and their mountains of flesh converted into whale oil. All was idle and deserted; but a few months before they had seen a "sulphur-bottom" anchored here like a huge raft, and the boys had raced up and down its vast slippery back. The story of Jonah disturbed their faith no more. Monterey was most attractive with its relics of a bygone day, and its old adobes where Spanish customs linger, after a century of America.

The great full moon had risen ere they reached home. If the Grove is beautiful by day, by moonlight it is enchanting. The whispering pines, the soft shadows, the silverhued cliffs, and the steel-blue sea are all studies for artist or poet. They climbed the great heap of rocks near the Homelet known as Prospect Point, which overlooks the whole scene. The picture was like that of the day, only with every living thing left out. No white sails on the water; no cheerful voices calling to each other. Only the voice of the sea and the murmurous, antiphonal reply of the pine forest. A world full of beauty and repose.

But if one stands on these heights on a dark night the impression is a wild and mournful one. The pines loom like specters with waving elfin locks. The sea moans and wails as if burdened with a great remorse. The crags take on gigantic shapes

of extinct species. Again the earth is "without form and void, and darkness is upon the face of the deep." The dense fog, which shuts out the stars, seems the atmosphere of chaos. But the glimmer of the home light penetrates the mist, -a blessed beacon! As the door is opened the ruddy light streams out in welcome, and the storm tossed mariner casts anchor in that blessed port. Home never seems so like a haven as after such an experience, unless when waking at midnight from the midst of warmth and safety and utter restfulness one hears the dismal blowing of a fog horn above the rush and roar of the waves, and realizes that men are out in the thick darkness upon the merciless deep.

The brief vacation is over. The Homelet folk watch for the last time the sunset tints glorifying sea and sky. In the early morning they must cover the fire and turn the key upon the little cabin and its idyllic life. The sunrise lighted a deserted hearth.

They found, as usual after such experiences, their plain city home suddenly grown palatial. What lofty rooms! what spacious corridors what soft beds, and delightful privacy in one's own apartment! Yet ever and anon amid all this grandeur some one says, "Ah me! I'm just pining for the Homelet."

James Buckham.

JUNE 5TH, 1874, Solomon Gump, a wellknown character of Ogalalla, Nebraska, died. In the expressive, but not over elegant language of the frontier, he died "with his boots on.' The next day he was buried in the local burying-ground, known as "Heel and Toe Cemetery." So much for his death. As for his life, or that portion of it spent in Ogalalla, it was a life scarcely worth living, and yet with much of interest in it and good-doing.

No one in Ogalalla knew Solomon Gump better than I did. He was a queer man, with many good points about him, and some bad ones. He was eccentric, whimsical, with a turbulent nature, and riotous and quarrelsome. On the other hand, he was generous, warm-hearted, brave. In many respects Solomon Gump was a very weak man; he was susceptible of flattery, credulous, easily deceived, a believer in the supernatural. He was not an educated man, and yet not an ignorant man in the sense of absolute illiteracy. Years of close association with rough, ignorant men had transformed him from a man of average learning and refinement to a man of uncouth

exterior, coarse, disagreeable manners, crude speech, whimsical ideas, and without knowledge as to the events of the times. Still he was a man who had once been well informed, even educated; and this much at least could be said of him now - he was a man with a heart and a conscience.

I should like to describe him to you, if I could; but no amount of word-painting on my part would enable you to see him as he actually appeared day after day on the streets of Ogalalla. Having seen him once you would remember him all the rest of your days. Not that he was so much unlike other men, but because of a nameless something that attracted attention and fastened itself to the memory with absolute indelibility. Looking at him you would see a large, tall man, heavy-framed, with shoulders inclined to stoop; brown hair and large blue eyes; hair scraggly and sprinkled with gray; face wrinkled and brown almost as leather. At the time of his death he was between forty and fifty years of age. This is as near as I can guess it. His dress was always ragged while I knew him; his appearance always weather-beaten.

