Chapter I: Front Matter

ROUND TABLE]

Copyright, 1895, by HARPER & BROTHERS. All Rights Reserved.

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PUBLISHED WEEKLY. NEW YORK, TUESDAY, MAY 14, 1895. FIVE CENTS A COPY.

VOL. XVI.--NO. 811. TWO DOLLARS A YEAR.

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HEROES OF AMERICA.

THE FIGHT AT HAMPTON ROADS.

BY THE HONORABLE THEODORE ROOSEVELT.

aval battles of the civil war have an immense importance, because they mark the line of cleavage between naval warfare under the old and naval warfare under the new conditions. From the days of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, for two centuries and a half, the fighting at sea was carried on in ships of substantially the same character--wooden sailing ships, carrying many guns mounted in broadside. Howard, Drake, Blake, Tromp, De Ruyter, Nelson, and all the other great admirals, and all the famous single-ship fighters--whose skill reached its highest expression in our own navy during the war of 1812--commanded craft built and armed in a substantially similar manner, and fought with the same weapons and under much the same conditions.

But in the civil war weapons and methods were introduced which caused a revolution greater even than that which divided the sailing ship from the galley. The use of steam, the casing of ships in iron armor, and the employment of the torpedo, the ram, and the gun of huge calibre, produced such radically new types that the old ships of the line became at one stroke as antiquated as the galleys of Hamilcar or Alcibiades. All of these new engines of war were for the first time tried in actual combat, and some of them were for the first time invented, during our own civil war, and the first occasion on which any of the new methods were thoroughly tested was attended by incidents which made it one of the most striking of naval battles.

In the Chesapeake Bay, near Hampton Roads, the United States had collected a fleet of wooden ships; some of them old-style sailing vessels, others steamers. The Confederates were known to be building a great iron-clad ram, and the wooden vessels were eagerly watching for her appearance when she should come out of Gosport Harbor. Her powers and capacity were utterly unknown. She was made out of the former United States steam-frigate _Merrimac_, cut down so as to make her fore and aft decks nearly flat and not much above the water, while the guns were mounted in a covered central battery with sloping flanks. Her sides and deck were coated with iron, and she was armed with formidable rifle guns, and, most important of all, with a steel ram thrust out under water forward from her bow. She was commanded by a very gallant and efficient officer, Captain Tattnall.

It was March 8, 1862, when the ram at last made her appearance within sight of the Union fleet. The day was calm and very clear, so that the throngs of spectators on shore could see every feature of the battle. With the great ram came three light gunboats, all of which took part in the action, harassing the vessels which she assailed; but they were not factors of importance in the fight. On the Union side the vessels nearest were the sailing ships _Cumberland_ and _Congress_, and the steam-frigate _Minnesota_. The _Congress_ and _Cumberland_ were anchored not far from each other; the _Minnesota_ got aground, and was some distance off. Owing to the currents and shoals and the lack of wind no other vessel was able to get up in time to take part in the fight.

As soon as the great ram appeared out of the harbor she turned and steamed steadily toward the _Congress_ and the _Cumberland_, the black smoke rising from her funnels, and the great ripples running from each side of her iron prow as she drove steadily through the still waters. On board of the _Congress_ and _Cumberland_ there was eager anticipation, but not a particle of fear. The officers in command, Captain Smith and Lieutenant Morris, were two of the most gallant men in a service where gallantry has always been too common to need special comment. The crews were composed of veterans, well trained, self-confident, and proud beyond measure of the flag whose honor they upheld. The guns were run out, and the men stood at quarters, while the officers eagerly conned the approaching ironclad.

The _Congress_ was the first to open fire; and as her volleys flew, the men on the _Cumberland_ were astounded to see the cannon-shot bound oft the sloping sides of the ram as haildrops bound from a window-pane. The ram answered, and her rifle shells tore the sides of the _Congress_; but for her first victim she aimed at the _Cumberland_, and, firing her bow guns, came straight as an arrow at the little sloop of war, which lay broadside to her. It was an absolutely hopeless struggle. The _Cumberland_ was a sailing ship, at anchor, with wooden sides, and a battery of light guns. Against the formidable steam ironclad, with her heavy rifles and steel ram, she was as powerless as if she had been a row-boat; and from the moment when the men saw the cannon-shot bound from the ram's sloping sides they knew they were doomed. But none of them flinched. Once and again they fired their guns full against the approaching ram, and in response received a few shells from the great bow rifles of the latter. Then, forging ahead, the _Merrimac_ struck her antagonist with her steel prow, and the sloop of war reeled and shuddered, and through the great rent in her side the black water rushed.

