Chapter XVII: Betty's Bravery (2)

Although our American cuckoos have not, as a general thing, the bad habits of those of Europe, we have another very common bird which is hatched and brought up by strangers. Every boy who lives in the country knows the cow-bird, cow-blackbird, or cow-bunting, for it is called by all these names. It is a small bird, a little larger than the bobolink and of much the same shape. The male has a dark-brown head and a bright greenish-black back and wings, but the female is so much lighter in color that you would hardly believe that they belong to the same species. These birds are very abundant in the spring and summer, and may be seen in flocks flying and feeding in company with the red-winged blackbirds. They are often found among the cattle and sheep in the pastures and barn-yards, and they derive all of their common names from this habit. Although nearly related to the orioles, which make such wonderful nests, the cow-birds make none at all, but lay their eggs in the nests of other birds, such as the blue-bird, chipping-bird, song-sparrow, yellow-bird, and some thrushes and fly-catchers. Like the cuckoo, this bird usually chooses the nest of a bird much smaller than itself, but as its egg is not small, the deception is at once discovered, and the birds whose nest has been selected for this purpose are very much disturbed. It is necessary for the female cow-bird to find a nest in which the owners have just begun laying, for if the owners have no eggs of their own they will desert the nest, and if their own eggs are somewhat advanced before the cow-bird's egg is laid, their own young will hatch first, and the parents will then leave the nest to hunt for food, thus allowing the cow-bird's egg to become cold and die.

When the female cow-bird is ready to lay her egg, she often has great trouble in discovering a nest at just the right stage. She leaves the flock and perches upon some tree or bush, where she can have a good view of all that is going on. When she discovers a nest by watching the actions of its owners, she waits for an opportunity when both the owners are away, when she approaches it very stealthily, but quickly, keeping a very sharp watch, to be sure that she is not observed. If she finds that the nest is fit for her purpose,--that is, if the birds have laid only a part of their regular number of eggs,--she drops one of her own eggs into it, and then disappears as swiftly and quietly as she came. If she is unable to find a suitable nest in her own vicinity, she goes in search of one, examining every thicket and bush--sometimes for a long distance--until she finds one. A gentleman once followed a cow-bird along the shore of a stream for two miles before she succeeded in finding a nest which satisfied her. Occasionally, two or more cow-birds' eggs are found in the same nest. It is not known whether both of these are laid by the same bird, but it is more probable that in such a case as this two cow-birds have visited the same nest.

The egg of the cow-bird has one interesting and important peculiarity. It is necessary, as we have seen, that this should be hatched before the other eggs; for if it were not, the old birds would stop sitting and allow it to become cold as soon as their own young were hatched. This danger, however, has been provided against, since the egg of the cow-bird needs only eight or nine days of incubation, while the eggs of those birds in whose nests it is usually found require from twelve to fifteen days. A short time after the young cow-bird is hatched, all the other eggs disappear, and they may sometimes be found on the ground, broken, at a considerable distance from the nest,--so far away that the young cow-bird could not possibly have thrown them there. The way in which they are removed from the nest is not known, as no one has yet watched closely enough to say whether the parents themselves destroy them, or whether the female cow-bird returns to the nest and removes them, to give more room for her own young when hatched.

I have already said that the smaller birds are very much disturbed and troubled when they find one of these eggs in their nest, and are very apt to desert it and go to another place if they have not yet any eggs of their own. Our common yellow-bird, however, is sometimes wise enough to find a better way out of its trouble. It values its neatly finished nest too highly to desert it, and it is not strong enough to lift the big egg and throw it over the edge, so it gathers a new supply of hay and hair, and makes a false bottom to cover up the egg. Then it makes a new lining to the nest, and lays its own eggs upon that, so that the cow-bird's egg does not receive any of the warmth from its body, and never hatches.

I have given you several reasons for believing that birds are able to think for themselves; but I do not see how anything could prove this more clearly than this expedient of the yellow-bird for saving its young from destruction by preventing the hatching of the cow-bird's egg.

