"Queer Fuel"

by Crittenden Marriott, April 1907

think nutrition concerns are modern? Read on! Vegetarians may not like this one...

How many people, I wonder, ever pause to consider that their bodies are merely machines to do work, furnaces in which necessary fuel is burned, workshops in which worn-out parts are supplied, and store rooms in which fuel and food are laid away for use when needed. Further, like any other piece of apparatus the body works better under certain circumstances: its fires burn better with fuels of certain sorts, mixed in certain proportions and it cannot keep in perfect condition unless furnished with proper materials.

Man thinks he eats because he is hungry; he really eats because his body is crying out for building materials with which to repair the waste that is always going on, and for fuel to keep itself warm—and it is rather "finicky" as to the supply it wants for each of these purposes. At a pinch, it can use almost anything digestible for either, but it groans and complains, and punishes its unfortunate possessor if it is not properly treated.

What the body considers proper treatment is not always that which the palate or the sense of taste considers such. In fact, the palate is the spoiled child of the house; he is always demanding things that are not good for him, and like other spoiled children, the more he is indulged, the more he demands. Sometimes he can make things very unpleasant, for he may refuse to permit any food to pass the portal where he stands on guard, and hence may bring the whole machinery to a standstill. As a rule, however, if treated firmly, he will give in and work for the good of all.

"Savoury" food pleases the palate and causes a greater flow of the various juices and ferments and so promotes digestion. It is therefore a good thing within proper limits, but what the body really needs is "protein" and heat.

"Protein" is a word with which few of us are familiar; we are familiar enough with the thing, however, and it is really impossible to talk about these matters without using one or two scientific words. The lean of meat, the white of eggs, the gluten of wheat are all mostly protein, and we all know how necessary a supply of one or more of these, or of similar things, is to us, if we do not wish to suffer from hunger or from need of nourishment.

While protein can be used for heating, if necessary, its natural use is for repairing purposes, and for this end the body needs one-fourth of a pound a day. Different amounts are required for old and for young, for men and for women, for those living in cold and for those living in hot climates, for laborers and for clerks, but one-fourth of a pound is the right amount for a full-grown man living in a temperate climate and doing moderately active work.

So much for repairing; now for heat. The body, one will say, needs a definite amount of this too. Scientific men have ascertained through countless experiments, the amount necessary for the average man and have found that it is equal to 3,050 "calories" of heat. (Dear me, there goes another unusual word!) A "calorie" is the amount of heat that will raise the temperature of about one pound of water four degrees Fahrenheit. Sugar, starch, and fats are ideal fuels, though protein will burn well, if necessary. Nothing, however, will take the place of protein as a rebuilding material.

What the body needs, then, is a daily supply of one-fourth of a pound of protein and enough sugar, starch, and fat to supply it with 3,050 calories of heat. This is an average for the year, of course. In our climate, the ration, especially the fuel ration, should be varied with the seasons.

True, certain other elements also are needed by the body, but they are required in very minute quantities, and are so widely distributed in nature, that their supply is always assured. On the other hand, any food which supplies protein and fuel in different proportions than these, is not perfect; if it supplies too much heat to the right amount of protein, it is wasteful, if nothing worse; if it supplies too much protein to too little heat, it compels the body to use some of the protein for fuel, which throws an undue strain on the digestion and will probably result in disease sooner or later.

As most of us know, the price of food has little relation to its value to our bodies, however much it may have to our taste. The larger part of the price of the costlier foods is due to their fine appearance, or their pleasant flavor, or their rarity. Tenderloin of beet is less nutritious than shoulder, but it costs more, as you will find out if you go to buy it; and so with many other articles.

Then again, some foods are more digestible than others, as we have all proved again and again, generally when we have eaten something particularly nice. We live, of course, not on what we eat but on what we digest.

During the last eight or ten years, scientific men have been hard at work finding out the facts in regard to all the commoner articles of food; and these facts have been set forth in huge tables of figures that it makes one's head ache merely to look at. They contain some interesting facts, however, if one has the patience to dig them out.

Ordinary white bread, for instance, is about one-third water, one-twelfth protein, and one-half other digestible matters. If all were used as fuel, a pound of bread would supply 1,200 calories; two and a half pounds per day will supply 3,000 calories, about the amount required. If the protein in the bread be used for its usual purpose of rebuilding, leaving the other digestible substances for fuel, three pounds of bread would furnish just a trifle more of both fuel and protein than is required in a temperate climate by a man doing moderately active muscular work. Bread alone, then, is theoretically very nearly a perfect or "balanced" diet—though three loaves a day would certainly stir that bad boy, the palate, to rebellion.

If a man lived on bread alone he would eat, in a lifetime of seventy years, about 75,000 pounds; or say, he would devour a loaf 30 feet high by 10 feet square, which would cost him about $4,000.

But living wholly on lean meat would be a good deal worse than living wholly on bread. To do this, a man would have to eat three and one-half pounds a day to supply himself with needed food, and would not thrive then as he would on bread. One and a half pounds of meat would supply him all the protein needed, but would yield, in addition, only about one thousand calories of heat. To make up the balance, two pounds more of meat must be eaten, all of it for fuel. Meat is a very poor fuel, and to burn two pounds of it a day would throw a heavy strain on the digestion and probably lead to disease. Fancy eating three and a half pounds of meat a day!

Living on lean meat alone, a man would eat, in seventy years, an ox about thirty-five feet long, fifteen feet high and twelve feet thick, supposing it to consist of solid meat without bones. This would weigh about 90,000 pounds and cost about $15,000.

Thus, bread alone worries the palate and is in time refused; meat alone furnishes too much protein and not enough heat; candy, pastry, and the like supply too much heat, which must be laid away in fat in the body's storehouse or be worked off in nervous energy. No one of the three is good without the others.

On the other hand, a mixed diet makes things a great deal better all around. One pound of bread, one and one-third pounds of lean meat, and one-sixth of a pound of butter daily would supply almost the exact ideal proportions. In seventy years, this would run to 25,000 pounds of bread, 33,000 pounds of meat and 4,000 pounds of butter—62,000 pounds in all, costing, say, $9,000.

If a man lived wholly on fish, he would require eleven pounds a day, or 275,000 pounds in a lifetime—say, a fish 70 feet long by 30 deep by 10 thick. If he lived on rice alone, he would have to eat three pounds a day, or 75,000 pounds in a lifetime—an amount which would furnish him with about 50 per cent, more heat than he had any use for. By combining fish and rice, however, as the Chinese do, in the proportion of one pound of the former and two of the latter, he could live very well. The relative cost in this country would be about $30,000 for fish alone, and $6,000 for rice alone. The two combined would, of course, cost much less than the fish alone.

His hardest time, however, would be when he tried to live on green vegetables or fruits alone, avoiding bread and beans, both of which play such a part in vegetarian bills of fare. Of ordinary vegetables, such as beets, cabbages, tomatoes, and the like, he would have to eat 20 pounds daily. Of fruits, he would have to eat 30 pounds daily, and even of potatoes, 15 pounds.

On the other hand, two pounds of rye bread, two pounds of potatoes, and a taste of fat, either animal, or vegetable, make a very cheap, well-balanced ration, costing only about $1,500 in a lifetime. Thousands of Russian peasants live on just such a diet.

As I said before, all these estimates are for a man doing moderately active muscular work in a temperate climate. A man doing hard muscular work requires about one-fifth more and a man in an office about one-fifth less. Boys require only one-half as much at six years of age and nine-tenths as much at sixteen. Women generally require one-fifth less than men of equal activity.

Lost Island, Part 3

by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917

OFF TO SEA

"Gone! Gone where?" asked the captain, with a frown of annoyance.

"I met him on the wharf and he said he'd left the ship, sir," Dave replied.

Suddenly the captain's face wore a smile. The situation appeared to amuse him.

"What d'you know about that!" he said, with a deep laugh. "You 'll get on, son, if you 're always as smart as this. Come back and talk to me in a week. From what I can see of you, I reckon you 'll fill the billet, but I'm too busy to waste time on you now. Come along next Thursday, and then I 'll run the rule over you."

Dave's heart beat a little faster than usual as he walked home. Nothing had been farther from his mind earlier in the day than definitely to ask for a job on a vessel. Now he was as good as booked to sail in a week! In the excitement of the moment he had quite forgotten to ask where the ship was bound for. All he knew was her name—the Pacific Queen. As a matter of fact, he was not deeply concerned as to her destination. Any point of the compass was equally satisfactory to him. Perhaps he rather favored China or Japan, but any other old place would do nearly as well. He felt supremely happy and much more important than he ever remembered. Although he had not officially "signed on," the big captain with the deep laugh had said he would fill the billet, and Dave was prepared to take the captain's word for it. The only thing that made him thoughtful was the fact that he would have to go without telling his father or Aunt Martha. There did not seem to be any way out of that difficulty. If he told Aunt Martha, she would make a fuss and his father would hear of it, and Dave knew what that would lead to. Captain Hallard had definitely said his son was not to go to sea until the following year, and when Captain Hallard said a thing he meant it. Dave weighed the whole situation up carefully on his way home and decided the best thing was to disappear quietly to prevent a scene. He would just leave a note for his dad, explaining matters, and promising to return home immediately he got back to America.

That programme was all right in theory until he reached the house. As soon as he entered the door he felt that Aunt Martha's eyes were on him, and that she somehow knew. As a matter of fact Aunt Martha did glance at him, but not more closely than she always did. He was as dear to her as her own son would have been. David tried to act in a perfectly natural manner, but when, a boy has just arranged to go to sea on the impulse of the moment, he would be more than human if he failed to show that something unusual was in the wind.

"What's come over the lad?" Aunt Martha exclaimed after a while. "You 're dancing around like a pea in a hot frying pan."

This surprised Dave. He was under the impression that lie was exceptionally quiet.

"You 're all excited and worked up," declared Aunt Martha. "I expect you've been to one of these ball games or watching red Indians at the movies, haven't you?"

"No," replied Dave, subsiding into a chair and making an iron resolution not to move a muscle for five minutes at least.

"Then I guess you 're feverish. Why, I never saw your cheeks so flushed."

Dave stood the ordeal well. He buried himself in a book, pretending to read, but the words danced under his eyes. He, David Hallard, was it sailor at last, or at least as good as a sailor.

In seven short days school and Brooklyn would be things of the past. He would be "outward bound." The words had a fine ring to them. There was to be no waiting for twelve dreary months.

