up began to burrow into the strawstacks even before the newspapers
reported the coming storm. When called to the feed-trough they respond
reluctantly in spite of their much-maligned appetites, and when the east
wind strikes them they let out a concert of squeals that makes one
understand just what the good Sir Walter meant when he described the
singing at a conventicle as sounding "like a hog in a high wind." But
enough of this, lest some patient reader should be tempted to exclaim
with Job: "Should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his belly
with the East Wind!"

Last Sunday afternoon there were a couple of black squirrels on the
beech knoll, and I was glad it was Sunday, because the sight roused in
me certain predatory feelings that I thought I had outlived. In the old
evil days to see a black squirrel was to run for a gun, and there is no
knowing of what might have happened if it hadn't been Sunday in a
community where there is a proper regard for the Lord's Day Alliance.
Still, the squirrels were comparatively safe. My own rifle is twenty
miles away and the nearest shotgun that might be borrowed is in a
farmhouse at a distance of three miles. But although circumstances made
it possible for me to restrain myself, it will probably make little
difference to the squirrels. They will almost certainly go into the bag
of some city hunter. At the present time these gentry are ranging
through the country, shooting up everything from chipmunks to stray
hens, and no doubt imagining that, like Nimrod of old, they are "mighty
hunters before the Lord." Why can't they stick to clay pigeons and spare
the feelings of those who haven't got guns handy? It is really no wonder
that the farmers are beginning to disfigure the country with "No
shooting" and "No trespassing" signs. The few squirrels and quail that
remain are farm pets rather than wild game. A few more seasons of the
city hunter, and the boys in this district will know nothing about black
squirrels, except what they learn from Sam Wood's vivid article in the
new Fourth Reader.

Let no one imagine that, although winter is at hand, the country is
without its hours of excitement. The first storm is the signal for tying
up the young cattle in the stable for the first time, and any one who
officiates at such a function will not lack an overflow of emotions. You
can't take a dehorned yearling by the ear and tell him persuasively that
a well-bedded stall and a full manger are much to be preferred to the
pelting rain and the scorn of the outer dark. Whatever else has changed
on the farm, the young cattle are just the same as ever and just as
stubborn. The method of handling them, however, is changed somewhat. The
old way used to be to take a stake out of the cordwood rack and try to
make them see the light. At the present time the buggy-whip seems the
handiest thing to use, and the whole family is called out to enjoy a
game of "bull-in-the-ring." In spite of the best efforts of every one,
including the collie dog, some of them will break away to the far end of
the lane. Even after they have been driven one by one into the stable it
is hard to make them understand that only one should go into a stall.
They seem to prefer to go in bunches, and sometimes the language of the
inside workers whose task it is to tie them up is feverish and painful.

_Nov. 7._--We were starting to town to have the children's photograph
taken for Christmas when some one shouted:

"Look at the turkeys!"

Sure enough the turkeys were coming home. All fall they have been living
in a coop at the woods where they could have plenty of territory to
range over and live the semi-wild life in which they thrive best. They
were so placed that they could forage in the woods or steal from the
cornfield, besides getting their regular rations, and life for them was
one grand sweet song. Every time the gobblers gobbled they did it so
lustily that those who heard involuntarily murmured "Merry Christmas!"
They had not visited the home buildings since being put at the woods,
but now they were coming all together as fast as they could run. First,
they would run a little to the left, then a little to the right, like
the merry villagers approaching the front of the stage in a musical
comedy. You would almost imagine that they were dodging between
invisible trees. When they reached the barn yard the gobblers all
gobbled and gave every evidence of being glad to be home again. We might
have suspected that there was something going to happen when the turkeys
acted in this way, but, being mere human beings depending on reason for
guidance instead of instinct, we bundled ourselves into the buggy and
went to town.

Having photographs taken, like everything else in this progressive age,
has become a commonplace affair. We went about it without any more
excitement than if we were buying groceries. After the group was placed,
not posed--for it is no longer necessary to take a fixed position and
hold it for a time exposure until all the feeling of a human being
leaves one--the photographer squeezed a little rubber bulb, the shutter
clicked, and the operation was over. Of course, there was the little
matter of father getting down on all fours in a far corner of the studio
and making believe that he was a bear so as to make the serious-minded
baby smile, but we will not go into that. Still, it was a task requiring
considerable artistic skill. The acting had to be finely shaded, with
just enough realism to make the baby smile without making the older
children laugh. While I have never set much store by my histrionic
abilities, I venture to think that if the critics had seen my
performance they would have given me press notices that would be worth
preserving. As it was there were those present who mourned because they
could not get a snapshot of me in that character. I think I played the
bear just about as well as Bully Bottom would have played the lion. I
roared "as gently as a sucking dove." As I have suggested, the act was
very brief, and perhaps that was as well. I might not have been able to
sustain the character for any length of time. I couldn't help
remembering how different it was the first time I "had my picture took."
I had a new home-made suit of which I felt duly proud and somehow got
the necessary funds to have a tintype taken. I was placed in the most
awkward position I have ever been in, and under the orders of the
photographer I gazed steadily at a feather duster until the tears came
into my eyes while he held his watch and counted like the referee at a
prize-fight. Years afterwards it took two strong men to hold me when
that tintype was brought out for the edification of a mixed company.

When we came out of the photographer's we realised what had ailed the
turkeys. The snowstorm of the season was in progress. A strong wind was
blowing from the east and driving the big flakes before it. It would
have been an interesting sight if it were not that we were over three
miles from home and would have to face it all the way. There was nothing
to do, however, but to pile into the buggy and start for home. There
were no woods anywhere to break the force of the storm, and soon we were
all as white as Santa Claus. The children began to get cold, and
father--oh, well, it was a trying situation. There seemed to be twice as
many people in the buggy as when we were going down, but now that I
think it over in a serene frame of mind I can see that nothing makes
cramped quarters seem so over-crowded as a little touch of temper. Of
course we got home safely, though cold and storm-beaten, and we finally
got thawed out. Hereafter when the turkeys begin to act up in an unusual
way I shall stay at home to see what happens. The ancients used to
foretell the success of journeys by the flight of birds and I am
inclined to think there may have been something in it. Those turkeys
certainly seemed to know that our journey would be made uncomfortable by
a storm.

Some people are trying hard to believe that we have sleighing, but I
have no delusions on that point. An inch or two of light fluffy snow on
a lumpy gravel road isn't sleighing. For the past week it has been
threatening snow every day, and some has fallen, but it will take a lot
more to make good sleighing. The temperature has ranged from zero to
twenty-two above during the past week, and we have had real winter
weather. From what I have heard about the temperature from others who
own thermometers I am beginning to believe that watching the weather is
something like fishing. People like to get an unusual record. I have
heard four degrees below zero reported, but my thermometer is a prosy,
unimaginative instrument that seems inclined to record things as it
finds them. I also find that there are people who do not hesitate for a
moment to dispute the thermometer. When the mercury is standing at
twenty above I have heard them assert vehemently: "I don't care what
your old thermometer says; it is colder to-day than it has been since
the storm started. I guess I know when I feel cold, don't I?" Of course
it is not the function of a thermometer to warm people up when it rises
in the tube. If they choose to go out without enough clothes it does not
record that fact, but they do. The use of thermometers seems to be
having an influence on the climate. Judging by the stories one hears, we
don't have such cold winters as they had before thermometers came into
use. The effect seems to be the opposite of that reported by the
Irishwoman who was asked how far it was to a certain town.

"It used to be only three miles, but one day a surveyor came along and
measured the road and it has been five weary miles ever since." In that
case science made things harder, but the reading of the thermometer in
this section makes the climate seem less severe.

