I have little heart to discuss methods of raising peas. It occurs to me that I can have an iron pea-bush, a sort of trellis, through which I could discharge electricity at frequent intervals, and electrify the birds to death when they alight; for they stand upon my beautiful bush, in order to pick out the peas. An apparatus of this kind, with an operator, would cost, however, about as much as the peas. A neighbour suggests that I might put up a scarecrow near the vines, which would keep the birds away. I am doubtful about it: the birds are too much accustomed to seeing a person in poor clothes in the garden to care much for that. Another neighbour suggests that the birds do not open the pods; that a sort of blast, apt to come after rain, splits the pods, and the birds then eat the peas. It may be so. There seems to be complete unity of action between the blast and the birds. But good neighbours, kind friends, I desire that you will not increase, by talk, a disappointment which you cannot assuage.
Charles Dudley Warner.
THE QUAKER COQUETTE.
“DEAR COY COQUETTE, BUT ONCE WE MET.”
DEAR coy coquette, but once we met—
But once, and yet ’twas once too often,
Plunged unawares in silvery snares,
All vain my prayers her heart to soften;