Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 Part 2

In the midst of the din and hurly-burly, the las.h.i.+ng water, and the blinding spray, a terrible thought suddenly occurs to me. "By Jove! all my sugar's in the bottom of my store chest. It'll be all melted, to a certainty."

"Shouldn't wonder," remarks my friend, with that quiet fort.i.tude wherewith men are wont to bear the misfortunes of other people.

"However, you can get some more at Samarcand; and, after all, a trunk lined with sugar will be worth exhibiting at home--if you ever get there."

For the next few minutes it is "touch and go" with us; but even among Asiatics nothing can be spun out forever. Little by little the water grows shallower, the ground firmer, the strain less and less violent, till at length we come out upon dry land once more, decant the contents of the arba back into the cart, reward our pilots, and are off again.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE TUG OF WAR

This is an old English game, which has become a favorite athletic exercise in almost all countries, as a trial of strength and endurance.

In England it used to be called "French and English," from the ancient rivalry that existed between the two nationalities. Our picture shows how the game is played. Care should be taken to have a stout rope, and the players should be divided so that each party may as nearly as possible be of equal strength. The party that pulls the other over a line marked on the ground between them is the winner in the game.

Sometimes a string is tied on the rope, and when the game begins this string should be directly over the dividing line. It often happens that the parties are so evenly matched that neither can pull the string more than an inch or two over the line; and then it becomes a trial of endurance, and the question is which side can hold out the longer.

Among the Burmese the "tug of war" is a part of the religious ceremonies held when there is a scarcity of rain. Instead of rope, long, slender canes are twisted together, and spokes are thrust through to give a firm hold. The sides are taken by men from different quarters of a town, or from different villages. Each side is marshalled by two drums and a harsh wind-instrument, which make a hideous noise. A few priests are generally seen squatting on the ground near by, chewing the betel-nut, and reading their laws, which are printed on slips of palm leaf. Every now and then they give a shout of encouragement. Each side tries to pull the other over the line, amid shouts and cries of the most vigorous description. It makes no difference which side wins the day, as victory to either party is supposed by the superst.i.tious natives to bring the wished-for rain. Continued drought does not discourage them from repeating the ceremony time after time; and when the rain comes at last they firmly believe it is in answer to their incantations.

FOUND IN A FROG.

BY MISS VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON,

AUTHOR OF "THE CATSKILL FAIRIES."

The sun had risen when Gita awoke. She lived at the top of a tall old house with her grandmother, and both were poor. When she had put on her thin cotton gown, and smoothed her hair with her small brown hands, Gita ran down stairs lightly; and these stairs--some crooked stone steps in a dark pa.s.sage--would have broken our necks to descend. She came out in a narrow street with the tall houses almost meeting overhead, and steep paths or flights of steps leading down to the sh.o.r.e. The town was Mentone, in the south of France, with the boundary line of Italy not half a mile distant. At one end of the street was visible the blue sky, and two churches, yellow and white, on an open square, with towers, where the bells were ringing.

Gita felt in her pocket for a crust of hard bread, and began to eat.

This was her breakfast, and if she had been richer she would have drunk a little black coffee with it. As it was, she paused at the fountain, where the women were gossiping as they drew water in buckets, and placed her mouth under the spout.

Raphael came along, and greeted her. Raphael, a tall young fellow with bright eyes, a face the color of bronze, and a little black mustache, was the son of a merchant who kept goats and donkeys for the visitors who came here every year. The goats furnished rich milk for the invalids to drink, while the ladies and children rode the donkeys. Gita found Raphael very handsome.

He wore a curious straw hat with the brim turned up, a s.h.i.+rt striped with red, blue pantaloons, and a yellow sash about his waist. One could see he esteemed himself rather a dandy. In turn Raphael found Gita the prettiest girl of his acquaintance, with her large black eyes, brown face, and white teeth. Besides, Gita was amiable, and did not mock at him when he walked on the Promenade on Sunday with his hat on one side, and a cigarette in his mouth.

"I have asked the consent of my parents to our marriage," said Raphael.

"They refuse, unless you have a dower of at least a hundred francs. We must wait."

Gita sighed and shook her head as she pursued her way down to the sh.o.r.e.

In these countries the young people must obtain the consent of their parents to marry, and the bride should have a dowry. Gita had not a penny; Raphael's father might as well have asked him to bring the moon as one hundred francs.

Grandmother was seated under an archway, with her little furnace before her, roasting chestnuts. Grandmother, a wrinkled old woman, with a red handkerchief wound about her head, was a chestnut merchant. The sailors, children, and Italians coming over the border bought her wares, and when she was not employed in serving them she twisted flax on a distaff.

"Raphael's father needs a dowry of one hundred francs," said Gita, as grandmother gave her a few chestnuts.

