROUGHT IN CHAINS, LOOKING VERY UNCOMFORTABLE

The Rose and the Ring

_From the drawing by Wm. Makepeace Thackeray_

AND THE GLOOMY PROCESSION MARCHED ON

The Rose and the Ring

_From the drawing by J. H. Tinker_

BROTHER RABBIT’S CRADLE

By Joel Chandler Harris

“I wish you’d tell me what you tote a hankcher fer,” remarked Uncle Remus, after he had reflected over the matter a little while.

“Why, to keep my mouth clean,” answered the little boy. Uncle Remus looked at the lad, and shook his head doubtfully. “Uh-uh!” he exclaimed. “You can’t fool folks when dey git ez ol’ ez what I is. I been watchin’ you now mo’ days dan I kin count, an’ I ain’t never see yo’ mouf dirty ’nuff fer ter be wiped wid a hankcher. It’s allers clean—too clean for ter suit me. Dar’s yo’ pa, now; when he wuz a little chap like you, his mouf useter git dirty in de mornin’ an’ stay dirty plum twel night. Dey wa’n’t sca’cely a day dat he didn’t look like he been playin’ wid de pigs in de stable lot. Ef he yever is tote a hankcher, he ain’t never show it ter me.”

“He carries one now,” remarked the little boy with something like a triumphant look on his face.

“Tooby sho’,” said Uncle Remus; “tooby sho’ he do. He start ter totin’ one when he tuck an’ tuck a notion fer ter go a-courtin’. It had his name in one cornder, an’ he useter sprinkle it wid stuff out’n a pepper-sauce bottle. It sho’ wuz rank, dat stuff wuz; it smell so sweet it make you fergit whar you live at. I take notice dat you ain’t got none on yone.”

“No; mother says that cologne or any kind of perfumery on your handkerchief makes you common.”

Uncle Remus leaned his head back, closed his eyes, and permitted a heart-rending groan to issue from his lips. The little boy showed enough anxiety to ask him what the matter was. “Nothin’ much, honey; I wuz des tryin’ fer ter count how many diffunt kinder people dey is in dis big worl’, an’ ’fo’ I got mo’ dan half done wid my countin’, a pain struck me in my mizry, an’ I had ter break off.”

“I know what you mean,” said the child. “You think mother is queer; grandmother thinks so too.”

“How come you to be so wise, honey?” Uncle Remus inquired, opening his eyes wide with astonishment.

“I know by the way you talk, and by the way grandmother looks sometimes,” answered the little boy.

Uncle Remus said nothing for some time. When he did speak, it was to lead the little boy to believe that he had been all the time engaged in thinking about something else. “Talkin’ er dirty folks,” he said, “you oughter seed yo’ pa when he wuz a little bit er chap. Dey wuz long days when you couldn’t tell ef he wuz black er white, he wuz dat dirty. He’d come out’n de big house in de mornin’ ez clean ez a new pin, an’ ’fo’ ten er-clock you couldn’t tell what kinder clof his cloze wuz made out’n. Many’s de day when I’ve seed ol’ Miss—dat’s yo’ great-gran’mammy—comb ’nuff trash out’n his head fer ter fill a basket.”

The little boy laughed at the picture that Uncle Remus drew of his father. “He’s very clean, now,” said the lad loyally.

“Maybe he is an’ maybe he ain’t,” remarked Uncle Remus, suggesting a doubt. “Dat’s needer here ner dar. Is he any better off clean dan what he wuz when you couldn’t put yo’ han’s on ’im widout havin’ ter go an’ wash um? Yo’ gran’mammy useter call ’im a pig, an’ clean ez he may be now, I take notice dat he makes mo’ complaint er headache an’ de heartburn dan what he done when he wuz runnin’ roun’ here half-naked an’ full er mud. I hear tell dat some nights he can’t git no sleep, but when he wuz little like you—no, suh, I’ll not say dat, bekaze he wuz bigger dan what you is fum de time he kin toddle roun’ widout nobody he’pin’ him; but when he wuz ol’ ez you an’ twice ez big, dey ain’t narry night dat he can’t sleep—an’ not only all night, but half de day ef dey’d ’a’ let ’im. Ef dey’d let you run roun’ here like he done, an’ git dirty, you’d git big an’ strong ’fo’ you know it. Dey ain’t nothin’ mo’ wholesomer dan a peck er two er clean dirt on a little chap like you.”

There is no telling what comment the child would have made on this sincere tribute to clean dirt, for his attention was suddenly attracted to something that was gradually taking shape in the hands of Uncle Remus. At first it seemed to be hardly worthy of notice, for it had been only a thin piece of board. But now the one piece had become four pieces, two long and two short, and under the deft manipulations of Uncle Remus it soon assumed a boxlike shape.

The old man had reached the point in his work where silence was necessary to enable him to do it full justice. As he fitted the thin boards together, a whistling sound issued from his lips, as though he were letting off steam; but the singular noise was due to the fact that he was completely absorbed in his work. He continued to fit and trim, and trim and fit, until finally the little boy could no longer restrain his curiosity. “Uncle Remus, what are you making?” he asked plaintively.

“Larroes fer ter kech meddlers,” was the prompt and blunt reply.

“Well, what are larroes to catch meddlers?” the child insisted.

“Nothin’ much an’ sump’n mo’. Dicky, Dicky, killt a chicky, an’ fried it quicky, in de oven, like a sloven. Den ter his daddy’s Sunday hat, he tuck ’n’ hitched de ol’ black cat. Now what you reckon make him do dat? Ef you can’t tell me word fer word an’ spellin’ fer spellin’ we’ll go out an’ come in an’ take a walk.”

He rose, grunting as he did so, thus paying an unintentional tribute to the efficacy of age as the partner of rheumatic aches and stiff joints. “You hear me gruntin’,” he remarked—“well, dat’s bekaze I ain’t de chicky fried by Dicky, which he e’t ’nuff fer ter make ’im sicky.” As he went out the child took his hand, and went trotting along by his side, thus affording an interesting study for those who concern themselves with the extremes of life. Hand in hand the two went out into the fields, and thence into the great woods, where Uncle Remus, after searching about for some time, carefully deposited his oblong box, remarking: “Ef I don’t make no mistakes, dis ain’t so mighty fur fum de place whar de creeturs has der playgroun’, an’ dey ain’t no tellin’ but what one un um’ll creep in dar when deyer playin’ hidin’, an’ ef he do, he’ll sho be our meat.”

“Oh, it’s a trap!” exclaimed the little boy, his face lighting up with enthusiasm.

“An’ dey wa’n’t nobody here fer ter tell you,” Uncle Remus declared, astonishment in his tone. “Well, ef dat don’t bang my time, I ain’t no free nigger. Now, ef dat had ’a’ been yo’ pa at de same age, I’d ’a’ had ter tell ’im forty-lev’m times, an’ den he wouldn’t ’a’ b’lieved me twel he see sump’n in dar tryin’ fer ter git out. Den he’d say it wuz a trap, but not befo’. I ain’t blamin’ ’im,” Uncle Remus went on, “kaze ’tain’t eve’y chap dat kin tell a trap time he see it, an’ mo’ dan dat, traps don’ allers sketch what dey er sot fer.”

He paused, looked all round, and up in the sky, where fleecy clouds were floating lazily along, and in the tops of the trees, where the foliage was swaying gently in the breeze. Then he looked at the little boy. “Ef I ain’t gone an’ got los’,” he said, “we ain’t so mighty fur fum de place whar Mr. Man, once ’pon a time—not yo’ time ner yit my time, but some time—tuck’n’ sot a trap fer Brer Rabbit. In dem days, dey hadn’t l’arnt how ter be kyarpenters, an’ dish yer trap what I’m tellin’ you ’bout wuz a great contraption. Big ez Brer Rabbit wuz, it wuz lots too big fer him.

“Now, whiles Mr. Man wuz fixin’ up dis trap, Mr. Rabbit wa’n’t so mighty fur off. He hear de saw—er-rash! er-rash!—an’ he hear de hammer—bang, bang, bang!—an’ he ax hisse’f what all dis racket wuz ’bout. He see Mr. Man come out’n his yard totin’ sump’n, an’ he got furder off; he see Mr. Man comin’ todes de bushes, an’ he tuck ter de woods; he see ’im comin’ todes de woods, an’ he tuck ter de bushes. Mr. Man tote de trap so fur an’ no furder. He put it down, he did, an’ Brer Rabbit watch ’im; he put in de bait, an’ Brer Rabbit watch ’im; he fix de trigger, an’ still Brer Rabbit watch ’im. Mr. Man look at de trap an’ it satchify him. He look at it an’ laugh, an’ when he do dat Brer Rabbit wunk one eye, an’ wiggle his mustache, an’ chaw his cud.

“An’ dat ain’t all he do, needer. He sot out in de bushes, he did, an’ study how ter git some game in de trap. He study so hard, an’ he got so errytated, dat he thumped his behime foot on de groun’ twel it soun’ like a cow dancin’ out dar in de bushes, but ’twan’t no cow, ner yit no calf—’twus des Brer Rabbit studyin’. Atter so long a time, he put out down de road todes dat part er de country whar mos’ er de creeturs live at. Eve’y time he hear a fuss, he’d dodge in de bushes, kaze he wanter see who comin’. He keep on an’ he keep on, an’ bimeby he hear ol’ Brer Wolf trottin’ down de road.

“It so happen dat Brer Wolf wuz de ve’y one what Brer Rabbit wanter see. Dey wuz perlite ter one an’er, but dey wan’t no frien’ly feelin’ ’twix um. Well, here come ol’ Brer Wolf, hongrier dan a chicken-hawk on a frosty mornin’, an’ ez he come up he see Brer Rabbit set by de side er de road lookin’ like he done lose all his fambly an’ his friends terboot.

“Dey pass de time er day, an’ den Brer Wolf kinder grin an’ say, ‘Laws-a-massy, Brer Rabbit! what ail you? You look like you done had a spell er fever an’ ague; what de trouble?’ ‘Trouble, Brer Wolf? You ain’t never see no trouble twel you git whar I’m at. Maybe you wouldn’t min’ it like I does, kaze I ain’t usen ter it. But I boun’ you done seed me light-minded fer de las’ time. I’m done—I’m plum wo’ out,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. Dis make Brer Wolf open his eyes wide. He say, ‘Dis de fus’ time I ever is hear you talk dat-a-way, Brer Rabbit; take yo’ time an’ tell me ’bout it. I ain’t had my brekkus yit, but dat don’t make no diffunce, long ez youer in trouble. I’ll he’p you out ef I kin, an’ mo’ dan dat, I’ll put some heart in de work.’ When he say dis, he grin an’ show his tushes, an’ Brer Rabbit kinder edge ’way fum ’im. He say, ‘Tell me de trouble, Brer Rabbit, an’ I’ll do my level bes’ fer ter he’p you out.’

“Wid dat, Brer Rabbit ’low dat Mr. Man done been had ’im hired fer ter take keer er his truck patch, an’ keep out de minks, de mush-rats an’ de weasels. He say dat he done so well settin’ up night after night, when he des might ez well been in bed, dat Mr. Man prommus ’im sump’n extry ’sides de mess er greens what he gun ’im eve’y day. Atter so long a time, he say, Mr. Man ’low dat he gwineter make ’im a present uv a cradle so he kin rock de little Rabs ter sleep when dey cry. So said, so done, he say. Mr. Man make de cradle an’ tell Brer Rabbit he kin take it home wid ’im.

“He start out wid it, he say, but it got so heavy he hatter set it down in de woods, an’ dat’s de reason why Brer Wolf seed ’im settin’ down by de side er de road, lookin’ like he in deep trouble. Brer Wolf sot down, he did, an’ study, an’ bimeby he say he’d like mighty well fer ter have a cradle fer his chillun, long ez cradles wuz de style. Brer Rabbit say dey been de style fer de longest, an’ ez fer Brer Wolf wantin’ one, he say he kin have de one what Mr. Man make fer him, kaze it’s lots too big fer his chillun. ‘You know how folks is,’ sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. ‘Dey try ter do what dey dunner how ter do, an’ dar’s der house bigger dan a barn, an’ dar’s de fence wid mo’ holes in it dan what dey is in a saine, an’ kaze dey have great big chillun dey got de idee dat eve’y cradle what dey make mus’ fit der own chillun. An’ dat’s how come I can’t tote de cradle what Mr. Man make fer me mo’ dan ten steps at a time.’

“Brer Wolf ax Brer Rabbit what he gwineter do fer a cradle, an’ Brer Rabbit ’low he kin manage fer ter git ’long wid de ol’ one twel he kin ’suade Mr. Man ter make ’im en’er one, an’ he don’t speck dat’ll be so mighty hard ter do. Brer Wolf can’t he’p but b’lieve dey’s some trick in it, an’ he say he ain’t see de ol’ cradle when las’ he wuz at Brer Rabbit house. Wid dat, Brer Rabbit bust out laughin’. He say, ‘Dat’s been so long back, Brer Wolf, dat I done fergit all ’bout it; ’sides dat, ef dey wuz a cradle dar, I boun’ you my ol’ ’oman got better sense dan ter set de cradle in der parler, whar comp’ny comes’; an’ he laugh so loud an’ long dat he make Brer Wolf right shame er himse’f.

“He ’low, ol’ Brer Wolf did, ‘Come on, Brer Rabbit, an’ show me whar de cradle is. Ef it’s too big fer yo’ chillun, it’ll des ’bout fit mine.’ An’ so off dey put ter whar Mr. Man done sot his trap. ’Twa’n’t so mighty long fo’ dey got whar dey wuz gwine, an’ Brer Rabbit say, ‘Brer Wolf, dar yo’ cradle, an’ may it do you mo’ good dan it’s yever done me!’ Brer Wolf walk all roun’ de trap an’ look at it like ’twas ’live. Brer Rabbit thump one er his behime foots on de groun’ an’ Brer Wolf jump like some un done shot a gun right at ’im. Dis make Brer Rabbit laugh twel he can’t laugh no mo’. Brer Wolf, he say he kinder nervous ’bout dat time er de year, an’ de leas’ little bit er noise ’ll make ’im jump. He ax how he gwineter git any purchis on de cradle, an’ Brer Rabbit say he’ll hatter git inside an’ walk wid it on his back, kaze dat de way he done done.

“Brer Wolf ax what all dem contraptions on de inside is, an’ Brer Rabbit ’spon’ dat dey er de rockers, an’ dey ain’t no needs fer ter be skeer’d un um, kaze dey ain’t nothin’ but plain wood. Brer Wolf say he ain’t ’zactly skeer’d, but he done got ter de p’int whar he know dat you better look ’fo’ you jump. Brer Rabbit ’low dat ef dey’s any jumpin’ fer ter be done, he de one ter do it, an’ he talk like he done fergit what dey come fer. Brer Wolf, he fool an’ fumble roun’, but bimeby he walk in de cradle, sprung de trigger, an’ dar he wuz! Brer Rabbit, he holler out, ‘Come on, Brer Wolf; des hump yo’se’f, an’ I’ll be wid you.’ But try ez he will an’ grunt ez he may, Brer Wolf can’t budge dat trap. Bimeby Brer Rabbit git tired er waitin’, an’ he say dat ef Brer Wolf ain’t gwineter come on he’s gwine home. He ’low dat a frien’ what say he gwineter he’p you, an’ den go in a cradle an’ drap off ter sleep, dat’s all he wanter know ’bout um; an’ wid dat he made fer de bushes, an’ he wa’n’t a minnit too soon, kaze here come Mr. Man fer ter see ef his trap had been sprung. He look, he did, an’, sho’ nuff, it ’uz sprung, an’ dey wuz sump’n in dar, too, kaze he kin hear it rustlin’ roun’ an’ kickin’ fer ter git out.

“Mr. Man look thoo de crack, an’ he see Brer Wolf, which he wuz so skeer’d twel his eye look right green. Mr. Man say, ‘Aha! I got you, is I?’ Brer Wolf say, ‘Who?’ Mr. Man laugh twel he can’t sca’cely talk, an’ still Brer Wolf say, ‘Who? Who you think you got?’ Mr. Man ’low, ‘I don’t think, I knows. Youer ol’ Brer Rabbit, dat’s who you is.’ Brer Wolf say, ‘Turn me outer here, an’ I’ll show you who I is.’ Mr. Man laugh fit ter kill. He ’low, ‘You neenter change yo’ voice; I’d know you ef I met you in de dark. Youer Brer Rabbit, dat’s who you is.’ Brer Wolf say, ‘I ain’t not; dat’s what I’m not!’

“Mr. Man look thoo de crack ag’in, an’ he see de short years. He ’low, ‘You done cut off yo’ long years, but still I knows you. Oh, yes! an’ you done sharpen you mouf an’ put smut on it—but you can’t fool me.’ Brer Wolf say, ‘Nobody ain’t tryin’ fer ter fool you. Look at my fine long bushy tail.’ Mr. Man ’low, ‘You done tied an’er tail on behime you, but you can’t fool me. Oh, no, Brer Rabbit! You can’t fool me.’ Brer Wolf say, ‘Look at de ha’r on my back; do dat look like Brer Rabbit? Mr. Man ’low, ‘You done wallered in de red san’, but you can’t fool me.’

“Brer Wolf say, ‘Look at my long black legs; do dey look like Brer Rabbit?’ Mr. Man ’low, ‘You kin put an’er j’int in yo’ legs, an’ you kin smut um, but you can’t fool me.’ Brer Wolf say, ‘Look at my tushes; does dey look like Brer Rabbit?’ Mr. Man ’low, ‘You done got new toofies, but you can’t fool me.’ Brer Wolf say, ‘Look at my little eyes; does dey look like Brer Rabbit?’ Mr. Man ’low, ‘You kin squinch yo’ eye-balls, but you can’t fool me, Brer Rabbit.’ Brer Wolf squall out, ‘I ain’t not Brer Rabbit, an’ yo’ better turn me out er dis place so I kin take hide an’ ha’r off’n Brer Rabbit.’ Mr. Man say, ‘Ef bofe hide an’ ha’r wuz off, I’d know you, kaze ’tain’t in you fer ter fool me.’ An’ it hurt Brer Wolf feelin’s so bad fer Mr. Man ter sput his word, dat he bust out inter a big boo-boo, an’ dat’s ’bout all I know.”

“Did the man really and truly think that Brother Wolf was Brother Rabbit?” asked the little boy.

“When you pin me down dat-a-way,” responded Uncle Remus, “I’m bleeze ter tell you dat I ain’t too certain an’ sho’ ’bout dat. De tale come down fum my great gran’daddy’s great gran’daddy; it come on down ter my daddy, an’ des ez he gun it ter me, des dat-a-way I done gun it ter you.”

THE LITTLE BAXTERS GO MARKETING

By Tudor Jenks

Paul Baxter was too small to be head of the family. He was only seven, while his sister was five, and Paul thought she had a great deal to learn. Mrs. Baxter was the rest of the family, for the father had sailed away with the fishing fleet one foggy morning, and the fleet came back without one boat, and that boat was John Baxter’s. They all thought he was drowned, but they were wrong, as you will see. Meanwhile you must pretend you don’t know he is alive, or else you can’t understand what an unhappy time Mrs. Baxter was living through, and how much rested on Paul’s little shoulders while he considered himself the head of the family.

The worst time had not come yet, for the father had saved some money, and he had not been missing more than about two weeks. Mrs. Baxter knew that the money would soon be gone, so she was saving every cent she could.

On the day before Thanksgiving, she told Paul and his sister Kate that “until their father came home again” (for she would not speak as if he were lost), they must be very careful, and so their Thanksgiving dinner would have to be a very plain one.

“No turkey?” Kate asked.

“No, dear,” said their mother, “unless you and Paul can catch one somewhere in the street.”

They knew this was a joke, for they lived in South Street, New York City, where trucks rumbled about all day.

Paul felt he must get a turkey for a reason Mrs. Baxter didn’t know. As John Baxter was bidding Paul good-bye the night before he sailed, Paul had asked whether he would be back for Thanksgiving.

“I think so, my boy, but one can’t be sure. If I shouldn’t, you must see to the Thanksgiving dinner, and carve the turkey. Will you?”

“Yes,” said Paul, very proud, and now how could he, if there was none to carve? Paul made up his mind that it was his business to see that the family had a turkey. Paul had some money in his own small cast-iron bank. And he knew it was right for him to do what he liked with his savings. He had already offered them to his mother, and she had told him they were of no use to her. Kate, too, had some money in her bank; it was just like Paul’s except that there was a “K” on the door, made with a red pencil.

While their mother was clearing away the breakfast, Paul beckoned to Kate and proposed that they should put their money together and surprise mother with the biggest, fattest, finest bird in the market.

Kate feared the bird would cost too much.

“Nonsense, child,” said Paul, grandly; “why, I have more than seventy-five cents. How much have you?”

“Twenty-eight, I think,” said Kate.

“Well, then!” Paul answered; “that’s more’n a dollar. You can buy ’most anything for a dollar, child.”

They opened the banks, and counted the money three times, to make sure. It came out different every time, but they had about one dollar and fifteen or eighteen cents. It was all in small pieces and looked enough to buy an elephant. Paul tied it all up carefully in the corner of his handkerchief.

Then, after they had helped their mother to tidy the rooms, they got permission to go to market for her. She told them what to buy, and Paul was glad when his mother told them to get some cranberries for sauce, and a plum-pudding that came in a tin can. With their turkey, what a feast these would make!

The market was not far away, but it was so crowded that Paul and Kate had to hold hands tight. For a long time they could get no attention, but at last, by pulling one of the marketmen’s aprons, Paul made him listen. Paul bought all the things on their list, and then said, proudly:

“Please show me some of the biggest turkeys.”

The marketman, pointing to a long row, remarked:

“There they are—all weighed and marked. Pick out the one you want.”

Paul examined the tickets stuck on the turkeys—$2.20, $3.50, $2.40, $4.00 (he was a perfect giant of a gobbler!) and so on. Paul felt a lump in his throat, he was so disappointed! Then little Kate made it worse by pointing to the very biggest and saying, “Oh, Paul, buy that!—it’s the best of all!”

Paul whispered to her, “It costs four dollars. Isn’t that _awful_? The cheapest one is two dollars! What can we do?”

Kate shook her head. Then she had a bright idea.

“I know!” she said. “If we can’t have the biggest, let’s get the very littlest that ever was! It will be cunning, and that will make mamma laugh.”

“But I don’t see any very little ones,” Paul replied.

“Ask the man,” Kate urged.

It was some time before Paul could get the man’s attention, and then the question was put.

“The littlest turkey?” repeated the marketman, with a grin. “That’s a queer order, now. Why do you want the littlest one, my boy?”

“’Cause we’re buying it for mamma,” said Kate eagerly. “She can’t get one at all, because papa’s gone away, and he _may_ not come back, and we got the money out of our banks, and we’ve only one dollar and fifteen cents, and we can’t have the biggest, you see.”

“Hello!” said the marketman, “here’s a talker for a little one! Haven’t I seen you before?”

“Yes, sir,” Kate answered. “I’m Katie Baxter, and I used to come with papa.”

“You Jack Baxter’s girl?” asked the marketman, stooping down and picking the child up.

“Yes, sir,” said Kate, “but please put me down.” But instead the man called to a marketman in the next stall,

“See here O’Neil, this is the Baxter girl. She’s come with another little kid to buy the littlest turkey for her mother. They’ve got the money out of their banks, and it’s a dollar fifteen. Can’t we fill the order?”

“Well, I guess we _can_,” said the other marketman heartily. “We’ll send them a bird—with the stuffing, too!”

“It’ll be all right,” said the first marketman, putting little Kate on her feet again. “Give me the number, and we’ll send the bird around to-morrow.”

Paul gave the number, untied the money from his handkerchief, and away they went through the noisy street home.

Paul and Kate had hard work to keep the secret of their marketing, but they did, all that day, and the next.

About four o’clock there was a knock at the door, and when the door was opened, there was nobody there. But there was something. A big, big market-basket, and in it was the giant turkey, and on the turkey’s breast a piece of paper, saying:

“From the friends of John Baxter to Mrs. Baxter and the little Baxters, hoping they’ll enjoy their Thanksgiving.”

And that wasn’t all, for the turkey, when Mrs. Baxter came to prepare it, was stuffed with silver dollars.

Then Mrs. Baxter cried; and Paul and Kate were puzzled by that. But she was thankful, for she told them so.

When the great bird was properly browned and smoking, Paul took his place ready to carve. He had just raised the knife and fork when the door opened and a big, hearty sailor came in, saying:

“Here, here, young man, this won’t do! That is _my_ place!”

And, of course, it was John Baxter; and the turkey was not nearly so hot by the time he had been hugged and kissed (meaning John Baxter, of course), and had told how his boat had been sunk, but he and his mates picked up by a steamer.

That _was_ a Thanksgiving dinner.

Next day John Baxter took his boy and girl down to the market, and they made another giving of thanks to the marketmen, and that is a good ending to the story, isn’t it?

There is one more thing. The marketmen would not take back their silver, and so it went into the bank—a real bank this time—for Paul and Kate.

A STORY OF DECORATION DAY FOR THE LITTLE CHILDREN OF TO-DAY

By Elisabeth Harrison

I want you to listen to a sad, sweet story to-day, and yet one that ought to make you glad—glad that such men have lived as those of whom I am going to tell you. It all happened a good many years ago, in fact so long ago that your fathers and mothers were little boys and girls in kilts and pinafores, some of them mere babies in long clothes.

One bright Sunday morning in April the telegraph wires could be heard repeating the same things all over the land, “Tic, tic; tictic; t-i-c; tic, tictic;—tic, t-i-c, tic; t-i-c; tic, t-i-c; t-i-c, t-i-c, tic,” they called out, and the drowsy telegraph operators sat up in their chairs as if startled by the words the wires were saying.

“Tic, t-i-c, tic; tictic; tic, tictic; tic; t-i-c, tictic;—tic, tic; t-i-c, tic,” continued the wires, and the faces of the telegraph operators grew pale. Any looker-on could have seen that something dreadful was being told by the wires.

“Tic, t-i-c, tic; tictic; tic, tictic; tic; t-i-c, tictic;—tic, tic; t-i-c, tic,” again repeated the wires. There was no mistaking the message this time. Alas, alas, it was true! The terrible news was true! Even the bravest among the operators trembled.

Then came the rapid writing out of the fearful words that the slender wires had uttered, the hurrying to and fro; and messenger boys were seen flying to the great newspaper offices, and the homes of the mayors of the cities, and to the churches where already the people were beginning to assemble. For the deep-toned Sabbath church bells high up in the steeples had been ringing out their welcome to all, even the strangers in their midst—“Bim! Baum! Bim!” they sang, which everybody knew meant, “Come to church, dear people! Come! Come! Come!” And the people strolled leisurely along toward the churches—fathers and mothers and little ones, and even grandfathers and grandmothers. It was such a bright, pleasant day that it seemed a joy to go to the house of God and thank Him for all His love and care. So one family after another filed into their pews while the organist played such soft, sweet music that everybody felt soothed and quieted by it.

Little did they dream of the awful words which the telegraph wires were at that very moment calling out with their “Tic, t-i-c, tic; t-i-c; tic, t-i-c; t-i-c, t-i-c, tic;—Tic, t-i-c, tic, tictic, tic, tictic; tic; t-i-c; tictic.”

The clergymen came in and took their places in the pulpits. In each church the organ ceased its wordless song of praise. The congregation bowed and silently joined with all their hearts in the petitions which the clergyman was offering to the dear Lord, Father of all mankind, Ruler of heaven and earth. Some of them softly whispered “Amen” as he asked protection for their homes and their beloved country. Did they know anything about the danger which even then hung over them? Perhaps they did.

In many of the churches the prayer was over, the morning hymn had been sung, when a stir and bustle at the door might have been noticed, as the messenger boys, excited and out of breath, handed their yellow envelopes to the ushers who stood near the door ready to show the late comers to unoccupied seats. First one and then the other ushers read the message, and from some one of them escaped, in a hushed whisper, the words, “Oh, God! Has it come to this!”

And all looked white and awe-struck. The head usher hurried tremblingly down the aisle, and without waiting for the clergyman to finish reading the announcements of the week, laid the telegram upon the pulpit desk.

The clergyman, somewhat surprised at such an interruption, glanced at the paper, stopped, gasped, picked it up, and re-read the words written upon it, as though he could not believe his own eyes. Then he advanced a step forward, holding on to the desk, as if he had been struck a blow by some unseen hand. The congregation knew that something terrible had happened, and their hearts seemed to stop beating as they leaned forward to catch his words.

“My people,” said he in a slow, deliberate tone, as if it were an effort to steady his voice, “I hold in my hand a message from the President of the United States.” Then his eyes dropped to the paper which he still held, and now his voice rang out clear and loud as he read, “_Our Flag has been fired upon! Seventy-five thousand troops wanted at once._ Abraham Lincoln.”

* * * * *

I could not make you understand all that took place the next week or two any more than the little children who heard what the telegram said, understood it. Men came home, hurried and excited, to hunt up law papers, or to straighten out deeds, saying in constrained tones to the pale-faced women, “I will try to leave all business matters straight before I go.” There was solemn consultations between husbands and wives, which usually ended in the father’s going out, stern-faced and silent, and the mother, dry-eyed but with quivering lips, seeking her own room, locking herself in for an hour, then coming out to the wondering children with a quiet face, but with eyes that showed she had been weeping. There were gatherings in the town halls and in the churches and school houses all over the land. The newspapers were read hurriedly and anxiously.

And when little Robert looked up earnestly into his grandmamma’s face and asked, “Why does mamma not eat her breakfast?” grandmamma replied, “Your papa is going away, my dear.” And when little Robert persisted, by saying, “But papa goes to New York every year, and mamma does not sit and stare out of the window, and forget to eat her breakfast,” then mamma would turn solemnly around and say, “Robert, my boy, papa is going to the war, and may never come back to us. But you and I must be brave about it, and help him get ready.” And if Robert answered, “Why is he going to the war? Why does he not stay at home with us? Doesn’t he love us any more?” then mamma would draw her boy to her and putting her arms around him, and looking into his eyes, she would say, “Yes, my darling, he loves us, but he _must_ go. Our country needs him, and you and I must be proud that he is ready to do his duty.”

Then Robert would go away to his play, wondering what it all meant, just as you would have wondered if you had been there.

Soon the papas and uncles, and even some of the grandfathers, put on soldiers’ uniforms, and drilled in the streets with guns over their shoulders, and bands of music played military music, and the drums beat, and crowds of people collected on the street corners, and there were more speeches, and more flags, and banners, and stir, and excitement. And nothing else was talked of but the war, the war, the terrible war.

Then came the marching away of the soldiers to the railway stations, and then the farewells and cheers and waving of handkerchiefs and the playing of patriotic airs by the bands of music, and much more confusion and excitement and good-bye kisses and tears than I could tell you of.

* * * * *

Then came the long, long days of waiting and praying in the homes to which fathers and brothers no longer came, and silent watching for letters, and anxious opening of the newspapers, and oftentimes the little children felt their mamma’s tears drop on their faces as she kissed them good-night—their dear mamma who so often had sung them to sleep with her gay, happy songs—what did it all mean? They could not tell.

And all this time the fathers, brave men as they were, had been marching down to the war. Oftentimes they slept on the hard ground with only their army blankets wrapped around them, and the stars to keep watch over them, and many a day they had nothing to eat but dry bread and black coffee, because they had not time to cook more, and sometimes they had no breakfast at all because they must be up by daybreak and march on, even if the rain poured down, as it sometimes did, wetting them through and through.

What were such hardships when _their country was in danger_?

Then came the terrible, terrible battles, more awful than anything you ever dreamed of. Men were shot down by the thousands, and many who did not lose their lives had a leg shot off, or an arm so crushed that it had to be cut off. Still they bravely struggled on. It was for their beloved country they were fighting, and for it they must be willing to suffer, or to die.

Then a hundred thousand more soldiers were called for, and then another hundred thousand, and still the bloody war continued. For four long years it lasted, and the whole world looked on, amazed at such courage and endurance.

* * * * *

Then the men who had not been killed, or who had not died of their sufferings came marching home again, many, alas, on crutches, and many who knew that they were disabled for life. But _they had saved their country_! And that was reward enough for their heroic hearts. Though many a widow turned her sad face away when the crowd welcomed the returning soldiers, for she knew that her loved one was not with them, and many little children learned in time that their dear fathers would never return to them.

