CHAPTER XXI.

WASHINGTON RESIGNS HIS COMMISSION.

After the surrender of Yorktown and the departure of the French, Washington established his headquarters at Newburgh on the Hudson. There he remained with the army until it was disbanded; and the house in which he lived is carefully preserved and shown as an historical museum.

[Illustration: SURRENDER OF LORD CORNWALLIS.]

There is a pleasant story of La Fayette’s affectionate remembrance of the life there. Just before his death, which occurred in 1834, he gave a dinner party in Paris to the American Minister and some friends who had been old associates. Later in the evening, when it came time for supper, the guests were ushered into a room which was in strange contrast with the elegance of the apartments they had been in. The ceiling was low, with large beams crossing it; there was a single small, uncurtained window, and several small doors. It looked more like an old-fashioned Dutch kitchen than a room in a French house. A long, rough table was meagerly set. A dish of meat stood on it, some uncouth-looking pastry, and wine in decanters and bottles, ready to be poured out into glasses and camp-mugs.

“Do you know where we are now?” asked La Fayette as his companions looked about puzzled, and as if in a dream. “Ah! the seven doors and one window! and the silver camp-goblets! We are at Washington’s headquarters on the Hudson, fifty years ago!” He had reproduced the room as a surprise to his friends.

* * * * *

Peace did not come at once after Yorktown; there was still fighting in a desultory way, but all knew that the end was not far off. Yet the soldiers could not go back to their homes, and Congress was shamefully remiss about paying them. Murmurs deep and loud arose, and Washington suffered keenly from the neglect shown to the army. It required all his patience and tact to keep the murmurs from breaking out into violent action. With no military duty to perform, and with the impatience of men who were suffering injustice, the officers and men began to form all sorts of plans.

One of the officers—and how many agreed with him is not known, but the sentiment easily took this form—one of the officers wrote to Washington that it was clear that Congress was a failure. The army had won independence, but no reliance could be placed on the Government. How much more stable was the Government of England! Would not such a government be after all the best for America? It might not be necessary to call the head of the government a king, though even that title many would prefer, but the head ought to have the power of a king. There was much more to the same effect, and the letter was really a feeler to see how Washington would look upon such a movement, which, of course, aimed to make him the monarch of the new nation. Washington did not hesitate a moment, but wrote a letter which must have made the officer’s ears tingle, however honest he may have been in his opinion. Washington said:

“With a mixture of great surprise and astonishment, I have read with attention the sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the war has given me more painful sensations than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed and I must view with abhorrence and reprehend with severity. For the present, the communication of them will rest in my own bosom, unless some further agitation of the matter shall make a disclosure necessary. I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to an address, which, to me, seems big with the greatest mischief that can befall any country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself, you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagreeable. At the same time, in justice to my own feelings, I must add, that no man possesses a more sincere wish to see ample justice done to the army than I do; and as far as my powers and influence in a constitutional way extend, they shall be employed to the utmost of my abilities to effect it, should there be any occasion. Let me conjure you, then, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, to banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature.”

A graver peril arose, and Washington redeemed his promise to stand by the army. In spite of the united effort of the army and its friends in Congress, no satisfactory arrangement was made for paying the long-delayed wages due to the soldiers. On March 10, 1783, a notice was issued in the camp at Newburgh, calling a meeting of the officers. The notice was not signed by any name, and with it was sent out an address which rehearsed the wrongs suffered by the army and hinted that the time had come when the soldiers must take matters into their own hands and compel Congress to attend to their demands. It was an appeal to which the officers were ready to listen, and every one was in so excited a condition that it was impossible to say what might not be done.

Washington, at any rate, saw there was great danger, and he at once seized the occasion. He issued an order calling attention to the address, and asking that the meeting should be postponed four days and then should convene at his invitation. This was to give the men time to cool off. When the day came, Washington, as soon as the meeting was called to order, made a long and powerful speech. He was not a ready speaker, and so, feeling the importance of the occasion, he had written out what he had to say, and he began to read it to the officers. He had read only a sentence, when he stopped, took out his spectacles, and said, as he put them on:

“Gentlemen, you will pardon me for putting on my glasses. I have grown gray in your service, and I now find myself growing blind.”

It was a simple thing to say, and simply said, but it touched the soldiers, and made them very tender to their commander, and more ready even than before to listen to his counsel. Washington went on to say:

“If my conduct heretofore has not evinced to you that I have been a faithful friend to the army, my declaration of it at this time would be equally unavailing and improper. But, as I was among the first who embarked in the cause of our common country; as I have never left your side one moment, save when called from you on public duty; as I have been the constant companion and witness of your distresses, and not among the last to feel and acknowledge your merits; as I have considered my own military reputation as inseparably connected with that of the army; as my heart has ever expanded with joy, when I have heard its praises, and my indignation has arisen, when the mouth of detraction has been opened against it; it can scarcely be supposed, at this late stage of the war, that I am indifferent to its interests.”

