"Well, then, put down one hundred and fifty half inches, how much does that make, altogether, in feet?" Six feet eleven inches. "Now," said he, "jest you take my rule, and measure the big end of that 're pipe." Carpenter," said I, “I see it all; but the next time I build an aqueduct I will be a little more careful in the figures." "Sparrowgrass," said he, pointing to the pipe, "didn't you tell me that that was an original idea of your own?" I answered that I believed I did make a remark of that kind. "Well," said he, with a sort of muffled laugh, "that is the first time that I see an original idea come out at the big end."

CHAPTER V.

Children in Town and Country-A Mistake about a Lady-The MenagerieAmusement for Children-Winter Scenery-Another Amusement for Children -Sucker Fishing-General Washington.

Ir is a good thing to have children in the country. Children in the country are regular old-fashioned boys and girls, not pocket editions of men and women as they are in town. In the metropolis there is no representation of our species in the tadpole state. The word "lad" has become obsolete. Fast young men and fast young women repudiate the existence of that respectable, antique institution, childhood. It is different in the country. My eldest does not call me "Governor," but simply "Father;" and although in his ninth year, still treats his mother with some show of respect.

Our next boy (turned seven) has prematurely given up smoking ratan; and our four-year-old girl is destitute both of affectation and dyspepsia. As for the present baby, his character is not yet

fully developed, but having observed no symptoms of incipient depravity in him up to this time, we begin to believe the country is a good place for children. One thing about it is certain, children in the country get an immense deal of open-airtraining that is utterly impracticable in town. A boy or girl, brought up "under glass" (to use a horticultural phrase) is apt to "blow" prematurely; but, although it is rather rough culture, still I think the influence of rocks, rivers, leaves, trees, buds, blossoms, birds, fresh air, and blue sky, better, for the undeveloped mind of a child, than that of a French nurse, no matter how experienced she may be. I think so, and so does Mrs. Sparrow

grass.

There is one thing, however, that is mortifying about it. When our friends come up from town with their young ones, our boys and girl look so fat and gross beside them, that we have to blush at the visible contrast. Mrs. Peppergrass, our respected relative, brought up her little girl the other day, a perfect French rainbow so far as dress went, and there they sat—the petite, pale Parisienne of four years, and the broad chested, chubby, red-cheeked rustic of the same age, with a frock only diversified

by the holes scratched in it, and a clean dimity apron just put on, with a gorget of fruit marks on the breast that spoke plainly of last summer-there they sat, side by side, cousins both, and who would have known it. "My dear," said I, to Mrs. Sparrowgrass, after our respected relative had departed, "did you observe the difference between those children? one was a perfect little lady, and the other". "Yes," interrupted Mrs. Sparrowgrass, "I did; and if I had had a child behave in that way, I would be ashamed to go anywhere. That child did nothing but fret, and tease her mother for cake, from the time she came into the house till she went out of it. Yes, indeed, our Louise was, as you say, a real little lady beside her."

Finding I had been misunderstood, I kept silent. I do not know anything so sure to prevent controversy as silence—especially in the country.

"Speech is silver, silence is golden.”

There is one institution, which, in a child's-eye point of view, possesses a majesty and beauty in the country altogether unappreciable in a large city. I allude to the Menagerie! For weeks,

juvenile curiosity has been stimulated by pictorial representations at the Dépôt and Post-office. There is the likeness of the man who goes into the cage with the wild beasts, holding out two immense lions at arms' length. There is the giraffe with his neck reaching above a lofty palm tree, and the boa constrictor with a yawning tiger in his convoluted embrace. If you observe the countenances of the small fry collected in front of a bill of this description in the rural districts, you will see in each and all, a remarkable enlargement of the eye, expres

sive of wonder.

"Conjecture, expectation, and surmise,"

are children's bedfellows, and the infantile pulse reaches fever heat long before the arrival of the elephant. At last he comes, the "Aleph "* of the procession! swinging his long cartilaginous shillalah in solemn concord with the music. Then fol low wagons bearing the savage animals in boxes with red panels; then a pair of cloven-footed

* Aleph, the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Probably the elephant was the first thing Adam saw, and hence, the name Aleph-ant.