108 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
[March, 
wheels was heard. At that sound Major left everything, 
and ran down the road, barking with all his might. 
“ It’s the fish-mail,” said Fanny, .as a queer-looking 
wagon came round the corner of the house, and stopped 
at the kitchen door. 
Now fish-men are rather an odd set, as a rule, hut of all 
fish-men this was the oddest. He was a short, how-leg¬ 
ged little man, and wore blue army-trousers, and a very 
long, liglit-hrown coat, 
which hung on him like 
a bag. His face was cov¬ 
ered with tangled g.ay 
whiskers, and his head 
with tangled gray hair, 
some of which stuck up 
through a hole in the 
crown of his old straw- 
hat. But the fish-man was 
not near so queer as his 
horse. This animal had a 
body very much like the 
boiler of a steam-engine 
mounted on legs, so short 
and thick that they looked 
much like those of a piano, 
but much more crooked. 
These legs seemed to be 
crooked in all ways, and 
made the poor creature’s 
feet turn inward like a 
duck’s. This old horse had 
a very long, thin neck, and 
an immense head, which 
he always hung very low, 
as though he were ashamed 
of himself. The two boys 
and their sister forgot then- 
grief in examining the fish- 
man’s cart. There at one 
end was a great lot of 
clams. Now, Fanny was 
very fond of clams, and she 
no sooner saw them than 
a bright idea popped in¬ 
to her little head. 
“ Boys,” she said, “ let’s 
iave a clam-bake ! We’ll 
ask the fish-man for a clam; 
you ask him, Ransom.” 
_“ All right,” said Ran¬ 
dom. The good-natured 
fish-man readily gave the 
clam, and three children 
started off in glee with 
their gift and a couple of 
matches.“We’ll go up 
to the liill-ofchard, and 
make a fire in the stone- 
fence there,” said Ran¬ 
som.“There’s James 
coming from the stable, 
let’s ask him to go with 
us,” said Foamy.... “No, 
I won’t! Mean fellow, I 
shan’t ask him to our 
clam-bake! ” said Ransom. 
....“I won’t play if he 
comes,” added Will, spite¬ 
fully. ...“ Well, we won’t 
ask him,” said Fanny, as 
she looked at the one clam, 
and remembered there 
might not be enough to go 
around. So these three children,with anger in their hearts, 
went up to the hill-orchard, and having selected a hole in 
the stone-wall where it would not be dangerous to build 
a fire, they gathered dry leaves and sticks, and placed the 
clam on them, covering it with more leaves, and then 
Ransom lighted the fire, and all stood round to watch. 
“Don’t it smell good?” asked Will, hungrily, as the 
heat made the clam open and spill some of the juice with 
a hissing sound. Suddenly there was a louder hiss, and 
what was the children’s horror to see coming out of the 
wall, a small black head, followed by a long, black body. 
“ A snake! ” shrieked Will, as the creature opened its 
mouth and thrust its forked tongue at him threateningly. 
The clam and clam-bake were both forgotten, as the ter¬ 
rified children rushed down the hill to the house, and up 
to their mother’s room. 
“Oh, ma!” cried Fanny, all out of breath, “we’ve 
seen a snake! It came right out at us just as we were 
having a clam-bakeTell me about it, Ransom,” 
said their mother, and Ransom gave her the story. 
“.Why do you think the snake came out just then?” 
she asked, when he had finished his-story... “Perhaps 
it was sent to punish us for not asking James,” said Fan¬ 
ny, who had a very tender conscience ...“Maybe it 
was,” said Will, getting close to his mother with a very 
scared face_“No one spoiled your pleasure this after¬ 
noon but yourselves,” said mamma. “You first took 
your own way even when you know it would grieve me, 
and then, because your hearts were full of anger toward 
your brother. If you had asked James to go with you, I 
am sure he would have driven away the snake, and you 
might have had the clam-bake after all.” . “ Let’s go 
and ask him to play with us,” said Fanny, penitently, to 
which her brothers agreed. The children did not soon 
forget that day, and when one was beginning to be cross, 
the others would cry out “ snake,” and they would ail 
laugh at the way they lost their feast of one clam. 
-- 
Win a. ft I.ittle May Tlaoiag-lit . 
