PS 
 3525 
 
 M9146f 
 1892
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 FARMING
 
 FARMING 
 
 BY 
 
 RICHARD KENDALL MUNKITTRICK 
 
 ILLUSTRATED BY 
 
 ARTHUR BURDETT FROST 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, FRANKLIN SQUARE 
 1892
 
 Copyright, 1891, by HARPER & BROTHERS. 
 
 All rights reserved.
 
 FARMING 
 
 I HAD always had a wild ambition to be a farmer, and be far from the 
 hurly-burly of metropolitan life. Of farming I knew nothing but what 
 I had heard from people who delighted in ridiculing its independence, as 
 well as in looking at it from a serious standpoint, in order to prove it a 
 comic occupation. I knew very well that Horace and Washington had 
 tilled the soil, and that it would be nobler to farm with them than to 
 ridicule farming with a number of well-meaning bookkeepers. I had 
 frequently stood before print-shops, and noticed the steel engraving of 
 the children in the impossible raiment gathering apples, which, while on 
 the bough, were all outside the leaves to make a rich display. If such 
 golden prosperity can shine on a steel engraving, I often thought, what 
 must it be in reality ? 
 
 My friends, who delight in jesting on the subject of farm life, always 
 made it a point to depict the farmer s independence by giving an un 
 hallowed description of the amount of labor 
 he had to perform daily or rather daily and 
 nightly, for they claimed his work was never 
 half done. If any one could detect any inde 
 pendence in that, they would like to see it. 
 A man going out in a thunder-shower to find 
 a stray cow by lightning at midnight, and 
 getting lost himself, was a familiar picture of 
 the farmer. Allusions to his boots, so rigid 
 that the insteps were inflexible, were also 
 freely indulged in. 
 
 I argued that the farmer had some inde 
 pendence in that he was always at home 
 
 under his own vine and apple-tree, that he didn t have to rise with 
 the lark to catch a train, and that when age came along he wouldn t 
 be thrust aside as unavailable timber by an employer who would make 
 room for a son-in-law. "Suppose he does feed the pigs by starlight? 
 
 1711195
 
 Is that any worse than your remaining at the office all night to find 
 the seven cents necessary to balance the books?" 
 
 I never wanted to 
 be what may be 
 
 - / 
 
 termed a merchant 
 farmer. By merchant 
 farmer I mean the 
 man who sells all the 
 delicacies he raises 
 and lives on pork. 
 My idea was to sell 
 the pork and live on 
 the spring chickens. 
 
 1 had lived in a 
 small country place 
 before. Here every 
 man was what might 
 be called a polite far 
 
 mer. He had his farming done for him, while 
 he attended to a more lucrative business in the 
 city. The man who owned a valuable herd of 
 cattle, and sold milk just to pay him for the 
 fun he was having was facetiously known as 
 the banker milkman, while his neighbor was 
 equally well known as the dry-goods rose-grow 
 er. It was never my dream to farm for money. 
 I only wanted a living, as that was all I could 
 get out of anything else. In such a position a 
 panic would affect me no more than a dust 
 cloud would a hen, and I could smoke my corn 
 cob pipe of peace, and playfully count the spots 
 on the pig, and never think of the momentous 
 question, "Whither are we drifting?" 
 
 The things known as the most difficult to 
 raise I would leave alone. I would go in largely 
 for apples, because they are raised more by the 
 tree than the farmer. In fact, the tree could 
 not stop bearing if it tried. If I had more apples
 
 than I could use, I could exchange them for something else; and if I 
 should fail in this, I could dry them; and if the trees should die, they 
 would still be eligible for the iron dogs of peace. 
 
 The worst thing to be contended with would be the failure of the crops. 
 But even if the crops should fail, I could still fall back on the chickens, 
 providing, of course, they should not be stolen during the night. I 
 
 could guard against such a calamity 
 by having the hens sleep in a high 
 tree, and locating a mastiff under it. 
 I had already learned that there are 
 hens and hens; that the hen that is 
 supreme on the table is not always 
 the most prolific layer, and that cer 
 tain specimens that are famous for 
 their laying qualities are as dry as 
 bone on the table. I concluded that 
 the better plan would be to keep 
 the hens of the dry meat. Then I 
 
 would have all the eggs I could eat; and when it came to the prandial 
 part of the business, I could fricassee the chickens, with a duck interpo 
 lated for moisture. 
 
 Ah, what a peaceful, happy life ! What an ideal existence ! What 
 a smooth, meandering river of rippling joy ! To be able to live with 
 out dressing to look like a fashion plate. To be free to retire at 8 P.M., 
 and not have to sit up until 1 1 for fear of some one calling. 
 
 Phillada was as much carried away with the idea as I was myself. 
 To be sure, it would cut us off from the theatres and art galleries, but 
 we could have a picture-gallery 
 around us all the year, and enjoy 
 our pictures in the various phases 
 they would undergo through the 
 changes of the seasons. If a 
 Corot cost ten thousand dollars, 
 what a boon to have an acre of 
 Corots for two hundred dollars, 
 and no extra expense for frames ! 
 The men working in the potato- 
 patch, against the gathering shad 
 ows of the after-glow, would be a Millet etching of endless joy; and 
 when that indignitary known as the hired man should be called upon to 
 capture the horse in the clover-patch, the lively actions of the pair would 
 be a Bonheur with pleasant variations. 
 
 " But there is one thing I must do first of all."
 
 " What is 
 that ?" asked 
 Phillada. 
 
 "I must have 
 a doctor order 
 me to try it. If 
 we go from pref 
 erence, we shall 
 be laughed at, 
 especially if we 
 should return. 
 But if it be sim 
 ply a question of 
 health, it will be 
 self - preserva 
 tion, and the 
 sympathy of our 
 friends will be 
 lavished upon 
 us. And then, 
 
 should we return, we can say we were stricken with malaria, and came 
 back for the same reason that we went, namely, health. This sound 
 argument can be garnished with jokes, such as an account of the girl s 
 sweeping the snow-drifts out of the farm bedroom after every storm, and 
 of the wind careering through the knot-holes in the floor, and agitating 
 the carpet into gentle ripples, after the manner of a theatrical ocean." 
 
 That morning I went down town dreaming of cows wading through 
 silver brooks in the silhouette of the spreading elm, of breezes swaying 
 festoons of golden honeysuckle on the front porch, of bees droning in the 
 drowsy garden, of butterflies tilting on hollyhocks of every color, of the 
 corn rustling in sunny fields, and of the bobolink pouring forth his soul 
 while wandering, fancy free, above the fragrant clover. 
 On the way up town, I dropped in on the doctor. 
 "1 see," he said. "A sedentary occupation, and no exercise. The 
 thing you need is not medicine, but an out-door life. If you could get 
 out of town, where you could work in the garden an hour or two 
 every day, you would be a new man in a month." 
 
 " I have always had a wish to be an amateur farmer," I replied, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Go and be one," he said; "and you will be all right." 
 I never paid more cheerfully for anything in my life than I did for that 
 advice, and I walked home so briskly that no one would have suspected 
 that I was about to do anything for my health.
 
 "What did the doctor say was the matter with you ?" asked Phillada. 
 "Nothing," I replied; "but I ve got to go to the country for it." 
 We never before experienced such happiness in our flat as this pros 
 pect of getting out of it.
 
 II 
 
 IT is not always the easiest matter to decide how to go about a thing 
 after you have made up your mind to do it. Every one knows where 
 to go for the best Spanish olives, or the finest hats; but no one that dis 
 penses farms seems to have a better reputation for reliability than any 
 one else. The papers are generally supplied with the cards of people 
 who would like to sell first-class farms on terms to suit the purchaser, 
 but they are apt to be misleading as regards fidelity to facts. The pur 
 ling crystal stream that meanders over beds of golden gravel, upon in 
 spection, turns out to be 
 too shallow for ducks, 
 and to furnish a cress 
 which generates ty 
 phoid fever. The fine 
 out-buildings seem to 
 retain their standing at 
 titude by the merest 
 chance, and to satisfy 
 the beholder that cattle 
 should be kept outside 
 of them for fear of their 
 falling on them. The 
 sumptuous farm-house 
 itself is usually a ram 
 bling structure, heated by stoves, if the stoves are sufficiently powerful. 
 Aside from these facts I knew nothing of farming. 
 
 At the suggestion of PhiJJada I went at once to a news-stand and pur 
 chased a morning paper. 
 
 " We had better go about it at once," she said ; "for fear of changing 
 our minds." 
 
 "1 cannot stay here," I replied, solemnly, "when the doctor says I 
 should go to the country. It is a duty I owe to you and Philip." 
 
 "There is another thing," she went on, "and that is this we must 
 give the place a name, no matter what kind of place it is. I propose we 
 call it Dove s Nest, or Barberry Bower."
 
 "Very pretty names," I replied, "if either should embrace the character 
 of the place. But suppose they should not ?" 
 
 "It will make no difference. It will look nice on the note-paper, and 
 will inspire our city friends with an idea of our good-fortune. As long 
 as they don t see the place, and it is not likely that they can ever be 
 coaxed out; it will strike them as being lovely." 
 
 " But suppose they should come out some time when it is too hot to 
 stay in the city then 
 what?" 
 
 "Then we can tell 
 them that the name 
 was bestowed ironical 
 ly, for the sake of a joke, 
 and to ridicule the idea 
 of naming places at all." 
 
 And this is how we 
 came to name our place 
 .Dove s Nest. 
 
 By this time the pa 
 per was spread out on 
 the table, and we began 
 to examine the adver 
 tisements. There were 
 all kinds of farms, on 
 the easiest possible 
 
 terms. A sheep farm I did not care for, on the ground that neither of 
 us was partial to mutton. A dairy farm did not strike me favorably, 
 as I was already too round-shouldered from bending over my writing 
 to warrant me in churning. 
 
 " Here is just what we want." 
 
 "What is it?" I asked, delightedly. 
 
 "It is a farm that the owner would be willing to exchange for city 
 property. When a farmer wants to do that, you may rest assured that 
 he is very anxious to be rid of his farm." 
 
 " Doubtless you are right," I exclaimed; "but I have no city property 
 to offer." 
 
 "That has nothing to do with it," she replied, tapping the floor light 
 ly with her slipper. " I think the best thing for you to do is to go out 
 and look at the place." 
 
 On the following morning I purchased an excursion ticket for Cran 
 berry Corners, the nearest station to Dove s Nest. I enjoyed the ride 
 very much, as it took me through a farming country. At every station I 
 noticed there were nothing but farmers standing around, looking at noth-
 
 ing in particular, and seeming to be fairly stupid from content and lack of 
 care. This, I concluded, was a proof of the farmer s independence, which, 
 before, I was unable to appreciate. If he can work a farm, and still spend 
 half his time at the railroad station, and retire for the night at 8 P.M., he, 
 indeed, enjoys an ideal existence. I was disturbed in these optimistic 
 visions of a bucolic existence by two men who boarded the train at Bul 
 rush Centre, and took a seat just behind me. 
 
 " 1 tell you," said the first man, " if you ever settle out here, you want 
 to keep away from Swellmore. If the local dealers once get a mortgage 
 on you, you re gone." 
 
 " Didn t you live in Swellmore at one time ?" asked the second man. 
 
 "Yes; for seven years." 
 
 " Why did you stay so long ?" 
 
 I stayed two years because I liked it, and five because I couldn t get out. " 
 
 This shattered my popular metropolitan belief that it only costs five 
 hundred dollars per annum to live in the country. 
 
 "Did you hear 
 about old Bill Free 
 man s bad luck last 
 spring ?" asked the 
 first man. 
 
 "No. What hap 
 pened to him ?" 
 
 "Why, all his 
 ducks and geese 
 were swept away 
 in a freshet never 
 recovered one of 
 them." 
 
 I made a memo 
 randum in my mind 
 never to keep ducks 
 unless upon a hill 
 top. 1 would en 
 close them in an 
 ordinary chicken run, 
 and allow them to 
 swim in a trough, 
 
 which I would fill every morning by means of a garden hose. This 
 would keep the ducks within easy reach, and prevent their straying 
 playfully away to lay eggs on the adjoining farm. 
 
 I might have learned more from the men sitting behind me, but just 
 then the conductor shouted, " Cran-berry Cor-ners !"
 
 I stepped off the train and over to the only store in the place in quest 
 of information. 
 
 " Can you direct me to Dove s Nest?" I inquired of the neck-whiskered 
 proprietor, in my jubilation forgetting that he would not know the place 
 by the name Phillada had selected for it. 
 
 "The which ?" he inquired. 
 
 " W. L. Stoker s farm, I mean." 
 
 He led me to the door, and said: "You want to go down that road a 
 mile and a half, until you come to a big oak; then turn to your left and 
 walk down the turnpike two miles, and you will see a little white house. 
 That s where Lem Sikes lives. Lem will tell you where Bill Stoker s is." 
 
 "If I could find a 
 conveyance," 1 said. 
 
 This suggested an 
 important business 
 mission. 
 
 " One o them 
 lawyer chaps a- 
 comin up to fore 
 close on Bill ?" he 
 asked, as he stroked 
 his whiskers in deep 
 meditation. 
 
 "Oh, no! I want 
 to look at his place." 
 
 "One o the finest 
 farms around these 
 parts." Then he 
 paused for a mo 
 ment, as though there was nothing more to be said on the subject. "I m 
 goin down that way pretty soon to deliver some goods, and you can 
 hop on," he continued. 
 
 In a short time we were on the way to Dove s Nest. The grocer was 
 so anxious to* know just what I was going to do that he was too full for 
 utterance. He was even so kind as to drive me the whole of the dis 
 tance, and to introduce me to Mr. Stoker. 
 
 Mr. Stoker was picturesque in blue overalls and one suspender. Al 
 though he wanted to part with his farm, it was not because he was dis 
 satisfied with it. He had recently purchased a windmill from an Illinois 
 concern, and had done so much in the way of praising it that others 
 about the place followed his advice and bought one. This so pleased 
 the Illinois concern that it offered him a good commission to travel in its 
 interest. This, of course, satisfied me that I could make my own terms.
 
 11 Suppose I rent the farm just as it stands, stock and all, for a year, 
 with a view of purchasing or giving up at the end of that time ? That 
 
 will be long enough for me to ascertain 
 if I like farming, and for you to learn 
 whether or not you are endowed with 
 the drumming gift." 
 
 He ran his fingers 
 through his iron-gray 
 hair and filled the air 
 with bran. Then he 
 said, "I ll take your 
 offer." 
 
 We walked over the 
 place, and he explained 
 everything. The wind 
 mill I liked very much, 
 because it gave the 
 place a Dutch effect. 
 The pigeons were cir- 
 clinginthesunaboutthe 
 walnuts, and the white 
 ducks were floatinglist- 
 lessly on the silent pools 
 in chaste armadas. 
 
 " How soon can I take possession ?" 1 asked, in an outburst of heart 
 felt enthusiasm. 
 
 "Next Monday," he replied. 
 
 I then borrowed a pot of black paint from him, and on a large stone at 
 the gateway painted "Dove s Nest," as a surprise for Phillada. 
 
 That night we sat up in the flat until after midnight, talking the matter 
 over, and on the following Monday our effects 
 rolled gracefully from the flat, the movers, 
 with their usual contempt for care and the 
 elements, having packed the tin and china 
 ware on the bottom of the truck, and the 
 plush-covered furniture and mattresses on top. 
 Phillada tripped lightly on, holding Philip 
 by the hand, wishing, as I afterwards told 
 her, to impress the public with the idea that 
 she was not even personally acquainted with 
 poor me, who trudged on behind, holding in 
 my left hand a cage containing a petulant par 
 rot, and in my right a basket about two sizes 
 too small for the tomcat within.
 
 Ill 
 
 WHEN we arrived at Dove s Nest our joy knew no bounds. Neither 
 did the dog s. The dog, poor fellow, had had the misfortune qf 
 being born in the bosom of a bustling community, with whose ways and 
 surroundings he had no sympathy. The compass of his daily exercise was 
 the back-yard, up and down which he would run in very much the man 
 ner employed by a man rowing on a pool of water very little longer than 
 his craft. It may be superfluous to say that he would start from the 
 kitchen door 
 at such a pace 
 that his maxi 
 mum speed 
 was attained 
 at about the 
 middle of the 
 yard. Then he 
 would slacken 
 his strides lest 
 peradventure 
 he come in 
 contact with 
 the fence with 
 sufficient force 
 to drive his 
 nose back into 
 his eyes, and 
 give him the 
 cranial contour 
 of the pug. 
 
