instead of
August.

Concerning the pumpkin. This berry is a favorite with the natives
of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for
the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference
over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully
as satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange
family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or
two varieties of the squash. But the custom of planting it in the
front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is
now generally conceded that, the pumpkin as a shade tree is a
failure.

Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to
spawn--

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said:

"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because you have
read it just as I did, word, for word. But, stranger, when I first read
it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before,
notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I
believe I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might have
heard two miles, and started out to kill somebody--because, you know,
I knew it would come to that sooner or later, and so I might as well
begin. I read one of them paragraphs over again, so as to be certain,
and then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled several
people, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want
him. But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make the
thing perfectly certain; and now it is certain, and I tell you it is
lucky for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure,
as I went back. Good-by, sir, good-by; you have taken a great load off
my mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural
articles, and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-by, sir."

I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person
had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling remotely
accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly banished, for the
regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, Now if you had gone to
Egypt as I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to get my hand
in; but you wouldn't do it, and here you are. I sort of expected you.]

The editor was looking sad and perplexed and dejected.