PORTE ST. DENIS.PORTE ST. DENIS. (See next page.)
PORTE ST. DENIS. (See next page.)
THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE.THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE. (See next page.)
THE PLACE DE LA BASTILLE. (See next page.)
In other parts of the city of Paris, there are streetrailways, called here tramways, which are managed very much in the same manner as the omnibuses. These vehicles are convenient and cheap, but not very agreeable, and it is much pleasanter to walk and pay nothing, or to take avoitureand pay thirty cents for two people for a drive from one end of the city to another.
And thus we go on along the boulevards, passing the celebrated gateways, Porte St. Martin and Porte St. Denis, until we come to the great open space once occupied by the Bastille, in which now rises a tall, sculptured column surmounted by a figure of Liberty. Those who have studied and remembered modern French history will take a great interest in this spot, where so many important events occurred.
Here end the boulevards. We now turn toward the river, and soon reach a wide street called the Rue de Rivoli, one side of which is lined with shops under arcades, which, in some respects, are more attractive than any we have yet seen. At many of these, photographs are sold; and their windows are crowded with pictures. All sorts of useful and cheap things are to be found here, and a walk through this street is like a visit to a museum. On the other side of the street is the great Palace of the Louvre, which extends for some distance, and after that, we come to the Garden of the Tuileries. When we have walked through this magnificent pleasure-ground, we shall reach the point from which we started on our tour.
THE OPERA-HOUSE, PARIS.THE OPERA-HOUSE, PARIS.
THE OPERA-HOUSE, PARIS.
We shall take many other walks and drives through the streets of Paris, and wherever we go, we shall find in each an interest of a different sort. On the southern side of the river, is the Latin Quarter, where there are some celebrated schools and academies, which, for centuries, have been the resort of students. Here we shall find narrow streets, crowded footways, and shops full of all sorts of antiquarian articles, and odds and ends of every kind, some of which seem to have no other value than that they are old, while other things are very valuable, and often very cheap.
Here, too, we find book shops, and shops where prints and engravings are sold, and all with their windows and even their outside walls crowded with the best things they have to offer. Along the river front are rows of stalls covered with second-hand books at very low prices, and those of us who are collectors of old coins can find them here by the peck or bushel. In this quarter, also, are some immense dry-goods and variety stores, which are worth going to see. One of them is so large, and there is so much to see in it, that, at three o'clock every day, a guide who can speak English sets out to conduct visitors through the establishment and to explain its various details.
In nearly every quarter of Paris, on either side of the river, we shall find shops, shops, shops; people, people, people; life, activity, and bustle of every sort. Splendid buildings meet our eyes at every turn,—churches, private residences, places of business, and public edifices. In the western portion of the city, near the Arc de Triomphe, there are fewer shops, these streets being generally occupied by fine private residences. But there is very little monotony in Paris; no quarter is entirely given up to any one thing. We can not walk far in any direction without soon coming upon some object of interest. The parks, palaces, public monuments, gardens, grand and beautiful churches, fountains of various designs, great market-places, squares, and buildings of historic interest or architectural beauty, are sometimes collected in groups, but, as a rule, they are scattered all over the city.
THE PONT DES ARTS AND THE LOUVRE.THE PONT DES ARTS AND THE LOUVRE.
THE PONT DES ARTS AND THE LOUVRE.
A GALLERY IN THE LOUVRE.A GALLERY IN THE LOUVRE.
A GALLERY IN THE LOUVRE.
When we have satisfied ourselves with what Paris itself is, although we have not seen anything like the whole of it, we shall set about visiting some of its especial attractions. And the first place we shall go to will be the great palace of the Louvre. This palace, with its courts and buildings, covers some twenty acres. Here have lived kings, queens, and princes; but now the palace has been made into a museum for the people, and its grand halls and galleries are filled with paintings, statuary, and other works of art, ancient and modern, from all parts of the world. It would take many, many visits even to give one look at every painting and statue in the Louvre; but if we have not much time to spare, it is possible to see the best things without walking ourselves to death through the never-ending galleries. Some of the finest paintings of Raphael, Da Vinci, Murillo, and other great masters, are collected in one room, which many persons would think well worth coming to Paris to see, if they saw nothing else. The original statue of the noble Venus de Milo is in the sculpture galleries; and in the Egyptian museum, which is so full that the history of Egypt may be studied here almost as well as in that land itself, we shall see a large stone sphinx which oncebelonged to that king of Egypt from whom the children of Israel fled, and the inscriptions on it show that it must have been a pretty old sphinx even when Pharaoh had it. In another part of the museum are three life-size figures in stone, which are portraits of persons who lived before the great pyramids were built, about 4000 years before the Christian era.
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE LOUVRE.BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE LOUVRE.
BIRD'S-EYE VIEW OF THE LOUVRE.
Altogether, the collections of the Louvre are among the finest and most extensive in the world, and they have a great advantage over the galleries of the Vatican at Rome: In the Vatican some of the galleries are open on one day and some on another, some requiring one kind of order of admission, some another, and others yet another, and these permits are sometimes troublesome to obtain;—but the galleries of the Louvre are free to all, rich or poor, who may choose to walk into them on any day of the week except Monday, which is always reserved for cleaning, dusting, and putting things in order.
HOTEL DE CLUNY.HOTEL DE CLUNY.
HOTEL DE CLUNY.
