uld scarcely sleep, all
night, for the brilliancy of our anticipations!

To be sure our delight was somewhat damped the next day by the
coldness with which my good old uncle, Jeremiah Standfast, who
happened along at precisely this crisis, listened to our visions.

"You'll find it pleasant, children, in the summer time," said the
hard-fisted old man, twirling his blue-checked pocket-handkerchief;
"but I'm sorry you've gone in debt for the land."

"Oh, but we shall soon save that--it's so much cheaper living in the
country!" said both of us together.

"Well, as to that, I don't think it is, to city-bred folks."

Here I broke in with a flood of accounts of Mr. B.'s peach-trees, and
Mrs. B.'s strawberries, butter, apricots, etc., etc.; to which the old
gentleman listened with such a long, leathery, unmoved quietude of
visage as quite provoked me, and gave me the worst possible opinion of
his judgment. I was disappointed, too; for as he was reckoned one of
the best practical farmers in the county, I had counted on an
enthusiastic sympathy with all my agricultural designs.

"I tell you what, children," he said, "a body can live in the country,
as you say, amazin' cheap; but then a body must _know how_,"--and my
uncle spread his pocket-handkerchief thoughtfully out upon his knees,
and shook his head gravely.

I thought him a terribly slow, stupid old body, and wondered how I had
always entertained so high an opinion of his sense.

"He is evidently getting old," said I to my wife; "his judgment is not
what it used to be."

At all events, our place was bought, and we moved out, well pleased,
the first morning in April, not at all remembering the ill savor of
that day for matters of wisdom. Our place was a pretty cottage, about
two miles from the city, with grounds that had been tastefully laid
out. There was no lack of winding paths, arbors, flower borders, and
rosebushes, with which my wife was especially pleased. There was a
little green lot, strolling off down to a brook, with a thick grove of
trees at the end, where our cow was to be pastured.

The first week or two went on happily enough in getting our little new
pet of a house into trimness and good order; for as it had been long
for sale, of course there was any amount of little repairs that had
been left to amuse the leisure hours of the purchaser. Here a doorstep
had given way, and needed replacing; there a shutter hung loose, and
wanted a hinge; abundance