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on the part of the seller, a willingness
to oblige, and a ready cheerfulness in
showing goods, often so increase my
appreciation of the wares I am examin
ing as to lead me to make purchases
which I might perhaps have declined
from a less agreeable salesman.
“ The same is true in regard to work
men, servants, market-people, and in
deed all thatj employ in any capacity.
I always select those who are civil and
obliging, rather than those whose terms
are lowest, but who fully make up in
demands on my patience for any little
saving to my purse. I had rather lose
a few dollars in the year than he con
tinually disgusted and annoyed by churl
ishness and ill-breeding.”
This matter of politeness, let me tell
you, young reader, is an affair worth
noticing, especially to those who have
their own fortunes to build up, influence
to secure, and, perhaps, dependant ones
to support. Civility is in itself a for
tune —a capital that will always bring
good interest —a starting point whence
to arrive at success in almost any under
taking. It is more than money, more
than influence, more than friends, more
even than ability, for it unites all these
in itself, and none of them will last long
without it. True politeness is in man
what beauty is in woman, a passport to
universal favor —a letter of introduc
tion available everywhere, because writ
ten in a language that everybody com
prehends.
Begin it, boys, in your youth, and use
it all your life long ; practice it at home,
in school, on the play-ground, and it
will set easily in company ; study it in
the family, and carry it out with you in
to the world, and you shall secure
friends as well as achieve success where
ever you go.
Airs. F. R. Frudgc.
Baltimore, Md.
.«©.*
Do not Despair.
If ever failure seemed to rest on a
noble life, it was when the Son of Man,
deserted by His friends, heard the cry
which proclaimed that the Pharisees
had drawn the net around the Divine
victim. Yet from that very hour of
defeat and death there went forth the
■world ’s life ; from that moment of
apparent failure, there proceeded forth
into the ages the spirit of the conquering
Cross. Surely, if the Cross says any
thing it says that apparent defeat is often
real victory, and that there is a heaven
for those who have nobly and truly
failed on earth.
Contentment and Truth.
We commend the following para
graph to the consideration of any boy
or girl who may be troubled by a desire
to shineinborrowedplumes:
Contentment abides with truth. You
will generally suffer for wishing to ap
pear other than what‘you are ; whether
it be richer or greater, or more learned.
The mask soon becomes an instrument
of torture.
BURKE’S WEEKLY FOR BOYS AND GIRLS.
A Declamation.
Arranged from Tupper for Burke’s Weekly.
BY FLORENCE LYNDON.
BOYS and girls of every age,
| With loving souls within you,
A simple word for each and all,
fA word to warn and win you.
You’ve each one got a human heart,
As well as human features,
To hear me, while I take the part
Os all the poor dumb creatures.
I know your lot is somewhat rough,
But theirs is something rougher;
Xo hopes, no loves, but pain enough,
And only sense to suffer.
Xow, girls and boys, you’ve friends and joys,
And homes and hopes in measure,
But these poor brutes are only mutes,
And hardly know a pleasure.
A little water, oats, and hay,
And sleep, the gift of heaven —
flow great returns for these have they
To your advantage given.
Their mouths are mute, but most acute
The woes whereby you wear them ;
So learn of me, and quickly see
llow easy ’tis to spare them 1
Written for Burke's Weekly
SAL-O-QUAH;
OR,
Boy-Life Among the Indians.
3Y REV. F. R. GOULDING,
Author of “ Young Alarooner's," li Marooner's
Island," etc.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
FIIKLF3* STORY —STEAMBOAT EXPLOSION —
A TOMAHAWKED CALF—THE BEAR AND
THE TWO STEEL-TRAPS—A WHIRLWIND,
AND DEVICE FOR ESCAPE.
NE of you spoke of
rae > just now, as a
strongly built man,”
ijfsaid Mr. Phelps, “and
P er * ,a P s I am, compared
with many people; yet I
am sa id to be the weakest
WWiJ I m - v family > during three
generations. I came South
v ' because I was not strong enough
to stay in Vermont. The doctors said
I had consumption. I suppose I should
have died if I had staid there; but I
have been near losing my life so often
since, that I have frequently thought of
the turn given by an odd genius of our
parts to a famous saying of Shake
spear :
1 There’s a divinity that shapes our ends
rough.
Hew them as we may.’*
I certainly have had a pretty rough time
of it. Yet as I look back, and see the
hand of God in my many escapes, I
cannot help thanking him for all, the
evil as well as the good; for without
the evil I would not have known the
good.
There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough-hew them as we may."
