We seek to profit by one another's mistakes, and we do--that is, we profit by them to the extent of gloating over them. Then we go and make a few glaring mistakes on our own account, and when the word of it spreads through the neighborhood, seemingly on the wings of the wind, it is their turn to gloat. We have a regular Gloat Club with an open membership and no dues. If an amateur tiller of the soil and his wife drop in on us on a fine spring evening to announce that yesterday they had their first mess of green peas, whereas our pea vines are still in the blossoming state; or if in midsummer they come for the express purpose of informing us that they have been eating roasting ears for a week--they knowing full well that our early corn has suffered a backset--we compliment them with honeyed words, and outwardly our manner may bespeak a spirit of friendly congratulation, but in our souls all is bitterness. After they have left one catches oneself saying to one's helpmeet: “Well, the Joneses are nice people in a good many respects. Jones would loan you the last cent he had on earth if you were in trouble and needed it, and in most regards Mrs. Jones is about as fine a little woman as you'd meet in a day's ride. But dog-gone it, I wish they didn't brag so much!” Then one of us opportunely recalls that last year their potatoes developed a slow and mysterious wasting disease resembling malignant tetter, which carried off the entire crop in its infancy, whereas we harvested a cellarful of wonderful praties free from skin blemishes of whatever sort; and warmed by that delectable recollection we cheer up a bit. And if our strawberries turn out well or our apple trees bear heavily or our cow has twin calves, both of the gentler sex, we lose no time in going about the countryside to spread the tidings, leaving in our wake saddened firesides and hearts all abrim with the concentrated essence of envy.