Part 4

I cannot follow with you all the vicissitudes of Penn's life; after leaving the University he travelled upon the Continent. Afterwards he studied law in London; he became a soldier. This strikes us as being somewhat curious when we remember that the sect to which he belonged are opposed to war, and preach the doctrine of love and peace. However, he was not long in service, and meeting a noted Quaker preacher he became firmly fixed in his devotion to the society of Friends, and was ever after a strong advocate of its doctrines; nothing could turn him from the path he had chosen. He was several times imprisoned on account of his religious opinions and suffered persecution and abuse. Through all he adhered to his views, and stood by his Quaker friends in the dark days of persecution. He had inherited from his father a claim against the British Government of several thousand pounds, and in settlement of this claim he received a large tract of land in the then New World. With the title to the land he secured the privilege of founding a colony upon principles in accordance with his religious views. And in 1682 he came to America and laid the foundations not only of the City of Brotherly Love, but of the State of Pennsylvania. His object was to provide a place of refuge for the oppressed of his own sect, but all denominations were welcomed, and many Swedes as well as English people came. While other colonies suffered from the attacks of the Indians, for more than seventy years, so long as the colony was under the control of the Quakers, no Indian ever raised his hatchet against a Pennsylvania settler. Under a great elm-tree, long known as Penn's elm, he met the Indians in council, soon after his arrival in the territory which had been ceded to him. He said to them:

"My friends, we have met on the broad pathway of good faith. We are all one flesh and blood. Being brethren, no advantage shall be taken on either side. Between us there shall be nothing but openness and love."

And they replied, "While the rivers run and the sun shines, we will live in peace with the children of William Penn."

It has been said that this is the only treaty never sworn to and never broken.

William Penn lived to see his enterprise achieve a grand success. Philadelphia had grown to be a city of no small dimensions and no little importance. The colony had grown to be a strong, self-supporting State, capable of self-government.

"I will found a free colony for all mankind," said William Penn. Were these the words of a great man?

Unswerving integrity, undaunted courage, adherence to duty, and devotion to the service of God--are these the characteristics of a great man? Then William Penn may well be placed in our Alphabet of Great Men.

FAYE HUNTINGTON.

MY GIFT.

ARBUTUS SENDS GREETING TO PANSY.

A GIFT she held from the Father; It was pansies fresh with dew; Sweet messengers of Heaven, They bear a blessing true.

But her hand too lightly clasped, And could not hold them all, So to the ground unheeded, She let the fairest fall.

The uplifted lips of the flower Did not mutely plead in vain; From the dust the blossom I raised, And gave to the owner again.

Sweet Pansy's robe is purple, Her crown of the purest gold; All hearts who know, enthrone her, All love her who behold.

But I'll away to the forest, And seek my treasures there; 'Tis there Arbutus hideth, Her blossoms I may wear.

This is my gift from the Father, Arbutus buds are mine; I'll sing their modest beauty, In them read Heaven's design.

And I will bear to the Giver The fragrance and the song That fills my life with blessing-- To Him my blooms belong.

ROCKVILLE, MASS. _With love of_ ARBUTUS.

_Volume 13, Number 29._ Copyright, 1886, by D. LOTHROP & CO _May 22, 1886._

THE PANSY.

ST. GEORGE AND THE DRAGON.

BY MARGARET SIDNEY.

VII.

MEANWHILE what of St. George and his faithful comrade? Speeding on in the railroad train, after the departure of the luckless Thomas, they had ample time to bemoan the annoyance of the boys left to the cold comfort of a night on Sachem Hill, and the distress of all the parents when the condition of things became known.

"I'm awfully glad we knew enough to cut and run," exclaimed Phipps Benton, hugging himself in his cosey car-corner, "at least that _you_ knew enough," he corrected himself honestly; "that last skate cost those chaps something. Won't Pa Bangs give it to Wilfred though!"