 When we moved into a flat he was even more unhappy, because for 
 a long time his only open-air exercise was enjoyed upon the window- 
 sill. Being a water-spaniel, he would lie on the same window-sill on 
 rainy days and catch on his head the longed-for water, that he would 
 never wantonly shake off, but rather allow to become a part of him 
 through absorption. It would, perhaps, be cruel to dwell further upon
 
 these facts setting forth the circumscribed liberty and conditions of 
 Spot so called in contradistinction to Rover, because the flat would not 
 
 permit him to rove, but compelled 
 him to remain in one place. 
 Consequently Spot s joy knew no 
 bounds when we all arrived at 
 Dove s Nest. A few days later, 
 while sitting on the porch with 
 Phillada watching the wind-tossed 
 dandelions that made the sunny 
 meadow an undulating cloth of 
 gold, out popped Spot, who be 
 gan running up and down at a 
 great rate. But it struck me as 
 being strange that he described 
 no wild, mad circles in his raptu 
 rous flights. He would run on a 
 straight line for about fifty feet, 
 then stop suddenly and wheel 
 about as though on a pivot, and 
 return to the starting-point only 
 to repeat the exercise, 
 watched Spot. 
 
 " Isn t that very odd ?" I asked, 
 "Not at all," replied Phillada. 
 
 as 
 
 
 "It is said that the liberated prisoner 
 has pleasant memories of his cell ; then why shouldn t Spot remember 
 the flat, and run its length on the ground and turn around in the only 
 way it would allow ?" 
 
 " But why in the middle of his 
 course does he dart out of it in a 
 short semicircle ?" I asked. 
 
 "That," replied Phillada, "is 
 probably to escape the partition 
 between the dining-room and 
 parlor." 
 
 This explanation seemed sat 
 isfactory. I was warned to be 
 very careful in my efforts at 
 duck-culture by Mr. Van Sickle, 
 a neighboring farmer, who used 
 to drop in occasionally and fill 
 me with gratuitous advice and 
 choice bits of agricultural remi 
 niscence.
 
 "Lookout 
 for the bull 
 frogs !" he 
 would ex 
 claim, "look 
 out for the 
 bull-frogs 
 them s the 
 boys as ll 
 soak em !" 
 He meant 
 by this that, 
 as the duck 
 lings were 
 swimming 
 about on the 
 bosom of the 
 pond like so 
 many gold 
 en lilies, the bull-frogs would grab them by the legs and cause them to 
 disappear abruptly and forever. He would then describe the maternal 
 
 grief of the hen as she 
 ran about on the shore 
 counting her little ones 
 on her talons to ascertain 
 if they were all there. 
 
 I did not allow Mr. Van 
 Sickle to dissuade me 
 from the experiment of 
 raising ducks, however, 
 but thanked him for his 
 timely advice, and told 
 him I would be only too 
 thankful for any he had 
 to offer on anything ap 
 pertaining to the divine 
 art of farming. 
 
 "But the bull-frogs 11 
 soak em ; the bull-frogs 11 
 soak em !" he repeated 
 as he walked away. 
 
 Notwithstanding his 
 statement and admoni-
 
 tion, I set several hens on duck-eggs that very day, and about seventy- 
 five per cent, of them saw the light at the end of the current moon. 
 
 "Ha, ha!" thought I, as 1 saw them enter the pond in spite of the 
 warnings of the maternal ancestor, "what would Mr. Van Sickle say 
 should he see what I am about to do ?" 
 
 I then sent Spot into the water with them, and a most excellent chap 
 eron he made. I kept him chained in a dry place all day, and only 
 gave him his liberty when the ducklings moved in Indian file to the 
 pond. The little fuzzy amphibians followed him affectionately, seem 
 ing to know by instinct their probable fate as set down by Mr. Van 
 Sickle. 
 
 This plan worked all right for something like a week. One day while 
 Spot was swimming at the head of his yellow fleet, the Van Sickle dog 
 suddenly appeared on the top of an opposite hill, capering on the rim of 
 the horizon in frenzied glee. It was then that Spot, marvelling at but 
 not divining the cause thereof, left the pond so swiftly that he forgot to 
 shake himself upon landing. It was then that about half the ducklings 
 disappeared to create post-prandial raptures for the slimy denizens of the 
 mud. 
 
 After Phillada had laughed at me for thinking I knew more about
 
 duck-culture than a professional farmer, 1 got mad, and said: "If Spot 
 shall chaperon those ducks again he will do it on the end of a long rope 
 that will make his escape impossible. And if that works not, then will I 
 secure the ducks in the chicken-run, and all the water they ll get will be 
 taken internally from a saucer, even if the dry weather causes them to 
 warp out of shape, and break into a cobweb of airy cracks."
 
 IV 
 
 THERE was perhaps nothing else on the farm in which we found a 
 keener spiritual delight than in the pigs; and when the "cares 
 that infest the day" had gathered themselves together and gat them 
 hence, and the twilight enamelled the bosom of the pool in which I 
 hoped at some time to cultivate bull-frogs and snapping-turtles, Phillada 
 
 would say, "Let us 
 go down and see the 
 pigs." 
 
 It is needless to 
 say that I always fa 
 vored that proposi- 
 and that we 
 
 walked down to the pen across the emerald slope, after I had lighted 
 my corn-cob pipe; my love of consistency having caused me to cast 
 away the meerschaum I had smoked in the flat, and to adopt the one that 
 savored of the farm. But I am willing to admit that I clung tenaciously
 
 to the tobacco of the city after I had tried one package of the brand dis 
 pensed by the bucolic grocer, who might have acquired a handsome fort 
 une had he but had the forethought to offer it to the public as a moth 
 exterminator. 
 
 Our pigs consisted of a 
 large white one with a fierce 
 Russian moustache, and a 
 full-mourning specimen with 
 a goodly litter of young ones, 
 most of which were spotted 
 like playing-cards. Most 
 fondly would they gaze upon 
 us with their cold, porcelain 
 eyes, and wriggle their opera- 
 glass snouts as we ap 
 proached. 
 
 The strangest thing about 
 the adult pigs was their 
 thinness. They were simply 
 scrawny; but we did not 
 particularly object to this, 
 because we preferred our 
 pork lean, and these animals 
 
 looked as though they would work up into bacon with two layers of 
 lean to one of fat. 
 
 It was extremely pleasant to note the affections of the little ones as 
 they lay in a heap, as though woven together like an oval door-mat In 
 
 fact, Phillada was so fond 
 of them that whenever she 
 went to the pen she did 
 not forget to regale each 
 with a lump of sugar. I 
 think if she had not been 
 blessed with a keen sense 
 of the ridiculous, she would 
 have insisted upon tying 
 pink ribbons in their ears, 
 and supplying them with 
 blankets emblazoned with 
 their names in the softest 
 silk. She would never 
 
 think of killing one of these sucking-pigs for a Sunday roast, and I never 
 felt like disputing the propriety of allowing them to live on, as I be-
 
 
 
 lieved they would shortly become the low-set, broad-gauge pigs con 
 structed very much after the fashion of the dachshund that we find in 
 the highest stage of development in the wood-cut of the agricultural paper. 
 But, alas! we soon learned that the finely rounded pigs that luxuriate 
 in the pages of these journals are no more like the pigs of real life than 
 are the jointless people in the foldless clothes met in fashion plates like 
 the beings we observe moving about in the quick. 
 
 In other words, our pigs seemed never to fatten, no matter how much we 
 fed them. I could not understand it at all, although I theorized consider 
 ably on the sub 
 ject. One theory 
 was that they ate 
 so fast that they 
 impaired their 
 digestion. I no 
 ticed that the 
 old black one 
 that Philip called 
 the " big black 
 mamma" had 
 a dyspeptic 
 cough, so, after 
 trying various 
 troches in vain, 
 I called in Mr. 
 Van Sickle, the 
 farmer. 
 
 He looked as 
 graveasaprime-
 
 minister as he eyed the swine through his brass-rimmed spectacles. He 
 looked in the boar s mouth, which he pried open with a bean-pole as 
 though to ascertain if his tusks were 
 composed of vegetable ivory. After he 
 had made a careful examination, he calm 
 ly admitted that he was as much at sea 
 regarding their condition as he would 
 have been had 1 called him in to pre 
 scribe for a fat greyhound. 
 
 "I guess, said he, "I d let them go 
 rattlesnakin fer a while ; that 11 do em 
 good. Nothin better for pigs than 
 rattlesnakes. You see, when the snake 
 gets ready to spring, the pig puts his 
 hoof right around him, like a pair of 
 pincers, and down he goes into the pig 
 head first." 
 
 "What effect does that have on the pork?" I asked. 
 "What effect ?" repeated Mr. Van Sickle; "it makes it as good as corn- 
 fed, and it s along sight cheaper. Besides, it does away with the rattle 
 snakes. Why, when I was farming down in Missouri, about twenty 
 years ago, they used to think rattlesnake pork the best going. A man 
 
 raised on rattle 
 snake pork, they 
 used to say, was 
 proof against 
 the sting of that 
 snake, and that 
 no matter how 
 hard he drank 
 he could not 
 ketch delirium 
 tremens." 
 
 I had the pigs 
 turned out to 
 wander at will at 
 Mr. Van Sickle s 
 request, and as 
 we walked away 
 he returned to 
 his mutton, or 
 rather to his 
 pork, as follows:
 
 "I tell ye them was pigs as was pigs down in Missouri. Did you 
 ever see a fat pig ?" 
 
 " I did," I replied. 
 
 "Well, them pigs was so fat they could not see. Sometimes they 
 would walk against a stone wall and stun themselves. I have often 
 seen them sound asleep while walking around. The crows were the 
 things that bothered them." 
 
 Mr. Van Sickle commenced to chuckle. I asked him what amused 
 him. 
 
 "Those pigs," he said. "Why, they were so fat that they could not 
 keep the crows off when they landed on their backs to feed on their fat. 
 A crow would drive his bill right to his eyes into the pig s back, and 
 never withdraw it until surfeited. Sometimes a pig would roll over on 
 his back for relief, and then he could not regain his feet. While in this 
 helpless position, and almost suffocating, other crows would attack him, 
 and drive him wild. We finally employed a boy to watch the pigs, and 
 when a crow would light on one of them the boy would rush in and fun 
 him off with a pole." 
 
 Mr. Van Sickle then abandoned his reminiscent vein and told me I 
 would never have any more trouble with my pigs; and I did not, for 1 
 never saw them again. Whether they kept growing thinner until they 
 vanished in the air, or were stolen, is still a mystery. And about a week 
 later I suppose I evidenced an unconscious contempt for the American 
 hog when I sent to the store for a side of English breakfast bacon.
 
 V 
 
 SO far our farming had not been what might be called eminently suc 
 cessful, but we were not entirely discouraged. Phillada s smile was 
 the rainbow that followed the storm which came through the roof and 
 depressed the kitchen fire and the Maltese cat. Her words of sympathy 
 made me hopeful when the crows descended and plucked the sprouting 
 corn from the earth, just after 1 had hoed it once, and in so doing made 
 myself as round-shouldered as a shoemaker, and bent myself forward to 
 
 such an extent that I was afraid to straighten up lest peradventure I 
 break. 
 
 While debating in my mind the question " whether it is harder to drop 
 potatoes or to pick them up," Phillada began to laugh, and said, 
 
 "I think I have discovered why we are not more successful." 
 
 And when I asked her to tell me, she replied, 
 
 " Why, because we do not take an agricultural paper!"
 
 It struck me that perhaps she was right; and I became so fully con 
 vinced of this, upon mature reflection, that in the course of a day or two 
 I subscribed for the Plough and Harrow, a monthly journal devoted to 
 
 the interests of farming. 
 
 This paper was really a great joy to me, 
 for if it was lacking as regards solid infor 
 mation, it was overflowing with wholesome 
 amusement, It made a specialty of letters 
 from farmers designed to show others how 
 to do certain things successfully in a new 
 way, whose basis of value was its economy 
 of time and labor. One farmer would tell 
 how he made a beautiful eel-pot of an old 
 stove-pipe, and a beehive of an ancient milk- 
 can, while another would disclose the name 
 of a certain homoeopathic pill that cured his 
 cow of garget. I noticed also the names of 
 our old time-honored correspondents Veritas 
 and Fair Play in the columns of the Plough 
 and Harrow, though I never dreamed that 
 they ventured into the field of agriculture. 
 
 I learned from them how to plant grass -seed in a strong wind, and 
 was cautioned against the absurdity of setting the drum-head cabbage 
 beside the trumpet-flower, though the latter may have been the idle 
 jest of a happy moment. 
 
 The illustrations were not 
 masterpieces from an art stand 
 point, but they were well worth 
 studying. I have forgotten the 
 exact weight and dimensions of a 
 certain sheep, whose name has 
 escaped me, but which we cut out 
 and pinned on the wall to enjoy 
 at our leisure. It had corkscrew 
 curls, and a pensive Hebraic cast 
 of countenance, which inspired us 
 with the idea of calling it the Jew 
 ish poetess, although we named 
 it Susan Bowwow Skat. 
 
 Then there were pictures of cocks 
 with tails like willow draperies, 
 
 standing in dignified attitudes, and throwing their heads back with mar 
 tial pride. These were the fowls that any one could enjoy for so much
 
 
 per. setting of eggs. (See adver 
 tisement on inside cover.) The 
 
 cows were represented as being 
 
 about the size of oxen, and were 
 
 so choice in the description that 
 
 it seemed possible they were 
 
 covered with French calf- skins 
 
 and yielded nothing but cream. 
 
 In fact, the whole paper made 
 
 farming seem what might be called a refined joy, an exquisite rapture, 
 
 and I felt far better off than when following the romantic pursuit of 
 
 book-keeping. 
 
 Even as the clam fritters away 
 his time at high water, so did I 
 luxuriate in the high tide of my 
 joy that didn t know the bounds 
 of a flat or a dingy office, and 
 when anything went wrong I 
 flew to the Plough and Harrow 
 
 for solace. In its columns I could 
 read much that was instructive 
 
 and elevating. There was the story of the good boy with fingers like 
 
 sausages, and feet so large that they made him tired when he walked, 
 
 who. in spite of the 
 
 injunctions of the 
 
 dyspectic maternal 
 
 ancestor in the ging 
 ham hood, went to 
 
 one of the great 
 
 cities to grow up and 
 
 be a great man. His 
 
 adventures in the city 
 
 were without special 
 
 interest, except that 
 
 he had a pretty hard 
 
 time, and learned to 
 
 appreciate the pleas 
 ures of a pastoral 
 
 career while carry 
 ing large clumsy 
 
 bundles about on the 
 
 noisy street. Often 
 
 he thought of
 
 "mother s gingerbread " and "Aunt Huldy s doughnuts" while dining 
 in a coffee-and-cake saloon; and the apple-stand on the street brought 
 to mind the old gnarled greening tree behind the house, where he used 
 to roll in the grass and kick his feet in the air and strike at bumblebees 
 with his felt hat. The story placed these particular "greenings" far 
 
 above those found in the city, while it spoke of the dried-apple pies 
 of the farm as a delicacy that no metropolitan caterer could equal. At 
 any rate, he either couldn t stand the city fare, or he discovered that 
 he couldn t rise to a great position just by being good and honest and 
 freckled, so he returned to the ancient roof, and oh! what a jollifi 
 cation there was on that occasion. What avalanches of pie and rivers 
 of cider, etc. . 
 
 Then there was a poem called "Stick to the Plough, Tom!" which set 
 forth the beauties of farming, and the utter folly of everything else. 
 
 Besides, there was a plan for a fifteen-hundred-dollar house, the only 
 important fact concerning the same that was forgotten being that to build 
 a fifteen-hundred-dollar house according to a fifteen-hundred-dollar plan, 
 the builder should have at least five thousand dollars. 
 
