as I have had experience. It may not, perhaps, suit the refined taste of simpering exquisites or languishing misses, as the lines never rhyme in 'love' and dove,' or 'sleeping' and 'weeping.'

At these 'hoe-digs'-to return to them-may be seen many who, though not having the profession, bear the titles of Colonel, Major, Doctor, Professor, Squire, etc., etc. I believe our 'scholard' has a military distinction, as well as classical. They are not Americans alone who resort to these entertainments. There is the Dutchman, all pipe, appetite, and stolidity; the Irishman, all dirt, fun, and flattery, with an exceeding penchant for whiskey, women, and picking quarrels with his 'cute Yankee brethren. How they manage to squeeze into one small room is a matter of surprise; but how they dance in it is a perfect mystery. But that they do is actually true.

Those superfine animals, yclept belles and beaux, have a place in western society as well as in other parts of the known world. And, indeed, where are they not? Pocahontas was an Indian belle, and Simboy was a beau; and there was poor Prince Le Boo, an exquisite of the first water! Western belles are distinguished in possessing an excessive degree of pertness, which passes for wit. The beaux resemble the genus elsewhere, in having a remarkably weak understanding. They have no vicious propensities, however: they take it out in voluminous shirtruffles, and ogling the pretty dears at church. They luxuriate in long, flowing locks, pink cheeks, and sparse moustaches. On Sundays and festivals, they assume blue dress-coats, and fawn or pale yellow pantaloons, and a continued succession of inane smiles. I cannot think of any more distinguishing traits of western beauism than these.

There was, some years ago, one of these rustic Brummels who was compelled, by circumstances, to lay aside his finery and hire out. He got a place under an old gentleman who, at the time Sam entered his service, was afflicted by a scorbutic affection on his hands. Sam, one evening, was eyeing them with great disgust, which the old gentleman remarking, he said:

'Samuel, I resemble Lazarus now. Do you remember him?'

'No, Sir,' answered Sam, gravely; 'he must uv left the country afore I come.'

Alas! the 'sweet simplicity' of western minds and manners will soon pass away, from the constant influx of emigrants. Even now they begin to despise log-houses, and have ambition to possess more than is sufficient for their mere animal wants of eating, drinking, and clothing. All trace of the early settlers will be swept away by the new-comers, as the face of the country is changing in their possession.

The West will be rich, but never as rich in beauty as in its pleasant time of shady woods, green prairies, and abundance of game.

Faugh! the spring breezes now are not laden with the scent of the wild grape and hawthorn blossoms alone. They are adulterated with smoke, steams from the slaughter-houses, and the thousand-and-one bad odors of incipient towns. We are not simple enough to call a few houses a village when we intend they shall compose a town.

My thoughts will recur to the times gone by, visions of the dear past, the merry time when the West was almost a wilderness, but a

blooming wilderness. While memory is fresh, and it is no effort to recall scenes of former years, I shall try to describe a wolf-hunt in the early days, that one memento, however trifling, may be preserved of for ever.

those merry

winters gone

It is a still, cold, yet sunny morning; the snow about two feet deep, with a crust hard enough to bear the dogs of every degree, not only hounds, but a couple of terriers, a bull-dog, an enormous, shaggy, blackand-white Newfoundland, and mongrels, which have a sufficient cross of hound-blood to keep them yelping on every trail, much to the annoyance of the hunters. These are all beating through the thick grove close on the river-bank, and skirting the broad, white, shining prairie.

The hunters form a curious group; mounted on every description of horse, large and small, scrub and thorough-bred, spavined and sound. The first hunter is a gigantic, broad-shouldered man, with ruddy face, keen blue eyes, and hair inclining to a reddish tinge. He is mounted on a bright bay horse with a coat of satin, a thin, arching neck, and nervous flanks. There is poor C-!-alas! he has gone to another hunting-ground now-cantering along on a vicious-looking, yet handsome, brown English pony. And I see thee, O A

a hectic youth fresh from the East, jolted up and down on the ridgy back of a tremendous, lumbering dray-horse; trying to seem at thine ease, as with bit between his teeth he plunges through the snow, utterly regardless of the treble voice calling, 'Way, way, Sam, way!' A right merry group of a dozen, or thereabouts, floundering through the snow.

Hark! the deep baying of the hounds comes nigher and nigher towards the end of the grove. A quick, sharp, crackling sound of frosty brush-wood, and out spring a couple of wolves, and scour along, as if their feet were winged, over the frozen plain, leaving the dogs an immense distance in the rear. As for the horsemen, 'few, few shall part where many meet.' Some of the horses have balked in the first snow-wreath. The pony has disappeared altogether in one; and poor A's Rosinante, vicious and frightened, has, after a short run in an opposite direction, relieved himself of his rider by pitching him over his head into a snow-bank. Some few have been more fortunate, and follow after the hounds, the tall hunter leading the way on his 'bit o' blood,' leaving the 'spilled and wounded' to return home from the disastrous spot of their 'meet.' And now lightly over the snow fly those mounted on animals of mettle; the first hunter still leading, his horse bearing him gallantly, in spite of the unusual weight, its neck stretched, and nostrils arched, and showing a stride that will soon distance the others, and gains fast upon the hounds. The most of the curs are worn out already and have given up the chase. The Newfoundland has long ago been exhausted, and the bull-dogs and terriers pant along far behind the first horse. Away, away over the billowy plains of snow; the hoarse baying of the dogs, as they gain upon the prey, breaking the frozen air, and exciting the wolves to more desperate efforts of escape in flight. There is only one horse in sight, and he is blown, and gallops with difficulty through the crusted snow, as it is now an hour or more since the hunt began. They reach the edge of one of those curious, deep basins so common on a western plain, and in its depths the strong weeds stand

