Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1891-07-23
Burdette on Boys Stories

Those who are familiar with The
writings of Robert Burdette know
that he says many earnest words in
Jesting way. We have seen moth
ing better from his pen of late than
aplayful but very serious complaint
against the sensational style of sto-
ries that are occasionally admitted
to our best children's periodicals.
On the whole, these periodicals are
edited with praiseworthy care, but
they do make slip now and then
that makes this rebuke from the gen.
tie humorist by no means inappro-
pirate:
No, oh, no; we are not going to
pitch into the five-eent blood and
thunder novelette,, not right direct
" at any rate. We were just look
ing over a story in the late number
OF a most excellent and highly re-
spectacle juvenile magazine: a good
magazine, that doubtless views with
alarm as do all the rest of us, the
poisonous literature of the news
stand. This story is about boy
fifteen years old, who, while stand
ing alone on his fathers engine on a
lonely siding. saw n runaway train
of cars. started by the wind. sweep
past him down the grade Unusual
thing-the lightning express nearly
due; the train dispatcher always
manages to have a lightning express
about due when anything ofthis kind
happens. There is mo telegraph wire
either this is also unusual; a road
without a wire is apt to run light
ming expresses and limited trains
every fifteen minutes. The boy
thinks quickly: boys of fifteen are
always quick thinkers; he runs his
engine out on the main line, setting
the switches for himself, for his ia
Their had gone to supper, miles away
IN the country, presumably, as it is
quite customary for railway engi-
neers to take all their meals on dis
tinct ranches, leaving their engines
in charge of children. The runaway
cars ARE miles away" and he has
''less than an hour" to catch them
He caught the runaways, which were
flying like the wind: he slowed up
with excellent Judgment we
should think so-crept along the
side of the flying engine, got out on
the pilot, lifted the coupling bar
with one hand" and reached over
as he made the coupling and drop
ped the pin with the other;" had t.
struggle with the flying cars, but at
last checked them; got them started
back, he made thirty-6ve miles an
hour, and the lightning" in sight
making siNty-on a road without a
wire-he had ten miles to run in this
shape. but he made it, got the siding,
time to turn the switch, and the
''lightning'' Numbered by. Then
1.-THE boy tainted dead away" No
wonder; it was enough to make a
man faint to read it; it was high
time somebody tainted. We haven t
the least objection to fiction; we
rather like it, but even fiction for
boys should have some sense in it.
Not much, perhaps, but just some.
How the Piano Grew,
The piano, as we see it to-day, is
the growth of centuries of invention.
In its infancy it was harp with the
two or three strings. From time to
time more strings were added, and,
after a while the cithara was born.
The cithara was in the shape of the
letter P, and had ten strings. II
took many centuries for musicians
to get the idea of stretching the
strings across an open box, but
somewhere about the year 1900 this
was thought Of and the dulcimer
made its appearance, the strings
being struck with hammers. For
another hundred years these ham,
mers were held in the hand OF the
player, and then a genius invented a
keyboard, which, being struck by
the fingers, moved the hammers.
This instrument was called a clavi-
cytherium, or keyed cithara. This
underwent some notifications and
improvements from time to time. In
Queen Elizabeth's time it was called
a virginia.. Then it was called D.
spine, because the hammers were
covered with spines of quilts, which
struck or caught the strings OF wires
and produced the sound. From 100
to 1900 it was much enlarged and
improved, and called a harpsichord,
and this was the instrument that
Lady Washington, Mrs. Hamilton
and the fine ladies of our revolution
airy times played upon. In ITO:
Bartolomeo Cristofoli, an Italian,
invented a key or keyboard, such as
we now have substantially, which
caused hammers to strike the wires
from above, and then developed the
piano. In the past $50 years there
is no musical Instrument; which has