 In spite of the glowing pictures in the Plough and Harrow, the scheme 
 of farming didn t seem to be paying well, although there was no end of 
 work.
 
 " I ll tell you what we had better do," said Phillada. 
 
 "What?" I asked. 
 
 " So long as it is all work and no money, we might find a man who 
 would be willing to work the place on shares." 
 
 "It is an Irish proposition," I replied, "but I think we had better act 
 on it."
 
 VI 
 
 
 WE were not a great while in discovering that farming is often at 
 tended with eccentric financial results. It cost us fifty dollars for 
 a ton of fertilizer for the potato lot, and the crop was a failure of the worst 
 kind, while all the time spent in hoeing was time thrown away. Had I 
 been forced to keep up the hoeing much longer, I think I should have re 
 duced myself to bone- 
 dust, and suddenly 
 mingled with the fer 
 tilizer said to be of the 
 same material. 
 
 I am willing to admit 
 that the pleasant sen 
 sations of a bond 
 holder were mine 
 when I sat down to 
 eat tomatoes that cost 
 about twenty- five 
 cents each. Owing 
 to the attentions of the 
 potato -bug, who, in 
 spite of his name, 
 seems to be fond of 
 everything that is 
 green, except, per 
 haps, paint, my first 
 tomato plants were 
 eaten while yet in 
 >> blossom. Through 
 
 this loss I conceived 
 
 the idea of planting a second lot in butter-tubs nailed on top of 
 posts well smeared with a resinous substance calculated to en 
 tangle the feet of the potato-bug and fill him with consternation and 
 despair. 
 Many other table luxuries, such as pease, pole beans, lettuce, etc., I
 
 raised in the same way, until all the old 
 boxes, pails, and tubs about the place 
 were performing an alien duty. 
 
 Phillada said if we returned to the city she was going to have just such 
 a garden, if she had to run the butter-tubs along clothes-lines on pulleys. 
 
 This system, which we called farming in the air, I hoped never to ex 
 perience, as my chief object in farming was to be able to live in the 
 country. Yet I could not help feeling amused as I pictured to myself 
 the farmer, sitting in his flat, hauling on the rope to get the crops close 
 enough to the window to be cultivated with a carving-knife, and watered 
 by a hose fastened to the kitchen faucet. 
 
 My melons, upon which I depended so largely for Olympian bliss dur 
 ing the panting dog-days, came to naught, the vines having curled up in 
 the early summer and silently drifted away. 
 
 If I had raised the melons successfully, and had them purloined by 
 boys, it would have been bad enough; but I didn t even have the satis 
 faction of meeting disappointment in that way, but in the bitterer form 
 of a reflection on my skill as a gardener. 
 
 Mr. Van Sickle consoled me somewhat when he assured me that in all 
 probability the seed was five or six years old when planted. But this 
 consolation was only momentary when I reflected that it was through 
 5
 
 the withering of the vines, and not through 
 the failure of the seeds to come up, that my 
 melons were not a triumph and a joy. 
 
 Yet Mr. Van Sickle replied, with the assur 
 ance of one who 
 has learned from 
 experience, that it 
 was the seeds and 
 nothing else. In 
 fact, nothing I plant 
 ed seemed to grow 
 right. The carefully 
 watered cucumbers 
 dried up and faded 
 into old-gold and 
 oblivion; the wax 
 beans melted away 
 I know not how; 
 and, in truth, the 
 only things about 
 the place that 
 
 : 
 
 seemed to grow in a natural, bountiful manner were 
 the weeds in the macadamized road, and the chest 
 nut fence -posts but recently set out. 
 As I watched these rootless posts 
 with great 
 green bunches 
 of leaves grow 
 ing on them, I 
 had to laugh. 
 
 " It is, in 
 deed, a funny 
 fence," I one 
 day remarked. 
 
 "Fencer" re 
 plied Phillada. 
 "I should call 
 it a hedge." 
 
 But I was 
 proud of one 
 thing: I did not
 
 plant the pease that were not in tubs all at once. I planted them about 
 a week apart, that they might not all ripen at the same moment, and be 
 gin to spoil after the first picking. This was my proudest achievement. 
 I once had a friend who neglected to do this, and I had read of several 
 others who had been victims of the same mistake. But my shrewd 
 ness and foresight were not rewarded by a luxurious succession of 
 
 melting mealy marrowfats. 
 
 1 might just as well have 
 
 planted them at the same 
 
 time, for the simple reason that they all died together, even while the 
 
 bees rifled their creamy flowers. 
 
 But with the plants growing in the tubs on posts 1 had better luck, 
 although, as I remarked before, 1 paid a good price for everything I ate. 
 Yet I felt proud to think I had circumvented the potato-bug, and I laughed 
 often to myself when I pictured his discomfiture, as I stood on a step- 
 ladder watering the precious plants, or gathering a sufficient quantity for 
 dinner from the breezy vines. 
 
 The neighbors, who laughed when they saw me arranging the butter- 
 tubs, were beginning to have great respect for me as the discoverer of a
 
 new wrinkle in farming. But 1 never knew how great it was until one 
 day I saw it described at great length and garnished with illustrations in 
 the columns of the Plough and Harrow. It was evidently the work of a 
 neighbor who had stolen my idea, and ventilated it as his own under a 
 pseudonyme which has escaped me. He told how he came to conceive 
 the idea, how he put it in practice, together with its golden results. I 
 said nothing, knowing that they would all try it in my locality the next 
 year, and would discover that its golden results would be largely illus 
 trated in the amount of gold each vegetable would cost. 
 
 "And while they are eating tomatoes at twenty -five cents apiece, 
 we shall be consuming them at fifteen cents a can, and the pantry will 
 contain a crop that cannot fail." 
 
 Suddenly Phillada appeared and interrupted my soliloquy. "The barrel 
 containing the little chickens just rolled into the pond, and they are all 
 drowned!" 
 
 "It reminds me of a remark Philip made yesterday," I replied, good- 
 naturedly, for I had become so accustomed to disaster that nothing could 
 ruffle the calmness of my spirit. 
 
 "And what did he say?" asked Phillada. 
 
 "He said," I replied, "just what this latest catastrophe has proved to 
 be a fact, that ducks are boats and chickens are wagons one for the 
 water, one for the land." 
 
 ^SSSPgt <V ;/, L 
 V-- ^*ir * !*{
 
 VII 
 
 I ALWAYS knew that the sun played an active part in farming, but 
 not until I got into a farming district did I become aware of the fact 
 that the farmers pay no attention whatever to this important luminary, 
 but rather in their studies of the heavenly bodies honor the moon with 
 their entire attention. In all the places in which I had ever lived before, 
 the moon was not considered, save in the suburbs, where the ever- 
 economical township committee would not permit the electric illumi 
 nation of the streets on 
 moonlight nights. 
 
 But the farmers regard 
 ed it so seriously that 
 after a while I began to 
 fancy that to till the earth 
 in triumph one should be 
 versed in the beautiful 
 mysteries of astronomy. 
 Perhaps it was through 
 my ignorance of this branch 
 of learning that I had not 
 yet achieved a victory over 
 the soil. I therefore con 
 cluded that the things that 
 should be done under the 
 influence of a wet moon 
 or a dry moon could be 
 best performed by the man 
 who would work the place 
 
 on shares. Such a man could tell the nature of a seed by looking at it, 
 and not by consulting the face of the package in which purchased. 
 Had Phillada been blest with this power of discrimination, her little 
 flower-garden at Dove s Nest might have been a thing to go into 
 wildest raptures over. We called it a flower-garden because it was 
 originally intended for one; but it was only a flower-garden in name, 
 inasmuch as the trumpet - flower seeds developed into squashes, the
 
 
 mignonette into beets, and the hollyhocks into sweet-corn. I cannot 
 remember now just how the other flower seeds turned out, but I do 
 remember that the squashes, beets, and corn that should have been 
 
 trumpet -flowers, mignonette, 
 and hollyhocks never reached 
 the stage of development in 
 which those vegetables are 
 capable of filling the dining- 
 room with their steaming 
 incense. 
 
 To avoid the repetition of 
 such a catastrophe I thought it 
 time to act upon Phillada s ad 
 vice, and find a man who could 
 be induced to undertake the 
 management of the farm on 
 shares a man who could work 
 in harmony with the moon, 
 and cast all necessary horo 
 scopes in a manner unknown 
 to any but the horny-handed professional. 
 
 Even at this day I cannot overcome a wild yearning for vengeance 
 when I think of this man who managed Dove s Nest on shares. Al 
 though I made nothing out 
 of the place working it 
 alone. 1 did not make any 
 more with the assistance 
 of this guileless creature, 
 whose calm, serene JT^ ^1 
 
 countenance inspired 3^4-- 
 confidence in him, and 
 amounted simply to spir 
 itual beauty. I am not at 
 all confident yet that he 
 knew more about farm- 
 work than I did myself, 
 as I never detected him in 
 the act of doing any. But 
 he was full of ideas and 
 advice. He could tell you 
 
 just how you could turn the swamp into a good potato field by blind 
 draining, and how you could find better results by using certain expen 
 sive implements, which would also save labor. In short, he was more
 
 anxious to save labor than anything else, except, possibly, money and 
 time to sleep. It was probably owing to this weakness that he ac 
 knowledged such a strong preference for sulky ploughs, etc. Any kind 
 of implement that contained a nice easy seat upon which he could bob 
 over stones as though in a boat seemed to fill his soul with ineffable 
 ecstasies. If he could but have found an implement with a hammock 
 attachment I think his happiness would have been complete, and he 
 would have performed most of his farming duty in a gentle doze. I 
 have seen him stand and survey a potatoscape or a turnipscape in a 
 most studious manner. Then would he sit down to gain a different 
 
 view, that he might survey it more studiously. When once wrapped 
 in one of these potato or turnip studies he seemed like one in a trance, 
 and I doubt very much if anything could have aroused him save the 
 metallic undulations of the far-away dinner-bell. 
 
 As I was but experimenting with the farm, and did not own it, I, of 
 course, did not invest very extensively in blind drains or implements. 
 But through the mellifluous arguments and suggestions of this smiling 
 pirate, whose subtle cunning entitled him to consideration as an in 
 spired compromise between the serpent and the plumber for he was 
 about "the subtlest beast of the field" I ever saw I was rash enough 
 to lay out a couple of hundred dollars, which I never saw again. When
 
 
 the summer 
 came to an end, 
 so did the en 
 gagement of 
 "the subtlest 
 beast of the 
 field." 
 
 There was 
 nothing to di 
 vide, as, I con 
 fidently believe, 
 he had all the 
 gain and 1 the 
 expense. He 
 looked so crest- 
 fa 1 1 e n and 
 abused when I 
 pointed a bee- 
 line to the gate, 
 as politely as 
 
 my feelings would permit, that I for a moment began to imagine that 
 perhaps, after all, I had done him an injustice. I had an expert go over 
 his figures, that appeared to me all right, and found that he had made 
 out of me a sum that I am 
 ashamed to name, owing to a 
 sensitive spirit that cannot 
 wantonly brook the merciless 
 ridicule of friends. Mr. Van 
 Sickle then told me that all 
 good farmers own 
 farms, and only 
 tramp farmers work 
 on shares. He also 
 figured out the 
 commissions he got 
 for ordering imple 
 ments, and what he 
 must have made 
 out of a surrepti 
 tious manipulation 
 of the produce. 
 
 He likewise ad 
 vised me to go to
 
 law, but this I would not listen to, as it takes two to make a lawsuit, 
 and in this affair the defendant was wofully lacking, having long ago 
 passed over the rim of yonder distant hill, and evaporated in the offing 
 like a thin midsummer cloud. But, anyhow, I had got the hawk out of 
 the Dove s Nest.
 
 VIII 
 
 AFTER we had ridded ourselves of the man who ran Dove s Nest on 
 shares, with a view to bettering his pecuniary condition and per 
 haps ours we began to feel that there was some golden prosperity in 
 store for us. Everything that had gone wrong we attributed to the gross 
 mismanagement of this horny-handed basilisk, and I concluded that if I 
 should ever deem it expedient to employ another in a like capacity, it 
 
 would be an agricultural lecturer one who could enrich my mind with 
 those theories which when put in practice, by another man whom I 
 could command from the saddle, would result in happy crop and after 
 math. 
 
 While I had no further fear of the elements, so carried away was I by 
 the sunshine of the change, yet I didn t go into ecstasies of joy over their
 
 possibilities. I 
 was still alive 
 to the fancied 
 sensations of 
 manipulating a 
 hoe with one 
 hand while hold 
 ing an umbrella 
 aloft with the 
 other. Yet it 
 was a matter of 
 indifference to 
 me whether it 
 rained suffi 
 ciently hard to 
 destroy the tur 
 keys and pre 
 serve the geese, 
 or whether it 
 became so dry 
 that the turkeys 
 would thrive 
 and prosper and 
 the geese suffo 
 cate and have 
 their livers abnormally developed for pate de foie gras. 
 
 "Let the sun pour forth its seething avalanche!" I exclaimed, in the 
 largeness of my joy, while sharpening a lead-pencil with a table knife 
 my late manager having forgotten to return my pearl-handled penknife, 
 recently borrowed to employ in mending the harness "let the sun 
 pour forth its scintillating eruption, and I will murmur not, even though 
 it peel the few surviving potatoes in the field, pop the shining corn upon 
 the cob, and split and roast the garden pease until they are in prime con 
 dition for negotiation in an open coffee market." 
 
 I paced the roadway in front of the house with the feelings of one 
 who has just raised two mortgages at once, and is lost in the ambrosial 
 feelings of real proprietorship. The house seemed a palace that didn t 
 need a coat of paint, although the shingles that extended to the ground 
 were covered with moss of every possible shade of gray and green, and 
 hadn t known an artificial tone for half a century. 
 
 "If we ever own a house," said Phillada, studying the moss, "I think 
 that color would be excellent for the dining-room below the picture- 
 moulding, and that for a dado, with a dead-gold vine for variety."
 
 "I think it would be excellent," 
 1 replied. 
 
 "And what a lovely malachite 
 tone that would be for note- 
 paper," she went on. 
 
 "It would also be lovely for a 
 rug or a carriage-horse," I replied, 
 not knowing exactly what 1 
 said. 
 
 "Oh, it would be just too love 
 ly for anything in a carriage- 
 horse!" she laughed. " If I had 
 a horse of that color, and should 
 wear while driving a China silk 
 of sauce crevisse, don t you think 
 the contrast would be excellent?" 
 
 "Indeed I do; I cannot think 
 of anything more artistic, and I 
 shall only be too happy to buy 
 you a China silk of sauce crevisse 
 if" 
 
 "If what?" she asked, rather suddenly. 
 
 " If you will tell me where I can find the malachite steed." 
 
 She pretended to be 
 provoked at this, but 
 offered to compromise 
 on a tea gown of the 
 same tint should we ever 
 return to the city. 
 
 I then returned to the 
 house and wandered 
 aimlessly about, con 
 gratulating myself upon 
 losing, or rather casting 
 adrift, the share-worker, 
 for, considered as a loss, 
 I paradoxically termed 
 him a profitable loss, 
 and his going a happy 
 misfortune. 
 
 Never before had the 
 interior of the house ap 
 peared so charming and
 
 full of poetry. I went into rapt 
 ures over the rag-carpet that con 
 tained generations of suspenders 
 and other articles of wearing ap 
 parel, and lost no time in passing 
 a fitting compliment upon the 
 maker s regard for the sublimity 
 of realism when 1 noticed on its 
 brindled bosom a button and a 
 suspender buckle. But I quickly 
 withdrew my remarks upon the 
 constructor s fidelity to the prin 
 ciples of realism in art when I 
 learned that the button and sus 
 pender buckle in question had 
 simply fallen on the floor from 
 the work-basket in which they 
 belonged. 
 
 Another thing about the place 
 that had always filled me with 
 
 pain now appealed to me as a subject for endless merriment, and I smiled 
 as I perhaps never smiled before, when I leaned against the mantel-piece 
 and regarded the ancient white high hat with the mourning band that 
 was stuffed in a broken pane of the kitchen window. 
 
 Through the spectacles of my contented state of mind Henry Clay be 
 came beautiful in the cheap print that probably made him homelier than
 
 he was in life, and showed his foot in the background larger than the 
 member in the foreground. 
 
