Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table January 21 1896 by Various

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ms the pollen could not fall on the stigma.

We must then look at all flowers as expressions of welcome to some insect--day-flowering blossoms mostly to bees and butterflies, and night-bloomers to moths. And not only expressions of welcome, but each with some perfect little plan of its own to make this insect guest the bearer of its pollen to the stigma of another flower of the same species. And how endless are the plans and devices to insure this beautiful scheme! Some flowers make it certain by keeping the stigma closed tight until all its pollen is shed; others place the anther so far away from the stigma as to make pollen contact impossible; others actually imprison these pollen-bringing insects until they can send them away with fresh pollen all over their bodies.

Take almost any flower we chance to meet, and it will show us a mystery of form which the insect alone can explain.

Another beautiful provision is seen in the difference in size of the pollen grain of the two flowers, those of the high anthers being much larger than those from the lower anthers. These larger grains are intended for the high stigma, which they are sure of reaching, while those of smaller size, on the top of the tongue, which should happen to be wiped off on the high stigma, are too small to be effective for fertilization.

HOW RUFUS TRAPPED THE BURGLARS.

BY WILLIAM HEMMINGWAY.

The squealing of dry snow under horses' hoofs awakened Rufus Walker. His room was the nearest to the turnpike crossing. Perhaps that was why he was the only sleeper in the railroad station at Winona to be aroused by the approaching sleigh. It was a sleigh, that was certain; for now Rufus could hear the smooth, easy, half-shuffling sound of the runners on the well-packed snow. Who could it be travelling at that time of night? The horses were going at a walk. Neither of them wore a bell. "Maybe some one has come to wake up father and send a telegram," thought Rufus, sleepily. But no, the sleigh bumped over the railroad tracks and passed on. The boy heard the shrill crunching of the snow a few times more, and then he fell asleep again. If he had only felt enough curiosity to get up and look out of the window he would have seen something to make his heart beat very fast indeed; but the cold air nipped the tip of his nose and made it numb, and he buried his face in the blankets and slept.

Rufus Walker's father was the station agent and telegraph operator at Winona, in the heart of a vast wheat-raising section of Dakota. For miles the country stretched away in gentle undulations. In the spring you looked out on a sea of waving, tossing green, crinkled and fretted by every passing breeze. In the fall the green sea had turned to gold, and those noisy ships, the mowing-machines, went clattering through it. Now the vast expanse lay white and still under its frosty blanket. The wheat harvest had been gathered into the barns, and for weeks little Rufus had heard the farmers talking about "number one hard," and "number one," and all the other varieties of the grain. Right opposite the station and across the railroad track stood a grain elevator. Its gigantic shape rose over the little station like a castle towering above a tiny cottage. The farmers for miles around would begin to haul wheat to the elevator to-morrow, for Mr. Price, Pillsbury's elevator superintendent, had arrived that day. He had brought a satchel full of packages of new crisp bank-notes, and fat little rolls of gold eagles and double-eagles. He always paid cash for the wheat as he bought it. That is the custom all through the wheat country.

The thick black bag of alligator-skin that held more than five thousand dollars was locked in the safe that stood in the office of the grain elevator. The money was the attraction that had brought the three men, who silently got out of the sleigh in the shadow of the tall building. They tied their horses to a ring near the office door, then stealthily crept through the snow to the railroad station.

Little Rufus Walker woke up with a start. A big man with a handkerchief tied across the lower part of his face was shaking him by the shoulder.

"How old are you, sonny?" asked the stranger.

"Ten years last August," Rufus answered, huskily.

"Well, you're old enough to have sense," said the man. "All you've got to do is to keep still. We're just goin' to relieve Mr. Price of that bag o' money. You keep still, d'ye hear?"

The big man strode out of Rufus's room and joined his two companions at the further end of the hallway. They had gathered Mr. Price, Rufus's father, Mrs. Walker, and big Tom Walker in one of the rooms. Evidently the strangers had awakened Rufus last of all. He sat up, shivering, with the blankets wrapped around him. His hair was standing up so straight that it seemed to bend backward. His teeth chattered.

"Where's the boy?" he heard a strange voice ask.

"Oh, I left him in his bed!" replied the voice of the big man. "He's no bigger than your thumb, and he--"

"Better bring him in here with the rest," said the strange voice.

"No; let him stay in his bed," said the big man's voice. "He ain't sizable enough to make trouble. He couldn't live to go two miles to the nearest house for help."

"All right," said the strange voice. "Now, Mr. Price, we don't aim to bust your safe. If you was a polite gentleman you'd just skip over and open her for us. However, we've got the little implements here, and we'll have her open in less than an hour fair an' easy. Bill, you keep these folks quiet till we whistle for you."

