word in New England in a similar sense. Wherever the plough meets an obstruction, and is thrown out of the ground so that the furrow is broken, the break is called a balk.
      Few of our country people can have failed to hear the expression, "to-do" (tew-dew) in the sense of commotion, trouble, fuss, and so on. That we have no special right to the phrase as a part of our dialect, is shown by the homely exclamation of a Yorkshire lad: "Bless us, wot a ta-do there is aboght nowt!" Another phrase reported from the North Riding must be equally familiar to all New Englanders: "Look at Bobby! He's fit to cry!" Still another phrase, common on the New-England farm, has been brought from that same North Riding. It is "to buckle to it." As the verb to buckle is used in a double sense, one of which is to bend, the phrase may mean either to stoop low, as in reaping, or to buckle tightly a strap worn about the body. Of course it has come to mean to apply one's self diligently and strenuously to any work.
      It is remarked by English people, that we use fall instead of autumn. This is very true, and the usage is good old English, as Mr. Hissey has kindly pointed out to us. The criticism, however, calls to mind that we have not perpetuated all the synonymes of that delightful season. In Northumberland, at present, a farmer talks about "the horse he bought last back-end," meaning thereby "last fall." After the same manner of speaking, one makes an appointment for the "fore-end o' the efterneun." Neither of these expressions have I ever heard in New England, but I have heard the suggestion that it was getting late in the evening, met by the remark, "Oh, no! 'tis only the shank o' the evening yet." Picturesque language this, to say the least.
      In connection with this matter of telling the time of the year, or of the day, there occurs to me another Northumberland phrase which is not a little puzzling. The phrase in question is, "Nigh hand six o'clock." Such is the form under which I have met it in print. I can make nothing better of this than our "nigh on to six o'clock." The combined growth and decay that would bring about the North Country results would be somewhat as follows: the on would take an initial h after cockney fashion; the o would change to a, as we have seen in other cases; the to would drop its vowel, and the t attach itself to the word before it as d.
      What gives interest to this point is the fact that one will at times hear, among New England people, the word and used in place of if I cannot believe this to be a mistake in regard to the conjunctions; but an it please the reader, I am inclined to think the word is our old conditional particle an, to which a d has grown upon the same principle that we have the word "cinder" from Latin ciner, and just as we have "brand-new" instead of bran-new, which in turn seems to be the North Country braw-new, where braw or brave has nearly the same meaning the Yorkshireman gives it