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THE 
 
 Schoolmasters Stories, 
 
 FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. 
 
 EDWARD EGGLESTON, 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON : 
 HENRY L. SHEPARD & CO., 
 
 (Late Shepard & Gili.) 
 
 1874. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 
 
 HENRY L. SHEPARD & CO. 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Some years ago there was a party of forty or fifty boys who 
 met at my house once a week, and to them I often told stories. 
 They sat on the arms of my chair, hung themselves over the 
 back of it, squatted by my feet on the floor, and leaned on one 
 another's shoulders. I noticed that they were particularly 
 eager for stories that had the smell of the frontier about 
 them. I believe I have told in this book some of the very 
 stories that used to amuse these good fellows, who got a 
 great hold on my heart by listening to my stories and liking 
 them. Dear boys ! I thought of dedicating the book to them, 
 but they are all gone. Not dead — I did not say that But in 
 five or six years every rascal of them has shot up into some- 
 thing like a young man. Some of them are raising little 
 patches of faint-looking beard on their upper lips, and some 
 of them are nearly six feet high. Think of dedicating a 
 story book to sophomores, and store-clerks, and such like ! It's 
 a way boys have. Just when you think you've got a boy, he 
 turns to a man. Boys and tadpoles are uncertain things. 
 
 There are some queer little improbable, unbelievable, half- 
 fairy-story sort of things here, which I have often given in small 
 doses to girls. They have generally taken them as kindly as 
 they would have taken sugar-plums or pickles. 
 
 5 
 
6 Preface. 
 
 Some of these stories have morals to them, for when one first 
 begins to write one does not know any better than to put 
 morals to stories. You may skip the moral if you want to, — 
 when you eat a squirrel you are not obliged to eat the tail. 
 Many of the stories have no morals to be skipped, and in some 
 the moral is so twisted into the story that you can't get one 
 without the other. You'll have to read the good advice, my 
 young friends, or do without the story. 
 
 Some readers may now and then recognize a familiar face. 
 Some of these stories have appeared during six or seven years 
 past, in The Little Corporal^ Our Young Folks, The Schoolday 
 Visitor y The Suytday School Scholar, and The Youth'' s Com- 
 panion. 
 
 "Mr. Blake's Walking Stick" appeared in a little book by 
 itself, and the "Queer Stories" and some others were once 
 before in book covers. But both of these were burned up, — 
 books, stereotype plates, and all, in the Chicago fire. They 
 were very melting stories at that time. Perhaps some mis- 
 chievous reader may say to me as one minister said to another 
 whose barrel of sermons had been burned with his house, 
 " They gave more light from the fire than they ever did in any 
 other way ! " 
 
 But a long preface is pretty nearly as bad as a moral. So I 
 open the door, take off my hat, and bow. 
 
 Brooklyn, Oct., 1874. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 THE SCHOOLMASTER'S STORIES. 
 
 I. POLLY STRADER, THE FEMALE TRAPPER. ... II 
 
 IL AN INDIAN FRIEND 24 
 
 III. A SWIM IN THE DARKNESS 35 
 
 IV. A FAMINE AND A FEAST 47 
 
 V. SIMPLE SIMON 59 
 
 VI. kitty's forty 77 
 
 THE CELLAR-DOOR CLUB. 
 
 L THE STORY OF A FLUTTER- WHEEL 89 
 
 IL THE wood-chopper's CHILDREN 97 
 
 IIL THE BOUND BOY I04 
 
 IV. THE PROFLIGATE PRINCE HO 
 
 V. THE YOUNG SOAP-BOILER Il5 
 
 VI. THE shoemaker's SECRET 124 
 
 7 
 
8 Contents. 
 
 QUEER STORIES. 
 
 I. THE CHAIRS IN COUNCIL I35 
 
 II. WHAT THE TEA-KETTLE SAID I43 
 
 III. CROOKED JACK I48 
 
 IV. THE FUNNY LITTLE OLD WOMAN 1 54 
 
 V. WIDOW WIGGINS' WONDERFUL CAT 1 62 
 
 VL MR. BLAKE'S WALKING STICK I7I 
 
 THE CHICKEN LITTLE STORIES. 
 
 L SIMON AND THE GARULY 223 
 
 XL LAZY LARKIN AND THE JOBLILIES 235 
 
 IIL THE PICKANINNY 246 
 
 IV. THE GREAT PANJANDRUM HIMSELF 256 
 
 MODERN FABLES. 
 
 L FLAT TAIL, THE BEAVER 269 
 
 IL THE mocking-bird's SINGING-SCHOOL . . .273 
 
 in. THE BOB-O-LINK AND THE OWL 278 
 

 '0mu^f^ 
 
POLLY STRADER, THE FEMALE TRAPPER. 
 
 AWAY out upon the frontier, on the bank of 
 one of those beautiful lakes that abound in 
 Minnesota, lived Mr. Henry Strader. He had emi- 
 grated from Pennsylvania in 1856, and had made a 
 " claim " on the most beautiful quarter-section of land 
 within a circuit of ten miles. You know that, accord- 
 ing to the " pre-emption laws,'' the person who settles 
 on unoccupied land, and observes certain formalities, 
 has the right to purchase that land from the Govern- 
 ment at any time before it is brought into market, at 
 one dollar and twenty-five cents an acre. But if he 
 does not buy it before the day of sale, it is sold at 
 auction to the highest bidder. 
 
 Mr. Strader had three children, Harry, his eldest, 
 Polly, about whom I am going to tell, and little Jimmie. 
 All the money that the father could make by farming 
 in summer and trapping in winter he spent in improv- 
 
12 The Schoolmaster's Stones, 
 
 ing his claim. As the land was not likely to be adver- 
 tised for sale for some years, he did not think it neces- 
 sary to make any provision for buying it at once. But 
 Mr. Strader was taken suddenly ill and died, and the 
 burden of paying for the claim and supporting the 
 family came upon Harry, then only seventeen years 
 of age. Not wholly upon Harry, either, for, from the 
 time her father died, Polly, who was just fifteen, re- 
 solved to share every burden with her brother. She 
 was stronger than many boys of her age, and had 
 always been fond of out-door life. In fact, she was 
 what you would call a tom-boy, brimful of life, as 
 restless and energetic as she could well be. She had 
 already learned to paddle a canoe, and as the prairie 
 chickens would come into the yard, she had become 
 an adept with the shot-gun. The neighbors used to 
 say that she was too wild, that she never would be 
 good for any thing. 
 
 But within a week after her father died, she had 
 taken a hoe and gone into the field by the side of 
 Harry. All through the hot days she did her part; 
 and as winter drew on she practised with the rifle un- 
 til she could shoot about as well as her brother. And 
 through the long cold months she tied on her snow- 
 shoes as regularly as Harry did his, and by dint of 
 
Folly Strader^ the Female Trapper, 13 
 
 helping her brother, and taking lessons from him, she 
 learned all the craft of the trapper. She knew the 
 habits of musk-rat, mink and otter as well as any man 
 in the region. Harry used to make her face grow red, 
 sometimes, by declaring that she was a "glorious girl." 
 
 But the next spring came the commencement of the 
 war. I can not stop to tell you of all the discussions 
 that were held in the Straders' cabin, on the subject of 
 Harry's enlistment. They ended in Polly's telling him 
 to go, that she would support the family, and that the 
 land wouldn't come into market right off, any way. 
 And, whether right or wrong, Harry enlisted. 
 
 That summer Polly succeeded in cultivating that 
 portion of the land that was broken and fenced, in 
 such a way as to get a tolerable crop. But during the 
 summer there came the sad news that Harry was 
 wounded, and must lie for a long time in the hospital, 
 and then, perhaps, be discharged, on account of his 
 disability to do further service. To add to their dis- 
 tress, came the startling intelligence that the land was 
 brought into market, and must be pre-empted before 
 the first of January, or it would be sold. 
 
 There was a merchant, five miles away, by the name 
 of Van Dyke, who bought furs of the setders, and sold 
 them provisions. An utterly mean man, there was no 
 
14 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 advantage to be taken that Van Dyke did not take. 
 He was delighted to hear that the land in the neigh- 
 borhood was to be sold, for he was perfectly satisfied 
 that the widow Strader could not raise the two hun- 
 dred dollars necessary to purchase her land, and he 
 chuckled as he thought of the prospect of buying it 
 at the Government sale, and thus getting all the im- 
 provements for nothing. Indeed, it was shrewdly sus- 
 pected that, as Van Dyke had some influence with of- 
 ficers of the land-office, he had something to do with 
 the bringing of the land into the market at so early a 
 day ; for, as he was a money-lender and a speculator, 
 there were many ways in which a land sale would be 
 to his advantage. 
 
 Polly applied to Mr. Van Dyke for a loan on a 
 mortgage on the land, but was refused. Hoping 
 against hope, she went to work to raise all the money 
 she could very early in the fall. Leaving her mother 
 and little Jimmie to secure the crops, she commenced 
 to trap. She started out at daylight every morning, and 
 was a picture for a painter as she pushed off her canoe. 
 Her long hair lay on her shoulders, her head was 
 covered with a regular trapper's cap, made of wolf 
 skin with the wolf's tail hanging down behind. 
 
 She had been pretty successful, but at the prices 
 
Polly Strader, the Female Trapper, 15 
 
 offered by Mr. Van Dyke she had nothing Hke enough 
 to buy the land. Polly was very high-spirited, and she 
 vowed that the merchant should not have a single skin 
 that she captured. In vain he assured her that the 
 price he o&red her was the highest that could be 
 paid. "Mr. Van Dyke," she used to say, "you have 
 not money enough to buy my furs. You are like the 
 Pharisees; you devour widows^ houses." It did not 
 sound very well to hear a girl talk in this way, but 
 Polly's education was a rough one. 
 
 At last came the news that Harry was about to start 
 for home. He had been discharged, and was scarcely 
 able to walk ; but at any rate it was a comfort to know 
 that he was coming home again. It was now the 
 middle of November, but the sky was yet clear, and the 
 prairies, seared with the frost, looked like fields of gold 
 beneath the autumn sun. And every night the prairie 
 fires made the sky glow in every direction. Polly had 
 made a careful account of her resources, and said that 
 at least she had enough to buy the forty acres on 
 which the house and the principal part of their 
 improvements were. That was one consolation, at any 
 rate. They would not be without a home, if they did 
 have to lose the meadow and timber-land that they 
 had prized so highly. 
 
i6 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 One morning, as she was running bullets and filling 
 up her powder-horn, and hoping that Harry would 
 come to-day, and wondering if her furs wouldn't bring 
 more than Van Dyke offered, if she could only get 
 them to Mankato, while she was talking thus, Mr. Van 
 Dyke came in and handed her a letter, saying, — 
 
 "This was in the office for you, and I thought I 
 would bring It along over, as I was coming. Don't 
 want to sell your furs this morning, eh?" 
 
 "I am obliged to you, Mr. Van Dyke, for bringing 
 the letter, but you cannot have any of my furs.'* 
 
 "Well, you might let me have that black fox, any 
 how, as a personal favor. I want to send it to my 
 brother. I've taken a fancy to it. It ain't worth more 
 than five dollars, but I'll give you ten." 
 
 Polly had captured a black or silver-gray fox a few 
 days before, the only one she had ever seen, for it is 
 very rare indeed that such a fox is taken so far south. 
 She had no idea of its value, but ten dollars seemed to 
 her a large price, and she was at first incHned to yield ; 
 but remembering that she was dealing with a scoundrel, 
 ishe said, " Mr. Van Dyke, I beheve I told you that 
 you couldn't have any of my peltries." 
 
 "Well, Miss Strader, you'll be sorry some day that 
 }'0U didn't oblige me," he said, as he left the door. 
 
Polly Strader, the Female Trapper, 17 
 
 When Polly opened the letter, all her hopes were 
 dashed. It was from Harry. He was very ill at St. 
 Paul. He begged Polly to come for him, otherwise he 
 thought he should die. 
 
 " Well," said Polly, " if we must give up all hope of 
 buying the farm, or even forty acres, I suppose we'll 
 have to. It'll take a good part of what I have to get 
 Harry home, and it'll take more than a week to go and 
 come, and New Year's isn't far off. Every day is 
 precious. But we must save Harry's life, and the poor 
 fellow will get well if we once get him home." 
 
 And so, without regarding her mother's warning 
 that there was a storm brewing, she started out in her 
 canoe to go down the lake to get a team, with which 
 to go for Harry. Her own was an ox team, and to go 
 in the stage was costly, and besides, Harry couldn't 
 stand the day and night riding in the stage, for the 
 distance was a hundred and forty miles. She hired a 
 team for a trip to St. Paul. She could not get it until 
 the Monday following, and so she wrote a letter to 
 Harry, telling him that she was coming, and then 
 started to paddle around the shore and look at her traps. 
 When she got to a place which she and Harry had 
 called Rocky Harbor, on the opposite side of the lake, 
 she found a dead deer, partly eaten by wolves, and 
 
i8 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 knowing that the wolves would return after dark, she 
 set several traps for them. Then she hastened back to 
 her canoe, for it was now late, and there could be no 
 doubt but that the November storms, with which the 
 winter almost always begins in that climate, were now 
 at hand. 
 
 But before she could set foot in her canoe the 
 storm came, and in an instant the air was so filled with 
 snow that an object twenty feet away was invisible. 
 It took but a moment for Polly to appreciate her sit- 
 uation. To paddle across the lake in such a storm, 
 w^as out of the question. The wind was coming up, 
 and it would be alike impossible to coast around the 
 shore. Besides, it was a great distance, and ice would 
 begin to form before she could get half-way. There 
 were no famiUes living on that side of the lake. Her 
 only course was to stay where she was. Her spirit 
 sunk for a moment, but she dashed away the tears that 
 came up from a desolate heart, and set about making 
 the best of it. She found a large log lying in a ravine. 
 Dragging her canoe from the water, she laid it upside 
 down parallel with the log, about three feet away from . 
 it. She then cut brush and laid across them, to form 
 a roof. Creeping under this shelter, she was soon 
 buried beneath two feet of snow, and so felt sure of 
 
Polly Strader, the Female Trapper, 19 
 
 not freezing. There is no better protection from cold 
 than the snow. 
 
 It was a lonely place. She could hear her heart 
 beat. But when the wolves commenced to gather for 
 their midnight repast, and when they set up their fright- 
 ful howls, she could feel the hair rise up on her head. 
 She would have been brave enough if she could have 
 fought with the wolves, but to lie there and listen to 
 their unearthly yelling, not knowing how soon the hun- 
 gry pack would find her, was more than she could 
 endure. And then she thought of poor Harry, and of 
 the land sale, and she wished for the skins of the wild 
 beasts that were so near her. For, though the wolf 
 skin is of little or no value for the ordinary purposes 
 to which furs are applied, it is in considerable demand 
 for lap robes. And remembering that she was on the 
 leeward side of the wolves, she dug away the snow at 
 one end of her burrow and looked out. Then, growing 
 bolder, she crept out to a clump of little bushes near 
 by, through which she could plainly see them. For 
 by this time it had ceased snowing, and the moon 
 was shining, though the wind still blew. She levelled 
 her gun at them two or three times before she could 
 get courage enough to fire. At the first shot she killed 
 one, and the pack scattered a little, but the smell of 
 
20 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 the fresh blood of the dead wolf brought them back 
 again. Several times she fired with like success. 
 
 But one of the wolves, in moving round, 'caught 
 sight of her. When a wolf sees any living object, he 
 immediately endeavors to get to the leeward of it, in 
 order to tell by the scent what it is. A wolf depends 
 on his nose in such matters, and not at all upon his eyes. 
 This one, when he caught sight of Polly, commenced 
 to jnake a circle in order to get where his nose would 
 inform him what kind of an animal she was. Crowd- 
 ing the ball down quickly, she fired just in time to 
 keep the wolf from finding her out, and calling the rest 
 of the pack with his howl. The wolf rolled over in 
 the snow. 
 
 Another one came near running right on her, but 
 she fired in time to save herself. But this last fright 
 alarmed her so that she did not dare fire again, until 
 she had climbed a tree. From this point she kept up 
 a fire upon them till daylight, when they left. As the 
 result of the night's work, Polly found that she had 
 killed nineteen wolves and frozen one of her fingers 
 almost off. Two of the wolves had been torn by the 
 others, but there were seventeen tolerably good skins. 
 
 Before she dared undertake to skin them, she found 
 it necessary to have a fire to keep her hands from 
 
Polly Strader^ the Female Trapper. 21 
 
 freezing. By whittling thin bass-wood shavings from 
 her canoe paddle, and taking cotton from her clothing, 
 she was able to start a fire by striking a percussion cap 
 in the midst of a bunch of cotton with a little powder 
 scattered through it. It took her till noon to take the 
 skins from the wolves, and by the middle of the after- 
 noon the severe cold had frozen the lake in its narrow- 
 est part, so that she ventured to cross. In order to 
 take her wolf skins across, she was obliged to make a 
 little sledge of the crotch of a small tree. Of course 
 there had been great distress at home on account of 
 her absence, and great was the joy at her return. 
 
 A day or two later she put her furs on a sled and 
 started to St. Paul. When she got to Mankato, she * 
 took a load of wheat for St. Paul, getting a good round 
 price for hauling it. When she arrived in the city, her 
 first care was to find Harry and to cheer him up, which 
 she did most effectually. He said her merry laugh 
 was better than all the tonics in the drug stores. She 
 told Harry that if she could get a load back, she 
 thought her furs would be sufficient to pay for forty 
 acres, and the other one hundred and twenty they would 
 have to let "old Van Dyke," as she called him, have. 
 
 "And so you've turned teamster, have you, htde 
 woodchuck? '* said Harry, rising himself up in bed. 
 
22 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 "Any thing to save you and the old home, Harry." 
 
 That day she sold her furs. What was her surprise 
 to find that the rare and beautiful silver-black fox was 
 worth, not ten dollars, but sixty-five. For the average 
 value of black or silver-gray skins is fifty dollars, and 
 hers was an uncommonly fine one. And then, too, the 
 ordinary demand for minks had carried them up to 
 three times the price offered by Van Dyke, and even 
 her musk-rats were worth twice what he had offered, 
 and she got well paid for her wolf skins. And to this 
 Harry's back pay, that he had just received, was 
 added, and there was more than enough to enter the 
 whole claim ! 
 
 When Polly got home she did not tell any of her 
 neighbors that she had stopped at the land office at St. 
 Peters, on her way back, and entered the claim. And 
 Van Dyke, who did not know that she had taken a 
 load both ways, nor how many furs she had, came over 
 to see Harry, who was now able to walk about. 
 
 "Mr. Strader," said he, "I suppose you'll be able to 
 pre-empt forty acres of this, and I mean to buy the 
 other three forties. Your sister has been a little saucy, 
 but I want to oblige you, and if you'll let me buy in 
 this forty with the house on, I don't mind paying you 
 a little something to start you on a new claim.' ' 
 
Polly Strader, the Female Trapper, 23 
 
 " I couldn't make such an arrangement, sir," said 
 Harry. 
 
 "Why?'' said Van Dyke. 
 
 *' Because my sister, whom you tried to swindle, 
 entered the whole claim on her way back from St. 
 Paul. And now, sir, there is the door." 
 
 And the crestfallen "land-shark" left. 
 
II. 
 
 AN INDIAN FRIEND. 
 
 A GREAT deal has been written of Indian friend- 
 ship and Indian gratitude. Now, the truth 
 is, there is not much of either in the Indian char- 
 acter. But there have been some cases in which In- 
 dians have shown the utmost devotion to their friends. 
 An instance of this kind was the preservation of Mr. 
 Spencer's life, during the massacres, by Chaska, his 
 friend. There is a curious and superstitious relation 
 that sometimes exists between Indians, in which case 
 they freely venture their lives for each other. Mac- 
 donald, was a young Scotchman, who had grown up 
 almost wholly in the Sioux country. As a vogageur 
 and guide he had distinguished himself, and no man 
 could cross a prairie in a winter storm with a trai7i de 
 glice (split wood sled) better than he. 
 
 Among the Indians with whom he had formed a 
 friendship, was one called Chetonka^ the " big horse," 
 
An Indian Friend. 25 
 
 from the fact that he rode a white man's horse in- 
 stead of an Indian pony. One day Chetonka pro- 
 posed to Macdonald that they should become each 
 other's Koda, 
 
 "What is that?" said Macdonald. 
 
 The word Koda^ in the Dakota or Sioux lan- 
 guage, means " God," and the young voyageur did 
 not understand that it had any other meaning. 
 
 "Among our people," said the Indian, "when one 
 man is another's Koda, they become brothers. They 
 cannot marry in each other's families, and they defend 
 one another." 
 
 "Then," said Macdonald, "I will be your brother. 
 When you come to my lodge, you will eat with me.'* 
 
 "Ho!" said the Indian. This is their universal 
 sign of approbation. 
 
 "And when I am in your village, I will go to your 
 lodge." 
 
 "Ho!" said Chetonka. "And," continued the 
 Indian, "I will give you the best meat I can find. I 
 will kill a dog, or roast a musk-rat for you." 
 
 Macdonald did not much like this bill of fare, but he 
 did not say any thing for fear of offending his friend. 
 And from that time they were good friends. When 
 the white man visited the Indian village, his Koda 
 
26 The Schoolmaster^ s Stories. 
 
 made him a feast, and when the Indian came to the 
 white man's lodge, the latter brought out the best his 
 larder afforded. 
 
 The voyageur, tiring of his wandering life, made a 
 claim upon the banks of one of the beautiful streams 
 that ran into the Minnesota river, near its source. 
 Here, in a grove of slender popples, he built his cabin 
 of tamarack logs, from which he hewed the bark in 
 such a way as to leave the underbark in strips upon the 
 log. As the under bark is reddish, it makes baautiful 
 strips when left in this way. Full of fancies, he 
 thought his modest claim might one day grow to be a 
 town, when other settlers should gather around him ; 
 and he concluded, if this should happen, he would 
 name the village after his Indian friend, " Chetonka." 
 
 In one corner of the modest cabin Macdonald built 
 a book-shelf, upon which he arranged his small library, 
 consistmg of a Testament, an old "English Reader," and 
 a copy of Burns' Poems. Thes<3 three books hardly 
 needed a shelf, but the idea of a library pleased his 
 fancy. In another corner he had a bedstead, made of 
 popple poles. In the other end of the cabin was a 
 fireplace. The roof was made, like many roofs on the 
 frontier, of broad strips of white oak bark. The house 
 was not the warmest in the world, but he thought he 
 
An Indian Friend, 27 
 
 should be able to keep from freezing. For though he 
 was the proprietor of the future city of Chetonka, he 
 was still quite poor, and there was, as yet, no inhabitants 
 in his city but musk-rats and gophers. One day, hav- 
 ing wandered off rather more than five miles from his 
 house, in search of game, he was greatly surprised to 
 see an Indian, mounted on a large horse, following him. 
 He was reheved, however, when the red man came up, 
 to find it was his friend Chetonka, the "Big Horse." 
 
 "Ho!" said the white man, to which the Indian 
 answered with a "Ho!" They shook hands and 
 Macdonald lit his pipe, and, taking a whiff or two, 
 passed it to the Indian. There is no greater evidence 
 of friendly feeling among the Indians, than smoking 
 from the same pipe. 
 
 "And what brought you here, my friend?" said the 
 white man, after they had smoked awhile in silence. 
 
 "I came," said the Sioux, "to let the 'White Head' 
 know that there was danger." 
 
 The Indians always gives a man a name that corres- 
 ponds with something in his appearance. General 
 Sibley, for instance, is called by them "The Long 
 Trader," because he is tall, and was once an Indian 
 trader. Macdonald's hair was flaxen, and hence his 
 Sioux name, which signified "White Head." 
 
2 8 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 "Is there going to be trouble at the payment?" 
 asked the voyageur. 
 
 " No ; but there is a party of Cut-heads from the 
 plains, who have come to steal horses, and I fear 
 they will take yours." 
 
 Chetonka was a Sioux of the Sisseton tribe. This 
 tribe were annuity Indians, that is, they had sold their 
 lands, and were in receipt of an annuity from the 
 Government. But the Cut-heads, or Yanktonnais, 
 were a tribe of buHalo hunters from the plains, who, 
 though they belonged to the Sioux nation, and were 
 nominally at peace with the whites, were utterly law- 
 less. When the Scotchman heard that a party of 
 these savages were after his horses, he felt that he 
 had reason to be alarmed, for he had three good 
 ones grazing on the prairie near his house. 
 
 "I must go back and take care of them, my 
 friend," he said, as he knocked the ashes out of his 
 pipe, and gave the Indian a handful of tobacco as a 
 present. 
 
 "You must not go back. White Head. The 
 Yanktonnais are strong; and why should Black Dog 
 their leader, return to his tribe with your scalp hang- 
 ing at his belt? He is even now on his way, and 
 would perhaps reach your horses before you could." 
 
A7t Indian Friend. - 29 
 
 "Where is their camp?" said the white man. 
 
 Chetonka told him. 
 
 "Then," said Macdonald, "I shall go there and 
 hide, and when the horses are brought in to-night, I 
 shall watch my chance and run them off." 
 
 " J am afraid you will not succeed," said the Ind- 
 ian. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "The Black Dog performed the Ham-day-pee 
 before he left his village. He went round through 
 the village for three days, with knives stuck through 
 the flesh of his back, to which the head of a buffalo 
 was attached by a hair rope, and which he drew af- 
 ter him. Then he saw a vision ; and now he is sure 
 he will be successful in stealing your horses." 
 
 "But," said Macdonald, "I don't believe in Ham- 
 day-pee." 
 
 The ceremony of Ham-day-pee, or "God-seek- 
 ing," or rather "dream-seeking," is performed by the 
 tribes of western Sioux, when they wish to be success- 
 ful in any undertaking of importance, whether it be 
 of hunting, war, or horse-stealing. They have vari- 
 ous horrible ways of torturing themselves, keeping 
 their minds fixed upon the object they desire until 
 they see a vision.- I suppose that fasting and tor- 
 
30 The Schoolmaster'' s Stories. 
 
 ture for days together would bring on a delirium 
 that would enable any body to see "visions." 
 
 "The Sissetons," said the Indian, "do not practise 
 the Ham-day-pee much ; we like the medicine dance 
 better. But if Tunkan, the Stone god, has given 
 Black Dog a vision, I fear you will not be able to 
 get your horses back.'^ 
 
 "But, my friend," said the white man, "I do not 
 observe Woh-du-zay, and yet I kill as many deer as 
 you do." 
 
 When a Sioux kills an animal, he always throws 
 away some part, as a sacrifice to the God of the 
 chase. Some give the heart, others the liver, etc. ; 
 but the same man always gives the same part."^ 
 
 Chetonka, when he heard the skeptical remark of his 
 friend, only smiled and said : " It is our custom ; but 
 the white man has no God but Wakontonka,'' (the 
 Great Spirit) . 
 
 But there was no time to parley. The Indian did not 
 wish to be known as having given information, and so 
 
 * The writer wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness to the 
 fragment of a manuscript of J. W. Lynd, Esq., in the archives 
 of the Minnesota Historical Society. Mr. Lynd was killed the 
 first day of the massacre, a martyr to his love of Indian re- 
 search. His manuscript is stained with his own blood. A 
 portion of it is published in the "Collections of the Minnesota 
 Historical Society, for the year 1864." 
 
An Indian Friend, 
 
 31 
 
 mounted his horse, and taking the nearest ravine, to 
 avoid observation, he hastened home again. 
 
 Macdonald soon traversed the ten miles between 
 him and the camp of the Cut-heads ; but it was already- 
 dark when he reached the place. It was near a 
 stream; and through the bush along its margin the 
 voyageur crept, until he reached a place near the Indian 
 camp. Here he lay until midnight, when Black Dog 
 and his party came home with all three of the Scotch- 
 man's horses. There was little "Shaggy,'^ the best 
 French pony on the frontier, and "Molly," his mate; 
 and there was " Sin," a large horse, who was so called 
 because he was so "mortal ugly," as Macdonald said. 
 The frontierman thought he would rather die than let 
 the thieving Yanktonnais have his dear little "Shaggy." 
 
 For two hours after the arrival of the party, the 
 Indian camp was in an uproar of barking dogs and 
 hallooing : but at two o'clock all was quiet. Macdonald 
 then crept from his hiding-place, and going in among 
 the horses, cut the ropes by which his three horses were 
 tied. But Shaggy was so delighted to find his master 
 near, that he neighed. This roused the dogs, and 
 the voyageur found that he must leave at once and 
 in haste. He mounted Shaggy, knowing that the rest 
 would follow him. 
 
32 The Schoolmaster^ s Stories, 
 
 In order to avoid awakening the Indians, he took 
 a trail that led up the stream, crossing above the 
 camp, instead of taking the more direct one through 
 the camp to the crossing below. When Macdonald 
 had crossed the stream, he was obliged to ride down 
 on the other side, past the lower ford, to get into 
 his proper trail. Just as he rode up the farther 
 bank of the river, he could see by the light of the 
 moon, then rising, that Black Dog and his friends 
 were mounting for pursuit. 
 
 It was now a fair race for the lower ford, with the 
 odds against the white man. But vShaggy laid him- 
 self out for a fine run, while Molly and long-legged 
 old Sin came thundering at his heels. For half a 
 mile down the stream the race continued, — half a 
 dozen savages on one side, and a voyageur riding 
 for life on the other. Glorious little Shaggy, how he 
 flew ! But there were ravines and swamps on Mac- 
 donald's side, while the Indians had a smooth trail. 
 Macdonald saw that the Cut-heads would reach the 
 ford first, and so he drew his revolver for a fight. 
 But just as the savages turned to descend the bank 
 into the stream, they saw, too late, a tree laid across 
 the trail. Their horses plunged into the limbs, and 
 the riders were hurled forward to the ground. 
 
An Indian Friend, 33 
 
 "All!" laughed Macdonald, as he rode on, "Che- 
 tOFika has set a trap for the thieves." 
 
 The Indian had cut down a sapling across this road, 
 foreseeing that Macdonald would take the upper traiL ' 
 and his pursuers this one. 
 
 The voyageur did not stop until he had reached a 
 place of safety. A day or two later he heard that the 
 Black Dog and his Cut- heads had returned to the 
 plains, the former with a broken arm. He had sus- 
 pected Chetonka of a part in the affair, and had stolen 
 his large horse in revenge, and to compensate him for 
 the loss of his own pony, who had extricated himself 
 from the tree-top and followed Macdonald' s horses 
 for some distance, and then had wandered off upon 
 the prairie. But Chetonka's horse was worth almost 
 nothing for prairie life, so that he had not made 
 much. 
 
 Macdonald had determined to give his friend old 
 "Sin," to repair his loss ; but on returning to his house, 
 he found Black Dog's pony browsing in the marsh be- 
 low. Capturing him, he rode over to Chetoaka's 
 lodge, and gave him to his faithful friend, adding two 
 blankets and a good stock of ammunition, as a token 
 of his appreciation of his Koda's friendship. 
 
 The village of "Chetonka" has not yet become a 
 
34 
 
 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 great city. In fact, it contains only one house, of 
 striped tamarack logs, and its public library has but 
 three volumes in it. 
 
III. 
 
 A SWIM IN THE DARKNESS. 
 
 HANS PEPPENHEIMER, the German trapper, 
 was a brave and honest-hearted man, who had 
 built a cabin on a considerable stream in one of the new 
 counties of Iowa. He had two bright girls, Wilhelmina 
 and Katrina, who helped about home, and a boy of 
 twelve, named Frederick. The latrer was a brave, manly 
 little chap, and very fond of accompanying his father 
 on his trapping expeditions. One morning in the 
 early part of November, Hans Peppenheimer took 
 down his rifle and examined it carefully. Carl, the old 
 dog, who was lying on the hearth with one eye shut, 
 understood this movement, and got to his feet at once, 
 with a whine of impatience and joy. Frederick, who 
 lay dozing in the trundle bed, understood it as well as 
 Carl, and tumbled out at once, scratching his head 
 
 and rubbing his eyes to rouse himself up. 
 
 35 
 
36 Queer Stories. 
 
 " Hurrah ! '^ said he, as he caressed Carl : " there's 
 fun ahead, old fellow. Do you want to start up a 
 deer, to-day?" The dog wagged his tail and danced 
 round in a way that showed he understood perfectly 
 all that was said. 
 
 And so, while Wilhelmina broiled a piece of 
 smoked venison and fried some potatoes for break- 
 fast, Fred employed himself in making bullets. 
 After breakfast, the trapper took his rifle, and Fred 
 put the game-bag over his shoulder and stuck the 
 long hunting-knife in his belt. The girls thought 
 he was too young to carry so sharp an instrument, 
 but Fred only said, "Pshaw! girls always are so 
 afraid ! " Carl had quit his play, and was saving his 
 strength for work. With head and tail up he started 
 off with the utmost dignity, keeping eyes and nose 
 out in all directions for game. 
 
 By noon they had visited several traps, and Mr. 
 Peppenheimer had killed half a dozen pigeons. 
 Hans built a fire and roasted three of these for din- 
 ner, while Carl made his meal off the body of a 
 musk-rat whose skin Fred had just taken off. While 
 they were eating the pigeons, wdth some bread that 
 Fred had brought, they noticed the old dog leave his 
 dinner and commence to run up and down the bank 
 of the river, at a furious pace. 
 
A Swim in the Darkness, 37 
 
 "What's up, old fellow?" said Fred. "What is 
 it, Carl?" 
 
 The dog gave a whining bark, and by this time 
 Mr. Peppenheimer had caught sight of two deer on 
 the opposite side of the river. 
 
 " Fred," said he, " I must have one of those. You 
 have travelled five miles already, and you must stay 
 here while I follow them. I will come back this 
 way. See ! they have gone down the river. I will 
 go down to the rapids and wade across. It looks 
 lowering, and if it should rain you must find a 
 hollow tree." 
 
 Saying this, the trapper started eagerly down the 
 stream, leaving Carl to keep' Fred company. Cross- 
 ing the river at the rapids, he started after the deer 
 and soon caught sight of them on a neighboring hill. 
 But he followed them three or four miles before he 
 got a shot, and then he only succeeded in wounding 
 one of them, and he was obliged to go a mile further 
 before he brought it down. By this time the storm 
 had come on, and the rain was falling in torrents. 
 