Dave lay awake many hours that night, and, with the first streaks of dawn, crept quietly down the stairs, for he wanted to set his eyes on the Pacific Queen again. He felt an air of proprietorship in regard to the vessel. Also, he half dreaded to find she had disappeared in the night, and it was with positive relief that he saw her lying snugly tied up at her berth.

He had learned in recent months to judge the cut of a vessel, and the Pacific Queen looked a trim craft to him. She was a single-screw steel freighter that had not been launched more than three years. No mail-boat that ever tore her way out of New York seemed half so magnificent in Dave's eyes as the Pacific Queen lying at her moorings that early summer morning. There was no sign of life on board except a thin stream of smoke from the galley stack, and the boy stood feasting his eyes on his future home for a full hour before a healthy appetite sent him hurrying home to see what Aunt Martha had for breakfast.

The problem of what to take on the voyage puzzled him somewhat. There were not many things he could take, as the money-box into which he had been dropping dimes and five-cent pieces for a couple of years contained only a few dollars. A large clasp-knife, of course, must be included. Of that there was no question. Whoever heard of a sailor without a clasp-knife? Dave was not absolutely certain what it was for, but he knew it was indispensable, so he boldly laid out a dollar and a half on a fearsome weapon with a bone handle. Fortunately, he had a new pair of heavy shoes. One problem gave him many uneasy hours. His father had once told him that when the time came for him to go to sea he could have the binoculars that formed one of Captain Hallard's souvenirs of the sea. The clasp-knife was a treasure already, but those binoculars were the crowning point of Dave's desires. They had cost an awful lot of money at one time and were not a necessary part of a boy's outfit, but Dave felt it would be a great thing to have them with him.

Choosing a suitable opportunity, he asked: "Dad, do you remember saying I could have your glasses when the time came?"

"Surely," his father agreed, "and I hope you will remember always to treat 'em as carefully as I have done. They've got fine lenses in them, and I don't know that I ever handled a better pair of binoculars in my life. There's many a sea-captain tramping round the ocean who'd give a whole lot to own a pair of glasses like them, so you 'll have to be careful or they will get stolen. Not that stealing is common on board ship. It's the unforgivable sin at sea. I have seen a man thrown overboard and near drowned for taking what wasn't his. All the same you 'll have to keep your eyes open, but if you've still got them when the time comes for you to be pacing the bridge they 'll be worth a sight more to you than the junk you can pick up for good money at most stores. When there's a thick haze and you 're driving down on a vessel that's blowing her buzzer fit to wake the dead, you can't tell which direction the sound is coming from. The lives of everybody on board may depend on your being able to spot the other boat. That's when you want a good pair of binoculars to see through."

"Can I use them now just as if they were mine?" Dave put in anxiously. He had a nice sense of honor. Nothing would have induced him to take them on the Pacific Queen without a favorable reply to this question.

"Why, I don't see any objection," Captain Hallard replied good-naturedly, puffing away at his pipe. "Only, as I say, take care of them, and mind you don't scratch the lenses. They were given to me nigh on thirty years ago by an old deep-sea pilot once when we were in the North Sea, making Flushing on the Dutch coast. I was second mate at the time. It had been blowing a regular gale, and we'd got to the lightship where the pilot cutter was generally hanging around. Dark! Tou couldn't see your hand before you, away from a lamp; and there was a heavy ground swell running. All of a sudden we saw the flare off the cutter, signalling that a pilot was coming to us. It means fifty dollars at least for a few hours' work, so they 'll board you in a mighty bad sea if their small boat can stand it. Our skipper didn't reckon they could make it, but he sent up a flare in answer, and pretty soon the dory bumped alongside with two men at the oars besides the pilot. I'd slung a rope ladder over and was standing by. The pilot got ready to catch hold of the ladder when the ship was n't rolling extra hard. The dory was bobbing up and down and I felt kind of nervous for the old man. He had boarded hundreds of ships in the dark, but the sea is a queer thing, my lad. She's always waiting. You never know when she's going to get you. Just as the pilot was reaching out for the ladder a big wave caught us on the starboard quarter and rolled us right over on top of the dory. It crumpled up like an egg, and I made sure all three men in her must have been killed.

"I gave a yell up to the bridge, bent a line on to a stanchion, took hold of one end of it, and slipped over the side. I could swim quite a bit in those days, but I didn't fancy paddling around in the North Sea under such conditions without something to hang on to the old ship by. I couldn't see a thing, but presently I touched a man's head. I got one arm round him and when we were heaved on board we found it was the pilot. He'd got a nasty bump on the forehead, and was dazed for a while, but he came round after the skipper had given him a stiff glass of grog. We never saw anything of the other men. Before we dropped the pilot he gave me these binoculars that he had in his overcoat pocket, saying he'd made up his mind to retire anyhow, and reckoned he could take a hint from the sea as well as any man."

At times Dave felt almost bursting with the desire to tell one of his school friends the wonderful thing that was to happen on the following Thursday, but he kept his own counsel and waited as patiently as he could. On his last night at home he wrote two letters, one to his father and one to Aunt Martha. The first ran:

Dear Dad:

I couldn't wait, and I'm going to sea. Please forgive me. I 'll take good care of the binoculars and write to you often.

Your loving son,

David.

He propped the two letters up against the clock on the mantelpiece and then went to bed in his own room for the last time, after packing his few possessions in an old suitcase. Dave hardly dared close his eyes lest he should sleep too long. Before it was light he slipped on his clothes.

The stairs creaked as he walked down them in his stocking-feet, with his shoes in one hand and the suitcase in the other. He dreaded waking either his father or Aunt Martha, and yet had to fight with a desire to say good-by to them. He had to bite his lips hard and a lump came into his throat when he passed his father's door.

The lock and bolt on the front door took an eternity to manipulate in the dark. His fingers seemed to be all thumbs. He had never noticed before how much noise the key made in that lock. He wondered vaguely how long it would be before he turned it again. Quite a lot had to happen before then. The lump in his throat grew bigger. Not until he had closed the door ever so softly, and stood on the path, did he realize exactly how dear home was to him, or what a lot Aunt Martha had done for him in her prim fashion. The great adventure was starting. No, it had actually started! From that moment onwards he was to be a wage-earner and a sailor.

For three hours Dave waited on the wharf, until there were signs of life on the Pacific Queen. When Captain Chisholm turned out of his berth he was told there was a boy waiting to see him.

"A boy!" he said. "What does he want?"

"Says you told him to come, sir. He's been on deck since four o'clock."

"Oh, I know," said the captain. "Send him here."

The master mariner was having breakfast when Dave was ushered in. He had already ascertained that the boat was bound for Auckland, New Zealand, and other Australasian ports.

"So you want to go to sea, eh?" the big man asked, attacking a pile of bacon and eggs.

"Yes, sir," Dave replied.

"Ever been afloat?"

"Not yet, sir."

"What's your name?"

"David Hallard."

"How old?"

"Sixteen, sir."

"Got a father?"

"Yes, sir."

"What does he say about it?"

"He says I can be a sailor, sir," he answered, after a moment's hesitation. "He was a ship's master, but he's got rheumatism now."

"Well, you seem a smart enough lad. You 'll have to jump around a bit at sea. We've no use for lazy folk here. Go and report to Mr. Quick, the first mate. He will tell you what to do. He's rough and ready, but he knows his business. Don't let him have to tell you twice and you 'll be all right. We sail at noon. Run along now."

Dave found that Mr. Quick was a very different type of man from the captain. He seemed to bark instead of talking, nor did he appear to be in a particularly pleasant frame of mind that morning. He had fiery red hair and piercing eyes. Mr. Quick devoted precisely sixty seconds to the new hand, during which he gave Dave some terse and emphatic advice, after which he hustled him off to the galley, where he was placed under the wing of Barnes, the ship's cook.

"Well, and what have they sent to plague the life out of me now?" Barnes asked in a high, squeaky voice. If Dave had not been trying hard to make a good impression on every one he might have laughed, for Barnes had the most comical face he had ever seen. In reality he was good-natured enough, but for some reason he always tried to give the impression that he was cranky and unapproachable, perhaps because people had been taking advantage of his amiability for forty years at sea. His fat cheeks were red, and his eyebrows stood out like two white bushes. In spite of the greeting, Dave liked Barnes instinctively on sight, and grew to like him still more in the course of time; and he is a lucky person who makes a friend of the cook afloat.

"I've come to help you," the boy said. "So far, I only know how to peel potatoes, though."

"Well, I sha'n't be askin' you to bake doughnuts or fry chickens for the passengers yet a while," the cook growled, "'cause there ain't no passengers this trip, and again there ain't no chickens to fry. Ship's biscuits, cold, with plenty o' weevils in 'em, is all the hands get on this ship week-days. Sundays it 's different. We has to warm the biscuits up into a puddin' for a change."

"Then what do we want a cook for?" asked Dave, with a grin.

"Look here, youngster, I 'll not stand for any impidence," Barnes declared, puffing out his cheeks and doing wonderful things with his bushy eyebrows. "You'll have a frying-pan about your ears in a brace of shakes. Don't stand there like a dummy! Why don't you get to work? Do you expect me to wash all them dishes?"

Dave whipped off his coat and started on the task with a alacrity which brought a grunt of satisfaction from the cook—a sound which Barnes hastily strove to hide with a cough.

It occurred to the new hand that he might be able to extract some information from the cook.

"Can you tell me what other duties I 'll have on board this boat, Mr. Barnes, besides washing dishes?"

The cook glared at him.

"Not a thing, my son," he said. "It's one of the rules on this ship that the boy isn't allowed to do anything but wash dishes. When he's got through he has to part his hair in the middle and dine with the skipper—if there isn't some more dishes to wash, which there allus is. What are you pesterin' me with fool questions for, anyhow? Do you take me for the navigatin' officer or only the owner? Eeach me that frying-pan down and I 'll belay your ears with it."

Dave promptly obeyed, and got a thump on the shoulders with it for "more impidence." After that, he was kept busy with various duties in the galley until, for the first time in his life, he felt the peculiar vibration of a ship's engines. The propeller had begun its endless song of "chugchug-a-chug."

Another Hallard had started on his first voyage.

"Can I go on deck a few minutes, Mr. Barnes, please?" he asked. The idea of cutting up cabbages while the lights of his home town dropped astern did not appeal to him.

