My garden is most dear to me From carrot bed to apple tree, And so my patience sickens When I behold the chickens In it and scratching merrily. Dark gloom grows darker, thickens, In looking at those chickens. A certain scientific man Once called the hen "A feeble bird." It is, I'm sure, on no such plan My neighbor's hens are built; the word "Feeble" to them does not apply. I wish Professor would stand by And see those hens make mulching fly. Or let him watch them as they eat My cauliflower choice and sweet, Or gorge themselves on berries fine; The way they always do with mine. They run on their destructive feet From stalk to stalk, from vine to vine, Or scratch as if they dug a mine. And so, my neighbor, won't you please, My cares dispel, my troubles ease, By keeping all your hens at home? Soon, soon the very earth will freeze And then the fowls at large may roam. So I'll not need the pen of Dickens To tell my horror of your chickens! TO MY NEIGHBORS AT HILL CREST Shall I do dear Sam a wrong If I write no little song Telling how he pleases Grace, Brings the light to Tompie's face, Shares their play or runs a race, Merry all about the place? No: I'd do the duck no wrong If I failed to make the song. He'll not care for verse or rhyme. But this pleasant summer-time I have seen my little neighbors, Happy in their kindly labors Making Sam and others glad, So I say, "God bless the lad; Bless the lassie"; and I know That the love to Sam they show Makes their own hearts richer, truer; Makes the sky seem brighter, bluer; Makes them to us all a joy (I mean duck, and girl, and boy). So I'd surely do a wrong If I did not say in song To loved Tompie and Miss Grace (Merry all about the place) That their duck's important, quite, With his new-grown feathers white; But the more important thing Is their love; of this I sing! IN THE LIMESTONE VALLEY. PEN PICTURES OF EARLY DAYS IN WESTERN WISCONSIN. By S. W. BROWN. Copyright, 1900, La Crosse, Wisconsin. FROM CHAPTER II, pp. 37-38. Such was Neoshone, as the Indians who frequently camped there called it when the first white man stood on the bank of the river and watched the rushing waters flow swiftly by. They had borne the red man in his canoe, and around this very spot the Winnebago hunter had secured fine strings of ducks, and for generations had trapped for mink and gathered in abundance the fish that swarmed in every eddy and pool. The hill at the north was crowned with a beautiful grove of young oak trees, and, standing on its slope, the early pioneer beheld before his eyes a magnificent panorama. In the distance the everlasting hills seemed to stand guard round and about it as did the walls of the Jewish capitol encircle its sacred precincts.