CHAPTER XVI. 



SECOND IDLENOT PAPER. 



ABOUT two months after my last interview with Sylves- 

 ter Idlenot, when I advised him to try Ensilage, I saw 

 him coming up the walk to my house, evidently in a 

 botheration. As he opened the office-door I said, 

 " Good-morning, Sylvester. Take a chair. How are 

 Mary and the boys ? " 



"All well, God bless 'em, I thank ye; but it's in 

 throuble I am intirely ! " 



" What is the matter, Sylvester? " I asked anxiously. 



" Well, docther, 'tis just this. You know, last March 

 ye happened into my house just as I was figuring up the 

 account for the year, and we had made nothing but 

 shelter and our vittles. Shure, we always had a roof over 

 our heads, and plenty to ate, and comfortable clothes on 

 our backs, and laid up three and four hundred dollars each 

 year, and niver touched the bit of inthrust money our 

 savings was arning. After we bought the farm, and 

 since then, divil a cint have we laid up more'n the in- 

 thrust would have been. Well, you, docther, told me 

 what to do, and I'm a-doin' it; and now we're ruined 

 intirely ! " 



This sounded rather ominous ; and I said, with more 



