Harper's Young People, June 8, 1880 Part 3

BY SARA KEABLES HUNT.

It was a beautiful Oriental picture, and I paused in my walk along the banks of the Nile to sketch her, that dark-eyed Arab girl, as she half reclined in the sand, the western sunlight flickering through the green boughs of a clump of palms, and falling upon the upturned face and purplish braids with their glitter of gold coins. In the background were a few broken columns, relic of some past grandeur, and at a little distance a camel crouched in the sand, gazing as mournfully as the Sphynx across the desert. The flowing Eastern dress of the child was pushed back from one beautifully rounded arm, but the other was concealed, as if she had tried to hide it from even the sunlight. It was crippled and pitifully deformed.

Poor little Fatima! I knew her sensitive spirit, and I put my pencil out of sight as I came nearer, for I saw on her face the shadow of a restless discontent. She smiled as she bade me welcome, but it was a sad smile, and changed to tears as she spoke.

"I am of no use," she said in Arabic. "If I were a boy, they would care for me; but a girl! They scorn me and my disfigured arm. I can never do any good in the world; never, never. And, oh, lady, there is a soul within me that longs to do something for somebody! I want to accomplish something; not to sit here day after day making figures in the sand, only to see them drift back again into a dull level. But I shall live in vain. What can I do with this poor crippled arm?"

It was a difficult task to soothe her; but I think, after awhile, she felt that the great Allah had done all things well, and peace crept over her tired little heart.

"But, dear child," I said, as I left her, "it may be that you can do more good with your one arm than I ever can with my two. We do not know what may happen."

And so I went home to my little cottage, taking the field path instead of the railroad track, as I usually did. When I reached the house, and called for my little girl-baby, who often came toddling out to meet me, all was silent, and in answer to my inquiries the nurse said she had just gone down the track a little way to meet me.

"Down the track! Oh, the train! the train! It's time for the train! Why do you stand here idle? Call Ha.s.san and Mahomet. Run, and save her!"

I rushed wildly along the embankment. How plain it all is to me now, even to the bits of pottery gleaming in the sand, and the distant echo of an Arab's song as it floated over the hills! I saw the white dress of my darling far ahead, and stumbled on--how, I hardly knew. The train was coming! I could hear it plunging on; I could see the fearful light.

Oh, if I might reach her!

But who is that? Can it be Fatima? It is Fatima, waving her arms wildly as she speeds onward. She is on the bank! She is there! She grasps the child! And the train plunges past me with a wild glare; and there, before me, is my baby, my golden-haired baby, safe and unharmed, but Fatima lay dying on the iron rail. I clasped her to my heart, and called her name amid my sobs. She lifted the long, dark eyelashes, and smiled.

"Allah be praised!" she murmured. Then in her weak, broken English she said:

"Me do something wid dis poor arm; me die for you baby!" She fell back in my arms; and so we carried her to my home, white and insensible.

But she did not die. The deformed arm had to be severed from the shoulder, but her life was saved; and to-day, surrounded by all that grateful hearts can give, she is one of the happiest little creatures on the banks of the Nile.

A ST. ULRIC DOLL.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE CATSKILL FAIRIES."

The steam-s.h.i.+p _Columbine_ was crossing the ocean from Liverpool to New York. On the deck the pa.s.sengers walked about, looking at the sea and sky. Occasionally they saw a flock of gulls circling about overhead, or a shoal of dolphins leaping up in the blue waves. Among these pa.s.sengers was the shy gentleman. Now the shy gentleman was tall and large, with a full brown beard, which should have made him quite bold, but he was not.

If a stranger spoke to him, he blushed, and if he tried to say something really wise, he merely stammered, so that his meaning was lost. As for tea-cups and wine-gla.s.ses, he always broke them with his elbow, or by allowing them to slip through his big fingers, while chairs and little tables seemed placed in his way for the sole purpose of his tumbling over them.

In his cabin was his portmanteau, filled with all sorts of treasures. A Paris doll and her wardrobe were given the place of honor. The beautiful blonde hair of this fas.h.i.+onable lady must not be disarranged, and the boxes containing her dresses and gloves, her boots, mantles, and parasols, required much s.p.a.ce. She was a very important person. In a corner was wedged the case of one of those mechanical bears covered with black fur, and wound up by means of a key in his side. In the opposite corner were the Venetian lion of St. Mark, made of bra.s.s, trinkets of straw and gla.s.s, and a little Neapolitan boy in mosaic on the lid of a box. The St. Ulric doll, folded in a bit of tissue-paper, had been allowed to fall down anywhere. She was made of a single stick of wood, with a head carved on top, but without arms or legs, like the Italian babies, who are wound about with cloths until they resemble little mummies.

She remained quietly where she had been placed, between a flannel waistcoat and a pair of stockings, with her head resting on a meerschaum pipe. She thought of her home, and sighed. Yes, she was homesick, because she loved her own land as only the Tyrolese and the Swiss love their native mountains.

The shy gentleman had bought the St. Ulric doll at a booth under the stone archway of one of the streets of Botzen. He could not carry away with him the beautiful Austrian Tyrol, except as pictures in his own mind, and therefore he picked up the droll and ugly little St. Ulric doll.