In the old palace of the Luxembourg, a very much smaller building, there is another valuable collection of paintings, but all by French artists; and the Hotel de Cluny, not far away, is a small palace of the Middle Ages, and is one of the quaintest, queerest, pleasantest, and most home-like palaces we are likely to meet with. It is now a museum, containing over ten thousand interesting objects, mostly relating to mediæval times. Here, among the other old-time things, we can see the very carriages and sleighs in which the great people of the seventeenth century used to ride. Those of us who suppose that we have now left the Romans for good must not fail to visit some large baths adjoining this palace, built about the end of the third century, when the Romans had possession of Gaul. They then had a palace on this spot, and felt bound, as the ancient Romans always did, to make themselves comfortable with baths and everything of the kind. There are other museums and art exhibitions in Paris, but those we have seen are the most important; and it is very pleasant to find that they are greatly frequented by the poorer classes of the city, who are just as orderly and well behaved while walking about these noble palaces as if they belongedto the highest families of the land. In the great garden of the Tuileries, in the courts and gardens attached to the Louvre, the Luxembourg, the Palais Royal, and in all the pleasure-grounds of the city, we find the poor people enjoying themselves; and in some cases they seem to get more good out of these places than do the rich. The old women sit knitting in the shade of the trees; the little babies with their funny caps toddle about on the walks; the boys and girls have their games in the great open spaces around the fountains, and while those who have a cent or two to spare can hire little chairs and put them where they like, there are always benches for those who have no pennies to spend. The convenience of resting one's self in the open air is one of the comforts of Paris. In many places along the principal streets, there are benches on the sidewalk, where weary passers-by may rest shaded by the trees. In one part of the city, chiefly inhabited by the poor and the working people, a fine park has been laid out entirely for their accommodation. In very many ways the French government offers opportunities to the poor people to enjoy themselves, and it is pleasant to see how neat, orderly, and quiet these people are. It is very necessary that they should be kept in good humor, for when the lower classes of Paris become thoroughly dissatisfied, they are apt to rise in fierce rebellion, and then down go kings, governments, and palaces.
NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL (FROM THE REAR).NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL (FROM THE REAR).
NOTRE DAME CATHEDRAL (FROM THE REAR).
LUXEMBOURG PALACE.LUXEMBOURG PALACE.
LUXEMBOURG PALACE.
On the southern side of the river rises a great gilded dome which glistens in the sun, and may be seen from all parts of Paris. This dome belongs to the church attached to the Hotel des Invalides, or hospital for invalid soldiers, and it covers the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte. This tomb, which is very magnificent and imposing, is some distance below the floor of the church, and we look down upon it over a circular railing. There we see the handsome sarcophagus, made of a single block of granite weighing sixty-seven tons, which contains the remains of a man who once conquered the greater part of Europe.
Paris is full of churches, some old and some new, and many grand or beautiful, but no one of them is so interesting as the famous cathedral of Notre Dame, which stands on an island in the Seine, calledLa Cité, or the Island of the City, because here the original Paris was built. This great church is not so attractive in appearance as some that we have seen elsewhere, but it is connected with so many events in the history of France, that as we wander about under its vaulted arches and through its pillared aisles, and as we look upon the strange and sometimes startling sculptures in the chapels, the curious wood carvings about the choir, the immense circular window of gorgeously stained glass in the transept, which sends its brightness into the solemn duskiness of the church, we shall do so with a degree of interest increased by what we have read about this old and famous building.
THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES.THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES.
THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES.
Another church which we shall wish to see is Sainte-Chapelle, or Holy Chapel, built in 1245 by King Louis IX., who was known as St. Louis. It stands on the same island as Notre Dame, and near the Palace of Justice, a great pile of buildings containing the law courts. This church or chapel is small, but it is, perhaps, the most beautiful of the kind in the world. The walls of the upper story, in which the royal court used to worship, are almost entirely of exquisitely colored glass. These walls are formed of windows nearly fifty feet high, and the light shining through every side of this gorgeous temple of stained glass produces a remarkable and beautiful effect.
The present Palace of Justice is for the most part a modern building, but portions of the old edifice of the same name which used to stand upon this spot still remain. In one of these we shall visit the old Conciergerie, which is famous as a French state prison. Here we shall see the little room with a brick floor, in which the beautiful Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI., was imprisoned for two months before her execution. Here is the very arm-chair in which she sat. Thus we bring to mind the events of the great French revolution, and can easily recall the sorrowful things which took place in the halls and rooms of that gloomy Conciergerie.
Another celebrated Parisian church is the Pantheon, an immense edifice. This building was intended as a burial-place for illustrious men of France.
We have all heard of the famous cemetery of Père-Lachaise. It lies within the city, and will be interesting to us, not only because of its great size and beauty, and because it contains the graves of so many persons famous in art, science, literature, and war, but because it is so different from any graveyard to which we are accustomed. It has more than twenty thousand monuments, and many of these are like little houses standing side by side as if they were dwellings on a street. Each vault generally belongs to a family, and the little buildings are almost always decorated with a profusion of flowers and wreaths, and often withpictures and hanging lamps. Here, as in other French cemeteries, it is not uncommon to place a framed photograph of a deceased person over his grave.
There are small steamboats which run up and down the Seine like omnibuses, and the charge to passengers is about two cents apiece. These little boats are called by the Parisiansmouches, or flies, and as they are often very convenient for city trips, we shall take one of them and go to the Jardin des Plantes, a very extensive and famous zoölogical and botanical garden. Here we may ramble for hours, and see animals from all parts of the world in cages, and houses, and in little yards, where they can enjoy the open air.
