Part 13

“Cousin Harry!” and the young girl stood up very straight and tall, her brown eyes flashing, and one hand pointing at me. “That animal has been wronged; it looks to you to right it. The coward who has maimed it for life should be punished. A child has a voice to tell its wrong, --a poor, dumb creature must suffer in silence; in bitter, bitter silence. And you are doing the man himself an injustice. If he is bad enough to illtreat his dog, he will illtreat his wife and children. If he is checked and punished now for his cruelty, he may reform. And even if his wicked heart is not changed, he will be obliged to treat them with outward kindness through fear of punishment. I want you to report that man immediately. I shall go with you if you like.”

“Very well,” he said, and together they went off to the house.

The boys came and bent over me, as I lay on the floor in the corner. I wasn’t much used to boys, and I didn’t know how they would treat me. It seemed very strange to have them pat me, and call me “good dog.” No one had ever said that to me before to-day.

One of them said, “What did Cousin Harry say the dog’s name was?”

“Joe,” answered another boy.

“We might call him ‘Ugly Joe,’ then,” said a lad with a round fat face and laughing eyes.

“I don’t think Laura would like that,” said Jack, coming up behind him. “You see,” he went on, “if you call him ‘Ugly Joe,’ she will say that you are wounding the dog’s feelings. ‘Beautiful Joe’ would be more to her liking.”

A shout went up from the boys. I don’t wonder they laughed. Plain-looking I naturally was; but I must have been hideous in those bandages.

“‘Beautiful,’ then, let it be,” they cried. “Let us go and tell mother, and ask her to give us something for our beauty to eat,” and they all trooped out of the stable.

--MARSHALL SAUNDERS.

_By permission of the Standard Publishing Co._

SOMEBODY’S DARLING

Into a ward of the whitewashed halls Where the dead and dying lay, Wounded by bayonets, shells, and balls, Somebody’s darling was borne one day-- Somebody’s darling, so young and so brave, Wearing yet on his pale, sweet face, Soon to be hid by the dust of the grave, The lingering light of his boyhood’s grace.

Matted and damp are the curls of gold, Kissing the snow of that fair young brow Pale are the lips of delicate mould,-- Somebody’s darling is dying now. Back from his beautiful, blue-veined brow Brush all the wandering waves of gold, Cross his hands on his bosom now, Somebody’s darling is still and cold.

Kiss him once for somebody’s sake, Murmur a prayer soft and low; One bright curl from its fair mates take,-- They were somebody’s pride you know. Somebody’s hand had rested there,-- Was it a mother’s, soft and white? And have the lips of a sister fair Been baptized in those waves of light?

God knows best; he has somebody’s love; Somebody’s heart enshrined him there; Somebody wafted his name above, Night and morn, on the wings of prayer. Somebody wept when he marched away, Looking so handsome, brave, and grand: Somebody’s kiss on his forehead lay, Somebody clung to his parting hand.

Somebody’s waiting and watching for him, Yearning to hold him again to the heart; And there he lies with his blue eyes dim, And the smiling, childlike lips apart. Tenderly bury the fair young dead, Pausing to drop on his grave a tear: Carve on the wooden slab at his head,-- “_Somebody’s darling slumbers here._”

--MARIE LACOSTE.

HOME, SWEET HOME

’Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home; A charm from the skies seems to hallow us there, Which, seek through the world, is not met with elsewhere. Home! home! sweet, sweet home! There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

An exile from home, splendor dazzles in vain; Oh, give me my lowly, thatched cottage again. The birds singing gayly that came at my call; Give me them, and with the peace of mind, dearer than all. Home! home! sweet, sweet home! There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

How sweet, too, to sit ’neath a fond father’s smile, And the cares of a mother to soothe and beguile, Let others delight ’mid new pleasures to roam, But give me, oh, give me, the pleasures of home! Home! home! sweet, sweet home! There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

To thee I’ll return, overburdened with care; The heart’s dearest face will smile on me there, No more from that cottage again will I roam, Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home. Home! home! sweet, sweet home! There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home.

--JOHN HOWARD PAYNE.

THE BEAVERS

There were plenty of little low houses in the pond, and in each one lived a family of beavers. It was the delight of the little beavers to explore every corner of the pond, from the brook at the upper end to the dam at the lower end.

Very likely the little fellows believed that the dam had always been there. But, in fact, the old beavers had built it themselves. When they first came to that spot in the woods, they found only a brook flowing over a hard, gravelly bottom. They first cut down a bush and floated it along till it stuck fast between a rock and a clump of trees. Next they cut other bushes, and carried down poles and branches, till they had a tangle of brush stretching from one bank to the other. Upon this they piled sticks and stones and mud, and then more sticks and stones and mud, and then still more sticks and stones and mud.