He couldn't help the shrug of delight as this thought seized him. Wilfred, to state it mildly, was not a boy to be loved dearly, and circumstances now seemed likely to make him anything but an object of envy.

"For shame!" cried St. George hotly, "we've just been there, and he's treated us well."

Phipps flushed all over his brown little face, and looked out of the window into the gathering night. St. George jumped out of his seat, and walked rapidly and unsteadily down the aisle to shake off some of his excitement. That he was going home to his mother all right, warm and safe to a capital supper such as only she knew how to get up for a hungry boy, tired and cold after a long winter-day frolic, made it all the worse that other boys who had so little while ago been the larger part of his laughing, noisy troop, should be at this very minute, shivering, half-starved and cross, at their wits' end how to pass the night. He could almost see Bridget setting on the supper things, smell the delicious coffee permeating the house, and hear his mother say, "Come, it is almost time for my boy to be here, you better begin to mix your cake-batter," and his mouth almost watered as he thought of the toothsome, smoking hot cakes that would before long be piled upon his plate.

But suddenly he stopped. No cakes for him that night--perhaps not even coffee. Who would tell those parents of the fifteen or so boys stranded on Sachem Hill why they were not to come bounding into their several homes on the arrival of the six o'clock train in the B. and A. Depot? George Edward and Phipps must do all those errands before they could hope to enjoy any supper that night.

_Whew!_ He drew himself up with a long breath, turned and rushed back to his seat.

"See here," he cried, throwing himself down, "you can take all the places nearest to your house--and I'll do the same."

Phipps turned and regarded him with a stare.

"To tell the fathers and mothers," explained St. George with a nod, "no other way, you see, why the chaps don't get home."

"Good gracious!" cried Phipps explosively, "I never thought of that. We can't! We're as hungry as beavers."

"We must." St. George laughed gayly, now that the struggle was over, and indulged in a smart pinch on his companion's shoulder. "Wake up, old fellow."

"You let me be," cried Phipps crossly, shaking him off, "and you get out with your 'musts.' I don't know any, I can tell you, and as for going around to tell a lot of people what's none of my business, you won't see me doing it. I'm going home myself."

"Who will do it then?" demanded St. George just as sharply.

"Don't know," said Phipps doggedly, "only I know I won't, that's all." He returned the look his companion gave him with another no pleasanter, and every whit as determined.

"And you mean to let those fathers and mothers go all night without knowing where in creation the chaps are?" cried the other boy in the seat, every feature ablaze with indignation. "Say?"

"They should have come along; it's their own fault they got left."

"But the fathers and mothers aren't to blame," insisted St. George vehemently. "Yours would go most crazy if you didn't turn up at the right time."

Phipps, however, was not to allow his feelings to be worked upon in this way. He now found himself very cold, decidedly hungry, and violently cross, and, giving St. George a push, he declared, "I tell you I won't do a single thing, nor take a single step. I can't hardly move, and I shall go straight home."

"Of course," said St. George, brightening up, and relaxing a bit, "so shall I, to tell my folks."

"I shall _stay_ there," said Phipps obstinately. With that he turned again to the window.

"Do!" burst out St. George in high scorn, "and save your stingy, mean, little pinched-up carcass!"

"Boys," said an old gentleman back of them, leaning forward to bring his stern face over into the excitement, "I should think if you must fight, you could find some other place a little more appropriate than a crowded rail-car."

St. George brought his flushed face over against that of the old gentleman, and sprang to his feet, reaching for the skates dangling from the rack overhead, while he shivered all over with anger and mortification. Phipps did not turn his head.

The old gentleman seeing that his shaft had struck home, wounding at least one individual, put himself back in his own seat, well pleased, and St. George summarily retreated to the rear of the car, full of reflections the farthest removed from agreeable ones.