 1 went forth and fed the horses until I almost killed them, hoping that 
 they might feel as happy as I, and I did the same with the other animals. 
 I felt like filling the watering-pot and sprinkling the geese, when I came 
 across several rows of vegetables that I hadn t observed before. They 
 ran in zigzag courses instead of in straight ones. In fact, I may truthfully 
 say that they tacked all over the ground. I could not help laughing im 
 moderately. 
 
 " What are you laughing at ?" asked Phillada. 
 
 " At those zigzag rows," 1 replied. 
 
 "And what do they mean ?" she inquired, with a puzzled look. 
 
 "They mean simply this," I said, as I looked at the crooked rows, 
 "that that man s infidelity to the laws of agriculture was largely owing 
 to his fidelity to the glowing flowing bowl." 
 
 And then we concluded that if every departure of a servant-girl could 
 only bring about the happiness that was ours through the going of the 
 share-worker, this would indeed be a comparatively happy, happy world. 
 
 -
 
 IX 
 
 I HAD always looked forward with unfeigned pleasure to the time 
 when I should become the possessor of some choice fancy fowls. 
 The specimens found at Dove s Nest upon our arrival were so mixed as 
 regards breed that you could not tell where the Cochin began and the 
 Leghorn ended, or whether their strain began and ended at all. Having 
 no style or pedigree about them, they were not so satisfactory to look as 
 to feast upon. 
 
 We therefore lost no time in putting them where we fancied they 
 would render 
 the greatest 
 good. We had 
 them a la ma- 
 rengOjalacre ole, 
 and, to show 
 our patriotism, 
 in the good old 
 Southern style, 
 which we em 
 phasized with 
 Gallic prestige 
 when we called 
 it a la bama. 
 
 We generally 
 called one of 
 these chicken 
 dinners a love- 
 feast, inasmuch 
 
 as the chickens that constituted the feast were analogous to love, as 
 they were pretty much all wings. 
 
 Softly they faded from the shining landscape like the buttons from a 
 suit of ready-made clothing, until there were but a few left, which I 
 intended to preserve for maternal ancestors. 
 
 "Fine feathers make fine beds," I remarked, philosophically, as I no-
 
 ticed Phillada endeavoring to elucidate the ornithological mystery of a 
 fricassee that was chiefly remarkable for its wild prodigality of necks; 
 "and I am going to consult the advertising columns of the Plough and 
 Harrow in the hope of finding the address of some dealer in fancy eggs." 
 Having found that a reliable man up in Aroostook County, Maine, sent 
 eggs all over the country for five dollars per setting, I lost no time in 
 
 sending for three settings one each of Leghorns, Brahmas, and Cochins 
 and looked pleasantly forward to the time when I should surprise the 
 natives with my choice strains. 
 
 Long before the eggs arrived at Dove s Nest I began making prepara 
 tions for a great poultry campaign. I not only counted my chickens be 
 fore they were hatched, but before I ever saw the eggs. I had a new 
 run made, divided into three parts, that the fowls of different strains 
 might not become hopelessly mixed. 
 
 " It seems a great deal of money to pay for a setting of eggs." said 
 Phillada; "but after a while I suppose we can supplement our income 
 by disposing of ours." 
 
 "We may," I replied; "but just at present I am looking forward more 
 to spring broilers and Spanish omelets than anything else, although it
 
 seems but reasonable to believe that the latter might be enjoyed 
 highest perfection when constructed, so to speak, of the fragile fruit 
 black Spanish species." 
 
 Patent metallic nests 
 were also purchased, 
 and the roof of the hen 
 house made so tight 
 that a duck would fly 
 from it as from the 
 shadow of the bosom 
 of the maternal hen to 
 get into the thickest of 
 a thunder-shower. 
 
 When everything 
 was about complete the 
 longed-for eggs reached 
 Dove s Nest, each one 
 wrapped in cotton like 
 a jewel. As we wished 
 to lose no time, and as 
 the hens were in an 
 enthusiastic hatchful 
 mood, we commenced 
 
 operations at once. -_/*-. 
 
 4 
 
 in its 
 of the
 
 saw them lessen their enthusiasm or leave those 
 eggs for the common recreations of henhood. 
 They would calmly sit there half asleep, as 
 though employed by the day. And in order 
 to show them how I appreciated their efforts, I 
 would stand by and feed them from my hand, 
 and then gently stroke their feathers with the 
 grain, until their backs were resplendent in the 
 manner peculiar to the shoulders of an eight- 
 dollar Prince Albert coat. 
 
 We had a memorandum on the wall setting 
 forth the date of the hatching of the chicks, and 
 it is almost needless to say that it was often 
 thought of and discussed at great length, while 
 we figured on the number that would ripen and 
 be rounded into perfect chickenhood, and the 
 probable number that would not survive the 
 initial moon. 
 
 It was beautiful to 
 study the serene, 
 heavenly resignation 
 of those ancient birds. 
 Their expressions of 
 countenance were as 
 soft and dreamy as a 
 creamy wood -dove s 
 breast. Perhaps, in 
 reality, these expres 
 sions were not as 
 chastely poetic as my 
 imagination painted 
 them, but to me they 
 seemed at least to say, 
 "You have seen fit to 
 place us upon five- 
 dollar settings, and we 
 keenly appreciate the 
 beautiful confidence 
 reposed in us." 
 
 I am not certain at 
 this day that 1 ever
 
 On the day that they were to evacuate their shells we were all on hand 
 to ascertain what fortune had done for us, because we realized then, as 
 now, that chicken-hatching is indeed a lottery. 
 
 Not a chick put in an appearance, and we were quite as sorely disap 
 pointed as were the would-be mothers, who seemed to know by instinct 
 the moment that the allotted period had expired. 
 
 And so it was for several days after; and my disappointment was 
 about as poignant as was the hens , who looked upon me as though 
 suspicious of the fact that I had put bad eggs under them for fun, while 
 I looked upon the Aroostook dealer as one who had sold me three worth 
 less settings as a matter of business, although I could not well see the 
 business sagacity of such a transaction. 
 
 On the day which completed the fourth week of the setting of the hens, 
 we went forth, as usual, as a matter of duty, and found that out of thirty- 
 nine eggs one had been hatched out, and both Phillada and I could not 
 refrain from laughing when we looked fondly and tenderly upon our one 
 lone, solitary Pekin duck.
 
 X 
 
 THE happiness and independence of the farmer depend largely upon 
 the difference between the amount of his regular expenses and his 
 precarious income. If his income were as sure as his expenses, he would 
 be about as independent as he is popularly painted. 
 
 1 noticed before I had been farming a great while that the men em 
 ployed upon the place never allowed their wages to go five minutes past 
 due, and by various impressions of their anatomies upon the clover I 
 could picture to myself the blissfulness of their airy repose when their 
 
 brows should have been bound up with victorious sweat; and while 
 contemplating these evidences of the imposition of my men. I would 
 wonder how soon the check, long past due, would arrive to fill my cup 
 with joy, and have a little flow-over in the saucer. 
 
 At this time I was expecting a check from a firm of city commission 
 merchants, known as Messrs. Whittle & Cuttle one of a class that car 
 ries on a quiet campaign that makes the farmer s life a burden, while it 
 provides itself with the luxuries of the Orient.
 
 I was recommended to send my pears to one of these merchant pirates, 
 and, not knowing them to be hostile to all interests save their own, fol 
 lowed the advice so freely given, and employed a number of people to 
 do the picking and packing- 
 competent people, who would 
 pick only the finest 
 specimens, and pack 
 them carefully, that 
 they might bring the 
 highest market price. 
 
 To tell the truth, the 
 matter of the gathering 
 of these fruits was not 
 totally devoid of pleas 
 ure. There was a so 
 ciability about it that 
 was not entirely with 
 out a strange, peculiar 
 
 charm, and it was productive of much information that until that time 
 was not a part and parcel of my knowledge of the mysteries of fruit 
 raising. 
 
 I learned that when the professional picker is picking cherries by the 
 quart he will include as many twigs as possible, that the measure may 
 be quickly filled, and that when he picks for himself, and pays so much 
 per quart for what he picks, he not only doesn t pick any twigs, but 
 leaves the cherry stems on the tree, carefully plucking the 
 luscious oxhearts therefrom. 
 
 Only the choicest specimens were picked, as I re-
 
 marked before, and these were packed as carefully as though intended 
 for shipment to China. They were carefully wrapped in paper separate 
 ly and apart from their companions, and set in the barrel with the painful 
 regularity of bricks. I still have a vivid recollection of the discomfort I 
 experienced while hanging over the barrel edge by the stomach, and 
 
 working away with my head bobbing 
 about inside. Of course I was willing 
 to suffer a reasonable amount of distress 
 when my fancy painted such golden re 
 sults, such Golcondas of pristine coin, as 
 would come from my shipment of pears 
 at the rate of about six dollars per bushel. 
 Having entered into a correspondence 
 with the commission pirates, those un- 
 worthies lost no time in sending a pack 
 age of their business tags, and were very 
 anxious to negotiate the sale of my fruits, 
 while their letter showed plainly how 
 solicitous they were for my general health 
 and welfare. 
 
 It was, indeed, a treat to know of the 
 existence of such persons; and when my 
 twenty barrels were carefully packed so 
 that they were one solid pear, so to
 
 speak, and could be rolled around to any extent without breaking or 
 "squashing," as Mr. Van Sickle termed it, I carted them to Cranberry 
 Corners, and they were soon on their way from the howling wilderness 
 to the howling metropolis. 
 
 I had made no bargain with Messrs. Whittle & Cuttle, the pirates of 
 the main thoroughfare, as to price, as I understood they would get as 
 much as possible on account of their work 
 ing on commission. I will say that I really 
 expected to receive fifteen dollars per barrel 
 for them, and that I looked to that three 
 hundred dollars to cancel the amount ex 
 pended on a blind drain that was so worth- 
 
 
 <!\\y 
 
 less that when I paid for it 1 arose with the wrath of a potentate of 
 the effete East, and wildly exclaimed, "Blind drain me no blind drains," 
 or words to that effect. 
 
 After a week had elapsed I began to wonder if the pirates, Messrs. 
 Whittle & Cuttle, had received the pears, neither realizing nor believing 
 that they had already sold them for twenty-five dollars per barrel, and 
 put the proceeds into bonds against a rainy day. Another week drifted 
 by, and still another, and not a word of advice from the pirates, who ap 
 propriated the stamp enclosed for a reply. 
 
 I knew that the pears were sold, unless they had miscarried or spoiled 
 on their hands. At any rate, they paid no attention whatever to my let 
 ters until long after the winter had passed, when, probably wishing to 
 "do" me another season, they wrote me a brief letter saying the pears 
 were not what they had expected, and enclosing their check for $7.32, 
 which was considerably less than 1 had paid for having the pears picked.
 
 "I would let the fruit spoil on the trees," exclaimed Phillada, indig 
 nantly, "before 1 would send more to a commission merchant." 
 
 " Do you know why they are called commission merchants ?" I asked. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because," I replied, "they sell the farmers products, keep the prin 
 cipal for themselves, and give the guileless agriculturist a trifling percent 
 age. It is the farmer who works his farm on commission."
 
 XI 
 
 MY potato crop proved a failure, which, unlike many a commercial 
 failure, put nothing in my pocket except my hand, which went 
 deep enough to gather the necessary coin for the purchase of a bushel or 
 two from a neighbor, who modelled in clay many a hill and furrow, and 
 was, figuratively speaking, the architect of his own misfortunes. He 
 was obliged to accept fifty cents per bushel for them, owing to the fact 
 
 that it was what is technically known as a good potato year for all but 
 me and because he had just paid forty dollars for a sulky rake that cost 
 the manufacturer about six dollars and a half to put on the market. 
 
 "What difference does it make, anyhow?" asked Phillada, whose 
 smile was the condensed milk of human kindness. " You know when 
 the crop is bountiful, it yields little or nothing." 
 
 "It is even so," I replied. "The only time a high price is paid for
 
 vegetables is when you have none to offer: or. to put it into the form 
 of an Irish argument, the only time a crop is profitable is when it is a 
 failure." 
 
 "That is the time it is profitable for the farmer." broke in Mr. Van 
 Sickle. " But the city retailer charges as much for potatoes purchased 
 at fifty cents per bushel as he does when they cost him a dollar. The 
 great drawback of farming is that the farmer pays the high 
 est price for everything he uses, and is obliged to take for 
 his own produce whatever the dealer chooses to give him." 
 
 The most level 
 headed farmer Mr. 
 Van Sickle ever knew 
 was one who had a 
 farm bordering on a 
 salt - water bay. If 
 his crops failed, it 
 made little difference 
 to him, because he 
 could live on wild- 
 ducks and fish. He 
 never took fish to the 
 market to sell, because 
 he well knew that he 
 would have to accept 
 the first offer or have 
 the fish spoil on his 
 boat. He would al 
 low the fish to swim 
 about and enjoy them 
 selves and keep up a 
 marketable freshness,
 
 and would not attempt to catch them until after he had concluded a cast- 
 iron contract with some dealer. But as sharp as he was, he furnished a 
 summer boarding-house with butter until it was his debtor to the extent 
 of two hundred dollars. At the close of the season the proprietor melted 
 softly away with the summer s silken butterfly, and the farmer had to 
 seek fresh fields and pastures new to secure a like amount to pay for the 
 fertilizer used on the potatoes that never developed into a crop. Having 
 purchased my potatoes for fifty cents per bushel, it began to strike me 
 that the best way to farm is to purchase one s produce, and permit some 
 more ambitious person to do the farming. I began also to see, and very 
 
 plainly, that the proper way to farm is not to take the thing too seriously; 
 to treat it as a joke, and anticipate nothing but failure. I determined to 
 adopt this system as far as possible, and not to care if my curly cabbages 
 curled themselves up into bunches of railroad cigars, to be gathered like 
 so many bunches of bananas. 
 
 This feeling was only increased when the servant-girl left rather abrupt 
 ly, on the ground that she could not stand the humdrum of the country. 
 She longed for the giddy vortex of metropolitan life with the frenzied 
 thirst of a society queen. She left early in the morning by the first train, 
 and in her great hurry forgot to take any of our silver spoons along.
 
 This servant-girl question 
 in the country was even 
 more vexatious than in the 
 city. It used to cost some 
 thing like five dollars to get 
 one out to Dove s Nest and 
 duly sworn in. She would 
 stay about five days, de 
 mand her pay to date, at 
 which time she would de 
 part with an alacrity never 
 displayed in the perform 
 ance of her culinary func 
 tions. 
 
 It seemed very strange to 
 me that a servant-girl should 
 not like the country during 
 the summer, but I was forced 
 to conclude that it was ow 
 ing to her lack of polite edu 
 cation. Were she educated she would have resources, she would be 
 able to read Tennyson, and thus pass the time pleasantly and profitably 
 when not scrubbing; or she could walk about and enjoy the spiritual 
 beauty of nature, and, enchanted by its subtle charms, go into tender 
 rhapsodies of thought, and feel the mystic poetry though she could not 
 make it burn 
 and live on can 
 vas. In such a 
 mental con 
 dition she could 
 experience en 
 joyment in 
 every shrub and 
 flower, and not 
 be perpetually 
 burning with 
 that morbid 
 yearning that 
 only finds re 
 lief in a moon 
 light excursion 
 or a circus pag 
 eant. But the
 
 higher-education-of-women question remains unanswered until the serv 
 ant-girl is sufficiently educated to realize that there may be serene happi 
 ness and content in a region where all is solitude and rest, even when the 
 crop dries up and withers away, and nothing that you succeed in raising 
 compares favorably with its description in the seed catalogue. 
 
 To tell the truth, we were obliged to do all the work that was done 
 about the place. I had never labored so hard for a salary as I worked on 
 the farm for nothing but the anguish and humiliation of defeat. 
 
 "And I am getting hands like an ancient mariner," I remarked, as I 
 held those gnarled members up for inspection. 
 
 "And we are getting no money out of it into the bargain," said 
 Phillada. 
 
 "Money is not everything," 1 remarked, by way of consolation. 
 
