Part 3

For as they came down through the azure skies, They caught its deep beautiful blue; And still in the earthly flower is seen The very same heavenly hue.

And the fairies can hear the low sweet chimes As they gently sway to and fro; Perhaps it's an echo of those soft tones Which the cherubs heard long ago. LYDIA HOYT FARMER.

POEM FOR RECITATION.

TOMMY'S FOURTH OF JULY.

YESTERDAY, mother, she said to me, "Now, Tommy, my man, it soon will be The Fourth of July, and I dread the noise-- I dread the freedom of reckless boys,

"The ringing of bells, the firing gun, Torpedoes and crackers, from sun to sun; I wonder if when those grand old men Declared for Freedom, it could have been

"That they ever thought the boys of to-day Would celebrate in this lawless way. On other days boys seem nice and bright, I know that some of them try to do right,

"But fired with the 'spirit of '76,' There seems to be never an end to their tricks. Now, Tommy my lad, just think it over And see if the _reason_ you can't discover."

So I'll pull my "thinking cap" over my hair And sit out here in this sunny air And try to remember last Fourth of July-- Somehow it seems to be long gone by.

At night, I remember, we rang the bell, And nobody liked it very well, And all day long I was far from bright For getting up in the dead of night.

And then, we followed the "Horrible" train And yelled and shouted, and yelled again; We chased it up the street and then down, Chased it all over and out of the town.

It must have been _awful_, but none of us cared How the rest of the decent people fared. Then somebody frightened old uncle Bill Just as he was walking down the hill,

Threw a torpedo, only for fun; He fell and hurt him, that's all that was done. Then a horse got frightened, and ran away-- That was one of the things that happened that day--

Broke his leg, and broke the carriage too, And the crackers were thrown by Charley Drew; Charley's father must pay the bill, So I guess this year _he'll_ keep pretty still.

And Jimmy blew three of his fingers to bits-- The way a toy pistol always hits; I ate so much I was nearly dead, And had a most awful pain in my head,

And was just as tired as I could be-- That was the way it finished with me. I think I've remembered 'bout enough; If that is fun, it is pretty "rough."

I might go tell mother this very minute I don't see a bit of "reason" in it-- I, Thomas, was named for the hero of all-- That gentleman wouldn't own me at all.

But I know I'll try to do better this year, If all the fellows do call me queer. This year, I, "Thomas Jefferson" Gray, Will celebrate in a rational way. EMILY BAKER SMALLE.

_Volume 13, Number 37._ Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO. _July 17, 1886._

THE PANSY.

WHERE I WENT, AND WHAT I SAW.

WE will start from New York City. Did you ever take a ride on the elevated railway? No? Then we will take it this morning. Mount the long flight of stairs, hurry your ticket into the box in waiting, and push on rapidly, for the train is coming, and it is always in a hurry. There stands the man on the platform, ready to open the iron door for us. Spring on, get your seats, for others are crowding in. Now the door is shut; "toot! toot! whiz!" we are off again!

We make a great many stops. "Fourteenth street," shouts the man at the gate, and there is a rush of people to get off, and a rush of people to get on, and away we go; and in almost less time than it takes to get our breath, Twenty-third street, or some other, is shouted, and we stop again.

At last Forty-second street is called, and we hurry off; everybody in New York is in a hurry. Yet we have reached a quiet place; the New York Central Depot. "A railroad depot a quiet place!" That astonishes you, does it? Still it is the truth; I am not sure but you would think yourself in a great public library, where people move quietly, and speak low. There is no rush, nor bustle; and the room which we have entered is so large that there can hardly be a crowd, even when many people are there. Many doors line one side, and large clock-faces are set over them; but they keep curious time; no two are alike. If you watch, however, you will discover that the doors and the clocks are all named. One is "N. Y. C. & H. R." another is "N. Y. & N. H." and another is--something else.

