Happy Days for Boys and Girls Part 36

Having commenced their nests, the swallows rest during the warmest part of the day, so that the sun may dry their work, and make it hard and strong. Then more mud is plastered on--more threads of straw; and so the industrious birds continue until the body of the nest is completed. A nice, soft lining of fine gra.s.s or hair finishes the whole, and makes a summer home for both birds and their young.

Unlike most other birds, swallows often repair old nests, if the frosts and storms of winter have injured them, as they generally do; and sometimes the birds come back to the same locality for several years. They select some unexposed corner, under the eaves of a barn or house, if possible pretty high from the ground, and in a very few days the entire dwelling, lining and all, will be completed.

If unmolested, barn swallows will form quite a colony in the s.p.a.ce of a few years. But, if their nests are injured or torn down, or their young ones are stolen away or disturbed, the birds forsake the locality forever. Where a number of families live together, their chattering, when, as the evening comes on, they are catching gnats and flies for supper, or feeding their young ones, is very pleasant and diverting. And there is music in their language, too--music which a thoughtful person is ever glad to hear.

Last summer, when business was dull, I went on a vacation, away up into the Granite State. While pa.s.sing through the town of Unity (my little niece insists upon calling it _Utiny_--but she will speak plainer one of these years), my attention was called to a small village church on the wayside. Around the entire building, under the eaves, were brackets, some three inches in width, and perhaps as far apart. In the s.p.a.ces thus formed were hundreds upon hundreds of swallows' nests. Hardly a single s.p.a.ce was left unoccupied, while many contained two, and sometimes three nests. Not content with the eaves, the colony had commenced upon the belfry, and far up towards the spire every possible nook and corner seemed to be spoken for.

I stopped to contemplate the very interesting spectacle. A villager informed me that the colony came regularly every year, and, as near as could be judged, the same birds; that for ten years the birds had been petted by the inhabitants, and protected by all, old and young. He said that the swallows had all disappeared in a body, about a week previous to my visit, adding, "You don't know what a lovely spectacle it is to witness the evolutions of these birds on a summer evening, when they are teaching their young ones to fly. They swarm around the building like bees, and their music is most delightful to hear."

I could readily imagine the beauty of the scene, from the great number of nests, though I mean to see the colony at their devotions this year. "Yea, the sparrow hath found a house, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, _even thine altars_, O Lord of hosts, my King and my G.o.d."

It would be interesting to know where these birds go as winter approaches. It is very easy, and perhaps very true, to say that they "go south." But to what part of the south? Do they keep in a body there, as here? Do they have nests, and rear their young, there, as with us? There is a fine field for inquiry, which it is hoped some of our boys will go into by and by. For the present, if any of them are pa.s.sing through Unity, let them remember the church which has its largest congregation on the outside.

W. WANDER.

[Decoration]

GRAt.i.tUDE OF A COW.

A gentleman pa.s.sing through a field observed a cow showing many symptoms of uneasiness, stamping with her feet and looking earnestly at him. At first he feared to approach her, but afterward went toward her, which seemed to please her much. She then guided him to a ditch where her calf was lying helpless; and he was just in time to save it from death, to the no small delight of the cow. Some days after, when pa.s.sing through the same field, the cow came up to him as if to thank him for his kindness. As among the various animals with which the earth abounds none is more necessary to the existence of man than the cow, so likewise none appears to be more extensively propagated; in every part of the world it is found, large or small, according to the quant.i.ty and quality of its food. There is no part of Europe where it grows to so large a size as in England, whose pastures are admirably suited to its nature. The quant.i.ty of milk and b.u.t.ter varies according to the difference of its pasture; some cows in favorable situations yield twenty quarts of milk in a day.

To form a just idea of the value of this animal, we ought to consider that there is scarcely any part of it without its utility to man. The skin is manufactured into leather; the hair, mixed with lime, is used in plastering walls and building houses; the bones serve as a subst.i.tute for ivory; when calcined, they are used by the refiners of silver to separate the baser metals; and when ground and spread over the fields, they form a fertilizing manure. Combs, knife-handles and many useful articles are made from the horns, which, when softened in boiling water, become pliable, so as to be formed into lanterns--an invention usually ascribed to King Alfred. We are furnished with candles from the tallow, and the feet afford an oil adapted to a variety of purposes. Glue is made from the cartilages, gristles and parings of the hide boiled in water; calves' skins are manufactured into vellum; saddlers and others use a fine thread prepared from the sinews, which is much stronger than any other equally fine. The blood, gall, etc., are used in many important manufactures.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE COW AND HER CALF.]

