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FARMING IT

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IT WAS A CLEAN KNOCKOUT (PAGE 157)

FARMING IT

BY

HENRY A. SHUTE
Author of “ The Real Diary of a Real Boy”

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY
REGINALD B. BIRCH

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BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
Che Riverside Press Cambridge
1909

COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY HENRY A. SHUTE AND HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Published November 1909

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PREFACE

Or the propriety of submitting this book to the
public I have had very serious doubts. The
nature-books of recent years have certainly been
a strong incentive to out-of-door life, to healthful
and clean living as near to nature as possible.

And it seemed to me that any recital of actual
experiences that might possibly deter a person
seeking country life as a means of pecuniary
profit, from taking the plunge, might perhaps be
injudicious.

But the more I considered the matter the more
I became convinced that the representations of
the beautifully illustrated nature-magazines, the
seductive stories in Sunday paper supplements,
farm and garden pamphlets, seed catalogues,
poultry periodicals, pigeon monthlies, and like
literature, were a trifle overdrawn, and only too
often had the effect of luring the unwary city
dweller to forsake the undeniable luxuries and
comforts of city life, for the hard, and often, at
first, unremunerative labor on a farm.

For many city-bred people have become con-
vinced that the path to riches, luxury, and com-
fort is by way of mushrooms cultivated in an old
bureau or in a barn-cellar; that a solid bank ac-

vl PREFACE

count is the sure and proximate result of “raising
squabs for profit’; that a safe-deposit box is a
vital necessity after a year with one thousand
hens.

But the cultivation of mushrooms by any per-
sons other than experts is too often attended with
loss of life in horrible agony ‘on the part of those
purchasers relying on the quality of the goods;
squabs “go light,’ and pigeons do not always
breed; and without experienced and constant
care, a package of insect powder, a chattel mort-
gage, or the services of an auctioneer are of much
more importance and a far greater necessity
after a year with a thousand hens, thgn a safe-
deposit box. 4

There is a “Jabberwock with eyes of flame”
lying in wait for every product of the farm and
garden, but in that I think lies one of the charms
of farming. Crops that will thrive without cul-
tivation are not very desirable. It is much better
fun to catch pickerel and trout than eels or pout,
although the baser fish are just as good to eat.
A boy of ten will throw back with disgust a six-
pound sucker he has caught, but will fancy him-
self a Croesus when, after unheard-of climbing
and walking and wading and sweating and mos-
quito-biting, he returns with a small string of
wary perch weighing four ounces each.

The same care and the same amount of work

PREFACE vil

that will produce success in other lines of useful-
ness will, I believe, lead to success on a farm.
More than this, I do not believe there can be a
healthier life or a pleasanter than the life of a per-
son interested in country life or nature on a farm,
whether he farms as an amateur, with an income
from a profession or a trade, or as a farmer from
love of the life.

And [I trust that this book may be useful in
tempting many back to the soil, prepared for
hard work, without which no success is worth the
name.

Henry A. SHUTE.

Exeter, N.-H., October, 1909.

XIII.
XIV.
XV.

XVI.

CONTENTS

The Doctor Prescribes

. I Buy my Pigs

. Livestock

The Gallic War
Hens

The Remedy and the Disease

. My Old Friend Nick: a Failure in Wholesale
. Setbacks

. More Setbacks

Gramp and the Gamecock

. The Grange

. Turkeys and a Footrace

A Night Call
Great Expectations
The Tales of Gramp

The Shower

110

129

145

XXII.

XXIV.

CONTENTS

. Milking

. The Calf — Another Footrace
. Amateur Theatricals

. Parting with Polly

. The Neighborhood Nuisance

. The Discomfiture of Cyrus

A Return

Looking Backward

151

159

166

194

201

222

233

244

ILLUSTRATIONS

It was a clean knockout (page 157) Frontispiece
Swearing that I was a sure enough farmer 14
You have steal ma hwood ! 34
I stepped on the edge of a large deep tin pan - . 42
Amid a cloud of dust came the old white mare 60
Shot into the air like a catapult 72
Dashed into the open 108
It looked like a saa pabsbit on stilts «(188
He clings to it with desperation 148
I was mad! Thoroughly mad! Fighting mad! 164
Have you read “The Simple Life” by Wagner? 186
Dancing that would astonish a modern Papanti 192
Git offer my lan’, ye whelp of Satan! 214
The whole thing was an innocent joke 230
It’s Polly, Dick’s got Polly! | 242

Riding with the ease and abandon of a cavalryman 246

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FARMING IT

CHAPTER I

THE DOCTOR PRESCRIBES

peace] ROM my youth I had been designed
| ESSA! by my ambitious and autocratic fa-
S Eeeg| ther for the study of the law. In my
emt! secret heart I had rebelled against
his desires. He had never given me any reasons
which seemed to justify this line of conduct
except, as he frequently said, “'There was plenty
of room at the top.” I could not deny it, because
at that time I had never been to the top to verify
his statement, and since that time I have never
succeeded in getting above the overcrowded con-
dition of affairs at the bottom.

So far as I could learn of my ancestry, there
had never been any lawyers in the family since |
the progenitor of that family in remote times
had burst upon the New World. Consequently,
there was never any heredity that had given me
a desire for the study of the law; in fact, I had
always rebelled against any and all study what-
'soever, however necessary, however desirable.

2 FARMING IT

It is not out of place here to state that my auto-
cratic father has seen good reasons to moderate
his ambitious desires in respect to my vocation
in life, and, to speak more plainly, wishes he had
not interfered.

Now I had inherited or acquired a certain
taste for the soil, which manifested itself in vari-
ous ways during my boyhood. I had early con-
ceived a taste and interest in mud pies, and had
carried the products of that industry on my face
and hands to perhaps a greater extent than any
child in the neighborhood. I had also manifested
a most reprehensible tendency to besmear my-
self with mud upon every occasion. That this
was to a certain extent a matter of heredity I
have no doubt.

My great-grandfather had once owned the
largest and finest farm in town, and had, while
yet a young man, sold the same for a round
sum, the interest on which enabled him to live
in comfort for the rest of his days and maintain
a large family of children, who, as tradition has
it, did all they could to relieve that ancestor of
all loose money that he possessed. As he passed
from this world nearly three quarters of a cen-
tury ago, it is needless to state that his later life
was not embittered by his intimate acquaintance
with me. He is gone, but the farm still remains,
and the tradition that our family once owned it

THE DOCTOR PRESCRIBES 8

is the pleasantest item of family history, one upon
which we lay the greatest stress in speaking of
the departed glories of the family.

Now had I been able to indulge my strong de-
sire to live the life of a farmer, I have no hesita-
tion, in view of my recent experience, in saying
that I would have made the worst specimen of
an agriculturalist the world has ever seen, and
so perhaps my venerable father wrought better
than he knew when he indicated in his convinc-
ing manner the road which I was to travel. True
enough, I might have made a greater success as
a musician, a sign-painter, or a seller of patent
medicines, but I stuck to the law.

It is a very curious fact that, although I had
in common with the rest of my family a decided
objection to hard work and drudgery of any kind,
and although office-work came terribly hard to
a boy who had spent his early years in the open
air, yet after a time the regular hours, the in-
teresting nature of my business, and the acquaint-
ance with all kinds of people began to exercise
a fascination over me that resulted perhaps in
too great attention to business affairs, and the
observance of too long hours in my office.

In consequence of this, and in direct violation
of all traditions of my family, I became some-
what used up from over-work, and consulted a
physician, who, with strange and terrifying in-

4 FARMING IT

struments, made exhaustive examinations of the
workings of my vital organs, and finally suggested
that I had better take more exercise, keep in the
open air as much as possible, and not allow busi-
ness affairs to worry me. For, as he said, I had
become a little “hipped’’ from too close atten-
tion to business, and needed rest.

Now this gratified me beyond measure, for it
is really a delightful thing to have people look
upon one as a person who has been sacrificing
his health to the demands of his profession, and
although I knew in my inmost heart that I never
had overworked, but, if the truth were known,
had spent a good part of office hours in sitting
with my feet on the desk, contemplating the
square in front of my office, I fostered to the
utmost the delusion under which the doctor and
the people in general labored, and I decided to
take a rest. I can give you no idea of the pleasure
I felt in hearing the remarks made by my ac-
quaintances upon my personal appearance, and
in realizing that in the minds of some I was, ac-
cording to their expression, “‘ booked for the junk
heap” unless I took a rest.

It was then that the long-dominant desire to
have a small farm or garden patch of my own
awoke in me. I knew perfectly well that if I took
a deserted farm and tried to bring it to its previ-
ous usefulness, history would be repeated, and it

THE DOCTOR PRESCRIBES 5

would again become a deserted farm, and prob-
ably with an added mortgage.

An opportunity to buy a two-and - one-half
acre place on the outskirts of the town, and an
equally fortuitous arrival of a complacent mort-
gagee, solved the difficulty. And so from the in-
herited disposition for that part of a farmer’s life
which consisted of lying at ease in a pile of new-
mown hay, contemplating the growth of one’s
vegetables, the plumpness of one’s neat stock,
the regular markings of one’s prize-poultry, and
the exceeding ripeness of one’s fruit, I determined
to have that place, in order to eke out the pre-
carious living afforded me by the practice of my
profession, by applying myself to arduous labor,
which I felt sure would bring me renewed health.
I recked not of drought, of storms, of the ravages
of coleoptera, of the attacks of orthoptera, and
the scourge of hemiptera, of lepidoptera, of hy-
menoptera, of diptera, of all sorts and kinds of
*ptera, those enemies of bucolic prosperity. Nay,
I even dared the heavy handicap of a six per cent
power - of - sale mortgage, with interest payable
semi-annually in advance.

CHAPTER II

I BUY MY Pics

: i. sl ing, the eit of eaeiee furni-

Seo) ture, new rugs, and other articles
Hieiharea necessary by my wife. I also pass over
many pungent remarks and spicy declarations
of that frank lady in relation to my ability as
a farmer, and my utility in general, although
these remarks certainly would be vastly inter-
esting and entertaining.

During the interval that preceded my final
removal to my farm, I ran up every day or two
and viewed my two-and-one-half acres, inspected
my barn and henhouse, and laid plans hugely.

The arrival of the frigid season, of course,
made any active cultivation of the soil impossi-
ble. I had heard of winter wheat, and had opined
that I would sow a little for spring consumption,
but before the formalities necessary to the trans-
fer of the property, and the negotiation of the
mortgage before mentioned, were finished, the
ground had frozen so hard that the proper tritu-

* BUY MY. PIGS 7

ration of the earth was entirely out of the ques-
tion, except by the use of high explosives, and I
was far too modest to try any such innovation
as dynamitic ploughing.

So I would fain content myself with raising a
few pigs and hens until the gladsome spring was
at hand. I had really set my heart on pigs. Pigs
were so comfortable, so good-natured, and so
delightfully lazy. I respected and admired that
trait. I was lazy, and had my circumstances in
life permitted full indulgence in that most ami-
able of virtues, I would undoubtedly have done
little more than to eat, sleep, and cultivate my
mind by omnivorous but light reading.

But unfortunately my financial state had been
such that I was, and had been from the time
when I burst upon a large and unappreciative
community as a sort of reincarnated chrysalis
attorney-at-law, compelled to spend a large part
of my waking hours in that sort of practice which
is commonly spoken of as active; why active, I
cannot say. Consequently, not being able to give
free rein to my slothful yearnings, I could respect
and envy its possession in pigs, and pigs I was
determined to have.

Now my wife objected strongly to pigs, and
when informed of my intentions, delivered quite
a masterly argument on the subject. I was in-
formed that pigs were filthy, nasty animals, al-

8 FARMING IT

ways kept in abominably smelling pens, fed upon
refuse, and breeders of typhoid fever, malaria,
cholera, and other kindred evils.

I assured her that while this was perhaps fre-
quently so, these characteristics were not indig-
enous to the pigs, but were the results of improper
food and unsuitable sanitary arrangements so
painfully evident in the ordinary pig-pens, but
that I intended to violate all the traditions of
country pig-culture, by the development of
specimens in a condition of perfect cleanliness,
suitably nourished with the most approved foods.

She replied that, while this was all very well in
theory, I was the very last person in the world to
keep up my interest in anything for any consider-
able period, and cited a long and painful list of
instances in which certain theories of mine had
been dissipated and thoroughly exploded, and at
considerable expense to me.

I waived the citations, however, and reminded
her that the one common ground of neighborly
good feeling in a bucolic community was the pig-
pen, and that more comfort was obtained of a
Sabbath morning, and of a holiday, in leaning
over the pig-pen with a neighbor, smoking and
exchanging pastoral gossip, than in any other
way.

She retorted that I would be in much better
business attending church on the Sabbath, and

PE BUM PRE REGS 9

occasionally spending part of a holiday in beating
a few rugs or mowing the lawn, instead of paying
out money for what I could do perfectly well my-
self, if I only had a little energy. Goodness knew
she needed the money badly enough for things in
the house.

Well, there was little use in continuing the dis-
cussion, and so I said no more at the time, but
spent the greater part of my leisure hours during
the week in building a good stout sleeping-floor
in the pig-house, and wheeling in straw, ashes,
and dry leaves. I was determined to have pigs.

The next thing was to purchase my pigs. I was
somewhat at a loss to make a choice of the com-
parative merits of Chester White, Poland China,
Berkshire, Sussex, Bedford or Jersey Red. All
these breeds and many others I had read of in
my encyclopedia, but strange to say I could find
no mention of the breed known as Runts. I had
certainly heard somewhere of Runt pigs, and
meant if possible to have some. I had many years
before kept fancy pigeons, and knew that the
variety known as Runts were the “giants of the
pigeon tribe,” and their squabs were the quickest-
growing, fattest, largest, and most delicious eating
of any. ‘The name Runt could therefore be ap-
plied to the porcine race for no other purpose,
surely, than to indicate the possession of some

remarkable qualities. Accordingly I decided

10 FARMING IT

upon Runts, if I could find any, and one evening
I went across the way to consult my neighbor
Daniel.

Now Daniel, my nearest neighbor, is a gentle-
man of wealth and position, a lover of horses, an
expert judge of cattle, and a famous breeder of
swine. Daniel loves a trade in any one of the lines
mentioned, and enlivens each exchange with so
many quips and jokes and good stories, that,
before you are aware, you have made the trade,
taking in exchange for your horse or cow or pig a
stock of new stories and whatever Daniel may
have seen fit to unload upon you.

I believe in perfect frankness whenever I try
to trade with a man, or to buy of him anything I
know but little of. And so when I told Daniel
I wished to buy a pair of his best pigs and would
leave the price to his fairness, I knew I should be
treated as a man and a brother.

“Now, Daniel,” I said, “I don’t know any-
thing about pigs, and you do, but I have some
decided ideas in the matter. I have thought over
the different breeds, and have decided to get the
best, even if they do cost a trifle more. I want a
good pair of Runts, and I don’t know just where
I can get any.”

“What do you want Runts for ?”’ said Daniel,
with an expression of astonishment on his ruddy
face.

PCB UY Sy EIGs 1

“Well, I suppose it will be a bit expensive,” I
replied, “but if a man is going to be a farmer,
even an amateur farmer, he might as well do the
thing right, and unless you begin right you won’t
go very far. Now, a few years ago,” I continued,
“T went in a bit for fancy pigeons and squab-
raising, and although I did n’t make any money
on the venture, I picked up a lot of information.
And let me tell you this, Daniel, Runts are the
largest, quickest-growing, and easiest to fatten of
any breed of pigeons, and I believe there is good
money in Runt pigs.”

Daniel threw back his head and laughed
loudly, then leaning forward, with a shrewd
twinkle in his eye, he said : —

“ Well, old man, you are more of a farmer than
I thought. Now if you are determined to have
-Runts I will tell you something. I did n’t intend
to let any one know, but I have a pair of Runts,
beauties too, that I will let you have. They come
a bit high, because, as I suppose you know, a
Runt pig is not nearly as common as other breeds
of pigs. You can have a pair of any of my other
pigs for twelve dollars, but for the Runts I shall
have to charge you eighteen.”

“Well, Daniel,” I replied cheerfully, “if that is
the best you can do, here is your money’’; and
I handed him the money.

“Well, hold on,” he cried; “don’t you want to

12 FARMING IT

see the pigs before you buy them? How do
you know I will give you what you have paid
for?

“Oh, you will treat me all right. I want Runts,
and you have Runts, and I want the best pair you
have.”

“All right,”’ said Daniel, somewhat doubtfully,
as he tucked the bills into his vest-pocket, “you
shall have them to-morrow, only I don’t want any
kick coming.”

“There will be no kick coming, Daniel ; this is
a fair bargain, and as long as I get Runts I shall
be satisfied. Only understand, don’t palm off on
me any ordinary pigs, — just plain Runts and
nothing else.”’

“All right, my son,” said Daniel, coughing SO
violently into his handkerchief that he had to wipe
his eyes.

The next noon when I returned from the office
to lunch the pigs had arrived, and our entire
family, barring my wife, was leaning over the
pen contemplating them with awe. And, indeed,
at first sight our inexperienced eyes could detect
the fact that they were no ordinary pigs. They
were small, much smaller than I supposed, and
were covered with a most astonishing growth of
hair, and their teeth or tusks seemed consider-
ably in advance of their general bodily develop-
ment.

Pe BUY MY; PIGs 13

They stood with their front feet wide apart, and
were somewhat wabbly on their hind-legs. In-
deed, their progress about their pen resembled
that of an inebriated gentleman endeavoring to
navigate an uneven sidewalk. But I recollected
that the young of Runt pigeons were delicate until
they approached maturity. Still, even with these
reflections, I did not feel entirely satisfied with
my bargain.

After lunch I repaired to the pen, and in the

presence of my children administered a proper
amount of nutriment to my stock, which, how-
ever, did not manifest much enthusiasm for their
food, a lack of-appreciation of our efforts in their
behalf which was unquestionably the result of
unfamiliarity with their surroundings.

The next morning was Sunday, and, true to
my prophecy, neighbors began to stroll in after
breakfast to examine my stock.

“Great Moses!’’ exclaimed the first man the
moment his eyes rested on the animals, “who
sold you those Runts?”’

“Well, never mind where I got them,” I re-
plied shrewdly ; “it is n’t every one who can get a
fine pair of Runts. They came a bit high, but I
was bound to have them.”

For a moment he eyed me with amazement at
my reticence, and then burst into a roar of laugh-
ter and clapped me on the back, swearing that I

14 FARMING IT

was a sure enough farmer. Indeed, most of my
callers that day seemed so unusually cheerful
that I began to be a bit suspicious.

The physical condition of my pets occasioned
me some uneasiness, and the reommendations of
my friends as to medical treatment were to the
last degree discouraging. One recommended
charcoal and bone-meal. Another, the amputa-
tion of the tail. Another, to slit the forehead and
rub in sulphur. Still another, to look for black
teeth and pull them.

That night the smallest pig died, and was
buried with suitable ceremonies and after titanic
exertions with a pickaxe. That afternoon I had
stolen an hour from office-work and fared to the
library, where I consulted various works on Do-
mestic Swine. After an exhaustive search I found
the following : —

“Occasionally there will appear in a litter
of pigs a stunted, dwarfed, or misshapen one,
known as arunt. Whether this is a harking back
to the original type or a direct inheritance from
some defective but more recent ancestor matters
little. The runt is of no value whatever, and
should be killed at birth. Indeed, by allowing
him to remain with the others one may menace
the well-being of the healthy pigs, inasmuch as
the runt is much more liable to contract disease
than its healthy congeners. We have yet to hear

ry

i. =

SWEARING THAT I WAS A SURE ENOUGH FARMER

E’BUY) MY¥YePEGS 15

of a single instance in which a runt ever devel-
oped into a healthy pig.”

After reading this oracular essay, I reflected a
birt. Daniel had done me. No, that was not quite
fair to Daniel. I had done myself, and Daniel
was the highly amused medium by which I had
been done.

Well, I had paid eighteen dollars for a bit of
experience, and it might be of that value in the
end, but just at that moment it appeared a rather
high price. But then, think of the vast amuse-
ment my friends had received and the general
rejoicing of the public over the joke. At the
thought of this I grew hot and cold by turns.

I soon decided on a plan of action. That night,
under cover of darkness, I drove to a neighboring
town with my son, and bought a couple of fine,
healthy pigs, for which I paid the modest price
of eight dollars, leaving the sole surviving runt
with the farmer, who promised to put him out
of the way.

And so, the next day, when jovial friends
called to view my runts, they expressed much
astonishment at the unreliability of gossip, and
each and every one appeared much discomfited
and cast down.

Now the new pigs throve bravely and ate
ravenously. True, they squealed raucously when
they did not get their food at the regular periods,

16 FARMING IT

but they seemed to grow perceptibly from one day
to another, and little by little I began to regain
my assurance and to talk a bit.

But, alas for my confidence, I had not yet seen
the last of my trouble as a porciculturist, for one
morning the three members of the Board of Health
stalked into my office and sat down ponderously.

“Squire,”’ said one, after portentously clearing
his throat, “be ye aware that ye air a-vilatin’ the
regilation of the Board of Health in keepin’
pigs ?”’

I was astounded, and gaped at the three gen-
tlemen with open mouth.

“Why, heavens and earth, gentlemen, can’t a
man keep pigs in a country town on a three-acre
piece, when they are kept as clean as fresh straw
and dry beds can make them?’ I shouted in
astonishment.

“No, squire, they can’t, s’ long ’s we’re on the
Board,” he stoutly affirmed ; “and what’s more,”
he continued, “I’m s’prised ’at you sh’d try tew
dew it, squire, when you know the law.”

“Has any complaint been made ?”’ I queried.

“No complaint’s been made by nobody,”’ re-
plied the chairman. |

“Have you examined the premises ?’’ I asked
again.

“Yes, squire, we’ve looked ’em over keerful,
an’ we’re bound to say ye’ve kep’ ’em neat ’n’

IV SUS) SY PEGs 17

tidy ’s a barn-loft, but that don’t make any differ,
ye can't keep pigs in the compact part of the
taown, leastwise not ’s long es we fellers is on the
Board.”

“Why, damn it all, gentlemen, do you seri-
ously mean to forbid me from keeping pigs by
calling up a law that is only made to regulate
abuses, like the five-miles-an-hour law, and fifty
other such laws that I could name?” I de-
manded, with pardonable heat, but highly ques-
tionable emphasis.

“That ’s the law, squire, and this is the abuse
it’s made to regilate, an’ we’re here to regilate it.
Naow what yer goin’ tew dew ’baout it ?”’

I reflected a moment. ‘They were right, such
was the law, and I certainly ought to be the first to
recognize their right to enforce it, although it was
an extreme view to take of it, and sorely disap-
pointing after my earnest and well-meant efforts
to benefit and improve the art of keeping pigs.

«Well, gentlemen,” I replied at length, “I con-
sider that you are taking an extreme view of
the law, but I shall yield. The pigs will go to-
night, that is, if you gentlemen will be good enough
to give me until then to get rid of them.”

“All right, squire,’ replied the chairman
cheerfully. “ Yecan have ’til to-morrer mawnin’,
and if ye’ll sell ’em right, I’ll buy ’em,” he con-
tinued, eyeing me with a business air.

18 FARMING IT

“You have n’t money enough to buy them,
sir,’ I replied with dignity, and they clumped
heavily down the stairs.

That night the pigs were returned to the farmer
at the same price which I gave for them, although
they were nearly a third larger; and so, although
my love for pigs was in a sense betrayed,

“°'T’ were better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.”

CHAPTER III

LIVESTOCK

fo ee | LiE unforeseen obstacles that were
jee eee! thrown in my way, and rendered abor-
SZ ENE| tive my attempts to revolutionize the
wees! pio industry of the United States, did
not abate one jot of my enthusiasm for the noble
art of farming and stock-breeding. After all, pigs
were but an incident in the life of a farmer. Sta-
tistics demonstrated the fact that, while the fowl
and egg industry was increasing by leaps and
bounds, to be one of the leading industries of the
country, the demand was far in excess of the
annual supply.

When in the fifties the first Shanghai fowl was
imported, the excitement ran so high that it was
currently reported and believed that at last an
ideal fowl had been found that would lay two
egos a day and give a pint of milk. Hundreds of
misguided enthusiasts retired from the business
in disgust when they found that the much
vaunted Shanghai fowl was a sort of gallinaceous
crane or cormorant, with an abnormal appetite, a
voice like an ophicleide, a reproductive capacity
under most favorable circumstances of about six

20 FARMING IT

egos per year for the first year and of none there-
after, and a steadfastness and pertinacity of in-
cubation that only could be abated by setting fire
to the nest and consuming nest, eggs, and hen,
and occasionally the adjoining buildings, — in
which case, and provided the buildings were pro-
perly insured, the owner made money and lived
happily ever afterwards.

Yet there remained a steady increase in the
business, and of late years the invention and suc-
cessful adoption of the incubator and brooder
had forced the business into the front rank of na-
tional industries. When one reflects on the vast
scope in the usefulness of an egg, ranging from
the tempting of the appetite of a broken-down
sport to the assaulting of a temperance lecturer
or pruma donna assoluta, one cannot wonder at the
increasing demand.

In this matter I had no illusions. I knew some-
thing about hens, as I had kept them in my boy-
hood. And I knew also the difficulty of making
them lay with any degree of regularity. But they
were interesting, if aggravating, and I had no
doubt of being able, at least, to have fresh eggs
from my own forcing-house, and spurless spring
chickens of known and recorded juvenility. The
unpedigreed egg is sometimes dangerous to
meddle with. Like the little girl adorned as to
her forehead with ambrosial locks, —

LIVESTOCK 21

*“When she was good she was very, very good,”
And when she was bad she was horrid.”

I consulted skilled artisans, with a view of suit-
ably amending my pig-pen to masquerade as an
- attractive henhouse; and while these somewhat
expensive amendments were in order I cast about
for means to improve the fertility of my farm.

I greatly preferred the old-fashioned dressing
to manufactured fertilizers, and as the snow was
now overdue, I made arrangements to have a
large amount of dressing spread over my land
whenever the weather betokened snow. By these
means I expected to avoid any unpleasant odor
by an immediate covering of snow. And so, one
chill day when the sky was overcast and gray, the
wind northeast, and a few flakes of feathery snow
came silently sifting down, I notified the contrac-
tor, and before I left for the office, teams were
arriving and brawny Milesians were spreading
dressing thickly over our premises.

The odor as I left was a bit penetrating, but a
brisk snow-storm was beginning, and I reassured
my family, who were individually expressing
what seemed to me an unreasonable disposition
to find fault with our arrangements.

Within an hour the clouds had cleared away,
the sun came out, the snow melted, and the tem-
perature rose many degrees. I was so occupied
at my office that I did not think much about it

22 FARMING IT

until my wife called me up on the phone, and the
following conference ensued : —

“Hullo ?”’ interrogatively.

“Hullo,” responsively and confirmatively.

“Ts that you ?”’

oS me."

“Well, for goodness’ sake stop these men
spreading any more of that horrid old manure.
It smells so— Hullo! hullo!! hullo!!!) Why
don’t you listen? — dreadfully that we can’t
stand it. We have shut every window and door in
the house, and of course the steam is just sizzling,
and — Hullo!” |

“Why don’t you tell them to stop ?”’

“T have talked and talked to them, and they
said you told them to put it all on to-day and not
to stop for any one.”

“Call one of them to the ’phone.”

Wate P79

“Call one of them to the phone, and I will talk
to him.”

“What in the world are you thinking of ? Do
you suppose I will have one of those smelly men
right off a dump-cart all over my floor? You
must come up.”

“Well, I'll come in a few moments.”

“Now do hurry. It is perfectly dreadful! Oh,
dear! I wish the plaguy place had been sunk
before you ever bought it. Good-by.” :

LIVESTOCK 23

“Good-by.’’ I hung up the receiver, dismissed
my client, and started for home.

When I got there — Well, in justice to my
wife I must admit that she had not overstated the
case. The greater part of the lawn and field was
thickly strewn with steaming dressing, the whole
atmosphere fairly palpitated, and travel on our
street had practically ceased.

There was only one thing to do, and I did it.
Before noon several loads of wood ashes were
being sifted carefully over my top-dressing, by
various men and boys whom [I had pressed into
service, and by nightfall the annoyance was
abated ; the neighbors and their families had re-
turned from the hotel accommodation they had
hastily engaged down town; my wife had re-
considered her determination to bring a libel for
divorce on the ground of “treatment calculated
to injure health or reason’’; I had paid an ex-
travagant bill for top-dressing and a still larger
one for the antidote, and peace was once more
secured.

At all events, my land, or a certain part of it,
would be fertile next spring, and that was the
main thing after all. So I superintended opera-
tions on our henhouse and incidentally bought
a horse.

I had had considerable experience with horses,
and had ridden and driven them since I was very

Q4 BARMIUNG oT

small. I already had one, a nervous, high-strung
sorrel mare, an excellent roadster and fair saddler,
but too impatient and quick for farm-work, and
I knew that in the spring the price would be high.

One day while reading the advertisements of
horse-sales in Boston, I found one that attracted
my notice. I paid scant notice to the “Lady
going to Europe, and who wished to get a good
home for her seal-brown trotting mare, Jennie
B.,”’ ete.; to the “Administrator of a deceased
doctor will sell a fine stable outfit, and will throw
in the favorite roadster of the doctor’’; to the
“Forty Canadian chunks just off a contracting —
job.” The lady had gone to Europe too often,
the doctor had departed this life with too much
regularity, and the Canadian chunks had ap-
peared in undiminished numbers for too long a
period, to deceive even me.

But when [ read, “Bay mare of good breed-
ing, in foal to Electric Jim (2.161), first dam
Sukey M. (2.21), second dam Wilkes Jane (2.124) ;
mare good roadster, sound and kind, had been
driven by a lady and used to farm-work, sold
for the high dollar,’ I was interested at once.

Perhaps the one thing calculated more than
any other to stamp a modest farm as a stock-
breeding establishment is a brood-mare and colt ;
and besides, since local farmers had given up the
raising of colts, good, safe, well-broken native

LIVESTOCK 25

horses were scarce. Here, at least, was a chance
to raise a colt with but very little trouble.

I was on the spot at the date of the sale, and
on examination the mare pleased me. She would
weigh about eleven hundred pounds, had good
clean legs, a kind eye, and an intelligent head.
Indeed, when she was led out, she pleased the
crowd, and I found myself bidding against sev-
eral horsy-looking men. However, by persever-
ance I finally had her knocked down to me for
$175.

For a week after her arrival I used her singly,
in double harness, on the road, in the dump-cart,
and she suited me perfectly. While not as fast as
Polly, she was steady and courageous on the road,
and was well-mannered and quiet in the stable.
I was perfectly delighted with my bargain, and
looked to the foal to much more than offset my
loss on pigs, and the unusual expense of the dou-
ble layer of fertilizer. My henhouse had been
finished and at no great expense, and I consulted
poultry magazines for which I had subscribed, to
see which were the best breeds.

But from them I got no reliable advice, for
according to all the advertisements and articles I
read, all breeds were the best layers, and if the
smaller breeds did not have as much meat on
them as the larger, their meat was more tender
and succulent. All were winter layers, non-set-

26 FARMING IT

ters, and easily tamed, and the handsomest fowl
in existence.

Indeed, the number of breeds had so greatly
increased, and their names were so unfamiliar,
that I was for a long time as one wandering in a
foreign land. I looked in vain for Bolton Grays
and Rocky Mountains, the two breeds the most
favored when I was a boy; I could not find them.

Instead, I found various varieties of Wyan-
dottes, Langshans, Minorcas, Orpingtons, Sicilian
Buttercups, Rhode Island Reds, Anconas, Fa-
verolles, and others, of which I had never heard.
I doubt if Rip van Winkle on awakening from his
long sleep on the mountains was more bewildered
than I was after my first hour with a poultry
journal.

The journal was full of cuts and photographs
of noble-looking but strange fowl, and of exten-
sive poultry plants, which both convinced and
astonished me at the magnitude of the business.

I also learned that the Hon. R. Cuthbert
Jenkins had purchased of Lady the Honorable
Letitia Jane Cholmondeley her entire stock and
all rights in her famous strain of Jubilee Orping-
tons, which amazed me intensely. But where
were the Bolton Grays, and what had become
of the Rocky Mountain fowl? Could they have
utterly perished from the earth like the auk and
the bustard? It seemed scarcely possible. The

LIVESTOCK Q7

Black Spanish, the Brahma, and the Cochin were
still extant, as well as the Game Fowl! and the
Sebright Bantam.

I still had some friends and must be content
with them. It was not until about a week later
that I found that the Bolton Gray and the
Rocky Mountain were still in existence, but mas-
querading under the more pretentious title of
Silver-Penciled Hamburgs and American Dom-
inique respectively. And what was delightful, I
found I could get some in a neighboring town.
So I took a day off, harnessed my new purchase
into the farm-wagon in which I had loaded two
slatted boxes, donned my heavy overcoat, and
started out to purchase the fowls. I had excellent
luck, purchased a dozen fine specimens of each
breed, loaded them on the wagon, and started
homeward.

All went well until I got home, when I met with
a slight accident, which, while the results were
not very serious, nearly influenced me to sell the
farm and return to town. ‘There were two stone
posts at the entrance of my driveway, which |
could safely negotiate with Polly by day or night,
in spite of her nervousness and rapid gait. It
was nearly dark when I got home, and I did not
realize that I was driving a horse somewhat new
to the premises. In fact, I was laying plans for
my fowls and only regained my wits when I

28 FARMING IT

found myself on the ground under the superin-
cumbent weight of two slatted coops filled with
flapping, squawking, clawing hens, while the
horse obediently stopped and waited for me to
regain my seat and take command.

When the family arrived, all asking questions
at once and loudly wondering if I were dead, —
an unreasonable assumption in view of my lan-
guage, —I had righted my wagon, replaced one
coop with its prisoners intact, and had stood
the other on its broken end, from which half of
its occupants had escaped and were wandering
round making rustlings in the leaves and bushes. ~
After what was left of my load had been safely
secured in the henhouse, I spent the next two
hours, lantern in hand, in tracking, chasing, and
running to earth the fugitive hens, after which,
completely fagged out, I retired.

CHAPTER IV
THE GALLIC WAR

ian geet next morning I was at the hen-
{i #eeae| house before I took care of the horses.
od EX i It was a sharp morning, with overcast
MES sky, and the fowls looked a trifle

However, some dry grain scattered among the
litter on the floor of their pens set them scratching
actively, and as they scratched and warmed to
their work they began to prate cheerfully, while
the two cocks paraded up and down in front of -
their wire partition, defying each other, and saying
doubtless all manner of evil things of each other.
As I watched them swell and strut and lower
their heads defiantly, and occasionally make a
short rush at each other, a vague shadow of the
old feeling that used to induce me when a boy to
toss our rooster over a neighbor’s fence, and then
watch the battle that would ensue, came over me,
and for a moment I felt a sinful desire to let them
together for just a few jumps.

