Chapter IV: Part 4

So the merrymaking went on; the hilarity grew apace. Men danced and sang to the music of the squeaky fiddle and worn-out guitar as the jolly crowd within tried to drown the howling of the storm without. Suddenly they became aware of the presence of a white-haired man, crouching near the fireplace. His garments--such as were left--were wet with melting snow, and he had a half-starved, half-crazed expression. He held his thin, trembling hands toward the fire, and the light of the blazing wood made them almost transparent. He looked about him once in a while as if in search of something, and his presence cast such a chill over the place that gradually the sound of the revelry was hushed, and it seemed that this waif of the storm had brought in with him all the gloom and coldness of the warring elements. Goskin, mixing up a cup of hot egg-nogg, advanced and remarked cheerily:

"Here, stranger, brace up! This is the real stuff."

The man drained the cup, smacked his lips, and seemed more at home.

"Been prospecting, eh? Out in the mountains--caught in the storm? Lively night, this!"

"Pretty bad," said the man.

"Must feel pretty dry?"

The man looked at his streaming clothes and laughed, as if Goskin's remark was a sarcasm.

"How long out?"

"Four days."

"Hungry?"

The man rose up, and, walking over to the lunch-counter, fell to work upon some roast bear, devouring it as any wild animal would have done. As meat and drink and warmth began to permeate the stranger he seemed to expand and lighten up. His features lost their pallor, and he grew more and more content with the idea that he was not in the grave. As he underwent these changes the people about him got merrier and happier, and threw off the temporary feeling of depression which he had laid upon them.

"Do you always have your place decorated like this?" he finally asked of Goskin.

"This is Christmas eve," was the reply.

The stranger was startled.

"December 24, sure enough."

"That's the way I put it up, pard."

"When I was in England I always kept Christmas. But I had forgotten that this was the night. I've been wandering about in the mountains until I've lost track of the feasts of the Church."

Presently his eye fell upon the piano.

"Where's the player?" he asked.

"Never had any," said Goskin, blushing at the expression.

"I used to play when I was young."

Goskin almost fainted at the admission.

"Stranger, do tackle it, and give us a tune! Nary man in this camp ever had the nerve to wrestle with that music-box." His pulse beat faster, for he feared that the man would refuse.

"I'll do the best I can," he said.

There was no stool, but seizing a candle-box, he drew it up and seated himself before the instrument. It only required a few seconds for a hush to come over the room.

"That old coon is going to give the thing a rattle."

The sight of a man at the piano was something so unusual that even the faro-dealer, who was about to take in a fifty-dollar bet on the tray, paused and did not reach for the money. Men stopped drinking, with the glasses at their lips. Conversation appeared to have been struck with a sort of paralysis, and cards were no longer shuffled.

The old man brushed back his long white locks, looked up to the ceiling, half closed his eyes, and in a mystic sort of reverie passed his fingers over the keys. He touched but a single note, yet the sound thrilled the room. It was the key to his improvisation, and as he wove his cords together the music laid its spell upon every ear and heart. He felt his way along the keys like a man treading uncertain paths, but he gained confidence as he progressed, and presently bent to his work like a master. The instrument was not in exact tune, but the ears of his audience did not detect anything radically wrong. They heard a succession of grand chords, a suggestion of paradise, melodies here and there, and it was enough.

"See him counter with his left!" said an old rough, enraptured.

"He calls the turn every time on the upper end of the board," responded a man with a stack of chips in his hand.

The player wandered off into the old ballads they had heard at home. All the sad and melancholy and touching songs, that came up like dreams of childhood, this unknown player drew from the keys. His hands kneaded their hearts like dough and squeezed out tears as from a wet sponge.

As the strains flowed one upon the other, the listeners saw their homes of the long ago reared again; they were playing once more where the apple-blossoms sank through the soft air to join the violets on the green turf of the old New England States; they saw the glories of the Wisconsin maples and the haze of the Indian summer blending their hues together; they recalled the heather of Scottish hills, the white cliffs of Britain, and heard the sullen roar of the sea, as it beat upon their memories, vaguely. Then came all the old Christmas carols, such as they had sung in church thirty years before; the subtle music that brings up the glimmer of wax tapers, the solemn shrines, the evergreen, holly, mistletoe, and surpliced choirs. Then the remorseless performer planted his final stab in every heart with "Home, Sweet Home."

When the player ceased the crowd slunk away from him. There was no more revelry or devilment left in his audience. Each man wanted to sneak off to his cabin and write the old folks a letter. The day was breaking as the last man left the place, and the player, with his head on the piano, fell asleep.

"I say, pard," said Goskin, "don't you want a little rest?"

"I feel tired," the old man said. "Perhaps you'll let me rest here for the matter of a day or so."

He walked behind the bar, where some old blankets were lying, and stretched himself upon them.

"I feel pretty sick. I guess I won't last long. I've got a brother down in the ravine--his name's Driscoll. He don't know I'm here. Can you get him before morning? I'd like to see his face once before I die."

Goskin started up at the mention of the name. He knew Driscoll well.

"He your brother? I'll have him here in half an hour."

As Goskin dashed out into the storm the musician pressed his hand to his side and groaned. Goskin heard the word "Hurry!" and sped down the ravine to Driscoll's cabin. It was quite light in the room when the two men returned. Driscoll was pale as death.

"My God! I hope he's alive! I wronged him when we lived in England, twenty years ago."

They saw the old man had drawn the blankets over his face. The two stood a moment, awed by the thought that he might be dead. Goskin lifted the blanket and pulled it down, astonished. There was no one there!

"Gone!" cried Driscoll wildly.

