Chapter IV (1)

Mr. Franklin's announcement at first almost stunned his children. They could not believe it. Jack and Cynthia were somewhat prepared for it, it is true, but when they heard the news from their father's own lips it was none the less startling.

To Edith it came like a thunderbolt. She had never had the smallest suspicion that her father would marry again. She had always supposed that she would be sufficient for him. She would never marry herself, she thought, but would stay at home and be the comfort of his declining years. It had never occurred to her that her father, still a young and good-looking man of barely forty, would be exceedingly likely to marry a second time.

And now what was to happen? A stranger was coming to rule over them. Edith would never endure it, never! She would go away and live with Aunt Betsey. Anything would be better than a step-mother.

When she spoke her voice was hard and unnatural.

"Haven't I done right, papa? Weren't you satisfied with me? I have tried."

"My dear child, you have done your best, but you are too young. No one can expect a girl of sixteen to take entire charge of a house and family. And it is not only that. Hester is a charming woman. She reminds me something of your mother, Edith. It was that which first attracted me. She will be a companion to you--a sister."

"Thank you, but I don't need either. Cynthia is all the sister I want. Oh, papa, papa, why are you going to do it!"

She went to her own room and shut the door. After this one outbreak she said no more. Small things made Edith storm and even cry, dignified though she was. This great shock stunned her. She did not shed a tear, and she bore it in silence; but a hard feeling came into her heart, and she determined that she would never forgive this Miss Gordon who had entrapped her father (so she put it), and was coming to rule over them and order them about. She, for one, would never submit to it.

Jack did not mind it in the least, and Cynthia, who idolized her father, was sure from what he said that he was doing what he considered was for his happiness. Of course it was terrible for them, but they must make the best of it.

They passed a dreary Sunday, but Monday was expected to be an exciting day, for on that date the chickens were to appear. But when the children returned from school there were but small signs of the anticipated hatch in the incubator; one shell only had a little crack on the end.

Cynthia took up her position in front of the machine with a book, and waited patiently hour after hour. Nothing came. The next morning there was another crack in the next egg, and the first had spread a little, but that was all. The children all went to school but Edith, and she felt too low-spirited to go down to the cellar to watch.

Janet and Willy were forbidden to go near the place. As punishment for their conduct on Saturday, they were not to be present at the hatching. It was thought that owing to what they had done the chickens were not forth-coming, and indeed it had been most disastrous.

When Jack and Cynthia returned from school they found that two little chicks--probably the only two which had escaped the cold bath--had emerged from their shells, and were hopping dismally about in the gravel beneath the trays. One hundred and ninety-eight hoped-for companions failed to appear.

Jack's first hatch was anything but a success. He bore it bravely, but it was a bitter disappointment. After waiting many hours in the vain hope of seeing another shell crack, he removed the two little comrades to the large brooder built to hold a hundred, and then, nothing daunted, sent for more eggs. He still had some of Aunt Betsey's money left.

Jack was plucky, and his pride would not permit him to give up. He would profit by his experience, and next time he would be victorious. He feared that, besides the mischief done by the children, he had been overfussy in his care of the eggs, and he determined to act more wisely in every respect.

In after-years Cynthia looked back upon the first hatch as one of the most depressing events in her life. The children in disgrace, Edith silent and woe-begone in her own room, she and Jack watching hour after hour in the big cellar for the chickens that never came, and, above all, the impending arrival of the second Mrs. Franklin.

Aunt Betsey journeyed down from Wayborough as soon as she heard the news. They did not know she was coming until they saw one of the station carriages slowly approaching the house, with Miss Trinkett's well-known bonnet inside of it. She waved her hand gayly, and opened the subject at once.

"Well, well," she cried, "this is news indeed! I want to know! Nephew John going to be married again! Just what I always thought he had best do for the good of you children. Have you seen the bride, and what is she like?"

It was a warm June day, and the Franklins were on the piazza when this was shouted to them from the carriage in their aunt's shrill voice. Edith writhed. Though the news was all over Brenton by now, this would be a fine bit for the driver to take back.

Jack and Cynthia offered to help Aunt Betsey to alight, but she waved them aside.

"Don't think you must help me, my dears. This good news has put new life into me. How do you all do?" giving each one of her birdlike kisses, and settling herself in a favorite rocking-chair.

The younger children ran to her, hoping for treasures from the carpet-bag.

"I do declare," exclaimed she, "if I didn't forget all about you in the news of the bride! Never mind; wait till next time, and I'll bring you something extry nice when I come to see the bride."

"What's a bride?" asked Willy.

"La, child, don't you know? They haven't been kept in ignorance, I hope?"

"Oh no, but they haven't heard her called that," explained Cynthia.

"Do you mean the lady that is coming here to live?" asked Janet. "Well, we don't like her, me and Willy. She's made Edith cross and sobby, and she's made you forget our presents, and she's made a lot of fuss. We don't want her here at all."

Miss Trinkett looked shocked. "My dear children!" she exclaimed, too much aghast to say more. Then she turned to Edith.

"But now tell me all about it. Have you seen her, and is she young?"

