A HERO IN SEVEN PIECES.

BY MARY A. BARR.

By hammer and hand, All arts do stand.

And so I thought, the other day, when I found myself in an art foundry in Twenty-fifth Street, New York. There was a terrible noise, and at first I thought I was in a smithy; but, children, I soon found out it was only the workman seaming together a hero's coat.

Most of you know all about this hero, and just the part he played in the history of our country; but because many of you have read carelessly that page of your history, and for the sake of those who have forgotten, or have never read it, let me tell you something about him before we go back to Twenty-fifth Street, and the 1000-pound bronze statue of our hero, whom every true-hearted American remembers with honest pride.

He was one of seven young men who captured a very famous spy. Now there have been many famous spies, so don't guess in a hurry. He was three times a prisoner in New York; twice he escaped; the second time only four days before he saved his country a mortal blow; and the third time he was released by the peace.

Congress gave him an annuity of two hundred dollars a year for life, a silver medal, on one side of which was a shield, inscribed "Fidelity," and on the other the motto, "Vincit Amor Patriæ"; and New York gave him a farm, and also, in 1827, erected a marble monument in a churchyard two miles from Peekskill.

He died at Yorktown in 1818, when he was fifty-nine years old; but he will always live in the memory of his countrymen. So it was with a great deal of reverence I touched the bronzed hand, and pictured to myself that he was alive, and just about to step forward and give the order to "Stand!"

But that was after the workman had fastened a rope and chain around his waist, and by means of a pully lifted him upright on the pedestal, for my first glimpse of him was lying on his side with a little black-eyed Italian hammering away at the seam which I spoke of. For our hero was cast in seven pieces, and these pieces are put together with brass nails, and then the seams hammered smooth.

The sculptor of the statue being present, offered to take me through the foundry, and so I followed him, meeting a part of our hero at every turn.

Here his head and shoulders, there his gun, over yonder his arm, and lying right at my feet one of his hands, and in the corner his feet and legs, which one of the workmen told me they had cast one evening at half past six, by the glare of the furnaces, which threw great shadows across everything, and made it like a dream with the reality of heat and noise.

But these were only the plaster moulds, taken from the sculptor's model in clay, and I passed them with only a glance, for I knew the splendid whole would make up for these broken pieces.

Many of you have been in a foundry, and can easily picture to yourselves the great oven for baking the clay moulds in; the banks of sand; the furnaces down in the ground and on a level with the floor, with iron beams high above on which the pots for melting the metal in are hung; the enormous tongs and hooks; the troughs of water; half-finished work; the workman's tools; and men bending over work that seems too beautiful to come out of such chaos and from such rough material.

From the foundry I went up to the sculptor's studio on the third floor, in the front of the building. Now, children, this is a real place, and if any of you ever come to New York, you can go and see it, for the artist is a very good-natured man, and is always glad to see pleasant company.

What a place it would have been to play in! Oh, what fun I should have had calling on Miss Venus! and what a splendid coachman Apollo would have made! and the sailor lad we would have all claimed; and the girl with the shawl over her head would have been the soldier's sweetheart. But what would the sculptor have thought if he had known what use I was putting his beautiful works to? and so, my dears, let us play that all this has been said in a whisper, while he is dusting a chair for me, and go back to the studio as it really is.

To begin with, there was no carpet on the floor, and no paper on the walls, but a beautiful pier looking-glass without a frame leaned against the brick wall, and innumerable reliefs in plaster, photographs of people and places, an old army suit, and several costumes which the sculptor used in draping his model, hung in splendid confusion everywhere. One side of the room was of wood painted a dark brown, and over this the artist had drawn Cupids, angels, flowers, flags, and all kinds of beautiful designs in white. There was a stove in the room, and two or three chairs that needed constant dusting; several easels stood about, and at one a German artist, in a checked blouse or old-fashioned apron, was working on a beautiful relief, which told the story of a young farmer leaving home for the war. The artist said it was for a soldiers' monument in Massachusetts. Near him stood a bucket of water with a sponge in it, and every little while he would wet the clay he was working with.

A great many busts and statuettes of all kinds stood in every conceivable place—on tables, pedestals, and shelves; and on one shelf was the bust of a famous New York belle and the statuettes of a horse and cow, visitors' cards, photographs of famous actors and artists, old letters, and in a table glass a bouquet of roses and lilies that some one had sent to the sculptor that morning. While we were talking, the sculptor's model came in; that is, the man who stands for his figures, so that the artist may catch the proper motion of the body.

I had spent an hour very pleasantly in this queer, mussy place, and as it was growing dark, I was forced to say good-by to Miss Venus, and the Boy in Blue, and my new-found friend the German artist; but I took away with me many pleasant memories, and I hope I have interested my little readers enough for them to turn to the history of the Revolution, and tell me who our hero is. Many of you have already guessed, but I should like some of you to tell me his name, and if I have forgotten anything about him. Will you?