Although a capital sailor and, under most conditions, a very sensible man, the skipper of the Millgirl was inclined to be superstitious. So when, a little later, by the swinging gleam of the sloop's riding light, he saw a dim white figure gliding noiselessly along the deck towards him, he gazed at it in speechless apprehension. To his dismay it was followed by another, and still others, until the deck seemed crowded with the phantom forms. All the stories of ghostly crews that he had ever heard flashed into the skipper's mind, and, as the formless figures silently approached him, his face was bathed in a cold perspiration. He sat motionless until they were about to surround him, when, with a mighty effort and a hoarse shout, he sprang to his feet.

At this the startled ghosts, who were only so many boys enveloped in white blankets, fell backward so precipitately that they tumbled over each other, and rolled on deck with stifled exclamations that at once proclaimed their humanity and identity.

"Oh, you villains!" roared the relieved skipper. "You young pirates! You, you—what do you mean by playing tricks like this on your grandfather, eh? Tell me that afore I murder ye."

"Please, sir, we didn't mean to play any trick," answered one of the blanketed figures meekly. "Only we thought, perhaps, you were asleep, and wouldn't like to be disturbed. You see, we were afraid you might sail back up the river to-night, and thought we'd better explain what we'd decided to do before it was too late; for, you see, we've talked it all over, and made up our minds not to go back until our cruise is finished."

"Oh, ye have, have you?" remarked the skipper, in an interested tone, at the same time throwing a protecting arm about Cal Moody, and drawing the little chap close to him for fear lest he should get cold.

"Yes, sir," answered the voice, which was now recognizable as that of Will Rogers; "but we don't want you to be blamed for anything that may happen, or to have any responsibility unless you want to."

"I don't exactly see how that is to be avoided so long as I'm in charge of the vessel," interposed the skipper.

"Oh, we've settled all that," replied Will, cheerfully. "We'll simply seize the sloop and sail her ourselves, and so take all the risk as well as all the responsibility."

"You'll simply seize the vessel," repeated the skipper, slowly, and in a bewildered tone, as though failing to comprehend what he had just heard. "In that case, what's to become of me?"

"Why, we'll put you in irons, or lock you into your state-room, or let you walk a plank, that is, if you know how walking a plank is done, or set you ashore on a desolate island, or perhaps let you go adrift in the small boat without oars or sail. Of course we'd give you plenty of provisions and water, and you'd probably be picked up, 'cause you know they always are. Anyhow, we'd let you take your choice of all those ways."

"Waal, I'll be blowed!" exclaimed the skipper. "If these young pirates hain't planned out a regular high-sea mutiny, with all the fixin's and trimmings, then I'm a farmer."

"Of course," Will hastened to add, "we would rather have you choose to be put in irons, and so stay on board, because when we get to sea if we should strike a typhoon or anything we might want you to help navigate the ship."

"That's so," reflected the skipper, gravely. "And on the whole, I think I'd better stay aboard anyway. But now I'll tell you what I'll do. If you mutineers will turn in, and promise not to leave your bunks again before sunrise, I'll promise not to make any move toward going back before that time, and not even then till we've talked the whole matter over again by daylight."

This proposition seemed to the Rangers so satisfactory, and they were becoming so shivery in the chill night air, as well as sleepy, that it was promptly accepted; and, without further parley, the young mutineers left the deck and hastened below. Little Cal Moody, cuddling close to the big skipper, was already nodding, so the latter lifted him in his strong arms, and carrying him into the hold again, tucked him snugly into his bunk. Then, after bidding the mutineers a polite good-night, and promising to carefully consider their proposition, the skipper returned to the deck. Here for an hour or more he nearly choked with suppressed laughter, which refused to be stilled, and ever broke out afresh as he contemplated the novel aspects of the proposed mutiny.

"Bless their honest hearts," he finally said, half aloud, "I couldn't no more disappoint them boys by carrying of 'em back than a fish could swim on a railroad track. So I suppose I might as well make a virtue of necessity, and surrender at once."

