ime to come before they are dead, we have full assurance
that they will straggle along afterward clad neatly in sheepskin, or
more gorgeously in green buckram with gilt lettering. Whatever the airs
of pompous importance they may assume as they come, back of it all we
farmers can see the look of wistful eagerness in their eyes. They know
well enough that they must give us something which we in our commonness
regard as valuable enough to exchange for a bushel of our potatoes, or a
sack of our white onions. No poem that we can enjoy, no speech that
tickles us, no prophecy that thrills us--neither dinner nor immortality
for them! And we are hard-headed Yankees at our bargainings; many a
puffed-up celebrity loses his puffiness at our doors!

This afternoon, as I came out on my porch after dinner, feeling content
with myself and all the world, I saw a man driving our way in a
one-horse top-buggy. In the country it is our custom first to identify
the horse, and that gives us a sure clue to the identification of the
driver. This horse plainly did not belong in our neighbourhood and
plainly as it drew nearer, it bore the unmistakable marks of the town
livery. Therefore, the driver, in all probability, was a stranger in
these parts. What strangers were in town who would wish to drive this
way? The man who occupied the buggy was large and slow-looking; he wore
a black, broad-brimmed felt hat and a black coat, a man evidently of
some presence. And he drove slowly and awkwardly; not an agent plainly.
Thus the logic of the country bore fruitage.

"Harriet," I said, calling through the open doorway, "I think the
Honourable Arthur Caldwell is coming here."

"Mercy me!" exclaimed Harriet, appearing in the doorway, and as quickly
disappearing. I did not see her, of course, but I knew instinctively
that she was slipping off her apron, moving our most celebrated
rocking-chair two inches nearer the door, and whisking a few invisible
particles of dust from the centre table. Every time any one of
importance comes our way, or is distantly likely to come our way.
Harriet resolves herself into an amiable whirlwind of good order,
subsiding into placidity at the first sound of a step on the porch.

As for me I remain in my shirt sleeves, sitting on my porch resting a
moment after my dinner. No sir, I will positively not go in and get my
coat. I am an American citizen, at home in my house with the sceptre of
my dominion--my favourite daily newsp