A _dog_ is a good thing to have in the country. I have one which I raised from a pup. He is a good, stout fellow, and a hearty barker and feeder. The man of whom I bought him said he was thoroughbred, but he begins to have a mongrel look about him. He is a good watch-dog, though; for the moment he sees any suspicious-looking person about the premises he comes right into the kitchen and gets behind the stove. First, we kept him in the house, and he scratched all night to get out. Then we turned him out, and he scratched all night to get in. Then we tied him up at the back of the garden, and he howled so that our neighbour shot at him twice before daybreak. Finally we gave him away, and he came back; and now he is just recovering from a fit, in which he has torn up the patch that has been sown for our spring radishes. A good, strong gate is a necessary article for your garden. A good, strong, heavy gate, with a dislocated hinge, so that it will neither open nor shut. Such a one have I. The grounds before my fence are in common, and all the neighbors' cows pasture there. I remarked to Mrs. S., as we stood at the window in a June sunset, how placid and picturesque the cattle looked, as they strolled about, cropping the green herbage. Next morning I found the innocent creatures in my garden. They had not left a green thing in it. The corn in the milk, the beans on the poles, the young cabbages, the tender lettuce, even the thriving shoots on my young fruit trees had vanished. And there they were, looking quietly on the ruin they had made. Our watch-dog, too, was foregathering with them. It was too much; so I got a large stick and drove them all out, except a young heifer, whom I chased all over the flower-beds, breaking down my trellises, my woodbines and sweet-briers, my roses and petunias, until I cornered her in the hotbed. I had to call for assistance to extricate her from the sashes, and her owner has sued me for damages. I believe I shall move in town. * * * * * Mrs. Sparrowgrass and I have concluded to try it once more; we are going to give the country another chance. After all, birds in the spring are lovely. First come little snowbirds, _avant-couriers_ of the feathered army; then bluebirds in national uniforms, just graduated, perhaps, from the ornithological corps of cadets with high honors in the topographical class; then follows a detachment of flying artillery--swallows; sand-martens, sappers and miners, begin their mines and countermines under the sandy parapets; then cedar birds, in trim jackets faced with yellow--aha, dragoons! And then the great rank and file of infantry, robins, wrens, sparrows, chipping-birds; and lastly--the band! From nature's old cathedral sweetly ring The wild bird choirs--burst of the woodland band, --who mid the blossoms sing; Their leafy temple, gloomy, tall and grand, Pillared with oaks, and roofed with Heaven's own hand.