The Hamburg was a handsome, silvery fellow,
with long sickle feathers and well - developed

30 FARMING IT

spurs, while the Dominique was solid and
chunky, with the well-marked hawk plumage
that glowed with health.

However, I refrained, and after watching them
until breakfast-time, I went in without having
fed and watered Polly and our well-bred brood-
mare, which welcomed me after breakfast with
reproachful nickerings and pricked-up ears.

That noon, to my great delight, I found three
fresh eggs in the nests, which I conveyed tri-
umphantly into the house, dropping one on the
floor, however, in my eagerness to show them to
my wife, and induce her to retract certain opin-
ions she had expressed to the effect that I would
never vet a single egg from my old hens as long
as I lived.

I might say in passing that that egg was some-
what more than ruined for life. The painstaking
endeavors I made to scrape it up with a spoon
added nothing to its value or sphere of usefulness.
But never mind, I had at least received some
financial return for my outlay. Eggs were worth
forty-two cents a dozen.

That afternoon the long delayed snow-storm
came, and before morning nearly a foot had fallen.
I was out betimes with shovel and plough, and it
was a pleasure to sit on the plough and drive
while my son wielded the shovel. Exercise is a
good thing for the young, and one of the greatest

THE GALLIC WAR 31

pleasures I experience is to sit and see others
work.

The air was brisk and full of oxygen, the snow
was dazzling in the bright sunshine, the jolly
tinkle of the sleigh-bells filled the air, while a
flock of juncos sported in the tall dry weeds and
grasses that in the fence-corners barely showed
their drooping heads above their white mantle.

I felt the beauty of the country and country life
as never before, and how petty seemed my disap-
-pointments in life, in the great peace that seemed
to spread over the face of Nature! As I went down
to the office that morning, leaving my stock warm
and well fed and my modest farm half buried in
fleecy clouds of snow, I thought how much of life
and beauty is now hidden safe and warm under
Nature’s blankets, only awaiting that magic
summons to spring up into active and beneficent
fruition.

All that day sleighs dashed about town, and
wood-sleds drawn by single teams, pairs, and
fours thronged the streets. The farmers had
been waiting for the snow. This set me thinking.
What cleaner, better, fresher farm-work could
there be than chopping in the winter woods.
That’s it! I would do it. Business was not very
brisk in the office, and if it were, there was no
particular need of a man being a slave to his
profession. I had known instances of men actu-

32 FARMING IT

ally drying up in my profession, and being, as far
as real usefulness is concerned, “ Like thin ghosts
or disembodied creatures.”

The one thing I needed to develop a real home-
like, woodsy, farmer-like feeling was to get into
the woods, and load wood, and smell the delicious
fragrance of the pines and the balsam of the
freshly cut trunks.

That afternoon I borrowed a single-horse sled of
Daniel, equipped with a work-harness and chain-
traces, arranged with him for a load or two of
cord - wood piled in a distant wood - lot, and
started with a Hibernian friend for the lot, to ~
pluck and garner it for myself. Arrived at the lot,
I let down the bars and drove along a rough
lumber-road, through another pair of bars, down
a hemlock-shaded path, where the heavily laden
branches dipped and showered us with feathery
masses. ‘hen across a small bridge spanning a
frozen, snow-covered brook, until I came to a
cleared lot dotted with piles of neatly corded
wood.

In the distance we could see the smoke of a
shanty fire, and hear the songs of Canadian
wood-choppers, “Habitants of story,” and the
ring and thud of their axes. “Jolly, happy fel-
lows,” I thought, “true, care-free sons of the
woods, without sordid thoughts, without disturb-
ing and unhappy ambitions destined never to be

THE GALLIC WAR 33

rewarded. They indeed have the true secret of
happiness. Enough to eat, enough to wear,
health, the fresh air laden with balsamic fra-
grance, never a thought of money. Jolly, happy
fellows, they are to be envied.”

And so, intent on such thought, I sprang
lightly from our sled, donned my leather mittens,
and vied with Pat in loading cord-wood. ‘True,
I did not successfully vie with him, because that
seasoned veteran loaded by far the greater part of
it; but I, in a measure, superintended the job and
occasionally landed a stick on the sled.

We took good measure, Pat saw to that, and
when we started we were obliged to pry the run-_
ners out of the ruts where they had frozen. Lady
M. pulled grandly, and we were smoothly sailing
across the lot on the down-grade, when we heard
loud shouting in our rear, and turned to see a
picturesque figure in blanket-coat, moccasins,
and toque, wildly waving its hands and shouting
a jumbled and somewhat incoherent mixture of
French and English, from which we gathered
that he had some suspicions of the honesty of our
intentions.

“Voleur, arrétez-vous, you have ma hwood
volé; par la Sainte Vierge, you have steal ma
hwood, ’cré Baptéme, bagosh, seh!”’

Rushing frantically to the horse’s head, he
grasped the reins, as if to prevent our escape,

34 FARMING IT

whereupon Pat tumbled off the load, spitting on
his hands and exclaiming, “Dom the moonkey,
lave me poonch th’ Dago hid off him, whirroo!”’
And he jumped two feet in the air and cracked his
heels together. I violently restrained Pat and
ordered him on the load, which was good general-
ship on my part, as, from the neighboring lot,
twenty excited compatriots of the first gaudy
brigand came piling over the fence, and sur-
rounded us amid a torrent of Gallic expletives.

“For the love of hivin, yer ’anner,” pleaded
Pat, “lave me lick the twinty of thim, lave me
land one poonch on the dhirty moog of ould Plaid
Belly”; by which appropriate title he designated
the premier brigand.

“Keep quiet, Pat,” I remonstrated, “this is a
case for arbitration.”

“«‘ Arbitration be dommed,”’ growled Pat, “wan
good belt in th’ gob of ould Plaid Belly wud do
th’ job aisy.”

However, I refused Pat’s modest request, and
raising my hand impressively, addressed the
leader in our best Exeter Cotton Mill French.

“Messieurs, qu’avez vous m’en voudre; Ich
welss nicht was zie meinen, dites-moi, pour
Vamour de Dieu. What is it that it is ?”’

Now this was so plain that even Pat was heard
to mutter, “Begob, he can talk Dago talk awl
right.”’

A HWOOD!

E STEAL M

AV

YOU H

THE GALLIC WAR 35

“Vous étes un scélérat, vous have steal ma
hwood, mille tonneurs, sacré’, bagosh, me!’’ he
shouted.

“°Cré Bapture, bagosh,” responded the chorus
of voyageurs, “mille tonneurs.”’

“ Jist wan poonch, yer ’anner,’’ pleaded Pat.

“Shut up, Pat, I will run this affair without
any fighting,’ I replied.

“Pardon, messieurs, vous avez fait un faux pas.
J’ai verkaup die bois von Herr Gilman, a qui
‘ -appartient tous les bois herein.”’

“JI n’appartient a M’sieu Gilman, il appartient
a moi. I have it buy of M’sieu Gilman, me!” he
shouted, waving his arms.

“Qui, oul, bagosh, c’est vrai,” responded the
chorus.

“Oh, wirra, wirra, *t would be aisy,” mur-
mured Pat.

“Monsieur,” I continued, courteously, “parlez
un peu plus lentement, un peu langsam. La
conversation rapide nicht mir gefallt.”’

“Bien, m’sieu,” he responded more affably,
apparently soothed by my lingual attainments,
“T have buy the hwood of M’sieu Gilman. J’ai
coupé le bois pour lui, et il m’a payé de l’ar-
gent, il m’a vendu le bois detaché, for one hun-
ner twonny-fav dollar, bagosh, seh, n’est ce
pas ?”’

“Bagosh, seh,”’ echoed the chorus.

36 PARMIAG rr

“Ich verstehe parfaitement,”’ I replied. “Je
vous paierai pour les bois, si vous voulez,’’ I con-
tinued gracefully.

Thereupon smiles beamed on Gallic faces and
peace seemed imminent, much to the disgust of
Pat, who yearned for war.

“Bien, m’sieu,” said the other, ‘“‘eef m’sieu
me giv fav dollar, m’sieu can eet have.”

“Th’ robber! lave me —’’ began Pat.

“Pat,” I interrupted, “we have been trespass-
ing, and it is only fair that we should compensate
this gentleman for the annoyance we have caused.
We should be the first to recognize the justice of —
his claim, and do what we can to foster in these
adopted citizens a respect for the law, that you
and I as American citizens have.”

** Hill and blazes!” scoffed Pat, “ wan good
poonch wud tach thim dommed canucks more
rispict than fhorty laws, and lave me give *im
jist wan for loock.”

But I refused, and handing a five-dollar bill to
our friend, I gathered up the reins and drove off,
not before we heard our “care-free sons of the
woods, without sordid thoughts, without disturb-
ing and unhappy ambitions destined never to be
rewarded,” remark to one another : —

“Nom de Dieu, il a payé enormement; quel
fou! he-he-he ’cré Baptéme.”’

And that night when we called on Daniel and

THE GALLIC WAR 37

related our experience, that guileful individual
nearly had a seizure from convulsions of sinful
mirth. But seriously, was that a Christian way
of treating a man and a brother?

CHAPTER V

HENS

a HE next day I was so stiffened by my
Oe Hee] somewhat unusual exertions that I
Rp: Ae fairly creaked. So I rather slighted
22e the grooming of my horses, but looked
chrefully to the welfare of my thoroughbred
fowls, and was fully rewarded by seeing two on
the nests.

That day a slatted box arrived at my office by
express, containing a most magnificent black-
red gamecock. I was out when the expressman
arrived, or I should have required him to deliver
it at my farm. As it was, the bird kept up a most
terrific crowing during the forenoon, leaving
some doubt in the minds of casual callers or pro-
spective clients as to whether they were entering a
cockpit, a poultry exhibition, or the unassuming
office of an attorney-at-law and amateur farmer.
As the charges had been prepaid by my unknown
benefactor, I felt that I could afford to secure
the bird’s transmission to my farm at the hands
of a small boy and at the expense of ten cents.

Theat noon when I went to lunch, I first re-
paired to my barn to liberate the gamecock.

HENS 39

But somebody had evidently anticipated my
humane desire to emancipate the prisoner, and
I found the box empty. A dreadful suspicion
occurred to me, and I made rapid strides for the
hencoop, where I found my fears confirmed.

A battle had been fought, and evidences of it
in the shape of tufts of silvery feathers scattered
over the pen in which my beautiful Hamburg
cock had been confined were abundant, while
in a corner, looking like a soiled and frayed
feather-duster, lay the remains of that proud and
well-bred bird. His conqueror, splendid and un-
hurt, scratched and curveted before the con-
sorts of the late deceased king, and crowed so
lustily that the very rafters rang, and occasion-
ally, as if to dissipate any doubt that the ladies
present might have entertained of his being the
“champeen,” took a whack at his antagonist,
and plucked from the stiffened and prostrate form
a choice nosegay of feathers, which he strewed
at the feet of the penciled beauties.

Either my instructions had not been sufficiently
explicit, or that boy possessed a strong strain of
sporting blood in his composition. “If I could
only catch that rascal I would—” Well, I
could n’t really say what I would do, but I prob-
ably would have cross-questioned him severely
for the purpose of ascertaining just what sort of

a fight the old Hamburg put up.

AO FARMING IT

The next thing was to get the gamecock out
of the pen. It was my intention when I bought
those Hamburgs to breed to a feather, and not
allow any hybrids on the farm, but the presence
of an alien rooster of undisputed lineage, but
practically unknown moral standing, in a flock
of young and giddy female birds, mere school-
girl biddies in fact, might excite in the unre-
generate a suspicion of a taint in the blood of
their progeny, to say nothing of a blot on their
moral escutcheon.

So I opened the door between the pens, stepped
in, and carefully fastened it to avoid a second |
fatality to the Dominique at its hands, or rather
at its heels. While my back was turned and my
attention occupied in this task, the feathered
pugilist struck me a most vicious blow in the
calf of my right leg, which hurt outrageously, and
so angered me that I rushed furiously after him.

Away he went round the coop, flapping and
swearing in shrill gallinaceous language, while
I came right after him, doing my best to answer
his remarks in vigorous English. Now any one
who has endeavored to catch an adult and frantic
rooster in a small room, and in the midst of a
round dozen of hysterical and gymnastic hens,
in full possession of astonishing powers of speech
and motion, knows what a dreadful task is before
one.

HENS 41:

It seemed as if every single hen had been mul-
tiplied by ten, shedding shrieks, squawks, feathers,
dust, and scratches; and as I pursued that gor-
geous devil up, over, round, and through the pen,
I was bombarded with hens. One frantic biddy
collided with my best stiff hat so violently that it
was knocked off, stepped on, and ruined, before
I was aware of its loss. Another nearly blinded
me as I unexpectedly intercepted its arrow-like
flight from one roost to another; the number of
times I bumped my head against those roosts
was beyond computation ; I stepped on the edge
of a large, deep tin pan filled with water, and the
same promptly reared aloft and cast its contents
over my soiled, dusty, and feather-covered per-
son. ‘Iwo hens escaped by dashing bodily through
the windows, which I had neglected to have
properly protected by wire; but at last I caught
that infernal gamecock by the legs, whereupon,
finding itself caught, it stopped squawking,
reached for my unoccupied hand, and with its
iron beak gouged a segment therefrom and
struggled to bring its sharp spurs to play.

When, after rescuing the mangled remains
of my hat and immuring the murderer in a sepa-
rate prison, I returned to my family I was an
appalling sight. I was festooned with cobwebs,
downy with feathers, covered with dust, and
drenched with water. One side of my face was

42 FARMING IT

smeared with dirt, and the other was seamed with
scratches where maniacal pullets had deftly
dealt me glancing blows, my hand was bleeding,
and my new hat ruined. |

However, I had determined to become a farmer,
and all my unpleasant experiences were in a way
valuable, and would doubtless bear fruit. In some
ways farming had not proved exactly profitable,
but it was far more exciting than I had ever
dreamed.

For the week following the chase of the game-
cock, and the tragic death of our fine stock bird,
I was quite closely confined to the office with an |
epidemic of legal business that broke loose. It
seemed as if almost every third man I met was
tormented with an unconquerable desire to quar-
rel about a right of way, to institute criminal pro-
ceedings for the collection of a civil claim, or to
file a libel for divorce on untenable grounds.

This tried me severely, for while such business
is seldom remunerative, and needs to be sorted
out with the greatest care, the legal transaction
of the best of it, to say the least, adds nothing to
one’s reputation either as a lawyer or a gentle-
man, which terms should be, but are not always,
synonymous.

Again, clients in such classes of business know
so much more than their legal advisers, and are
so tenacious of their opinions, that in many cases

es Pies < y - } a MY OG, | Y
Ai cer 7

IS

1]

I STEPPED ON THE EDGE OF A LARGE, DEEP TIN PAN

HENS 43

it is almost impossible to get rid of them without
resorting to violence.

And so, at the end of the next week I was just
yearning for a taste of the farm, and for a chance
to put to the test some of the theories I had
been forming in regard to the proper develop-
ment of my stock and the bringing my farm up
to the standard set by government publications
of the Agricultural Department. I had studied
faithfully the various poultry books and maga-
zines, and felt that I could at once detect that
_ grim destroyer, roup, the moment I saw it; and
for several days I had, when feeding and water-
ing my fowls, looked them over with considerable
trepidation, fearful of the dread scourge, and yet
determined if necessary to kill, burn, and reduce
to infinite nothingness any unfortunate fowls that
might be attacked, and even prepared to go to
the extreme length of burning the hencoop.

I also learned with profound regret that there
was no known remedy for fatty degeneration of
the liver, or tumors in the gizzard, but that pip
could be cured by certain preparations to be pro-
cured only of the advertiser; that gapes and
cholera could be promptly cured by explicitly
following certain directions sent by mail, “En-
close twenty-five cents in stamps,” which I did,
and received “specific directions”’ to kill the af-
fected specimens at once ; that bumble-foot could

++ FARMING IT

be also effectually remedied by cutting open the
foot and rubbing in a preparation, the ingredients
of which could be obtained only of the advertiser ;
that this remedy was the result of years of study
at the expense of thousands of dollars.

I also learned that there were thirty or forty
“best”? remedies for vermin, fifteen or twenty
“only”? remedies for vermin, and at least a dozen
“best and only”’ remedies for vermin. Indeed,
so much was said of the ravages of vermin that
I felt quite crawly every time I finished a poul-
try magazine.

CHAPTER VI

THE REMEDY AND THE DISEASE

ean dese] LEARNED how to caponize fowls,
K Aes| at least in theory, and when I sent for
Sue| a price-list of caponizing instruments,
areas) T was deluged for weeks with pam-
Bhi and appeals, and men with beards and
without neckties called and tried to sell me ex-
pensive sets of instruments.

I read a particularly fine and smoothly written
article claiming that, if the moulting period
could be brought on in June by any method of
feeding, fall and winter eggs would be plentiful,
and that a fortune awaited a successful solution
of this vexed problem. Indeed, I had been so
interested in this matter that I hazarded another
twenty-five cents as an investment in one ad-
vertiser who claimed to possess the secret, and
to be willing to impart it at that reasonable figure
to all comers. I was not particularly disappointed
when I received the following instructions: “ Pick
the fowls thoroughly without killing, about the
20th of May in each year, then let their feathers
grow.”

46 FARMING If

I had purchased two game-hens to make con-
finement less irksome to my gamecock, and sent
for a new Hamburg cock; the hens were laying
well, and I began to lay plans for spring planting.

Although spring was far away, catalogues were
to be had for the asking ; and daily, in high rubber
boots, I walked over my land, making plans to
have a vegetable garden here, some pear trees
here, a pie-plant patch here, a row of sunflowers
by the fence, and a grape arbor by the side of the
barn.

I desired to add a Jersey cow to my personal
possessions, but could not quite see my way clear
to spare the time necessary to milk and care for
her without neglecting the duties of my profes-
sion.

I was brought somewhat abruptly from my
theorizing by an unexpected development in the
hen industry. One morning, on going to feed
them, I found one hen dead in a corner, headless
and badly gnawed, — evidently the work of rats,
as a hole in a corner of the pen showed only too
plainly.

This was a calamity second only to roup. I had
read of whole communities of fowls ravaged by
rats, and the remedy was obvious; not traps or
cats or terriers, but ferrets, the one animal that
could pursue rats into their subterranean fast-
nesses and there conquer and destroy them.

REMEDY AND DISEASE 47

I removed the deceased pullet, buried it in
the compost heap, plugged up the rat-hole with
broken glass and tin, and sought the latest poul-
try magazine. There it was: “Five Hundred
Ferrets for Sale.” Here again: “Ferrets for sale,
the only means of effectually ridding your prem-
ises of rats.”’ And here: “Ferrets, the friend of
poultry,” and “Ferrets, the preserver of fowls.”

I did not want five hundred of them, but thought
a pair of healthy specimens would be a mighty
good investment. The main winter industry of
my farm was threatened with extinction, and it
behooved me to act, and act with promptness.

So I went to Boston the next day, although it
is my principle never to travel unnecessarily, ex-
cept in the transaction of business for a client,
and at his expense. I went directly to a bird store
on Portland Street, and inquired for ferrets. I
was shown some beauties, — that is, the pro-
prietor spoke of them as beauties, although to
me they seemed snaky, red-eyed varmints of a
most unattractive and unprepossessing appear-
ance.

They had, however, some astonishing ac-
complishments, which amazed me greatly. The
dealer put five of them into a cigar-box, in the
cover of which was a small round hole, out of
which one promptly poked its head, and seizing a
piece of raw meat the dealer held out to it, hung to

48 FAR MENG it

it with a grip of steel, while the box with its entire
weight swung to and fro. Then, opening the box
and allowing two to fasten their jaws to a piece
of meat, he took one by the tail and swung them
both over his head without loosening their grip.
He handled them like kittens without any dan-
ger, and assured me they were well trained and
harmless, but cautioned me against handling
them when they were fastened to their natural
prey, the rat.

I was convinced, and bought a pair. I was
doubtful whether or not I should choose a sort
of sorrel and a black, but finally decided on a
roan with gray mane and tail, and a buckskin
with red eyes, had them safely wired in a box,
and took the next train back.

I could scarcely wait for the train to arrive at
my station, so anxious was I to try the skill of
my new purchase; and as soon as I removed my
overcoat, I put for the henhouse, opened the box,
and turned the ferrets down the rat-hole, which,
in my absence, had been widened materially,
and in they went.

No sooner had they disappeared than a sharp
squealing was heard far down in the bowels of
the earth, and in a moment the hole appeared to
boil over with rats. One gray-whiskered old
fellow started to climb over me, and gave me a

horrible fright, but I shook him off and killed him

REMEDY AND DISEASE 49

with a shovel. The rest darted out of the half-
open door, and went leaping away over the
snow.

While I was awaiting the reappearance of my
ferrets, and after the excited hens had calmed
down, a sudden commotion in the other coop
attracted my attention, and hastily stepping in
I found a fine pullet struggling and flapping in
her death-agonies, with my buckskin ferret hang-
ing to her windpipe. Seizing it by the body with
one hand and the moribund pullet with the other,
I tore it from its quarry, when it turned upon me
and sunk its teeth in my forefinger, nor would it
let go although I danced and swore and shook my
wounded hand violently. It was only when I
choked it nearly to death with the other hand
that I loosed its grip, slammed it in its box, and
fastened the cover.

After bandaging my hand I waited for the
roan to come forth. What to do to entice it from
its safe retreat I did not know. For a while I
whistled. I did not know whether or not that
was the proper :salutation, but I tried it for
what it was worth. It was probably not good
form in musteline circles, for the roan paid no
attention to it.

Then I tried the bleeding form of the freshly
killed hen; but the wary animal evidently had
seen my rude treatment of the buckskin, and

50 FARMING IT

was resolved not to give me an opportunity to
maltreat it, and came not forth.

Finally, I had recourse to water poured down
the hole. I was bound to have that animal now
dead or alive, and for half an hour poured pail
after pail of water down the hole without the slight-
est impression. The faster I poured, the faster
the water disappeared and the drier the hole
seemed. It was evident that the hole was con-
nected with some great subterranean lake or cave,
and I could n’t have filled it by any method short
of turning the river through it.

And so, at my wits’ end, I devised the follow-
ing scheme. I sawed a hole in a box, arranged
an entrance of wire that, like a trap for homing
pigeons, allowed a visitor to enter, but prevented
a tenant from jumping his board-bill, poked the
buckskin into the box, —I did not dare to han-
dle that savage biter, — placed the box near the
hole, and then, after stopping up the other hole,
left them for the night.

The next morning I repaired at an unusually
early hour to the coop, and, to my unbounded
amazement, found that the buckskin had escaped
and with its mate had been on a reign of terror,
and that three of my best birds lay foully mur-
dered.

My indignation knew no bounds. I thought
of poison, of shot-guns, of boiling water, and

REMEDY AND DISEASE $1

of other cruel and drastic measures, but as a last
resort, and after a practically accurate repetition
of the scene of the chase of the gamecock, caught
and removed all the living hens from the coop,
procured two steel traps, baited them with raw
meat, and before noon caught both marauders,
which were so badly hurt that I had to kill them.

Thus did I learn another valuable but expen-
sive lesson. I afterwards was told by a veteran
of experience that the whole difficulty could have
been avoided by using muzzles on my ferrets,
which would then drive the rats away perma-
nently without endangering my fowls.

I mended the broken windows, replaced my de-
pleted flock with others of like species, and for a
time my farm life was uneventful. Daily I fed
and watered, bedded and groomed my horses,
and cared for my hens. Snow-storms came, and
the drifts piled high round my buildings. Yet
it was a pleasure to wield the broad snow-shovel
and drive Lady M. to plough through the drifts.
It was also a pleasure, of a sunny afternoon, to
saddle Polly and the pony and ride out into the
country. The world of white is very beautiful, the
air 1s crisp and tingling, the snow, hard-beaten in
the roadway, is soft, dry, and feathery at the sides.

But perhaps the pleasure that leaves the keener
and more complete sense of satisfaction in one’s
mind is this. A cold biting wind from the north-

52 FARMING IT

east has brought a fierce drifting snow-storm in
its wake. All day long it has snowed and drifted,
and with increasing cold. The storm has driven
pedestrians indoors, scarcely a sleigh- bell is
heard, while the sifting snow whirls and ed-
dies and dashes against the window-panes, and
the wind wails and shrieks and sobs around the
building.

It is three o’clock, there are no clients, and F
start for home. The blast stings as I strike the
open, and I have to pause to get my breath, then
with lowered head plunge through the drifts,
beaten, lashed, and staggering in the cutting wind, —
while the fine, dry snow stings my face like
needles.

Arrived at the farm, out of breath and half-
frozen, I put on my stable clothes, a heavy sweater,
lumbermen’s felt boots and a woolen toque, in-
case my hands in heavy woolen gloves, mix up a
mess of hot mash with enough hard grain in it
to last, and a dash of cayenne pepper, and stag-
ger through the drifts to the hencoop.

The hens are already on the roost, as the after-
noon is growing dark in the storm, but they read-
ily come down and fill themselves to repletion on
the steaming mess. I see that all windows are
fast and all water-cans emptied, and when the
last morsel is eaten and the satisfied birds are
beginning to fly back to their roosts and settle

REMEDY AND DISEASE hy

themselves comfortably, with little clucks and
chirps of satisfaction, I leave them, shut and
lock the outer door, and go to the stable.

Here I find the snow so drifted that I have to
kick it away from the door before I can open it.
I lead the horses out of their stalls into the floor,
stagger to the house and back with pails of water,
then shake down their hay, fill their grain-box
and bed them ankle-deep with clean, dry straw.

I then readjust their blankets, tighten their
girths, and close the door of the stall-room, leaving
them comfortably bedded and fed, as warm and
comfortable as dry beds and tight quarters and
good food can make them.

As I close and lock the barn-door, it is dusk and
the storm is increasing. In the sheltered places
under the eaves and under the roofs of the open
sheds colonies of English sparrows are gathering ;
and as I reach the house, change my clothes, and
take a cushioned rocker by the library fire, I feel
a deep satisfaction that the stock is safe and
comfortable.

And while the wind howls round the house that
night, and the snow dashes against the windows
and rattles on the clapboards, I sleep the better
for that thought.

‘

\

CHAPTER VII

MY OLD FRIEND NICK: A FAILURE IN WHOLE-
SALE

pee] might be expected from statements
safo\eye| made in the preceding chapters I was
NENVEN je] no novice in the raising of poultry.
meee’) Tydeed, on one occasion I had gone

into poultry-culture in a sort of wholesale way

which bid fair to make or break me and my part-
ner, and did one or the other thing to both of us, as
the story will show.

It is many years now since my old friend Nick
died. A queer, whimsical little chap was Nick.
A weazened, crooked, bandy-legged little man
of fifty-five or sixty, with a face like that of a little
genome fashioned out of a hickory nut, such as
we occasionally see in small stores. His nose was
immense, and had acquired a sidewise twist
that to follow would keep him traveling in an
endless circle (circles are endless come to think
of it), while his smile would provoke an answer-
ing smile from a graven image. A sparsely grown
beard of the color of badly cured salt hay, and of
that peculiarly wiry quality of the hair in cheap

MY OLD FRIEND NICK 55

mattresses or haircloth sofas, completed a per-
sonality at once grotesque and pathetic.

Nick’s voice was of a queer, high-pitched qual-
ity, his pronunciation of the broadest cockney,
and his profanity picturesque and voluble almost
beyond belief. Like the steamboat mate in the
book : —

‘He would curse things with an emphasis
So extremely rich and rare,
As to savor of the fervency
And eloquence of prayer.”
And yet despite the physical disabilities under
which Nick labored I liked him, respected him,
and was genuinely amused whenever I saw or
spoke with him. And I was not alone in this.
No child feared him, no dog passed him without
a wag of the tail, and no human being ever re-
ceived other than kindness at his hands.

He was a weaver by trade, and years before
had come from England with his brother ’Arry,
whose faithful shadow he was until ’Arry’s tragic
death years later. *Arry, also a weaver, had
prospered, and was a person of considerable im-
portance in the community.

Nick had not prospered. He had worked, like
’Arry, faithfully and hard, but his earnings went
like smoke. What ’Arry expressed a desire for,
Nick would get for him. What ’Arry’s son and
daughter desired, Nick gave freely and without

56 FARMING IT

stint. Whenever his friends needed help, they
went to Nick. He gave what he had without
question, freely, cheerfully, with that true spirit
of giving that asks no return.

So much was he bound up in the fortunes of
’Arry, that when the manufacturing company for
which they both worked saw fit to dismiss ’Arry
on account of some difference of opinion as to his
earning capacity, Nick at once gave notice, and
retired in huge disgust and amid a storm of pro-
fanity that lasted for the entire week.

‘An’ sayes th’ owd mon t’ me,”’ said Nick one
day in explanation of the matter, “‘ Nick, th’ art
worket ower weel twonty yeer, wheerfore needst
tha'zor

A EG sayes to ’e, ‘An’ ma brither ’Arry ’s na
gude enow t’ work for tha, it’s to ’ell tha canst
go wi tha owd mill for aw Nick!’ An’ wi’ thot
Hi stamped hout th’ dure. An’ th’ owd mon wa
graidely sore ower it.’

"Arry was killed one day while crossing the
railroad track, and with his death came a great
change into Nick’s life. He was not less kind to
his friends, or less thoughtful of the welfare of
those to whom he was indebted for a home. But
he was not the careless, jolly, cheerful Nick of old.

My intimate acquaintance with Nick began
about this time, in connection with the settlement
of ’Arry’s estate. Nick, while not deriving any

MY OLD FRIEND NICK 37

benefit from the estate, nevertheless, in his zeal
to further the settlement, succeeded in involving
himself in several legal entanglements, from
which it was my privilege to rescue him, and I
thereby earned his gratitude and admiration to
such a degree that he delivered frequent and
high-pitched assertions to the effect that “ ’Enry
was a ’ell of a feller.”’ He further paid me the
following (we hope undeserved) compliment:
“Hi like tha, Enry, dormned if Hidon’t. Tha’t
more lang-leggit nor ’Arry, but tha’ sweers for
aw th’ world like ’Arry.” I accepted the homage
thus given, but had mental reservations as to my
ability to “sweer like ’Arry,’’ who was an artist
in that line.

The want of worldly goods under ordinary
circumstances did not affect Nick in the least de-
gree; yet I surmised from some of his remarks
that he was beginning to feel that he was prac-
tically penniless. -His nephew, who had suc-
ceeded to ’Arry’s farm, had generously offered
him a home, but, as Nick feelingly remarked, —

“ Johnny ’s aw reet, but tis na th’ same. Wi’
*Arry things were sair differ; aw thot ’Arry ’ad
were mine, hand aw thot Hi ’ad were ’Arry’s.”

I suggested that he go back to the mill, but he
was profanely adamant in his refusal.

* Blawst th’ blank-dashed owd mill,’’ was his
sole comment; and then he added: “Tha sees,

58 FARMING IT

"Enry, Hi always wanted a ’en farm. Hi cood
raise cheekins hout o’ dure-knobs, ’n’ fatten ’em
an sawdoost.”’

Now I had always experienced a consuming
desire to own a farm, and raise chickens and
Jersey cattle, and lambs with bells and blue
ribbons on their necks, and merry milkmaids
with short dresses, and wands crisscrossed with
bright ribbon in their hands, and large blue
rosettes on their fairy slippers. It might be that
Nick was the messenger of fate to lead me to the
much desired Utopia. |

“How would you like to go into partnership
with me, Nick ?”’ I asked him.

“Weel, “Enry, an’ ow wouldst tha divide?”
queried Nick shrewdly, while a hideous smile
overspread his nut-cracker face.

“ Well, Nick,”’ I said, “I will furnish the money,
you raise the chickens, and at the end of the sea-
son, we will go snacks.”

“ Aw reet, Enry,”’ he said, “th’ art fairer than
Hi thot ower lawyer would be”’; and with that
I reached down and Nick reached up, and we
shook hands on the partnership.

The next day Nick informed me that Johnny
had allowed him the use of a quarter acre of
land for a chicken-yard, and secured from me
enough money to purchase posts and wire for
a fence thereunto to appertain and belong.

MY OLD FRIEND NICK 59

For two or three days Nick worked tremen-
dously, and then appeared at my office and ob-
tained, not without some difficulty, a further
stipend for the purpose of procuring setters and
egos. Having bled me freely he departed in great
good humor, remarking as he closed the door, —

“°Enry, we'll fill the ole bloomin’ town wi
cheekins.”

The next day he passed the office driving
Johnny’s old white mare, hitched to a rattle cart
containing an immense dry-goods box, upon
which Nick was perched like Punch on the top
of a circus van. He was followed by Johnny’s
savage dog, which took advantage of the day
of freedom to pitch into all strange dogs; and
Nick was obliged frequently to climb from his
perch and with a cart-stake to rush into a whirl-
wind of fighting curs and a medley of objur-
gatory sounds something like this: “’I theer! ’I!
blawst tha bloomin’ heyes, ugr-r-r-yi-yi-ugr-r-
r-raugh-o-raugh-thump-whack-down tha ‘Tige-
yi-yi-ugr-r-r-raugh-thump-whack-yi-yi-dom tha
hide —coom awa noo!”’ And then, having tem-
porarily restored peace, he would climb on his
van and proceed until the next interruption, when
he would again descend, and with the assistance
of the dogs rehearse the entire programme.

Toward evening, as I was coming out of the
office, I heard a most terrific rattling, barking,

60 FARMING IT

and squawking, and from down the street, amid
a cloud of dust, came the old white mare, urged
to her full speed. On the box sat Nick, who had
taken the precaution to chain the dog in the
wagon, from which position the animal tugged
and barked at a half score of excited dogs that
surrounded. the wagon, swearing vigorously in
dog language at their assailant of the morning.

On seeing me, Nick pulled up so suddenly as
to hurl the dog heels-over-head, while he himself
narrowly escaped shooting over the old mare’s
head, and the collar of that patient animal went
to her ears. ike

“Got thirty o’ ’em, ’Enry, but ’ad to pay a ell
of a price. ’Ens is gone hup,”’ he shrieked ; and
away he went clattering down the street, while
I mused apprehensively over what his idea of
‘a ’ell of a price”’ might be.

The next day he made a further demand on me
for funds wherewith to purchase eggs and sup-
plies, and for a time I heard no more of Nick.
I had expressed to him some fear that his vigor-
ous measures of the day before might have shaken
some of the hens’ determination, or seriously
impaired their maternal instincts, but was reas-
sured when he remarked that it was “Heasy
enow to make a ’en set, if a mon knowed ’ow.”’

A few days before the expected arrival of the
chicks, I went down to the farm to inspect his

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AMID A CLOUD OF DUST CAME THE OLD WHITE MARE

MY OLD FRIEND NICK 61

plant and methods. His idea was original, amus-
ing, and effective. In a spacious and well-venti-
lated room he had arranged a series of boxes
containing the nests of straw, upon each of which
a hen was thrust, with a ventilated cover of
boards super-imposed; and a huge stone upon
that served to keep straw, hen, and eggs firmly in
place. Each day the hens were liberated in re-
lays, allowed twenty minutes to feed, drink, dust
and stretch, and at the expiration of the recess,
were chased, caught, and re-imprisoned amid a
chorus of squawks, a shower of dust and feathers,
and original outbursts of language from Nick.

