ROCK, TREE, AND MAN.

It is an interesting thought, that will occur to a contemplative mind, that the world contained, from the time when it was a nebulous mass, all the materials of the future individuals of the animate and inanimate creation,—that the elaborate creatures of the vegetable and animal kingdoms, as well as every mineral, were floating in amorphous masses through space. Human beings, like genius that was condensed from vapor at the rubbing of Aladdin's lamp, were diffused in gases, waiting the touch of the Great Magician's wand to bring them into form and infuse them with life. In all the distinct creations of God, from the time when the waters first subsided and the dry land appeared, in everything organized and inorganized, earth, air, sea, and their inhabitants, there is no element which was not in existence when the earth was without form and void.

Philosophers tell us that three hundred and fifty millions of years elapsed after the globe began to solidify, before it was fitted for the lowest plants. And more than one million years more were necessary, after the first plants began to grow upon its young surface, to bring it forward to the condition which the Divine Father deemed suitable for the reception of man. If the days of Cain and Abel were the infancy of the world,—as we have sometimes heard,—when will it come to maturity? Its divisions of life cannot follow the plan of animated beings; for, with an embryonic condition of an indefinite period, and an infancy of three hundred and fifty millions of years, more or less, we can hardly expect that it will really have begun to enjoy the freedom of adult life, before the human race will have attained to its earthly limit of perfectibility, or have so overstocked the surface of the globe as to make it necessary to remove to some larger sphere.

It is curious, we say, to think that everything now on the earth or composing its substance was present, though in far different form, at the beginning,—that the Almighty gathered together in this part of the universe all the materials out of which to create all the forms of things which it was his pleasure to evolve here through all time,—that in that nebulous mass were revolving, not only the gases which were at last to combine in various manners and proportions to form the rocky crust and the watery investment of the earth, but that in that dense and noisome cloud floated also the elements of all the beautiful objects that furnish the daily enchantments of life. Flowers and trees, birds and fishes, locusts and mastodons, all things, from the tiniest animalcule to man, were there, unmodelled, not even in embryo,—their separate existences then only in the mind of God. There, Christian and Saracen, Jew and Gentile, Caucasian and Negro, Hindoo and Pariah, all the now heterogeneous natures which are as oil and water, were blended in one common vapor.

Finally the condensation of all the gaseous elements began, and the aëriform masses became liquid, and the waters,—what mineral waters they were, when they were saturated with granite and marble, diamonds, rubies, arsenic, and iron!—thus deposited by the vapor, left a gas above them light enough to bear some faint resemblance to our air. Still this atmosphere was surcharged with vapors which no lungs could tolerate, whether of man or reptile; and other steps must be taken to clear it of its unwholesome properties. Then did the Almighty will introduce, one after another, the germs of plants,—first of all, the lower orders, the ferns, which seek the shade, and the lichens, which grow in damp and dark recesses, mosses, which cling to bare rocks, living almost on air and water alone,—everything which needed not bright sunlight to invigorate it nor soil to cling to. Year by year and age by age did these humble plants extract their nourishment from the murky vapors that shrouded the earth, and, after fashioning those gases into a living tissue of stems and leaves, year after year did they die and lay their remains upon the rocks, accumulating by slow steps a soil which would in time be capable of giving holding-ground to mightier plants. The trees came,—and gigantic they must have been; and every species of tree, shrub, and herb now upon the earth, and of all animals that walk, fly, or swim, was introduced before the creation of man.

It was as if the elements were too gross for the constitution of man, when they were first collected from the nebulous mass,—as if they needed to go through the intermediate forms of plants and animals, passing in succession from one to another, before they could be permitted to enter into the bodies of those beings who were to be in God's likeness. But, in very truth, the elements were unaltered by their many transmigrations. It was the divine act of God which caused every plant to spring forth and gave birth to every living thing. Every seed and every egg was at the first formed by Him. No sudden effort of man's will, such as that by which Pygmalion was believed to have animated the work of his chisel, nor any industrious current of electricity, passed for uninterrupted weeks through the purest gum, and stimulated by the enthusiasm of a Cross, can transform the worm to a breathing being, or reach the human climax by slow steps, even if the first one be in the humble form of a louse. When a new plant appeared, it was the hand of God that formed the seed. When a new species of animal came upon the earth, it was the same Power that created it. But the materials were not new; "out of the dust of the earth" was man created.

Oxygen, Hydrogen, Carbon, and Nitrogen,—do not turn away from us, gentle reader, we will not be grimly scientific, but a few of the terms of science must be employed, even here,—these four elements are the chief ingredients of all vegetable and animal structures. When separated from their connections, three of them are gases; and the fourth, in union with one of the others, is also a gas. In various combinations they form literally the dust of the earth, they make rock and water, vapor and air. In the hand of the Almighty, they are so many plastic elements, that form now a plant of the lowliest condition, now a magnificent oak, now a fish, and now a man. And the germ of each organized being bequeathes to its offspring the power to reproduce its likeness,—so that each succeeding generation is a repetition of its predecessor. There is no change in plants and animals from the first; the same materials in the same proportions that were selected by the earliest trees for their composition are chosen now; and in form and function the last animal is a precise copy of the first of his race.

If we attempt to trace a particle of matter, we shall find its wanderings endless. Annihilation is a term which is not applicable to material things. Matter is never destroyed; it rarely rests. Oxygen, for instance, the most important constituent of our atmosphere, is the combining element of all things, the medium of communication between the kingdoms of Nature, the agent of the interchanges that are continually taking place among all created things. Oxygen keeps life in man, by combining with his blood at every inhalation; it is absorbed by flowers, to be employed in the perfection of the fruit; many minerals are incapable of the various uses of society, until oxygen has attacked and united with them. It gives us lime and soda, the oil of vitriol, and common salt; the mineral pigments in common use are impossible without it; and the beautiful colors of our autumn leaves are due to the combination of oxygen with their juices. It enters into all plans and operations with a helping hand; animals and plants owe their lives to it; but when the shadow of death begins to fall upon them, it is as ready to aid in their destruction. Like calumny, which blackens whatsoever is suspected, oxygen pounces upon the failing and completes their ruin. The processes of fermentation and putrefaction cannot commence in any substance, until it has first taken oxygen into combination. Thus, cans of meat, hermetically sealed, with all the air first carefully expelled, undergo no change so long as the air does not get access to them. If the minutest opening remain, the oxygen of the atmosphere combines with the contents of the can, and fermentation or putrefaction follows. Rust, which takes the keen edge from the knife, is only another name for oxydation: keep the knife bright, and no oxygen dares touch it; but the slightest blemish is made a loophole for the entrance of the ever-watchful enemy, who never again leaves it until its destruction is complete.

All the elements have a great love of society; they cannot live alone; they have their likes and their dislikes; they contract alliances which endure for a time, but are dissolved in favor of stronger attractions.

We have mentioned the names of several natural elements. Let us see what they are, and what they have to do with man and the kingdoms of Nature. Beginning with man, let us see what becomes of him in course of time, what physical metamorphoses he undergoes, to what vile but excellent uses he is put.

That which forms the bone and muscle of a man this year may be upon his own table in the shape of potatoes or peaches one summer later. When Hamlet talked of turning the clay of Alexander into the bung of a beer-barrel, he spoke the simple truth. In that great play, Shakspeare appears to have had the transformations of material things much in his mind; for we find him alluding, in several passages, to the reciprocity which subsists between the elements of animate and inanimate things, and between the different members of the same kingdom;—as when, in conversation with the king about the dead Polonius, he makes Hamlet say, "A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat the fish that hath fed of the worm"; or where, over the grave of Ophelia, he traces the two ancient heroes back to their mother earth, in words some of which we have quoted.

The ancient mythology, which shadowed forth some truth in all its fables, turned these facts of Nature to its purpose. The gods of Greece, when they saw fit to remove a human being from life, sometimes reproduced him in another form of beauty, without any intermediate stages of decay. Apollo seemed to have a particular fancy for planting the boys and girls whom he had loved where he might enjoy their fragrant society. Thus, a boy named Cyparissus, who had the misfortune to kill a favorite deer, was so unwilling to be consoled, that he besought Apollo to make his mourning perpetual; and the kind god changed him into a cypress, which is still a funereal tree. The modest virgin Daphne, who succeeded in escaping the violence of his passion, was transformed into a laurel, which is ever green and pure. And the sweet youth Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo, being accidentally killed by a quoit which the god of day was throwing, that divinity, in his grief, caused those sweet flowers which bear his name to spring from his blood, where it fell upon the ground. It is only in the annihilation of the intervals of time between different forms of existence that these old metamorphoses, which Ovid relates, are fabulous. If our readers will bear us company a few steps, through ways which shall have diversions enough to forbid weariness, we will endeavor to satisfy them that these apparent fables are very near to every-day truths. We must begin with some plain statements.

