Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880 Part 1

Harper's Young People, July 6, 1880.

by Various.

THE MOHAWK BOWMEN.

BY J. O. DAVIDSON.

"h.e.l.lo, Foster, what's that you're doing?--shooting with a bow and arrows?"

"Yes, Stuart made 'em for me. Come in and try 'em."

Harry came into the yard, where Foster was shooting at a collar box placed on a gra.s.sy bank, and made a few unsuccessful shots at twenty yards, when Foster took the bow, and hit the box frequently, to Harry's wonder and envy.

"Stuart made 'em for me, and taught me how to handle 'em. He has a bow taller than himself, over six feet long; and up in the mountains he killed a deer a week ago--killed a deer with an arrow."

"Do arrows go hard enough to _kill_? Say, Foster, will Stuart make a bow for me? Won't you ask him?"

"We've got a better thing than that. Stuart wants us to get up an archery club, and he will show us how to make our own bows and arrows, just as the Indians do. Henry, Fred, Will, and Ned will join, I know, and then we will have six--just enough to go off hunting on Sat.u.r.days, and have a jolly time. And we'll have a name for the club, and make a regular camp somewhere near the Glen, and have our dinners there, and our meetings, just as Robin Hood and his men did in England. How's that, Harry?"

"Best thing out, Foster. But how are we to make our bows, and what shall we make them of?"

"Oh, Stuart has told me all about it. You must pick out the straightest, cleanest sa.s.safras pole in the hen-house, and get Preston to saw it up into sticks one inch square and five and a quarter feet long. Then bring them over here, and Stuart will show you how to make a bow. Stuart will have a lot of pine and spruce sawed up for arrows, and you must get all the goose and turkey feathers you can, and bring them over too, and he will tell us about arrow-making. Now go and tell the rest of the boys, and get your sa.s.safras to Preston's as soon as you can. Perhaps we can get ready to go out Sat.u.r.day."

After school the next day six eager boys stood around Stuart as he took a sa.s.safras stick, and showed them how to make a hunting bow, talking as he worked.

"Now look close, youngsters. First plane one side of the stick straight and smooth. This is to be the 'back' of the bow, and mustn't be touched again. Next mark the middle of the stick, and lay off four and a half inches to one side for a handle. Then turn the stick on its back, and plane away the 'belly' of the bow, tapering it truly from handle to 'tip.' Do the same to the sides, leaving each tip about three-eighths of an inch square. Now take a file or a spokeshave, and round off the 'sides' and 'belly' carefully, taking care not to touch the 'back' of the bow. There, the bow is in good shape, but it may not bend truly; so file a notch with a small round file in each tip half an inch from each extremity, running the groove straight across the 'back,' and slanting it across the sides away from the tips toward the middle or handle of the bow. Make a strong string of slack-twisted shoe-maker's thread, with a loop in each end, so that when the string is put on the bow by slipping the loops into the nocks, it will bend the bow so much that the middle of the string is five inches from the handle. If the bow when thus bent is too stiff in any spot, file it a little there till it bends right; and when it finally bends truly from tip to tip, put on a piece of plush for a handle, and smooth and polish your bow ready for exhibition. There, Harry, that is your bow. Now one of you may go to work at another stick, while I go and feather some arrows."

At it Henry went, eager and enthusiastic; but it was a bothersome job for young and inexperienced hands. The stick would slip, and the plane would stick, in spite of him, and his face grew very red and his eyes very bright. With Stuart's aid, however, he finally completed a very fair bow before dark, and when he had actually shot an arrow from it, his worry all vanished, and he felt very proud of his new weapon.

The following afternoon they all came together, and more bows were made.

Under Stuart's direction arrow shafts were rounded and smoothed, the vanes were cut from the quills, and several fair arrows completed before separating for their homes, where all, even the staid old grandpas and grandmas, were infected by the enthusiasm of the boy archers, and Indian stories were told by the kitchen fire.

