Part 2 — FEATHER BOOKS.

Elizabeth Brightwen describes, in "Nature Notes," her method of collecting birds' feathers, by grouping them artistically in the page of a large album.

"The book," she says, "should be a blank album of about fifty pages, eleven inches wide by sixteen, so as to make an upright page, which will take in long tail feathers. Cartridge paper of various pale tints is best, as one can choose the ground that will best set off the colors of the feathers. Every other page may be white, and about three black sheets will be useful for swan, albatross and other white-plumaged birds.

"The only working tools required are sharp scissors and a razor, some very thick, strong gum arabic, a little water and a duster, in case of fingers becoming sticky.

"Each page is to receive the feathers of only one bird; then they are sure to harmonize, however you may combine them.

"A common wood-pigeon is an easy bird to begin with, and readily obtained at any poulterer's. Draw out the tail feathers and place them quite flat in some paper till required. Do the same with the right wing and the left, keeping each separate and putting a mark on the papers that you may know which each contains.

"The back, the breast, the fluffy feathers beneath, all should be neatly folded in paper and marked; and this can be done in the evening or at odd times, but placing the feathers on the pages ought to be daylight work, that the colors may be studied. Now open the tail-feather packet, and with the razor carefully pare away the quill at the back of each feather.

"This requires much practice, but at last it is quickly done, and only the soft web is left, which will be perfectly flat when gummed upon the page. When all the packets are thus prepared (it is only the quill feathers that require the razor) then we may begin.

"I will describe a specimen page, but the arrangement can be varied endlessly, and therein lies one of the charms of the work. One never does two pages alike—there is such scope for taste and ingenuity—and it becomes at last a most fascinating occupation.

"Toward the top of the page, place a thin streak of gum, lay upon it a tail feather (the quill end downward), and put one on either side. The best feathers of one wing may be put down, one after the other, till one has sufficiently covered the page; then the other wing feathers may be placed down the other side; the centre may be filled in with the fluffy feathers, and the bottom can be finished off with some breast feathers neatly placed so as to cover all quill ends.

"When one works with small plumage, a wreath looks very pretty, or a curved spray beginning at the top with the very smallest feathers and gradually increasing in size to the bottom of the page.

"Butterflies or moths made of tiny feathers add much to the effect, and they are made thus. It is best, I find, to fill a wide-mouthed bottle with dry gum, and just cover the gum with the water, allow it to melt, keep stirring and adding a few drops of water till just right—no bought liquid gum equals one's own preparation.

"To make the book complete, there should be a careful water-color study of the bird on the opposite page, its Latin and English name, and a drawing of the egg. It may interest some to know how I obtained the ninety-one birds which fill my books. Some were the dried skins of foreign birds, either given me by kind friends or purchased at bird-stuffers'. The woodpecker and nut-hatch were picked up dead in the garden. The dove and budgerigars were moulted feathers saved up until there were sufficient to make a page.

"Years after the death of our favorite parrot, I found that his wings had been preserved; so they appear as a memento of an old friend who lived as a cheery presence in my childhood's home for thirty years. It is a pleasure to me to be able to say no bird was ever killed to enrich my books."

Lilian's New Year's Calls.

BY MRS. CLARA DOTY BATES.

"Oh, what a lonesome day it will be!" sighed Lilian, looking wistfully out across the snow-bright prairie.

"Not unless you make it so," responded her mother, cheerily.

"Make it so!" rejoined Lilian. "How can I make it anything else? It is always lonesome here, and to-day will be the worst of all. Only think of the fun the girls will be having in dear old Deerfield, while I am off out here in this—"

She stopped short, fearing she might say too much. What she had been about to say was "this horrid, desolate Kansas ranch."

"Perhaps the boys can take you for a drive, dear; and you know we're invited to Uncle Abner's for the evening."

"A drive!" replied Lilian, scornfully. "I hate driving, all alone, along these endless roads. Nothing but snow, snow, until I am nearly blind."

"You have your books, Lilian; and your father likes perfect lessons."

"Yes, I can have books any day. But think of the girls at home—what they are having. They are getting their tables ready, this very minute. They will darken the parlors and have gas-light, and pretty dresses and lots of callers."

