"Howsomever, I can't stand here all night, so here goes for a bowld push, somewhere or another." With that, my bold Ned struck at random through the fields in one direction, hoping to find some well-known landmark which might satisfy him as to his whereabout, but all in vain, the whole face of the country was changed; where he expected to meet with trees, he encountered a barren waste; in the situation where he expected to find some princely habitation, he met with nothing but rocks he never was so puzzled in his life. In the midst of his perplexity, he sat down upon a mound of earth, and scratching his head, began seriously to ponder upon his situation. "I'll take my Bible oath I was on my track before I met with that devil of a Leprechaun," said he, and then the thought took possession of him, that the deceitful fairy had bewitched the road, so that he might wander away, and perhaps lose himself amongst the wild and terrible bogs. He was just giving way to an extremity of terror, when, upon raising his eyes, what was his astonishment to find that the locality which, before he sat down, he could have sworn was nothing but a strange and inhospitable waste, was blooming like a garden; and what's more, he discovered, upon rubbing his eyes, to make sure that he was not deceived, it was his own garden, his back rested against the wall of his own house; nay, the very seat beneath him, instead of an earthy knoll, was the good, substantial form that graced his little door-porch. "Well," cries Ned, very much relieved at finding himself so suddenly at home, "if that don't beat the bees, I'm a heathen; may I never leave this spot alive if I know how I got here no more nor the man in the moon: here goes for an air o' the fire, any way, I'm starved intensely wid the cowld." Upon that he started to go in, when he found that he had made another mistake; it wasn't the house he was close to, but the mill. "Why, what a murtherin' fool I am this night; sure it's the mill that I'm forninst, and not the house," said he, never mind, it's lucky I am, to be so near home, any way; there it is, just across the paddock;" so saying, he proceeded towards the little stile which separated the small field from the road, inly wondering as he went along, whether it was the Leprechaun or the whisky that had so confused his proceedings. "It's mighty imprudent that I've been in my drinkin'," thought he, "for if I had drunk a trifle less, the country wouldn't be playin' such ingenious capers wid my eyesight, and if I had drunk a trifle more, I might a hunted up a soft stone by way of a pillow, and made my bed in the road." Arrived at the stile, a regular phenomenon occurred, which bothered him more and more-he couldn't get across it, notwithstanding the most strenuous exertion; when he went to step over, the rail sprang up to his head, and when taking advantage of the opening he had to duck under he found it close to the ground. The moon now popped behind a dense, black cloud, and sudden darkness fell upon the place, while at the same moment, the slow, rusty old village clock gave two or three premonitory croaks, and then banged out the hour of midnight. Twelve o'clock at night is, to the superstitious, the most terror-fraught moment the fearful earth can shudder at, and Ned was strongly imbued with the dread of ghostly things; at every bang of the deeptoned old chronicler, he quivered to the very marrow of his bones; his teeth chattered, and his flesh rose up into little hillocks. There he was, bound by some infernal power. The contrary stile baffled all his efforts to pass it: the last reverberation of the cracked bell ceased with a fearful jar, like the passing of a sinner's soul in agony, and to it succeeded a silence yet more terrible. 66 May-be it's dyin' that I am," thought Ned; and all that was lovely and clinging in God's beautiful world, rushed across his mind at the instant. "If it is to be my fate to leave it all, so full of life and hope, and yet so unmindful of the great blessings I have unthankfully enjoyed, heaven pity me, indeed, for I'm not fit to go." At this moment his ear caught a most familiar sound, that of the mill-hopper, so seldom heard lately, rising and falling in regular succession. Surprised still more than ever, he turned round and beheld the old mill, brilliantly lighted up; streams of brightness poured from every window, door, and cranny, while the atmosphere resounded with the peculiar busy hum which proceeds from an industriously employed multitude. Fear gave place to curiosity, and Ned stealthily crept towards the mill opening, and looked in; the interior was all a-blaze with an infinity of lights, while myriads of diminutive figures were employed in the various occupations incidental to the business. Ned looked on with wonder and admiration to see the celerity and precision with which every thing was done; great as was the multitude employed, all was order and regularity; here thousands of little atomies pushed along sack after sack of corn-there, numberless creatures ground and deposited the flour in marked bags, while Ned recognized his old friend, the Leprechaun, poring over a large account-book, every now and then reckoning up a vast amount of bank bills and dazzling gold pieces. Ned's mouth fairly watered as he saw the shining metal, and he heard the crisp creasing