JOHN HAY

LITTLE BREECHES

I don't go much on religion, I never ain't had no show; But I've got a middlin' tight grip, sir, On the handful o' things I know. I don't pan out on the prophets And free-will and that sort of thing—— But I b'lieve in God and the angels, Ever sence one night last spring.

I come into town with some turnips, And my little Gabe come along—— No four-year-old in the county Could beat him for pretty and strong, Peart and chipper and sassy, Always ready to swear and fight—— And I'd larnt him to chaw terbacker Jest to keep his milk-teeth white.

The snow come down like a blanket As I passed by Taggart's store; I went in for a jug of molasses And left the team at the door. They scared at something and started—— I heard one little squall, And hell-to-split over the prairie Went team, Little Breeches and all.

Hell-to-split over the prairie! I was almost froze with skeer; But we rousted up some torches, And sarched for 'em far and near. At last we struck horses and wagon, Snowed under a soft white mound, Upsot, dead beat—but of little Gabe Nor hide nor hair was found.

And here all hope soured on me, Of my fellow-critter's aid—— I jest flopped down on my marrow-bones, Crotch-deep in the snow, and prayed.

By this, the torches was played out, And me and Isrul Parr Went off for some wood to a sheepfold That he said was somewhar thar.

We found it at last, and a little shed Where they shut up the lambs at night. We looked in and seen them huddled thar, So warm and sleepy and white; And THAR sot Little Breeches, and chirped, As peart as ever you see: "I want a chaw of terbacker, And that's what's the matter of me."

How did he git thar? Angels. He could never have walked in that storm; They jest scooped down and toted him To whar it was safe and warm.

And I think that saving a little child, And bringing him to his own, Is a derned sight better business Than loafing around The Throne.

* * * * *

Artemus Ward, when in London, gave a children's party. One of John Bright's sons was invited, and returned home radiant. "Oh, papa," he explained, on being asked whether he had enjoyed himself, "indeed I did. And Mr. Browne gave me such a nice name for you, papa."

"What was that?"

"Why, he asked me how that gay and festive cuss, the governor, was!" replied the boy.

* * * * *

It was on a train going through Indiana. Among the passengers were a newly married couple, who made themselves known to such an extent that the occupants of the car commenced passing sarcastic remarks about them. The bride and groom stood the remarks for some time, but finally the latter, who was a man of tremendous size, broke out in the following language at his tormenters: "Yes, we're married—just married. We are going 160 miles farther, and I am going to 'spoon' all the way. If you don't like it, you can get out and walk. She's my violet and I'm her sheltering oak."

During the remainder of the journey they were left in peace.



HENRY W. SHAW ("Josh Billings")

NATRAL AND UNNATRAL ARISTOKRATS

Natur furnishes all the nobleman we hav.

She holds the pattent.

Pedigree haz no more to do in making a man aktually grater than he iz, than a pekok's feather in his hat haz in making him aktually taller.

This iz a hard phakt for some tew learn.

This mundane earth iz thik with male and femail ones who think they are grate bekause their ansesstor waz luckey in the sope or tobacco trade; and altho the sope haz run out sumtime since, they try tew phool themselves and other folks with the suds.

Sope-suds iz a prekarious bubble.

Thare ain't nothing so thin on the ribs az a sope-suds aristokrat.

When the world stands in need ov an aristokrat, natur pitches one into it, and furnishes him papers without enny flaw in them.

Aristokrasy kant be transmitted—natur sez so—in the papers.

Titles are a plan got up bi humans tew assist natur in promulgating aristokrasy.

Titles ain't ov enny more real use or necessity than dog collars are.

I hav seen dog collars that kost 3 dollars on dogs that wan't worth, in enny market, over 87-1/2 cents.

This iz a grate waste of collar; and a grate damage tew the dog.

Natur don't put but one ingredient into her kind ov aristokrasy, and that iz virtew.

She wets up the virtew, sumtimes, with a little pepper sass, just tew make it lively.

She sez that all other kinds are false; and i beleave natur.

I wish every man and woman on earth waz a bloated aristokrat—bloated with virtew.

Earthly manufaktured aristokrats are made principally out ov munny.

Forty years ago it took about 85 thousand dollars tew make a good-sized aristokrat, and innokulate his family with the same disseaze, but it takes now about 600 thousand tew throw the partys into fits.

Aristokrasy, like of the other bred stuffs, haz riz.

It don't take enny more virtew tew make an aristokrat now, nor clothes, than it did in the daze ov Abraham.

Virtew don't vary.

Virtew is the standard ov values.

Clothes ain't.

Titles ain't.

A man kan go barefoot and be virtewous, and be an aristokrat.

Diogoneze waz an aristokrat.

His brown-stun front waz a tub, and it want on end, at that.

Moneyed aristokrasy iz very good to liv on in the present hi kondishun ov kodphis and wearing apparel, provided yu see the munny, but if the munny kind of tires out and don't reach yu, and you don't git ennything but the aristokrasy, you hay got to diet, that's all.

I kno ov thousands who are now dieting on aristokrasy.

They say it tastes good.

I presume they lie without knowing it.

Not enny ov this sort ov aristokrasy for Joshua Billings.

I never should think ov mixing munny and aristokrasy together; i will take mine seperate, if yu pleze.

I don't never expekt tew be an aristokrat, nor an angel; i don't kno az i want tew be one.

I certainly should make a miserable angel.

I certainly never shall hav munny enuff tew make an aristokrat.

Raizing aristokrats iz a dredful poor bizzness; yu don't never git your seed back.

One democrat iz worth more tew the world than 60 thousand manufaktured aristokrats.

An Amerikan aristokrat iz the most ridikilus thing in market. They are generally ashamed ov their ansesstors; and, if they hav enny, and live long enuff, they generally hav cauze tew be ashamed ov their posterity.

I kno ov sevral familys in Amerika who are trieing tew liv on their aristokrasy. The money and branes giv out sumtime ago.

It iz hard skratching for them.

Yu kan warm up kold potatoze and liv on them, but yu kant warm up aristokratik pride and git even a smell.

Yu might az well undertake tew raze a krop ov korn in a deserted brikyard by manuring the ground heavy with tanbark.

Yung man, set down, and keep still—yu will hay plenty ov chances yet to make a phool ov yureself before yu die.

* * * * *

It is told of an old Baptist parson, famous in Virginia, that he once visited a plantation where the colored servant who met him at the gate asked which barn he would have his horse put in.

"Have you two barns?" asked the minister.

"Yes, sah," replied the servant; "dar's de old barn, and Mas'r Wales has jest built a new one."

"Where do you usually put the horses of clergymen who come to see your master?"

"Well, sah, if dey's Methodist or Baptist we gen'ally puts 'em in de ole barn, but if dey's 'Piscopals we puts 'em in the new one."

"Well, Bob, you can put my horse in the new barn; I'm a Baptist, but my horse is an Episcopalian."



JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

THE YANKEE RECRUIT

Mister Buckinum, the follerin Billet was writ hum by a Yung feller of our town that wuz cussed fool enuff to goe a-trottin inter Miss Chiff arter a Drum and fife. It ain't Nater for a feller to let on that he's sick o' any bizness that he went intu off his own free will and a Cord, but I rather cal'late he's middlin tired o' voluntearin By this time. I bleeve yu may put dependunts on his statemence. For I never heered nothin bad on him let Alone his havin what Parson Wilbur cals a pongshong for cocktales, and ses it wuz a soshiashun of idees sot him agoin arter the Crootin Sargient cos he wore a cocktale onto his hat.

His Folks gin the letter to me and I shew it to parson Wilbur and he ses it oughter Bee printed, send It to mister Buckinum, ses he, i don't ollers agree with him, ses he, but by Time, ses he, I du like a feller that ain't a Feared.

I have intusspussed a Few refleckshuns hear and thair. We're kind o' prest with Hayin. Ewers respecfly,

HOSEA BIGLOW.