Here he was in a quarrel, and just a moment before he had been giving advice how to spare the feelings of others, and he couldn't control his own, but must anger Phipps with whom he had never had the least falling out. _Faugh!_ He was so disgusted with himself, he would have thanked any one who would take him one side, and give him that castigation he felt he so richly deserved. And there were the eyes of all the passengers in the car directed to him, as if he were a person whose movements were singular, to say the least, and would bear watching. Half of them had heard the old gentleman's sharp, ringing rebuke even if they had not been listeners to the quarrel itself, and the other half were now, he felt, staring at him and whispering over him as he stood pretending to look out of the door, while their eyes seemed burning holes into his jacket.

It was interminable, that hour before they could reach the B. and A. Depot, and the only relief he experienced was in pulling out his watch every five moments to see what time it was.

At last, in the train swept to the depot. St. George looked back quickly, intending to rush back, bestow a thwack on Phipps' back, say he was sorry, and make up. But the throng was great and a woman with a baby asked him to help her off the car, so by the time he got free most of the passengers had filed out and were hurrying along the platform. St. George caught a flying glimpse of the boy he sought, some little distance ahead, and he bounded after him.

"Phipps," he cried, darting in and out between the people, and dodging an expressman with a barrow, "wait, old chap."

St. George was positive that his call was heard, but the boy in front now gathered up his skates to a tighter clasp and broke into a run.

St. George chased him so long as he saw the least chance of gaining on him, then suddenly pulled up.

"All right," he gasped, "if you want it that way, you may have it. I don't care."

A WAIF FROM THE SKIES.

IN throwing out ballast or any small article from a balloon, a certain degree of caution is requisite, as a bottle or any similar object falls with such velocity that were it to strike the roof of a cottage, it would go right through it. We are told that Gray-Lussac, in an ascent in 1804, threw out a common deal chair from a height of twenty-three thousand feet. It fell beside a country girl, who was tending some sheep in a field, and, as the balloon was invisible, she concluded, and so did wiser heads than hers, that the chair must have fallen straight down from heaven.

No one was skeptical enough to deny it, for there was the chair, or rather its remains. The most the incredulous could venture to do was to criticise the coarse workmanship of the miraculous seat, and they were busy carping and fault-finding with the celestial upholstery, when an account of M. Gray-Lussac's voyage was published, and extinguished at once the discussion and the miracle.--_Chambers' Journal._

"THE HUMPY THING."

"I never would have made a camel, that's certain," remarked a wise (?) lad, after taking a slight look at the ungainly beast.

"Probably not," answered his wiser father. "You would have put the same material into pop-guns or ponies."

"But see what an ugly thing he is; not a handsome feature about him," still urged the boy.

"Handsome is that handsome does," came back to him.

"Look at those abominable humps on his back. Why must he be disfigured in that way?"

"Does a trunk disfigure a traveller?" quietly asked the father.

"But what has that ill-looking hump to do with a trunk, I'd like to know?" continued his questioner.

"There are many more things you ought to 'like to know.' That ill-looking hump is his trunk, which his master sees is well packed with--fat--before he starts on the long journey over the deserts where he can't be sure of any grass or shrubs for days and days. But there is that trunk full on his back from which the camel picnics on the weary way."

"Oh! you don't say he carries water there too!"

"No; but near by, in another trunk or bottle. He has an extra supply in his stomach. Those 'clumsy' feet are _beautifully_ formed for travelling the desert. Scientific folks might have studied for ages without discovering and patenting such a marvel of a desert foot.

"You see no beauty in his eyelashes and queer nose, but you would, after a day in the burning sun or flying sand of the desert. Why, my boy, there's no beast like him for use in his own land.

"Just see him, knelt there for his load of one thousand or fifteen hundred pounds, and objecting as plainly as a camel can, when a little too much is put upon him. Then rising up and moving on his way in such dignified patience, on and on, hour after hour, seventy-five or one hundred miles a day. Know of a horse that could do that, my boy?

"He is justly called the 'Ship of the Desert.'"

"'Ugly beast,' indeed!" repeated his father. "Think you Gordon called him so?"

"Gordon? Who did you say?"

