[January, 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
1873 .] 
H A V E YOXJ HEAD THE GREAT 
AMERICAN STORY? 
The End of the World. 
Y LOVE story. 
By EL> W ART) ECGGrEESTOZST, Author of “The Hoosier /School-Master," etc. 
BEAUTIFULLY ILLUSTRATED WITH THIRTY-TWO ENGRAVINGS. 
THE NEW SINGING-MASTER. 
“ He sings like an owling'ale! ” 
Jonas Harrison was leaning against the well- 
curb talking to Cynthy Ann. He’d been down 
to the store at Brayville, he said, a listenin’ to 
’em discuss Millerism, and seed a new singing- 
master there. 
“ Could he sing good? ” Cynthy asked, rather 
to prolong the talk than to get information. 
“ Sings like an owlingale, I reckon. He’s 
got more seals to his ministry a-hanging onto 
his watch-chain than I ever seed. Got a mus- 
i ache onto the top story of his mouth, some- 
tilin’like a tuft of grass on the roof of a ole 
shed kitchen. Peart? He’s the peartest-lookin’ 
chap £ ever seed. But he a’n’t no singin’-mas- 
ter — not ef I’m any jedge of turnips. He 
warn’t burn to sarve his day and generation 
with a tunin’-fork. I think lie’s a goin’ to 
reckon-water a little in these parts, and that 
lie’s only a-playin’ singin’-master. He kin play 
more fiddles’n one, you bet a boss! Says he 
come up here fer his wholesome, and I guess 
lie did. Think ef he’d a-staid where he was, 
he mout a-suffered a leetle from confinement 
to his room, and that room p’raps not more 
nor five foot by nine, and ruther dim-lighted 
and poor-provisioned, an’ not much chance 
fer takiu’ exercise in the fresh air 1" 
” Don’t be oncharitable, Jonas, don’t. We’re 
all mis’able sinners, T s’pose; and you know 
charity don't think no evil. The man may be 
all right, ef he does wear hair on his lip. 
Charity kivers lots a sins.” 
"Ya-as, but charity don’t kiver no wolves 
with wool. An’ ef he a’n’t a woolly wolf 
they’s no snakes in Jarsey, as little Hidin’ Hood 
said when her granny tried to bite her head 
off. I’m dead sot in favor of charity, and mean 
to gin her my vote at every election, but I a’n’t a-goin’ 
to have her put a blind-bridle on to me. And when a man 
comes to Clark township a-wearing straps to his breecli- 
aloons to keep liisself from leaving terry-firmy altogether, 
and a-weightin’ liisself down with pewter watch-seals, 
gold-washed, and a cultivating a crap of red-top hay onto 
his upper lip, and a-lettin’ on to be a singin’-master, I sus¬ 
picions him. They’s too much in the git-up fer the come- 
out. Well, here’s yer health, Cynthy! ” 
And having made this oracular speech, and quaffed the 
hard limestone water, Jonas hung the clean white gourd 
from which he had been drinking, in its place against the 
well-curb, and started back to the field, while Cynthy Ann 
” Don't be oncharitable, Jonas." 
carried her bucket of water into the kitchen, blaming her¬ 
self for standing so long talking to Jonas .—From “ The 
End of the World." 
NOTICES BY THE PRESS. 
Dr. Eggleston, in striking out into the uncouth wilder¬ 
ness of early Hoosierdoin ” for the materials of his 
tales, lias entered into an emphatically new iiefil, and by 
the production of but two books has achieved for himself 
indisputable immortality .—Dayton Religious Telescope. 
Mr. Eggleston has opened a new mine in American 
fictitious literature, as distinct as Cooper did in the 
Indian romances, and he has so far shown great skill in 
working it. "The Hoosier School-Master” was a 
decided success, and this new tale is quite its equal.— 
Central Christian. Advocate. 
Dr. Eggleston’s new story is the best he 
has written. “ The Hoosier School Master” 
was good, but The End of the World shows 
a better plot, better character-drawing, and 
more firm and consistent treatment through¬ 
out.The book is exceedingly whole¬ 
some. The sentiment throughout is pure. 
It contains not one morbid or cynical page. 
It exhibits the passion of love under its 
healthiest manifestation, and treats the rela¬ 
tions of the sexes in a perfectly normal way. 
.... When a book like this—so full of 
nature and reality, so cheerful and yet so 
reverent, so free from mawkish sentiment 
and poisonous theories—starts out with a 
first edition of ten thousand copies, it is a 
good sign for our popular literature. It is 
one of the hooks that the people will he sure 
to read, and they will find in it a perfectly 
innocent and healthy enjoyment. — The 
Independent. 
It is a tale of life in the Ohio Valley, and. 
called “a love story,” is much more. The 
old alluring theme is handled with skill, and 
with a genuineness as far as may he from 
affected sentimentality, and one’s interest is 
well wrought up in the rivalry between the 
simple-minded and honest German, August, 
and the crafty scoundrel and blackleg, Hum¬ 
phreys. Yet it is as a chapter of virtual 
history that the hook is chiefly notable. The 
plot hinges upon the prediction of the end 
of tile world, which, according to the Miller- 
ites, was to he fulfilled on the night of August, 
11th, 1S43. The scenes of that memorable 
night are depicted with great humor and 
vigor.But the fascination of the hook 
is in its characterization of odd people: 
•Tonas, shrewd and irrepressible, with a fund 
of humor at command and a ready tongue 
to give it vent; Cynthy Ann, meekly reli¬ 
gious, and always on tip-toe against tempta¬ 
tion ; Mrs. Anderson, the scold, who coerces 
her family with threats of heart-disease ; 
the Backwoods Philosopher, who shuts him¬ 
self up in his castle and utters wisdom at the 
despicable world; the Steam-Doctor, whose 
special form of quackery is very amusing ; 
the Mud-Clerk, the Millerite Preacher, and 
the Village Loafers. These people live and 
move, and the reader, instead of criticising 
the creations of the artist, becomes ac¬ 
quainted with men and women of flesh and blood like 
unto himself .—Mew York Evening Mail. 
The book is handsome in its make-up, being printed 
oil thick paper, and embellished with no less than thirty- 
two engravings, all in excellent style, the designs of 
Frank Beard. It is a story of Western life, not 
encounters with Indians and adventures with varmints, 
hut of that Western life that is so much a larger expres¬ 
sion of our Eastern life as to seem at times as only a 
travesty or exaggeration of our prim New England style. 
—Hartford Evening Post. 
The many delighted readers of ” The Hoosier School- 
Master” will find new pleasure in this last and, i/ 
possible, more fascinating work .—Washington Daily 
Chronicle. 
Price, Post-paid, $1.50. 
ORANGE JUDD AND COMPANY, 2T5 BROADWAY, NEW YORK. 
