Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli - "La vita sul pianeta Marte"

Henry Adams - "Mont Saint Michel and Chartres"

John Martin Crawford, trans. - "The Kalevala book 1"

Eugene O'Neill - "Anna Christie"

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"I'm sure you are right," assented Webb, "and I think it will pay us to
plant largely in the spring. I don't suppose you ever saw a peach-orchard
in England, Amy?"

"I don't think I ever did. They were all grown in front of sunny walls,
_espalier_, as papa termed it. We had some in our garden."

"Yes," resumed Webb, "the climate there is too cool and humid for even
the wood to ripen. Here, on the contrary, we often have too vivid
sunshine. I propose that we put out all the north slope in peaches."

"Do you think a northern exposure best?" Leonard asked.

"I certainly do. In my opinion it is not the frost, unless it be very
severe, that plays the mischief with the buds, but alternate freezing and
thawing, especially after the buds have started in spring. On a northern
slope the buds usually remain dormant until the danger of late frosts is
over. I am quite sure, too, that the yellows is a disease due chiefly to
careless or dishonest propagation. Pits and buds have been taken from
infected trees, and thus the evil has been spread far and wide. There is
as much to be gained in the careful and long-continued selection of
fruits and vegetables as in the judicious breeding of stock."

"Has no remedy for the yellows been discovered?" Leonard again queried.

"Only the axe and fire. The evil should be extirpated as fast as it
appears. Prevention is far better than any attempt at cure. The thing to
do is to obtain healthier trees, and then set them out on new land.
That's why I think the north slope will be a good place, for peaches have
never been grown there in my memory."

"Come, Amy," said Burt. "Len and Webb are now fairly astride of their
horticultural hobbies. Come with me, and see the moon shining on old
Storm King."

They pushed aside the heavy crimson curtains, which added a sense of warmth
to the cheerful room, and looked at the cold white world without--a ghost
of a world, it seemed to Amy. The moon, nearly full, had risen in the gap
of the Highlands, and had now climbed well above the mountains, softening
and etherealizing them until every harsh, rugged outline was lost. The
river at their feet looked pallid and ghostly also. When not enchained by
frost, lights twinkled here and there all over its broad surface, and the
intervals were brief when the throbbing engines of some passing steamer
were not heard. Now it was like the face of the dead when a busy life is
over.

"It's all very beautiful," said Amy, shivering, "but too cold and still.
I love life, and this reminds one of death, the thoughts of which, with
all that it involves, have oppressed me so long that I must throw off the
burden. I was growing morbid, and giving way to a deeper and deeper
depression, and now your sunny home life seems just the antidote for it
all."

The warm-hearted fellow was touched, for there were tears in the young
girl's eyes. "You have come to the right place, Amy," he said, eagerly.
"You cannot love life more than I, and I promise to make it lively for
you. I'm just the physician to minister to the mind diseased with
melancholy. Trust me. I can do a hundred-fold more for you than delving,
matter-of-fact Webb. So come to me when you have the blues. Let us make
an alliance offensive and defensive against all the powers of dulness and
gloom."

"I'll do my best," she replied, smiling; "but there will be hours, and
perhaps days, when the past with its shadows will come back too vividly
for me to escape it."

"I'll banish all shadows, never fear. I'll make the present so real and
jolly that you will forget the past."

"I don't wish to forget, but only to think of it without the dreary
foreboding and sinking of heart that oppressed me till I came here. I
know you will do much for me, but I am sure I shall like Webb also."

"Oh, of course you will. He's one of the best fellows in the world. Don't
think that I misunderstand him or fail to appreciate his worth because I
love to run him so. Perhaps you'll wake him up and get him out of his
ruts. But I foresee that I'm the medicine you most need. Come to the
fire; you are shivering."

"Oh, I'm so glad that I've found such a home," she said, with a grateful
glance, as she emerged from the curtains.




CHAPTER IV

GUNNING BY MOONLIGHT


Webb saw the glance from eyes on which were still traces of tears; he
also saw his brother's look of sympathy; and with the kindly purpose of
creating a diversion to her thoughts he started up, breaking off his
discussion with Leonard, and left the room. A moment later he returned
from the hall with the double-barrelled gun.

"What now, Webb?" cried Burt, on the _qui vive_. "You will make Amy
think we are attacked by Indians."

