almost wish that it had not been "rotted."

We are worried about our cucumbers. Mrs. S. is fond of cucumbers, so I planted enough for ten families. The more they are picked the faster they grow; and if you do not pick them they turn yellow, and look ugly. Our neighbor has plenty, too. He sent us some one morning, by way of a present. What to do with them we did not know, with so many of our own. To give them away was not polite, to throw them away was sinful, to eat them was impossible. Mrs. S. said, "save them for seed." So we did. Next day our neighbor sent us a dozen more. We thanked the messenger grimly, and took them in. Next morning,

anothor dozen came. It was getting to be a serious matter; so I rose betimes the next morning, and when my neighbor's cucumbers came, I filled his man's basket with some of my own by way of exchange. This bit of pleasantry was resented by my neighbor, who told his man to throw them to the hogs. His man told our girl, and our girl told Mrs. S., and in consequence, all intimacy between the two families has ceased; the ladies do not speak even at church.

We have another neighbor whose name is Bates; he keeps cows. This year our gate has been fixed; but my young peach trees, near the fences, are accessible from the road; and Bates's cows walk along that road morning and evening. The sound of a cow bell is pleasant in the twilight. Sometimes, after dark, we hear the mysterious curfew tolling along the road, and then, with a louder peal, it stops before the fence, and again tolls itself off in the distance. The result is, my peach trees are as bare as bean-poles. One day, I saw Mr. Bates walking along, and I hailed him: "Bates, those are your cows there, I believe." "Yes, sir,-nice ones ain't they?" "Yes," I replied, "they are nice ones. Do you see that tree there?" and I pointed to a thrifty peach, with about as many leaves as an exploded sky-rocket. Yes, sir." "Well, Bates, that red-and-white cow of yours, yonder, eat the top off that tree; I saw her do it." Then I thought I had made Bates ashamed of himself, and had wounded his feelings, perhaps too much. I was afraid he would offer me money for the tree, which I made up my mind to decline at once. "Sparrowgrass," said he, "It don't hurt a tree a single mossel to chaw it, ef it's a young tree.

For my part, I'd rather have my young trees chawed than not. I think it makes 'em grow a leetle better. I can't do it with mine, but you can, because you can wait to have good trees, and the only way to have good trees is to have 'em chawed."

I think Mrs. Sparrowgrass is much improved by living in the country. The air has done her good. The roses again bloom in her cheeks, as well as freckles, big as butter cups. When I come home in the evening from town, and see her with a dress of white dimity, set off by a dark silk apron, with tasfeful pockets, and a little fly-away cap on the back of her head, she does look bewitching. "My dear," said Mrs. Sparrowgrass, one evening at tea, "what am I?"

The question took me at an unguarded moment, and I almost answered, "A beauty;" but we had company, so I said, with a blush, “a female, I believe."

"Nonsense," she replied, with a tos3 of the "know-nothing" 66 cap; nonsense; I mean this;-when I was in Philadelphia I was a Philadelphian; when in New York, a New Yorker; now we live in Yonkers, and what am I?"

"That," said I, "is a question more easily asked than answered. Now, 'Yonker,' in its primary significance, means the eldest son, the heir of the estate, and 'Yonker's' is used in the possessive sense, meaning 'the Yonker's,' or the heir's estate. If, for instance, you were the owner of the town, you might with propriety be called the Yonkeress."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said she would as soon be called a tigress!

"Take," said I, "the names of the places on the Hudson, and your sex makes no difference in regard to the designation you would derive from a locality. If, for instance, you lived at Spuyten Devil, you would be called a Spuyten Deviller!"

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said nothing would tempt her to live at Spuyten Devil.

66 Then," I continued, "there is Tullitudlem-you'd be a Tillietudlemer."

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said, that in her present frame of mind she didn't think she would submit to it.

"At Sing Sing, you would be a Sing Singer; at Sleepy Hollow, a Sleepy Hollower.".

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said this was worse than any of the others.

"At Nyack, a Nyackian; at Dobb's Ferry, a Dobb's Ferryer.".

