arrel with
your pillow, which persists in getting out of bed, and your foot wanders
out into the air, feeling for greater length of cover. If the children cry
in the night, you will not find the matches nor the lamp nor anything else
save a trunk just in time to fall over it, getting up with confused notions
as to which is the way to bed, unless there be some friendly voice to hail
you through the darkness.

The first of May dawns. The carts come. It threatens rain, but not a drop
until you get your best rosewood chairs out of doors, and your bedding on
the top of the wagon. Be out at twelve o'clock you must, for another family
are on your heels, and Thermopylae was a very tame pass compared with the
excitement which rises when two families meet in the same hall--these
moving out and those moving in. They swear, unless they have positive
principles to prohibit. A mere theory on the subject of swearing will be no
hindrance. Long-established propriety of speech, buttressed up by the most
stalwart determination is the only safety. Men who talk right all the rest
of the year sometimes let slip on the first of May. We know a member of the
church who uses no violence of speech except on moving day, and then he
frequently cries out: "By the great United States!"

All day long the house is full of racket: "Look out how you scratch that
table!" "There! you have dropped the leg out of that piano!" "There goes
the looking-glass!" "Ouch! you have smashed my finger!" "Didn't you see you
were pushing me against the wall?" "Get out of our way! It's one o'clock,
and your things are not half moved! Carmen! take hold and tumble these
things into the street!" Our carmen and theirs get into a fight. Our
servants on our side, their servants on theirs. We, opposed to anything but
peace, try to quiet the strife, yet, if they must go on, feel we would like
to have our men triumph. Like England during our late war, we remain
neutral, yet have our preferences as to which shall beat. Now dash comes
the rain, and the water cools off the heat of the combatants. The carmen
must drive fast, so as to get the things out of the wet, but slow, so as
not to rub the furniture.

As our last load starts we go in to take a farewell look at the old place.
In that parlor we have been gay with our friends many a time, and as we
glance round the room we seem to see the great group of their faces. The
best furniture we ever had in our parlor was a circle of well-