Chapter I: Front Matter

Copyright, 1896, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

* * * * *

PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1896. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVII.--NO. 848. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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A BOX OF GOLD IN VENEZUELA.

BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.

"I'm going to have a shy at that gold when we get up to Potosi, Jack. I tell you forty thousand dollars in gold is worth looking for these days."

Ned Peterson leaned back in one of the great rocking-chairs on the upper gallery of the Hôtel de France, in Port of Spain, on the island of Trinidad, and puffed his cigar as complacently as though the gold were already in his trunk. He was fresh out of the School of Mines of Columbia College, and so felt at liberty to lay down the law to his fourteen-year-old brother Jack. They were both on their way into the heart of Venezuela, to the gold-mines of Naparima, of which their father was superintendent and part owner.

"Oh, that's just one of your romantic notions," Jack replied, standing by his brother and looking through the jalousie-blinds at the coolies squatting in the park across the street. "You want a chance to write to your chums in New York that you're searching for lost gold in the bottom of the Orinoco River. It sounds well, but it won't amount to anything."

"You don't know what you're talking about," the young man retorted, with great dignity. "We know the gold is there, and it will be an easy matter to find out just about where the canoe was when it capsized and dumped it into the river. Of course there has been a great deal of searching for it, but never under as favorable circumstances as we shall find. Last November, when the gold was lost, the water in the Orinoco was sixty feet higher than it is now. At this time of year, midwinter, it is so low that the steamers cannot go further up the river than the City of Bolivar. At Potosi the water is not more than three or four feet deep just now, and by sounding in the mud we will have an excellent chance of finding the box. Anyhow, it's worth trying for. Forty-one thousand three hundred and forty dollars is the exact value of it."

"You have it down fine!" Jack laughed. "Couldn't you take off a dollar or two?"

"Not a cent," Ned answered. "They send the gold down from the mines in bars, two bars in a box, and each bar weighing exactly 1000 ounces. I suppose you know that gold is worth $20.67 an ounce, always and in all countries. That price never varies. So it is easy to calculate the value of the two bars. It was a great setback to father's management, the loss of those two bars right at the beginning."

"I've heard an awful lot about those two bars of gold," Jack said, "but I never quite understood the thing. How did they come to be lost?"

Ned was quite willing to show his superior knowledge by telling the story of the lost gold. "You see, father took charge of the mines at a very bad time," he began. "It had been a gilt-edged investment for a long time, and the two-hundred-dollar shares paid ten dollars a month in dividends. But the veins of ore contracted, and dividends went down to a dollar a month, and as father stepped in just at that time he got all the blame for the reduction. Then came the loss of the two bars, and that made matters worse.

"The mines, you know," he continued, "are on the Urubu River, a branch of the Orinoco, forty miles above Potosi. Potosi is a little native settlement at the junction of the two rivers, a hundred miles above Bolivar, and Bolivar, as you know, is two hundred and fifty miles up the Orinoco from here. They run the gold into bars at the mines, pack it two bars in a box, and send the box in a big canoe down to Potosi, with a guard of three or four armed men. From Potosi it goes in the steamer to Bolivar, and from Bolivar it is carried, along with other things, by great teams of forty and sixty bullocks over the mountains to Caracas, the capital, where it is coined in the mint.

"There was where father met his great misfortune," Ned went on, "in the shipping. The gold was all right, and the guard was all right, but father didn't know that it was customary to lash the box to two big timbers, so that if anything happened to the canoe the gold would float. The men didn't care, and they came down the Urubu all right into the Orinoco, and in five minutes more they'd have had the box aboard the steamer. But the swift current or something else struck the canoe; over she went, and down went the box like a flash, and it's never been seen since. The question is how far the current would carry it in that swift water, sixty feet deep, and how far it would sink in the muddy bottom. They have spent a good many hundred dollars in searching for it, but not a trace has ever been found, though that was several months ago, and the water is low enough now.

"So you see," he concluded, "what a grand thing it would be if we could find it on our way to join the folks. I wanted to try it sooner, but they would not let us start till I had finished my course at the School of Mines."

