148 HOME LIFE IN FLORIDA. 



" * If I be I, as I hope I be, 

 I've a little dog at home, and he knows me; 

 If I be I, he will wag his little tail. 

 If I be not I, he will bark and he will wail.' 



" Home went the little woman, all in the dark, 

 Up jumped the little dog, and he began to bark; 

 The dog began to bark, and she began to cry, 

 'Oh, lawk! oh, mercy! this surely can't be I!'" 



When the house was finished, every one went to work 

 to ' ' fix up" and transfi:)rm the crude elements into a com- 

 fortable, home-like place ; the stronger arms went to dig- 

 ging out and burning out stumj)s ; and, in a few months, 

 one pair of arms — unaccustomed to such work, too — dis- 

 posed of over three hundred of these unsightly hindrances 

 to cultivation. The weaker hands found full employment, 

 first, in placing in order furniture, pictures, busts, brack- 

 ets, and various knicknacks that tell so much of the re- 

 finements of a true home, wherever it may be or however 

 humble; and, a little later, in directing the formation of 

 flow^er-beds and walks around the house, and setting out 

 roses and budding plants ; in rooting and planting oleander 

 slips ; in sowing thunbergia and other rapid-growing vines ; 

 in procuring from the neighboring hammocks yellow jas- 

 mine, creepers, scarlet honeysuckle, bona nox, and other 

 thrifty vines to the manor born. 



They all looked very small and puny at first, and it 

 seemed almost ridiculous to hope to see the oleanders be- 

 come trees, or the vines cover the lattice-work around the 

 porch, or to dream that the two-feet-high orange trees, set 

 out from a grove near by, would ever be large enough to 

 support one orange, not to say thousands of that luscious 

 golden fruit. But, in three years from the time this work 

 of creating a home out of the wilderness was commenced, 

 the oleanders towered aloft higher than the roof and min- 



