Harper's Young People, January 6, 1880 Part 4

Down in the smugglers' cave! Goodness gracious! No wonder it looked just the thing. No wonder we all cottoned to that shawl from the start.

"I always told you something would happen to it," said mamma to Aunt Pam. "You flung it around like an old rag."

"That was the comfort of it," said Aunt Pam. "It couldn't be hurt. It could be worn in all weathers--to a wedding or a funeral, to church or to a clam-bake. It was always in the fashion, and everybody knew what it was worth."

"Except me," I said, under my breath.

"Oh, my beautiful shawl!" said Aunt Pam, beginning all at once to feel the full shock of her loss. The tears rolled out of her dear old eyes, and my sisters began to snivel, as they always did.

Mamma said it must be looked into, and for a moment I was scared. I thought of the smugglers' cave.

"What must be looked into?" I said.

"Why, the loss of the shawl," said mamma. "It must have been stolen out of the house."

Our up-stairs girl was pa.s.sing through the room when ma said that, and she turned red and pale.

"Did you notice Maggie?" mamma said, when the door was shut.

"Oh, mamma!" we all cried out, for we thought the world of Maggie. I couldn't help wondering how it was she was so red and fl.u.s.tered, while I was as cool as a cuc.u.mber. Aunt Pam declared she wouldn't have Maggie's feelings hurt for the world; and I said she was innocent, in a deep low solemn voice, but n.o.body paid any attention to me. Then I stopped to think before I went on. How could I betray my comrades and the whereabouts of the cave? I remembered the last piece I spoke in school, and how I hollered out the words,

"O for a tongue to curse the slave Whose treason, like a deadly blight, Comes o'er the councils of the brave, And blasts them in their hour of might!"

Could I be that traitor? No indeed--not much! Yet here was a dreadful row in the house, and the only way to mend matters was to get that shawl again as soon as possible. I resolved to get it that very night, and when I listened to an advertis.e.m.e.nt that Aunt Pam had written out for the paper, I saw my way clear. She said no questions would be asked if the article was promptly returned. That settled it. I went up to my room, and wrote out the following in a disguised hand:

"Secrit and konfidenshal--the shawl's all right."

I waited till after supper, slipped it under Aunt Pam's door, and going out the back way I took a cross-cut down to the sh.o.r.e. Now pa won't let us go out at night to play, and I think that's a mistake, because we can't get used to the dark if we don't. The whole world looked queer somehow to me by starlight. The moon hadn't come up yet, and at first I could hardly see my hand before my face. I never saw such ugly shadows, and once I had to stop and get breath before I could make up my mind to pa.s.s a clump of old mulberry bushes. Once in a while I heard a crackle behind me like a footstep, but I didn't look back. I knew my only chance was to plod ahead, no matter how my heart thumped or my knees shook. I thought of everything I could to bolster me up--of dear old Aunt Pam and poor little Maggie. But the sound of the waves on the beach was awful!

They roared like so many wild beasts. It was as black as ink on the water, and the twinkle of the light-house seemed a hundred miles away.

It was so lonely and wild that my heart was in my throat. And suppose, thinks I, when I get in the cave, the waves come up and devour me?

Suppose somebody has crawled in there to sleep, some tramp or something, and he should catch me by the leg? Or the bank should tumble in on top of me? All my s.p.u.n.k was gone, and I turned to run, when, bunk! I came into something behind me.

"Ow!" I screamed, and "Oh!" exclaimed somebody, and wasn't I glad to find it was dear old Aunt Pam. She scared me, though, for she was as white as any sheet, and grabbing me in her arms, she began to cry over me.

"Tell me all, Tom," she said. "I got your note, and I followed you. You bad, wicked, dear little wretch, tell me everything. If the shawl's got lost, never mind, Tom; I don't care; only tell me, and come back home."

Poor, dear Aunt Pam! she told me afterward she thought I had done something to the shawl, and ran away in my fright. We were both pretty well broke up, and I couldn't help crying a little bit myself. But of course I couldn't go home now without the shawl. I began to feel as brave as a lion now Aunt Pam was there. The thing was to get her out of the way while I went into the cave. It looked awful down there in the hollow, and the wind was getting up, the water swashed around, and I couldn't help thinking there might be a tramp in there. All at once a bright thought struck me. Aunt Pam wasn't afraid of tramps; she wasn't afraid of anything. And, after all, it was her shawl. If it was worth having, it was worth going after. But how about betraying the boys?

