[Footnote 1: This clause is true.]

"To simply watch them as they pass from stage to stage of development fills the mind of every sane person with pleasure." One poultry crank insists that each hen must be so carefully studied that she can be understood and managed as an individual, and speaks of his hens having at times an "anxious nervous expression!"

"Yes, it is where the hens sing all the day long in the barn-yard that throws off the stiff ways of our modern civilization and makes us feel that we are home and can rest and play and grow young once more. How many men and women have regained lost health and spirits in keeping hens, in the excitement of finding and gathering eggs!"

"It is not the natural laying season when snows lie deep on field and hill, when the frost tingles in sparkling beads from every twig, when the clear streams bear up groups of merry skaters," etc.

After my pathetic experience with chickens, who after a few days of downy content grew ill, and gasped until they gave up the ghost; ducklings, who progressed finely for several weeks, then turned over on their backs and flopped helplessly unto the end; or, surviving that critical period, were found in the drinking trough, "drowned, dead, because they couldn't keep their heads above water"; turkeys who flourished to a certain age, then grew feeble and phantom-like and faded out of life, I weary of gallinaceous rhodomontade, and crave "pointers" for my actual needs.

I still read "Crankin's" circulars with a thrill of enthusiasm because his facts are so cheering. For instance, from his latest: "We have some six thousand ducklings out now, confined in yards with wire netting eighteen inches high. The first lot went to market May 10th and netted forty cents per pound. These ducklings were ten weeks old and dressed on an average eleven pounds per pair. One pair dressed fourteen pounds." Isn't that better than selling milk at two and a half cents per quart? And no money can be made on vegetables unless they are raised under glass in advance of the season. I know, for did I not begin with "pie plant," with which every market was glutted, at one cent per pound, and try the entire list, with disgustingly low prices, exposed to depressing comparison and criticism? When endeavoring to sell, one of the visiting butchers, in reply to my petition that he would buy some of my vegetables, said: "Well now, Marm, you see just how it is; I've got more'n I can sell now, and women keep offering more all the way along. I tell 'em I can't buy 'em, but I'll haul 'em off for ye if ye want to get rid of 'em!" So much for market gardening at a distance from city demands.

But ducks! Sydney Smith, at the close of his life, said he "had but one illusion left, and that was the Archbishop of Canterbury." I still believe in Crankin and duck raising. Let me see: "One pair dressed fourteen pounds, netted forty cents per pound." I'll order one of Crankin's "Monarch" incubators and begin a poultry farm anew.

"Dido et dux," and so do Boston epicures. I'll sell at private sales, not for hotels! I used to imagine myself supplying one of the large hotels and saw on the menu:

"Tame duck and apple sauce (from the famous 'Breezy Meadows' farm)." But I inquired of one of the proprietors what he would give, and "fifteen cents per pound for poultry dressed and delivered" gave me a combined attack of chills and hysterics.

Think of my chickens, from those prize hens (three dollars each)—my chickens, fed on eggs hard boiled, milk, Indian meal, cracked corn, sun-flower seed, oats, buckwheat, the best of bread, selling at fifteen cents per pound, and I to pay express charges! Is there, is there any "money in hens?"

To show how a child would revel in a little rational enjoyment on a farm, read this dear little poem of James Whitcomb Riley's:

AT AUNTY'S HOUSE.

One time when we's at aunty's house— 'Way in the country—where They's ist but woods and pigs and cows, An' all's outdoors and air! An orchurd swing; an' churry trees, An' churries in 'em! Yes, an' these Here red-head birds steal all they please An' tech 'em if you dare! W'y wunst, one time when we wuz there, We et out on the porch!

Wite where the cellar door wuz shut The table wuz; an' I Let aunty set by me an' cut My wittles up—an' pie. Tuz awful funny! I could see The red heads in the churry tree; An' bee-hives, where you got to be So keerful going by; An' comp'ny there an' all! An' we— We et out on the porch!

An'—I ist et p'surves an' things 'At ma don't 'low me to— An' chickun gizzurds (don't like wings Like parunts does, do you?) An' all the time the wind blowed there An' I could feel it in my hair, An' ist smell clover ever'where! An' a old red head flew Purt' nigh wite over my high chair, When we et out on the porch!



CHAPTER IX.

THE PASSING OF THE PEACOCKS.

I would rather look at a peacock than eat him. The feathers of an angel and the voice of a devil.

The story of this farm would not be complete without a brief rehearsal of my experiences, exciting, varied, and tragic, resulting from the purchase of a magnificent pair of peacocks.

