Old Grumble on Snails

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 21, 2 August 1884, Page 3

Old Grumble on Snails

■» There is nothing demonstrates so plainly man's '' hatred of having to return to nothingness, and his yearning after immortality, as seeing him planting an orchard or laying out .an arboratum. And Grumble, knowing what he does know, pities him, as he sweats and frets the day away in working out some landscape design which ■night had conjured upas he lay sleepless nnd kicking the bed clothes off himself and his unapprecintive partner, who growls and snores, tugs at the blankets, then growls and snores again. Grumble has done all this, and in imagination as he beheld the work completed, he saw in the future some descendant (yet unborn) point proudly to the tree under whose spreading shade' he is seated, while he eats an apple, aiid says, " It was an old, old Grumble who planted . tliis tree, and to that same hand I am indebted for this frail I am eating." And as this view cam* before Grumble he exclaimed with rapture, "As long as these trees live Grumble will never die," when, looking d*s>wn, he saw visitors crawling about upon hi« walks — uninvited visitors, who evidently intended making a permanent slay with him, for they had their houses with them—s- ails ! Grumble was horrified I and at once bade farewell to all dreams of leaving to posterity any reJn'emberance of him. Snails in Feilding ! while Grumble had been under the impression that .they, like one other nuis»nce„.were confined to the opposite shores of the river Ilangi tikei ; there he knew they abounded as thicklv as politicians, for he remembered with what demoniac ■glee he had, with his buggy-wheel, as they- crawled along the road, put such leakages in their domiciles that made them uninhabitable for ever; but here they were in Fei;dmg, and Grumble felt that much vexed he could have sworn, only that he never swears — that is, he never swears at home, but in place of it he throws the fire shovel at the cat, when, if it does not hit that nimble animal (which it never does) it is sure ■to come across something in its sweeping flight, generally Mrs Grumble's legs — the young Grumbles are active enough to jump on to the chairs out of its way; then Grumble smiles benignantly (his wife calls it a sardonic grin) as he hears the stricken one falsely accuse him of doing it purposely. Snails in Feilding 3 How did they get here P And as, I Grumble, asked this question, I examined the trees more closely, and to my disgust I found they were not the only pests, but that thrip, scale, and bug had taken possession of my garden. Then I remembered the sales from where J had so foolishly increased my stock of trees, and I thought that if I, the cautious and pfcnetrating Grumble, had been deluded by their cheapness into buying infected trees, how broadcast has blight been sown, for what numbers of unsuspicious people hive purchased trees in good faith of their being clean and healthy. I shall say nothing to these poor victims — their disappointment will be suffering enough forthem— nor do I blame the auctioneer, who had ho means of detecting the ova of the parasites ; but the unscrupulous men who,' for the sake of a little trade, have brought into the place diseased and vermin-laden trees, would sell a scabby flock of sheeD as clean ones if the law allowed it, and for the future I shall •hun their iree's as I would the unowned garments at a --clearing out sale of a casual ward. In the meantime, with the edge of an ax* I shall endeavor to stamp out the mischief they have done me ancL with tlje back of the axe—well,; if the . scuffs of those who have filled my garden with such a variety of creatures that it would form, a, study for an entomologist we^re snail; shells I should crack them, that's all! Old Grumble.