Chapter I: Front Matter

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VOL. II.--NO. 93. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR CENTS.

Tuesday, August 9, 1881. Copyright, 1881, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50 per Year, in Advance.

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PICNIC SAM.

BY WILL CARLETON.

You youngsters who haven't heard of Picnic Sam,
Just huddle up around here where I am,
And listen sharp while memory wanders to him,
And brings out what he seemed like when I knew him.
He lived in one of those high-stretched affairs
Called tenements, up any amount of stairs;
His room there, when the tired streets he forsook,
Was just what room he crowded in and took.
Though he "lived high," he never had the gout,
And for the most part took his dinners out;
Breakfast and supper were not in his way;
His motto always was, One meal per day;
Or rather, maybe, when you squarely met it,
One meal per day, providing I can get it.
His garments--well, you've stood and looked, perhaps,
At those plump, little, beaming, made-up chaps,
With nobby coats, and smiling painted faces,
The clothing dealer in his window places
(To make _meat_ children envious, I suppose):
Well, Sam wasn't dressed at all like one of those.
Raiment like his no lively lad enjoys;
It had been cut for several different boys;
And, taking garments as they come and go,
He had about one suit--or nearly so.
Still, dry-goods are of life a small-sized part:
A bad coat often hides a first-class heart.
His face suggested, to the casual sight,
A bull-dog's when he's waiting for a fight;
And on it might be traced full many a streak,
As though it were not laundered once a week.
And yet his eyes were handsome, for a fact
(That is, of course, the one that was not blacked,
For he had fighting--more or less--to do);
But his well eye looked rather good and true.

You youngsters, huddle round here where I am--
I'll tell you why they called him Picnic Sam.
This young home heathen had, by day and night,
A regular first-class picnic appetite;
And, with a zeal good children stood in fear of,
Attended every picnic he could hear of.
When Sunday-schools were going to have "a spread,"
He'd always join, a week or two ahead;
And though no "verses" he had ever learned,
Tried to look serious like and deep concerned,
And (if some good boy he was sitting near)
Would answer every question, loud and clear.
'Twas strange, when near the time of feasting came,
How sure a school was to get Samuel's name.
"Why," said a teacher, rather prone to scoff,
"He'll smell a picnic full a fortnight off."
'Twas strange, in different schools he ravaged round in,
What various kinds of classes he'd be found in.
Three times he actually tried to pass
As member of an old folks' Bible class;
And once appeared (rough brick-bat among pearls)
In a small timid infant class of girls!
But in whatever company he came,
His appetite stood by him all the same.
No picnic near, in weather foul or pleasant,
But Sam and stomach managed to be present.
And when, with innocent, unconscious air,
He placed himself at table, firm and square,
With one eye partly closed, the other looking
Intently at the different styles of cooking,
And when, with savage-gleaming knife and fork,
He brought himself down seriously to work,
And marched through every dish in conquering glory,
And ravaged all the adjacent territory,
Making the table for some distance round
Look like a fiercely hard-fought battle-ground,
A smile upon his placid face would fall,
As if life wasn't a failure, after all.

But when the exciting dinner hour was gone,
Sam always felt quite uncalled-for and alone;
Felt snubbed and frozen and made quiet game of--
Slights that he didn't even know the name of,
But which he sensed as keenly (do not doubt it)
As if some foe had told him all about it.
He always felt by that vague feeling haunted
That hangs around folks when they are not wanted.
Because a boy is greedy, dull, and droll,
It needn't follow that he hasn't a soul;
Because his stomach craves more than its part,
It's no sign he was born without a heart;
Though ragged, poor, or coarse, or impolite,
He may resent a wrong or feel a slight.
'Tis dangerous work, this making game of folks,
Thinking, perhaps, they do not heed your jokes.
Don't fool yourself; for, ten to one, they know it,
And feel it worse in laboring not to show it.

Well, on one day particularly fine,
Sam felt himself invited to help dine
In a small grove, green, shady, fresh, and cool,
A recently discovered Sunday-school:
Which, when he'd joined, he'd muttered, "This'll pass;
It's a swell crowd; the board'll be first-class."
And so it was; and for an hour or more
Sam slew things as he never did before.
Wondering, with a gastronomic smile,
Where all these victuals'd been all this long while;
And made the teachers feel a great surprise
That they'd so underrated their supplies;
And in his stomach could not but confess
That life to-day was one good square success.

