gress thence in the morning, I was
not happy. Inside that gate was a miniature farm redolent of homely,
primitive life, a tumble-down house and stables and implements of
agriculture and horticulture, broods of chickens, and growing pumpkins,
and a thousand antidotes to the weariness of an artificial life. Outside
of it were the marble and iron palaces, the paved and blistering
streets, and the high, vacant, mahogany desk of a government clerk. In
that ancient enclosure I took an earth bath twice a day. I planted
myself as deep in the soil as I could to restore the normal tone and
freshness of my system, impaired by the above mentioned government
mahogany. I have found there is nothing like the earth to draw the
various social distempers out of one. The blue devils take flight at
once if they see you mean to bury them and make compost of them.
Emerson intimates that the scholar had better not try to have two
gardens; but I could never spend an hour hoeing up dock and red-root and
twitch grass without in some way getting rid of many weeds and fungus,
unwholesome growths that a petty, in-doors life was for ever fostering
in my own moral and intellectual nature.

But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe came. She was the jewel
for which this homely setting waited. My agriculture had some object
then. The old gate never opened with such alacrity as when she paused
before it. How we waited for her coming! Should I send Drewer, the
colored patriarch, for her? No; the master of the house himself should
receive Juno at the capital.

"One cask for you," said the clerk, referring to the steamer bill of
lading.

"Then I hope it's a cask of milk," I said. "I expected a cow."

"One cask it says here."

"Well, let's see it; I'll warrant it has horns and is tied by a rope";
which proved to be the case, for there stood the only object that bore
my name, chewing its cud, on the forward deck. How she liked the voyage
I could not find out; but she seemed to relish so much the feeling of
solid ground beneath her feet once more that she led me a lively step
all the way home. She cut capers in front of the White House, and tried
twice to wind me up in the rope as we passed the Treasury. She kicked up
her heels on the broad avenue and became very coltish as she came under
the walls of the capitol. But that night the long-vacant stall in the
old stable was filled, and the next morning the coffee had met with a
change of heart. I h