"Dere frend:i got ure letter an Mr. Hobbs got his an we are sory u are down on ure luck an we say hold on as longs u kin an dont let no one git ahed of u. There is a lot of ole theves wil make al they kin of u ef u dont kepe ure i skined. But this is mosly to say that ive not forgot wot u did fur me an if there aint no better way cum over here an go in pardners with me. Biznes is fine an ile see no harm cums to u Enny big feler that trise to cum it over u wil hafter setle it fust with Perfessor Dick Tipton. So no more at present"Dick."
"Dere frend:i got ure letter an Mr. Hobbs got his an we are sory u are down on ure luck an we say hold on as longs u kin an dont let no one git ahed of u. There is a lot of ole theves wil make al they kin of u ef u dont kepe ure i skined. But this is mosly to say that ive not forgot wot u did fur me an if there aint no better way cum over here an go in pardners with me. Biznes is fine an ile see no harm cums to u Enny big feler that trise to cum it over u wil hafter setle it fust with Perfessor Dick Tipton. So no more at present
"Dick."
And this was what Dick read in Mr. Hobbs's letter:
"Dear Sir: Yrs received and wd say things looks bad. I believe its a put up job and them thats done it ought to be looked after sharp. And what I write to say is two things. Im going to look this thing up Keep quiet and Ill see a lawyer and do all I can And if the worst happens and them earls is too many for us theres a partnership in the grocery business ready for you when yure old enough and a home and a friend in"Yrs truly,Silas Hobbs."
"Dear Sir: Yrs received and wd say things looks bad. I believe its a put up job and them thats done it ought to be looked after sharp. And what I write to say is two things. Im going to look this thing up Keep quiet and Ill see a lawyer and do all I can And if the worst happens and them earls is too many for us theres a partnership in the grocery business ready for you when yure old enough and a home and a friend in
"Yrs truly,Silas Hobbs."
"Well," said Mr. Hobbs, "he's pervided for between us, if he aint a earl."
"So he is," said Dick. "I'd ha' stood by him. Blest if I didn't like that little feller fust-rate."
The very next morning, one of Dick's customers was rather surprised. He was a young lawyer just beginning practice. As poor as a very young lawyer can possibly be, but a bright, energetic young fellow, with sharp wit and a good temper. He had a shabby office near Dick's stand, and every morning Dick blacked his boots for him, and quite often they were not exactly water-tight, but he always had a friendly word or a joke for Dick.
That particular morning, when he put his foot on the rest, he had an illustrated paper in his hand—an enterprising paper, with pictures in it of conspicuous people and things. He had just finished looking it over, and when the last boot was polished, he handed it over to the boy.
"Here's a paper for you, Dick," he said; "you can look it over when you drop in at Delmonico's for your breakfast. Picture of an English castle in it, and an English earl's daughter-in-law. Fine young woman, too—lots of hair—though she seems to be raising rather a row. You ought to become familiar with the nobility and gentry, Dick. Begin on the Right Honorable the Earl of Dorincourt and Lady Fauntleroy. Hello! I say, what's the matter?"
The pictures he spoke of were on the front page, and Dick was staring at one of them with his eyes and mouth open, and his sharp face almost pale with excitement.
"What's to pay, Dick?" said the young man. "What has paralyzed you?"
Dick really did look as if something tremendous had happened. He pointed to the picture, under which was written:
"Mother of Claimant (Lady Fauntleroy)."
It was the picture of a handsome woman, with large eyes and heavy braids of black hair wound around her head.
"Her!" said Dick. "My, I know her better'n I know you!"
The young man began to laugh.
"Where did you meet her, Dick?" he said. "At Newport? Or when you ran over to Paris the last time?"
Dick actually forgot to grin. He began to gather his brushes and things together, as if he had something to do which would put an end to his business for the present.
"Never mind," he said. "I know her! An I've struck work for this mornin'."
And in less than five minutes from that time he was tearing through the streets on his way to Mr. Hobbs and the corner store. Mr. Hobbs could scarcely believe the evidence of his senses when he looked across the counter and saw Dick rush in with the paper in his hand. The boy was out of breath with running; so much out of breath, in fact, that he could scarcely speak as he threw the paper down on the counter.
"Hello!" exclaimed Mr. Hobbs. "Hello! What you got there?"
"Look at it!" panted Dick. "Look at that woman in the picture! That's what you look at!Sheaint no 'ristocrat,sheaint!" with withering scorn. "She's no lord's wife. You may eat me, if it aint Minna—Minna!I'd know her anywheres, an' so'd Ben. Jest ax him."
Mr. Hobbs dropped into his seat.
"I knowed it was a put-up job," he said. "I knowed it; and they done it on account o' him bein' a 'Merican!"
