Chapter IV: Preface (3)

Glancing now in a general way at the formation of snow-banners, we find that the main causes of the wondrous beauty and perfection of those we have been contemplating were the favorable direction and great force of the wind, the abundance of snow-dust, and the peculiar conformation of the slopes of the peaks. It is essential not only that the wind should move with great velocity and steadiness to supply a sufficiently copious and continuous stream of snow dust, but that it should come from the north. No perfect banner is ever hung on the Sierra peaks by a south wind. Had the gale that day blown from the south, leaving other conditions unchanged, only a dull, confused, fog-like drift would have been produced; for the snow, instead of being spouted up over the tops of the peaks in concentrated currents to be drawn out as streamers, would have been shed off around the sides, and piled down into glacier wombs. The cause of the concentrated action of the north wind is found in the peculiar form of the north sides of the peaks, where the amphitheaters of the residual glaciers are. In general, the south sides are convex and irregular, while the north sides are concave both in their vertical and horizontal sections; the wind in ascending these curves converges toward the summits, carrying the snow in concentrating currents with it, shooting it almost straight up into the air above the peaks, from which it is then carried away in a horizontal direction.

This difference in form between the north and south sides of the peaks was almost wholly produced by the difference in the kind and quantity of the glaciation to which they have been subjected, the north sides having been hollowed by residual shadow-glaciers of a form that never existed on the sun-beaten sides.

It appears, therefore, that shadows in a great part determine not only the forms of lofty icy mountains, but also those of the snow-banners that the wild winds hang on them.

ELLA WHEELER WILCOX.

"If you haven't what you like, try to like what you have."

In this quotation is found the philosophy of life during many
severe trials of one whose girlhood and early career as a
writer were spent entirely within the confines of Wisconsin.
Ella Wheeler was born at Johnstown Center, Wisconsin,
sometime in the '50's, and the family moved to a farm near
Madison when she was a year old. The discussion of her life
given here is derived quite largely from her own statements
in an article, "My Autobiography," published in the
Cosmopolitan magazine for August, 1901.

Mrs. Wheeler, Ella's mother, was a woman of some literary
inclinations and was very fond of reading. She loved not only
the good society of books, but she longed also for the
pleasures of the social life of a cultured community such as
she had known in her Vermont home. Pioneer life was
especially irksome to her, and she found herself unable to
meet patiently the many hardships that the change of fortune
had brought her, and her attitude in the home was not always
buoyant.

Some time after the home was established in Wisconsin, there
was born to these parents their fourth child, Ella, the
future poetess. It may not be too much to say, since Mrs.
Wilcox seems to think it herself, that from the struggles of
the father to meet the hardships that his new life brought
him, may have sprung that bit of wholesome philosophy which
stands at the head of this discussion. It is evident that she
found many opportunities to test it to the utmost. From the
suppressed literary desires of the mother may have come the
intense longing of the daughter to achieve helpfulness
through writing.

From the standpoint of language training this home was far
from limited, and Ella had opportunities here accorded to the
minority of children even at the present time. She says: "My
mother was a great reader of whatever came in her way, and
was possessed of a wonderful memory. The elder children were
excellent scholars, and a grammatical error was treated as a
cardinal sin in the household." That Ella profited from this
inheritance and training may be seen from the following
statements. At school she found the composition exercises the
most delightful of all her school duties. As early as eight
she was excelling in the expression of her thoughts in essay
form. By the age of fourteen she had become the neighborhood
celebrity because of her stories and her poetry. Naturally
these pioneer people would criticise the mother for allowing
Ella to scribble so much when she might have been doing
household or farm tasks; but their criticism was silenced,
and they learned to praise her efforts when they found that
there was a market with the magazines and papers for Ella's
"scribblings."

At the age of fourteen Ella Wheeler's education, "excellent
in grammar, spelling and reading, but wretched in
mathematics," was completed so far as the rural school was
concerned. Sometime later, through great sacrifice on the
part of her people, she was placed for one term in the
University of Wisconsin. Of this experience she says: "I was
not at all happy there; first, because I knew the strain it
put upon the home purse; second, because I felt the gulf
between myself and the town girls, whose gowns and privileges
revealed to me for the first time, the different classes in
American social life; and third, because I wanted to write
and did not want to study." Thus her school work ended and
her acquisition of knowledge necessary to furnish details for
her emotional poems has been made through her individual
study since the University experience.

Ella Wheeler's struggle to become a writer is one of the most
inspiring stories among Wisconsin writers. A weekly paper
came to the home and besides this there was an old red chest
in their upstairs wherein there was kept the often-read
copies of Arabian Nights, Gulliver's Travels, John Gilpin's
Ride, and a few of Shakespeare's plays. In addition to these,
friends had sent the family the New York Ledger and the New
York Mercury. The serial stories of these papers furnished
not only pleasing reading, but models of plots and of forms
of expression which became the guide to her in the art of
story writing.

When Ella was thirteen years old the Mercury ceased to come
to her home, and she regretted the loss of the stories so
much that she determined to write something for the paper
with the hope that the publisher would pay for her article
through subscription. After some delay this brought the much
coveted subscription and she says: "Perhaps the most
triumphant and dramatic hour of my life was when I set forth
and announced to the family that my literary work had
procured the coveted Mercury for our united enjoyment."

