Harper's Young People, February 3, 1880 Part 6

"She must rest awhile. A short nap will entirely restore her," said Mrs.

m.u.f.f.

At that moment Mr. Hopkins put his head in the arbor, and announced supper was served.

"Now," said Mrs. m.u.f.f, "while you are at supper Alicia shall go to sleep, and I will watch her."

Ellie looked out, and saw a table spread on the croquet ground. "Well, well, how quick rabbits are! I wonder what they have to eat;" and she ran along with the rest of the party to find out. The table was loaded with nice things--apples and celery in abundance, and piles and piles of popped corn. Lord Lepus had never seen any before, and was so much pleased with it, Mr. Hopkins ordered a waiter to fill a bag and give it to his lords.h.i.+p when he left. "How strange," thought Ellie; "mamma says it is very impolite to carry away anything to eat when you go to parties. But perhaps it is different with rabbits."

When they had finished supper, Mr. c.a.w.kins and son--the band--came flapping down and picked up everything that was on the table. "I suppose that playing makes them hungry," thought Ellie; "but how fast they do eat!"

When the last kernel of popped corn had disappeared, the crows flew back to their perch and began to play the liveliest, merriest tune Ellie had ever heard. Mr. Hopkins said to Lord Lepus, "Will your lords.h.i.+p join us in dancing the merry-go-round? It is our national dance, and we always have it on New-Year's Eve."

"I shall be most happy; and here comes the fair Alicia, looking as fresh as a daisy. I will secure her for my partner."

But Mr. Hopkins formed them into a circle, and they began to dance around, singing as they went. Ellie listened, and caught the words,

"Come dance, come dance the merry-go-round, With sprightly leap and joyous bound.

We'll grasp each hand with right good cheer, And welcome in the glad new year.

Oh, the merry-go-round, the merry-go-round, We'll dance till day is dawning."

They flew around fast and faster, till Ellie could not tell one from another. They looked like a streak on the snow.

"Dear me, how dizzy they will get! Poor Alicia will certainly have the headache," thought Ellie; but still quicker went the music, and still faster flew the dancers. All of a sudden Ellie was startled by a loud "caw." She felt some one shaking her shoulder, and a voice in her ear said, "Wake up, Miss Ellie, wake up. The hall clock has just struck half past nine, and to think of your being out of bed at this hour! What will your mamma say? That giddy-pate Sarah told me she would undress you, for I was called away."

"I am so glad," said sleepy little Ellie, "for I have seen the merry-go-round."

Nurse gathered her up in her arms, and bore her to the nursery.

"Nursey," asked Ellie, "are English hares better than our rabbits?"

"Yes, miss, much better for soup."

"Soup!" cried Ellie; "how dreadful, when he was so beautifully dressed!"

"Yes," said nurse, "we like to have them dressed; they are so hard to skin."

"What do you mean?" exclaimed Ellie. "He wore such a beautiful long coat, and had on a locket and three rings."

"Dear me," thought nurse, "she has been in the moonlight so long I am afraid it has turned her brain. She certainly seems a little looney. The sooner she is undressed and in her bed, the better."

"Oh, nursey, the next time baby has any teeth coming, put on a porous plaster, and it will pull them right through his gums."

"Bless the child! What is she talking about now? Hares and plasters! The moon is a dangerous thing, and Sarah shall be well scolded for her neglect."

As Ellie laid her head on the pillow, she said, "They danced the merry-go-round, and at the end of every verse they sang, 'Oh, the merry-go-round, the merry-go-round, we'll--dance--till--day--'"

Nurse looked, and saw that little Ellie was fast asleep.

A WISE DOG.

Many anecdotes have been published respecting dogs, proving that, besides giving evidence of being endowed with certain moral qualities, they possess and exercise memory, reasoning powers, and forethought; they can communicate with each other, form plans, and act in concert.

The subject, however, is by no means exhausted, and dog stories almost always meet with a welcome reception, especially from juvenile readers.

The following story gives an instance, in the first place, of two dogs combining to perform a certain action; in the second place, it shows that one of these dogs evidently understood from the conversation of his master and another man the consequences likely to result from this action, and that he thereupon formed and carried out a plan to avoid them.

[Ill.u.s.tration: COME OUT AND HAVE SOME FUN.]

A farmer who resided in a town on the borders of Dartmoor was the owner of a valuable sheep-dog. So skillful was this dog in collecting and driving the sheep, that he almost performed the part of a shepherd. If the farmer, on his return from market, wanted the sheep to be driven to the field, he had only to say, "Keeper, take the sheep to field," and the dog would collect the flock and drive them to the field without suffering a single one to stray. But the proverb, "Evil communications corrupt good manners," is as applicable to dogs as to men. Keeper got acquainted with another dog, which proved to be of disreputable character, and like other disreputable characters, had a habit of rambling about at night. When the farmer was smoking his evening pipe by the kitchen fire, and Keeper was stretched along the hearth, apparently asleep, a low bark would be heard outside; Keeper would p.r.i.c.k up his ears, and when the door was opened, would make his escape and join his companion, and then away would go both dogs on a ramble.