He used all his personal influence to heal the breach between the army and Congress, and he brought the officers back to a more reasonable mind. All the while he was writing to members of Congress and doing his utmost to bring about a just treatment of the army.

[Illustration: WASHINGTON BIDDING FAREWELL TO HIS GENERALS.]

When the time came to disband the army, Washington, ready as he was to go back to his home, could not forget that the work of the past seven years would not be completed until the people which had become independent was united under a strong government. He was the foremost man in the country; he was also profoundly aware of the difficulties through which they were yet to pass, and he addressed a long letter to the governors of the several States. Congress was weak and unable to take the lead. The States were each provided with governments, and were the real powers, but Washington saw clearly that it would not do to have thirteen independent governments in the country, each looking only after its own interests. So in this letter he tried to show the States the importance of four things:

1. An indissoluble union of the States under one head.

2. The payment of all the debts contracted by the country in the war.

3. The establishment of a uniform militia system throughout the country.—He did not advise having a standing army, but he thought all the men should be drilled in their neighborhoods, formed into companies, and be ready in any peril to take up arms again.

4. The cultivation of a spirit of confidence between different parts of the country. He had seen so much jealousy and prejudice that he knew how dangerous these were to the peace of the country.

* * * * *

At last the time came when the army was disbanded. A few of the troops only and their officers went with Washington to New York when the British left the city. There was rejoicing everywhere; but it was a sorrowful moment when Washington took leave in person of the officers who had stood by him through the long, dreary years of the war. He was about to leave the city to be ferried across the North River to the Jersey shore, and his old friends gathered to say good-bye at Fraunces’ Tavern, in Broad street. When he entered the room he could scarcely command his voice. He said a word or two, and they all drank a farewell toast, as the custom was in those days. Then Washington said: “I can not come to each of you to take my leave, but shall be obliged if each of you will come and take me by the hand.”

General Knox stood nearest, and he held out his hand. The tears were in Washington’s eyes as he turned to his old comrade and grasped his hand. He drew the strong man to him—Knox was nearly twenty years younger than Washington, and very dear to him—and kissed him. Not a word could either of them speak. Another general followed and another, each greeted with the same affection; and then Washington left the room, passed through the corps of infantry which stood on guard, and walked to Whitehall, followed by the whole company, a silent procession. He entered the barge, turned as the boat pushed off, and waved his hat in silent adieu. The officers returned the salute in the same way, and then turned and in silence marched back to Fraunces’.

Washington went to Philadelphia. Congress was in session at Annapolis, but the Treasury was in Philadelphia. On receiving his commission as Commander-in-Chief, Washington had announced that he would receive no money for services, but would keep an exact account of all his expenses. That account he had kept as carefully and scrupulously as any book-keeper in a bank, and he now rendered it to the Comptroller of the Treasury. It was in his own handwriting, every item set down and explained. I know of few incidents in Washington’s career which show the character of the man better than this. He held that a sacred trust had been reposed in him, and he meant to be faithful in the least particular.

On December 23, 1783, Congress was assembled at Annapolis. The gallery was filled with ladies. The Governor, Council, and Legislature of Maryland, several officers, and the Consul-General of France were on the floor. The Members of Congress were seated and wore their hats to signify that they represented the Government. The spectators stood with bare heads. General Washington entered and was conducted by the Secretary of Congress to a seat. When all was quiet, General Mifflin, who was then President of Congress, turned to Washington and said:

“The United States, in Congress assembled, is prepared to receive the communications of the Commander-in-Chief.”

Washington rose and read a short address, in which he resigned his commission. He delivered the paper into the hands of the President, who replied with a little speech; and Washington was now a private citizen. The next day he left Annapolis, and made all haste to return to his beloved Mount Vernon.

(_To be continued._)

ON THE WILLEY-BROOK TRESTLE.

BY WILLIS BOYD ALLEN.

There had been rain among the mountains for almost a week. Every day the newspapers brought reports of clear, warm weather in Boston and New York, while the Crawford House guests gathered in shivering groups around their open fires and applied themselves to indoor occupations, discontentedly or cheerily, according to their various dispositions. Among the most impatient in the hotel was a group of young people, who, as the season drew to its close, were more eager than ever to improve each shining hour. The hours, however, refusing to shine on any terms, that gloomy September week, the bees were left “to hum,” as Lou Elwin plaintively remarked.

When, therefore, the sun at last looked over the mountain-tops one cool, delicious morning, and with his shining fingers gently drew aside the misty draperies that had so long overhung the little valley of the Notch, great was the delight of old and young at Crawford’s, and it was an eager company of boys and girls that assembled about the big parlor fireplace after breakfast. As soon as they were fairly together, half a dozen were chattering at once.

“Isn’t it glorious?”

“What shall we do——?”

“Where shall——?”

“Fabyan’s!”

“Tennis!”

“Bugle Cliff!”

“A walk down the track.”

A shout of laughter greeted this last proposal, which was offered by a delicate-looking youth of about eighteen.

“Fred is afraid that he’ll rub the shine off his boots!” cried one of his companions, slapping him on the shoulder.

