Read Ebook: Harper's Young People January 17 1882 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

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Ebook has 648 lines and 61431 words, and 13 pages

At recess Tom Wayne, whose father was justice of the peace, came running breathlessly into the yard with the news that Percy had been "brought up," and firmly denied the crime charged against him.

"And just as I left," concluded Tom, "they had the coachman up as a witness. He declared there were two boys standing at the horses' heads, so they couldn't have started off of their own accord. But the queer part of it is that nobody knows who these two boys were except Percy, who vows he will never tell."

At these words Ted and Dan started as if struck, and then, regardless of the bell that had already begun to ring, made off on a run for Judge Wayne's office.

As if by a common impulse, they gave themselves no time for thought, but on reaching the door passed inside at once, to be greeted with the exclamation:

"An' shure here are the young gintlemin to spake for thimselves. Now, thin, me byes, step forward and testify as to how this young scapegrace tried to stale me tame, givin' me at the same toime this big bump on the back of me head."

Neither of the lads ever forgot Percy's look at that moment. He was sitting by a sad-faced lady, dressed in the deepest mourning, and as Ted and Dan entered the room, his large gray eyes gave them both a brief piercing glance, then instantly dropped toward the floor.

"Let Percy Vance go. It was all our fault," cried Dan, in a loud voice; and then he went on to tell how he and Ted had started the horses.

"But how--why, boys, I don't understand," exclaimed the bewildered judge, who knew both lads well. "What did you do such a thing for?"

"Just for fun," replied Dan, in a low voice, and hanging his head.

Thereupon the owner of the sleigh and Judge Wayne held a short consultation, the result of which was that each of the offenders was required to hand over all his pocket-money as a fine, and pass the remainder of the day in the cell Percy had occupied.

"We make your punishment thus light," concluded the judge, "in consequence of the manly way in which you have come forward and acknowledged your fault."

He then proceeded to give Percy an honorable discharge, and from that time forth Mrs. Vance lacked not for friends, nor was her son ever again called a "prig."

As for Ted Harley and Dan Tregwin, after seven hours spent in the station-house, their ideas as to the difference between pure fun and malicious mischief were so distinct that there is no danger of their ever mixing the two up again.

A LITTLE GIRL'S LIFE IN 1782.

BY MRS. MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

One hundred years ago a little girl named Mary Butt was living with her parents at the pretty rectory of Stanford on the Terne, in England. She was a bright and beautiful child, and when she grew up she became Mrs. Sherwood, the writer of a great many charming stories for young people.

But nothing that she wrote is so entertaining as the story of her childhood, which, when she was an old lady, she told to please her grandchildren. I wonder how the girls who read this paper would endure the discipline which little Mary submitted to so patiently in 1782.

From the time she was six until she was thirteen she wore every day an iron collar around her neck, and a backboard strapped tightly over her shoulders. This was to make her perfectly straight. Perhaps you may have seen here and there a very stately old lady who never was known to lean back in her chair, but who always held herself as erect as a soldier on duty. If so, she was taught, you may be sure, to carry herself in that way when she was a little girl.

Poor Mary's iron collar was put on in the morning, and was not taken off until dark, and, worse than that, she says: "I generally did all my lessons standing in stocks, with the collar around my neck. I never sat on a chair in my mother's presence."

Little Marten was not very persevering with his Latin, so, although it was not then the fashion for girls, Mary's mother decided that she should begin the study in order to encourage him. The sister soon distanced the brother, and before she was twelve her regular task of a morning was fifty lines of Virgil, translated as she stood in the stocks.

You will ask what sort of dress this little girl was allowed to wear one hundred years ago. In summer she had cambric, and in winter, linsey-woolsey or stuff gowns, with a simple white muslin for best. Her mother always insisted on a pinafore, which was a great loose apron worn over everything else, and enveloping her from head to feet.

It is quite refreshing to find that neither the backboard nor the Latin took from the child a love of play and of dolls. Her special pet was a huge wooden doll, which she carried to the woods with her, tied by a string to her waist, after the grown people had decided that she was too big to care for dolls. A friend one day presented her with a fine gauze cap, and this was the only ornament she ever possessed as a child.

I think the little girls who compare 1882 with 1782 must be thankful they were not born in the last century. I know that I am. Yet little Mary Butt was a very happy child, spending, when permitted, hours of great delight in the woods and groves, and listening eagerly to the talk of the learned and travelled visitors who came to Stanford Rectory.

SICK DOLLY.

BY J. E. PANTON.

Please step softly, Dolly's sleeping After such a night of pain; Neither Maude, nor I, nor Alice, Thought she'd ever sleep again.

Yes, we sent for Mr. Doctor, And he gave her heaps of pills, Big black draughts, and pale magnesia, Rhubarb red, and oil, and squills.

Said she had a dang'rous fever; Thought she might have caught a cold, Or perchance had got the jaundice, For she looked like yellow gold.

Shook his head, then sighed a little, As he took an ample fee, Then remarked that after dinner We should see--what we should see.

