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 Another Random Document on
Scribd Without Any Related Topics
 IN THE OVEN
By Richard Washburn Child

“I
am inclined to think that a girl’s wit is quicker than a man’s in a
tight place, if the place is tight enough.”
Mr. Colchester had spoken after we had been silently sitting for
several minutes watching the mist that was creeping over the
moonlit water and listening to the chirp of the crickets in the grass.
He always began a story by stating the moral. His way was to
present some conclusion and then prove it by a personal experience.
“I was thinking of my sister,” he explained. “She once saved us
both from a fearful death. If it had not been for her ready wit I
should have been a biscuit!”
At this every one straightened up perceptibly. Mr. Colchester’s
stories were always interesting.
“Perhaps all of you do not know that my father was a cracker
manufacturer,” he continued, “and that he had a shop with
machinery and three ovens in it. Of course that would be considered
nothing to-day, when there are bakeries that supply thousands of
people in every part of the country, but when I was a boy I
remember I used to wonder that there were enough mouths to
consume all that my father’s workmen made.
“I often went down to the shop, for it was really fascinating to
watch the mixers turning the great rolls of dough over and over, and
see the cutting-machines chopping a long strap of it into little sticky
lumps. Then old Carberry, the baker, would toss the pieces which
had been patted and molded by hand on the tiled floor of the oven.
Sometimes my sister Margaret used to go with me, for we were
great chums, and it was on one of those occasions that we got into
trouble.
“The day, I remember, had been rainy, and after a discouraging
attempt to amuse ourselves in the house, Margaret said, ‘Let’s take
umbrellas and go down to the bakery.’
“I was so glad of the suggestion that I forgot it was the noon
hour, when the men would be gone and the machinery shut down. It
wasn’t until we saw the deserted room that we remembered it.
“‘Well,’ said I, ‘we are bright, aren’t we? But let’s look round—I’ll
tell you, let’s look at the cool oven.’
“‘Cool oven!’ exclaimed Margaret, in surprise.
“I explained to her that in the ordinary course of business only
two ovens were used, and that unless there were extra orders there
was always one oven which was out of commission, being shut off
from the furnaces below by the big sheet-iron dampers.
“I raised the latch of the heavy door and bent down to look across
the flat, tiled surface inside.
“‘It’s just like a cave, isn’t it, Bob?’ cried my sister; and I laughed
at the idea and asked her whether she expected to see a bear or a
robber walk out.
“‘Of course I don’t!’ she said, for she always was on her guard
against my making fun of her. ‘Let’s crawl in.’
“‘All right,’ said I, touching the brick walls to make sure I hadn’t
made a mistake; and then I followed her inside through the gloomy
opening.
“‘Will it get my dress dirty?’ Margaret asked, out of the darkness.
“‘No, indeed,’ said I. ‘They have to keep these ovens clean as can
be. They’re fussy about every speck of dust.’
“I had hardly finished when the iron door behind us shut with a
resounding clang. One of the workmen who had come back to work
had closed it!
 “‘O Bob,’ cried my sister, with a little scream of fright, ‘we’re shut
in!’
“‘Like two biscuits,’ I laughed. ‘Don’t you mind. All we have to do
is to shout and some one will come.’
“But Margaret was really scared, and groped her way near me to
put her hand on my shoulder. I confess the darkness and the close,
stuffy air were far from cheerful.
“I began to call as loud as I could, and not getting any answer, I
crept over to the solid iron door and began kicking it with my heels.
After a moment I stopped, breathing hard from my exercise, and
then I heard Margaret’s voice behind me, saying:
“‘Wait a minute, Bob! Listen!’
“I strained my ears, and from the outside I could hear a rumbling
that seemed to come from far, far away.
“‘It’s the machinery!’ I cried. ‘It’s after one o’clock, and they have
begun work again. No wonder they couldn’t hear us!’
“By that time I had become really frightened, and I suppose I
must have temporarily lost my head. I shouted wildly until my throat
was sore, but it seemed only to fill our oven trap with noise. There
was no hope whatever that it would penetrate the thick brick walls.
Suddenly I was startled into silence by a sound of scraping iron
underneath us—a familiar noise to my ears. Some one had pulled
open the great damper that shut us off from the fires in the cellar
below! They were going to heat our oven!
“‘What was that?’ exclaimed my sister, touching my hand with her
cold fingers. ‘What did that noise mean, Bob?’ She seemed to know
our danger by instinct. I did not answer, for with a sinking heart I
felt on my face the first breath of warm air!
“‘Tell me, Bob!’ demanded Margaret. ‘They are heating this oven,
aren’t they?’ She had caught my wrist and pressed it as hard as a
girl could squeeze.
 “‘Yes!’ I gasped, trying to speak bravely. I remember I felt that if I
were alone I should not care nearly so much, but the idea that my
little sister would have to die, too, put me into another panic.
“A second breath of air a good deal hotter than the first fanned
my cheek. I jumped up with a scream, and beat and kicked upon the
rough brick walls and on the iron door in blind terror. Then,
exhausted, I crawled along the floor to the place where Margaret
sat. She was crying quietly—I could tell because when I put my arm
about her I could feel that she was shaking.
“‘They will never, never hear us!’ she sobbed.
“‘Don’t cry, Margy,’ said I, patting her wet cheek while I tried to
arouse my own courage. ‘Perhaps there is another way.’
“I tried to think, but the heat had then become almost
unbearable; it stung my nose and seemed to suffocate me. Once
when I touched a place on one of the tiles I drew my hand back in
real pain. There was no hope of breaking the latch of the iron door,
and no one could hear us, though we put our mouths to a little crack
at the top of the door and screamed. I was sure we would be baked.
My arm was still round my sister, and her hand was still in mine, as if
she were seeking the comfort of the touch.