Driving to school with the children these mornings is a task full of
interest. The white page of the snow is scribbled over with all sorts of
stories. I never knew rabbits and quail to be so plentiful as they are
this year. Their tracks are everywhere, though where they hide
themselves is a mystery. I have seen only one rabbit this year. That one
was poked out of a culvert, and I saw it only for the three or four
seconds it took to get under a stack, yet the whole neighbourhood is
tracked by them as if mobs of them played about at night. There are
three flocks of quail on the farm and yet I have never seen them except
when I set out to search for them diligently. I hear them whistling in
different directions almost every morning and evening, but they manage
to keep themselves out of sight. This makes me wonder a little about the
sharp-sighted heroes of modern nature stories who can't walk through a
page of printed text without seeing game and making observations that
would take me hours of hunting and watching. If it were not for the
snow, which reveals every movement of the little creatures, we should
hardly know that there is life of any kind in the fields. To the
children these tracks are a never-ending source of wonder and delight.
They are sure that the rabbits or quail are under every bush to which
the tracks lead, if I would only stop the buggy long enough to let them
go and see. But I looked too often years ago when trudging through the
fields and woods with a gun to feel much enthusiasm. These winter tracks
seem to lead everywhere and nowhere. One almost imagines that they are
purposely confused so as to conceal the hiding-places.

_Nov. 9._--The turkeys in Appin district are not wild, but their owners
are. This is the season of the annual round-up, and if it were not that
Canadians are a peaceable and law-abiding people the results might be
disastrous. The confusion is equal to that of a round-up of wild cattle
in Texas in the old evil days. Flocks are inextricably mixed. It is
true that some of the tough stringy old gobblers and hens are marked
with bits of gaudy rags tied on their wings, but the young, plump,
edible birds are unbranded. Hence the confusion and heart-burnings.

Turkeys are native here, and they do not seem to understand that the
world has become civilised since the time when their ancestors roamed
through the woods in mighty flocks. They are the only important
survivors of the wild life of other days, and they still retain many of
their wild instincts. Although they are hatched out in the barns or
poultry houses, they take to the woods as soon as they have the use of
their legs, and live the wild life until full grown.

The great trouble is that, like the Indians, they are unable to
understand property rights in land. Line fences mean nothing to them,
and they will range wherever food is plentiful. Flocks sometimes wander
miles from home in quest of grasshoppers in the summer time, and of
beechnuts in the fall. While the weather is mild the flocks keep apart,
but when a cold snap comes on they rush together, and then the trouble
begins.

"My turkeys were hatched early in June," says one farmer's wife.

Sixty gobblers gobble together as at a signal, while an equal number of
hens stretch their necks and look worried.

"Mine were July birds, but they are of a big breed, and fast growers."
The gobblers comment on this statement with a clamorous, simultaneous
gobble.

"Mine were July birds, too, but I fed them on oatmeal for a couple of
weeks, and that gave them a good start."

Once more the gobblers in convention assembled gobble furiously.

Here you have all the elements of a neighbourhood row. Each woman is
convinced in her own soul that all the really big turkeys belong to her
by rights, and that the runts that have pulled through an attack of roup
or blackhead belong to some one else.

"When my hens were setting I noticed that all their eggs were
sharp-pointed, and I've heard it said that gobblers always hatch out of
that kind."

After this remark the gobblers gobble their worst. They seem to have a
mania for gobbling after every remark made by people who are viewing
them. At the same time the other two women sniffed, for they knew just
what the remark about sharp-pointed eggs and gobblers means. It means
that the speaker thinks she should come out of the round-up with a flock
wholly composed of gobblers. They would like to do the same, but it is
manifestly impossible. There are fully fifty hens, and they must belong
to somebody.

At last, in desperation, it is suggested that each owner drive out her
own marked old hens and turkeys and see if the young ones will follow
their parents. Only people who have tried to drive turkeys know what
this means. Make a pass at a gobbler with a switch and he sidesteps out
of range. Then he stands to await further developments. As no two
turkeys by any possibility sidestep in the same direction the progress
that can be made in driving them is evident. It is asserted on good
authority that the more people know about turkeys the better they like
geese.

In order to facilitate the division of the flocks the owners make wild
rushes at them, each trying to cut out towards her own nucleus the
finest-looking birds. Full of a sense of the wrongs they are enduring,
they keep at it until each has the number of birds in her original
flock. Then each makes her way home to tell her husband how she was
imposed upon and cheated, and each vows she will never speak to either
of her greedy and over-reaching neighbours as long as she lives--no,
never.

The turkeys are then fed on grain for a few days and rushed to the
Christmas market. The only good turkey is a dead one, but it is so very
good that much may be forgiven.

_Nov. 11._--During the past couple of days I have had a chance to give
some close study to the hen. It was decided to shift one of the flocks
to another house. This was done at night--the time when so many hens are
shifted. They were picked from their roosts, stuffed into canvas bags,
and carried squawking to their new home. Chicken-thieves must have a
knack that I cannot discover, or they would be caught every time they
make a raid. It doesn't matter whether I catch a hen by the legs or by
the neck, or by both at once, she is sure to squawk, and after she is
put in a bag she keeps right on "searching her soul for sounds to tell
how scared she is." Merely as a matter of scientific interest, I should
like to know how the chicken-thieves manage their work so quietly. If
there happen to be any among the readers of this page, I wish they would
write me a line privately, telling how the trick is done. Communications
will be treated as strictly confidential, and I promise not to make bad
use of the information given. I really want to know, for it is an
irritating mystery how a creature so full of assorted noises can be
taken away in silence. Those who know will please write, instead of
coming and giving a practical demonstration. They need not disclose name
and address as a guarantee of good faith. Write soon.

The only thing in the first night of the moving that seems worth
recording was the conduct of the sporty Leghorn rooster. He had been
plunged head-first into a bag, squawking like the most chicken-hearted
pullet, but when he had been dumped on the floor of his new home he
began to strut around and talk hen talk just as if everything had turned
out as he had expected. He crooned and clucked to his flock, and acted
for all the world like the leader of an Opposition that had suffered a
humiliating defeat. He seemed to be telling his followers not to be
discouraged, for when the right time came he would rip things wide open
and crow over the wreck of the Government. On the day after the moving
the old chicken-house was taken away, or every hen would have been back
in it next night. As the phrenologists used to say, "The hen has a
wonderfully developed bump of locality." When she gets settled in one
place she becomes very much attached to it. Unless carried beyond her
bearings, she will come back as inevitably as a cat. Knowing this, we
were not surprised, on going out with the lantern on the second night,
to find a lot of the hens huddled where the chicken-house had stood. The
snow was pelting down on them, but they seemed to prefer the tender
associations of the old place to the warmth and shelter of the new.
There was nothing to be done but to grab them by the legs and carry them
to their new home again. Wishing to get through with the job as quickly
as possible, I put one under each arm, took two in each hand, and
carried the lantern with my teeth. I was just about as fully occupied as
a man could well be, but it is always at such times that things begin to
happen. I hadn't walked two rods before my nose got itchy. Wow! It
wasn't a gentle little tickling, but a wild, exasperating, fiery agony
that made me wrinkle up my face till my eyes were shut. I couldn't raise
my hands without dropping chickens, and I couldn't get comfort from the
wire fence because the lantern was in the way. For the next few seconds
I was as busy as Rex Beach's "one-armed paper-hanger with the hives."
But it was no use. Luckily the hen-house was not far away, and I rushed
towards it. As soon as I reached the door I scattered chickens all over
the place and clutched my nose. It is all right for you to laugh, but if
you were the right kind of person you would rub your nose in sympathy as
you read this. I wonder how many of you did.

