OUT-OF-TOWN PLACES 



I am not romancing here, I am only telling 

 a plain, straightforward story of my advent, 

 some twenty years ago, upon a summer's 

 morning into the city of N — . I recall now 

 vividly the detestably narrow and muddy 

 streets— the poor horse, (I had bought it of 

 the son of our deacon,) wheezing with his 

 twelve-mile drive — my own empty faint stom- 

 ach — the glimpses of the beautiful river be- 

 tween the hills — and the golden butter which 

 I must needs sell to my friend the grocer at 

 thirteen cents. I hope he had never any 

 qualms of conscience ; but it is a faint hope to 

 entertain. I knew a single naively honest 

 one; but to him I never offered anything for 

 sale. I feared he might succumb to that 

 temptation. 



After the butter, (counting some forty odd 

 pounds in weight per week,) the next most 

 important sale was that of the lambs and wool. 

 The lambs counted ordinarily— leaving out 

 the losses of the newly dropped ones, by crows^ 

 and foxes — some hundred or more. And 



* Enthusiastic bird-lovers will learn, may be with sur- 

 prise, that crows are capable of this mischief, but it is 

 even true. Their villainous method is to pluck out the 

 eyes of the newly born innocents, and then leave their 

 prey until death and putrefaction shall have ripened it to 

 their taste. Only extreme hunger, however, will drive 



