Do you call those two moving bales of wool, sheep? Hurrah for “Ayrshire” farming! Fleece six inches deep, and the animals not half grown. Comfortable looking January-defiers, may your shearing be mercifully postponed till the dog days.
Pigs, too? petite, white and frisky; two hundred dollars a pair! Phew! and such pretty little gaiter boots to be had in Broadway! Disgusting little porkers, don’t wink your pink eyes at my Jewish resolution.
Puppies for sale? long-eared and short-eared, shaggy and shaven, bobtailed—curtailed—and to be re-tailed! Spaniel terrier and embryo Newfoundland. Ho! ye unappropriated spinsters, with a superfluity of long evenings—ye forlorn bachelors, weary of solitude and boot-jacks, listen to these yelping applicants for your yearning affections, and “down with the dust.”
“Nelly for sale, at twenty dollars.” Poor little antelope! The gods send your soft, dark eyes an appreciative purchaser. I look into their human-like depths, and invoke for you the velvety, flower-bestrewn lawn, the silver lake, in which your graceful limbs are mirrored as you stoop to drink, the leafy shade of fret-work leaves in the panting noon-tide heat, and the watchful eye and caressing hand of some bright young creature, to whom the earth is one glad anthem, and whose sweet young life (like yours) is innocent and pure.
Avaunt, pretentious peacocks, flaunting your gaudy plumage before our sated eyes. See that beautiful “Golden Pheasant,” on whose plump little body, clad in royal crimson, the sunlight lingers so lovingly. See the silky fall of those flossy, golden feathers about his arching neck. Glorious pheasant! do you know that “a thing of beauty is a joy forever?” Make your home with me, and feast my pen-weary eyes: flit before me when the sunlight of happiness is clouded in, and the gray, leaden clouds of sorrow overcast my sky; perch upon my finger; lay your soft neck to my cheek; bring me visions of a happier shore, where love is written on the rainbow’s arch, heard in the silver-tripping stream, seen in the blossom-laden bough and bended blade, quivering under the weight of dewy gems, and hymned by the quiet stars, whose ever-moving harmony is unmarred by the discord of envy, hate, or soul-blasting uncharitableness. Beautiful pheasant! come, bring thoughts of beauty and peace to me!
—Loving Jenny Lind smiles upon us from yonder canvass. Would that we might hear her little Swedish chicken peep! Not a semi-quaver careth the mother-bird for the homage of the Old World or New. The artless clapping of little Otto’s joyous hands, drowns all the ringing plaudits, wafted across the ocean. A Dead Sea apple is fame, dear Jenny, to a true woman’s heart. Happy to have hung thy laurel wreath on Otto’s little cradle.
TWO PICTURES.
You will always see Mrs. Judkins in her place at the sunrise prayer-meeting. She is secretary to the “Moral Reform,” “Abolition,” “Branch Colporteur and Foreign Mission” Societies. She is tract distributor, manager of an “Infant School,” cuts out all the work for the Brown Steeple Sewing Circle; belongs to the “Select Female Prayer Meeting;” goes to the Friday night church meeting, Tuesday evening lecture, and Saturday night Bible Class, and attends three services on Sunday. Every body says, “What an eminent Christian is Mrs. Judkins!”