"Why, yes, son," the cook replied, working his eyebrows so ridiculously that the boy had to laugh in spite of the curious feeling it gave him to know that Aunt Martha was probably in tears at the moment and that his dad was possibly watching that very ship from the window upstairs. "Go right along. Don't forget to ask Mr. Quick for a deck-chair and plenty of cushions. You 'll need the cushions if Mr. Quick catches you admirin' the scenery."

Dave slipped up the companion-way. Already they were steaming along at seven or eight miles an hour, a thick trail of smoke hanging astern.

All was hustle and hurry on deck. The boy dodged out of the way of the sailors, and, standing on a coil of rope, watched familiar scenes disappear. It seemed difficult to realize that he was not dreaming. The lump was there in his throat bigger than ever when he went back to the galley, and something in his expression caught the watchful eye of the cook.

"Never mind, laddie," said Barnes. "This is your first trip, isn't itf Left the old folks behind, eh? We've all been through it. It's a dog's life at sea, but you 'll be back eatin' cornbeef an' cabbage at home afore you know it."


...to be continued

"The Largest Volcano in the World"

by Sarah Coan, November 1877

Think of a time when you had to instruct someone how to pronounce "Hawaii"!

"Why, it is n't on the top of a mountain at all! What a humbug my geography must have been!"

So wrote a little fellow to a young friend in America.

He was right. It is n't on the top of a mountain, though the geographies do say, "A volcano is a mountain sending forth fire, smoke and lava," and give the picture of a mountain smoking at the top.

This volcano is nothing of the kind; but is a hideous, yawning black pit at the bottom of a mountain, and big enough to stow away a large city.

Of course you want to know, first, where this wonder is. Get out the map of the Western Hemisphere, put your finger on any of the lines running north and south, through North America, and called meridians; follow it south until you come to the Tropic of Cancer, running east and west; then "left-about-face!" and, following the tropic, sail out into the calm Pacific. After a voyage of about two thousand miles, you 'll run ashore on one of a group of islands marked Sandwich. We will call them Hawaiian, for that is their true name. Not one of the brown, native inhabitants would call them "Sandwich." An English sailor gave them that name, out of compliment to a certain Lord Sandwich.

On the largest of these islands, Hawaii—pronounced "Ha-y-e"—is the volcano, Kilauea, the largest volcano in the world.

We have seen it a great many times, and that you may see it as clearly as possible, you shall have a letter from the very spot. The letter reads:

"Here we are, a large party of us, looking into Kilauea, which is nine miles in circumference, and a thousand feet below us—a pit about seven times as deep as Niagara Falls are high. We came today, on horseback, from Hilo, a ride of thirty miles. Hilo is a beautiful sea-shore village, the largest on the island of Hawaii, and from it all visitors to Kilauea make their start.

"The road over which we came is nothing but a bridle-path, and a very rough one at that, traversing miles and miles of old lava flows. We had almost ridden to the crater's brink before we discovered, in the dim twilight, the awful abyss.

"Before us is the immense pit which, in the day-time, shows only a floor of black lava, looking as smooth as satin; and, miles away, rising out of this floor, are a few slender columns of smoke.

"At night, everything is changed; and you can't conceive of the lurid, demoniacal effect. Each slender column of smoke becomes a pillar of fire that rolls upward, throbbing as it moves, and spreads itself out above the crater like an immense canopy, all ablaze.

"Ships a hundred miles from land see the glow, and we here, on the precipice above, can read ordinary print by its lurid light.

"No wonder the natives worshiped the volcano. They thought it the home of a goddess, whom they named Pélé, and in times of unusual activity believed her to be very angry with them. Then they came in long processions, from the seashore villages, bringing pigs, dogs, fowls, and sometimes human beings, for sacrifice. These they threw "into the crater, to appease her wrath.

"A small berry, called the ohelo, grows on the banks of the pit, and of these the natives never dared to eat until Pélé had first had her share. Very polite, were they not? And if ever they forgot their manners, I dare say she gave them a shaking up by an earthquake, as a reminder.

"Sandal-wood and strawberries grow all about here—and fleas, too! wicked fleas, that bite voraciously, to keep themselves warm, I think, for here, so far from Pélé's hearth, it is cold, and we sit by a log fire of our own.

"The day after our arrival we went into the crater, starting immediately after an early breakfast. There is but one entrance, a narrow ledge, formed by the gradual crumbling and falling in of the precipice. Along this ledge we slipped and scrambled, making the descent on foot—for no ridden animal has ever been able to descend the trail. Holding on to bushes and snags when the path was dangerously steep, we finally landed below on the black satin floor of lava.

"Satin! What had looked so smooth and tempting from a thousand feet above, turned out to be a surface more troubled and uneven than the ocean's in the most violent storm. And that tiny thread of smoke, toward which bur faces were set, lay three miles distant—three miles that were worse than nine on an ordinary road.

"How we worked that passage! up hill and down hill, over hard pointed lava that cut through our shoes like knife blades; over light, crumbled lava, into which we sank up to our knees; over hills of lava that were, themselves, covered with smaller hills; into ravines and over steam-cracks, some of which we could jump with the aid of our long poles, and some of which we had to find our way around; steam-cracks whose depths we could not see, and into which we thrust our walking-sticks, drawing them out charred black or aflame; over lava so hot that we ran as rapidly and lightly as possible, to prevent our shoes being scorched. Three hours of this kind of work for the three miles, and Hale-mau-mau, or 'House of Everlasting Fire,' lay spitting and moaning at our feet!

"A lake of boiling lava is what the column of smoke marked out to us,—a pit within a pit,—a lake of raging lava fifty feet below us...

"It was so hot and suffocating on the brink of this lake that we cut eye-holes in our pocket-handkerchiefs and wore them as masks. Even then we had to run back every few moments for a breath of fresher air, though we were on the windward side of the lake. The gases on the leeward side would suffocate one instantly. Oh, the glory! This Hale-mau-mau, whose fire never goes out, is a huge lake of liquid lava, heaving with groans and thunderings that cannot be described. Around its edge...the red lava was spouting furiously. Now and then the center of the lake cooled over, forming a thin crust of black lava, which, suddenly cracking in a hundred directions, let the blood-red fluid ooze up through the seams, looking like fiery snakes.

"[I]magine these enormous slabs of cooled lava slowly raising themselves on end, as if alive, and with a stately motion plunging beneath the sea of fire, with an indescribable roar.

"For three hours we gazed, spell-bound, though it seemed but a few moments: we were chained to the spot, as is every one else who visits Kilauea.

"The wind, as the jets rose in air, spun the molten drops of lava into fine threads, which the natives call Pélé's hair, and very like hair it is.

"All this time, under our feet were rumblings and explosions that made us start and run now and then, for fear of being blown up; coming back again after each fright, unwilling to leave the spot.

"Occasionally, the embankment of the lake cracked off and fell in, being immediately devoured by the hungry flood. These ledges around Hale-mau-mau are very dangerous to stand upon. A whole family came near losing their lives on one. A loud report beneath their feet and a sudden trembling of the crust made them run for life; and hardly had they jumped the fissure that separated the ledge on which they were standing from more solid footing—separated life from death—than crash went the ledge into the boiling lake!

"Sometimes the lake boils over, like a pot of molasses, and then you can dip up the liquid lava with a long pole. You get quite a lump of it, and by quickly rolling it on the ground mold a cylinder the size of the end of the pole, and about six inches long. Or you can drop a coin into the lava to be imprisoned as it cools.

"A foreigner once imbedded [sic] a silver dollar in the hot lava, and gave the specimen to a native; but he immediately threw it on the ground, breaking the lava, of course, and liberating the dollar, which he pocketed, exclaiming: 'Volcano plenty enough, but me not get dollar every day.'

"One of our party collected lava specimens from around Hale-mau-mau, and tied them up in her pocket-handkerchief. Imagine her astonishment on finding, later, they had burned through the linen, and one by one dropped out.

"Terrible as old Pélé is, she makes herself useful, and is an excellent cook. She keeps a great many ovens heated for the use of her guests, and no two at the same temperature, so that you may select one of any heat you wish. In these ovens (steam-cracks) she boils tea, coffee and eggs; or cooks omelets and meats. You wrap the beef or chicken, or whatever meat you may wish to cook, in leaves, and lay it in the steam-crack. Soon it is thoroughly cooked, and deliciously, too.

"She also keeps a tub of warm water always ready for bathers.

"She does n't mean to be laughed at, though, for doing this kind of work, and doing it in an original kind of way. After she has given you one or two sound shakings, which she generally does, you '11 have great respect for the old lady, and feel quite like taking off your hat to her. With the shakings and the thunderings under-foot, and now and then the opening of a long steam-crack, she keeps her visitors quite in awe of her powers, though she is probably several hundred years old.

"Not far from the little hut where we sleep, close to the precipice, is Pélé's great laboratory, where she makes sulphur. We wear our straw hats to the sulphur banks, and she bleaches them for us.

"Well, this is a strange, strange land, old Pélé being only one of its many curiosities.

"I only hope you may all see the active old goddess before she dies. She has n't finished her work yet. Once in a while she runs down to the shore, to bathe and look at the Pacific Ocean, and when there she generally gives a new cape to Hawaii by running out into the sea."

Majestic old Pélé! Long may she live!

"How a Baseball is Made"

by Billy Evans, June 1920

...and a bat, too! Since I'm not an organized sports aficionado, I don't know if baseballs are still made this way presently. But here is the vintage way, the genuine article as struck by Ruth. Do boys still go out to play baseball on vacant lots? It seems it's all adult-organized today, more's the pity. Author Evans was known as "The Boy Umpire" and was an umpire with the American League from 1906 to 1927.

Baseball is the national pastime of the United States. Every red-blooded American boy plays it. Some are more proficient at it than others, but there is hardly a boy who has ever played the game but who has aspired to be a "big leaguer." Of course, there is the regulation baseball diamond, but the boys of America manage to play the grand old game on any-old-size lot. It matters not if the infield is full of stones and clinkers, the outfield full of holes and weeds, the game goes merrily on. There are, however, two most necessary requisites to play baseball: the ball and the bat. The home plate can be a piece of wood, and the bases, good-sized rocks set into the ground, but there must be a pretty fair ball and a good bat if the game is to be thoroughly enjoyed. When hard pressed for cash, the resourceful American youngster very often devises a ball that suffices, but it is pretty hard to dig up a piece of wood that will take the place of a real bat.

