Harper's Young People, September 28, 1880 Part 3

j.a.pANESE LIFE.

The j.a.panese is the cleanest of mankind. Cleanliness is, so to speak, more than G.o.dliness with him. Though he has no soap, he washes all over at least once a day--he wors.h.i.+ps but once a week. His candles are made of vegetable wax. He uses a cotton coverlet, well stuffed and padded, for bed-covering and mattress. A sort of stereoscope case--made of wood--makes his pillow. He resorts to that, and so do his wife and daughters, that their carefully arranged hair may not be disarranged during sleep. No head-covering is worn by the j.a.panese. No nation dresses the hair so tastefully. Usually it is with the men shaved in sections. They are coming now to wear it in European fas.h.i.+on. They are adopting all European customs.

On levee day I saw the reception at the Mikado's palace in Yeddo. Every one presented had to come in European full dress. That dress does not become the j.a.panese figure. He looks awkward in it. His legs are too short. The tails of his claw-hammer coat drag on the ground, and the black dress trousers wrinkle up and get baggy around his feet. His European-fas.h.i.+oned clothes have been sent out ready-made from America or England, and in no case did I notice anything approaching to a good fit.

Yet he smiled and looked happy, though he could not get his heels half way down his Wellington boots, and his hat was either too large or too small for his head. He always smiles and looks pleasant. Nothing can make him grumble, and he has not learned to swear. He is satisfied to be paid his due, and never asks for more. As a New York cabman he would be a veritable living curiosity.

WHERE DID POTATOES COME FROM?

n.o.body knows precisely where the potato came from originally. It has been found, apparently indigenous, in many parts of the world. Mr.

Darwin, for instance, found it wild in the Chonos Archipelago. Sir W. J.

Hooker says that it is common at Valparaiso, where it grows abundantly on the sandy hills near the sea. In Peru and other parts of South America it appears to be at home; and it is a noteworthy fact that Mr.

Darwin should have noted it both in the humid forests of the Chonos Archipelago and among the central Chilian mountains, where sometimes rain does not fall for six months at a stretch. It was to the colonists whom Sir Walter Raleigh sent out in Elizabeth's reign that we are indebted for our potatoes.

Herriot, who went out with these colonists, and who wrote an account of his travels, makes what may, perhaps, be regarded as the earliest mention of this vegetable. Under the heading of "Roots," he mentions what he calls the "openawk." "These roots," he says, "are round, some large as a walnut, others much larger. They grow on damp soils, many hanging together as if fixed on ropes. They are good food, either boiled or roasted."

At the beginning of the seventeenth century this root was planted, as a curious exotic, in the gardens of the n.o.bility, but it was long ere it came into general use. Many held them to be poisonous, and it would seem not altogether unreasonably so either. The potato is closely related to the deadly-nightshade and the mandrake, and from its stems and leaves may be extracted a very powerful narcotic. In England prejudice against it was for a long time very strong, especially among the poor.

[Begun in HARPER'S YOUNG PEOPLE No. 47, September 21.]

"MOONs.h.i.+NERS."

BY E. H. MILLER.

CHAPTER II.

CONNY FINDS A HOME.

Two days afterward, when the doctor went out for his horse, he found Conny sitting astride the block, his lap filled with sweet white clover, which he was feeding to Prince with one hand, while with the other he stroked the beautiful head that was bent down to him. He dropped to his feet on seeing the doctor, and made a bow, grave and stiff, but not at all bashful.

"I have come to live with you, sir," he said.

"Indeed," laughed the doctor; "and what do you suppose I want of you?"

"I don't know, sir; but my feyther always told me, if he died, I was not to stay on the mountain, but go to some good man who would teach me to work."

"And how do you know I am a good man?" asked the doctor, looking keenly at the boy. "You have never seen me but once."

"I have seen you often. I saw you when you mended the rabbit's leg. Jock Riley broke it with his big cart-whip."

"And where were you, pray?"

"Up in a tree, lying along a limb. And I was in the big tamarack when you climbed up the hill for the little flower. I often wanted to know why you cared to get it. My feyther thought perhaps it was good for medicine; but when I told him you only took one, he said then he couldn't tell; it might be you were crazed."

The doctor laughed heartily. It was by no means the first time his pa.s.sion for botanizing had been called a _craze_.