"Done it!" cried Dick, with disgust. "Shedone it, that's who done it. She was allers up to her tricks; an' I'll tell yer wot come to me, the minnit I saw her pictur. There was one o' them papers we saw had a letter in it that said somethin' 'bout her boy, an' it said he had a scar on his chin. Put them two together—her 'n' that there scar! Why, that there boy o' hers aint no more a lord than I am! It'sBen'sboy,—the little chap she hit when she let fly that plate at me."
Professor Dick Tipton had always been a sharp boy, and earning his living in the streets of a big city had made him still sharper. He had learned to keep his eyes open and his wits about him, and it must be confessed he enjoyed immensely the excitement and impatience of that moment. If little Lord Fauntleroy could only have looked into the store that morning, he would certainly have been interested, even if all the discussion and plans had been intended to decide the fate of some other boy than himself.
Mr. Hobbs was almost overwhelmed by his sense of responsibility, and Dick was all alive and full of energy. He began to write a letter to Ben, and he cut out the picture and inclosed it to him, and Mr. Hobbs wrote a letter to Cedric and one to the Earl. They were in the midst of this letter-writing when a new idea came to Dick.
"Say," he said, "the feller that give me the paper, he's a lawyer. Let's ax him what we'd better do. Lawyers knows it all." Mr. Hobbs wasimmensely impressed by this suggestion and Dick's business capacity.
"That's so!" he replied. "This here calls for lawyers."
And leaving the store in the care of a substitute, he struggled into his coat and marched down-town with Dick, and the two presented themselves with their romantic story in Mr. Harrison's office, much to that young man's astonishment.
If he had not been a very young lawyer, with a very enterprising mind and a great deal of spare time on his hands, he might not have been so readily interested in what they had to say, for it all certainly sounded very wild and queer; but he chanced to want something to do very much, and he chanced to know Dick, and Dick chanced to say his say in a very sharp, telling sort of way.
"And," said Mr. Hobbs, "say what your time's worth a' hour and look into this thing thorough, andI'llpay the damage,—Silas Hobbs, corner of Blank street, Vegetables and Fancy Groceries."
"Well," said Mr. Harrison, "it will be a big thing if it turns out all right, and it will be almost as big a thing for me as for Lord Fauntleroy; and at any rate, no harm can be done by investigating. It appears there has been some dubiousness about the child. The woman contradicted herself in some of her statements about his age, and aroused suspicion. The first persons to be written to are Dick's brother and the Earl of Dorincourt's family lawyer."
And actually, before the sun went down, two letters had been written and sent in two different directions—one speeding out of New York harbor on a mail steamer on its way to England, and the other on a train carrying letters and passengers bound for California. And the first was addressed to T. Havisham, Esq., and the second to Benjamin Tipton.
And after the store was closed that evening, Mr. Hobbs and Dick sat in the back-room and talked together until midnight.
(To be concluded.)
Try cycles first
"Bicycles!—Bicycles!"Nay; to shun laughter,Trycycles first,Andbuycycles after;For surely the buyerDeserves but the worst,Who would buy cycles, failingTo try cycles first!
"Bicycles!—Bicycles!"Nay; to shun laughter,Trycycles first,Andbuycycles after;For surely the buyerDeserves but the worst,Who would buy cycles, failingTo try cycles first!
A Quiet Row on the "Broad Lake."A QUIET ROW ON THE “BROAD LAKE.”
Lake George can be the calmest and loveliest sheet of water that ever was shut in by mountain walls, but like all mountain lakes it is very fickle. If you have never seen it "cut up its didos," you do not yet really know our Lake. In the fall, when the tourists have gone and the hotels and cottages are quiet, Lake George now and then gets into a great rage and becomes quite sublime.
One day in the latter part of October, there came into our bay a trim little sloop-rigged sailboat, with three men aboard. They were after the ducks that always make Dunham's Bay a resting-place on their long autumn journey to the southward. This little yacht, if I may call it one, had not been long in view when there broke upon the lake a fierce, cold, north wind, driving the whitecaps up into the bay like a frightened flock of sheep.
The sailboat could now stand only the mainsail, and even with that it reeled and tumbled about fearfully in the hands of its unskilled crew, and two or three times it was nearly driven ashore, for the men seemed quite unable to make it beat up into the wind.
Charlie Brought the Bow of the Boat to the Man in the Water and Took Him Aboard.“CHARLIE BROUGHT THE BOW OF THE BOAT TO THE MAN IN THE WATER AND TOOK HIM ABOARD.” (SEE NEXT PAGE.)
