Book: St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877 Nov 1878

V >> Various >> St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877 Nov 1878




"All right," said Will.

Greta walked quickly down the bank, across the bridge, and up the
other side until she reached the "Wilhelmina." Placing the boat on the
bank for safety, she took the cord off, and, holding it firmly, walked
slowly down toward the island. Will did the same on his side of the
pool. The cord went skimming over the surface of the water, then it
passed above the tops of the long grass on the island. This brought
the line on a level with the top-sail. This would not do; for a
pressure up there might capsize the schooner. Both of the workers saw
that they must slacken the line a little to get it into the proper
place. Now was the critical time; if the line was too much slackened
it might slip under the vessel and upset it that way. Gently they
lowered it until it lay against the mainmast below the sail.

"Take care!" screamed Will to Greta.

"Go slow!" screamed Greta to Will.

Gently they pulled against the schooner, and, inch by inch, she
floated off into the open water.

"Hurrah!" shouted Will, as the "America" gave herself a little shake,
and, catching the wind, sailed slowly and somewhat unsteadily for the
home port, which, however, she reached in safety. "Wind up the cord!"
shouted Greta, just in time to prevent Will's throwing it aside. He
wondered what further use she had for the cord. It might go to the
bottom of the pool for aught he cared, now that the ship was safe. But
he wound it up as directed. It would have been quite a grief to the
thrifty little Dutch girl if so much fine cord had been wasted.

Thus ignominiously came in the stately ship "America," which Will had
set afloat with such pride! And it is doubtful whether she would
have come in at all, but for the stanch Dutch canal-boat that he had
regarded with a good deal of disdain.

If Will had been a girl, he would have exhausted the complimentary
adjectives of the Dutch language in praise of his cousin; but being a
boy, he only said, "Thank you, Greta."

The children remained at the pool until called to dinner; and after
that meal, they went back again and stayed until it was time to return
to Zaandam, so fascinated were they with sailing their vessels. These
changed hands so often that it was sometimes difficult to tell who had
charge of any particular boat, and a good deal of confusion was the
result. In justice to the "America," it must be stated that she cut no
more capers, and was the admiration of all.

Will had his faults, and one of these was the very high estimate
he placed on his own opinions. But he was generous-hearted, and he
admitted to himself that Greta had shown more cleverness than he in
the "America" affair. "She was _quicker_, anyway," he thought. "It
is likely that plan would have occurred to me after a time, but she
thought of it first. And it was good of her to help me; for she knew
that I went away so as not to play with her." It was not pleasant to
him to know that a girl had shown herself superior to him in anything
he considered his province; but he magnanimously forgave her for this,
and he said to Martin, after they were in bed that night:

"I've pretty much made up my mind to give my schooner to Greta. I
believe she thinks it the prettiest thing ever made."

"If you do that," said Martin, "I'll give my sloop to Minchen."

This plan was carried out, and the girls were more delighted than if
they had had presents of diamonds. But they insisted that the boys
should accept their canal-boats in exchange, the result of which
was that the Chesters, on their return to America, produced quite a
sensation among their schoolmates. For American-built vessels could be
bought in many stores in New York, but a Dutch canal-boat, with a red
sail, and a mast that was raised and lowered by a windlass, was not to
be found in all the city.






THE BUTTERFLY CHASE.

BY ELLIS GRAY.


Dear little butterfly,
Lightly you flutter by,
On golden wing.
Drops of sweet honey sip,
Deep from the clover tip,
Then upward spring.

Over the meadow grass
Swift as a fairy pass,
Blithesome and gay;
Toy with the golden-rod,
Make the blue asters nod--
Off and away!

Butterfly's dozing now,
Golden wings closing now,--
Softly he swings.
Tiny hands fold him fast,
Gently unclose at last,--
Fly, golden wings!

Quick! for he's after you,
With joyous laughter new,--
Mischievous boy!
Swift you must flutter by;
He wants you, butterfly,
For a new toy!



[Illustration]



HOW TO MAKE A TELEPHONE.

BY M.F.


What is a telephone?

Up go a hundred hands of the brightest and sharpest of the readers of
ST. NICHOLAS, and a hundred confident voices reply:

"An instrument to convey sounds by means of electricity."

Good. That shows you have some definite idea of it; but, after all,
that answer is not the right one. The telephone does not convey sound.

"What does its name mean, then?" do you ask?

