As he broke into unpleasantly convulsive laughter, I added, hastily,
“I mean to say Meteloides.” As he still appeared unconvinced and somewhat choked with merriment, I further explained: “Datura Wrightii Meteloides; a plant which ought to be more extensively cultivated; bears flowers eight inches long, white bordered with lilac, sweet scented, beautiful beyond description.”
“Beautiful!” he shouted; “sweet scented! Why, that is a stink-weed. If you don’t believe me, just touch it.”
It was. I am sorry to confess the fact, but my fears and suspicions were confirmed. I had succeeded in producing about a hundred stink-weeds. There is one disadvantage about science, which consists in the difficulty of understanding it. Datura and Meteloides are so little like stink-weed that the common mind could hardly connect the two together, although the latter have sweet-scented flowers eight inches long. Moreover, I had supposed that stramonium was the learned name, but it would appear that science had altered that. It was a good deal of trouble to get rid of those Daturas. I could not touch them, for by either name they smelt equally, although not absolutely sweet. It was out of the question to pull them up, and almost as difficult to cut them down. During the operation of their removal they gave forth an odor which seemed to me quite a satisfactory reason why they were not more “extensively cultivated,” and which rivaled the best efforts of the American civet, an animal vulgarly known by a more plebeian name. When they were finally eradicated the garden looked quite bare, and a fresh application had to be made to the florists for bedding plants to fill up the vacancies. I still believe in science, but seedsmen should be more full in their descriptions or more careful in their selections; certainly stink-weeds are not very desirable flowers, even under the romantic name Datura or Meteloides.
CHAPTER XIV.
A SECOND DIGRESSION—FAIRY TALES FOR LITTLE FOLKS.
MY five acres at Flushing were located on the top of a hill called Monkey Hill; why so called I can not imagine, for there was never a monkey seen there since the earliest recollection of the first inhabitant; nor could it have been from the want of monkeys, as that is so common a deficiency on Long Island. To be sure, there is a settlement of Irish on one declivity near the salt meadow; but even supposing that, by a stretch of the imagination, Irishmen can be converted into monkeys, that is of comparatively modern date, whereas our Dutch ancestry named the hill generations back. Nevertheless, the hill is Monkey Hill, and the settlement is Monkey Town.
I wander through Monkey Town occasionally, admire the originality of its Celtic architecture, puzzling myself over the buildings to find out which are pig-pens and which are houses—for the pig-pens are so like houses, and the houses are so like pig-pens, that it is hard to tell them apart—and enter into conversation with my fellow-citizens of Irish extraction. I am very affable. I pat the girls on their towy heads, and praise the boys for stout young lads, in the vague hope that the parents may not tear down my fences, nor let their children rob my future apple-trees or steal my pumpkins.
During one of my visits I was much attracted by an old crone who wore spectacles. Spectacles are not unbecoming to some people; they lend an air of maturity to youth, and even improve an elderly lady reading her Bible; but worn permanently by a very wrinkled old woman, with a very long nose and very sharp chin, they have a bewitching effect that, in Massachusetts, would insure the culprit’s early decease at the stake. I made immediate advances to that spectacled female, whose age might have been any where from a hundred and fifty to three hundred, in the firm conviction that her conversation would be interesting and improving; nor was I mistaken, for the intimacy engendered by a few visits induced her to confide in me the following story relative to a small, round, muddy pond, that has neither outlet or inlet, but which is always full, or nearly so, of water, and which lies across the main road over against my premises. I can not give the old crone’s language, nor could she probably give the real language of the parties in action, for it was undoubtedly Dutch; nor can I convey an idea of her halting, though impressive manner; but the story, having come direct through the broomstick fraternity, is doubtless true in every particular, and may be entitled