over, a face red enough to lead one to suppose he had made his money as a dealer in claret; but, in truth, one of the kindest of men, in spite of a little quickness of temper. He is profoundly versed in the art and mystery of store keeping, and as profoundly ignorant of all that must sooner or later be learned by every resident and owner of the western country.

Thus much being premised, we shall hardly wonder that our good old friend felt exceedingly aggrieved at meeting Silas Ashburn and the "lang-legged chiel' Joe, (who has grown longer with every shake of ague,) on the way from his tract instead of to it.

"What in the world's the matter now!" began Mr Keene, rather testily. "Are you never going to begin that work?"

"I don't know but I shall," was the cool reply of Ashburn; "I can't begin it to-day, though."

"And why not, pray, when I've been so long waiting?"

"Because I've got something else that must be done first. You don't think your work is all the work there is in the world, do you?"

Mr Keene was almost too angry to reply, but he made an effort to say, "When am I to expect you, then?" Why, I guess we'll come on in a day or two, and then I'll bring both the boys."

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So saying, and not dreaming of having been guilty of an incivility, Mr Ashburn passed on, intent only on his bee-tree.

Mr Keene could not help looking after the ragged pair for a moment, and he muttered angrily as he turned away," Aye! pride and beggary go together in this confounded new country! You feel very independent, no doubt, but I'll try if I can't find somebody that wants money."

And Mr Keene's pony, as if sympathizing with his master's vexation, started off at a sharp passionate trot, which he has learned, no doubt, under the habitual influence of the spicy temper of his rider.

To find labourers who wanted money, or who would own that they wanted it, was at that time no easy task. Our poorer neighbours have been so little accustomed to value household comforts, that the opportunity to obtain them presents but feeble incitement to that continuous industry which is usually expected of one who works in the employ of another. However, it happened in this case that Mr Keene's star was in the ascendant, and the woods resounded, ere long, under the sturdy strokes of several choppers.

They

The Ashburns, in the meantime, set themselves busily at work to make due preparations for the expedition which they had planned for the following night. felt, as does every one who finds a bee-tree in this region, that the prize was their own-that nobody else had the slightest claim to its rich stores; yet the gathering in of the spoils was to be performed, according to the invariable custom where the country is much settled, in the silence of night, and with every precaution of secrecy. This seems inconsistent, yet such is the fact.

The remainder of the "lucky" day and the whole of the succeeding one, passed in scooping troughs for the reception of the honey-tedious work at best, but unusually so in this instance, because several of the family were prostrate with the ague. Ashburn's anxiety lest some of his customar, bad luck should intervene between discovery and possession, made him more impatient and harsh than usual; and the interior of that comfortless cabin would have presented to a chance visitor, who knew not of the golden hopes which cheered its inmates, an aspect of unmitigated wretchedness. Mrs Ashburn sat almost in the fire, with a tattered hood on her head and the relics of a bed-quilt wrapped about her person; while the emaciated limbs of the baby on her lap,-two years old, yet unweaned,-seemed almost to reach the floor, so preternaturally were they lengthened by the stretches of a four months' ague. Two of the boys lay

in the trundle-bed, which was drawn as near to the fire as possible; and every spare article of clothing that the house afforded was thrown over them, in the vain attempt to warm their shivering frames. Stop your whimperin', can't ye!" said Ashburn, as he hewed away with hatchet and jack-knife; "you'll be hot enough before long." And when the fever came, his words were more than verified.

Two nights had passed before the preparations were completed. Ashburn and such of his boys as could work, had laboured indefatigably at the troughs, and Mrs Ashburn had thrown away the milk, and the few other stores which cumbered her small supply of household utensils, to free as many as possible for the grand occasion. This third day had been " well day" to most of the invalids, and after the moon had risen to light them through the dense wood, the family set off in high spirits, on their long dewy walk. They had passed the causeway, and were turning from the highway into the skirts of the forest, when they were accosted by a stranger, a young man in a hunter's dress, evidently a traveller, and one who knew nothing of the place or its inhabitants, as Mr Ashburn ascertained, to his entire satisfaction, by the usual number of queries. The stranger, a handsome youth of one or two and twenty, had that frank joyous air which takes so well with us Wolverines; and after he had fully satisfied our bee-hunter's curiosity, he seemed disposed to ask some questions in his turn. One of the first of these related to the moving cause of the procession and their voluminous display of containers.

