Various

“ Uncle Daniel laid his hand affectionately on the head of the boy whom he had cared for with the tenderness of a father since the day he repented and asked forgiveness for having run away, and his voice trembled as he said:
"It is very likely that the good God will take the crippled boy to Himself to-night, Toby, and there in the heavenly mansions will he find relief from all his pain and infirmities. Then the poor-farm boy will no longer be an orphan or deformed, but with his Almighty Father will enter into such joys as we can have no conception of."
"Oh, Uncle Dan'l! must Abner really die?" ”

“ Pepper around by their longest route for home. The whole thing was a hastily but cleverly planned scheme. And Ford could do nothing—alone; the nearest houses in the village two miles up the mountain; his swollen foot!
Had he forgotten Leo? The thought darted into his confused mind like a flash. He leaned forward into a ray of light, and drew out gently his pencil, and the envelope, still undirected, in which was his letter to Harry North. He managed to control his excitement and terror enough to scrawl upon it: "There are burglars in our house. Come quick, somebody. Ford Bonner." ”

“ Jube forgot, however, that the water-melon didn't have any arms to catch hold with, and no wrinkly trousers to catch hold of, and besides it was smooth and bunchy, and would spoil a good deal easier if it should happen to drop. He had no more than tottered through the rails that Farmer Tappan had let down for him than he began to feel as if he had a baby elephant in his arms, and before he had struggled a hundred feet down the road, he imagined the elephant had grown big enough to be its own grandfather. ”

“ They must know better. Take my advice, my dear boys, and get canvas canoes. All the really good canoeists in the country would say the same thing to you."
"We must try," said Joe, as the boys walked back to the Commodore's office, "to believe that the 'Rice Laker,' the 'Shadow,' the 'Rob Roy,' and the canvas canoe is the best one ever built. It seems to me something like believing that four and one are just the same. Perhaps you fellows can do it, but I'm not strong enough to believe as much as that all at one time." ”

“ Aunt Pepper laughed. "Why does a man always choose just the wrong day of all others?" she said, merrily. "Amzi and Mira" (Mira was Amzi's wife and Aunt Pepper's cook) "wanted to go to New York to-day to attend that wedding—her sister's, you recollect. They started early (at four o'clock) for the station, and I don't expect them back until long after we're in bed to-night. I can't leave the house and Ford to take care of themselves."
"Oh yes, you can," laughed Uncle Pepper. "Ford might go along if it wouldn't be a hot and stupid day in town for him—we shall be so busy. ”

“ There was Harry's uncle, who had already furnished his nephew and his young comrades first with a row-boat, and then with a sail-boat. Even a benevolent uncle deserves some mercy, and the boys agreed that it would never do to ask Uncle John to spend three hundred dollars in canoes for them. "The most we can ask of him," said Charley Smith, "is to let us sell the Ghost and use the money to help pay for canoes." ”

“ Now anything that is in motion, like that bunch of feathers over there, really does scare me, for I never know how far it will swing; but the idea of any intelligent crow being frightened at this thing—why, it is preposterous. And then the contemptible way in which they treat us, too—shooting us whenever they have a chance. Now there comes a crowd up the road in a wagon. They won't hurt us; they are afraid to shoot when the horses are around. Hullo! one man is getting out, and, as I live, he has a gun. ”

“ It is light and strong, and if you knock a hole in it, you can mend it in five minutes. If you want to spend a great deal of money and own a yacht that is too small to sail in with comfort and too clumsy to be paddled, buy a wooden canoe; but if you really want to cruise, you will, of course, get canvas canoes."
"We have been advised to get 'Rice Lakers,' 'Shadows,' and 'Rob Roys,'" said Tom, "and we did not know until now that there was such a thing as a canvas canoe."
"It is very sad," replied the canoeist, "that people should take pleasure in giving such advice. ”