"I have not seen her, Aunt Betsey, and I don't wish to. I don't know whether she is young or old, and I don't care. Won't you take me home with you, Aunt Betsey? Can't I live with you now? I'm not needed here."

Miss Betsey stared at her in amazement.

"Edith Franklin," she said, folding her hands in her lap, "I _am_ astonished at the state of things I find in this household! Rebelling against circumstances in this way, and wishing to run away from your duties! No, indeed, my dear. Much as I'd admire to have you live with me--and there's a nice little chamber over the living-room that would suit you to a T--I'd never be the one to encourage your leaving your family. You are setting them a bad example as it is, teaching these young things to look with disfavor on their new mother that is to be. No, indeed. Far be it from me to encourage you. And, indeed, I should have no right, when my own mother was a second wife. Why, in the early days of the colonies it was thought nothing at all for a man to marry three or four times, as you'd know if you had read Judge Sewall's _Diary_ as much as I have, or other valuable works."

Miss Trinkett rocked violently when she had finished this harangue. Edith did not reply. She had looked for sympathy from Aunt Betsey; but she, like all the rest of the world, seemed to think it the best thing that could happen.

As for Miss Betsey, she too was somewhat disappointed. She had hoped for some interesting items, and none seemed to be forth-coming.

"Where's your father?" she asked, presently.

Edith did not reply.

"He has gone to Albany," said Cynthia.

"Well, well! And when is the wedding to be?"

Edith rose and went into the house. Cynthia glanced after her regretfully, and then answered her aunt's question.

"It is to be in a week. It is to be very quiet, because--because Miss Gordon is in deep mourning."

"Do tell! I want to know!" ejaculated Miss Trinkett. "And are none of you going?"

"No; papa did not think it was best. Hardly any one will be there. Only her brother and one or two others."

"So she has a brother. Any other relatives?"

"I think not. She lost her father and mother when she was very young, and her grandmother died rather lately."

"I want to know! And when are they coming home?"

"Very soon," said Cynthia, almost inaudibly.

"Do tell!"

Miss Betsey said no more at present, but her mind was busy.

"Where is Jackie?" she next asked.

"I don't know. Gone to see about the chickens, I suppose."

"Oh, those little orphans. Well, I haven't time to ask about them now, for I think, Cynthia, I would like to call upon my friend, Mrs. Parker. It is a long time since I was there."

"Oh, Aunt Betsey!" exclaimed Cynthia. It would never do for her aunt to see Mrs. Parker. The secret of her escapade at that good lady's house would surely be found out. "Why do you go there this afternoon?"

"Because, my dear, I am here only for a night, and I must see Mrs. Parker."

Cynthia groaned inwardly.

"And hear all the village gossip about papa," she thought.

It must be prevented.

But Miss Trinkett was not to be turned from her purpose. Go she would. Every available excuse in the world was brought up to deter her, but the end of it was that Jack drove around in the buggy, and Miss Betsey departed triumphantly.

Cynthia awaited her return in suspense. She wished that she could run away. Her impersonation of her aunt did not seem such a joke as it had at the time, and then she had heard the dreadful news there.

Miss Trinkett came back before very long in high dudgeon. Cynthia was alone on the piazza, for Edith had not appeared again. She noticed that Jack was apparently enjoying a huge joke, and instead of taking the horse to the barn, he remained to hear what Aunt Betsey had to say.

Miss Trinkett sank into a chair and untied her bonnet strings with a jerk.

"Maria Parker is losing her mind," she announced. "As for me, I shall never go there again."

"Why not, Aunt Betsey?" murmured Cynthia, preparing herself for the worst.

"She declares that I was there two weeks ago, and that she--_she_ told me the news of my own nephew's engagement! She actually had the effrontery to say, 'I told you so!' My own nephew! When his letter the other day was the first I heard of it, and I said to Silas, said I, 'Silas, nephew John Franklin is going to marry again, and give a mother to those children, and I'm glad of it, and I've just heard the news.' And now for Maria Parker to tell me that she told me, and that I was there two weeks ago! Is the woman crazy, or am I the one that has lost my mind? Why don't you say something, Cynthy? Is it possible you agree with Mrs. Parker? Come, now, answer a question. Was I here two weeks ago, and did I go and see Maria Parker?"

"No," murmured Cynthia, her face crimson, her voice almost inaudible. But Aunt Betsey was too much excited to notice.

"Jackie," she said, turning to him, "will you answer me a question? Did I visit you two weeks ago, and did I call upon Mrs. Parker?"

Jack gave one look at Cynthia, and then, dropping on the grass, rolled over and over in an ecstasy of mirth.

"You're in for it now, Miss Cynthia!" he chuckled.

Miss Betsey drew herself up.

"You have not answered my questions. Was I here two weeks ago, and did I call upon Mrs. Parker?"

"No, no, Aunt Betsey!" shouted Jack. "You weren't! You didn't! Go ahead, Cynth! Out with it! My eye, I'm glad I'm here and nowhere else! I've been waiting for this happy day. Now you'll get paid up for fooling me."

