Chapter VIII (1)

A little ceremony grave,
A little struggle to be brave,
A little cottage on a lawn,
A little kiss--my girl was gone!

* * * * *

MARS, THE PLANET OF WAR.

BY RICHARD A. PROCTOR.

Not long ago, the planet Jupiter came among the stars of our southern evening skies. Those who noted down his track found that he first advanced from west to east, then receded along a track near his advancing one, then advanced again, still running on a track side by side with his former advancing track, and so passed away from the scene, toward the part of the sky where the sun's light prevents our tracking him.

That was a useful and rather easy first lesson about the motions of the bodies called planets.

We have now to consider a rather less simple case, but one a great deal more interesting. Two planets intrude among our evening stars, each following a looped track, but the tracks are unlike; the two planets are unlike in appearance, and they are also very unlike in reality.

I hope many of my young readers have already found out for themselves that these intrusive bodies have been wandering among our fixed stars. I purposely said nothing about the visitors last August, so that those who try to learn the star-groups from my maps may have had a chance of discovering the two planets for themselves. If they have done so, they have in fact repeated a discovery which was made many, many years ago. Ages before astronomy began to be a science, men found out that some of the stars move about among the rest, and they also noticed the kind of path traveled in the sky by each of those moving bodies. It was long, indeed, before they found out the kind of path traveled _really_ by the planets. In fact, they supposed our earth to be fixed; and if our earth were fixed, the paths of the planets about her as a center would be twisted and tangled in the most perplexing way. So that folks in those old times, seeing the planets making all manner of loops and twistings round the sky, and supposing they made corresponding loops and twistings in traveling round the earth, thought the planets were living creatures, going round the earth to watch it and rule over it, each according to his own fashion. So they worshiped the planets as gods, counting seven of them, including the sun and moon. Some they thought good to men, others evil. The two planets now twisting their way along the southern skies were two of the evil sort, viz.: Mars, called the Lesser Infortune, and Saturn, called the Greater Infortune. In the old system of star-worship, Mars ruled over Tuesday, and Saturn over Saturday,--the Sabbath of olden times,--a day which the Chaldean and Egyptian astrologers regarded as the most unlucky in the whole week.

The actual paths traveled among the stars by these two planets, this fall, are shown in Fig. 1. You will see how wildly the fiery Mars, the planet of war, careers round his great loop, while old Saturn, "heavy, dull, and slow" (as Armado says that lead is--the metal dedicated to Saturn), plods slowly and wearily along. Between August 6 and October 1, Mars traversed his entire backward track,--Saturn, you notice, only a small portion of his much smaller loop. On the sky, too, you will see that while Mars shines with a fierce ruddy glow, well suited to his warlike character, Saturn shines with a dull yellow light, suggestive of the evil qualities which the astrologers of old assigned to him. "My loking," says Saturn, in Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales," "is the fader of pestilence:

"Min ben also the maladies colde,
The derke treasons, and the costes olde;
Min is the drenching in the see so wan,
Min is the prison in the derke cote,[1]
Min is the strangel and hanging by the throte,
The murmure, and the cherles[2] rebelling,
The groyning and the prine empoysoning."

[Footnote 1: _Dark or gloomy coast_. This line was amusingly
rendered, by the printer of my "Saturn and its System," in which I
quoted Chaucer's lines, "Mine is the prison, and the dirty coat."]

[Footnote 2: _Churl's._ Notice this word. It is the same as the
word rendered _Charles's_ in the common English name for the
Dipper. One should always say Charles's Wain, not Charles' (as is
the way Tennyson does in the "May Queen ").]

For the present, however, let us consider the planet Mars, leaving slow Saturn to wait for us another month.

It has always seemed to me one of the most useful lessons in astronomy to follow the line by which, long ago, great discoveries were made. Thus, if the young reader went out on every fine night and noted the changing position of Mars, he traced out the track shown in Fig. 1. He noted, also, that the planet, which shone at its brightest about September 5, gradually grew less and less bright as it traveled off, after rounding the station near October 5 (really on Oct. 7), toward the east. He observed, then, that the seeming loop followed by the planet was a real looped track (so far, at least, as our observer on the earth was concerned). Fig. 2 shows the apparent shape of Mars's loop, the dates corresponding to those shown in Fig. 1. Only it does not lie flat, as shown on the paper, but must be supposed to lie somewhat under the surface of the paper, as shown by the little upright _a, b,_ which, indeed, gives the distance under the paper at which the part of the loop is supposed to lie where lowest at _m_. The other similar uprights at M_1, M_2, and M_3 show the depression at these places. You perceive that the part M_1, M_2, lies higher than the part M_2, M_3. If the loop were flat, and, like E, the earth, were in the level of the paper, it would be seen edgewise, and the advancing, receding, and advancing parts of the planet's course would all lie on the same line upon the sky. But being thus out of the level, we see through the loop, so to speak, and it has the seeming shape shown in Fig. 1.[3]

[Footnote 3: I must re-mention that though this explanation is
made as simple as I possibly can make it, so far as words are
concerned, the figures present the result of an exact geometrical
investigation. Every dot, for instance, in Fig. 2, has had its
place separately determined by me.]

