Various - Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891

V >> Various >> Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891

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In a spritsail rig the gaff is at the head of the sail, and works on the
mast in cheeks; the sprit runs diagonally across the sail, and is hung
on to the mast in what is practically a loop and lashing.

This has also what looks like a mizzen, but it is fixed on to the rudder
and is known as a "jigger." Sometimes the jigger is triangular, like the
yawl's mizzen, but the shape makes no difference in the name.

The lug is the old sail of the Norsemen. There are two kinds of lugs,
"dipping" and "standing."

The dipping lug has a great part of the sail beyond the mast, so that
when a tack has to be made the sail has to be lowered, dipped round the
mast and rehoisted.

The standing lug projects very little beyond this mast and does not
require to be lowered when tacking.

Fishing boats are nearly all rigged with a dipping lug for the mainsail
and a standing lug for the mizzen, and they have also a jib, while some
of them carry topsails over the lugs.

Luggers may carry any number of masts, but as a rule they have two; some
have a gaff mizzen. When the foot of the lug is lashed to a boom it is
said to be "balanced."

THE NORTH AVENUE ARCHINGTONS.

by ANNA J. M'KEAG.

When Mary Anne Smith returned for her second year at Mrs. Hosmer's
Seminary, both teachers and pupils were astonished at the change
in her appearance and manners which a summer at the seashore had
produced.

The previous year she had been plain Mary Anne Smith, an energetic,
impulsive girl, whose most serious fault was a tendency to soiled
collars and buttonless shoes, but who was, on the whole, very
good-hearted and sincere.

She had returned to school as Marie Antoinette Smythe, a fashionable
young lady. She discontinued her old, romping, laughing ways and became
as sedate as the gravest Senior.

Even her old love for midnight "spreads" seemed to have departed. She
became fastidious about her personal appearance and exclusive in her
friendships.

At first Mrs. Hosmer considered it a good thing that Marie was "toning
down," but before long she felt that it was really not a change for the
better.

The schoolgirls were not slow in commenting about it. At the October
meeting of the Browning Circle--an association of a dozen girls,
originally instituted for purposes of literary improvement, but which
had lately degenerated into a "fancy-work society"--Marie was discussed
until her ears must have burned, if there is any truth in the old
saying.

"Do you know, girls, that Marie Smith scarcely deigns to speak to me any
more," said Stella Gard.

"Oh, that's nothing, Stella. I was her room-mate last year, and she
has conversed with me on just two occasions since she came back,"
supplemented Anna Fergus.

"What is the matter with her?" asked a "new girl."

"Is it possible, my dear young friend," rejoined Anna, with mock
gravity, "that you don't know we have been sacrificed to the North
Avenue Archingtons?"

The new girl looked bewildered, and Anna went on to explain:

"It seems that last summer certain blue-blooded Archingtons, with malice
aforethought, left their patrician heights on North Avenue, on which
they had hitherto dwelt in solitary grandeur, and went to Cape May.
There they boarded at the same hotel with the Smith family, and deigned
to bestow a few smiles upon them. This so lifted up the heart of Marie
Smythe, formerly Mary Smith, that she no longer regards her humble
class-mates as fit associates for her. _Hinc illae lacrymae_, which
means, all you who don't know Latin, 'that's why I'm using my
handkerchief.'"

"She told me," said little Zoe Binnex, interrupting Anna's nonsense,
"that Mrs. Archington had invited her mother to visit her."

"I wish some of you were doomed to sit at the same table with her, as I
am," Anna went on, "and then you would wish the Archingtons at the
bottom of the sea. The way poor, patient Miss Sedgwick has to suffer!
Marie sits next her, you know, and while Miss Sedgwick ladles out the
soup, Marie ladles out the Archingtons. We have Papa North Avenue, with
his four millions, at breakfast; Mamma Archington, with her diamonds, at
dinner, and all the young Archingtons for supper."

The ringing of the study-bell dispersed the members of the Browning
Circle. As Anna and Zoe passed Marie's door, they overheard a servant
requesting that young lady to go down to Mrs. Hosmer's study.

"Perhaps Mrs. Hosmer thinks it is time to choke off some of those
Archingtons," whispered Anna.

But Mrs. Hosmer had sent for Marie for a different purpose.

A new pupil was coming, and, as Marie had no room-mate, was to be put
with her.

"Oh, Mrs. Hosmer," protested Marie, "I'd much rather room alone."

"I should be glad to gratify you," said her preceptress, "but it is
impossible. Yours is the only vacancy on the second floor, and, as she
is a delicate girl, I do not want to send her to the third."

