He sauntered in with a Mexican corn-husk cigarette between his lips, carrying a lantern; blew the light out, and sat down with a careless greeting, as though he had seen us only the day before.

The men commonly spend this long vacation in visiting, husking-frolics, rabbiting, and too often in taverns, to the exhaustion of their purses, the impoverishment of their families, and the sacrifice of their sobriety.

"Wait till October and make it a husking-bee," suggested Donald Ferry.

" José's fingers fumbled the little corn-husk wrapping for the cigarette he meant to make.

When JACK SPRAT met SALLY STUBBS, at a husking party, she took his eye, and kept it.

[Illustration: Corn-husk broom ]

It is always thronged in the mornings and evenings, and only deserted when the fierce heat of midday plunges the village into a lethargic silence; unbroken save where the hum of the hand-mill, or the thump of the husking-post, tells where some busy damsel or matron is grinding flour, or husking rice, in the cool shadow of her hut, for the wants of her lord and master.

But instead of this he questioned her father sharply when their corn-husk mattresses had been put before either side of the fireplace for the night.

Ants and ground squirrels were getting ready for their summer work, rubbing their benumbed limbs, and sunning themselves on the husk-piles before their doors, and spiders were busy mending their old webs, or weaving new ones.