“It was becoming hotter and hotter, but neither of us spoke for
several seconds. Then suddenly Margaret started up and cried out,
eagerly, ‘Tell me, Bob, quick! Have you got a piece of paper?’
“I felt in my pockets. ‘Yes, I have an old postal card!’ I exclaimed.
‘What are you going to do with it?’
“‘They can’t hear us, but we can make them see!’ she cried.
‘Hurry! Give it to me—and your jack-knife!’
“I handed them to her, and she began to pick at the hem of her
skirt with the point of the knife.
“‘We need thread,’ she explained, excitedly, ‘and if this is a chain-
stitch on this hem we can get it!’ I lighted a match. ‘And it is, Bob, it
is!’ she cried. I realized that she had caught an end of thread and
was carefully ripping it out.
“‘Now, Bob,’ she commanded, handing me the card, ‘punch a hole
in the card and tie it through.’ Her voice was weak. From my own
struggle to keep my senses in the awful heat, I knew that she was
nearly at the collapsing point.
“‘What are you going to do with it?’ I gasped.
“‘The door!’ she answered, faintly. ‘Dangle the card through the
crack in the door!’ Then I understood her plan at last, and crawling
painfully over on my knees, I thrust the postal card down the little
crack between the door and the iron jamb.
“‘Pull it up and let it down!’ cried Margaret, with a final effort, and
I jiggled the string so that the paper would dance upon the wall
outside. My head swam with the effect of the terrible heat, and it
seemed ages before any one came.
“Then suddenly the latch was lifted, the door swung open, and in
spite of the blinding daylight which poured in I could see the
astonished face of old Carberry, the baker, peering in at us!
“I caught my sister’s dress, pulling her toward the opening with all
the strength that was left in me, and fell out after her into the old
man’s arms.
“That is why I say,” concluded Mr. Colchester, as he looked round
upon us with a smile, “that it was a girl’s wit that kept me from
being baked like a biscuit. And that is the reason why I say that a
girl’s wit is the best in a tight place—providing the place is tight
enough.”
 ON A SLIDE-BOARD
By Robert Barnes

A
t three o’clock on an August morning the press in the little
printing-office on the summit ceased its clatter, and Corey Green
brought out a bundle of Stars, wrapped in enameled cloth, to Bart
Collamore.
“Here’s your five hundred,” said Corey, “hot from the types.”
“All right,” replied Bart “They’ll be on the hotel counters twenty
miles away by six.”
They walked down the platform before the Summit House. A dim
light illumined the office, but the rest of the long building was dark.
Only two other persons were awake—Frank Simmons, busy over the
printing-press, and Luke Martin, the hotel watchman.
Overhead an occasional star glimmered through the driving wrack,
and the low east disclosed the first faint tokens of a cloudy dawn;
but in the west frowned a vaporous battlement, black and
threatening, from which a strong wind was tearing detached masses
and rolling them against the mountainside. Now and then a few
flakes of snow flew by on the raw gale.
Lifting his slide-board from the platform, Bart set it on the cog-rail
midway of the track.
This rail was bolted to a wooden centerpiece on the ties, and
consisted of two parallel strips of wrought angle-iron, connected by
steel pins three inches apart, on which the cogs of the engine
worked. He turned the nut on the brake-rod until the iron plates by
means of which the speed of the board was retarded were in
position under the flanges of the rail. Then he pulled on his gloves,
jammed his cap down hard, and buttoned his reefer up to his neck.
 Corey glanced at the black western sky. “You’re liable to hit the
storm going down,” said he.
“Guess I can beat it out,” returned Bart. Seating himself on the
slide-board, with the bundle of papers between his knees, he
gripped the brake-handles. Almost of itself the board began moving.
“I’ll be at the Base House in ten minutes!” he called back, as he
sped away down the slope toward the north, while behind him the
drone of the wind almost drowned Corey’s shout.
“Good luck!”
The slide-board was the conveyance used by employés and
trackmen in descending the mountain railroad. Although perilous for
a novice, it was easy of management for an experienced hand. It
was of seven-eighths-inch spruce, ten inches wide, and something
over a yard long. Three cleats screwed across its top kept it from
splitting. Underneath were two sets of “shoes,” the forward of wood,
the rear of iron, parallel strips half an inch thick and four inches
apart, just far enough for the top of the cog-rail to slide between
them.
As Bart slipped downward, the black buildings on the summit were
blotted out by driving clouds. Little by little he swerved westward,
turning his back to the dawn, hearing only the hoarse murmur of the
rising gale and the rattle of his board.
Guide-books say that the three and one-third miles from summit
to base may be covered by slide-board in twenty minutes. Actually,
the record is two minutes and forty-seven seconds. This can be
appreciated when one remembers that there is a drop of four
thousand feet, and that the average grade approximates one in four.
Bart had made the trip some hundreds of times in his fourteen years
on the road. Every morning that summer he had gone down before
daybreak, in order that the little paper printed on the peak might
have early distribution among the various hotels.
Faster and faster sped the board. The top of the rack was
abundantly lubricated with oil from the cogs of the engine, and the
grade was growing steeper. On the left a dim shaft flitted by,
memorial of a life lost by exposure on the mountain years before.
Bart put a little more pressure on his brakes. The stout birch
handles, somewhat smaller than baseball bats and about as long as
the board itself, were connected forward with the brake-rod running
across the front in a hollow wooden bar, and with an iron plate
under each flange of the rail. To retard his course, the rider simply
pulled up on the handles, which were directly under his arms, thus
lifting the plates against the flanges and pressing the board down
harder on the top of the rack.