The air which we expel from the lungs at every breath has a large proportion of carbonic acid. Let a man be shut up in an air-tight room for a day, and he will have changed nearly all the oxygen in it into this carbonic acid, and rendered it unfit for animal life. Dogs, cats, and birds would die in it. But, poisonous as it is to man and other animals, it is a feast to plants. They want it all day and every day; not in the night,—at that time they have a taste for oxygen. This effete air, which men and animals exhale, so charged with carbonic acid, the plants drink in through every pore. They take it from the mouth of man, appropriate it to their daily uses, and in time render it back to him mingled with other ingredients in wholesome fruit. Carbonic acid is death when it combines with the blood,—as it does when we inhale it; but not so when it enters the stomach in small quantities. One inspiration of it is enough to make us dizzy,—as when we enter an old well or stoop over a charcoal fire; but a draught of water fully charged with it is exhilarating and refreshing, as we know by repeated experiences at marble fountains that meet us on so many city-corners.

If plants had souls, they would be pure ones, since they can bear such contamination and not be harmed,—nay, since even from such foul food as we give them they can evolve results so beautiful. We give them our cast-off and worn-out materials, and they return us the most beautiful flowers and the most luscious fruits.

Beside carbonic acid, there are two other principal materials, which are every day passing off in an effete state, though capable of being transferred to the uses of plants. But when an animal dies, the whole substance is then at Nature's disposal. We must set aside a great deal of it for the ants and flies, who will help themselves in spite of us. If any one has never seen a carcass rapidly disappearing under the steady operations of the larvae of the flesh-fly, he has yet to learn why some flies were made. The ants, too, carry it off in loads larger, if not heavier, than themselves. But carcasses of animals may go to decay, undisturbed by the ravages of these useful insects. That is, the limited partnership of Oxygen, Hydrogen, & Co., under which they agreed to carry on the operations of sheep, fox, or fish, having terminated by the death of the animal, the partners make immediate use of their liberty and go off in inorganic form in search of new engagements, leaving sulphur, phosphorus, and the other subordinate elements of the animal, to shift for themselves. They were in the employ of a sheep; they will now carry on a man or an oak-tree, a colony of insects, or something else. Under the form of carbonate of ammonia, the four elements diffuse themselves through the air, or are absorbed by the earth, and offer themselves at once to the roots and leaves of the trees, as ready to go on with their vivifying operations as they were in behalf of the animals. There are some plants which seem not to be left to the chances of securing their nourishment from the carbonate of ammonia that the air and the soil contain, but are contrived so as to entrap living animals and hold them fast while they undergo decomposition, so that all their gases may be absorbed by them alone. Thus, "the little Sundew exudes a gluey secretion from the surface of its leaves, which serves to attract and retain insects, the decay of whose bodies seems to contribute to its existence." And the Dionaea, or Venus's Fly-trap of the Southern States, has some leaves which fold together upon any insect that alights upon their upper surface; and by means of a row of long spines that fringes the leaves, they prevent his escape. The more active the struggles of the captive, the closer grows the hold of the leaf, and speedily destroys him. The plant appears to derive nutriment from the decomposition of its victims. "Plants of this kind, which have been kept in hot-houses in England, from which insects were carefully excluded, have been observed to languish, but were restored by placing little bits of meat upon their traps,—the decay of these seeming to answer the same purpose."

The four elements already referred to are by no means all the material ingredients of animal bodies. There are, also, phosphorus, lime, magnesia, soda, sulphur, chlorine, and iron; and if you believe some chemists, there is hardly a mineral in common use that may not be found in the human body. We doubt, however, whether lead, arsenic, and silver are there, without the intervention of the doctor.

What becomes of the phosphorus and the rest, when an animal dies? Oh, they take up new business, too. They are as indispensable to the animal frame as the four most prominent ingredients. We eat a great deal of bread and meat, and a little salt,—but the little salt is as important to continued life as the large bread. There is hardly a tissue in the body from which phosphorus, in combination with lime, is absent; so that the composition of lucifer-matches is by no means the most important use of this element. The luminous appearance which some putrefying substances, particularly fish, present at night, is due to the slow combustion of phosphorus which takes place as this element escapes into the air from the decomposing tissues.

The necessity for the steady supply of phosphorus and lime to the body is the cause of the popularity of Mapes's superphosphate of lime as a manure. The farmers who buy it, perhaps, do not know that their bones and other parts are made of it, and that this is the reason they must furnish it to their land; for between the land and the farmer's bones are two or three other factories that require the same material. All the farmer knows is, that his grass and his corn grow better for the superphosphate. But what he has not thought of we will tell you,—that man finds his phosphate of lime in the milk and meat of the cow, and she finds her supply in the grass and corn, which look to the farmer to see that their stock of this useful mineral compound does not fall short. Thus in milk and meat and corn, which constitute so large a part of our diet, we have always our phosphate of lime. There are many other sources whence we can derive it, but these will do for the present. And thus, when an animal dies and has no further use for his phosphate of lime, it is washed into the soil around, after decomposition of the body has set it free, and goes to make new grass and corn. Bone-earth (pounded bones) is a common top-dressing for grass-lands.

A small proportion of sulphur is found in flesh and blood. We prove its presence in the egg by common experience. An egg—from which it escapes more easily than from flesh—discovers its presence by blackening silver, as every housekeeper knows, whose social position is too high for bone egg-spoons or too low for gold ones. This passion which sulphur entertains for silver is very strong, as every one knows who has ever been under that wholesome discipline which had its weekly recurrence at the delightful institution of Dotheboy's Hall; and what Anglo-Saxon ever grew up, innocent of that delectable vernal medicine to which we refer? Has he not found all the silver change in his pocket grow black, suggesting very unpleasant suspicions of bogus coin? The sulphur, being more than is wanted in the economy of the system, has made its escape through every pore in his skin, and, of course, fraternizes with the silver on its way. But it was of the sulphur which is natural to the body and always found there that we were speaking. When the animal dies, and the vital forces give way to chemical affinities, when the phosphorus and the rest take their departure, the sulphur, too, finds itself occupation in new fields of duty.

Chlorine and sodium, two more of the elements of animal structures, produce, in combination, common salt,—without which our food would be so insipid, that we have the best evidence of its being a necessary article of diet. The body has many uses for salt. It is found in the tears, as we are informed by poets, who talk of "briny drops" and "saut, saut tears"; though why there, unless to keep the lachrymal fluid from spoiling, in those persons who bottle up their tears for a long time, we cannot divine.

Perhaps we had better take the rest into consideration together,—the magnesia and iron, and whatever other elements are found in the body. Though some of them are there in minute quantities, the structure cannot exist without them,—and for their constant and sufficient supply our food must provide.

To see what becomes of all these materials after we have done with them, we must extend our inquiries among the articles of ordinary diet and ascertain from what sources we derive the several elements.

It has been sometimes believed that none but animal food contains all the elements required for the support of life. Thanks to Liebig, we have discovered that vegetable substances also, fruits, grains, and roots, contain them all, and, in most cases, in very nearly the same proportions as they are found in animals. We are not lecturing on dietetics; therefore we will not pause to explain why, although either bread or meat alone contains the various materials for flesh and bone, it is better to combine them than to endeavor to subsist on one only.

Whither, then, go these elements when man has done with them? The answer is,—All Nature wants them. Every plant is ready to drink them up, as soon as they have taken forms which bring them within its reach. As gases, they are inhaled by the leaves, or, dissolved in water, they are drunk up by the roots. All plants have not the same appetites, and therefore they can make an amicable division of the supply. Grasses and grains want a large proportion of phosphate of lime, which they convert into husks. Peas and beans have little use for nitrogen, and resign it to others. Cabbages, cauliflowers, turnips, and celery appropriate a large share of the sulphur.

The food of plants and that of animals have this great difference: plants take their nourishment in inorganic form only; animals require to have their food in organic form. That is, all the various minerals, singly or combined, which compose the tissues of plants and animals,—carbon, hydrogen, phosphorus, and the rest, which we have already named,—are taken up by plants in mineral form alone. The food of animals, on the other hand, consists always of organized forms. There is no artificial process by which oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen can be brought into a form suitable for the nourishment of animals. As oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen, they are not food, will not sustain our life, and human art cannot imitate their nutritious combinations. Artificial fibrine and gluten (organic principles) transcend our power of contrivance as far as the philosopher's stone eluded the grasp of the alchemists. We know exactly how many equivalents of oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, and nitrogen enter into the composition of each of the animal elements; but we can no more imitate an organic element than we can form a leaf. What we cannot do the vegetable world does for us. Thus we see why it was necessary that the earth should be clothed with vegetation before animals could be introduced. A field-mouse dies and decays, and its elements are appropriated by the roots around its grave; and we can easily imagine the next generations of mice, the children and grandchildren of the deceased rodent, feasting off the tender bark which was made out of the remains of their parent. The soil of our gardens and the atmosphere above it are full of potential tomatoes, beans, corn, potatoes, and cabbages,—even of peaches of the finest flavor, and grapes whose aroma is transporting.