Simply, that it is a far-sounder; but that does not necessarily imply
that it _carries_ sounds afar. Strictly speaking, the telephone only
changes sound-waves into waves of electricity and back again. When
two telephones are connected by means of a wire, they act in this
way,--the first telephone changes the sound-waves it receives into
electric impulses which travel along the wire until they reach the
second telephone, here they are changed back to sound-waves exactly
like those received by the first telephone. Accordingly, the listener
in New York seems to hear the very tones of his friend who is speaking
at the other end of the line, say, in Boston.

Still you don't see how.

It is not surprising, for in this description several scientific facts
and principles are involved; and all boys and girls cannot be expected
to know much about the laws of sound and electricity. Perhaps a little
explanation may make it clearer.

The most of you probably know that sound is produced by rapid motion.
Put your finger on a piano wire that is sounding, and you will feel
the motion, or touch your front tooth with a tuning-fork that is
singing; in the last case you will feel very distinctly the raps made
by the vibrating fork. Now, a sounding body will not only jar another
body which touches it, but it will also give its motion to the air
that touches it; and when the air-motions or air-waves strike the
sensitive drums of our ears, these vibrate, and we _hear_ the sound.

You all have heard the windows rattle when it thunders loudly, or when
cannons have been fired near-by. The sound waves in the air fairly
shake the windows; and, sometimes, when the windows are closed, so
that the air-waves cannot pass readily, the windows are shattered by
the shock. Fainter sounds act less violently, yet similarly. Every
time you speak, your voice sets everything around you vibrating in
unison, though ever so faintly.

Thus, from your every-day experience you have proof of two important
facts,--first, sound is caused by rapid motion; second, sound-waves
give rise to corresponding motion. Both these facts are involved in
the speaking telephone, which performs a twofold office,--that of the
ear on the one hand, that of our vocal organs on the other.

To serve as an ear, the telephone must be able to take up quickly and
nicely the sound-waves of the air. A tightened drum-head will do that;
or better, a strip of goldbeaters'-skin drawn tightly over a ring
or the end of a tube. But these would not help Professor Bell, the
inventor of the telephone we shall describe, since he wanted an ear
that would translate the waves of sound into waves of electricity,
which would travel farther and faster than sound-waves could.

Just when Mr. Bell was thinking how he could make the instrument he
wanted, an important discovery in magnetism was made known to him--a
discovery that helped him wonderfully. You know that if you hold a
piece of iron close to a magnet the magnet will pull it, and the
closer the iron comes to the magnet the harder it is pulled. Now, some
one experimenting with a magnet having a coil of silk-covered wire
around it, found that when a piece of iron was moved in front of the
magnet and close to it without touching, the motion would give rise to
electric waves in the coil of wire, which waves could be transmitted
to considerable distances.

This was just what Mr. Bell wanted. He said to himself, "The sound
of my voice will give motion to a thin plate of iron as well as to a
sheet of goldbeaters'-skin; and if I bring this vibrating plate
of iron close to a magnet, the motion will set up in it waves of
electricity answering exactly to the sound-waves which move the iron
plate."

So far, good. But something more was wanted. The instrument must not
only translate sound-waves into electric impulses, but change these
back again into sound-waves; it must not only hear, but also _speak!_

You remember our first fact in regard to sound: it is caused by
motion. All that is needed to make anything speak is to cause it to
move so as to give rise to just such air-waves as the voice makes. Mr.
Bell's idea was to make the iron plate of his sound-receiver speak.

He reasoned in this way: From the nature of the magnet it follows that
when waves of electricity are passed through the wire coil around the
magnet, the strength of the magnet must vary with the force of the
electric impulses. Its pull on the plate of iron near it must vary in
the same manner. The varying pull on the plate must make it move,
and this movement must set the air against the plate in motion in
sound-waves corresponding exactly with the motion setting up the
electric waves in the first place; in other words, the sound-motion in
one telephone must be exactly reproduced as sound-waves in a similar
instrument joined to it by wire.

Experiment proved the reasoning correct; and thus the
speaking-telephone was invented. But it took a long time to find
the simplest and best way to make it. At last, however, Mr. Bell's
telephone was perfected in the form illustrated below. Fig. 1 shows
the inner structure of the instrument. A is the spool carrying the
coil of wire; B, the magnet; C, the diaphragm; E, the case; F, F, the
wires leading from the coil, and connecting at the end of the handle
with the ground and line wires. Fig. 2 shows how a telephone looks on
the outside.