Among the chickens that had to be carried were four pure-bred Brahma
cockerels and a pullet. They interested me, and from now on I am going
to cultivate their acquaintance. All fall they have been ranging over
the whole farm, and even trespassing on neighbouring farms in search of
sunflower seeds and other delicacies. This had caused me some surprise,
for my early recollections of Brahmas were that they were exceedingly
sedentary fowls, slow movers, and without ambition, save the
overmastering ambition of the hens to set. As I remember them they were
setting all the time and all over the place. If they were thrown off the
nests they would cuddle down contentedly on a door-knob or piece of
broken crockery, apparently with the idea of hatching out some egg-cups.
When approached they would ruffle up their feathers and snarl, but they
wouldn't move unless lifted. It was useless to hold them under the spout
and pump on them, for that only seemed to make them mad--which justifies
the proverb, "Mad as a wet hen." It was practically impossible to break
them of setting. But I am assured that these up-to-date Brahmas are
non-setters. They can't be induced to set. I can't help wondering how
the strain was developed. As these are July chickens and there is only
one pullet, I haven't had a chance to see if the marvellous change has
been really accomplished. But I do know that they range around as no
old-time Brahma ever did. When they hear a beechnut fall in the woods
they stretch out their long necks, unlimber their long legs, and almost
seem to shake the earth as they bounce across the fields to get it. As
yet they are all feathers and skeleton. They look as big as turkeys, but
they have no meat on them, though each one has enough neck and feet to
make a boarding-house chicken fricassee. They seem to be like Sir John
Macdonald's Holstein cattle: "The more you feed them the more bone they
grow." I am assured that it takes them about a year to get their growth
and fill out, and I am curious to see what they will be like when ready
for the table. They didn't look very dignified the other night when I
found them standing where their old home used to be, trying to protect
themselves from the snowstorm by sticking their heads under one another
while the wind seemed to be whistling through their ribs. But I am going
to make a sympathetic study of them if they will only stay at home long
enough to let me.

_Nov. 14._--We have now reached that part of the harvest which I most
thoroughly understand and enjoy. Earlier in the season we changed work
with the horses, so as to provide the food needed for them and the
cattle during the winter, and the surplus was sold for "rascal
counters," with which we can get the things not grown on the farm that
we need for ourselves. Now, however, we are putting away that part of
the produce which we shall need for home consumption. Apples are being
stored, potatoes pitted, celery and cabbage trenched, and other
vegetables protected for the winter. I say that I understand this part
of the harvest better than the other and I'll tell you why. We are all
the time being told to go to the ant for an example of wisdom. Well--one
time I went, and I am afraid that the lesson I learned was one that my
teachers did not intend. Instead of having money invested in bonds or a
good bank account, the ant simply had a plentiful store of provisions.
As I put away these vegetables I have a comfortable feeling that I have
learned the lesson of the ant as it was intended to be taught. Food is
the most important form of wealth and to have a plentiful supply stored
away is the highest form of wisdom. In more primitive times the wealth
of kings consisted of full granaries and countless herds, and they were
considered rich because they had ample food for themselves and all who
were dependent on them. I suppose if I sold the celery, which is a
somewhat costly luxury in the cities, I could put money in the bank, but
I am fond of celery, and the wisdom of the ant is good enough for me.
There is no knowing what may happen to the banks when the Bank Act comes
up for revision, but I feel moderately secure regarding the vegetables.

Speaking of celery, there is one thing I should like to know, and
perhaps some gardener who reads _The Farmer's Advocate_ can tell me. I
have no doubt that the trouble is due to some mistake I have made, but I
wish to be set right, so that I can do better next year. When trenching
the celery I found that part of it had grown very rank, and was so pithy
that it is practically useless. The celery was grown in an old barn
yard, where the ground was just about as rich as it could possibly be,
having been used as a barn yard since the land was first cleared. I am
inclined to think that this is about the first crop ever raised on this
bit of soil, and that the original fertility is still there, as well as
what has been accumulating during the past seventy years. Most of the
celery is just about as fine as it could possibly be, large stalks,
crisp and tender and as sweet as a nut. Besides, the stalks are about
the largest I have ever seen, but some of the very largest are almost
useless. What is the trouble? Has the growth been too rank or have I
neglected something that should be done? Most of the trouble is with the
Giant Golden Heart variety. The White Plume is all firm and sound, and
both kinds were cultivated in the same way. Should I have treated the
two kinds differently?

Two correspondents have asked me to give in _The Farmer's Advocate_ the
receipts for Force Meat and Dried Beef, which I described in an article
elsewhere about a year ago. We prepared the dried beef, which proved to
be excellent, according to the following receipt:

"Take the best of beef, or that part which will be the most lean and
tender. The tender part of the round is a very good piece. For every
twenty pounds of beef use one pint of salt, one teaspoonful of
saltpetre, and a quarter of a pound of brown sugar. Mix them well
together and rub the beef well with one-third of the mixture for three
successive days. Let it lie in the liquor it makes for six days, then
hang up to dry. A large crock or jar is a good vessel to prepare the
meat in before drying it."

This dried beef is good either when cut in thin slices and fried or made
up in the various ways in which "chipped beef" is used.

The force meat I had reference to is an old-fashioned country dish, and
not the kind that usually goes under that name in the cook books. It
strikes me as being more like pemmican than anything else. Take any
convenient quantity of lean beef. The better the cut, the better the
result will be, but any part may be used from porter-house steak to the
neck. Chop this beef as finely as possible with a chopping-knife, but do
not put it through a meat-chopper. Take about one-third the amount of
suet and chop it in the same way, then mix the two and add salt and
pepper to taste. When the beef and suet have been thoroughly mixed and
flavoured, press it into small cakes by hand and put it away in a crock.
It is ready to use at once, and is fried like steak. If there is any
better eating for cold weather I have yet to find it. This is a truly
pioneer dish and one of the best. Some day I may gather and put in shape
the pioneer receipts that I have come across while gathering information
about the first settlers. Quite a number of the dishes they used are no
longer in vogue, but most of them that I have sampled have been good,
though rather strong food for palates that are trained to sweets and
delicacies.

_Nov. 17._--This morning I did something so foolish that I hate to tell
about it, but duty must be done. How are the young and the city people
who are moving back to the land to be properly warned of dangers unless
some one tells of things that happen on a farm with shameless
truthfulness? It would not be so bad if I didn't know better, but I did,
and now most emphatically do.

You have all heard of the foolish man who got a fall by sawing off the
limb he was sitting on. The story was one of the favourites of my youth,
and I have seen it used scores of times in political cartoons. It
illustrates human foolishness better than any joke I know of, and yet I
did exactly the same thing as the man in the story. I cut off the limb I
was standing on. Looking at it thoughtfully, I have a humble feeling
that there is no form of foolishness of which I am not capable. Of
course, there were extenuating circumstances. There always are. A man
does such a thing as that only when he is feeling that he is wiser and
smarter than other men, and I thought I was altogether too skilful and
cautious to let that limb get out from under me. I would cut to the
right point and then stop. That's what they all say, but, as usual, the
scheme didn't work out right.

This is how it happened. I went to the woodlot to forage for stove-wood,
and noticing that the heavy sleet last February had broken down a number
of big branches, I decided to use them. They were resting on the ground,
but still connected with the trees by a few splinters. I had to climb
to cut the splinters and bring the branches down. All went well until I
came to a big beech, from which a branch about a foot in diameter was
hanging by a stout slab. The break was about fifteen feet from the
ground, and there were no other branches at that point. When I had
climbed the tree, I found that the split-end of the branch made a good
platform to stand on, and, after figuring out the situation, I decided
that the easiest way to do the trick would be to chop nearly through the
connecting slab while standing where I was, and then get close to the
trunk and finish the job by swinging the axe with one hand and clinging
to the trunk with one arm. But I had forgotten that the sapwood of the
beech gets brittle when it has been drying for a year, and I had not
given more than half a dozen strokes before there was a sudden snap, and
the excitement began. I hadn't time to think, so must have acted on
instinct, or from reflex action. I grabbed at the trunk of the tree with
both arms and both legs. I just splashed myself against it, while the
axe went flying. But before I could get my brakes adjusted, I had
slipped about six feet down, and the legs of my trousers and sweater had
slipped about two feet up. And the bark of that old beech was
rough--very rough. After coming to a stop, I surveyed the scene, and
felt thankful that I was not mixed up with the axe and the big limb on
the ground. Then I shinned down the rest of the distance with a
chastened spirit and a sprained thumb.

While chopping the branch into stove-lengths I meditated much on the
foolishness of what I had done, and felt properly ashamed of myself. If
one of the boys had done such a thing, I would never have stopped
laughing at him. And now I had done it myself. Oh, well, I have a
suspicion that most men do things that are just as foolish, when no one
is looking, and have the reputation of being wise and careful just
because they escape and keep quiet about it. Sometimes I think that
there is something in us that makes us try to do things that we know are
foolish. It helps to keep us humble, if we are wise enough to learn the
lesson. To-night I am feeling very humble. I don't think I should laugh,
even if the baby took a spoonful of salt in mistake for granulated
sugar. It is a mistake that might be made by any of us.