 It was nearly night before Hans turned his steps 
 homeward. The rain was frightful, and the trapper 
 travelled fast, though burdened by a saddle of veni- 
 son. He w^as becoming uneasy, for he knew that 
 
38 Queer Stories. 
 
 the river would rise rapidly. Streams always rise 
 fast near their heads. When Hans came in sight of 
 the river, just at dark, his worst fears were realized. 
 It was a wild, mad torrent, full to the very brim. 
 
 What should he do ? On the other side was poor 
 Fred, exposed to the pitiless storm. There were 
 wolves in the forest, and what if Fred should fall a 
 prey to them.^ Even if he did not, the thought of 
 his staying out there all night was not to be enter- 
 tained. Hans made up his mind that he must cross 
 the river at all hazards. 
 
 He first hallooed for Fred, but the rush of the 
 waters and the incessant roar of the rain drowned 
 his voice. Then he stopped to think. A mile above, 
 he had noticed an old canoe on the opposite side of 
 the river. The canoe had been abandoned by some- 
 body, and had drifted against the top of a fallen 
 tree. That canoe gave him some hope. He started 
 up the river bank, pushing back the underbrush and 
 wild artichokes, and fighting the mosquitoes. Every 
 moment increased his distress on account of his 
 boy. 
 
 At last he came opposite where the canoe lay, and 
 by a friendly glimmer of lightning he saw that it was 
 still there. The current was so stron^: that he knew 
 
A Swim in the Darkness, 39 
 
 it would not do to try to swim there, — he would be 
 carried down the stream by the torrent, and come 
 out far below the canoe. So he ascended the river 
 bank nearly half a mile further, and then took off 
 his clothes for a swim. 
 
 It was not very far across, and Hans was a tolera- 
 ble swimmer. But did you never notice that the 
 best swimmers are often drowned in time of danger? 
 The reason for this is that, they lose their presence 
 of mind, and make just the same mistake that young 
 swimmers make. They swim too high. They think 
 they must keep their shoulders out of water. Of 
 course the effort to keep so much weight above the 
 water will soon exhaust the strongest swimmer. 
 
 Presence of mind is every thing under such cir- 
 cumstances. That is very easy to say, but few peo- 
 ple know how to keep their presence of mind. 
 There is, however, one excellent rule. Think before- 
 hand just what mistakes you are likely to make, and 
 be on your guard. Hans said to himself: "Now, 
 my life, and perhaps the life of Fred, depend on my 
 swimming to-night. I must not fight this current, or 
 I will soon give out. I must not let myself get ex- 
 cited and swim too high." 
 
 So saying, Peppenheimer crept out on a log, and 
 
40 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 slid off into the cold water, going entirely under at 
 the first dash. When he came up the current was 
 sweeping him madly down, and his first impulse was 
 to strike out excitedly against it. But he said to 
 himself, " Swim straight across, and swim low ! " and 
 so, with a long, steady stroke, he struck out against 
 the cold waters, taking care to keep his head just 
 above the surface. There is nothing about the swim- 
 mer's body that need be above the water, except 
 nose and eyes. 
 
 But the first dozen or two of strokes did not seem 
 to make any headway at all. The current set strong- 
 ly from the other side at that point, and Hans soon 
 found that he was nearly exhausted. He had been 
 swimming too fast, and the cold was chilling him. 
 But he said to himself, " Swim low, swim slowly, and 
 swim straight across." 
 
 At last the sturdy strokes of the hardy and reso- 
 lute German frontierman began to tell, and Peppenhei- 
 mer found himself in the middle of the wild stream, 
 fighting the rushing waters in the dark. After a 
 while his strength began to fail, more from the 
 benumbing effect of cold than from exhaustion. But 
 rousing him self, and giving a dozen vigorous strokes, 
 he put himself under shelter of a point of land where 
 
A Swim in the Darkness, 41 
 
 there was little current, and he soon reached a shoal 
 place where the water ran over a sand-bank. He was 
 still some distance above the canoe, and started to 
 wade down the stream. Several times his feet caught 
 in brush half-buried at the bottom, when the swift 
 current sent him headlong into the water. 
 
 Before he reached the canoe, the water became so 
 swift that he had to swim again. Down the stream he 
 went at a great speed, until he came to the canoe, 
 which was lying against a limb of a tree. When he 
 reached it, the trapper threw up his hands and caught 
 the ^Ag<^ of it, and then endeavored to set his feet on 
 the bottom. But there was no bottom there. His 
 feet were carried under by the current, and he found 
 himself with his head sticking up on one side of the 
 canoe, and his feet out of water on the other. It took 
 considerable effort for him to get back above the canoe. 
 
 When he had climbed into it, he found that the 
 heart had rotted out at each end. It was that sort 
 of a canoe that is called in the West a " dug-out,'' that 
 is, it was made out of a log of wood; and the heart of the 
 wood rotting, or having been worm-eaten, had left a 
 large opening at either end. Of course it was neces- 
 sary for Hans to paddle back for his clothes; but the 
 canoe was full of water before he got ready to start. 
 
42 
 
 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 So taking it out on the bank, he emptied the water 
 out and.proceeded to stop the holes. 
 
 How did he do it ? Why, he broke off a lot of wil- 
 low twigs and drew them through the holes until they 
 were pretty well stopped. Then he took the soft 
 clay from the bank and daubed it all over the willows. 
 He was all this time in an agony about Fred, but 
 it was out of the question to attempt to reach him 
 through the brush without the protection of clothes. 
 So he took a piece of the brushwood for a paddle, 
 and in half an hour he had managed, by pulling along 
 by the overhanging willows, to ascend the stream to 
 a point opposite the place where he had left his clothes. 
 Then he struck out and paddled across. 
 
 But by this time the water had worked its way 
 through the clay daubing, and the canoe was full. 
 It had to be drawn out and emptied again, and then 
 daubed once more. Taking on board his venison 
 and his gun, after having dressed, he started back 
 across the river. He paddled out boldly into the 
 mad current, and floated down. When he reached 
 the place where he left Fred at noon, he landed and 
 hallooed; but he got no answer. 
 
 The rain had ceased, and the moon was shining 
 dimly through the fog. Hans found the ashes of the 
 
A Swim in the Darkness. 43 
 
 fire by which they had roasted the pigeons at noon. 
 Here he stopped and called. But he got no answer 
 but the husky and smothered cry of an owl that sat in 
 the top of a dead tree. There is nothing more start- 
 *ling to a man alone in the woods, than the wretched 
 Hoo-hoo-hoo-00-ah-ah of the owl. Under the cir- 
 cumstances, this sound made Peppenheimer's hair 
 stand on end. 
 
 What had become of Fred ? When he saw the 
 storm coming, he had betaken him to a hollow 
 tree. Here he lay in safety and comfort, until about 
 the time that Hans left the rapids and went up the 
 stream for the canoe. Then he began to think of 
 the rising water, and afraid that his father would at- 
 tempt to cross, he determined to go to the ford and 
 build a fire, that he might give his father assurance 
 of his safety and light upon the water, if he should 
 attempt to cross. 
 
 But when he started out into the darkness and 
 rain, he turned back in fright, and crept into the tree 
 again. He thought of wolves, the possibility of wak- 
 ing up a bear, the cold drenching rain, and the hor- 
 rible loneliness. But when he lay down again, and 
 thought of the chances of his father's being drowned 
 in the wild torrent, he determined to face all, and go 
 to the ford. 
 
44 The Schoolmaster s Stories, 
 
 After a tedious time crawling through the brush, 
 he reached the rapids. But to build a fire in such a 
 rain was no easy task. After having used up all his 
 matches but one, he succeeded in getting some 
 whittlings from the inside of a piece of seasoned 
 wood, and by great perseverance and careful man- 
 agement, he at last m^de a fire. Then he heaped 
 on sticks of all kinds until he succeeded in getting a 
 roaring bonfire. But in one of his excursions after 
 wood he stumbled on a bear, to his great horror. 
 Carl barked lustily at it, but poor Fred ran back to 
 his fire and climbed a tree. Climbing a tree may 
 save one from a wolf, but Fred forgot that the bear 
 was a much better climber than he was. But there 
 he sat in the forks of the tree, shivering with cold, 
 wet and fear. 
 
 After a while Carl came back, and tracking Fred to 
 the tree, looked up and barked. Then he lay down 
 by the fire. 
 
 Fred began to get tired, and was afraid he might 
 fall asleep and lose his hold. But he struggled 
 against it. He dare not stay on the ground for fear 
 of wolves and bears. But once he found himself 
 falling into a doze. Thoroughly alarmed, he took 
 off the " comfort " that his mother had tied about his 
 
A Swim m the Darkness. 45 
 
 neck, and wrapped around his waist, and then lied 
 it around the tree. 
 
 He was just falling into a doze, when Carl 
 gave a low bark and pricked up his ears. Fred 
 looked at him a moment. Then the dog shot away 
 into the bushes. Fred watched him a few minutes, 
 but Carl neither barked nor came back. Fred felt 
 badly enough, now that he was left all alone, and if 
 the truth must be told, I'm afraid he shed a few 
 tears. But he prayed to God to bring his father 
 back, and bring him safe home again, and then he 
 felt'better. 
 
 Carl had been gone about a quarter of an hour. 
 Fred had concluded that the dog had gone home ] 
 he was just going o£E into another doze with the feel- 
 ing that he was utterly deserted ; he thought of his 
 mother and sisters, and — 
 
 "Fred! Fred!" 
 
 He rubbed his eyes, and saw Carl come bounding 
 up to the tree in which he was, barking loudly. 
 
 " Fred ! Fred ! " It was his father's voice. Fred 
 slid down to the ground, and was in his father's 
 arms. Carl had heard the father calling Fred, and 
 had gone to meet him, and had guided him to where 
 Fred was. 
 
46 
 
 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 It was nearly daylight when the musK-rat skins and 
 the saddle of venison were laid down at Hans Pep- 
 penheimer's cabin. 
 
IV. 
 
 A FAMINE AND A FEAST. 
 
 THAT hardy and adventurous class of men who 
 were formerly known as courriers des bois, " for- 
 est scouts," and who are to-day called voyagmrs 
 " travellers," have always been both eyes and hands for 
 the North American fur trade. No toil has been too 
 arduous and no enterprise too perilous for them. Of 
 this class was Pierre Beaubien, who, like most of his 
 companions, married an Indian woman. When his 
 son Baptiste — or, as the voyageurs pronounce it, 
 "Battiece"— was but ten years of age, Pierre was killed 
 by the Sioux. In consequence of this misfortune, 
 the young half-breed was left to grow up among his 
 mother's people, the Red Lake Chippewas, becoming, 
 of course, a savage in all his tastes and habits. Whilst 
 other half-bloods dressed more like white men than 
 
 47 
 
48 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 Indians, and followed the pursuits of their fathers, 
 Baptiste preferred to fish and hunt in blanket and 
 leggings. There was, however, one thing in which 
 he differed from his savage relatives. He clung to 
 his crucifix, which he wore as an amulet to protect him 
 from evil, and he cherished the recollection of the 
 fact that he had been baptized a Christian by the 
 Jesuit missionaries at La Pointe. And though the 
 crucifix was about all the Christianity he possessed, 
 yet the firmness with which he clung to the name was 
 in exact proportion to his ignorance of its meaning. 
 
 As he grew up he soon penetrated the shallow im- 
 positions of the medicine-men; and believing his 
 crucifix and sign of the cross to be sufficient to pro- 
 tect him from all evil jeebi, or spirits, as well as from 
 the incantations of the jugglers, he did not hesitate 
 to expose the system of humbuggery by which the 
 latter used the superstitious credulity of the Indians 
 to their own advantage. By this course he soon in- 
 curred the hostility of the medicine-men, especially 
 of the noted juggler of his band, whose name was 
 Pembeenah, "The Cranberry." This old imposter, 
 whose hideous and mummy-like face and shrivelled 
 form made him look like the dried specimens in a 
 museum of natural history, felt so great an animosity 
 
A Famine and a Feast, 49 
 
 to Baptiste that he attempted his destruction by hav- 
 ing him assassinated at night. The assault was not 
 successful, though Beaubien was so badly wounded 
 that it is doubtful if he could have recovered had it 
 pot been for the attention and kindness of the family 
 of an American missionary who had recently settled 
 among the Indians. 
 
 Baptiste, notwithstanding his savage life, had the 
 impressible heart of a Frenchman in his bosom, and 
 so much was he touched by the kindness he had re- 
 ceived, that he was almost persuaded to abandon his 
 barbarous mode of life ; but when, after a month or 
 two of illness, he felt again the warm blood of health 
 coursing in his veins, the force of habit was too strong 
 for his resolution, and there came back the old pas- 
 sion for a life of savage freedom. And so, bidding 
 his benefactors a grateful adieu, in which French, 
 English, and Chippewa were strangely blended, he 
 returned to the Indian village. 
 
 Though the old medicine-man did not dare to at- 
 tempt violence again, he had not abated one jot of 
 his hatred of Baptiste; and to this he now added 
 a like hostility to the missionaries, who had cared for 
 his enemy, and whose influence with the tribe was all 
 exercised against the superstitions upon which he de- 
 pended for his authority. 
 
50 • The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 But Pembeenah had other reasons for opposition 
 to the mission families. One McCormick, an unli- 
 censed trader, had found that the missionaries were 
 obstacles to the accomplishment of his schemes for 
 plundering the savages, and had bribed the juggler 
 to secure their removal by having them robbed of 
 all they had. 
 
 In order to accomplish this purpose, Pembeenah 
 attributed every calamity that befell the tribe to the 
 hatred that the Great Spirit had to the missionaries. 
 Nor was he in want of calamities for texts. It was 
 an unusually hard winter for the Indians. They are 
 accustomed to live, during the cold season, princi- 
 pally on fish. These they catch by cutting a hole 
 through the ice, which is generally from three to six 
 feet thick. To this hole the fish come for air, when 
 they are speared by an Indian who is watching for 
 them. But the extraordinary thickness of the ice 
 during this winter deprived them almost wholly of 
 supplies from this source, while the extreme cold and 
 other causes rendered the chase of little avail. The 
 average temperature of the Chippewa country is that 
 of Iceland, the winters being much colder and the 
 summers much warmer than those of that island. 
 
 Pembeenah belonged to the Crane totem. It is 
 
A Fa7nine and a Feast. 
 
 51 
 
 certainly a remarkable fact, if true, as stated by an 
 intelligent and educated half-breed, that most of the 
 families of the Crane totem have high and somewhat 
 bald foreheads, and are remarkable for their clear, 
 resonant tone of voice. It is said that most of the 
 orators of the Chippewa nation are of the Crane to- 
 tem. However this may be, it is certain that Pem- 
 beenah, being both orator and medicine-man, pos- 
 sessed much more influence than the chief, who, in- 
 deed, has no authority except in war. Nor did the 
 juggler fail to exercise the oratory for which the 
 Cranes are so remarkable, in showing the Indians 
 how the famine was sent upon them as a punishment 
 for allowing the missionaries to remain. He also 
 pointed out what was a much more effectual argu- 
 ment, the fact that the missionaries had flour, that 
 they had two cows whose meat was good, and that 
 there were blankets in their houses. 
 
 But at every step the old juggler was confronted 
 by Baptiste, who was also a forcible speaker, and 
 quite an influential man, being a member of the aris- 
 tocratic totem of the Loon. Baptiste was the more 
 in earnest, since he knew that a pillage could hardly 
 take place without a massacre, and that even to turn 
 the mission families out of their houses in the depth 
 
52 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 of such a winter would be to insure their death. He 
 showed the Indians how useless the provisions of the 
 white men would be to them. "How long wdll they 
 last you ? " he said. " Will you be any better off when 
 the taste of the missionaries' cows has gone out of 
 your mouth?" And then he depicted the certain 
 punishment which the government would inflict upon 
 them. And then he laughed at the dreams with which 
 the medicine-man had tried to alarm them. And 
 when pressed more closely, he boldly charged Pem- 
 beenah w^ith being in league with the " bad trader," 
 as he called McCormick, against the friends of the 
 Indians. 
 
 But arguments avail little against hunger. As the 
 distress increased, so did the desire to eat the flour 
 and cows of the white men. Beaubien saw that, if 
 the camp remained in the vicinity, the robbery and 
 massacre of the mission families was inevitable. And 
 so, at his suggestion, they moved off to the Red-River 
 Valley, in search of game. But no moose could they 
 find. Now and then they caught a musk-rat, or shot 
 a great snowy owl, or a prairie-wolf as lean and.hun-. 
 gry as themselves. And still their cheeks grew thin- 
 ner, their chins sharper, and their eyes more sunken. 
 And as the famine grew worse, so did the speeches 
 
A Famine and a Feast, 53 
 
 of Pembeenah against the missionaries become more 
 vehement. 
 
 At last the young half-breed became greatly re- 
 duced himself. For, though he was the best hunter 
 in the party, he was in the habit of giving away the 
 most of the game that he captured, in order to gain 
 the friendship and appease the anger of the others. 
 And so one morning, utterly dejected and faint from 
 hunger, he walked out of the catip. He saw that he 
 could no longer restrain the inclination of the sav- 
 ages to rob the missionaries. Wandering about, 
 without purpose or hope, he climbed a little knoll, 
 from the summit of which there was quite a view of the 
 prairie. It was a clear and bitter cold morning, and 
 the "sun-dogs,'' ox parhelia^ were shining so brilliantly 
 that there really seemed to be three suns. This phe- 
 nomenon is usually seen from fifteen to thirty times 
 in a winter in that country. But on the morning we 
 speak of,Baptiste beheld a phenomenon that is not 
 often seen, even in that climate. It was a mirage of 
 extraordinary brilliancy, in which the Leaf Hills, forty 
 or fifty miles away, and usually out of sight from that 
 point, appeared inverted upon the sky. This optical 
 illusion is caused by refraction ; the strata of air being 
 of different temperature, and, of course, of different 
 
54 
 
 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 degrees of density. An acquaintance of the writer 
 once saw these same hills in such a mirage at the 
 distance of sixty-four miles. 
 
 Baptiste could not help a certain feeling of super- 
 stitious awe as he looked at this remarkable sight ; 
 but suddenly remembering how effectually such a 
 sight might be used on the minds of the Indians, he 
 hastened back to the camp. But he was too late. 
 Pembeenah had seen the same spectacle from 
 another point, and was just relating^ when Baptiste 
 came up, that he had seen a spirit during the night 
 who had told him that the Great Spirit was so angry 
 at the tribe for not killing the missionaries, that he 
 had hung the Leaf Hills in the sky upside down, and 
 that, if they would go to a certain point, they could 
 see the wonderful sight for themselves. 
 
 With the utmost eagerness they all started up to 
 see the new wonder. Baptiste felt that his doom was 
 sealed. He knew that the medicine-man would first 
 use the influence which the sight would give him for the 
 destruction of himself. What was his relief to find, 
 on reaching the designated place, that the mirage had 
 entirely disappeared ! The influence of the sun had 
 destroyed the atmospheric conditions that produced 
 it. The medicine-man was utterly discomfited, and 
 another day was gained. 
 
A Famine and a Feast, 55 
 
 But Pembeenah recovered face enough to make 
 another speech that afternoon. " We starve," said 
 he. "Will the Great Spiiitsend us the pezhekee f rom 
 the country of our enemies ? Will he make the turnip 
 grow in the winter ? " 
 
 The pezhekee are the buffalo, or, more properly, 
 the bison. They never have made the Chippewa 
 country their range, — never, indeed, approaching 
 nearer than thirty miles west of the Red River, which 
 is the dividing line between the Chippewas and their 
 mortal enemies, the Sioux. The turnip to which the 
 medicine-man referred is a bulbous plant that is quite 
 abundant on the prairies in the Chippewa country. 
 It is much prized for food, and one of the most beau- 
 tiful streams in their country is called by its name. 
 This name has*unfortunatel) been mistranslated into 
 French, and the river is now called Pomme de terre^ 
 — Potato. It was indeed a forcible speech of the 
 medicine-man, when he demanded if they supposed 
 that the Great Spirit would send them bison, or make 
 the turnip grow in winter. 
 
 Baptiste left the camp stealthily at midnight. He 
 knew that, when morning came, the decision would 
 certainly be taken to return and rob the missionaries, 
 and he hoped to reach them in time to give warning of 
 
c6 I'he Schoolmaster'' s Stories, 
 
 their danger. To prevent ttie course of his tracks 
 betraying his destination, he made a long circuit up 
 the valley of the Red River. Just as he ascended to 
 the table-land that forms the eastern boundary of the 
 valley, he caught sight of a mass of dark objects mov- 
 ing over the snow. What could they be ? The 
 moonlight was dim, but he felt sure they were not 
 moose. Could it be that the Sioux were on the war 
 path in mid-winter ? He approached the objects, 
 and found, to his delight and amazement, that it was 
 a herd of bison. His first impulse was to fly back to 
 the camp, and tell the good news. But then he re- 
 flected that, under the circumstances, he would not 
 be believed; for nothing could be more improbable. 
 We should not venture to tell the story here, were it 
 not that this single departure of the bison from their 
 range is a well-attested fact, — a fact never to be 
 forgotten by the Chippewas, who for the first and 
 the last time in their lives ate of the flesh of the 
 cattle of the Sioux. This strange migration was 
 owing to the failure of food in their usual haunts. 
 
 Baptiste wisely concluded that a story so improb- 
 able would need to be sustained by positive evidence. 
 And so he set to work to kill a bison, — no easy 
 task on snow-shoes. But he accomplished it about 
 
A Famine and a Feast, 
 
 57 
 
 daylight. Then, cutting off the tail and taking out 
 the tongue, he started back to the camp. But when 
 he arrived, the almost extinct fires showed that it had 
 been deserted for hours. The cause of his absence 
 had evidently been surmised; and the Indians had 
 
 left in the utmost haste, and were now far on their 
 way toward the dwelling-place of the missionaries. 
 By the most eager and tireless pursuit, he succeeded 
 in overtaking them near their destination. He was 
 met with fierce frowns on all sides, and some guns 
 
58 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 were raised threateningly. But Baptiste strode into 
 the midst of the party, and, looking the old juggler in 
 the face, he said, " The Great Spirit has indeed sent 
 the buffalo into the valley." 
 
 But the old man grinned at him a moment, and 
 answered, "White man's son, do you think we are 
 pappooses, that you try to deceive us with idle 
 tales ? " 
 
 Then Baptiste drew forth the fresh tongue and the 
 tail from beneath his blanket, and asked, *' What are 
 these ? " 
 
 The swiftest and best hunters went back with 
 Baptiste, and the rest of the party followed on. 
 
 During the remainder of that winter, the Chippe- 
 was^ate the meat of the bison. It was indeed a feast 
 after a famine. 
 
V. 
 
 SIMPLE SIMON. 
 
 SUSAN SMITHERS sat on her horse in per- 
 plexity. She had started to ride to the Baptist 
 Association at Long Run, and had suddenly come to 
 a place where the road forked. She looked first at 
 one road and then at the other, as though she ex- 
 pected to find out which was the Long Run road by 
 staring at them. But when she was about to give up 
 in despair, there appeared from the bushes a curious- 
 looking boy, twelve or thirteen years of age, who 
 came up in front of her horse, and twisting his face 
 comically, said, in a muffled sort of way, — 
 
 " Goin' t' meetin' ? " 
 
 Susan scarcely noticed his question, so intent was 
 she on finding which road would take her to Long 
 Run. 
 
 " Is this the Long Run road ? " she asked, point- 
 ing down the right-hand road. 
 
 59 
 
6o The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 By this time the boy had come round to the side 
 of her horse. Pointing his finger at her, he cried, 
 " You're purty ! '' 
 
 Now Sukey Smithers knew perfectly well that she 
 was handsome. Many a young man at apple-peel- 
 ings had hinted as much, and Jack Potter had even 
 whispered it in her ears. But to be told it in this 
 poinjt-blank fashion made her blush. Seeing, too, 
 that the boy was " not bright," as the Western peo- 
 ple phrase it, she began to be anxious lest she should 
 fail to get from him the information she needed. 
 
 " What's your name ? " she asked. 
 
 " Sim," he answered. Then he added, as if he did 
 not fairly understand what the words meant, " ' Sim's 
 Simple,' folks says." 
 
 " Which is the way to Long Run ? " asked Susan, 
 returning to the attack. 
 
 " Goin' t' meetin' ? " queried Sim. 
 
 " Is this the way to Long Run ? " persisted Susan. 
 
 " You're purty. Goin' t' meetin' ? " and Sim kept 
 his finger levelled at her. 
 
 Susan thought best to answer his question this 
 time by way of drawing him out. 
 
 " Yes, I'm going to meeting," she said. 
 
 " Come," cried Sim, darting down the left hand 
 
Simple Simon. 6i 
 
 road and pointing ahead of him. Susan saw that 
 the boy was foolish, and besides, she had made up 
 her mind to try the right-hand road. But where one 
 is in doubt, the guidance of a fool is better than no 
 direction, so now he rode on as Sim indicated, he 
 running ahead of her horse. 
 
 After half an hour of such riding she became un- 
 easy. The country was sparsely settled in that day, 
 and they had passed no house at which she could 
 have inquired. She might be on the wrong track, 
 and at any rate she was taking the poor, foolish lad 
 far out of his way, and he might not be able to get 
 back. 
 
 So she called him, and he came back to her, stand- 
 ing as before with his finger pointing to her face, 
 and crying out, " My ! you air purty ! " 
 
 " See here, Sim ! " said Susan, speaking loud, as 
 one is apt to do to a person of weak understanding, 
 " you must go back to your mother. You'll get lost." 
 
 " Goin' t' meetin' ? " queried Sim, again. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Come on ! '' he shouted, running ahead of her 
 horse. Two or three times Sukey tried to persuade 
 him to go back, but always with a like result. At 
 last they came to a steep hill up which Susan's horse 
 
62 ' The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 climbed with difficulty. Sim rushed up to the top of 
 the hill and waited for her. 
 
 As she came toward him he said, " Goin' f 
 meetin' ? " 
 
 " Yes," answered Susan, anxiously. 
 
 " See there ! " he cried. And he pointed into the 
 valley of Long Run, which lay before him. There 
 was the log meeting-house which was called the 
 " Long Run Baptist church," and there were innu- 
 merable horses and wagons hitched before it, and 
 seats arranged for a grove meeting. Sukey no 
 longer doubted her road. 
 
 " Sim, you're a good boy." 
 
 " You're purty ! " he said. " Goin' t' meetin ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " See there ! " and he pointed to the meeting- 
 house again. " Git up ! " So saying, he gave Susan's 
 horse a smart slap, which started him ahead, while 
 Sim disappeared down the hill in the direction 
 whence they had come. 
 
 On her way home Susan had the company of Jack 
 Potter. There was no one whose society she prized 
 more highly. And of course the road reminded Su- 
 san of Sim, and she told Jack about him, and in 
 turn Jack told her that Sim was a " simple " child, 
 
Simple Simon. 53 
 
 and that his mother was a widow, who Hved in a hol- 
 low near by. 
 
 When they came to the place where Sukey had 
 first met him, there stood Sim, apparently waiting 
 for her to pass on her return. He paid no attention 
 to Jack at all, but came round to the " off-side " of 
 Susan's horse and said, — 
 
 " Been t' meetin' ? " 
 
 "Yes," said Susan. 
 
 " You're purty." 
 
 " By crackey, you ain't such a fool as I thought 
 you were, Sim," broke out Jack. "You told the 
 truth that time, anyhow." 
 
 Sim understood this to be some sort of approval, 
 and he frisked round with delight. Susan tossed 
 him a coin, and he seized it and stuffed it into the 
 pocket of his ragged roundabout. Then he dropped 
 behind, but he followed Jack and Susan for miles, 
 until he stood upon the hillside overlooking the beau- 
 tiful Ohio River. When he had seen Sukey dis- 
 mount in Squire Smither's yard he turned back, sat- 
 isfied. 
 
 'it was three months later that Squire Smithers 
 stood by the " steps " or stile that crossed the fence 
 between his door-yard and the road, and saw coming 
 
64 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 toward him a lad running wildly and all out of 
 breath. He rushed up to Squire Smithers and 
 blurted out, — 
 
 '•' Where's the purty one ? '* 
 
 " Purty what?" said the Squire, half-perplexed and 
 half-amused. 
 
 " The purty one ; where's the purty one ? " 
 
 The boy's face was so full of distress that the 
 Squire, unable to divine what he meant, called Je- 
 mima Gray, the hired " help," and asked her if she 
 could tell what the boy wanted. 
 
 " No, no, not her, not her ! the purty one," cried 
 Sim. 
 
 " He don't think you fill the bill, Jemima," laughed 
 the Squire. 
 
 " Well, I 'low he's simple, anyhow," said Jemima. 
 
 At that moment Jack Potter, who was working for 
 the Squire, came up, and Sim rushed to him, crying, 
 "Where is she ? Where's the purty one ? " 
 
 "Squire," said Jack, " he means Susan." 
 
 "Yes," said Jemima, tartly, "you think they ain't 
 nobody good-lookin' but Susan. I 'low you and 
 him's both simple." 
 
 But at that moment Susan looked out of an upper 
 window, and Sim ended all controversy by rushing 
 
Simple Simon, 65 
 
 into the house and up the stairway, and presenting 
 himself with a face all contorted before Sukey. 
 
 " Come quick, mammy's sick. Come,'* and he 
 tugged at her dress. 
 
 As soon as Jack could saddle her horse, Sukey 
 jumped into the side-saddle, and then Sim having 
 hurriedly wrenched a long " water-sprout " from the 
 nearest apple-tree, sprung on behind and laid whip 
 so vigorously as to set the horse into a full gallop. 
 But Susan rode well, and there was no danger of her 
 falling off. " Jack," said the Squire, " you'd better 
 ride after Susan, and see that no harm happens." 
 
 Jack readily assented, and meeting the doctor on 
 the road, took him with him. 
 
 But no medicine could save Sim's mother. She 
 had a congestive chill, and though she recovered 
 from the first, there came a second the next day, and 
 that carried her off. She was buried at the public 
 expense, and Sim was sent to the county poor-house. 
 
 But in about a week afterwards Sim escaped and 
 brought up at Squire Smithers. And again he asked 
 for "the purty one." 
 
 " Stay here ! " he said. " Sim stay here." 
 
 It was hard to refuse him. The Squire said he 
 
66 . The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 might stay till the warden of the poor-house came for 
 him. 
 
 The warden came along in a day or two, but Sim 
 was nowhere to be found. After the warden had 
 gone he crept down out of the parlor chimney all 
 sooted over to the color of a chimney-sweep. 
 
 " Sim stay here ! " he said, dancing about Susan, 
 who finally persuaded her father to have the simple 
 fellow indentured to him. 
 
 Most feeble-minded people show some aptitude, 
 and Sim soon found his place in the kitchen. For 
 cooking he had a real talent, his only weakness being 
 a disposition to select the best that went out of the 
 kitchen for Susan's plate. So serviceable did he 
 become that even Jemima confessed that he was " a 
 rale handy sort of a little eejiot, and he would be a 
 putty tol'able sort of a boy ef on'y he wouldn't make 
 sech a extra fool of hisself about Susan." 
 
 Manifested an aptitude for just two things : he 
 could make himself *' handy" in the kitchen, and he 
 could swim. His dog-like faithfulness came in play 
 in cooking. But to do a thing he gave his whole 
 mind to that thing. No temptation to play diverted 
 him from his work. Jemima, the hired woman, ex- 
 plained it in her own way. 
 
Simple Simon, 67 
 
 " He hain't got but jest sense enough to take aholt 
 of one thing at a time, and he keeps a tight holt of 
 that. Most boys tries to think of sixty things to 
 wunst, but Sim hain't got no spar' thoughts to straggle 
 round." 
 
 As for swimming, the Ohio river lay right before 
 him, smooth and warm, and the other boys bathed 
 in it for hours every afternoon in summer. Sim 
 seemed to swim without much teaching. It came 
 natural to him as to a frog, so the other boys believed. 
 
 Jemima had her way of accounting for it. " His 
 head was light," she averred; " didn't weigh nothin'. 
 It was kind of windy inside," she 'lowed, " like as not, 
 and kep' him up like a life-pfeserv or what-you-may- 
 call-it." 
 
 This explanation pleased the boys, who were not 
 a little chagrined that a simpleton should swim so 
 much better than they. 
 
 Jack Potter worked as a hired man for Squire Smith- 
 ers. He was even more attached to Susan than Sim 
 was. You think, no doubt, that the Squire objected 
 to Jack because he was poor and only a hired man, 
 and that there must be a romance in the case. Noth- 
 ing of the sort. Society at the West was very simple 
 in those days, and nobody was fool enough to think 
 
68 The Schoolmaster^ s Stories. 
 
 that there was any disgrace involved in a man's earn- 
 ing an honest living by working for wages. 
 
 If Jack was poor he was also industrious, honest, 
 temperate, and of good disposition. Squire Smithers 
 knew that Susan might go farther and fare worse. 
 Jemima gave it as her opinion in a private way that 
 Susan would get the best of the bargain. " Jack was 
 a hard-working man and might better a took some- 
 body used to hard work, too. He'd find out some 
 day what 'twas to s'port a gal with Susan's high-flung 
 idees ! " 
 
 Jack's chief characteristic was his immense physi- 
 cal strength. He could lift a backlog bigger than 
 himself, and carry it bodily into the house. Once 
 Mrs. Smithers asked Jack to pound the ashes in her 
 ash-hopper. 
 
 " Pound them well, Jack. I want to make my lye 
 strong enough to bear an ^gg.^^ 
 
 So Jack pounded layer after layer of ashes into the 
 little-at-the-bottom and big-at-the-top ash-hopper. 
 When he was done, water was poured on the top. 
 But the ashes were so solidly packed that water 
 couldn't find its way down. Most of it dried up on 
 top. 
 
 For three weeks the water kept trying to penetrate 
 
Simple Simon, 69 
 
 these ashes. At last the lye began to soak through, 
 and to drop into the " dug-out " wooden trough be- 
 low. 
 
 As soon as enough had come through Jemima pro- 
 ceeded to try it, to see if it were strong enough to 
 bear an egg as large as a " fip," that is, to float an 
 ^gg so that a spot as large as an old-fashioned six- 
 and-a-quarter cent piece would show above the sur- 
 face. But to her surprise the ^gg floated around on 
 top of the lye as though it were of wood. 
 
 Jemima immediately reported that "that air lye 
 was strong enough to pack a backlog into the house, 
 any day." 
 