Plants, as well as animals, have their peculiar tastes. Cut off the supply of phosphate of lime from a field of corn, and it will not grow. You can easily do this by planting the same land with corn for three or four successive years, and your crop will dwindle away to nothing, unless you supply the ground every year with as much of the mineral as the corn takes away from it. All plants have the power of selecting from the soil the materials necessary to their growth; and if they do not find them in the soil, they will not grow. It is now a familiar fact, that, when an old forest of deciduous trees has been felled, evergreens will spring up in their places. The old oaks, hickories, and beeches, as any observer would discover, pass their last years in repose, simply putting out their leaves and bearing a little fruit every year, but making hardly any new wood. An oak may attain to nearly its full size, in spread of branches, in its first two hundred years, and live for five or six hundred years longer in a state of comparative rest. It seems to grow no more, simply because it has exhausted too much of the material for its nourishment from the ground around its roots. At least, we know, that, when we have cut it down, not oaks, but pines, will germinate in the same soil,—pines, which, having other necessities and taking somewhat different food, find a supply in the ground, untouched by their predecessor. Hence the rotation of crops, so much talked of by agriculturists. Before the subject was so well understood, the ground was allowed to lie fallow for a year or two, when the crops began to grow small, that it might recover from the air the elements it had lost. We now adopt the principle of rotation, and plant beans this year where last year we put corn.

It is not merely that plants deprive themselves of their future support by exhausting the neighboring earth of the elements they require. Some of them put into the ground substances which are poisonous to themselves or other plants. Thus, beans and peas pour out from their roots a very notable amount of a certain gum which is not at all suited to their own nourishment,—so that, if we plant beans in the same spot several successive seasons, they thrive very poorly. But this gum appears to be exactly the food for corn; if, therefore, we raise crops of beans and corn alternately, they assist each other. Liebig gives the results of a series of experiments illustrating the reciprocal actions of different species of plants. Various seeds were sprouted in water, in order to observe the nature of the excretions from their roots. It was found "that the water in which plants of the family of the Leguminosae (beans and peas) grew acquired a brown color, from the substance which exuded from their roots. Plants of the same species, placed in water impregnated with these excrements, were impeded in their growth, and faded prematurely; whilst, on the contrary, corn-plants grew vigorously in it, and the color of the water diminished sensibly, so that it appeared as if a certain quantity of the excrements of the Leguminosae had really been absorbed by the corn-plants." The oak, which is the great laboratory of tannin, not only lays up stores of it in its bark and leaves, but its roots discharge into the ground enough of it to tan the rootlets of all plants that venture to put down their suction-hose into the same region, and their spongioles are so effectually closed by this process, that they can no longer perform their office, and the plant that bears them dies. Plants whose roots ramify among the roots of poppies become unwilling opium-eaters, from the exudation of this narcotic principle into the ground, and are stunted, like the children of Gin Lane.

The Aquarium furnishes a very interesting example of the mutual dependence of the three natural kingdoms. Here, in a box holding a few gallons of water and a little atmospheric air, is a miniature world, secluded, and supplying its own wants. Its success depends on the number and character of the animals and plants being so adapted as to secure just the requisite amount of active growth to each to sustain the life of the other: that the plants should be sufficient to support, by the superfluities of their growth, the vegetarians among the animated tribes that surround them; and that all the animal tribes of the aquarium, whether subsisting upon the vegetables or on their smaller and weaker fellow-creatures, should restore to the water in excrements the mineral substances which will enable the plants to make good the daily loss occasioned by the depredations of the sea-rovers that live upon them. Thus an aquarium, its constituents once correctly adjusted, has all the requisites for perpetuity; or rather, the only obstacle to its unlimited continuance is, that it is a mortal, and not a Divine hand, that controls its light and heat.

In the examination of the materials appropriated by plants from the soil, we find that mineral substances are sometimes taken up in solution in larger amount than the growth of the plant and the maturation of its fruit require, and the excess is deposited again, in crystalline form in the substance of the plant. If we cut across a stalk of the garden rhubarb, we can see, with the aid of a microscope, the fine needle-shaped crystals of oxalate of potash lying among the fibres of the plant,—a provision for an extra supply of the oxalic acid which is the source of the intense sourness of this vegetable. When the sap of the sugar-maple is boiled down to the consistence of syrup and allowed to stand, it sometimes deposits a considerable amount of sand; indeed, this is probably always present in some degree, and justifies, perhaps, the occasional complaint of the grittiness of maple-sugar. But it is a native grit, and not chargeable upon the sugar-makers. It is nothing less than flint, which the roots of the maple absorbed, while it was dissolved in water in the soil. The sap, still holding the flint in solution, flows out, clear as water, when the tree is tapped; but when it is concentrated by boiling, the silicious mineral is deposited in little crystals, so that the bottom of the pan appears to be covered with sand. We could not select a more interesting example of the very wide diffusion of some compound substances than this one of silicic acid. It is found in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms. Being a mineral, it cannot be appropriated to animal uses, without being decomposed and transformed into an organic condition; but in the numerous species of plants whose stalks require stiffening against the winds,—in the grasses and canes, including all our grains, the sugar-cane, and the bamboo,—a silicate (an actual flint) is taken up by the roots and stored away in the stalks as a stiffener. The rough, sharp edge of a blade of grass sometimes makes an ugly cut on one's finger by means of the flint it contains. Silex is the chief ingredient in quartz rock, which is so widely diffused over the earth, and enters into the composition of most of the precious stones. The ruby, the emerald, the topaz, the amethyst, chalcedony, carnelian, jasper, agate, and garnet, and all the beautiful varieties of rock crystal, are mostly or entirely silex. Glass is a compound of silex and pearlash. One who is curious in such things may make glass out of a straw, by burning it and heating the ashes with a blowpipe. A little globule of pure glass will form as the ashes are consumed. The following curious instance, quoted by that interesting physiologist, Dr. Carpenter, shows the same effect upon a large scale. A melted mass of glassy substance was found on a meadow between Mannheim and Heidelberg, in Germany, after a thunder-storm. It was, at first, supposed to be a meteor; but, when chemically examined, it proved to consist of silex, combined with potash,—in the form in which it exists in grasses; and, upon further inquiry, it was ascertained that a stack of hay had stood upon the spot, of which nothing remained but the ashes, the whole having been ignited by the lightning.

There is nothing in Nature more striking to the novice than the first suggestions of the various, and apparently contradictory, at least unexpected, positions in which the same mineral is found. Now carbon is one of the minerals whose exchanges are peculiarly interesting. Chemists say that the diamond is the only instance in Nature of pure carbon: it burns in oxygen under the influence of intense heat, and leaves no ashes. Next to this—strange gradation!—is charcoal, which comes within a very little of being a diamond. But just that little interval is apparently so great, that none but a chemist would suspect there was any relationship between them. Then come all those immense beds of coal which compose one of the geological strata of the earth's crust, a stratum that was formed before the appearance of the animated creation, when the earth was clothed with a gigantic forest, whose mighty trunks buried themselves with their fallen leaves, and became, in time, a continuous bed of carbonaceous stone.

If we look at the vegetable and animal kingdoms, we find carbon entering into the composition of every tissue. But there are certain tissues and anatomical elements (as physicians say) which are formed largely of carbon and have no nitrogen whatever. These are oils and fats and everything related to them. What will be chiefly interesting, however, to our readers, is the power of transformation of one of these substances into another. Starch, gum, and sugar can all be changed into fat. The explanation of it is in the fact, that these substances are all chemically alike,—that is, they all have nearly the same proportions of carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, and no nitrogen; but by slight differences in the combination of these elements, they exist in Nature as so many distinct substances. Their approach to identity is further confirmed by the fact, that starch can be made into gum, and either of them into sugar, in the laboratory. The transformation of starch and gum into sugar is also constantly going on in the ripening of fruits. When country-dames make currant-jellies and currant-wine, they know very well, that, if they allow the berries to get dead-ripe, their jelly will not be so firm as when they seize an early opportunity and gather them when first fully red. They may also have observed that jelly made late, besides being less firm, is much more likely to candy. At first, the currants contain hardly any sugar, but more gum and vegetable jelly (glue); when dead-ripe, they have twelve times as much sugar as at first, and the gum and glue are much diminished. The gummy and gluey materials have been transformed into sugar. Every ripe fruit gives us evidence of the same manufacture of sugar that has gone on under the stimulus of the sun's rays; and in the greatest source of sugar, the cane, the process is the same. A French physician, M. Bernard, has, within the last twelve years, discovered that the liver of animals is constantly making sugar out of all kinds of food, while the lungs are all the time undoing the work of the liver and turning it back into its chemical elements. And although, in the laboratory of the liver, it is discovered that no alimentary substance is quite deficient in sweetness, yet there, as elsewhere, starch and gum yield a far greater amount of it than animal substances.

We have stated that starch and gum can be turned into sugar by art,—but as no chemist has yet succeeded in imitating an animal substance, the change of these three into fat takes place only in the body. There are proofs enough within general observation, that one object of this portion of our diet is the supply of fat. The Esquimaux fattens on his diet of blubber and train-oil; the slaves on the sugar-plantations grow fat in the boiling-season, when they live heartily on sugar; the Chinese grow fat on an exclusively rice diet,—and rice is chiefly starch. But one of the most interesting observations of the transformation of sugar into a fat is that made by Huber upon bees. It was the discovery, that bees make their wax out of honey, and not of pollen, as was formerly believed. When Huber shut up some bees in a close hive, and kept them supplied with pure honey or with sugar alone, they subsisted upon it, and soon began to build the comb. Wax is a fat, and the honey which is eaten by the bee is partly transformed into wax in his body. In about twenty-four hours after his stomach has been filled with honey, thin plates of wax appear on the scales of his abdomen, having oozed through eight little openings in the scales and there hardened. Of this they build their cells.