At last the dam was so high and solid that the water could not flow through. So it spread out in a pond above the dam till it was deep enough to trickle over the top and tinkle away in a little brook under the trees.

Tiny islands were left here and there in the pond. The old beavers built their houses on the islands or on the bank. First each mother and father dug two tunnels from the bottom of the pond up through the earth to the floor of their house. One tunnel was to be used when going in and out during the summer. The other tunnel led to their winter pantry under the water. This pantry was to be a pile of fresh sticks cut in the woods every autumn.

Around the two holes in the floor the beavers laid logs and stones in a circle. Upon this foundation they piled sticks and sod to form walls and a roof. Then they plastered the house all over with mud. At the top of the roof they left a small hole, covered only with a tangle of sticks. This was for fresh air. Last of all they swam inside and made the walls even by gnawing off the sharp ends of the wood. Then the house was ready to be furnished with beds of leaves and grasses.

Perhaps during the happy summer the baby beavers believed that play was the most delightful thing in the world. But soon the father beavers came strolling back to the village to cut down trees for the winter. Then the little fellows found that work was even better fun than play.

One night the little beavers followed their parents into the woods and watched them cut down a tree. The father stood up on his hind legs, propping himself with his tail, and began to cut a notch around the trunk. The mother helped on the other side. They gnawed upwards and downwards, digging out huge chips with their chisel teeth. The circle grew deeper and deeper, till the father’s head was almost hidden whenever he thrust it in to take a fresh bite. When finally the wood cracked and the tree-top began to sway, all the family scampered away to the pond. They dived for the tunnel and hid in the house for a while. There was danger that some hungry wildcat had heard the crash of the branches and had hurried there to catch them for its supper.

As soon as it seemed safe to do so, the beavers paddled out again and trotted away to the fallen tree. The parents trimmed off the branches and cut the trunk into pieces short enough to carry. The father seized a thick pole in his teeth and swung it over his shoulders. As he dragged it towards the pond he kept his head twisted to one side, so that the end of the pole trailed on the ground.

It happened that he reached the pond just in time to help mend the dam with his thick pole. A pointed log had jammed a hole in the dam. The water was beginning to pour through the hole with a rush. If the pond should run dry, the doors of the tunnels would be left in plain sight. Then probably a wolf, or some other enemy, would hide there to catch the beavers on their way from the woods to their houses.

The old father pushed his pole into the water; then he jumped in, and taking hold of it with his teeth, he swam out above the hole. When he let go, the water carried the pole squarely across the break in the dam. The other beavers cut bushes and floated them down to weave across the hole. After that they scooped up mud and stones to plaster the dam till not a drop trickled through the mended places.

The next work to be done that autumn was to gather food for the winter. Some of the trees with the juiciest bark grew too far away to be easily dragged to the pond. All the grown-up beavers set to work to dig a canal. They dug and scooped and gnawed off roots, and dragged out stones, till they had made a long canal more than a foot deep. The water flowed into this from the pond. Then it was easy enough to float wood from the juicy trees down to the beaver village.

Even the babies could help in towing the wood down the canal and across the pond to the different houses. Some of the wood became so heavy with soaked-up water that it sank to the bottom beside the doors, and could be packed in a solid pile as easily as on land. Most of the wood, however, kept light enough to float. Instead of heaping new sticks on top, the beavers pushed them under the top branches. Then more was pressed under that, and more under that, till the pile reached to the bottom. In the winter, of course, the top sticks could not be eaten, because they would be frozen fast in the ice.

All winter long the beavers lived quietly in their little homes under the snow. Most of the time they slept, each on his own soft bed in the dark. Whenever they were hungry, they paddled down the tunnel which led to the woodpile. Gnawing off some sticks they swam back with the bundles under their chins. They used the middle of the room for a dining-table. There they nibbled the bark. Then they carried the peeled sticks back into the pond. They did not like to have rubbish left on the floor.

So the winter months slipped away. At last spring melted the ice on the pond. Here and there in the black water little brown heads came popping up. They went ploughing towards shore, leaving the rippled water stretching behind. Up the banks scrambled the beavers,--mother beavers and father beavers, big brother beavers and big sister beavers, and all the little beavers who had been babies the year before. Away roamed the fathers up the brook, to have a good time travelling all summer long. The grown-up brothers and sisters began to build dams and houses of their own, while the little fellows wandered into the woods to find their dinners of tender buds and twigs.

--JULIA AUGUSTA SWARTZ.