"Why, we're goin' straight to a bee-tree that I lit upon two or three days ago, and if you've a mind to, you may go 'long, and welcome. It's a real peeler, I tell ye! There's a hundred and fifty weight of honey in it, if there's a pound."

The young traveller waited no second invitation. His light knapsack was but small incumbrance, and he took upon himself the weight of several troughs, that seemed too heavy for the weaker members of the expedition. They walked on at a rapid and steady pace for a good half hour, over paths which were none of the smoothest, and only here and there lighted by the moonbeams. The mother and children were but ill fitted for the exertion, but Aladdin, on his midnight way to the wondrous vault of treasure, would as soon have thought of complaining of fatigue.

Who then shall describe the astonishment, the almost breathless rage of Silas Ashburn,--the bitter disappointment of the rest,-when they found, instead of the beetree, a great gap in the dense forest, and the bright moon shining on the shattered fragments of the immense oak that had contained their prize? The poor children, fainting with toil now that the stimulus was gone, threw themselves on the ground; and Mrs Ashburn, seating her wasted form on a huge branch, burst into tears.

"It's all one!" exclaimed Ashburn, when at length he could find words; “it's all alike! this is just my luck! It ain't none of my neighbour's, work, though! They know better than to be so mean! It's the rich! Ther that begrudges the poor man the breath of life!" And he cursed bitterly and with clenched teeth, whoever had robbed him of his right.

"Don't cry, Betsey," he continued; "let's go home. I'll find out who has done this, and I'll let 'em know there's law for the poor man as well as the rich. Come along, young 'uns, and stop your blubberin', and let them splinters alone!" The poor little things were trying to gather up some of the fragments to which the honey still adhered, but their father was too angry to be kind.

"Was the tree on your own land?" now inquired the young stranger, who had stood by in sympathizing silence during this scene.

"No! but that don't make any difference. The man that found it first, and marked it, had a right to it afore the President of the United States, and that I'll let 'em

know, if it costs me my farm. It's on old Keene's land; and I shouldn't wonder if the old miser had done it himself, but I'll let him know what's the law in Michigan!"

"Mr Keene a miser!" exclaimed the young stranger, rather hastily.

"Why, what do you know about him?"

"O! nothing!-that is, nothing very particular-but I have heard him well spoken of. What I was going to say was, that I fear you will not find the law able to do any thing for you. If the tree was on another person's property

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Property! that's just so much as you know about it!" replied Ashburn, angrily. "I tell ye I know the law well enough, and I know the honey was mine--and old Keene shall know it too, if he's the man that stole it."

The stranger politely forbore further reply, and the whole party walked on in sad silence till they reached the village road, when the young stranger left them with a kindly "good night!"

It was soon after an early breakfast on the morning which succeeded poor Ashburn's disappointment, that Mr Keene, attended by his lovely orphan neice, Clarissa Bensley, was engaged in his little court-yard, tending with paternal care the brilliant array of autumnal flowers which graced its narrow limits. Beds in size and shape nearly resembling patty-pans, were filled to overflowing with dahlias, china-asters and marigolds, while the walks which surrounded them, daily "swept with a woman's neatness," set off to the best advantage these resplendent children of Flora. A vine-hung porch, that opened upon the miniature Paradise, was lined with bird-cages of all sizes, and on a yard-square grass-plot stood the tin cage of a squirrel, almost too fat to be lively.

Mr Keene was childless, and consoled himself as childless people are apt to do if they are wise, by taking into favour, in addition to his destitute neice, as many troublesome pets as he could procure. His wife, less philosophical, expended her superfluous energies upon a multiplication of household cares which her ingenuity alone could have devised within a domain like a nutshell. Such rubbing and polishing-such arranging and re-arranging of useless nick-nacks, had never yet been known in these utilitarian regions. And, what seemed amusing enough, Mrs Keene, whose time passed in laborious nothings, often reproved her lawful lord very sharply for wasting his precious hours upon birds and flowers, squirrels and guinea-pigs, to say nothing of the turkeys and the magnificent peacock, which screamed at least half of every night, so that his master was fain to lock him up in an outhouse, for fear the neighbours should kill him in revenge for the murder of their sleep. These forms of solace Mrs Keene often condemned as “ really ridic'lous," yet she cleaned the birdcages with indefatigable punctuality, and seemed never happier than when polishing with anxious care the bars of the squirrel's tread-mill. But there was one neverdying subject of debate between this worthy couple,the company and services of the fair Clarissa, who was equally the darling of both, and superlatively useful in every department which claimed the attention of either. How the maiden, light-footed as she was, ever contrived to satisfy both uncle and aunt, seemed really mysteri

