Read Ebook: Harper's Young People November 7 1882 An Illustrated Weekly by Various

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Ebook has 347 lines and 19828 words, and 7 pages

Nan's face flushed.

"Yes," she said, looking down, "I shall miss aunt--and Philip."

Miss Phyllis said nothing for a moment. She had more to tell, but she thought it as well not to say it now. She had taken a sudden fancy to Nan; she wanted the child to come to Beverley, and perhaps, if she told her all, Nan would refuse; at least, looking at the child's honest, fearless eyes, she felt it more prudent to say no more. So Nan was told that she was to go, if she liked, in a week, to her grandfather's and her father's old home.

"Your aunt thought," said Miss Phyllis, "that you might need some new clothes. You see, you will have to dress more at her house than here in Bromfield, and so we will take a week to get you ready. Perhaps it would be as well for you to stay here to-day, and go out with me."

Nan's eyes danced. Never but once since she lived in Bromfield had she owned an entirely new dress. Everything she wore had been "made over" from Mrs. Rupert's or Marian's, and she faintly understood that new clothes of Miss Phyllis's buying would be something unthought of in the Rupert mind.

"I'll leave you here a little while, Nan," said the young lady, "and you can amuse yourself with the books and papers."

But Nan needed nothing of the kind. When the door was closed, she uttered a little half-scream of delight, and jumped up, walking over to the window, where she looked out at the dull town lying smoky and hazy in the distance, and which she felt sure she was about to leave forever. She hardly heard Miss Phyllis returning, and felt startled by the sound of her voice, saying, "Nan, are you ready?" And there was the beautiful young lady in her furs and broad-brimmed hat, with a purse and a little note-book in her hand, ready to lead Nan into the first scene of her enchantment.

VENOMOUS SNAKES.

BY W. L. ALLEN.

Venomous snakes are those which have two hollow teeth in the upper jaw through which they inject poison into the wound made by their bite. The great majority of snakes are not venomous, but nevertheless there are more venomous snakes in the world than most men really require.

There are two classes of venomous snakes--those whose bite is certain death, and those whose bite can be cured. The only venomous snake inhabiting Europe is the viper, but its bite is seldom fatal. In the United States, with the possible exception of New Mexico and Arizona, there are only three venomous snakes--the rattlesnake, the copperhead, and the moccasin. All our other snakes are harmless. In some places the copperhead is known as the flat-headed adder, but the other species of snakes, to which the name "adder" is often given by country people, are as harmless as the pretty little garter-snake.

In one of the West India Islands--Martinique--there is a snake called the lance-headed viper, which is almost as deadly as the coral-snake. The East Indies are full of venomous snakes, and in British India nearly twenty thousand persons are killed every year by snake bites. Of the East Indian snakes whose bite is incurable the cobra is the most numerous, but the diamond snake, the tubora, and the ophiophagus are also the cause of a great many deaths. The British government has offered a large reward for the discovery of an antidote to the poison of the cobra, but no one has yet been able to claim it.

Africa, like all tropical countries, has many species of venomous snakes. The horned cerastes is the snake from whose bite Cleopatra is said to have died, and from its small size, and its habit of burying itself all but its head in the sand, it is peculiarly dreaded by the natives. The ugliest of these snakes is the great puff-adder, which often grows to the length of five or six feet, and whose poison is used by the natives in making poisoned arrows.

It is a very curious fact that the poison of venomous snakes can not be distinguished by the chemist from the white of an egg. And yet one kind of snake poison will produce an effect entirely unlike that produced by another kind. The blood of an animal bitten by a cobra is decomposed and turned into a thin, watery, straw-colored fluid, while the blood of an animal bitten by a coral-snake is solidified, and looks very much like currant jelly. Nevertheless, the poison of the cobra and that of the coral-snake seem to be precisely alike when analyzed by the chemist, and are apparently composed of the same substances in the same proportion as is the white of an egg.

THE TRAIN BOY'S FORTUNE.

BY ELIOT McCORMICK.

"Papers! Harper's Weekly! Bazar! All the monthly magazines!"

Jim Richards wished that he might have a dollar for every time he had repeated that cry. He was sure he had said it, during the three years he had been train-boy on the road between Philadelphia and New York, as many as fifty thousand times. Even ten cents each time would give him five thousand dollars. What could he not do with as much money as that? His mother should have a new dress, for one thing. He would give little Pete for his birthday the box of tin soldiers in the toy-shop window; and Lizzie, for hers, the doll on which her heart was set. Then they would all move into a new house somewhere in the country, instead of their wretched tenement in New York. Jim himself would give up his place as train-boy and go into the company's machine shop, which he could not do now, because his earnings from the sale of the papers were pretty good, while the machine-shop wages would be for some time small. But these were dreams; the train was approaching Trenton, where Jim would find the New York evening papers, and he had still to go through the last car. It was Saturday evening, and he must make enough to buy his mother's Sunday dinner.

"Papers!" he cried, slamming the door after him, and beginning to lay them one by one in the laps of the passengers. The first passenger was an old gentleman, and in his lap Jim laid a copy of a weekly paper.

"Take it away!" exclaimed the old man. "I don't want it."

