ber hitched his horse to
a tree in the front yard one morning, and, before the damage he had
done was discovered, the herbivorous beast had eaten up a white lilac
bush and a snowball bush, thus completing a destruction for which there
would seem to be no compensation. Upon another occasion a stray cow
invaded the premises and laid waste the tulip bed and chewed off the
tender buds on the choicest of the rose bushes.

But the most extensive and the most hideous depredations were committed
by human beings under pretext of necessity and of interest in my
behalf. I refer now to those remorseless men who came first and tore
up the beautiful lawn and cut away the roots of trees and digged a
deep, long pit in which to lay sewer pipes; who came again and
committed another similar atrocity under plea of laying a water-pipe;
who came still again and for the third time abused and seared and
seamed and blighted that lawn for the alleged purpose of laying a
gas-pipe! O civilization! what crimes are committed in thy name!

These experiences sobered and saddened me to a degree that was
strangely new to me. At times I felt embittered against all the world.
But as there is no cloud that has not its silver lining, so there were
pleasant little happenings which ever and anon seemed to relieve my
despondency. On one occasion Uncle Si said to me cheerily: "We 're
going to have good luck from this time on." "What do you mean?" I
asked. "Come along with me and see for yourself," said he.

Uncle Si led the way into the house and down into the basement. He
pointed to an old valise that, spread open, lay under the stairs amid
the debris which the masons had left.

"That 's what I mean," said Uncle Si, "and it brings good luck every
time!"

I saw that the old and abandoned valise contained a tabby cat at whose
generous dugs six wee kittens were tugging industriously. The widow
Schmittheimer had left her home and gone elsewhere, but faithful tabby
remained behind, true to that instinct which makes the feline
unalterably loyal to locality.

I never before liked cats; I have always positively disliked them
because they kill birds. Yet, do you know, I actually felt my heart go
out in tenderness to this particular mother tabby and her mewing kits.
It occurred to me, as she lay there, blinking and purring in apparent
amiability and in evident pride, that here at least was a cat that
would not kill birds; if so, I would adopt her, and a