 As Jack and Sukey were to be married in the 
 spring, Jack thought necessary to make a little more 
 money than he was able to make at work by the 
 month. So he resolved to take a flat-boat load of 
 produce to New Orleans, and the Squire offered to 
 help him to a little capital for the enterprise. 
 
 So Jack bought a flat-boat at Cincinnati, and floated 
 it down to the mouth of Cherry Creek. Here it was 
 turned over and caulked. Then a roof was put on and 
 the boat was dropped down to Smithers' Landing, and 
 loaded with hay, onions, apples, and some other prod- 
 uce. 
 
70 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 The necessary hands were hired, and a young fellow 
 was engaged to go as cook. But on the very day that 
 Jack's boat was to start, the cook declined to go, and 
 Jack was obliged to supply his place. It happened, 
 however, that no one was to be had. Not that a skil- 
 ful cook was needed. 
 
 To fry fat pork and boil potatoes and coffee a da 
 flat-boat de Mississippi was not a difficult task. But 
 to find anybody on short notice who would do for the 
 place was hard, and a day's delay might cause the 
 boat to be caught in the ice before she could get out 
 of the Ohio. Jack needed all his hands to row, and to 
 spare one of them to do the cooking would reduce the 
 speed of the boat and increase the risk from ice. 
 
 As a last resort, he resolved to take Sim. But Sim 
 would not go. He was determined to stay by Susan. 
 Susan appreciated the necessity, and finally hit upon a 
 device to get the simple fellow to go. 
 
 " Sim," she said, " go and take care of Jack. If Jack 
 gets drowned, Susan will cry. Sim go and keep Jack. 
 Sim bring Jack home to Susan. Sim good boy. Susan 
 love Sim." 
 
 Slowly the dullard took in her words. At first he 
 looked at her ruefully. Then he began to understand 
 that she was putting a new duty upon him. Susan re- 
 peated more carefully,^- 
 
Simple Simon, 71 
 
 *^Sim can swim. Jack fall into the river, maybe. 
 Sim jump in, pull Jack out. Sim good boy. Sim come 
 back to Susan. Susan love Sim." 
 
 Then she patted him approvingly, and Sim jumped 
 up and down with pleasure, and cried out as he always 
 did when pleased, "Hurraih!" which made Jemima 
 cover her mouth with her apron in the endeavor to 
 smother her laughter. 
 
 "What an eejiot !" she cried to herself. 
 
 Sim followed Jack aboard, took his place at the fire- 
 place, and with some prompting from Jack, soon 
 learned to perform his duties acceptably. 
 
 But little did Susan imagine what a burden she was 
 putting on Jack. Sim dogged his steps by day and 
 night. If Jack stood watch himself on a particularly 
 bad night, Sim would stand out in the storm by the 
 steering oar with him lest he should be blown off the 
 deck of the boat. 
 
 When Jack went ashore Sim went also, to the sad 
 neglect of his duties. He followed Jack all over Mem- 
 phis one day, and excited the curiosity of the people 
 with whom the latter had business by his strange gri- 
 maces. The hands on the boat called him "Jack's 
 guardian angel." 
 
 When I was a boy nothing angered me so much 
 
J 2 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 as the geographies made in New England. They 
 had pictures of fiat-boats rowed by single oarsmen 
 who sat down to row. As if any child did not know 
 what a flat-boat was! And even in the last few 
 years a great Boston publishing house has issued a 
 juvenile in which Abraham Lincoln is represented as 
 handling a short flat-boat oar all by himself. How 
 Old Abe would have laughed at that picture ! How 
 many little stories he would have been reminded of ! 
 
 Now I wish you to understand that Jack Potter's 
 great flat-boat had long oars that were handled by 
 from two to four men apiece, who stood up on the 
 deck and walked round after the sweep of the oar as 
 they pushed it. 
 
 It was on this boat that Sim made his voyage to 
 New Orleans. One day the boat had broken the 
 blade of one of these great oars by running into a 
 drift-pile. The oar had been shipped and taken 
 aboard to be mended, while the boat floated along on 
 the swift current. 
 
 It was just then in what are called the " boils " of 
 the Mississippi. These are great rushing whirls in 
 the river which boil up as though some water mon- 
 ster was floundering below. I do not know what is 
 the scientific solution of the phenomenon. The flat- 
 
Simple Simon, 73 
 
 boatmen of old times used to believe that there was 
 no bottom beneath these " boils." They had 
 sounded with long lines, and had not been able to 
 find any bottom, probably because the lines had 
 floated the lead. 
 
 Now while Jack's men were minding the oar and 
 the boat was rapidly floating through the boils, the 
 skiff which was fastened to the stern of the boat be- 
 came loosened in some way and drifted away. A 
 simultaneous cry that the yawl was gone attracted 
 Jack's attention, and he forthwith declared his pur- 
 pose of swimming after it. 
 
 The men endeavored to dissuade him. They told 
 him that no man could swim in the boils, and they 
 besought him not to try it. But Jack knew his own 
 immense strength, and he pooh-poohed their non- 
 sense about the boils being bottomless. The skiff 
 was new and he was quite unwilling to lose it, and 
 besides it bore the name of " Susan," and the men 
 thought it a "bad sign "for it to float off, — in 
 which superstition Jack probably had some share. 
 At any rate, he avowed his intention to recapture 
 the skiff or " die a-trying." 
 
 But just at that moment Sim put his head up 
 above the hatchway, and seeing Jack about to plunge 
 
74 -2^^ Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 into the water where it looked so perilous, ran up 
 and caught hold of him, crying, " No, no ; Susan, 
 Susan ! " 
 
 Jack ordered the men to hold the boy while he let 
 himself over the side. He might have succeeded in 
 capturing the skiE, but this delay had given it time 
 to drift farther away in the eddies formed by the 
 boils. Jack had not swam thirty yards until he was 
 caught in one of these whirlpools and irresistibly 
 carried under. 
 
 "That's the last of Jack Potter,^' cried the old pilot, 
 for no man had ever been known to come up who 
 went down into a boil, nor had any man's body ever 
 been found when once it had been sucked'into one of 
 these whirlpools. 
 
 But, thanks to Jack's strength and undying per- 
 severance, he reached the surface at last, though the 
 men could see that he was all but utterly exhausted, 
 and likely to drift into another boil. 
 
 In the confusion the men had let go of Sim, who was 
 now tugging to throw the great oarsweep overboard. 
 The men caught his idea and pitched it over in a sort 
 of vain hope that it might reach the drowning man. 
 But Sim, not content with this, jumped after it. 
 
 The outer end of the long oar came so near to Jack 
 
Simple Simon, 75 
 
 that he grasped it feebly. In a moment the other 
 end, to which Sim clung, was caught in a violent eddy 
 and swung round so as to bring it near to the skiff. 
 
 Sim climbed into the skiff and propelled it as best 
 his unskilful hands could, toward Jack. 
 
 He reached him at last, but could not pull the ex- 
 hausted and fainting man into the boat. They were 
 drifting right into another boil, when Jack must go 
 down, as all the men could see plainly. 
 
 But Sim's faculties seemed suddenly awakened. 
 He appreciated the danger by intuition, and ran the 
 skiff-rope under Jack's arms and made a knot. 
 
 He did not finish it a moment too soon. Jack was 
 jedced under suddenly, and but for the rope must have 
 gone down forever. But Sim now paddled away for 
 the fiat-boat, and at last brought the skiff alongside, so 
 that the men could jump in and Kft the all but lifeless 
 Jack on board. 
 
 Sim was found to be badly bruised, but his joy knew 
 no bound, and he never was quite the same. The 
 shock had started his mental faculties into action. 
 
 When after two months more he stood before Susan 
 and pointed to Jack in exultation, crying, "Sim pull 
 him out, hurraih ! " Susan thought she could already 
 see the dawn of a brighter day for Sim. And after he 
 
76 
 
 The Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 went to live with Jack and Susan in their new home, 
 he improved greatly, so that though he was never re- 
 garded as entirely "bright," he grew to be a useful 
 man in his way. And he never forgot his devotion to 
 Susan, who was to the end of life his patron saint. 
 
VI. 
 
 kitty's forty. 
 
 * TT doesn't do men any good to live apart from 
 JL women and children. I never knew a boys' school 
 in which there was not a tendency to rowdyism. And 
 lumbermen, sailors, fishermen, and all other men that 
 live only with men, are proverbially a half-bear sort of 
 people. Frontiermen soften down when women and 
 children come — but I forget myself, it is the story you 
 want. 
 
 Burton and Jones lived in a shanty by themselves. 
 Jones was a married man, but finding it hard to sup- 
 port his wife in a down-east village, he had emigrated 
 to Northern Minnesota, leaving his wife under her 
 father's roof, until he should be able to " make a start." 
 He and Burton had gone into partnership and had 
 "pre-empted a town site " of three hundred and twen- 
 ty acres. 
 
 There were, perhaps, twenty families scattered 
 
78 The Schoolmasier's Stories, 
 
 sparsely over this town site at the time my story begins 
 and endSj for it ends in the same week in which it be- 
 gins. 
 
 The partners had disagreed, quarrelled, and divided 
 their interests. The land was all shared between them 
 except one valuable forty-acre piece. Each of them 
 claimed that piece of land, and the quarrel had grown 
 so high between them that the neighbors expected 
 them to " shoot at sight." In fact, it was understood 
 that Burton was on the forty-acre piece, determined to 
 shoot Jones if he came, and Jones had sworn to go 
 out there and shoot Burton, when the fight was post- 
 poned by the unexpected arrival of Jones' wife and 
 child. 
 
 Jones' shanty was not finished, and he was forced to 
 forego the luxury of fighting his old partner, in his ex- 
 ertions to make wife and baby comfortable for the 
 night. For the winter sun was surrounded by ^'sun- 
 dogs." Instead of one sun there were four, an occur- 
 rence not uncommon on this latitude, but one which 
 always bodes a terrible storm. 
 
 In his endeavor to care for wife and child, Jones was 
 molKfied a little, and half regretted that he had been 
 so violent about the piece of land. But he was deter- 
 mined not to be backed down, and he would certainly 
 have to shoot Burton or be shot himself. 
 
Kitty's Forty. 79 
 
 When he thought of the chance of being killed by 
 his old partner, the prospect was not pleasant. He 
 looked wistfully at Kitty, his two years' old child, and 
 dreaded that she would be left fatherless. Neverthe- 
 less, he wouldn't be backed down. He would shoot 
 or be shot. 
 
 While the father was busy cutting wood, and the 
 mother was busy otherwise, little Kitty managed to get 
 the shanty-door open. There was no latch as yet, and 
 her prying little fingers easily swung it back. A gust 
 of cold air almost took away her breath, but she caught 
 sight of the brown grass without, and the new world 
 seemed so big that the little feet were fain to try and 
 explore it. 
 
 She pushed out through the door, caught her breath 
 again, and started away down a path bordered by sere 
 grass and the dead stalks of the wild sunflower. 
 
 How often she had longed to escape from restraint 
 and paddle out into the world alone ! So out into the 
 world she went, rejoicing in her Hberty, in the blue sky 
 above and the rusty prairie beneath. She would find 
 out where the path went to, and what there was at the 
 end of the world ! What did she care if her nose was 
 blue with cold, and her chubby hands red as beets. 
 Now and then she paused to turn her head away from 
 
8o The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 a rude blast, a forerunner of the storm ; but having 
 gasped a moment, she quickly renewed her brave 
 march in search of the great unknown. 
 
 The mother missed her, and supposed that Jones, 
 who could not get enough of the child's society, had 
 taken the little pet out with him. 
 
 Jones, poor fellow, sure that the darling was safe 
 within, chopped away until that awful storm broke upon 
 him, and at last drove him, half-smothered by snow 
 and half-frozen with cold, into the house. When there 
 was nothing left but retreat, he had seized an armful of 
 wood and carried it into the house with him, to make 
 sure of having enough to keep his wife and Kitty from 
 freezing in the coming awfulness of the night, which 
 now settled down upon the storm-beaten and snow- 
 blinding world. 
 
 It was the beginning of that horrible storm in which 
 so many people were frozen to death, and Jones had 
 fled none too soon. 
 
 When once the wood was stacked by the stove, 
 Jones looked round for Kitty. He had not more than 
 inquired for her when father and mother each read in 
 the other's face the fact that she was lost in this wild, 
 dashing storm of snow. 
 
 So fast did the snow fall and so dark was the night, 
 
Kittys Forty, 8i 
 
 that Jones could not see three feet ahead of him. He 
 endeavored to follow the path, which he thought Kitty 
 might have taken, but it was buried in snow-drifts, 
 and he soon lost himself. 
 
 He stumbled through the drifts, calling out to Kitty 
 in his distress, but not knowing whither he went. 
 After an hour of despairing, wandering and shouting, 
 he came upon a house, and having rapped at the door, 
 he found himself face to face with his wife. 
 
 He had returned to his own house in his bewilder- 
 ment. 
 
 When we remember that Jones had not slept for 
 two nights preceding this one, on account of his mortal 
 quarrel with Burton, and that he had now been beating 
 against an arctic hurricane, and tramping through 
 treacherous billows of snow for an hour, we cannot 
 wonder that he fell over his own threshold in a state of 
 extreme exhaustion. 
 
 Happy for him that he did not fall bewildered on 
 the prairie, as many another poor wayfarer did on that 
 fatal night ! 
 
 As it was, his wife must needs give up the vain little 
 searches she had been making in the neighborhood of 
 the shanty. She had now a sick husband, with frozen 
 hands and feet and face to care for. Every minute 
 
82 TJie Schoolmaster's Stories, 
 
 the thermometer fell lower and lower, and all the heat 
 the little cook-stove in Jones' shanty could give would 
 hardly keep them from freezing. 
 
 Burton had stayed upon that forty-acre lot all day 
 waiting for a chance to shoot his old partner Jones. 
 He had not heard of the arrival of Jones' wife, and so 
 he concluded that his enemy had proved a coward and 
 had left him in possession, or else that he meant to 
 play him some treacherous trick on his way home. 
 
 So Burton resolved to keep a sharp lookout. But 
 he soon found that impossible, for the storm was upon 
 him in all its Winding fury. He tried to follow the 
 path, but he could not find it. 
 
 Had he been less of a frontierman he must have 
 perished there, within a furlong of his own house. 
 But in endeavoring to keep the direction of the path 
 he heard a smothered cry, and then saw something rise 
 up covered with snow and fall down again. He raised 
 his gun to shoot it, when the creature uttered another 
 wailing cry so human that he put down his gun and 
 went cautiously forw^ard. 
 
 It was a child ! 
 
 He did not remember that there was such a child 
 among all the settlers in Newtown. But he did not 
 stop to ask questions. He must, without delay, get 
 
Kitty's Forty. Z^ 
 
 himself and the child, too, to a place of safety, or both 
 would soon be frozen. 
 
 So he took the little thing in his arms and started 
 through the drifts. And the child put her little icy 
 fingers on Burton's rough cheek and muttered "Papa ! " 
 And Burton held her closer and fought the snow more 
 courageously than ever. 
 
 He found the shanty at last, and rolled the child in 
 a buffalo-robe, while he made a fire. Then when he 
 had got the room a little warm, he took the little thing 
 upon his knee, dipped her aching fingers in cold water, 
 and asked her what her name was. 
 
 " Kitty," she said. 
 
 "Kitty," he said; "and what else? " 
 
 "Kitty," she answered, nor could he find out any 
 more. 
 
 "Whose Kitty are you ?" 
 
 "Your Kitty," she said. For she had known her 
 father but that one day, and now she believed that 
 Burton was he. 
 
 Burton sat up all night and stuffed wood into his im- 
 potent little stove to keep the baby from freezing to 
 death. Never having had to do with children, he 
 firmly believed that Kitty, sleeping snugly under blan- 
 kets and buffalo-robes, would freeze if he should let 
 the fire subside in the least. 
 
84 The Schoolmaster's Stories. 
 
 As the storm prevailed with unabating fury the next 
 day, and as he dared neither to take Kitty out nor to 
 leave her alone, he stayed by her all day and stuffed 
 the stove with wood, and laughed at her droll baby 
 talk, and fed her on biscuit and fried bacon and 
 coffee. 
 
 On the morning of the second day the storm had 
 subsided. It was forty degrees cold, but knowing 
 somebody must be mourning Kitty for dead, he 
 wrapped her in skins, and with much difficulty reached 
 the nearest neighbor's house, suffering only a frost-bite 
 on his nose by the way. 
 
 "That child," said the woman to whose house he 
 had come, "is Jones'. I seed 'em take her outen the 
 wagon day before yesterday." 
 
 Burton looked at Kitty a moment in perplexity. 
 Then he rolled her up again, and started out, " travel- 
 ling like mad," the woman said, as she watched him. 
 
 When he reached Jones', he found Jones and his 
 wife sitting in utter wretchedness by the fire. They 
 v/ere both sick from grief, and unable to move out of 
 the house. Kitty they had given up for buried alive 
 under some snow-mound. They would find her when 
 spring should come and melt the snow-cover ofT. 
 
 When the exhausted Burton came in with his bundle 
 
Kitty s Forty, 85 
 
 of buffalo-skins, they boked at him with amazement. 
 But when he opened it and let out the little Kitty, and 
 said, — 
 
 "Here, Jones, is this yer Kitten?" Mrs. Jones 
 couldn't think of any thing better to do than to 
 scream. 
 
 And Jones got up and took his old partner's hand 
 and said, "Burton, ole fellow ! " and then choked up 
 and sat down and cried helplessly. 
 
 And Burton said, " Jones, ole fellow, you may have 
 that forty-acre patch. It come mighty nigh makin' 
 me the murderer of that little Kitty's father." 
 
 "No ! you shall take it yourself," cried Jones, "if I 
 have to go to law to make you." 
 
 And Jones actually deeded his interest in the forty 
 acres to Burton. But Burton transferred it all to 
 Kitty. 
 
 That is why this part of Newtown is called to-day 
 "Kitty's Forty." 
 
The Cellar Door Club. 
 
I. 
 
 THE STORY OF A FLUTTER-WHEEL. 
 
 WHAT queer places boys have of assem- 
 bling. Sometimes in one place, sometimes 
 in another. Hay-mows, river-banks, threshing-floors, 
 these were the old places of resort for country boys. 
 And nothing was so sweet to me, when I was- a boy, 
 as the newly cut clover-hay where I sat with two or 
 three companions, watching the barn swallows chat- 
 tering their incomprehensible gabble and gossip from 
 the doors of their mud houses in the rafters. And 
 what stories we told and what talks we had. In the 
 city who does not remember the old-fashioned cellar- 
 door, sloping down to the ground ? These were always 
 places of resort. I'm afraid there are many evil 
 things learned in these places of resort, but there 
 are also many good things. A boy's parents ought 
 to know whom he meets, but he must have company. 
 Tom Miller was the minister's son, and there was 
 
90 The Cellar Door Club, 
 
 a party of boys who met regularly on Parson Miller's 
 cellar-door. Mrs. Miller used herself to listen to the 
 stories they told, as she sat by the window above 
 them, though they were unconscious of her presence. 
 They were boys full of life and ambition, but they were 
 a good set of boys on the whole, and it was not till les- 
 sons were learned and work done that they met thus 
 on the cellar-door. They belonged to the same Sun- 
 day-school class, and besides were " cronies " in all 
 respects. There was Tom Miller, the minister's son, 
 who intended to be a minister himself, and Jimmy 
 Jackson, the shoemaker's boy, as full of fun and play- 
 fulness as a kitten, and poor Will Sampson who stam- 
 mered, and Harry Wilson, the son of a wealthy bank- 
 er, and a brave boy too, and John Harlan, the wid- 
 ow's son, pale and slender, the pet of all, and great, 
 stout Hans Schlegel, who bade fair to be a great 
 scholar. These half dozen were nearly always on 
 the cellar door for half an hour on Friday evenings, 
 when they happened to have a little more leisure than 
 on other evenings. 
 
 " I say, boys," said Hans, " I've got an idea." 
 " How strange it must seem to you," said Tom Mil- 
 ler; whereupon they all laughed, good-natured Hans 
 with the rest. 
 
The Story of a Flutter-wheeL 91 
 
 " Do let's hear it," said Harry ; " there has not 
 been an idea in this crowd for a month." 
 
 " Well," said Hans, " let's every fellow tell a story 
 here on the cellar-door, turn about on Friday even- 
 ings." 
 
 " All except m-m-me," stammered Sampson, who 
 was always laughing at his own defect; "I c-c-couldn't 
 g-g-get through be-be-fore midnight." 
 
 "Well," said Miller, "we'll make Will Sampson 
 chairman, to keep us in order.'* 
 
 They all agreed to this, and Sampson moved up 
 to the top of the cellar-door and said: "G-g-gentle- 
 men, th-th-this is th-th-the proudest m-m-moment of 
 my life. I'm president of the C-c-cellar-d-d-door-c- 
 club! M-m-many thanks! Harry Wilson will tell 
 the first st-st-story." 
 
 " Agreed ! " said the boys. After thinking a min- 
 ute, Harry began. 
 
92 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 HARRY WILSON'S STORY. 
 
 I will tell you a story that my father told me. In 
 a village in Pennsylvania, on the banks of the Schuyl- 
 kill river, there lived a wealthy man. 
 
 " Once upon a time," said Jimmy Jackson. 
 
 "B-be st-still! Come to order tk-th-there, Jack- 
 son," stammered the chairman, and the story 
 went on. 
 
 Yes, once upon a time, there lived a wealthy man 
 who had two sons. The father was very anxious to 
 make great men of them, or at least, educated men. 
 I think, or rather my father thinks, that their father 
 used to dream that one of these boys would grow to 
 be president, and that the other would be a member 
 of Congress, at any rate. But whilst his younger son 
 grew to be a good student, the other one was a good, 
 honest, industrious, and intelligent boy, who did not 
 much like books. His father intended to make him 
 a lawyer, and he got on well enough in Arithmetic and 
 Geography, but Grammar came hard, and when he 
 got into Latin he blundered dreadfully. He studied 
 to please his parents, and from a sense of duty, but 
 it mortified him greatly to think that he could not suc- 
 ceed as the other boys did. For you know it is hard 
 to succeed at any thing unless your heart is in it. 
 
The Story of a Flutter-wheel. 
 
 93 
 
 And so one night he sat down and cried to think he 
 must always be a dolt. His mother found him weep- 
 ing and tried to comfort him. She walked out in 
 the dusky evening with him and talked. But poor 
 David, for that was his name, was broken-hearted. 
 He had tried with all his might to get interested In 
 
 '' Hie, haec, hoc," but it was of no use. He said there 
 was something lacking in his head. ** And I'll never 
 amount to any thing, never ! Brother Joe gets his 
 lesson in a few minutes, and I can't get mine at all." 
 His mother did not know what to say. But she 
 only said that God fiad some use for everybody. 
 She knew that David was not wantin^f in intelligence. 
 
94 The Cellar Door Club, 
 
 In practical affairs he showed more shrewdness than 
 his brother. But his father had set his heart on mak- 
 ing him a scholar. That very day the teacher had 
 said to his father that it was no use. 
 
 " Your father," she said, " intends to take you from 
 school, and it is a great disappointment to him. 
 But we know that you have done your best, and you 
 must not be disheartened. If you were lazy, we 
 should feel a great deal worse. '^ 
 
 Just then they came to the orchard brook. Here 
 she saw in the dim light something moving in the 
 water. 
 
 "What is that, David? " she said. 
 " That's my flutter-wheel, and I feel like breaking 
 it to pieces." " Why ? " " Well, you see, all the boys 
 made little water-mills to be run by the force of the 
 stream. We call them 'flutter-wheels.' But I made 
 one so curious that it beat them all," he said. 
 
 " Show it to me, Davie," she said. And David 
 explained it to her, forgetting all about his unhappi- 
 ness in the pleasure of showing the little cog-wheels, 
 and the under-shot wheel that drove it. " And why 
 did you want to break it up ? " she asked. " Because, 
 mother, Sam Peters said that I should never be good 
 for any thing but to make flutter-wheels, and it is true. 
 
The Story of a Flutter-wheel. 95 
 
 I am afraid." " If you were a poor man's son, Davie, 
 you might be a good mechanic," said his mother. 
 
 That night Davie resolved to be a mechanic. " I 
 won't be a good-for-nothing man in the world. If I 
 can't be a learned professor, I may be a good car- 
 penter or a blacksmith. If I learn to make a good 
 horse-shoe, I'll be worth something." So the next 
 morning he asked his father's leave to enter a ma- 
 chine shop. His father said he might, and with all 
 the school-boys laughing at him, he took his tin-pail 
 with his lunch in it, and went into the shop each 
 morning. And now he began to love books, too. 
 He gathered a library of works on mechanics. 
 Every thing relating to machinery he studied. He 
 took up mathematics and succeeded. After a while 
 he rose to a good position in the shop. And he be- 
 came at last a great railroad engineer. He built 
 that great bridge at Blankville. 
 
 "Why," said John Harlan, " I thought your Un- 
 cle David built that." 
 
 " So he did/' said Harry. " My uncle was the boy 
 that could not learn Latin. But he wasn't above 
 honest work, and he tried to be useful." 
 
 " I suppose," said Tom Miller, " that God has use 
 for us all, boys. Perhaps Jimmy's father was as 
 
96 The Cellar Door Club, 
 
 much intended to serve God making shoes as mine 
 in preaching the Gospel. What a mistake it must 
 be to get into the wrong place, though." 
 
 "The m-m-meeting's adjourned," said the Presi- 
 dent. "Jimmy Jackson will be the sp-speaker at the 
 n-next m-m -meeting of the cellar-d-door-s-society." 
 
11. 
 
 THE wood-chopper's CHILDREN. 
 
 THE next Friday evening found all the members 
 of the Cellar-door-club in their places. Will 
 Sampson, the stammering " chairman," was at the top, 
 full of life and fun as ever. Jimmy Jackson, running 
 over with mischief, was by him, then came Tom Miller 
 and John Harlan, while Hans Schlegel and Harry 
 Wilson sat at the bottom. After a half hour spent in 
 general talk about school and plays, and such mis- 
 cellaneous topics as every gathering of boys knows 
 how to discuss, the " chairman " called out, 
 
 "Come t-to order! Th-th-the C-cellar-d-d-door 
 society is c-called to order. G-g-gentlemen, the Hon. 
 J-Jeems Jackson is the speaker f-for the evening. I 
 h-have the pl-pleasure of introducing him to you." 
 
 " No, you don't ! " said the shoemaker's son ; " don't 
 put it on so thick. If you want me to tell my yarn 
 along with the rest of you, why, I'm ready, but if you 
 call it a speech, you scare me out of my shoes, just 
 
9^ The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 like the man that tried to make a speech in the leg- 
 islature, but couldn't get any farther than ^ Mr. Speak- 
 er, I am in favor of cart-wheels and temperance.' 
 Or, like a boy I knew, who tried to declaim the speech 
 beginning: ^Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me 
 your ears ! ' and who got so badly confused on the 
 first line that he said, ' I'd like to borrow your ears ! ' " 
 
 This raised a laugh at the expense of Harry Wil- 
 son, who had broken down on that line, though he 
 did not make it as bad as Jimmy represented it. 
 
 " G-g-go on with your story ! " stammered the chair- 
 man, and Jackson proceeded. 
 
 JIMMY Jackson's story. 
 There lived in a country a long way off — it don't 
 matter where — a poor wood-chopper whose name 
 was — let's see — well, we will call him Bertram. It 
 wasn't the fashion to have two names in those days, 
 you know ; people couldn't afford it. He had a son, 
 whose name was Rudolph, and a daughter, Theresa. 
 The boy was twelve and the girl was eleven years 
 old. The wood-chopper earned but a scanty sub- 
 sistence, — that means a poor living, I believe, — and 
 the children soon learned to help him. Rudolph and 
 Theresa were hard-working and cheerful, and as they 
 
The Wood-chopper' s Children. 99 
 
 had never been rich, they did not know what it was 
 to be poor. That is, they thought they had plenty, 
 because they never had any more j and had no time 
 to sit down and see how nice it would be to have a 
 fine house, and be drawn in an elegant carriage. 
 But one day a tree fell on poor Bertram, and he was 
 carried home with a broken arm and leg. I suppose 
 if he had been rich enough to send for a great sur- 
 geon that lived in the city, only two leagues away, he 
 would have recovered without much trouble, but poor 
 men have to do without such attentions, and so poor 
 Bertram's arm and leg were so crooked that he could 
 not work. And now the burden fell heavily on the 
 poor wife, who had to gather berries and nuts in the 
 forests, which she loaded on the donkey, and carried 
 away to the city to sell. But the poor woman was 
 never very strong, and this extra tax was fast break- 
 ing her down. 
 
 The children did what they could, but it was not 
 much. After working hard all day, they amused 
 themselves in the evening by manufacturing little 
 articles out of nut shells. Rudolph had a sharp knife 
 which had been given him for showing a gentleman 
 the way out of the forest. But the circumstances of 
 the family had become so distressing that they had 
 
lOO The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 given up their evening employments, creeping sadly 
 away to bed after a frugal supper. 
 
 One day, as they were gathering nuts in the forest, 
 Rudolph said, " Sister, I fear that mother is break- 
 ing down. What can we do to help her ? The win- 
 ter is coming on, and times will be harder than ever." 
 
 " I'll tell you what, Rudolph," answered Theresa ; 
 " why can't we do something with your little nut-bas- 
 kets and nut-boats? I've heard say that the little city 
 children, who wear fine clothes and have plenty of 
 money, are very fond of such things. Let us send 
 all you have by mother to-morrow." 
 
 And so on the next morning the mother's basket 
 took the whole stock. When evening came the chil- 
 dren walked a quarter of a league down to the cross- 
 ing of the brook to meet her, and hear the fate of 
 their venture. But the poor woman could only tell 
 them that the work was admired, but that she had 
 not succeeded in selling any of it. That night they 
 went to bed more than ever disheartened. The next 
 day, their mother carried their trinkets to town again, 
 and when she returned they were delighted to know 
 that some of them had sold for a few pence, and that 
 a lady had sent an order for some mosses to make a 
 moss-basket with. 
 
The Wood-chopper's Children, loi 
 
 "We'll make the basket ourselves," exclaimed Ru- 
 dolph, and the next day they gathered the mosses, 
 and Rudolph and his sister worked nearly all night 
 framing a basket of twigs, and fitting in the different 
 colored mosses. What was their delight when they 
 learned that the lady had paid a good price for the 
 basket. 
 
 It was still up-hill work to live. Sometimes the 
 trinkets sold and sometimes they did not. But Ru- 
 dolph kept whitding away, and his sister soon be- 
 came a good whittler, too. Besides, she often sewed 
 little pin-cushions in the nut-shells, and did other 
 things by which her little brown fingers were quite 
 as useful as Rudolph's. But often they were discour- 
 aged by complete failure to sell. 
 
 There was a fair to take place some time later, and 
 Rudolph and Theresa worked hard making swinging 
 baskets and nut-shell boats for the fair. And as 
 the poor mother was fairly broken down, and could 
 not go to the city, they had not to pick berries, but 
 could spend all their time making their little articles. 
 They even made little faces out of the nut-shells. 
 At last came the day of the fair ; and, alas ! the poor 
 mother was still sick, while the father was not able 
 to move out of his chair for rheumatism. This was 
 
I02 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 a sad disappointment, but Rudolph had often been 
 to the city with his mother, and he resolved to take 
 Theresa and go himself. As the food was out. the 
 parents could not refuse, and the two children 
 climbed up on the donkey and set out. It was a 
 wearisome and anxious day to the parents. At last, 
 when evening came, there came no returning chil- 
 dren. But an hour after dark the donkey stopped 
 before the door, and Rudolph and his sister came 
 joyfully in to tell the day's adventures. Very happy 
 were the parents to learn of their complete success. 
 And now the children went regularly to the weekly 
 markets or fairs, and had a stall of their own. Their 
 constant whittling made them more and more skilful, 
 and their frinkets were soon much sought after. 
 They were able to buy a little gold and silver, and 
 soon learned to inlay their nut-shell snuff-boxes and 
 wooden jewel-cases, so as to make them very beau- 
 tiful. And as the wood-chopper grew better he was 
 able to do the rougher work of preparing the wood 
 for them. And the money they realized was more 
 than the wood-chopper was ever able to make in his 
 best days. After a while some wood-carver's tools 
 helped Rudolph to do still more curious work. And 
 he now has a shop in town. Theresa prepares his 
 
The Wood-chopper's Childreft, 103 
 
 drawings and patterns for him, and does the staining 
 and moss-work, and the firm is always known as The 
 Wood Chopper's Children. If anybody wants a 
 moral to the story they can furnish it themselves. 
 
 " I suppose the moral is, that everybody can do 
 something if he tries," said Miller. 
 
 " I s-s-suppose it's b-b-bed-time," said the chair- 
 man, and the boys adjourned. 
 
III. 
 
 THE BOUND BOY. 
 
 ON the third Friday evening the boys came 
 together in some uncertainty in regard to who 
 was to be the story-teller. But Will Sampson, the 
 stammering president of the club, had taken care 
 to notify John Harlan, the widow's son, that he 
 was to tell the story. If there was any general 
 favorite it was John ; for while his poverty excited 
 the sympathy of all, his manliness and generous- 
 ness of heart made everybody his friend, and so, 
 when Sampson got the boys quiet, he announced: 
 '' G-g-gentlemen of the order of the c-c-cellar-door, 
 the story-teller for th-the evening is our friend Har- 
 lan. P-p-please c-come forward to the t-top, Mr. 
 Harlan." 
 
 " I say, Hurrah for Harlan 1 '^ said Harry Wilson, 
 and the boys gave a cheer. 
 
 " Give us a good one, John," said mischievous 
 Jimmy Jackson. 
 
The Bound Boy. -105 
 
 " Order ! '^ said the chairman. " Mr. Harlan has 
 the fl-floor, — the c-c-cellar-door, I mean. Be q-quiet, 
 J-J-Jackson, or I'll reprimand you severely.'' 
 
 " I'm perfectly quiet," said Jackson. " Haven't 
 spoken a word for an hour." 
 
 JOHN Harlan's story. 
 
 Well, boys, I don't know that I can do better 
 than tell you the story of one of my mother's old 
 school-metes. His name was Samuel Tomkins — 
 
 " Couldn't you give your hero a prettier name ? " 
 said Jackson; but the president said " order," and 
 the story went on. 
 
