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    ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE FOR GIRLS AND BOYS
    ST. NICHOLAS




    ST. NICHOLAS:

    SCRIBNER'S ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE

    FOR GIRLS AND BOYS,

    CONDUCTED BY

    MARY MAPES DODGE.

    VOLUME V.

    NOVEMBER, 1877, TO NOVEMBER, 1878.

    SCRIBNER & CO., NEW YORK.




    Copyright by SCRIBNER & CO., 1878.

    PRESS OF FRANCIS HART & CO.

    NEW YORK





    CONTENTS.


    Child-Queen, A. (Illustrated by Alfred Fredericks) Cecilia Cleveland 1

    Chased by Wolves. (Illustrated) George Dudley Lawson 3

    Jingle: There was an Old Person of Crewd. (Illustrated by K. W. P.) 6

    Mollie's Boyhood. (Illustrated by George White) Sarah E. Chester 7

    *The Largest Volcano in the World. (Illustrated) Sarah Coan 13

    Making it Skip. Verse. (Illustrated by Thomas Moran) M. M. D. 15

    *Willow Wand, The. Poem. (Illustrated) A. E. W. 16

    *Story that Wouldn't be Told, The. (Illustrated) Louise Stockton 18

    Polly: A Before-Christmas Story. (Illustrated) Hope Ledyard 19

    Boggs's Photograph. Picture. 21

    Lord Mayor of London's Show, The. (Illustrated) Jennie A. Owen 22

    My Girl. Poem. John S. Adams 25

    Mars, the Planet of War. (Illustrated by the Author)
    Richard A. Proctor 26

    *Domestic Tragedy, A. In Two Parts (Illustration) 31

    Bell-Ringers, The Stickleback. (Illustrated by James C. Beard)
    C. F. Holder 31

    Cricket on the Hearth, The. Poem. (Illustrated )Clara Doty Bates 33

    How I Weighed the Thanksgiving Turkey. G. M. Shaw 34

    Nimble Jim and the Magic Melon. (Illustrated by E. B. Bensell)
    J. A. Judson 34

    "Oh, I'm My Mamma's Lady-Girl." Verse. (Illustrated by
    Addie Ledyard) M. M. D. 41

    Christmas-Gifts, A Budget of Home-Made. (Illustrated) 42

    *Little Tweet. (Illustrated)  64

    *Jack-in-the-Pulpit. (Illustrated) 66

    Can a Little Child Like Me? (Thanksgiving Hymn) Mary Mapes Dodge 68

    "Baby's Opera" and Walter Crane, The. 69

    *The Letter Box. 69

    *The Moons of Mars. 69

    *The Riddle Box. (Illustrated) 71



    [Transcriber's Notes:
    For ease of navigation, this Table of Contents has been taken from the
    full contents listing for the volume.
    Some entries were missing from the index. For completeness they have
    been added and marked with an asterisk.

    The full list of contents for Volume V is to be found at the end of this
    text.

    p. 27: changed 'rains' to 'trains':
    ...--; just like the
    lines by which trains are made to run easily off one
    track on to another.

    p. 30: Missing opening quote replaced:
    "The snows that glittered on the disc of Mars..."

    p. 31:' replaced with ":
    "Don't you think, papa, that that's enough about
    the sun? Come and play with us on the lawn."

    p. 59: Missing ) replaced,
    ...(widening the strip,
    however, in proportion as the fabric is thinner).

    Music Notation (Our Music Page) has been added.]

    * * * * *



    [Illustration: KING RICHARD II. AND HIS CHILD-QUEEN.]

    * * * * *


    ST. NICHOLAS.


    VOL. V. NOVEMBER, 1877. No. 1.

    [Copyright, 1877, by Scribner & Co.]

    * * * * *



    A CHILD QUEEN.

    BY CECILIA CLEVELAND.


