“WHOS AFRAID." Courage, brother! there is nothing In the world brave men should fear; If the heart is firm and steady, If the arm be strong and ready, Half our dangers disoppear. Only cowards faint and falter, Only cravens shrink and palter, Only dastards are dismayed. Meet each trinl—never fly it, Face misfortune and defy it; Courage, brother!—who's afraid? Courage brother! there is nothing In the world true men appais; Still be true to man and woman, To the God of truth a true man, True to self when duty calls. He that’s false in word or doing Soul and body brings to ruin; Lying’s still a losing trade; Do the truth and fear no evil: Speak the truth and shams the devil: Courage, brothersl—who's afraid? Courage, brother! there is nothing Brave and true men should afright; Life’s a warfare high and holy For the lofty and the Jowiy; God and angels watch the fight; In the roar, and rush, and rattle, In the sweat and blood of battle, Fight as men for fight arrayed, Whether vanquished or victorious, Good men's lives and deaths are glorious; Courage, brothersl—who's afraid? MR. CRADLIFF'S BURGLAR. At eleven o'clock one summer night, Mrs, Cradliff nudged her sleeping con- sort and as he turned on his pillow, whispered softly, **Are you awake, Mo- | ses?” Mr Moses Cradliff having ac- kpowledged that he was wide awake, she continued: “Did ye lock up the granary?” “No,” he replied. *‘I suppose Cyrus | did; be always ‘tends to that.” b ** But he went off so early I don’t be- iieve he thought & word about it. I'll get up and see if he has left the key on | the sink shelf.” She groped her way to the Kitchen in | the dark and passed her hand over the | shelf, but tound no key. As it was left | in the granary lock during the day, and | returned to the shelf after the door had | been duly fastened at night, she felt | sure that their customary duty had been neglected. “Then Isup oi» I must get up and go and ‘tend to it,” grumbled Moses | Cradliff. ‘How could he be so care- | less?” But she reminded him that Cy- | rus had gone to watch at the bedside of | a sick friend, and that it was unjust to | blame him under the circumstances. As a good many mysterious thefts | and burglaries had of late been commit- | ted in the neighborhood, and as the barn | was an old one which could be easily entered, the locking of the granary, | which served as a store room for pro- | duce and other portable property, was | considered important. So Mr. Moses | Cradliff got up, poked his bare feet into a pair of old shoes, and proceeded half- | dressed, to the barn. It was a starlit night, and approach- ing the barn-door, he was surprised to find it open about far enough to admit a man. As he was sure that it had been clozed in the evening, a curdling thrill of suspicion and alarm crept through his flesh, and made kim wish he had some weapon in his hand. He thought of the woolen bar which served as a fastening to the door, bat just as he was | reaching to get possession of it, he heard a noise in the direction of the granary. He thereupon dropped down upon his hands and knees, and putting in his head, so low that it would not be re- vealed against the starlight to the bur- glar,—he listened intently. For a mo- ment all was still; then came the creak- ing of a door-hinge. He knew the sound, It was that made by the granary door, as it swung slowly together of its own accord, after it had been opened. Mr. Moses Cradliff w.us possessed of a fair amount of courage; and though he naturally shrank from an encounter with a man who might have deadly weapons, he determined io risk en at- tempt to capture him, or at least to pro- | tect his property. He crawled into the barn, and reach- ing up, found little difficulty in arming himself with the bar. He then glided | almost noiselessly, in the dark, towards | thwack the burglar should he attempt | to rush past him. He met with no adventure until he put out his hand and felt the door, | which was open a few inches. Then he | heard a man breathe not more than half | ® yard away. The man was in the gra- | nary, standing close beside the bins; Mr. Cradliff was outside, with his hand on the door; each aware of the other, and | both alike frightened, but resolved to | gain what advantage was possible in the encounter that seemed unavoidable, With one hand Cradliff grasped his club, while he slipped the other along the edge of the door until he felt the key, which had been left in the lock. He had conceived an idea, which he ceded instantly to earry out. He shit the doorand threw himself against it, while he fastened the man in! Still holding the club in one trembling hand, and carrying away the key in the other, he shut the barn door after him and ran to the house, where he breath- lessly told Mrs, Cradiff what had hap- , and charged her to keep perfect- y quiet while he hastened to the neigh- bors for assistance. The granary had a stout door and but one small window, too narrow fora man to getin at or out; and he did not much doubt that his prisoner would be kept safely until his return. ; In a few minutes he stood panting si the door of the house where Cyrus had gone to watch with his sick friend, ving knocked and got no he entered immediate! e ‘Hope I don't d b “Ho n't distur Caio “I've t Where's Cyrus?’ “Cyrus!” said the pale yo man. “Why, he went home about half an hour ago. Said something about having forgotten to lock up the granary. He was going to do und then come back. Haven't you seen him?” elder Cradliff stood If any person had been rash enough to accept Mr, Oradhft’s n very heavy wager, that person would cer- tainly have lost, While the father had taken his son for a robber, the son had entert iined an equally absurd suspicion of his father; whom he was waiting in the granary with an uplifted peck meas- ure, ready to bring it down upon his head, when the door was slammed, and he found himself locked in. It was some seconds before. in his ex- cited state of mind, he was able to rea~ son out the actual fact of the situation, By the time he came to the conclusion that 1t was his father who had shut him up, his father had gone. Immediately his strained nerves began to relax, and he seemed melting into a cold perspira- tion, while a ghastly sense of the hu mor of the thing succeeded his terrified but herole resolution. “No use of calling now,” he said to himself. “I ought to bave done it be- fore.” The little window was nailed fast, and could not be opened. **Never mind; he'll get help, and a rope. and a lantern, and coms by-and-by take me out. I can wait; but— plague on it!’ he exclaimed, remembering he was a night-watcher, “it’s pretty near time for Tom to be taking his medicine; and what will he think?” He settled himself to walt as patiently as possible for his release, and was sit- ting comfortably on a bag of meal In his dungeon, into which only a fecble gleam of the starlit sky entered through the narrow window, when he became aware of somebody stepping in the barn. He heard a sound like the scratching of a match; and peeping through the key-ho'e, saw a faint glimmer of light. | had a near glimpse of a big brown hand holding something like a key, and a coarse gray sleeve close to the granary the small aperature, and even that in the door. But Cyrus bad seen enough to know that the comer was not his father. 1t was, in fact, the real barn-breaker this time; advancing to his work with- | out the slightest suspicion that a mem- ber of the family be was going to rob Having | fitted his key and extinguished his | match, he opened the door and entered, passiag directly before Cyrus, who was making himself exceedingly small against the bins, with his peck measure —not a very deadly weapon—again up- The man seemed to know where the wheat-bin was, and he was moving | straight toward it in the dark, when, as | his head passed before the little win- | dow, the peck measure descended upon | 1:, and he was hurled forward, against | the bin; while with the agility of fright | Cyrus rushed out, slammed the door, | and locked the burglar in with his own | key, which he securea and carried | away. i Mrs, Cradliff had risen and dressed | herself, and was awaiting anxiously her | husband’s return in her Little kitchen, with the enrtains closely drawn, and with a lantern lighted ready for his use, when she was surprised to see Cyrus burst in, and still more amazed to hear ‘““We shall want more help,” he said, taking up the lantern. *‘I’ll run over through the woods and get Joe Ferris, Tell father to wait till I coms back.” By a short cut across the farm, the | Ferrises were their rearest neighbors; and Joe was just the fellow, Cyrus thought to assist in the capture of the burglar, he was one of those easy-natu- red, unsteady, adventurous individuals known to almost every country neigh. borhood, who work well when they are absolutely obliged to, but spend the | most of their time going a-fishing, or lounging about the mill and tavern. Cyrus, lantern in hand, was soon knecking at Joe's door, and calling him | loudly by name. It was some time be- fore he got any response, but at last a head was put out of an upper window, “That you, Joe?" cried Cyrus, hold- ing his lantern so that it would cast an upward gleam. “No: what's wanting of Joe?’ said a trembling female voice, Cyrus did his errand briefly; he had | caught a robber, and wanted Joe to help | take him out of the granary. “I'a awful sorry said the woman. | “Joe, he ain’t well. He ketched cold | going a-fishing Saturday, and he’s down with a fever. 