atonic, at others coming up in their boats as far as Derby, and occasionally honoring the people of the lower portion of the Naugatuck Valley with a call, and with considerable drafts discounted at sight upon their eatables. roost, and sheep-fold told the story. These After three or four days his father, accomparties used to cross the Sound, some- panied by several friends, having traced times landing near the mouth of the Hous-him to this neighborhood, entered the house where he was confined. The young man heard distinctly his father's voice in the room above inquiring for him, but he was threatened that if he spoke or made the least noise to acquaint the party of his place of concealment, that he should be instantly killed. There was a well in the cellar into which they had before threatened to throw him. Our hero heard, as may be imagined, with no very pleasant forebodings for the future, the retreating footsteps of his friends. Perhaps he in the meantime repented his night's sparking in the tory neighborhood, but this I will not pretend to say. He might have thought with "the captive knight," At this period there lived at Naugatuck, among many patriotic families, one of the name of Judd. A small settlement in Naugatuck, known as Guntown, was a stronghold of the tories. But these political differences seem not to have cooled the ardor of some of the Naugatuck youths, or to prevent occasional expeditions to Guntown, which, if partaking somewhat of a marauding character, were doubtless looked upon with a certain degree of complacence by the marriageable fair ones in the tory neighborhood. "They have gone, they have all pass'd by, They that I loved with a brother's heart, And have left me here to die." It was upon one of these expeditions to Guntown that a young man named Chauncey Judd, a son of the person before referred to, started one evening. The night doubtless passed cheerily on, and, in accordance with the custom of those times, it was daylight when our hero left his ladylove. The night's "sparking" ended, the young "rebel" set out on his return home, whistling cheerfully along, and doubtless spinning cobweb fancies for the future. He suddenly discovered a de-clared that she would have no such deed tachment of armed men upon the road a short distance in advance of him, whom he took for Americans, but being somewhat shy, and on one of his first courting expeditions, he wished to avoid their railery, and turned off from the road to cross the lots. He was mistaken, however, in the party, as they proved to be British and "cow-boys," and as soon as they discovered that he sought to avoid them, the leader of the party sent one of his number, who was acquainted with the neighborhood, to examine him, as they were suspicious that he might give information of their whereabouts, and that it would result in their being pursued, as they had been for several days plundering the neighborhood. Cady, the man sent to examine the youth, reported him as belonging to a stanch Whig family in the vicinity. After a consultation they determined to retain him as a prisoner. He was accordingly taken to one of the houses of the tories at Guntown, where he was confined in a cellar. After the party in search of the young man had left the house, the occupants began to feel serious apprehensions for the future. The question then arose, how they might best dispose of their prisoner. The leader of the party insisted upon the necessity of killing him. This consultation, as well as the decision, was heard distinctly by the prisoner. The wife, however, of the owner of the domicil, de of blood committed in her house, and no The party soon after started with their prisoner down the river in the greatest haste. They arrived at the mouth of the Housatonic during the night. The weather was cold and stormy. Here they took their boat to cross the Sound. One of the thole-pins was missing, and the young man was compelled, notwithstanding the extreme cold, to hold a bayonet for one of the men to row against. They arrived safely on the opposite shore, and were landed on Long Island. The prisoner was here taken to a house which they made their head-quarters, with no very enviable hopes for the future, as he now felt that he was removed at such a distance from his friends that he might be dispatched with impunity. This was a trying hour for a youth of eighteen. But his friends were in pursuit; they traced the party to the mouth of the river, where they found a person who knew the rendezvous of these men on Long Island. They soon manned a whale - boat and pushed across the sound. They attacked the house, and made the whole party, with the exception of one, prisoners; among them was an English lieutenant. They also succeeded in escaping with the whole number, and in bringing them across to Stratford. Our hero was taken from his hiding-place; he had heard the tumult in the house, not knowing into whose hands he might now fall, and was so frightened and confused that he shouted lustily, "God save the king." The parties connected with this affair at Guntown were tried; one was sentenced to be executed, another had his property confiscated. The writer has learned this story from one who heard it from our hero. To add to the romance of the matter, it is certainly unfortunate that the young man's tory mistress was not the means of effecting his escape; I should furthermore be happy to state that the two were afterward united in the holy bonds of matrimony, as all true lovers should be. But, so far as I know, these things have not transpired. The settlement known as Union City is in the town of Naugatuck, about one mile north of the center. In its immediate neighborhood are several prosperous manufacturing establishments. The view which I present was sketched a short distance south of the place, upon a hill near the Naugatuck Road. The house appearing in the distance is known as the "old Goodyear place," and was for many years the home of Charles Goodyear. THE age of crusades was the youth of modern Europe. It was the time of unsophisticated feelings and ungovernable passions; the era of love, war, enthusiasm, and adventure.