Whoever worked out the plan of planting young trees that is given by the
Department of Forestry certainly knew what he was about. I doubt if it
could be improved upon. Lifting a sod and turning it back kills all the
grass and weeds around the seedling, and gives it a chance to get a good
start. To-day I looked over the trees I planted in the spring, and found
that they are all beautifully mulched. The little hollow from which the
sod was taken, and in which the tree was planted served as a trap for
the drifting leaves. Around each tree there is a mulch of packed leaves
three or four inches deep, and the work could not have been done better
by hand. I don't think they mentioned that result in the bulletin on
Reforestation, so it came to me as a surprise which aroused my
admiration. The trees should come through the winter safely with such
protection, and the rotting leaves should furnish them with the food
they need next spring. Of the thousand and eighty trees I planted, at
least eight hundred came through the scorching summer safely, and I
expect that they will make quite a showing next year. The pine suffered
the most. Though I have always understood that walnuts are very
delicate, I find that almost all of mine lived. I was also pleased to
find that thousands of young maples got a good start this year because
the cattle had been kept out of the woods. Little as they are, these
seedlings help to keep the leaves from drifting, and it looks as if the
sod that had made such headway before replanting was attempted will soon
disappear. Next spring, if the Forestry Department is kind, and I am
feeling equal to the task, I shall plant out a couple of thousand more
young trees, and try to get at least five acres back to natural woods.
Of course, I know there are plenty of wise people who will say that I am
foolish to be planting out trees in the garden land of Ontario, instead
of clearing away those that remain; but, as I told you in the first
paragraph, I am now convinced that I am capable of any kind of
foolishness. Still, there is a saving remnant of the people who believe
that reforestation is a wise thing. I do not think I am making a mistake
in casting in my lot with them.

    First let me tell you how the whole thing started
      (For I have seldom troubled you with rhyme),
    I woke this morning feeling happy-hearted,
      Lulled by the dreams of a supernal clime,
    And ere the drowsy glamour had departed
      I heard soft music, like an elfin chime;
    It seemed as if the old house had begun
    Like Memnon's statue to salute the sun.

    An Indian Summer dawn of amber haze
      Along the east was glowing luminous,
    Ushering one of those Canadian days
      Of rare perfection, warm and languorous,
    That well deserve such mystic strains of praise
      As still were rising faint, mysterious--
    Although their source I sought in vain, until
    I chanced to look upon the window-sill,

    And there a child's harmonica was lying,
      Just where the south wind on the reeds could blow;
    It roused the music with its fitful sighing,
      Æolian chords, sweet, tremulous, and low.
    Finding what set the elfin music flying
      "My lungs like Chanticleer began to crow."
    Meanwhile the sun had risen, red as blood,
    And poured its light, a ruby-tinted flood.

    I tell all this because it made me vow
      To weave the doings of the day in song,
    From dawn till dark, as I am doing now;
      Jotting down verses as I go along,
    Hoping some Muse will with her charm endow
      The flying fancies to my brain that throng.
    Whether it is worth the doing we shall see,
    For I shall give you what the gods give me.

    The fire was blazing and I started calling
      The little sleepers, and the morning noise
    Began at once, with giggling, tickling, squalling,
      Laughing, romping, yelling, such as boys
    And girls delight in. Now, there's some one bawling!
      'Tis sweet domestic music, but it cloys!
    I think I'll do the chores and 'scape the pother
    And leave the task of dressing to their mother.

    The air is frosty, but a south wind purrs
      Across my ears, and though all else is still
    A flock of sparrows in a spruce confers
      With much politic chirping. Now a mill
    Blows its loud whistle and the world bestirs
      Itself to work, of which it has its fill.
    (Although of work I am not quite a hater,
    I'll have some things to say about it later.)

    The Collie greets me, romping wildly round,
      Barking and fawning for his morning petting;
    The gobblers gobble (joyous Christmas sound),
      "Their little hour" so proudly strutting, fretting;
    The roosters cluck, some muddy titbit found,
      Each for his dames an early breakfast getting;
    The driver whinnies and the lonesome calf
    Bawls with a peevishness that makes me laugh.

    I feed them all and then, the milking done,
      Go in to breakfast with an appetite
    For eggs and bacon, that I feast upon
      With earthly, unpoetical delight.
    When satisfied, the day's work is begun--
      Winter is coming, all things must be right--
    And though the day is fine I still remember
    To make due haste for it is now November.

    Corn to haul in and stalks to bind and stack,
      Potatoes and apples to be snugly pitted;
    Of urgent work to-day there is no lack;
      To every hour a needful task is fitted.
    To honest labour I must bow my back,
      But still that back is cheerfully submitted;
    And what is more, if I could spare a minute,
    I'd show you that there's philosophy in it.

    Driving afield, the splendour of the day
      Charms like a mighty masterpiece of art:
    The fields and woods all stripped to sober grey,
      The golden sunshine flooding every part.
    Surely the hours will blithely slip away
      And joy of life will throb in every heart--
    So chants the poet, but the toiler knows
    The world he works in is a world of prose.

    All day with diligence that men applaud
      I picked the golden ears and bore them in;
    The world was fair, the south wind was abroad
      Offering me joys I could not stop to win.
    Yet was I well contented to defraud
      My soul of all the beauty there had been;
    This heavy price it is our fate to pay
    To win our freedom for another day.

    Poets there are who sing with frenzied passion
      Of endless toil, who never felt its bane;
    To call it glorious is now the fashion,
      Drowning with song man's wretchedness and pain
    My Pegasus I'll never lay the lash on,
      Pursuing such a folly-bitten strain;
    I say, and say it boldly to your face,
    That needless labour is a foul disgrace.

    Labour that knows the seedtime and its hope,
      And waits the harvest with a trusting soul--
    Strong in its faith with every ill to cope,
      Trusting in God and his benign control--
    Scorning the slavery in which they grope,
      Blind and defeated, who make wealth their goal--
    Such would I sing for he who looks may see
    The end of labour is to make men free.

    And being free, with clothing, food, and shelter,
      What, that is toil-bought, would you envy more?
    Why should you struggle in the human welter?
      Why should you sink when you were meant to soar?
    Life has been made a hurried helter-skelter
      Of aimless effort without guiding lore.
    Believe me, friend, though you have wealth past measure,
    Living itself is life's completest treasure.

    If some good people would but take the time
      To look about them they would be surprised
    To find their house of life is more sublime
      Than poet ever feigned or sage surmised.
    Stop and look forth! It will not be a crime!
      And if you think I have not well advised--
    Preferring some one who of toiling proses--
    Back to the grindstone with your stupid noses.

    Our fathers toiled, but in a glorious fight,
      The God of nations led them by the hand,
    With pillared smoke by day and fire by night
      They wrought like heroes in their Promised Land;
    The wilderness was conquered by their might,
      They made for God the marvel he had planned--
    A land of homes where toil could make men free,
    The final masterpiece of Destiny.

    How can I rest when they will not be still?
      When every wind is vocal and their sighs
    Breathe to my ear from every funeral hill
      And from each field where one forgotten lies?
    They haunt my steps and burden me until
      I plead with hands outstretched and streaming eyes:
    "I am not worthy! Let my lips be dumb!
    The mighty song and singer yet shall come!"

    The well-greaved Greeks and Priam's savage brood
      Were not more worthy of immortal song
    Than these in homespun, who alone withstood
      Hunger and Fear to make our Freedom strong;
    But till the singer comes, at least the good
      They wrought we must from age to age prolong:
    Learning from them, let this our watchword be:
    Free from all tyrants from yourselves be free!

    Well, I have wandered and the day is spent,
      My morning vow forgotten and the throng
    Of fancies vanished that I truly meant
      To spread before you as I went along--
    Showing what beauty with the day was blent--
      Minting the gold of sunset into song--
    Pouring my heart in rapture or in mirth--
    Singing with pride the land that gave me birth.

