Chapter XV: Part II (3)

“‘Yes, mamma,’ I answered, ‘I’ll come right away.’

“As soon as I said this Santa Claus whistled for ‘Comet’ and ‘Cupid,’ and they came tearing up the tower. He put me in a tiny sleigh, and away we went, over great snow-banks of clouds, and before I had time to think I was landed in the big chair, and mamma was calling ‘Lilian, Lilian, it’s time for you to practise,’ just as she is doing now, and I must go.”

So Lill answered, “Yes, mamma,” and ran to the piano.

Effie sank back in the chair to think. She wished Lill had found out how many black marks she had, and whether that lady was Mrs. Santa Claus--and had, in fact, obtained more accurate information about many things.

But when she asked about some of them afterwards, Lill said she didn’t know, for the next time she had traveled in that direction she found SANTA CLAUS LAND had moved.

BOB’S “BREAKING IN.”

BY ELEANOR PUTNAM.

“Why don’t you write a story, Tom?” said Jim.

“Can’t,” said I; “never did such a thing in my life.”

You see the beginning of it all was Jim’s coming home for a three months’ leave. Jim’s in the navy and just home from Japan. So he came to see us, and so I broke my leg. When we came home from school we had planned no end of larks for the vacation, what with the Christmas tree and sleighing and skating and coasting, and making candy over to Aunt Lewes’, and going into Boston to Pinafore and having Charlotte-russe at Parker’s, and all the rest.

So the first thing I did the very night after we got home, was to fall through a bad place in the stable floor and break my leg, and Will said it was lucky it wasn’t one of the horses. Of course that finished my fun, for I could not go anywhere with the rest, but just had to lie there with my leg in splints; and though of course I had my presents just the same, I was mad all the vacation.

It wasn’t any great fun, you’d better believe, to lie on a lounge and stick in the house and see Will going everywhere and having no end of jolly times every day.

Then when the Saturday came for him to go back to Dr. Thomas’s and leave me behind, and I thought of seeing all the fellows and hearing what they had for presents and all that, I concluded that if I’d been well I’d have been glad for once in my life even to go back to school. It wasn’t that I didn’t have enough done for me either, for mother and Jennie, the cook, almost cured me of ever liking cream cakes and jam again, by the heaps of it they gave me. Nell made me more neckties than I can wear in ten years, and played backgammon by the hour. Father brought me a new book from the city nearly every night, and Jim told me more stories--“yarns” he called them--and he and I made the most complete man-of-war that ever was seen in these parts. So you can see that I was not neglected, but I tell you there’s nothing like being well and having two whole legs to stand on. I’d got pretty tired of reading and jig-sawing and painting, and one afternoon I’d been telling them about the time we broke Bob Richards in at school, and says Jim:

“Tom, old fellow,” says he, “why don’t you write a story. Write it all out, and send it to WIDE AWAKE; you never know what you can do till you try,” says he.

I thought I couldn’t at first, but the next day Jim had to drive over to Medford, and Nell had to go too to match mother’s gray dress and get some red ribbons for the dog. They both went off, and mother had a caller down stairs, so I was left all alone, and that’s how I came to write about it anyway.

You see our fellows have always had a fashion of giving the new boys a “breaking in.” The thing began by just doubling up the bed clothes, or sewing up the fellow’s sleeves, and then they got to ducking them and scaring them with ghosts, and when at last they pumped on little Fred Harris and frightened him into brain fever, Dr. Thomas forbade anything more of the sort.

Now when Dr. Thomas says anything he has a way of meaning it, so we fellows were surprised enough when one day Jeff Ryder came into the gym where we were having a circus, and said: “I tell you what let’s do! Let’s give Bob Richards a regular breaking in!”

“Yes I would, Jeff,” said Harry Thorndike, in the odd, quiet way he had with him. Harry Thorndike was our head boy, and entered Harvard last summer. “Yes, I would,” says he, “and get sent home for a month; it would be no end of fun. I would.”

Of course we boys all looked at Jeff when Harry spoke in that way, to see if he didn’t feel cheap, but he didn’t, a bit.

“I’ll take all the blame,” says he, “and I’ll risk being sent home.”

So then he told us all about his plan, and we thought it was a jolly good one too.

Bob Richards was a new fellow; only been there four weeks; and when he first came we thought he was a regular moon-calf. He was rather small of his age and had a kind of pinched, half-starved look, as if he’d never had a good square meal from soup clear through to pudding in his life. He was homesick and lonesome too, and we got into the way of calling him “baby” and “sissy,” but he never seemed to mind a bit, but would always help a fellow with his lessons just the same, and was first-class in any game.

One day Ralph Bixby, the bully of the school, said something about Richard’s mother, and I just wish you could have seen that little fellow fire up.

“You say what you like about me,” says he, “but don’t you say anything about my mother; it won’t be best for you, Bixby.”