 He lived in one of the counties bordering on the 
 Ohio river. It was a rough log cabin in which his 
 early life was passed. He learned to walk on an 
 uneven puncheon floor ; the walls were " chinked " 
 with buckeye sticks, and the cracks daubed with 
 clay, and a barrel, with both ends knocked out, 
 finished off the top. His father had emigrated from 
 Pennsylvania, and was what they call in that country 
 a "poor manager." He never got on well, but eked 
 out a living by doing day's works, and hunting and 
 fishing. But Samuel's mother was a woman of edu- 
 cation, and had just given him a good start, when 
 
io6 The Cellar Door Club, 
 
 she died. He was then but eight years of age. A 
 few months later his father died of a congestive chill, 
 and little Sammy was thrown on the world. He 
 was indentured to old Squire Higgins. The Squire 
 was a hard master; and in those days a bound boy 
 was not much better off than a slave, any how. Up 
 early in the morning " doing chores," running . all 
 day, and bringing the cows from the pasture in the 
 evening, he was kept always busy. The terms of his 
 indenture obligated the Squire to send him to school 
 three months in the winter; and it was a delightful 
 time to him when he took his seat on the backless 
 benches of the old log school-house, with its one 
 window, and that a long low one, and its wide old 
 fireplace. He learned to "read, write, and 
 cypher " very fast. And in the summer time, when 
 he was employed in throwing clods off the corn after 
 the plough, he had only to go once across the field 
 while the plough went twice. By hurrying, he could 
 get considerable time to wait at each alternate row. 
 This time he spent in studying. He hid away his 
 book in the fence-corner, and by concealing himself 
 a few minutes in the weeds while he waited for the 
 plough, he could manage to learn something in a 
 day. 
 
The Bound Boy. lo? 
 
 After he grew larger the Squire failed to send him 
 to school. When asked about it, he said, "Wal, I 
 'low he knows a good deal more'n I do now, an' 
 'taint no sort o' use to learn so much. Spiles a boy to 
 fill him shock full." But Sammy was bent on learn- 
 ing, any how ; and in the long winter mornings, before 
 day, he used to study hard at such books as he could 
 get. 
 
 " I never seed sich a chap," old Mrs. Higgins would 
 say. " He got a invite to a party last week, and my 
 old man tole him as how he mout go ; but, d'ye b'lieve 
 it? he jist sot right down thar, in that air chimney- 
 corner, and didn't do nothin' but steddy an' steddy all 
 the whole blessed time, wdiile all the other youngsters 
 wuz a frolickin'. It beats me all holler." 
 
 But the next winter poor Sam had a hard time of it. 
 The new school-master, who was hired because he was 
 cheap, knew very little ; and when Sam got into trou- 
 ble with his ^*sums," and asked the school-master 
 about them, he answered, "Wal, now, Sam, I hain't 
 cyphered no furder 'n ' reduction,' and I can't tell you. 
 But they's a preacher over in Johnsonville a-preachin' 
 and a teachin' school. He is a reg'lar college feller, 
 and I reckon he knows single and double rule of three, 
 and all the rest." 
 
io8 The Cellar Door Club, 
 
 Sam coaxed the Squire to let him have old " Blaze- 
 face," the blind mare, to ride to Johnsonville, three 
 miles off, the next mO'rning, if he would promise to be 
 back "on time to begin shuckin' corn bright and 
 airly." And before six o'clock he hitched old Blaze in 
 front of " Preacher Brown's " door. When he 
 knocked, Mr. Brown was making a fire in the stove, 
 and he was not a little surprised to see a boy by the 
 door in patched blue-jeans pantaloons that were too 
 short, and a well-worn "round-a bout " that was too 
 tight. He looked at the boy's old arithmetic and 
 slate in surprise. 
 
 " If you please, sir," said Sam, " I'm Squire Hig- 
 gins' bound boy. I want to learn somethin', but I 
 can't go to school ; and if I could, 'twouldn't amount 
 to much, because the master don't know as much as 
 I do, even. I got stalled on a sum in cube root, an' 
 I come down here to get you to help me out, for I'm 
 bound to know how to do every thing there is in the 
 old book j and I've got to be back to begin work in 
 an hour." 
 
 The minister shook him by the hand, and sat 
 down cheerfully, and soon put daylight through the 
 *•' sum." Then Sam got up, and feeling down in the 
 bottom of his pocket, he took out a quarter of a dol- 
 
The Bound Boy, 109 
 
 lar. " Would that pay you, sir ? It^s all I've got, 
 and all I will get in a year, I guess. I hope it's 
 enough." 
 
 " Keep it ! keep it ! " said Mr. Brown, brushing 
 away the tears ; " God bless you, my boy, we don't 
 charge for such work as that. I'd like to lend you 
 this History of England to read. And come over 
 any evening, and I'll help you, my brave fellow." 
 
 One evening in every week the bound boy rode 
 old Blaze over to the minister's house, and rode 
 back after eleven o'clock, for he and the parson 
 came to be great friends. The next year Mr. Brown 
 threatened the old Squire wdth the law for his viola- 
 tion of his part of the terms of the indenture, and 
 forced him to release Sam, who was eighteen now, 
 from any further service. He dug his way through 
 
 college, and is now Professor of Mathematics in • 
 
 University. The old Squire, when he hears of Pro- 
 fessor Tomkins' success, always chuckles, and says, 
 " You don't say, now ! Wal, he used to feed my 
 hogs." 
 
 "We'll adj-j-journ with three cheers for Harlan," 
 said Sampson. And they gave them. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE PROFLIGATE PRINCE. 
 
 FRIDAY evening next after the one on 
 which John Harlan told his story, it rained; 
 so the club did not meet. But they came to- 
 gether on the following Friday evening, and it was 
 decided that Hans Schlegel should tell the story. 
 
 " Come, Schlegel," said Harlan, " you must know 
 a good many, for you are always studying big Ger- 
 man books. Tell us one of the stories that .those old 
 German fellows, with jaw-breaking names, have to 
 tell." 
 
 " Yes," said Jackson, " tell us about Herr Johan- 
 nes Wilhelm Frederich Von Schmitzswartsschriekel- 
 versamanarbeitfrelinghuysen ! " 
 
 Jimmy's good natured raillery raised a hearty 
 laugh, and Hans joined in with great gusto. 
 
 " I think," said Harry Wilson, ''' Schlegel can 
 make a better story than any of those old fellows, 
 whose names take away your breath when you pro- 
 nounce them. Tell us one of your own, Hans." 
 
The Profligate Prince. m 
 
 " D-d-d-do just as you p-p-please, Sch-sch — " 
 but the stammering chairman fairly broke down in 
 trying to pronounce the name, and the boys all had 
 another laugh. 
 
 '' Really, gentlemen," said Schlegel, " I should 
 be delighted to please you, but as you have asked me 
 to tell you a story that I've read in German, and to 
 tell you one of my own make, and to do just as I 
 please, I fear I shall be like the man who tried first 
 to ride, and then to carry his donkey to please the 
 crowd. But, I think I can fulfil all three requests. 
 I read a story in Krummacher some time ago, and I 
 have partly forgotten it. Now, if I tell you this 
 story, partly translating from the German as I 
 remember it, and partly filling up the story myself, I 
 shall do as I please, and gratify you all." 
 
 " Good," said Jackson ; " takes Schlegel to make 
 a nice distinction. Go on with the story." 
 
 THE STORY. 
 
 Hagael was the name of the son of an oriental 
 prince. He was carefully educated by command of 
 his father, and grew up in the valley of the wise men. 
 What that is, I cannot tell you, for Herr Krum- 
 macher did not deign to tell me. At last, when he 
 
112 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 came to be a young man, his father thought best to 
 have him travel, that he might know something of 
 other people besides his own. For people who stay 
 at home always, are apt to think every thing strange 
 that differs from what they have been accustomed to. 
 Thus it is that English-speaking people, where knowl- 
 edge is limited, think that German names _ are 
 uncouth, when it is only the narrowness of their own 
 culture that makes them seem so. (The boys all 
 laughed at Hans' good-natured hit ) 
 
 Now, in the country in which Hagael lived, they 
 didn't send young men to Europe, as we do, to 
 complete their education by travelling at lightning 
 speed over two or three countries, and then coming 
 back to talk of their travels. But in that country, 
 they sent them to Persia to live awhile, that they 
 might study the manners and customs of the people. 
 So Hagael came into Persia. He was allowed every 
 liberty, but his old tutor, Serujah, followed him 
 without his knowledge, and watched his course. 
 
 When Hagael reached the great city, he was 
 dazzled with its splendors. The signs of wealth, the 
 excitements of pleasure, and the influence of compan- 
 ions were too much for him. He saw the crowds of 
 pleasure-seekers, he was intoxicated with music, he 
 
The Profligate Prince, 113 
 
 was charmed with the beauty and conversation of 
 giddy women. He forgot all the lessons of Serujah. 
 He forgot all his noble resolutions. Days and nights 
 were spent in pleasure and dissipation. In vain 
 Serujah looked for any signs of amendment. He 
 was a "fast" young man, fast because he was 
 going down hill. 
 
 One day, as he wandered in the pleasure gardens 
 of Ispahan with his dissolute companions, he beheld 
 his old master, Serujah, dressed as a pilgrim, with 
 staff in hand, hurrying past him. " Whence come 
 you, and whither do you journey?" cried out the 
 young prince to Serujah. "I do not know where I 
 am going," answered Serujah. " What ! " said 
 Hagael, in astonishment, " have you left home and 
 gone on a pilgrimage, and yet do not know where 
 you are going?" "Oh, yes," said Serujah, "I just 
 go here and there, taking the road that seems to be 
 the pleasantest, or that suits my fancy." " But 
 where will you bring up at this rate? Where will 
 such travelling lead you ? " asked Hagael. " I do not 
 know. That matters not to me," said the wise man. 
 
 Then Hagael turned to his companion and said, 
 " See ! this man was once full of wisdom. He was 
 the guide of my youth. But his reason has departed, 
 
114 ^^^ Cellar Door Club, 
 
 and now, poor lunatic, he is wandering over the 
 earth not knowing where he is going. How has the 
 wise man become a fool." 
 
 Serujah came up to the young prince, and taking 
 his knapsack from his back threw it upon the ground. 
 " You have spoken rightly," he said. " Hagael, I 
 once led you, and you followed me. Now, I follow 
 where you lead. I have lost my road, and forgotten 
 where I am going. So have you. You set me the 
 example. You are wandering round wthout pur- 
 pose. Which is the greater fool, you or I ? I have 
 forgotten my destination. You have forgotten your 
 high duties as a prince, and your manhood." 
 
 Thus spoke the wise man, and Hagael saw his 
 folly. Boys, my story is done. May we none of us 
 lose our road, or forget where we are going. 
 
 The boys felt a little serious over this, and broke 
 up with less joking than usual. 
 
V. 
 
 THE YOUNG SOAP-BOILER. 
 
 IT was a mild evening in the early fall, when 
 the boys got together for the next story, 
 which of course fell to the lot of Tom Miller, the 
 minister's son, whom the boys familiarly called 
 "The Dominie." No boy in the cellar-door club 
 was more obliging to his friends, more forgiving 
 to those who injured him, than " The Dominie," 
 and none was more generally loved. But Tom had 
 some strong opinions of his own. He was a believer 
 in the dignity of work, and when he wanted a little 
 spending money, would take a saw and cut wood on 
 the side-walk, without any regard to some of the 
 stilted fellows, who called him wood-sawyer. He 
 was given to helping his mother, and did not mind 
 having the boys catch him in the kitchen when his 
 mother was without "help." If anybody laughed 
 at him he only replied, " There is nothing I am 
 more proud of than that I am not afraid to be useful." 
 
ii6 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 This independence, this utter contempt for the sneers 
 of others when he was right, made the boys look for 
 something a little peculiar when Tom should come 
 to his story. 
 
 "G-g-entlemen ! this c-c-cellar-door society will 
 come to order. Tom Miller, the dominie — " 
 
 "The wood-sawyer? " said Jackson, good-naturedly. 
 
 " Y-yes, the w-wood-sawyer, the f-fearless reformer, 
 the b-b-believer in hard work, the bravest member of 
 the c-cellar-door cl-club, has the slanting floor, the 
 cellar-door itself, and I hope he will st-st-stand by 
 his colors, and give us a story that has the meanest 
 kind of work in it, made honorable by d-d-dig-dig- 
 nity of character." I think Sampson stammered a 
 little on "dig-dig" just for the fun. But the boys 
 all agreed to his request and so they heard 
 
 TOM miller's story. 
 
 My story, boys, shall be what you ask. I shall 
 call it "The Young Soap-Boiler," for I suppose 
 you'll admit that boiling soap is about as unpleasant 
 work as there is. 
 
 "Touched bottom that time," interposed Harry 
 Wilson. 
 
 Well, the boy that I'm going to tell about was 
 
The Young Soap-boiler, 117 
 
 Dudley Crawford. With a cheery eye and voice, a 
 quick eye, a quicker hand and a fleet foot, he was a 
 great favorite on the play-ground. If there was a 
 weak boy, whom the others imposed upon, Dudley 
 was always his fast friend, and the mean fellows who 
 make up for their cowardice toward boys of their 
 size by "picking'' at little fellows or green boys, 
 had always a wholesome fear of Dudley, though I do 
 not think he ever struck one of them. But his fear- 
 less, honest eye cowed them, and I am sure he would 
 have struck hard if it had been necessary to protect 
 the poor little fellows who kept under his wing. 
 The boys called them " Dud's chickens." 
 
 There was one boy in the school, Walter Whitta- 
 ker, who had a special desire to be on good terms 
 with Dudley. Walter's father had gotten rich during 
 the war, and Walter had a special fondness for 
 being genteel. He wore gloves, and kept his boots 
 brighter than there was any occasion for. He was 
 not much of a scholar, though older than Dudley. 
 But he was fond of calling young Crawford his 
 friend, because Dudley's father was a rich and 
 talented lawyer. 
 
 At last, there came a financial crash that sent all 
 of Mr. Crawford's half-million of dollars to the 
 
ii8 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 winds. He was in feeble health when it came, and 
 the loss of his property hastened his death. The 
 very same " panic " left Whittaker poor also. But 
 the two boys took it very differently. Whittaker 
 looked as crestfallen as if he had committed a crime. 
 Dudley mourned the loss of his father, but held up 
 his head bravely under the sudden poverty. Whit- 
 taker looked around for a "situation." But the 
 times were hard, and situations were not to be had. 
 Every clerk that could be dispensed with was sent 
 away, and besides, merchants do not like to employ 
 a fellow who wears gloves and looks afraid of soiling 
 his hands. Dudley had his mother to support, and 
 looked about bravely for work. But no work was 
 to be had. He tried every thing, as it seemed, 
 until at last he asked stern old Mr. Bluff, who owned 
 half a dozen factories of different kinds. 
 
 " You want work, do you, young man ? I s'pose 
 you want to keep books or suthin' o' that sort. I 
 never saw such a lot o' fellers askin' for work and 
 afraid to dirty their fingers." 
 
 " I'll do any honest work by which I can earn my 
 bread, without being dependent on friends." 
 
 " Any honest work, will you ? I'll make you back 
 out of that air. I'll bet you won't begin where I did." 
 
The Young Soap-boiler. 119 
 
 " Try me, sir, and see." ^ 
 
 "Well, then, I'll give you good wages to go into 
 my soap factory next Monday morning. Ha ! Ha ! 
 that's honest work ; but fellers of your cloth don't 
 do that sort of honest work." 
 
 "/will, sir." 
 
 Mr. Bluff was utterly surprised, but he gave Dudley 
 the situation, saying that he reckoned the smell of 
 soap-grease would send him out. 
 
 Dudley hardly knew what to make of his own 
 boldness. But he only told his mother that he had 
 a situation with Mr. Bluff, and that he did not know 
 the precise nature of his duties. He was not 
 ashamed of his work, but afraid of giving her pain. 
 
 Monday morning he went early to the soap fac- 
 tory, stopping at the tailor's on the way, and getting 
 a pair of blue overalls that he had ordered. It must 
 be confessed that the smell of the factory disgusted 
 him at first, but he soon became interested. He saw 
 that brains were used in soap-making. He became 
 more and more interested as he saw how accurate 
 some of the chemical processes were. He soon 
 learned to cut the great blocks of hard soap with 
 wires; he watched with eager interest the use of col- 
 oring matters in making the mottled soaps, and he 
 
I20 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 soon became so skilful that surly Mr. Bluff pro- 
 moted him to some of the less unpleasant parts of the 
 work. 
 
 But there was much talk about it at first Some 
 of the young ladies who had been useless all their 
 lives, and who had come to think that uselessness 
 was necessary to respectability, were "surprised 
 that Dudley Crawford should follow so low a trade." 
 But those very people never once thought it disgrace- 
 ful in Walter Whittaker to be a genteel loafer, living 
 off his father's hard-earned salary, and pretending 
 that he was. looking for a situation. And I will not 
 be too hard on Whittaker. I think if he could 
 have had a situation in which he could do nothing, 
 and be paid well for it, he would have been de- 
 lighted. But he shunned Dudley. Partly because he 
 was afraid of compromising his own respectability, 
 and partly because he had sense enough to see that 
 Dudley's honest eyes looked through him, and saw 
 what a humbug he was. 
 
 After a year Dudley's father's estate was settled, 
 and owing to an unexpected rise in some of the 
 property, it was found that the debts would all be 
 paid, and a small balance be left for the family. It 
 was but a small amount, but it enabled Dudley to 
 
The Young Soap-boiler, 121 
 
 lay aside his blue overalls, and return to the old 
 school again. Dr. Parmlee, the principal, was 
 delighted to have such a good pupil back again. 
 Whittaker came back about the saftie time, and the 
 very first day he whispered to some of the boys that 
 Dudley smelled of soap-grease. The boys laughed 
 thoughtlessly, as boys are apt to do, and passed the 
 poor joke round. Dudley maintained the respect of 
 the school in general, but there was a small clique, 
 who never knew their lessons, but who prided them- 
 selves on being genteel dunces. These folks used to 
 talk about the soap-grease, even in Dr. Parmlee's 
 presence ; but the Doctor quietly retorted that if 
 Crawford's hands smelled of soap-grease, that was 
 better than to have soap-grease inside his head and 
 pomatum on the outside. They were a little more 
 modest after this, but they could not forbear allu- 
 sions that kept Dudley under fire. His mother, who 
 was very proud of her son's independence, could not 
 but feel sorry that he was subject to such perse- 
 cutions. " Ah, mother,'' he would say, " the thing 
 that I am proudest of in my life is, that I spent a year 
 in Bluff's soap factory. Do not think that I am 
 annoyed at the barkings of lap-dogs." 
 
 At last came the day of graduation. Dudley lead 
 
122 21ie Cellar Door Club. 
 
 the class. There was a great crowd of fine people. 
 The last speech of all on the programme was " Hon- 
 est Work Honorable — Dudley Crawford." With a 
 characteristic manliness he stood up bravely for 
 work. So fine were his arguments, so undaunted his 
 bearing, that the audience were carried away. Dr. 
 Parmlee took off his spectacles to wipe his eyes, 
 Dudley's mother could not conceal her pleasure. 
 " Franklin's hands had printers' ink on them," he 
 said, "but they were shaken by princes and savans, 
 — the lightning did not despise them. Garibaldi's 
 fingers were soiled with candle-grease, but they have 
 moulded a free nation. Stephenson's fingers were 
 black with coal, and soiled with machine oil of a 
 fireman's work, but they pointed out highways to 
 commerce and revolutionized civilization. There 
 are those " (Whittaker and his set looked crestfallen 
 here ("who will gladly take the hand of worthless 
 loafers, or of genteel villains " (here certain ladies 
 looked down), "but who would not have dared 
 shake hands with Franklin, the printer, with Gari- 
 baldi, the tallow-chandler, with Stephenson, the 
 stoker. But before God and right-thinking men 
 there are no soiled hands but guilty hands or idle 
 ones." 
 
The Yotmg Soap-boiler, 123 
 
 When he sat down, others beside his mother shed 
 tears, and good Dr. Parmlee shook his pupil's hand 
 in sight of the audience, but the applause was so 
 great that nobody could hear what he said. And the 
 next day a note came from the chief editor of a lead- 
 ing paper, saying that one who believed enough in 
 labor to carry out his principles in his life, would 
 make an earnest advocate of them. He therefore 
 tendered Mr. Crawford a prominent place on the 
 editorial staff of his paper. 
 
 "P-pretty well done, Dominie," stammered Will 
 Sampson. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE shoemaker's SECRET. 
 
 ALL things have an end. Among other 
 things that had an end was the fine sum- 
 mer weather. Many other things came to an end 
 with it. Grass, flowers, and leaves came to 
 an end. Chirping of katydids came to an end, and 
 chattering of swallows and songs of robins. (Thus 
 does God remind us that our summer of life is pass- 
 ing and that we too must come to an end. Doubt- 
 less like the flowers and the leaves we shall have a 
 new life in the spring.) And with the summer 
 ended the cellar-door club, like all other out-door 
 things that could not stand the frost. The boys 
 understood that their last meeting had come. But 
 Will Sampson, the stammering chairman, was to tell 
 his story, and though the cold evening made them 
 button up their coats, they determined to have one 
 more good time together. And so with many a 
 merry joke they took their places for what Jimmy 
 
The Shoemaker^ s Secret 125 
 
 Jackson called the " inclined plane of social enjoy- 
 ment." Tom Miller got up under the window and 
 called the meeting to or3er, announcing that Mr. 
 Sampson would tell the story for the evening. 
 
 "I d-don't know about th-that," said Will. 
 " You s-s-see, b-boys, if I tell it I shall have to d-do it 
 b-by fits and starts. If you w-want a s-story told 
 straight ahead, g-g-get somebody whose tongue w-will 
 w-wag when they want it to. If you want a y-yarn 
 j-j-jerked out, I am your man." 
 
 " We will take it jerked or any other way you 
 choose. Will," s-aid Miller. " We have had enough 
 sweet-meats, and would not object to gherkins for a 
 change." I want to say just here that patience and 
 self-control would have cured Sampson of his stam- 
 merings. There is no excuse for anybody going 
 through the world with such a defect, when there 
 are so many instances of the victory of a strong and 
 patient resolution over it. I shall give the story 
 here as if he had spoken it smoothly. 
 
 WILL Sampson's story. 
 
 In a country a long way off — I don't care to tell 
 you the name of it for fear I should make some mis- 
 take in regard to its geography or history or manners, 
 
126 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 and besides I don't think it's anybody's business just 
 where a story happened — in a country a long way 
 off — perhaps that country never existed, except in 
 somebody's head, who knows ? Besides, a country 
 that is in your head is just as good as one that is on 
 the map. At least it's as good for a story. Well, 
 in this country there was a village known as_ the 
 village of shoemakers, because nearly all the people 
 made shoes. Peg, peg, peg, could be heard from 
 one end of it to the other, from morning till night. 
 It was a perfect shower of hammers. Into this town 
 came one day a peasant lad of twelve years of age, 
 with a blue blouse and a queer red flannel cap. He 
 had travelled many a weary mile, and he asked at 
 every shop that he might learn the shoemakers' trade. 
 At last he was taken into the shop of a hard master, 
 who was accustomed to beat his boys severely. But 
 when the master went out, the new boy in the red 
 flannel cap did not throw bits of leather about as the 
 rest did, but attended to his work and said nothing, 
 even when the leather was thrown at his own red 
 cap. And somehow he always got more work done 
 than the rest. And the master never beat Hugo, 
 the boy in the red flannel cap. The other boys said 
 it was because of the charm that he wore round his 
 
The Shoemake/s^ Secret, 127 
 
 neck. For Hugo wore an old copper coin sus- 
 pended like a school-boy's medal. The master paid a 
 little something for extra work, and for some reason, 
 the boys said on account of his charm, Hugo always 
 had more than the rest. He did not spend it, but 
 once a year a man with a red flannel cap like Hugo's 
 appeared and received all the boy's pay for over- 
 work, and then went away. The boys made up their 
 minds that Hugo had some sort of witchcraft in his 
 copper coin. After some years his apprenticeship 
 expired, and Hugo became a journeyman, working in 
 the same quiet way and doing more work than any 
 other man in the village, though he did not work 
 any faster. Meantime several of his brothers, each 
 with the same quiet way, had appeared, and sat down 
 to work in the same shop. Each of them wore the 
 red flannel cap with a tassel, and each of them had a 
 copper coin about his neck. Hugo had disappeared 
 for a few days once, and had brought back a wife. 
 His brothers lived in his house. Soon he set up a 
 shop. As the other shoemakers were afraid of his 
 charm, he had neither apprentice nor journeyman 
 except his brothers. Fortunately there were no less 
 than ten of them, all with red flannel caps and blue 
 blouses, and wearing copper coins about their necks. 
 
128 The Cellar Door Club. 
 
 But Hugo's shop turned out more than any other. 
 The dealers over the border, when there was an 
 order to be quickly filled, always said " Send to 
 Hugo, he wears a charm.'*' 
 
 At last there came a war. The king of the coun- 
 try in which the " village of shoemakers " was, sent 
 a herald into the town, who proclaimed that if the 
 village would furnish a certain number of shoes for 
 the army by a given day, the young men should be 
 exempt from conscription, but that if the village 
 failed, every man in the town, young and old, should 
 be marched off into the army. There was a great 
 cry, for the task appeared to be an impossible one. 
 Whether it was a superstitious reverence for Hugo's 
 charm, or that in trouble they naturally depended 
 on him, certain it is that the crowd by common con- 
 sent gathered before the shop-door of the silent shoe- 
 maker in the blue blouse and red flannel cap. For 
 so busy had Hugo been that he had not heard the 
 herald's proclamation. 
 
 " Neighbors," said Hugo, " this is a great waste 
 of time. We have a very short time to do a great 
 work, and here is one hour wasted already. Every 
 journeyman and apprentice is here idle. Let every 
 one of them return to their benches and go to work. 
 
The Shoemaker's Secret 129 
 
 Let the masters step into my little house here to con- 
 sult." The journeymen hastened off, the masters 
 divided the work between them, and Hugo was put 
 in charge of the whole village as one great shop. 
 He did not allow a man to be seen on the street. 
 He set the women at work doing such work as they 
 could. He did not allow a shop to close until far 
 into the night. But as the last day given by the 
 king drew near, the masters were about to give up, 
 for it was found that every shop was falling behind 
 its proportion. But Hugo sternly told them to hold 
 their men in their places. When the last night 
 came, he did not allow a man to sleep. When morn- 
 ing came he made the women count the shoes from 
 each shop, but kept the men at work. As the 
 accounts were made up, it was found that each shop 
 fell behind. The men quit work in despair at last, 
 and women were crying in the streets. Hugo's shop 
 came last. It was found that he and his brothers 
 had made just enough over their share to make up 
 the deficiency. The whole village hailed him as 
 their deliverer, and everybody said that it was 
 because of his charm. 
 
 When the war was over the king came to the 
 village to thank the shoemakers for their aid. All 
 
130 The Cellar Door Club, 
 
 but Hugo appeared before him. When he heard of 
 Hugo's conduct he sent for him. " They tell me," 
 said the king, " that you are the man who had the 
 required number of shoes done. They say that you 
 and your ten brothers wear charms. Tell me your 
 secret." 
 
 Hugo, holding his red flannel cap in his hand, 
 began : " Sire, when I was a lad my father had many 
 children. I left my mountain home, and came here 
 to earn something to help support them. These my 
 ten brothers came after me. When each one left, 
 our good mother hung a copper coin about his neck, 
 and said, ^ Remember that you are going to a town 
 where there is much idleness among the shoemakers, 
 masters, and men. Whenever you are tempted to be 
 idle or to be discouraged, remember what I tell you, 
 KEEP PEGGING AWAY ! ' Bchold, sire, the charm by 
 which we have succeeded, by which we saved the 
 village from your wrath, and your land from destruc- 
 tion." 
 
 And after that there might have been seen in the 
 king's employ, in various affairs of importance, ten 
 men in blue blouses and red flannel caps, wearing 
 each a copper coin about his neck. 
 
The Shoemaker^ s Secret. 
 
 131 
 
 When Sampson had stammered his way through 
 this story, the boys agreed to meet for the winter in 
 Tom Miller's house. 
 
Queer Stories. 
 
I. 
 
 THE CHAIRS IN COUNCIL. 
 
 IT was a quiet autumn afternoon. I was stretched 
 on a lounge, with a pile of newspapers for a 
 pillow. I do not know that I succeeded in getting 
 any information into my head by putting newspapers 
 under it. But on this particular afternoon I was at- 
 tacked by a disease of the eyes, or rather of the eye- 
 lids. They would droop. I don't know by what 
 learned name the doctors call this disease, but, as I 
 could not read with my eyes closing every second or 
 two, I just tucked my newspapers away under my 
 head and rested my eyelids awhile. 
 
 I remember that there was a hen cackling in the 
 barn, and a big bumble-bee buzzing and bumbling 
 around in a consequential way among the roses 
 under the window, and I could hear the voices of 
 the children in the front yard, playing with their 
 dishes. 
 
 I don't know how long I had lain thus. But I 
 
136 Queer Stories, 
 
 remember that the cackling hen and the bumbling 
 bee and the laughing children seemed to get farther 
 and farther away, the sounds becoming less and less 
 distinct. All at once the sewing chair that sat along 
 side of me, with a pile of magazines on it, began to 
 rock, and as it rocked it moved off from me. I felt 
 surprised, and at first thought of taking hold of it, 
 but my arm seemed so tired that I couldn't move it. 
 And the chair rocked itself across the floor, and 
 through the door into the dining-room. And as I 
 looked after it, I saw my old library chair hobble 
 into the dining-room, also. Then came the well- 
 cushioned easy chair, puffing and panting good 
 naturedly, as it rolled smoothly along on castors. 
 I was just wondering what all this meant, when the 
 parlor door opened, and there marched in a proces- 
 sion of parlor chairs, followed by the plainer cane- 
 seat ones from the sitting-room. Next came a sol- 
 emn line of black, wooden kitchen chairs. Then I 
 heard a commotion above, and the staid bedroom 
 seats made a fearful racket as they came down the 
 steps. 
 
 " Are we all in now ? " said the easy chair, blandly. 
 
 A faint noise was heard on the steps, and pres- 
 ently in came an old arm chair that had belonged to 
 
The Chairs in Council. 137 
 
 my grandmother. It had lain in the garret covered 
 with spider webs for years, and indeed it was quite 
 infirm in the joints, and must have had a hard time 
 getting down two flights of stairs. 
 
 I now tried to move, determined to go and see 
 what was the matter with the furniture, but the tired 
 feeling crept all over me and I lay still. 
 
 "Well," said the easy chair, who seemed to be 
 president, " we are ready for business." 
 
 There was a confused murmur, and the next I 
 knew one of the green rep parlor chairs was speak- 
 ing in a very polished and dignified way about the 
 grievances of parlor chairs in general. 
 
 " It's too bad," said he, " to be always shut up in 
 a close room except when there's company. There 
 are no better looking chairs than we are. We be- 
 long to a superior class of beings, and it is trying to 
 one's nerves to lead so secluded a life when one 
 wants to be generally admired. These cane-seat 
 chairs, and those low, black, wooden fellows — " 
 
 " I trust there will be no personalities," said the 
 easy chair. "The kitchen chairs are wooden, but 
 that is not their fault j and as to their being black, 
 that's* a mere matter of paint, a mere matter of 
 paint;" and the easy chair shook his cushioned 
 
13^ Queer Stories, 
 
 sides as if he thought this last remark a piece of 
 exquisite pleasantry. 
 
 " I say/' continued Mr. Green Rep, " I say that 
 these common-place fellows are const?intly admitted 
 to the society of the family, and we, genteel as we 
 are, have to live secluded. But for that matter 1 
 should rather be shut up always than be forced into 
 association with these common cane-seat and those 
 low, vulgar, wooden — " 
 
 " Order ! " said the easy chair ; " I must call Mr. 
 Green Rep to order." 
 
 "Why, sir," said one of the cane-seats, "the inso- 
 lence of that parlor fellow is insufferable ! He's 
 good for nothing but show. Nobody likes to use 
 him. He wasn't made for any useful purpose. Talk 
 about a thing being trying to his nerves ! Let him 
 have the children use him for a steamboat as they do 
 me! Let him have some awkward fellow rack his 
 joints by sitting on him and leaning back against 
 the wall. Then let him talk about nerves ! It's 
 hard enough, sir, to have to be used in that sort of 
 style without being compelled to associate, as we 
 have to, with those low, wooden fellows, and then 
 have to listen to the abuse of that pampered, good- 
 for-nothing dandy in green rep, that — " 
 
 I 
 
The Chairs in Council. 139 
 
 "I trust," said the easy chair, "that the debate 
 will not proceed in this way. I am sorry that so 
 much discontent is manifested. The life of a chair 
 is certainly not altogether unpleasant; at least 1 
 have not found it so." 
 
 " Sir," said one of the kitchen chairs, " I know^ I 
 am wooden, but I was made so ; and I know I am 
 black, but, as you observed awhile ago, that is a 
 question of paint." 
 
 "A mere question of paint," said the easy chair 
 again, evidently delighted to have his witticism quoted. 
 
 "But, sir," continued the wooden chair, "when I 
 was new I was not to be laughed at. If I was black, 
 I was varnished brightly and glistened beautifully when 
 the chairmaker set me and my brothers, here, out in a 
 row in the sun. And then, sir, we each had a large 
 yellow rose on our foreheads, and I assure you we were 
 beautiful in our own way, sir, in our way. But, sir, 
 you talk about the life of a chair not being altogether 
 unpleasant. Perhaps not, for an easy chair, so nicely 
 cushioned as you are. Every time our owner sits down 
 in your arms she says, ^Well, this is just the most com- 
 fortable seat in the world ! ' But nobody ever praises 
 me. If a neighbor drops in and takes me or one of my 
 fellows, the mistress just says, * don't take that uncom- 
 
140 Queer Stories. 
 
 fortable chair/ and immediately offers one of these 
 cane-seats. That's the way we're insulted, sir; and 
 when anybody wants a chair to stand on, the mistress 
 says, 'take a wooden one.' Just see the marks of John- 
 ny's boot nails on me now, and that scratch, caused 
 by Bridget's using me and one of my fellows to put 
 the washtub on !" 
 
 The black chair subsided with the look of ^n injured 
 individual, and the high chair commenced to complain, 
 but was interrupted by the sewing chair, who thought 
 that "females had some rights." She was silenced, 
 however, by my grandmother's old chair, who leaned 
 on the table while she spoke. The old lady com- 
 plained of the neglect of old age by the younger gen- 
 eration. 
 