    But though I fail I shall not be ashamed;
      My brothers of the fields will understand
    The patriot ardour in my heart that flamed
      And by what breath that sacred fire was fanned;
    The blood still courses in our veins that tamed
      The waste to fruitfulness at His command,
    And ye all feel as I have felt to-day--
    Born of this soil and kneaded of its clay.

_Nov. 25._--Is there such a thing as an official score-card for marking
up the points of a cow? If there is I should like to see one. I want to
know just how many marks are given for powers of digestion. This week
the red cow did something that almost lifts her out of the cow class and
places her with the ostrich and boa-constrictor. The other day after the
cows had been turned out to water she was somehow left untied. True to
her predatory instincts, as soon as she discovered her freedom she
started to nose around for something she could steal and had the luck to
find a tub full of corn in the ear, from which the hens were being fed.
She promptly began to wrap herself around it and before being
interrupted in her feast she had eaten over a bushel. Now, _The Farmer's
Advocate_ has never published any "First Aid to the Gluttonous," and I
didn't know what to do. When I asked for advice people told me sad
stories of the death of cows from over-feeding. Some had been killed by
eating tailings after a threshing, others by bloating after eating
clover, others by a surfeit of chop feed. It was all very disheartening
for a fresh cow that gives eight quarts of milk rich in butter-fat at
each milking is a valuable asset in these days when the bank act is
being revised so as to allow farmers to raise money on their cattle. I
couldn't call up the veterinarian for we have no telephone, and with the
roads in their present condition I did not feel like driving three miles
to consult one. Still I was not so much worried as I might have been.
The look in her eye was reassuring. She looked more like the cat that
had eaten the canary than anything else. She wore an air of unmistakable
satisfaction and when she began to eat some clover hay that was in her
manger as dessert to her banquet I felt that she might pull through. Her
previous raids on the swill-barrel, soft-soap, apples, and other things
gave me confidence in her powers of digestion, so, after murmuring a few
words, "more in sorrow than in anger," I gave her Shakespeare's
blessing--"Let Good Digestion Wait on Appetite"--and left her to her
fate.

At milking time she was still perfectly normal though kind of lazy about
standing over and "histing." Acting on advice, I cut out her evening
ration of unthreshed oats, so that her stomach would recover from the
surprise she had given it in the afternoon. Her gastric juices had their
work cut out for them without having their troubles increased. But she
made no protest when the other cows were fed and she was skipped. In
fact she reminded me of the bereaved fowl described by "Pet Marjory,"
the little girl whose rhymes and sayings were recorded by Sir Walter
Scott:

    "She was more than usual calm.
    She did not give a single dam."

And yet, though she was in such good form I couldn't keep from worrying.
All evening I listened to tales about cows that had come to untimely
ends through over-eating, and look at it in any way I tried, a bushel or
more of corn seemed a big dose for any cow. So after the others had gone
to bed I lit the lantern and went out to the stable to see how she was
doing. As I opened the door she heaved a sigh of repletion, like an
alderman after a banquet. Then she stretched out her neck, brought up a
cud, and began to chew placidly. Still, I was not entirely easy in my
mind. If I could only get to see her tongue, or to feel her pulse, or
take her temperature, I would be more satisfied. But how to get her to
put out her tongue was the problem. The only way I could think of would
be to hold an ear of corn before her nose and let her reach out her
tongue for it, just as I had seen her try to lick grain through a
knothole in the granary. But I was afraid to try that scheme for I knew
by experience that she would probably get the start of me and add that
ear of corn to the pile she had already accumulated. When it came to
feeling her pulse I was stumped worse than in trying to get her to put
out her tongue. How do you feel a cow's pulse anyway? The longer I live
on a farm and grapple with its problems the more I find I have to learn.
And all the time I was fussing and worrying she kept on contentedly
chewing her cud. Restraining an impulse to give her a kick for looking
so exasperatingly comfortable, when in the best judgment of the
neighbourhood she should be dying, I closed the door and left her to her
job of digesting a bushel of corn. And she did it to the king's taste.
In the morning I went to see her before I gathered the duck eggs and
found her bawling for her morning feed. She never batted an
eyelid--never turned a hair. And at milking time she gave a brimming
pail of milk, just as if nothing unusual had happened. Later in the day,
when she was turned out for water, she bolted for the spot where she had
found the corn on the previous day and seemed ready to repeat her
exploit. It is not because she is starved either, for she is beef-fat.

DECEMBER

_Dec. 1._--Here is a chance for the Weather Bureau and the oldest
inhabitant. In their records, real and imaginary, have they noted a
first day of December like this? Last night there was a sharp still
frost, but this morning the sun is shining "on both sides of the fence."
A south wind that is balmy and yet has a tang to it like hard cider is
dawdling over the fields. The day is perfect, and as I view it through
the open window the typewriter becometh a burden. There is a haze in the
air that makes the woods look dreamy and inviting. This seems to be a
case of Indian summer lingering in the lap of winter, and nobody has the
slightest objection to make. Those who work are still busy ploughing and
getting ready for next summer's crops. Even the bees are out for an
airing, and our Christmas dinners are in the woods filling their crops
with beechnuts. Every once in a while I hear a shotgun banging, and know
that a city hunter is scaring our corn-fed black squirrels. A couple of
days ago one of these powder-burners fired seventeen shots at a squirrel
on the beech knoll until the little animal got ashamed of being a party
to such a rumpus and retired disdainfully into his hole. There doubtless
are city hunters who can shoot, but they are not taking their holidays
at present. Possibly the fellows who are tramping through the woods just
now are doing it for their health, but, though they may work up
excellent appetites, they will never be able to satisfy their hunger
with the game they kill. Those I have had a chance to observe in action
couldn't hit a "No Trespassing" sign at ten paces. The country boys say
they couldn't hit a barn even if they were standing inside of it.

With the last roots and potatoes pitted and the cattle stabled the world
is waiting for winter. The trees are stripped to bare poles, so that
they may not be broken by clinging snow. It is interesting to note how
much character the trees retain after they have parted with their
foliage. The accustomed eye can pick out the elms, oaks, maples,
beeches, and hickories as far as it can see, by their form and the
distribution of their branches and twigs. Even where they are crowded
together in the forest they are as easy to recognise as individuals in a
crowd of people you know. Thoreau speaks somewhere of making friends
with the trees, and to one who has been neighbouring with them for some
months the idea is attractive. Just now it seems as if it would be
easier to scrape an acquaintance with them than at any other time of the
year. Although they look dignified and self-sufficient they are without
the pride and pre-occupation of summer. It is in the winter that they
perform for us their friendliest office in breaking the wind. The trees
on the farm are the last thing we see when leaving home and the first
thing we see on our return, so it is just possible many of us are
friends with them without knowing it. Anyway, it is comfortable to be
back among them after one has been away, whether they share the feeling
or not.

Outside of the trees, about the only other things encountered on country
walks just now that are of interest are the fences, and these are
sufficiently varied to satisfy either an artist or an antiquary. Many of
them are picturesque and all mark a stage in the development of the
country. It is still possible to find examples of the stone, log, and
stump fences of the pioneers which served the double purpose of bounding
a field and clearing the land. The stone fences were built from
necessity rather than choice. Something had to be done with the stones
that were picked from the land in some districts, and the obvious thing
to do was to throw them in the fence corners or make fences of them. The
latter course was usually adopted where they were sufficiently
plentiful. Stump fences were usually made of pine, and some may be found
that are over fifty years old. When properly put together and blocked
they made a fence that would turn the "breachiest" horse or cow that
ever made life a burden to the farming community. But under no
circumstances could a stump fence be considered ornamental. "As homely
as a stump fence" is still a current simile in the country. As suggested
above, the building of a stump fence served a double purpose. It was the
same with the log fences that are now somewhat rare. They were made of
such timber as would be used in building houses and barns. These fences
were practically straight, the ends of the logs being connected and held
together by short cross pieces, on which each tier rested. The rail
fences that are still plentiful were made of free-splitting timber
ranging from black ash to black walnut. It is probably some years since
rails were split in any quantity, owing to the value of timber. As
sound, well-seasoned rails will last almost a century, it is probable
that they will be plentiful in the country for some time to come, though
in some places the farmers are finding that they can sell their old rail
fences for fuel at a price that will pay for wire fences. On the farms
where rails are still in use many styles of fence are to be seen,
varying from the stake-and-rider snake fence to straight fences with
posts, to which the rails are fastened with wire. Almost every farmer
has a scheme of his own to make his old rails go as far as possible, and
the results are sometimes absurd. To make a fence that is horse high and
hog proof with insufficient material requires more than ordinary
ingenuity.