This kind o' sogerin' aint a mite like our October trainin', A chap could clear right out from there ef't only looked like rainin'. An' th' Cunnles, tu, could kiver up their shappoes with bandanners, An' sen the insines skootin' to the barroom with their banners (Fear o' gittin' on 'em spotted), an' a feller could cry quarter, Ef he fired away his ramrod artur tu much rum an' water. Recollect wut fun we hed, you'n I on' Ezry Hollis, Up there to Waltham plain last fall, ahavin' the Cornwallis? This sort o' thing aint jest like thet—I wished thet I wuz furder— Nimepunce a day fer killin' folks comes kind o' low for murder (Wy I've worked out to slarterin' some fer Deacon Cephas Billins, An' in the hardest times there wuz I ollers teched ten shillins), There's sutthin' gits into my throat thet makes it hard to swaller, It comes so nateral to think about a hempen collar; It's glory—but, in spite o' all my tryin' to git callous, I feel a kind o' in a cart, aridin' to the gallus. But wen it comes to bein' killed—I tell ye I felt streaked The fust time ever I found out wy baggonets wuz peaked; Here's how it wuz: I started out to go to a fan-dango, The sentinul he ups an' sez "Thet's furder 'an you can go." "None o' your sarse," sez I; sez he, "Stan' back!" "Aint you a buster?" Sez I, "I'm up to all thet air, I guess I've ben to muster; I know wy sentinuls air sot; you aint agoin' to eat us; Caleb haint no monopoly to court the scenoreetas; My folks to hum hir full ez good ez hisn be, by golly!" An' so ez I wuz goin' by, not thinkin' wut would folly, The everlastin' cus he stuck his one-pronged pitchfork in me An' made a hole right thru my close ez ef I was an in'my. Wal, it beats all how big I felt hoorawin' in old Funnel Wen Mister Bolles he gin the sword to our Leftenant Cunnle (It's Mister Secondary Bolles, thet writ the prize peace essay; Thet's wy he didn't list himself along o' us, I dessay). An' Rantoul, tu, talked pooty loud, but don't put his foot in it, Coz human life's so sacred thet he's principled agin' it—— Though I myself can't rightly see it's any wus achokin' on 'em Than puttin' bullets thru their lights, or with a bagnet pokin' on 'em; How dreffle slick he reeled it off (like Blitz at our lyceam Ahaulin' ribbins from his chops so quick you skeercely see 'em), About the Anglo-Saxon race (an' saxons would be handy To du the buryin' down here upon the Rio Grandy), About our patriotic pas an' our star-spangled banner, Our country's bird alookin' on an' singin' out hosanner, An' how he (Mister B—— himself) wuz happy fer Ameriky—— I felt, ez sister Patience sez, a leetle mite histericky. I felt, I swon, ez though it wuz a dreffle kind o' privilege Atrampin' round thru Boston streets among the gutter's drivelage; I act'lly thought it wuz a treat to hear a little drummin', An' it did bonyfidy seem millanyum wuz a-comin'; Wen all on us gots suits (darned like them wore in the state prison), An' every feller felt ez though all Mexico was hisn. This 'ere's about the meanest place a skunk could wal diskiver (Saltillo's Mexican, I b'lieve, fer wut we call Salt river). The sort o' trash a feller gits to eat doos beat all nater, I'd give a year's pay fer a smell o' one good blue-nose tater; The country here thet Mister Bolles declared to be so charmin' Throughout is swarmin' with the most alarmin' kind o' varmin'. He talked about delishes froots, but then it was a wopper all, The holl on't 's mud an' prickly pears, with here an' there a chapparal; You see a feller peekin' out, an', fust you know, a lariat Is round your throat an' you a copse, 'fore you can say, "Wut air ye at?" You never see sech darned gret bugs (it may not be irrelevant To say I've seen a scarabaeus pilularius[A] big ez a year old elephant), The rigiment come up one day in time to stop a red bug From runnin' off with Cunnle Wright—'twuz jest a common cimex lectularius. One night I started up on eend an thought I wuz to hum agin, I heern a horn, thinks I it's Sol the fisherman hez come agin, His bellowses is sound enough—ez I'm a livin' creeter, I felt a thing go thru my leg—'twuz nothin' more 'n a skeeter! Then there's the yeller fever, tu, they call it here el vomito— (Come, thet wun't du, you landcrab there, I tell ye to le' go my toe! My gracious! it's a scorpion thet's took a shine to play with 't, I darsn't skeer the tarnel thing fer fear he'd run away with 't). Afore I came away from hum I hed a strong persuasion Thet Mexicans worn't human beans—an ourang outang nation, A sort o' folks a chap could kill an' never dream on't arter, No more'n a feller'd dream o' pigs thet he had hed to slarter; I'd an idee thet they were built arter the darkie fashion all, And kickin' colored folks about, you know, 's a kind o' national; But wen I jined I won't so wise ez thet air queen o' Sheby, Fer, come to look at 'em, they aint much diff'rent from wut we be, An' here we air ascrougin' 'em out o' thir own dominions, Ashelterin' 'em, ez Caleb sez, under our eagle's pinions, Wich means to take a feller up jest by the slack o' 's trowsis An' walk him Spanish clean right out o' all his homes and houses; Wal, it does seem a curus way, but then hooraw fer Jackson! It must be right, fer Caleb sez it's reg'lar Anglo-Saxon. The Mex'cans don't fight fair, they say, they piz'n all the water, An' du amazin' lots o' things thet isn't wut they ough' to; Bein' they haint no lead, they make their bullets out o' copper An' shoot the darned things at us, tu, wich Caleb sez ain't proper; He sez they'd ough' to stan' right up an' let us pop 'em fairly (Guess wen he ketches 'em at thet he'll hev to git up airly), Thet our nation's bigger'n theirn an' so its rights air bigger, An' thet it's all to make 'em free thet we air pullin' trigger, Thet Anglo-Saxondom's idee's abreakin' 'em to pieces, An' thet idee's thet every man doos jest wut he damn pleases; Ef I don't make his meanin' clear, perhaps in some respex I can, I know thet "every man" don't mean a nigger or a Mexican; An' there's another thing I know, an' thet is, ef these creeturs, Thet stick an Anglo-Saxon mask onto State prison feeturs, Should come to Jalam Center fer to argify an' spout on 't, The gals 'ould count the silver spoons the minnit they cleared out on 't.

This goin' ware glory waits ye haint one agreeable feetur, And ef it worn't fer wakin' snakes, I'd home agin short meter; O, wouldn't I be off, quick time, ef't worn't thet I wuz sartin They'd let the daylight into me to pay me fer desartin! I don't approve o' tellin' tales, but jest to you I may state Our ossifers aint wut they wuz afore they left the Bay State; Then it wuz "Mister Sawin, sir, you're midd'lin well now, be ye? Step up an' take a nipper, sir; I'm dreffle glad to see ye;" But now it's, "Ware's my eppylet? Here, Sawin, step an' fetch it! An' mind your eye, be thund'rin spry, or damn ye, you shall ketch it!" Wal, ez the Doctor sez, some pork will bile so, but by mighty, Ef I hed some on 'em to hum, I'd give 'em linkumvity, I'd play the rogue's march on their hides an' other music follerin'—— But I must close my letter here for one on 'em 's a hollerin', These Anglosaxon ossifers—wal, taint no use a jawin', I'm safe enlisted fer the war,

Yourn, BIRDOFREDOM SAWIN.

[Footnote A: it wuz "tumblebug" as he Writ it, but the parson put the Latten instid. i said tother maid better meeter, but he said tha was eddykated peepl to Boston and tha wouldn't stan' it no how, idnow as tha wood and idnow as tha wood.—H. B.]

* * * * *

Two dusky small boys were quarreling; one was pouring forth a volume of vituperous epithets, while the other leaned against a fence and calmly contemplated him. When the flow of language was exhausted he said:

"Are you troo?"

"Yes."

"You ain't got nuffin' more to say?"

"Well, all dem tings what you called me, you is."



CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER

MY SUMMER IN A GARDEN

SECOND WEEK

Next to deciding when to start your garden, the most important matter is what to put in it. It is difficult to decide what to order for dinner on a given day: how much more oppressive is it to order in a lump an endless vista of dinners, so to speak! For, unless your garden is a boundless prairie (and mine seems to me to be that when I hoe it on hot days), you must make a selection, from the great variety of vegetables, of those you will raise in it; and you feel rather bound to supply your own table from your own garden, and to eat only as you have sown.

I hold that no man has a right (whatever his sex, of course) to have a garden to his own selfish uses. He ought not to please himself, but every man to please his neighbor. I tried to have a garden that would give general moral satisfaction. It seemed to me that nobody could object to potatoes (a most useful vegetable); and I began to plant them freely. But there was a chorus of protest against them. "You don't want to take up your ground with potatoes," the neighbors said; "you can buy potatoes" (the very thing I wanted to avoid doing is buying things). "What you want is the perishable things that you cannot get fresh in the market." "But what kind of perishable things?" A horticulturist of eminence wanted me to sow lines of strawberries and raspberries right over where I had put my potatoes in drills. I had about five hundred strawberry plants in another part of my garden; but this fruit-fanatic wanted me to turn my whole patch into vines and runners. I suppose I could raise strawberries enough for all my neighbors; and perhaps I ought to do it. I had a little space prepared for melons—muskmelons, which I showed to an experienced friend. "You are not going to waste your ground on muskmelons?" he asked. "They rarely ripen in this climate thoroughly before frost." He had tried for years without luck. I resolved not to go into such a foolish experiment. But the next day another neighbor happened in. "Ah! I see you are going to have melons. My family would rather give up anything else in the garden than muskmelons—of the nutmeg variety. They are the most graceful things we have on the table." So there it was. There was no compromise; it was melons or no melons, and somebody offended in any case. I half resolved to plant them a little late, so that they would, and they wouldn't. But I had the same difficulty about string-beans (which I detest), and squash (which I tolerate), and parsnips, and the whole round of green things.

I have pretty much come to the conclusion that you have got to put your foot down in gardening. If I had actually taken counsel of my friends, I should not have had a thing growing in the garden to-day but weeds. And besides, while you are waiting, Nature does not wait. Her mind is made up. She knows just what she will raise; and she has an infinite variety of early and late. The most humiliating thing to me about a garden is the lesson it teaches of the inferiority of man. Nature is prompt, decided, inexhaustible. She thrusts up her plants with a vigor and freedom that I admire; and the more worthless the plant, the more rapid and splendid its growth. She is at it early and late, and all night; never tiring, nor showing the least sign of exhaustion.