 Just at this moment, as the meeting was getting into 
 a hubbub, and bid fair to dissolve as unceremoniously 
 as some ward political meetings do, my staid old libra- 
 ry chair began to talk, looking very learned at the same 
 time. 
 
 "Mr. President," said he, "I regret the turn affairs 
 have taken. The race of chairs is a very honorable one. 
 A chair is an insignia of honor, as I might prove by 
 many eminent authorities. When human beings wish 
 to call some one to the presidency of a meeting, they 
 
The Chairs in Council, 141 
 
 move that the Hon. Jonathan Wire-worker be called 
 to the chair. And then they call him the r/^^/r-man. 
 Now it is an honor to be a chair, whether it be a 
 parlor chair, bottomed with green rep, or a hair-seat 
 chair, or a cane-seat chair, a high chair, or a baby's 
 rocking chair, or a superannuated chair in a garret, or 
 an easy-chair, or a wooden-bottomed chair, or a learned 
 library chair, like myself. I tell you, sir, it is an honor 
 to be a chair. I am proud of the fact that I am a 
 chair. [Cries of hear 1 hear ! !] 
 
 "And now, sir, we are each adapted to our station. 
 What kind of a kitchen chair would one of these high- 
 headed, green rep parlor gentlemen make ? How would 
 they stand washtubs and boot heels ? And what sort 
 of a looking parlor chair would my friend, Mr. Wooden 
 Bottom, be ? Even if he were new, and covered with 
 black varnish, and had a yellow rose on his forehead, 
 how would he look among the pictures, and on the nice 
 parlor carpet? 
 
 " Now let us each stick to our several stations, and not 
 degrade ourselves by learning the evil and discontented 
 habits of human beings, each one of whom thinks his 
 lot the hardest." 
 
 I felt a little provoked at this last remark, and was 
 going to get up and dissolve the meeting, but the libra- 
 
142 
 
 Queer Stories. 
 
 ry chair said something about what a glorious thing it 
 was to be a chair, and then all applauded, green reps, 
 wooden bottoms, and all ; and then every thing was in 
 a whirl, and I rubbed my eyes, and the sewing chair 
 sat just as it was at first, with the pile of magazines on 
 it, and I peeped into the parlor, and the green reps 
 were in their places as stiff as ever. How all got 
 back in their places so quickly I couldn't tell. I went 
 into the dining-room and found Allegra perched on 
 the high chair, lashing two of the cane-seat ones that 
 were thrown down for horses. 
 
 And I rubbed my eyes again, — I must have slept. 
 
II. 
 
 WHAT THE TEA-KETTLE SAID. 
 
 ABOUT the time the chairs had a talk together/ 
 I believe I told you. Well, ever since that 
 time I have been afflicted, now and then, with that 
 same disease of the eyes, inclining them to close. 
 In fact, I am rather of the opinion that the affliction 
 must be one of the ear, too, for I hear some curious 
 things while the spell is on. Either that, or else 
 something has "gotten into " the furniture about my 
 house. It beats all, the time I had the other day. 
 It was a cold, wet October day, the wind whistled 
 through the key holes and shook the sash violently, 
 while the rain drizzled wretchedly against the glass. 
 As there happened to be no fire anywhere else, I 
 took a seat in the kitchen. There I sat in the heat 
 of the cooking-stove, and reading, or trying to read 
 Rollin's Ancient History. But the book was dull, 
 and the day was dull, and it really seemed to me that 
 I was duller than any thing else. Hannibal and 
 
144 Queer Stories, 
 
 Themistocles, Spain, and Carthage, and Rome 
 seemed to me the dullest things in the world. I 
 wondered how people that were so dull had managed 
 to live, and how so stupid a fellow as Monsieur Rol- 
 lin ever contrived to write so big and dull a book. 
 It did seem very dull in the rain, too, to keep patter- 
 ing away at the glass in that stupid fashion. 
 
 And so I leaned back in my chair, and watched 
 Bridget fill the tea-kettle and set it over the fire. 
 
 "Good ! " said I; "Bridget, there's no music on a 
 dull day like the cheery singing of the tea-kettle." 
 
 And Biddy laughed, as she went out, and I leaned 
 back again, and closed my eyes. All at once I 
 heard a keen, piping voice, saying, 
 
 " Hum — hum ! Simmer ! We'll soon have things 
 a-going." 
 
 The sound seemed to come up out of the tea- 
 kettle spout. I was so surprised that I rubbed my 
 eyes and looked around. There was the tea-kettle, 
 but I could hear no sound from it. Closing my 
 eyes again, I heard it begin, 
 
 " Simmer, simmer, hum, hum, now we'll have 
 things a-going. Hot fire, this ! Simmer, simmer, 
 hum, hum, simmer. There's nothing like content- 
 ment," it went on. " But it's a little hard to sit here 
 
What the Tea-Kettle Said, 14S 
 
 and simmer, simmer, simmer forever. But I keep on 
 singing, and I am happy. There's my sister, the 
 tea-pot. Bridget always keeps her bright. She goes 
 into the best society, sits by the side of the china 
 cups on the tea tray that has flowers painted on it ; 
 vain little thing is my sister tea-pot! Dreadful 
 proud of her graceful waist. Thinks her crooked 
 nose is prettier than my straight one. She is hand- 
 some, and I am glad of it. I feel proud of her when 
 I see her sitting among the china. But, la, me ! of 
 what account would she be if I didn't help her? 
 I'd like to know how they'd make tea without hot 
 water ! What would she be good for, any how, if I 
 didn't do the drudgery for her? This fire would 
 ruin her complexion ! 
 
 "Whew! this is hot work." 
 
 The tea-kettle's voice had grown higher and 
 higher, until she was almost shrieking by this time, 
 and so she went on. 
 
 " But then, I don't mean to be proud or envious. 
 I mean to keep cheerful. But I do get tired of stay- 
 ing in the kitchen, always among the pots. I'm a 
 good singer, but the world don't seem to appreciate 
 my voice, and * Chicken Little ' says that I sing 
 through my nose. 
 
146 Queer Stories. 
 
 " But I wish I could travel a little. There are my 
 cousins, the family of steam boilers. They won't 
 acknowledge their relationship to me any more. 
 But what is that huge locomotive, with such a hor- 
 rid voice, that goes puffing and screeching past here 
 every morning ? What is he but a great, big, black 
 tea-kettle on wheels ! I wish I was on wheels^ and 
 then I could travel, too. But this old stove won't 
 budge, no matter how high I get the steam. 
 
 " And they do say the tea-kettle family is much 
 older than the steam boiler family. But wouldn't I 
 like to travel ! I wonder if I couldn't start off this old 
 stove. Bridget's out, and the master's asleep, and — '' 
 
 I was just going to tell the kettle I was wide 
 awake, but I didn't feel like talking, and so the ket- 
 tle went on. 
 
 " Yes, I have a good mind to try it. Wouldn't it 
 be a brilliant thing, if I could move the old cooking 
 stove? Wouldn't Bridget stare, when she came 
 back, if she should see the ' Home Companion ' run- 
 ning off down the railroad track ? 
 
 " Whew ! I believe I'll burst. Bridget's jammed 
 the lid down so tight I can't breathe ! 
 
 " But Tm going to try to be a locomotive. Here 
 goes." 
 
What the Tea-Kettle Said, 147 
 
 Here the kettle stopped singing, and the steam 
 poured out the spout and pushed up the lid, and the 
 kettle hissed and rattled and rattled and hissed so 
 that I really was afraid it would run off with the 
 stove. But all its puffing was in vain. And so, as 
 the fire began to go down, the kettle commenced to 
 sing again. 
 
 " Well, what a fool I was ! 
 
 " I'm only a tea-kettle ; I never shall be anything 
 else j and so there's the end of it. It's my business 
 to stay here and do my duty in the kitchen. I sup- 
 pose an industrious, cheerful tea-kettle is just as use- 
 ful in its place as a steam engine ; yes, and just as 
 happy, too. And if I must stay in this kitchen 
 among the pots the rest of my days, I mean to do 
 my share to make it the cheerfulest kitchen in all 
 the country." 
 
 Here the voice of the tea-kettle died down to a 
 plaintive simmer, simmer, and I heard Sunbeam 
 say, " He's asleep." She always thinks I'm asleep 
 when I rest my eyes. 
 
 " Tea is ready," said three of them, at once. 
 
III. 
 
 CROOKED JACK. 
 
 JACK GRIP was a queer fellow. Queer because 
 he never got enough money, and yet never seemed 
 to know the right use of money. His family had the 
 bare comforts of life, but his wife was a drudge, and 
 his children had neither books nor pictures, nor any 
 of those other things so necessary to the right educa- 
 tion of children. Jack was yet young, but he was in 
 great danger of becoming a miser. The truth was, he 
 had made up his mind to get rich. It took him some 
 time to make up his mind to be dishonest, but he was 
 in a hurry to be rich, and lately he had been what his 
 neighbors called " slippery " in his dealings. Poor Jack ! 
 he was selling his conscience for gold, but gold could 
 never buy it back. 
 
 On a certain night in November, the night that my 
 story begins, Jack was not at ease. His accounts 
 showed that he had made money. He was getting rich 
 
Crooked Jack. 149 
 
 very fast, but something troubled him. Shall I tell you 
 what it was ? 
 
 Just next to Jack's farm was a perfect beauty of a 
 little place, on which lived the Widow Lundy. Her 
 husband had bought the farm, and borrowed money of 
 Jack Grip to pay for it. It was about half paid for 
 when poor Lundy was killed by a falling tree. There 
 was some money due him, and he had a little property 
 besides, so that the widow sent word to Mr. Grip that 
 if he would only wait till she could get her means to- 
 gether, she would pay up the remainder. But times 
 were hard, and Jack saw a chance to make two thou- 
 sand dollars by forcing the sale of the farm and buying 
 it himself. It just fitted on to his lower field. It went 
 hard to turn the widow out, but Jack Grip made up his 
 mind that he would be rich. He tried to make it seem 
 right, but he couldn't. He had forced the sale ; he 
 had bought the place for two thousand less than it was 
 worth. 
 
 The widow was to move the next morning. She had 
 little left, and it was a sad night in the small brown 
 house. Poor little Jane, only ten years old, cried her- 
 self to sleep, to think she must leave her home, and 
 Hany was to go to live with an aunt until his mother 
 found some way of making a living. But the good 
 
150 Queer Stories, 
 
 woman did not lose her trust in God. That night she 
 knelt down between her two children and commended 
 them to the care of Christ. She prayed for Jack Grip, 
 that God would have mercy on him. Trusting in 
 Christ, they lay down houseless that night, for the little 
 brown house belonged to hard-hearted Jack Grip. 
 
 Poor Jack could not sleep and dare not pray. . He 
 kept thinking of someJ;hing in the Bible about " devour- 
 ing widows* houses." He could not forget the face of 
 an old Quaker who had met him on the road that day 
 and said : "Friend Jack, thy ways are crooked before 
 the Lord !" "Yes," said Jack, "but my money is as 
 straight as anybody's, and my farm is a good deal 
 nearer straight than it was before I bought the Lundy 
 place." Jack could not sleep, however, for thinking 
 of the old Quaker and his solemn words. He tried to 
 think that his possessions were straight anyhow. When 
 he did sleep, he dreamed he was the young ruler that 
 gave up Christ for the sake of his money ; then he was 
 the rich man in torment. At last he opened his eyes, 
 and though the sun was shining in at the windows, he 
 thought things looked curious. The chairs were 
 crooked, so was the bedstead. The window was 
 crooked, the whole house seemed to be crooked. Jack 
 got up, and found he was old and crooked himself, 
 
Crooked jfack, 151 
 
 The cat and dog on the crooked hearth were crooked. 
 There was nobody in the house but Jack. He took his 
 crooked stick, and went out through the crooked door, 
 down the crooked walk, among the crooked trees, along 
 the wall into the crooked cemetery, where were crooked 
 graves with the names of his wife and children over 
 them. As crooked Jack, with his crooked stick, fol- 
 lowed by his crooked dog, took his crooked way back, 
 he met the old Quaker, who said again : " Friend Jack, 
 thy ways are very crooked." He went in at the crooked 
 gate, and up the crooked walk among the crooked trees, 
 in at the crooked door, and sat down on a crooked 
 chair by the crooked hearth. The crooked dog lay 
 down by him, and the crooked cat mewed. He opened 
 his crooked money-box and the gold coins were all 
 crooked. *'Here I am," said Jack, "a crooked old 
 man in a crooked old house, with no friends but this 
 crooked old dog and crooked old cat. What is all my 
 crooked money worth ? What crooked ways I took to 
 get it." 
 
 Crooked old Jack felt sick and lay down upon his 
 crooked old bed. Somehow, his crooked old money- 
 box got upon his breast and seemed to smother him, 
 Then his crooked ledgers piled themselves upon him. 
 and it seemed impossible for him to breathe. He tried 
 
152 Queer Stories, 
 
 to call out, but his voice died to a whisper, and the 
 only answer he received was a low growl from the 
 crooked old dog. Then the crooked old cat mewed. 
 Poor, crooked old Jack was dying ; and he thought of 
 the Lundy farm, and wondered if his account on God's 
 book was not very crooked. 
 
 Just then Jack Grip awoke, and found that all this 
 was a crooked dream; but the perspiration stood in 
 beads on his brow, and though it was broad daylight, 
 and his wife and children were about him, Jack thought 
 things were indeed crooked. In the first place, Jack 
 was sure that his farm was crooked in the sight of God, 
 for his new addition was little better than stolen. His 
 home was drooked, for he had not made it a pleasant 
 home. His children were crooked, for he was not edu- 
 cating them right. And then at bottom, he knew 
 that his own heart was the crookedest thing of all. 
 And so he crept out of bed and prayed God to straight- 
 en his crooked heart. . The Lundys were all packed 
 ready to start that morning. Bitter were their tears. 
 But a messenger from Mr. Grip brought them a deed 
 to their farm, and a note, saying that, as some amend 
 for the trouble he had given them, Mrs. Lundy would 
 please accept the amount still due on the farm as a 
 present. 
 
Crooked jfack. 
 
 153 
 
 There are many crooked people in the world ; some 
 in one way, some in another. Is your heart crooked ? 
 Are you growing more and more crooked ? And when 
 you get to be a crooked old man, or a crooked old 
 woman, will your life look crooked to you as crooked 
 Jack's did to him? 
 
IV. 
 
 THE FUNNY LITTLE OLD WOMAN. 
 
 LITTLE Tilda Tulip had two lips as pretty as 
 any little girl might want. But Tilda Tulip 
 tilted her two lips into a pout, on a moment's notice. 
 If any thing went wrong, — and things had a way of 
 going wrong with her, — if any thing went at all wrong, 
 she would go wrong, too, as if it would do any good 
 to do wrong. Some people are always trying to mend 
 crooked things by getting crooked themselves. I never 
 heard that a tailor could patch a pair of pants by pant- 
 ing with anger, or that a tinner could solder a coffee- 
 pot by a cough and a pout ; but there are some little 
 girls, and not a few big ones, that seem to think the 
 quickest way of straightening a seam that is puckered 
 is to pucker a face that is straight. Little Tilda Tulip 
 was one of that kind, — the unkind kind. 
 
 Sometimes her friends would ask what she would do 
 if her face were to freeze in frowns, but her Uncle Jack 
 used to say that she was always too hot to freeze. But 
 
The Funny Little Old Woman, 155 
 
 one evening she came to Uncle Jack with the usual 
 frown, showing him her new brocade doll dress. She 
 had put it away carelessly, and it was all in "beggars* 
 presses." 
 
 "Just see, Uncle Jack," she whined, "dear me ! I 
 never get any thing nice that it isn't spoiled somehow 
 or other. Isn't that too bad ? This dress has been 
 wrinkled for a week, and now it will never come smooth 
 at all." 
 
 "That's bad, surely," said Uncle Jack, "but there is 
 something more than that. I know something of yours 
 that is finer than that brocade silk, that is all in 'beg- 
 gars' presses.' " 
 
 " Why, no, Uncle Jack, I haven't any thing so fine 
 as this, you know, and now this is all puckered and 
 wrinkled and krinkled, and what will I do." 
 
 " Give me your hand," said Uncle Jack. " Do you 
 see that skin ? There is no silk so fine as that. These 
 chubby cheeks are covered with a skin that is finer. 
 But you have kept this skin puckered about your eyes 
 and your forehead and the corner of your mouth, you 
 have kept it puckered and wrinkled and krinkled as 
 you say, till I am afraid it will never be straight. I don't 
 think a hot iron would smooth it. Do you? " 
 
 Now Uncle Jack spoke very kindly, indeed. There 
 
156 Queer Stories, 
 
 were no wrinkles in his voice. Some people have 
 wrinkles in their words. But notwithstanding her un- 
 cle^s kindness, naughty little Tilda Tulip went off in a 
 pout, and declared that Uncle Jack was " real mean. 
 He never feels sorry for a body when they are in trou- 
 ble." And so she wrinkled her voice into a whine, and 
 wrinkled and puckered her face up most frightfully. 
 
 At last, tired of teasing and talking and troubling, 
 Tilda Tulip tumbled into her trundle-bed and was 
 tucked tightly in. Everybody was glad when she went 
 to sleep. Everybody dreaded the time when she should 
 wake up. She was a good girl when she was asleep. 
 Never at any other time. 
 
 She dreamed. It was a funny dream. I think she 
 must have remembered what Uncle Jack said, for she 
 thought she saw a funny little old house, by a funny lit- 
 tle old hill, near a funny little old bridge. Out of this 
 house came a funny little old woman, with a funny lit- 
 tle old bonnet, carrying a funny little old bag on her 
 back, and with a funny little old cane in her hand. Her 
 face was wrinkled and cross, — wrinkled all over, and 
 she stooped dreadfully. But she tossed her funny lit- 
 tle old bag on to the back of a funny little old donkey, 
 and climbed up herself. Then she was cross with the 
 funny little old bag, and mad with the funny Httle old 
 
The Funny Little Old Woman, 157 
 
 donkey, and she beat him with a funny little old stick, 
 and scolded and scolded with a funny little old cracked, 
 quivering, peevish, hateful voice. 
 
 And so Tilda followed her as she rode, and all the 
 rude boys along the road cried out, "There goes the 
 funny little old woman and her donkey ! " And a beau- 
 tiful lady came along, and when she met the funny lit- 
 tle old woman, she sat down on a stone and wept, and 
 said, "O Miriam, my daughter ! " But the funny lit- 
 tle old woman only beat her donkey and scolded more 
 than ever. And Tilda wondered why the beautiful 
 woman called the funny little old woman her daughter. 
 And Tilda dreamed that many days passed, and that 
 every day the funny little old woman rode on the funny 
 little old donkey to the city. And every day the beau- 
 tiful woman wept and said, "O Miriam, my daughter ! " 
 One day Tilda approached the beautiful woman and 
 spoke to her. 
 
 " Why do you call that funny, hateful, little old woman 
 your daughter ? " 
 
 " Because she is my daughter." 
 " But she is so much older than you are." 
 " Why," said the beautiful woman, " don't you know 
 the history of the funny little old woman that rides her 
 donkey to town every day? She is my daughter. She 
 
158 Queer Stories. 
 
 is not old ; but she was a cross child. She fretted and 
 pouted, and scolded and screamed. She frowned till 
 her brow began to wrinkle. I do not know whether a 
 fairy enchanted her or not, but when she became angry 
 there was one wrinkle that could not be removed. The 
 next time she was mad, another wrinkle remained. 
 When she found that the wrinkles would not come out 
 she became mad at that, and of course, every time she 
 got mad there came other wrinkles. Then, too, her 
 temper grew worse. Her once beautiful voice began 
 to sound like a cracked tin horn. The wrinkles soon 
 covered her face ; then they grew crosswise ; you see 
 it is all in beggars' presses. She got old ; she shriv- 
 elled up ; she stooped over. She became so cross that 
 she spends most of her time in that funny little old 
 house, to keep away from the rest of us. She must 
 have something to do, and so she gets mad at the stones 
 and breaks them up. She then carries them to the 
 city and throws them into the river. She must have 
 something to beat, and so we let her have this poor 
 donkey, whose skin is thick. She beats him, and thus 
 people are saved from her ravings. I do not know 
 whether she will ever come to her senses or not. O 
 Miriam, my daughter ! " 
 
 At last Tilda dreamed that the funny, wrinkled, 
 
The Funny Little Old Woman. 159 
 
 cross, little old woman, got down one day off her 
 donkey, poured the stones out of the bag and came 
 and sat down by the beautiful lady. Then the funny 
 little old woman cried. She put her head in the lap 
 of the beautiful lady, and said, " O mother, how 
 shall I get these wrinkles away? '' 
 
 And the beautiful lady kissed her and said, " Ah ! 
 my daughter, if you will but cast out the naughty 
 temper from your heart, as you poured the stones 
 from the bag, I shall not care for the wrinkles." 
 
 The next day Tilda saw the funny little old woman 
 feeding and petting the donkey. Then she saw her 
 carrying food to a poor widow. And every time the 
 funny little old woman did a kind act there was one 
 wrinkle less on her face. And then she went into a 
 hospital, and she was so kind to the sick that they 
 all loved the funny little old woman. And still the 
 wrinkles grew fewer, and the form grew straighter, 
 and the face grew fresher, until all the people in the 
 hospital said, " Our funny little old woman is really 
 getting younger." And younger and still younger 
 she became, until the beautiful lady kissed her beau- 
 tiful Miriam again, and the music came back into 
 her voice once more. And Tilda Tulip thought in 
 her dream that Miriam looked like herself, and that 
 
i6o Queer Stories, 
 
 the beautiful lady seemed like her own mother. 
 And then she waked up and found it morning, for 
 she had dreamed all this long dream in one night. 
 
 And when she was about to fly into a passion with 
 her stockings, in dressing, the thought of the funny 
 little old woman and her face in beggars' presses 
 kept her from it. When she was dressed she tpld 
 uncle Jack all about the dream, and he smiled. 
 
 " Suppose you try the plan that the funny little old 
 woman did, and see if you can't get rid of some of 
 your wrinkles," he said to Tilda. 
 
 " But when I want to be good the naughty temper 
 will come out." 
 
 " Ah ! " said uncle Jack, " I'm much afraid the 
 wrinkles are in your heart. What if that is all in 
 beggars' presses, like the funny little old woman's 
 face ? " 
 
 Tilda Tulip looked sad. 
 
 "I'll tell you what," said uncle Jack, presently; 
 " Let us ask God to take the wrinkles out of your 
 heart, and then see if you can't get them out of your 
 face." 
 
 And uncle Jack and Tilda knelt down together, 
 atid he told the dear Christ all about Tilda's trouble 
 with her heart, and begged him to help her. And 
 
The Funny Little Old Woman. 
 
 i6i 
 
 then he read about the Syro-Phoenician woman 
 whose daughter was vexed with the devil. And 
 Tilda had to fight her temper as well as to pray. 
 But I believe she got all the wrinkles out at last. 
 
WIDOW WIGGINS' WONDERFUL CAT. ; 
 
 WIDOW WIGGINS was a wee, wiry, weird 
 woman, with a wonderful cat, — a very 
 wonderful cat, indeed ! The neighbors all said it 
 was bewitched. Perhaps it was ; I don't know ; but 
 a very wonderful cat it was. It had a strange way of 
 knowing, when people were talking, whether what 
 they said was right or wrong. If people said what 
 they ought not to say, wee Widow Wiggins' wonder- 
 ful cat would mew. Perhaps the cat had lived so 
 long with the wee, wiry, weird widow woman, who 
 was one of the best in the world, that it had gotten 
 her dislike to things that were wrong. But the wee 
 widow's neighbors were afraid of that cat. When 
 Mrs. Vine, a very vile, vinegar-tongued, vixenish 
 virago, abused her neighbors to the wee, wiry, weird, 
 widow woman, the Widow Wiggins' wonderful cat 
 would mew. And so the vile, vixenish virago wished 
 the cat was dead. And when slender, slim, slippery. 
 
Widow Wiggins^ Wonderful Cat. 163 
 
 Sly Slick, Esq., tried to persuade the widow to swin- 
 dle her neighbor, the cat mewed furiously. And so 
 it came that Mr. Slick did not like the wee widow's 
 wonderful cat. In fact, he said it was a nuisance. 
 And Tilda Tattle, the tiresome-tongued, town tale- 
 bearer, could not abide the cat, because it mewed 
 all the time she was tattling. 
 
 And so it happened that good Deacon Pettibone, 
 and his wife, who was even better than the deacon, 
 were about the only visitors the wee, weird. Widow 
 Wiggins had. As the deacon never said any harm 
 of anybody, and as the deacon's wife never thought 
 any harm, and as the wee widow woman never felt 
 any harm, the cat would lie stretched out on the 
 hearth all day, while these three good people talked. 
 
 But though the deacon was good, and his wife was 
 better, yet the deacon's oldest son was not the boy 
 he ought to have been. Somehow or other, as it will 
 happen sometimes, he listened to everybody but his 
 father and his mother. Bad company led him 
 astray. At first the deacon did not suspect him ; 
 but when he showed signs of having been drinking, 
 the deacon was very severe. I am afraid there was 
 not enough of kindness in the father's severity. At 
 any rate, after awhile, Tom was told that if he re- 
 
164 Queer Stories. 
 
 peated the offence he must go from home. Tom 
 had gotten to be a hard boy. The deacon feh 
 greatly provoked. But when a boy shows that he is 
 not able to overcome temptation while he is at home, 
 I am not sure that he will be any better if he is sent 
 by himself. I don't think that helps it. But Tom 
 was bad, and so he had no right to complain. , He 
 yielded to temptation, and was sent away, his father 
 telling him that he should never come back again. 
 Deacon Pettibone thought he was doing right, but I 
 am afraid he was angry. 
 
 Well, when Tom got away he did not get any bet- 
 ter. He went down faster. At last his health 
 broke down. He thought of home as he walked 
 around hardly able to stand up. But the deacon 
 would not ask him back, nor would he encourage 
 him even by a kind look to ask to be taken back 
 again. The deacon's wife tried to persuade him. 
 She cried. But the deacon said he must not break 
 his word. His wife told him that a rash word ought 
 to be broken where it did others harm. The dea- 
 con's wife grew sick, and the vile, vinegar-tongued, 
 vixenish virago said that the deacon was an old 
 brute. The tattling, tiresome-tongued, town tale- 
 bearer talked about a good many things that she 
 
Widmv Wiggins' Woiulcrfid Cat, 165 
 
 might say, if she wanted to, and she did say that the 
 deacon and his wife did not get on like angels. 
 But the wee, wiry, weird Widow Wiggins watched 
 wearily by the bedside of the sick Mrs. Pettibone. 
 And still Deacon Pettibone refused to break his 
 word, though he was breaking his wife's heart, and 
 breaking God's command, and ruining his son. 
 
 At last the sick mother, longing for her son, 
 thought of a plan by which to bring her husband to 
 reason. 
 
 "Fetch your cat over the next time you come," 
 she said to the wee, wiry, widow woman. 
 
 And so when the wee, weird Widow Wiggins came 
 again, the wonderful cat followed her and lay down 
 by the stove. Soon after, the deacon came in, look- 
 ing very sad but very stern. 
 
 ^'' Did you see Tom ? " asked his wife. 
 
 "No, I didn't," said the deacon, "and I don't 
 want to." 
 
 " Mew ! " said the cat. 
 
 The deacon noticed the cat, and got a little red 
 in the face ; but he went on talking. 
 
 " I tell you what, wife, Tom has made his bed and 
 he must lie on it, that's all ! " 
 
 " Mew 1 mew ! mew ! " 
 
1 66 Queer Stories, 
 
 " I can't break my word anyhow ; I said he 
 shouldn't come back, and he shan't ; so now there's 
 no use in pining yourself to death over a scape- 
 grace." 
 
 " Mew ! mew ! mew ! m-e-e-o-w ! " shrieked the 
 cat, with every bristle on end, and her claws scratch- 
 ing the floor. 
 
 " Mrs. Wiggins, I wish you would keep that miser- 
 able cat at home," said the deacon j and so the wee 
 widow woman took up the wonderful cat and carried 
 it home. 
 
 But the poor deacon couldn't rest. That night he 
 thought he could hear that cat mewing at him all 
 the time. He remembered that he had not seen 
 Tom for some days. What if he was dying ? It was 
 a long night. The deacon at last got to thinking of 
 how God had borne with him, miserable sinner that 
 he was, and should he refuse to forgive his son ? 
 Then he thought of the touching and wonderful 
 Parable of the Prodigal. And then in the stillness 
 he thought he could hear something in his heart 
 mewing at him. 
 
 At last daylight came, and he hastened to find 
 Tom in a wretched garret racked with disease. He 
 brought him home tenderly, and through kindness 
 
Widow Wiggins^ Wonderful Cat. 
 
 167 
 
 and God's mercy Tom got well both in his body and 
 in his soul. 
 
 Perhaps, after all, there never was any wee, weird, 
 wiry, widow woman with a wonderful cat, — perhaps 
 not ; but I do know that down in your heart there 
 is something called conscience, that mews louder 
 than Widow Wiggins' wonderful cat, when you have 
 mean or unforgiving tempers. Keep on good terms 
 with it, for if conscience bristles up at you, you may 
 be sure that God is not pleased with you. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WALKING-STICK WALKS. 
 
 SOME men carry canes. Some men make the 
 canes carry them. I never could tell just 
 what Mr. Blake carried his cane for. I am sure 
 it did not often feel his weight. For he was neither 
 old, nor rich, nor lazy. 
 
 He was a tall, straight man, who walked as if he 
 loved to walk, with a cheerful tread that was good 
 to see. I am sure he didn't carry the cane for 
 show. It was not one of those little sickly yellow 
 things, that some men nurse as tenderly as Miss 
 Snooks nurses her lap-dog. It was a great black 
 stick of solid ebony, with a box-wood head, and I 
 think Mr. Blake carried it for company. And it 
 had a face, like that of an old man, carved on one 
 
1^2 Mr, Blake's Walking- Stick. 
 
 side of the box-wood head. Mr. Blake kept it 
 ringing in a hearty way upon the pavement as he 
 walked, and the boys would look up from their 
 marbles when they heard it, and say : " There 
 comes Mr. Blake, the minister ! '^ And I think that 
 nearly every invalid and poor person in Thornton 
 knew the cheerful voice of the minister's stout ebony 
 stick. 
 
 It was a clear, crisp, sunshiny morning in Decem- 
 ber. The leaves were all gone, and the long lines 
 of white frame houses that were hid away in the 
 thick trees during the summer, showed themselves 
 standing in straight rows now that the trees were 
 bare. And Purser, Pond & Co.'s great factory on 
 the brook in the valley below was plainly to be 
 seen, with its long rows of windows shining and 
 shimmering in the brilliant sun, and its brick 
 chimney reached up like the Tower of Babel, and 
 poured out a steady stream of dense, black smoke. 
 
 It was just such a shining winter morning. Mr. 
 Blake and his walking-stick were just starting out for 
 a walk together. '' It's a fine morning," thought the 
 minister, as he shut the parsonage gate. x\nd when 
 he struck the cane sharply on the stones it answered 
 him cheerily: "It's a fine morning!" The cane 
 
The Walking- Stick Walks, 173 
 
 always agreed with Mr. Blake. So they were able 
 to walk together, according to Scripture, because 
 they were agreed. 
 
 Just as he came round the corner the minister 
 found a party of boys waiting for him. They had 
 already heard the cane remarking that it was a fine 
 morning before Mr. Blake came in sight. 
 
 ".Good morning 1 Mr. Blake," said the three 
 boys. 
 
 *' Good morning, my boys ; I'm glad to see you," 
 said the minister, and he clapped " Old Ebony " 
 down on the sidewalk, and it said " I am glad to see 
 you." 
 
 " Mr. Blake ! " said Fred White, scratching his 
 brown head and looking a little puzzled. " Mr. 
 Blake, if it ain^t any harm — if you don't mind, you 
 know, telling a fellow, — a boy, I mean — " Just 
 here he stopped talking ; for though he kept on 
 scratching vigorously, no more words would come ; 
 and comical Sammy Bantam, who stood alongside, 
 whispered, " Keep a-scratching, Fred ; the old cow 
 will give down after a while ! " 
 
 Then Fred laughed, and the other boys, and the 
 minister laughed, and the cane could do nothing but 
 stamp its foot in amusement. 
 
174 ^^' Blake's Walking- Stick, 
 
 "Well, Fred," said the minister, "What is it? 
 speak out." But Fred couldn't speak now for 
 laughing, and Sammy had to do the talking himself. 
 He was a stumpy boy, who had stopped off short; 
 and you couldn't guess his age, because his face was 
 so much older than his body. 
 
 " You see, Mr. Blake," said Sammy, " we boys 
 wanted to know, — if there wasn't any harm in your 
 telling, — why, we wanted to know what kind of a 
 thing we are going to have on Christmas at our 
 Sunday-school." 
 
 " Well, boys, I don't know any more about it yet 
 than you do. The teachers will talk it over at their 
 next meeting. They have already settled some 
 things, but I have not heard what." 
 
 " I hope it will be something good to eat," said 
 Tommy Puffer. Tommy's body looked for all the 
 world like a pudding-bag. It was an india-rubber 
 pudding-bag, though. I shouldn't like to say that 
 Tommy was a glutton. Not at all. But I am sure 
 that no boy of his age could put out of sight, in the 
 same space of time, so many dough-nuts, ginger- 
 snaps, tea-cakes, apple-dumplings, punipkin-pies, 
 jelly-tarts, puddings, ice-creams, raisins, puts, and 
 other things of the sort. Other people stared at him 
 
The Walking-stick Walks, 175 
 
 in wonder. He was never too full to take anything 
 that was offered him, and at parties his weak and 
 foolish mother was always getting all she could to 
 stuff Tommy with. So when Tommy said he hoped 
 it would be something nice to eat, and rolled his 
 soft lips about, as though he had a cream tart in his 
 mouth, all the boys laughed, and Mr. Blake smiled. 
 I think even the cane would have smiled if it had 
 thought it polite. 
 
 " I hope it'll be something pleasant," said Fred 
 Welch. 
 
 " So do I," said stumpy little Tommy Bantam. 
 
