



Produced by Annie McGuire








[Illustration: HARPER'S

YOUNG PEOPLE

AN ILLUSTRATED WEEKLY.]

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VOL. I.--NO. 44. PUBLISHED BY HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. PRICE FOUR
CENTS.

Tuesday, August 31, 1880. Copyright, 1880, by HARPER & BROTHERS. $1.50
per Year, in Advance.

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[Illustration]

CLAUDINE'S DOVES.

BY MRS. E. W. LATIMER.


A few days since, as I was driving in the Bois de Boulogne with a
friend, a slender, sweet young girl was pointed out to me. She was
walking beside her mother, and there was a loving, tender look in her
blue eyes, a shrinking modesty in her deportment, which interested me
at the first glance. She was apparently about fifteen. I observed to the
friend who pointed her out to me that she was fair, modest, and pretty.
"Yes," he replied, "and she is the heroine of a very pretty story."

Eight years ago her father and mother occupied an _appartement_, or
flat, in the Rue de Rivoli. Part of the Rue de Rivoli has houses only on
one side; the other is bordered by a high iron railing with gilt
spear-heads, inclosing the Garden of the Tuileries. At one point (which
was nearly opposite the house where Claudine lived) one tall pavilion of
the palace abutted on the sidewalk. The Rue de Rivoli is the most
beautiful street in Paris. The windows of the sitting-room of Claudine's
mother looked over the palace and its gardens, its chestnut-trees and
its fountains, the Seine and its quays, with a more distant view of the
Place de la Concorde and its obelisk, the Chambers of the Legislature,
and the gilded dome of the Tuileries. Every procession passed under
Claudine's windows. No little girl, I think, who lives in rooms
overlooking the Rue de Rivoli would wish to exchange them for any other
home.

Claudine's parents, though of good birth and education, were not rich;
they lived on the third story. They had only one old servant. Claudine's
mother was her daughter's nurse and governess. Till the German army
marched on Paris they had a peaceful, refined, and happy home.

At the moment of which I am about to write, the siege had ceased, and
the terrible days of the Commune were almost over. The little family
began to breathe more freely--only in a certain sense, however, for they
were all gathered together in a little close room, which would have
looked into the court-yard of their house had not its windows been
blocked up by pillows, mattresses, and furniture. They dared not look
into the street, they dared not go into their own sitting-room, for the
Versailles troops were entering Paris, bomb-shells were bursting in all
directions, and volleys of musketry were being fired round every street
corner. Paris was like a city expecting to be sacked, with the
additional horror that each man's foes might be those of his own
household.

Of a sudden they began to feel a stifling heat. Thick smoke rose all
around them. There was the sickening and suggestive smell of coal-oil in
the air. Claudine's father felt that he must know what was going on. To
look out of the windows might be death to all of them; still he ran into
the sitting-room, tore down the beds and pillows from a window, and
looked out on the Rue de Rivoli.

The palace before him was in flames. As he looked, the fire swept over
the venerable gray pile. Forked tongues of flame darted higher than the
Mansard roofs of its tall towers, and threatened the stores and
dwelling-houses across the way. Claudine's father looked below into the
street: there was no safety there. The men and women of the
neighborhood, driven from their rooms by falling fiery flakes from the
high roofs of the old palace, clustered together under shelter of the
great _porte cocheres_--by which carriages drive into the court-yards of
French houses under the rooms of the first story. Muskets, rifles, and
mitrailleuses swept the street. To venture into it seemed sure
destruction. To stay beneath their blazing roof would expose them all to
perish in the flames. Bomb-shells were falling constantly to right and
left, knocking off pieces of the cornices of lofty, stately houses,
tearing off their iron balconies, and scattering shattered fragments of
wood, window-glass, iron, and plaster on the pavement.

The father of Claudine, aghast with fear and horror, stepped back into
the sitting-room. "I see no escape for us," he cried.

At that moment hoarse shouts below them in the court-yard announced that
a party of insurgents, accompanied by a band of the fiendish women they
called _petroleuses_, had burst into the house that they inhabited.
Already the dangerous fluid from which these women took their name was
being poured over the wood-work of the staircase and the two lower
_appartements_.

A cry ran through the house of "Save yourselves!" Claudine's father
gathered together some important papers, some money, and a few jewels.
The mother and her old servant spread a blanket on the floor, and flung
into it such objects as they could gather up in haste, tying it by the
four corners. As to Claudine, frantic with terror, she ran into her
bedroom and brought out what she valued most--a cage containing two
young turtle-doves. They were her only pets. She loved them better than
anything else in the world, except old Clemence and her father and
mother.

