Uncle Jack stops on his way, going up to get the oxen, and passes the night,—­says, “Other people can’t find enough to do; for his part, he should like to lie down in the hay-mow and rest,—­all worn out, used up.  Now Josiah, good, conversable man, knows about geography and the country round.  Well, when you’ve got that, got the best of him,—­likes variety too well,—­goes off, leaves the homestead like a dismantled ship.  Now, if a man only gets three good days down cellar, that’s something.  Don’t believe ’Siah ever does it.  So many notions in’s head bothers him.”  (Uncle Jack is quite right; ’tis not economical to have notions; besides, they are revolutionary, they subvert the order of things.) “Got a cunning little heifer used to have some manners.  Lost some of our lambs; read in a book, that, take what care you might, you would lose some lambs at times.”—­To-day he has gone driving the oxen round by Perkins’s.

“Had the rheumatism this winter,—­guess Jack Frost pinched him.”—­Ah! dear old man, an older than Jack Frost has got hold of your aged limbs!  Harder pinches old Time gives than any mortal man!

“Used to get a little bird, Harris and me, and roast it, and mother would give us a little apple-sauce in a clam-shell, and we would go off back the island and eat it.  Harris was sent to school up to Perkins’s; couldn’t stay; run away, and borrowed a boat, and came home again; afraid of his father, and hid in the barn.  Dug a well in the hay, and they used to lower him down things to eat, and water to drink in scooped-out water-melon rinds.”

* * * * *

THE SONG OF FATIMA.

  On, sad are they who know not love,
  But, far from passion’s tears and smiles,
  Drift down a moonless sea, and pass
  The silver coasts of fairy isles!

  And sadder they whose longing lips
  Kiss empty air, and never touch
  The dear warm mouth of those they love,
  Waiting, wasting, suffering much!

  But clear as amber, sweet as musk,
  Is life to those whose lives unite: 
  They walk in Allah’s smile by day,
  And nestle in his heart by night!

SOMETHING ABOUT HISTORY.

There is no kind of writing which is undertaken so much from will and so little from instinct as History.  It seems the great resource of baffled ambition, of leisure, of minds disciplined rather than inspired, of men with pecuniary means and without professional obligations.  Sympathy with or opposition to an author prompts those thus situated to write criticism; a dominant sentiment inspires poetical composition; and usually an impressive experience suggests adventure in the field of fiction:  but we find educated men, in independent circumstances, not remarkable for sensibility to Nature, acute critical perception, or dramatic talent, whose literary aspirations are vague, and who desire to be occupied eligibly, turn