Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table December 1 1896 by Various

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Ebook has 433 lines and 25583 words, and 9 pages

n with oil. Warm glue or gelatine is then poured in the box, and left to chill and solidify.

When sufficiently cold the frame may be removed, leaving the solid block of glue like hard jelly; the ends of the threads are to be grasped and torn through the gelatine, thus separating it in two or three parts. The plaster head may then be removed, and the mould put together again and surrounded by the frame to hold it in place.

To make a plaster head this plaster of Paris may be poured into the mould and left for a while, when, on removing the frame and taking the glue mould away, a perfect reproduction of the original head will be found.

When very large objects that would require a great deal of plaster are cast, they are generally made hollow in the following manner:

Obtain the glue mould by the process described, and into it pour a quantity of thin plaster, having first oiled the surfaces that come in contact with it. Turn the mould about and upside down, so the plaster will enter every part and adhere to the glue form. Allow it to "set," and again pour some plaster into the mould, which will adhere to the first coating, and after this has set repeat the operation several times, until a deposit or coating an inch or more in thickness has been made.

The glue mould on being removed will reveal a perfect plaster casting that, instead of being solid, is hollow, and in consequence is much lighter.

MIDSHIPMAN JACK, U.S.N.

BY WILLIAM DRYSDALE.

"I am not one of those fellows who 'can fight and run away, and live to fight some other day,'" one of the bravest Lieutenant-Commanders in the United States navy said one evening to a party of friends, who were making him feel uncomfortable by discussing his brilliant war record. "My bad leg won't let me run, so I always have to stand and fight it out."

"Why, Commander," one of his friends exclaimed, "I did not know that you had a bad leg. You do not limp."

"No," he answered, "not ordinarily. But when I tire myself I limp a little, and if I were to undertake to run I should come to grief."

"Where did you receive your injury?" another asked.

"In action at Apalachicola," the Commander replied; "the severest action I ever saw."

There was a twinkle in his eye as he spoke, and he looked about the table to see what effect the words had upon his friends. Two of them merely muttered their sympathy, and the third asked for the story of the fight; but the fourth man looked up with a comical expression that told the Commander he was understood in one quarter at least.

"You will certainly have to tell us about that," this fourth man laughed, seeing that the Commander was waiting for a question; "for I have always understood that Apalachicola, being an out-of-the-way place, was one of the few Southern towns that escaped without a scratch in the war. I never heard of any battle there."

"No, there was no battle there," the Commander replied, "and you would hardly hear of the action, because there were so few engaged in it. In fact, I was the only one on the Federal side, and there were no Confederates. When I was a boy there I fell out of a pine-tree and broke my thigh; so it was my own action, and one that I still have reason to remember."

This was the Commander's modest way of describing an accident that brought out all the manliness he had in him, and made him an officer in the United States navy, and he seldom gives any other account of it; but some of the grown-up boys of Apalachicola tell the story in a very different way--the same "boys," some of them, who used to set out in parties of three or four and chase young Jack Radway and make life miserable for him.

Jack had a strange habit, when he was between fifteen and sixteen , of going down to the wharf and sitting by the half-hour on the end of a spile, looking out over the bay. That was in 1862. His name was not Jack Radway, but that is a fairly good sort of name, and on account of the Commander's modesty it will have to answer for the present. While he sat in this way it was necessary for him to keep the corner of one eye on the wharf and the adjacent street, watching for enemies. Oddly enough, every white boy in the town was Jack's enemy, generous as he was, and brave and good-hearted; and when one came alone, or even two, if they were not too big, he was always ready to stay and defend himself. But when three or four came together he was forced to retire to his father's big brick warehouse, across the street. They would not follow him there, because it was well known that the rifle standing beside the desk was always kept loaded.

This enmity with the other boys, for no fault of his own, was Jack's great sorrow. A year or two before he had been a favorite with all the boys and girls, and now he was hungry for a single friend of his own age. The reason of it was that his father was the only Union man in Apalachicola. Every white man, woman, and child in the town sympathized with the Confederacy, except John Radway and his wife and their son Jack. The elder Radway had thought it over when the trouble began, and had made up his mind that his allegiance belonged to the old government that his grandfather had fought for.

"Look at that flag," Jack's father told him. "Your great-grandfather fought for it, and I want you always to honor it. It is the grandest flag in the whole world. It is my flag and yours, and you must never desert it."

For some time he lay there unconscious, and when he came to his senses he could not get up. There was a terrible pain in his left hip, and he called for help, and his mother and some of the colored women ran out and carried him into the house, and when they laid him on a bed he fainted again from the pain.