"Gone!" echoed Goskin, pulling out his cash-drawer. "Ten thousand dollars in the sack, and the Lord knows how much loose change in the drawer!"

The next day the boys got out, followed a horse's track through the snow, and lost them in the trail leading toward Pioche.

There was a man missing from the camp. It was the three-card-monte man, who used to deny pointblank that he could play the scale. One day they found a wig of white hair, and called to mind how the "stranger" had pushed those locks back when he looked toward the ceiling for inspiration on the night of December 24, 1858.

ALL KINDS OF THINGS.

George Washington as the Farmer of Mount Vernon--The Dress,
Manners, and Personality of John Hancock--Men Whose Names
Live in Their Inventions--The Strange Story of a
Revolutionary Spy and a Silver Bullet--Treasure Trove in
Unexpected Hiding-Places--Political Routes That Have Led to
the White House--With Other Items of Interest from Various
Sources.

_Compiled and edited for_ THE SCRAP BOOK.

THE THRIFTY FARMER OF MOUNT VERNON.

FIFTEEN SQUARE MILES OF LAND.

System of Crop Rotation Made the
Wheels Go Round Smoothly on
Washington's Plantation.

As military leader and statesman, George Washington is the great figure in our history. His greatness as a farmer is not so generally appreciated. Yet as soon as the Revolution ended he turned his attention to agriculture with a keen eye to improve his estate.

Finding that the cultivation of tobacco exhausted his land, he gradually substituted grass and wheat, as better suited to the soil. He began a new method of rotation of crops, drawing up an exact scheme by which all his fields were numbered and the crops assigned for several years in advance.

The extent of his farming operations appears in the following account, printed many years ago in the _Maine Cultivator_:

The farm of General Washington at Mount Vernon contained ten
thousand acres of land in one body--equal to about fifteen
square miles. It was divided into farms of convenient size,
at the distance of two, three, four, and five miles from his
mansion house. These farms he visited every day in pleasant
weather, and was constantly engaged in making experiments
for the improvement of agriculture.

Some idea of the extent of his farming operations may be
formed from the following facts: In 1787 he had five hundred
acres in grass; sowed six hundred bushels of oats, seven
hundred acres of wheat, and as much more in corn, barley,
potatoes, beans, peas, etc., and fifty with turnips.

His stock consisted of one hundred and forty horses, one
hundred and twelve cows, two hundred and thirty-five working
oxen, heifers, and steers, and five hundred sheep. He
constantly employed two hundred and fifty hands, and kept
twenty-four plows going during the whole year, when the
earth and the state of the weather would permit.

In 1786 he slaughtered one hundred and fifty hogs for the
use of his family and provisions for his negroes, for whose
comfort he had great regard.

ELABORATE APPAREL OF OLD JOHN HANCOCK.

APTNESS AT PUNISHING THE PUNCH.

Pen Picture of the Revolutionary Statesman
Shows Him Garbed Gorgeously
in a Blue Damask Gown.

Our revolutionary heroes were not all plain-garbed farmers. Indeed, not a few of them were rather dandified--which is not surprising, inasmuch as men dressed more showily in those times than they dress now.

John Hancock, whose bold signature is so prominent among those of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was addicted to rich apparel. One who saw him in 1782 says that he then had the appearance of advanced age, though his years were only forty-five.

He had been repeatedly and severely afflicted with gout,
probably owing in part to the custom of drinking punch--a
common practise in high circles in those days. As
recollected at this time, Hancock was nearly six feet in
height and of thin person, stooping a little, and apparently
enfeebled by disease. His manners were very gracious, of the
old style; a dignified complaisance. His face had been very
handsome.

Dress was adapted quite as much to the ornamental as useful.
Gentlemen wore wigs when abroad, and commonly caps when at
home. At this time, about noon, Hancock was dressed in a red
velvet cap, within which was one of fine linen. The latter
was turned up over the lower edge of the velvet one, two or
three inches.

He wore a blue damask gown lined with silk, a white stock, a
white satin embroidered waistcoat, black satin small
clothes, white silk stockings, and red morocco slippers. It
was a general practise in genteel families to have a tankard
of punch made in the morning and placed in a cooler when the
season required it.

At this visit Hancock took from the cooler standing on the
hearth a full tankard, and drank first himself and then
offered it to those present. His equipage was splendid, and
such as is not customary at this day.

His apparel was sumptuously embroidered with gold, silver,
lace, and other decorations fashionable among men of fortune
of that period; and he rode, especially upon public
occasions, with six beautiful bay horses, attended by
servants in livery.

He wore a scarlet coat, with ruffles on the sleeves, which
soon became the prevailing fashion; and it is related of Dr.
Nathan Jacques, the famous pedestrian of West Newbury, that
he passed all the way from West Newbury to Boston in one
day, to procure cloth for a coat like that of John Hancock,
and returned with it under his arm on foot.

Hancock was a rich man. In 1764 his uncle, Thomas Hancock, left him about eighty thousand pounds and the control of a large mercantile business. His position as a colonial aristocrat emphasized the importance of his defection from British allegiance. His patriotic services are well remembered, but it is true, also, that he was somewhat vain and somewhat jealous.

MEN WHOSE NAMES LIVE IN THEIR INVENTIONS.

ODD COINING OF SUITABLE WORDS.

McAdam, MacIntosh, and Guillotin Examples
of Men Whose Inventions Transmit
Their Names to Posterity.

Many common words have been derived from proper names, just as many proper names have been derived from common words. The London _Globe_ cites several instances of men who have been immortalized by the application of their names to inventions.