“Do you want to fight?” says Bixby, bristling up like a turkey cock.

“It is not fighting I am after,” says Richards, very quietly, “but I can fight if there is need of it.”

But Bixby said he wouldn’t fight with an underclass man, and then went off and told Dr. Thomas that little Richards had been offering to fight. We all liked little Richards, for he was clear grit right through and no mistake. So when Jeff told us his plan we all agreed to it and there weren’t more than half a dozen of us fellows that knew about it, and we didn’t have to go and tell everyone about it either, as girls would.

At last the term was ended, and we were going home next day; that is, all we fellows who had any homes to go to, or any invitations to visit. But Bob Richards, he didn’t have any place to go because his mother was poor and lived way down in Machias, and it was too far away. So most boys would have been ugly about it and envious of the other boys, but Richards wasn’t a bit. Will and I were though, one winter when all our people were away in Germany, and we had to stay at the school or else go to Aunt Jocelyn’s. We don’t like very well to go to Aunt Jocelyn’s, for she always has cold meat and rice pudding without any plums, and says that she likes to see boys sober and useful. She gave Will and me dictionaries for Christmas presents. So we’d rather go most anywhere than to Aunt Jocelyn’s. But we were mad though to think we had to stay at the school, and Will told one of the fellows that he’d punch him if he didn’t stop looking so glad.

Little Richards you would have thought was going himself, he looked so glad and happy, and rushed about up and down stairs into all the rooms, helping the fellows pack and cord their trunks, strap up their valises, and directing cards for their boxes, and you’d have thought he was going himself sure enough.

“Don’t you wish you were going home, Richards?” said Ned Smith. He is one of those fellows who are always saying things they ought not to, though not meaning to be hateful. He’d do no end of things for a fellow who was sick, and then like as not tell him something that would make him sicker than ever. So he couldn’t think of anything better to say than to ask little Richards if he didn’t wish he was going home.

“Why, yes,” said Bob, in the bright, quick way he had with him; “why, yes, of course I wish I was going home, but if I can’t I can’t, so there’s an end to it. Besides I’m going home next summer; it’ll only be twenty-five weeks.”

Just to think of his speaking of it in that chipper way, as if he’d said twenty-five minutes instead of weeks.

The packing was all done after a while, and we were ready for an early start next morning. We had eaten our last supper, beef-steak and fried potatoes--we always have a sort of extra good supper the last night of the term. Then after supper we had a good time in Mrs. Thomas’ own room, with her two babies and her cousin who played the piano for us, and by ten o’clock we were all in our rooms and the house got still.

It was eleven o’clock when we heard three mews and a scratch like a cat, which was Jeff Ryder’s signal; he could have opened the door and come in just as well, but he was always very fond of giving all kinds of signs.

We opened the door and there were Hal Thorndike and the two Everett boys and Jeff. Will and I had a room alone. We came out and joined them and went up stairs trying to keep still, though Will would giggle, and he and Jeff had a scuffle on the landing about which should go in and get Bob out of bed.

At last Harry Thorndike settled it by telling them both to go. They had masks that Jeff and I made of black cloth with holes cut through for the eyes and mouth.

So they went in and waked up Bob, and said in a horrid, scarey sort of way, “Unhappy mortal! prepare to suffer your doom! Arise and proceed to the hall of judgment!”

He wasn’t more than half awake, but he was clear pluck, and he came out shivering with cold and with a blanket round his shoulders.

The boys had blindfolded him, and they led him round and round till he was pretty well mixed up, and then they took him to the Hall of Judgment, which was Harry Thorndike’s room.

The two younger boys staid with him while we older ones fell to work like beavers in Bob’s room.

We had a hard time though you’d better believe, trying to keep quiet, for the fellows would forget every now and then and speak or laugh out loud. We had Archibald, the school janitor, up to help us, and we made quick work of what we had to do I can tell you.

To begin with, his room was just the forlornest place that ever you saw, and no mistake! We furnish our own rooms at Dr. Thomas’, and we always try to fix them up rather gorgeous. Our mothers and sisters are always sending us gimcracks to make our dens kind of gay. Then if fellows happen to have any girl friends you know, they are always sending them tidies and such trash for philopene presents, and though we don’t much care to have the things round under feet, somehow if one fellow has them, all the rest wants them too.

But I just wish you could have seen little Richards’ room! the barest, coldest place! There was no carpet, only a common sort of rug before the little old stove, that was so wheezy and full of cracks that it would not do much but smoke anyway. There was a bedstead, and his study table with his books on it. There was a picture of his mother, and one of his sister--rather pretty she was too, with smiling eyes like Richards’, and soft hair in little rings about her forehead and face. Thorndike said that she would be very pretty when she was older--say seventeen. Mrs. Thomas’ cousin is sixteen and a half. Bob had put a little wreath of some kind round the two pictures. There was a plant too on the table. He brought it in his hand all the way from Machias, with a brown paper bag over the top of it, and now it was just ready to bloom.