In spite of this rough method, his success was
phenomenal, and about four hundred chickens
arrived in due time. A few days previous to their
arrival Nick had made a further demand for
funds to purchase barrels, corn-meal, cracked
corn, wheat-screenings, baker’s waste, barley,
and other necessary supplies.

The barrels were arranged facing the east,
the open ends flush with the ground, the closed
ends depressed a few inches. I demurred to this
arrangement fearing the effect of the east wind,
but was silenced when Nick replied, —

“Aye, mon, doost tha not know th’ soon cooms
oop i th’ east ? An ’tis th’ soon thot makes cheeks
grow.”

This seemed truly plausible and I subsided.

62 FARMING IT

And now for a while the affairs of the partner-
ship flourished. ‘The chickens throve, Nick
throve, and the venture seemed in a fair way to be
remunerative in the extreme. ‘To be sure we lost
a few chicks by the incursions of an immense
gray rat, which Nick caught red-handed and
stamped into a furry flapjack. Certain other
animals in the neighborhood also disappeared,
leaving no trace of their whereabouts.

“Johnny say, it do beat ’ell wheer th’ owd
tomcat ’a’ gone,” said Nick one day; “ but
*’Enry,’ —and here Nick lowered his voice,
glanced apprehensively around, and whispered
hoarsely, ‘‘ Nick could tell tha summat about it.”

Frequent visits of my partner at my house and
office kept me posted in the progress of partner-
ship affairs. These visits were at times a trifle
inopportune, as when on one occasion we were
entertaining the good pastor of the church at
tea, Nick suddenly appeared at the dining-
room door with the astonishing information that
a “blawsted mink ’ad killed five cheeks, hand
th’ owd yeller ’en ’ad killed three, like a dash
dashed owd fu’.”’

On another occasion Nick bolted into my
court in great excitement, and disturbed my
judicial poise by loudly informing me that
“Johnny ’ad fun’ out aboot th’ owd tomcat an’
was a raisin’ ’ell.”

MY OLD FRIEND NICK 683

But on the whole fortune smiled on the partner-
ship and the partners. Yet, alas, one night, when
the chicks were about as big as _ half-grown
pigeons, a driving storm of wind and rain came.
All night the wind roared from the east, the rain
poured, the loose shutters banged, and my
thoughts wandered to the partnership assets.

The morning dawned bright and beautiful,
and at five o’clock I came downstairs. On open-
ing the side door I nearly fell over the convulsed
frame of my small partner, sitting doubled up
on the threshold, plunged in unavailing grief.

“What in the world is the matter, Nick ?” I
asked.

“’Enry,” gasped Nick, “Hi want ye to coom
down to th’ ’ouse, hand take hevery blank-dashed
cheekin to ’ell wi’ ye. The business ’as gone to
ell!’ And Nick lifted up his voice and fairly
squalled in the extremity of his sorrow.

Although bursting with laughter at his ridicu-
lous appearance, I did my best to soothe him, and
finally he became composed sufficiently to lead
the way toward the scene of our financial col-
lapse.

Not a word of explanation would Nick give,
only, “Tha’ll see soon enow, ’Enry. Hi thot
Hi was a gude ’en man, but tha knowst more nor
Hi.”? :

Arrived at the farm a most ridiculous and as-

64 FARMING): fo

tonishing sight met my gaze. Arranged in per-
fect order in rows across the yard were about
three hundred and fifty chickens, stiff, cold, and
drenched, with their poor little legs sticking
straight in air as if each had raised both hands
to call public attention to its individual case.
The rain had been driven by the east wind into
the depressed barrels and had drowned nearly
our entire colony.

The sight of the orderly rows of deceased
chicks, and of Nick’s frightfully solemn face,
was too much, and I sat down on a barrel and
roared and roared until Nick began to be infected
and a hideous smile crept over his funny old face.

“Weel, “Enry,”’ he said finally, “’ow tha canst
laugh ’t is more than Hi can do. Hi’ll ’ave no
mon lose money by me. So take th’ rest o’ ‘em
awa.”

It took me some time to convince him that as
a square man he must not desert a partner in
distress, or a sinking ship; and before I left he
had visibly cheered up and was busily engaged
in burying the dead.

No further calamity happened, and early in the
fall I received my dividend in the shape of about
twenty of the gauntest, long-leggedest chickens
the world ever saw. When the flood had rushed
in on them, they had weathered the storm on
the principle of the survival of the fittest, which

‘MY OLD FRIEND NICK 65

in their cases meant the long-legged ones. But
their constitutions had been so taxed by the long
hours of immersion, that their bodies had not kept
pace with the abnormal development of their
shanks.

Most of them were roosters, and whenever one
would crow it would fall prostrate with the effort
and lie there kicking until up-ended by some
kindly hand. And they were compelled to sit
down when they ate or drank in order to reach
their food without falling headlong into the dish.
And their voices, — such voices! like nothing in
the world so much as Nick’s laugh.

When I commented on their unusual develop-
ment, Nick remarked with a humorous twinkle
in his eye and a shrewd twist of his mouth, —

“Ay, mon, tha shouldst na find fault wi’ thot,
th’ art built graidely lang-leggit thaself.”’

The partnership books, consisting of chalk
memoranda on the inside of the harness-room
door, were duly examined and found correct.
What these twenty curiosities cost me I have never
told. I never shall. Neither Nick nor I cared to
discuss that part of it, but we made somewhat
elaborate plans to try again the next year and
to retrieve our shattered fortunes.

Poor Nick! he died that winter of a sud-
den attack of pneumonia. Before he died he
asked for me; but I was away, and did not know

66 FARMING IT

of his sickness and death until after the fu-
neral.

Poor old Nick! A weazened, crooked, bandy-
legged man. But you had a good, faithful heart
that has, I trust, found ’Arry.

CHAPTER VIII

SETBACKS

page| OLD and snow, however exhilarating
=| IS and beautiful, cannot last forever;
: ON ae and it is well they cannot, for toward
tates) the end of February, when the sun
begins to run higher and rise earlier, one feels
a strange longing for a breath of the spring, for
a smell of the moist earth.

But March comes, frequently with deceptive
mildness, when the streets run rivers of muddy
water, the snow turns dull and dingy, the earth
appears in sheltered, sunny places on the banking,
the English sparrows fight and chatter and shriek
in the naked trees, and in the evening the drip,
drip, drip of water from the eaves lulls one to rest
with dreams of spring.

But in the morning what a change has taken
place! A bitter wind roars like a lion in the trees,
the air seems full of needles, the sun shines
brightly, but does not warm. Not a sparrow is in
sight. Huddled behind blinds and shutters and
whatever serves as a shelter from the searching
wind, they puff themselves into balls of feathers,
and wait for warmer weather.

68 FARMING IT

“ Ac venti, velut agmine facto,
Qua data porta ruunt et terras turbine perflant.”

Again a few days of mild and sunny forenoons
and a chill creeping into the air in the afternoon,
with thin needles of ice threading the little pools
of water in the road, followed the next day by
a heavy snow-storm which changes into rain and
sleet.

But one day, and I never forget that day, a
clear liquid warble is heard in the air, a wander-
ing disembodied voice, the first spring song of the
bluebird. I am thrilled and look everywhere,

but in vain. I hear the clear notes but cannot see .-

the musician, until all at once he alights on a
fence-post, or on the roof of a shed, and warbles
his flute-like tones.

And one warm Sunday a few days later I walk
into the garden. The soil is drying a bit in the
higher places, but is soft and muddy in the hol-
lows. The sun shines warmly, a Sabbath stillness
is over everything. The hens prate cheerfully,
a cow tethered in the sun in front of a neighbor’s
barn lows comfortably, the shrill call of a robin
is heard, and spring really seems here.

The first duty of an experienced gardener is
to make hotbeds and therein cultivate beets,
turnips, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, tomatoes,
and other vegetables. So I sent for some planks,
sawed them the right lengths, and spent a part

SETBACKS 69

of several days and the whole of several even-
ings in the furnace-room of the cellar, pounding
and hammering the parts together and screwing
on glass covers with hinges.

I made three of these beds, and having ar-
ranged suitable sites for them on the south side
of the barn, secured Mike as chief motive-power,
and started to hoist them out. Then it was that
I found the cellar door was several inches too
narrow to allow them to pass through, which-
ever way I turned them. So I was forced to take
them apart and reunite their component parts on
the outside. This took so much time that it was
not until two days later that I had them in place.

I had been told that greenhouse or conserva-
tory compost would make excellent growing soil,
and so I imported a few loads at considerable ex-
pense from a neighboring florist, procured seed,
and sowed, as I was afterwards informed, enough
seed to furnish a market-garden of an hundred
acres. It was a most delightful pastime, and in
an astonishingly short time the tiny garden-
shoots of thousands of young plants were peeping
above the soil.

It was delightful to see how warm and com-
fortable it was inside that frame. Indeed, it was
necessary to raise the tops during the sunny days,
to avoid burning the plants. And I could almost
see them grow from hour to hour.

70 FARMING IT

For about ten days I guarded them as care-
fully as one would tend a new-born babe, and
was rewarded tenfold by the astonishing pro-
gress the plants made. One warm sunshiny day
I opened the windows about halfway. Toward
night a warm, moist south wind began blowing,
and before dark a fine, almost summer-like rain
was falling, just the thing the plants needed. So
I opened the covers wider, that the plants might
get the benefit of the rain without the danger of a
heavy drenching fall, which might wash them out
of the ground. The next morning I found that
the unexpected had happened. The wind had ©
veered around to the northeast, it had become
bitterly cold, a biting northeaster was blowing,
and my plants were frozen stiff.

It was a week before the ground thawed enough
to plant more seeds; but I persevered, and, in |
about ten days after planting, had a second crop
growing finely.

I had also improved my time and had engaged
a farmer with a yoke of oxen to plough my land.
I had considerable difficulty in getting a yoke
of oxen, because that useful animal, the ox, was
an exceedingly rare bird in our vicinity. But I
always wanted my farm ploughed by oxen, and
I persevered until I found a yoke. It was some-
what more expensive than the quicker method
of ploughing with horses, but I preferred oxen.

SETBACKS 71

And so,when they arrived, I persuaded the farmer
to allow me to drive.

How often had I admired the skill shown by
the wielders of the goad in managing their un-
wieldy charges. Some of those old-time farmers
were exceedingly graceful in using the goad.
How easily they would slide it across the shoulders
of the near ox and prod the off ox into activity.
So I fain would do; and when, after setting the
plough, the horny-handed yeoman grasped the
handles and signaled me to go ahead, I poised
the goad, made certain circular motions with it
in the air, and in deference to time-honored but
cbsolete custom, vociferated, “Hubbuck thar,
huggolden, hibboad, whoa, heish’’; and they
settled into the yoke, and mellow sounds of rend-
ing earth followed. | |
This was delightful, and at the end of the fur-
row I turned them under his instructions, and
started again across the field. Now I noticed
that the off ox was shirking and allowing his mate
to do most of the pulling, and to bring him up
even I slid the goad across the near ox’s shoulder,
leaned my weight on it, and jabbed him power-
fully with the brad, at the same time letting
out a hoarse “Haw!”’ that waked the echoes.

I have never known a draught animal to re-
spond so quickly to encouragement as did this one,
for the moment he felt the brad he bellowed

72 FARMING IT

loudly, stiffened his tail, and broke into a lum-
bering gallop, dragging his mate, the plough, and
the ploughman in his wake. ‘Ihe plough, caught
by the nose, turned over, the ploughman, cling-
ing to the handles like a drowning man to a straw,
shot into the air like a catapult, turning a com-
plete somersault, while the oxen, racing across the
fields, brought up one on each side of an oak tree,
which stopped their mad flight.

The yeoman showed more irritation over the
affair than I thought its importance warranted,
and said things that were calculated to pain one’s
finer feelings. Indeed, he absolutely refused to
continue his engagement under any terms what-
ever, and to my great regret departed without
even saying good-by. And I had so wanted to
learn to drive oxen! And now I might never get
another chance. It was too bad.

wos. oy
Ny fe ba \\

s\ S
oo y ary
- HA Se
IP (
4
i nk)

SHOT INTO THE AIR LIKE A CATAPULT

CHAPTER IX
MORE SETBACKS

somamee|URING all of this time my hotbeds
4 fea | had been thriving, and although my
ki neighbors were busy planting their

mmammiat) oardens, [ had done no more than lay
out a good-sized vegetable garden, and have it
horse-ploughed with the rest of the field. This
I harrowed with Lady M. I knew that by trans-
planting my artificially cultivated vegetables I
would be far in advance of my neighbors in the
growth of my garden, and so I was in no hurry
to jeopardize my plants with another cold snap.

I am not entirely correct when I say I had done
no more than lay out a garden patch. I had no-
ticed with much disgust and concern that the
first green things that appeared were the hideous
and unsightly burdocks, which require no cultiva-
tion, and which, if not promptly checked, spread
like the Asiatic cholera and kill out every other
kind of vegetation.

So I acted with great promptness and thorough-
ness, and not only cut them down with a scythe,
but spent the greater part of a sunny afternoon
in carefully grubbing up each individual root, .

74 FARMING IT

and burning the entire collection in a bonfire of
kerosene-soaked refuse.

I regarded this as the best day’s work I had
accomplished on the farm, until I found some
days later that I had utterly eradicated what was
probably the finest bed of pie-plant in the com-
munity, and of all plants in the world, pie-plant
was the one I most loved.

I was quite cast down about this, and when
this calamity was followed by a succession of
trials and reverses in my farm labor, I felt almost
disposed to close my house and take rooms at a

hotel. First, I forgot again, so careful was I not.

unduly to expose the growing plants to the sud-
den changes of our Northern climate, to raise the
glass covers for the whole of an unusually warm
and sunny day, and as the beds were practically
air-tight, and the drawing power of the glass
very effective, I was again dismayed to find the
plants wilted and lifeless, but this time from ex-
treme heat and dryness.

Then, to add to my discomfort and discour-
agement, a long cold rain set in, which was fol-
lowed by chill overcast skies; and when at last
the sun condescended to shine, the witch-grass
which the weather had stimulated to its utmost,
while checking every other growth, had made such
enormous increase, that the cultivation of my
field had become an impossibility.

MORE SETBACKS 95
The thorough harrowing I had given the garden

patch alone had saved it for further experiments.
Well, I was disappointed, as I had looked for-
ward to at least an acre and a half of corn, beans,
and squashes.

So I set to work in the garden, and planted
sweet corn, lettuce, beets, cauliflower, carrots,
pole-beans, and sowed nasturtiums the whole
length of the yard, or about three hundred feet.

The green things were showing in my neigh-
bors’ gardens, and I was far behind them, but I
fondly hoped that by extra care and cultivation I
might arrive first. But im order not tobe entirely
distanced, I went totownand bought at a grocery
store several boxes of tomatoes and cabbage-
plants, and set them out in regular order in the
most conspicuous part of the garden.

I also bought a couple of hundred strawberry-
plants, cleared a patch of witch-grass by actually
picking it out with a fine-toothed comb, and
set them out in regular cadence.

The field was now quite overgrown with witch-
grass, and much to my astonishment a great va-
riety of other weeds were shooting up. Evidently
the dressing placed on the land the winter before
had been filled with seeds. A casual examination
of the specimens disclosed pigweed, ragweed,
live- forever, chickweed, dandelion, purslane,
nettle, plantain, skunk-cabbage, bulrush, as well

76 FARMING IT

as cucumber, pumpkin, squash, toadstool, mush-
room, and mullein leaf.

This worried me a good deal until my friend
Daniel informed me that provided I mowed the
growth before the seeds became ripe, I would
get a noble crop of hay the second year.

A few days after this, and in the first week of
May, I noticed one morning that my tomato-
plants had suddenly wilted. I pulled one up and
examined the root for wire-worm, cut-worm or
other subterranean varmint that might have
preyed upon the damask of its cheek, but could
find nothing. Then I bent to my work, and on ©
my knees, examined them one by one with the
utmost care; and before I got half down the first
row my search was rewarded by finding a striped
bug, evidently the potato-bug of contempora-
neous history.

Certainly eternal vigilance is the price of a suc-
cessful market-garden. I saddled Polly and flew
down town, grossly violating the statutory reg-
ulations in respect to the speed limit of eques-
trians.

I bought a little green package of Paris green,
and, remounting, flew back even faster. I mixed
up a pailful of the required consistency, and
showered the poor limp plants. Then I dressed
and went down town, anticipating a marked
change in the appearance of things on my return.

MORE SETBACKS 77

True enough, when I did return I found that
a change had taken place, but not just the change
I had anticipated, for two of my hens had scaled
their wire fence, imbibed freely of what was left
of the contents of the pail, and now lay lifeless
and with their claws sticking stiffly in the air as if
imploring pity, while the plants were more limp
than before. I again sprinkled the plants, put the
pail away in safety, buried the hens, and had
lunch.

That night there was no change in the flabbi-
ness of the plants, but considerable discoloration
was perceptible. The next morning they were
so black that I almost gave up hope, but admin-
istered another sprinkling and left them.

At noon I again consulted my friend Daniel,
who viewed the remains, asking some pointed
questions, and then said: “Why, you blooming
lunatic, did n’t you know that we had a sharp
frost yesterday morning? Well, there was, and
your tomato-plants were frost-killed. If you only
got up in the morning as I do, you would n’t
have been spending the time and money in poison-
ing potato-bugs when they ain’t hatched yet, and
won't be for two months.”

CHAPTER X
GRAMP AND THE GAMECOCK

pawaINE thing that made farm-life addi-

7 EG@are ¥| tionally interesting and pleasant was
\ #| that my father had moved his family
Ve directly opposite my house; and as he
took a hearty interest in farming, although I have
reason to believe he knew but little more than I —
did about it, he took occasion to come over about
every day to give me gratuitous advice.

Now it is one of the peculiarities of that de-
lightfully frank old gentleman to fail to recog-
nize the fact that I have grown either in body or
mind since the time I was about twelve years of
age, and so he frequently criticises me severely,
even going to the extent of fervent oratory when-
ever my methods of managing my affairs do not
coincide with his views, and whenever a very
considerable amount of obstinacy that I have in-
herited from this same choleric gentleman, impels
me to have my own way.

I do not find fault with his peculiarities in this
regard. Indeed, I rather enjoy them and recog-
nize them as a sort of paternal privilege. More

GRAMP AND GAMECOCK ‘79

than this, I know perfectly well from my ex-
perience on one occasion (when I arrived breath-
less and just in time forcibly to prevent an am-
bitious attempt by him to thrash a man half his
age, and fully his size, who had intimated casu-
ally that my legal attainments were not quite up
to the mark) that he would not tolerate any criti-
cism of me from any one else.

Now my respected father spent a good deal
of his spare time in superintending operations on
my farm, and in that respect was of great assist-
ance to me. There was, however, one thing in
which I was disposed to criticise his efficiency.

Most of the unemployed help in our town spent
a large percentage of their time in the House of
Correction for drunkenness, and in the intervals
between sentences worked at odd jobs until they
received pay enough to go on a convivial “ bat,”’
and when rounded up in the Police Court, took
whatever sentence awaited them with cheerful
acquiescence.

Knowing this, I made it a rule never to pay
laborers of this class until they had finished their
work. Now, these men knew me from bitter ex-
perience, and also knew my respected father for
reasons of a contrary nature; and so whenever
they felt the desire for alcoholic stimulants
coming over them, they found no difficulty in
wheedling an advance “on account” from the

80 FARMING IT

old gentleman, upon their sworn statement that
they wanted it for the necessaries of life; where-
upon they, to the old gentleman’s surprise, at
once proceeded to exhilarate, and would fre-
quently return in a most hideous state of inebria-
tion, and endeavor to argue the matter with me
until I would be obliged to have them removed
by the police. And so the farming industry in our
particular location would be brought to a stand-
still.

Again, father believed that the domestic fowl
would yield more returns if allowed to range freely
over my premises, at least until seed was sowed.
I rather favored his point of view, and thought
that a flock of neat fowls looked well on a lawn
or about the buildings.

But my wife took the opposite view, and
showed a deplorable pride of opinion in the mat-
ter, and the frequent spectacle of an agile woman
in “specs”? pursuing squawking fowls with a
broom, added much to the joy of the neighbors.

Now, I was bound to keep fowls, and my wife
was bound they should not be kept on the lawn.
She was unquestionably right in the matter, and
sO a compromise was entered into. ‘The fowls
were to be let out only at stated intervals, when
they could be under the charge of the old gentle-
man, who engaged to see that they did not tres-
pass on the lawn or dooryard.

GRAMP AND GAMECOCK 81

This seemed a fair and equitable arrangement,
and was entered into with much enthusiasm by
the old gentleman, to whom sitting in the sun,
smoking, and watching hired men and hens
“scratch gravel’? was a most congenial employ-
ment.

He was particularly pleased with the game-
cock, and never tired of watching it and extolling
its brilliant colors and its great courage. And
when that valiant bird sent an inquisitive dog
yelping from the premises, and chased the family
cat, spitting and swearing, up a tree, he was out-
spoken in his joy.

It was his custom to let the pens of fowls out
at different times, and in about an hour to lure
them back to their quarters with handfuls of
grain. In this way he had established consider-
able familiarity with the fowls, which bred in the
gamecock that contempt which is the usual re-
sult of familiarity.

One day in following his regular programme
the old gentleman found the grain-bin almost
entirely empty, so much so that he was obliged to
immerse his head and shoulders in the bin and
scrape around on the bottom with a grain mea-
sure to get enough for the fowls. While this was
happening the gamecock stepped around the
corner of the barn-door in quest of adventure.
Seeing this unusual object, he stopped to con-

82 FARMING IT

template it, and at the sight his wrath grew.
Here was an unknown something that apparently
needed a lesson. It was alive because it moved. |
That was enough. It defied him. He would in-
vestigate it promptly.

And investigation with a gamecock meant
instant and vigorous action. The fighting bird
spread its hackles, took a short run, launched
itself in the air, and drove its sharp spurs home
with all the power of its strong wings. The re-
sult was equally astonishing to the gamecock
and to his innocent and unsuspecting antagonist.

With a yell that could have been heard half
a mile, the old gentleman straightened up,
bumping his head resoundingly against an over-
hanging beam. With a vigorous cuss word he
launched the grain measure at the gamecock,
and followed this with a hammer that lamed an
innocent pullet for life.

When I returned from the office that night I
heard his views of the transaction, and it is but
justice to him to state that I never heard a more
cogent or dramatic recapitulation of the affair.
That night when all was dark I boxed the game-
cock up and sent him away, where I trust he has
become the founder of a long line of beautiful
birds. But it was many days before the old
gentleman resumed his seat on the bench.

CHAPTER XI

THE GRANGE

fee NE evening in June, I was sitting on
oy Agere ¥| a bench contemplating the growth of
A rae £| the vegetable garden, the astonishing
2) developments of the pigweed in the
field, and the inferiority of our neighbor’s crops,
when I was approached by a friend from the
country, the successful manager of a productive
and extensive farm, and my prospective member-
ship in the Grange was solicited. Perhaps I am
in error to say that he requested me to apply for
admission to the organization, for in fact he so
managed the conversation that I was the actual
suppliant.

The Grange in our state is a most powerful and
extensive organization, probably having as many
members, as much enthusiasm, and fully as
many enjoyable festivals as any other organiza-
tion, and it is certainly a privilege to belong to
it; and so, when it was casually intimated that
my ownership of so extensive a farm as my two-
acre patch appeared to be might qualify me for
admission into that society, I was at once inter-

84 FARMINAs ar

ested. I was a little proud of my success as an
amateur farmer, although I did not care much
about estimating the cost of my garden and my
other farm property. It was also suggested by
this friend that the Grange exercised a most
powerful political influence, and that any one
desiring political preferment could do no better
than to apply for admission. I replied that I had
no political ambition whatever; that I preferred
to be a plain and unobtrusive farmer, and live a
life as near to the soil asis compatible with the life
of a country attorney.

I was, however, prepared to follow any method ~
to compass my ambition to become a member of
the Grange, and when I asked what the requisites
were for admission, I was informed that good
character, and ability to pay dues and to perform
manual labor in farm-work were the chief re-
quisites. As I had never been detected in any
offense that would subject me to the criminal
laws of the state, and as my moral character was
not sufficiently stained to endanger my prospects,
I was informed by my friend that these two re-
quisites would pass muster ; but that I must show
by actual demonstration that I was able to do at
least one day’s farm-work, and my friend ad-
mitted that he had some doubts on that subject.

On professing my willingness to try to follow
him in a day’s work, he suggested that if I would

THE GRANGE 85

come to his house the next morning, prepared to
begin work at his usual hour and work all day
with him in the corn-field without “blenching
from the helm,’ he would recommend my ad-
mission, and after complimenting me on the ex-
cellency of my garden patch, satirically remark-
ing that we were “goin’ t’ hev a powerful crap
er pigweed,” he went his way.

The next morning I was up at three o’clock, fed
Polly, put on a suit of brown overalls with jersey,
a pair of stout shoes, and an old felt hat. At half-
past three I had fed and saddled that animal, and
with hoe in hand prepared to mount.

Now, Polly is an extremely nervous animal and
somewhat aristocratic in her taste, and she
strongly objected to being mounted by any one:
dressed as I was. She was also deeply apprehen-
sive that I was intending to give her a “bat” with
that hoe; consequently when I approached to
mount her she backed away, wheeled, and despite
my utmost efforts, would not remain still long
enough for me to get foot in the stirrup. Finally,
after leaning the hoe up against a tree and back-
ing her into a corner I managed to mount. I then
approached the tree by devious ways, and not
without great difficulty succeeded in getting near
enough to grasp the hoe, when she bolted.

Down Front Street she went like lightning,
narrowly escaping shipwreck in rounding a cor-

86 FARMING IT

ner that so many years before had proved disas-
trous to me when as a boy we raced the minister.
As I went over Great Bridge, white-robed figures
leaned from the windows, evidently thinking that
either Paul Revere or the headless horseman was
once more on the war-path.

By the mile stretch on Hampton Road we
swept like a simoom, when, as my flying steed was
somewhat winded, I pulled her to half-speed and
turned down the long hill leading to Kensington.

Although the distance was about four miles
from my house, I did the same in what I believe
to be record time, and arrived astride my foaming ~
charger and still clinging to the hoe which had
been the chief cause of her mad flight.

I aroused my farmer friend from his beauty
sleep, much to his disgust, and after breakfast-
ing with him went to the corn-field and there
wrought manfully throughout the day. Although
I had the advantage of my friend in many ways,
he being a small man and fully twice my age,
yet I was put to great straits to keep up with him,
and when supper-time came was tremendously
fagged. After supper, when I was contemplating a
leisurely and pleasant ride home, a terrific thun-
der-storm came up, and I dashed home in the al-
ternating glare and blackness of a summer storm
in somewhat less time than I went over. My load, »
however, was lighter, for I thought both hands

THE GRANGE 87

would be fully occupied in restraining my uncer-
tain steed and preserving my balance. The next
day I was in a condition of stiffness quite impos-
sible to describe, but a few days later it wore off,
and I was notified by my friend that my applica-
tion for admission to the Grange had been favor-
ably received and acted upon, and that I was to
present myself for initiation at a certain date. I
would be violating the secrecy enjoined on me by
the rules of the organization to say anything about
the initiation. It is sufficient to say that I passed
it and lived.

I felt greatly honored a short time afterwards,
and after attending one or two meetings, at being
notified to deliver an address before the meeting
of the Pomona Grange, which was to be held in
our town in about a week after my invitation to
speak. To say that I jumped at the chance would
be expressing it feebly. Invitations to speak in
public were quite rare in my life, and the only
speeches that I had made were arguments before
juries, judges, or referees, in matters pertaining
to my profession, and these, I might say in pass-
ing, were not sufficiently numerous to mark me
among successful advocates; and so for a week
I neglected my family, my farm, and my office,
while composing an address of marked excellence,
and calculated to make my position as a member

of the Grange solid.

88 FARMING IT

The exercises were to be held in a large hall
at two o'clock in the afternoon, and the oration
and collation were to be preceded by a business
meeting. Shortly after two o’clock I arrived at the
hall, attempted to enter, and finding the door
fastened, announced my presence by a sounding
knock. In reply I heard some one from within
informing those present that an alarm was made
at the outer court, or words to that effect.

I imagined that orders were given from within
by those in authority to ascertain the reasons for
the alarm, and to be prepared to repel any un-
authorized ruffian who might attempt to enter .
the sacred precincts of the Grange Hall. I felt
assured that such was the case when the door
opened and the largest man I had ever beheld
appeared on the threshold and hoarsely inquired
what my purpose was.

I shrank perceptibly before this dignified and
powerful individual, and informed him with
much humility that I wanted to come in. He in
return demanded the pass-word, and in my con-
fusion I was utterly unable to give it. I informed
him timidly that I had forgotten the pass-word,
but if he would kindly furnish me with one I
would immediately return it.

In reply he laid his hand in a wholly fraternal
manner upon my shoulder, called me brother,
opened the door, and to my great confusion,

THE GRANGE 89

marched me the length of the hall, between rows
of staring men and curious women, to the plat-
form, where I was confronted by a small but
imposing gentleman who sat at a desk, clad in
the official regalia of the Order and surrounded
by other officials of equal gorgeousness, where-
upon the large gentleman made the following ad-
dress: “Most Worshipful’? something or other,
I have forgotten what, “I present to your official
notice this young man, whom I have cause to he-
lieve and do believe is a worthy member of this
most worthy organization, but who, unfortu-
nately, has been so unmindful of his duty as not
to have furnished himself with the requisites for
admission, or, in other words, does not know the
pass-word. What are your distinguished wishes
in relation to the case ?”’

“Most Worthy”? something or other, it would
be a violation of the rules of the Order to say just
what, “you may remove the alleged worthy
member to the waiting-room, and inform him,
should he adduce sufficient proof to you of his
membership in this order, of the pass-word,
that when the necessary and important business
of this meeting is finished he will then be re-
admitted.”’

During this exchange of weighty civilities I
had been growing hot and cold by turns, as I was
naturally of a modest disposition and was greatly

90 FARMING IT

embarrassed at my undue prominence and by the
curious and amused glances of several hundred
“fair women and brave men”’; and so whenI was
conducted stumblingly to the ante-room, and was
about to be subjected to a searching inquiry, I
excused myself for a moment, and struck out
for home; and, as far as I know, that organiza-
tion is still awaiting my return and the delivery
of that famous speech.

CHAPTER XII
TURKEYS AND A FOOTRACE

Saeed |D you ever think that one of the main
m2 Byer | reasons of the difficulty our farmers
4 fee fa| have of realizing more than a moder-
ee the competency from the cultivation
of a Nes England farm is the want of a good
market ?

The cities and large towns are few in number
and so small, and the Boston markets for farm
products of the perishable kinds are supplied by
the larger, nearer, and more fertile farms and
market gardens of suburban towns.

But for hardy perennials, such as chickens,
ducks, lambs, goats, calves, and woodchucks,
there is, and ever has been, a fairly good market,
and much money has been made in the cultiva-
tion of such products.

Thirty or forty years ago, and as far prior
thereto as the memory of man runneth, even to the
time the first white man landed in America and
on the solar plexus of the amber-hued aborigine,
the sound of the turkey was heard in the land and
vied with the song of the birds, the nasal tones

92 FARMING.

of the lusty husbandman berating his sluggish
cattle, the bleating of sheep, the lowing of cattle,
and the grunting and squealing of fat pigs, all of
which went to make up a pastoral symphony or
bucolic tout ensemble. Daily the flock of bronze
beauties descended to the fields and woods, where
they industriously put in from twelve to fourteen
working hours in hunting down grasshoppers,
katydids, crickets, and other vermin, and nightly
did they festoon the apple trees, the roofs of sheds
and barns, and the seats of farm-wagons with
their plump bodies.

In those days the raising and marketing of
turkeys formed one of the principal sources of
income for the farmer or the farmer’s helpmeet.
They were raised in two ways. The most profit-
able method was to enter your neighbor’s orchard
when the family were asleep, and carefully and
without noise raise the drowsy turkeys from their
roosting places, and market them in a distant
county before morning broke.

The element of chance that entered into the
transaction and occasionally involved those in-
terested in this industry in expensive legal pro-
ceedings rendered this method slightly unpopu-
lar, although the percentage of profit was very
considerable.

The other and more popular method was to al-
low the woman of the household to take entire

TURKEYS 93
charge of the flock, and to hold the proceeds for

her personal use and adornment.

To this circumstance the beautiful sables that
have been handed down in country families owe
their origin. Our grandmothers, great- and great-
great-grandmothers developed great fleetness of
foot in avoiding the lightning charge of irate
cock-turkeys weighing forty or more pounds,
and a wide range of geographical knowledge in
seeking and housing the immature flocks when
a rain-cloud appeared on the horizon.

Indeed, many of our long-distance pedestrians
and short-distance sprinters of to-day have come
to their full powers by a careful cultivation of a
direct inheritance from athletic great-great-grand-
mothers. But of late years turkey-raising as a
local industry has not flourished, and the New
Hampshire turkey is almost extinct.

What is the reason? One has it that the in-
creasing liberality of the modern farmer hus-
band is such that his wife obtains her heart’s de-
sire simply for the asking, and is not obliged to
raise live-stock for a living. Another, that mar-
riages between the different sexes in the turkey
family have been allowed within those degrees
of consanguinity that in the human species are
prohibited by law, and the result has been the
production of a race of turkey degenerates pre-
disposed to paresis, suicide, and kindred ills.

94 FARMING WT

Still another says that an insect known as the
borer, equipped with a cast-iron, auger-like pro-
boscis, working on a swivel, bores holes in the
bird’s crop and lets its contents exude with the
innocent life of the victim.

This man affirms that another insect bores into
the ears of the young bird and drives it to suicide.
One says it is over-feeding, another starvation.
One advises leaving the birds to nature, another,
highly artificial measures. It reminds me of the
old definition of climate as given by our old
friend Guyot’s “Common School Geography.”

“Climate is heat and cold, moisture and dry-
ness, healthfulness or unhealthfulness.”? I well
remember my childish wonder that one term
could embrace so many contrary characteristics.

In thinking matters over, I finally became con-
vinced that the opportunity had arrived to make
my name, like that of our national emblem,
“Known and honored throughout the world.”
To invent, discover, and develop, to patent or
copyright a process for preserving the life of the
New Hampshire turkey, was to put it into the
power of every farmer to remove the mortgage
from his ancestral acres, to put money in his
purse, to give his daughters lessons in elocution,
and to allow his wife to joi the “Daughters,”
and to live happy ever afterwards. Perhaps as
“Shute, the turkey man,’ my name might go

TURKEYS 95

pinwheeling through the ages to come, neck and
neck with the names of Buffalo Jones, Scroggs
the Wyandotte man, the inventor of Mennen’s
Toilet Powder, and kindred celebrities.