"It wouldn't belong to us if we did find it," Jack objected.

"No, nor to father either," Ned answered. "But they've offered two thousand dollars reward for its recovery, and if we could find it, it would smooth everything out. We've got to go past Potosi in a canoe anyhow. The steamer that starts to-morrow evening goes only to Bolivar, and there we are to buy a canoe and do the rest of the journey on our own hook. Then you'll have a chance to show what you're made of, young fellow, with a hundred and forty miles to paddle in a canoe."

"Don't brag, Mr. School of Mines," Jack laughed. "I guess when it comes to paddling you'll find I'm with you."

The young Americans were surprised to find that it was a good American steamboat that was to carry them up the Orinoco on Saturday evening--a boat called the _Bolivar_, of about 600 tons. They knew that it was only one section of the river they would see, for the Orinoco empties into the sea through a hundred mouths, some flowing into the Gulf of Paria, others emptying into the ocean as far down the coast as Point Barrima, 230 miles away. There was not much to be seen on Saturday evening, for the boat had a long sail across the Gulf of Paria before entering the river, down past San Fernando and the pitchy shores of La Brea, near the great pitch lake. When Sunday morning dawned they were in one of the many channels of the mighty Orinoco, and then there was even less to see than before. The river was nearly a mile wide, but the shores were low and covered with mangrove bushes, and there was no sign of life or habitation.

"Say, Ned," Jack exclaimed, after they had gone through scores of miles of this low wet country, "what do you think of Venezuela? It would be a funny racket if two great nations should go to war over the boundaries of a country like this."

"It's a matter of honor with us," Ned replied, still in his dignified way.

"A matter of chills, I should say, here along the coast," Jack retorted, "though it's hot enough to cook eggs in the sand. I don't think the thermometer went below 90° all last night."

All the way up to the City of Bolivar the river was much the same, except that occasionally they passed a bluff; and wherever there was a bluff there was a little settlement, the houses having no walls but the posts that supported the thatched roofs. Nowhere was there a sign of cultivation or any land that looked as if it could be cultivated, and the only human beings were the Guaranno Indians, who lived in the huts on shore. The river water was thick with yellow mud, and well spiced with alligators and giant lizards five or six feet long.

"It will be different when we reach Bolivar," Ned said, half apologetically. "You know Bolivar is the fourth city of Venezuela, and quite a large place."

At daylight on Monday morning the steamboat lay in front of Bolivar, or, rather, at the feet of Bolivar, for the city is built on a bluff a hundred feet high, and half-way up the hill is a strong stone wharf. But the water was so low that the boat lay fifty feet beneath the wharf, and it was hard to realize that in flood-time the water is almost up to the top of the hill.

"So this is the great City of Bolivar, is it?" Jack exclaimed, after they had climbed the steep hill and passed the city wall, and stood among the yellow-walled, flat-roofed houses. "There's too much grass growing in the streets to suit a New-Yorker."

There were few wheeled vehicles in the streets, but plenty of donkeys carrying burdens. The principal buildings were the cathedral, standing on the summit of a little hill, and the jail, about which some red-capped soldiers were on guard.

"I did want to see one of those great teams of sixty bullocks starting out," Jack said; "but now that we've seen the town, the quicker you can get a canoe and let us be off, the better."

Ned was disappointed too in the appearance of Bolivar, about which he had heard so much, and before the sun was high he had bought a small dug-out canoe for eight dollars, about double its value, and the boys were off for their hundred-mile paddle against the current to Potosi, with canned provisions enough to last them all the way to the mines.

In the forty-eight hours that this journey consumed they saw just three men, all half-breed Indians, out in canoes fishing; but they tired of counting the alligators sunning themselves on mud banks. When at last a turn of the river brought Potosi into view, they shouted with laughter at the appearance of the place, though both were tired and disgusted. The settlement stood on a high bluff, like Bolivar, but it consisted of four houses or huts, all without walls, and roofed with thatch.

"No matter," Ned laughed. "If there was nothing here but a cave I should stop, all the same, and find out where that gold was lost. You see there is hardly any water in the river. We will go up to the settlement and make inquiries, and it's a mighty good thing we have both studied Spanish. Even these half-breeds speak Spanish after a fashion."

