Most of them are dyke marshes have what they call ’honey pots’ in ’em; that is a deep hole all full of squash, where you can’t find no bottom.  Well, every now and then, when a feller goes to look for his horse, he sees his tail a stickin right out an eend, from one of these honey pots, and wavin like a head of broom corn; and sometimes you see two or three trapped there, e’en a most smothered, everlastin’ tired, half swimmin’ half wadin, like rats in a molasses cask.  When they find ’em in that are pickle, they go and get ropes, and tie ’em tight round their necks, and half hang ’em to make ’em float, and then haul ’em out.  Awful looking critters they be, you may depend, when they do come out; for all the world like half drowned kittens—­all slinkey—­slimey—­with their great long tails glued up like a swab of oakum dipped in tar.  If they don’t look foolish its a pity?  Well, they have to nurse these critters all winter, with hot mashes, warm covering, and what not, and when spring comes, they mostly die, and if they don’t they are never no good arter.  I wish with all my heart half the horses in the country were barrelled up in these here ‘honey pots,’ and then there’d be near about one half too many left for profit.  Jist look at one of these barn yards in the spring—­half a dozen half starved colts, with their hair lookin a thousand ways for Sunday, and their coats hangin in tatters, and half a dozen good for nothin old horses, a crowdin out the cows and sheep.

Can you wonder that people who keep such an unprofitable stock, come out of the small eend of the horn in the long run?

No.  X

The Road to a Woman’s Heart—­The Broken Heart.

As we approached the Inn at Amherst, the Clockmaker grew uneasy.  Its pretty well on in the evening, I guess, said he, and Marm Pugwash is as onsartain in her temper as a mornin in April; its all sunshine or all clouds with her, and if she’s in one of her tantrums, she’ll stretch out her neck and hiss, like a goose with a flock of goslins.  I wonder what on airth Pugwash was a thinkin on, when he signed articles of partnership with that are woman; she’s not a bad lookin piece of furniture neither, and its a proper pity sich a clever woman should carry such a stiff upper lip—­she reminds me of our old minister Joshua Hopewell’s apple trees.  The old minister had an orchard of most particular good fruit, for he was a great hand at buddin, graftin, and what not, and the orchard (it was on the south side of the house) stretched right up to the road.  Well, there were some trees hung over the fence, I never seed such bearers, the apples hung in ropes, for all the world like strings of onions, and the fruit was beautiful.  Nobody touched the minister’s apples, and when other folks lost theirn from the boys, hisn always hung there like bait to a hook, but there never was so much as a nibble at em.  So I said to him one day, Minister, said I, how on airth do