and fine reflecting telescopes, the best that were yet known. He wrote valuable histories and works. He was always a devout Christian and scholar. He died in 1727, and was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Thus the puny babe that was scarcely thought worth the care of his nurses became an active and healthy boy and man, with the clearest mind of his time. He was stout, ruddy, healthy, and never, it is said, lost a tooth. But he preserved his health by avoiding all that was hurtful. He was a philosopher at twelve years old, and the world owes much of its progress to Newton's well-spent childhood.

TIM AND TIP;

OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A BOY AND A DOG.[1]

BY JAMES OTIS,

AUTHOR OF "TOBY TYLER," ETC.

Chapter XI.

ONE COOK SPOILS THE BROTH.

The question of what was to make up the dinner bill of fare appeared to be an important one to all, and many were the suggestions made to the cooks. Some proposed that the work of raising the tent be intrusted to other hands, so that Bill and Tip could go out and bring in a deer or a bear; others thought the old hen should be killed at once, and served up as a roast; while one portion of the party seemed to think it Captain Jimmy's duty to get his ship under way, and go after some fish for a chowder.

But Tim and Bobby did not allow any of these remarks to trouble them; they were the legally elected cooks, and they proposed to do the work in their own way.

"We'll get the dinner," said Tim, with some dignity, "an' after it's done, if you fellers don't like it, you can cook one to suit yourselves."

But the cooks did listen to what Bill had to say, since he was one of the high officials, and he was strongly in favor of making the first dinner in camp a "big" one, even going so far as to propose in all earnestness that the hen be killed.

"We might jest as well eat her," he said, as he looked murderously toward the unhappy fowl, which was struggling to free herself from her bonds at the risk of breaking her leg. "'Cause jest as likely as not she'll get away, an' then we sha'n't so much as have a smell of her."

"It will take us too long to fix her up for dinner," said Tim, who was just the least bit afraid that he was not cook enough to serve the hen properly. "We can get enough to eat to-day without havin' so much fuss."

"I don't care how long it takes; what we want is a bang-up dinner, an' I go in for havin' it now," said Bill, decidedly.

Bobby was on the point of throwing the weight of his opinion against the proposed feast, when a bark of triumph was heard from Tip, and the question was settled without further discussion. The dog, which had been struggling to get free from the time he had been tied so near the hen, to which he seemed to think he had a perfect right, finally succeeded in releasing himself. There was a sudden rush on his part, a loud cackling protest from poor Biddy, and then she was tossed in the air a dead chicken.

Bill had presence of mind enough, fortunately for the dinner prospects, to seize his hen before Tip made his lunch from her, and he said, as he handed her to Tim:

"There, you see Tip knew we ought to kill her, an' so he did it for us. Now we can have a good dinner."

Tim made no reply, and perhaps for the first time in his life he was angry with Tip for having meddled in matters which did not concern him. It was necessary now to cook the hen, and as he stood with her in his hand the terrible thought came to him that he did not even know enough to prepare her for cooking.

"Do you think we had better have her roasted or boiled?" he asked, in a low, reckless way, of Bobby.

Now this other cook was quite as perplexed about the matter as Tim was, and he was thoroughly well pleased that he had allowed his partner to take the lead in other matters, so that the latter would now be obliged to take all the responsibility of the hen's appearance at the dinner table.

"I think we had better roast her," he said, in a careless sort of way, as if to him one style of cooking was as easy as another.

Again was Tim disappointed. He had hoped Bobby would propose boiling her, in which case all he would be obliged to do would be to pop her in the kettle, letting her stay there until she was done. But since Bobby was so cruel as to propose the hardest way of cooking the hen, roasted it must be, or gone was his reputation as cook.

"I'll pick the feathers off," said Bill, gleefully; and Tim handed him the fowl.

"I don't seem to see how we're goin' to get along," said Tim to Bobby. "We ain't got any dishes to cook her in."

"We don't want any, do we?" asked his assistant, in some surprise. "I always thought when folks that were campin' out cooked anything, they stuck it on a stick in front of the fire an' let it sizzle."

"We can do it so now," he exclaimed; and since this suggestion had been made, roasting chickens did not appear to be any very hard matter after all.

He piled the wood on until he had a fire large enough to roast a pig, cut a long sharp stick on which to spit the hen, and had hardly completed these preparations when Bill Thompson re-appeared with the now featherless victim of Tip's blood-thirsty nature.

Bill's work might have been done more neatly; but what did a few feathers amount to when a dozen hungry boys were waiting to be fed? Tim was not quite sure whether he had better cut off the head and legs or not; but as they did not seem to be in the way, he concluded they might as well be cooked. Neither did he think any cleaning necessary, but plunged the stick through her, and stuck one end in the ground in front of the fire with all the grace of an experienced cook.

The remainder of the party watched this work with hungry eagerness; and when Tim filled the kettle with potatoes, they settled themselves down contentedly to wait for the "bang-up" dinner, which they in a measure owed to Tip.

The water in the pot bubbled and boiled merrily; the murdered hen began to steam and sizzle, until every boy's mouth watered; while Tim and Bobby bustled around in an important manner, feeling that they were looked up to as the head men of the party, and enjoying the honor immensely.

They piled on the wood, stirred the potatoes, as if that was the important part of cooking that vegetable, while every few moments Tim would smell of the hen, nearly singeing the hair from his head each time. They were certainly good cooks, if keeping up a big fire could make them so.

PREPARING THE GREAT FEAST.

The hen did not appear to be revengeful at having been so suddenly deprived of life, for in a short time her rather lean body began to turn brown, and a most delicious odor arose on the air, even if she was thickly crusted with ashes.

As Tim turned her carefully, he thought with surprise that he was a really good cook, and blamed himself for having been so distrustful of his own ability.

Thus matters went on, successfully but slowly, until some of the boys showed such plain signs of impatience that Tim thought it necessary to display more evidences of the dinner, even though the hen was far from being roasted.

He and Bobby selected from the cooked provisions enough in the way of pies and cake to make twice as large a party feel very uncomfortable. They spread this feast at one side of the fire, where it would be out of the way of the smoke, and Tim was trying to calculate how it would be