Before leaving the subject of birds'-nests, I must say a few words about the immense number of birds which sometimes gather in one place for the purpose of raising their young. The enormous flocks of wild pigeons, which from time to time visit certain parts of the United States, have a definite portion of the woods, often several miles in extent, where they gather every night. This is called the "roost," and here they build their nests and rear their young. There are so many at these roosts that it is not always safe to go under the trees, for large branches are often broken off by the weight of the birds and their nests.

If you wish to know more about these pigeon-roosts, you will find long accounts of them in the books about birds, by those two celebrated men, Wilson and Audubon. Audubon's account of a roost which he visited in Kentucky is very interesting and well worth your reading. It is printed in the first volume of his "Ornithological Biography," and also, I believe, in the "Life of Audubon, the Naturalist."

In these books, and in the other works of Audubon and Wilson, you will also find much instructive and entertaining information in regard to all of our common birds. Most of our sea-birds are very wild, as they are much hunted by man, and on this account they build their nests and rear their young on inaccessible and uninhabited rocky islands, and the number of sea-birds which gather upon these islands during the breeding season is almost beyond belief; but the following account of Ailsa Craig, by Nathaniel P. Rodgers (the "Craig" is a rocky island on the west of Scotland), will give some idea of their abundance at such places:

It was a naked rock, rising nine hundred and eighty feet abruptly
out of the sea. A little level space projected on one side, with a
small house on it. We could not conjecture the use of a habitation
there. The captain of the steamer said it was the _governor's_
house. We asked him what a governor could do there.

"Take care of the birds," he replied.

"What sort of birds?" we asked him.

"Sea-fowl of all sorts," he said. "They inhabit the Craig, and ye'll
may be see numbers of them. They are quite numerous, and people have
been in the habit of firing to alarm the birds, to see them fly."

He ordered his boy to bring the musket. The boy returned, and said
it had been left behind at Glasgow.

"Load up the swivel, then," said the captain; "it will be all the
better. It will make quite a flight, ye'll find. Load her up pretty
well."

The steamer meanwhile kept nearing the giant craig, which was a bare
rock from summit to the sea. We saw caves in the sides of the
mountain. We had got so near as to see the white birds flitting
across the black entrances of the caverns like bees about a hive.
With the spy-glass we could see them distinctly, and in very
considerable numbers, and at length approached so that we could see
them on the ledges all over the sides of the mountain.

We had passed the skirt of the Craig, and were within half a mile,
or less, of its base. With the glass we could now see the entire
mountain-side peopled with the sea-fowl, and could hear their
whimpering, household cry, as they moved about, or nestled in
domestic snugness on the ten thousand ledges. The air, too, about
the precipices seemed to be alive with them. Still we had not the
slightest conception of their frightful multitude. We got about
against the center of the mountain when the swivel was fired, with
a reverberation like the discharge of a hundred cannon, and what a
sight followed! They rose up from that mountain--the countless
millions and millions of sea-birds--in a universal, overwhelming
cloud, that covered the whole heavens, and their cry was like the
cry of an alarmed nation. Up they went,--millions upon
millions,--ascending like the smoke of a furnace,--countless as the
sands on the sea-shore,--awful, dreadful for multitude, as if the
whole mountain were dissolving into life and light; and, with an
unearthly kind of lament, took up their lines of flight in every
direction off to sea! The sight startled the people on board the
steamer, who had often witnessed it before, and for some minutes
there ensued a general silence. For our own part, we were quite
amazed and overawed at the spectacle. We had seen nothing like it
before. We had never witnessed sublimity to be compared to that
rising of sea-birds from Ailsa Craig. They were of countless
varieties in kind and size, from the largest goose to the small
marsh-bird, and of every conceivable variety of dismal note. Off
they moved, in wild and alarmed rout, like a people going into
exile; filling the air, far and wide, with their reproachful lament
at the wanton cruelty which had driven them away.

This is only one of these breeding-places, but most of the rocky, inaccessible cliffs and uninhabited islands of the northern and southern shores of both continents are visited, at certain seasons, by sea-birds in equally great numbers.

