sperity, while he folded
his paper into a convenient shape. "I wish to read you what must have
made me have that instinct. It was this editorial. Listen, and see if it
was you that wrote it: 'Turnips should never be pulled; it injures them.
It is much better to send a boy up and let him shake the tree.' Now,
what do you think of that?--for I really suppose you wrote it?"

"Think of it? Why, I think it is good. I think it is sense. I have no
doubt that every year millions and millions of bushels of turnips are
spoiled in this township alone by being pulled in a half-ripe condition,
when, if they had sent a boy up to shake the tree--"

"Shake your grandmother! Turnips don't grow on trees!"

"Oh, they don't, don't they? Well, who said they did? The language was
intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows
anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine."

Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds,
and stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I
did not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door
after him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was
displeased about something. But, not knowing what the trouble was, I
could not be any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with lanky locks
hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from the
hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted
motionless with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening
attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No sound. Then he
turned the key in the door, and came elaborately tip-toeing toward me
till he was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped, and,
after scanning my face with intense interest for a while, drew a folded
copy of our paper from his bosom, and said:

"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I suffer."

I read as follows: and, as the sentences fell from my lips, I could see
the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go
out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the
merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape:

"The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It
should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In the
winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its
young.

"It is evident tha