“Or tear that tennis suit on the rocks,” suggested Lou Elwin, with a toss of her pretty head, as she leaned back in her chair and planted her own stout little boots emphatically on the hearth. Lou was the acknowledged leader among her set at Crawford’s, that season, in all the jaunts and good times that were planned. She was a Boston girl, and she had her full share of the independent spirit that characterized her ancestors. Whenever the party set out on a scramble over the rough mountain-paths, her joyous laugh was sure to be heard far in advance of the rest; it was always her tennis-racket that met and returned the ball when the play was apparently lost; it was Lou Elwin whose name zigzagged all over the cards of the best partners an hour before dancing began.

Fred Seacomb did not quail, however, before her little broadside of irony, but just looked straight into her eyes for a moment, and said quietly, “You know better, Lou.” And then he proceeded to argue his proposal, with such effect that in five minutes more the whole party of young folks were racing down the plank walk toward the railroad.

At the little rustic shop beyond the station, the girls stopped for caramels, packages of which the sterner element dutifully tucked into their coat-pockets, ready for instant use. Thus provisioned, they all struck off in the direction of the Notch, walking in twos and threes, on the railroad ties, or balancing with little shrieks and a great deal of laughter on the narrow rails. Lou, as usual, was ahead, but Fred soon caught up and took his place at her side.

For several minutes, nothing was said by either. Then Lou exclaimed, almost pettishly:

“Why do you try to be so quiet, and exact, and—and _different_?”

“You know, Lou, I can’t stand quite so much as some of the other fellows. The doctor——”

“Oh, yes, I know. You’re up here for your health, and all that; but you might ‘fly around’ a little more, get a little bit—just the least little bit—rumpled, once in a while, like the rest of us!”

Fred laughed now, merrily enough, and perhaps would have defended himself, had not another boy of about his own age joined them at that moment, having caught the import of the girl’s words.

“If you think Seacomb _can’t_ ‘fly around,’ Miss Elwin, you ought to see him in the gymnasium, at Harvard! He’s the best man on the bars in the Freshman class, and he can——”

“There, there, Arthur!” interrupted Fred, “girls don’t care about such affairs as that. My blackest sin, just now, is the shine on my boots, isn’t it, Lou?”

Fred had known her long, and as an intimate friend, and so he used her first name easily—a liberty rather envied by some of the later comers.

At the end of the Crawford plateau, they all turned away from the track for a few moments, to visit “The House that Jack Built.” Of the mysterious “Jack,” who was popularly believed to subsist on toads and snakes, the girls stood rather in awe, and so they left the boys to do the talking. Somewhat to Lou’s surprise, Fred Seacomb seemed to be on excellent terms with the bluff Jack, who had been an English sailor. The party soon chorused good-bye, and ran back down the path to the track, to resume their excursion. They now entered the Notch itself, and for a few minutes even their gay laughter was hushed in the presence of those gray cliffs towering high, high above their heads. It seemed as if they were leaving the land of sunshine behind them, and were entering the very home of storm and avalanche. The iron track, clinging to the crumbling slope, gave no sense of security or conquest over the terrible forces of nature; rather, it was a frightened thing, like each one of themselves, at the mercy of the stern, granite-browed hills overhanging it.

They emerged from the dark ravine, and gazed on the fair valley opening before them, with a keen sense of relief which showed itself in a renewed chorus of happy, thoughtless talk and laughter. Once they sprang aside, and stood in a gay-colored group against the embankment, to let the nine o’clock Portland train pass. Then they went on, more merrily than ever, the girls gathering clusters of brilliant golden-rod and purple asters for their hats and belts. It was Fred who discovered a single blue violet blossoming serenely and cheerfully at that late day directly between the iron rails, and with all the desolateness of Mount Willard stretching up into the sky above it.

Lou took the offered flower without a word, and—wished it had been golden-rod.

“Isn’t there _any_ manliness about him?” she thought fretfully. “That was just like a girl. I believe I’m more a boy than he is, now!”

She saved the violet, however, and tucked it away carefully, where it could not be injured or lost.

About a mile below the Notch, a small house stood beside the track, occupied by a young married couple and their two children, who were held up to the open window to look at the strangers. Fred handed in a spray of asters to the baby, and the bashful little mother took them with a nod and a pleased expression in her face. Lou had started to do the same thing, but drew back sharply, vexed again, when she saw Fred step forward with his flowers. The woman, however, had noticed her movement, and after a moment’s hesitation beckoned to the girl. Lou was by this time some distance down the track, and shook her head, pleasantly enough; for, however much out of sorts, she rarely forgot herself so far as to be really rude to any one. The woman seemed anxious, as Lou was about to join her party, and leaned out of the window, pointing up the track and making gestures which were quite incomprehensible. But Lou was in no mood for trifling or lingering. She gave the baby a parting wave of her hand, and ran off after the rest, who had not noticed this little episode. Fred Seacomb was just in front, provokingly unconscious of her unfavorable opinion, and—what? yes, actually racing with one of the girls! Well, the morning was so bright, and Lou’s own nature so like it, that the clouds soon blew away, and she was one of the merriest of the party as they drew near the agreed limit of their excursion.