"I guess they'll speak it better than we do," Jack replied. "I can read it all right, and I could understand them if they wouldn't talk so fast; they seem to rattle off about two or three hundred words a minute."

When they climbed the hill they found that, poor as the settlement was, it commanded a beautiful view of miles of the Orinoco and a long sweep of the Urubu, a much smaller stream, but more picturesque.

The occupant of the hut nearest the edge of the bluff professed to know all about the losing of the gold, and he agreed for a small consideration to give what information he could. He was willing, too, to take the young Americanos into his house to live during the two or three days that they thought they might stay in Potosi. There was plenty of room, for the cooking-place was a fire under the nearest tree, and the beds were only hammocks swung from the wattles that answered for rafters. The custom was to turn into the hammocks "all standing," as Jack called it, without any change in the toilet, so that a large family could sleep conveniently under the one small roof.

The boy's new landlord, who called himself Felipe, lived alone in the hut with his daughter, a swarthy but handsome girl of about fifteen. Maria, the daughter, did all the work of the house, even to cutting the firewood; but the visitors soon had reason to believe that her father did not treat her very kindly. She was much interested in the newcomers, and did some little kindnesses for them. Of course Ned considered her entirely beneath his notice; but Jack saw that she had the soft brown eyes of her race, with the smooth copper-colored skin of our own Indians, though with more red in her cheeks, and a profusion of straight raven-black hair. He thought her a very pretty and intelligent-looking girl.

"Now, then, young chap," said Ned, after they had taken a short rest in the shade of the hut, "we're going to have a hunt for that gold. Felipe has gone out to cut some poles, and he's going with us in the canoe to point out the spot. It's a thousand dollars apiece to us, mind you, if we strike it, and a great help to father. Two thousand ounces of gold is only 125 pounds, and we can easily handle it if we can find it. Say," he went on, "I believe you've made a conquest, Jack. I notice that young Dago girl keeps looking at you and smiling at you half the time. I suppose she's not used to seeing such handsome kids as you."

"Get out!" Jack answered, blushing. "She wants to be hospitable to us, that's all. It makes me mad to see the way her father orders her around, for she's much more intelligent than he is."

"Humph!" Ned grunted, "Always keep on the right side of the cook; that's the advice of an old traveller."

Felipe was very liberal with his information when they went out in the canoe. There the steamer lay, here the boat was capsized and the box went down. The swift current was setting a little off shore at the time, so he pointed out the likeliest places for sounding the mud. "But think of sixty feet of water!" he exclaimed. The box might have been carried half a mile down stream before it touched bottom at all. The only chance was to make a thorough search over a large space.

"Say, Ned," Jack asked, in English, while they were prodding the mud with their poles, "if this fellow knows so well where the box went down, why didn't he get it himself?"

"I suppose because he couldn't find it, like the rest of them," Ned answered. "He seems to be an honest sort of fellow."

They kept up the search till noon without finding anything more valuable than a few big stones and water-soaked logs; and when they went up to the house to dinner the little girl squeezed a lime into a cup of cool water for each of the strangers, saying that they looked tired and hot.

"It's all on your account, Jack," Ned said, banteringly. "You're the attraction."

Jack made no reply; but after dinner he ran his hands through his pockets in search of some trifle that he might give the girl for her attentions to them. He could find nothing more suitable than his silver match-box; it made the little Indian's eyes sparkle when he handed it to her.

The afternoon's search was no more successful than the morning's, and early in the evening all the occupants of the hut lay down in their hammocks. Jack found that a small piece of mosquito-netting, large enough at any rate to cover his face, had been put in his hammock to help keep off the mosquitoes, and he saw that there was none in any of the other hammocks; but he made no remarks about it.

Before sunrise in the morning the others were all astir, but Jack felt sore and stiff, and he lay still.

"I'm afraid that hot sun rather knocked me out yesterday," he said to Ned. "I think I'll stay here a little while, and try to get another nap."

