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AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
No. 144 
UmcIc Frank’s CJiat with tUe Hoys 
and Girls. 
Having wished all my dear nephews and nieces 
a Happy New Year, which I most sincerely and 
devoutly do, 1 beg to introduce to them a person¬ 
age who is reputed to take a great interest in their 
affairs about these days. There t3F“ he is, little 
folks. He is called “ Old Father January.” 
You see what his vocation is, don’t you ? He 
drives the same business which our excellent 
friend Santa Claus follows so industriously. The 
difference between the two characters is mainly 
the difference between a Dutchman and an Eng¬ 
lishman, or more correctly, an Anglo-Saxon ; that 
is to say, he holds the same office among English 
people that Santa Claus does among the Dutch 
people. Now, please don’t confound this Father 
January with that Roman chap, Janus, who had 
four faces, and who looked at the four quarters 
of the globe at once, and who had a splendid 
temple built for him, which stood open during the 
Roman wars, and was closed in times of peace. 
Nor would I have you jumble him up with Saint 
Janarius, who was a martyr early in the Chris¬ 
tian era, and whose blood is said to liquefy once 
every year in the Cathedral called by. his name. 
Take a good look at the man now. What do 
you think of him ? Can’t you judge somewhat cf 
his character from that open face of his ? He 
looks a little shy, to be sure. But the reason for 
that is, that he prides himself, like Santa Claus, in 
distributing his gifts very secretly and stealthily. 
I think, however, that I can discover genial feel¬ 
ing, and innocent mirth in that face half concealed 
under the skin. 
“ But what does he carry that log on his back for 1” 
That is the “ Yule log.” 
“And what is the Yule log?” 
A great many years ago, our English ancestors ealled 
the festival of Christmas by the name of “ Yule.” Now 
this same Father January, you must know, like his 
Dutch friend, Santa Claus, was supposed to begin to per¬ 
form his good deeds on Christmas eve, though of course 
he kept them up during the succeeding week, until the 
coming in of the New Year. This log the kind-hearted 
old fellow contributes to make a merry blaze on the 
hearth lor the feats of Yule, and so it is called the yule 
log. 
“ And what has he in that huge bowl, which lie seems 
to carry so carefully?” 
I'm sure I can’t tell you. It is something good. I’ll 
answer for that. But what the beverage is, I know no 
more than the man in the moon. 
“ I guess it is punch.” 
No. I am quite sure that our ancestors, away back 
there, a thousand years ago, before the Normans had 
come over from France, were profoundly ignorant of 
whisky punches, sherry cobblers, gin-cocktails, and the 
like. These are modern in¬ 
ventions. I don’t see, then, 
that a wiser thing can be done 
in relation to this question, 
than to give it up—to “ let it 
pass.” as the cow is said to 
have remarked of the train of 
cars, when it passed. 
Now, boys, and girls, I 
have another odd personage 
to introduce to you—quite as 
odd as the one we have just 
dismissed ; and this one is a 
real character, whereas the 
other, as you don’t need to 
ce informed, is fanciful and 
fabulous. 
There ! what do you say 
to that chap ? I have no 
doubt he strikes you at first 
as rather ugly—and perhaps 
he is so—but I am very m-uch 
mistaken if it w ill not pay us 
well to give him a carefin 
examination, and to inquire 
a little into his history and habits. He deserves some 
civility from us, too, for the journey he has taken to |.re¬ 
sent himself in our charmed circle. 
“ Why, how far has lie traveled, Uncle Frank?” 
All the way from Texas. I must, tell you the whole 
story. Not many weeks ago, there came a large parcel 
through the mail. What could it be? It was charged 
letter postage. It is something valuable, that’s clear. 
There seemed to be something moving inside of it, Whew ! 
Wonder if it is’nt a scorpion, just such a vagabond as 
Cleopatra employed one day. It is’nt an infernal machine. 
Infernal machines don’t hive live things about them. 
Well, let us solve the mystery. Here goes for opening the 
parcel. On removing the envelop there appeared a com¬ 
mon tin box. We opened the box—opened it, possibly, 
with some fear and trembling—when lo ! the animal whose 
portrait is so correctly presented to you, made his appear¬ 
ance. He seemed to be taking life very coolly and calm¬ 
ly. We soon found him to be a perfectly innocent and 
well-disposed sort of personage, who manifested no ob¬ 
jection to our examining him as closely as we chose. 
It is hardly necessary to describe his personal appear¬ 
ance. He is marvellously well represented in the picture, 
which was engraved from a portrait carefully taken by 
Lawrence. As to his habits, they seem to be not greatly 
unlike those of our Northern tree-toad. He has extreme¬ 
ly sharp claws, which seem to fithtm for climbing on trees. 
One marked feature about him is his bright and expres¬ 
sive eye. His horns, perhaps, are the most odd and gro¬ 
tesque things which he wears. They tend to give him a 
ferocious aspect; though that is a trait of character which 
seems by no means to belong to him. 