The first thing we did was to bring in a big warm carpet all made and fitted to the room, and we spread it down, but didn’t nail it because of the noise and because we thought he’d like to do it himself. Then we covered the old table and mantle with jolly, bright cloths. We never could have picked them out in the world if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Thomas’ cousin, the one who played on the piano for us. She is rather nice for a girl, and sometimes wears little gold horse-shoes in her ears. Jeff Ryder is going to marry her when he is twenty-one, but nobody knows it yet, not even she. Jeff only told me one night when I had a sore throat and he slept with me. So she helped us pick out the things, and gave us a tidy, and a pin-cushion the size of a bean bag. Then we moved in a first-class stove, and Archibald set her up and built a rouser of a fire in her. We put a pair of new blankets on the bed, and Jeff Ryder brought out a student’s lamp--one of the double headers; the two Belknap boys--that means Will and me--gave a big easy chair to go beside the table; then the Everett boys gave a set of book shelves; and Dr. Thomas gave a box of books, as many as a dozen I should think. We left these in the box, for Will and I always think that half the fun of having presents is opening the bundles ourselves. Harry Thorndike gave the stove and a little clock from his own room. We put the pin-cushion on the bureau, and the tidy on the chair, and while we were standing there looking at it all, there came the very softest kind of a step outside and there was the Doctor’s wife. She had a picture in her arms, one that I had seen a good many times in her own sitting-room. It was quite a large picture of a woman with a sort of hood on her hair and a baby in her arms; both the woman and the baby had a kind of shiny hoop just above their heads in the air, looking as if in a minute they’d drop down and make crowns. Will told me once that he thought it was a picture of Mrs. Thomas and the baby, but I think not, though there was the same kind of look too on both their faces.

“Hang this up, boys,” she said; “he is very fond of it, and I have had it for a good many years. I’ve babies of my own now to look at, so we will give this to Bob. Let us hang it over the mantle-piece.”

There is something rather queer about the Doctor’s wife. It isn’t that she isn’t pretty, for she is; and it isn’t that she is odd or old, for she is younger a good deal than the Doctor, and as kind and jolly as a girl; but there is something queer about her, for I don’t know how many fellows have said she seemed just like their mothers; and what I want to know is how in creation can she look and seem like the mothers of so many boys--dark and light, and homely and handsome, English, German, American, and even one colored fellow said she made him think of his “mammy.” I think it must be a kind of motherish way which she has, that makes us all feel so about her.

She gave the picture to Hal Thorndike and he hung it up, and I tell you the room did look just immense.

Then we went down stairs and brought Bob up again, and sat him down in his new chair, and told him not to take off his blinder till he’d counted three hundred, and then we all ran down into Will’s and my room to wait and see what he would do. We rather expected to hear him shout, or tear round, or do something or other; but we counted three hundred two or three times over, and not a sound came from his room.

By and by Jeff said he was going up to see what the row was--which was only his way of speaking; for you couldn’t call it a row, could you, when there wasn’t a sound to be heard!

Jeff didn’t come back, and then Will said he’d go and see where Jeff was, so Hal said it was like Clever Alice and her cheeses that she sent rolling down hill after each other; but at last the two boys came back, not grinning at all, but solemn and long-faced enough.

“I guess he’s mad,” said Jeff; “anyhow he can’t be glad, for he’s howling!” which was another of Jeff’s ways of speaking; for Bob certainly was not howling.

“I don’t see what he wants to act that way for,” said Will. “I bet I wouldn’t if I had so many things given to me at once!”

“You can’t always tell,” said Hal. “It isn’t always a sign a fellow is mad if he howls. I howled like a good one when my father came home from sea, when I was a little fellow, a good many years ago.”

“Let’s go up and see what’s the matter with him,” said I.

“Let’s go to bed!” said Harry. “Don’t one of you young rats go near his room to-night, or I’ll report you to the Doctor!”

We all laughed, for of course we knew he’d never report us; he isn’t that kind; but we minded what Hal said all the same, as everybody has a way of doing, and we didn’t hear a sound more till morning, and the gong waked us up.

And then there was Archibald at the door to help with the trunks and boxes, and the lamps were lighted in the dining-room, and there were fritters and syrup for breakfast, but they were too hot to eat. Then there was Jeff Ryder with a present for the Doctor’s wife’s cousin--some candy in a jolly, silver box, lined with blue silk (Jeff will spend all his quarter’s money on one thing), and there in a dark corner of the stairs was the cousin herself, with a little pink sack on, crying about something, and Harry Thorndike was leaning on the balusters saying, as I came along, “Why Anette, child, it’s only for two weeks anyhow! Come, don’t send me off this way; can’t you wish me a merry Christmas?”

Then they shouted that the big sleigh was ready, and I thought we were going to get off without having to see Bob at all.

