2 



HICK OR y CHIPS. 



blowing serious. He dodged out tlie door just in 

 time to let mother's broomstick break a window- 

 glass, and sat down on the back steps. 



"Why don't you try Professor Squirtem's riga- 

 majig ?" I asked. I had no faith in it myself, but 

 there is nothing so good to take the conceit out of 

 a boy as trying something and not doing anything. 

 This cheered him up and he rigged up the platform 

 wagon to run a pump and squirter which would 

 kill a half acre of bugs at a time and not wet the 

 clothing nor poison the hogs if they should break 

 in, unless they were Deacon Brown's hogs. He 

 spent four days fixing up this machine, and it did 

 look ponderous. He drove it around the barn two 

 or three times to " try the git of it," as Enoch said, 

 and it made so much noise that Deacon Brown 

 came over to ask what we had got a threshing ma- 

 chine that time of year for. 



"That's a bug squirter," said I. 



"You don't say!" and the Deacon watched it 

 make another 'bout. 



"Reckon it'll scare 'em out," said the Deacon, 

 "wiping his forehead with his bandanna. "Why 

 ■don't you pick 'em off ?" 



This question was meant for me, but Enoch 

 overheard it. 



" 'Cause we ain't no fogies. We are alive over 

 here," and he cracked up the old team at a lively 

 gait. 



It would be useless to attempt to tell Enoch's ex- 

 periences with that "provoker,'' as he called it. 

 The first day he broke the pump handle and tipped 

 over twice, spilling over twenty gallons of Paris 

 green. Then it would not work on the side hill, 

 and he could not get within twenty feet of the end 

 •where the berry bushes were, for he could not turn 

 around ; and he spoiled a rod of potatoes by turn- 

 iag around on them. And every time he struck a 

 stone the provoker would whiz out of gear and 

 throw Enoch onto the horses. 



Enoch lost his potatoes that summer, and what 

 ^as worse, Deacon Brown had a good crop. I 

 Icnew that he dreamed about those bugs. Enoch 

 is a somnambulist and walks in his sleep, and at 

 ;such times his mind often runs to verse. It is an 

 inherited trait. And in one of these fits he wrote 

 on the wall, 



RouikI and round in ghoulish dance 



Do the gruesome monsters run, 

 And ever doth their gait enhance 



Till the summer's heat is done. 



These times are full of bacteria, bugs and non- 

 sense. I had a row of young pear trees killed by 

 Jrozen sap blight. There came on a sudden cold 



snap in November after several days of warm elec- 

 tric winds from the south, and the ground froze so 

 hard that the roots could not breathe. Conse- 

 quently the sap staid in the top and clogged up the 

 pores, and when it thawed out in the' spring it 

 soured. You could peel off a strip of bark and 

 smell it. Along in July the trees began to go, and 

 I knew that those which had the most sap in them 

 when they froze up died first and most. This was 

 a clear case and I was determined not to let it be 

 lost to science. So I dug up one of the finest 

 young dead trees I had, root and branch, and took 

 it over to Professor Searcher. I dragged the tree 

 into his office and told him that I had a good case 

 of frozen sap blight for him, and that I had studied 

 this disease for over thirty years and knew all 

 about it. He smiled lonesomely and said some- 

 thing about my being mistaken. 



" Mistaken ! why here's the tree — just look at it ! 

 Smell of that sap !" 



" But, sir," he replied, in the most provoking 

 way, "the ultimate cause of that abnormal condi- 

 tion is a germ, a specific bacterium, and during the 

 last few years " 



"Now see here," I said, "I am no professor, 

 but I guess that I know frozen sap blight when I 

 smell it, and all this talk about bugs so small you 

 can't see 'em is nonsense, and as for bacteery — 

 fiddlesticks." I put the tree back into my buggy 

 and drove home. I don't think that he will dispute 

 me again. 



I do not see the use of finding things so small 

 that you cannot see them. I do not see what good 

 they are. And I don't believe that there are such 

 bugs, anyway. They are only specks, that's all. 

 If we could experiment with something of some use 

 it would be more useful. Why don't our professors 

 turn their attention to getting up some grand new 

 rare novelties, or find out what good there is in 

 cutting potatoes in all sorts of ways. I suggested 

 some of these things long ago, but the editor spoiled 

 it all by saying that I was writing in a sarcastic 

 vein. [See page 350, June issue, 1890. — Ed.] I 

 do not know what authority he had for saying that. 

 I surely never told him so. After having worked 

 for over forty years in the getting up of grand new 

 sorts, it is discouraging to be treated in this way. 



And then all this talk about names of plants is 

 ridiculous. I, as a getter-up of new and and rare 

 novelties, don't believe in it. I know that Shake- 

 speare said that there is nothing in a name, but 

 that only proves that William was never a nursery- 

 man. If all this craziness had been known in my 

 younger days what would have become of Choke's 



