ioo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



brilliant and varied decoration, and at another an expansive and im- 

 posing structure, but it has usually the charm of novelty, sometimes of 

 beauty, and it never destroys the growth of hair. 



Man's bigh bat for many generations has varied within very nar- 

 row limits, and bas always been ugly and unnatural. Why it should 

 so long have held its sway it is hard to understand. An artist can not 

 make it interesting in bis work. It will not compare with the Oriental 

 turban, the Scotch bonnet, or even the slouch hat, for comfort or grace- 

 ful capabilities ; but the average man will wear it long after bis faith 

 in hair tonics and restorers with seductive promises has been shattered. 

 Still, let him remember, as be takes his after-dinner repose, that his 

 favorite hat will certainly and inevitably extend the pasture-lands of 

 the domestic fly. 



* 



AMONG THE TEANSYLYANIAN SAXONS. 



I. MARRIAGE-CUSTOMS. 



WHEN the waving surface of the green oat-fields begins to assume 

 a golden tint, when the swelling heads of Indian corn hang 

 heavy on their stalks, and the sweating peasant prepares for the last 

 act of his hard summer labor, then also do the good-wives in the village 

 begin to talk of matters which have been lying dormant till now. 



Well-informed people may have hinted before that such and such 

 a youth had been seen more than once stepping in at the gate of the 

 red or green house in the long village street, and more than one gossip 

 had been ready to identify the speckled carnations adorning the hat of 

 some youthful Konrad or Thomas as having been grown in the garden 

 of a certain Anna or Maria ; but after all, these had been but mere 

 conjectures, for nothing positive could be known as yet, and ill-natured 

 people were apt to console themselves with the reflection that St. Kath- 

 erine's Day was a long way off, and that there is many a slip 'twixt 

 cup and lip. 



But now the great day which will dispel all doubt, and put an end 

 to surmise, is approaching that day which will destroy so many illu- 

 sions and fulfill so few ; for now the sun has given the last touch to the 

 ripening grain, and soon the golden sheaves are lying piled together on 

 the clean-shorn stubble-fields, only waiting to be carted away. Then 

 one evening when the sun is sinking low on the horizon, and clouds of 

 dust along the high-road announce the approach of the returning cat- 

 tle, a drum is heard in the village street, and a voice proclaims aloud 

 that "to-morrow the oats are to be fetched home." Like wildfire this 

 news bas spread throughout the village ; the cry is taken up and re- 

 peated from mouth to mouth with various intonations of hope, curios- 

 ity, anticipation of triumph " To-morrow the oats will be fetched ! " 



A stranger, no doubt, fails to perceive anything particularly thrill- 