My honest intention on leasing my forty-dollars-a-year paradise was simply to occupy the quaint old house for a season or two as a relief from the usual summer wanderings. I would plant nothing but a few hardy flowers of the old-fashioned kind—an economical and prolonged picnic. In this way I could easily save in three years sufficient funds to make a grand tour du monde.

That was my plan!

For some weeks I carried out this resolution, until an event occurred, which changed the entire current of thought, and transformed a quiet, rural retreat into a scene of frantic activity and gigantic undertaking.

In the early summer I attended a poultry show at Rooster, Mass., and, in a moment of impulsive enthusiasm, was so foolish as to pause and admire and long for a prize peacock, until I was fairly and hopelessly hypnotized by its brilliant plumage.

I reasoned: Anybody can keep hens, "me and Crankin" can raise ducks, geese thrive naturally with me, but a peacock is a rare and glorious possession. The proud scenes he is associated with in mythology, history, and art rushed through my mind with whirlwind rapidity as I stood debating the question. The favorite bird of Juno—she called the metallic spots on its tail the eyes of Argus—imported by Solomon to Palestine, essentially regal. Kings have used peacocks as their crests, have worn crowns of their feathers. Queens and princesses have flirted gorgeous peacock fans; the pavan, a favorite dance in the days of Louis le Grand, imitated its stately step. In the days of chivalry the most solemn oath was taken on the peacock's body, roasted whole and adorned with its gay feathers, as Shallow swore "by cock and pie." I saw the fairest of all the fair dames at a grand mediaeval banquet proudly bearing the bird to the table. The woman who hesitates is lost. I bought the pair, and ordered them boxed for "Breezy Meadows."

On the arrival of the royal pair at my 'umble home, all its surroundings began to lose the charm of rustic simplicity, and appear shabby, inappropriate, and unendurable. It became evident that the entire place must be raised, and at once, to the level of those peacocks.

The house and barn were painted (colonial yellow) without a moment's delay. An ornamental piazza was added, all the paths were broadened and graveled, and even terraces were dreamed of, as I recalled the terraces where Lord Beaconsfield's peacocks used to sun themselves and display their beauties—Queen Victoria now has a screen made of their feathers.

My expensive pets felt their degradation in spite of my best efforts and determined to sever their connection with such a plebeian place.

Beauty (I ought to have called him Absalom or Alcibiades), as soon as let out of his traveling box, displayed to an admiring crowd a tail so long it might be called a "serial," gave one contemptuous glance at the premises, and departed so rapidly, by running and occasional flights, that three men and a boy were unable to catch up with him for several hours. Belle was not allowed her liberty, as we saw more trouble ahead. A large yard, inclosed top and sides with wire netting, at last restrained their roving ambition. But they were not happy. Peacocks disdain a "roost" and seek the top of some tall tree; they are also rovers by nature and hate confinement. They pined and failed, and seemed slowly dying; so I had to let them out. Total cost of peacock hunts by the boys of the village, $11.33. I found that Beauty was happy only when admiring himself, or deep in mischief. His chief delight was to mount the stone wall, and utter his raucous note, again and again, as a carriage passed, often scaring the horses into dangerous antics, and causing severe, if not profane criticism. Or he would steal slyly into a neighbor's barn and kill half a dozen chickens at a time. He was awake every morning by four o'clock, and would announce the glories of the coming dawn by a series of ear-splitting notes, disturbing not only all my guests, but the various families within range, until complaints and petitions were sent in. He became a nuisance—but how could he be muzzled?

And he was so gloriously handsome! Visitors from town would come expressly to see him. School children would troop into my yard on Saturday afternoons, "to see the peacock spread his tail," which he often capriciously refused to do. As soon as they departed, somewhat disappointed in "my great moral show," Beauty would go to a large window on the ground floor of the barn and parade up and down, displaying his beauties for his own gratification. At last he fancied he saw a rival in this brilliant, irridescent reflection and pecked fiercely at the glass, breaking several panes.

Utterly selfish, he would keep all dainty bits for himself, leaving the scraps for his devoted mate, who would wait meekly to eat what he chose to leave. She made up for this wifely self-abnegation by frequenting the hen houses. She would watch patiently by the side of a hen on her nest, and as soon as an egg was deposited, would remove it for her luncheon. She liked raw eggs, and six were her usual limit.