The torches of the Communards had already set fire to the wood-work
saturated with coal-oil. Flames were breaking out in every direction.
The inhabitants of the doomed houses were forced to make their way into
the street, or stay to be burned alive. The first to rush down the
staircase was Claudine, cage in hand. She ran into the street. A
bomb-shell burst as she reached it, and her terrified parents saw her
drop upon the sidewalk, while the cage fell at some distance, rolling
away out of her hand.

When her father saw her dead, as he supposed, he rushed into the street,
undaunted by the bursting of the shell, and picking up her body,
retreated with it under shelter of the _porte cochere_.

But Claudine was not dead, nor even wounded. She had fainted with
fright, and as her parents hung over her with tender words, she opened
her blue eyes and smiled at them. A moment after, she remembered her
dear doves. Before any one could stop her or forbid her she ran back
into the street through bullets thick as hail, caught up her cage, and
ran back with her recovered treasures. A _petroleuse_ who had seen her
stopped as she was setting fire to some furniture, and cried out, with a
mocking laugh,

"What was the use of running out to pick up those? They will be roast
birds anyhow in the next half-hour."

On hearing these cruel words little Claudine began to comprehend for the
first time the greatness of the danger. She drew back, darted a look of
reproach at the vile woman who stood laughing at her trouble, and then,
with the big tears rolling down her cheeks, "God will know how to keep
them safe," she said, and opened the cage door. The doves flew out. They
poised themselves a moment; then they rose into the air, and flew away
to seek a purer sky above the clouds of smoke and sulphur. In spite of
what the cruel woman said, the doves were saved.

A few moments later a drum was heard advancing up the street. The
drummers marched at the head of a body of troops--the soldiers had
come! "_Vive l'armee!_" cried the frightened householders.

In an instant _petroleuses_, robbers, and insurgents scattered in all
directions. It is a queer sight to see a French crowd run when the
troops charge. _Now_, however, every soldier "thought on vengeance." The
incendiaries dropped fast before the iron hail.

Meantime all hands were busy putting out the flames. The fire was at
last got under. The furniture and wood-work of the first and second
stories were badly burned and broken, but the rest of the house was
saved.

Claudine and her family went back into their rooms, and let in the light
of day, the father and mother blessing God for the timely arrival of the
troops who had saved all Paris from fire and pillage. By degrees they
grew more calm. But one sad heart was inconsolable. Claudine's share in
the great catastrophe which had almost laid Paris "even with the ground"
was the loss of her dear turtle-doves.

The next morning when she came out early on the balcony to look at the
blackened ruins of the noble palace, and to mourn for her lost
favorites, she uttered a cry of joy. Her doves sat on the railing of the
balcony. They had flown back to their little mistress and their home.

"Mamma! mamma!" she cried, "God has sent me back my doves!" and her
little heart recovered the happiness that in her inexperience she
fancied had been lost forever.




JOHNNY'S SONG.

BY JOSEPHINE POLLARD.


  "Come, now, Johnny, sing me a song--
    Sing me a song," said Mabel.
  "I will," said Johnny, whose voice was strong,
    "For I'm the boy that is able."
  So he sang, and whistled, and sang again,
    Till all the woods were a-ringing,
  And Mabel frowned, and began to complain,
    "Why, Johnny, what's that you're singing?"

  "Don't you like it?" said Johnny Stout
    (Mabel her laugh must smother),
  As he straightened himself in his roundabout,
    And said, "I'll sing you another."
  He sang and whistled with might and main,
    Till Mabel's ears were a-ringing,
  And she stopped them up, and exclaimed again
    "Why, Johnny, what are you singing?"

  "That's _Pinafore_," said Johnny Stout,
    Who thought himself quite clever;
  "You've heard it often enough, no doubt."
    Said Mabel, "N--hardly ever."
  And she made up her mind that never again
    Would she ask Minnie Stout's big brother
  To sing her a song, when 'twas very plain
    He knew not one tune from another.




VIOLA'S SKETCH.

BY MRS. W. J. HAYS.


We had been staying at Dinan, a pretty and cheap little summer
resting-place in Brittany, and so picturesque were the costumes of the
peasantry that Viola, my sister, was fascinated, and her sketch-book was
getting crammed, while I, more frivolous, was longing to be in Paris,
where I could go to the Bon Marche, see the newest fashions, and hear
the latest doings and sayings of the famous actress Sarah Bernhardt.
Viola was always more sensible in some things than I, but she was weak
on jugs, and mugs, and rugs, and picturesque old rags, and old women,
and children; therefore it was no surprise to me, when we were on the
road to the railway station, and our trunks already well on the way
toward Paris, to have her insist upon stopping to find out what was the
matter with a child who was crying bitterly. When, however, Viola
discovered that the child was the grand-daughter of old Margot, who had
been our "maid-of-everything" at the little cottage which aunt had hired
for the season, who had cooked for us, and washed for us, and gone to
market for us, at some ridiculously low wages, there was no use in
arguing with her; stop she would, and alight she would from the queer
old conveyance we were in--for it was not the day for the diligence--and
aunt had to wait, nolens volens--and that means willingly if you choose,
and unwillingly if you don't choose--and I had to wait, and I had to do
all the scolding, for aunt is as meek as a turtle-dove. And after a
while both aunt and I were just as much interested as was Viola, and
there were we three all listening to little Suzette, forgetful of the
train and of Paris.