At the other end of the city, outside the walls, is the Jardin d' Acclimatation, that contains a great number of foreign animals and plants, many of which have been naturalized so as to feel at home in the climate of France. In one house here, we may see all kinds of silk-worms, with the plants they feed upon growing near by. In another part of the grounds we shall find trained zebras and ostriches harnessed to little carriages, in which children may take a ride; and we shall see some very gentle elephants and camels, on which we may mount and get an idea of how people travel in the East. We shall here perhaps call to mind the account of this place which was published inSt. Nicholasmore than ten years ago,—in June, 1874.
THE SARCOPHAGUS; THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES.THE SARCOPHAGUS; THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES.
THE SARCOPHAGUS; THE TOMB OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOTEL DES INVALIDES.
The Bois de Boulogne, adjoining this garden, is a very large park, where we can see the fashionable people of Paris in their carriages on fine afternoons.
There are certain goods sold in Paris known under the name of "articles de Paris." These consist of all sorts of pretty things, generally very tasteful but not very expensive, among which are jewelry and trinkets of many kinds, and a great variety of useful and ornamental little objects made in the most attractive fashion. These goods, of course, can be bought in other cities, but Paris has made a specialty of their manufacture, and many shops are entirely given up to their sale. A great number of such shops is to be found in the Palais Royal. This is a vast palace built for Cardinal Richelieu, in 1625, and is in the form of a hollow square, surrounding the garden of the Palais Royal. Around the four sides of the palace, under long colonnades and facing the garden, are rows of shops, their windows filled with all sorts of sparkling and beautiful things in gold, silver, precious stones, bronze, brass, and every other material that pretty things can be made of. By night or by day the colonnades of the Palais Royalare very attractive places, and as all visitors go to them, so do we. Even if we do not buy anything, we shall be interested in the endless display in the windows.
Another place we shall wish to visit is the famous manufactory of Gobelin tapestry. In this factory, which belongs to the Government, are produced large and beautiful woven pictures, and the great merit of the work is that it is done entirely by hand, no machinery being used. The operation is very slow, each workman putting one thread at a time in its place, and faithfully copying a painting in oil or water-colors, which stands near him, as a model. If, in a day, he covers a space as large as his hand, he considers that he has done a very good day's work. These tapestries, which are generally very large and expensive, are used as wall-hangings in palaces and public buildings. It will be an especial delight, I think, to the girls in our company to watch this beautiful work slowly growing under the fingers of the skillful workmen.
Outside of Paris, but not far away, there are some famous places which we must see. First among these are the palace and grounds of Versailles, a magnificent palace, built by Louis XIV. for a summer residence. This gentleman, who liked to be calledLe Grand Monarquehad so high an idea of the sort of country place he wanted, that he spent upon this palace and its grounds the sum of two hundred millions of dollars.*The whole place is now open to the public, and the grand and magnificent apartments and halls, some of them nearly four hundred feet long, are filled with paintings and statuary, so that the palace is now a great art gallery. The park is splendidly laid out, having in it a wide canal nearly a mile long. The fountains here are considered the finest in the world, and when they play, which is not very often, thousands upon thousands of people come out from Paris to see them. In the grounds are two small palaces, once inhabited by French queens; and one of these, called the little Trianon, was the beautiful home of Marie Antoinette, whose last home on earth was the brick-paved room of the Conciergerie. The private garden attached to this little palace, which is more like a park than a garden, possesses much rural beauty.
Here, on the margin of a lake, we may see the little thatched cottages which Marie Antoinette had built, that she and the ladies of her court might play at being milkmaids. These cottages stand just as they did when those noble ladies dressed themselves up like peasant girls, and milked cows, which, I have no doubt, were very gentle animals, while the royal milkmaids probably tried to make themselves believe that they could have the happiness of real milkmaids as well as that which belonged to their own lives of luxury and state.
At Fontainebleau is another royal palace, to which is attached a magnificent forest of forty-two thousand acres. The kings of France did not like to feel cramped in their houses or grounds, and in this beautiful forest, which measures fifty miles around, there are twelve thousand four hundred miles of roads and foot-paths. On the borders of this forest is the village of Barbizon, where lived the artist, Millet, of whom you have read inSt. Nicholas.
Not far from Paris is the old palace of St. Germain, in which many kings have been born, lived, and died, and to which there is a forest of nine thousand acres attached. There is also St. Cloud, with a ruined palace and a lovely park, with statues, fountains, and charming walks; and, near by, the village of Sèvres, where the famous porcelain of that name is made. Also within easy distance of the city, is the old cathedral of St. Denis, where, for over a thousand years, the kings of France were buried. Here, in a crypt or burial-place under the church, we may look through a little barred window into a gloomy vault, and see, standing quite near us, the metal coffin which contains the bones of Marie Antoinette, whose palaces, pleasure-grounds, prison-house, and place of execution we have already seen.
The history of France shows us that Paris has been as rich in historical events as it is now in bright, attractive shops; but, as a rule, it is much more pleasant to see the latter than to remember the former. In our walks through Paris, we will not think too much of the dreadful riots and combats that have taken place in her streets, the blood that has been shed even in her churches, and the executions and murders that have been witnessed in her beautiful open squares. Instead of this, we will give ourselves up to the enjoyment of the Queen of Cities, as she now is, thinking only of the unrivaled pleasures she offers to visitors, and of the kindness and politeness which we almost always meet with from her citizens.
Footnote *:A sketch of the boyhood of this spendthrift monarch was given in the series of "Historic Boys," under the title of "Louis of Bourbon: the Boy King," inSt. Nicholasfor October, 1884.
GRANDPAPA ROSEBUSH.