No subject connected with the history of birds furnishes more interesting material for study than that of instinct. Young birds of different species show that they have very different degrees of instinctive knowledge. Some are able to take the entire care of themselves, and do not need a mother to watch over them; others, on the contrary, are perfectly helpless, and need teaching before they can do anything for themselves, except breathe, and swallow what is put into their mouths. The young chicken, a short time after it leaves the egg, knows how to take care of itself nearly as well as the young mound-bird. It can run after its mother, use its eyes, pick up food, and answer the call of the old hen; and it does all this without instruction. How different it is in all these respects from the young barn-swallow! This is blind, and unable to run, or even to stand, knowing only enough to open its mouth when it hears the old bird return to the nest, and to swallow the food placed in its open bill. Far from knowing by instinct how to use its wings, as the young chick does its legs, it does not learn this until it is well grown, and has had several lessons in flying; and even then it flies badly, and improves only after long practice. After it has learned to fly, it is still very helpless and baby-like, and very different from the active, bright-eyed, independent little chick of the barn-yard; and, indeed, the young of all the _Rasores_, or scratching birds, such as the hen, the quail, the partridge, the pheasant and the turkey. In the admirable picture of an English pheasant and its brood, on page 610, you will see how very much like young chicks the young pheasants are.

The scratching birds are not the only ones which can take care of themselves at an early age. This is true of the running birds, such as the ostrich; and the same is the case with many of the wading birds, such as the woodcock; and among the swimming birds, there are several kinds that take full care of themselves soon after leaving the shell.

In the picture on the preceding page you have a pair of mallard ducks with three young ones, which are all able to swim and dive as well as their parents. You all know that, far from standing in need of instruction, young ducks take to the water by instinct, even when they have been brought up by a hen; and they know that they are perfectly safe upon it, although the anxious hen tries in every way to restrain them and to call them back. There are many ways in which some of our young birds show their really wonderful instincts, but there is nothing more curious in this respect than the habits of the little chickens, which most of us have opportunities of noticing,--if we choose to take the trouble. These little creatures, almost as soon as they are born, understand what their mother "clucks" to them; they know that they must hide when a hawk is about; they often scratch the ground for food before they see their mother or any other chicken do so; they are careful not to catch bees instead of flies; and they show their early smartness in many ways which are well worth watching.

But, sometimes, a brood of these youngsters find something that puzzles them, as when they meet with a hard-shelled beetle, who looks too big to eat and yet too small for a playmate.

RAIN.

BY EDGAR FAWCETT.

Oh, the Rain has many fitful moods
Ere the merry summer closes,--
From the first chirp of the robin-broods
To the ruin of the roses!

Through the sunshine's gold her glitter steals,
In the doubtful April weather,
When the world seems trying how it feels
To be sad and glad together.

Now and then, on quiet sultry eves,
From her low persistent patter,
She would seem confiding to the leaves
An extremely solemn matter.

Then, again, you see her from the sky
Such a mighty flood unfolding,
That you wonder if Old Earth knows why
It receives so hard a scolding!

Yet we learn to fancy, day by day,
As we watch her softly shining,
That she has no cloud, however gray,
But it wears a silver lining!

For in autumn, though with tears she tells
How the lands grow sad and darken,
Yet in spring her drops are tinkling bells
For the sleeping flowers to hearken!

And her tinted bow seems Love's own proof,
As it gleams with colors seven,--
Like a stately dome upon the roof
Of her palace, high in heaven!

SNEEZE DODSON'S FIRST INDEPENDENCE DAY.

BY MRS. M.H.W. JAQUITH.

The usually quiet town of Greenville was in a hurly-burly of excitement on this Fourth of July morning, because of the great Sunday-school picnic, which was to take place on a fine ground, two miles distant. In the fervor of patriotism and the bustle of preparing for the picnic-celebration, almost every house in the village resounded with shouts and noises; and all the children were on the tip-toe of expectation and delight. Deacon Ebenezer Dodson sat in the arm-chair in the "spare room," staring out of the window, and trying to think up the speech he was to make that day. For he had been chosen by the town-committee to open the exercises upon the stand with an appropriate oration; and though he had mused and muttered and studied over it, from the day when he was first requested to "perform" until this eventful morning itself, he had not yet succeeded in composing a speech which satisfied him.