While the gale was thus running into the bay, my young friend Charlie Fraser, with a boy's love for excitement, came and asked permission to go out in my rowboat, to see "what kind of a rough-water boat she might be." Though I knew him to be both a good oarsman and a good swimmer, and though the boat had always behaved admirably in a sea, I hesitated, until he proposed not to venture beyond Joshua's Rock, which marks the line between the bay and the "broad lake," as the people call it at this point. After I had let him go, I reproached myself for trusting a boy of sixteen in a gale that was momently increasing in violence. But Charlie did not care to risk too near an approach to the broad lake; he soon saw that there was danger of swamping even in the bay, and therefore he put about for home. In passing the sailboat, which was laboring hard among the rushing, roaring whitecaps, he had shouted to the young men to take in a reef; but they kept the whole mainsail flying, though they had to place all the ballast up to windward and then to sit in a row upon the windward gunwale of the boat to keep it from upsetting. Finding that the gale, which continued to rise, would certainly upset them in spite of all their exertions, one of them eased off the sheet, while the man at the tiller at the same moment brought the boat's head into the wind. This left all the weight of the ballast and the men on one side, with no balancing force of wind in the sail, and the light sloop tipped completely over in the direction opposite to the one they had feared. The sail lay flat upon the water, with one poor fellow under it, while another, encumbered with a big overcoat, was floundering in the waves; the third succeeded in climbing to the upper side of the capsized sloop and sitting astride of it. The wild, frightened cries of the young men rose above the hissing of wind and the roaring of waves, and Charlie brought his boat around and rowed for them. The waves jerked one of hisoars from the rowlock, but he soon had it in its place, and was pulling as a strong boy can pull when cries of drowning men are in his ears.
"Help! quick! I'm going! Oh, help! help!" rang in his ears and spurred him to do his utmost, as he headed straight for the sailboat, disregarding the waves that broke now and then into his own boat.
Silver MedalOBVERSE. REVERSE.
When Charlie got up to the wreck, he presented the bow of his boat first to the man who had emerged from under the sail. This young man took hold, then lost his grip and went down as the water tossed the boat; and Charlie held on to the seat to keep from being pitched after him. Then the man came up, gurgling, sputtering, and getting a new hold on the boat succeeded in scrambling in. Holding the boat into the teeth of the wind, Charlie then brought the bow to the other man in the water, and so took him aboard. There were now three people and a great deal of water in the boat; and Charlie concluded that it had all it would carry, and that it would be necessary to land his two passengers before taking the stout young man who maintained an uneasy perch on the capsized yacht. Shouting some words of encouragement to him, Charlie started for the shore; but the young man on the boat, benumbed by his ducking and the icy wind, and perhaps discouraged at seeing the rowboat leave him, fell off the capsized yacht into the water with a cry for help. Charlie put back just in time to grab him as he again let go his hold, and began to sink. But the rowboat had all it would bear in such a sea, and before taking him aboard, it was necessary to make the others throw overboard their wet coats and overcoats. Then the stout young man was pulled in over the stern, and Charlie soon brought the rowboat, staggering under its load of four persons and a great weight of water, safely to dock. A little while after, the three dripping duck-hunters were drying by the kitchen fire.
"I was under the sail," said one of them to me, "and if the boat hadn't come to our help just when it did, it would have been the end of me."
A New York gentleman who heard of this affair wrote to the office of the United States Life Saving Service, at Washington, asking for the silver medal of the Government for Charlie Fraser. Of course there was a great deal of formality to be gone through with; affidavits were made by eye-witnesses, and filed away at Washington, and there the matter rested for months. Meantime Charlie had no recognition of his act except a letter from the mother of one of the young men, though he had, I suppose, what was better—the consciousness of having done his duty manfully in a pinch. One administration at Washington went out, and another came in, and we concluded that the medal had been forgotten. But one day there came to Charlie a very large official envelope, in the corner of which there was boldly printed "Treasury Department." It was also marked "Official Business," and was addressed in big letters and looked very impressive. The inside of it seemed equally important, and it read:
"Mr. Charles M. Fraser:Sir:I have the pleasure to transmit herewith a silver life-saving medal which has been awarded you under authority of section 7 of the Act of June 20, 1874, section 12 of the Act of June 18, 1878, and section 9 of the Act of May 4, 1882, in recognition of your courage and humanity in saving three persons from drowning October 25, 1884."I have the honor to be, very respectfully,D. Manning,"Secretary."
"Mr. Charles M. Fraser:
Sir:I have the pleasure to transmit herewith a silver life-saving medal which has been awarded you under authority of section 7 of the Act of June 20, 1874, section 12 of the Act of June 18, 1878, and section 9 of the Act of May 4, 1882, in recognition of your courage and humanity in saving three persons from drowning October 25, 1884.
"I have the honor to be, very respectfully,
D. Manning,"Secretary."
And the same day there reached him by express the silver medal in a neat case.