So I rushed out through the hall and down the slippery steps, but there was Bob before me, very white in the face, and with his eyes looking more than ever like his sister’s.

I tell you we fellows felt awful cheap; a sight cheaper than Bob did himself. Jeff Ryder whispered to me that he was going to bolt, but it was no go. Bob stepped right in front of us.

“Boys,” said he; “boys, you must let me--if I only could tell you--if you only knew--” and just then Hal Thorndike came along (the cousin had run away up-stairs) and set things right as he has a way of doing.

“All right, youngster,” he said; “we know just what you want to say--no one who looked at you could accuse you of being ungrateful. Let up now, old fellow, don’t say a word more, but go up to my room and see if I left my watch-key on the bureau.”

Bob ran off, and Harry said, “now cut for it, fellows!” says he; “hip, vamoose, get, pile into the sleigh, or he’ll be back again, thanking you worse than ever!”

So in we jumped, the whip cracked, the bells jingled, and we gave three cheers for the Doctor, and three more for his wife, and then we dashed away.

Of course, little Richards wrote to us, but a letter isn’t half so bad as to have a fellow brace right up and thank you before your face and eyes. So we got out of it pretty well after all, didn’t we?

And this is all there is about “Bob’s ‘Breaking In,’” and not much of a story either to write all out and send to a magazine. But you see Jim told me to, and it was lonesome with Jim and Nell and mother gone, and only the cat for company the whole afternoon.

Little John Locke
Says kittie can talk;
And this, my dears, is exactly how:

John said, “Kittie mine,
Say, when will you dine?”
And kittie looked up and said, “_Neow-w_.”

THE FIRST HUNT

BY J. H. WOODBURY.

Ephraim Bartlett’s first hunting adventure was of such a serio-comic nature that it seems really worth relating.

Ephraim’s father was a “selectman.” He had also been a captain of militia in his younger days, and therefore it happened that in speaking of him everybody called him “The Captain.” He bore his honors meekly, was a well-to-do farmer, and very much respected.

It was town-meeting day--early in November,--when, of course the captain had to go to the polls to look after the voting, and help count the votes. It was delightful Indian-summer weather, too; one of the last of those soft hazy days in the late autumn, when there is such a quiet beauty over the earth that it seems of heaven itself. When even the winds forget to blow; and it seems, at times, as if all nature were asleep. Then can be heard, in the edge of the distant forest, the tapping of woodpeckers, the barking of squirrels, and the hoarse cries of blue-jays, so distinctly does every slight sound reach you through the still atmosphere. It was on such a day that the captain and his hired man went to town-meeting, leaving Ephraim “the only man on the farm.”

Now Ephraim had been all the fall longing for a hunt; but his father had not time to go hunting with him, and he thought Ephraim too young to go alone. His father had no objection to his going alone, if he would only go without a gun; but Ephraim could not see the use of hunting without a gun. He longed to get into the woods with his father’s old training gun, all alone. This old piece was rather heavy for sporting purposes; but it was always kept in perfect order, standing in a corner of the captain’s bed-room, behind his desk.

So, after his father was gone, and while his mother was busied about the house, the temptation to take that gun was more than Ephraim could withstand. Watching his opportunity, he first secured the powder-horn and shot-pouch out of the drawer where they were kept, and then he took the musket, and bore it stealthily away behind the barn. He felt in a hurry, and as if he were not doing quite right, and was not quite easy in his mind, even after he had got the gun out of sight. He half resolved to carry it back at once, but finally concluded that he could return it just as well after he had had his hunt, and went to work to load it.

Ephraim was not quite sure how the gun should be loaded; but the powder seemed the most essential thing, so he put a handful of that in first. Then, without any wad between, as there should have been, he put in a handful of shot; and they were large enough, he thought, to kill almost anything. He put a very big wad on top of these, and rammed it hard down with the iron ramrod. It was a flint-lock piece, and he knew that powder would be needed in the pan; so he opened it to put some in. But the pan was already filled; for in ramming down the charge the piece had primed itself.

It was all right, Ephraim felt sure, and, keeping the barn between him and the house, he went towards the wood.

It was a lonely old wood. I often went through it myself when I was a boy, and I know all about it. In the brightest day it would be dark and gloomy under some of those great, wide-spreading, low-branched hemlocks. There were all kinds of wood there that are found in a New England forest; beech, birch, maple, oak, pine, hemlock and chestnut; and partridges, squirrels, rabbits, owls,--in fact, all sorts of small game made it their home.

With the gun on his shoulder Ephraim entered the woods and went trudging straight into it, as if all the game worth shooting were in the middle of it. He could hear the squirrels and blue-jays in the high branches overhead; but it was his first hunt, and he was resolved to have something bigger.