Thus resolved, Captain Crotty turned in for a few hours' sleep; but he was on deck again by daylight, when, with young Jabe's assistance, he quietly got up the anchor, set the jib, and was merrily dropping down stream long before a single Ranger even thought of opening his eyes.

When the sleepers were at length awakened by young Jabe's lusty shout of "Breakfast!" they tumbled out of their bunks in a hurry, but sought in vain for their clothing. It was not in cabin, hold, or galley; but the mystery of its disappearance was speedily explained by Captain Crotty, who, thrusting his head down the hatch, informed them that the cook, learning of their mutiny, had inaugurated one of his own. "He says," continued the skipper, "that he's going to keep up his mutiny, which is for the purpose of hiding your clothes, just as long as you keep up yourn, but that as soon as you'll give in he'll give in. Now I'm going to set down to breakfast, and only wish you were properly dressed to set down with me, for it's an uncommon good one. I can tell you—corn muffins and flapjacks with maple syrup an—"

Here the speaker was interrupted by a howl from the Rangers, who had just realized how very hungry they were, and how impossible it would be to carry on a mutiny unless properly clad for such an undertaking. Most of them were willing to give in at once, but several held out, until, overcome by a fragrant whiff of coffee that came floating in from the cabin, human nature could resist no longer; so an unconditional surrender was declared, and their clothing, all nicely dried, was restored to them by the grinning Jabe. Five minutes later the recent mutineers were gathered about the smoking breakfast table. As they satisfied their ravenous appetites they also found occasion to rejoice that their mutiny had effected its purpose, for they learned that the skipper had surrendered even before they did, and that the sloop was already headed toward their desired destination.

All that day they sailed down the beautiful river, and at night the sloop was anchored at its mouth, where they were cooled by a sea-breeze and rocked by a gentle swell rolling in from the Sound. The next day they crossed the Sound, and finally drew near the lonely island on which they anticipated such glorious times.

During these two days of sailing the skipper kept the boys from mischief by interesting them in various simple problems of seamanship. He gave them lessons in boxing the compass, splicing, tying knots, naming the various sails, spars, and ropes, and in steering, that caused them to realize with amazement the extent of their former ignorance concerning such matters. Will Rogers was especially interested in all this, and became so expert in steering that the skipper allowed him to hold the tiller for an hour at a time.

"I tell you what, fellows," he said to a group of his comrades, after being relieved from his trick at the helm, "we've learned such a lot on this trip that I feel ashamed to think how little we really knew when we started."

"Yes," replied Cracker Bob Jones, "but we know more now than we even thought we did when we left Berks."

Early in the afternoon the sloop reached the island, on which the excited boys had already distinguished the tops of tents and a number of gayly fluttering flags. There was a good harbor around a point, but the channel to it was very narrow, and so beset with reefs that the skipper was proceeding with unusual caution. Suddenly, as they were close to the point, a fleet of canoes, under full sail and evidently racing, swept out from behind it. So excited were their occupants that they took no notice of the on-coming sloop, and a collision was imminent. To avert it the skipper jammed his helm hard down. The sloop luffed sharply into the wind, and in another moment brought up with a crash that threw every Ranger to the deck. She heeled so far over that they thought she was surely going to capsize, then slowly slid off into deep water and righted. As she did so young Jabe rushed up from below and reported that a torrent of water was pouring into the hold.

[to be continued.]

OAKLEIGH.

Neither of them remembered that Neal had wilfully deserted his home, and that it was entirely his own fault if he had no money in his pockets.

"Cynthia," said Mrs. Franklin, turning abruptly and facing her daughter, "I want you to understand that I don't think Neal took that money. I cannot believe it. I am sure he got it in some other way. Why do you look so odd, Cynthia?"

There was no answer.

"I believe you know something about it. Tell me!"

Still no answer.

"Could you have helped him in any way? Where would you get it? Why, of course! How stupid we have all been! You had Aunt Betsey's present; you never spent it, you would not buy the watch. Cynthia, you cannot deny it; I have guessed it!"

The next moment Mrs. Franklin was enveloped in a vigorous hug.