Mr. Radway was sent for, and after he had examined the leg as well as he could, he looked very solemn, for there was no doubt that the bone was badly broken. Even Jack, young as he was, could tell that; but with all his pain he made no complaint.

"This is serious business," he said to his wife when they were out of Jack's hearing. "The bone is badly fractured at the thigh, and there is not a doctor left in Apalachicola to set it. Every one of them is away in the army, and I don't know of a doctor within a hundred miles."

"Except on the gunboat," Mrs. Radway interrupted; "there must be a surgeon on the gunboat."

"I have thought of that," Mr. Radway answered; "but if he should come ashore he would almost certainly be killed, so I could not ask him to come. And if I should take Jack out to the boat, we would very likely be attacked on the way. I must take time to think."

Medicines were scarce in Apalachicola in those days, but they gave Jack a few drops of laudanum to ease the pain, and made a cushion of pillows for his leg. For all his terrible suffering, and the doubt about getting the bone set, he did not utter a word of complaint. But he turned white as the pillows, and the great heat of midsummer on the shore of the Gulf added to his misery.

For hours Mr. Radway walked the floor, trying to make up his mind what to do. Jack's suffering was agony to him, and the uncertainty of getting help increased it. Late in the evening, when all the household were in bed but Mr. and Mrs. Radway, they heard the sound of many feet coming up the walk, then a shuffling of feet on the piazza, and a heavy knock at the front door.

"Have they the heart for that?" Mr. Radway exclaimed. "Could they come to attack us when they know what trouble we are in? Some of them shall pay dearly for it if they have."

The knock was repeated, louder than before, and Mr. Radway took up a rifle and started for the door. Standing the rifle in the corner of the wall, and with a cocked revolver in one hand, he turned the key and opened the door a crack, keeping one foot well braced against it.

"You don't need your gun, neighbor," said the spokesman of the party without; "it's a peaceable errand we are on this time."

"What is it?" Mr. Radway asked, still suspicious.

"We know the trouble you are in," the man continued, "and we are sorry for you. It's not John Radway we are down on; it's his principles; but we want to forget them till we get you out of this scrape. There are twenty of us here, all your neighbors and former friends. We know there is no doctor in Apalachicola, and we have come to say that if you can get the surgeon of the gunboat to come ashore and mend up the sick lad, he shall have safe-conduct both ways. We will guard him ourselves, and we pledge our word that not a hair of his head shall be touched."

This friendly act came nearer to breaking down John Radway's bold front than all the persecutions he had been subjected to. He threw the door wide open, put the revolver in his pocket, and grasped the spokesman's hand.

"I need not try to thank you," he said; "you know what I would say if I could. My poor Jack is in great pain, and I shall make up my mind between this and daylight what had better be done."

The knowledge that he was surrounded by friends instead of enemies made Jack feel better in a few minutes; but the pain was too great to be relieved permanently in such a way, and all night long he lay with his teeth shut tight, determined to make no complaint.

The morning sun was just beginning to gild the smooth water of Apalachicola Bay, when the after-watchman on the gunboat's deck, who for some time had been watching a little sail-boat with half a table-cloth flying at the mast-head, called out,

"Small flag-of-truce boat on the port quarter!"

Jack Radway, lying on the stretcher in the bottom of the boat, heard the words repeated in a lower tone, evidently at the door of the Captain's cabin: "Small flag-of-truce boat on the port quarter, sir."

An instant later a young officer appeared at the rail with a marine glass in his hand.

"Ahoy there in the boat!" he called. "Put up your helm! Sheer off!"

Then Jack's father stood up in the boat. "I have a boy here with a broken thigh," he said. "I want your surgeon to set it."

"Who are you?" the officer asked.

"John Radway--a loyal man," was the answer.

The name was as good as a passport, for the gunboat people had heard of John Radway.

"Come alongside," the officer called; and five minutes later a big sailor had Jack in his arms, carrying him up the gangway, and he was taken into the boat's hospital and laid on another cot. It was an unusual thing on a naval vessel, and when the big bluff surgeon came the Captain was with him, and several more of the officers.

The examination gave Jack more pain than he had had before, but still he kept his teeth clinched, and refused even to moan.

"It is a bad fracture, and should have been attended to sooner," the surgeon said at length. "There is nothing to be done for it now but to take off the leg."

"Oh, I hope not!" Mr. Radway exclaimed. "Is there no other way?"

"He knows best, father," Jack said; "he will do the best he can for me."

"He is too weak now for an operation," the surgeon continued; "but you can leave him with me, and I think by to-morrow he will be able to stand it."

If Jack had made the least fuss at the prospect of having his leg cut off, or had let a single groan escape, there is hardly any doubt that he would be limping through life on one leg. But the brave way that he bore the pain and the doctor's verdict made him a powerful friend.

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