This is one loop, you will understand, out of an immense number which Mars makes in journeying round the earth, regarded as fixed. He retreats to a great distance, swoops inward again toward the earth, making a loop as in Fig. 2, and retreating again. Then he comes again, makes another swoop, and a loop on another side, and so on. He behaves, in fact, like that "little quiver fellow," a right martialist, no doubt, who, as Justice Shallow tells us, "would about and about, and come you in, and come you in,--and away again would a go, and again would a come." The loops are not all of the same size. The one shown in Fig. 2 is one of the smallest. I have before me a picture which I have made of all this planet's loops from 1875 to 1892, and it forms the most curiously intertwined set of curves you can imagine,--rather pretty, though not regular, the loops on one side being much larger than those on the other. I would show the picture here, but it is too large. One of these days, it will be given in a book I am going to write about Mars, who is quite important enough to have a book all to himself. I want you, now, to understand me that Mars really does travel in a most complicated path, when you consider the earth as at rest. If a perfect picture of all his loopings and twistings since astronomy began could be drawn,--even on a sheet of paper as large as the floor of a room,--the curves would so interlace that you would not be able to track them out, but be always leaving the true track and getting upon one crossing it slightly aslant,--just like the lines by which trains are made to run easily off one track on to another.

The unfortunate astronomers of old times, who had to explain, _if they could_, this complicated behavior of Mars (and of other planets, too), were quite beaten. The more carefully they made their observations, the more peculiar the motions seemed. One astronomer gave up the work in despair, just like that unfortunate Greek philosopher who, because he could not understand the tides of the Euboean Sea, drowned himself in it. So this astronomer, who was a king,--Alphonsus of Portugal,--unable to unravel the loops of the planets, said, in his wrath, that if he had been called on by the Creator to assign the planets their paths, he would have managed the matter a great deal better. The plates of the old astronomical books became more and more confusing, and cost more and more labor, as astronomers continued to

... "Build, unbuild, contrive
To save appearances, to gird the sphere
With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb."

It was to the study of Mars, the wildest wanderer of all, that we owe the removal of all these perplexities. The idea had occurred to the great astronomer, Copernicus, that the complexities of the planets' paths are not real, but are caused by the constant moving about of the place from whence we watch the planets. If a fly at rest at the middle of a clock face watched the ends of the two hands, they would seem to go round him in circles; but if, instead, he was on the end of one of the hands (and was not knocked off as the other passed), the end of this other hand would not move round the fly in the same simple way. When the two hands were together it would be near, when they were opposite it would be far away, and, without entering into any particular description of the way in which it would seem to move, you can easily see that the motion would seem much more complicated than if the fly watched it from the middle of the clock face. Now, Copernicus _did_ enter into particulars, and showed by mathematical reasoning that nearly all the peculiarities of the planets' motions could be explained by supposing that the sun, not the earth, was the body round which the planets move, and that they go round him nearly in circles.

But Copernicus could not explain _all_ the motions. And Tycho Brahe, another great astronomer, who did not believe at all in the new ideas of Copernicus, made a number of observations on our near neighbor Mars, to show that Copernicus was wrong. He gave these to Kepler, another great astronomer, enjoining him to explain them in such a way as to overthrow the Copernican ideas. But Kepler behaved like Balaam the son of Beor; for, called on to curse (or at least to denounce) the views of Copernicus, he altogether blessed them three times. First, he found from the motions of Mars that the planets do not travel in circles, but in ovals, very nearly circular in shape, but not having the sun exactly at the center. Secondly, he discovered the law according to which they move, now faster now slower, in their oval paths; and thirdly, he found a law according to which the nearer planets travel more quickly and the farther planets more slowly, every distance having its own proper rate. These three laws of Kepler constitute the Magna Charta of the solar system.

Afterward, Newton showed _how_ it happens that the planets obey these laws, but as his part of the work had no particular reference to Mars, I say no more about it in this place.

Here, in Fig. 3, are the real paths of Mars and the Earth, and also of Venus and Mercury. No loops, you see, in any of them, simply because we have set the sun in the middle. Set the earth in the middle, and each planet would have its own set of loops, each set enormously complicated, and all three sets mixed together in the most confusing way. It is well to remember this when you see, as in many books of astronomy, the old theory illustrated with a set of circles looking almost as neat and compact as the set truly representing the modern theory. For the idea is suggested by this simple picture of the old theory that the theory itself was simple, whereas it had become so confusing that not merely young learners, but the most profound mathematicians, were baffled when they tried to unravel the motions of the planets.

I think the figure pretty well explains itself. All I need mention is, that while the shape and position of each path is correctly shown, the size of the sun at center is immensely exaggerated. A mere pin point, but shining with star-like splendor, would properly represent him. As for the figures of the earth and Mars, they are still more tremendously out of proportion. The cross-breadth of the lines representing these planets' tracks is _many times_ greater than the breadth of either planet on the scale of the chart.

On September 5 the earth and Mars came to the position shown at E and M. You observe that they could not be much nearer. It is indeed very seldom that Mars is so well placed for observation. His illuminated face was turned toward the dark or night half of the earth, so that he shone brightly in the sky at midnight, and can be well studied with the telescope.

