hood considered it fine sport to pay him a visit of a dark night, and signalize their presence by a shower of stones. Ilis food was never luxurious, being cooked by himself under many disadvantages and with few utensils; and when his money became scant, it was supplied mainly through the charity of the neighbors. He had no bedding and no change of clothes; and when a murder was committed near by, and the murderer was hunted through the place by constables, officers, and half the people as posse comitatus, accompanied by all the dogs in the village; and the crowd, yelling, screaming, and fighting, rushed over the watchman's kennel at midnight, waking him out of sleep, he could stand it no longer, but incontinently fled to parts unknown; so that Sille had not arrived too soon, and found every thing needing care and attention. He went to work at once, and, bringing order out of chaos, began rapidly to construct the confused mass of material into the form and stature of a dwelling.

Murders are abhorrent things to me; either from some natural idiosyncracy, or from the training of my profession, which teaches obedience to the powers that be, and prefers technicalities to violence, I have a positive objection to murdering any one or being murdered myself-especially the latter. It is

:

so dirty and bloody, the body is so dreadful to look at and so hard to dispose of, and the whole affair so sudden and altogether unpleasant. I was anxious to know, before settling in Flushing, whether murder was one of the institutions, and was to be guarded against like chills and fever, musquitoes, and other similar visitations.

A day or two after the occurrence, I applied to my invaluable friend Weeville for information, and inquired whether murders were a common event in that neighborhood. His manner in reply was very encouraging. He had lived in Flushing nine years, and this was the first case of the kind. It was the most peaceable place he knew; in fact, he had hardly ever heard a loud word spoken. He pictured it as the abiding-place of angels or Quakers, and put my scruples entirely at rest. Violence, or disputes even, among the Flushingites were not heard of, and murders were far rarer than deaths by lightning.

The day after this conversation there was a little friendly contest among various fire-companies at the peaceable village to determine which engine could throw the highest stream of water; and what was my amazement, on reading the accounts in the daily papers, to learn that the contest wound up in a free fight; that knives, pistols, and clubs were freely used,

and that four persons were killed and forty wounded. For a family of semi-angels this was doing well. The philosophy of averages furnished one consolation, however Flushing had evidently concentrated into one day its allowance of murders for the next

five years.

None of Sille's men were in the fight, although at first I anticipated finding my cellar a hospital, and expected a renewed experience in the matter of lint and bandages, such as occupied so much of our time during the war. He kept on steadily adding boards, and windows, and siding, and beams together, till they took on the semblance of a house. To be sure, it was rickety and open as yet: one man fell between the timbers, another out of a window, and a third from the roof-but that did not hurt the house.

Two Irishmen were one day at work digging a well, and I commenced inoralizing at their fate-doomed to a lower existence than hewers of wood and drawers of water, not sufficiently intelligent, even, to cut sticks, and condemned to carry wood and dig for water; their life one of weary, heartrending, back-breaking toil; no time for pleasure, no chance to cultivate the intellect and develop the mind—a miserable life, little better than death itself. Musing on their hard lot, I peered down into the

deep hole they were making in the ground during the intense heats of summer, wondering how soon science would raise the lowest of men above the condition of beasts of burden, when one of them, glancing up, perceived me, and inquired, "Was I the boss?" I answered in the affirmative, and he informed me that it was customary for the boss to "stand something" when he first came on the ground. Moved by my sympathies, I stood a dollar apiece, explaining that it must not be wasted in liquor, to which they assented with great hilarity. Alas for sympathy, and charity, and the milk of human kindness! those wretched men immediately clubbed their two dollars together, and, converting them into gin, knocked off work and proceeded to get drunk. They remained incoherent, as the term goes that is applied to their betters, all the next day. As it was essential that the well should be finished as rapidly as possible, my feelings changed, my sympathy died a premature death, and I never stood any thing of the kind again.

What with drunken Irishmen and injured workmen, murdered villagers and fighting firemen, the country house progressed slowly toward completion. The walls, it is true, arose like mushrooms-those delicious vegetables, which I must pause to compliment -in a night; the roof climbed into place, partitions

grew and floors were laid, windows crept into their sash-cases, and doors and blinds were hung, but "the end was not yet." The seventh day of July had come and gone, and the country house bid fair to be finished about Christmas time.

Of the cost of the progressing dwelling it is not pleasant to speak; but as this veritable history depends greatly, for its value to future generations, upon its accuracy and minuteness, I will admit the expense was not despicable. Labor was high, as the Nantucket builder explained, and timber was high, and bricks were high, and Irishmen occasionally got high, and altogether he was compelled—much against his wishes-to charge a high price. As the building progressed, or rather failed to progress, it was suggested that he may have charged enough to leave a surplus to cover a few days' delay at ten dollars a day; but that would hardly have accorded with the proverbial honesty of Nan's dower island.

I concluded to hire a house near by, which, although not the one I expected to occupy, was doubtless as good, and had the advantage of a tight roof and solid walls. Here I could conveniently watch the progress of the undertaking without being so deeply interested as if my lodging depended on it. As distance is supposed to lend enchantment to the