The sun was well up over the mountains when they reached the upper end of the trestle-bridge which spans the deep chasm of Willey Brook. It was an uncanny sort of place, and as the girls crept up to the edge and looked down at the jagged bowlders eighty feet below, they shuddered and shrank back, with their hands over their eyes. One or two proposed starting for home at once, and the whole party probably would have begun the homeward march, had not one of the boys in an unlucky moment remarked in a loud whisper to his neighbor:

“’Twould be just like Lou Elwin to propose to go across.”

“I think she’s scared, though, this time,” replied his companion with a laugh.

Lou stopped short, and the others with her. She had caught a part of the foolish words, and guessed the rest. Turning squarely about, she surveyed the yawning gulf, and the slender road across it, with shining eyes and flushed cheeks. Her breath came quickly. She _was_ afraid, but should the others know it—especially Fred Seacomb, whom she had been taunting with weakness?

Without otherwise announcing her intention, she walked deliberately toward the trestle, and stepped upon the narrow line of boards which were placed across the ties for a foot-way. Fred sprang forward and laid his hand on her arm.

“Lou! Surely you’ll not attempt——”

“Fred Seacomb, I’m going across this bridge. If you don’t wish to go,” she added, in a tone which implied more contempt than she meant,—she was so excited,—“you can sit down here and wait till we come back. Who’s going to follow?” she cried, raising her voice and glancing over her shoulder. She looked very pretty, standing there with a great cluster of asters in her belt, her eyes sparkling, and little wisps of hair blowing about her face. Two or three stout fellows came forward eagerly enough, and one of the girls. Fred had not moved. Lou could feel his fingers tremble on her arm. Now he tried to speak again, but she shook off his hand impatiently, and turned away.

“But, Miss Elwin—Lou——” No, she would not listen. Already she was well out upon the trestle, and the wind, drawing down through the ravine, had begun to buffet her slender figure.

“Lou—you’ve forgotten—_the train_!”

She could not hear now, if she would. The wind caught the words and hurled them away down the valley after the brook.

The boards were wet from the recent rains, and to her dismay she began to find it difficult to keep a steady footing. One moment, the wind would howl in her ears, and seize upon her fluttering dress with its powerful grasp until she was obliged to lean against it with her whole force; the next, the gust would die away, withdrawing its support so suddenly that she nearly fell. She could not turn, but she knew that those who had foolishly started after her must be some distance in the rear, for she heard nothing from them. She did not know that they had given up the perilous task and gone back at Fred’s first warning.

Once, and only once, she ventured to look down through the trestle work. Far, oh! so far below, she could see the waters of the little stream as it lay among the rocks with no sound, but moving on its white way silently. At the same moment, a blast of wind grasped and shook her so fiercely that she well-nigh lost her balance on the uneven boards. There was no rail or support of any kind on either side or overhead; only space, space, whirling in the wind, and below, the rocks and the white brook.

Giddy, half fainting, she paused irresolutely, attempted, perhaps, to turn back, and sank upon the bridge with a sob of genuine terror, clinging to the smooth iron track and hiding her face in her hands.

As she did so, she heard a peculiar, vibrating hum in the rail that sent the blood to her heart. Behind her, in their safe position on the embankment, the rest heard it, too, and, looking up, saw what was coming. The Boston express, with a long and heavily loaded train, was at that very moment rounding a curve not a mile above the trestle, and rushing upon them, a roaring, resistless avalanche of iron.

[Illustration: “THE TRAIN, TOO, WAS ON THE BRIDGE.”]

Lou felt as if she were in a nightmare. She tried to move, but was as motionless as if she were lashed to the bridge. As if in a bewildering dream, she faintly caught the sound of her companions’ cries of terror and warning; in a bewildering dream, she heard two shrill notes echoing and re-echoing from the mountains far and near, and knew it was the agonized shriek of the great, laboring locomotive, powerless to prevent what the rocks below were waiting for. She had read in books of people who, in extreme peril, saw the details of their past life like a flash; with the wet iron rails quivering and twanging more and more loudly under her hands, she knew what it meant. But even while the last accents of the whistle were sobbing themselves away in the distance, there came a sound of footsteps, light and swift. Two strong arms seized the girl about the waist, and, still, as if in a strange dream, she knew it was the languid, delicate Fred who was running with her in his arms along that fearful height.

A few moments later, a hollow roar and tremulous movement under his feet told that the train, too, was on the bridge.

When Fred leaped from the track, upon the farther side, the locomotive was not forty feet behind them. The engineer’s pale face stared at them an instant from the cab; then the train, with groaning brakes, smoking axles, and a shower of cinders, thundered past and was gone. Not one of the passengers knew of the escape, or even of the danger.

It was afterward learned, however, that the appliances of the air-brake on the engine would not work that day, and the train, with its tremendous acquired momentum, ran to Bemis station, nine miles below, before it could be brought to a standstill.

