"Well done, my son!" roared the chief of the Bashkirs, “you have indeed won much land!"

Pakhom's laborer ran towards him, and would have lifted him up, but he saw that blood was flowing from his mouth; there he lay

dead!

LINCOLN'S RICH NEIGHBOR

A New York firm applied to Abraham Lincoln, some years before he became President, for information as to the financial standing of one of his neighbors. Mr. Lincoln replied:

“I am well acquainted with Mr. Blank, and know his circum

stances.

“First of all, he has a wife and baby; together they ought to be worth $50,000 to any man.

"Secondly, he has an office in which there is a table worth $1.50, and three chairs worth, say, $1.00.

"Last of all, there is in one corner a large rat-hole, which will bear looking into.

"Respectfully,

"A. LINCOLN."

THE CHARTER OAK

In October, 1687, Sir Edmund Andros made his appearance at Hartford, attended by a body-guard of some sixty soldiers and officers. The Assembly was in session. Sir Edmund marched with an important air into the chamber, and in a peremptory tone demanded that the charter should be immediately placed in his hands.

This demand put all the members into an awkward dilemma. The charter was in Hartford, in a place easy of access; Sir Edmund was prepared to seize it by force if it were not quickly surrendered; how to save this precious instrument of liberty did not at once appear. The members temporized, received their unwelcome visitor with every show of respect, and entered upon a long and calm debate, with a wearisome deliberation which the impatience of the governor-general could not hasten or cut short.

Argument was wasted on Sir Edmund. Remonstrance and appeal were alike in vain. It was the charter he wanted, not long-winded excuses, and he fumed and fretted while the slowtalking members wasted the hours in what he looked upon as useless argument.

Night had been drawing near on his entrance. Darkness settled upon the Assembly while the debate went on. Lights were now brought in, -the tallow candles of our colonial forefathers, and placed upon the table around which the members sat. By this time Sir Edmund's impatience at their procrastination had deepened into anger, and he demanded the charter in so decided tones that the reluctant governor gave orders that it should be produced. The box containing it was brought into the chamber, and laid upon the table, the cover removed, and there before his eyes lay the precious parchment, the charter of colonial liberty.

Still the members talked and procrastinated. But it is not easy to restrain the hound when within sight of the game which it has long pursued. Before the eyes of Sir Edmund lay that pestiferous paper which had given him such annoyance. His impatience was no longer to be restrained. In the midst of the

long-drawn-out oratory of the members he rose and stepped towards the table to seize the object in dispute.

At that critical instant there came an unexpected diversion. During the debate a number of the more important citizens had entered the room, and stood near the table round which the members sat. Suddenly, from the midst of those people, a long cloak was deftly flung, with such sure aim that it fell upon the circle of blazing candles, extinguishing them all, and in a moment throwing the room into total darkness.

Confusion followed. There were quick and excited movements within the room.. Outside, the crowd which had assembled set up a lusty cheer, and a number of them pushed into the chamber. The members stirred uneasily in their seats. Edmund angrily exclaimed,

Sir

"What means this, gentlemen? Is some treachery at work? Guard the charter! Light those candles instantly!"

The attendants hastened to obey; but haste in procuring light in those days had a different meaning than now. The lucifer match had not yet been dreamed of. The flint and steel was a slow conception. Several minutes elapsed before the candles again shed their feeble glow through the room.

With the first gleam of light every eye was fixed upon the box which had contained the charter. It was empty! The charter was gone!

Just what Sir Edmund said on this occasion history has not recorded. Those were days in which the most exalted persons dealt freely in oaths, and it is to be presumed that the infuriated governor-general used words that must have sadly shocked the pious ears of his Puritan auditors.

But the charter had vanished, and could not be sworn back

into the box. Where it had gone probably no one was willing to say. The members looked at one another in blank astonishment. The lookers-on manifested as blank an ignorance, though their faces beamed with delight. It had disappeared as utterly as if it had sunk into the earth, and the oaths of Sir Edmund and his efforts to recover it proved alike in vain.

But the mystery of that night after-history has revealed, and the story can now be told. In truth, some of those present in the hall knew far more than they cared to tell. In the darkness a quick moving person had made a lane through the throng to a neighboring window whose sash was thrown up. Out of this he leaped to the ground below. Here people were thickly gathered.

"Make way," he said (or may have said, for his real words have not been preserved), "for Connecticut and liberty. I have the charter."

The cheers redoubled. The crowd separated and let him through. In a minute he had disappeared in the darkness beyond.

Sir Edmund meanwhile was storming like a fury in the hall; threatening the colony with the anger of the king; declaring that every man in the chamber should be searched; fairly raving in his disappointment. Outside, the bold fugitive sped swiftly along the dark and quiet streets, ending his course at length in front of a noble and imposing oak tree, which stood before the house of the Honorable Samuel Wyllys, one of the colonial magistrates.

This tree was hollow; the opening slender without, large within. Deeply into this cavity the fugitive thrust his arm, pushing

the precious packet as far as it would go, and covering it thickly with fine débris at the bottom of the trunk.

"So much for Sir Edmund," he said. "Let him now rob Connecticut of the charter of its liberties, if he can."

As for the Charter Oak, it long remained Hartford's most venerated historical monument. It became in time a huge tree, twenty-five feet in circumference near the roots. The cavity in which the charter was hidden grew larger year by year, until it was wide enough to contain a child, though the orifice leading to it gradually closed until it was hardly large enough to admit a hand. This grand monument to liberty survived until 1856, when tempest in its boughs and decay in its trunk brought it in ruin to the earth.