But she sleeps; so tell the Doctor, When he comes at half past four, That our darling doesn't want him, And he needn't come here more;

THE BOYHOOD OF DANIEL WEBSTER.

BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.

It will be just one hundred years, on the 18th of January, since Daniel Webster, the great statesman, orator, and lawyer, was born, and the time seems a fit one for saying something of his boyhood.

Webster's father lived near the head waters of the Merrimac River, and the only school within reach was a poor affair kept open for a few months every winter. There Webster learned all that the ignorant master could teach him, which was very little; but he acquired a taste which did more for him than the reading, writing, and arithmetic of the school. He learned to like books, and to want knowledge; and when a boy gets really hungry and thirsty for knowledge, it is not easy to keep him ignorant. When some of the neighbors joined in setting up a little circulating library, young Webster read every book in it two or three times, and even committed to memory a large part of the best of them. It was this eagerness for education on his part that led his father afterward to send him to Exeter to school, and later to put him in Dartmouth College.

There are not many boys in our time who have not declaimed parts of Webster's great speeches; and it will interest them to know that the boy who afterward made those speeches could never declaim at all while he was at school. He learned his pieces well, and practiced them in his own room, but he could not speak them before people to save his life.

Webster was always fond of shooting and fishing, and however hard he studied, the people around him called him lazy and idle, because he would spend whole days in these sports. Once, while he was studying under Dr. Woods to prepare for college, that gentleman spoke to him on the subject, and hurt his feelings a little. The boy went to his room determined to have revenge, and this is the way he took to get it. The usual Latin lesson was one hundred lines of Virgil, but Webster spent the whole night over the book. The next morning before breakfast he went to Dr. Woods and read the whole lesson correctly. Then he said:

"Will you hear a few more lines, doctor?"

The teacher consenting, Webster read on and on and on, while the breakfast grew cold. Still there was no sign of the boy's stopping, and the hungry doctor at last asked how much further he was prepared to read.

"To the end of the twelfth book of the AEneid," answered the "idle" boy, in triumph.

After that, Webster did not give up his hunting and fishing, but he worked so hard at his lessons, and got on so fast, that there was no further complaint of his "idleness." He not only learned the lessons given to him, but more, everyday, and besides this he read every good book he could lay his hands on, for he was not at all satisfied to know only what could be found in the school-books.

Webster's father was poor and in debt, but finding how eager this boy was for education, and seeing, too, that he possessed unusual ability, he determined, ill as he could afford the expense, to send him to college. Accordingly, young Daniel went to Dartmouth. But after he had been there two years, and had gone home for his vacation, he startled his father one morning by declaring that he would not go back to college unless his brother Ezekiel could be educated too. This seemed out of the question. The father could barely afford to educate one son, and he could not spare the other from the farm-work that provided the means for this. But young Dan was generous and resolute. If Zeke could not be educated, he would not. He would not let them sacrifice Zeke for him, and there was an end of the matter. The good old mother solved the difficulty. She was getting old, she said, and her children were dear to her; she was willing to give up everything for their good, and if they would promise to take care of her during her old age, the property should be sold, the debts paid, and what remained should be spent in educating both the boys. After much debate, the matter was settled in this way, and it is pleasant to know that the dear old mother never knew want as a consequence of her devotion to the welfare of her children.

Many anecdotes are told to illustrate the character of young Dan. He was always lavish of his money when he had any, while his brother was careful but generous, especially to Dan, whom he greatly admired. On one occasion the boys went to a neighboring town on a high holiday, each with a quarter of a dollar in his pocket.

"Well, Dan," said the father on their return, "what did you do with your money?"

"Spent it," answered the boy.

"And what did you do with yours, Zeke?"

"Lent it to Dan," was the answer. As a fact, Dan had spent both quarters.

Young Webster was very industrious in his studies, as we have seen, and he was physically strong and active, as his fondness for sport proved; but he could never endure farm-work. One day his father wanted him to help him in cutting hay with a scythe; but very soon the boy complained that the scythe was not "hung" to suit him, that is to say, it was not set at a proper angle upon its handle. The old gentleman adjusted it, but still it did not suit the boy. After repeated attempts to arrange it to Dan's liking, the father said, impatiently, "Well, hang it to suit yourself." And young Dan immediately "hung" it over a branch of an apple-tree and left it there. That was the hanging which pleased him.

After finishing his college course, Webster began studying law, but having no money, and being unwilling to tax his father for further support, he went into Northern Maine, and taught school there for a time. While teaching he devoted his evenings to the work of copying deeds and other legal documents, and by close economy he managed to live upon the money thus earned, so that he saved the whole of his salary as a teacher. With this money to live on, he went to Boston, studied law, and soon distinguished himself. The story of his life as a public man, in the Senate, in the cabinet, and at the bar, is well known, and it does not belong to this sketch of his boyhood.

THE TALKING LEAVES.

Begun in No. 101, HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE.

An Indian Story.

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