There are roses that grow on a vine, on a vine,There are roses that grow on a tree;But my little RoseGrows on ten little toes,And she is the rose for me.Come out in the garden, Rosy Posy!Come visit your cousins, child, with me.If you are my grandchild,it stands to reasonThat Grandpapa RosebushI must be.Oh! fair is the rose on the vine, on the vine,And fair is the rose on the stalk;But there's only one roseWho has ten little toes,And it's that rose I'll take for a walk.Come put on your calyx, Rosy Posy!Put on your calyx and come with me;For if you are my grandchild,it stands to reasonThat Grandpapa RosebushI must be.
There are roses that grow on a vine, on a vine,There are roses that grow on a tree;But my little RoseGrows on ten little toes,And she is the rose for me.Come out in the garden, Rosy Posy!Come visit your cousins, child, with me.If you are my grandchild,it stands to reasonThat Grandpapa RosebushI must be.
There are roses that grow on a vine, on a vine,
There are roses that grow on a tree;
But my little Rose
Grows on ten little toes,
And she is the rose for me.
Come out in the garden, Rosy Posy!
Come visit your cousins, child, with me.
If you are my grandchild,
it stands to reason
That Grandpapa Rosebush
I must be.
Oh! fair is the rose on the vine, on the vine,And fair is the rose on the stalk;But there's only one roseWho has ten little toes,And it's that rose I'll take for a walk.Come put on your calyx, Rosy Posy!Put on your calyx and come with me;For if you are my grandchild,it stands to reasonThat Grandpapa RosebushI must be.
Oh! fair is the rose on the vine, on the vine,
And fair is the rose on the stalk;
But there's only one rose
Who has ten little toes,
And it's that rose I'll take for a walk.
Come put on your calyx, Rosy Posy!
Put on your calyx and come with me;
For if you are my grandchild,
it stands to reason
That Grandpapa Rosebush
I must be.
Before Beman's Beach had become the popular summer resort which all tourists know to-day, there lived, a little back from the rocky coast which stretches away from it toward the southwest, a farmer named Elder. He had a large family, which consisted mostly of girls; but there were two boys, who were twins.
The boys were called Moke and Poke. These were not their baptismal names, of course. Moke Elder had been christened Moses, and Poke Elder had received at the same time the respectable appellation of Porter—both after their uncle, Mr. Moses Porter, who lived in the family. But they were so seldom called by those names that most people seemed to have forgotten them. Moke was Moke, and Poke was Poke, the world over.
That is to say,theirworld, which would not have required a tape measure quite twenty-five thousand miles long to go around it. "Frog-End" was the nickname of the part of the town where they lived,—probably on account of a great marsh which was very noisy in spring,—and they were little known beyond its borders.
But everybody about Frog-End and along the coast knew Moke and Poke. That is to say, they were known as twins, if not as individual, separate boys. They looked so much alike, both being thin-faced and tow-headed, and dressed so much alike, often wearing each other's clothes, that he who, meeting one alone, could always say "Moke," or "Poke," as the case might be,—and feel sure he wasn't calling Moke "Poke" or Poke "Moke,"—must have known them very well indeed.
Of course, only a born Frog-Ender could do that. I am not a Frog-Ender myself, and the only way I could ever tell them apart was by looking closely at their moles.
They had two moles between them, exactly alike, except that Moke wore his on the right cheek, quite close to the right nostril, while Poke hung out his sign on the left cheek, at about an equal distance from the left nostril; as if Nature had had just a pair of moles to throw in with their other personal attractions, and had divided her gift in this impartial way.
Even after people had learned these distinguishing marks, however, they could not always remember, at a moment, which had the right mole and which the left; but they would often say "Poke" to the right mole and "Moke" to the left mole, in a manner that appeared very ridiculous to the boys' seven sisters, who couldn't see that they resembled each other at all.
The twins were nearly always together, whether at work or at play; when one was sent on an errand, as a rule both would go, if it was only to get a pound of board-nails or a spool of thread at the village store. They were about the age of their neighbors and playmates, Oliver Burdeen (commonly called Olly), who, when he was at home, lived two farms away from them, and Percival Bucklin (familiarly known as Perce), who lived still nearer, on the other side.
These four boys are the three heroes of our story,—counting the twins as one,—and they come into it on a certain afternoon late in August, just after a great storm had swept over the New England coast.
Uncle Moses Porter—uncle of the twins on the mother's side, an odd and very shabby old bachelor—comes into it at the same time, but doesn't get in very far. It would be hard to make a hero of him. At about four o'clock that day he stood in Mr. Elder's backyard, barefooted and without his hat, watching the clouds and the wooden fish on the barn, and making up his mind about the weather. That was a subject to which he had given the study of a lifetime. He could tell you as many "signs" as there are letters in the alphabet, and spell out to-morrow's weather very exactly with them; that is to say, what it should be, not always what it actually was—Nature sometimes neglecting in the strangest way her own plain rules. A great deal was said about Uncle Moses's occasional lucky hits, and very little about his frequent misses; and he enjoyed a world-wide reputation (the Frog-End world, again) as a weather-prophet, until "Old Probabilities" at Washington took the wind out of his predictions, and drove him, so to speak, out of the business.
But at the time of which I write he was at the pinnacle of his fame, and nobody ventured to doubt his prognostications. If the weather didn't turn out as he predicted, why, so much the worse for the weather!
"Wind has whipped 'round the right way this time, boys!" he remarked, after long and careful observation. "It's got square into the west, and I predict it's a-go'n' to stay there, and give us fair weather, nex' four-'n'-twenty hours. The's no rain in yon clouds; it's all been squeezed out, or else I never saw a flyin' scud afore!"
