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Our new horse waxes fat. He takes kindly to
his feed, and has already eaten himself into the
shape of a bell-pear. As he was suffering from
want of exercise, I loaned him, for a few days, to a
neighbor, who was moving his chattels into a new
house. He was quite serviceable for a time, and
really would have done very well, but for a sudden
return of his epilepsy as he was carrying a load of
crockery. I think our neighbor has acquitted me
of any malicious intention in letting him have
the animal, but his wife always meets me with a
smile as fine as a wire. In fact, she told Mrs. Sparrowgrass
it was of no cousequence, that it was all
right, and she never would have thought of it at all,

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if it had not been for an old family teapot that had
belonged to her grandmother, that could not be
replaced—“a thing, my dear, the family has
always set a great deal of store by.” Confound the
family teapot! If it were really so choice a piece
of porcelain, what did they put it in the wagon
for? Why didn't they carry it by hand? I suppose
we will have that broken teapot alluded to,
every now and then, at village tea-parties, for years
to come.

Our horse waxes fat. I had serious thoughts of
parting with him once, but the person who was
negotiating for him wanted me to take another
horse in exchange, and pay him a sum of money to
boot, which seemed to be, at least, as much as, if
not more than, both horses were worth. Upon consultation
with Mrs. S., I declined the trade.

Notwithstanding the continued warm weather,
the leaves already manifest the visible approaches
of autumn. Earliest of all, the velvet-podded
sumach hangs its fringe of fire, here and there, in
the heart of the deep old wood. Then the sugarmaples,
golden at the top, and the deeper green
leaves of the swamp-maple, are bound with a florid
border. The pointed foliage of the gum-tree comes

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out with a chromatic spread of tints, and, around
the trunks, and up in the heavy verdure of cedar
and oak, the five-fingered creeper winds its threads
of gleaming crimson. Countless little purple
flowers scatter between the trees, and margin the
roads; white asters, large and small, put forth their
tufts of stars; and above them the golden rod waves
in the wind its brilliant sceptre. Down by the
plashy spring, the wild-rose thickets are densely
spotted with round, red berries, beautiful to behold,
and, if you look in the grass, you will often find a
yellow jewel, a sort of wild lady's-slipper.

But, oh, the glory of those grand old Palisades!
Those blad, storm-splintered crags, that overlook
the river! Far as the vision stretches, reach their
grim, grey precipices, gorgeous, in autumnal tartan,
to the waist, but bare, disrobed, and regal to the
summit. Brave old thunder-mockers, they. I once
suggested, to some of my neighbors, the propriety
of having them white-washed, for appearance sake,
but I do most heartily repent me of the irreverent
jest. Truth to say, I had no intention in it, although
the project was taken seriously, and as seriously
objected to, partly on the ground that there were
other things about the village, to be done, of more

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pressing importance, and partly on account of the
expense.

There is another hint of the coming of autumn;
the evening music of the insect world hath ceased;
the iterated chirp of the cricket, the love-lorn cry
of Katy-did, and the long, swelling monotone of
the locust, have departed. But we have brought
forth the antique andirons, and the winter-wood lies
piled up in the shed, and, with the first crackle of
the hickory, we shall hear, at least, one summervoice,
on the earth. We shall miss our beetles,
though; we shall see no more of those window-visitors
who used to bump against the centre-lamp and
then go crawling, in a very improper way, over the
table, with a segment of white shirt sticking forth
from their nether garments behind. We shall miss
our beetles. The swamps and ponds, too, are
silent. The frogs no longer serenade us with their
one-pronged jews-harps, and, oh, saddest of all, the
birds! the summer birds! now pipe in other lands,
and under alien skies.

Take it all in all, our garden, this season, has

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redeemed itself. To be sure, our fruit-trees blossomed
away their energies, attempting to make too
much of a show in the spring. But we do not care
a great deal for pears, and as one cherry-tree put
out quite a respectable show of ox-hearts, we were
content. As for musk and water-melons, we had
much to brag of; and our potatoes have yielded
an abundant crop of all sizes. When we get in
our tomatoes, we shall feel pretty comfortable for
the winter; at present, they are green, but thrifty.