She foundered in a few minutes; but her crew fought her to the last, cheering as they ran out the guns, and sending shot after shot against the ram as the latter backed off after delivering the blow. The rush of the water soon swamped the lower decks, but the men on the upper deck continued to serve the guns, and fired them until the deck was awash, and the vessel had not ten seconds of life left. Then, with her flags flying, her men cheering, and her guns firing, the _Cumberland_ sank. It was shallow where she settled down, so that her masts remained above the water. The glorious flag for which the brave men aboard her had died flew proudly in the wind all that day, while the fight went on, and throughout the night; and next morning it was still streaming over the beautiful bay, to mark the resting-place of as gallant a vessel as ever sailed or fought on the high-seas.

After the _Cumberland_ sank, the ram turned her attention to the _Congress_. Finding it difficult to get at her in the shoal water, she began to knock her to pieces with her great rifle guns. The unequal fight between the ironclad and the wooden ship lasted for perhaps half an hour. By that time the commander of the _Congress_ had been killed, and her decks looked like a slaughter-house. She was utterly unable to make any impression on her foe, and finally she took fire and blew up. The _Minnesota_ was the third victim marked for destruction, and the _Merrimac_ began the attack upon her at once; but it was getting very late, and as the water was shoal and she could not get close, the ram finally drew back to her anchorage to wait until next day before renewing and completing her work of destruction.

All that night there was the wildest exultation among the Confederates, while the gloom and panic of the Union men cannot be described. It was evident that the United States ships-of-war were as helpless as cockle-shells against their iron-clad foe, and there was no question that she could destroy the whole fleet with ease and with absolute impunity. This meant not only the breaking of the blockade, but the sweeping away at one blow of the North's naval supremacy, which was indispensable to the success of the war for the Union. It is small wonder that during that night the wisest and bravest should have almost despaired of the Union.

But in the hour of the nation's greatest need a champion suddenly appeared, in time to play the last scene in this great drama of sea warfare. The North, too, had been trying its hand at building ironclads. The most successful of them was the little _Monitor_, a flat-decked, low, turreted ironclad, armed with a couple of heavy guns. She was the first experiment of her kind, and her absolutely flat surface, nearly level with the water, her revolving turret, and her utter unlikeness to any pre-existing naval type, had made her an object of mirth among most practical seamen; but her inventor, Ericsson, never despaired of her. Under the command of a gallant naval officer, Captain Worden, she was sent South from New York, and though she almost foundered in a gale she managed to weather it, and reached the scene of the battle at Hampton Roads at the hour of the nation's sorest need.

Early the following morning the _Merrimac_ again steamed forth to take up the work she had so well begun, and to destroy the Union fleet. She steered straight for the _Minnesota_; but when she was almost there, to her astonishment a strange-looking little craft advanced from the side of the big wooden frigate and boldly barred the _Merrimac_'s path. For a moment the Confederates could hardly believe their eyes. The _Monitor_ was tiny compared to their ship, for she was not one-fifth the size, and her queer construction and odd look made them look at their new foe with contempt; but the first shock of battle did away with this feeling. The _Merrimac_ turned on her foe her rifle guns, intending to blow her out of the water, but the shot glanced from the thick iron turret of the _Monitor_. Then the _Monitor_'s guns opened fire, and as the great balls struck the sides of the ram the plates started and her timbers gave. Had the _Monitor_ been such a vessel as those of her type produced later in the war the ram would have been sunk then and there; but as it was her shot was not quite heavy enough to pierce the iron walls. Around and around the two strange combatants hovered, their guns bellowing without cessation, while the men on the frigates and on shore watched the result with breathless interest. Neither the _Merrimac_ nor the _Monitor_ could dispose of its antagonist. The ram's guns could not damage the turret, and the _Monitor_ was able to dexterously avoid the stroke of the formidable prow. On the other hand, the shot of the _Monitor_ could not penetrate the _Merrimac_'s tough sides. Accordingly, fierce though the struggle was, and much though there was that hinged on it, it was not bloody in character. The _Merrimac_ could neither destroy nor evade the _Monitor_. She could not sink her when she tried to, and when she abandoned her and turned to attack one of the other wooden vessels the little turreted ship was thrown across her path, so that the fight had to be renewed. Both sides grew thoroughly exhausted, and finally the battle ceased by mutual consent. Nothing more could be done. The ram was badly damaged, and there was no help for her save to put back to the port whence she had come. Twice afterwards she came out, but neither time did she come near enough to the _Monitor_ to attack her, and the latter could not move off where she would cease to protect the wooden ships. Tactically it was a drawn battle, neither ship being able to damage the other, and both ships being fought to a standstill; but the moral and material effects were wholly in favor of the _Monitor_. Her victory was hailed with exultant joy throughout the whole Union, and exercised a correspondingly depressing effect in the Confederacy, while every naval man throughout the world who possessed eyes to see saw that the fight in Hampton Roads had inaugurated a new era in ocean warfare, and that the _Monitor_ and _Merrimac_, which had waged so gallant and so terrible a battle, were the first ships of the new era, and that as such their names would be forever famous.

