The Rescue of an Old Place 



Htr malice, somewhere behind the horizon. Some 

 modern Metius Curtius may yet have to 

 be found to help fill up the marsh with a 

 horse and wagon, for that Charybdis has 

 already taken toll more than once from a 

 dump-cart, though she has not yet suc- 

 ceeded in swallowing it up in spite of vari- 

 ous malicious efforts. She has designs 

 upon the cow, only frustrated by careful 

 watchfulness, and to her deep treachery 

 there is no end. The family purse she 

 long ago put in her pocket, and her mouth 

 yawns for all the future revenues that 

 may accrue for her benefit. She has eaten 

 up a large part of a neighbor's hill, be- 

 sides taking most unbecoming bites out of 

 our own, and if ever future generations 

 weave a legend about the ancient dragon 

 of Overlea, which demanded a victim every 

 summer, it will be traced by the unraveler 

 of myths of the period, to the unremitting 

 appetite of this hungry meadow. 



But who, looking out on some sweet 

 spring day upon that beguiling distance, 

 could believe ill of anything so softly 

 lovely as the picturesque marsh of which 

 our field is the fag-end. In the foreground, 

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