Another bright thought struck me. I'd make Aunt Pam one of us. She could say the words over after me, and she could crawl in and get the shawl, while I kept guard outside: and if anybody says Aunt Pam is old after that, they must be crazy. She said all the words solemnly, one after another; then she crawled in, and dragged out every blessed thing she could lay her hands on. I put 'em all back the next morning, and the best of it all was that Aunt Pam never gave us away. She just told the folks she found the shawl herself, and she did, you know--didn't she?

MATHEMATICAL PUZZLES.

No. 5.

Two boys kept neighboring apple stands, and each had thirty apples to sell every day. One sold his at the rate of two for five cents, and received seventy-five cents, and the other at three for five cents, and received fifty cents, the total being one dollar and twenty-five cents.

It happened one day that one of the boys was sick, and the other engaged to sell the whole stock of sixty apples at the same rate. "Two for five, and three for five, that's five for ten," said he, and five for ten he sold them. But to his astonishment, when he got through he had but one dollar and twenty cents instead of one dollar and twenty-five cents. Now how did he lose five cents?

No. 6.

"How old are your children?" asked a lady who was visiting a friend, the mother of three beautiful daughters. "My oldest daughter is just double the age of my youngest daughter," replied the mother, "and the age of my other child is that of her youngest sister and one-third more. Their three combined ages make exactly the sum of my age, and I shall be sixty-six one year from to-day." What was the age of each of the three daughters?

THE OLDEST ROSE-BUSH IN THE WORLD.

They say it is the oldest, and who knows that it is not? I will tell you the story as it was told to me, and you shall see what you think of it.

There is a funny old town in Germany called Hildesheim, a little out of the way of travellers, but full of curious and interesting things, and over its fine cathedral walls climbs a rose-bush so large and strong that it may well be a thousand years old, as they say it is.

"A thousand years ago," said the sacristan, "the country all about here was a forest."

If you have studied history, you will see the story may be true so far, for you know Charlemagne became Emperor of Germany in A.D. 800, and that Germany was little better than a wilderness then.

"One day," continued the sacristan, "Louis the Gentle, the son of Charlemagne, went hunting with all his retinue in this forest. They had with them a box of relics."

Relics, you must know, were pieces of the dress of martyrs and saints, or something that martyrs and saints had touched in their lifetime, or perhaps even the bones of martyrs and saints.

"When they encamped for dinner, the gentle Louis wished to put this box of relics away very carefully, and looking about, he saw a beautiful blooming rose-bush, which must have been quite large even then, as he concealed the box in its branches.

"Perhaps they hurried away in pursuit of game after dinner, or perhaps they ate too much, and, as often happens in such a case, they forgot to be as religious as they were before dinner. However it was, at all events they rode away without the relics, and never missed them till the next day.

"Then Louis was full of shame, and declared they must ride back again, and never give up searching till they found the box.

"So they rode for many a weary hour, searching the by-ways of the forest--for there were few roads--till at last they all suddenly stopped, full of awe and wonder.

"It was a beautiful June day, and the birds were singing, and the flowers were blooming; but, lo! just before them they saw a glade in the forest where the fresh white snow lay like a soft thick carpet over everything.

"And yet it did not cover everything either. For in the centre of the glade grew a lovely rose-bush, with hundreds of bright blossoms upon it, and this was the bush in which the box had been hidden. Louis hastened forward, and grasped the box; but, lo! here was another miracle: it had grown into the wood of the rose-bush so firmly that it could not be taken away.

"Then Louis fell on his knees, and said he would receive this as a sign, and he vowed to build a cathedral on the spot.

"They called the snow 'holy snow,' because it had hidden the ugly remnants of their feast with its purity, but had left the rose-bush free, and they named the cathedral and the town which sprang up about it Hildesheim, which in old, old German meant 'holy snow.'"

It is certainly an enormous rose-bush, and its roots grow wide under the cathedral. Over them, in the crypt, is an altar said to be of pure silver, and it looks as if it might be. On the altar are heaped great bunches of artificial roses, which they persuade the ignorant peasants are actual blossoms of the rose-bush itself, even when it is leafless and bare in the winter.

I can not say that all the sacristan's story is true, but I know that the rose-bush of Hildesheim is the largest one I ever saw, and that the town is a very old place. Indeed, a few years ago, some wonderful gold and silver vessels were dug up there, which must have been used by an almost forgotten race. If any of you live near Washington, you can see copies of them in the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution.

CROCHET PURSE.

[Ill.u.s.tration]