ous.

"It was, Mr Keene, don't keep Clary wasting her time there when I've so much to do!"-or, on the other hand, "My dear! do send Clary out to help me a little! I'm sure she's been stewing there long enough!" And Clary, though she could not perhaps be in two places at once, certainly accomplished as much as if she could.

On the morning of which we speak, the young lady, having risen very early, and brushed and polished to her aunt's content, was now busily engaged in performing the various behests of her uncle, a service much more to her taste. She was as completely at home

among birds and flowers as a poet or a Peri; and not Ariel himself, (of whom I dare say she had never heard,) accomplished with more grace his gentle spiriting. After all was " performed to point,"-when no dahlia remained unsupported,-no cluster of many-hued asters without its neat hoop,-when no intrusive weed could be discerned, even through Mr Keene's spectacles,-Clarissa took the opportunity to ask if she might take the pony for a ride.

"To see those poor Ashburns, uncle."

They're a lazy, impudent set, Clary."

"But they are all sick, uncle; almost every one of the family down with ague. Do let me go and carry them something. I hear they are completely destitute of comforts."

"And so they ought to be, my dear," said Mr Keene, who could not forget what he considered Ashburn's impertinence.

But his habitual kindness prevailed, and he concluded his remonstrance (after giving voice to some few remarks which would not have gratified the Ashburns particularly,) by saddling the pony himself, arranging Clarissa's riding-dress with all the assiduity of a gallant cavalier, and giving into her hand, with her neat silvermounted whip, a little basket, well crammed by his wife's kind care with delicacies for the invalids. No wonder that he looked after her with pride as she rode off! There are few prettier girls than the bright-eyed Clarissa.

When the pony reached the log-causeway,-just where the thick copse of witch-hazel skirts Mr Ashburn's moist domain,-some unexpected occurrence is said to have startled, not the sober pony, but his very sensitive rider; and it has been asserted that the pony stirred not from the said hazel screen for a longer time than it would take to count a hundred, very deliberately. What faith is to be attached to this rumour, the historian ventures not to determine. It may be relied on as a fact, however, that a strong arm led the pony over the slippery corduroy, but no further; for Clarissa Bensley cantered alone up the green slope which leads to Mr Ashburn's door.

"How are you this morning, Mrs Ashburn?" asked the young visitant as she entered the wretched den, her little basket on her arm, her sweet face all flushed, and her eyes more than half suffused with tears,-the effect of the keen morning wind, we suppose.

"Law sakes alive!" was the reply, "I ain't no how. I'm clear tuckered out with these young 'uns. They've had the agur already this morning, and they're as cross as bear-cubs."

"Ma!" screamed one, as if in confirmation of the maternal remark, "I want some tea!"

"Tea! I ha'n't got no tea, and you know that well enough!"

"Well, give me a piece o' sweetcake then, and a pickle."

"The sweetcake was gone long ago, and I ha'n't nothing to make more-so shut your head!" And as Clarissa whispered to the poor pallid child that she would bring him some if he would be a good boy and not tease his mother, Mrs Asburn produced, from a barrel of similar delicacies, a yellow cucumber, something less than a foot long, "pickled," in whiskey and water-and this the child began devouring eagerly.

Miss Bensley now set out upon the table the varied contents of her basket. "This honey," she said, showing some as limpid as water, "was found a day or two ago in uncle's woods-wild honey-isn't it beautiful?"

Mrs Ashburn fixed her eyes on it without speaking, but her husband, who just then came in, did not command himself so far. "Where did you say you got that honey?" he asked.