_From “Wilderness Babies,” by permission of Little, Brown & Company._

* * * * *

There’s not a flower that decks the vale, There’s not a beam that lights the mountain, There’s not a shrub that scents the gale, There’s not a wind that stirs the fountain, But in its use or beauty shows True love to us, and love undying.

THE BROOK

I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern, To bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip’s farm I flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever.

I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow-weed and mallow.

I chatter, chatter, as I flow, To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling,

And here and there a foamy flake Upon me, as I travel With many a silvery waterbreak Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots, I slide by hazel covers, I move the sweet forget-me-nots That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance, Among my skimming swallows, I make the netted sunbeam dance Against my sandy shallows.

I murmur under moon and stars In brambly wildernesses; I linger by my shingly bars; I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow To join the brimming river; For men may come, and men may go, But I go on forever.

--ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

THE LITTLE POSTBOY

In my travels about the world I have made the acquaintance of a great many children, and I might tell you many things about their dress, their speech, and their habits of life in the different countries I have visited. I presume, however, that you would rather hear me relate some of my experiences in which children have taken part, so this shall be the story of my adventure with a little postboy, in the northern part of Sweden.

Very few foreigners travel in Sweden in the winter, on account of the intense cold. I made my journey in this season, however, because I was on my way to Lapland, where it is easier to travel when the swamps and rivers are frozen, and the reindeer sleds can fly along over the smooth snow. It was very cold, indeed, the greater part of the time; the days were short and dark, and if I had not found the people so kind, so cheerful, and so honest, I should more than once have felt inclined to turn back.

But I do not think there are better people in the world than those who live in Norrland, which is a province in the northern part of Sweden. They are a tall, strong race, with yellow hair and bright blue eyes. They live plainly, but very comfortably, in snug wooden houses, with double windows and doors to keep out the cold; and since they cannot do much outdoor work, they spin and weave and mend their farming implements in the large family room, thus enjoying the winter in spite of its severity.

Here there are neither railroads nor stages, but the government has established post stations at distances varying from ten to twenty miles. At each station a number of horses, and sometimes vehicles, are kept, but generally the traveller has his own sled, and simply hires the horses from one station to another. These horses are furnished either by the keeper of the station or by some of the neighboring farmers; and when they are wanted, a man or boy goes with the traveller to bring them back.

I had my own little sled, filled with hay and covered with reindeer skins to keep me warm. So long as the weather was not too cold, it was very pleasant to speed along through the dark forests, over the frozen rivers, or past farm after farm in the sheltered valleys, up hill and down until long after the stars came out, then to get a warm supper in some dark red post cottage, while the cheerful people sang or told stories around the fire.

The cold increased a little every day, to be sure; but I became gradually accustomed to it, and soon began to fancy that the Arctic climate was not so difficult to endure as I had supposed. At first the thermometer fell to zero; then it went down ten degrees below; then twenty, and finally thirty. Being dressed in thick furs from head to foot, I did not suffer greatly; but I was very glad when the people assured me that such extreme cold never lasted more than two or three days. Boys of twelve or fourteen very often went with me to bring their fathers’ horses, and so long as those lively, red-cheeked fellows could face the weather, it would not do for me to be afraid.

One night there was a wonderful aurora in the sky. The streamers of red and blue light darted hither and thither, chasing each other up to the zenith and down again to the northern horizon, with a rapidity and a brilliance which I had never seen before.

“There will be a storm soon,” said my postboy; “one always comes after these lights.”

Next morning the sky was overcast, and the short day was as dark as our twilight. But it was not quite so cold, and I travelled onwards as fast as possible. There was a long tract of wild and thinly settled country before me, and I wished to get through it before stopping for the night. Unfortunately it happened that two lumber merchants were travelling the same way and had taken the post horses; so I was obliged to wait at the stations until horses were brought from the neighboring farms. This delayed me so much that at seven o’clock in the evening I had still one more station of three Swedish miles before reaching the village where I intended to spend the night. Now, a Swedish mile is nearly equal to seven English miles, so that this station was at least twenty miles long.

I decided to take supper while the horse was eating his feed. The keeper’s wife--a friendly, rosy-faced woman--prepared me some excellent coffee, potatoes, and stewed reindeer meat, upon which I made a satisfactory meal. The house was on the border of a large, dark forest, and the roar of the icy northern wind in the trees seemed to increase while I waited in the warm room.

I did not feel inclined to go forth into the wintry storm, but, having set my mind on reaching the village that night, I was loath to turn back.

“It is a bad night,” said the woman, “and my husband who has gone on with the two lumbermen will certainly stay at Umea until morning. His name is Neils Petersen, and I think you will find him at the posthouse when you get there. Lars will take you, and they can come back together.”