The hands of the clock point to the hour and moment that the next train on that particular road will be ready to leave the depot. All we have to do is to look for the name of the road on which we want to travel, and then study the clock over the door. Here is ours, "N. Y. & N. H." We have still fifteen minutes. Before that time, the door is quietly opened, and a man whose duty it is to see that we, by no possibility, make a blunder and board the wrong train, takes his station behind it, and looks carefully at our tickets as we pass; we are seated and away.

The train moves very rapidly, and the sensation is pleasant. No rocking motion, and not nearly so much noise as we sometimes find. We chat together pleasantly, without the feeling that we are talking in a locomotive boiler, where work is going on. We make frequent stops at pleasant villages, where green fields stretch out, on either side, and where the air is sweet with the breath of flowers. One name is called which makes us stretch our necks from the open windows to get as good a view as we can. This is New Haven, "the city of elms," and the seat of Yale College. It is a beautiful city; we can be sure of that, even from the depot view. But we have not time to linger. Some day we will stop there, and take a walk around the college. Now we must make all speed to our destination. At last we hear the name: "Ansonia." And we seize our wraps, and satchels, and umbrellas, and lunch boxes, and make haste. What a pretty village! And what a strange one! The river cuts it in two; makes another village on the other side, which, after all, is the same village, or looks like it. There are many trees, hiding nice old-fashioned houses, near which we get glimpses of many flowers. But the buildings which most attract us to-day are not dwelling houses; unless indeed a race of giants live in them. They are so large! Manufactories? Yes, you have guessed it; the State of Connecticut, you know, is famous for its industry. We have spent so much time in getting here, that we will not be able to stay long in the great building to-day. Still, let us stop a few minutes before this queer machine; it is apparently eating wire. What a stomach it must have! Long coils of fine wire rush into its mouth with such speed that one can hardly see the process. How fast it eats! Such large mouthfuls as it takes! about eight inches of wire at a bite. Now what? No, it doesn't swallow the wire, it simply bites it off, and sends it on. Not far, for as the wire is scurrying by a corner, some one of the wicked people who dwell in this machine, seizes it and bends it double! Poor thing! But as you would naturally expect, it hurries the faster now. Not two inches away, it meets another enemy who in sheer ill humor, apparently, seizes it and in an instant of time has given it such a pinch that its right side is all crinkled; it will bear the marks of that grasp all its life! It scuds on, without a groan, intent apparently on getting out of that country as soon as possible. But no, it is seized again, and the two ends of its poor body are rubbed hastily and mercilessly against a rough surface, until they are like needles for sharpness. It takes but a second, and then the wicked sprite seems to have had revenge enough, and lets the poor wire pass. There is a little open place for which the wire is evidently making; it hopes to slip down there out of sight--hurry! almost there! Alas no, one more sprite reaches out a long finger, and gives that horrid pinch to the other side! "Maimed for life!" the poor wire groans, and at last, at _last_, having suffered a life-time of torture, so it thinks, though really its whole journey has not taken more than half a minute, it drops breathless and exhausted into the box below. Let us go around and look at it, poor thing! Why, how it shines! And what a merry company it has gotten among! Not alone any more; literally millions of friends of the same outward appearance as itself. "Hairpins!" you exclaim. Yes, indeed; hairpins for the million. Can it be possible that the world will ever want them all? But how pretty they are; and how smooth and fine their points are! Besides, those horrible pinches which we thought were simply vents for ill-humor, were to put those convenient crinkles into the pins, and help them perform their duty in life. In short, the dabs, and pinches, and grindings, hard as they were to bear, were the very things which shaped a mere bit of wire into a useful member of society.

And, when one thinks of it, what a bit of time it took--this preparation--compared with the time which they will now spend in usefulness! No wonder the hairpins in the great box shone brightly when at last they began to understand it all. The question is, little Pansy Blossoms, can you and I, as we stand looking at them, and thinking of all this, learn a lesson which will apply to our _human_ rubs, and pinches, and sharp places? If this be so, then we shall be well repaid for going, and seeing, and thinking.

