oning.

I have amused myself the past year raising a brood of chickens in
my little backyard. Being 'tenderly brought up,' they are, of
course, very tame, particularly a little brown pullet, that lays
an egg in the cellar every morning. A few days ago, as I was
leaving the house after breakfast, my wife cried out for me to
come into the kitchen. I did so, and found the little brown hen
standing quietly by the door at the head of the cellar-stairs,
evidently waiting for it to be opened. Going outside, I found the
servant had neglected to open the 'bulkhead' door, as usual, and
my wise little biddy had concluded to go down-cellar through the
kitchen. When I drove her out and opened the outer-door, she went
down and laid, as usual. She was never in the house before, to my
knowledge, and has not been since. This is a fact, and is only one
more instance added to many I could adduce, which go to show that
the 'dumb creatures' think and reason.

* * * * *

Poetry on bells is divisible into two kinds, the _tintinnabulistic_,
which refers to little hand-tinklers, sleigh-bells, and the kind which
oriental mothers were wont, of old, to sew to the hems of their
daughters' garments, [that they might tell by the sound whether the
young ladies were at mischief or no,] and the _campanologistic_,
descriptive solely of large church ringers, Big Toms of Oxford, and the
regular _vivos voco, fulgura frango_ giants, such as Mr. Meneely makes
and sends all over the country, to factories, churches, depots, and
steamboats. The sleigh-bell song, according to this classification, is
tintinnabulistic; so, too, is the Russian _troika_,

'I kolokolchick dor voltaia,'

as is also the immortal line which speaks of

That tocsin of the soul--the dinner-bell.'

But Schiller's great ringing poem is superbly _campanologistic_; so is
Southey's 'Inch Cope Bell,' and to this division belong all tollings,
fire-alarms, and knells in verse whatever.

The following lyric is, however, far above either, as it ambitiously
embraces the whole subject, and therefore, so far as comprehensiveness
is concerned, must of course take precedence even of Tennyson's 'Ring
Out!'

ABOUT BELLS.

I was sitting, one night, in my easy-chair,
When a bell's clear notes rung out on the air;
And a few stray thoughts, as this ballad tells,
Came into my mind, about sundry