"When I give the doll to Nelly, I will tell her about the mountain peaks where the hunters climb to shoot the chamois and the black-c.o.c.k, and the valleys down toward Italy where the grapes ripen, and all about the castles perched like watch-towers along the Brenner route," thought the shy gentleman, wrapping the purchase in the bit of tissue-paper. "I must not forget to add that this Brenner Pa.s.s, where the traveller of to-day journeys on the railway from Munich to Verona, is one of the oldest highways in the world; the Etruscan merchants used to pa.s.s here, trading in iron with the Northern nations, long before the Romans."

One day a tremendous rattling was heard inside the case of the mechanical bear.

"What is the matter? Are you seasick?" inquired the lion of St. Mark.

"No," grumbled the mechanical bear. "I have been standing on my head too long, and if this voyage does not soon end, my machinery will be out of order. I shall growl at the wrong time."

"We must be gifts for children. I hope they will like us," said the St.

Ulric doll.

"I hope we shall like _them_," said the French doll. "I come from a shop window on the Boulevard des Italiens. How can I live out of Paris!"

Just then the lid of the portmanteau was lifted, and a Custom-house officer looked in. The steamer had reached New York.

"Here he is, mamma!" cried a little girl, as a carriage paused before the door of a house on Gramercy Square.

She had been looking out of the window. Now she ran down stairs, and opened the front door. Two gentlemen got out of the carriage; one was her uncle Fred, and the other a traveller with a brown beard, whose arms were full of mysterious parcels and boxes. This was the shy gentleman, and Nelly had always found him a good friend. Soon the parcels were distributed. The mosaic box was for mother, the bra.s.s lion for Uncle Fred, and all the rest for Nelly. She was wild with delight. The Paris doll fascinated her. All her friends were invited to admire the lady from the Boulevards. Nelly could not eat, or sleep, or study her lessons. She tried on all the dresses, gloves, bonnets, and shoes.

The St. Ulric doll had been glanced at, laid on the table, and forgotten. At length Nelly wearied of so much splendor, and her mother found the Paris doll too fine for every-day play. Nelly noticed the St.

Ulric doll then.

"You have no clothes, poor thing," she said.

She opened her own work-box, sought in a bag for a piece of blue flannel, and began to sew. Soon the St. Ulric doll was clothed. To be sure, her gown was like a bag tied about her neck.

Nelly's mother, a pretty widow, said, "I did not know he loved me."

Nelly whispered to the St. Ulric doll that her mother was to marry the shy gentleman.

"I thought there was a good reason for bringing us across the sea," said the St. Ulric doll to the mechanical bear and the Paris lady.

The latter was out of temper.

"Already the little girl loves you best, because she has made your gown herself," she said.

THE GRIZZLY BEAR.

The grizzly bear is the most terrible of all beasts. Its great strength, its enormous size, its ferocity, and its courage render it a more formidable enemy than the lion. It ranges the westward-lying slopes of the Rocky Mountains from Mexico to British America, and is a constant terror to the regions it inhabits.

The average length of the grizzly bear is about seven feet, and its weight nine hundred to a thousand pounds, although much larger specimens have been killed in Arizona and other Southern regions.

Grizzlies do not often attack men unless surprised or infuriated, or driven by desperate hunger to seize upon everything which crosses their path; but all animals, from a mouse to an enormous buffalo, fall an easy prey to this monarch of the far West.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GRIZZLY BEAR AND BUFFALOES.]

The immense daring of the grizzly bear, and its entire confidence in its strength, are evident from the fact that it will not hesitate to attack buffaloes even when a whole herd are together. It has been known to kill a buffalo with one blow of its terrible fore-paw, and afterward to drag it away and bury it. It can easily dig a hole with its cimeter-like claws, and it usually buries what it can not devour, as a store to fall back upon when provisions are scarce.

Hunters tell many stories of sharp contests between grizzlies and buffaloes. The bear will prowl by the side of a herd, keeping under cover of the bushes until some big fat fellow comes within easy reach, when it rushes on its victim, and with one blow fells it to the ground.

The other buffaloes may rush to the rescue of their comrade, but the powerful grizzly is generally a match for them all, and instances are rare where the savage beast has been driven to crawl away defeated.

The claws of this beast are longer than a man's finger, and are very much prized as ornaments by the Indians. To wear a necklace of bear's claws, taken from an animal killed by himself, is one of the highest ambitions of an Indian brave; for if he is thus decorated, his courage and superior strength are acknowledged by his whole tribe. An Indian will sell his horses, his blankets, everything he possesses, but nothing can induce him to part with his bear-claw necklace, which marks him as an invincible warrior. To obtain this coveted prize Indians will run the most extreme risks. Are the enormous foot-prints of a grizzly discovered in the vicinity of the camp, the men all set out in hot pursuit, and many a poor Indian has lost his life in fierce encounter with this monarch of the mountains. If the bear can be traced to its den among the rocks, the Indians will lay trails of powder leading from the lair in different directions, which, as they burn, set fire to the dry gra.s.s and stubble. As the animal, startled by the smoke and flame, rushes from its hiding-place, the Indians, who lie concealed behind rocks and bushes, pelt it with blazing pine knots, and fire volley after volley from their rifles into its body, until some lucky shot enters the heart or brain, and the monster staggers and falls dead to the ground.