With half-closed eyes, Lou lay helplessly on the mossy plot where Fred had placed her, and, in the slow waking from her dream, she watched him as he went to and fro, at first beckoning and making motions for the rest to join him by crossing the bed of the brook, and then confining his attention entirely to her.

His face was almost as white as her own, as he approached, but she gave him a smile and a grateful look that seemed to reassure him; and, after seeing that her position was as comfortable as circumstances would permit, he took off his thick jacket and laid it over her, in spite of a feeble protest,—for the September morning was still cool, and the wind whistled sharply through the ravine.

Next, Fred busied himself in gathering sticks, and, wet as they were, he succeeded, with the aid of several matches, in coaxing a blaze out of them, almost at her feet. By the time the rest of the company came panting up the steep slope, she had so far recovered as to sit up and hold out her cold hands to the cheery little fire which crackled and snapped merrily against a big bowlder.

Many were the clumsy inquiries of the boys, and the caresses of the girls as they came upon her sitting there, with Fred standing silently at one side—no longer jacketless, for she had pleaded so hard that he had put it on again.

There was some discussion as to what action should now be taken, some favoring a slow return to Crawford’s by the road, some by the track, and some, a short walk further down the valley to the Willey House, where they could obtain rest and refreshment. After many sober arguments, quite different from the eager propositions in the parlor that morning, they decided to return at once to the hotel, and _not_ by the track.

It was a very silent and nervous little group of young people that made its way down to the wagon road at the bottom of the valley. Fred had been nearly exhausted, after all, by his efforts, and Lou was so prostrated that they feared she could not get home at all. But the spirits and strength of the young are elastic, and by the time they repassed the Notch, one would hardly know, to look at them, that anything unusual had happened. It was agreed that all should say as little about the affair as possible. Accordingly, nearly all the party were in the parlor that night, dancing, chatting, and laughing as usual.

For the next few days, it was observed that Fred Seacomb did not play tennis, and that Lou Elwin never again chid him for his mild ways and moderate excursions. Report says that she told him, in her own frank way, that she was ashamed of her former treatment of him; at any rate, she will not hear a word said against him, among her friends; and not once since that day has she been known to accuse him of unmanliness.

THE GIRAFFE.

Many years ago, a young Italian lad named Gordian, who had been proclaimed, when but fifteen years old, Emperor of Rome, gave the people of his native city a splendid entertainment or “triumph.” And among the many strange and terrible beasts that passed in procession around his amphitheater, were ten curious animals—long-necked, long-legged, and small-headed, with tufted tails and queer little horns. They were of a tawny orange color, beautifully spotted and marked. They were driven around the arena in gilded chariots by their Ethiopian drivers, and were such an odd combination of the body of a camel and the spots of a leopard that the people, who gazed upon them in wonder and surprise, gave to the strange beasts the name of “Camelopardus,” or camel-leopard.

[Illustration: A HERD OF GIRAFFES.]

This singular animal, however, had long been known to the Arabians, under the name of “Xirapha,” or “the long-necked.” And from this title comes our word “giraffe,” the popular name now given to the odd-looking beast that the boy-emperor exhibited in his circus sixteen centuries ago.

It is indeed a curious animal. Its chief characteristics are its length of neck and its high fore-quarters. The head is sometimes seventeen feet from the ground, and specimens have been found measuring over twenty feet from hoof to nose. The apparent height of the fore-quarters is not due, as is supposed, to a greater length of the fore-legs, but to the extraordinary height of the withers or shoulder-bones. The tongue of the giraffe is long and prehensile—that is, it is adapted to seize and entwine; it can be tapered so small as to enter the ring of a small key. This long neck and prehensile tongue, which are found in no other animal, enable this giant browser to feed with ease upon the foliage and tender branches of trees.

The eyes of the giraffe are very large, soft, and beautiful, and one would suppose that their mild, imploring expression would restrain the hunters from shooting down so attractive-looking and inoffensive a creature. But the same willful and cruel desire for what is wrongly called “sport,” that has exterminated the buffalo of our Western plains, is killing off the giraffe of Africa. Its strong-tasting flesh is not enjoyable eating, and its hide is of little use; its capture alive is of no value to man, save as a gratification of curiosity; it can not, like the camel, be used as a beast of burden; nor does it, like the ostrich or the elephant, provide either feather or ivory for commerce. In fact, this curious animal is of no practical use to man, and should be left free to roam the plains and forests of its African home, unmolested and unharmed, save for the occasional capture of such living specimens as may help boys and girls to study and admire one of the most singular and graceful of the creatures of the earth.

THE CHILDREN OF THE SUN.

BY ARTHUR WENTWORTH EATON.

[Illustration]

A sunflower tall, by the garden wall, Scornfully nodded his head To a brilliant poppy, whose cheeks below Were all aflame with a crimson glow.

“I am the child of the sun,” he smiled; “His color is mine, you see, While you are drinking his warm rays in, You never once try his tints to win.”

But the poppy gay, still blushing away (And laughing a little too), Quietly answered, “The sun has told Me to be red and you to be gold.

