Read Ebook: Harper's Young People January 20 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various
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Ebook has 267 lines and 21098 words, and 6 pages
Poor pussy comes at break of day, And wakes me up to make me play; But I am such a sleepy head, That I'd much rather stay in bed!
OUR OWN STAR.
"As we have already," began the Professor, "had a talk about the stars in general, let us this morning give a little attention to our own particular star."
"Is there a star that we can call our own?" asked May, with unusual animation. "How nice! I wonder if it can be the one I saw from our front window last evening, that looked so bright and beautiful?"
"I am sure it was not," said the Professor, "if you saw it in the evening."
"Is it hard to see our star, then?" she said.
"How big is the sun?" asked Joe.
"You can get the clearest idea of its size by a comparison. The earth is 7920 miles in diameter, that is, as measured right through the centre. Now suppose it to be only one inch, or about as large as a plum or a half-grown peach; then we would have to regard the sun as three yards in diameter, so that if it were in this room it would reach from the floor to the ceiling."
"How do they find out the distance of the sun?" asked Joe.
"Why," said Gus, "that sounds just like what Bob Stebbins said the other day in school. He has a big silver watch that he is mighty fond of hauling out of his pocket before everybody. A caterpillar came crawling through the door, and went right toward the teacher's desk at the other end of the room. 'Now,' said Bob, 'if that fellow will only keep straight ahead, I can tell how long the room is.' So out came the watch, and Bob wrote down the time and how many inches the caterpillar travelled in a minute. But just then Sally Smith came across his track with her long dress, and swept him to Jericho. We boys all laughed out; Sally blushed and got angry; and the teacher kept us in after school."
"Astronomers have the same kind of troubles," said the Professor. "They incur great labor and expense to take some particular observation that is possible only once in a number of years, and then for only a few minutes. And after their instruments are all carefully set up, and their calculations made, the clouds spread over the sky, and hide everything they wish to see. People, too, are very apt to laugh at their disappointment.
"There would, however, be no science of astronomy if those who pursued it were discouraged by common difficulties. To explain the heavenly bodies they sometimes try to make little systems or images of the sun and the planets; but they are never able to show the sizes and distances correctly. If they were to begin by making the sun one inch in diameter, then the earth would have to be three yards off, and as small as a grain of dust; some of the planets would have to be across the street, and others away beyond the opposite houses. So when you look at these little solar systems, as they are called, you must remember that the sizes and distances are all wrong.
"Still, you can get from them some idea how the sun stands in the middle, and the earth and other planets go round, and how the earth, while going round the sun, keeps also turning itself around. You have seen how a top, while spinning, sometimes runs round in a circle. That is just the way our earth does. And if you imagine a candle in the centre of the circle that the top makes, you will see why it is sometimes day and sometimes night. When the side of the earth we are on is turned toward the sun, we have day; and when we have spun past the sun, night comes.
"The sun seems to go past us, and people used to think it really did. But we know now that it is as if we were in a rail-car, and the trees and houses seemed to be rushing along, when we ourselves are the ones that are moving. The sun and all the stars seem to move through the sky from east to west; but it is only our earth that is turning itself the other way, and carrying us with it."
"What makes summer and winter?" asked Joe.
"I think that the top will help you to understand that too. You have noticed that when it spins it does not always stand straight up, but often leans over to one side. So sometimes the upper part of it would be over toward the candle, and sometimes over away from it. The earth leans over too in this same manner; and that is the reason why we have summer and winter. When by this leaning our part of the earth is toward the sun, we get more heat, and have a warm season; when we are leaning away from the sun, and are more in the shadow, the cold weather comes, and continues until we get into a good position to be warmed up again.
"A kind Providence brings this all around very regularly, and there is no danger of our being kept so long in the cold that we would freeze to death. Everything works like a clock that is never allowed to run down or get out of order. In spinning, the earth carries us round twelve or fifteen times as fast as the fastest railway train has ever yet been made to run; and in making its circle round the sun, it moves as fast as a shot from a gun."
"Oh! oh!" exclaimed the children; and Joe asked, "Why are we not all dashed to pieces?"
"Because," said the Professor, "we do not run against anything large enough to do any harm; and we do not realize how fast we are moving, or that we are moving at all, because we do not pass near anything that is standing still. You know that in riding we look at the trees and fences by the road-side to see how rapidly we are going. The hills in the distance do not show our speed, but seem to be following us. Unless we look outside we can not know anything about it, excepting, perhaps, we may guess from the noise and jostling of the vehicle. But as the earth moves smoothly and without the least noise, we would think it stood entirely still did not astronomers assure us of its wonderfully rapid motion. It took them a great while to find it out. When they began to suspect it there was a great dispute over it. Some said it moved; others said it did not. The two parties were for a time very bitter against each other; but now all agree in the belief of its rapid motion."
"A queer thing to quarrel about, I must say," remarked Gus. "I wouldn't have cared a straw whether it moved or not, if I could only have been allowed to move about on it as I pleased."