"The flies bother the horses so, I can't practice on it in the field, and my only chance is o' nights," he had often explained to his wife; but his nightly meditations on it had been disturbed by such foreign remarks as this:

"I say, Eb" (that was her family name for him; away from home she always said "Deacon"), "you haint gone off to sleep, be you? I should feel masterly cut up ef my cake should be heavy, an' everybody on the grounds will know it's mine from the marks o' my name I'm goin' to put on the frostin',"--by which she meant her initials done in red, white, and blue powdered sugar.

And again:

"Do you remember Mis' Deacon Pogue's pound-cake at the d'nation party las' winter? She'd bragged on it to every livin' soul, an', when they came to cut it, there was a solid streak of dough right through the middle from eend to eend. She didn't happin to be 'round when 'twas cut, an' I thought it was my duty to let her see a piece, so she'd know how to better it next time, and she was so mad, she's turned up her nose at me ever sence."

The Deacon here murmured something beginning "Ninthly," for he had arranged his speech in heads; but she kept on with such inspiring memories, that he had poor chance to get up that "Speech by Deacon Dodson," the sight of which legend on the printed programme had aroused in him a fixed determination to do or die. But it seemed to him, as he sat there, that it would be die; for not one "head" could he call up clearly, and ever and anon his wife would cry out for wood or water, or to state some fact concerning her cake or chickens.

Just now her rusk was the all-absorbing topic of thought. More than twenty times she had looked at the dough and reported its "rise" to the unsympathetic Deacon, who was pumping his arms up and down, and trying to disentangle his "firstly" and "secondly."

"The procession is going to form at nine o'clock punctial, and march to the grounds, and so there's no use of dressing Bubby twice," Mrs. Dodson had said, so that youth of three summers was wandering around in his night-gown, and had taken so active an interest in the proceedings that Mrs. Dodson had several times sent him to his father, complaining, "I never did see him so upstroferlous before."

Sneeze--so called because he was named for his father, and it was necessary to distinguish them--was hurried in from the barn; his ears were boxed for "not bein' 'round to take care of Bubby," and then he was sent with him to the barn.

Deacon had been duly badgered and pestered about household troubles. He had helped to put on Bubby's shoes--now far too small--and tried to hook Mrs. Dodson's dress--similarly outgrown. But he was at length exasperated into saying:

"By George! I can't think of a word of my speech, you bother me so!"

"You fairly make my blood run cold to be sayin' sech words as that on this Fourth o' July mornin', which you always said was nex' door to swearin'!" replied his wife; but her stream of talk was frozen up for the time, and they were at length dressed, packed, and rattling over the stony hills in a lumber-wagon.

"Wal, this seems quite like Independence Day," she said musingly. "I remember once goin' to a reg'lar picnic when I was about the bigness of Sneeze there, an' we had an awful good time. Mother'd plegged herself to git up somethin' that nobody else'd have, an' finally she made a lot o' figger four doughnuts to stand for Fourth o' July, you know, an' Aunt Jane, she that was a Green, Uncle Josiah's first wife, was kind o' jealous 'cause people noticed them more'n her cookin', an' she said they was shortened with toughening till nobody couldn't eat 'em. It come right straight back to mother, an' they never spoke for better'n a year--no, 'twas just a year, come to think, for mother took sick in bed very nex' Fourth, an' then Aunt Jane confessed humble enough, and they made up."

Sneeze had been listening, and while his mother paused for breath, he asked, "What do we keep Fourth of July for, an' what makes 'em call it Independence Day? I heard Reub Blake say that was the true name of it."

"Why, Sneeze, I'm 'shamed of you that you don't know that much. It is because George Washington was born on that day, or died; which was it, father? An' he fought for our independence. Besides, he never told a lie, as it tells about in the spellin'-book."

"Yes, it was something of that natur'," said the Deacon; "you'll know all about it to-day when we come to speak and make our orations."

"Yes, Sneeze, an' Cynthia Ann, your father is goin' to be a speaker on the stage; but you mus'n't feel set-up over the other girls an' boys whose fathers an' mothers aint app'inted as speakers an' on the table committee. You must listen to what father says."

They promised faithfully, and this is what Sneeze would have heard if he had kept his pledge; but to tell the truth, he was at that time going around with another boy looking into the baskets, and speculating on the length of time before dinner.