Then, after dinner, feeling perk and smart,
He tried to make a little social start,
And frisk and frolic round, like any other,
And be accepted as a boy and brother.
But all the children shrank, with scarce-hid loathing,
From a strange lad in such imperfect clothing;
And soon Sam's face a misty sadness wore,
As if to say, "I b'lieve I'm snubbed once more."
He tried to put them under obligations
With street accomplishments and fascinations:
In turning somersaults and hand-springs led,
Whistled and sang, danced, stood upon his head;
Even tried a friendly sparring match, till taken
Right in the act, misunderstood, and shaken
(By the strong mother of the lad he battled),
Till the provisions in him fairly rattled.
But whatsoe'er he did, discreet or bold,
It seemed to drive him further in the cold.

The grove was near a river; on whose brink
Samuel sat down, with lots of time to think,
And watch some light boats swiftly past him go,
With happy children flitting to and fro,
Content to see _him_ safe and dry on land.
And he thought, "No, I ain't much in demand."

Just then a trim young miss came tripping by,
With golden hair, and more than handsome eye;
And Sam remarked, his face full of glad creases,
"That's the smart girl that scooped 'em speakin' pieces;
I wonder if she learned hers like a song,
Or made the speech up as she went along.
She came out first, though last upon the track,
But spoke so long it held the dinner back;
Still, what she said was sweet an' soothin' rather,
'Bout how 'We all are children of one Father.'
If that's so, she's half-sister unto me--
At least I think I'll speak to her, and see."
Then, thinking pleasantly to clear the way,
He shouted, "Miss, this 'ere's a pleasant day."
But she flounced on, more haughty than before;
And Sam remarked, "I b'lieve I'm snubbed once more."

While, roughly sad, the boy sat musing yet,
He heard a shout, "Help! help! our boat's upset!"
And following with his eyes the fear-edged scream,
Sam saw three children struggling in the stream.
And two were rescued; one went 'neath a wave;
The waters closed above her like a grave.
She sank, apparently to rise no more,
While frantic crowds ran up and down the shore,
And, 'mid the turmoil, each one did his best,
Shouting first-class instructions to the rest.
"It's the swell girl," thought Sam, "that's made this row;
I wonder how she likes the weather now.
I'd save her--if it wasn't too much bother--
'Good deeds for evil--children of one Father.'
I rather think she's gone down there to stay;
She can't be _yelled_ up, if they try all day.
Wonder, if I should save her, 'twould be bold.
I've dove for pennies--s'pose I dive for gold."
Then throwing off his coat--what there was of it--
He plunged into the water, rose above it,
Plunged in again, and came once more to air,
Grasping a pretty golden tress of hair,
And a fine, stylish, shapely girl attached,
With pale, sweet face, and lips that with it matched.
He held her up till strong arms came from shore;
And soon she raised her eyes, and lived once more.

But Sam, poor boy, exhausted, choked, and beaten
With the prodigious dinner he had eaten,
Strangled and sank beneath the river's brim;
And no one seemed to care to dive for him.
Indeed, 'twas hard from the cold waves to win him,
With such a large part of the picnic in him;
And when at last he came out with "a haul,"
The school had one dead pupil, after all.

Poor drenched, dead hero!--in his tattered dress
Sam now was a society success.
They crowded round the dead boy as he lay,
And talked about him in a mournful way;
And from the teachers efforts did not lack
To resurrect and bring their scholar back:
They thronged about him, kept from him the air,
Founded him, pumped him, shook him up with care;
But useless was their toil, do all they could:
Sam and his dinner had gone on for good.

Nothing too nice that could be done and said
For this poor fellow--now that he was dead.
His casket was the finest and the best:
He went to his own funeral richly dressed.
They rigged him out in very pretty trim;
A rich, first-class procession followed him,
That reached the farthest distance up and down,
Of any often witnessed in that town;
And all the children, shedding tears half-hid,
Threw evergreens upon Sam's coffin lid.

Now when you're tempted scornfully to smile,
If a poor boy doesn't come up to your style,
Or shrink from him as though perhaps he'll bite you,
Because he has some points that don't delight you,
Or think, because your "set" can do without him,
There's nothing much desirable about him,
Just recollect that squeamishness is sham,
And drop a kind thought on poor Picnic Sam.

LESSON STORIES.

[Written for the Young People's Natural History Society.]

BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.

