Read Ebook: Harper's Round Table September 10 1895 by Various

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Ebook has 419 lines and 28391 words, and 9 pages

. The wherry leaped ahead, refusing to turn to the right or left. The boys were evidently as well matched as their mounts, Puss and Bronc.

The boat rose and fell in the current waves, and the oars tripped and splashed in the roily crests, until there suddenly came a sharp snap, and Teddy fell backward, holding aloft the bladeless half of an oar. Reddy ceased rowing; the skiff lost headway and floated down the river.

In the confusion of the accident neither boy saw a threatening danger. In the middle of the river was the trunk of a dead cottonwood, standing at an angle of forty-five degrees, its roots firmly anchored to the bottom. The boat floated against the snag, striking amidships. Its starboard side rose, its port side lowered, the water poured over the gunwale, and in an instant Teddy was clinging to the trunk, and Reddy swimming in the boiling current. The boat hung for a moment, as if undecided whether to drop to the right or left of the snag, twisting and struggling in the fierce tide, and at last slid off astern and floated away down-stream.

A foot above the water was a large knot and a swell in the trunk of the tree. Teddy climbed above this, and sat astride of it, clasping the trunk in his arms. He was at first inclined to treat the accident with bravado, and he waved a hand above his head and shouted; but the sight of Reddy floating towards the rapids froze his utterance and paralyzed his arm.

It was plainly impossible for his comrade to swim to the shore--he was too near the dangerous fall--but he hoped he might reach the jam in the middle of its crest.

AT THE SEA-SIDE.

A Suggestion for a Summer Entertainment.

BY CAROLINE A. CREEVEY AND MARGARET E. SANGSTER.

CHARLOTTE HOWARD. GRACE EVERTON. VICTORIA MASON. HELEN SAYRES. IDA MOORE. MISS SOMMERFIELD. OLIVE BRANDON. MISS DAISY JAMES. MADGE FULLER. CAPTAIN JAKE.

By-by, babies, hushaby, Night and sleep are drawing nigh, Little birdies seek the nest, Tired lambkins drop to rest, By-by, babies, hushaby, Stars are lighting up the sky, Angels come to watch your beds; Slumber, little curly-heads.

The violet gems the forest, The daisy stars the field, And every wayside bank and brook Their fragrant treasures yield. Oh, sweet the air of summer, With thoughts of God in flowers! For bloom and beauty hand in hand Walk down the passing hours.

But naught, dear child, is fairer, Nor lovelier tinting shows, Than those fair things which cradled are Where oft the storm-wind blows. The sea-weed's hues are rarer Than painter's art can trace; And only fairy looms can weave The sea-weed's floating lace.

"A little nonsense now and then," Said good old Dr. Lee, "Is relished by the best of men. That's just the case with me."

The doctor was jumping a rope when he said that.

ODE TO A CLAM.

Oh! clam at high-water, Here's somebody's daughter A sighing and crying your measure to take; She cares for you only, Poor bivalve so lonely, Because you are good in a Yankee clambake. Perhaps she'll shout louder To see you in chowder. Poor clam, for your sake I've a dreadful heart-ache.

What is the song you are singing forever, Sad as the sound of a knell, Deep as the tone of a bell, Oh! sorrowful, murmuring shell, Singing and singing forever?

Of all things touched with heavenly clarity, There's nothing can compare with sweet, sweet charity!

Home again, home again, From a foreign shore; And, oh! it fills my soul with joy To see my friends once more.

"As idle as a painted ship Upon a painted ocean."

Go on, Uncle Jake.

"Well, good-by, and good luck to ye," says he, pullin' at the reins.

Up come the Capting. "Got a wind, eh?" says he. "Why, no, not a breath. What in thunder makes her go?" Then he spied the hawser drawn tight over the bow, and he turned pale, his knees knocked together, his teeth chattered. You might have pushed him down with a straw. It war, no mistake, a curus position, and I never blamed the Capting for feelin' queer. "It's all right, sir," says I; "we're bein' tugged."

We were pulled clear out of the Saragossa Sea, and the wind sprang up, and we made port in a week arter.

"What fairylike music steals over the sea, Entrancing the senses with charm'd melody? 'Tis the voice of the mermaid, that floats o'er the main, As she mingles her song with the gondolier's strain. 'Tis the voice of the mermaid, that floats o'er the main, As she mingles her song with the gondolier's strain."

When we have the entertainment, we'll let this be the last thing on the programme.

FOOTNOTES:

GREAT MEN'S SONS.

BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS.

THE SON OF NAPOLEON.

"Nineteen--twenty--twenty-one," the people in the Garden of the Tuileries counted. Then, with open ears, they listened breathlessly. "Twenty-two! Hurrah! hurrah!" they shouted. "A boy; it is a boy!" they cried. "Long live the Emperor! Long live the King of Rome!"

It was the 20th of March, 1811. A baby had been born in the palace of the Tuileries. The booming cannon announced the great event, and the people knew that for a girl twenty-one guns would be fired; for a boy, one hundred. So when the twenty-second gun boomed out there was no need for further counting. All the people knew that an heir to the throne of France had been born, and with loud acclamations they shouted "welcome" and "long life" to the son of Napoleon.

