336 HOW TO GET A FARM, 



ing, though it be honester than any previous one. 

 This reveals the household scarecrow, for wife and 

 family protest it were better to starve ! We ridi 

 cule the crow for his simplicity, but are we any 

 wiser ? 



I know how habit clutches at the heart how 

 gambling, rum, tobacco, both rule and stultify and 

 that this pride tyrannizes with a despotism infinitely 

 more galling, because the whole family become its 

 victims. Yet no heroism can be greater, no good 

 sense more positive, than that which so strengthens 

 a man into breaking its bonds, grappling with the 

 emergency, be it what it may, and kicking his own 

 particular scarecrow to the dogs. 



&quot;Right Side Up,&quot; traced legibly on a shingle 

 which had been planed smooth to enable the artist 

 to display his skill, met my eye one morning at a 

 crowded steamboat landing in New York, soon af 

 ter the rebellion burst upon the country. It stood 

 upon a table covered by a clean white cloth, 

 whereon was bounteous store of peanuts, ginger 

 bread, and pretzels, intermixed with oranges and 

 penny confectioneries for which all urchins seem to 

 have been born with an undying relish. As the 

 day was windy and the street alive with carriages 

 and other vehicles, these delicacies were frosted 

 with dust. Tubs containing bottles of root beer 

 stood shadily under the table, but the imprisoned 

 effervescence must have been hot in spite of the 

 water that surrounded them. These things I barely 

 noticed it was the shingle that attracted my atten 

 tion. Could this be one of the signs of the times ? 