This experience led her to write extensively for the
magazines and papers, a list of which a University friend had
sent her. The articles which they accepted soon enabled her
to supply the home with many periodicals and books and other
articles of home use. She was not content with writing essays
very long, but soon undertook the production of verse. Her
first poem was rejected by the Mercury with some degree of
scorn, but she soon offered it to other papers and so
continued until she found a publisher. Very frequently some
of her articles would be returned as many as nine times
before she found a publisher.

The Wheeler family were enthusiastic advocates of total
abstinence, and Ella used her pen to advance this cause. Her
first collection of poems into book form was entitled "Drops
of Water." A poem with temperance as its theme is given as
the first illustration of her efforts in the collection
published here.

Ella Wheeler's training tended to make her the lyric rather
than the narrative poetess. She wrote largely of the emotion
that played through her passing experiences. "Everything in
life," she says, "was material for my own emotions, the
remarks or experiences of my comrades and associates,
sentences from books I read, and some phases of Nature." In
general three things may be said to characterize these short
poems and her own life as revealed by them, for her life
itself is a poem. First, she is convinced that the supreme
thing in life is love. In one poem she asserts that love is
the need of the world. In another, "The Kingdom of Love,"
which is given later, she truthfully proclaims that love is
the very essence of the home.

The second characteristic is her spirit of buoyancy which has
enabled her to surmount the many crushing deprivations and
disappointments in her life. She was born with an
unquenchable hope and an unfaltering trust in God and
guardian spirits. "I often wept myself to sleep after a day
of disappointment and worries," she says, "but woke in the
morning singing aloud with the joy of life." It was such
experiences as these that enabled her to say:

"Laugh and the world laughs with you;
Weep and you weep alone."

Her faith in the better things to be is well expressed in the
little poem, "The Tendril's Fate." Trials to her are
frequently the means by which the soul's true worth is
tested. This thought is expressed in the poem, "Three
Friends." She bears trials not merely for her own sake, but
for the sake of those about her. We are illustrating this
quality with the poem "Ambition's Trail." Her faith that life
has still much that is better than the present may be
illustrated by her Morning Prayer.

The third characteristic manifest in her poetry is that of
the spirit of helpfulness that manifests itself in every new
phase of life that she assumes. This attitude is illustrated
with respect to mankind in general and also with respect to
her own sex. The poems used are "I Am" and "Which Are You?"

With love and helpfulness as the bond which unite mankind,
Mrs. Wilcox feels there is no place for strife and warfare.
She assails war and expresses her conviction that womankind
shall have much to do with the final disarmament of nations.
She believes implicitly in the mutual helpfulness of man and
woman in solving the great problems of the world. Her own
home life is one of constant happiness and of constant useful
activity. When asked to express what life means to her she
wrote an article for the Cosmopolitan which began thus:
"Exhilaration, anticipation, realization, usefulness,
growth--these things life has always meant and is meaning to
me. I expected much of life; it has given, in all ways, more
than I expected. Love has been more loyal and lasting,
friendship sweeter and more comprehensive, work more
enjoyable, and fame, because of its aid to usefulness, more
satisfying than early imagination pictured." Of one whose
ideals of life are so high the state should be justly proud
and its people should delight to hear her sing:

"I know we are building our heaven
As we journey along by the way;
Each thought is a nail that is driven
In structures that cannot decay,
And the mansion at last shall be given
To us as we build it today."

It was not until after her return from the University that
Ella Wheeler discovered that her poems had a money value. She
sent Frank Leslie's Publishing House three little poems
written in one day. These were accepted and a check sent her
for ten dollars. She now bent every effort towards making her
literary efforts return substantial aid to herself and her
family. It was all her own effort and the worth of her
productions that brought her success, for she had no one to
aid her in securing publication. She sent her poems to
various magazines,--a practise she still continues. During
the years 1912 and 1913, she had poems and prose productions
listed in the following periodicals: Current Literature,
Everybody's, Good Housekeeping, Ladies' Home Journal,
Collier's Magazine, New England Magazine, The Bookman,
Lippincott's, Forum, Cosmopolitan, Musician, Current Opinion,
and Hearst's magazine.

Mrs. Wilcox has attempted only one long narrative poem,
"Maurine." In this she endeavors to set forth the doctrine of
what she regards as the highest type of friendship. Her
collections of poems bear the following titles: Drops of
Water, Shells, Poems of Passion, Three Women, An Ambitious
Man, Everyday, Thought in Prose and Verse, Poems of Pleasure,
Kingdom of Love and Other Poems, An Erring Woman's Love, Men,
Women and Emotions, The Beautiful Land of Nod, Poems of
Power, The Heart of the New Thought, Sonnets of Abelard and
Heloise, Poems of Experience, Yesterday, Poems of Progress,
Maurine, and Poems of Problems.

Some time after a brief venture in editorial work, she was
married, 1884, to Robert M. Wilcox, a business man of New
York City. Their home life in the city and by the seashore at
Granite Bay, Short Beach, Connecticut, has been most
delightful to them. They have been able to travel extensively
and in this manner to realize many of Mrs. Wilcox's early
dreams. The following poems are from "The Kingdom of Love"
and "Poems of Power."

