nberry-cultivator has one enemy, which is neither
bird, nor worm, nor blight, but biped,--a Rat, two-legged, erect, or
moderately so, talking, even, in audible and intelligible speech,--the
Pine Rat, namely. Few but New Jerseymen, and of them chiefly those who
dwell about the forest, have heard of this human species; it has not
yet had its Agassiz nor its Wyman,--yet there it flourishes and repeats
itself!

My friend, Mr. B., considerately undertook to initiate me into some
of the mysteries of this race, which has proved minatory, though not
destructive, to his blushing crop,--and accordingly led me through brake
and brier, past wild and gloomy cedar-swamps, over brooks insecurely
bridged with fallen logs, or, perchance, with stepping-blocks of
pine-stumps, far into the silent forest, and to a little dell or
dingle,--a natural clearing,--where a couple of tents were pitched, and
the smoke of a struggling fire told infallibly of human neighborhood.
The barking of a splenetic little terrier brought from one of the tents
a man of some fifty years, lank and gaunt of visage, with matted hair,
and wild, uncivilized eyes, dressed in a ragged jacket and what had once
been a pair of trousers. His face wore no expression of intelligence;
but a look of intense, though animal cunning lurked in his eyes. While I
was gazing on this individual, who stood in silence by his tent, there
emerged from the other an ancient female, who might have been eighty
years of age, but who hobbled towards us with much briskness.

"Good evening, Hannah Butler," said Mr. B.; "I've brought you some
tomatoes from the Big House. This is my friend, Mr. Smith of York."

Mr. Smith of York (grimly repressing a smile, as his mischievous memory
whispered something about Brooks of Sheffield) bowed gravely to Mrs.
Butler. Mr. B. whispers,--"That's the Queen of the Pine Rats!" Hannah
meanwhile mumbles over one of the fleshy tomatoes.

The man whom we had first seen held in his hand a tattered shawl, with
which he now began patching a portion of his tent, saying at the same
time that there was a storm a-brewing.

"Ay, is there!" said Mrs. Butler; "and a storm like the one when I seed
Leeds's devil"--

"Hush!" interrupted her ragged companion, with a look of terror. "What's
the good o' namin' him, and allus talkin' about him, when yer don't
never know as he ar'n't byside ye?"

"I'll devil yer!" shrieked the crone, through a half-eaten tomato.
"Finish mendin'