"You dear darling, I'm so thankful you have! He wouldn't let me tell, but I said this morning I wouldn't deny it if you happened to guess."

"Oh, Cynthia, though I said I didn't believe the other, this has taken a thousand-pound weight from my heart!"

They were interrupted by the entrance of the nurse, who came to say that her patient was growing more uneasy, and she thought some one had better come to her. At the same moment Mr. Franklin arrived, so Cynthia went alone to her sister.

She found her perfectly conscious, with large, wide-open eyes, watching for her. Edith's head was bound up, and the pretty hands, of which she had always been somewhat vain, moved restlessly. Cynthia took one of them in her warm, firm grasp, and leaned over the bed.

"Dearest, you wanted me," she said, in a low voice; "I am going to stay with you now."

But Edith was not satisfied. She tried to say something, but in so faint a voice that Cynthia could not hear.

"I can't hear you," she said, in distress. "Don't try to speak; it will tire you."

But still Edith persisted. Cynthia put her ear close to her sister.

"Did you say 'mamma'?" she asked.

The great brown eyes said "Yes."

"Do you want her?"

No, that was not it. Cynthia thought a moment.

"Oh. I know!" she exclaimed. "You are sorry about the drive, Edith; is that it? You want mamma to forgive you?"

"Yes."

Cynthia flew down stairs.

"Mamma, mamma!" she cried, scarcely heeding her father, whom she had not seen before, "come quickly! I have found out what Edith wants. She wants you to forgive her for going to drive, and you will, won't you?"

And in a few minutes, satisfied, Edith fell asleep with her hand in that of her mother's.

Many people came to inquire for Edith, for the news of her accident spread like wildfire. Cynthia was obliged to see them all, as Edith would scarcely let her mother go out of her sight. Now that her pride had given way, she showed how completely her step-mother had won her heart, entirely against her own will.

Among others came Gertrude Morgan.

"And how is your dear friend Tony Bronson?" asked Cynthia. "He nearly killed Edith; what did he do to himself?"

"Oh, he didn't get very much hurt—at least he didn't show it much. He went home right away. He thought he had better."

"Well, I should think he might have had the grace to come and inquire for Edith, after upsetting her in that style, and almost breaking her neck."

"He seemed to think he ought to get home. He thought he might be a good deal hurt, only it didn't come out just at first. He said there were inward bruises."

"Inward bruises!" repeated Cynthia, scornfully. "I guess the inward bruise was that he was ashamed of himself for letting the horse run away. Now don't you really think so, Gertrude? Don't you think yourself that it was outrageous of him not to find out more about Edith before he went?"

Gertrude was forced to acknowledge that she did think so; and, furthermore, she confessed that her brother Dennis was so enraged at Bronson's conduct that he declared he should never be asked there again.

"I'm glad of it!" declared Cynthia, emphatically. "It's about time you all found out what a cad that Bronson is. If you knew as much as I know about him you would have come to that conclusion long ago."

"Oh, of course you are prejudiced by Neal Gordon! I wouldn't take his word for anything. By-the-way, have you seen him lately?"

"Yes, very lately. He came out to Brenton the other day."

"Did he, really?" cried Gertrude, curiously. "I thought he was never coming back. The last story was that your father had turned him out-of-doors."

"How perfectly absurd! I should think you knew enough about us to contradict that, Gertrude! Will you please tell every one there is no truth in it, at all?"

"But where is he now? Is he here? Why has nobody seen him? Wasn't any of it true?"

"Dear me, Gertrude, you are nothing but a big interrogation point!" laughed Cynthia, who had no intention of replying to any of these questions; and Gertrude, baffled and somewhat ashamed of herself, soon took her departure without having learned anything beyond the fact that Neal had lately been in town and, as she supposed, at his sister's.

Aunt Betsey came from Wayborough as soon as she heard of what happened. It was her first visit there since the death of Silas Green, and naturally she was much affected.