THE TWO GLASSES

The following poems of Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilcox are reprinted
here by permission of the publishers from her copyrighted
books, of which W. B. Conkey Co., Chicago, are the exclusive
American publishers.

There sat two glasses filled to the brim,
On a rich man's table, rim to rim.
One was ruddy and red as blood,
And one was clear as the crystal flood.
Said the glass of wine to his paler brother:
"Let us tell tales of the past to each other.
I can tell of a banquet, and revel, and mirth,
Where I was king, for I ruled in might;
For the proudest and grandest souls on earth
Fell under my touch, as though struck with blight.
From the heads of kings I have torn the crown;
From the heights of fame I have hurled men down.
I have blasted many an honored name;
I have taken virtue and given shame;
I have tempted the youth with a sip, a taste,
That has made his future a barren waste.
Far greater than any king am I
Or than any army beneath the sky.
I have made the arm of the driver fail,
And sent the train from the iron rail.
I have made good ships go down at sea,
And the shrieks of the lost were sweet to me.
Fame, strength, wealth, genius before me fall;
And my might and power are over all!
Ho, ho! pale brother," said the wine,
"Can you boast of deeds as great as mine?"

Said the water glass; "I can not boast
Of a king dethroned, or a murdered host,
But I can tell of hearts that were sad
By my crystal drops made bright and glad;
Of thirst I have quenched, and brows I have laved;
Of hands I have cooled, and souls I have saved.
I have leaped through the valley, and dashed down the mountain,
Slept in the sunshine and dripped from the fountain.
I have burst my cloud-fetters, and dropped from the sky,
And everywhere gladdened the prospects and eye;
I have eased the hot forehead of fever and pain;
I have made the parched meadows grow fertile with grain.
I can tell of the powerful wheel of the mill,
That ground out the flour, and turned at my will,
I can tell of manhood debased by you,
That I have uplifted and crowned anew.
I cheer, I help, I strengthen and aid;
I gladden the hearts of man and maid;
I set the wine-chained captive free,
And all are better for knowing me."

These are the tales they told each other,
The glass of wine and its paler brother,
As they sat together, filled to the brim,
On a rich man's table rim to rim.

THE KINGDOM OF LOVE

In the dawn of the day when the sea and the earth
Reflected the sun-rise above,
I set forth with a heart full of courage and mirth
To seek for the Kingdom of Love.
I asked of a poet I met on the way
Which cross-road would lead me aright.
And he said: "Follow me, and ere long you shall see
Its glittering turrets of light."

And soon in the distance the city shone fair.
"Look yonder," he said; "how it gleams!"
But alas! for the hopes that were doomed to despair,
It was only the "Kingdom of Dreams."
Then the next man I asked was a gay cavalier,
And he said: "Follow me, follow me;"
And with laughter and song we went speeding along
By the shores of Life's beautiful sea.

Then we came to a valley more tropical far
Than the wonderful vale of Cashmere,
And I saw from a bower a face like a flower
Smile out on the gay cavalier.
And he said: "We have come to humanity's goal:
Here love and delight are intense."
But alas and alas! for the hopes of my soul--
It was only the "Kingdom of Sense."

As I journeyed more slowly I met on the road
A coach with retainers behind.
And they said: "Follow me, for our lady's abode
Belongs in that realm, you will find."
'Twas a grand dame of fashion, a newly-made bride,
I followed encouraged and bold;
But my hopes died away like the last gleams of day,
For we came to the "Kingdom of Gold."

At the door of a cottage I asked a fair maid.
"I have heard of that realm," she replied;
"But my feet never roam from the 'Kingdom of Home,'
So I know not the way," and she sighed.
I looked on the cottage; how restful it seemed!
And the maid was as fair as a dove.
Great light glorified my soul as I cried:
"Why, home is the 'Kingdom of Love.'"

THE TENDRIL'S FATE

Under the snow in the dark and the cold,
A pale little sprout was humming;
Sweetly it sang, 'neath the frozen mold,
Of the beautiful days that were coming.

"How foolish your songs," said a lump of clay,
"What is there," it asked, "to prove them?"
"Just look at the walls between you and the day,
Now have you the strength to move them?"

But under the ice and under the snow,
The pale little sprout kept singing,
"I cannot tell how, but I know, I know,
I know what the days are bringing.

"Birds and blossoms and buzzing bees,
Blue, blue skies above me,
Bloom on the meadows and buds on the trees,
And the great glad sun to love me."

A pebble spoke next. "You are quite absurd,"
It said, "with your songs' insistence;
For I never saw a tree or a bird,
So of course there are none in existence."

"But I know, I know," the tendril cried
In beautiful sweet unreason;
Till lo! from its prison, glorified,
It burst in the glad spring season.

THREE FRIENDS

Of all the blessings which my life has known,
I value most, and most praise God for three:
Want, Loneliness, and Pain, those comrades true,

Who masqueraded in the garb of foes
For many a year, and filled my heart with dread.
Yet fickle joy, like false, pretentious friends,
Has proved less worthy than this trio. First,

Want taught me labor, led me up the steep
And toilsome paths to hills of pure delight,
Trod only by the feet that know fatigue,
And yet press on until the heights appear.

