16 NATURE'S REALM. 
compelled to yield to his foolish whim, and, 
mentally cursing my stupid inadvertence in 
alluding to the affair of the skeleton, I reluc- 
tantly mounted the seat beside my thoroughly 
frightened companion and started on my re- 
turn to the post. 
Among my most treasured relics is the vio- 
lin, which my guide in his timid superstition 
refused to approach or touch, and which I car- 
ried away concealed in my blankets. But never 
in my happiest efforts does its responsive 
strings give forth such melting harmony as that 
evoked by the skeleton at my solitary camp in 
the Bad Lands. 

THE FARMER'S BOY. 
By A. F. Rice. 
The poetry of farming exists chiefly in the 
mind of him who looks on, rather than in the 
toil itselt. There is poetry in the summer 
scene where the clean-shaven meadow is thickly 
studded with green cones of hay and the ox- 
wagon creaks under the weight of its fragrant 
load ; but it is prose of the baldest sort to the 
perspiring farmer who is straining every mus- 
cle to get in his crop before the shower comes 
up over the hill. It is the dollars in the hay, 
and not its fragrance, that he is thinking 
about; nor is it any discredit to his common 
sense that he should be more occupied with 
the money value involved than with the pic- 
turesqueness of the situation. We must not 
expect a poem on the golden rod from the man 
who spends hours of hard work in attempting 
to exterminate it ; nor can we look for from him 
any expression of admiration for the daisy 
when its presence in his grass means pecu- 
niary loss. To him the shrill cry of the hen 
hawk conveys but one message, and that is 
that his chickens are in danger. The half- 
articulated guttural of the young crow is 
merely a reminder of the corn-pulling and 
thieving propensities of that bird. The stac- 
cato whistle of the woodchuck has no charms 
for him, for it is a promise that his young ap- 
ple trees shall be gnawed and a threat that his 
clover shall be trodden down to make paths 
tor this lumbering freebooter to travel home 
in. He loves the cuckoo only in times of 
drouth, and sees beauty in tne rainbow only 
when his parched fields have quenched their 
thirst. His love for the robins even can never 
be unqualified, for do they not peck at his 
cherries and steal his early peas? The way- 
ing of the ripening grain and the rustle of the 
corn would be pleasanter to see and sweeter 
to hear were it not for his apprehension that 
the rust would get into his wheat or early 
frosts cut short his crop. 
Of course the farmer’s boy suffers, more or 
less, from these untoward circumstances, and 
comes in for his share of the tuibulation. The 
very elements seem to conspire against him 
and make his labors more arduous and exact- 
ing. Ifhe has the instincts of a naturalist he 
will, it is true, see and learn much while at his 
work ; how the blind mole ploughs his under- 
ground passage and the toad lives for years 
shut up in his hard-pan cell; how the oriole 
builds her nest and rears her young ; how the 
hawk, the adder and the weasel take their 
prey; how the wasps fashion their papyrus 
houses ; how the ants toil and wage war, and 
how the butterflies are ushered into the world. 
But he is kept too hard at work to find much 
opportunity for indulging his tastes or carrying 
his observations where his fancy would lead 
him.~ The summer woods stand cool and in- 
viting by the side of the field where he is hoe- 
ing corn, but the rail fence between them and 
him is a Chinese wall which he may not pass. 
The partridge drums in the thicket and the 
yellow-hammer sounds his reveille on the dry 
limb, but he may not shoulder arms and obey 
the call; he has been condemned to penal 
servitude, and his time is not out yet. Within 
his hearing the meadow brook goes on its 
gurgling way, and no one knows better than 
he where the trout are cooling their speckled 
sides ; but he is chained to the plough, and, 
like Tantalus, cannot taste the pleasures that 
gosinging by him. I remember of seeing a fair 
example ot this, one bright June day. In 