He paused as if to relax his mind after the severe strain of this prophecy, and smiled as he came toward the woodshed,—where the twins were standing.
"An' I tell ye what, boys! A heap o' that kelp the storm's hove up, are a-go'n' to land, this tide an' tomorrer mornin's, an' you'd better be on hand to git our share on 't."
UNCLE MOSE PREDICTS FAIR WEATHER.UNCLE MOSE PREDICTS FAIR WEATHER.
Of all the farm-work the twins ever tried, they found going for sea-weed the most delightful. There was a relish of adventure in it; and it took them to the beach, which was always a pleasant change for boys brought up on Frog-End rocks. The kelp was usually hauled up from the shore and left to rot in heaps; after which, it became excellent dressing for the land.
There was no good beach very near Mr. Elder's farm, but he had a right on Beman's Beach, two or three miles down the coast.
Mr. Bucklin, another Frog-End farmer, had a similar right, and he and his son Percival were that same afternoon talking about the expected harvest of kelp. Mr. Bucklin was saying that there was nothing to be gained by starting for the beach till the next morning, and that even then he couldn't go, as being one of the town's selectmen he would have some public business to attend to,—and Percival, a bright, strong, enterprising boy of sixteen, was insisting that their team ought to be on the shore by daylight, and that he would be there with it if he could get anybody to go with him, when the Elder twins came crossing fields and leaping fences, and finally tumbled over the bars into the yard where father and son were talking.
"Uncle Mose says—" began Moke.
"Wind's just right for the kelp," struck in Poke.
"There'll be stacks of it," Moke exclaimed.
"And we're going!" Poke continued.
That was the way they usually did an errand or told a story,—one giving one fragment of a sentence,and his brother the next, if, indeed, they didn't both speak together.
They ended with a proposition. Their father had gone to Portland with the team; and if Mr. Bucklin would let Perce take his tip-cart and yoke of steers, they would go with him, and all the sea-weed gathered by the three should be shared equally by the two farmers.
"And what we want is——" said Moke.
"To start after an early supper this evening," said Poke.
"Camp to-night at the beach," Moke added.
"And be on hand to begin work——" Poke added, contributing his link to the conversational chain.
"As soon as the tide turns in the morning," rattled both together.
Mr. Bucklin smiled indulgently.
"I think your uncle is right," he said. "And I'm willing Perce should go. Though I don't know about your starting to-night to camp out."
"Oh, yes!" exclaimed Percival, as eager for the adventure as if he had been a third twin and shared the enthusiasm of his two other selves. "That will be all the fun!"
"We'll take some green corn——" said Moke.
"And new potatoes——" said Poke.
"And a sickle to cut grass——" Moke ran on.
"And make a fire of driftwood——" Poke outstripped him.
"For the steers," said Moke, finishing his own sentence, and not Poke's.
"To roast 'em," concluded Poke, referring to the potatoes and green corn, and not to the steers.
"It'll be just grand!" Percival exclaimed. "May we, father? The tide will turn about daylight; we'll have our breakfast on the beach, and be ready to go to work; and we'll haul two big heaps on the shore, one for us and one for them, and leave 'em till they're ready to draw away and spread on the land. May we, father?"
"You're not so sure the kelp'll land," said the cautious farmer. "It's notional about it sometimes."
"But if the wind keeps off shore it will!" said Moke and Poke, two voices for a single thought.
"The wind may chip around again, and the kelp all disappear as clean as if the beach had been swept. But I don't care," added the farmer indulgently. "If you boys want to take the chance, I'll let Perce have the steers. You might gather some driftwood, anyhow. The storm must have driven a good lot of that high up, out of the reach of the common tides."
His easy consent made the boys as happy as if they had been going to a circus; and they immediately began to make preparations for the trip.
Moke and Poke ran home for their suppers, and came running back in an incredibly short time, bringing a basket of provisions, with ears of unhusked corn and bottles of spruce-beer sticking out, a blanket for their bed on the beach, and each a three-tined pitchfork for handling the kelp. These were put into the cart, along with articles furnished by Percival, and a quantity of hay which Mr. Bucklin said they would find comfortable to sleep on that night, even if it didn't come handy to feed the oxen.
The yoked steers were then made fast to the cart, and they set off.
Never king in his coach enjoyed a more exhilarating ride than our three youngsters in the old tip-cart, drawn by the slow cattle along the rough country road. The source of happiness is in our own hearts; and it is wonderful how little it takes to make it run over, in a healthy boy.
A board placed across the cart-box served as a seat; and when one of them tired of riding on that, he would tumble in the hay. Perce wielded the ox-gad at first; but soon the twins wished to drive. Both reached for the whip at once.
"Wait a minute! you can't both have it!" cried Perce. "The oldest first!"
"I'm the oldest," declared Moke.
"So I've heard you say," Perce replied. "But I don't see how anybody ever remembered."
"They looked out for that when they named us," said Moke.
"It was uncle Moses's idea," said Poke. "He told 'em, 'Call the oldest by my first name and the youngest by my last name——'"
"'And that will fix it in folks's minds,'" Moke completed the quotation.
"That was before they discovered the moles," said both together.
"I never thought of that," said Perce. "But whenever anybody asks me which is the oldest, I think of your initials, and run over in my mind—L,M,N,O,P;—Mcomes beforeP; then I say, 'Moke's the oldest.' But how could they tell you apart before they saw the moles?"
"They tied a red string around Moke's ankle," said Poke.
