Mladinski List
MESEČNIK ZA SLOVENSKO MLADINO V AMERIKI
MONTHLY MAGAZINE FOR YOUNG SLOVENIANS IN AMERICA
LETO—VOL. IV
CHICAGO, ILL., 0CT03ER 1925
ŠTEV,—NO. 10.
illllillllllllllllHIIIIIIIH	Izdaj,
SLOVENSKA NARODNA PODPORNA JEDNOTA
Izhaja mesečno. — Naročnina:
Za Za člane nečlane
Zdr. Države za celo leto....30c 60c ” za pol leta....l6c 30c Druge države: za leto 	75c
66
JUVENILE
Published Monthly by the
SLOVENIAN NATIONAL BENEFIT SOCIETY
Subscription Rates:
Non-
Members Mem.
United States per year...30c	60c
’’ half year 15c 30c
Other Countries per year... 75c
Entered as second-class matter August 2, 1922. at the post office at Chicago, Illinois, under the Act of August 24, 1912. Acceptance for mailing at special rate of postage provided for ir • -»ction 1103, Act of October 3, 1917, authorized August 2, 1922.
>138
UREDNIŠTVO IN UPRAVNIŠTVO:
(OFFICE:)
a*
2657 SO. L AW N D A L E AV E N U E ,	^
CHICAGO, ILL.
VSEBINA—CONTENTS
stran-
Nemir. (B. Gorenjko).............................291
V	jeseni. (J. G.)..............................291
Materinska skrb narave v jeseni. (Fr. Pengov)....292
Slovenci. (Nadaljevanje).........................296
O	ptičici, ki je morilca preganjala. (Ks. Meško)....299
Simonov oče. (Guy de Maupassant).................302
Naš kotiček  ....................................305
*	* *
What Is Evolution? (Prof. E. S. Holden).........
The Cuckoo House. (Janet P. Shaw)...............
The Story of the Small Green Caterpillar and the
Beautiful White Butterfly..................
The Last Straw. (W. A. Jacobs) .................
Pigs. (R. K. Munkittrick).......................
A Deserved Rebuke ..............................
“Juvenile” Puzzlers, Letter-Box, Etc............
Practical Slovenian Grammar. (Conversations)....
*	* *
Slike—Pictures:
Lep jesenski	dan..............................295
Na semenj!.......................................298
*	* *
The Baby.........................................308
A Scene from Flanders............................316
-page.
306
309
312
315
317
318
319
320
MLADINSKI LIST
MESEČNIK ZA SLOVENSKO MLADINO V AMERIKI
LETO IV.
CHICAGO, ILL., OKTOBER 1925.
ŠTEV. 10.
Q.ORA je porumenela, cvetna trata odcvetela, ptica že slovo je vzela.
Kam jesen, kam greš? Pošto j! Ves meglen je pogled tvoj, kam te žene nepokoj ?
NEMIR.
“Tja dol v solnčne grem gradove, dol na južne grem vrtove trgat demantne sadove.”
Oj jesen, pošto j, pošto j, oj jesen, naj grem s teboj, da vsaj vidim gradič tvoj!
A jesen hiti, beži, sliši nič, ne pošto ji— v srcu mojem pa leži mil spomin na lepe dni.
B. Gorenjko.
V JESENI.
'J'lHO čez polje zeleno pesem težka je zavela, in tak mirna prej poljana v strahu vsa je zadrhtela . .
Stresnile so se cvetice, cvetje svoje pripognile in v trepetu pred poginom grenke solze potočile.
Milo plaka vsa poljana, in nebo temno razpeto ji pošilja drobnih kapljic— svetlih biserov nešteto.
J. G.
Fr. Pengov:
Materinska skrb narave v jeseni.
Proč so čarobni dnevi lepega poletja. Iz radostnih hramov naših logov je zbežalo glasno veselje, pevski zbori drobnih ptičic so se razpršili, in grmovje, iz katerega je donelo o pomladnih in poletnih jutrih na stotine glasov krilatih pevk, kot bi bil velik semenj, je sedaj golo, brez življenja.
Jesenski vetrovi se podijo preko poljan in gozdov in trgajo častitim hrastovim in brestovim starcem krone z glav; vitke smreke se globoko klanjajo pred njimi, se stiskajo druga k drugi ter iščejo zavetja in opore pred vsiljivim mogočnežem. Le mlado drevje doli pri tleh in nizko grmovje se čuti varno in dviga svoje glave mirno in ponosno kvišku.
Povsod ti šumi suho listje pod nogami; menda toži, ker ne more več zeleneti visoko gori nad tvojo glavo in mora mirno prenašati, da stopa po njem sleherna noga. Da izražajo listi na tleh tudi našo človeško usodo, to je občutil že pred več tisoč leti grški pesnik Homer, ki poje:
Kakor listi v gozdu, tako so rodovi človeški: Liste pomete na tla ljuto besneči vihar.
Na nebu vidiš temne, divje raztrgane oblake, ki se podijo brez miru okrog. Globoko v gozdu, kamor ne zapiha veter, prekine vsak trenotek tišino kapljanje megle, ki se. je zgostila in se tako potaka od veje do veje navzdol.
Kako se je spremenila narava! Nič več ne obiskuje vesela čreda preje tako svežih rebri; pašniki, preje tako živi mukajočih krav in poskočnih žrebet, se kujajo sedaj v topem, negostoljubnem samotarstvu.
Uničene so po večini gredice na vrtu; kakor objokani stoje razdrapani ostanki davno odcvelih solnčnic in umazanih, okorelih slamnatih cvetlic. Tu in tam še žari makova glavica ali se ovija ograje modra grašica, baržunaste mrtvaške cvetke tagetes cveto. Pred vsem pa so zadnji kras jesenskega vrta
—	krasne georgine ali dahlije, ki smo jih kakor prijazne nebine ali astre, te “večernice zahajajočega toplega leta,” povabili iz tujine na domači vrt. Toda ena sama nočna slana in vse je pri kraju! Zjutraj, ko vzhaja soln-ce, je izginila vsa lepota. Kakor poparjeni
vise cvetni koški ob črnoosmojenem listju — prava jesenska podoba minljivosti. Najdalje še vztraja nebina, ki je vdano prenašala vse muke jesenskega življenja.
Zgodaj se ulegajo proti večeru megleni pajčolani nad vas. Občutno mrzle so že dolge jesenske noči. Kakor črni orjaki se dvigajo gola drevesa proti nebu, pošastno jih osvetljuje lune srebrna luč. Mrzlotno, ne več z milo se prelivajočo svetlobo kakor poleti, migljajo zvezde na nebu, ako jih po srečnem naključju ne zastirajo oblaki. Debela megla, ki bi jo ob lakotnem času lahko na kruh narezal, je jutru tovarišica; nizko nad gozdom in loko ležijo njene mlečnobele bale.
Nad vodami plavajo, se opotekajo in se dvigajo kvišku pošastne prikazni; to so hlapovi gorkote, ki si jih je privarčevala voda poleti in jih mora sedaj oddati. Le polagoma stopa solnce skozi dopoldanske ure kvišku, boreč se takorekoč za vsako stopinjo — in še ni gotovo, bo li ohranilo opoldne še trohico moči. Zdi se ti, kakor bi hotela obdržati narava vse pod gostim zastorom, kakor bi se sramovala pokazati pusto, razgaljeno pokrajino.
Ce pa se je solnce vendarle nekoliko uveljavilo in si napravilo pot skozi oblake, o kako otožen je potem pogled preko livad, kjer ne cvete nobena cvetka več, preko travnatih gričev, kjer so obledeli suhi ostanki trave, preko polja, kjer je dvigalo njega dni žito svoje rumeno valovje.
Toda ne; tako popolnoma zapuščena jesen tudi ni. Vedno zvesta marjetica ni zapustila domače trate, ob potu stoji še modri potrošnik ali divja cikorija in zardelo-beli rman z ljubko smetliko ti še vedno razveseljuje oko. Živi jenska sila rastlinstva je sicer strta na splošno in lepa Flora, mati-rodnica vseh cvetlic, gre z urnimi koraki smrti naproti. Toda preden travnik popolnoma zamrje, se ozaljša še enkrat na svoji smrtni postelji, še enkrat se nebeško-ljubez-nivo nasmehlja in zdi se, kakor da hoče pre-sanjati še enkrat svoje tiho, prijazno pomladansko življenje: lepega, toplega jutra ga najdeš posejanega z nežnim cvetjem je-
senskega podleska; na travniku stoji cela armada čudovitih, bledomodrih plamenčkov
—	ki so pa le bolj vešče in ostanki pojemajočega rastlinskega življenja.
V	pozni jeseni nastane časih krasno vreme; tu in tam poletavajo metulji, zdi se ti, da se vrača vsa sreča mlade vigredi v deželo; zopet gre gospodar na polje, viničar v vinograd, ozimina bleskeče v bohotnem, smaragdnem zelenju. Posebno po hribih je pozna jesen bajno lepa; jasen, čvrst zrak, krasno, toplo solnce, novo upanje, novo življenje!
In vendar, zakaj ravno v tem času ne marajo ostati ljube ptičice pri nas?
Srečne ptice! Veselo stanujejo in se igrajo v večni svetovni dvorani. Za vse je dovolj prostora na svetu; nobeni ni predpisana steza, katero naj hodi, velike kakor male se gibljejo prosto v hiši. Nad našimi glavami vriskajo in tudi naše srce vleče nekaj s čudovito silo gori k njim in za njimi.
Dolga je pot, na katero se odpravljajo leto za letom lastovice in z njimi nebroj drugih ptic selilk. Med dežjem in viharjem, preko nebotičnih gor in brezdanjih morij vodi cesta proti milejšim pokrajinam. Kmalu prijezdi k nam neusmiljena zima na porednem konjiču strniščne burje. Cez pol leta šele se vrnejo lastovice kot poslanke pomladi, da zopet obletavajo naše hiše in režejo zrak v strelovitem poletu. Pred lastovkami in za njimi odidejo še velike trume drugih ptic in četudi nam pošlje sever posamezne goste čez zimo, vendar ti ne morejo nadomestiti tistih, ki nas zapuste.
Jesensko potovanje ptic si gotovo že opazoval. Ali si pa tudi že kdaj premišljeval, po kakšnih zakonih se vršijo ta potovanja, ali si kdaj občudoval postave, ki se izkazujejo pri teh ptičjih romanjih za tako izvrstne vodnice?—Pogovoriva se o nekaterih vprašanjih, ki se nehote vsiljujejo, ko opazuješ ptičje preseljevanje.
Prvo tvoje vprašanje je gotovo to: Zakaj pa mora sploh večina ptic proč iz naših krajev? Saj je vendar toliko drugih, ki ostanejo vedno pri nas. Spominjam le na ljubke siničice, strnade, kose, da sitnega vrabca niti v misel ne jemljem. To vprašanje je laže staviti nego odgovoriti nanj. Nešteto uče-
njakov si je že belilo glave ž njim in vendar še danes niso na jasnem.
Človek bi mislil, da prisili zima s svojim ledom in lakoto ptice, da si poiščejo toplejših krajev, če nočejo žalostno poginiti. Gotovo je nekaj na tem; toda kukavica in kobilar nas zapuščata že ob času, ko je narava pri nas še odeta v največjo krasoto in je hrane vse-povsodi toliko kot v Egiptu za časa sedmih dobrih letin. Že davno preden nastopi resen mraz, se loti slehernega ptičjega srca čudovit nagon po potovanju, ki se mu ne upirajo niti bolehne živalce. Vse ptice poznajo od narave, same iz sebe, natančno čas svojega odhoda, podobno kakor racija mlada od koklje izvaljena račica brez vsakega pouka proti prvi mlaki in veselo plava po njej, naj še tako vabi in kriči stara puta.
Morda bi se pa dalo to zgodnje potovanje razlagati kakor nekako izročilo ptičjih dedov, ki so imeli priliko prepričati se, da je zanje slabo, ako ostanejo dalje časa pri nas?
Odgovarjam: Tako si razlagajo ptičji nagon za selitev mnogi učenjaki. “Staro izročilo tiči v ptičji krvi, v njihovi naravi,” pravijo.
Vzemi le negodnega slavčka iz gnezda, vzgoji si črnoglavko ali mlado taščico. Ko napoči jesen, se vzbudi v vseh prsih hrepenenje po jugu. Le železne šibice v kletki ti za-drže ujete ptičice doma, pa ne brez raztol-čenih glavic in razcefranih peruti, če nisi poprej prepregel kletki sten z mehkim suknom.
“Ko sem bil še dijak,” pripoveduje pri-rodoslovec Tuemler, “sem vzel iz gnezda dve rjavi pustovki, komaj tri dni stari in ju vzgojil. Bili sta krotki kakor dve golobici in brez skrbi smo ju pustili, da sta letali kraj domače hiše, po vrtovih, čez sosedne strehe itd. Mnogokrat sta se zibala in gugala moja so-količa kakor dve lastovici pod modrim nebom na veliko veselje mojim tovarišem; kakor pa sem zabrlizgal, takoj sta priletela na odprto okno, mi zletela na roko ter sprejela z veselim “Kli, kli!” vsak po košček mesa v plačilo za svoje umetnosti, ki sta nam jih pokazala.
