Harper's Young People, December 6, 1881 An Illustrated Weekly

MAX RANDER'S ADVENTURE IN BERLIN.

BY MATTHEW WHITE, JUN.

A few days after my war experience, we moved to Berlin, where Thad and I managed to have a more cheerful time of it, as father allowed us to walk by ourselves as far as we pleased in either direction on "Under Ten Lindens," which was the way my brother pronounced the name of the main avenue.

We used to wander up and down this street for hours, watching for Emperor William, although as soon as his carriage came in sight, I always hurried Thad around the nearest corner for fear he might be in the way of somebody who wanted to shoot the Kaiser. So we never saw anything more than the horses' heads, and the sun shining on the helmets of the officers.

I had now become very suspicious of these Germans and their queer customs, so when mother heard from some friends in another town that one of the young fellows in the party had been compelled to join the fire-company because he was over a certain age, and had lived there six months, I determined to keep my eyes open wider than ever.

Yet after all I got mixed up in a dreadful way before I had been in the city a week, and this is how it happened:

One morning Thad and I had walked a little further than usual, when we suddenly came upon a lot of people crowding about the entrance to a large building in a way that was so enticingly suggestive of a circus that we could not resist the temptation to join them.

As the Germans haven't yet invented any outlandish fashion of making figures, it did not take me long to find out the low price of admission from the sign before the door, and telling Thad to keep fast hold of my jacket, I began working my way inside.

I soon found that the crowd was not as dense as it had seemed, and in less than two minutes I had bought my two tickets, and was waiting my turn to pass through the narrow space where a man was taking them up. I gave one to Thad, and as I went in ahead of him, handed my own to the door-keeper, who looked at it and at me, then suddenly seizing me by the shoulders, turned me completely around, at the same time shouting out something that made everybody rush up and stare at me as if they had never seen a boy before.

This lasted for about five minutes, during which time I kept crying out in the most broken sort of English I could talk:

"Let me go. I'm an American, and haven't even seen your Emperor. Besides, I never shot anything out of a pistol but peas in my life. Oh, don't somebody understand?"

But nobody offered to help me, and as two fat men with red faces came up and prepared to march me off between them, I could only resign myself to my fate, first begging Thad, however, to run back to the hotel as fast as he could, and tell father that I had been arrested.

All this while the crowd had been very merry at my expense, and when the two fat men began to walk off with me, loud laughs and cheers were heard on every side. In this humiliating manner, then I was taken from one end of the building to the other, but to this day I can't remember what was in it, although I am sure there were neither horses nor clowns.

I had felt somewhat easier in my mind since sending after father, and was now expecting to see him rush in, "haggard with anxiety," at any minute, when I was suddenly walked out through a side door, and marched off in a direction directly away from our hotel.

"Hold on there! Where are you taking me?" I cried, struggling to free myself, with the sole result of making my captors grip tighter and laugh louder.

The next instant they turned into a photographer's, and signed to me that I was to have my picture taken.

"Well, it's all over with me now," was my despairing thought, as there came to my mind faint recollections of having somewhere heard that a certain class of prisoners were always photographed before being sent to jail.

While the artist was getting things ready, I had a desperate idea of refusing to sit still, but, as I sadly reflected further that by so doing I would only add to the malice of my enemies, I determined to remain passive, and let them do with me as they would.

But wasn't I just boiling over with wrath inwardly! To think that a free-born American should be seized in this shameful manner, and treated like any common criminal, was outrageous, and in spite of the terror I was in I felt like shaking my fist at the whole party, and letting them know that New York had a Seventh Regiment that could whip their entire army--at least I should think it could from the way I've heard Cousin Walter talk, who's a member of it.

As it was, I could do nothing but sit there like a statue, with my head pinched by the iron frame behind me, and the artist in front of me fussing around his cannon-like arrangement, which, had it gone off and killed me on the spot, I thought would be in no way surprising in this land of surprises.

In five minutes the picture was taken, and then as the two red-faced men came forward, I resolved to make one last, bold dash for liberty.