There is a deal of something closely akin to human nature in barn-yard fowls. It was irresistibly ludicrous to see the peacock strutting about in the sunshine, his tail expanded in fullest glory, making a curious rattle of triumph as he paraded, while my large white Holland turkey gobbler, who had been molting severely and was almost denuded as to tail feathers, would attempt to emulate his display, and would follow him closely, his wattles swelling and reddening with fancied success, making all this fuss about what had been a fine array, but now was reduced to five scrubby, ragged, very dirty remnants of feathers. He fancied himself equally fine, and was therefore equally happy.

Next came the molting period.

Pliny said long ago of the peacock: "When he hath lost his taile, he hath no delight to come abroad," but I knew nothing of this peculiarity, supposing that a peacock's tail, once grown, was a permanent ornament. On the contrary, if a peacock should live one hundred and twenty years (and his longevity is something phenomenal) he would have one hundred and seventeen new and interesting tails—enough to start a circulating library. Yes, Beauty's pride and mine had a sad fall as one by one the long plumes were dropped in road and field and garden. He should have been caught and confined, and the feathers, all loose at once, should have been pulled out at one big pull and saved intact for fans and dust brushes, and adornment of mirrors and fire-places. Soon every one was gone, and the mortified creature now hid away in the corn, and behind shrubbery, disappearing entirely from view, save as hunger necessitated a brief emerging.

This tailless absentee was not what I had bought as the champion prize winner. And Belle, after laying four eggs, refused to set. But I put them under a turkey, and, to console myself and re-enforce my position as an owner of peacocks, I began to study peacock lore and literature. I read once more of the throne of the greatest of all the moguls at Delhi, India.

"The under part of the canopy is embroidered with pearls and diamonds, with a fringe of pearls round about. On the top of the canopy, which is made like an arch with four panes, stands a peacock with his tail spread, consisting all of sapphires and other proper-colored stones; the body is of beaten gold enchased with several jewels, and a great ruby upon his breast, at which hangs a pearl that weighs fifty carats. On each side of the peacock stand two nosegays as high as the bird, consisting of several sorts of flowers, all of beaten gold enameled. When the king seats himself upon the throne, there is a transparent jewel with a diamond appendant, of eighty or ninety carats, encompassed with rubies and emeralds, so hung that it is always in his eye. The twelve pillars also that support the canopy are set with rows of fair pearls, round, and of an excellent water, that weigh from six to ten carats apiece. At the distance of four feet upon each side of the throne are placed two parasols or umbrellas, the handles whereof are about eight feet high, covered with diamonds; the parasols themselves are of crimson velvet, embroidered and stringed with pearls." This is the famous throne which Tamerlane began and Shah Jahan finished, which is really reported to have cost a hundred and sixty million five hundred thousand livres (thirty-two million one hundred thousand dollars).

I also gloated over the description of that famous London dining-room, known to the art world as the "Peacock Room," designed by Whistler. Panels to the right and left represent peacocks with their tails spread fan-wise, advancing in perspective toward the spectator, one behind the other, the peacocks in gold and the ground in blue.

I could not go so extensively into interior decoration, and my mania for making the outside of the house and the grounds highly decorative had received a severe lesson in the verdict, overheard by me, as I stood in the garden, made by a gawky country couple who were out for a Sunday drive.

As Warner once said to me, "young love in the country is a very solemn thing," and this shy, serious pair slowed up as they passed, to see my place. The piazza was gay with hanging baskets, vines, strings of beads and bells, lanterns of all hues; there were tables, little and big, and lounging chairs and a hammock and two canaries. The brightest geraniums blossomed in small beds through the grass, and several long flower beds were one brilliant mass of bloom, while giant sun-flowers reared their golden heads the entire length of the farm.

It was gay, but I had hoped to please Beauty.

"What is that?" said the girl, straining her head out of the carriage.

"Don't know," said the youth, "guess it's a store."

The girl scrutinized the scene as a whole, and said decisively:

"No, 'taint, Bill—it's a saloon!"

That was a cruel blow! I forgot my flowers, walked in slowly and sadly and carried in two lanterns to store in the shed chamber. I also resolved to have no more flower beds in front of the house, star shaped or diamond—they must all be sodded over.

That opinion of my earnest efforts to effect a renaissance at Gooseville—to show how a happy farm home should look to the passer-by—in short, my struggle to "live up to" the peacocks revealed, as does a lightning flash on a dark night, much that I had not perceived. I had made as great a mistake as the farmer who abjures flowers and despises "fixin' up."