Kakor pa sta bili krotki pustovki po leti, tako sta postali divji na jesen. Skoro besno in blazno je bilo njuno obnašanje v prostorni kletki, ki sem ji zabil vratca, da bi jih pač
nihče ne odprl iz neprevidnosti. Kakšno divjanje, kakšno razbijanje in opletanje s kreljutmi in kremplji po kletki v topli sobi! To ni bilo nič priučenega; ne, najčistejši naravni nagon, potovalni nagon je bil, divje hrepenenje po selitvi. Šele po mnogih tednih sta se ptiča zopet pomirila.
Prišli so božični prazniki in ž njimi dva moja prijatelja, ki sta silila vame, naj spustim po dolgem času krilata jetnika zopet pod milo nebo. Ker je zunaj že ležal sneg in sta bila ptiča zadmje dni mirna, sem se vdal prošnjam tovarišev in spustil ob najlepšem solncu že več mesecev zaprti pustovki zopet na prosto. Da bi jih ne bil!
Kakor puščici sta se dvignili v zrak, razpenjali v divjem poletu spodaj belkasta, zgoraj rjava krila in jadrali parkrat okoli naše hiše visoko nad njo. Vedno više jih je neslo, vedno besnejši je bil njiju polet. Prestrašen? in v skrbeh smo ju klicali po imenih, jima kazali vabeče rdeče kose mesa—spustil sem ju bil lačni zavoljo varnosti—vse zastonj! Žalostno sem zrl za ljubima pticama, ki se ju je lotil neugnan potovalni nagon, gledal za njima, da ju ne uzrem več v življenju.”
Ali pa se ne da postanek potovalnega nagona razlagati tudi še kako drugače, naravno?
Gotovo se da. Bili so časi, pravijo geologi ali zemljeslovci, ko je vladalo v naših krajih, kakor tudi više gori proti severu, večno poletje. Šele v takozvani tercijarni dobi— tisoč- in tisočletja so že minula od takrat— se je baje čisto polagoma izcimila sedanja ostra izprememba in razlika letnih časov, pri-čenši s pokrajinami ob tečajih zemlje. Vedno bolj proti jugu je prodirala zima v mesecih, ko stoji solnce nizko nad obzorjem, ter je morila rastline in žuželke ali pa jih silila k dolgemu spanju pod varno snežno odejo. Krilata truma ptic pa se je umikala ob takih mesecih vedno dalje proti jugu v gostoljubne j še pokrajine. Kadar pa se je jela umikati zimska starka, so ji šle za petami tudi ptice, noseč s seboj pomlad v severne kraje.
Tako približno si lahko tolmačimo postanek ptičjega potovanja v sivi davnini po naravnem, zgodovinskem potu.
Poleg ptic selilk imamo še ptice klateže, ki se tudi selijo, a ne predaleč. Primeroma je le malo ptičjih vrst, ki potujejo kot kla-
teži le tako daleč, kakor zahtevata od njih vreme in pomanjkanje hrane. Hrana je postala vsled mraza in snega bolj pičla, težko jo je dobiti; zato ne zadostuje več poletno bivališče za prehranitev, ampak ga je treba razširiti. Zato najdemo po naših vrtovih v zimskem času večkrat ptice, ki jih ob času valitve ni tam.
Med klateže prištevamo kragulja, skobca, sove, črno, zeleno in sivo žolno ali pivko, razne vrste detlov in druge. Večkrat se zbere cela truma takih cigančkov v pestro družbo; ena nabija kakor z urnim kladivcem, druga kljuva, vleče in trga na veji, vse na-vskrižem skaklja, pleza, se izpreletava in tako mine ves dan med gorečim raziskovanjem in prizadevanjem za skromnim kruhkom.—Večkrat priredi cela siničja družba, kakih 10 do 15 dolgorepih sivih mlinarčkov, take klati-viteške izlete. Nenadoma prileti na vaš sadni vrt truma teh pernatih balic, ki so precej podobne pecljatim in glasnim pevskim notam, raztresenim po vejah; vedno naprej gre družba, neprestano ščebljajoč, da bi se pač noben član ne izgubil. S čudovito spretnostjo preiščejo vsako špranjico v drevesni skorji, če ne tiči morda v njej skrita škodljiva zalega žuželk. Če se je kaka živalca nekoliko zamudila pri svojem kosilcu in so se tovarišice že nekoliko oddaljile, tedaj kriči zaostala na vse pretege, druge ji glasno odgovarjajo in izgubljena hči sfrči v velikem loku, ne meneč se za veje in žuželčja jajca na njih, proti družbi, ki jo veselo pozdravlja.
Pri večini severnih ptic pa se je spremenila starodavna navada, preživeti del leta na jugu, v mogočen, neukrotljiv nagon, ki se udejstvuje od tedaj tudi nezavisno od pomanjkanja hrane in gorkote, kakor hitro izgine še močnejši nagon za valjenje, ob času, ko so postali mladiči godni, in jame dotlej ločene družine družabni nagon družiti v večje trume.
Dobro—mi zatrjuješ;—zakaj da gredo ptice jeseni proč, sedaj razumem. Toda zakaj pa se vračajo spomladi zopet vse z juga, kjer je vendar vedno tako ugodno podnebje in bogato pogrnjena miza, tega pa ne morem uvideti.
Tudi za ta pojav v naravi ni tako težavno najti razlage. Pomisli vendar, da so te
ptice rojene tukaj gori na severu. Tukaj je tekla njihova zibka, tukaj so si ustanovile svoje ognjišče in vzgajale s skrbi polnim trudom svoje otročiče. Taki spomini utegnejo pač za nekaj časa stopiti v ozadje v živalski družini, kadar jih popolnoma obvladuje potovalni nagon. Kadar pa se na novo oglasi va-lilni nagon, tedaj si lahko mislimo, da se obnovijo v malih ptičjih možganih tudi slike iz domovine, slika domačega gnezda, gozda in travnika, in sicer tako silno, da se loti njihovih srčec nepremagljivo hrepenenje in da dreve proti domu s tako naglico, ki je z mno-
go lagodnejšim jesenskim romanjem v čudnem nasprotju.
Tega pa še nisem slišal—praviš—, da lete ptice spomladi hitreje nazaj, nego jeseni proč od doma. Kdo je neki to dokazal in na kak način?
Gotovo, težavna je naloga opazovati različne vrste ptic na njihovem potovanju, posebno pa take, ki lete v neznanskih višiRah, kakor žerjavi in štorklje. Toliko pa je gotovo, da uporabljajo jeseni ptice ali samo dan ali pa
samo noč za potovanje, ostali čas dneva pa počivajo na pripravnih mestih in iščejo hrane, tako da minejo včasih celi tedni, preden doseže ptica svoje stalno mesto na daljnem jugu. Pri pomladnem potovanju pa take daljše zamude izostanejo popolnoma; to spoznamo iz čudovite natančnosti, s katero prihajajo nekatere ptice leto za letom k nam. Saj vendar velja o kukavici pravilo:	“Dne
17. aprila utegne priti, 18. in 19. mora tukaj biti.” Iz številnih opazovanj se da celo soditi, da izvrše mnoge ptice vso dolgo pot od bregov reke Nila ali od južnega roba Sahar-
ske puščave pa do domačih slovenskih livad v enem samem vzdržnem poletu.
Navadno seveda ne letajo ptice tako hitro. Saj se jim tudi tako ne mudi. Ako sediš v železniškem vozu in opazuješ vrane, ki lete v isti smeri ko vlak, se ti zdi večkrat, da stoje na enem in istem mestu pri miru, to se pravi: premikajo se v zraku s tako hitrostjo ko tvoj vlak in vendar leti sicer tako neokretna vrana trikrat tako hitro kakor brzovlak, seveda če ji je sila.
(Dalje prihodnjič.)
Copyright by the Art Institute of Chicago.
Lep jesenski dan.
Slovenci.
(Nadaljevanje.)
SLOVENSKI PREPOROD.
Reakcij onarni Metternichovi sveti aliansi je bil zadan smrtni udarec s pomladansko revolucijo v Parizu 1. 1848, ki je nepričakovano živahno odmevala v vsej srednji Evropi, zlasti v Avstriji. Že meseca marca se je dvignil Dunaj in cesar Ferdinand je moral bežati na Tirolsko in pozneje v Olomuc, kjer se je dne 2. decembra 1848.1. odpovedal prestolu na korist osemnajstletnemu Francu Jožefu I. Na Dunaju se je takoj sešel državni zbor, ki je nadaljeval potem svoje delo v Kromerižu in ki je takoj odpravil tlako in desetino ter sklenil več političnih svoboščin. Toda revolucijonarni dogodki v Avstriji sami, še bolj pa na Ogrskem in v italijanskih provincah, so zelo motili njegovo de-lazmožnost. Slovenskih poslancev je bilo v tem državnem zboru 16 izmed 383.
Slovenski narod je bil na ta prevrat precej pripravljen, kajti kmetsko ljudstvo je vedno neprijetneje žulil grajski jarem, inteligenca se je pa pod vplivom velike francoske revolucije in romantike vedno bolj zavedala svojega slovenskega pokolenja. Ni imel sicer še jasnega programa, a veliki predhodniki slovenskega narodnega preporoda so mu ustvarili vsaj najnujnejše predpogoje. Med temi bi bilo omeniti zlasti pesnika Valentina Vodnika, ki je izdajal za časa francoske okupacije prvi slovenski list “Ljublanske Novice,” potem njegovega učenega mecena in duševnega voditelja vse tedanje generacije, barona Zoisa, šolnika in pisatelja A. Linharta, po odhodu Francozov pa v prvi vrsti največjega slovenskega genija Fr. Prešerna in njegovega mentorja, svetovno izobraženega M. Copa, znamenitega slovničarja J. Kopitarja, znanega Ilirca St. Vraza in druge. Vsi ti so vztrajno orali ledino na literarnem in posredno tudi na političnem polju ter tako pripravljali narod na vstajenje 1. 1848.
Tako je našlo 1. 1848. Slovence že dokaj pripravljene in dunajska revolucija je bila signal tudi zanje. Kmetje so odrekli pokorščino graščakom, nekaj gradov so tudi razrušili, meščanstvo, zlasti mladina se je pa
pridružila dunajskim revolucijonarjem in jim poslala navdušene pozdrave, a na slovanski kongres v Prago so odposlali pet zastopnikov.
V	Ljubljani je izdajal (od 1. 1843) poznejši dolgoletni politični voditelj slovenskega naroda dr. Janez Bleiweis (1808—1881) tedaj že svoje kmetijske in rokodelske “Novice,” ki so postale na mah tudi najvažnejše politično glasilo slovenskega naroda. Povsod so se začela snovati politična društva, med katerimi so imela vodilno vlogo dunajska “Slovenija” pod predsedstvom znamenitega slavista Fr. Miklošiča, graška “Slovenija” in ljubljansko “Slovensko društvo” pod Bleiwei-sovim predsedstvom. Vzbrstelo je najživah-nejše politično in kulturno življenje, dunajska “Slovenija” je pa formulirala tudi prvi slovenski narodni in politični program, ki je bil odslej podlaga za vse nadaljnje boje. V smislu tega programa so zahtevali:
1. zedinjeno in avtonomno Slovenijo;
2. enakopravnost slovenskega jezika v šoli in uradu;
3. neodvisnost Avstrije od Nemčije in njeno slovansko orijentacijo.
Razen tega so pa že tedaj zahtevali čim tesnejšo združitev s Hrvati in Srbi, kar je bilo odslej stalno na slovenskem programu.
Poleg tega političnega programa je bilo pa za slovenski narod najvažnejše gospodarsko osvobojen j e, kajti graščak je bil še vedno dejanski gospodar slovenskega kmeta in njegove zemlje. Tudi to osvobojenje je v široki meri prineslo že 1. 1848., ko sta bili odpravljeni najprej tlaka in desetina, temu sledeča kmetska odveza je pa za odkupnino 20 milijonov goldinarjev rešila slovenskega kmeta in njegovo zemljo vsake odvisnosti od graščaka ter ga napravila samostojnega lastnika svoje zemlje. Kakšnega nedoglednega pomena je bilo to osvobojenje, nam najlepše dokazuje dejstvo, da je moral opravljati slovenski kmet dotlej letno okroglo 1.75 milj. dni osebne in okroglo 800.000 dni vprežne tlake, poleg tega pa še plačevati 1.17 milijonov goldinarjev davščin v denarju in pridelkih.
