an, Harris, sittin'
on de bottom step ob de po'ch, he begin to kick up his heels an' make
all de noise he could wid he mouf. 'Wot's dat?' cried de cullud man,
Harris. 'I's a big grizzly bar,' said de mule, ''scaped from de 'nagerie
when 'twas fordin' Scott's Creek.' 'When did you git out?' said de
cullud man, Harris. 'I bus' from de cage at half pas' free o'clock dis
ebenin'.' 'An' is you reely a grizzly bar?' 'Dat's de truf,' said de
triflin' mule, 'an' I's pow'ful hungry, an' if you don' go git me a feed
o' corn I'll swaller you down whole.' An' he begun to roar as like a
grizzly bar as he knew how. 'Dat all de truf, you tellin' me?' de cullud
man, Harris, ask. 'Dat's all true as I's libin',' says de triflin' mule.
'All right, den,' says de cullud man, Harris, 'if you kin come from de
ford on Scott's Creek in a hour an' a half, you kin carry de mail jes'
as well as any udder mule, an' I's gwine ter buy a big cart whip, an'
make you do it. So take off dat bar skin, an' come 'long wid me.' So you
see Brudder Gran'son," continued 'Bijah, "dar's dif'rent kinds ob truf,
an' you's got ter be mighty 'ticklar wot kind you sticks ter."

"Git up," said Grandison to his drowsy horse, as he started him on
another furrow.

PLAIN FISHING.

"Well, sir," said old Peter, as he came out on the porch with his pipe,
"so you came here to go fishin'?"

Peter Gruse was the owner of the farm-house where I had arrived that
day, just before supper-time. He was a short, strong-built old man, with
a pair of pretty daughters, and little gold rings in his ears. Two
things distinguished him from the farmers in the country round about:
one was the rings in his ears, and the other was the large and
comfortable house in which he kept his pretty daughters. The other
farmers in that region had fine large barns for their cattle and horses,
but very poor houses for their daughters. Old Peter's ear-rings were
indirectly connected with his house. He had not always lived among those
mountains. He had been on the sea, where his ears were decorated, and he
had travelled a good deal on land, where he had ornamented his mind with
many ideas which were not in general use in the part of his State in
which he was born. His house stood a little back from the high road,
and if a traveller wished to be entertained, Peter was generally willing
to take him in, provided he had left his wife and family at home. The
old man himself had no objection to wives and