While I was alluding to a circumstance that occurred between me and one of my Belleville neighbors the children cried out with stentorian voice, "Tell us about Carlo and the freezer;" and they kicked the leg of the table, and beat with both hands, and clattered the knives on the plate, until I was compelled to shout, "Silence! You act like a band of Arabs! Frank, you had better swallow what you have in your mouth before you attempt to talk." Order having been gained, I began: We sat in the country parsonage, on a cold winter day, looking out of our back window toward the house of a neighbor.

She was a model of kindness, and a most convenient neighbor to have.

It was a rule between us that when either house was in want of anything it should borrow of the other.

The rule worked well for the parsonage, but rather badly for the neighbor, because on our side of the fence we had just begun to keep house, and needed to borrow everything, while we had nothing to lend, except a few sermons, which the neighbor never tried to borrow, from the fact that she had enough of them on Sundays.

There is no danger that your neighbor will burn a hole in your new brass kettle if you have none to lend.