FURNITUBE. 
73 
migrant tottering under a bundle which contained his 
all—looking like an enormous wen which had grown out 
of the nape of his neck — I have pitied him, not because 
that was his all, but because he had all that to carry. 
If I have got to drag my trap, I will take care that it 
be a light one and do not nip me in a vital part. But 
perchance it would be wisest never to put one’s paw 
into it. 
I would observe, by the way, that it costs me nothing 
for curtains, for I have no gazers to shut out but the sun 
and moon, and I am willing that they should look in. 
The moon will not sour milk nor taint meat of mine, 
nor will the sun injure my furniture or fade my carpet, 
and if he is sometimes too warm a friend, I find it still 
better economy to retreat behind some curtain which 
nature has provided, than to add a single item to the de¬ 
tails of housekeeping. A lady once offered me a mat. 
but as I had no room to spare within the house, nor time 
to spare within or without to shake it, I declined it, 
preferring to wipe my feet on the sod before my door. 
It is best to avoid the beginnings of evil. 
Not long since I was present at the auction of a dea¬ 
con’s effects, for his life had not been ineffectual: — 
“ The evil that men do lives after them.” 
As usual, a great proportion was trumpery which had 
begun to accumulate in his father’s day. Among the 
rest was a dried tapeworm. And now, after lying half 
a century in his garret and other dust holes, these things 
were not burned; instead of a bonfire , or purifying de¬ 
struction of them, there was an auction , or increasing 
of them. The neighbors eagerly collected to view them, 