The pendulum of emotion swung as far back, and I almost disliked the innocent cause of my decorative folly. I began to look over my accounts, to study my check books, to do some big sums in addition, and it made me even more depressed. Result of these mental exercises as follows: Rent, $40 per year; incidental expenses to date, $5,713.85. Was there any good in this silly investment of mine? Well, if it came to the very worst, I could kill the couple and have a rare dish. Yet Horace did not think its flesh equal to an ordinary chicken. He wrote:

I shall ne'er prevail To make our men of taste a pullet choose, And the gay peacock with its train refuse. For the rare bird at mighty price is sold, And lo! What wonders from its tail unfold! But can these whims a higher gusto raise Unless you eat the plumage that you praise? Or do its glories when 'tis boiled remain? No; 'tis the unequaled beauty of its train, Deludes your eye and charms you to the feast, For hens and peacocks are alike in taste.

Then peacocks have been made useful in a medicinal way. The doctors once prescribed peacock broth for pleurisy, peacocks' tongues for epilepsy, peacocks' fat for colic, peacocks' galls for weak eyes, peahens' eggs for gout.

It is always darkest just before dawn, and only a week from that humiliating Sunday episode I was called by my gardener to look at the dearest little brown something that was darting about in the poultry yard. It was a baby peacock, only one day old. He got out of the nest in some way, and preferred to take care of himself. How independent, how captivating he was! As not one other egg had hatched, he was lamentably, desperately alone, with dangers on every side, "homeless and orphanless." Something on that Sabbath morning recalled Melchizedec, the priest without father or mother, of royal descent, and of great length of days. Earnestly hoping for longevity for this feathered mite of princely birth, I called him "Melchizedec."

I caught him and was in his toils. He was a tiny tyrant; I was but a slave, an attendant, a nurse, a night-watcher. Completely under his claw!

No more work, no more leisure, no more music or tennis; my life career, my sphere, was definitely settled. I was Kizzie's attendant—nothing more. People have cared for rather odd pets, as the leeches tamed and trained by Lord Erskine; others have been deeply interested in toads, crickets, mice, lizards, alligators, tortoises, and monkeys. Wolsey was on familiar terms with a venerable carp; Clive owned a pet tortoise; Sir John Lubbock contrived to win the affections of a Syrian wasp; Charles Dudley Warner devoted an entire article in the Atlantic Monthly to the praises of his cat Calvin; but did you ever hear of a peacock as a household pet?

As it is the correct thing now to lie down all of a summer afternoon, hidden by trees, and closely watch every movement of a pair of little birds, or spend hours by a frog pond studying the sluggish life there, and as mothers are urged by scientific students to record daily the development of their infants in each apparently unimportant matter, I think I may be excused for a brief sketch of my charge, for no mother ever had a child so precocious, so wise, so willful, so affectionate, so persistent, as Kizzie at the same age. Before he was three days old, he would follow me like a dog up and down stairs and all over the house, walk behind me as I strolled about the grounds, and when tired, he would cry and "peep, weep" for me to sit down. Then he would beg to be taken on my lap, thence he would proceed to my arm, then my neck, where he would peck and scream and flutter, determined to nestle there for a nap. My solicitude increased as he lived on, and I hoped to "raise" him. He literally demanded every moment of my time, my entire attention during the day, and, alas! at night also, until I seemed to be living a tragic farce!

If put down on carpet or matting, he at once began to pick up everything he could spy on the floor, and never before did I realize how much could be found there. I had a dressmaker in the house, and Kizzie was always going for a deadly danger—here a pin, there a needle, just a step away a tack or a bit of thread or a bead of jet.

Outdoors it was even worse. With two bird dogs ready for anything but birds, the pug that had already devoured all that had come to me of my expensive importations, a neighbor's cat often stealing over to hunt for her dinner, a crisis seemed imminent every minute. Even his own father would destroy him if they met, as the peacock allows no possible rival. And Kizzie kept so close to my heels that I hardly dared step. If my days were distracting, the nights were inexpressibly awful. I supposed he would be glad to go to sleep in a natural way after a busy day. No, indeed! He would not stay in box or basket, or anywhere but cradled close in my neck. There he wished to remain, twittering happily, giving now and then a sweet, little, tremulous trill, indicative of content, warmth, and drowsiness; if I dared to move ever so little, showing by a sharp scratch from his claws that he preferred absolute quiet. One night, when all worn out, I rose and put him in a hat box and covered it closely, but his piercing cries of distress and anger prevented the briefest nap, reminding me of the old man who said, "Yes, it's pretty dangerous livin' anywheres." I was so afraid of hurting him that I scarcely dared move. Each night we had a prolonged battle, but he never gave in for one instant until he could roost on my outstretched finger or just under my chin. Then he would settle down, the conflict over, he as usual the victor, and the sweet little lullaby would begin.