 "It may not be everything," she replied, philosophically, as she ob 
 served a neighbor step softly up behind the corn-crib, and, smiling, par 
 take of our wood-pile "it may not be everything, but it is just about 
 ninety-nine per cent, of everything."
 
 XII 
 
 HE is no doubt a happy man who farms for fun or money, or both, if 
 he succeeds in realizing either. It is not recorded that Jacob was 
 passionately fond of tilling the earth, but the manner in which he adhered 
 to this branch of usefulness was extremely complimentary to the daugh 
 ter of Laban, to say the least. I had made nothing so far nothing but 
 mistakes; and these mistakes were perhaps not so much due to my gen 
 eral ignorance as to the original devices I resorted to or contemplated. 
 
 Having heard that thunder will turn milk sour, I was really at a loss to 
 know whether it turned it sour in the dairy pans or in the cow, and I 
 hunted through all my books of reference to ascertain the truth, for I was 
 afraid to go boldly forth and ask the question, lest I become the object of 
 well-merited laughter and ridicule. It struck me that if the milk were 
 soured by being exposed to thunder, the best thing to do would be to 
 have it hermetically sealed as soon as given. If, on the other hand, it was
 
 soured while yet within 
 the beeve, my idea was 
 to supply the place, 
 if possible, with deaf 
 cows, that would not, 
 of course, be affected 
 by the thunder, even if 
 it should thunder from 
 one end of the week to 
 the other. 
 
 Most of the things 
 that I hoped to raise 
 were devoured by as 
 fine a variety of insects 
 as could be found any 
 where. If the mosqui 
 toes had only taken as 
 kindly to the squashes 
 as they did to me, I 
 could have accepted the 
 failure of that crop in 
 the guise of the gentlest of blessings, 
 were closed, these pests would come 
 
 When the doors and windows 
 down the chimneys in swarms, so 
 that I frequently had to burn 
 cast-off rubber boots and feath 
 ers on the hearths, even in 
 the hottest weather. It was 
 really a sad predicament to be 
 placed in when I knew that if 
 I stretched out on the porch in 
 my steamer chair I would be 
 driven in by these numerous 
 insects, and that when I was 
 once in, it would only be to 
 meet another reception that 
 would send me out again. 
 
 Therefore I only allowed the 
 mosquitoes to bother me, be 
 cause I couldn t help it. The 
 other insects I left gloriously 
 alone. Other farmers climbed 
 into their fruit-trees, and lubri 
 cated the branches with all
 
 sorts of washes. But 1 thought it would be better to leave the orchards 
 in the hands of the ever-fair Pomona, and let her see that the apples were 
 properly cut and dried for winter use. 1 at one time thought of making 
 cider with the picturesque Dutch windmill, but this I abandoned when, 
 upon examining the windmill, 1 ascertained the extremely stubborn fact 
 
 that it was a windmill that could only be used successfully in an aesthetic 
 landscape-painting. 
 
 One day I discovered an artist painting it. I secretly wished that he 
 might realize something handsome out of it, that I might know that it 
 had not been erected in vain. He was a very voluble sort of man, and 
 praised Dove s Nest at great length, going into raptures over the beauty 
 of the contour of this thing and the atmospheric perspective of another. 
 He had never seen such beautiful harmonies and contrasts before, and 
 said that if I would allow him to paint the place, he would call it "The 
 Old Homestead." and sell it in the next Academy for five thousand dol 
 lars. I gave him the permission so eloquently and fervently desired, 
 hoping that the farm might be productive of something substantial to 
 some one, and left him all alone in his glory. 
 
 I had an idea that his object in going into such a frenzied delight, such 
 an ecstatic rhapsody over Dove s Nest, was to impress me in such a way
 
 that I would make him an offer for his canvas, and not allow it to slip 
 through my fingers, and become a possession of some haughty millionaire. 
 
 But I said 
 nothing that 
 would lead him 
 to fancy my sus 
 picion, and he 
 painted away 
 for several days 
 with great en 
 thusiasm. He 
 would occasion 
 ally make a sug- > Jgk^-^ 
 gestion, such as 
 putting a grand 
 fountain of gold 
 fishes on the 
 front lawn, and 
 working in a 
 plateau behind 
 
 the house, from which a picturesque cascade could flash and roar at the 
 point covered by the westerly roof of the barn. I told him I thought 
 these things might add zest and interest to the picture, and he put them 
 
 all in, and asked 
 me if I would 
 like the cascade 
 to consist of 
 green water, or 
 if I would pre 
 fer it a sparkling 
 snowy foam. 
 
 I told him to 
 rely on his own 
 judgment, that 
 I was little ac 
 quainted with 
 the artistic 
 qualities or prin 
 ciples of cas 
 cades. And 
 then I left 
 him to finish it as best suited his artistic pleasure. 
 
 I could see in him the man who paints spotted cattle with a stencil 
 5
 
 for each color, on the principle of printing oil-cloth, and 1 felt it a senti 
 mental duty to avoid him, lest I be contaminated and lost. 
 
 "Let him paint my orchard, with the apples on the trees," I said to 
 Phillada, "if he wishes to, and then he will paint something that will be 
 at once a landscape and a still-life." 
 
 " But he has gone," replied Phillada. 
 
 " When did he go ?" I asked. 
 
 "This morning," she replied, with a pleasant laugh. "You know, 
 he asked me if I didn t think the owner of the place would like to buy 
 the picture." 
 
 " Ah, he did, did he ? And what did you say ?" 
 
 "I told him we might buy it upon our return to the city, should we 
 ever return, if he would first carry out his expressed intention, and get it 
 hung in the Academy under the tide of the Old Homestead; that we 
 might, should we decide to purchase, grace our wall with a canvas en 
 joying the prestige and glory that come through artistic recognition. He 
 seemed to have a pressing engagement elsewhere just then, when he fled 
 from my presence with the graceful alacrity of the antelope."
 
 XIII 
 
 WHEN the year had reached that period at which the provident 
 house or flat wife begins to realize that it is time to put up the 
 winter things, as the preserves are usually called, I hailed an itinerant 
 vender, and purchased several bushels of tomatoes and a few baskets of 
 currants. Then we all set to work, and in the course of a couple of days 
 were the happy possessors of about fifty two-quart jars of tomatoes, 
 possibly the same 
 number of gob 
 lets of jam, while 
 all the claret and 
 beer bottles stood 
 in a row, like so 
 many ill-assorted 
 soldiers, filled to 
 their very corks 
 with catsup. 
 
 "When Jack 
 comes out next 
 Saturday we 
 might tell him we 
 got these things 
 right on the 
 farm," said Phil- 
 lada. 
 
 "No," I re 
 plied ; "for the 
 simple reason that 
 I would not per 
 vert the truth in such a matter. It would be more seemly to say, me- 
 thinks, that we got them right off the farm, and then he will, of course, 
 think they are of our own raising. But which train will Jack come on ?" 
 
 " I think on the four o clock." 
 
 "I must remember that," I said, reflectively, "that I may have my 
 brother send out the new corn, potatoes, and cauliflower from the city
 
 
 on the noon 
 train, and have 
 it safely housed 
 before our guest 
 arrives. How 
 mortifying it 
 would be to 
 have him, while 
 sitting on the 
 porch, observe 
 the delicacies, 
 whichheissup- 
 posed to fancy 
 were rounded 
 into perfection 
 under my hand 
 and eye, deliv 
 ered by a rail 
 road express 
 man!" 
 
 Jack was one of our oldest and dearest friends, who was as glad to see 
 us as we were to see him. He was not one of the class of city folks that 
 will go into the rural districts to visit a friend only at those periods of the 
 year when Nature is resplendent in her most alluring robes. 
 
 Consequently 
 we were delight 
 ed to see him, 
 and he and I were 
 very happy chat 
 ting on the porch, 
 while puffing 
 from pur pipes 
 great opalescent 
 garlands of the 
 moth extermina 
 tor, which, dis 
 pensed by the 
 Cranberry Cor 
 ners grocer in 
 fancy packages 
 bearing the pict 
 ure of a rampant 
 Indian in full war-
 
 paint, was, as a general thing, seriously regarded by the purchaser as 
 tobacco. 
 
 Just as we were discussing the conditions of the crops, I saw a cloud 
 of dust down the road, and asked Jack if 
 he wouldn t like to look at our fine old 
 Dutch windmill, that he might be out of 
 the way while the expressman drove up 
 to deliver the country produce purchased 
 in Washington Market. 
 
 I have no distinct idea at this late day 
 of the impression the windmill made 
 upon my city friend, but I have a most 
 vivid recollection of the sensation we ex 
 perienced when we sat down to dinner, 
 and Philip made some childish observa 
 tion upon discovering beans on the table, when he had heard me say re 
 peatedly that the beans had proved such a dismal failure that we would 
 have to purchase some during the winter, or banquet upon solitary pork. 
 At various other intervals Philip displayed his great precocity in a manner 
 that left no doubt as to his brilliant future. He was probably more com 
 municative upon that occasion 
 than he ever will be again, and I 
 do not imagine that anything 
 could have distracted him but pie 
 at a time when our dessert con 
 sisted of muskmelon. Phillada 
 and I laughed heartily at all these 
 remarks, to rob them of 
 the appearance of truth, 
 and to send our friend 
 back with such a glow 
 ing description of 
 Dove s Nest that no 
 one would for an in 
 stant imagine that we 
 were not in clover in 
 every sense of the term. 
 When the dinner had 
 
 been cleared away, and 
 we were once more out 
 on the porch, blowing 
 
 airy smoke wreaths of the moth exterminator through our noses, I burst 
 into a pastoral rhapsody, which I rounded off with the declaration that I
 
 should never think of leaving the country for the town, unless business 
 or my health should make such a change imperative. 
 
 "Your health should certainly be good, out in this bracing atmos 
 phere/ he said, enthusiastically. 
 
 "Good!" I exclaimed; "I guess it is good! I never knew what 
 health was before. Why, I can go to bed at 8 P.M. and sleep like a top 
 until 7 A.M., and I have an appetite that I could never satisfy on a city in 
 
 come. I have no drug or doctor bills now; and I often wonder how I 
 ever managed to live when I kept a set of books and lunched on ten-cent 
 boiled apple-dumplings." 
 
 "There is nothing like being satisfied," said Jack, philosophically. 
 "If you like it out here, there is no reason why you should not groan 
 when you look back upon your book-keeping experience. I think you 
 have a lovely place." 
 
 " I guess I have," I replied, while I refilled my pipe " I guess I have,
 
 and I am satisfied, and more than satisfied, with the change. Of course I 
 do have a disappointment occasionally, such, for instance, as a weasel 
 crawling surreptitiously under the setting hen and drifting into a rosy 
 vision after he has sucked all the eggs. But then I have my fresh golden 
 lettuce sparkling with dew-drops for breakfast, and nice fresh cream, and 
 butter as fragrant as a rose; why, I couldn t begin to tell you all the 
 luxuries I have in an abundance that is startling." 
 
 "Do you have anything in the way of recreation?" he asked. "If 
 you have that, your life must be an ideal one." 
 
 "There is pretty good perch-fishing down in the duck pond, and 
 Did you hear that ?" 
 
 " Yes. What kind of a bird was it ?" he asked. 
 
 "A quail," I replied; "and in a month I shall be out shooting them. 
 Shooting is splendid sport, and a very healthful exercise. Besides, if you 
 can only get the quail, it is easy enough to find the toast." 
 
 And as we chatted of this and that, we smoked the moth exterminator, 
 and continued our conversation, while we walked over the farm. And 
 when I bade him good-by on Monday morning, I felt happy in the re 
 flection that his story of my prosperity and happiness would disturb the 
 serene smile of my friends who chaffed me good-naturedly when 1 folded 
 my pots and kettles and silently vanished from the city and its incessant 
 hurly-burly.
 
 XIV 
 
 IT frequently became necessary to drive to Cranberry Corners to lay in 
 such farm produce for the table as we couldn t wait to send to New 
 York for. These pilgrimages were fast becoming gala institutions, inas 
 much as they broke the monotony of life at Dove s Nest. The vehicle 
 unto which we annexed the unfiery tamed steeds was a marvel, con 
 sidered from almost any standpoint. It was impossible to say exactly 
 what had been the original name to designate the style of this specimen 
 of rolling antiquity, owing to the fact that it had been repaired a great 
 
 many times in 
 a manner not 
 in accord with 
 the prevailing 
 spirit of the 
 period to 
 which it prop 
 erly belonged. 
 In fact, you 
 could fancy an 
 1867 style of 
 strap, an 1845 
 buckle, and an 
 1832 bolt or 
 screw, until it 
 became so ab 
 surd, consid 
 ered as a con 
 sistent work of 
 
 antiquity, that you could think of no fitting parallel unless a painting of 
 Osceola in a kilt, or a statue of Oliver Cromwell in a white high hat be 
 girt by a deep mourning band. This relic of the period of peruke and 
 minuet can be best described by the word "rickety." Yet could it go 
 over the roughest road not only without going to pieces, but without ap 
 parent injury. If it didn t belong to the original owner of the farm, and 
 if it didn t pass on from possessor to possessor to date, where in the
 
 world did it come from ? The harness was not as old as the vehicle, but 
 it seemed to have reached the maximum limit of the usefulness of a set 
 of harness. It was always necessary to fasten certain parts of it together 
 with twine, and to force new 
 holes through it by the sim 
 ple process of driving a nail. 
 It was also a common thing 
 to take some rope along upon 
 any considerable journey, as 
 it could never be told at what 
 moment it might be needed. 
 The horses, though serene 
 and venerable, had in all prob 
 ability never known another 
 set of harness. When want 
 ed for one of these excursions, 
 the noble equines were gen 
 erally out of sight at some re 
 mote corner of the farm. They 
 were seldom near the house, 
 except when contentedly 
 munching the currant bushes 
 or the choicest fruit-trees. 
 
 At every house along the 
 way some one would come forth with a letter tc be delivered at the post- 
 office, or with a request to bring, upon our return, a bar of opalescent 
 soap or a yeast cake. At some houses a pole fastened to the fence ex 
 tended almost to 
 the edge of the 
 roadway like a 
 fishing-rod. On 
 the end of this 
 rod a cigar box 
 was securely fast 
 ened, and into 
 this cigar box the 
 proprietor would 
 drop his letters or 
 papers, to be 
 gathered by the 
 first one moving 
 in the direction 
 of Cranberry Cor-
 
 ners. One of these houses was occupied by an eccentric individual who 
 evidently thought he had hit upon a device to circumvent the Ethiop, 
 
 whose honesty 
 becomes im 
 paired and fract 
 ured through the 
 combined in 
 fluences of a 
 moonlight night 
 and a melon- 
 patch. His plan 
 was illustrated 
 practically by the 
 melon vines 
 growing up the 
 side of his house 
 after the fashion 
 of wistaria. He 
 had pumpkins 
 and squashes 
 growing in the 
 
 same way, and told me it was next to impossible for a thief to gather 
 them with a pole, because the melons would bob against the house 
 and give the alarm. 
 
 Although this man had made useful departures when he conceived the 
 idea of the way-side letter box and formulated a plan for raising melons 

 
 for his own table, I was unable to understand another scheme of his 
 which struck me as being decidedly amusing to the eye. 
 
 On an old spreading whitewashed apple-tree a dried apple-tree 
 because deceased he had a swinging flower garden. From almost 
 every branch hung some cast-off receptacle neatly whitewashed, such as 
 a coal-scuttle, a baby s bath-tub, a watering-pot, a tea-kettle, etc. Each 
 one of these utensils was filled with earth, and had flowers flowing over 
 the top in great profusion. When the wind caused the coal-scuttle and 
 the baby s bath-tub to dash madly together, the effect was startling. 
 They bobbed around in great style, and from my horses blank astonish 
 ment I could fancy that they had such a keen sense of humor that they 
 regarded it as an experiment 
 in wind-flower culture. 
 
 The road was so sandy that 
 it used to strike me as one 
 that could be most success 
 fully traversed on foot when 
 the pedestrian wore snow- 
 shoes. On the journey, 
 which was a tedious one, I 
 frequently gleaned much in 
 formation on the subject of 
 farming from people at work 
 along the way. They would 
 come down, lean on the fence, 
 and tell me about their Savoy 
 cabbages and sugar-coated 
 beets, and ask me many ques 
 tions concerning my place. 
 
