106 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
“A little humor now and then, 
Is relished by the best of men.” 
WORDS OVER A GRAVE. 
Bid she suffer long 1 Oh, yes ! and ’tis best 
To wipe our tears when such weary ones rest; 
Fond hearts watched o’er her for many a day, 
Lest life’s torn petals should fall to their clay; 
But they fell to their clay. 
Did she sorrow to live ? When her husband was 
There lay ’neath her eyelid an unshed tear; [near, 
But it trickled not till her boy drew nigh 
And asked his pale mother never to die ! 
Never to die. 
Did mindmit from her, with death afar 1 
And left it the gate of the grave ajar 1 
While tenantless life, outlined as before, 
Was the shadow of mind thro’ that open door 1 
Through that open door 1 
No ! praise to Jehovah! for mercy thus shown, 
The light and its shadow at once were withdrawn, 
Vet she trimmed her Faith ere she went away; 
God grant there was oil in the lamp that day— 
In the lamp that day. » 
Tfee funeral train, like a gulf-stream, wound 
Thro’ the ocean of life that was heaving around ; 
In silence it moved as the wreck they bore, 
Where the grave-stones pebble the church-yard 
The church-yard shore, [shore*-- 
We lingered long by that cold grave side, 
While back to the world swept the funeral tide, 
Far from the death-beach it ebbed away 
Nor missed from its bosom a drop of spray— 
A drop of spray. 
And must dust absorb it 1 Ah, no ! if she shone 
Among Christ’s jewels—a precious stone— 
When judgment shall open the grave’s rough shell, 
•She may be a pearl —but we can not tell— 
We can not tell. 
HUSKING CORN. 
There are different methods of harvesting 
and curing corn in different parts of the 
country. In the large corn-growing districts 
at the West, and South, where the stalks 
often attain the height of twelve or fourteen 
feet, and look at a distance like fields of su¬ 
gar cane, the corn is allowed to stand in the 
field till December or January. The husks 
have then been opened by the winter frost 
and the golden ears hanging upon the stalks 
are a beautiful sight. The farmer then pass¬ 
es through the field with his horses and a 
large wagon and picks the ears, leaving the 
husks and stalks standing as they grew. 
The writer has seen immense fields of corn 
in Illinois, so tall that men standing on the 
ground could not reach the ears, and would 
be obliged to stand upon the wagon to gather 
them. 
In the New-England States corn does not 
grow as large, and is harvested in a different 
way. In many instances the stalks are cut 
off above the ear, and carefully cured. This 
process exposes the ripening ear to the sun, 
and hastens its maturity. In the month of 
October, when the ears are fully ripe, the 
corn is cut up with a sickle, and gathered 
into a large heap previous to husking. 
The season of corn husking in New-Eng¬ 
land, has formerly been, like the time of 
sheep-shearing in Nantucket, a merry mak¬ 
ing. Who that was familiar with farming 
scenes a quarter of a century ago, does not 
remember the merry moonlight evenings of 
October, when around a huge pile of corn, 
l he labor of husking became a pastime to the 
assembled group of neighbors ? Then the 
old and young mingled their joyous mirth 
and beguiled the rapid hours with song and 
story. We may safely affirm that no sump- 
t.uous feast was ever relished better than the 
simple pumpkin-pie and sweet-cider did then, 
and, perhaps, no moon-light evenings have 
been brighter or happier than when the bash¬ 
ful youth escorted home his favorite partner 
in the rustic dance, and since then may be— 
the partner of his life. 
Of late years corn husking is less a season 
of merry-making. It is usually performed 
by the family, and not unfrequently employs 
all its available members, and is made a 
cheerful labor. 
Let us listen to a dialogue, of a family 
! thus employed—the widow Wilkins and her 
three children, Tom, Dick, and Lucy. The 
good woman is giving a lesson to Dick how 
to strip oil the husks—and little Lucy is 
trying to do as Dick does. 
Mother.—“ See there, Dick—do you see 
that ?” 
Dick.—“ Yes, ma’am.” 
Mother.—“ Well—you take off the husks, 
and hold the stalk, just so.” 
Dick.—“ Yes, ma’am.” 
Mother.—“ And then you break off the 
stalk close to the ear, just so.” 
Dick.—“ Yes, ma’am.” 
Lucy.—“There, mother! didn’t I do that 
better’ll Dick V ’ 
Mother.—“ Yes, my darling. Now, Dick, 
do you know how to do it V’ 
Dick.—“Yes, ma’am.” 
Being satisfied that the husking was in a 
fair way, the widow Wilkins departed, and 
left her children to themselves. After she 
was gone, Dick spoke as follows : 
“ Can you tell me, Tom, what all this corn 
is for 1” 
“ To be sure I can,” said Tom ; “ some of 
it is to feed the chickens with ; some of it is 
to feed the pigs with ; some of it is to feed 
the horse and cow with, and some of it is to 
be ground into Indian meal to make johnny- 
cake and brown bread with.” 