A HINT.

BY MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

If only you'll think of it, dearie,
When people are vexing and rude,
And be pleasant for two,
When one's scolding at you.
You will conquer the contrary mood.

If only you'll think of it, dearie,
When a certain troublesome elf,
With pease in his shoes,
And a look of the blues,
Comes calling upon you himself--

If _only_ you'll think of it, dearie,
And laugh, like the sun, in his face,
He will scamper away;
You'll be happy all day;
And _I'd_ like to be in your place.

A CHINESE ENTERPRISE.

We are all more or less interested nowadays in China and the Chinese. They are a curious people, and their customs are so different from those of other nations that to us, who are proud of being civilized, they sometimes seem quite ridiculous. What civilized nation would provide a regular home for beggars, for instance--not as a matter of charity, for all civilized people do that, but purely in the line of business? Yet the Chinese do this, if the following story told by a German newspaper is true. According to this journal, the _Kleine Chronik_, a joint-stock company in Peking erected some years ago a large building termed Ki-mao-fan, or hen-feather-house. It is to be used as a night refuge for the begging population of the Celestial city. A monster feather-bed covers the whole floor of one of the largest rooms. Old and young, all are admitted without distinction. Each settles down for the night as comfortably as he can in this ocean of feathers. At first each sleeper received a small blanket, but it was found, subsequently, that these blankets very soon disappeared, being probably appropriated by the servants of the establishment, so an enormous common blanket, full of round holes through which the beggars at rest on the feathers can thrust their heads for air, was made, large enough to cover the floor of the whole room. In the day-time this general blanket is drawn up to the ceiling by ropes and pulleys, and at night, when all the company are in their places, it is let down, and then the beggars have to look sharp to get their heads through one of the holes lest they run a good chance of being suffocated. The same in the morning, they must be careful to draw their heads out of the hole at the first stroke of the tomtom, when the blanket is again lifted from the huge nest lest they be drawn up to the ceiling and hanged.

THE FORGOTTEN GUNS.

BY EARLE TRACY.

Bascom and Captain Lazare's boy Narcisse were diving near the croaker bank.

"Bet you I can stay under twice as long as you can," Bascom said, as he and Narcisse balanced on the edge of a row-boat. "One--two--three--jump!"

There was a sharp smack as both boys hit the water at the same instant, and then the ripples gurgled over them. The black head of Narcisse came up again very soon, and he puffed and blew. He was a big, thick-set, older boy than Bascom, but short-winded and inclined toward laziness. He had time to turn on his back and catch his breath at leisure before Bascom reappeared. "I was studyin' me 'bout goin' down aftah you," he drawled.

But Bascom did not answer until he had rested a minute with one hand on the gunwale of the boat. He was very white. "I--beat--you," he panted at last. "I--tole you--I would." His breath was coming back to him in big draughts that he could scarcely swallow.

"Yo' can beat me a-pullin' right now if yo' want to," Narcisse offered as they climbed into the boat.

Bascom was glad enough to take the oars. He was breathing again, and he would rather do anything than keep still. He wanted to shout and clap his hands and jump, but he did not wish to excite the curiosity of Narcisse. The hot afternoon sun poured generously over them and dried their bathing-suits into every-day clothes.

A sound of hammering came from one of the schooners at anchor near the landing. "I hear Captain Tony," Bascom said. "I reckon I'll get out here."

