Harper's Young People, October 12, 1880 Part 3

But Grayson clung to ball; he did not seem to care much for it in the school-yard, which, indeed, was rather small for such games, but after school was dismissed in the afternoons he always tried to get up a game on the new grounds, and he generally succeeded. Even boys who did not care particularly for the sport had been told by Mr. Morton that about the only diversion of the wretched men in the jail was to look out the window while ball-playing was going on; and as Mr. Morton had begun to attain special popularity through his work among the prisoners, the boys who liked him, as most of them did, were glad to help him to the small extent they were able.

"I really can't see why Grayson should be so fond of ball," said Canning Forbes one afternoon, as he and several other boys lay under the big elm-tree behind the court-house and criticised the boys who were playing. "He isn't much of a pitcher, he doesn't bat very well, and he often loses splendid chances, while he's catcher, by not seeming to see the ball when it's coming. I wonder if his eyes can be bad?"

"I don't believe they are," said Will Palmer; "he is keen-sighted enough about everything else. Absent-mindedness is his great trouble; every once in a while he gets his eyes fixed on something as if he couldn't move them."

"He gets into a brown-study, you mean," suggested Forbes.

"That's it," a.s.sented Will.

"He's thinking about the splendors of the royal home that he is being kept away from," said Napoleon Nott. "You just ought to read what sort of place a royal home is," continued Notty. "I'll bring up the book some day and read it aloud to all of you fellows."

"No you won't, Notty," said Canning Forbes; "not if we have any legs left to run away with."

Some internal hints that supper-time was approaching broke up the game, and the boys moved off the ground, by twos and threes, until only Paul and Benny remained. Paul seemed in no particular hurry to start, and as Benny never seemed to imagine that Paul could see himself safely home from any place, he remained too.

"Benny," said Paul, suddenly, "did you ever see any one in jail?"

"No," said Benny, "I never did."

"Neither did I," said Paul, "but I'm curious to do so now. You needn't go with me; the sight might pain you too much."

"What? Just to go to the jail, and look up at the windows? Oh no; _that_ won't hurt me. I've done that lots of times."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WINDOW OF THE COUNTERFEITER'S CELL.]

"Very well," said Paul, moving toward the jail. He looked up at the windows as he walked; finally he stopped where he could look fairly at the small window of the cell where the counterfeiter was. The sun was not shining upon that side of the jail, so Benny could barely see there was a face behind the window. Evidently the prisoner was standing on a chair, for the little window was quite high. Paul's eyes seemed better than Benny's, however, for he continued looking at that window for some moments. When he finally turned away, it was because he could not see any longer, for his eyes were full of tears.

"Why, you're crying!" exclaimed Benny, in some astonishment. "What is the matter?"

"I'm so sorry for the poor fellow," replied Paul.

"I am too," said Benny, "awfully sorry. I wish I could cry about it, but somehow my eyes don't work right to-day. Some days I can cry real easily. Next time one of those days comes, I'll come over here with you, and let you see what I can do."

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

SANDY HOOK--ITS STORY.

Sandy Hook is one of the striking features in the scenery of New York.

It is a low point of sand projecting from below the Highlands into the sea. Before its extreme end runs the channel of deep water through which pa.s.ses all the commerce of the port--the most important of all the world's seats of trade. Beyond the deep channel the bar rises, covered with white breakers, and extends to the distant Rockaway sh.o.r.e. Around Sandy Hook all the interest of the scene centres, and its bare point, now marked by the new fortifications, has witnessed some of the most wonderful voyages of the past. It saw Verazzani in his antique craft--the most awkward and dangerous of vessels--make his way slowly, with lead and line, into the wide-spreading harbor, and trace for the first time the unknown sh.o.r.e. What a wild and lonely scene it was!--the home of a few savages and of wild beasts and birds. But Verazzani never came back, and the next ship that sailed by Sandy Hook into the tranquil bay was that of Hendrick Hudson.