"OLD ABE."

SOME years ago a man in the West saw an eagle lighting frequently upon a spot high among the rocks. Observing her movements he saw her nest was there and she was raising her family in that palace of rocks. "Now," he thought, "is the time for me to find out if this grand bird can be tamed." His neighbors said it could not be done.

He quietly resolved to try. But how to get an eaglet was the question. Day after day he would go alone and examine the rocks to see if there was not some way of getting to the nest. There seemed to be none. It was a ledge, almost smooth, and one hundred feet high where the nest was. No ladder would reach it, and if he should go around and climb to the top, he would not be near, as it was many feet down.

One night as he lay thinking the thing over, a thought struck him. "I will go to the top, fasten a rope and let myself down and capture one and climb up again."

In the morning he was a bit wiser and said: "Now if something _should_ happen while I am down there pocketing a young eagle, I might need both hands; in that case how could I climb up? I'll tell the secret to John and Joe Grimes." So they went around to the top of the ledge where they could look over down to the nest.

The old eagle was gone; but there were the five children, talking together at a great rate, not thinking who were near by listening to their conversation and about to knock at their door.

The next moment as they looked up they saw a man coming down by a rope fastened about his body. He seized one and was being drawn up when suddenly the Mother Eagle seeing from far away in the sky an enemy enter her home, and, coming like a flash, dashed upon the robber and would have torn his eyes out; but he fought desperately with his long, sharp knife.

One of his blows almost severed the rope. John and Joe, however, tugged bravely at the other end and their friend with his prize was soon safe but panting at their feet. It is said that when he saw how nearly he came to cutting the rope in two and falling a hundred feet, his hair became instantly white from terror.

The young eagle was taken home and tenderly raised and became as tame as any fowl in the barnyard. It grew to immense size--would fly away out of sight among the clouds, but always return at meal-time and behave like any respectable person. He thought much of his friends; not so much of his friends' enemies. And he had his way of showing his friendship.

And now you need not be surprised to be told about the queer things that the eagle, "Old Abe," did in the War of the Rebellion in 1861-65; how he actually went South with a Western regiment in which were some of his friends, and during battles would fly high and hover over his favorite regiment to cheer it on!

After the battle he would come down and walk among the soldiers and line with them.

The war over, he came back with his regiment and was received like any loyal soldier, with great honor; and his State appropriated a sum to maintain him comfortably in his after years.

There are over thirty references in the Bible to eagles. They are remarkable. A concordance can point them all out. Hunt them up.

M.

A PACKAGE FOR ROSE.

NO. I.

AUNT ALICE was going away for a visit of two or three weeks.

Her trunk was on the little front porch waiting for Farmer Dodds, whenever, with his fat white horse and rattling spring wagon he should make his appearance coming over the hill.

Rose seated herself on the trunk, and lightly tapping her heels against the side, looked off in a dreamy way toward the dusty road that wound down from among tree-covered hills, on its way past their own white cottage with rose-vines climbing over the small square windows, and so prettily set down in the midst of an old-fashioned garden, with a broad, straight path leading from the gate to the porch, and at that season bordered with asters of all colors.

Farmer Dodds was not in sight, and Rose, now turning toward the left, followed with her eyes the line of the road, where, having left the slope of hill behind, it struck out across the level. Stubble fields down there were yellow, the green of the meadows was turning into a soft pale brown, and far off the horizon was like a rising mist of purple.

"Aunt Alice," said Rose, stopping the tapping of her heels, "some way the sunshine down yonder looks almost as if you could take it in your hands."

"Tangible light?" said Miss Alice, coming to the porch to look abroad.

"What's that?" asked Rose.

"Why, just the opposite of 'darkness that could be felt', I think."

