THE HISTORY OF AN OLD FRIEND. 197 



he wants, though he only wants what is within his reach. 

 Should you get to know him well, you will find in some 

 direction or other his mind has gone out in a strong 

 taste, and in it he so excels, that his companionship is a 

 great instruction — a happy, hopeful story, read at the 

 evening time, mayhap tinted mth fancies, and all aglow 

 with legends, and self-experiences of so rare a kind, you 

 wondered you did not know him before. 



Such characters are sometimes found in society, in the 

 full sweep of restless, flattering, envious fashion, just 

 endured, half forgotten, sometimes in literary life, some- 

 times toiling in some hard handicraft, where the gains 

 they make are applied to those they love. Sometimes in 

 the wood, or by the sea-side village. 



The friend of whom I am about to speak^ and who 

 belongs to this class, is oftenest seen in rural districts, or 

 by lakes, or the slow-moving streams of the woods. I 

 deem it but my duty, for many a lesson taught by him 

 and hours of quiet companionship, to speak in his behalf 

 a kindly word, and save him and his family, as far as in 

 me lies, from that unmerited neglect which seems to be 

 the fate of the humble and the unobtrusive. 



The friend to whom I allude is the Muskrat. Let no 

 one smile at the name, 



" Or mock the short and simple annals of the poor." 



His coat may not be of as many colors as a courtier's, 

 but it covers a kindlier heart ; his house may not be of 

 as stately proportions as a banker's, but it shelters a more 