The track curved northwest for the next fifteen hundred feet to
the Gulf Tank, a water cistern on the left. The grade varied from one
in four to one in eight. The wind, keen, strong, and shot with
hurrying snowflakes, stung even Bart’s seasoned face.
He had worked on the mountain long enough to know what was
coming out of that inky bank ahead.
Gulf Tank swept past, a square gray shadow, and the track
gradually swung west. And now he caught it in good earnest. The
moan of the blast had risen to a furious howling. Bullets of sleet
pelted his cheeks. Right before him rose a black wall, the edge of
the real storm. It looked almost as if it were solid. Catching his
breath, he ducked his head, and bolted straight into the heart of the
tempest.
In a second it enveloped him, rain, snow, sleet and hail. His board
whizzed faster over the wet, slippery rail.
The grade increased, and he knew he had reached Long Trestle.
Beyond lay Jacob’s Ladder, the steepest place on the line, pitched
considerably over one in three. He must not go too fast there. It was
more than a mile and a half still to the bottom. If the board once got
away from him—
Bart stiffened himself against the fierce blast, gripped the brake-
handles hard, and pulled up on them. A stream of sparks trailed out
on each side, as the plates bit at the flanges.
 He was leaning well forward now, boring head foremost into the
yelling gale. His eyes were closed; he could not keep them open.
Now the Trestle was past, and the Ladder lay just ahead. He could
tell where he was by the feel of the track. His head was clear, his
nerves steady. All he needed to do was to keep a good hold on those
handles, and the board would soon carry him safely to the base.
Suddenly his speed increased. He had struck the Ladder. The
grade at its head was not far from one in two. Down he shot, lifting
hard on the birch bars.
What was that? It could not be that left brake-handle was
buckling! Yes! Something had given way. Up came his hand, higher,
higher, higher, yet there was no response of iron grinding against
iron.
For just a second Bart felt sick.
The flange was only three-fourths of an inch wide. If that left
plate once got out from under it, he knew very well what would
happen.
A single brake could never hold the board on the rail. On the next
curve, if not before, it would bound from the track with tremendous
velocity, and its rider would land somewhere on the rugged
mountainside with a broken neck. Somehow, if he cared to live, that
plate must never lose its grip on the flange.
The Ladder was four hundred feet long and thirty feet above the
rocks at its highest point. Bart was travelling forty miles an hour, so
crossing the trestle took less than ten seconds. Before he left it, he
saw what he must do.
Instinctively easing up on his right bar, so as to bring an even
pressure on both sides, he ran his left hand quickly forward down
the birch stick, to locate the break. Not many inches from the socket
his fingers found it, where a knurl, imperceptibly weakened by long
use, had evidently yielded at last.
 Sitting where he did, he could just reach beyond the break by
extending his arm full length, and he could exert only a slight
upward pull. If he hoped to keep the board on the rail, he must
immediately shift his position, so that he might put out his full
strength. Several short curves were just ahead.
To change one’s place on a narrow board flying down a
mountainside at forty miles an hour through a pitch-black hurricane
is no fool’s task. Very carefully Bart hitched straight forward, until his
knees were upright, and he was able to lift strongly on the unbroken
portion of the bar. His speed was now simply terrific.
Round a curve he whisked, leaning far inward in the fear that he
might ride the rail. Then, as his board settled down on a
straightaway, he pulled up with all his might.
To his horror, he found that with so short a leverage he could not
press the plate against the flange hard enough to check his speed.
The board was running away with him!
Bart knew every yard of that track, every pitch and curve, from
the engine-house at the summit to the Marshfield turntable; and he
realized that this was the most critical minute in all his years of
railroading. Two courses were open to him—he might stick to the
board, or he might roll off.
Which was the less dangerous?
If he rolled off at that speed, the best he could hope for would be
a fearful bruising, broken bones and insensibility. It would be hours
before rescuers could find him; and hours in that storm meant
death.
If he stayed on, he took the chance of being hurled from the rail
at some curve; besides, what would happen when he reached the
bottom, if he ever did reach it?
He decided to stay on.
 The slide-board took the curves at express speed. Time and again
Bart thought it was flying off. He wondered to find himself still sitting
hunched on the spruce, when Waumbek Tank slipped by. He knew it
had passed, although he did not see it.
But little more than a mile due west, and almost thirteen hundred
feet lower, lay the terminus. Was this to be his last ride on the line?
In a couple of minutes at the most the thing would be decided. Bart
manned himself for the finish.
On he shot, straining at the bars, head down through the pitch
darkness. He was dashing against a forty-mile gale at an equal
speed; that was equivalent to standing still in a hurricane blowing
eighty miles. It shrieked round him with indescribable fury, striving
to hurl him backward from his seat. His cap was torn away, and the
sleet pattered like a sand-blast on his bare skull.
Cold Spring Tank flitted past, and the last steep pitch was near,
seventeen hundred to the mile. In a moment Bart was rushing madly
down the descent. His head swam with the hideous speed. His board
vibrated and trembled as it hurtled along the track. All seemed
unreal, uncanny. But although dazed and buffeted, he never for an
instant loosed his grip of the bars. A “green” man might have lost his
head, and that could have had but one result.
Almost sooner than he could think, he was at the bottom of the
pitch, darting over the Ammonoosuc bridge. Only a few hundred feet
more. The track, he knew, was clear to its end, for cars and engines
were housed for the night. Now for one last, long, hard pull!
Deaf, blind, numb, exhausted, bent almost double, he drained his
strength to the dregs for a clutch on the handles; then he lifted, as if
he would tear the flange from the centerpiece.
There was a terrific shrieking as the iron surfaces ground together.
Fire followed each brake.
A building rushed by on the right—the carpenter-shop. Bart did
not actually see it, but he knew it was gone.
 Then came the car-barn, the turntable, the engine-house and
repair-shop, and the long wood-shed. Less than thirty yards more!