MINUTES.

We are but minutes--little things!

Each one furnished with sixty wings, With which we fly on our unseen track, And not a minute ever comes back.

We are but minutes; use, use us well, For how we are used we must one day tell.

Who uses minutes has hours to use; Who loses minutes whole years must lose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: {Uncle G.o.dfrey wades through snow, two horses and a dingo nearby}]

GOING FOR THE LETTERS.

AN AUSTRALIAN STORY.

It was a bitter cold day in the end of the month of January. The morning had been a very unpleasant one--neither frost nor snow, a sort of compound of rain and sleet; but now the snow was falling fast, and the clear crystals were fast hiding every shrub and plant that had a place in the beautiful flower garden, in front of the drawing-room windows of Arundel Manor, while inside a roaring fire, that made the handsomely-furnished apartment look even more than usually snug and comfortable, was surrounded by a family party consisting of Mrs. St.

Clair, the three children, and uncle G.o.dfrey.

It was the "children's hour," and his niece was trying to coax a tale out of "dear uncle," who did not seem much in the humor to comply with her request, when mamma looked up and said, "My dear, do not trouble your uncle so. I am sure, G.o.dfrey, that Lydia must torment you; and if she does, we must send her to the nursery."

Poor Lydia's face fell at once. "I am sure I did not mean to tease uncle."

"Never mind, my pet; I know I promised to tell you a story to-night, and was just thinking what it was to be, when my fit of musing sent memory back many a long day, and revealed a scene distant many a thousand miles. Now that I am fairly awake, I will show you the picture of my waking dream. So up you jump;" and Lydia, catching hold of his hand, was quickly seated on her uncle's knee, her usual place at story time, and throwing her arms round his neck, exclaimed,--

"O, you dear old pet!"

"I heard," began uncle G.o.dfrey, "some boys, who shall be nameless, grumbling this morning at being kept inside, for fear of catching cold on such a raw day, and my thoughts instantly turned to a day similar to this, and how I then prayed to be under the shelter of some friendly roof; and I also thought how thankful every one ought to be who is able to sit at a warm fire, when it freezes hard, or when the snow is covering the earth by inches every hour.

"I dare say you think it fine fun to run over to the lodge and bring the letters from the post-boy; at least I did when as young as you are; but going for letters is not always the pleasantest thing imaginable, as I once nearly found out to my cost.

"If you are all so anxious to hear the contents of letters from your uncle Wilfred, you may fancy how eagerly he and I used to watch for the arrivals of the mails at Sydney, and be sure that one or both of us were certain to be at the office in Kiandra on the day it reached there, and with what delight we read and re-read the letter which never failed to make its appearance monthly to one or other of us.

"Our winter fall of snow generally began about the 12th of May, and from that date till the month of October it was a matter of no small difficulty to get our letters at the place where we lived, a long nine miles from Kiandra of a very mountainous track.

"186- was an extraordinary season. May pa.s.sed, no snow--June the same, only heavy, I may say, nearly constant showers of rain. 'A glorious year,' the diggers called it. 'Never such a season for work since the diggings broke out. Two months' work at a time when there is never any water. O, what a wash-up there will be in November!'

"Such was the substance of the conversation when any two of the residents met, varied, perhaps, by remarks as to whether old So-and-so, who had been twenty years in the district, would be right in saying there was to be nine feet of snow, or whether So-and-so was a better judge in saying we were to have none at all?

"I was then living by myself, Wilfred being away in Sydney, and was looking out for him every day, and hoping he might be back before the winter fairly set in, when it was scarcely possible to travel. As I said before, June had pa.s.sed, and we were getting well into July, when I heard that our English mail would be in Kiandra on the following Wednesday. It was now Friday.

