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NUMBER 34.
“OLMSTEAD & CO., PUBLISHERS.
, ,, ALFRED AND GOOD TIMEs.
‘Now, Alfred, mind what I tell you; keep out :
of mischief, and keep close to your books. You
know you're a pretty good boy when you're looked
after, but there will be no grandmother to watch
over you, nor any sister Louise to play with you,
at Hartstone school. . However, it is time you were
learning to take care of yourself.”
“The stage is coming, grandmother. You know
Til do as well as I can. , Any way, I've played with
girls long enough. , There, Lou, I didn’t mean to
say that, the last thing; let’s kiss and forget it—| ‘
and good-by !” —— . tee
And Alfred snatched up his gloves, and followed
the stage-driver and his trunk to the coach, saying
to himself, “Grandmother talks to me as if I was a
baby, and always should be one. But here goes
for school and a good time, and boys to play with.”
“What's that you're saying, my boy,” called the
driver from his seat, for Alfred had spoken his
thoughts a little louder than he was aware of, =~
“OQ, nothing, nothing, but straight on to the
_Hartstone cars;” and in a few minutes he was
whirling over the rails—with his grandmother,
Louise, the old library, farm-houses, frozen ponds,
and the new studies and “splendid fellows” at
school, shifting and mingling themselves curiously
in the kaleidoscope of his mind.
The next we know of the young gentleman is
contained in the following letter: 5
“Dear Sister Lou :—l’m glad you ain’t a boy,
to have to be sent away to school. It’s awful!
Books are a different sort of thing here from what
we studied together at Aunt Caroline’s. No ‘Easy
Lessons,’ no ‘Progressive Readers,’ in this place,
T tell you. It’s all clear essence of study, no milk
‘and water about it—and bitter enough, too, some-
times. There’s not much fun in pitching out of
bed in the morning, half-awake and half-frozen,
right into the middle of the Latin Grammar, espe-
cially if it’s twenty below zero, and you haven’t
time to make your fire, or don’t know how. I don’t
care half so much for Jack Frost as Ido for Old
Hartstone, though; the boys call him ‘Old,’
though he doesn’t look anywhere. near thirty. If
he was old, I should like him better, for grand-
mother’s sake. But I guess he’s just enough of a
boy to be sorry he’s grown up; for he seems to feel
akind of grudge against us fellows whenever we
~ have any sort of a good time.
These ain’t exactly the kind of boys I like;
there’s some tall fellows among them, though!
They think I’m a little shaver, but I’m as old as
~any of them, ©(I wouldn't have them think I cared
* for being snubbed, but—’nough said about that.)
Til give in, Lou. The women race is best, after
* all, And grandmother's advice is very good, taken
with cookies and crab-apple jelly, as she always
gives it. (I’ve eaten up most of mine, and what I
didn’t eat the boys stole, before I had a chance to
offer them any. ‘There ave one or two fellows here
that I'd like to make friends with.) ° :
Lou, I’ve always been sorry for that.speech I
made when I came away, about playing with girls.
Till be ‘spooney’ enough (using Hartstone classics)
to tell you, that ever since April came in, I've been
wishing I could go with you down to the end of
the old garden, to watch for the first Baltimore
oriole, or to the Bayberry Rocks by the river, to
hunt for liverwort blossoms under the big oaks.
S'pose I shall like boys best, some time, hut—
well, if girls weren’t so terribly afraid of a gun,
and if they liked to row boats and climb trees;
but then, perhaps, it’s’ as well they don’t. The
only réal trouble I've got into here was about
climbing a tree. There’s a long story about it,
that I can’t tell you now; but the upshot was, the
master lectured me here before all the boys, as if I
was a thief, and a genuine gallows-bird,
I didn’t know there was a bird’s nest up there
among the cherry blossoms, and I thought trees
were made to climb, And then the idea of my
stealing the eggs of q poor, innocent robin !—it
was a little too mean for me to take in.’ I was so
mad with the master for thinking it of me, that I
wouldn't have defended myself, if it had been worth
while. Guess he judged me to be the kind of boy
he used to be himself. .
Lou, I believe I'm homesick. , Don’t tell grand-
mother; but do you think she would care if I ran
THE OLD HO:
RSE SHOE.
away, or should come home on account of my|Eleusis. A long line of tombs, completely buried
health?. What a coward Iam! I'll stay through | in sand, runs slong both sides of is svered ways"
i 4 whic eI Pl
this erm, any. woys and old IL and the boys shall oie, and the fashionable world of Athens
* | used to crowd to the fetes of Ceres.
