ey get to growing well, pull up all but four in a
hill. You must not have your hills too near together,--they should be
five feet apart, and then the vines will cover the ground all over. I
should think there would be room for fifty hills on this patch of
ground.'

"'How many squashes do you think I shall raise, father?'

"'Well,' said his father, smiling, 'that is hard telling. We won't count
the chickens before they are hatched. But if you are industrious, and
take very good care indeed of your vines, stir the ground often and keep
out all the weeds and kill the bugs, I have little doubt that you will
get well paid for your labor.'

"'If I have fifty hills,' said Nat, 'and four vines in each hill, I
shall have two hundred vines in all; and if there is one squash on each
vine, there will be two hundred squashes.'

"'Yes; but there are so many _ifs_ about it, that you may be
disappointed after all. Perhaps the bugs will destroy half your vines.'

"'I can kill the bugs,' said Nat.

"'Perhaps dry weather will wither them all up.'

"'I can water them every day, if they need it.'

"'That is certainly having good courage, Nat,' added his father; 'but if
you conquer the bugs, and get around the dry weather, it may be too wet
and blast your vines,--or there may be such a hail-storm as I have known
several times in my life, and cut them to pieces.'

"'I don't think there will be such a hail-storm this year; there never
was one like it since I can remember.'

"'I hope there won't be,' replied his father. 'It is well to look on the
bright side, and hope for the best, for it keeps the courage up. It is
also well to look out for disappointment. I know a gentleman who thought
he would raise some ducks,'" etc., etc., etc.

We are told that this scene was enacted about thirty-five years ago,
and, as if we should not be sufficiently lost in admiration of that
wonderful memory which enabled somebody to retain so long, and restore
so unimpaired, the words and deeds of that distant May morning, we are
further informed that the author is "obliged to pass over much that
belongs to the patch of squashes"! "Is it possible?" one is led to
exclaim. We should certainly have supposed that this report was
exhaustive. We can hardly conceive that any further interest should
inhere in that patch of squashes; whereas it seems that the half was not
told us. Nor is this the sole instance. Records equally minute of
conversations equally bril