“Who is Lars?” I asked.

“My son,” said she. “He is getting the horse ready. There is nobody else about the house to-night.”

Just then the door opened, and in came Lars. He was about twelve years old; but his face was so rosy, his eyes so clear and round and blue, and his golden hair was blown back from his face in such silky curls, that he appeared to be even younger. I was surprised that his mother should be willing to send him twenty miles through the dark woods on such a night.

“Come here, Lars,” I said. Then I took him by the hand and asked him, “Are you not afraid to go so far to-night?”

He looked at me with wondering eyes, and smiled, and his mother made haste to say:--

“You need not fear, sir. Lars is young, but he’ll take you safe enough. If the storm doesn’t get worse, you will be at Umea by eleven o’clock.”

The boy had put on his overcoat of sheepskin, tied the lappets of his fur cap under his chin and a thick woollen scarf around his nose and mouth, so that only the round blue eyes were visible. Drawing on his mittens of hare’s fur, he took a short leather whip, and was ready.

I wrapped myself in my furs, and we went out together. The driving snow cut me in the face like needles, but Lars did not mind it in the least. He jumped into the sled, which he had filled with fresh, soft hay, tucked in the reindeer skins at the sides, and we cuddled together on the narrow seat.

The night was dark, the snow blew incessantly, and the tall fir trees roared all around us. Lars, however, knew the way, and somehow or other we kept the beaten track. He talked to the horse so cheerfully that my own spirits began to rise.

“Ho there, Axel!” he would say. “Keep the road,--not too far to the left. Well done! Here’s a level; now trot a bit.”

So we went on,--sometimes up hill, sometimes down hill,--for a long time, as it seemed. I began to grow chilly, and even Lars handed me the reins, while he swung and beat his arms to keep the blood in circulation. He no longer sang little songs as when we first set out; but he was not in the least alarmed, or even impatient. Whenever I asked, as I did about every five minutes, “Are we nearly there?” he always answered, “A little farther.”

Suddenly the wind seemed to increase.

“Ah,” said he, “now I know where we are; it’s one mile more.” But one mile, you must remember, meant _seven_.

Lars checked the horse, and peered anxiously from side to side in the darkness. I looked also, but could see nothing.

“What is the matter?” I finally asked.

“We have got past the hills on the left,” he said. “The country is open to the wind, and here the snow drifts worse than anywhere else on the road. If there have been no snow ploughs out to-night, we shall have trouble.”

You must know that the farmers along the road are obliged to turn out with their horses and oxen, and plough down the drifts, whenever the road is blocked up by a storm.

In less than a quarter of an hour we could see that the horse was sinking in the deep snow. He plunged bravely forward, but made scarcely any headway, and presently became so exhausted that he stood quite still.

Lars and I stood up and looked around. In a few minutes the horse started again, and with great labor carried us a few yards farther.

“Shall we get out and try to find the road?” said I.

“It’s no use,” Lars answered. “In these new drifts we would sink to the waist. Wait a little, and we shall get through this one.”

It was as he said. Another pull brought us through the deep part of the drift, and we reached a place where the snow was quite shallow. But it was not the hard, smooth surface of the road; we could feel that the ground was uneven, and covered with roots and bushes. Bidding Axel stand still, Lars jumped out of the sled and began wading around among the trees.

I shouted to him, in order to guide him, and it was not long before he came back to the sled.

“If I knew where the road was,” said he, “I could get into it again. But I don’t know, and I think we must stay here all night.”

“We shall freeze to death in an hour!” I cried. I was already chilled to the bone. The wind had made me very drowsy, and I knew that if I slept, I should soon be frozen.

“Oh, no!” exclaimed Lars, cheerfully. “I am a Norrlander, and Norrlanders never freeze. I went with the men to the bear hunt last winter, upon the mountains, and we were several nights in the snow. Besides, I know what my father did with a gentleman from Stockholm on this very road, and we’ll do it to-night.”

“What is it?”

“Let me take care of Axel first,” said Lars. “We can spare him some hay and one reindeer skin.”

It was a slow and difficult task to unharness the horse, but we accomplished it at last. Lars then led him under the drooping branches of a fir-tree, tied him to one of them, gave him an armful of hay, and fastened the reindeer skin upon his back. Axel began to eat as if satisfied with the arrangement.

When this was done, Lars spread the remaining hay evenly over the bottom of the sled and covered it with the skins, which he tucked in very firmly on the side towards the wind. Then lifting them on the other side, he said:--

“Now take off your fur coat, quick, lay it over the hay, and then creep under it.”