Harper's Round Table, July 9, 1895 Part 8

"Well, some one has been at it. Where's Cynthia? Where's Edith? Why isn't somebody at home to attend to things?"

No one could be found. Jack rushed frantically about, and at last heard the sound of wheels. Edith was returning from the tea. And at the same moment, around the corner of the house came Cynthia, leading two crying children.

They all met on the front porch.

"They've been up to mischief, Jack," said Cynthia; "I hope they haven't done much harm. I found them on the bank behind the carriage-house. They must have been at the incubator, for they had two eggs and the chickens are dead. And they are two bad, naughty children!"

Even Cynthia the peacemaker had been stirred to righteous wrath by the sight on the river-bank.

"You rascals!" cried Jack, in a fury, shaking them each in turn; "I'd like to lick you to pieces! You've ruined the whole hatch."

"Go straight to bed," said Edith, sternly; "you are the very worst children I ever knew. I ought not to leave the house a minute. You can't be trusted at all."

They all went in, scolding, storming, and crying. In the midst of the confusion Mr. Franklin arrived, earlier than he had been expected. It was some minutes before he could understand the meaning of the uproar.

He looked about from one to the other.

"It only serves to justify me in a conclusion that I have reached," he said. "You are all too young to be without some one to look after you.

Take the children to bed, Edith, and then come to me. I have something to tell you."

Edith, wondering, did as she was told. Cynthia gave Jack one despairing look and fled from the room. Her worst fears were on the point of being realized.

And after tea, when they were sitting as usual in the long parlor, Mr.

Franklin, with some hesitation and much embarra.s.sment, informed them that he was engaged to be married to Miss Hester Gordon, of Albany.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: TWO FAIRY SPONGES]

BY WILLIAM HAMILTON GIBSON.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Decorative T]

he pretty works of my fairy and his companions in mischief are seen on every hand from spring until winter, but few of us have ever seen the fay, for Puck is no myth nor Ariel a creature of the poet's fancy. Their prototype existed in entomological ent.i.ty and demoralizing mischievousness ages before the traditional fay, in diminutive human form, had been dreamt of. The quaint bow-legged little "brownies" which have brought our entire land beneath the witching spell of their drollery can scarce claim prestige in the ingenuity of their mischief, nor can the droll doings of imps and elves chronicled in the folk-lore of many an ancient people begin to match the actual doings of the real, live, busy little fairy whose works abound in meadow, wood, and copse, and which any of us may discover if we can once be brought to realize that our imp is visible. Then we must not forget that ideal type of the true "fairy"--a paragon of beauty and goodness, with golden hair and dazzling crown of brilliants, with her airy costume of gossamer begemmed and spangled, her dainty twinkling feet and gorgeously painted b.u.t.terfly wings. And we all remember that wonderful wand which she carried so gracefully, and whose simple touch could evoke such a train of surprising consequences.

And who shall say that our pretty fay is a myth, or her magic wand a wild creation of the fancy? May we not see the wonder-workings of that potent wand on every hand, even though our fairy has eluded us while she cast the spell? There are a host of these wee fairies continually flitting about among the trees plotting all sorts of mischief, and leaving an astonishing witness of their visitation in their trail as they pa.s.s from leaf to leaf or twig to twig. But these fairies, like those of Grimm and Laboulaye, are agile little atoms, and are not to be caught in their pranks if they know it, and even though our eye chanced to rest on one of them, it is doubtful whether we would recognize him, so different is the guise of these _real_ fairies from those invented Creatures of the books. Once, when a mere boy, I caught one of the little imps at work, and watched her for several minutes without dreaming that I had been looking at a real fairy all this time. What did I see? I was sitting in a clearing, partly in the shade of a sapling growth of oak which sprang from the trunk of a felled tree. While thus half reclining I noticed a diminutive black wasplike insect upon one of the oak leaves close to my face.

The insect seemed almost stationary and not inclined to resent my intrusion, so I observed her closely. I soon discovered that she was inserting her sting into the midstem of the leaf, or, perhaps, withdrawing it therefrom, for in a few moments the midge flew away. I remember wondering what the insect was trying to do, and not until years later did I realize that I had been witnessing the secret arts of the magician of the insect world--a very Puck or Ariel, as I have said--a fairy with a magic wand which any sprite in elfindom might covet.

The wand of Hermann never wrought such a wonder as did this magic touch of the little black fly upon the oak leaf. Had I chanced to visit the spot a few weeks later, what a beautiful red-cheeked apple could I have plucked from that hemst.i.tched leaf!

This was but one of a veritable swarm of mischief-making midges everywhere flitting among the trees; and while they are quite as various in their shapes as the traditional forms of fairies--the ouphes and imps, the gnomes and elves of quaintest mien, as well as the dainty fays and sylphs and sprites--there is one feature common to them all which annihilates the ideal of all the pictorial authorities on fairydom.

Neither Grimm, nor Laboulaye, nor any of the masters of fairy lore seems to have discovered that a fairy has no right to those b.u.t.terfly wings which the pages of books show us. Those of the real fairy are quite different, being narrow and gla.s.sy, and bear the magician's peculiar sign in their crisscross veins.