It is a good thing to have an agreeable surprise,
now and then, in the country. I have been tempted
lately, by the fine moonlight evenings, to take
short rides in the saddle by the haunted shores of
the Nepperhan. I love to note the striking contrasts
of massive foliage in deep shadow, silvery
water in breaks and bends, a pond here, a mill-dam
there, with its mimic cascade, and at times the red
glare of a belated cottage window. I enjoy these
rides, even at the risk of a tumble. And this custom
was the cause of a pleasant surprise. One
evening, I returned rather early from the river, on
account of the fog, and tied our new horse under
the shed, intending to ride him over to the stable
at the usual hour. But finding some visitors at

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home, the pleasure of conversation, in regard to the
fall crops, beguiled me, and I went to bed, leaving
the new horse tied under the shed. When I woke
up next morning he was gone. Some person had
stolen him in the night. I do not believe he got
very far with him before he found out it was easier
to get him away than to bring him back. At all
events, he was off, and I paid his bill at the stable,
to date, with great pleasure. At first I thought I
would tell my wife, and then I concluded to keep
the good news for a while, and break it to her gradually.
There is a great deal in keeping a good thing
to yourself for a while. You can turn it over and
over in your mind, and enjoy, in anticipation, the
effect it will produce when you come to relate it to
another. This was too good, though, to keep very
long. Here was a snub-nosed, blear-eyed, bandy,
legged horse-thief, with a pocketful of oats, and a
straw in his mouth, covertly sneaking off at midnight
with an animal he did not know anything
about—a horse that was an ostrich, in appetite only—
a horse that would keep him, by night and by
day, constantly busy, in doing nothing else but
stealing his feed. A horse that was a weaver!
And of all hard feeders, a weaver is the worst. A

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weaver, that would stand weaving his head from
side to side, like a shuttle, over the manger, eating
away with a sinister look in his one eye expressive
of—

It was too good to keep. Once or twice I came
very near letting it out; but by great presence of
mind I succeeded in keeping it in.

By and by it will be a great joke for somebody!

We have had a slight frost. The first tender
touch of winter's jewelled finger. A premonition,
no more. How kindly the old dame moves in the
country—how orderly. How cleverly she lays
everything to sleep, and then folds over all her
delicate drapery! It is a grand sight to see the
snow driving across the rocky face of the Palisades.
We shall welcome in the winter with pleasure.
Sleep, little flowers, for a time; the kind old nurse
will be beside your tiny cradles, and wrap you up
softly in light blankets! Sleep, little hard-shell
beetles, rest Katy-did, and you—nocturnal bugler,
mosquito, rest!

We have had again warmer weather and fogs.
We love to see a fog in the country. Look over

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the wide expanse of the river, smooth as looking-glass—
two miles across; see the morning sunlight
on the eternal precipices. Look at the variegated
foliage fused to lava under the thin screen of mist.
It seems as if nature had poured down in floods of
melted sulphur, vermilion, and orpiment. And
now the slight veil sweeps away, and the round
masses of vegetation jut forth in light and shadow.
Once more we recognize the bare strip that indicates
the course of the Rock Cataract! If you
watch the summit now, you will see something.
The blasters are at work with gunpowder. There!
Puff number one! Up rolls the blue smoke, and
hark at the echoes! You do not see the blown out
mass, as it falls sheer down the barren cliff; but
now watch the yellow cloud of dust that whirls
along, as the huge fragment bounds, hundreds of
feet below, over the steep sloping earth, until it buries
itself, amid the uproar, at the very brink of the
river. Follow its course to the city, and you will
behold it, and its brethren, rising in massive piles
of architecture; but look at the grand old rocks
again, and tell if there be a scar or spot left, to
indicate whence it fell. Strange that you cannot,
for it is a great quarry that—over there.

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Not a person knows anything concerning the
horse's hegira, yet. Old Dockweed, the inquisitive
old sand-piper, asked me, “how that horse was
getting along with his heaves?” I replied, he was
getting on pretty well. I mean to ask Mrs. S.,
some day, how much she thinks my stable bill has
been for the past week or two. How she will open
her eyes, when I tell her that expense is at an end.
And horse-shoes too; what a costly luxury a blacksmith
is, in the country.

I shall leave home to-morrow, for a short sojourn
in Broome county with a friend. When I return,
it will be time enough to tell Mrs. S. about our
good luck. How surprised she will be.

It is a good thing to travel in the country—to go
from one country place to another country place—
to meet old friends with fresh welcomes, old hearths,
and old wood, old side-boards, old wine, and, above
all—old stories. I love an old story. There is no
place where you will find so many old stories as in
the country. Our village is full of old stories.
They have a flavor of antiquity, too, that commends
them always to the connoisseur. The old stories of
Broome county have a rarer merit—some of them
are good. How pleasant it was to sit with my old

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friend by his hospitable hearth-stone, and enjoy the
warmth of his fire, his wine, and his welcome!
How pleasant it was to listen to his old stories, like
the chime of some old bell, or the echo of some old
song, bringing up again days, men, scenes, and
scores of happy memories! How we went into the
deep green cover to shoot woodcock; how I bagged
my first bird; how we stopped at the spring, and
could not find the flask, but we did not mean the
powder-flask; how we got Mr. Peapod to fire at the
mark, but forgot to put the shot in his gun; and all
about our old friends on the Susquehanna, the rides,
the drives, the junketings—up above, where the
broad river sweeps on behind the garden, or where
the brook ramps over the rocks, and rambles musically
down through the glen. Those, indeed, were
fine old stories.