Ned anxiously felt his brother's temples and pulse, for such symptoms have to be watched in tropical countries; but finding no signs of fever, he went out and down the hill to look after the canoe before breakfast. Felipe also strolled out, leaving Maria in the hut getting the things ready for breakfast. In a few minutes, however, Felipe returned, and said something angrily to the girl. Receiving no reply, he seized her by the arm and gave her a violent shake, and slapped her on the side of the head.

Jack could not help seeing it, and his blood began to boil. He lay still a moment longer, however, till Felipe reached up into the thatching and drew out a long heavy switch that he had evidently used before. This was more than Jack could stand, and he sprang out of the hammock.

"Hi, you Greaser!" he cried, in English, for he was too mad to bother with Spanish, "if you hit that girl again I'll spread you all over the bluff!"

Felipe did not understand the words, but Jack's attitude was plain enough to him. The boy stood in front of him with fists clinched, ready for instant battle.

Although only fourteen, Jack was several sizes larger and much more muscular than the half-breed, and in a fist fight would have whipped him in a minute. Besides, he was an American boy defending a helpless girl, and his blood was up. But Felipe had no fancy for such an encounter. He let go his hold and retreated a step, and with the instinct of his race his right hand went up to his bosom, and he drew out a long knife.

For an instant Jack did not know what to do. He was entirely unarmed, for Ned carried the only revolver they had, and Felipe with a knife was a dangerous customer. But it was only for an instant, for his eye fell upon a machete sticking in a leather cleat against one of the posts that supported the roof.

A machete is a cutlass, a broadsword about two feet long, used by the South Americans for scratching the ground and felling small trees, and it makes a terribly effective weapon.

"That's your game, is it?" Jack exclaimed, snatching up the machete. "Then come on!" and in his excitement he advanced upon the Venezuelan without further ceremony.

Felipe's knife was a trifle compared with the machete; and with the young Americano boiling over with rage, and the machete cutting circles in the air dangerously near his head, it was no wonder that the half-breed turned and fled ignominiously.

The flight gave the affair a humorous turn that Jack was quick to see, and he followed the native at a lively pace, more for sport than in anger, but shouting and waving the cutlass as if he intended to cut him to pieces.

Down the hill Felipe ran like a deer, looking neither to the right nor the left till he was by the side of Ned and under his protection.

"Never mind, Felipe," Ned said, with a sly look at Jack, after explanations had been made; "if he should kill you with the cutlass I'd give him a good trouncing for it, so you'd be avenged anyhow."

This was quite satisfactory to the Venezuelan, for he knew as little about a joke as he did about using his fists. But as Jack turned and went back to the house, Felipe cautiously waited to return with Ned.

This caution of Felipe's meant a great deal to the young Americans, though they little suspected it. It gave Jack five minutes alone with Maria in the hut, and that five minutes was of great importance. She thanked him with her velvety eyes for rescuing her, but said no word about it; what she did say was of much more account.

"It's no use for you to look in the river where you have been looking," she said, keeping a bright lookout for her father's return. "He is showing you the wrong places."

"Is that so?" Jack exclaimed. "Can you show us the right place?"

"It's no use to look anywhere," she answered, "for the gold is not there."

"Not there? Then has it been found?"

"Yes," she replied.

"And do you know where it is?"

"It is here," she said, stamping her little bare brown foot upon the earth floor of the hut near one of the posts.

"Buried!" Jack exclaimed. "Who found it?"

"You must not ask me that," the girl replied. "I suppose they will kill me for what I have told you already."

"Not if I know myself, they won't!" Jack exclaimed. "Is this fellow your father?"

"Not exactly," Maria answered. "My father died, and Felipe married my mother. And he treats me very badly," she added.

"Then, we must get out of here to-night with the gold," Jack hurriedly said, "and take you along. My mother will be glad to have a girl like you in the house, and it is only forty miles up the river to the mines. Is Felipe a sound sleeper?"

"I will see to it that he sleeps well to-night," Maria answered, with more meaning in her words than Jack understood at the time. "Hush! They are coming!"

