Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, and stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door after him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was displeased about something.  But, not knowing what the trouble was, I could not be any help to him.

Pretty soon after this a long, cadaverous creature, with lanky locks hanging down to his shoulders, and a week’s stubble bristling from the hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted motionless with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening attitude.  No sound was heard.  Still he listened.  No sound.  Then he turned the key in the door, and came elaborately tip-toeing toward me till he was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped, and, after scanning my face with intense interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper from his bosom, and said: 

“There, you wrote that.  Read it to me—­quick!  Relieve me.  I suffer.”

I read as follows:  and, as the sentences fell from my lips, I could see the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape: 

“The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it.  It should not be imported earlier than June or later than September.  In the winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its young.

“It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain.  Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of August.

“Concerning the Pumpkin.—­This berry is a favourite with the natives of the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying.  The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of the squash.  But the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin as a shade tree is a failure.

“Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to spawn—­”

The excited listener sprang toward me to shake hands, and said: 

“There, there—­that will do.  I know I am all right now, because you have read it just as I did, word for word.  But, stranger, when I first read it this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before, notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might have heard two miles, and started out to kill somebody—­because, you know, I knew