'Got all ready. Purty soon up comes one crow, sails round and round, then two or three more, then a few more; they begun to smell meat. Then they flew lower and lower; bime by one settles onto an old dead cedar and begins cawin' for dear life. Then down he comes, then more and more of 'em. Round they come, cawin' and flappin' their wings, clouds of 'em. Guess there was 'bout two hundred settled onto that old kaow.' 'Wish I'd bin there with my gun!' spoke the Squire, intensely excited. 'A feller could have made the most biggest kind of a shot.' 'Wal, we waited, and waited, till the old kaow was black as pitch with 'em. Then Hornblower he nudges me. We got both barrils all ready--big loads in 'em. 'Fire!' says he. I braced my leg up agin my barril; he braced his leg up agin his barril--' 'W-w-what?' said the Squire. 'We give the most all-firedest shove--and over we went, barrels, stones, dirt, and gravil, head-fo'most, spang into them crows and dead kaow! I tell you, for about five minutes I calc'late I never seed sitch fuss, feathers, dirt, and gravil, and kaow-beef flyin' as I did then. Things was mixed up most promiscussedly, you can bet yer life on it! Bime by I sort o' come to, and when I raised up I found I was sittin' onto four dead, crushed crows, Brother Hornblower, and kaow-meat gin'rally. So I dug out and lifted up the game--Brother Hornblower first off. When he cum round a little, says he: "T-T-Tyler, I con-ceive somethin's give way 'bout these parts!' "You air about right in your suppostishuns,' says I; 'the gravil bank's busted, and it's a marcy we an't in kingdom kum!' "Don't talk that way,' says he; 'let's go up and fire a cupple barrels more into the blastid rebbils, fur vengenz.' "No yer don't, this mornin', as I knows on,' said I; 'I've got enough shootin craws your fashun. Next time I go shootin' crows 'long any boddy, I'm goin' to do it Christian-fashun, with gun-barrils, and not blastid old flour-barrils filled with gravil. That kind o' shootin' don't suit my style o' bones--'speehally head-fo'most inter a dead kaow!" 'On-ly four crows killt!' said the Squire, with a groan. 'To think what a feller might have done, if he had only have spread his-self judishuslously as he came tumblin' onto 'em spang! Wal!' (looking cheeringly to young Tyler,) 'you couldn't do more'n fire both barrils into 'em, ef they was flour-barrils, could you?' * * * * * THE LEGEND OF JESUS AND THE MOSS. In the desert of Engedi Lies a valley deep and lone; Softly there the mild air slumbered, Lovely there the sunlight shone. In the bosom of this valley, By the path that leads across, Lay a modest velvet carpet Of the finest, softest moss.