While Felipe slept soundly in his hammock that night under the influence of an herb that Maria added to his tea, the two Americanos paddled their canoe rapidly up the Urubu River toward the mines. Maria sat demurely in the bow; for she was not quite as heavy as the box of gold, so that was put in the stern. The thousand dollars that was her share of the reward made Maria one of the richest half-breed girls in Venezuela, and the boys still delight in counting over the five hundred dollars that fell to each of them. But Jack's mother says the greatest prize captured in that expedition was Maria, the copper-colored little Venezuelan.

CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES.

BY PATTY PEMBERTON BERMANN.

_Dramatis Personæ:_

Madge.
Bess.
A Stranger.
A Salesman.
A Cash-boy.

SCENE.--_The Upholstery Department of a fashionable shop. Screens, piles of rugs, sofa pillows, etc., in confusion. Three or four cane-seated chairs placed about at irregular distances. Across left end of stage extends a pole for the display of curtains. Behind these the actors may retire. There should be a second exit opposite, near back of stage. Right of centre an upright piano. As curtain rises, enter slowly,_ Cash-boy _bearing check and small change_.

[An impression of space may be produced in two ways, either by hanging a background canvas, whereon is painted a perspective of counters, draperies, potteries, etc., or by the use of mirrors. As scene-painters do not grow on every twig, the better plan is to borrow long mirrors from a house-furnishing establishment, and arrange them so that they reflect a section of the stage behind the curtained pole. This section can be made to look as if sales of small articles were going on at another end of the shop from that in the foreground of stage. But take care that no part of the real stage setting is reflected. A pantomimic repetition of the play would bring down the house, and as certainly disturb the performers. Do not crowd the stage.]

_Cash-boy_. Now where's 792 gone, I wonder? That's just the way with 'em; always yelling for "check," and when you come racing and tearing, they ain't there. Glad I ain't down-stairs, to have them girls hollering "Cosh! Cosh!" (_mimicking_) fit to bust your ears. Guess I better chase after 792. (_Seats himself, and examines change._) I'll toss up to see where he is--heads, he's skipped to lunch; tails (_enter_, R., Madge _and_ Bess _unobserved_), he'll gimme ginger for keeping him waiting.

[_Sees girls, closes his hand over penny, and exits, making wry
face._]

_Bess_ (_sighing_). Poor boy! Evidently he has a cruel step-father who ill-uses him.

_Madge_. His case is less pitiable than ours, for one can at least occasionally escape the society of a man. Besides, men never make things so unpleasant at home.

_Bess_. "Home!" Oh, Madge! I could weep to think how we have looked forward to a home of our own, after ten years of boarding-school. (_Enter_, R., Stranger. _She pauses on the threshold, listening._) And now to have everything spoiled by this hateful step-mother. It is too bad.

_Madge_. Papa writes that she is lovely, and will be as much a companion to us as to him.

_Bess_. Nonsense. Who ever heard of a step-mother being a companion? I am sure she is an ugly old maid who has no sympathy with anything under fifty years of age.

_Madge_. It was rather nice of her to ask papa to let us furnish our rooms in the new house, though.

_Bess_. Policy--mere policy. She wants to get rid of the trouble of doing it herself.

_Madge_. Well, for papa's sake I think we ought to try to like her.

_Bess_. Oh, _you_ will like her fast enough, but I _never, never_ can!

_Stranger_ (_approaching_). There seems to be nobody in this department to wait on me; or perhaps a clerk is attending to your orders?

_Madge_. No; we were so busy talking that we forgot how much we have to do, and did not notice the absence of clerks.

_Stranger_. Ah! here is some one coming. Let us hail him at once. (Cash-boy _loiters from behind curtains_, L.) Boy, please bring a salesman as quickly as possible.

_Cash-boy_. 'Ain't 792 come yet? Well, he is taking a corking feed. Wish I was him.

_Bess_ (_compassionately_). Do not you have enough to eat at home?

_Cash-boy_. Do I look like I'm suffering?

BESS. No; but I thought perhaps your step-father--

_Cash-boy_ (_thrusting his hands in his pockets and laughing_). 'Ain't got no step-father. The old lady, she's a step, though.