What a world of mischief is going on here in the fields! Here is one of the witching sprites among the drooping blossoms of the oak. "You would fain be an acorn," she says, as she pierces the tender blossoms with her wand, "but I charge thee bring forth a string of currants"; and immediately the blossoms begin to obey the behest, and erelong a mimic string of currants droops upon the stem. Upon another tender branch near by a jet-black gauze-winged elf is casting a similar spell, which is this time followed by a tiny downy pink-cheeked peach. And here alights a tiny sprite, whose magic touch evokes even from the _same_ leaf a cherry, or a coral bead, perhaps a huge green apple! How many of us have seen the little elf that spends her life among the tangles of creeping cinque-foil, and decks its stems with those brilliant scarlet beads which we may always find upon them, looking verily like tempting berries.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE INHABITED ROSE SPONGE.]

We see here about us swarms of these busy elves in obedience to their own peculiar mischievous promptings. What whispers this glittering midge to the oak twig here to which she clings so closely? We may not guess; but if we pa.s.s this way a month or so hence what a beautiful response in the glistening rosy-clouded sponge which encircles the stem! "But this sponge is not pretty enough by half," exclaims a rival fairy. "Wait until you see what yonder sweet-brier rose will do for _me_." Hovering thither among its thorns she imparts her spell, and, lo! within a month the stem is clothed in emerald fringe, which grows apace, until it has become a dense pompon of deep crimson--a sponge worthy the toilet of the fairy queen herself!

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ELFIN SPONGE OF THE BRIER ROSE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ELFIN SPONGE OF THE OAK.]

Who shall still say that the fairy is a myth! These two fairy sponges are familiar to us all, at least to those of us who dwell for even a small part of the year in the country and use our eyes. Indeed, we need go no further than our city parks, or even our "back-yard" gardens to find at least one of them, for the sweet-brier is rarely neglected by this particular fairy.

So many specimens of both of these sponges have been sent to me by ROUND TABLE correspondents and others, that I have begun to wonder how many of those other young people who have seen them and kept silence have wondered at their secret.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE ROSE MISCHIEF-MAKER.]

The two fairies which are responsible for these sponges have been captured by the inquisitive scientist, and have had their portraits taken for the rogues' gallery, and now we see them stuck upon tiny little three-cornered pieces of paper, and pinned in the specimen case as mere _insects_--gall-flies. The one is labelled _Cynips seminator_, the other, _Cynips rosae_.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FAIRY USING HER MAGIC WAND.]

And now the prosaic entomologist proceeds to supplant fact for fancy.

This gall-fly is a sort of cousin to the wasps, but what we would call its sting is more than a mere sting. Like a sting, it seems to puncture the bark or leaf, and at the same time probably to inject its drop of venom; but at the same time it conveys to the depths of the wound a tiny egg, or perhaps a host of them. One gall-fly is thus a magician in chemistry, at least, for no sooner are these eggs deposited than the wounded branch begins to swell and form a cellular growth or tumor about them, the character of this abnormal growth depending upon the peculiar charm of the venomous touch--to one a tiny coral globe, to another a cl.u.s.ter of spines, to another a curved horn, and to our cynips of the white or scrub oak a peculiar globular spongy growth which completely envelops the stem, sometimes to the size of a small apple. In its prime it is a beautiful object, with its fibrous glistening texture studded with pink points. But this condition lasts but a few days, when the entire ma.s.s becomes brownish and woolly, which fact has given this insect the common name of "wool-sower."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE REAL FAIRY OF THE OAK SPONGE.

A. One of the points detached. B. Section of the base.

C, D. Cynips emerging.]

And now we must lose no time if we would follow its history to its complete cycle. If we put one of these faded sponges in a tight-closed box, we shall in a few days learn the secret of its being. For this singular mimic fruit, which has sprung at the behest of the gall-fly, like other fruits, has its seeds--seeds which are animated with peculiar life, and which sprout in a way we would hardly expect. Within a fortnight after gathering, perhaps, we find our box swarming with tiny black flies, while if we dissect the sponge we find its long-beaked seeds entirely empty, and each with a clean round hole gnawed through its sh.e.l.l, explaining this host of gall-flies, all similar to the parent of a few weeks since, and all bent on the same mischief when you shall let them loose at the window.

The beautiful sponge of the sweet-brier has been called into being by exactly similar means. And its hard woody centre is packed full of cells, at first each with its tiny egg, and then with its plump larva, followed by the chrysalis, and at length by the emergence of the full-fledged _Cynips rosae_.

This sponge-gall of the rose is commonly known as the Bedegnar, and like all other members of its tribe, as with the familiar oak-apple, was long supposed to be a regular accessory fruit of its parent stalk. Among early students were many superst.i.tions connected with the Bedegnar, the nature of which may readily be inferred from its other common name of "Robin's Pin-cushion."

[Ill.u.s.tration: STAMPS]

This Department is conducted in the interest of Stamp and Coin Collectors, and the Editor will be pleased to answer any question on these subjects so far as possible. Correspondents should address Editor Stamp Department.

A LIST OF DON'TS FOR STAMP COLLECTORS.

Don't paste your stamps into your alb.u.ms, but use "stickers" or "hinges."

Don't use any old copy-book if you can afford to buy an alb.u.m. Dealers can supply alb.u.ms at any price from twenty-five cents upward.

Don't trim your stamps. Many valuable stamps have been ruined by this process.