"If you are not afraid of the cold, get your gun, and I think I can give
you some sport, and, for a wonder, make you useful also," Webb replied.
"While you were careering this afternoon I examined the young trees in
the nursery, and found that the rabbits were doing no end of mischief. It
has been so cold, and the snow is so deep, that the little rascals are
gathering near the house. They have gnawed nearly all the bark off the
stems of some of the trees, and I doubt whether I can save them. At first
I was puzzled by their performances. You know, father, that short nursery
row grafted with our seedling apple, the Highland Beauty? Well, I found
many of the lower twigs taken off with a sharp, slanting cut, as if they
had been severed with a knife, and I imagined that a thrifty neighbor had
resolved to share in our monopoly of the new variety, but I soon discovered
that the cuttings had been made too much at random to confirm the
impression that some one had been gathering scions for grafting. Tracks on
the snow, and girdled trees, soon made it evident that rabbits were the
depredators. One of the little pests must have climbed into a bushy tree at
least eighteen inches from the snow, in order to reach the twigs I found
cut."

"A rabbit up a tree!" exclaimed Leonard. "Who ever heard of such a
thing?"

"Well, you can see for yourself to-morrow," Webb resumed. "Of course we
can't afford to pasture the little fellows on our young trees, and so
must feed them until they can be shot or trapped. The latter method will
be good fun for you, Alf. This afternoon I placed sweet apples,
cabbage-leaves, and turnips around the edge of a little thicket near the
trees; and, Burt, you know there is a clump of evergreens near, from
whose cover I think we can obtain some good shots. So get your gun, and
we'll start even."

At the prospect of sport Burt forgot Amy and everything else, and dashed
off.

"Oh, papa, can't I go with them?" pleaded Alf.

"What do you think, Maggie?" Leonard asked his wife, who now entered.

"Well, boys will be boys. If you will let mamma bundle you up--"

"Oh, yes, anything, if I can only go!" cried Alf, trembling with
excitement.

"Sister Amy," Webb remarked, a little diffidently, "if you care to see
the fun, you can get a good view from the window of your room. I'll load
my gun in the hall."

"Can I see you load?" Amy asked, catching some of Alf's strong interest.
"It's all so novel to me."

"Certainly. I think you will soon find that you can do pretty much as you
please in your new home. You are now among republicans, you know, and we
are scarcely conscious of any government."

"But I have already discovered one very strong law in this household,"
she smilingly asserted, as she stood beside him near the hall-table, on
which he had placed his powder-flask and shot-pouch.

"Ah, what is that?" he asked, pouring the powder carefully into the
muzzles of the gun.

"The law of kindness, of good-will. Why," she exclaimed, "I expected to
be weeks in getting acquainted, but here you are all calling me sister
Amy as if it were the most natural thing in the world. It seems so odd,"
she laughed, "that I am not a bit afraid of you, even with your gun, and
yet we have just met, as it were. The way you and your brothers say
'sister Amy' makes the relation seem real. I can scarcely believe that I
am the same girl that stepped down at the station this evening, nor can I
get over my pleased wonder at the transformation."

"Amy," said the young man, earnestly, "your coming promises so much to us
all! You were just the one element lacking in our home. I now see that it
was so. I already have the presentiment that you will do more for us than
we can for you."

"I ought to do all that the deepest gratitude could prompt. You have
never known what it is to be desolate one hour, and to find an ideal home
the next."

"I wish it might be an ideal home to you; but don't expect too much. You
will find some of us very human."

"Therefore I shall feel the more at home. Papa always spoiled me by
letting me have my own way, and I shall often tax your patience. Do you
know, I never saw a gun loaded before. There seems to be so much going on
here, and I have lived such a quiet life of late. How will you make the
thing go off?"

"These little precussion-caps will do the business. It seems to me that
I've always been quiet, and perhaps a trifle heavy. I hope you will think
it your mission to render me less matter-of-fact. I'm ready now, and here
comes Burt with his breech-loader. If you will go to your room now, you
can see our shots."

A moment later she stood with Johnnie at her window, both almost holding
their breath in expectation as they saw the young men, with Alf following,
steal toward a clump of evergreens behind the house.

"Quiet and steady now," Webb cautioned his eager brother; "and, Alf, you
step in my tracks, so there may be no noise." Thus they made their way
among the pines, and peered cautiously out. "Hold on, Burt," Webb
whispered, as the former was bringing his gun to his shoulder; "I want a
crack at them as well as yourself. Let's reconnoitre. Yes, there are
three or four of the scamps. Let Alf see them. They look so pretty in the
moonlight that I've scarcely the heart to disturb, much less to kill
them."