Rufus heard two men go down stairs. Then he heard them stamping through the snow toward the grain-elevator. There was silence for five minutes or so, and then he heard the "bink! bink! bink!" of hammers falling on steel wedges. Rufus suddenly wondered if he couldn't call help in a way the robbers hadn't thought of. He stealthily got out of bed and put on his coat, trousers, and thick woollen stockings. His heart fluttered and jumped so hard that he was afraid he'd lose it as he crept inch by inch to the stairs that led down to the ticket and telegraph office. How glad he was when at last he stole in there as silently as a ghost! How glad he was that his father had encouraged him to learn how to telegraph! He wasn't a fine operator yet, but he thought he could manage to telegraph something useful. Very slowly he pulled out the plug in the switchboard that cut in the instrument on the telegraph line. He threw over a little brass lever so that the noisy "sounder" was cut off from the "relay" instrument. He screwed the points of the relay down so fine that the instrument ticked no louder than a watch. He tightened up the key, too. From upstairs he could hear the gruff voice of the big robber as he made jokes at the expense of his victims. Rufus knew that the night train-despatcher at Springfield was always at the wire, so he telegraphed,

"Sg--Sg--Wn!"

That meant, "Springfield, Winona is calling you!"

In a moment the relay ticked out, "Ay--ay--Sg." That meant that the despatcher heard the call. Then Rufus, his fingers stiff from the cold and clumsy with fright, bravely ticked this message:

"3 robrs hv held us up. 2 are brkg opn safe in elevator, and 1 is guardg our ppl. Pls send help qk. Do you 13?"

This meant: "Three robbers have held us up. Two are breaking open the safe in the elevator, and one is guarding our people. Please send help quickly. Do you understand!"

The despatcher gave a quick "Ay, ay!" closed his key, and rushed out into the railroad yard. Within two minutes a locomotive was running westward toward Winona, eighteen miles away. Besides the engineer and fireman, there were four freight brakemen in the cab. Each one had a rifle. The engineer kept the throttle wide open until he was within a mile of Winona. Then he shut off steam.

"Her headway'll carry her a long way," he remarked to his companions, "and it's all down grade from here."

Within a quarter of a mile of Winona the fireman put all his strength on the brake-wheel and brought the engine to a stop. The four brakemen cautiously plodded up the track.

Little Rufus sat in the dark office, numb with cold and fear. Every sense was on the alert. He thought the glare of the moonlight in the snow would blind him as he gazed down the track, minute after minute, through a knothole in the shutter. At last he saw a black dot away down the track. The dot turned into four dots as it swung around the curve. They came nearer, and he could make out the burly figure of Tim Ryan and the other three brakemen, each with a gun resting across the hollow of his left arm. The four figures silently passed by the office window, and crossed over to the grain elevator. Rufus could still hear the "bink! bink! bink!" of the hammers on the steel wedges. If he had dared to follow, he would have enjoyed what happened. The door of the safe was almost off when the robbers heard Tim Ryan's soft voice bidding them "Be aisy, now, an' lift yere hands above yere heads!" The two thieves almost fell over in their surprise.

The fourth brakeman easily captured the lone robber upstairs. Little Rufus went up stairs as soon as the excited men stopped talking. When the three thieves had been tied hand and foot, and Rufus had explained to his father and mother how he had summoned help, everybody looked at him in surprise.

"Weren't you scared?" asked his father.

"So scared I could hardly hold on to the key," said Rufus. "But I was too scared to let go of it, too."

THE JOYS OF WINTER.

Hurrah for the joys of winter! For the jolly sparkling weather, For the lake like glass where the skaters pass, For the flying flake and feather! Hurrah for the fun of rushing Down the long toboggan slide, For the dash ahead of the winning sled Round the curve of the steep hill-side!

Hurrah for the joys of winter! Jack Frost and the boys are friends; To the girl's bright face what a witching grace The touch of his pencil lends! Hurrah for the wild northwester, And the crisp cold wintry night When the rough wind blows and we toast our toes In the glow of the hearth-fire's light!

THAT BIT OF LOOSE FLAGGING.

BY GEORGE GRANTHAM BAIN.

That piece of loose flagging should have been fixed long before. It was one of those wicked, insidious suggesters of temptation which are quite as bad in their moral effect as the temptation itself. Probably not a man or woman stepped on that wobbling piece of stone but thought of the possibilities that lay below it. Directly beneath were the vaults in which were kept the millions on millions of silver and gold dollars belonging to the government Treasury. The first thought that the loose flagging suggested to the mind was always: Suppose it should turn over and drop me into the vault where the gold is kept; and suppose it was as easy to get out as to get in; and suppose--for I do not believe there was any one wicked enough to want to steal the coin--suppose there was no objection on the part of any one to carrying away as much gold as the pockets would hold. What a jolly time one could have with it!