Tako je stopal torej slovenski narod 1. 1848., politično in kulturno prebujen ter gospodarsko osvobojen, v krog ostalih avstrijskih narodov ter se včasih vzajemno z njimi, včasih pa tudi na lastno pest boril za svoje nadaljnje pravice. Sicer je nastopila po viharnem letu 1848. kmalu zopet reakcija. Schwarzenberkova vlada je oktroirala tako zvano marčno ustavo ter izdala še nekaj drugih najnujnejših zakonov. Toda v tem je bila revolucija z rusko pomočjo strta in reakcija je dobila prosto pot. Ker se je državni zbor odločno uprl centralističnim tendencam vlade in dvora, je bil zopet razpuščen, kmalu nato preklicana ustava (1. 1851) in na vsej črti je zavladal Bachov centralistični in ger-manizatorični absolutizem (1852—1860), ki je odpravil tudi večino drugih revolucionarnih pridobitev. Bachov absolutizem je izročil v roke cerkve vse šolstvo, ki se je naslanjalo še vedno na šolski zakon iz 1. 1805.
Ker je Bachov zborovalni zakon prepovedoval vsakršna polit, društva, se je bilo treba omejiti zgolj na kulturno delo in kulturne naprave, med katerimi je najvažnejša ustanovitev “Družbe sv. Mohorja” (1. 1851. v Celovcu), dočim je vladalo drugod precejšnje mrtvilo. Nekoliko živahnejše je bilo le gibanje na gospodarskem polju, kajti v tej dobi je dobila Slovenija prve železnice (progo Dunaj—Trst), prve brzojavne zveze, trgovsko in obrtniško zbornico (1. 1850.), podpiralo se je kmetijstvo in na razvalinah starih cehov so nastali prvi pojavi obrtnega zadružništva.
Hudi porazi na italijanskih bojiščih (1. 1859.) ter vedno obupnejše stanje državnih financ so pa končno zlomili centralistični, bi-rokratični, germanizatorični in reakcionarni Metternichov duh, ki je še strašil med vodilnimi dunajskimi krogi. Bacha je zamenjal Goluchowski in na Dunaj je bil sklican državni svet ki naj bi spravil zopet v red zavoženo gospodstvo. Plod njegovih posvetovanj je bil oktobrski diplom (1860), ki je oživotvo-ril zopet državni zbor ter uredil odnošaje med deželami in državo. Ker sta bili dve tretjini državnega sveta za federativno ureditev države (tudi zastopnik Jugoslovanov, škof J. J. Strossmayer, je zastopal federalizem), je vel tudi iz oktobrskega diploma precej federali-
stičen duh, toda naslednji februarski patent (1861), ki je prinesel novo ustavo in določbe glede sestave državnega zbora in deželnih zborov, je precej revidiral stališče oktobrskega diploma. V ospredje vse politične borbe je stopilo sedaj ustavno vprašanje. Slovenci so izročili tedaj po dr. L. Tomanu ministru Schmerlingu peticijo z 20,000 podpisi, ki je zahtevala avtonomno in zedinjeno Slovenijo, toda po ljutih bojih je končno vendarle zmagalo centralistično stremljenje nemških liberalcev (1867), ki so postali po odcepitvi zadnjih italijanskih provinc (1. 1866; tedaj so prišli pod Italijo tudi beneški Slovenci) in odcepitvi Ogrske (1867) gospodarji politične situacije v Avstriji.
L. 1861 je dobila torej Avstrija zopet parlament in njene kronovine svoje deželne zbore s precejšnjo zakonodajno pravico. Dunajski parlament in goriški, tržaški, istrski, kranjski, koroški in štajerski deželni zbori so bili odslej one tribune, kjer se je slovenski narod z večjimi ali manjšimi uspehi vztrajno boril za enakopravnost z ostalimi avstrijskimi narodi. Ta boj je podpiralo neumorno in sistematično kulturno, politično in gospodarsko propagandno in organizatorično delo med širokimi plastmi naroda. Zato je narod povsod razen na koroški in štajerski jezikovni meji zdržema napredoval, a tudi tu bi se bila sistematična germanizacija vsled vedno močnejše narodove odporne sile kmalu zajezila.
Radi svoje maloštevilnosti niso imeli Slovenci v dunajskem parlamentu nikdar odločilne vloge, zato so bili seveda prisiljeni neprestano izpreminjati svojo taktiko; podpirali so vladno večino in prehajali na skrajno levico, kakor je trenutno bolje kazalo. Slovenski politični program je bil deloma še vedno oni iz 1. 1848., ki so ga seveda še stalno izpopolnjevali, pot, po kateri so ga hoteli doseči, je bila pa v različnih časih različna. Cilj, za katerim je narod stremil, je bila popolna enakopravnost kakor na gospodarskem tako tudi na političnem in kulturnem polju. Trd je bil boj, ki so ga bojevali Slovenci, a ni bil brezuspešen, kajti priznati je treba, da se je Avstrija polagoma vendarle demokratizirala in da so si priborili v njej sčasoma precej pravic na vseh poljih.
V	šestdesetih in v začetku sedemdesetih
let so vodili sicer še ljute boje z nemško liberalnimi in centralističnimi vladami, ki so jim povsod kratile zakonite pravice, toda veliki avstrijski gospodarski polom 1. 1873, na-sprotstvo proti okupaciji Bosne in Hercegovine ter druge notranje politične zmede so končno omajale nemško liberalno prevlast (Auerspergov kabinet) in prišel je zmerni grof Edv. Taaffe, ki je potem dolgo let (1879—1893) vodil državo z nemško konservativno in slovansko večino ter dovoljeval ludi Slovencem marsikatere koncesije.
V	prvih letih ustavnega življenja so se uveljavljala v vsej zakonodaji nekatera načela, ki so zelo škodovala zdravemu gospodarskemu razvoju, zlasti na kmetih, kjer so vsled vedno rastoče zadolžitve in raznih uim trumoma propadale najlepše kmetije, toda v poznejših letih se je skušalo ublažiti te pogubne posledice s primernimi zakoni in intenzivno podporo kmetijstva, ki je prihajalo tudi radi občutne inozemske konkurence v vedno težavnejši položaj. Razdeljevali so velike komplekse občinskih pašnikov, podpirali zlaganje zemljišč, subvencijonirali so kmetijske družbe in kmetijske šole, uravnali so reke
in hudournike, pogozdovali Kras, podpirali ustanavljanje kmetijskih društev in zadrug, revidirali zemljiški davek itd. Ravno tako se je tudi skušalo s primernimi postavami povzdigniti propadajoče obrtništvo. Končno so zgradili v teh desetletjih več večjih in manjših železniških prog.
Hud je bil pa boj za jezikovne pravice v šoli in uradih, kajti prihajalo je mnogo več obljub kot pa dejanj. L. 1861 je bil izdan prvi slovenski sodni odlok, toda za vsako nadaljnjo drobtinico se je bilo treba trdo boriti
Enako ni hotela vlada dolgo ničesar slišati o slovenskem srednjem šolstvu, ki ga je obdržala tudi še po novem šolskem zakonu v svojih rokah. Število srednješolskih zavodov se se je sicer lepo pomnožilo, tako da je imelo že skoro vsako mestece svojo srednjo šolo, toda slovenski učni jezik so začeli polagoma uvajati šele v sedemdesetih letih. Sčasoma so si priborili Slovenci slovenske nižje razrede, v višjih razredih so se pa poučevali nekateri predmeti še do zadnjega v nemščini.
Več uspehov so si pa priborili Slovenci v deželnih zborih, ki so imeli precejšnjo zakonodajno pravico in so odločilno vplivali na
Copyright by the Art Institute of Chicago.
Na semenj!
(Prizor iz stare Srbije.)
gospodarski in kulturni razvoj posameznih kronovin. S sistematičnim delom so si priborili najprej absolutno gospodarstvo v kranjskem deželnem zboru ter vplivno moč v gori-škem in štajerskem ter deloma v tržaškem in istrskem, le na Koroškem niso mogli nikamor. Ko so dosegli to, se je začel nagel napredek. Ker je bilo izročeno šolstvo deželnim upravam, so si ustvarili tekom par desetletij naravnost vzorno ljudsko šolstvo, ki je popolnoma preobrazilo slovenski narod. Ni danes večje vasi brez moderne šolske zgradbe in posledica tega je, da danes med Slovenci analfabetov skoro ni več dobiti. Podlago šolski organizaciji je dajal moderni šolski zakon
iz 1. 1869 in na njegovih temeljih so posamezne dežele kar tekmovale v snovanju šol tako, da je bilo že 1. 1875. v posameznih slovenskih kronovinah skupno 483 popolnoma slovenskih osnovnih in 235 mešanih, 1. 1894. celo 662 slovenskih in 150 mešanih osnovnih šol. Žalostno je bilo stanje slovenskega šolstva samo na Koroškem.
Da bi ljudstvo ne moglo čitati slovenskih knjig, se v večini koroških šol ni poučevala niti latinica, temveč zgolj gotica.
Lepe uspehe je dosegalo tudi slovensko obrtno šolstvo.
(Dalje prihodnjič.)
Ksaver Meško:
O ptičici, ki je morilca preganjala.
V	samotni bajti kraj gozda je živel drvar. Živel je, kakor živi večina ljudi:	ne
kradejo, ne ubijajo, ne požigajo sosedom hiš, pa mislijo, da žive prav in pošteno in morajo imeti z njimi veselje vsi ljudje.
Prišla pa je na moža skušnjava. In ta je razodela in pokazala, kaj je v možu, kaj je vredno njegovo srce, koliko tehta njegova poštenost.
Prišla pa je skušnjava tako:
Sedel je nekoč po vročem dnevnem delu v gostilnici ob cesti nedaleč od gozda, v katerem je čez dan drvaril. Kar je prišel po cesti popoten človek in tudi zavil v krčmo. Bil je že prileten mož, suh in slaboten. Iz pogovora, ki se je razvil med tujcem in krčmarjem, je drvar izvedel, da gre neznanec na sejem v mesto, kjer namerava kupiti jarem volov, ker je svoje pred nekaj dnevi prodal, prav dobro prodal.
“Mož mora imeti od sile denarja s seboj,” je tedaj nekaj nenadoma zašepetalo drvarju. Drvar ni bil sicer mož denarja lačen, a zdaj ga je nekako čudno pogrelo: “Ko bi imel njegov denar, ne bi mi trebalo dan na dan tako težko delati”.
Kar zašumelo mu je v glavi. Naročil je še vina, misleč, da ga bo to umirilo. Pa ga je le huje razburilo, tako da se je nekoliko opotekal, ko je vstal, vzel iz kota sekiro ter se poslovil od gostilničarja.
Tisto pa, ki mu je poprej pošepetalo o denarju, je šlo z njim in mu je govorilo: “Skoz gozd mora tujec v mesto. Počakaj ga, morda dobiš njegov denar.”
Tako ves omamljen je bil drvar po teh besedah in po obilno zavžitem vinu, da je res sedel za grm ob cesti, krepkeje oprijel sekiro in čakal.
Solnce je že zašlo, večerni mir je legal na gozd, prvi mrak je pletel mehko, temotno kopreno čez svet, ko je zagledal drvar, venomer nemirno, a pozorno oprezujoč po cesti, tujca, naglo prihajajočega po cesti.
V	glavi mu je zašumelo še huje, krepkeje je prijel sekiro. Ko je prišel potnik do grma, je planil drvar na cesto in zamahnil s sekiro, da sam ni prav vedel kdaj in kako. Tujec je bolestno jeknil, se zrušil v prah in se ni več zgenil.
Drvar mu je vzel iz žepa mošnjo, preiskal ga še po telesu in res našel na prsih platneno vrečico, na trakovih čez vrat obešeno, z lepimi bankovci napolnjeno.
Razveseliti se je hotel drvar obilnega denarja, kar je začivkal ob njem droben glasek: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!”
“Presenečen se je drvar ogledal. In je videl drobno ptičico, na veji nad njim sedečo. Žalostno in očitajoče ga je gledala z
bistrimi očmi, podrhtevala s perutmi kakor v velikem nemiru in venomer vsa plašna ponavljala: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!”
“Ššt!” jo je plašil drvar. Zletela je res za vejico više, a tam sedla in spet bolestno čivkala: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!”
“Neumna živalca!” se je razsrdil drvar, pobral kamen in ga vrgel proti ptički. Zletela je globlje med vejevje, a tudi od tam venomer klicala: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!”
“O ti mrcina!” je klel drvar vznemirjen in razi jučen. “Kriči, kolikor hočeš. Briga me!”
A dasi se je z besedo junaško postavljal, mu je bilo pri srcu zelo tesno. Najrajši bi zbežal. A si je rekel:	“Mrtveca moram na
vsak način spraviti v stran.”
Zavlekel ga je globlje v šumo in ga skril pod vejevje, ki je bilo tamkaj nagromadeno od nedavno podrte bukve.
Legel je nedaleč proč na mah in čakal, da bi se povsem stemnilo. “V noči ga ponesem do reke za gozdom in ga vržem v vodo.”
A komaj se je stegnil po mahu, čuj iz vejevja: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!”
“O ti kanacija,” se je srdil drvar, “ali ne boš šla spat? Saj je skoraj že noč.”