When I was a kid and played baseball, our team was in the seventh heaven when we managed to scrape enough money together to get a big-league ball and bat. My boy is the most popular youngster in our neighborhood. His home is regarded as.the supply-station for all the games in our neck of the woods. Often, during the summer, before I have breakfast, a half-dozen boys are clamoring outside for my youngster to hurry up and bring the ball and bat Believing baseball is a great recreation for the youngsters, I willingly keep the boys of the neighborhood in baseballs, always with the compliments of the American League. Of course, a baseball uniform is much desired, and most of the youngsters of America can somehow make their parents come across with a "unie," as they call it. Regularly each summer I purchase one for my boy, and Mrs. Evans says it is the greatest saver of linen and clothes that was ever put on the market. A good glove is eagerly sought, but, after all, the ball and the bat are the real assets of the game, so much prized by all youngsters.

I have often wondered how many boys know how big-league balls and bats are made. I had a fairly good idea of the operation, but never really appreciated the real art of making baseballs until a few years ago, when I had the very great pleasure of going through one of the big factories that manufacture big-league baseballs. Within the last ten years, rapid strides have been made in the perfection of the big-league baseball. The one that is being used to-day is just about the last word in efficiency, although a constant effort is being made further to improve it.

A piece of cork about the size of a marble is the real base of the big-league baseball. Each piece of cork is carefully examined and weighed, and must come up to certain definite requirements to pass muster with the inspector. There is, of course, a particular reason for the very close inspection that is given these very small pieces of cork. If the cork is at all faulty, it has a tendency to break when roughly used, and thereby cause the ball soon to lose its shape. Nothing so quickly makes a ball unfit for play as loss of shape.

In another part of the factory, rubber is molded into hemispheres, which are so made that they subsequently inclose the cork center. The two pieces are then vulcanized. The center of the ball, which, of course, is a most necessary part, is now ready for use. The weight of the rubber in the hemispheres, as well as the condition of the same, is given as careful inspection as the small pieces of cork. In a great measure, the liveliness of the ball comes from the cork-and-rubber center, so it is only natural that much attention should be paid to this feature in the making.

The center is then wound with wool yarn. This wool, of a particular type, is imported from Australia in the raw state in bales. It is, of course, put through the various processes of yarn-making to prepare it for the baseball. The gage of the yarn, and the tension under which it is wound, must be very exact, otherwise, the ball will exceed the proper size, and vary greatly as to its life. When the wool yarn has been carefully wound, around the cork-and-rubber center, to almost the regulation size of the ball, it is finished off with a winding of strong cotton thread. The entire surface of the ball is then given a thorough application of rubber cement, which is allowed to dry thoroughly.

The ball is now ready for the cover, which is just about as essential as any other feature in the making of the ball, if not more so. All the covers of big-league balls are sewn by hand. That is an interesting fact. The covers are made of horse-hide, which is in preparation for at least sixteen weeks before being used. The sewers work with awl and the strongest cotton thread, and do wonderfully perfect work. It is a rare thing for a big-league ball to be discarded because of faulty stitching of the cover. Before being placed in the box and sealed, the ball is carefully weighed and calipered, so that the weight and size will be absolutely perfect.

Some of the details that enter into the making of a ball are very interesting. The cover measures approximately twenty-five square inches, and is cut with special dies. Only the very best part of the horse-hide is used. The length of the blue-and-white wool-yarn windings used in each ball, if stretched out in a single string, would measure nearly a quarter of a mile. At one time a solid rubber center was used in all big-league baseballs. It sounds rather ridiculous to say that the use of too much rubber in a ball had a tendency to deaden it, but such was really the case. Experiments covering several years proved that the introduction of a small piece of cork into the center of what had previously been a solid piece of rubber, produced a far better ball in every respect. It was much more lively, far easier to throw with accuracy, and tended to hold its shape much better. The cork-center ball produced more batting at a time when the public were tiring of too many pitcher's battles. So much for the baseball.

What about the bat? Every boy who has ever played baseball was always fussy about his bat. He would spend hours in a store trying out bats, before finally selecting one that came up to his requirements. The big-league ball players are the "limit" on that point. Most of them have their own models, and have several dozen turned up at a time, which are just the weight, just the length, and just the shape desired by them. Some are so cranky about their favorite bats that they would not for a minute tolerate the use of them by any other player. I have often seen big-league stars all but weep when some favorite bat was broken. I have known players so to worry over the loss of a bat, which they, of course, believed largely responsible for their good hitting, that they would fall into a serious batting slump.

Most of the timber for baseball bats comes from the woods of Michigan. The searcher for baseball timber constantly has his eye on the lookout for second-growth white ash.

Few people realize the many operations that are necessary properly to turn out a bat. From the time the rough wood is placed on the lathe, it goes through eleven distinct operations before it is finished. The first three or four operations are the same in the manufacture of all bats. The later operations, which conform the bat into the requirements desired, are different. The trees are first cut into bolts and sawed into squares by mill men, specially employed for this purpose. This stock, when sawed, is shipped to the bat factory, where the process of inspecting for quality and grades of stock begins. Only about ten per cent, of this stock will grade into the highest quality bats. After the inspection has been made, the stock is piled according to grades and allowed to season for one year at least. Thoroughly seasoned stock, as it comes into the factory, is first cut to the length for the model required. After turning on the lathes, the bats are again rigidly inspected and sorted. Only the very finest stock is used to make the high-class bats.

Lost Island, Part 2

by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917

THE MYSTERY OF THE BARK HATTERAS

"There she is," he said at last. "This can't be the same Hatteras that you 're talking about though, because they searched everywhere for her at the time." Adjusting his glasses, Captain Hallard read:

"A strange mystery of the sea is recalled now that the bark Hatteras is definitely given up for lost. Six months have elapsed since she was last heard of in the Pacific Ocean, and the owners have no alternative but to regard her as sunk. The vessel herself was fully insured, but not the cargo, and it now appears that the latter included one small shipment which was of considerable value, consisting of a quantity of platinum. A good deal of money has been spent, since she was first reported missing, in searching for any trace of the Hatteras, but no sign of her has been discovered.

"A curious feature of the story is that no man knows, or ever will know, exactly where this valuable consignment came from originally. Possibly it was mined in New Guinea, where platinum is known to exist, or possibly in some part of Australia, but that must always remain a matter of conjecture.

"About a year ago Messrs. Jacobs & Krantz of San Francisco, dealers in precious metals, received a letter from one Vance Peters, written at Sydney, New South Wales. Peters stated that he had discovered a rich deposit of platinum, and had worked on it for two years until the supply was exhausted. He said he had melted it down into bars, had deposited it in a Sydney bank, and now wanted Jacobs & Krantz to market it for him, as facilities for disposing of it in Sydney were not good.

"The San Francisco firm consented to handle the transaction, and in due course received a letter from Peters announcing that he was sailing from Sydney on the Hatteras, bringing the platinum with him. There the known history of the platinum almost ends. After the Hatteras put to sea she was spoken twice between Sydney and Honolulu. Then there swept over that part of the Pacific the succession of devastating northeasterly gales which wreaked havoc among shipping there six months ago. Vessels of all kinds were blown far out of their course, and many of them were lost. The last heard of the Hatteras was a report from the ship Minerva that she had passed within a mile of her in the neighbourhood of Fanning Island. The bark was then partly dismasted and flying signals of distress. The Minerva herself was in great difficulties, and was unable to go to her assistance. From that moment the Hatteras became a thing of mystery. It is probable that she foundered with all hands in water a mile deep. There are many islands, mostly low-lying coral reefs, in that part of the Pacific. In the faint hope that the treasure-ship might have gone on one of these, Messrs. Jacobs & Krantz arranged with a vessel that was due to pass there to explore the region thoroughly, and the captains of other ships were offered a reward for definite news. But nothing has ever been heard of the ill-fated vessel or those who were on her."

While his father was reading the old newspaper cutting Dave Hallard sat motionless, his hands gripping the arms of the chair tightly.

"That sailor told me the Hatteras they saw was near Fanning Island, Dad," he said eagerly.

Captain Hallard looked up quickly.

"That's queer," he said. "I wonder if she could have been the same ship."

"Well, if she was, Dad, and nobody's got that platinum out of her—"

"If," Captain Hallard interrupted, laughing. "I guess there are lots of 'ifs.' To begin with, your sailor probably was spinning a yarn, and even if he did see the old wreck of the Hatteras, she must have been nearly smashed to pieces long ago. Everything in her would be washed away by now. Besides, where was this island he saw her on?"

"I remember he mentioned Fanning Island when you read it just now," said Dave, "and besides that he said they were sailing between there and an island called Christmas when they came across the wreck of the Hatteras."

"That's a pretty wide field," commented Captain Hallard. "Those two places are hundreds of miles apart, and you might spend a lifetime hunting about there for what you were after."

"He also said there was a hill," declared Dave, as the ancient mariner's story came back to his memory, "that looked like the back of a camel."

"You 're sure he didn't say a cow, or a rabbit?" Captain Hallard asked jocularly. "I'm afraid, Dave, he was having fun with you."

"I don't think so," Dave replied quietly. He had the greatest faith in his father's judgment, but on the other hand he had a vivid memory of the old sailor's simple directness.

Aunt Martha, who had been sitting knitting industriously, as usual, throughout the conversation, made no comment, and registered a mental note of the fact that Dave was growing more like his father every day. The Hallards did not have those steady grey eyes for nothing. It had been inflexible devotion to one purpose which enabled the retired sea-captain to amass his original fortune, and Dave was already exhibiting the same capacity for sticking to his guns, whatever object he wished to achieve. And she knew that the boy's determination to go to sea would never leave him until the salt water was rolling under him. This new notion that had entered his head, of treasure-ships lying waiting to disgorge their precious stores, would most likely add a romantic tinge to his desire, making certain that still another of the Hallards was to take to the roving life.

A day or two later, after supper, Dave produced a school atlas, and pored over it with a pencil and paper, measuring off distances.

"Dad, how long would it take for a bark to sail a hundred and fifty miles!" he asked.

"About a thousand years if there wasn't any wind."

"Yes, but with a fair wind?"

"Oh, maybe a day or two. Why?"

"Then it only takes a day or two to go from Fanning Island to Christmas Island in a bark in a fair wind?" said Dave.

