"Why," said she, innocently, "out of that basket from Long Island!" The last of the hippopotamusses were before me, peeled, and boiled, and mashed and baked, with a nice thin brown crust on the top.

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

Mrs. Sparrowgrass, who is a notable house wife, said to me one day, "Now, my dear, we shall soon have plenty of eggs, for I have been buying a lot of young chickens." There they were, each one with as many feathers as a grasshopper, and a chirp not louder. Of course, we looked forward with pleasant hopes to the period when the first cackle should announce the milk-white egg, warmly deposited in the hay which we had provided bountifully. They grew finely, and one day I ventured to remark that our hens had remarkably large combs, to which Mrs. S. replied, "Yes indeed, she had observed that; but if I wanted to have a real treat, I ought to get up early in the morning and hear them crow." "Crow !" said I, faintly, "our hens crowing! Then, by the cock

that crowed in the morn, to wake the priest all shaven and shorn,' we might as well give up all hopes of having any eggs," said I; "for, as sure as you live, Mrs. S., our hens are all roosters!" And so they were roosters! that grew up and fought with the neighbors' chickens, until there was not a whole pair of eyes on either side of the fence.

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

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

CHAPTER II.

We conclude to give the Country another Year's Trial-Spring Birds-Mr. Sparrowgrass becomes the Owner of a Boat-A Visit from a Friend-First Experience with a Fish-net-An Irishman in a Fyke-Exchange of Civilities and Cucumbers-Bate's Cow, and a Hint to Horticulturists-Local Designations.

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

"From nature's old cathedral sweetly ring

The wild bird choirs-burst of the woodland band,

-who mid the blossoms sing;

Their leafy temple, gloomy, tall, and grand,

Pillared with oaks, and roofed with Heaven's own hand."

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

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

Silence now-and how still!

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

"That's a he cat-bird," says my carpenter.

A cat-bird? Then Shakespeare and Shelly have wasted powder upon the sky-lark; for never such "profuse strains of unpremeditated art" issued from living bird before. Sky-lark! pooh! who