 " So do I, boys," said Mr. Blake, as he turned 
 away ; and all the way down the block Old Ebony 
 kept calling back, '^ So do I, boys ! so do I ! " 
 
 Mr. Blake and his friend the cane kept on down 
 the street, until they stood in front of a building 
 that was called " The Yellow Row." It was a long, 
 two-story frame building, that had once been inhab- 
 ited by genteel people. Why they ever built it in 
 that shape, or why they daubed it with yellow paint, 
 is more than I can tell. But it had gone out of 
 fashion, and now it was, as the boys expressed it,* 
 " seedy." Old hats and old clothes filled many of 
 the places once filled by glass. Into one room of 
 this row Mr. Blake entered, saying : — 
 
176 Mr. B lakers Walkifig- Stick. 
 
 " How are you, Aunt Parm'ly ? " 
 
 " Howd'y, Mr. Blake, howd'y ! I know'd you was 
 a-comin', honey, fer I hyeard the sound of yer cane 
 afore you come in. I'm mis'able these yer days, 
 thank you. I'se got a headache, an' a backache, 
 and a toothache in de boot." 
 
 I suppose the poor old colored woman meant to 
 say that she had a toothache " to boot." 
 
 " You see, Mr. Blake, Jane's got a little sumpin 
 to do now, and we can git bread enough, thank the 
 Lord, but as fer coal, that's the hardest of all. We 
 has to buy it by the bucketful, and that's mity high 
 at fifteen cents a bucket. An' pears like we couldn't 
 never git nothin' a-head on account of my roomatiz. 
 Where de coal's to come from dis ere winter I don't 
 know, cep de good Lord sends it down out of the 
 sky \ and I reckon stone-coal don't never come dat 
 dar road." 
 
 After some more talk, Mr. Blake went in to see 
 Peter Sitles, the blind broom-maker. 
 
 " I hyeard yer stick, preacher Blake," said Sitles. 
 " That air stick o' yourn's better'n a whole rigimint 
 of doctors fer the blues. An' I've been a havin' on 
 the blues powerful bad, Mr. Blake, these yer last 
 few days. I remembered what you was a-saying the 
 
The Walking- Stick Walks, i^y 
 
 last time you was here, about trustin' of the good 
 Lord. But I've had a purty consid'able heartache 
 under my jacket fer all that. Now, there's that Ben 
 of mine," and here Sitles pointed to a restless little 
 fellow of nine years old, whose pants had been 
 patched and pieced until they had more colors than 
 Joseph's coat He was barefoot, ragged, and looked 
 hungry, as some poor children always do. Their 
 minds seem hungrier than their bodies. He was 
 rocking a baby in an old cradle. "There's Ben," 
 continued the blind man, " he's as peart a boy as 
 you ever see, preacher Blake, ef I do say it as hadn't 
 orter say it. Bennie hain't got no clothes. I can't 
 beg. But Ben orter be in school." Here Peter 
 Sitles choked a litde. 
 
 '^ How's broom-making, Peter ? " said the min- 
 ister. 
 
 " Well, you see, it's the machines as is a-spoiling 
 us. The machines make brooms cheap, and what 
 can a blind feller like me do agin the machines with 
 nothing but my fingers ? 'Tain't no sort o' use to 
 butt my head agin the machines, when I ain't got no 
 eyes nother. It's like a goat trying its head on a 
 locomotive. Ef I could only eddicate Peter and the 
 other two, I'd be satisfied. You see, I never had no 
 
178 Mr. Blak^s Walking- Stick, 
 
 book-larnin' myself, and I can't talk proper no more'n 
 a cow can climb a tree." 
 
 "But, Mr. Sitles, how much would a broom-ma- 
 chine cost you ? " asked the minister. 
 
 " More'n it's any use to think on. It'll cost sev- 
 enty dollars, and if it cost seventy cents 'twould be 
 jest exactly seventy cents more'n I could afford to 
 pay. For the money my ole woman gits fer washin' 
 don't go noways at all towards feedin' the four chil- 
 dren, let alone buying me a machine." 
 
 The minister looked at his cane, but it did not 
 answer him. Something must be done. The min- 
 ister was sure of that. Perhaps the walking-stick 
 was, too. But what ? 
 
 That was the question. 
 
 The minister told Sides good-bye, and started to 
 make other visits. And on the way the cane kept 
 crying out, "Something must be done, — something 
 MUST be done, — something MUST be done," mak- 
 ing the must ring out sharper every time. When 
 Mr. Blake and the walking-stick got to the market- 
 house, just as they turned off from Milk Street into 
 the busier Main Street, the cane changed its tune 
 and begun to say, " But what, — but what^ — but 
 WHAT, — but WHAT," until it said it so sharply 
 
The Walking-Stick Walks, 
 
 ^79 
 
 that the minister's head ached, and he put Old 
 Ebony under his arm, so that it couldn^t talk any 
 more. It was a way he had of hushing it ip when 
 he wanted to think. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 LONG-HEADED WILLIE. 
 
 ' * T \ E biskits is cold, and de steaks is cold 
 J — J as — as — ice, and dinner's spiled \ '^ said 
 Curlypate, a girl about three years old, as Mr. 
 Blake came in from his forenoon of visiting. She 
 tried to look very much vexed and " put out,'' but 
 there was always either a smile or a cry hidden 
 away in her dimpled cheek. 
 
 " Pshaw ! Curlypate," said Mr. Blake, as he put 
 down his cane, " you don't scold worth a cent ! " 
 And he lifted her up and kissed her. 
 
 And then Mamma Blake smiled, and they all sat 
 down to the table. While they ate, Mr. Blake told 
 about his morning visits, and spoke of Parm'ly with- 
 out coal, and Peter Sitles with no broom-machine, 
 and described little Ben Sitles's hungry face, and 
 told how he had visited the widow Martin, who had 
 no sewing-machine, and who had to receive help 
 from the overseer of the poor. The overseer told 
 
Long Headed Willie. i8i 
 
 her that she must bind out her daughter, twelve 
 years old, and her boy of ten, if she expected to 
 have any help ; and the mother^s heart was just 
 about broken at the thought of losing her children. 
 
 Now, while all this was taking place, Willie Blake, 
 the minister's son, a boy about thirteen years of age, 
 sat by the big porcelain water-pitcher, listening to 
 all that was said. His deep blue eyes looked over 
 the pitcher at his father, then at his mother, taking 
 in all their descriptions of poverty with a wondrous 
 pitifulness. But he did not say much. What went 
 on in his long head I do not know, for his was one 
 of those heads that projected forward and back- 
 ward, and the top of which overhung the base, for all 
 the world like a load of hay. Now and then his 
 mother looked at him, as if she would like to see 
 through his skull and read his thoughts. But I think 
 she didn't see anything but the straight, silken, fine, 
 flossy hair, silvery white, touched a little bit, — only 
 a little, — as he turned it in looking from one to the 
 other, with a tinge of what people call a golden, but 
 what is really a sort of a pleasant straw color. He 
 usually talked, and asked questions, and laughed 
 like other boys ; but now he seemed to be swallowing 
 the words of his father and mother more rapidly even 
 
i82 Mr. Blake's Walking- Stick. 
 
 than he did his dinner ; for, like most boys, he ate 
 as if it were a great waste of time to eat. But when 
 he was done he did not hurry off as eagerly as usual 
 to reading or to play. He sat and listened. 
 
 "What makes you look so sober, Willie?" asked 
 Helen, his sister. 
 
 "What you thinkin*, Willie?" said Curlypate, 
 peering through the pitcher handle at him. 
 
 " Willie," broke in his father, " mamma and I are 
 going to a wedding out at Sugar Hill " — 
 
 " Sugar Hill ; O my ! " broke in Curlypate. 
 
 " Out at Sugar Hill," continued Mr. Blake, strok- 
 ing the Curlypate, ''and as I have some calls to 
 make, we shall not be back till bedtime. I am sorry 
 to keep you from your play this Saturday afternoon, 
 but we have no other housekeeper but you and 
 Helen. See that the children get their suppers 
 early, and be careful about fire." 
 
 I believe to " be careful about fire " is the last 
 command that every parent gives to children on 
 leaving them alone. 
 
 Now I know that people who write stories are 
 very careful nowadays not to make their boys too 
 good. I suppose that I ought to represent Willie as 
 " taking on " a good deal when he found that he 
 
Long- Headed Willie. 183 
 
 couldn't play all Saturday afternoon, as he had ex- 
 pected. But I shall not. For one thing, at least, 
 in my story, is true \ that is, Willie. If I tell you 
 that he is good you may believe- it. I have seen 
 him. 
 
 He only said, " Yes, sir." 
 
 Mrs. Blake did not keep a girl. The minister did 
 not get a small fortune of a salary. So it happened 
 that Willie knew pretty well how to keep house. 
 He was a good brave boy, never ashamed to help 
 his mother in a right manly way. He could wash 
 dishes and milk the cow, and often, when mamma 
 had a sick-headache, had he gotten a good breakfast, 
 never forgetting tea and toast for the invalid. 
 
 So SanchoJ the Canadian pony, was harnessed to 
 the minister's rusty buggy, and Mr. and Mrs. Blake 
 got in and told the children good-bye. Then San- 
 cho started off, and had gone about ten steps, when 
 he was suddenly reined up with a "Whoa!" 
 
 " Willie ! " said Mr. Blake. 
 
 " Sir." 
 
 " Be careful about fire." 
 
 '' Yes, sir." 
 
 And then old blackey-brown Sancho moved on 
 in a gentle trot, and Willie and Helen and Richard 
 
1 84 ^^^- Blake's Walking- Stick. 
 
 went into the house, where Curlypate had already 
 gone, and where they found her on tiptoe, with her 
 short little fingers in the sugar-bowl, trying in vain 
 to find a lump that would not go to pieces in the 
 vigorous squeeze that she gave it in her desire to 
 make sure of it. 
 
 So Willie washed the dishes, while Helen wiped 
 them, and Richard put them away, and they had a 
 merry time, though Willie had to soothe several 
 rising disputes between Helen and Richard. Then 
 a glorious lot of wood was gotten in, and Helen 
 came near sweeping a hole in the carpet in her eager 
 desire to " surprise mamma." Curlypate went in 
 the parlor and piled things up in a wonderful way, 
 declaring that she, too, was going to " susprise mam- 
 ma.'' And doubtless mamma would have felt no 
 little surprise if she could have seen the parlor after 
 Curlypate " put it to rights." 
 
 Later in the evening the cow was milked, and a 
 plain supper of bread and milk eaten. Then Rich- 
 ard and Curlypate were put away for the night. 
 And presently Helen, who was bravely determined 
 to keep Willie company, found her head trying to 
 drop off her shoulders, and so she had to give up 
 to the *' sand man," and go to bed. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE WALKING-STICK A TALKING STICK. 
 
 WILLIE was now all by himself. He put on 
 more wood, and drew the rocking-chair 
 up by the fire, and lay back in it. It was very still ; 
 he could hear every mouse that moved. The 
 stillness seemed to settle clear down to his heart. 
 Presently a wagon went clattering by. Then, as the 
 sound died away in the distance, it seemed stiller 
 than ever. Willie tried to sleep ; but he couldn't. 
 He kept listening ; and after all he was listening to 
 nothing ; nothing but that awful clock, that would 
 keep up such a tick-tick, tick-tick, tick-tick. The 
 curtains were down, and Willie didn't dare to raise 
 them, or to peep out. He could feel how dark it 
 was out doors. 
 
 But presently he forgot the stillness. He fell to 
 thinking of what Mr. Blake had said at dinner. He 
 thought of poor old rheumatic Parm'ly, and her 
 single bucket of coal at a time. He thought of the 
 
1 88 Mr, Blake's Walking-Stick, 
 
 blind broom-maker who needed a broom-machine, 
 and of the poor widow whose children must be taken 
 away because the mother had no sewing-machine. 
 All of these thoughts made the night seem dark, and 
 they made Willie's heart heavy. But the thoughts 
 kept him company. 
 
 Then he wished he was rich, and he thought if he 
 were as rich as Captain Purser, who owned the mill, 
 he would give away sewing-machines to all poor 
 widows who needed them. But pshaw ! what was 
 the use of wishing ? His threadbare pantaloons told 
 him how far off he was from being rich. 
 
 But he would go to the Polytechnic ; he would 
 become a civil engineer. He would make a fortune 
 some day when he became celebrated. Then he 
 would give widow Martin a sewing-machine. This 
 was the nice castle in the air that Willie built. But 
 just as he put on the last stone a single thought 
 knocked it down. 
 
 What would become of the widow and her chil- 
 dren while he was learning to be an engineer and 
 making a fortune afterward? And where would he 
 get the money to go to the Polytechnic } This last 
 question Willie had asked every day for a year or 
 two past. 
 
The Walking-stick a Talking Stick, 189 
 
 Unable to solve this problem, his head grew tired, 
 and he lay down on the lounge, saying to himself, 
 " Something must be done ! " 
 
 " Something must be done ! " Willie was sure 
 somebody spoke. He looked around. There was 
 nobody in the room. 
 
 " Something must be done ! " This time he saw 
 in the corner of the room, barely visible in the 
 shadow, his father's cane. The voice seemed to 
 come from that corner. 
 
 " Something must be done ! " Yes, it was the 
 cane. He could see its yellow head, and the face 
 on one side was toward him. How bright its eyes 
 were ! It did not occur to Willie just then that 
 there was anything surprising in the fact that the 
 walking-stick had all at once become a talking 
 stick. 
 
 " Something MUST be done ! " said the cane, 
 lifting its one foot up and bringing it down with 
 emphasis at the word must. Willie felt pleased 
 that the little old man — I mean the walking-stick 
 — should come to his help. 
 
 "I tell you what," said Old Ebony, hopping out 
 of his shady corner ; " I tell you what," it said, and 
 then stopped as if to reflect ; then finished by say- 
 ing, " It's a shame ! " 
 
ipo Mr. Blake's Walking-Stick. 
 
 Willie was about to ask the cane to what he re- 
 ferred, but he thought best to wait till Old Ebony 
 got ready to tell of his own accord. But the walk- 
 ing-stick did not think best to answer immediately, 
 but took entirely a new and surprising track. It 
 actually went to quoting Scripture ! 
 
 " My eyes are dim," said the cane, " and I never 
 had much learning ; canes weren't sent to school 
 when I was young. Won't you read the thirty-ftfth 
 verse of the twentieth chapter of Acts." 
 
 Willie turned to the stand and saw the Bible open 
 at that verse. He did not feel surprised. It seemed 
 natural enough to him. He read the verse, not 
 aloud, but to himself, for Old Ebony seemed to hear 
 his thoughts. He read : — 
 
 " Ye ought to support the weak, and to remem- 
 ber the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is 
 more blessed to give than to receive." 
 
 " Now," said the walking-stick, stepping or hop- 
 ping up toward the lounge and leaning thoughtfully 
 over the head of it, " Now, I say that it is a shame 
 that when the birthday of that Lord Jesus, who 
 gave himself away, and who said it is more blessed 
 to give than to receive, comes round, all of you 
 Sunday-school scholars are thinking only of what 
 you are going to get." 
 
The Walking- Stick a Talking Stick. 19 t 
 
 Willie was about to say that they gave as well as 
 received on Christmas, and that his class had already 
 raised the money to buy a Bible Dictionary for their 
 teacher. But Old Ebony seemed to guess his 
 thought, and he only said, " And that's another 
 shame ! " 
 
 Willie couldn't see how this could be, and he 
 thought the walking-stick was using very strong lan- 
 guage indeed. I think myself the cane spoke too 
 sharply, for I don't think the harm lies in giving to 
 and receiving from our friends, but in neglecting the 
 poor. But you don't care what I think, you want to 
 know what the cane said. 
 
 " I'm pretty well acquainted with Scripture," said 
 Old Ebony, " having spent fourteen years in com- 
 pany with a minister. Now won't you please read 
 the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the fourteenth 
 chapter of" — 
 
 But before the cane could finish the sentence, 
 Willie heard some one opening the door. It was 
 his father. He looked round in bewilderment. The 
 oil in the lamp had burned out, and it was dark. 
 The fire was low, and the room chilly. 
 
 " Heigh-ho, Willie, my son," said Mr. Blake, 
 " Where's your light, and where's your fire. This is 
 a cold reception. What have you been doing ? " 
 
192 Mr, Blak^s Walking- Stick. 
 
 "Listening to the cane talk/' he replied ; and 
 thinking what a foolish answer that was, he put on 
 some more coal, while his mother, who was lighting 
 the lamp, said he must have been dreaming. The 
 walking-stick stood in its corner, face to the wall, as 
 if it had never been a talking stick. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MR. BLAKE AGREES WITH THE WALKING STICK. 
 
 EARLY on Sunday morning Willie awoke and 
 began to think about Sitles, and to wish 
 he had money to buy him a broom-machine. And 
 then he thought of widow Martin. But all his 
 thinking would do no good. Then he thought of 
 what Old Ebony had said, and he wished he could 
 know what that text was that the cane was just 
 going to quote. 
 
 "It was/' said Willie, "the twelfth and thirteenth 
 verses of the fourteenth chapter of something. I'll 
 see." 
 
 So he began with the beginning of the Bible, and 
 looked first at Genesis xiv. 12, 13. But it was about 
 the time when Abraham had heard of the capture of 
 Lot and mustered his army to recapture him. He 
 thought a minute. 
 
 " That can't be what it is," said Willie, « I'll look 
 at Exodus." 
 
194 ■M'r. Blake's Walking- Stick, 
 
 In Exodus it was about standing still at the Red 
 Sea and waiting for God's salvation. It might mean 
 that God would deliver the poor. But that was not 
 just what the cane was talking about. It was about 
 giving gifts to friends. So he went on to Leviticus. 
 But it was about the wave offering, and the sin 
 offering, and the burnt offering. That was not it. 
 And so he went from book to book until he had 
 reached the twelfth and thirteenth verses of the four- 
 teenth chapter of the book of Judges. He was just 
 reading in that place about Samson's riddle, w^hen 
 his mamma called him to breakfast. 
 • He was afraid to say anything about it at the 
 table for fear of being laughed at. But he was full of 
 what the walking-stick said. And at family worship 
 his father read the twentieth chapter of Acts. When 
 he came to the part about its being more blessed to 
 give than to receive, Willie said, " That's what the ' 
 cane said." 
 
 " What did you say ? " asked his father. 
 
 " I was only thinking out loud," said Willie. 
 
 " Don't think out loud while I am reading," said 
 Mr. Blake. 
 
 Willie did not find time to look any further for 
 the other verses. He wished his father had hap- 
 
Mr. Blake agrees with the Walking- Stick, 195 
 
 pened on them instead of the first text which the 
 cane quoted. 
 
 In church he kept thinking all the time about the 
 cane. " Now what could it mean by the twelfth 
 and thirteenth verses of the fourteenth chapter? 
 There isn't anything in the Bible against giving 
 away presents to one's friends. It was only a dream 
 anyhow, and maybe there's nothing in it." 
 
 But he forgot the services, I am sorry to say, in 
 his thoughts. At last Mr. Blake arose to read his 
 text. Willie looked at him, but thought of what the 
 cane said. But what was it that attracted his atten- 
 tion so quickly ? 
 
 " The twelfth and thirteenth verses " — 
 
 " Twelfth and thirteenth ! " said Willie to him- 
 self. 
 
 " Of the fourteenth chapter," said the minister. 
 
 " Fourteenth chapter ! " said Willie, almost aloud. 
 
 " Of Luke." 
 
 Willie was all ears, while Mr. Blake read : "Then 
 said he also to him that bade him. When thou mak- 
 est a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor 
 thy brethren, neither thy kinsmen, nor thy rich 
 neighbors, lest they also bid thee again, and a 
 recompense be made thee. But when thou makest 
 
196 Mr, B lakers Walkifig- Stick, 
 
 a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the 
 blind." 
 
 " That's it ! " he said, half aloud, but his mother 
 jogged him. 
 
 The minister added the next verse also, and read : 
 " And thou shalt be blessed, for they cannot recom- 
 pense thee j for thou shalt be recompensed at the 
 resurrection of the just." 
 
 Willie had never listened to a sermon as he did 
 to that. He stopped two or three times to wonder 
 whether the cane had been actually about to repeat 
 his father's text to him, or whether he had not heard 
 his father repeat it at some time, and had dreamed 
 about it. 
 
 I am not going to tell you much about Mr. 
 Blake's sermon. It was a sermon that he and the 
 walking-stick had prepared while they were going 
 round among the poor. I think Mr. Blake did not 
 strike his cane down on the sidewalk for nothing. 
 Most of that sermon must have been hammered out 
 in that way, when he and the walking-stick were 
 saying, " Something must be done 1 " For that was 
 just what that sermon said. It told about the WTong 
 of forgetting, on the birthday of Christ, to do any- 
 thing for the poor. It made everybody think. But 
 
Mr, Blake agrees with the Walking-Stick. 197 
 
 Mn Blake did not know how much of that ser- 
 mon went into Willie Blake's long head, as he sat 
 there with his white full forehead turned up to his 
 father. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE FATHER PREACHES AND THE SON PRACTICES. 
 
 THAT afternoon, Willie was at Sunday-school 
 long before the time. He had a plan. 
 
 " I'll tell you what, boys," said he, " let's not 
 give Mr. Marble anything this year; and let's ask 
 him not to give us anything. Let's get him to 
 put the money he would use for us with the money 
 we should spend on a present for him, and give 
 it to buy coal for Old Aunt Parm'ly." 
 
 "I mean to spend all my money on soft gum 
 drops and tarts," said Tommy Puffer ; " they're 
 splendid ! " and with that he began, as usual, to roll 
 his soft lips together in a half chewing, half sucking 
 manner, as if he had a half dozen cream tarts under 
 his tongue, and two dozen gum drops in his cheeks. 
 
 "Tommy," said stumpy little Sammy Bantam, 
 " it's a good thing you didn't live in Egypt, Tommy, 
 in the days of Joseph." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Tommy. 
 
Father Preaches and Son Practices, ic)9 
 
 "Because," said Sammy, looking around the room 
 absently, as if he hardly knew what he was going 
 to say, "because, you see" — and then he opened 
 a book and began to read, as if he had forgotten to 
 finish the sentence. 
 
 " Well, why ? " demanded Tommy, sharply. 
 
 "Well, because if Joseph had had to feed you 
 during the seven years of plenty, there wouldn't 
 have been a morsel left for the years of famine ! " 
 
 The boys laughed as boys will at a good shot, and 
 Tommy reddened a little and said, regretfully, that 
 he guessed the Egyptians hadn't any doughnuts. 
 
 Willie did not forget his main purpose, but car- 
 ried his point in his own class. He still had time to 
 speak to some of the boys and girls in other classes. . 
 Everybody liked to do what Willie asked ; there was 
 something sweet and strong in his blue eyes, eyes 
 that " did not seem to have any bottom, they were 
 so deep," one of the girls said. Soon there was an 
 excitement in the school, and about the door ; girls 
 and boys talking and discussing, but as soon as any 
 opposition came up Willie's half-j^oaxing but decided 
 way bore it down. I think he was much helped by 
 Sammy's wit, which was all on his side. It was 
 agreed, finally, that whatever scholars meant to give 
 
200 Mr, Blake's Walking- Stick, 
 
 to teachers, or teachers to scholars, should go to the 
 poor. 
 
 The teachers caught the enthusiasm, and were 
 very much in favor of the project, for in the whole 
 movement they saw the fruit of their own teaching. 
 
 The superintendent had been detained, and was 
 surprised to find the school standing in knots about 
 the room. He soon called them to order, and ex- 
 pressed his regrets that they should get into such 
 disorder. There was a smile on all faces, and he 
 saw that there was something more in the apparent 
 disorder than he thought. After school it was fixed 
 that each class should find its own case of poverty. 
 The young men's and the young women's Bible 
 classes undertook to supply Sitles with a broom- 
 machine, a class of girls took Aunt Parm'ly under 
 their wing, other classes knew of other cases of need, 
 and so each class had its hands full. But Willie 
 could not get any class to see that Widow Martin 
 had a sewing-machine. That was left for his own j 
 and how should a class of eight boys do it ? 
 
CHAPTER VL 
 
 SIXTY-FIVE DOLLARS. 
 
 WILLIE took the boys into the parsonage. 
 They figured on it. There were sixty- 
 five dollars to be . raised to buy the machine. The 
 seven boys were together, for Tommy Puffer had 
 gone home. He said he didn't feel like staying, 
 and Sammy Bantam thought he must be a little 
 hungry. 
 
 Willie attacked the problem, sixty-five dollars. 
 Toward that amount they had three dollars and 
 a half that they had intended to spend on a present 
 for Mr. Marble. That left just sixty-one dollars and 
 fifty cents to be raised. Willie ran across the street 
 and brought Mr. Marble. He said he had made up 
 his mind to give the boys a book apiece, and that 
 each book would cost a dollar. It was rather more 
 than he could well afford ; but as he had intended to 
 give eight dollars for their presents, and as he was 
 
202 Mr, Blake^s Walking- Stick, 
 
 pleased with their unselfish behavior, he would 
 make it ten. 
 
 " Good ! " said Charley Somerset, who always saw 
 the bright side of things, " that makes it all, except 
 fifty-one dollars and a half." 
 
 " Yes," said Sammy Bantam, ^* and you're eleven 
 feet high, lacking a couple of yards ! " 
 
 Willie next called his father in, and inquired how 
 much his Christmas present was to cost. 
 
 " Three and a half," said his father. 
 
 " That's a lot ! Will you give me the money in- 
 stead ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but I meant to give you a Life of George 
 Stephenson, and some other books on engineering." 
 
 This made Willie think a moment ; but seeing the 
 walking-stick in the corner, he said : " Mrs. Martin 
 must have a machine, and that three and a half 
 makes seventeen dollars. How to get the other 
 forty-eight is the question." 
 
 Mr. Blake and Mr. Marble both agreed that the 
 boys could not raise so much money, and should not 
 undertake it. But Willie said there was nobody to 
 do it, and he guessed it would come somehow. The 
 other boys, when they came to church that evening, 
 told Willie that their presents were commuted for 
 
Sixty-five Dollars, 203 
 
 money also ; so they had twenty-five dollars toward 
 the amount. But that was the end of it, and there 
 were forty dollars yet to come ! 
 
 Willie lay awake that night, thinking. Mr. Mar- 
 ble's class could not raise the money. All the other 
 classes had given all they could. And the teachers 
 would each give in their classes. And they had 
 raised all they could spare besides to buy nuts and 
 candy ! Good ! That was just it ; they would do 
 without candy ! 
 
 At school the next morning, Willie's white head 
 was bobbing about eagerly. He made every boy 
 and girl sign a petition, asking the teachers not to 
 give them any nuts or candy. They all signed 
 except Tommy Puffer. He said it was real mean 
 not to have any candy. They might just as well 
 not have any Sunday-school, or any Christmas 
 either. But seeing a naughty twinkle in Sammy 
 Bantam's eye, he w-addled away, while Sammy fired 
 a shot after bim, by remarking that, if Tommy had 
 been one of the Shepherds in Bethlehem, he 
 wouldn't have listened to the angels till he had 
 inquired if they had any lemon-drops in their 
 pockets ! 
 
204 Mr, Blakis Walking-Stick, 
 
 That night the extra Teachers* Meeting was held, 
 and in walked white-headed Willie with stunted 
 Sammy Bantam at his heels to keep him in counte- 
 nance. When their petition was presented, Miss 
 Belden, who sat near Willie, said, " Well done ! 
 WiHie." 
 
 " But I protest," said Mrs. Puffer, — who was of 
 about as handsome a figure as her son, — '* I protest 
 against such an outrage on the children. My Tom- 
 my's been a-feeling bad about it all day. It'll break 
 his heart if he don't get some candy." 
 
 Willie was shy, but for a moment he forgot it, 
 and, turning his intelligent blue eyes on Mrs. Puffer, 
 he said, — 
 
 " It will break Mrs. Martin's heart if her children 
 are taken away from her." 
 
 " Well," said Mrs. Puffer, " I always did hear that 
 the preacher's boy was the worst in the parish, and 
 I won't take any impudence. My son will join the 
 Mission School, where they aren't too stingy to 
 give him a bit of candy!" And Mrs. Puffer left, 
 and everybody was pleased. 
 
 " Willie got the money ; but the teachers had 
 counted on making up their festival mostly with 
 
Sixty -five Dollars, 205 
 
 cakes and other dainties, contributed by families. 
 So that the candy money was only sixteen dollars, 
 and Willie was yet a long way off from having the 
 amount he needed. Twenty-four dollars were yet 
 wanting. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE WIDOW AND THE FATHERLESS. : 
 
 THE husband of widow Martin had been killed 
 by a railroad accident. The family were 
 very poor. Mrs. Martin could sew, and she could 
 have sustained her family if she had had a machine. 
 But fingers are not worth much against iron wheels. 
 And so, while others had machines, Mrs. Martin 
 could not make much without one. She had been 
 obliged to ask help from the overseer of the 
 poor. 
 
 Mr, Lampeer, the overseer, was a hard man. He 
 had not skill enough to detect impostors, and so he 
 had come to believe that everybody who was poor 
 was rascally. He had but one eye, and he turned 
 his head round in a curious way to look at you out 
 of it. That dreadful one eye always seemed to be 
 going to shoQt. His voice had not a chord of tender- 
 ness in it, but was in every way harsh and hard. It 
 
The Widow and the Fatherless, 207 
 
 was said that he had been a schoohnaster once. I 
 pity the scholars. 
 
 Widow Martin lived — if you could call it living 
 — in a tumble-down looking house, that would not 
 have stood many earthquakes. She had tried dili- 
 gently to support her family and keep them together j 
 but the wolf stood always at the door. Sewing by 
 hand did not bring in quite money enough to buy 
 bread and clothes for four well children, and pay 
 the expenses of poor little Harry's sickness ; for all 
 through the summer and fall Harry had been sick. 
 At last the food was gone, and there was nothing 
 to buy fuel with. Mrs. Martin had to go to the 
 overseer of the poor. 
 
 She w^as a little, shy, hard-working woman, this 
 Mrs. Martin ; so when she took her seat among the 
 paupers of every sort in Mr. Lampeer's office, and 
 waited her turn, it was with a trembling heart. She 
 watched the hard man, who didn't mean to be so 
 hard, but who couldn't tell the difference between 
 a good face and a counterfeit ; she watched him as 
 he went through with the different cases, and her 
 heart beat every minute more and more violently. 
 When he came to her he broke out with — 
 
 " What's your name ? " in a voice that sounded 
 
2o8 Mr, B lakers Walking- Stick, 
 
 for all the world as if he were accusing her of rob- 
 bing a safe. 
 
 " Sarah Martin/* said the widow, trembling with 
 terror, and growing red and white in turns. Mr. 
 Lampeer, who was on the lookout for any sign of 
 guiltiness, was now sure that Mrs. Martin could not 
 be honest. 
 
 " Where do you live ? " This was spoken with a 
 half sneer. 
 
 " In Slab Alley," whispered the widow, for her 
 voice was scared out of her. 
 
 ** How many children have you got ? " 
 
 Mrs. Martin gave him the list of her five, with 
 their ages, telling him of little Harry, who was six 
 years old and an invalid. 
 
 " Your oldest is twelve and a girl. I have a place 
 for her, and, I think, for the boy, too. You must 
 bind them out. Mr. Slicker, the landlord of the 
 Farmers' Hotel, will take the girl, and I think James 
 Sweeny will take the boy to run errands abotlt the 
 livery stable. I'll send you some provisions and 
 coal to-day ; but you must let the children go. I'll 
 come to your house in a few days. Don't object; I 
 won't hear a word. If you're as poor as you let on 
 to be, you'll be glad enough to get your young ones 
 
The Widow and the Fatherless, 209 
 
 into places where they'll get enough to eat. That's 
 all, not a word, now." And he turned to the next 
 applicant, leaving the widow to go home with her 
 heart so cold. 
 
 Let Susie go to Slicker's tavern ! What kind of a 
 house would it be without her } Who would attend 
 to the house while she sewed? And what would 
 become of her girl in such a place ? And then to 
 send George, who had to wait on Harry, to send 
 him away forever was to shut out all hope of ever 
 being in better circumstances. Then she could not 
 sew, and the children could never help her. God 
 pity the people that fall into the hands of public 
 charity ! 
 
 The next few days wore heavily on with the 
 widow. What to do she did not know. At night 
 she scarcely slept at all. When she did drop into a 
 sleep, she dreamed that her children were starving, 
 and woke in fright. Then she slept again, and 
 dreamed that a one-eyed robber had gotten in at the 
 window, and was carrying off Susie and George. 
 At last morning came. The last of the food was 
 eaten for breakfast, and widow Martin sat down to 
 wait. Her mind was in a horrible state of doubt. 
 To starve to death together, or to give up her chil- 
 
2IO Mr, Blake's Walking-Stick. 
 
 dren ! That was the question which many a poor 
 mother^s heart has had to decide. Mrs. Martin soon 
 became so nervous she could not sew. She could 
 not keep back the tears, and when Susie and George 
 put their arms about her neck and asked what was 
 the matter, it made the matter worse. It was the 
 day before Christmas. The sleigh-bells jingled mer- 
 rily. Even in Slab Alley one could hear sounds of 
 joy at the approaching festivities. But there was 
 no joy in Widow Martin's house or heart. The 
 dinner hour had come and passed. The little chil- 
 dren were hungry. And yet Mrs. Martin had not 
 made up her mind. 
 
 At the appointed time Lampeer came. He took 
 out the two indentures with which the mother was 
 to sign away all right to her two eldest children. It 
 was in vain that the widow told him that if she lost 
 them she could do no work for her own support, and 
 must be forever a pauper. Lampeer had an idea 
 that no poor person had a right to love children. 
 Parental love was, in his eyes, or his eye, an expen- 
 sive luxury that none but the rich should indulge in. 
 
 "Mrs. Martin," he said, "you may either sign 
 these indentures, by which your girl will get a good 
 place as a nurse and errand girl for the tavern- 
 
The Widow and the Fatherless. 211 
 
 keeper^s wife, and your boy will have plenty to eat 
 and get to be a good hostler, or you and your brats 
 may starve ! " With that he took his hat and opened 
 the door. 
 
 " Stop ! " said Mrs. Martin, " I must have medi- 
 cine and food, or Harry will not live till Sunday. I 
 will sign." 
 
 The papers w^ere again spread out. The poor- 
 master jerked the folds out of them impatiently, in a 
 way that seemed to say^ " You keep me an uncon- 
 scionable long time about a very small matter." 
 