“ The second bowling is conducted precisely as the first; but he who bowls three times without passing the ball into a hole loses a point, and if he have lost one before, becomes "a tenner"; he must still go on, until he succeeds in putting the ball into a hole; it is his own fault if he bowls into that which belongs to himself. A party who misses his aim a second time becomes a "tenner," he who loses a third point "a fifteener," and when four points are lost, the party stands out. The game goes on until all the players are out but one ”

“ Paris in those days was a place in which it was hard for a young man to fear God and himself, and that Gluck lived free from the sins of those about him ought to make us less severe in judging the weakness of his later years. He began to use stimulants for his health, and gradually became addicted to drinking to drown thought and fire him for his work.
Fashion governed art and music very curiously in those days. It was in 1746 that there was a rage in England for what was called the "glasses." ”

“ The idea that electricity and lightning were one and the same seems to have been first entertained about the middle of the seventeenth century. Many experiments were made to establish the relationship, but without any decisive result, when one of our own countrymen, Benjamin Franklin, gave a new impulse to the science. After a number of experiments, he was impressed with the idea that a metal point raised to a great height in the air would form a conductor for the electricity stored in the thunder-clouds. ”

“ But perhaps you have already heard enough to make up your minds."
"We're farther from making up our minds than ever," said Harry. "I do wish you would tell us what kind of canoe is really the best."
"The truth is," said the Commodore, "that there isn't much to choose among the different models of canoes, and you'll find that every canoeist is honestly certain that he has the best one. Now I won't undertake to select canoes for you, though I will suggest that a light 'Rob Roy' would probably be a good choice for the smallest of you boys. ”

“ As for the causes of the war between Egypt and England, it would take a far more learned personage than the Postmistress to make it plain to you. The principal cause seems to be that through the Suez Canal lies the highway to England's immense possessions in India, and England can not afford to let Egypt shut up or barricade this path. You and other young gentlemen who are interested in this war should read the daily and weekly newspapers carefully, and listen to the conversation of intelligent men who have studied the question. ”

“ Even in our days this idea has not entirely died out, and in those countries where people are ignorant lightning is still regarded as a mark of God's anger and a visitation sent for the punishment of sin. But with the spread of scientific knowledge it has been robbed of its terrors, and in the lightning-rod a means has been given us of attracting and controlling the electric current, and thus protecting ourselves from harm. ”

“ It is a very easy thing for four boys to make up their minds to get four canoes and to go on a canoe cruise, but it is not always so easy to carry out such a project, as Charley Smith, Tom Schuyler, Harry Wilson, and Joe Sharpe discovered.
Canoes cost money; and though some canoes cost more than others, it is impossible to buy a new wooden canoe of an approved model for less than seventy-five dollars. Four canoes, at seventy-five dollars each, would cost altogether three hundred dollars. ”

“ In certain places, where the ground is formed of a particular kind of sand, and lightning enters it from a cloud, the expansion of the air, as the electricity rushes through, forces it back in all directions, and the heat melts it into glass at the same time. ”

“ Scientific men are agreed that lightning is electricity, differing in no wise from that which can be produced by rubbing a piece of amber or by an electrical machine, except in power; but of what might be called the inner nature of this electricity they are quite ignorant. They can only observe and study its effects. ”

“ She weighs twenty pounds less than those great, lumbering canal-boats, the 'Shadow' and the 'Rice Laker,' and it don't break your back to paddle her or to carry her round a dam. She is decked over, but her deck isn't all cut up with hatches. There's plenty of room to sleep in her, and her water-tight compartments are what they pretend to be—not a couple of leaky boxes stuffed full of blankets. ”

“ I have two dear little brothers, one named Mello and the other Garibaldi, and a sweet little sister named Minnie; they all like Young People very much, especially little Mello, who delights to sit for hours looking at the pictures. I have two dear little pet squirrels, which we caught on the mountain in little traps. We put a small piece of apple in the trap, and set it on the fence that runs up the side of the mountain, and it is great fun to watch them go in the traps. ”

