The golden shower that the old butternut sent down upon the queer roof outside the city, was the nearest approach to the real thing the house ever saw, for though it had had its day with very grand people, they had all died or moved away long ago, and left it to grow shabby and old-fashioned as it might, until at last the city had bought it for a very small sum, and established within its walls the few old people and strays that the authorities were bound to support.

So now it was nothing more nor less than the city almshouse, and the strip of land running back from it to the road behind, was called the poor-farm, though it seemed rather as an odd sort of compliment to the paupers, (boarders they preferred to be called,) than as a statement of fact, for there was only room to raise such vegetables as were needed for daily use in the summer, and the potatoes and great yellow pumpkins that were stored away for winter-days.

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