-Schlegel. SELF-ACTING INDICATOR BEE- NUM TUMEROUS as are the contrivances for facilitating the study of the honey-bee, we have not one which enables the bee-keeper to note the daily progress of a colony in the accumulation of a store. To know the weight of a hive, we must bring out a tripod and steelyard, and move the hive from its site; and even then we cannot judge accurately as to daily or weekly progress; in fact, we only learn the gross weight when we weigh it, and compare one weighing with another. In order to judge of what has been accomplished in the interim, I have lately thought of a plan by which the daily, even hourly progress of a hive may be known, by a self-acting apparatus of most simple construction; and as this is the time to determine whether a new appliance shall be tried or not, I venture to submit my plan to your apiarian readers. If I wait until I have put it into practice, the communication may appear too late to be of use to others during the present season. Section B Construct a pedestal for a hive on the plan represented in the diagram. Let it be formed telescope fashion; a turned pillar, A, working in the manner of a piston inside a brass or copper cylinder B. Inside B, and beneath the pillar A, is a spiral spring of brass or steel; and on this spring the pillar A presses, more or less, according to the weight superincumbent upon it. In the front of the cylinder B are two open slits, and between them an index, marked in accordance with the strength of the spring. The right-hand slit is simply a groove, in which a finger, c, works freely up and down, when moved by the hand, and a screw fixes it wherever it may be required to remain. The finger d is attached to the base of the pillar A, and the slit in which it works is quite open; so that as A presses down the spiral spring the finger d marks the gross weight of hive, hive-board, sufers, bees, and honey. At e, a thumbscrew passes through the rim of the cylinder B, to press against the pillar A, and retain it in its position. This is to prevent any jerking upward of the hive on the removal of a cap or sufer. The use of the contrivance can need but little explaining. The hive, with its swarm and floor-board, is placed on the pillar, and its gross weight is immediately marked by the finger d. Suppose the gross weight on the afternoon of the swarm being hived to be 10 lbs., fix the finger c at 10 lbs., and the finger d will the next evening show the actual amount of work accomplished in the formation of comb, etc. If a sufer is put on, let the additional weight noted by d be added to the former weight of the hive, as indicated by c; so that whenever you desire to know the total weight of the contents, you have but to deduct the weight registered by c from that indicated by d, and the product is the answer required. By such a plan we might compare hives, swarms, and localities with each other, the index showing the daily, even hourly progress of each. The effect of a few fine days in May would be pleasingly evident; and it is likely enough that, with the help afforded by the thermometer, the time for putting on sufers, or opening the partitions in collateral boxes, would be very definitely. noted. But such, and other uses that may arise, I leave to the consideration of those who may care to adopt my invention. The above contrivance would doubtless prove interesting and valuable to the apiarian. It is not at all necessary that the hive itself should be of the particular form indicated by the engraving, though we should prefer one somewhat ornamental. AN OLD MAID'S ROMANCE. with no idea whatever of amusing a child. Every time I went she gave me an old T has been objected to a recent publi- brocaded-satin bag filled with ends of in delineating worsted silk; these she bade me sort the various phases of the character of "the True Woman," omitted, and, to use an Americanism that is becoming popular, ignored that large and respectable class denominated Old Maids. Whether this omission was intentionally disrespectful, intending to imply that every true woman of marriageable age must, of necessity, be linked to one of the other sex, it is not my purpose to inquire. I do know, that there have been many true women who have chosen to live in single blessedness; and in every life-even the quietest, even the least disturbed and eventful-there is some little vein of romance, some golden vein in the earthy ore, if we might be permitted to trace it in the sunshine. I do not like to think that any of the thousand throbbing, hoping, fearing hearts I meet can be all clay, all indurated selfishness; the hardest, most unpromising people, for aught we know, may have acted long romances in their own proper persons, and have grown cold and passive after them to a degree that would lead one to believe they had never felt. There was Miss Fernley, for instance, a maiden lady of immense antiquity, whom we used to visit when I was a little girl. She lived in a large, genteel, red-brick house, inclosed in a stiff garden, with a great iron gate. Miss Fernley was precision and neatness personified, but her parlor was intolerably dull and gloomy; moreover, it was infested with three of the surliest cats I ever knew, and a parrot, the most vixenish of its race. I remember with awe the solemn tea-parties, to which all the children of her acquaintance were annually invited. Depression fell on my spirits as the gate clanged behind me; by the time my bonnet and cloak were taken off I was rigid; and when I was set down on a stool, at a considerable distance from the fire, but within reach of the cats, I was petrified into stupidity for the rest of the night. Miss Fernley delighted in me accordingly; she was accustomed to say to my mother, that I was "such a quiet, prettily-behaved child ;" and in consequence she often sent for me to spend the afternoon on Saturday half-holiday, giving as a reason that she liked company. She was a kindly, ceremonious old lady, out into packets according to color; and when she had done that, she let me alone until tea-time. Once I abstracted from its shelf an illustrated copy of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, in which Apollyon was represented as a handsome Crusader in scale-armor, standing on prostrate Christian. I did admire Apollyon, he was so grand, and had such wings; but an audible remark to that effect caused me to be immediately deprived of the book, and in all subsequent visits at this period my attention was divided between the end-bag and the cats. Miss Fernley's parlor never underwent any change. If one of her pets died, it was replaced by another of the same sex and color. All the cats were king-cats, and gray; and they did spit sometimes! The straight-backed, slender-legged chairs always stood primly up by the walls; the heavy sofa preserved its angle by the fireside as if it were fastened to the floor; and the discordant old piano was forever open. I used to perform upon it a line and a half of" Paddy Carey," the only tune I knew without music, every time I went. Later in life, I did the "Caliph of Bagdad" and the "Battle of Prague," to Miss Fernley's delight; and I remember her once singing to me, with the remains of a very sweet voice, "The Woodpecker tapping," and a little Spanish air. There were two circular portraits in this room of Miss Fernley's brothers, both in uniform; the elder had been drowned at sea, and the younger killed in battle. She loved dearly to talk of these two brothers, when once she had begun to be confidential, and would quote a great deal of poetry in her narrative of their histories; I believe she grew to love me for the interest with which I always listened to the oft-told tales. It probably never occurred to me until some years later to think whether she was a pretty or an ugly old lady; she was tall, thin, stiff; scantily dressed in silks of a uniform cloudcolor, with a lofty-crowned cap with a good many white bows; she wore a frill of fine rich lace about her neck, and ruffles at her wrists when nobody else did, and had a particularly precise and almost courtly air; I should say she was proud; |