 When the papers were spread out, Mrs. Martin's 
 two oldest children, who began to understand what 
 was going on, cried bitterly. Mrs. Martin took the 
 pen and was about to sign. But it was necessary to 
 have two witnesses, and so Lampeer took his hat and 
 called a neighbor-woman, for the second witness. 
 
 Mrs. Martin delayed the signature as long as she 
 could. But seeing no other help, she took up the 
 pen. She thought of Abraham with the knife in his 
 hand. She hoped that an angel would call out of 
 heaven to her relief. But as there was no voice from 
 heaven, she dipped the pen in the ink. 
 
 Just then some one happened to knock at the door, 
 and the poor woman's nerves were so weak that she 
 
212 
 
 Mr. Blake^s Walking- Stick, 
 
 let the pen fall, and sank into a chair. Lampeer, 
 who stood near the door, opened it with an impatient 
 jerk, and — did the angel of deliverance enter ? 
 It was only Willie Blake and Sammy Bantam. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 SHARPS AND BETWEENS. 
 
 LET US go back. We left Willie awhile ago 
 puzzling over that twenty-four dollars. After 
 many hours of thought and talk with Sammy 
 about how they should manage it, two gentlemen 
 gave them nine dollars, and so there was but fif- 
 teen more to be raised. But that fifteen seemed 
 harder to get than the fifty they had already 
 gotten. At last Willie thought of something. They 
 would try the sewing-machine man. Mr. Sharps 
 would throw off fifteen dollars. 
 
 But they did not know Mr. Sharps. Though he 
 raade more than fifteen dollars on the machine, he 
 hated to throw anything off. He was always glad to 
 put on. Sammy described him by saying that " Mr. 
 Sharps was not for-giving but he was for-getting." 
 
 They talked ; they told the story ; they begged. 
 Mr. Sharps really could not afford to throw off a 
 cent. He was poor. Taxes were high. He gave a 
 
214 ^^' Blake's Walking- Stick. 
 
 great deal. (I do not know what he called a great 
 deal. He had been to church three times in a year, 
 and twice he had put a penny in the plate. I sup- 
 pose Mr. Sharps thought that a great deal And so 
 it was, for him, poor fellow.) And then the butcher 
 had raised the price of meat ; and he had to pay 
 twenty-three dollars for a bonnet for his daughter. 
 Really, he was too poor. So the boys went away 
 down-hearted. 
 
 But Sammy went straight to an uncle of his, who 
 was one of the editors of the Thornton Daily Bugle. 
 After a private talk with him he started back to Mr. 
 Sharps. Willie followed Sammy this time. What 
 Sammy had in his head Willie could not make out. 
 
 " I'll fix him ! " That was the only word Sammy 
 uttered on the way back. 
 
 " Now, Mr. Sharps,'' he began, " my uncle's name 
 is Josiah Penn. Maybe you know him. He's one 
 of the editors of the Thornton Daily Bugle. I've 
 been talking with him. If you let me have a Feeler 
 and Stilson sewing-machine for fifty dollars, I will 
 have a good notice put in the Daily Bugle J^ 
 
 Mr. Sharps whistles a minute. He thought he 
 could not do it. No, he was too poor. 
 
 "Well, then, Willie," said Sammy, "we'll go 
 
Sharps and Betweens, 215 
 
 across the street and try the agent of the Hillrocks 
 and Nibbs machine. I think Mr. Betweens will 
 take my oifer." 
 
 "O!" said Mr. Sharps, "you don't want that 
 machine. It's only a single thread, and it will ravel, 
 and — well — you don't want that." 
 
 "Indeed, my mother says there isn't a pin to 
 choose between them," said Sammy ; " and I can 
 give Mr. Betweens just as good a notice as I could 
 give you." 
 
 " Very well, take the machine for fifty dollars. I 
 do it just out of pity for the widow, you know. I 
 never could stand by and see suffering and not re- 
 lieve it. You won't forget about that notice in the 
 Daily Bugle, though, will you ? " 
 
 No, Sammy wouldn't forget. 
 
 It was now the day before Christmas, and the 
 boys thought they had better get the machine down 
 there. 
 
 So they found Billy Horton, who belonged to 
 their class, and who drove an express wagon, and 
 told him about it. He undertook to take it down. 
 But first, he drove around the town and picked up 
 all the boys of the class, that they might share in 
 the pleasure. 
 
2i6 Mr, Blake's Walking- Stick. 
 
 Meantime, a gentleman who had heard of Willie's 
 efforts, gave him a five dollar bill for widow Martin. 
 This Willie invested in provisions, which he in- 
 structed the grocer to send to the widow. 
 
 He and Sammy hurried down to widow Martin'Sj 
 and got there, as I told you in the last chapter, just 
 as she was about to sign away all right, title, and 
 interest in two of the children whom God had given 
 her ; to sign them away at the command of the hard 
 Mr. Lampeer, who was very much irritated that he 
 should be interrupted just at the moment when he 
 was about to carry the point ; for he loved to carry 
 a point better than to eat his breakfast. 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE ANGEL STAYS THE HAND. 
 
 WHEN the boys came in, they told the 
 widow that they wished to speak with 
 little sick Harry, They talked to Harry awhile, 
 without noticing what was going on in the other 
 part of the room. 
 
 Presently Willie felt his arm pulled. Looking 
 round, he saw Susie's tearful face. "Please don't 
 let mother give me and George away." Somehow 
 all the children in school had the habit of coming to 
 this long-headed Willie for help, and to him Susie 
 came. 
 
 That word of Susie's awakened Willie. Up to 
 that moment he had not thought what Mr. Lampeer 
 was there for. Now he saw Mrs. Martin holding the 
 , pen witii trembling hand, and making motions in 
 the air preparatory to writing her name. Most peo- 
 ple not used to writing, write in the air before they 
 touch the paper. When Willie saw this, he flew 
 
21:3 Mr, Blake's Walking- Stick, 
 
 across the room and thrust his hand upon the place 
 where the name ought to be, saying, — 
 
 " Don't do that, Mrs. Martin ! Don't give away 
 your children ! " 
 
 - Poor woman ! the pen dropped from her hand as 
 the knife had dropped from Abraham's. She grasped 
 Willie's arm, laying, — 
 
 " How can I help it ? Do tell me ! " 
 
 But Lampeer had grasped the other arm, and 
 broke out with — 
 
 " You rogue, what do you mean ? " 
 
 Willie's fine blue eyes turned quickly into Lam- 
 peer's one muddy eye. 
 
 ** Let go ! " he said, very quietly but very deter- 
 minedly, '* don't strike me, or my father will take 
 the law on you." 
 
 Lampeer let go. 
 
 Just then the groceries came, and a minute later, 
 Billy Morton's wagon drove up with the machine, 
 and all the other boys, who came in and shook hands 
 with the poor but delighted mother and her children. 
 I cannot tell you any more about that scene. I only 
 know that Lampeer went out angry and muttering. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 TOMMY PUFFER. 
 
 WILLIE was happy that night He went 
 down to the festival at the Mission. 
 There was Tommy Puffer's soft, oyster-like body 
 among the scholars of the Mission. He was 
 waiting for something good. His mouth and eyes 
 were watering. He loooked triumphantly at the 
 boys from the other school. They wouldn't get any- 
 thing so nice. The superintendent announced that 
 no boy's name would be called for a paper bag of 
 " refreshments " but those who had been present 
 two Sundays. And so poor starving Tommy Puffer 
 had to carry his pudding-bag of a body home again 
 without a chance to give it an extra stuffing. 
 
CHAPTER XI. 
 
 AN ODD PARTY. 
 
 1 CANNOT tell you about the giving of the 
 broom-machine to the blind broom-maker; of 
 the ton of coal to Parm'ly, and of all the other 
 things that, happened on Christmas Day when the 
 presents were given. I must leave these things 
 out. As for Aunt Parm'ly, she said she did not 
 know, but dat dare coal seemed like it come from 
 de sky. 
 
 But there was an ample feast yet for the boys at 
 the Sunday-school, for many biscuits, and cakes, and 
 pies had been baked. But every time Willie looked 
 at the walking stick he thought of " the poor, the 
 maimed, the lame, and the blind." And so he and 
 Sammy Bantam soon set the whole school, teachers 
 and all, afire with the idea of inviting in the inmates 
 of the county poor-house. It was not half so hard to 
 persuade the members of the school to do this as it 
 was to coax them to the first move ; for when people 
 
An Odd Party, 221 
 
 have found out how good it is to do good, they like 
 to do good again. 
 
 Such a company it was ! There was old crazy 
 Newberry, who had a game-bag slung about his neck, 
 and who imagined that the little pebbles in it were 
 of priceless value. Old Dorothy, who was nearly 
 eighty, and who, thanks to the meanness of the au- 
 thorities, had not tasted any delicacy, not so much 
 as a cup of tea, since she had been in the alms- 
 house ; and there were half-idiots, and whole idiots, 
 and sick people, and crippled people, armless peo- 
 ple and legless people, blind people and deaf. Such 
 an assortment of men, women, and little children, 
 you cannot often find. They were fed with the good 
 things provided for the Sunday-school children, much 
 to the disgust of Tommy Puffer and his mother. 
 For Tommy was bent on getting something to eat 
 here. 
 
 There were plenty of people who claimed the 
 credit of suggesting this way of spending the Christ- 
 mas. But Willie did not say anything about it, for 
 he remembered what Christ had said about blowing 
 a trumpet before you. But I think Sammy Bantam 
 trumpeted Willie's fame enough. 
 
 It would be hard to tell who enjoyed the Christ- 
 
222 
 
 Mr, Blake^s Walking- Stick, 
 
 mas the most. But I think the givers found it more 
 blessed than the receivers. What talk Mr. Blake 
 heard in his rounds I cannot tell. If you want to 
 know, you must ask the Old Ebony. 
 
The Chicken Little Stories. 
 
I. 
 
 SIMON AND THE GARULY, 
 
 CHICKEN LITTLE fixed herself up in her 
 new rocking chair, set her mouth in a very 
 prim fashion, leaned her head on one side, and be- 
 gan to rock with all her might, jerking her feet from 
 the floor every time. 
 
 " I yish," she began, " I yish somebody yould tell 
 some stories yat yould be little for me to hear." 
 
 And haVing made this speech, which was meant 
 as a hint for me, she rocked harder than ever, nearly 
 upsetting herself two or three times. 
 
 " What shall it be about ? " I said. 
 
 " 'Bout some naughty boy or 'nother." 
 
 She likes to hear of naughty boys, but not of 
 naughty girls. She thinks stories of naughty girls 
 are a little personal. And so, with her chair going 
 and her shining eyes peering out from under her 
 overhanging forehead, I began 
 
224 ^^ Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 THB» STORY. 
 
 Simon was a selfish fel'ow. He was always willing 
 anybody should divide their good things with him, 
 but was never willing, himself, to divide with any- 
 body else. He was never willing to play with 
 others, for fear he would not be treated right. His 
 two brothers and his sister had their playthings 
 together, but Simon would not play with them, for 
 fear he should not get his rights in all things, and 
 so he took his little stock and set up for himself. 
 His brothers and sister, of course, by putting theirs 
 together, had many more than he. Then, too, by 
 working together, they managed to fix up many nice 
 things. But poor Simon had nobody to help him, 
 and nobody to play with him. So he came to feel 
 very bad. He thought every body was angry with 
 him. 
 
 One sunny afternoon, when the other children were 
 laughing and shouting 'merrily, poor Simon tried in vain 
 to be happy by himself. Something in his throat kept 
 choking him. 
 
 "I guess it was the cry that choked him/* broke in 
 the Small Chicken. '^ I had a cry in my throat yester- 
 day. It was bigger than my fist, and most choked me 
 to death, till I let it out." 
 
Simon and the Garuly, 225 
 
 Yes, that was what hurt him, and presently he let it 
 out, as you say, and had a good, hard cry. Then gradu- 
 ally he went off into a sort of doze. Soon he felt some- 
 thing strike him on the head. 
 
 "Wake up ! wake up ! " 
 
 Simon opened his eyes, and saw a funny, little, old 
 man standing over him, who kept one of his eyes 
 shut all the time, and looked out of the other with the 
 queerest twinkle in the world. He had a knotty stick 
 in his hand, and was tapping Simon over the head with 
 it. 
 
 "What do you want? " growled Simon. 
 
 With that the old man hit him another sharp blow 
 over the head. 
 
 "Get up," he said, "and come with me, and I will 
 show you where I live. I am one of the Garulies." 
 
 Simon got to his feet, partly because he was afraid of 
 another blow from the cudgel, and partly because he 
 had a very great desire to know something of the Gam- 
 lies. 
 
 "Come along! come along!" said the queer little 
 man, as he gave Simon another tap. 
 
 He took the road through the woods pasture, down 
 under Swallow Hill, and then through the blackberry 
 patch, until they came to the brook known as "Bee 
 
226 The Chicken Little Stories. 
 
 Tree Run." Here, just at the foot of a large sycamore, 
 and among its roots, was fastened a curious boat, made 
 of a large turtle shell turned upside down. 
 
 "Get in ! get in ! " squealed the little old Garuly. 
 
 "I am too large," said Simon; "that craft will sink 
 if I step in.'' 
 
 In an instant the little man whirled round and hit 
 him three tremendous raps over the head with his 
 cudgel, shoiiting, or rather squeaking^ 
 
 " Smaller ! smaller ! smaller ! " 
 
 The blows made Simon's head ring, but when he 
 recovered himself, he found that the turtle-shell boat 
 appeared a great deal larger than before. Not only 
 that, but every thing about him appeared larger. He 
 soon discovered, however, that he was smaller, and 
 that that was what made other things seem larger. For 
 you know we measure every thing by ourselves. 
 
 "Mamma don't," said the Chicken; "she measures 
 with a yard stick." 
 
 Well, Simon prided himself on being so big, and it 
 was not pleasant to him to find himself suddenly be- 
 come so small that a large rooster could have looked 
 down upon him. But he did not say any thing, for 
 fear of old Garuly's stick, but just got into the boat as 
 soon as possible. The old man got in, too, and they 
 
Simon and the Garuly, 227 
 
 were soon floating down the stream. The brook seemed 
 like a river, and the grass upon the banks was like trees, 
 to Simon, now. The old Garuly guided the boat over 
 the rapids, that seemed frightful to Simon, and floated 
 it down to where the cHffs were steep, and presently 
 came to a place where the water runs under a large 
 rock. The old man guided the queer craft into this 
 dark, cave-like place, and shot up to a shelving land- 
 ing place. 
 
 " Get out !" he squeaked. 
 
 Simon did as he was commanded. 
 
 "Go in ! go in ! " cried the Garuly, pointing to a hole 
 in the cHfl*. 
 
 " I am too large,'* said Simon. 
 
 And immediately the old man struck him over the 
 head three times, as before, crying, 
 
 "Smaller ! smaller ! smaller ! " 
 
 Simon now found himself not more than half as large 
 as he was before. ' He went in with the Garuly, who 
 had also grown smaller. Inside there was the daintiest 
 chamber, all full of beautiful shells wrought into tiny 
 articles of furniture. The floor was paved with shining 
 pebbles, and the room was lit up by three fire-flies and 
 two glow-worms. 
 
 " How could you make the place so beautiful? " cried 
 Simon. 
 
228 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 "The Garulies work together," said the old man, 
 sharply. 
 
 The little man told Simon to go in through another 
 door, but Simon was still too large for that, and so the 
 Garuly again pounded him, crying, 
 
 "Smaller! smaller! smaller!" 
 
 Once in, Simon saw indeed the treasures of the Gar- 
 uly's household. There were easy chairs, made of the 
 hulls of hickory nuts ; hammocks, made of the inside 
 bark of the paw-paw; wash-bowls, curiously car\^ed 
 from the hulls of beech- nuts ; and beautiful curtains, 
 of the leaves of the silver poplar. The floor was paved 
 with the seeds of the wild grape, and beautifully car- 
 peted with the lichens from the beech and maple trees. 
 The beds were made of a great variety of mosses, woven 
 together with the utmost delicacy of workmanship. 
 There was a bath-tub made of a mussel shell, cut into 
 beautiful cameo figures. 
 
 " How wonderful ! " cried Simon, clapping his hands. 
 
 "The Garulies work together!" said the old man, 
 more decidedly than before. 
 
 Simon noticed that his own voice was beginning to 
 squeak like that of the old Garuly himself. But after 
 seeing the interior of his dwelling, he would not have 
 minded being changed into a Garuly. 
 
Simon and the Garuly. 229 
 
 The old man was now leading him out through a dif- 
 ferent entrance. Then along a path they went until 
 they came to a fence, the rails of which seemed to Si- 
 mon to be larger than logs. They crawled through 
 the fence, and found themselves in a farm-yard. The 
 chickens seemed to be larger than those great birds 
 that geologists say once lived on the earth, and that 
 were as high as a house. Presently they came to 
 a bee stand. The bees seemed to Simon to be of im- 
 mense size, and he was greatly afraid ; but the old Gar- 
 uly spoke to the fierce-looking sentinel bee that stood 
 by the door and shook one of his antennae in a friendly 
 way. 
 
 " His Aunt Annie ? " said Chicken Little. " What do 
 you mean?" 
 
 His antennae are his feelers, the little hair-like things 
 that stand out from his head. 
 
 Now the bees seemed to know the Garuly, and so 
 they let him pass in. But poor Simon had to be 
 pounded down again before he was small enough to go 
 in. When he got in, he saw a world of beauty. Being 
 so small himself, and so near to the bees, he could see 
 how beautiful their eyes were, made up of hundreds of 
 little eyes, with little hairs growing out between them. 
 And then, too, the honey-comb seemed like great, gold- 
 
230 The Chicken Little Stories. 
 
 en wells, full of honey. Each well seemed as large as 
 a barrel. They climbed up along the sides of the 
 combs, and saw some bees feeding the young, some 
 building cells, som.e bringing in honey, some feeding 
 the queen bee, some clearing out the waste matter, and 
 others standing guard. They all seemed cheerful. 
 
 "Bees all work together ! " piped the old man. : "No 
 bee is selfish. These bees will not live to eat this honey. 
 Bees that work hard in summer only live to be about 
 two months old. This honey is stored for others. But 
 see how happy they all are. How much may be done 
 by those who work together cheerfully." 
 
 Out of the hive they went, and back toward the Gar- 
 uly's house. But the old man turned aside to go to an 
 ant hill. 
 
 " Let's go in here," said the Garuly. 
 
 " No, I am too large," said Simon. 
 
 " Smaller ! smaller ! smaller ! " cried the Garuly, 
 beating him over the head again, until Simon was not 
 much larger than the ants, and the ants appeared to be 
 as large as ponies. Down the well-like hole they 
 climbed, until they entered the chambers of the ants. 
 Here all were busy, some carrying out earth, others 
 excavating new chambers, others caring for the eggs, 
 others bringing in food, while others were clearing out 
 
Simon and the Garuly. 231 
 
 the road. But no one grumbled, none said that he 
 had the heaviest load. 
 
 "See !" cried the Garuly, "the little ants work to- 
 gether. They have all things in common. There is 
 no selfishness and no quarreling among them." 
 
 Just then a wise old ant came up, and hearing the 
 Garuly's remark, he said, 
 
 " Did you never hear the 
 
 "story of the selfish ant? 
 
 " There was once a selfish ant who could never be 
 satisfied. He always thought he had the hardest work 
 in the world. If he carried burdens, he complained 
 that those who cared for the eggs had the easiest time ; 
 and if he had charge of the eggs he wished to be changed 
 to some other kind of work. At last he thought he 
 would set up for himself. It was exceedingly hard 
 work for him to dig and find his own food with no help, 
 so that half the summer was gone before he got a place 
 to live in, and a sorry place it was. Before he got any 
 food laid by, the rain filled up his house, and he had 
 to spend another month in digging. And so, with one 
 mishap and another, and no one to help him, the sum- 
 mer was soon almost gone, and he had no store for 
 winter. When the first frost came, the selfish fellow 
 
232 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 came back, heart-broken and crest-fallen, and begged to 
 be taken into the colony again. All winter long he had 
 to eat the bread that others had gathered, and he never 
 afterwards grumbled because his work was a little harder 
 than that of others." 
 
 "You see," said the Garuly, "that the ants work to- 
 gether. What a shame it is that you should not be:able 
 even to play with your brothers and sister ! " 
 
 And with that the little old man turned his one eye 
 on Simon, and it shone like a coal of fire, and Simon 
 thought he could feel it burning him. Just then an 
 ant came up, who had heard the conversation, and 
 asked the Garuly what it meant. 
 
 "He will not even play with his brothers," said the 
 old man, looking fiercer than ever. 
 
 " Put him out ! " cried the ant. And then a hun- 
 dred ants cried, "put him out ! " and they began tug- 
 ging at him with all their might. One caught hold of 
 his right foot and another of his left, one took him by 
 the arm and another by the head, and as they were 
 nearly as big as he was, they were about to carry him 
 off bodily, when Simon suddenly awoke, and started 
 up, to find that instead of the ants tugging at him, it 
 was the other children, who had come to awaken him, 
 for fear he would catch cold sleeping in the night air, 
 
Simon and the Garuly. ^33 
 
 and to find that what he thought was the one fiery eye 
 of the Garuly, was the full moon shining through the 
 trees. 
 
 "There," said the Wee Chick, "that spoils the story. 
 I don't want it to be a dream. What made 'em yake 
 him up so twick?" 
 
 "Was he better afterwards?" said Fairy. 
 
 " Yes, for the very next day he moved to the same 
 playhouse with the rest of the children, and whenever 
 he was selfish he would look around to see if the old 
 Garuly was looking at him out of one eye." 
 
11. 
 
 LAZY LARKIN AND THE JOBLILIES. 
 
 WE have oak trees and green grass at The 
 Nest, what many children in crowded cities 
 do not get. Three little girls at the Nest love to play in 
 the green grass, with some pet chickens, and a white, 
 pink-eyed rabbit for companions. Now, you must know 
 that I am quite as fond of the oaks and the grass and 
 the blue sky as Sunbeam, or Fairy, or the brown-faced 
 Little Chick. And so it happens, when the day is hot, 
 and the lazy breezes will not keep the house cool, that 
 I just move my chair and table out by the lilac bush 
 that grows under the twin oaks, and then I think I can 
 write better. And there I sit and watch the trains 
 coming and going to and from the great, bustling city, 
 only a dozen miles away, or listen to the singing of 
 the robins while I write. 
 
 I was sitting thus one dull, hot afternoon, trying to 
 write ; but it was a lazy day ; the robins had forgotten 
 
236 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 to sing, the little sparrows that live up in the oaks, had 
 stopped twittering, and the very honey bees were hum- 
 ming drowsily, when Chicken Little came up with a 
 wreath of white clover around her head, and begged 
 for a story. The older children wanted one, also, and 
 so I had to tell one. To tell the truth, I was a little 
 lazy myself, and so I willingly sat down in the grass 
 among the children and began. 
 
 " Shall I tell about a lazy girl about as big as Chick- 
 en Little?" I asked. 
 
 " No, sir," she said ; " tell about a lazy boy that was 
 as big as Sunbeam." 
 
 Sunbeam laughed at this, and nodded her head for 
 me to go on. 
 
 And so I began thus : " Little lazy Larkin laughed 
 and leaped, or longed and lounged the livelong day, 
 and loved not labor, but liked leisure." 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! " cried the Wee Chick ; " that sounds so 
 funny ! " 
 
 "It's got so many I's, that's the reason," said 
 Fairy. 
 
 "Tell it right," said Sunbeam. 
 
 "Well, then," I said,." Larkin was an indolent juve- 
 nile, fond of mirthfulness and cachinatory and saltatory 
 exercises — " 
 
Lazy Larkin and the Joblilies. 237 
 
 " I don't know what you mean ! " said Fairy, just 
 ready to get 'angry. 
 
 "Sech awful big words!" cried the Little Pullet; 
 " they is as big — as big as — as — as big as punkins ! " 
 
 *• I guess that's what they call hifalutin," said Sun- 
 beam; "now do tell it right." 
 
 And so I told it "right." 
 
 Larkin was an idle fellow, and was so utterly 
 good-for-nothing, that he came to be called " Lazy 
 Larkin." It is a dreadful thing to get a bad name 
 when you are young. It sticks to you like a sand 
 burr. Larkin would neither work nor study. He 
 did not even like good, hearty play, for any 
 great length of time, but was very fond of the play 
 that boys call miimble-the-peg, because, as he said, 
 you could sit down to play it. He fished a little, 
 but if the fish did not bite at the first place, he sat 
 down ; he would not move, but just sat and waited 
 for them to come to him. 
 
 He had gone out to Bass Lake to fish, one day, 
 in company with some other boys, but they had put 
 him out of the boat because he was too lazy to row 
 when his turn came. The others were rowing about, 
 trolling for pickerel, and he sat down on a point of 
 land called " Duck Point," and went to fishing. As 
 
238 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 the fish would not bite, he sat looking at them in the 
 clear water, and wishing that he was a fish, — they 
 Jiad such a lazy time of it, lying there in the sun, or 
 paddling idly around through the water. He saw a 
 large pickerel lying perfectly still over a certain spot 
 near the shore. When other fish came near the 
 pickerel, it darted out and drove them off, and then 
 paddled back to the same place again. Larkin 
 dropped his bait near by, but the fish paid no atten- 
 tion to it, and, indeed, seemed to have nothing to do 
 but to lie still in the same place. 
 
 " I wish I were a pickerel," said the lazy fellow ; 
 " I wouldn't have to carry in wood or pull weeds out 
 of the garden, or feed the chickens, or get the mul- 
 tiplication table, or — or — do anything else;" and 
 he gave one vast yawn, stretching his mouth so wide, 
 and keeping it open so long, that it really seemed as 
 if he never would get it together again. When it 
 did shut, his eyes shut with it, for the fellow was too 
 lazy to hold them open. 
 
 " Ha ha ! lazy fellow ! lazy fellow ! " 
 
 Larkin heard some one say this, and raised up his 
 head to see who it was. Not finding any one about, 
 he thought he must have been dreaming. So he just 
 gave one more yawn, opening his mouth like the lid 
 
Lazy Larkin and the J^ob lilies. 239 
 
 of an old tin coffee pot, and keeping it open nearly 
 a minute. Then he stretched himself upon the grass 
 again. 
 
 "Ha! ha! lazy fellow ! lazy fellow! '' 
 
 This time there seemed to be half a dozen voices, 
 but Larkin felt too lazy to look up. 
 
 *•' Ha ! ha ! very lazy fellow ! " 
 
 Larkin just got one eye open a little, and looked 
 around to see where the sound came from. After a 
 while, he saw a dozen or more very odd, queer-look- 
 ing creatures, sitting on the broad, round leaves of 
 the water-lilies, that floated on the surface of the 
 lake. These little people had white caps, for all the 
 world like the white lily blossoms that were bobbing 
 up and down around them. In fact, it took Larkin 
 some time to make out clearly that they were not 
 lilies. But finally he saw their faces peeping out, 
 and noticed that they had no hands, but only fins 
 instead. Then he noticed that their coats were 
 beautifully mottled, like the sides of the pickerel, 
 and their feet flattened out, like a fish's tail. Soon 
 he saw that others of the same kind were coming up, 
 all dripping, from the water, and taking their places 
 on the leaves ; and as each new comer arrived, the 
 others kept saying, 
 
240 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 " Ha ! ha ! lazy fellow ! very lazy fellow ! '' 
 
 And then the others would look at him, and shake 
 their speckled sides with laughter, and say, *' Lazy 
 fellow ! ha ! ha ! " 
 
 Poor Larkin was used to being laughed at, but it 
 was provoking to be laughed at by these queer-look- 
 ing folks, sitting on the lilies in the water. Soon he 
 saw that there were nearly a hundred of them gathered. 
 
 " Come on, Joblilies ! " cried one of them, who 
 carried a long fish-bone, and seemed to be leader ; 
 " let's make a Joblily of him." 
 
 Upon that the whole swarm of them came ashore. 
 The leader stuck his fish-bone in Larkin, and made 
 him yell. Then they all set up another laugh, and 
 another cry of ^' lazy fellow ! " 
 
 " Being me three grains of silver-white sand from 
 the middle of the lake,'' said the leader; and two 
 of them jumped into the water and disappeared. 
 
 " Now fetch three blades of dry grass from the 
 lining of the kingfisher's nest," he said ; and imme- 
 diately two others were gone. 
 
 When the four returned, the leader dropped the 
 grains of sand in Larkin's eyes, saying, 
 
 ** Three grains of silver sand, 
 From the Joblily's hand ! 
 
Lazy Larkin and the J^ob lilies, 241 
 
 Where shall the Joblily lie, 
 
 When the young owl learns to fly ? " 
 
 Then they all jumped upon him and stamped, but 
 Larkin could not move hand or foot. In fact, he 
 found that his hands were flattening out, like fins. 
 The leader then put the three blades of grass in Lar- 
 kin's mouth, and said, 
 
 " Eat a dry blade ! eat a dry blade I 
 From the nest that the kingfisher made I 
 What will the Joblilies do, 
 When the old owl cries tu-whoo ? " 
 
 And then the whole party set up such a cry of " tu- 
 whoo ! tu-whoo ! " that Larkin was frightened beyond 
 measure j and they caught him and rolled him over 
 rapidly, until he found himself falling with a great splash 
 into the water. On rising to the surface, he saw that 
 he was changed into a Joblily himself. 
 
 Then the whole -party broke out singing, 
 
 " When the sun shines the Joblilies roam ; 
 
 When the storm comes we play with the foam ; 
 When the owl hoots Joblilies fly home ! " 
 
 When they had sung this, they all went under the 
 water ; and the leader, giving Larkin a thrust with his 
 fish-bone, cried out, " Come along I " and lazy Larkin 
 
242 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 had nothing to do but to swim after them. Once undei 
 the water, the scene was exceedingly beautiful. The 
 great umbrella-like leaves of the lilies made spots of 
 shadow in the water and on the pebbles of the bottom, 
 while the streaks of sunshine that came down between 
 flecked every thing with patches of glorious light, just 
 as you have seen the hills and valleys made glorious by 
 alternate patches of light and shade, produced by the 
 shadows of the clouds. And the tall lily stems, in the 
 soft light, appeared to be pillars, while the great variety 
 of sea-weed, that wound about them in strange festoons, 
 was glorious beyond description. There were beauti- 
 ful bass turning their sides up to the sun, and darting 
 about through these strange, weird scenes, seeming to 
 enjoy their glorious abode. 
 
 " You have an easy time of it, no doubfe," said Lar- 
 kin, to one of these fish. 
 
 " Easy time of it, indeed ! I have rather a happy 
 time of it, because I have plenty to do ; but you are 
 a strange Joblily if you do not know that I have any 
 thing but an easy time of it. Chasing minnows, jump- 
 ing three feet out of water after a butterfly, catching 
 wigglers and mosquitoes, and keeping a sharp lookout 
 for unlucky grasshoppers that may chance to fall in my 
 way ; all these are not easy. I tell you, there is no 
 
Lazy Larkin and the yoblilies. 243 
 
 family of our social position that has more trouble to 
 earn a living than the bass family." 
 
 " Come along," said the Joblily, giving another punch 
 with his fish-bone ; and Larkin travelled on. 
 
 Presently they came to a log with something grow- 
 ing on it. 
 
 "What beautiful moss ! " 
 
 "Moss, indeed!" said one of the Joblilies; "that 
 is a colony of small animals, all fast to one stem." 
 
 "They have an easy time of it, I suppose," said La- 
 zy Larkin ; " they don''t have to travel, for they cannot 
 move." 
 
 "True, but these beautiful, transparent moss animals 
 have to get their living by catching insects so small that 
 you cannot see them. They have great numbers of 
 little fingers or feelers that are going all the time." 
 
 Larkin touched one, and it immediately drew itself 
 in, — really swallowed itself; for these little things take 
 this way of saving themselves from harm. 
 
 And so Larkin swam on, and found that it was a busy 
 world beneath the lake. He saw mussels slowly crawl- 
 ing through the sand; he found that the pickerel, 
 which he had supposed idle, was really standing guard 
 over her nest, and fanning the water with her fins all 
 day long, that a current of fresh water might be sup- 
 
244 Th^ Chicken Little Stories. - 
 
 plied to her eggs. And all the time the Joblilies kept 
 singing,— 
 
 • " Work ! work ! 
 Never shirk ! 
 There is work for you, 
 Work for all to do ! 
 Happy they who do it, 
 They that shirk shall rue it ! " 
 
 And after their long swim around the lake, the Job- 
 lilies came back to Duck Point again, and climbed out 
 on the lily leaves. No sooner had Larkin seated him- 
 self with the rest, than he heard a great owl cry, " Tu- 
 whit ! tu-whoo ! '* 
 
 Immediately the Joblilies leaped into the air, and the 
 whole hundred of them dashed into the water like so 
 many bull-frogs, crying, as they came down, 
 
 " What shall the Joblily do, 
 When the great owl cries tu-whoo ? " 
 
 Larkin looked around suddenly to see whither they 
 had gone, but could discover no trace of them. A 
 moment after, he found himself sitting under the same 
 tree that he was under when the Joblilies came for him. 
 The boys had gone, and he was forced to walk home 
 alone. He thought carefully over his trip with the Job- 
 
Lazy Larkin and the ^ob lilies, 245 
 
 lilies, and, I am glad to say, gradually learned to be 
 more industrious, though it took him a long while to 
 overcome his lazy habits, and still longer to get rid of 
 the name of Lazy Larkin. But he remembered the 
 song of the Joblilies, and I trust you will not forget it : 
 
 "Work! work! 
 Never shirk ! 
 There is work for you, 
 Work for all to do ! 
 Happy they who do it, 
 They that shirk shall rue it 1 " 
 
III. 
 
 THE PICKANINNY. 
 