While the word "macadamize" was rapidly establishing its position in the English language, no less an authority than Jeremy Bentham gave it a helping hand on its way by declaring that "the success of Mr. McAdam's system justified the perpetuation of his name in popular speech."

This is, perhaps, the most perfect example of a spontaneous popular impulse whereby an inventor who had benefited mankind was embalmed, so to say, in his own invention. His name, connected indissolubly with it, was handed down to future ages with a certainty that it would endure as long at least as the language continued to exist.

But, curiously enough, at almost the same time when the great roadmaker was achieving immortality, another inventor, with a no less obviously Scotch name, was treading the same path to linguistic fame.

The labors in the field of chemistry which enabled MacIntosh to perfect and patent a new sort of clothing--and that in a time when traveling by stage coaches rendered it particularly welcome--were almost as prolonged as those which qualified his fellow countryman in a long life to solve the problem of constructing a durable roadway for wheeled traffic.

A third notable specimen of the conversion of a name into a vernacular word may be taken from France, where Dr. Guillotin found himself effectually, though not perhaps very agreeably, immortalized in connection with the lethal implement which still bears his name. The popular belief that he perished by the machine which he had introduced appears to be erroneous. This rather left-handed compliment was not paid him by the authorities, but by the voice of public opinion, which insisted that the association of the doctor with his invention should be thus commemorated.

This list might be extended by many names which have become descriptive of their original owner's acts or theories. There is, for example, the case of Captain Boycott. And more recently, of course, people have begun to use the verb "to Oslerize."

HOW INSECTS CONDUCT THEIR CONVERSATIONS.

THE MUSIC OF THE GRASSHOPPER.

Some Insects Talk by Vibrating Their
Wings, Others Stridulate, and Others
Emit Sounds from the Thorax.

Insects, like birds and animals, have their calls. But the sounds they produce include the rubbing together of their limbs or wing covers and the vibration of their wings, so they cannot always be spoken of as voices. For that matter, when man knocks at a door, or rings a bell, or snaps his fingers to attract the attention of a waiter, he is communicating by other than spoken sounds--as is also the case when he uses the telegraph. Says an old exchange:

Flies and bees undoubtedly mean something when they hum
louder or lower. Landoise has calculated that to produce the
sound of F by vibrating its wings, they vibrate 352 times a
second, and the bee to create A vibrates 440 times a second.

A tired bee hums on E sharp. This change is perhaps
involuntary, but undoubtedly at the command of the will, and
is similar to the voice.

When seeking honey a bee hums to A sharp.

Landoise noticed three different tones emitted by insects--a
low one during flight, a higher one when the wings are held
so that they cannot vibrate, and a higher one yet when the
insect is held so that none of his limbs can be moved. This
last is of course the voice proper of insects and is
produced by the stigmata of the thorax.

No music is as familiar as that produced by the locusts,
grasshoppers, and crickets, and, although they are not
produced by the mouth, they answer as calls, and are
undoubtedly a language to a certain extent, and indeed their
calls have been reduced to written music.

The music of grasshoppers is produced in four different
ways, according to Scudder. First, by rubbing the base of
one wing upon the other, using for that purpose veins
running through the middle portion of the wing; second, by a
similar method, by using the veins of the inner part of the
wing; by rubbing the inner surface of the hind legs against
the outer surface of the wing covers; and, fourth, by
rubbing together the upper surface of the front edge of the
wings and the under surface of the wing covers. The insects
which employ the fourth method also stridulate during night.

The first method is used by the crickets, the second by the
green or long-legged grasshoppers, the third and fourth by
certain kinds of short-horned or jumping grasshoppers.
Butterflies have been heard to utter a loud click, and the
same is true of many beetles; while the cicada, or
seventeen-year locust, utters a most remarkable note or
series of sounds.

Spiders have often been heard to utter sounds. John
Burroughs says in his "Pepacton," that one sunny April day
his attention was attracted by a soft, uncertain, purring
sound made by little spiders that were running over the dry
leaves.

LUCKLESS SPY WHO SWALLOWED A BULLET.

A MESSAGE STRANGELY CONCEALED.

Alertness of Governor Clinton's Men Defeated
the Stratagem of a British
Courier on His Way to Burgoyne.

One of the strangest incidents of the American Revolution is the story of a silver bullet.

The year was 1777. Burgoyne, pushing down from the north, was expecting to effect a junction with Sir Henry Clinton at Albany. The field of Saratoga was still before him. Clinton was pressing up the Hudson Valley from New York. After taking Fort Montgomery, in the Highlands, he sent a letter to Burgoyne with news of his movements.

As the message had to pass through the American lines, the letter was enclosed in a silver bullet, coated with lead, and the spy who carried it placed it in his pocket with a few real bullets.

In Dutchess County the spy was captured. His captors found nothing incriminating, and were about to release him, when one of them happened on the bullets, and noticed that one bullet was lighter than the others.

"Why," he exclaimed, "this can never be a bullet; it is too light!"

At this moment the spy snatched the bullet and swallowed it. The incident was promptly reported to Governor George Clinton, commander of the Revolutionary force, and by his direction a surgeon recovered the bullet. In it was found Sir Henry Clinton's letter, which read as follows:

FORT MONTGOMERY, OCTOBER 8, 1777.

_Nous voici_, and nothing between us but _Gates_. I
sincerely hope this little success of ours may facilitate
your operations. In answer to your letter of 28th September,
by C.C., I shall only say that I cannot presume to order, or
even advise, for reasons obvious. I heartily wish you
success.

Faithfully yours,

HENRY CLINTON.