His speed was slackening on the level grade, but it was still
tremendous.
And now the laundry was past—the last building. Twenty-five feet
beyond it the cog-rail ended. Bart threw all that was left of himself
into one final, mighty wrench.
A second later he found himself rolling blindly along the ties, head
over heels and heels over head, cuffed, punched, battered, as if a
dozen flails were beating him at once on every part of his body. At
last he came to a stop, a bruised, dizzy heap.
After a little Bart sat up, tried his arms and legs, and found he
could get on his feet. He felt himself all over. Luckily his bones were
well padded with muscle, so none of them were broken.
The storm was still blowing forty miles an hour, but by contrast it
seemed to him to be almost over. He hunted until he found his
bundle of papers; it had been tied tightly, and had not burst open.
Then he limped up to the Base House.
“Here are your ‘Stars,’” said he to the driver of the team, shivering
outside. “I’ve done my part; now see if you can get ’em to
Bethlehem before six o’clock.”
 THE CALL OF THE SEA
By Frederick Palmer

T
he only memory of his father that Franklin Thompson had was
the photograph of a young naval officer in uniform which his
mother, with tears in her eyes, often showed him. She died when
Franklin was six, leaving him, her only cause for living longer, to the
care of his father’s brother. When he realized how unwelcome he
was in his new home, the only solace he had in the world was the
photograph. He would look at it for an hour at a time, and read
again and again the inscription on the back.
Before he was quite alone in the world he had heard the sea a-
calling. On his holidays he would walk to the shore, and watch the
ships go and come. Each was a speaking individuality, which he
would recognize should he see it again. The salt breath was ever in
his nostrils, the tang of salt spray in his veins.
When he was eleven, his cousin Edward, five years his senior,
received the appointment to Annapolis. If Franklin felt any envy he
stifled it. The inscription on the photograph in his father’s own hand
forbade that.
“Be honest; envy nobody; strive hard,” it ran.
Two years later Franklin knew that his school-days were at an end.
“I’ll look for a place for you to learn some business,” said his
uncle, as if the boy’s preferences for an occupation did not count.
Early the next morning Franklin went to the great bay near his
home, as he always did when he was heavy of heart. Three men-of-
war, one a new battle-ship, their white sides gleaming, rested their
enormous weights on the water as gently as swans. On the battle-
ship it was visiting day. From her side the monster reached down her
big gangway, with holystoned steps and immaculate rope, as a
gallant officer offers his hand to a lady.
At the threshold of the deck Franklin paused, as one who suddenly
sees his dreams materialize in broad daylight. No one of the knots of
sightseers, going here and there with the spectators’ “Ahs!” and
occasional questions, noticed the boy, who stood immovable, noting
every detail of the leviathan. Each gun seemed to him a living thing.
He saw some jackies going about their appointed duties, and
others under the shade of the awnings aft, mending their clothes.
The officer of the deck must be the happiest man in the world,
Franklin thought. He imagined how his father must have looked,
pacing back and forth in the same way. Oh, if his father were only
alive, then perhaps he, too, might go to Annapolis! He looked up at
the bridge and imagined himself in a great storm, with the spray
stinging his face and blinding his eyes, and the mountain of steel as
obedient to his commands as a bicycle to the turn of the handle-bar.
“Wouldn’t you like to look around a bit?” asked a voice at his
elbow.
Its owner, Franklin saw, was a boy of about his own age, dressed
like the jackies in summer white.
“Would I? Would I?” The way Franklin asked the question was
answer enough from any one boy to another.
“I guess you’ll do,” said his new friend, laughing. “My name’s
Harry Grimm. I’m a ’prentice.”
Harry showed how the ammunition was hoisted for the thirteen-
inch gun by touching a button; he slipped a dummy shell into the
breech of one of the three-inch rapid fires; but he was quite unable
to answer all of his guest’s questions.
Franklin did not leave the man-of-war until the last boat was going
ashore. That night he told his uncle of his desire to join the navy as
an apprentice.
 Uncle William was in unusually bad temper. He thought a moment
and then said:
“I don’t believe you’ll ever be any use in business. Probably you’d
run away to sea if I got you a place. I’ll take you to the navy-yard
to-morrow.”
At any rate, Uncle William thought, he would be free from any
further responsibility or care for the boy. Nevertheless, he knew
what Franklin’s proud father or his proud mother, were either of
them alive, would say. That thought stung him a little.
While his cousin was at the school where officers are made,
Franklin was to be trained for a seaman. Edward would begin his
career with rank and position just beyond the highest grade that
Franklin could ever attain. Franklin must be ever on the forecastle
side of the dividing line between officer and man. He might rise to
be a chief gunner, while Edward might be an admiral.
But Franklin did not understand this. He was in the period of light-
hearted youth when the responsibility for his future rested on his
guardian’s shoulders. He was entirely under the spell of the call of
the sea.
A year later found him bound for South America on a small cruiser,
which continued around the Horn and on to Hongkong to join the
Asiatic squadron, which was even then preparing for the conflict with
Spain. In all that long voyage he had never once been seasick, and
he had grown to love the sea from familiarity as much as he had
loved it in anticipation.
On that great morning when the American men-of-war ran into
Manila Bay, the executive officer set him to look for torpedo-boats.
The story of how he reported, with his hand to his cap in salute,
“Torpedo-boat on our starboard bow, sir; she’s sinking by the bow,
sir; she’s sunk,” went the round of the messes. After the battle came
that long period of waiting until the army took the city. When the
sun was not as hot as an oven, the clouds poured torrents that rose
from the hot awnings in steam.