THE BABY ELEPHANT'S NUT-CRACKER.

I suppose every reader of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE has seen an elephant eat pea-nuts. Of course every boy who goes to a show has pea-nuts in his pocket, because pea-nuts seem somehow to be a part of the show. Sometimes I think they are almost a part of the boy, for that matter. Well, having pea-nuts in one's pocket, and being inside the show, it is quite a matter of course to feed pea-nuts to the elephant. The fun lies in the ridiculous difference of size between the pea-nut and the elephant; it seems in a high degree absurd that so huge a creature should care for so small a thing to eat, and the wonder is that the elephant does not lose the nut somewhere in his great mouth. If he could get pea-nuts by the pint, instead of singly, the wonder would be less.

But how many boys and girls ever saw the baby elephant eat pea-nuts? He does it in a way entirely different from that of his father and mother. He does not like the shells, and so he cracks the nuts as carefully as any boy does, and his method of doing this is as curious as anything about him. I found out his trick by accident one day, when the baby elephant was a very little fellow indeed, weighing not more than five hundred pounds or so. I had taken three boys with me to the show, and of course each of us had a pocket full of pea-nuts. When we came to inspect the baby elephant, we offered him a nut. He took it with the fingers at the end of that wonderful trunk of his, but did not place it in his mouth, as his father or mother would have done. He laid it on the ground instead, and raising one of his great clumsy-looking feet, swept it backward so near the ground as to catch the nut between the foot and the hard earth, cracking it very neatly without crushing it. He knew enough not to step on the nut, and he used his foot so dextrously that a single stroke separated the kernel from the shell. Then he picked up the kernel with his trunk, put it in his mouth, and ate it with as keen a relish as if he had been a boy at recess.

This performance was so entertaining that we repeated it again and again. The elephant was willing enough, and before long all the boys and girls in that part of the show had gathered around us to see the strangely intelligent act. We boys (for I am always a boy when I am with boys at a show) fed Master Baby Elephant all the pea-nuts we had--there was a quart of them distributed among us--and when we got through, others took our places.

We had to go through that show without any pea-nuts to eat, but we had found out how the baby elephant manages to use his great clumsy-looking foot for a nut-cracker.

Now there are two or three things that puzzle me about this matter. I want to know how the baby elephant learned to crack his pea-nuts. Instinct? Well, that is a good word with which to pretend that we explain things that we do not understand, but it will scarcely answer in this case. In their wild state elephants have no boys to give them pea-nuts, and as a matter of fact they have no instinct about pea-nuts. The baby elephant did not learn this from the grown-up elephants, for they do not crack their nuts. I wonder if he imitated some boy whom he saw cracking a nut with his heel.

Another thing I am curious about. Will the baby elephant go on cracking his nuts in this way when he becomes a grown-up elephant? The grown-up elephants do nothing of the kind. If he does not continue the practice, and so become an exceptional fellow, but leaves it off after a while, at what age will he make the change, and why will he change? If he prefers cracked to uncracked nuts one day, why should he prefer the uncracked ones the next day? I wish I could work this puzzle out by going to the show every day, and feeding the baby elephant with pea-nuts until he grows up or changes his way of eating them. Perhaps the members of the Young People's Natural History Society through the country will keep up a series of observations until the matter is settled.

A POISONOUS FOOD-PLANT.

There is a shrub called manioc, or manihot, or cassava, which grows in South America, the West Indies, and Africa. It has a great bulbous root, and it is this root which is interesting. In that species of the plant which is most used the root has a bitter, acrid juice, which is deadly poisonous. The strange part of the matter is that both the root and the poisonous juice are used for food, and probably every boy or girl who reads this has eaten both.

The natives of hot countries dry the root, and make good wholesome bread out of it. It is only the juice which is poisonous or disagreeable in taste. But the juice itself contains a kind of starch, and when the liquid parts of it are evaporated, there remains--what do you think? Why, the tapioca of which your mother makes puddings.

But why isn't tapioca poisonous? Why is Brazilian arrowroot--which is only the manioc root dried and powdered--harmless and nutritive? What becomes of the poison, and how can we be sure that none of it remains in the tapioca or the arrowroot?