His progress was suddenly arrested, however, by the appearance of a very sedate-looking bird, as large as a good-sized fowl, with a thick muffler of feathers around its throat and shoulders, that sat perched on a dead limb before him. The bird was facing him, and when he stopped it stretched its neck downward, and turned its head to one side as if to listen or observe his movements. Ephraim wondered why it did not fly away, but presently it occurred to him that it was an owl, and could not see him.

“Ah!” thought he, “you are just the fellow I’m looking for! Now just stay where you are a minute, and I’ll fix you!”

He had to find a rest before he could hold his gun steady, and then he was sure to take good aim. But he had to draw so hard on the trigger that he closed his eyes, just as the gun went off; and when he opened them again he was looking another way.

The action of his piece seemed unaccountable. It had started backward so suddenly as to throw him over, and there was a pain in his shoulder as if it had been hit. But he was sure he had killed the owl, and, looking for it, he was again surprised to see it sailing noiselessly away. It seemed in no great haste, and evidently had not started without due reflection. It stopped, before going out of sight, and remained perched on another dry limb, as if waiting for Ephraim to come and shoot it again.

Without reflecting at all as to whether he would be any better off after shooting that owl, or whether it had not just as good a right to live as he, Ephraim sprang up, seeing that there was a chance for another shot, and made all haste to reload his piece.

He put the powder and shot in without any wad between, as before--though not quite so much as at first,--for he thought he had loaded a little too heavy. There was a pain in his shoulder yet, and he did not care to be hit that way again. He rammed the charge down in a great hurry, looked in the pan to see if the priming was all right, and then went softly towards the owl.

When Ephraim got near the owl turned his head first to one side and then to the other, as if he suspected there was a boy in the woods, somewhere; but he did not fly, and, nervous with haste, Ephraim found another rest, and again took good aim.

Strange to say that gun hit him again. He even rolled upon the ground, feeling as if he had got a double allowance of pain. Just as soon as he could think at all, he decided that he wouldn’t fire that gun again. Of course he had killed the owl (a very reasonable supposition, considering how hard the gun had hit him), and he guessed he wouldn’t hunt any more that time.

But when he looked for the owl he didn’t see him anywhere. Could it be that there hadn’t been any owl there? An optical illusion, he might have thought, had he ever heard of such a thing. At any rate there was no owl there. But he noticed something sticking in the limb where he thought the owl had been--and he kept his eyes on it for some time. It looked like the ramrod that belonged to his gun; but how in the world could that be?

He looked at his gun, which was lying on the soft bed of leaves where it had fallen, and then he felt sure it was the ramrod, for it was gone. But how in the world?--He couldn’t understand it--till he happened to think that perhaps he didn’t take the ramrod out after loading.

“Ah! that’s it!” thought he. “But what am I going to do? It’s away up there and I can’t get it!” and then Ephraim began to wish he had left the gun at home. The pain in his shoulder didn’t trouble him much then; his trouble was mostly in his mind, concerning his father and that ramrod. How he could reconcile one to the loss of the other was more than he could tell.

It was a very large tree, without a foot-hold or a finger-hold for a long way up, and the ramrod was stuck in a large dead limb, ten feet out. Ephraim saw at once that he never could get it; and he wished he hadn’t fired that last shot. Possibly he thought the owl was to blame; but whether he did or not there was no help for it. So after awhile he got up, and picked up his gun, and went slowly and sadly towards home.

He had not decided upon any course in particular when he entered the house. It was one of those cases the explanation of which must be left largely to the circumstances of the moment.

His mother met him with the gun in his hand.

“Ephraim!” said she astonished, and too frightened to say more.

“I’ve been hunting, mother,” said Ephraim, very demurely.

“Hunting, my child? Merciful Father!”

“Father didn’t know, it, mother; and I don’t want you to tell him.”

“My son! my son! is the gun loaded?”

“Not now, mother. I fired it off.”

“For pity’s sake, Ephraim! don’t ever take it out again.”

“You won’t tell father, if I won’t take it again, will you, mother?”

“You’ll promise me, Ephraim, that you will never take it again?”

“Yes, mother, if you won’t tell him.”

“Then put it where it belongs,--just as you found it. It’s a wonder you didn’t get hurt.”

Ephraim might have said that he was a little hurt; for he had a sore and swollen shoulder; but he said nothing of that, nor of the ramrod; but he tried to be as good a boy as he could all the rest of the day.

The captain was late home that night, and did not notice anything wrong; but the next day, while at his desk, his eyes fell upon his old training-gun, and he saw that the ramrod was missing. He mused upon it. Where could it be? He never lent that gun; nobody had had it out of the house that he knew of. He went and asked his wife.

Ephraim happened to be with his mother; and when his father asked about the ramrod he looked at her and she looked at him. One or the other of them must let the cat out, but which should it be?

“Do you know anything about the ramrod, Ephraim?” she asked.

“I went a-hunting, father,” said Ephraim, looking down.

