314 



RECREATION 



crow and I were chums and 

 understood each other. I sus- 

 pected the real cause of the dis- 

 agreeable odor, and as soon as 

 the coast was clear, discovered 

 and removed the liver, and 

 never until this day did I give 

 the crow away. 



A GOODLY FISH 



By H. B. Silver 



Speaking of balls, do you 

 know that the game of ball is 

 one of the oldest we have? Its 

 origin is lost in the distance of 

 time, but it is thought that all 

 games of bat and ball come 

 from the North somewhere, 

 though the ball without the bat 

 seems to have been used in 

 sport all over the world. 



Dr. Howard K. Thatcher 

 claims to be the inventor of the 

 "bird cage" now worn by all 

 who catch behind the bat. Not 

 long since the doctor was inter- 

 viewed by a reporter of one of 



It is hardy, full of the j oiliest of tricks, is our great dailies, and here is his story 



:^— 



as affectionate and loyal as a dog, as comical 

 as a clown, and almost as intelligent as a 

 boy. A pet crow knows its friends and en- 

 emies and will allow no liberties from a 

 stranger. Of course, a crow's honesty is no 

 better than that of a pack rat, but my. crow 

 never stole from me, and somehow or other 

 one finds it easy to forgive a thief who only 

 steals from others. 



When we dug up our flower-bed in the 

 early spring there were no less than seven 

 silver thimbles unearthed, and not one of the 

 lot came from our house. One day "Billy" 

 brought me a nice two-dollar greenback. In 

 those days a two-dollar bill was a very, very 

 large amount to me, and stood for an un- 

 heard of amount of butter scotch and ginger 

 bread. 



Of course the money did not 

 belong to me, but neither did it 

 belong to the crow, and "Billy" 

 would not tell where he got his 

 wealth, so after a consultation 

 with my parents and my teach- 

 er, and after waiting to see if 

 anyone claimed the bill, it was 

 at length decided to be my 

 property, and it was the first 

 two dollars I ever had all in a 

 heap. 



But it was not always money 

 the crow found ; once he filled 

 all the crevices in my mother's 

 bed with liver; this could not 

 be seen and attracted no atten- 

 tion until the summer heat be- 

 gan to act upon it, then every- 

 body in the house knew that 

 something had happened. The 

 old folks said a rat must have 

 died in the partition, but the 



"I entered Harvard University in 1874, and 

 in that year I played in the ball team, always 

 catching. Henry Hooper, now a successful 

 merchant in Boston, used to pitch for me, 

 and he always delivered the ball overhand. 

 He was very swift, but I always stood as 

 near the bat as the catchers do now, although 

 I had no protection for the face. I could 

 dodge pretty well, and, as curves were un- 

 known, I could judge the ball to a nicety. 



"In the winter of 1875, Ernst, a student at 

 the university, thought he would try a new 

 wrinkle, and started in practicing the under- 

 hand throw, and discovered that the ball 

 would curve. I had to catch for him, too, 

 and I set about thinking how I could protect 

 my face. I used to wear a rubber band, over 

 my mouth, and I decided this was not protec- 



■ ;: *fi-ify- 



7-TT?T rp 







JACK ANP BILL. 



By Dr. J. B. Pardoe 