“The morning’s hush and the poppy’s blush Are dear to the heart of day As the noontide hour, with its triumphs won, And the flower that rivals the glowing sun.

“Heaven is large, and its chiefest charge Is that life shall be broad and free, And it bids the children of sun and storm Ne’er to a single type conform.”

The sunflower wise looked down in surprise At the bold little flower below, But he learned a lesson there and then That needs to be learned by many men.

[Illustration]

WONDERS OF THE ALPHABET.

BY HENRY ECKFORD.

SIXTH PAPER.

You must have noticed the difference in your own handwriting, when you are using a pen that does not suit you, and when you have one to which you are accustomed. Similarly, when you are writing on a slate—a sharp slate-pencil makes a clear, thin mark, a blunt pencil makes a broad mark with uneven edges. When the pencil is worn down on one side, if you turn it over, it makes another sort of a mark. The writing done with a quill differs from that made with a steel pen. And the differences between the writings of certain nations of the Old World—which at one time puzzled people very much—were often caused by their use of different writing materials, such as: paper and pencils; paper and brushes; bricks and metal pens; wax and metal nails; wood and knife-blades.

[Illustration: REED AND PEN-CASE OF ANCIENT EGYPT.]

The Egyptians, you remember, had two kinds of writing: one called hieroglyphs, used mainly on monuments, for sentences of sacred history, names of kings, and short prayers; the other called hieratic, used on papyrus paper, chiefly for general and quicker writing. Both these terms signify that writing was sacred and connected with the priests. Religion entered very largely into the life of the people of Egypt, and the priests, who formed the most powerful class, held all the learning, and, before the Greeks flourished, were the wisest men in the world. The differences between the rough little sketches that formed the letters of the hieratic or swift hand and the laborious pictures called hieroglyphs, arose originally, and kept growing greater and greater, because of the different materials used in making them. It was natural to work very slowly and carefully on the hieroglyphs which were carved on royal monuments; while the scribes who wrote the hieratic characters on smooth papyrus with a reed pen and thick ink were obliged to disregard the smaller angles and finer outlines, and were satisfied if their work conveyed the meaning they intended. There is a fantastic and not inelegant writing used by the Burmese, a people to the north-east of India, and south of China. This script is very rounded and is made up of fine lines. The letters have been found to belong to an alphabet that looks entirely different; and the difference arose from the custom of writing on palm-leaves with a fine needle. It was difficult to make the plain up-and-down strokes without splitting the leaf, so these strokes were made in curves in circles and half circles.

[Illustration: PORTION OF THE BURMESE ALPHABET.]

The alphabet of the Goths, before and about the time they embraced Christianity, was formed on a contrary system. All the strokes were straight, either up and down, or crosswise, or slanting. Many persons have thought this arose because the Goths lacked a feeling for grace and beauty. But that was not the reason. When these forefathers of ours invented or borrowed their runes, and later when they borrowed a true alphabet from the Greeks, they cut their letters on sticks of wood or on smooth lengths of bark. Most boys know by experience how difficult it is to cut a round O on a smooth stick on account of the grain of the wood. This led to peculiar shapes in the letters.

In the earliest known Runic alphabet, the letters do not stand in the order of our letters; and they differ so greatly in other ways from the ordinary Greek alphabet, that it is probable they were borrowed long before the Christian era, and afterward became greatly changed. This Runic alphabet was called the “Futhorc,” from the first six letters, ᚠᚢᚦᚯᚱᚴ—F, U, TH, O, R, C. The third rune, ᚦ (TH), which came from the Greek Δ, _delta_, or D, survived in English literature until the last century, and is occasionally used to-day when people wish to write in an old-fashioned style. And they are apt to make a curious mistake in its pronunciation. The rune ᚦ remained in Irish and Anglo-Saxon for the sound TH, and in English it was preserved longest in the word “THE,” because that word occurs very often, and it was easier to write one letter than two. But in the course of time it came to be mistaken for Y; and although our ancestors knew better than to pronounce it like Y, their descendants do not, but usually give this apparent Y the sound of the real Y, making YE’s out of all the THE’s. They do not know that this is a survival of a rune almost to the present generation. The fifth rune of the “futhorc” is our R, and the sixth is our K without the tail. The Goths, Angles, and Scandinavians used twenty-four such runes or closely similar letters. You will notice that the Goth, like an unskillful schoolboy who carves his initials on wood, and is bothered by the circle of the O, has solved the difficulty by the bold move of cutting one downward and two cross strokes. Sometimes, however, the O was made by four strokes forming a lozenge ᛜ. They usually cut their down strokes across the grain; and they gave all their cross lines a slant, in order not to bury the point of the knife too deep, and splinter the wood, in cutting with the grain. That is the reason that the cross lines of the letters are rarely horizontal.