"Deacon Ebenezer Dodson, the first speaker on the programme, will now address the assembly," announced the chairman in a stentorian voice, after the procession had formed, marched, settled down, and were ready for the "exercises of the day." The Deacon stepped forward, and, with very evident shaking of the knees, with coughs and ahems, glancing to the right of him and to the left of him, to the heavens above and the earth beneath, with trembling voice he began:

"Firstly, my friends and fellow-citizens of this great country, this institution which we have come here to celebrate was instituted a great many hundred years ago,--leastways, if not quite so long, since this institution was instituted all men are free and equal"--(a long pause); "and since this institution was instituted in this great country, we have Sunday-schools and can go to church." Another pause.

"Secondly, little children, friends and fellow-citizens of this great country, let us all use rightly and not abuse the advantages of this institution which has been instituted for us, and go to church and Sunday-school, and--and--I see Deacon Pogue is waiting to make some remarks, and my friends and fellow-citizens of this great country, I will detain you no longer to dwell upon this institution, which was instituted to--to--" Here somebody benevolently thought to cheer, and the "Hip, hip, hurrahs!" were taken up so lustily by the small boys, that the magnetic sound warmed the Deacon into "Thirdly;" but Deacon Pogue had stepped briskly forward, and so with a bow, and "Good-by, my friends and fellow-citizens of this great country," he descended to his delighted wife, who received him with many proud and joyful congratulations.

Deacon Pogue was more ready and noisy, but spoke quite as much to the point as Deacon Dodson. He was followed by several others, none of whom could be omitted without giving offense, and at length, with a great flourish, the chairman announced "_The_ orator of the day, Captain Buzwell, from Thornton, who has kindly consented to honor us," etc.

He was a lawyer with a gift of tongues, and his first few words brought all the hitherto indifferent assembly quietly near the stand. After a few well-put anecdotes, he said: "But to come back to the subject in hand: one of your eloquent speakers has called this Fourth of July an 'institution.' That was a novel and happy idea. It is an 'institution,' and upon it are founded all of our institutions,--free schools, free religion, free speech, free press, free ballots, free action: freedom everywhere for all men free and equal is founded on this glorious 'institution,' the corner-stone of which was laid Fourth of July, 1776."

At this point so great was Mrs. Dodson's conjugal pride, and so fearful was she that her husband was not attending to the speaker's flattery, that she poked him with her parasol till the Deacon was "fain to cry out," as Bunyan says. When quiet was restored, the speaker continued:

"Another gifted orator has said,"--and, quoting something from Deacon Pogue's pointless remarks, he made them also seem full of meaning; and so on through the list of "distinguished speakers," till each one felt that he himself had spoken most effectively.

Having thus pleased and interested all parties, he followed with an instructive, historical speech, to which Sneeze, doughnut and cheese in hand, listened so intently, that he found out at last "why they kept Fourth of July."

After the speech and "appropriate instrumental music by the band," which consisted of a drum and a bass-viol, the people dispersed to amuse themselves as they saw fit, till dinner should be announced.

Mrs. Dodson, as "Table Committee," was disposed to magnify her office. She kept the Deacon standing guard over her basket till nearly all the rest were emptied, having reserved conspicuous places on the table for her goodies. Taking advantage of her rival's presence, smiling sweetly, she said as she opened the basket, "Mis' Pogue, your vittles look so nice, I'm real 'shamed to bring mine out at all."

"But all the while I knew she was proud as Lucifer over 'em, and thought she'd throw me quite in the shade," Mrs. Pogue told her next neighbor that afternoon. "Her big cards of rusk did look nice, but her mince-pies had slipped over into the custards, and they had dripped onto her cake so it looked just awful! and that red-headed Sneeze had squeezed her jelly-cake into flap-jacks, most likely by settin' on the basket. I never see anybody so cut up in my life; her face was redder than a beet."

And Mrs. Dodson said to the Deacon that night, "I did feel despritly morterfied over my squashed vittles, with Mis' Pogue a-lookin' on with all her eyes."

But when "the orator of the day" ate of her rusk, and said, "Mrs. Dodson, these rusk have a peculiar taste, just such as those my dead mother used to make for me when I was a boy, and I want you to give me the recipe for my wife," and he took it down in his note-book, there was full compensation for all her trials.

