conversation going on among the birds, even on the warmest days. The
companionship of Calvin, also, counts for a good deal. He usually
attends me, unless I work too long in one place; sitting down on the
turf, displaying the ermine of his breast, and watching my movements
with great intelligence. He has a feline and genuine love for the
beauties of Nature, and will establish himself where there is a good
view, and look on it for hours. He always accompanies us when we go
to gather the vegetables, seeming to be desirous to know what we are
to have for dinner. He is a connoisseur in the garden; being fond of
almost all the vegetables, except the cucumber,--a dietetic hint to
man. I believe it is also said that the pig will not eat tobacco.
These are important facts. It is singular, however, that those who
hold up the pigs as models to us never hold us up as models to the
pigs.

I wish I knew as much about natural history and the habits of animals
as Calvin does. He is the closest observer I ever saw; and there are
few species of animals on the place that he has not analyzed. I
think he has, to use a euphemism very applicable to him, got outside
of every one of them, except the toad. To the toad he is entirely
indifferent; but I presume he knows that the toad is the most useful
animal in the garden. I think the Agricultural Society ought to
offer a prize for the finest toad. When Polly comes to sit in the
shade near my strawberry-beds, to shell peas, Calvin is always lying
near in apparent obliviousness; but not the slightest unusual sound
can be made in the bushes, that he is not alert, and prepared to
investigate the cause of it. It is this habit of observation, so
cultivated, which has given him such a trained mind, and made him so
philosophical. It is within the capacity of even the humblest of us
to attain this.