“A-hunting? Who--what--when? You have not been shooting that gun, have you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Goodness! Who loaded it?”

“I--did--sir.”

“And fired it off?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you kill anything?”

“I--don’t know,--sir.”

After all, the captain couldn’t help laughing at this point, and as soon as he did Ephraim felt better. He brightened up in a moment, and made the best of his father’s good-nature by telling the whole story at once. He had forgotten to take the ramrod out, he said, and fired it at the owl. He guessed the owl went off to die somewhere, for he didn’t see him again; but the ramrod was up so high he couldn’t get it.

The captain laughed; still, the view he took of the matter was an unpleasantly serious one for Ephraim; who understood that if he should ever take that gun again in his father’s absence the consequences would be direful. The gun was no gun without a ramrod, in his father’s trained eyes, so he at once set out, with Ephraim as guide, and the hired man carrying a ladder, to recover it.

Ephraim led them straight to the tree, and there the ramrod was, still sticking in the limb. But the ladder proved too short, and they had to go back without it. The next day they went again, with the longest ladder on the farm, and got the ramrod and carried it home.

But Ephraim never fired it off again.

CHINESE DECORATION FOR EASTER EGGS.

BY S. K. B.

You should select a good-sized egg, and of a rich dark color. I have found that eggs laid by the Brahma hens are just about the right shade for pleasing effect.

First make an opening in the large end and drop out the contents of the shell. Then with your pencil trace lightly on the shell some features as in fig. 1. Next paint the whites of the eyes with solid white, and the lips a bright vermilion. Then go over your outlines with black paint or India ink, filling the eyeball with black. Use water-color paints.

Now we have a showy-looking Chinaman, but he has no cap on; neither does he wear the national pigtail. To supply the first of these necessary articles, you will cut a piece of bright-colored paper after the fashion of fig. 2. If you please, you can decorate it with a heavy line of black paint. Its pieces 1, 2, 3 and 4, are to be bent tightly up at the dotted line, so as to receive a decided crease. Then each one may be touched with stiff paste, slipped within the shell and fastened. Then the strip must be pasted together at A and B, drawing one end over the other far enough to make the cap fit well.

To make the pigtail, take some black silk twist and make a braid about four inches long, and about as thick as single zephyr worsted. Tie one end with a bit of thread, and paste the other end on the top of the back part of the head. This you will do before you fasten the cap on. Now our Chinaman is finished--and when you have hung him up by a silken ribbon pasted inside of his cap, he will look very much like fig. 3, and he can be made to hold popcorn or any light candy.

IL SANTISSIMO BAMBINO.

BY PHEBE F. MᶜKEEN.

On the Capitoline Hill, in Rome, stands a church, twelve hundred years old, called Ara Cœli. It is unpromising in its outward appearance, but is rich in marbles and mosaics within.

The most precious possession of this ancient church, however, is a wooden doll called Il Santissimo Bambino--The Most Holy Infant. It is dressed like an Italian baby, and an Italian baby is dressed like a mummy. We often see them in their mothers’ arms, so swathed that they can no more move than a bundle without any baby inside of it. Their little legs must ache for the freedom of kicking. The dress of _the_ Bambino is very different from that of _a_ bambino after all, for it is cloth of silver, and it sparkles all over with jewels which have been presented to it, and it wears a golden crown upon its head.

This is the history of this remarkable doll, as devout Roman Catholics believe. You must judge for yourselves how much of it is truth and how much fable.

They say this image of the infant Saviour was carved from olive-wood which grew upon the Mount of Olives, by a monk who lived in Palestine; and, as he had no means of painting it with sufficient beauty, his prayers prevailed upon St. Luke to come down from Heaven and color it for him. Then he sent it to Rome to be present at the Christmas festival. It was shipwrecked on the way, but finally came safely to land, and was received with great reverence by the Franciscan monks, who placed it in a shrine at Ara Cœli. It was soon found to have miraculous power to heal the sick, and was so often sent for to visit them, that, at one time, it received more fees than any physician in Rome. It has its own carriage in which it rides abroad, and its own attendants who guard it with the utmost care.

One woman was so selfish as to think it would be a capital thing if she could get possession of this wonder-working image for herself and her friends.

“She had another doll prepared of the same size and appearance as the ‘Santissimo,’ and having feigned sickness and obtained permission to have it left with her, she dressed the false image in its clothes, and sent it back to Ara Cœli. The fraud was not discovered till night, when the Franciscan monks were awakened by the most furious ringing of bells and by thundering knocks at the west door of the church, and, hastening thither, could see nothing but a wee, naked, pink foot peeping in from under the door; but when they opened the door, without stood the little naked figure of the true Bambino of Ara Cœli, shivering in the wind and rain. So the false baby was sent back in disgrace, and the real baby restored to its home, never to be trusted away alone any more.”

This marvelous escape is duly recorded in the Sacristy of the church where the Bambino safely dwells under lock and key all the year, except the time from Christmas to Epiphany, when it comes out to receive the homage of the people.