    I wonder how many of the little girl readers of ST. NICHOLAS are fond
    of history? If they answer candidly, I do not doubt that a very large
    proportion will declare that they prefer the charming stories they
    find in ST. NICHOLAS to the dull pages of history, with its countless
    battles and murdered sovereigns. But history is not every bit dull,
    by any means, as you will find if your elder sisters and friends will
    select portions for you to read that are suitable to your age and
    interests. Perhaps you are very imaginative, and prefer fairy tales to
    all others. I am sure, then, that you will like the story I am about
    to tell you, of a little French princess, who was married and crowned
    Queen of England when only eight years old, and who became a widow at
    twelve.

    This child-sovereign was born many hundred years ago--in 1387--at the
    palace of the Louvre in Paris, of whose noble picture-gallery I am
    sure you all have heard,--if, indeed, many of you have not seen it
    yourselves. She was the daughter of the poor King Charles VI., whose
    misfortunes made him insane, and for whose amusement playing-cards
    were invented, and of his queen, Isabeau of Bavaria, a beautiful but
    very wicked woman. Little Princess Isabella was the eldest of twelve
    children. She inherited her mother's beauty, and was petted by her
    parents and the entire court of France.

    King Richard II. of England, who was a widower about thirty years old,
    was urged to marry again; and, instead of selecting a wife near his
    own age, his choice fell upon little Princess Isabella.

    "She is much too young," he was told. "Even in five or six years she
    will not be old enough to be married." The king, however, thought
    this objection too trifling to stand in the way of his marriage, and
    saying, "The lady's age is a fault that every day will remedy," he
    sent a magnificent embassy to the court of France, headed by the
    Archbishop of Dublin, and consisting of earls, marshals, knights, and
    squires of honor uncounted, with attendants to the number of five
    hundred.

    When the embassy reached Paris, and the offer of marriage had been
    formally accepted, the archbishop and the earls asked to see the
    little princess who was soon to become their queen. At first the
    French Council refused, saying so young a child was not prepared to
    appear on public occasions, and they could not tell how she might
    behave. The English noblemen were so solicitous, however, that at last
    she was brought before them. The earl marshal immediately knelt before
    her, and said, in the old-fashioned language of the time: "Madam, if
    it please God, you shall be our lady and queen."

    Queen Isabeau stood at a little distance, curious and anxious, no
    doubt, to know how her little daughter would answer this formal
    address. To her great pleasure, and the great surprise of all present,
    Princess Isabella replied:

    "Sir, if it please God and my father that I be Queen of England, I
    shall be well pleased, for I am told I shall then be a great lady."

    Then, giving the marshal her tiny hand to kiss, she bade him rise from
    his knees, and leading him to her mother, she presented him to her
    with the grace and ease of a mature woman.

    According to the fashion of the time, Princess Isabella was
    immediately married by proxy, and received the title of Queen of
    England. Froissart, a celebrated historian living at that epoch, says:
    "It was very pretty to see her, young as she was, practicing how to
    act the queen."

    In a few days, King Richard arrived from England with a gay and
    numerous retinue of titled ladies to attend his little bride. After
    many grand festivities they were married and were taken in state to
    England, where the Baby Queen was crowned in the famous Westminster
    Abbey.

    I must not forget to describe the magnificent _trousseau_ that the
    King of France gave his little daughter. Her dowry was 800,000 francs
    ($160,000); her coronets, rings, necklaces, and jewelry of all
    sorts, were worth 500,000 crowns; and her dresses were of surpassing
    splendor. One was a robe and mantle of crimson velvet, trimmed with
    gold birds perched on branches of pearls and emeralds, and another was
    trimmed with pearl roses. Do you think any fairy princess could have
    had a finer bridal outfit?