[Illustration: BELL'S TELEPHONE. Fig. 1 and Fig. 2]

So much for description. You will understand it better, perhaps, if
you experiment a little. You can easily make a pair for yourself, rude
and imperfect, it is true, but good enough for all the tests you may
want to apply.

For each you will want: (1) a straight magnet; (2) a coil of
silk-covered copper wire; (3) a thin plate of soft iron; (4) a box to
hold the first three articles. You will also want as much wire as you
can afford, to connect the instruments, and two short pieces of wire
to connect your telephones with the ground. (Two wires between the
instruments would make the ground-wires unnecessary, but this would
use up too much wire.) The magnet and the coil you will have to buy
from some dealer in electrical apparatus. They need not cost much. A
small cigar-box will answer for the case.

[Illustration: Fig. 3. A "CIGAR-BOX" TELEPHONE.]

In one end of the box cut a round hole, say, three inches across.
Against this hole fasten a disk of thin sheet-iron for the vibrator or
"diaphragm." For a mouth-piece use a small can, such as ground spices
come in, or even a round paper box.

Now, on the inside of the box, place the magnet, the end carrying the
coil almost touching the middle of the diaphragm, and fix it firmly.
Then, to the ends of the copper wire of the main coil fasten two
wires,--one for the line, the other for the "ground-wire."

This done, you will have an instrument (or rather two of them) very
much like Fig. 3. A is the mouth-piece; B, the diaphragm; C, the coil;
D, the magnet; E, E, the wires.

The receiving and sending instruments are precisely alike, each
answers for both purposes; but there must be two, since one must
always be hearing while the other is speaking.

When you speak into the mouth-piece of one telephone, the sound of
your voice causes the "diaphragm" to vibrate in front of the magnet.
The vibrations cause the magnet's pull upon the diaphragm to vary in
force, which variation is answered by electrical waves in the coil and
over the wires connected with it. At the other end of the wire the
pull of the magnet of the speaking telephone is varied exactly in
proportion to the strength of the electric impulses that come over the
wire; the varying pull of the magnet sets the diaphragm in motion,
and that sets the air in motion in waves precisely like those of the
distant voice. When those waves strike the listener's ear, he _seems_
to hear the speaker's exact tones, and so, substantially, he does
hear them. The circumstance that electric waves, and not sound-waves,
travel over the wires, does not change the quality of the resulting
sound in the least.

I think you now understand Bell's telephone.

The telephones of Edison, Gray, and others, involve different
principles and are differently constructed.

One invention very often leads to another, and the telephone already
has an offspring not less wonderful than itself. It is called the
speaking-phonograph. It was invented by Mr. Edison, one of the
gentlemen, just mentioned.

Evidently, Mr. Edison said to himself: "The telephone hears and
speaks; why not make it write in its own way; then its record could
be kept, and any time after, the instrument might read aloud its own
writing." Like a great genius as he is, Mr. Edison went to work in the
simplest way to make the sound-recorder he wanted. You know how the
diaphragm of the telephone vibrates when spoken to? Mr. Edison took
away from the telephone all except the mouth-piece and the diaphragm,
fastened a point of metal, which we will call a "style," to the center
of the diaphragm, and then contrived a simple arrangement for making
a sheet of tin-foil pass in front of the style. When the diaphragm is
still, the style simply scratches a straight line along the foil. When
a sound is made, however, and the diaphragm set to vibrating, the mark
of the style is not a simple scratch, but an impression varying in
depth according to the diaphragm's vibration. And that is how the
phonograph writes. To the naked eye, the record of the sound appears
to be simply a line of pin points or dots, more or less close to each
other; but, under a magnifier, it is seen to be far more complicated.

Now for the reading. The impression on the foil exactly records the
vibrations of the diaphragm, and those vibrations exactly measure the
sound-waves which caused the vibrations. The reading simply reverses
all this. The strip of foil is passed again before the diaphragm,
the point of the style follows the groove it made at first, and
the diaphragm follows the style in all its motions. The original
vibrations are thus exactly reproduced, setting up sound-waves in
the air precisely like those which first set the machine in motion.
Consequently, the listener hears a minutely exact echo of what the
instrument heard; it might have heard it a minute, or an hour, or a
year, or a thousand years before, had the phonograph been in use so
long.

