A NUTTING ADVENTURE. A PARTY of adventurous lads, myself among the number, were out for a glorious holiday. Each had his canvas bag across his shoulder, and we stole along the stone wall yonder, and entered the woods beneath that group of chestnuts. Two of us acted as outposts on picket guard, and another, young Teddy Shoopegg by name, the best climber in the village, did the shaking. There were five busy pairs of hands beneath these trees, I can tell you; for each of us fully realized the necessity of making the most of his time, not knowing how soon the warning cry from our outposts might put us all to headlong flight, for the alarm, Turner's coming!" was enough to lift the hair of any boy in town. But luck seemed to favor us on that day. We "cleaned out" six big chestnut trees, and then turned our attention to the hickories. There was a splendid, tall shag-bark close by, with branches fairly loaded with the white nuts in their open shucks. They were all ready to drop, and when the shaking once commenced, the nuts came down like a shower of hail, bounding from the rocks, rattling among the dry leaves, and keeping up a clatter all around. We scrambled on all fours, and gathered them by quarts and quarts. There was no need of poking over the leaves for them, the ground was covered with their bleached shells, all in plain sight. While busily engaged, we noticed an ominous lull among the branches overhead. "'Sst! 'sst!" whispered Shoopegg up above; "I see old Turner on his white horse daown the road yonder." "Coming this way?" also in a whisper, from below. 66 I dunno yet, but I jest guess you'd better be gittin reddy to leg it, fer he's hitchin' his old nag 't the side o' the road. Yis, sir, I b'leeve he's a-comin'. Shoopegg, you'd better be gittin' aout 'o this," and he commenced to drop hap-hazard from his lofty perch. In a moment, however, he seemed to change his mind, and paused, once more upon the watch. "Say, fellers," he again broke in, as we were preparing for a retreat, "he's gone off to'rd the cedars; he ain't cummin' this way at all." So he again ascended into the tree-top, and finished his shaking in peace, and we our picking also. There was still another tree, with elegant large nuts, that we had all concluded to "finish up on." It would not do to leave it. They were the largest and thinnest-shelled nuts in town, and there were over a bushel in sight on the branch-tips. Shoopegg was up among them in two minutes, and they were showered down in torrents as before. And what splendid, perfect nuts they were! We bagged them with eager hands, picked the ground all clean, and, with jolly chuckles at our luck, were just about thinking of starting for home with our well-rounded sacks, when a change came o'er the spirit of our dreams. There was a suspicious noise in the shrubbery near by, and in a moment more we heard our doom. 66 Jest yeu look eeah, yeu boys,” ex claimed a high-pitched voice from the neighboring shrubbery, accompanied by the form of Deacon Turner, approaching at a brisk pace, hardly thirty feet away. Don't yeu think yeu've got jest abaout enuff 'o them nuts ?" Of course, a wild panic ensued, in which we made for the bags and dear life; but Turner was prepared and ready for the emergency, and raising a huge old shot-gun, he levelled it and yelled, "Don't any on ye stir ner move, or I'll blow the heads clean off'n the hull pile on ye. I'd shoot ye quicker'n lightnin'." And we believed him, for his aim was true, and his whole expression was not that of a man who was trifling. I never shall forget the uncomfortable sensation that I experienced as I looked into the muzzle of that double-barrelled shot-gun, and saw both hammers fully raised, too. And I can see now the squint and the glaring eye that glanced along those barrels There was a wonderful persuasive power lurking in those horizontal tubes; so I hastened to inform the Deacon that we were "not going to run." 66 Wa'al," he drawled, "it looked a leetle that way, I thort, a spell ago;" and he still kept us in the field of his weapon, till at length I exclaimed, in desperation, Point that gun in some other way, will you?" "Wa'al, no I'm not fer pintin' it enny whar else jest yit--not until you've sot them ar bags daown agin, jist whar ye got 'em, every one on ye." The bags were speedily replaced, and he slowly lowered his gun. "Wa'al, naow," he continued, as he came 66 66 up in our midst, "this is putty bizniss, | and soon left the town behind them. They ain't it? Bin havin' a putty likely sort 'o were good boys, faithful attendants upon the time, teu, I sh'd jedge from the looks 'o Sunday school; and they knew a lot of these 'ere bags. One-two-six on 'em; Bible history, and had considerable knowlan' I vaow they must be nigh on teu teu ledge of the angels and the cherubim and the an' a half bushel in every pleggy one on seraphim,-but concerning natural history, 'em. Wa'al, naow"-with his peculiar their ignorance was unusually profound and Crawl-"look eeah: you're a putty ondus- comprehensive. This may have had sometrious lot 'o