A PIANO IN ARKANSAS. 
We shall never forget the excitement which seized upon 
the inhabitants of the little village of Hardscrabble, as 
the report spread through the community, that a real 
piano had actually arrived within its precincts. 
Speculation was afloat as to its appearance and its 
use. The name was familiar to every body; but what 
it precisely meant, no one could tell. That it had legs 
was certain ;—for a stray volume of some literary tra- 
veller was one of the most conspicuous works in the float- . 
ing library of Hardscrabble ; and said traveller stated, 
that he had seen a piano somewhere in New England 
with pantalettes on—also, an old foreign paper was 
brought forward, in which there was an advertisement 
headed “Soiree,” which informed the “ citizens gene- 
rally,” that Mr. Bobolink would preside at the piano. 
This was presumed by several wiseacres, who had 
been to a menagerie, to mean, that Mr. Bobolink stirred 
the piano up with a long pole, in the same way that the 
showman did the lions and rhi-no-ce-rus. 
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