Toda ptičici se ni prav nič mudilo spat. Čim tiše in pokojnejše je postajalo po gozdu, tem glasneje se je z vej nad drvarjem razlegal glas čudne ptičice:	“Ubil si
ga! Ubil si ga!”
“Najbolje bi bilo, če bi šel domov in legel v postelj. A tukaj mrtveca ne smem pustiti. Izdalo bi me to.”
Bridko se je kesal svojega zločina. “Kako sem le mogel storiti to?” se je vprašal obupan in se grabil za vročo glavo. “Pol življenja bi dal, če bi mogel ubožčka spet obuditi.”
A storjeno je bilo storjeno.
Ko se je povsem stemnilo, si je naložil mrliča na rame ter ga nesel skoz gozd proti reki. Lehak resnično ni bil. Pot je lil drvarju po čelu, tako ga je nosil. A še hujše težave mu je delal neprestani klic, ki je šel za njim skoz ves gozd:	“Ubil si ga! Ubil
si ga!”
V	žepu pa ga je pekel in žgal denar, kakor bi imel žareče oglje v žepu in ne hladnih
papirnatih bankovcev. In tako težak je bil denar v žepu kakor mrlič na rami.
“Kako me je vendar preslepil ta denar?” je s strahom in trepetom premišljeval drvar. “In kaj naj počnem z njim? Saj še kupiti ne bom ničesar smel, da se ne izdam. Vrnem možu denar.”
In res mu je potisnil mošnjiček nazaj v žep, vrečico z bankovci mu obesil spet okoli vratu ter jo skril pod obleko na prsih. Potem je vrgel mrtveca v vodo in zbežal domov. Zaklenil je duri in jih še zapahnil, zaprl okna ter ves spehan in zdelan legel na trdo postelj.
Spal je malo in nemirno. Ko se je o prvem svitu zbudil iz divjih sanj, je zaslišal skoz okno jasen glas ptičke:	“Ubil	si	ga!
Ubil si ga!”
Vroče je postalo drvarju.
“Res preneumno, da me je videla ta pusta stvarca, ko sem ... Pa me bo zdaj res vsepovsodi preganjala?”
V	resnici ga je preganjala vsepovsodi; nikjer in nikoli ni imel miru pred njo.
Svetna pravica je pač preiskovala, kaj in kako bi bilo s smrtjo kmetovo. Ker ga je voda vrgla na prod šele čez štirinajst dni, se zločin ni dal tako natančno dognati. Mogoče bi tudi bilo, da je nekoliko preveč pil in je v temi in poti nevajen sam zašel v vodo, zlasti ker oropan ni bil.
Gosposka je zaslišala gostilničarja, kjer je tujec pod večer pred smrtjo pil. Ker je ta izpovedal, da je bil s tujcem v krčmi tudi drvar, so povabili tudi tega. A delal se je tako neumnega in preprostega, da je sodnika povsem prepričal o svoji nedolžnosti. Le en hip se je sodnik silno začudil in podvomil
o	nedolžnosti moževi. Na okno preiskovalne sobe je sedla drobna ptičica, dva trikrat kratko zapela, in sodnik je videl, kako se je drvar okrenil preplašen proti oknu in prebledel. A učeni gospod, sam pravičen in brez zločina na vesti, ni razumel glasu ptičke: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!” Drvar pa se je izgovarjal, da mu je postalo slabo, ker je napravil že dolgo pot, pa še nič jedel ni.
Tako je človeška pravica izpustila drvarja kot nedolžnega; ni pa ga izpustila večna pravica, ni ga izpustila njena poslanka in maščevalka, drobna ptičica.
Bila mu je za petami vsepovsodi: doma in na poti, pri delu in pri počitku, pri pitju in pri jedi. Zadnje besede, ki jih je slišal zvečer, predno je zadremal, so bile:	“Ubil
si ga! Ubil si ga!” Ptičica, na drevesu ob koči sedeča, jih je klicala v sobo. Prvi pozdrav zjutraj je bil:	“Ubil	si	ga!	Ubil	si
ga!” Drvar, ki je poprej po težkem dnevnem delu zaspal takoj, ko je legel, in je spal, da bi komaj komaj slišal, če bi se podirala bajta nad njim, je zdaj ležal pol noči brez spanja, pol noči je dremal v nekaki bolestni omotici. A še v to poldremanje mu je kar na lepem zazvenel očitajoči klic:	“Ubil si ga! Ubil
si ga!” Plašno je planil pokonci in poslušal, ali morda že gredo, da ga vklenejo, ga odžene-jo v ječo, ga obsodijo in obesijo. Kadar je šel na delo v gozd, mu je sledila ptičica od drevesa do drevesa z neprestanim očitanjem: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!” Kadar je delal, žagal debele hlode, da je žaga pela, brnela in škripala, kadar je cepil drva, da je jek grmel po lesu, je še glasneje, še razločneje zvenelo z bližnjega drevesa:	“Ubil	si	ga!
Ubil si ga!” Ce je ves obupan šel v gostilnico, je že sedela zunaj na drevesu pred oknom, na oknu samem, ptičica. Klicala je venomer: “Ubil si ga! Ubil si ga!” Pil je nekoč do popolne pijanosti, da je ne bi slišal. A tedaj je krčmarju izblebetal, da ga zasleduje in preganja neka vražja ptica ter mu ne da miru ne ponoči, ne podnevi. Krčmar je napel ušesa, pozoren je postal; lokavo je začel izpraševati drvarja, vleči iz njega skrivnost, v najglobljo globočino srca zakopano, tako da se je drvar celo v težki pijanosti ustrašil in se v hipu skoraj docela iztreznil. Od tedaj ni več upal piti čez mero.
Drvar je preganjal neumorno zasledo-valko in znaniteljico njegovega zločina z vso silo, z vsem srdom razdvojenega in obupanega srca. Kamenja je zlučal za njo na cente, zastonj. Zanke ji je nastavljal, zastonj. Celo puško si je izposodil, češ, da mu lisica kokoši odnaša in jo bo s strelom splašil. A je streljal le za ptičko, zastonj. Nikoli je ni pogodil kak strel.
Tako je drvar polagoma omagal v boju z drobno ptičico, povsem skoraj obupal. V dobrem letu so mu poprej vranječrni lasje postali beli ko sneg. Oči, poprej mirne in
zadovoljne, so zdaj izbegavale vsakomur, vsakogar se bale. Sključil se mu je hrbet pod težkim bremenom, in roke, ki niso nič drhtele, ko je zamahnil po človeku, da bi mu vzel najdragocenejši dar, življenje, so se mu tresle, da skoraj delati ni več mogel.
Pa si je obupani mož rekel: “Saj je to življenje hujše ko smrt. Ne morem več tako živeti, ne več poslušati te neznosne ptice, ne več nositi te butare na srcu. V mesto pojdem, na pravico, in razodenem svoj greh.”
A še se je dolgo bojeval sam s seboj, dolgo omahoval. A ko mu je ptičica klicala vse dni in noči, brez prestanka mu očitala greh, da ni mogel podnevi več delati, ne ponoči zatisniti oči od mraka do zore, ni mogel več vztrpeti.
Vstal je nekega jutra, se lepo umil, oblekel si prazniško obleko in odšel na tešč v mesto.
Prišel je v mesto, povprašal po sodniku. Po povpraševanju sem in tja je res prišel pred pravega. Rekel mu je:
“Ne zamerite, gospod sodnik, nekaj važnega bi vam rad povedal.”
“Povejte!”
Pa je začel in je pripovedoval, kako se mu je zbudil v srcu pohlep po denarju, da je umoril ljudskega človeka sredi poti. Nihče ga ni videl, edino drobna ptičica. In kako mu je ta ptičica sledila na vseh njegovih potih ter mu neprestano očitala njegov greh. Očitala mu tako dolgo, da je ne more več poslušati, ne nositi skrivnega zločina na svoji duši. Pa je prišel, da bi se obtožil in prosil, naj ga sodijo po pravici in po zasluženju.
Star mož je bil sodnik, mnogo izkušen v življenju. Pozorno je poslušal izpoved drvarjevo, še genil se ni, da ga ne bi zmotil in zmedel.
Ko je drvar nehal, je sodnik nekaj časa molčal, zamišljeno gladil sivo brado, motreč morilca, a ne strogo in sovražno, ampak sočutno in usmiljeno. Čez čas je počasi izpre-govoril:
“Ali veš, kdo je bila ta ptičica? Tvoja vest. A hvaležen ji bodi, da te je privedla sem, da plačaš svoj dolg pravici.”
Tedaj je drvar čutil, kako se mu je oprostilo njegovo srce strašnih okov, ki so ga toliko časa in tako grozno stiskale.
GUY DE MAUPASSANT:	SimOIlOV	0&.
Poldne je odzvonilo. Odprla so se šolska vrata in že so se vsuli skozi nje dečki, se prerivali, kdo bo prej na cesti, in razgrajali. Ali tisti dan se niso tako hitro razšli h kosilu kakor druge dni; takoj tam zunaj so se ustavili, stopili v gručo in si nekaj šepetali.
Ta dan je bil namreč Simon, sinček Blan-chotte, prvikrat v šoli.
Vsi so že ujeli doma kako besedo o Blan-chotti. ‘
Vaške žene so se ji sicer kazale prijazne, med seboj so pa govorile o njej z velikim zaničljivim sočutjem, ki so ga občutili še otroci, dasi niso vedeli zakaj.
Simona niso poznali. Bil je vedno doma in se ni preganjal z njimi po vasi in ob vodi. Pa ga tudi niso nič kaj radi videli. Zato so si pa pripovedovali zdaj s posebnim veseljem in hkrati z nemajhnim začudenjem besede, ki jim jih je povedal paglavec štirinajstih, petnajstih let in jim povrh pomežiknil, češ da ve še več:
“Veš, ta-le Simon, ta pa nima očeta.” Prišel je iz šole še Simon, sinček Blan-chotte. Bilo mu je sedem ali osem let, malo bled je bil, zelo snažen, vedel se je bojazljivo, skoraj nerodno.
Hotel je domov k materi, ali tovariši, ki so stali v gručah, čebljali in ga pogledovali, kakor pogledujejo otroci, kadar snujejo kako porednost, so ga obstopili. Iznenaden in v zadregi se je vstavil; nič ni vedel, kaj bi mu radi. Večji paglavec, ki je govoril o njem tiste besede, je bil ponosen nad učinkom, ki je bil njegovo delo, in je vprašal dečka:
“Kako ti je pa prav za prav ime?” “Simon,” je odvrnil.
“Simon, pa naprej?”
“Simon,” je ponovil preplašeni otrok. Paglavec se je zadrl:
“Simon je premalo. Kaj je to, Simon? Povej celo ime!”
Dečku je šlo na jok, pa je odgovoril tret-jikrat:
“Simon sem.”
Paglavci so se zakrohotali. Večji paglavec je zmagoslavno vzkliknil:
“Ali zdaj vidite, da nima očeta?”
Vse je utihnilo. To se jim je zdelo tako nenavadno, tako nemogoče in tako strašno, da so kar zijali. Deček brez očeta! Pa so ga gledali kakor čudo, kakor nenaravno bitje. In zaničevanje, ki je navdajalo njih matere do Blanchotte in ki ga dotlej še niso razumeli, je raslo v njih srcih.
Simon se je bil pa naslonil na drevo, da bi ne omahnil. Strašna nesreča ga je doletela vse preveč iznenada. Hotel si je stvar razložiti. Mogel se pa ni domisliti nič takega, kar bi lahko ovrglo strašni očitek, da nima očeta. Bled kakor zid je zaklical kar tako:
“Saj imam očeta.”
“Kje ga pa imaš?” se je hitro oglasil zopet oni paglavec.
Simon je molčal; ni vedel, kje ga ima. Otroci so se glasno zakrohotali. Teh vaških paglavcev, ki so rasli sporedno z živalmi, se je lotilo kruto poželenje, da bi se zagnali vanj kakor kure, ki kavsajo po ranjeni tovarišici.
Simon je zagledal malega soseda, sinčka vdove, ki ga je tudi videl vedno samo z materjo.
“Ti ga tudi nimaš več,” se je obrnil k njemu, “ti tudi nimaš več očeta.”
“Kdo pravi, da ne! Jaz, jaz ga že imam,” se je odrezal oni.
“Pa povej, kje?”
“Umrl je,” je razložil otrok samozavestno. “Tam doli počiva!”
Te besede so paglavci kar požirali in tiho so mu pritrjevali, kakor da bi bil tovariš, ki je imel očeta na pokopališču, zato kaj več vreden, oni, ki ga sploh ni imel, pa zdaj še toliko manj. In ti malopridneži, ki so jim bili očetje skoraj sami zločinci, pijanci in tatovi in so doma matere pretepali, so silili zmerom bolj v Simona, kakor bi ga hoteli, oni, legitimni, njega, brezpravnega, pri tej priči zdrobiti.
