"Wait a moment!" and Dood rushed into the house, from whence he soon returned, holding some gold in his hand. "Here's the price of your filly; and hereafter let there be pleasantness between us."

Obadiah mounted his horse, and rode home with a lighter heart; and from that day to this, Dood has been as good a neighbor as one could wish to have; being completely reformed by the returning good for evil.

FINE FEATHERS AND FINE BIRDS.

A FABLE.

A PEACOCK came with his plumage gay,
Strutting with regal pride one day,
Where a small bird hung in a gilded cage,
Whose song might a seraph's ear engage;
The bird sung on while the peacock stood
Vaunting his plumes in the neighborhood;
And the radiant sun seemed not more bright
Than the bird that basked in his golden light.
But the small bird sang to his own sweet words,
""Tis not fine feathers make fine birds!"

The peacock strutted-a bird so fair

Never before had ventured there,

While the small bird sang in the cottage door-
And what could a peacock wish for more?

Alas! the bird of the rainbow wing,

He wasn't contented, he tried to sing!

And they who gazed on his beauty bright,

Scared by his screaming, soon took flight,

While the small bird sang, in his own sweet words,
""Tis not fine feathers make fine birds!"

VOL. IIL

4*

FY

He had roved all day by the lake's bright edge,

And gathered from stem and bough

The beautiful blossoms that idly lay
All withered beside him now.

"Ah, mother!" he said, as he clasped the hand That played with his waving hair,

"With thinking of home to-day, my heart Is aching to be there.

"These western flowers are fair and gay,

And yet I would give them all, For one of the little speckled pinks, That grew by the garden wall.

"The sun has a sadder and dimmer shine,
As it pierces the deep woods through;
The skies seem farther above us here,
And they are not half so blue.

1

"I know that the lake is broad enough
To tire a wild bird's wing;

But yet I would rather build my dams,
Again at the meadow spring.

I know that the forests are tall and grand;
Yet still as I onward roam,

I think with tears of the linden trees,
That shaded the porch at home!

"I am weary of seeing this waveless bound
That always meets my eye;

I long for the mountains' purple tops,
Piled up in the sunset sky.

"When I think of our seats in the dear old church,

That strangers are filling now,

And the mound that nobody goes to see,
Half hid by the willow-bough,-

"The tears fall thick, and the sobs come fast,
And mother, I only crave

Once more, but once, to pillow my head
In the grass on Willie's grave!"

SEEK FOR TRUE RICHES.

"BE not ashamed to be, or to be esteemed, poor in this world; for he that hears God teaching him will find that it is the best wisdom to withdraw all our affections from secular honor and troublesome riches, and by patience, by humiliation, by suffering scorn and contempt, and the will of God, to get the true riches."

THE WOODPECKER'S TREASURES.

LATE writer of a work on California, gives some curious facts in relation to the treasures laid up by the Woodpeckers in that country. He says:

"In stripping off the bark I observed it perforated with holes larger than those which a musket bullet would

make, spaced with most accurate precision, as if bored under the guidance of a rule and compass, and many of them filled most neatly with acorns. Earlier in the season I remarked the holes in nearly all the softer timber, but, imagining they were caused by wood insects, I did not stop to examine or inquire; but now, finding them studded with acorns firmly fixed in, which I knew could not have been driven there by the wind, I sought for an explanation, which was practically given me by Captain S.'s pointing out a flock of woodpeckers busily and noisily employed in the provident task of securing their winter's provisions. It appears that that sagacious bird is not all the time thriftlessly engaged "tapping the hollow beech-tree," for the more idle purpose of empty sound, but spends its summer season in picking those holes, in which it lays its store of food for the winter, where the elements can neither affect it nor place it beyond their reach, and it is considered a sure omen that the snowy period is approaching when these birds commence stowing away their acorns, which otherwise might be covered by its fall.

I frequently paused from my chopping to watch them in my neighborhood, with the acorns in their bills, half clawing, half flying round the tree, and to admire the adroitness with which they tried it at different holes until they found one of its exact calibre; when inserting the pointed end, they tapped it home most artistically with their beaks, and flew down for another. But their natural instinct is even more remarkable in the choice of the nuts, which you will invariably find sound; whereas it is a matter of impossibility, in

selecting them for roasting, to pick up a batch that will not have half of them unfit for use, the most safe and polished looking very frequently containing a large grub generated within. Even the wily Indian, with all his craft and experience, is unable to arrive at anything like an unerring selection, while in a large bag-full that we took from the bark of our log, there was not one containing the slightest germ of decay. They never encroach on their packed store until all on the surface are covered, when they resort to those in the bark.

WINTER.

BY J. E. D. COMSTOCK.

WINTER, stern winter, now strides o'er the land,
With a look like a tyrant come to command;
And with awe he's beheld, though in stillness he come;
The mountains stand silent, the valleys are dumb;
Majestic his mien as he walks towards the south,
No smile on his face and no song in his mouth;
He stands on the mountain, he stoops in the dale,
And nature expiring looks solemn and pale.
Fierce in his aspect and hoarse in his breath,

He looked on the flowers and they're frozen to death.
List! list! to his accents, he's beginning to rage,
And his mane, that is shaggy and silvered with age,
With fury he shakes as he walketh alone,

O'er the rocks and the hedges that echo his moan;
And the forest trees tremble and start with affright,
As they hear him advancing with thunder and might;
He hath come from his home in the dark stormy north,
He hath looked o'er the world and his spirit is wroth,
For no heart could he bring for the sweetness and love
That dwelt in the fields and the fair sky above;
So he stole from his cave, like a monk in his cowl,
Then he swept o'er the earth with a horrible growl;
And the bright summer land, that so gaily was drest,
Like the heart that once loved me, hath gone to its rest.