And again he rolled, his long legs beating the air.

"I think you are mean, Jack, when you were the one that made me go!" exclaimed Cynthia, indignantly. Then she relapsed into silence. How could she ever confess to Aunt Betsey?

Miss Trinkett hastened the climax.

"I don't know why Jack finds this so amusing. It is not so to my mind; but if you are quite sure that I was not here, and that I did not call upon Mrs. Parker, I must ask you to drive down with me at once and state the facts to her. I cannot have it insinuated that I am no longer capable of judging for myself, and of knowing what I do and what I don't do. She actually told me to my face that I was getting childish. What _would_ Silas say? But I'll never tell him that. I would like to go at once."

Alas, there was no help for it. Cynthia must confess. If only Jack had not been there!

She rose from the step where she had been sitting, and standing in front of her little grandaunt she spoke very rapidly.

"You are right, and so is Mrs. Parker. You weren't here, but I dressed up and went to see her. I pretended I was you. I found your other false--I mean your new hair. You left it in the drawer. I looked just like you, and we thought it would be such fun. I'm awfully sorry, Aunt Betsey, indeed I am. It wasn't such great fun, after all."

At first Miss Betsey was speechless. Then she rose in extreme wrath.

"Cynthy Franklin, it is more than time you had a mother. I never supposed you could be so--impertinent; yes, impertinent! Made yourself look like me, indeed, and going to my most intimate friend! Poor Mrs. Parker. There's no knowing what she might have said, thinking it was I. And I telling her to-day she was out of her mind, and various other things I'm distressed to think of. Why, _Cynthy_!"

"Oh, I'm _so_ sorry," cried Cynthia, bursting into tears. "Do forgive me, Aunt Betsey."

"I am not ready to forgive you just yet, and whether I ever will or not remains to be proved. I am disappointed in you all. Edith going and shutting herself up when I come, because she doesn't want a step-mother, and you making fun of an aged aunt--not so very aged either. Why, when Silas hears this I just dread to think what he'll say. I am going home at once, Jack. You are the only well-behaved one among them. You may drive me to the train."

"Oh, Aunt Betsey, not to-day! Please don't go."

"I couldn't answer for my tongue if I staid here to-night. I had best go home and think it out. When I remember all I said to Maria Parker, and all she said to me, I'm about crazy, just as she said I was."

And presently she drove away, sitting very stiff and very erect in the old buggy that had held her prototype two weeks before, and Cynthia was left in tears, with one more calamity added to her already burdened soul.

Why had she ever played a practical joke? If she lived a hundred years she never would again.

Edith heard the news of Aunt Betsey's sudden departure in silence, and Cynthia received no sympathy from her. And very soon it was temporarily forgotten in preparations for the advent of the bride.

The day came at last, a beautiful one in June. The house was filled with lovely flowers which Cynthia had arranged--Edith would have nothing to do with it--and the supper-table was decked with the finest China and the old silver service and candelabra of their great-grandmother.

The servants, who had lived with them so long, could scarcely do their work. They peered from the kitchen windows for a first sight of their new mistress, and wondered what she would be like.

"These are sorry times," said Mary Ann, the old cook, as she wiped her eyes with the corner of her apron.

Outside the place had never looked so peacefully lovely. It was late, and the afternoon sun cast long shadows from the few trees on the lawn. In the distance the cows were heard lowing at milking-time. At one spot the river could be seen glinting through the trees, and June roses filled the air with fragrance.

All was to the outward eye just as it had always been, summer after summer, since the Franklins could remember, and yet how different it really was.

Jack had gone to the station to meet the travellers. Edith, Cynthia, Janet, and Willy were waiting on the porch, all in their nicest clothes. The children had been bribed to keep their hands clean, and up to this moment they were immaculate. Ben and Chester lay at full length on the banking in front of the house; they alone did not share the excitement.

The sound of wheels was heard.

"They are coming," whispered Cynthia.

As for Edith, she was voiceless.

And then the carriage emerged from the trees.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

STORIES IN AMERICAN LITERATURE.

BY HENRIETTA CHRISTIAN WRIGHT.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

In the old seaport town of Salem, with its quaint houses with their carved doorways and many windows, with its pretty rose gardens, its beautiful overshadowing elms, its dingy court-house and celebrated town pump, Hawthorne passed his early life, his picturesque surroundings forming a suitable setting to the picture we may call up of the handsome imaginative boy whose early impressions were afterward to crystallize into the most beautiful art that America has yet known. Behind the town stood old Witch Hill, grim and ghastly with the memories of the witches who had been hanged there in colonial times. In front spread the sea, a golden argosy of promise, whose wharves and store-rooms held priceless stores of merchandise.

Hawthorne's boyhood was much like that of any other boy in Salem town. He went to school and to church, loved the sea, and prophesied that he would go away on it some day and never return, was fond of reading, and was not averse to a good fight with any of his school-fellows who had, as he expressed it, "a quarrelsome disposition." He was a healthy, robust lad, and life seemed a very good thing to him, whether he was roaming the streets of Salem, sitting idly on the wharves, or at home stretched on the floor reading one of his favorite authors. As a rule all boys who have become writers have liked the same books, and Hawthorne was no exception. When reading, he was living in the magic world of Shakespeare and Milton, Spenser, Froissart, and _Pilgrim's Progress_. This last was a great and special favorite with him, its lofty and beautiful spirit carrying his soul with it into those spiritual regions which the child mind reverences without understanding.

