ound the plants, which the toad cannot jump over. This,
however, introduces a new element. I find that I have a zoological
garden on my hands. It is an unexpected result of my little enterprise,
which never aspired to the completeness of the Paris "Jardin des
Plantes."

FOURTH WEEK

Orthodoxy is at a low ebb. Only two clergymen accepted my offer to
come and help hoe my potatoes for the privilege of using my vegetable
total-depravity figure about the snake-grass, or quack-grass as some
call it; and those two did not bring hoes. There seems to be a lack of
disposition to hoe among our educated clergy. I am bound to say that
these two, however, sat and watched my vigorous combats with the weeds,
and talked most beautifully about the application of the snake-grass
figure. As, for instance, when a fault or sin showed on the surface of a
man, whether, if you dug down, you would find that it ran back and into
the original organic bunch of original sin within the man. The only
other clergyman who came was from out of town,--a half Universalist,
who said he wouldn't give twenty cents for my figure. He said that the
snake-grass was not in my garden originally, that it sneaked in under
the sod, and that it could be entirely rooted out with industry and
patience. I asked the Universalist-inclined man to take my hoe and try
it; but he said he had n't time, and went away.

But, jubilate, I have got my garden all hoed the first time! I feel as
if I had put down the rebellion. Only there are guerrillas left here and
there, about the borders and in corners, unsubdued,--Forrest docks,
and Quantrell grass, and Beauregard pig-weeds. This first hoeing is
a gigantic task: it is your first trial of strength with the
never-sleeping forces of Nature. Several times, in its progress, I was
tempted to do as Adam did, who abandoned his garden on account of the
weeds. (How much my mind seems to run upon Adam, as if there had been
only two really moral gardens,--Adam's and mine!) The only drawback to
my rejoicing over the finishing of the first hoeing is, that the garden
now wants hoeing the second time. I suppose, if my garden were planted
in a perfect circle, and I started round it with a hoe, I should never
see an opportunity to rest. The fact is, that gardening is the old fable
of perpetual labor; and I, for one, can never forgive Adam Sisyphus, or
whoever it was, who let in the roots of discord. I had pictured myself
sitting at eve, wit