 IT was a rather warm day in autumn. Aunt Cheerie 
 had given the sewing machine and the piano a holi- 
 day, and was sitting in the woodshed, paring apples for 
 preserves. Wherever Aunt Cheerie is the children 
 were sure to be ; and so there was Sunbeam, knife in 
 hand, and Fairy, cutting a paring something less than 
 half an inch thick, while the dear little Chicken was 
 wiping apples for the others to pare, and little Tow- 
 head, baby-brother, was trying to upset the peach-box, 
 in which were a couple of pet chickens, that were hatched 
 out too late, and that had to be kept in-doors to se- 
 cure them from Jack Frost. For you must know that 
 at "The Nest" Sunbeam is called the "Old Hen." 
 That is, she has charge of the chickens. They know 
 her so well, that when she feeds them they fly up on 
 her shoulders and eat out of her hands. And if there 
 is any unfortunate one, it is well cared for. One poor, 
 little wayward pullet wandered into our neighbor's gar- 
 
The Pickaninny, 247 
 
 den. She was very naughty, doubtless, but she got 
 severely punished ; for our neighbor thinks a great deal 
 of his garden, and not much of chickens unless they 
 are fricasseed. He shot at our little runaway pullet, 
 and the poor thing came home dragging a broken and 
 useless leg. Now, if any chicken ever had good care, 
 our little " Lamey " has. After weary weeks of suffer- 
 ing in hot weather, it is at last able to walk on both 
 feet, though the broken leg is sadly crooked. The 
 children do not object to having the other chickens 
 killed for the table, but little Lamey' s life is insured. I 
 wouldn't dare kill it. There would be a rebellion in the 
 house. 
 
 But how did I get to talking about chickens ? I was 
 going to say that when I came home, and found the 
 folks paring apples, I went out in the shed, too, and 
 sat down by the Little Chick. 
 
 And Chicken Little jerked her head and looked mis- 
 chievously out of her bright eyes, and said : " See how 
 nice we is peelin' apples. We's makin' peserves, we 
 is ; *cause they is.good to eat, they is. And you mus' 
 tell me a story, you mus', 'cause I'm a-helpin' Aunt 
 Cheerie, I am." 
 
 For you must know that the Small Chick is not very 
 polite, and doesn't say "please," when she can help it. 
 
248 The Chicken Little Stories. 
 
 "Lend us a hand at the apples, too," said Aunt 
 Cheerie. 
 
 " No, I can't tell stories and pare apples, too." 
 
 " Does you need your fingers to tell stories wid, like 
 the dumbers that we heard talk without saying any 
 thing?" 
 
 Chicken Small had been to an exhibition of 'Prof. 
 Gillett's deaf and dumb pupils. 
 
 "Well, no," I said; "but you see. Chicken, I never 
 could make my tongue and my fingers go at the same 
 time." 
 
 " I should think you had never done much with your 
 fingers, then," said Aunt Cheerie ; " for I never knew 
 your tongue to be still, except when you were asleep." 
 
 I felt a little anxious to change the subject, and so 
 began the story at once. 
 
 "Little Sukey Gray — " 
 
 "What a funny name ! " cried the fairy. 
 
 Yes, and a funny girl was Sukey Gray. She had yel- 
 low hair that was tied up in an old-fashioned knot, be- 
 hind, though she was 'bnly eleven years old ; for you 
 must know that Sukey lived in a part of the country 
 where chignons and top-knots of the latest style were 
 unknown. Now Sukey' s way of doing up her hair in 
 a great knot, behind, with an old-fashioned tuck comb. 
 
The Pickaninny. ^249 
 
 was not pretty. But I think it was quite as handsome 
 as the monstrous big cabbages that you can see on the 
 ladies' heads on Lake street in Chicago. But Susan 
 Gray Hved in what was called the " White-Oak Flats ; " 
 a region sometimes called the " Hoop-pole country.'* 
 It was not the most enlightened place in the world, for 
 there was no school, except for a short time in winter, 
 and the people were very superstitious, believing that 
 if they carried a hoe through the house, or broke a 
 looking-glass, somebody "would die before long," and 
 thinking that a screech-owl's scream and the howling 
 of a dog were warnings; and that potatoes must be 
 planted in the " dark of the moon," because they grew 
 under ground, and corn in the " light of the moon," 
 because it grew above ground ; and that hogs must be 
 killed in the increase of the moon, to keep the pork 
 from frying away to gravy \ 
 
 As Sukey had always lived in the White Oak Flats, 
 she did not know that they were dreary, for she was 
 always happy, doing her work cheerfully. But one of 
 Susan's cousins, who lived a hundred miles away, had 
 made her a visit. Tliis cousin, like Sukey, lived in the 
 country, but she had plenty of books and had read 
 many curious and wonderful things, with which she was 
 accustomed to delight Sukey. 
 
250 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 But when Cousin Annie was gone, Sukey found the 
 Flats a dreary place. She wished there were some pa- 
 godas, such as they have in India, or that there were 
 some cannibals hving near her. She thought if she were 
 rich, she would buy an omnibus, with four "blaze-faced," 
 sorrel horses, to drive for her own amusement. She 
 got tired of the pumpkins and cabbages, and longed for 
 grizzly bears and red Indians. She hated to wash dishes 
 and feed the chickens, but thouglit she would Hke to 
 be a slave on a coffee plantation in Ceylon. 
 
 "Oh, dear ! " she sighed, "I wish I was out of the 
 Hoop-pole country. There is nothing beautiful or cu- 
 rious in these fiats. I am tired of great yellow sunflow- 
 ers and hollyhocks and pumpkin blossoms. I wish I 
 could see something curious or beautiful." 
 
 Now, isn't it strange that any little girl should talk so, 
 with plenty of birds and trees and sunshine ? But so 
 it is with most of us. We generally refuse to enjoy 
 what is in our reach, and long for something that we 
 cannot get. Just as Chicken Little, here, always wants 
 milk when there is none, and always asks for tea when 
 you offer her milk. 
 
 "Well, 'cause I'm firsty, that's the reason," said the 
 Chicken. 
 
 Now, when Sukey said this, she was up in the loft^ 
 
The Pickaninny. 251 
 
 or second story, if you could Ccall it story, of her father*s 
 house. She sat on a bench, looking out of the gable 
 window at the old stick chimney, made by building a 
 square cob-house arrangement of sticks of wood, tapering 
 toward the top, and plastering it with clay. The top of 
 the chimney was surmounted by a barrel with both ends 
 open, through which the smoke climbed lazily up into 
 the air. Near by stood an oak tree, in which a jay 
 bird was screaming and dancing in a jerky way. Sukey 
 then looked away into the blue sky, and the clouds 
 seemed to become pagodas, and palm trees, and gold- 
 en ships floating drowsily away. All at once she heard 
 somebody say, in a queer, bird-like voice, — 
 
 " Pray, look this way, little Sukey Gray. May I 
 make bold to say you are looking grum to-day. You 
 neither laugh nor play ; now, what's the reason, pray ? '* 
 
 Sukey started up to see where this funny jingle 
 came from. There, in the oak tree, where the jay- 
 bird had stood a few minutes before, was a queer- 
 looking little chap, in blue coat and pants, with a top- 
 knot cap and a rather sharp nose. He looked a lit- 
 tle like a jay-bird, but had a most comical face and 
 blinkey eyes, and brought his words out in short jerks, 
 making them rhyme in an odd sort of jingle. And 
 all the time he was dancing and laughing and turn- 
 
252 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 ing rapid somersaults, as if the little blue coat could 
 hardly hold so much fun. 
 
 " Well, now," broke out Sukey, " you are the only 
 curious thing in all the Hoop-pole country. I've 
 been wishing for something odd or strange, and I am 
 glad you have come, for there is nothing beautiful or 
 curious in all the White Oak Flats." 
 
 "Why, Sukey. Gray! What's that you say? You 
 must be blind as a pumpkin rind, or a leather- 
 winged bat ; this White Oak Flat is just the place to 
 look the beautiful right in the face. Now come 
 wdth me, and we will see that the little bee, or this 
 great oak tree, or the bright, blue skies, are beauti- 
 ful things, if we open our eyes." 
 
 All the while the little fellow was getting off this 
 queer speech, he was swinging and tumbling along 
 up the great limb that reached out towards the win- 
 dow at which Sukey sat. By the time he had fin- 
 ished it, he was standing on the window sill, where 
 he had alighted after a giddy somersault. He 
 laughed heartily, — so heartily that Sukey laughed, 
 too, though she could not tell why. Then he took 
 off his cap, and said, 
 
 " A pickaninny, at your service, Sukey Gray ! 
 Will you take a walk with me to-day ? Now jump, 
 
The Pickaninny, 253 
 
 while you may! '' and he took hold of her two hands 
 and jumped, and she jumped after him, feeling as 
 light as a feather. 
 
 They alighted on the branch of the oak tree. He 
 immediately began to pull lichens off the bark, and 
 show Sukey how curious they were. He showed her 
 how curiously one kind of lichen grew upon another, 
 omitting its own stalk and leaves, and making use of 
 those of the other. Then he laughed at her, be- 
 cause he had found curious things within ten feet of 
 her window. 
 
 Next he took her to her own rosebush, and showed 
 her how the limbs were swelled in some places. 
 Then breaking off the twig, he placed it against a 
 tree, and began to pound it with his fist But his 
 little arm was not strong, and he had to strike it 
 several times before he could break it open. When 
 it did fly open, Sukey started back at seeing it full 
 of plant lice, or aphides. 
 
 " Now," said the pickaninny, " in this little house 
 what curious things ! These little aphides have no 
 wings. But their great great-grandfathers, and 
 their great great-grandmothers had. Their mothers 
 and grandmothers and great-grandmothers had none, 
 and their children will have none, and their grand- 
 
254 The Chicken Little Stories. 
 
 children will have none, and their great-grand 
 children will have none ; but their great-great- 
 grandchildren will have wings again, for every ninth 
 generation can fly." 
 
 " How curious ! " said Sukey. 
 
 Then the pickaninny found a swamp blackbird's 
 nest, and showed her how curiously it was made; 
 then they climbed down the chimney of the school- 
 house, and he showed her how the chimney swallow 
 glued her nest together ; and he coaxed a katydid 
 to fiddle with his wings, that she might see that. At 
 last they entered the pumpkin patch. 
 
 "Well," said Sukey, "there's nothing curious here. 
 I know all about pumpkins." 
 
 With that the pickaninny commenced to jump up 
 and down on one, but he was so light that he could 
 not break it. He kept jumping higher and higher ; 
 now he was bouncing up ten feet in the air, then 
 fifteen, then twenty, until at last he leaped up as 
 high as the top of the oak tree, and coming down, 
 he struck his heels through the pumpkin. Sukey 
 laughed till the tears ran off her chin. The picka- 
 ninny thrust his arm in and took out a seed. Then 
 breaking that open, he showed Susan that the inside 
 of a pumpkin seed was two white leaves, the first 
 
TJie Pickaninny, 255 
 
 leaves of the young pumpkin vine. And so an hour 
 passed while the pickaninny showed her many curi- 
 ous things, of which I have not time to tell you. 
 
 At last he said, " Now, Sukey Gray, pray let me 
 fly away ! " 
 
 "I shall not keep you if you want to go, " said 
 Susan. 
 
 " Then pluck the mistletoe, and let me go." 
 
 " What do you mean .? " she asked. 
 
 " I cannot go until you pluck the mistletoe." 
 
 Sukey pulled a piece of mistletoe from the limb 
 where they were standing, and he bowed and said, 
 
 " Now, Sukey Gray, good-day. Don't waste your 
 sighs, but use your eyes." 
 
 With that he leaped into the air. Susy looked up, 
 but there was only the blue jay, crying, "Jay ! jay 1 
 jay ! " in a peevish way, and herself looking out the 
 window. 
 
 "What a wonderful country the White Oak Flats 
 must be," she said. And the more she used her 
 eyes, the more she was satisfied that the Hoop-pole 
 country was the most wonderful in the world. 
 
 " I wish I lived in the White Oak Hoops," said 
 the Wee Chick. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE GREAT PANJANDRtJM HIMSELF. 
 
 CHICKEN LITTLE was a picture, sitting on 
 the floor by the window, with a stereoscope — 
 " the thing 'at you look fru," she calls it — in her 
 hand, and the pictures scattered about her. 
 
 Now some of the children think that I have been 
 " making up " Chicken Little, and that there is no 
 such a being. A few weeks ago, after I had been 
 talking to a great church full of people, there came 
 up to me a very sweet little girl. 
 
 " Do you write stories in The Little Corporal ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 When I told her I did, she looked up, and asked, 
 earnestly, "Well, is there any real, live Chicken 
 Little ? " 
 
 Now there may be others of the great army of 
 The Little Corporal that want to know whether there 
 is any "real, live Chicken Little." I tell you there 
 is. If you could see her merry, mischievous face \ if 
 
The Great Panjandrum Himself. 257 
 
 you could see her when she stands up on my shoul- 
 ders like a monkey ; if you had heard her, yesterday, 
 explain that God could see in the stove when all the 
 doors were shut ; if you could see how she always 
 manages to do what you don't want her to do, and 
 then find a good excuse for it afterwards ; you would 
 think there was a live, real " Chicken Little." If you 
 could have seen the old, funny twinkle in her eye, 
 when I found her with the stereoscope, you would 
 have thought she was a real, live Chicken, sure 
 enough. 
 
 " Now, then, you've got to tell me a story," she 
 said. 
 
 " ' Got to ' don't tell stories." 
 
 " Well, p'ease tell me one, then." 
 
 " Yes," said Sunbeam, peeping in, '^ about the 
 Great Panjandrum himself." 
 
 " Ah ! you little mink," I said, " how did you get 
 hold of my secret ? " 
 
 "Why, I knew it all the time." 
 
 Now, you see, the case was this ; I did not know 
 that the children understood where I got the names 
 of the Garuly and the Jobllly, and the Pickaninny 
 from. But Sunbeam, who dips a little here and there 
 into a great many books, and who never forgets any 
 
25S The Chicken Little Stories. 
 
 thing she hears, had somehow gotten hold of my se- 
 cret. It was this. There was a man who could 
 repeat whatever he read once. One of his friends 
 undertook to write something that he could not re- 
 member. So he wrote nonsense, and the man with 
 the long memory failed to remember it. The non- 
 sense, which I read when I was a boy, is, if I remember 
 it rightly, as follows : 
 
 *' She w^ent into the garden to cut a cabbage leaf 
 to make an apple pie; and a great she-bear coming 
 down the street thrust his head into the shop. ' What, 
 no soap ? ' So he died, and she very imprudently 
 married the barber. And there were present the 
 Garulies, and the Joblilies, and the Pickaninnies, and 
 the Great Panjandrum himself, with his little, round 
 button-at-the-top ; and they all fell to playing the 
 game of * Catch-as-catch-can,' till the gunpowder ran 
 out at the heels of their boots." 
 
 Now you see where the Garulies and the Joblilies 
 and the Pickaninnies came from. And that's why 
 the children thought the next story should be about 
 the Great Panjandrum. And so I began: 
 
 I was wandering, one day, in the Land of Nod, in 
 that part of it known as the state of Dreams, and in 
 the county of Sleep, and in Doze township, not far 
 
The Great Fanjaiidrum Himself. 259 
 
 from the village of Shuteyetown, in Sleepy Hollow, 
 where stands the Church of the Seven Sleepers, on 
 the corner of Snoring Lane and Sluggard Avenue, 
 near Slumber Hall, owned by the Independent 
 Association of Sleepy-headed Nincompoops. 
 
 " What a place ! " said Fairy. 
 
 Well, as I was going to say, I was walking through 
 Sleepy Hollow, when I met some children. 
 
 "Where are you going? " I asked. 
 
 " We want to find a four-leaved clover and a bee- 
 tle with one eye," said one of them : " for if we can 
 find them, we shall be able to get into the Great Pan- 
 jandrum's place, and there we can learn whether 
 there is a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow or 
 not." 
 
 Now, I was seized with a great desire to see the 
 illustrious Panjandrum for myself, and to know what 
 he had to say of that wonderful bag of gold that was 
 to be found at the place where the rainbow touched 
 the ground. And so I fell to work with the happy 
 boys and girls, looking for a one-eyed beetle and a 
 four-leaved clover. The clover we soon found, but 
 it was a long time before we got the beetle. At last 
 we came to a log on which two of that sort of beetles 
 that children call "pinch-bugs," were fighting. 
 
26o The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 Whether they were prize-fighters, engaged in a com- 
 bat for one thousand dollars a side, or whether they 
 were fighting a duel about some affair of honor, I do 
 not know ; but I did notice that they fought most 
 brutally, scratching away savagely on each other's 
 hard shells, without doing a great deal of damage, 
 however. But one of them had lost one eye in the 
 fight, and so we seized him and made off, leaving 
 the other to snap his tongs together in anger because 
 he had nobody to pinch. It must be a dreadful thing 
 to want to hurt somebody and have nobody to hurt. 
 When we had gone some distance, we came to a 
 gate that had a very curious "sign over it. It read, 
 "The Great Panjandrum Himself.'' There was 
 a Garuly with a club standing by the gate, and a 
 Pickaninny, in a blue coat with a long tail, hopping 
 around on top of it. We showed the one-eyed bee- 
 tle and the four-leaved clover, and the Garuly imme- 
 diately hit the gate a ringing blow with his club, and 
 shouted, " Beetle ! beetle ! beetle ! " in a wonderfully 
 sharp and squeaking voice, while the Pickaninny 
 on top jerked a little bell rope, and sung out, "Clo- 
 ver." Then we could see through the gate a Job- 
 lily lifting his head up out of a pond, inside the en- 
 closure. 
 
The Great Panjandrum Himself. 261 
 
 " How many eyes ? " he asked. 
 
 "One," said the Garuly. 
 
 "How many leaves? " he said, again. 
 
 " Four," returned the Pickaninny. 
 
 " Then let them in that they may see The Great 
 Panjandrum himself, and learn whether there be a 
 bag of gold at the end of the rainbow." Saying this, 
 the Joblily went under the water and the gate opened. 
 
 We passed three gates, that were opened in the 
 same manner, and found ourselves in front of a 
 queer old house, with seventy-seven gables and ever 
 so many doors, and over every door was written, 
 " The Great Panjandrum Himself." There was 
 a great bustle about the place, dried-up Garulies run- 
 ning around, dandy-looking Pickaninnies hopping 
 about, and Joblilies swimming in the lake. We asked 
 what it all meant, and were told that " she was going 
 to marry the barber; " and then they all tittered, and 
 we could not for the life of us tell what it all meant. 
 When we told a Garuly that we wanted to see the 
 Great Panjandrum himself, and to find out whether 
 there was a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow, 
 he took our one-eyed beetle, and gave the four-leaved 
 clover to a Pickaninny. Together they took them 
 into the house, and a Joblily came out in a moment 
 
262 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 to tell us that the Great Panjandrum was having his 
 little round button-at-the-top brushed up, and that if 
 we chose we could wait for him in the museum. 
 
 The museum was a queer place. It was just in- 
 side the seventy-seventh gable of the house. There 
 was an old Garuly who acted as showman. We first 
 stopped before a cage that contained a crazy mouse. 
 ** This," said the showman, " is the mouse that ran 
 up the clock. Just as he got up there, the clock 
 struck one, and though the poor fellow ran back 
 again, he has never been right since. This long, 
 slender cow, that you see, has a great taste for mu- 
 sic. She is the one that jumped over the moon 
 when the cat played the fiddle. The cat has never 
 been allowed to play since. This is the little dog 
 that laughed on that occasion. He was so much 
 amused that he has never been able to get his face 
 straight since. In this pot you see some of the cold 
 plum porrid'ge, with the eating of which the man in 
 the South burnt his mouth. Here is a portrait of 
 the man in the moon, when he came down too soon 
 to inquire the way to Norwich. In one of the other 
 gables of this house I can show you Mother Goose's 
 cap frill. And here is the arrow with which Cock 
 Robin was cruelly murdered by the sparrow. This 
 
The Great Panjandrum Hhnself, 263 
 
 is the original and genuine arrow ; all others are 
 humbugs. This is the bone that Mother Hubbard 
 went to look for, but failed to find. Here are the 
 skates on which the 
 
 *' Three boys went a skating 
 All on a summer's day, 
 They all fell in, 
 
 And the rest ran away." 
 
 and here is the skin of the wolf that Little Red 
 Ridinghood met in the woods," 
 
 I was just going to inquire of him which was the 
 true version of that story, whether the wolf really 
 ate Little Red Ridinghood up, or whether she ate 
 the wolf ; but before I got a chance, a Joblily came 
 in to say that the Great Panjandrum himself was 
 coming, and soon the queerest little, old, round, fat 
 man came in, puffing like a porpoise, and rolling 
 from side to side as he walked. His hair looked 
 like sea grass, and was partly covered by a queer 
 concern, nothing less than the celebrated " little 
 round button-at-the-top." 
 
 " And so you want to see whether there is really 
 a bag of gold at the end of the rainbow, do you 1 
 Well, I'll show you, though I haven't much time, for 
 
264 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 he died last week, and she very imprudently intends 
 to marry the barber." 
 
 This is what the Panjandrum said, and we never 
 could tell who " she " was, nor, indeed, whom he 
 meant by the barber. 
 
 "Pickaninnies, bring out the wonderful Panto- 
 scopticon, and let them see." - 
 
 The wonderful Pantoscopticon was brought out, 
 and we were allowed to look in it. 
 
 THE FIRST RAINBOW. 
 
 I looked into one of the " peep holes," and I seemed 
 to see a rainbow a long way off. Over the top of it 
 was written " Wealth." I saw a boy running after it. 
 I looked, and the picture, which was a dissolving 
 view, faded away, and there came another, which 
 shgwed me an old man, sick with the world, just ready 
 to die, and hating the gold he had gathered. And I 
 saw then that the gold he had gathered was not gold 
 to him. 
 
 THE SECOND RAINBOW. 
 
 In the next place, I saw another rainbow. Over 
 the top was written, " Eat and be merry." I saw rud- 
 dy-faced children seeking the gold at the end of it. 
 
The Great Panjandrwn Himself, 265 
 
 Then the rainbow faded away, and I saw the same 
 children, with faltering steps and sunken eyes, beaten 
 upon by the pitiless storm, and finally swept away by 
 ^ flood; and I knew there was no gold at the end of 
 that rainbow. 
 
 THE THIRD RAINBOW. 
 
 Under the third rainbow I saw a beggar. Over 
 the top of the arch was written, " Trust God and do 
 good.'' The beggar was very poor and very sick, but 
 his eyes were always fixed upon the bow, which was 
 exceedingly beautiful, and which seemed to him a 
 bow of promise indeed. Out of the rainbow, at last, 
 came three-score white-winged beings, and caught 
 up the beggar and bore him to Paradise, and we saw 
 then that there was gold at the end of that rainbow. 
 
 The Great Panjandrum himself, with his little 
 round button-at-the-top, was just about to show us a 
 fourth view in the wonderful Pantoscopticon, when 
 a Garuly came in to say that the she-bear had brought 
 the soap, and that the barber was waiting. The 
 Great Panjandrum, in a great state of excitement, 
 hurried away from us, and we, not knowing what else 
 to do, stood looking at each other. Just then a Job- 
 lily went by with a cabbage leaf. 
 
266 The Chicken Little Stories, 
 
 " What is that ? " asked one of the little girls of our 
 party. 
 
 "A cabbage leaf to make an apple pie," he replied, 
 without looking around. 
 
 . Presently a Pickaninny came hurrying by with a 
 small keg in his hands. 
 
 "What is that? " asked the same curious little girl. 
 
 " Gunpowder for the heels of their boots," he an • 
 swered, and went on. 
 
 And a spark of fire from one of the seventy-seven 
 chimneys fell into the keg, and there was a frightful 
 explosion, blowing up the house and scattering the 
 museum ; and the last I saw was the barber and the 
 great she-bear falling into the lake. 
 
 " What made 'em burst up so bad.^ " said the Small 
 Chicken. 
 
 *' Gunpowder, of course," said Fairy. 
 
4^^i^^^^ 
 
 "CHICKEN LIITLE'' 
 
Modern Fables. 
 
I. , 
 
 FLAT TAIL, THE BEAVER. 
 
 A COLONY of beavers selected a beautiful spot 
 on a clear stream, called Silver Creek, to 
 build themselves a habitation. Without waiting for 
 any orders, and without any wrangling about whose 
 place was the best, they gnawed down some young 
 trees and laid the foundation for a dam. With that 
 skill for which they are so remarkable, they built it 
 so that it would protect them from cold, from water, 
 and from their foes. When it was completed, they 
 were delighted with it, and paddled round joyously 
 in the pond above, expressing their pleasure to each 
 other in true beaver style. 
 
 In this colony there was one young beaver, by the 
 name of Flat Tail. His father, whose name was Mud 
 Dauber, was a celebrated beaver, who, having very 
 superior teeth, could gnaw through trees with great 
 rapidity. Old Mud Dauber had distinguished himself 
 
270 Modern Fables, 
 
 chiefly, however, by saving the dam on three separate 
 occasions in time of flood. He had done this by his 
 courage and prudence, always beginning to work as 
 soon as he saw the danger coming, without waiting till 
 the damage had become too great to repair. 
 
 But his son, this young fellow Flat Tail, was a 
 sorry fellow. As long as old Mud Dauber lived, he 
 did pretty well, but as soon as his father died Fiat 
 Tail set up for somebody great. Whenever any one 
 questioned his pretensions, he always replied : 
 
 " I am Mud Dauber's son. I belong to the best 
 blood in the colony." 
 
 He utterly refused to gnaw or build. He was 
 meant for something better, he said. 
 
 And so one day in autumn, when the beavers were 
 going out in search of food for winter use, as Flat 
 Tail was good for nothing else, they set him to mind 
 the dam. After they had started. Flat Tail's uncle, 
 old Mr. Webfoot, turned back and told his nephew 
 to be very watchful, as there had been a great rain 
 on the head waters of Silver Creek, and he was afraid 
 there would be a flood. 
 
 " Be very careful," said Webfoot, '* about the snlall 
 leaks." 
 
 " Fshaw," said Flat Tail, '* who are you talking to? 
 
Flat Tail, the Beaver, 271 
 
 I am Mud Dauber's son, and do you think I need 
 your advice ? " 
 
 After they had gone the stream began to rise. 
 Little sticks and leaves were eddying round in the 
 pool above. Soon the water came up fast/ to the 
 great delight of the conceited young beaver, who was 
 pleased with the opportunity to show the rest what 
 kind of stuff he was made of. And though he dis- 
 liked work, he now began to strengthen the dam in 
 the middle where the water looked the most threaten- 
 ing. But just at this point the dam was the strongest, 
 and, in fact, the least in danger. Near the shore 
 there was a place where the water was already finding 
 its way through. A friendly kingfisher who sat on a 
 neighboring tree warned him that the water was com- 
 ing through, but' always too conceited to accept of 
 counsel, he answered: 
 
 " Oh, that's only a small leak, and near the shore. 
 What does a kingfisher know about a beaver dam, 
 anyway ! You needn't advise me ! I am the great 
 Mud Dauber's son. I shall fight the stream bravely, 
 right here in the worst of the flood." 
 
 But Flat Tail soon found that the water in the 
 pond was falling. Looking round for the cause, he 
 saw that the small leak had broken away a large por- 
 
272 Modern Fables. 
 
 tion of the dam, and that the torrent was rushing 
 through it wildly. Poor Flat Tail now worked like 
 a hero, throwing himself wildly into the water only 
 to be carried away below and forced to walk up again 
 on the shore. His efforts were of no avail, and had 
 not the rest of the Silver Creek beaver family come 
 along at that time, their home and their winter's stock 
 of provisions would alike have been destroyed. Next 
 day there was much beaver laughter over Flat TaiPs 
 repairs on the strong part of the dam, and the name 
 that before had been a credit to him was turned into 
 a reproach, for from that day the beavers called him, 
 in derision, " Mud Dauber's son, the best blood in 
 the colony." 
 
 Don't neglect a danger because it is small ; don't 
 boast of what your father did ; and don't be too con- 
 ceited to receive good advice. 
 
II. 
 
 THE mocking-bird's SINGING SCHOOL. 
 
 A LADY brought a mocking-bird from New 
 Orleans to her home in the north. At first 
 all the birds in the neighborhood looked upon it 
 with contempt. The chill, northern air made the 
 poor bird homesick, and for a few days he declined 
 to sing for anybody. 
 
 " Well, I do declare," screamed out Miss Guinea- 
 fowl, "to see the care our mistress takes of that 
 homely bird. It don't seem to be able to sing a note. 
 I can make more music than that myself. Indeed, my 
 voice is quite operatic. Pot-rack ! Pot-rack ! Pot- 
 rack 1 " and the empty-headed Miss Guinea-fowl near- 
 ly cracked her own throat, and the ears of everybody 
 else, with her screams. And the great vain peacock 
 spread his sparkling tail-feathers in the sun, and 
 looked with annihilating scorn on the dull plumage 
 of the poor mocking-bird. " Daddy-longlegs,'' the 
 Shanghai rooster, crowed louder than ever, with one 
 
274 Modern Fables, 
 
 eye on the poor, jaded bird, and said : "What a con- 
 temptible' little thing you are, to be sure ! " Gander 
 White, Esq., the portly barn-yard alderman, hissed at 
 him, and even Duck Waddler, the tad-pole catcher, 
 called him a quack. 
 
 But wise old Dr. Parrot, in the next cage, said : 
 " Wait and see. There's more under a brown coat 
 than some people think." 
 
 There came a day at last when the sun shone out 
 warm. Daddy Longlegs crowed hoarsely his de- 
 light, the peacock tried his musical powers by 
 shouting Ne-onk ! Ne-onk ! and Duck Waddler 
 quacked away more ridiculously than ever. Just 
 then the mocking-bird ruffled his brown neck- 
 feathers and began to sing. All the melody of all 
 the song-birds of the South seemed to be bottled up 
 in that one little bosom. Even Miss Guinea-fowl 
 had sense enough to stop her hideous operatic " pot- 
 rack," to listen to the wonderful sweetness of the 
 stranger's song. Becoming cheered with his own 
 singing, the bird began to mimic the hoarse crowing 
 with which Daddy Longlegs wakened him in the 
 morning. This set the barn-yard in a roar, and the 
 peacock shouted his applause in a loud " Ne-onk ! " 
 Alas! for him, the mocking-bird mimicked his hide- 
 
The Mocking-bird s Singing School. 275 
 
 ous cry, then quacked like the duck, and even Miss 
 Guinea-fowl found that be could pot-rack better than 
 she could. 
 
 The Shanghai remarked to the peacock, that this 
 young Louisianian was a remarkable acquisition to 
 the community ; Gander White thought he ought to 
 be elected to the city council, and Miss Guinea-fowl 
 remarked that she had always thought there was 
 something in the young man. Dr. Parrot laughed 
 quietly at this last remark. 
 
 The very next day the mocking-bird was asked to 
 take up a singing-school. The whole barn-yard was 
 in the notion of improving the popular capacity to 
 sing. And Daddy Longlegs came near breaking his 
 neck in his hurry to get up on a barrel-head to ad- 
 vocate a measure that he saw was likely to be popu 
 lar. 
 
 But it did not come to any thing. The only song 
 that the rooster could ever sing was the one in 
 Mother Goose, about the dame losing her shoe and 
 the master his fiddle-stick, at which Prof. Mocking 
 Bird couldn't help smiling. Mr. Peacock, the gen- 
 tleman of leisure, could do nothing more than his 
 frightful Ne-onk ! which made everybody shiver 
 more than a saw-file would. Gander White said he 
 
276 Modern Fables, 
 
 himself had a good ear for music, but a poor voice, 
 while the Hon. Turkey Pompous said he had a fine 
 
 ' bass voice, but no ear for tune. Dr. Parrot was 
 heard to say " Humbug ! *' when the whole company 
 turned to him for an explanation. He was at that 
 moment taking his morning gymnastic exercise, by 
 swinging himself from perch to perch, holding on 
 by his beak. When he got through, he straightened 
 up and said : 
 
 " In the first place, you all made sport of a stran- 
 ger about whom you knew nothing. I spent many 
 years of my life with a learned doctor of divinity, 
 and I often heard him speak severely of the sin of 
 rash judgments. But when you found that our new 
 friend could sing, you all desired to sing like hini. 
 Now, God made him to sing, and each of the rest of 
 us to do something else. You, Mr. Gander White, 
 are good to make feather beds and pillows ; Hon. 
 Turkey Pompous is good for the next Thanksgiving 
 day j and you, Mr. Peacock Strutwell, are good for 
 
 ' nothing but to grow tail-feathers to make fly-brushes 
 of. But we all have our use. If we will all do our 
 best to be as useful as we can in our own proper 
 sphere, we will do better. There is our neighbor. 
 Miss Sophie Jones, who has wasted two hours a day 
 
The Mocking-bird's Singing School. 277 
 
 for the last ten years, trying to learn music, when 
 God did not give her musical talent, while Peter 
 Thompson, across the street, means to starve to 
 death, trying to be a lawyer, without any talent for 
 it. Let us keep in our own proper spheres/* 
 
 The company hoped he would say more, but Dr. 
 Parrot here began to exercise again, in order to 
 keep his digestion good, and the company dispersed. 
 
III. 
 
 THE BOB-O-LINK AND THE OWL. 
 
 HAVING eaten his breakfast of beech-nuts, a 
 bobolink thought he would show himself 
 neighborly j so he hopped over to an old gloomy- 
 oak tree, where there sat a hooting owl, and after 
 bowing his head gracefully, and waving his tail in 
 the most friendly manner, he began chirruping 
 cheerily, somewhat in this fashion : 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Owl ! what a fine, bright 
 morning we have." 
 
 "Fine!" groaned the owl! "fine, indeed! I 
 don't see how you can call it fine with that fierce 
 sun glaring in one's eyes." 
 
 The bob-o-link was quite disconcerted by this 
 outburst, but after jumping about nervously from 
 twig to twig for a little while, he began again : 
 
 " What a beautiful meadow that is which you can 
 see from your south window ! How sweet the 
 
The Bob-o-llnk and the Owl. 279 
 
 flowers look ! Really you have a pleasant view, if 
 your house is a little gloomy.'* 
 
 " Beautiful ! did you say ? Pleasant ! What sort 
 of taste you must have ! I haven't been able to look 
 out of that window since May. The color of the 
 grass is too bright, and the flowers are very painful. 
 I don't mind that view so much in November, but 
 this morning I must find a shadier place, where the 
 light won't disturb my morning nap." 
 
 And so, with a complaining " Hoo ! Hoo ! Hoo- 
 ah ! " he flapped his melancholy wings and flitted 
 away into the depths of a swamp. 
 
 And a waggish old squirrel, who had heard the 
 conversation, asked the bob-o-link how he could ex- 
 pect any one to like beautiful things who looked out 
 of such great staring eyes. 
 
 The pleasantness of our surroundings depends 
 far more upon the eyes we see with, than upon the 
 objects about us. A cheerful heart makes a pleas- 
 ant life. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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