Mrs. Sparrowgrass said that any per

YOU

OU have walked backwards and forwards in Broadway, said I to myself, one fine May day, until your head is full of bricks, and your heart no better than one of its paving stones. Away! You have in your pocket a complimentary ticket, which will make every railway conductor between New York and the Mississippi take off his hat to you; and from Rock Island you shall be steamed up the graceful windings of the upper Mississippi to the Falls of St. Anthony, scot free, and found in claret. There

you shall stand exulting by the side of the Laughing Waters, and look out upon that sea of prairies, which rolls its waves even to the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

It

This homily produced its desired effect. The very next morning I took my seat in the train for Dunkirk, consoling myself, at leaving the dear city, with a large supply of the morning papers. But at the sight of the very first green field, I opened the window and threw out my newspapers. How could he have had the the heart to say it?" All green fields are alike, sir; let us take a walk down Fleet street." was because he was a great writer of prose, and no poet, the London-loving Dr. Samuel Johnson. But let lexicographers and cockneys go melancholy at the sight of green fields--not I. The ploughshare in the greensward, the hand of the sower scattering seed, the springing corn, the budding clover, the promises of the spring ready on every hand to burst into the flowers of summer-these rural sights broke up the fountains of my heart, as if its rock had

been smitten by the rod of an angel from heaven. The very first full-blown orchard brought the whole troup of my youthful feelings rushing back. As the butterfly feels, when the bands of the chrysalis are broken, and its bespangled wings are, for the first time, spread to the sun, so did I seem to rise into a higher life as the flying train left the city and its cares behind, and conveyed me into the heart of the country and of

nature.

It is an exhilarating sensation when the burden of accustomed cares is unloosed from the back, and one sets out, at least one friend in company, on a journey to places far off, and never before visited. The commencement of the voyage to sea, is no doubt the most stirring. The weighing of the anchor, the spreading of canvas, the graceful dropping down the tide, the standing out to sea, until native land is lost to the sight. Who can ever forget his first launch upon this illimitable ocean? The start by stage-coach, too, in the days of those social vehicles, was an event which sent a pleasing thrill to the heart. The sounding call of the coachman's horn, as he approached your dwelling, followed by the rattling of the coming wheels, the salutations of fellow travellers as you took your seat, the smart dashing down the court yard, with cracking whip and leaders prancing, while you waved farewells out of the window, to the little group left behind-these are among the poetical recollections of the past. Then, there was the go-off in the old family coach,

its pockets well stuffed with the little necessaries and comforts of travel, its seats delightfully piled up with coats and shawls, and books and presents for your cousins, and the iron-bound ancestral trunk, well fastened on behind; the pride of Cuffy as he took in hand the ribbons; the pleased curiosity of domestics gathered around to witness the departure; the last words with friends, repeated o'er and o'er again-this was one of the gently heart-touching occasions of the olden time. But the new fashioned way of setting off by railis there no poetry in that? Yes. The thought that in a few brief hours, you, who are leaving the ocean side, will stand on the shores of our great inland seas, and will look out upon the level horizon of the prairies, and will drink the waters of the Mississippi-this, too, has in it the element of sentiment. The feeling of mastering the powers of nature, and yoking them to your chariot wheels, of annihilating distance and filling a very brief span of time with the sight of scenes and prospects innumerable, gives a sense of wings to the mind, and realizes the old fable of the flying feet of the messenger of the gods.

How pleasantly did I feel this, as the train swept through the picturesque valleys of the Delaware and the Susquehanna! My eyes, which had become dulled by the city, brick, and brown stone, were enamored of the landscape. The winding rivers and sloping hills, the cultivated vales and the far-reaching forests were beautiful as enchantment. Half a century hence, there will be no sweeter spots in the Tyrol, than in these mountains. When the fields, now rough with the remains of the original forests, shall be smoothed to lawns; when the woods shall only tuft here and there the hill-tops, or be confined in parks, or left to stretch in vistas to the distant horizon; when vine-draped villas shall overlook the river reaches, and farm cottages shall nestle in every nook of these low mountain ranges, the landscapes will vie in beauty with those most praised by the lyres of Wordsworth or of Scott. Wise is that young pater-familias and founder of a long line of posterity, who betimes, selects the site for his villa in one of these vales. It is but a few hours from New York; and before the end of the day and generation that now is, the lovers of rural beauty will be attracted to these graceful slopes and commanding hill-tops. The social life which now

graces the banks of the Hudson, will also soon enliven and beautify those of the scarcely less picturesque Delaware and Susquehanna. For myself, I have already a chateau in that Spain.