Tisti, ki mu je bil najbližji, mu je pokazal jezik in porogljivo zaklical:
“Ajej, ti pa nimaš očeta!”
Simon ga je zgrabil z obema rokama za lase, ga od vseh strani obrcal in vzgriznil v lice. Ali je završalo! Ločili so ju, Simona
pa pretepli, razpraskali in pohodili, da se je valjal po tleh, potem pa veselo tleskali z rokami. Ko se je pobral in mehanično brisal z roko prašni suknjič, ga je še nekdo malo podražil:
“Pa pojdi in povej očetu!”
Bridka bol mu je segla v srce. Bili so močnejši od njega, tepli so ga, pa jih še zavrniti ni mogel, zakaj dobro je čutil, da res nima očeta. Poskušal je ponosno premagati solze; dolgo jih je požiral, nazadnje so se mu le udrle. Ni kričal, samo ihtel je silno in brez prenehanja.
Njegove sovražnike je navdalo divje veselje. V svoji divji radosti so se prijeli kakor divjaki za roke, zaplesali okoli njega in ponavljali refren:
“Ti pa nimaš očeta!”
Zdaj pa je Simon nehal ihteti. Razkačil se je. Zagledal je na tleh kamne, jih pobral in zalučal na vso moč v svoje preganjalce. Dva ali trije, ki jih je zadel, so zbežali. Videti je bil tako strašen, da so dobili strah še drugi. Množica se obupanega človeka boji, in razkropili so se strahopetno in zbežali.
Ko je bil mali deček brez očeta sam, je stekel proti polju. Zmislil se je na nekaj in storil velik sklep. Hotel se je v reki utopiti.
Spomnil se je, da je pred osmimi dnevi skočil v vodo siromak, ki je živel od tega, kar je priberačil, pa se ga ni nazadnje nihče več usmilil. Simon je videl, kako so ga potegnili iz vode. In nesrečni mož, ki se mu je zdel vse dotlej tako pomilovanja vreden, umazan in ostuden, ga je s svojim mirnim izrazom presenetil. Lica so mu bila bleda, brada mokra in oči vdane. Ljudje so rekli: Mrtev je!—Nekdo je še dodal: Zdaj je pa srečen.—Pa se je hotel utopiti še Simon. Oni nesrečnež ni imel denarja, on pa očeta ne.
Stopil je čisto k vodi in videl, kako je tekla svojo pot. V jasnih valovih so se poigravale ribice, se metale nad vodo in hlastale po mušicah, ki so letale nad njo.-’ Gledal je ta prizor s takim zanimanjem, da je kar nehal jokati. Ali kakor se zažene ob nevihti burja z vso silo, in podira drevesa, potem pa se izgubi v daljavi, tako se je vzbudila tudi v njem zdaj pa zdaj misel:	Utopil se
bom, ker nimam očeta. -----------
Lep, gorak dan je bil. Prijazno solnce
je ogrevalo zelenje. Voda se je lesketala kakor zrcalo. Simona je semintja veselo izpre-letelo, čutil je, da mu je odleglo, saj človeku vedno odleže, če se razjoka. In zahotelo se mu je, da bi legel v gorko travo.
Blizu njega je skočila žabica in hotel jo je uloviti. Živalca pa mu je ušla. Iztegnil se je za njo in segel po njej trikrat zaman. Nazadnje jo je pa le ujel za krak in se smejal, ko je videl, kako se trudi, da bi mu ušla. Žabica se je skrčila, potem pa sunkoma iztegnila, tako da so bili njeni kraki trdi in sab-ljicam podobni. Očesci sta bili okrogli, okoli njih je bil zlat rob: prednja kraka sta cepetala v zraku kakor ročice. To ga je spomnilo na igračko iz ozkih deščic, ki so bile križem prirtjene druga na drugo. Sprožila se je kakor žabica in lesene figure na njej so se premikale. Zmislil se je na dom, na mater, prevzela ga je nova žalost in zopet je za-plakal. Izpreletela ga je po vsem životu groza, zaihtel je iznova tako silno, da ga je vsega pretreslo. Nič več ni mislil, nič več videl, kaj se godi okoli njega, samo jokal je.
Zdaj pa je nekdo položil težko roko na njegovo ramo in ga s krepkim glasom nagovoril :
“Zakaj si pa tako žalosten, dečko?”
Simon se je obrnil. Velik delavec s kratkimi kodri in z brado se je prijazno sklonil k njemu. S solznimi očmi in drobnim glasom mu je odgovoril:
“Natepli so me, ker . . . ker nimam . . . očeta.”
“Kaj da ne,” se je nesmehnil mož. “Vsak človek ima očeta.”
Otrok si je prizadeval, da bi skril bolest, in rekel:
“Jaz . . . jaz ga pa nimam.”
Delavcu se je lice zresnilo. Izpoznal je sinčka Blanchotte. Dasi še ni bil dolgo v tistem kraju, je že nekoliko poznal njeno živ-1 jensko zgodbo.
“Le tiho bodi, fantiček,” je tolažil dečka. “Stopiva k mami; ti moraš dobiti očeta.”
Pa sta šla. Mož je držal dečka za roko in se smehljal. Bilo mu je čisto prav, da vendar že ugleda tisto Blanchotto, o kateri so pravili, da je bila med najlepšimi dekleti
vse okolice. Morda si je prav naskrivoma celo kaj obetal.
Prišel je pred snažno hišico.
“Pred našo hišo sva,” je rekel deček in zaklical:
“Mama!”
Prikazala se je žena in delavca je minil smeh; precej je videl, da se s to veliko, bledo ženo ne bo dalo šaliti. Obstala je resno med vrati, kakor bi hotela braniti hišni prag, ki ga je nekoč izdal moški, zdaj pred drugim moškim. Boječe, s čepico v roki je delavec zajecljal:
“Vašega fantička sem pripeljal, ki se je izgubil ob vodi.”
Simon je objel mater okoli vratu in v solzah vzkliknil:
“Ne, mama, nisem zašel, utopiti sem se hotel, ker so me pretepli . . . pretepli zato, ker nimam . . . očeta.”
Lica mlade žene so zagorela, zgrabilo jo je na dnu duše in poljubljala je strastno svojega otroka, po obrazu pa so ji lile solze. Tudi delavca se je lotilo razburjenje in sam ni vedel, kako bi se umeknil. Takrat je pa skočil predenj Simon in ga vprašal:
“Ali hočeš biti moj oče?”
Vse tiho je bilo. Blanchotte se je nema in osramočena naslonila na zid in stiskala srce z rokami. Ko je otrok videl, da ni odgovora, je zopet začel:
“Ce nečeš, pojdem nazaj tja in se utopim.”
Delavec je zdaj obrnil stvar na smešno stran in v smehu odgovoril:
“Seveda bi bil rad.”
“Kako ti je pa ime,” je vprašal otrok. “Da bom vedel, če me zopet vprašajo!”
“Filip,” je pojasnil mož.
Simon je malo pomolčal in si skušal zapomniti ime, potem mu je pa dal potolažen roko in rekel:
“Dobro, Filip, ti si moj oče.”
Delavec je dečka vzdignil, ga poljubil na obe lici in odhitel z dolgimi koraki.
Ko je prišel deček drugi dan v šolo, so se mu hudobno rogali. Ko so odhajali iz šole in so ga malopridneži hoteli zopet zasramovati, jim je Simon kakor kamenje zabrusil v obraz besede:
“Moj oče je Filip.”
Vsi so se mu zakrohotali.
“Kateri Filip?—Kakšen Filip?—Kdo pa je tisti Filip?—Kje si pa tega Filipa pobral?”
Simon je bil tiho. V svoji veri neomajen je nezaupljivo opazoval vsako njihovo kretnjo in bi se bil dal rajši mučiti do smrti, kakor da bi pred njimi zbežal. Rešil ga je učitelj in vrnil se je k materi.
V	naslednjih treh mesecih je šel delavec Filip dostikrat mimo hiše Blanchotte in jo včasih, ko je šivala pri oknu, kar ogovoril. Odzivala se je vljudno, zmerom resno, nikoli se mu ni nasmehnila in nikoli ga ni povabila v hišo. Vendar si je pa domišljal, kakor so že nečimrni vsi moški, da je bila včasih, ko je z nj° govoril, nekoliko bolj rdeča kakor po navadi.
(Dalje prihodnjič.)
Naš kotiček.
Uganke.
17.
Nima volje, ne želje in ne razuma, pa vendar prevrže človeško pamet. Kaj je to?
' 18.
Beseda kratka je, da veš; gotovo rad to jed poješ.
Če jo obrneš, koj zbežiš, ker te zveri se ti bojiš.
19.
Sedijo tri mačke. Proti vsaki mački sedita dve mački. Koliko jih je v celem?
*	* *
Rešitve ugank.
15.
Rešitev besedne uganke.
	C	
G	A	D
0	S	A
0	J	E
		M	I	Z	A	R		
		S	U	L	E	C		
	L	U	B	A	D	A	R	
E	L	E	K	T	R	I	K	A
P	0	D |	M j	o !	R	N	I	K
Čas je zlato. *
16.
Ako izvršiš vse račune, dobiš prvotno število v obratnem številčnem redu.
Rešilci.
Obe uganki je rešil: Frank Virant, Imperial, Pa.
*
Uganko št. 15 sta rešili: Theresa Smith, Chicago, 111. Mary Kozole, Philadelphia, Pa.
Junak.
Ribičev pes je gledal, kako zahaja solnce za morje.
“Kakšno čudo je to?” je mislil pes in začel lajati na solnce. Psa je bilo vedno bolj strah žarečega solnca in je vedno močneje lajal.
Kmalu nato je solnce zašlo, kakor da ga je morje požrlo.
“Pa sem ga le odgnal,” se je hvalil pes. “Bil sem res junak.”
POZOR!
Znano Vam je najbrže, mladi bratci in sestrice, da se gre sedaj za obstoj našega Mladinskega lista. Osma redna konvencija S. N. P. J., ki se je vršila pred kratkim v Waukeganu, 111., je sklenila, da naj članstvo odloči, ali naj Mladinski list še nadalje izhaja, ali pa če se ga naj odpravi in mesto njega izdaja glasilo v angleščini. Odrasli sedaj razpravljajo o tem vprašanju v “Prosveti,” Vi pa, za katere je to vprašanje še najbolj važno, pa izrazite svoje mnenje, želje in nasvete v svojem Mladinskem listu, ki Vam je tudi v ta namen na razpolago.
V	prihodnji številki bo priobčeno natančnejše poročilo in pojasnilo o tej stvari.
Sedaj pa takoj na delo, da ne bo nič zamujenega!
Z bratskim pozdravom!
Vaš	urednik.
Volume I'
JUVENILE
MONTHLY MAGAZINE FOR YOUNG SLOVENIANS IN AMERICA
OCTOBER 1925.
Number 10.
Professor E. S. Holden: ^hat IS EVOlutiOll?
I was once trying to tell a boy, a friend of mine, what the scientific men mean by the long word “Evolution,” and to give him some idea of the plan of the world. I wanted an illustration of something that had grown —evolved, developed—from small beginnings up through more and more complete form. I could think of no better example than the railway by which we were sitting. The trains were running over the very track where a wagon-road had lately been, and before that a country cart-track, and before that a bridle-path, and before that again a mere trail for cattle. So I took the road for an example, and tried to show my boy how it had grown from little things by slow degrees according to laws; and if you like, I will try to tell it again.
Just as one can go further and further back, and always find a bird to be the parent of the egg, and an egg to be the parent of that bird, so in the history of this road of ours; we may go back and back into the past, always finding something earlier, which is the cause of the something later. The earth, the planets, and the sun were all a fiery mist long ago. And in that mist, and in what came before it, we may look for the origin of things as they are. But we must begin somewhere. Let us begin with the landscape as we see it now,—hills, valleys, streams, mountains , grass—but with only a single tree.
We will not try to say how the tree came there. At least, we will not try just yet. When we are through with the story you can say just as well as I can.
Suppose, then, a single oak-tree stood just on that hillside thousands and thousands
of years ago. Grass was growing everywhere, and flowers, too. The seeds came with the winds. Year after year the oak-tree bore its acorns, hundreds and hundreds of them, and they fell on the grass beneath and rolled down the smooth slopes, and sprouted as best they could.—most of them uselessly so far as producing trees were concerned,—but each one did its duty and furnished its green sprout, and died if it found no nourishment.
All the hundreds of acorns rolled down the slopes. Not one rolled up; and here was a law,—the law of gravitation,—in full activity. There were scores of other laws active, too; for evolution had gone a long way when we had an earth fit to be lived on, and hills in their present shape, and a tree bearing acorns that would reproduce their kind. But ever since the fiery mist this simple law of gravitation has been acting, binding the whole universe together, making a relationship between each clod and every other clod, and forcing every stone, every acorn, and every rain-drop to move down and not up.