"Ah, if you were a lemon girl!" said grandmother, beginning to twist the flax.

Gita poised a basket on her head, took a white stocking from her pocket, and began to knit as she walked away. The women of the country carry all burdens on their heads. You may see a mother with a mound of cut gra.s.s on her head, dandling a little baby in her arms as she moves along.

Grandmother had been a lemon girl in her day, but Gita was not strong enough. The lemon girls bring the fruit on their heads many miles, from the lemon groves down to the s.h.i.+ps, when they are sent to America and other distant lands.

When you next taste a lemonade at a Sunday-school picnic, little reader, remember how far the lemon has travelled to furnish you this refres.h.i.+ng drink.

Gita went along the sh.o.r.e knitting, her empty basket tilted on her head.

The blue Mediterranean Sea sparkled as far as the eye could reach, and broke on the pebbles of the beach in waves as clear as crystal. Soon she turned back toward the hills, following a narrow path between high garden walls, pa.s.sed under a railroad bridge, and entered an olive garden. She worked here all day, gathering up the little black olives which fall from the trees, much as children gather nuts in the woods at home. Other women were already at work; their dresses of gay colors, yellow and red, showed against the gray background of the trees. A boy beat the branches with a long pole. Gita began to work with the rest.

She did not think much about the olive-tree, although it was a good friend. She was paid twenty sous a day to gather the berries from the ground, which were then taken to the crus.h.i.+ng mill up the ravine to be made into oil. Gita ate the green lemons plucked from the trees as a child of the North would eat apples, but she loved the good olive-oil better. When the grandmother made a feast, it was to fry the little silvery sardines in oil, so crisp and brown.

The olive-tree is a native of Asia Minor, and often mentioned in the Bible. Some of the trees in the garden where Gita now worked were so old that the Romans saw them when they conquered the world.

At noon the olive-pickers paused to rest. Gita went away alone, and ate the handful of chestnuts given her by grandmother. When she returned to the town at night she would have another bit of bread and a raw onion.

She seated herself on the edge of the ravine, and thought about Raphael as she munched her nuts. Below, this path traversed the ravine, and climbed the opposite slope to the wall of a pretty villa, one of the houses occupied for the winter by rich strangers. Gita looked at the villa, with its window shaded by lace curtains, balconies, and terraces, where orange-trees were covered with little golden b.a.l.l.s of fruit.

"If I were rich like that I would have soup every day, sometimes made of pumpkin and sometimes with macaroni in it," she thought.

Then she turned over a stone with her heavy shoe, and it rolled down the hill. Gita uttered a cry. The stone had covered a hole at the root of the olive-tree where she sat, far away from the other workers. In the hole she saw a green frog; she dropped on her knees to look at it more closely. Yes, it was a green frog. How did it come there? She touched it with her fingers; the frog did not move or croak. Then she took it out carefully. The frog was one of those pasteboard boxes which appear each year in the shop windows of Paris for Easter presents, in company with fish, lobsters, and sh.e.l.ls.

Gita raised the lid. Inside were bank-bills and a lizard. She knew lizards very well; they were always whisking over the stone walls; but then those were of a sober brown tint, while this one was white until she lifted it, when it sparkled like a dewdrop. The lizard was an ornament made of diamonds. Gita held her breath and closed her eyes. She believed herself asleep. Soon she rose, took the box in her hand, and crossing the ravine, began to climb the path to the villa above.

As she reached the door a pony-carriage drove up. A big servant with many b.u.t.tons on his coat told her to go away. Gita paused, holding the box. The pale lady in the carriage, who was wrapped in furs, motioned her to approach. Quickly the girl ran forward and held out the frog.

"I found it in a hole at the foot of the olive-tree," she explained. "It must belong to this house."

The lady took the box and opened it, emptying the contents on her lap.

There lay the diamond lizard, and the roll of French bank-notes.

"You see that Pierre was a dishonest servant, although nothing was found on him," said the lady to those about her. "He must have hidden this box in the olive grove to return from Nice later and find it."

Gita listened with her mouth and eyes wide open. The lady looked at her and smiled.

"You are a good girl," she said.

Then she selected one of the bills and gave it to Gita. It was a note of one hundred francs.

"Now I can marry Raphael!" she cried.

Raphael was standing beside grandmother's chestnut-roaster when both saw Gita running toward them, her cheeks red, and her eyes flas.h.i.+ng like stars. She had to tell all about the frog, not only to them, but to the neighbors. As for grandmother, she could not hear the story often enough. When she had been a lemon girl no such luck had befallen her.

"Who would have thought of finding a wedding dowry in a frog?" laughed Raphael.

Gita and Raphael are soon to be married in the yellow church on the hill. The olive-pickers in the grove seek for something beside the dark berries; they hope to find a green frog under a stone, containing money and a diamond lizard; but this will never again happen.