quietness—Life in the city and in the village—Why the latter is preferable—Peculiarities of the village—A sleepy old town—We erect our family altar

25 CHAPTER II. A very dangerous invention—The patent combination step-ladder—Domestic servants—Advertising for a girl—The peasant-girl of fact and fiction—A contrast 36 CHAPTER III. The view upon the river—A magnificent panorama—Mr. and Mrs. Cooley—Matrimonial infelicities—The case of Mrs. Sawyer—A blighted life—A present—Our century plant and its peculiarities 47 CHAPTER IV. Judge Pitman—His experiment in the barn—A lesson in natural history—Catching the early train—One of the miseries of living in the village—Ball's lung exercise—Mr. Cooley's impertinence 56 CHAPTER V. A little love affair—Cowardice of Mr. Parker—Popular interest in amatory matters—The Magruder family—An event in its history—Remarkable experiments by Mrs. Magruder—An indignant husband—A question answered 68 CHAPTER VI. The editor of our daily paper—The appearance and personal characteristics of Colonel Bangs—The affair with the tombstone—Art news—Colonel Bangs in the heat of a political campaign—Peculiar troubles of public singers—The phenomena of menageries—Extraordinary sagacity of the animals—The Wild Man of Afghanistan 84 CHAPTER VII. The Battery and its peculiarities—A lovely scene—Swede and Dutchman two hundred years ago—Old names of the river—Indian names generally—Cooley's boy—His adventure in church—The long and the short of it—Mr. Cooley's dog and our troubles with it 99 CHAPTER VIII. The Morning Argus creates a sensation—A new editor—Mr. Slimmer the poet—An obituary department—Mr. Slimmer on death—Extraordinary scene in the sanctum of Colonel Bangs—Indignant advertisers—The colonel violently assaulted—Observations of the poet—The final catastrophe—Mysterious conduct of Bob Parker—The accident on Magruder's porch—Mrs. Adeler on the subject of obituary poetry in general 113 CHAPTER IX. The reason why I purchased a horse—A peculiar