way partly through ploughed land to the rear of the barn, and was
rattlingly busy in a fog of dust, doing the labor of a hundred
flails. Ricks of wheat and beans, each as large as a comfortable
cottage, disappeared in quick succession through the fingers of the
chattering, iron-ribbed giant, and came out in thick and rapid
streams of yellow grain. Swine seemed to be the speciality to which
this son of Mr. Webb is giving some of that attention which his
father gave to sheep. There were between 200 and 300 in the barn-
yards and pens, of different ages and breeds, all looking in
excellent condition.

From Chesterford I went on to Cambridge, where I remained for the
most part of two days, on account of a heavy fall of rain, which
kept me within doors nearly all the time. I went out, however, for
an hour or so to see a Flower Show in the Town Hall. The varieties
and specimens made a beautiful, but not very extensive array. There
was one flower that not only attracted especial admiration, but
invited a pleasant train of thoughts to my own mind. It was one of
those old favorites to which the common people of all countries, who
speak our mother tongue, love to give an inalienable English name--
The Hollyhock. It is one of the flowers of the people, which the
pedantic Latinists have left untouched in homely Saxon, because the
people would have none of their long-winded and heartless
appellations. Having dwelt briefly upon the honor that Divine
Providence confers upon human genius and labor, in letting them
impress their finger-marks so distinctly upon the features and
functions of the earth, and upon the forms of animal life, it may be
a profitable recurrence to the same line of thought to notice what
that same genius and labor have wrought upon the structure and face
of this familiar flower. What was it at first? What is it now in