Gentle Words

ADVENTURES OF A PIONEER. 575

The first remuneration from my first three years of farming venture in California, was two dollars, paid me for water melons, in September of this year. Fortunately, October and November brought to California a large number of gold hunters, coming both by sea and land; the appetites of these people seemed to crave nothing so much as vegetables, since some of them had, and others were rapidly contracting, the scurvy. They ate raw onions, or potatoes, with apparently as great relish as if these were nicely flavored apples. As I was the only farmer in the territory who had vegetables for was much sought after by customers sale, I

from all sides; two wagons came several times from the mines, two hundred miles distant, and bought loads of vegetables at fair prices. This crop was worth about eight thousand dollars; but un- fortunately an early rain sent a flood of water over my field, from a brook near by, and continued so long that one-half of my potatoes were destroyed, before I could secure them, help being so scarce. However, what I did gather was a partial compensation for my long struggle; besides, my success was gratifying, and I put that also down in my ledger as a further credit. Thus ended my farming venture of 1849. (to be continued).

GENTLE WORDS.

Use gentle words, for who can tell The blessings they impart? How oft they fall, as manna fell. On some nigh-fainting heart! In lonely wilds, by light-winged birds. Rare seeds have oft been sown; And hope has sprung from gentle words, Where only grief had grown. Selected.