Then Loneliness and hunger of the heart
Sent me upreaching to the realms of space,
Till all the silences grew eloquent,
And all their loving forces hailed me friend.

Last, Pain taught prayer! placed in my hand the staff
Of close communion with the over-soul,
That I might lean upon it to the end,
And find myself made strong for any strife.

And then these three who had pursued my steps
Like stern, relentless foes, year after year,
Unmasked, and turned their faces full on me.
And lo! they were divinely beautiful,
For through them shown the lustrous eyes of Love.

AMBITION'S TRAIL

If all the end of this continuous striving
Were simply to attain,
How poor would seem the planning and contriving,
The endless urging and the hurried driving
Of body, heart and brain!

But ever in the wake of true achieving,
There shines this glowing trail--
Some other soul will be spurred on, conceiving
New strength and hope, in its own power believing,
Because thou didst not fail.

Not thine alone the glory, nor the sorrow,
If thou dost miss the goal;
Undreamed of lives in many a far to-morrow
From thee their weakness or their force shall borrow--
On, on! ambitious soul.

MORNING PRAYER

Let me today do something that shall take
A little sadness from the world's vast store,
And may I be so favored as to make
Of joy's too scanty sum a little more.
Let me not hurt, by any selfish deed
Or thoughtless word, the heart of foe or friend;
Nor would I pass, unseeing, worthy need,
Or sin by silence when I should defend.
However meagre be my worldly wealth
Let me give something that shall aid my kind,
A word of courage, or a thought of help,
Dropped as I pass for troubled hearts to find.
Let me tonight look back across the span
'Twixt dawn and dark, and to my conscience say
Because of some good act to beast or man--
"The world is better that I lived today."

I AM

I know not whence I came,
I know not whither I go;
But the fact stands clear that I am here
In this world of pleasure and woe.
And out of the mist and murk
Another truth shines plain:
It is my power each day and hour
To add to its joy or its pain.

I know that the earth exists,
It is none of my business why;
I cannot find out what it's all about,
I would but waste time to try.
My life is a brief, brief thing,
I am here for a little space,
And while I stay I should like, if I may,
To brighten and better the place.

The trouble, I think, with us all
Is the lack of a high conceit.
If each man thought he was sent to this spot
To make it a bit more sweet,
How soon we could gladden the world,
How easily right all wrong,
If nobody shirked, and each one worked
To help his fellows along.

Cease wondering why you came--
Stop looking for faults and flaws,
Rise up today in your pride and say,
"I am a part of the First Great Cause!
However full the world,
There is room for an earnest man.
It had need of me or I would not be--
I am here to strengthen the plan."

WHICH ARE YOU?

There are two kinds of people on earth today;
Just two kinds of people, no more, I say.

Not the sinner and saint, for 'tis well understood,
The good are half bad, and the bad are half good.

Not the rich and the poor, for to rate a man's wealth,
You must first know the state of his conscience and health.

Not the humble and proud, for in life's little span,
Who puts on vain airs, is not counted a man.

Not the happy and sad, for the swift flying years
Bring each man his laughter and each man his tears.

No; the kinds of people on earth I mean,
Are the people who lift and the people who lean.

Wherever you go, you will find the earth's masses
Are always divided in just these two classes.

And, oddly enough, you will find too, I ween,
There's only one lifter to twenty who lean.

In which class are you? Are you easing the load
Of overtaxed lifters, who toil down the road?

Or are you a leaner, who lets others share
Your portion of labor, and worry and care?

RAY STANNARD BAKER.

(David Grayson.)

Ray Stannard Baker was born in 1870 at Lansing, Michigan, and
came to St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin, with his parents at the
age of five. Here he spent his boyhood and youth. He returned
to the Agricultural College of his native state for study,
and received his degree from that institution, afterwards
attending the University for a short time. He then went into
business with his father at St. Croix Falls, but the desire
to write was strong upon him, and he began his career of
authorship. During recent years his residence has been in
Amherst, Massachusetts, but he visits Wisconsin every summer.
He is one of the state's most voluminous writers. He has the
habit of keen and sympathetic observation, and this quality,
when combined, as it has been in his case, with extensive and
judicious travel and reading, usually results in a
considerable literary output. Those of us who have read Mr.
Baker's magazine articles and books feel that the writer has
seen a great many things,--that he has seen them with his own
eyes, and that he has seen them intelligently. Aside from the
fact that nearly all of his works grow rather from
observation of men and things than from a study of philosophy
or metaphysics, Mr. Baker's range of interest has been
exceedingly wide. Perhaps he is best known as a writer on
social, political, and economic subjects, but the selections
given here from "The Boys' Book of Inventions," (I and II),
indicate a field of interest that is entirely apart from
politics.

The editors feel bound, in justice to Mr. Baker, to say that
he feared that our readers would think that we had erred in
choosing the accounts of inventions which have progressed so
immeasurably since his articles were written. The editors, on
the other hand, desired to do precisely the thing that Mr.
Baker feared to have them do. They desire to show what a
keen, well-trained observer saw in these inventions, which
now play so vital a part in our lives, when the inventions
were new. Further, it is our desire that the name of
Professor Langley, of Washington, D. C., should be properly
honored in connection with the advance of the science of
aviation. Indeed, but recently, when tried by an experienced
aviator, his machine flew successfully. Professor Langley
died as an indirect result of his untiring, unselfish, and
heroic efforts in this then new cause. In spite of ridicule
and contempt, in spite of lack of support, he went
courageously ahead; and it is right that the boys of
Wisconsin should know that a young man of their state has
given due credit in his book to this heroic soul.