of the new bank notes which took the little accountant ever so long to smooth out, for each one would have made a blanket for him; as soon as the Leprechaun had settled his book affairs to his satisfaction, he after the greatest amount of exertion, assisted by a few hundred of his tiny associates, deposited the money in a tin case, whereupon Ned distinctly read his name. While he was hesitating what course to adopt, whether to try and capture the Leprechaun again, or wait to see what would eventuate, he felt himself pinched on the ear, and on turning round, he perceived one of the fairy millers standing on his shoulders, grinning impudently in his face. "How do you do, sir?" says Ned, very respectfully, for he knew the power of the little rascals too well to offend them. "The same to you, Ned Geraghty, the sporting miller," says the fairy. "Haven't we done your work well?" Indeed, an' it's that you have, sir," replied Ned, "much obleeged to you, I am, all round." "Won't you go in and take your money?" says the fairy. "Would it be entirely convenient?" said Ned, quietly, although his heart leaped like a salmon. " It's yours, every rap, so in an' lay a howld ov it," said the other, stretching up at his ear. "They wouldn't be agin' me havin' it, inside, would they?" inquired Ned. "The money that you have earned yourself, we can't keep from you," said the fairy. "That's true enough, and sure if I didn't exactly earn it myself, it was earned in my mill, and that's all the same;' and so, quieting his scruples by that consoling thought, Ned put on a bold front, and walked in to take possession of the tin case, in which he had seen such an amount of treasure deposited. There was not a sound as he entered-not a movement as he walked over to the case; but as he stooped down and found that he could no more lift that box from the ground than he could have torn a tough old oak up by the roots, there arose such a wild, musical, but derisive laugh from the millions of fairy throats, that Ned sank down upon the coveted treasure, perplexed and abashed ; for one instant he held down his head with shame, but summoning up courage he determined to know the worst, when, as he raised his eyes, an appalling scene had taken place. The fairies had vanished, and instead of the joyous multitude flitting like motes in a sunbeam, he beheld one gigantic head which filled the entire space; where the windows had been, a pair of huge eyes winked and glowered upon him; the great beam became a vast nose, the joists twisted themselves into horrible matted hair, while the two hoppers formed the enormous lips of a cavernous mouth. As he looked spell-bound upon those terrible features, the tremendous lips opened, and a voice like the roar of a cataract when you stop your ears and open them suddenly, burst from the aperture. The sound was deafening, yet Ned distinguished every syllable. "Ain't you afraid to venture here?” bellowed the voice. "For what, your honor?" stammered out Ned, more dead than alive. "For weeks and weeks not a morsel has entered these stony jaws, and whose fault is it? yours!" thundered the awful shape; "you have neglected us, let us starve and rot piecemeal; but we shall not suffer alone-you, you! must share in our ruin." At these words, a pair of long, joist- | carols of the birds are reproduced, the like arms thrust themselves forth, and finale being a thunder shower which disgetting behind Ned, swept him into the turbs the sylvan revelers. It happens that space between the enormous hoppersthe ponderous jaws opened wide-in another instant he would have been crushed to atoms. But the instinct of self-preservation caused him to spring forward, he knew not where; by a fortunate chance he just happened to leap through the door, alighting with great force on his head; for a long time, how long he could not tell, he lay stunned by the fall; and, indeed, while he was in a state of insensibility, one of his neighbors carried him home, for he remembered no more until he found himself in bed, with a bad bruise outside of his head, and worse ache within. As soon as he could collect his senses, the scenes of the past night arose vividly to his mind. "It is the Leprechaun's warning," said he, "and it's true he said it was better far than gold, for now I see the error of my ways, and more betoken, it's mend that I will, and a blessin' upon my endayvors." It is but fair to Ned to say that he became a different man; gave up all his fine companions and evil courses, and stuck diligently to his mill, so that in process of time he lived to see well-filled the very tin case that the Leprechaun showed him in the warning. JOHN BROUGHAM. A ROUGH TRANSLATION. [ALEXANDER E. SWEET and J. ARMORY KNOX, in their newspaper, "Texas Siftings," originate many of the best humorous sketches which go the rounds of the newspapers. Sweet first won attention by a column which he edited in the Galveston News under the name which was subsequently given to their newspaper after he entered into partnership with Knox.] a country cousin is in town just now, and the young lady thought she would play the piece to him and hear his comment. He is a plain, simple-minded youth, and although not very bright, is very appreciative. She told him what the piece was and then proceeded to give him the "Picnic Polka." The first notes are rather