For one year of his boyhood he was supremely happy in the life of the wild regions of Sebago Lake, Maine, where the family moved for a time. Here, he says, he lived the life of a bird of the air, with no restraint, and in absolute supreme freedom. In the summer he would take his gun and spend days in the forest, shooting, fishing, and doing whatever prompted his vagabond spirit at the moment. In the winter he would follow the hunters through the snow, or skate till midnight alone upon the frozen lake, with only the shadows of the hills to keep him company, and sometimes passing the remainder of the night in a solitary log cabin, whose hearth would blaze with the burning trunks of the fallen evergreens.

He entered Bowdoin in 1821, and had among his fellow-students Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Franklin Pierce, afterward President of the United States, and several others who distinguished themselves in later life. Long afterward Hawthorne recalls his days at Bowdoin as among the happiest of his life, and in writing to one of his old college friends speaks of the charm that lingers around the memory of the place, where he gathered blueberries in study hours; watched the great logs drifting down from the lumbering districts above along the current of the Androscoggin, fished in the forest streams, and shot pigeons and squirrels at odd hours which ought to have been devoted to the classics.

After leaving Bowdoin, Hawthorne returned to Salem, where he passed the next twelve years of his life, and during which he must have marked out authorship as his profession, as he attempted nothing else. Here he produced, from time to time, stories and sketches which found their way to the periodicals of the day, and which won for him a reputation among other American writers. But it is remarkable that the years which a man devotes usually to the best work of his life were spent by Hawthorne in a contented half-dream of what he meant to accomplish later on; for exquisite as is some of the work produced at this time, it never would have won for the author the highest place in American literature. These stories and sketches were collected later on, and published under the titles _Twice-Told Tales_ and _Snow Image_. They are full of the grace and beauty of Hawthorne's style, but in speaking of them Hawthorne himself says that there is in this result of twelve years little to show for its thought and industry. But whatever may have been the cause of delay, the promise of his genius was fulfilled at last. In 1850, when Hawthorne was forty-six years old, appeared his first great romance. In writing this book Hawthorne had chosen for his subject a picture of old Puritan times in New England, and out of the tarnished records of the past he created a work of art of marvellous and imperishable beauty.

In the days of which he wrote a Puritan town or village was exactly like a large family bound together by mutual interests, in which the acts of each life were regarded as affecting the whole community. In this novel Hawthorne imprisoned forever the spirit of colonial New England, with all its struggles, hopes, and fears; and the conscience-driven Puritan, who lived in the new generation only in public records and church histories, was lifted into the realm of art.

In Hawthorne's day this grim figure, stalking in the midst of Indian fights, village pillories, town meetings, witch-burnings, and church councils, was already a memory. He had drifted into the past with his steeple-crowned hat and his matchlock. He had left the pleasant New England farm-lands with their pastures and meadows, hills and valleys and wild-pine groves, and lurked like a ghost among the old church-yards and court-houses where his deeds were recorded.

Hawthorne brought him back to life, rehabilitated him in his old garments, set him in the midst of his fellow-elders in the church, and gave him a perfect carnival of trials and worries for conscience' sake. He made the old Puritan live anew, and never again can his memory become dim. It is embalmed for all time by the cunning art of this master-hand.

This first romance, published under the title _The Scarlet Letter_, revealed both to Hawthorne himself and the world outside the transcendent power of his genius.

Hawthorne, when the work was first finished, was in a desperate frame of mind, because of the little popularity his other books had acquired, and told his publisher, who saw the first germ of the work, that he did not know whether the story was very good or very bad. The publisher, however, perceived at once the unusual quality of the work, prevailed upon Hawthorne to finish it immediately, and brought it out one year from that time, and the public, which had become familiar with Hawthorne as a writer of short stories, now saw that it had been entertaining a genius unawares.

Hawthorne's next work, _The House of the Seven Gables_, is a story of the New England of his own day. Through its pages flit the contrasting figures that one might find there and nowhere else. The old spinster of ancient family who is obliged in her latter years to open a toy and ginger-bread shop, and who never forgets the time when the house with seven gables was a mansion whose hospitality was honored by all, is a pathetic picture of disappointed hope and broken-down fortune. So also her brother, who was imprisoned under a false charge for twenty years, and who is obliged in his old age to lean upon his sister for support. The other characters are alike true to life--a life that has almost disappeared now in the changes of the half-century since its scenes were made the inspiration of Hawthorne's romance.

The _House of the Seven Gables_ was followed by two beautiful volumes for children: _The Wonder-Book_, in which the stories of the Greek myths are retold, and _Tanglewood Tales_.