"Oh, stop your sentimental nonsense!" muttered Burt, impatiently. "It's
confoundedly cold, and they may take fright and disappear."

"Black ingratitude!" Webb exclaimed. "If there isn't one in the apple
nursery in spite of all my provision for them! That ends my compunctions.
I'll take him, and you that big fellow munching a cabbage-leaf. We'll
count three--now, one, two--" The two reports rang out as one, and the
watchers at the window saw the flashes, and thrilled at the reverberating
echoes.

"It's almost as exciting as if they were shooting Indians, robbers, or
giants," cried Johnnie, clapping her hands and jumping up and down.

"Back," said Webb to Alf, who was about to rush forward to secure the
game; "we may get another shot."

They waited a few moments in vain, and then succumbed to the cold. To Alf
was given the supreme delight of picking up the game that lay on the
snow, making with their blood the one bit of color in all the white
garden.

"Poor little chaps!" Webb remarked, as he joined the family gathered
around Alf and the rabbits in the sitting-room. "It's a pity the world
wasn't wide enough for us all."

"What has come over you, Webb?" asked Burt, lifting his eyebrows. "Has
there been a hidden spring of sentiment in your nature all these years,
which has just struck the surface?"

It was evident that nearly all shared in Webb's mild regret that such a
sudden period had been put to life at once so pretty, innocent, and
harmful. Alf, however, was conscious of only pure exultation. Your boy is
usually a genuine savage, governed solely by the primal instinct of the
chase and destruction of wild animals. He stroked the fur, and with eyes
of absorbed curiosity examined the mischievous teeth, the long ears, the
queer little feet that never get cold, and the places where the lead had
entered with the sharp deadly shock that had driven out into the chill
night the nameless something which had been the little creature's life.
Amy, too, stroked the fur with a pity on her face which made it very
sweet to Webb, while tender-hearted Johnnie was exceedingly remorseful,
and wished to know whether "the bunnies, if put by the fire, would not
come to life before morning." Indeed, there was a general chorus of
commiseration, which Burt brought to a prosaic conclusion by saying:
"Crocodile tears, every one. You'll all enjoy the pot-pie to-morrow with
great gusto. By the way, I'll prop up one of these little fellows at the
foot of Ned's crib, and in the morning he'll think that the original
'Br'er Rabbit' has hopped out of Uncle Remus's stories to make him a
Christmas visit."




CHAPTER V

CHRISTMAS EVE AND MORNING


Old Mrs. Clifford now created a diversion by asking: "How about our
plants to-night, Maggie? Ought we not to take some precautions? Once
before when it was as cold as this we lost some, you know"

"Leonard," said his wife, in response to the suggestion, "it will be
safer for you to put a tub of water in the flower-room; that will draw
the frost from the plants. Mother is the queen of the flowers in this
house," continued Mrs. Leonard, turning to Amy, "and I think she will be
inclined to appoint you first lady in attendance. She finds me cumbered
with too many other cares. But it doesn't matter. Mother has only to look
at the plants to make them grow and bloom."

"There you are mistaken," replied the old lady, laughing. "Flowers are
like babies. I never made much of a fuss over my babies, but I loved
them, and saw that they had just what they needed at the right time."

"That accounts for Webb's exuberant growth and spirit, and the ethereal
beauty of Len's mature blossoming," remarked Burt.

"You are a plant that never had enough pruning," retorted his portly
eldest brother.

"I shall be glad to help you, if you will teach me how," Amy said to Mrs.
Clifford.

"In the pruning department?" asked Burt, with assumed dismay.

"Possibly," was the reply, with an arch little look which delighted the
young fellow.

"Come, Maggie," said Mrs. Clifford, "sing a Christmas carol before we
separate. It will be a pleasant way of bringing our happy evening to a
close."

Mrs. Leonard went to the piano. "Amy," she asked, "can't you help me?"

"I'll do my best, if you will choose something I know."

A selection was soon made, and Amy modestly blended a clear, sweet voice
with the air that Mrs. Leonard sang, and as the sympathetic tones of the
young girl swelled the rich volume of song the others exchanged looks of
unaffected pleasure.

"Oh, Amy, I am so glad you can sing!" cried Mrs. Clifford, "for we have
always made so much of music in our home."

"Papa," she replied, with moist eyes, "felt as you do, and he had me sing
for him ever since I can remember."

"Amy dear," said Mrs. Leonard, in a low voice, "suppose you take the
soprano and I the alto in the next stanza."