We have wandered far from the consideration of the propensity of certain species of plants to take up special compound substances from the earth; but the wide-spread silex, with which we set out, displayed so interesting a field of observation, that it could not be resisted, and encouraged a disposition to rove, which has been to us instructive and entertaining. To return to plants,—we find they make use of compounds for certain special ends; but, as we have seen, the whole vegetable kingdom uses the eight or ten primitive elements which it has in common with the animals, and out of these alone forms the infinite variety of products which we derive from it for food and various economical and aesthetical purposes. Among the many processes of Nature whose contemplation fills us with ever new delight, this power of the adaptation of a few means to an infinite number of ends is one of the most enchanting. We endeavor to explain by chemical laws the reduction of the materials which earth and air furnish, to a form in which they can be appropriated by the tree; by endosmose and exosmose we think we have overcome the obstacles to a clear comprehension of the circulation of the sap; and by a cell-theory we believe we have explained the whole growth of wood and leaves and fruit. But what microscope or what alembic shall ever tell us why a collection of tubes and cells in one tree creates the most wholesome and delicious fruit, while in another an organization precisely similar, so far as we can discern, produces only harsh and poisonous berries? why the acacia tribe elaborate their gum, the pine family turpentine, the almond prussic acid, the sorrels oxalic acid? why the tall calisaya-tree of the Andes deposits in its bark the valuable medicine cinchona, and the oak, the hemlock, the tea-plant, and many others, make use of similar repositories to lay up stores of tannic acid? The numberless combinations of the same materials, and the wonderful power which rests in a single seed to bring about with unvarying uniformity its own distinct result, attest to us every day the admirable wisdom and goodness of the Creator.

These regular, every-day transformations of material elements from rock to tree, from tree to man, and back through a continual circuit, would repay us for spending our leisure hours in studying it, with our own eyes as well as with the eyes of others. The glance we have given is sufficiently suggestive to turn the attention of our readers that way. Before parting with them, however, we wish to make a few excursions into the natural world, to follow out some of the more peculiar and unexpected migrations of material atoms. Suppose we take a little marble,—which, in chemical constitution, is carbonate of lime,—that very marble, for instance, which forms the palaces of Venice, against which the waters of the Mediterranean have dashed for so many centuries, and have not dashed in vain. In their perpetual washing, they have worn away the stone and carried off its particles,—an insignificant amount, it is true, but, little as it is, it has not remained unused. For that very carbonate of lime, which once shared the proud state of the "glorious city in the sea," now helps to form the coarse shells of oysters, or is embodied in the vast coral reefs that shoot out from the islands of the West Indies, or is deposited year after year by dying shell-fish, which are slowly carpeting the ocean-bed with their remains. Much of this same Venice marble has doubtless been appropriated by fishes from the sea-water which dissolved it, been transformed into their bones, cast upon the soil of Italy, disintegrated, and imbibed by the thirsty roots of forests in sight of the very walls from which it parted. And who can say that parts of it do not now adorn the necks of some Venetian dames, in coral, or more costly pearls? What says Ariel to the orphaned Ferdinand?

Full fathom five thy father lies; Of his bones are coral made; Those are pearls that were his eyes: Nothing of him that doth fade But doth suffer a sea-change Into something rich and strange.

This is but a hint of the mutability of created things. Marble, sea-shells, the chalk-cliffs of Dover, the limestone fossils which preserve for us animal forms of species long since extinct, the coral formations that are stretching out in dangerous reefs in so many seas of the tropics, are all identical in their chief ingredient, and, as we see, are by natural processes and various accidents constantly interchanging their positions.

It ought to be consoling to those who think a great deal of their bodies, to reflect, that, if we may tend "to base uses," we may also tend to very noble ones. In the course of their transmigrations, the elements of a worthless individual may get into far better company than they have before enjoyed,—may enter into brains that immortalize their owner and redeem the errors of the old possessor. Whoever bases his merit on a long line of ancestors who have nothing but a perpetuated name to boast of, may be likened to the last of many successive tenants of a house who have hired it for their temporary uses. The inheritance of a brave spirit and a noble mind is a sufficient justification for a reasonable pride; but not so with the heritage of materials which are continually interchanging with the clod.

There need be nothing humiliating in such thoughts; the operations of Nature are always admirable. But when the relics of humanity are deliberately appropriated to such mechanical or scientific purposes as we shall relate, before they have entirely lost their original (we should say latest) form, then most men would look upon the act as in some sort a desecration. With what holy horror would the ancient Egyptians regard the economical uses to which their embalmed bodies were appropriated a few centuries ago! In the words of Ambrose Paré, the great surgeon of five French kings in the sixteenth century, is a full account of the preparation and administration of "mummie,"—that is, Egyptian mummies, powdered and made into pills and potions,—"to such as have falne from high places or have beene otherwise bruised." The learned physician enters his protest against the use of it, (which he says is almost universal with the faculty,) as quite inefficacious and disgusting. His disgust, however, arises principally from the fact that the "mummie" prepared by the apothecaries must have been derived "from the carcases of the basest people of Egypt; for the nobelmen and cheefe of the province, so religiously addicted to the monuments of their ancestors, would never suffer the bodyes of their friends and kindred to be transported hither for filthy gaine and detested use."

If such traffic be base, what shall we say of some priests of Nicaragua, who renovate their burial-grounds by exhuming the bones of the dead, with the earth that surrounds them, and selling the mass to the manufacturers of nitre? No sentiment of reverence for the sepulchres of their fathers incites them to resist the inroads of foreign pirates,—for they manufacture their fathers' bones into gunpowder.

Let us turn away from the revolting picture. The glimpses of Nature's revolutions which we have enjoyed are more agreeable. We are no advocates for any attempts of preserving the human body from decomposition; that which will restore the beloved forms of friends most readily to their primitive elements, and avert the possibility of anything so dear remaining to excite our aversion or disgust, or becoming a pestilential agent, we would cordially encourage. There can be no doubt that use would soon render cremation as little disagreeable to the feelings as consigning the precious remains to slow decay and food for worms; and few will long be pained at the thought of mingling at once with the common earth and air, and returning to usefulness in other forms, after the soul has passed to heavenly spheres to enjoy the blessings of immortal life.

* * * * *

CHIP DARTMOUTH.

It is wonderful how Nature provides for the taking off and keeping down of her monsters,—creatures that carry things only by force or fraud: your foxes, wolves, and bears; your anacondas, tigers, and lions; and your cunning or ferocious men of prey, of whom they are the types. Storms may and must now and then rage and ravage, volcanoes must have their destructive fits, and the darkness must do its mean and tyrannical things while men are asleep; but calmness and sunshine triumph immeasurably on the whole. Of the cubs of iniquity, only here and there an individual escapes the crebrous perils of adolescence, develops into the full beast, and occupies a sublime place in history; whereas the genial men of sunshine, plenty as the fair days of summer, pass quietly over from the ruby of life's morning to the sapphire of its evening, too numerous to be written of or distinctly remembered. There are, it is quite true, enough biographies of such in existence to read the world to sleep by for ages. It can hardly keep awake at all, except over lives of the other sort; hence, one of great and successful villany is a prize for the scribe. In the dearth of such, let us content ourselves with briefly noticing one of the multitude of abortive cubs, its villany nipped—as Nature is wont to nip it—in the promising bud of its tenderness. Many a flourishing young rogue suddenly disappears, and the world never knows how or why. But it shall know, if it will heed our one-story tale, how Chip Dartmouth of these parts was turned down here,—albeit we cannot at present say whether he has since turned up elsewhere.

Our hero was baptized simply Chipworth, in compliment to a rich uncle, who was expected on that account to remember him more largely in his will,—as he probably did; for he soon left him a legacy of twenty thousand dollars, on the express condition that it should accumulate till he was of age, and then be used as a capital to set the young man up in business. As the inheritance of kingdoms spoils kings, so this little fortune, though Chip could not finger a mill of it during his minority, all the while acted on him like a controlling magnet, inducing a strong repellency to good advice and a general exaltation of views, so that, when he came into possession of it, he was already a fast young man in almost every respect. He had settled it as the maxim of his life to gain fast and spend fast; and having had considerable opportunity to spend before he had any to gain, he had on becoming a business man, some secret deficits to make good before he could really be as rich as people supposed him. As his deficits had not been made by daylight, so daylight must have nothing to do in wiping them out; and hence darkness became more congenial than its reverse to all his plans, and he studied, as he thought, with singular success, the various tricks of blinding people to the state of his finances, as well as of bettering it. While he was supposed to be growing rich very rapidly, he really was doing so about half as fast as everybody thought. Chip would not steal,—that was vulgar. But he would take every possible advantage of other people by keeping close his own counsels and pumping out theirs. He would slander a piece of property and then buy it. He would monopolize on a short market, and fill his purse by forestalling. Indeed, he was, altogether, one of the keen, and greatly admired in business circles.

