THE LADIES' FLORAL CABINET. 
121 
supposed her grandpa would continue to sell pigs as 
long ns any remained to be sold. 
Oiic day, Judge Fold and bis father had driven off to 
look at a horse, which the latter talked of buying, and 
Mrs. Ford was taking a nap, and Aunt Mary had gone 
to see a sick neighbor, Hilly and Barbara were swinging 
in the hammock under the trees, when a man drove 
into the yard, and asked them if Mr. Ford was at home. 
Hilly, who was as ready with her tongue as with her 
feet, told linn that her grandfather had gone where he 
had gone, how long he had been gone, for what he 
had gone, and with whom he had gone. The man 
listened with an amused smile, and then asked if she 
know whether he had any more of those pigs to sell. 
“ Oh, yes,” said Hilly, “ There are two more. I’ll show 
them to you if you wish, and you can buy them of me 
just as well.” 
Hr. Hackett, for that was the man’s name, got out of 
his buggy,and followed Millyto the barn. “ Whatdoes 
your grandpa get for them ? ” asked Mr. Hackett, after 
looking at the two small porkers, the finest he had seen 
that year'. 
' He got three dollars for some, and three and a half 
for the rest, and said he ought to have had four dollars 
for such nice pigs,” said Hilly, promptly. 
“ Well, I think so too, and I will give four dollars 
apiece for these, if you will sell them to me,” said Mr. 
Hackett. 
"All right,” said Hilly, “I guess I’m a pretty good 
hand to sell pigs if I get more for them than grandpa 
does.” 
“So you are, sis. I guess your grandpa will be sur¬ 
prised to find how smart you are,” and he paid Hilly 
eight dollars, and took the pigs in a basket, which he 
brought with him, and drove away. 
Mr. Hackett was a farmer who lived away in the other 
part of the town, and was noted for being tricky and 
underhanded. He knew very well that he had no right 
to buy those pigs of Milly, and that they were the best 
of the lot, and that Mr. Ford had reserved them for 
himself, and would not have sold them at any price, 
hut he wanted the pigs, and cared little how he 
obtained them. 
When Mr. Ford and his son returned, Milly produced 
the money, and told her grandfather, with much pride, 
how she had sold his pigs. 
“Well, Milly,” said he, with more displeasure than 
he had ever shown her before, “You’ve done a big 
piece of mischief this time; I would not have sold those 
pigs for anything.” 
“To whom did you sell them?” demanded her 
father. 
But Milly could not tell, and neither of the children 
could describe the man so that Mr. Ford could make 
any guess as to whom it was. 
A week later, the mother of the pigs was choked 
while eating, and died, and Mr. Ford had lost the breed 
of which he had been so proud. Two or three weeks 
after her death, Mr. Ford was in the village store, and 
happened to mention his loss to an acquaintance, and 
Mr. Hackett chanced to be standing near and overheard 
him. Some slight sense of compunction caused him to 
turn to Mr. Ford, and say: 
“ See here, Ford, I have two fine pigs that I consider 
of just as fine a breed as yours, and if you like thelooks 
of them, I will sell one of them just to oblige you.” 
After some further talk, Mr. Ford decided to lide out 
and look at them, and, having done so, made up his 
mind to buy, and asked the price. Now, at first, Mr. 
Hackett had intended, by way of appeasing his con¬ 
science, to sell Mr. Ford one of the pigs for four dollars, 
but the temptation to overreach and cheat, was too 
much for him, and he asked six dollars. Mr. Ford took 
the pig—one of his own—and paid the price asked, and 
went home. But he grumbled a good deal, and said it 
didn’t come of half so fine a breed as his own, and he 
never expected to see their like again. 
One morning, not long afterwards, as Mr. Ford was 
going to the village, he took Milly and Barbara with 
him for a ride. As they drove up to the post-office, 
Mr. Hackett was just coming out, and with a hasty bow 
to Mr. Ford, he got out into his buggy and drove quickly 
off. 
“ Why, grandpa'! ” exclaimed Milly. “ There is the 
very man I sold the pigs to ! ” 
“ Are you sure ? ” asked Mr. Ford. 
“ Why, I know it is,” insisted Milly, and Barbara also 
declared that it was the same man. But grandpa 
would not tell them the man’s name, and Milly never 
knew that her grandfather too had been sold. 
Mrs. Susie A. Bisbee. 
THANKFULNESS. 
All right-minded people thank God every day for His 
greater gifts and bounties ; it is doubtful if any of us 
remember to thank Him as steadily for the simple and 
common tilings of nature, which we seem to ourselves to 
feel as our right, or at all events as so much a part of 
the very idea of the world as to become our lawful in¬ 
heritance, and thus not needing to be considered as 
objects of gratefulness. A thankful spirit recognizes 
the goodness of God in the weakest as well as the 
strongest of things ; and to my mind it seems that while 
I am thankful to Him for the lustre of the evening sky, 
for food and raiment, for the bestowal of friends, for the 
sustenance of hope and faith, for the prolongation of 
life—though the heart may have sorrowful tombstones 
in it—still, I fall short and forget if I am not thankful, 
too, for the sweet shape and hue and odor of that sea¬ 
side Thistle, since it possesses not only an immaculate 
beauty of its own, but, associated as it is with the sound 
of the waves and with events long since passed, becomes 
a key-note for ever to some of the sweetest experiences 
of by-gone life. All things deserve such thankfulness, 
the commonest as well hs the grandest, for the common 
ones are the heritage of the poor, given them “ without 
money and without price,” so that it is but simplest 
philanthropy to be glad for the presence of what all can 
enjoy without cost.— Grindon. 