"Well, Conny," said he, "go into the house and get your breakfast, and when I come back we will talk this matter over."

He stopped for a word of explanation with his wife, and drove away, leaving Conny on the door-step, with a substantial slice of bread and meat in his hands, and a bowl of milk beside him, while little Betty peeped shyly at him through the window.

It gave the doctor a curious sensation to think, as he rode through the solitary woods, of the little watcher stretched along a mossy limb, or peering out from a treetop, like some strange, wild creature.

"He must have been set to keep guard by the moon-s.h.i.+ners," he thought.

"I wonder if they suspected I meant them mischief?" And then like a flash came another thought: "They have sent him to me now as a spy to find out if I have any secret business for the government. I should rather enjoy giving them a scare, if it were not for my wife and Betty."

The doctor fully made up his mind before he went home to send Conny on his ways, but in the end he did no such thing. Old Timothy made much pretense of finding whether he belonged to Dunsmore or Killbourne, and talked bravely of taking him to the poor-house officers; but Timothy found him a great convenience to his rheumatic old hands and feet, and by the end of the summer Conny was as much at home as if he had been bought, like Betty's ugly little terrier, or born in the house, like blessed little Betty herself. It was Conny who gave the last rub to Prince, and brought him to the door; Conny who, in cold or heat, was ready with such good-natured promptness for any errand far or near; Conny who could mend and make; who oiled rusty hinges, repaired broken locks and latches, sharpened the kitchen knives, filed the old saws, and put new handles to all the cast-away tools on the premises. Best of all, in the doctor's eyes, it was Conny who knew every nook of mountain and forest, and whose swift feet and skillful fingers sought out every plant that grew, and brought it to his master's feet.

Only Bridget held to her deep suspicion of something wrong about Conny.

"The cratur's that shmart wid his two hands ye wudn't belave, mum, but I misthrust he's shly: it's in the blood of 'im.

"You ought not to say such things, Bridget; you have no reason to think Conny is not honest," Mrs. Hunter would say.

"It's not to say that he'd sthale, mum, but he's _shly_. I've coom upon 'im soodent wance or twicet, an' seen 'im shlip something intil 'is pocket, an' 'im toornin' red in the face an' confused like. An' says I, 'Conny, is it something fine ye have?' An' the b'y walked away widout a word jist."

Mrs. Hunter laughed. "He is just like every other boy in the world--storing up all sorts of odds and ends, as if they were treasures.

I remember when Joe would hardly allow me to mend his pockets for fear I should disturb some of his precious trinkets."

Biddy tossed her head with an air that plainly said her opinion was in no wise changed, as she answered, discreetly, "Ye may be in the rights of it, mum, but it's not mesilf would be judgin' the cratur by Master Joe, that was born a gintleman, let alone the bringin' up."

Quite by accident Mrs. Hunter herself discovered the mystery in Conny's bosom, for, sitting one day by the window at her sewing, she saw the boy come from the wood-house, and after a quick glance in every direction, dart like a squirrel up one of the great hemlock-trees, where he sat completely screened by the branches, only now and then when a stronger gust of wind swayed the top, and gave her a glimpse of him bending intently over something upon his knees. Mrs. Hunter watched him for some time, and then went quietly under the tree and called, "Conny!"

There was a moment of hesitation, and she fancied she saw him put something into the crotch of the tree before he came sliding down at her feet, looking decidedly confused.

"What were you doing up there, Conny?" she asked, pleasantly.

"No harm at all, ma'am," said Conny, with his eyes on his bare brown feet.

"I suppose not, but I should like to know what it was that you hid up in the tree."

"It's no harm, ma'am," repeated Conny, very red and very earnest.

"Then you can certainly show it to me: I wish to see it," said Mrs.

Hunter, decidedly.

Conny disappeared in the tree, and in an instant came down, more slowly than before, carrying something carefully in his hand. He gave it to Mrs. Hunter, and stood before her looking as red and guilty as if he had been found in possession of the doctor's gold watch. It was a miniature sideboard of fragrant red cedar, nearly complete, with drawers, shelves, and exquisite carvings--a lovely little model of the handsome sideboard which was the pride of Mrs. Hunter's heart.

"What a beautiful thing!" said Mrs. Hunter, with such delight in her tone that Conny ventured to look up.

"I was keeping it a secret, ma'am, for little Miss Betty's birthday, to give it her unbeknown."