slow and hesitating, the idea sought to be conveyed being the solemn solitude of the forest, through which the gentle zephyr (not heifer) sighs. After she got through with this preface, she asked him if he did not almost imagine himself in a lodge in some vast wilderness. He replied that he thought all that slowness meant the delay in getting off. Said he : "There is always some plaguey cuss who over-sleeps himself and keeps everybody else waiting." She did not care to discuss the point with the ignorant fellow, so, to conceal her emotions, she once more let herself out on the piano. The woods were filled with music. The mocking bird whistled as if his throat would split, the cuckoo filled the sylvan bowers with his repeated cry, while ever and anon the mournful cooing of the dove interrupted the matin song of the lark. There, now, I guess you know what that sounds like?" she said, as she paused. "You mean that 'tootle, tootle, tootle, chug, chug, chug?' You just bet I understand that. Many is the time at a picnic I've heard it from the mouth of a demijohn, or the bunghole of a beerkeg.' Her first impulse was to hurl the piano stool at him, but it passed off, and once more she went at the piano as if it was the young man's head and was insured A YOUNG lady moving in the most ex- for double its value. The thunder growlalted social circles of Austin, after much ed, the lightning flashed (from her eyes) toil and practice at the piano, learned to and the first heavy drops are heard upon play with considerable dexerity a piece the leaves. She banged and mauled the entitled: "Picnic Polka." It is some-keys at a fearful rate; peal after peal of thing after the style of the celebrated deafening thunder perturbed the atmosBattle of Prague." The listener can phere and re-echoed in still louder reverreadily distinguish the roar of the artil- beration until it wound up in one appallery,the rattle of the musketry, the shouts ling clap as a grand finale. Then, turnof the soldiers and the groans of the dying to the awe-struck youth, she said: ing. In the "Picnic Polka" the noise of "I suppose you have heard something the wind among the trees and the joyous like that before?" "Yes; that's what the fellow with lin- | biggest end of him is his voice. The en pants said when he sat down on the custard pie." The audience found himself alone, but he picked up his hat and sauntered out into the street, densely unconscious that he had said anything out of the way. THE CAYOTE. J. A. KNOX. THE Cayote is about two-thirds the size of a yellow dog, and looks like a secondhand wolf in straightened circumstances. He bears about the same relation to the genuine wolf that the buzzard does to the eagle, or that a chicken thief does to a modern bank cashier. He has a perpetual air of being ashamed of himself, or of something he has done. As you catch a glimpse of him, trotting away from one lot of timber to another, looking back over his ears, and with his tail furled around his left leg, he looks as if he were aware that the police had a clue to his whereabouts and were working up his case. No one ever saw a fat cayote. You may catch a young one, civilize him as much as you can, feed him on canned groceries, and put a brass collar on him, but his ribs will still be his most prominent feature, and at the first favorable opportunity he will voluntarily and ungratefully leave your hospitable roof, and from choice become a roving vagabond on the prairie, living on carrion and sharing his meal with the buzzard. These predatory shadows are not at all dangerous. There is no fight in them. They are fatal to sheep when the cayote majority is forty to a minority of one sick sheep, but otherwise they are quite harmless. What they lack in courage they make up in craftiness. They will twist themselves into all manner of grotesque postures, and tumble around in the long grass, that the rabbit or young fawns may, by curiosity, be induced to come within reach of their sharp fangs. This last playful characteristic of the cayote was described to us by a friend, who was a New York newspaper reporter, and acquainted with a cayote that resided in a cage in Central Park. His statement may, therefore, be relied on, even to the length of the grass. The cayote has a small head and fox-like ears, but the mellifluous, silver-toned euphony of one of his nocturnal overtures would scare a monkey off a hand organ, and make an Italian opera singer hang himself with envy, and one of his own chords. When he slinks up, and, seating himself in the twilight of a camp-fire on the prairie, opens out with a canticle and runs up the scale-starting with a diminuendo whine, throwing in a staccato shriek, and ending with a crescendo howl-the sonorific outburst terrifies the Genius of Acoustics, and makes the welkin ring, until it cracks itself and has to be carried off and repaired. A hardy frontiersman, traveling over the boundless prairies of western Texas, when the shades of night are beginning to fall, prepares to camp for the night. He stakes out his tired steed to graze on the flower-bespangled grass, while he prepares his frugal meal. Having placed his weapons within easy reach, he spreads his blankets, and stretching his weary limbs, resigns himself to the care of the drowsy god. Suddenly the air is alive with direful yells, shrieks