s; and the wife, being really a notable and prudent
woman, resolved to make up for her lost butter and vegetables, by
doing without help through the winter. When summer came, they should
have boarders, she said; and sure enough, they had boarders in plenty;
but not profitable ones. There were forty cousins, at whose houses
they had stopped; and twenty people who had been very polite to them
on the way; and it being such a pleasant season, and _travelling so
cheap_, everyone of these people felt they had _a right_ to take
a journey; and they could not help passing a day or two with their
friends at the farm. One after another came, till the farmer could
bear it no longer. 'I tell you what, wife,' said he, 'I am going to
jail as fast as a man can go. If there is no other way of putting
a stop to this, I'll sell every bed in the house, except the one we
sleep on.'

And sure enough, he actually did this; and when the forty-first cousin
came down on a friendly visit, on account of what her other cousins
had told her about the cheapness of travelling, she was told
they should be very happy to sleep on the floor, for the sake of
accommodating her, for a night or two; but the truth was, they had but
one bed in the house. This honest couple are now busy in paying off
their debts, and laying by something for their old age. He facetiously
tells how he went to New York to have his watch stolen, and his boots
blacked like a looking glass; and she shows her Lake George diamond
ring, and tells how the steamboat was crowded, and how afraid she was
the boiler would burst, and always ends by saying, 'After all, it was
a toil of pleasure.'

However, it is not our farmers, who are in the greatest danger of this
species of extravagance; for we look to that class of people, as the
strongest hold of republican simplicity, industry, and virtue. It is
from adventurers, swindlers, broken down traders,--all that rapidly
increasing class of idlers, too genteel to work, and too proud to
beg,--that we have most reason to dread examples of extravagance. A
very respectable tavern-keeper has lately been driven to establish a
rule, that no customer shall be allowed to rise from the table till
he pays for his meal. 'I know it is rude to give such orders to honest
men,' said he, 'and three years ago I would as soon cut off my hand
as have done it; but now, travelling is so cheap, that all sorts of
characters are on the move; and I find more than half of