78 
BY THE WAYSIDE. 
goodness, and we shall all be off very soon. I 
am so glad!” 
Blade of Grass: “The season o-ver. Why, 
what are you talking about? It has just be¬ 
gun.” 
S. F.: “That shows what you know of times 
and seasons! But I don’t know why I should 
express the least surprise, when you don’t know 
anything about Christmas even, nor do any of 
your family. I never knew such ignorance. 
We’ve told you the story over and over again, 
but some persons never learn anything.” 
B. of G.: “Oh, yes! you’ve told us stories 
enough and to spare. That I am quite willing 
to grant. But when it comes to the truth! — 
that is quite another matter. Christmas! 
Christmas! Christmas! It is always Christmas 
with you the whole year around, and I am per¬ 
fectly sick and tired of hearing of it, for it is 
really yourself that you wish to bring into no¬ 
tice all the time. If you could only hear one- 
half of the disagreeable things that are said of 
you, you would certainly be a good deal less 
openly conceited. Wherever I go it is always 
the same thing. Thank Heaven, the snow is 
gone at last! That dirty, slushy, wretched 
snow! How I hate it!” 
S’. F.: “What an abominable fib! Wherever 
I go I hear nothing but good of myself and my 
family! ‘Ah! here’s the snow at last! Now 
we are all right! Now we shall have some 
fun! Ho! for coasting and skating and sleigh¬ 
ing, and larks generally,’ they say. And as for 
being dirty, we are the purest, whitest, most 
beautiful thing in all this white world.” 
B. of G.: “The world isn’t white at all. It 
is green. I have told you that a thousand 
times at least. I have been all over it and 1 
know.” 
S. F.: “It is white, all white, except where 
the s^m strikes it in the evening. I should 
think I ought to know.” 
B. of G.: “You ought to know many things 
that vou don’t know, and never will, moreover. 
I can tell vou that there are whole countries 
where nobody has ever seen or heard of you, 
and where we have lived and flourished for 
thousands of years.” 
S. F.: “And I can tell you that there are 
other countries where not so many as one of 
you has ever been seen, and where we have 
lived and flourished the year round for millions 
of years.” 
B. of G.: “Oh! Pooh! Tell that to the ma¬ 
rines! What is the name of those countries, 
pray? \\here did your family come from, any¬ 
way, I should like to know!” 
S. F.: “My family is of high origin—far, 
far above yours, as everybody knows; for 
though you are a most impudent young blade, 
your low origin is a thing that you can never, 
never alter. Grow as you will, you will never 
rise to the height I came from, I can tell you.” 
B. of G.: “Well, 1 would rather strive up¬ 
ward than to be always falling into the mire, 
if that is what you mean. Y 7 ou are like poor Rain¬ 
drop, who can’t keep out of the gutter to save 
his life, and is always talking of having ‘left 
heaven so recently.’ Earth is good enough for 
me; and I flatter myself that it wouldn’t be 
much of a place for anybody, but for us.” 
S. F.: “Well, your conceit is something co¬ 
lossal. It gets along perfectly, I can assure 
you, without you or yours, for all you think 
yourself so important, Who is it that puffs 
you up with such ideas? You are green to 
believe them. Where were you on the 25th of 
last December, pray?” 
B. of G.: “Where you will be on the 4th of 
July next—precisely!” 
S. F.: “The dog-days! Everybody that is 
anybody always tcoulcl make a point of escaping 
them. They are only fit, as the Turks say, for 
mad dogs and Englishmen—and you!” 
B. of G.: “They are too good for such as 
you, certainly.” 
S. F.: “Look here! Don’t you go too far! Just 
vou remember that I can call on my family and 
we can kill you all out, whenever we choose to 
act in concert —- freeze you right out! Y r es, 
kill and bury you, one and all, and tell no 
tales.” 
B. of G.: “Oh! no! You can’t either. At 
worst vou could onlv stun us for a while. Kill i 
« S' 
us you never can, nor conquer us, either; you 
have been trying to, ever since the world was 
made; and look at you, you poor miserable 
thing, dying by inches, like all your family, on 
this 5th of April, 1889! And no nearer doing 
it than in the year one! The less you talk 
about fighting us the better. We can put a 
million billion spears in the field in three 
weeks without making the least commotion, 
and sustain them for months without troubling 
anybody to lend us a cent. Y 7 ou had better be 
civil, I can tell you—for you are almost alone, 