So I invested in a pair of mammoth bronzes
that were displayed in a window of a Boston
store, and awaited their arrival we ill-concealed
anxiety.

For three nights subsequent to the purchase
of the birds I drove to the station with a huge
crate, which I had fastened to the pung so firmly
that it prevented me from using the sleigh for
any other purpose, and for three nights I re-
turned disappointed. On the fourth night I found
them waiting in a crate fully as large, upon which
freight-bills were due sufficient to freight a horse
to the Pacific slope. This, with the amount al-
ready paid for the birds, made my original in-
vestment somewhat disquieting. However, I
loaded the new crate on the old one, tied it as
well as I could with the hitch - rope, climbed
stiffly to the seat, and started for home.

Respected reader, did you ever try to drive a
hard-bitted horse with one hand and hold in two
crates weighing about a ton each, and laden with
shifting ballast in the shape of agile and wildly
terrified turkeys? It is a trick, let me tell you. I
covered the distance between the station and my
house in several seconds less than the record, and

96 FARMING IT

pulled both arms a foot or more beyond their
normal reach while so doing.

I was so anxious to release my turkeys that I
neglected to unhook the mare, and when after
considerable difficulty I dragged forth the cock-tur-
key by one hind-leg, he beat my hat over my ears
with his huge wings, covered me with dust and
dirt, and so frightened the mare that she went
through the narrow door like a flash of lightning,
leaving a pung with broken shafts and a goodly
part of the harness on the outside.

I was too much occupied with the turkey to pay |
much attention to the mare, and after a brief sea-
son of collar-and-elbow, Grzeco-Roman, hitch-and-
trip, and catch-as-catch-can, I dragged the un-
willing old bird from his retirement, left him in
the loft, swelling and spreading, and dashed down
after the hen, suddenly reflecting that I had left
the crate open.

I found her standing in the open, with out-
stretched neck and tail half-spread. Awed by
my commanding appearance, or possibly by the
fact that I had so many feathers on me that she
mistook me for a strange turkey-cock of disre-
putable appearance, she started off at a high rate
of speed and I followed at a hand-gallop. The
going was heavy and I soon overtook her, fell
over her prostrate body, half-buried in the snow,
and arose with her clasped to my bosom.

TURKEYS 97

Before I could catch her by the legs she, with
ill-directed but vigorous clawings, gouged a long
strip from my countenance, leaving an unsightly
scar that remained for several weeks, and gave
rise to the rumor that my home life was unhappy.

She was not nearly as handsome or as heavy
as her mate, but that she was dear to him he
demonstrated by furiously attacking me when I
appeared in the loft, and tearing a large hole in
my trousers, in return for which I kicked him
several yards with some considerable deftness,
and left him to smooth his ruffled plumage and
temper, while I sought warm water, Pears’ soap,
court-plaster, and a clothes-brush.

As it was early in March, when cock-turkeys
are about as savage as four-year-old Jersey bulls,
I warned the different members of our family to
give him the right of way.

I soon found that he was at heart a most pusil-
lanimous poltroon, for a small gamecock that
roosted in the loft, so far from being terrified
by his appearance and loud boasts, thoroughly
whipped him, and drove him headlong down one
of the grain chutes, whence we rescued him by
tearing away the planks, empurpled and nearly
dead from a rush of blood to the head.

Although an arrant coward, he put up such a
menacing front, boasted so loudly, and turned so
red-faced in his anger that he impressed the

98 FARMING: aT

members of my family, the neighbors, and the
populace generally, as a very dangerous antago-
nist.

My daughter, like her father extraordinarily
gifted in the way of legs, had no difficulty in
distancing the old fellow, and dodging his fierce
rushes, and the daily sight of a very funny young
lady with spindly legs flying across the yard pur-
sued by a red-faced, gobbling turkey, added much
to the interest with which the neighborhood
viewed him.

My wife, however, had no patience with the
young lady or any one else who was afraid of |
an old turkey, and expressed great confidence
that the day old Tom came at her would be a very
sad day for the poor old fellow. This naturally
made me look forward to the inevitable meeting
between the mistress of the house and the master
of the yard as a prospective treat.

One day I was in the barn and saw the usual
stern chase swinging its way across the yard.
Searcely had the house-door slammed before it
opened again, and there strode forth, with firm
step and resolute manner, the lady of the house
with the light of high purpose and the glint
of warlike determination beaming through her
specs. The old cock had retired some distance
from the house, but drew up as the apparition
approached.

TURKEYS 99

As the meeting promised to be of some interest,
I peeped through a window and prepared to get
as much enjoyment out of the engagement as the
nature of the circumstances would allow.

Straight toward old ‘Tom came the lady with
rapid and measured strides. Instantly he hoisted
his tail, injected about a quart of scarlet war-
paint into his head and neck, stuck every feather
on end, and let outa fierce rolling gobble. The
walk slowed down a bit, and the lady cut her smile
of confidence down one half, but still advanced
warily.

The gobbler then made a whining imitation
of a watchman’s rattle, laid the feathers of his
neck flat until his head looked snaky, and took
a few side steps toward his visitor.

“Shoo, you nasty thing! Shoo!! scat!!! go
away !!!!? screamed the lady, stopping abruptly.

Old Tom whined like a dog, ending with a sort
of bass croak that seemed to come from the pit
of his stomach, then took a few more steps for-
ward on tiptoe, and sounded the watchman’s
rattle, winding up with a fierce gobble.

“Go away, you nasty thing! Shoo!! scat!!
shrieked the lady. “Oh, why don’t somebody
come? Oh-ee!! Oh-ee!! Get away !!’’ she shrieked
vigorously, and somewhat improperly shaking
her skirts, with marked scenic effect.

This was the chip on the shoulder, the chal-

1°?

100 FARMING AT

lenge that an adult male turkey always takes
up. With outstretched neck and hideous whine
he charged, and with shrill shrieks the lady fled
for the friendly shelter of the open portal. Ihave
ridden on the “Flying Yankee,” I have flashed
down the toboggan slide, have shot or “ shooted”’
the chutes, have twice been run away with when
astride a bronco, have seen the fastest sprinter
breast the tapein an even ten, have seen the two-
minute pacer coming down the stretch abreast the
thoroughbred runners, but never have I seen
such a burst of speed as my wife put on that day.
She fairly whizzed across the yard and disap-
peared into the house like a flash of jagged
lightning, and the bang with which she slammed
the door, echoed and reéchoed and drowned my
coarse and unfeeling laughter and the delighted
giggle of my irreverent daughter, who from a
convenient window had viewed the proceedings
with great enjoyment. Truly this turkey busi-
ness was not a bad investment after all.

As spring approached, my turkey began to lay
large pock-marked eggs with exceedingly rough
shells, which I carefully secured and concealed
from the prying eyes of the cook.

As soon as I had a sufficient number, I set
them under two large fluffy hens and sternly re-
pressed the maternal instinct of the turkey-hen,
daily removing her forcibly, protestingly, flap-

TURKEYS 101

pingly from her nest under a pile of brush, where
she persistently sat on a couple of bricks. In due
time the eggs under the hens hatched and the
bricks under the turkey refused to hatch, but the
enthusiasm of the old turkey-hen continued un-
abated. She seemed determined to hatch out terra
cotta images, drain-tile, or something.

The little turks or poults were delightful little
wild things, beautifully mottled, and on them I
lavished the affection of a warm and ardent na-
ture. On one of them, as an experiment, I lavished
something even more ardent, for under the ad-
vice of a Granger friend I introduced a pepper-
corn into the epiglottis of an infant turk and
watched the effect. It was instantaneous. The
poor bird piped a shrill protest, turned flip-flaps,
hand-springs, and cart-wheels, opened its beak,
clawed at it with frenzied feet, rolled, ran, fell,
and finally collapsed into a piteous little ball of
down and died.

This experiment, at least, was not a success,
except as an exterminator, and I had but fifteen
poults instead of the original sixteen. I then put
them in a well-sheltered place and fed them ac-
cording to the best standards.

For a while all went well. They grew and
throve, and I became very complacent over the
matter. ‘T’oo much so, I am afraid, for on my
return from the office one day I found three of

102 FARMING? WT

them suffering from melancholia, with heads sunk
on their breasts, and apparently indifferent to
their surroundings. I at once powdered them
thoroughly with insect powder, under which dras-
tic treatment they promptly died without struggle
or squeak.

A week later, four more passed peacefully away
without apparent reason, and a week later cholera
attacked the remainder. One by one they passed
to the great hereafter. We found them in all
places, in all positions. Some on their backs,
with their feeble little claws outstretched in air,
some huddled into corners, with heads drawn -
back over their shoulders, some curled up like
balls of fur.

In vain I tried all the remedies in the poultry
papers and in books. In vain I consulted wise
sages and oracles in poultry-culture. It was use-
less; those turks were doomed from the moment
of their entrance into a sinful world. In a month
from their arrival nothing remained but bitter
memories and a very inconsiderable addition to
my compost-heap.

In the meantime the old cock, having much
unoccupied time on his hands, and pining for the
society of his wife, who was still sitting on the
bricks under the brush-heap, was occupied in
chasing defenseless women from the premises.
Scarcely a day passed without a sally and a rescue.

TURKEYS 103

In his blundering, well-meaning way he was
doing a deal of good. The female book agent and
subscription fairy fled from my premises as from
a place accursed. ‘The dark-complexioned lady
of Armenian extraction, with big feet and still
bigger suit-case, crowded to the brim with gaudy
and useless wares, was driven from the premises
instanter. ‘The saturnine villain with parti-col-
ored rugs had to fly for his life. The small
boys, who had worn a path through my lawn
to the campus, were forced to pass through a
neighbor’s garden, and the D’Indy Club, the
Frauenverein, the Mothers’ Club, the committee
on church affairs, met elsewhere.

Really, I was quite ready to repeat my experi-
ment should anything happen to my old friend,
and stood ready to advocate the cock-turkey as
the watch-dog of the household.

One day, as I was passing the brush-heap, I
bethought myself of taking a look at the turkey-
hen. So I pulled her hissing from her nest, and
to my surprise found that the bricks had been
pushed from the nest, and in their place were
eight eggs. With a thrill at my heart that re-
minded me of my boyish days of birds’-egging,
I replaced her carefully and took heart again.

Perhaps I had made a mistake after all. Per-
haps the books were wrong. I remembered to
have heard a story once of an Irish common

104 FARMING IT

councilman, who in a somewhat acrimonious de-
bate as to how many gondolas should be bought
for the pond in a public park, sturdily advocated
the purchase of a male gondola and a female gon-
dola, “‘an’ t’ lave th’ rist t’ nature,” as a measure
calculated to minimize expense.

Would it not be better to discontinue the arti-
ficial methods and “lave th’ rist t? nature’? I
would try. It could n’t be any worse. I could n’t
lose any more than the whole brood. Could n’t
I? Wait a bit.

In due time every egg hatched, and the mother
turkey cautiously crept out, suspicious of every
sound, watchful of every movement. ‘That night
they disappeared in a grove back of my lot.

The next morning I arose betimes, or a full hour
and a half before betimes, and stole into the silent
wood. Joy! at the foot of a huge pine I found her
and her tiny babies, safe, sound, and dry, although
a smart shower had left everything dripping.

It was a success. She alone had the secret of
nature. Away with artificial methods. Return to
nature. Strange how besotted man gets in his
ignorance. But for blind adherence to experi-
ment, the New Hampshire turkey

“Might have stood against the world,
Now none so poor to do him reverence.”

Wait a bit: that night at dusk I stole again

TURKEYS 105

into the forest, and to the foot of that mighty
pine. She was not there, neither were her chicks.

The mother love, suspicious, primeval, alert,
had prompted her to find a new hiding-place.
I would pit my wits against hers. Not to inter-
fere with nature, but to keep her in sight, to study
her cunning, to learn her secret.

I hunted so long that night that on my return
in the darkness I bumped into trees and stubs,—

“T scratched my hands, and tore my hair,
But still did not complain.”

The next morning at daybreak, and the next
night at dusk, and for many, many weary days and
nights, I searched, and peered, and sneaked, and
spied, and climbed trees, and skinned and barked
and abraded myself in various tender places.

“Donati lived, and long you might have seen
An old man wandering as in search of something,
Something he could not find, he knew not what.”

In vain my search. I never saw her again, nor
did I ever see her chicks, and to this day their
disappearance is a mystery.

It seemed to me that the old cock sympathized
with my grief. At least he did not seem the same
turkey, and he began to follow me around. It
may have been that he was considering the ad-
visability of giving me a poke with his iron beak.
But if so, he never did.

* 106 FARMING IT

Time passed. ‘The haying season arrived,
waxed, and waned. Green corn, astrachan apples,
Sanford’s Jamaica Ginger, and allopathic phy-
sicians battled for the lives of our dear ones;
Colorado beetles cut my potato-tops to the ground,
rose-bugs in flying swarms devastated my “jacks.”
In short, from morning to night the whole house-
hold was engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle to
rescue our feeble crops from their many enemies.
Constant occupation is good for grief and dis-
appointment.

In due time my cheerfulness returned. Old
Tom conceived a violent passion for a diminu-
tive bantam hen, and the memory of his erring
or unfortunate mate faded.

September came with its early crops, but I had
no crops. October with its later harvests, but I
gathered none. November merged into Decem-
ber; December into January. Old Tom began
with the lengthening days to develop a savage
temper. An early February storm had made
ponds of our garden, and sharp weather had
converted it into a fine rink, where my daughter
spent her leisure hours.

Shortly after the noon hour I was in my room,
disrobed. I had just finished caring for my stable
animals. Suddenly a series of loud screams star-
tled me. I rushed to the window, pulled up the
shade, and looked. Penned into a corner cowered

A’ FOOTRAGE 107

my small daughter, while before her, scarlet of
neck, swollen of wattles, with every feather on
end, towered old Tom, furious and menacing.

From the side porch the housemaid screamed
hysterical advice, and jumped up and down in
her excitement.

I grabbed my trousers. They were wrong-side-
out, and I got stuck in them, and fell to the floor.
Gentle reader, did you ever try to pull on your
trousers while the house was burning, and when
the salvation of yourself or your loved ones de-
pended upon speed? ‘Try it some time and see
how adroit you are. I threw them across the
room, got on one shoe, and was groping under
the bed for the other, when another cry of terror
electrified me, and I dashed for the stairs.

“For heaven’s sake, are n’t you going to put on
some clothes?” screamed my wife; “the girl is
out there.”

“Damn the girl!’’ I snapped ; “if she can stand
there and see that gobbler scare Nath. to death, I
guess it won’t hurt her to see me.” And I shot
down the stairs like an Andover quarterback
going through a hole in the Exeter line.

“The uniform ’e wore
Was nothin’ much afore
An’ rather less than ’alf o’ that be’ind.”

I grasped a broom asI flew through the kitchen,

108 FARMING IT

turned the corner of the shed on one wheel, and
dashed into the open with a whoop. At the un-
expected appearance of so skinny a spectre clad
in pale mauve underwear, stretched to its ut-
most tension by frantic straddles, the housemaid
shrieked and threw her apron over her head, but
I kept on. Arrived in time, I swung with all my
strength on the gobbler’s scarlet neck, but missed,
and turning several times with the momentum,
fell and rolled on the ice.

I fairly bounced to my feet and dashed after the
flying bird. Down the field we went, round the
apple trees, the gobbler in the lead, just out of
reach. Through the rose- bushes, which tore
ravelings from my underwear and cuticle from
my straining legs; round by the shed the chase
continued, over the wood-pile, which turned and
rolled on me, giving the gobbler a fresh start.

But I picked myself up. I did not feel my
bruises. Eliza crossing the ice was not more:
oblivious of her cut and naked feet. I was going
to catch that gobbler if I broke something. No
red-headed devil bird should menace the life of
the child of my old age; and again I picked up my
agile heels and flew. This time the wily old bird
took me over a hard-frozen corn-field with stubs,
but failed to shake me off.

Neighbors threw up the windows and stared.
People in passing teams stopped and cheered us

x}

DASHED INTO THE OPEN

A FOOTRACE 109

on. The bird ran with drooping wings. He was
about all in. So was I. Suddenly he stopped and
squatted. I tried to stop, but could not, and fell
with soul-shaking violence.

When I sat up, the gobbler had crawled into
the barn, and with the assistance of my wife and
daughter, who draped me in a table-cloth, I re-
turned to my room, regained my breath gradually,
and resumed my clothing.

Does any one wish to buy an adult male tur-
key ? Weighs thirty pounds; is a direct descend-
ant of the first turkey seen by the Pilgrim Fa-
thers when they moored their bark on the wild
New England shore. It may be the original
turkey. I can’t say. Turkeys are not in general
valuable on account of their antiquity, but a
genuine Stradivarius turkey, with Sheraton legs,
Hepplewhite upholstery, and Chippendale var-
nish, of undoubted antiquity and undisputed an-
cestry, ought to bring a good price. At any rate,
the turkey industry on the D. F. Ranch is hereby
discontinued.

CHAPTER XIII

A NIGHT CALL

foe ee| LL day long the June sun had beaten
2c \ese| down with fierce July heat upon the
SZA%E| sleepy town, upon the smooth green
gees) |awns, the white, pink, and yellow
roses at the corners of houses, upon the bright
green blades of growing corn in the gardens, the -
feathery foliage of the carrots, the waxy richness
of the beets, the bright and smiling faces of the
pansies, the smooth expanse of the nasturtium,
with its crimson and yellow flashes from between
the green leaves, and the fragile pinkness of the
fragrant sweet peas.

Under the revolving sprinklers of the lawns,
dapper robins had fluttered with wings upturned
to catch the splashing drops, or stood upright with
close-furled plumage. In the short white clover,
which always follows a sprinkle of wood ashes,
hundreds of bees had worked, unmindful of the
fierce sun.

As darkness slowly steals over the landscape,
the robins, silent during the furnace-heat of the
day, begin the clear warble of their evening song.

& NIGHT CAEL 111

In the grove behind the house the wood thrush
chants his song that speaks of twilight shades
in the darkening woods, while down in the dim
orchard a whip-poor-will repeats again and again
his odd three-syllabled cry, and from far above
in the dim blue his prototype, the night hawk,
drones his nasal whine, with rapid upbeat of his
wings, and now and then plunges downward like
a gray bolt, only to check his earthward rush with
suddenly outstretched wings, through which the
wind roars like distant thunder.

As the darkness deepens, the fireflies twinkle fit-
fully in the meadows, bats begin their erratic flight,
and the droning buzz of the beetle is heard. The
stars appear, but there is no moon, and the glare
of electrics mar the soft darkness of the night.

The white figures of strolling couples pass to
and fro, and the faint conversation of groups
of people gathered on the piazzas and enjoying
the delicious coolness of the evening, blends with
the voices of Nature and night. One by one the
lights in the houses disappear, the hum of con-
versation ceases, and the little town sleeps.

At midnight we are awakened by the insistent
ringing of the telephone bell.

“Confound the telephone! Why can’t people
let it rest nights? There, I guess they have given
it up now. No, there it goes again, 1-5, 1-5, 1-5;

~ some one Is in trouble.”

/ 112 FARMING IT

So finally, with much grumbling, I turn out,
and stumble downstairs in the dark to the re-
ceiver.

“Hello! Hello!! what is it?”

RES

“Ts it so important as that ?”

“T will, of course.”

“Let me repeat. Take the north road straight
through to the village, first right, four corners,
fourth house on right, big barn, about eight miles.
All right.”

“Hello! Yes, can do it inaboutan hour. Yes,
will bring a witness. Is there one at the house? —
All right.”

Some one is dying; a will must be made at
once. It is too late for the little girl. Dick must
go. So out to his room I go, dressing hurriedly.
Dick grumbles; I don’t blame him, for he came
in late: but he becomes better-natured as he
shakes the sleep from his eyes.

Downstairs we hurry. I run my head against
the edge of a door, curse under my breath, fall
over a chair, curse again right out loud, finally
find and light a lantern. Polly lurches to her feet
as I try the hasp of the barn-door. In the six years
I have had her I have never seen her down.

I harness her hurriedly. This time I will drive,
not ride; I can make better time, and my errand
is urgent. Dick comes out with a bag of papers,

A NIGHT CALL 113

which I keep ready for such calls. We hastily
don light overcoats, for the night air is cool and
damp, and with a lift of the reins we whirl round
the corner and plunge into the blackness of the
summer night.

Above we can see the stars and the faint light
of the Milky Way. On either side the opaque
blackness of the forest trees shuts out all light.
There has been a shower in the early night, and
the earth reeks with dampness and sweet and
pungent smells.

From above comes the faint cheep of a passing
night-bird. A sudden drone as a night beetle
blindly blunders past makes one dodge instinc-
tively. From the wet trees and damp places the
trills of the tree-frogs and the peculiarly sleepy
cry of the toads, a soft croak with a falling in-
flection, remind one of returning in a boat from
an evening swim on a hot night in July.

The night is full of faint and drowsy noises,
vague smells, eerie thoughts. But for the rapid
clop, clop, clop of Polly’s feet, the whirring of
the wheels and the creak of the whifile-tree,
which needs oil, we might think ourselves in elf-
land. We can almost hear “the horns of Elfland
faintly blowing.” But Polly is practical and
knows her business. She is troubled with no
fancies. Clop, clop, clop, she goes, with her ears
pointing forward in the darkness.

114 FARMING IT

A sudden chilly dampness shows we are ap-
proaching the river. We can almost see the mist
as it settles on our faces. ‘Then we have thun-
derously passed the bridge and ascended a rise,
where it is warmer and where a sudden breeze
showers us with big drops. Then down a rocky
rattling slope we go, between dense pines. We
cannot see them, but the sudden blackness
shows they are there, standing shoulder to shoul-
der, for warmth and shelter in winter, for cool-
ness and shade in summer.

And now we are approaching the village. In a
house a light shines out of a watcher’s room, a—
sick-room possibly, but in the darkness it seems
cheerful and bright. Let us hope it is a late stu-
dent, a clergyman writing his sermon for the next
Sunday, a reader finishing an absorbing story.
So bright a light could not come from a sick-
room. Who could be sick on a June night? I
forget, for we are going to a sick-room. I pull
Polly up for a breathing-space. She has come
five miles in about twenty-five minutes.

We are in the village now and can see the
faint outlines of houses. A dog rushes out bark-
ing savagely, one of those unreasonably fierce
shaggy animals that are the pest of drivers,
and especially of physicians and night travelers.
Polly darts ahead, there is a thump, a yelp, then |
the off front wheel strikes a soft something and

A NIGHT CALL Lik

the wagon heels over dangerously amid a chorus
of ear-splitting howls and pattering feet, as the
shaggy devil bolts for home. We grin cheer-
fully, for the dog has learned a lesson.

We pass through the village at a racing gait,
and are at the turn in the road where we pull up
to get our bearings, — then to the right more
slowly. How are we to find the house in the dark-
ness ?

It must be here, for a lighted lantern hangs
from a post. We drive in, and a man in overalls
and rubber boots takes our mare without a word,
and motions us toward the door. We enter the
sitting-room. In the corner is a melodeon, closed,
and covered with a green cloth. On the melodeon
is an old violin with all the strings broken but
the G. A shaded lamp burns on the centre-table.
There is a case of stuffed birds on a small marble-
topped table in another corner, and a glass frame
of wax flowers on a shelf. On the walls are two
black - framed oval portraits, horrible carica-
tures of deceased persons, the lady in black and
white checked dress, low in the neck, and with
a large locket or medallion on her breast. Her
hair is parted in the middle and brought down
over her ears in a quaint old style recently re-
vived. On all sides her ample skirts spread in
billows. ‘The man is brave in stock and tight-
sleeved, narrow-shouldered black coat, and vo-

116 FARMING IT

luminous gray trouserloons and beautifully pol-
ished boots.

On the floor is a bright but somewhat faded
carpet and braided rugs. A cat dozes in front of
the open fire-place, neatly swept and dusted,
while in a corner an old eight-day clock ticks
loudly. I sink into a cambric-covered deep rocker
and wait.

The clock ticks with dreary monotony, there
is the sound of muffled footsteps overhead, then
a door opens, and a portly, waistless, middle-
aged woman beckons me upstairs.

As I enter a dimly lighted room, as noiselessly
as possible, I see stretched on a bed, and covered
with a patch-work quilt, an old gray - haired
man, with a strong face sunken and yellowed by
wasting disease, the lower jaw more prominent
than in health, and the gnarled, twisted, calloused
hands resting on the white sheet. By his side
sits a sweet-faced old lady, with tremulous lips
and troubled eyes, patiently awaiting the end.
The old man opens his eyes and half raises his
hand in welcome. I am in time.

Long before I come from that chamber the
first streaks of light appear in the sky, and as I
reénter the sitting-room it is nearly dawn. I look
at the violin, the G string has snapped. ‘There
is a confused murmur and a hurried rush of feet
overhead.

A NIGHT CALL 117

We go slowly out to where Polly is waiting and
drive quietly out of the gateway. Hear the birds!
Robins, bobolinks, catbirds, orioles, purple mar-
tins,—a rare bird now,—chewinks, purple
finches, ground sparrows, vireos, red-winged
blackbirds, bluebirds, pewees, summer yellow-
birds, warblers, chippys, wrens, oven-birds, and
every other bird that has a voice, are filling the
air with trills and warbles, chirps and fluty grace
notes. The air is full of the sweet scent of locust
blossoms and the woody smell of the pines.

Everything speaks of life and love and happi-
ness, but back in a darkened room the G string
has snapped, and a life has gone out for all time.

CHAPTER XIV

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

mene BOUT the Fourth of July my vegetable
Be Wave| garden was in the most flourishing
W/eqvA We] Condition possible. My corn was thick
dee’) and straight and green, my beets were
BaERe and the leaves purple and glossy. For
weeks I had luxuriated in salad from my lettuce-
rows, in radishes, exhumed from my own beds
and cut into fancy shapes, and in pie-plant, which
unfortunately I had received as courtesies from
my neighbors, as my fatal error in treating my
own plants as burdocks had prevented me from
enjoying my own products.

I had even gone to the extent of pulling a few
potato-tops, hoping that their unusual develop-
ment might have produced new potatoes of avail-
able size; but what I found were seemingly
covered with warts and blisters, which rendered
them extremely unattractive in appearance, and
slimy and disagreeable to the touch.

Shortly after the Fourth I engaged a man to
mow the grass-crop. He appeared with an as-
sistant, and after viewing the astonishing growth
of pigweed and other worthless vegetation, they

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 119

hung up their scythes and returned for bush-
hooks, with which they swung and hacked all day,
and then, having charged on a bush-hooking
basis, which is one half larger price than plain
mowing, they departed, after assuring me that the
crop was of absolutely no value, which, as I had
been so informed for about two hundred times,
I knew perfectly.

No long rains, no showers, no thunder-storms
came to interfere with haymaking, which could
scarcely have been the case had the crop been
of value. But after I had collected the entire
crop in one enormous pile it made a gorgeous
bonfire, but left a black smooch on the green sur-
face of my field that did not entirely disappear
during the rest of the season.

My strawberry-plants had grown surprisingly,
but they demanded more of my time than almost
all the other crops together. For although they
grew very fast, they appeared to be on terms of in-
timacy with almost every sort of base weed, whose
company they appeared to court, and who in
turn were fondly embraced by the tendrils of
their aristocratic acquaintances.

Again, these strawberry-plants had the most
astonishing fertility in sending out trailers or
creepers or shoots, which, if not pruned, would
in a very short time have converted the entire
farm into an enormous bed of strawberry vines.

120 FARMING IT

I had six rows of these plants, and it was my
custom every morning, just after finishing groom-
ing Polly and Lady M. and Jack, to go down on
my knees, and with a pair of shears prune one
row of trailers before breakfast. Thus the begin-
ning of the next week would find me at the start-
ing-point, with just as many, if not more, trailers |
to cut and weeds to disentangle and pull up than
ever before. However, I persevered with the hope
of bountiful berries the second year.

A few days after the Fourth we had a terrific
storm of wind and rain which lasted all one
night. The next morning, when the sun rose, I |
was early on hand to see the results of the storm
on the garden. Although partially protected by
a high board-fence, my corn was badly damaged
and a good deal of it prostrate. My other vege-
tables had suffered less.

I retired to the barn and communed bitterly
with myself. “Ingenui, et duplicis tendens ad
sidera palmas talia voce retuli: “O terque quater-
que beati quis ante ora patrum Troiz sub moeni-
bus altis contigit oppetere!’’’ Was it for this that
I had worked, and slaved, and dug, and hoed,
and pruned, and scratched, and raised blood-
blisters on my hands? Was it for this that I had
spent evening after evening with lantern, wheel-
barrow, tub, pail and dipper, faithfully coaching
the struggling plants through a dry spell? Was

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 121

it for this that I had borne with calm disdain
paternal scoff, uxorial jeer, and neighborly gibe ?

Then I went back and made an examination.
None, or at least very few, of them were broken.
I tried the experiment of straightening one plant
and heaping earth round it to keep it straight.
It was perfectly feasible. For an hour before tea,
and after tea until late at night, with lantern I
worked until every bent stalk was straightened. It
was fully a week after that when Daniel, the om-
niscient, informed me that the stalks would have
straightened out themselves.

A day or two after, my friend Daniel called
to see Lady M. and to determine whether or not
it would be advisable to grant that blue-blooded
animal a long holiday in view of the great event
in her life, and, I also felt, in my fortune and
reputation as a stock-farmer.

By his advice Lady M. was given a vacation
in the paddock, quite a pretentious name for an
open shed with a fifty-foot run. It seemed as
soon as she was turned into the lot that my ex-
pectations were almost realized. I am a little
given to building air-castles, and I must confess
that I looked forward to the possibility of breed-
ing the two-minute trotter. I realized the ex-
treme improbability of anything of the kind ever
happening to me, and yet it was a possibility.
Lady M. showed good breeding. ‘There were

122 FARMING IT

strong evidences of the Morgan in her conforma-
tion, her courage, and her quiet, gentle ways.
And when bred to Electric Jim (2.164), first
dam Sukey M. (2.21), second dam Wilkes Jane
(2.124), what record would daunt her foal.

It might be —well, I had known men to get
into the judges’ stand for less reasons than that.
I even might sit in the sulky and have a card
with a number on it fastened to my sleeve.
“Gentleman driver”’ was by no means a title with-
out honor. Perhaps the many trials and losses I
had suffered in my farm and garden investments
might in a way be a sort of preparation designed —
to make me appreciate all the more my success
as a horse-breeder, just as a man sometimes eats
heartily of salt fish before attending a banquet
at which wine is to flow freely.

At all events, should her get not be a racer,
the ownership of a finely bred, game roadster,
with all that goes to make up a gentleman’s
driving outfit, would certainly afford me great
pleasure, as would the casual mention of Elec-
tric Jim (2.164), first dam Sukey M. (2.21),
second dam Wilkes Jane (2.124).

‘True, I had never heard of these famous horses
except in the advertisement referred to, but their
records were unquestionably genuine, and some
day when I had time enough I would look them
up, and paste their records in my stud- book,

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 1923

which [ anticipated buying as soon as the foal
arrived.

Every day was one of expectation. In the
morning I was first at the paddock. At noon I
hurried there from the office, and visited there
the last thing at night. I arranged for my family
to notify me by telephone. My friends and neigh-
bors were nearly as much interested as I was,
and waited in more or less anxiety for the event.

For several weeks this went on. I do not
know how I could have stood the strain had it
not been for the fact that I was kept busy both
by office and farm work. The corn silked and
became a daily course on our table, and on those
of our relatives and neighbors.

My beans likewise helped maintain my repu-
tation as a bon vivant, while some of my other
crops were maturing in fine shape. It was, how-
ever, at the cost of constant labor to keep down
weeds. Indeed, I do not believe I could have
succeeded had it not been for the occasional as-
sistance of Mike, who would accomplish in a day
more than I would in a week.

I forgot to say that during the month of June
I had, literally, bushels of roses, which I distrib-
uted by the pailful among our friends, the success-
ful cultivation of which (both friends and roses)
kept my wife engaged in a desperate hand-to-
hand encounter with all manner of creeping,

124 FARMING IT

crawling, climbing, and flying things. This was
not a bad thing for me, for it took up so much of
her waking hours as to leave me practically free
from interference or even criticism in my employ-
ment of my time.

About the middle of August I was called away
from home to attend a hearing in a farming town
about twenty-five miles distant, which could not
be reached by rail. Consequently, I had to drive
Polly, and as the hearing lasted three days, I
was unable to return home at night.

There were several lawyers connected with
the case, and a large number of witnesses, several —
of whom stayed at the hotel where I was staying.
In the evenings we would sit out on the hotel
piazza and chat with one another and such of the
farmers as might drop in. |

In this way I got much valuable information
in relation to farm matters, which would have
saved me much trouble and considerable loss if
I had known it before. Everybody was interested
in my brood-mare and the expected colt, and I
talked horse for hours.

While I was sitting thus the second evening,
I was called to the telephone, and responded with
alacrity, for I felt that news of the colt’s arrival
had come. Sure enough, I recognized my daugh-
ter’s voice.

“Hullo, papa.”

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 195

“Hullo, little girl.”

“Oh, papa, what do you guess? Lady M. has
got a colt. This afternoon I went out, and there
was a colt in the pen. Ain’t you s’prised ?”’

“Well, well, I’m glad of it, I should say I was
surprised.”

“Grandpa and Mr. Gilman’s man are taking
care of it. Oh, it has got the longest legs!”

“What does Daniel say about it ?”

“Oh, he said it was the most perfect one he
ever saw. He told me to tell you it was the most
perfect specimen he ever saw.”

“Are you all well ?”’

“Yes, and we want you to come home just
as soon as you can. Oh, papa, I went right up
and patted it.”’

“Well, good-by.”

“Good-by.”’

Every one about the hotel congratulated me,
and the next day, after finishing the case, to which
I’m afraid I could not give my undivided atten-
tion, I started for home directly after lunch,
having notified my family that I would be at
home at about four o’clock.

My arrival had evidently been not entirely
unexpected by persons not connected with my
family, for when I drove into the yard I found
quite a crowd awaiting me and smiling delightedly
at my return. There was my venerable father,

126 FARMING IT

Daniel, and his wife, the Professor and his wife,
my own family, and several other neighbors, to
greet me and shower congratulations upon me.

It was the first time that a colt of unblemished
ancestry had been foaled in that neighborhood,
and it was delightful to witness the genuine
appreciation of our friends. I really felt as if
I were the chosen instrument to lead them to
material improvement in the most important
branch of farm-life.

And so, escorted by my friends, I walked tri-
umphantly toward the paddock, trying hard not
to show too openly the pride and elation I felt, .
and listening to the heartfelt encomiums of my
friends.

“ Well,” said our friend Daniel enthusiastically,
“T have bred horses all my life, and I am bound
to say it is one of the most perfect types I have
yet seen. And when a colt shows its character-
istics so young, you may be sure that they are
going to stay with it during life.”