[Illustration: THE BUZEO TORQUE.[4]]

Some of our words that are in constant use can be traced back to this period. The word book was originally the same as the word beech, and reminds us of the time when our forefathers carved their records on beech-wood or beech-bark. The similarity of the two words has remained much closer in German; _Buch_ (book) being almost exactly the same as _Buche_ (beech). To sing from a stave is the same as to sing from a staff, because in runic writing the old chants were noted down with a knife on sticks or pieces of bark, and read from these by the singers. The Ojibway Indians, though they had not an alphabet like the runes, until recently had similar staves which they brought out when they chanted their songs; certain marks on the wood served to remind them of what they were to sing.

You may remember my telling you how hard it is to distinguish some of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet from one another, and how the same difficulty is experienced in the case of the Arabic and Persian alphabets. This is due to various reasons, among which was the employment by those nations of pen, paper, and ink for perpetuating records. This tended to make their writing less and less easy to read; and as inscriptions on stone were not common, people did not have the ancient models of letters before their eyes to refer to.

[Illustration: ROMAN WRITING MATERIALS.]

The capital letters of our own alphabet, however, are easily distinguishable from one another. We owe this fact largely to the Romans, a clear-headed, practical people, who used for every-day writing slates or boards covered with a thin film of wax, on which the letters were engraved, or furrowed, by a sharp-pointed instrument called a _stylus_, from which we derive the term “style,” in literature. The yielding quality of the wax encouraged the use of fine, open and legible characters, and the Romans handed down to us an alphabet improved in many ways.

But the most curious example of the modifying influence of the writing materials upon the writing is seen in the cuneiform characters. If, on a hot summer’s day, you should walk between the long lines of bricks in one of the many brickyards that line certain sections of the Hudson river, you would find the fresh-made bricks quite soft, and steaming under the direct rays of the sun. If one of those soft bricks were given into your hand and you were asked to draw a rebus on it, and given a nail with which to do it, you would meet with this difficulty: If, in drawing the outlines of your pictures, you should press equally along the whole length of every line, you would raise small ridges on each side; or, as you became more expert, one ridge on one side, as a plow does when drawing a furrow. And when you should come to draw one line across another, there would be two ugly interfering ridges.

But if you should stop your cross line just before you come to the other, and skip it, beginning again on the other side, your picture would be smoother and the surface of the brick less uneven. You would succeed still better if you should not try to draw continuous lines, but should indicate them with a series of dots made by dabbing the soft brick with a corner of the iron nail. Now, imagine the Hudson to be the Euphrates, and yourself a Babylonian of ten thousand years ago, and the nail a little, smooth, square-pointed piece of copper, iron, tin, or silver, and the pictures conventional signs representing the various sounds of the language, and you would be writing cuneiform. The old Babylonians, in writing, engraved soft bricks with regular and evenly placed dabs. These hardened quickly under the hot sun of Mesopotamia, or were baked in ovens, and so preserved the inscribed characters. Very often a coat of soft clay was wrapped about the original brick, and the same inscription made on the outside. This was done to prevent forgeries, and to make it easier to restore the meaning, if part of the brick were destroyed or lost. Whole libraries of these strange books have been found under the ruins of the palaces of the old kings of Assyria. Still other libraries are lying there waiting for their discoverer.

Did you ever try to make an alphabet of your own? I can distinctly remember inventing one, with a favorite sister, when I was about seven years old. Great was our diligence while at work on it, and great was our secrecy! We used to hide it away so carefully that it was easy to forget about it for weeks at a time. We never learned it well enough to write the simplest sentences in it off-hand,—and for a very good reason: We had too recently learned an alphabet infinitely better than any that a child could think out—one which had been tested and changed and improved by ages of use. I do not doubt that many other children have tried to construct private systems of writing. It has never been uncommon for men to attempt to use secret alphabets. In this respect, the ancient people of Asia somewhat resembled children; and thousands of alphabets and syllabaries were invented in those old days. It is rare, however, that one has been handed down, and only when the people for whom it was devised had a much poorer system or none at all.

[Illustration: A “TREE ALPHABET.”]

Sequoiah, an intelligent Cherokee Indian, contrived more recently a syllabary of eighty-five signs, comprising all the sounds in his language, using the English alphabet as a basis on which to form his characters. This syllabary is in use to-day by the Cherokees, and books and newspapers are printed in it. Botanists have given the name, Sequoiah, to the gigantic trees of California, in perpetual memory of his genius.

[Illustration: SPECIMENS OF OLD ASIATIC ALPHABETS. (SEE NEXT PAGE.)]