"It depends how long you waste on the way picking up that treasure," replied Captain Hallard, with a twinkle in his eye. "Don't you worry, my lad. Hard dollars don't come like that. You 're just as likely to bump up in Broadway against a solid chunk of gold so big that it holds up the traffic as anybody is to rescue a fortune that's been lost in the sea for years."

"I know that, Dad," Dave agreed. "But it does seem an awful shame that the man who spent two years mining the stuff should never have got here with it safely. I asked Billy Tench yesterday to find out from his father what platinum is worth. Billy's father works in a jewelry store. I wrote down what he said to show you. How much do you guess Mr. Peters would have got for the stuff if he had reached America with it?"

Captain Hallard puffed at his pipe and wrinkled his brows in an effort of mental arithmetic.

"I suppose somewhere between ten and twenty dollars an ounce," he guessed.

"Wrong," corrected Dave. "At that time it was worth over thirty dollars an ounce."

"Bough luck on Peters," commented Captain Hallard. He knew by bitter experience what it felt like to lose a fortune.

"But that isn't all," Dave went on. "The price of platinum has gone up to three times its old value since then. That means if any one were lucky enough to find the treasure now, it would be worth about a hundred dollars an ounce."

Captain Hallard raised his eyebrows.

"I vote we start an expedition to find treasureships, Dave," he said, wincing as his rheumatism gave an extra twinge. "Then we 'll be able to come back and buy Aunt Martha that new coffee-percolator she's set her heart on. Then we might go over to Europe and hunt up some of those Spanish galleons. There were lots of 'em sunk, half full of gold coins. I'm badly in need of a new pipe."

"Yes, and we 'd buy 'Journey's End' back, eh, Dad?" Dave suggested.

"Aye, lad," his father agreed, with a sigh. The loss of his home on the cliff was still a very sore point to Captain Hallard. "But don't ever get such notions of easy money into your head. You have a lot of hard work to put in at school yet before you earn your first cent."

"How soon can I go to sea?" Dave asked abruptly.

"Not until this time next year," said his father. "I don't suppose you 'll ever rest contentedly until you have tried it out and found that a sailor's life is n 't a bit as they say it is in storybooks. I went through it. I thought I was going to have a wonderful time when I joined my first ship. She was a square-rigger, of the old-fashioned type. I remember I had a coat with some brass buttons on it, and I had an idea that I should spend most of my time on the poop, or the fo'c'sle-head, looking through a long telescope. But they set me on to peeling potatoes, and kept me at it though I was so seasick I did n't care whether I lived or died. Then the mate told me to dress up, as I had to do something special for the captain. I put on my best duds, including the coat with the brass buttons, and they started me on the job of tarring the rigging. By the time I'd got through with that, and after I'd upset the tar-bucket when the ship gave an extra hard roll, I was so messed up from head to foot I hardly knew my own name, though I'd learnt that sailoring didn't consist chiefly of looking smart in brass buttons and navigating the ship."

"But you did n't give up the sea for years and years after that, did you?" the boy persisted.

"No, I 'll admit that, though there was many a time I'd have done 'most anything to get back home and put on some dry clothes. The grub wasn't too good, either, in those days, and the older hands got the pick of what was going. Ship-owners don't believe in overfeeding their crews. The men might get too fat to shin up the rigging if they had three square meals a day, so they 're given ship's biscuits to keep 'em in condition and cut expenses down."

Dave plied his father with questions about life afloat, and Captain Hallard gave him as accurate a picture as he could of routine on board ship. To the boy it all seemed fascinating, including the hard, dirty work and the "salt horse" which, he gathered, together with the extremely hard biscuits, formed the staple diet on many craft.

The only thing worrying him was that he had to start at high school and wait a whole year before he would be allowed to eat "salt horse" and feel the motion of the boat under him as she nosed her way out of the harbor, past that flashing light in the distance at Sandy Hook, and carried him to those entrancing distant lands of which he had heard so much.

School seemed a dull affair during the next two months when such radiant possibilities lay in store. Dave went on with his studies, but his heart was not in them. Every day, after dark, he spent hours at the window from which he could see the lights of passing vessels, and in the afternoons he haunted the wharves, where screaming winches were hauling bales and cases from the mysterious depths of different vessels. The smell of tarred ropes became a thing of joy to him, and when, on occasions, the mate or bo'sun" of some ship invited him on board to look around after they had had a long chat, Dave thrilled with a new delight. The snug cabins and berths, not always as clean or tidy as they might have been, were a source of infinite wonder.

Though he did not realize it, Dave was fanning the flame within him. At home he came out with nautical terms which he had picked up, to the great distress of Aunt Martha, for, to her, it was clearly the beginning of the end. Secretly shs had always treasured the hope that her brother would put his foot down firmly and prevent Dave from risking his life on the sea, and occasionally, even now, she would have a passage of arms with Captain Hallard on the subject.

"Let the boy have a taste of it," he always declared. "You wouldn't bring ducks up without water, and the Hallards are worse than any ducks I ever knew, only they want salt water. He 'll go whether I let him or not, so I might just as well let him, when he's old enough."

Aunt Martha bent over her knitting on these occasions, making the needles fly and missing stitches, because you can't see to knit, even with spectacles, when your eyes are full of tears.

"Don't worry, Martha dear," Andrew Hallard said once, when this happened. "He won't come to any harm, and if I had my time over again, I'd be a sailor just the same, so we can't blame him. Now, stop crying. It's a healthy life at sea, after all; and to listen to you, one would think every mariner who left the wharf went straight to Davy Jones's locker as soon as he got into deep water.

Soon after the summer vacation began, Dave stood on one of the wharves within a mile of his home and watched a trim-looking steamer sidle to her berth. She was low in the water with a heavy cargo. Some time after the gangway was let down and traffic on it had started, an undersized youth, whose pockets bulged strangely, strolled casually ashore. He was about Dave's age, had red hair, and an extremely dirty face. Something about the boy attracted Dave's attention. He noticed that the red-headed youth looked quickly to the right and left, and then, dodging behind a truck, began to walk hurriedly away from the ship.

Dave stepped across the wharf so that the owner of the red hair would have to pass close to him. The boy was glancing over his shoulder and nearly bumped into Dave.

"Hello, kid, which is the way to New York?" he asked jerkily.

"It's miles from here. This is Brooklyn," Dave said.

"Do you know the way around here?" the boy asked. "I want to get out of this quick."

"Come with me," said Dave, growing more interested. He had learned every turn and corner of the docks. Three minutes later they were in a busy street, and the boy seemed to breathe more freely. His face began to wear a triumphant smile.

"That's fine!" he said. "I 'll be safe now."

"Safe from what?"

"I've skipped the ship. I was scared to death somebody would spot me. I've got all my things in my pockets."

"What did you skip the ship for?" Dave asked, hugely pleased at being concerned, even in a small way, with a nautical adventure.

"Wanted to see America," responded the youth. "Don't you let on that you've seen me. So long."

A moment later the owner of the red hair and dirty face was swallowed up in Brooklyn, and Dave went back to the steamer with new interest. An idea had occurred to him. It was only a vague idea, but it concerned the fact that he felt perfectly capable of doing anything that redheaded, undersized chap had done on the ship; and moreover, the ship was now short of a boy.

A curious tight feeling gripped him at the throat. For the space of perhaps five minutes he stood still, thinking hard, and then he boldly walked down the gangway.

Can I see the captain, please?" he said to a tall man who was standing on deck talking to a companion.

"What do you want the captain for?"

"I want to see him on— on business," said Dave.

The man looked down into the boy's grey eyes which showed neither fear nor disrespect.

"Well, sonny, I'm the captain," he said. "What is it?"

"I guess you want a boy, sir," said Dave. "The other one's gone. I'd like his job."


...to be continued

"A Dutch Treat"

by Amy B. Johnson, May 1904

A seemingly selfish little girl comes to appreciate another culture, even if their customs and clothing are strange to her. Imagine that only one hundred years ago one could still see authentic clothing in Holland!—and also a reminder that French, not English, was once the international language.

"I 've been crying again, father."

"Have you, sweetheart? I 'm sorry."

"Father."

"Yes, darling."

"I don't like Holland at all. I wish we had stayed in New York. And I would much rather stay in Amsterdam with you to-day than to go and see those horrid little Dutch children. I 'm sure I shall hate them all."

"But how about Marie? You want to see her, don't you?"

"No. I 'm very much annoyed with Marie. I don't see why she could not have been contented in New York. After taking care of me ever since I was a baby, she must like me better than those nieces and nephews she never saw till yesterday."

"I am sure Marie loves you very dearly, Katharine, but you are getting to be such a big girl now that you no longer need a nurse, and Marie was homesick. She wished to come back to Holland years ago, but I persuaded her to stay till you were old enough to do without her, and until Aunt Katharine was ready to come to New York and live with us, promising her that when that time came you and I would come over with her, just as we have done, on our way to Paris. We must not be selfish and grudge Marie to her sisters, who have not seen her for twelve years."

"I am homesick now, too, father. I was so happy in New York with my dolls—and you—and Marie—and—"

"So you shall be again, darling; in a few months we will go back, taking dear Aunt Katharine with us from Paris, and you will soon love her better than you do Marie."

Katharine and her father, Colonel Easton, were floating along a canal just out of Amsterdam, in a trekschuit, or small passenger-boat, on their way to the home of one of Marie's sisters, two of whom were married and settled near one of the dikes of Holland. Katharine was to spend the day there with her nurse, and make the acquaintance of all the nieces and nephews about whom Marie had told her so much, while her father was to return to Amsterdam, where he had business to transact with a friend. They had arrived in Holland only the day before, when Marie had immediately left them, being anxious to get home as soon as possible, after exacting a promise from the colonel that Katharine should visit her the next day.

Katharine felt very sure she would never like Holland, as she gazed rather scornfully at the curious objects they passed: the queer gay-colored boats, the windmills which met the eye at every turn, with their great arms waving in the air, the busy-looking people, men and women, some of the latter knitting as they walked, carrying heavy baskets on their backs, and all looking so contented and placid.

"Try and think of the nice day you are going to have with Marie and the children," said the colonel; "then this evening I will come for you, and we will go together to Paris, and when you see Aunt Katharine you will be perfectly happy. See, we are nearly at the landing, and look at that row of little girls and boys. I do believe they are looking for you."

