Read Ebook: Harper's Young People June 29 1880 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

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Ebook has 376 lines and 20669 words, and 8 pages

"Oh, it sounds very well, I assure you, Miss Pamela," he said.

"You see," went on the lady, "it hasn't been tuned for four years or more. Mr. Scrutite went about the country for many a year tuning pianos; but he got old, and the last time he came he left his tuning key, or whatever you call it, saying he'd be round again if he could; but he never came. It's such an expensive thing, you know, to bring a man twenty miles to do it, that I've been putting it off, and putting it off. But we'll have it done now, eh, Kitty?"

"Why, Miss Pamela," said Ned, "I'll do it for you, if you have the thing they do it with."

"Well, I never did tune one, but I know exactly how they do it. I've seen Professor Seaflatt tune my mother's ever so many times."

"Oh, I'm sure you could do it, if you really feel as if you could take so much trouble; it would be a great kindness to us."

"Of course I'll do it, with the greatest pleasure in the world, ma'am. Let me see-- I am to go home to-morrow afternoon; I'll do it the first thing in the morning." And rash Ned went to rest on Miss Pamela's feather-bed, in a room smelling of withered rose leaves. The bed was hung with old chintz curtains; the wall-paper displayed a pattern of large faded flowers. The swallows made a soft twittering in the wide chimney, as he closed his eyes with a glow of satisfaction at the thought of the kind action he had undertaken to perform.

The piano was small and narrow, with legs so thin as to suggest to Ned that it needed pantaloons. It had been the pride and glory of Miss Pamela's girlhood, and was still, in her eyes, an excellent and valuable instrument, although she, being of a modest turn of mind, was willing to acknowledge that it had probably seen its best days.

Kitty played it. But what could be the meaning of that fearful jumble of strange sounds? Surely that time-honored melody never sounded so before. What was the matter? Miss Pamela's face fell a little, but she still smiled, and said,

"You had better get your notes, Kitty; you are playing carelessly."

Kitty got her notes, and played carefully, but the result was still, to say the least, most astonishing and unsatisfactory.

"Try 'Come, Haste to the Wedding,' then." But the jig ran riot to such an extent that Kitty lost her place, stumbled, and finally came to a dead stop.

Poor Miss Pamela listened with a face of deepening dismay, while Ned stood still, with cold chills running down his back, as he was suddenly struck with the appalling idea that he might have undertaken something entirely beyond his abilities, and that the ruin of the cherished old piano might be the possible dreadful result.

"Try a scale, Kitty," again suggested Miss Pamela, with a polite effort to look tranquil.

Oh, that scale--what capers it cut! what unheard-of combinations of fearful sounds it was guilty of! Up and down it jumped and flourished, careering about in a manner as far as possible removed from that of a sober, well-conducted scale. Bass notes and treble notes ran against each other; high notes and low notes played leap-frog--they groaned, shrieked, and wheezed in a horrid discord, which could not have been worse if a thousand imps had been let loose in the old oaken case.

Just such an expression we may imagine that poor old piano would have worn, to any one who could have taken in the full absurdity of the position. A venerable instrument like itself, after thirty-five years of honorable service, thus to be forced to exhibit a levity so unbefitting its age and dignity!

Poor Ned was red-hot with mortification and chagrin. He certainly was to be pitied. It was very trying indeed to have been led into such a scrape by his boyish over-confidence in his own powers, and a real desire to do a favor. Even through her own surprise, and her distress at what she feared might prove a lasting injury to her precious old piano, Miss Pamela felt sorry for his embarrassment.

"Never mind, Master Ned," she said, in a kindly tone. "I dare say the tuning key was too old, or perhaps you understand modern pianos better. I don't believe any real harm is done, and you know I was going to have it tuned with some of the money you were so good as to bring me, so you see I am no worse off than I was before."

As she left the room, Kitty buried her face in her big gingham apron.

Kitty raised her head, and Ned was wonderfully relieved at seeing that the tears in her eyes were caused by suppressed laughter.

"Oh, Ned, it's so funny!" she half whispered. "If Aunt Pamela knew I laughed, though, she would never forgive me."

"No, I don't, Kitty," said Ned, in a burst of remorseful frankness. "I'm the only one of the family that don't. The only things I could ever sing were 'Greenland's Icy Mountains' and 'Oh, Susannah' , and I always got them mixed up, because they begin just alike; so I never dare to sing 'Greenland's Icy' in church."