We went to see it last Christmas.

As I told you, the church stands on one of the Seven Hills of the Eternal City; it is approached by a flight of stone steps as wide as the building itself and as high as the hill. There were many beggars on these steps; some old and blind, others young and bright-eyed. Beside the beggars, there were people with tiny images of the Baby in the Manger, toy sheep, and pictures of the Bambino for sale.

When we went into the church, we found one of the chapels fitted up like a tableau. The chapels are something like large alcoves along the sides of a church. Each is consecrated to some saint, and often belongs to some particular family who have their weddings and funerals there.

It was in the second chapel on the left that we found the scene represented. The Virgin Mary was dressed in a bright blue silk, adorned with various jewels. In her lap lay the Bambino, about the size of a baby six weeks old. I do not believe St. Luke painted its face, for it was not half so well done as most of the wooden dolls we see. An artificial mule had his nose close to the baby’s head. Joseph sat near, and in front the shepherds were kneeling. All these people were of life-size, made of wood, and dressed in real clothes. Beyond them was to be seen a pretty landscape--sheep, covered with real wool, a girl with a pitcher on her head coming down a path to a sparkling fountain of _glass_. In the distance was the town of Bethlehem. In mid-air hovered an angel, hung by a wire in his back from the ceiling. On pasteboard screens, above the Virgin and Child were painted a crowd of cherubs looking down, and in their midst God the Father--whom no one hath seen nor can see--was represented in the likeness of a venerable man, spreading his hands in blessing over the group below.

A great many little children were coming with the older people to look at all this, and talking, in their pretty Italian tongue, about the “Bambino.”

Epiphany, as perhaps you know, is the day kept in memory of the visit of the Wise Men whom the Star in the East guided to our Saviour’s cradle. On that day, Il Santissimo Bambino was to be carried with all ceremony back to the Sacristy; so we went to see that.

We were glad to find the Blessed Virgin had two nice silk dresses; she had changed from blue to red, and the Bambino was standing on her knee. The Shepherds had gone, and the Wise Men had come, all very gorgeous in flowered brocade and cloth of gold, with crowns on their heads, and pages to hold their trains.

It was yet an hour or two before the “Procession of the Holy Cradle” would proceed; so we went out of the side door of the church to stray about the Capitoline Hill in the meanwhile.

We went down the steps where Tiberias Gracchus, the friend of the people, was killed, some two thousand years ago. That brought us into a small square called Piazza di Campidoglio. It is surrounded on three sides by public buildings, and in front has a grand stairway leading down to the street. It was in this very spot that Brutus made his famous speech after the assassination of Julius Cæsar. We crossed the square, went up some steps and through an archway.

A company of little Romans were playing soldier there, and the small drum-major made the walls of the capitol resound with his rattling music. That reminds me to tell you that Santa Claus does not visit Italy; but an old woman, named Navona, comes instead. She may be his wife, for aught I know; in fact, it seems quite likely, for she has a way, just like his, of coming down the chimney, bringing gifts for the good children and switches for the naughty. These must have been very good little boys, for every one of them seemed to have a new sword or gun. Probably Navona has to keep the house while Santa Claus is away about his Christmas business, and that is the reason she does not reach her small people here until the night before Epiphany, the 6th of January.

We went down a lane of poor houses, dodging the clothes which hung drying over our heads, and came to a large green gate in the high stone wall of a garden. We knocked, but no one answered. Presently a black-eyed little boy came running to us, glad to earn two or three sous by going to call the _custode_. While we wait for him to do so, I must tell you why we wished to go through this green door. You have read, either in Latin or English, the story of Tarpæia, the Roman maiden, who consented to show the Latin soldiers the way into the citadel if they would give her what they wore on their left arms, meaning their bracelets, and then the grim joke they played after she had done her part, by throwing upon her their shields, which were also “what they wore on their left arms.”

It was to see the Tarpæian rock, where she led her country’s enemies up, and where, later, traitors were hurled down, that we wished to go through the gate. Presently the keeper came, a rosy young woman, leading a little girl, who was feeling very rich over a new dolly she was dangling by its arm.

We were admitted to a small garden, where pretty pink roses were in blossom, and the oranges were hanging on the trees, though the icicles were fringing the fountain not far away. On the edge of the garden, along the brow of the cliff, runs a thick wall of brown stone; we leaned over it and looked down the steep rock which one assaulting party after another tried, in old times, to scale.

It was on this side that the Gauls were trying to reach the citadel at the time the geese saved the city. Do you know that for a long time, annually, a dog was crucified on the capitol, and a goose carried in triumph, because, on that occasion, the dogs failed to give the alarm and the geese did it!