His vessel, the _Half-Moon_, was a Dutch galliot, strongly built, as were all the Dutch ships of the time, but so small, heavy, and slow that it seems almost incredible that it should ever outlive a storm or make any headway on the sea. The stern and prow were high and broad, the bow round, the hull unwieldy, the masts and sails too small for such a vessel, and the rudder almost unmanageable. Compared with the modern sailing ship, nothing could seem more inconvenient or unfit for navigating stormy seas than these vessels of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yet with them Barentz broke into the icy ocean of the North, and defied the arctic cold. Great fleets of them, sometimes numbering several hundred, sailed from Amsterdam around the Cape of Good Hope to the East Indies, drove off the Portuguese, and came back laden with the precious products of the East--gems, gold, and spices. The immense quant.i.ty of cloves and cinnamon used by our ancestors is startling. But the slow ships sailed safely along the African sh.o.r.e on both sides, and in the midst of pirates, privateers, storms, and cyclones made profitable voyages that gave Holland a wonderful prosperity.

The _Half-Moon_ crossed the bar, anch.o.r.ed in the lower bay, and the Dutch navigators proceeded cautiously to survey the hostile sh.o.r.e of Coney Island, where now the countless visitors of Manhattan or Brighton Beach gather on summer evenings, and at length ventured to sail up through the Narrows, drew near to Manhattan Island, and saw some of its early inhabitants. The first New-Yorkers were very indifferently clad; but the young ladies--squaws, as they were called--were well acquainted with paint and powder, and had an inexhaustible appet.i.te for feathers, beads, and other finery. Sh.e.l.ls were the money of the country; and fur robes, rich with embroidery, were worn by the chiefs.

After a pleasant voyage in September, 1609, up the Hudson River to Albany, the famous navigator pa.s.sed through the harbor out to sea, and then sailed away, never to return--unless we accept Irving's legend, and hear with Rip Van Winkle the roar of the b.a.l.l.s of the Dutch sailors as they play their weird games amongst the Catskills, while the lightning flashes and the thunder peals in the dismal night. But Sandy Hook now became a well-known scene to the Dutch sailors. Immigrants came over; a few houses were built at first on New York Island; Albany was settled in 1614, and the same year Adrian Block, when his own ship was burned, built a new one on the Manhattan sh.o.r.e. It was the first vessel produced in this centre of the world's trade. It was not quite as broad as it was long; but its length of keel was thirty-eight feet, on deck it was nearly forty-five feet, and its breadth about eleven and a half. On this peculiar craft the gallant explorer set out to survey the great East River. He pa.s.sed safely the perils of both h.e.l.l Gates, coasted the unknown sh.o.r.es to Block Island, and left an imperishable name on that pleasant summer resort. New Amsterdam became a famous seat of trade. Fur and tobacco were its chief commodities. A fine tobacco plantation stretched along the East River at Corlaer's Hook, and at Albany the Van Rensselaers and Schuylers contended for the fur trade of the savages, sometimes coming to blows. Many Dutch galliots now sailed leisurely over from old Amsterdam to the new. New York Island was covered with rich farms. In 1679 peaches were so plenty that they were fed to the swine; strawberries covered the ground in rare profusion. Sheltered within the protecting arm of Sandy Hook, the little city nourished and grew great.

It had no idle hands. Its burgomasters all either kept shops, taverns, or worked on farms, and scorned sloth. All was prosperous growth, under the famous Governor Stuyvesant, when suddenly, in August, 1664, for the first time, a hostile English fleet sailed up the great harbor, and anch.o.r.ed in Gravesend Bay. It was composed of two fifty-gun ships and one of forty, with six hundred soldiers. The consternation in the city was great; but Governor Stuyvesant ordered the guns to be run out on the fort at the end of Broadway, called out the militia, and prepared for a desperate contest.

MASTER n.o.bLE'S LESSON.

