With this he had his cargo discharged into the street, and ordering Bob to drive on, he mounted his mare, and set out for home with a heavier heart than he had ever known before. ’Twere useless to attempt a description of the scene which transpired on the farmer’s return home. The first words he uttered were, “Pete, durned ef I hain’t lost it too.” The misfortunes of his trip were soon all told, after which Peter and his father wisely resolved never to bet on anything again, especially “them blamed Yankee Thimbles.” It is not to be supposed that Mrs. Wilkins, Pete, or the gals, could help teasing the old man occasionally on the result of his trip. Whenever he became refractory, his wife would stick her thimble on the end on her finger, and hold it up for him to look at—it acted like a charm. His misadventure, too, raised higher than ever his opinion of the cunning and sagacity of “_them Augusty fellers!_” A few years succeeding the events which we have attempted to narrate, and Farmer Wilkins was gathered to his fathers; but his trip to Augusta is still preserved as a warning to all honest and simple-hearted people. The last words of the old man to his son were: “Peter, Peter, my son, always be honest, never forgit your ole daddy, and _allers bewar_ of them Gimblit fellers, _down to Augusty_.” Reader! every tale has its moral, nor is ours without one. Not only did Peter learn from his adventure in Augusta, the evils of betting, but ever since the time to which we have alluded, he always allows his factor to sell his cotton for him. Whatever you may think of it, both Peter and his father came to the conclusion that there was “no use in tryin’ to git the upper hand of one o’ them _Gimblet fellers down to Augusty_.” II. MIKE HOOTER’S BAR STORY. A YAZOO SKETCH. SHOWING HOW THE BEAR OUTWITTED IKE HAMBERLIN. BY A MISSOURIAN. “It’s no use talkin’,” said Mike, “’bout your Polar Bar, and your Grisly Bar, and all that sort er varmont what you read about. They ain’t no whar, for the big black customer that circumlocutes down in our neck o’ woods beats ’em all hollow. I’ve heard of some monsus explites kicked up by the brown bars, sich as totein off a yoke o’ oxen, and eatin’ humans raw, and all that kind o’ thing; and Capten Parry tells us a yarn ’bout a big white bar, what ’muses hisself climin’ up the North Pole and slides down to keep his hide warm; but all that ain’t a circumstance to what I’ve saw. “You see,” continued Mike, “there’s no countin’ on them varmonts as I’s been usened to, for they comes as near bein’ human critters as anything I ever see what doesn’t talk. Why, if you was to hear anybody else tell ’bout the bar-fights I’ve had, you wouldn’t b’leeve ’em, and if I wasn’t a preacher, and could not lie none, I’d keep my fly-trap shot ’till the day of judgment.