When we had viewed the house with great particularity, and more especially its treasures in the way of ornamentation and bits of furniture, we passed on to the garden. Here there were many fruit-trees, all healthful of growth and beginning to show signs of maturity. About these, but irregularly and where the sun could reach them, currant and gooseberry bushes added to the beauty of the place, as well as contributed something to the comforts of the table. These things coming more particularly within the scope of Mrs. Blake’s life, she cultivated them with this double purpose, and so skillfully that they stood out in the autumn air as if in pride at the dual office they thus happily filled. In respect of such things I have always thought, as others perhaps have, that shrubs are to trees what children are to men. Pliant and beautiful, we can do with them as we will. If cared for, they respond with bursting foliage and brilliant hue, but if neglected or improperly placed, their gaunt stems and shriveled leaves cry out against the treatment we accord them. Going to the stable, we found it a small affair, like the house, but built wholly of logs and brush. Scattered about were other diminutive edifices and places of retreat and refreshment for animals, and of so great a number that they looked at a distance like a Hottentot village, such as we see in early books of travel. About these structures, and in the remote and secluded corners and places of vantage, chickens congregated, singly and in numbers, and amid such a carnival of cackling and desultory talk as I had never heard before. Running in from the yards and edges of the forest, they crowded about Mrs. Blake with such noisy exuberance of spirit that it was impossible to hear one’s voice, much less to think. In her, you could see, they recognized a benefactress and friend who knew and treasured them for all and more than they were worth. In return, it was as if they were every one filled with expectancy of labor, and the prospect it held out to their mistress of pin money such as no one had ever dreamed of before. Overjoyed, I lost no time in making up to these old friends, and in this sought out such offerings of food as I could find that came within the scope of their appetites. For they were dainty things, and accustomed to much refinement of fare, not regarding the coarser kinds of food with any relish whatsoever, so long as the grasses and forest yielded a profusion of delicate morsels in the way of succulent bugs and relishable insects that only needed a little running and craning of the neck to secure.