I beamed with pride.

“Was there ever a truer saying than ‘blood
will tell,’ Daniel ?’? asked my venerable father.

“Never, George,” replied Daniel. ‘“‘ See how
strongly the remarkable qualities of his sire ap-
pear in the colt. Why Lady M., good animal
that she is, is not in the same class with the colt.”

I beamed some more.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS 127

“Don’t you think,’ queried the Professor,
“that the colt may have inherited some of its
remarkable qualities from the first dam of Elec-
tric Jim, Sukey M. (2.21) 2?”

“Or from the second dam, Wilkes Jane
(2.124) ?” suggested another neighbor. ‘We
all know that the Wilkes blood is highly thought
of among horse-breeders.”’

As he said this I came to the paddock, and my
friends drew apart from me in order to let me
feast my eyes on the colt.

I looked and looked again, and leaned my
hands on the fence and stared foolishly. For a
moment I could scarcely believe my eyes, for
there stood Lady M., her great soft eyes full of
love, nuzzling, by all the gods, a long-legged,
round-barreled, big-headed mule colt, with the
most grotesquely enormous ears I had ever seen.
Shades of Balaam and Don Quixote! it looked
like a jack-rabbit on stilts.

I swallowed hastily, looked for a place to sit
down, grinned foolishly, and turned to see my
friends in various conditions of convulsions.
Daniel was shaking like a huge tumbler of jelly;
the Professor was leaning over the fence, holding
himself with both hands; my daughter was
dancing a grotesque jig; my son was rolling on
the ground ; while the rest of the assemblage were
bending and twisting and cackling like lunatics.

128 FARMING IT

Well, I have faced financial crises with coolness,
ridiculous situations with dignity, and reverses
with resignation, but I never was so completely
*‘oraveled”’ in my life.

I do not know what the result would have been,
— whether I should have brained the shrieking
maniacs, or the mule and its fool dam, or fled
from the place, — but just then the sight of that
mare nursing that infernal jack-rabbit struck
my sense of the ridiculous, and I became the
loudest and most abandoned of the shrieking
crew.

When I had in a measure recovered, I invited
all hands to the house, and set out whatever I
could find as our first libation to the god of treats.

What that mule cost me since I scarcely dare
estimate.

yr

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IT LOOKED LIKE A JACK-RABBIT ON STILTS

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CHAPTER XV
THE TALES OF GRAMP

eeeee¢| ANIEL and Gramp, my two nearest
, | neighbors, were as chummy as two
uf old friends could be. Gramp was a
sae} 690d many years older than Daniel,
and always claimed that Daniel should have
more respect for his age than he had shown.
Daniel would retort that father’s age was the
only thing about him that he did respect. Each
one accused the other of cheating him in horse,
cow, harness, or wagon trades.

As Daniel knew more about cows and horses
than father, he generally had an advantage over
the old gentleman in a trade in these staple prod-
ucts; but when it came to harnesses and car-
riages, especially when real antiquity entered
into the matter, Gramp had the grape-vine twist
on Daniel. In his early days, before he forsook
the brad-awl and the waxed thread for the lucra-
tive sinecure of a custom-house clerkship, Gramp
was a harness- maker and a earriage- trimmer.
Consequently he knew the ins and outs of the busi-
ness, and Daniel had to manceuvre very cau-

130 FARMING @e

tiously when he and Gramp were engaged in a
transaction involving these articles.

On the other hand, Daniel was a farmer, a
gentleman farmer who sold the products of his
farm, displaymg much ingenuity in obtaining,
as Gramp said, the highest market prices for the
lowest grade of goods. On one occasion Daniel
sold Gramp some baled hay, about three fourths
of which, when shaken out with the fork, refused
to come down, and floated round in the air in the
form of hayseed, chaff, and dust, leaving of each
bale about three pecks of tangible fodder.

To avenge this high-handed outrage Gramp
traded “as nice a pair of pigs as you ever saw,
Daniel,’ with that rotund gentleman, fora kick-
ing gray mare with a milk-leg and the scratches ;
and when Daniel came for the pigs he found to
his horror they were guinea-pigs, and worth
twenty-five cents a pair, rather more, in fact,
than what the mare was worth, for she kicked out
the entire side of the barn, and cost Gramp about
twenty dollars in repairs.

But Daniel and Gramp were great story-tellers,
‘each being gifted with a vivid imagination and
a most whimsical manner of expressing himself.
Daniel, although a farmer, was a confirmed
skeptic in such matters, and was in tastes and
feeling a sport. He read the “Sporting Life”
religiously, knew every professional baseball

TALES OF GRAMP 131

player by name, and every college and inter-
scholastic football player by heart.

Gramp, on the other hand, while not knowing
the difference, except in taste, between burdock
and pie-plant, or between smart-weed andspinach,
was an enthusiast in farming. He scoffed loudly
at modern sports, and told most astonishing
tales about his proficiency in all sports when a
young man.

They used to sit under a large elm tree in front
of my house, and smoke and tell stories, and
they usually had a crowd of eager listeners.
Perhaps the following narrative may best express
their style of oratory and the strength of their
imagination.

It was one day in the fall when Dick with half
a dozen student friends had come in great glee
from witnessing a game at the Academy Campus,
and as usual Gramp had a story ready.

“Gee! Gramp,” said Dick, “you ought to
see one of these games. Our backs just ripped
holes through their line that you could have |
driven an ox-team through. We beat ’em seven-
teen to nothing. One collar-bone broken and
two ankles wrenched. That’s playing, I tell you,
Gramp.”

“Hm!” said Gramp, removing his pipe and
crossing his legs, “I guess you never saw a real

game of football, Dick. Say, Daniel, did you

132 FARMING IT

ever hear of the big game in *42 when I played
right guard against Andover ?”

“T never heard the details of it fully,” said
Daniel, “but I heard it was a great game, and
that there were a good many serious accidents
and pretty rough playing. Several men were
killed, were they not, George ?’’ queried Daniel.

“Not in that game,” replied Gramp; “that
was in 39 when Williams, Andover’s left tackle,
was killed, and Lovejoy, Exeter’s right guard,

made a touchdown before Williams’s body had

been carried off the field. This caused a protest

by Andover, and as the referee overruled it,

Andover broke into the field to rough-house the
referee, and of course Exeter had to stand up
for him.

“There was a bad time before the fight was
stopped, and a good many were killed and
wounded on both sides. I was there after the
thing was over and saw the dead laid out in rows.
That was bad enough, but not nearly as bad as
hearing the wounded cry for water and beg the
by-standers to put them out of their misery.”’

Gramp paused, sighed, and smoked reminis-
cently for a few moments, while the boys stared
with astonishment and half smiles of incredulity,
which changed to very serious looks as they saw
Gramp’s look of profound seriousnessand Daniel’s
sober phiz.

TALES '\OF , GRAM P 133

“Go on, Gramp,” said Dick at last, as Gramp
sat staring into vacancy, his mind evidently intent
on visions of the past; “tell us about the game
of °42, when you played.”

“Oh yes, Dick, where was I?” said Gramp.
“T know now, it was about the game of ’39.
Well, naturally this created a good deal of feeling
between the schools, and the games were stopped
for a year or so. Then the doctors of the town,
aided by the druggists, the dealers in artificial
limbs, glass eyes, and false teeth, the dentists,
and the undertakers, all signed a petition to the
faculty of both schools to allow the game to be
played as usual, stipulating that they would use
their influence with the students to have a more
open game played. |

“The undertakers rather objected to this, as
they got their profit out of the fatalities, but
finally it was brought about that the game of ’42
was played on the campus in front of the Exeter
school.

“Well, as I was saying, Dickie,” continued
Gramp, “that game with Andover beat every-
thing so far. People came from all over the coun-
try. They crowded the windows and housetops.
Andover had her strongest eleven on the field.
There were some very peculiar looking men in
the Andover line, who attracted much attention
by their enormous muscular development. We

134 FARMING IT

did not know until some time after the game that
Andover had hired Yankee Sullivan, John C.
Heenan, and Awful Gardner, famous _ prize-
fighters, and had given them easy courses in
theology to keep them in school. They had tried
to work in Molyneux, the nigger who went to
England to fight Jackson, and they put pipe-
clay on him; but it cracked and fell off the first
five minutes of play, and the Southerners of both
sides drew the color-line.

“We had some outside assistance, too, for we
did n’t intend to be behind in good works. So
we had introduced to the membership of the-
Junior Class the three strongest men in town, all
blacksmiths, — Jim Ellison, Charles Lane, and
Adoniram J. Towle. True enough, they had n’t
been in the Academy long enough to get much
of a mastery of Latin or Greek, and intended
to return to their anvils as soon as the game was
over.

“T was playing right guard against Yankee
Sullivan, and in the first line-up I got one in the
jaw that nearly floored me. I knew then what
was up, and the next time the ball was put in play
I dodged his left and put in a counter of my own,
and there was a hole in the Andover line through
which our right half-back made a run of forty-
five yards to a touchdown right between the
posts. After the goal was kicked and we went

TALES OF GRAMP 135

back to pick up Yankee Sullivan, we found that
the subs had picked him up and put him in the
ambulance.”’

“Was he killed, Gramp ?”’ asked Dick.

“No, not quite. I understand he partly re-
covered, but never was any good in the ring again,
and was lynched in California some years after.

“In the next ten minutes’ play, Andover made
a touchdown through Jim Ellison, our centre,
who could n’t stand up to Heenan. Jim was
strong and gritty, but could n’t box. So after a
conference between the coach and captain, I was
put in ascentre. [ saw Heenan’s face fall when he
found me opposite him, and I knew I had him
licked. He was a tough customer, and in the next
rush bored in on my slats as I swung on his jaw;
we then clinched, and I back-heeled him, and our
left half- back made twenty yards through the
hole before he was downed.

“The next rush Heenan rather bested me, I
must confess, as he butted me in the stomach,
and Awful Gardner, having thrown Charles Lane,
secured the ball and came through centre for a
run of one hundred and eighty-seven yards.”’

“Gee! Gramp,” interrupted Dick, “how far
was it between goals ?”’

“"T'wo hundred yards,” replied Gramp. “You
see, we had got within ten feet of their goal-line,
and when Awful was downed he was on our three-

136 FARMING IT

yard line. ‘The question then was whether we
would hold them for downs. Well, on the next
line-up Heenan tried a tremendous upper cut,
which I dodged, and the force of his blow turned
him a complete back summerset, and while he
was in the air I dove underneath him, got the
ball from their quarter-back before he could pass
it to the backs, and when the crowd overtook me
I was lying between the Andover goal-posts with
the ball safely over the line.

“When the goal was kicked and the sides

separated, Heenan was found still turning sum-

mersets like an animated pin-wheel, not having

been able to stop, and time was called until he
could be stopped and recover from his giddiness.

“This, of course, caused a good deal of cheer-
ing for me, and gave us a decided lead over An-
dover. So far nobody had been killed, and only
a few crippled for life, and the first half closed
with Exeter leading Andover by the score of twelve
to nothing.

‘*“In the fifteen minutes’ rest between halves,
the Mayor and Common Council waited on me
in Dr. Soule’s parlor, and informed me that the
Board of Trade and the Faculty and the Deacon
_ of the United Churches were going to give me
a banquet at the Squamscott after the game,
provided we won and prevented Andover from
scoring.

wi - ——— a ee a a er ae

oF La. adhe a. — + Ie Ce ee te ee

ee

TALES OF GRAMP 137

“You can imagine this made me feel good,
and I determined to do my utmost to win by a
big score. But when we lined up for the second
half, I found that Lane had given place to a new
man, and that Towle, although still playing at left
guard, was about all in. This really put me op-
posite two men, Awful Gardner and Heenan,
a pretty bad place for a young fellow of nineteen
against two of the best heavy-weight prize-
fighters the world had ever seen.

“To add to this, all the plays were directed
through me. So you see, Dickie, I was in fora
warm afternoon. And a warm one it was for a
fact. Every time the ball was put in play, Awful
would fell Towle to the earth, and then he and
Heenan would swing for my jaw and lead for my
wind with heavy rights and lefts, while I could
only get in one blow to their two. I noticed, how-
ever, that I kept them from getting through, and
after a half dozen line-ups I found they were
weakening.

“T then put in play a dodge that Andover
could n’t block and had no way of meeting. I
whispered to the quarter to keep back far enough
to give me a free swing and be ready with the
ball. Then, when play was called, I waited until
Heenan or Awful made the first rush for me,
then seized the first one, dashed him against the
other, rushed back, grabbed the ball and started

138 FARMING IT

through the hole I had made, generally making
from thirty to forty yards.

“Neither Heenan nor Awful could stop that
play, and before the game was called I had made
sixteen unaided touchdowns, from which twelve
goals were kicked, which left the score with
-what we had made in the first half, 104 to 0.

“That evening we had a banquet at the Squam-
scott. I was the only one of the eleven, and the
only one who took part in the game besides the
referee and the time-keeper, who could appear
at table. We had a fine spread and good speeches
were made. Dr. Soule made an address in Latin’
and I made a brief response in the same language,
and we all sang a Latin ode composed by the
pastor of the church in the Academy yard, and
which ended with, —

‘Ad Hades cum Andoveria!’

three times, and the school yell. I had a copy of
it somewhere but I suppose it was lost.

“Well, that was all very flattering and nice,
especially when they all filed by my chair to shake
hands and the faculty said,

‘Macte, puer, virtute’;

but what I valued most was when I was called
into Heenan’s and Awful Gardner’s rooms,
where they lay swathed in bandages and smelling

TALES OF GRAMP 139

of iodoform, witch-hazel and New England rum.
I sat on the edge of the bed, and they both said
they had fought the best men in England and
America and had never run up against any one
who could hold a candle to me. They wanted
to train me for the ring to beat the best man in
England, but I told them I was thinking of study-
ing for the ministry, and I could n’t give that up.

“That’s all, Dickie, my boy; but when you
hear people talking of the modern game of
football and a few dinky collar-bones broken, just
tell them of the way we played in *42 and ’43,
when men were killed and crippled for life,
won’t you ?”’ }

“Gee!” said Dick, “that was a game.”

“Gee!’’ chimed in the students, “I guess we
must be going’”’; and they stole off on tiptoe, while
Gramp winked at Daniel and filled his pipe
afresh.

On another occasion Gramp had been holding
forth to a select crowd on a favorite hobby of his.
Gramp always maintained that if he had a few
acres of land and one thousand hens he could
readily make at least one thousand dollars per
year, or an average of one dollar per biddy. With
care of an extraordinary nature fifteen hundred
dollars would be not unreasonable.

Various opinions were advanced, and finally

140 FARMING IT

Daniel’s opinion was asked; and in reply he im-
provised the following sonata.

“Now, gentlemen,” said Daniel, with Lies at-
tractive smile, “I will admit that my friend
George knows more about old harnesses and
pre-colonial buggies than any man in our vicin-
ity ; but as for hens, he knows absolutely nothing.
Now I have studied into the matter, experimented
a good deal, and have been the wiser by experi-
ence. I never raised a hen that did n’t cost me
three dollars, and which would have sold under
the most favorable conditions for seventy-five

cents. I never got a dozen of eggs from my hens ©

that did n’t stand me forty-eight cents when the
market price was twenty-two, and a dollar and
seventy-five when the market was forty-eight.
I never ate one of my chickens at a less price than
sixty cents a pound when Boston quotations
were twenty-four.”

“Nonsense, Daniel,’ interrupted Gramp with
a sniff, “you did n’t know how to go about it.”

“T tell you, George,’ said Daniel, raising his
voice, “I know what I am talking about. What
do you suppose your son’s experience is?”

“What ? him!”’ said Gramp in disgust. “ Why, .

if he drank a glass of cistern water, it would cost
him ten cents.”

Well,’ said Daniel, “I guess he is no worse
than the rest of us, but let me give you my ex-

a a

MOS Ons > aes. = ee

pe

ca eee ee ee LP oe eet e ot

hie

Me ee re

TALES OF GRAMP 141

perience. You say a hen ought to average a dollar
a year profit. That is all right provided it did n’t
cost anything to keep a hen during that time. But
the profit must be figured on the cost, and the
question is, what does it cost to keep a hen a
year? Isn’t that so, boys?”

“'That’s all right, Daniel,” chimed in the boys.

“Well,” rejoined Daniel, “what does it cost to
keep a hen a year? Frankly, I don’t know, for I
never limited operations to one hen. If, as my
wife has frequently told me, I had been contented
with one hen, and had kept her in a hen-proof en-
closure where she could n’t by any possibility get
out and ruin flower-beds, and defile the front
steps, and make the face of nature a howling,
cackling wilderness from morning to night, then
perhaps I would have known where I stood, and
most assuredly would have known where she
stood in the matter.

“Nor can I estimate in mere dollars and cents
the actual expense of keeping many hens, for
there are some things whose value cannot be
reduced to legal tender. So to average the thing I
will estimate my hen-holdings at twenty-five
birds. First, I bought the twenty-five fowl, pay-
ing therefor fancy prices for very common hens.
I am glad that I cannot remember what they cost
me. Next, I fed them generously for a year, and
that cost I cannot estimate, thank Heaven! My

142 FARMING IT

time, of no particular value, I also eliminate from
the estimate.

“What else did they cost ?

“First, the love and affection of my wife; and
really an unprejudiced person could not fail to
be immensely impressed with the size and variety
of her repertoire on the hen question.

“Second, the lining of several coats, caused by
carelessly putting new laid eggs into my pockets
and forgetting them until I sat down on them.

“Third, the regard of kind neighbors, whose

flower and vegetable-gardens have been ruined

by some other person’s hens masquerading as’

mine.

“Fourth, the necessity of repainting at great
expense a democrat wagon and a concord, which
had, without my knowledge or consent, served
as roosts during the winter for several vagrant
biddies which eschewed the comforts of the hen-
house.

“Fifth, public disgrace of the entire family in
serving to distinguished guests breakfast bacon
and addled and explosive eggs, taken by mistake
from under a setter.

“Sixth, a permanent scar on my face, received
in taking a setter off her nest.

“Seventh, my arm in a sling for ten days as a
result of separating two fighting cocks, and re-
celving a prodigious thump and a deep spur-

—-

TALES OF GRAMP 143

wound in my left hand, from one of the comba-
tants which was in the act of making a pass at
his opponent at the exact moment I interfered.

“Eighth, re-sodding my own lawn and those of
several neighbors.

“Ninth, loss of sleep from early crowing and
consequent mental disturbance and melancholia.

“Tenth, my reputation as a worthy citizen
merged in the unsavory character of a sport.

“Eleventh, have become wind-broken from
being called upon at any time of the day to join
the family in a desperate race about the neighbor-
hood, to head off and corral squawking pullets.

“Twelfth, have offered two dollar and a half
cups to local poultry shows which have been duly
advertised as fifteen dollar cups, to my lasting
infamy and disgrace.

“Thirteenth, have contracted the roup, the
pip, and chicken-pox from similarly affected
poultry. |

“Fourteenth, stepped on a hen in the dark at
the top of the stairs in the barn, and descended
like a mountain avalanche or a snowslide from
atin roof, accompanied by a tin pail of corn-meal,
a lantern, and a torrent of imprecations on hens
in particular and everything else in general,
generous distribution of eggs and corn-meal,
total eclipse of lantern, and severe fracture of
tin pail.

144 FARMING «tt

“Fifteenth, protracted lameness caused by last-
mentioned rapid transit.

“Sixteenth, shot at predatory cat with chicken
in mouth. Missed eat, but killed mother hen and
eight small chicks, broke two panes of glass, and
scared an hysterical neighbor into spasms.

“Figure this out for yourself, strike a balance
if you can, and then decide *‘ What profiteth it a
man if he gain the whole world,’ but lose every
shred of his reputation as a man and a brother,
a citizen and a neighbor, a husband and a father.

“Well,” said Daniel, rising slowly and pon-
derously, as a sporty-looking individual, driving ~
a rakish-looking chestnut with boots, drove
into his yard, “it looks like a horse trade”’ ; and
with one accord the assembly adjourned to see
Daniel do up the sporty stranger.

CHAPTER XVI
THE SHOWER

eenge| BLAZE of sunlight, a yellow gleam
Bara eya| of dusty road, a brown expanse of
ae Z%e| parched and dying lawns, of drooping

misters) leaves, a dry filing of crickets in the
bayfields, and a bank of purple-black clouds
rising rapidly in the west.

Beneath the currant bushes, now crimson with
fruit, the fowls with drooping wings and with
wide-opened mouths, pant with the heat. Nota
bird-song is heard; only a faint and distant coo-
ing from the pigeon-loft makes the stillness more
marked. All nature seems prostrated by the heat
of early afternoon. In the distance the faint rattle
of the mowing machines sounds hot and dry.

On the main business street the sun blazes with
an oven-like heat. Under the shade of the
withered elms and faded maples stand the store
horses, with drooping heads, stamping impa-
tiently at the flies. An occasional heavy cart
rumbles by, the driver lolling with throat bare
and shirt sleeves rolled to his shoulders. The
street is dry, dusty, panting and lifeless.

146 FARMING IT

Suddenly a faint and prolonged roll of thunder
is heard, dying away gradually. Then the silence
is profound, for every cricket has ceased its filing.
Then a quick flash, so indistinct that it is well-
nigh invisible and seems but a quick vibration of
the atmosphere.

A long wait, and again a profound rumble punc-
tuated with deep and resounding thumps, like a
cannon ball rolled down the attic-stairs, slowly
dies away; yet the sun blazes fiercely and the
leaves of the trees hang pulseless, the birds are
silent, and the air dense and motionless.

Again a flash, and this time a vivid one, and—

after a shorter interval a thunderous roll of mus-
ketry. Suddenly it grows dark, a greenish, glim-
mering, purplish light, then a brilliant jagged
flash tears across the blackness, followed by a
wrenching, rattling peal of thunder, but not a
drop of rain falls.

Then with a roar and a cloud of dust the wind
is upon us. The trees bend and writhe and lash
the air like giant snakes. ‘There is a blinding,
vivid flash, a rattling roar of thunder, and then
the rain comes. First, in huge spats that splash
in the dust with large irregular blotches; then a
driving torrent that fills the gutters to raging
streams, makes foaming sprays of the conduc-
tors, and lays the grass as flat as if a scythe had
passed over it.

=

a

gh ee A ee ee: ee Oe eo ee

THE SHOWER 147

The darkness has increased until the sudden
flashes of lightning seem doubly blinding, the
rain comes down in slanting arrows, with a rush-
ing, hissing roar that almost drowns the thunder.
The sewer-holes are swirling whirlpools choked
with leaves, twigs, and litter of every sort.

And now a deluge of humanity, caught in the
rain which has come so suddenly, passes through
the square and seeks shelter from the downpour
in every direction. It is interesting to note the
different types. It is possible to study human
nature and anatomy, and to blend instruction
and amusement in this view from our office-
windows.

Here comes a fat woman, with puffy ankles
bulging from flat, soft shiny shoes with an elastic
V-shaped gore in the sides. She wears whity-gray
stockings of generous size, and toes in. She is
evidently a person of some determination, as she
elbows her way to the shelter of the nearest awn-
ing. She is rosy, well-dressed, and evidently
prosperous, but I am glad I’m not a fat woman
with bulging ankles in whity-gray stockings.

Three barefooted boys come next, laughing,
tussling, pushing, and playing tricks on one an-
other. The rain splashes on their bare heads
and drenches them, but they seek no shelter, but
shout, laugh, and splash through the swirling
torrents, like ducks.

148 FARMING IT

Then comes a thin-legged, gaunt man with
loose trousers, too short, and frock-coat, too long.
Why should a thin-legged, gaunt man wear loose
trousers and why, of all things, a frock-coat ?
The water drips from his hat-brim as he strides
powerfully for shelter. The wind blows his wet
trousers against his shanks, disclosing the ex-
treme attenuation of his figure, astonishing to the
beholder.

Look! here comes a ponderous individual car-
rying an umbrella. He walks easily, his chest
protrudes, he appears conscious, perhaps a trifle
over-conscious, of his vast superiority to climatic
conditions. He would not run from a shower,
not he. The rain pours and the procession of
passers-by scurry in every direction. Ordinary
everyday people may grow excited over such
trivial matters as a wetting, but he has cultivated
the true spirit of dignity and repose. He takes
things as they come, and rises superior to his
surroundings.

See, as he passes the Town Hall a gust of wind
from the north strikes him. His umbrella drives
sou’-sou’-east. He clings to it with desperation.
A fatal mistake, for it goes inside-out like a boy
doing a handspring. His imitation panama fol-
lows; his hair, growing from the sides and care-
fully brought up and pasted over his cranium to
hide his baldness, is blown from its moorings and

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THE SHOWER 149

flutters fringe-like from a dome like a shiny
new-laid egg.

From a calm, peaceful, well-balanced ‘philos-
opher, he becomes a raging, gibbering maniac.
He rushes after the fleeing hat and bounding
umbrella. Can he overtake them ? The wind isa
sixty-mile-an-hour gale, in gusts. He cannot do
better than twenty. Away he goes and is soon out
of sight. None too soon, however, for although
the picture is exhilarating, his language is calcu-
lated to chill the blood, and his wild, furious
gestures, his frenzied, rolling eyes, are disquiet-
ing to the sensitive.

As he disappears, a supple, slight, graceful
young lady comes tripping along. Here is some-
thing worth while. Dorothy Dodds in tan and
tan hose. She holds her dress a trifle high, but I
can forgive a good deal in that line. See! she
comes to a deep puddle. Well! really! that was
a little — never mind, it was necessary, and she
did it very gracefully, and I would not have
missed it for anything.

She is followed by a well-groomed young man
who is so interested in the contemplation of her
many charms that he walks off the sidewalk into
about a foot of muddy water. Serves him right,
too!

Now comes an old scrub-woman with faded
brown shawl closely wrapped about her bent

150 FARMING IT
shoulders, a little black hat dingy with age and

depressed over one eye, and rubbers through
the holes of which the water squshes as she plods
along. Rain or shine, it is all one to her provided
she gets work enough and it is warm enough.
She has long ceased to care for such things. And
yet she once was a fun-loving, laughing, trim-
built young girl. But that must have been long
years ago. Poor old thing!

The rain still falls. The streets and square
are deserted. ‘The thunder rolls at intervals,
but the shower is passing. A gleam of sunshine
strikes through a rift in the clouds and turns the
falling drops to gold. From without comes the
sweet homely song of the chipping sparrow.

CHAPTER XVII
MILKING

San eee] HAVE bought a cow. For many years
Sa Boe] I have looked, longed for, and lan-
S88 Buex| cuished after a cow, have studied the

3) cow markets, have always attended
auctions where cows were likely to be sold under
the hammer, have made it a point to be present
on the square Friday afternoons in the fall sea-
son, to see the droves, and have never sufficiently
admired the shrewd and professional way in
which huge and unwieldy men in slouch hats,
blue frocks and leather boots, and carrying whips,
will enumerate the good points of a particular
animal to a prospective purchaser.

Indeed, 1t was always my ambition and my
sincere determination, not only to own a cow, but
on some bright day in October, when the frosts
are sharp of a morning, the sunshine warm at
noon, and the air cool and bracing towards
evening, to make the trip from Gilmanton to
Brighton with those same jolly, fat, and cattle-
flavored men, whom I so much admired. How
many times have I anticipated the pleasant

152 FARMING @T

evenings in the country taverns on the route, the
long rides through the country roads piled high
with red and yellow leaves, the chaffering and
bargaining in the village squares, the meeting of
strange droves and the locking of horns of rival
leaders, the shouts of the drovers, the wild dashes
after escaping cattle, the thousand and one bits of
experience and information that one would glean,
and the pleasant acquaintances one would make!
Alas! those days have passed, and with them
the jolly giants of the road; the “ Drover rides on
his raids no more,” and the only thing left is

memory. No, I have forgotten, my cow is left, for »

I truly believe my cow is one of the first animals
driven over the road in the old days. For she is
old, my friends, a veritable antique, a sort of colo-
nial sideboard of a cow, with curved, spindly legs,
and knobs and peaks to hang things on, and hol-
lows to hold things, and handles to take hold of.

The abandoned villain and former friend who
sold me this cow assured me that this was a cow
as was a cow, an easy milker, kind, eats next
to nothing, cheapest cow to keep he ever saw,
nearly fills a pail to the brim every milking, —
so she does, a quart pail,— and all for thirty-five
dollars.

Now [ had inquired and found that a good cow
ought to bring seventy-five dollars, and here was
(at least according to my friend’s description) a

ESE OE TOOL NANT A NNT iN I tl a a te

MILKING 153

rather remarkable animal offered for thirty-five.
It was too good a chance to lose, and I embraced
the opportunity and made the purchase. If I had
embraced the cow instead, I should have found
out what a bony old hat-rack she was. But as
she was in a close stall in a dark barn, I did not
take the opportunity of examining my purchase
with the care one should observe in making 1m-
portant deals.

I only knew that she had soulful eyes, a trust-
ing manner, and smelled like a freshly fertilized
lawn on a hot evening when the “Current Events
Club” is dining with your wife.

As the place of the transaction was about ten
miles from my residence, I sent a husky German
with a cow-rack to bring her home. It seemed
somewhat like sending a carriage for an invalid,
but I was anxious to get her home and see if she
could fill that ten- "quart pail I had purchased the
night before.

The German started before light Sunday morn-
ing, and at about noontime, when happy children
in white were returning from church accom-
panied by their mothers and grandmothers, and
smug gentlemen in frock-coats and white neck-
ties, and bearing hymn books and “ Day Springs ”
under their arms, were coming home from divine
worship, and the air was full of the sweet incense

of the Sabbath, Ludwig drove through Front

154 FARMING IT

Street, perched on the rack, and smoking a long
meerschaum. Inside the rack was a light russet-
colored animal, evidently made of barrel-staves.
Had the animal not been inside the rack, it would
have been difficult if not impossible to distinguish
the cow from the rack.

He drove into the yard, and without speaking
unloaded the animal, received his pay, and
started to leave. Just before he got out of the
yard, he stopped and said, “ Mist’ Shute, dat
cow he die pret’ soon. He pretty old cow.”

I dragged her into a stall, fed her with corn-
stalks, hay, carrots, middlings, gluten, cotton- —
seed meal, shorts, sweet apples, and potato par-
ings, until she was distended like a balloon, and
waited expectantly for milking time.

Hours dragged slowly, but still the cow ate on.
I made a hurried calculation on the back of a
shingle, and found I had given her eighty-three
cents’ worth of food, and the supply in front of
her was fast running short. But five o’clock
came before she bellowed for a new supply, and
I grasped my bright new pail, turned up a bucket
for a milking-stool, took off my outer garments,
my collar, cuffs, and necktie, hung them on vari-
ous projections of her anatomy, sat down and
began to milk. The first squeeze I made sent a
hissing snowy stream into one shoe. The next
connected with the palm of my hand and fizzled

MILKING 155

a fine spray all over me. The third did not mate-
rialize, because she side-stepped away from me
so suddenly that she broke my grip and I found
myself on all fours with my head in the milk-
pail. I arose and apostrophized her profanely,
then sat down and resumed practice. This time
I hit the pail twice before she swung around in
my direction and landed me, heels up. I arose,
smote her several thumps with the bucket, and
invented an entirely new cuss-word to suit the
occasion.

Then I began, again taking the precaution to
sit as far from her rear elevation as possible. This
time she kicked me. It is astonishing how far
forward a cow can reach with her hind foot. I
retaliated with a drop kick in her stomach, which
sounded like a bass-drum. She made another
pass at me with her hind foot, but I saw it coming,
dodged, and punted her to the forty-five yard
line again, where she was held for downs. This
closed the first round with honors even.

The next round commenced with both com-
batants feinting and dodging all over the ring.
I secured a strangle hold on her, and extracted
about a wine-glass full before she felled me to
earth and trod over my prostrate person. I was
not hurt, through that special providence that
watches over fools and drunken men, and it is
well known that I am a temperate man.

156 FARMING IT

After I had put my knee in the pail and pulled
and bent it into shape, I gave her a quart or more
gluten to take up her attention, and fell to again.
This time I succeeded better, and before she had
eaten the gluten I had nearly covered the bot-
tom of the pail with foaming milk, interspersed
with hayseed, dandruff and sawdust. Having
finished her gluten, she looked around, appeared
surprised at my determination, and put her foot
in the pail; I called time, emptied the pail for ex-
pectant fowl, which, by the way, have formed
the habit of gathering around me during the
milking hour, or hour and a half, wiped the pail —
out with my handkerchief, and took a fresh hold.
This time I retired as far forward as her shoulder,
reached a couple of yards backward, and, in
spite of her kicking, she could not locate me.

Thus did my anatomical peculiarities, coupled
with science, prevail over brute strength. I smiled
orimly from my point of vantage, and squeezed
and pulled manfully, while that wretched cow
stood with her back humped and her belly
drawn up, holding back with all her bovine
might.

You have all heard how the crocodile lies in
wait until his prey gets within reach of its power-
ful tail, when with a circular sweep it is thrown
into the cavernous jaws. ‘This cow suddenly re-
versed the programme, for she violently swung

MILKING 157

her head round, caught me in the rear with her
knobby horns, butted me within reach of her
hind leg, kicked me back, butted me again, and I
escaped only by abjectly crawling out of the stall.

I threw up the sponge. It was a clean knock-
out. I could not have gone back into the ring if
the referee had counted one hundred. But I felt
that if that cow was not milked that night, there
was danger of an explosion before morning, so
I called in a neighbour of ripe experience, who,
to my great horror, took a seat on the off side of
the animal.

“Took out,’ I yelled, “don’t get on that side,
she will kill you.”

“What are you talking about ?”’ he inquired,
with astonishment, “have you been milking on
the right side ?”’

“Yes,” I replied, “of course I have.”

“Why, you plumb idiot, it was a wonder she
didn’t kill you,” he replied.

“She has,’’ I assured him.

Since that time my intimacy with that cow has
ripened into true friendship. We get along charm-
ingly. Like Bill Nye’s cow, she gives milk fre-
quently. She has phenomenal digestive powers
and eats continuously. What becomes of her food
is a question to baffle a government expert. She
has not gained an ounce of flesh. Theoretically,
she ought to give about forty quarts per day.

158 FARMING IT

Practically, she reluctantly yields about three
pints, of which one pint is distributed more or
less impartially over my clothes, the cow, and the
surroundings.

My milk costs me approximately twenty-six
and one-half cents a quart.

Is there any one who wants to buy a cow that
is a cow, an easy milker, kind, eats next to no-
thing, cheapest cow to keep you ever saw, nearly
fills a pail to the brim at every milking? She is
a blue-blooded animal with a pedigree. I haven’t
the pedigree, but I know she is blue-blooded,
because she gives blue-edged milk.

CHAPTER XVIII
- THE CALF — ANOTHER FOOTRACE

eee XPERIENCED farmers have all
=4 Sees) united in an opinion that a cow should
| go dry at least six weeks before the

imac] calf comes. This serves a double pur-
pose. The cow gets a rest and a chance to re-
cuperate from the strain of giving a pint of milk
in a ten-quart pail twice a day, and the merry
farmer has six weeks to get the cramps out of his
hands, caused by trying to get the cow to part
with that pint of milk, and the stain out of his
soul, caused by his lying about the amount.