"Cynthy, my dear," she said, after talking about him for some time to her nieces, "let me give you a word of warning: Never put off till to-morrow what can be done to-day! It is a good proverb, and worth remembrance. If I hadn't put off and put off, and been so unwilling to give up my view, I might have made Silas's last years happier. Perhaps he'd have been here yet if I'd been with him to take care of him. Oh, one has to give up—one has to give up in this world!"

They were in Edith's room, and Edith, listening, felt that Aunt Betsey was right. She, too, had learned—many, many years earlier in life than did her aunt—that one must learn to give up.

Miss Betsey did not look the same. The gay dress that she once wore was discarded, and she was soberly clad in black. She really was not unlike other people now, but her speech was as quaint as ever.

She brought Willy's present with her, and was shocked to find that Janet's had never been received.

"Well, now, I want to know!" she exclaimed, rocking violently. "I did it up with my own hands. I remember it exactly, for it was a few days after the funeral, and I was that flustered I could scarcely tie the cord or hold the pen. It was a large rag doll I had made for the child, just about life size, and a face as natural as a baby's. And I made a nice little satchel to hang at the side, and in the satchel was the money. Too bad she didn't get it! I remember I gave it to old Mr. Peters to mail. He was going down Tottenham way, and he said he'd take it to the post-office there. He'd stopped to see if there was anything he could do for me just as I was tying it up, so I let him take it along. He's half blind, and just as likely as not he went to the meeting-house instead of the post-office. He wouldn't know them apart. You may depend upon it, it warn't Government's fault you didn't get it. Of that I'm very sure."

And, true to her principles, the patriotic little lady rocked again. No one told her of the suspicion which had rested upon Neal. It would have distressed her too deeply, and nothing would be gained by it.

"And now, Jack, I must see those little orphans," she said to her great-nephew, when he came home that afternoon. "Poor little things, are they at all happy?"

Jack led her in triumph to the poultry-yard.

"Well, I want to know!" she exclaimed, throwing up her mitted hands when she saw six or seven hundred very contented-looking fowls of all sizes, kinds, and ages, each brood in its allotted habitation, pecking, running, crowing, and clucking, and enjoying life generally.

"You don't mean to say, Jackie, that not one of these hens ever had any mother but that heartless box in the cellar? Well, I want to know! They do look real contented. Do tell!"

Her nephew proudly assured her that they appeared to be exceedingly happy, and that he also was happy; for they paid well, and he would soon be able to return the money that he had borrowed of her.

And indeed in a few weeks Jack travelled out to Wayborough, and with his own hands gave back to his aunt the seventy-five dollars which she so kindly had advanced to him, and which he had earned with his own hard work.

The best part of it all was when his father spoke to him with unqualified praise.

"I am really proud of my son, Jack," he said. "You have done well. I have watched you carefully, and I saw the plucky way in which you met your discouragements. It makes me feel that I have a son worth having. Keep at it, my boy. If you put the same pluck and perseverance into everything you undertake you will make a name some day."

And when Jack remembered how his father had frowned down the idea of the incubator he felt more pleased than ever.

One day a letter came to Cynthia from Neal. It was the first they had received. Mr. Carpenter had written to Mrs. Franklin, telling her that Neal was with him, and that he had taken him into his office; and Hester wrote to her brother at once, but he answered neither that letter nor the many that followed. He was still obdurate. It was an exciting moment, therefore, when Cynthia recognized the bold, boyish handwriting on the envelope.

"Yours,
"Neal Gordon.

It was better than nothing, though Mrs. Franklin wished that the letter had been to her. Still, it was far, far better than if it had not been written at all. And then he had sent his love to her. It was in a postscript, and was probably an after-thought, but she was glad he did it. He seemed well and moderately happy, and for that his sister was very grateful. Fortunately Hester could not read between the lines, and learn that the boy was eating his heart out with homesickness and a longing to see his only sister.

Neal found this quiet life, so far from his family and friends, very different from that to which he had been accustomed, and sometimes it seemed very dreary and hard to bear. Then, again, he was quite unused to steady occupation, and his cousin demanded unflagging attention to business. It was good for the boy, just what he needed; but that made it none the less irksome.

[to be continued.]

