OUR RURAL DIVINITY 129 
hogany. I have found there is nothing like the 
earth to draw the various social distempers out of 
one. The blue devils take flight at once if they 
see you mean to bury them and make compost of 
them. Emerson intimates that the scholar had bet- 
ter not try to have two gardens; but I could never 
spend an hour hoeing up dock and red-root and 
twitch-grass without in some way getting rid of many 
weeds and fungi, unwholesome growths, that a petty 
indoors life was forever fostering In my own moral 
and intellectual nature. 
But the finishing touch was not given till Chloe 
came. She was the jewel for which this homely 
setting waited. My agriculture had some object 
then. The old gate never opened with such alacrity 
as when she paused before it. How we waited for 
her coming! Should I send Drewer, the colored 
patriarch, for her? No; the master of the house 
himself should receive Juno at the capital. 
“One cask for you,” said the clerk, referring to 
the steamer bill of lading. 
“Then I hope it’s a cask of milk,” Isaid. “I 
expected a cow.” 
“One cask, it says here.” 
“Well, let ’s see it; I’1l warrant it has horns and 
is tied by a rope;” which proved to be the case, for 
there stood the only object that bore my name, chew- 
ing its cud, on the forward deck. How she liked 
the voyage I could not find out; but she seemed to 
relish so much the feeling of solid ground beneath 
her feet once more, that she led me a lively step all 