"I hope you are not getting uneasy, Gus," said Joe.
"There is evident reason," observed Jack, "to suspect that his appreciation of the marvels of science is insufficient to preserve--"
"Oh, bother! Jack, don't give us your college stuff now, after the Professor has told us so much. We like to hear him, of course. I do, for one, a great deal better than I thought I should. But then a fellow can't help getting tired."
BABY'S EYES.
When the baby's eyes are blue, Think we of a summer day, Violets, and dancing rills. When the baby's eyes are gray, Doves and dawn are brought to mind. Brown--of gentle fawns we dream, And ripe nuts in shady woods. Black--of midnight skies that gleam With bright stars. But blue or gray, Black or brown, like flower or star, Sweeter eyes can never be To mamma than baby's are.
LADY PRIMROSE.
BY FLETCHER READE.
"Infinite riches in a little room."
The words of the wise old woman of Hollowbush were true, then. Here was a place where gems were more abundant than flowers; and as the child stood on the threshold gazing into the diminutive but wondrously beautiful apartment that had opened so suddenly before her, she saw that she was indeed in the presence-chamber of a king.
The walls were of pure white marble, studded with diamonds, and from the ceiling, which she could almost touch with her hand, hung slender chandeliers of the same material. In each of these, instead of lamps, were innumerable sapphires, throwing a soft blue light over all the place. In every stone a star seemed to be burning steady and clear and wonderfully brilliant. It was the asteria, or star sapphire, which was alone considered worthy to light even the outer courts of the king over a country so rich in gems as this.
The child clapped her hands, and would no doubt have shouted with delight if she had not found herself encircled by tiny men, all looking exactly alike, and all winking and blinking at her just as the gate-keeper had done.
Before she could speak, or even clap her hands a second time, they had entirely surrounded her, joining hands, and wheeling round and round, singing as they went:
"Workers are we--one, two, three-- And merry men all, as you see, as you see; Deep under the ground, Where jewels are found, We work, and we sing While we dance in a ring. But a mortal has come to the caves below, So, merry men all, bow low, bow low, For our sister she'll be--one, two, three."
Three times did these strange and merry little people sing their song, and three times did they whirl around the new-comer, thus introducing themselves and welcoming her to their dominions.
Then one of them, but whether the gate-keeper or another she could not tell, stepped forward, and making a low bow, said. "I am the king of the mineral-workers and the workers in stone. These are my people; but because you are a mortal, we one and all bow before you."
At these words all the little people bowed and waved their hands. Then the king continued:
"Henceforth you are to be known as the Princess B?b?;" and he mounted a marble footstool that stood close by, standing on tiptoe, and placing on the head of the new-made princess a tiny coronet of pearls. Dumb with astonishment, the Princess B?b? listened quietly to all that was said to her, and allowed herself to be led away by one of the little men, who had been appointed her chamberlain.
It was now getting late, and she was glad enough to be shown to her own room, that she might think over the many wonderful things which she had seen.
But here were new wonder and new riches.
Instead of being covered with a carpet, the floor was laid in squares of jasper, the windows were of pure white crystal instead of glass, and the curtains were made of a fine net-work of gold, caught back with a double row of amethysts.
The furniture was of gold and silver, exquisitely carved, and the quilt, which lay in stiff folds over the bed, was a marvel of beautiful colors that seemed to be now one thing and now another.
The Princess B?b? held her breath. "It will be like going to sleep on a rainbow," she said to herself, for the opal bed was full of changing colors, now red, now green, and then purple and soft rose-pink, and then, perhaps, green again. "There was never anything so beautiful as this!" exclaimed the princess, throwing herself down; but the next moment she was ready to cry with vexation, for there was neither warmth nor softness in the opal bed, and she lay awake all night, alternately shivering and crying.
"I won't stay in this place another moment," she said, the next morning, when the chamberlain knocked at her door.
The chamberlain bowed, and held before her a silver cup filled with jewels. "These are a present from the king to the Princess B?b?," he said, holding it up for her inspection.
There was first of all a diamond necklace, just what she had been wishing for; then there were ear-rings and bracelets of lapis lazuli of a beautiful azure color; string after string of pearls; emeralds set in buckles for her shoes; amethysts; sapphires as blue as the sea; and last of all a large topaz, which shone with a brilliant yellow light, as if it had been sunshine which some one had caught and imprisoned for her.
The Princess B?b? forgot for a moment her hard bed and sleepless night, and ran to the king to thank him for his presents.
"I am glad to find that you are pleased with your new home," said the king, graciously. "Did the princess sleep well during the night?"
"Oh, not at all well," she answered, forgetting her errand. "And I was very cold, besides."
"Cold? cold?" said the king, sharply. "We must see to that."
Turning to one of his attendants, who held a crystal cup on which were engraved the arms of the royal family, he took from it a stone of a dark orange color, and said,
"This is a jacinth, my dear princess. Whenever you are cold, you have only to rub your hands against it, and you will feel a delicious sense of warmth stealing through your limbs."
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