The tired beasts

thick and sheltering above the surface of the snow. rush down and crouch among the high seeds at the bottom; the panting dogs follow, their black noses tracking the ground, and their red tongues hanging out from their distended jaws. The short, loud, angry bark excites the wearied horse to new efforts, and the hunter arrives at the brink of the basin in time to see the death-fight of the enemy. They fly around in circles, making a constant succession of snaps, as if their jaws were worked with a spring, taking a piece out every time their teeth close on the flesh of an unwary dog. But numbers overpower them; and a few minutes after the arrival of the hunter, bull-dogs, and terriers, they fall, fighting to the last, and are soon stretched on the ground, their clenched teeth bare and glistening, and streams of blood pouring from their torn bodies crimsoning the snow around them.

OUR EARLY YEARS.

BY A NEW CONTRIBUTOR.

I.

THOUGH far from the scenes of my childhood I wander-
The oak grove, with its stillness, its dreamy, soft light;
The oft-trodden banks of the stream that is yonder
Past gray granite rocks rushing, full proud of its might;
The wide-spreading pine, to the cool of whose shadow
I have fled from the heat of a midsummer's day;
The hill I've oft climbed, just as morn on the meadow
Hath peeped, to advance and smile darkness away:
Though far from the scenes of my childhood I roam,
My spirit oft fondly turns back to that home!

II.

Ah! youth drinks of pleasure that manhood tastes never,
Though fortune befriend until avarice be cloyed;
Though fame be acquired such as glitters for ever-
All the blessings humanity knows be enjoyed.
How lightly the heart of yon innocent dances!
Approacheth not sorrow, pain quick passeth by:

That this sin-darkened earth is nigh Heaven he fancies;
His dreams are of things which are hid from man's eye!
Oh! is it not true that to Infancy e'er

The purest of Heaven's pure spirits are near?

Yes! yes! and in childhood they still hover round us,
Their influence o'er us strive aye to retain ;

When the shaft of some spirit of evil doth wound us,
Steal into our bosoms and soften the pain.

Alas! that man's heart should e'er flintiness borrow,

And from out it these beings of goodness expel!

Alas! for man's sin and its consequent sorrow,

When he might in such freedom with happiness dwell!
The days of his youth let him ever keep near,
And vice's assailments he rarely may fear.

IV.

Whenever Remembrance presents to my vision

The scenes which in childhood delighted mine eye,

My bosom then glows with a pleasure elysian;

The beings that watched o'er my childhood are nigh!

Then, Memory! oft to my view be presented

The loved things of my youth-time, the grove and the stream,

The pine-tree, the hill-every spot I frequented

When yet earth seemed an Eden, and joy not a dream;

When I fancied that peace was mortality's lot,

And that guile in this beautiful world there was not!

THE CHICKEN CLUB.

STORIES AFTER DINNER.

ONE word will explain why the club was called the 'Chicken-Club:' The planters visited their crops twice a week on certain days, and not residing on their estates in the summer, they ordered a chicken to be killed and ready for them after looking over the crop; and as many of them planted near enough to meet at dinner, and often to look at each other's crops the same day, some one gave the familiar invitation: 'Well, gentlemen, you'll take your chicken with me to-day;' and this was done alternately through the season. The doctor of the several plantations thought it a very proper and agreeable time to make his report, and never failed to make one of the party. They were all (then as now) men of education, and many of travel;' and while agriculture was the leading subject, the conversation often became general, and all matters in dispute were decided by the host of the day, who was president for the occasion. And this was the simple constitution of 'the ChickenClub.'

Thus it was with their fathers and uncles, (blessed be their memories!) but with the present generation and proprietors, any one would smile, and a hungry man rejoice, to take chicken' with them. It is true, the chicken is there, perhaps half-a-dozen of them; but in the drains of our rice-fields, from June to frost, are found in great abundance the 'soft-shell,' which, under the skilful compounding and practised tasting of the doctor, makes a plate of soup that throws the chicken and all his feathered kindred into the shade of shades; that no man, Major-General or not, could be hasty in enjoying, but rather would rally, and charge again; that satisfies, but fills not, leaving your digestion quickened only for dishes yet uncovered, and gives them a subdued flavor and a relish, like lemon to a pudding. Now-a-days, also, a lamb is killed, and a quarter is retained for the club, while the other is sent home for the family, the fore being distributed to the sick and the old. Green peas, and corn, and vegetables of every description, abound in well-cultivated gardens in the ever-dry squares, and rock-fish and trout at the mouths of the river-trunks are caught without trouble by the winders; hams of their own curing, and juicy as a peach; and in the early harvest the bird of all birds, the rice-bird. This, I think all will admit, is an improvement upon the time-honored chicken. The wine which the old gentlemen boasted in their cellars, is now toasted at the table, though in the moderation of extreme propriety, it being their habitual observance, and prudent withal, having to return to their wives in the evening. A good cigar, and a story from the doctor, who is always ready, adjourns the club for the day.

NUMBER ONE.

'OUR conversation, gentlemen, a few moments since, on destiny, brought to mind an incident of my life in which my fate, as predicted by an old