War is such a terrible thing that it makes one’s heart ache to think of it.

Then by and by the people said, “Our children must grow up loving and honoring the heroic men who gave their lives for their country.” So in villages and towns and cities monuments were built in honor of the men who died fighting for their country. And one day each year was set apart to keep fresh and green the memory of the brave soldiers; and it has been named “DECORATION DAY,” because on this day all the children, all over the land, are permitted to go to the graves of the dead soldiers and place flowers upon them.

THE TAXES OF MIDDLEBROOK

By Ray Stannard Baker

Up above the pines on the edge to the east the sun was rising and the air smelled of the woods, of the warm sand of the roadsides, of the perfect May morning. Three men in the quaint garb of pioneer foreigners came down the lane from the shoemaker’s house and turned into the road. Before they had gone many paces old Peter Walling stopped abruptly.

“There is a warning,” he said in Norwegian.

The eyes of the two others followed swiftly to his pointing. In the midst of the sand a twig of willow had been stuck. The top was split, and it held upward a bit of soiled paper. Old Peter seemed undecided whether to touch the message or not, but Halstrom, the shoemaker, plucked it from the stick, and scowled as he tried to make out its meaning. Presently he handed it to his son.

“What does it say, Eric?” he asked.

The message was in English, printed with a lumberman’s coarse pencil, and a rude attempt had been made to draw a skull and cross-bones at the top of the paper. Eric read it slowly, translating into Norwegian as he went along:

“Be Ware! All NORWEGANS and SWEEDS are hereby WARNED not to go to the Town Hall under PENALTY of DEATH.”

It was signed in big letters, “By Order of the Committee.”

Eric Halstrom looked up and laughed shortly. “Well,” he said, “it means us,” and he tucked the message away with some care in his pocket.

“We may need it,” he added.

The two older men were silent for a moment. Then Peter Walling spoke faintly: “If there is going to be trouble—if there is danger—”

The old shoemaker straightened his bent shoulders and his eyes flashed angrily. “Peter Walling, will you go or will you stay? I thought we had settled this question once for all.”

“I’ll go, Jens—yes, yes, I’ll go,” answered Walling, hurriedly, but his lips protested under his beard.

Halstrom turned without a word and hobbled down the road, determination speaking from every nervous hitch of his twisted frame. He was small and crippled, and in all his life he had never been able to do the work of a strong man. But there was that in his blue eyes which made him a leader in Thingvalla. He had cobbled in the old country, and he had cobbled in this new Northwest among the pines, and every peg he drove had clinched a thought. He was not educated in English; he had emigrated too late for that, but he had seen to it that his son made the best of the scant schooling of a new land, and better still, he had taught him some of the wisdom that comes to a cobbler who thinks.

Eric stood almost six feet tall. His hair was as yellow and curly as a rope end, and his eyes were blue and steady. Although barely twenty years old, he had learned by the hard knocks of a pioneer country how to take care of himself, both with his big right arm and with his tongue.

Over ten miles of sand-hills and corduroy, through vast forests of pine as yet barely notched with the clearings of settlers, the three men came at last in sight of the town hall, the shoemaker and his son in front, and old Peter Walling behind, muttering his fears. The town hall was a log shack, one story high, with a single large room.

As the three approached, they could see that the road was full of men and teams. The men were moving about, and talking with the boisterous pleasantry of backwoodsmen who do not often meet. They had gathered this spring morning for the annual session of the board of review—the board that was to make the final equalization of the taxes on the property of the township. Eric looked anxiously to see if there were any others present from the Thingvalla settlement, or, indeed, any Scandinavians, but he could not see even one.

“They are all afraid,” the shoemaker said, bitterly. “They have come to a free country, and they don’t know how to be free.”

But the New Antrim settlement was out in force. Eric heard the jolly voices of the young Irishmen, and he knew well that they were spoiling for a fight. Thingvalla was in one corner of the township, New Antrim was in the other, and between the settlements stretched unbroken forests of pine and implacable bitterness. It was one of those settlement differences so common in the backwoods, and the more unfortunate for being unfounded. New Antrim was sure that Thingvalla was trying to control the township, and Thingvalla was equally sure that New Antrim was escaping its share of taxation. And that was the condition on this bright May day, when the three from Thingvalla came down with the warning in Eric’s pocket.

“They are too many!” muttered old Peter Walling, tremulously.

They saw Calvin Donohue and his men sporting in the sunshine. Donohue was the man in the otter cap, immensely broad and brawny of shoulders, long of arms and square of chin. He talked in a big, jolly voice; from where they stood they could hear him laugh.

O’Rourke, Callahan and some of the younger men were trying their strength on a huge iron soap-kettle that stood in front of the blacksmith shop. They were testing their muscles to see which could lift it from the ground with one hand. There were few who could do it, but Calvin Donohue put it as high as his shoulder as if it were only a feather. Others were pitching quoits with horseshoes, and one group was watching a pulling contest between O’Rourke and Davy, who were sitting, feet to feet on the ground, tugging on a crowbar.

The shoemaker, who had been resting by the roadside, now rose, and without a word set off down the hill toward the crowd, with his chin thrown up and his eyes looking neither to the right nor to the left.

The moment the men of New Antrim saw them, a gleeful shout went up. Here was new sport for them. A powerful man in a lumberman’s red jacket seized a heavy oak swingletree from the blacksmith’s door, sprang out into the road, and shouted:

“Come on, boys, we’ve got ’em!”

Eric and his father did not stop, but old Peter Walling wavered, then turned and ran back up the road as fast as his legs could carry him. It was two against thirty, but the two stood their ground. While they were exchanging challenges, a man opportunely stepped from the doorway of the town hall and began to rap on the logs with a stake, announcing that the board had been called to order.

At once there was a rush for the benches, and Eric and his father reached the door without opposition.

The shoemaker made as if to enter, but Jim O’Rourke barred the door with his arm.

“No Swedes admitted,” he said, gruffly.

The shoemaker, paying no attention to the order, again endeavored to enter. He was thrown back violently, and if it had not been for Eric, he would have fallen. The shoemaker tried to speak, but his English was hopelessly confused and broken. Eric was white to the lips, but he controlled himself.

“We are citizens of this township,” he said, “and we have a right in this meeting.”

“Go wan!” was the answer. “We won’t have any foreigners here.”

“We are as much Americans as you are!” responded Eric, hotly.

“Be cool,” cautioned the shoemaker, in his native tongue.

“I tell you, Jim O’Rourke,” continued Eric, more steadily, “there’s no need of our quarrelling this way, and if you’d let us explain we’d show you why we should all be friends—”

“Friends! Let me give you a friendly hint. You get out of here double-quick.”

By nature the Scandinavian is peaceable. He hates fighting as much as he loves his home; and yet, for being slow to wrath, he is the more terrible when roused. Eric took one step forward and drove up O’Rourke’s arm with a stinging blow that sent him spinning into the room. Then he and his father entered. O’Rourke, recovering himself, rushed upon Eric and dealt him a terrific blow in the breast. The two men were just closing in a desperate encounter when Caxton, the chairman, rose, ordering silence and preparing to enforce his decree with a stout oak stake.

“What’s the trouble here?” he demanded, when quiet had been restored.

“We are citizens of this township,” said Eric, panting, “and we have a right to attend this meeting. This man tried to shut us out.”

Caxton paused a moment.

“Put out the Norsks!” roared a voice.

“No,” said Caxton. “They have a right to be here and to be heard on the subject of their taxes.”

“Thank you!” said Eric, eagerly. “I want to explain—”

“You will be given a chance in due time,” was the answer, given so coldly that it indicated the chairman’s position against them beyond a doubt. There were many whispered threats, but Eric and his father firmly stood their ground. The business of the board of review is to hear the complaints of those who think they have been unfairly taxed. Apparently there were to be few complaints at this meeting. An old man who spoke with the unmistakable inflection of the Irishman commended the assessment and praised the assessor. He thought every one in the township had been satisfied. He was pleased to know that this was so. As he sat down, a small, loosely jointed man, with fiery red hair, rose from his chair.

He wore a diamond shirt-stud which, if genuine, would have purchased every stitch of personal apparel in the room. He drawled pleasantly in his talk. Every one knew him. His name was William P. Ketchum, or more familiarly, Billy Ketchum. Eric’s eyes fastened hard upon him and watched him as a catamount might watch a squirrel, and with much the same motive.

Billy Ketchum was the representative of the great logging concern of Miller, Knees & Dye, which owned all the pine lands in the township, and, indeed, in nearly all the county. He complimented the assessor in his softest manner, he complimented the board down from Caxton to Severn, through Holt, and then he complimented them up again from Severn to Caxton. He mentioned New Antrim and brought in a deft reference to the shamrock and the old sod, and then—he suddenly caught the eye of Eric Halstrom burning at him above the heads of the crowd. For a single instant he seemed trying to pull himself together, and then he went on with his pleasant drawl:

“As representing the largest taxpayers in Middlebrook,” he said, “I am deeply interested in its welfare. We pay our taxes gladly, knowing that they have been honestly levied and that they will be honestly collected—”

At this Eric Halstrom came shouldering nearer, with the shoemaker close behind him.

“It’s not so!” Eric gasped, excitedly. “I tell you it’s not so. He’s the man who’s caused all the trouble.”

“I was not aware,” put in Billy Ketchum, in his smoothest voice, “that you allowed your meetings to be broken up by a brawling—”

His last words were drowned in shouts, and it was some moments before Mr. Caxton, pounding on the table, could restore peace.

Calvin Donohue whispered in the chairman’s ear, and Mr. Caxton said aloud to Eric, “We’ll hear what you have to say right away.”

The shoemaker pushed Eric forward eagerly. The boy stood up before the crowd, blushing and stammering. His big hands fumbled in his pockets and his tongue refused to stir. He had not been particularly afraid to face the assembled forces of New Antrim in the road, but he was afraid to make a speech.

“I—I wanted to—explain about the taxes,” he stammered.

“So I suppose,” was Mr. Caxton’s cool reply.

Eric pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket and looked round.

“I—I’ve got to have something to write on,” he said, at which the New Antrimites shouted with laughter.

If it had not been for the wise old shoemaker at that moment, Eric would have been lost, laughed to defeat. Nothing will floor a speaker more quickly than the wit of an Irish audience. But the shoemaker spoke in Norwegian. Eric turned quickly; he was only a step from the door. There, outside in the sand, stood the old iron kettle. He stooped, picked it up, and set it on a bench, which the shoemaker had swung into place. It was all done so swiftly that New Antrim forgot its fun in its astonishment.

And when Eric drew a big white square on the kettle with his chalk, a voice rose hoarsely from the back of the room:

“Well, I’ll be jiggered!”

At that all the Irishmen laughed, and then sat still again, out of respect, being “jiggered.”

Eric divided the white square into many smaller squares. In one corner he drew a number of crosses; in the opposite corner he did the same. One of these groups of crosses he labeled T.

“That is the Thingvalla settlement,” he said, “and this—is New Antrim.”

Then he swept his hand between the two and glanced at Billy Ketchum. “And all this in here is the pine owned by Miller, Knees & Dye.”

The shoemaker whispered in his ear, and he turned to the chairman, and said in a sterner voice: “I want to show who is to blame for all this trouble between the settlements.”

“We are not dealing with quarrels,” was the response. “We are here to equalize taxes.”

“That’s it, that’s what I want to do. I want to show that the taxes aren’t equal.”

Then he fumbled in his pocket and drew out a much-folded paper. With this to support him, he forgot all about himself, and talked rapidly and earnestly.

He told how he had figured up all the land owned by the Scandinavians of Thingvalla, and all that owned by New Antrim, and all that owned by the lumber company.

“Thingvalla has two thousand two hundred and forty acres in farms; New Antrim has two thousand nine hundred and twenty acres,” he explained, “while the lumber company has more than twelve thousand acres of pine. Thingvalla is assessed at an average of four dollars and sixty cents an acre; New Antrim is assessed at four dollars and fifteen cents an acre—a little less, but not enough to count. But here is this lumber company assessed for only one dollar and ninety cents an acre—”

Here Billy Ketchum sprang excitedly to his feet. “But this is wild land—not a foot of it is cultivated. I tell you such a comparison is unfair—”

“Yes, but your pine is worth more to the acre than our farms with all our crops and buildings on them.”

“I tell you—”

“I know!” broke in Eric, excitedly. “I tell you, I know! Look here—”

He drew from his pocket a pack of little strips of paper, each with a section map at the top, upon which different “forties” of land were checked up in red and blue pencil.

He turned again to the table and marked out a square about midway between the settlements.

“Here’s section ten, township forty, range twelve. Last fall I was hired to go over this land with the company’s explorer, and estimate the pine. We travelled together for two months, counted all the trees, and estimated the number of feet of lumber they would make. That pine as it stands is worth from four dollars to six dollars a thousand feet, and some of the single forties have more than two hundred thousand feet of timber on them. That makes a cash value of from eight hundred dollars to twelve hundred dollars—or twenty dollars to thirty dollars an acre—and that’s more than the best improved farm in this county is worth—”

“I tell you—” roared little Billy Ketchum, wild with excitement.

“And you know it,” added Eric. “Here are these slips, which will prove just what I say. They are the company’s own valuation of its property. You can see for yourselves that our farms are assessed for more than twice as much as this pine land, although it is worth five or six times as much. And that will show you who is dodging taxes. Billy Ketchum says that he represents the biggest taxpayers in the township, and that he is well contented with the assessment. Of course he is contented, but he is wrong about representing the largest taxpayers. As the assessments now are, we represent the biggest taxpayers—and we are not contented, for we pay ten times the taxes that we should. All I ask is that the assessments be fair, and Thingvalla and New Antrim will not quarrel.”

Billy Ketchum, purple of face, tried in vain to make himself heard, but the Irishmen of New Antrim drowned him out of the discussion. The explorer’s slips were passed back and forth and referred to the diagram on the iron kettle, and for a few moments pandemonium reigned.

“What’s more,” shouted Eric, in the flush of victory, “I can prove that Billy Ketchum is at the bottom of this quarrel!”

There was silence again.

“If it hadn’t been for him, we’d have been good friends to-day. He’s kept us enemies so that we couldn’t get together and assess the pine lands as they ought to be assessed.”

Ketchum sprang to his feet.

“It’s not so!” he shouted. “We’ve been perfectly fair to every one. Why should I mix up in neighborhood quarrels?”

He poured out an impassioned speech, the drawl all gone, and the words crowding so fast that he could hardly utter them plainly. He called the Irishmen “Billy” and “Calvin” and “Pete” familiarly, and spoke of their warm friendship, but somehow they did not rouse to enthusiasm as he had expected. They were thinking.

Presently Eric made himself heard again.

“Who left that warning in the Thingvalla road last night?” he asked, facing Ketchum.

“Who? How should I know?”

At this, New Antrim leaned forward to a man with curiosity. Eric drew out the warning and told where he had found it. Then he passed it gravely to Mr. Caxton.

“Billy Ketchum left that in the road,” said Eric. “He did it to keep us away from the meeting. He tried to make us think that the New Antrim settlement was against us. He had found out that I knew the real value of those pine lands.”

Again Billy hopped up. “I dare him to prove it, Mr. Chairman! I didn’t come here to be insulted. I tell you—I dare him to prove it!”

“Well, I will,” said Eric, coolly.

At that the shoemaker stepped round behind the table and picked up a long, slender, paper-covered roll and handed it to Eric. Eric held it up, and pointed to Ketchum’s name written upon it, for it was a roll of maps. Ketchum rushed at Eric and tried to grasp his property, but Eric brushed him aside.

Then he unrolled the manila covering of the maps a few inches and held it up. One corner was torn off. He took the warning notice from Mr. Caxton’s desk and held it in the place of this torn corner. It fitted perfectly.

“My father happened to see this when he came in,” explained Eric. “What more proof do you want?”

For a moment the room was still. Then the same deep voice which had spoken once before burst out:

“I’ll be jiggered!”

Calvin Donohue turned to Billy Ketchum and said, none too pleasantly:

“You get out! We can manage our own affairs!”

Callahan suggested taking him out triumphantly in the iron kettle, but Billy disappeared with such haste they could not catch him.

Then the whole assembly took up seriously the problem of assessments, and before the day was out, the township of Middlebrook was equalized, and the taxes of the settlers, New Antrim and Thingvalla alike, were cut down to their just proportions, no more, no less, and the pine lands were assessed strictly in accordance with Eric’s estimate slips.

THE CURE OF FEAR

By Norman Duncan

Like many another snug little harbor on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, Ruddy Cove is confronted by the sea and flanked by a vast wilderness; so all the folk take their living from the sea, as their forebears have done for generations.

It takes courage and a will for work to sweeten the hard life of those parts, which otherwise would be filled with dread and an intolerable weariness; and Donald North, of Ruddy Cove, was brave enough till he was eight years old. But after that season he was so timid that he shrank from the edge of the cliffs when the breakers were beating the rocks below, and he trembled when the punt heeled to a gust.

Now he was a fisherman’s son, and in the course of things must himself be a paddle-punt fisherman; thus the mishap which gave him that great fear of the sea cast a dark shadow over him.

“Billy,” he said to young Topsail, on the unfortunate day, “leave us go sail my new fore-an’-after. I’ve rigged her out with a grand new mizzens’l.”

“Sure, b’y!” said Billy. “Where to?”

“Uncle George’s wharf-head. ’Tis a place as good as any.”

Off Uncle George’s wharf-head the water was deep—deeper than Donald could fathom at low tide—and it was cold, and covered a rocky bottom, upon which a multitude of starfish and prickly sea-eggs lay in clusters. It was green, smooth and clear, too; sight carried straight down to where the purple-shelled mussels gripped the rocks.

The tide had fallen somewhat and was still on the ebb. Donald found it a long reach from the wharf to the water. By and by, as the water ran out of the harbor, the most he could do was to touch the mast tip of the miniature ship with his fingers. Then a little gust of wind crept round the corner of the wharf, rippling the water as it came near. It caught the sails of the new fore-and-after, and the little craft fell over on another tack and shot away.

“Here, you!” Donald cried. “Come back, will you?”

He reached for the mast. His fingers touched it, but the boat escaped before they closed. He laughed, hitched nearer to the edge of the wharf, and reached again. The wind had failed; the little boat was tossing in the ripples, below and just beyond his grasp.

“I can’t cotch her!” he called to Billy Topsail, who was back near the net-horse, looking for squids.

Billy looked up, and laughed to see Donald’s awkward position—to see him hanging over the water, red-faced and straining. Donald laughed, too. At once he lost his balance and fell forward.

This was in the days before he could swim, so he floundered about in the water, beating it wildly, to bring himself to the surface. When he came up, Billy Topsail was leaning over to catch him. Donald lifted his arm. His fingers touched Billy’s, that was all—just touched them. Then he sank; and when he came up again, and again lifted his arm, there was half a foot of space between his hand and Billy’s. Some measure of self-possession returned. He took a long breath, and let himself sink. Down he went, weighted by his heavy boots.

Those moments were full of the terror of which, later, he could not rid himself. There seemed to be no end to the depth of the water in that place. But when his feet touched bottom, he was still deliberate in all that he did.

For a moment he let them rest on the rock. Then he gave himself a strong upward push. It needed but little to bring him within reach of Billy Topsail’s hand. He shot out of the water and caught that hand. Soon afterward he was safe on the wharf.

“Sure, mum, I thought I was drownded that time!” he said to his mother, that night. “When I were goin’ down the last time I thought I’d never see you again.”

“But you wasn’t drownded, b’y,” said his mother, softly.

“But I might ha’ been,” said he.

There was the rub. He was haunted by what might have happened. Soon he became a timid, shrinking lad, utterly lacking confidence in the strength of his arms and his skill with an oar and a sail; and after that came to pass, his life was hard. He was afraid to go out to the fishing-grounds, where he must go every day with his father to keep the head of the punt up to the wind, and he had a great fear of the wind and the fog and the breakers.

But he was not a coward. On the contrary, although he was circumspect in all his dealings with the sea, he never failed in his duty.

* * * * *

In Ruddy Cove all the men put out their salmon-nets when the ice breaks up and drifts away southward, for the spring run of salmon then begins. These nets are laid in the sea, at right angles to the rocks and extending out from them; they are set alongshore, it may be a mile or two, from the narrow passage to the harbor. The outer end is buoyed and anchored, and the other is lashed to an iron stake which is driven deep into some crevice of the rock.

When belated icebergs hang offshore a watch must be kept on the nets, lest they be torn away or ground to pulp by the ice.

“The wind’s haulin’ round a bit, b’y,” said Donald’s father, one day in spring, when the lad was twelve years old. “I think ’twill freshen and blow inshore afore night.”

“They’s a scattered pan of ice out there, father,” said Donald, “and three small bergs.”

“Iss, b’y, I knows,” said North. “’Tis that I’m afeared of. If the wind changes a bit more, ’twill jam the ice agin the rocks. Does you think the net is safe?”

It was quite evident that the net was in danger, but since Donald had first shown signs of fearing the sea, Job North had not compelled him to go out upon perilous undertakings. He had fallen into the habit of leaving the boy to choose his own course, believing that in time he would master himself.

“I think, zur,” said Donald, steadily, “the net should come in.”

“’Twould be wise,” said North. “Come, b’y, we’ll go fetch it.”

So they put forth in the punt. There was a fair, fresh wind, and with this filling the little brown sail, they were soon driven out from the quiet water of the harbor to the heaving sea itself. Great swells rolled in from the open and broke furiously against the coast rocks.

The punt ran alongshore for two miles keeping well away from the breakers. When at last she came to that point where Job North’s net was set, Donald furled the sail and his father took up the oars.

“’Twill be a bit hard to land,” he said.

Therein lay the danger. There is no beach along that coast. The rocks rise abruptly from the sea—here, sheer and towering; there, low and broken.

When there is a sea running, the swells roll in and break against these rocks; and when the breakers catch a punt, they are certain to smash it to splinters.

The iron stake to which Job North’s net was lashed was fixed in a low ledge, upon which some hardy shrubs had taken root. The waves were casting themselves against the rocks below, breaking with a great roar and flinging spray over the ledge.

“’Twill be a bit hard,” North said again.

But the salmon-fishers have a way of landing under such conditions. When their nets are in danger they do not hesitate. The man at the oars lets the boat drift with the breakers stern foremost toward the rocks. His mate leaps from the stern seat to the ledge. Then the other pulls the boat out of danger before the wave curls and breaks. It is the only way.

But sometimes the man in the stem miscalculates—leaps too soon, stumbles, leaps short. He falls back, and is almost inevitably drowned. Sometimes, too, the current of the wave is too strong for the man at the oars; his punt is swept in, pull as hard as he may, and he is overwhelmed with her. Donald knew all this. He had lived in dread of the time when he must first make that leap.

“The ice is comin’ in, b’y,” said North. “’Twill scrape these here rocks, certain sure. Does you think you’re strong enough to take the oars an’ let me go ashore?”

“No, zur,” said Donald.

“You never leaped afore, did you?”

“No, zur.”

“Will you try it now, b’y?” said North quietly.

“Iss, zur,” Donald said, faintly.

“Get ready, then,” said North.

With a stroke or two of the oars Job swung the stem of the boat to the rocks. He kept her hanging in this position until the water fell back and gathered in a new wave; then he lifted his oars. Donald was crouched on the stern seat, waiting for the moment to rise and spring.

The boat moved in, running on the crest of the wave which would a moment later break against the rock. Donald stood up, and fixed his eye on the ledge. He was afraid; all the strength and courage he had seemed to desert him. The punt was now almost on a level with the ledge. The wave was about to curl and fall. It was the precise moment when he must leap—that instant, too, when the punt must be pulled out of the grip of the breaker, if at all.

He felt of a sudden that he _must_ do this thing. Therefore why not do it courageously? He leaped; but this new courage had not come in time. He made the ledge, but he fell an inch short of a firm footing. So for a moment he tottered, between falling forward and falling back. Then he caught the branch of an overhanging shrub, and with this saved himself. When he turned, Job had the punt in safety; but he was breathing hard, as if the strain had been great.

“’Twas not so hard, was it, b’y?” said Job.

“No, zur,” said Donald.

Donald cast the net line loose from its mooring, and saw that it was all clear. His father let the punt sweep in again. It is much easier to leap from a solid rock than from a boat, so Donald jumped in without difficulty. Then they rowed out to the buoy and hauled the great, dripping net over the side.

It was well they went out, for before morning the ice had drifted over the place where the net had been. More than that, Donald North profited by his experience. He perceived that if perils must be encountered, they are best met with a clear head and an unflinching heart.

That night, when he thought it over, he was comforted.

* * * * *

In the gales and high seas of the summer following, and in the blinding snowstorms and bitter cold of the winter, Donald North grew in fine readiness to face peril at the call of duty. All that he had gained was put to the test in the next spring, when the floating ice, which drifts out of the north in the spring break-up, was driven by the wind against the coast.

Job North, with Alexander Bludd and Bill Stevens, went out on the ice to hunt seal, and the hunt led them ten miles offshore. In the afternoon of that day the wind gave some sign of changing to the west, and at dusk it was blowing half a gale offshore. When the wind blows offshore it sweeps all this wandering ice out to sea, and disperses the whole pack.

“Go see if your father’s comin’, b’y,” said Donald’s mother. “I’m gettin’ terrible nervous about the ice.”

Donald took his gaff—a long pole of the light, tough dogwood, two inches thick and shod with iron—and set out. It was growing dark, and the wind, rising still, was blowing in strong, cold gusts. It began to snow while he was yet on the ice of the harbor, half a mile away from the pans and clumpers which the wind of the day before had crowded against the coast.

When he came to the “standing ice,”—the stationary rim of ice which is frozen to the coast,—the wind was thickly charged with snow. What with dusk and snow, he found it hard to keep to the right way. But he was not afraid for himself; his only fear was that the wind would sweep the ice-pack out to sea before his father reached the “standing edge.” In that event, as he knew, Job North would be doomed.

Donald went out on the standing edge. Beyond lay a widening gap of water. The pack had already begun to move out.

There was no sign of Job North’s party. The lad ran up and down, hallooing as he ran; but for a time there was no answer to his call. Then it seemed to him he heard a despairing hail, sounding far to the right, whence he had come. Night had almost fallen, and the snow added to its depth; but as he ran back, Donald could still see across the gap of water to that great pan of ice, which, of all the pack, was nearest to the standing edge. He perceived that the gap had considerably widened since he had first observed it.

“Is that you, father?” he called.

“Iss, Donald!” came an answering hail from directly opposite. “Is there a small pan of ice on your side?”

Donald searched up and down the edge for a detached cake large enough for his purpose. Near at hand he came upon a thin, small pan, not more than six feet square.

“Haste, b’y!” cried his father.

“They’s one here,” he called back, “but ’tis too small! Is there none there?”

“No, b’y! Fetch that over!”

Here was a desperate need. If the lad was to meet it, he must act instantly and fearlessly. He stepped out on the pan, and pushed off with his gaff.

Using his gaff as a paddle—as these gaffs are constantly used in ferrying by the Newfoundland fishermen—and helped by the wind, he soon ferried himself to where Job North stood waiting with his companions.

“’Tis too small,” said Stevens. “’Twill not hold two.”

North looked dubiously at the pan. Alexander Bludd shook his head in despair.

“Get back while you can, b’y,” said North. “Quick! We’re driftin’ fast. The pan’s too small.”

“I think ’tis big enough for one man and me,” said Donald.

“Get aboard and try it, Alexander,” said Job.

Alexander Bludd stepped on. The pan tipped fearfully, and the water ran over it; but when the weight of the man and the boy was properly adjusted, it seemed capable of bearing them both across. They pushed off.

When Alexander moved to put his gaff in the water the pan tipped again. Donald came near losing his footing. He moved nearer the edge, and the pan came to a level. They paddled with all their strength, for the wind was blowing against them, and there was need of haste if three passages were to be made. Meanwhile the gap had grown so wide that the wind had turned the ripples into waves, which washed over the pan as high as Donald’s ankles.

But they came safe across. Bludd stepped quickly ashore, and Donald pushed off. With the wind in his favor, he was soon once more at the other side.

“Now, Bill,” said North, “your turn next.”

“I can’t do it, Job,” said Stevens. “Get aboard yourself. The lad can’t come back again. We’re driftin’ out too fast. He’s your lad, an’ you’ve the right to—”

“Iss, I can come back,” said Donald. “Come on, Bill! Quick!”

Stevens was a lighter man than Alexander Bludd, but the passage was wider, and still widening, for the pack had gathered speed.

When Stevens was safely landed, he looked back.

A vast white shadow was all that he could see. Job North’s figure had been merged with the night.

“Donald, b’y,” he said, “you got to go back for your father, but I’m fair feared you’ll never—”

“Give me a push, Bill,” said Donald.

Stevens caught the end of the gaff and pushed the lad out.

“Good-by, Donald!” he said.

When the pan touched the other side, Job North stepped aboard without a word. He was a heavy man. With his great body on the ice-cake, the problem of return was enormously increased, as Donald had foreseen.

The pan was overweighted. Time and again it nearly shook itself free of its bad load and rose to the surface.

North stood near the center, plying his gaff with difficulty, but Donald was on the extreme edge. Moreover, the distance was twice as great as it had been at the first, and the waves were running high, and it was dark.

They made way slowly, and the pan often wavered beneath them; but Donald was intent upon the thing he was doing, and he was not afraid.

Then came the time—they were but ten yards off the standing edge—when North struck his gaff too deep into the water. He lost his balance, struggled desperately to regain it, failed—and fell off. Before Donald was awake to the danger, the edge of the pan sank under him, and he, too, toppled off.

Donald had learned to swim now. When he came to the surface, his father was breast-high in the water, looking for him.

“Are you all right, Donald?” said his father.

“Iss, zur.”

“Can you reach the ice alone?”

“Iss, zur,” said Donald quietly.

Alexander Bludd and Bill Stevens helped them up on the standing edge, and they were home by the kitchen fire in half an hour.

“’Twas bravely done, b’y,” said Job.

So Donald North learned that perils feared are much more terrible than perils faced. He has a courage of the finest kind, in these days, has young Donald.

A CHRISTMAS ADVENTURE

By J. E. Chamberlin

Having lived all his fourteen years in New York City, making occasional visits to his grandfather’s house in Connecticut, Horace Mason had often sighed for an adventure, and lamented because life in the eastern part of the country is so tame and uninteresting. It had certainly never occurred to him that the chance for a pretty thrilling adventure existed in the quiet country neighborhood in which his grandfather lived.

About a week before Christmas Horace’s mother took him to his grandfather’s farm for the holidays—he had seldom been there in winter.

The weather became remarkably cold and rough, but Horace found pleasure in walking about woods and pastures in rubber boots and ulster, and noting how odd the familiar scenes looked when covered with snow and ice, instead of dressed in green.

A tree was to be set up on Christmas Eve in the old homestead; but Uncle John, on the afternoon of the twenty-third, brought in for the celebration a rather scraggly little red cedar, brown rather than green, which Horace deemed totally unfit for the dignity of a Christmas celebration.

“Why didn’t you get a fir balsam, with a nice even top to it?” Horace asked his uncle.

“Don’t grow around here.”

“But there are some over in the Big Swamp,” said Horace.

“Never noticed ’em,” said Uncle John.

Horace said nothing to this, because he was aware that he had often noticed things about the region, in the way of trees, plants and birds, which were apparently quite unobserved by the residents.

“You won’t be offended if I go after one to-morrow, will you, Uncle John?”

“Bless your heart, no!”

The next morning a blizzard raged. Horace, looking out, saw nothing but the whirling fine snow; the wind rattled all the shutters on the old house; it shook the building to its very foundations.

Horace thought it would be great fun to go out into this storm, with ulster, high rubber boots, and cap over his ears, looking for a Christmas tree in the Big Swamp. It did not occur to him that he needed to get his mother’s permission for the expedition, and it certainly did not occur to her that the boy would start out in such a storm.

Shortly after breakfast he took an ax from the wood-shed, and was gone. On the way he thought for a time that he must turn back—the storm buffeted him so terribly, and the cold, in spite of his warm coverings, was so intense. But he fought his way along, and at last came to the borders of the swamp, a flat tract of perhaps a hundred acres, lying in a hollow between hills.

