that burgeon on the sides seem to retain the verdure of early spring in those cool depths of shadow. As the sunlight broadens on the crags, the illusion disappears, and we behold once more the brilliant vagaries of vegetation, the hectic hints of yesterday. I wish Kensett could see that pure blue sky and yonder melancholy sloop on the river, working her passage down, with bricks from Haverstraw, and a sail like an expanded rose leaf. It is a pleasant thing to watch the river craft in these autumnal mornings. Sometimes we see a white breasted covey coming up in the distance-from shore to shore a spread of dimity. Here and there are troops of shining ones with warm illuminated wings, and others creeping along in shadow with spectral pinions, like evil spirits. Yonder schooner is not an unfair image of humanity; beating up against adverse winds with one black and one white sail. That dogged old craft, just emerging from obscurity into sunlight, is but a type of some curmudgeon passing from poverty to affluence, and there is another, evidently on the wrong track, stretching away from the light of prosperity into the gloom of misfortune. I do not love the country less because of her teachings by these simple symbols.

IMPROVED AQUEDUCT.

49

There are many things to be learned from watching the old wood-sloops on the river.

Our neighbor has been making an improvement in his house. He has had a drain made in the kitchen, with a long earthen pipe ending in a cesspool at the end of his garden. The object of it is to carry off the superfluous water from the house. It was a great convenience, he said, "on wash days." One objection might be urged, and that was, after every heavy rain he found a gully in his garden path, and several cart loads of gravel in his cess-pool. Besides, the pipe was of an equal width, and one obstruction led to another; sometimes it was a silver spoon and a child's frock; sometimes it was a scrubbing-brush, a piece of soap, and a handkerchief. I said that if he had made a square wooden trough, gradually widening from end to end, it would have cleared itself, and then I thought it would be a good thing for me to have such a one myself. Then I had a cess-pool built at the bottom of the wall, under the bank, which is about one hundred and fifty feet from the kitchen, and told my carpenter to make a trough of that length. Carpenter asked me "how big I wanted it?" I told him about eight inches in diameter at the end

nearest to the house, and then gradually widening all the way for the whole length. As I said this, my carpenter smiled, and said he never heard of such a thing. I told him no, that the idea was an original one of my own. He asked me how much I would like to have it widened. I thought for a moment, and said, "about half an inch to the foot." He said very well, and the next week he came with two horses, and an edifice in his cart that looked like a truncated shot-tower. I asked him what that was? He said it was the big end of my pipe." When he laid it on the ground on its side I walked through it, and could not touch the upper side with my hand. Then I asked the carpenter what and he said it was made according

he meant by it, to directions.

I said not at all, that I told him to increase the diameter at the rate of half an inch to the foot, and he had made it about a foot to the foot, as near as I could judge. "Sparrowgrass, said he, a little nettled, "jest take your pencil and put down eight inches." "Well, that's the diameter of the small end, I believe?" I told the carpenter he was right so far. "Now, for every foot there is an increase of half an inch in the width, that's according to directions, too, ain't it?" Yes.

AN ORIGINAL IDEA.

51

"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