JOHN MAYNARD.

FANNY STUART sat for fully twenty minutes, biting the end of her lead pencil, or making little irregular scratches with it, on the paper before her. At last she said in her weariest and most discouraged tones, "Oh, dear me! I 'can't' think of anything. I wish we had a different subject."

"What's the matter now?" It was her fourteen-year-old brother who asked the question, as he closed his Latin dictionary.

"Why, this subject. Miss Parsons is always thinking of hard things. She wants us to write about heroism. Something that we think would be real grand, you know! I can't think of anything grand."

"Why don't you tell a true story of a hero?"

"I don't know any."

"I'll give you one; tell about John Maynard."

"John Maynard, who was he?"

"He was a pilot on Lake Erie; a good man, and a grand man, I think. Don't you remember hearing father tell the story of the burning boat?"

"I don't believe I ever heard of it."

"Well, he was bringing a steamer from Detroit to Buffalo, and the first thing they knew great puffs of black smoke were coming up from somewhere. A man was ordered below to see about it, and he reported the ship on fire. Then there was all awful time, the captain shouting orders, and the people running in every direction to obey them, and the passengers streaming. To make matters worse, the boat was loaded with tar and resin; they soon saw that there was no hope of saving her.

"They were only about seven miles from land, and could make it in three quarters of an hour; but, mind you, where the pilot stood, the fire was growing hotter and hotter. They crowded forward, passengers and sailors, only John Maynard; there he stood, with the flames bursting out all around him, and the heat getting fiercer every minute. Suppose he had gone forward too? The captain kept shouting out to know whether he could stand it, and he would answer, 'Ay, ay, sir!'

"The fire grew hotter, and hotter, and it grew every minute more terrible for John Maynard. Only five minutes more, and if the pilot could stand it, they would reach the shore. There he stood at his wheel, his hands blistered, his face scorched, working away at his wheel.

"'John Maynard!' the captain shouted, putting up his trumpet, 'Can you hold on five minutes longer?'

"And this is what he answered, Fanny,—

"'By the help of God I will, sir.'

"One hand burned so that he could not use it any more; his hair was all burned from his head, yet there he stood, and guided the boat to the shore. And everybody on that boat was saved. But he gave his life for it, he fell overboard dead, just as his work was done.

"He was a hero, Fanny."

"Yes," said Fanny, in a low voice, "I think was. I can write that story. I'm sure Miss Parsons will think that was heroism. I like it for another thing, Allen, I don't believe John Maynard could have done that if he hadn't been a good man, one who asked God for help: he would have been afraid to die."

"Well, I don't know, perhaps not," her brother said, but he went away with a sober face; he liked the idea of being a hero, but if it took a Christian to make a hero, as Fanny said, then he knew he was not preparing for one.