'Twouldn’t be safe for him to go out o-night, no ways in the | world! Besides, two of the children is sick.” “Then 1 suppose [ must go on and “It’s too bad for I'm afraid the burglar will break out before I get around.” “It is—too bad!” said the trembling voice above, The head was drawn in at the win- dow; and as Cyrus and his lantern went on in the direction of the Dunfry house, poor Mrs, Ferris, regardless of her sick husband and ailing children, ran out of the back door muffled in a hood, and armed with a hatchet, and sped toward Mr. Cradliff’s farm. Meanwhile Mr, Cradliff had returned home; and so sure was he that it was his own son Cyrus whom he had shut into the granary, that he went straight to let him out, without stopping to in- form Mrs, Cradliff of his blunder, or to get the lantern. All was still as he entered the barn, und only the hollow roof responded as he ualied, “Cyrus! Cyrus! He stood outside the granary, and n called loudly through the closed door to his son, who did not reply, for suflicient ns. “fs it possible,” murmured the father, * ‘thet he has got out of that bit of a window? Or could it have been all By the time he reached the door in pur. suit, he found it shut and fastened, with him on one side and the burglar’s fast-flying heels on the other. A prisoner in his turn, he could do nothing in the shaken condition of his nerves, but lean against a bin, recover breath and composure of mind, and walt for what was to happen next, which proved to be something quite as strange as any event that had occurred that night, Cyrus had by this time aroused the Dunfry boys, and Reub and enlisted them in his enterprise. “I've already called for Jos,’’ he said, as he returned with them in haste to- ward Ferris house, ‘‘But he's down with a fever and can’t go.” “Down with a fever?” cried Bill Dunfry incredulously, “That can’t be, for I saw him splitting wood by his back door at sundown, I'll find out about that!” He ran forward and gave twoor three thundering raps on the side of the house with a club he had caught up for use in the anticipated struggle with the rob- ber. “Joe he shouted, repeating the raps as his companions came up, “‘Come out! You're wanted!” Again a head was thrust from the upper window, It was that of Joe him- self, Seeing Cyrus and the Dunfry boys with a lantern, he said, with a yawn that was some what overdone— “What's up now boys?’’ “*Cy has locked a thief in his grana- ry,” Bul replied, “and he wants help to go and take him out, What's the mat. ter? Bick?” “I ain't much sick when there's any such fun as that going on,” Joe an- swered. “I'll be with ye in a minute, soon as I can pull my clothes on.” For the truth is, Joe's clothes were on already, all but his coat, which he | had taken the precaution to pull off be- | fore showing himself at the window, | He got his arms into that, and present- ly appeared at the door, buttoning but- tons which he had that minute unbut- a man just out of bed. He was some what too hilarious, perhaps, for the oc- | casion, declaring that it would cure vited to join in overcoming and binding a robber. “in Cradliff’s granary?” with pretended incredulity. look possible!” And Cyrus, on the | way, had to relate his adventure, which | he did to Joe Ferris’ seemingly intense | amusement, i They entered the barn with the light, and proceaded at once to unearth the burglar, Cyrus thinking it not worth | while to wait for his father’s assistance. | The Dunfry boys had cudgels; Joe had | his own good fists, Cyrus provided him- | seif with a rope, which he held while be | knocked on the granary, having placed his lantern on the barn floor, : “Will you come out peaceably and give yourself up?’ he demanded. No reply from within, “There's nobody there!” said Reub. | “Oh, yes, there is!” Cyrus answered, | “He couldn't get out without coming | through the door, and you see that is fast? He knocked again. “Hello! Answer, will you?” “There's no use playing Let's have him out!” said Joe, “Come ahead!” sald Reub, clutching his club. It was a moment of thrilling expec tation when Cy turned the key in the | lock and suddenly threw back the door, | No burglar burst forth to encounter Joe's fists and the Dunfry boys’ bran- dished clubs, “Hold your lantern!’ cried Reab, ex- citedly, while Joe Ferris grinned with his own secret thoughts, Cy, who had taken a step backward | as he opened the door, now advanced, holding his lantern above all their heads into the he asked, | “It don't | § ‘possum. | fry boys gradually lowering their clubs and Joe’s grin expanding, as the bins were searched, and the astonishing dis. | covery was made that there was noth- ing to discover. Cy was hugely chargrined, and the result was a puzzle even to Joe, who burglar’s escape, but could not guess | how his substitute had got out. | The elder Cradliff had not been long in his dungeon when he heard a shuf- | fling noise, as of some person groping in the barn, and presently a hoarse, half whisper, demanding * ‘““W hereabouts are you? Speak!” These words, uttered in a strange | voice, added greatly to the mystery which, however, they promised to ald in clearing up; and not knowing just what reply to make, Moses Cradiiff maintained a breathless, expectant si- “Joe, are you here?” the voice spoke again, evidently in great hurry and afitation, now quite near the granary 0oF, The mistery began, In fuct to be sud- denly illuminated to the hitherto much bewildered brain of Moses Cradliff. To induce the letting on of more light, he put his lips to the keyhole and gave a prolonged “Sh-h-h-h!" “Oh, Joel” exclaimed the voice out. side; **Cv come to our house and told me he had locked up somebody 1 know who! 1've brought a hatchet to break he luck aha let Jou out.” ry ey!’ whispered the prison- er. He conjectured rightly that the es- caping thief had not stopped to possess hi i of thit. The new comer passed vs “I don’t know what I'm here for—I must be crazy! Do let me gol” #1 shan’t hinder you,” replied the farmer, “‘Only I can’t think of letting you go alone through the woods at this time of night; I'm too polite a man for that; and I guess I'd better get a lan- tern, and let my wife know, Keep your hatchet, Mrs, Ferris!” He led her, reluctant and beseeching, to his own house, and into the kitchen where good Mrs, Cradliff was marvel- ously amazed at seeing such a visitor at such an hour. With the guilty hatchet still in her hand, the wretched woman was protest- ing her own and her husband’s inno- cence In one breath, and In the next Pleading poverty as an excuse for their wrong doing, and begging to be let go; and Mr, Cradliff was pulling on his boots, preparatory, as he said, to **beau- ing her home,” when voices at the barn attracted his attention, and looking out, he saw Cyrus coming with his compan- fons, one of whom he recognized by the lantern light as Joe, “Come in! come in, all of you!” he cried, “There are some things that need explaining.” “I should say so!" exclaimed Cyrus, “After you shut me up in the granary, the real thief came, and I shut him up. Where is he?” “When I went to let you out,” said got away, shutting me up.” “It beats all the mixed-up messes I ever saw!” laughed merry Joe Ferris, “How did you get out?"’ said Mr. Cradliff, ushering the men into the kitchen. “The robber’s wife had somehow got word that he was locked in the granary, and she came to his res. cue. But after that he had got away, and she kindly released me instead, Here she is, with her hat het!” ing in tha corner Joe Ferris recognized hus own devoted Jane. He had missed her on his way home, where he had just arrived and learned of her absence from their oldest girl, when he was called out by Cyrus and the Dunfry’s boys. In with them he had been ! arful that they might fall in with her, and he that peril, when here she was with her The tone of his forced and brazen made no attempt todeny his guilt, This during the past few months. The wife being let off for the sake of the child- ren, the family disappeared from the town about the time Joe wasset to work in the penitentiary, and the worthy Cradliff family had no more adventures with robbers, sam———- —— pS m— Thrashing-¥loors, It was in the north of China that we first saw the thrashing-floor of the East and of the Bible, When we were traveling to some out-stations in Mant. churia, the road bounded ou both sides by endless fields of gigantic millet, house and farm-yard, of a small hamlet, and on the trodden spot of and the harvest was now gathered, that floor, and a pair of oxen were driven leisurely over the ears, treading Another form of thrashing was the stone roller, which was drawn over the ears by oxen or mules ; and there was nished with some projections, was Sometimes the grain was piled up in a heap in the men with the winnowing shovel (the Bible fan) would toss the grain into the corn, and the wiod carrying the chaff away filled the air with dust, One Bible phrase after another was recalled to us, It was easy lo see how the field on which the absence of any dread of rain induced the farmers to pile up their wealth of grain; or how the open floor, open to the sky and smooth, became the natural place to test the dew upon Gideon's fleece, while all the rest of the ground was dry; or how, when the