"Who is she?" Marie asked, seeing that she must yield to the inevitable.

"Her name is Esther Jones. She is a very quiet little girl, inclined to
be nervous. I hope you will do all you can to make her happy and to keep
her from being homesick. She will come to-night."

Marie was much vexed at the intrusion, as she chose to consider it. It
was so much nicer to room alone.

How provoking that just as she was "getting into" a better circle, and
had succeeded in dropping her commonplace room-mate of last year, she
should have this nervous little Esther Jones forced upon her.

The new girl was as plain as her name. She wore a woolen dress, heavy
shoes and an ordinary sailor hat.

"Very countrified," was Marie's mental verdict, as she watched her
unpacking her trunk.

She did not offer to assist the little stranger, who seemed much in awe
of her.

A new girl who enters a boarding-school a month after the term has begun
is always to be pitied.

The other girls all have their homesickness over by that time, and are
not apt to be so sympathetic with the newcomer as they would have been
earlier. They have formed their little coteries, and the new girl feels
herself "outside."

With Esther this was especially true. Marie neglected her utterly, and
she had not confidence in herself to try to make other friends. She went
about with a dejected, homesick look that moved Mrs. Hosmer's heart.

"I must make some other arrangement after Christmas," she thought.
"Esther doesn't seem happy where she is."

If she had known how much of Esther's unhappiness was due to Marie's
unkindness, her indignation would have made itself felt. Marie meantime
poured forth her heart on cream note-paper to her friend Marguerite
Archington, bewailing the cruel fate which separated them, and doomed
her to the companionship of Esther Jones.

Esther's natural timidity was increased by Marie's treatment. At first
she made feeble efforts to converse, but finding herself continually
repressed, gradually ceased from her endeavors to make friends with
Marie.

Not only her timidity, but her nervousness, as well, grew on her. She
began to be startled at every sudden sound.

Now Marie was a girl without "nerves," in the ordinary sense of the
word, and could not understand or sympathize with those who are
constituted differently. She really believed poor Esther's nervousness
to be affectation, and had no patience with it.

"She's been coddled all her life, evidently," she reflected, "until now
she expects every one to pet her on account of her foolish nervous
tricks. She needs a process of hardening."

If Marie had not really believed this, I do not think she would have put
into execution a plan which suggested itself to her the week before
Thanksgiving.

It was a cruel scheme, and even though she assured herself that it was
really for Esther's good and that it would cure the nervousness, I think
she was at heart a little ashamed of herself all the time.

[Illustration:
"WHAT WAS THAT BY THE TELESCOPE? A WHITE, TALL FIGURE STOOD BY THE
INSTRUMENT."]

At the western end of the third floor there was a stairway leading up to
a room at the top of the building, which was occasionally used as an
observatory.

A telescope was mounted there, but, as it was not very powerful, the
astronomy classes generally used one at the private residence of their
professor instead.

The room, being so seldom used, had become a receptacle for old lumber
of all sorts. Girls are so fond of exercising their imagination that it
is not strange that they gradually invested the garret-like room at the
top of the house with the reputation of being "haunted."

The ghost, who was said to walk up and down the old stairway and over
the creaking floor of the observatory, was thought to be that of a
certain Madame Leverrier, who had been teacher of French and astronomy
many years before, and had died in the school.

It was said that at midnight the tall, white figure of the Frenchwoman
might be seen, peering through the telescope at the stars she had loved
so well.

To-be-sure, no girl ever said she herself, had seen this sight, but she
had "heard about it from a last year's girl."

So the girls got in the habit of walking very rapidly when they had
occasion to go past the stairway, which led up from a region occupied by
"trunk-rooms," and of avoiding that part of the house altogether after
night.

Marie told Esther the story of the ghost, with many embellishments. She
did not confine herself to one telling, but continually referred to it,
with the desire of keeping the matter ever present in Esther's mind.

She noticed that her quiet little room-mate, although she avowed her
non-belief in ghosts, looked frightened whenever the subject was
mentioned.

One evening, toward the end of November, the two were seated by their
study-table, preparing the next day's lessons, when Marie suddenly
exclaimed that she had mislaid her astronomy.

"Won't you go after it for me, Esther?" she said, in a kinder tone than
usual.

"Certainly, Marie," replied Esther, glad to be called on for a service.
"Where do you think you left it?"

"I know now exactly where it is. It's up in the observatory on the table
at the farther end of the room. I left it there last night when
Professor Gaskell took us up in study-hour. It was dreadfully stupid in
me."

