and up from the east and from the west in the same way; and thus you see we had a clock up in the sky to tell us the time of day, for we had an iceberg picked out all around for every hour, and when the Pointers' stood over that particular berg we knew what time it was.

"We should have got along through the winter much more comfortably if we had had some books, or some paper to write on, and pen and ink to write with; but these things were quite beyond the reach of our ingenuity. So our life was very monotonous; doing our daily duties, — that is, whatever we might find to do, — and, after wading through the deep snow in doing it, we came back again to our little hut to get warm, and to eat and talk and sleep.

“And much talking we did, as I can assure you, about each other, and our families and lives, and what great things we would do when we got away from the island. Thus we came gradually to know each other's history, and thus there came to be greater sympathy between us, and more indulgence of each other's whims and fancies, as we got better and better acquainted.

"The Dean had quite a story to relate of himself. He told me that he was born in the great city of New York. His father died before he could remember, and his mother was very poor; but so long as she kept her health she managed, in one way or another, to live along from day to day by sewing; and she managed, too, to send the Dean to school. She loved her bright-haired little boy so very, very much that she would have spent the last cent she could ever earn, could she only give her darling Dean a little knowledge that might help him on in the world when he grew to be a man. And so she stinted herself and saved, all unknown to her darling Dean; and she had not clothing or fire enough to keep her warm in the bleak winter, when the Dean was out, though she had a fine fire when the Dean came back. All would have been well enough if the poor woman had not, with her hard work and her efforts to save, become thin and weak, and then grown sick with fever; and now there was nothing for her but the hospital, for there was no money to pay for medicines, or doctor's bills, to say nothing of rent and fire and clothes.

"And now for the first time the Dean began to realize the situation; and a vague impression crossed his mind, that the poor, pale woman, now restless with pain on a narrow bed in a great long ward of a dreary hospital, his own dear mother, suffering here with strange hands only to comfort her, — had been brought to this for his sake; and when she grew better, after a long, long time, but was still far from well, he thought and thought, and cried and cried, and prayed and prayed, and wished that he might do something to show his gratitude, and make amends.

"By and by he got into a factory, and worked there early and late, until he too grew sick, and was carried to the hospital, and was laid beside his poor sick mother, on a narrow bed. But he soon got well again, though his mother did n't, and then, all unknown to her (he could do nothing else) he went to sea as cabin-boy of a ship sailing to Havana; and he came back too;

and with a proud heart beating in his little breast, he carried his little purse of gold and silver coins that the captain gave him to his poor sick mother; and then he went away again on the same ship, and came back once more with another purse of money, twice as big as the first; but the good captain that had been so kind to him, and rewarded him so well, fell sick, and died of yellow fever on the passage home, and the mate, who got command of the ship, being a different sort of man, disliked the Dean, and told him not to come back any more. And so the poor Dean did n't know what to do; until one of his old shipmates met him in the street, and took him off to New Bedford, and shipped him as cabin-boy of the Blackbird; 'and now here I am,' said the poor little Dean, and all the rest you know, — cast away in the cold, in this awful place, while my poor sick mother has no money and no friends in the world, and is thinking all the time what a wretch I am to run away and desert her, when, God knows, I meant to do nothing of the sort!' and so the Dean burst out crying, and, to tell you the truth, I could n't help crying a little too.

"But the Dean was a right plucky little fellow, I can tell you; and so full of hope and ambition was he, that nothing could keep him down very long; and nothing, I believe, could ever make him despond for a single minute but thinking of his mother, sick and far away, without friends or money, lying on a narrow bed, all through the weary, dreary days and nights, in the weary, dreary ward of a crowded hospital. Poor Dean he had something to make him cry, and something always to make him sad, if he had a mind to be; but what had I in comparison? - I, who had run away from home with no good motive like the Dean's.

"After the recital of this story of the Dean's, we were both very sad, until the Dean suddenly roused himself, and said, 'Let's go and look at our traps, Hardy'; and so we sallied out into the moonlight, and waded through the snow, to see if there were foxes in our traps. But to get outside our hut was not so easy a matter now as it was when we first built it; for, in order to keep the cold winds away, we had made a long, low, narrow passage, with a crook in it, through which we crawled on our hands and knees, before we reached the door.

"We walked all the way around the island, and visited all our traps, of which we had seventeen, but only two of them had foxes in them; the others were either filled with snow, or were completely covered over with it, for the wind had been blowing very hard the day before.

"And now, as we got farther and farther into the winter, we began to have some very strange adventures, - altogether different from anything I have told you of before; but you see the sun will soon be going down behind the trees, and we are a good long way from the Mariner's Rest,' so 'up anchor''s the word now, my dears, and 'under way' again."