I suppose you'll feel dreadfully, to hear me speak |
so disrespectfully of the master, and grandmother
will feel worse. I'll see if I can’t say something ROSA BONHEUR.
good about him next time. I must stop now, and| Somewhere about 1820; a young artist of no
dive into Cesar, or there'll be something more to | small promise resolutely bade Paris and his dreams
pay than the wars with the Gauls. of future celebrity a loag farewell, to settle down
Lou, be thankful you're a girl, and don’t have | as a drawing-master at Bordeaux; for in the old
such hard times as vinous city lived Raymond Bonheur’s parents, poor,
Your affectionate brother, | aged and infirm, and to their maintenance and
| comfort the son nobly chose to devote himself.
“Home again for a good time! I declare I feel | This sacrifice on the shrine of filial duty was to be
like a hero returned from the wars!” . | more than repaid by the purest domestic happi-
. It is Alfred, sitting there upon his trunk in the |ness. Among his earliest pupils was a young gitl
library, both his gloves thrown down in just the | from Altona, poor, like himself, but of a very pleas-
ALFRED.”
old careless way, and grandmother looking at him
just as wise and kind, and sister Lou just as meek
and loving, with her hands folded before her, wait-
ing to hear the conclusion of her brother's school |
history, which ran thus: |,
“It’s a good place for Latin and ‘lickings,’ grand-
mother, but awful hard on a boy's disposition, I
don’t think I'm as amiable as I used to be, but then
I always did need a good deal of sweetening,
Didn’t get it at Hartstone school, though.”
“But the boys and the good times?” inquired
Louise, with the mildest touch of roguery in her
tone, . . . .
“Lou, boys are very well, but I haven't learned
to manage one very well yet; it will be as much as
I can do, with your help and grandmother's too, at
present. And as for the good times, they are down”
in the lot with the black pony, or in the woods with
you, Lou, where the sassafras and blueberries
grow, and at the little round tea-table, with grand-
mother’s toast and turnovers. I tell you, Lou,
any body is pretty badly off that can’t find good
times at home, for they’re not to be had anywhere
else."—Little Pilgrim,
+e
SINGULAR DISCOVERY NEAR ATHENS,
A letter just received in Paris gives the following
account of the discovery near Athens, by pure acci-
dent, of some very interesting monuments :
A small proprietor amusing himself after the
fashion of his kind in digging up his own potatoes,
came on something hard. He tried to dig it up,
but found it waa a fixture. I[ecleared a part of it,
and saw it was the wall of a building; he examined
ing person, and endowed with a good share of tal-
ent and energy. A tender relation speedily sprang
up. between master and scholar; the old people
looked on approvingly, and, before long, Raymond
brought his wife home. to the humble household.
Madame R. Bonheur, who was a good pianist, gave
music lessons; the number of her husband's pupils
steadily. increased, and a family of four children
crowned the married happiness of the couple.
Rosalie, the eldest of these, and the subject of our
sketch, was born March 22, 1822, .
She was only ten years old when her father lost
his wife, and, his parents being now dead, he de-
cided, under the restlessness of his first grief, to
transplant his family to Paris. Henceforth the lit-
tle ones seemed to have passed a somewhat cheer-
less childhood. Their father’s time was wholly en-
grossed by his professional duties; they had few
opportunities for finding new- playfellows in place
of those they had left behind, and a mother’s ten-
derness was ill replaced by the care of an elderly
housekeeper, cross and somewhat tyrannical. «As
for Rosa, peshaps she suffered more than the others
under this government. The child had all sorts of
odd. ways, which clashed: dreadfully with old Na-
non’s notions of what was propre and gentil, She
made friends with the whole dog-and-cat population
of the quartier, “If she met cattle on the road to
market, she would run into the midst of the drove,
and pat them right and left, and hada perfect ma-
nia for following sheep out of town, A terrible
child, declared Nanon, who could be taught neither
prayers nor catechism, and who had actually only
the wall, and found there was an inscription on it,
which, as he could not read, gave him no great in-
sight into his discovery. Ile, however, consulted |
his friends ; further excavations were made, and by |
a curious chain of circumstances the digging of po- |
tatoes has opened to the eyes of the antiquarian }
world the ‘via sacra” which went from Athens to
learned her letters from a gray parrot which had a
knack of repeating the alphabet. The housekeeper,
in despair over her charge, earnestly entreated that
Rosa might be sent as day-boarder to the nuns of
Chaillot. To the sisters Rosa accordingly went.