When Galileo turned toward Mars the telescope with which he had discovered the moons of Jupiter, the crescent form of Venus, and many other wonders in the heavens, he was altogether disappointed. His telescope was indeed too small to show any features of interest in Mars, though the planet of war is much nearer to us than Jupiter. Mars is but a small world. The diameter of the planet is about 4,400 miles, that of our earth being nearly 8,000. Jupiter, though much farther away, has an immense diameter of more than 80,000 miles to make up, and much more than make up, for the effect of distance. With his noble system of moons he appears a remarkable object even with a small telescope, while Mars shows no feature of interest even with telescopes of considerable size.

It was not, then, till very powerful telescopes had been constructed that astronomers learned what we now know about Mars.[4]

[Footnote 4: See the "Moons of Mars" in "Letter Box" Department]

It is found that his surface is divided into land and water, like the surface of our own earth. But his seas and oceans are not nearly so large compared with his continents and lands. You know that on our own earth the water covers so much larger a surface than the land that the great continents are in reality islands. Europe, Asia and Africa together form one great island; North and South America another, not quite so large; then come Australia, Greenland, Madagascar, and so forth; all the lands being islands, larger or smaller. On the other hand, except the Caspian Sea and the Sea of Aral, there are no large seas entirely land-bound. In the case of Mars a very different state of things prevails, as you will see from the three accompanying pictures (hitherto unpublished), drawn by the famous English observer, Dawes (called the Eagle-eyed). The third and best was drawn with a telescope constructed by your famous optician, Alvan Clark, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The dark parts are the seas, the light parts being land, or in some cases cloud or snow. But in these pictures most of the lighter portions represent land; for they have been seen often so shaped, whereas clouds, of course, would change in shape.

The planet Mars, like our earth, turns on its axis, so that it has day and night as we have. The length of its day is not very different from that of our own day. Our earth turns once on its axis in ---- but before reading on, try to complete this sentence for yourself. Every one knows that the earth's turning on its axis produces day and night, and nine persons out of ten, if asked how long the earth takes in turning round her axis, will answer, 24 hours; and if asked how many times she turns on her axis in a year, will say 365 times, or if disposed to be very exact, "about 365-1/4 times." But neither answer is correct. The earth turns on her axis about 366-1/4 times in each year, and each turning occupies 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds and 1 tenth of a second. We, taking the ordinary day as the time of a turning or rotation, lose count of one rotation each year. It is necessary to mention this, in order that when I tell you how long the day of Mars is, you may be able correctly to compare it with our own day. Mars, then, turns on his axis in 24 hours 37 minutes 22 seconds and 7 tenth-parts of a second. So that Mars requires 41 minutes 18 seconds and 6-tenths of a second longer to turn his small body once round than our earth requires to turn round her much larger body. The common day of Mars is, however, only about 39 minutes longer than our common day.

Mars has a long year, taking no less than 687 of our days to complete his circuit round the sun, so that his year lasts only about one month and a half less than two of ours.

Like the earth, Mars has seasons, for his polar axis, like that of the earth, is aslant, and at one part of his year brings his northern regions more fully into sunlight, at which time summer prevails there and winter in his southern regions; while at the opposite part of his year his southern regions are turned more fully sunward and have their summer, while winter prevails over his northern regions.

Around his poles, as around the earth's, there are great masses of ice, insomuch that it is very doubtful whether any inhabitants of Mars have been able to penetrate to his poles, any more than Kane or Hayes or Nares or Parry, despite their courage and endurance, have been able to reach our northern pole, or Cook or Wilkes or James Ross our antarctic pole.

In the summer of either hemisphere of Mars, the north polar snows become greatly reduced in extent, as is natural, while in winter they reach to low latitudes, showing that in parts of the planet corresponding to the United States, or mid-Europe, as to latitude, bitter cold must prevail for several weeks in succession.

The land regions of Mars can be distinguished from the seas by their ruddy color, the seas being greenish. But here, perhaps, you will be disposed to ask how astronomers can be sure that the greenish regions are seas, the ruddy regions land, the white spots either snow or cloud. Might not materials altogether unlike any we are acquainted with exist upon that remote planet?

The spectroscope answers this question in the clearest way. You may remember what I told you in October, 1876, about Venus, how astronomers have learned that the vapor of water exists in her atmosphere. The same method has been applied, even more satisfactorily, to the planet of war, and it has been found that he also has his atmosphere at times laden with moisture. This being so, it is clear we have not to do with a planet made of materials utterly unlike those forming our earth. To suppose so, when we find that the air of Mars, formed like our own (for if it contained other gases the spectroscope would tell us), contains often large quantities of the vapor of water, would be as absurd as to believe in the green cheese theory of the moon, or in another equally preposterous, advanced lately by an English artist--Mr. J.T. Brett--to the effect that the atmosphere of Venus is formed of glass.

There is another theory about Mars, certainly not so absurd as either of those just named, but scarcely supported by evidence at present--the idea, namely, advanced by a French astronomer, that the ruddy color of the lands and seas of Mars is due to red trees and a generally scarlet vegetation. Your poet Holmes refers to this in those lines of his, "Star-clouds and Wind-clouds" (to my mind among the most charming of his many charming poems):

"The snows that glittered on the disc of Mars
Have melted, and the planet's fiery orb
Rolls in the crimson summer of its year."

