A WALK IN THE COUNTRY IN SUMMER*. Now, my cottage friends, I would ask you to join me in a second ramble. In the merry month of May† we went forth together and enjoyed Nature's thousand beauties. Now the season is more advanced, and summer, "with its golden sun," is indeed come, and brought with it a new collection of objects to interest and delight us. The roses, the real roses are in their full pride; the cottage garden is gay and sweet with them::-newer, rarer sorts there may be, but none sweeter than the common cabbage-rose.-Pinks are nearly over, carnations coming in. But flowers are not the only attraction to the garden now.-Strawberries and cherries are in their full pride, gooseberries and currants coming on-the bees ought to have swarmed by this time; industrious insects! they glean sweets from morn to night, laying up store for winter, and teaching us a double lesson, to work whilst we can, and to remember that a rainy day may come. The fields are all alive-hay-making is going on, and no time is to be lost:-good wages are now paid for labour: let me remind you, Savings' Banks are ready to receive whatever you can spare; and, by putting in even a trifle, you begin to lay by for the rainy day, which will come, either in the shape of sickness, accident, or old age. Hay-makers are too busy to look about them, or that hedge might tempt their admiration;-roses are not confined to gardens,-here are clusters of them, very beautiful, but have not much sweetness; their neighbour, the honeysuckle, makes amends; how fragrant, how abundant are its flowers!-the elder too is in blossom, very powerful is its smell: the blossoms are used for making elder-flower water, and likewise for a very sweet good kind of wine:-the berries, too, are made into wine, and the birds seem to enjoy those we leave

This Article ought to have been in our July Number, but, it was too late. ↑ Page 297, in our last Number.

them: the concert of the woods is not now so varied as in May; the nightingale is gone; the thrush is seldom heard; the blackbird is the most constant, and yet his song is esteemed rather a sign of rain, though a cause of admiration. I know not whether this is a true idea or not; rain in the midst of hay-making is little desired, but all things are ordered for the best; let us bear this in mind, and feel assured that, though we understand it not, rain or sunshine, sickness or health, poverty or riches, all, all are mercifully ordained by our Almighty Father. And, when we look at the beauties with which the world abounds, and reflect on their usefulness, we may be convinced that, unequal as the distribution of blessings here may appear, we shall find that the faithful servants of their heavenly Master will all be partakers of his blessings in that world above, where care and trouble are unknown:-and with a more comfortable reflection than this, we cannot close our walk. My friends, farewell. F.

THE following narrative was given me by a poor woman who has been employed for many years as washerwoman in our family; and there appeared to me so much truth and pathos in her simple story, that I could not forbear writing down her words while they were still fresh in my recollection, and I send them to you as nearly as possible as she spoke them.

X.

After observing to her that she did not look so well as usual, and asking her if she was ill, she thus began

"Ah, Ma'am, it is all along of those nasty drinking shops; I thought they would have been the breaking

of my heart last week; and if you'll excuse my troubling you with so long a story, I'll tell you how it was: you know my son Tom, ma'am, he that is lame, and can't go out to work with his brothers, so he lives at home and helps to turn the mangle, and do any thing he can; and I really think he is the dutifulest of all, (and they are all dutiful lads). At six o'clock in the morning, the Sunday before last, some young fellows came to our house and asked Tom to come and take a walk in the fields, and they all went out together. I'd been working very hard on the Saturday night, and was later than usual that morning, but we were all at breakfast by eight o'clock, but he did not come in; and I said, 'What a long walk Tom is taking, and he so lame!' Well, Ma'am, ten o'clock came, and no Tom; and I was sure something had happened. So, at eleven o'clock, I could bear it no longer, and went out to ask the neighbours if they knew any thing of him. Aye,' says one, I can tell you where he is, he is yonder at the beer-shop, where he and some young fellows have been drinking since six in the morning.' O dear, ma'am, how shocked I was! for I had never known him to go to such a place before, he was always such a good and dutiful lad. Well, I went there, and I could scarcely have known him; for there he was, as drunken mad as ever he could be; it was dreadful to see him. When I told him to come home, No,' says he, I'll stay here and enjoy myself;' Enjoy yourself!' says I, (for I was angry at seeing him in such a plight), do you call this enjoyment, to be turning yourself into a beast!' But he minded nothing that I could say, and so I fetched my husband, and at last we got him home. And then, do you know, ma'am, (here tears streamed down the poor woman's face), do you know he struck me!-me, his mother!-he that had always been such a dutiful son; I thought it would have killed me to see him behave so, for I had never had an undutiful son before. Well, ma'am, he was so drunk and so

6

violent, we were obliged to send for the constable; and all this on the Sunday morning, when we ought to have been at church. And when the constable carried him away to the lock-up house, I thought it would have broke my heart; all the neighbours were so sorry for us, and said, • For one of your sons to behave so! your sons who have been so well brought up, and all so steady, and so dutiful,-for one of them to behave so!' Oh! it as near as could be, broke my heart. Well, Ma'am, we let him stay in the lock-up house a good while, to make him feel the punishment; and now he is so ashamed, and so sorry, and says he will never go near the beer-shop any more: but there is no trusting to it, for those places are so very enticing."

TRY AGAIN,

My uncle Newberry was very fond of short, pithy, sentences, which contained some lesson worth remembering, and could be applied to the different circumstances of life. Such sentences are easily remembered, and convenient to use. A boy may read a great book through, without getting one useful practical remark, when a short proverb might enable him to act discreetly in many a difficulty.

"Try again," is a sentence of this kind, and a very useful maxim it is, to old and young, rich and poor, gentle and simple; and a very great deal will be got by all those who have resolution to put this short rule into practice.

I would not give a fig for the boy who can sit whining and pining over a sum that happens to be wrong, or a lesson that is rather more difficult than common: why he has nothing to do but to TRY AGAIN heartily, and I will be bound that his sum will soon be done correctly, and the difficulties of his lesson be mastered.

I dare say many of you have heard of Demosthenes the famous orator of old. When he first began to deliver his orations he made a sad stammering piece of work of it; but he determined, if possible, to succeed; he "tried again," until he became the most celebrated of Grecian orators.

Columbus, too, when he set sail to discover the New World, how many difficulties he had to conquer, and how many were his disappointments? Day after day he tried, and " tried again," till at last his seamen were so tired and disappointed that they threatened to throw him overboard: still he "tried again," 'and persevered till he discovered America.

Whatever be the difficulties with which you are surrounded, cheer up, my boys, and I warrant you will get through them all; that is, if you are steady, and will persevere, and not be afraid of " trying again.

else

It is very true, that a good maxim, like any thing that is good, may be used for a bad purpose, and "try again" has been used for a bad purpose a thousand and a thousand times. Be careful, then, that the object you aim at be a good one, and worth the trouble of trying after. A friend of mine once took a rash leap over a large piece of timber, and hurt his leg; "What a fool am I," said he, "not to be able to leap over a piece of timber; I will try again." So he tried again, and hurt himself worse than before. Provoked by this, he was more determined than ever to try again, in doing which his leg was so injured that it gave him pain until his dying day.

How many gamesters, after a run of ill-luck, as they have called it, have tried again till they have been beggars. Many a one who has tried again in the lotteries has experienced this. Try again only when the object is good.

Call to mind, my boys, what great things have been

*De-mos-the-nes.