It was not easy for Chip to love any being but himself,—not even a woman. But his smart figure, for which Nature and the tailors had done their best, set the general female imagination into the most lively action. Many were the dreams about him,—day-dreams and night-dreams,—that were dreamed in front of all manner of little filigree bird nest bonnets and under snowy nightcaps; and at the slightest encouragement on his part, no doubt, the idea of himself which had been manufactured in many minds would have been fallen in love with. The reality certainly would not have been. Miss Millicent Hopkins wore one of the caps set for Chip, and her he professed vehemently to love. But she was the daughter of a millionnaire of a very set temper, who had often said and sworn that his daughter should not have any man who had not proved by more than mushroom or retail success in business that he was able and likely to better her fortune. Miss Millicent must plainly either be run away with, or fairly won on old Hopkins's plan of wholesale, long-winded business success. Miss Millicent's good looks, if they did not amount to beauty, did, nevertheless, add something to the attractiveness of her vast pecuniary prospects. Chip had obtained the young lady's decided favor without absolutely crossing the Rubicon himself, for he had no notion of taking her without any of the funds her father had to bestow. It was arranged between them that his paternal consent should be asked, and the die or live of matrimony should depend on that. But, with confidence, or what is sometimes called brass, enough to put any sort of question, it was impossible for Chip Dartmouth to state the case to old Mr. Hopkins as it was. Having obtained a private interview, he grasped the old gentleman by the hand with an air as familiar as it was apparently cordial.

"Ah! I am very glad to see you, Mr. Hopkins, for I have been thinking what a fool I must be not to pay my addresses to Miss Millicent; and I can take no steps, you know, without your consent."

"You can take none with it, Sir," was the emphatic reply of the severe parent, with a sort of annihilating look. "I admire your prudence and frankness, my young friend; but, till you show yourself a merchant, of my own sort, I beg you will excuse me and my family from any of the steps you contemplate. Good-morning, Sir,—good-morning!"

The showing-out was irresistible, leaving nothing more to be said.

Chip now resolved that he would double his diligence in making money, out of spite to the father, if not love for the daughter. The old fogy's wealth he would have at any rate, and Millicent with it, if possible, as a sort of bonus. So, obtaining an interview with his fair intended and intending, at the earliest moment, without revealing a hint of his own diplomatic blunder, he told her that her father had refused his consent to their union because his fortune was not sufficient, and she must not expect to see him again till it was so, which he fancied would be in a much shorter time than the old gentleman supposed.

Chip had not long to wait for a chance to strike the first blow in carrying out his new resolution of fast trading. The day after his memorable rebuff, he was sitting in the choky little counting-room of a crammed commission-warehouse in India Street, musing and mousing over the various schemes that occurred to his fertile brain for increasing the profits of his business. He had already bought cotton pretty largely on speculation. Should he monopolize further, make a grand rush in stocks, or join the church and get large trust-funds into his hands on the strength of his reputation for piety? All these and a hundred other questions were getting rapidly and shrewdly discussed in his mind, when a rather stubbed man, with a square, homely face and vinegar expression, opened, or partly opened, the little glass door of the counting-room, and, looking round it more greedily than hopefully, said,—

"You don't want the cargo of the 'Orion' at a bargain?"

"Can't say I do. But walk in, Captain Grant,—walk in!"

Captain Grant did walk in, though he said it was no use talking, if Chip didn't want the cotton. Chip saw instinctively, in the sad, acid look of his visitor, that he was anxious to sell, and could be made to take a despondent view of the market. Taking him by the button, he said, rather patronizingly,—

"I know, Captain, you ship-owners want to keep your ships at work at something besides storage. But look there," pointing to the bales of cotton filling the immense floor; "multiply that pile by four and add the basements of two churches, and you see a reason why I should not buy above the level of the market. Now, taking that into consideration, what do you ask for your two hundred and fifty bales in the 'Orion?'"

"Seven cents."

"I know somebody who would feel rich, if he could sell at that," returned Chip, with a queer grin. "No, no, Captain Grant, that won't do at all. Prices are sinking. If I should buy at that figure, every sign of margin would fade out in a fortnight. I haven't five bales that have been bought at any such price."

It was true, he had not; for they had been bought at seven-and-a-half and eight.

"Well, I will say six-and-a-half at sixty days, to you," said the humiliated Grant.

"My dear Sir," replied Chip, "you don't begin to tempt me. I must burn all my foreign correspondence and forget the facts before I can begin to look at anything beyond six cents and ninety days."

"Ninety days won't do," said Mr. Grant, tersely. "If we must sacrifice, it must be for something a bank will look at, Mr. Dartmouth. But I want the ship cleared, and if you will say six at two months for the whole, it's a bargain, bad as it is for me."

"Not a bargain for me to be in a hurry about; but I'll think of it. Hold on till to-morrow. But, on the whole, you needn't do that. It wouldn't be an object."

"But I will do it, if you say so, till noon to-morrow."

"Better say five-and-three-fourths and have it done to-day," said Chip, "for I may not give that to-morrow. But if you hold on, and I buy anything at six, it shall be your lot."

Captain Grant, beginning to believe that he should, after all, sell a little above the bottom of the market, took his leave for his home among the Waltham hills, a little less grouty than when he entered.

That same night, Chip, after having dropped in at numerous resorts of the fast men, in most of which somewhat of his conscience, such as it was, dropped out, was proceeding homeward through Devonshire Street, with the brightest of his wits still about him. It was a raw night, one of the rawest ever got up by a belated equinoctial, with almost nothing stirring in the streets but the wind, and the loose shutters and old remnants of summer awnings left to its tender mercies. Aeolus, with these simple instruments of sound, added to the many sharp corners of city architecture, managed to get up something of a symphony, enough almost to make up for the nocturnal cats, now retired to silence and the snuggest attainable quarters. The hour was one of the short ones ayont the twal, and sleep reigned everywhere except in the daily-newspaper-offices and in the most fashionable of the grog-shops. Besides Chip, the only living thing in Devonshire Street was a thinly-clad stripling, with a little roll of yellowish tissue-paper in his hand, knocking and shaking feebly at a door which grimly refused to open. His powers of endurance were evidently giving way, and his grief had become both vocal and fluent in the channel of his infant years.

"What's the matter, my boy?" asked Chip,—"locked out, hey?"

"No,—bo-hoo. No, Sir, the door's blowed to and froze up, and I can't git this pos'crip' up to the office."

"Oh, oh! you're the telegraph-boy, are you?"

"Yes, Sir."

"Most froz'n, aren't you?"

"O-oo-oo, that I be, Sir."

Here a very bright idea struck Chip, and he inquired,—

"Is this all that's coming?"

"Boo-hoo. Yes, Sir. They've sent good-night once before, and this is the pos'crip'. The wires is shut off now, and some of the papers is shut off, too; for I've been to three before this, and can't git into nary one on 'em."

"Never mind, my poor fellow; I belong up here. I'll take the sheets and send 'em round to all the other papers that are open. Never mind; you take that, and go right home to your mother."

"Thank you, Sir," said the shivering lad, and, giving up the yellow roll and taking the loose coppers offered him in the quickest possible time, he scampered off around the corner of Water Street and left Chip in company with two temptations.

"Now," thought Chip, "it will be certainly a clean and gentlemanly thing, if, after having relieved this poor little devil of his trouble and responsibility, I should oblige the still poorer devil of a concern up-stairs by giving 'em this postcript of foreign news, which, by working so late, they will probably have exclusively. That would be most truly honest, benevolent, and philanthropic. It would make at least one newspaper my friend, and, on the whole, it is something of a temptation. But let me see what it will cost."

Giving the black door a vigorous push, he entered, and by the gas-burner on the first landing discovered that the postcript in his possession gave the state of the Liverpool cotton-market a day later than the body of the dispatch, which had already gone into type, and, what was more to the purpose, announced a rise of a penny-and-a-half on the pound. Chip clutched the gauzy sheets in his fist, closed the door as softly as possible, and yielded himself a doomed captive to temptation number two. Here was a little fortune on the cotton he had in store at any rate, and, if he really had in his grasp all the news of the rise, he might make by it a plump ten thousand dollars out of Captain Grant's "Orion." But to this end he must be sure that not a lisp of the rise would be published in the morning papers, and he must see Captain Grant and close his bargain for the "Orion's" cargo before the wires should begin to furnish additional news by the "Africa" to the evening papers. They would not, after obtaining such news, lose a moment in parading it on their bulletin-boards, and Captain Grant might get hold of it before reaching the little counting-room in India Street. Chip, of course, saw what to do, and did it. Waiting in one of the little "meals-at-all-hours" saloons till he heard the churning of the press-engines, he sallied out and bought of the overloaded carriers the earliest copies of the morning papers, and made himself sure that the foreign news did not disclose any change of the cotton-market. The next thing was to transfer himself to Captain Grant's residence in Waltham,—exactly whereabout in Waltham he did not know, but, of course, he could easily find out,—and, without exciting the grouty old salt's suspicions of false play, make sure of the cotton at his own price. On the whole, he thought it safer, as well as cheaper, to use the early train than to hire a special team.