Jim, in his hurry, had passed on without hearing.

"What! You won't, eh?" the old man went on, provoked by Jim's seeming inattention. "Then I'll get rid of it myself."

Crumpling it up into a ball, he turned around and threw it violently down the aisle, narrowly missing Jim's head, and landing it in the lap of an old lady on the opposite side.

"You won't lay any more papers in my lap, I guess," he added, shaking his head threateningly as Jim came back.

Jim was angry. He picked up the paper and smoothed it out as well as he could, but it was hopelessly damaged, and no one would think of buying it.

"You'll have to pay me ten cents for that," he exclaimed.

The train was now slacking, and the old gentleman, who was evidently bound for Trenton, had risen from his seat.

"Not a cent," he declared; "not a single cent. You hadn't any business to put it in my lap. I told you not to, but you persisted in leaving it there. You train-boys are a nuisance. It'll be a lesson to you."

"But I'll have to pay for it myself," cried Jim.

"Serve you right. You'll have ten cents less to spend for cigarettes."

In another instant, though, a better impulse came to him.

"What would mother say?" he thought. He threw down his papers, rushed to the door, jumped from the steps, and ran along the platform through the crowd in pursuit of the old man. In the confusion and darkness it was not easy to find anybody. Jim thought he saw him a little way ahead, but at the same moment the bell rang for the train to start. Should he follow the man or not? There must be time, he thought. In a moment more he had caught up with the person, but it was not his man at all. It was too bad, but he had done his best. He did not know that where he had failed, two other persons--dark-looking men, whom he had noticed getting off the car--had succeeded, and were now following the old gentleman along the passageway that leads up to the street.

Still uncertain what to do, Jim turned around, only to see the train moving off. It was but a few steps back to the track, and Jim ran with all his speed. But when he got there, the rear platform of the last car was a hundred yards away, and all that he could see was the red lantern winking at him, as it seemed, through the darkness.

The train had gone off with all his papers, including those which he had expected to sell between Trenton and New York. There would be no Sunday dinner to-morrow; indeed, Jim would be lucky if he were not discharged from his place.

For a moment Jim was bewildered. Then he bethought himself of the pocket-book. He would, at any rate, find out what was in that, only no one must see him do it.

So he walked down the track until he was quite out of sight, and by the light of a match carefully opened the leather flap. On the inside, in gilt letters, was the owner's name--John G. Vanderpoel, 11 Sycamore Street, Trenton. Jim had no excuse now for not returning it at once.

The sight of the name, though, brought back his anger.

"Old screw!" he said, half aloud. "I guess if he'd only known what was going to happen, he'd have paid me my ten cents. Let's see what's in it, anyhow."

The match had gone out, but Jim had another. Striking it, he looked into the pockets, one of which seemed to contain something green. Jim pulled it out with a beating heart. Yes, it was money--a package of greenbacks--and the label on the outside, though Jim's hands shook so that he could hardly make it out, read "00."

Not only was Jim ignorant that the old gentleman was being followed, but Mr. Vanderpoel did not know it himself. He walked out of the station with a firm, brisk step, his overcoat tightly buttoned over the place where he supposed his money to be, and congratulating himself that he had at length collected the debt which it represented.

It was not far to his house, which was in a side street, and occupied several lots of ground. A long path led up from the front gate, lined with shrubbery, and lighted only by the pale rays that gleamed from the front door. Alongside of the path stretched a little duck pond. It was a quiet, retired street, and when Mr. Vanderpoel turned into it, he left the crowd behind. He did not leave, however, the two men who had kept him in sight all the way from the station, and who now quickened their steps so that when he stopped at his gate they were not more than a few feet in the rear. Mr. Vanderpoel opened the gate, and went in. The gate swung back on its hinges, and was held open by one of the men, while the other entered. Not hearing the latch click, Mr. Vanderpoel turned around, and was met face to face by the intruder.

"Well, what do you want?" he demanded, angrily.

For an answer the old gentleman's arms were promptly seized and pinioned behind his back, and he himself was laid at full length along the garden path.

"Keep still now," hissed a rough voice. "We ain't no idea o' hurtin' ye, but what we want is them five thousand dollars."

It was not the slightest use to struggle. One man held him fast, while the other went through his pockets. Presently the first inquired of his partner,

"Where do you s'pose he's hid it?"

If it was the money they were speaking of, Mr. Vanderpoel knew perfectly well where he had hid it. It was, or ought to be, in the very pocket which the man was now searching--the breast pocket of his overcoat--and he waited breathlessly for the man's answer.

"Don't know," growled the thief, after a moment. "'Tain't here."

Mr. Vanderpoel almost jumped. If it were not there, where could it be? He had certainly put it in that pocket. He was glad, of course, that the thieves could not find it, but that did not relieve his mind as to its safety. However, if it had already been stolen, or if he had lost it, he could afford to lie still and enjoy what promised to be a humorous situation. Indeed, he felt almost inclined to laugh; and the robbers themselves, it seemed, began to realize that they were the victims of a sell.

"'Tain't on him nowhere," gruffly remarked the one who had been making the search.

"Feel in his breeches pocket," suggested the other.

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