In this way much good is done to the old line-
back and to the old moss-back, and both are
benefited to a very great degree. The cow grows
fat on good food and inaction, but the farmer
grows thinner, if possible, because one source of
income, to-wit the milk, is cut off. |

However, as I was assured that this was the
proper thing, I was determined to carry it out at
all hazards. I didn’t just know how to go to work.
If the cow had been addicted to smoking, I could
have made her smoke rattan, which, as every

160 FARMING IT

boy knows, dries up the blood, and, of course,
could have no other effect upon the milk.

This being out of the question, I then thought
of giving her doses of alum. You see, when I was
a boy and had a canker in my mouth, which was
always explained to me by my mother as being the
direct result of saying bad words, and which for
many good reasons I could not deny, a little alum
rubbed on the affected part puckered up my lips
so that they looked like the stem end of a green
tomato, and made my mouth so dry that I
couldn’t spit through my teeth, another acconi-
plishment of mine, for a week. But how I could ©
whistle!

Naturally, this occurred to me as a facile
means of drying up the old cow, but before put-
ting it in operation I consulted the fountainhead
of all bucolic knowledge, Daniel, my rosy and
jocose neigbor.

“How much milk does she give?’ queried
Daniel, in answer to my request for instructions.

“About a pint and a half,” I replied.

“Dry! How much drier do you expect to get
her ?”’ exclaimed Daniel with some heat. “If I
had a cow that didn’t give but a pint at a milk-
ing, I should think she was pretty almighty dry.
You don’t want to endanger your premises by
getting her so dry that you can’t take a lantern
into the barn, do you ?”’

THE CALF 161

“Well, no,” I replied doubtfully, “but I want
her dry.”’

“Don’t milk her to-morrow,” said Daniel.

So the next morning I omitted to milk her,
and before noon my wife was in tears, three small
children in the neighborhood had convulsions,
and five complaints were entered to the proper
authorities that | was maintaining a nuisance in
keeping a bellowing cow.

So at noon [ milked her and got a quart. Then
I went to Daniel again.

“Don’t feed her,’’ said Daniel.

So that noon [ didn’t fill the manger, but tied
her under an open shed. Before night, several
old ladies in the neighborhood were taken with
nervous prostration, and I was served with a
quo warranto, a mandamus, a ne exeat regno, a
notice of a hearing on a petition for an injunc-
tion, a libel for divorce, and arrested on a warrant
on a complaint charging me with conspiracy to
make a tumult in the compact part of the village.

As the last-mentioned instrument was returna-
ble before my own court, I did not worry about it,
but hastily fed the querulous and bellowing ani-
mal, and returned to my office where I drew up
as an answer to the other actions: “ Necessarium
est quod non potest aliter se habere.” This
calmed my mind somewhat. I had at least got
some cases on the docket to defend.

162 FARMING IT

I then returned to Daniel.

‘‘Damn the cow!” said Daniel.

“That don’t amount to anything,”’ I replied,
“T have done that for months.”’

“Kall her then,’ he retorted, and washed his
hands of the affair.

This was perhaps the best advice he had given,
but I couldn’t bring myself to do violence to so
old and tried a chum. We had had too many
wildly exciting times together. She was rough,
but I always could depend on her to do the best
she could and give me a square tussle.

In due time the calf came and was pronounced ~
a beauty. He — much to my regret it was a he
—did not seem exactly handsome or shapely.
On the contrary, he seemed a sprawling heap of
awkward, bony, wobbly legs.

Indeed, he spent the best part of the first day
in awkward attempts to rise, and prodigious suc-
cesses in the way of heavy crumpled-up tumbles.
But in a few days, Moses! how that calf could
run, kick and butt.

We naturally had a little reception for it. You
see, a calf is a new thing to us and we were proud
of it, — her, — him, I mean. So one day as I
was exhibiting it, — him — to several neighbors,
he reached forward, caught hold of a button on
my vest, just over the pit of my stomach, and
mouthed it in the most cunning manner. I held

THE (OG ” 163

my breath so as not to scare it, and the ladies
were in ecstasies. I did not hold my breath long,
however, for suddenly the animal, with the nat-
ural intent to increase the flow of milk, gave me
a terrific bunt with its nose, in which all the weight
of its body and all the convulsive power of its sud-
denly stiffened legs were expended.

All the breath in my body was expelled with
such violence that I only regained it after a par-
oxysm of hoarse gasps and startling hawks,
which antics and involuntary inch-wormings, I
am sorry to say, entertained my callers far more
than the antics of the calf.

When the calf was three weeks old, it had de-
veloped speed of a race-horse quality and fre-
quently dragged me about the premises with un-
paralleled swiftness, and at the end of a stout
rope. This was good exercise for both of us,
and kept down the increasing flesh of over-
maturity. |

One day, as I was coming from the office, I
saw the calf coming down the street from my
premises at a wild gallop, flinging up his heels
and dragging a long rope. I was not quick enough
to head him off, but with rare presence of mind
jumped with both feet on the rope as the animal
shot by me like a flash of lightning. When [ lit
I was nearly a rod from the starting-place and
on my head and shoulders. People who saw me

164 FARMING IT

in the air said I looked like a pinwheel, so rapid
were my revolutions.

I was mad! Thoroughly mad! Fighting mad!
I would catch that devilish calf if I burst some-
thing; and I took up the running.

Scientists say that the wild ass of the desert is
the swiftest of all animals. Be it so; but without
desiring to institute any comparisons, I must ac-
knowledge that a certain tame one developed the
most astonishing burst of speed on Pine and Front
Streets on that day that ever drew the attention
of the sporting world.

Round the corner of Pine and Front we went, .
I on one wheel and the calf heeling dangerously
to leeward and with its keel half out of water.

Righting ourselves, we flew along like Inter-
national Cup winners. In front of the Seminary
entrance, by terrific sprinting, I had nearly closed
the gap between us. From the Seminary entrance
to Tan Lane the calf drew away from me, as my
spark-plug fell out or my carbureter failed to
carburet.

At the lower part of the Academy yard I was
almost within reach of my opponent’s rudder,
but failed to grasp it. Suddenly he tacked abruptly
into Elm Street, while I skidded to Conner’s
fence and ripped off a tire, but kept on with fran-
tic gasping jumps. Just in front of the Unitarian
Church I had made up my lost space, when the

A\ eee 2 Ge « |
Ss. Ml Ee is

24K OS

hn ase
or en
we

I WAS MAD! THOROUGHLY MAD! FIGHTING MAD!

Tak CARR 165

calf suddenly stopped and we came together like
two football tackles, amid a cloud of dust. I had
run down my prize.

As I slowly returned up Front Street, breath-
less but triumphant, I received many laughing
congratulations over my fleetness and determina-
tion. Just as I was about to reénter my yard,
I heard Daniel from his piazza across the way
shout, ‘* Say, old man, no end obliged to you for
bringing back my calf. Saved me lots of trouble.
Let the man hitch him in my barn, please.”

Sure enough, a glance showed my calf lying
quietly under a tree, safely tethered to a crowbar,
while I had chased his infernal calf over two
miles at race-horse speed. In a sort of daze I
handed the grinning man the rope, looked at my
torn and dusty clothes, my shoe with the sole
gone and my ruined hat.

“ Curse your calf!’’ I hissed, and limped pain-
fully into my house. |

CHAPTER XIX

AMATEUR THEATRICALS

fe eee) BELIEVE that a country town or
pa xe! neighborhood can receive no greater

aGee| benefit than in the introduction of
ites) new blood. My brief experience as a
nae has taught me this, and my long experi-

ence as a citizen of a country town has convinced |

me that in no way can a country community
make good its loss of young men who have an
ambition awakened in schools and colleges to
go to larger communities, than by offering every
possible inducement for young men and women
to come in from other communities.

For instance, if [ke Peterson’s son Bill goes to
Boston or New York or Seattle or Chicago, and
becomes an active and influential member of the
law firm of Strasser, Ellis & Co., our town has
lost one who might have been a useful citizen.
But if at about the time of Bill’s departure, the
junior member of the selfsame firm should, cu-
riously enough, decide to quit the city for life
on the farm, or amid semi-rural surroundings,
and, more curiously still, should decide to be-

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 167

come a free lance in the same community that
Bill has quit, why then we “break even,” to use a
sporting phrase, at least so far as number goes;
but in reality we are better off, for we get a citi-
zen with advanced ideas, imbued with the hus-
tling spirit of city life, which cannot fail to have
an influence for good on the small community.
To be sure, New York or Seattle or Chicago or
Boston has Bill, which we hope is a good thing
for them and for Bill. But the effect of Bill’s in-
vasion is not immediate or in any way disturbing
to the urban community.

But if, instead of the junior partner of the
firm, the young and zealous assistant pastor of
one of the churches of Seattle or Chicago or Bos-
ton or New York becomes pastor of the local
Congregational or Baptist or Unitarian or Epis-
copal Church, why then we go Chicago or Bos-
ton or New York or Seattle “‘ one better,’ as the
moral status of the community is jacked up much
more effectively than that of Boston or New
York or Seattle or Chicago is on account of Bill’s
arrival.

By this means only is the professional, social,
financial, and moral balance preserved.

Now we have had accessions to our neighbor-
hood. I disclaim modestly any responsibility
for the fact, for the new neighbors would un-
doubtedly have come had we not lived there.

168 FARMING IT

In fact, one of the neighbors came in spite of
my repeated warnings, showing how little he
cared for my opinion.

It was in this way: one day a sturdy, stocky,
auburn-haired (I am better acquainted with
him now and call it red) young fellow came into
my office, and wished to see me for a moment.

I knew he was in no trouble, for he was too
fresh and bright-looking. I knew by his well-
bred, respectful manner that he was no book
agent or seller of patented articles.

So I willingly dropped whatever I had on hand,
and invited him to the inner office. He showed
his directness by coming at once to the point.

“T am a doctor and wish to settle in your town.
Is there a chance for me?”

“Mighty little, I’m afraid; there are Doctors
Blank, Dash, and Hyphen, and Brackett, and
Comma, and Colon, allopaths, Doctors Capital
and Lowercase, homceopaths, two college veteri-
narians, half a dozen amateurs practising in Vio-
lation of law, and several old ladies without waist-
lines who are popularly supposed to know more
than all the doctors in a certain class of cases.’

“Geel” teplied the young man, “‘it don’ t look
very promising, does it ?”’

“Not unless you are a good doctor and have
money enough to wait,” I replied.

“Well,” he said slowly, “I think I am a good

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 169

doctor. At least I have been through a good deal
of preparation. But as for money, I have enough
to fit up a house and office, and wait perhaps
six months. How many of these doctors own
automobiles ?”’

“Three,” I answered,
horses.”’

“Hm,” he said, “that looks better. If they can
all afford horses, I ought to be able to get along
by walking or using a three-year-old bike.”’

“Well,” I said, “you might. But I think you
had better try some other place. By the way,
come to lunch with me and I will talk it over
with you.”

“Thank you, no,” he answered. “I am going
to look the town over and see what I can of it
before taking my train to Boston.” And after
offering a fee, which I declined, he thanked me
and withdrew.

I had nearly forgotten him when one day he
returned, bringing with him a very attractive
young lady whom he introduced. Although they
were well-bred and consequently not in the least
demonstrative, it was at once evident that they
had more than a passing interest in each other.

As before, he came to the point with his usual
directness. ‘‘ Well, Mr. Shute, I have considered
the matter of settling, and I have decided to come.
to Exeter.”

6

‘and the rest have

170 FARMING IT

“Bully,” I replied in the expressive slang of
the period. “I think you are making a mistake,
but I like your grit and I am glad you are com-
ing; for Exeter, like all country places, needs
new blood and new ideas. Now what are you
going to do about quarters ?”’

“That ’s just what I want to see you about,”
he said.

“And it is the most important thing of all!”

And I rapidly gave him the names of several
places I thought he might get, among them an
attractive little house not far from mine.

The next day I found he had engaged that ©
place, and a few days later he began to move in
his furniture; but I saw nothing more of the
young lady for a while.

The other addition to the neighborhood came
rather suddenly, for one day in the early fall, on
returning to the office, I saw in front of a neigh-
boring house an immense van of household
goods, an excited father, a helpless mother of a
large family, a colored servant and six or seven
children, watching with devouring interest two
brawny policemen who were forcibly removing
two very drunken draymen from the vicinity with
prodigious exertion, in which catch-as-catch-can,
Greco-Roman, collar-and-elbow, hitch-and-trip,
“side holts,’ grapevine twists, hammer-locks,
cross-counters, straight lefts, jabs, upper-cuts, ©

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 171

pivots, and other technical manceuvres of the
ring and mat alternated with one another in be-
wildering rapidity, and a quality of language was
being handed round that would chill the blood of
a pirate.

Now two men, however big, strong and willing,
cannot readily, and without assistance, subdue,
handcuff, and abduct two other men equally big,
and, further, inspired by a mixture of wood-al-
cohol, fusel oil and other powerful stimulants,
known as curry-comb whiskey, even when the
two first-named gentlemen are clothed in the
majesty of the law, blue coats, brass buttons, and
helmets that rest mainly on their spreading ears.

And so, as a law-abiding citizen and a magis-
trate, it was my duty to go to the assistance of
my officers and to deliver them from their ene-
mies, which I did, without much enthusiasm,
however; and with the assistance of a lusty
peasant who came by in a farm-wagon, and the
excited father of the family, we soon had the
miscreants safely trussed and piled into the farm-
wagon, which was pressed into service with the
horse and the driver.

This accomplished, and the prisoners having
disappeared townwards amid a prodigious rat-
tling of loose wagon-wheels and terrific blas-
phemy of the chained, I turned my attention to
my new neighbors. They were in a very un-

172 FARMING IT

pleasant predicament. Their entire household
goods were in the van, including such supplies
as were necessary for immediate use. Luckily it
was warm weather, and their night’s lodging
depended upon their strength and ability to dis-
entangle and reconstruct their household furni-
ture, and night was coming on apace.

There was but one thing to do,—to march
them all over to my house, there to take pot-luck
with us.

I was a little more confident than usual in re-
lation to pot-luck, for that morning I had sent
home a particularly fine and large roast, and
ereen corn and vegetables were abundant in my
garden, and milk and eggs were always at hand.

My wife and my children, who had arrived in
time to see the closing rally when we “ flopped,”
as Dick expressed it, the draymen, somewhat
to his disgust, as he came just too late to take an
active part in the struggle, added their eloquence,
and we finally persuaded the entire family to
accept our hospitality, and after a hearty supper,
we set to work on their goods.

How easy it is to work for other people when
you are doing it out of neighborly good-feeling !
How ingenuity is awakened that you thought you
never possessed! Beds were put together that in
the annual spring-cleaning would have defied
us. Stovepipes were fitted that under ordinary

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 173

circumstances would have made a tinsmith be-
come a gibbering maniac. Stoves were lifted
and pushed into place that would have made
Hercules’ labors seem like basket-ball.

By nine o’clock the beds were up, the carpets
in place, but not tacked, the range drawing like
a furnace, the yet unbroken crockery arranged
on the shelves, pictures hung, and, what was
best of all, we had become in those few short
hours better acquainted with each and every
member of the family than we would have been
had they lived there for years; and their opinion
of our town, which had been steadily going
down from the moment they left their old home,
had mounted to a really undeserved height.

Indeed, when at a late hour we dragged our
tired legs upstairs to bed, we felt that we had
really done something worth while, and realized
how thoroughly we would have appreciated a
little attention of the sort when we entered an
alien neighborhood.

The next morning the entire family of chil-
dren were over in time to see me milk the cow
and rub down the horses, and as they had never
seen anything of the kind before, I was com-
pelled to answer about a thousand questions
before they fully understood matters.

Up to this time the neighborhood had been
emphatically not a neighborhood of children,

174 FARMING IT

but rather a neighborhood of dignified elders,
and the addition of a half dozen of irrepressibles
did much to enliven things. To be sure their ad-
vent was regarded by the neighborhood with
mixed feelings, in which distrust was a predom-
inating ingredient; but the neighborhood had
successfully weathered our invasion, and as some
of the most conservative said, “We have seen
worse things, and have lived.”’

All this time the young doctor had been paint-
ing and papering his little cottage, impaling him-
self on tacks and wire nails, abrading his shins
against sharp corners, raking, mowing and sod--
ding his lawn, and getting himself into very seri-
ous complications indeed with paint and glue
and oil and wax and adhesive paste, and lawn
mowers that would n’t mow and hammers the
heads of which flew off and broke the chandeliers,
and rakes which he stepped on and which flew
up and hit him grievous blows on the brows, and
faucets which he forgot to shut off and which
leaked all over the front-room ceiling, which fell
down on his head, and shut-offs that squirted
ice-cold water up his sleeve and down his neck,
and flat baskets of crockery and china over
which he fell with terrific crashes and unexpur-
gated oratory, and which he subsequently tried
ineffectually to piece together with cementine

and fish glue, and finally buried in the back yard.

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 1%5

I admired and pitied the doctor and loaned
him everything I could think of in the way of
tools and supplies and cheerful comment and
disinterested advice, and physical assistance in
the way of personal services of myself, my wife
and children, my horses and my cow and the
stranger within my gate.

I also introduced him to every one I could, and
spoke of him as an eminent practitioner, and did
every thing I could to advance his interests, with-
out of course sacrificing my own.

But the doctor, while working like a cart-horse
in the dusty present, was living in the future.
What if his hands were blistered and grimy, his
hat dusty and dented, his trousers, once immacu-
lately creased, worn to transparency at the knees,
his lungs clogged with dust, his throat hoarse
with powdered plaster, cellar-damp and the
raucous hissing out of anathemas on various
things, he was happy, because he was working
for some one.

His preparations advanced toward the goal of
completion, and the doctor announced a vaca-
tion for a week, after which he would bring the
attractive young lady to visit her new home be-
fore the wedding-day arrived. Upon this we
promptly asked him to bring her to our house, but
found that our neighbor Daniel had stolen a
march on us. We contented ourselves with find-

176 FARMING IT

ing out from the doctor the exact day of her visit,
and began to lay plans to make her introduction
to her new neighbors memorable.

So I called a meeting of the neighborhood at
my house for a certain evening, and to make it
more interesting provided refreshments which
included strong coffee, as the affair was weighty
and of great importance. The two delightful old
ladies arrived, escorted by their servant, who
delivered them into my charge with a good deal
of formality, during which I bowed over their
mitted hands until I felt my backbone creak and
then gave them my arm up the steps, while they’
smiled and turned out their toes gracefully as they
minced up the path.

The two old gentlemen arrived with somewhat
rusty but perfectly proper black coats of a variety
of basket-cloth popular in the early seventies,
double-breasted and with narrow shoulders, and
they bowed with fine old-fashioned courtesy to
the ladies, and sat upright in the stiffest-backed
chairs they could find. Daniel rolled in with a
jolly joke which delighted the old ladies, with
whom he was a prime favorite.

After the company had gathered, the nature of
the business was disclosed and a great variety
of suggestions was offered. Daniel suggested the
purchase of a small, handsome and safe horse
and phaeton; the generosity of which proposal

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 177

filled us with admiration, while its probable ex-
pense appalled us, and his proposal was rejected
with few dissenting voices, among which Dan-
iel’s was the loudest.

The Professor opined that a handsome dinner-
set would always be appreciated. The neigh-
bors all agreed to this, but as prevailing opinion
appeared to be in favor of doing something orig-
inal, the proposal was voted down, with apolo-
gies to the Professor. The two old ladies thought
an old-fashioned sideboard or highboy would be
a good thing. We all concurred in this with great
enthusiasm, but as nobody present was willing
to sacrifice his antique furniture, and as the en-
tire crowd were in a state of deep financial de-
pression, the idea was abandoned.

Cut glass was beyond our means, silverware
out of date, if not ditto, tin and wooden more
suitable to our station in life, and so we decided
on tin, wood, leather, zinc, and brass.

How to give them? was the next question.
This caused great discussion, in which all mem-
bers took an active part.

One of the old-fashioned gentlemen, however,
made a tremendous hit with his speech. Draw-
ing himself up to his full height and placing one
hand on his hip and flourishing his pince-nez
with the other he thus addressed us: —

“Fellow citizens,—ah, friends and neighbors,

178 FARMING IT

the felicitous — ah, nature of the coming event,
which casts, not shadows — ah, but radiant arrows
from Cupid’s bow,” (great enthusiasm and ap-
plause), “is the r-r-r-rgmm, little touch of nature
that maketh the whole world kin — ah, (applause)
the hope —ah, of posterity — ah, inherent in the
breast of man—ah, (deep blushes mantled the
cheeks of the old maiden ladies) make it incum-
bent upon us —ah, (violent tugs at his coat-tail by
the other old gentleman) to celebrate this happy —
ah, event in a somewhat unusual —ah, way. I
beg leave to move that some happy —ah, repre-
sentation, such as a play, be written by some —ah, —
talented member of our body-corporate — ah, and
be produced at some —ah, favorable time, when
all could take part.’ (Terrific enthusiasm ; pro-
longed and violent applause.)

A play, that was just what we wanted. We
would have it a bucolic play, because we were a
neighborhood of farmers, by avocation at least,
and she was from the city, and should learn to
take us as we were.

We almost forgot our refreshments, so inter-
ested were we in planning details, appointing
committees, assigning parts in advance, without
in the least knowing what the play was to be.
Finally, after prodigious discussion, and huge
consumption of fruit-punch, coffee and sand-
wiches, we decided to purchase a quantity of

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 179

kitchen-ware of wood, iron, and tin, and I was
ordered, under terrific penalties, to produce a
play deftly woven round these homely articles,
having for its scene some rural forum such as
the country store, the post office, the town-’us or
the school-’us.

The evening came, the neighbors arrived.
There was the hurried moving of stage props, a
terrific hammering behind the curtain, calls for
hammers, nails, and laths, entreaties to “get off
my head!”’ sarcastic reminders to “kindly step
off my fingers’’; queries as to “where are you
going with my step-ladder ?”’ and “who had the
rouge last ?’’ mingled with occasional and fearful
crashes as hurrying people with stage furniture
collided, and a general alarm when the curtain
suddenly blazed up from a careless candle.

In front of the curtain chairs were being ar-
ranged in convergent rows. Rocking-chairs,
leather-backed chairs, lounging chairs, dining-
room chairs, kitchen, old derelicts from the attic,
splint-seated from the store room, and every kind
and nature of hassock and footstool. People were
arriving and greeting one another in shouts, the
noise behind the curtain being such as to render
communication in the ordinary tone of voice
impossible. Finally, the uproar ceased and the
hoarse tones of the stage-manager subdued to a
husky but perfectly audible whisper were heard

180 FARMING IT

to order every one off the stage but the stage
people, for the curtain was ‘goin’ up in about
three seconds.”

There was a scurrying and giggling, a heavy
fall and a burst of half-stifled laughter, and then
the curtain rose very jerkily and disclosed : —

ScENE: A Country Store.

[Counter, hams, rubber-boots, wooden pails hanging from
the ceiling, advertisements tacked to the walls, stenciled
adv., etc., steel traps, sign,

W. I. Goods and Groceries
Timorny G. SEED

[Within, Mr. Sep, in linen duster, brimless straw hat,
leather boots with trousers tucked wnto the legs, chin-
whiskers and rich brown wig, is busy chasing the cheese
back into the cage.

Mr. Seed. — Dang this ’ere pesky cheese, ’s allus gittin’
aout a’ skally hootin’ raoun’ rite afore customers. Seems
so the old scratch was in the cussid stuff. (Thumps cheese
with pork-barrel stick.) Thar, dum ye, guess naow ye air
stunted, ye’ll lay quiet a while. Ezry! Ezry! whar is that
dumbed worthless boy, Ezry!

[Enter Ezra: boy, gumper, shortish overalls, one suspender
fastened with a nail, boots turned over at the heel, chewing
and swallowing something.

Thar ye go, allus eatin’ suthin’. Been at them dried apples
agen? ’Fi ketch ye eatin’ any more dried apples, I'll skin
ye alive. It’s a wonder they don’t swell up ’n’ bust ye.
Hev ye sanded the sugar, Ezry?

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 181

Ezra. — Yessir.

Seed. — Hev ye watered the milk ?

Ezra. — Yessir.

Seed. — Hev ye counted over the coffee?

Ezra. — Yessir.

Seed. — Hev ye aired the salt fish ?

Ezra. — Yessir.

Seed. — Hev ye giv the butter a good combin’?

Ezra. — Yessir.

Seed. — All rite, then; I want ye to go daun to Ruta J.
Bagas and tell him we draw the line on eggs that have been
set on fer nineteen days. When eggs peep so’s everybody
can hear ’em it spiles the sale, ’n’ we hev to use ’em to hum.
Stop at old Miss Grandiflora’s ’n’ tell her we got some o’
that cookin’ butter that ’s a little spiled, but good enough
for a church sociable.

[Hat Ezra, whistling; Mr. Seed goes to desk and begins
to charge up items.

Seed. — Pumpkin J. Radish, two pounds butter. That
butter ’s a little spiled, but Pump’s used snuff so long that
he hain’t got no taste ’n’ can’t tell the difference, so Pump
gits charged full price. Hardy P. Shrubb, half peck o’
potatoes, half pound o’ cheese. Lessee, wuz it the jumpy
kind, or the deef ’n’ dumb kind. Oh, yes, I remember
Hardy, he sez it got away from him on the way hum ’n’
got away into the bushes. I forgot to stunt it afore he tuk
it away.

[Enter TEMPERANCE 8S. Ruupars. Angular female, with
Paisley shawl, specs, mitts and beaded reticule.

Seed. — Howdy, Miss Rhubarb: nice day. What kin

182 FARMING IT

I dew for ye to-day? Got some nice bombazine jest in.
Right from East Rochester; think ye’d like it.

T emp. — No, thank you, Mr. Seed, I’m on a very dif-
ferent arrent to-day. (Giggles girlishly.) I want to user a
weddin’ present.

Seed. — Ye don’t say so. Ye beant goin’ ter git married,
be ye, Miss Temperance ?

Temp. (bridling). — Well, I’m sure I don’t know why
not if I wanted to.

Seed (hurriedly). — No reason ’t all, Miss Temperance;
ye might hev hed all the young fellers here if ye’d wanted
em.

Temp. — Ye know I hed my bereavement. (Wipes eyes.)

Seed. — Yes. (Sighs heavily.)

Temp. — Now what ye got cheap in wooden goods?

Seed. —Got a nice choppin’ block off that big ellum
tree.

Temp. — Well; the idea — choppin’ block! Guess he ’s
thinkin’ ’baout suthin’ besides choppin’ wood.

Seed. — That’s what he’ll be doin’ for the rist of his born
days. Sometimes it’s a mighty ’scape-valve for the feelin’s
when company ’s raoun ’n’ ye don’t take it aout in cussin’.

Temp. — Well, I guess these two won’t ever feel that ©
way. They are just tew little love-birds. It’s beautiful to
see them. (Clasps hands ecstatically.)

Seed. — Shaw, they’ll fight sure. Love-birds is the cross-
est critters I ever see. They screech and fight like tarnation
cats. I had tew onct. Set on the roost with them heads
close together. Well, they screeched, ’n’ fit, till one killed

n’ et t’ other.

Temp. — Well, this couple is different. So lovin’ and

trustin’!

AMATEUR THEATRICALS. 183

Seed. — What yer say tu spoons. Seems thet’s what
they be.

Temp. — Just the things. Two lovely wooden spoons.
Show me the best and cheapest. (Opens reticule.)

Seed (diving into corner, finds spoons with difficulty,
dusts them, blows on them, and wipes them on his trousers).
— There, ye kin hit an awful lick with one of them. When
them tew love-birds gits inter a scrap it’s a good thing to
hev suthin’ handy.

Temp. (scornfully).—1 would n’t be sinnatin’ sich
things. Ennyway, I'll take these two.

Seed (sarcastically). —One’ll be cheaper, and them
love-birds kin eat outer one, (aside) for a while.

Temp. —'Thanks. Five cents. (Pays, perks, and de-
parts.)

Seed (peering from window, soliloquizing). —Well, here
comes old Hen Peck’n’ his wife, drivin’. Well, Hen he was
a love-bird onct. Don’t look like it naou. "Member how
tarnal soft they wuz; et from the same plate at sociables,

n’ drinked from the same glass at picnics, ’n’ naou old Mis’
Peck won’t let poor old Hen set to the table, ’xcept when
they is company.

Hen Peck leroecng) — Howdy, Tim.

Seed. — Howdy, Hen. Pretty good day for the time of
the year. What yer goin’ to buy to-day?

Hen. — Nothin’ much. Want some kind of a weddin’
present. Suthin’ cheap.

Seed. — Won’t Mis’ Peck come in?

Hen. — No, she’s bad with the rheumatiz.

Seed. — What kind of a present do ye want?

Hen. — Wall, rat pizen er Paris green’s the best thing
for both on ’em.

184 FARMING. if

Seed. —Shaw, don’t talk so, Hen. "Member you’n’
M’randy wuz love-birds onct. "Member haou ye used to
drink from the same glass *n’ eat from the same —

Hen. — Shet up, Tim! I swanny, wuz I sech a dummed
fool ez that? Look at me naou Do I look like a love-bird ?

Seed. — Not much, Hen. Wall, what kind of a present
d’ ye want?

Hen. — Suthin’ cheap. Wooden ware, M’randy said.

Seed. — How ’d a rollin’-pin do?

Hen. — Jist the thing. Ye can hit a almighty tunk with
it. Sometimes seems ’s if I could knock M’randy’s head
off’n her. But she allus gits it first.

V orice from without. — Henry Peck, be ye goin ’t’ get that
present or beent ye? I don’t want to haf tu speak t’ ye
twict. |

Hen. — Yes, my dear, comin’. For the land sake, don’t
be so tarnal slow, Tim. Ten cents; don’t wrap it up.
Comin’, M’randy, comin’, my dear. (Exit hurriedly.)

Seed. — Poor Hen! M’randy was a likely critter, too.
She kind of took a shine to me fore Hen begun to set up
with her. Sometimes, I almost think she was kind of dis-
appinted in Hen. Naou ’f it ’ad been me, M’randy ’d—
Hellow! There goes that pesky cheese agen. Hi tha! shoo!
(Jumps up and chases the cheese back to its cage and strikes
at with butt end of butter knife.) Well, I’ve got to put some
chloride of lime on that salt fish. (Sprinkles fish.)

[Enter Panste J. Pink and AuGust SWEETING.

Seed. — Well, Pansie, you look ez pretty ez a Baldwin
apple. Ain’t thet so, August?

August. — You bet, Tim. I’m goin’ t’ buy suthin’ for
a friend of mine who is goin’ to be married, ’n’ I jest bet

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 185

Pans ’Il git suthin’ good. I got two dollars ’n eighty cents,
*n’ I don’t keer fer no expense nor nothin’.

Pansie (very modestly). — How much are bread-boards ?

August. — Bread-boards nothin’, Pans; git *em some
napkin-rings or a pipe, or pen-wiper, er suthin’ useful.

Pansie.—I want them to keep what I give them, and
use it too, and I don’t know anything more useful than a
good bread-board. I’ll buy a bread-board and you can buy
whatever you want. How much is this bread-board, Mr.
Seed ?

Seed. —'Twenty-five cents, Pansie, and it’ll wear.
Sound ’n’ solid, just like you, Pansie. Hope I ’Il hear about
your gettin’ married soon, Pansie.

Pansie (with a 14-carat, three-ply, home-made blush). —
Oh, thank you, Mr. Seed, I guess you need n’t fear that
of me. (Pays and exit.)

Seed. — Whot’s the matter with you young fellers, August,
lettin’ that gal escape? Where’s yer eyes?

August. — Dumpy, not my style. A feller likes a girl
with a little go, a little style. One ye know that can trot
in quick time. Naou thet bread-board shows just what she
is. Fancy a girl with any go to her giving a bread-board
for a weddin’ present. Naou, I don’t ’ntend to spare no
expense, but I want suthin’ stylish. Naou, a feller likes a
good pipe. A good briarwood. That one ‘Il do. Twenty
cents? Allright. Kinder high for a briarwood, but I never
consider expense when I buy weddin’ presents. Naou the
picter. Naou that’s style, that’s finish, thet there picter
means suthin’. (Handles with the appreciation of a con-
noisseur the most frightful print imaginable. Buys print.)
There, bread-board be hanged ; I like some style to a pres-
ent. When I get ready to settle down it ’ll be with some one

186 FARMING IT

with some style, but a fellow must have his little fling first,
and there ’s nothin’ like being up to date. (Goes out whis-
tling “Shoo Fly,” stops and bows profoundly as Mrs.
Grandiflora enters.) 'There, that’s what I call style.
(A side.)

Mrs. Grandiflora (in hat of terrific size, flamboyant with
feathers, and ribbons in three different shades of red; yellow
parasol, and lorgnette made of eye-glasses lashed to tip of
bamboo fishing-rod; purple dress, uf possible). — Well, good
afternoon, Mr. Seed.

Seed (coming from behind the counter, dusts chatr, places
it with profound bow).— Good afternoon, Mrs. Grandi-
flora.

Mrs. G. (seats herself, raises lorgnette to her eyes). —.

Have you heard of the new engagement ?
Seed. —'There beant another, be they? Cause ’f there
be, I’m goin’ to lay in a new stock of wooden ware.
Mrs. G. — No, no new one, but such sweet things as they
are, and so well suited to each other. You know Pope says,

‘Man is the ragged loafing pine,
Woman the gentle jimson vine,
Whose scalping tendrils round him twine.”

But he’s real smart, and she’s just like a jimson vine, just
clasping him every chance she can get. Ain’t Pope just
too sweet for anything ? I do enjoy Pope and Bridewell and
McAuley. McAuley is just divine, and it was so strange
that heshould become aprize-fighter afterwards. But, then,
literary people are queer just like musicians. There was
Sullivan, you know, the prize-fighter, who wrote the most
beautiful song about some poor organ-player sitting play-
ing his organ one night, and someone came along and

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HAVE YOU READ “THE SIMPLE LIFE” BY WAGNER?

AMATERVR THEATRICALS 187

stole a whole load of wood. He had just bought a cord of
it, and, poor man, he lost it all and he hunted but never
could find it. But poor man, he never lost hope and stuck
to it to the last that he would see that cord again. I hope
he did, poor man. But about this wedding, — I do want
to buy something real simple. I do like simple things.
There are some people who want showy clothes and who
love to make a show, but I say, give me quiet tastes and
literary ability and I don’t want nothin’ else. When you
see flash people drivin’ by in their stylish coops and but-
_lers on the front seats, I say to myself, “ Volumina Grandi-
flora, don’t you never fret yourself one bit; ain’t it better
to be able to talk grammary and to be allitery than to
make a show?” No, say I, you can have your butlers and
your rubber-wheeled carriages and your tigers, if you want
em, though I never happened to see any tigers, although
I looked for them time and time again, and never see any-
thing more’n some of them spotted damnation dogs.
P’raps them is what they meant. Have you read the
“Simple Life” by Wagner? You know Wagner, of course,
the man who wrote Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. I
thought I would read it and it would give me some idea of
what is the latest thing to do at weddings. Well, about that
present,— a good broom, one of those quiet shiny ones
with a red label. Send it up, please. (Rises and departs,
while SrED, with his hand to his head, staggers to his desk
and begins charging up various articles to John L. Sullivan
and Wagner Dryden.)