 By this time Franklin had come to comprehend the separation of
officer and man as only actual service can reveal it. Sometimes, with
cap in hand, he had to pass through the ward-room and the officers’
quarters. These, which had been his father’s portion, would be his
cousin’s, but could never be his.
His fellow apprentices were quite content with the forecastle. They
felt more at home aft than they would forward. There was Charley,
for example. Charley studied as little as he might; he was always
getting into mischief, but was withal a bright, good-hearted fellow,
with the makings of a first-class seaman in him.
The boatswain, known as “Pete” in the forecastle and “Deering”
forward—and there you have his two names—used to fend off
intrusion when Franklin was busy with his books. All his studies had
the requirements for admission to Annapolis in view. Not that he
expected ever to have his learning put to the test. He knew no one,
he had no hope of knowing any one, who could secure for him the
coveted appointment. It pleased him to be ready.
One day, as he was bending over the little box which is at once a
seaman’s work-basket and wardrobe, the captain, who had strolled
aft, stopped by his side, and looking over his shoulder, saw a
photograph.
“Why, that’s Thompson!” he exclaimed. “Is he any relation of
yours?”
“My father, sir,” Franklin replied, as he sprang to his feet and
saluted.
“I did not know that,” the captain repeated, thoughtfully.
He picked up the photograph, and scanned the face of his old
messmate. Afterward he never passed Franklin without a smiling
glance. But that glance, meant so kindly, had a sting. It seemed to
say that he was in a position unworthy of his father’s name.
When a visiting congressman of the United States came aboard
the cruiser as a guest, Pete instantly sought out Franklin, and taking
him to one side where he would not be overheard, said:
“Now’s your chance, my bully boy. A congressman can do ’most
anything, so they say. You go right up to this one and knock your
cap smart as you can, and tell him who your father was and that you
want to go to Annapolis.”
Franklin had not the courage or the presumption, whichever you
call it; Pete called it “gall.”
“If you won’t, sonny, I will.”
And when he saw the congressman sitting on the deck after
general quarters, he approached him with a eulogy as earnest as it
was picturesque. The congressman smiled, and asked to see
Franklin.
“Now, sonny,” said Pete, “I’ve cleared the channel; go forward and
do your evolutions.”
As Franklin stood before the elderly, dignified man sitting beside
the captain on the captain’s deck, he felt himself to be quite the
most insignificant apprentice in the world. The congressman looked
him over keenly from head to foot, as if he were examining the
texture of the cloth on the back of his jacket.
“Do you want to go to Annapolis?”
Did he want to? Does the tender shoot of spring want the
sunlight? Franklin’s voice trembled with hope:
“Yes, sir. More than anything else in the world.”
“I’m not making any promises,” the congressman said, finally.
“Congressmen haven’t a pocketful of blanks to fill out whenever they
see a bright boy. I’ll see what I can do.”
When, by the rules of the navy, Franklin was supposed to be
sound asleep that night, he was wide awake, building air-castles.
How long would he have to wait before he heard from the
congressman? Would he ever hear?
 The statesman did not appear again aboard the cruiser for many
days. In the meantime, a new cadet, with his stripe fresh on his
arm, came to the cruiser. It was none other than Franklin’s own
cousin, Edward. When they met at drill there was no look of
recognition in Edward’s face. Later, in one of the intervals of the day
which the forecastle may call its own, the officer came aft and in a
patronizing manner asked the apprentice how he was getting on.
When Franklin told him very well, Edward said it was awkward for an
officer to have a cousin in the forecastle, and walked away. Franklin
flushed at the remark, and repeated under his breath his father’s
advice, as the soldier of the old, superstitious days repeated his
talisman.
The next day Franklin had shore leave. On his way back to the
quay he saw his fellow apprentice, Charley, in bad company. He
forgot all else except his friend’s plight and his horror over it. When,
finally, he had separated Charley from the lounger who wanted to
show the sailor boy the town, the cruiser’s launch had gone. They
had to hire a native to row them out in a banka, which crept at a
snail’s pace in the gathering darkness.
For the first time in his life Franklin was among the accused who
stood at the mast the next morning to hear their sentences from the
captain, who acts as judge, and with the captain was the
congressman. Franklin saw his look of surprise as their eyes met.
The captain spoke of his own grief in delivering sentence of
suspension from leave privilege for six months.
Franklin’s head swam, and his cheeks were aflame. He could only
reply with a hoarse “Yes, sir.”
As he turned to go he heard the congressman say sarcastically
that he did not think “that boy was so very anxious to go to
Annapolis.”
Franklin was the only one of the ship’s company who did not
brighten when they received the electric thrill of an order, which
broke their weary vigil in the famous bay by sending the cruiser to
patrol duty among the southern islands. But when they were under
way Franklin found that the congressman was still aboard, and his
hopes revived a little. For a week of coasting from port to port he
looked in vain for some event which would set him right.
Then came an order transferring him. He was assigned to the
Marietta, a tiny gunboat no bigger than a harbor tugboat and with
but half the draft. He had only time to get his belongings together,
which does not take a sailor long. He found that his cousin had also
been transferred, and was to be commander of the cockle-shell.
The Marietta’s first assignment was to take none other than the
congressman up a river to the capital of a province where he had a
son, an officer of the army, in command of the garrison. There
Franklin would definitely see the last of him. They had no thought of
meeting with any delay on their run of the five miles of winding
stream, but it is when they are least expected that guerrillas appear.
The congressman was sitting in the bow admiring the scenery, the
little engine was “chugging” earnestly, the screw was whirling
vigorously through the muddy water, when out of the soft green
foliage of the right bank cracked a volley. The congressman, a
veteran himself, dropped on the deck and looked about him for a
rifle, his old eyes flashing.
The cadet had never been under fire before. He dodged and fell
on the deck with the others. Franklin was at the wheel and remained
erect, frightened but not forgetting his duty. There had not been a
tremor of the rudder.