"I didn't guess yo'd pass by de little _Mystery_," Narcisse answered, with a good-natured grin. All Potosi was used to Bascom's devotion to the boat which he and Captain Tony had won by bringing it safely through the great Gulf storm the year before. Narcisse was no sooner out of sight, however, than Bascom forgot even the _Mystery_ in the excitement it had been so hard to suppress.

"Cap'n Tony," he cried, fairly stammering with eagerness--"Cap'n Tony-- I--I--found a buried cannon on the croaker bank!"

"W-w'at?" said Captain Tony, wondering.

"It's all crusted up with barnacles, but I know it's a cannon," Bascom insisted. "I felt all round it, and inside of it too."

Captain Tony lifted his cap a little and then drew it down over his eyes again incredulously. "I guess it can't be true," he said at last. "I have never hear me 'bout any cannon sunk in de bay, an' I know all de story of ole time."

Bascom was prancing up and down in a perfect fever of impatience. "It must have been ever so long ago, the pirates or the Spaniards," he said. "An' if there's a cannon there must ha' been a ship sunk there, an' if there was a ship there must be a treasure, an' we're not a-goin' to say nothin' to nobody, but we're a-goin' to fish it all up!"

Captain Tony put a hand on Bascom's shoulder to keep him from squirming. "Yo' boy," he said, with the warm-hearted indulgence he always felt for the young waif who had become his business partner, "I doan t'ink me dat if dere is a cannon dere it will run off--not dis evenin'; an' faw de treasure, it was without doubt mo' easy to remove. Mos' likely it run away good w'ile ago."

"Well, I'm goin' to look an' be sure," Bascom said. "We must get the cannon, anyways, and have her on the _Mystery_."

The Captain chuckled. "Us'es'll raise sail," he said, "an' jus' run out befo' de breeze dies down." They might more easily have rowed, but Tony and Bascom seldom went anywhere without the _Mystery_, except on land.

When Narcisse was rowing leisurely toward his father's point on the back bay, he saw the little _Mystery_ put out from shore and presently cast anchor at the croaker bank, and he put two and two together clumsily.

"Might 'a' known Bascom wouldn' drown hisse'f like dat faw fun," he meditated. "He has suah foun' somet'ing." He rested on his oars and pondered quite a while. "If Bascom has foun' somet'ing, I doan' see why I didn' fin' it too. Maybe I did. My han' touched bottom, an' I recollec' I felt somet'ing me. Bascom think he sma't not to have tell, but I did not tell either, me;" and suddenly Narcisse set to rowing.

After Bascom dropped anchor on the croaker bank, Captain Tony poised himself and dived. Bascom waited for his reappearance, with hands clinched. Tony did not stay under as long as the boy had, but he was almost as excited as soon as he came up.

"I didn' fin' 'em at de firs'," he panted, "but dere are two at de leas'. I put my han' on dem. It mus' have been a great ship, but, I do not know 'boud her. It mus' be ver', ver' ole, de mos' ole of all."

"How can we get 'em up?" gasped Bascom.

"Ah," said the Captain, "dat will be de troub'. It will take a win'lass an' grapplin'-irons an' mo' men. It will be de question if it pay."

"Couldn't us'es do it by ourselves?" Bascom pleaded. His whole little self-dependent life had strengthened his tendency to look out for himself. The more there were to work for the treasure the more there would be to share it.

"No," said the Captain. "Tek a pile of men to raise dose cannon."

"Then," put in Bascom, eagerly--"then le's ask Captain Lazare an' Narcisse to help. Me an' Narcisse was here together when I found 'em."

The Captain knit his brows and looked up the bay. "I guess dat a good idea," he said. "Lazare prett' sharp, but dey won't be much chance faw anyt'ing but straight wo'k. I see dey's a-raisin' sail on de _Alphonsine_."

"I'll row across an' speak to him when he passes," said Bascom.

But there was no need; Lazare's schooner headed toward them from the first. As it came slowly about and anchored close to theirs Captain Tony gave Bascom a swift, inquiring glance, but Bascom shook his head. Then he shouted cheerfully,

"Ho there!"

"It strange dat yo' are jus' wheah we come," Lazare said. "Did Bascom fin' it too?"

"Find what?" said Bascom, on his guard.

"At de bottom, w'en yo' was divin'," continued Lazare, coolly. "Narcisse he fin' somesing, an' I t'ought me I bettah jus' to come an' see w'at to do 'boud it."