"Yes; they must be Marie's sister's children; I know them from the description Marie has read me from her letters. Are n't they horrid little things, father? Just look at their great clumps of shoes—"

"Yes—klompen; that is what they are called, Katharine."

"And their baggy clothes and short waists! One of them knitting, too! Well, I would never make such a fright of myself, even if I did live in Holland, which I 'm glad I don't."

By this time they had made the landing. Then Katharine and Marie fell into each other's arms and cried, gazed at in half-frightened curiosity by seven small, shy Hollanders, and in pitying patience by a very large colonel.

"Au revoir. I will call for Katharine this afternoon," called Colonel Easton, when the time came for him to go on board again.

Katharine waved her handkerchief to her father as long as his boat was in sight.

"See, Miss Katharine," said Marie,—in Dutch now, for Katharine understood that language very well, Marie having spoken it to her from her infancy,—"here is Gretel, and this is her little sister Katrine and her brother Jan. The others are their cousins. Come here, Lotten; don't be shy. Ludolf, Mayken, Freitje, shake hands with my little American girl; they were all eager to come and meet you, dear, so I had to bring them."

Katharine shook hands very soberly with the little group, and then walked off beside Marie, hearing nothing but the clatter-clatter of fourteen wooden shoes behind her.

Soon they arrived at the cottage, and in a moment seven pairs of klompen were ranged in a neat row outside a small cottage, while their owners all talked at once to two sweet-faced women standing in the doorway. These were Marie's sisters, whose husbands were out on the sea fishing, and who lived close beside each other in two tiny cottages exactly alike.

"Oh," exclaimed Katharine, as, panting and breathless, she finally joined the group, "do you always take off your shoes before you go into the house?"

"Why, of course," said the children.

"How funny!" said Katharine.

Then Marie, who had been left far behind, came up and introduced the little stranger to Juffrouw Van Dyne and Juffrouw Boekman, who took her into the house, followed by the three children who belonged there and the four cousins who belonged next door. They took off her coat and hat and gave her an armchair to sit in as she nibbled a tiny piece of gingerbread, while large pieces from the same loaf disappeared as if by magic among the other children. Then Gretel showed to her her doll; Jan shyly put into her hand a very pretty small model of the boat she had come in on that morning; Lotten offered her a piece of Edam cheese, which she took, while politely declining Mayken's offer to teach her to knit; little Katrine deposited a beautiful white kitten on her lap; Ludolf showed her a fine pair of klompen on which his father was teaching him to carve some very pretty figures; Freitje brought all his new fishing-tackle and invited her to go fishing with him at the back of the house. It was not long before Katharine forgot that she was homesick, and grew really interested in her surroundings; and later the dinner, consisting chiefly of fish and rye bread, tasted very good to the now hungry Katharine.

It was after dinner that the tragedy happened. The children had all started out for a walk. Before they had gone more than a mile from the house the fog settled all around them—so dense, so thick, blotting out everything, that they could not see more than a step ahead. They were not frightened, however, as all they had to do was to turn round and go straight ahead toward home. The children took one another's hands at Gretel's direction, stretching themselves across the road, Katharine, who held Gretel's hand, being at one end of the line. They walked on slowly along the dike for a short time, talking busily, though not able to see where they were going, when suddenly Katharine felt her feet slipping. In trying to steady herself she let go of Gretel, gave a wild clutch at the air, and then rolled, rolled, right down a steep bank, and, splash! into a pool of water at the bottom. For a moment she lay half stunned, not knowing what had happened to her; then, as her sense came, "Oh," thought she, "I must be killed, or drowned, or something!" She tried to call "Gretel," but her voice sounded weak and far off, and she could see nothing. Slowly she crawled out of the pool, only to plunge, splash! into another. She felt, oh, so cold, wet, and bruised!

"I must have rolled right down the dike," she thought. "If I could find it, I might climb up again." She got up and tried to walk, but sank to her ankles in water at every step.

She was a little lame from her fall, and soaked from head to foot. Her clothes hung around her most uncomfortably when she tried to walk. But, if she had to crawl on hands and knees, she must find the house; so, plunging, tumbling, rising again, she crawled in and out of ditches, every minute getting more cold and miserable.

But on she went, shivering and sore, every moment wandering farther from her friends, who were out searching all along the bottom of the dike.

After what seemed to her a long time, she came bump up against something hard. She did not know what it was, but she could have jumped for joy, if her clothes had not been so heavy, to hear a voice suddenly call out in Dutch: "What's that? Who has hit against my door? Ach! where in the world have you come from?" Then in a considerably milder tone: "Ach! the little one! and she is English. How did you get here, dear heart?"

"I— I— fell down the dike. I have—lost—everybody. Oh, how shall I ever get back to father?" answered Katharine in her very poor Dutch.

"But tell me, little one, where you came from—ach! so cold and wet!"

"I was spending the day with Marie and Gretel—and—Jan—and we were walking on the dike when the fog came on; then I fell, and could not find my way—"

"Gretel and Jan—could they be Juffrouw Van Dyne's children?"

"Yes, yes," eagerly; "that is where I was. Oh, can you take me back, dear, dear juffrouw?"

"Yes, when the fog clears away, my child. I could not find the house now; it is more than two miles from here. Besides, you must put off these wet clothes; you will get your death of cold—poor lambkin."

At this Katharine's sobs broke forth afresh. It must be late in the evening now, she thought; her father would come to Marie's and would not be able to find her—

"No, dear child; it is only four o'clock in the afternoon. The fog may clear away very soon, and then I will take you back."

Quickly the wet garments were taken off and hung about the stove. Katharine presently found herself wrapped up in blankets in a great arm-chair in front of the fire, a cushion at her back and another under her feet, drinking some nice hot broth, and feeling so warm and comfortable that she fell fast asleep, and awoke two hours later to find the room quite light, the fog almost gone, the juffrouw sitting beside her knitting, and a comfortable-looking cat purring noisily at her feet.

"I think I have been asleep," she said.

"I think you have," said Dame Donk.

Just then a loud knock was heard at the door, a head was poked in, then another, and still another. The cottage was fast filling up. There stood, first of all, poor, pale, frightened Marie, holding a large bundle in her arms, Jan with another smaller one, Gretel carrying a pair of shoes, and one of the sisters, completely filling up the doorway with her ample proportions, last of all.

It appears that as soon as the fog had begun to clear, the good Dame Donk had despatched a boy from a neighboring cottage to let them know where Katharine was, and that her wardrobe would need replenishing.

The excitement on finding the child safe and sound may be better imagined than described. How she was kissed, cried, and laughed over, what questions were asked and not answered, as she was taken into an adjoining room and arrayed in a complete suit of Gretel's clothes, even to the klompen, for, alas! her French shoes were now in no condition to be worn, the pretty blue frock torn and stained and hopelessly wet, the hat with its dainty plume crushed and useless; indeed, every article she had worn looked only fit for the rag-bag.

Gretel was so much smaller than Katharine that the clothes were a very tight fit, the skirt which hung round Gretel's ankles reaching just below Katharine's knees, and it was a funny little figure that stepped back into the room—no longer a fashionably dressed New York maiden, but a golden-haired child of Holland, even to the blue eyes, sparkling now with fun and merriment.

"But did n't you bring a cap for me, Marie?" she asked in a grieved tone.

"Ah, no, deary; I never thought of a cap."

"Well, you must put one on me the minute we get back."

"Oh, what will father say?" she cried delightedly, as she surveyed herself in the little mirror.

This sobered Marie at once. What would "father" say, indeed? Would he not have a right to be very angry with her, that she had allowed the child to get into such danger?


"Where is Katharine?" asked the colonel, as he stood, tall and commanding, on the threshold, later that evening, surveying eight small Hollanders, looking so much alike, except for the difference in their sizes, that they might have passed for eight Dutch dolls propped up in a row against the wall.

A sudden shriek of laughter, and one of the dolls was in his arms smothering him with kisses. Then every one began to talk at once, as usual, and it was not until late the next evening, when he and Katharine were steaming out of Amsterdam that the colonel was told the whole story and for the first time fully understood all that had happened to his little girl on that eventful day.

Meanwhile the new light in his daughter's eyes and the laughter on her lips kept him from any desire to inquire too deeply into the reason for a certain embarrassed frightened look on the faces of the women.

Before leaving Amsterdam the colonel was obliged to purchase a complete suit of Dutch garments for Katharine as a memento of this visit, and "because they are so pretty, Father," she said, and "Oh, Father, I just love Holland! As for those Dutch children, I think they are simply the dearest, sweetest things I ever saw, and I have promised to write to Gretel as soon as ever I get to Paris."

"Bonnie Jean"

by "N.W.", September 1885

Due to the popularity of the "Waverly" novels, and also because so many of the pioneers were of Scottish-Irish ancestry, tales of "Scotch" children were quite popular. Add to this a plucky child and the sea, and an adventure is born.

It promised to be a rough night on the Scottish coast. All day long the wind had blown in fitful gusts; and now a furious north-west gale had set in from the sea. Down on the shore, the waves moaned and sighed uneasily, and out over the treacherous rocks the spray hung like a mist.

"I dinna like the look of the sea and the sky," little Jean Campbell said to herself, drawing closer under the shelter of the old boat, and pushing the curly yellow hair out of a pair of serious blue eyes. "I wish father was hame."

"Father" was Captain Campbell, of the "Eastern Star," which Jean firmly believed to be the largest and most beautiful vessel afloat. But now he was away on a long voyage,—and Jean did miss him so!

From the shore, where Jean stood, she could see, beyond the strip of sand and rocks and the short brown meadows, the little house where she lived with her grandmother; for Captain Campbell's wife had died when Jean was but a baby, and he had brought the little lassie home to his mother.

It was very lonely sometimes, Jean thought The nearest neighbor lived two miles away, over the moor; and two miles along the shore in another direction was the life-saving station. Jean knew all the men attached to it, particularly the one whose duty it was to patrol the coast between the station and her grandmother's cottage. They all were fond of the little ten-year-old lassie, and told her marvelous stories of strange adventures at sea, promising to watch carefully for the "Eastern Star" whenever it should sail past to Glasgow.

Little Jean, wrapped in her plaid, sat under the lee of the big boat on the shore, wondering about father, and watching the figure of the coast-guard pacing slowly toward her. He nodded to Jean, as he approached, stopping to raise his glass and look keenly out to sea, and then stepped behind her shelter out of the wind.