_Stranger_. Don't you think you should speak more respectfully of old persons?

_Cash-boy_. I'm a jollying you. She ain't much older than you, and she don't act a bit like a step. She's prime, I tell you.

_Bess_ (_impatiently_). Go call some one to wait on us, and don't stand talking all day.

[_Exit_ Cash-boy, _calling "Sales! Sales!"_]

_Stranger_ (_rising and looking behind curtains_, L.). It is provoking to sit idle in this way when one has the furnishing of a house on hand.

_Madge_. I should think so. With only two rooms to fit up, Bess and I feel our responsibilities weighing on us.

[_Moves about among rolls of carpet, keeping near_ Stranger.]

_Stranger_. How sweet of your mother to allow you to select everything for yourselves!

_Madge_ (_softly_). We have no mother.

_Stranger_. Poor children!

[_Lays her hand on_ Madge's _shoulder. They return thus to their
seats._ Bess _walks over to_ R., _and leans dejectedly against
piano a moment, then turns impulsively_.]

_Bess_. Have you daughters?

_Stranger_. None of my own; but I'm going to adopt two in a few weeks.

_Madge_. Do you love them so much?

_Stranger_. I shall when we know each other better.

_Bess_. And they?

_Stranger_. I fear they are a trifle prejudiced at present, but love begets love, and we shall eventually become friends.

_Madge_. It would be difficult not to become friendly with you.

_Stranger_. Thank you, my dear. (_Again goes to curtains_, L.) Here is our salesman at last, and as we are all on the same errand, we may save time by looking at carpets and hangings together. (_To_ Bess.) You shall have first opportunity, however.

_Bess_. No, no; you are entitled to take precedence.

_Stranger_. Age before beauty--eh? Well, then we will collectively examine rugs for your rooms. (_To_ Salesman.) Something in delicate tints, please.

_Salesman_. What size, madam?

_Bess_ (_aghast_). Size?

_Madge_. We did not once dream of measuring the floor.

_Stranger_. Never mind; we will not worry about such trifles as measurements. Let me see (_reflecting_); twelve feet square--no, twelve by fifteen will do. (Salesman _unrolls two rugs_.) That one is charmingly suggestive of spring-time and flowers. Just the thing for a débutante.

_Bess_. I think I prefer the other. What is the price?

_Salesman_. A hundred and fifty dollars.

_Madge_ (_springing up in surprise_). A hundred and fifty! Goodness gracious! Why, we expected to furnish a whole room for less! How much is the other?

_Salesman_. Twenty-five.

_Stranger_. Don't let me influence your choice.

_Bess_. Imagine trampling on a hundred-and-fifty dollar rug.

_Stranger_. People trample on more valuable things every day.

_Bess_ (_aside_). Now why should that speech make me uncomfortable? (_To_ Madge.) Aren't we inconsiderate in taking the time of a stranger for our affairs?

_Stranger_. That depends upon the stranger.

_Bess_. Then shall we look at curtains? Those are handsome--aren't they?

_Stranger_. I'm afraid they are more expensive even than the rug. You might try dotted muslin, perhaps. I shall have them for my room.

_Bess_ (_reluctantly_). Well. What are you giggling about, Madge?

_Madge_. I was thinking that you said this morning nothing could induce you to have dotted muslin curtains.

_Bess_. People may change their minds--mayn't they?

_Stranger_. I trust you may change yours some time when more is at stake. (_To_ Salesman.) Will you kindly find some pale blue draperies that I ordered from the fancy-goods counter down-stairs, and bring them here?

[_Exit_ Salesman.]

_Bess_ (_going toward piano_). I wonder if we shall have a piano at home?

_Stranger_ (_absently_). Oh yes!

_Madge_ (_surprised_). Why, how can you know?

_Stranger_ (_recovering herself_). On general principles, my dear. Every house must need a piano.

_Bess_. Of course you play or sing?

_Stranger_. My repertoire is limited, and not classical. Association with young people has led me to devote more time than I ought to dance-music and light opera.

_Madge_. Do play us a two-step now, just for fun.