WATER LIFE AROUND NEW YORK.

I suppose that the reader has heard that almost every Chinaman in this country comes from the water population near Canton. That must be a wonderful phase of life, where so many hundreds of thousands of persons are actually born upon the water, to live out their lives upon the water, and to die upon the water. They form a river population housed in boats that make up a city far more peculiar than Venice—a floating city of stores and work-shops, boarding-houses, amusement places, saloons, and all the rest. We have nothing of the sort around New York. The nearest approach to that condition is to be seen in the large docks on the East River near the Battery, and one at Communipaw on the New Jersey shore, where the canal-boats collect with the boatmen and their wives and children aboard them. There one sees by the kitchen smoke-stacks above the cabin roofs, by the lines of drying linen on the decks, by the sight of women sewing and knitting under cooling awnings, and by the views of children and cats and dogs playing upon the boats—by all these things one sees how truly the canal-boats are floating homes as well as merchant vessels. At night the sounds of singing and fiddling—sometimes the nasal notes of house organs—tell more of this strange water life. Some of the cabins of these canal-boats are quite attractive. They show dainty white lace curtains in the tiny square windows, carpets on the floors, boxes of flowers upon the cabin roofs, and cleanly, neatly clad mothers and little children. This is not the rule, however, and we see enough, whenever we visit the canallers, to show that there is at least some reason for their being generally regarded as a rude and rough class.

Yet, apart from these canallers, we have enough persons who live on the water to form what would be called a city out West. They are mainly men who sleep in bunks and eat in the cabins of tug-boats, steam passenger boats, freighters, and the like. A few women are among them—stewardesses of passenger boats and the wives of the captains of the other sorts of vessels. Of course I do not include here the men on the ships that sail the ocean. Their homes are really at sea. I only refer to the scores of thousands of persons who live upon boats that may be called the horses of the harbor, because they tie up regularly every night at certain piers, and every morning are sent to work, here and there, at this place or that, to carry goods or passengers, or to haul other boats. It is doubtful whether many children are born in these shifting homes, but there is no doubt that very many girls and boys sleep upon them, and are sent from them to the city's schools, and, later, to the factories and shops to earn their living.

Of all the uncommon forms that boats take, the newest, instead of being strange and complicated like most nineteenth-century inventions, are almost as simple as anything that floats. Only rafts of logs are more simple than what we call our "car-floats." They are the newest type of boats we know, and have come into being because New York city is on an island, with only a few railroads crossing to it from the mainland. The other great and little railways, which bring and take goods and people to and from New York, all stop on the opposite shores of our harbor, in New Jersey, Staten Island, and Long Island. Since the cars of one railroad often have to go past the city upon the other roads, these "floats" are used to transport them around our island, so that goods from Boston or Sag Harbor, for instance, can be sent around New York to the tracks of the roads that will carry them to San Francisco without unloading or reloading. The floats that carry these cars are merely boxes, the shape of great dominoes, with railroad tracks laid upon them. Some carry six freight-cars, some carry eight, and some carry ten cars. Tiny little propellers that we call "tug-boats" are warped or hitched alongside of these clumsy floating boxes, where they look as a little kitten would appear beside a big St. Bernard dog, or as a locomotive would look beside a house. But our queer, snorting, fussy little tug-boats march away with every floating thing to which they are hitched—even dragging huge Atlantic steamships at their sides—because they reach deep down into the water, where their big screws, driven by very powerful engines, obtain a mighty hold. Because our tug-boats are so small, and yet so strong, they are able to move swiftly when they have no burdens to carry. In the boatman's dream that I spoke of they would seem like those water-spiders that many of us have seen darting hither and thither on the top of placid pools. But there is one reason why they are not at all alike—that is, that the water-spiders are as silent as death, while the tug-boats are the most noisy, saucy, boisterous of make-believe animals—always gasping, and snorting, and whistling, and thrashing about as very little people are often apt to do.

