necessary to give her two or three gentle pats with a shovel; but still
she preferred to trust herself to my tender mercies, rather than venture
among the horns of the herd. She is not an amiable cow; but she has a
very intelligent face, and seems to be of a reflective cast of character.
I doubt not that she will soon perceive the expediency of being on good
terms with the rest of the sisterhood.

I have not yet been twenty yards from our house and barn; but I begin to
perceive that this is a beautiful place. The scenery is of a mild and
placid character, with nothing bold in its aspect; but I think its
beauties will grow upon us, and make us love it the more, the longer we
live here. There is a brook, so near the house that we shall be able to
hear its ripple in the summer evenings, . . . . but, for agricultural
purposes, it has been made to flow in a straight and rectangular fashion,
which does it infinite damage as a picturesque object. . . . .

It was a moment or two before I could think whom you meant by Mr. Dismal
View. Why, he is one of the best of the brotherhood, so far as
cheerfulness goes; for if he do not laugh himself, he makes the rest of
us laugh continually. He is the quaintest and queerest personage you
ever saw,--full of dry jokes, the humor of which is so incorporated with
the strange twistifications of his physiognomy, that his sayings ought to
be written down, accompanied with illustrations by Cruikshank. Then he
keeps quoting innumerable scraps of Latin, and makes classical allusions,
while we are turning over the goldmine; and the contrast between the
nature of his employment and the character of his thoughts is
irresistibly ludicrous.

I have written this epistle in the parlor, while Farmer Ripley, and
Farmer Farley, and Farmer Dismal View were talking about their