eds, nephew," said the old man, "yet I can
say that she's a gentle, likely young crittur, and better worth forty
dollars than many a one that's cried up for Ayrshire or Durham; and
you shall be quite welcome to her."

We thanked him, as in duty bound, and thought that if he was full of
old-fashioned notions, he was no less full of kindness and good will.

And now, with a new cow, with our garden beginning to thrive under the
gentle showers of May, with our flower borders blooming, my wife and I
began to think ourselves in Paradise. But alas! the same sun and rain
that warmed our fruit and flowers brought up from the earth, like
sulky gnomes, a vast array of purple-leaved weeds, that almost in a
night seemed to cover the whole surface of the garden beds. Our
gardeners both being gone, the weeding was expected to be done by
me--one of the anticipated relaxations of my leisure hours.

"Well," said I, in reply to a gentle intimation from my wife, "when my
article is finished, I'll take a day and weed all up clean."

Thus days slipped by, till at length the article was dispatched, and I
proceeded to my garden. Amazement! Who could have possibly foreseen
that anything earthly could grow so fast in a few days! There were no
bounds, no alleys, no beds, no distinction of beet and carrot, nothing
but a flourishing congregation of weeds nodding and bobbing in the
morning breeze, as if to say, "We hope you are well, sir--we've got
the ground, you see!" I began to explore, and to hoe, and to weed. Ah!
did anybody ever try to clean a neglected carrot or beet bed, or bend
his back in a hot sun over rows of weedy onions! He is the man to feel
for my despair! How I weeded, and sweat, and sighed! till, when high
noon came on, as the result of all my toils, only three beds were
cleaned! And how disconsolate looked the good seed, thus unexpectedly
delivered from its sheltering tares, and laid open to a broiling July
sun! Every juvenile beet and carrot lay flat down wilted, and
drooping, as if, like me, they had been weeding, instead of being
weeded.

"This weeding is quite a serious matter," said I to my wife; "the fact
is, I must have help about it!"

"Just what I was myself thinking," said my wife. "My flower borders
are all in confusion, and my petunia mounds so completely overgrown,
that nobody would dream what they were meant for!"

In short, it was agreed between us that we could not afford the
expense of a full-grown man to