In _The Wonder-Book_ Hawthorne writes as if he were a child himself, so delicious is the charm that he weaves around these old, old tales. Not content with the myths, he created little incidents and impossible characters, which glance in and out with elfin fascination. He feels that these were the very stories that were told by the centaurs, fairies, and satyrs themselves in the shadows of those old Grecian forests. Here we learn that King Midas not only had his palace turned to gold, but that his own little daughter Marigold, a fancy of Hawthorne's own, was also converted into the same shilling metal. We are told, too, the secrets of many a hero and god of this realm of fancy which had been unsuspected by any other historian of their deeds. No child in reading _The Wonder-Book_ would doubt for a moment that Hawthorne had obtained the stories first hand from the living characters, and would easily believe that he had hobnobbed many a moonlit night with Pan and Bacchus and other sylvan deities in their vine-covered grottos by the famed rivers of Greece. This dainty ethereal touch of Hawthorne appears especially in all his work for children. It is as if he understood and entered into that mystery which ever surrounds child life and sets it sacredly apart. It is the same quality, nearly, which gives distinction to his fourth great novel, in which he is called upon to deal with the elusive character of a man who is supposed to be a descendant of the old fauns. We feel that this creation, which is named Donatello, from his resemblance to the celebrated statue of the Marble Faun by that sculptor, is not wholly human, and although he has human interests and feelings, Hawthorne is always a master in treating such a subject as this. He makes Donatello ashamed of his pointed ears, though his spirit is as wild and untamed as that of his crude ancestors. In this book--which takes its name from the statue--_The Marble Faun_, there is a description of a scene where Donatello, who is by title an Italian count, joins in a peasant dance around one of the public fountains. And so vividly is his half-human nature brought out that one feels as if Hawthorne must have witnessed somewhere the mad revels of the veritable fauns and satyrs in the days of their life upon the earth. In the whole development of this story Hawthorne shows the same subtle sympathy with natures so far out of the commonplace that they seem to belong to another world. The mystery of such souls having the same charm for him as the secrets of the earth and air have for the scientist and philosopher.

The book coming between _The House of the Seven Gables_ and _The Marble Faun_ is called The _Blithedale Romance_. It is founded partly upon a period of Hawthorne's life when he became a member of a community which hoped to improve the world by showing that to live healthily, manual labor must be combined with intellectual pursuits, and that self-interest and all differences in rank could only be injurious to a country. This little society of reformers lived in a suburb of Boston, and called their association Brook Farm. Each member was supposed to perform some manual labor on the farm or in the house each day, although hours were set aside for study and intellectual work. Here Hawthorne ploughed the fields like a farmer boy in the daytime, and in the evening joined in the amusements, or sat apart while the other members talked about art and literature and science, danced, sang, or read Shakespeare aloud.

Some of the cleverest men and women of New England became members of this community, the rules of which obliged the men to wear plaid blouses and rough straw hats, and the women to content themselves with plain calico gowns.

This company of serious-minded men and women, who tried to solve a great problem by leading the lives of Acadian shepherds, at length dispersed, each one going back into the world and working on as bravely as if the experiment had been a great success. The record of the life and experiences of Brook Farm are shadowed forth in _The Blithedale Romance_, although it is not by any means a literal narrative of its existence.

Hawthorne's early married life was spent at Concord, near Boston, in a quaint old dwelling called the Manse, and as all his work partakes of the personal flavor of his own life, so his existence here is recorded in a delightful series of essays called _Mosses from an Old Manse_. Here we have a description of the old house itself and of the author's family life, of the kitchen-garden and apple orchards, of the meadows and woods, and of his friendship with that lover of nature, Henry Thoreau, whose writings form a valuable contribution to American literature. The _Mosses from an Old Manse_ must ever be famous as the history of the quiet hours of the greatest American man of letters. They are full of Hawthorne's own personality, and reveal more than any other of his books, the depth and purity of his poetic and rarely gifted nature.

In 1853 Hawthorne was appointed American Consul at Liverpool by his old friend and school-mate Franklin Pierce, then President of the United States. He remained abroad seven years, spending the last four on the continent. The results of this experience are found in the celebrated _Marble Faun_, published in Europe under the title _Transformation_. It was written in Rome, and it is interesting to know that the story was partly suggested to Hawthorne by an old villa near Florence which he occupied with his family. This old villa possessed a moss-covered tower, "haunted," as Hawthorne said in a letter to a friend, "by owls and by the ghost of a monk who was confined there in the thirteenth century, previous to being burnt at the stake in the principal square of Florence." He also states in the same letter that he meant to put the old castle bodily in a romance that was then in his head, and he carried out this threat by making the villa the old family castle of Donatello.

After Hawthorne returned to America he began two other novels, one founded upon the old legend of the elixir of life. This story was probably suggested to him by Thoreau, who spoke of the house in which Hawthorne lived at Concord, after leaving the old Manse, as having been the abode, a century or two before, of a man who believed that he should never die. This subject was a charming one for Hawthorne's peculiar genius, but the story, with another--the _Dolliver Romance_--was never completed, the death of Hawthorne in 1864 leaving the work unfinished.

This Department is conducted in the interest of Amateur
Photographers, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any
question on the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should
address Editor Camera Club Department.