"Is it?" said Rose gravely. "But, aunt Alice," she continued, "I wonder what I'll do without you here to ask questions of. And how will I ever get along without the Saturday afternoon talks--I've got so used to them, you know. I'll just be awfully lonesome."

"We'll have to plan a way to help that," returned her aunt. "Let me see--how would you like to write a letter to me on the first Saturday? Only you must be careful to write what you would be most apt to talk about if I were here."

"Oh! I'd like to do that," interrupted Rose.

"And then," continued Miss Alice, "I could have a little packet for you at the post-office. Perhaps grandma would let you ride to town with Mr. Dodds, when he goes for his mail, and you could have the pleasure of getting the packet yourself."

"That's a splendid idea!" cried Rose. "But what will you put in the packet?"

"I don't know yet," replied her aunt. "That will depend upon the letter you write to me. It may be some trifling present, or perhaps a single Bible verse, such as I often give you on Saturday evening. But of one thing you may be sure, there will be something in it that will be a true answer to your letter."

While they were talking Mr. Dodds' wagon had come rattling up to the gate. Immediately everything was in a bustle. Grandma came out to see the trunk lifted into the wagon--aunt Alice found that she had left her gloves upstairs and must go after them at the last minute--and there came Priscilla Carter running up the road with a great bunch of bitter-sweet, which Miss Alice was to take to a friend. Rose thought it was delightful, and kept skipping up and down the path, wishing all the time that she were aunt Alice, with a new trunk and going to have a trip on the cars. But at last good-bys were said, the wagon rattled and jingled off, and Mrs. Harrison, Rose and Priscilla were left standing quietly by the white picket gate in the pleasant autumn sunshine.

When Saturday afternoon came around Rose asked her grandmother for pen and ink. Then drawing a square writing-table out to the porch, where it was shady, she began the task of writing a letter that would tell all that had been going on since her aunt went away. Mrs. Harrison was sitting by the window sewing, and for nearly an hour there was no sound save the scratching of her little granddaughter's pen, or now and then a question from her as to how a word should be spelled.

But by and by Rose threw down her pen and pushed her chair noisily back, exclaiming as she did so:

"Well, grandma, I declare! I've got it done at last! Wouldn't you like me to read it to you?"

"Of course, dearie, I should like it very much," answered Mrs. Harrison, glancing up from her sewing.

So Rose sat down on the doorstep and began to read as follows:

DEAR AUNT ALICE:

I started to school Tuesday, and I'm awfully sorry I was not there the first day, for my seat isn't one bit nice. I'd a _great deal_ rather have the one Altie Crawford is in. She can look out the window and see everybody drive by. There's a real hateful girl sits just behind me too. She is always twisting my curls around her finger; or if she isn't doing that, why, she is borrowing my white-handled knife--the one Mr. Dodds gave me. Miss Milton has a new blue dress. Priscilla took her a _great big_ bunch of white chrysanthemums to put in her belt, and she looked lovely. She is the meanest teacher, though, that I ever had. She won't listen to a word you say to her, and she makes me lend my eraser to everybody in school.

I don't think that's one bit nice of her, and its most worn out, too! She just does it because it is a pretty one. There's a new boy named Robert Wilkie, just started to school, and Miss Milton pets him to death. She is always holding him up for an example, but I think he don't know his lessons any better than the rest of us. I told the girls that you were going to send me a packet, and they were all as _excited_ trying to guess what would be in it!

I've been trying to be real good, and I help grandma wash the dishes most every day, _especially_ when she looks tired. Last evening I got supper all by myself. I fried potato cakes. The edges were a speck jagged, but they were just as brown and nice!

Now I'll have to stop. I've thought and thought, but there isn't anything else to write about. I wonder what you'll put in the packet. I told Priscilla I most thought it would be a ribbon. She's crazy to see what is in it.

Your loving niece, ROSE.

