THE cold wet rain kept sloshing down, and flooded yard and street. My uncle cried: “Don’t sigh and frown! It’s splendid for the wheat!” I slipped and fell upon the ice, and made my forehead bleed. “Gee whiz!” cried uncle, “this is nice! Just what the icemen need!” A windstorm blew my whiskers off while I was writing odes. My uncle said: “Don’t scowl and scoff—’twill dry the muddy roads!” If fire my dwelling should destroy, or waters wash it hence, my uncle would exclaim, with joy: “You still have got your fence!” When I was lying, sick to death, expecting every day that I must draw my final breath, I heard my uncle say, “Our undertaker is a jo, and if away you fade, it ought to cheer you up to know that you will help his trade.” And if we study uncle’s graft, we find it good and fair; how often, when we might have laughed, we wept and tore our hair! Such logic from this blooming land should drive away all woe; the thing that’s hard for you to stand, is good for Richard Roe.