Board fences were once quite the fashion, but they have practically
passed out because of the price of lumber. Wire fences of infinite
variety are now being put up, but, judging from the criticisms of the
farmers, the ideal fence has not yet been invented. Properly constructed
wire fences are serviceable, but there are so many kinds of wire and so
many ways of building them it is quite evident that there is still
confusion in the public mind regarding them. Hedges have been tried in
some parts--and thereby hangs a tale. Some years ago a number of
smooth-talking agents went through the country taking orders for hedge
fences at what seemed most reasonable terms. The finished hedge was to
cost, say, one dollar a rod. It would attain its growth in three years,
and the hedge-builders were to attend to it each year until it was
completed. If the farmer agreed to buy fifty rods of hedge he was to pay
for it in three instalments. On the first year he was to prepare the
ground for the seedlings and pay $20. A second payment of $10 was to be
made on the second year when the hedge-makers returned to replant any
spots that had been missed. On the third year the hedge was to be
trimmed, splashed, and completed and the farmer was to pay $20. It
looked like a reasonable arrangement, and many farmers signed contracts
for the new hedge. In the spring of the first year the hedge-makers
appeared with waggonloads of seedlings, which they dropped in a furrow
made by the farmer, who then covered them with another furrow. The job
was just about as hard as planting a row of potatoes. The schemers then
collected the first instalment. Next year they were prompt in calling
for the second instalment and making the trifling additions to the
planting that were required. The kind of thorn they had planted grew
like Canada thistles, and the prospects of a good hedge looked
promising. But on the third year the little joker in the scheme was
discovered. Trimming, splashing, and completing the hedge meant work,
and the hedge-makers never came back. They had already received two
liberal payments for practically no work, and they took no interest in
the last payment that would have to be more than earned. Because of this
raid on the unsuspecting farmers, one sees occasional hedges that are
forty feet high and still growing. Hedges will, doubtless, be used in
the country as it grows older, but the man who undertakes to promote the
industry will have to hit on a new scheme before he can make it popular.

A drive through the country at night is one of the dreariest experiences
imaginable. Every house appears to be deserted. Not a light is to be
seen anywhere. The front parts of many farm houses seem to be built for
outward show, and not for inward use. Some of those who have the finest
houses persist in living in their kitchens. The kitchen is also the
dining room and living room. This no doubt saves fuel, but one cannot
help wondering what is the use of having a parlour or sitting room with
plush furniture, crayon portraits, and vases filled with dried flowers
if it is never to be used. In the daytime the prospect is not much more
alluring. A house that has smoke issuing from only one chimney does not
look hospitable, but in most country houses they do not light a fire in
the parlour unless they are expecting a call from the minister. All of
which goes to prove the truth of the comment made by the Indian, who
said: "Indian builds a hut and lives in it. White man builds a big house
and lives in the kitchen." Moreover, in some cases the kitchen is simply
an addition to the house proper, so that he really does not live in his
big house at all.

_Dec. 5._--"Every man to his taste," as the old woman said when she
kissed the cow. That good old maxim applies everywhere, even to the dumb
creatures on the farm. I was reminded of it last night while doing the
chores. While poking around with the lantern I came across the
ducks--the waddling, fat, all-consuming ducks. They were resting and
carrying on a light conversation in a sheltered corner where there was
plenty of straw and where they had what most creatures would consider a
chance to be comfortable. I did not disturb them in any way, but
presently, after a few vigorous remarks, they started off in Indian file
across the yard and out into "the great big dark." As they were nowhere
in sight when I had finished my chores, I had the curiosity to hunt them
up. Following the direction they had taken when leaving the yard, I soon
found them in an old creek bed. They were huddled together on the ice,
with their heads tucked under their wings, and apparently settled for
the night. On telling of this when I got to the house, I found that this
little pond has been their roosting place at night ever since they
deserted the indignant hen that mothered them. They even kept a hole
open in the middle of the pond until the frost became altogether too
severe. I have often seen the wild ducks flying from the Niagara River
out across the ice into Lake Ontario, and have been told that they were
going out to roost, or sleep, or whatever it is that ducks do on the
open water. Probably our hand-raised ducks are acting in obedience to
some ancestral instinct. I wonder if I ought to try to break them off
it? As a matter of fact, I have never looked into the question of how to
raise ducks, having always contented myself with the instructions given
in the cook book on "how to carve ducks."

Those ducks will never know how near they were to a general slaughter
one day last week. I was working at the barn when some one at the house
called a question to me. Before it was half finished, six ducks flapped
their wings, drew deep breaths, and spontaneously exploded with a
"quack," "quack," "quack!" When they had quieted, I tried to ask what
was wanted, but this was about the way my question reached the house:

"What do you--'quack,' 'quack'--"

Then a noise might have been heard from the barn yard which sounded
something like this:

"Get out of that, you waddling--'quack'--'quack'--'quack.'

"If I had a stick I'd--'quack,' 'quack,' 'quack.'

"Shut up, you--'quack,' 'quack,' 'quack'--"

"Oh, what's the use--'quack,' 'quack,' 'quack.'"

Then as I started to the house to find out what was wanted of me, those
ducks quacked as exultingly and flapped their wings as foolishly as a
political party that has managed to howl down its opponents in debate.
And I have no doubt that it is that victory they jabber to one another
about every time I go to the barn, but they'll not enjoy their triumph
long. They are eating their heads off every day, and presently we will
all get together and eat their bodies off. "Quack!" "Quack!"
"Quack!"----He quacks best who quacks last.

This morning, while sawing wood with a bucksaw, I began to remember
vaguely that when I was a boy we had a playful name of some kind for
this convenient implement, but, do my best, I could not remember it. As
some one has said, the name "kept tickling my memory with the tip of its
tail," but I couldn't catch it. I tried to get it back by every system
of association of ideas that I could think of, but they were all of no
use. I tried to recall every kind of work that a bucksaw can be used for
in the hope that that would suggest the name, but I failed. Naming over
the alphabet slowly, and thinking of as many familiar words as possible,
beginning with each letter, failed to locate also. Of course, I knew it
was of no importance, but when one starts his mind working on even a
foolish problem it is hard to stop. That missing name bothered me for a
couple of hours before something more important drove it out of my mind.
And along in the afternoon, when I was looking up something in the
encyclopædia, the name popped into my head with surprising suddenness.
"Corporation Fiddle!" Have you ever heard it? That is what all the boys
called a bucksaw when I went to school. I wonder why. Nowadays if I were
going to call anything a "corporation fiddle" I would probably apply the
name to some great newspaper, for I have noticed that the corporations
generally manage to play whatever tunes they please on them. But in
boyhood days the village or town corporation was the only one heard of.
I wonder if it was ever the custom to sentence tramps to saw wood for
the jail or town hall, and that the name "corporation fiddle" originated
in that way. I seem to have heard some explanation of this kind long
ago. But, now that the name has come back to me, I feel that we should
find a use for it. Most of our leading papers proudly proclaim
themselves "party organs." Would it be a good idea to name those that
serve the Big Interests "Corporation Fiddles"? It sounds satisfying to
me. I wonder which one we should apply it to first?