"But once the string came off, and Ma thinks it might have been changed," said Moke.
"And to this day she can't say positively but I am Moke, and Moke is me," said Poke.
Perce laughed. "Why didn't you have something besides a couple of teenty-taunty moles to distinguish you?" he asked. "Why didn't oneof you be light-complexioned and the other dark? There'd have been some sense in that."
"We couldn't!" said Poke.
"You didn't try," replied Perce.
"We couldn't if we had tried," said Moke. "Twins are always——"
"The same complexion," struck in Poke. "Just like one person."
"No, they're not; there's no rule about that," said Perce. "And when you talk of one person—have you heard of the man over in Kennebunk?"
"What about him?" asked the twins.
"Why, haven't you heard? One half his face," said Perce, "as if you should draw a line straight down his forehead and nose to the bottom of his chin," he drew his finger down his own face, by way of illustration; "one half—it's the right half, I believe—is as black as a negro's. Yes; I'm sure it's the right half."
"Pshaw!" said Moke.
"Oh, Jiminy!" said Poke.
"I don't believe it!" said both together.
"It's true, I tell you!" Perce insisted. "My father has seen him; and my father wouldn't lie."
"He must have had some disease," said Moke.
"He's what they call a leopard," said Poke.
"You mean a leper?" laughed Perce. "No; he isn't a leper, nor an albino. Why, boys! didn't you ever hear of such a case? It's quite common, and it's easily explained."
"I give it up! How do you explain it?" said the twins.
"Simply enough!" exclaimed Perce. "The other side of his face is black too." And he keeled over backward on the hay.
It was an old joke which he had indeed heard his father tell; but it was new to the twins, who were completely taken in by it.
"Throw him out of the cart!" shrieked Poke, half smothered with laughter, at the same time seizing hold of Perce as if to execute his own order.
"I'll jolt him out!" cried Moke, who was driving; and he began to urge the oxen into a heavy, clumsy trot, which shook up the cart and its contents in a way that was more lively than pleasant.
"Oh, don't do that!" cried Perce, with the jolts in his voice. "You'll break the e-g-g-s in my ba-ask-et!"
"I've had one supper, but I shall want another by the time we get to the beach," said Poke.
"So shall I!" cried Perce. "We'll make a big fire on the shore, and have a jolly time. And, I say, boys, let's call for Olly Burdeen, and make him come down on the beach with us to-night."
"That will be fun, if he isn't too proud to go with country people now," replied Moke.
"Since he's been waiting on city folks, he's as stuck up as if he'd tumbled into a cask of molasses," said Poke.
"Olly is all right," said Perce. "He doesn't put on any airs with me. We'll have him with us, anyhow!"
There was but one boarding-house at Beman's Beach in those days. Originally a farm-house, it stood in not the very best situation, a little distance back from the sea, in a hollow of the hills. It was kept by a farmer's widow, Mrs. Murcher, who, as her business expanded, had built on additions until her house looked as if it had the mumps in one enormously swollen cheek.
While his Frog-End mates were driving thither-ward in the tip-cart, and talking about him, Master Oily Burdeen, the third hero in our story (counting the twins as one), was standing before a bureau in Mrs. Murcher's best corner room, and smiling graciously at his image in the oval-shaped looking-glass.
He held a hair-brush in his right hand and a comb in his left, and after giving his sleek locks an artistic touch or two, he would tip the mirror a trifle and recede a step, to get a still more pleasing view of his personal perfections.
It was not his own room, there in the new part—the swollen cheek, as it were—of the summer boarding-house. Nor can I have the satisfaction of declaring that it was his own brush and comb with which he was making so free, nor his own cologne that had imparted to his naturally rough, rusty hair its extraordinary fragrance and smoothness. But the broadly smiling mouth, snub nose, and freckles were possessions nobody would have thought of disputing with Master Olly; and the tolerably well-fitting, genteel, grayish-brown suit he had on had belonged to him about eight hours.
Olly Burdeen was not, in fact, one of Mrs. Murcher's boarders. He was only a boy-of-all-work employed by her for the season. The room belonged to Mr. Hatville, who had gone yachting that afternoon; and Olly had taken temporary possession to admire himself in his new clothes before the convenient glass.
For new they were to him, although they had been rather well worn that summer by the friendly young boarder, who, on departing in the morning, had made Oily a present of them in return for the errands Oily had done for him.
This was the first opportunity to try them on that the proud recipient had found. He had never in his life worn anything so stylish, and we can smile tolerantly at the innocent vanity with whichhe surveyed himself in Mr. Hatville's mirror. His liberal use of Mr. Hatville's hair-brush and cologne-bottle was not, perhaps, so excusable. And when with fearful joy he took from its embroidered case by the mirror the tempting gold watch which Mr. Hatville had, either by accident or design, left hanging there, on changing his clothes that afternoon to go yachting,—when, I say, Master Burdeen lifted out that valuable time-piece by its dangling chain, and placed it in the watch-pocket of his new waistcoat, it must be owned that he was carrying his ideas of hospitality too far.
OLLY IS WELL SATISFIED WITH HIS APPEARANCE.OLLY IS WELL SATISFIED WITH HIS APPEARANCE.
"It only needed a watch to set it off," he said; "and here it is!"
In his button-hole he hooked the gold guard, letting the heavy seal hang, and the chain fall in a graceful curve on his vest. Then he drew out the watch and opened it with a pressure of the spring (it was a hunter's case), and looked at the time; shutting it again with a delightful snap, and replacing it in his pocket, as he strutted the while with amiable satisfaction before the tilted glass.
