resulted so happily in a slight illness that detained us in that lovely spot, and showed us, in the new colony lately settled on this and the adjacent lakes, how refinement and cultivation, lending elegance to rude toil and harsh privation, may realize even Utopian dreams. The great farm on Geneva Lake was the first old plantation which we had seen since leaving Kingsley's, and this lies on the outskirts of Ekoniah Scrub, which has long been settled by native Floridians or Georgians. "Hit ain't a farmin' kentry, above there on the sandhills," said our host of the thrifty old farm on Lake Geneva. "It's fine for oranges an' bananas, but the Scrub's better for plantin'. Talk about oranges! Look a' that tree afore you! A sour tree hit were--right smart big, too--but four year ago I sawed it off near the ground and stuck in five buds. That tree is done borne three craps a'ready--fifteen oranges the second year from the bud, a hundred and fifty the third, and last year we picked eight hundred off her. Seedlin's? Anybody mought hev fruit seven year from the seed, but they must take care o' the trees to do it. Look a' them trees by the fence: eight year old, them is. Some of 'em bore the sixth year: every one on 'em is sot full now--full enough for young trees. "Yes, that's right smart good orange-land up there in the sandhills. Forty year ago, when I kim yere, they was nothin' but wild critters in that lake kentry, as the Yankee folks calls it: all kind o' varmints they was--bears, tigers, panthers, cats and all kinds. Right smart huntin' they was, and 'tain't so bad now. They's rabbits and 'coons and 'possums, sure enough, and deer too; and--Cats? Why, cats is plenty, but they ain't no 'count. "I niver hunted much myself, but I've heerd an old man tell--Higgins by name. Ef you could find him and could get him _right_, he'd tell you right smart o' stories about varmints, and Injuns too. I've heerd him tell how he went out with some puppies one time to larn 'em to hunt bear. He heerd one o' the puppies a-screechin', and kase he didn't want to lose him he run up. The screechin' come from a sort o' scrub, and he got clost up afore he see it was a she-bear and two cubs. The bear had the puppy, but when she see Higgins she dropped hit and made for him. Now, you know, a bear ain't like no varmint nor cow-beast; hit don't go 'round under the trees, but jest makes a road for itself over the scrub. Higgins hadn't no time to take aim, and ef he'd 'a missed he was gone, sure 'nough; so he jest drawred his knife, and when she riz up to clutch him he stuck her plum in the heart. Killed her, dead.