"In our woods," repeated Clarissa; "I never saw such quantities; and a good deal of it as clear and beautiful as this."

"I thought as much!" said Ashburn angrily; "and now, Clary Bensley," he added, "you'll just take that cursed honey back to your uncle, and tell him to keep it, and eat it, and I hope it will choke him! and if I live, I'll make him rue the day he ever touched it."

Miss Bensley gazed on him, lost in astonishment. She could think of nothing but that he must have gone suddenly mad, and this idea made her instinctively hasten her steps toward the pony.

"Well! if you won't take it, I'll send it after ye,” cried Ashburn, who had lashed himself into a rage; and he hurled the little jar, with all the force of his powerful arm, far down the path by which Clarissa was about to depart, while his poor wife tried to restrain him with a piteous "Oh, father! don't! don't!"

Then, recollecting himself a little,-for he is far from being habitually brutal, he made an awkward apology to the frightened girl.

"I ha'n't nothing agin you, Miss Bensley; you've always been kind to me and mine; but that old devil of an uncle of yours, that can't bear to let a poor man live, -I'll larn him who he's got to deal with! Tell him to look out, for he'll have reason!"

He held the pony while Clarissa mounted, as if to atone for his rudeness to herself; but he ceased not to repeat his denunciations against Mr Keene as long as she was within hearing. As she paced over the logs, Ashburn, his rage much cooled by this ebullition, stood looking after her.

"I swan!" he exclaimed; "if there ain't that very feller that went with us to the bee-tree, leading Clary Bensley's horse over the cross-way!"

We have seen that Mr Keene's nerves had received a terrible shock on this fated evening, and it is certain that for a man of sober imagination, his dreams were terrific. He saw Ashburn, covered from crown to sole with a buzzing shroud of bees, trampling on his flowerbeds, tearing up his honey-suckles root and branch, and letting his canaries and Java sparrows out of their cages; and, as his eyes recoiled from this horrible scene, they encountered the shambling form of Joe, who, besides aiding and abetting in these enormities, was making awful strides, axe in hand, toward the sanctuary of the pea-fowls.

He awoke with a cry of horror, and found his bedroom full of smoke. Starting up in agonized alarm, he awoke Mrs Keene, and half-dressed, by the red light which glimmered around them, they rushed together to Clarissa's chamber. It was empty. To find the stairs was the next thought, but at the very top they met the dreaded bee-finder armed with a prodigious club!

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"Oh mercy! don't murder us!" shrieked Mrs Keene, falling on her knees; while her husband, whose capsicum was completely roused, began pummelling Ashburn as high as he could reach, bestowing on him at the same time, in no very choice terms, his candid opinion as to the propriety of setting people's houses on fire, by way of revenge.

"Why, you're both as crazy as loons!" was Mr Ashburn's polite exclamation, as he held off Mr Keene at arm's length. "I was comin' up o' purpose to tell you that you needn't be frightened. It's only the ruff o' the shanty there,-the kitchen, as you call it."

"And what have you done with Clarissa?"-" Ay! where's my niece?" cried the distracted pair.

"Where is she? why, down stairs to be sure, takin' care o' the traps they throw'd out 'o the shanty. I was out a 'coon-hunting, and see the light, but I was so far off that they'd got it pretty well down before I got here. That 'ere young spark o' Clary's worked like a beaver, I tell ye!"

It must not be supposed that one half of Ashburn's hasty explanation" penetrated the interior" of his hearers' heads. They took in the idea of Clary's safety, but as for the rest, they concluded it only an effort to mystify them as to the real cause of the disaster.

"You need not attempt," solemnly began Mr Keene, you need not think to make me believe, that you are not the man that set my house on fire. I know your revengeful temper; I have heard of your threats, and you shall answer for all, sir! before you're a day older!"

Ashburn seemed struck dumb, between his involuntary respect for Mr Keene's age and character, and the contemptuous anger with which his accusations filled him. "Well! I swan!" said he after a pause; "but here comes Clary; she's got common sense; ask her how the fire happened."

"It's all over now, uncle," she exclaimed, almost breathless;" it has not done so very much damage." "Damage!" said Mrs Keene, dolefully;

66 we shall never get things clean again while the world stands!" "And where are my birds?" inquired the old gentle

man.