"We had got a fine week for work, raining gently all the time, which is what we diggers like, and no frost, which dries up the water, and makes us all idle, when on Sunday the weather completely changed, and very suddenly, too, as, indeed, it always did there. The wind, which had been from north or east, without any warning chopped right round to the south-west, and we had a strong frost. Next day was cloudy, but at night frost was harder than ever, and everything with liquid in it, even to the tea-pot in a room where there was a fire nearly all night, was full of solid ice.

"The thermometer was down to 18 below zero in the same place; and in bed, in the next room, with four pairs of new blankets, I thought I should have been fairly frozen. We were hard at work all that day, which was a drizzly, snowy one, everything betokening a fall of snow; so, when Wednesday dawned, though not so deep as I expected, I was not surprised to find more than a foot of it all over.

"Down the country the floods had been dreadful; nearly all the bridges had been washed away, and the roads turned into bogs, so that our mails came in very irregularly, sometimes ten days behind time. You may therefore imagine I was in a great worry to hear from Wilfred, my last letter being a month old, as well as anxious for _home_ news. So I donned my oil-skin over my blanket-coat, put on my thigh gum-boots, tied my comforter round my neck and up over my ears, and pulling my south-wester on, prepared to face the weather.

"I found the walk into town, though very heavy, not so bad as I expected, and arrived safely, without any mishaps, but rather tired and uncomfortably moist, it being a sort of drizzle all the way; but a letter from Wilfred, saying he would not leave for some time, and so would not be caught in this storm, and the perusal of a kind one from 'the old country' soon made me forget my discomfort, and I spent a pleasant evening at a friend's.

"At bed-time it was a beautiful starry night; but I did not altogether fancy it. There was a kind of half soft feel through the frost, that sounded to me like a change, and the thought of the morrow's walk was not a pleasant one; but there was no use forestalling what might never be. So to bed and to sleep; but ere my eyes were well closed, the wind began to whistle round the corner of the house, and--hallo--what's that! Big drops of rain, and lumps of earth and gravel, were pelting the panes of gla.s.s.

"A few minutes there was a lull--a dead silence--when flas.h.!.+

cras.h.!.+--the room was in a blaze of light, and at the same instant the thunder made the very bed shake again, and also made my heart rise to my mouth. Listening earnestly for some time, and no further disturbances occurring, I began, after thanking a kind Providence for his protection, to think over the matter, and came to the conclusion that at last we were in for a downright fall, this being the third time that, to my knowledge, such had been preceded by a single clap of thunder.

"Next day the snow came down in earnest; and as it was drifting in every direction, I took the advice of my friends, and quietly stopped where I was. Large, feathery flakes fell unceasingly all the afternoon, and by night there was fully two feet in the town; but as it looked a little better on Friday afternoon, and my dog, cat, and fowls could get nothing to eat until my return, I determined to make a start, though against the opinions of most of the town's people.

"When I left Kiandra there was a dense fog, which shortly changed, first to a light, and then to a heavy snow; and by the time I dragged myself the mile to the top of the mountain, it was coming down, and no mistake!

"It was impossible to see one yard in any direction, and my legs were already beginning to _talk_; but it was too late to think of turning.

I had had only to fight through one extra deep drift as yet, and knew the road hitherto well; but now I had to turn off from where the track lay hid, and had not gone far when my difficulties fairly began, and I was quickly ploughing my way through some five or six feet of snow.

"Half an hour's hard work found me clear of that, and for a couple of miles everything went swimmingly. The snow was here firm enough to bear my weight, although now and again, b.u.mp! down I went through the crust, nearly jerking my joints out. The nearer home the deeper got the snow, and, of course, so much the more tired I felt. The main creek to be crossed was hidden entirely; and as its exact whereabouts was not very easily guessed at, you may depend it was not a pleasant sensation to plump down and find myself up to the neck. Luckily, the water was no depth, and as my boots were tight and long, a hard scramble pulled me out of my first trouble.

"A short rest, and I was again on my way; but it took me a good many hours to get the next three or four miles, even though I met no more serious difficulty than some very heavy drifts. I was getting very tired, and hungry, too, and you may fancy it was no joke wading the snow, never less than two feet, lucky if not going past the knees at every step; but at last I was in a mess, and how to get out of it I knew not. The look of the country, when a lull gave me the chance of seeing, showed I was off my road; and when I felt I was lost, my thoughts were anything but satisfactory.