It is quite possible, of course, that such colors as are often seen in American woods in the autumn-time may prevail in the forests and vegetation of Mars during the fullness of the Martian summer. The fact that during this season the planet looks ruddier than usual, in some degree corresponds with this theory. But it is much better explained, to my mind, by the greater clearness of the Martian air in the summer-time. That would enable us to see the color of the soil better. If our earth were looked at from Venus during the winter-time, the snows covering large parts of her surface, and the clouds and mists common in the winter months, would hide the tints of the surface, whereas these would be very distinct in clear summer weather.

I fear my own conclusion about Mars is that his present condition is very desolate. I look on the ruddiness of tint to which I have referred as one of the signs that the planet of war has long since passed its prime. There are lands and seas in Mars, the vapor of water is present in his air, clouds form, rains and snows fall upon his surface, and doubtless brooks and rivers irrigate his soil, and carry down the moisture collected on his wide continents to the seas whence the clouds had originally been formed. But I do not think there is much vegetation on Mars, or that many living creatures of the higher types of Martian life as it once existed still remain. All that is known about the planet tends to show that the time when it attained that stage of planetary existence through which our earth is now passing must be set millions of years, perhaps hundreds of millions of years, ago. He has not yet, indeed, reached that airless and waterless condition, that extremity of internal cold, or in fact that utter unfitness to support any kind of life, which would seem to prevail in the moon. The planet of war in some respects resembles a desolate battle-field, and I fancy that there is not a single region of the earth now inhabited by man which is not infinitely more comfortable as an abode of life than the most favored regions of Mars at the present time would be for creatures like ourselves.

But there are other subjects besides astronomy that the readers of the ST. NICHOLAS want to learn about. I do not wish you to have to say to me what a little daughter of mine said the other day. She had asked me several questions about the sun, and after I had answered them I went on to tell her several things which she had not asked. She listened patiently for quite a long time,--fully five minutes, I really believe,--and then she said: "Don't you think, papa, that that's enough about the sun? Come and play with us on the lawn." So, as it was holiday time, we went and played in the sun, instead of talking about him.

* * * * *

A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY--IN TWO PARTS.

"MOTHER! from this moment, behold me, my own master!
Yes, madam, I am old enough. I mean just what I say."

AND, but for a sudden and unforeseen disaster,
The puppy might have kept his resolution to this day.

* * * * *

THE STICKLEBACK BELL-RINGERS

BY C. F. HOLDER.

A certain pond in the country was once peopled with a number of turtles, frogs, and fishes which I came to consider my pets, and which at last grew so tame that I fed them from my hands. Among them, however, were four or five little sticklebacks that lived under the shade of a big willow, and these were so quarrelsome that I generally fed them apart from the rest. But sometimes all met, and then the feast usually was ended by the death of a minnow. For, shocking to say, whenever there was a dispute for the food, some one of the little fishes was almost sure to be devoured by the hungry sticklebacks.

These stickleback-and-minnow combats, after a while, came to be of daily occurrence, and the reason for this was a singular one, which I must explain.

Under the willow shade, and from one of the branches, I had hung a miniature "belfry," containing a tiny brass bell, and had led the string into the water, letting it go down to a considerable depth. At first, I tied bait at intervals upon the line, and the sticklebacks, of course, seized upon it, and thus rang the bell. Generally the ringing was done in a very grave and proper way, although sometimes, when the bait was too tightly tied, the quick peals sounded like a call to a fire.

I kept up this system of baiting the string for about a week, until I thought they understood it, and then replaced the worms by bits of stone. As I expected, the next morning, as I looked through the grass and down into the water, tinkle! tinkle! rang the bell, and I knew my little friends were saying, "Good-morning!" and expected a breakfast. You may be sure they got it. I put my hand down, and up they came, and got one worm apiece; and as I raised my hand, down they rushed, and away went the bell, in an uproarious peal, that must have startled the whole neighborhood. I was quick to respond, and they soon learned to ring the bell before coming to the surface; in fact, if they saw me pass, I always heard their welcome greeting. But to return to the minnows.

I generally fed them first, about twenty feet up the bank; but one morning I found one or two had followed me down to the residence of the stickleback family. They met with a rude reception, however, and, to avoid making trouble, the next day I went to the willow first. But no sooner had the bell begun to ring, than I saw a lot of ripples coming down, and in a second the two factions were in mortal combat. The sticklebacks were fighting not only for breakfast, but for their nests, which were near by; and they made sad work of the poor minnows, who, though smart in some things, did not know when they were whipped, and so kept up the fight, though losing one of their number nearly every morning. The bell now and then rang violently, but I fear it was only sounding an appeal from a voracious stickleback whose appetite had got the better of his rage.