Arrived in Waltham, to his great vexation, it appeared, after much inquiry, that Captain Grant lived full three miles from the station,—and what was worse, every omnibus, hack, buggy, and dog-cart was engaged for a muster in one direction or a cattle-show in another. Nothing on wheels could be hired at any price,—at least, none could be found in an hour's search from one hotel or livery-stable to another. Chip, whose sleepless night and meditated fraud had not left much of the saint in him, swore the whole of Waltham as deep as the grimmest view of predestination would allow. And he restrained himself from being still more profane only lest his wrath should awaken inconvenient suspicions. After all, there was one old tavern a little way out, where possibly a one-horse affair could be raised. The Birch House was a sort of seedy, dried-up, quiet, out-of-the-way inn, whose sign-post stood forth like a window without sash, the rectangular ligneous picture of a man driving cattle to Brighton having long ago been blown out of its lofty setting and split to pieces by the fall. What was the use of replacing it? No one was likely to call, who did not already know that the Widow Birch still kept tavern there, and just how she kept it. It was doubtful if a new sign would attract a single new customer. Indeed, since the advent of railroads, a customer was not a common occurrence any way, though there still remained a few that could be depended on, like the Canada geese, in their season, and their custom was handsomely profitable. The house, a white wooden one, with greenish blinds, had two low stories, the first of which was nearly level with the ground. There was a broad, low entry running through the middle, and on either side two rather spacious square rooms. One of those in front had a well-sanded, well-worn pine floor, with a very thirsty-looking counter across one corner, supporting a sort of palisade that appeared to fortify nothing at all,—a place, however, which had evidently been moist enough in the olden times. In the other front room was a neat carpet, plain, old-fashioned furniture, and a delightful little plantation of fresh and cozy flower-pots, surrounding a vase full of gold-fishes, and overhung by a bright-eyed, mellow-throated canary, the whole of that paradise being doubtless under the watch and care of little Laura Birch. This was the ladies' parlor,—the grand reception-room, also, of any genteel male guest, should one for a wonder appear. Little Laura, however, was no longer as little as she had been,—though just as innocent, and ten times as bewitching to most people who knew her. You could not but particularly wish her well, the moment her glad, hopeful, playful, confiding, half-roguish eye met yours. With the most conscientious resolution to make herself useful, under her mother's thrifty administration, in the long, clean New England kitchen which stretched away behind the square dining-room, interposed between it and the dry bar-room, she had a taste for books and a passion for flowers, which absorbed most of her thoughts, and gained her more chidings from her mother for their untimely manifestations than her handiest services gained thanks or any signs of grateful recognition. She and the flowers, including the bird and the fishes, seemed to belong to the same sisterhood. She had copied their fashion of dress and behavior, rather than the Parisian or any imported style,—and so her art, being all learned from Nature, was quite natural. On the very morning in question, she was engaged in giving this little conservatory the benefit of her thorough skill and affectionate regard, when good Dame Birch broke in upon her with,—

"Why, Laury, what are you thinking about? It's always just so. Here is a gentleman in the bar-room, and he's a'most sure to order breakfast, and them eels isn't touched, and not a thing ready but cold victuals and pie. Them eels would be so nice and genteel! and you know they won't keep."

"But you didn't tell me to fry them now, mother," said Laura.

"But I told you to fix 'em all ready to fry."

"Well, mother," replied Laura, "I'll come as soon as these things are set to rights. It won't do to leave them just so."

"Well, it's always just so," said the maternal Birch. "I must do it myself, I see. Don't be all day, Laury,—now don't!"

She disappeared, muttering something about "them plaguy flower-pots."

In point of fact, Chip Dartmouth was all this while in the aforesaid dry bar-room, engaged in an earnest colloquy with Frank Birch, a grown-up son of the landlady, a youth just entered on the independent platform of twenty-one, Laura being three years younger. Chip had arrived rather out of breath and excited, having got decidedly ahead of the amenities that would have been particularly expedient under the circumstances. Approaching a door of the bar-room, which opened near its corner towards the barn, and which stood open at the time, he descried Frank within busily engaged mending harness.

"Hallo! young man, I say, hurry up that job, for I've no time to lose."

"Well, I'm glad on't," retorted Frank, hardly looking up from his work, "for I ha'n't."

"Look here!" said Chip, entering, "you're the man I've been looking for. I must have a ride to Captain Grant's, straight off, at your own price."

"Maybe you must, but I'm goin' to the Concord cattle-show, and Captain Grant's is four miles out of the way. I can't think of goin' round, for I shall be too late, any way."

"Never mind that, my young friend, if you 'r' 'n such a hurry, put on the string and look to me for the damage."

"Maybe you can't pay it," replied Frank, looking rather scornful.

"The Devil!" exclaimed Chip, "are all the Waltham people born idiots?"

"No! some of 'em are born governors," said Frank, "and Boston people may find it out one of these days."

On this, Landlady Birch intervened, taking the bar-room in her way from the parlor to the kitchen.

"What is that you say, Frank? The gentleman can have as good a breakfast here as he can have anywhere out of Boston, I'm sure, though I say it myself. We don't have so many to cook for, and so, perhaps, we take a little more pains, Sir,—ha! ha!"

And with that good Mrs. Birch put on a graciousness of smile worthy of the most experienced female Boniface in Anglo-Saxondom.

"The gentleman don't want any breakfast, mother; he only wants a ride round to Captain Grant's, and he ha'n't got the manners to ask for it, like a gentleman;—he must have it. I say he mus'n't in my buggy, for I a'n't goin' that way."

"Why, son, the gentleman of course expects to pay for it."

"Yes, Madam," said Chip, "I am willing and expect to bleed freely."

Frank. "Well, I should like to know what you mean by that? I don't want your blood, or that of any other Boston squirt."

Mrs. Birch (to Chip, after a reproving glance at Frank). "I think we can accommodate you, Sir. The buggy is at the blacksmith's, and will be done in half-an-hour. If you want, you can have breakfast while you are waiting; and you will find a comfortable fire in the parlor to sit by, at any rate."

With this, Mrs. Birch made her exit, to hurry matters on the cook-stove.

"There! that's her, all over!" grumbled Frank. "If she can sell a meal of victuals, she don't care what becomes of me. But I'll let her know the mare's mine, and the buggy's mine, all but the harness; and I tell you, Sir, I'll see the mare drowned in Charles River and the buggy split into kindling-wood, before you shall have a ride to Captain Grant's this day."

"But here's a five-dollar-bill," quoth Chip, displaying a small handful of banknotes.

Frank. "You may go to thunder with the whole of 'em! I tell you I've set my foot down, and I won't take it up for my own mother,—and I'm sure I won't for anything that ever was or will be under your clo'es."

With this, he jerked up the harness and went off to the barn, with an air that convinced Chip that the controversy between mother and son was not likely to be decided in his favor at a sufficiently early hour to answer his purpose. But where else should he go, or what else should he do? As he was a little more inclined now to bet on calmness than on passion, he decided to take a seat in the parlor, and keep it, at least, till he could dispose of his present doubt. Easily might he have measured three miles over the Waltham hills, in the bracing morning-air, with his own locomotive apparatus, while he had been looking in vain for artificial conveyance. But if that plan had occurred to him at all at first, it would have been dismissed with contempt as unbusinesslike. He must not, by any possibility, appear to Captain Grant to be so madly anxious to close the bargain. He did a little regret neglecting the service of his own proper pegs, but it was now entirely too late to walk, and he must ride, and at a good pace, too, or lose the entire benefit of the news which the lightning had so singularly confided to his honest hands. The feeling with which he flung himself into that quiet, little, economical parlor was, probably, even more desperate than Richard's, when he offered his kingdom for a horse. It was, in fact, just the feeling, of all others in the world, to prevent a man's getting a horse. Had he carried it into a pasture full of horses, it would have prevented him from catching the tamest of them. But the good influences of the Universe, that encourage and strengthen the noble martyrs of truth and workers of good in their arduous labors, do sometimes also help on villains to their bad ends. Never were troubled waters more quickly smoothed with oil, never were the poles of a magnet more quickly reversed, than Chip's rage and rancor abated after he entered that door. Not that he relaxed his purpose at all, or felt any essential change of his nature, but his temper was instantly turned the right side up for success. He was, of course, unconscious of the cause,—for it is certainly nothing wonderful, even in the neighborhood of Boston, to see a neat Yankee lass, in her second or third best dress, putting things to rights of a morning, with a snowy handkerchief over her head, its corners drawn into a half-knot under her sweet chin, and some little ruddy outposts on her cheeks, ready, on the slightest occasion, to arouse a whole army of blushes. Laura had just given the finishing touch to her flower culture, changed the water of her fishes, replenished the seed-bucket of the canary, and was about leaving the room. Almost any man would have been glad of an excuse to speak to her. Chip could have made an excuse, if one had not been ready-made, that was to him very important, as well as satisfactory.