thieves, I'm blest if ye ain't." thing to do with the fact that they tramped But the Deacon did all the talking, for his about the whole afternoon, up hill and down, manœuvres were such as to render us over fields and meadows, ditches and hedges, speechless. Putty likely place teu come without bagging a single piece of game. a nuttin', ain't it?" Pause. Putty nice On their weary homeward way in the twimess 'o shell-barks ye got thar, I tell ye. light, when they had given up all hope of Quite a sight 'o chestnuts in yourn, ain't bringing anything down, they suddenly esthey?" pied a large bird on a neighboring tree. All excitement, the blunderbuss was rested on a fence, and carefully aimed and fired. To their inexpressible joy, the bird fell. As they were so near the town as to be in doubt whether their firing was not a breach of the law, it was deemed prudent for one of them to stand sentry by the road-side, in order to give the note of warning if need be, while the other climbed the fence in search of the bird. The latter duty devolved on Tom, while Joe kept watch. Tom soon discov ered the game, which proved to be an owl. The boy had never seen such a bird before, and as he observed its large round head, and grave, uncanny face, and contrasted its expanse of wings with its marked brevity of tail, he thought of those peculiar, celestial creatures, all head and wings, of which he had seen pictures, and was filled with superstitious awe. With uprising hair and pallid face, he rushed back to his waiting friend and gasped out the startling intelligence, "Joe, we've shot a cherubim !" There was only one spoken side to this dialogue, but the pauses were eloquent on both sides, and we boys kept up a deal of tall thinking as we watched the Deacon alternate his glib remarks by the gradual removal of the bags to the foot of a neigh boring tree. This done, he seated himself upon a rock beside them. Thar," he exclaimed, removing his tall hat, and wiping his white-fringed forehead with a red bandana handkerchief. "I'm much obleeged. I've bin a-watchin' on ye gittin' these 'ere nuts the hull arternoon. I thort as haow yeu might like to know it." And then, as though a happy thought had struck him, what should he do but deliberately spit on his hands and grasp his gun, "Look eeah ". -a pause, in which he cocked both barrels "yeu boys waz paowerful anxyis teu git away from eeah a spell ago. Naow yeu kin git ez lively ez yeu please. I hain't got nothin' more fer ye teu deu today." And bang! went one of the gunbarrels directly over our heads. We got; and when once out of gunrange we paid the Deacon a wealth of those rare compliments for both eye and ear that always swell the boys' vocabulary. "All right," he yelled back in answer, as he transported the bags across the field. "Cum agin next year-cum agin. Alluz welcome alluz welcome!"-W. H. GIB SON. A RARE BIRD. Two boys, finding themselves in possession of a half-holiday, resolved to devote it to a gunning expedition, and so, borrowing a rusty old fowling-piece, they sallied forth STRIKES. STRIKE the lute, sir, if you like, Strike, by all means, the guitar, But, you'll pardon the reminder Strike. oh, strike the organ-grinder, "MIDDLERIB'S AUTOMATIC WEL COME." THE Burlington Hawkeye thus describes an improvement added to its editorial office furniture: and the nail-grab resumed its accustomed place, young Mr. Bostwick found himself so kind of out of the sanctum, like it might be, that he went slowly and dejectedly down the stairs, as it were, while amazement sat upon his brow, like. The next casual visitor was Mr. J. Alexis Flaxeter, the critic. He had a copy of the We believe it is fully equal, in all that Hawkeye in his hand, with all the typogra the term implies, to the famous Bogardess phical errors marked in red ink, and his Kicker, less liable to get out of order, and face was so wreathed in smiles that it was Iss easily detected by casual visitors. It impossible to tell where his mouth ended is known as "Middlerib's Automatic Wel- and his eyes began. He took the vacant come." The sanctum is on the same floor chair and spread the paper out before him, as the news room, being separated by a covering up the editor's manuscript. My partition, in which is cut a large window keen vision and delicate sense of accuracy," easily opened by an automatic arrangement. he said, "are the greatest crosses of my The editor's table is placed.in front of that life. Things that you never see are mounwindow and near the head of the stairs; tains in my sight. Now, here you see is a and on the side of the table next the window, directly opposite the editor, the visitor's chair is placed. It has an inviting look about it, and its entire appearance is guileless and commonplace. But the strip of floor on which that chair rests is a deception and a fraud. It is an endless chain, like the floor of a horse power, and is operated at will by the editor, who has merely to touch a spring in the floor to set it in motion. Its operation can best be understood by personal inspection. Yesterday morning about ten o'clock, Mr. Bostwick came in with a funny story to tell. He naturally flopped down into the chair that had the strongest appearance of belonging to some one else, and began in his usually happy vein: "I've got the richest thing-oh! ha, ha, ha!