"It 's a rough night for ye to be oot, my lassie," he said, kindly. "Ye 'd best gang along hame before the storm comes."

"I 'm no' afraid," Jean answered. "But I 'll be gangin' hame now. Will it be an ower hard storm?"

"The Lord help the puir lads comin' on this coast the nicht," the coast-guard said. "It 'll be the warst gale this year yet. Ye ken Donald Rae is sick, an' I maun take his watch as weel as my ane. So I 'll no' be here but ance mair the nicht—at ten. Ye 're aye thinkin' o' the 'Eastern Star,' " he added, seeing Jean look anxiously out at the tossing, furious sea. "Aweel, dinna worry your little head about her, my lassie. She 'll no' be in for a week yet, and ye can trust her captain to keep off the coast, and the Captain up above to watch over her."

Then he went on, with a pleasant "Gudenicht," and Jean hurried home just in time to escape the rain, which began to fall in torrents. All through the evening she watched the storm, curled up close to the window, while Grandmother Campbell and Margery, the maid, knitted busily. The roar of the wind and thunder of the waves did not alarm Jean, though the blue eyes filled with tears at the thought of the brave sailors exposed to so fearful a danger, remembering the words of the old coast-guard, "It 'll be the warst gale o' this year yet."

"May be the waves 'll roll high over the Devil's Head, as Grandmother says they did one time when she was a wee bit lassie," Jean thought. "I 'd like to see sic a grand sight."

The tall clock was striking eleven that night when Jean awoke, aroused by some sound, she hardly knew what. Slipping softly out of bed, she pushed aside the curtain and looked out, and saw that the rain had ceased to fall, though the wind still blew furiously. And there beyond the moor the sea roared and raged, a great, heaving, black waste of water, tossing white sheets of spray high over the rocks.

She listened to make sure that Grandmother Campbell was asleep; then jastily dressing herself, she wrapped her plaid tightly around her, half-frightened at the thought of the black night outside, and went softly downstairs and out-of-doors. It was no so dark but that she could find her way across the strip of meadow, though the wind almost took her off her feet at times; and in a few minutes she was at the shore.

Never in her life had the little Scotch girl seen a more fearful sea than that which now tossed and roared at her feet. The moon was up and, though covered by flying, ragged clouds, gave light enough to show the water flung high over the great rock known as "The Devil's Head." And somewhere out on that treacherous sea, the "Eastern Star" was sailing. Jean shivered to think of it. And as she crouched under a rock, out of the wind, the sound that had awakened her came again, and then again and again. It was a signal-gun from some ship, perhaps even then crushing and grinding to pieces on the rocks.

Jean leaned forward, eagerly listening, as a blue light flashed up from the water directly before her, followed by another. Fixing her eyes on the place where the rocket came from, she could dimly see the outline of a vessel which had drifted broadside upon the reef, and was being swept continually by the furious sea.

"They 've run on the Siren!" Jean said, in an awestruck whisper. "The vera worst rock on a' the coast, Father says. They 'll sure hear the guns at the station, and be here soon," she added, and looked along the shore, half expecting to see the men dragging the great life-boat to the rescue; but as far as she could see, the beach was deserted.

"The ship 'll break up, an they dinna hasten!" she exclaimed, with a pitiful little sob, which was answered by another gun from the doomed vessel. But the wind blew from the direction of the station, and carried the sound away from the men. Then gazing with wide, frightened eyes at the wreck, she remembered that the coast-guard had told her he would not be there again that night.

"He 'll be takin' Donald Rae's watch along the other shore," she thought. "I canna let them a' droon. I maun go mysel'."

She fastened her plaid around her, and then with one look at the wrecked ship, where in imagination she could see the brave sailors waiting hopelessly for it to break up, she started along the shore toward the station. It was fully two miles of rough, sandy beach, a hard enough walk in the day-time, but terribly dismal on such a night. Brave little Jean, however, never thought of the danger and loneliness of her undertaking; only her loving little heart went out in pity for the poor fellows awaiting death out on the treacherous Siren. The wind was against her, and she struggled along through the wet, heavy sand, sometimes almost blinded by clouds of sand and water, and drenched by showers of spray that flew over her when she drew too near the boiling surf. Once a wave larger than the rest rushed up, curling almost to her waist, and Jean, shrinking back, realized for the first time the danger of her position; but the thought of turning back never entered her brave little head.

"The captain maybe has a little girl wairin' for him at hame. An'if I 'm no' in time, he 'll never come back to her. Father wad think I was right, I know," she said as she hurried on.

It was a pathetic sight, this little lonely figure, wet and tired, with yellow hair blown into the frightened, tear-stained eyes, stumbling wearily along through the storm on her errand of mercy. How she found her way, bewildered by the roar of the sea and the darkness, was known only to Him in whom the dear little lassie trusted to "take care o' Father at sea."

The lights of the station were in sight now, and the men just off watch sprang to their feet as brave little Jean, dripping and exhausted, came in.

"There's a ship aground—on the Siren. I kenned ye did not hear, an'—I came," she gasped breathlessly, then staggered and fell heavily forward, as the nearest man caught her in his arms.

"The brave, bonnie lassie!" the old coast-guards exclaimed, while they hurried to the boat.

Then came the words: "Now, my lads!" and away they rushed to the rescue.

Jean was kindly cared for by the men, who could hardly have believed the story of her dangerous walk, had it been told by another than Captain Campbell's little lassie, and sitting wrapped in a warm coat by the fire, she was soon rested, and earnestly begged to return to the wreck.

"I dinna like to be awa' when they a' come ashore," she said, so great was her faith that they would be saved; and with two of the coast-guards, who carried lanterns and guided her carefully along the easiest way, carrying her over rough, dangerous places, Jean was speedily at the point where she had first seen the signal-lights.

A faint gray streak was beginning to show more distinctly, though the storm still raged furiously, and the Devil's Head was crested with foam. An eager crowd of villagers and coast-guards were watching a dancing black speck, now lifted high on an immense wave, then plunging down into a vast black chasm.

"It 's the life-boat," they told Jean. "The Lord send them there in time, for the ship 's breakin' up fast."

The sea had never seemed to little Jean so cruel and terrible as it did that early morning when she sat with her eyes fixed on the life-boat, which had appeared again, slowly making its way over the tossing, black waves.

"They 've saved them!" the man with the glass exclaimed, and then a dead silence fell upon the crowd, while the great boat came nearer, the crew pulling with long, steady strokes, and a little knot of bareheaded, blue-jacketed men in the stern. A few minutes, and a dozen eager fellows had rushed into the breakers and dragged the boat ashore, almost lifting the rescued sailors from it, cramped and stiff from their desperate struggle for life.

The captain of the wrecked vessel was the last man to leave the boat, and as he reached the shore, an eager little figure came flying across the sand.

"Father, Father!" Jean cried joyfully; then she was caught up in the arms of a tall, bronzed man, while a hearty cheer burst from the crowd, and proud voices told the story of little Jean's part in the rescue.

For, sure enough, it was Captain Campbell and his officers and crew; and the "Eastern Star" lay beating to pieces out on the rocks. They had arrived on the coast sooner than they were due, and had hoped to reach Glasgow before the storm came on; but through an injury to the rudder, the ship had become unmanageable, and drifted hard and fast upon the Siren. It had been a bitter night for the captain as he stood helpless, expecting every moment to be drawn down into the angry black depths, while before his eyes was the cottage where, as he supposed, his little Jean was safely sleeping.

"If it hadna been for my brave, bonnie lassie, we should a' be coming ashore like that," Captain Campbell said, recognizing in a great spar just flung on the sand the one to which he had clung till rescued by the life-boat.

Then they went home to tell the wonderful story to Grandmother Campbell and busy Margery.

Captain Campbell sailed away on his next voyage as captain of a much larger and finer ship than the poor old "Eastern Star"; and in gold letters on its side could be read the name,—"The Bonnie Jean."

Lost Island, Part 1

by Ralph Henry Barbour and H.P. Holt, originally begun November 1917

A non-sports story from Barbour!

IN WHICH DAVID HALLARD HEARS THE CALL OF THE SEA

I dare say you 've seen a lot of strange things in the South Seas," said Dave Hallard, a bit wistfully.

"Aye, there's queer sights in them latitudes," agreed the old sailor, pausing in his task of slapping paint on the side of the ship and gazing thoughtfully across the sunlit harbor. "Lots an' lots of 'em," he added after a moment as, lighting his pipe again, he went on with his work. "I suppose you 've never been to sea, have you?" he asked, casting a sidelong glance at the boy who for the last half-hour had been perched on the string-piece of the wharf, his legs dangling above the oily water.

"Not yet," answered Dave regretfully.

"An' I guess you 're seventeen, eh? Or maybe a bit more."

"Sixteen," the boy replied. He was, however, tall for sixteen, and there was the promise of much strength in his broad shoulders. A keen enthusiasm for outdoor sports had developed his body and, without doubt, fostered the determination apparent in the firm mouth, the square chin, and the steady grey eyes.

"Well, when I was your age," said the mariner, "I was cabin-boy under old Captain Zebalon Pratt. He was one of your old-fashioned Yankee skippers, and no mistake, and many's the dose of rope's-end I got, my hearty. Barrin' the rope's-end, though, I liked it all well enough. It 's a hard life, but it's the only life for me. It gets a hold over you, but it ain't a bed of roses at any time. We've just finished a rough enough time this last voyage, after we left Honolulu for home, and I won't say there was n't a while when I'd have given a month's pay to feel solid land under my feet. But it's forgotten now."

"Were you ever shipwrecked?" the boy asked.

"Three times. Once off the coast of China, once in the Mediterranean, and once hard by New Guinea."

He paused for a moment, while allowing his memory to dwell upon those vivid moments.

"I don't know, though," he went on, "that any of them shipwrecks ever proved quite so excitin' as the last shakin' up we had in this steamer. When you get an easterly gale blowin' in that part of the Pacific, it suttinly comes good and hard. We were making a course 'most due sou'east when the wind hit us. It came sudden, cuttin' slices clean off the surface, and the old ship listed over till I thought she was a goner. Her port rail was right under water, and the big waves that broke over us sometimes reached half-way up the funnel. One man must have gone overboard at once, and the mate was knocked senseless against a stanchion. He'd have gone too, but he got entangled in some gear, and after a while we. dragged him under shelter.

