snakes than there is in a robin or a squirrel; they are poor, peaceable, timid creatures, which could not do any harm if they would. So we tried to turn out of our path into a tangle of bushes; and there, instead of one, we found four snakes. We turned to the other side and there were two more. In short, everywhere we looked, the dry leaves were rustling and coiling with them; and we were in despair.

In vain we said that they were harmless as kittens, and tried to persuade ourselves that their bright eyes were pretty, and that their serpentine movements were in the exact line of beauty. We could not help remembering, however, their family name and connections; we thought of those disagreeable gentlemen, the anacondas, the rattlesnakes, and the copperheads. But our troubles in this direction were soon over. The snakes had crawled out of their holes to warm themselves in the bright spring sun, and after a few days they were rare visitors, though now and then one appeared.

Another of our wild woodland neighbors made us some trouble. It was no other than a woodchuck, whose hole we had often wondered at when we were scrambling through the underbrush after the spring ploughing. The hole was about the size of a peck measure, and had two openings about six feet apart. The occupant was a gentleman we never had the pleasure of seeing, but we soon learned of his existence from his ravages in our

garden. He had a taste, it appears, for the very things we wished to eat ourselves, and helped himself without asking.

We had a row of fine, crisp heads of lettuce, which were the pride of our gardening, and out of which he would from day to day select for his table just the plants which we had marked for ours. He also nibbled our young beans; and so at last we were reluctantly obliged to let John Gardiner set a trap for him.

Our house had a central court on the southern side, into which looked the library, dining room, and front hall, as well as several of the upper chambers. It was designed to be closed in with glass, to serve as a conservatory in winter; and meanwhile we had filled it with splendid plumy ferns, taken up out of the neighboring wood. In the centre was a fountain surrounded by stones, shells, mosses, and various water plants. We had bought three little goldfishes to swim in the basin; and the spray, as it rose in the air and rippled back into the water, was the pleasantest possible sound on a hot afternoon.

We used to lie on the sofa in the hall, and look into the court and fancy that we saw some scene of fairy-land, with water sprites coming up from the fountain. Suddenly a new-comer presented himself, no other than an immense frog, that had hopped up from the river, apparently with a view of making a permanent settlement in and about our fountain. He was to be seen, often for

hours, sitting reflectively on the edge of it, beneath the broad shadow of the calla leaves.

We gave him the name of Unke, and declared that he showed his good taste by coming to live in our conservatory. We even defended his personal appearance, praised the green coat which he wore on his back, his gray vest and solemn gold spectacles. "Who knows, after all," we said, "but that he is a beautiful young prince, enchanted by some cruel witch, and obliged to live in the water until the princess comes to drop a golden ball into the fountain, and so give him his freedom and an opportunity to marry her, after the manner of the German fairy tales?"

Of other woodland neighbors there were some which we saw occasionally. The shores of the river were lined, here and there, with the homes of the muskrats. There were also owls, whose nests were high up in some of the old chestnut trees. Often in the lonely hours of the night we could hear them gibbering, with a sort of wild, hollow laugh, among the distant trees.

One tenant of the woods made us some trouble in the autumn. It was a little flying-squirrel, who made excursions into our house in the night, coming down the chimney into the chambers, rustling about among the clothes, cracking nuts or nibbling at morsels of anything that suited his fancy. For a long time the inmates of the rooms were awakened in the night by mysterious noises, thumps and rappings, and so lighted candles, and searched in vain

to find whence they came; for the moment any movement was made, the rogue hurried up the chimney.

But one night the little fellow jumped in at the window of a room which had no fireplace; and the occupant shut the window, without suspecting that she had cut off the retreat of any of her woodland neighbors. The next morning she was startled by what she thought was a gray rat running past her bed. She rose to pursue him, when he ran up the wall, and clung against the plastering, showing himself very plainly to be a gray flying-squirrel. He was chased into the conservatory, where he flew out of an open window and made away for his native woods, thus putting an end to many fears as to the nature of the nocturnal rappings.

The autumn months are now coming on (for it is October while I write), the flowers are dying night by night as the frosts grow heavier, the squirrels are racing about, full of business, getting in their winter's supply of nuts; everything now is active and busy among our country neighbors. In a cottage about a quarter of a mile from us, a whole family of squirrels have made the discovery that a house is warmer in winter than the best hollow tree, and so have gone into a chink between the walls, where Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel can often be heard late at night chattering about the arrangement of their household goods for the coming season.

- HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.

ROBIN REDBREAST

Good-by, good-by to Summer!
For Summer's nearly done;
The garden smiling faintly,

Cool breezes in the sun;
Our thrushes now are silent,

Our swallows flown away,—

But Robin's here with coat of brown,
And ruddy breast-knot gay.
Robin, Robin Redbreast,

O Robin dear!

Robin sings so sweetly

In the falling of the year.

Bright yellow, red and orange,
The leaves come down in hosts;

The trees are Indian princes,

But soon they'll turn to ghosts;

The scanty pears and apples

Hang russet on the bough;

It's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late, 'Twill soon be winter now.

Robin, Robin Redbreast,

O Robin dear!

And what will this poor Robin do?

For pinching days are near.

-WILLIAM ALLINGHAM.