Just as this law operates,—continuously, silently, inexorably,—so every other law makes itself felt in its own sphere. Gravitation is simple. The law according to which an acorn makes an oak- and not a pine-tree is complex. But the laws of Nature are all alike, and if we understand the simple ones, we can at least partly comprehend the more complex. They are nothing but fixed habits on a large scale.
So the acorns fell year by year and sprouted; and one out of a thousand found good soil, and was not wasted, and made a tree. And so all around (below) the tree with which we started there grew a grove
of oaks like it, in fact its children; and finally the original trees died, but not without having left successors.
First of all, the green hillside is smooth and untrodden. There is nothing but grass and flowers, borne there by the winds, which leave no track. There is no animal life even in this secluded spot save the birds, and they too leave no track. By and by there comes a hard winter, or a dearth of food, and a pair of stray squirrels emigrate from their home in the valley below; and the history of our hill and its woods begins. Mere chance decides the choice of the particular oak-tree in which the squirrels make their home. From the foot of this tree they make excursions here and there for their store of winter food, —acorns and the like,—and they leave little paths on the hillside from tree to tree.
The best-marked path runs to the places where there are the most acorns. A little later on there are more squirrels in the colony,—the young of the parent pair, and other colonists from the valley. The little tracks become plainer and plainer.
Later still come other wild animals in search of food,—squirrels will do. The wild animals do not remain in the colony (there are too few squirrels, and they are too hard to catch), but they pass through it, sometimes by day but oftenest by night.
You might think it was perfectly a mat-ret of chance along which path a bear or a wolf passed, but it was not. He could walk anywhere on the hillside; and sometimes he would be found far out of the paths that the squirrels had begun. But usually, when he was in no haste, he took the easiest path. The easiest one was that which went between the bushes and not through them; along the hillside and not straight up it; around the big rocks and not over them. The wolves and bears and foxes have new and different wants when they come, and they break new paths to the springs where they drink, to the shade where they lie, the hollow trees where the bees swarm and store the wild honey.
But the squirrels were the first surveyors of these tracks. The bears and wolves are the engineers, who change the early paths to suit their special convenience.
By and by the Indian hunter comes to follow the wild game. He, too, takes the easiest trail, the path of least resistance; and he follows the track to the spring that the deer have made, and he drinks there. He is an animal as they are, and he satisfies his animal wants according to the same law that governs them.
After generations of hunters, Indians, and then white men, there comes a man on horseback looking for a house to live in. He, too, follows along the easiest paths and stops at the spring; and near by he finds the place he is looking for. Soon he returns, driving before him herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, which spread over the grassy glades to feed. But everywhere they take the easiest place, the old paths, from the shady tree to the flowing spring. After awhile the hillside is plainly marked with these sheep trails. You can see them now whenever you go into the country, on every hillside.
Soon there are neighbors who build their homes in the next valley, and a good path must be made between the different houses.
A few days” work spent in moving the largest stones, in cutting down trees, and in levelling off a few steep slopes, makes a trail along which you can gallop your horse.
Things move fast now,—history begins to be made quickly as soon as man takes a hand in it. Soon the trail is not enough: it must be widened so that a wagon-load of boards for a new house can be carried in (for the settler has found a wife). After the first cart-track is made to carry the boards and shingles in, a better road will be needed to haul firewood and grain out (for the wants of the new family have increased, and things must be bought in the neighboring village with money, and money can only be had by selling the products of the farm). By and by neighborhood is so well inhabited that it is to the advantage of the villages all around it to have good and safe and easy roads there; and the road is declared a public one, and it is regularly kept in repair and improved at the public expense. Do not forget the squirrels of long ago. They were the projectors of this road. Their successors use it now,—men and squirrels alike,—and svod
at the spring to drink, and under the huge oaks to rest.
A few years more, and it becomes to the advantage of all to have a railway through the valley and over the hillside. Then a young surveyor, just graduated from college, comes with his chain-men and flag-men, and finds that the squirrels, and bears, and hunters, and the rest have picked out the easiest way for him long centuries ago. He makes his map, and soon the chief engineer and the
president of the road drive along in a buggy with a pair of fast horses (frightening the little squirrels off their road-way and into their holes), and the route of the Bear Valley and Quercus Railway is finally selected, and here it is. See! there comes a train along the track. This is the way a railway route grew out of a squirrel path. There are thousands of little steps, but you can trace them, or imagine them, as well as I can tell you.
It is the same all over the world. Stanley cut a track through the endless African forests: But it lay between the Pygmy villages, along the paths they had made, and through the glades where they fought their battles with the storks.
Sometimes the first road is a river—the track is already cut. Try to find out where the settlements in America were in the very early days—before 1800. You will find them along the Hudson, the Juanita, the St. Law-
rence, the James, the Mississippi Rivers. But when these are left, men follow the squirrel-tracks and bear-tracks, or the paths of hunters, or the roads of Roman soldiers. It is a standing puzzle to little children why all the greatest rivers flow past the great towns. (Why do they?) The answer to that question will tell you why the great battles are fought in the same regions; why Egypt has been the coveted prize of a dozen different conquerors (it is the gateway of the East);
Copyright by the Art Institute of Chicago.
The Baby.
why our Civil War turned on the possession of the Mississippi River. It is the roadways we fight for, the ways in and out, whether they be land or water. Of course, we really fought for something better than the mere possession of a roadway, but to get what we fought for we had to have the roadway first.
That great principle at the bottom of everything in Nature is that the fittest survives; or, as I think it is better to say it, in any particular conflict or struggle that thing survives which is the fittest to survive in this particular struggle. This is Mr. Darwin’s discovery,—or one of them,—and the struggle for existence is a part of the great struggle of the whole universe, and the laws of it make up the methods of Evolution—of Development.
It is clear now, is it not, how the railway route is the direct descendant of the tiny squirrel track between two oaks? The process of development we call Evolution, and you can trace it all around you. Why are your skates shaped in a certain way? Why is your gun rifled? Why have soldiers two sets of (now) useless buttons on the skirts of their coats? (I will give you three guesses
for this, and the hint that you must think of cavalry soldiers.) Why are eagles’ wings of just the size that they are? These and millions of like questions are to be answered by referring to the principle of development.
Sometimes it is hard to find the clew. Sometimes the development has gone so far, and the final product has become so complex and special, that it takes a good deal of thinking to find out the real reasons. But they can be found, whether they relate to a fashion, to one of the laws of our country, or to the colors on a butterfly’s wing.
There is a little piece of verse intended to be comic, which, on the contrary, is really serious and philosophical, if you understand it. Learn it by heart, and apply it to all kinds and conditions of things, and see if it does not help you to explain them to yourself . . .
“And Man grew a thumb for that he had need of it,
And developed capacities for prey.
For the fastest men caught the most animals,
And the fastest animals got away from the most men.
Whereby all the slow animals were eaten,
And all the slow men starved to death.”
Janet P. Shaw:
The Cuckoo House.
Did you ever hear of a house that pretended it was a cuckoo clock? Probably not, for this story happened a long, long time ago ■—during the Revolutionary War, in fact— and most people have forgotten it if they ever heard it. It was a very dignified house that played this trick and one that you would never suspect of such nonsense—the village inn—but of course you never can tell what a house will do any more than a person, when its country is in danger. And, to tell the truth, the house might never have done anything at all if it had not been for two young patriots, Ruth and Dan Brownley, the children of the inn keeper.
The Brownley Inn was a delightful place for any one to live. Down by the road hung the great sign which gave the inn its name, the Colonial Arms. An artist had come from New York just to paint that sign and had
worked many days upon it. On one side was a beautiful picture of the Goddess of Liberty for whom the colonies were fighting, and on the other, was a great chain, made of thirteen links, and in each link, a pine tree, a spreading maple, or graceful vine, or some other symbol which represented one of the colonies. Dan and Ruth thought that it was the most beautiful picture they had ever seen and loved it dearly. Did it not represent the dear country which they were so eager to serve ?
The house itself was built of small, brown bricks which had been brought from England more than a century before and which looked as though they could tell dozens of interesting stories if one could only understand brick language. And the tiny, square panes of glass in the windows had been washed by so many rains and snows that they had caught all the colors of the rainbow and shone like mother-of-pearl in the sunlight.
Up in the gable above the front door, was a window of colored glass, shaped like a fan, and below it were two shutters, so like the doors of the cuckoo clock down in the hall that Ruth and Dan often wondered why they never opened and let out a jolly little bird to call the hours. And, of course, that is where this story really begins, for when people begin to wonder why a thing doesn’t happen, it often does, you know.
As I told you before, this all happened during the Revolutionary War. The inn was not far from the camps of both the British and American troops and sometimes, when there was a battle, the children could hear the “Boom! Boom!’” of the great guns and even the “Rat! tat! tat!” of the muskets. And, of course, the soldiers from both camps often stopped at the inn.
One day there was a great deal of company in the house—great, tired-looking men they were, with muddy boots and heavy pistols, who came through the orchard at the back of the house. The children knew they were officers in the American army by the way they were hurried into a secret room and served with the best that Mrs. Brownley could supply.
Ruthie and Dan were all eyes and ears and got in everyone’s way without meaning to. They loved these men dearly who were fighting for their country, and they wanted to ask dozens and dozens of questions about the war. But Mrs. Brownley knew that the men had no time for young people just then, and so to their disappointment she soon sent them to the attic to play.
“Let’s have a game of hopscotch,” suggested Dan to fill the time. “I have the squares all marked out with red and blue and white and we can name them Trenton and Princeton and Morristown and other battle towns and surprise the enemy just the way Washington does.”
“That would be fun,” answered Ruth, “but I’m afraid that our poor soldiers are hungry. I think I’d better bake some pies and cakes and things for them.” She had brought some brown and white sand from the seashore the summer before, which made delicious looking food, and her father had made her a set of pewter-pans almost like
her mother’s, and so Ruthie was very proud of her sand cooking.
Before long Dan grew very warm playing soldier and decided to open the shutters of the cuckoo window. He had hardly opened them a crack, however, when to his surprise he saw a group of soldiers riding along the road to the inn. He knew they were British officers by their red coats and gold decorations. They stopped when they saw the bright new sign and began to discuss its meaning. Then, to Dan’s horror, they lifted their muskets and aimed at it and he had heard one cry, “It’s a traitorous sign and should be shot down! I’ll wager you a shining sovereign, Sir Captain, that you’ll miss the tip of yonder pine tree at a hundred paces.”
“Don’t scatter your gold abroad so recklessly, friend Hal,” answered his companion. “I’ll double your wager and win your pocket piece.”
“Bang!” went the first musket. “Bang!” answered the second.
“Hit the bull’s eye that time,” commented the captain, “but ’twas only chance. I’ll match you again. Since we have missed those Yankee plotters we have bullets to spare.”
“Bang, bang!” went the muskets again, but this time Dan had no ears for the shots. All of a sudden he had realized that these men were hunting for the weary, mud-spattered patriots downstairs and in a minute would be in the inn!
“Ruthie, Ruthie,” he called to his sister, “run downstairs and tell Father some British soldiers are out in the road in front of the inn and they are looking for the Americans who are meeting here. Run, Ruthie, run as fast as you can, while I stay here and try to keep them out of the house.”
Ruthie was not a very big girl but she understood that she might save the lives of the brave soldiers downstairs if she ran fast enough, and before Dan had finished she was halfway to the stairs. A minute later she was knocking at the door of the secret room.
Dan sighed with relief as he heard the door open, and turned back to the little window. There he found that the British, already weary of the game of defacing his
beautiful sign, had dismounted and were idly making their way up the walk to the inn. Something must be done at once to give the Americans more time to get away, and Dan knew that he was the only person who could do it.
Suddenly a plan popped into his head. He and Ruth had often played tricks on their friends by calling to them when they saw them passing along the road; perhaps if he pretended he was a cuckoo bird, the men would stop at least for a minute to laugh at him. That would give the colonial soldiers time to escape through the orchard, to the road half a mile away which led to headquarters and safety. Dan longed to look out of the window at the back of the attic to watch them riding away, but he was a soldier on picket duty and he knew that he must stick to his post.
While he had been doing all this thinking, he had also been acting. He ran to the corner and picked up Ruthie’s old cap which she had dropped there, and stuck it on his head. Then, when he thought the soldiers would see him, he flung open the little doors and called loudly, “Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo!” and bobbed up and down like the wooden cuckoo bird in the clock.
He was a comical enough figure for any one to laugh at and the fun-loving young Englishmen were more than glad to be amused. “A strange bird but a merry one!” cried one. “He wears King George’s colors on his head. Perhaps he’ll sing again. Come, Cuckoo!” And they laughed again.
Dan would gladly have snatched off the red cap when he heard that remark, but he knew that this was no time to be particular. Again he swung open the little doors and cried, “Cuckoo! Cuckoo!”
“By King George, the hour grows earlier instead of later, according to this bird. Come, Cuckoo, sing again and let’s see what hour it will be this time,” called out another soldier.
This was a funny game after all, decided Dan, and flung open the shutters. He tried to call twelve times but choked on his laughter and had to stop at six. While Dan went for a drink, Ruth, who had returned
from her errand, took his place at the window.