"I'll have just such a watch of my own some day," he said to himself, proudly, "and just such a gold chain, with a seal as big as that! See if I don't!"
With a sigh he started to put it back in the embroidered case where he had found it. But that required too great an effort of self-denial.
"I'd like to wear it a few minutes; where'll be the harm?" he thought. "Of course, I wont let any accident happen to it."
He looked at the time again; it was half-past six. The two or three men boarders who remained with Mrs. Murcher (for it was now late in the season) had gone yachting, and the ladies were at tea. It was an hour of leisure with Olly, and having put on his new rig, he thought it would be pleasant to take a stroll on the beach, a sort of rehearsal of his rôle of "walking gentleman," before going that evening to show himself to the admiring natives at Frog-End. He couldn't resist the temptation to carry the watch, on this preliminary excursion; buttoning the guard and seal under the top buttons of his coat, so that they shouldn't be observed as he left the house.
"I only wishshecould see me!" he whispered blushingly to himself, as he went down the stairs.
"She" was Miss Amy Canfield, the youngest of the lady boarders, and in his eyes the prettiest. She had been kind to Olly, as, indeed, the most of the boarders had been; and it put him into a warm glow, from his cheeks to his shins, as he thought of meeting her surprised gaze.
But Amy was at tea with the rest, and as oblivious of him at that moment as if he had never existed. So he passed out of the house unnoticed, and went to enjoy his little strut alone; unbuttoning his coat again, and glancing down at the superb chain and seal, as he took the sandy path to the beach.
"If I see the Susette," he said,—for that was the name of the yacht,—"I'll hurry back, and have the watch in its place again long before Mr. Hatville lands."
This he fully intended to do. But neither from the intervening sand-hills, nor from the shore itself, which he reached after a short walk from the boarding-house, was the yacht anywhere to be seen.
The sea had gone down rapidly since the recent gale. It rolled on the beach, in breakers made dark and turbid by the sea-weed which, uptorn by the storm and mixed with sand, still tumbled and washed to and fro in the waves.
"Wind's got around square in the west," observed Olly. "The yacht'll have a mean time beating up!"
The sky was partly covered by heavy masses of broken clouds, in an opening of which the sun was just setting over dark growths of pine and spruce that rose behind the dunes, a little back from the beach. As it went down, the shadows of the woods stretched out, like wings, over the dunes and the smooth, glistening slope of beach sand, just washedby the receding tide. Then the sunset light on the white crests of the breakers was quenched, and the whole sea was in gloom. For a moment only, for now the flying clouds caught a flush which spread swiftly over the sky, until the entire heavens, almost down to the sea rim, appeared one burning flame. The sea itself had a strange, wild beauty, the dark and sullen waters but half consenting to reflect the glow of the clouds on their heaving waves.
"Just the time to take a little row," thought Olly Burdeen, as he strolled about, looking sometimes admiringly at his new clothes and the gay watch-guard, and sometimes casting wistful glances at the sea.
He knew the thrilling pleasure of crossing and recrossing the breakers in a good boat, and rocking on the swells outside.
"I believe I'll try it once," he said. "Maybe I can see the yacht around the point."
The point was a rocky arm of the shore which shut off the ocean view on the north-east, the direction from which the Susette was expected. But the little harbor it would have to enter was a deep cove in the broken coast at the other end of the beach, a quarter of a mile away.
"It can't possibly come in without my seeing it in season," thought Olly, with a glance at the watch, which he took from his pocket and opened and shut again with a sort of guilty joy, for the twentieth time.
There were a couple of dories drawn up above high-water mark; and he knew where a pair of old battered oars were hidden under a row of bathing-houses close by. He drew them out and threw them on the sand. Then he looked at the seaweed in his way,—little windrows of it littering the beach, and dark masses rolling in the surf. The tide had been going out about three hours.
"I can get through that easily enough," he said.
He dragged the lightest of the dories down to the water's edge, and put in the oars. He knew just how it should be launched, and understood the necessity of sending it straight across the breakers, and of never, by any chance, letting them strike it sidewise.
Placing himself at the upper end, he waited for a good wave, and pushed the boat into it,—running with it until his feet were almost in the water, then holding it firmly until another wave lifted it. Just as that was subsiding, he gave the dory another push, leaped in at the same time, caught up the oars, and had them in the rowlocks and in the water just as the third wave came.
So far, so good. He had done the same thing many times before, and had never met with an accident. Two or three sturdy strokes, and he would have been safe outside the rollers. But at a critical moment he paused to look at a few spatters of water on his new clothes; and on the instant one of his oars caught in a whirling tangle of kelp.
The boat was going out swiftly in one direction; the billow that bore the kelp was rushing in with tremendous force in the other. No one knows the power of a wave, who has not felt it at some such crisis. What happened was over so quickly that Olly himself could not have explained it. A brief struggle, a terrible wrench, a buffet in the breast and face from the end of an oar,—and he was lying on his back in the dory with his heels above the thwarts.
For a few seconds he lay there, half stunned by the blow and the fall. His breath seemed to have been quite knocked out of his body. It did not take him long to recover it, however, and to reverse the positions of his head and his heels. When he did so, he found the boat swinging around broadside to the breakers, with one threatening at that very moment to overwhelm it.
Instinctively he seized an oar and pulled with all his might to head the dory to the wave. He succeeded, and sent it careening safely over it and the next great swell, and so out to sea.
But it was at the expense of the oar. It was an old one, much worn by the friction of the rowlocks, and his last stroke broke it short off at the weak point. The paddle-end fell overboard, and only the handle remained in his hand.