So it went on every morning. The minnows had learned what the bell meant, and though usually defeated in the fight, they in reality had their betters as servants to ring the bell and call them to meals. Finally, they succeeded, by force of great numbers, in driving away their pugnacious little rivals, and the bell hung silent; for, strange to say, they knew what the sound meant, but I could never teach them to ring it, when they could rise and steal the worm from my hand without. But I am inclined to think it was more laziness than inability to learn, as they afterward picked up readily some much more difficult tricks. I taught them to leap from the water into my hand, and lie as if dead; and having arranged a slide of polished wood upon the bank, by placing worms upon it I soon had them leaping out and sliding down like so many boys coasting in the winter. That they afterward did it for amusement I know, as I often watched them unobserved when there was nothing to attract but the fun of sliding. This kind of amusement is not uncommon with many other animals, particularly seals, which delight in making "slides" on the icy shores.

[ILLUSTATION]

THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH

BY MRS. CLARA DOTY BATES.

Old Granny Cricket's rocking-chair,
Creakety-creak, creakety-creak!--
Back and forth, and here and there,
Squeakety-squeak, squeakety-squeak!--
On the hearth-stone, every night,
Rocks and rocks in the cheery light.
Little old woman, dressed in black,
With spindling arms and a crooked back,
She sits with a cap on her wise old head,
And her eyes are fixed on the embers red;
She does not sing, she does not speak,
But the rocking-chair goes creakety-creak!

Cheerily sounds the rocking-chair,
Creakety-creak, creakety-creak!--
While it swings in the firelight there,
Squeakety-squeak, squeakety-squeak!
Old Granny Cricket, rocking, rocking,
Knits and knits on a long black stocking.
No matter how swiftly her fingers fly,
She never can keep her family,
With their legs so long from foot to knee,
Stockinged as well as they ought to be;
That's why, at night, week after week,
Her rocking-chair goes squeakety-squeak!

* * * * *

HOW I WEIGHED THE THANKSGIVING TURKEY.

BY G. M. SHAW.

"Here, sir! Please take this bird around to Albro's, and see how much it weighs."

The idea! What would the folks over the way say, to see the "professor" walking out with a big turkey under his arm? That was the way the thing presented itself to the good-natured college-student acting as private tutor in the family. But Mrs. Simpson, the portly and practical housewife, had no such idea of the fitness of things.

It was the day before Thanksgiving, and the farmer who had agreed to supply her with a turkey had brought it, but had not weighed it, and, of course, they could not agree on its weight, all of which ended in the startling proposition with which we began.

"Well, if you aint the laziest man--! Just as though it was going to hurt you any to take this bird to the corner and back!" she went on, as she saw me looking, apparently, for a hole to crawl into, but, in reality, for the broom, which, when I found, I made use of in putting into execution a plan I had formed for weighing the turkey at home.

I hung the broom-handle to the gas-jet by a wire loop, and slid it along in the loop until it balanced. By this time all were curious to see what I was about.

I then fixed a wire to the turkey's feet and hooked it so that it would slide on the broom-handle. Next I got a flat-iron and fixed it in the same way. When the broom was nicely balanced, I hung the turkey on the broom end of the stick, two inches from the balancing loop. Then I hung the flat-iron on the other side, and shoved it along until it balanced the turkey. Next I measured the distances of the turkey and flat-iron from the balancing loop, and found that the turkey hung two inches and the flat-iron eight inches from the balancing loop. That was all. I had found the weight of the turkey, and told them: Twenty-four pounds.

"Do you s'pose I'm going to believe all that tomfoolery? It doesn't weigh more'n twenty, I know. Here, Maggie! Take this out and ask Albro to weigh it for you."

"I'm blamed if he hasn't hit it about right," said the farmer who had brought the turkey. "How did you find out?"

"Well, you see," said I, "the flat-iron has a figure 6 on it; that shows that it weighs six pounds. Now, if the turkey had not weighed more than the flat-iron they would have balanced each other at the same distance from the balancing loop; but the turkey was the heavier, so I had to move the flat-iron out further. At the same distance from the loop as the turkey (two inches), the flat-iron pulled six pounds' weight, and at every addition of that distance it would pull six pounds more. Thus: at four inches it pulled twelve pounds; at six inches, eighteen pounds; and at eight inches, twenty-four pounds. At that distance it just balanced the turkey, thus proving that it weighed----"

"Well, Maggie, what does Albro say?"

"Twenty-four poun', mum," replied Maggie, coming in.

"Well, I give up," said Mrs. Simpson; and she did, and so do I--till next time.

NIMBLE JIM AND THE MAGIC MELON

BY J. A. JUDSON.

Once upon a time, in a snug little cottage by a brook under a hill, lived an old widow and her only child. She was a tidy, pleasant-faced dame, was "Old Mother Growser;" and as to her boy, there wasn't a brighter lad of his age in all the village. His real name was James, but he had always been so spry and handy that when he was a little bit of a chap the neighbors called him "Nimble Jim." At work in the cottage garden, or at play on the village green, even at his books and slate, he was ever the same industrious, active "Nimble Jim," and always a comfort to his mother.

His father had been the village cobbler, and when he died the folks said: "Who'll mend our shoes now, and auld Jamie gone?"

Then up sprang the boy, saying: "I'll mend them, now father's dead."

The simple folks laughed at him. "Hoot! toot! lad," said they; "ye canna mend shoes!"