BY MRS. ANNIE A. PRESTON.

When Master n.o.ble was appointed to take charge of the Oak Bridge schools, he found, much to his surprise, that in every grade, from the Primary to the High Schools, there were many pupils who had frequently been promoted to higher cla.s.ses, but, failing to get their lessons during the first term, had, at examination, been sent back to a lower grade again.

This had become such a common occurrence in the schools in Oak Bridge that the spirit of honest and praiseworthy emulation was lost, and the pupils felt it to be no humiliation or disgrace to be dropped from a higher cla.s.s to a lower one.

"Something must be done to impress upon them the disgrace of such indifference, and to arouse their ambition," thought the new master, and he forthwith invited all the young folks in the community to meet him the next Sat.u.r.day afternoon at the Town-hall to listen to a story that he would tell.

Of course the promise of a story from the popular new master, and the fact that he had recently returned from extensive travels, called the children and young people all out, and this is what they heard:

"It is said that years ago a beautiful little brown sparrow made her home in the garden of a certain great and renowned magician. She built her nest in the gra.s.s, and was content to hop and chirp about in the rose thicket, and to keep very near the ground indeed.

"She might have been happy enough had she not allowed herself to be afraid of the robin-redbreast that had a nest in the golden sweet apple-tree, and was always fluttering down and hop-hop-hopping across the gra.s.s-plot, and pecking this way and that at the smaller birds.

"The wise and tender-hearted magician, who had been closely watching proceedings, had so much sympathy for the timid, trembling little sparrow that he said, 'She shall have a chance in the world,' and he forthwith changed her into a robin.

"No sooner had she got over the novelty of her new situation than she began to be afraid of the pigeon-hawk that came sailing down from the wood near by in search of prey. So the magician, still thinking to make something of the timorsome little bird which was his pet, now changed her into a pigeon-hawk.

"Immediately she cast affrighted glances at the big gray owl that lived in a hollow tree farther back toward the edge of the forest, and who came out on a dead branch at night-fall, and hooted until the hill-side rang again with the unearthly screeches, and all the smaller birds tucked their heads under their wings, and put their claws over their ears to shut out the sound.

"'I will persevere,' said the tender-hearted magician; 'I may make something of her yet;' and straightway the pigeon-hawk became an owl, with a voice equal to any of the owls' in all that forest.

"But now, instead of making the most of her opportunity, and _being_ a real, vigorous owl, she backed into the old hollow tree, her great staring eyes round with terror, as she tremblingly listened to the terrific screams of a monstrous eagle whose eyrie was on the mountain-side facing the sunrise.

"'You shall be a sparrow again!' angrily cried the magician. 'You have only the life and heart and spirit of a sparrow after all. What is the use of my trying to make anything else of you? Had you a.s.serted and kept your position as an owl, I would soon have made you an eagle, and you could have proudly soared above all the birds of the air. I have done my best to help you along, but you have not made one effort in your own behalf.'

"It is the same with a boy or a girl," continued Master n.o.ble. "If pupils have only the heart and the will and the intellect of a sparrow, they will remain sparrows in spite of all their teachers may do to help them on and to encourage them. _Study_ and _will_ are the magicians that help them to maintain their promotion, and the public examination is the great magician that a.s.signs them their advanced positions.

"The world over, sparrow-hearted people are getting into eagles' nests, but keen-eyed public opinion is the great magician who says, 'Go back to the thicket and to the gra.s.s-plot again! You have only the heart and the brain of a sparrow; there is no use in trying to make eagles of you.'"

That is why to this day the names of those birds are the symbols of the different grades in the Oak Bridge schools, and Master n.o.ble has never once been obliged to say, "_Go back and be a sparrow again._"

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE STORM-PETREL.]

THE STORM-PETREL.

Ages ago this little web-footed fellow was named Petrel, after the Apostle Peter, because he is most often seen walking on the waves--never in them, but just daintily skimming their surface.