In the spring this level expanse was mostly covered with water, up through which grew many low red maples, some scattered firs and cedars, and a jungle of alders. Horace had often wished that he might explore the gloomy depths of this swamp, but in midsummer mosquitoes and pools forbade. Now, with the ground and the pools frozen, he had no doubt he could pass through the swamp from end to end.

He left the wood road, and plowed through the deep snow along the margin of the swamp, looking out for firs. But he could see nothing more than a rod or two away. The storm did not diminish, and all about him the snow seemed extraordinarily deep. He sank into it up to his knees, and sometimes it was deeper still. He walked thus a long way on the edge of the swamp woodland, not caring to plunge into the swamp until he should have spied out a balsam.

At last he saw, through the cloud of snow, the tapering head of an unmistakable fir balsam. He struck into the swamp after it, parting the alder branches with the ax held with both hands before him, and sinking two or three inches deeper into the snow.

The fir proved to be too irregular for a Christmas tree. Then, through the snow, he saw another farther in the swamp. He penetrated to that, and found one side of it lacking. Beyond were other firs, and he fought his way deeper and deeper into the swamp.

He discovered now a circumstance that aided him somewhat in working his way through the jungle. The matted alders seemed to lean away in masses from the hummocks of earth upon which they grew, in such a way as to make crooked arched-over passageways, which, Horace thought, were curiously like the paths moles make under matted grass. He had often amused himself in summer digging out these mole-paths, and wondering why the crooked ways were constructed.

These avenues through the alder thickets, away down in the bottom of a swamp quite impenetrable without them, often came to an abrupt end. Then Horace, floundering on hands and knees in the deep snow, sometimes thrusting his foot down into a watery depth, had to break his way with his ax through to another opening.

He found the seclusion somewhat interesting. Down here there was no wind, and his clothing and his laborious exercise made him warm—even uncomfortably so. He lay a few minutes on his back, in a place where he could look up through an opening in the branches, and marveled at the sight of the stormy maelstrom overhead.

The whirling snow looked black. For a moment the current of it seemed flowing like a river all one way; then it appeared to turn, to cross itself, and to twist about in a circle, from which it soon disentangled itself, to resume its swift and steady march in one direction.

All at once it occurred to Horace to ask himself, Which direction was that? He thought first that he could not get lost in the swamp so long as he could see which way the snow was driving; but a chill ran over him when he reflected that he had not noticed, in his eagerness all the morning to be out in the storm, which way the wind was blowing. He tried now to think which way it had come as he walked to the swamp, but all he could recall was that the storm seemed to be coming from all directions at once.

He started up with a sudden alarm; and then, noticing the deep track he had made as he floundered to the place where he lay now, he began to laugh. To get out of the swamp, he had only to follow his tracks back.

He had come in here to find a nice young fir for a Christmas tree, and he was bound to get one. As he sat up, preparatory to rising, he saw that the snow, sifting down straight and steady from the eddying masses above the tops of the alders, had covered his coat and trousers with a deposit half an inch thick. And the minute of inaction had made him feel cold and stiff. He must be stirring.

He plowed along farther into the swamp. Coming out on the surface of one of the pools, he was rejoiced to see some balsam tops that seemed not more than a rod or two from the other edge of the pool. He struck through to them, but found here not even a mole-path; he had to cut and slash with his ax to get to the trunks of the firs.

Although the butts were five or six inches thick, the tops seemed tapering and even, and he set about cutting down one of the trees. Very soon he had the trunk cut in two, and it settled down into the snow; but fall it certainly could not, so dense was the growth all about it. He had to drag the butt through the bushes, still fighting his way with the ax, until the tree lay nearly flat on the ground; and then he found that the shape did not suit him at all.

He left this fir on the ground and went plowing after another.

Before long, traversing one of the tunnels under the alders, he came upon the very fir he wanted—a beautiful, even little tree, thick and green. He cut it down eagerly; but in another moment he found that it was as impracticable to drag that bushy-headed young tree through the alder jungle as it would have been to move a house through the same wilderness. Horace had literally to carve a way for it. He slashed and chopped and worked the tree along a rod or two, and this took him at least half an hour.

Horace sat down, quite out of breath, on the butt of the little tree to think it over. How could he get the tree out? He pondered a good while, and began to feel very cold, and then looked up to see if the storm was still raging violently. It certainly was. The space above the treetops was black with clouds of snow.

Then, chancing to look away in the direction from which he had come, he noticed that his tracks were already filled with snow! Horace jumped up, quite willing to leave his Christmas tree behind, and dragging his ax, rushed through the tunnel toward the pool that he had crossed less than an hour before. The track disappeared completely before he had reached this small open space. Although the alder branches were so thick, they held up very little of the snow. Leafless and wiry, they afforded little surface for the hard snow to cling to.

Nevertheless, Horace found his way to the pool, and there the storm struck him full in the face. It was blinding. He could no longer see the fir tops that had beckoned him on an hour ago! Every track that he had made in coming in was completely obliterated!

Perhaps if he beat round the outskirts of the pool he could find the tracks where he came in, among the bushes on the other side. So he began to walk round and round the little open space, searching in vain for the tracks, and finding nothing but those by which he had just come out of the alders where he had cut the tree; and even these tracks were rapidly being covered.

He began to feel decidedly queer, for he had not the slightest idea now which was the way out of the swamp. But he must be able to reach some place where he could see the woods; and once out of the swamp and into these, he could easily enough find his way back to the house.

So for more than an hour—it seemed longer to him, but he had left his watch at home, and had no way of telling the time—he dragged himself through the tunnels under the alders, or slashed to right and left with his ax. He struggled and grew desperate, and never once did he catch sight of anything that looked like the woods or the margin of the swamp.

The snow grew deeper and deeper, and made the arching tops of his mole-paths lower and lower, while the labor of floundering and dragging himself through them became more terrible. Once he felt a thrill of relief upon coming on a track which he knew must be his own. He supposed that it was the track by which he had come into the jungle in the morning, strangely left uncovered by some better protection than the thicket had provided elsewhere. So he started back on it quite joyfully. And he followed it until he came to the trunk of a little maple-tree which he knew he had cut down not fifteen minutes before to clear a path.

Then he knew he was winding about and had crossed his own tracks. If he followed them farther, they would simply bring him back to where he stood now.

Meanwhile he had grown very faint—he was almost too badly scared to be aware that he was hungry.

But he felt that it must be afternoon; and on such a day, and at this time of year, the darkness would fall by half past three. He felt himself hopelessly lost—and abandoned, too, for why did not the people at the house miss him, and know that, having gone after a Christmas tree, he must be lost in the Big Swamp? Why did they not send after him?

They _must_ come! But if he sat down and waited for them he would get chilled. Already, in spite of his efforts, he felt a numbness creeping over him. The sense of it filled him with horror. He hurled himself against the bushes; he threw himself on his hands and knees, and worked his way through the narrow passages. His mind went over and over various futile schemes for tracing his way.

All at once he stopped and pondered. If he was really going round in a ring when he thought he was going straight, could it be possible that he would go straight if he tried to go round in a ring? And if he found his way back to his track and made a ring, why not start out anew and deliberately add another ring to that? Enough circles made thus, placed side by side, would reach at last the edge of the swamp.

He went back on his tracks, and was pleased to find that the snow had not yet covered them so deeply but that he could find the place where he had branched off from the ring he had made.

Walking back on this a few steps, Horace went off to the left, purposely intending to make another circle and come back to this one. But after threading and pushing his way a long time, he convinced himself that he was not returning to it; no more tracks did he find. Did this mean that he was now following a straighter line, or merely that he was making a larger circle, and going entirely round the inner one?

A terrible fear of the snow and the earth came over him, and he could not bear to get down on his hands and knees to follow the tunnels under the bushes. But he was too weak to fight his way upright through the thicket. His brain reeled as he strained his eyes for the five-hundredth time for some sign of the trees of the woods.

It reeled still more when it seemed to him that he saw something large and black and shapeless through the gloom—some strange and threatening object descending upon him.

The boy was so weak and tired and dazed by the long beating about and the everlasting swirl of the storm above his head, that he could not bring his reason to bear upon the consideration of the question what this thing might be. It seemed to dash forward at him, and the formless black mass then divided as if it were the mouth of a crocodile, and then it drew back; it shook angrily from side to side; now it dashed at him again, and opened its terrible mouth.

Horace felt himself swooning in horror, and he knew that if he fainted here it would be the last of him. Oh, why had not his mother sent for him?

Then a thought of shame came over him, that he should be fainting with terror over something that could not be real.

Out of this shame grew a resolution, and suddenly the resolution mended his reason, and enabled him to see that this terrible shapeless object was a great pine-tree, whose dark branches were waving and bending and opening in the storm, seen dimly through the thick snow.

Then he was at the edge of the woods! He tore through the bushes, and came out on the clear space about the tree, and rushed up to it. He dropped the ax and put his arms round the tree. Now he had to pull himself together to save himself from swooning with joy. But in another minute he felt much better. He had no idea on which side of the swamp he was, but that did not matter. He could find his way well enough now.

After a little search, he found that he was exactly on the opposite side of the swamp from that on which he had gone in. And as he was skirting the edge of it, feeling fearfully hungry as well as weak, he saw, growing quite within his reach, a fine young fir-tree.

Then he remembered that he had dropped the ax at the foot of the pine-tree, and he had to go back and get it before he could cut down the little tree. But he did cut it down, and staggered home with it, weak but triumphant.

He found that it was three o’clock, and his mother was very much agitated, and Uncle John had gone away, by the road, to the Big Swamp about half an hour before. The boy had been so much accustomed to going off by himself that his mother had not worried until he had failed to return for the midday meal. Nor had she any idea what sort of a place the Big Swamp was.

When Uncle John got it through his somewhat slow head that Horace had in all probability actually gone there, he, too, had become alarmed, and after slow preparations, had started. Horace had missed him by coming home across the pastures.

But Uncle John was brought home in an hour by the hired man, and as Horace felt much better after a good meal and a rest, the tree that he had brought was dressed, and the Christmas festival merrily celebrated by its aid.

CHASED BY THE TRAIL

By Jack London

Walt first blinked his eyes in the light of day in a trading post on the Yukon River. Masters, his father, was one of those world missionaries who are known as “pioneers,” and who spend the years of their life in pushing outward the walls of civilization and in planting the wilderness. He had selected Alaska as his field of labor, and his wife had gone with him to that land of frost and cold.

Now, to be born to the moccasin and pack-strap is indeed a hard way of entering the world, but far harder it is to lose one’s mother while yet a child. This was Walt’s misfortune when he was fourteen years old.

He had, at different times, done deeds which few boys get the chance to do, and he had learned to take some pride in himself and to be unafraid. With most people pride goeth before a fall; but not so with Walt. His was a healthy belief in his own strength and fitness, and knowing his limitations, he was neither overweening nor presumptuous. He had learned to meet reverses with the stoicism of the Indian. Shame, to him, lay not in the failure to accomplish, but in the failure to strive. So, when he attempted to cross the Yukon between two ice-runs, and was chased by the trail, he was not cast down by his defeat.

The way of it was this. After passing the winter at his father’s claim on Mazy May, he came down to an island on the Yukon and went into camp. This was late in the spring, just before the breaking of the ice on the river. It was quite warm, and the days were growing marvelously long. Only the night before, when he was talking with Chilkoot Jim, the daylight had not faded and sent him off to bed till after ten o’clock. Even Chilkoot Jim, an Indian boy who was about Walt’s own age, was surprised at the rapidity with which summer was coming on. The snow had melted from all the southern hillsides and the level surfaces of the flats and islands; everywhere could be heard the trickling of water and the song of hidden rivulets; but somehow, under its three-foot ice-sheet, the Yukon delayed to heave its great length of three thousand miles and shake off the frosty fetters which bound it.

But it was evident that the time was fast approaching when it would again run free. Great fissures were splitting the ice in all directions, while the water was beginning to flood through them and over the top. On this morning a frightful rumbling brought the two boys hurriedly from their blankets. Standing on the bank, they soon discovered the cause. The Stewart River had broken loose and reared a great ice barrier, where it entered the Yukon, barely a mile above their island. While a great deal of the Stewart ice had been thus piled up, the remainder was now flowing under the Yukon ice, pounding and thumping at the solid surface above it as it passed onward toward the sea.

“To-day um break um,” Chilkoot Jim said, nodding his head. “Sure!”

“And then maybe two days for the ice to pass by,” Walt added, “and you and I’ll be starting for Dawson. It’s only seventy miles, and if the current runs five miles an hour and we paddle three, we ought to make it inside of ten hours. What do you think?”

“Sure!” Chilkoot Jim did not know much English, and this favorite word of his was made to do duty on all occasions.

After breakfast the boys got out the Peterborough canoe from its winter cache. It was an admirable sample of the boat-builder’s skill, an imported article brought from the natural home of the canoe—Canada. It had been packed over the Chilkoot Pass, two years before, on a man’s back, and had then carried the first mail in six months into the Klondike. Walt, who happened to be in Dawson at the time, had bought it for three hundred dollars’ worth of dust which he had mined on the Mazy May.

It had been a revelation, both to him and to Chilkoot Jim, for up to its advent they had been used to no other craft than the flimsy birch-bark canoes of the Indians and the rude poling-boats of the whites. Jim, in fact, spent many a happy half-hour in silent admiration of its perfect lines.

“Um good. Sure!” Jim lifted his gaze from the dainty craft, expressing his delight in the same terms for the thousandth time. But glancing over Walt’s shoulder, he saw something on the river which startled him. “Look! See!” he cried.

A man had been racing a dog-team across the slushy surface for the shore, and had been cut off by the rising flood. As Walt whirled round to see, the ice behind the man burst into violent commotion, splitting and smashing into fragments which bobbed up and down and turned turtle like so many corks.

A gush of water followed, burying the sled and washing the dogs from their feet. Tangled in their harness and securely fastened to the heavy sled, they must drown in a few minutes unless rescued by the man. Bravely his manhood answered.

Floundering about with the drowning animals, nearly hip-deep in the icy flood, he cut and slashed with his sheath-knife at the traces. One by one the dogs struck out for shore, the first reaching safety ere the last was released. Then the master, abandoning the sled, followed them. It was a struggle in which little help could be given, and Walt and Chilkoot Jim could only, at the last, grasp his hands and drag him, half-fainting, up the bank.

First he sat down till he had recovered his breath; next he knocked the water from his ears like a boy who has just been swimming; and after that he whistled his dogs together to see whether they had all escaped. These things done, he turned his attention to the lads.

“I’m Muso,” he said, “Pete Muso, and I’m looking for Charley Drake. His partner is dying down at Dawson, and they want him to come at once, as soon as the river breaks. He’s got a cabin on this island, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” Walt answered, “but he’s over on the other side of the river, with a couple of other men, getting out a raft of logs for a grub-stake.”

The stranger’s disappointment was great. Exhausted by his weary journey, just escaped from sudden death, overcome by all he had undergone in carrying the message which was now useless, he looked dazed. The tears welled into his eyes, and his voice was choked with sobs as he repeated, aimlessly, “But his partner’s dying. It’s his partner, you know, and he wants to see him before he dies.”

Walt and Jim knew that nothing could be done, and as aimlessly looked out on the hopeless river. No man could venture on it and live. On the other bank, and several miles up-stream, a thin column of smoke wavered to the sky. Charley Drake was cooking his dinner there; seventy miles below, his partner lay dying; yet no word of it could be sent.

But even as they looked, a change came over the river. There was a muffled rending and tearing, and, as if by magic, the surface water disappeared, while the great ice-sheet, reaching from shore to shore, and broken into all manner and sizes of cakes, floated silently up toward them. The ice which had been pounding along underneath had evidently grounded at some point lower down, and was now backing up the water like a mill-dam. This had broken the ice-sheet from the land and lifted it on top of the rising water.

“Um break um very quick,” Chilkoot Jim said.

“Then here goes!” Muso cried, at the same time beginning to strip his wet clothes.

The Indian boy laughed. “Mebbe you get um in middle, mebbe not. All the same, the trail um go down-stream, and you go, too. Sure!” He glanced at Walt, that he might back him up in preventing this insane attempt.

“You’re not going to try and make it across?” Walt queried.

Muso nodded his head, sat down, and proceeded to unlace his moccasins.

“But you mustn’t!” Walt protested. “It’s certain death. The river’ll break before you get half-way, and then what good’ll your message be?”

But the stranger doggedly went on undressing, muttering in an undertone, “I want Charley Drake! Don’t you understand? It’s his partner, dying.”

“Um sick man. Bimeby—” The Indian boy put a finger to his forehead and whirled his hand in quick circles, thus indicating the approach of brain fever. “Um work too hard, and um think too much, all the time think about sick man at Dawson. Very quick um head go round—so.” And he feigned the bodily dizziness which is caused by a disordered brain.

By this time, undressed as if for a swim, Muso rose to his feet and started for the bank. Walt stepped in front, barring the way. He shot a glance at his comrade. Jim nodded that he understood and would stand by.

“Get out of my way, boy!” Muso commanded, roughly, trying to thrust him aside.

But Walt closed in, and with the aid of Jim succeeded in tripping him upon his back. He struggled weakly for a few moments, but was too wearied by his long journey to cope successfully with the two boys whose muscles were healthy and trail-hardened.

“Pack um into camp, roll um in plenty blanket, and I fix um good,” Jim advised.

This was quickly accomplished, and the sufferer made as comfortable as possible. After he had been attended to, and Jim had utilized the medical lore picked up in the camps of his own people, they fed the stranger’s dogs and cooked dinner. They said very little to each other, but each boy was thinking hard, and when they went out into the sunshine a few minutes later, their minds were intent on the same project.

The river had now risen twenty feet, the ice rubbing softly against the top of the bank. All noise had ceased. Countless millions of tons of ice and water were silently waiting the supreme moment, when all bonds would be broken and the mad rush to the sea would begin. Suddenly, without the slightest apparent effort, everything began to move down-stream. The jam had broken.

Slowly at first but faster and faster the frozen sea dashed past. The noise returned again, and the air trembled to a mighty churning and grinding. Huge blocks of ice were shot into the air by the pressure; others butted wildly into the bank; still others, swinging and pivoting, reached inshore and swept rows of pines away as easily as if they were so many matches.

In awe-stricken silence the boys watched the magnificent spectacle, and it was not until the ice had slackened its speed and fallen to its old level that Walt cried, “Look, Jim! Look at the trail going by!”

And in truth it was the trail going by—the trail upon which they had camped and traveled during all the preceding winter. Next winter they would journey with dogs and sleds over the same ground, but not on the same trail. That trail, the old trail, was passing away before their eyes.

Looking up-stream, they saw open water. No more ice was coming down, although vast quantities of it still remained on the upper reaches, jammed somewhere amid the maze of islands which covered the Yukon’s breast. As a matter of fact, there were several jams yet to break, one after another, and to send down as many ice-runs. The next might come along in a few minutes; it might delay for hours. Perhaps there would be time to paddle across. Walt looked questioningly at his comrade.

“Sure!” Jim remarked, and without another word they carried the canoe down the bank. Each knew the danger of what they were about to attempt, but they wasted no speech over it. Wild life had taught them both that the need of things demanded effort and action, and that the tongue found its fit vocation at the camp-fire when the day’s work was done.

With dexterity born of long practice they launched the canoe, and were soon making it spring to each stroke of the paddles as they stemmed the muddy current. A steady procession of lagging ice-cakes, each thoroughly capable of crushing the _Peterborough_ like an egg-shell, was drifting on the surface, and it required of the boys the utmost vigilance and skill to thread them safely.

Anxiously they watched the great bend above, down which at any moment might rush another ice-run. And as anxiously they watched the ice stranded against the bank and towering a score of feet above them. Cake was poised upon cake and piled in precarious confusion, while the boys had to hug the shore closely to avoid the swifter current of mid-stream. Now and again great heaps of this ice tottered and fell into the river, rolling and rumbling like distant thunder, and lashing the water into fair-sized tidal waves.

Several times they were nearly swamped, but saved themselves by quick work with the paddles. And all the time Charley Drake’s pillard camp smoke grew nearer and clearer. But it was still on the opposite shore, and they knew they must get higher up before they attempted to shoot across.

Entering the Stewart River, they paddled up a few hundred yards, shot across, and then continued up the right hank of the Yukon. Before long they came to the Bald-Face Bluffs—huge walls of rock which rose perpendicularly from the river. Here the current was swiftest inshore, forming the first serious obstacle encountered by the boys. Below the bluffs they rested from their exertions in a favorable eddy, and then, paddling their strongest, strove to dash past.

At first they gained, but in the swiftest place the current overpowered them. For a full sixty seconds they remained stationary, neither advancing nor receding, the grim cliff base within reach of their arms, their paddles dipping and lifting like clockwork, and the rough water dashing by in muddy haste. For a full sixty seconds, and then the canoe sheered in to the shore. To prevent instant destruction, they pressed their paddles against the rocks, sheered back into the stream, and were swept away. Regaining the eddy, they stopped for breath. A second time they attempted the passage; but just as they were almost past, a threatening ice-cake whirled down upon them on the angry tide, and they were forced to flee before it.

“Um stiff, I think yes,” Chilkoot Jim said, mopping the sweat from his face as they again rested in the eddy. “Next time um make um, sure.”

“We’ve got to. That’s all there is about it,” Walt answered, his teeth set and lips tight-drawn, for Pete Muso had set a bad example, and he was almost ready to cry from exhaustion and failure. A third time they darted out of the head of the eddy, plunged into the swirling waters, and worked a snail-like course ahead. Often they stood still for the space of many strokes, but whatever they gained they held, and they at last drew out into easier water far above. But every moment was precious. There was no telling when the Yukon would again become a scene of wild anarchy in which neither man nor any of his works could hope to endure. So they held steadily to their course till they had passed above Charley Drake’s camp by a quarter of a mile. The river was fully a mile wide at this point, and they had to reckon on being carried down by the swift current in crossing it.

Walt turned his head from his place in the bow. Jim nodded. Without further parley they headed the canoe out from the shore, at an angle of forty-five degrees against the current. They were on the last stretch now; the goal was in fair sight. Indeed, as they looked up from the toil to mark their progress, they could see Charley Drake and his two comrades come down to the edge of the river to watch them.

Five hundred yards; four hundred yards; the _Peterborough_ cut the water like a blade of steel; the paddles were dipping, dipping, dipping in rapid rhythm—and then a warning shout from the bank sent a chill to their hearts. Round the great bend just above rolled a mighty wall of glistening white. Behind it, urging it on to lightning speed, were a million tons of long-pent water.

The right flank of the ice-run, unable to get cleanly round the bend, collided with the opposite shore, and even as they looked they saw the ice mountains rear toward the sky, rise, collapse, and rise again in glittering convulsions. The advancing roar filled the air so that Walt could not make himself heard; but he paused long enough to wave his paddle significantly in the direction of Dawson. Perhaps Charley Drake, seeing, might understand.

With two swift strokes they whirled the _Peterborough_ down-stream. They must keep ahead of the rushing flood. It was impossible to make either bank at that moment. Every ounce of their strength went into the paddles, and the frail canoe fairly rose and leaped ahead at every stroke. They said nothing. Each knew and had faith in the other, and they were too wise to waste their breath. The shore-line—trees, islands and the Stewart River—flew by at a bewildering rate, but they barely looked at it.

Occasionally Chilkoot Jim stole a glance behind him at the pursuing trail, and marked the fact that they held their own. Once he shaped a sharper course toward the bank, but found the trail was overtaking them, and gave it up.

Gradually they worked in to land, their failing strength warning them that it was soon or never. And at last, when they did draw up to the bank, they were confronted by the inhospitable barrier of the stranded shore-ice. Not a place could be found to land, and with safety virtually within arm’s reach, they were forced to flee on down the stream. They passed a score of places, at each of which, had they had plenty of time, they could have clambered out; but behind pressed on the inexorable trail, and would not let them pause.

Half a mile of this work drew heavily upon their strength; and the trail came upon them nearer and nearer. Its sullen grind was in their ears, and its collisions against the bank made one continuous succession of terrifying crashes. Walt felt his heart thumping against his ribs and caught each breath in painful gasps. But worst of all was the constant demand upon his arms.

If he could only rest for the space of one stroke, he felt that the torture would be relieved; but no, it was dip and lift, dip and lift, till it seemed as if at each stroke he would surely die. But he knew that Chilkoot Jim was suffering likewise; that their lives depended each upon the other; and that it would be a blot upon his manhood should he fail or even miss a stroke.

They were very weary, but their faith was large, and if either felt afraid, it was not of the other, but of himself.

Flashing round a sharp point, they came upon their last chance for escape. An island lay close inshore, upon the nose of which the ice lay piled in a long slope. They drove the _Peterborough_ half out of water upon a shelving cake and leaped out. Then, dragging the canoe along, slipping and tripping and falling, but always getting nearer the top, they made their last mad scramble.

As they cleared the crest and fell within the shelter of the pines, a tremendous crash announced the arrival of the trail. One huge cake, shoved to the top of the rim-ice, balanced threateningly above them and then toppled forward.

With one jerk they flung themselves and the canoe from beneath, and again fell, breathless and panting for air. The thunder of the ice-run came dimly to their ears; but they did not care. It held no interest for them whatsoever. All they wished was simply to lie there, just as they had fallen, and enjoy the inaction of repose.

Two hours later, when the river once more ran open, they carried the _Peterborough_ down to the water. But just before they launched it, Charley Drake and a comrade paddled up in another canoe.

“Well, you boys hardly deserve to have good folks out looking for you, the way you’ve behaved,” was his greeting. “What under the sun made you leave your tent and get chased by the trail? Eh? That’s what I’d like to know.”

It took but a minute to explain the real state of affairs, and but another to see Charley Drake hurrying along on his way to his sick partner at Dawson.

“Pretty close shave, that,” Walt Masters said, as they prepared to get aboard and paddle back to camp.

“Sure!” Chilkoot Jim replied, rubbing his stiffened biceps in a meditative fashion.

BIG TIMBER BEACON

By John L. Mathews

There were three government beacon-lights in Big Timber Bend, and the uppermost of them was Barney Layton’s. It was nothing more than a lantern set in a frame against a white target on the top of a post, fifty feet from the edge of the deep bank of the Mississippi River. It was at the very head of the bend, at the foot of the “crossing” by which the channel came from the lower end of Silverplate Bend over into Big Timber. It stood there so that the pilots on river steamers, coming down, could set the bows of their boats toward it, and run straight and true in the channel between the lower end of McAlpin’s Bar and the head of Nodaway Towhead.

When the river was low, this channel was both shoal and narrow, and the white target by day and the bright lantern by night had been gladly welcomed by pilots who had figured their way over the crossing in old days by sounding-pole and luck.

Every night at sunset Barney climbed the levee in front of his mother’s cabin, walked the half-mile down to the head of Big Timber, and out by a path he had made through the big timber itself to his light-post, carrying the lantern, which he set in place and lighted. Every morning he came early to put it out and carry it home for cleaning and filling. For this the government paid his mother seventy-five dollars a year, besides furnishing the oil and other supplies; and seventy-five dollars a year is a considerable amount behind a levee in lower Arkansas.

The work was not always as easy as it sounds. Some years the Mississippi never rises out of its banks—and some years it does. When it did, it filled all the big timber in front of the levee with a rushing current, and Barney Layton had to use main strength as well as his wits getting out in his skiff to tend his light. Sometimes he would be carried by, and washed a mile down-stream before he could get out of the current and start home again; and with the river out of its banks, he was always rather glad when the post, too, was submerged, and the support for his light was either nailed on a tree in the front of the big timber or abandoned altogether for a week or two.

Big Timber Bend had been stable for several years. The swift current of the river sweeping by its front had apparently taken not a foot of soil from it. The light-post had been shifted hardly a rod in two seasons. The crossing seemed to hold its place.

But at last came a big water out of the Ohio, which found the river already full and the lower tributaries high. For weeks it stood over the banks and against the levees, and when at last it went down, it left the earthen banks saturated with water, so that they could with difficulty sustain their own weight without collapsing.

Then Silverplate Bend began to cave. As the pressure of the water on its front was withdrawn, the bank began to topple over and settle into the river in great slices, eating back farther and farther, changing the shape of the bend, and altering the set of the current over the crossing. The deflected swift water ate up into McAlpin’s Bar, and struck Big Timber Bend a hundred yards above the light; and one night the _Rupert Lee_, coming up, and steering by Barney’s beacon, as it turned where the crossing used to be, ran hard on a new bar at the head of Nodaway Towhead. She got off before morning, and lay up at the light till the crossing could be sounded, and Barney had a chat about it with pilot Ned Hinckley.

“Better get your light shifted,” said the pilot, banteringly. “If we’d been coming down and struck that bar with the current, the _Rupert_ would have left her bones in it. What good’s a false beacon, youngster?”

“A false beacon?” Barney took that very much to heart. He told his mother about it, and she forthwith wrote to the lighthouse inspector; but the letter was forestalled the next day, when the tender _Lily_ herself arrived with the inspector on board, sounded out a new channel, and moved Barney’s light up the bank to mark it.

“Now, Barney,” said the inspector, “you’ve got to be on watch. That bank in Silverplate is going to make trouble below. Big Timber Bend will begin caving before many days. It can’t stand this. The water is seventy feet deep right in front of this bank, and it must be cutting pretty steep now. The snag boat will be along pretty soon and cut the timber off quite away back, and then we’ll set the light farther inland. But till then you must watch, and if the bank where the light is starts to go, get the target and nail it to the front of that big gum-tree right behind it. If that goes, keep on working straight back till we get here. The crossing is moving up so you’ll be about right.”

Barney promised faithfully—and he kept his word. He was only a boy of fifteen, and it was a good deal of responsibility to have on his shoulders; but Barney was used to all kinds of responsibility, from taking care of his mother to hauling his cotton to the gin. He would keep this beacon true.

The inspector’s prophecy was promptly verified. Within a week Big Timber Bend was caving, and caving badly. When Barney came to put the light out one morning, he heard the roar of it—a roar that made him run, for it was more than the noise of earthen banks going in; it was the sound of trees crashing into the river.

He hurried through the woods and found his light still standing, but so close to the edge that it seemed saved by a miracle. The bank before it had given and slipped into the water, leaving not over a foot of earth before the post, and the ladder by which he usually mounted stuck out over empty air.

Barney approached cautiously, knowing that the whole section on which he stood might at any moment sink into the deep water. As he neared the edge, there was a roar, and a big section ten rods down-stream went under. Barney felt chills run up and down his spine, but he stayed to get his light. Foot by foot he advanced, waiting to see if anything would happen after each step, and reached at last the six-foot post, “shinned” cautiously up it, grasped the lantern, and retired to safer ground.

Then he thought of the target. To get it was a task, for he might shake the post free and precipitate himself into the eddying water thirty feet below. But he must have the target. So cautiously he went back, and cautiously he tugged and wrenched until he had the white board loose. Then he went back to the house for nails and a hammer; and later in the day he came back to fix a new mounting, and brought the lantern with him.

Meanwhile the river had not been idle. Barney had left the white target at the foot of the big gum-tree on which it was to be nailed; but the river had evidently desired the piece of bank on which that gum-tree stood, and had undermined it. It had cracked off fifty feet back of the tree, and an acre at more had slumped down about four feet. There it had stopped, but Barney knew that the slightest jar might be enough to start the whole piece settling again beneath the river. Did he dare jump down on it, run out, get his target, and scramble back? Did he dare?

Barney thought about false beacons, and scarcely hesitated. The bank on which he stood had cut away as sharply as if chiseled, and the soil that formed the edge was still wet and smooth. Over it slipped Barney to the lower part, and hastened toward the gum.

He had just reached it when he felt a peculiar trembling of the earth, and heard a series of loud splashes at the waterside. A quick glance told him what was happening. The whole loose segment on which he stood had started slipping again. It went slowly down, while Barney raced for the firm bank; but when he reached the edge of the slipping piece he was already confronted by a precipice at least fifteen feet in height, to scale which was impossible.