Little Mary—Little May they called her, when she was 
good, and Little Mischief when she was troublesome— 
was tired. She had dressed up her dolls, she had put 
her little baby-house in order, she had played with the 
kitten until the poor thing was so teased that it ran away 
and hid from her, and here she was with nothing to do 
and no one to play with. Ah I here was grandmother’s 
chair! Good grandmother had gone to take her after¬ 
noon nap, and in a minute the little girl was in the chair. 
How large it seemed. “ I wonder if grandma was ever 
so small as I,” she thought, “ and shall I ever be so large 
as grandma ? ” Here was the cap, she must try that on. 
It was ever so much too large. “ I wonder why grandma 
wears a cap? But I can’t look like her unless I put on 
her spectacles.”—She put on the glasses, but found that 
she could not see anything, so she took them of again, 
and wondered why old people wore such things. Then 
grandma’s hymn-book too, had such large letters, why 
was that? Little May’s mother, finding the house so 
quiet, wondered where the lively girl could be, and at last 
found her in grandma’s chair, not doing any mischief, as 
she had expected to find her, but for once very quiet, and 
thinking about something. Little May then told her 
mother what she had been thinking about, and her 
mother took her on her lap, and told her that grandma, 
and all old people, were once frolicking children ; that 
all little girls and little 
boys, if they lived, would 
become like grandma and 
grandpa. When they get 
old, their bodies begin to 
wear out, they can not 
walk so well, their eyes 
often need to be helped 
by glasses, even to read 
large print like that in 
grandma’s book ; their hair 
gets thin, and they wear- 
caps. “ How horrible,” 
said May, “I hope I may 
never grow old.”—“ Do 
not say so, my child,” 
answered her mother, 
“your wishes will have 
nothing to do with it; if 
God spares your life, you 
will one day become old 
like grandma, and she is 
not horrible, is she.”— 
“Horrible! why mama, 
she is just the dearest, 
sweetest grandmother that 
ever was, I would not 
mind it if I could be such 
a darling old grandmother 
as she is.”—“ Do you love 
her any the less because 
her eyes need glasses, and 
because she has to sit most 
of the time in her big 
chair.”—“ Not a bit, be¬ 
cause I can find her needle 
when she drops it, and 
bring her tilings that she 
asks for, and she tells me 
stories of when she was a 
little girl, and puts her arm 
around me when I am 
tired, and sings one of her 
little hymns, and I feel so 
rested. If she couldn’t see 
at all, and couldn’t walk, 
I should love her just the 
same.”—“ You begin to 
sec now,” said the mother, 
“ what you will learn bet¬ 
ter when you get older, 
that it is not the bodies'of 
those we love that are so 
dear to us, but the spirit 
that moves them, and if 
the body grows old, and 
the heart or soul remains 
sweet and lovely, like 
grandma’s, there is noth¬ 
ing to dread in growing 
old. You can see when 
grandma smiles, the light 
of love shining through 
her wrinkles, and her dear 
old eyes, which see so 
poorly, are bright with this light, which makes us all 
happy.”—And little May very often thought of this. 
-- 
To Mount a Map.—Julia M. W. of New Jersey, 
has drawn a large map of her father’s farm, and now 
wishes to know how to mount it on rollers. It is very 
easy to do this with proper care, if the map was drawn 
upon thick paper. Take a piece of common cotton cloth, 
bleached is best, a few inches wider each way than the 
map. This must be tacked to some smooth surface, such 
as an old table, a floor that has no wide cracks, or a 
board made for the purpose by putting narrow hoards 
together by cleats. Put the tacks in the cloth an inch 
apart, or less, doubling under the raw edge, that they 
may hold better; do not drive in the tacks more than 
half way, and stretch the cloth tight. Lay the map down 
on a clean paper, and cover the back with an even coating 
of cold, stiff, boiled flour paste, taking care to have the 
edges well covered. Let two persons lift it, and put it 
pasted side down upon the cloth. Place a thin paper on 
the map, and with a clot h rub from the center towards the 
edges, to rem’ove all the air. Then let it dry; no matter 
how much it wrinkles, it will be smooth when quite dry. 
The tacks are then to be taken out, and the map mounted. 
