The years shall be full of happiness!' I said nothing to the father or Maria. I kept the thought hidden like a miser his gold. "Then the olives failed. We sat one night and looked to each other and the old man cried with his head on the table. I untied the little sack. One must live. That was a bad year. Men ran from the empty earth like rats from a sinking ship. There were now four-myself, the old man, Maria, and the little Carmela. We worked, but God was angry with the land. "The next year was no better. And now we were five, for Maria had given me my first son, the little Michele. I worked now like a dog, without thinking. I was like a slave with the whip of the master at his back. Once I had had America in my hands and had thrown my chance away. I fought to win for my son what I had lost. He should not grow up like a pig. He was bright, even at one year, my little Michele. In America he might be a deputy, even a sindaco, and say to other men, So shalt thou do and so.' "Then they called me for the army. I had no money to pay another man, and men were scarce. I kissed my wife, once for herself and once for the little one that was coming. Carmela and Michele I held long in my arms and cried, and went to serve the King I had never seen. Those years I will never forget. I had enough to eat. That is all. Many times I dreamed of the mother. One night I had a strange dream. I saw my mother come towards me while I lay in bed. She walked slow, dragging the feet like one sick. She tried to speak to me, but I could not hear her voice. The next night I dreamed the same dream, and the next night, and the next. Then I went to La Vecchia, who lived in a hole in the wall, and paid five soldi for the meaning of my dreams. She said my mother had big news for me and that I must write. So I went to the letter-writer, but when I tried to tell him my tongue was all dry, and I came away without the letter. Because I had only three months more in the army I said: 'I will wait. Then I will take Maria and the babies and go to the mother. If I live to be one thousand years and work with twenty hands, never can I make enough from the earth.' I had dreamed to return the money first, but for my punishment I must go with nothing. "After that the heart was lighter. I be gan again to plan how we would all live together and work, and in a few years we months would come to America. Three later I went home and took my second son in the arms. Then I told the father of Maria that we were going to Napoli, and, as soon as there was the money, to America. I grew young again in my hope. It seemed so simple now. After two years at that stupid soldier business my muscles cried for work. The old man was angry. He bellowed like a mad bull. He cried that he would die among the olives, and cursed me. Very soon after, we left. 66 It was night before I had courage to go to the shop of Pepe. Gemma sat inside with a fat baby in her lap. When she saw me, she screamed and almost dropped the baby. I shook her and told her of the past before she believed. Then she told me how, as I had run from the house with the sack, the mother had gone down like a tree that is cut. She had never walked after. She said always that I was in America and that some day I would send for them, for I was a good boy and had loved them. The next year the uncle had died and no more money had come from America. Gemma had married with Pepe. Maria had married and gone back to the country of the vines. She was very poor, and her baby crawled about in the sun without clothes. Elizabetta made lace and hoped to marry with Giuseppe, who sold fagots. They were all poor and dirty and happy, without thought, like animals. Sometimes Gemma and Pepe carried the mother where she could see the ships and the sea, and she cried, whispering, 'Some day he will come. He was a good son.' "I went in, and found the mother sitting alone. She was shrunken and old, like a leaf without moisture. She was not surprised. She took my head in her arms and cried. She was mad with joy for Carmela and Michele and the little Beppo. For a little while she grew young again. We talked of America. He will be a great man, the little Michele,' she would say, stroking the black curls of my son. Already he is smarter than these stupid Neapolitans.' It was so for six months. Then, like a candle that flares suddenly for a little while before it goes out, she died. We gave a fine mass and a little stone in the Campo Santo. "For the third time I began to save the money for America. That was three years ago. "To-morrow we put the feet in America, thanks to the goodness of God, who gave us the strength of oxen-Ecco ! It is told.” ered an atom of nothingness from the night"he will give thee a job, ten lire a day to begin. If thou wishest I will arrange so." "Santa Maria !" Tomasso Soracco's lips twitched. He choked back a sob. 66 Always -have-I known so. With the feet in America luck will change. Thy kindness I shall not forget." His fingers trembled with excitement as he counted the money into Il Sorcio's hand. "One-thousand-thanks. Thou art-" "Macche! It is nothing a little favor for a friend, a country man." Il Sorcio folded the money carefully into his wallet and stood up. "But now one must sleep, or to-morrow we have not clear heads, and in this most wonderful country we need heads so-clear, very clear. Ecco ?" As he climbed into his berth Il Sorcio touched Tomasso's money lightly. "Bene! If not I, another. Why not mine as well as another's? He has much to learn of America, this Tomasso!" A second story, entitled “A Great Man," in a series of UP FROM THE MEADOW BY J. DONALD ADAMS A bird's song in the meadow Comes up the hill to me, And I will find that glad, brave bird, Wherever he may be. Down the hill of daisies, with their drooping heads of white, I hear and follow the high sweet call. On the parched air of August noon The instant cooling accents fall With silver softness like the moon. Up through the golden veil of early-apple days. I mount the hill-top, and across the haze Of midday summer sun A flash of feather stirs the air, And a new song's begun. where, as summer advances, spiders embroider with silken lace all the grasses, rocks, and old woodwork of the farm. Such busybodies as these may attract little notice; but no one can overlook or fail to enjoy the lepidoptera. Everywhere you go butterflies dance before your steps, or rise and dip and curvette in the bright air about your head, while at night the moths flock to your lighted windows, equally delicate but less gay of hue, as befits beings whose life is mainly passed in darkness. "Summer," remarks Scudder, "with blazing sun and diversified blossoms, brings us the hot-looking coppers, and all that dappled band of fritillaries and angle-wings, blocked in red and black above, and often variegated by