“Steer for that bank, sharp, sharp!” Edward called, and Franklin
obeyed. “I don’t want to—to endanger your life,” he panted to the
congressman, his sentence broken by the ring of a bullet against the
hull, and whistle of other bullets over their heads.
“Seems to me I’d put a few shots back at ’em in the meanwhile,”
said the congressman. “What’s that for?” He nodded toward a rapid-
fire gun in the bow. “And that?” toward a one-pounder in the stern.
 Edward could not fail to take the hint. He sprang up with
trembling limbs and ran to the rapid-fire gun, calling for the other to
be manned. A bullet struck its support before he could put it in
action. That made him forget all his training. He aimed wildly, and
jammed the delicate machine almost instantly. Then, in his
desperation, he ran toward the wheel.
“Steer in closer, closer!”
“It’s too shallow, sir,” Franklin replied.
“No, it’s not.” The ensign could hear the triumphant shouts of the
insurgents, who increased their fire. He was wild with exasperation.
“It’s not!” he repeated, and seized the wheel in his own hands and
turned it hard alee. The bow veered sharply. For an instant the boat
flew forward, then grounded.
As if they had been waiting on this for a signal, a fire broke out
from some bushes which rose above the level of the grassy bank on
the left side.
“Both sides!” gasped the ensign. He sprang overboard, as much to
avoid the fire as anything. “Push her off!”
Everybody leaped into the water. When the insurgents on the left
bank saw the predicament of the Americans, they broke out of their
cover with a yell, and came running toward them. Meanwhile, the
Marietta was still in range of the fire from the other side. It was a
question only of minutes, yes, of seconds, before they would be
prisoners.
The current swung the Marietta partially round and drove her fast
into the soft mud, and the misdirected efforts of her crew to free her
were as unavailing as if she were a battle-ship.
“Can’t somebody fire that gun? Can’t somebody fire?” the
congressman called, putting the strength of his sixty years against
the hull, and feeling his shoes sinking in the soft ooze beneath them.
At this juncture, in face of the fire, Franklin sprang on deck, and
ran aft to the jammed instrument of their hope. He felt as cool as his
father’s son ought to feel under such circumstances. The parts of the
mechanism were not a jumble to him as they were to the excited
cadet, and he saw the difficulty and how simple it was. His study, his
questions, had not been in vain.
“Man the one-pounder! Get the rifles, everybody!” he called, with
the instinct of command.
As they tumbled aboard the crew heard the rat-tat-tat of the gun
under Franklin’s hand, sweeping the field of white-shirted figures
pressing forward, and soon a little shell from the one-pounder threw
up dirt at their feet. The insurgents were too near their prize to be
stopped yet.
“Keep cool, everybody, keep cool!” said the congressman, himself
firing with the nice calculation of a man at a range.
The Americans did not realize that shots were still coming from
the rear. They knew that the insurgents on the other side of the
stream could not cross it, and that was enough. If the gun should
jam again, all would be lost.
But it did not jam; and soon the insurgents, no longer able to
stand the persistent accuracy of the machine, began to fall back,
and finally ran in pell-mell flight, leaving their wounded behind.
Promptly Franklin whirled his gun round and began firing upon the
first attacking party, which withdrew when it saw that it was
unsupported by the other side.
When excitement no longer made their efforts futile, and one was
not pushing against another, and with the screw properly directed to
their assistance, the crew was very soon able to force the stranded
Marietta back into the stream.
After the congressman had emptied the water out of his shoes
and was once more seated, with nothing to do but to enjoy the
scenery, he said to Franklin, in beaming gratitude:
“Well, young man, you’re quite a general!”
 Franklin blushed. The remark did not make him think of his
ambition. It gave him speech for another cause.
“O sir, I want you not to believe that those charges were true.
They weren’t. I wouldn’t have overstayed leave if it hadn’t been—
but—but you ask Charley the rest.”
“I don’t believe them. To prove it, all you’ve got to do is to pass
the examination to Annapolis. I’ll see that you get the appointment.”
Franklin’s manner and his eyes spoke his gratitude better than his
tongue. Edward, who had overheard, looked proudly at his cousin,
and then said to the congressman:
“I thank you, too, sir! I sha’n’t be happy till he wears the uniform
his father wore. He saved us all to-day.”
His little speech saved Edward from a court of inquiry. He became
Franklin’s best friend, and if ever he goes into action again there is
no doubt that he will behave like a veteran.
 ON A TIGHT ROPE
By Albert W. Tolman

“M
y highest ambition at seventeen,” said the linotype operator,
“was to become a professional acrobat. I then lived with my
parents on a farm near the manufacturing town of N. All my spare
time was spent in vaulting, jumping, turning handsprings, and
practising other feats of strength and agility.
“On the Fourth of July a travelling tight-rope performer, Signor
Lupini of Verona, as the posters called him, was to display his skill on
a rope above the river that flowed through the town. He arrived with
two assistants on the afternoon of July 3d, and a crowd of boys,
myself among them, met him at the railroad station. We saw a
spare, wiry man, above the ordinary height, light-complexioned, with
steely-blue eyes. He looked us over inquiringly.
“‘Boys,’ said he, ‘I need some young fellow to help me to-morrow.
Who wants to be wheeled across the rope in a barrow?’
“The others hung back; but I jumped at the chance. ‘I do!’ I
exclaimed, quickly. He seemed pleased as he ran his eyes over me. I
was of medium height, with good muscles.
“‘All right,’ he said. ‘Come to the hotel at seven, and I’ll tell you
what’s wanted.’
“At the stroke of the hour I was on hand, and he explained my
duties. Then he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket.