A good-natured correspondent writes that he wishes he could drop in on
me or that I could drop in on him, so that we could have a good talk. I
wish we could. He says he is tired of talking about fat steers and the
price of hogs and such things. How can that be? I can't get any one who
is skilled in those subjects to talk to me about them. They do not seem
to take my views on the proper feeding of steers and hogs seriously. It
is quite true I have no steers or hogs, but is that any reason why I
should not have opinions? Still, though the real farmers refuse to take
me into fellowship on these matters, I have no hard feelings. I have my
own way of getting even. For instance, I do not take their political
opinions seriously. Honestly, I do not think there is anything funnier
in life than watching people acquire views on a public question. If the
question is one that comes up unexpectedly, the caution of the people is
something wonderful. They frown and shake their heads and appear to be
thinking with both lobes of their brains. But wild horses could not drag
an opinion out of them. They must think and think. Then some fine
morning the party organ or "corporation fiddle" they patronise comes out
with its opinions. Now, behold the change! Thinking has stopped and
talking has commenced. All the fogs have cleared away and they have
settled opinions on the troublesome question. They know just what should
be done. Yes, indeed, and their fathers before them knew just what
should be done, and any one who doesn't agree with them is more kinds of
a fool than they could mention in half a day. To save my peace of mind,
I agree with them entirely, whatever their views may be. Still, I have a
sneaking suspicion that their views on public questions are no more
worthy of respect than my disrespected opinions on fat steers.

_Dec. 9._--Long winter evenings are a reality in the country. At this
time of the year they begin about 5 o'clock and last while the lamp
holds out to burn. How to put them in without yawning one's head off is
something of a problem. The children no longer tallow their boots in the
evening so that they will be warm on the next day. No, indeed! They
must have overshoes, so that they can make themselves felt in the family
by wearing out two pairs of shoes at the same time. As no teaming is
done, it is seldom that there is any harness to be patched, and
whittling wooden spiles to be ready for the sugar-making in the spring
passed out of vogue at least a generation ago. Of course they have
papers to read--loads of them, from the local weekly with its
neighbourhood news to the city daily with fiery cables about the Budget.
There is material in them for all kinds of talk from gossip to
philosophising. But the average man can't read and talk for five mortal
hours at a stretch with any degree of satisfaction. This leads the
observer to regret that the art of sitting before the fire and twiddling
one's thumbs has also gone out of fashion in these days of strenuosity.
It is pleasant to remember the old-timers who used to sit before the
open fireplaces twiddling their thumbs and staring at the coals. Being
ignorant of "the three r's," except perhaps enough arithmetic to enable
them to keep track of their money, they were unable to feed their minds
with the latest sensational news. They therefore sat and twiddled their
thumbs; but let no one despise this seemingly futile occupation. One of
the shrewdest critics of life known to modern times asserted that "doing
nothing is the hardest and most intellectual of all occupations." It was
among such that Whitman found his "great uneducated" men, and Touchstone
his "natural philosopher," who knew that "the more one sickens the worse
at ease he is, and he that wants money, means, and content is without
three good friends; that the property of rain is to wet and of fire to
burn; that good pasture makes fat sheep and that a great cause of the
night is lack of the sun." Where is one to find such men now? Packed
full of information of all kinds by their favourite newspapers, even the
humblest can "profess apprehension" and have opinions on all manner of
subjects.

If Canada should produce a Burns among its multitude of poets and he
tried to do a "Farmer's Saturday Night" he would be forced to go at it
somewhat in this fashion:--

    The honest farmer, when his chores are done.
      Pulls off his boots and sits beside the fire;
    Toasteth his toes and holdeth forth upon
      The little things that have aroused his ire.
      He mourneth for the men he used to hire--
    Great brawny giants, who would work all day,
      Then do the chores and never loaf or tire--
    And wait a year at least to get their pay.
    Thus peevishly he frets and wears the night away.

    Or else he takes his weekly paper down
      And reads it--even the editorial page;
    Talks of the wicked things they do in town,
      Where financiers in pirate schemes engage.
      Or works himself into a sputtering rage
    About the things that politicians do,
      Disgracing both their country and the age--
    Believing all he reads as being true.
    O _Globe_, and _Mail_, I fear some things are "up to you."

    Their homework done, the children from the loft
      Bring down the nuts and have their nightly feed;
    The noise they make their mother chideth oft,
      To which, alas, they give but little heed.
      Then rings the telephone, and you may read
    On Jenny's cheek the old, eternal tale--
      She answereth it with startled, nimble speed,
    Feigneth surprise and striveth hard to veil
    The converse that she hath with some adoring male.

Somehow the telephone doesn't seem to harmonise with words ending in
"eth." The future Burns will be wise to choose some measure more
tripping and up-to-date than the stately and rumbling Spenserian stanza.

Do the quail and black squirrels keep posted on the game laws and know
when it is safe to appear in public? Kipling says that the wild
elephants know to a day when the hunting season ends, and celebrate the
occasion with a dance. Our wild game must have knowledge of the same
kind. All summer and fall I saw but two flocks of quail, and I wouldn't
have seen them if I hadn't happened to walk right among them. Since the
shooting season closed I can't cross a field without scaring up a flock,
and "their tameness is fearful to me." The black squirrels are
positively impudent when one goes walking through the woods. Since the
snow fell, rabbit tracks are to be seen everywhere, but the rabbits
themselves manage to keep out of sight. They are not protected by the
game laws; at least that is the belief in the country, and they are
liable to be potted at any time. Some boys not more than a hundred miles
from here have been trying to snare rabbits. So far, they have managed
to snare two cats and a pullet without disastrous results to any of the
victims. Having snares out is strongly recommended to distracted mothers
as a means of getting schoolboys quickly dressed in the morning. The
snares must be visited just at daylight, and a normal boy can be
warranted to jump out of bed and into all his clothes in less than five
minutes if he wants to visit them. Apparently, it does no harm to the
rabbits, so you must not accuse the boys of cruelty. The cats need
exercise anyway, and no doubt a copper wire snare can give the huskiest
tom cat a busy five minutes that will work up an appetite for his
breakfast.

_Dec. 14._--No matter what happens, we have had a spell of old-fashioned
winter. The January thaw may come and be followed by open weather, as so
many are prophesying, but we have had sleighing and everything else
worth while that winter can offer. First we had a week of cold weather
ranging from zero to twenty above. Every day it was cloudy and
threatening snow, and enough fell to cover the ground. Then the papers
predicted a warm wave and the trouble began. On the morning when the
change was due snow began to fall in big flakes, and there was a
moderate wind from the south-west. While there was no thawing the snow
was soft enough to stick to everything it touched, and soon the
buildings, fences, and tree trunks were white with it. I was driving
along the road when the change came. Without a moment's warning the wind
began to blow a hurricane from the north, and the temperature must have
fallen ten degrees in less than a minute. Under the lashing of the wind
the snow on the ground rose in blinding drifts. The driver was brought
almost to a standstill by the force of the wind. The robe was nearly
whisked off my knees, and a loose corner of the curtain on the buggy top
flapped and snapped with a sound like pistol shots. For half an hour the
air was a smother of drifting and falling snow. All the while the wind
steadily increased in violence, then it died down as suddenly as it
came, and the sky cleared. The mercury had fallen to eight above zero,
and it stayed there. All afternoon the weather continued about the same,
with occasional flurries of dry, powdery snow, but at nightfall it began
to snow in earnest. Not a breath of wind was stirring, and the fine, dry
snow came down as quietly as a mist. It covered everything. It rested on
all the branches of the trees, and even on the little twigs. On the
following morning there was a blanket of snow four inches deep, and big,
glittering frost-flakes were sifting down from an almost cloudless sky.
The thermometer registered two above zero, and it was an ideal morning
to take out the cutter. While driving to school to the music of bells it
was almost impossible to look towards the sun, everything was so
blinding white. But everything was beautiful. The distant woods were
picked out in white and brown, and every weed, thistle, and stalk of
grass was fluffy with snow. There was a little white cap on every fence
post, and here and there the snow rested on the wires, the air was so
still. The stillness, hardly broken by a sound, continued all day. The
snow rested where it fell, feathery light and sparkling like diamond
dust. The sun went down through a cold, coppery haze. It had been a
perfect winter day. About eight o'clock the mercury suddenly began to
fall, and kept on going down until it touched six below. In the still,
glistening moonlight the world was a frozen fairyland. Then the sky
clouded over, and the weather began to moderate. Since then we have had
moderate temperatures, ranging from ten above to twenty-eight, and the
sleighing has been of the best. There have been cutter-rides both by
night and by day, snowballing, sliding on the government drain, and such
coasting as an almost flat country affords. No matter what the future
has in store for us, we have had a taste of the best that a Canadian
winter can give.