THROUGH THE AIR

From "THE BOYS' BOOK OF INVENTIONS," Chapter IX, by Ray
Stannard Baker. Copyright, 1899, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

Probably no American inventor of flying machines is better known or has been more successful in his experiments than Professor S. P. Langley, the distinguished secretary of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. Professor Langley has built a machine with wings, driven by a steam-engine, and wholly without gas or other lifting power beyond its own internal energy. And this machine, to which has been given the name Aerodrome (air-runner), actually flies for considerable distances. So successful were Professor Langley's early tests, that the United States Government recently made a considerable appropriation to enable him to carry forward his experiments in the hope of finally securing a practical flying machine. His work is, therefore, the most significant and important of any now before the public (1899).

The invention of the aerodrome was the result of long years of persevering and exacting labor, with so many disappointments and set-backs that one cannot help admiring the astonishing patience which kept hope alive to the end. Early in his experiments, Professor Langley had proved positively, by mathematical calculations, that a machine could be made to fly, provided its structure were light enough and the actuating power great enough. Therefore, he was not in pursuit of a mere will-o'-the-wisp. It was a mechanical difficulty which he had to surmount, and he surmounted it.

Professor Langley made his first experiments more than twelve years ago at Allegheny, Pennsylvania.... Professor Langley formed the general conclusion that by simply moving any given weight in plate form fast enough in a horizontal path through the air it was possible to sustain it with very little power. It was proved that, if horizontal flight without friction could be insured, 200 pounds of plates could be moved through the air and sustained upon it at the speed of an express train, with the expenditure of only one horse-power, and that, of course, without using any gas to lighten the weight.

Every boy who has skated knows that when the ice is very thin he must skate rapidly, else he may break through. In the same way, a stone may be skipped over the water for considerable distances. If it stops in any one place it sinks instantly. In exactly the same way, the plate of brass, if left in any one place in the air, would instantly drop to the earth; but if driven swiftly forward in a horizontal direction it rests only an instant in any particular place, and the air under it at any single moment does not have time to give way, so to speak, before it has passed over a new area of air. In fact, Professor Langley came to the conclusion that flight was theoretically possible with engines he could then build, since he was satisfied that engines could be constructed to weigh less than twenty pounds to the horse-power, and that one horse-power would support two hundred pounds if the flight was horizontal.

That was the beginning of the aerodrome. Professor Langley had worked out its theory, and now came the much more difficult task of building a machine in which theory should take form in fact. In the first place, there was the vast problem of getting an engine light enough to do the work. A few years ago an engine that developed one horse-power weighed nearly as much as an actual horse. Professor Langley wished to make one weighing only twenty pounds, a feat never before accomplished. And then, having made his engine, how was he to apply the power to obtain horizontal speed? Should it be by flapping wings like a bird, or by a screw propeller like a ship? This question led him into a close study of the bird compared with the man. He found how wonderfully the two were alike in bony formation, how curiously the skeleton of a bird's wing was like a man's arm, and yet he finally decided that flapping wings would not make the best propeller for his machine. Men have not adopted machinery legs for swift locomotion, although legs are nature's models, but they have, rather, constructed wheels--contrivances which practically do not exist in nature. Therefore, while Professor Langley admits that successful flying machines may one day be made with flapping wings, he began his experiments with the screw propeller.

There were three great problems in building the flying machine. First, an engine and boilers light enough and at the same time of sufficient power. Second, a structure which should be rigid and very light. Third, the enormously difficult problem of properly balancing the machine, which, Professor Langley says, took years to solve....

Professor Langley established an experimental station in the Potomac River, some miles below Washington. An old scow was obtained, and a platform about twenty feet high was built on top of it. To this spot, in 1893, the machine was taken, and here failure followed failure; the machine would not fly properly, and yet every failure, costly as it might be in time and money, brought some additional experience. Professor Langley found out that the aerodrome must begin to fly against the wind, just in the opposite way from a ship. He found that he must get up full speed in his engine before the machine was allowed to go, in the same way that a soaring bird must make an initial run on the ground before it can mount into the air, and this was, for various reasons, a difficult problem. And then there was the balancing.

"If the reader will look at the hawk or any soaring bird," says Professor Langley, "he will see that as it sails through the air without flapping the wing, there are hardly two consecutive seconds of its flight in which it is not swaying a little from side to side, lifting one wing or the other, or turning in a way that suggests an acrobat on a tight-rope, only that the bird uses its widely outstretched wings in place of the pole."

It must be remembered that air currents, unlike the Gulf Stream, do not flow steadily in one direction. They are forever changing and shifting, now fast, now slow, with something of the commotion and restlessness of the rapids below Niagara.

All of these things Professor Langley had to meet as a part of the difficult balancing problem, and it is hardly surprising that nearly three years passed before the machine was actually made to fly--on March 6, 1896.