"I'd better take the lamp, hadn't I?" queried Esther, inwardly dismayed
at the prospect of ascending alone to those awful regions, and yet
unwilling to refuse so small a service.

"Yes, take the lamp. You know there's no light in that end of the hall.
You're not afraid, are you?"

"N-no, not really. I can't help thinking of those foolish stories the
girls tell, though I know there's nothing in them."

Esther took up the lamp and started. She did not wish to appear cowardly
before her room-mate, though she really dreaded the short journey.

As she walked past the dark trunk-rooms and up the uncarpeted stairs,
her heart beat fast at the "swish" of her own skirts on the boards.

When she opened the observatory door, she couldn't help noticing how
very dark the room was, and how feebly the rays from her lamp
illuminated it.

Instinctively she glanced toward the telescope to see that there was no
white figure behind it, and breathed a little more freely when she saw
that there was not.

She searched a long time for the book, standing with her back to the
door. At last she found it under a pile of others.

Glad to have accomplished her task, and inwardly peopling all the
shadowy corners of the room with ghostly visitants, she turned round to
begin her return journey, when--

What was that by the telescope? A white, tall figure stood by the
instrument.

In vain reason told her it was a fanciful delusion. Her nervous
organization was no longer under the control of reason. Esther gave a
quick scream, and fell to the floor, fainting.

In an instant a white sheet was thrown from the shoulders of the figure
by the telescope.

"Esther, Esther! It's only I--Marie!" she cried. "I followed you up
stairs just to frighten you for fun. Do speak to me. Tell me I haven't
scared you to death!"

After a little Esther regained consciousness, shuddering as she opened
her eyes and remembered where she was.

"Take me away--take me away!" she begged, recognizing Marie.

"I will have to bring help."

"No, no; don't leave me alone a minute. I can walk if you will help me.
And bring the lamp. I can't go down those stairs in the dark. Don't go
away or that dreadful thing may come back."

She shivered as she glanced toward the telescope. Marie was weeping
penitently.

"Dear Esther," she said, "don't you see that it was only I. There is the
sheet on the floor. I didn't know it would make you faint. Only say you
forgive me, and I'll take any punishment Mrs. Hosmer chooses to give
me."

"Oh, Marie, I know you didn't mean it, but I can never forget that awful
feeling when I felt myself falling. But help me away from this ghostly
place."

Marie, frightened at the result of her heartless trick and really deeply
touched by Esther's distress, helped her to their room.

Then, notwithstanding Esther's magnanimous offer to keep the whole
matter a secret, to Marie's credit be it said that she sent for Mrs.
Hosmer and confessed the whole thing.

"Give me the hardest punishment you can, short of expulsion," said she.

"You have done a great wrong," replied Mrs. Hosmer. "You deserve severe
punishment, but I shall not decide about that now. For the next few days
you may show your penitence by doing all you can to make up to this dear
child for your past great unkindness. She must stay in bed for a day or
two, and I shall have the doctor in shortly."

Esther was ill for a week, during which time Marie nursed her devotedly.
She saw now her past conduct in its true light--her petty vanity, her
thoughtlessness and heartlessness.

She fairly hated her old self, when, as the girls came in from time to
time, Esther uttered no word of complaint against her, nor alluded to
the cause of her illness in any way.

But in some way or other a part of the story leaked out, and Marie was
the recipient of many an indignant glance, but she felt it was only what
she deserved.

Mrs. Hosmer never said anything further about a punishment; probably she
saw that the girl was already sufficiently punished. Nevertheless a most
humiliating punishment did come, in a way most unexpected.

The third evening after her fright, Esther was sitting up for the first
time since her illness. It was the night before Thanksgiving, and she
was feeling a little homesick in spite of Marie's efforts to entertain
her.

"What will you give me for a piece of good news, my little girl?" said
Mrs. Hosmer, entering the room, and looking at Esther's pale cheeks
disapprovingly.

"Oh, Mrs. Hosmer, is it anybody from home?" asked Esther, longingly.

"Here, Marie, read her the name on this card, and see if she says she is
at home to visitors," replied Mrs. Hosmer, playfully.

Marie took the card, and a moment after dropped it as though it had been
red-hot.

This was what met her eyes:

"Mrs. James Archington,
"44 North Avenue."

"Grandma--it's grandma," cried Esther, delightedly.

At the December meeting of the Browning Circle the girls discussed Marie
Smythe once more.