and howls, as if all the Indians on the American continent had been turned loose. Does the hardy frontiersman spring to his feet, seize his trusty rifle, and prepare to sell his life as dearly as possible? He does not. He merely turns over and mutters drowsily, "d-n a cayote, anyhow," for he knows that of all the wild beasts that roam the jungle, the cayote is the most harmless. One cayote at night can make enough noise to induce the inexperienced traveler to believe that there are at least fifty of them in the immediate neighborhood. If a cayote was assayed, we venture to predict that he would be found to consist of one part wolf and nine parts of vocal ability. The only time when the voice of the cayote, as one of the resources of Texas, has any value, is when it is used to take the conceit out of some smart stranger from the Eastern States. The acclimated Texan induces the stranger to go with him in pursuit of game, and to camp out on the prairie or in the woods, and he enjoys the stranger's fear when he hears the cayotes for the first time as they howl around the camp-fire in "the dead waste and middle of the night." It is difficult to convince the stranger that the cayote will not make a meal of him, anders in the pot; but, Lord bless your soul, eat his horse and baggage for dessert. you played a nine spot when you chipped In fact, it is not the policy of the Texan wolf yarn. Yes, Doctor, to convince the stranger. - when you got on that in with that J. ARMORY KNOX. A FOILED BOOK AGENT. A YOUNG man with a large book under his arm and a seven-by-nine smile on his mug stuck his head into the ticket window at the Union depot, and asked the clerk what the fare was to San Antonio. "Ten dollars and fifteen cents," replied the ticket slinger. I'll make a partial cash payment of fifteen cents and take the rest out in trade." "What do you mean by taking it out in trade?" "I am a book agent, and if you will let me have the ticket, I won't try to sell you a book. I won't say book to you once. This is the most liberal and advantageous offer ever made to the public, and you ought to take advantage of it. I have been known to talk a sane man so completely out of his senses in fifteen minutes that he wasn't even fit to send to the legislature afterward.” That this popular fallacy regarding the ferocity of the cayote exists, was illustrated not long since in the remarks made by a Northern preacher, in a sermon he preached shortly after his arrival in the State. He was illustrating how the heedless sinner refused to benefit by the most earnest warning, in the very presence of the wrath to come. He said: 'Dear friends, methinks I see two men walking out on one of your bee-utiful prairies. They enjoy the perfume of the flowers, the songs of the innocent little birds, and the calm, quiet beauty of your "I am pining to leave Austin, but I glorious Indian summer evenings. Com-lack ten dollars of the ticket money. muning together, they walk along heedless However, that shan't part us. of danger. The sun sinks to rest beyond the distant horizon; the curtain of night gradually descends and closes out the light of day; still the two men walk leisurely along, feeling safe and secure. But, hark! What sound is that in the distance? What blood-curdling howl makes them arrest their steps? It is, dear friends-it is the cry of the wolves on their track-the fierce and bloodthirsty cayote in hot pursuit, ah! And what think you do these two unfortunate men do? One of them, my beloved congregation, realizes his danger and running to a tree, climbed up by the aid of a convenient branch, out of reach of the cruel fangs of the relentless beasts of prey. He called unto his companion and said unto him: '0, my brother, reach out and take hold of this branch, climb up here beside me, and be saved!' But the other said: 'No, there is no danger; the wolves are still a long way off-I have time enough.' Alas! dear hearers, while he was yet speaking, the dreadful cayotes came upon him, and, rending him limb from limb, devoured him even in the twinkling of an eye. Thus it is, O, careless and heedless sinners, that you, to-night, stand, etc., etc." When the preacher concluded the services and was leaving the church, he was accosted by old man Parker, (who has lived in Texas After the book agent had kept this up since '36), who said: "Parson, the front for about ten minutes, he began to grow end of your discourse was grand and discouraged, for, instead of showing signs gloomy, and calculated to bluff the un- of weakening, the ticket agent, with an converted sinner. You had a full hand, ecstatic smile on his face, begged the eloand might have raked in all the mourn-quent man to keep on. "What book have you got?" asked the ticket agent. A beaming smile came over the book agent's face, and in a sing song voice he began: I am offering in seventeen volumes Dr. Whiffletree's observations in Palestine, a book that should be in every family, a book that comprises the views of the intelligent doctor of what he saw in the Holy Land, with numerous speculations and theories on what he did not see, altogether forming a complete library of deep chaste research, pure theology and imagery. I am now offering this invaluable encyclopedia for the unprecedented low price of two dollars a volume, which is really giving it away for nothing |