Read Ebook: Harper's Young People November 9 1880 An Illustrated Monthly by Various

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Ebook has 371 lines and 21881 words, and 8 pages

COUNTRY ANECDOTES.

I once saw a life-and-death struggle between two apparently very unequal opponents--a frog and a beetle. As I was standing near the cellar window, which was below-ground, and protected by an iron grating, I noticed in the area below it a large frog, which, at regular intervals of one or two minutes, leaped from one side of the little inclosure to the other. I looked more closely, and saw that it was each time followed by a black beetle, that walked backward and forward, not seeming at all discouraged when the frog, every time it reached it, jumped back over its head, and so escaped. It was evidently a trial of strength and perseverance between the two, and I was anxious to see which would first give in. They went on, however, for such a long time that I grew tired of watching them, and went away. The next morning, as I was again passing, I looked down the area to see what had been the result of the struggle, and, strange to say, it was still going on; the beetle deliberately hunting its victim, which, whenever they were about to meet, escaped by a great leap to the other side of its prison. Not until that evening did it end: then the poor frog, tired out, and too much exhausted to make any resistance, became the prey of its enemy, and no doubt furnished its meals for many a day.

As there were a good many rats about the out-houses and wood stacks, professional rat-catchers used to come once or twice a year, with their dogs and ferrets, and were paid according to the number they killed. Once when our gardener was assisting at the work of destruction he pulled one of the ferrets out of a hole, where it had been killing a brood of young rats. The poor mother, who had probably just returned from an expedition in search of food for her young ones, rushed out after the ferret, ran up the man's leg, on to his shoulder, and down his arm, quite blind to her own danger, and only desirous to reach the object of her vengeance in his hand.

OUR BABY.

BY JIMMY BROWN.

Mr. Martin has gone away. He's gone to Europe or Hartford or some such place. Anyway I hope we'll never see him again. The expressman says that part of him went in the stage and part of him was sent in a box by express, but I don't know whether it is true or not.

I never could see the use of babies. We have one at our house that belongs to mother and she thinks everything of it. I can't see anything wonderful about it. All it can do is to cry and pull hair and kick. It hasn't half the sense of my dog, and it can't even chase a cat. Mother and Sue wouldn't have a dog in the house, but they are always going on about the baby and saying "ain't it perfectly sweet!" Why I wouldn't change Sitting Bull for a dozen babies, or at least I wouldn't change him if I had him. After the time he bit Mr. Martin's leg father said "that brute sha'n't stay here another day." I don't know what became of him, but the next morning he was gone and I have never seen him since. I have had great sorrows though people think I'm only a boy.

The worst thing about a baby is that you're expected to take care of him and then you get scolded afterward. Folks say "Here, Jimmy! just hold the baby a minute, that's a good boy," and then as soon as you have got it they say "Don't do that my goodness gracious the boy will kill the child hold it up straight you good-for-nothing little wretch." It is pretty hard to do your best and then be scolded for it, but that's the way boys are treated. Perhaps after I'm dead folks will wish they had done differently.

Last Saturday mother and Sue went out to make calls and told me to stay home and take care of the baby. There was a base-ball match but what did they care? They didn't want to go to it and so it made no difference whether I went to it or not. They said they would be gone only a little while and that if the baby waked up I was to play with it and keep it from crying and be sure you don't let it swallow any pins. Of course I had to do it. The baby was sound asleep when they went out, so I left it just for a few minutes while I went to see if there was any pie in the pantry. If I was a woman I wouldn't be so dreadfully suspicious as to keep everything locked up. When I got back up stairs again the baby was awake and was howling like he was full of pins. So I gave him the first thing that came handy to keep him quiet. It happened to be a bottle of French polish with a sponge in it on the end of a wire that Sue uses to black her shoes, because girls are too lazy to use a regular blacking-brush.

The baby stopped crying as soon as I gave him the bottle and I sat down to read the YOUNG PEOPLE. The next time I looked at him he'd got out the sponge and about half his face was jet black. This was a nice fix, for I knew nothing could get the black off his face, and when mother came home she would say the baby was spoiled and I had done it.

Now I think an all black baby is ever so much more stylish than an all white baby, and when I saw the baby was part black I made up my mind that if I blacked it all over it would be worth more than it ever had been and perhaps mother would be ever so much pleased. So I hurried up and gave it a good coat of black. You should have seen how that baby shined! The polish dried just as soon as it was put on, and I had just time to get the baby dressed again when mother and Sue came in.

