Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 Part 2

"Whoa! whoa!" I shouted, leaping off the steps, and bringing him round into place again.

Turning to go back to the tragedy in the house, I nearly collided with Bessie. She was running out with the pail in her hand, and with all the Beck children following. Thrusting it upon me, she hurried into the carriage; then reaching after it, she wrapped it in the lap-robe, and leaned back with a sigh of relief.

During the few minutes that it took us to rattle home I wondered what was to be done with poor Coachy. I didn't have long to wait. I led the horse into the stable, and as I was returning I discovered my little girl sitting on the gra.s.s by a rose-bush, with what we had brought at her feet.

In a trembling voice she asked me if I would please find a shovel. I found one, and soon stood obedient beside Bessie and the pail.

"Right here, Uncle John," she whispered, flattening the tender gra.s.s beneath the rose-bush with her two dimpled hands--"right here where the sun shines."

So we dug a grave, and poured in that hot dinner. In it went, gravy and all--white meat, dark meat, legs, wings, and wish-bone!

Some months went by, and Uncle John came to Featherdale again. As he strolled through the garden in his purple-flowered flat-heeled slippers the morning after his arrival, he came to a little lonely mound. A small white board with scraggly letters on it stood there now. Uncle John stooped down, held aside the gra.s.s, and read, "Coachy," and "Forgive us our trespa.s.ses as we forgive them that trespa.s.s against us."

BAPTIZING COPTIC BABIES.

BY SARA KEABLES HUNT.

You have often witnessed the ceremony of infant baptism, when some sweet baby friend of yours has been brought forward to be christened, and have thought it a beautiful sight, as it indeed is; but the babies that I am going to tell you about now were less fortunate in their birth, for they were born of Egyptian parents--children of the Nile.

Would you like to hear of the strange ceremony?

We had been sailing all day, and at twilight had moored our diahbieh to the bank near a Coptic village. The Copts are said to be the native Egyptians, and pride themselves very much on their antiquity. As we looked out through the brilliant sunset tints that were flushing all the Nile Valley, the walls of an ancient convent rose before us, sharp and well defined in the clear atmosphere, its usual gloom banished by the bright and gorgeous coloring of the Egyptian sunset.

Somebody said, "There is to be a service in the old convent to-night; shall we go?"

It had been a monotonous day, and the walk and change looked attractive; so we were soon scrambling up the steep bank, and walking swiftly toward the old convent walls. The town consisted of a collection of square brown huts, their flat roofs covered with the nests of countless pigeons that are always swarming and cooing around every Egyptian dwelling-place. Quant.i.ties of water-jugs lay piled together by the side of the road, waiting to be sent down the river. As we came out into the open field, and on to the narrow beaten path which is raised slightly above the level to keep in the water of the inundation, we threw back our hats, and turned our faces to the glory of the sky and the cool refreshing breeze. All the air was sweet with growing grain. Away in the west the Libyan hills seemed quivering with the flush of the sunset, and the whole plain was wrapped in a glow of light. A short walk brought us to the church, and following the crowd which was rapidly a.s.sembling, we mingled with them and obtained seats.

The convent is a lofty inclosure, the roof formed by numerous small domes numbering nearly two hundred. Within is a small open court, an ordinary-sized church surrounded with many small chapels, and the apartments of the monks. Cleanliness is not one of the virtues of the Copts, so we may expect to find everything dirty and in need of repair.

I shall not tire you with a long account of the general services, of the clashing of cymbals and the loud voices of the priests, of the Coptic prayers and long ma.s.ses, of the blessing of the water when the priest stirred it with a long stick as he prayed, then, dipping a cloth into it, applying it to the wrists, insteps, and foreheads of all the men who came forward to receive it. Time would not permit me to describe this in detail; but the baptism of the children, which immediately followed in another part of the church, was a novel though pitiful sight, and one that will make you realize what a blessing it is to be born in an enlightened land.

The women's department is separated from that of the men; they are never allowed to enter the upper places, and in the ceremony of baptism of children the fathers do not appear.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

When all was ready, three little creatures were brought in, their dark eyes looking wonderingly around. Turning to the west, and holding her child, the mother promised to renounce the devil and all his works; then, facing the east, she held it forth to signify her acceptance of Christ for the child, after which it was sprinkled by the priest. But the ceremony did not end here, for the poor babes were taken to a font, and in the midst of long Coptic prayers they were disrobed and immersed three times. Then came the anointing with holy oil, the priest roughly and awkwardly--for he was very old--rubbing it over all the members and joints of the child from its wrist.

It was a cruel sight, for the church was quite cold, and as at last the poor little victims were dressed and handed back to their mothers, we hurried away. I lay for some time in my narrow berth that night unable to sleep and thinking of the ceremony I had just witnessed. At last I fell asleep, but only to see the faces of countless babies calling to me in vain for help, and when I awoke from my troubled dreams it was with a firm determination never again to see a Coptic baptism.

[Begun in No. 46 of HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE, September 14.]

WHO WAS PAUL GRAYSON?

BY JOHN HABBERTON,

AUTHOR OF "HELEN'S BABIES."

CHAPTER V.

THOSE JAIL-BIRDS.