When all had eaten all they could, the young folk and children swung, played ball, or "chased the squirrel" with the delightful penalty of kissing it when caught, or rambled about at will, while the mothers gathered the dishes together, and exchanged recipes and confidential remarks on somebody's cookin'.

By four o'clock the babies were fretful; children of Bubby's age complained that their shoes and clothes were too tight; somebody suggested going home. In vain the young people protested--an hour from that time the grounds were deserted; the lumber of the stage, made sacred by such oratory, had been gathered up with the seats and tables, and where so much of life had been, all was silence.

A neighbor's hired man was riding home with the Dodsons, but as Mrs. Dodson did not mind him, she at once began to congratulate her husband on his maiden speech. "Cappen Buzwell said you made the best oration there was made to-day, Deacon. Did you pay 'tention, Sneeze, an' hear what he said 'bout your father's speakin'?"

The Deacon modestly put in a faint, "Now, mother, don't," but she interrupted him: "Yis I shall, for it's so, father, an' I'm goin' to say my say. Besides, he told me, with tears in his eyes, that my rusk tasted just like his dead mother's. But ef you'd only seen him tryin' to eat one o' Mis' Pogue's doughnuts as if they was real good, when I could see they was half chokin' of him!"

"That there man from town did make a purty considerable speech," said the Deacon; "not so hefty as some I've heard, but real instructing. It made me feel as though I wanted to fight somebody--purty much as I used to when I was a boy, and heard my father tell how he fit in the war of eighteen hundred and twelve, and his grandsir in the Revolutionary war."

"I guess you wasn't in any o' them wars?" stated the hired man, inquiringly.

"No; I wasn't born then, and o' course I couldn't; but my father used to tell us about it on trainin'-day nights. Trainin'-day was a great time, with its uniforms and feathers; my father was a sarjint, and we had gingerbread and federal cake."

"Well," burst out Sneeze, "if ever I get a chance I'm goin' to be a soldier, an' fight for my country, as George Washington did. I just wish we'd have trainin'-day now, and that Fourth of July came every day. Then, too, when I'm a man, I'm goin' to marry Eliza Johnson, for she--"

"Shut up, Sneeze!" put in Mrs. Dodson. "Little boys like you ought to be seen and not heard; when your parents make speeches and rusk at Fourth o' July celebrations that them that was good judges says was most interestin', you had ought to be listenin' to their talkin' and learnin' o' them. Here's Bubby a tunin' for somethin' to eat; give him one of them rusk out of the basket, an' stop your nonsense."

Sneeze's face was as red as his hair, and not another word did he say; but his dreams that night were a mixture of feathers, soldiers and pound-cake, Eliza Johnson, mother and speeches, and thus ended his first memorable Independence Day.

MEADOW TALK.

BY CAROLINE LESLIE.

A bumble-bee, yellow as gold,
Sat perched on a red-clover top,
When a grasshopper, wiry and old,
Came along with a skip and a hop.
"Good-morrow!" cried he, "Mr. Bumble-Bee!
You seem to have come to a stop."

"We people that work,"
Said the bee with a jerk,
"Find a benefit sometimes in stopping;
Only insects like you,
Who have nothing to do,
Can keep up a perpetual hopping."

The grasshopper paused on his way,
And thoughtfully hunched up his knees;
"Why trouble this sunshiny day,"
Quoth he, "with reflections like these?
I follow the trade for which I was made;
We all can't be wise bumble-bees.

"There's a time to be sad,
And a time to be glad;
A time both for working and stopping;
For men to make money,
For you to make honey,
And for me to do nothing but hopping."

A BOY'S EXPERIENCE WITH TAR MARBLES.

BY C.S.N.

Almost all boys, at some period of their lives, devote their spare time to playing with marbles, and I certainly was not unlike other boys in this respect. My fondness for marbles began very early, and when I was about seven years old led me into a curious experience, which I am about to relate. A great rivalry for acquiring marbles had suddenly arisen at that time among the boys of the town, and to possess as many of the little round beauties as my oldest brother owned, soon became the desire of my heart and the height of my ambition.