But

On arriving at Hornellsville, I observed that Apollo was just in the act of pulling up his studs on the horizon; and I resolved, imitating his example, to let my own axles cool until morning. I had done about as good a day's work as the god himself, having placed some three or four hundred miles between me and the smell of salt water. Pleased at so great a result, at the cost of so little personal exertion, I good-naturedly allowed myself to be carried off by a big Sambo, with the name of some now forgotten hotel on his hat band, and who was the only representative at Hornellsville of that interesting class of fellow-citizens, who usually stand at the railway stations to welcome the traveller to the hospitalities of their respective lodging-houses. Sambo was a good-natured fellow himself, and a fat one; but he promised more than he could perform. His beds were clean, and his supper hot-as he asseverated. when promise came to performance, there was a sad falling off. It took as much financiering on my part, to extract a pair of clean sheets from Sambo's mistress, as would have sufficed to "lift a fancy" in Wall street. As the traveller leaves the seaboard, his bed-linen becomes more and more suspicious, until in the very far West it is found in such a condition, that any allusion to it is taken by the host as a personal insult. 'Captain, can't you give me a clean towel?" inquired a passenger recently on board a Mississippi steamer. "Go to hstranger. Fifty people have used that towl, and you are the first man I have heard complain of it." So any faultfinding with respect to sheets, would be followed instantly by the request for you to seek lodgings elsewhere. However, this happens on the other side of the Mississippi, not at Hornellsville. As for supper, at this place, happy is the traveller who can make a meal on roasted potatoes. They are good at Hornellsville, as both my morning and evening experience enables me to testify. They are so good that I would advise the traveller to eat nothing else there. And surely a large mealy potato should suffice to stop the mouth of complaint anywhere. It has kept many a poor Pat from starvation, and may do the

66

wayfarer at Hornellsville the same substantial service.

At Cleveland, my hotel was better; and having, unfortunately, been confined to hotels nearly all the time I spent at the West, it is proper that my remarks should not go far beyond them. But I must confess that my mind was less impressed by the guests of the house than by its waiterdom. For while the true western man scarcely begins to appear so far east as Cleveland, the western negro is here seen in his perfection. He is sui generis; and a very different fellow from his type in the Old Dominion. The Virginia "boy" belongs to a master, whom it is his pride to resemble as far as a black man can a white one. He affects the same air and carriage. He has the same hitch in his gait, and the same twist in his neck. His hat has the same cock to it. To make the resemblance still more perfect, he sports himself in his master's cast-off clothes. On occasions, he even contrives to put on his master's very best coat, and goes to meeting or a breakdown in it. His cravat may have been dyed redder. His shirt collar may cut a trifle sharper under the ears, and his kerchief hang a little lower out of his coat pocket. To wear his master's gloves, too, would be to split them; nor would there be heelroom enough in his pumps to make them of any service. But take him all in all, he is massa done in charcoal, and not a bad likeness.

But the Cleveland darkey, poor fellow, has no master to copy from. He lacks a beau-ideal. In himself merely he takes no pride; sees nothing to excite his admiration. He is a free nigger, and that's all. The western man, having none of the air of a grand seignior in Virginia about him, furnishes little that suits the negro's taste to imitate. The result is a general letting down of his aspirations and manners. The black man one meets in the streets of Cleveland is as humdrum as the white one. He has no style. He has not the haut ton of a negro belonging to a gentleman. The fine dash of Virginia upper Cuffydom, it is gone, gone for ever. Sambo

has settled down into a simple bourgeois, and doffed the colonel. His nose may be coal black still, but with less of the natural scent about it. The blaze of his cravat has nearly gone out. If still a red or yellow, 'tis dull and ineffectual. He does not any longer wear cast-off broadcloth, originally cut by a tailor of

fashion, but dresses himself in the linseywoolseys of the slop-shops. No buff flaunts from his vest; no gilt shines on his buttons; his hat is worn as square on his head as a Quaker's. Instead of naturally falling lips, he wears his mouth pursed up. His foot loses something of its spread, and the principal protuberance of his person is less amply rounded out. The change is lamentable, and shows the effect of freedom on the African to be just about the same as civilization and whisky on the Indian. The picturesqueness of his character gone, and his spirit sunk within him, his skin might just as well be white; and were the mulatto tint entirely exhausted, the face of society would lose a variety of aspect scarcely worth preserving.

Still, at the table, la grande manière is so natural to the negro waiter, that even in the West he cannot divest himself of all his good-natured pomposity. The honor of serving a gentleman from "York city" carries him back for the moment to Old Virginny, and distends his breast with a degree of that hauteur he felt when a member of one of its "first families." He puts on his lost graces. His lips swell with smiles. He protrudes his posterior. With head thrown back, chest forward, and feet turned out as square as he can get them, he does the honors of the table with characteristic grace and bombast.