I love, too, to sleep in an old-fashioned house—
to hear the dew drip from the eaves at night, and
the rustle of autumnal leaves around the porch—to
wake with the cheery crow of the rooster, and the
chirrup of the coffee-mill—to look forth from the
low-browed window upon the early morning, and
to see clouds, and hills, and ever so many rural

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pictures. It is a good thing to travel sometimes in the
country.

When I returned home, I determined to break
the whole matter to Mrs. Sparrowgrass about the
horse. There is such a thing as keeping a secret
too long from the partner of one's bosom. This
thought oppressed me. So, after I had deposited
my over-coat and carpet-bag in the hall, I could
scarcely keep the secret quiet until the proper
moment. The children never seemed to be so pertinaciously
curious as they did on the evening of
my return. I think we should never refuse answering
the questions children put to us, unless they ask
questions it would be improper to answer. To tell
the truth, I was not sorry when they were cased in
their Canton-flannel long-drawers, and ready for
bed. Then I had to tell Mrs. Sparrowgrass all about
the journey; but first she had to tell me all about
everything that had occurred during my absence.
Then I commenced: “My dear,” said I, “do you
know notwithstanding the extraordinary large crops
this fall, that feed still remains very high?” Mrs. S.
replied that she had neglected to speak of the horse;
but as I had reminded her of it—“My dear,” said

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I, interrupting her, “I know what you want to say.
You want me to part with him, even if I give him
away.” Mrs. Sparrowgrass replied that she did.
“What,” I continued, “do you suppose he has
cost me within the two past weeks?” Mrs. Sparrowgrass
answered that I would find he had cost
more than he was worth, twice over. “You think
so, do you?” said I. “Then, my dear, I want to
tell you something that will gratify and surprise
you.” Then I followed it up: “In the first place,
do you remember, about two weeks ago, that I
returned home from a moonlight ride beside the
romantic shores of the Nepperhan?” Mrs. Sparrowgrass
replied that she remembered it. “Well,
then, that night I tied our horse under the shed,
and I forgot him. The next morning he was missing.”
Mrs. Sparrowgrass requested me to go on.

There is a great deal, sometimes, in the manner
of saying those two words, “go on.” It sometimes
implies that you have arrived at the end of what
you have to say, and that the other party has
something yet to add. There was a pause.

“Go on,” said Mrs. Sparrograss, “tell your story,
and then let me tell mine!” “Wasn't he stolen?”
said I, beginning to fear that some news of an

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unpleasant nature was in store for me. “I do not
know whether he was stolen or whether he strayed
away; but at all events he has been found, my
dear,” replied Mrs. S. “Where did they find him,
Mrs. S.?” said I, feeling a little nervous. “In the
Pound!” replied Mrs. Sparrowgrass, with a quiet,
but impressive accent on the last word. “In the
pound!” I echoed, “then, Mrs. S., we will leave
him in the hands of the village authorities.” “Bless
me!” replied Mrs. S., “I had him taken out immediately,
so soon as I heard of it. Why you would
not have your horse kept in the pound, my dear,
for everybody to make remarks upon? He is in
the stable, my dear, and as fat as ever; the man
that keeps him said it would do you good to see
him eat the first day he got back. You will have
to pay a pretty nice bill, though. There are the
fees of the pound-master, and the damages to the
Rev. Mr. Buttonball, for breaking into his carrot
patch, where he was found, and then you will have
to get a new saddle and bridle, and”—

“Mrs. Sparrowgrass,” said I, interrupting the
catalogue of evils, by putting up my hand with the
palm turned toward her like a monitor, “Mrs. S.,
there are times when trifles occupy too conspicuous

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a position in the human mind. Few people lose
their night's rest from a superabundance of joy, but
many suffer from a species of moral nightmare.
Do not let this matter, then, give you any more
uneasiness.” Mrs. Sparrowgrass said it did not
give her any uneasiness at all. “If this wretched
animal is again upon our hands, we must make the
best of him. While I was away, I heard in the
country there was a prospect of oats not being able
to keep up this winter. Next year we can put him
out to pasture. I also learn that a new and fatal
disease has broken out among horses lately. We
must hope, then, for the best. Let us keep him
cheerfully, but do not let us be haunted with him.
He is, at least, a very nice looking animal, my dear.
Excuse me a moment—


`Let Fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,
Bright dreams of the past, which we cannot destroy.'
You had, at least, the pleasure of riding after him
once; and I had the pleasure of hearing that he
was stolen—once. Perhaps somebody may take a
fancy to him yet, Mrs. Sparrowgrass.”

p529-169

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