P. S. Priscilla says she can't bear that new boy either. Miss Milton sent her love to you.

"I think that is quite a nice letter," said Mrs. Harrison, when Rose had come to the end. "But however your aunt is to answer it is more than I can guess."

"Don't it seem a long time to wait until Saturday?" said Rose as she folded the letter carefully and put it in an envelope which she brought to her grandmother to address.

"The more patiently you wait the shorter the time will seem," returned Mrs. Harrison.

Rose did wait patiently and cheerfully, and on Saturday afternoon it was a happy girl who rode home beside Farmer Dodds in the spring wagon.

As they drew near the white picket gate she saw Priscilla sitting on the horseblock.

"Have you got it?" cried Priscilla, jumping down, and running to meet the wagon.

For answer Rose held up a square package wrapped in white paper.

"I don't know yet what is in it," said Rose when they drew nearer, "for grandma told me not to open it until I got home. It feels flat, and then there's something round, like a stick of candy, only its pretty large."

The white horse had come to a decided stop by this time and Priscilla held out her hand for the package, while Rose clambered down from the wagon.

"I thank you for the ride, Mr. Dodds," said she, when she reached the ground, "and I'll tell you what is in my packet the next time you come by."

"All right," replied Mr. Dodds, with a sort of merry chuckle, "but be a leetle careful how ye open it. It _might_ be candy, and it _might_ be red pepper."

So saying, he drove off uphill.

"There might be something you wouldn't like," suggested Priscilla, looking a little doubtfully at the package.

"O pshaw!" retorted Rose; "I know better than that. Let's get the scissors."

HAZLETT.

OUR ALPHABET OF GREAT MEN.

R.--RUSH, BENJAMIN.

LAST year, all over this land, we celebrated a centennial. It was not in commemoration of a victory upon the battlefield, it was not the celebration of a victory, but rather as we observe with fitting ceremonies the anniversaries of the firing of the first guns in any contest of right against wrong, so in this last centennial year we commemorated the first booming of cannon in the great war against the rum traffic, the beginning of a war that is not ended yet; all along down the century the booming has been heard, and to-day this moral fight is waging fiercely.

About one hundred and forty years ago, near the city of Philadelphia, a boy named Benjamin Rush was growing up. It is said of him that as he advanced from childhood to boyhood his love of study was unusual, amounting to a passion. He graduated from Princeton College when only fifteen years old, and with high honors. He began the study of medicine in Philadelphia, but went abroad to complete his medical education and studied under the first physicians in Edinburgh, London and Paris; thus the best opportunities for gaining knowledge of his chosen profession were added to natural abilities and the spirit of research. He became a practising physician in Philadelphia, and was soon after chosen professor of chemistry in a medical college in the same city. While he is now at the distance of a century, best known as one who struck the first blow for temperance reform, yet it is interesting to know that when in 1776, he was a member of the Provincial Assembly of Pennsylvania, he was the mover of the first resolution to consider the expediency of a Declaration of Independence on the part of the American Colonies. He was made chairman of a committee appointed to consider the matter. Afterwards he was a member of the Continental Congress, and was one of the devoted band who in Independence Hall affixed their names to the immortal document which cut the colonies loose from their moorings and swung them out upon a sea of blood, to bring them at last into the harbor of freedom and independence. As was said of him at the meeting in Philadelphia, last year: "He was a great controlling force in all that pertained to the successful struggle of the colonies for national independence." We are told that "He was one of the most active, original and famous men of his times; an enthusiast, a philanthropist, a man of immense grasp in the work-day world, as well as a polished scholar, and a scientist of the most exact methods."

He was interested in educational enterprises; he wrote upon epidemic diseases, and won great honor for himself, so that the kings of other lands bestowed upon him the medals which they are wont to give to those whom they desire to honor. And now let me quote again from one who appreciates the character of this truly great man:

"This matchless physician, eminent scholar and pure patriot blent all his wise rare gifts in one tribute and cast them at the feet of his Master. He was a devout Christian."