Sound was heard. Still he listened. No sound. Then he turned the key in
the door, and came elaborately tip-toeing toward me till he was within
long reaching distance of me, when he stopped, and, after scanning my
face with intense interest for a while, drew a folded copy of our paper
from his bosom, and said: "There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick!
Relieve me. I suffer." I read as follows: and, as the sentences fell
from my lips, I could see the relief come, I could see the drawn muscles
relax, and the anxiety go out of the face, and rest and peace steal over
the features like the merciful moonlight over a desolate landscape: "The
guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It
should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In the
winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its
young. "It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain.
Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his
corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat cakes in July instead of August.
"Concerning the Pumpkin.--This berry is a favourite with the natives of
the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the
making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the
raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as
satisfying. The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that
will thrive in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of
the squash. But the custom of planting it in the front yard with the
shrubbery is fast going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded
that the pumpkin as a shade tree is a failure. "Now, as the warm weather
approaches, and the ganders begin to spawn--" The excited listener
sprang toward me to shake hands, and said: "There, there--that will do.
I know I am all right now, because you have read it just as I did, word
for word. But, stranger, when I first read it this morning, I said to
myself, I never, never believed it before, notwithstanding my friends
kept me under watch so strict, but now I believe I _am_ crazy; and with
that I fetched a howl that you might have heard two miles, and started
out to kill somebody--because, you know, I knew it would come to that
sooner or later, and so I might as well begin. I read one o