He then turned to look for the other oar, and found that he had lost it at the time of his tumble. He could see it going over on a breaker, several rods behind him. For now the wind took the dory, and was wafting it away almost as rapidly as if it carried a sail.
He tried paddling with the stub that remained in his hand, but made so little headway with it that he began to be seriously alarmed. He had been sufficiently startled by his accident and the danger of an overturn in the rollers; but he now saw himself in face of an unforeseen peril.
He at first thought he would jump overboard and swim to the beach; but even then he remembered his clothes, which a wetting might ruin—to say nothing of Mr. Hatville's watch.
There was, besides, another danger. The kelp! He was a good swimmer; but could he ever make his way through breakers in which such fields of sea-weed tossed and rolled?
The night was shutting down with gathering clouds. The wind struck the skiff with a force he had not felt under the lee of the woods. Not a human being was in sight, nor a boat—only two or three distant sails on the horizon.
"Oh, the yacht! Where is the yacht?" he cried aloud, gazing eagerly around the point of rocks, the view beyond which was rapidly opening as he drifted out to sea.
A little while before, he would have been sorry enough to have had the Susette come in before he had time to land and run back to the boarding-house with the borrowed watch; but now he wished for nothing so devoutly as that it might come along and pick him up—so much worse things might happen than the discovery of the time-piece in his possession.
But no yacht hove in sight. The glory had faded out of the sky. The sea darkened; the wind increased. He shouted for help, though with little hope of making himself heard.
There were only women at the boarding-house, and even if his voice reached them, it must have sounded so faint and far away as to attract no especial attention. But the upper windows were visible over the sand-hills. Perhaps somebody, perhaps Amy Canfield herself, was gazing from them.
In that hope he swung his hat with frantic gestures of distress, still screaming for help, as he drifted away on the darkening waters.
(To be continued.)
It was on the 15th day of June, 1775, that George Washington was chosen Commander-in-Chief of the American army. The next day he made his answer to Congress, in which he declared that he accepted the office, but that he would take no pay; he would keep an exact account of his expenses, but he would give his services to his country. There was no time to be lost. He could not go home to bid his wife good-by, and he did not know when he should see her again, so he wrote her as follows:
"PHILADELPHIA, 18th June, 1775."MY DEAREST:"I am now set down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it."You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of it being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years. But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose. You might, and I suppose did perceive, from the tenor of my letters, that I was apprehensive I could not avoid this appointment, as I did not pretend to intimate when I should return. That was the case. It was utterly out of my power to refuse this appointment, without exposing my character to such censures as would have reflected dishonor upon myself and given pain to my friends."
"PHILADELPHIA, 18th June, 1775.
"MY DEAREST:
"I am now set down to write to you on a subject which fills me with inexpressible concern, and this concern is greatly aggravated and increased when I reflect upon the uneasiness I know it will give you. It has been determined in Congress that the whole army raised for the defence of the American cause shall be put under my care, and that it is necessary for me to proceed immediately to Boston to take upon me the command of it.
"You may believe me, my dear Patsy, when I assure you in the most solemn manner, that, so far from seeking this appointment, I have used every endeavor in my power to avoid it, not only from my unwillingness to part with you and the family, but from a consciousness of it being a trust too great for my capacity, and that I should enjoy more real happiness in one month with you at home than I have the most distant prospect of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times seven years. But as it has been a kind of destiny that has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that my undertaking it is designed to answer some good purpose. You might, and I suppose did perceive, from the tenor of my letters, that I was apprehensive I could not avoid this appointment, as I did not pretend to intimate when I should return. That was the case. It was utterly out of my power to refuse this appointment, without exposing my character to such censures as would have reflected dishonor upon myself and given pain to my friends."
That is to say, he could not refuse the appointment without laying himself open to the charge of being a coward and afraid to run the risk, or a selfish man who preferred his own ease and comfort. He was neither. He was a courageous man, as he had always shown himself to be, and he was unselfish, for he was giving up home and property, and undertaking a life of the greatest difficulty in the service of—what? His country? Yes. But we must remember that Virginia was his country more than all the colonies were, and at present it was only Massachusetts that stood in peril. Of course every one is impelled to do great things by more than one motive. Washington was a soldier, and his blood tingled as he thought of being Commander-in-Chief, and doing the most that a soldier could; but he was, above all, a man who had a keen sense of right and wrong. He saw that England was wrong and was doing injustice to America. The injustice did not at once touch him as a planter, as a man who was making money; it touched him as a free man who was obedient to the laws; and he was ready to give up everything to help right the wrongs.
Washington left Philadelphia on his way to Boston, June 21, escorted by a troop of horsemen, and accompanied by Schuyler and Lee, who had just been made major-generals by Congress. Theyhad gone about twenty miles when they saw a man on horseback coming rapidly down the road. It was a messenger riding post haste to Philadelphia, and carrying to Congress news of the battle of Bunker Hill. Everybody was stirred by the news and wanted to know the particulars.
"Why were the Provincials compelled to retreat?" he was asked.
"It was for want of ammunition," he replied.
"Did they stand the fire of the regular troops?" asked Washington anxiously.
"That they did, and held their own fire in reserve until the enemy was within eight rods."
"Then the liberties of the country are safe!" exclaimed Washington. He remembered well the scenes under Braddock, and he knew what a sight it must have been to those New England farmers when a compact body of uniformed soldiers came marching up from the boats at Charlestown. If they could stand fearlessly, there was stuff in them for soldiers.