But he answered bravely: "Am I not fifteen years old, and e'en a'most a mon? Haven't I all father's tools? Haven't I seen him do it day after day ever since I was a wee boy? It's time I was doing something besides jobbin' and runnin' and pretendin' to work! I may take to th' auld bench, and e'en get my father's place among ye in time, so I be good enough. Mother canna allus be a-spinnin', spinnin', spinnin'. The poor old eyes are growing dim a'ready,"--and Jim gently stroked her thin gray hair.

"Ye're a brave darlin', and my own handy Nimble Jim," said the fond mother, smilingly.

"Ah, well, boy," the neighbors said, "be about it if ye will, for there's no cobbler hereabout now, and the shoes must be mended. But ye'll do the work fairly, mind, or we'll no' pay ye a penny!"

"I'll try my best, and bide your good favor, neighbors," was Jim's cheery answer.

And so he succeeded to his father's old bench by the window, the lap-stone and hammer and awl; and as he waxed his thread and stitched away, singing the old songs, the country folks passing by would listen, look at each other, smile and nod approvingly, or say:

"Hark to that, friend! One might think auld Jamie back again, with the whack o' the hammer and the blithe song, though the voice ben't so crackit like as th' auld one."

"Aye, it's a bit clearer, but no happier. Auld cobbler Jamie was a merry soul," says one.

"And the lad'll prove worthy his father, I warrant. Listen to the turn of that song, now; I've heard Jamie singin' it many a day," says another.

"Whack! whack! thump-pet-ty crack!
In go the shoe-nails with many a smack.
Zu! zu! pull the thread through;
Soon will the shoe be, done, master, for you!

"Nay! nay! there's nothin' to pay,
If it is not mended as good as I say.
I do my work honestly--that is the thing;
Then Jamie the cobbler's as good as the king!"

And the folks passed on, or stopped to leave shoes to mend.

Jim prospered in the old stall, and they called him "Nimble Jim, the Cobbler," for soon he was fairly installed as cobbler to the whole country-side. He was happy, and his old mother was happy, and proud, too, of the success of her boy, who was the light of her home and the joy of her heart.

All day Jim worked away at his bench. Winter evenings he read his few books by the firelight; in the cool of the summer days, or in the early mornings, he busied himself in the little garden. His vegetables were his pride, and for miles around no one had so trim a garden-patch, or so many good things in it, as Nimble Jim.

Only one kind of all his plants failed to come to anything,--his melon-vines,--and these always failed. This began to grieve him sorely, for he was fond of melons; and, besides, he thought if he could only raise fine ones, he might sell them for a deal of money, like gruff, rich old Farmer Hummidge.

"Oh dear! my melons don't grow like other folkses. They don't come up at all, or if they do they wither or spindle away," he said, losing his temper, and tearing up some of the vines by the roots. Then he went into the cottage, angrily, and began to pound away, driving in big hob-nails. With the twilight, his mother called him to the simple meal, but he was sullen and silent.

"What be the matter with ye, my Nimble Jim?" asked the good dame, cheerily.

"Matter enough, mother! My melons wont grow; there's somethin' the matter with them. Faith, I believe some imp has cast a spell over 'em. I do, mother," quoth he, thumping the table with his fist until the dishes rattled.

"Softly, softly, boy! Where's thy good nature gone?" said Mother Growser, staring at him in wonder.

"It be well enough to say 'Softly, softly,'" said he, "and I don't want to grieve ye, mother; but it's naught with me but hammer, stitch, dig,--hammer, stitch, dig,--the day in, the day out, when I might be raisin' fine melons and sellin' 'em for mints of gold in the great city. Yea, mother, sellin' 'em e'en to the king and queen and all the grand lords and ladies at the court, like old Farmer Hummidge."

For almost the first time in his life Jim was unhappy.

"I would you had your wish, Nimble Jim; but then we've a neat bit garden besides the melons; and the home is snug, and you're a good boy and the best o' cobblers. Can't you be happy with that, my lad?"

But Nimble Jim shook his head, for the spirit of discontent had taken possession of him.

Now, for many days, Nimble Jim neglected his cobbling and let the weeds grow in his garden, while he moodily watched his melons as they withered away. Soon he came to idle about them in the evening, too, until, one bright moonlight night, as he was grieving over the wretched, scraggy vines, he heard a tiny, silvery voice quite near him cry, tauntingly:

"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons?"

Jim would have been very angry at such a question could he have seen anybody to be angry with; but, though he looked and looked with all his eyes, not a soul could he see.

"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons? Ha, ha, ha! Melons! melons! Ha, ha, ha!" And the sweet little voice sang, in a merry, mocking strain:

"Nice sweet melons!
Round ripe melons!
Nimble Jim likes them, I know.
Mean sour melons,
Crooked green melons,
Nimble Jim only can grow!

Ha, ha, ha! How are your melons, Nimble Jim?"

"Who are you? What are you? Where are you?" cried Jim, hardly knowing whether to be angry, amused, or frightened.

"You ask a good many questions at once, don't you?" said the silvery voice. "_Who_ am I? _What_ am I? _Where_ am I? Eh! I'm the Queen of the Elfs," said her tiny majesty, "and if you look sharply you'll see where I am."