_To General Burgoyne._

The spy was hanged on a tree at Hurley, a few miles from Kingston.

FINDING MONEY IN UNEXPECTED PLACES.

WEALTH WAS HIDDEN IN A CRUTCH.

Mustard-Tins, Bicycle Handle-Bars, Bibles,
Nests of Mice, Chimneys, Etc.,
Have Concealed Treasure.

Old stockings are proverbially the savings-banks of the poor--and no interest on deposits. To-day, when all towns have their banks, the family hoard is usually more safely placed than in a domestic cranny.

Queer hiding-places are, however, still uncovered. There are savers who will not trust the banks. An English exchange, having collected facts in a number of cases where money has been found in very strange places, presents the following interesting incidents in this way:

A few months ago a dealer in old furniture secured for thirty shillings, at an auction held in a village near Carnarvon, North Wales, an oak dresser, part of the property of an old lady who had just died. On his arrival home he proceeded to overhaul his purchase, when to his surprise he discovered, on the top shelf, a mustard-tin filled to the brim with sovereigns and half-sovereigns.

An old bicycle was not long since knocked down to a gentleman for a mere song. In due course it was sent to a cycle repairer in Hampstead to be put in working order. During this process nine half-sovereigns were found concealed in the handle-bars.

In October of 1899 a gentleman residing at East Dulwich purchased at a local auction-room for a few shillings a parcel of second-hand books, among which was an old Bible. On the following Sunday his wife, on opening this, found several of the leaves pasted together. These she took the trouble to separate, when six five-pound Bank of England notes dropped out. On the back of one of these notes the former owner of the Bible had written his will, which ran as follows: "I have had to work very hard for this, and having none as natural heirs, I leave thee, dear reader, whosoever shall own this holy book, my lawful heir."

On the appraisers of the estate of an old miser, who died a year or so back at Newburgh, searching his house, they came upon an old cupboard seemingly filled with rubbish. This they overhauled, to find in a corner a family of young mice comfortably ensconced in a nest constructed of bank-notes to the value of four hundred pounds.

A mouse was the cause of a still greater find. As an old Paris hawker, named Mme. Jacques, was endeavoring to dislodge one of these little animals that had taken refuge in her chimney, she knocked aside some bricks and laid bare a cavity containing a number of bank-notes, amounting in value to forty thousand francs, which had belonged to a former tenant of the house, who had died seven years previously.

'Tis an ill-wind that blows no one any good. Some time ago an old Birmingham woman, who had the misfortune to lose her leg, purchased a pair of crutches at a second-hand dealer's. Not long after one of the crutches snapped beneath her weight, disclosing a hollow in the wood, within which were secreted twenty pounds in notes and a diamond scarf-pin.

Among a quantity of household effects, forming one lot, that a gentleman purchased some years since at a sale in Kent, was a stuffed parrot. This being of no value was given over to his children, who, after the manner of their kind, proceeded in due course to inspect its anatomy. Curiosity in this case met its reward, for within the bird reposed fifteen sovereigns and two spade guineas of George III--no bad return for the few shillings invested originally in the purchase of the entire lot.

NO ROYAL ROAD TO THE PRESIDENTIAL CHAIR.

ROUTES THROUGH POLITICAL MAZE.

Senators, Representatives, Governors, and
Others Who Have Made Their Way
to the White House.

The road to the Presidency is as uncertain as the course of a Western river. Men have marched to the White House by so many different routes that it seems as if any path might lead to that center of our political labyrinth. On the other hand, any path may unexpectedly present an obstacle to the ambitious traveler.

Senator La Follette hesitated to leave the Governorship of Wisconsin for the Senate, and at the time political experts said pointedly that the Senate was not the road to the Presidency. The ghost of that old superstition is laid by the Louisville _Herald_:

This statement does not bear investigation. Virginia sent
two men who had served as Senators, James Monroe and John
Tyler, later on to the White House. Martin Van Buren served
as a Senator from New York before he became President. James
Buchanan, of Pennsylvania, served in the Senate from 1834
till 1845, when he became Secretary of State under President
Polk. John Quincy Adams was elected to the Senate in 1803.

Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, was sent to the Senate twice,
first in 1797 and second in 1823. He did not become
President till 1829. Andrew Johnson, of the same State, was
elected to the Senate in 1857, and became President in 1865.

Franklin Pierce was a Senator from New Hampshire in 1837.
Benjamin Harrison went direct almost from the Senate to the
White House, the term which he served in the Senate expiring
in 1887, the year before his election to the Presidency.

Abraham Lincoln was a defeated candidate for the Senate, and
his leading opponent for the Presidency, Douglas, a
full-fledged Senator at the time of the election of Lincoln
for President. Breckinridge, another of Lincoln's opponents,
was Vice-President from 1857 till 1861.

Successful soldiers find, it is often said, an easy road to
the White House; but not all the soldiers who have been
candidates for the Presidency have succeeded. Scott and
Fremont both failed of election. So did McClellan and
Hancock.

Scott was beaten by another soldier, Franklin Pierce, but
Fremont was in turn defeated by a civilian, Buchanan.
McClellan was defeated by Lincoln, a lawyer, and Hancock by
another soldier, Garfield.

McKinley had served a long time in the House of
Representatives before becoming a candidate for the
Presidency. His opponent, Bryan, had also served for a time
in the House of Representatives. James G. Blaine, who so
often aspired to the Presidency, had, like Henry Clay, also
a frequent Presidential aspirant, served with distinction as
Speaker of the House.

President Roosevelt broke, in 1904, the tradition that no
Vice-President succeeding to the Presidency by the death of
the actual incumbent could be elected President.