The most striking difference which I have noticed, in 
the habitsofthis “ Texan Ranger, as compared with those 
of our toad and frog, is that while the locomotion of the 
latter is performed by means of vaulting or hopping, the 
former walks off like a turtle or an alligator. The Tex¬ 
an lady to whose politeness the readers of the Agricultur¬ 
ist are indebted for this rare curiosity, says, that, when 
he is on his native soil, he will sometime? run so fast, 
that it is quite difficult to overtake him—a fact of which 
our visitor has given us some pretty good proof, during 
his residence in these parts. The same lady informs us 
that the animal is a little addicted, chameleon like, to 
changing his color. But the most interesting fact whir h 
she slates is this : that a gentleman of her acquaintam e 
had one in his study, so tame [that he would follow the 
motion of his master’s pen on the paper. The common 
name of this (to us Northern people) singular reptile, ;s 
the Horned Frog. I will not trouble my young readeis 
with the very long Latin name by which he is designated 
among men of science. I wish some of our subscribers 
in Texas would write us all they know about this animal 
I have no doubt but many of his exploits are well worth 
recording. This is the first one we have ever seen—pro 
bably the first one that ever came here, and we know lit 
tie about the creature. [If our friends in Texas, and else¬ 
where, have other such like queer animals that will bear 
transit by mail send them along, and we will show them 
up. Our delineators, and draughtsmen, and engravets, 
have a marvelous knack of making them walk on paper, 
so that we can introduce them into tens of thousands of 
households. There is room enough in the Agriculturist 
to get up quite a cabinet of Natural History, without 
crowding upon the amount of space needed for farming, 
gardening, house-keeping, etc. Why there is a world of 
wonders right around us in the country, that we have 
hardly a conception of yet. We have an engraver at 
work upon an insect that lives upon the rommou butter¬ 
nut tree that will make your eyes glisten when you see 
him shown up in “black and white.” But this is an epi¬ 
sode ; go on Uncle Frank, we see you have some crooked 
words coming out — Ed.] 
There are ever so many ways to make Winter evenings 
happy in a family of children. The calendar of in-door 
amusements is almost inexhaustible now-a-days. As a 
general rule, though, those amusements are best which 
blend more or less instruction with them. It has occurred 
to me that among the many thousands of my nephews and 
nieces, there are not a few French scholars, and some who 
are quite advanced in the study of the language. Now, I 
can not think it would fail to be a pleasant as well as a 
rational exercise for these French students to take up 
little French lyrics and to render them into English verse. 
Here is a simple thing from Victor Hugo, to begin with. 
La tombe dit a la rose : 
Des pleurs dont l’abue t’arrose 
Que fais-tu, fleur des amours? 
La rose dit a la tombe : 
Que fais-tu de ce qui tombe 
Dans ton gouffre ouvert toujours ? 
La rose dit :^-Tombeau sombre, 
De ces pleurs, je fats dans l’ombre 
Un parfum d’ambre et de miel. 
La tombe dit:—Fleur plaintive, 
De chaque ame qui m’arrive, 
Je fais un ange du ciel. 
It is easy enough to translate the author’s meaning, 
you see. The difficulty consists in rendering the ideas in 
good English verse. Those who have not taxed their 
brains over this species of composition, may be almost dis¬ 
couraged at the result of their first efforts. They have 
only to persevere, however, and they will succeed, in 
nine cases out of ten, in fitting the lyric with a becoming 
suit of clothes made after the English fashion. For the 
encouragement of my young readers, 1 will give them a 
translation made, at my request, on purpose for them, by 
a lady friend of mine who styles herself “ Aunt Sue,” and 
who is never so happy as when she is entertaining a tmnn 
of little folks. 
The Tomb a sweet Rose thus addressed : 
“With die tears that dawn sheds on thy breast, 
What makest thou, beautiful flower ?” 
“ And thou, solemn Tomb,” said the Rose, 
Say, what dost thou make with all those 
Engulfed by thee every hour? 
“With the tear-drops my bosom that fill 
Delicious perfume I distill. 
In the twilight and shadowsof even ” 
“ And I, Charming Rose,” said the Tomb 
“ Of the millions which unto me come 
Introduce holy angels to heaven.” 
A Little Girl’s Water-melons.— Mr. D. Coon, 
Walworth Co., Wis., writes that his little girl, seven 
years old, raised on a vine in her flower-bed, five melons 
weighing respectively, 22), 20, 20, 15 and 15 lbs. She 
thinks that is doing pretty well for so small a girl [so it is] 
and wants to know if any one of her age have beat it. If 
they have, she will “ try again.” 
The Chinese Cement which is enquired for by C 
Hoffman, jr., Dauphin Co., Pa., we cannot describe. The 
paper he inquires about, is, in our private opinion, a little 
on the humbug order. 
Keeping Weather Notes.— We can not judge of the 
merits of the Minnesota boy’s method of keeping Weathei 
Notes, until we examine it. 