"It was the queerest thing," reported Anna Fergus, who knew the whole
story. "You see this Mrs. Archington is Esther's grandmother, and Marie
never knew it. She said so little to the poor girl that Esther had never
chanced to tell her. Talk about retributive justice, this is the most
direct piece of retribution I ever heard of. And the queerest part of it
is that Esther's grandmother is the _real_ North Avenue Archingtons,
while Marie's Cape May friends are a newly-rich family, who happen to
live on the same street with the others, but are not related to them at
all."

"But, girls," said Zoe Binnix, "it's been a splendid thing for Marie,
even if it has been humiliating. I never saw a more completely changed
girl. She's quite dropped her fine-lady airs and subsided into a
sensible being. She's so good now that Esther doesn't want to change her
room, though Mrs. Hosmer told her she might."

The girls were right in their opinion of Marie's change of character.
She grew up to be a sensible woman, singularly devoid of pretense or
affectation.

In after years she used to say that the one thing which had kept her
from growing up silly and affected was her experience with the North
Avenue Archingtons.

[_This story began in No. 42_]

PRIDE AND POVERTY:

or,

The Story of a Brave Boy.

by JOHN RUSSELL CORYELL,

Author of "Cast Adrift," "Andy Fletcher,"
etc., etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXIII.

It is not an uncommon occurrence for a rascal to overreach himself. It
is the thing Arthur Hoyt did when he refrained from shooting Harry and
resorted to the more cruel but longer device of starving him to death.

If he had gone away from the cave within ten minutes of reaching it, he
would not have been seen by a lurking witness among the rocks.

This person had been hurrying along the trail, more than ten minutes
behind Hoyt, and came upon him as he was toiling with the ponderous
boulders.

At the instant of seeing him, the stranger darted behind a rock and
watched him with a deep interest.

He kept himself hidden until Hoyt had gone, and then seemed for a moment
undecided whether to follow him or to investigate the reason of the
piling up of the stones in the cave.

"I can follow him after I've taken a look," he muttered.

With this determination he ran over to the cave and looked in and tried
to make out the meaning of the heap of stones.

"Now, what in the world did he do that for?" he asked himself. "Well,
whatever he did it, for, it'll be worth my while to learn it, for I know
he'd never 'a taken all that trouble for nothing. He isn't the sort to
work like that for fun."

So the newcomer went over to the pile and studied it; but making nothing
of it, owing to the care with which Harry had been covered up, he
doggedly set to work to remove and undo all that Hoyt had done.

He had not gone far with his labors before he caught sight of something
that looked like a garment. He turned pale and hastened to satisfy his
fears.

"He's murdered somebody and hid him here," he said. "I wonder--" he
stopped and leaned up against the pile; "but no, it couldn't be."

Whatever it was that he felt could not be, evidently kept recurring to
him, as he worked with feverish haste, until he had uncovered so much of
the body as enabled him to feel it and to discover that it was still
warm.

"Only just killed him, too!" he ejaculated.

The horror of it stopped him for an instant, and then he returned to his
task with redoubled energy; so that he was undoing in seconds what Hoyt
had taken minutes to accomplish, being assisted to that end by a
strength that Hoyt had lacked.

"Alive! Harry Wainwright!"

It seemed as if the two discoveries had come together, and as if the
fact that it was Harry Wainwright had more interest for the toiler than
the fact that the discovered person was merely alive.

And how the remaining stones and brush flew after the discovery! And as
soon as it was possible to do it, Harry was lifted to an upright
position, the gag taken out of his mouth and his bonds cut.

"Bill Green!" was Harry's first exclamation. "How did you happen here?"

"Oh, it's a long story! but anyhow, I'm glad I did come here."

"It looks as if you had my existence in your charge," said Harry, his
half-jesting manner belied by the earnest way he caught the two hands of
the boy who had thus, for a second time, rescued him from a horrible
death.

"Well, anyhow," replied Bill, "that fellow Hoyt don't seem to have any
chance against me. Now, isn't it wonderful? But let's get out of here."

"Stop a minute," said Harry. "Let's put these things back just as they
were. I don't know but I'd better try to keep dead again."

"All right," answered Bill, who was in a state of radiant happiness.
"Anything you say. Oh, but I'm glad to see you again, Harry! And I had
no more idea of finding you here than of finding a bag of diamonds."

They put the stones and brush back as they had been placed by Hoyt, and
then Harry led the way to a secluded spot where they would not be seen,
even in the unlikely chance of anybody coming that way.