two kings, Ahab, of Israel, and Jehoshaphat, of Judah, summoned the prophet, the place to set the royal thrones was on the smooth and empty thrashing floor just before the gate of Samaria ; or how no better place than this could be found on which to build the sitar that David raised when he had purchased the site of the temple from Araunah, the Jebusite, and found in the thrashing instruments ~the wooden fans and boards and oxen poles—the wood for the sacrifice. It would be easy for the oxen to stop in the midst of the abundance they were treading out and eat ; and the merciful Jewish law ided that there should be no muszling of them ; “thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out An English Train, The first impression which an Ameri. can who is experienced in railroad trav. eling in his own country derives from the exterjor aspect of an English train is unfavorable. The cars, as he must necessarily call them, seem to be sinall; they lack, apparently. the weight and solidity of the American passenger coach; the compartments are narrow, the ceilings low, the ventilation appar- ently doubtful. They stand upon two, thre or more pairs of gaunt high wheels, to the axles of which their springs are directly geared. Ho misses the little independent vehicle, the truck or bogie, with its four or six small, compact, solid-looking, wide - flanged wheels, which sustains each end of the Ameri- can car—that rolling gear which looks so strong, so adapted to inequality of rail or curve, so resourceful against dis- aster and so complete in 1s equipment. The cars are smaller--there is no doubt of it. They are narrower and they are shorter, and to the American eye they look even shorter than they really are, because they have no pro jecting platform at the ends, no over- hanging roof or hood, but are buckled close up to each other, and their eon- tact controlled by small metal buffers, the springs of which allow a play of from eighteen inches to two feet and a half between car and car. The Miller | platform, the Janney coupler, the link { and pin—of all the familiar devices of the United States there is not one to be seen. The brakes? None visible. Nor, for the matter of that, a brakeman. | This influental and numerous person has no existence in England. | i crats, The wheels are fitted with brakes, { different in its application to less, betokens the alr-brake, He takes account of the distinctions of class and reflects upon his country’s veiled prog- | ress in that regard in the matter of par- {lor cars and limited express trains, | Then he finds that there is no baggage { master to waft the volatile Saratoga to | its doom, as his own newspapers would | express it, There is, perhaps, a lug- | gage van or two, or there are in the | cdrriages themselves luggage compart. | ments, accoiding to the way in mhich the train is made up, the length of journey it Is to take, or the custom of the particular line under observation. | His final contemplation is perhaps devoted to the engine, and if he has | ever given any of his attention to the | American locomotive it fills him with | a deep concern, He recalls the impos- ing splendor of the latter, its comforta~ | ble and lofty cab of olled and polished ! wood, its gay brass bell, the soul-stir- the cow-destroying pilot, the great cin- feature shrinks to moderate propor tions), the powerful drivers and com- | rods, and all its parts radiant with the glitter of polished steel or unburnished brass, or decked with appropriate ver- | milion or emerald green, { In all these matters the English loco- | motive compares with it much as a a New York | lswn-mower does with | fire engine, green or mono-chromatic machine, It has neither polish nor decoration about it. There is no cab. The engineer and fireman--that is to say, the engine dri- | ver and his stoker, as they are styled in England--perform their duties with only such shelter as is offered by a board screen in front of them, pierced glass, technically known as cles.” aie under the front of the latter, 1n- | stead of on each side before the drivers; 3 of the engine 18 perched high above ous, | looking, and to the observer who has to lovely. The practical American engi neer whistles thoughtfully as he sur- long 1t would be before he would ditch | his train if he had to run on a new | Western railroad with such an engine. | Where would be be on a sharp curve? or how would such a running-gear track? Sunday Barbers Eighty Years Ago, In 1804 the Selectmen, Salem, Mass, orderad that after a given date no bar- ber’s shop should be kept open on Sune day'morning. There was no appeal from their mandate. The fatal last Sunday arrived; the customers of the esteemed