Here Lilian broke down and sobbed. Her mother came to her side and stroked her hair.

"Be brave, daughter," she whispered. "I know it is a great change. But I have often told you we must bear in mind why we left the East, and why we are here. Father would not have been alive but for this change of climate and open-air life. You know he is getting well, and is so happy in that. We ought not to mind anything if he can be well again."

Lilian felt ashamed, and tried to dry her tears. Yet she was unwilling to quite give up her discontent.

"If only something would happen!" she said. Then, desperately, "I wish there would be a cyclone or a blizzard, or a prairie fire! I wish the Indians would make a raid!"

"We don't have cyclones and prairie fires in winter," her mother said, calmly.

Just then Lilian heard a great stamping of feet and gay voices outside on the kitchen threshold.

Her four brothers were coming in from doing their morning chores. As they entered they let in a great rush of cold air. Jack spied Lilian through the half-open sitting room door.

"Hello, Lil!" he called.

She did not answer.

"Lil in the dumps again?" he asked his mother.

"She is a little homesick this morning."

"Why doesn't she get out, as we do, and stir up her spirits?" said Harry. "It's nothing but moping makes her homesick."

"This is a thousand times better than poky old Deerfield," asserted Ben. "There was nothing to do there but slide down hill on a hand-sled, and here we have the ponies, and the cattle, and—"

"But you are a boy, Ben," interposed Mrs. Wyman, "and can do a great variety of things. Lilian isn't strong enough for hard riding, and, besides, she misses her friends."

"Let her make new ones," piped up Jamie. "There's lots of nice people all over these prairies."

"She will find them in time," said Mrs. Wyman. "But you must cheer her all you can meanwhile."

Lilian overheard herself discussed, and began to sob afresh.

Jack went into the sitting-room and playfully pulled her ears, and tried to laugh her out of her gloom.

"Come now, Lil. What is it you want—a gallop, a sleigh-ride?"

Lilian could confess anything to Jack.

She told him all that had been in her thoughts—how the Deerfield girls were getting ready for callers, what pretty dresses they would have, and what gay, good times.

"Do you want callers? Is that what you want, Lilian?"

"Oh, you stupid fellow! I want anything except this awful experience. I told mother I even wished the Indians would drop down on us."

"Why, Lilian, if you saw even one Indian coming down the road, you'd run and hide under the bed."

"No, indeed I wouldn't. I'd make my very best courtesy and wish him a Happy New Year. I would spread the table with the rose-bud china, make coffee for him, and—"

"Y-e-s—but before you'd half done, he would whip out his tomahawk, grasp you by the hair—this way—and, w-h-o-o-p! off would come your scalp. Then he'd tuck your braids into his belt, and away he'd go to the reservation to hang them up on the ridge-pole of his wigwam!"

"All the same, I wish he'd come."

Jack laughed.

"Say, Ben," he called, "Sis wants visitors so badly, she even wishes a Comanche would call."

"I do," persisted Lilian. "I wish a whole tribe would come!"

Harry stormed into the sitting-room, in search of his heavy leather gloves.

"Where are you going, Harry?" asked Lilian, eagerly.

"Out on business," he answered. "Are you ready, Jack?"

"Are you all going off?" cried Lilian, in alarm, lest she should lose even the doubtful pleasure of her brothers' company.

"We're going on the ponies, to look up some stray cattle for Uncle Abner."

"But mamma said you would take me for a drive?"

"Can't this morning—too busy!"

"We're all to go this evening, you know," comforted Jamie.

"This evening! What am I to do alone all day?"

A flood of tears again threatened.

"Oh, entertain your callers!" said Harry, with scant sympathy.

Lilian watched the four boys on their ponies go down the poplar-lined lane to the highway, and then, too desperate for reading or study, or even helping her mother, she flung herself on a sofa and hid her face.

The day was a dazzling one. The rolling prairie on every side looked like a white ocean, with great, sweeping billows of snow as far as eye could see.

The widely separated farm-houses, with their wind-breaks of Lombardy poplars and interspersing clusters of evergreens, looked like ships on this endless, shining, cold sea.

One needed a happy heart and busy hands not to be affected by the vastness and isolation.

Neither of these did Lilian have, and it took her nearly the entire forenoon to get through her bitter struggle with self.