Pour a spoonful of alcohol on a plate, and set it in the air or sunshine. Then look for it half an hour afterward. The plate will be dry, and not even a smell of the alcohol will remain. Liquids which evaporate easily and completely in this way are called volatile, and the acid which renders manioc root poisonous is extremely volatile. When the least heat is applied to any mixture containing it, the acid quickly and completely evaporates, and that is the way in which it disappears in the process of making tapioca, or drying the root to make arrowroot of it. There is a small quantity of bitter material in the manioc juice which is removed by washing the tapioca as soon as it is made.

SEA-WEEDS, AND HOW TO PRESERVE THEM.

BY A. W. ROBERTS.

When visiting the sea-shore for the purpose of gathering sea-weeds, or to learn something of their modest and simple lives, it will be noticed that twice in every twenty-four hours the water advances and recedes, affording an opportunity for the collector to follow the beach down to the lowest tide-mark, and thus make sure of some small portion of the beautiful marine vegetation of the wondrous ocean.

The first band or zone of sea-weeds encountered is that of the coarse olive-green sea-weeds commonly called bladder-weed or rock-weed. This alga is easily distinguished by the double series of round air-vessels with which the fronds are studded, and the coarse midrib running up the centre of each frond. On all rocky coasts several varieties of this family of sea-weeds are to be met with. When trodden on, the air-vessels explode with a sharp report; from this fact it has been christened, by young people living on the coast, the snap-weed, to whom it affords much amusement. On this coarse weed, and under its dark and damp masses, in the tide pools and on the rocks on which it grows, are to be found many varieties of our most delicate and beautiful sea-weeds.

After the olive-green zone has been passed, the bright greens, brilliant reds, and purples are reached.

Sea-weeds are rootless plants, and do not derive their support from the earth, as do other plants, but obtain their entire subsistence from the water. The small flat disk to be found on the end of the main branch is only for the purpose of adhering to the rocks, stones, or other objects on which they may be found attached.

I have figured five of the most beautiful types of sea-weeds common on our coast, but they are so learnedly and scientifically named (being without common names), as, for instance, _Polysephonia urceolata_, that I have depended on the simple figures to enlist the reader's interest, and have avoided the discouraging scientific names.

On many of the apple stands in the city of New York may be seen a dark purple-colored substance for sale; this is a sea-weed imported from the coast of Ireland, and is called sloake, or lava. By many it is considered as great a delicacy as pea-nuts. When mounted, it makes a very handsome specimen. The best paper for mounting the sea-weeds is ordinary drawing-paper, cut to a uniform size.

After the specimens have been thoroughly washed, the finest should be separated from the coarser ones, and placed in wide and shallow dishes filled with clean fresh water. Sheets of the drawing-paper are slipped under the specimens, which are arranged in a natural and graceful position as they float over the immersed paper. A camel's-hair brush and a coarse needle, with the assistance of the fingers, are all that are required for the arranging of the sea-weeds on the paper. When the specimen is in proper position, it is slowly and carefully lifted from the water on the drawing-paper, so as to retain the desired position of the sea-weed.

The mounted specimen should be pinned up for a few minutes to allow the water to drip off before placing it in the press. There is no need of fastening the plants to the paper, as most of the sea-weeds are supplied with a glue-like material which fastens them firmly to the paper when in the press drying.

The most simple and cheap sea-weed press that I know of consists of two large boards, as shown in Fig. 1, at AA, and on the lower board (A) are placed layers of blotting-paper with layers of clean-washed pieces of old sheeting. The sheeting and blotting-paper layers are for the purpose of quickly absorbing all moisture from the sea-weeds. As soon as the water has dripped off the mounted specimen, it is carefully laid on two or three thicknesses of blotting-paper; on the face of the sea-weed a piece of the muslin or sheeting is laid; over the sheeting more blotters are placed, and on this second layer of blotters another set of sea-weeds. In this way all the specimens are disposed of, and the top board (AA) is placed; on this a soap box is placed, which is filled with either sand or stones, by means of which the desired pressure is obtained.

For a field press, the most simple form that I know of is shown in Fig. 2, which is made out of two pieces of three-quarter inch stuff, well strengthened with a frame of black walnut, fastened with three screws in each corner. After the sea-weeds are placed in position on one of the boards, the top board is laid on, and the specimens are brought under pressure by means of a stout strap. During the stormy days of next winter, when you are confined to the house, you will find real pleasure in arranging your pretty specimens in an album.

[Begun in No. 92 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, August 2.]

TIM AND TIP;

OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A BOY AND A DOG.

BY JAMES OTIS,

AUTHOR OF "TOBY TYLER," ETC.