BRIDEGROOM NAMED A BABY AS SECOND WIFE.

TRUTH BORN IN HONEYMOON JEST.

Twenty Years Later John Thacher's
Prophecy Came True When He Married
His Son's Sweetheart.

Thacher is a solid name in American history. Beginning with Thomas Thacher, the minister and physician, who came from England to New England in 1635, there is a long line of educators and professional men; and the cognate branches of the family have also contributed many prominent citizens, including James Thacher, the famous surgeon of the Revolution.

An old copy of the Yarmouth (Massachusetts) _Register_ gives an anecdote concerning John Thacher, son of one of the first settlers at Yarmouth.

He married, in 1661, Miss Rebecca Winslow, of Duxbury,
Plymouth County, if we mistake not. On his way home with his
new bride, he stopped for the night at the house of a
friend, a Colonel Gorham, of Barnstable, one of the most
prominent citizens of the town.

Merriment and gaiety prevailed, and during the evening a
female infant about three weeks old was introduced, and the
night of her birth being mentioned, Mr. Thacher observed,
"That is the very night on which we were married," and,
taking the child in his arms, he presented it to his bride
and jokingly said: "Here, my dear, is a little lady that was
born on the same night that we were married. I wish you
would kiss her, for I intend to have her for my second
wife."

"I will, my dear, with great pleasure," replied she, "but I
hope it will be very long before your intention is fulfilled
in that respect."

Mr. Thacher and his wife lived happily together until her
death, about twenty years later. She left him a large family
of children, among whom was a son named Peter.

After Mr. Thacher had mourned a reasonable length of time he
began to think of getting another partner. None of the
maidens, young or old, seemed to please him like Lydia
Gorham, the little lady of the preceding part of the story,
now grown up, if we may believe tradition, to a fair, comely
girl.

But there was one impediment in the way. His eldest son,
Peter, had shown a predilection for the girl, and the old
man was at a loss to decide whether she favored the suit of
the sire or the son.

The one rode a black horse in his visits, and the other rode
a white. There was a kind of tacit agreement between the two
that one should not interfere with the visits of the other;
so when the father found a white horse tied in front of
Colonel Gorham's, unlike the good Samaritan, he crossed over
on the other side; and the son, when the black horse was
there, returned the favor.

Thus things went on till the patience of the elder gentleman
was well-nigh exhausted, and he resolved upon a desperate
step to decide the matter. Taking his son one side, he said
to him:

"Peter, are you or are you not going to marry Lydia Gorham?"

Peter replied that he had not yet made up his mind.

"Well," said the old gentleman, "I will make you an offer;
if you will give her up and court her no more, I will give
you thirteen pounds in money and the pair of black steers.
What do you say to that?"

The young man hesitated but a moment. "'Tis a bargain," said
he; and it is due the parties to say that it was observed by
them all with perfect good faith.

Whether Lydia knew the bargaining that her charms had
occasioned, tradition sayeth not; but she subsequently
became Mr. Thacher's wife, and bore him ten children.

A LEARNED BLACKSMITH AND THE IRON HORSE.

BURRITT, THE SELF-MADE SCHOLAR.

Word-Picture of the Locomotive, "Strutting
Forth from His Smoky Stable,"
and the "Man in the Saddle."

A considerable figure in his time, Elihu Burritt has left no very definite impress on American life or letters. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, December 8, 1810, the son of a shoemaker, he became a blacksmith, but his desire for learning was so insatiable that in the intervals of his trade he mastered many branches of study, and especially languages, for which he possessed great aptitude.

His strongest claim to remembrance lies in his work in the interest of peace. The first international congress of Friends of Peace, held in Brussels in 1848, was organized by him. He died in New Britain, March 9, 1879.

Mr. Burritt, the "Learned Blacksmith," made frequent lecture tours. His descriptive power is seen in the following word picture of the steam locomotive:

I love to see one of those huge creatures, with sinews of
brass and muscles of iron, strut forth from his smoky
stable, and, saluting the long train of cars with a dozen
sonorous puffs from his iron nostrils, fall gently back into
his harness.

There he stands, champing and foaming upon the iron track;
his great heart a furnace of glowing coals; his lymphatic
blood is boiling in his veins; the strength of a thousand
horses is nerving his sinews--he pants to be gone.

He would "snake" St. Peter's across the desert of Sahara if
he could be fairly hitched to it, but there is a little
sober-eyed, tobacco-chewing man in the saddle, who holds him
in with one finger, and can take away his breath in a
moment should he grow restive and vicious.

I am always deeply interested in this man; for, begrimed as
he may be with coal, diluted in oil and steam, I regard him
as the genius of the whole machinery, as the physical mind
of that huge steam horse.

BIG FORTUNES FOUND IN DISEASED WHALES.

ONE LEVIATHAN YIELDED $100,000.

A Dirty-Looking Lump of Ambergris Is
Worth More Than Half Its
Weight in Gold.

Ambergris is one of the most valuable products of the sea. The mariner who spies floating on the waves a grayish mass, fatty in appearance, will, if he knows what ambergris is, betray considerable excitement, for the substance fetches high prices.

Captain James Earle, of New Bedford, Massachusetts, is said to have been the luckiest of all skippers in the old whaling days. From a single sperm whale he realized more than a hundred thousand dollars. It was not the ninety barrels of oil which gave the leviathan its extraordinary value, for that was sold for something like four thousand dollars; but within the whale's vast interior there was found a solid piece of ambergris weighing seven hundred and eighty pounds. This was sold in chunks in all markets of the world for about one hundred thousand dollars.

