ast, at which he declared that he
was never so flustrated in all his born days. Never.

They waited all that day for the waters to subside, and Katy taught the
Poet several new culinary arts, while he showed her his traps and hunting
gear, and initiated the two strangers into all the mysteries of mink and
muskrat catching, telling them more about the habits of fur-bearing
animals than they could have learned from books. And Charlton recited
many pieces of "real dictionary poetry" to the poor fellow, who was at
last prevailed on to read some of his dialect pieces in the presence of
Katy. He read her one on "What the Sunflower said to the Hollyhock," and
a love-poem, called "Polly in the Spring-house." The first strophe of
this inartistic idyl will doubtless be all the reader will care to see.

POLLY IN THE SPRING-HOUSE.

Purtier'n dressed-up gals in town
Is peart and larfin' Polly Brown,
With curly hair a-hangin' down,
An' sleeves rolled clean above her elbow.
Barfeooted stan'in on the rocks,
A-pourin' milk in airthen crocks,
An' kiverin' 'em with clean white blocks--
Jest lis'en how my fool heart knocks--
Shet up, my heart! what makes you tell so?

"You see," he said, blushing and stammering, "you see, miss, I had a sort
of a preju_dice_ agin town gals in them air days, I thought they was all
stuck up and proud like; I didn' think the--the--well--you know I don't
mean no harm nur nothin'--but I didn' expect the very purtiest on 'em all
was ever agoin' to come into my shanty and make herself at home like as
ef I was a eddicated gentleman. All I said agin town gals I take back.
I--I--you see--" but finding it impossible to get through, the Poet
remembered something to be attended to out of doors.

The ever active Charlton could not pass a day in idleness. By ten
o'clock he had selected a claim and staked it out. It was just the place
for his great school. When the country should have settled up, he would
found a farm-school here and make a great institution out of it. The
Inhabitant was delighted with the prospect of having the brother of an
angel for a neighbor, and readily made a bargain to erect for Charlton a
cabin like his own for purposes of pre-emption. Albert's lively
imagination had already planned the building and grounds of his
institution.

During the whole of that sunshiny day that Charlton waited for the waters
of Pleasant Brook to subside, George Gray, the Inhabitant of the lone