few dogs, and I concluded to
put in the first day rakin' in all I could find. I'm goin' out again
to-morrow, down the other road."

But he didn't. Mr. Butterwick discharged him that night. He was too
enthusiastic for a gardener, and Mr. Butterwick thought that life
might open out to him a brighter and more beautiful vista in some
other capacity.

Subsequently, Mr. Butterwick concluded to attend to his garden
himself, and early in the spring he received from the Congressman of
our district a choice lot of assorted seeds brought from California
by the Agricultural Department. There were more than he wanted, so he
gave a quantity of sugar-beet and onion seeds to Mr. Potts, and
some turnip and radish seeds to Colonel Coffin; then he planted the
remainder, consisting of turnip, cabbage, celery and beet seeds, in
his own garden.

When the plants began to come up, he thought they looked kind of
queer, but he waited until they grew larger, and then, as he felt
certain something was wrong, he sent for a professional gardener to
make an examination.

"Mr. Hoops," he said, "cast your eye over those turnips and tell me
what you think is the matter with them."

"Turnip!" exclaimed Hoops. "Turnip! Why, bless your soul, man! that's
not turnip. That's nothin' but pokeberry. You've got enough pokeberry
in that bed to last a million years."

"Well, Mr. Hoops, come over here to this bed. Now, how does that
celery strike you? The munificent Federal government is spreading that
celery all over this land of the free. Great, isn't it?"

"Well, well!" said Hoops; "and they shoved that off on you for celery,
did they? Too bad! It's nothin' on earth but pokeberry. This is the
California kind--the deadliest pokeberry that was ever invented."

"Are you sure you're not mistaken, Mr. Hoops? But you haven't seen my
beets there in the adjoining bed. The seeds of those beets were sent
from Honolulu by our consul there. He reports that the variety attains
gigantic size."

"Really, now," said Hoops, "I don't want to hurt your feelings, but
to be fair and square with you, as between man and man, those are not
beets, you know. They are the Mexican pokeberry. I pledge you my word
it's the awfulest variety of that plant that grows. It'll stay in this
yer garden for ever. You'll never get rid of it."

"This seems a little hard, Mr. Hoops. But I'd like you to inspect my
cabbages. They're all right, I know. The commissioner of agriculture
got the