Head of the Bison, or American Buffalo. [See Next Page.]HEAD OF THE BISON, OR AMERICAN BUFFALO. [SEE NEXT PAGE.]
One evening my quiet hermitage seemed more silent than ever before. That small dog, Gip, slept soundly on the earthen floor, tired out with a long day's run through the park. I had just chased away a friendly striped snake that had squirmed in through a mouse-hole and settled itself comfortably, wishing to make its home with me. The field-mice trooped silently about the room in dozens, over the table and under the chairs,—but there is no defense against them. The other night they had the impudence to sit on my pillow and pull out my hair for their nests. "Their tameness is shocking to me," as Alexander Selkirk, the original Robinson Crusoe, complained of the beasts on his island.
Plotting against the mice, without lighting a lamp I sat by the doorway as the darkness deepened, for the night was too warm and too fine for lamp-light. The long midsummer twilight faded to a narrow band of gray just over the mountain-peak; and looking out, I could hear none of the familiar sounds of the wilderness—even the murmuring pine-woods were hushed in the perfectly calm night. But presently a soft splashing sound came from the pool in the brook behind the house. It reminded me that for nearly a year I had been living within fifty steps of a colony ofbeavers, and had not yet seen a single one of them; for they are never out by daylight and I am never out by night.
The brook which runs through the park dwindles to a very small stream after the summer heat has melted all the snow from the peak; and there would be too little water for the beavers to swim in if they had not built a number of solid dams across the stream, making as many pretty ponds, where they and the muskrats and the wild ducks lead a jolly life together. There is a chain of five of these beaver-ponds, which begins quite near the house. Often in the early morning, we see places where they have been at work all night, mending their dams, cutting down willow bushes, and even felling trees of some size with a smooth cut that a skillful woodman might be proud of; but all day long there is never a sound of work in the silent village. So, hearing something plunging into the pond in the late twilight, I stole to the bank and looked through an opening in the willow thicket. There by the dim light I saw their round, dark bodies swimming around and around and up and down the pond as silently as fishes, with only a gentle splash now and then as they dipped beneath the surface. It must have been a holiday evening with them, for they were taking a rest from their hard work, and it seemed in the darkness as if they were only playing together in the water.
But I had only a little time to watch them, for some slight noise or the scent of the enemy soon spread an alarm, and in a moment every beaver had disappeared from the pond.
Some years ago, we used to read that all the beavers would soon be killed; for beaver fur had long been fashionable, and the price of every skin was very high. It is strange that the life and happiness of millions of little animals in the backwoods of America and Siberia should depend on the whims of the grand ladies of Paris and London; but so it is. When the beaver fur went out of favor, and the slaughter of the Alaska seals began, the beavers increased wonderfully in all the Western creeks and rivers. But if the Princess of Wales should happen to fancy a garment of beaver fur, woe to the unhappy little beavers of the Rocky Mountains! Thousands of other grand ladies must follow the fashion, and thousands of beavers must furnish the fur.
In riding over the green turf of the open country, one sees everywhere white objects which so reflect the strong sunshine that they almost dazzle the eye. These are the bleaching skulls of the buffaloes that used to roam in thousands through this region. Every one has read how, only fifty years ago, millions of buffaloes wandered over nearly half of the United States; now there are no great herds except in the Territory of Montana, and from that territory more than a hundred thousand skins have been sent to the East in a year. For nearly every skin that is sent away, about half a ton of fine meat is left to decay on the prairie. It is a reckless waste of animal life, and I am sorry to say that our government does very little to stop it. Within ten years there will be no more great herds of buffaloes in the United States. Small bands of them will linger hidden away in valleys, but by the time some boys who read this have lived to be old men, the American bison will probably be seen only where it is kept as a curiosity; just as the one little band of aurochs—the last descendants of the wild cattle which used to roam over all Europe—is kept by the Emperor of Russia. Still, even now, at times, single buffaloes or small bands of them will wander back here to their old grazing-grounds. Last summer a party of hay-makers saw a band of a dozen or more in a remote valley behind the peak. And a few days later, one of our neighbors at the nearest ranch, beyond the mountains, was sitting in the doorway of his snug home one morning, after an early breakfast, when to his astonishment, a great buffalo bull came trotting easily along within a hundred yards of the door. He would hardly have been more surprised had an elephant or a rhinoceros happened in for a morning call; for he had never seen a buffalo, nor had he ever expected to see one at his own ranch. But his surprise left him breath enough to shout, "A buffalo! a buffalo!" The house was full of men just in from the work of gathering beef-cattle for shipment; and at the startling word, every man seized the nearest rifle or pistol or shot-gun, and dashed away to join the chase; only one or two stopping hastily to throw a saddle on a horse. As soon as the chase began, the big beast ran swiftly into the thicket along the creek, and was able to keep out of sight for some time. The chase was long and exciting, but the buffalo's pursuers were too many for him. Some followed up his trail, while others watched the outskirts of the thicket; and at last one of the best marksmen among them, catching sight of the big black body, took a quick line aim and brought the buffalo down with a single bullet; so all the inhabitants of the ranch were feasted with buffalo-meat as long as it could be kept from spoiling. But where the great herds range, there is no such excitement about killing them.
