led, it injures them. It is much
better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.'

"Now, what do you think of that? for I really suppose you wrote it?"

"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no
doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are
spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition,
when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree--"

"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!"

"Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did? The language was
intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows
anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine."

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, and
stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did
not know as much as a cow; and then went--out and banged the door after
him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was displeased
about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I could not be
any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with lanky locks
hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from the
hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted,
motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening
attitude. No sound was heard.

Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in the door, and
came elaborately tiptoeing toward me till he was within long reaching
distance of me, when he stopped and, after scanning my face with intense
interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and
said:

"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I suffer."

I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see the
relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out
of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the merciful
moonlight over a desolate landscape:

The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it.
It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September.
In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch
out its young.

It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain.
Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his
corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July