If a pump-handle were loose, or needed oiling, no one could put it to rights like Uncle Fabbins. If a wheelbarrow or rake were broken, they invariably borrowed of neighbor Fabbins. If a baby had the croup, the whole family came in a committee of the whole to wait on the Fabbins’s; Uncle Fabbins must prescribe the physic, and weigh it out, and Aunt Fabbins must leave her sewing, or her pickling, or her ironing, and run in to put the child into a warm bath. If a neighboring housewife wanted a quart of meal, or a loaf of bread, or a pound of butter, she would not scruple to send at all hours of the day, or night to draw upon Mrs. Fabbins’s exhaustless store-house. Everybody knew just where to go when any sudden want or emergency overtook them. I remember hearing of a man who sent out his servant to one of his neighbors’ houses, when a thunder storm was coming up, to give his master’s compliments, and “please wouldn’t he lend him his _lightning-rod_ for a little while.” I have never heard that my uncle’s neighbors ever went quite so far in their neighborly feelings as this, but I do remember hearing my aunt relate one circumstance nearly as amusing as this. A storm was coming up, and all the windows and doors were closed—not a sign of any living creature was seen abroad, save a few lazy cows, who began to think it best to retire to their apartments in their respective cow-yards. The sky was growing darker and darker; the wind swept by over trees and dusty roads in fearful gusts; a few large rain-drops were beginning to fall, and one or two vivid flashes of lightning had cleft the dark clouds, followed by tremendous claps of thunder; when a small boy was seen running violently toward my uncle’s house—a loud knocking was heard—the summons was answered—and the embassy was not exactly to borrow a lightning-rod, for there were none in those days, I believe, but, “mother says, please lend her”—“What, child, is anybody dying?” “No, marm, but mother says, please lend her—a _nutmeg_!” “_Parturiunt Montes!_” I said to myself, when I heard it, (it was in my college days, when I was fond of Latin quotations,) “_et nascitur ridiculus mus_.” This is not altogether a digression from my subject. I will come to the garret presently, after I have patiently conducted my readers up the preliminary steps. We must always begin at the bottom of the stairs before we can get to the top; that old garret may be called the flower, _run to seed_, of all this beautiful economy in the household affairs of the Fabbins’s.