One day a young fellow from the East was listening eagerly with me to the yarns of an old buffalo-hunter, and as the hunter finished his story, the young man said:
"It must be tremendously exciting sport, John!"
"Well, I'll tell you how it is," said John. "It's about as exciting as if you were to go out into the corral and shoot a dozen of those old dairy-cows with a pistol."
With a swift horse, trained to the business, and a heavy revolver, a man who can aim truly may often ride into a herd of buffaloes, overtaking them one by one when they are running their hardest, and, riding close beside them, can put his bullets into the hearts of dozens of them in a single day's hunt. That is the reason why the bison is the first of all the wild animals to disappear at the approach of civilized man—it can not possibly escape from a swift horseman.
A Colony of Beavers.“A COLONY OF BEAVERS.”
The most abundant game animals among the mountains are the deer. The white-tailed deer is small and much like the antelope in color, but has a far more sleek and handsome coat. The black-tailed or mule deer is twice as large as its white-tailed cousin, and wears a quaker-colored coat, which in summer is tinged with brown. Sometimes, on horseback, I have met the deer in the mountains without giving them any alarm, and we have stood and gazed at one another at our leisure, just to satisfy curiosity. But they know that a man on foot or carrying a rifle is a dangerous creature, and they never stop long to look at him. Usually, even before the hunter catches sight of them, they have seen him. They do not bound away through the forest with a jump and a crash; but, even if taken by surprise, they vanish away between the yellow trunks of the pines as silently as the shadow of the low swooping vulture slides across the grass. They dart so noiselessly through the dark woods that in the distance they seem more like a troop of flying spirits than a herd of animals.
Head of a Mule Deer.HEAD OF A MULE DEER.
In those parts of the mountains which are so rocky and rough that few animals can approach them, and on the high barrens where the snow lieslate in summer, the beautiful big-horn sheep live undisturbed. It is only when they come down to the streams for water, that the hunter can have a fair chance of shooting them. They are swift and handsome animals. Their heads are crowned with ribbed and curving horns larger than those the broad-horned Texas cattle carry. Their coats are not woolly, but are covered with glossy brown hair, shading off in the lower parts to a white as pure as the snow-drifts among which they live. There are no animals, excepting the Swiss chamois and other wild goats, that can run and jump among jagged rocks as they do; and it is useless for any man or beast to try to chase them on the mountain-tops. But a few weeks ago, before the boys went out to work with the cattle, two of them were searching for horses in a cañon opening westward from the valley, and Gip was trotting along behind them, when a turn in the trail suddenly showed them a flock of wild sheep climbing a steep path up the rocky side of the cañon. Both men took quick aim and fired, and the flock went bounding on toward their home among the crags, with one fine young buck lagging behind, his leg broken by a bullet. Yet no man may hope to overtake a wild sheep among the rocks, even though the sheep has but three legs to go on; so, after wounding their fine game, it seemed as if they must lose him. But just as they were making up their minds to the disappointment, Gip took in the trouble with one quick glance and ran to their aid. He has never been taught to hunt, but he is a very wise dog, and does very well without training. He went scrambling up over the rocks ten times faster than a man could go, and soon headed off the wounded sheep. Now Gip is small, and a wild sheep is very large, and tall like a deer; and it seemed impossible that so little a dog could stop it. But the sheep naturally lowered its head to bring its horns to bear on the dog; and Gip, seeing its head within reach, gave a snap at its nose and hung on for dear life, though he was almost lifted from the ground. Even a mountain sheep can not be very nimble with a broken leg, and a dog on the end of its nose; so the boys soon climbed up after him, and when near enough not to endanger the plucky little dog, they ended the sheep's life with another shot. And so, for many days, all the men at the cabin lived on mutton finer even than the famous mutton that is fattened on the English downs.
Not long ago, old Frank, the man who lives alone at the ranch on the western side of the mountains, had the good fortune to come upon two little wild lambs in open ground, where he could easily overtake them; for they were only a few days old. Being a lone man and fond of pets, he carried them home in his arms and fed them every day with milk, until they became as tame as kittens. When they grew to be large sheep, their perfect tameness made them famous curiosities even in the Far West; but they were much greater curiosities when their owner took them to the Eastern States,—for I doubt if a tame big-horn sheep had ever before been seen in an American city. The great price which the rare animals brought well paid the man for all his trouble.
