CHAPTER VII.

GOOSE VAN DA M.

WHETHER I really was unwell when I left home, or only consaited I was, as I said before, I do not know; but it is certain that these short sea-trips, change of air and scene, and the excitement of meetin' old friends agin, has done me a great deal of sarvice. Down to Lunenburg, the Dutch people use ox-carts, and always travel in one track, and it cuts up the road so that the ruts are hob-deep amost.

The dull straightforrard course in life, without varyin' the track, furrows the mud up the same way. We must leave the highway sometimes and take to the bye-roads, or lanes, or forest-paths. The air is different, the scenery devarsified, the

parfume of the firs and pines smell

fragrant, and the birds sing more at their ease. The quiet of the country calms the nervous system, gives us somethin' new to think of, as well as to see, and the population is different, and so is their parsuits. Gunnin' is excitin', and leads to exercise, and so does fishin'; and huntin' gives a grand appetite, and puts a feller in first-rate condition. Well then, talk to new people is pleasant; you get new ideas from them, and it brings out new ones from you.

I have larnt a good deal from my own talk. Often when I have been advisin' a man, or funnin' of him, new reasons or new illustrations have sprung up of their own accord, that I never thought of before. It has made my opinions stronger, or given me cause to change them in some particulars. I am not certain whether a man, if he could be sure not to be overheard, was to think aloud, but what it would be beneficial to him. It would take off the dreaminess of thinkin' and its castle-buildin', and give reality to his reasons, and life to his humour. Musin's ain't profitable in a gineral way, for they are like the dews of night-early sunrise dries them right up. Sayin' is doin'. Musin' is dreamin'. What we say, we remember; what we dream,

can't be wrote down and sworn to, that's a fact.

Well, arter one of these summer-runs at grass, we return to the business of life new men, and we are better able to work, and like it better for the change agin.

Dr. Sobieski, a surgeon to Slickville, who was a Pole-I don't mean a poor stick, but a German Polander-a very clever man, only he warn't very easy to understand, for he had forgot his own language, and hadn't larned English right. The boys used to call him "Old Tellmidger," because when they teazed him, he always pronounced those four words in one-"To h-ll with you!" Sometimes they used to call him "Old Sober-isky,' for he was an awful fellow to drink. When folks talked to him about bein' such a toper, "Ah!" he used to say, "my poor country is robbed and plundered so, we have an old sayin', 'Only what I drink is mine,' and I likes to own as much as I can." Well, "Old Tellmidger" was the first to open my eyes to the value of change of

air.

"You can't see the air," said he, "Mr. Slick; and if you want to analyze it, you can't catch it— what you call nab him.”

"It can catch you tho'," sais I, "when it's

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twenty below zero, and shave you in no time, quick as wink." Oh, how he used to hate a joke! for he didn't clearly onderstand it, and it used to put him out in his gibberish. He had great spikes of teeth, fit to nail down a two-inch plank amost, and he'd show them as spiteful as a bull-dog, and give 'em a grit, as if he was a filin' of 'em, and say:

"What for teyvil you do dat-Tellmidger!" "Well, go on, Dr. Sober-isky," I'd say.

Well, you can't see the air, nor analyze it, nor taste it."

"You can smell it tho' sometimes," I'd say. And then he'd stop, stamp on the ground, and grit again awful mad. But I'd say, "I beg pardon; I won't interrupt you agin, Dr. Sober-esky. Pray go on."

"Tellmidger Sober-esky!" he'd say.

Well, if you was to interrupt him a thousand times, he'd always begin at the beginnin' agin, if he had to go a hundred yards back.

"You can't see de air, or analyze it, or taste it; all you know is, it is what you call mystery, ignota, wonder, von grand puzzle. You can't explain de modus operandi," (for he could talk Latin as easy as he could drink); "but you watch it, an' see the effects, and leave the causes to be

explorated hereafter.

Now will send your

you

child," (I was agoin' to say I hadn't got none, but I knew how mad it would make him; so I let him go on.) "You will send your child into de next street, that has got hoopin'-cough so bad, it coughs its boots upamost, and he will get well straightway-de air is changed. What make change of air in two street joinin' on to each oder, both on de same hill, and same level, and de same wind blow over both, we cannot say. De fact is sartain; de cause unknown. To be healthy, you must change air, change diet, and change drink."

Aye," said I, "and change doctors too." He fixed his eyes on me, and glared like a tiger but before he got out that ugly word of his, "you are perfectly right, Doctor," sais I; "there is great truth in what you say. You are a close observer," and poor Old Soberesky was right. Onct when I was to Windsor, I had a dreadful cold in my head; I could hardly see out of my eyes, and my two nostrils felt as large and as ugly as two broken panes of glass in a winder stopped up with old hats. I fairly felt no how all over. Well, I just happened to think of "Old Tellmidger's Theory of Change of Air," ordered Old Clay into the waggon, streaked it off over