"General Gordon. That brave, grand man who went to Khartoom to save the garrison and people there from falling into the hands of the false prophet?

"It almost seems as if the noble camel that carried him hundreds of miles on the way, knew what General Gordon was going for; he just hurried right on without a word of complaint, till he could not move a step further; then another gladly took his place and pushed on day and night till Charles James Gordon passed through the gates and the city shouted for joy.

"Now can't you see some beauty in this beast?"

C. M. L.

SOME REMARKABLE WOMEN.

M.--MITFORD, MARY RUSSEL.

"OUR village!" Do you suppose you could write a book about your village? Could you find enough matters of interest to make one book? And yet Miss Mitford wrote five with that title. She wrote about the houses and the people, the shops, the children, about life in an English country village, and delightful reading her sketches are. She wrote as no one had ever before written, and perhaps I might say that no one since has ever written such charming bits of description of rural life.

She wrote other books, _Atherton, and Other Tales_, _Country Stories_, and then she wrote such delightful letters to her friends. You will find some of these in her _Life and Correspondence_. She was the daughter of wealthy parents, who later in life became poor. So that from a life of luxury our gifted author was reduced to poverty.

The latter part of her life must have contrasted painfully with the days of her childhood, yet she kept through all her trials her sweet serenity of mind, her habit of making the best of everything. She is described as a short, stout woman, with a face shining with quiet happiness and unselfishness. The appreciation with which her sketches were received gave her much pleasure, and the fact that her writings were re-printed in America afforded her the greatest gratification, while it was a surprise to her.

She was a delightful person to meet socially, having charming ways and a soft, sweet voice. She died in a wee bit of a house, in 1855, at the age of sixty-eight.

Do you ask why I have chosen to place Miss Mitford in our list of Remarkable Women? To begin with, she was the first to discover and set before us in prose writing the beauty in every-day things. She had written poems and tried her hand at writing tragedy, but with indifferent success, and at length when poverty stared her in the face she took up the then new line of writing and tried with grand success to show to the world the beauty there is in common things. Then all through her long life with its sad changes she kept that wonderful serenity of mind, and that happy faculty of living above the vexations of life. Many a woman when forced by growing poverty to move from place to place, each time going to a poorer home, would have grown faint and weary of life, and given up in despair.

If we cultivate the habit of making the best of everything, we shall be the better prepared to meet the vicissitudes of life.

FAYE HUNTINGTON.

I SHOULD suggest, dear Pansies, for this lovely month of May, a little evening festival. Winter is over with its long, delightfully cosey evenings. Spring is nearly done, with its shorter evenings, and now we are fairly launched into the flower months--when all life seems an holiday, and every moment that is possible is to be passed out of doors.

To get ready for my little proposed festival, everybody must go a-Maying. With baskets, and fern cases, let the children, papa and mamma, nursey, aunt Grace, uncle Fred, and indeed every one who will drop books and work, and go off to the woods for the wild treasures that are playing hide-and-seek there. We do not want on this lovely May festival, any flowers but wild ones that have grown silently all winter under the snow, waiting for us. Their reign is short indeed. We will give them one evening all to themselves before we turn to June with her wealth of roses, and all other sweet and glowing blossoms.

Let us gather them all--the hepaticas, the anemones, darling little forget-me-nots, violets, Solomon's seal, and--but the name is legion--and the varieties multiply as we dig and prowl in the damp moss, and explore behind rocks and in crannies. Put them all in the baskets and cases, surrounded by their own moss to keep them green, not forgetting to bring as many roots as possible, cover all with lovely vines, and come home, flowers in the baskets, and flowers in your cheeks.

Amy and Ruth have been very busy. No one exactly knew why they got up so early in the morning. No one but the cook, and she promised not to tell. But in the cake-box is a toothsome collection of sugar wafers, ready to be put on the flower-crowned table, and the two little girls have every little while that pleasant "woodsy morning," as Ruth called it, flown at each other in the secret places, when resting from their flower-digging, and something like this might have been heard, if there had been ears to hear. But there were none, only those of the squirrels, and they looked wise, and determined not to tell. "Oh, I _hope_ they will be good."

