I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces. Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance-a steamboat engineer of other days, and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner. He said. "She makes too much steam-you want to hang the monkey wrench on the safety valve! "N I floored him on the spot. S. L. CLEMENS. Biography.-Samuel Langhorne Clemens (Mark Twain) was born in Missouri in 1835. Clemens is one of our most popular humorists. During his "steamboating" experience upon the Mississippi River, when the lead was cast, he often heard the sailors call out "By the mark, twain!" meaning that there were two fathoms of water under the boat. The words "Mark Twain" caught the fancy of Clemens, and when he began to write he determined to use them as the name by which he should be known as an author. His principal works are: "Innocents Abroad," "Roughing It," "Gilded Age," and "A Tramp Abroad." - Notes. Averaged well means that between going too fast for a part of the day and too slow for the rest of it, the watch was about right at the end of every twenty-four hours. Half soling means to repair shoes by putting on new half soles. The watchmaker who used the expression must have once been a shoemaker, and his meaning was that the watch had run so much that it was worn out. A monkey wrench is a wrench with a movable jaw. A safety valve is a valve fitted to the boiler of a steam engine, which opens and lets off steam when the pressure within the boiler becomes so great as to create danger of explosion. 49.-CUSTER'S LAST CHARGE. yōre, time long past. shun'ning, avoiding. quail'ing (kwal), shrinking; giv ing way. blěnch, draw back. elǎr'i ón, a kind of trumpet. reeked, cared. 'bāyed, surrounded. venge'ançe, punishment in re hōrdeş, wandering tribes. Dead! Is it possible? He, the bold rider, N Custer, our hero, the first in the fight, Charming the bullets of yore to fly wider, Far from our battle-king's ringlets of light! Dead, our young chieftain, and dead, all forsaken! No one to tell us the way of his fall! Slain in the desert, and never to waken, Never, not even to victory's call! Proud for his fame that last day that he met them! All the night long he had been on their track, Scorning their traps and the men that had set them, Wild for a charge that should never give back. There on the hilltop he halted and saw them,— Lodges all loosened and ready to fly; Hurrying scouts with the tidings to awe them, All the wide valley was full of their forces, Men who had fought ten to one ere that day? Out swept the squadrons, the fated three hundred, Into the hordes of the old Sitting Bull!N Wild N Horse's braves, and the rest of crew, their Shrunk from that charge like a herd from a lion,— Then closed around, the grim horde of wild Sioux !N Right to their center he charged, and then facing— Hark to those yells! and around them, O see! Over the hilltops the Indians come racing, Coming as fast as the waves of the sea! Red was the circle of fire about them: No hope of victory, no ray of light, Shot through that terrible black cloud without them, Brooding in death over Custer's last fight. Then, did he blench? Did he die like a craven, Begging those torturing fiends for his life? Was there a soldier who carried the Seven N Flinched like a coward or fled from the strife? No, by the blood of our Custer, no quailing! There in the midst of the Indians they close, Hemmed in by thousands, but ever assailing, Fighting like tigers, all 'bayed amid foes! N Thicker and thicker the bullets came singing; See the wild steeds of the mountain and prairie, Backward, again and again, they were driven, Even the leader's voice, clarion-clear, Rang out his words of encouragement glowing, "We can but die once, boys,-we'll sell our lives dear!" N Dearly they sold them like Berserkers raging, Facing the death that encircled them round; Death's bitter pangs by their vengeance assuaging, Marking their tracks by their dead on the ground. Comrades, our children shall yet tell their story,—' Custer's last charge on the old Sitting Bull; And ages shall swear that the cup of his glory Needed but that death to render it full. FREDERICK WHITTAKER. Notes.- Frederick Whittaker is a well-known contributor to periodical literature. He has written a "Life of Custer" which has been highly praised. General George A. Custer and all his men were killed near the Big Horn River, in Montana Territory, in an attack upon the Sioux (Soo) Indians. The sad event took place June 25, 1876. O ga lällah, A răp ́a hoe, Çheỹ ěnǹe', are the names of different tribes of Indians, all under the command of Sitting Bull, a notorious Indian warrior at the time of the Custer massacre. Seven is the number of the regiment, the "Seventh U. S. Cavalry." 'Bayed-embayed, surrounded without chance of escape. Berserkers were Norse heroes who despised armor, and claimed that furious courage was the best defense in battle. |