"Miss Birch, I presume?"

"Yes, Sir," said Laura, with a curtsy, not quite so large as those that grow in dancing schools, but, nevertheless, very pretty.

"Well, Miss Birch," said Chip, blandly advancing and taking her nice little hand, half covered with her working-mitts,—whereat the aforesaid outposts promptly did their duty,—"or shall I call you Miss Susan Birch?"

"No, Sir, my name is Laura," said the girl, shrinking a little from a contact which rather took her by surprise.

"Oh, Laura!—that is better yet," proceeded Chip. "Now, Miss Laura, I have got myself into a terrible scrape; can you help me out of it?"

"I can't tell, indeed, Sir, till I know what it is," said Laura, with a bright twinkle of reassurance.

"Well, it is this:—I have mortally offended your brother,—for so I take him to be by his looks,—and I most sincerely repent it, for he owns the only team left in Waltham. If I cannot hire that team for an hour, I lose money enough to buy this house twice over. I want you to reconcile us. Will you offer my apology and prevail on him to take this and be my coachman for an hour?" asked Chip,—slipping a gold eagle into her hand with the most winning expression at his command.

"Oh, yes, Sir,—I'm sure I'll try without that, Sir. He will be glad to oblige you, when he knows how you need it," she said, offering to return the coin.

"No, no, Miss Laura, I want to pay him well; and if you succeed,—why, no money can pay you, Miss Laura; I don't profess to be rich enough to do it."

Here the outposts gave another alarm, and again the hosts of the ruby uniform were gathering hurriedly in their two muster-fields.

"Why, I will go and try, Sir," said Laura, so much confused by the novelty and magnitude of the circumstances that she opened the closet-door before opening the only one that led out of the room.

Fairly out of Chip's presence, she saw instantly and instinctively the worthlessness of that gold eagle, however genuine, compared with her sisterly love, in her mission to Frank. So she ran directly to her mother in the long kitchen, and, planking the American eagle upon the sloppy little table where the eels were rapidly getting dressed, said,—

"Why, mother, that gentleman wants to hire Frank to carry him to Captain Grant's, and I'm sure he ought to go without hiring. I'll go right out and see him."

"That's right, Laury; tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself!"

"Oh, no, mother, I won't tell him any such thing," said Laura, laughingly, as she hopped and skipped towards the barn.

"Well, Frank, how's Nell Gwyn, this morning?" cheerily cried Laura to Frank, who seemed to be getting his harness into a worse snarl, in his grouty attempts to get it out of one.

"The mare's well enough, if she hadn't been insulted."

"Why, that's abominable, Frank! But let me get that snarl out."

"You get it out! You get out yourself, Laule."

"Why, that's all I'm good for, Frank; I always pick out the snarls in the house, you know, and I should like to try it once in the barn."

"The tarnal old thing's bewitched, I believe," said Frank, allowing his sister to interfere and quietly untwist and turn right side out the various parts which he had put wrong by all sorts of torsion. "I'll teach Boston chaps to know that there are some things they can't have for money! When Nell and I have agreed to have a good time, we a'n't goin' to be ordered off nor bought off;—we'll have it."

"So I say, Frank. But suppose I wanted you to give me a ride, Frank?"

"Why, Laule, you know I would go to the North Pole with you. If Mam would only let you go to Concord with me, I'd wait till noon for you."

"Well, maybe she will, Frank. She wants you to carry that man to Captain Grant's bad enough to let me go in the afternoon."

"But I told him I wouldn't carry him,—and, gol darn it, I won't!"

"Of course you won't carry him on his own account, or for the sake of his money,—but for my sake perhaps you will."

"Well, Sis, perhaps I will. But, mind, before I do, Mam shall promise, sartin sure, to let you go by half-past twelve o'clock, and not a minit later."

"Well, I'll see she does; you harness Nell, and get the buggy. The man says he's sorry he spoke to you so. If he's carried to Captain Grant's and back, I'll answer for it's being the best for all of us."

She was off to the house like a bird, and the rest of her diplomacy was too simple and straightforward to need special record.

As the buggy was at the door before the table presented the savory temptation of fried eels, Chip declined breakfast at present, but decidedly promised to take it on his return. He dropped in on Captain Grant, as he was careful to tell that gentleman, having had business in Waltham that morning, and thinking he might perhaps save him a journey to town. The ship-owner had just finished the news of the morning papers, for which he had sent a messenger express to the post-office, and said, after the cordial salutation which a rough sort of man always gives in his own house,—

"Well, Mr. Dartmouth, I see the market is as close-reefed as ever. Maybe you think I will sell at five and three-fourths to-day, but I've concluded to make a floating warehouse of the 'Orion' for the winter, rather than do that."

"I don't blame you for that, my friend; but in the present state of advices, six at two months is the highest mill that will do. If you will close the 'Orion's' cargo at that, I am your man."

"What I've said, I'll do, Sir, of course," said the tough old salt; "and since you've taken the trouble to come out here and save my lame toes, let's nail the bargain with a bottle of my old Madeira,—some of the ripest this side of the herring-pond, I'll be bound."

"Not a drop, I thank you; for, besides being a teetotaller, Captain, I'm behind time to-day, and must bid you good-morning."

"Well, Sir, I'm much obliged to you; the bill of sale shall be at your counting-room directly; the clerk will receive the notes and deliver the cotton. Good-morning, Sir,—good-morning!"

In truth, Chip had not the slightest objection to wine, as wine, even had it not been the ripest on this continent; but, like any other mitigated villain, he did not quite relish taking wine with the man he was basely cheating. He would much rather partake of Ma'am Birch's fried eels and coffee, especially if Laura Birch should, peradventure, be the Hebe of such an ambrosial entertainment. She was not, however,—and the disappointment considerably overclouded the commercial victory of the morning. Madam Birch herself did the honors of whatever sort, while Chip played a fantasia solo at the table d'hôte. The good lady enlarged volubly on her destitution of help, and how, if she had any such as we get now-a-days, they were more plague than profit,—how Laura was getting ready to go with Frank to the cattle-show, and she herself was likely to be the only living mortal in the house for the rest of the day.

"Such a son as you have is a fortune, Madam; and as for the daughter, she is a gem, a genuine diamond, Madam."

"Ha! ha! do you really think so, Sir?" said the mother, evidently gratified with the superlativeness of the compliment. "Well, they do say children are jewels.—but I've found, Sir, they are pretty troublesome and pretty costly jewels. Mine, as you say, are very good children,—though Frank is pretty wilful, and Laury is always gettin' her head above the clouds. Oh, dear! they want a great deal done for 'em,—and the more you do, the more you may do. Frank is bewitched to sell out and go to Kansas or Californy, or, if he stays here, he must go to college or be a merchant. And Laury, even she isn't contented; she wants to be some sort of artist, make statters or picters,—or be a milliner, at least. So you see I haven't a minute's peace of my life with 'em."

Of course Chip saw it, and the more's the pity.

"All the better, Madam," said he. "Young America must go ahead. There's nothing to be had without venturing. If I can ever be of service to either of your children in forwarding their laudable ambition, I am sure it will give me the greatest pleasure."

"You are very kind, Sir, but I only wish you could persuade 'em to let well alone, and at least not try the world till they know more of it."

"Not touch the water till they have learned to swim, eh? That's not quite so easy, Madam. Never fear; I'll be bound, a boy that can say No like yours is perfectly safe anywhere; and as to Laura, why, Madam, I never heard of an angel getting into difficulty in the wickedest of worlds."

"Our old minister, Parson Usher that was, used to say some of the Bible angels fell,—and I am sure, Sir, the human angels have a worse chance. They are about the only ones that run any risk at all."

"True, true enough, Ma'am, in one point of view. Too much care cannot be taken to select the society in which young people are to move. In the right society, such a girl as Laura would win homage on every side, and make herself happy by making everybody else so."

"I believe you are right there, Sir," said Mrs. Birch, quite charmed with such beautiful appreciation of what she felt to be Laura's excellence; "and I don't wonder sometimes that she should be discontented with the society she has here, poor girl!"

"When you see the sun begin to shine in the morning, you may be sure enough it will keep rising all the forenoon," said Chip, with the air of a great moral philosopher, conscious of having made a decided impression. And suddenly recollecting how valuable was his time in town, and that the train would be due in five minutes, he swallowed the last of his coffee, paid his bill, told the landlady how happy he was to have made her acquaintance and that of her interesting family, promised he would never stop in Waltham without calling, and strode away.