"All safe-quite safe; we moved them into the parlour."

"We! who, pray?"

"Oh! the neighbours came, you know, uncle; and— Mr Ashburn-"

"Give the devil his due," interposed Ashburn; "you know very well that the whole concern would have gone if it hadn't been for that young feller."

"What young fellow? where?"

"Why here," said Silas, pulling forward our young stranger; "this here chap."

"Young man," began Mr Keene,-but at the moment, up came somebody with a light, and while Clarissa retreated behind Mr Ashburn, the stranger was recognised by her aunt and uncle as Charles Darwin. "Charles! what on earth brought you here?" "Ask Clary," said Ashburn, with grim jocoseness. Mr Keene turned mechanically to obey, but Clarissa had disappeared.

"Well! I guess I can tell you something about it, if nobody else won't," said Ashburn; " I'm something of a Yankee, and it's my notion that there was some sparkin' a goin' on in your kitchen, and that somehow or other the young folks managed to set it a-fire." "Do

The old folks looked more puzzled than ever. speak, Charles," said Mr Keene; "what does it all mean? Did you set my house on fire?"

"I'm afraid I must have had some hand in it, sir," said Charles, whose self-possession seemed quite to have deserted him.

"You!" exclaimed Mr Keene;" and I've been laying it to this man!"

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"Yes! you know'd I owed you a spite, on account o' that plaguy bee-tree," said Ashburn; a guilty conscience needs no accuser. But you was much mistaken if you thought I was sich a bloody-minded villain as to burn your gimcrackery for that! If I could have paid you for it, fair and even, I'd ha' done it with all my heart and soul. But I don't set men's houses a-fire when I get mad at 'em."

"But you threatened vengeance," said Mr Keene. "So I did, but that was when I expected to get it by law, though; and this here young man knows that, if he'd only speak.”

Thus adjured, Charles did speak, and so much to the purpose, that it did not take many minutes to convince Mr Keene that Ashburn's evil-mindedness was bounded by the limits of the law, that precious privilege of the Wolverine. But there was still the mystery of Charles's apparition, and in order to its full unravelment, the blushing Clarissa had to be enticed from her hidingplace, and brought to confession. And then it was made clear that she, with all her innocent looks, was the moving cause of the mighty mischief. She it was who encouraged Charles to believe that her uncle's anger would not last for ever; and this had led Charles to venture into the neighbourhood; and it was while consulting together, (on this particular point, of course,) that they

branches, and the beautiful and variegated green of the leaves, are all so many sources of pleasure to the beholder. But when we think on the series of fibres and tubes by which this tree for ages perhaps has drawn nourishment from the earth, and by a process of assimilation added circle after circle of woody matter round the original stem, till it has acquired its present enormous bulk, when we reflect on the curious mechanism of the leaves, by which, like the lungs of an animal, they decompose the air of the atmosphere, selecting through the day what part of it is fit to enter into the composition of the tree, and giving out at night a different species of air,-when we think of the sap passing up the small series of tubes during summer, and these tubes again remaining dormant and inactive throughout the long winter, these reflections awaken a train of ideas in the mind more lasting and more intense than even the first vivid impressions of simple beauty.

The untutored imagination may have a vague pleasure from the contemplation of meteors and tornadoes, of flaming comets or darkening eclipses, as the foreboders of important events, or the precursors of national calamities, the wild savage may listen to the hollow voice of the coming storm, the shrieking spirit from the mountain, his good or evil genius, or the strange cries of unknown birds and animals, with an excited awe and delirious tremour, but to the enlightened inquirer into nature, there are pleasures no less intense, and grounded on a more rational, permanent, and ennobling basis. His admiration is no less great as he looks on the vast and striking revolutions of the heavenly bodies, and the imposing phenomena by which they are accompanied, because he scans the laws by which they are upheld and regulated; and when he turns to the worlds of animated existence, descending to the minutest points, he has a field opened to his view of accurate adaptation, and most curious and elaborate construction, the investigation of which is calculated to excite the highest feelings of admiration.