"I'll make it as short as I can now," said Bill, "and you can ask
questions at any time when you happen to think of 'em, or I can tell you
the little details afterward, as they come to mind. Doesn't it seem
wonderful that I should happen to be here just at this particular
moment?"

"Wonderful is no name for it," declared Harry; "and I haven't tried to
thank you. It's no use trying, Bill."

"Of course it's no use trying, and you're not going to hurt my feelings
by doing it," rejoined Bill. "Well, it wasn't a bit wonderful, my being
here, when you come to know all about it. After you were gone that night
of the fire, I ran right to Mr. Dewey and told him all about it. My!
wasn't he mad?"

"I know how he'd be likely to go on," said Harry, with a smile.

"At first he was all for taking it out of Hoyt by giving him a sound
thumping; but, after awhile, he cooled down and began to think it all
over, and the end was, not to go into particulars now, that he set me to
watching Hoyt, so that if anything should turn up we might get some
evidence against him."

"But your work?" queried Harry.

"Mr. Dewey said he'd rather pay twice the wages I'd lose than miss a
chance of tripping up Arthur Hoyt. So I gave up everything and played
what they call shadow. I was mighty awkward about it at first, but after
awhile I got so I could follow him and he never suspect. Well, among
other things, I followed him to Mr. Mortimer's and listened to their
talk under the library window. I couldn't catch it all, but I caught
enough to make out that Mr. Mortimer had no idea that Hoyt was going to
make an end of you, and that he was terribly broken up about it. But
somehow it seemed that Hoyt had mixed him up in it so that it could be
made to look as if Mortimer had really killed you."

"Oh, the villain!" exclaimed Harry.

"Isn't he, though? He made Mortimer give him four hundred thousand
dollars of the money that had been stolen from your father--"

"Did you find out how it had been stolen?" interrupted Harry, eagerly.

"Not a word about that. Then, at the last, Hoyt made him give him some
shares in a mine, and said he was going to investigate the mine. I
expected that would end the shadowing, but Mr. Dewey said I was to keep
after him if it took all the money he had in the bank, and I guess it
did just that. The long and short of it being that Mr. Dewey gave me two
hundred dollars, and I was to follow Hoyt as far as the money would take
me, and Mr. Dewey was to look after mother and Beth."

"What a friend he is!" cried Harry. "And you, too, Bill. I don't see why
I make such friends."

"Don't you?" asked Bill. "Ah, well, I do! I followed Hoyt, and there
wouldn't have been any trouble at all if it hadn't been that he stopped
all along the way to have a good time spending his stolen money. I lost
my ticket by that time. You know you can't stop off on ordinary tickets,
and it cost me two tickets before I learned how to be ready for him.
But, anyhow, he stopped so often and led me such a chase that by the
time he had been a week in San Francisco I was teetotally broke."

"And all that for me!" said Harry, gratefully.

"Get out!" cried Bill. "I was having no end of a lark. Why, I was seeing
the world, Harry, and doing some good at the same time. But I was
stumped when he left San Francisco one day for Virginia City. Then I was
fixed and no mistake. I puzzled my brains over it until I just had to
steal rides on freight trains. I only minded one thing, and that was
that when I reached Virginia City I would possibly find him gone so I
couldn't trace him."

"You had no money, so took your chances on the freight trains and
reached Virginia City at last?" said Harry, who was listening with both
interest and admiration.

"Yes; and he was gone."

"Oh, dear!" was Harry's fervent comment. "But you have pluck, Bill."

"Bulldog kind," laughed Bill. "I know how to stick to a thing when I get
hold. I did to him. If he'd been the right sort, though, I'd never have
found him again. He's an awful gambler. Oh, he gambled everywhere he
stopped! He seemed to know just where to find the places. I'll bet
anything that he's lost a big pile of money. Anyhow, he'd gambled in
Virginia City till everybody in that line knew him, and it was from some
of them that I found out where he'd gone."

"Then," said Harry, "the trouble was to get here yourself."

"You bet! But I got here last night. The very first places I went to
were the gambling-houses, and mighty surprised I was to find he hadn't
been to any of them. I couldn't understand that."

"Afraid I'd see him," suggested Harry.

"Of course that was it. I couldn't find him last night, and I was afraid
he hadn't come here, after all; for there wasn't a sign of him having
been here. The next thing that occurred to me was the mine; but, to save
me, I couldn't remember the name, having only half heard it through the
window. All I could think of was that it was some kind of a gold mine,
and I groaned at that, for I'd been out here long enough to know that
they don't find much but silver here generally. However, I asked a man
if there were any gold mines around here, and he said no, and never was
and never would be."

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