Stray Leaves From a Border Garden 
of houses to keep off witches. The beauty of the Orange- 
lily border is over. Well, it has lasted a long time. 
July 2 8. — At last the weather has picked up a little and 
it is warm. The hay is being cut in the waterside croft 
and on our haugh. Boy and his little friends were making 
nests in the hay and picknicking there to-day. It was so 
pretty “ doun by,” as they say here : the evening sunlight 
playing on the brown water where the “ trouties ” were 
jumping, and on the masses of brightest blue Helmet- 
flower on the bank, the barefooted, sunburned imps hop- 
ping in and out of the water, courtseying on the unsteady 
stones like Water-wagtails, and shrieking and laughing all 
the time, the tortoiseshell-cat haunting the bairns’ footsteps 
among the haycocks, probably for love, it could never have 
been in hopes of mice in the vicinity of such a noisy crew. 
Pussy’s movements are so erratic, I don’t wonder a hair- 
brained person of unsettled ways used to be called Cat- 
wittit. Then beyond the old wooden footbridge and 
rickety Watergate a black-and-white cow on the bank, 
and a red cow meditating in the water, looked a perfect 
Cuyp picture. The air was full of the scent of the hay and 
the meadsweet. There is a little Scotch song about the 
Water- wagtail. I wish I knew who wrote it ; it is rather 
pretty, I think. 
Merry water-wagtail 
A’ the bairnies know 
How yer tail wag-wagging 
Gars the burnie flow ; 
And how wicked kelpies 
Tell the frettin’ linn 
If ye stop the waggin’ 
Burnies winna rin. 
Lammas , August i. — Boy is a perfect Waterbaby, he 
haunts the riverside indefatigably every free moment. He 
is not singular in his tastes. I saw a lot of small boys the 
other day frolicking in one of the bums, and one hot 
morning, cycling by on the dusty road, I saw two pretty 
girls in pink dresses sitting with bare feet in the same 
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