[Stranger _seats herself at piano and plays with spirit. The girls
hesitate a moment, then push aside rugs and begin to dance._]

_Bess_ (_stopping breathless_). How sweet of you! Such a fascinating two-step, and played as if you like to take a turn yourself.

_Stranger_. I _was_ quite devoted to it, but now that I am an old maid I have no sympathy with anything under fifty years of age.

_Madge_ (_aside_). That's what Bess says about our prospective step-mother.

[_Enter_ Salesman _with draperies_.]

_Stranger_. Thank you. Yes, we have finished our shopping in this department. (_To girls._) I must say good-by to you, as you probably wish to purchase bedroom furniture, and I will first look after my parlor.

_Madge_. I am so sorry we cannot go on as we have begun. We shall miss having you to advise and consult with.

_Bess_. You have been so very kind to help us.

_Stranger_. Policy, my dear--mere policy.

_Bess_ (_aside_). How strange! She quotes my very words. (_To her._) I will not believe there was a scrap of policy about it.

_Madge_. Nor I. You were simply lovely to two ignorant girls who thought they knew everything.

_Stranger_. Well, good-by. Possibly we may meet again some day.

_Girls_ (_in unison_). I'm sure we hope so.

_Salesman_ (_as_ Stranger _starts to leave_). To whom shall I charge your curtains and rugs, madam?

_Stranger_. To Charles Rockwood.

_Girls_. Why, that is papa's name.

_Stranger_. Yes? Quite a coincidence--isn't it?

_Salesman_. The address, please?

_Stranger_. Thirty-three West Blank Street.

_Girls_ (_in great excitement_). The number of our new house!

_Stranger_. Really?

_Bess_. What does it all mean?

_Madge_. How perfectly exciting!

_Bess_. Is it possible that--

_Madge_. This is our--

_Stranger_. Future step-mother? Who ever heard of a step-mother being a companion, my dear girls?

_Bess_. Forgive me. I did not know--

_Stranger_. The marplot that was to spoil everything when her daughters returned from boarding-school.

[_Enter_ Cash-boy.]

_Cash-boy_. Sev--en--nine--ty--two!

_Salesman_. Here, check, take this to the office.

_Madge_. Wait a moment, boy. You see we have gained a "step," too.

_Madge_ (_embracing_ Stranger). I was sure I should like you.

_Bess_. And I--

_Stranger_. Never, _never, never_ can.

_Bess_ (_taking her hand affectionately_). I thought so once, but now I know that circumstances alter cases.

JIM DANDY.

When I was last in the South, the gentleman at whose house I was visiting asked a trustworthy old colored man to get him a green boy from the country to be trained as a house servant. In a day or so the old man drove up to the door and put out of his wagon a sturdy-looking lad of fifteen or so, black as the ace of spades, and clad in raiment seemingly made of selections from a rag-bag. With a small bundle in his hand he approached the gallery--that is what a porch in some parts of the South is called--where I was sitting with my host, Mr. Prettyman. The boy took off his hat and made not a bow exactly but an inclination of his head, grinning from ear to ear, and displaying as white and useful a set of teeth as is often seen.

"What is your name?" Mr. Prettyman asked.

"Jim Dandy, sah," the boy answered.

"Whom do you live with?"

"I lives wid Aunty," the boy said, and his manner now showed that he was getting embarrassed, for he did not giggle, but smiled nervously.

"Where does Aunty live?" Mr. Prettyman inquired.

I suspect that this question made Jim Dandy fear that Mr. Prettyman did not have as much sense as a gentleman living in a fine house in town ought to have. He hesitated a moment, and then, moving his head sideways, said, "Aunty, she live over yonder."

This was most indefinite, but it was evidently the best that Jim Dandy could do for the moment, so Mr. Prettyman took him round to the kitchen at the back of the house and put him in charge of the cook, who was also the old housekeeper. And so Jim Dandy was engaged. In the course of an hour he was trying to learn his way about the house and feel comfortable in a suit of blue clothes with many brass buttons. But there was another ordeal for Jim Dandy. When Mrs. Prettyman reached home later in the day she decided that the new "buttons" must be called James. And so he was called on formal occasions, but with the children at least Jim Dandy stuck.

