Harper's Young People, May 11, 1880 Part 11

Quartermaster Disjouval, seeking to beguile the tedium of his eight years of prison life at Utrecht, had studied attentively the habits of the spider. In December of 1794 the French army, on whose success his restoration to liberty depended, was in Holland, and victory seemed certain if the frost, then of unprecedented severity, continued. The Dutch Envoy had failed to negotiate a peace, and Holland was despairing, when the frost suddenly broke. The Dutch were now exulting, and the French Generals prepared to retreat; but the spider warned Disjouval that the thaw would be of short duration. He contrived to communicate with the army of his countrymen, and its Generals relied upon his a.s.surance that within a few days the water would again be pa.s.sable by troops. They delayed their retreat. Within twelve days the frost had returned, and the French army triumphed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND CHARMING, I PRACTICED BABY-FARMING."]