“‘That’s yours at nine to-morrow night if you do your work well,’
he said. ‘Now go home and sleep soundly.’
“My parents were spending the Fourth with cousins in a
neighboring town, so I was alone in the house. I went to bed early,
but until long after midnight excitement kept me from getting a
single wink.
“The next day I was on hand bright and early. I helped stretch the
rope between two mill roofs, ran errands, and made myself generally
useful. When not busy I hung about, watching my employer. He
certainly was an artist in his line, a man without bravado, either all
nerves or none at all. I could not help thinking, too, that for an
Italian he spoke English remarkably well.
“At half past two a carriage took us from the hotel to the western
mill. We dressed in the loft. The signor donned his tinsel-spangled
tights. I figured as clown in an old stovepipe hat and white cotton
suit, liberally besprinkled with stars of red and green. The same
colors streaked my face. As we clambered through the scuttle, the
crowds lining the bridges and banks set up a shout, and the town
band on the other mill began playing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner.’
“Sharp at three o’clock the music stopped. The assistant on our
roof advanced to the edge, fired six blank cartridges from a self-
cocking revolver, and shouted this magniloquent announcement
through a megaphone:
“‘Ladies and gentlemen, the celebrated Signor Lupini will now
illustrate his art, assisted by Rinaldo Nobisco, the famous clown,
recently secured from the London hippodrome, ladies and
gentlemen, at great trouble and expense.’
“Whistles and catcalls from the boys below greeted this absurd
reference to me, and I felt rather foolish. Signor Lupini stepped
briskly forward, bowed to his audience and was soon promenading
along the spidery line between the two cornices. Aided by a long
balancing-pole, he stood on one foot, knelt, lay down, walked across
blindfold, and performed many other marvelous feats. His perfect
control of nerve and muscle fascinated me. I did not realize that his
facility came from years of toilsome practice.
“Here was the calling for me. I resolved to stretch a rope the very
next day between the beams over the haymow.
 “During the signor’s exhibition the crowd was very quiet, and the
band did not play. It was only when he was once more safe upon
the roof that their long-restrained applause broke forth, and the
band struck up ‘Hail to the Chief.’ He rested a few minutes, and then
motioned to me to make ready.
“Among our paraphernalia was a strong, light wheelbarrow with a
tire grooved to fit the rope. I began to feel a little shaky; but there
was no time to indulge this emotion, for my employer exclaimed: ‘All
aboard, my boy, and remember, a stiff upper lip!’
“I seated myself, facing forward, my feet dangling on each side of
the wheel. Signor Lupini, stooping, gripped the handles.
“‘Sit steady,’ he said. ‘Don’t wink one eye unless you wink the
other at the same time.’
“He ran me a few turns round the graveled surface, then flicked
the wheel dexterously up on the rope and headed straight for the
edge.
“‘Keep perfectly still,’ he adjured me, ‘and you’re as safe as you’d
be on the street.’
“For all my assumption of coolness, I was frightened half out of
my wits. I shut my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them we
were fairly out on the tremulous hemp.
“‘Don’t look down,’ cautioned the signor. ‘Face straight forward. Sit
tight.’
“Hardly daring to breathe, I stiffened myself as if I were in a
plaster cast. I could see the narrow line just ahead buckle slightly at
the approach of the wheel. How long that two hundred feet seemed!
“Slowly, surely, we drew near the roof. The tire jolted against the
cornice. In two or three seconds we were safely on the gravel. Then
the band blared out and the crowds set off explosives. My fright was
over, and I felt proud as a peacock.
 “On the trip back my employer made me sit facing him, and I had
a good chance to admire the easy, effortless play of his wiry
muscles. He was a thorough gymnast, a man of steel and india-
rubber. After several other trips, during which I occupied different
positions on the barrow, we went back to the hotel.
“Promptly at eight we emerged again through the scuttle. A crowd
bigger than that of the afternoon had gathered, and a roar of
applause greeted us. I say ‘us,’ for by this time I felt myself to be
almost as important as Signor Lupini. My head was completely
turned.
“The evening performance possessed certain novel features. Tin
pans of red fire stood on each cornice, and along the bridge-rails
had been stationed a half-dozen boys liberally supplied with rockets
and Roman candles.
“The master of ceremonies fired an introductory volley with his
revolver.
“‘Light up, Jimmy!’ he shouted to his associate across the river, at
the same time touching a match to the pan beside him. Jimmy
obeyed. A deep red glow illuminated the scene, flashing from the
mill windows, and revealing the human clusters on bridges and
banks.
“As in the afternoon, Signor Lupini began with a few feats
performed alone, the blaze of fireworks making his spangled tights
glitter. I waited impatiently for our dual performance, thirsting for
some of the applause. Finally my turn came, and the signor wheeled
me back and forth several times. So great was my confidence in him
that I had forgotten my nervousness.
“At last nine o’clock was near.
“‘Now, my boy,’ said my employer, ‘we’ll wind up with something I
don’t try very often. I see you have good grit.’
“He screwed to the barrow sides a light, strong chair of steel, its
seat a yard in air. After helping me into this, he passed me a long-
handled pan of red fire. We were to close in a blaze of glory. ‘Keep
cool,’ said he, ‘and we’ll give ’em something to look at.’
“He trundled me up to the cornice, his assistant dropped a lighted
lucifer into the pan, and we moved out on the rope amid the
crimson glare and the whizzing of rockets. The crowd yelled, and
one of the boys setting off fireworks from the lower bridge lost his
head.
“Whi-s-s-sh! A badly aimed rocket shot not five feet over our
heads, showering us with sparks. A little lower, and it would have
dashed us from the rope. Signor Lupini drew a quick breath. I
cringed in my steel chair, but still kept tight hold of the pan handle.