Badly frightened, but not panic-stricken, he made two or three futile attempts, only to bring the earth crashing down with him; and realizing that this was to invite immediate sinking of the part he stood on, he looked for another plan. Up- and down-stream ran the precipice which balked him. All round the other sides the land gave sharply down into the river, and at its feet washed that swift current, which, within a short distance of the edge, was seventy feet deep.

Barney went carefully back to the big gum-tree, wondering how he would get off. As he stood by it the earth slipped five or six feet lower, and Barney realized that another six feet would put him under water. Then he had an idea. There was one route to possible safety—up the big gum-tree!

Sometimes when the bank goes in, such trees roll over and drift away, their roots free of earth. Sometimes they turn their roots up, embed their branches in the bottom, and form dangerous snags. But sometimes they stand upright for days, even weeks, their tops out of water, their main trunk and roots hidden deep beneath the flood. This was going down so straight that Barney hoped it might take that course.

It was a big tree and the nearest fork was at least twenty feet up. But Barney had brought his hammer and a pocketful of four-inch nails for the target. He picked the target up, and with two of them nailed it firmly to the tree five feet above the ground. He took a cord from his pocket and hung his lantern over his shoulder, drove a spike two feet from the ground for a step, mounted on it and threw a knee over the target, and drove another two feet above that.

Sitting on the target, he drove another still higher, and then standing, drove another above that. They were not directly in line, but formed a sort of ladder for him, although a ladder difficult to cling to.

He was still standing on the target when the earth slipped again, and this time tilted, so that the shore edge was below water-line; but the outer edge was a foot or two above the eddies, and the tree tilted shoreward slightly. That made climbing easier. He was on the upper side, and could lean somewhat against the tree. Nail after nail he drove, and climbed steadily upward until, as he reached the crotch and found branches on which he could mount more easily, the land in which the tree was rooted caved easily down into the turbulent water!

Had a mad dog suddenly learned how to climb a tree, and scrambled up after him, Barney could not have climbed faster than he now went up the rest of the big gum. He fairly jumped from branch to branch, warned of the need of haste by the gurgle of water below.

The bank went down steadily as he went up, but at last it came to rest again, leaving Barney ten feet above the water, and on the highest branch on which he dared to risk his weight.

Looking about him, he discovered himself in a dreadful plight. All round rushed the swift water of the channel current, bending and swaying his treetop till he feared it would be torn away. Fifty feet of angry water lay between him and the shore, and the shore itself was a frowning cliff almost perpendicular and thirty feet high. It was three miles down to the foot of Big Timber Bend, and Barney could see no prospect of being able to swim out.

He cogitated until dusk came, and could not imagine how any one would come to rescue him.

He had kept his hammer, thrust into his outside pocket, when he sprang into the branches, and with his last nail he made a hook for his lantern on the swaying tree. Then he lighted and hung the beacon.

“Must keep that true,” he said aloud, as he did so.

Then settling himself in the most nearly comfortable position he could find, he prepared to wait until some solution of his difficulty was thrust upon him, either by the final collapse of the tree or by the arrival of rescue. As it was a warm summer night, even the cool of the river could not make his position impossible, and there was nothing for him to do but wait.

When the big steamboat _Rupert Lee_, bound down, swung into the head of Silverplate Bend long after midnight, pilot Ned Hinckley prepared for trouble.

“Landing’s gone,” he said to his helper on the other side of the big wheel. “I saw Jim Higgins, who came up in the _Walsh Honsell_, and he says it has cut back a quarter of a mile. The whole bend has gone. The two houses at the landing—the people hardly got out. That’s what they get for living outside the levee. I wish I knew what we’ll find in the crossing below. Like as not, Big Timber Beacon has gone into the river before now.”

The big side-wheeler coughed her way down through the Silverplate Bend cautiously enough, feeling it by the loom of the shore, since the lights at the head and middle of it were gone.

Only a solitary beacon at the foot remained, and as they swept the curve the pilot reached for a lever and threw on the search-light, and with it lighted up the bend.

All along its front, tree trunks cluttered a ragged bank, and the water rustled through their tops as they lay fallen half-over. He cut the light off, and brought the steamboat a little farther out.

“Hate to take chances on McAlpin’s Bar,” he said. “But there are some nasty snags there, and the bar is the lesser evil.”

So they came down to the foot of the bend and to the solitary beacon. Then the pilot cast a glance across the river.

“Well, by hokey!” he exclaimed. “Big Timber Light is still standing. I’m glad of that. The _Lily_ reset it, and if ever I was glad to see a light I am glad to see that one now.”

He brought the big wheel spinning over toward him, and the _Rupert Lee_ swung its nose out from the bank, and slowly turned its huge bulk till it was headed toward the Big Timber Beacon. The current swept it downward as it turned, so that as it finally “straightened out,” the two lights bore almost directly ahead and astern, the proper line for a run through the thread of channel below McAlpin’s Bar. Hinckley thoughtfully eyed the Big Timber Beacon.

“Tommy,” he said, “does that light seem to be as high up as usual?”

“Pretty low,” commented Tommy, peering out into the darkness. “Looks to me like it ain’t steady, either.”

The light was, indeed, swaying with the motion of the tree, but a moment later it swayed much more violently. Barney had taken it from its nail, and was swinging it to and fro in a long arc, in the usual manner of hailing a passing steamboat.

“It ain’t the beacon at all—or else some one is using it for a signal-light!” exclaimed the pilot.

He threw the lever, and the search-light blazed out. A turn of a little wheel overhead directed the beams, and out of the darkness leaped the picture of a caved bank, a treetop waving in the water, and the figure of some one in the treetop swaying the light.

“It’s the beacon all right,” said the pilot, “or it’s where the beacon was.”

He reached for a rope, and sounded loudly three long blasts of the whistle, two short and another long. On the lower deck all was activity at once.

“What’s the landing, Mr. Hinckley?” came a deep voice from the darkness below. The pilot leaned out of the window and answered:

“Head of Big Timber Bend, captain. Something wrong with the beacon—some one in the water.”

He signaled the engine-room and the wheels stopped, and again the _Rupert Lee_ swung round.

Hinckley took a quick survey of the bank up and down the bend, then turned his light on the beacon tree. The figure of Barney stood out in bold detail.

“Hello!” said the pilot. “It’s the kid that tends the light. Lower the stage on deck there, and brace the inner end of it. Send some one out to pick the boy out of that tree. We will have to do it quick. Don’t miss him, now.”

The _Rupert Lee_ was broadside to the current, and drifting swiftly down-stream. The wheels were barely turning.

The port landing-stage was run out forward and lowered, a dozen negro hands were stationed on the inboard end of it, and a stout “rouster” and the mate ran to the outer end, where they hung out over the water. Barney saw them coming and made ready to be caught.

He hung the lantern on its nail, freed himself from the branches, and as Hinckley, with the skill of a lifelong experience, set the wheels of the steamer back to clear the nest of fallen trees, Barney reached out, and the two on the landing-stage caught him and dragged him on board. The steamer backed away and turned down-stream, and Barney, after hearty congratulations from the lower deck, was escorted to the pilot-house.

“Hello, bub!” said the pilot, as he came in. “No false light about you, is there? You guided us over that crossing straight as a die, and I’ll report the way you did it to the department.”

He did report him, too, and things came of that; but the ending of this story came when Barney had been put aboard the _Kate Clancy_ in the bend below, to be carried back home. And as the _Kate Clancy_ came up through Big Timber Bend, to drop him at the foot of McAlpin’s Bar, he and her captain surveyed the scene of his adventure, and found no sign of the beacon, for the big gum-tree and the lantern had gone into the river.

HOW HILDA GOT A SCHOOL

By Lelia Munsell

“Well, Hilda, do you want to try again?”

Mr. Kenyon had hung up his overcoat and cap and was standing with his back to the fire, which Hilda had quickened when she heard him coming. She knew he would be chilled, for it was a cold February night.

“Johnston told me that there would be a change for the spring term down here in Hazel Row,” he went on. “The board is going to meet next Monday, he said. So if you want to try again we’d better get in your application within a day or two.”

Mrs. Kenyon heard her husband’s question, and came in from the kitchen to hear what further he might have to say, while the two younger children dropped their play to listen. They were all interested in Hilda’s attempt to get a school.

“You could board at home if you got that,” said Mrs. Kenyon. “It’s only two miles.”

Mr. Kenyon laughed. “Better catch your hare before you cook it. Perhaps Hilda doesn’t even want to try again.”

“Papa,” cried Hilda, indignantly, “you know I want to try again! But now listen, you and mamma both. And please don’t think I don’t appreciate what you have done to help me; but I want to go all alone this time. If I am ever going to make a teacher, I must learn to depend upon myself. I can’t always have you to do things for me. And besides, I don’t blame a school board for not hiring a teacher who hasn’t grit enough to apply alone. You know I can’t say anything for myself when you are along, papa. I can talk before a stranger lots better than I can before you.”

“I don’t see why you should feel that way,” interposed Mrs. Kenyon. “You surely are not afraid of your father.”

“I’m not afraid of him in one sense, but in another sense I am. I can’t talk to the directors before him as I could if I were alone. I let papa apply for me last fall, and I let him go along twice this spring, and I haven’t a school yet.”

Mrs. Kenyon started to speak, but her husband shook his head at her. “I guess we’ll have to let you have your way this time,” he said. “We’ll see if you succeed any better than I did.”

Hilda gave him a grateful look.

“But how are you going?” he asked.

“Couldn’t I walk? It isn’t far.”

“No, indeed. Johnston, of course, is less than two miles away, but Mr. Andrews lives four or five miles northeast, and Smith is as far in the other direction. You’ll have twelve or fourteen miles to travel by the time you get back home. There is too much snow for you to walk, anyway, even if it wasn’t too far. And I can’t trust you to drive the team alone as cold as it is.”

“I can ride old Selim. He’s safe enough.”

“Yes, he’s safe enough. But you will find it pretty cold, riding so far on horseback.”

“You’d better let your father take you in the buggy,” said Mrs. Kenyon. “You’ll freeze to death on Selim.”

“Now, mamma, please!” begged Hilda, and her mother said no more.

Hilda had many ambitions, but the nearest and most absorbing one was to get a school. Beyond that lay a college course, and beyond that—she hardly dare to think of all the good things the future might hold for her and hers if only she might go to college.

But she knew that the money for a college course must come from her own efforts.

She had been a very proud girl when her first certificate came. It was only for a year, of course. According to the laws of the state, one must have taught three months to receive a certificate for a longer time than that. But her grades were high enough to entitle her to a second class.

The county superintendent had enclosed a kind little note with the certificate, and had spoken personally to her father, commending her work very highly. Hilda felt that she had a right to be proud.

But the certificate in itself was not worth much. Its chief value lay in the fact that it entitled her to teach if she could get a school. And how she did want a school! She dreamed of it by night and talked of it by day.

Her father’s announcement that there was a vacancy so near home raised her hopes again. If she could get the place she could save all her salary, for the schoolhouse was so near that she could board at home, as her mother had said. She must get it, that was all. And she felt that she must go alone. Mr. Kenyon made no objection this time, and Mrs. Kenyon consented on the condition that Hilda would allow herself to be well bundled up for the long, cold ride.

Hilda readily consented to this, but she almost rued her bargain in the morning when her mother insisted on putting a large coat of her own over Hilda’s and in tying a scarf over the warm hood, and when the girl had climbed on the horse she had wrapped a warm shawl about her.

“How in the world am I to get on and off again with all this stuff, mamma?” she asked. “I feel as wrapped up as a mummy. I know I’ll frighten all the horses I meet.”

It was well, perhaps, that she could not see herself, for she certainly cut rather a ridiculous figure. Added to all the rest, she was riding her father’s saddle. The right stirrup had been thrown over, and in this her foot rested, while the left stirrup dangled below. She had never been fortunate enough to possess a side-saddle, and had often ridden in this way about the farm.

But she could not help feeling a little sensitive about her appearance on this occasion, which meant so much to her, and she wished her mother would not be so fussy.

As she drew near Mr. Johnston’s house, she considered.

It would take her some time to disentangle herself from her many wrappings, and to any one watching from the house she would present rather a ridiculous appearance in her necessarily clumsy efforts to dismount.

So she halted old Selim some distance from the front gate, and here, hidden by the trees, she divested herself of her extra garments.

Her heart was pounding away vigorously as she knocked and inquired if Mr. Johnston was in. She had known him ever since she could remember, but he seemed suddenly to have become almost a stranger. Outwardly, however, it was a very dignified young lady who presented her case before him.

It seemed to her that he looked at her for fully five minutes without speaking.

“So you want to teach?” he asked at last. “Pretty young, aren’t you? How old are you? Seventeen?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda. “I suppose that isn’t very old, but I have a good certificate, and I am pretty sure that I can teach a good school. At least, I’d try my best if you would give me a chance.”

“That’s what they all say,” remarked Mr. Johnston.

“I know. But that is all I _can_ say till somebody gives me a chance to show what I can do.”

“You have had no experience, of course.”

“No. But if I am ever to make a teacher, I’ll have to teach my first school sometime and somewhere.”

“I guess that’s so. Got some pretty good grades here.” He had been examining the certificate she had handed him.

“Yes, sir,” answered Hilda, modestly.

Again he was silent. Then he handed her back her certificate. “Well, I’ll tell you, Hilda. So far as I am concerned, I am willing to give you a chance. I’ve known you ever since you were a baby, and I know you are a wide-awake, energetic little girl. But I’m only one of three, and I am afraid you won’t stand the best of chances with the other two. You don’t know either of them personally, do you? I thought not. Andrews wants the place for a cousin of his, and Smith will think you are too young. But go and see both of them. Don’t tell them what I’ve said. Simply say that you spoke to me about it. Smith is president of the board.”

Hilda thanked him and went her way, much encouraged in spite of what he had said about her possible reception by the other two members. She experienced some difficulty in mounting and dismounting each time, encumbered as she was, but that did not trouble her much now, although she was careful at both places to stop far enough away from the house, as she had done at Mr. Johnston’s, to enable her to accomplish this feat without being seen.

And she was truly thankful that no one asked her how she came. She much preferred that the men whose interest she was trying to enlist should not see her perched up on old Selim, like a big round bump on a log, as her father had expressed it.

Fortunately, she found both Mr. Andrews and Mr. Smith at home, but she did not receive the encouragement from them that she had done from Mr. Johnston.

Indeed, Mr. Andrews told her that the school was as good as engaged, and that it was useless for her to see Mr. Smith. Hilda, remembering what Mr. Johnston had told her about the cousin, made no reply, but resolved to call upon Mr. Smith.

Mr. Smith listened to her courteously and quietly. “Pretty young, aren’t you?” he asked.

Hilda laughed. “I expected you to say that. But it isn’t always age and experience that make success. I have always wanted to teach, and I’ve always thought I could teach, and I believe I can, if I _am_ young.”

“I don’t know but that’s the right way to talk. We’ve got to believe in ourselves before we ever amount to much. How much would you want a month?”

She was not prepared for this question. In her heart she knew that she would take the school at whatever they might offer. But she reflected that it would not be policy to say so, so she answered:

“Whatever you have been paying for your spring term.”

“Well, we’ll talk over your application Monday. If we want you, we will let you know. You needn’t come to see us about it again.”

Hilda was obliged to be content with this. She thanked him, and then, behind the grove where she had tied her horse, she bundled herself up for the ride home, where an eager audience listened to her story while she thawed out her fingers and toes.

The next six days seemed interminably long to her, but Monday came at last. All day she listened expectantly for a step on the front porch, but no one came that day or the next. Wednesday morning she was helping her father about the barn, when she heard some one behind her, and turned to face Mr. Johnston.

“Hello!” he cried. “So you concluded to try farming if you couldn’t get a school?”

Hilda smiled in reply. She could not trust herself to speak. So she had failed again.

Mr. Johnston chatted with her father for a time, while she went bravely on with her work. It would never do to let him know how disappointed she was.

“Well, Hilda,” he said, finally, “I’ll expect you to do me credit this spring.”

Hilda looked up, surprised.

“We concluded we would try you,” he continued. “Andrews stuck out for his cousin, but Smith went with me. Smith was quite taken with you. Andrews’ cousin had let him attend to her application, and had never come to see one of us about it. Smith didn’t like that way of doing things, and I confess I don’t, myself. You’ll get thirty-five dollars for three months. If that is satisfactory, I guess we might as well go to the house and sign the contract now.”

Hilda felt that she was treading on air as she followed him to the house, and when she saw her name signed to the little slip of paper, the contract between herself and District No. 33, she secretly pinched herself to see if she were awake. She wanted to shout, but of course that would not do. But the moment Mr. Johnston was gone she seized her mother about the waist and whirled her round the room.

“Just think, mamma! Just think!” she cried. “I’ve actually got a school. One hundred and five dollars, and no board to pay. Maybe, now, I won’t have to wait any longer to go to college than I had expected to do in the first place. And, mamma,” she drew her mother close and whispered in her ear, “when I get to be a professor in some big university you won’t have to work any more, and I can give you the things that I’ve wanted and wanted so long to give you.”

THE IMP AND THE DRUM

By Josephine Dodge Daskam Bacon

It never would have happened but for Miss Eleanor’s mission class. Once a week through the winter she went in the cars to a town not far from the city, where there were a great many mills, but few schools, and talked to a crowd of the mill-hands’ little children. She did not give them lessons, exactly, but she told them stories and sang songs with them and interested them in keeping themselves and their homes clean and pretty. They were very fond of her and were continually bringing in other children, so that after the first year she gave up the small room she had rented and took them up two flights into an old dancing-hall, a little out of the center of the town.

The Imp had been from the beginning deeply interested in this scheme, and when he learned that many of the boys were just exactly eight and a half—his own age—and that they played all sorts of games and told stories and sang songs, and had good times generally, his interest and excitement grew, and every Thursday found him begging his mother or big aunty, with whom they spent the winter, to telephone to his dear Miss Eleanor that this time he was to accompany her and see all those fascinating children: big Hans, who, though fourteen, was young for his years and stupid; little Olga, who was only eleven, but who mothered all the others, and had brought more children into the class than anyone else; Pierre, who sang like a bird, and wore a dark-blue jersey and a knitted cap pulled over his ears; red-headed Mike, who was all freckles and fun; and pretty, shy Elizabeth, with deep violet eyes and a big dimple, who was too frightened to speak at first, and who ran behind the door even now if a stranger came.

But it was not till the Imp gave up being eight and a half and arrived at what his Uncle Stanley called quarter of nine that Miss Eleanor decided that he might go if his mother would let him.

“I used to think,” she said, “that it wouldn’t be wise to take him. I thought they’d feel awkward; for of course he’s better dressed, and I don’t want them to feel that they’re being shown off or made an exhibition of, even to a child. But I know them so well now, and I’ve told them about him and how he loves to play games, and wants to come, and I think it may really be a good thing—for both sides.”

So on one delicious Thursday in early February, the Imp boarded the train proudly, and they steamed out of the big station. He had gone over the entire afternoon, in anticipation, with Harvey, his little lame friend, who could not go to school, but did his lessons with a tutor, and with whom the Imp studied every morning during the three or four months they spent in the city; and Harvey was as interested as he, and sent his best love to them all.

From the moment of the Imp’s entrance, when his cheerful “Hullo!” made him any number of friends, and his delight at being there made them all delighted to have him, he was a great success; and when big Hans, with a furtive glance at the Imp’s clean hands, went quietly off to the ever-ready basin and washed his own, Miss Eleanor regretted that she had not brought him sooner.

When they had finished the story about Washington at Valley Forge—for Miss Eleanor was quietly teaching them history—she got them into a long line that reached quite around the room, and went out for a moment, returning with a drum in her hand: not a play drum, but a real one, with polished black sticks and a fascinating strap to cross over the shoulder.

“Now,” said she, “we’re going to learn the fire-drill, and we’ll take turns at the drum.”

The children were delighted, and stood still as mice while she explained the order of affairs. In the big city public schools, she had been told, they practiced going out in line at a mock alarm of fire, and the boy or girl who broke out of line or dashed for the door before the drum-tap was disgraced for days in the eyes of the school. Everything must be quiet and in order; every child must have his place and take it; no one must cry out, or run ahead, or push, or try to hurry matters; and what was most important, all must keep step—which was why the drum came to be there.

She arranged them carefully: little one first, then girls, last of all the boys, with big Hans at the rear, and Olga managing a crowd of the little ones.

“Now,” she said, “we won’t leave the room this first time; we’ll just march round and round till we can all keep step, and later we’ll practice going through the halls and downstairs. I’ll drum the first time, and then the best boy shall be drummer.”

The friend who had suggested the fire-drill when Miss Eleanor had begged her for some new game to play, had never seen one, and did not know the exact details, but she knew the general idea of it, and she knew, too, that it was not at all easy for people to keep in step, even to a drum. This had surprised Miss Eleanor greatly. She supposed that anybody could keep step, and she was much inclined to doubt her friend’s statement that a large number of grown people, even, found it difficult.

But there was a still greater surprise in store for her. When she slung the strap over her pretty red waist and hit the drum a resounding blow, a very different sound from what she had expected was the result—a muffled, flat noise, with nothing inspiring about it whatever. She bit her lip and tried again, the children watching her attentively from the sides of the big room.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang, bang, bang!

A few feet began to keep time, but the sound was not very different from that produced by a stick hit against the wall, and big Hans, whose father played in a band, and who had attended many rehearsals—it was from him the drum had been procured—shook his head solemnly.

“Not so! Not so!” he said in his thick, gruff voice. “You no hit good! You no hit hard!”

“Oh, Hans, can _you_ play it?” cried Miss Eleanor eagerly. “Here, take it!” And she flung the strap over his shoulder.

Hans shambled out to the center of the room, and struck a mighty blow. The familiar deep sound of a drum filled the place, and Miss Eleanor sighed with relief, but alas! her joy was short-lived, for poor Hans had no idea of time, and could only pound away like a hammer. In vain she held his hand and tried to guide his strokes. The noise was deafening, but no more to be marched to than thunder.

Little Pierre tried next, but though he kept perfect time, and looked very cunning in his little blue blouse, his taps were too light to cover the sound of the tramping feet.

Miss Eleanor’s cheeks were red with vexation. Her arm ached, and the children were getting restless. She did not know what to do.

“Oh, dear! _Who_ would have thought it was so hard?” she exclaimed pathetically. And then she noticed the Imp, who was fairly holding his lips in his effort to keep silence. For he had solemnly promised his mother not to put himself forward, nor suggest anything, nor offer to do a single thing till he was asked, on pain of never coming again.

“What is it, Perry?” she asked.

“_I_ can—_I_ can play a drum, Miss Eleanor!” he burst out.

She looked doubtful: the Imp was given to thinking that he could do most things.

“This isn’t a play drum, you know, dear; it’s a real one,” she said.

“But I can play a real one. Truly I can! Mr. Archer taught me—he was a truly drummer-boy in the war; he showed me how. He said I could hit it up like a good ’un!” the Imp exploded again.

Miss Eleanor dimly remembered that among the Imp’s amazing list of acquaintances, a one-legged Grand Army man, who kept a newspaper-stall, had been mentioned, and decided that it could do no harm to let him try.

“Well, put it on,” she said, and the Imp proudly assumed the drum, grasped the sticks loosely between his fingers, wagged his head knowingly from side to side, and began.

Brrrm!

Brrrm!

Brrrm! brrrm! brrrm!

The straggling line straightened, the children began to grin, and little Pierre, at the head of the line, stamped his foot and started off. Miss Eleanor’s forehead smoothed, and she smiled encouragingly at the Imp.

“That’s it, that’s it!” she cried delightedly. “How easy it looks!”

But the Imp stopped suddenly, and the moving line stopped with him.

“Wait! I forgot!” he said peremptorily. “You mustn’t start till I do this.”

And with a few preliminary taps he gave the long roll that sends a pleasant little thrill to the listener’s heart.

Brrrm!

Brrrm!

Brrrrr—_um_ dum!

The children jumped with delight, and the line started off, the Imp drumming for dear life around the inside of the big square, and Miss Eleanor keeping the hasty ones back and hurrying the stragglers, trying to make big Hans feel the rhythm, and suppressing Pierre’s happy little skips.

After a half-hour of this they begged to try the halls and stairs, and the Imp stood proudly on the landings, keeping always at about the middle of the line, stamping his right foot in time with his sticks, his eyes shining with joy, his little body straight as a dart.

Miss Eleanor was delighted. The boys responded so well to her little talk on protecting the girls and waiting till they were placed before taking their own stand in the line, the girls stood so straight, the little ones entered so well into the spirit of the thing, that she felt that afternoon to have been one of the best they had had, and confided as much to the Imp on their journey home.

As for the Imp, he had a new interest in life, and talked of little else than the fire-drill for days. There was no question as to his going the next Thursday, and he and his drum formed the chief attraction of the day, for the drill proved the most popular game of all, and after the proclamation had gone forth that none but clean-handed, neatly dressed, respectful boys need aspire to head the line, such boys were in a great and satisfying majority.

For a month they had been practicing regularly, and by the end of that time every child knew his place and took it instantly at the opening tap. It was pretty to see little Olga shake back her yellow pigtails and marshal her tiny brood into line; even the smallest of them kept step nicely now.

Only big Hans could not learn, and Pierre walked by his side in vain, trying to make him feel the rhythm of the Imp’s faithful drumsticks.

There was one feature of the drill that amused Miss Eleanor’s friends greatly. Of course there was no fire-alarm in the old hall, and she would not let anyone cry out or even pretend for a moment that there was any real danger. She merely called sharply, “_Now!_” when they were to form, and it was one of the suppressed excitements of the afternoon to wait for that word. They never knew when it would come.

For Miss Eleanor’s one terror was fire. Twice, as a little girl, she had been carried out of a burning house; and the flames bright against the night, the hoarse shouts of the firemen, the shock of the frightened awakening, and the chill of the cold winter air had so shaken her nerves that she could hardly bear to remember it. Burglars had little terror for her; in accidents she was cool and collected; more than once, in a quiet way, she had saved people from drowning; but a bit of flaming paper turned her cheeks white and made her hands tremble. So though big Hans begged to be allowed to call out “Fire!” she would never let him, and though she explained the meaning of the drill to them, it is to be doubted if they attached much importance to the explanation, as she herself did not care to talk about it long.

One fine, windy Thursday—it was the second Thursday in March, and the last Thursday the Imp would be able to spend with his new friends, for he was going back to the country—they started out a little depressed in spirits: the Imp because it was his last visit, Miss Eleanor because she was afraid her children were in danger of a hard week. The hands of three of the largest factories were “on strike,” and though they were quite in the wrong, and were demanding more than any but the ring-leaders themselves felt to be just, they were excited to the pitch of rage that no reasoning can calm, and as the superintendents had absolutely refused to yield any further, affairs were at a deadlock.

One or two of Miss Eleanor’s friends had grown alarmed, and urged her not to go there till the matter was settled, but she would not hear of this.

“Why, this is the very time I want to keep the children out of the streets!” she said. “They all know me—nobody would hurt me. They know I love the children, and I have nothing to do with their quarrel. I should be willing to trust myself to any of them. They have always been very polite and respectful to me, and they’ve been getting ready for this for two weeks, for that matter.”

Her father agreed to this, and assured the Imp’s mother that any demonstration that might take place would be at the other end of the town, near the mills, and that it was very unlikely that anything further than a shut-down for a few days would result, at most.

“They’re in the wrong, and most of them know it, I hear,” he said. “They can’t hold out long: nobody else will hire them.”

This may have been true, but it did not add to their good-humor. As the Imp and Miss Eleanor walked up through the village, the streets were filling rapidly with surly, idle men. Dark-eyed Italians, yellow-haired Swedes, shambling, gesticulating Irish, and dogged, angry English jostled each other on the narrow walks, and talked loudly. Miss Eleanor hurried the Imp along, picking up a child here and there on the way, and sighing with relief as she neared the old hall.

Some of the excitement had reached the children, and though they had come in large numbers, for they knew it was the Imp’s last visit for some time, and there had been hints of a delightful surprise for them on this occasion, they were restless and looked out of the windows often. There was a shout of applause when, the Imp suddenly becoming overwhelmed with shyness, Miss Eleanor invited them all out to his home for one day in the summer; but the excitement died down, and more than one of the older children glanced slyly at the door. The men from that end of the town were filing by, and most of the women were following after.

Miss Eleanor racked her brains for some amusement.

It was cold in the room, for the boy who had charge of the clumsy old-fashioned stove was sick that day, and there was no fire. So partly to keep them contented, and partly to get them warm, she proposed a game of blindman’s-buff. There was a shout of assent, and presently they were in the midst of a tremendous game. The stamping feet of the boys and the shrill cries of the girls made a deafening noise; the dust rose in clouds; the empty old building echoed confusingly. The fun grew fast and furious; the rules were forgotten; the boys began to scuffle and fight, and the little girls danced about excitedly.

Miss Eleanor called once or twice to quiet them, but they were beyond control; they paid no attention to her.

With a little grimace she stepped out of the crowd to breathe, and took out her watch.

“Twenty minutes!” she said to little Olga, who followed her about like a puppy. “I’ll give them ten more, and then they _must_ stop!”

Little Olga began to cough, and looked doubtfully at the old stove, which was given to smoking.

“It smells bad just the same, don’t it?” she called. They had to raise their voices to be heard above the noise.

“No, child, it’s the dust. Isn’t it dreadful?” Miss Eleanor called back, coughing herself. “But it smells just like smoke. How horrid it is! And how hot!” she added after a moment. “With the windows open, too! We’ll all take cold when we go out. They _must_ stop! Boys, boys! Hans, come here to me!”

She rang a little bell that was the signal for quiet, and raised her hand.

“Now I’m going to open the door, to get a thorough draft, and then we’ll quiet down,” she said, and pushed through the crowd to the door.

As she opened it wide, a great cloud of brown, hot smoke poured into the room, a loud roaring, with little snapping crackles behind it, came from below, and Miss Eleanor suddenly put her hand to her heart, turned perfectly white, and half fell, half leaned against the door.

For a moment the children were quite still, so still that through the open door they could hear the roar and the crackle. Then suddenly, before she could prevent him, little Pierre slipped through and started down the hall. With a cry she went after him, half the children following her, but in a moment they crowded back, screaming and choking. The stairs at the end of the long hall were half on fire!

Miss Eleanor tried to call out, but though her lips moved, she could not speak above a whisper. She shut the door and leaned against it, and the look in her eyes frightened the children out of what little control they had.

“Call,” she said hoarsely, “call ‘Fire!’ out of the window. Quick! Call, all of you!”

But they stumbled about, crying and gasping, some of them struggling to get by her out of the door. She was trembling violently, but she pushed them away and held the door-knob as tightly as she could.

Only Olga ran to the open window, and sent a piercing little shriek out into the quiet street:

“_Fire! Fire! Come along! Fire!_”

For a moment there was no answer, and then a frightened woman ran out of her house and waved her hand.

“Come out! Come out, you!” she called.

“Our stairs is burnt all up! We can’t!” screamed Olga.

The woman ran quickly down the empty street, calling for help as she ran, and the children surged about the door, a crowd of frightened little animals, trying to drag Miss Eleanor away from it.

“Wait,” she begged them, “wait! You can’t go that way—they’ll bring ladders! Oh, _please_ wait!”

Her knees shook beneath her, the room swam before her eyes. The smell of the smoke, stronger and stronger, sickened her. With a thrill of terror, she saw big Hans drag a child away from the window, and deliberately pushing her down, prepare to climb out over her, almost stepping on her little body.

Suddenly she caught sight of the Imp. He was pushing his way through the crowd valiantly, but not toward her.

“Come here, Perry!” she said weakly. But he paid no attention. He had been dazed for a moment, and like all the other children, her terror had terrified him quite as much as the fire. Now as he caught her eye, and saw the helpless fear in her face as she watched Hans, something sent him away from her to a farther corner, and as the smoke began to come up between the boards of the floor, and the same deadly stillness reigned outside, while the confusion grew greater in the hot, crowded room, a new sound cut through the roar and the crackle.

Brrrm!

Brrrm!

Brrrm, brrrm, brrrm!

The children turned. Big Hans, with one leg out of the window, looked back. There was a little rush, half checked, for the sides of the room, and Olga instinctively looked about for her small charges.