They were all delighted with the result, and another selection was made,
in which Burt's tenor and Webb's bass came in with fine effect.

"Amy, what a godsend you are to us all!" said Leonard, enthusiastically. "I
am one of the great army of poets who can't sing, but a poet nevertheless."

"Yes, indeed, Len," added Burt; "it needs but a glance to see that you
are of that ethereal mold of which poets and singers are made. But isn't
it capital! We now have all the four parts."

"Amy," said Mr. Clifford, "do you know an old Christmas hymn that your
father and I loved when we were as young as you are?" and he named it.

"I have often sung it for him, and he usually spoke of you when I did
so"; and she sang sweet, undying words to a sweet, quaint air in a voice
that trembled with feeling.

The old gentleman wiped his eyes again and again. "Ah!" he said, "how
that takes me back into the past! My friend and I knew and loved that air
and hymn over sixty years ago. I can see him now as he looked then. God
bless his child, and now my child!" he added, as he drew Amy caressingly
toward him. "A brief evening has made you one of us. I thank God that he
has sent one whom it will be so easy for us all to love; and we gratefully
accept you as a Christmas gift from Heaven."

Then, with the simplicity of an ancient patriarch, he gathered his
household around the family altar, black Abram and two maids entering at
his summons, and taking seats with an air of deference near the door. Not
long afterward the old house stood silent and dark in the pallid landscape.

Though greatly wearied, Amy was kept awake during the earlier part of the
night by the novelty of her new life and relations, and she was awakened
in the late dawn of the following day by exclamations of delight from
Mrs. Leonard's room. She soon remembered that it was Christmas morning.
The children evidently had found their stockings, for she heard Johnnie
say, "Oh, mamma, do you think Aunt Amy is awake? I would so like to take
her stocking to her!"

"Yes," cried Amy, "I'm awake"; and the little girl, draped in white, soon
pushed open the door, holding her own and Amy's stockings in hands that
trembled with delightful anticipation.

"Jump into bed with me," said Amy, "and we will empty our stockings
together."

The years rolled back, the previous months of sorrow and suffering were
forgotten; the day, the hour, with its associations, the eager child that
nestled close to her, made her a child again. She yielded wholly to her
mood; she would be a little girl once more, Johnnie's companion in
feeling and delight; and the morning of her life was still so new that
the impulses of that enchanted age before the light of experience has
defined the world into its matter-of-fact proportions came back unforced
and unaffected. Her voice vied with Johnnie's in its notes of excitement
and pleasure, and to more than one who heard her it seemed that their
first impression was correct, that a little child had come to them, and
that the tall, graceful maiden was a myth.

"Merry Christmas, Amy!" cried the voice of Webb on the stairs.

The child vanished instantly, and a blushing girl let fall the half-emptied
stocking. Something in that deep voice proved that if she were not yet a
woman, she had drawn so near that mystery of life that its embarrassing
self-consciousness was beginning to assert itself. "How silly he will think
me!" was her mental comment, as she returned his greeting in a voice that
was rather faint.

The "rising bell" now resounded through the house, and she sprang up with
the purpose of making amends by a manner of marked dignity. And yet there
remained with her a sense of home security, of a great and new-found
happiness, which the cold gray morning could not banish. The air-tight
stove glowed with heat and comfort, and she afterward learned that Mrs.
Leonard had replenished the fire so noiselessly as not to awaken her. The
hearty Christmas greetings of the family as she came into the
breakfast-room were like an echo of the angels' song of "good-will." The
abounding kindliness and genuine pleasure at her presence made the feeling
that she had indeed become one of the household seem the most natural thing
in the world, instead of a swiftly wrought miracle.

Little Ned had in his arms one of the rabbits that had been shot on the
previous evening, and to him it was more wonderful than all his toys.
"You should have seen him when he awoke," said his mother, "and saw the
poor little thing propped up at the foot of his crib. His eyes grew wider
and rounder, and at last he breathed, in an awed whisper, 'Br'er Rabbit.'
But he soon overcame his surprise, and the jargon he talked to it made
our sides ache with laughing."

The gifts that had been prepared for the supposed child were taken by Amy
in very good part, but with the tact of a well-bred girl who would not
spoil a jest, rather than with the undisguised delight of Johnnie.

"Only Johnnie and I have seen little Amy," said Leonard--"I at the depot
before she grew up; and this morning she became a little girl again as a
Christmas wonder for my little girl. Johnnie's faith and fairy lore may
make the transformation possible to her again, but I fear the rest of us
will never catch another glimpse of the child we expected"; for Amy's
grown-up air since she had appeared in the breakfast-room had been almost
a surprise to him after hearing through the partition her pretty nonsense
over her stocking.