I had already obtained a large number, when one day I overheard my oldest brother telling one of his schoolmates that he had made the important discovery that marbles could be formed from coal-tar, of which there was a large quantity on a certain street in a distant part of the town. He did not condescend to explain the process of manufacture, but he showed the marbles he had made,--black, round, and glossy. The sight inspired me with ardent desire to possess an unlimited quantity.

My brother told me just where the coveted treasure was to be found, and, in the afternoon, I started off, without confiding to any one my intention, to find the spot and lay in a supply of the raw material, which I could convert into marbles at my leisure. Delightful visions of bags filled with treasure, dancing through my brain, hastened the rate of my speed almost to a run, before I arrived at the goal of my hopes. It was a very hot July afternoon, and I was in a violent heat; but the sight of the heaps of coal-tar put all thoughts of anything unpleasant quite out of my head; it caused me to forget also that I had on a suit of new clothes, of which I had been cautioned by my mother to be extremely careful.

I need hardly remark that I was not very well acquainted with the substance I was handling, and my only idea of its qualities was, that it could be molded into any shape I pleased. I was not aware that it has all the qualities of ordinary tar,--melts with heat, and becomes the toughest, stickiest, most unmanageable of substances with which a small boy can come into contact.

I fell to work to collect what I wanted to carry home. I filled the pockets of my pantaloons, and of my jacket, and lastly, when these were stuffed to their utmost capacity, I filled the crown of my hat so full that it would hardly go on my head. The place was at some distance from my home, and I did not wish to have to return immediately for more.

With a heart filled with triumph, I started off toward home. By this time I began to realize that the weather was not cool. It had been a long walk, and I was pretty tired, but I was also in a great hurry to begin making marbles, so I walked as fast as I could. After a little time I began to be sensible of a disagreeable feeling of stickiness about my waist, and a slight trickling sensation in the region of the knees.

A cloud not bigger than a man's hand flitted across my horizon,--perhaps coal-tar _might_ melt?

I resolved to ascertain; and, like the famous old woman with her "yard of black pudding," I very soon found it was much easier to obtain what I wanted, than to know what to do with it when I had it. A very slight inspection of my pockets satisfied me that coal-tar was capable of becoming liquid, and, if I needed further evidence, the sable rivulets that began to meander down the sides of my face gave ample corroboration of the fact. I tried to take off my hat, but it would not come.

I looked down at my new trousers with feelings of dismay. Ominous spots of a dismal hue were certainly growing larger. I tried to get the tar out of my pockets, but only succeeded in covering my hands with the black, unmanageable stuff, which at that moment I regarded as one of those inventions of the devil, to entrap little boys, of which I had often been warned, but to which I had given no heed. If it was a trap, I was certainly _caught_; there was no doubt of that. But I was not without some pluck, and in my case, as in that of many another brave, my courage in facing the present calamity was aided by my fear of another still more to be dreaded.

That I should get a whipping for spoiling my new suit, if I could not manage to get the tar off, I was quite certain, and I had had no permission to go from home, and on the whole the outlook was not cheerful in that direction. Quite driven to desperation, I seated myself on the ground, and tried to scrape off the black spots, which had now extended to formidable dimensions; while I could feel small streams coming down inside of the collar of my shirt, and causing rather singular suggestions of a rope around my neck. My labor was all in vain. I got a good deal off, but there seemed to be an inexhaustible quantity _on_. I gave it up in despair, and burst into uncontrollable sobs. The flow of tears thinned the lava-like fluid, and it now resembled ink, which covered my face like a veil; but in the extremity of my anguish a hope dawned upon me. I found that I could wipe off with my hand this thinner solution, and if water would do it, water was plenty, and I would wash it off. A cousin of mine lived not very far off, and I knew that in the yard of her house there was a pump. Inspired by this idea, I set off at a run, and did not slacken my pace until I reached the spot. Here another difficulty met me. I could not reach the handle of the pump so as to get the benefit of the stream from its mouth, and it was only a complete shower-bath that would restore me to respectability. I set to work to find a rope, and fastened together quite a complicated piece of machinery, as I thought, by which I managed to pump the ice-cold water upon my devoted head. The effect was not as immediate as I had hoped. But I had faith if a little was good, more must be better. Creak--creak--creak--went the pump-handle, which did more work that afternoon than in half a dozen days' washing.