This game was carried on for some little time; Keeper's bad habits were not suspected at home, and he did his duty by his master's sheep as faithfully as ever. In the mean time it became known in the town that a few miles distant many sheep had been "worried" by dogs, but as yet the culprit or culprits had not been discovered. It may, perhaps, be as well to explain that by "worrying" sheep is meant that they have been attacked by dogs, which seize the sheep by the throat, bite them, and suck the blood, and then leave them to perish. In a single night one dog has been known to "worry" forty sheep. No wonder such animals are a terror to farmers. Besides, if a dog once takes to "worrying" sheep, he never leaves off the habit.

One evening as the farmer sat by his fire smoking and conversing with a neighbor, Keeper as usual basking by the fire, and waiting the expected call of his dog companion, the conversation turned on the great number of sheep that had been lately "worried" and destroyed, and the loss that would ensue to the farmers.

"Well," said the neighbor, "we caught one on 'em, with his mouth and coat b.l.o.o.d.y, and we hanged him up on the spot. They do say thy dog Keeper was with un."

"It is too true, he was there," replied the farmer; then looking at the apparently sleeping dog, and shaking his head at him, he said, "Thee knows thee has been with un. Thy turn will come next. We'll hang thee up to-morrow."

Keeper lay still, pretending sleep, but with his ears open. He had heard his death-warrant, and was determined that it should not be carried into execution if he could prevent it. When the outer door was opened, he slunk off quietly, and was never seen again.

What became of him was never known.

Who will say after this that dogs do not understand the conversation of men, especially when it relates to "worrying" sheep, and the punishment it entails on the guilty dogs?

[Ill.u.s.tration: Music: A Fox went out in a hungry plight.]

=The Lesson of the Bath.=--One of the most valuable discoveries made by Archimedes, the famous scholar of Syracuse, in Sicily, relates to the weight of bodies immersed in water. Hiero, King of Syracuse, had given a lump of gold to be made into a crown, and when it came back he suspected that the workmen had kept back some of the gold, and had made up the weight by adding more than the right quant.i.ty of silver; but he had no means of proving this, because they had made it weigh as much as the gold which had been sent. Archimedes, puzzling over this problem, went to his bath. As he stepped in he saw the water, which his body displaced, rise to a higher level in the bath, and to the astonishment of his servants he sprang out of the water, and ran home through the streets of Syracuse almost naked, crying, "_Eureka! Eureka!_" ("I have found it! I have found it!").

What had he found? He had discovered that any solid body put into a vessel of water displaces a quant.i.ty of water equal to its own bulk, and therefore that equal weights of two substances, one light and bulky, and the other heavy and small, will displace different quant.i.ties of water.

This discovery enabled him to solve his problem. He procured one lump of gold and another of silver, each weighing exactly the same as the crown.

Of course the lumps were not the same size, because silver is lighter than gold, and so it takes more of it to make up the same weight. He first put the gold into a basin of water, and marked on the side of the vessel the height to which the water rose.

Next, taking out the gold, he put in the silver, which, though it weighed the same, yet, being larger, made the water rise higher; and this height he also marked. Lastly, he took out the silver and put in the crown. Now if the crown had been pure gold, the water would have risen only up to the mark of the gold, but it rose higher, and stood between the gold and silver marks, showing that silver had been mixed with it, making it more bulky; and by calculating how much water was displaced, Archimedes could estimate roughly how much silver had been added. This was the first attempt to measure the _specific gravity_ of different substances; that is, the weight of any particular substance compared to an equal bulk of some other substance taken as a standard.

In weighing solids or liquids, water is the usual standard.

=How this Solid Earth keeps Changing.=--The student of history reads of the great sea-fight which King Edward III. fought with the French off Sluys; how in those days the merchant vessels came up to the walls of that flouris.h.i.+ng sea-port by every tide; and how, a century later, a Portuguese fleet conveyed Isabella from Lisbon, and an English fleet brought Margaret of York from the Thames, to marry successive Dukes of Burgundy at the port of Sluys. In our time, if a modern traveller drives twelve miles out of Bruges, across the Dutch frontier, he will find a small agricultural town, surrounded by corn fields and meadows and clumps of trees, whence the sea is not in sight from the top of the town-hall steeple. This is Sluys.

Once more. We turn to the great Baie du Mont Saint Michel, between Normandy and Brittany. In Roman authors we read of the vast forest called "Setiac.u.m Nemus," in the centre of which an isolated rock arose, surmounted by a temple of Jupiter, once a college of Druidesses. Now the same rock, with its glorious pile dedicated to St. Michael, is surrounded by the sea at high tides. The story of this transformation is even more striking than that of Sluys, and its adequate narration justly earned for M. Manet the gold medal of the French Geographical Society in 1828.