e other daughter,
and when it lifted she was to go to Nashville to school. At last we
spoke of the neighbors, and as night fell Uncle Bird told me how, on a
night like that, 'Thenie came wandering back to her home over yonder, to
escape the blows of her husband. And next morning she died in the home
that her little bow-legged brother, working and saving, had bought for
their widowed mother.

My journey was done, and behind me lay hill and dale, and Life and
Death. How shall man measure Progress there where the dark-faced Josie
lies? How many heartfuls of sorrow shall balance a bushel of wheat? How
hard a thing is life to the lowly, and yet how human and real! And
all this life and love and strife and failure,--is it the twilight of
nightfall or the flush of some faint-dawning day?

Thus sadly musing, I rode to Nashville in the Jim Crow car.

THE CAPTURE OF A SLAVER by J. Taylor Wood

From 1830 to 1850 both Great Britain and the United States, by joint
convention, kept on the coast of Africa at least eighty guns afloat for
the suppression of the slave trade. Most of the vessels so employed were
small corvettes, brigs, or schooners; steam at that time was just being
introduced into the navies of the world.

Nearly fifty years ago I was midshipman on the United States brig
Porpoise, of ten guns. Some of my readers may remember these little
ten-gun coffins, as many of them proved to be to their crews. The
Porpoise was a fair sample of the type; a full-rigged brig of one
hundred and thirty tons, heavily sparred, deep waisted, and carrying a
battery of eight twenty-four-pound carronades and two long chasers; so
wet that even in a moderate breeze or sea it was necessary to batten
down; and so tender that she required careful watching; only five feet
between decks, her quarters were necessarily cramped and uncomfortable,
and, as far as possible, we lived on deck. With a crew of eighty all
told, Lieutenant Thompson was in command, Lieutenant Bukett executive
officer, and two midshipmen were the line officers. She was so slow that
we could hardly hope for a prize except by a fluke. Repeatedly we had
chased suspicious craft only to be out-sailed.

At this time the traffic in slaves was very brisk; the demand in the
Brazils, in Cuba, and in other Spanish West Indies was urgent, and the
profit of the business so great that two or three successful ventures
would enrich any one. The slavers were generally small, handy cr