Part 5 (1/2)

THE CONTINENTAL SOLDIER.

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Did you ever see a Continental Soldier? I doubt it. Some twenty years ago there used to be a few of them scattered here and there over the country, but they must be nearly all gone now. About a year ago there were but two of them left. Those whom some of us can remember were rather mournful old gentlemen. They shuffled about their dwelling-places, they smoked their pipes, and they were nearly always ready to talk about the glorious old days of the Revolution. It was well they had those days to fall back upon, for they had but little share in the glories of the present. When they looked abroad upon the country that their arms, and blood perhaps, had helped give to that vigorous Young America which now swells with prosperity from Alaska to Florida, they could see very little of it which they could call their own.

It was difficult to look upon those feeble old men and imagine that they were once full of vigor and fire; that they held their old flintlocks with arms of iron when the British cavalry rushed upon their bayonets; that their keen eyes flashed a deadly aim along their rusty rifle-barrels; that, with their good swords quivering in their sinewy hands, they urged their horses boldly over the battle-field, shouting brave words to their advancing men; and that they laughed at heat and cold, patiently endured hunger and privation, strode along bravely on the longest marches, and, at last, stood proudly by when Cornwallis gave up his sword.

Those old gentlemen did not look like anything of that sort. Their old arms could hardly manage their old canes; their old legs could just about carry them on a march around the garden, and they were very particular indeed about heat and cold.

But History and Art will better keep alive the memory of their good deeds, and call more vigorously upon the grat.i.tude of their countrymen, than those old Continentallers could themselves have done it, had they lived on for years and years, and told generation after generation how once they galloped proudly along the ranks, or, in humbler station, beat with vigorous arm the stirring drum-roll that called their comrades to the battle-field.

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A JUDGE OF MUSIC.

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It is not well to despise anybody or anything until you know what they can do. I have known some very stupid-looking people who could do a sum in the rule-of-three in a minute, and who could add up a column of six figures abreast while I was just making a beginning at the right-hand bottom corner. But stupid-looking beings are often good at other things besides arithmetic. I have seen doctors, with very dull faces, who knew all about castor-oil and mustard-plasters, and above you see a picture of a Donkey who understood music.

This animal had a very fine ear for music. You can see how much ear he had, and I have no doubt that he enjoyed the sweet sounds from one end to the other of those beautiful long flaps. Well, he very often had an opportunity of enjoying himself, for the lady of the house was a fine musician, and she used to sing and play upon the piano nearly every day. And as soon as he heard the sweet sounds which thrilled his soul, the Donkey would come to the parlor window and listen.

One day the lady played and sang something which was particularly sweet and touching. I never heard the name of the song--whether it was ”I'm sitting on the stile, Mary,” or ”A watcher, pale and weary”--but if it was the latter, I am not surprised that it should have overcome even a jacka.s.s. At any rate, the music so moved the soul of Mr. Donkey that he could no longer restrain himself, but entering the open door he stepped into the parlor, approached the lady, and with a voice faltering from the excess of his emotion, he joined in the chorus!

The lady jumped backwards and gave a dreadful scream, and the Donkey, thinking that the music went up very high in that part, commenced to bray at such a pitch that you could have heard him if you had been up in a balloon.

That was a lively concert; but it was soon ended by the lady rus.h.i.+ng from the room and sending her man John to drive out the musical jacka.s.s with a big stick.

Fortunately, all donkeys have not this taste for music. The nearest that the majority of jacka.s.ses come to being votaries of music is when their skins are used for covering cases for musical instruments. And if they have any ambition in the cause of harmony, that is better than nothing.

THE SENSITIVE PLANT.

There was never a better name for a plant than this, for the delicate leaves which grow on this slender stalk are almost as sensitive to the touch as if they were alive. If you place your hand on a growing plant, you will soon see all the leaves on the stem that you have touched fold themselves up as tightly as if they had been packed up carefully to be sent away by mail or express. In some of the common kinds of this plant, which grow about in our fields, it takes some time for the leaves to fold after they have been touched or handled; but if you watch them long enough--five or ten minutes--you will see that they never fail to close. They are not so sensitive as their cultivated kindred, but they still have the family disposition.

Now this is certainly a wonderful property for a plant to possess, but it is not half so strange as another trait of these same pretty green leaves. They will shut up when it is dark, and open when it is light.

It may be said that many other plants will do this, but that is a mistake. Many flowers and leaves close at _night_ and open in the _day-time_, but very few indeed exhibit the peculiar action of the sensitive plant in this respect. That plant will open at night if you bring a bright light into the room where it is growing, and it will close its leaves if the room is made dark in the day-time.

Other plants take note of times and seasons. The sensitive plant obeys no regular rules of this kind, but acts according to circ.u.mstances.

When I was a boy, I often used to go to a green-house where there were a great many beautiful and rare plants; but I always thought that the sensitive plant was the most wonderful thing in the whole collection, and I did not know then how susceptible it was to the influence of light. I was interested in it simply because it seemed to have a sort of vegetable reason, and understood that it should shut up its leaves whenever I touched it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE SENSITIVE PLANT.]