But they wavered undecidedly, and as the sound of steps outside and the clattering of horses’ feet reached them, a new rush for the door began, and Miss Eleanor’s hand slipped from the knob, and she half fell beside it.

Brrrm!

Brrrm!

Brrrm—_um_ dum!

That familiar long roll had never been disobeyed; the habit of sudden, delighted response was strong; and with a quick recollection that he was to be head boy, big Hans slipped from the window-sill and jumped to the head of a straggling line. Olga was behind him in a moment, and Pierre, proud of his position as rear-guard and time-keeper for the little boys, pushed them, crying and coughing, into place.

Miss Eleanor must have been half unconscious for a moment. When she struggled to her feet, no scrambling crowd, but an orderly, tramping line pushed by her, and above the growing tumult outside, above the sickening roar of the fire below, came the quick, regular beat of the faithful drum.

Brrrm!

Brrrm!

Brrrm, brrrm, brrrm!

The children marched as if hypnotized. The long line just filled the sides of the room, and they were squeezed in so tightly that they forced each other on unconsciously. The Imp in his excitement beat faster than usual, and his bright red cheeks, his straight little figure, as he walked his inside square, his quick, nervous strokes, were an inspiration to the most scared laggard. Big Hans, elated at his position—his for the first time—never took his eyes off the black sticks, and worked his mouth excitedly, keeping time to the beats, the Imp frowning at his slightest misstep.

Miss Eleanor, the door hot against her back, forced her trembling lips into a smile, and cheered them on as they tramped round and round. Was nothing being done? Would no one come?

Suddenly there was a thundering, a clanging, and a quick, sharp ringing gong came closer with every stroke; the sound of many running feet, too, and loud, hoarse orders. The line wavered, seemed to stop. She summoned all her strength, and called out aloud for the first time:

“Don’t stop, children! Keep right on! Stand straight, Hans, and show them how well you can lead!”

Hans tossed his head, glared at a boy across the room who had broken through, and forged ahead. There was a succession of quick blows on the sides of the room, a rush, and in another moment three helmeted heads looked through three windows. At the same moment a sharp hissing sound interrupted the roaring below, and though the door was brown behind her now, and a tiny red point was glowing brighter in the wall near by, Miss Eleanor’s strength returned at the sight of the firemen, and she stood by the side of the Imp and encouraged the children.

“Don’t stop, Hans! Remember, little ones first! Olga’s children first!”

And with a grunt of assent Hans marched on, the line following, closing up mechanically over the gaps the men made, who snatched out the children as they passed by the windows, and handed them rapidly down the long ladders. In vain the firemen tried to get the boys. They wriggled obstinately out of their grasp, as they went round, till every girl was lifted out, Olga standing by the window till the last of her charges was safe.

The door fell in with a bang, and in spite of the hose below, the smoke rolled up from between the cracks in the floor, thicker and thicker. As the plaster dropped from the walls in great blocks, Miss Eleanor dragged the line into the center of the room, and motioned one of the men to take the Imp as he passed by. For so perfect was the order that the men never once needed to step into the room, only leaning over the sills to lift out the children. The Imp felt a strong grasp on his arm, and pulled away; the man insisted.

“Hurry now, hurry, let go!” he commanded gruffly. The despair in the Imp’s eyes as he drummed hard with his other hand grew to rage, and he brought down his free stick with a whack on the man’s knuckles. With a sharp exclamation the man let go, and the Imp pressed on, his cheeks flaming, his eyes glowing. His head was high in the air, he was panting with excitement. The line was small now; another round and there would be but a handful. The floor near the door began to sag, and the men took two at a time of the bigger boys, and left them to scramble down by themselves. With every new child a shout went up from below. As Hans slipped out by himself, and two men lifted Miss Eleanor out of one window, a third meanwhile carrying the Imp, kicking in his excitement, and actually beating the drum as it dangled before him, while a fourth man took a last look, and crying “O. K.! All out!” ran down his ladder alone, the big crowd literally shouted with thankfulness and excitement.

As for the Imp, he felt tired and shaky, now that somebody had taken away his drum, and all the women were trying to kiss him; and he watched the blackened walls crash in without a word. His knees felt hollow and queer, and there was nobody to take him in her lap like the other children, for Miss Eleanor had quietly fainted in the firemen’s arms, and they were sprinkling her with water from the little pools where the big hose had leaked.

They took them to the station in a carriage, and the Imp sat in Miss Eleanor’s lap in a drawing-room car, and she cuddled him silently all the way home. Her father, dreading lest she should be hurt somehow after all in the crowded streets, passed them in an express going in the other direction, to find out that they were safe, and that the strike was off. The recent danger had sobered the men, and their thankfulness at their children’s safety had softened them, so that their ring-leaders’ taunts had no effect on their determination to go back to work quietly the next day.

It was at her father’s request that they refrained from any more costly gift to Miss Eleanor than a big photographic group of the children, framed in plush, “as an expression of their deep gratitude for her presence of mind in keeping the children in the room away from the deadly flames beneath.” But to the Imp the Mill Town drum corps and military band formally presented “to master Perry S. Stafford the drum and sticks that he used on the occasion when his bravery and coolness made them proud to subscribe themselves his true friends and hearty well-wishers.”

THE SECOND STRING

By James B. Connolly

The Interscholastic Athletic Association was holding its annual track meeting. In the athletic building a hundred lads or more were dressing or rubbing in preparation for the different events. The clerk of the course, sticking his head within the door, shouted, “Last call for the hundred yards final! Last call! Hurry now, fellows!”

The graduate coach of Webster High School cut short his instructions to a medium-sized, heedful, earnest-looking lad. “There now, I’ll have to go and see how Prouty runs in the hundred. But bear in mind, Haskins, what you’re to do when your race comes. Keswick is out to run the field off its feet. And if they follow him he’ll do it. You are to get the inside track—on the first run get the pole, mind, if you have to do forty yards in record time to do it. That will start a break in Keswick’s plans. Then you make the pace—with an eye all the way to Stevenson. Perhaps you’ll carry Sullivan off his feet, too, at the same time. That’s not likely, though. Anyway, carry Stevenson along—clear round to the home-stretch, and make it so hot for Keswick on the way that he’ll be done up at that point. Land Stevenson in the straight in good shape and your work will be done. Drop out then if you want to, and I guess you’ll want to drop. You’ve an hour yet. When Stevenson comes from the rubbing board, jolly him along a bit. He’s apt to get—nervous—you know. Got it all?”

“I think so.” Haskins lay back on his mat for rest and meditation.

Pretty soon Stevenson, a tall, rangy lad, came over from the other side of the room. He halted above Haskins, and looked about, as if seeking a place to lie.

Haskins caught his glance. “They’re all in use, I guess, Stevie. Take this place. You’ll want all the rest you can get for your race.”

“You’re not done? You’ve got to run, too.”

“O shucks—me—second string—I’m only to make pace for you. Mr. Ludwig just told me.”

“Well, all right—thanks. Think you can do it right?”

“I don’t know. It’ll be hard getting the pole from Keswick. He’s in for the same game—making way for Sullivan. We’ll have a great time of it, Keswick and I. I wonder which will flop first? But I’ll make for that pole—though Keswick’s a hound for a quick start—and try to hold on for the straight again. That’ll do, won’t it? If I kill off Keswick so he won’t be of any use, you can give all your attention to Sullivan? He’s a good man, Sullivan, but you can give him yards and a licking any day in the week, Stevie.”

“Think so, Dickie?”

“Think? I know it. He hasn’t your stride, your speed, or your head, and you’re in great shape to-day, Mr. Ludwig says. Beat him? You’ll flag him. Oh, I wish I had your speed! I’d make Sullivan and Keswick look like busted automobiles. I know just how I’d do it, too. But what’s the use? I haven’t the speed. I’m only second string and lucky to be that, but I’ll go through three hundred yards of that quarter to-day for every little ounce in me, and I don’t care if they carry me off afterward.”

The little lad was cuddled up on the floor, back to a locker, knees up to his chin, bath-robe tucked in round him. His regard was all for his school champion. In common with most of the boys of the school, he had the deepest admiration for Stevenson’s running power. Never before had such a quarter-miler come out of Webster—no, nor out of the state! All he needed was a little more growth and experience and a little more—well, confidence in himself, and he would beat the world! So his schoolmates phrased it.

Stevenson placidly accepted Haskin’s devotion. He had been used to that sort of thing for some time now, and it did not fluster him. He did not even acknowledge the care with which his friend tucked in the wandering folds of his blanket, saying, “It’s drafty here, Stevie, and you want to keep your legs covered or you’ll stiffen up. Mustn’t stiffen up, you know.”

They waited for their time to come—Stevenson on the mat, Haskins snuggled up against the locker. The young athletes in the room kept going and coming. They would go out fresh and strong, some nervous, some confident, a few absolutely in fear—ready to draw back only that shame forced them on. They came back tired, winded, used up, some of them jubilant, some depressed, a few crying. With each returning batch some new details of the progress of things were shouted round the room.

At last the coach, Ludwig, came back. “Your quarter’s coming soon, fellows. Looks like Scotia and Webster again. Sullivan’s just run the two-twenty; that’ll take the edge off him for the quarter-mile, Stevenson. How do you feel? And you, Dickie? It’ll be up to you soon. Feel fit for the fastest three hundred you ever ran in your life? Of course you do.”

“I wish Dickie had the other’s speed,” Ludwig whispered to MacArthur, high jumper and team captain.

“H-m-m, Mr. Ludwig—Dickie’s heart and Stevenson’s legs! Rather a lot for one package, wouldn’t it be?”

The clerk of the course here made an entrance. “Quarter-mile comes last of the track events. Sullivan of Scotia wants to get rested from the two-twenty, and judges agreed. All out for the long jump and hammer.”

Stevenson made a pettish face. “I suppose Sullivan and the Scotians can have things cooked to their order and the rest of us take what we can get. I think you ought to protest, Mr. Ludwig.”

Ludwig shook his head. “I can’t change the order of events, Stevenson. Besides, it’s only fair to give a man a rest after he’s been through a hard two-twenty. Take it easy, like Dickie, there. Go to sleep if you can. Dickie, can’t you find a mat to lie on? You have an hour to wait yet, and I don’t like to have you hugging the floor like that.”

“Oh, this is nice. Here’s my suit case for a pillow. I could go to sleep here.”

All things come to an end. The busy clerk of the course rushed in for the last time. “Quarter-mile now! Only one call—all out!”

Stevenson and Dickie promptly rose—Stevenson anxious in manner, fussy; Dickie serious, calm. Together they walked across the field, MacArthur and Ludwig in attendance. Every event had been finished except the pole-vault, always a lengthy affair. The audience was in a fine state of expectancy.

Just before reaching the track, Ludwig drew the boys’ heads together. “Now, Stevenson, this meet depends on you. We win it if you capture the five points for first place in the quarter. We lose it if you don’t. Dickie here is to be sacrificed for you. Keep your eye on Dickie; he’ll swing out and tell you when.

“And you, Dickie,” Ludwig went on, “make a way for Stevenson and balk Keswick. See that you have the pole on the last turn. Now go along. O Dickie, a moment!”

Ludwig dropped his arm round the boy’s neck. “This is in confidence, Dickie. MacArthur and I are afraid that Stevenson isn’t any too fond of his job to-day—that he doesn’t quite fancy a tilt with Sullivan. What do you think?”

“Stevenson afraid? Oh, no, Mr. Ludwig! Stevie’s nervous—that’s natural. Why, I’m nervous, for all you crack up my coolness. I’m nervous as I can be, but I try not to show it, and Stevie lets his out. Stevie will win. Look at him up on his toes now! Style! He’s won three-quarters of the crowd already, just the gait of him. Don’t worry, Mr. Ludwig, Webster’ll win this quarter-mile.”

“Well, all right, Dickie. I hope you’re right. Hope he’s only nervous. Look out for him, anyway. But don’t try to do it too fast—don’t kill yourself. If you can, you might just as well finish; you don’t know, somebody might drop and you pick up a point. Not much of a chance for you, but—”

“But Sullivan and Stevie and the rest of them _might_ drop—used up! Ha, that’s good! Imagine me a quarter-mile champion! It’s too strange to think of.”

“Strange things, Dickie. There, that’s for you.”

In the line of starters Dickie was second from the pole. Big Keswick was inside him, Stevenson outside, and Sullivan second outside Stevenson. Dickie at once made himself acquainted with Keswick’s tactics. One or two false starts convinced him that Keswick’s right elbow was intended for a prominent part in the contest. Dickie knew that Keswick expected to have it all his own way when it came to close quarters. But there was a way. Dickie had no notion of letting Keswick’s cruel elbow rob him of the pole. There was always a way to deal with such tactics.

“Starters ready?”

“Ready!”

“Timers ready?”

“Ready—ready, all ready!”

“Get on your marks. Set—stea-a-d-d-y. Come up. Man at the pole, be careful. Now—on your marks. Get set—”

Bang! Dickie promptly caught the hook of Keswick’s plunging right elbow in the angle of his own left. Keswick was spun half-round and Dickie shot in. “That for Kessie!” muttered Dickie. The judges saw it, but it raised only a smile all round and an appreciative comment from one. “That big fellow tried it that time, didn’t he? An old trick of his, Ludwig says, but the little fellow was too clever.”

Dickie ran like mad for the turn. He got it, with Stevenson outside him, a little back, and Keswick directly behind. All the runners turned the curve in fine style. It promised to be a hot race. The audience was already applauding vigorously.

Dickie motioned to Stevenson. “I’ll cut loose the whole length of the back-stretch. Don’t try to keep up—let Keswick chase me if he cares to; watch Sullivan, and wait for the turn.” That was not put in so many words, but had it been written out, Stevenson could not have read the motions more plainly.

It was a rare pace that Dickie set. The bunch tore round the lower curve as if they were to run only two hundred and twenty yards.

“This is going to be warm,” said a group of old-timers under the willows.

“Look at that!” yelled the crowd. Dickie had shot away from the others. Big Keswick was at his heels. Keswick’s plans had been interfered with. He was there to take care of Haskins, but things had been changed. This pace was a “scorcher.” What did it mean?

It was a beautiful sprint the whole length of the back-stretch. Dickie was ten yards, Keswick eight yards in front. Stevenson and Sullivan were running stride for stride, the Webster man inside, a yard or two ahead of Sullivan.

Swinging into the upper curve, Dickie signaled to Stevenson, and then imperceptibly slowed up the pace. Keswick naturally trailed behind. Without understanding how it was brought about, he felt the relief, and was well content to take it. Dickie knew Keswick was in no trim to interfere with what was soon going to happen.

Dickie felt Stevenson coming easily. Again he signaled, this time looking back to see that all was well. Stevenson moved up to Keswick’s flank and nodded. The last turn was before them. Dickie, suddenly darting forward, opened up several yards. Keswick was too surprised and too tired to understand at once. Stevenson strode past him and dropped into Dickie’s tracks. Dickie, on the corner, swung wide and Stevenson slid inside. The pole and the lead were his.

Sullivan had his choice of following Stevenson or running outside Dickie. He chose to follow Stevenson. To let him by, Keswick was compelled to pull up and lose his chance for a place. Dickie, seeing how Sullivan had chosen, promptly dropped back a yard to Sullivan’s flank. That put Sullivan in a close pocket.

It was all most prettily done. The grand stand got up on its toes to cheer it. The experts under the willows hurled big words of praise out to Dickie.

After that maneuver, Dickie felt that he had no more strength left. It was an immense relief to him to think that the strain of his work was past, and that Stevie was in a good way now to win the race. But he must give a final word of cheer to Stevie before he was left behind.

“Go in, Steve, go in now! That’s the boy! All right, you’ve got it cinched. Go on! What’s the matter?”

Dickie, looking up at his chum’s face, saw an expression that made his heart sink. There was despair in Stevenson’s eyes.

Others saw, and understood. From under the willows came encouraging cries to Sullivan: “Go in, Scotia! You’ve got him! He’s all in! He’s a quitter, anyway, and the little fellow’s used up. Come out of that box, Sully, and win!”

Dickie heard this. Stevenson heard it, too, and it did him no good. Sullivan heard, also, and acted on it. He worked out of the pocket to Dickie’s side. Dickie looked at Sullivan, saw only a grim resolve there, and in despair appealed to Stevenson.

“O Stevie, go in! Only half the stretch! You can do it! Go in!”

Stevenson made no answer, but to Dickie’s dismay, fell down, as if exhausted, on the grass.

Dickie, without looking again, felt the courage of the Scotian beside him. There was no giving in there. The race was lost!

But was it lost? He did what had never entered his head until that instant. The import of Ludwig’s last words flashed on him. Had Stevenson really quit? He did not seem used up. And after everything had worked so nicely! What a shame for Webster!

It was in the blindest kind of way that Dickie pegged on beside Sullivan. Only for that work on the turn and Sullivan would have been yards ahead! What a runner this Sullivan was! Dickie was marveling that he held up with him.

The audience was marveling, too. They were frantic, some for Sullivan, but most for Dickie, because he was so small and had borne his previous share so nobly. Their yells were deafening. But Dickie never heard them. He was taken up with a different thing—with the unbearable strain of the race. Every nerve in his body quivered under the rack of his effort. Every little molecule and atom was crying out with the torture of it—but would not Webster be disgraced if he did not win? He knew what they would all say. Could he make it? Still behind—what a hard fighter—this Sullivan! He would never underrate a Scotian again.

One foot and twenty yards to go. Now then! No use. O Dickie! Who called? All Webster was calling. O Dickie! What a horrible thing! Hot, heavy iron in his loins—great lead weights on his feet—and his chest! What an awful collapse in his chest! Would it hold out? And his knees—if they would but keep off the ground he would win yet.

A foot, still a foot—what an awful lot to make up! Half a foot! Was Sullivan going, too? Ten yards—even! Was it even? Was it worth this awful agony? Even—one more, two more, another—and—sh-h-h!

It was the frenzied Ludwig who caught him as he fell. And it was Ludwig and MacArthur who bore him in a blanket across the field and laid him on two thicknesses of mats in the athletic building. It was these two, and a doctor from among the officials, who worked on him until he knew where he was.

It was Ludwig on one side, sponging his face, and MacArthur on the other, drying him off, when he looked up with the first sign of intelligence.

“There you are, you little bronco! Changed your mind and came back to life, did you? Know what we’ve a good mind to do to you? A little of this, now—there, how’s that? That’s witch-hazel we’re rubbing on. Sniff it up, that’s right. Fine, eh? Feel better than when you crossed the tape-rather! Get up? Not for a while yet—not till the carriage comes.

“Who won? Why, you, of course!”

“I didn’t know. I was almost afraid to ask—afraid it was Sullivan. Last I remember he was ahead. Couldn’t see—”

“Ahead? I should say he was ahead until a yard from the string, and then a miracle happened. Of course you couldn’t see. Wonder you could breathe after that finish—and setting the pace all the way round! Why, your knees weren’t six inches off the ground! You crossed on your hands and knees—crossed, no, you never crossed—you fell over, and Sullivan fell alongside. Wait till Webster gets hold of you.”

“Poor Sullivan, wasn’t he game? And we beat Scotia?”

“Beat them, yes, and won the banner—champions again.”

“Won the banner—that’s good. And Richard L. Haskins won the quarter. That’ll look fine in the morning paper. Won’t the people at home read that, though? But, Mr. Ludwig—Stevie—how’s Stevie?”

“Stevenson’s all right. No, lie down—he’s not here. He’s gone to the station to catch an early train home.”

“Poor Stevie—I know—you don’t want to tell me,” whispered Dickie.

“Now, now, Dickie, I’ll handle the sponge.” Ludwig bent lower. “Sh-h-h! There, there, let Mac pull the hood over, and nobody will know. Go ahead, don’t mind me and Mac; we understand.”

Ludwig plied the sponge and MacArthur the towel. And so deftly did they work that in all that room no other knew that under the hood of the bath-robe they were wiping away Dickie’s tears of pity for Stevenson.

HOLDING THE PIPE

By Albert W. Tolman

As the father of Billy and Jack Remfry emerged from the sitting-room closet with the checker-board, the two boys sidled up to him. Billy hugged an armful of rockets, while Jack was generously laden with firecrackers and Roman candles. “Aren’t you going with us to Steel Bridge? You promised.”

Tom Remfry hesitated. Fourth of July night though it was, he could not forego his weekly battle with Lon Penfield, his fellow fireman and ancient checker foe. So he compromised. “Run along, boys. I’ll come after just one game. Don’t point those rockets toward the city.”

Whooping, the boys made off. Tom and Lon sat down to the board, undisturbed by the noise outside. This game was unusually important, for Lon’s victory the Saturday before had tied them with seventeen apiece.

While they whittled down each other’s forces, Henry Marcot, watchman in Bustin’s lumber-yard, was uneasily watching three boys with firecrackers just outside the fence. So engrossed was Henry with the foe in front that he did not observe a flaming rocket-stick which, after soaring far and high, dropped quietly upon a hard-pine board-pile behind him. Startled by a sudden crackling, he looked back to see the whole pile ablaze.

When the rocket fell, Remfry’s four kings were beleaguering Penfield’s remaining three in the latter’s dodge-corner. Marcot pulled the yard alarm just as an incautious onslaught cost the besieger two pieces to his enemy’s one, and left the game a draw.

_Clang! Clang!_

Over went the board and up leaped both call-men. Out they darted, Remfry snapping his spring-lock, and ran at top speed for the house of Hose 5. The cart was rattling into the street when they jumped abroad.

“Where’s the fire?” halloed Remfry to Louville Craig, his elbow neighbor on the swaying wagon.

“Bustin’s lumber-yard!” Craig shouted. “They say a rocket from Steel Bridge started it.”

Remfry caught his breath as if doused with cold water. Steel Bridge! One of his boys’ rockets! His heart went down like lead. Oh, why had he not gone with them and given up his game! But it was too late now. That very thing had been the nightmare of the fire department ever since he joined it—a blaze in the worst place and under the worst conditions.

The city stood west of the river on three terraces. The first contained lumber-yards, coal-sheds and mills; the second, thirty feet higher, held the railroad-tracks and business section; while the third, thirty feet higher still, was covered with residences. Unless the flames were checked, the east wind would drive them against an oil-tank right above the yard on the edge of the second terrace. That once afire, the whole city might be wiped out.

As Hose 5 clattered across the railroad gridiron between hurrying crowds, Remfry sighted the yard, and felt sick. The pine was blazing fiercely, sending out a dense yellowish-black smoke. The second alarm began to clang, calling out the whole force.

The cart stopped near the engine, which was already in position. The two call-men rapidly donned rubber coats and helmets, while their mates took the butt of the hose off the wagon and rushed it to the hydrant.

“Run a line up Adams Street, you two, back of the yard!” shouted Capt. Joe Porter. It was the post of responsibility in the very track of the flames, and he picked his best men for it. Penfield and Remfry again jumped on the hose-cart.

“Go ahead!” yelled the hydrant man to the driver. Off rattled the wagon, dropping a lengthening trail of hose. The instant they stopped, the firemen screwed on the pipe and began to drag the line toward the yard.

Close by stood the oil-tank, big and black, with the smoke eddying thickly round it. Thirty feet below lay the lumber piles. Dropping their hose over the edge of the stone wall, they slid down to the ground.

“Play away, 5!” shouted Remfry, pulling down more line. They were in a space between high board-piles, and a strong wind was driving the fire and smoke toward them. The spot might easily become a dangerous trap.

“Come on, Tom!” bellowed Penfield, tugging at the pipe. “Let’s get well in before the water comes.”

The piles were twenty feet apart. Round a corner twice as far ahead red tongues were spurting. Already the air was hot and thick. Crouching, they dragged the line along several yards. Remfry was wild with impatience. He was responsible for that fire. He must put it out.

“Far enough!” he gasped at last. “Isn’t that water ever coming?”

It was fully five hundred feet to the engine. A few lengths from it the three-inch hose was “Siamesed” off into two smaller lines, one of which ran to the impatient call-men. Suddenly a tremor shook the closely woven cotton.

“Here it is!” exclaimed Penfield.

_Psht! Psht!_ hissed the nozzle. Spasmodically at first, but in a few seconds foaming strongly under a two-hundred pound pressure, the water came. The two rested the pipe over their knees, grasping the handles firmly, interlocking fingers under the tip. A powerful white jet was soon bombarding the burning pine.

The hose stiffened under their hands, responsive to every impulse from the engine. It was like a live thing, struggling to escape. But they knew its tricks, and held it hard. Three years they had been together on the pipe, and never once had it got away from them.

At the very apex of the fire they literally held the safety of the city in their hands. Behind them loomed the gaunt, black oil-tank. Should the flames reach its ten thousand gallons nothing could save the city.

Remfry groaned at the thought. He envied Penfield. Penfield had only the fire to think of. That was bad enough, to be sure. But it was tenfold worse for him, Tom Remfry, to feel that he might have prevented all this, had he only gone to Steel Bridge with his boys.

Low as they might stoop, they could not avoid the smoke. Their smarting eyes could barely see to direct the jet. Both were choking. Penfield leaned forward and thrust his hand into the stream to spray his face.

His foot slipped; he lost his balance; his grip on the handle loosened.

With a tremendous leap the pipe wrenched out of the men’s grasp, and disappeared straight up in the thick smoke.

A deluge burst above the firemen. The hose had changed from their best friend to their worst enemy. It whipped the board-piles; it slapped full length on the ground to their right; vanishing, it dropped a moment later on their left. Fearful in plain sight, it was doubly, trebly terrible in that impenetrable pitchiness. One rap from the crazy nozzle would smash a man’s skull.

Remfry grabbed Penfield’s shoulder. Their first impulse was to run; but where? Straight ahead was the only way out; and the fire barred that. Behind rose the thirty-foot wall.

Instinct told Remfry the only spot where for a brief period they might be comparatively safe.

“Back to the corner!” he whispered, hoarsely; and the two ran for their lives. Once the nozzle jabbed Penfield in the spine. Then Remfry ducked in time to lose only his helmet from a flying loop of hose. Soon they were crouching in the angle between the wall and a board-pile.

But the flames would soon drive them from this refuge. Besides, the chief counted on them to fight back the fire from the oil-tank. The force had its hands full. Every man and every line were busy. Somehow they must signal the engine to shut the water off, until they could regain control of the pipe.

“Hold on, 5!” shrieked Remfry. And Penfield seconded him with:

“Shut that line down!”

But no answering cry came back. It was not strange. Two men under a high wall, throats full of smoke and cinders, could hardly make themselves heard above the roar of the flames and the hissing of water, capped by the whirring and puffing of seven engines.

Desperate as was their own situation, the firemen’s first thought was of the ruin threatened by the fire. The destruction of the lumber-yard was bad enough, but the whole city—every business block, every dwelling, their own homes—it was horrible! Remfry remembered he had just paid for his house, and that he had no insurance.

Meanwhile the fire was growing hotter; shriveling blasts swept against the wall. Hot, stinging pitch-pine smoke filled their eyes and lungs. The nozzle was vainly cascading every spot except the one that needed it. It maddened Remfry to see so much good water wasting. Every gallon was priceless. He could stand it no longer.

“No use, Lon!” he croaked, putting his mouth dose to his comrade’s ear. “We can’t make ’em hear. We’ve got to catch that pipe.”

Both knew well the peril they risked. Three months before had not a flying nozzle snapped Billy Bowen’s leg! But they must take chances. Remfry slunk along the right-hand board-pile; Penfield followed the left. Should one get his hands on the hose, the other was to spring to his help.

The dense smoke thinned, and they glimpsed the line, slatting like a maddened python. Three or four clutches at the elusive loops resulted only in their being flung down and dragged in the dirt.

Through those moments of exhausting struggle, of harrowing suspense, dread of the fire creeping ever nearer the oil, destruction menacing the entire city, Remfry’s brain was busy with the terrible thought that he and his boys were responsible for it all.

The clouds lifted. Remfry saw the coil whip toward Penfield. There came a thud. Lon was swept off his feet, and dashed against the board-pile. Dropping like a lump of clay, he lay motionless. Remfry thought his mate was killed. He faced the hose with sudden fury.

Just then it caught for an instant under the end of a board. His chance! Hurling himself upon it, he wound both arms about the swelling tube just as it got away again.

Twining arms and legs round the hose, he hitched slowly forward. The whole thing now was on him, _him_! Lon could not help any more. Inch by inch he crept along the squirming tube, hugging it bearishly. It flirted him from one side to the other, rolling him in the dirt. It humped itself like a bucking bronco. Once it tossed him against the boards, almost fracturing his ribs. In spite of all he did not let go; for he knew he could never get hold again.

A weak cry made him look back. Under the smoke he caught sight of Penfield, struggling to rise. He had only been stunned. A great weight fell from Remfry’s mind, and he clung with fresh strength.

“Take your time, Lon!” he shouted. “I’ll hold it down.”

Huge, black, formless, fiery-eyed, spitting forky flame, the conflagration overshadowed him, like a gigantic Chinese dragon, the spirit of ruin personified. Against its searing breath he crawled, now prone, now tossed aloft, battered, smoke-stifled, but creeping steadily on.

The end of the big tube was not far away. Remfry could tell that, for its oscillations were growing shorter and more violent. The part conquered lay quiet behind him. But somewhere in the smoke in front the metal pipe was brandishing like the snapper of a whip-lash.

With lightning suddenness down it smashed on the hose not three inches before his fingers. Had it struck his hand, it would have splintered every bone. The polished brass glinted as it gyrated wildly away. The next few feet would be the most perilous, for at any second the nozzle might crack his skull.

The hot black smoke puffed along the ground· Remfry butted blindly into it, lowering his face, till his lips brushed the dirt. Inch after inch of hard round tube slipped back under him and grew quiet. With eyes closed tight he wriggled on. When he was within a yard of the pipe, he knew it would stop slatting.

The moment came sooner than he had expected. With one final flirt the nozzle gave up, conquered, and the jet began to furrow the chips and dirt. A second later Remfry’s fingers touched the brass handles.

Soon Penfield was beside him, his strength and consciousness fully restored; and they took up once more their battle with the flames.

It was well toward morning before the fire was out, and the two started for home. Remfry felt better. The city was safe. Still the thousands of dollars’ worth of lumber that had gone up in smoke hung, a black, heavy pall, above his conscience. He dreaded to meet Jack and Billy.

As he stumbled on, a sentence from a passer-by caught his ear:

“Started by a rocket from Triangle Hill, across the river.”

He gripped the man’s arm.

“Are you sure?” he almost shouted.

“Sure,” briefly rejoined the stranger, looking in surprise at his begrimed, excited questioner.

Remfry dropped his arm. So his boys were not responsible, after all. Bruised, muddy, saturated with pitch-pine smoke, every muscle aching, he resumed his way homeward, his mind at peace.

THE TRAVELLING DOLL

By Evelyn Snead Barnett

Before the serpent came in the guise of a French doll, it was a gay little Eden of a shanty-boat. Its doors were plaid-paneled in red, green and blue; its tiny square window-frames were painted blue on one side of the house, red on the other, and green at the back. Here, to be sure, the paint grew thin and failed to hold out for the walls, although gathering with a mixture of its three tints it sprawled in a final effort to tell that the name of the little home was _The Wing_.

But a short distance from the mainland _The Wing_ rested, anchored to a green island. A skiff was tied to its front mast and a single plank connected the shanty-boat with the great world—typical of the slender thread that bound the floating family to their kind, for the Wings did not consort with other shanty-boaters.

Inside, the little abode was as gay as its exterior, and far more tidy. The stove and its tins were polished “to the nines,” the strips of rag carpet were bright and clean, the table was scoured white, the bed was neatly made, and under it the family wardrobe was out of sight in a long, black, brass-nailed box. A gaudy clock ticked noisily from a shelf; a tall lamp, in a rainbow-paper shade, the pride and glory of the home, sat by its side. The wall was covered with bright posters; everywhere were gay colors and shining cleanliness.

And they were a satisfied family,—before the serpent came,—Father Wing being a sturdy, silent fisherman, who could always be counted upon to make a living, catching it on water and spending it on land, and finding comfort in his gentle wife and ten-year-old daughter.