Creak--creak--creak! But the tar only became harder and harder, until I was encased in sheet-armor, like the famous Black Knight. Presently, my cousin Jenny, an especial friend of mine, hearing such continual pumping, and becoming anxious for the family supply of water, came out to see what was the matter. Seeing a small figure curled up under the spout of the pump, drenched to the skin and black as Othello, she stooped down to investigate the phenomenon. Oh, what was my despair when she discovered who it was, and in what plight!

To say she laughed would be to give a feeble idea of the peals of laughter that succeeded each other as she stood and looked at me. She would try to control her merriment for a moment, only to break forth afresh, until she was obliged to sit down from sheer exhaustion. Every time she glanced at my woe-begone countenance, and drenched condition, she would go into fresh convulsions of fun. At last she recovered breath enough to inquire into my case, and to assure me she would do what she could for me; but she soon found, to my despair, that what she could do was not much to my relief. The clothes could not be got off, and certainly they could never be got clean. She did manage, with a strong pair of shears, to cut off the pockets in my breeches, and then, fearing my mother would be alarmed, she bade me go home, and she would promise to secure me against a whipping.

I fancy she thought this last promise would be easily kept.

Somewhat comforted, I took up my line of march toward the paternal roof, but, as I went along, my heart began to sink again; visions of a rod, with which my not too saintly character had made me somewhat familiar, loomed up before me; but worse than all, the thought of my brother's ridicule made my sensitive spirit quail. I thought I would evade all for that night, however, by going quietly up the back stairs, going to bed, and "playing sick." Fortune favored me. I reached the bedroom without being seen; and, just as I was, with my hat on, for it could only have come off with my scalp, I got into bed, and covered myself entirely up with the bed-clothes. It was now dusk, and I felt for the moment quite safe. Presently my aunt came into the room to get something for which she was looking, and I could hear her give several inquiring sniffs, and as she went out I heard her say: "I certainly do smell tar; where can it come from?" An interval of peace followed, and then in came my mother. "Tar? Smell tar? Of course you do; it's strong enough in this room. Bring a light."

It was the sound of doom!

My mother soon came close up to the bed, and held the light so that it fell full upon me as she tried to turn down the bed-clothing. Probably, if it had not been for several previous scrapes in which I had been involved, she would have been much frightened; but as it was, the sight of her young blackamoor had much the same effect upon her as upon my cousin. Her exclamations and shrieks of laughter brought every member of the household successively to the room, and as one after another came in, fresh zest seemed to be given to the merriment of which I was the unfortunate victim.

But every renewal of the fun was an added agony to me, for I clearly foresaw that it would be rehearsed by Jack and Tom to all the boys in the neighborhood. Beside this, I was not in a condition to be hilarious. Plastered with tar from head to foot; streaming with perspiration at every pore; my clothes drenched; my hair matted together, and my straw hat, soaked with water, fastened upon it, and falling limp and wet about my eyes; I was not rendered more comfortable by the fact that I could not move without taking pillow and bed-clothes with me, as, in my desperate desire to conceal myself from view, I had become enwrapped in the bed-clothing like a caterpillar in its chrysalis; and I was conscious of a dim fear that if I sat up, with the pillow stuck fast on the top of my hat, the sight of me might produce fatal results upon the already exhausted family.

At last the point was reached where I thought patience ceased to be a virtue, and I rebelled against being any longer made a spectacle.

I declared if they would all go away but mother, I would tell her all about it. The crowd retired, commissioned to send up a crock of butter, a tub of hot water, and a pair of shears. Maternal love is strong, but I doubt if it was often put to a severer test of its long-suffering than was that of my mother that night.

Suffice it to say that, after my clothes had been cut to ribbons, the sheets torn up, my head well-nigh shaved, and my whole person subjected first to an African bath of melted butter, and afterward to one of hot soap-suds, I had had my fill of bathing for one day, and was, shortly before midnight, pronounced to be tolerably clean.

P.S.--I never made any marbles of coal-tar.

DAB KINZER: A STORY OF A GROWING BOY

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.