The lightning flashed from a good many eyes in the telegraph-office when the morning members of the associated press inquired why they had not been served with the latest news,—why, in fact, the only item of any significance was reserved for the evening papers of the day. Not a press of all the indignant complainants was ready to admit that it had locked up its forms and gone to bed before the wires had completed their task. Very bitter paragraphs testified, the next day, that, in the opinion of many sage and respectable editors, the wires had been tampered with by speculators. The poor little half-frozen telegraph-boy was closely catechized, first by the officers of the telegraph-company, and afterwards by certain shrewd detectives, but no clue could be got to the fine gentleman who so generously relieved him of his responsibility, and no result followed, except his dismissal and the employment of another lad of more ability and probably less innocence. Captain Grant was the man most likely to have come to a discovery in the matter, and most heartily did he curse his luck—his "usual luck"—of giving away a fortune by selling a cargo a day too soon. But being kept at home by uncomfortable toes, no suspicious mortal, such as abound in the lounging-rooms of insurance-offices and other resorts of business-men in town, happened ingeniously to put his suspicions on a scent, and he did not come within a league of the thought that Chip Dartmouth could have had anything to do with the strange and blamable conduct of the wires. As he made no proclamation of his loss, and no other case of sale during the abeyance of the news came to the knowledge of the parties interested, the matter, greatly to Chip's comfort, fell into entire oblivion before a fortnight had passed. The understanding was, that, though great mischief might have been done, none had been,—and that somebody had simply made waste-paper of the little yellow thunderbolt-scrawls.

For the first fortnight, Chip's nervousness, not to say conscience, very much abated the pleasure of the many congratulations he received from his friends, and from hundreds of people whom he had never before known as his friends. He couldn't get through the streets any day without meeting the solidest sort of men, with whom he had never exchanged a word in his life, but whose faces were as familiar as that of the Old-South clock, who took him by the hand quite warmly, and said,—

"Ah, Mr. Dartmouth, permit me to congratulate you on your good-fortune. You have well deserved it. I like to see a young man like you make such a ten-strike, especially when it comes in consequence of careful study of the market."

The truth was, Chip had been playing a pretty hazardous game in the cotton-market, chiefly at the risk of other parties; and the slice he had so feloniously carved out of poor Captain Grant was quite small compared with the gains he had managed to secure by thus venturing a little of his own and a great deal of other people's money. The shrewd minds in the secrets of the business world were not slow to see that he must have realized at least a hundred thousand units of commercial omnipotence by the operations of the first week after the rise. Everybody was glad of an opportunity to speak to such a man. Even Mr. Hopkins, immensely retired as he was, driving into State Street about noon one genial day to receive a bank dividend or two, stepped considerably out of his way, in walking from his low-hung turnout to the door of one of the banks, in order to catch Mr. Dartmouth's notice, and say to him, "Good-morning, Mr. Dartmouth! I hope you are very well, Sir!" Chip recognized the salutation with a superb nod, but without the accompaniment of any verbal rhetoric which was audible above the buzz of the pavement; and the retired millionnaire passed on about his business.

"Ah!" thought Chip, "I am getting to be a merchant of the right sort, I see,—and by the time he is ready to change that low-hung little chariot for the hard, angular ebony with raven plumes, I shall be ready to step into the other plump little vehicle, which is really so nice and cozy."

But we must leave Chip to the easy task of ballooning upward in public estimation, with his well-inflated bank-account. He was, in fact, reformed by his great commercial success to this extent, that his vices had become of the most distinguished and unvulgar grade. He was now courted by the highest artists in iniquity, and had the means of accomplishing results that none but men who are known to be really rich can command. He, therefore, now quitted all vulgar associations, and determined not to outrage any of the virtues, except under varnish, gilding, and polish that would keep everything perfectly respectable. Let him trust to that as long as he can.

Don't talk of the solitude of a night in the primeval forests, however far from the abodes of man;—the squirrels and the partridges may be asleep then and there, but the katydids are awake, and, with the support of contralto and barytone tree-toads, manage to keep up a concert which cannot fail to impress on you a sense of familiar and friendly company. Don't talk of the loneliness of a deserted and ruinous castle;—the crickets have not left it, and, if you don't have a merry time with their shrill jokes, it will be your own fault. But if you would have a sense of being terribly alone, come from long residence in some quiet country-home on the border of a quiet country-village, into the hurry-skurry of a strange city, just after nightfall. Here is an infinite brick-and-stone forest, stern, angular, almost leafless. Here is a vast, indistinguishable wilderness of flitting human shapes, not one of which takes half so much notice of you as a wild bush would. Speak to one; it answers without the slightest emotion, and passes on. Your presence is absolutely no more to any soul of them, provided they have souls, than if you were so much perfectly familiar granite. You feel, that, with such attention as you receive, such curiosity as you excite, you must be there hundreds of years to be either recognized or missed.

Had you been a stranger in Boston, one moist and rather showery summer-evening, not a year after the events we have narrated, you might have been recovered from the sense of loneliness we have described by observing one pretty female figure hurrying along the crowded sidewalk with a very large and replete satchel, and without any of the sang-froid which characterizes city pedestrianism. You might have noticed that this one human being, like yourself, was evidently not at home. Every glare of gas-light revealed a deeply-flushed face, eyes that had been weeping and which were now flashing with a wild earnestness and an altogether preternatural resolution. A gazelle, started by the huntsman's pack, could not have thrown more piercing glances at every avenue of escape than this excited girl did at every cross street, and indeed at everything but the human faces that passed her. All of them she shunned, with a look that seemed equally anxious to avoid the known and the unknown. She should seem to have narrowly escaped some peril, and was carrying with her a secret not to be confided to friend or stranger, certainly not to either without due consideration. Had you watched her, as the crowds of people, returning from the various evening amusements, died away in the streets, you would have seen the deep color of her cheeks die away also to deadly paleness; had you been sufficiently clairvoyant, you might have seen how two charming rows of pearls bit the blanched lips till the runaway blood came back into the sad gashes, how the tears welled up again, and with them came relief and fresh strength just as she was about to faint and drop in the street. Then returned again the throb of indignant resolution, as her mind recurred to the attempted ruin of her paradise by a disguised foe; then succeeded shame and dread lest the friends she had left in her childhood's rural home should know how differently from her fond anticipations had turned out the first week of her sojourn in the great city. She was most thoroughly resolved, that, if possible, they should not know anything of the wreck of her long-cherished hopes till she had found some foothold for new ones. She felt that she was a Yankee girl in the metropolis of New England, with wit, skill, and endurance equal to any employment that ever falls to the lot of Yankee women; but having given up the only chance which had ever opened to her, how could she find another? Were she of the other sex, or only disguised in the outer integuments of it, with the trifling sum in her purse, she would get lodgings at the next hotel, and seek suitable employment without suspicion. In the wide wilderness of a city there was not an acquaintance she did not dread to meet, in her present circumstances, even worse than death itself, or, what is next door to it, a police-station.

The streets had emptied themselves of their rushing throngs, the patter of feet and the murmur of voices had given place to measured individual marches here and there, the dripping of cave-spouts and the flapping of awnings could be heard tattling of showers past and future, and the last organ-grinder had left the ungrateful city to its slumbers, when the poor girl first became conscious that she had been lugging hither and thither her entire outfit of wardrobe, valuables, and keepsakes. Aggravated by fatigue, her indecision as to how she should dispose of herself was gradually sinking into despair, and the official guardians of the night, who had doubtless noticed her as she passed and repassed through their beats, were beginning to make up their official minds, generally and severally, that the case might by-and-by require their benevolent interference, when she was startled by a female voice from behind.

"Arrah, stop there, ye rinaway jade! I know ye by yer big bag, ye big thafe, that ye are!"

Glad at any voice addressed to her, and gladder at this than if it had been more familiar or more friendly, our forlorn maiden turned and said, in the sweetest voice imaginable,—

"Oh, no, my friend, I am not a thief."

"Och, I beg your pardon, honey! I thought sure it was Bridget, that's jist rin away wid a bagful of her misthress's clo'es and a hape o' mine, and it's me that's bin all the way down to Pat Mahoney's in North Street to git him to hunt her up; and the Blessed Mother forgive me, whin I seen you in the dark, stalin' along like, wi' that bag, I thought it was herself it was, sure. Och, ye're a swate lass, I see, now; but what makes ye out this time o' night, dear?"

"Well, I'm too late for the train, you see, and I really don't know what to do or where to go," said the Yankee girl, putting on the air natural to such circumstances, with the readiness of her race.

"Och, I see, that's the mailing o' the bag, thin. Poor thing! ye jist come along wid me. I'll lift the bag for ye, me darlint, an' I'll pit clane sheets on Bridget's bed, and ye're welcome to slape there as long as ye like; for the Blessed Mother knows it's powerful tired ye're lookin', it is. I'm cook for more nor twinty years for the Hopkinses in Bacon Street, and I can make ye jist as welcome in my quarthers as if it was nobody but meself that owned it at all at all."

"Oh, my dear woman, I thank you kindly! That bag was beginning to grow heavy," replied the overjoyed outcast; and presently, with a ready eye to business, she added, "And since Bridget is gone, who knows but I can take her place? I came to the city on purpose to find something to do, and I can do anything that is not dishonest."

"Och! the likes o' ye take her place? Niver a bit of it! Why! I see by the gas-light ye're a leddy as iver was at all at all; and ye could niver come in the shoes of sich a thafe as Bridget Maloney, as is gone, and the Divil catch her!"