The "floats" that carry passengers around New York so that they can go to Boston from Philadelphia or Chicago without changing cars (and even without getting out of bed on the sleeping cars), are not floats at all. They are very powerful and large steamboats, with decks covered with iron plates, with car tracks on those decks, and with arrangements for locking the car wheels fast to the tracks, so that no matter how boisterous the water may be on stormy days, the cars cannot break loose and roll overboard. We have several queer sorts of boats and other floating objects that look like floating houses. Among them are what we call our floating baths, and our floating docks, and our cattle and ice barges. But there is one kind of floating building that looks like a tower or a steeple riding the waters and steering itself around. That strange thing—and we employ many such—is a floating grain-elevator. It is a tall four-sided tower built upon a squat snub-nosed boat. It has a great proboscis, that it sticks down into canal-boats full of grain, which it sucks or dips out so that it can load the grain into the holds of ships that are to carry it to Europe. Our floating baths are square one-story houses, hollow in the middle, where the bathers swim, with lattice-work or perforated boards under them to let in the water without letting out the bathers. They are decorated with little towers and flag-staffs, and look very strange indeed when they are being towed to the city in the early summer to be moored beside a wharf, or when, after the bathing season is over, they are dragged away to be laid up for the winter. Our floating docks, upon which all but the very large ships and steamboats are lifted out of the water to have their hulls painted, cleaned, or repaired, are made of many boxes joined together. These boxes sink when full of water, and thus it is possible to steer a vessel right over them. Then the water is pumped out of the boxes, and the dock (in reality a cradle rather than a dock) rises, and lifts the vessel up high and dry so that workmen can walk all around and under her to scrape off the barnacles that have grown fast to her, or to paint her bottom, or to sheathe it with copper.

The barges for carrying cattle and those for carrying ice are just like the toys that are made for children and called "Noah's Arks." They are houses built upon strong boat hulls. The ice-barges are always white, and canvas windmill wheels are forever whirling above them, just as if they were some new kind of boats made to go by air propellers instead of wheels or screws in the water. The truth is, of course, that these canvas wheels work the pumps that pump out the water made by the constant melting of the ice. But of all the kinds of barges that work in the New York waters the hay-barges are surely the most interesting. They are very large, and the houses built upon their hulls are open at the sides, with only a railing where the walls should be. These are two-storied houses, and the floors that support hay in the winter are dancing platforms in the summer. These hay-barges are our picnic boats also. All winter long, or as long as the waters are unfrozen, they bring down hay from the Hudson River landings, but in the summer they go out of that business, and are hired out to Sunday-schools, political clubs, secret societies, church societies, and the like, to carry picnickers to what are called the excursion parks that are found along the Hudson River and the Sound at several hours' distance from the metropolis. Tug-boats drag these barges to the excursion parks, and the holiday crowds upon the two open decks of the barges dance all the time to the music of the band that they hire for the occasion. The stop at the excursion park is a short one—just long enough for luncheon and a little strolling under the trees, or bathing on the beach. Then the homeward journey is begun, and the dancing on the barge is recommenced and kept up until the city is reached, just before bedtime. Our great excursion steamboats, that run to Coney Island and Rockaway, are built on the same plan—wide open—and carry such great crowds of pleasure-seekers that they are black with passengers. These are sometimes hired by richer and more numerous bodies than those that hire the hay-barges, but I can assure my readers that the real jubilant fun is on the common barges, where the people are apt to be simple and democratic, and ready to surrender themselves to those pleasures of which they enjoy too little.

Our pilot-boats which go out to sea with many brave men, and leave them one by one on the steamships that they meet—in order that those great vessels may be safely steered into port—are very romantic boats, but they look like mere sail-boats or yachts. Some splendid yachts become pilot-boats when they grow too old-fashioned to keep pace with the faster and faster boats that we are forever building. Other such yachts become oyster-boats, and lie beside Fulton Fish Market in company with the tank-steamers that bring fish into New York. These tank-steamers go to Nantucket, or wherever the fishing-smacks are at work, and lie there while sail-boat after sail-boat fill up with fish and bring their loads to be kept in the refrigerated-tanks of the steamer, until she, also, is filled and ready to come to the city.