To-day he was off fishing, and Mrs. Wing sat inside the sill of the plaid doorway, sewing on a high-necked, long-sleeved gingham apron, her head turned in a listening attitude that was habitual. Outside on the little deck piazza, in a starched mate to the apron her mother was making, little Almira sat, hugging Botsey and feeling rather lonely; for although her father had left the skiff and taken Wally Jim away, Sweepins had surreptitiously followed.

Almira was barelegged and towheaded, but she had a fair skin that defied exposure, and her face had never lost its baby curves. Her eyes were as blue as the river on a clear day, and her mouth had a tender droop, as if she were always feeling sorry for something or some one. She was tilting her little stool, humming a song to Botsey, when her mother said:

“I hear voices. Who’s on shore, Almira?”

Almira looked. “They’s two of ’em, ma. They’re beck’ning me to come for ’em. One’s Miss May, and the other’s got lace on her petticoat and fuzzy things round her neck.”

“I reckon Miss May’s coming about school again. I’m going to show her that last copy of yours. I wish I could spare you to get an education like my mother gave me, but I can’t. Still, it ain’t every child with eyes can read raised point.”

Almira was untying the boat. “I wouldn’t let you spare me. You’d catch afire or you’d fall into the river. We’d rather stay here, wouldn’t we?” She was talking to Botsey now. “No, you can’t go with me.” Jumping nimbly into the skiff, she began to cross the narrow strip of water.

“That baby row us?” she heard the lace lady ask. So she ran the boat in skilfully.

Miss May stepped lightly in; the lace lady hesitated, then followed with a laugh. Almira could hardly work the oars for looking at her soft brown eyes and the little brown curl that fluttered on her cheek.

A few strokes brought the skiff to the boat. “Good morning, Mrs. Wing!” called Miss May. “Here’s somebody you want to meet. Guess!”

“Is it Mrs. Lenox, who sends the raised point books in the travelling library?”

“You’re a witch!” cried the girl.

The woman smiled brightly. Her blue eyes, with the white, sightless pupils, turned toward the stranger. “I’m glad to see you at last. We heard you were coming. Almira, have you brought seats for the ladies?”

The child, keeping her eyes on the beautiful stranger, brought forward two soap-boxes upholstered in gay calico. If Botsey only had something like that for her neck! And she caught up the bottle in its crude skirt and blue crocheted shawl with an emphatic hug.

“Is that your doll?” asked Mrs. Lenox·

“No, ma’am. It’s Botsey.”

“It’s the bottle I’ve fixed up for her. I don’t know how she’d pass the time if it wasn’t for Botsey. You see, being so helpless, I try to make her enjoy staying with me. You know how helpless I am without her, Miss May.”

“I know how helpful you are and what a good housekeeper,” said Miss May, looking about at the tidy interior.

Then she told her errand. Almira was invited to the schoolhouse reception party the next Wednesday. Wally Jim had offered to fish near _The Wing_, if Mr. Wing should have to be filling orders in town.

Almira, her eyes still fixed on the beautiful lady’s face, said, “I went once. Miss May had an Easter just after we first come here. May I bring Botsey?”

But Miss May said no. A new library was due, and if it reached the village in time Almira would have books to bring her mother.

Mrs. Wing smiled softly. “How good of you! The last one was about little Nell. Why is it our books are so much better than books for people that can see? Jack thinks so, and so does Almira. How I bless you, ma’am!”

Mrs. Lenox could say nothing. May had told her the story of the young mother, attacked by the scarlet fever that left her sightless ten years before.

“I’ll let her come on Wednesday,” pursued Mrs. Wing, “but I’ll never budge from this chair till she gits back. It’s not as if I’d never seen how dangerous things are.”

* * * * *

With the school party this tale has naught to do. The child reached home betimes, carrying a package of books and a pasteboard box that seemed almost as long as herself. She was trembling with excitement.

“The library’s come, ma! And here’s two books and some cake and candy and—O ma, just guess what’s in the box?”

The mother felt, smiled, and shook her head.

“A little girl—a live little girl-baby doll!” And she lifted it from its shell. “And Miss May—she’s sometimes so funny!—she said at first she believed she’d rather I wouldn’t have her, but the lady said she wanted me to.”

The mother held out her arms for the doll, almost as excited as the child.

Almira expounded, “Its dress is blue, with buttons and buttonholes, and her hair’s real; put your hand here. It’s brown, and these teenty brown curls slant on her cheeks, and her eyes are brown, and she can shut them and go to sleep just like you and me.”

“Well, I never!” said the mother, feeling. “And what is this paper pinned on her dress?”

“It’s a letter,” answered Almira, sagely. “It begins in print and ends in writing, but I can’t make it all out. It says, ‘Patent, unbreakable, celluloid. Made in France.’ I’ll ask daddy the rest when he comes. And feel the petticoat, ma! Lace!”

“And tucks,” added the mother. “And see how fine the stuff is. Are these slippers?”

“With heels, real heels!” gurgled Almira. “And stockin’s! And in the box here’s a hat and feather and a white nightgown!” Almira’s emotion got the better of her, and she flung herself into her mother’s arms and rocked in ecstasy.

Then came a familiar bark, and Sweepins preceded the husband and fell to sniffing the doll immediately. “It’s mine, Sweepins,” cried the child. “Look, daddy!”

But the fisherman was too hungry to notice dolls, so the trio prepared the supper of frizzled bacon, corn, hoe-cakes and weak coffee. Afterward was bedtime, and the little feather bed was pulled from the big one to the floor, and made up with clean quilts for the child. But first she undressed the doll, carefully plaiting its hair in two nice plaits, putting the front in curl-papers, and robing it in the night-dress fine enough for day. Mrs. Lenox had cautioned her to teach her child tidy ways like its grandmother’s. Poor Botsey, hitherto her constant bedfellow, stood motionless outside the door.

When morning came, and she was helping, her mother asked, “What are you going to name her?”

“It ought to be something pretty. I thought of Queeny.”

“Queeny’ll be fine,” agreed Mrs. Wing. “But where’s the paper? Maybe she’s already named.”

Outside “daddy” was mending a net when Almira brought him the paper. He read:

“‘Patent, unbreakable, celluloid. Made in France.’ That’s in print, and here in writing is, ‘This travelling doll goes with Travelling Library Number Ten to any child selected by persons responsible for the distribution of the books. It is the reward for good behavior or special merit in the place of a medal, and is to belong to the child until the library is ready to go on, when the dolly in neat condition and clean, her hair combed, her clothing washed and ironed, must be put back in her box and packed for the next child on the circuit.’”

Almira snatched at the paper and ran into the boat. She laid Queeny on her mother’s lap and crept out to the little deck. Botsey, again on guard, stood by the door. Almira seized her fiercely, tore off the blue shawl, dragged at the soiled skirt. An old greasy bottle! How could it ever be taken back as her very own child when Queeny had to go?

“Almira,” called the mother, scenting tragedy, “don’t you want me to play grandmother with you and Queeny?”

“What’s the use? She’s like your books. She ain’t mine, and I never had a real child before. The paper says she must travel with the books.”

But the placid cheeriness of the blind woman smoothed matters: “But she’s yours now, and sometimes the books stay for weeks and weeks.”

Here was some comfort. One week was a long time; a month so long that Almira could hardly remember it. And Queeny was beautiful. Why not love her and be happy?

And she was, for weeks and weeks that went by like a dream. She quite forgot what had to happen until one day Wally Jim stopped with a note from Miss May—in printing writing that Almira could read. It said:

“Will you let Queeny go on to-morrow? There’s a dear little girl just your age up in the mountains who may have to walk on crutches all her life. She is expecting the doll every day now, so have it looking clean and pretty.”

“Almira?” questioned the mother. But the child did not answer. Fortunately no one was near but Wally Jim to see her screwed-up face as she gulped once or twice. She handed him the paper to read, making a sign of silence. Whatever her emotions, she always instinctively spared her sympathetic mother.

“I wouldn’t let her go!” blurted Wally Jim, kicking one cowhide boot so hard against the tying-post that he rocked the house.

Almira’s head shook in mournful dissent. “When I took her I knew I had to let her travel with the books,” she said, with wonderful logic.

Wally Jim would not look at her. “You take my advice—kick about it. ’Twon’t do any harm.” He got into his skiff, with head turned from Almira’s drawn face. “But if you’re bound to send her, I’ll be round to-morrow for her and the books.”

“What’s that he said about the books?” called the mother. “Are some more coming?”

“I suppose so. These have to go back.”

“And the doll? O baby!”

“Of course,” answered Almira, shortly. “We’ll wash her clothes to-day, for it says, ‘Returned clean and neat.’”

It was all right while the work went on. Queeny was washed, combed, braided and dressed. Almira touched her as little as possible.

When Queeny was laid in her box, wearing a blue hood knitted by the mother, and tied with the tapes that had held her still on her former journey, Almira thought she looked as if she were in her coffin. Then Almira caught sight of Botsey, as usual on guard outside the door. Before Queeny came Botsey was ever so much sweeter. If she had never seen Queeny! Why could not the little girl in the mountains on crutches have a Botsey? They do all right until you’ve seen the other kind.

Almira’s character was one of quick decision. With a furtive look at her mother, she took Queeny from her nest and removed her hood, dress, shoes, stockings. Then she stripped Botsey of her old skirt and blue shawl, putting Queeny’s clothes on Botsey after a painful fashion, put the blue woolen hood over Botsey’s green glass countenance, and folded Queeny’s freshly starched nightgown on Botsey’s chest. She viewed her work critically, and with an access of turpitude, stuffed empty sleeves and stockings with paper, putting on the slippers so that they stuck quite naturally from beneath the blue frock: and right over the place where Queeny’s face should have looked from the hood, she pinned the paper. Then she tied the tapes, tied them with a vicious screw of her mouth in hard, hard knots, put the lid on the box, and brought all to her mother, saying, in the evenest of tones:

“I want you to help me wrap her up.”

“Poor baby!” said the mother. “Maybe some day Mrs. Lenox will send another.”

“Never want another!” said the child, sullenly.

Going out to her stool in front, she dressed Queeny in the old skirt, put the shawl over her head, and tried to stand her on guard, Botsey fashion. But Queeny doubled up, and refused. So she held her in her arms with a savage satisfaction, thinking, “Queeny isn’t any bottle doll.”

Once the mother brushed the wool of the little shawl as the child passed her on some household task.

“You’ve done gone back to Botsey? That’s right. You’ve the sense of a grown-up.”

The afternoon brought a scare. Miss May herself came for the packages. Suppose! Oh, suppose! Almira barely had time to plump Queeny between the feather beds before Miss May landed in Wally Jim’s skiff. Almira was glad that she had been prompt, and that the string was tied in hard knots. Miss May praised her for being a good little girl, and made her wince by depicting the gladness of that lame child in the mountains when Queeny should arrive.

But Almira did not repent for a minute. She even said, “Poor little girl!” with a hard-hearted irony. Miss May puckered her forehead, as she always did when she was thinking.

That night Almira tossed and tumbled, unable to sleep. Then the moon rose and sent a straight shaft of light through one of the little square windows on the doll’s face. Almira smothered a scream. One of Queeny’s eyes was asleep, the other wide open, staring at her. She shook her hard, but that eye would not sleep. She held her up, but although the shut eye opened, the open eye shut, giving the effect of a wicked wink.

How she longed for dear, blind Botsey! Where was Botsey now? Could she feel, and did she know what had been done? No, Botsey was only a bottle.

But _Queeny knew_! And Queeny was watching her with one eye to see what other wicked things were going to happen; and there was Miss May praising her and trusting her, and that little lame girl in the mountains expecting a doll, and getting—

Almira could not have called this a protest of conscience, but she knew she was utterly miserable. Furthermore, she realized that Queeny’s ability to bring pride and happiness was gone, and that she herself would always have this something gnawing her inside.

But must she? Perhaps it was not too late. Jim would help her. To-morrow she would get him to stay near her mother while she went ashore with Queeny, the glaring Queeny, to Miss May, telling her how bad she had been. Perhaps Number Ten had not gone on, and Botsey could be stopped on her deceitful way.

This resolve so comforted Almira that as the moon went down and darkness hid the staring eye, she fell asleep.

She was awakened by voices and a motion she knew well. The daylight came broadly through the windows. She heard a clanging and creaking.

A sick realization overwhelmed her. They had left the island, they were in the broad bed of the river, skimming away who knew where?—away from Miss May and the chance of making things all right.

She dressed herself, asking no questions; but her mother, holding to the arms of her chair, explained:

“Your pa thinks he’ll do better off a larger town, so he came in before day and raised sail to get into the current while this good wind’s blowing.”

Almira sat limply on her little stool. Queeny could not go back to Miss May, but she should not glare at her with her one eye for the rest of her life. Botsey could swim, but Queeny—Queeny could drown! And this time there was no deliberation. She snatched at the doll, and going to the back of the boat, hurled it as far as she could into the river!

Then she fell to helping her mother assiduously, being extra loving and attentive, giving little pats and squeezes as she passed her in her morning tasks, even running to hug her whenever the boat rocked in the waves made by passing craft. Mrs. Wing did the washing, Almira hung the clothes to dry in the bright, breezy sunshine. She scoured the already bright tins, she shook up the beds, hung the quilts to air, washed the floor, the deck. It was work she wanted, hard work. She made the discovery that work brought forgetfulness. She would have liked to scrub the floor of the world.

Day was all right, but for all her bodily fatigue she slept but fitfully that night. She wished people could work at night.

Although they soon reached a place that her father called the Point, and anchored a little way up a creek, where things stopped shaking and were quiet, her eyes would not close.

This Point place was not like the green island. There were smells. They were far enough inland to see a street with people walking; indeed, they were almost under a bridge that let the street-cars go by. “Daddy” left early. After putting the cabbage on to boil, her mother sat down to her seams and hems in the checked blue gingham. Almira, empty-handed, moped on her little three-legged stool at the door. Sweepins, wringing wet, snored on the sunny deck.

A skiff came up the stream; in it Wally Jim. “I’ve brought you something!” he called. “Miss May got to thinking after she got home, and she says she’ll get another doll for that mountain kid, and you can have Queeny back.” He reached under the seat, and with dramatic effect drew out the long box.

At the sight of it Almira’s self-control gave way. Here was punishment, indeed! To her mother’s arms she rushed, blurting out the truth with sobs.

“Wally Jim,” asked Mrs. Wing, “how far is Miss May’s from here?”

“Not so very far, and she’s down in town to-day—said she was coming.”

“Take the box back to her, Wally Jim!” sobbed Almira. “Let her see it just as it is, because she hasn’t opened it, and she thinks she’s sending me Queeny. And I’ll write a letter besides.”

“I’ll take all the letters you want, but I won’t take the box, because whatever’s in it, it’s yours.” There was something different and set about Wally Jim this morning. Almira sighed resignedly, and with painstaking labor proceeded to print her letter of repentance.

“You have got back Botsey, dear,” said the mother, “so try to forget.”

“I’ll never play with Botsey again. I’ll give her away first.”

In an incredibly short time they heard Jim’s oars again, and Miss May stepped on deck. She was holding out her arms to Almira, and there were tears in her eyes.

“Dear child, I didn’t like the idea from the very first, but Mrs. Lenox does so much for us. You’ll be all the better for the sharp experience, and you have really shown your repentance. Now let’s open the box and see exactly what you did.”

Quite cheerfully, all the miserable feeling gone, Almira brought scissors, cut strings, pointing out the while the iniquities of hard knots and covered features.

What! Queeny! From the bottom of the river, dry, clothed, and with her two eyes shut! Almira looked at Miss May and at Wally Jim, grinning over Miss May’s shoulder.

“What has happened now?” asked Mrs. Wing.

“Tell your story, Jim,” said Miss May.

“I was drifting some way off behind you all,” said Jim, “and maybe sleeping some, when who should swim up to the skiff with something in his mouth but Sweepins. It was Queeny, but as she’s cellyloid, only her clothes were wet. I puzzled out that somehow she hadn’t gone back to Miss May, and that she ought to. So I took her, and Miss May says, ‘If this is Queeny, what’s in Almira’s box?’ And we looked, and there was Botsey.”

“And oh, I was so sorry,” said Miss May, taking up the tale, “though I’d known all along that a travelling doll would cause heartache—and this proved it would do worse. I sent Queeny back, after having her doctored, knowing that my little Almira was good before temptation came, and wishing to know what it had made of her. I’m satisfied,” and Miss May hugged the child once more.

The blind mother was smiling. “Miss May, she’s only a child, you know, but she suffered like a grown-up, and with it all, helped me just the same as ever.”

Almira dug her bare toes into the rag carpet. “Where’d Botsey go to?” she asked, without looking up.

“If I were you, I’d look under the seat of my boat,” said Wally Jim.

THE DOLL DOCTOR

By E. V. Lucas

Christina’s father was as good as his word—the doll came, by post, in a long wooden box, only three days after he had left for Paris. All the best dolls come from Paris, but you have to call them “poupées” there when you ask the young ladies in the shops for them.

Christina had been in the garden ever since she got up, waiting for the postman—there was a little gap in the trees where you could see him coming up the road—and she and Roy had run to meet him across the hay-field directly they spied him in the distance. Running across the hay-field was forbidden until after hay-making; but when a doll is expected from Paris!…

Christina’s father was better than his word, for it was the most beautiful doll ever made, with a whole wardrobe of clothes, too.

Also a tiny tortoiseshell comb and a powder puff. Also an extra pair of bronzed boots. Her eyes opened and shut, and her eyebrows were real hair. This is very unusual in a doll. “She shall be called Joan Shoesmith,” said Christina, who had always loved the name, it had been her first nurse’s.

Christina took Joan to her mother at once, Roy running behind her with the box and the brown paper and the string and the wardrobe, and Chrissie calling back every minute, “Don’t drop the powder puff whatever you do!” “Hold tight to the hand-glass!” and things like that.

“But it’s splendid!” Mrs. Tiverton said. “There isn’t a better doll in the world; only, Chrissie dear, be very careful with it. I don’t know but that father would have done better to have got something stronger—this is so very fragile. I think, perhaps you had better have it only indoors. Yes, that’s the best way; after to-day you must play with it only indoors.”

Thus Joan Shoesmith came to Mapleton.

How Christina loved her doll that first day! She carried it everywhere and showed it everything—all over the house, right into the attics; all over the garden, right into the little black stove place under the greenhouse; into the village, to introduce her to the postmistress, who lived behind a brass railing in the grocer’s shop; into the stables, to kiss General Gordon, the old white horse. Jim, who groomed the General, was the only person who did not admire the doll properly, but how could you expect a nice feeling from a boy who sets dogs on rats?

It was two or three days after this that Roy went down to the river to fish. He had to go alone, because Christina wanted to play with Joan Shoesmith in the nursery; but not more than half an hour had passed when he heard footsteps in the long grass behind him, and, looking up, there was Christina. Now, as Christina had refused so bluntly to have anything to do with his fishing, Roy was surprised to see her, but more surprised still to see that Joan Shoesmith had come too.

“Why, did mother say you might bring Joan?” he asked.

“No,” said Christina, rather sulkily, “but I didn’t think she’d mind.”

Roy looked troubled: his mother did not often make rules to interfere with their play, and when she did she liked to be obeyed. She had certainly forbidden Christina to take Joan Shoesmith out of the house. He did not say anything. Christina sat down and began to play. She was not really at all happy, because she knew it was wrong of her to have disobeyed, and she was really a very good girl. Roy went on fishing.

“Oh, do do something else,” Christina cried pettishly, after a few minutes. “It’s so cold sitting here waiting for you to catch stupid fish that never come. Let’s go to the cave.” The cave was an old disused lime-kiln, where robbers might easily have lived.

“All right,” Roy said.

“I’ll get there first,” Christina called out, beginning to run.

“Bah!” said Roy and ran after. They had raced for a hundred yards, when, with a cry, Christina fell. Roy, who was still some distance behind, having had to pack up his rod, hastened to Christina’s side. He found that she had scrambled to her knees, and was looking anxiously into Joan Shoesmith’s face.

“Oh, Roy,” she wailed, “her eyes have gone!”

It was too true. Joan Shoesmith, lately so radiantly observant, now turned to the world the blankest of empty sockets. Roy took her poor head in his hand and shook it. A melancholy rattle told that a pair of once serviceable blue eyes were now at large. Christina sank on the grass in an agony of grief—due partly, also, to the knowledge that if she had not been naughty this would never have happened. Roy stood by, feeling hardly less unhappy. After a while he took her arm. “Come along,” he said, “let’s see if Jim can mend her.”

“Jim!” Christina cried in a fury, shaking off his hand.

“But come along, anyway,” Roy said.

Christina continued sobbing. After a while she moved to rise, but suddenly fell back again. Her sobbing as suddenly ceased. “Roy!” she exclaimed fearfully, “I can’t walk.”

Christina had sprained her ankle.

Roy ran to the house as fast as he could to find help, and very soon old Stedder, the gardener, and Jim were carrying Christina between them, with mother and nurse walking by her side. Christina was put to bed at once and her foot wrapped in bandages, but she cried almost incessantly, no matter how often she was assured that she was forgiven. “Her sobs,” the cook said, coming downstairs after her twentieth visit to the nursery, “her sobs are that heart-rending I couldn’t stand it; and all the while she asks for that blessed doll, which its eyes is rattling in its head like marbles through falling on the ground, and Master Roy and Jim’s trying to catch them with a skewer.”

Cook was quite right. Roy and Jim, with Joan Shoesmith between them, were seated in the harness-room, probing tenderly the depths of that luckless creature’s skull. A housemaid was looking on without enthusiasm. “You won’t do it,” she said every now and then; “you can’t mend dolls’ eyes with skewers. No one can. It’s impossible. The king himself couldn’t. You ought to take it to the Miss Bannisters’ brother at Dormstaple. He’d mend it in a jiffy—there’s nothing he can’t do in that way.”

Roy at last gave up in despair. “I’ll take it to the Miss Bannisters’ brother,” he said, rising with Joan Shoesmith in his arms; “it’s only six miles.” But a sudden swoop from a figure in the doorway interrupted his bold plan.

“You’ll do nothing of the kind,” cried nurse, seizing the doll, “with that angel upstairs crying for it every minute, and the doctor saying she’s in a high fever with lying on the wet grass”; and with a swirl of white skirts and apron, nurse and Joan Shoesmith were gone.

Roy put his hands in his pockets and wandered moodily into the garden. The world seemed to have no sun in it any more.

The next day Christina was really ill. It was not only the ankle, but she had caught a chill, the doctor said, and they must be very careful with her. Roy went about with a sad and sadder face, for Christina was his only playmate, and he loved her more than anything else; and, also, it seemed so silly not to be able to mend a doll’s eyes. He moped in and out of the house all the morning, and was continually being sent away from Christina’s door, because she was too ill to bear anyone in the room except nurse. She was wandering in her mind, nurse said, and kept on saying that she had blinded her doll, and crying to have its eyes made right again; but she would not let a hand be laid upon her, so that to have Joan Shoesmith mended seemed impossible. Nurse cried too as she said it, and Roy joined with her. He could not remember ever having been so miserable.

The doctor looked very grave when he was going away. “That doll ought to be put right,” he said to Mrs. Tiverton. “She’s a sensitive little thing, evidently, and this feeling of disobeying you and treating her father’s present lightly is doing her a lot of harm, apart altogether from the chill and the sprain. If we could get those eyes in again she’d be better in no time, I believe.”

Roy and his mother heard this with a sinking heart, for they knew that Christina’s arms locked Joan Shoesmith to her side almost as if they were bars of iron.

“Anyway,” the doctor said, “I’ve left some medicine that ought to give her some sleep, and I shall come again this afternoon.” So saying, the doctor touched up his horse, and Mrs. Tiverton walked into the house again.

Roy stood still pondering.

Suddenly his mind was made up, and he set off for the high road at a good swinging pace. At the gate he passed Jim. “If they want to know where I am,” he called, “say I’ve gone to the Miss Bannisters’ brother.”

Miss Sarah Bannister and Miss Selina Bannister had lived in Dormstaple as long almost as anyone could remember, although they were by no means old. They had the red house with white windows, the kind of house which one can see only in old English market towns. There was a gravel drive before it, in the shape of a banana, the carriages going in at one end and out at the other, stopping at the front door steps in the middle. The blinds were of that kind through which no one who is outside can see anything, and all who are inside can see everything. The door knocker was of the brightest brass. Behind the house was a very large garden, with a cedar in the midst; and a very soft lawn on which hundreds of birds used to settle every morning in winter for the breakfast that the Miss Bannisters provided. The cedar and the other trees had cigar boxes nailed to them, for tits or wrens to build in, and half cocoa-nuts and lumps of fat were always hung just outside the windows. At one side of the house was the stable and coach-house, on the other side a billiard-room, now used as a workshop. And his workshop brings us to the Miss Bannisters’ brother.

The Miss Bannisters’ brother was an invalid, and he was also what is called an eccentric. “Eccentric, that’s what he is,” Mr. Stallabrass, who kept the King’s Arms, had said, and there could be no doubt of it after that. This meant that he wore rather shabby clothes, and took no interest in the town, and was rarely seen outside the house or the garden.

Rumor said, however, that he was very clever with his hands, and could make anything. What was the matter with the Miss Bannisters’ brother no one seemed to know, but it gradually kept him more and more indoors.

No one ever spoke of him as Mr. Bannister, they always said the Miss Bannisters’ brother. If you could see the Miss Bannisters, especially Miss Selina, you would understand this; but although they had deep, gruff voices they were really very kind.

As time went on, and the Miss Bannisters’ brother did not seem to grow any better, or to be likely to take up his gardening again, the Miss Bannisters had racked their brains to think of some employment for him other than reading, which is not good for anyone all day long. One evening, some years before this story, while the three were at tea, Miss Selina cried suddenly, “I have it!”—so suddenly, indeed, that Miss Sarah spilt her cup, and her brother took three lumps of sugar instead of two.

“Have what?” they both exclaimed.

“Why,” she said, “I was talking to-day with Mrs. Boniface, and she was saying how nice it would be if there were someone in the town who could mend toys—poor Miss Piper at the Bazaar being so useless, and all the carpenters understanding nothing but making book-shelves and cucumber frames, and London being so far away, and I said ‘Yes,’ never thinking of Theodore here. And, of course, it’s the very thing for him.”

“Of course,” said Miss Sarah. “He could take the old billiard-room.”

“And have a stove put in it,” said Miss Selina.

“And put up a bench,” said Miss Sarah.

“And some cocoa-nut matting on the floor,” said Miss Selina.

“Linoleum,” said Miss Sarah.

“Cocoa-nut matting,” said Miss Selina.

“And we could call it the Dolls’ Hospital,” said Miss Sarah.

“Infirmary,” said Miss Selina.

“I prefer Hospital,” said Miss Sarah.

“Infirmary,” said Miss Selina. “Dr. Bannister, house surgeon, attends daily from ten till one.”

“It would be the prettiest and kindliest occupation,” said Miss Sarah, “as well as a useful one.”

“That’s the whole point of it,” said Miss Selina.

And that is how—five or six years ago—the Miss Bannisters’ brother came to open the Dolls’ Infirmary. But he did not stop short at mending dolls. He mended all kinds of other things too; he advised on the length of tails for kites; he built ships; he had even made fireworks.

Roy walked into Dormstaple at about one o’clock, very tired and hot and dusty and hungry; and a little later, after asking his way more than once, he stood on the doorstep of the Miss Bannisters’ house. The door was opened by old Mary, and as the flavor of roast fowl rushed out, Roy knew how hungry he was. “I want to see the Miss Bannisters’ brother,” he said, “please.”

“You’re too late,” was the answer. “Come to-morrow morning. Mr. Theodore never sees children in the afternoon.”

“Oh, but I must,” Roy almost sobbed.

“Chut, chut!” said old Mary, “little boys shouldn’t say must.”

“But when they must, what else is there for them to say?” Roy asked.

“Chut, chut!” said old Mary again. “That’s imperent! Now run away, and come to-morrow morning.”

This was too much for Roy. He covered his face with his hands, and really and truly cried—a thing he would scorn to do on his own account.

While he stood there in this distress a hand was placed on his arm, and he was drawn gently into the house. He heard the door shut behind him. The hand then guided him along passages into a great room, and there he was liberated. Roy looked round; it was the most fascinating room he had ever seen. There was a long bench at the window with a comfortable chair before it, and on the bench were hammers and chisels and all kinds of tools. A ship nearly finished lay in one place, a clockwork steamer in another, a pair of rails wound about the floor on the cocoa-nut matting—in and out like a snake—on which a toy train probably ran, and here and there were signals. On the shelves were colored papers, bottles, boxes, and wire. In one corner was a huge kite, as high as a man, with a great face painted on it. Several dolls, more or less broken, lay on the table.

All this he saw in a moment. Then he looked at the owner of the hand, who had been standing beside him all the while with an amused expression on his delicate, kind face. Roy knew in an instant it was the Miss Bannisters’ brother.

“Well,” said the Miss Bannisters’ brother, “so when one must, one must?”

“Yes,” Roy said, half timidly.

“Quite right too,” said the Miss Bannisters’ brother. “‘Must’ is a very good word, if one has the character to back it up. And now tell me, quickly, what is the trouble. Something very small, I should think, or you wouldn’t be able to carry it in your pocket.”

“It’s not in my pocket,” Roy said, “it’s not here at all. I want—I want a lesson.”

“A lesson?” Mr. Theodore asked in surprise.

“Yes, in eye mending. When eyes fall inside and rattle, you know.”

The Miss Bannisters’ brother sat down and took Roy between his knees. There was something about this little dusty, nervous boy that his clients (often tearful enough) had never displayed before, and he wished to understand it. “Now tell me all about it,” he said.

Roy told him everything, right from the first.

“And what is your father’s name?” was the only question that had to be asked. When he heard this, the Miss Bannisters’ brother rose. “You must stay here a minute,” he said.

“But—but the lesson?” Roy exclaimed. “You know I ought to be getting back again. Christina—”

“All right, just a minute,” Mr. Theodore replied.

When the Miss Bannisters’ brother came back, Miss Selina came with him. “Come and get tidy for dinner,” she said, “and afterwards we’ll drive home.”

“Oh, but I can’t stop for dinner!” Roy cried. “It’s much too important to stop for dinner; I’m not really hungry either.”

“Dinner will only take a little while,” said Miss Selina, “and the horse can be getting ready at the same time; and if you were to walk you wouldn’t be home nearly so soon as you will if you drive, dinner time included.”

“But the lesson—?” Roy gasped again.

“Oh, we’ve thought of a better way than the lesson,” Miss Selina said. “Mr. Bannister is going with you.”

It took a moment for Roy to appreciate this, but when he did he was the happiest boy in Dormstaple.

He never tasted a nicer chicken, he said afterwards.

Certainly not more than three-quarters of an hour had passed before the carriage was on its way to Mapleton—with the Miss Bannisters’ brother propped up with cushions (for he could not bear the jolting of carriages) on the back seat, and Miss Selina and Miss Sarah, who had come to look after their brother, on the other. Roy was on the box. You never saw such puzzled faces as the Dormstaple people had when the party went by, for Mr. Theodore had not driven out these twenty years; but their surprise was nothing to that of old Mary, who wandered about the rooms all the rest of the day muttering, “Little imperent boy!”

At the Mapleton gates Roy jumped down and rushed up to the house. His mother came to the door as he reached it. “Oh, mother, mother,” he cried, “he’s come himself!”

“Who has come?” she asked, forgetting to say anything about Roy’s long absence. “I hoped it was the doctor. Christina is worse, I’m afraid; she won’t sleep.”

“It’s all right,” Roy assured her. “I’ve brought the Miss Bannisters’ brother, who mends dolls and everything, and he’ll put the eyes right in no time, and then Chrissie’ll be well again. Here they are!”

At this moment the carriage reached the door; but Mrs. Tiverton’s perplexities were not removed by it. On the contrary, they were increased, for she saw before her three total strangers. Miss Selina, however, hastily stepped out and took Mrs. Tiverton’s hand and explained the whole story, adding, “We are not coming in; my sister and I have a call to pay a little further on. We shall come back in less than an hour for our brother, carry him off, and be no trouble at all. I know how little you must want even people that you know just now.” In spite of Mrs. Tiverton’s protest, Miss Selina had her way, and the sisters drove off.

While this conversation had been in progress, Roy had been speaking to the Miss Bannisters’ brother. He had been preparing the speech ever since they had started, for it was very important. “Please,” he said, “please how much will this visit be, because I want to pay for it myself?”