"I had journeyed, perhaps for the twentieth time," says Professor Langley, "to the distant river station, and recommenced the weary routine of another launch, with very moderate expectation indeed; and when, on that, to me, memorable afternoon the signal was given and the aerodrome sprang into the air, I watched it from the shore with hardly a hope that the long series of accidents had come to a close. And yet it had, and for the first time the aerodrome swept continuously through the air like a living thing, and as second after second passed on the face of the stop-watch, until a minute had gone by, and it still flew on, and as I heard the cheering of the few spectators, I felt that something had been accomplished at last; for never in any part of the world, or in any period, had any machine of man's construction sustained itself in the air before for even half of this brief time. Still the aerodrome went on in a rising course until, at the end of a minute and a half (for which time only it was provided with fuel and water), it had accomplished a little over half a mile, and now it settled, rather than fell, into the river, with a gentle descent. It was immediately taken out and flown again with equal success, nor was there anything to indicate that it might not have flown indefinitely, except for the limit put upon it."

MARCONI AND HIS GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS--NEW EXPERIMENTS IN WIRELESS TELEGRAPHY

From "SECOND BOOK OF INVENTIONS," Chapter VII, by Ray
Stannard Baker. Copyright, 1903, by Doubleday, Page & Co.

At noon on Thursday (December 12, 1901), Marconi sat waiting, a telephone receiver at his ear, in a room of the old barracks on Signal Hill. To him it must have been a moment of painful stress and expectation. Arranged on the table before him, all its parts within easy reach of his hand, was the delicate receiving instrument, the supreme product of years of the inventor's life, now to be submitted to a decisive test. A wire ran out through the window, thence to a pole, thence upward to the kite which could be seen swaying high overhead. It was a bluff, raw day; at the base of the cliff 300 feet below thundered a cold sea; oceanward through the mist rose dimly the rude outlines of Cape Spear, the easternmost reach of the North American Continent. Beyond that rolled the unbroken ocean, nearly 2,000 miles to the coast of the British Isles. Across the harbor the city of St. John's lay on its hillside wrapped in fog; no one had taken enough interest in the experiments to come up here through the snow to Signal Hill. Even the ubiquitous reporter was absent. In Cabot Tower, near at hand, the old signalman stood looking out to sea, watching for ships, and little dreaming of the mysterious messages coming that way from England. Standing on that bleak hill and gazing out over the waste of water to the eastward, one finds it difficult indeed to realize that this wonder could have become a reality. The faith of the inventor in his creation, in the kite-wire, and in the instruments which had grown under his hand, was unshaken.

"I believed from the first," he told me, "that I would be successful in getting signals across the Atlantic."

Only two persons were present that Thursday afternoon in the room where the instruments were set up--Mr. Marconi and Mr. Kemp. Everything had been done that could be done. The receiving apparatus was of unusual sensitiveness, so that it would catch even the faintest evidence of the signals. A telephone receiver, which is no part of the ordinary instrument, had been supplied, so that the slightest clicking of the dots might be conveyed to the inventor's ear. For nearly half an hour not a sound broke the silence of the room. Then quite suddenly Mr. Kemp heard the sharp click of the tapper as it struck against the coherer; this, of course, was not the signal, yet it was an indication that something was coming. The inventor's face showed no evidence of excitement. Presently he said:

"See if you can hear anything, Kemp."

Mr. Kemp took the receiver, and a moment later, faintly and yet distinctly and unmistakably, came three little clicks--the dots of the letter S, tapped out an instant before in England. At ten minutes past one, more signals came, and both Mr. Marconi and Mr. Kemp assured themselves again and again that there could be no mistake. During this time the kite gyrated so wildly in the air that the receiving wire was not maintained at the same height, as it should have been; but again, at twenty minutes after two, other repetitions of the signal were received. Thus the problem was solved. One of the great wonders of science had been wrought.

THE ROPING AT PASCO'S

By Ray Stannard Baker, McClure's Magazine, VOL XIX. p. 152.
Copyright, 1902, by S. S. McClure Company.

... Little groups of people were drifting by to the grand stand. Here and there, from the corner of his eye, as he bent to adjust the saddle-cinches, Turk McGlory caught the glint of a white skirt or of a flowing ribbon. Sometimes the girls stopped to discuss the contestants; he heard them talking of Bud Oliver, and Mason, and Buster Graham. Suddenly, as he tightened a latigo strap, a saucy, smiling face looked up at him. Her sister was evidently trying to pull her away, but she said, half teasingly:

"I'm wearing your colors, Mr. Texas. You must win."

He saw nothing but deep black eyes, and he felt the blood in his face. He couldn't have spoken if he had known that it was to save his life, and he knew that he was smiling foolishly....

"We're betting on you, Bud Oliver," came other shouts. The Texas men were not over-popular in Arizona, and yet it was a sportsmanlike crowd.

The babel of voices ceased sharply. A wiry little steer, red and white, shot into the field as if catapulted. Turk McGlory observed how like an antelope it ran--long-legged and as easily as the wind blows. The flag fell, and Bud was off; the judges riding after him were blurred in his dust. There was no roper like Bud. He waited long before raising his rope, bending close to his saddle and riding hard; then in what curious, loose, slow coils he swung it! Would he ride clean over his steer? There! he had reached out as if to catch the steer by the tail, and the rope had gone over his head like a hoop, horns and all. Now he was paying out to trip up the steer. How they were running! Turk McGlory rose suddenly in his saddle.