Suzette had ceased crying, and was pulling a flower to pieces as she
told us of her trouble. Margot had been obliged to remain away from home
on account of our intended departure, and she had left orders, strict
orders, for Jacques, Suzette's brother, not to do this, nor that, nor
the other--in fact, had forbidden so many things that poor little
Suzette knew not what was the thing he could do; nevertheless Jacques
insisted upon doing just as he pleased, and Suzette and he had a
quarrel. Suzette wished him to obey his grandmother; he called his
grandmother an old witch, and said Suzette was her cat, and that as for
voice and eyes, their cat had much finer ones. Then they had even worse
words, and she had pulled his hair, and he had banged the door, and said
he was going to drown himself; and he had come down to the pond, for she
had run after him, and she was sure--yes, positively sure--that her
brother was dead, and she should never see him again.

"But, Suzette," said Viola, "he may be hiding just to tease you."

"No, ma'm'selle, he has not wit enough for that; he has a tender heart,
and I was cruel to him, and of course being desolate from my unkindness,
he has effaced himself."-And then she burst out sobbing again.

"Oh, come, Viola," said I; "the child believes this to be true; let us
prove to her that it is not so. The pond is small; we will hunt high and
low for him. You take one bank, I will take the other, and between us
Jacques can not escape."

Aunt made a feeble expostulation about the train.

"The train, madame," said I, grandly, "can wait. When humanity demands
our time, there should be no thought of personal convenience. You see
this weeping girl, you hear what it is that causes her tears; how, then,
can you suggest to us the idea of evading responsibility?"

Then aunt feebly again murmured, "Dinner."

"Ah, then, ma chere tante, behold the immense luncheon Margot has
provided--good Margot, to whom we wish to render this service!" This was
from Viola; and all the while Suzette was sobbing.

"Adieu," I cried, tucking up my skirts, and running to the pond. Viola
followed me; but so lost was she in admiration of the water plants and
lilies, that had it not been for me she would have sat down and sketched
them whether Jacques drowned or not. I hurried her off, telling her the
child might be just at the last gasp, and we must hasten.

So Viola took one bank and I the other. Every other moment I shouted,
"Have you found him?"

"No-oo," came back to me.

"Neither have I," was my response.

I had a little ivory-handled riding-whip with me, and I began to beat
the bushes. Viola was now too far away to hear me, so instead of calling
to her I screamed,

"Jacques! Jacques! unless you are drowned, do answer me. Good Jacques,
dear Jacques, where are you?"

There was no reply; but the wind sighed in the trees, and the water
lapped softly on the margin of the pond. I began to have some fears of
my own. What if I should come suddenly upon the boy just as he was
sinking, the bubbles perhaps dancing up to the surface of the water?
Could I do anything to save him? could I swim? Alas! I could swim in a
bathing tank, with some one to hold up my chin. What should I do? would
my screams be heard half a mile away?

As I thought thus I again began beating the bushes, which were thick
along the edge of the water, and at the same moment a loud something,
neither a scream nor a groan, saluted my ears. I stood amazed; I could
not scream; and instantly a voice said:

"Ah, what a fine fellow I have lost! that was too bad!" and a scrubby
little head appeared above the bushes. "Is it you, ma'm'selle? I beg
pardon. I have caused you to be frightened; but you have caused me to
lose the finest frog in Brittany."

"Oh, Jacques! naughty Jacques!" I faltered, as well as my beating heart
would allow, "how could you serve us all in this way?"

"In what way, ma'm'selle?" replied the muddy creature, holding up a frog
he was in the act of skinning.

"Why, we thought--that is, we feared--or rather Suzette said, you meant
to drown yourself."

"I!" exclaimed this _gamin_, in the most innocent and artless manner.

"Yes, you. Did you not tell her so?"

"In a moment of excitement I may have uttered a careless expression,"
said the youth, peeling the frog's leg carefully. "Suzette is weak, like
all women--begging your pardon, ma'm'selle--she believes all that we men
say. She, in truth, irritated me, and I was cross. But I had promised
Monsieur le Cure that he should have a fine mess of frogs to-day, and it
was a good chance for me to get them; therefore I came to the pond, and
left Suzette to recover her composure."

I had recovered mine by this time, but I knew not whether to laugh or to
be angry; so I said, "Do you find your conscience tranquil when you
utter a