When she finally roused herself she found her mother had put the rooms to rights, and besides her own work, had done all the little tasks Lilian had been used to assume.

This made her remorseful. She got her books and began to study. But somehow the brilliant sunshine kept drawing her to the window to look out.

The sky was of an intense blue that was almost purple. The blue-jays were flitting and calling. A few stray crows hovered over a distant corn-stubble—these were all the signs of life she saw.

She stood tapping a tune on the window panes. Presently she noticed, on the far crest of one of the snow billows, some moving black figures.

They were mere specks against the intense blue beyond, but they fixed her attention. Almost as soon as she saw them, however, they disappeared in an intervening valley.

"That is on the Hardin road," she said, trying to fix the direction. "It can't be the boys, for Uncle Abner's road is to the south."

Almost immediately her curiosity was stimulated again by the re-appearance of the figures on the next rise. She could not distinguish numbers, but she felt certain it was horsemen.

Again they vanished from the crest into the lower-lying space between the land-billows. And so she watched them until they were near enough for her to see it was indeed horsemen.

"Mother," she called, "come here! There's somebody coming along the Hardin road."

Her mother came.

"Who can it be?"

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven," counted Lilian. "There are seven of them! Perhaps they will turn at the Climbing Hill Corners. They can't be coming here."

"Get the glass," said Mrs. Wyman. "See if we can make them out before they strike the valley."

Lilian ran after the glass. She adjusted it and raised it to her eyes. She had only one glimpse, however, before the descending riders were again hidden by an intervening ridge.

"They ride so wildly, mother!" she said, in a kind of breathless wonder.

"They must be skirting that hill along the creek," said Mrs. Wyman. "We'll see in a minute if they come up from the Corners."

It seemed a long time before they came again in sight. Lilian had just said, "They've turned on the Climbing Hill road," when they burst into full view on a not-distant summit and halted.

Lilian could distinctly see them pointing, as if discussing the way to take. Then, of one accord, they put spurs to their ponies and came wildly dashing down the slope.

Lilian turned deadly pale.

"Mother," she gasped, "they are Indians!"

Mrs. Wyman grew pale also. During her short life in the West she had seen only one or two isolated Indians, and those always at railway stations—dull, commonplace creatures enough, and with nothing suggestive of the warrior about them.

"Where is your father?" she asked, with something of a tremor in her voice.

"Probably over at the sheep-sheds," faltered Lilian. "He's always there near noon. I wish—I wish the boys were here."

"They'll be coming directly. Look again now, Lilian. They are approaching very fast."

Indeed the Indians were coming on fast. They were now in plain sight on the long incline and were riding at a full gallop, gesticulating and pressing forward with what looked to Lilian like savage fierceness.

"They will go by no doubt," said Mrs. Wyman, her native courage reasserting itself. "They are probably out in search of lost ponies or—"

"Look, mother! See! They are not going by. They have halted, and are pointing to the house. See! They are turning in at the lane. Oh, mother!"

"Never mind, dear. They want to inquire, perhaps—"

But while she was speaking, the Indians had wheeled into the gateway and swept up with a headlong pace to the very door.

They swung themselves from their saddles, tethered their ponies to the hitching rails and came quickly up on the porch.

Mrs. Wyman had thrown off her momentary fear. She stepped to the door and opened it. Lilian trembled in every muscle. The leader of the party was a huge fellow, much taller than his followers. He was more fantastic in his dress, too, and had streaks of paint on his cheeks. The rest had turkey feathers stuck into the bands of their slouch hats, and all had blankets over their shoulders.

The chief uttered a surly "How!" and made a motion of his hand to his mouth that he would like something to eat.

Mrs. Wyman smiled cordially, and said, "Come in."

He obeyed directly, the rest stalking after him in perfect silence. They went at once through the sitting-room to the kitchen stove and held out their hands to warm.

This done, they squatted on the floor, with various low guttural sounds to each other, as if exchanging views. They apparently approved of the comfort, for a stolid silence ensued.

Lilian was absolutely spellbound with terror and could not move. Mrs. Wyman went to the pantry to prepare them food.

The chief was restless. He kept his eyes roving over everything. Finally he began to move about.