"Look out for the fence," he roared.

But Bud had seen it, too, and the little roan squatted like a rabbit. The steer, reaching the rope's end, doubled up and fell--but fell against the fence. There had not been quite room enough. Bud was off saddle, and the little roan, knowing well what was going on, walked away like a man, pulling hard on the rope to keep the steer down. If it had been a larger steer or a fatter one, there would have been no trouble; but this one fought like a cat, now on its knees, now on its feet. Bud seized it by the tail, and with a single fierce toss he laid it flat, then he tied--and arms up. Turk McGlory waited with hands clenched to hear the time.

"Fifty seconds."

So Bud was beaten by a second, and beaten because he didn't have a fair field. How the crowd howled for the Arizona champion. Bud came up smiling and unconcerned.

"Now, McGlory," he said, "you must make a showing for Texas."

"What am I offered on Turk McGlory against the field?" shouted the pool-seller. "Now's your last chance."

"Hurrah for the kid from Texas!" shouted other voices.

Turk McGlory was at the line, astonished to find himself coiling his rope with so much ease. He felt that he wasn't doing it himself, but that some one else was working in him. The sun blazed hot on the field, but everything seemed dim and indistinct. To him all the voices kept shouting:

"Turk McGlory, Turk McGlory, Turk McGlory."

"Hurrah for Texas and the calico horse," came a shout from the grand stand.

"Wait till they see you run, Pinto," Turk said between his teeth, and the pinto stirred nervously under him.

"Ready," called Turk McGlory, though not in Turk McGlory's voice. He gave one glance behind him. The grand stand was a picture of a girl in blue and white; she was the picture, all the rest was frame.

There was a clatter at the pen, and the steer shot past him. Instantly he saw all its points--horns, legs, tail--and they spoke to him with the meaning of familiarity. So might the old knight have looked for the points of his adversary's armour. Now that he was off, Turk's head cleared to his work. The steer ran with hind feet swinging sideways, hog-like. He remembered a steer in the Lazy A outfit that had the same habit, and a bad one it was, too. How strange that he should think of such things at such a time! The steer was swerving swiftly to the left. The pinto, nose forward and dilating, instantly slackened pace, swerving in the same direction and cutting off distance. It was much to have a horse, pinto though he be, that knew his business. Turk's rope began to swing, but he was wholly unconscious of it. He seemed now to see only the legless body of a steer swimming on a billow of dust. The fence! He saw it with a throb, and he was yet too far off to throw. And there was the grand stand above it, the men rising, half in terror, and a color of women. The steer had swung almost round. It was a low rail fence, and between it and the grand stand lay the racing track. Dimly McGlory heard shouts of warning. Would the steer plunge into the stand? Dimly, too, glancing back, he saw the other cow-men charging after him to the rescue. There was a crash; the steer had gone through the fence as if it were pasteboard, and the pinto was now close behind. There was all too little room here in the track. The steer would evidently plunge full into the crowd. Turk McGlory's arm shot forward and the rope sped. The pinto sat sharply back, throwing McGlory well over the pommel. To those in the grand stand it seemed as if the steer, all horns and eyes, was plucked out of their faces. When they looked again, McGlory was tying, and the judges and the other punchers were swarming through the gap in the fence. Hands up; and the pinto easing away on the rope! It was all lost, McGlory felt. The fence had been in the way. Why couldn't they provide an open field, as in Texas? These Arizona men couldn't conduct a contest. The timer lifted his hand, and the shouting stopped.

"Thirty-six seconds," he announced.

"What a fool of a timer," thought Turk McGlory. "It can't be so."

Then he saw Bud Oliver stride up with outstretched hand, and a lump came in his throat.

"Good boy!" said Bud. "You've saved the day for Texas."

And then the crowd pounced on him and hooted and shouted, "McGlory! McGlory!" until he was dizzy with it all. It was not as he thought it would be. Two hundred dollars won! And he, Turk McGlory!

And then a saucy, flushed face looking up at him.

"I knew you would do it, Mr. Texas," she said.

And with that she pinned a blue and white ribbon on his vest, and he looked off over her head, and trembled.

"DAVID GRAYSON."

Surprised as many of our readers will no doubt be to find how
wide has been the field of interest covered by Mr. Baker
under his own name, the surprise of most of them will be
still keener when they know that the delightful pastoral
sketches in prose which have appeared in our magazines from
time to time under the name of "David Grayson," are all
written by this same young son of Wisconsin. Who would have
thought that the author of "Adventures in Contentment,"
"Adventures in Friendship," "The Friendly Road," and the
novel called "Hempfield," was the same as the frequently
truculent writer of social and political exposures?

One likes Mr. Baker better knowing this fact. One sees that
his interests and ideals are wide, tolerant, and kindly. The
editors of this book are proud to be among the first to
introduce David Grayson and Ray Stannard Baker publicly as
one and the same man. Mr. Baker has also written under the
pen name of Sturgis B. Rand.

