Another distress was the constant calls of natives with the most undesirable things for me to buy; two or three calls daily for a long time.  Boys with eager, ingenuous faces bringing carrier pigeons—­pretty creatures—­and I had been told there was money in pigeons.  I paid them extortionate prices on account of extreme ignorance; and the birds, of course, flew home as soon as released, to be bought again by some gullible amateur.  I had omitted to secure the names and addresses of these guileless lads.

A sandy-haired, lisping child with chronic catarrh offered me a lot of pet rats!

“I hear you like pets,” she said, “Well, I’ve got some tame rats, a father and mother and thirteen little ones, and a mother with four.  They’re orful cunning.  Hope you’ll take ’em.”

A big, red-faced, black-bearded, and determined man drove one day into the yard with an immense wagon, in which was standing a stupid, vicious old goat, and almost insisted on leaving it at a most ridiculously high price.

“Heard that the woman that had come to live here wanted most every animal that Noah got into the ark; was sure she’d like a goat.”  It was with considerable difficulty that he could be induced to take it away.

Dogs, dogs, dogs—­from mastiff to mongrel, from St. Bernard to toy poodle—­the yard really swarmed with them just before the first of May, when dog taxes must be paid!

A crow that could talk, but rather objectionably, was offered me.

A pert little boy, surrounded by his equally pert mates, said, after coming uninvited to look over my assortment:  “Got most everything, hain’t ye?  Got a monkey?”

Then his satellites all giggled.

“No, not yet.  Will not you come in?”

Second giggle, less hearty.

A superannuated clergyman walked three miles and a quarter in a heavy rain, minus umbrella, to bring me a large and common pitcher, badly cracked and of no original value; heard I was collecting old china.  Then, after making a long call, drew out a tiny package from his vest pocket and offered for sale two time-worn cheap rings taken from his mother’s dead hand.  They were mere ghosts of rings that had once meant so much of joy or sorrow, pathetic souvenirs, one would think, to a loving son.  He would also sell me his late father’s old sermons for a good sum!

This reminded me of Sydney Smith’s remark to an old lady who was sorely afflicted with insomnia:  “Have you ever tried one of my sermons?”

Perhaps I have said enough to prove that life in a bucolic solitude may be something more varied than is generally—­don’t let that old peddler come into the house, say we want nothing, and then tell the ladies I’ll be down directly—­and, O Ellen, call Tom!  Those ducks are devouring his new cabbage-plants and one of the calves has got over the stone wall and—­what?

“He’s gone to Dog Corner for the cow-doctor.”