 From all these snatches of conversation I gathered the fact that the only 
 way to make money out of farming was to take boarders; then a hand 
 some profit could be realized upon things that were otherwise without 
 anything like a ready-made market. 
 
 As I have already said, these little drives were not without their charm, 
 as they afforded a change of scene, and gave me an opportunity to rest 
 my weary limbs, which were already becoming gnarled and full of in 
 equalities through standing daily upon a stony hill madly coquetting with 
 dear old mother-in-law earth. 
 
 As I neared the station at Cranberry Corners, I could realize that I was 
 regarded by the callow youth of that one-horse, or rather one-store, place 
 as one savoring very strongly of the rural districts. Their sidelong 
 glances at the ancient vehicle, drawn by the ancient horses in the ancient 
 harness, satisfied me of the honest and inexpensive amusement I was
 
 affordihg them. The keeper of the solitary store alluded to above was 
 always more than delighted to see me, because he well knew that my 
 skill was such that it would be impossible for me to negotiate a sugar 
 purchase on the basis of a turnip payment. In other words, he knew 
 that I was a cash customer the only one he had and therefore one to 
 be received and treated with great respect and consideration. 
 
 He was the same old man that drove me to Dove s Nest upon the 
 occasion of my first or prospecting visit. He always laughed when he 
 claimed the credit of having located me, and said he felt himself the 
 author of my great success. It seemed to me that he suspected the real 
 state of affairs, and was laughing in the mellifluous manner of the polite, 
 refined chaffer. 1 always gave him the credit of locating and settling me. 
 and thanked him cordially for having done so, after 1 had complimented 
 him upon his great foresight and general sagacity, that he might be 
 sorely disappointed if his real intention were to make fun of me. And 
 then 1 felt quite at my mental ease while 1 read his placards of caution, 
 which admonished the public to " Eat Smith s Oats," " Wash with Jones s 
 Soap," "Drink Robinson s Cocoa," etc. 
 
 There would I stand and watch the guileless grocer tie up the pack 
 ages and bite the twine until my order was filled. On the way home 1 
 felt rejuvenated, and when I drove up to the door of Dove s Nest all hands 
 rushed out to see if I had any letters, while even the poultry that had 
 escaped the prying fingers of the Ethiop to date regarded me with curios 
 ity, as though they would learn the latest news from the hustling, bustling 
 city.
 
 XV 
 
 I HAVE frequently heard that stony land is not the most desirable kind 
 for the realization of good crops, but that it is probably the finest to 
 be had for the purposes of sheep-culture. Dove s Nest was evidently 
 not designed by nature for either; it was too stony for agriculture, and 
 not sufficiently stony for sheep. But I did not fail to take my medicine 
 philosophically. I laughed at the fate that defeated the ends of my labor 
 
 in the sunny field, and cursed my land with a poverty of stone that made 
 the raising of mutton an established impossibility. 
 
 I didn t trouble myself about the pig-killing time; if I could only 
 succeed in killing time pleasantly myself, I would not bother myself 
 about the porkers. It will be remembered they disappeared, never to 
 return, during the early part of the season, and I was probably money 
 in pocket by the catastrophe, as it would have been necessary to pur 
 chase corn for them to eat and fatten upon during their last act in the 
 drama of life. But if the corn did not develop into a generous crop, I 
 could rest assured of one thing: I still had a goodly supply of cobs which 
 I could construct into pleasant pipes, while those modelled from the cobs 
 of my Indian corn might be poetically characterized as calumets.
 
 But I had one thing to be 
 happy over, and that was the 
 physical condition of Philip; 
 he was so fat and ruddy that 
 he was absolutely too lazy to 
 get into mischief. He hadn t 
 fallen out of a window or into 
 a pond once, and 
 was always so 
 shining and clean 
 that 1 sometimes 
 feared there was 
 somethingwrong 
 in his make-up, 
 and that he would 
 never distinguish 
 himself. 
 
 As I said be 
 fore, he was pro 
 vided with milk 
 
 from one cow; and to make sure that it could not get mixed with that 
 of another, 1 kept but a single specimen. She had a great habit of eating 
 wild onions, which so flavored the milk that no one but Philip would 
 touch it. He finally drank it with such delight and relish that we soon 
 began to foresee in him 
 a hopeless slave of the 
 onion habit, whose lot 
 in later life could only 
 be a happy one through 
 marriage to a native of 
 Bermuda. 
 
 The other farmers, 
 whose crops had also 
 failed, were now think 
 ing of making the 
 necessary preparations 
 for the campaign of 
 the next season, when 
 their efforts would .* 
 
 probably be attended 
 
 by a similar fate. They were also looking forward to that blissful period 
 of rest when the snow is drifted above the window-sills, and you have 
 to push the door open against a great fleecy bank, squeeze through the
 
 narrow angle, and sacrifice your breast buttons on the edge of the portal 
 to get into the air to shovel a path to the woodpile, to gather the hickory 
 to kindle the fire 
 for the matutinal 
 feast. 
 
 " What do 
 you do in win 
 ter, anyhow ?" 
 1 asked one of 
 these earth- 
 beaters whom I 
 met one day. 
 
 "Oh, we 
 don t do noth- 
 in at all," he 
 replied. "We 
 just sit around 
 and play check 
 ers and eat pop 
 corn. I ve got 
 a nice new-fan 
 gled corn-popper I d like to show you the next time you re over my way." 
 I promised to call and examine the popper upon the occasion of my 
 
 next journey in 
 his direction. 
 
 Thenextthing 
 was to set to 
 work and get in 
 the winter fire 
 wood I, in my 
 ignorance, not 
 knowing that it 
 should have 
 been laid in long 
 before, to have 
 had time to dry 
 during the sum 
 mer. I went to 
 work chopping 
 with great glee, 
 feeling secure in 
 the belief that as 
 the trees were 

 
 already full grown and ripe for the axe, my wood crop could not very 
 well be a failure. 
 
 After the wood was arranged in ashen rows, from which it could be 
 lifted without trouble, I began to think of laying in a generous supply of 
 cider and apple-jack, for the reason that my long winter nights must 
 be passed pleasantly in the glow of the blazing, sputtering logs. I did 
 this, not because I was an enthusiastic patron of the flowing bowl, but 
 because I could not eat pop-corn or play checkers, and 1 must have some 
 substitute, be it never so unworthy. 
 
 By the way in which the old Dutch windmill was whirling around, I 
 
 came to th e conclusion 
 that I was located in a 
 pretty windy spot, and 
 that it was about time 
 to examine the house 
 to ascertain its ap 
 proximation to a col 
 ander. 
 
 After closing the 
 shutters, I found that 
 I could still read a 
 newspaper in some of 
 the rooms; and one 
 night one of these 
 darkened rooms was 
 so light, through the 
 medium of Artemis, 
 that I concluded a 
 lamp or candle would 
 be a ridiculous excess. 
 I could fancy the wild, 
 weird /Eolian melo 
 dies on a sharp Janu 
 ary night while the 
 
 elements whistled through these crannies and crevices. I could also fancy 
 the stray bird flitting through the casual aperture, and perching on the 
 stove-pipe to keep warm. So I had the structure calked and weather- 
 stripped as well as I could. Then I adjusted blankets to the frames 
 upon which the mosquito canopies rested during the summer, and did 
 everything else 1 could think of to keep the place warm and air-tight. 
 
 I even went so far in the way of precaution as to have a snow-shovel 
 in each room, so that if one should have the misfortune to awake beneath 
 one of nature s fleecy counterpanes a couple of feet thick, he could shovel 
 himself out.
 
 " I think this is ridiculous," said Phillada. " You would make farming 
 worse than it is." 
 
 "I couldn t if 1 tried," I replied; "and I know my humble limitations 
 too well to make an effort beyond my strength to perform successfully." 
 
 " But why not use hot bricks, if the place is going to be so cold ?" 
 
 "Hot bricks would cool off in a minute in these rooms," I said. "But 
 I ll tell you what we might do." 
 
 "What ?" she asked. 
 
 " Why, we might get a couple of Esquimau dogs to lie across our feet 
 at night. They would thrive and fatten on the cold air, and keep us as 
 warm as toast is said to be." 
 
 " A delightful idea!" she said; "because they are so warm-blooded. 
 And on the same line of reasoning we might have a pet alligator to lie 
 across our feet during the summer and give us the benefit of his cold 
 blood." 
 
 So, laughing at such a delicious Hibernian analogy, I promised to 
 think of the advisability of purchasing an Esquimau dog and a pet alli 
 gator, whose existence I would make happy even if I had to refresh him 
 at dawn and dusk with a shower-bath of Florida water.
 
 XVI 
 
 JUST at the time when autumn with busy brush painted wood and 
 meadow in an opulence of cardinal and gold, and the partridge 
 whirred from coverts of beech and cedar, and all the land was wrapped 
 in draperies of drifting haze, the air became full of the glory of the 
 approaching annual county fair. 1 went to this grand aggregation of 
 vegetable and other triumphs, partly as a matter of duty and partly to 
 enjoy the victorious happiness of others, even if 1 could not boast of any 
 myself. 
 I am willing to admit that when I saw the wonderful specimens on 
 
 exhibition, and thought of my impotent efforts for success in the useful 
 field of agriculture, envy painted me a deep rich green. There were 
 pumpkins lying about in profusion that would have proved amply spa 
 cious for Cinderella s coach and four, and suggested Golcondas of spicy, 
 toothsome pie. There were egg-plants quite as large as small water 
 melons, and great pot-bellied squashes, each of which bore a striking 
 resemblance to a carafe. 
 
 "It is more than passing strange," I ventured to remark, "that these 
 farmers about me should achieve such success, and I none whatever."
 
 "I think I know why they have been so fortunate," said Phillada. 
 
 " And why, pray ?" I asked. 
 
 "Because they must have had the foresight to purchase their seeds 
 from the dealers who print highly colored plates showing the mammoth 
 specimens that result from using their specialties. We have thus learned 
 one golden business truth, namely, that there are seedsmen who do not 
 
 falsify their salsify or anything else in each and every gorgeous chromatic 
 still-life displayed in their annual catalogues." 
 
 Can it be possible, I reflected, that, after all, these seed-catalogue pict 
 ures are really from life, and not from the imagination of the artist, who 
 would assist his patron in gathering the confidence and money of the 
 unwary ? 
 
 Alas ! many a solid living truth continues to live on only to be smiled 
 at as a fallacy; and the fact having been proved that the agricultural 
 specimen in the picture may be realized and enjoyed by the simple pro 
 cess of planting the seed whose results it sets forth so generously, we 
 may shortly expect to see the shaky, uncertain-spotted circus horse 
 gallop around the ring with distended nostrils in the mad, majestic, 
 Pegasus-like action shown in the gayly illuminated poster. 
 
 Under a large canvas I think I found the finest exhibit of farm products
 
 I had ever seen up to that period. And what a fine variety of ripe, rich 
 color! The orange of squashes, the purple of egg-plants, the green of 
 cabbages, the red of winter apples, to say nothing of the dull, rich tones 
 of various grapes and 
 plums, lit the scene 
 with a ruddy glow, 
 and filled it with a mel 
 low, pleasant scent. 
 
 Having nothing to 
 show for my summer s 
 work that would have 
 a serious chance of 
 recognition for honors 
 in a prize contest, I as 
 sured several farmers 
 who importuned me 
 on the subject that I 
 had been so busy that 
 I really hadn t had time 
 to consider the advis 
 ability of allowing my 
 self to be represented 
 by a peach-blow po-
 
 tato or a Berkshire pig. I had come simply as a looker-on as one un 
 skilled in the subtler mysteries of an art which he would learn sitting at 
 the feet of a master, and basking in the lamp of his superior knowledge. 
 
 My pigs that 
 wandered away, 
 never to return 
 in the pork- 
 came back on the 
 pleasant wings 
 of memory when 
 I viewed the co 
 lossal specimen 
 that had been 
 brought to the 
 fair to win a prize 
 of from two to 
 
 five dollars for the owner. There was one pig in particular that was 
 so rotund that his epidermis glistened through his bristles like a bald-head 
 through the few remaining hairs when nature gathers them one by one, 
 and coldly refuses the gentle benison of an aftermath. This porker was 
 as fat as a pin-cushion, and, like a pin-cushion, was without a fold. 
 When he opened his mouth and smiled, his eyes closed, and a ripple ran 
 over his anatomy as over water, and ended in a scarcely perceptible 
 agitation of his tail. 
 
 I thought, as I looked at the sole occupant of the sty, how much more 
 in accord with the processes of a philosophic mind is it to purchase one s 
 
 pork ready made, and to 
 allow a more ambitious 
 and enterprising brother to 
 develop it, and realize the 
 monetary profit! 
 
 The race-horses, as they 
 were called, trotted in from 
 three to three minutes and 
 a half, and, of course, ap 
 pealed more strongly to 
 the humorist than to the 
 sportsman. It was really 
 painful to watch these un 
 fortunate animals forced 
 
 around the track, because they were so slow that their suffering seemed 
 exceedingly monotonous and wearisome. 
 
 But the racing of the horses was not more painful than the spectacle of
 
 several hundred farmers applauding enthusiastically and shouting them 
 selves sore over the silver-plated eloquence of a one-legged soldier orator, 
 who pointed out the political way in which they should go, and exhorted 
 them to vote according to a doctrine entirely counter to their interests. 
 
 That night I sat before the blazing logs at Dove s Nest for already 
 there was a chill in the air and, while smoking my corn-cob pipe, 
 drifted off into a chaste agricultural vision, in which 1 knew myself as 
 the possessor of pigs as large as Shetland ponies, that wandered about 
 munching pumpkins of the dimensions of barrels; I had a man who 
 worked the place on shares conscientiously, and presented me with a 
 handsome profit at the close of the season, after supplying my table gen 
 erously throughout the summer; and when at last I awoke to find the 
 logs smouldering in the ashes, and my pipe out, and compared the dream 
 with the reality, I can only feebly express my feelings when 1 say that it 
 was like a swift transition from an Arabian Night to an Arabian night 
 mare.
 
 XVII 
 
 ALTHOUGH the corn had been a failure, I could console myself, or at 
 least justify myself in an attempt at self-consolation, when 1 reflected 
 on the fact that I had a beautiful 
 stock of corn-stalks. This, of 
 course, meant that if my flock 
 of choice chickens, that consisted 
 of the lone, solitary Pekin duck 
 mentioned in an earlier chapter, 
 must go without corn, the cow 
 would at least have a goodly sup 
 ply of corn-stalks, a fine combi 
 nation of bedding and provender, 
 
 which, considered as the latter, would be a great improvement on the 
 emerald diet of the twinkling mead, in that, even should it not prove as 
 
 palatable to the piebald 
 beeve, it would subse 
 quently be developed 
 into a milk and butter 
 as sweet as the am 
 brosial breath of spring 
 itself, and entirely 
 emancipated from the 
 galling fetters of the 
 fiery, untamed onion. 
 
 When I mention the 
 Pekin duck, perhaps I 
 should add that it was 
 regarded simply as a 
 pet; Phillada, in her 
 great anxiety for its 
 welfare and safety, not 
 allowing it to go near 
 the pond, but provid 
 ing for its use a tub of
 
 water near the back door. In 
 this tub the duck would swim 
 about until so exhausted that it 
 would be obliged to quack its 
 loudest to have some one place 
 it upon the ground. I have fre 
 quently lifted it out of the water 
 by the neck, and deposited it on 
 the kitchen floor that it might 
 waddle under the stove to dry. 
 
 Shortly after this duck saw the 
 light a stray chick came on the 
 
 scene, from whence we knew not, and sought and found refuge beneath 
 the heaving bosom of the hen, who seemed more than maternally happy 
 in her new possession. The duckling and the chick grew fonder of each 
 other daily, and were inseparable companions by the time the mother had 
 successfully performed the highest of her various earthly missions that 
 of rendering us all postprandially 
 happy, and causing us to hang 
 her brittle wish-bone over the 
 library door with all the super 
 stitious reverence bestowed upon 
 a new-found horseshoe. 
 