"Have a French roll, sir?"
"A what-did you say?"
"Very nice French roll, sir!"

The words made on my mind an impression similar to that produced by a sudden rumbling in the ears. On recovering my slightly disturbed equilibrium, I asked myself, "Am I not then in Cleveland? and is not this Ohio-baked bread, with treacle in it?"

Oh, that black barbarian! couldst thou not have spared me that recollection of the Palais Royal? Thou woollyhead, thou'rt no garçon chez Véry. Mon dieu! no! The roll of the banjo is the only roll you have any true knowledge of. Where is thy clean apron? Where is thy napkin? Where are thy ready wits and foresight, anticipating the wants of the diner from the very shape of his mouth and the pucker of his lips? Thou hast a greasy jacket; thy cravat is a faded blaze; thy lips have no wit in them; and thy rolls are not French.

It is bad enough to be obliged to digest such bread, without being told that it is French. The cook has put treacle

into it to coax it down your throat by this sweet persuasive. And, indeed, this gilding of the pill succeeds in most cases well enough. The biscuits are tossed off so rapidly by the guests, that the cook, in his hurry to supply the demand, does not take more than half the needful time to bake them. Slackbaked, but sweet, and all the doctors say, God speed them!

But to go on to Chicago-our large railway "cars," in which fifty or sixty persons sit together, are constructed on the democratic principle, and are therefore not be spoken against. Still, if it could be done without causing the immaculateness of my republicanism to be called in question, I would say, that for myself I prefer the smaller carriages of the European aristocrats. On their roads a party of four may be accommodated with a coupé to themselves; a party of six or eight may take a private berline; and there are larger carriages for those who prefer to sit in a crowd. Ever since I got into the train at Hornellsville to continue my journey westward, I have ventured to claim the right of modestly expressing this preference.

On

jority of them were returned Californians, just from ship, and bound for their homes in the West. Not that that was anything to their discredit. On the contrary, I liked to have a talk with them respecting their El Dorado.

But

'tis scarcely too much to say, that I had to walk to my seat through lakes of tobacco juice. A few squirts more would have floated the benches. There were strips of orange-peel lying about sufficient to have paved the floor; and it lacked but little that they went sailing round like chips on a mill-pond. Here and there, in this odoriferous sea, were small islands of pea-nut shells; while the scattered newspapers, quack medicine, hotel, steamboat, and railway advertisements were not unlike field-ice floating on the ocean. Now, that this class of fellow-cits should travel through the country in the same costume in which they swing the pick at the "diggings" is to be expected. It makes the aspect of our life more picturesque. caps of nor'west coast seal-skin, boots blacked with the mud of the Sacramento river, clubs captured from California

Skull

Indians, knapsacks and camp blankets which had served to transport golddust, pork and molasses, relieve the monotony of gents and ladies, all in the last New York fashions. But when it comes to the tobacco spitting, the apple parings, the feet over the sofa-backs, then I beg for an European coupé, and all the American fair, I am sure, will be of my opinion.

A change of "cars" brought me to Chicago. But I could not leave them without making another reflection of an aspect somewhat unpatriotic. My excuse is, that it was forced upon my mind by the circumstances in which I happened to be placed. Before me sat a French family, apparently going to seek a new home in the West; and nearly opposite an American one, having the same destination. The French consisted of a grandmother, her married daughter, son-in-law, with two small children, and a female servant. They were as full of chat as jackdaws. Their conversation ran a steady stream, sparkling with pleasantries, with trivialities concerning only themselves, or with observations upon whatever passed before their eyes. They were under no particular excitement; but their conversation seemed the natural flow of minds alert and happy. Whenever the baby threatened to cry, it was laughed into good humor. The servant was une bonne fille, good-natured, ready, and as one of the family. Whenever the helping hand of the father was needed for any purpose, it was forthcoming with alacrity, and a jest or a smile accompanied the action. It was easy to see that this family had a fund of resources in their good nature and their vivacious minds, which was making not only their journey to their new home, but that through life, also, a pleasant one. Let them, then, live where they may, I am sure they will still keep on chatting, jesting, playing with the children, and taking the little incidents of every passing hour gracefully and gaily. There was nothing very peculiar or extraordinary in their appearance; but they were a fair specimen of French nature of the class bourgeois.

My New Eugland cousins, who sat opposite, were a young couple, with a child some two years old. They, too, were visiting the Western country for the first time, and were going to found a home on the prairies. But, during half a dozen hours, scarcely so many words,