He went into the sitting-room. He spied the china closet door and opened it.

"Ugh!" he said, as if in delight at the pretty dishes. He waved his hand at Lilian and pointed to the rosebud china, making an imperative gesture, as if to say, "We want to eat off those."

Lilian, anxious to seem to want to please these terrible visitors, nodded and smiled a ghastly smile. The very fact that she must do something seemed to relieve the spell of cold horror that had settled on her.

She took a fresh cloth from a drawer, and spread it deftly on the table. As she straightened the corners daintily, to see if they were quite even, the Indian grumbled his approval.

She took out the dishes and set seven places. She recalled, with a great thump of her heart, what Jack had said about scalping, but as yet there had been no warlike demonstrations.

She began to be more at ease. But what was that uneasy chief doing? He was prying into everything. Lilian distinctly saw him put her scissors into his pocket. But she dared not protest.

While thus distracted, she heard her mother in the kitchen burst into a merry laugh. She ran hastily out to see what had come over her.

Mrs. Wyman was in the pantry, holding a corner of her apron over her mouth, as if to smother her amusement.

There sat the six Indians on the floor, with hats drawn down surlily over their faces, and with blankets shrugged about their shoulders. "Mother, what is it?" was Lilian's whispered inquiry.

Mrs. Wyman pointed silently at the ludicrous row of savages, and covered her lips again with her apron.

Lilian could not help laughing, too.

"New Year's callers, after all," she said, to herself.

Mrs. Wyman had made the circle of waiting braves move somewhat away from the stove, so that she could cook ham and warm potatoes. Lilian returned to her table-setting. She placed a spoon-holder on the cloth, full of bright tea-spoons.

The inquisitive chief gave a genuine whoop of delight at sight of them. He sprang to her side and openly began putting them in his pocket.

This was too much. Lilian flew at him and tried to snatch them away from him. He scowled fiercely, and jabbered at her in excited gutturals.

At once she heard a great scuffling of feet in the kitchen. The other Indians, attracted by the sound, were coming to his rescue.

In they filed in formidable line.

"He shan't have them!" cried Lilian, struggling to prevent the last instalment going into his pocket. "He has my thimble and scissors already. Here," to the others, "your chief is stealing. But he can't have my spoons. You—" catching hold of the nearest one— "Jack! Ben! Harry!" (for as soon as she got one good look at the faces of her callers she knew them), "Jack—Ben—Harry! hold him! He's just a common thief!"

A roar of laughter followed.

"Good for you, Lilian!" cried Jack, flinging off his hat and blanket, and leaping on the offender's shoulders to pinion his arms. "He shan't have your spoons, Lilian. But allow me to present to you our cousin, Harold Wyman, just arrived from Wyoming. We found him at Uncle Abner's, come to spend New Year's with us."

Lilian, who had captured part of the spoons, blushed and dropped them on the floor.

"It's real mean of you to scare me so," she stammered. "Mother, did you know it was the boys?"

"Not until Jamie winked at me from the floor, and then it was all so ridiculously clear I could not help laughing aloud. I saw you were well over your first fright, so I thought I'd let the boys carry out their fun."

"My, but I'm hot!" ejaculated Ben. "Sis has good grit, hasn't she Harold?"

"Yes," cried Jack, "and she kept her promise about the rosebud china. Let's have dinner. All we lack now is the coffee, Lilian."

When the new cousin, and Uncle Abner's boys and the four teasing brothers were seated about the table, Lilian asked:

"Where did you get your toggery, Jack?"

"Oh, Uncle Abner's garret is full of all sorts of Indian traps. This morning when you were crying for callers—especially Indians—the thought struck us it would be lots of fun to give you your wish. We found Cousin Harold at Uncle Abner's, and he helped us out. He's been on a ranch for years. We knew you wouldn't recognize him. The rest of us kept in the background."

"If you hadn't been so scared, Lilian, you'd have known the ponies," said Jamie.

When they had nearly finished dinner, Lilian said:

"I'll write it all to the Deerfield girls. I don't believe they've had half as jolly a time as we have. Their calls will be just the poky, polite ones. But mine are genuine wild West."

[This Story began in No. 52.]

Trudy and Kit;

OR,