r selling both the horses at
auction, he broke the car into kindling-wood for the use of the poor.

And this mere boy, who could make himself equal to an emergency,--what
of him? I can fancy him a fond mothers pride, a venerable father's
hope,--ay, even a tender sister's favorite snub. When this record of
his glory reaches them, will they remember, in the midst of their proud
exultation, the poor scribe whose humble pen relates to them the
glories of their house? Will they drop one burning tear to the memory
of him who at this moment does not know what on earth to write about
next, and heartily wishes that he had been content to earn a
respectable living as a reputable wood-sawyer, instead of turning
writer? Will they sometimes give one idle thought to the unpretending
_literateur_ who has found the glorious reward of literary merit to be
an assumption by one-horse country newspapers of the right to talk
about him by his family name without troubling themselves to put in the
civilized courtesy of "Mr."? Will they mention in their less urgent
prayer, occasionally, the modest child of the quill, who would exceed
all the horrors of the Inquisition with the foes of his country, by
actually forcing them to write a column for a newspaper when they felt
mentally incapable of penning a single coherent paragraph? Will they?

Ah! this is no country to appreciate genius; as they wrote upon the
tomb of my early friend, the sweet-singing Arkansaw Nightingale, whose
last sad manuscript to me described

"A BIG DOG FIT.

"Lige Simmons is as cute a chap
As ever you did see,
And when the feller says a thing,
It's sure as it can be.

"He owns a dog--and sich a brute
For smellin' round a chap,
I never see in all my life,
You'd better bet your cap.

"Now Lige is proud of this here dog,
And says the critter'll whip
As many wild-cats in an hour
As go to load a ship.

"'But, law,' says Lige, 'that animile
Is awful in a row,
And other pups 'longside of him
An't no account, nohow.'

"In fact, one day, I saw the same
Contemporaneous pup
Pitch into a Newfounlander
And chaw him slightly up.

"He's such a plaguy little cuss,
You'd laugh to see him come;
But when there's chawin' up to do,
I tell you, boss, he's some!

"One day, a pedler came to town
With ginger-beer and things,
And patent clo