"Our new receipt. Just think, if they shouldn't like them!"

Bob has a secret too. Why can't boys as well as girls have one, pray tell. That is, no one but papa knows it, but then papa has a fashion without ever asking, of being informed of his boy's movements.

Bob's twenty-five cents hoarded for two weeks, went into the grocer's till only yesterday, and Bob has twelve bright yellow lemons instead, waiting as patiently as lemons will, to be sacrificed to a thirsty group who stand around the same flower-crowned table. Bob's papa is to give the sugar, and moreover he has promised to tie on another apron and help the boy make the loveliest lemonade on that very same night. So Bob and his papa must of necessity go off together on this "woodsy morning" to hunt for flowers, for there is danger if they staid with the large group that they would let the whole thing out. Oh, what fun, to have papa to one's self and a secret!

Now then, after your invitations to two or three neighbors, and a little friend or two who hasn't many pleasures of her own, are given out for this evening, and your wood-treasures are ready, and you have had a good lunch and are all bathed and rested, you have nothing to do but to arrange your table with banks of moss, flowers and vines, get uncle Fred who is to give the little talk on "Plants and their Habits," to settle his microscope and specimens just where he wants them in the evening, Mary puts out the music on the piano-rack that she has promised to play, the two secrets are out, because there are the trays laden with sugar wafers, and two bright-faced, white-capped young girls, one with blue ribbons and the other with pink, to pass them around, and there's the lemonade table in the corner, with a big pail covered with green moss, a little well sweep to which is fastened the Baby's tiny pail for a bucket, and Bob stands back of it all with a beaming face ready to serve you to glassesfull from the "old oaken bucket."

Oh, it is rare fun, this dainty May festival--the best part after all being the "Plant talk," and the wonders to which the company, young and old, are brought to see through the microscope. Each small spear of green has its delicate meaning--each blossom its tender message. Nothing has been lost there so long under the snow, and the good Giver tells anew to these awakened minds, his story of creative love. Dear children, I hope you will have in each family a "May festival," and my most loving wish is that it may be a happy, bright, and joyous one.

MARGARET SIDNEY.

JACK-IN-THE-BOX.

YOU want a story, another story, One you have never heard before? Stories don't come when you call them, always; I do not know any more. "Jack and the Bean-Stalk," "Goldilocks," "Bright Prince Charming," "Reynard the Fox," And now you ask for a "spandy-new" one, About your Jack-In-The-Box!

Poor little Jack-In-The-Box, who never Can open his door himself; Whose house is so small that it almost pinches, With neither cupboard nor shelf. Dark, beside, with a varnishy smell, Enough to keep him from feeling well, And a crick in his back that must surely hurt him, If he could only tell!

Now, let's pretend; when he first was finished, This rosy-cheeked little Jack, He stood up straight, with his hands beside him, And never a crick in his back. Oh, what a beautiful world of toys! Little doll-girls and little doll-boys; Drums and trumpets, and everything lovely For making a splendid noise!

Ah, but wait--he is not quite finished; Poor little rosy Jack! A knife, some glue, some muslin, some paper-- _Now_ there's a crick in his back! Oh, but the hot glue made him smart; How near the sharp knife went to his heart; And for five dreadful, dreadful minutes, His head and feet were apart!

Now for the box--it is very pretty, Painted a charming red. In he goes, his feet are fastened; Down comes the lid on his head! Oh, he knew he was going to smother! He'd have called mamma if he'd owned a mother, But he'd nobody nearer than distant cousins, Neither sister nor brother.

Frantic his struggles for fifteen minutes, But it seemed, the more he tried, The tighter his house grew; then his courage Failed; and he cried and cried. Then he heard laughter, soft and low; His door flew up, and he heard an "Oh!" And a dear little face was bent above him-- Your little face, you know.