But when Halicarnassus entered the lists against me, he found an opponent worthy of his steel.  A few more such victories would be his ruin.  A grand scheme fired and filled my mind during the silent watches of the night, and sent me forth in the morning, jubilant with high resolve.  Alexander might weep that he had no more worlds to conquer; but I would create new.  Archimedes might desiderate a place to stand on before he could bring his lever into play; I would move the world, self-poised.  If Halicarnassus fancied that I was cut up, dispersed, and annihilated by one disaster, he should weep tears of blood to see me rise, Phoenix-like, from the ashes of my dead hopes, to a newer and more glorious life.  Here, having exhausted my classics, I took a long sweep down to modern times, and vowed in my heart never to give up the ship.

Halicarnassus saw that a fell purpose was working in my mind, but a certain high tragedy in my aspect warned him to silence; so he only dogged me around the corners of the house, eyed me askance from the wood-shed, and peeped through the crevices of the demented little barn.  But his vigilance bore no fruit.  I but walked moodily “with folded arms and fixed eyes,” or struck out new paths at random, so long as there were any vestiges of his creation extant.  His time and patience being at length exhausted, he went into the field to immolate himself with ever new devotion on the shrine of corn and potatoes.  Then my scheme came to a head at once.  In my walking, I had observed a box about three feet long, two broad, and one foot deep, which Halicarnassus, with his usual disregard of the proprieties of life, had used to block up a gate-way that was waiting for a gate.  It was just what I wanted.  I straightway knocked out the few nails that kept it in place, and, like another Samson, bore it away on my shoulders.  It was not an easy thing to manage, as any one may find by trying,—­nor would I advise young ladies, as a general thing, to adopt that form of exercise,—­but the end, not the means, was my object, and by skilful diplomacy I got it up the backstairs and through my window, out upon the roof of the porch directly below.  I then took the ash-pail and the fire-shovel and went into the field, carefully keeping the lee side of Halicarnassus.  “Good, rich loam” I had observed all the gardening books to recommend; but wherein the virtue or the richness of loam consisted I did not feel competent to decide, and I scorned to ask.  There seemed to be two kinds:  one black, damp, and dismal; the other fine, yellow, and good-natured.  A little reflection decided me to take the latter.  Gold constituted riches, and this was yellow like gold.  Moreover, it seemed to have more life in it.  Night and darkness belonged to the other, while the very heart of sunshine and summer seemed to be imprisoned in this golden dust.  So I plied my shovel and filled my pail again and again, bearing it aloft with joyful labor, eager to be through before Halicarnassus should reappear; but he got on the trail just as I was whisking up-stairs for the last time, and shouted, astonished,—­