One night I rose hastily to close the windows in a sudden shower. Kizzie wakened promptly, and actually followed me out of the room and down-stairs. Alas! it was not far from his breakfast hour, for he preferred his first meal at four o'clock A.M. You see how he influenced me to rise early and take plenty of exercise.

I once heard of a wealthy Frenchman, nervous and dyspeptic, who was ordered by his eccentric physician to buy a Barbary ostrich and imitate him as well as care for him. And he was quickly cured!

On the other hand, it is said that animals and birds grow to be like those who train and pet them. Christopher North (John Wilson) used to carry a sparrow in his coat pocket. And his friends averred that the bird grew so large and impressive that it seemed to be changing into an eagle.

But Kizzie was the stronger influence. I really grew afraid of him, as he liked to watch my eyes, and once picked at them, as he always picked at any shining bit.

What respect I now feel for a sober, steady-going, successful old hen, who raises brood after brood of downy darlings without mishaps! Her instinct is an inspiration. Kizzie liked to perch on my finger and catch flies for his dinner. How solemn, wise, and bewitching he did look as he snapped at and swallowed fifteen flies, uttering all the time a satisfied little note, quite distinct from his musical slumber song!

How he enjoyed lying on one side, stretched out at full length, to bask in the sun, a miniature copy of his magnificent father! Very careful was he of his personal appearance, pruning and preening his pretty feathers many times each day, paying special attention to his tail—not more than an inch long—but what a prophecy of the future! As mothers care most for the most troublesome child, so I grew daily more fond of cute little Kizzie, more anxious that he should live.

I could talk all day of his funny ways, of his fondness for me, of his daily increasing intelligence, of his hair-breadth escapes, etc.

The old story—the dear gazelle experience came all too soon.

Completely worn out with my constant vigils, I intrusted him for one night to a friend who assured me that she was a most quiet sleeper, and that he could rest safely on her fingers. I was too tired to say no.

She came to me at daybreak, with poor Kizzie dead in her hands. He died like Desdemona, smothered with pillows. All I can do in his honor has been done by this inadequate recital of his charms and his capacity. After a few days of sincere grief I reflected philosophically that if he had not passed away I must have gone soon, and naturally felt it preferable that I should be the survivor.

A skillful taxidermist has preserved as much of Kizzie as possible for me, and he now adorns the parlor mantel, a weak, mute reminder of three weeks of anxiety.

And his parents—

The peahen died suddenly and mysteriously. There was no apparent reason for her demise, but the autopsy, which revealed a large and irregular fragment of window glass lodged in her gizzard, proved that she was a victim of Beauty's vanity. A friend who was present said, as he tenderly held the glass between thumb and finger: "It is now easy to see through the cause of her death; under the circumstances, it would be idle to speak of it as pane-less!" Beauty had never seemed very devoted to her, but he mourned her long and sincerely. Now that she had gone he appreciated her meek adoration, her altruistic devotion.

Another touch like human nature.

And when, after a decent period of mourning, another spouse was secured for him he refused to notice her and wandered solitary and sad to a neighbor's fields. The new madam was not allowed to share the high roost on the elm. She was obliged to seek a less elevated and airy dormitory. His voice, always distressingly harsh, was now so awful that it was fascinating. The notes seemed cracked by grief or illness. At last, growing feebler, he succumbed to some wasting malady and no longer strutted about in brilliant pre-eminence or came to the piazza calling imperiously for dainties, but rested for hours in some quiet corner. The physician who was called in prescribed for his liver. He showed symptoms of poisoning, and I began to fear that in his visit to a neighbor's potato fields he had indulged in Paris green, possibly with suicidal intent.

There was something heroic in his way of dying. No moans, no cries; just a dignified endurance. From the western window of the shed chamber where he lay he could see the multitude of fowls below, in the yards where he had so lately reigned supreme. Occasionally, with a heroic effort, he would get on his legs and gaze wistfully on the lively crowd so unmindful of his wretchedness, then sink back exhausted, reminding me of some grand old monarch, statesman, or warrior looking for the last time on the scenes of his former triumphs. I should have named him Socrates. At last he was carried to a cool resting place in the deep grass, covered with pink mosquito netting, and one kind friend after another fanned him and watched over his last moments. After he was really dead, and Tom with tears rolling down his face carried him tenderly away, I woke from my ambitious dream and felt verily guilty of aviscide.

