, as Brindle or Cherry. The
oxen, with their necks bent by the heavy yoke, had toiled in the
plough-field and in haying-time for many years, and knew their master's
stall as well as the master himself knew his own table. Even the young
steers and the little calves had something of domestic sacredness about
them; for children had watched their growth, and petted them, and played
with them. And here they all were, old and young, gathered from their
thousand homes to Brighton Fair; whence the great chance was that they
would go to the slaughter-house, and thence be transmitted, in sirloins,
joints, and such pieces, to the tables of the Boston folk.

William Allen had come to buy four little pigs to take the places of
four who have now grown large at our farm, and are to be fatted and
killed within a few weeks. There were several hundreds, in pens
appropriated to their use, grunting discordantly, and apparently in no
very good humor with their companions or the world at large. Most or
many of these pigs had been imported from the State of New York. The
drovers set out with a large number, and peddle them along the road till
they arrive at Brighton with the remainder. William selected four, and
bought them at five cents per pound. These poor little porkers were
forthwith seized by the tails, their legs tied, and then thrown into our
wagon, where they kept up a continual grunt and squeal till we got home.
Two of them were yellowish, or light gold-color, the other two were
black and white, speckled; and all four of very piggish aspect and
deportment. One of them snapped at William's finger most spitefully, and
bit it to the bone.

All the scene of the Fair was very characteristic and
peculiar,--cheerful and lively, too, in the bright, warm sun. I must see
it again; for it ought to be studied.

* * * * *

_September 28._--A picnic party in the woods, yesterday, in honor of
little Frank Dana's birthday, he being six years old. I strolled out,
after dinner, with Mr. Bradford, and in a lonesome glade we met the
apparition of an Indian chief, dressed in appropriate costume of
blanket, feathers, and paint, and armed with a musket. Almost at the
same time, a young gypsy fortune-teller came from among the trees, and
proposed to tell my fortune. While she was doing this, the goddess Diana
let fly an arrow, and hit me smartly in the hand. The fortune-teller and
goddess were in fine contrast, Diana bein