And the merry little yacht was not long in carrying the merry little party over to the Captain's favorite anchorage; and then they were all soon ashore, and after many merry and many pleasant speeches, our little friends parted from the Ancient Mariner once more, leaving him standing in the shadow of

the great tall trees, with a string of fish in one hand; while Fred and William, with Main Brace to help them, and with merry Alice running on ahead, each carried off a string for their next day's breakfast, a trophy to be proud of, as they thought.

э

Isaac I. Hayes.

THAT

"FRIGHTENED EYES."

HAT little boy who went shrinking round the corner just now, Charley, whom you called "such a queer chap," and whose frightened eyes you laughed at, has lived through a night that would have brought a frightened look into older eyes than his. If you care to hear his story, I can tell it.

In the wildest and least inhabited part of Michigan, on the shore of one of those beautiful inland lakes for which you know that State is noted, stood a log-cabin. It was a lonely spot, but it would have been hard to find a prettier or happier home; and it was here that Jimmy Bell was born; and here he and his little sister used to play for hours, on the long summer days, upon the beach of the lake, looking out into its clear depths, and watching the great white water-lilies, opening day after day on the cool

waves.

Even in this far-away home the bugle-call was heard, and Jimmy's father left his fields unplanted, and turned his face southward with a brave, though heavy heart; for he could not forget the happy days he had spent in his home by the lake, where his own hand had felled the trees to build the house which each year made dearer to him. But he knew thousands were making the same sacrifice with himself; and so, thinking only of what was at stake, he crushed all selfish regrets, and marched away. For three years he never saw the little ones or their mother. Then came a furlough, and he, with his comrades, turned homeward.

Jimmy, who was but four years old when his father went away, was now a bright little boy of seven, already feeling a deep interest in the letters from his father, that his mother used to read and cry over; and he was full of impatience for the time to come when he should again see the gay uniform that made war such a fine thing in his eyes. At last his father came, and Jimmy admired as much as ever the bright buttons and gilt cord and tassels which adorned his hat. He was very much taken, too, with his loud laughter, and could not imagine why his mother should have suddenly grown so quiet and sad, when only the day before she did nothing but smile and sing as she went about "making the house look pretty for poor tired papa." He was sure that he had seen her crying out in the kitchen, when she did not know he was looking.

The month of furlough wore rapidly away, and once more he saw his father go out to battle.

In a little more than a year from that time, there was, you remember, a great rejoicing throughout the length and breadth of the North; for the war was over, and our dear soldiers were coming home, not on short furloughs, that kept us sad thinking how soon they would end, but "for good," as Jimmy explained to his sister, while they sat on the shore of the lake, skimming pebbles over its smooth face.

One balmy evening in June, just as the sun was going down, Jimmy came home across the meadow, with his little pail full of the wild strawberries he had been gathering, when he was met by his sister, who came dancing towards him, and bade him guess who had come. Of course, there was but one who could come; and with a glad shout he ran as fast as his little bare brown feet could carry him homeward. O, they had a jolly supper that night, you may be sure! - laughing after each mouthful of strawberries at the funny stories of camp-life told by their returned soldier. After their supper was over, they all sat out on the porch, in the pleasant evening, and Jimmy, with his head on his father's knee, watched the stars; and, although he was too young to understand it all, his heart was full of thankfulness that his father was not then sleeping in some far-off grave in the South.

The summer was gone, and autumn had come with its bright leaves and soft, dreamy days. The months just passed had not been very happy ones even to light-hearted little Jimmy; for in that time he had learned that his father was a drunkard, that, during his wild, hard life as a soldier, he had been tempted beyond his strength to resist, and that what had at first been taken to throw off the weariness and cold of a long, hard march, had at last become his bane. There were many sad days now in this little home by the lake.

One morning, after breakfast, his father took down his gun, and asked Jimmy if he wanted to go hunting with him. Of course, such an unexpected treat was only too readily accepted, and in high spirits Jimmy started off. His mother called him back to kiss him, and told him to be sure to have his father come home early. He promised, and ran gayly down the path which led to the lake, where they were to take the skiff, and row along the shore. They hunted all day, and Jimmy noticed with dismay how often his father drank from the flask he now always carried with him. It was almost dusk as they stepped into the boat to return. Everything was very still, just the little ripples breaking into white foam on the beach. It was rather lonely as they glided along in the deepening gloom, and Jimmy could not help contrasting the silence and darkness with the brightly lighted room at home, where he was quite sure there was a fire blazing on the hearth, for the season had grown chilly; and he thought how his mother was probably standing at the door, with Lizzie beside her, listening for the sound of their oars. He was recalled from his thoughts by the slowness of their progress, and, looking up, he saw that his father's head was resting on his breast, as if in deep slumber. Only occasionally he would awaken long enough to give a few strokes of the oars, and then fall asleep again. Even while he watched,