Benjamin Blanchard, whose shop was at the upper part of Essex street, oppo- site the Endicott and Cabot mansions, came as usual to have their hair tied; it HH i g 4 A Pgglping Band. “If you cannot keep up with this class you had better go into a lower one. The country schoolmaster spoke harshly, and Robert Gates’s heart sank lower than before, if that were possible, He was the biggest boy in the class now, and bow could he bear the shame of going among the boys still smaller? Hut there was no denying the fact that the master had had a great deal of trouble with him, and that it did seem as though he were hopelesslydull. Mr, Hardy delighted in figures, To be bright in figures, he thought, insured a boy for success through life. Every boy who came to bim was tried by one test, and if be failed in that he had no oppor tunity of showing whether he was bright at anything else. So Robert, whose talents did not lis in figures, was having just the hard tug at school which, if well endured, wise men tell us, gives the discipline which makes the best and noblest men. He had struggled through the mysteries of notation, numeration, addition, sub- traction and maultipheation, each of which had been a separate hill of diffi. culty to him. And now long division stood up before him like a dead, blank wall. There was no getting around it, | no getting under it—he must climb to | the top. The boys were dismissed, leaving the | school-house with a whoop and a rush — { all but Robert, who, with his book and | his slate, slowly walked away. A | cheery-faced boy stopped and looked { back at him, then ran to him saying: “11 give you a lift, Bob’’'— | “Come on, Jack Drand,” shouted | half a dozen voices, “1 can’t come now,” he replied, “We're going to make up the base. | ball club, and you'll lose your place. | We're going to put you in for pitcher,” | “You'd better go,” said Robert. *‘1 | hate to have you miss the fun.” “Never mind,” sald Jack heartily. | “I'ye plenty of time for fun yet. You | see now—let’s goout behind the old | barn and cipher away al your examples { for awhile.” | They settled themselves on a grassy | slope in the quiet of one of the rare days {of early June, and Robert opened his | book with a heavy sigh, | “It's a perfect tangle to me,” he said | with a rueful shake of the head, think- ing of the days in which he had watched | the slow placing and working of the | examples on the blackboard. The why {and wherefore of the curved lines had | never dawned upon him, the guessing how many times it would “go” and | then setting down a figure, and the long, | straggling column of figures gyrating i off to the right and finally ending in | nothing, so far as he could see, was s | fearful piling of mysteries, “Why, {he went on, “I can’t even remember { which is divisor and which is divident | when he questions me about the rules.” “Oh, that’s easy enough if you think | a moment,” laughed Jack. “The di- visor's a thing you do something with, {| This way now-—mower, a thing you wow with: reaper, a thing you reap with: a divisor, a thing you divide with —don’t you see?” “Why, ves, of course I do, now you | give me something to remember by." Then they bent themselves resolutely to conquer the difficulties of the pro- cess between them, and it is fortunate | that Jack was blessed with the gift of | patience, for days past before Hobert could see anything except a huge and frightful puzzle, The shouts of the | boys at play came to them from a dis- tance, but po sound more disturbing than the soft whisper of the summer wind or the pert inquiring “kechee? | kechee?”” of robin or wren disturbed the | droning mwuriour with which Jack un- | tiringly went through the lesson over i and over again, little dreaming that he was securing for himself a valuable ex- | ercise in patience and self-denial, “1 see it,” at last exclaimed Robert, springing up with a shout of triumph. “] never expected to see daylight | though such a muddle, but I do. Now, let's be off and have a glorious play. But,” he added very earnestly, “1 can | never pay you up in the world.” “Never m'nd that,” said Jack, | “Bat,” he added, "maybe you can some | time,” And his words came true years later, { When the boys went to prepare for col- | lege under the mild teachings of the | village pastor —a strange contrast to the {old schoolmaster—Latin and Greek came to him almost as a pastime, He revelled in the line of study now open- ing before him with all the delight which comes of finding something in the world of learning exactly to his ended, for his mind was of a different order, and now Robert was able richly pay all his kindness,
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers