"I think it must be near six o'clock," he said. "The sky is clear, and I can see the big star. We can start in another hour."

I felt so much refreshed that I was for setting out at once; but Lars remarked, very sensibly, that it was not yet possible to find the road. While we were talking, Axel neighed.

"There they are!" cried Lars, and he immediately began to put on his boots, his scarf, and heavy coat. I did the same, and by the time we were ready, we heard shouts and the crack of whips. We harnessed Axel to the sled, and proceeded slowly in the direction of the sounds, which came, as we presently saw, from a company of farmers, out this early to plow the

road. They had six pairs of horses geared to a wooden frame, something like the bow of a ship, pointed in front and spreading out to a breadth of ten or twelve feet. The machine not only cut through the drifts, but packed the snow, leaving a good solid road behind it. After it had passed, we sped along merrily in the cold morning twilight, and in little more than an hour reached the posthouse at Umea. There we found Lars's father prepared to return home. He waited until Lars had eaten a good warm breakfast, when I said good-by to both and went on towards Lapland.

Lars was so quiet and cheerful and fearless, that although I had been nearly all over the world and he had never been away from home, I felt that I had learned a lesson from him, and might probably learn many more, if I should know him better.

From "Boys of Other Countries." Copyright, 1904, by Marie Taylor. Published by G. P. Putnam's Sons.

THE FIRST PRINTERS

IN the year 1420 there was living in the city of Haarlem an old gentleman, who kept the keys of the cathedral, and who used, after dinner, to walk in the famous wood that even up to this time is growing just without the city walls.

One day, while walking there, he smooth bit of beech bark, on whichi

found a very as he was a handy man with his knife-he cut several letters so plainly and neatly, that, after his return home, he stamped them upon paper, and gave the

boy as a "copy."

paper to his

After this, seeing that the thing had been neatly done, the old gentleman, whose name was Lawrence Coster, fell to thinking of what might be done with such letters cut in wood. By blacking them with ink, he made black stamps upon paper; and by dint of much thinking and much working, he came, in time, to the stamping of whole broadsides of letters, which was really printing.

John Gutenberg, at the very time when this old Dutchman was experimenting with his blocks in Holland, was also working in his way, very secretly, in a house that was standing not many years ago in the city of Strasburg, on the bank of the Rhine.

But Gutenberg got on so poorly, and lost so much money in his experiments, that he went away to Mentz, which is a German city lower down on the Rhine. He there formed a partnership with a rich silversmith named John Faust, who took an oath of secrecy, and supplied him with money, on condition that after a certain time it should be repaid to him.

Then Gutenberg set to work in earnest. One of the men who assisted him was a scribe, or designer, named Peter Schöffer. His work was to finish up the book by drawing lines around the pages, making ornamental initial letters, and filling up gaps in the printing.

This Schöffer was a shrewd fellow, and watched Gutenberg very closely. He used to talk over what he saw, and what he thought, with Faust. He told Faust he could contrive better types than Gutenberg was using; and, acting on his hints, Faust, who was a skillful worker in metals, ran types in a mold; and these were probably the first cast types ever made. These promised so well that Faust determined to get rid of Gutenberg, and to carry on the business with

Schöffer, to whom he gave his only daughter Christine for a wife.

Faust called on Gutenberg for his loan shortly after, which Gutenberg could not pay; and in consequence he had to give up to Faust all his tools, his presses, and his unfinished work, among which was a Bible nearly two thirds completed. This Faust and Schöffer hurried through, and sold as a manuscript.

There are two copies of this Bible in the National Library at Paris, one copy at the Royal Library at Munich, and one at Vienna. It is without name of printer or publisher, and without date, in two great volumes, each of about six hundred pages. You very likely could not read a word of it if you were to see it; for it is in Latin, and in black Gothic type, with many of the words abbreviated, and packed so closely together as to puzzle the eye.

It is certainly the first Bible printed from movable types, but poor Gutenberg got no money from it, though he had done most of the work upon it. He did not grow disheartened. He toiled on, though he was without the help of Schöffer and of Faust, and in a few years afterward made books as good as those of his rivals. Before he died, his name was attached to books printed as clearly and sharply as books are printed to-day.

But who printed the first English book? And did

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