The dull Sabbath morning mentioned in the last chapter, proved the beginning of one of those long and dreary storms, not unusual in the spring of the year. The sun did not show himself for half an hour during the whole week, but snow, sleet, rain, drizzle, high winds, and leaden skies, had everything their own way. The old people said it was the “equinoctial,” or “line” storm; and their opinion was not in the least disturbed, if Marcus suggested that many scientific men believed the notion of such a storm to be a popular delusion. It certainly was not a very auspicious time to express any doubts on this point—in the midst of a seven days’ storm, happening in the very week of the equinox; so Marcus, without seriously doubting that the men of science were right, concluded it were wiser to postpone any argument on the subject until a dryer season.
The younger members of Mrs. Page’s family found little chance for out-door sports, during this tedious storm. Still, the time did not pass heavily with them. All but Kate and Otis had their regular daily work to perform; but as it was divided among several pairs of hands, it was not very arduous, at this season of the year. Jessie’s work, however, was an exception, for she insisted upon devoting most of her time, when released from study, to household duties. On Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, Marcus frequently invited Oscar and Ronald to help him about some extra job or other; but all such jobs were now finished up, as far as they could be until the season should open for out-door operations. The farming tools had been put in complete order, the potatoes sorted for planting, the cellar cleaned out, and when Wednesday afternoon came, with a pouring rain, Marcus told the boys they must amuse themselves as best they could, as he had nothing for them to do.
For awhile, the state of things was rather dull indoors as well as out. Marcus and Oscar were reading. Kate sat down to practise a music lesson, but the notes which her fingers called forth were so dull and spiritless, that she soon abandoned the attempt. Otis sat looking dreamily out of the window, towards the distant hills just visible through the rain. Ronald, after trying in vain to get somebody to go out to the barn and “have some fun,” went alone; but he evidently did not find what he went after, for he soon returned, repeating, on the way, a queer alliterative exercise in rapid pronunciation he had recently learned for his own amusement. It was as follows, only each line was repeated in four different ways, as indicated at the beginning:
Ronald kept on repeating these very sensible lines after he had entered the house; but before he had finished “Captain Crackskull,” he was interrupted by Marcus, who said:—
“Ronald, if you are going through with that long yarn, I think you had better take it back to the barn with you, and reel it off to the cows.”
“I can say it right straight through, to X Y Z,” said Ronald.
“Well, we’ll take your word for it—we wont ask you to prove it,” replied Marcus.
“What do you call it, when all the words in a line begin with the same letter?” inquired Ronald.
“When two or more words, near together, commence with the same letter, it is called alliteration,” replied Marcus. “It is what the poet calls ‘apt alliteration’s artful aid.’”
“I’ve got a curious specimen of alliteration, that I found in an old newspaper,” said Kate; and from a small roll of paper clippings which she had in her pocket she drew forth the curiosity. It contained five little poems, or “univocalic verses,” as they were called, each of which contained only one of the vowels. The following is a specimen. It is on the fall of Eve, and contains no vowel but e, as will be observed;
“That is not alliteration, exactly,” observed Marcus, “as the words do not begin with the same letter. I should call it a sort of ‘task poetry.’ By the way, Kate, did you ever see a little task poem that old George Herbert wrote?” and taking down a volume from the book-case, he turned to the following lines, in which it will be seen, the rhyming words are obtained by dropping a letter from the last word of the preceding line:
Marcus turned to a still more curious specimen of task poetry, in the same book. It was a couplet, formed of three lines of the fragments of words, so that those of the middle one read with either of the other two. Here it is:
The couplet is to be read thus:
“Come, all hands, I move that we have a game of ‘thread-paper poetry’—we haven’t played it for a long time,” said Kate.
“What sort of a game is that?” inquired Jessie, who had but just come in from the kitchen, and sat down to sew.