Of the "whalebacks," or cigar-shaped iron ships that were first made to traverse the great lakes, I will say very little, because they belong to no place in particular, and excite as much curiosity here as anywhere. Our floating pile-drivers, which look like ladders set upon boxes, are very curious-looking vessels, but are familiar at all ports. Perhaps our immigrant barges, which carry the immigrants from Ellis Island (where they are landed) to the wharves of the railways by which they are to seek homes in the West, are peculiar to New York, but they are mere hay-barges like the excursion boats I have already described. The busy craft that carry fresh drinking-water to the sailing-ships are usually very ordinary tug-boats, and are only peculiar because each one carries a great sign bearing the word "WATER" painted upon it. To see such a vessel all by itself upon a great expanse of salt water suggests Coleridge's line in The Ancient Mariner,

"Water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink."

If it were not for those water-bearers—serving the same purpose as the camels laden with water-bags upon the desert of Sahara—there truly would not be a drop to drink.

I fancy that what we call our "lighters" are the only descendants that recall the old days of the Dutch on Manhattan Island. They are sail-boats that are used to carry goods from or to vessels that do not come to the wharves, but lie out in the open water. They are very old-fashioned and foreign-looking, built almost solidly of heavy wood, and of a shape very like a turtle and quite as clumsy. Each one carries a short thick mast that looks as if it had been broken off, and a little narrow sail, absurdly disproportioned to the vessel. Everything these lighters carry is put upon their decks, and they are so slow and so hard to steer and so strong that all other craft give them a wide berth. It is only a fancy of mine, yet I never see one without thinking that this style of boat surely descended to us from the Dutch.

A FREE ENTERTAINMENT IN THE SAHARA.

KENNIBOY'S CIRCUS.

I'd like to own a circus show. A splendid one 'twould be;
Unlike the circus shows that in these days boys go to see.
I wouldn't have a leopard or a lion in the place,
Nor would I let a monkey show his ugly little face.

But I would fill it up with things like fairies, elves, and gnomes,
Such as we read about in books of fairy tales and "pomes."
I'd have a big volcano throwing flames up to the sky,
And real cold icy icebergs, with great whales a-swimming by.

And in a little side-show I would have a burning lake,
And in another there would be a fearful big earthquake.
And 'stead o' camels, 'rang-o-tangs, and other stupid things,
I'd have a lot o' cages chock up full o' Queens and Kings.

And then I'd have a pair o' huge big ogres with one eye,
And four-and-twenty puppy-dogs all baked into a pie,
For them to eat at show-time, so that little boys could see
How really awful terrible those ogre-men can be.

I'd have a hen to lay gold eggs, and harps that play themselves,
And bags and bags o' bean-stalk beans a-climbing over shelves;
And Jacks and Hopmythumbs to fight the giants every day,
Just as those splendid fairy-story books of mine all say.

I wouldn't charge a penny for admittance to my show.
Of course, 'twould be a most expensive thing to run, I know.
But I could well afford it. I could make that circus pay
By selling off the golden eggs the gold egg hen would lay.

John Kendrick Bangs.

JOAN OF ARC.

All this time the English were trying to capture Joan, and then prove her to be a sorceress, in order to show that any person crowned through her agency must of course be the wrong man. Hence Henry VI. could be crowned and recognized as the real King of France. They did finally buy her of one of the Duke of Burgundy's vassals; and then began a bogus trial to prove she was a sorceress, since merely putting her to death without proving some evil agency in her work would only make her a martyr. Charles VII., once being King, did not know exactly what to do with Joan, so he took no steps to rescue her from the English, and they spent many weary days in trying to make her say something which could be used to prove she was a sorceress. Failing in this, for she believed too strongly in herself and in her visions to alter her statements, they killed her by burning her alive in the streets of Rouen, in 1431, with the result that she became a martyr at once, and her work for France became the sacred belief of all French people. And in all the sad and fascinating story, the most interesting and wonderful point is the courage, the bravery, and the wonderful brain which a young girl of nineteen or twenty had to sway men and capture cities and crown Kings.