We looked down on the roofs and into the courts of poor houses which have huddled close about the foot of the hill, but beyond them we could look down into the Forum, where Virginia was stabbed, where Horatius hung up the spoil of the Curiatii, where the body of Julius Cæsar was burned, where the head of Cicero was cruelly exposed on the very rostrum where had often been seen the triumph of his eloquence. Opposite to us stood the Palatine Hill, a mass of crumbling palaces; a little farther off rose the mighty wall of the Coliseum, where the gladiators used to fight, and where so many Christian martyrs were thrown to the wild beasts while tens of thousands of their fellow-men, more cruel than lions, looked on, for sport.

Just at the roots of the Capitoline, close by, though out of sight, was the Mamertine Prison, where St. Paul, of whom the world was not worthy, was once shut up in the dismal darkness of the dungeon.

As we went from the garden back to the Piazza di Campidoglio, we saw something unusual was going on in the palace on the left of the capital. In the door stood a guard in resplendent array of crimson and gold lace. Looking through the arched entrance, we could see in the inner court an open carriage with driver and footman in livery of bright scarlet. Something of a crowd was gathering in the corridors. We stopped to learn what it was all about. An Italian woman answered, “La Principessa Margarita!” and an English lady close by explained that the Princess Margaret, wife of the crown prince, had come to distribute prizes to the children of the public schools. Only invited guests could be present, but the people were waiting to see her come down. So we joined the people and waited also.

It was a long time and a pretty cold one. A brass band in the court cheered our spirits now and then. The fine span of the princess looked rather excited, at first, by the trumpets so close to their ears, but they stood their ground bravely. If one of the scarlet footmen tightened a buckle, it raised our hopes that his mistress was coming; the other put a fresh cigar in his mouth, and they sank.

Meantime the guard in the gold-laced crimson coat and yellow silk stockings paced up and down. At length there was a messenger from above; the royal carriage drove under the arch close to us. There was a rustle, and down came the princely lady, dressed in purple velvet, with mauve feathers in her hat, a white veil drawn over her face, and a large bouquet in her white-gloved hand--rather pretty, and very graceful. Before entering her carriage, she turned to shake hands with the ladies and gentlemen who had accompanied her. She was very complaisant, bowing low to them, and they still lower to her. Then she bowed graciously to the crowd right and left, and they responded gratefully. She smiled upon them, high and low, but there was a look in her face, as it passed close to me, as if she was tired of smiling for the public. She seated herself in the carriage; the lady-in-waiting took her place beside her, the gentleman-in-waiting threw over them the carriage-robe of white ermine lined with light blue velvet and stepped in himself.

Then the equipage rolled off, the scarlet footmen getting up behind as it started. This princess is very good and kind, greatly beloved by the people, and, as there is no queen, she is the first lady in the kingdom. Her husband first and her little son next are heirs to the crown.

This show being over, we hastened back to the church, fearing we had missed the Bambino in our pursuit of the princess. But we were in good time. On the side of the church opposite the tableau was a small, temporary platform. Little boys and girls were placed upon this, one after the other, to speak short pieces or recite verses about the Infant Christ. It was a kind of Sunday-school concert in Italian. The language is very sweet in a child’s mouth. There were a great many bright, black-eyed children in the church, and most of them seemed to have brought their Christmas presents along with them, as if to show them to the Bambino.

There were ragged men in the crowd, and monks, and country-women with handkerchiefs tied over their heads for bonnets. One of them who stood near me had her first finger covered with rings up to the last joint. That is their great ambition in the way of dress.

At length the organ ceased playing, and the notes of a military band were heard. Then we saw a banner moving slowly down one of the aisles, followed by a train of lighted tapers. Over the heads of the people we could only see the banner and the lights; they passed down and paused to take the Bambino. Then they marched slowly all around the church--people falling on their knees as they passed by.

Out at the front door they went, and that sacred image was held high aloft, so that all the people on the great stairway and in the square below might get a sight of it, and be blessed. Then up the middle of the church they came, to the high altar. This was our chance to see them perfectly.

First the banner, with an image of the Virgin on it, was borne by a young priest dressed in a long black robe and a white short gown trimmed with lace; next came a long procession of men in ordinary dress, carrying long and large wax candles, which they had a disagreeable habit or dripping as they went along.

“Servants of great houses,” remarked a lady behind me.

“They used to come themselves,” answered another.

Then followed Franciscan monks in their brown copes, each with a knotted rope for a girdle, and sandals only on his bare feet. After these came the band of musicians, all little boys; and now approached, with measured tread, three priests in rich robes of white brocade, enriched with silver. The middle one, a tall, venerable-looking man, with hoary hair and solemn countenance, held erect in his hands the sacred dolly. As it passed, believers dropped upon their knees. When he reached the high altar, he reverently kissed its feet, and delivered it to its custodian to be carried to the Sacristy!

MY MOTHER PUT IT ON.

BY MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY.

It was old Boston--Boston forty years and more ago,--and it was New Year’s morning.