[Enter Miss Muti GrusBe and Op Lapy SNAPDRAGON.
Black shawls tightly wrapped across their chests — red
noses — black lace-mitts with fingers gone — small black
straw hats or bonnets — very erect.

188 FARMING IT

Mr. Seed. — Good arternoon, ladies.

The ladies (forbiddingly). — Day, sir.

Seed (affably but somewhat apprehensively). — - What can
I show you to-day?

Old Lady Snapdragon (who is deaf, to Miss Grubbe). —
What did the old fool say?

Miss Mulli Grubbe.-— He wants to know what he can
show us.

Old Lady Snapdragon. —'Tell him if we want anything
we will tell him.

Seed (aside). — I'll show ’em the door for two. cents.

Miss Grubbe. — What’s that ?

Seed. — Nothin’, madam, talking to myself.

Miss Grubbe. —'They dew say people do that ez they

grow old.

Seed (aside). — She ought to know.

Miss Grubbe. — What’s that ?

Old Lady Snapdragon. — What does he say ?

Seed (bellowing). — Nothin’, madam.

Old Lady Snapdragon. — That’s whot he’s been doin’
all his life, talkin’ ’n sayin’ nothin’, but’s the first time I
ever knowed him t’ acknowledge it.

Miss Grubbe. — What’s the price of ironin’ boards?

Seed. — Fifteen cents if you want ’em to lay people out
on, because you can return ’em. Fifty cents if you want
°em to iron on, ’cause we don’t take ’em back.

Old Lady Snapdragon. — What’s he say?

Miss Grubbe.—Fifteen cents for corpses and fifty cents
for live people.

Seed (aside).—If you want ’em for the old lady and will
use ‘em, I give ye one.

Miss Grubbe. — Give me a new fifty-cent one.

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 189
Old Lady Snapdragon. — Can’t yer let us have a corpse

one that has been returned two or three times, for twenty
cents? They’d never know the difference.

Seed (bellowing). — No, madam; the last one was re-
turned from a man who had bronical bronchitis, and that’s
ketchin’ as thunder.

(Pay grumpily and exeunt.)

[Enter Hunearta N. Grass, her husband, Oat Grass,
local Justice of the Peace, and JounNy Jump UP, son of
Huneartia, a little red-headed boy.

Johnny. — O Ma, want stick er candy. Can I have it,
can I, Ma? an’ some juju paste; can I, Ma? You said I
could.

[Pulls down barrel of brooms, which in turn brings down
tin bowler, lamp and other things. Huncaria picks up
JOHNNY, boxes his ears soundly, and hands him over to
Oat Grass, who larrups him with his cane. Where-
upon Hunearia relents, pushes Oat GRASS into an open
barrel, where he sticks. She clasps JouNnNy to her bosom
and pats his head. Srep pulls Oat Grass from the bar-
rel with difficulty just as Poppy Grass, their daughter,
enters.

Poppy (short dress, bead necklace, hair in two prg-tails,
chewing gum and talking as she chews). — Say, Ma, I
want some candy, too. Johnny got some, can’t I, Ma?
[General discussion between members of the family before

the matter vs finally adjusted by giving her what she

wants. While the children are quieted, HUNGARIA asks
the price of a chopping-tray.|

Oat Grass. — Jest the thing, Hungaria, most convenient
things I ever saw. We kin chop up mince-meat, ’s neat ’s

190 FARMING IT

you please, and then mix up a mess of chicken-feed in it,

and sometime mighty convenient when we can’t find the

dust-pan. Tell yer, Timothy, Hungaria is a master-hand
to make things go a long distance. Don’t know what we
ain’t used that er choppin’-tray for.

Hungaria (who has vainly tried to stop him). ’T is no
such thing, Oat Grass, and you know it. They ain’t a
neater housekeeper round, than I be.

[Poppy tries to dispossess JouNNY of his stick of candy, and
the result ts a mixup and the children are torn apart by
their parents, shaken and set down hard on opposite sides
of the store, where they make up faces at their parents and
each other. |
Hungaria. — Be you goin’ to the weddin’, Mr. Seed?

We be. It’s jest too nice for anything to see young people

get married. I only hope they'll be as happy ez we be.

We’ ve lived together for seventeen years *thout never havin’

a cross word and if I dew say it, nobody ever had tew such

angel children as ours.

[ Terrific crash heard as Poppy pushes Johnny’s chair back-
ward and general mixup results. After this is quelled,
chopping tray is bought, paid for, and parents depart,
much to 'Timoruy’s relvef.

Timothy (soliloquizing). — Well, if that’s their idea
of happiness, believe I’d rather be an old bach.

Curtain.

The play was very successful, the parts being
acted in a perfectly killing manner.

The older of the two old gentlemen took the
part of Seed, and a professional could not have
surpassed him. One of the old ladies was 'Tem-

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 191

perance Rhubarb, and her smiles, smirks, gig-
gles, Paisley shawl, and tiny jointed-parasol,
nearly killed the audience, as did the stunning
get-up of Daniel’s wife as Mrs. Grandiflora.

The Professor’s wife as old Lady Snapdragon,
and the new neighbor’s wife as Miss Mulli
Grubbe, caused us to hold our sides, while Dan-
lel, the Professor, and the other old gentlemen,
sitting on cracker-barrels and discussing rural
affairs, kept the actors in giggles all the even-
ing.

After the play Daniel and his wife, according
to agreement, secured the doctor and the young
lady, who were their guests for the evening, bade
us good-night and departed homewards, amid
our loud protests and entreaties to remain. Then
the surprise of the evening was worked. From
the attic, days before, I had resurrected a long-
disused but able-bodied tuba, had oiled its rusty
valves and had practised hoarse harmony until
my lips were swollen to sponges. With Dick on an
astonishingly shrill E-flat clarinet, one of the old
gentlemen on a fife, the new neighbor on a trom-
bone, on which, by the way, he was a one-time
expert, the Professor on a bass-drum, my daugh-
ter on the snare, and the other old gentleman as
drum-mayjor, we at once headed a procession down
the street, followed by all the guests bearing their
purchases. We countermarched, and, playing

192 FARMING aT

the Wedding March from Lohengrin, fortissimo
and at double time, marched into Daniel’s house
and down the broad hall, where, to the great con-
fusion and amazement of the doctor and the
young lady, we presented the entire lot of ware,
in sections, and with oratory, to the young cou-
ple. They recovered promptly from their em-
barrassment, and it was a late hour when we left
Daniel’s weary with well-doing and sated with
good cheer.

When an entire neighborhood winds up an
evening with old fashioned square and contra-
dances, with pigeon-wings, Kensington balances
and waist-swings; when a gentleman of three
hundred pounds’ weight goes down the centre
with a maiden lady of seventy-eight, like a lithe
youth of eighteen with a young matron of twenty-
eight, and when two aged but courtly bachelors
give an exhibition of ante-bellum dancing that
would astonish a modern Papanti, one can read-
ily conclude that performers and spectators are
keyed to the highest pitch of enjoyment.

Indeed, the play and the dance were so enjoy-
able that the evening was but a precursor of many
other evenings of similar enjoyment; and before
the week was past a meeting was held at the old
gentleman’s house and an association formed
known as the “Masque Club,” in which plays
are recited periodically, with the book and with

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DANCING THAT WOULD ASTONISH A MODERN PAPANTI

AMATEUR THEATRICALS 193

no further preparation than one reading; and
the talent that had lain dormant for many years
in that neighborhood has been awakened to life,
and wields a vast influence in the welfare and en-
joyment of the local populace.

CHAPTER XX
PARTING WITH POLLY

ten dae) HAVE sold Polly, Polly, my only and
Bs favorite saddle-mare; Polly, my quick-
adee| stepping, nervy, nervous-driving mare ;

settee Polly, who would take the bit aS
ne teeth and pull double the moment my leg
crossed the saddle, and yet would trot as gently
and quietly as an ambling palfrey with my small
daughter astride; Polly, who would occasionally
come home with fence-posts or the foundations
of buildings hitched to her neck, and who on
one occasion dove bodily through the barn-door
when in one of her hasty returns she found the
portal closed ; Polly, who ran three miles with me
one day when [I lost my temper and struck her
with the whip. I have sold her, and I feel like a
penurious old malefactor.

It was Daniel who got me into the scrape.
Daniel has a theory, which he expounds to every
one, that a farmer ought to sell his products
when there is a market for them and when they
are ripe. “For instance,’ says Daniel, “it’s a
mighty dangerous thing to hold staple, but per-

PARTING WITH POLLY 195

ishable articles for a rise in price. Take apples
and potatoes. Why, in nine cases out of ten the
farmer who holds his apples and potatoes over
the cold months for a high price, and gets $2.70
for apples as against $1.80 per bbl., or one dollar
for potatoes as against seventy cents per bushel,
finds, when he has picked out and thrown away
the rotten and punky ones that he has n’t a quar-
ter part leit.

“Tt ’s so in live-stock. Never keep a cow a day
beyond her prime even if she has n’t fallen off a
bit, but is milking full. Never keep a hen the sec-
ond season if you wish for eggs. And above all
never keep a horse beyond the age of twelve, or
perhaps it would be better never to keep a horse
more than three or four years, whatever the age.”’

“But, Daniel,’ I said, “it takes a year or two
to get thoroughly accustomed to a horse, and to
get the horse thoroughly accustomed to you. And
after you have had a horse three or four years, it
is at its best as far as you are concerned, and if
it is a good horse you just feel as if you could n’t
drive any other horse.”

“Just the point, boy, just the point,” replied
Daniel, removing his cigar and flicking a long
cone of ash from its tip with his little finger.
“When a man gets feeling that he can’t drive
any other horse, it is about time for him to try.”

“Well,” I replied, “it seems to me that there

196 FARMING IT'

ought to be room for some little sentiment in the
matter.”

“Sentiment !’’ sniffed that hard, cynical, bitter
man of the world; “the longer I live the less I be-
lieve in sentiment where business is concerned.
When a man is so beset with sentiment that he
can't sell a horse or cow or dog or hen without
feeling that he has outraged affection and senti-
ment, he had better retire from business and keep
a hospital for broken-down pets.”

Now, even while this stony-hearted neighbor
was giving expression to such dreadful beliefs, I
sat looking across the street towards his spa-
clous and sunny yard. By the side of the stable
dozed an old white horse, so aged that no true
veterinarian could guess within a decade of its
age. A horse that was a veritable heirloom in the
family, and which I vaguely remembered forty
years ago to have been a blue roan. Daniel him-
self had learned, as a very small boy in round-
abouts, to ride and drive him. Daniel’s father,
long dead, may have done the same. Daniel’s
two boys fifteen years ago discarded him as too
slow for their infant ideas, since which time he
had been an honorable pensioner on Daniel, and
a very expensive one, too; for every time he did
not eat his porridge, a veterinarian from a neigh-
boring city was sent for and ordered to spare no
expense in making Old Tom comfortable.

PARE ENG: WET POLLY: 197

A hideously distended, half-blind, rheumatic
and stiff-legged spaniel, with the hair completely
gone from its once feathery tail, lay asthmatically
wheezing on the steps; while a really prehistoric
English bull-dog, so old and fat that he was a
marvel to look at, lay at the barn door; both of
which animals contributed to the support of the
veterinarian.

And when I reflected that in his own stable
were two cows, neither of which had given milk
or had a calf for over a dozen years, and were
worthy contemporaries of Old Tom and the
canine Methuselahs, I mentioned these facts to
Daniel, expecting to crush him to the earth,
like ‘Truth, with the weight of my facts, but not
expecting him, like Truth, to rise again.

But Daniel, like a sturdy old patriarch, never
blinked an eye. “Just the point, boy, just the
point. I suppose those infernal old torments
have cost me half of what my place is worth. But
what can a man do? ‘They are members of my
family, human beings, sir! But don’t ever be as
big a fool as I have been.”’

Now Daniel, fond as he is of a horse or cow
trade, would n’t have sold or traded any one of
those old pensioners to have saved his own life.
But his advice was sound, and the more I thought
of it, the sounder it appeared. I had bought
Polly five years before, when she was broken for

198 FARMING IT

double harness only, and I had with great pains
made her the best driving horse I ever owned.

As a saddler she had a quick sharp trot that
one could sit as easily, almost, as a single-foot.
This she could keep up mile after mile, and tire
out any of the trained saddlers in town.

She had faults. She was somewhat hard-
bitted, very sensitive to ill-treatment, afraid of
nothing but firearms and the whip, and would
not stand with anything but a neck-hitch, and
occasionally, as I have said, brought home a
stone post, or a fence-rail, or part of a barn, when
the neck-hitch was stronger than the particular
real estate to which she was attached.

And so I sold Polly. Sold her for twice what I
had given for her five years before. Sold her
without any warranty and after full explanations
of her failings. Sold her and took my blood-
money and went home.

It took me a full hour to break the news to my
wife. It took her a much less time to give me her
opinion of the transaction. I represented the
facts with judicial calmness, and cited Daniel as
authority for my position. I am glad Daniel did
not hear what she said about him. Its brevity
was no measure of its completeness.

My daughter began to cry, and my son left the
table in a huff and banged the door. ‘There are
few sounds more disquieting to one’s nerves than

PARTING. WiTHRePOLLY ‘199

the more or less justifiable banging of a door
when one has done wrong and knows it.

Then I tried unblushing bribery. Neither my
wife nor my daughter would have any of it.

Then I went down town and sought the pur-
chaser. He had left town. I sat down and wrote
him, explaining the circumstances. It was a
dreary two days at home before I got his letter.
Then it was drearier, for the letter explained that
he had bought the mare to mate up a pair for a
Boston man, and had delivered her the day before.
He very kindly sent me the address, and I lost no
time in writing the Boston man.

His reply I received after a few days. He did
not care to sell, as he had the best pair of driving
horses in Boston. If I cared to call some day he
would be pleased to show me what they could
do, and he remained, “ Very truly,”’ ete.

It seemed to me that I had got myself into a
very serious scrape indeed, especially as the
clouds hung very thick over my homestead.

With a part of the price of my treason I bought
a new rubber trimmed driving harness, with
which I decorated Lady M. And I also had the
Concord painted and varnished.

My wife had long urged the purchase of a new
harness, and I thought the double outlay might
soften her just resentment, but it had absolutely
the opposite effect. She refused to ride behind

200 FARMING IT

Lady M., although that animal was a very fair
roadster and handsome.

I never drove Lady M. but I missed Polly’s
quick sharp trot, her pull on the lines, the smooth
play of her shoulders, the alert pricked ears, and
the regular allegro of her light hoofs.

A few weeks after this I read of an accident
in a Boston suburb, where a pair of sorrel horses
belonging to a Mr. Lee became frightened at
a steam-roller and ran away, overturning the
carriage and severely injuring their driver. The
account gave the name of the owner and driver,
and sure enough it was the Boston man who had
bought Polly. I wrote him reminding him of my
offer, and received a note from his secretary in-
forming me that both horses had been sent to a
sale stable and I could communicate with the
proprietor.

The next day I went to Boston, but was again
too late. Both horses had been sold to a stranger »
who paid cash and did not give his name.

Then I gave up the chase and resolved to think
no more of Polly, but to do my best to reéstab-
lish my reputation in my homestead.

CHAPTER XXI

THE NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE

sess] FE) neighborhood to which I had moved

@) Was regarded by those long resident

were ra and well-kept, the lias green and
trim, and the grounds spacious. It was pecul-
iar in having a number of very lofty and fine
pine trees growing amid a profusion of elms
and oaks. This distinction added much to the
pride and exclusiveness of the residents, and in
fact set them apart from other men. In short,
the neighborhood fairly exhaled pride and satis-
faction, and not without reason; and when we
entered its charmed and sacred precincts we felt
that we were persone non grate.

Such things do not bother me very much, but
they affect my wife’s peace of mind exceedingly,
who, poor woman, has found in me a very serious
handicap to her social aspirations. It is difficult
for conservative and semi-bucolic village society
to clasp to its bosom with any open show of affec-
tion one who views village neighbors and village
life with amusement.

202 FARMING IT

Indeed, in the Greek Quarter of the town in
which I had spent five happy and amusing years,
I was viewed with the utmost suspicion and my
wife pitied, because I had committed the entire
neighborhood to print, and had made them sever-
ally, and, according to the sale of the book, more
or less, immortal. And when we moved from that
delightful neighborhood we realized that our de-
parture did not affect the price of real estate to
any marked degree.

In the next neighborhood where we spent a
year, we were not over-popular, because we had
long outgrown the cabinet-organ and_plush-
album stage, and did not regard the cuspidore
as a household necessity; nor did I aspire to oc-
cupy any of the chairs in the many lodges and
secret orders with which the face of our beloved
village was thickly speckled.

And so, when I moved to the farm, I made up
my mind to view men and things with a more
serious eye, and in short, to be good and live
happily ever afterwards.

It was hard, however, to break a habit of years.
When one has spent the greater part of one’s life
in seeing the amusing side of men and things,
it is hard, desperately hard, to close one’s eyes
and thoughts to the humorous sights and ideas
that association with one’s neighbors brings.

And the sight of some of my dignified neigh-

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 203

bors pokering their unbending way townwards,
brought forcibly to my mind the necessity of in
some way ingratiating myself with them if I was
to be a valued member of the colony and in good
standing. With Daniel the way was open. One
view of Daniel’s three hundred pounds of good
nature was enough to assure any man of a wel-
come, provided he desired and deserved it.

But the Professors and the wealthy magnate,
the retired New Yorker, the two old ladies of a
by-gone generation, who still wore lace mitts
and side-curls and rather voluminous black silk
skirts, and who occasionally screened their fine
old faces with small silk parasols with jointed
handles, and the two old gentlemen who took
pains to inform me that they used to trade with my
grandfather, and what a fine courteous old gentle-
man he was, and how things had changed since
his time, —they were more difficult. And when
I reflected that the last owner of the farm was a
treasurer of the Academy, and a trustee thereof,
for many many years superintendent of a Sunday
School, and a man of weight (not physical, how-
ever, for he was of inconsiderable size) and in-
fluence in the community, I realized that compar-
isons would be, and in all probability had been,
drawn, —comparisons which, like comparisons in
general, were odious.

It was really quite a serious question. Whether

204 FARMING IT

to go on as I had been doing, and look upon my
small corner of the world with a humorous dis-
regard, and attend strictly to my own affairs, the
duties of my profession from nine to five, and the
cultivation of my soil from five to dark, with the
interval of the dinner, or to fairly lay myself out
to the entertainment of the neighborhood.

I really wished to be liked by my new neigh-
bors because I wanted to live in the neighbor-
hood and make myself one of them. I wanted
to be able to walk in upon them without formal-
ity, to have them drop in socially to a pipe or to

lunch; to discuss matters of common interest, —: —

the growth of the crops, the relative butter quali-
ties of the Jerseys, the Ayrshires, the Guernseys,
and the Belted Dutch; the comparative egg-
productiveness of the Minorcas, the Buff Wyan-
dottes, and the Orpingtons; whether Aldrich
was a real poet or a graceful dilettante; how
many rounds it took Jeffries to put Corbett down
and out; who was the first American educator,
Old Man Anson or Doctor Eliot, and other
matters of bucolic interest.

The best method of attaining this desired end
was the thing that occupied me day and night.
We could not invite them to our house until they
had called, and we were not the people to slight
or neglect our old friends for the purpose of ob-
taining favor with new ones.

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 205

I tried various expedients. I purposely let out
my hens one day in May, and true to the fiendish
nature of these unaccountable bipeds, they in-
stantly departed to a neighbor’s garden and ex-
cavated huge holes therein. This was my cue to
rush in with a whip, drive them back to my
own premises, and then with my hired man to
work a couple of hours in putting the garden into
very much better condition than it ever was in
before, to the great approval of the neighbor,
who might otherwise have remained in a state
of dignified conservatism forever.

Another neighbor’s cow got loose, and in one
night ate about half of my young sweet corn,
where the young plants were six inches high. I
carefully piloted the animal home and assured
the apologetic owner that the damage was not
worth considering, that my horse or cow was
liable to get loose any day and do him more dam-
age, and that between neighbors the damage was
of no importance whatsoever.

And so in a comparatively short time the idea
got abroad that I was not really half as bad as I
looked, and that I might in time be really a
creditable sort of an acquaintance.

But it was the purchase of the wheelbarrow
that really broke down the barriers of distrust
and suspicion. When I came there, like all new
agriculturists I bought a large number of minor

206 FARMING IT

farming utensils, such as spades, shovels, hoes,
a lawn-mower with a hood, forks, a lawn-roller,
a scythe, bush-hook and snaths, double-handed
saw, hammer, axes, hatchets, and a pigeon-holed
box of assorted nails, and last and most impor-
tant of all, a fine, new, five-dollar-and-fifty-cent
wheelbarrow.

To a neighborhood the members of which had
for the most part inherited their tools from long-
deceased ancestors, an opportunity to borrow
new and modern farm implements is a rare op-
portunity, indeed, and the ice-bound fetters of
reserve began to warm up a little and thaw to
quite an appreciable extent.

In such a neighborhood a bright, new, sharp
hoe is a mighty power to make and keep a friend-
ship; a loanable lawn-mower will impose more
respect than the possession of money; a box of
assorted nails will do much to atone for the er-
rors of a misspent life; a roller for lawns and
gravel-walks wields an immense influence for
trust and affection.

But it is a wheelbarrow that inspires love and
good-fellowship. It is a wheelbarrow that levels
all ranks, buries all hatchets, destroys all enmi-
ties, absolves one from all sins of commission and
omission past, present and future, makes one a
man and a brother, a comrade, a friend, and
a trusted neighbor.

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 207

Within a month after the purchase of that
wheelbarrow I was one of the most popular men
in the community, free to borrow anything, from
money to elderberry wine, of which the neigh-
borhood had endless store. To me, to my wife,
to my children, to my man-servant whom I oc-
casionally hired for a few hours, to my maid-
servant of a more permanent nature, to my
cattle and the stranger within my gate, that
wheelbarrow was the most profitable investment
I ever made.

Did I send a pitcher of cream to a neighbor,
it was followed in a day or two by a sort of cross-
counter in the shape of a box of fresh strawber-
ries. Did I send a setting of eggs from my choicest
fowl to another neighbor, he promptly retaliated
with a bunch of delicious radishes or a couple of
heads of lettuce, and honors were even.

But I had things all my way with the wheel-
barrow, for I was the only one on the street who
owned one, and so, like the small boy who owns
the ball, I was the pitcher on the nine until a
new boy came along with a better ball. By these
simple and effective means did I remove from
my neighbors’ minds all suspicions engendered
by my past life in other quarters of the town.

Yet the one great exploit that put me into a
very warm place in the hearts of my neighbors,
was the slaughter of the neighborhood dragon,

208 FARMING IT

the thrashing of the long-time bully of the little
community, the clipping of the wings of the vil-
lage condor or bucolic harpy, that for years had
defied public opinion and outraged neighborly
good feeling, and whose name was used to ter-
rify refractory children into obedience.

I was warned of this dragon when I bought the
farm. I was told that he had made trouble for all
his neighbors, was at his worst in litigation,
would provoke a saint to retaliation and then
prosecute him for it, and keep him on the gridiron
of suspense, attending court after court until he
wore him out; that, if he wanted anything, he.
always got it, and that, if he once got down on a
man, he was his enemy for life; that he was down
on me,—why, I did not know.

These warnings however had no great weight
with me. Indeed, they did not trouble me at all.
I had never had any trouble with the dragon and
saw no reason why I should have.

I had come to the neighborhood with the hon-
est intention of being friendly and accommodat-
ing toward all my neighbors. I was genuinely
interested in the community. I expected to con-
tribute according to my means to any subscrip-
tion for neighborly interests; to subscribe my
name to any petition addressed to the author-
ities for the betterment of the local roads and
lawns, trees and sidewalks.

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 209

At the first sign of foreign invasion I would,
and fully intended to, reach down from the wall
over the fireplace the old musket and the powder
horn that my great-grandfather might have
shouldered in the Revolution, had he been patri-
otic enough to attend that little festivity, and
sally forth as did our sires at old Thermopyle.

Did the boys from other and alien neighbor-
hoods invade with snowballs, green apples, or
brickbats, I would send my first-born to do bat-
tle, urging him not to come back but upon his
shield. Did the young ladies of our neighbor-
hood vie with the Court-Streeters, the Front-
Streeters, or with similar young ladies from other
quarters of the town, I would cheer hoarsely for
our side and contribute lemonade, pickled limes,
slate pencils, and other delicacies peculiar to
very young ladies.

Did the Decoration Day parade propose any
other route of parade than through our street, I
would fight their modest appropriation until they
acquiesced in the observance of our time-honored
rights. Did the street commissioner run his snow-
plough over Elliott, Grove, Linden, or Court
Street before our street, I would have some-
thing to say in relation to that anxious, unhappy,
and much-badgered gentleman’s reélection.

In short, I had come to Pine Street prepared
to cast my lot with the Pine-streeters, to espouse

210 FARMING IT

their quarrels, to share their joys. In time of war
to “cry ‘Havoc!’ and let loose the dogs of war,”
or to cry anything else that might be more in-
telligible to the modern dogs of war, or appro-
priate to the circumstances. In times of peace,
to raise white-winged pigeons as emblematic of
the idealistic conditions. And with such peace-
ful intentions I most certainly did not expect
trouble with any one.

The Dragon’s name was Cyrus Pettigrew.
Not a handsome name, and Cyrus looked his
name if any one ever did. He was old and gnarled
and dried and wrinkled and rusty. He was mean:
and skimpy and avaricious and penurious and
erasping. He was harsh and sour and contrary
and selfish and grumpy.

But I had no fear of trouble. I usually had no
trouble with any one. It may have been in a
measure due to my profession, for few men care
to pick a quarrel with a lawyer. It may have been
in a still greater measure due to my avocation,
for the men who will risk being embalmed in a
newspaper or magazine roast are still more rarely
found. Whatever may have been the cause the
fact was undisputed. I was a peaceable man and
lived a peaceful life.

But the man never lived who could reside next
to old Pettigrew and not have trouble with him.
Poor old Cyrus, — he is dead now, and, “De

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE Qll

mortuis nil nisi bonum”’ notwithstanding, I have
never found man, woman, or child that would
own to a passing regret at Cyrus’s departure.

My first meeting with Cyrus as a neighbor was
trying. I wanted a new fence between his place
and mine, and I sought him one day near the old
boundary fence. Cyrus met my proposition very
coldly. He didn’t want a fence. The fence had
been good enough for him and my predecessor
for a good many years. And he didn’t think
much of an interloper who wanted to change
everything over.

In vain I argued the necessity of an up-to-
date wire fence. Cyrus would have none of it.
I finally offered to pay the entire expense. To
this Cyrus, who had a sharp nose for a bargain
and a pair of exceedingly sharp and far-sighted
eyes for his own interest, agreed, although very
erumpily.

Having obtained his consent I lost no time in
buying posts and wire-fencing, and in hiring a
carpenter, sappers, and miners, and starting the
work. At this time I was called out of town for
a few days, and on my return found to my great
pleasure that my new fence had been erected and
the carpenter was just leaving. I went out at once
to view it and to rejoice in the great improvement,
and judge of my disgust and wrath when I found
that the grasping old rascal had made the car-

212 FARMING IT

penter put the new fence more than a foot on my
land, the whole length of the division line.

After a vigorous speech to the propitiatory
carpenter, in the course of which I coined several
entirely new objurgations appropriate to the oc-
casion, I jammed my hat to my ears and made
for Cyrus’s house. I was boiling with rage, and
fortunately for us both Cyrus was not at home.

As I came back, better thoughts began to take
possession of me. The strip of land wasn’t worth
fighting about. I had made up my mind not to
have any row with my neighbors, and here I was,
exploding like a paper bag the first time any one
got under my guard.

The old scamp had certainly scored on me, but
I would keep my eyes open in the future. So I
made up my mind to forget it, or at least, if
I could not forget it, to take no action and to
say no word.

A short time after this, some of my hens got
out and into his yard. There was nothing grow-
ing at the time, and they certainly did him no
damage. But when I came home, I found three
dead hens on my side of the fence, that he had
shot and thrown over.

This so “riled”? me that I promised profanely
to have his scalp nailed to my barn-door if it
took a leg. But upon sober second thought I
dressed the hens, sent them to him by my son

er

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 213

Dick, with a polite note of apology for the tres-
pass, and a promise to look after my hens in the
future. I hoped for one of two results from this
course. First: that he would be so overcome by
my magnanimity that he would seek me out, ask
my pardon, and endeavor to be a loyal friend
for life. Second: If he did not do this, that a bone
of one of those deceased biddies would stick in
his gnarly old throat and choke him to death
lingeringly and horribly.

Neither result happened, however.

The old wretch had a habit of squinting down
the line of the new fence, as if still doubtful if he
had got quite as much of my land as he wished;
‘and as he took occasion to do this when I was
down in the garden, it was perfectly evident to
me that he was trying to aggravate me into hos-
tilities. This I resolved not to allow him to do.

But, alas for my good intentions! trouble came.
Dick, a young chap of seventeen, one day went
across the line for a baseball that had fallen on
old Pettigrew’s land. He had to pass nearly to
the centre of the old man’s garden, littered with
dead vines and stubs of last year’s corn-stalks,
when forth from the barn came the old man on
the run, with a heavy whip in his knotted hand,
and made directly for Dick, breathing slaughter.

Now, this was a little too much, and in a sec-

ond I had dropped whatever I had in my hand

214 FARMING IT

and had rushed to the fence with the intention
of vaulting it, disarming the old man, and walk-
ing him Spanish back to the barn for a little
heart-to-heart talk, when a surprising thing hap-
pened.

Dick, instead of running, as I supposed he
would, —for the spectacle of a man of sixty,
armed with a bull-whip and bearing down on
one with curses is rather formidable to a boy, —
stood quietly, awaiting his approach, with his left
hand in his pocket, but with the right hanging
at his side clinching the baseball. I was near
enough to see a look in his face and a glitter in:
his eye that I knew meant fight.

Old Pettigrew, seeing that Dick did not re-
treat, slowed down to a walk, and then stopped.

“Git offer my lan’, ye whelp of Satan, or I'll
cut ye tew ribbons!”’ said the old man, with a
fearful curse.

“I’m going to get off your land, Mr. Petti-
grew,” said Dick; “but if you raise that whip
again I’]l smash in your old ribs with this base-
ball and whale you so your old hide won’t hold
water ; now get out of my way!’’ And he stepped
directly toward the old man, who was between
him and the fence.

“Don’t ye peg that ball at me or I Il have ye
arrested,” said the old man, backing precipitately
as the young chap approached.

GIT OFFER MY LAN’, YE WHELP OF SATAN

ta
piel oe

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 215

Dick said nothing further, but leisurely walked
to the fence, vaulted over, and came face to face
with me.

“Good boy, Dick!’ I said, as he looked up in
surprise and some sheepishness at getting caught ;
«TI did think you were in for a warm time.”’

“Huh!” said Dick, “that old cuss, —I could
lick two of him. Hear him swear,’’ he continued.

And indeed the old man was giving the best
imitation of the army of Flanders I had ever
heard. He danced up and down and threatened
every sort of vengeance a distorted mind could
think of.

We paid no further attention to the wretched
old man, but left him to cool off. [ was too much
pleased with the unexpected fighting qualities of
my first-born to care enough about old Cyrus
to listen. To tell the entire truth, I was the least
bit disappointed that the old man had backed
down so promptly, for I possessed a deal of curi-
osity to see Dick in action.

A few days afterwards, a dog that occasionally
came to the house, an inoffensive, good-natured,
trampish animal, was shot on the old man’s land
and probably by him, although nobody saw him
do it. We heard the shot at dinner, heard the
agonized yelping of the poor animal, ran out and
found him dying in the rear of the old man’s
house.

216 FARMING IT

Dick and I did not hesitate to go across the line
and bring the poor old fellow back. He died
before we got him over the fence. Nobody inter-
fered with us, and I think we were both hugely
disappointed.

If the old man had appeared I think some one
would have been hurt. Nothing makes a man
more wolfish than to see a pet shot to death, and
dying with wide-open, pleading eyes and panting,
choking breath. We buried the poor animal
under an apple tree in the orchard.

During the first spring, summer, and fall, old
Cyrus exhausted every device to annoy us. In
the spring, if the wind blew in the direction of our
buildings, on that day he would light a huge
bonfire of damp matter and send dense clouds of
smoke over us. Finding that this did not annoy
us particularly, as the smoke of spring bonfires
was very agreeable to us, he would put on an old
horse-blanket, a few shovels of stable manure, or
a dead hen, and raise a stench that nearly stifled
the entire neighborhood.

He never failed to shoot one of my hens if it
escaped from the yard and trespassed, but after
the first experience I no Jonger dressed and sent
them to him. But on one occasion, when his hens
got out and strayed on my premises, I carefully
drove them back unhurt, only to be accused of
purposely letting them out.

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 217

During the second winter he could not annoy
me as much, but every mean insinuation that
malice could invent or distort, he made. It was
in April of the second year that I got him hard
and fast, and by the merest chance.

I had in the previous September bought my
Jersey cow. I was very particular about her ap-
pearance, curried her every day, bedded and
blanketed her, and indeed cared for her as well
and painstakingly as I did for Polly. The custom
of the local farmers was to allow filth to accumu-
late on their cows’ flanks and legs, until it hung
from them in crusty scales, to peel off in the
spring with the shedding of the old coat. The
care I gave my cow made her coat shine like satin,
and certainly lent a relish to her milk. In April
her old coat became dull and dead, and she
began to rub it off her head and neck in patches,
- disclosing a close new coat of cream-color where
the winter coat had been a light chestnut.

One morning, in rubbing her down, I found
that with my fingers I could pull the old coat off
in tufts, and that she apparently enjoyed having
it pulled. Without really thinking of what I was
doing, I wrote my initials, H. A. S., on her back
by pulling out the dead hair. Seeing how easily I
could do this, I drew, or rather pulled, on her
side near the curve of the belly, a grotesque figure
of a small boy, then a circular brand on her

218 FARMING IT

shoulder, and three X’s on her flank. Then I
quietly led her to the hitching-post at the side
of the house and awaited developments.

In a moment my wife came to the door, with
wide-open eyes. ‘‘For gracious sake what have
you been doing to that cow?” she demanded.

“Oh, nothing,” Ireplied, “that’s the way range-
cattle are branded. This cow had a good many
owners and evidently each one branded her,”’
I further explained.

