Alas and alack for pansies when the rain beats them earthward!” The marigold, like a yellow-haired boy with his straw hat well back from his flying mane, whistles softly to himself for joy, and buries his hands in the pockets of his green breeches.  The peonies burn low their tinted globes of light, and the sweet peas swing like idle girls upon the tendrils of their drooping vines.  The dog lifts his nose and sniffs the moist air approvingly, while poor Old Tom, the cat, blinks benignly upon the scene.  In the poultry yard the hens pose in the same indescribable amaze that has bewildered their species since the dawn of time.  I think the first chicken that was ever hatched in Eden must have experienced some great nervous shock that has descended along the infinite line of its progeny.  The monotonous rooster chants ever and anon from the top of the fence his unalterable convictions.  The ducks waddle waggishly through the rain and the pigeons coo softly the mellowest melodies that ever sounded from a feathered throat.

XII.

Cause for wonder.

I do not wonder so much that so few people blossom into sunny old age, as I wonder that one-half of humanity ever shows a leaf or unfolds a bud.  Look at the idiots who have children.  Look at the little ones thrown into the street like troublesome kittens.  Look at the injudicious methods of diet and training.  I declare, my dear, if I were to go into the room where Theodore Thomas was rehearsing his orchestra, and see the flutists using their flutes for hammers, and the violinists using their violins for tennis rackets, and the divine old cello in the hands of a lusty blacksmith who was utilizing it for an anvil, the sight would be nothing to what it is to see the muddle we make of the children’s sweet lives.  God meant us for musical instruments, and gave to each soul its capacity for some original harmony.  Can a flute keep its tone for three score years it you use it for a clothes stick on wash day, or a violin retain intact the angel voice within it if you let rats breed and nest in it, fling it against the side of the house and dance on it with hob-nailed boots?  If an instrument subjected to such usage pipes out a silver note once in a dozen years, uncover your head when you hear it, for it is the original angel within the mechanism, which nothing can kill!

XIII.

The first katydid.

The first katydid of the season has whipped out his bow and drawn the preparatory note across the strings of his violin.  He is alone at present and he plays to an empty house, but it will not be long before the orchestra fills up and the music is in full blast.  The cricket is getting ready to throw aside the green baize that has held his piccolo so long, and before the middle of the month there will not be a tuft of