Just then a moonbeam streaming through the trees overhead fell across his path, and, dancing up and down on it, he saw the tiny elfin queen,--a lovely little creature with long, bright, wavy hair, and glittering garments fluttering in the breeze, wings like a butterfly, a mischievous smile on her face, and in her hand a wee wand tipped with a star. But the brightest thing about her was the twinkle that played hide-and-seek in her eye.

Nimble Jim took off his hat and made a low bow.

"Now, what is all this about?--and why are you neglecting your work, sir?" demanded she, sternly.

Jim trembled beneath her royal gaze, little as she was, and replied humbly:

"May it please your majesty, I wish I'd some melon-seeds that'd grow like magic. I am dead tired of being nothin' but a cobbler. I want to be a melon-merchant, and raise the finest, largest melons ever seen,--supply the whole kingdom with them, and grow to be as rich as the king himself."

"Oh, you do, do you?" she answered, laughing her merry little laugh, and capering up and down the moonbeam. "Oh! quite a modest youth! Well, I'll make a bargain with you; and if you will do something for me, you shall have your wish," said the queen.

Nimble Jim was about to pour out his gratitude, when she interrupted him, saying: "Now, Nimble Jim, listen to me. Your wish is a foolish one, and I warn you that if you gain it you will be sorry. Why will you not be content as you are?"

"Your majesty," replied the obstinate youth. "I _cannot_ be content as I am."

"Well, since you insist on having your own way, we'll make our bargain. Here,"--and, sitting down on the moonbeam, she pulled off a shoe,--"here, sir, I want you to mend my shoe. I tripped just now on a rough place in this moonbeam. Mend the rip; show me you are a good cobbler, and I promise that you shall have your wish."

"But, your majesty," began Nimble Jim, taking the shoe, which was no bigger than a bean, "I can't sew such a little shoe; my fingers are ----"

"There, there! Stop! I'm a queen, and people don't say 'can't' or 'wont' to me, sir," interrupted her majesty, with much dignity. "Take the shoe, and find a way to mend it. I will come for it to-morrow night at this same place and hour," and off she went up the moonbeam, half skipping, half flying, while Jim stood stupidly staring until she had entirely disappeared. Then he began, slowly: "Well,--I--never --in--all--my--life--saw--such--a----"

He said no more, but went in, and sat up all night, thinking how and where he could find needle and thread fine enough to do such a piece of cobbling as this. About dawn a thought struck him. His mother thought he had gone crazy when she saw him chasing bees and pulling down spider-webs. Hours and hours he worked, and though his fingers were big, they were nimble, like his name; so, by and by, with a needle made of a bee's sting and thread drawn from a spider-web, he sewed up the rip in her fairy majesty's dainty shoe.

He hardly could wait for the hour of meeting, but went into the garden, with the shoe in his hand, long before the time. At length, the queen came sliding down the moonbeam, laughing and singing:

"Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons?"

But he was not angry now; he only laughed respectfully, made a profound bow, and said:

"May it please your majesty, I have mended your majesty's shoe."

The merry little queen took it from him, looked at it closely, saying to herself: "Humph! I didn't think he could, but he did,"--and, turning to Jim, said, much more graciously than before: "I suppose you think yourself quite a cobbler; and so you are--for a mortal. Since you have done your work so well, I will do as I said. Now," she continued, handing him a little package about as big as a baby's thumb, "plant these melon-seeds, and----"

"Are these little things melon seeds? They look too small," interrupted Jim,--for he had made no ceremony, even in the queen's presence, about peeping into the package,--and it must be confessed that they were very small indeed.

"Certainly they are, or I would not tell you so. They are the magic melons of fairy-land. As I was about to say when you rudely interrupted, plant----"

"I beg your pardon, your majes----"

"_Will_ you keep still? Was there _ever_ such a chatterbox!" said she. "I say, plant these melon-seeds to-morrow at sunrise, and you will have your wish, foolish boy." And, while Jim was thinking of melons and wealth, she skipped away up the moonbeam, singing:

"Nimble Jim is quite demented,--
Wants to be a melon-king!
Silly mortal! not contented
With the riches home-joys bring!
Oh! ho!
Oh! ho!
He will be sorry to-morrow;
To-morrow will bring only sorrow."

But Nimble Jim heeded her not. This night also he could not close his eyes, and in the early morning he hastened to tell his mother their good fortune. She looked grave, and said:

"Ah, my lad! I'd rather you minded the cobbler's bench, nor trafficked with fairies. I fear me they're uncanny folks to deal with."

"Never fear, mother; we'll be rich yet, and I'll make you a queen yourself, and then you need spin no more," said Jim, wild with hope and excitement.

"I don't mind the spinnin', my boy. I'd rather be----".

Jim heard no more, for he dashed off at once to the garden to plant his precious seeds just at sunrise. With furious energy, he tore up all his old vines, flung them over the fence, and, after that, spaded up the melon-bed with the greatest care. Then he opened the paper and poured the magical seeds into his hand.

There were only _four_--four wee seeds, each no bigger than a pin's head! His first impulse was to fling them away in wrath, for he thought such little things couldn't possibly make as big a fortune as he wanted. But then he reflected, "Fairies are little, so I suppose their seeds are little, too. I'll try them, anyhow." And with that he put them in the ground and carefully covered them.