"Eternal gardening is the price of liberty" is a motto that I should put over the gateway of my garden, if I had a gate. And yet it is not wholly true; for there is no liberty in gardening. The man who undertakes a garden is relentlessly pursued. He felicitates himself that, when he gets it once planted, he will have a season of rest and of enjoyment in the sprouting and growing of his seeds. It is a keen anticipation. He has planted a seed that will keep him awake nights, drive rest from his bones, and sleep from his pillow. Hardly is the garden planted, when he must begin to hoe it. The weeds have sprung up all over it in a night. They shine and wave in redundant life. The docks have almost gone to seed; and their roots go deeper than conscience. Talk about the London docks!—the roots of these are like the sources of the Aryan race. And the weeds are not all. I awake in the morning (and a thriving garden will wake a person up two hours before he ought to be out of bed) and think of the tomato-plants—the leaves like fine lace-work, owing to black bugs that skip around and can't be caught. Somebody ought to get up before the dew is off (why don't the dew stay on till after a reasonable breakfast?) and sprinkle soot on the leaves. I wonder if it is I. Soot is so much blacker than the bugs that they are disgusted and go away. You can't get up too early if you have a garden. You must be early due yourself, if you get ahead of the bugs. I think that, on the whole, it would be best to sit up all night and sleep daytimes. Things appear to go on in the night in the garden uncommonly. It would be less trouble to stay up than it is to get up so early.

I have been setting out some new raspberries, two sorts—a silver and a gold color. How fine they will look on the table next year in a cut-glass dish, the cream being in a ditto pitcher! I set them four and five feet apart. I set my strawberries pretty well apart also. The reason is to give room for the cows to run through when they break into the garden—as they do sometimes. A cow needs a broader track than a locomotive; and she generally makes one. I am sometimes astonished to see how big a space in a flower-bed her foot will cover. The raspberries are called Doolittle and Golden Cap. I don't like the name of the first variety, and, if they do much, shall change it to Silver Top. You can never tell what a thing named Doolittle will do. The one in the Senate changed color and got sour. They ripen badly—either mildew or rot on the bush. They are apt to Johnsonize—rot on the stem. I shall watch the Doolittles.

FOURTH WEEK

Orthodoxy is at a low ebb. Only two clergymen accepted my offer to come and help hoe my potatoes for the privilege of using my vegetable total-depravity figure about the snake-grass, or quack-grass, as some call it; and those two did not bring hoes. There seems to be a lack of disposition to hoe among our educated clergy. I am bound to say that these two, however, sat and watched my vigorous combats with the weeds, and talked most beautifully about the application of the snake-grass figure. As, for instance, when a fault or sin showed on the surface of a man, whether, if you dug down, you would find that it ran back and into the original organic bunch of original sin within the man. The only other clergyman who came was from out of town—a half-Universalist, who said he wouldn't give twenty cents for my figure. He said that the snake-grass was not in my garden originally, that it sneaked in under the sod, and that it could be entirely rooted out with industry and patience. I asked the Universalist-inclined man to take my hoe and try it; but he said he hadn't time, and went away.

But, jubilate, I have got my garden all hoed the first time! I feel as if I had put down the rebellion. Only there are guerrillas left here and there, about the borders and in corners, unsubdued—Forest docks, and Quantrell grass, and Beauregard pigweeds. This first hoeing is a gigantic task: it is your first trial of strength with the never-sleeping forces of Nature. Several times in its progress I was tempted to do as Adam did, who abandoned his garden on account of the weeds. (How much my mind seems to run upon Adam, as if there had been only two really moral gardens—Adam's and mine!) The only drawback to my rejoicing over the finishing of the first hoeing is, that the garden now wants hoeing a second time. I suppose if my garden were planted in a perfect circle, and I started round it with a hoe, I should never see an opportunity to rest. The fact is, that gardening is the old fable of perpetual labor; and I, for one, can never forgive Adam Sisyphus, or whoever it was, who let in the roots of discord. I had pictured myself sitting at eve with my family, in the shade of twilight, contemplating a garden hoed. Alas! it is a dream not to be realized in this world.

My mind has been turned to the subject of fruit and shade trees in a garden. There are those who say that trees shade the garden too much and interfere with the growth of the vegetables. There may be something in this; but when I go down the potato rows, the rays of the sun glancing upon my shining blade, the sweat pouring from my face, I should be grateful for shade. What is a garden for? The pleasure of man. I should take much more pleasure in a shady garden. Am I to be sacrificed, broiled, roasted, for the sake of the increased vigor of a few vegetables? The thing is perfectly absurd. If I were rich, I think I would have my garden covered with an awning, so that it would be comfortable to work in it. It might roll up and be removable, as the great awning of the Roman Colosseum was—not like the Boston one, which went off in a high wind. Another very good way to do, and probably not so expensive as the awning, would be to have four persons of foreign birth carry a sort of canopy over you as you hoed. And there might be a person at each end of the row with some cool and refreshing drink. Agriculture is still in a very barbarous stage. I hope to live yet to see the day when I can do my gardening, as tragedy is done, to slow and soothing music, and attended by some of the comforts I have named. These things come so forcibly into my mind sometimes as I work, that perhaps, when a wandering breeze lifts my straw hat or a bird lights on a near currant-bush and shakes out a full-throated summer song, I almost expect to find the cooling drink and the hospitable entertainment at the end of the row. But I never do. There is nothing to be done but to turn round and hoe back to the other end.

Speaking of those yellow squash-bugs, I think I disheartened them by covering the plants so deep with soot and wood-ashes that they could not find them; and I am in doubt if I shall ever see the plants again. But I have heard of another defense against the bugs. Put a fine wire screen over each hill, which will keep out the bugs and admit the rain. I should say that these screens would not cost much more than the melons you would be likely to get from the vines if you bought them; but then, think of the moral satisfaction of watching the bugs hovering over the screen, seeing but unable to reach the tender plants within. That is worth paying for.

I left my own garden yesterday and went over to where Polly was getting the weeds out of one of her flower-beds. She was working away at the bed with a little hoe. Whether women ought to have the ballot or not (and I have a decided opinion on that point, which I should here plainly give did I not fear that it would injure my agricultural influence), I am compelled to say that this was rather helpless hoeing. It was patient, conscientious, even pathetic hoeing; but it was neither effective nor finished. When completed, the bed looked somewhat as if a hen had scratched it; there was that touching unevenness about it. I think no one could look at it and not be affected. To be sure, Polly smoothed it off with a rake and asked me if it wasn't nice; and I said it was. It was not a favorable time for me to explain the difference between puttering hoeing and the broad, free sweep of the instrument which kills the weeds, spares the plants, and loosens the soil without leaving it in holes and hills. But, after all, as life is constituted, I think more of Polly's honest and anxious care of her plants than of the most finished gardening in the world.

SIXTH WEEK

Somebody has sent me a new sort of hoe, with the wish that I should speak favorably of it, if I can consistently. I willingly do so, but with the understanding that I am to be at liberty to speak just as courteously of any other hoe which I may receive. If I understand religious morals, this is the position of the religious press with regard to bitters and wringing machines. In some cases, the responsibility of such a recommendation is shifted upon the wife of the editor or clergyman. Polly says she is entirely willing to make a certificate, accompanied with an affidavit, with regard to this hoe; but her habit of sitting about the garden walk on an inverted flower-pot while I hoe somewhat destroys the practical value of her testimony.

As to this hoe, I do not mind saying that it has changed my view of the desirableness and value of human life. It has, in fact, made life a holiday to me. It is made on the principle that man is an upright, sensible, reasonable being, and not a groveling wretch. It does away with the necessity of the hinge in the back. The handle is seven and a half feet long. There are two narrow blades, sharp on both edges, which come together at an obtuse angle in front; and as you walk along with this hoe before you, pushing and pulling with a gentle motion, the weeds fall at every thrust and withdrawal, and the slaughter is immediate and widespread. When I got this hoe, I was troubled with sleepless mornings, pains in the back, kleptomania with regard to new weeders; when I went into my garden I was always sure to see something. In this disordered state of mind and body I got this hoe. The morning after a day of using it I slept perfectly and late. I regained my respect for the Eighth Commandment. After two doses of the hoe in the garden the weeds entirely disappeared. Trying it a third morning, I was obliged to throw it over the fence in order to save from destruction the green things that ought to grow in the garden. Of course, this is figurative language. What I mean is, that the fascination of using this hoe is such that you are sorely tempted to employ it upon your vegetables after the weeds are laid low, and must hastily withdraw it to avoid unpleasant results. I make this explanation because I intend to put nothing into these agricultural papers that will not bear the strictest scientific investigation; nothing that the youngest child cannot understand and cry for; nothing that the oldest and wisest men will not need to study with care.

I need not add that the care of a garden with this hoe becomes the merest pastime. I would not be without one for a single night. The only danger is, that you may rather make an idol of the hoe, and somewhat neglect your garden in explaining it and fooling about with it. I almost think that, with one of these in the hands of an ordinary day-laborer, you might see at night where he had been working.