"Narcisse didn't find nothin'," Bascom exclaimed, hotly. "He didn't stay under a second. If he thinks he found anythin', what color was it, an' how did it feel? Was it dead? An' where did it come from?"

"I didn' want to drown myse'f like yo'," Narcisse answered. "I was faw gettin' home and tellin'."

"No you wa'n't," cried Bascom, fuming. "You know you wa'n't a-studyin' about nothin'. You didn't look like you'd ever seed anythin' in your life."

"De way is," said Lazare, "dat de one was jus' as big a fool as de odder. Dey both come 'long pertendin', instead of talkin' it ovah like men an' agreein' to share it. Have yo' been down yet, Tony, to see w'at yo' t'ink?"

"Yes," said Tony; "I been down. Us'es was sayin', Bascom an' me, dat maybe yo'-all like to go in wid us raisin' dose cannon." Bascom pulled his sleeve, but he went right on. "Dere may be a little money in sellin' 'em faw a show, an' den Bascom he say he want one on de _Mystery_."

Bascom looked relieved, and Narcisse disgusted, but there was nothing to gather from Captain Lazare's face.

"Dat was w'at I t'ought," he said. "Dere ain't nosing goin' on, an' anysing we can make is dat much ahead."

It was in this spirit that work was begun the next day. Not a word was said about the possibility of treasure, yet everyone knew that they were treasure-hunting. In these haunts of the old pirates children were brought up on legends of buried gold. But Bascom became perfectly absorbed in the guns. They could not be accounted for. No one in all the country remembered seeing or hearing of the wreck of a war-vessel in the bay. Nothing like that had happened during the war; the bay was too shallow for any modern ships. Its shoals were what had made it so attractive to the pirates, but the fate of all the pirate boats was known, and none had ever been lost there, nor had they ever sunk a victim inside the islands. Everything pointed to the old discoverers, the Spaniards and the Frenchmen. Bascom, who had taken small interest in the history of that or any other region, began to cram his mind eagerly with everything in the shape of legend or record or theory until the early days of the coast were at his fingers' ends.

The bay was thick with boats to watch the raising of the first gun. It had taken a long time to get the grappling-irons fastened. There was not a suit of diving armor to be had, and the men were obliged to go down again and again before they could pry the gun far enough out of its hard bed of shells to be grasped. When at last they felt it yielding to the windlass there was a big cheer, and then a breathless pause. The gun came on deck coated with shells and almost choked with barnacles and rust. Bascom flung himself atop of it and began to scrape. The others crowded over him. But there were no distinguishing marks. What he could disclose of the gun's surface showed it to be of some alloy similar to bronze. It was simply formed, and though not like any modern gun, neither Bascom with his new knowledge, nor anyone else who saw it, could find anything by which to guess its age. Of all the queer things that from time to time had made their appearance in Pontomoc Bay it was the most mysterious.

"You should sell it to some big museum," said a New Orleans man who had come aboard from his row-boat.

"They'll have to pay us'es our price before they gets it," Bascom said; "things don't come so cheap that have been laid by and saved so keerful for hundreds and hundreds of years."

"They are mo' of them down there," began Captain Lazare, whose gray hair was wet and clinging to his hard old head from diving to superintend. "Le's not be a-wastin' time, boys."

"I would bring up everything there is in the way of wreckage," added the gentleman; "it may help to identify the guns."

But nothing that was ever said or found threw any light. The fragments of worm-eaten timber which they brought up seemed to have been rudely hewn, and riveted with wooden pegs for bolts. It was old, old, old--and there the story ended.

On the day that they were raising the sixth gun, the last they ever found, Bascom and Narcisse went down as usual. Bascom had been under longer, and was just about to rise when the hook under the lifted end of the cannon was repelled by something hard. He dug down, and his hand felt what was unmistakably the corner of a chest. Narcisse caught sight of the motion and put his hand in too, then he sprang up, pushing Bascom down with his foot while he rose.

"I foun' a chest!" he gasped, coming up. "I foun' the treasure!"

"Wheah? How big?" cried Lazare, and they crowded round the boy. But some one noticed the blank water and raised another cry,

"Where's Bascom?"

Captain Tony drew one deep breath, thrust his hands above his head, and sprang into the water. Narcisse stood still a moment, big eyes big with horror, then he followed overboard.