I shall never forget his first acquaintance with Ogalalla, how he looked, what he did, what he said. This was when the town was in its infancy, when it was almost wholly given up to cowboys, vagrant frontiersmen, adventurers, and gamblers. At that time Ogalalla was the northern terminus of the Texas cattle trail, and although not a very large town, was an exceedingly lively one. The place itself was not very attractive in appearance only a few shanties and mud houses, and situated in the very heart of at prairie desert, the terrible monotony of which was broken only by the Platte River, which crawled along in a straight line half a mile away. To the west and south were stretches of sand hills in the distance, while the northern outline was dark with a bold ridge of hills. Then there were patches of alkali here and there, and scattering bunches of sage brush and chalk-like sand heaps, and by the river, or in any of the several deep ravines near at hand, green grass and wild flowers. This was Ogalalla and its surroundings at the period when Solomon Gump made his first acquaintance with the place. There was only one saloon in the town then, the "Golden Rule," which did a thriving business, and was the central point of trade, travel, and the social and industrial intelligence of the village.

Such a town as this was morally certain to be adopted by such a man as Solomon Gump as a place of residence. He made his appearance in the town one sultry summer evening, and was an object of unusual interest from the very first. He came from a southerly direction, and all day we had watched him creeping over the prairie, and had speculated a good deal as to his identity, who he was, whence he came, and whither he was going. It was a long while from the time the nondescript outfit inthe distance first came into sight until it had reached the village, and by this time the interest had become so general that almost

the entire population of the place was or hand to receive it.

Meanwhile the proprietor of the concern, in perfect ignorance of the interest he was creating, shuffled up to the gilded mouth of the "Golden Rule" saloon, where he stood looking over the bar at the different colored bottles arranged in rows along the wall, and glancing at the groups of hard-featured citizens in and about the place. There was something disconsolate in his appearance as he stood there, and lonesome, and discouraged.

Along with him was a little girl of eight or nine years, a bright-eyed, flaxen-haired little creature, who looked strangely out of place with one so rough and uncouth as her masculine companion. She seemed to think a good deal of him, though; and whispered to him frequently, and smiled and laughed at his replies, which were made in a modulated tone of voice, and quietly and tenderly. Once he took her in his arms, and in his eagerness to show her the inside of the saloon, jostled against a big, burly, savagelooking fellow, who stood near the doorway, an angry and suspicious observer of the scene. Quick as a flash Solomon turned on him and said :

"Say! reckon if you had more sense you'd have more manners. Move aside : do ye hear? The little girl wants to see; don't ye know anything? Putting yerself right in afore us! Say!"

Then, as the bully moved quickly aside, there was a prompt apologetic explanation from Solomon, as follows:-

"Sorry if I hurt yer feelings; reckon I would n't hurt any one's feelings intentionally. Don't care for myself, you know, but the little girl wants to see, and as between Bluebell and anybody else, why, stranger

The little girl, with her arm around her burly companion's neck, had playfully placed her hand over his mouth and turned his face towards her. The sunlight came

into his eyes at once, and he pressed her closer to his breast, and the two surveyed the inside of the saloon for a moment in silence.

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Seems like I ought to buy you something, Bluebell," he said at length; "seems like there ought to be something in there kind er pretty like, and handsome, and gorgeous. If you see anything that you want, little one, jist call for it, and it is yours. It aint as though I did n't care for ye, girl, and was stingy and mean. It would go mighty hard for me to deny you anything; so if you see anything that you want jist call for it like a little man, and it's yours. What's that you say, my darling? Tired? Want to go back to the wagon ? 'Fraid the mules will get away? All right; but first I want to ask somebody a few questions. I say, fellers; is there any chap here from Missouri?"

I could not deny it. I was a lad of eighteen; I had taught the village school at Ogalalla for six months past, prior to which time I had been a resident of Missouri all my life. I acknowledged as much to the stranger at once, and he took me into his confidence immediately by shaking my hand. vigorously and grinning all over his dark, weather-beaten face.

Might have knowed you was from Missouri," he said; "I'm from Missouri myself, and all Missourians look alike, - the handsomest women, and the ugliest men in the world. Course you're from Missouri ! I say, how long have you been yer?"

"Six months only," I replied; "came from Missouri here."

He shook his head.

"It's been eight years since I was there," he said, "and I never expect to return. Me and this little girl are both from Missouri; we've been traveling for eight years, and now we're ready to locate. I'd just as soon be on the go myself; I don't mind it, but the child well, I reckon she's about played out. Yes, she 's my girl," he

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went on, as he noticed in my face a look of doubt; "I reckon she is my girl. Say, what are you staring at? Don't you believe me? Or do you want one of them yeller curls? No, sir; you can't have it—not for big money, no. Course she's my

girl!"