The finest piece, if not the largest, obtained in recent years weighed one hundred and sixty-three pounds. It was sold in London in 1891.

As to what ambergris is, we may quote the Philadelphia _Saturday Evening post_:

There is no longer any mystery as to the origin of
ambergris. It is a morbid secretion due to a disease of the
liver of the sperm whale, in the intestines of which animal
lumps of it are occasionally, though rarely, discovered. Dr.
C.H. Stevenson, of the United States Fish Commission, who
has made a special study of the subject, says that the
whales which yield ambergris are sickly and emaciated.

Anciently, the substance was known as amber--a name which
was subsequently applied also to the fossil gum now
commonly so called. But, to distinguish the two, one was
called "_amber gris_" (gray), and the other "_amber jaune_"
(yellow).

So it appears that ambergris means simply gray amber. Like
the fossil gum, pieces of it were found now and then on the
seashore, where they had been cast up by the waves; hence,
doubtless, the giving of the same name to both.

The substance has been used for centuries in sacerdotal
rites of the church, and with fragrant gums was formerly
burned in the apartments of royalty. To some extent it was
employed as a medicine and to flavor certain dishes.
Nowadays it is utilized almost exclusively by perfumers, in
the preparation of fine scents, being first converted into a
tincture by dissolving it in alcohol.

ORIGIN OF HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT.

ANCIENT PARALLEL OF OUR JINGLE.

"A Kid! A Kid!" Sang the Hebrew
Children in Lieu of Our Parable from
the Pages of Mother Goose.

The sources of our nursery rhymes are many, and slowly to be traced out. Many of them have a lineage with serious historical meaning; others seem to have been suggested by the forms of more serious verses or parables.

Take "The House That Jack Built"; many sources and parallels have been dug out. The Kafirs of South Africa tell a story like it in form and substance. The most interesting parallel, however, is an ancient Hebrew parable called "The Two Zuzim," the summation of which is as follows:

[This is] the kid that my father bought
for two zuzim.
[This is] the cat that ate the kid, etc.
[This is] the dog that bit the cat, etc.
[This is] the stick that beat the dog, etc.
[This is] the fire that burned the stick, etc.
[This is] the water that quenched the fire,
etc.
[This is] the ox that drank the water, etc.
[This is] the butcher that slew the ox, etc.
[This is] the angel of death that killed the
butcher, etc.
[This is] Yaveh, that vanquished the angel
of death, etc.

Spartacus to the Gladiators at Capua.

BY ELIJAH KELLOGG.

It is Friday afternoon. The "scholars" of School Number
Nine, having droned through a week of lessons, are beginning
the "weekly exercises." Come visitors--Freddy Jones's mother
and aunt, and William Groso's father, and the minister, and
old Mrs. Huggins, who never misses the occasion, though she
has no children of her own. Teacher, working into her voice
an unwonted note of encouragement, calls the first name on
the program, and Freddy Jones, his legs very stiff, marches
to the platform, jerks his head toward teacher, and faces
his mates. His legs are no longer stiff; on the contrary,
his knee-joints seem to be made of whalebone. His mouth is
dry and his forehead is clammy.

Freddy is not the biggest or strongest of the boys; he is
not a leader among them. He has even been known to play with
the girls. He is sandy as to hair and complexion, and stubby
as to hands and feet and nose. Yet he begins: "Ye call me
chief----"

How often, while practising the lines up in the attic, he
has attained to an exalted sense of his leadership! How
often he has leaned metaphorically upon his sword and
surveyed with scornful contempt the fawning groundlings, the
Roman Adonises, the shouting rabble! He was Spartacus then.
But now--now he is a small boy with a doubtful memory; and
mother, from the front row of benches, has to prompt him
twice.

This thrilling old piece of declamation, this address of
Spartacus to the Gladiators, was written by the Rev. Elijah
Kellogg, who also wrote a great many books for boys--"The
Elm Island Series," the "Pleasant Cove Series," the
"Whispering Pine Series," and others which are still read.
He was born in Portland, Maine, May 20, 1813; went to
Bowdoin College and Andover Theological Seminary; served as
a minister and chaplain from 1843 to 1865, and thereafter
devoted himself almost exclusively to writing until his
death, at Harpswell, Maine, March 17, 1901.

Ye call me chief; and ye do well to call him chief who for twelve long years has met upon the arena every shape of man or beast the broad Empire of Rome could furnish, and who never yet lowered his arm. If there be one among you who can say that ever, in public fight or private brawl, my actions did belie my tongue, let him stand forth and say it. If there be three in all your company dare face me on the bloody sands, let them come on. And yet I was not always thus--a hired butcher, a savage chief of still more savage men. My ancestors came from old Sparta, and settled among the vine-clad rocks and citron groves of Syrasella.

My early life ran quiet as the brooks by which I sported; and when, at noon, I gathered the sheep beneath the shade, and played upon the shepherd's flute, there was a friend, the son of a neighbor, to join me in the pastime. We led our flocks to the same pasture, and partook together our rustic meal. One evening, after the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army.

I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, and think no more of those old tales and savage wars. That very night the Romans landed on our coast. I saw the breast that had nourished me trampled by the hoof of the war-horse--the bleeding body of my father flung amid the blazing rafters of our dwelling! To-day I killed a man in the arena; and, when I broke his helmet-clasps, behold! he was my friend. He knew me, smiled faintly, gasped, and died--the same sweet smile upon his lips that I had marked, when, in adventurous boyhood, we scaled the lofty cliff to pluck the first ripe grapes, and bear them home in childish triumph!