But for my vainglorious ambition Beauty would doubtless be alive and resplendent; his consort, modest hued and devoted, at his side, and my bank account would have a better showing.

There is a motto as follows, "Let him keep peacock to himself," derived in this way:

When George III had partly recovered from one of his attacks, his ministers got him to read the king's speech, but he ended every sentence with the word "peacock."

The minister who drilled him said that "peacock" was an excellent word for ending a sentence, only kings should not let subjects hear it, but should whisper it softly.

The result was a perfect success; the pause at the close of each sentence had such a fine elocutionary effect.

In future, when longing to indulge in some new display, yield to another temptation, let me whisper "peacock" and be saved.



CHAPTER X.

LOOKING BACK.

Then you seriously suppose, doctor, that gardening is good for the constitution?

I do. For kings, lords, and commons. Grow your own cabbages. Sow your own turnips, and if you wish for a gray head, cultivate carrots.

THOMAS HOOD.

Conceit is not encouraged in the country. Your level is decided for you, and the public opinion is soon reported as something you should know.

As a witty spinster once remarked: "It's no use to fib about your age in your native village. Some old woman always had a calf born the same night you were!"

Jake Corey was refreshingly frank. He would give me a quizzical look, shift his quid, and begin:

"Spent a sight o' money on hens, hain't ye? Wall, by next year I guess you'll find out whether ye want to quit foolin' with hens or not. Now, my hens doan't git no condition powder, nor sun-flower seeds, nor no such nonsense, and I ain't got no bone cutter nor fancy fountains for 'em; but I let 'em scratch for themselves and have their liberty, and mine look full better'n your'n. I'll give ye one p'int. You could save a lot by engagin' an old hoss that's got to be killed. I'm allers looking round in the fall of the year for some old critter just ready to drop. Wait till cold weather, and then, when he's killed, hang half of him up in the hen house and see how they'll pick at it. It's the best feed going for hens, and makes 'em lay right along. Doan't cost nothin' either."

I had been asked to give a lecture in a neighboring town, and, to change the subject, inquired if he thought many would attend. Jake looked rather blank, took off his cap, scratched his head, and then said:

"I dunno. Ef you was a Beecher or a Gough you could fill the hall, or may be ef your more known like, and would talk to 'em free, you might git 'em, or if you's going to sing or dress up to make 'em larf; but as 'tis, I dunno." After the effort was over I tried to sound him as to my success. He was unusually reticent, and would only say: "Wall, the only man I heard speak on't, said 'twas different from anything he ever heard." This reminded me of a capital story told me by an old family doctor many years ago. It was that sort of anecdote now out of fashion with raconteurs—a long preamble, many details, a gradual increase of interest, and a vivid climax, and when told by a sick bed would sometimes weary the patient. A man not especially well known had given a lecture in a New Hampshire town without rousing much enthusiasm in his audience, and as he rode away on the top of the stage coach next morning he tried to get some sort of opinion from Jim Barker, the driver. After pumping in vain for a compliment the gentleman inquired: "Did you hear nothing about my lecture from any of the people? I should like very much to get some idea of how it was received."

"Wall, no, stranger, I can't say as I heerd much. I guess the folks was purty well pleased. No one seemed to be ag'in it but Square Lothrop."

"And may I ask what he said?"

"Wall, I wouldn't mind it, if I'se you, what he said. He says just what he thinks—right out with it, no matter who's hurt—and he usually gets the gist on't. But I wouldn't mind what he said, the public was purty generally pleased." And the long whip lash cracks and Jim shouts, "Get an, Dandy."

"Yes," persisted the tortured man; "but I do want very much to know what Squire Lothrop's opinion was."

"Now, stranger, I wouldn't think any more about the Square. He's got good common sense and allers hits the nail on the head, but as I said, you pleased 'em fust rate."

"Yes, but I must know what Squire Lothrop did say."

"Wall, if you will have it, he did say (and he's apt to get the gist on't) he did say that he thought 'twas awful shaller!"

Many epigrammatic sayings come back to me, and one is too good to be omitted, An old woman was fiercely criticising a neighbor and ended in this way: "Folks that pretend to be somebody, and don't act like nobody, ain't anybody!"

Another woman reminded me of Mrs. Partington. She told blood-curdling tales of the positive reappearance of departed spirits, and when I said, "Do you really believe all this?" she replied, "Indeed, I do, and yet I'm not an imaginary woman!" Her dog was provoked into a conflict with my setters, and she exclaimed: "Why, I never saw him so completely ennervated."