Any of the grazing and browsing animals which live in the Far West may easily be tamed if they are caught young. The antelope and deer are not uncommon pets at the frontier ranches; the mountain sheep and elk can be tamed as readily, but it is more difficult to catch them.
Nearly all the men on the ranches of Wyoming are engaged in the cattle business; and they are so accustomed to throwing the lasso in catching the free cattle and horses, that when they come on the young wild animals, they have little trouble in roping them. The cow-boys, when they are sociable about the roaring hearth-fires in winter, have many curious stories to tell about capturing everykind of wild animal with their ropes. Sometimes when a few of them are away together gathering cattle, they will come on a bear, and, even if unarmed, it is easy for the boys to throw one or two ropes around the bear and hold it until some armed man comes to finish the work. The only trouble is in finding a horse brave enough to run near a bear while his rider throws the rope. One man, very skillful with the rope, has told me how he lassoed a mountain lion. Those great cats are so greedy that when they find a carcass, they will eat until they are stupid and slow in their movements, like a boa constrictor when it is filled with food; so, when this cow-boy found a large old lion just finishing its dinner, he had no difficulty in throwing a noose over its head and dragging it after his horse until another man came up to end its life.
Head of Rocky Mountain Wild Sheep.HEAD OF ROCKY MOUNTAIN WILD SHEEP.
Soon this queer, lonely way of living will come to an end for me. Often every day shall I look down the valley, hoping to see the white canvas top of the prairie-schooner heave in sight on the pass leading in from the open country. When all the cow-boys have finished gathering cattle and come home to the peak, the old cabin will be crowded and lively enough. Then the rest of the summer will be filled with hard work in getting together the fat beef-steers and driving them a long journey to the Pacific Railroad, where they will be loaded on trains and carried away to feed the beef-eaters of America and England.
The curlew is still whistling under the plum-bushes not far away, so that the dog sometimes starts up to see who calls him; but now all the fragrant plum-blossoms have fallen away and thesmall green fruit hangs in clusters. Midsummer has gone; with it came the scorching southeast wind which turns the grass to hay and kills the flowers like a November frost. And, since they are dead, the wilderness is too lonely. While they lived, they were society enough for a hermit; they smiled a sweet good-morning at every sunrise, and filled the evening twilight with fragrance which carried my thoughts away to an old New England home and to happy days spent long ago in gathering forest flowers on the Connecticut hills. There has been enough of hermit life for one year. It has been pleasant; but the end of it will be pleasant, too.
The dangerous dog in the drawing-room lay,And snapped at the houseflies that came in his way."I'm a dangerous canine!" he said"Beware how you trouble a creature of my—"But his speech was cut short as he happened to spyA bumble-bee close to his head!
Washington's Sword,—Now in the Library 0f the State Department at Washington.WASHINGTON’S SWORD,—NOW IN THE LIBRARY 0F THE STATE DEPARTMENT AT WASHINGTON.
It was hard for Washington at first to forget that he was no longer Commander-in-Chief. He had so long been accustomed to wake early, and at once begin to think of the cares of the day, that it was a novel sensation to discover that he had no cares beyond looking after his estate. It chanced that the winter of 1783-4 was a very severe one. The roads were blocked with snow, the streams were frozen, and Washington found himself almost a prisoner at Mount Vernon. He was not even able to go to Fredericksburg to see his mother, until the middle of February. He was not sorry for his enforced quiet. It left him leisure to look over his papers and enjoy the company of his wife and his wife's grandchildren, whom he had adopted as his own children. His public papers had been put into the hands of Col. Richard Varick, in 1781, and they were now returned to him, arranged and classified and copied into volumes, in a manner to delight the methodical soul of their author.
A Lamp That Once Belonged to Washington—now in the National Museum.A LAMP THAT ONCE BELONGED TO WASHINGTON—NOW IN THE NATIONAL MUSEUM.
As the spring came on, and the snow and ice melted, the roads were again open, and Mount Vernon was soon busy with its old hospitality. Washington foresaw that he would have plenty of visitors, but he did not mean to let his life be at the mercy of everybody, and he meant to keep up his regular habits and his plain living. "My manner of living is plain," he wrote to a friend, "and I do not mean to be put out of it. A glass of wine and a bit of mutton are always ready, and such as will be content to partake of them are always welcome. Those who expect more will be disappointed."
Washington's Treasure Chest.WASHINGTON’S TREASURE CHEST.
