wn from heaven. His tables are
crowded with guests, and we sit close like kernels on an ear of corn.
For breakfast, there is tea; there is coffee; there are pork chops, and
other fat foods which are made palatable by the sprightly addition of
sour pickles. Indeed, you may credit me, this breakfast is not one to
be sniffed at. I drink pannikins of tea that is very strong and green,
and fearlessly ask for more. If there is a happier woman in the North
than myself, I have never heard of her. I quite agree with you; our
pouter-pigeon serves the public far more effectually than do the
cabineteers, or even the bishops.

We are yet in the wheat belt and the wheat is at flood-tide. When I
see a large stand of grain that is breast-high I say, "Well done, Good
Fellows!" and "Haste to the in-gathering!" The field hears my
salutation to the sowers and bows a million heads to me. And it says,
_shibboleth! shibboleth!_ (If you would pick up the talk of the fields
you must be still and listen.)

The Hebrews, with ears a-tilt, caught this whisper, and so their word
for an ear of wheat was "shibboleth." It was this word the Ephraimites
lisped and so betrayed themselves to Jephthah. The difference was only
one of an aspirate. What they said was sibboleth.

Now, while one can tell the sound of ripe wheat, no word is exactly
descriptive of the odour thereof. When I am not tired my pen almost
catches it. The odour is an intangible something between dryness and
colour, and the sign that expresses it can only be revealed.

It is the mental habit of people to think of wheat as only so many
bushels of inert matter that is bought and sold on margins by half-mad
men, whereas, in all the world, wheat is the thing most richly alive.
It won't die, not for thousands of years. We would put jars of wheat
in the corner-stones of our state buildings, even as the Egyptians
buried it in tombs of rock. It is the only food we could pass down the
centuries to posterity, and apart from its scientific value, there is
little doubt posterity would appreciate the gift infinitely more than
those stupid name-lists of still stupider people. The grain should be
of the highest grade, with the name of the grower and the exact
location of his farm added thereto.

Yes! let us tuck away these northern wheat grains till England becomes
a republic; the United States a kingdom; and until the yellow peril has
turned white. Let us lay them safely aside fo