HOW TO DEVELOP CLOUD PICTURES.

Pictures taken simply of clouds, without special attention to the landscape, should be developed very slowly in order to bring out all the soft shadows, which are lost if the development is hurried.

Where clouds and landscape have been taken in one picture, the printing quality of the negative may be made uniform by careful development of the plate.

Place the plate in a rather weak developer, and as soon as the outlines of the landscape begin to appear take it out and place in a dish of clean water so as to arrest the development. Pour off the developer, put the plate back in the tray, and finish the plate with brush development. To do this take a soft camel's-hair brush or a small wad of surgeon's cotton, dip into the developer, and brush over the part of the plate which develops more slowly, which will be the landscape. As soon as this part is nearly developed flood the plate with a weak solution of developer, increasing it in strength till the sky is fully developed. Brush development requires a careful hand, but, like any other part of photography, becomes easy by repeated trials.

Another way of developing one part of the plate at a time is to take the plate from the tray as soon as the outlines appear; turn off the developer, and wash the plate. Put it back in the tray, and tip the tray so that the sky will be out of the developer, turn in the developer, and rock the tray gently to and fro, but do not allow any of the developer to touch the sky until the shadows in the landscape are well out.

When the shadows are nearly or quite developed flood the whole plate with the developer. The sky will develop very quickly, and if the process is carefully watched a fine even-printing negative will be the result. This plan of development is most successful where the horizon-line is not too much broken.

Having once succeeded in catching the clouds, one will never be quite satisfied with a landscape picture which has a perfectly clear sky.

We devote a little of our space this week to tell the Camera Club something about two publications which have been sent to the editor for inspection, and which are the work of some of the members of our club.

The first is entitled the _Focus_, a magazine issued by the Niepce Corresponding Club, and published by Sir Knight Arthur F. Atkinson, of Sacramento, California.

The literary matter is typewritten, and the illustrations are, with one exception, original photographs by members of the Chapter. The first illustration is a fine platinum print of the first-prize landscape picture which was published in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, March 26, 1895. The first article, entitled "Rural Photography," is a most amusing account of one J. Focus Snapschotte's attempt to take pictures in the country. The pen and-ink sketch of "Silas" does great credit to the artist, who we suspect is the publisher of the magazine, as the initials A. F. A. are the same.

The other articles are part of a continued story, a description of the prize landscape, an account of the capital of California, and matters connected with the club. The photographs do great credit to the members, and the whole magazine is very nicely arranged and embellished.

The second magazine is entitled _Hints_, and is published by Sir Knight George D. Galloway and Sir Knight George Johnson, Jun., of Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

As its name indicates, it is intended to help the amateur to do better work. Its object is stated at the beginning: "This is a practical periodical, and we know all who see it will say so too. From all the prints that are here exhibited you will get _hints_, and you will notice that your work will improve steadily in all respects."

This magazine is also illustrated with original photographs, among which we notice one which also appeared in the Camera Club Department a short time ago. It is by Sir Knight Andrew Phillips, of Nunda, New York, and is entitled "Knights and Ladies of the Camera Club."

Both of these publications cannot fail to be helpful to those members who have the privilege of examining them, for one is sure to learn something by "exchanging experiences." The Chapters which issue these magazines have reason to feel very proud of them.

A correspondent who signs herself "Sweet Marie" asks: 1. How to
prepare the best and cheapest developer. 2. How to make sensitive
paper. 3. How to prepare a polishing solution for ferrotype
plates. 4. How to make a ruby lamp. 5. What is stronger water of
ammonia. 6. What is bromide of ammonia.

As there are almost as many formulas for developers as there are
amateur photographers, it would be quite impossible to say which
one is the cheapest and best. Sir Knight William C. Davids, of
Rutherford, New Jersey, sends the following formula, which he
recommends very highly. We shall publish in our papers for
beginners several formulas for developing solutions, with prices
of chemicals.

_Hydroquinon Developer._--Sodium sulphite, 460 grains; sodium
carbonate, 960 grains; hydroquinon, 96 grains; water, 16 ounces.

1. Mix and filter before using. In No. 786 will be found a simple
developer for instantaneous pictures. 2. Directions for preparing
sensitive paper will be found in Nos. 786 and 803. 3. Directions
for polishing ferrotype plates will be found in Nos. 797 and 805.
4. A ruby light for dark-room work may be made by taking a wooden
starch-box, cutting a square hole in the cover, and pasting two
thicknesses of red fabric over the opening. A hole must be made in
one end of the box--which answers for the top of the lantern--to
allow for ventilation. This must be shielded so as to prevent the
escape of actinic rays. This may be done by pieces of tin bent so
that air can enter, but no white light escape. A candle should be
used with this style of lantern. 5. Ammonia in its pure state is a
gas which combines readily with water, water taking up of the gas
five hundred times its own volume. This is liquid ammonia, or
stronger water of ammonia. By diluting it with water it becomes
the spirits of hartshorn, or ammonia water. 6. Bromide of ammonia
is formed in the simplest manner by the addition of bromine to
water of ammonia. It is very useful in photographic work. It gives
great sensitiveness to gelatine and collodion emulsions--combined
with pyro for a developer it prevents fog--and is employed in the
preparation of sensitive papers.