“Why, didn’t you ever play it?” inquired Kate, with surprise. “It’s a real good game, if you have the right sort of players. The first player takes a slip of paper, and writes a line of poetry upon it—original or selected, just as he pleases. Then he folds the paper so as to hide the line, but he tells the next player what the last word is, and he must write a line to rhyme with it, and another line beside; and so they pass it around, until they have got enough, and then it is read aloud. It makes great sport, sometimes, I can assure you.”
The company generally assented to Kate’s proposal, and it was agreed, at the outset, that each line should contain eight syllables, every other one accented, commencing with the second. No other restriction was laid upon any one. Jessie was selected to commence the play, and she wrote the following line:
Doubling over the paper, she passed it to Oscar, and thus it went round the circle twice, Marcus finally winding up the poem with an extra rhyme, to give it a fitting conclusion. He then unfolded the paper, and read the contents aloud. Here is a copy of it. The figures indicate where it passed from one hand to another:
“Now let’s write some cento verses,” cried Kate, after this had been read.
“What kind of verses are those?” inquired Otis.
“Don’t you know what cento verses are?” replied Kate. “Why, you take a number of lines of poetry from different authors, and arrange them together so that they will rhyme, and make some sort of sense—that’s the way to make cento verses.”
“Pooh! I don’t think much of that,” said Ronald.
“A person needs to have a good deal of poetry at his tongue’s end, to find amusement in writing cento verses,” observed Marcus. “Kate and Jessie have a poetical turn, and might succeed at it, but I am afraid the rest of us would find it rather hard work.”
“Well, I’m going to try,” said Kate; “and if there isn’t poetry enough on my tongue’s end, there’s plenty up in the book-case.”
Kate took a piece of paper, and commenced jotting down some lines, occasionally consulting Jessie, or turning to a volume of poetry. Ronald and Otis found more congenial amusement, in a couple of toys of which they had recently come in possession. They were “pith-tumblers,” made by an ingenious boy in their class, who realized quite a little fortune of pocket-money by manufacturing these comical figures for his mates. They were made of the pith of elder trees, and the figures were neatly cut, to represent Turks, Chinese Mandarins, Brahmins, clowns, and other characters. Ronald’s tumbler was a Turk, and he named him the Grand Mufti. He was seated on half a bullet, composedly smoking his long pipe. Otis called his figure the Sleepy Brahmin. It had a lead cap, and consequently was under the disagreeable necessity of standing on its head. Both the Mufti and the Brahmin, when jarred, seemed ready to fall over, but were sure to right themselves very quickly, owing to the centre of gravity being in the leaden base. While the boys were playing with these trifles, Marcus stepped out of the room, and soon returned with a bottle and a couple of forks. Seeing the curiosity of the boys was excited, Marcus asked them if they could make a quarter of a dollar spin round on the point of a needle.
“Give me a quarter, and I’ll try,” said Ronald.
Marcus chose to make the trial himself, and in a few minutes he accomplished the feat, to the no small astonishment of the boys. This was the way he did it. In the cork of the bottle he fixed a needle. He then took another cork, and cut a slit in it, large enough to receive the edge of the coin. Then he stuck into the cork the two forks, opposite each other, with the handles inclining downwards. The edge of the coin was now placed on the needle, and the whole apparatus,—coin, cork, and forks,—was made to spin round without falling off.
“Now, Ronald, can you explain the philosophy of that?” inquired Marcus.
“No, sir, I’m sure I can’t,” replied Ronald.
“Well, can you explain why your little pith-tumblers operate as they do?” inquired Marcus.
“It’s because the centre of gravity is in one end of the figures, in the lead,” replied Ronald.
“What do you mean by the centre of gravity?” inquired Marcus.
“Why, the point where the weight of the whole thing is evenly balanced,” said Ronald; “for instance, if I balance this book on the end of my finger, the point that rests on my finger will be the centre of gravity.”