“Oh, Dan,” she cried a minute later. “I believe the red coats are going around to the back of the house. Maybe they will see the horses’ tracks in the orchard and follow our men!”
Dan forgot his cough at this new danger. Something must be done at once to keep the British at the front of the inn. He looked around at the pleasant attic with its rafters festooned with strings of fragrant apples, onions, and red peppers; at the leather-covered trunks, and piles of furniture waiting to be mended. Then he caught sight of his grandfather’s fife and a home-made drum with which he and Ruth often played.
“Hooray!” he called softly to Ruth, “This cuckoo clock plays tunes as well as calls the hour. You keep time on the old drum the way Drummer Thompson does when he marches at the head of the soldiers and I’ll play “Yankee Doodle.”
“Hooray!” answered Ruth, and ran for the drum. And then, because they could keep time better when they were walking, they began to march round and round the big attic to the jolly old tune.
Now if there was any tune which the British didn’t like, it was “Yankee Doodle,” It was such a brave little tune which seemed to snap its fingers in their very faces. Then, too, they had heard it many times before hard-fought battles which they didn’t like to think about.
So, as soon as they caught the first notes, they stopped short and ran back to the road, ready to mount their horses and ride away. But, to their surprise, there were no Yankees to be seen anywhere. They sent scouts to the bend in the road. Still no signs of the -enemy, although the tune marched on and on.
Finally the captain, who had returned to the inn to peer in the windows, called, “The Yankees are in the house! I can hear them drilling in the attic. After me!” He flung open the front door and led the way up the stairs three steps at a bound. But, when he at last, reached the big, empty attic, he stopped bewildered. The tune had stopped
at last and the “enemy” stood white and frightened in the middle of the floor.
“Where’s the rest?” he asked Dan.
“Please, sir, there aren’t any more,” answered Dan, shaking a little because he didn’t know what soldiers did to boys who played tricks on them. “Nobody but Ruthie and me.”
But the big Englishman didn’t do anything. He called to his men with a laugh, “Come on up, men. It’s only the cuckoo bird —two of them—having a little dress parade all alone.”
Mr. Brownley came up just in time to join in the gay time which followed and soon they all went down to enjoy the feast which Mrs. Brownley and old Nancy had prepared.
When at last the Brittish left the hospitable table, they asked whether anyone had seen a score or more of Yankees who were said to be holding a conference some place
near. Strange to say, no one in that house had any information to give them. They never knew that they had been tricked out of their prey when it was almost within their grasp by the quick wit of a boy scarcely nine years old.
But Washington and his generals heard the whole story and not long after, Dan and Ruthie were invited to camp to be thanked by the great general himself. Of course, Ruthie had a new red cap for the occassion, and the soldiers begged so hard to hear the story that Dan borrowed the cap and bobbed up and down and called, “Cuckoo, cuckoo!” until the men roared with laughter.
But, when at last the children said good-by and rode through the camp on their way home, every soldier saluted them with real respect. It was as though they said, “You, too, are soldiers, working for the freedom of America.”
The Story of the Small Green Caterpillar and the Beautiful White Butterfly.
(Adapted.)
In a kitchen garden at the rear of an old, brick house in a country town, stood long rows of stately corn, whose shining green blades glistened in the sun and rustled if a passing breeze spoke to them. Near at hand were some thickly-leaved currant bushes which looked as if they had been so busy bearing bunches of juicy, red currants that they had found no time to grow tall like their neighbors, the corn.
Just across the garden-path was a fine bed of feathery asparagus, separated from the rest of the garden by a low wooden border about two inches high.' I do not know as to whether or not it was this exclusice life they lived that made them so lacking in strength, but they were swayed by the slightest breath of air, now this way and now that. In the same garden were many other vegetables, and towering far above them all were some giant plum trees. At least they seemed like giants to the potato vine and tomato plants near by, both of whom were of a
creeping nature and had a great admiration for anybody, or anything, that was higher than themselves. The young potato vines used to look up from the top of their hills and wonder if they would ever get as near to the sky as the branches of the plum trees seemed to be. Silly things! They did not know that their only value lay in their keeping close to the ground and bearing as many fine, smooth-skinned potatoes as possible; that is, the younger vines did not know this important fact.
Our story, however, is not about the potato vines, but of something very wonderful which took place upon the outside leaf of a round, green cabbage-head which stood along with the other cabbage-heads in one corner of the garden. I don’t believe you would have understood much of what was going on if you had been there, any more than did the happy-faced, little, black-eyed woman who owned the garden. She thought she loved her garden, every tree, and
shrub, and herb that grew in it; still she spent a great deal more time looking at the swift-flowing river and the stretch of hills beyond than she did at her cabbage-heads. Her neighbors said she was very fair-sighted and called her clever, but the ants and beetles which lived in the garden knew that she was dull, because she spent hours each day poring over stupid books, while the most wonderful things were happening all around her, under her very nose, as it were, or rather, I should say, perhaps, under her very feet — things far more interesting than her books could possibly have been.
Among these wonderful things of which her garden could have told her was the life-story of a little green caterpillar green cabbage-head. He was not an inch long and not much bigger around than a good-sized broom straw, yet he was an honest little fellow in his way, and spent most of his time crawling about on his cabbage-leaf and nibbling holes in it, which you know, is about all a caterpillar can be expected to do. The great, beautiful sun, high up in the sky, sent his bright rays of light down to warm the little caterpillar just as regularly and with seemingly just as much love as he sent them to make the thousand wavelets of the swift-flowing river sparkle and gleam like diamonds, or as he sent them down to rest in calm, still sunshine on the quiet hilltops beyond.
The little green caterpillar’s life was a very narrow one. He had never been away from his cabbage leaf, in fact he did not know that there was anything else in the world except cabbage leaves. He might have learned something of the beautiful silvery moon, or the shining stars, or the glorious sun itself, if he had ever looked up, but he never did, therefore the whole world was a big cabbage-leaf to him, and all of his life consisted in nibbling as much cabbage-leaf as Possible.
So you can easily imagine his astonishment when one day a dainty, white butterfly settled down beside him and began laying small green eggs. The little caterpillar had never before seen anything half so beautiful as were the wings of the dainty, white butter-
fly, and when she had finished laying her eggs and flew off, he for the first time in his whole life, lifted his head toward the blue sky that he might watch the quick motion of her wings. She was soon beyond the tallest leaves of the tomato plants, above the feathery tips of the fine asparagus, even higher than the plum trees. He watched her until she became a mere speck in the air and at last vanished from his sight. He then sighed and turned again to his cabbage leaf. As he did so his eyes rested on the twenty small green eggs which were no larger than pin heads.
“Did she leave these for me to care for?” said he to himself. Then came the perplexing question—how could he, a crawling caterpillar, take care of baby butterflies. He could not teach them anything except to crawl and nibble cabbage leaves. If they were like their beautiful mother, would they not soon fly far beyond his reach ? This last thought troubled him a great deal, still he watched over them tenderly until they should hatch. He could at least tell them of how beautiful their mother had been and could show them where to fly that they might find her.
He often pictured to himself how they would look, twenty dainty little butterflies fluttering about him on his cabbage leaf for a time, and then flying off to the sky, for aught he knew, to visit the stars with their mother. He loved the great sun very dearly now, because it sent its rays down to warm the tiny eggs.
One day he awoke from his afternoon nap just in time to see a most remarkable sight! What do you think was happening? One after another of the small green eggs were breaking open, and out were crawling— what do you suppose! Little white butterflies? No, nothing of the kind — Little green caterpillars were creeping out of each shell. Their foster-father, as he had learned to call himself, could hardly believe his own eyes. Yet there they were, wriggling and squirming, very much like the young angleworms in the ground below.
“Well, well, well!” said he to himself, “who would ever dream that the children of
that beautiful creature would be mere caterpillars ?” Strange as it seemed to him, there was no denying the fact and his duty was to teach them how to crawl about and how to nibble cabbage leaves. “Poor things,” he used to say as he moved among them, “you will never know the world of beauty Jn which your mother lived, you will never be able to soar aloft in the free air, your lives must be spent in creeping about on a cabbage leaf and filling yourselves full of it each day. Poor things! Poor things!”
The young caterpillars soon became so expert that they no longer needed his care. Feeling very tired and sleepy, he one day decided to make for himself a bed, or bag and go to sleep, not caring much whether or not he ever awoke. He was soon softly wrapped from head to foot in the curious covering he had made, and then came a long, long sleep of three weeks or more. When at last he awakened, he began to breathe the fresh air and feel the warm sunshine. He was sure that something had happened to him though he could not tell what. He turned his head this way and that, and at last caught sight of his own sides. What do you think he saw? Wings! Beautiful white wings! And his body was white too! The long sleep had changed him into a butterfly!
He began to slowly stretch his wings. They were so new he could hardly believe that they were part of himself. The more he stretched them the more beautiful they became, and soon they quivered and fluttered as gracefully as did other butterfly wings. Just at this moment a strong, fresh breeze swept over the garden, and before he had
time to refuse, the new butterfly was lifted off the cabbage leaf and was dancing through the air, settling down now on a bright flower, and now on a nodding blade of grass, then up and off again. He rejoiced gaily in his freedom for a time, but soon came the longing to try his wings in the upper sunshine.
Before attempting the unknown journey, however, he flew back to the round, green cabbage-head on which he had lived so long. There were the twenty, small, green caterpillars, still creeping slowly about and filling themselves with cabbage-leaf. This was all they knew how to do, and this they did faithfully. “Never mind, little caterpillars,” said the new butterfly as he hovered over them, “keep on at your work; the cabbage leaf gives you food, and the crawling makes you strong. By and by you, too, shall be butterflies and go forth free and glad into great upper worM.”
Having said this in so low a tone of voice that you would not have heard him had you been standing close by, he flew far away, so far that neither you nor I could have followed him with our eyes. As for the happy-faced, little, black-eyed woman, she did not even know that he had been near her, for her eyes were fastened on her book, as usual. But the small, green, caterpillars must have heard, for they went on crawling and nibbling cabbage-leaves quite contentedly, and not one of them was ever heard to complain of having to be a caterpillar, though occasionally one and then another of them would lift his head, and I doubt not he was thinking of the time when he, too, should become a beautiful white butterfly.
Anything Is Possible.
A little boy in a city school refused to sew, thinking it beneath the dignity of a ten-year-old man.
“George Washington sewed,” said the
principal, taking it for granted that a soldier must; “and do you consider yourself better than George Washington?”
“I don’t know; time will tell,” said the boy seriously.
The Last Straw.
By William Arnold Jacobs.
The stout man with the florid complexion brought the front legs of his chair down upon the porch floor with a thump.
“I’m thirsty again,” he said, glancing sidewise at his two companions.
“Wherein you differ from a camel,” remarked the young college man. “A camel can go nine days without drinking.”
The thin, wiry, bronzed old gentleman sitting between them nodded approvingly.
“Very true,” said he; “very true. Your statement concerning the camel is perfectly correct. Did I ever tell you gentlemen of the adventure that I had with a camel while in Arabia?”
“Is it a story?” inquired the young man.
“Well—yes,” assented the old gentleman, with some show of reluctance. “It is a story—if you care to hear it.”
The stout man seemed disgusted and disappointed, but he repressed his emotions.
“By all means,” he said, resignedly. “By all means let us hear the story.”
The old gentleman devoted a few silent seconds to mental preparation, and then began:
“El Daffa, where I spent the fall of 1887, is situated in western Arabia, about one hundred and twenty-five miles north of the Imarieh Mountains. It is such quiet, dirty, comfortable little town that I was loath to leave it; but my orders, when they came, Were imperative.
“These orders arrived on December 5th, in a message from Major Murphy, the commander of our expedition. The message Was brief, consisting of only these ten words:
‘I am waiting for you at Hofhoof. Come at once.	MURPHY.’
“If you look at the map of Arabia you will see that Hofhoof lies just over the Turkish border, and is exactly four hundred and seventy miles due east from El Daffa. Now four hundred and seventy miles by camel is a full six days’ journey. So I had no time to waste.
“Before nightfall of that same day I had purchased a camel—a fleet-footed Arabian beast of the variety known as Nomanieh. By midnight I had my few belongings packed upon him. And at three o’clock in the morning, an hour before daybreak, I was ready to mount the beast and set out on my journey to Hofhoof.
“The camel knelt while I clambered up on to his back, and then with a groan arose unsteadily to his feet. Guiding him by means of the strong halter with which he was furnished, I rode him around to the town fountain and let him drink. This was an act of folly that I soon had occasion to repent. But I was not then as well acquainted with camels as I am now.
“After he had taken a long, refreshing, uninterrupted three minutes’ drink, in which operation he consumed thirty-five pints of water, I turned his head in an easterly direction, and away we went.
“We had been three-quarters of an hour on our journey when I discovered what a gigantic blunder I had made in letting the camel have that drink. The discovery came about quite naturally.