I told the praetor that the dead man had been my friend, generous and brave; and I begged that I might bear away the body, to burn it on a funeral pile, and mourn over its ashes. Aye! upon my knees, amid the dust and blood of the arena, I begged that poor boon, while all the assembled maids and matrons, and the holy virgins they call Vestals, and the rabble, shouted in derision, deeming it rare sport, forsooth, to see Rome's fiercest gladiator turn pale and tremble at sight of that piece of bleeding clay! And the praetor drew back as if I were pollution, and sternly said, "Let the carrion rot; there are no noble men but Romans." And so, fellow gladiators, must you, and so must I, die like dogs.

O, Rome! Rome! thou hast been a tender nurse to me. Aye! thou hast given to that poor, gentle, timid shepherd lad, who never knew a harsher tone than a flute-note, muscles of iron and a heart of flint; taught him to drive the sword through plaited mail and links of rugged brass, and warm it in the marrow of his foe--to gaze into the glaring eyeballs of the fierce Numidian lion, even as a boy upon a laughing girl! And he shall pay thee back, until the yellow Tiber is red as frothing wine, and in its deepest ooze thy life-blood lies curdled!

Ye stand here now like giants, as ye are! The strength of brass is in your toughened sinews, but to-morrow some Roman Adonis, breathing sweet perfume from his curly locks, shall with his lily fingers pat your red brawn, and bet his sesterces upon your blood. Hark! hear ye yon lion roaring in his den? 'Tis three days since he has tasted flesh; but to-morrow he shall break his fast upon yours--and a dainty meal for him ye will be! If ye are beasts, then stand here like fat oxen, waiting for the butcher's knife! If ye are men, follow me!

Strike down yon guard, gain the mountain passes, and there do bloody work, as did your sires at old Thermopylae! Is Sparta dead? Is the old Grecian spirit frozen in your veins, that you do crouch and cower like a belabored hound beneath his master's lash? O comrades! Warriors! Thracians! If we must fight, let us fight for ourselves! If we must slaughter, let us slaughter our oppressors! If we must die, let it be under the clear sky, by the bright waters, in noble, honorable battle!

THE AVERAGE AGES OF ANIMALS.

The Elephant and the Whale Dispute the Record for Longevity, With the Camel Third.

Elephants are perhaps the longest-lived members of the animal kingdom, averaging between one hundred and two hundred years.

It is said that when Alexander conquered India he took one of King Porus's largest elephants, named Ajax, and turned him loose with this inscription, "Alexander, the son of Jupiter, dedicated Ajax to the sun," and that this elephant, bearing this inscription, was captured three hundred and fifty years later.

Most naturalists allow the whale about the same length of life as the elephant--from a century to two centuries; but Cuvier declared that some whales, at least, attain the age of a thousand years.

The average ages of other animals are as follows:

YEARS.
Ass 30
Bear 20
Camel 75
Cat 15
Cow 15
Deer 20
Dog 14
Fox 14
Goat 12
Guinea-pig 4
Hare 8
Hippopotamus 20
Horse 25
Hyena 25
Jaguar 25
Leopard 25
Lion 40
Monkey 17
Mouse 6
Ox 30
Pig 15
Rabbit 7
Rat 7
Rhinoceros 20
Sheep 10
Squirrel 8
Tiger 25
Wolf 20

LINES ON A SKELETON.

A reward of two hundred and fifty dollars, offered more than three-quarters of a century ago, for the discovery of the identity of the author of "Lines on a Skeleton" was as unsuccessful in attaining its object as had been the search made by the literary world of Great Britain, and it now seems scarcely likely that the person who wrote this remarkable poem will ever be known as its author.

The story of the finding of the manuscript is to the effect that in the year 1820 an attendant in the Museum of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, in London, came upon a couple of sheets of paper lying near a human skeleton. Glancing at the sheets, he saw that they contained verses. The ink with which they had been written was scarcely dry, and the idea occurred to the finder that they might have been penned by some official of the institution. Accordingly he took the sheets to one of his superiors, and in the course of the next few days the manuscript passed through the hands of several well-known medical men who were wont to visit the college. One of these gentlemen copied the verses and sent them to the _Morning Chronicle_, which promptly printed them.

The poem made a marked impression on the public mind, and earnest efforts were made by several prominent literary people to discover the identity of the author.

ANONYMOUS.

BEHOLD this ruin! 'Twas a skull
Once of ethereal spirit full.
This narrow cell was Life's retreat,
This space was Thought's mysterious seat,
What beauteous visions filled this spot,
What dreams of pleasure long forgot,
Nor hope, nor joy, nor love, nor fear,
Have left one trace of record here.

Beneath this moldering canopy
Once shone the bright and busy eye,
But start not at the dismal void--
If social love that eye employed,
If with no lawless fire it gleamed,
But through the dews of kindness beamed,
That eye shall be forever bright
When stars and sun are sunk in night.

Within this hollow cavern hung
The ready, swift, and tuneful tongue;
If Falsehood's honey it disdained,
And when it could not praise was chained;
If bold in Virtue's cause it spoke,
Yet gentle concord never broke--
This silent tongue shall plead for thee
When Time unveils Eternity!

Say, did these fingers delve the mine?
Or with the envied rubies shine?
To hew the rock or wear a gem
Can little now avail to them.
But if the page of Truth they sought,
Or comfort to the mourner brought,
These hands a richer meed shall claim
Than all that wait on Wealth and Fame.

Avails it whether bare or shod
These feet the paths of duty trod?
If from the bowers of ease they fled,
To seek Affliction's humble shed;
If Grandeur's guilty bribe they spurned,
And home to Virtue's cot returned--
These feet with angel wings shall vie,
And tread the palace of the sky!