In an instant, the ground burst open in four places, and up shot four sturdy melon-vines, that grew east, west, north, south!

Grew? No! they raced, they tore, they dashed through the country far and wide! In no time, before Nimble Jim could get back to the house door, the whole yard was full of melon-vine, and one great big melon, bigger than the cottage itself, blocked the door-way.

"Oh! oh! oh!" roared Jim. "What _have_ I done? What _shall_ I do?" And with his spade he cut a hole through the melon. It took him a whole hour, and when he got into the house he found that his poor mother had fainted from fright.

And all the time the vine and melons kept growing--east, west, north, south.

Nimble Jim was frantic!

But the vines didn't mind Jim. On they went, growing like mad, a mile a minute, faster than any railroad train. The big arms filled up the main roads; the smaller ones crammed themselves into the lanes and by-paths, while the tendrils embraced the tall trees, the houses, and the church steeples, and snarled up everything. The leaves grew so large, thick and green that they covered the whole face of the country, shutting out the sun from the fields so the crops couldn't grow; and the whole kingdom became so dark from the awful shade of Nimble Jim's magic melon-vine, that the people had to burn candles day and night.

It grew like mad. On! on! Stem, branch, leaf, tendril, fruit--on, on it went! The melons grew--great, round, smooth, rich, ripe, juicy melons, as big as houses--at the cross-roads, on the roads, in the fields, filling barn-yards and door-yards so people and cattle couldn't pass, or go in or out, till they had eaten their way through the melons, or got ladders and climbed over, or dug trenches and crawled under! On, on it went, surrounding the king's palaces and choking up his forts! Down, down it grew into the brooks and rivers, and out into the king's harbors, where the tendrils seized and wound about his ships of war riding at anchor, and climbed up the masts, while melons grew on the decks till the vessels sank to the bottom! It choked up and drank up all the rivers and lakes in the kingdom, or dammed them up so the waters overflowed the land, drowning people and cattle, and sweeping away houses and barns!

On, on it grew--melons, melons everywhere! Ruin and starvation stared the nation in the face; while poor, poor Nimble Jim, hid within the rind of the melon he had dug out, shivered, cried and bewailed his folly.

"I'll be killed! I'll be killed! The people will murder me!" he shrieked. But no one of them all save his mother knew he had had anything to do with bringing on the dire calamity that had befallen the kingdom.

Then some of the people proposed: "Let us go immediately to our king, and ask him to make a law that the vine shall stop growing ere it ruin us forever."

But when they had eaten and hewed their way to the palace, they found the king had gone to count his soldiers; and while he was gone the vine came galloping along, and an enormous melon grew and blocked up the palace gate. So they had to help the king and his guards force their way through to the hall of audience.

When they all were in, and the king had wiped the melon-juice off his robes and crown, and was fairly seated on his throne, surrounded by his guards and courtiers, the trumpets sounded, drums beat, banners waved, and the people fell on their knees and said:

"O mighty king! We, thy liege subjects, have come to tell thee of the ruin and desolation this fearful vine maketh in all thy great kingdom, and to entreat thy majesty to enact a law forbidding it to grow any more, and commanding it to wither away."

"Alas!" answered the troubled king, "what can I do? No law of mine can stop this awful thing. It is an enchanted vine sent to torment us. Hear me, my people! Proclaim it, ye my heralds! I pledge my kingly word to give up my crown and kingdom, and change places with any one of my subjects who will wither and instantly sweep away this direful vine. I, your king, am as helpless as a child to stop it."

And the king, who was a good old man, shed tears for the misery of his people, and commanded the queen and all the court to dress themselves in mourning and fast night and day.

The people got home as best they could, and each fell to thinking how he could stop the vine and so be king. Even Nimble Jim heard of this. So, every night, he watched, hoping to see the elfin queen. At last she came, as before, on her moonbeam footpath, saying: "Hello, Nimble Jim! How are your melons by this time?"

But he was in no mood to be facetious now. He only said, humbly:

"May it please your majesty, what can I do to stop the growth of this horrible vine, and instantly sweep it from the face of the earth? Help me, I beg your gracious majesty!"--and Jim knelt before her.

"Ha, ha! Nimble Jim don't seem to like melons! I told you you'd be sorry," laughed the little elfin queen. "I suppose you still want to be as rich as the king? Or perhaps you would like to be the king himself?" said she, tauntingly.

"Of course I would, your majesty," said Jim, "if the vine can only be stopped."

"You are a very good cobbler, Nimble Jim," she answered, "and since you mended my shoe so nicely, and as the king has promised to exchange with any one who will wither and destroy the vine, and as you might as well be king as another (and as you need a good lesson," said she to herself), "I give you the means to do it all!"

And the tiny queen pulled off the mended shoe, and cried: "Here, you silly boy! Take this and run to the palace. Once there, you need touch but a tendril with this magic shoe, and the vine will wither and disappear, and the crown and kingdom will be yours. I wish you joy of both. Good-bye! You will learn contentment yet, poor Jim, I hope," she added, as he ran out of hearing, with the precious little shoe in his hand.