In a few days the new boy began to feel at home, and then set about justifying his worthiness of the distinguished name he had assumed. The first time he was sent down-town he came back in such a hurry that it seemed incredible that he could have done his errand. The next time he staid longer, and the third time--that was after he had been in service a week--he staid half a day. To one of the children he confessed that he had spent all his time in looking in the shop-windows. Hearing this, I felt a sympathy for Jim Dandy, for I waste much of my own time in that same occupation. But the shop-windows of this little Southern city seemed shabby and sorry to me after New York and Paris, and I felt sorry for Jim Dandy that such cheap splendors should make him forget his duty.

The fourth time Jim Dandy was sent into town he was told that he must not loiter on the way, but be back in a hurry. And, sure enough, he did not stay long. In less than an hour he was back. But he was not the smart-looking "buttons" who had started out shortly before. His clothes were muddy, his coat was slit in the back, his cap was gone, and there was blood on one of his cheeks. In appearance he looked sheepish and crestfallen. "Jim Dandy has had a licking," I said to myself, for I felt sure that some of the negro lads in town, envious of his whole clothes, had given the country boy a beating for revenge and for the fun of the thing. To inquiries Jim Dandy could make no intelligible reply. He went to the back of the house and sat on the kitchen steps. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and his great eyes were filled with trouble. Aunt Mandy, the cook, evidently diagnosed Jim Dandy's trouble as I had done, and she was voluble in her abuse of him for not "'tending to his own bizness."

It had not been long, however, before there was an explanation of Jim Dandy's adventure. The Mayor of the town called at Mr. Prettyman's to ask for the boy. As the Mayor was also a magistrate, we were afraid Jim Dandy must have done something very dreadful. This is what the Mayor said Jim had done:

A pony phaeton with four children in it was driving through Main Street. A trolley-car was approaching, and the pony took fright and became unmanageable, backing the phaeton on to the track. Jim was passing on his errand. Seeing the danger, he got behind the phaeton, and pushed it and the pony from the track. He was not so fortunate, for the fender of the car caught him and rolled him over and over in the mud until the car was stopped. This was how Jim Dandy's first suit of livery came to be spoiled. We were proud of Jim, and spoke to him as kindly as possible; but he was rather a sulky youth till his new suit of clothes arrived--a suit paid for, by-the-way, by the Mayor himself, for it was his children that Jim had saved from the trolley-car.

The first freshness had not been worn from Jim's new suit before we all went to a picnic on the banks of the little mountain river that flowed through the town. Jim was told to keep a sharp lookout on the younger children, who were fishing from the bank in shallow water. One of the little girls was a fidgety specimen of humanity, for she could never sit still two minutes at a time. Before she had been fishing ten minutes she fell into the river. The water was very shallow, but the current was swift, and there was surely enough water to drown little Margaret Prettyman, with a-plenty to spare. But Jim Dandy was there, and the child had hardly touched the water before he was in after her and had her in his arms. Not many seconds more had passed before Mrs. Prettyman had the very wet and much-frightened Margaret in her arms, and was weeping over that rescued infant.

Jim Dandy's smartness was again dimmed, and he was a sorry and bedraggled looking darky. Mr. Prettyman looked his "buttons" over carefully, and Jim was evidently embarrassed by the gaze.

"Well, James," his master said, "you are rightly named, for you are a Jim Dandy--every inch a Jim Dandy."

This is what the country boy did to justify his name during the two weeks that I staid at Mr. Prettyman's. It may be that he has gone on and on from adventure to adventure, so that when I hear about them I will have to send the record of them to Mr. Kirk Munroe, so that he may have a biographer worthy of a daring career. When I left I gave some money to little Margaret, to be divided among the servants. She came to the gate just as I was going to the carriage, and said, "Aunt Mandy's obliged, and Hannah's obliged, and Jim Dandy's obliged,' but Jim Dandy's obliged the most, 'cause he stood on his head."

THE MIDDLE DAUGHTER.[1]

[1] Begun in HARPER'S ROUND TABLE No. 845.

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.