Giving a sudden spring, I bounded from the chair, rushed for the door, and--plumped straight into my father's arms.

"Well, Max," he began in the calmest tones imaginable, "I see they haven't quite taken all the life out of you yet," and then he went on talking in German with the fat men, who soon grew redder in the face than ever as they shook all over in fits of laughter.

And what do you suppose all the fuss had been about? Just this: I had happened to be the millionth visitor that had entered the building, and that person, whoever it might be, the managers had decided should be treated with great honor, conducted in state through the exhibition, and finally have his photograph taken as a souvenir.

I brought one of the pictures back to America with me, and the boys at school all think it's a big thing; but then I've never told them as many of the particulars as I have just confided to YOUNG PEOPLE.

BITS OF ADVICE.

BY AUNT MARJORIE PRECEPT.

ABOUT CHRISTMAS GIFTS.

It is not the amount a gift costs in money which makes it beautiful and valuable. It is the loving thought of which it speaks which constitutes its claim to our regard. A person with a pocketful of money might rush into a store, buy half its contents, and scatter them right and left among his friends, without giving them much pleasure.

If you really wish to show your family and acquaintances that you love and would like to please them, you will suit your gifts thoughtfully to each of them, studying their necessities and tastes. You will not give grandma a gay neck ribbon, and Angie a pair of spectacles, nor present the cook with a volume of Tennyson, and brother Theodore with a pair of slippers when he already has three pair not worn out.

Gifts which little fingers themselves make are always especially prized by mammas and aunties. There is a great deal of fun and pleasure in preparing for Christmas, and half of it comes from the difficulty of making peoples' presents, when the people are always popping in at the wrong moment. Let me suggest two or three pretty things which the girls may make without much trouble, and with very little expense.

A chintz bag to contain the weekly stockings until they are mended is a gift to be prized by a busy mother. Let it be of any size you please, and gather it on either side to a square of pasteboard, the corners rounded a little at the lower edge. These squares must be covered, and on one of them may be gathered a little outside bag to hold darning cottons and thimbles, while the other must have some bits of gay flannel attached for a needle-book.

A set of table napkins may be worked with a tiny design in each corner. Beautiful hair-receivers are made of tiny Japanese parasols, opened half way, and looped up with ribbon. A baby's rattle may be easily made. Set up twenty-four stitches with scarlet single zephyr, knit across plain twenty-two times, bind off, and leave an end long enough to sew up the sides. Run strong thread through every stitch on one end, draw up tightly, and fasten; then stuff it with cotton, and when nearly full put in a twisted cord. Then make two more pieces of other colors, stuff in the same way, and fasten little bells to each, attaching all three to a rubber ring.

The little fan-shaped shells which are gathered on the beach in summer make lovely emery needle-cushions. Stuff the cushion with emery sand, and glue it fast to the shells, the large rounding ends apart. Tie with a loop of narrow satin ribbon.

A very beautiful afghan for grandpa can be made without much labor, if the whole family will join in knitting it. Take German town wool; you will need six hanks of black, three of white, three of pink, three of blue, and three of yellow. Set up fifty stitches for each strip, and make the strips each a yard and a half long. Crochet together with black, and finish with a deep fringe.

A small photograph on an easel, a growing plant, an album filled with stamps, a handkerchief case made of crocheted worsted over silesia or muslin, a scrap-book filled with selections--any little thing, in fact, which says, "I love you," is a fit and graceful Christmas gift.

A WAR FOR AN ARCHBISHOP.

THE CURIOUS STORY OF VLADIMIR THE GREAT.

BY GEORGE CARY EGGLESTON.

In the latter part of the tenth century Sviatozlaf was Grand Prince of Russia. He was a powerful prince, but a turbulent one, and he behaved so ill toward his neighbors that, when an opportunity offered, one of them converted his skull into a gold-mounted drinking cup, with an inscription upon it, and his dominions were parcelled out between his three sons, Yaropolk, Oleg, and Vladimir.