Then the dear old lady who said she was a free thinker and wasn't ashamed of it; guessed she knew as much as the minister 'bout this world or the next; liked nothing better than to set down Sunday afternoons after she'd fed her hens and read Ingersoll. "What books of his have you?" I asked.

She handed me a small paper-bound volume which did not look like any of "Bob's" productions. It was a Guide Book through Picturesque Vermont by Ernest Ingersoll!

And I must not omit the queer sayings of a simple-hearted hired man on a friend's farm.

Oh, for a photo of him as I saw him one cold, rainy morning tending Jason Kibby's dozen cows. He had on a rubber coat and cap, but his trouser legs were rolled above the knee and he was barefoot, "Hannibal," I shouted, "you'll take cold with your feet in that wet grass!"

"Gueth not, Marm," he lisped back cheerily. "I never cared for shooth mythelf."

He was always shouting across the way to inquire if "thith wath hot enough or cold enough to thute me?" As if I had expressed a strong desire for phenomenal extremes of temperature. One morning he suddenly departed. I met him trudging along with three hats jammed on to his head and a rubber coat under his arm, for 'twas a fine day.

"Why, Hanny!" I exclaimed, "where are you going in such haste?"

"Mithter Kibby told me to go to Halifax, and—I'm going!"

Next, the man who was anxious to go into partnership with me. He would work my farm at halves, or I could buy his farm, cranberry bog, and woodland, and he would live right on there and run that place at halves; urged me to buy twelve or fourteen cows cheap in the fall and start a milk route, he to be the active partner; then he had a chance to buy a lot of "essences" cheap, and if I'd purchase a peddling-wagon, he'd put in his old horse, and we'd go halves on that business, or I could buy up a lot of calves or young pigs and he'd feed 'em and we'd go halves.

But I will not take you through my entire picture-gallery, as I have two good stories to tell you before saying good-by.

Depressing remarks have reached me about my "lakelet," which at first was ridiculed by every one. The struggle of evolution from the "spring hole" was severe and protracted. Experts were summoned, their estimates of cost ranging from four hundred to one thousand dollars, and no one thought it worth while to touch it. It was discouraging. Venerable and enormous turtles hid in its muddy depths and snapped at the legs of the ducks as they dived, adding a limp to the waddle; frogs croaked there dismally; mosquitoes made it a camping ground and head center; big black water snakes often came to drink and lingered by the edge; the ugly horn pout was the only fish that could live there. Depressing, in contrast with my rosy dreams! But now the little lake is a charming reality, and the boat is built and launched. Turtles, pout, lily roots as big as small trees, and two hundred loads of "alluvial deposit" are no longer "in it," while carp are promised me by my friend Commissioner Blackford. The "Tomtoolan"[2] is not a large body of water—one hundred and fifty feet long, seventy-five feet wide—but it is a delight to me and has been grossly traduced by ignorant or envious outsiders. The day after the "Katy-Did" was christened (a flat-bottomed boat, painted prettily with blue and gold) I invited a lady to try it with me. Flags were fluttering from stem and stern. We took a gayly colored horn to toot as we went, and two dippers to bail, if necessary. It was not exactly "Youth at the prow and Pleasure at the helm," but we were very jolly and not a little proud.

[Footnote 2: Named in honor of the amateur engineers.]

A neglected knot-hole soon caused the boat to leak badly. We had made but one circuit, when we were obliged to "hug the shore" and devote our entire energies to bailing. "Tip her a little more," I cried, and the next instant we were both rolled into the water. It was an absurd experience, and after scrambling out, our clothes so heavy we could scarcely step, we vowed, between hysteric fits of laughter, to keep our tip-over a profound secret.

But the next time I went to town, friends began to smile mysteriously, asked me if I had been out on the lake yet, made sly and jocose allusions to a sudden change to Baptistic faith, and if I cordially invited them to join me in a row, would declare a preference for surf and salt water, or, if pressed, would murmur in the meanest way something about having a bath-tub at home.

It is now nearly a year since that little adventure, but it is still a subject of mirth, even in other towns. A friend calling yesterday told me the version he had just heard at Gillford, ten miles away!

"You bet they have comical goings-on at that woman's farm by the Gooseville depot! She got a regular menagerie, fust off—everything she see or could hear of. Got sick o' the circus bizness, and went into potatoes deep. They say she was actually up and outdoors by day-break, working and worrying over the tater bugs!