The sudden fright set my teeth chattering. My employer noticed my
trepidation.
“‘Keep quiet, my boy, and we’ll get over all right,’ said he,
reassuringly, cool as a cucumber.
“On we rolled, smoothly and steadily. We were about half-way
across when the unlucky rocketeer on the lower bridge outdid his
previous blunder. A warning shriek blended with the swish of a
projectile. I dared not turn my head, but a sidelong glance revealed
a fiery comet heading straight toward us. Signor Lupini saw it, too,
and could not repress a cry of alarm. The next second it was upon
us. I shut my eyes, convinced that we were lost. A whir, a rushing of
flame, a slight shock! The apparition had passed, and we were still
on the rope.
“I was hardly daring to congratulate myself when my heart was
chilled by a low groan behind me. The barrow wabbled. The signor
was trembling violently, swaying, reeling like a drunken man; every
throb of his body came to me through the tight-clutched handles.
Something fearful must have happened. I clung to the chair arms in
sheer paralysis of horror. An accident would hurl us down seventy-
five feet into the river, where drowning or maiming worse than death
awaited us.
 “We moved a few feet farther, then stopped. The barrow swayed,
as if about to overturn. Another groan from the signor. I would have
questioned him, but the words died in my throat. Perhaps he had
been pierced by the rocket, and might at any instant fall
unconscious.
“Cries of horror rose from the spectators. The rockets and Roman
candles ceased. The entertainment threatened to become a tragedy.
“Again we started, moving intermittently. Now a few quick steps
would fill me with the dread of being flung off; now we almost
stopped, and I feared we should never go on. Before and behind us
fizzed the red fire. Signor Lupini’s feet shuffled on the rope, his
breath came hard. Not a word in explanation, but always those
terrible groans. My hair bristled.
“With straining eyes I stared ahead into the red glare on the
approaching mill. How slowly the distance lessened! On the roof
stood Jimmy, gazing at us, pale and open-mouthed. The speechless
horror on his face reflected our peril.
“The cornice was only ten feet off. Signor Lupini thrust the barrow
suddenly forward. A second later the wheel grated on the gravel; it
was none too soon. As a long sigh of relief rose from the spellbound
crowds, the gymnast collapsed into a writhing heap. It took three
men to get him down through the scuttle and into the carriage that
conveyed him to his hotel.
“The rocket had struck his right calf a glancing blow. His skill had
enabled him to withstand a shock that would have overthrown a
clumsier man; but his muscles, steeled to resist, had cramped
violently, and we had been in deadly peril all the way across. Two
lives had hung on his ability to resist the agonizing pains and
preserve his poise.
“That last hundred feet decided me that I didn’t care to be a
professional acrobat. The tight rope was never stretched between
the beams of the haymow.”
 DOWN THE INCLINE
By Charles Newton Hood

“A
ll that I had to do to earn my one hundred and twenty-five
dollars a week salary was, four times each week-day, to climb
to the top of a high tower, mount a bicycle, ride it down a long,
narrow incline, pitched at an angle of about forty-five degrees, then
up a few feet and out through the air, across a gap of thirty feet to
another platform, and so to the ground.”
It was John Manser who was speaking, formerly one of the most
daring performers in what is called the carnival business.
“No, I am not doing that sort of an act now.
“My mother had been writing to me, begging me to stop, but I
was looking forward to getting married, and that one hundred and
twenty-five dollars a week was making the nest-egg grow.
“I was one of the ‘feature’ acts furnished by the Ferari Brothers to
street fairs, carnivals and the like, and had stepped from
construction boss to performer one day by taking the place of an
indisposed athlete at an hour’s notice, and leaping the gap
successfully on his bicycle without any previous rehearsal. I was at
once put on as a regular performer with the company.
“My work did not seem so very terrible to me. With the bands
playing and with the thousands of happy spectators looking on, it
was rather pleasant than otherwise to climb to the top of the high
platform, dressed in my gay costume, and at the word, come
hurtling down the steep run, and then up and out through the air
like a bird.
“All that seemed to be required was to be absolutely sure that the
apparatus was put up strong and perfectly true, and that the gap
was of exactly the correct width. Mine was precisely twenty-eight
feet and four inches. I always superintended the erection of
everything myself, and trued every part up with the utmost care.
“In the act itself, it required only strong hands and arms to keep
the bicycle steady and straight down the run, and to lean back a
little and give a strong up pull on the handle-bar when we ‘took off’
for the jump, so that the machine would surely strike on the rear
wheel on the other side, to prevent the shock which would throw me
headlong if the front wheel should strike first, or even at the same
instant.
“All summer long I had enjoyed the work, and I often wondered
that they should pay me so much for such a simple thing. Even
when the performer who ‘looped-the-loop’ on a bicycle in another
part of the grounds fell and was crippled for life, I ascribed it to the
fact that his health was not very good, and that he sometimes
resorted to stimulants to help him through his act; and his
misfortune did not render me at all nervous regarding my own work.
“It was the last day of the carnival at Grand Creek. We had had a
most successful week, and on the closing night it was estimated that
not less than fifteen thousand people crowded the grounds. The last
of my four rides for the day was scheduled for eleven o’clock at
night, and was to be the closing feature.
“Promptly at five minutes of eleven I climbed to the platform, and
my bicycle was sent up to me by rope and pulley. It was a heavy,
dark night, but the thousands of electric lights made the grounds
almost as light as day. Little lamps were strung thickly all down the
run, and the skeleton framework of my tower and trestles was
outlined with them.
“A fitful, eddying wind had come up, which roared dismally
through the timbers. It swayed the big framework somewhat, but
not enough to trouble me.
“The people had come crowding to my portion of the grounds,
and as I gazed down at their upturned faces, massed so thickly
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