I took my tramp this summer, of three months, among the hills and marshes where this bird—which is a bore in one way only—loves most to congregate, and saw our old friend, “the iron pump” of copper notoriety looking as dry as his purchasers and quite as rusty. I could not resist the impulse to take a crack at him, at forty yards, with my double-barrel, as at an imaginary copper-head. The excavations looked like the ready-made graves of speculators, who somehow or other had not come there to be buried. The very faces of the rocks had been twisted into grimaces, and seemed with their yellow eyes to be grinning at one; so shouldering my gun, and whistling to give strength to an imaginary band playing “Over the river to Charley,” I went down into the valley, and took vengeance for bills long dishonored, upon bills that I honor long. But, Jeremy, we cannot submit to the “vagabond propensity,” as the old farmers call it, of roaming with dog and gun over mountain and meadow, though the morning dew has made the air redolent of sweets, and from every bush and blade of grass nature has hung her pearls invitingly, and lit up, as with the blaze of a torch, the gum and maple trees; though the pure air and fresh water have given health to eye and cheek and vigor to the frame, we must away to the turbulent city, and within its pent up streets and among its crowded artisans and tradesmen wrestle for bread, and shutting out from the heart its glimpses of heaven and repose in the country, grapple with toil, work on, and hope on! Yet with a sure and an abiding trust and faith.