That is what Harry Holt thought every night when he left the Western Union Telegraph Building and started home. He always crossed over to the Treasury Department sidewalk and walked on the loose piece of stone. There was no harm, he thought, in imagining all of the delightful things that he could do with a pocketful of the gold. For he was quite sure that even if the flagging was as loose as it seemed to the pressure of his foot, and even if he could move it--and he was tempted often to stoop and see--the top of the vault below was of heavy steel, and the only thing he would get if the flagging gave way was a good bumping, if not a broken leg. So the loose flagging was only a touchstone to a little world in which Harry lived on his way home each night from his telegraph desk--a world where all the hot summer days were made of trips to Nova Scotia, and the winter of sunny sojourns in the everglades of Florida.

"My wire's clear at both ends; I think I'll go home," said Harry to the chief operator one hot night. It was five minutes before his time for leaving the operating-room, and Western Union orders are strict. The chief operator shook his head and went on. Harry turned sulkily back to his desk and picked up a fan. On a night like this, when every one in the room was steaming with the heat of the overcrowded room, the click of the instrument before him and the hum of the other instruments all about jarred on his nerves. He wanted to get to his little room uptown, where at least he could take a plunge in the bath-tub if his blood was overheated. He hated the slavery of the operating-room, and the set rules that made him only a part of the machine to earn dividends for a lot of New York people in whom he had no interest. Harry was not a philosopher, or he would have said to himself that the surest way of heating his blood still more, and increasing his discomfort on this trying night, was to worry about something, to fret, to be discontented.

Well, five minutes is not a very long time. Harry took his coat on his arm and his hat in his hand; for it was long past the hour when every one but a few night-workers and an occasional policeman had gone to bed. The electric lights sputtered and spit as he came out of the building, and the hot white light dazzled him a little. Then the steam from the overheated asphalt came up into his face as he cut across diagonally toward the Treasury building. It looked cool and comfortable in its dress of white marble, and Harry thought how pleasant the air must be down in the sub-basement, far below the heat of the street. Then he stepped on the loose flagging, his steps turning to it as naturally as though there had been no other path, and the flagging gave way. It was so sudden that he had no chance to struggle or to try to regain the solid ground. Before he could even spread his arms to catch the edges of the stones about the opening, he had fallen below the surface of the sidewalk.

He had an awful consciousness that he was doing something wrong--as though his dreams about that loose flagging had exercised some weird influence on it, and so far loosened it as to make it give way under the weight of his body. And he suddenly remembered that he had read somewhere of a little army of watchmen who guarded the treasure vaults with weapons in hand, and who had been known to shoot first and make inquiries afterward. That would be very awkward, thought Harry; and all of this passed through his mind in the little space of time which it took for a fall of--well, he thought it was one hundred yards, but every one knows that the Treasury vaults have ceilings no higher than the ceiling of your room.

"Hello!" said a voice at his elbow. Harry had alighted somewhere. Just how he had managed to do it after that tremendous fall without breaking a leg he could not understand; but here he was on his feet, with no evidence of any damage done, and opposite him was a pleasant-faced old gentleman with a white beard, wearing a pair of steel-bowed spectacles which gave his face a benevolent aspect. Just behind the old gentleman was a stack of wooden boxes as high as the ceiling--and Harry saw now that the ceiling was not so very high after all--and lying around the room were white canvas bags with figures stencilled on them. There was a table not far away, with a delightful-looking cold luncheon spread on it, and there was a bowl of lemonade or something that looked like lemonade with a big square piece of ice floating on its surface. Harry's tongue had been parched all evening in the hot operating-room. He longed for a little of that lemonade, but he hesitated to ask the stranger for it.

"You came by the balloon route," said the old gentleman, not inquiringly, but as though he stated a recognized fact.

"I really don't know how I came, sir," said Harry, finding his tongue. "I didn't know I was coming."

"I fancied you came in a hurry. I see you haven't had time to put on your coat," said the old gentleman.

Harry felt very much ashamed of his shirt sleeves, and he tried very hard to put his coat on. But, curiously enough, whether it was from embarrassment or some other reason which he could not understand, he could not get his arms into the sleeves. Moreover, the more he tried, the more the sleeves of his shirt showed a disposition to come off his arms and leave him in a more embarrassing condition. In fact, all of his clothing felt loose and unstable, and Harry was much worried for fear that he would find himself in the presence of this critical old gentleman without a stitch of clothing on. The old gentleman came to his rescue.

"Never mind," he said; "we must make some allowance for the Czar's messenger. I suppose it is hot in America for one so recently in Russia."

Harry thought that the best way to do with his strange new acquaintance was to agree with him. He seemed kindly disposed, if he was a little eccentric. So Harry ventured to stammer out: "It is a little colder in St. Petersburg."

"Of course it is," said the old gentleman, sitting down on a pile of the canvas bags and rubbing his hands together. "The last messenger was actually sunstruck. But he came in his fur-lined robes of office. You were sensible to leave yours behind."

Harry accepted the tribute with a vague smile. He was a little puzzled, but even in his uncertain mental condition he felt reasonably sure that he had never owned any fur-lined robes. Still he was certain that any one who left fur-lined robes behind on a day like this, whether they were his own robes or those of some one else, was a very sensible person and deserving of commendation.

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