Let us have peas. I have been a zealous advocate of the birds. I have rejoiced in their multiplication. I have endured their concerts at four o'clock in the morning without a murmur. Let them come, I said, and eat the worms, in order that we, later, may enjoy the foliage and the fruits of the earth. We have a cat, a magnificent animal, of the sex which votes (but not a pole-cat)—so large and powerful that if he were in the army he would be called Long Tom. He is a cat of fine disposition, the most irreproachable morals I ever saw thrown away in a cat, and a splendid hunter. He spends his nights, not in social dissipation, but in gathering in rats, mice, flying-squirrels, and also birds. When he first brought me a bird, I told him that it was wrong, and tried to convince him, while he was eating it, that he was doing wrong; for he is a reasonable cat, and understands pretty much everything except the binomial theorem and the time down the cycloidal arc. But with no effect. The killing of birds went on to my great regret and shame.

The other day I went to my garden to get a mess of peas. I had seen the day before that they were just ready to pick. How I had lined the ground, planted, hoed, bushed them! The bushes were very fine—seven feet high, and of good wood. How I had delighted in the growing, the blowing, the podding! What a touching thought it was that they had all podded for me! When I went to pick them I found the pods all split open and the peas gone. The dear little birds, who are so fond of the strawberries, had eaten them all. Perhaps there were left as many as I planted; I did not count them. I made a rapid estimate of the cost of the seed, the interest of the ground, the price of labor, the value of the bushes, the anxiety of weeks of watchfulness. I looked about me on the face of nature. The wind blew from the south so soft and treacherous! A thrush sang in the woods so deceitfully! All nature seemed fair. But who was to give me back my peas? The fowls of the air have peas; but what has man?

I went into the house. I called Calvin (that is the name of our cat, given him on account of his gravity, morality, and uprightness. We never familiarly call him John). I petted Calvin. I lavished upon him an enthusiastic fondness. I told him that he had no fault; that the one action that I had called a vice was an heroic exhibition of regard for my interest. I bade him go and do likewise continually. I now saw how much better instinct is than mere unguided reason. Calvin knew. If he had put his opinion into English (instead of his native catalogue), it would have been, "You need not teach your grandmother to suck eggs." It was only the round of nature. The worms eat a noxious something in the ground. The birds eat the worms. Calvin eats the birds. We eat—no, we do not eat Calvin. There the chain stops. When you ascend the scale of being, and come to an animal that is, like ourselves, inedible, you have arrived at a result where you can rest. Let us respect the cat: he completes an edible chain.

I have little heart to discuss methods of raising peas. It occurs to me that I can have an iron pea-bush, a sort of trellis, through which I could discharge electricity at frequent intervals and electrify the birds to death when they alight; for they stand upon my beautiful bush in order to pick out the peas. An apparatus of this kind, with an operator, would cost, however, about as much as the peas. A neighbor suggests that I might put up a scarecrow near the vines, which would keep the birds away. I am doubtful about it; the birds are too much accustomed to seeing a person in poor clothes in the garden to care much for that. Another neighbor suggests that the birds do not open the pods; that a sort of blast, apt to come after rain, splits the pods, and the birds then eat the peas. It may be so. There seems to be complete unity of action between the blast and the birds. But good neighbors, kind friends, I desire that you will not increase, by talk, a disappointment which you cannot assuage.

CROWDED

Chauncey Depew says: In the Berkshire Hills there was a funeral, and as the friends and mourners gathered in the little parlor, there came the typical New England female who mingles curiosity with her sympathy, and, as she glanced around the darkened room, she said to the bereaved widow:

"Where did you get that new eight-day clock?"

"We ain't got no new eight-day clock," was the reply.

"You ain't? What's that in the corner there?"

"Why, no, that's not an eight-day clock; that's the deceased. We stood him on end to make room for the mourners."

* * * * *

A young wife who lost her husband by death telegraphed the sad tidings to her father in these succinct words: "Dear John died this morning at ten. Loss fully covered by insurance."

THE ALARMED SKIPPER

"It was an Ancient Mariner"

Many a long, long year ago, Nantucket skippers had a plan Of finding out, though "lying low," How near New York their schooners ran.

They greased the lead before it fell, And then, by sounding through the night, Knowing the soil that stuck, so well, They always guessed their reckoning right.

A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim, Could tell, by tasting, just the spot, And so below he'd "dowse the glim"— After, of course, his "something hot."

Snug in his berth, at eight o'clock, This ancient skipper might be found; No matter how his craft would rock, He slept—for skippers' naps are sound!

The watch on deck would now and then Run down and wake him, with the lead; He'd up, and taste, and tell the men How many miles they went ahead.

One night, 'twas Jotham Marden's watch, A curious wag—the peddler's son—— And so he mused (the wanton wretch), "To-night I'll have a grain of fun.

"We're all a set of stupid fools To think the skipper knows by tasting What ground he's on—Nantucket schools Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting!"

And so he took the well-greased lead And rubbed it o'er a box of earth That stood on deck—a parsnip-bed—— And then he sought the skipper's berth.

"Where are we now, sir? Please to taste." The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, Then ope'd his eyes in wondrous haste, And then upon the floor he sprung!

The skipper stormed and tore his hair, Thrust on his boots, and roared to Marden, "Nantucket's sunk, and here we are Right over old Marm Hackett's garden!"

JAMES T. FIELDS.

* * * * *

THE WEDDING JOURNEY

He: Dearest, if I had known this tunnel was so long, I'd have given you a jolly hug.

She: Didn't you? Why, somebody did!



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE

Do I think that the particular form of lying often seen in newspapers under the title, "From Our Foreign Correspondent," does any harm? Why, no, I don't know that it does. I suppose it doesn't really deceive people any more than the "Arabian Nights" or "Gulliver's Travels" do. Sometimes the writers compile too carelessly, though, and mix up facts out of geographies and stories out of the penny papers, so as to mislead those who are desirous of information. I cut a piece out of one of the papers the other day which contains a number of improbabilities and, I suspect, misstatements. I will send up and get it for you, if you would like to hear it. Ah, this is it; it is headed

"OUR SUMATRA CORRESPONDENCE

"This island is now the property of the Stamford family—having been won, it is said, in a raffle by Sir —— Stamford, during the stock-gambling mania of the South Sea scheme. The history of this gentleman may be found in an interesting series of questions (unfortunately not yet answered) contained in the 'Notes and Queries.' This island is entirely surrounded by the ocean, which here contains a large amount of saline substance, crystallizing in cubes remarkable for their symmetry, and frequently displays on its surface, during calm weather, the rainbow tints of the celebrated South Sea bubbles. The summers are oppressively hot, and the winters very probably cold; but this fact cannot be ascertained precisely, as, for some peculiar reason, the mercury in these latitudes never shrinks, as in more northern regions, and thus the thermometer is rendered useless in winter.

"The principal vegetable productions of the island are the pepper tree and the bread-fruit tree. Pepper being very abundantly produced, a benevolent society was organized in London during the last century for supplying the natives with vinegar and oysters, as an addition to that delightful condiment. (Note received from Dr. D. P.) It is said, however, that, as the oysters were of the kind called natives in England, the natives of Sumatra, in obedience to a natural instinct, refused to touch them, and confined themselves entirely to the crew of the vessel in which they were brought over. This information was received from one of the oldest inhabitants, a native himself, and exceedingly fond of missionaries. He is said also to be very skilful in the cuisine peculiar to the island.

"During the season of gathering pepper, the persons employed are subject to various incommodities, the chief of which is violent and long-continued sternutation, or sneezing. Such is the vehemence of these attacks that the unfortunate subjects of them are often driven backward for great distances at immense speed, on the well-known principle of the aeolipile. Not being able to see where they are going, these poor creatures dash themselves to pieces against the rocks, or are precipitated over the cliffs, and thus many valuable lives are lost annually. As during the whole pepper harvest they feed exclusively on this stimulant, they become exceedingly irritable. The smallest injury is resented with ungovernable rage. A young man suffering from the pepper-fever, as it is called, cudgeled another most severely for appropriating a superannuated relative of trifling value, and was only pacified by having a present made him of a pig of that peculiar species of swine called the Peccavi by the Catholic Jews, who, it is well known, abstain from swine's flesh in imitation of the Mohammedan Buddhists.

"The bread tree grows abundantly. Its branches are well known to Europe and America under the familiar name of maccaroni. The smaller twigs are called vermicelli. They have a decided animal flavor, as may be observed in the soups containing them. Maccaroni, being tubular, is the favorite habitat of a very dangerous insect, which is rendered peculiarly ferocious by being boiled. The government of the island, therefore, never allows a stick of it to be exported without being accompanied by a piston with which its cavity may at any time be thoroughly swept out. These are commonly lost or stolen before the maccaroni arrives among us. It, therefore, always contains many of these insects, which, however, generally die of old age in the shops, so that accidents from this source are comparatively rare.

"The fruit of the bread tree consists principally of hot rolls. The buttered-muffin variety is supposed to be a hybrid with the cocoanut palm, the cream found on the milk of the cocoanut exuding from the hybrid in the shape of butter, just as the ripe fruit is splitting, so as to fit it for the tea-table, where it is commonly served up with cold——"

There—I don't want to read any more of it. You see that many of these statements are highly improbable. No, I shall not mention the paper.—The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.

