the very kind of things
we wanted to eat ourselves, and helped himself without asking. We had a
row of fine, crisp heads of lettuce, which were the pride of our
gardening, and out of which he would from day to day select for his
table just the plants we had marked for ours. He also nibbled our young
beans; and so at last we were reluctantly obliged to let John Gardiner
set a trap for him. Poor old simple-minded hermit, he was too artless
for this world! He was caught at the very first snap, and found dead in
the trap,--the agitation and distress having broken his poor woodland
heart, and killed him. We were grieved to the very soul when the poor
fat old fellow was dragged out, with his useless paws standing up stiff
and imploring. He was industrious in his way, and would have made a
capital soldier under McClellan. A regiment like him would have made
nothing of trench-digging, could they have been properly drilled. As it
was, he was given to Denis, our pig, which, without a single scruple of
delicacy, ate him up as thoroughly as he ate up the lettuce.

This business of eating, it appears, must go on all through creation. We
eat ducks, turkeys, and chickens, though we don't swallow them whole,
feathers and all. Our four-footed friends, less civilized, take things
with more directness and simplicity, and chew each other up without
ceremony, or swallow each other alive. Of these unceremonious habits we
had other instances.

[Illustration]

Our house had a central court on the southern side, into which looked
the library, dining-room, and front hall, as well as several of the
upper chambers. It was designed to be closed in with glass, to serve as
a conservatory in winter; and meanwhile we had filled it with splendid
plumy ferns, taken up out of the neighboring wood. In the centre was a
fountain surrounded by stones, shells, mosses, and various water-plants.
We had bought three little goldfish to swim in our basin; and the spray
of it, as it rose in the air and rippled back into the water, was the
pleasantest possible sound of a hot day. We used to lie on the sofa in
the hall, and look into the court, and fancy we saw some scene of
fairy-land, and water-sprites coming up from the fountain. Suddenly a
new-comer presented himself,--no other than an immense bullfrog, that
had hopped up from the neighboring river, apparently with a view to
making a permanent settlement in and about our fountain. He was to be
seen, often for