of swart fairies, which, in the old time, were supposed to play their pranks in the forest at moonlight. Ned stood by, enjoying this scene like an amateur--encouraging the negroes in their gambols, and hallooing to the dogs, that by a kindred instinct entered tumultuously into the sport and kept up the confusion. It was difficult to decide the contest. So the money was thrown into the air, and as it fell to ground, there was another rush, in which the hero of the trowsers succeeded in getting the small coin from the ground in his teeth, somewhat to the prejudice of his finery. [Illustration: DRILLING THE NEGRO BOYS.] "Rip asserts a special pre-eminence over these young serfs, and has drilled them into a kind of local militia. He sometimes has them all marshalled in the yard, and entertains us with a review. They have an old watering-pot for a drum, and a dingy pocket handkerchief for a standard, under which they are arrayed in military order, and parade over the grounds with a riotous clamor." [Illustration: TREADING OUT WHEAT.] The farmers of Virginia are scarcely as far advanced in the application of science as the more active-minded Yankees, and among the ancient customs which still obtain among them is that of treading out grain with cattle. At Swallow Barn the operation is described: "Within the farm-yard a party of negroes were engaged in treading out grain. About a dozen horses were kept at full trot around a circle of some ten or fifteen paces diameter, which was strewed with wheat in the sheaf. These were managed by some five or six little blacks, who rode like monkey caricaturists of the games of the circus, and who mingled with the labors of the place that comic air of deviltry which communicated to the whole employment something of the complexion of a pastime." We hope this edition of _Swallow Barn_ will be so well received that the author will give us all his other works in the same attractive style. _Horse-shoe Robinson_, _Rob of the Bowl_, _Quodlibet_, and all the rest, except the _Life of Wirt_, are now out of print, and all have been greeted on their first appearance with an approval that should satisfy a more ambitious writer than Mr. Kennedy. [Illustration] GEORGE H. BOKER. [Illustration]