    When the ceremonies of the coronation were over, little Isabella's
    life became a quiet routine of study; for, although a reigning
    sovereign, she was in the position of that young Duchess of Burgundy
    of later years, who at the time of her marriage could neither read nor
    write. This duchess, who married a grandson of Louis XIV. of France,
    was older than Queen Isabella--thirteen years old; and as soon as the
    wedding festivities were over, she was sent to school in a convent,
    to learn at least to read, as she knew absolutely nothing save how to
    dance. Queen Isabella, however, was not sent away to school, but was
    placed under the care of a very accomplished lady, a cousin of the
    king, who acted as her governess. In her leisure hours, the king, who
    was a fine musician, would play and sing for her, and, history gravely
    informs us, he would even play dolls with her by the hour!

    But King Richard's days of quiet pleasure with his child-wife were at
    last disturbed, and he was obliged to leave her and go to the war in
    Ireland. The parting was very sad and affecting, and they never met
    again.

    While King Richard was in Ireland, his cousin, Henry of Lancaster,
    afterward Henry IV., took possession of the royal treasury, and upon
    the return of Richard from his unfortunate campaign, marched at the
    head of an army and made a prisoner of him, lodging him in that grim
    Tower of London from which so few prisoners ever issued alive.

    Meantime, the poor little queen was hurried from one town to another,
    her French attendants were taken from her, and the members of her new
    household were forbidden ever to speak to her of the husband she
    loved so dearly. Finally, it was rumored that Richard had escaped.
    Instantly, this extraordinary little girl of eleven issued a
    proclamation saying that she did not recognize Henry IV. (for he was
    now crowned King of England) as sovereign; and she set out with an
    army to meet her husband. The poor child was bitterly disappointed
    upon learning that the rumor was false, and her husband was still a
    prisoner, and before long she also was again a prisoner of Henry IV.,
    this time closely guarded.

    In a few months Richard was murdered in prison by order of King Henry,
    and his queen's childish figure was shrouded in the heavy crape of her
    widow's dress. Her superb jewelry was taken from her and divided
    among the children of Henry IV., and she was placed in still closer
    captivity. Her father, the King of France, sent to demand that she
    should return to him, but for a long time King Henry refused
    his consent. Meantime, she received a second offer of marriage
    from--strange to say--the son of the man who had killed her husband
    and made her a prisoner, but a handsome, dashing young prince, Harry
    of Monmouth, often called "Madcap Hal." Perhaps you have read, or your
    parents have read to you, extracts from Shakspeare's "Henry IV.," so
    that you know of the wild exploits of the Prince of Wales with his
    friends, in turning highwayman and stealing purses from travelers,
    often saying,

    "Where shall we take a purse to-morrow, Jack?"

    and finding himself in prison sometimes as a result of such
    amusements? Isabella was a child of decided character, and truly
    devoted to the memory of her husband, and much as she had enjoyed
    her rank she refused to continue it by marrying handsome Madcap Hal,
    although he offered himself to her several times, and even as she was
    embarking for France.

    Poor little Isabella, who had left France so brilliantly, returned a
    sad child-widow, and all that remained to her of her former splendor
    was a silver drink-cup and a few saucers. As Shakspeare says:

    "My queen to France, from whence set forth in pomp,
    She came adorned hither like sweet May,
    Sent back like Hallowmas or shortest day."

    She was received throughout France with joy, and tears of sympathy.

    When Isabella was eighteen. Madcap Hal again offered his hand to her,
    supposing she had forgotten her former prejudice, but although she
    married again she was so far faithful to the memory of her English
    husband that she would not accept the son of his murderer. Some years
    later, when Prince Hal was king, he married her beautiful sister
    Katherine.

    Isabella's second husband was her cousin, the Duke of Orleans, whose
    beautiful poems are considered classic in France. Again she was the
    joy of her family and the pride of France, but all her happiness was
    destined to be fleeting, for she survived her marriage only one year.
    Her husband, who loved her fondly, wrote after her death:

    "Alas!
    Death, who made thee so bold,
    To take from me my lovely princess,
    Who was my comfort, my life,
    My good, my pleasure, my riches?
    Alas! I am lonely, bereft of my mate--
    Adieu! my lady, my lily!
    Our loves are forever severed."