The house at Mount Vernon before this time had been very much like that in which Washington was born; now he found it necessary to enlarge it, and accordingly added an extension at each end, making it substantially as it now appears. He was his own architect, and he drew every plan and specification for the workmen with his own hand. He amused himself also with laying out the grounds about his house, and planting trees,—a great pleasure to him. Every morning he arose early, and despatched his correspondence before breakfast, which was at half-past seven. His horse stood ready at the door, and as soon as breakfast was over, he was in the saddle, visiting the various parts of his estate. Sometimes he went hunting, for he never lost his fondness for the chase. He dined atthree o'clock, and usually spent the afternoon in the library, sometimes working at his papers till nine o'clock; but when not pressed by business, and when his house was full of guests, he spent the evening with them. If he was alone with his family, he read aloud to them; and very often on Sundays, when they could not go to church, he sat down and read a sermon and prayers.
Washington's Secretary and Book-case at Mount Vernon.WASHINGTON’S SECRETARY AND BOOK-CASE AT MOUNT VERNON.
Guests crowded upon him, and he was especially glad to see his old comrades. A visit from Lafayette was the occasion of a very gay time, when Mount Vernon was full of visitors, and the days were given to sport.
Washington had constant applications from persons who wished to write his life or paint his portrait. There was a sculptor named Wright who undertook to get a model of Washington's face. "Wright came to Mount Vernon," so Washington tells the story, "with the singular request that I should permit him to take a model of my face, in plaster of Paris, to which I consented with some reluctance. He oiled my features, and placing me flat upon my back, upon a cot, proceeded to daub my face with the plaster. Whilst I was in this ludicrous attitude, Mrs. Washington entered the room, and seeing my face thus overspread with the plaster, involuntarily exclaimed. Her cry excited in me a disposition to smile, which gave my mouth a slight twist, or compression of the lips, that is now observable in the busts which Wright afterward made." A more successful sculptor was Houdon, who was commissioned by Virginia to make a statue of Washington. He also took a plaster model, and the fine statue which he made stands in Richmond. A portrait painter, named Pine, also paid a visit to Mount Vernon about this time with a letter from one of Washington's friends to whom Washington wrote during Pine's visit:
"'In for a penny, in for a pound,' is an old adage. I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit, like 'patience on a monument,' whilst they are delineating the lines of my face. It is a proof among many others of what habit and custom can effect. At first I was as impatient at the request, and as restive under the operation as a colt is of the saddle. The next time I submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no dray moves more readily to the thill than I do to the painter's chair. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that I yielded a ready obedience to your request, and to the views of Mr. Pine."
"'In for a penny, in for a pound,' is an old adage. I am so hackneyed to the touches of the painter's pencil, that I am now altogether at their beck, and sit, like 'patience on a monument,' whilst they are delineating the lines of my face. It is a proof among many others of what habit and custom can effect. At first I was as impatient at the request, and as restive under the operation as a colt is of the saddle. The next time I submitted very reluctantly, but with less flouncing. Now no dray moves more readily to the thill than I do to the painter's chair. It may easily be conceived, therefore, that I yielded a ready obedience to your request, and to the views of Mr. Pine."
Washington was a most considerate and courteous host. He was very fond of young people, but his silent ways and the reputation which he enjoyed as a great man made it difficult for the young always to be easy in his presence. The story is told of his coming into a room once, when dancing was going on, and the sport suddenly ceased. Washington begged the young people to go on, but they refused until he left the room. Then, after they felt free again to dance, he came back and peeped through the open door.
One of a Set of Fire-buckets at Mount Vernon.ONE OF A SET OF FIRE-BUCKETS AT MOUNT VERNON.
He was very apt to affect older people in the same way. He was a large man, with large hands and feet, and eyes that looked steadily at one. When not speaking, he was very apt to forget there were other people in the room, and his lips would move as he talked to himself while thinking hard upon some matter. But he did not neglect people. One of his visitors tells this story: "The first evening I spent under the wing of his hospitality, we sat a full hour at table, by ourselves, without the least interruption, after the family had retired. I was extremelyoppressed with a severe cold and excessive coughing, contracted from the exposure of a harsh winter journey. He pressed me to use some remedies, but I declined doing so. As usual, after retiring, my coughing increased. When some time had elapsed, the door of my room was gently opened and, on drawing my bed-curtains, to my utter astonishment I beheld Washington himself standing at my bed-side, with a bowl of hot tea in his hand. I was mortified and distressed beyond expression."
Houdon's Statue of Washington.HOUDON’S STATUE OF WASHINGTON.
Although Washington had now retired to Mount Vernon, and seemed perfectly willing to spend the rest of his days as a country gentleman, it was impossible for him to do so. The leaders of the country needed him, and he was himself too deeply interested in affairs to shut his eyes and ears. He was especially interested in the Western country, which then meant the Ohio Valley and the region bordered by the Great Lakes. In the autumn of 1784, he made a tour beyond the Alleghanies, for the purpose of looking after the lands which he owned there; but he looked about him not only as a land-owner, but as a wise, far-seeing statesman.