MUSIC-POUNDING

The old Master was talking about a concert he had been to hear.

—I don't like your chopped music anyway. That woman—she had more sense in her little finger than forty medical societies—Florence Nightingale—says that the music you pour out is good for sick folks, and the music you pound out isn't. Not that exactly, but something like it. I have been to hear some music-pounding. It was a young woman, with as many white muslin flounces round her as the planet Saturn has rings, that did it. She gave the music-stool a twirl or two and fluffed down on to it like a whirl of soap-suds in a hand-basin. Then she pushed up her cuffs as if she was going to fight for the champion's belt. Then she worked her wrists and her hands, to limber 'em, I suppose, and spread out her fingers till they looked as though they would pretty much cover the keyboard, from the growling end to the little squeaky one. Then those two hands of hers made a jump at the keys as if they were a couple of tigers coming down on a flock of black-and-white sheep, and the piano gave a great howl as if its tail had been trod on. Dead stop—so still you could hear your hair growing. Then another jump, and another howl, as if the piano had two tails and you had trod on both of 'em at once, and then a grand clatter and scramble and string of jumps, up and down, back and forward, one hand over the other, like a stampede of rats and mice more than like anything I call music. I like to hear a woman sing, and I like to hear a fiddle sing, but these noises they hammer out of their wood-and-ivory anvils—don't talk to me; I know the difference between a bullfrog and a wood-thrush.—The Poet at the Breakfast Table.

* * * * *

"That is rather a shabby pair of trousers you have on, for a man in your position."

"Yes, sir; but clothes do not make the man. What if my trousers are shabby and worn? They cover a warm heart, sir."



FREDERICK S. COZZENS

LIVING IN THE COUNTRY

It is a good thing to live in the country. To escape from the prison-walls of the metropolis—the great brickery we call "the city"—and to live amid blossoms and leaves, in shadow and sunshine, in moonlight and starlight, in rain, mist, dew, hoarfrost, and drought, out in the open campaign and under the blue dome that is bounded by the horizon only. It is a good thing to have a well with dripping buckets, a porch with honey-buds and sweet-bells, a hive embroidered with nimble bees, a sun-dial mossed over, ivy up to the eaves, curtains of dimity, a tumbler of fresh flowers in your bedroom, a rooster on the roof, and a dog under the piazza.

When Mrs. Sparrowgrass and I moved into the country, with our heads full of fresh butter, and cool, crisp radishes for tea; with ideas entirely lucid respecting milk, and a looseness of calculation as to the number in family it would take a good laying hen to supply with fresh eggs every morning; when Mrs. Sparrowgrass and I moved into the country, we found some preconceived notions had to be abandoned, and some departures made from the plans we had laid down in the little back parlor of Avenue G.

One of the first achievements in the country is early rising: with the lark—with the sun—while the dew is on the grass, "under the opening eye-lids of the morn," and so forth. Early rising! What can be done with five or six o'clock in town? What may not be done at those hours in the country? With the hoe, the rake, the dibble, the spade, the watering-pot? To plant, prune, drill, transplant, graft, train, and sprinkle! Mrs. S. and I agreed to rise early in the country.

Richard and Robin were two pretty men, They laid in bed till the clock struck ten; Up jumped Richard and looked at the sky; O, Brother Robin, the sun's very high!

Early rising in the country is not an instinct; it is a sentiment, and must be cultivated.

A friend recommended me to send to the south side of Long Island for some very prolific potatoes—the real hippopotamus breed. Down went my man, and what, with expenses of horse-hire, tavern bills, toll-gates, and breaking a wagon, the hippopotami cost as much apiece as pineapples. They were fine potatoes, though, with comely features, and large, languishing eyes, that promised increase of family without delay. As I worked my own garden (for which I hired a landscape gardener at two dollars per day to give me instructions), I concluded that the object of my first experiment in early rising should be the planting of the hippopotamuses. I accordingly arose next morning at five, and it rained! I rose next day at five, and it rained! The next, and it rained! It rained for two weeks! We had splendid potatoes every day for dinner. "My dear," said I to Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "where did you get these fine potatoes?" "Why," said she, innocently, "out of that basket from Long Island!" The last of the hippopotamuses were before me, peeled, and boiled, and mashed, and baked, with a nice thin brown crust on the top.

I was more successful afterward. I did get some fine seed-potatoes in the ground. But something was the matter; at the end of the season I did not get as many out as I had put in.

Mrs. Sparrowgrass, who is a notable housewife, said to me one day, "Now, my dear, we shall soon have plenty of eggs, for I have been buying a lot of young chickens." There they were, each one with as many feathers as a grasshopper, and a chirp not louder. Of course, we looked forward with pleasant hopes to the period when the first cackle should announce the milk-white egg, warmly deposited in the hay which we had provided bountifully. They grew finely, and one day I ventured to remark that our hens had remarkably large combs, to which Mrs. S. replied, "Yes, indeed, she had observed that; but if I wanted to have a real treat I ought to get up early in the morning and hear them crow." "Crow!" said I, faintly, "our hens crowing! Then, by 'the cock that crowed in the morn, to wake the priest all shaven and shorn,' we might as well give up all hopes of having any eggs," said I; "for as sure as you live, Mrs. S., our hens are all roosters!" And so they were roosters! They grew up and fought with the neighbors' chickens, until there was not a whole pair of eyes on either side of the fence.

A dog is a good thing to have in the country. I have one which I raised from a pup. He is a good, stout fellow, and a hearty barker and feeder. The man of whom I bought him said he was thoroughbred, but he begins to have a mongrel look about him. He is a good watch-dog, though; for the moment he sees any suspicious-looking person about the premises he comes right into the kitchen and gets behind the stove. First, we kept him in the house, and he scratched all night to get out. Then we turned him out, and he scratched all night to get in. Then we tied him up at the back of the garden, and he howled so that our neighbour shot at him twice before daybreak. Finally we gave him away, and he came back; and now he is just recovering from a fit, in which he has torn up the patch that has been sown for our spring radishes.

A good, strong gate is a necessary article for your garden. A good, strong, heavy gate, with a dislocated hinge, so that it will neither open nor shut. Such a one have I. The grounds before my fence are in common, and all the neighbors' cows pasture there. I remarked to Mrs. S., as we stood at the window in a June sunset, how placid and picturesque the cattle looked, as they strolled about, cropping the green herbage. Next morning I found the innocent creatures in my garden. They had not left a green thing in it. The corn in the milk, the beans on the poles, the young cabbages, the tender lettuce, even the thriving shoots on my young fruit trees had vanished. And there they were, looking quietly on the ruin they had made. Our watch-dog, too, was foregathering with them. It was too much; so I got a large stick and drove them all out, except a young heifer, whom I chased all over the flower-beds, breaking down my trellises, my woodbines and sweet-briers, my roses and petunias, until I cornered her in the hotbed. I had to call for assistance to extricate her from the sashes, and her owner has sued me for damages. I believe I shall move in town.

* * * * *

Mrs. Sparrowgrass and I have concluded to try it once more; we are going to give the country another chance. After all, birds in the spring are lovely. First come little snowbirds, avant-couriers of the feathered army; then bluebirds in national uniforms, just graduated, perhaps, from the ornithological corps of cadets with high honors in the topographical class; then follows a detachment of flying artillery—swallows; sand-martens, sappers and miners, begin their mines and countermines under the sandy parapets; then cedar birds, in trim jackets faced with yellow—aha, dragoons! And then the great rank and file of infantry, robins, wrens, sparrows, chipping-birds; and lastly—the band!

From nature's old cathedral sweetly ring The wild bird choirs—burst of the woodland band, —who mid the blossoms sing; Their leafy temple, gloomy, tall and grand, Pillared with oaks, and roofed with Heaven's own hand.

There, there, that is Mario. Hear that magnificent chest note from the chestnuts! then a crescendo, falling in silence—a plomb!

Hush! he begins again with a low, liquid monotone, mounting by degrees and swelling into an infinitude of melody—the whole grove dilating, as it were, with exquisite epithalamium.

Silence now—and how still!

Hush! the musical monologue begins anew; up, up into the tree-tops it mounts, fairly lifting the leaves with its passionate effluence, it trills through the upper branches—and then dripping down the listening foliage, in a cadenza of matchless beauty, subsides into silence again.

"That's a he catbird," says my carpenter.

A catbird? Then Shakespeare and Shelley have wasted powder upon the skylark; for never such "profuse strains of unpremeditated art" issued from living bird before. Skylark! pooh! who would rise at dawn to hear the skylark if a catbird were about after breakfast?

I have bought me a boat. A boat is a good thing to have in the country, especially if there be any water near. There is a fine beach in front of my house. When visitors come I usually propose to give them a row. I go down—and find the boat full of water; then I send to the house for a dipper and prepare to bail; and, what with bailing and swabbing her with a mop and plugging up the cracks in her sides, and struggling to get the rudder in its place, and unlocking the rusty padlock, my strength is so much exhausted that it is almost impossible for me to handle the oars. Meanwhile the poor guests sit on stones around the beach with woe-begone faces.

"My dear," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "why don't you sell that boat?"

"Sell it? Ha! ha!"

