How changed is the aspect of everything around us! The trees have put off their garments; the flowers have perished; the green grass is withered and dead. How silent is the forest! Of all the merry songsters that made it ring with joyous music, not one remains behind. Even the partridge and the quail have retired to the thick woods, and left their wonted haunts alone and desolate. Even the squirrel now lies late in the morning, and retires early to bed, seeming to take little pleasure in scampering about the woods, now that he has them all to himself.
December is indeed a chill and blustering month; and here in New England, we might almost envy our friends of Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana, where the weather is still mild and pleasant. However, in a few days the snow will come, and the merry sleigh bells will remind us of winter sports,—of snowballing, building snow forts, sliding, skating and coasting. Nor are these the only pleasures of winter in our northern climate. When the day’s sport is done, how pleasant it is to gather around the fire-side; to play blind man’s buff; to tell stories, study the lessons for school, and read Merry’s Museum. After all, winter has its comforts as well as summer.
Hot Water.—An Irish servant discovering one morning that a part of the wood work of the kitchen chimney was on fire, rushed up stairs to his master with the alarming intelligence. Down the master ran, to see the state of the matter. A large kettle of water was upon the fire. “Why, Pat, why don’t you put it out? there’s plenty of water close by.” “I can’t sure; would your honor have me to pour boiling water on it sure?”
There is a small house in the upper part of the city of New York, on which are two signs, put there some years since by a Dutchman. They run thus:
“Apartments to let, either fried, stewed, raw, roasted, or in the shell.”
“Oysters can be furnished with meals and lodgings at $2 per day.”
Flowers.
The love of flowers seems to be universal; even children admire them, and to form a bouquet seems to be almost as natural as to put food into the mouth. The Indians of Mexico, barbarians as they were in many things, were passionately fond of flowers. Even to this day you may see, in the city of Mexico, the Indians, reduced to a state of poverty and degradation, still retaining the passion which marked them in the days of Montezuma. In their stalls where they sell fruits and vegetables, they seem almost smothered with flowers, which are every day renewed.