Editorial Wild Oats | Page 9

don't, don't they! Well, who said they did? The language was
intended to be figurative, wholly figurative. Anybody that knows
anything will know that I meant that the boy should shake the vine."
Then this old person got up and tore his paper all into small shreds, and
stamped on them, and broke several things with his cane, and said I did
not know as much as a cow; and then went out and banged the door
after him, and, in short, acted in such a way that I fancied he was
displeased about something. But not knowing what the trouble was, I
could not be any help to him.
Pretty soon after this a long cadaverous creature, with lanky locks
hanging down to his shoulders, and a week's stubble bristling from the
hills and valleys of his face, darted within the door, and halted,
motionless, with finger on lip, and head and body bent in listening
attitude. No sound was heard. Still he listened. No sound. Then he
turned the key in the door, and came elaborately tiptoeing towards me
till he was within long reaching distance of me, when he stopped and,
after scanning my face with intense interest for a while, drew a folded
copy of our paper from his bosom, and said:

"There, you wrote that. Read it to me--quick! Relieve me. I suffer."
[Illustration: "A LONG CADAVEROUS CREATURE"]
I read as follows; and as the sentences fell from my lips I could see the
relief come, I could see the drawn muscles relax, and the anxiety go out
of the face, and rest and peace steal over the features like the merciful
moonlight over a desolate landscape:
"The guano is a fine bird, but great care is necessary in rearing it. It
should not be imported earlier than June or later than September. In the
winter it should be kept in a warm place, where it can hatch out its
young.
"It is evident that we are to have a backward season for grain.
Therefore it will be well for the farmer to begin setting out his
corn-stalks and planting his buckwheat-cakes in July instead of August.
"Concerning the pumpkin.--This berry is a favorite with the natives of
the interior of New England, who prefer it to the gooseberry for the
making of fruit-cake, and who likewise give it the preference over the
raspberry for feeding cows, as being more filling and fully as satisfying.
The pumpkin is the only esculent of the orange family that will thrive
in the North, except the gourd and one or two varieties of the squash.
But the custom of planting it in the front yard with the shrubbery is fast
going out of vogue, for it is now generally conceded that the pumpkin
as a shade tree is a failure.
"Now, as the warm weather approaches, and the ganders begin to
spawn"--
The excited listener sprang towards me to shake hands, and said:
"There, there--that will do. I know I am all right now, because you have
read it just as I did, word for word. But, stranger, when I first read it
this morning, I said to myself, I never, never believed it before,
notwithstanding my friends kept me under watch so strict, but now I
believe I am crazy; and with that I fetched a howl that you might have

heard two miles, and started out to kill somebody--because, you know,
I knew it would come to that sooner or later, and so I might as well
begin. I read one of them paragraphs over again, so as to be certain, and
then I burned my house down and started. I have crippled several
people, and have got one fellow up a tree, where I can get him if I want
him. But I thought I would call in here as I passed along and make the
thing perfectly certain; and now it is certain, and I tell you it is lucky
for the chap that is in the tree. I should have killed him sure, as I went
back. Good-bye, sir, good-bye; you have taken a great load off my
mind. My reason has stood the strain of one of your agricultural articles,
and I know that nothing can ever unseat it now. Good-bye, sir."
I felt a little uncomfortable about the cripplings and arsons this person
had been entertaining himself with, for I could not help feeling
remotely accessory to them. But these thoughts were quickly banished,
for the regular editor walked in! [I thought to myself, Now if you had
gone to Egypt, as I recommended you to, I might have had a chance to
get my hand in; but you wouldn't do it, and here you are. I sort of
expected you.]
The editor