Her attendance at school became sadly irregular,
22 SONOOL STREET, BOSTON.
Years passed on; Rosa was now fifteen, and her
father thought it high time she should be put into
some way of earning her bread. ' Ie naturally con-"
sulted the sisters of Chaillot, They reported their
pupil to be a strange girl, of whom nothing could
be made; she had very little power, they said, of
acquiring knowledge, and it would be a sheer waste :
of time and money to educate her for a governess ;\
the only thing on earth to which she might be put’
' | was perhaps needlework of some sort. : Before M./
Bonheur left the convent parlor, and without the
least reference to Rosa’s own ideas on the subject,
he had decided upon placing her with a dressmaker.
This apprenticeship, however,’ only lasted one _
week; at the end of that time, her father, calling,
to see bis daughter, was startled to find her looking °
wretchedly ill, and was, moreover, touched to the
heart when the motherless girl, throwing her arms
round his neck, in an agony of tears, besought her °
release. M. Bonheur had the good sense to take
her away at once, But not the less heavily did
the poor drawing-master sigh over this fresh bur- ,
den added to his cares, as, with. Rosa on his arm,
he walked home through those bustling Paris
streets. Almost in despair, he looked down at the
swarthy brow, the strongly marked lines of the
young face beside him. This portionless girl, who
could never hope to be married for beauty, and of +
whom neither housekeeper, governess nor dress-
maker could be made—what in the world was a:
poor man to do with such an impracticable subject ?
M. Bonheur decided to meet the difficult ques-
tion, or rather to postpone it for a year to come, °
by placing the young lady in a good school, where |
his services were taken as an equivalent. For the
first time in her life, Rosa entered the drawing-
class, and in it, to her father’s delighted surprise,
she speedily outstripped her companions. The
year ended, Rosa asked his permission to return “
home, and devote herself entirely to the studio.
M. Bonheur, who had by this time received abun- '
dant proofs of her talents, gladly consented; she '
became his favorite pupil, and brought to her work >
all the energy of a mind which had struggled into
freedom ; all that patience and: zeal which are the
true tokens of genius. .She copied daily in the
Louvre, her imagination fired by the grandeur and
majesty of the great masters, and hardly vouch~
safed a glance at the cattle-pieces of Paul Potter, 2
Cuyp, and other artists of the same school, among - '
whose noble brotherhood she was herself to be en- »
rolled.
Tn 1849 Mademviselle Bonbeur was appointed
by government Director of the Female School of {
Design. In the course of the same year her father, ~
who had found leisure during the latter part of his -
life, to send several pictures of respectable merit to
the salon, was carried off by the cholera. - He left
his younger children to their sister’s special care,
and the trust has-been nobly fulfilled. Auguste
Bonheur follows in her steps as landscape and an-
imal painter; her second brother, Isidore, is well
known as an animal sculptor, and the graceful
compositions, in still life and flower painting, by *
Madame Peyrol, the youngest of the family, are de=
servedly admired, Mademoiselle Bonheur has
chosen as'her Paris residence an old-fashioned
attached. Entering this, you find a farm-yard in
the heart of the city; round it are stables and cat- °
tle-sheds; in the middle, a good-sized piece of °
pasture is enclosed, where sheep, goats and heifers,
browse together on the best of terms, Here apea- ,
cock airs his train in the sun; there a knot of
pigeons coo and beckon, cocks crow, guinea fowl
call, hens clamor over their brood. At intervals
over the din of the poultry boom’ the deep bellow
of a Iighland steer, or one long bay from a favor- |
ite English hound. Cross the threshold of the
painting-room, and there are these living models
multiplied on the walls by studies more or less fins
ished, but all portrait-like in their faithfulness, all
instinct with that subtle charm which has been well
called the painter's magic. Presently in comes a
goat, evidently free of the sanctum; trots round
with a critical air, which is irresistibly comic; wags
his venerable beard over sundry sketches of him
self, and away clatters Capricornus gain. Next
appears Margot, a beautiful mare, coming straight
up to her owner's easel with those affectionate
but no one, it seems, interfered for currection.
whinnyings which beg some token of recognition
ON tN OS ee NAG ge tae EET:
house in the Rue d’Assas, with a large court-yard -.
es one aceapapinrne nent mn
eg A agen ~—
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ig FT cermin
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