The Miss Bannisters’ brother smiled. “But suppose you haven’t enough,” he said.

“Oh, but I think I have,” Roy told him. “I’ve got seven-and-six, and when the vet. came to see General Gordon it was only five shillings.”

The Miss Bannisters’ brother smiled again. “Our infirmary is rather peculiar,” he said. “We don’t take money at all; we take promises; different kinds of promises from different people, according to their means. We ask rich parents’ friends to promise to give away old toys or story-books, or scrap-books, or something of that kind, to real hospitals—children’s hospitals. We find that much better than money. Money’s such a nuisance. One is always losing the key to the money-box.”

Roy was a little disappointed. “Oh, yes,” he said, however, “I’ll do that. Won’t I just? But, you know,” he added, “you can always break open a money-box if it comes to the worst. Pokers aren’t bad.”

It was just then that the Miss Bannisters drove off, and Mrs. Tiverton asked their brother to come to Christina’s room with her. Roy would have given anything to have been allowed upstairs; but as it was forbidden he went to see Jim and tell him the news.

Christina was moaning in the bed with Joan Shoesmith in her arms as the Miss Bannisters’ brother sat down beside her. “Come,” he said gently, “let me feel your pulse.”

Christina pushed her wrist towards him wearily·

“Oh, no, not yours,” he said, with a little laugh. “I mean your little lady’s. I’m not your doctor. I’m a doll’s doctor.”

Christina turned her poor flushed face towards him for the first time. A doll’s doctor—it was a new idea. And he really seemed to be all right—not anyone dressed up to make her feel foolish or coax her into taking horrid medicine. “Was it your carriage I heard?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “I have come on purpose. But so many dolls are ill just now that I must be getting away soon. It’s quite a bad time for dolls, especially—oddly enough—French ones.”

“Mine is French,” Christina said, growing really interested.

“Ah, how very curious!” he answered. “And now for the pulse,” and he drew out a large gold watch.

Mrs. Tiverton was looking on with tears in her eyes. Christina had not taken this quiet interest in anything or kept so still in bed for many hours. Not even the sleeping draught had had any effect.

The Miss Bannisters’ brother held Joan Shoesmith’s tiny wrist and looked very grave. “Dear, dear!” he said, “I ought to have been sent for before, and then I could have cured her here in your arms. As it is, I must take her to the light. Won’t you have that nice jelly while I am treating Miss ——? Let me see, what was the name?”

“Joan,” Christina said: “Joan Shoesmith.”

“Ah, yes—Miss Shoesmith. By the time you have finished the jelly I ought to have finished my visit.” So saying he rose and carried Joan Shoesmith to the window seat behind the curtains, while Mrs. Tiverton gave Christina the jelly. Christina took it, nurse said afterwards, like a lamb—though I never saw a lamb take jelly.

Meanwhile, the Miss Bannisters’ brother had taken some tools and a tube of seccotine from his pocket, and he had lifted up Joan Shoesmith’s hair, cut a hole in her head, and was busily readjusting the machinery of her eyes. It was all done in five minutes, just as Christina was eating the last mouthful. “There,” he said, returning to the bedside, “that’s all right. I think our patient can see now as well as ever.”

Christina peered into Joan Shoesmith’s face with a cry of joy, and sank back on the pillow in an ecstasy of content.

Neither Mrs. Tiverton nor the Miss Bannisters’ brother dared to move for some minutes. While they sat there the doctor tiptoed in. He crossed to the bed and looked at Christina. “She’s asleep,” he said. “Splendid! She’s all right now. It was sleep she wanted more than anything. Don’t let her hear a sound, nurse, for hours.”

They found Roy waiting for the news. When he heard it he jumped for joy. His mother caught him up and hugged him. “You thoughtful little imp,” she cried—and, turning to the doctor, told him the story. He went off, laughing. “I shall take my door-plate down when I get home,” he called out as he drove off, “and send it round to you, Bannister. You’re the real doctor.”

When the Miss Bannisters drove back they found tea all ready, and Mrs. Tiverton would not hear of their leaving without it. And when they did leave, an hour later, they were all fast friends.

Roy and Christina never think of going to Dormstaple now without calling at the red house.

THE IDEA THAT WENT ASTRAY

By Pauline Carrington Bouvé

It was Danny’s idea. Danny always had a great many ideas, and sometimes they were good, sometimes they were not, as is apt to be the case with people who have a great many of anything—especially ideas.

“It will be such fun!” said Amy.

“And something new,” agreed Janie.

“Who’ll cut the face?” asked Fred, who always wanted to know how things were going to be done.

“Can’t you, Milly?” asked all the children at once. “Can’t you?” and they all gathered round a little girl who was dressing a doll in an automobile suit.

“What are you talking about?” she asked. “What kind of a face, and what for?” She was fastening the odd lenses from two pairs of Aunt Mildred’s spectacles into a wire frame for goggles for the doll.

“Why, a pumpkin face, to scare Uncle Ned! He always laughs at us if we are afraid of anything.”

“If you will get the pumpkin—a nice large one—and will lend me your new jack-knife, why, I’ll see what I can do,” she said.

Fred promised, and the rest of that day and the next the children spent in preparation for Hallowe’en. Uncle Ned was a young lawyer in Boston, but he came home Saturday nights to spend Sundays with Aunt Mildred, and Hallowe’en happened to come on Saturday, which just suited.

Milly succeeded in making a very ugly face making enormous eyes and a monstrous mouth, in which she managed to fasten two rows of corn grains for teeth. Then, when the rest of the children were out playing, she took her pumpkin head up into the attic, and hunted for other things to complete its make-up. In an old trunk she found a heavy wig, and this she fastened firmly on the head with some glue. When at last she showed it, with its great shock of black hair, everybody agreed that it was ugly enough to frighten anybody.

“He’ll think it’s a goblin,” said Milly, who had read a great many fairy-stories.

“There aren’t any goblins,” said Fred, who was always practical.

In the evening, soon after supper, they all went out and stuck it up on the end of a stray bean-pole, which they leaned up against the post of the garden gate. Dave Peters gave them a candle, which they lighted and thrust inside of the hollow head.

“Ugh, how ugly!” they said, and then went in the house to wait.

After a while Fred proposed going out to see how it looked again, and every one of the children followed him. What if the candle should have burned out or been blown out?

Fred gave a low whistle and stopped before he reached the gate, and all the children called, “What’s the matter?”

There the ugly thing hung, the light shining through the big empty eyes and grinning corn teeth, and just behind there was certainly a great white something that looked like wings!

“What’s that white thing?” said Milly, in a frightened whisper, as she clutched Fred’s arm.

“Let’s go back!” begged Amy and Janie.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said Fred, boldly; but he did not move a step nearer to the gate. “You are always so ’fraid of things!”

“Oh, go see what it is! I’m scared, scared!” wailed Milly, who scarcely recognized her own handiwork in the darkness, so strange it looked.

In the excitement they did not hear the car whistle nor the sound of footsteps on the gravel walk.

Just then a breeze sprang up, flaring the candle, which sent out a long tongue of flame from the pumpkin head’s mouth, and the white something behind began to wave. Like a flock of frightened birds the children, Fred, Amy, Janie and Milly, turned and ran as fast as they could, stumbling over each other in their flight.

A man’s figure darkened the doorway. “Hello!” said Uncle Ned. “What’s happened?”

“Oh, the pumpkin—there’s something there behind it—we thought we’d scare you!”

They were all talking together, so Uncle Ned did not understand at first.

“And you scared yourselves?” he said, at last. “Come, let us see what the ‘something white’ is,” and he went straight up to the garden fence and pulled down Aunt Mildred’s white crocheted shawl.

“Milly forgot to take it in, as I asked her,” remarked Aunt Mildred, “and it’s lucky you found it.”

Uncle Ned laughed so loud that everybody else laughed, too.

Then he put his hand down into his overcoat pocket and brought forth two big brown parcels of nuts and candy, and Aunt Mildred brought in a basket of big red apples, and after all, it was a jolly Hallowe’en, although, as Milly remarked, the “getting scared part got mixed up.”

GRAVITY GREGG

By Isaac Ogden Rankin

John Paul Gregg had a hobby. Nobody could doubt it who was with him, even though he did not happen to hear one of the other boys call him “Specific Gravity,” or “Fic,” for short. Gravity Gregg it was and continued to be until it got into the newspapers, and now it is probably settled upon him for life.

When he was a baby he was always investigating the why and the wherefore and more particularly the how of everything he could get his chubby hands on. If he saw anything moving, especially, he always wanted to know why it moved—a curiosity which cost him a finger before he was ten years old.

He was a pretty good all-round student, but it was in the natural philosophy class that he shone. He had picked up somewhere an old copy of a standard book on physics, and his use of the information he had gathered from it caused terror to the good lady who had charge of the department in the village school.

He was apt, for instance, to complicate her mild and innocent experiments by suggesting new applications of the principle involved; and the amount of broken apparatus which went down to his account in the laboratory where the boys were sometimes allowed to work made his mother sigh.

His devotion to physics seemed very unpractical to quiet Mrs. Gregg, who had set her heart on making a minister of her eldest son. She had named him John Paul, by way of having the names of two apostles ready for the future, and she had day-dreams of sitting in the front pew in church to hear him preach, while she looked up to him with wondering delight.

It was a trial to be thinking of the Rev. John Paul Gregg, a tall, dignified and grave man, who was respected by everybody and had, perhaps, published a book of sermons, and then to have a freckled lad, round-faced and brown as a berry, with a scar across his forehead where an exploding crucible had just missed the eye, burst in upon her to beg her best preserving-kettle for an experiment. And to hear the future clergyman called “Fic” Gregg all over her end of the town made her shudder.

Most of the people of Lavenham who knew him thought Specific Gravity mildly insane, but they all liked him. He was so simple and sincere and kind that they could not help it; but they never knew what he would be up to next in the line of dangerous experiment. He was as inventive as a fox, as spry as a cat, and as steady-headed as a monkey.

Old Deacon Podgers looked out at his window one morning when it was blowing half a gale, and on the top of the unfinished steeple of the new Baptist Church saw a strange black object. The deacon, who had been a sea-captain all his active days, turned to the wall for his spy glass, and recognized Gravity Gregg, who had climbed up there to study the vibration of materials, as he told the deacon when he asked him why he risked his life so recklessly.

John Paul acquired his name of Specific Gravity from an early answer in the philosophy class, but it did not become publicly his until one day after an anxious night in the big railroad freight-yards just outside the town.

The Gregg house was on the brow of the hill overlooking the river and the flats where the railroad runs, and Fic knew every landmark visible from his window.

It was a holiday. He had been fishing all day and went to bed early, but woke up about midnight with a start to see a flickering light reflected on the wall. He was at the window in a moment, and after taking an observation said to himself, “That’s in the freight-yards! It must be a car on fire!”

It was not a big blaze, like a burning house, but a flickering little blaze, like that of the lamps on the fruit-peddlers’ stands at night.

The desire to investigate was strong upon John Paul. His mother had never objected to his going to fires, but would she let him go so late at night? He would not wake her up to ask, and with a sigh went back to bed again and dropped off to sleep—only to be wakened up by the distant sound of a fire-engine rattling through the streets and to see the same flickering light at the same spot on the wall.

He went to the window again and took the field-glass, which was one of his most cherished possessions.

“It’s a car, sure enough, and they’ve got the engines out,” he said. “I wish I could go and see.”

He went back to bed, but tossed and tossed, while the light still flickered on the wall.

“It’s strange they don’t put it out,” he thought. “They must have been at work at it two or three hours.”

He rose again and went to the window, but the air was so cold that he dressed himself, his curiosity all the while growing stronger. Taking his shoes in his hand he went softly down to the door, took the spare latch-key from its hook, let himself quietly out, put on his shoes, and slipped down to the front gate.

It was a windy night, with the moon eating up the clouds, and the streets were very quiet. The first sign of excitement was at the gate of the yards, where another fire-engine was just going in.

Fic slipped in beside it and took a short cut across the tracks, between and under the cars, to the other side next the big freight-house, where a fire-engine was pumping water through long lines of black hose on a big tank-car that was all in a blaze on the under side.

The tracks were flooded. Fic balanced himself on a rail and watched the blazing car with a puzzled look. Every time the stream of water fairly struck the center of the flame it flew in every direction in sheets and threads of fire, but always settled back at the bottom of the car.

The division superintendent of the road drove up. Fic knew him by sight, for he lived in Lavenham and went to his church.

“What’s the matter?” the superintendent said, in a high-keyed voice. “Why don’t you put out the fire?”

Three men drew out of the group around the fire-engine and came to the side of the buggy. One was the yardmaster, another the conductor in charge of the train, and the third the fire-chief.

“It’s naphtha,” said the chief. “There’s a leak somewhere in the pipes that lets it down to the fire a little at a time. We can’t get at it for the heat, and the water only scatters it.”

“The stuff must be pretty well out by this time,” said the conductor; “and when it gets low and the fire works up into the tank there will be an explosion. It’s awful stuff for fire.”

Fic was standing by the front wheel of the buggy and saw the superintendent’s face grow pale by the flickering light.

“Can’t you move the car?”

“We can’t get near enough to couple, and the truck is about burned through. We moved the other cars, but we can’t move the buildings.”

“Why not bring up the gravel-train from the lower switch and fill up from below until the fire is buried.”

“There won’t be time. The tank’s nearly empty now. It’s been burning all night.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” answered the chief. “Those tanks hold a lot, and it doesn’t take much naphtha to make a big blaze. What I’m afraid of is that it will explode while it is half full, and scatter the burning stuff all over the yard. Or else it will burn a week, and stop all the work in the yards while we are waiting for it to burst! That will never do.”

Fic had been doing a lot of thinking while this hasty consultation went on. He had not studied his physics for nothing, and he was sure he had the key to the problem.

“Please, Mr. Sanderson, may I speak?”

The four men looked down and saw a boy in a short jacket, with eyes that were burning with excitement, and Mr. Sanderson said, in amazement: “Hello! Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“If you please,” said Fic, drawing himself up to the dashboard in his excitement, “I know how to put out the fire!”

“You do, do you! Well, speak up quick! It’ll be worth a good many thousand dollars and perhaps a few lives, if you do.”

“Take off the lid of the tank on top and pour water into the tank. The wind blows the fire to one side, and if you can once get a hose in you will do it.”

“How will that put the fire out?” cried the superintendent.

“It’s the specific gravity. Water is denser than naphtha and will sink to the bottom. If it doesn’t explode when you open it, it won’t afterward. The water will sink to the bottom and get into the leaky pipes.”

“I believe the lad’s right,” said the fire-chief. “At all events, we’ll try it. Who’ll help?”

Two or three volunteers came forward and lifted a ladder on the windward side of the car. The chief mounted and pried up the lid. No explosion followed, and on thrusting in his hand he found that the naphtha was still very near the top. If the fire should reach and scatter it there would be no hope of saving the buildings, he knew, and even the vapor was dangerous. He called for a hose, thrust it in at the vent, and pulled down the lid to keep the vapor in. Then he climbed down to watch the result.

Already, as he reached the ground and turned to look, the flame had diminished. In five minutes the fire was out, and water was dripping from the cooled end of the leaky pipe, which was soon tied up and made safe. Not only was the danger over, but almost the whole contents of the tank were saved.

No sooner was the work of repair over by the gleam of hastily lighted lanterns than the superintendent, like a man relieved by miracle, suddenly pulled himself up from the side of the disabled car and looked about him.

Then he shouted, “Where’s that boy?”

Nobody knew. For the moment they had forgotten all about the boy in thinking of the escape from peril; and as for John Paul, so soon as he saw that the fire was out and his faith in the principle of specific gravity vindicated, his interest had ceased, and he had turned across the flooded tracks toward home.

He slipped quietly in, got to bed by half past four without disturbing anybody, and was up as usual when his mother called him to help her with the morning work. He never troubled her with his experiments, and it did not occur to him to speak of the night’s adventure.

Even the reporter of the _Daily Flashlight_ was too much interested in the success of the experiment to interview the boy, although he made the best of him in his story in the morning paper. He was a stranger in Lavenham, and had never heard of the uncanny doings of Gravity Gregg. It was not until the next day that the whole story got out, and Fic found it necessary to go to school by the back streets to avoid public notice.

When the division superintendent reached home in the early morning, he found his wife waiting for him with a cup of hot coffee, and as he drank it he told her the story.

“I suppose I shall have to advertise for the boy,” he said. “I can’t let him go. He saved the car and the buildings, and perhaps the lives of some of us.”

“You needn’t do that,” answered Mrs. Sanderson, who knew nothing about physics but had caught two words in the story. “He lives right around the corner in the little brown house. He’s the oldest son of the Widow Gregg, and nearly blew our Ralph’s head off one day last week with one of his experiments. All the boys call him Gravity Gregg.”

While Mrs. Gregg was at breakfast the door-bell rang, and Mr. Sanderson invited himself in. It took a long while to tell the story, for Mrs. Gregg couldn’t understand that John Paul had been anywhere but safe in bed all night, and John Paul couldn’t see that there was anything to make a fuss about in so simple an expedient in practical physics.

People said that the railroad ought to make the boy a handsome present, but it did not. What it did do was to see that he got the best kind of an education and then to put him where he could climb high in their employ.

He carries a watch which Mr. Sanderson and the fire-chief gave him as soon as he was considered by them old enough to take care of it, on the case of which is engraved a name and a date. His mother is proud of him, and, luckily for her pet ambition, she is quite as proud of another son who is just such a minister as she hoped to make of John Paul Gregg.

JONNASEN

By Dallas Lore Sharp

It was a half-holiday at the quarries; the schools, the stores and shops all closed at noon. The whole quarry town had turned out to see the great granite shaft hauled to the station.

To avoid the risk and cost of two loadings, the forty-ton stone had been derricked to the road at the edge of the quarry, and there, under a temporary shed, had been cut, polished and crated. It now lay blocked upon a low, powerful dray, ready to be moved to the freight siding in the village, over a mile distant.

The stone was the largest single block of granite ever quarried at the Laston ledges. It had been an expensive job from the start, and a very troublesome one. It had led to a strike, a riot, and almost to murder.

There had been no man among the two hundred in the quarries capable of properly dressing the stone. So the company had brought in Gunar Gustavesen to do the work. And the men were angry at the intrusion of the outsider.

The company was warned. So was Gustavesen. But the work on the shaft went on—until the strike. Jonnasen, the leader of the men, was as sure he was right and as stubborn as Hendricks, president of the firm. Then the men grew ugly, there was a riot, Gustavesen’s furniture was burned in the street, and he himself so brutally attacked that he still lay slowly mending in one of the company’s houses.

It was a bitter victory, and Jonnasen was too honest a man to like it. When it was reported to him that Havelok Gustavesen, the sixteen-year-old son of the non-union man, had found some menial work in the company’s stables, he made it clear to the men that the boy was to be let alone. That is how it happened that young Gustavesen appeared among the men who were busy with the twenty-four-horse team attached to the heavy dray.

The road from the quarry to the station was down grade except for two steep hills, where the ledges cropped out, and where every ounce of the pulling power of the great team would be required. At the top of the second rise the downward slope stretched away for about half a mile with a sharp curve round the edge of the old quarry. The curve was guarded by heavy stone posts and a wooden rail.

The possibilities of all this had been reckoned with, and in order to keep the forty tons of granite from pushing the horses before it, a pair of heavy steel shoes had been fitted to a brake that might have held a freight-train.

Jonnasen settled himself upon the seat of the dray, gathered up the reins of the pole-team, and, with his foot upon the brake, gave the word to start. The drivers of the forward spans echoed the command, and the dray rolled out upon the road.

There is something inspiring in the work of willing horses. It is a noble enthusiasm, little less than inspiration, that takes possession of the horses themselves. The crowd along the road felt it and cheered, as the twelve pairs, pulling like one, took the great polished shaft to the top of the first hill.

It was a short and gentle descent to the second and steepest ridge. Jonnasen put on the brake, and caught the weight so easily that the horses of the pole moved free in their traces, yet kept them fairly taut.

Near the bottom of the slope he started them forward on the trot, loosed the brake, and sent the long line at a good pace to take the second ridge.

It was a pretty piece of work. So beautifully did the immense stone mount the rise that even the members of the firm in attendance cheered with the rest.

Then a silence fell. No one spoke of danger, but as the great, shining shaft pointed down the slope, its forty tons of dead weight seemed suddenly to have changed into active power. It seemed to poise at the top of the hill. It was a thing alive.

The ridge was a narrow ledge of granite, hardly wide enough to stop the dray upon. Jonnasen had intended to breathe his team here, but by the time the dray was up, the lead horses were already going down, and the load, without a pause, began to descend.

Jonnasen bore down on the brake, drew in his horses, and looked off down the long grade to the turn about the precipitous edge of the old quarry.

He drew a short, hard breath. No cooler man than this tall Swede ever held a rein. He could handle horses as he could handle men.

But he had made a mistake, and he knew it instantly. He should have stopped on the ridge, as he intended. He should have unhooked all the horses ahead of the pole-team here. They were in the way. The horses at the pole could guide the load down. The others were a menace, if anything should happen.

“But nothing should happen!” he muttered to himself, and a half-smile broke over his rugged face as he heard the grind of the brake and saw the slack in the traces taken up. The load was under his foot.

Just then the lead horses broke into a trot. Immediately the whole line started. Jonnasen bore down on the brake, and drew his own team hard back to check the pull, when there was a sharp crack, like the report of a pistol, and one of the steel shoes fell broken to the road.

Instantly a dozen warning voices told him what he too well knew had happened. The big horses knew, too, and settled back to stop the push from behind. Jonnasen put all his weight into the single steel shoe that bit at the back wheel. A stream of sparks flew from the tire, and a wild, shrill scream told that the brake still worked. But the horses were sliding.

Then the pole ran into the team ahead, the horses plunged, and there was confusion.

“Unhook them from the pole!” Jonnasen called to the nearest driver. The man dropped his lines, caught the jangling traces and tried to run in between the teams, but was struck by a hoof and rolled out of the road.

Panic seized the whole line of frightened horses. Some of the drivers still held their teams back, but they were being dragged helplessly.

“Unhook them!” Jonnasen shouted to the crowd shrinking back against the fence. Were he free to let his own team go, they might keep ahead of the load, and take the turn with a possible chance of rounding the edge of the deep quarry.

“Unhook them!” he shouted again, powerless to quit his place and do the thing himself. But no one was able to move.

Then a lithe young figure came bounding down from the ridge. It was young Gustavesen. He sprang upon the dray, ran forward, seized the whip in Jonnasen’s hand, and in a cool, deliberate voice, said:

“When I get hold, let ’em jump quick.” He dropped between the horses to the pole, and clutching the harness, got quickly out to the end. He was bending to catch the evener when a forward wheel struck a rut, and the long tongue snapped him viciously into the air.

He caught the hames of the nigh horse, and saved himself. Hanging to the hames, he swung back, lay out along the tongue, and reached again for the evener.

Jonnasen was watching, and as the boy laid his hand upon the big hook, he loosed the reins, the horses lunged, and the long, heavy bar was unhooked almost of itself.

Like a flash the boy straightened and swung the lash about the horses ahead, throwing himself an instant later upon the back of the horse he was holding.

The loosened teams were barely dragged to the side as the pole-team went by on the gallop, with its forty-ton stone.

Jonnasen had the horses under perfect control. He could guide them straight ahead. But the mighty stone was gathering momentum with every leap of the team, and powerful as they were Jonnasen began to realize that they would never be able to check or turn the downward plunge at the curve on the edge of the quarry.

Then he saw that young Gustavesen was making no attempt to fling himself from the galloping horse.

“Jump!” he shouted. “Jump, quick!”

Havelok turned. “I can’t jump!” he called back. “My leg! Tend your team! I’m safe here!”

The absolute confidence of the boy sent a strange thrill through the big Swede. It steadied him.

They were near to the turn, with the horses running close to the inner side, and still well in hand.

Jonnasen thought quickly. It was a chance—the only chance. One of them—both of them—might escape if he could hit with the long iron hub of the rear wheel the tough young white oak that stood out on the very round of the sharp curve.

Jonnasen drew the horses in a little, spoke to them quietly, then sent the front wheel past the tree with a bite at the bark, pulled the team hard in, and leaped.

There was a dull crash, a ripping of harness, and a grinding crunch as the forty-ton stone slued over the crushed wheel across the broken top of the tree.

Jonnasen was picked up in the road, unconscious, but not seriously hurt. The escape of Gustavesen was more than luck. It was a miracle, but a miracle worked by his own presence of mind, and the coolness, quickness and good judgment of Jonnasen.

As the wheel struck, the traces parted, the pole-chains snapped, and the horses shot ahead free, with the boy clinging to the harness.

When he was helped down, his right leg was found to be broken; but that had happened back along the road, when he was snapped from the pole while trying to unhook the forward teams. And it was this that prevented his trying to fling himself off to the road as his perilous ride began.

No harm had come to the shaft. The dray was a wreck, but the great stone lay unbroken, and almost unscratched, among the débris.

It was a week later, as both Gustavesens, father and son, were convalescing, that they received a letter, concluding as follows:

Henceforth a man shall be a man here. Some things have been done that the men in this quarry are ashamed of. They believe now that every man has a right to work and live under the law according to the dictates of his own conscience.

For the men,

(Signed) Jonnasen.

IN THE OVEN

By Richard Washburn Child

“I am inclined to think that a girl’s wit is quicker than a man’s in a tight place, if the place is tight enough.”

Mr. Colchester had spoken after we had been silently sitting for several minutes watching the mist that was creeping over the moonlit water and listening to the chirp of the crickets in the grass.

He always began a story by stating the moral. His way was to present some conclusion and then prove it by a personal experience.

“I was thinking of my sister,” he explained. “She once saved us both from a fearful death. If it had not been for her ready wit I should have been a biscuit!”

At this every one straightened up perceptibly. Mr. Colchester’s stories were always interesting.

“Perhaps all of you do not know that my father was a cracker manufacturer,” he continued, “and that he had a shop with machinery and three ovens in it. Of course that would be considered nothing to-day, when there are bakeries that supply thousands of people in every part of the country, but when I was a boy I remember I used to wonder that there were enough mouths to consume all that my father’s workmen made.

“I often went down to the shop, for it was really fascinating to watch the mixers turning the great rolls of dough over and over, and see the cutting-machines chopping a long strap of it into little sticky lumps. Then old Carberry, the baker, would toss the pieces which had been patted and molded by hand on the tiled floor of the oven. Sometimes my sister Margaret used to go with me, for we were great chums, and it was on one of those occasions that we got into trouble.

“The day, I remember, had been rainy, and after a discouraging attempt to amuse ourselves in the house, Margaret said, ‘Let’s take umbrellas and go down to the bakery.’

“I was so glad of the suggestion that I forgot it was the noon hour, when the men would be gone and the machinery shut down. It wasn’t until we saw the deserted room that we remembered it.

“‘Well,’ said I, ‘we are bright, aren’t we? But let’s look round—I’ll tell you, let’s look at the cool oven.’

“‘Cool oven!’ exclaimed Margaret, in surprise.

“I explained to her that in the ordinary course of business only two ovens were used, and that unless there were extra orders there was always one oven which was out of commission, being shut off from the furnaces below by the big sheet-iron dampers.

“I raised the latch of the heavy door and bent down to look across the flat, tiled surface inside.

“‘It’s just like a cave, isn’t it, Bob?’ cried my sister; and I laughed at the idea and asked her whether she expected to see a bear or a robber walk out.

“‘Of course I don’t!’ she said, for she always was on her guard against my making fun of her. ‘Let’s crawl in.’

“‘All right,’ said I, touching the brick walls to make sure I hadn’t made a mistake; and then I followed her inside through the gloomy opening.

“‘Will it get my dress dirty?’ Margaret asked, out of the darkness.

“‘No, indeed,’ said I. ‘They have to keep these ovens clean as can be. They’re fussy about every speck of dust.’

“I had hardly finished when the iron door behind us shut with a resounding clang. One of the workmen who had come back to work had closed it!

“‘O Bob,’ cried my sister, with a little scream of fright, ‘we’re shut in!’

“‘Like two biscuits,’ I laughed. ‘Don’t you mind. All we have to do is to shout and some one will come.’

“But Margaret was really scared, and groped her way near me to put her hand on my shoulder. I confess the darkness and the close, stuffy air were far from cheerful.

“I began to call as loud as I could, and not getting any answer, I crept over to the solid iron door and began kicking it with my heels. After a moment I stopped, breathing hard from my exercise, and then I heard Margaret’s voice behind me, saying:

“‘Wait a minute, Bob! Listen!’

“I strained my ears, and from the outside I could hear a rumbling that seemed to come from far, far away.

“‘It’s the machinery!’ I cried. ‘It’s after one o’clock, and they have begun work again. No wonder they couldn’t hear us!’

“By that time I had become really frightened, and I suppose I must have temporarily lost my head. I shouted wildly until my throat was sore, but it seemed only to fill our oven trap with noise. There was no hope whatever that it would penetrate the thick brick walls. Suddenly I was startled into silence by a sound of scraping iron underneath us—a familiar noise to my ears. Some one had pulled open the great damper that shut us off from the fires in the cellar below! They were going to heat our oven!

“‘What was that?’ exclaimed my sister, touching my hand with her cold fingers. ‘What did that noise mean, Bob?’ She seemed to know our danger by instinct. I did not answer, for with a sinking heart I felt on my face the first breath of warm air!

“‘Tell me, Bob!’ demanded Margaret. ‘They are heating this oven, aren’t they?’ She had caught my wrist and pressed it as hard as a girl could squeeze.

“‘Yes!’ I gasped, trying to speak bravely. I remember I felt that if I were alone I should not care nearly so much, but the idea that my little sister would have to die, too, put me into another panic.

“A second breath of air a good deal hotter than the first fanned my cheek. I jumped up with a scream, and beat and kicked upon the rough brick walls and on the iron door in blind terror. Then, exhausted, I crawled along the floor to the place where Margaret sat. She was crying quietly—I could tell because when I put my arm about her I could feel that she was shaking.

“‘They will never, never hear us!’ she sobbed.

“‘Don’t cry, Margy,’ said I, patting her wet cheek while I tried to arouse my own courage. ‘Perhaps there is another way.’

“I tried to think, but the heat had then become almost unbearable; it stung my nose and seemed to suffocate me. Once when I touched a place on one of the tiles I drew my hand back in real pain. There was no hope of breaking the latch of the iron door, and no one could hear us, though we put our mouths to a little crack at the top of the door and screamed. I was sure we would be baked. My arm was still round my sister, and her hand was still in mine, as if she were seeking the comfort of the touch.

“It was becoming hotter and hotter, but neither of us spoke for several seconds. Then suddenly Margaret started up and cried out, eagerly, ‘Tell me, Bob, quick! Have you got a piece of paper?’

“I felt in my pockets. ‘Yes, I have an old postal card!’ I exclaimed. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

“‘They can’t hear us, but we can make them see!’ she cried. ‘Hurry! Give it to me—and your jack-knife!’

“I handed them to her, and she began to pick at the hem of her skirt with the point of the knife.

“‘We need thread,’ she explained, excitedly, ‘and if this is a chain-stitch on this hem we can get it!’ I lighted a match. ‘And it is, Bob, it is!’ she cried. I realized that she had caught an end of thread and was carefully ripping it out.

“‘Now, Bob,’ she commanded, handing me the card, ‘punch a hole in the card and tie it through.’ Her voice was weak. From my own struggle to keep my senses in the awful heat, I knew that she was nearly at the collapsing point.

“‘What are you going to do with it?’ I gasped.

“‘The door!’ she answered, faintly. ‘Dangle the card through the crack in the door!’ Then I understood her plan at last, and crawling painfully over on my knees, I thrust the postal card down the little crack between the door and the iron jamb.

“‘Pull it up and let it down!’ cried Margaret, with a final effort, and I jiggled the string so that the paper would dance upon the wall outside. My head swam with the effect of the terrible heat, and it seemed ages before any one came.

“Then suddenly the latch was lifted, the door swung open, and in spite of the blinding daylight which poured in I could see the astonished face of old Carberry, the baker, peering in at us!

