“Such a rotten old hen-house I never see.” “’Tain’t made as a platform fur to hold a woman of her size.” “She don’t weigh much.” “She do, too. Ye ain’t no judge of heft, Elam; ye don’t weigh enough yerself.” “What did yer lock up yer axe fur?” “Ef I’d a-knowed yer’d a-wanted it so bad, I’d a-perlitely left it out fur ye.” “Wal, I never heard of sech a thing as lockin’ up a house in the daytime, and yer axe, too--how could ye be such a fool? Say, Abiel, she looked funny though, didn’t she?” All’s well that ends well. Abiel, having sold the farm, was glad to sell the roofless hen-house for two dollars, and he eagerly gave me the drug-pots. The former antique was never claimed, and the blue-and-white jars proved for many months too painful and too hateful a reminder to have in sight. Now they stand on table and shelf--pretty posy-holders, but severe and unceasing monitors. Their clear blue letters--“Succ: E, Spin: C,” and “U: Althæ,” and “C: Rosar: R,” etc.--speak not to me of drugs and syrups, of lohocks and electuaries; they are abbreviations of various Biblical proverbs such as “Every fool will be meddling,” “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness,” “Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth,” “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall,” etc. And the little ill-drawn blue cherubs that further decorate the drug-pots seem always to wink and to smirk maliciously at me, and to hold their fat sides as though they were thinking of the first time they peeped at me and jeered at me out of the window of the gray old farm-house as I stood entrapped in my meddlesome folly in the sunlight under the beautiful locust-trees in old Narragansett. I cannot tell a romantic story of a further acquaintance with the good-looking young man; I never saw him again, and I am sure I never want to. Still, I know, ah, too well I know, that he often thinks of me. On that susceptible masculine heart I made an impression at first sight. When he welcomes visitors to his country-home I know he often speaks of his first glimpse of the house--and of me. ’Tis pleasant to feel my memory will ever bring to one face a cheerful smile, and furnish a never-failing “good story”--nay, to three, for I know that Elam Chadsey and Abiel Hartshorn both keep my memory green; that to them my mishap was “argument for a week, laughter for a month, and a good jest forever.” THE DANCING TURKEY In the States Papers office in London is a “propper ballad” entitled a “Sommons to New England,” which was written about 1680. It alluringly recites natural conditions in the colonies. One verse runs thus: “There flights of foules doe cloud the light, Of turkies three score pound in weight As bigg as ostridges.”