“Yes, you have the idea,” resumed Marcus; “and this little experiment is explained on the same principle. The weight of the forks, projecting as they do so much below the coin, brings the centre of gravity of the arrangement below the point of the needle, which is the point of suspension; and the coin is much less liable to fall off than it would be if the centre of gravity were higher.”
“Now let me show you a little experiment,” said Ronald. “I’m going to put two chairs back to back, take off my shoes, and jump over them. Do you believe I can do it?”
“This isn’t a suitable place for such rough play—if you want to do any jumping, you had better go out-doors,” said Mrs. Page.
“But I wont do the least harm in the world,” replied Ronald. “Let me show you how I do it, wont you?”
Mrs. Page making no reply, Ronald inferred that she consented; and placing the chairs as he had described, he took off his shoes, and drawing back to the end of the room, ran and jumped over the—shoes, to the great amusement of those who were watching the “experiment.”
Marcus and Oscar had resumed their reading, and Ronald and Otis now began to amuse themselves with a puzzle which they called the Moslem Oracle. It was a table, divided by lines into a hundred little squares, in each of which was written a letter, as follows:
| d | w | w | a | w | o | h | a | b | h |
| i | o | i | s | o | t | d | t | t | w |
| w | o | a | a | a | i | e | n | i | i |
| t | s | d | n | t | h | i | a | a | e |
| o | t | t | n | t | u | w | t | d | h |
| t | i | a | e | s | f | l | i | n | u |
| e | l | n | j | c | a | d | t | o | c |
| r | o | h | y | e | o | w | y | p | e |
| f | r | w | e | d | i | o | i | a | e |
| l | n | s | c | t | l | g | h | e | h |
The boy from whom they obtained a copy of this Oracle, told them he had read that it was sometimes actually used by the superstitious Moslems, when they were in doubt about any thing they thought of doing. The rule is to repeat certain verses of the Koran, and then to place the finger upon the table, without looking at it. The Moslem then looks to see on what letter his finger has rested, and writes it down, with every fifth following letter in the table, until he has got back to his starting place. For example, we will suppose his finger fell on the letter e in the sixth line. He writes down every fifth letter, and the following appears:
In reading the sentence, he commences with the first of the letters taken from the upper line; and so the utterance of his Oracle is:
This Oracle is capable of giving five distinct answers, as any reader can easily verify; and commence with what letter we will, we shall obtain one of these answers. It is, of course, a superstition, which gives any authority to these answers; but it is curious to observe that the Oracle is so arranged as to be likely to do good rather than harm to those who consult it. It contains but one affirmative and four negative answers, and it is evident that its framer knew that when men hesitate about doing an action, it is generally safer to abstain from it than to perform it. Men are more disposed to consult oracles for leave to do wrong, than for advice to do right.
Kate had now finished her cento poem, and read it aloud. It was as follows:
“That’s pretty fair,” said Marcus; “but I suspect memory didn’t have a great deal to do with it—only a few of the lines have a familiar sound to my ear.”
“Well, to tell the truth,” replied Kate, “my memory is one of the kind that never can think of anything when you happen to want it; so I helped it along a little, with two or three books of poetry.”
The request was general that a copy of these lines, and also of the “thread-paper poem,” should be furnished for publication in the “Home Wreath.” The successive numbers of this little paper were carefully kept on file, after all had read them, and it was a custom to insert in its pages anything of suitable length that the family wished to preserve. The next number of the “Wreath,” which appeared on Saturday afternoon, contained one of these poems, together with an unusual variety of original matter, which an editorial paragraph pleasantly attributed to the protracted storm, remarking that “it was an ill wind that blew nobody any good.” Among the contributions were several arithmetical problems. One was as follows: “So arrange four nines as to make one hundred.” Another was:—“If you take nine from six, ten from nine, and fifty from forty, there will then six remain.” Jessie, in the course of the evening, threw off the following rhyming answers to these questions, designing to send them to the editor for insertion the next week:
Such were some of the ways in which the young folks in Mrs. Page’s family amused themselves, when kept indoors by stress of weather.