"She is very pretty," I said; and then, changing the subject quickly, I asked, "Are you all alone, you and this girl?"

"All alone," he replied, "all alone."
"And your home

He pointed to a crazy looking outfit, consisting of a mule team and a light wagon with a canopy top, located a short distance away, the wagon standing in the shade of a vacant board shanty, and the mules grazing on the prairie near by.

see, we've been on the tramp for eight years, Bluebell and I, and I reckon we can't call any place our home, unless it is the prairie itself or this wagon. It's a miserable sort of life not fer me so much, but fer Bluebell. And it don't seem sort o' right for her to be growing up in this way; she's a big girl now, nine years old, and growing like a weed; and it would n't be fair to keep her tramping around any longer. The matter is settled; she 's got to have a chance to learn something. I want her to go to school. I did n't reckon to stop yer in Ogalalla; was headin' for Omaha; but that don't matter. Ogalalla is good enough for me, if there is a likely school in the place for the little one, and if the whisky sold yer aint too powerful mean. I say, stranger?"

I hastened to inform him that the one school of Ogalalla was a good one, and that the whisky sold over the bar of the "Golden Rule" saloon was of a superior quality.

He seemed pleased at this, and thanked me for the information; then he turned to the little blue-eyed girl by his side, and said:

here for the rest of our days. Gentleman says there's a good school here, and good whisky; must be a very nice place to live in. So we 'll jist stop yer for good.”

He shuffled away, leading the little girl by the hand, helping her over the rough places, and all the while speaking kind words to her in a voice low and sympathetic. It was strange how much he thought of her, and how tender he was of her. It was a queer sight, this brawny, bearded man, and this blue-eyed little girl; the one so rough, hard-featured, savage; the other so fairy-like, so innocent, so beautiful. They were in striking contrast to each other in dress also. His garments were old, badly soiled, and ragged; his hair was long and straggling, his beard unkempt. Quite different with the little girl, her garments were of the best material, and had she been the child of a man of wealth and position, her dress could not have been more elaborate. There seemed to have been an effort on the part of some one to have her dress well, and this "some one" could have been none other than Solomon. It was a grotesque effort in many respects, although fairly successful. The hat she wore was an expensive affair, and was trimmed so as to show all the colors of the rainbow. Her shoes were fine and well fitting; dainty colored stockings adorned her limbs, and around her neck were strings of costly beads with gold ornaments and different colored ribbons. The apparel of the girl was rich, although extravagant, and evinced the crude taste of her half-savage companion in high colors, superabundance of frills and lace, and flashy silver and gold ornaments.

She

did not look like the child of such a man as Solomon Gump; she had none of his features, none of his ways, none of his peculiarities. Yet he had the care of her, evidently, and claimed her as his child. But of this I would know more further on.

Solomon Gump was in earnest when he said he wanted to send the little girl to

school. He moved into a vacant cabin on the outskirts of town, and in due time the little girl, Bluebell as he called her, was enrolled as one of the pupils of the village school. She was a bright little girl, and learned rapidly, and soon became a general favorite, not only at school, but elsewhere in the village. And she was very happy; there was nothing to make her unhappyeverybody was very kind to her, and none so much so as Solomon. He was tender of her, and watchful, and patient, and painstaking. He seemed to live only for her, and was happy only when she was with him.

Sometimes, when the day would lag, he would visit the village school, and from a seat in the back part of the room, watch the children recite their lessons, and so hear Bluebell's voice, and see her pretty face, and get a glimpse of her merry eye. At such times he was very contented, and one could see that he was very proud of Bluebell, for she took occasion then to do her best, and this meant a good deal for the little prairie blossom. Once, during one of these visits, his feelings overpowered him, and he was obliged to retire from the room in disgrace. The spelling class of which Bluebell was a member was on the floor, and a hard word had gone the rounds and had reached the little girl, at the foot of the class, and she had spelled it, and had proudly taken her place above all the others. This was a victory too great for Solomon to enjoy in silence. He rose to his feet at once, and, clapping his hands vigorously, fairly shouted, "Bully! bully! bully!" Then conscious of the fact that he had done something wrong possibly he did not know what — he dropped his head on his breast and quietly left the room.

There are some persons whose lives seem made up of mistakes; and of this kind was Solomon. His blunders during his seven years residence in Ogalalla were numerous. And not only was he a blundering sort of person, but a good-for-nothing, as far as any