By Friday night all the six were armed with sa.s.safras bows, and nicely feathered spruce arrows, with pewter heads, blunt, that they might not stick into and be lost in the trees. Their quivers were of pasteboard rolled in glue, upon a tapering form, and their arm-guards of hard thick leather, securely fastened to their left fore-arms by small straps and buckles. And when, early Sat.u.r.day morning, they came together at Foster's house, never was a more gallant squad of young archers seen.

Stumps, trees, late apples, and one or two wandering mice served as marks for their ready arrows while waiting for the start.

"Here, you boys! shoot them arrers t'other way. They'll spile more'n they're wuth," called out the good-natured hired man; and Foster raised grandma's ire by driving a shaft up to the feathers in a golden pumpkin she had selected for seed, and placed on the well curb to "sun."

By the time their haversacks were filled with potatoes, bread, doughnuts, meat, etc., and they had started for the Glen across lots, shooting as they went, all the family were relieved for the moment, only to worry the rest of the day lest some unlucky arrow, glancing, should hurt one of them; and mother's anxiety wasn't relieved when Stuart wickedly told her how Walter Tyrrel killed King William Rufus with a glancing arrow from his bow while hunting.

The birds and the squirrels that our boys met that day were treated to many a close hissing arrow, though not many of them suffered, because of the boys' lack of skill with the long-bow.

"Sh-h-h! boys," suddenly whispered Foster, as the little band paused for a moment in a clump of spruces; and springing noiselessly up, his bow was braced, his arrow fitted, and a stricken bird was fluttering at their feet in a few seconds. The flutterings of the fallen bird were more than equalled by those of Foster's heart, as he held the still quivering crow-blackbird which his arrow had brought from the highest twig of a tall spruce. Proud and exultant, yet tears glistened in his eyes as he silently gazed upon the soiled plumage of the bird's beautiful neck and breast, and felt its last faint gaspings as its reproachful eyes became gla.s.sy in death.

"The beautiful bird! Oh, I _won't_ shoot another bird," he declared, with quivering lips. "How pretty it is, and how warm! I'll ask Stuart to stuff it, so that I can keep it forever."

By this time Will's hunger was too much for his archery enthusiasm, and he began to grumble.

"Say, boys, isn't it about time to get to the Glen, and make our camp?

I'm getting hungry. It's hard work drawing this bow of mine, and my arms are tired."

"Yes, let's go to the Glen," said their captain, Foster; and half an hour's silent tramping in the underbrush and up the rising ground--for they were now pretty tired--brought them to the spot known as the Glen.

The Glen was a lovely place. A sparkling spring, rising at the base of a giant hemlock at the head of a long deep gully, had in the course of ages filled in the hollow, till a broad level floor was made, surrounded by close-growing hemlocks, pines, and spruces, and carpeted with fine turf and pine needles. The water from the spring, flowing in a shallow brook through the middle of this floor, lost itself in the dark recesses of the gully further down. At the very top of the great hemlock by the spring was a rude eyrie, built by the boys, called the Crow's Nest, and from its swaying, breezy height they had a magnificent view of the country for miles around. Here, rocking gently and safely, seventy-five feet above the spring, they picked out their homes, the pretty white villages nestling among the forest ma.s.ses of green, and the slender streams glistening among the cultivated fields and neat mowings.

Near the spring was a rude hut that Stuart and his mates had built a few years before. Taking possession of this, they took off their haversacks, hung their bows and quivers about on projecting limbs, gathered dry leaves and sticks, and soon had a fire started in a rude stone fireplace.

"Well, my merry bowmen, how do the tw.a.n.ging bow-string and the hissing arrow suit the greenwood?" asked Stuart, who came up as they lay picturesquely about, waiting for a bed of coals.

"Oh, it is splendid. Isn't it, boys?" answered Will, the oldest of the young archers. "Just see how pretty the bows and quivers look, hanging among the green branches. How nice this all is! But what name shall we give our club?"

"Woodland Archers," suggested Ned.

"Mohawk Foresters," added Henry. "We want our river in the name, and the Mohawks were great warriors."

"Let's call it the Mohawk Bowmen," continued Ned. "That's just the thing." And all agreed to it, and so Mohawk Bowmen was decided upon as the club name.