“Tt’s no such thing,” she retorted hotly, “you
did it yourself. ‘That explains why she bellowed
so this winter.”’ :

She had bellowed a good deal when I took
away her calf, but I did not say so, for I always
liked to get a rise out of my wife.

“T think it is just horrid in you, and about the
cruelest thing I ever heard of, and you have just
spoiled her looks.”

Now out of the corner of my eye I could see
old Cyrus peering over the fence and listening
gloatingly to the conversation. After giving him
time to satisfy himself thoroughly, I led the cow
back to the barn, followed by my wife, and there
illustrated the matter by drawing on the off-side
of the animal a serpent and a circular brand,
while that delighted animal stood with eyes half
closed in ecstasy.

Much relieved and amused, my wife went back

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 219

to the house, laughing over the ridiculously dec-
orated animal.

After milking the Jersey, I led her out and
tethered her in the sun in full view of old Cy-
russ premises, and finished my breakfast. On
my return to lunch I was informed by my wife
that the old man had been looking at the cow
from over his fence, in company with several men,
to whom he was talking with excited gestures.

This amused me so much that I laughed
loudly. But I did not for a moment anticipate
the far-reaching results of my joke. I only
thought it an excellent joke on the old man, as
it had been on my wife and my daughter and
Dick.

That night I was to give a lecture in a neigh-
boring town, and departed on the afternoon train,
intending to return in the morning. I had an ex-
cellent audience, an enthusiastic reception, and
a very flattering introduction. Just as I had made
my bow and was about to begin, a man whom
I knew to be a deputy sheriff stepped on the
platform, placed his hand on my shoulder, and
informed me that I was under arrest.

I am sure I was never so astonished in my
life. If the audience had suddenly risen in the —
air like the card people in “Alice in Wonder-
land,” I should not have been more surprised ;
nor do I believe the audience would have been,

220 FARMING IT

for his words were perfectly audible and he was
well known to them.

For a full minute I must have stood staring
at him. Then I asked for his warrant, and he
handed me one. I opened it and found it was
regularly issued by a justice on a complaint
signed by old Cyrus Pettigrew, charging me with
“cruelty im burning, cutting, branding, and
otherwise torturing a certain Jersey cow then
and there in my charge and custody, or wilfully
permitting and allowing said animal then and
there in my custody as aforesaid to be burned,
cut, branded or otherwise tortured.”

In a flash the whole scheme dawned on me
and I could not help admiring the old rascal’s
devilish ingenuity in planning the details, and
at the same time his mevitable disgust and fury
when the truth was known.

In the meantime I was in the most unpleasant
and ridiculous position imaginable; but one’s
mind works quickly, and I instantly told the
audience that I was arrested for cruelty to ani-
mals, that if they would kindly watch the papers
for the outcome of the trial, which I was sure
would be interesting to them, and defer judg-
ment to that time, I would fill my engagement
and finish my lecture.

The audience applauded, the sheriff took a
seat on the platform, grinning good-naturedly,

ROS ors 8 2 ;

NEIGHBORHOOD NUISANCE 221

and I began my lecture. I was thoroughly keyed
up to the occasion, and so filled with laughter
as the possibilities of the situation dawned on
_me, that my lecture was really very funny, and,
as the audience said, exceedingly entertaining.
Indeed, at its close they crowded about me with
offers of bail or assistance of any kind.

I thanked them most heartily, and, accom-
panied by the deputy, went to my hotel, where I
engaged a room with two beds, he having very
indulgently agreed to stay with me at a hotel
rather than to load me with chains and incar-
cerate me in the local lock-up, which was in-
deed very good of him. I chuckled to myself to
see the care with which he chose the bed nearer
the door, looked at the fastenings of the win-
dows, locked the door, and put the key under his

pillow.

And so, after undressing, I lay down peace-
ably on the other bed, and having no guilty con-
science, fell asleep. I am afraid my keeper did
not sleep as soundly as I did, for I have a vague
recollection of his lighting the gas several times
during the night, and peering at my recumbent
form, to see if I was really there.

And thus did we spend the night.

CHAPTER XXII

THE DISCOMFITURE OF CYRUS

“wee|N the morning, after a bath, which I
| took, but which the deputy declined,
i} we went downstairs to breakfast,

mts] where I was stared at by the few
early guests, who evidently considered me a
very desperate character indeed, and where I
was obliged to decline several interviews with
reporters, to whom I told nothing beyond urg-
ing them to attend the trial, which I told them
would probably be continued to the next week,
as I should ask for time to prepare my case
thoroughly.

The morning papers had accounts of the ar-
rest, with comments upon my personality. Upon
returning home, I went at once to the court-
room, where I found Cyrus and his counsel and
a crowd awaiting me.

I waived the reading of the complaint, pleaded
not guilty, and asked for a continuance of one
week. ‘To this the prosecuting attorney entered
a most vigorous objection, and argued the mat-
ter at great length,—to no purpose, however,

DISCOMFITURE OF CYRUS 223

as my request was reasonable and proper. I was
held in bail of five hundred dollars, — although
the attorney, urged on by old Cyrus, asked for
five thousand,—and hurried home to explain
matters.

My first anxiety was to secure the cow from
examination, as I did not want the prosecution
to find out the truth and spoil the fun. I found
that one or two had called to see the cow, but that
Dick had kept the barn locked.

The week I spent before the trial was one of
the queerest and most amusing, and at times un-
comfortable, I had ever spent in my life. The
papers devoted a good deal of space to me, and
evidently considered me a rather hopeless case.
Indeed, to judge from the talk of my fellow citi-
zens, I had been a whited sepulchre, a wolf in
sheep’s clothing and several other objectionable
things, for a long time. Much to my pleasure, my
neighbors, to a man, stood by me. I suppose they
considered that of two evils, I, as the newest
comer, could not be as bad as old Cyrus, or one
tenth as bad as he painted me.

The day before the trial my wife was, to
her intense indignation, summoned as a witness
by the prosecution. Although as my wife she
could not be compelled to testify against me, I
persuaded her to waive her rights and to testify,
telling her how great a compliment they paid her

224 FARMING IT

in being willing to assume that she would tell
the truth even if it sent her helpmeet to a felon’s
cell.

The great day arrived, and there was vast
excitement in our midst. I had never been tried
for my life or liberty before, and naturally woke
early and ate but little breakfast. I drank, how-
ever, two cups of strong coffee, and after break-
fast went to the stable to arrange with Pat to
bring my main witness, the cow, to the court at
the proper time. I had bought a handsome
blanket for her, and before Pat put it on I ex-
amined her carefully. Although she had shed a
considerable amount of hair during the week,
the letters and figures were as distinct as ever.

Then, giving Pat instructions to wait until
sent for, and on no account to let any one ex-
amine her or lift the blanket, and arming him
with a long whip to enforce my commands, I
started for the court-house with my devoted
family. As we-approached the edifice, we saw
an immense crowd gathered around the door and
steps and sidewalk.

Cameras clicked and snapped and took our
lineaments and our widely divergent, joint and
several proportions, to their secret recesses;
impertinent strangers climbed on one another’s
shoulders and stared and voted us generally a
bad lot, and frowned and sneered when our

DISCOMFITURE OF CYRUS 225

friends, or some of them, smiled and wished us
luck. |

It took the entire police posse to force an en-
trance to the court-room, and after we had taken
seats the prosecuting attorney began his opening
address, upon which he had spent the entire
week. He pictured me as a monster, a bloodless,
cruel, devilish vampire, a man with a heart
barred to every human impulse, with blood
as cold as an iceberg. He pictured the meek,
mild, gentle cow, made for man’s delight, for
woman’s happiness, for children’s life and wel-
fare, thrown roughly to the floor, pinioned and
helpless, while the cruel, scorching, red-hot
branding-irons burned their relentless way into
her shrinking, palpitating tissues, leaving their
shameful brand like the mark of Cain or the Scar-
let Letter. He said,—but perhaps it is unneces-
sary to repeat all he said; but at the close of his
address the audience turned from me with loath-
ing, or glared at me with baleful eyes, and my
wife, on hearing her name called as the first
witness, jumped as if some one had jabbed her
with a hat pin.

Mrs. Shute, being sworn, testified that she was
the wife of the respondent, that she lived with
him on Pine Street, that he was perfectly sane
and responsible, and had never acted queerly, —
no, sir! he certainly had not; that he kept a Jer-

226 FARMING IT

sey cow,— that it was bought the year before
that there were no marks nor brands on it then,
nor later; that she first saw them a week ago;
the marks were, on the left side, Mr. Shute’s
initials, H. A. S., a circular brand on the shoul-
der, three X’s on the flank, and on the right side
a serpent and a circular brand; that they were
put there during the winter, — by her husband
as he said; that she had heard the cow bellowing
not long before — about the time they sold the
calf; supposed it was that; never saw any brand-
ing-irons; Mr. Shute could have had them with-
out her knowledge; did get angry and scolded
her husband ; did say it was the cruelest thing he
ever did.

Mrs. Shute was excused, Mr. Shute not asking
her any questions.

By this time the audience were ready to ap-
plaud a death-sentence.

Dr. LePelletier was sworn: Was a veterina-
rian; made an examination of cow; found her
covered with brands; must have been made with
red-hot irons; must have caused great agony to
her; bellowing was undoubtedly caused by tor-
ture; cicatrices very plain; hair never would
grow again because hide burned through; marks
could not be removed except by skinning cow;
marks were not on cow the preceding autumn.

Cross-examined: Not nearer the cow than

DISCOMFITURE OF CYRUS 227

across the fence — about two rods; could not
have been mistaken; marks made with brand-
ing-irons or red-hot end of iron; cows sometimes
bellow when calf taken from them; called to
view cow by Mr. Pettigrew; very nice man, Mr.
Pettigrew.

Dr. LePelletier stepped down.

At the close of the doctor’s testimony the audi-
ence showed their feelings quite plainly, and evi-
dently considered burying me at a cross-road
with a stake through my heart as the least thing
that could be done under the circumstances.

Cyrus Pettigrew, sworn. Cyrus made_ the
responses to the oath with great vigor and dis-
tinctness. Was a neighbor; saw cow when she
was bought, and every day until winter; saw
her last eight days ago; branded all over, —hor-
ribly; described marks at great length: large
scars of burning; heard cow bellowing dread-
fully a short time before; pounding in stable;
sounded like struggle; Mr. Shute a man of un-
governable temper, very profane; boy takes after
his father; heard Mrs. Shute complain of Mr.
Shute’s brutality to the cow; she was very angry
at it; heard him say he did it; heard her call him
a cruel man; remembered smelling burning hair
and flesh at different times during the winter;
heard bellowing; did not go over because did
not wish to intrude; did n’t imagine a man could

228 FARMING IT

be so cruel; had no interest in case except to
stop brutality.

Cross-examination: Did n’t have any trouble
over fence ; moved fence over because it belonged
there; did shoot hens because they did damage;
hens can do damage in winter; did eat them
when they were sent him; did not shoot dog; was
shot on his land; don’t know who did it; saw
respondent and son there with dog; could not
say but they did it; did try to drive respondent’s
son off land; had whip in hand; didn’t strike
boy because only wanted to scare him; might
have said some things to boy; boy was “sassy”’;
was never convicted of girdling trees of neighbor.

Violent objection by counsel for prosecution,
who demanded to know whether or not witness
had any rights, and whether or not we were living
in “ Rooshia.”’

Objection overruled by court, who decided for
counsel’s benefit that we were still in America.

Witness ordered to answer: Was not con-
victed; was arrested once on false charge; did
pay some money to help neighbor out; did n't
remember how much; never had trouble with
neighbors; had shot Professor Miller’s hens;
Professor Miller did not make any trouble; had
some students arrested once; students were dis-
charged; was sure marks on cow were made by
hot iron; could see scars; had no ill-will toward

DISCOMFITURE OF CYRUS 229

respondent; had given warrant to deputy in
evening; gave him no instruction except where
to find respondent ; knew respondent was to give
lecture ; did tell deputy to arrest at once; did not
tell deputy he was a damned fool to let respond-
ent finish lecture; may have said something like
that.

At the close of the cross-examination of old
Cyrus, it was plain to see that he had not helped
the prosecution much, but had created a dis-
tinctly bad impression, and that the audience
would be satisfied with plain electrocution.

The prosecuting attorney then demanded that
the cow be brought inas a witness, and said that,
inasmuch as he had served a subpena duces tecum
upon me, and the object of the duces tecum had
not appeared, he moved for an attachment for
contempt.

In reply I purged myself of contempt by assur-
ing the court that the cow was then and there in
transitu, and I should call her as my first wit-
ness. The prosecution then rested, and I asked
the court to take a recess for five minutes, when
I would be ready. In less than that time Dick,
who had left the court-room, returned, saying
that the cow was in the square in front of the
building, and I asked the court to adjourn to the
square for a view.

_ This was done, the audience piling out like

230 FARMING Wit

school-boys. Arrived in the square, a dense
crowd had collected about the Jersey, who,
blanketed and guarded by two burly Irishmen,
stared inquiringly about until she saw me, when
she gave a soft moo of recognition. With some
difficulty the officers cleared a large ring, in the
centre of which stood the cow, Mike, Pat, the
honorable Court, the respondent, the complain-
ant, the attorney for the prosecution.

I then addressed the court as follows: “May
it please the Court; I now propose to demon-
strate by the clearest evidence possible how far

the malicious ingenuity of a vicious old man,

and a bad neighbor, will go to make trouble for a
person who never did him an unkindness, — in
short that the cow never was hurt or tortured or
branded; that the whole thing was an innocent
joke, a fool joke perhaps, but one that never hurt
or injured any one or anything.”’

I then stripped off the blanket, and there in
plain sight were the various marks on the cow’s
hide. At my request the court and the attorney
ran their hands over her and found no scars.

“Now, to show your Honor how these marks
were made —”’

“Tt is unnecessary,” said the court, “I have
owned cows myself, and perhaps I can illustrate
as well as you’’; and stepping forward, with
rapid hands he fashioned upon her side the word

Hs)

ERA LAL PEEL DDE

=

Fag ein
SS “

a}

: WY
< ° > Ty 4 raw \
—s SS .
Si Y Oa
= a +? dd S \5
a = all 8 Ca | = — : "
Eaeseas a EN ae AN
{- +— ~ — —, crt S? :
EJ af WT aX s e
1 f Qe —— a ZO a a
ae? Kn. SP X .
‘= Sent A\

ee
DY)
a
pte
e
= —~ ~
a te’ St .

THE WHOLE THING WAS AN INNOCENT JOKE

DISCOMFITURE OF CYRUS 231

bd

“Stung,” at which there was a roar of delight
and appreciation from the crowd. “Respondent
discharged,” he continued, “and court is ad-
journed.”

At the close of the formalities I held an im-
promptu reception in the square and shook hands
with several hundred people. But before an hour

__ had elapsed I had issued a Capias for old Cyrus

in a fifty-thousand-dollar suit for malicious prose-
cution.

In vain he tried to get bail ; nobody would bail
him, and that night for the first time in his life,
perhaps, he slept in jail. The April term was in
progress and my suit could not be entered until
October, and in the event of not obtaining bail
he would have to remain in jail until October.

The next day he sent for me. I refused to see
him. The day after he sent me a written appeal.
I threw it in the waste-basket. The third day an
old acquaintance of his, and one whom he had
wronged, called and begged me to give him a
chance. [ made him wait a few days. By this
time the old man’s appeals were abject.

At the end of a week I went to see him. He
had aged terribly in that week, and I could n’t
help pitying him. But I was cold and stern and
firm, and before I left I had a sworn statement
from him of certain things that would have
brought him perilously near state prison, but

232 FARMING IT

which I promised not to use as long as he be-
haved himself.

I then withdrew my suit, and he came from jail
a thoroughly humbled and broken-spirited old
man. He did not remain in Exeter long, but as
soon as he could sell his property left the state.
He died a year or so ago in a distant state. Poor
old chap! I have sometimes wondered if I were
not a bit too hard on him. Perhaps I was.

er ee ree a ee oe

CHAPTER XXIII
A RETURN

Sean dase L was a beautiful afternoon in August
Dv Be] about three years after I bought my

eu@| farm, and I was sitting in my office
cea) idly watching the people passing in
the square, and wondering why I did not hear
from Dick, who was on a vacation and had not
written me for ten days. I missed him and missed
his letters, which were bright, gossipy, and full of
happy observations on passing events.

Dick had greatly disappointed me by firmly
standing out against a college course, and by
entering my office for the study of law. But in
the office he was so apt and helpful,’ so good-
natured and so studious, that I felt that perhaps
he was right after all, and I had been looking
forward to the day when his name might be on
my sign, — so selfish do old men get when their
interests are concerned.

I felt reasonably sure about Dick. He was by
no means a goody-goody, had a quick temper,
was more than a bit mulish, but well-disposed
and rather ambitious. He was well-liked by his

234 FARMING IT

acquaintances, and popular in a jovial, good-
fellow-sort of way with the girls. While he had
taken them to dances and entertainments, called
on them, serenaded them with close-harmonied
quartettes and glee-clubs, he had never shown
any serious preference for any particular girl,
and always when talking with me of his girl
acquaintances had been frank and confidential.
He was emphatically a boy to trust in such mat-
ters, and I felt very confident that he would never
make a fool of himself over any girl or woman.
On this day I was feeling remarkably at peace
with the world. Business had been good, and.
fairly remunerative, the farm was prospering.
I had eaten strawberries from my own patch
until I could eat no more, raspberries and cur-
rants from my own bushes, all the early vege-
tables in season. My hens had laid wonderfully
well, and the young cockerels were beginning to
crow, my homing pigeons and black, smooth-
legged tumblers had been prolific. In fact, a
season of unprecedented peace and prosperity
had enveloped my little farm as a garment.
The afternoon mail came, and [I lazily looked
it over. There was little of importance save a
letter from Dick. I put that aside for a moment
while I dictated replies to the business letters,
and then, while the click of the typewriter in the
inner room disturbed the summer silence, I leaned

A RETURN 235

back to enjoy Dick’s letter, but promptly sat up
with a jerk as I read this brief but astonishing
message.
Aug. 6, 190-
Dear Otpd Man,—I have drawn on you for
two hundred and fifty dollars. Please honor draft
as I must have the money. Will explain every-
thing when I get home which will be on Thursday
next at about six o’clock. I am not coming alone,
for I shall bring a young lady with me. You can-
not help loving her as I do.
Yours,
Dicx.

I looked out on the square without seeing any-
thing. Then I took up the letter again; but the
page shook so I could n’t read a word. I took a
turn round the office, gulped down a glass of
water, took a fierce grasp of myself, and this time
read the letter through from date to signature.
Then I sat in the window trying to realize it.
Dick married! to a girl I had never seen, or heard
of, and knew nothing about! Perhaps to a de-
signing, elderly woman, possibly a widow, who
knew how to marshal her attractions so as to
bewilder and dazzle a boy of nineteen. What
would become of his future, his law studies,
his partnership with me, our joint: productions in
the way of briefs, declarations, rejoinders, sur-

236 FARMING IT

rejoinders, rebutters, and sur-rebutters, our divi-
sion of respectable if not fat fees, our enjoyment
of an honorable and solid if not brilliant reputa-
tion as country attorneys, our joint productions
as amateur agriculturists in the way of fruits,
vegetables, staple products, and live-stock ?

What was to become of my ambition to retire
one day from active work in office, court, farm, and
garden, and to hand over the sceptre of author-
ity to my son Dick? What was to become of —
Oh, damn it all! hang all designing women, all
languishing, ogling, curl-shaking, deceptive, false,
dangerous widows! :

And Dick had done this! Dick! who had al-
ways been frank and square with me. Dick had
married, a nobody, perhaps, a girl whom we
might not be able to take to our hearts or our
house. Why wasn’t the law different? Why
did n’t we live in Germany or France or Russia
or in some sensible country where boys of nine-
teen could n’t contract marriage without their
parents’ consent ?

Well, I must face it, we must all face it; I would
pay the draft, but if Dick thought he was going
to bring a squint-eyed Jezebel to my house for
me to support; if Dick really expected to have
me provide food, clothing and lodging for any
gray-haired fairy he was ass enough to fall in

love with; if Dick was banking on the probability

A RETURN 237

that my wife and I would step down and out for
the first female harpy that managed to get her
veteran claws through his donkey’s hide, — why,
Dick would have a chance to learn something
come Thursday evening at about six.

No, he should not come home, danged if he
should! I would write him at once. “Here! Miss
Blank!’’ I yelled so loudly to my stenographer
that, for the first time in her office-life perhaps,
she came into my room without running her hand
through her fluffy foretop or settling her belt.
“Take this down at once! No, I'll write it my-
self.” Where shall I address the idiot ? Just like
him ; no address given, — letter posted in Boston.
On his honeymoon in Boston, with my two hun-
dred and fifty dollars. Well, he would find mighty
little honeymoon after he got home with his
superannuated old helpmeet. And I broke into
such hearty maledictions that the stenographer
tiptoed to her door and softly closed it.

Then I went home with my letter and read it
to my wife. She had recourse to tears, then re-
proaches, then hysterics. I thought I had carried
on badly enough, but she showed me a few new
things in that line. It was I who was to blame.
It was I who had allowed him too much liberty. |
It was I who had sent him to that horrid summer
resort, and had furnished him with money to
spend on horrid old false-fronted widows. And

238 FARMING If

did Dick think he was going to bring that woman
home for her to work for? Well she guessed not!
And did that woman think — Well, it is not
advisable to disclose all she said. In view of later
developments we both have reconsidered many
conclusions that we arrived at that day, and have
been truly sorry for some things we said; but
allowing for the excitement under which we
labored, and the sudden dashing of our hopes to
the ground, some allowance should be made for
us both. |

We were however firmly of the opinion that
she was at least forty, wore a false front, rouge,
pearl-powder, and high-heeled shoes, and laced.
to suffocation. It was thought best to acquaint
Gramp and Dick’s uncles and aunts with the
circumstances, and they were nearly as much
affected, and in somewhat the same way, as we
were. His aunts wept bitterly, while his uncles,
following Gramp’s distinguished leadership,
painted some of the most vivid word-pictures I
ever saw or heard. I really was quite ashamed
of my feeble efforts after hearing theirs.

For the next few days I thought of the matter
constantly. I slept badly and dreamed hideous
dreams. My wife went about with red eyes and
woe-begone countenance. My daughter was the
only one who viewed the matter in the proper
spirit. She looked at it with unjaundiced eyesy

A RETURN 239

and looked forward with anticipation to a new
sister. Indeed, after a few days I found myself
wondering if I had not been a bit hasty. Perhaps
after all she might not be so bad. Suppose she
was young and pretty and dutiful? It would n’t
be at all bad. Suppose, after a time, a grand-
daughter or grandson arrived? Well, I always
had loved my babies, and I guess I would make
a pretty good grandpa after all, and Dick could
have the large east front room for a sitting-room,
and the small bedroom adjoining. I had prac-
tised law long enough to know the folly of antici-
pating a judgment. I was an ass, a venerable
long-eared ass. I would venture to bet she was
young and pretty. Dick was no fool. He may
have been a bit imprudent, but who wanted an >
icicle for a son? I would n’t give a cent for a boy
who would n’t be carried off his feet provided the
right girl came along. I was wrong, I had been
an ass. I guess it would be a good idea to paint
and paper those rooms, and to get a new rug for
the floor and a chiffonier with long, wide drawers.
Women liked them, and I guess Dick’s wife
should have them if she wanted them. The best
was none too good for Dick, and Dick’s wife was
going to be treated about as wellashe. I saw a
handsome fur rug that would n’t look at all badly
in front of their fireplace. Perhaps she had bet-
ter choose these things. Yes, there was no doubt

240 FARMING IT

of it, —I would wait. But we would welcome
her all the same, for she was Dick’s wife.

It was Thursday afternoon, and we were
waiting for Dick and his wife to arrive. I had
shaved and put on my newly-pressed summer
suit; my wife had on a white duck suit and white
tennis shoes, my daughter wore the same. I sat
under a tree reading a newspaper; a couple of
law books lay opened at my feet. I had n’t read
them, and did n’t intend to read them, and did n’t
care a hang what they contained. Only it would
be a good idea to let Dick’s wife know just what
sort of a family she was entering. If she was
well-bred, she would feel more at home, and if
she was ill-bred, forward, or conceited, it would
perhaps be as well to impress her in the first place
so as to keep her from undue self-assertiveness.

As I sat there pretending to read, but in reality
not seeing a line or a word of the page, I began
again to be depressed about the prospect of an
addition to the family that would at best be thor-
oughly unwelcome both to my wife and to me,
and, more unfortunately, to Dick. A boy of his
age would not be likely to be attracted by a
young and refined girl, because Dick was cer-
tainly young, and for a boy, rather refined and
fastidious, and he would be all the more liable
to be impressed by the coarser and more mature

A RETURN 241

charms of an altogether impossible person, only,
alas! to find out his fatal mistake too late.

It was only too true: Dick was an ass, and my
first impressions were too likely to be true. Hang
the women! hang ’em!! hang ’em!!!

In spite of my disgust, anger, and deep depres-
sion, I could not restrain a smile as I suddenly
beheld Gramp appear on his piazza across the
street, got up as Gramp generally gets himself
up on festal occasions, regardless, not of expense
but of appearances. He had put on an old-
fashioned black broadcloth coat with tails, —
one of those perfectly dreadful coats that make
a respectable man look like a composite picture
of a pirate, a Methodist parson of the old school
and a faro-dealer. He had neglected to change
his trousers, and wore an old pair of an inde-
scribable color, —a sort of greenish brown gar-
nished with grease spots, — and ending in an old
pair of shoes run down at the heel, cracked
across the tops and sides, and gray with ashes.

The costume, topped by a rusty black felt hat
at a rakish angle on his snow-white hair, and
further ornamented by a new clay pipe, made
of the old gentleman a rather fierce but very fine-
looking old chap.

Beside him sat two of Dick’s aunts, as usual,
well and quietly dressed, and looking like thor-
oughbreds, all evidently conscious of the vital

242 FARMING IT

necessity of a first impression. None of the
uncles were present, they having rather forcibly
expressed their disgust with the whole proceed-
ings.

As it drew near six o’clock, I could sit still no
longer and walked to the hedge and looked down
the street. Suddenly, from the opposite direction,
I heard the rapid thud of a-horse’s feet, —a
quick short snappy trot that seemed strangely
familiar. I turned and stared, and there whirled
round the corner a sorrel mare with head up,
mane and tail flying, going like the wind, and
drawing a light buggy in which sat a young man
grinning delightedly and holding the flying mare
with the coachman’s grip. Shades of immortal
Cesar! it was Dick driving Polly, — Polly for
whom I had hunted so long and vainly!

I was never so completely taken aback in my
life, and stood blankly with my mouth open like
a “plumb idjut.” On the piazza my wife and
daughter stood like people bereft of sense, until
suddenly Nathalie’s voice rang out: “Father!
father! It’s Polly! Dick’s got Polly!”

By this time Dick had pulled up, jumped to
the ground, thrown the reins over Polly’s back,
and had come forward to greet us.

“Well, old man,” he said, ‘“‘ what do you think
of my young lady ?”’

“You infernal young rascal!’’ I sputtered; “I

IT’S POLLY, DICK ’S GOT POLLY!

A RETURN Q43

have been frightened into good behavior for a
week. I thought you were married to a woman
fifty years old and fat as a toad.”

And then we fell on him, and thumped and
pump-handled him, and patted Polly, who was
as glad to get back as we were to see her; and
then we dragged Dick in to supper and demanded
explanations instantly on penalty of life and
limb, and without benefit of clergy.

And Dick told how he had seen Polly one day
pass through a suburb of Boston, and had fol-
lowed on foot and by car, and had finally located
her and had bought her after considerable dick-
ering, for he soon found out that her unpleasant
habit of halter-pulling had, cheapened her con-
siderably in the estimation of her owner. As to
the buggy and harness he said he had always
wanted a new buggy and harness, and he thought
I would not mind if he bought them.

Mind! the young scamp,—if he had known
how much I really would have been willing to give
to get him out of the scrape I fancied he was in,
he could have stocked up with an automobile.

CHAPTER XXIV

LOOKING BACKWARD

fe: ex years have passed since I bought
awa Gee] my farm, — years that have brought
= | e me hard work and but little more than
tei} | comfortable living in my profession.
But the genuine pleasure I have experienced
and the physical benefit I have derived from the
cultivation of my tiny farm, have much more than
repaid me for the many annoyances and losses
in time and money my ill-directed but well-
meant efforts have cost me.

True, I have not arrived at that point where
experienced farmers ask my advice in matters
pertaining to the cultivation of the soil, the breed-
ing of domestic animals, the relative advantage
of top-dressing and sub-soiling, or other disputed
questions in agricultural affairs.

I have not even arrived at the distinguished
honor of being a recognized contributor to an
agricultural paper : my only contribution, which
was written in a jocose spirit, was sent back with
great promptness, with a note from the editor
expressing an opinion decidedly adverse to the

par aS

LOOKING BACKWARD 245

admission of the article on the ground that “The
flippant and puerile spirit pervading the whole
article does not accord with the dignity of the
paper or the importance of the subject.”

But I have afforded amusement for my neigh-
bors, my friends and the public generally by the
variety of my experiences, and — Well, a person
who creates amusement for the public is not
wholly useless in this world, and so I feel that I
_ have done something for others. Besides, there
are many persons who have actually added mate-
rially to their income from my farming and gar-
dening operations.

I have bought cows and horses, hens and pigs,
fertilizers and fruit trees, deodorizers and disin-
fectants, cedar posts and wire-netting, patent
feeders and patent foods, and have, for each and
every horse, hen, pig, bag, barrel, and other
article, paid somewhat over the market price.

I have exchanged, dickered, traded, bartered,
and trafficked in these same articles, and have,
I believe, invariably been worsted in these en-
counters; and so I feel that I have in a double
measure been of benefit to my friends and ac-
quaintances, by contributing liberally to the joy
of the community and to its financial welfare.

Now, what have I done for myself ? I have to
a great extent lost my irritability. I have opened
a large house to my friends and guests, have had

246 FARMING IT

my table furnished with my own vegetables, eggs,
milk, cream, and butter, and adorned from spring
to fall with my own flowers.

I have brought my farm to a high state of fer-
tility, hardened my hands, strengthened my mus-
cles, cured my indigestion, and benefited every |
member of my family, and I have never neglected
in any way the duties of my profession.

It is a gray afternoon near the end of Novem-
ber, and I am driving Polly hitched to a farm
wagon. In the back of the wagon in a rack,
straw-bedded, is a beautiful Jersey heifer. Be-.
hind, loping easily along, comes the little roan
Indian pony, upon which, sitting easily on a
cross saddle, is my once small daughter, now a
girl of fourteen, riding with the ease and abandon
of a cavalryman.

The roads are hard and smooth, the going ex-
cellent. Polly is ambitious and spins along at a
spanking pace, but cannot shake off the smooth-
gaited pony. A chill wind blows from the north,
the dry rushes at the river’s edge bend and rustle
eerily, a little gray bird with jerking tail flies in
and out of the dead bushes, while overhead a
single crow, black against the gray sky, wings
its way toward a growth of giant pines that
shoulder to shoulder seem to defy the coming
assaults of the storm king.

RIDING WITH THE EASE AND ABANDON OF A CAVALRYMAN

LOOKING BACKWARD 247

As we pass the first bridge, down the steely
course of the river comes a muffled figure, while
the ring of the skates strikes sharply on the
silent air.

It is dusk as we whirl into the yard and pull our
horses up, — dusk and chill with the cold breath
of the dying year. Take our lantern and follow |
us as we unhitch Polly and lead her and the pony
into the stable. As we enter, a pedigreed Jersey,
from her warm and bedded stall, turns her head
with its fringed ears and soft eyes, and lows com-
fortably. We blanket our horses, bed them
deeply, then climb to the loft, where we throw
down English hay, raised on my farm. The
heifer, unbound and dragged to a well-bedded
pen, stares about her in surprise at her comfort-
able quarters, then, pricking up her ears and
elevating her tail, prances awkwardly.

Our wagon is pulled into the carriage-house,
the doors of the barn closed and locked, and we
go next to the hen-coops. We carefully empty
the water-cans, close the shutters to the windows,
see that the ventilators are open and the fowls
all at roost, and that none are sick, then pass on
to another pen. In the little room at the entrance
to the coop are many ribbons won at poultry
shows, among them some blue ribbons.

Then to the storehouse, where we see that the
fastenings of the doors are firm. We cannot help

248 FARMING IT

flashing a lantern over the bins filled with apples,
corn, cabbages, potatoes, turnips, and carrots,
raised on our own place.

As we come from the storehouse and fasten the
door, night has fallen, the wind is moaning about
the buildings, and a few flakes of snow, the ad-

vance-guard of the storm, come sifting silently |

down. We extinguish our lantern, and faintly
in the gathering darkness we can make out the
dead corn-stalks standing like ghosts of departed
summer, while through the black mass of the
clustered pines the wind moans drearily.

Without all is cold and dark and dreary. Within ©

all is bright and warm and comfortable. Sum-
mer is gone, but she will come again. Now for
the winter and our fire and books. And locking
arms with my daughter, I enter and shut out the
gathering storm.

a a a i eT I OT ie

|
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een
Teas

Che Viiverside Press
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U.S.A

THE CALICO CAT

By CHARLES MINER THOMPSON

« A farce tinged with demure seriousness. It is enough
to tell the reader that he will chuckle over ‘The Calico
Cat.’”” — New York Tribune.

“ There is a round of humorous episodes following one
another in quick succession and making keen enjoy-
ment for the reader.” — Boston Journal.

“A most vivacious tale. . . . The humor of the book
is genuine and quite irresistible.” — Boston Globe.

“A highly amusing and ingenious tale. ... The
simple plot is ingenious and the village character
types are varied and altogether amusing.” — Chicago
News.

Humorously illustrated. 16mo, $1.25

HOUGHTON BOSTON
MIFFLIN AND
COMPANY NEW YORK

THE BREAKING IN OF A
YACHTSMAN’'S WIFE

By MARY HEATON VORSE

“Clever! Sparkling! Full of quaint humor and crisp
description! Altogether a book which will not disap-
point the reader. It is ‘different,’ and that is one great
merit in a book.” — Brooklyn Eagle.

“Tt will puzzle holiday makers to find a better vacation
book than this. Those who go up and down the Sound
in yachts will find it especially pleasing ; it will appeal
to those who are fond of human nature studies; may
be recommended even more decidedly to the serious
than to the young and frivolous ; a tonic to depression
and an antidote to gloom.””— WV. V. Tzmes.

‘Charming, with its salt, sea-slangy flavor, its double
love thread, and its pleasant chapters dealing with
Long Island Sound, the Mediterranean, Massachusetts
Bay and Venetian lagoons.” — Chicago Record-Herald.

Illustrated by Reginald Birch. 12mo, $1.50

HOUGHTON BOSTON
MIFFLIN AND
COMPANY NEW YORK

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NOV. 24 1909

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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