Myfi rst experience began almost in
sight of my native mountains. In de
scending the Hudson river in a steam
boat, our boiler burst. We had few
steamboats in those days, and of course,
few accidents ; yet enough to teach all
who gave attention, that it was certain
death to breathe scalding steam, and
also that the hottest steam is the least
visible. At the time of the accident, I
was standing on the quarter deck, talk
ing with an interesting young man in
fine health, whose acquaintance I had
just made. The weather was cool, and
I had my cloak on my arm. The steam
from the boiler shot toward us like
smoke from a cannon, and struck us
both down upon the deck. In an in
stant I knew what had happened, and
adopted the only means of escape in
my power, —I held my breath until I
had wrapped my head and face closely
in my cloak, and then breathed as little
as possible. Five minutes afterwards,
when I uncovered and looked around,
I saw my young friend lying beside me,
gasping in the agonies of death. He
had breathed the scalding air, by and
that means died of a sudden consump
tion cf his lungs. I had avoided that
air by means of my cloak, and the con
sumption under which I had been so
long laboring, had not killed me yet.
In coming South, I first hired my
self to a farmer as a field laborer, that
I might follow the plough and inhale
the air of the freshly turned earth. My
health rapidly improved. The farmer
and his wife were a plain, honest couple,
who did all their own work. They lived
much more roughly than I had been ac
customed to ; yet I felt quite at home
with them, and would have staid longer
than I did, had it not been for a circum
stance which I cannot remember to this
day without discomfort. The farmer’s
house was not far from the borders of
the Creek Indians, who had taken up
the hatchet, since I came to the neigh
borhood, and were wielding it with ter
rible effect. Every day we heard fresh
news of murders, plunderings and
scalping. One evening, on my return
from work, there was no milk for sup
per, —the farmer's wife was afraid to
go to the cow-pen, —so I undertook to
milk for her. The night was uncom
monly dark. The only object I could
see, while in the pen, was the white face
of the calf that kept its nose close to
me, trying to get a share of its mother's
milk. All at once I heard a tap ! and
the calf fell motionless on the ground ;
then came an ‘ugh!’ as if someone
grunted in surprise. I rose to a stand
ing posture, asking myself alond, ‘What
does this mean ! when I heard the foot
fall of somebody or of something mov
ing softly away. I went immediately to
the house, got a coal of fire, such as I
could hide from sight, and came with
the farmer to see what was the matter.
There lay the calf on the ground, stone
dead, with a hole in its forehead, made
by a tomahaw. An Indian had evi
dently been there, and mistaking the
white head of the calf for the cap of
the woman, had struck the blow, ex
pecting to kill and scalp her.
From this dangerous neighborhood
I went to the seaboard, where I earned
a living, and at the same time enjoying
myself in shooting ducks and game for
market. My fondness for wild sport,
however, brought me, after a time, into
a very unpleasant predicament. The
bears were so destructive in a certain
settlement, and so skillful, too, in evad
ing the hunter, that a large reward was
offered for their scalps. Both the sport
and the money suited my inclination,
so I set myself to hunt them. I soon
discovered that they came out of a riv
er swamp on a log, and passed through
a thick cane-break to the open country.
Immediately at the end of the log their
trail divided, with a wall of large and
strong cane between. The place was
so difficult of approach that I resolved,
instead of hunting them with the gun,
to take them by steel-traps. I set-a
trap in each trail, fastened by a chain
to a stake deeply driven into the mud.
The traps were only a few feet apart,
and both chains were fastened to the
same stake. On my first visit the trap
nearest to me was lying just as I had
left it. I leaned my gun against a sup
port, and struggled through the wall of
cane to get sight of the other trap. —
Just as my hand moved the last cane,
and before I could look through the
opening, there came from below a most
unearthly roar, and an enormous old
bear, the father, no doubt, of the whole
band of depredators, rose upon his
hind legs and rushed at me with open
mouth. I confess that I got back through
the canes much faster than I had gone
forward. But in leaping towaids my
gun I stumbled and fell, face down,
with my neck wedged tigjit between two
sloping canes. In the act of falling I
felt my leg seized half way up the boot,
and held with a grip like a vice.
“Gone! Gone! The bear has got
me !” I said myself, as I lay there help
less, expecting the next moment to feel
my bones crushed and my leg torn to
ribbons. But I was neither bitten nor
torn, —only held fast with an awful
pinch, and I could hear the bear growl
ing and pulling at the canes as if trying
to pass through.
I gradually released myself from con
finement by the neck, and, on turning
around, discovered that I was not caught
by the bear, but by my own steel-trap,
into which I had stepped in my haste,
and that the bear was gradually break
ing its way to me through the canes. I
was not then hopelessly lost if I could
only reach my gun ; but if I could not,
it would be all over with me in a very
lew minutes ; for the bear and 1 were
chained to the same stake, and he was
furiously snapping the large canes one
by one, around which his chain has
wrapped. I struggled frantically to
ward my gun, with the horrible steel-