"I fear you are right," said Amy, with a half-sigh; "and yet it was
lovely to feel just like Johnnie once more;" and she stole a shy glance
at Webb, who must have heard some of her exclamations. The expression of
his face seemed to reassure her, and without further misgiving she joined
in a laugh at one of Burt's sallies.




CHAPTER VI

NATURE'S HALF-KNOWN SECRETS


Amy's thoughts naturally reverted before very long to Mrs. Clifford's
pets--the flowers--and she asked how they had endured the intense cold of
the night.

"They have had a narrow escape," the old lady replied. "If Maggie had not
suggested the tub of water last night, I fear we should have lost the
greater part of them."

"Yes," said Mrs. Leonard, "I went to the flower-room with fear and
trembling this morning, and when I found the water frozen thick I was in
despair."

"It was the water freezing that saved the plants," Webb remarked,
quietly. "I put water in the root-cellar before I went to bed last night,
with like good effect."

"Well, for the life of me," said Maggie, "I can't understand why the
plants and roots don't freeze when water does."

"Come, Burt," added her husband, "you are a college-bred man. You explain
how the water draws the frost from the plants."

"Oh, bother!" Burt answered, flushing slightly, "I've forgotten. Some
principle of latent heat involved, I believe. Ask Webb. If he could live
long enough he'd coax from Nature all her secrets. He's the worst Paul
Pry into her affairs that I ever knew. So beware, Amy, unless you are
more secretive than Nature, which I cannot believe, since you seem so
natural."

"I'm afraid your knowledge, Burt, resembles latent heat," laughed
Leonard. "Come, see what you can do, Webb."

"Burt is right," said Webb, good-naturedly; "the principle of latent heat
explains it all, and he could refresh his memory in a few moments. The
water does not draw the frost from the plants, but before it can freeze
it must give out one hundred and forty degrees of latent heat. The
flower-room and root-cellar were therefore so much warmer during the
night than if the water had not been there. The plants that were nipped
probably suffered after the ice became so thick as to check in a great
measure the freezing process."

"How can ice stop water from freezing?" Alf asked, in much astonishment.

"By keeping it warm, on the same principle that your bed-clothes kept you
warm last night. Heat passes very slowly through ice-that is, it is a
poor conductor. With the snow it is the winter wrap of nature, which
protects all life beneath it. When our ponds and rivers are once frozen
over, the latent heat in the water beneath can escape through the ice but
very gradually, and every particle of ice that forms gives out into the
water next to it one hundred and forty degrees of heat. Were it not for
these facts our ponds would soon become solid. But to return to the tub
of water in the flower-room. The water, when placed there, was probably
warmer than the air, and so would give out or radiate its heat until a
thermometer, placed either in the room or in the water, would mark
thirty-two degrees above zero. At this point the water would begin to
freeze, but plants or vegetables would not. They would require slightly
severer cold to affect them. But as soon as the water begins to freeze it
also gradually gives out its latent heat, and before a particle of ice
can form it must give out one hundred and forty degrees of heat to the
air and water around it. Therefore the freezing process goes on slowly,
and both the air and water are kept comparatively warm. After a time,
however, the ice becomes so thick over the surface that the freezing goes
on more and more slowly, because the latent heat in the unfrozen water
cannot readily escape through the ice. It is therefore retained, just as
the latent heat in the water of an ice-covered pond is retained."

"It follows, then," said Leonard, "that after the water beneath the ice
in the tub began to freeze slowly, the flower-room, in that same degree,
began to grow cold."

"Certainly, for only as the water freezes can it give out its latent
heat. The thick wooden side of the tub is a poor conductor; the ice that
has formed over the surface is even a worse, and so the water within is
shielded from the cold. It therefore almost ceases to freeze, and so
becomes of no practical use. An intelligent understanding of these
principles is of great practical value. If I could have waked up and
placed another tub of water in the room at two or three o'clock, or else
taken all of the ice out of the first one, the process of freezing and
giving out heat would have gone on rapidly again, and none of the plants
would have suffered. I have heard people say that putting water in a
cellar was all a humbug--that the water froze and the vegetables also. Of
course the vegetables froze after the water congealed, or the cellar may
have been so defective that both froze at the same time. The latent heat
given out by a small amount of freezing water cannot counteract any great
severity of frost."