He was a bright, pretty little fellow, and his father loved him from the start. At his very first cry Napoleon caught him up, and hurrying to the great chamber in which the foremost men of the empire were waiting, presented to them "his Majesty the King of Rome!"

It was at the height of Napoleon's power. All Europe lay at his feet. Thrones and principalities were his to give away; but for his son he reserved the title that would revive the greatness and glory of the ancient days and recall the widespread sway of Charlemagne; the little Napoleon was to be King of Rome, and heir to the Empire of France.

But a King must have a royal guard. So one day in September, 1811, a brigade of boys, none of them over twelve years old, marched into the Cour du Carrousel, where the Emperor was reviewing his army, and drew up in line of battle opposite the famous Old Guard of the Emperor. And Napoleon said: "Soldiers of my guard, there are your children. I confide to them the guard of my son, as I have confided myself to you." And to the boys he said: "My children, upon you I impose a difficult duty. But I rely upon you. You are pupils of the guard, and your service is the protection of the King of Rome."

There were days of splendor and ceremonial, of f?te and display, in the early life of the little King of Rome. His father was, literally, Kings of Kings; he made and unmade sovereigns, he carved up nations, and cut out states.

Suddenly came the collapse. All Europe arrayed itself against this crowned adventurer--this man who, through a hundred years, has remained at once the marvel and the puzzle of history. There came days of preparation and leave-taking, of war and battle, of defeat and disgrace. When the days of war and struggle came, the old-time fire and dash and courage of the conqueror seemed to have left him; his hopes were with his boy and that boy's future rather than in the rush and grapple of armies.

So Napoleon's star set fast. With all Europe arrayed against him for his overthrow, the great Corsican suddenly became little, and everything went wrong.

On the 25th of January, 1814, the father saw his son for the last time. Holding by the hand the boy, then nearly three years old, the Emperor presented himself before the eight hundred officers of the National Guard of Paris, assembled in the gorgeous Hall of the Marshals. "Officers of the National Guard," he said, "I go to take my place at the head of the army. To your protection I confide my wife and my son, upon whom rest so many hopes. In your care I leave what is next to France--the dearest thing I have in the world."

But disaster overwhelmed both the Emperor and the nation. The guards were powerless to guard. The armies of Napoleon were defeated; he himself was banished to Elba; and the little Napoleon with his mother escaped to the court of his grandfather, the Emperor of Austria.

With a final burst of courage Napoleon escaped from Elba and roused France once again to war. It was in vain. His power and his luck were gone. Waterloo gave him his death-blow, and the lonely island of St. Helena became his prison and his grave.

But the nation was paralyzed by disaster. Union was impossible. The boy thus proclaimed Emperor was far from France, held by the enemy. He was never to see his native land again, never to see his father, never to reign Emperor of the French.

For seventeen years the boy lived at the Austrian court, practically a prisoner. His mother cared little for him, and for years did not see him; his name of Napoleon was denied him; his titles of Emperor and King were taken from him, and he was known simply as the Duke of Reichstadt.

His grandfather, the Emperor of Austria, was kind to him, and tried to make an Austrian of him, but he grew from a bright, handsome little fellow into a lonely, low-spirited, and brooding boy, who remembered his former grandeur and the high position to which he had been born, and fretted over the knowledge that he, the son of Napoleon, could inherit no portion of his father's glory, and was denied even the empty honor of his name.

At five he was a beautiful boy, who rebelled when his tutors tried to teach him German, and delighted to play jokes on his royal grandfather; it has even been solemnly asserted that he tied the imperial coat tails to a chair, and filled the imperial boots with gravel. At seven he put on the uniform of a private in the Austrian Royal Guard, and displayed a liking for military life. His gayety began to change to reticence and a love for solitude as he grew old enough to appreciate his position. One of the Austrian Generals was discoursing to the boy one day on the three greatest warriors of the world.

"I know a fourth," said the young Napoleon.

"And who is that?" the commandant asked.

"My father," replied the boy, proudly, and walked away from the lecturer.

He was ten years old when his great father died in his exile at St. Helena . The boy wept bitterly when he was told the news, and shut himself up for several days. He put on mourning, but the Austrians compelled him to put it off, and permitted him to show no grief for his dead father.

When he was twenty he "came out" into society, and was made Lieutenant-Colonel of infantry in the Austrian army, but he never "smelled powder" nor saw war. Brooding and solitude weakened his constitution; ill health resulted; his lungs were touched with disease: and on the 22d of July, in the year 1832, having reached the age of twenty-one, the son of Napoleon died in the palace of Sch?nbrunn, of consumption.

It seems hard, but death was the only solution of what might have been a problem. Without the will, the energy, the genius, or the selfishness of his remarkable father, the son of Napoleon had yet ambition, persistence, and a reverence for his father's memory that amounted almost to a passion. Without any special love for France, he cherished that dream of empire that his father had made come true. Had he lived and joined ability to strength, his name might have raised up armies, and again drenched Europe in blood--the tool of factions or the prey of his own ambitions. He died a lonely invalid, and Europe was spared the horror of a possible "might have been."

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