“ Lightning is divided into two kinds, which you will recognize under the names of sheet and forked lightning. Sheet lightning is supposed to be caused by the discharge of electricity over a large space, while forked [Pg 667] lightning consists of a ball of fire rushing with exceeding swiftness through the air, and very often destroying everything in its way. ”

“ Ford Bonner may live to be a very old man—he is "going on" fifteen now—but it is likely that he will always recollect what occurred upon a certain dark evening in August two years ago. Ford's father and mother were travelling in Europe that summer; hence Ford, who was all the rest of the year a boarding-school-boy of the first water, spent his vacation at his Uncle Pepper's country place.
Ford's chief companion from day to day, as he scrambled among the rocky spurs, was Leo. Leo was a Scotch grayhound, Major Pepper's particular pet. ”

“ I have been taking Harper's Young People for almost a year now, and like it very much. I have not very many pets. I have a horse, a little colt, and a cow with a calf. Mamma has two little Maltese kittens, and they are very pretty. We spent one winter out in Southern Oregon, where my papa owns a gold mine. It was very lonesome there, as there were very few neighbors. My two sisters and I go to school. The school-house is almost a mile from home. My youngest sister is the baby; she is thirteen months old, but she can not walk yet.
Deadie A. ”

“ Although they are very cunning pets, I can not help feeling sorry for them when shut up in cages, for they so dearly love their liberty, and are so merry when leaping from bough to bough in the woods. ”

“ Galveston is on the sea-coast, and has a splendid beach. There is a beautiful pavilion on it, and a great many bathing-houses. I have been bathing twice this summer, and it is perfectly delightful. Several nights in the week they have music, and sky-rockets are shot off. The beach is a great place for driving. Every evening carriages and vehicles of every description are passing up and down. The last time I was there a buggy ran over a little boy, and he was badly hurt.
Ethel T. S.
New York City. ”

“ The babe is also the great-grandson of the good Queen Victoria, but the little fellow is too young to know to what honors he is born. His father, who stands on the right, is himself the son of the Crown Prince, who will be the successor of the sturdy old Emperor William when he shall have passed away. ”

“ The snake glided, or rather writhed, swiftly between my little brother's legs, without touching him, and disappeared quickly out of sight, probably in the crevice of a tree or hole.
It would be idle to tell my readers what superstitious meaning was held by the natives at my little brother's escape, but they believed that he was especially singled out by the great God from earthly harm.
THE CHICKS AND THE WORM.
A brood of young chicks are surrounding a worm,
Much puzzled they are as they see the thing squirm.
What is to be done? they ask one another. ”

“ He raised the kite during a storm, and was delighted to feel, on applying his finger to the string, a slight spark. For the first time man had succeeded in coaxing the lightning from the clouds, and playing with it. This occurred in 1752.
Scientific men everywhere now began to devote themselves to the study of electricity. It was discovered that lightning burns its way, setting fire even to metals, and melting sand into glass by momentary contact. ”

“ The Captain of the schooner met the boys on the dock. He was in excellent spirits, for the brig was loaded with valuable South American timber, and he was sure of receiving as much as ten thousand dollars from her owners. He knew very well that while the boys had no legal right to any of the money, they had worked hard in trying to save the brig, and had been the means of putting her in his way. He happened to be an honest, generous man, and he felt very rich; so he insisted on making each of the boys a present. ”

“ Stubbs's brother is so bad, and Joe's squirrels an' Bob's mice are all gone. Ben's hen don't look as if she'd ever 'mount to much, an' it don't seem to me that he can get Mrs. Simpson's cat an' every one of the kittens out from under the barn."
"Now don't go to worryin' about that, Toby," said Aunt Olive, as she patted him on the head, and gave him a large piece of cake at the same time. "You can get a dozen cats for Mrs. Simpson if she wants 'em; and as for mice, you tell Bob to set his trap out in the granary two or three times, an' he'll have as many as he can take care of. ”