What a wonderful result is that! As yet, the phonograph has not been
put to any practical use; indeed, it is scarcely in operation yet, and
a great deal must be done to increase the delicacy of its hearing and
the strength of its voice. It mimics any and every sort of sound with
marvelous fidelity, but weakly. Its speech is like that of a person
a long way off, or in another room. But its possibilities are almost
infinite.






ONLY A DOLL!

BY SARAH O. JEWETT.


[Illustration: "Polly, my dolly!"]

Polly, my dolly! why don't you grow?
Are you a dwarf, my Polly?
I'm taller and taller every day;
How high the grass is!--do you see that?
The flowers are growing like weeds, they say;
The kitten is growing into a cat!
Why don't you grow, my dolly?

Here is a mark upon the wall.
Look for yourself, my Polly!
I made it a year ago, I think.
I've measured you very often, dear,
But, though you've plenty to eat and drink,
You haven't grown a bit for a year.
Why don't you grow, my dolly?

Are you never going to try to talk?
You're such a silent Polly!
Are you never going to say a word?
It isn't hard; and oh! don't you see
The parrot is only a little bird,
But he can chatter so easily.
You're quite a dunce, my dolly!

Let's go and play by the baby-house:
You are my dearest Polly!
There are other things that do not grow;
Kittens can't talk, and why should you?
You are the prettiest doll I know;
You are a darling--that is true!
Just as you are, my dolly!






DAB KINZER: A STORY OF A GROWING BOY.

BY WILLIAM O. STODDARD.


Between the village and the inlet, and half a mile from the great
"bay," lay the Kinzer farm. Beyond the bay was a sand-bar, and beyond
that the Atlantic Ocean; for all this was on the southerly shore of
Long Island.

The Kinzer farm had lain right there--acre for acre, no more, no
less--on the day when Hendrik Hudson, long ago, sailed the good ship
"Half-Moon" into New York Bay. But it was not then known to any one
as the Kinzer farm. Neither was there then, as now, any bright and
growing village crowding up on one side of it, with a railway station
and a post-office. Nor was there, at that time, any great and busy
city of New York, only a few hours' ride away, over on the island of
Manhattan. The Kinzers themselves were not there then; but the bay and
the inlet, with the fish and the crabs, and the ebbing and flowing
tides, were there, very much the same, before Hendrik Hudson and his
brave Dutchmen knew anything whatever about that corner of the world.

The Kinzer farm had always been a reasonably "fat" one, both as to
size and quality, and the good people who lived on it had generally
been of a somewhat similar description. It was, therefore, every
way correct and becoming for Dabney Kinzer's widowed mother and his
sisters to be the plump and hearty beings they were, and all the more
discouraging to poor Dabney that no amount of regular and faithful
eating seemed to make him resemble them at all in that respect.

Mrs. Kinzer excused his thinness to her neighbors, to be sure, on the
ground that he was "such a growing boy;" but, for all that, he caught
himself wondering, now and then, if he would never be done with that
part of his trials. For rapid growth has its trials.

"The fact is," he said to himself, one day, as he leaned over the
north fence, "I'm more like Ham Morris's farm than I am like ours. His
farm is bigger than ours, all 'round; but it's too big for its fences,
just as I'm too big for my clothes. Ham's house is three times as
large as ours, but it looks as if it had grown too fast. It hasn't
any paint, to speak of, nor any blinds. It looks a good deal as if
somebody'd just built it there and then forgot it and gone off and
left it out-of-doors."

Dabney's four sisters had all come into the world before him, but he
was as tall as any of them, and was frequently taken by strangers for
a good two years older than he really was.

It was sometimes very hard for him, a boy of fifteen, to live up to
what was expected of those two extra years.

Mrs. Kinzer still kept him in roundabouts; but they did not seem to
hinder his growth at all, if that was her object in so doing.

There was no such thing, however, as keeping the four girls in
roundabouts, of any kind; and, what between them and their mother, the
pleasant and tidy little Kinzer homestead, with its snug parlor and
its cozy bits of rooms and chambers, seemed to nestle away, under the
shadowing elms and sycamores, smaller and smaller with every year that
came.

It was a terribly tight fit for such a family, anyway; and, now that
Dabney was growing at such a rate, there was no telling what they
would all come to. But Mrs. Kinzer came, at last, to the rescue, and
she summoned her eldest daughter, Miranda, to her aid.