THE BEGINNINGS OF THINGS.

EVOLUTION OF THE PIANO.

The pianoforte was directly evolved from the clavichord and the harpsichord. In 1711, Scipione Maffei gave a detailed account of the first four instruments, which were built by Bartolommeo Cristofori, named by him pianoforte, and exhibited in 1709.

Marius, in France, exhibited harpsichords, with hammer action, in 1716; and Schroter, in Germany, claimed to have invented the pianoforte between 1717 and 1721.

Marius at first was generally credited with the invention, for it was not until 1738, when Cristofori's instruments had become famous, that the Italian advanced his claim, and it was in 1763 that he brought forward the proof of his contention.

Pianos of that period were shaped like the modern grand, the first square piano being built by Freiderica, an organ builder of Saxony, in 1758. The first genuine upright was patented in England and the United States by John Isaac Hawkins, an Englishman, in 1800.

THE FIRST LIGHTHOUSE.

There is excellent authority for stating that the first lighthouse ever erected for the benefit of mariners was that built by the famous architect Sostratus, by command of Ptolemy Philadelphus, King of Egypt, between 285-247 B.C. It was built near Alexandria, on an island called Pharos, and there was expended upon it about eight hundred talents, or over a million of dollars.

Ptolemy has been much commended by some ancient writers for his liberality in allowing the architect to inscribe his name instead of his own. The inscription reads: "Sostratus, son of Dexiphanes, to the protecting deities, for the use of seafaring people." This tower was deemed one of the seven wonders of the world and was thought of sufficient grandeur to immortalize the builder.

It appears from Lucian, however, that Ptolemy does not deserve any praise for disinterestedness on this score, or Sostratus any great credit for his honesty, as it is stated that the latter, to engross in after times the glory of the structure, caused the inscription with his own name to be carved in the marble, which he afterward covered with lime and thereon put the king's name.

In process of time the lime decayed, and the inscription on the marble alone remained.

ORIGIN OF THE TYPEWRITER.

Many persons will be surprised to learn that the typewriter is not, as they imagined, a distinctly modern invention. So long ago as 1714 a patent was taken out in England by Henry Mill for a "machine for impressing letters singly and progressively as in writing, whereby all writings may be ingrossed in paper so exact as not to be distinguished from print."

His machine was very clumsy and practically useless, however. It was not until more than a century later (1829) that anything more was attempted. Then the first American typewriter, called a "typographer," was patented by W.A. Burt.

In 1833 a machine was produced in France having a separate key lever for each letter, and between the years 1840 and 1860 Sir Charles Wheatstone invented several machines which are now preserved in the South Kensington Museum, London.

In 1873, C.L. Sholes, an American, after five or six years' work, succeeded in producing a machine sufficiently perfect to warrant extensive manufacture. He interested E. Remington & Son, the gun-manufacturers, in it, and in 1874 the first model of the modern typewriter was put upon the market.

THE FIRST PRINTED BOOK.

The first book printed with type, according to Pettigrew, was the Latin Bible printed by John Gutenberg, at Mayence, about 1455; but Haydn is inclined to assign a somewhat later date to this, making the Book of Psalms, by Faust and Scheffer, printed on August 14, 1457, the first book.

The Gutenberg book is called the Mazarin Bible, having first been found in the library of Cardinal Mazarin.

There are only twenty copies of this first edition known to exist, and the workmanship in type, ink, and paper far exceed any of the subsequent editions for two hundred years.

Christopher Sower (or Saur) made the first punches and matrices and cast the first type in America at Germantown, Pennsylvania, about 1735. The anvil on which he hammered them out is still preserved. They were for a German Bible which Sower published.

"The price of our newly finished Bible, in plain binding, with a clasp, will be eighteen shillings," he said, "but to the poor and needy we have no price."

THE INVENTION OF MATCHES.

Friction matches are a comparatively modern invention. They were first made by John Walker in England, in 1827, but were rather crude affairs; he improved them somewhat in 1833 by using phosphorus. But the first really practical friction match was made in the United States in 1836 by L.C. Allin, of Springfield, Massachusetts. Before this time a clumsy form of match was imported from France, which had to be dipped into a bottle of sulphuric acid before it was lighted.

This took a great deal of time and trouble, and Allin, seeing the necessity for friction matches, set about to make them, and succeeded. He neglected to patent them, however, and on finally applying for a patent found that a man named Alonzo Phillips, who was a peddler, had discovered through a third person the secret of making the matches and had already obtained a patent. Allin, though the real inventor, was forced to become a mere manufacturer under another man's patent.

THE FIRST HORSE-CARS.

The modern street-railway for passenger service is distinctly an American invention. The first in the world was operated in New York in 1831-1832, when a horse-car, much like an old English stage-coach, was run on wooden rails from Prince Street and the Bowery to Yorkville and Harlem, following, for some distance, the route now taken by the present Madison Avenue line, which still operates under the original charter of 1831.

This remained the only line in the world until 1852, when charters were granted for the Second, Third, Sixth, and Eighth Avenue lines.

In 1856 a line was built in Boston, Massachusetts, and Philadelphia established one in 1857.

In 1860, through the efforts of George Francis Train, the first line was started in Birkenhead, England, but it was not until 1868 that one was laid in Liverpool and in 1869-1871 in London.

The first line in Paris was built in 1875, though there had been one from St. Cloud to Paris since 1856.

BEAUX AND GALLANTS OF FORMER DAYS.

How the Splendid Sir Walter Raleigh and Later the Duke of Buckingham
Sought to Dazzle Envious Eyes in the English Court.