AN ARGUMENT WITH A MILLIONAIRE

From "ADVENTURES IN CONTENTMENT," Chapter VII, by David
Grayson. Doubleday, Page & Co.

An Argument With a Millionaire.

"Let the mighty and great
Roll in splendour and state,
I envy them not, I declare it.
I eat my own lamb,
My own chicken and ham,
I shear my own sheep and wear it.

I have lawns, I have bowers,
I have fruits, I have flowers,
The lark is my morning charmer;
So you jolly dogs now,
Here's God bless the plow--
Long life and content to the farmer."

--Rhyme on an old pitcher of English pottery.

I have been hearing of John Starkweather ever since I came here. He is a most important personage in this community. He is rich. Horace especially loves to talk about him. Give Horace half a chance, whether the subject be pigs or churches, and he will break in somewhere with the remark: "As I was saying to Mr. Starkweather--" or, "Mr. Starkweather says to me--" How we love to shine by reflected glory! Even Harriet has not gone by unscathed; she, too, has been affected by the bacillus of admiration. She has wanted to know several times if I saw John Starkweather drive by: "The finest span of horses in this country," she says, and "did you see his daughter?" Much other information concerning the Starkweather household, culinary and otherwise, is current among our hills. We know accurately the number of Mr. Starkweather's bedrooms, we can tell how much coal he uses in winter and how many tons of ice in summer, and upon such important premises we argue his riches.

Several times I have passed John Starkweather's home. It lies between my farm and the town, though not on the direct road, and it is really beautiful with the groomed and guided beauty possible to wealth. A stately old house with a huge end chimney of red bricks stands with dignity well back from the road; round about lie pleasant lawns that once were cornfields; and there are drives and walks and exotic shrubs. At first, loving my own hills so well, I was puzzled to understand why I should also enjoy Starkweather's groomed surroundings. But it came to me that after all, much as we may love wildness, we are not wild, nor our works. What more artificial than a house, or a barn, or a fence? And the greater and more formal the house, the more formal indeed must be the nearer natural environments. Perhaps the hand of man might well have been less evident in developing the surroundings of the Starkweather home--for art, dealing with nature, is so often too accomplished!

But I enjoy the Starkweather place and as I look in from the road, I sometimes think to myself with satisfaction: "Here is this rich man who has paid his thousands to make the beauty which I pass and take for nothing--and having taken, leave as much behind." And I wonder sometimes whether he, inside his fences, gets more joy of it than I, who walk the roads outside. Anyway, I am grateful to him for using his riches so much to my advantage.

On fine mornings John Starkweather sometimes comes out in his slippers, bare-headed, his white vest gleaming in the sunshine, and walks slowly around his garden. Charles Baxter says that on these occasions he is asking his gardener the names of the vegetables. However that may be, he has seemed to our community the very incarnation of contentment and prosperity--his position the acme of desirability.

What was my astonishment, then, the other morning to see John Starkweather coming down the pasture lane through my farm. I knew him afar off, though I had never met him. May I express the inexpressible when I say he had a rich look; he walked rich, there was richness in the confident crook of his elbow, and in the positive twitch of the stick he carried: a man accustomed to having doors opened before he knocked. I stood there a moment and looked up the hill at him, and I felt that profound curiosity which every one of us feels every day of his life to know something of the inner impulses which stir his nearest neighbor. I should have liked to know John Starkweather; but I thought to myself as I have thought so many times how surely one comes finally to imitate his surroundings. A farmer grows to be a part of his farm; the sawdust on his coat is not the most distinctive insignia of the carpenter; the poet writes his truest lines upon his own countenance. People passing in my road take me to be a part of this natural scene. I suppose I seem to them as a partridge squatting among dry grasses and leaves, so like the grass and leaves as to be invisible. We all come to be marked upon by nature and dismissed--how carelessly!--as genera or species. And is it not the primal struggle of man to escape classification, to form new differentiations?

Sometimes--I confess it--when I see one passing in my road, I feel like hailing him and saying:

"Friend, I am not all farmer. I, too, am a person, I am different and curious. I am full of red blood, I like people, all sorts of people; if you are not interested in me, at least I am intensely interested in you. Come over now and let's talk!"

So we are all of us calling and calling across the incalculable gulfs which separate us even from our nearest friends!

Once or twice this feeling has been so real to me that I've been near to the point of hailing utter strangers--only to be instantly overcome with a sense of the humorous absurdity of such an enterprise. So I laugh it off and I say to myself:

"Steady now: the man is going to town to sell a pig; he is coming back with ten pounds of sugar, five of salt pork, a can of coffee and some new blades for his mowing machine. He hasn't time for talk"--and so I come down with a bump to my digging, or hoeing, or chopping, or whatever it is.

Here I've left John Starkweather in my pasture while I remark to the extent of a page or two that I didn't expect him to see me when he went by.

I assumed that he was out for a walk, perhaps to enliven a worn appetite (do you know, confidentially, I've had some pleasure in times past in reflecting upon the jaded appetites of millionaires!), and that he would pass out by my lane to the country road; but, instead of that, what should he do but climb the yard fence and walk over toward the barn where I was at work.

Perhaps I was not consumed with excitement: here was fresh adventure!

"A farmer," I said to myself with exultation, "has only to wait long enough and all the world comes his way."