“I caught my sister’s dress, pulling her toward the opening with all the strength that was left in me, and fell out after her into the old man’s arms.

“That is why I say,” concluded Mr. Colchester, as he looked round upon us with a smile, “that it was a girl’s wit that kept me from being baked like a biscuit. And that is the reason why I say that a girl’s wit is the best in a tight place—providing the place is tight enough.”

ON A SLIDE-BOARD

By Robert Barnes

At three o’clock on an August morning the press in the little printing-office on the summit ceased its clatter, and Corey Green brought out a bundle of _Stars_, wrapped in enameled cloth, to Bart Collamore.

“Here’s your five hundred,” said Corey, “hot from the types.”

“All right,” replied Bart “They’ll be on the hotel counters twenty miles away by six.”

They walked down the platform before the Summit House. A dim light illumined the office, but the rest of the long building was dark. Only two other persons were awake—Frank Simmons, busy over the printing-press, and Luke Martin, the hotel watchman.

Overhead an occasional star glimmered through the driving wrack, and the low east disclosed the first faint tokens of a cloudy dawn; but in the west frowned a vaporous battlement, black and threatening, from which a strong wind was tearing detached masses and rolling them against the mountainside. Now and then a few flakes of snow flew by on the raw gale.

Lifting his slide-board from the platform, Bart set it on the cog-rail midway of the track.

This rail was bolted to a wooden centerpiece on the ties, and consisted of two parallel strips of wrought angle-iron, connected by steel pins three inches apart, on which the cogs of the engine worked. He turned the nut on the brake-rod until the iron plates by means of which the speed of the board was retarded were in position under the flanges of the rail. Then he pulled on his gloves, jammed his cap down hard, and buttoned his reefer up to his neck.

Corey glanced at the black western sky. “You’re liable to hit the storm going down,” said he.

“Guess I can beat it out,” returned Bart. Seating himself on the slide-board, with the bundle of papers between his knees, he gripped the brake-handles. Almost of itself the board began moving.

“I’ll be at the Base House in ten minutes!” he called back, as he sped away down the slope toward the north, while behind him the drone of the wind almost drowned Corey’s shout.

“Good luck!”

The slide-board was the conveyance used by employés and trackmen in descending the mountain railroad. Although perilous for a novice, it was easy of management for an experienced hand. It was of seven-eighths-inch spruce, ten inches wide, and something over a yard long. Three cleats screwed across its top kept it from splitting. Underneath were two sets of “shoes,” the forward of wood, the rear of iron, parallel strips half an inch thick and four inches apart, just far enough for the top of the cog-rail to slide between them.

As Bart slipped downward, the black buildings on the summit were blotted out by driving clouds. Little by little he swerved westward, turning his back to the dawn, hearing only the hoarse murmur of the rising gale and the rattle of his board.

Guide-books say that the three and one-third miles from summit to base may be covered by slide-board in twenty minutes. Actually, the record is two minutes and forty-seven seconds. This can be appreciated when one remembers that there is a drop of four thousand feet, and that the average grade approximates one in four. Bart had made the trip some hundreds of times in his fourteen years on the road. Every morning that summer he had gone down before daybreak, in order that the little paper printed on the peak might have early distribution among the various hotels.

Faster and faster sped the board. The top of the rack was abundantly lubricated with oil from the cogs of the engine, and the grade was growing steeper. On the left a dim shaft flitted by, memorial of a life lost by exposure on the mountain years before.

Bart put a little more pressure on his brakes. The stout birch handles, somewhat smaller than baseball bats and about as long as the board itself, were connected forward with the brake-rod running across the front in a hollow wooden bar, and with an iron plate under each flange of the rail. To retard his course, the rider simply pulled up on the handles, which were directly under his arms, thus lifting the plates against the flanges and pressing the board down harder on the top of the rack.

The track curved northwest for the next fifteen hundred feet to the Gulf Tank, a water cistern on the left. The grade varied from one in four to one in eight. The wind, keen, strong, and shot with hurrying snowflakes, stung even Bart’s seasoned face.

He had worked on the mountain long enough to know what was coming out of that inky bank ahead.

Gulf Tank swept past, a square gray shadow, and the track gradually swung west. And now he caught it in good earnest. The moan of the blast had risen to a furious howling. Bullets of sleet pelted his cheeks. Right before him rose a black wall, the edge of the real storm. It looked almost as if it were solid. Catching his breath, he ducked his head, and bolted straight into the heart of the tempest.

In a second it enveloped him, rain, snow, sleet and hail. His board whizzed faster over the wet, slippery rail.

The grade increased, and he knew he had reached Long Trestle. Beyond lay Jacob’s Ladder, the steepest place on the line, pitched considerably over one in three. He must not go too fast there. It was more than a mile and a half still to the bottom. If the board once got away from him—

Bart stiffened himself against the fierce blast, gripped the brake-handles hard, and pulled up on them. A stream of sparks trailed out on each side, as the plates bit at the flanges.

He was leaning well forward now, boring head foremost into the yelling gale. His eyes were closed; he could not keep them open.

Now the Trestle was past, and the Ladder lay just ahead. He could tell where he was by the feel of the track. His head was clear, his nerves steady. All he needed to do was to keep a good hold on those handles, and the board would soon carry him safely to the base.

Suddenly his speed increased. He had struck the Ladder. The grade at its head was not far from one in two. Down he shot, lifting hard on the birch bars.

What was that? It could not be that left brake-handle was buckling! Yes! Something had given way. Up came his hand, higher, higher, higher, yet there was no response of iron grinding against iron.

For just a second Bart felt sick.

The flange was only three-fourths of an inch wide. If that left plate once got out from under it, he knew very well what would happen.

A single brake could never hold the board on the rail. On the next curve, if not before, it would bound from the track with tremendous velocity, and its rider would land somewhere on the rugged mountainside with a broken neck. Somehow, if he cared to live, that plate must never lose its grip on the flange.

The Ladder was four hundred feet long and thirty feet above the rocks at its highest point. Bart was travelling forty miles an hour, so crossing the trestle took less than ten seconds. Before he left it, he saw what he must do.

Instinctively easing up on his right bar, so as to bring an even pressure on both sides, he ran his left hand quickly forward down the birch stick, to locate the break. Not many inches from the socket his fingers found it, where a knurl, imperceptibly weakened by long use, had evidently yielded at last.

Sitting where he did, he could just reach beyond the break by extending his arm full length, and he could exert only a slight upward pull. If he hoped to keep the board on the rail, he must immediately shift his position, so that he might put out his full strength. Several short curves were just ahead.

To change one’s place on a narrow board flying down a mountainside at forty miles an hour through a pitch-black hurricane is no fool’s task. Very carefully Bart hitched straight forward, until his knees were upright, and he was able to lift strongly on the unbroken portion of the bar. His speed was now simply terrific.

Round a curve he whisked, leaning far inward in the fear that he might ride the rail. Then, as his board settled down on a straightaway, he pulled up with all his might.

To his horror, he found that with so short a leverage he could not press the plate against the flange hard enough to check his speed.

The board was running away with him!

Bart knew every yard of that track, every pitch and curve, from the engine-house at the summit to the Marshfield turntable; and he realized that this was the most critical minute in all his years of railroading. Two courses were open to him—he might stick to the board, or he might roll off.

Which was the less dangerous?

If he rolled off at that speed, the best he could hope for would be a fearful bruising, broken bones and insensibility. It would be hours before rescuers could find him; and hours in that storm meant death.

If he stayed on, he took the chance of being hurled from the rail at some curve; besides, what would happen when he reached the bottom, if he ever did reach it?

He decided to stay on.

The slide-board took the curves at express speed. Time and again Bart thought it was flying off. He wondered to find himself still sitting hunched on the spruce, when Waumbek Tank slipped by. He knew it had passed, although he did not see it.

But little more than a mile due west, and almost thirteen hundred feet lower, lay the terminus. Was this to be his last ride on the line? In a couple of minutes at the most the thing would be decided. Bart manned himself for the finish.

On he shot, straining at the bars, head down through the pitch darkness. He was dashing against a forty-mile gale at an equal speed; that was equivalent to standing still in a hurricane blowing eighty miles. It shrieked round him with indescribable fury, striving to hurl him backward from his seat. His cap was torn away, and the sleet pattered like a sand-blast on his bare skull.

Cold Spring Tank flitted past, and the last steep pitch was near, seventeen hundred to the mile. In a moment Bart was rushing madly down the descent. His head swam with the hideous speed. His board vibrated and trembled as it hurtled along the track. All seemed unreal, uncanny. But although dazed and buffeted, he never for an instant loosed his grip of the bars. A “green” man might have lost his head, and that could have had but one result.

Almost sooner than he could think, he was at the bottom of the pitch, darting over the Ammonoosuc bridge. Only a few hundred feet more. The track, he knew, was clear to its end, for cars and engines were housed for the night. Now for one last, long, hard pull!

Deaf, blind, numb, exhausted, bent almost double, he drained his strength to the dregs for a clutch on the handles; then he lifted, as if he would tear the flange from the centerpiece.

There was a terrific shrieking as the iron surfaces ground together. Fire followed each brake.

A building rushed by on the right—the carpenter-shop. Bart did not actually see it, but he knew it was gone.

Then came the car-barn, the turntable, the engine-house and repair-shop, and the long wood-shed. Less than thirty yards more! His speed was slackening on the level grade, but it was still tremendous.

And now the laundry was past—the last building. Twenty-five feet beyond it the cog-rail ended. Bart threw all that was left of himself into one final, mighty wrench.

A second later he found himself rolling blindly along the ties, head over heels and heels over head, cuffed, punched, battered, as if a dozen flails were beating him at once on every part of his body. At last he came to a stop, a bruised, dizzy heap.

After a little Bart sat up, tried his arms and legs, and found he could get on his feet. He felt himself all over. Luckily his bones were well padded with muscle, so none of them were broken.

The storm was still blowing forty miles an hour, but by contrast it seemed to him to be almost over. He hunted until he found his bundle of papers; it had been tied tightly, and had not burst open. Then he limped up to the Base House.

“Here are your ‘_Stars_,’” said he to the driver of the team, shivering outside. “I’ve done my part; now see if you can get ’em to Bethlehem before six o’clock.”

THE CALL OF THE SEA

By Frederick Palmer

The only memory of his father that Franklin Thompson had was the photograph of a young naval officer in uniform which his mother, with tears in her eyes, often showed him. She died when Franklin was six, leaving him, her only cause for living longer, to the care of his father’s brother. When he realized how unwelcome he was in his new home, the only solace he had in the world was the photograph. He would look at it for an hour at a time, and read again and again the inscription on the back.

Before he was quite alone in the world he had heard the sea a-calling. On his holidays he would walk to the shore, and watch the ships go and come. Each was a speaking individuality, which he would recognize should he see it again. The salt breath was ever in his nostrils, the tang of salt spray in his veins.

When he was eleven, his cousin Edward, five years his senior, received the appointment to Annapolis. If Franklin felt any envy he stifled it. The inscription on the photograph in his father’s own hand forbade that.

“Be honest; envy nobody; strive hard,” it ran.

Two years later Franklin knew that his school-days were at an end.

“I’ll look for a place for you to learn some business,” said his uncle, as if the boy’s preferences for an occupation did not count.

Early the next morning Franklin went to the great bay near his home, as he always did when he was heavy of heart. Three men-of-war, one a new battle-ship, their white sides gleaming, rested their enormous weights on the water as gently as swans. On the battle-ship it was visiting day. From her side the monster reached down her big gangway, with holystoned steps and immaculate rope, as a gallant officer offers his hand to a lady.

At the threshold of the deck Franklin paused, as one who suddenly sees his dreams materialize in broad daylight. No one of the knots of sightseers, going here and there with the spectators’ “Ahs!” and occasional questions, noticed the boy, who stood immovable, noting every detail of the leviathan. Each gun seemed to him a living thing.

He saw some jackies going about their appointed duties, and others under the shade of the awnings aft, mending their clothes. The officer of the deck must be the happiest man in the world, Franklin thought. He imagined how his father must have looked, pacing back and forth in the same way. Oh, if his father were only alive, then perhaps he, too, might go to Annapolis! He looked up at the bridge and imagined himself in a great storm, with the spray stinging his face and blinding his eyes, and the mountain of steel as obedient to his commands as a bicycle to the turn of the handle-bar.

“Wouldn’t you like to look around a bit?” asked a voice at his elbow.

Its owner, Franklin saw, was a boy of about his own age, dressed like the jackies in summer white.

“Would I? Would I?” The way Franklin asked the question was answer enough from any one boy to another.

“I guess you’ll do,” said his new friend, laughing. “My name’s Harry Grimm. I’m a ’prentice.”

Harry showed how the ammunition was hoisted for the thirteen-inch gun by touching a button; he slipped a dummy shell into the breech of one of the three-inch rapid fires; but he was quite unable to answer all of his guest’s questions.

Franklin did not leave the man-of-war until the last boat was going ashore. That night he told his uncle of his desire to join the navy as an apprentice.

Uncle William was in unusually bad temper. He thought a moment and then said:

“I don’t believe you’ll ever be any use in business. Probably you’d run away to sea if I got you a place. I’ll take you to the navy-yard to-morrow.”

At any rate, Uncle William thought, he would be free from any further responsibility or care for the boy. Nevertheless, he knew what Franklin’s proud father or his proud mother, were either of them alive, would say. That thought stung him a little.

While his cousin was at the school where officers are made, Franklin was to be trained for a seaman. Edward would begin his career with rank and position just beyond the highest grade that Franklin could ever attain. Franklin must be ever on the forecastle side of the dividing line between officer and man. He might rise to be a chief gunner, while Edward might be an admiral.

But Franklin did not understand this. He was in the period of light-hearted youth when the responsibility for his future rested on his guardian’s shoulders. He was entirely under the spell of the call of the sea.

A year later found him bound for South America on a small cruiser, which continued around the Horn and on to Hongkong to join the Asiatic squadron, which was even then preparing for the conflict with Spain. In all that long voyage he had never once been seasick, and he had grown to love the sea from familiarity as much as he had loved it in anticipation.

On that great morning when the American men-of-war ran into Manila Bay, the executive officer set him to look for torpedo-boats. The story of how he reported, with his hand to his cap in salute, “Torpedo-boat on our starboard bow, sir; she’s sinking by the bow, sir; she’s sunk,” went the round of the messes. After the battle came that long period of waiting until the army took the city. When the sun was not as hot as an oven, the clouds poured torrents that rose from the hot awnings in steam.

By this time Franklin had come to comprehend the separation of officer and man as only actual service can reveal it. Sometimes, with cap in hand, he had to pass through the ward-room and the officers’ quarters. These, which had been his father’s portion, would be his cousin’s, but could never be his.

His fellow apprentices were quite content with the forecastle. They felt more at home aft than they would forward. There was Charley, for example. Charley studied as little as he might; he was always getting into mischief, but was withal a bright, good-hearted fellow, with the makings of a first-class seaman in him.

The boatswain, known as “Pete” in the forecastle and “Deering” forward—and there you have his two names—used to fend off intrusion when Franklin was busy with his books. All his studies had the requirements for admission to Annapolis in view. Not that he expected ever to have his learning put to the test. He knew no one, he had no hope of knowing any one, who could secure for him the coveted appointment. It pleased him to be ready.

One day, as he was bending over the little box which is at once a seaman’s work-basket and wardrobe, the captain, who had strolled aft, stopped by his side, and looking over his shoulder, saw a photograph.

“Why, that’s Thompson!” he exclaimed. “Is he any relation of yours?”

“My father, sir,” Franklin replied, as he sprang to his feet and saluted.

“I did not know that,” the captain repeated, thoughtfully.

He picked up the photograph, and scanned the face of his old messmate. Afterward he never passed Franklin without a smiling glance. But that glance, meant so kindly, had a sting. It seemed to say that he was in a position unworthy of his father’s name.

When a visiting congressman of the United States came aboard the cruiser as a guest, Pete instantly sought out Franklin, and taking him to one side where he would not be overheard, said:

“Now’s your chance, my bully boy. A congressman can do ’most anything, so they say. You go right up to this one and knock your cap smart as you can, and tell him who your father was and that you want to go to Annapolis.”

Franklin had not the courage or the presumption, whichever you call it; Pete called it “gall.”

“If you won’t, sonny, I will.”

And when he saw the congressman sitting on the deck after general quarters, he approached him with a eulogy as earnest as it was picturesque. The congressman smiled, and asked to see Franklin.

“Now, sonny,” said Pete, “I’ve cleared the channel; go forward and do your evolutions.”

As Franklin stood before the elderly, dignified man sitting beside the captain on the captain’s deck, he felt himself to be quite the most insignificant apprentice in the world. The congressman looked him over keenly from head to foot, as if he were examining the texture of the cloth on the back of his jacket.

“Do you want to go to Annapolis?”

Did he want to? Does the tender shoot of spring want the sunlight? Franklin’s voice trembled with hope:

“Yes, sir. More than anything else in the world.”

“I’m not making any promises,” the congressman said, finally. “Congressmen haven’t a pocketful of blanks to fill out whenever they see a bright boy. I’ll see what I can do.”

When, by the rules of the navy, Franklin was supposed to be sound asleep that night, he was wide awake, building air-castles. How long would he have to wait before he heard from the congressman? Would he ever hear?

The statesman did not appear again aboard the cruiser for many days. In the meantime, a new cadet, with his stripe fresh on his arm, came to the cruiser. It was none other than Franklin’s own cousin, Edward. When they met at drill there was no look of recognition in Edward’s face. Later, in one of the intervals of the day which the forecastle may call its own, the officer came aft and in a patronizing manner asked the apprentice how he was getting on. When Franklin told him very well, Edward said it was awkward for an officer to have a cousin in the forecastle, and walked away. Franklin flushed at the remark, and repeated under his breath his father’s advice, as the soldier of the old, superstitious days repeated his talisman.

The next day Franklin had shore leave. On his way back to the quay he saw his fellow apprentice, Charley, in bad company. He forgot all else except his friend’s plight and his horror over it. When, finally, he had separated Charley from the lounger who wanted to show the sailor boy the town, the cruiser’s launch had gone. They had to hire a native to row them out in a banka, which crept at a snail’s pace in the gathering darkness.

For the first time in his life Franklin was among the accused who stood at the mast the next morning to hear their sentences from the captain, who acts as judge, and with the captain was the congressman. Franklin saw his look of surprise as their eyes met. The captain spoke of his own grief in delivering sentence of suspension from leave privilege for six months.

Franklin’s head swam, and his cheeks were aflame. He could only reply with a hoarse “Yes, sir.”

As he turned to go he heard the congressman say sarcastically that he did not think “that boy was so very anxious to go to Annapolis.”

Franklin was the only one of the ship’s company who did not brighten when they received the electric thrill of an order, which broke their weary vigil in the famous bay by sending the cruiser to patrol duty among the southern islands. But when they were under way Franklin found that the congressman was still aboard, and his hopes revived a little. For a week of coasting from port to port he looked in vain for some event which would set him right.

Then came an order transferring him. He was assigned to the _Marietta_, a tiny gunboat no bigger than a harbor tugboat and with but half the draft. He had only time to get his belongings together, which does not take a sailor long. He found that his cousin had also been transferred, and was to be commander of the cockle-shell.

The _Marietta’s_ first assignment was to take none other than the congressman up a river to the capital of a province where he had a son, an officer of the army, in command of the garrison. There Franklin would definitely see the last of him. They had no thought of meeting with any delay on their run of the five miles of winding stream, but it is when they are least expected that guerrillas appear.

The congressman was sitting in the bow admiring the scenery, the little engine was “chugging” earnestly, the screw was whirling vigorously through the muddy water, when out of the soft green foliage of the right bank cracked a volley. The congressman, a veteran himself, dropped on the deck and looked about him for a rifle, his old eyes flashing.

The cadet had never been under fire before. He dodged and fell on the deck with the others. Franklin was at the wheel and remained erect, frightened but not forgetting his duty. There had not been a tremor of the rudder.

“Steer for that bank, sharp, sharp!” Edward called, and Franklin obeyed. “I don’t want to—to endanger your life,” he panted to the congressman, his sentence broken by the ring of a bullet against the hull, and whistle of other bullets over their heads.

“Seems to me I’d put a few shots back at ’em in the meanwhile,” said the congressman. “What’s that for?” He nodded toward a rapid-fire gun in the bow. “And that?” toward a one-pounder in the stern.

Edward could not fail to take the hint. He sprang up with trembling limbs and ran to the rapid-fire gun, calling for the other to be manned. A bullet struck its support before he could put it in action. That made him forget all his training. He aimed wildly, and jammed the delicate machine almost instantly. Then, in his desperation, he ran toward the wheel.

“Steer in closer, closer!”

“It’s too shallow, sir,” Franklin replied.

“No, it’s not.” The ensign could hear the triumphant shouts of the insurgents, who increased their fire. He was wild with exasperation. “It’s not!” he repeated, and seized the wheel in his own hands and turned it hard alee. The bow veered sharply. For an instant the boat flew forward, then grounded.

As if they had been waiting on this for a signal, a fire broke out from some bushes which rose above the level of the grassy bank on the left side.

“Both sides!” gasped the ensign. He sprang overboard, as much to avoid the fire as anything. “Push her off!”

Everybody leaped into the water. When the insurgents on the left bank saw the predicament of the Americans, they broke out of their cover with a yell, and came running toward them. Meanwhile, the _Marietta_ was still in range of the fire from the other side. It was a question only of minutes, yes, of seconds, before they would be prisoners.

The current swung the _Marietta_ partially round and drove her fast into the soft mud, and the misdirected efforts of her crew to free her were as unavailing as if she were a battle-ship.

“Can’t somebody fire that gun? Can’t somebody fire?” the congressman called, putting the strength of his sixty years against the hull, and feeling his shoes sinking in the soft ooze beneath them.

At this juncture, in face of the fire, Franklin sprang on deck, and ran aft to the jammed instrument of their hope. He felt as cool as his father’s son ought to feel under such circumstances. The parts of the mechanism were not a jumble to him as they were to the excited cadet, and he saw the difficulty and how simple it was. His study, his questions, had not been in vain.

“Man the one-pounder! Get the rifles, everybody!” he called, with the instinct of command.

As they tumbled aboard the crew heard the rat-tat-tat of the gun under Franklin’s hand, sweeping the field of white-shirted figures pressing forward, and soon a little shell from the one-pounder threw up dirt at their feet. The insurgents were too near their prize to be stopped yet.

“Keep cool, everybody, keep cool!” said the congressman, himself firing with the nice calculation of a man at a range.

The Americans did not realize that shots were still coming from the rear. They knew that the insurgents on the other side of the stream could not cross it, and that was enough. If the gun should jam again, all would be lost.

But it did not jam; and soon the insurgents, no longer able to stand the persistent accuracy of the machine, began to fall back, and finally ran in pell-mell flight, leaving their wounded behind.

Promptly Franklin whirled his gun round and began firing upon the first attacking party, which withdrew when it saw that it was unsupported by the other side.

When excitement no longer made their efforts futile, and one was not pushing against another, and with the screw properly directed to their assistance, the crew was very soon able to force the stranded _Marietta_ back into the stream.

After the congressman had emptied the water out of his shoes and was once more seated, with nothing to do but to enjoy the scenery, he said to Franklin, in beaming gratitude:

“Well, young man, you’re quite a general!”

Franklin blushed. The remark did not make him think of his ambition. It gave him speech for another cause.

“O sir, I want you not to believe that those charges were true. They weren’t. I wouldn’t have overstayed leave if it hadn’t been—but—but you ask Charley the rest.”

“I don’t believe them. To prove it, all you’ve got to do is to pass the examination to Annapolis. I’ll see that you get the appointment.”

Franklin’s manner and his eyes spoke his gratitude better than his tongue. Edward, who had overheard, looked proudly at his cousin, and then said to the congressman:

“I thank you, too, sir! I sha’n’t be happy till he wears the uniform his father wore. He saved us all to-day.”

His little speech saved Edward from a court of inquiry. He became Franklin’s best friend, and if ever he goes into action again there is no doubt that he will behave like a veteran.

ON A TIGHT ROPE

By Albert W. Tolman

“My highest ambition at seventeen,” said the linotype operator, “was to become a professional acrobat. I then lived with my parents on a farm near the manufacturing town of N. All my spare time was spent in vaulting, jumping, turning handsprings, and practising other feats of strength and agility.

“On the Fourth of July a travelling tight-rope performer, Signor Lupini of Verona, as the posters called him, was to display his skill on a rope above the river that flowed through the town. He arrived with two assistants on the afternoon of July 3d, and a crowd of boys, myself among them, met him at the railroad station. We saw a spare, wiry man, above the ordinary height, light-complexioned, with steely-blue eyes. He looked us over inquiringly.

“‘Boys,’ said he, ‘I need some young fellow to help me to-morrow. Who wants to be wheeled across the rope in a barrow?’

“The others hung back; but I jumped at the chance. ‘I do!’ I exclaimed, quickly. He seemed pleased as he ran his eyes over me. I was of medium height, with good muscles.

“‘All right,’ he said. ‘Come to the hotel at seven, and I’ll tell you what’s wanted.’

“At the stroke of the hour I was on hand, and he explained my duties. Then he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket.

“‘That’s yours at nine to-morrow night if you do your work well,’ he said. ‘Now go home and sleep soundly.’

“My parents were spending the Fourth with cousins in a neighboring town, so I was alone in the house. I went to bed early, but until long after midnight excitement kept me from getting a single wink.

“The next day I was on hand bright and early. I helped stretch the rope between two mill roofs, ran errands, and made myself generally useful. When not busy I hung about, watching my employer. He certainly was an artist in his line, a man without bravado, either all nerves or none at all. I could not help thinking, too, that for an Italian he spoke English remarkably well.

“At half past two a carriage took us from the hotel to the western mill. We dressed in the loft. The signor donned his tinsel-spangled tights. I figured as clown in an old stovepipe hat and white cotton suit, liberally besprinkled with stars of red and green. The same colors streaked my face. As we clambered through the scuttle, the crowds lining the bridges and banks set up a shout, and the town band on the other mill began playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’

“Sharp at three o’clock the music stopped. The assistant on our roof advanced to the edge, fired six blank cartridges from a self-cocking revolver, and shouted this magniloquent announcement through a megaphone:

“‘Ladies and gentlemen, the celebrated Signor Lupini will now illustrate his art, assisted by Rinaldo Nobisco, the famous clown, recently secured from the London hippodrome, ladies and gentlemen, at great trouble and expense.’

“Whistles and catcalls from the boys below greeted this absurd reference to me, and I felt rather foolish. Signor Lupini stepped briskly forward, bowed to his audience and was soon promenading along the spidery line between the two cornices. Aided by a long balancing-pole, he stood on one foot, knelt, lay down, walked across blindfold, and performed many other marvelous feats. His perfect control of nerve and muscle fascinated me. I did not realize that his facility came from years of toilsome practice.

“Here was the calling for me. I resolved to stretch a rope the very next day between the beams over the haymow.

“During the signor’s exhibition the crowd was very quiet, and the band did not play. It was only when he was once more safe upon the roof that their long-restrained applause broke forth, and the band struck up ‘Hail to the Chief.’ He rested a few minutes, and then motioned to me to make ready.

“Among our paraphernalia was a strong, light wheelbarrow with a tire grooved to fit the rope. I began to feel a little shaky; but there was no time to indulge this emotion, for my employer exclaimed: ‘All aboard, my boy, and remember, a stiff upper lip!’

“I seated myself, facing forward, my feet dangling on each side of the wheel. Signor Lupini, stooping, gripped the handles.

“‘Sit steady,’ he said. ‘Don’t wink one eye unless you wink the other at the same time.’

“He ran me a few turns round the graveled surface, then flicked the wheel dexterously up on the rope and headed straight for the edge.

“‘Keep perfectly still,’ he adjured me, ‘and you’re as safe as you’d be on the street.’

“For all my assumption of coolness, I was frightened half out of my wits. I shut my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them we were fairly out on the tremulous hemp.

“‘Don’t look down,’ cautioned the signor. ‘Face straight forward. Sit tight.’

“Hardly daring to breathe, I stiffened myself as if I were in a plaster cast. I could see the narrow line just ahead buckle slightly at the approach of the wheel. How long that two hundred feet seemed!

“Slowly, surely, we drew near the roof. The tire jolted against the cornice. In two or three seconds we were safely on the gravel. Then the band blared out and the crowds set off explosives. My fright was over, and I felt proud as a peacock.

“On the trip back my employer made me sit facing him, and I had a good chance to admire the easy, effortless play of his wiry muscles. He was a thorough gymnast, a man of steel and india-rubber. After several other trips, during which I occupied different positions on the barrow, we went back to the hotel.

“Promptly at eight we emerged again through the scuttle. A crowd bigger than that of the afternoon had gathered, and a roar of applause greeted us. I say ‘us,’ for by this time I felt myself to be almost as important as Signor Lupini. My head was completely turned.

“The evening performance possessed certain novel features. Tin pans of red fire stood on each cornice, and along the bridge-rails had been stationed a half-dozen boys liberally supplied with rockets and Roman candles.

“The master of ceremonies fired an introductory volley with his revolver.

“‘Light up, Jimmy!’ he shouted to his associate across the river, at the same time touching a match to the pan beside him. Jimmy obeyed. A deep red glow illuminated the scene, flashing from the mill windows, and revealing the human clusters on bridges and banks.

“As in the afternoon, Signor Lupini began with a few feats performed alone, the blaze of fireworks making his spangled tights glitter. I waited impatiently for our dual performance, thirsting for some of the applause. Finally my turn came, and the signor wheeled me back and forth several times. So great was my confidence in him that I had forgotten my nervousness.

“At last nine o’clock was near.

“‘Now, my boy,’ said my employer, ‘we’ll wind up with something I don’t try very often. I see you have good grit.’

“He screwed to the barrow sides a light, strong chair of steel, its seat a yard in air. After helping me into this, he passed me a long-handled pan of red fire. We were to close in a blaze of glory. ‘Keep cool,’ said he, ‘and we’ll give ’em something to look at.’

“He trundled me up to the cornice, his assistant dropped a lighted lucifer into the pan, and we moved out on the rope amid the crimson glare and the whizzing of rockets. The crowd yelled, and one of the boys setting off fireworks from the lower bridge lost his head.

“_Whi-s-s-sh!_ A badly aimed rocket shot not five feet over our heads, showering us with sparks. A little lower, and it would have dashed us from the rope. Signor Lupini drew a quick breath. I cringed in my steel chair, but still kept tight hold of the pan handle. The sudden fright set my teeth chattering. My employer noticed my trepidation.

“‘Keep quiet, my boy, and we’ll get over all right,’ said he, reassuringly, cool as a cucumber.

“On we rolled, smoothly and steadily. We were about half-way across when the unlucky rocketeer on the lower bridge outdid his previous blunder. A warning shriek blended with the swish of a projectile. I dared not turn my head, but a sidelong glance revealed a fiery comet heading straight toward us. Signor Lupini saw it, too, and could not repress a cry of alarm. The next second it was upon us. I shut my eyes, convinced that we were lost. A whir, a rushing of flame, a slight shock! The apparition had passed, and we were still on the rope.

“I was hardly daring to congratulate myself when my heart was chilled by a low groan behind me. The barrow wabbled. The signor was trembling violently, swaying, reeling like a drunken man; every throb of his body came to me through the tight-clutched handles. Something fearful must have happened. I clung to the chair arms in sheer paralysis of horror. An accident would hurl us down seventy-five feet into the river, where drowning or maiming worse than death awaited us.

“We moved a few feet farther, then stopped. The barrow swayed, as if about to overturn. Another groan from the signor. I would have questioned him, but the words died in my throat. Perhaps he had been pierced by the rocket, and might at any instant fall unconscious.

“Cries of horror rose from the spectators. The rockets and Roman candles ceased. The entertainment threatened to become a tragedy.

“Again we started, moving intermittently. Now a few quick steps would fill me with the dread of being flung off; now we almost stopped, and I feared we should never go on. Before and behind us fizzed the red fire. Signor Lupini’s feet shuffled on the rope, his breath came hard. Not a word in explanation, but always those terrible groans. My hair bristled.

“With straining eyes I stared ahead into the red glare on the approaching