Instead, therefore, of being filled, like the wild gazing savage, with perturbed notions of the power, and wrath, and caprice of an unseen unknown divinity, the patient inquirer into nature will find displayed before him a beautiful system of order, regularity, and mutual harmony, the consummate arrangement of an all-powerful, benignant, and merciful God.

THE THUNDER-STORM.

The

This generally occurs in the summer months, during a still and sultry state of the atmosphere. day is perhaps one of the hottest and most oppressive of summer, all nature appears sick and languishing, at first there is scarcely a cloud in the sky, the sun shines out with unrelenting fervour,-man feels restless and uncomfortable, and the birds of the air and animals of the field, as if they anticipated what was to follow, seem restless and agitated. From a particular part of the heavens a dark pitchy cloud is now seen slowly rising, it rolls along in several black masses, and then suddenly mounts up into the higher regions of the air. The lower surface is black, ragged, and uneven; but the upper is in the form of an immense arch. Several of these clouds seem frequently piled one upon another, all arched in the same manner; but they keep continually uniting, swelling, and extending their arches.

At the time of the rising of this cloud, the atmosphere is generally full of a great number of separate clouds, motionless and of odd and whimsical shapes. All these, upon the appearance of the thunder-cloud, draw towards it, and become more uniform in their shapes as they approach, till, coming very near the thunder-cloud, their limbs mutually stretch towards each other, they immediately coalesce, and together make one uniform mass. But sometimes the thunder cloud will swell and increase very fast without the conjunction of any of these accessary clouds, the vapours of the atmosphere forming

large protuberances, bending uniformly towards the earth. When the eye is under the thunder-cloud, after it is grown larger and well-formed, it is seen to sink lower, and to darken prodigiously, at the same time that a number of accessary clouds (the origin of which can never be perceived) are seen in a rapid motion driving about in very uncertain directions under it. While these clouds are agitated with the most rapid motions, the rain generally falls in the greatest plenty; and if the agitation is exceedingly great, it commonly hails. While the thunder-cloud is swelling and extending its branches over a large tract of country, the lightning is seen to dart from one part of it to another, and often to illuminate its whole mass. When the cloud has acquired a sufficient extent, the lightning strikes between the cloud and the earth in two opposite places, the path of the lightning lying through the whole body of the cloud and its branches. Immense volumes of vivid flame, either in huge balls, which instantaneously expand, or in forked streams, which dart suddenly forth, continue to be discharged at short intervals, aecompanied by a loud report. The longer this lightning continues, the rarer the cloud grows, and the less dark is its appearance, till at last it breaks up in different places, a clear sky is displayed, and the purified atmosphere being set at rest, Nature resumes her wonted serenity.

PROGNOSTICATIONS OF THE weather.

There are some good rustic proverbs and maxims, the result of experience, which an attention to the influence of the winds, &c. will serve to explain. One is, "A rainbow in the morning is the shepherd's warning, a rainbow at night is the shepherd's delight." Now it is obvious, that, in a country with the ocean to the west, nine-tenths of the rain will come from that side. If, therefore, the clouds to the west are in the morning saturated with moisture, so as to produce a rainbow, since with a westerly wind they will be impelled towards the east, they will in all probability in their course over the adjacent country produce rain; whereas, when the rainbow appears in the evening, that is, in the east, the clouds which would produce it are past, and the prognostic is consequently in favour of fair weather.

Another of these observations is, that when it rains with an east wind it will probably rain for twenty-four hours. This remark is also applicable to countries situated in the same manner. In general, in such countries the east wind is dry; but when it meets with an opposing south current charged with moisture, then the rain will endure for a long time.

A very common remark also is, "that the weather generally clears at noon; but if it rains at mid-day, it seldom clears up till sun-set." As the sun advances towards the meridian, it is plain that the heat will raise the vapours higher in the atmosphere, and consequently clear the lower regions of superfluous moisture; but if there should happen to be so much moisture in the atmosphere, that the sun is not able to produce this effect, (which is shown by the fall of rain at noon,) it will probably continue for some hours.

When the wind follows the course of the sun, there is generally fair weather. This regular current of wind evinces that there is no point where the atmosphere is particularly rarefied; and the equal diffusion of heat, and the balance in all points being in a manner preserved, there will rarely be a fall of moisture.

A whistling or howling wind has generally been accounted a prognostic of rain.