    And in another poem, full of expressions that show how very devoted
    was his affection for her, he says:

    "Above her lieth spread a tomb
    Of gold and sapphires blue,
    The gold doth show her blessedness,
    The sapphires mark her true.

    "And round about, in quaintest guise,
    Was carved--'Within this tomb there lies
    The fairest thing to mortal eyes.'"

    Farewell, sweet Isabella!--a wife at eight, a widow at twelve, and
    dead at twenty-two,--your life was indeed short, and, though not
    without happy days, sorrow blended largely with its joy!




    CHASED BY WOLVES

    BY GEORGE DUDLEY LAWSON.


    Some forty years ago the northern part of the State of New York was
    very sparsely settled. In one of the remote counties, which for a
    name's sake we will call Macy County, a stout-hearted settler, named
    Devins, posted himself beyond the borders of civilization, and hewed
    for his little family a home in the heart of a forest that extended
    all the way from Lake Champlain to Lake Ontario. His nearest neighbor
    was six miles away, and the nearest town nearly twenty; but the
    Devinses were so happy and contented that the absence of company gave
    them no concern.

    It was a splendid place to live in. In summer the eye ranged from the
    slope where the sturdy pioneer had built his house over miles and
    miles of waving beech and maple woods, away to the dark line of pines
    on the high ground that formed the horizon. In the valley below,
    Otter Creek, a tributary of the St. Lawrence, wound its sparkling way
    northward. When Autumn painted the scene in brilliant hues, and it
    lay glowing under the crimson light of October sunsets, the dullest
    observer could not restrain bursts of admiration.

    Mr. Devins's first attack on the stubborn forest had been over the
    brow of the hill, some four miles nearer Owenton, but his house was
    burned down before he had taken his family there from Albany. He had
    regretted that he had not "pitched his tent" on the slope of Otter
    Creek; so now he began with renewed energy his second home, in which
    the closing in of the winter of 1839 found him. He had sixty acres of
    rich soil under cultivation at the time of which we are to speak, his
    right-hand man being his son Allan,--a rugged, handsome, intelligent
    boy of sixteen.

    The winter of '39 was a terrible one; snow set in before the end of
    November, and, even in the open country, lay upon the ground until the
    beginning of April, while in the recesses of the forest it was found
    as late as the middle of June. There was great distress among the
    settlers outside of the bounds of civilization, to whom the deep snow
    was an impassable barrier. The Devinses neither saw nor heard from
    their nearest neighbors from the first of December till near the
    beginning of February, when a crust was formed upon the snow
    sufficiently firm to bear the weight of a man, and a friendly Cayuga
    Indian brought them news of how badly their neighbors fared.

    Mr. Devins was especially touched by the bad case of his friend Will
    Inman, who lived on the nearest farm. The poor man lay ill of a fever;
    Mrs. Inman was dead and temporarily buried, until her body could be
    removed to the cemetery in Owenton, and all the care of the family
    devolved upon Esther, his daughter, fourteen years old. After a short
    consultation, the next morning breaking bright and clear though very
    cold, it was determined to allow Allan to go over the hill to Inman's,
    bearing medicine, tea, and other little necessaries for the family. He
    was impressively warned to begin his return at so early an hour that
    he might reach home before the short day's end, especially because of
    the danger from wild animals. The severity of the winter had made the
    wolves more venturesome and dangerous than they had been for many
    years. Mr. Devins had lost several sheep and hogs, and deemed it
    unsafe for any of his family to be caught far from the house at night.

    Allan armed himself with his light rifle, put some biscuits and cold
    meat in a pouch strapped to his waist, mounted one of the strong
    farm-horses, and set out on his journey. The road through the forest
    was better than he expected to find it, as the snow had been drifted
    off, but at the turns, and in the thickest part of the wood, his horse
    floundered through drifts more than breast high; and more than once
    Allan had to dismount and beat a path ahead. Therefore, he did not
    reach Inman's till two o'clock, and, by the time he had helped Esther
    about her work, assisted her young brother to get in a good supply of
    wood, and made things more comfortable for the invalid, it was almost
    sundown. He stoutly refused to wait for supper, declaring that the
    luncheon still in his pouch would serve, and started just as the short
    twilight came on. He was a brave lad, and, with no thought of peril,
    went off, kissing his hand gayly to Esther.