-the best thing-oh, by George! I can't-oh! ha, ha, ha! Oh! it's too good! Oh! by George, the richest thing! Oh! it's too loud! You must never tell where you got-oh, by George! I can't do it! it's too good! You know-oh, ha, ha, ha, oh, he, he, he! You know the-oh, by George, I ca-" Here the editor touched the spring, a nail-grab under the bottom of the chair reached swiftly up and caught Mr. Bostwick by the cushion of his pants, the window flew up and the noiseless belt of floor gliding on its course bore the astonished Mr. Bostwick through the window out into the news room, half way down to the cases, where he was received with great applause by the delighted compositors. The window had slapped down as soon as he passed through, and when the editorial foot was withdrawn from the spring and the chair stopped The spring clicked softly like an echo to the impatient movement of the editor's foot, the nail-grab took hold like a bull-dog helping a Burlington troubadour over the garden fence, the chair shot back through the window like a meteor, and the window came down with a slam, and all was silent again. Mr. Flaxeter sat very close to the frosted window, staring blankly at the clouded glass, seeing nothing that could offer any explanation of what he would have firmly believed was a landslide, had he not heard the editor, safe in his guarded den, softly whistling, "We shall meet but we shall miss him." Then there was a brief interval of quiet in the sanctum and a rustling of raiment was heard on the stairs. A lovely woman entered and stood unawed in the editorial presence. The E. P., on its part, was rather nervous and uncomfortable. The lovely woman seated herself in the fatal chair. She slapped her little gripsack on the table and opened her little subscription book. She said "I am soliciting cash contributions strictly, exclusively and peremptorily cash contributions-to pay off the church debt and to buy an organ for the Mission Church of the Forlorn Strangers, and I expect—' There are times when occasion demands great effort. The editor bowed his head, and after one brief spasm of remorse felt for the secret spring. The window went up like a charm. The reckless nail-grab hung back for a second, as if held by a feeling of innate delicacy, and then it shut its eyes and smothered its pity and reached up and took a deathlike hold on a roll of able and influential newspapers and An hour of serenity and tranquillity in the editorial room was broken by a brisk, business like step on the stairs, the door flew open with a bang that shot the key half way across the room, and a sociable-looking, familiar kind of a stranger jammed into the chair, slapped his hat over the ink stand, pushed a pile of proof, twenty pages of copy, a box of pens, the paste cup, and a pair of scissors off the table to make room for the old familiar flat sample case, and said in one brief breath: "I am agent for Gamberton's Popular Centennial World's History and American Citizen's Treasure Book of Valuable Information sold only by subscription and issued in monthly parts whole work complete in thirty parts each number embellished with one handsome steel plate engraving and numerous beautifully executed wood cuts no similar work has ever been published in this country and at the exceedingly low price at which it is offered only $2 per volThe spring clicked like a pistol shot, the window went up half way through the ceiling, the nailgrab took hold like a three-barrelled harpoon, and the column moved on its backward way through the window, down through the news room, past the foreman, standing grim and silent by the imposing stone, past the cases, vocal with the applause and encouraging and consolatory remarks of the compositors, on to the alley windows, over the sills, howling, yelling, shrieking, praying, the unhappy agent was hurled to the cruel pavement three stories below, where he lit on his head and plunged through into a cellar, where he tried to get a subscription out of a man who was shovelling coal. A RETIRING man says nobody ever paid him much attention until he broke out of jail, and then he was much sought after. THE FOX AND THE STORK.. A FOX one day invited a stork to dinner, but provided for the entertainment only the first course, soup. This being in a shallow dish, of course the fox lapped it up readily, but the stork, by means of his long bill, was unable to gain a mouthful. the fox, concealing a smile in his nap"You do not seem fond of soup," said kin. nesses. 