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PAIRING OFF. 4G7 day, with eyes that open and shut, and I don't march to and fro every Saturday, and fight vv'ant to Iiave to take care of the baby; I pick bloodless battles wherein both sides are victo ilowers and currants, and find eggs in the bam; rious. School 'keeps-in' during the morn and I study spelling, and make sums on the slate, ing, but 'lets-out' all the afternoon. Church and draw pictures with a red lead-pencil, and 'holds,' h.owever, twice every Sunday, but the I help mamma sew, and that's all I do." sermons are so short that no one ever gets a This report was so much better than that of chance to go to sleep. As to amusements, they either of the others, that I commended the lit ' come off' six days in each week, and they are tle girl, and promised her that she should have of the most entertaining character. Barnum has a wax doll on her birthday. Then I asked the a museum there, but it is conducted on much bet baby-boy what he had to say, and all that he ter principles than the one he keeps in the city. answered was, "Oranges;" which, of course, Nice arm-chairs are placed about the doors of I assured him ho should have. the blacksmiths' shops, so that little boys tired "Now," I said, "listen to the Utopia of my with play can sit down comfortably and watch boyhood. It is a spot where the hours of play, the big smith beat the red-hot iron into horse stud}-, and sleep are about equally divided ; for shoes, and then nail them fast to the horses' one can not enjoy play unless one has been hoofs. This last is a very delightful spot to studying, and one can neither study nor play un visit. Carpenters' shops are always open in less one has been strengthened by sleep. Santa Utopia to good boys, and edged-tools of every Glaus makes this Utopia his head-quarters, and kind are kept sharp on purpose for them to use. there it is Christmas or Thanksgiving Day, more Painters, too, keep pots of paint—especially red or less, all the year round. Just around every paint—with brushes in them, for boys to paint corner, too, an old woman sits at a stand, where any thing they like—fences or stable-doors— she sells fruits, and nuts, and candies for a thank with. you. Toy-shops and book-stores are in every " In short, the number of enjoyable sights and block, and nice Uttle ponies, wifh long tails and scenes in Utopia is almost marvelous ; and I manes, stand already saddled and bridled, at have often thought, seated at my desk in the almost every post along the streets, for good ' receipt of customs,' watching the boys loiter little boys and girls to get upon and ride. It ing through Wall Street, and stopping to gaze is a noteworthy fact, however, that they always through the windows of the money-changers at manage to throw over their heads, upon the the piles of gold and silver coin displayed there soft sward, any naughty child wdio refuses to in, that I would like to be a boy again, if only learn definitions or the multiplication table, and for the purpose of visiting once more that Uto the smart little boys call this aet of the ponj''s pia of childhood where so many of my earlier a sum in subtraction. }-ears were passed." "The wind is always favorable here for flying "When I asked Uncle John if he would like kites, and marble and ball playing are always in to be a boy again, he replied that he thought he season. If one wants to skate or ride down was a little too old for it; and when I added, hill on a sleigh, it is always practicable; and " and go with me to Utopia ?" he answered that so, too, is boating and swimming. Fruits of that was a port of which he knew nothing, and all kinds grow here in perfection ; and as for tliat no manifest of any vessel had ever gone going nutting in the woods it is the easiest thing through his hands with a clearance for that to do imaginable. Bird-nesting is not, how place, and he did not believe it was down in ever, so available, and seldom do any kind- any chart or survey. hearted boys indidge in it. Fourth of Jaly And I think Uncle John is correct. happens several times in the year, and the dis play of fire-works on these occasions is immense. Every hydrant runs with iced lemonade, and PAIRING OFF. tarts and mince-pies may almost be said—so I.—IN ECCLESIA. prevalent are they—to grow on every bush. AM a minister of the Gospel at Big Injun. Magnificent wax dolls, dressed in the height of I Though not on the map, we are on some the fashion, with chignons a foot long, sit all thing very like one—to wit, that vast prairie day on satin sofas and receive calls. Milliners which stretches from Egypt to Lake Michigan. take great pleasure in having little girls come We are an ungallant rebutter to Mrs. Brown into their 'establishments' just to 'try on' ing's assertion that "no creature holds an insu tiieir newest and prettiest bonnets. Jewelers lar point in space." We are five miles from the like to present them with diamond rings, and nearest railroad, and, until three years ago, the pearl necklaces, and gold bracelets, and ear most sanguine optimist couldn't pretend to car rings, and brooches, and all kinds of costly jew ry his grist to mill a distance of less than ten. els. Confectioners fiU their satchels with bon I say three years ago, for about that time an bons ; the dry-goods men—especially the Stewart immense double house began building on the of Utopia—send home to them patterns of silk least depressed site in our town ; and a mile be dresses; the fumers cover them with costly low US, on the Chicken River, at a sudden pitch fars; and the bouquet-man gives each one of of several feet in the surface of the prairie, we tliem every morning a magnificent bouquet of saw masons at work on a dam and the founda choice flowers. Armies of wooden soldiers tions of n mill. Simultaneous with these devel- PRODUCED BY UNZ.ORG ELECTRONIC REPRODUCTION PROHIBITED HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY JiIAGAZIXE. opments was the rumor that two Massachusetts his family and the Pratts in parallel columns. gentlemen, partners in the mill business for As his family was as large as Mr. Pratt's, and many years, had had the good taste to become occupied as many pews after it got seated, Mr. smitten with our unparalleled advantages and Spotman's mind had at once grasped the idea made up their minds to emigrate to Big Injun. of this imposing flank movement on the congre Every one familiar with prairie-mills and wa gation, and as usually happened, when he did ter-courses will know that Chicken River could grasp an idea, induced Mr. Pratt, sorely against only part of the year be auxiliary to a steam- his will, to conform to it. Mr. Spotman him engine. In August Chicken was well-nigh as self was the only member of either house who invisible as if the earth had never hatched him. executed the manceuvre with any thing like the In February or March he was wont to stray over grace and dignity demanded of a highly respect the coop-rail of his banks, and revel over many able fiimily's first attendance at a new meeting square miles of prairie, in what, out of gallina house. Mrs. Spotman—like Mrs. Pratt, a lit ceous metaphor, we call a freshet. tle woman, but feminine and sympathetic to the Both the Pratts and the Spotmanshad "let finger-ends—came after him almost shyly, with ters" to my church. As the families entered a blush on her matronly face at the sudden turn their pews for the first time, a little late, as ing around of so many strangers. Tidd Spot- new-comers of high respectability usually are, man, a sturdy, bright-eyed youth of twenty, rose we were singing our first hymn, and I had ample behind his little mother like some noble Gothic time to look at them. tower above a modest rural church; there was Somehow, I instantaneously felt Mr. Pratt to no " teeter" of vanity in the elastic step of his be that thin, timid man, with a chestnut scratch young manhood. The little gipsy who followed awry over an anxious, deprecatory eyebrow; Tidd Spotman had a pair of the sauciest brown who came at the rear of his household, on a sort eyes, and the most winning mouth which ever of Sabbath day's dog-trot, and siding me as he redeemed from the charge of homeliness a large closed the pew-door, seemed bent in so many nose and creolg complexion. William, my places that it could have caused me no great as youngest, never smiled with more innocent un tonishment to see him fold up and disappear consciousness of self than did she, coming up like a pocketed two-foot rule the moment he the aisle and recognizing one or two of the re sat down in the pew.