It was a wild journey to take in those days. Washington traveled nearly seven hundred miles on horseback, and had to carry camping conveniences and many of his supplies on pack-horses. He had especially in mind to see if there might be a way of connecting by a canal the water system of Virginia with the Western rivers. After he came back, he wrote a long letter to the Governor of Virginia, in which he gave the result of his observation and reflection. He was not merely considering how a profitable enterprise could be undertaken, but he was thinking how necessary it was to bind the Western country to the Eastern in order to strengthen the Union. Many people had crossed the mountains and were scattered in the Mississippi Valley. They found the Mississippi River a stream easy to sail down, but the Spaniards held the mouth of the river, and if the latter chose to make friends with those Western settlers, they might easily estrange them from the Eastern States. Besides this, Great Britain was reaching down toward this last territory from Canada. In every way, it seemed to him of importance that good roads and good water communication should bind the East and the West together. He thought Virginia was the State to do this. It extended then far to the westward, and it had great rivers flowing to the sea. It was the most important State in the country, and it was very natural that Washington should look to it to carry out his grand ideas; for the separate States had the power at that time—Congress was unable to do anything. It is interesting to see how Washington, who thought he could go back to Mount Vernon and be a planter, was unable to keep his mind from working upon a great plan which intended the advantage of a vast number of people. He was made to care for great things, and he cared for them naturally.
While Washington was busy planting trees at Mount Vernon and making excursions to see his Western lands, the country was like a vessel which had no captain or pilot, drifting into danger. During the War for Independence, one of the greatest difficulties which Washington had to overcome was the unwillingness of the several States to act together as one nation. They called themselves the United States of America, but they were very loosely united. Congress was the only body that heldthem together, and Congress had no power to make the States do what they did not care to do. So long as they all were fighting for independence, they managed to hold together; but as soon as the war was over and the States were recognized as independent, it was very hard to get them to do anything as one nation. Every State was looking out for itself, and afraid that the others might gain some advantage over it.
This could not go on forever. They must be either wholly independent of one another or more closely united. The difficulty was more apparent where two States were neighbors. Virginia and Massachusetts might manage to live apart, though in that case troubles would be sure to arise, but how could Virginia and Maryland maintain their individual independence? The Chesapeake and Potomac seemed to belong to one as much as to the other; and when foreign vessels came up the stream, was each State to have its own rules and regulations? No. They must treat strangers at any rate in some way that would not make each the enemy of the other.
These two States felt this so strongly that they appointed a commission to consider what could be done. Washington was a member of the commission, and asked all the gentlemen to his house. They not only discussed the special subject committed to them, but they looked at the whole matter of the regulation of commerce in a broad way, and agreed to propose to the two States to appoint other commissioners, who should advise with Congress and ask all the States of the Union to send delegates to a meeting where they could arrange some system by which all the States should act alike in their treatment of foreign nations and of each other.
That was exactly what Congress ought to have been able to do, but could not, because nobody paid any attention to it. Nor did this meeting, which was called at Annapolis in September, 1786, accomplish very much. Only five States sent delegates, and these delegates were so carefully instructed not to do much, that it was impossible for the convention to settle affairs. Still, it was a step forward. It was very clear to the delegates that a general convention of all the States was necessary, and so they advised another meeting at which all the thirteen States should be represented, and the whole subject of the better union of the States should be considered.
This meeting, which was the great Constitutional Convention of 1787, was held in Philadelphia, and to it Virginia sent George Washington as one of her delegates. He was heart and soul in favor of the movement. It was what he had been urging on all his correspondents for a long time. He was at first reluctant to go back into public life after having so completely retired; but as soon as he saw that it was his duty to accept the appointment, he set to work to qualify himself for taking part in the deliberations of the convention. Probably no one in America understood better than he the character of Americans and the special dangers through which the country was passing; but several, no doubt, were better informed about the practical working of government and about the history of other confederations. He had never been very much of a reader of books, but he had been a member for many years of the Virginia House of Burgesses, and so knew how government was carried on on a small scale, and now he began to read diligently and to compare accounts of ancient and modern political unions. He made abstracts of them, and, in fact, went to work as if he were at school, so in earnest was he to learn this important lesson.
On May 9, 1787, Washington set out from Mount Vernon in his carriage for Philadelphia. He was a famous man and could not go to the convention without attracting attention. So, when he reached Chester, in Pennsylvania, he was met by General Mifflin, who was then Speaker of the Assembly of Pennsylvania, and by various public men, who escorted him on the way. At the ferry across the Schuylkill, where Gray's Ferry Bridge now is, he was met by a company of light horse, and so entered the city. One of his first errands was to call on Benjamin Franklin, who was President of Pennsylvania, as the governor was then called. No doubt they talked long and earnestly about the work before them, for they were the two most eminent men in the convention.