does. He is the closest observer I ever saw; and there are
few species of animals on the place that he has not analyzed. I think he
has, to use a euphemism very applicable to him, got outside of every one
of them, except the toad. To the toad he is entirely indifferent; but I
presume he knows that the toad is the most useful animal in the garden.
I think the Agricultural Society ought to offer a prize for the finest
toad. When Polly comes to sit in the shade near my strawberry-beds, to
shell peas, Calvin is always lying near in apparent obliviousness; but
not the slightest unusual sound can be made in the bushes, that he is
not alert, and prepared to investigate the cause of it. It is this habit
of observation, so cultivated, which has given him such a trained mind,
and made him so philosophical. It is within the capacity of even the
humblest of us to attain this.

And, speaking of the philosophical temper, there is no class of men
whose society is more to be desired for this quality than that of
plumbers. They are the most agreeable men I know; and the boys in the
business begin to be agreeable very early. I suspect the secret of it
is, that they are agreeable by the hour. In the driest days, my fountain
became disabled: the pipe was stopped up. A couple of plumbers, with the
implements of their craft, came out to view the situation. There was a
good deal of difference of opinion about where the stoppage was. I found
the plumbers perfectly willing to sit down and talk about it,--talk by
the hour. Some of their guesses and remarks were exceedingly ingenious;
and their general observations on other subjects were excellent in their
way, and could hardly have been better if they had been made by the job.
The work dragged a little, as it is apt to do by the hour. The plumbers
had occasion to make me several visits. Sometimes they would find, upon
arrival, that they had forgotten some indispensable tool; and one would
go back to the shop, a mile and a half, after it; and his comrade would
await his return with the most exemplary patience, and sit down and
talk,--always by the hour. I do not know but it is a habit to have
something wanted at the shop. They seemed to me very good workmen, and
always willing to stop and talk about the job, or anything else, when I
went near them. Nor had they any of that impetuous hurry that is said
to be the bane of our American civilization. To their credit be it said,
that I never observed an