"Who'll be captain?" asked Stuart.

"Oh, Foster, of course," answered all at once. "He's the best shot, and ought to be."

By this time the coals were ready, so the potatoes and corn and meat were roasted, amid much fun and gay talk, and were eaten by the hungry archers. Then, after a rest, the Mohawk Bowmen ranged the woods and fields till sunset found them at home again, tired, indeed, but enthusiastic over archery and their day's sport. They agreed it was the happiest day they had ever seen, and arranged for a grand woodchuck hunt on the following Sat.u.r.day.

MORNING SIGHTS AND SOUNDS FROM A WINDOW IN JERUSALEM.

BY LYDIA FINKELSTEIN.

The first sound I heard at daybreak, through the window, was the Moslem's call to prayer, from the minaret, "La Illaha illa Allah"--"There is no other G.o.d but G.o.d"--breaking clear and solemn over the stillness of the early dawn, and waking the echoes of the empty streets. Presently I heard a footstep in the distance; as it approached nearer, it made the arches resound. I looked out, and saw a pious Mohammedan hastening to prayer. As he pa.s.sed under the window I heard him muttering in a low voice, and caught some sentences of his prayer: "Ya Rahim, ya Allah" ("O G.o.d, the merciful!"). Scarcely had his footsteps died out when I heard the soft silvery sound of a bell, whose melodious music seemed to roll out like billows into s.p.a.ce, and as the reverberations were carried away to a more distant region, a chime of bells rang out merrily; these were the matin bells calling the Christians to prayers. The streets and arches again re-echoed hurrying footsteps, which were those of the Catholic monks hastening to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. As they pa.s.sed the window I could hear the clicking of their rosaries, and distinguish the words "Dominus, Dominus," muttered in a low voice.

Another sound broke the stillness: "Ya Karim, ya Allah" ("O bountiful G.o.d!"). This was a cake vender, carrying on his head a large wooden tray containing cakes and baked eggs. He uses this exclamation as an acknowledgment that G.o.d is the giver of our daily bread.

"Karim" was still sounding, when I heard a different strain, "Chai chai kirna cha-ee," which was sung in a sonorous nasal voice. This was a tea man. In one hand he carried a bright bra.s.s tea-urn of boiling water; in the other, several gla.s.ses, which he continually jingled against one another. Fastened round his waist he wore a circular tin case, containing gla.s.ses, a tea-pot, sugar, lemons, and tea-spoons. The tea man continues his walk through the streets till the day is far advanced, and he meets with a great many customers, for quite a number of Arabs consider a cup of tea a good remedy for a headache in the morning.

The pa.s.sers now increased, and they exchanged salutations such as "Nihar sad!" ("May your morning be enriched!")

There was a coffee shop opposite the window. This was the earliest opened. The waiters came out of the store carrying low stools, which they placed outside the shop along the sidewalk. Their dress was navy blue baggy trousers, which reached a little below the knee; white shirts, the sleeves of which were rolled over their elbows; crimson girdles, and white skull-caps. A couple were barefoot, and the others had red shoes on. They moved about lightly as they arranged the stools for customers.

A tall young man came toward his store, which was a grocery, and next the coffee shop; but before opening it he sat down on one of the low stools, and was at once served by one of the waiters with an "argille,"

or hubble-bubble, and a cup of coffee. He wore a suit of dark green cloth, a crimson satin vest, silk girdle of many colors, and a red tarboosh. Another gentleman came up, dressed in a similar costume, only of a bluish-gray. Before seating himself he saluted the other by a graceful wave of the hand, saying, "Issalaam alek," or "Peace be on you."

"Ou alek Issalaam" ("And unto you be peace"), responded the other.

These two are Christians, as can be seen by their dress. Two Mohammedans, dressed very much like the others, but each wearing a long loose "Jube" (which is a cloak) over his suit, and a white turban of fine Swiss muslin wound round his tarboosh, came and took seats, after having saluted the others with the same beautiful salutations. Many others in various costumes seated themselves, and conversation became general as they smoked their pipes and sipped their small cups of coffee.