umbers came I filled his man's basket with some of my own,
by way of exchange. This bit of pleasantry was resented by my neighbor,
who told his man to throw them to the hogs. His man told our girl, and
our girl told Mrs. S., and, in consequence, all intimacy between the two
families has ceased; the ladies do not speak, even at church.

We have another neighbor, whose name is Bates; he keeps cows. This year
our gate has been fixed; but my young peach trees near the fences are
accessible from the road; and Bates's cows walk along that road morning
and evening. The sound of a cow-bell is pleasant in the twilight.
Sometimes, after dark, we hear the mysterious curfew tolling along the
road, and then with a louder peal it stops before our fence and again
tolls itself off in the distance. The result is, my peach trees are as
bare as bean-poles. One day I saw Mr. Bates walking along, and I hailed
him: "Bates, those are your cows there, I believe?" "Yes, sir; nice
ones, ain't they?" "Yes," I replied, "they are _nice_ ones. Do you see
that tree there?"--and I pointed to a thrifty peach, with about as many
leaves as an exploded sky-rocket. "Yes, sir." "Well, Bates, that
red-and-white cow of yours yonder ate the top off that tree; I saw her
do it." Then I thought I had made Bates ashamed of himself, and had
wounded his feelings, perhaps, too much. I was afraid he would offer me
money for the tree, which I made up my mind to decline at once.
"Sparrowgrass," said he, "it don't hurt a tree a single mossel to chaw
it if it's a young tree. For my part, I'd rather have my young trees
chawed than not. I think it makes them grow a leetle better. I can't do
it with mine, but you can, because you can wait to have good trees, and
the only way to have good trees is to have, 'em chawed."

* * * * *

We have put a dumb-waiter in our house. A dumb-waiter is a good thing to
have in the country, on account of its convenience. If you have company,
everything can be sent up from the kitchen without any trouble; and if
the baby gets to be unbearable, on account of his teeth, you can dismiss
the complainant by stuffing him in one of the shelves and letting him
down upon the help. To provide for contingencies, we had all our floors
deafened. In consequence, you cannot hear anything that is going on in
the story below; and when you are in the upper room of the house there
might be a democratic ratification meeting in the c