One day a Quaker lady from Philadelphia paid us a visit. She was uncommonly dignified, and walked down to the water in the most stately manner, as is customary with Friends. It was just twilight, deepening into darkness, when I set about preparing the boat. Meanwhile our Friend seated herself upon something on the beach. While I was engaged in bailing, the wind shifted, and I became sensible of an unpleasant odor; afraid that our Friend would perceive it, too, I whispered Mrs. Sparrowgrass to coax her off and get her farther up the beach.

"Thank thee, no, Susan; I feel a smell hereabout and I am better where I am."

Mrs. S. came back and whispered mysteriously that our Friend was sitting on a dead dog, at which I redoubled the bailing and got her out in deep water as soon as possible.

Dogs have a remarkable scent. A dead setter one morning found his way to our beach, and I towed him out in the middle of the river; but the faithful creature came back in less than an hour—that dog's smell was remarkable indeed.

I have bought me a fyke! A fyke is a good thing to have in the country. A fyke is a fishnet, with long wings on each side; in shape like a nightcap with ear lappets; in mechanism like a rat-trap. You put a stake at the tip end of the nightcap, a stake at each end of the outspread lappets; there are large hoops to keep the nightcap distended, sinkers to keep the lower sides of the lappets under water, and floats as large as muskmelons to keep the upper sides above the water. The stupid fish come downstream, and, rubbing their noses against the wings, follow the curve toward the fyke and swim into the trap. When they get in they cannot get out. That is the philosophy of a fyke. I bought one of Conroy. "Now," said I to Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "we shall have fresh fish to-morrow for breakfast," and went out to set it. I drove the stakes in the mud, spread the fyke in the boat, tied the end of one wing to the stake, and cast the whole into the water. The tide carried it out in a straight line. I got the loose end fastened to the boat, and found it impossible to row back against the tide with the fyke. I then untied it, and it went downstream, stake and all. I got it into the boat, rowed up, and set the stake again. Then I tied one end to the stake and got out of the boat myself in shoal water. Then the boat got away in deep water; then I had to swim for the boat. Then I rowed back and untied the fyke. Then the fyke got away. Then I jumped out of the boat to save the fyke, and the boat got away. Then I had to swim again after the boat and row after the fyke, and finally was glad to get my net on dry land, where I left it for a week in the sun. Then I hired a man to set it, and he did, but he said it was "rotted." Nevertheless, in it I caught two small flounders and an eel. At last a brace of Irishmen came down to my beach for a swim at high tide. One of them, a stout, athletic fellow, after performing sundry aquatic gymnastics, dived under and disappeared for a fearful length of time. The truth is, he had dived into my net. After much turmoil in the water, he rose to the surface with the filaments hanging over his head, and cried out, as if he had found a bird's nest: "I say, Jimmy! begorra, here's a foike!" That unfeeling exclamation to Jimmy, who was not the owner of the net, made me almost wish that it had not been "rotted."

We are worried about our cucumbers. Mrs. S. is fond of cucumbers, so I planted enough for ten families. The more they are picked, the faster they grow; and if you do not pick them, they turn yellow and look ugly. Our neighbor has plenty, too. He sent us some one morning, by way of a present. What to do with them we did not know, with so many of our own. To give them away was not polite; to throw them away was sinful; to eat them was impossible. Mrs. S. said, "Save them for seed." So we did. Next day, our neighbor sent us a dozen more. We thanked the messenger grimly and took them in. Next morning another dozen came. It was getting to be a serious matter; so I rose betimes the following morning, and when my neighbor's cucumbers came I filled his man's basket with some of my own, by way of exchange. This bit of pleasantry was resented by my neighbor, who told his man to throw them to the hogs. His man told our girl, and our girl told Mrs. S., and, in consequence, all intimacy between the two families has ceased; the ladies do not speak, even at church.

We have another neighbor, whose name is Bates; he keeps cows. This year our gate has been fixed; but my young peach trees near the fences are accessible from the road; and Bates's cows walk along that road morning and evening. The sound of a cow-bell is pleasant in the twilight. Sometimes, after dark, we hear the mysterious curfew tolling along the road, and then with a louder peal it stops before our fence and again tolls itself off in the distance. The result is, my peach trees are as bare as bean-poles. One day I saw Mr. Bates walking along, and I hailed him: "Bates, those are your cows there, I believe?" "Yes, sir; nice ones, ain't they?" "Yes," I replied, "they are nice ones. Do you see that tree there?"—and I pointed to a thrifty peach, with about as many leaves as an exploded sky-rocket. "Yes, sir." "Well, Bates, that red-and-white cow of yours yonder ate the top off that tree; I saw her do it." Then I thought I had made Bates ashamed of himself, and had wounded his feelings, perhaps, too much. I was afraid he would offer me money for the tree, which I made up my mind to decline at once. "Sparrowgrass," said he, "it don't hurt a tree a single mossel to chaw it if it's a young tree. For my part, I'd rather have my young trees chawed than not. I think it makes them grow a leetle better. I can't do it with mine, but you can, because you can wait to have good trees, and the only way to have good trees is to have, 'em chawed."

* * * * *

We have put a dumb-waiter in our house. A dumb-waiter is a good thing to have in the country, on account of its convenience. If you have company, everything can be sent up from the kitchen without any trouble; and if the baby gets to be unbearable, on account of his teeth, you can dismiss the complainant by stuffing him in one of the shelves and letting him down upon the help. To provide for contingencies, we had all our floors deafened. In consequence, you cannot hear anything that is going on in the story below; and when you are in the upper room of the house there might be a democratic ratification meeting in the cellar and you would not know it. Therefore, if any one should break into the basement it would not disturb us; but to please Mrs. Sparrowgrass, I put stout iron bars in all the lower windows. Besides, Mrs. Sparrowgrass had bought a rattle when she was in Philadelphia; such a rattle as watchmen carry there. This is to alarm our neighbor, who, upon the signal, is to come to the rescue with his revolver. He is a rash man, prone to pull trigger first and make inquiries afterward.

One evening Mrs. S. had retired and I was busy writing, when it struck me a glass of ice-water would be palatable. So I took the candle and a pitcher and went down to the pump. Our pump is in the kitchen. A country pump in the kitchen is more convenient; but a well with buckets is certainly more picturesque. Unfortunately, our well water has not been sweet since it was cleaned out. First I had to open a bolted door that lets you into the basement hall, and then I went to the kitchen door, which proved to be locked. Then I remembered that our girl always carried the key to bed with her and slept with it under her pillow. Then I retraced my steps, bolted the basement door, and went up into the dining-room. As is always the case, I found, when I could not get any water, I was thirstier than I supposed I was. Then I thought I would wake our girl up. Then I concluded not to do it. Then I thought of the well, but I gave that up on account of its flavor. Then I opened the closet doors: there was no water there; and then I thought of the dumb-waiter! The novelty of the idea made me smile. I took out two of the movable shelves, stood the pitcher on the bottom of the dumb-waiter, got in myself with the lamp; let myself down, until I supposed I was within a foot of the floor below, and then let go!

We came down so suddenly that I was shot out of the apparatus as if it had been a catapult; it broke the pitcher, extinguished the lamp, and landed me in the middle of the kitchen at midnight, with no fire and the air not much above the zero point. The truth is, I had miscalculated the distance of the descent—instead of falling one foot, I had fallen five. My first impulse was to ascend by the way I came down, but I found that impracticable. Then I tried the kitchen door; it was locked. I tried to force it open; it was made of two-inch stuff, and held its own. Then I hoisted a window, and there were the rigid iron bars. If ever I felt angry at anybody it was at myself for putting up those bars to please Mrs. Sparrowgrass. I put them up, not to keep people in, but to keep people out.

I laid my cheek against the ice-cold barriers and looked out at the sky; not a star was visible; it was as black as ink overhead. Then I thought of Baron Trenck and the prisoner of Chillon. Then I made a noise. I shouted until I was hoarse, and ruined our preserving kettle with the poker. That brought our dogs out in full bark, and between us we made night hideous. Then I thought I heard a voice and listened—it was Mrs. Sparrowgrass calling to me from the top of the staircase. I tried to make her hear me, but the infernal dogs united with howl, and growl, and bark, so as to drown my voice, which is naturally plaintive and tender. Besides, there were two bolted doors and double-deafened floors between us; how could she recognize my voice, even if she did hear it? Mrs. Sparrowgrass called once or twice and then got frightened; the next thing I heard was a sound as if the roof had fallen in, by which I understood that Mrs. Sparrowgrass was springing the rattle! That called out our neighbor, already wide awake; he came to the rescue with a bull-terrier, a Newfoundland pup, a lantern, and a revolver. The moment he saw me at the window he shot at me, but fortunately just missed me. I threw myself under the kitchen table and ventured to expostulate with him, but he would not listen to reason. In the excitement I had forgotten his name, and that made matters worse. It was not until he had roused up everybody around, broken in the basement door with an ax, gotten into the kitchen with his cursed savage dogs and shooting-iron, and seized me by the collar, that he recognized me—and then he wanted me to explain it! But what kind of an explanation could I make to him? I told him he would have to wait until my mind was composed, and then I would let him understand the whole matter fully. But he never would have had the particulars from me, for I do not approve of neighbors that shoot at you, break in your door, and treat you, in your own house, as if you were a jailbird. He knows all about it, however—somebody has told him—somebody tells everybody everything in our village.—The Sparrowgrass Papers.