It seemed a breathless age before the Captain reappeared and lifted Bascom's limp head above water. A dozen hands pulled them on deck and fell to work on Bascom.

"He'll come out," prayed the Captain through his teeth; "he got to come out. My boy--Bascom--"

Narcisse climbed up the schooner's side, but no one noticed him, and he hung in torture outside the group surrounding Bascom.

"He'd run his arm under de end of de cannon and de grapplin'-hook," Captain Tony was saying, "an' dey had settle back onto him, an' he had not the strength lef' to pull out. I doan' understan' how it could have settle on him like dat; but he will come out. He got to come out."

Narcisse, hearing all this, sneaked away into the cabin. He had had no wish to hurt Bascom even when he pushed him down; it was just the temptation to be ahead for once.

At last there was a step down the ladder. Captain Tony came and sank onto the bench opposite. He did not see Narcisse; he was talking to himself, and his voice trembled. "My little pa'dnah," he said; "he was so wil' 'boud dat treasure--an' proud 'boud dem ole cannon. T'ink of dat little chap weatherin' de big sto'm wid me. He was the stuff--"

Narcisse reached over and clutched timidly at the Captain's leg. "Ain't dere--no chance--lef'?" he begged.

Tony started, and gazed at the boy and tried to speak, but his voice broke into a sob. He reached over and patted Narcisse. "He--he comin' out," he said. "He be all right. I couldn' get long widout him."

Narcisse shrank back again, the better part of him ashamed to receive Tony's kindness. A moment later he crept past and went on deck. A few of the men still hovered around Bascom, who lay on the deck, very white, very sick, very washed-looking, but open-eyed and breathing. Most of them, however, were busy again, at the windlass, and were just hauling up the last gun. It had to be lifted before the treasure could be gotten out, but no time was given to it after it was landed on the deck. Only Bascom, who, in spite of his weakness, wanted to be where he could watch the raising of the treasure, was brought and pillowed on it, an old tarpaulin being folded over to keep him from feeling the shells.

The chest had been so deeply bedded under the gun that it was the hardest of all to raise; but at last it began to come, and Bascom struggled up from his gun to watch it swing, dripping, to the deck. It was wooden, oblong in shape, and very heavy; the edges were worn off and crumbling.

"If it hadn' been covered so deep it wouldn' have keep so well as it has," said Captain Lazare, waving the other men back, but trying not to look eager or excited.

Captain Tony bent over it with him. "I doan' see the fastenin'," he said. "I guess we cut into him. It will be ver' easy at dis end." And he began chipping where the wood was most decayed.

It was the only thing to do, and yet, as the men stood with gaping mouths waiting for the lid to yield, Bascom felt a new ache at his heart to see the uncouth relic damaged. A great chunk of it gave way, and every one bent forward. Still there was nothing to be seen but wood. Lazare caught the axe from Tony's hand and gave the thing a mighty blow that sent a dull rent through it. He pried it apart with the blade and laid it open. He had split in two a block of solid wood.

"It--it was one of the old gun-carriages!" cried Bascom, and sank back upon his austere pillow.

Captain Tony lifted his cap a little, and then pulled it down over his eyes again. Stooping, he measured the two sections of wood. Then, turning to Lazare, he asked, "Is it a fair divide?"

Lazare covered his feelings with a comical shrug, but Narcisse and both the crews looked whipped with disappointment, and eyed the innocent old block resentfully. Bascom motioned to have it brought alongside his gun.

"I don't see," he said, afterward, "what better an old party like that could have done, comin' from so far, than to bring his comforts with him instead of presents for folks he didn't know."

Bascom never told what Narcisse had done to him under water, and the gun that had had a share in it was used to keeping its own counsel. It and its comrades were left in his care, and when he saw that they would be awkward ballast on the _Mystery_, they were piled together on Tony's beach to wait a purchaser. The faith which Bascom had had in them staid with him, although public interest in them died out, and they were forgotten again. But Bascom was always working with them, and polishing them, and talking to them when he had the time.

"It's queer how you all staid there so quiet, and waited hundreds an' hundreds an' hundreds of years--just for me," he said to them. "I wisht I could only find out where you come from, and what you're calculatin' for me to do. You didn't come for nothin', I make sure of that."

But the guns with all their sleeping possibilities of voice lay still.

MISS APPOLINA'S CHOICE.

BY AGNES LITTLETON.