 In the morning they would 
 wander away together, the hap 
 piest of playmates, and roam all 
 about the place. When the chick s 
 
 instinct told it that it was essential to flatten out in a dust-hole, the duck 
 ling would stand by and wait patiently for its companion to enjoy its 
 dust bath to the utmost; and when the duckling wanted a natatorial dip 
 in the tub set apart for its use, the chick would perch calmly upon the 
 edge of the same, enjoying the pleasure of the swimmer, until the latter 
 found it necessary to quack for me to put it under the stove. 
 
 Every day, when the twilight 
 shadows began to lengthen, the 
 weary chick would fly up in the 
 branches of a small tree to perch for 
 the night. Then the poor lone 
 duckling would seek the repose that 
 an old flour barrel grants, and set 
 up a wailing and lamentation that 
 would melt the heart of the chick, 
 and cause it to descend and enter
 
 the barrel, where the two 
 
 would sit, and, leaning 
 
 against each other for 
 
 warmth, drift away softly 
 
 and sweetly on the purple 
 
 pinions of rosy rest. 
 One day, when the time 
 
 for retiring had come, the 
 
 chick was nowhere to be 
 
 found. Long and patiently 
 
 the duckling watched and 
 
 waited, and finally lifted 
 
 up its quack and poured 
 
 forth its feelings in a most 
 
 pathetic wail. In the 
 
 morning it refused to be 
 
 comforted in the same 
 
 spirit that it refused food. 
 
 All that day it did not leave 
 
 the barrel, but stood within the same on one foot, with drooping head, 
 
 and an expression altogether too sad to be faithfully delineated in words. 
 
 That afternoon I found the 
 chick out in the barn, under a 
 box that had fallen over it. It 
 seemed buried in deep grief, 
 which appeared based upon the 
 worry it knew the duckling was 
 experiencing on its account. For 
 while I held it, even though I 
 stroked its feathers kindly, it 
 evinced a great anxiety to be 
 
 free; and when at last I put it on the ground, it ran and flew (for it 
 
 worked both its feet and wings at the same time), in its great hurry to 
 
 reach its companion. And when they came together their happiness 
 
 was unbounded. After the first 
 
 outburst they went forth and wan 
 dered about the place to have a 
 
 little exercise, and limber up their 
 
 first and second joints after their 
 
 periods of sorrowful confinement. 
 And when they finally returned 
 
 to their barrel they stood and gazed 
 
 upon each other with a sort of 
 
 to-
 
 imbecilic gratitude. And so they stood gazing at each other until their 
 heads fell forward in a tender embrace; and so they fell asleep. 
 Shortly after this, Mr. Van Sickle happened to drop in to make one of 
 
 his social calls, that occupied any 
 time from twenty minutes to three 
 hours, according to the amount of 
 work he had on hand. 
 
 I told him of the pathetic pasto 
 ral of the duckling and the chick, 
 and that started him on the subject 
 of the peculiarities of poultry. 
 
 " Why," said he, "1 have a way 
 of my own for killing a chicken 
 whenj want one for the table. 1 
 mean I have a way of getting it 
 without a chase." 
 
 " What is your method ?" I in 
 quired, anxious to add bit by bit to my limited knowledge of farming. 
 
 "Why, just this way," he went on: "I take a panful of corn in my 
 left hand, and scatter it close to my feet with my right, in which 1 hold a 
 walking-stick. After calling the chickens, and while they are about my 
 feet devouring the food, I haul off and crack a rooster on the head, and 
 while he is stunned, chop his head off." 
 
 1 It is a very good way, "I said, "and should 1 ever have chickens 
 again, I intend to employ it." 
 
 " The only trouble about it is that it doesn t always work." 
 "How is that?" 1 asked.
 
 "On account of the chickens intelligence," he said. "You see I al 
 ways kill the roosters, and never the pullets. After I had operated in 
 this way several times, they seemed to see through the game, and now 
 when I try it all the pullets run up and eat the corn, while the roosters 
 stand off on the knoll, and look at me as though trying to laugh, and for 
 the life of me I cannot coax them within three times the range of my 
 walking-stick."
 
 XVIII 
 
 AT last the many-hued autumn passed away on glittering golden 
 sandals, and the only proof that the trees had ever known summer 
 was visible in the few stray brown curled leaflets that still clung and 
 trembled on the scrub-oaks. And then old winter came on apace with 
 such fury that even our winter apples could not resist its power to freeze 
 
 
 
 them, until they were as hard and frigid as so many snowballs. By 
 keeping a rousing fire all the time, and drinking plenty of hot water for 
 my dyspepsia, I managed to keep reasonably warm, although I often 
 thought of the poor Esquimau, and how he keeps up a happy glow on a
 
 diet of oil, while I looked 
 fondly at the kerosene lamp, 
 as though I would empty it 
 at a draught, in imitation of 
 the hardy seal-hunter. 
 
 " If cold weather and 
 snow combined make a 
 good fertilizer," 1 remarked, 
 "next year ought to be a 
 great one for crops." 
 
 " Do you expect to farm 
 another year ?" asked Phil- 
 lada. " Perhaps the owner 
 of Dove s Nest will want it." 
 
 " He can have it, whether 
 he wants it or not," I responded, glad of the 
 myself. 
 
 " Indeed I think we have tested farming," she 
 indulging in a smile at my expense. 
 
 "Indeed we have," I said, from the bottom 
 
 opportunity to declare 
 went on, without even 
 
 of my heart, when I 
 thought of the 
 trials, expense, 
 and results of 
 the wild experi- 
 ment. " But 
 there is one thing 
 I must do first 
 of all." 
 
 " And what 
 may that be ?" 
 asked Phillada. 
 
 " I must have 
 a doctor order 
 me back. If we 
 go from prefer 
 ence, we shall 
 be laughed at ; 
 but if our return 
 be but a question 
 of health, the 
 sympathy of our 
 friends will be 
 lavished upon 
 us."
 
 Y&&L, 
 
 ^&;. 
 
 f>^ iMftirlB - 
 *-"^?#V" 
 
 That very day I trudged over to Cranberry Corners for it was too cold 
 to drive and made a call on the doctor. 
 
 " I see," he said, after he had asked me a few questions; "a hard out 
 door occupation, and no rest of body or spirit. The thing you need is 
 not medicine, but an in-door life a sedentary occupation. Now, if you 
 
 could only get to 
 the city, where 
 you could, for 
 instance, keep a 
 set of books, 
 you would be a 
 new man in a 
 month." 
 
 "Once upon 
 a time I was a 
 bookkeeper," I 
 replied, with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Go and be 
 one again," he 
 said, "and you 
 will beall right." 
 I never paid 
 more cheerfully 
 
 for anything in my life than 1 did for that advice, and I walked home so 
 briskly that the observer would have been more apt to suspect that I was 
 running from home for a doctor than that I was running home from a 
 doctor. In fact, no one would have for a moment suspected that there 
 was anything the matter with my general health. 
 
 " What did the doctor say was the matter?" asked Phillada. 
 "Nothing," I replied; "but I ve got to go to the city for it." 
 We never before experienced such happiness in Dove s Nest as this 
 prospect of getting out of it. We were filled with gentle visions of 
 picture exhibitions, and matinees, and pleasant luncheons at the restau 
 rant, and the thousand and one other things that serve to make life worth 
 living in the city. 
 
 In the course of a few days I managed to effect a compromise with the 
 owner of the place, who, it seems, in his efforts to dispense Dutch wind 
 mills on a large scale, was about as successful as I had been in distin 
 guishing myself as a farmer, inasmuch as the great majority of the de 
 scendants of the old Dutch settlers who would naturally acknowledge a 
 predilection for the quaint windmills of Holland lived in New York, 
 where the windmill toils not, neither does it spin.
 
 As the real proprietor would be on hand to take possession in the 
 
 course of two weeks, I made up my mind to take things easy for that 
 
 period oftime. In 
 
 looking over the 
 
 columns of our 
 
 daily paper, that 
 
 was often several 
 
 days of age when 
 
 it reached us, I 
 
 learned that our 
 
 old flat was in the 
 
 market; and by 
 
 correspondence I 
 
 succeeded in se 
 curing it attheold 
 
 figure, which was 
 
 very satisfactory 
 
 to me, and saved 
 
 me the trouble 
 
 and annoyance 
 
 of going to town 
 
 on a flat hunt. 
 
 About this time a recently landed Irishman came to me and solicited 
 
 the privilege of working for his board. Indeed, the weather was too cold 
 
 to warrant even a 
 naturally hard-heart 
 ed man in closing 
 his ears to and his 
 door against such a 
 pathetic appeal as 
 a prayer for labor 
 without pecuniary 
 reward. So I smiled 
 upon his humble pe 
 tition, knowing that 
 if I could only pre 
 vent his presence at 
 the kitchen stove he 
 would be obliged to 
 work to keep warm, 
 and that would give 
 me a chance to part 
 my coat-tails at the
 
 open fireplace, and enjoy a slight portion of the long-needed rest that the 
 doctor suggested on the occasion of my recent visit. 
 
 Although a fairly attentive workman, I think he was chiefly to be en 
 joyed through his attempts at sociability, which were never lacking. 
 Whenever he entered a warm room he would prefer some complaint, 
 such as the fact, discovered by him, that a certain leak in the barn was 
 
 letting the rain into the 
 bran bin; or offer a 
 suggestion, such as 
 blanketing the cow as 
 well as the horses; and 
 then drift off into a 
 series of reminiscences 
 after the fashion of Mr. 
 Van Sickle. This at 
 
 1 Wlj first led me to believe 
 
 r,H mi that he was a worthy 
 
 man ; but before many 
 days 1 learned that it 
 was simply a trick of 
 his to gain a cessation 
 of motion, and to stand 
 in glowing comfort be 
 fore the stove. 
 
 " I don t think you should blame the poor man," said Phillada one day, 
 after I had been expressing myself on his manner of working, or rather 
 avoiding work; " he must get an occasional chill out there." 
 
 "Perhaps he does," I replied; "he certainly stands still long enough 
 to. But that should not excite your sympathy; for when he gets a chill 
 by simply standing still, he should realize a burning fever by working 
 like a beaver."
 
 XIX 
 
 I HAD but a week longer to linger in the Dove s Nest At the ex 
 piration of that time I would have to take wings unto myself and fly 
 back to the flat, which, in contradistinction to Dove s Nest, we called, 
 but not sarcastically, a set of pigeon-holes. 
 
 Even as enthusiastically as we had looked forward to the country, we 
 now looked forward to the city; and 
 when we were not looking forward 
 to it we were looking backward at 
 it and longing for the time when 
 we should renew its acquaintance. 
 From the picture of the cows wad 
 ing in crystal brooks I looked to that 
 of the condensed-milk man driving 
 up to the door and delivering unto 
 us any quantity desired, while the 
 dealer had the condensed cows to 
 look after in health and to care for 
 in sickness. 
 
 When I reflected on the tramp to 
 Cranberry Corners to catch the train, 
 which, if I missed, I could not catch 
 until the morrow, it seemed a real 
 luxury to be half a paved, lighted 
 block from the "L" road with such 
 an excellent service. 
 
 It seemed actually strafige to me 
 that my views could change so ; 
 that I could see so much good where 
 I once could see only evil; that I 
 could note so many drawbacks in a 
 
 region which I at one time had regarded only as an earthly paradise. 
 Every trick known in the city I could match with one in every respect 
 bucolic. In the city, the janitor becomes enamoured of and purloins 
 your coal; in the country, a man will come without so much as a letter 
 of introduction and help himself to your cord-wood and poultry. 
 7
 
 
 While think 
 ing of many 
 other arguments 
 to justify my 
 new move, and 
 while wonder 
 ing how a man 
 with the refined 
 songful soul of 
 H. CL. Flaccus 
 could have con 
 tented himself 
 on a farm, even 
 on the classic 
 Tiber, Phillada 
 announced that 
 she had com 
 menced the 
 packing, and 
 commanded me 
 
 to stop dreaming my dreams about burying cabbages and unearthing 
 turnips for the winter, and come to her assistance. This fiat I respected 
 with alacrity, not because packing for a move is one of my several weak 
 nesses, but be 
 cause I did not 
 want a repeti 
 tion of her last 
 unaided effort 
 in the same di 
 rection. I will 
 
 N n j^imijivviiva v 4 s ;z / /dmnn^K?izZE&-^ a 
 
 .< 
 
 not make more 
 than a passing 
 comment on 
 the same, trust 
 ing that that 
 may account 
 for my ready 
 response to the 
 summons to 
 lend a hand. 
 And that pass 
 ing comment is 
 to the effect
 
 that she packed too omnivorously, if I may so put it, to agree with my 
 ideas of what consistent packing should be. I do not pretend to boast 
 a knowledge of the deeper mysteries of this art, nor to possess even a 
 superficial notion of its requirements, yet I feel that I was not unreason 
 able upon the occasion of our arrival at Dove s Nest when I spoke dis 
 paragingly of the bump of order of the fair packer, who had indiscrimi 
 nately mixed tin-ware, crockery, clothing, and food, when I discovered 
 that a salt codfish was encompassed by my dress-coat, and that my silk 
 hat was rudely forced out of shape by having had a ham forced into it. 
 
 That night, when we sat before the blazing logs, we felt happy, in every 
 sense of the word. We had tried an experiment without realizing a 
 long-cherished dream. But we felt that our experience would tend to 
 make us better satisfied with our less roomy quarters in the city. We 
 had a long list of things we intended doing on our return, especially in 
 the way of amusements calculated, figuratively speaking, to remove the 
 hay-seed from our hair and introduce us once more to the refinements 
 of civilization. 
 
 We stood looking out of the back window across the snow-clad fields.
 
 As the only light in the room was 
 that of the sputtering logs, we 
 could see far into the whitened 
 distance. There was a dreary 
 sweetness about it that gave me 
 a pang of regret at leaving, de 
 spite the fact that I had never 
 known real suffering before oc 
 cupying Dove s Nest. 
 
 I think Phillada felt the same, 
 for she uttered not a word until 
 she broke the silence with, " Who s 
 that coming over the hill so fast?" 
 
 I looked, and saw a man running 
 at full speed in the direction of 
 the house. It was rather a misty 
 night, for it was snowing, and 
 everything was dead white, which 
 made the man s figure very distinct 
 at quite a distance, while a white 
 house a short distance down the 
 road could not be seen at all. 
 
 Nearer and nearer he came, until 
 I could identify him as our new 
 wage or rather board worker by 
 his great mass of red whiskers. 
 
 He never paused in his flight 
 until he reached the room where 
 
 we were look 
 ing out on 
 the dreary 
 fields. 
 
 I will not at 
 tempt to give 
 his words, but 
 will simply 
 say that he 
 was in a state 
 of fright bor 
 dering on 
 madness. Just 
 over the hill 
 he said he saw
 
 the hinder legs of a black cow chasing the fore-legs and head of another 
 black cow; that no matter how fast or how slow the fore-legs travelled, 
 the hinder members would always remain at the same distance. When 
 the head would toss itself in the air, as though maddened by despair at 
 not being able to escape, the tail would whip the air in precisely the same 
 frenzied spirit. And as frantic as the head became because it could not 
 throw the hinder legs off the trail, just as frantic would the tail become 
 because of the inability of the hinder members to capture the head. 
 When he left he said they were standing perfectly still, neither being able 
 to gain on the other. 
 
 "Was that story all to gain a rest by the fire, when you should" be 
 carrying in wood ?" I asked. 
 
 He not only denied that this was his motive, but insisted on my going 
 with him to see that he was not fabricating. On my return I had to 
 laugh until I was helpless. 
 
 "What was it?" asked Phillada. 
 
 "Van Sickle s Holstein-Friesian cow," 1 replied. "The surroundings 
 were so white and snowy that he could distinctly see her black head, legs, 
 and tail, but could not discern the broad white band about her body at 
 all."
 
 XX 
 
 IT was a source of great relief to us when we once more saw the 
 weary, defeated champion of windmills duly established in Dove s 
 Nest. His great anxiety to be restored to his original occupation made 
 it easy for us to arrive at a thoroughly satisfactory business arrangement; 
 
 and when we parted we were full of prayers and hopes for each other s 
 happiness and good fortune. 
 
