and shrivel. In less than
forty-eight hours' time they were all apparently as dead as that side
of the moon which is invisible to us. The only flower or shrub in all
that once blooming lawn which remained unshorn of its beauty by the
bitter hyperborean blasts was the Macleod thistle. Proudly it reared
itself amid that desolation, and defiantly it exhibited its fangs to
foe and friend alike.

I cannot tell you how heartily I rejoiced that I had not yielded to the
importunities of the Baylors, the Tiltmans, the Browes, and the
Denslows when, in an ebullition of neighborly jealousy, they sought the
destruction of that sturdy plant. But my delight was of short
duration. One morning before I arrived to pursue my horticultural
avocation a remorseless policeman invaded the premises and pulled up
the bristling emblem of Scotia and cast it into the hard highway under
the pretext that by so doing he was complying with a provision of the
revised statutes. I learned that this policeman is a Swede, and I can
justify his conduct only upon the hypothesis of heredity, although it
is hard to conceive that the malignant feeling which existed centuries
ago among the Norsemen who were wont to harry the Scottish coast should
exhibit itself at this remote period in the demeanor of a naturalized
Swede who presumably does not know the difference between a viking and
a meteorite.

If I had been of a sarcastic or of a bitter nature, I might have
imputed this curious train of mishaps to the malign influence of that
maternal tabby cat which Uncle Si had hailed as a harbinger of good
luck. As it was, I could not resist giving play to my desire for
retaliation when Uncle Si confided to me one morning that some
unscrupulous person or persons had invaded the premises the night
before and had carried off about six thousand feet of choice lumber. I
was disposed to be very wroth at first, but when I gathered from Uncle
Si's remarks that the loss would fall upon him and not upon me my anger
was assuaged to a degree that admitted of my suggesting to Uncle Si
that perhaps this incident might be reckoned as a part of that "good
luck" which the advent of the tabby cat and her kits had prognosticated.

Having unbosomed myself of this perhaps too savage thrust, I gave Uncle
Si a cigar and in my most cordial tones bade him "never mind and be of
good cheer." I make it a practice never to say or do that which is
likely to occasion pain or humiliation