A very notable woman was the widow. When the new railway cut off part
of the old farm, she had split up the slice of land between the iron
track and the village into "town lots," and had sold them all off by
the time the railway company paid her for the "damage" it had done the
property.

The whole Kinzer family gained visibly in plumpness that
year,--except, perhaps, Dabney.

Of course, the condition and requirements of Ham Morris and his big
farm, just over the north fence, had not escaped such a pair of eyes
as those of the widow, and the very size of his great barn of a house
finally settled his fate for him.

A large, quiet, unambitious, but well brought up and industrious young
man was Hamilton Morris, and he had not the least idea of the good in
store for him for several months after Mrs. Kinzer decided to marry
him to her daughter Miranda. But all was soon settled. Dab, of course,
had nothing to do with the wedding arrangements, and Ham's share was
somewhat contracted. Not but what he was at the Kinzer house a good
deal; nor did any of the other girls tell Miranda how very much he was
in the way. He could talk, however, and one morning, about a fortnight
before the day appointed, he said to Miranda and her mother:

"We can't have so very much of a wedding; your house is so small, and
you've chocked it so full of furniture. Right down nice furniture it
is, too; but there's so much of it. I'm afraid the minister'll have to
stand out in the front yard."

"The house'll do for this time," replied Mrs. Kinzer. "There 'll be
room enough for everybody. What puzzles me is Dab."

"What about Dab?" asked Ham.

"Can't find a thing to fit him," said Dab's mother. "Seems as if he
were all odd sizes, from head to foot."

"Fit him!" exclaimed Ham. "Oh, you mean ready-made goods! Of course
you can't. He'll have to be measured by a tailor, and have his new
suit built for him."

"Such extravagance!" emphatically remarked Mrs. Kinzer.

"Not for rich people like you, and for a wedding," replied Ham; "and
Dab's a growing boy. Where is he now? I'm going to the village, and
I'll take him right along with me."

There seemed to be no help for it; but that was the first point
relating to the wedding concerning which Ham Morris was permitted to
have exactly his own way. His success made Dab Kinzer a fast friend of
his for life, and that was something.

There was also something new and wonderful to Dabney himself in
walking into a tailor's shop, picking out cloth to please himself, and
being so carefully measured all over. He stretched and swelled himself
in all directions, to make sure nothing should turn out too small. At
the end of it all, Ham said to him:

"Now, Dab, my boy, this suit is to be a present from me to you, on
Miranda's account."

Dab colored and hesitated for a moment; but it seemed all right, he
thought, and so he came frankly out with:

"Thank you, Ham. You always was a prime good fellow. I'll do as much
for you some day. Tell you what I'll do, then. I'll have another suit
made, right away, of this other cloth, and have the bill for that one
sent to our folks."

"Do it!" exclaimed Ham. "Do it! You've your mother's orders for that.
She's nothing to do with my gift."

"Splendid!" almost shouted Dab. "Oh, but don't I hope they'll fit!"

"Vit?" said the tailor. "Vill zay vit? I dell you zay vit you like a
knife. You vait und zee."

Dab failed to get a very clear idea of what the fit would be, but it
made him almost hold his breath to think of it.

After the triumphant visit to the tailor, there was still a necessity
for a call upon the shoe-maker, and that was a matter of no small
importance. Dab's feet had always been a mystery and a trial to him.
If his memory contained one record darker than another, it was the
endless history of his misadventures with boots and shoes. He and
leather had been at war from the day he left his creeping clothes
until now. But now he was promised a pair of shoes that would be sure
to fit.

So the question of Dab's personal appearance at the wedding was all
arranged between him and Ham; and Miranda smiled more sweetly than
ever before upon the latter, after she had heard her usually silent
brother break out so enthusiastically about him as he did that
evening.

It was a good thing for that wedding that it took place in fine summer
weather, for neither kith, kin, nor acquaintances had been slighted in
the invitations, and the Kinzers were one of the "oldest families."

To have gathered them all under the roof of that house, without either
stretching it out wider or boiling the guests down, would have been
out of the question, and so the majority, with Dabney in his new
clothes to keep them countenance, stood or sat in the cool shade of
the grand old trees during the ceremony, which was performed near the
open door, and were afterward served with the wedding refreshments, in
a style that spoke volumes for Mrs. Kinzer's good management, as well
as for her hospitality.

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