LOVE IN A COTTAGE

They may talk of love in a cottage, And bowers of trellised vine—— Of nature bewitchingly simple, And milkmaids half divine; They may talk of the pleasure of sleeping In the shade of a spreading tree, And a walk in the fields at morning, By the side of a footstep free!

But give me a sly flirtation By the light of a chandelier—— With music to play in the pauses, And nobody very near; Or a seat on a silken sofa, With a glass of pure old wine, And mamma too blind to discover The small white hand in mine.

Your love in a cottage is hungry, Your vine is a nest for flies—— Your milkmaid shocks the Graces, And simplicity talks of pies! You lie down to your shady slumber And wake with a bug in your ear, And your damsel that walks in the morning Is shod like a mountaineer.

True love is at home on a carpet, And mightily likes his ease—— And true love has an eye for a dinner, And starves beneath shady trees. His wing is the fan of a lady, His foot's an invisible thing, And his arrow is tipp'd with a jewel And shot from a silver string.

NATHANIEL PARKER WILLIS

* * * * *

A CASE OF CONSCIENCE

Uncle Jack: It is very good lemonade, I am sure; but tell me, Bonnie, why do you sell yours for three cents a glass when Charley gets five for his?

Miss Bonnie: Well, you mustn't tell anybody, Uncle Jack, but the puppy fell in mine and I thought it ought to be cheaper.

A Hingham, Massachusetts, woman is said to have hit upon a happy idea when she was puzzled what to do in order to tell her mince and apple pies apart. She was advised to mark them, and did so, and complacently announced: "This I've marked 'T. M.'—'Tis mince; an' that I've marked 'T. M.'—'Taint mince."

Doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes used to be an amateur photographer. When he presented a picture to a friend, he wrote on the back of it, "Taken by O. W. Holmes & Sun."

HANS BREITMANN'S PARTY

Hans Breitmann gife a barty: Dey had biano-blayin': I felled in lofe mit a 'Merican frau, Her name was Madilda Yane, She hat haar as prown as a pretzel, Her eyes vas himmel-plue, Und ven dey looket indo mine, Dey shplit mine heart in two.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty: I vent dere, you'll be pound. I valtzet mit Madilda Yane Und vent shpinnen round and round. De pootiest Fraeulein in de house, She veyed 'pout dwo hoondred pound, Und efery dime she gife a shoomp She make de vindows sound.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty: I dells you it cost him dear. Dey rolled in more ash sefen kecks Of foost rate Lager Beer, Und venefer dey knocks de shpicket in De Deutschers gifes a cheer. I dinks dat so vine a barty Nefer coom to a het dis year.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty: Dere all vas Souse und Brouse; Ven de sooper comed in, de gompany Did make demselfs to house. Dey ate das Brot und Gensy broost, De Bratwurst und Braten fine, Und vash der Abendessen down Mit four parrels of Neckarwein.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty: We all cot troonk ash pigs. I poot mine mout to a parrel of beer, Und emptied it oop mit a schwigs. Und denn I gissed Madilda Yane Und she shlog me on the kop, Und de gompany fited mit dable-lecks Dill de coonsthable made oos shtop.

Hans Breitmann gife a barty—— Where ish dat barty now! Where ish de lofely golden cloud Dat float on de mountain's prow? Where ish de himmelstrahlende Stern—— De shtar of de shpirit's light? All goned afay mit de Lager Beer—— Afay in de Ewigkeit!

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.



FRANCES M. WHICHER

TIM CRANE AND THE WIDOW

"O, no, Mr. Crane, by no manner o' means, 'tain't a minnit tow soon for you to begin to talk about gittin' married agin. I am amazed you should be afeerd I'd think so. See—how long's Miss Crane ben dead? Six months!—land o' Goshen!—why, I've know'd a number of individdiwals get married in less time than that. There's Phil Bennett's widder 't I was a-talkin' about jest now—she 't was Louisy Perce—her husband hadent been dead but three months, you know. I don't think it looks well for a woman to be in such a hurry—but for a man it's a different thing—circumstances alters cases, you know. And then, sittiwated as you be, Mr. Crane, it's a turrible thing for your family to be without a head to superintend the domestic consarns and tend to the children—to say nothin' o' yerself, Mr. Crane. You dew need a companion, and no mistake. Six months! Good grievous! Why, Squire Titus dident wait but six weeks arter he buried his fust wife afore he married his second. I thought ther wa'n't no partickler need o' his hurryin' so, seein' his family was all grow'd up. Such a critter as he pickt out, tew! 'twas very onsuitable—but every man to his taste—I hain't no dispersition to meddle with nobody's consarns. There's old farmer Dawson, tew—his pardner hain't ben dead but ten months. To be sure, he ain't married yet—but he would a-ben long enough ago if somebody I know on'd gin him any incurridgement. But 'tain't for me to speak o' that matter. He's a clever old critter and as rich as a Jew—but—lawful sakes! he's old enough to be my father. And there's Mr. Smith—Jubiter Smith; you know him, Mr. Crane—his wife (she 'twas Aurory Pike) she died last summer, and he's ben squintin' round among the wimmin ever since, and he may squint for all the good it'll dew him so far as I'm consarned—tho' Mr. Smith's a respectable man—quite young and hain't no family—very well off, tew, and quite intellectible—but I'm purty partickler. O, Mr. Crane! it's ten year come Jinniwary sence I witnessed the expiration o' my belovid companion—an oncommon long time to wait, to be sure—but 'tain't easy to find anybody to fill the place o' Hezekier Bedott. I think you're the most like husband of ary individdiwal I ever see, Mr. Crane. Six months Murderation! Curus you should be afeered I'd think't was tew soon—why, I've know'd——"

MR. CRANE. "Well, widder—I've been thinking about taking another companion—and I thought I'd ask you——"

WIDOW. "O, Mr. Crane, egscuse my commotion, it's so onexpected. Jest hand me that are bottle of camfire off the mantletry shelf—I'm ruther faint—dew put a little mite on my handkercher and hold it to my nuz. There—that'll dew—I'm obleeged tew ye—now I'm ruther more composed—you may perceed, Mr. Crane."

MR. CRANE. "Well, widder, I was a-going to ask you whether—whether——"

WIDOW. "Continner, Mr. Crane—dew—I knew it's turrible embarrissin'. I remember when my dezeased husband made his suppositions to me he stammered and stuttered, and was so awfully flustered it did seems as if he'd never git it out in the world, and I s'pose it's ginnerally the case, at least it has been with all them that's made suppositions to me—you see they're ginerally oncerting about what kind of an answer they're a-gwine to git, and it kind o' makes 'em narvous. But when an individdiwal has reason to suppose his attachment's reperated, I don't see what need there is o' his bein' flustrated—tho' I must say it's quite embarrassin' to me—pray continner."

MR. C. "Well, then, I want to know if yu're willing I should have Melissy?"

WIDOW. "The dragon!"

MR. C. "I hain't said anything to her about it yet—thought the proper way was to get your consent first. I remember when I courted Trypheny, we were engaged some time before mother Kenipe knew anything about it, and when she found it out she was quite put out because I dident go to her first. So when I made up my mind about Melissy, thinks me, I'll dew it right this time and speak to the old woman first——"

WIDOW. "Old woman, hey! That's a purty name to call me!—amazin' perlite, tew! Want Melissy, hey! Tribbleation! Gracious sakes alive! Well, I'll give it up now! I always know'd you was a simpleton, Tim Crane, but I must confess I dident think you was quite so big a fool! Want Melissy, dew ye? If that don't beat all! What an everlastin' old calf you must be to s'pose she'd look at you. Why, you're old enough to be her father, and more tew—Melissy ain't only in her twenty-oneth year. What a reedickilous idee for a man o' your age! as gray as a rat, tew! I wonder what this world is a-comin' tew: 'tis astonishin' what fools old widdiwers will make o' themselves! Have Melissy! Melissy!"

MR. C. "Why, widder, you surprise me. I'd no idee of being treated in this way after you'd been so polite to me, and made such a fuss over me and the girls."

WIDOW. "Shet yer head, Tim Crane—nun o' yer sass to me. There's yer hat on that are table, and here's the door—and the sooner you put on one and march out o' t'other, the better it'll be for you. And I advise you afore you try to git married agin, to go out West and see 'f yet wife's cold—and arter ye're satisfied on that pint, jest put a little lampblack on yer hair—'twould add to yer appearance undoubtedly, and be of sarvice tew you when you want to flourish round among the gals—and when ye've got yer hair fixt, jest splinter the spine o' yerback—'twould'n' hurt yer looks a mite—you'd be intirely unresistible if you was a leetle grain straiter."

MR. C. "Well, I never!"

WIDOW. "Hold yer tongue—you consarned old coot you. I tell ye there's your hat, and there's the door—be off with yerself, quick metre, or I'll give ye a hyst with the broomstick."

MR. C. "Gimmeni!"

WIDOW (rising). "Git out, I say—I ain't a-gwine to start' here and be insulted under my own ruff—and so git along—and if ever you darken my door again, or say a word to Melissy, it'll be the woss for you—that's all."