I wouldn't lower myself to repeat their unkind language. When you've been called a murdering little villain and an unnatural son it will wrinkle in your heart for ages. After what they said to me I didn't even seem to mind about father but went up stairs with him almost as if I was going to church or something that wouldn't hurt much.

The baby is beautiful and shiny, though the doctor says it will wear off in a few years. Nobody shows any gratitude for all the trouble I took, and I can tell you it isn't easy to black a baby without getting it into his eyes and hair. I sometimes think that it is hardly worth while to live in this cold and unfeeling world.

THE UNLUCKY SETTLERS.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.

Deacon Whitney's drug store fronted on the green, and Steve had just come out, and his father was standing in the door.

Just then Andy Yokum called out across the street, "Steve! Steve Whitney! what are we boys going to do with this here Saturday, now we've lost our ball?"

"I know what I'd like to do. Come over here."

"What is it, Steve?"

"Well, you see, Andy, I was down to old Captain Hollowboy's after school yesterday with a lot of all sorts of chemicals and things he'd been buying, and I knocked and I knocked, and I couldn't get in; so I went around to the back door, and there was Captain Hollowboy looking up at the biggest hornets' nest you ever saw."

"Hornets' nest? Wasn't he trying to break 'em up?"

"No, sir! He was just looking at 'em. And he told me he'd been watching that nest ever since the hornets began on it."

"Haven't they stung him yet?"

"Well, no; he said they hadn't. He's an old bachelor, you know, and he said hornets were good enough neighbors as long as there weren't any small boys around."

"Couldn't we get him to let us go in on that nest?"

"That's just what I asked him, and he said--"

"Hold up, Steve--here he comes!"

"Good-morning, Captain Hollowboy. Toothache, eh? I'll get you something."

"Toothache, Deacon! No, it isn't toothache. Is this the drug store? Have I got here? Can't but just see."

"Steve," shouted Andy, "just look at his face! It's all mud."

Captain Hollowboy had taken away his great red bandana handkerchief to look around him, and Deacon Whitney was holding up both his hands.

"What is the matter, Captain?"

"Hornets, Deacon, hornets. The most pernicious and ungrateful of all insects. I have applied aqueously saturated alluvium, but I want some ammonia."

"Slapped on some mud first, and now you want to try some hartshorn? That's right. I'll get you some quick."

He was getting behind the counter very fast for so fat a man, but Steve shouted, "Hurrah, Andy! let's go for the Captain's nest."

"Do, my dear boys, do. I consent to their utter obliteration and extermination; but I wish you would preserve their interesting domicile intact."

"He means, Andy, that we may kill the hornets, but we mustn't spoil the nest. He's awful on big words."

"How did it happen?" asked the Deacon, as he held out a big bottle and a sponge.

"Happen? It was no fault of mine. I did but attempt an unobtrusive inspection of the marvellous ramifications of their intricate habitation."

"That's it," said Steve. "He stuck his nose into the nest, and they all went for him. Come on, Andy."

They were out of sight by the time half the mud had been sponged from the Captain's long lean face, but before they reached his queer little house, at the further corner of the village green, the hornets were in trouble.

Harman Strauss and Bill Ogden and Van Seaver had seen the Captain run, and they all knew about that hornets' nest.

"Fire's the thing," said Van.

"Biggest smoke we can make," said Harm Strauss.

"We must wrap our heads up," said Bill Ogden, "but it'll be the biggest kind of a Saturday."

Van had some matches in his pocket, and the heap of sticks and straw and chips the boys gathered for him was a foot high by the time he got the third match well a-going.

The hornet's nest was a big one, and there was a wonderfully numerous tribe of winged settlers in it. They had picked out a fine airy place to hang their house--just under the eaves of the open shed, back of Captain Hollowboy's one-story kitchen, at the corner.

The right place for the fire was at the foot of the upright corner post, but Harman Strauss told Van, "If we stick it there, Van, we'll set the house afire."

"That'd never do," said Bill Seaver. "It's jam-full of all sorts of chemicals and things. There'd be an awful blow-up if that house got afire."

"Might spoil the village."

"Oh, but wouldn't it blow those hornets good and high!"

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