Long ago, when it was dangerous but very profitable to be thought a wizard, it was customary for any wise man who wished to be feared, and to keep his wisdom confined to himself and a few chosen disciples, to write his books in an alphabet or cipher of his own invention. Generally he took some existing alphabet as a foundation, and made variations on it, somewhat as Sequoiah did. I have in my possession a queer little treatise in Arabic, which claims to have been written after a labor of twenty years, and solemnly deposited in the royal treasury, during the reign of a certain Caliph who lived in Palestine more than one thousand years ago. It professes to give a key to the hieroglyphs of Egypt, but its greatest interest lies in the fact that the author has here brought together, in an amusing medley, all the alphabets and ciphers that he has ever heard of; perhaps some that he made up. Here in the upper wood-cut, for example, is a curious tree alphabet. The letters follow the regular order of the Arabic alphabet, each letter varying from the others by the arrangement of the branches on one side or the other of the trunk. Placing these in regular order with the corresponding Arabic letters underneath, the Arab had a simple cipher which the ordinary Oriental who only knows his own letters could scarcely read without the key. Another alphabet, as shown in the second wood-cut on p. 773, is evidently based upon a picture of the sun for _alif_, or A; while B, C, D, and the following letters are made by varying the first character. Remember that these, being Asiatic alphabets, are written so as to be read from right to left; but the letters are here placed in reverse order to be read like our own alphabet from left to right. This book contains also alphabets founded on the signs for the moon, and on those for the planets, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Mercury, and Venus. The one shown on this page is still another, which the author calls the “oldest Chaldean Alphabet.” And one can really trace a resemblance to Phœnician letters in some of these old signs. In fact, it is easy to invent fancy alphabets, as soon as the idea of an alphabet is familiar to the mind; but it is not so easy to induce people to use them. The alphabets actually used by the various nations of the world have been brought to their present state of perfection, as you have seen, by a slow process of growth, one step at a time, and each step the product of intense thought and ingenuity. The Cherokee is an interesting exception to this rule. Of late centuries, there have been few, almost no improvements in our alphabet. This is partly because it is so well adapted to our use, but principally because the invention of printing has tended to fix the style of printed type in one fashion. It is true that when books were first printed in England, the characters used were the indistinct so-called Gothic, or black-letter; but printers soon saw the advantages of the later Italian, or Roman, styles, and have kept to them ever since. The people of Germany are troubled to-day with near-sightedness. It has been claimed, with a great show of truth, that this is largely owing to the fact that the Germans still retain the old black-letter of the early Irish and the Anglo-Saxons. But every year the Germans are printing more and more books in Roman type, and for generations Roman type and Roman script have been taught in their schools, together with the angular Gothic.

[Illustration: THE OLDEST CHALDEAN ALPHABET.]

Among the half-civilized nations which are now being taught our wisdom, many are learning to use our alphabet; and it seems almost certain that in time the whole world, excepting perhaps the Mohammedan nations, will express their thoughts in our version of the letters that came down from the Phœnicians. What a glory for that strange old folk of the Mediterranean Sea!

[4] This massive collar or bracelet, here reproduced from Mr. George Stephens’s “Old Northern Runic Monuments,” was made of twisted gold, and was found at Buzeo, in Wallachia, upon the site, probably, of a heathen temple. The runic characters inscribed upon it mean “dedicated to the temple of the Goths.” This torque was worth nearly twenty thousand dollars.

A BALLAD OF BASE-BALL.

BY I. D.

I.

Now that Summer has just reached its mark, And the schooling and fishing are done, Come! To-morrow get up with the lark (And you know she gets up with the sun)— Come along! who would shirk or would shun The game that is best of them all, For glory and frolic and fun? So hurrah for the Bat and the Ball!

II.

Yes, hurrah! we’ll be first in the Park; Our Nine will go up there as one, _Not_ to see all the beasts of the Ark, Nor the birds, nor the beetles,—no fun!— But around the green Diamond to run, And the Red-stockings’ hearts to appall, And to show how a game may be won: So hurrah for the Bat and the Ball!

III.

We’ve a Catcher as keen as a shark, For fouls—well he can’t be outdone; And our Batters could bat in the dark, And our Pitcher knows every one Of the “curves” and the “shoots”; not a run Did he give those Red-stockings last Fall In the champion match that we won. So hurrah for the Bat and the Ball!

Jack, throw down your rod and your gun, Let kite and top go to the wall, Of _good_ games there’s not more than one, So hurrah for the Bat and the Ball!

MAN OVERBOARD!

BY H. A. JOHNSON.

[Illustration: OFF TO THE RESCUE.]

The cry of “Man overboard!” always has a startling sound on an ocean vessel. In a naval ship, such accidents, or emergencies, are provided against in advance. Two boats, one on each side of the ship, are kept ready for instant use, and are equipped with everything necessary for a speedy rescue, as well as an outfit, including provisions, for a prolonged search in case immediate rescue is not possible. Picked seamen in each “watch” are assigned to special duty as a life-boat crew, and must be ready to jump into their boat at a moment’s notice.

Some ships are provided with “life-buoys”—queer-looking objects hanging from the stern. In case of a man’s falling overboard at night, one of these life-buoys can be dropped into the water, and lighted immediately, so that the poor fellow can strike out for it at once and cling to it until picked up.

Sometimes, however, the sea runs so high that no small boat could be lowered without swamping and perhaps drowning the entire crew. To decide the question whether to attempt the rescue of a poor fellow who has fallen overboard, at the risk of losing others who might be sent to his aid, is a fearful responsibility for a commanding officer, and requires the coolest exercise of his judgment.

THE KELP-GATHERERS.

[_A Story of the Maine Coast._]

BY J. T. TROWBRIDGE.