“ Well done!” says Dick. “ It seems to 
me that the corn is very useful then ; for the 
chickens and the pigs, and the cow and the 
horse, and mother, and Tom, and Dick, and 
Lucy, all live upon it. Really I never thought 
of that before. Then people when they 
plant and plow, and hoe and pick, and husk 
the corn, are working all the while for the 
hens and hogs and cattle and people 1” 
“ Yes, to be sure,”-said Tom; and what 
did you think all this labor was for before 
you found out it was useful in this way I” 
“ Why,” said the boy, “ I thought—I 
thought—I don’t know 7 wTiat I thought; I 
guess I didn’t think at all—or, if I did, I 
thought it w 7 as all a kind of play. But I 
know better now; I see that when people 
at work, they are not playing, but they are 
doing something useful; and when mother 
sets me to work, I mean always to consider 
that she has a good and useful object in view, 
and that I must do it; not because it is play, 
but because it will do good.” 
“ Very well,” said Tom, “ 1 hope you will 
always do so.” By this time the husking 
was done and I came away. [Merry’s Museum. 
Mrs. Partington Indignant.—“ The print¬ 
ing press is a great steam-engine,” said Mrs. 
Partington, “but I don’t believe Dr. Frank¬ 
lin ever invented it to commit outrages on a 
poor female woman like me. It makes me 
say everything, Mrs. Sled ; and some of the 
things I know must have been said when I 
was out, for I can’t remember ’em,” said she, 
dropping three stiches in the excitement. 
“ They ought to think,” continued she, “ that 
them who make sport of the aged don’t never 
live to grow up!” 
Hooroar! —The following jubilant dis¬ 
patch recently passed over the wires be¬ 
tween Albany and a neighboring city : “ To 
Mr.-, -street, Albany. Dear Jem— 
Another bov. Hooroar!” 
A SUFFOLK TALE. 
I once took notes of the legends of old 
country houses, and the best I can remem¬ 
ber, lingers about an old Queen Anne man¬ 
sion in Suffolk. There are terraces paved 
with lozenges of black and white stones be¬ 
fore the house, and two bay trees, of great 
height and great age, keep guard before the 
flight of steps that lead by to the last; and 
there is always a dry rustle in the evergreen 
leaves, whether the wind be up or not, that 
startles one like the rustle of brocaded silks, 
along a corridor. A strange old dial is 
over the door, with the date of one of Marl¬ 
borough’s battles upon it. Many an eye has 
been turned to it, to read the lesson that it 
still teaches ; for it is an old schoolmaster 
that outlives many scholars. But the story, 
the story: In the beginning of George II.’s 
time, there lived here a country gentleman 
and his young wife. He was of the Squire 
Weston race, and neglected his wife for the 
covert side, the river’s bank, and the fox- 
hunter’s debauch. She fell in love with an 
officer, who was staying at the house ; his 
pity for her grew into love, and love became 
a sin. Her husband, thrown from his horse, 
came in one day earlier than was expected, 
and found his wife with her lover. In his 
rage he struck her; and drawing his sword, 
advanced against the officer, but, bruised by 
his previous fall, fell, and was stabbed to the 
heart by his adversary. Packing up her 
jewels and some rouleaux of her husband’s, 
the guilty woman fled with the murderer, 
whose hands were still red with the blood of 
him she once had loved. She left her only 
child, a girl of exquisite beauty, then about 
eight years of age. The fugitive was not 
heard of for ten years. The daughter had 
growai up into womanhood and beauty, and 
was on the eve of marriage with a young 
farmer in the neighborhood, for the estate 
had fallen into decay during the minority, 
and he had become her equal in wealth, if 
not in birth. It was a November evening, 
starless, moonless, cheerless. If you looked 
out through the misty windows of the old 
hall into the woods, you could hear no sounds 
but the fog drops, drip, drip, dripping, patter¬ 
ing on dead leaves, or splashing in the rain- 
pools. A dense blue fog steamed up from 
the dark woods. By the old hall fire sat the 
maiden and her lover, when a muffled sound, 
as of wheels on turf, sounding at a distance, 
grew nearer and nearer, as if they were 
coming swiftly up the green-covered drive to 
the hall. They looked out, and saw a black 
coach, with black plumes upon its four cor¬ 
ners, approaching, the wheels were muffled 
with black—the horses were black—the 
coachman wore a mask, as did the two 
men who swung behind; and before the 
windows were drawn curtains of black. My 
heart bleeds while I tell this sequel. It was 
the proud mother’s unnatural greeting of her 
daughter. On the door being opened, the 
masked men rushed in, seized the maiden, 
and carried her into the coach, and on the 
lover resisting, stabbed him, and left him in 
his blood. The doors were closed, and the 
coach drove off ere a rescue could be 
effected. No traces of the mother or daugh¬ 
ter could ever be found ; but there is reason 
to suppose that both died in a convent near 
Namur. The house fell into other hands, 
and but for the preservation of the old pic¬ 
ture gallery, I should never have learned the 
tragical story. [New Monthly Mag. 
The Oldest Inhabitant. —The Warrenton 
(Va.) W/iigsays: Easter, a negro woman, 
the property of Mrs. Eliza F. Carter, near 
Upperville, in Fauquier County, died on the 
17th July, having attained the age of 140 
years ! This is one of the most remarkable 
cases of longevity on record. 
