to them; and the little ones did learn with a rapidity astonishing to their elders.

We would like to linger here over many curious scenes and histories of those old plantation days, but we must not make our story too long. Our feminine ranks were recruited by one of our captains, who went North, married, and brought down his young wife to add to our cheer. We rode, we walked, we sketched. Rambling along the beautiful bluffs, we each selected spots where we would build our houses when our ship of gold came in. Sometimes we started out for the day, with provision and sketching materials, and with guns and ammunition for our gentlemen to shoot alligators. A beautiful island, where there were groves of wild orange and lemon trees, was a part of our plantation. There we landed, and while the hunters were off shooting we kindled our fire, made coffee, and prepared sylvan meals. Once they came home tugging a great alligator thirteen feet long, as a model for our sketching. Then came the cutting up and skinning, the skin to be made into boots; the fat to supply the finest, most limpid machine oil for the cotton-gin. In the stomach of the monster we found pine-knots, morsels of brickbats, and part of an old tin can. Nothing, apparently, came amiss to him. He must have been a genuine specimen of the scriptural leviathan, who "esteemeth iron as straw, and brass as rotten wood." The memory of such days under the wild orange-trees by the white beach of the St. John's is pleasant yet, but we must hasten to the finale of our story.

Well, our cotton grew and increased and flourished, and spread out as fair and flowery a field as hope ever sported in. Cotton, in itself a beautiful plant, was more beautiful in our eyes, as every yellow and pink blossom spoke of a golden future.

It was thought by the best judges that there was upon our fields a crop which would bring a profit of ten thousand

dollars over all expenses. We dreamed of it as sure, and already, in imagination, divided the spoil and reinvested for larger harvests.

Alas for human hopes! Our brave captains, who had come safe through many battles, were defeated and routed on this field by an army which came by night, without banner or band of music. This was the way of it. One day, in looking over the cotton fields setting full with their buds and bolls, we descried a little black worm about two inches long, with a red stripe on either side of his back. This was the first Army Worm, the commander of the advance scout. We picked him off and killed him. Next day twenty came to his funeral, and the day after that the Army was there on leaf and stalk and bud! All through the hundred acres there was the sound of a chewing and craunching direful to hear. In two days our beautiful cotton-field stood gaunt and bare, without a leaf, as if a fire had passed over it. Ten thousand dollars did those reckless marauders eat, and then vanished as they came, and left us desolate. We made in all, perhaps, two bales of cotton! scheme was over, our firm dissolved. One went to editing

Our

As for us, we and

a paper, another set up a land agency. ours bought an orange grove on the other side of the St. John's, and forever forswore the raising of cotton.

But as at the bottom of Pandora's box there was a grain of comfort, so there was in ours. Though we made nothing and lost all we invested, our hands were all duly paid, scot and lot, in many cases, with the first money they ever earned, and it gave them a start in life. That has been the one consoling reflection when we recall the tragedy of Our Plantation.

PALMETTO LEAVES

I

NOBODY'S DOG

YES, here he comes again! Look at him! Whose dog is he? We are sitting around the little deck-house of the Savannah steamer, in that languid state of endurance which befalls voyagers when, though the sky is clear, and the heavens blue, and the sea calm as a looking-glass, there is yet that gentle, treacherous, sliding rise and fall denominated a ground-swell.

Reader, do you remember it? Of all deceitful demons of the deep, this same smooth, slippery, cheating groundswell is the most diabolic. Because, you see, he is a mean imp, an underhanded, unfair, swindling scamp, who takes from you all the glory of endurance. Fair to the eye, plausible as possible, he says to you, "What's the matter? What can you ask brighter than this sky, smoother than this sea, more glossy and calm than these rippling waves? How fortunate that you have such an exceptionally smooth voyage!"

And yet look around the circle of pale faces fixed in that grim expression of endurance, the hands belonging to them resolutely clasping lemons, those looks of unutterable, repressed disgust and endurance. Are these people sea"Of course," says the

sick? On, no! of course not. slippery, plausible demon, "these people can't be sick in this delightful weather, and with this delightful, smooth sea!"

But here comes the dog, now slowly drooping from one to another, the most woe-begone and dejected of all possible dogs. Not a bad-looking dog, either; not without signs about him of good dog blood.

We say one to another, as we languidly review his points, "His hair is fine and curly; he has what might be a fine tail, were it not drooping in such abject dejection and discouragement. Evidently this is a dog that has seen better days, a dog that has belonged to somebody, and taken kindly to petting." His long nose, and great limpid, halfhuman eyes, have a suggestion of shepherd-dog blood about them.

He comes and seats himself opposite, and gazes at you with a pitiful, wistful, intense gaze, as much as to say, "Oh! do you know where HE is? and how came I here?

poor, miserable dog that I am! " He walks in a feeble, discouraged way to the wheel-house, and sniffs at the salt water that spatters there; gives one lick, and stops, and comes and sits quietly down again: it's "no go."

"Poor fellow he's thirsty," says one; and the Professor, albeit not the most nimble of men, climbs carefully down the cabin stairs for a tumbler of water, brings it up, and places it before him. Eagerly he laps it all up; and then, with the confiding glance of a dog not unused to kindness, looks as if he would like more. Another of the party

fills his tumbler, and he drinks that.

"Why, poor fellow, see how thirsty he was!"

66

I wonder whose dog he is?" Somebody ought to see to this dog!" are comments passing round among the ladies, who begin throwing him bits of biscuit, which he snaps up

eagerly.

Only see how hungry he is! NoWhom does he belong to ? stewards, passing, throws in a remark, - that's what's the matter with him.

"He's hungry, too. body feeds this dog. One of the ship's "That dog's seasick

It won't do to feed that dog; it won't: it'll make terrible work."

Evidently some stray dog, that has come aboard the steamer by accident, looking for a lost master, perhaps ; and now here he is alone and forlorn. Nobody's dog!

One of the company, a gentle, fair-haired young girl, begins stroking his rough, dusty hair, which though fine, and capable of a gloss if well kept, now is full of sticks and straws. An unseemly patch of tar disfigures his coat on one side, which seems to worry him: for he bites at it now and then aimlessly; then looks up with a hopeless, appealing glance, as much as to say, "I know I am looking like a fright, but I can't help it. Where is HE? and where am I? and what does it all mean?"

But the caresses of the fair-haired lady inspire him with a new idea. He will be "nobody's dog" no longer he will choose a mistress. From that moment he is like a shadow to the fair-haired lady: he follows her steps everywhere, mournful, patient, with drooping tail and bowed head, as a dog not sure of his position, but humbly determined to have a mistress if dogged faith and persistency can compass it. She walks the deck; and tick, tick, pitapat, go the four little paws after her. She stops: he stops, and looks wistful. Whenever and wherever she sits down, he goes and sits at her feet, and looks up at her with eyes of unutterable entreaty.

The stewards passing through the deck-house give him now and then a professional kick; and he sneaks out of one door only to walk quietly round a corner and in at the other, and place himself at her feet. Her party laugh, and rally her on her attractions. She now and then pats and caresses and pities him, and gives him morsels of biscuit out of her stores. Evidently she belongs to the band of doglovers. In the tedious dullness of the three-days' voyage the dog becomes a topic, and his devotion to the fair-haired lady an engrossment.