    It took him an hour to traverse the first three miles, and then he
    came to a stretch of comparatively bare ground leading through his
    father's old clearing, and almost to the top of the hill back of Mr.
    Devins's house. He was just urging old Bob into a trot, when a long,
    clear howl broke upon his ear; then another and another answered
    from east and south. He knew what that meant. It was the cry of the
    advance-guard of a pack of wolves.

    The howling sounded near, and came swiftly nearer, as though the
    wolves had found his tracks and scented their prey. Old Bob trembled
    in every limb, and seemed powerless to move. Allan realized that he
    could not, before dark, reach home through the drifts ahead, and the
    increasing cold of the advancing night would render a refuge in a
    tree-top probably as deadly as an encounter with the pack.

    Presently there came a cry, shriller and sharper than before, and
    Allan, looking back, saw a great, lean, hungry gray wolf burst from
    the underbrush into the road, followed by dozens more; and in a moment
    the road behind him was full of wolves, open-mouthed and in keen
    chase. Their yells now seemed notes of exultation, for the leader
    of the pack--the strongest, fleetest, hungriest one among them--was
    within a dozen yards of Allan, who was now riding faster than ever old
    Bob had gone before or ever would go again. Excitement made the lad's
    blood boil in his veins, and he determined to show fight. The moon had
    risen, and the scene was almost as light as day. Now he could count
    the crowding host of his enemies, and just as he broke from the forest
    road into the old clearing, he turned in his saddle and fired. The
    foremost of the pack rolled over and over; the rest gathered around
    and tore their leader in pieces.

    By the time they resumed the chase, Allan was a hundred yards ahead
    with his rifle loaded. He determined to make a running fight of it to
    the hill, where he was sure of meeting his father, or could take to a
    tree and shoot until help came. This had hardly flashed through his
    brain when, right ahead of him, a detachment of the pack sprang into
    the road and answered with double yells the cries of the rest coming
    up behind. The horse wheeled suddenly, almost unseating Allan, and
    dashed across the clearing toward the wood; but he had not taken a
    dozen bounds when a wolf sprang upon him. Old Bob reared and fell,
    pitching Allan nearly twenty feet ahead, and was covered with wolves
    before he could regain his footing. That was the last of poor old Bob.

    [Illustration: "OLD BOB FELL, PITCHING ALLAN AHEAD."]

    But Allan! What of him? When he recovered from the effects of the
    shock, he found himself over head and ears in snow. He had no idea
    where he was, but struggled and plunged in vain endeavors to extricate
    himself, until at last he broke into a space that was clear of snow,
    but dark as Erebus, damp and close. Feeling about him he discovered
    over his head logs resting slantingly against the upper edge of a pit,
    and then he knew that he was in the cellar of the old house his father
    had built, and which had been burned down nine years before! The
    cellar was full of snow, except at the corner roofed over by the
    fallen logs, and Allan, bursting through the snow into the empty
    corner, was as secure from the wolves as though seated by his father's
    fireside. It was not nearly as cold in there as outside, and he found
    a dry spot upon which he lay down to think.

    He was in no danger of freezing to death, his food would keep him from
    starvation a week at least, and Allan concluded that, with the first
    glimpse of dawn, his father would be in search of him, and, following
    the tracks, find old Bob's bones, and quickly rescue him from his
    predicament. He reasoned wisely enough, but the elements were against
    him. Before sunrise a furious storm of wind and snow had completely
    obliterated every trace of horse, rider and wolves.

    At home, as the night wore on, the anxiety of the family had
    increased. While they were watching the gathering

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