MR. C. "Treemenjous! What a buster!"

WIDOW. "Go 'long—go 'long—go 'long, you everlastin' old gum. I won't hear another word" [stops her ears]. "I won't, I won't, I won't."

[Exit Mr. Crane.

(Enter Melissa, accompanied by Captain Canoot.)

"Good-evenin', Cappen Well, Melissy, hum at last, hey? Why didn't you stay till mornin'? Party business keepin' me up here so late waitin' for you—when I'm eny most tired to death ironin' and workin' like a slave all day—ought to ben abed an hour ago. Thought ye left me with agreeable company, hey? I should like to know what arthly reason you had to s'pose old Crane was agreeable to me? I always despised the critter; always thought he wuz a turrible fool—and now I'm convinced on't. I'm completely disgusted wit him—and I let him know it to-night. I gin him a piece o' my mind 't I guess he'll be apt to remember for a spell. I ruther think he went off with a flea in his ear. Why, Cappen—did ye ever hear of such a piece of audacity in all yer born days? for him—Tim Crane—to durst to expire to my hand—the widder o' Deacon Bedott, jest as if I'd condescen' to look at him—the old numbskull! He don't know B from a broomstick; but if he'd a-stayed much longer I'd a-teached him the difference, I guess. He's got his walkin' ticket now—I hope he'll lemme alone in futur. And where's Kier? Gun hum with the Cranes, hey! Well, I guess it's the last time. And now, Melissy Bedott, you ain't to have nothin' more to dew with them gals—d'ye hear? You ain't to 'sociate with 'em at all arter this—twould only be incurridgin' th' old man to come a-pesterin' me agin—and I won't have him round—d'ye hear? Don't be in a hurry, Cappen—and don't be alarmed at my gittin' in such passion about old Crane's presumption. Mabby you think 'twas onfeelin' in me to use him so—an' I don't say but what 'twas ruther, but then he's so awful disagreeable tew me, you know—'tain't everybody I'd treat in such a way. Well, if you must go, good-evenin'! Give my love to Hanner when you write agin—dew call frequently, Cappen Canoot, dew."—The Bedott Papers.

THE STAMMERING WIFE

When deeply in love with Miss Emily Pryne, I vowed, if, the maiden would only be mine, I would always endeavor to please her. She blushed her consent, though the stuttering lass Said never a word except "You're an ass—— An ass—an ass-iduous teaser!"

But when we were married, I found to my ruth, The stammering lady had spoken the truth; For often, in obvious dudgeon, She'd say, if I ventured to give her a jog In the way of reproof—"You're a dog—you're a dog—— A dog—a dog-matic curmudgeon!"

And once when I said, "We can hardly afford This extravagant style, with our moderate hoard, And hinted we ought to be wiser. She looked, I assure you, exceedingly blue, And fretfully cried, 'You're a Jew—you're a Jew—— A very ju-dicious adviser!'"

Again, when it happened that, wishing to shirk Some rather unpleasant and arduous work, I begged her to go to a neighbor, She wanted to know why I made such a fuss, And saucily said, "You're a cuss—cuss—cuss—— You were always ac-cus-tomed to labor!"

Out of temper at last with the insolent dame, And feeling that madam was greatly to blame To scold me instead of caressing, I mimicked her speech—like a churl that I am— And angrily said, "You're a dam—dam—dam A dam-age instead of a blessing!"

JOHN GODFREY SAXE.

* * * * *

HE ROSE TO THE OCCASION

Several years ago there labored in one of the Western villages of Minnesota a preacher who was always in the habit of selecting his texts from the Old Testament, and particularly some portion of the history of Noah. No matter what the occasion was, he would always find some parallel incident from the history of this great character that would readily serve as a text or illustration.

At one time he was called upon to unite the daughter of the village mayor and a prominent attorney in the holy bonds of matrimony. Two little boys, knowing his determination to give them a portion of the sacred history touching Noah's marriage, hit upon the novel idea of pasting together two leaves in the family Bible so as to connect, without any apparent break, the marriage of Noah and the description of the Ark of the Covenant.

When the noted guests were all assembled and the contracting parties with attendants in their respective stations, the preacher began the ceremonies by reading the following text: "And when Noah was one hundred and forty years old, he took unto himself a wife" (then turning the page he continued) "three hundred cubits in length, fifty cubits in width, and thirty cubits in depth, and within and without besmeared with pitch." The story seemed a little strong, but he could not doubt the Bible, and after reading it once more and reflecting a moment, he turned to the startled assemblage with these remarks: "My beloved brethren, this is the first time in the history of my life that my attention has been called to this important passage of the Scriptures, but it seems to me that it is one of the most forcible illustrations of that grand eternal truth, that the nature of woman is exceedingly difficult to comprehend."

POLITE

In her "Abandoning an Adopted Farm," Miss Kate Sanborn tells of her annoyance at being besieged by agents, reporters and curiosity seekers. She says: "I was so perpetually harassed that I dreaded to see a stranger approach with an air of business. The other day I was just starting out for a drive when I noticed the usual stranger hurrying on. Putting my head out of the carriage, I said in a petulant and weary tone, 'Do you want to see me?' The young man stopped, smiled, and replied courteously, 'It gives me pleasure to look at you, madam, but I was going farther on.'"

* * * * *

A small boy in Boston, who had unfortunately learned to swear, was rebuked by his father. "Who told you that I swore?" asked the bad little boy. "Oh, a little bird told me," said the father. The boy stood and looked out of the window, scowling at some sparrows which were scolding and chattering. Then he had a happy thought. "I know who told you," he said. "It was one of those —— sparrows."

LOST, STRAYED OR STOLEN

It is said that when President Polk visited Boston he was impressively received at Faneuil Hall Market. The clerk walked in front of him down the length of the market, announcing in loud tones:

"Make way, gentlemen, for the President of the United States! The President of the United States! Fellow-citizens, make room!"

The Chief had stepped into one of the stalls to look at some game, when Mr. Rhodes turned round suddenly, and, finding himself alone, suddenly changed his tone and exclaimed:

"My gracious, where has that darned idiot got to?"

HE CAME TO PAY

The editor sat with his head in his hands And his elbows at rest on his knees; He was tired of the ever-increasing demands On his time, and he panted for ease. The clamor for copy was scorned with a sneer, And he sighed in the lowest of tones: "Won't somebody come with a dollar to cheer The heart of Emanuel Jones?"

Just then on the stairway a footstep was heard And a rap-a-tap loud at the door, And the flickering hope that had been long deferred Blazed up like a beacon once more; And there entered a man with a cynical smile That was fringed with a stubble of red, Who remarked, as he tilted a sorry old tile To the back of an average head:

"I have come here to pay"—Here the editor cried "You're as welcome as flowers in spring! Sit down in this easy armchair by my side, And excuse me awhile till I bring A lemonade dashed with a little old wine And a dozen cigars of the best.... Ah! Here we are! This, I assure you, is fine; Help yourself, most desirable guest."

The visitor drank with a relish, and smoked Till his face wore a satisfied glow, And the editor, beaming with merriment, joked In a joyous, spontaneous flow; And then, when the stock of refreshments was gone, His guest took occasion to say, In accents distorted somewhat by a yawn, "My errand up here is to pay——"

But the generous scribe, with a wave of his hand, Put a stop to the speech of his guest, And brought in a melon, the finest the land Ever bore on its generous breast; And the visitor, wearing a singular grin, Seized the heaviest half of the fruit, And the juice, as it ran in a stream from his chin, Washed the mud of the pike from his boot.

Then, mopping his face on a favorite sheet Which the scribe had laid carefully by, The visitor lazily rose to his feet With the dreariest kind of a sigh, And he said, as the editor sought his address, In his books to discover his due: "I came here to pay—my respects to the press, And to borrow a dollar of you!"

ANDREW V. KELLEY ("Parmenas Mix").



A GENTLE COMPLAINT

FAIRFIELD, CONN.

P. T. BARNUM, Esq.

Dear Sir: We have a large soiled Asiatic elephant visiting us now, which we suspect belongs to you. His skin is a misfit, and he keeps moving his trunk from side to side nervously. If you have missed an elephant answering to this description, please come up and take him away, as we have no use for him. An elephant on a place so small as ours is more of a trouble than a convenience. I have endeavored to frighten him away, but he does not seem at all timid, and my wife and I, assisted by our hired man, tried to push him out of the yard, but our efforts were unavailing. He has made our home his own now for some days, and he has become quite de trop. We do not mind him so much in the daytime, for he then basks mostly on the lawn and plays with the children (to whom he has greatly endeared himself), but at night he comes up and lays his head on our piazza, and his deep and stertorous breathing keeps my wife awake. I feel as though I were entitled to some compensation for his keep. He is a large though not fastidious eater, and he has destroyed some of my plants by treading on them; and he also leaned against our woodhouse. My neighbor—who is something of a wag—says I have a lien on his trunk for the amount of his board; but that, of course, is only pleasantry. Your immediate attention will oblige.

SIMEON FORD.

THE BALLAD OF THE OYSTERMAN

It was a tall young oysterman lived by the riverside, His shop was just upon the bank, his boat was on the tide; The daughter of a fisherman, that was so straight and slim, Lived over on the other bank, right opposite to him.