"It sure was blowin' for about an hour, and then it eased off quick like, but we knew what to expect when it started again. Everything loose had been shot over the side, and one of the boats had been stove in. We just had time to get ready for the next snorter before it arrived, and then the old ship was nearly lifted clean out of water. You've heard of seas runnin' mountains high, p'raps. Well, them seas was like mountains, and we were slidin' down the sides same as the coasters at Coney, only it did n't cost ten cents a time, and we did n't know exactly what was going to happen when we got to the bottom."

The sailor put down the paint-brush and recharged his pipe with great care before continuing:

"Give me an old wind-jammer for weatherin' a gale. You never know what's going to happen to these new-fangled steam contraptions. The ship's engines was 'most shook to pieces after two days of it, and we all made up our minds we'd seen the last of New York or anywhere else on dry land. The ship was leakin' enough to scare any one, and it was too rough to use the handpumps. We'd drifted some distance out of our course between Fanning and Christmas Islands when the current and wind took us under the lee of another island, and that saved us. Before you could say 'knife' we had the anchor down and were ridin' as comfortable and snug as any man could want.

"We sheltered for three days under that bit of a place. As a rule, you don't get much besides low coral islands in them waters, but there was a hill on this one. I remember that, from where we were lyin', part of the island looked a good deal like a camel's back.

"We were anchored off a little lagoon, and one day the captain sees something that might have been a wreck half buried in the sand. When the gale had spent itself he went ashore in a boat, thinkin' p'raps there might be a chance of a bit of salvage. But there wasn't. It was an old bark that must have been lost some years ago. We reckoned she'd struck a reef of rocks outside the lagoon, drifted over them afterwards, and landed inside the cove where we found her. Only the stumps of her masts were left. I remember her name. We could just make it out on a copper plate where the bell had hung. She was the Hatteras."

"Had the crew been saved?" Dave asked.

"Bless you, I dunno," replied the mariner. "There's hundreds and hundreds of ships breakin' to pieces off the track of regular traffic, and only the sea knows what became of the men on 'em; and she don't tell. No, siree! she holds her secrets fast."

"But didn't the people on the island know?" the boy queried.

There was a comical look in the old man's eyes as he regarded his questioner.

"Say, sonny," he said, "you don 't think there's trolley-cars runnin' and department stores on every little two-by-four dump in the South Seas?"

"I thought there might be a few natives," Dave suggested.

"Well, sometimes you find a bunch of them stoppin' on an island, but we didn't see anything livin' there except a few turtles and sea-birds that knew nothing and cared less about how the Hatteras got there. You never know what luck is comin' your way when you 're a sailor. It might be our turn to get piled up on a rock after we leave here to-night at high water."

Somebody on deck called to the mariner. Dave, with a curious feeling, watched him clamber over the side and disappear. At high water the old salt was to begin a new series of adventures, all with the smack of the sea in them. In his imagination the boy depicted the mariner undergoing hairbreadth escapes and encountering perils of every description, all of which he would overcome so that when the ship reached port he could sit contentedly in a swinging cradle, painting the hull, and applying innumerable matches to a most obstinate pipe.

Dave came of sea-going stock, the Hallards having followed the sea for generations. Dave's father created a record in his early manhood by driving a clipper from Hong Kong to San Francisco in thirty-three days; and old Phineas Hallard, David's grandfather, had been a pioneer in the copra trade with the West Indies.

From one window of his home in Brooklyn the boy could obtain a panoramic view of the ceaseless traffic in the harbor to and from New York—big, stately mail-boats with tugs puffing fussily at their side; mysterious, bird-like sailing-ships with crowded canvas; strings of barges in tow; rusty and lazy tramp steamers homeward bound after wonderful voyages to foreign lands. The sight of these messengers of the deep stirred something in the blood of Dave Hallard. He liked to go down to the wharf on his way home from school and drift into conversation, just as he had done to-day, with men who had sailed to distant ports. On this occasion he had been lucky. The old mariner with the paint-brush had been full of reminiscences; and for the first time, Dave, as he walked home, felt that the glamour of the sea was something real to him—something that was bound to have a vital influence over him. Hitherto his life had been wrapped up in school, sports, and his home; but now it was dawning on him that there was a great world outside that in which he had moved so far, a world in which he would, sooner or later, take his place. Some day he, too, might stand on a ship scudding before the breeze, under the wonderful Southern Cross where flying-fish skimmed the water and turtles lived on desert islands. He threw out his chest a little and sniffed the crisp air of early spring straight from the broad Atlantic. It seemed good. He felt a vague regret that he was not with the old mariner on the tramp steamer, learning the mysteries of sails and halyards and hovering on the brink of great unknown adventures.

Dave was quiet when he entered the house. His Aunt Martha, who had been a mother to him ever since he could remember, glanced at him curiously several times, thinking something was worrying the boy, for he was usually bubbling over with good spirits.

"What's amiss, Dave?" she asked at last, while preparing supper. "You 're not sick, are you?"

"I'm all right," he said, coming out of a reverie with a start. "I was only thinking, Aunt Martha, what do people do when—when they want to be sailors?"

"For the land's sake, this boy has got it too!" she exclaimed, with a touch of pathos in her voice. "All the Hallards go the same way, and there's no stopping them as soon as they get out of short pants."

Dave's thoughts were far away. The sting of salt air on his cheeks that afternoon, and the sailor's reminiscences, had stirred him strangely. Hitherto he had not been directly thrown into association much with sailors. True, there were in his home a dozen distinctive signs that his father had spent many years at sea—a full-rigged four-master careening over on a painted ocean, under a glass case, in the parlor; two assagais and a knobkerrie picked up at some South African port; a compass and an old brass sextant kept in a sacred place; a pair of powerful binoculars; strangely carved figures which might at one time have been idols in some heathenish land. But these relics had been collected years before. Andrew Hallard gave np the sea soon after Dave was born.

"Supper is ready," said Aunt Martha, resignedly. "Go and tell your dad."

Dave obeyed mechanically.

"The sea is calling this boy already," Miss Hallard said a little later as she served their frugal meal. "He's puzzling how to get afloat now."

Captain Hallard cast an uneasy glance at his son. He had always expected this eventually, but somehow the possibility of the wrench had seemed a long way off.

"There's time enough to think about that, lad," he declared; but even as he said it he knew the boy's days ashore must be numbered now. Once, long ago, he, and generations of his menfolk, had passed through the same phase.

Dave was Captain Hallard's only son, and there was a strong affinity between them. The man dreaded the moment when his boy must go, only to return occasionally between long voyages, but he knew the power with which the sea must be calling Dave.

There had been a time when a business career had seemed probable for Dave. That was when Andrew Hallard first gave up the sea. He had made a considerable fortune by sea trading and wise investment. Everything appeared rosy in those days, and if Captain Hallard had rested on his laurels, all would have been well. He was a true sailor and knew his work thoroughly, but success had made him ambitious for greater things. The business of underwriting ships is one which needs not only a close knowledge of shipping, but also considerable skill in the world of finance. It appeared, however, to Andrew Hallard to offer excellent opportunities, and he launched forth into it. For a while luck went with him, but one or two of his speculations came to grief. In order to recoup himself of these losses he plunged a shade deeper, taking risks about which more experienced men would have hesitated. At this critical moment two vessels were lost, and in order to pay the insurance he had to raise a mortgage on his own property which left him financially crippled. It did not take him long to discover that without the power of money behind him his position in business amounted to nothing, and he had to hunt for the command of another ship. On his first voyage, however, rheumatism, brought on by long exposure in bad weather, left him unfit for the one profession he had at his finger-tips. Then he was compelled to settle down ashore and share his home with his sister Martha.

Aunt Martha had a very small income and few relatives. She was a prim, elderly lady with a profound distrust of anything in the way of speculation. Several times before Andrew Hallard's crash arrived she warned him that a bird in the hand was safer than ten in a bush, but when he came back, almost a physical wreck, to his motherless boy, her heart softened, and she threw in her lot with his. It was sometimes a struggle for them to make ends meet, but her brother Andrew had been good to her in his successful days, so it gave her additional pleasure to help him now.

The bitterest blow was when his little estate on Long Island went—the home he had worked for during so many years. It was just the sort of place a sea-captain might picture, during his travels, as that in which he could spend the autumn of his life contentedly. When it was built, and he went to live there, he called the house "Journey's End." It was perched high on a cliff, facing the sea he loved, and while he lived there he spent many hours watching the distant ships through a telescope. Once or twice in recent years he had taken Dave with him to look at the old place, drawn to it by happy memories, but the visit always made him unhappy.

"Journey's End" was now occupied by Stephen Strong, an old friend of Captain Hallard, who had come to the rescue when the mortgage was foreclosed. Mr. Strong was a New Englander, and when the time came for him to take possession he did so regretfully, declaring that at any time the fortunes of the Hallards changed once more he would be willing to leave the house.

"I 'm a wanderer, anyway," he said, "so I guess this won't be the end of my journey. Besides, I was bred and born in Gloucester, and when I drop my anchor the last time it ought to be there. Cheer up, Hallard, you 'll be heaving me out of this place yet."

Mr. Strong often made some similar remark when Captain Hallard revisited the house on the cliff, and Captain Hallard laughed at such cheery optimism, for he knew his days of fortune-hunting were over. Dave, however, was imbued with a youthful notion of retrieving the family fortunes, and he realized that as it must be many years before he could obtain command of a ship himself, the sooner he got to work the better. A few days after his encounter with the ancient mariner he spoke to his father on the subject.

"Tush, lad, what's put such notions into your head?" Andrew Hallard asked, anxious to draw from the boy his real feelings.

"I don't think I should like to be anything but a sailor, Dad," the boy said. Then he told his father of his talk with the old salt. Captain Hallard listened, and nodded. It came to him as an echo of his own boyhood. Thus encouraged, Dave warmed up, and repeated some of the sailor's stories. When he came to the discovery of the Hatteras on a desert island his father turned quickly in his chair.

"Hatteras, Hatteras," he repeated, wrinkling his brows. "I seem to remember something about a ship called the Hatteras, years ago, but I don't recall exactly what for the moment."

He drummed his finger-tips on the edge of the chair and looked up at the ceiling.

"Why!" he exclaimed after a pause; "wasn't there a ship called the Hatteras disappeared once? I think I 've got something about it in my book of newspaper cuttings. Let me see."

He foraged in a drawer, fished out an old collection of clippings, and turned over the leaves.


...to be continued