 Once more I had the pleasure of seeing Phillada in the attitude of a flat- 
 wife, and Spot exercising as of old on the window-sill, and capering up 
 and down our rooms, arranged, of course, in tandem, or Indian-file style. 
 
 When I had to remain down-town all night to find the seven cents 
 necessary to balance the books, I thought of the old days when it was
 
 obligatory to sit up night 
 after night to watch the tree 
 whose branches bent be 
 neath their great burden of 
 chickens. 
 
 When my friends came 
 around and asked me how I 
 liked farming, 1 waxed en 
 thusiastic, and told them 
 that it was the only genuine 
 pursuit extant. In fact, I 
 spoke of it more warmly 
 than I did when 1 first 
 thought of embracing it as 
 an occupation combining 
 pleasure with business. 
 
 "Then why did you give 
 it up ?" they would ask. 
 
 For the same reason that 
 I abandoned bookkeeping," 
 
 1 would reply, smiling; " I was ordered to do both 
 doctor advised me to drop the pen and take up the 
 to hang up the hoe and seek refuge in the pen, and 
 
 by the doctors. One 
 hoe; another told me 
 in each case I was an 
 obedient pa 
 tient." 
 
 I also made 
 it a rule to dis 
 parage book 
 keeping in a 
 mild way, that 
 I might seem 
 sore over an 
 occupation that 
 really was the 
 cause of my 
 contented state 
 of mind, and at 
 the same time 
 create the im 
 pression that I 
 was the victim 
 of keen disap 
 pointment in
 
 not being able to continue in the balmy path of agriculture. I still had 
 the Plough and Harrow on my table, having considered it sufficiently 
 valuable to ask the publishers to change my address, that I might enjoy 
 what 1 honestly believed, from my knowledge of the subject treated, to 
 be, taken as a whole, about the finest and liveliest specimen of all the 
 humorous publications in existence. 
 Whenever an agricultural play was put on the stage we made it a 
 
 religious duty to see it at least once or twice for a rapturous study of its 
 verisimilitude, or lack of it. But, in truth, I cared nothing for farming since 
 being initiated into its mysteries. I cared not if all the crops failed, 
 because, no matter how signally they fail, the city markets are always 
 overstocked. I did not care if the whirlwinds tore the topknot foliage off 
 the turnips of Russia, or the beans from the gaunt and scrawny poles; 
 or if the rain washed all the earth from about the carrots, and invited the 
 inexperienced son-in-law of toil to hammer them in like spikes; or if the 
 dry spell cracked crevices in the geese until they could not take to the 
 water without filling and sinking. I could sit in my air-tight, snow-proof 
 flat, and puff the room full of delicate wreaths of smoke from a tobacco 
 so spicy that it would be difficult for me to believe that it ever grew in 
 the countrv, for the reason that in the rural districts I had never found
 
 any fit for use in a corn-cob pipe. And while I looked in the airy clouds 
 of tobacco smoke 1 could see the man of windmills undergoing a series 
 of misfortunes too 
 sad to be bodied 
 forth in a word- 
 picture. 
 
 I would be per 
 fectly willing to do 
 my farming in the 
 future at the corner 
 grocery, where the 
 finest specimens of 
 everything desirable 
 and green could al 
 ways be had on ap 
 plication, and where 
 a crop failure would 
 ever be an unknown 
 quantity. There I 
 could find the pump 
 kin in its natural 
 state, or formulated 
 into a savory open- 
 faced pie; I could pluck the carrot without disturbing the dreamy repose 
 of the small of my back; I could gather chickens without a chase, and 
 
 apples without a pole; and could silently 
 and serenely contemplate the cabbage ex 
 posed to public view with a retail price 
 on its head. 
 
 My luxurious lounge, covered with a 
 flowered Persian rug, would be the flower 
 bank into which I could sink with a 
 sweeter forgetfulness than I ever knew 
 on nature s sward. And there 1 could 
 dream and dream when not engaged 
 in a mad pursuit after the seven cents 
 necessary to balance the books of Smith, 
 Smith, & Smith and wander in fancy 
 by the margins of lisping runnels be 
 fringed with dewy flowers, and gently 
 sloping meadows sweet with the songs 
 
 of birds. I could see the sun rise majestically above the wood, respon 
 sive to the crowing of the lordly Shanghai, and observe it set with a
 
 broad, self-satisfied grin behind the old Dutch windmill, and the latter 
 dreaming in Sphinx-like calm with its lazy arms asleep against the 
 orange west. I could dream of even the unmortgaged farm being 
 the home of the free because the farmer is independent and the 
 home of the slave because the farmer is not independent, except in the 
 imagination of the poet. And from these pleasant visions 1 could wake, 
 and observe, as a lasting memento of our experience at Dove s Nest. 
 perched upon a bust of Greeley just above my oaken writing-desk, as 
 white as Aphrodite s squab, and grinning right back to the glass eyes of 
 the taxidermist, the one lone solitary Pekin duck, and hear Spot bark 
 playfully at it. And curled in a pleasant heap of comfort I could then 
 regard myself as contented and happy as an English lord when he 
 wins an American girl which happy consummation seems to be of the 
 average English nobleman s desire the chief particular 
 
 END.
 
 POPULAR READING 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK. 
 
 77/i? following works are for sale by all booksellers, ot will be sent by HARPER & BROTHERS, 
 postage prepaid, to any part of the United Slates, Canada, or Mexico, on receipt of the 
 price. HARPER S NEW CATALOGUE, a descriptive list of over 3000 volumes, sent, post 
 paid, on receipt of Ten Cents. 
 
 MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF LAURENCE OLIPHANT and of Alice 
 Oliphant, his wife. By MARGARET OLIPHANT W. OLIPHANT. With Two 
 Photogravure Portraits. Two volumes. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Uncut 
 Edges and Gilt Tops, $7 oo. (In a Box.) 
 
 FLUTE AND VIOLIN, and Other Kentucky Tales and Romances. By 
 JAMES LANE ALLEN. With Illustrations. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, 
 
 i 50. 
 
 FARMING. By R. K. MUNKITTRICK. Illustrations by A. B. FROST, printed 
 in tint. 8vo, Embossed Cover. {Just Ready .) 
 
 A FLYING TRIP AROUND THE WORLD. By ELIZABETH BISLAND. 
 With Portrait. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 RECOLLECTIONS OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN and his Administra 
 tion. By Lucius E. CHITTENDEN, his Register of the Treasury. With 
 Portrait of President Lincoln. 8vo, Cioth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, 
 
 $2 5 0. 
 
 CRITICISM AND FICTION. By WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS. With Por 
 trait. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i oo. 
 
 A BOY S TOWN. Described for HARPER S YOUNG PEOPLE. By W. D. 
 HOWELLS. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 OTHER WORKS BY IV. D. HOWELLS: 
 
 THE SHADOW OF A DREAM. j 2 mo, Cloth, $i oo ; Paper, 50 cents. 
 A HAZARD OF NEW FORTUNES. A Novel. Two volumes, lamo, 
 Cloth, $2 oo ; Illustrated, 8vo, Paper, 75 cents, i2mo, Paper, $i oo. 
 
 THE MOUSE-TRAP, and Other Farces. Illustrated. i2mo, Cloth, $i oo. 
 ANNIE KILBURN. A Novel. i2ino, Cloth, $i 50; Paper, 75 cents. 
 APRIL HOPES. A Novel. i2mo, Cloth, $i 50; Paper, 75 cents. 
 MODERN ITALIAN POETS. W 7 ith Portraits. i2ino, Half Cloth, $2 oo.
 
 Popular Reading, 
 
 BOSWELL S LIFE OF JOHNSON, including Boswell s Journal of a Tour 
 to the Hebrides, and Johnson s Diary of a Journey into North Wales. 
 Edited by GEORGE BIRKBECK. HILL, D.C.L., Pembroke College, Oxford. 
 With many Portraits, Views, Fac-similes, etc. Popular Edition. Six 
 volumes, 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $10 oo. 
 
 OUR ITALY. By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER, Author of "Their Pilgrim 
 age," "A Little Journey in the World," "Studies in the South and 
 West," etc. Illustrated. 8vo, Ornamental Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt 
 Top, $2 50. 
 
 AS WE WERE SAYING. By CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER. Illustrated by 
 H. W. McVicKAR, C. D. GIBSON, and Others. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental. 
 (Nearly Ready) 
 
 NEW YORK AND ITS ENVIRONS. By GUSTAV KOBBE. With Maps, 
 Plans, and Illustrations. i6mo, Flexible Cloth, $i oo. 
 
 A GROUP OF NOBLE DAMES. By THOMAS HARDY. With Illustrations. 
 Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 THE ODD NUMBER SERIES: 
 
 TALES OF TWO COUNTRIES. By ALEXANDER KIELLAND. Translated 
 by WILLIAM ARCHER. With an Introduction by H. H. BOYESEN. i6mo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental. (Nearly Ready) 
 
 TEN TALES BY FRANgOIS COPPEE. Translated by WALTER LEARNED. 
 With Fifty Pen-and-ink Drawings by ALBERT E. STERNER, and an Intro 
 duction by BRANDER MATTHEWS. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 MODERN GHOSTS. Selected and Translated from the Works of GUY 
 DE MAUPASSANT, PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCON, ALEXANDER KIELLAND, 
 LEOPOLD KOMPERT, GUSTAVO A BECQUER, and G. MAGHERINI GRAZIANI. 
 Introduction by GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, 
 
 THE HOUSE BY THE MEDLAR-TREE. By GIOVANNI VERGA. Trans 
 lated by MARY A. CRAIG. Introduction by W. D. HOWELLS. iGmo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental, $i oo. 
 
 PASTELS IN PROSE. (From the French.) Translated by STUART MER 
 RILL. With 150 Illustrations (including Frontispiece in Color) by H. W. 
 McVicKAR, and Introduction by W. D. HOWELLS. i6mo, Cloth, Orna 
 mental, $i 25. 
 
 MARIA : A South American Romance-. By JORGE ISAACS. Translated by 
 ROLLO OGDEN. Introduction by THOMAS A. JANVIER. i6mo, Cloth, 
 Ornamental, $i oo. 
 
 THE ODD NUMBER: Thirteen Tales by GUY DE MAUPASSANT. The 
 Translation by JONATHAN STURGES. Introduction by HENRY JAMES. 
 i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i oo.
 
 Popular Reading. 
 
 THE JOURNAL OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, 1825-1832. From the 
 Original Manuscript at Abbotsford. Two volumes, with Two Portraits and 
 Engraved Title-pages, Svo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Tops, $7 50. 
 Popular Edition, i volume, Crown Svo, Cloth, $2 50. 
 
 A NEW ENGLAND NUN, and Other Stories. By MARY E. WILKINS. 
 i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 A HUMBLE ROMANCE, and Other Stories. By MARY E. WILKINS. i6mo, 
 Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 UNHAPPY LOVES OF MEN OF GENIUS. By THOMAS HITCHCOCK. 
 With Twelve Portraits. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 LONDON LETTERS, and Some Others. By GEORGE W. SMALLEY, Lon 
 don Correspondent of the New York Tribune. Two volumes. Vol. I. 
 Personalities Two Midlothian Campaigns. Vol. II. Notes on Social 
 Life Notes on Parliament Pageants Miscellanies. Svo, Cloth, Un 
 cut Edges and Gilt Tops, $6 oo. 
 
 JINRIKISHA DAYS IN JAPAN. By ELIZA R. SCIDMORE. Illustrated. 
 Post Svo, Cloth, Ornamental, $2 oo. 
 
 LITERARY INDUSTRIES. By HUBERT HOWE BANCROFT. With Steel- 
 plate Portrait. Post Svo, Cloth, $i 50. 
 
 WHAT TO EAT HOW TO SERVE IT. By CHRISTINE TERHUNE 
 HERRICK, Author of " Cradle and Nursery," " Housekeeping Made 
 Easy," etc. i6mo, Cloth, $i 60. 
 
 A BOX OF MONKEYS, and Other Farce-Comedies. By GRACE LIVING 
 STONE FURNISS. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i oo. 
 
 THE QUEEN S PRIME MINISTERS: 
 
 A New Series of Political Biographies. Edited by STUART J. REID. The 
 Volumes contain Photogravure Portraits after paintings by eminent 
 artists. Crown Svo, Cloth. 
 
 NOW READY : 
 
 SIR ROBERT PEEL. By JUSTIN MCCARTHY. $i oo. 
 VISCOUNT MELBOURNE. By HENRY DUNCKLEY. $i oo. 
 EARL OF BEACONSFIELD, K.G. By J. A. FROUDE, D.C.L. $i oo. 
 
 VOLUMES TO FOLLOW: 
 
 THE RT. HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. By G. W. E. RUSSELL. VIS 
 COUNT PALMERSTON. By the MARQUIS OF LORNE, K.T. EARL 
 RUSSELL. By STUART J. REID. THE EARL OF ABERDEEN. By 
 Sir ARTHUR GORDON, G.C.M.G., etc. THE MARQUIS OF SALIS 
 BURY. By H. D. TRAILL, D.C.L. THE EARL OF DERBY. By GEORGE 
 SAINTSBURY.
 
 Popular Reading. 
 
 BOOTS AND SADDLES ; or, Life in Dakota with General Custer. By 
 ELIZABETH B. CUSTER. With Portrait. i2mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 50. 
 
 FOLLOWING THE GUIDON. By ELIZABETH B. CUSTER. Illustrated. 
 i2mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 50. 
 
 CAMPAIGNING WITH CROOK, and Stories of Army Life. By Captain 
 CHARLES KING, U.S.A., Author of "Between the Lines," "A War-time 
 Wooing," etc. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 OBERAMMERGAU, 1890. A Poem. By WILLIAM ALLEN BUTLER. Illus 
 trated. Large 8vo, Ornamental White-and-Gold Cover, Gilt Top and 
 Uncut Edges, $2 oo. 
 
 SEVEN DREAMERS. A Collection of Seven Stories. By ANNIE TRUM- 
 BULL SLOSSON. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 25. 
 
 DIANA S LIVERY. A Novel. By EVA WILDER MCGLASSON. Post 8vo, 
 Cloth, $i 25. 
 
 GOD IN HIS WORLD. An Interpretation. Book I. From the Beginning. 
 Book II. The Incarnation. Book III. The Divine Human Fellowship. 
 Post 8vo, Cloth, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $i 25. 
 
 CURIOSITIES OF THE AMERICAN STAGE. By LAURENCE HUTTON. 
 
 With Copious and Characteristic Illustrations. Crown 8vo, Cloth, Un 
 cut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50. 
 
 THE TSAR AND HIS PEOPLE; or, Social Life in Russia. BY MKI, 
 CHIOR DE VOGUE and THEODORE CHILD. Profusely Illustrated. Square 
 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $3 oo. 
 
 STROLLS BY STARLIGHT AND SUNSHINE. Written and Illustrated 
 by WILLIAM HAMILTON GIBSON, Author of "Happy Hunting-Grounds," 
 " Highways and Byways," etc. Royal 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, Gilt 
 Edges, $3 50. 
 
 PORT TARASCON : The Last Adventures of the Illustrious Tartarin. By 
 ALPHONSE DAUDET. Translated by HENRY JAMES. Richly Illustrated 
 by Rossi, MYRBACH, MONTEGUT, BIELER, and MONTENARD. 8vo, Cloth, 
 Ornamental, Uncut Edges and Gilt Top, $2 50. 
 
 ADVENTURES IN THE GREAT FOREST OF EQUATORIAL AF 
 RICA AND THE COUNTRY OF THE DWARFS. By PAUL I)u 
 CHAILLU. Abridged and Popular Edition. With Map and Illustrations. 
 Post 8vo, Cloth, $i 75. 
 
 THE AZTEC TREASURE-HOUSE. A Romance of Contemporaneous 
 Antiquity. By THOMAS A. JANVIER. Illustrated by FREDERIC REMING 
 TON. Post 8vo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 50. 
 
 THE CAPTAIN OF THE JANIZARIES. A Tale of the Times of Scan- 
 derbeg and the Fall of Constantinople. By Rev. JAMES M. LUDLOW, 
 D.D., Litt.D. i6mo, Cloth, Ornamental, $i 50.
 
 PS3525. M9146F 1892 
 
 A nnn QPT