“Believing that it would be advisable to adjust baggage, I had decided to make a brief halt. I therefore grasped the halter-strap firmly in my right hand, and pulled it with all my might, giving at the same time the customary signal to stop. The camel paid no attention. I pulled with both hands, but to no effect; the camel still sped on. I said, ‘Whoa!’ but he misunderstood me. Sarcastically I said, ‘Get up!’ and he did. After fifteen minutes of unceasing efforts I suddenly desisted, as there flashed across me a full realization of my predicament. The camel had had a drink, and was consequently good for nine days. Now in view of the fact that we should reach Hofhoof in only six days, the situation was, to say the least, unpleasant. But I could do nothing, and so resigned myself.
“Six times the night closed down over us, and six times more the red sun burned
his track across the sky. And then, on December 12th, at half-past four in the morning, we came in sight of Hofhoof.
“The ancient walls of the city, silhouetted against the eastern glow, loomed up before us black and ghostly. As we neared the walls I tried again to check the camel; but I might as well tried to check the wind; he bounced right straight along.
“Murphy was standing outside the city’s gates as we flew past; and I shall never for-
afraid that I couldn’t hear him, so he paid five beggars a centime apiece to help him. And they did help him. As long as I was within ear-shot I could hear them. They cursed and derided me, mocked and reviled my ancestors, blasted my past, and hung a pall over my future.
“The camel had now still three days to go. So I planned to ride around in a large circle that at the end of three days would brings us back again to the city. The plan
Copyright by the Art Institute of Chicago.
A Scene from Flanders.
get the look of astonishment and anger that flitted across his face as he realized that I was not going to stop. He ordered me to halt. But how could I halt without the camel ? It was a high camel; it had no fire-escape, and there I was.
“Murphy was amazed. Commands failed him, and he began to swear at me. He was
was a success. On December 15th, early in the morning, we arrived a second time before the gates of Hofhoof.
“This time the camel halted obediently, and knelt to let me dismount. Murphy, upon hearing my explanation, apologized for swearing at me, and made the beggars give him back his centimes.”
R. K. MUNKITTRICK:
PigS.
There was perhaps nothing else on the farm in which we found a keener spiritual delight than in the pigs; and when the “cares that infest the day” had gathered themselves together and gat them hence, and the twilight enamelled the bosom of the pool in which I hoped at some time to cultivate bull-frogs and snapping-turtles, Phillada would say, “Let us go down and see the pigs.”
It is needless to say that I always favored that proposition, and that we walked down to the pen across the emerald slope, after I had lighted my corn-cob pipe; my love of consistency having caused me to cast away the meerschaum I had smoked in the flat, and to adopt the one that savored of the farm. But I am willing to admit that I clung tenaciously to the tobacco of the city after I had tried one package of the brand dispensed by the bucolic grocer, who might have acquired a handsome fortune had he but had the forethought to offer it to the public as a moth exterminator.
Our pigs consisted of a large white one with a fierce Russian mustache, and a full-moui'ning specimen with a goodly litter of young ones, most of which Were spotted like playing-cards. Most fondly would they gaze upon us with their cold, porcelain eyes, and wriggle their opera-glass snouts as we approached.
The strangest thing about the adult pigs was their thinness. They were simply scrawny; but we did not particularly object to this, because we preferred our pork lean, and these animals looked as though they Would work up into bacon with two layers of lean to one of fat.
It was extremely pleasant to note the affections of the little ones as they lay in a heap, as though woven together like an oval door-mat. In fact, Phillada was so fond of them that whenever she went to the pen she did not forget to regale each with a lump of sugar. I think if she had not been blessed with a keen sense of the ridiculous, she would have insisted upon tying pink ribbons in their ears, ard supplying them with blankets em-blaz^>ed with their names in the softest silk.
She would never think of killing one of these sucking-pigs for a Sunday roast, and I never felt like disputing the propriety of allowing them to live on, as I believed they would shortly become the low-set, broad-gauge pigs —constructed very much after the fashion of the dachshund—that we find in the highest stage of development in the wood-cut of the agricultural paper.
But, alas! we soon learned that the finely rounded pigs that luxuriate in the pages of these journals are no more like the pigs of real life than are the jointless people in the foldless clothes met in fashion-plates like the beings we observe moving about in the quick.
In other words, our pigs seemed never to fatten, no matter how much we fed them. I could not understand it at all, although I theorized considerably on the subject. One theory was that they ate so fast that they impaired their digestion. I noticed that the old black one that Philip called the “big black mamma” had a dyspeptic cough, so^ after trying various troches in vain, I called in Mr. Van Sickle, the farmer.
He looked as grave as a prime-minister as he eyed the swine through his brass-rimmed spectacles. He looked in the boar’s mouth, which he pried open with a bean-pole as though to ascertain if his tusks were composed of vegetable ivory. After he had made a careful examination, he calmly admitted that he was as much at sea regarding their condition as he would have been had I called him in to prescribe for a fat greyhound.
“I guess,” said he, “I’d let them go rat-tle-snakin’ fer a while; that’ll do ’em good. Nothin’ better for pigs than rattlesnakes. You see, when the snake gets ready to spring, the pig puts his hoof right around him, like a pair of pincers, and down he goes into the pig head first.”
“What effect does that have on the pork?” I asked.
“What effect?” repeated Mr. Van Sickle; “it makes it as good as corn-fed, and it’s a long sight cheaper. Besides, it does away with the rattlesnakes. Why, when I
was farming down in Missouri, about twenty years ago, they used to think rattlesnake pork the best going. A man raised on rattlesnake pork, they used to say, was proof against the sting of that snake, and that no matter how hard he drank he could not ketch delirium tremens.”
I had the pigs turned out to wander at will at Mr. Van Sickle’s request, and as we walked away he returned to his mutton, or rather to his pork, as follows:
“I tell ye them was pigs as was pigs down in Missouri. Did you ever see a fat pig?”
“I did,” I replied.
“Well, them pigs was so fat they could' not see. Sometimes they would walk against a stone wall and stun themselves. I have often seen them sound asleep while walking around. The crows were the things that bothered them.”
Mr. Van Sickle commenced to chuckle. I asked him what amused him.
“Those pigs,” he said. “Why, they were so fat that they could not keep the crows off when they landed on their backs to feed on their fat. A crow would drive his bill right to his eyes into the pig’s back, and never withdraw it until surfeited. Sometimes a pig would roll over on his back for relief, and then he could not regain his feet. While in this helpless position, and almost suffocating, other crows would attack him, and drive him wild. We finally employed a boy to watch the pigs, and when a crow would light on one of them the boy would rush in and fan him off with a pole.”
Mr. Van Sickle then abandoned his reminiscent vein and told me I would never have any more trouble with my pigs; and I did not, for I never saw them again. Whether they kept growing thinner until they vanished in the air, or were stolen, is still a mystery. And about a week later I suppose I evidenced an unconscious contempt for the American hog when I sent to the store for a side of English breakfast bacon.
A Deserved Rebuke.
One day, during the American Revolution, an officer, not dressed in uniform, was passing on horseback by some military works that were being prepared by a small squad of soldiers. He found the leader of the party merely standing by and looking on at the operations, which were carried on with difficulty, owing to the small number of men. The officer, seeing the state of affairs, and that assistance was much needed, inquired of the man why he did not render a little aid instead of only standing idle. The latter, in great astonishment, turned around, it is said, with all the pomp of an emperor, and replied: “Sir, I am a corporal!” “You are, are you?”
said the officer; “I did not know that,” and, raising his hat in solemn mockery, he continued, “I ask your pardon, Mr. Corporal.” Dismounting from his horse, he threw off his coat, and not until he was tired out with sheer hard work did the stranger cease to render assistance to the squad; and then, turning round to the corporal, he said, “Mr. Corporal, when you have another job such as this, and have not men enough, send for George Washington, and he will come and help you a second time.” And, to the utter amazement of the poor corporal, he found that the unknown officer who had addressed him was indeed no other than his own com' mander-in-chief.
“Juvenile” Puzzlers, Letter-Box, Etc.
Puzzle No. 9.
There once was a parrot who-------------------------:
(said in a loud tone) “I am sure that somebody has-----------------------!”
(told an* untruth)
When an owl queried “---------------------?”
(call of an owl)
Said the parrot, “Not-------------------,
(the person addressed) You’re even too dumb to have-----------------------
(made an effort)
Upon the line write the word that is defined below it.
*
Puzzle No. 10.
Words that read the same backward or forward.
E	E	B	B	P	P
D	D	E	E	N	N
G	G	P	P	D	D
B	B	M	M	E	E
P	P	T	T	P	P
Replace the missing middle letter of each word.
*	* *
Answer to Puzzle No. 8.
A butterfly was a caterpillar, a frog was a tadpole, a horse was a colt, a sheep was a lamb, a sunfish was a minnow, a cow was a calf, a goat was a kid, a bear was a cub, a duck was a duckling, and a hog was a pig.
*
Honorable Mention.
Mary Kozole, Philadelphia, Pa.
Theresa Smith, Chicago, 111.
Frank Virant, Imperial, Ta.
Jennie Vodopivec, Kitzmiller, Md.
*
Theresa Smith sent correct solutions to both puzzles of Jennie Vodopivec, in August issue. Jennie Vodopivec solved the puzzle of M^ry Verhovsek, in the same issue.
Letters from Our Young Readers.
Dear Editor:—
This is my second letter I am writing to the Mladinski List. I have written once before, but it has been a long time since.
I wish the Mladinski List would come oftener. I am the only one that calls for our mail. Whenever the Mladinski List comes, I read the jokes, Slovenian Grammar, etc., to my girl friends when we are coming home from school.
We are all members of the S. N. P. J. lodge.
I am 14 years of age, and in the eighth grade. We have a nice, new school building in Washoe. It is made of bricks. I have two sisters and two brothers that go in the same building I do. My little brother Henry started school this summer. He is six years old, and in the first grade. My brother John is twelve years old; he is in the sixth grade. My sister Jeanie is ten years old; she is in the fourth grade. My sister Fannie is ten years old; she is in the fifth grade.
The weather over here is very changeable. First it snows, then it rains, turns muddy, dries, then it snows again.
I have a riddle for the members to answer:
What do you see people eating cakes with?
Your friend,
Mary Widitz, Washoe, Montana.
*
Dear Editor:—
This is my first time I am writing a letter to the Ml. L. I wish the Mladinski List would come every week instead of every month. I love to sit and read it.
Our school has started weeks ago. I am 12 years old and I am in the seventh grade. There are 29 pupils in our room.
This is all for this time. And I have a riddle to tell you:
What kind of a nut has no shell ?
Yours truly,
Rosie Yellen, Henryetta. Okla.
*
Practical Slovenian grammar
(Continued.)
CONVERSATIONS.—POGOVORI.
Obisk.
Nekdo zvoni. Ravnokar je potrkalo na vrata.
Poglej, kdo je.
Notri!
O, naš bratranec je prišel.
Ravnokar sem prišel iz starega kraja.
Kako se imaš, ljubi bratranec?
Hvala lepa, zelo dobro.
Zelo nas veseli, da te vidimo.
Kako se imajo vsi naši prijatelji v starem kraju?
Vsi so se počutili dobro, ko sem jih zapuščal.
Dolgo časa si se tam mudil.
Nekako pol leta je poteklo, odkar sem vas zapustil.
Kako si izrabil svoj čas?
Zelo-velikokrat sem bil vabljen.
Si-li videl tam dosti naših prijateljev ali znancev ?
Z mnogimi sem govoril; izročam vam njihove pozdrave.
Izvoliš kak prigrizek?
Ne, hvala vam.
Prosim, povej nam kaj novega iz starega kraja.
Nimam vam veliko povedati, ker nisem bil dovolj dolgo tam.
Ali si potoval po Jugoslaviji?
Da, obiskal sem vse važnejše kraje.
Ali se ti ne zdi, da je Blejsko jezero izredno lepo?
Res, krasno je, veličastno.
Kako dolgo misliš ostati tukaj?
.Kaka dva ali tri tedne.
Upam, da te bomo spet v kolikor mogoče kratkem času videli v naši družbi.
A Visit.
Somebody is ringing the bell. Just now there was a knock at the door.
See, who it is.
Come in!
Why, it is our cousin.
I have just come from the old country. How do you do, my dear cousin?
I am very well, thank you.
We are most happy to see you.
How are all our friends in old country?
They were all quite well, when I left them.
You have been there a long time.
It is about six months since I left you.
How did you spend your time?
I was invited out a great deal.
Have you seen many of our friends or acquaintances ?
I spoke to a great many, I am to present you with their compliments.
Will you take any refreshment?
No, thank you.
Pray, tell us some news about the old country.
I	have not much to tell you, as I was not long enough there.
Have you traveled in Jugoslavia?
Yes, sir, I visited all important places. Don’t you think that Bled is the most beautiful lake?
Indeed, it is magnificent.
How long do you intend to stay here?
A fortnight, or three weeks.
I	hope you will let us have as much of your company as possible in that short time.
*
(To be continued).