This Department is conducted in the interest of Girls and Young
Women, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on
the subject so far as possible. Correspondents should address
Editor.

Lillie M---- came to see me yesterday, and after she had gone, Maria G----, who was putting a new braid on my second-best gown, said:

"That Miss Lillie uses very nice perfumery. It's so faint and fine, not anything you can smell a long way off, but something which makes you think of roses or violets when she passes you on the street. How does she manage it?"

Maria G---- likes perfumes, but does not know how to use them.

"Not by putting cologne on her handkerchief," I answered, decidedly. "Nobody should carry about scents poured on their garments." I had to say this.

Perfumes are used sparingly by elegant people, yet a touch, a vague sense of fragrance, does add something of daintiness to a girl's toilette. It is right for you to have perfumes about you if you love them.

Fresh rose-leaves thrown into your bureau drawers and scattered in the boxes where you keep your laces and handkerchiefs, and sprigs of lavender or lemon verbena left there to dry will impart a pleasant sweetness to whatever lies among them. Orris-root powder in little sachet bags of China silk, or strewn lightly between folds of tissue-paper, will give to your clothing in closet or wardrobe a delightful faint odor of violet. If you use delicate soap with a sweet clean perfume, not of musk or anything strong and pronounced, and put a few drops of alcohol or ammonia in the water when you bathe, you need not be afraid of any unfavorable comment on your daintiness. Perfect cleanliness is always dainty. Soil and stain, dust and dirt, are never anything but repulsive.

Rose-leaves pulled from the perfect flower and laid in your box of note-paper when they are fresh will dry there, and insure your sending to your friends notes which will associate you with fragrance. There is an exquisite perfume in dried roses.

How do you seal your letters, by-the-way? I hope you have at hand a bit of sponge and a tiny glass of water with which to moisten the mucilage on the flap of your envelope. Better still is a little glass cylinder in a glass jar, a very ornamental and thoroughly clean affair, which can be procured at any stationer's. The glass jar holds water. You turn the cylinder, and on its wet surface place your envelope. Postage stamps may be moistened in the same way.

When friends call, on these very sultry days, you offer them fans, do you not, and, if they wish it, a glass of cold water or lemonade? Palm-leaf or Japanese fans should be in every room in profusion during the summer solstice. When fans are broken at the edges renew them by a ribbon binding, and tie a jaunty bow on the handle. Very few things should be thrown aside as useless. While an article can be mended or renovated it is worth keeping, and a thrifty person never discards a household implement of any kind until she is convinced that it is worn out.

Ribbon plays an important part in decoration. A bow on the corner of mamma's sewing-chair, on the dressing-glass which hangs over the table, on the little birthday package you send your friend, gives each a sort of gala look. The plainest furniture in the plainest bedroom may be brightened and made attractive by good taste, a few yards of cheap netting or lace, and the judicious use of ribbon. Clever fingers can accomplish wonders with very little money.

A girl showed me one day a beautiful sewing-chair, white and gold as to frame-work, and cushioned with a lovely chintz, a white ground thickly sprinkled with daisies.

"There!" she said. "Mamma gave me permission to use anything I could find in our attic, and I hunted around till I came across this chair. Such a fright! It was dingy and broken, and fit for nothing but firewood. Look at it now. Two coats of white paint, some gilding, and this lovely cushion, and then this ravishing frill and box of yellow satin ribbon! Isn't it a triumph?"

I said, very sincerely, that I thought it was.

Bertha wishes me to tell her why lemonade is not always the rich refreshing drink it should be. Well, Bertha, everybody does not know how to make lemonade. I squeeze my lemons in a glass lemon-squeezer, mix in my granulated sugar with a lavish hand, and add the thinly pared rind of a lemon, dropping it in in circular strips. On this I pour boiling water, setting it by to cool, and, when cold, putting it away in the refrigerator. Then when served I add a strawberry, or a bit of sliced orange or banana, and some pounded ice, and the lemonade is delicious.

WHIPPOORWILL.

Unseen in the thicket a lone little bird
Cries over and over the sorrowful word,
Till the children, whose sweet lisping prayers have been said,
Turn over, half waking, and call from their bed,
"Do make that bird stop calling down from the hill
His mournful old story, Whip, whip, oh! poor Will."

What could Will have done in the days long ago
That this bird's great-grandfather hated him so?
Did he rifle a nest, did he climb up a tree,
Did he meddle where he had no business to be?--
When we find out, dear children, what 'twas Katy did,
The secret with those funny wood gossips hid,
We are likely, and not before then, to discover
The rune that the poor little songster runs over,
Who, hour by hour, up there on the hill,
Calls mournfully, urgently, Oh! whip poor Will.

MODERN WHALING.