"She's a red-headed, fleshy woman, and some of our folks going by in the cars would tell of seeing her tramping up and down the long furrows, with half a dozen boys hired to help her. Soon as she'd killed most of her own, a million more just traveled over from the field opposite where they had had their own way and cleaned out most everything. Then, what the bugs spared, the long rains rotted. So I hear she's giv' up potatoes.

"Then she got sot on scooping out a seven by nine mud hole to make a pond, and had a boat built to match.

"Well, by darn, she took a stout woman in with her, and, as I heerd it, that boat just giv' one groan, and sunk right down!"

As to the potatoes, I might never have escaped from that terrific thralldom, if a city friend, after hearing my woful experience, had not inquired quietly:

"Why have potatoes? It's much cheaper to buy all you need!"

I had been laboring under a strange spell—supposed I must plant potatoes; the relief is unspeakable.

Jennie June once said, "The great art of life is to eliminate." I admired the condensed wisdom of this, but, like experience, it only serves to illume the path over which I have passed.

One little incident occurred this spring which is too funny to withhold. Among the groceries ordered from Boston was a piece of extra fine cheese. A connoisseur in cheese had advised me to try it. It recommended itself so strongly that I placed it carefully under glass, in a place all by itself. It was strong—strong enough to sew buttons on, strong as Sampson, strong enough to walk away alone. One warm morning it seemed to have gained during the night. Its penetrating, permeating power was something, almost supernatural. I carried it from one place to another, each time more remote. It would not be lonely if segregrated, doubtless it had ample social facilities within itself! At last I became desperate. "Ellen," I exclaimed, "just bring in that cheese and burn it. It comes high, too high. I can not endure it." She opened the top of the range and, as the cremation was going on, I continued my comments. "Why, in all my life, I never knew anything like it; wherever I put it—in pantry, swing cupboard, on the cellar stairs, in a tin box, on top of the refrigerator—way out on that—" Just then Tom opened the door and said:

"Miss, your fertilizer's come!"

I have told you of my mistakes, failures, losses, but have you any idea of my daily delights, my lasting gains?

From invalidism to health, from mental depression to exuberant spirits, that is the blessed record of two years of amateur farming. What has done this? Exercise, actual hard work, digging in the dirt. We are made of dust, and the closer our companionship with Mother Earth in summer time the longer we shall keep above ground. Then the freedom from conventional restraints of dress; no necessity for "crimps," no need of foreign hirsute adornment, no dresses with tight arm holes and trailing skirts, no high-heeled slippers with pointed toes, but comfort, clear comfort, indoors and out.

Plenty of rocking chairs, lounges that make one sleepy just to look at them, open fires in every room, and nothing too fine for the sun to glorify; butter, eggs, cream, vegetables, poultry—simply perfect, and the rare, ecstatic privilege of eating onions—onions raw, boiled, baked, and fried at any hour or all hours. I said comfort; it is luxury!

Dr. Holmes says: "I have seen respectability and amiability grouped over the air-tight stove, I have seen virtue and intelligence hovering over the register, but I have never seen true happiness in a family circle where the faces were not illuminated by the blaze of an open fireplace." And nature! I could fill pages with glowing descriptions of Days Outdoors. In my own homely pasture I have found the dainty wild rose, the little field strawberries so fragrant and spicy, the blue berries high and low, so desirable for "pie-fodder," and daisies and ferns in abundance, and, in an adjoining meadow by the brookside, the cardinal flower and the blue gentian. All these simple pleasures seem better to me than sitting in heated, crowded rooms listening to interminable music, or to men or women who never know when to stop, or rushing round to gain more information on anything and everything from Alaska to Zululand, and wildly struggling to catch up with "social duties."

City friends, looking at the other side of the shield, marvel at my contentment, and regard me as buried alive. But when I go back for a short time to the old life I am fairly homesick. I miss my daily visit to the cows and the frolic with the dogs. All that has been unpleasant fades like a dream.

I think of the delicious morning hours on the broad vine-covered piazza, the evenings with their starry splendor or witching moonlight, the nights of sound sleep and refreshing rest, the all-day picnics, the jolly drives with friends as charmed with country life as myself, and I weary of social functions and overpowering intellectual privileges, and every other advantage of the metropolis, and long to migrate once more from Gotham to Gooseville.

"Dear country life of child and man! For both the best, the strongest, That with the earliest race began, And hast outlived the longest, Their cities perished long ago; Who the first farmers were we know."

THE END.