Kitty's words of comfort were as kind as those of her aunt, but Ned felt very anxious to get away from the scene of his discomfiture, and was glad to find himself at last on the road home, where he arrived in due season, finding the family at tea. It was not until he was alone with his father and mother that he unburdened himself.

"Father," he began, with some effort, "will you allow me to send a person at your expense to tune Miss Pamela's piano?"

"The fact of it is, sir, I undertook to tune it myself, and--well, I'm afraid I made a bad business of it."

"I tuned her piano."

"I didn't do it with my ears, I did it with my hands, and it was hard enough work, too. They are all blistered, and my wrists ache, and I am as lame all over as if I had been sawing wood all day."

Ned never forgot the peal of laughter which came from his parents. Both keenly relished the joke, and when Ned learned that what he had done could easily be undone, he felt so much relieved as to be able to laugh with them.

"Yes," said his father, emphatically, when he could recover his voice, "I think you had better send Seaflatt up to Miss Pamela's as soon as possible, and set her mind at rest."

"And, oh, Ned," said his mother, "if ever you tune another piano, may I be there to see--and hear!"

OLD TIMES IN THE COLONIES.

BY CHARLES CARLETON COFFIN.

HOW THE INDIANS WERE WRONGED, AND THEIR REVENGE.

The people of England, on the other hand, believed that they had the right to make their own laws through a Parliament of their own choosing, and that it was the duty of the King to obey and execute those laws.

James had done what he could to crush out the Protestant religion in England; Louis had driven the Huguenots, who were Protestants, from France, waging a cruel war upon them. Thousands had been killed. More than eight hundred thousand had been compelled to flee to other countries. The war was waged not merely that James might regain his crown, but it was a great struggle for civil and religious freedom. It extended to other countries: battles were fought on the banks of the Rhine, the Danube, the Po; in the meadows of Holland; on the plains of Germany; amid the vineyards of Italy; in the wilderness of North America; on the Penobscot, Piscataqua, Merrimac, and Mohawk.

All through the years Jesuit priests had been laboring to convert the Indians of Canada to Christianity, and had made them the allies of France. When the war broke out, all the Indians in Maine and New Hampshire sided with the French.

The English, especially the men who bought furs of the Indians, had not always treated them justly.

The traders cheated them when buying their beaver skins. They would put the furs on one side of the balance, and bear down the other with their hands, saying a man's hand weighed a pound. The Dutch fur-traders on the Hudson used their feet instead of their hands. The simple-hearted red men, knowing nothing of balances and weights, could only look on in astonishment, wondering at the lightness of the skins. The Indians of Maine and New Hampshire had a grudge against Major Waldron, who lived at Dover, New Hampshire.

"His hand weighs too much," they said.

But they had another and greater grievance. To understand it we must go back a little.

In 1675, Philip, who lived on a hill overlooking the peaceful waters of Narragansett Bay, begun war upon the English, which lasted nearly two years, during which the New Hampshire Indians murdered some of the settlers. The Governor of Massachusetts sent Captain Sill and Captain Hathorn, with their two companies of soldiers, to seize all the Indians, although only a few had taken any part in the murders. Major Waldron invited the Indians to come to Dover; and they, regarding him as their friend, came from their wigwams along the lakes and rivers, to see what he wanted.

"Let us have a sham fight," he said.

The Indians agreed to it. They ranged themselves on one side, their guns loaded with powder only, and the white men on the other.

"You fire first," said Major Waldron.

The Indians fired their guns in the air, and the next moment found themselves surrounded by the white men, who made them prisoners, taking away their guns, putting them on board a vessel, sending them to Boston, and selling two hundred of them into slavery.

One Indian made his escape from the soldiers, ran into Elizabeth Heard's house, and the good woman secreted him in the cellar, and saved him from being sold into slavery.

The war between England and France began. The Jesuit fathers were making their influence felt among the tribes, winning them to the side of France.

Previous to this the Indians had made themselves at home in Dover, coming and going as they pleased. There were five strongly fortified houses in the town, in which the settlers slept at night.

It was the evening of the 27th of June, 1688, when two squaws called at Major Waldron's garrison, and asked if they might sleep there.

"Indians are coming to trade to-morrow," they said.

Major Waldron was pleased to hear it, for trade with the Indians always meant a good bargain to the white man.

"Supposing we should want to go out in the night, how shall we open the door?" asked the squaws.

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