Although the people of Laketon could not forgive Mr. Morton and Paul Grayson for not talking more about themselves and their past lives, they could not deny that both the teacher and his pupil were of decided value to the town. All the boys, whether in Mr. Morton's school or the public school, seemed to like Paul Grayson when they became acquainted with him, and the parents of the boys sensibly argued that there could not be anything very bad about a boy who was so popular. Besides, the other boys in talking about Paul declared that he never swore and never lied; and as lying and swearing were the two vices most common among the Laketon boys, and therefore most hated by the parents, they felt that there was, at least, no occasion to regard the new-comer with suspicion.

As for Mr. Morton, he rapidly made his way among the more solid citizens. He was willing to work, whether his services were required by church, Sunday-school, or society, and he did not care to hold office of any sort, so his sincerity was cheerfully admitted by all. When, however, he had one day, soon after his arrival, asked several prominent men why the town had no society or even person to visit the very poor and the persons who might be in prison, he ran some risk of being considered meddlesome.

"We know our own people best," said Sam Wardwell's father. "The only people here who suffer from poverty are those who won't work, while the few people who get into our jail are hard cases; half of them wouldn't listen to you if you talked to them, and the others would listen only to have an excuse to beg tobacco or something. There's a man in the jail now for pa.s.sing counterfeit money; he's committed for trial when the County Court sits in September; that man is just as smart as you or I.

He is as fine a looking fellow as you would wish to see, talks like a straightforward business man, and yet he pa.s.sed counterfeit bills at four different places in this town. What would talk do for such a fellow?"

"No one knows, until some one tries it," replied the teacher, quietly.

"Well, all I have to say is," remarked Mr. Wardwell, in a tone that was intended to be very sarcastic, "those who have plenty of time to waste must do the trying. If you want such work done, why don't you do it yourself?"

"I would cheerfully do it if it did not seem to be presumptuous on the part of a stranger."

"Don't trouble your mind about that," said the store keeper, with a laugh; "the counterfeiter is a stranger too, so matters will be even.

There's the sheriff, in front of the post-office; do you know him? No?

Let us step over, and I'll introduce you. And I'll wish you more luck than you'll have in the jail, if that will be of any consolation."

Mr. Morton found Sheriff Towler quite a pleasant man to talk to, and perfectly willing to have his prisoners improve in body and mind by any method except that of getting out of jail before their respective terms of imprisonment had expired, or before they were by superior authority ordered to some other place of confinement, as he, the sheriff, wished might at once be the case with John Doe, the man who was awaiting trial for pa.s.sing bad bank-notes. All this the sheriff said as he walked with Mr. Morton from the post-office to the jail. Arrived at the last-named building, the sheriff instructed his deputy, who had charge of the place, to admit Mr. Morton at any time that gentleman might care to converse with any of the prisoners.

The teacher walked first through the upper rooms, where a small but choice a.s.sortment of habitual drunkards and petty thieves were confined; these, as Sam Wardwell's father had predicted, either declined to converse or talked stupidly for a moment or two, and then begged either tobacco or money to buy it with. Still, Mr. Morton thought he saw in these wretched fellows some material to work upon, when time allowed.

Then he went below, and the deputy took him to the small grated window in the door of the strong cell for desperate offenders, and said to John Doe that a gentleman who was visiting the prisoners would like to speak with him. The deputy went away immediately after saying this, and Mr.

Morton quickly put his face to the grated window, a face appeared on the other side of the grating, and then, as Mr. Morton placed his hand between the bars, which were barely wide enough apart to admit it, he felt his fingers grasped most earnestly by the hand of the prisoner. If Mr. Wardwell could have felt that grasp and seen the prisoner's face, he might have greatly changed his opinion of smart prisoners in general.

Somehow John Doe preferred to restrict his remarks to whispers, and for some reason Mr. Morton humored him. The interview lasted but a few moments, and ended with a plea and a promise that another call should be made. Meanwhile, Mr. Wardwell had stood on a corner that commanded the jail, and when the teacher re-appeared the merchant asked, "Well?"

"They are a sad set," Mr. Morton admitted.

"I told you so," said Wardwell, rubbing his hands as if he were glad rather than sorry that the prisoners were as bad as he had thought them.

"And how did you find that rascally counterfeiter? I'll warrant he didn't care to see you?"

"On the contrary," replied the teacher, gravely, "he was very glad to see me. He begged me to come again. He was so glad to see some one not a jailer that he cried."

"Well, I never!" exclaimed the merchant. And he told the truth.

It was soon after this first visit of a series that lasted as long as Mr. Morton remained in the village that the boys changed their base-ball ground. They had generally played in some open ground on the edge of the town, but the teacher one day asked why they should go so far, when the entire square on which the court-house and jail stood was vacant, except for those two buildings. The boys spent a whole recess in considering this suggestion; then they reported it favorably to the other boys of the town, and it was adopted almost unanimously that very week; and Canning Forbes could always remember even the day of the month on which the first game was played, for he as a "fielder" caught the ball exactly on the tip of the longest finger of his left hand, and he staid home with that finger, and woke up nights with it, for a full week afterward.

Paul Grayson had not attended Mr. Morton's school a fortnight before every one knew that ball was his favorite game. This preference on the part of the new boy did not entirely please Benny Mallow, who preferred to have his new friend play marbles, and with him alone, because then he could talk to him a great deal, whereas at ball, even "town-ball," which needed but four boys to a game, there was not much opportunity for talking, while at base-ball the chances were less, even were Benny not so generally out of breath when he met Grayson on a "base" that conversation was impossible.