'Now it is one of my greatest weak "You certainly seem to project yourself outside of a large quantity," said the stork, rising with some dignity, and examining his watch with considerable empressement; "but I have an appointment at 8 o'clock, which I had forgotten. I must ask to be excused. Au revoir. By the way, dine with me to morrow." The fox asented, arrived at the appointed time, but found as he fully expected, nothing on the table but a single long-necked bottle, containing olives, which the stork his long bill. was complacently extracting by the aid of "Why, you do not seem to eat anything," said the stork, with great naïveté, when he had finished the bottle. "No," said the fox, significantly, "I am waiting for the second course." "What is that?" asked the stork, blandly. "Stork stuffed with olives," shrieked the fox in a very pronounced manner, and instantly dispatched him. MORAL. True hospitality obliges the host to sacrifice himself for his guests.BRET HARTE'S Esop Improved. THE VISION OF JUDGMENT. BY QUEVEDO REDIVIVUS. SUGGESTED BY THE COMPOSITION SO ENTITLED BY THE AUTHOR OF "WAT TYLER." "A Daniel come to judgment! yea, a Daniel! I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word." [This witty and caustic poem is one of the most characteristic of BYRON's productions. Its origin is explained in the title and in the original Preface, which we here reproduce. Byron's contempt and resentment were both aroused by Southey's "Vision of Judgment," and he proceeded to empty the vials of his poetic wrath on the Laureate's devoted head, in this extraordinary stream of mingled ridicule and scorn, fun and satire.] PREFACE. It has been wisely said, that "one fool makes many; " and it hath been poetically observed, "That fools rush in where angels fear to tread."-Pope. If Mr. Southey had not rushed in where he had no business, and where he never was before, and never will be again, the following poem would not have been written. It is not impossible that it may be as good as his own, seeing that it cannot, by any species of stupidity, natural or acquired, be worse. The gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegado intolerance and impious cant, of the poem by the author of Wat Tyler, are something so stupendous as to form the sublime of himself-containing the quintessence of his own attributes. So much for his poem-a word on his preface. In this preface it has pleased the magnanimous Laureate to draw the picture of a supposed "Satanic School," the which he doth recommend to the notice of the Legislature; thereby adding to his other laurels the ambition of those of an informer. If there exists anywhere, except in his imagination, such a school, is he not sufficiently armed against it by his own intense vanity? The truth is, that there are certain writers whom Mr. S. imagines, like Scrub, to have "talked of him; for they laughed consum edly." I think I know enough of most of the writers to whom he is supposed to allude, to assert, that they, in their individual capacities, have done more good, in the charities of life, to their fellow-creatures in any one year, than Mr. Southey has done harm to himself by his absurdities in his whole life; and this is saying a great deal. But I have a few questions to ask. 1stly, Is Mr. Southey the author of Wat Tyler? 2dly, Was he not refused a remedy at law by the highest judge of his beloved England, because it was a blasphemous and seditious publication? 3dly, Was he not entitled by William Smith, in full Parliament, “ a rancorous renegado?" 4thly, Is he not Poet Laureate, with his own lines on Martin the regicide staring him in the face? And 5thly, putting the four preceding items together, with what conscience dare he call the attention of the laws to the publications of others, be they what they may? I say nothing of the cowardice of such a proceeding; its meanness speaks for itself; but I wish to touch upon the motive, which is neither more nor less than that Mr. S. has been laughed at a little in some recent publication, as he was of yore in the Anti-Jacobin by his present patrons. Hence all this "skimble-scamble stuff" about “Satanic," and so forth. However, it is worthy of him-" qualis ab incepto." If there is anything obnoxious to the political opinions of a portion of the public in the following poem, they may thank Mr. Southey. He might have written hexameters, as he has written everything else, for aught that the writer cared-had they been upon another subject. But to attempt to canonize a monarch who, whatever were his household virtues, was neither a successful nor a patriot king-inasmuch as several years of his reign passed in war with America and Ireland, to say nothing of the aggression upon France-like all other exaggeration, necessarily begets op position. In whatever manner he may be spoken of in this new Vision, his public career will not be more favorably transmitted by history. Of his private virtues (although a little expensive to the nation) there can be no doubt. With regard to the supernatural personages treated of, I can only say that I know as much about them, and (as an honest man) have a better right to talk of them, than Robert Southey. I have also treated them more tolerantly. The way in which that poor insane creature, the Laureate, deals about his judgments in the next world, is like his own judgment in this. If it was not com |