It is natural enough that the Norwegians should be the most expert people in capturing whales. They live in their cold country up near the best whaling-grounds in the world, except, perhaps, the regions about the northern part of Alaska. For centuries the old Norsemen have been good whalers and famous at throwing the harpoon, but it was left for a famous, perhaps the most famous, whaler the world has known to discover a weapon which made the old hand-thrown harpoon a back number. The man was a Norwegian called Svend Foyn, and an account of his life would make an interesting and exciting story of adventures, escapes, dangers, and finally riches.

Old Svend, who died not long ago at an advanced age, was a cabin-boy when he was eleven years old, and did not have enough money to keep him ashore a month. He used to sail in different kinds of vessels in his early days, keeping his eyes open, and watching to learn what there was for a cabin-boy to learn. This was in 1820. Gradually, as he grew older, he began to save a few krone here and there, and when he came ashore after a long trip he would take as much of his wages as he could possibly spare and put them in the bank at home in Joensberg. But it was slow work, and he was little more than a cabin-boy in 1845, except that he was thirty-six years old and had a neat little sum in the bank. Then the idea came to him to buy a little vessel of his own, and try to make for himself the profits he saw others making out of his own and other men's services.

He scraped together all he had or could raise, and bought a brig, and in a very short time he had made a big catch of seals in the north, and had $20,000 in the bank, besides the brig in the water. Svend seems to have had all the shrewdness for which Norwegians have long been famous, and much of the daring and self-reliance of the same great race. For he started in 1863, with a little steamer which he had bought, to the whaling-grounds, and tried to harpoon whales.

This did not seem to succeed very well, and he made up his mind that spearing whales with a harpoon thrown by the hand of man was a doubtful thing. He went to work, therefore, to think of something more powerful and more certain in its aim than a man's arm, with the result that he invented a harpoon which was fired from a gun, and which carried along with it a shell that exploded inside the whale's vitals and almost invariably killed it at once. This harpoon-gun is now used all over the world, and has made whaling a wonderfully profitable business.

The gun is placed in the bows of small steamers built especially for the purpose, and is aimed and fired much as any other gun. When a whale is sighted the craft is steered in its direction, and moves silently up behind the big monster as he lies on the water taking long breaths or resting. When the bow is within about twenty or thirty yards of the whale the gunner takes careful aim at his most vital parts, and fires the harpoon and shell combination, which is, of course, attached to the vessel by a long line, just as in the case of the old harpoon. The spear goes deep into the whale, but the moment he rushes forward or turns flukes he tightens the line, and the end of the spear is therefore pulled out behind. This acts on the flukes of the harpoon in such a way that they are pulled out and catch in the flesh of the whale, as shown in the accompanying illustration, and he cannot therefore get away.

But besides this, the flukes, in thrusting themselves out, break a little glass tube inside a shell, which can be seen in the illustration just ahead of the flukes. In this tube there is an acid, and outside the tube but still inside the shell is another acid. When the glass is broken and the acid inside mingles with the other, they chemically form a third substance, which is a remarkably explosive gas that expands so very quickly and to such enormous proportions that the shell bursts and explodes inside the whale. If the poor beast is not killed at once, he is so severely wounded that he is soon captured and hauled alongside the steamer.

Sometimes, however, the harpoon does not penetrate far enough or fails to hit a vital part, and then the explosion only wounds the whale slightly and angers him. At such times there is a long and a hard chase in which the steamer is hauled through the water at thirty miles an hour for different lengths of time. Svend tells a story of being so towed by an enormous whale for ten hours at more than twenty-eight miles an hour up against a hard gale of wind. At the end of that time, as the whale did not seem to get tired, and as the steamer still held together, the cable attached to the harpoon broke, and the whale disappeared.

There is a good deal of danger connected with this modern harpooning other than the usual danger of the dying "flurry" of the whale and the long tows that may result if he is not killed at once. This danger has proved very real in several instances. Occasionally, for one of a thousand reasons, the shell does not explode in the whale. Perhaps the harpoon does not pull back and break the little glass tube, or there may not be sufficient strain put on the rope to break the glass, or the whale may be killed by the force of the harpoon alone, and not live long enough to struggle and explode it. In such cases, and they have occurred occasionally, when the whale is hauled alongside, the harpoon, in being withdrawn, may cause the shell to explode, when a great deal of havoc results. On more than one occasion the side for many feet of the steamer's length has been blown out, and the steamer, of course, sunk. So that whaling in modern days, while it may be more paying, is not by any means less dangerous than formerly.

This kind of harpooning, or something on the same general plan, is coming into general use, and the result is that the whale is fast being killed off, for the big fish are being demolished in enormous quantities compared with what men were able to do with the hand harpoon before its introduction.

Svend Foyn made an immense fortune out of his invention, for he patented it in many countries, and fitted out a fleet of small steamers himself; and then, when he had become rich, he did what most men would not have done. He founded many asylums, hospitals, education and charitable institutions, and used his fortune to help mankind in general and his own countrymen in particular.

At last I have the much-needed space to answer the many questions that have been pouring in for some time past, and also the discussion of a number of interesting subjects that are unfortunately shut out during the season of active interscholastic contests. These will resume in August with the tennis tournament at Newport, followed by the opening of the football season everywhere.