odd dashes and spots of burnished silver, or by peacock-eyes beneath. How they crowd about the thistles, spreading thistle-blossoms, or on the many-flowered umbels of the milkweed, and fan themselves with content at their sweet lot." But, as has been said, it is the quiet stream or shaded pond which especially attracts the rambler now; and what beauty arises from the dark mud of many a weedy pool! Rosy lilies, the dancing snowflakes of the water-ranunculus, golden buttercups setting off the rich violetpurple of the water-hyacinth, and, alongshore, prince of all the pondside, the scarlet spikes of the cardinal-flower. Here and there over the smooth surface dart and glide the skater-beetles, and over all zigzag innumerable dragon-flies, throwing metallic reflections, blue, green, and bronze, from their burnished armor and gauzy wings. There are a thousand things to be studied in the cool water, but most conspicuous are the nests of the sunfishes, the commonest example of which is the mottled, orange-finned pumpkin-seed. They are most brilliant of hue and at their best now; and all are near the shore of their pond, depositing their eggs in saucer-shaped nests of sand and pebbles, or guarding them with jealous care. The black bass do the same; and one may sometimes find a dozen of their nests side by side, over each of which is poised a vigilant male, steadily fanning away with golden wings the moving sand or falling sediment lest it defile the eggs, and darting out to frighten into flight some predatory or too inquisitive fish or other swimmer which threatens the beloved home. Later, when the fry have hatched, the watchful parents keep them together in their inexperience, guide the flock into sheltered places among the weeds, and guard them as a collie does his sheep against the many wolves of the water. Equally assiduous and watchful are the ugly little bullheads, whose refuges are holes in the bank into which they drive their young when danger threatens, and place themselves at the door, looking out with staring eyes and menacing barbels like a grim ogre at the gateway of a magic castle. In the same quiet waters the yellow perch are leaving black dots of eggs hanging upon the weeds and submerged sticks in long glutinous strings like silver ribbons. Now, too, many marine fishes are spawning among the rocks or eel-grass of northern coasts, and sea-angling is at its best. Snakes and turtles are hiding their leathery eggs in the warm earth; and-but-a large book would not tell all that is going on in this midsummer world. A BY WALDEMAR KAEMPFFERT WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY VINCENT LYNCH LMOST every important European city has its Old Town and its New Town, each expressing the cultural ideas of its period in the character of its architecture and its streets. In their time the width of a saddle-horse, of a Sedan chair, and of a coach have determined the width of the thoroughfares of the Old Town, and the traffic in the thoroughfares in turn determined the sizes of shops, inns, and other quasi-public buildings. So, too, the width of the tramcar has resulted in giving us the broader avenues of the New Town, and the increased carrying capacity of the tram-car has, in turn, so increased the width of streets that buildings were designed with accommodations far more ample than those of the corresponding structures of the Old Town. If evolution in transportation is thus accompanied by a corresponding evolution in municipalities, what may we expect when aircraft have been so far perfected that air journeys may be undertaken as safely as automobile tours and railway excursions? HOW THE LIMITATIONS OF THE AEROPLANE WILL AFFECT THE FUTURE CITY An aeroplane is like any soaring bird of prey in this: It cannot leap into the air straight from the ground. A cage completely open at the top will serve to confine a vulture. Before he can fly he must be in motion. In other words, he must run along the ground at constantly increasing speed until the pressure of the air beneath his wings becomes great enough to support him. He is in no better position than a boy's kite, which can be raised on a calm day only by much assiduous running against the breeze. Consider the aeroplane as a motor-driven kite, in which the pull or the thrust of a screw takes the place of the string, or consider it as a mechanical vulture, and it becomes apparent that it cannot leap straight up into the air, that it must first be propelled along the ground at automobile speed. Add to the necessity of acquiring rapid preliminary motion not only the disadvantage of sizemost flying-machines have a spread of about thirty to forty feet-but also the enormous difficulty of rising above tall buildings in the teeth of the inevitable eddies and maelstroms of air, which, could we but see them, would seem fearfully like the torrents that boil and rage in the Whirlpool Rapids of Niagara, and even the man who has never ridden on the atmosphere, and who has only a vague notion of the incessant vigilance and the acrobatic skill required to keep a machine on an even keel, will realize that muncipalities must adapt themselves to the limitations of the aeroplane, if we are to fly from the heart of one city to that of another. Even were it possible to utilize the broadest avenues, the hurricane set up by a propeller that whirls around at a speed of twelve hundred revolutions a minute, so that it seems like a solid glittering disk, would be intolerable. You ask, Why not turn to the lawns of our public parks? Because the few green open spaces provided for a population of a million or more, even if they could be encroached upon without encountering stubborn resistance, would be neither numerous nor large enough to meet the requirements of hundreds of aviators waiting for an opportunity to vault into the air, or, wheeling in wide circles, ready to snatch the first chance to alight. If streets cannot be used because the aviator may be buffeted by treacherous currents against stone walls, and if park lawns are too few, obviously only the roof is left. Housetops, then, must be adapted to the needs of aerial navigation. That end will be achieved far more easily than may be supposed. STARTING AND ALIGHTING ROOFS FOR AEROPLANES In the first place, the chasms that separate buildings on the opposite sides of streets and yards will be bridged by gratings, which will cut off but little light and air; and, in the second place, the chimney-pots and ventilating-pipes that now adorn housetops, designed before the aeroplane arrived, will be surmounted by wooden platforms, each carried on a light steel framework. New buildings will be constructed to meet the special requirements of the aviator. In the metropolis of the future, therefore, those quarters in which structures are of approximately equal height |