One night when it was too beautiful for one to be indoors there was a
walk across the still fields to visit a neighbour. The full moon was
swinging up in the east, and there were more stars sparkling underfoot
than overhead. The snow was so light that it was kicked aside at every
step without being felt. The light wind that was stirring from the west
was so cold that it made the nostrils sting and frost gathered even on
our eyelashes. Though the fields were white and the moon was shining the
shadows under the trees and behind every tuft of grass or weed were dead
black. Sleigh-bells could be heard in the distance, and every now and
then a gust of laughter and young voices singing would be wafted to our
ears. An owl was hooting dismally in the woods, and the sound echoed
away until it was lost in the distance. After a brisk walk we were soon
warming ourselves beside a roaring wood fire, and the talk began about
pioneer days. "A sad tale's best for winter," and there is always
sadness in the stories of the old days. As I listened, the impression
that grew on me was of heart-breaking isolation and homesickness, and
the stifling, imprisoning wilderness. Though the pioneers hewed out
homes for themselves, Canada was never their home. Their true homes were
in the lands from which they came and to which they never returned. To
us who were born to inherit what they won Canada is a true home, and it
is hard for us to realise what they felt in the long years it took to
transform the wilderness to one of the garden spots of the world. The
struggles and weariness and heartache of the pioneers are to me a tale
of never-ending interest. They toiled and walked apart from the world,
fretted over the past and hoped for the future, but--

    "This, all this, was in the olden
        Time long ago."

While the talk progressed there were apples and winter pears to eat, and
then came the walk home through the frosty moonlight, with the snow
crunching faintly underfoot. On the road we met others who had been
lured away to neighbourly visits by the beauty of the night, and it was
good to feel that, instead of killing sociability, the winter weather
had really aroused it to more activity. Winter weather and winter
pleasures at their best are very good.

_Dec. 17._--A few nights ago the boys were testing their skates, and the
familiar ringing sound seemed good in the frosty moonlight. And yet it
was sporting under difficulties. All the ice they had to practise on was
a frozen puddle about three rods long and a rod wide. As a matter of
fact, skating, like everything else, has moved to town. I can remember
when we had whole fields for skating ponds, but that was before the days
of government drains and underdrainage. Now there are very few ponds or
swamps left, and skating is no longer a country sport, except in
specially-favoured localities. But every town and practically every
village has its skating rink, where they hold carnivals on the solid ice
in the winter time, and political meetings in the summer, when statesmen
skate on thin ice. Of course, I am not regretting the fact that the
country is too well drained for skating. I am merely noting the fact
that this change has taken place, and I am afraid that skating is not
the only sport that is lost to us. Baseball also seems to have retreated
to the cities and towns, and hockey has taken the place of shinny, and
is played almost entirely on the town rinks. But there may be another
reason for this. Where could a boy find a shinny stick nowadays? The
average woodlot in which cattle have been pasturing hasn't a stick left
in it that is under thirty or forty years old. It is getting rather hard
for country boys and girls to have fun of any kind without going to town
for it and paying an admission fee. This may not seem of much importance
to serious-minded people, but I am inclined to think it is very
important. Most of us like to remember the homes of our childhood by the
games we played in them, and to have no games is to have fewer ties
binding the children to the land. I am afraid the country is getting
altogether too practical and joyless. In the big cities they now have
"play-masters," who teach the children how to play in the parks and
vacant lots, and it has been found that they work better and behave
better because of the good times they have. It seems to me that
something should be done in the schools to interest the children in
suitable sports that will take the place of those that made life richer
for their fathers and mothers.

_Dec. 26._--"The country looks just like a Christmas card," said an
enthusiast of city breeding, which goes to prove the truth of Whistler's
observation that "Nature is looking up." The sleighing came with
Christmas and made it perfect. There had been flurries of snow before
that had drifted to the hollows and fence-corners, and had given the
country a sketchy, unfinished look, but on Christmas morning the fields
and roads were covered several inches deep with an even layer of crisp
snow. Cutters were dusted and brought out, and before noon there was a
constant jingling of bells on the country roads. Ever since there has
been good sleighing, and holiday visiting has been worth while, if for
no other reason than the drive through the clear, cold air. Even the
turkeys and mince-pies and plum-puddings seemed to taste better after an
appetising outing with the thermometer at fifteen above. Since the
sleighing began the towns have been crowded with visitors from the
farms, who were out more for the drive than for any shopping they had to
do. As a matter of fact, sleighing is now simply one of the pleasures of
the country. There is no more heavy teaming to do, and really practical
farmers who look at things from a business point of view would be just
as well pleased if we did not have sleighing at all. As long as there is
enough snow to protect the wheat they are satisfied. Sleighing makes it
necessary to have sleighs and cutters instead of waggons and buggies,
and that is an added expense. Thank heaven, there are still enough
inconsequential people living to like sleighing just for the fun of it.
They hitch up their roadsters and go out for a spin because they like
to feel the exhilaration it gives. May their tribe increase.

As if not satisfied with giving us perfect winter weather, Nature
started in yesterday afternoon to show what she can do, when in the
mood, to make the world bewilderingly beautiful. Early in the afternoon,
wisps of fog began to float across the field and the raw cold proved the
truth of the old doggerel:

    "A winter fog
    Will freeze a dog."

As the fog floated past a fine hoarfrost began to settle everywhere and
the sun went down red as in Indian summer. The straggling fog-banks on
the horizon began to glow, and we said:

    "The low, red rim
    Of a winter's twilight, crisp and dim."

Then came an hour of darkness and when the full moon rose it lighted a
fairyland. Every twig, weed, and exposed blade of grass was frosted to
three times its usual thickness with feathery hoarfrost of dazzling
whiteness. Only the trunks and larger limbs of the trees remained black.
As the stars were blotted out by the light, all except the larger ones
and a planet that hung in the west like a drop of liquid silver, the
snow began to light up with infinite constellations. There was moonlight
and snow "Fur's you cud look or listen." Not a breath of air disturbed
the tense stillness. Presently, an owl--who, no doubt, "for all his
feathers, was a-cold"--hooted in the ghostly woods and the sound boomed
and echoed weirdly.

"Whoo-hoo-hoo-whoo-oo!"

It seemed the only sound that would be appropriate in that frozen
stillness. As the moon rose higher a perfect storm circle that almost
broke into rainbow colours formed around it. All night the spectacle
lasted, but the wind that came with the dawn scattered the light frost
flakes and mingled them with the drifting snow, but all who loved beauty
had a chance to see the matchless artistry of

    "The goblins of the Northland
      That teach the gulls to scream,
    That dance the autumn into dust,
      The ages into dream."

It is worth while to take a trip along the side roads where they still
have rail fences to see the snowdrifts. The briars and withered
golden-rod stalks form shelters where the drifts can form and be carved
into wonderful shapes by the driving wind. Along the main roads where
wire fences are in use the drifts do not have a chance, but on the
side-lines they can gather and lie undisturbed, save for the tracking of
the wild creatures that now more than at any other season "do seek their
meat from God." Sprawling rabbit-tracks abound everywhere, and here and
there the loosely-woven lacework of quail-tracks may be seen. Where the
briars and weeds are thick they bend down under the weight of the
drifts, but hold them up sufficiently to provide hiding-places for the
rabbits and quail, and shelter them from the cold. Occasionally one sees
the jumping track of a weasel or mink that finds in the drifts an ideal
hunting-ground. Everywhere flocks of snowbirds swoop down among the
weeds to feed, and add their tiny tracks to the strangely-written
history of the winter struggle for existence.

A few mornings ago the predatory members of the family, who, if there be
truth in Spencer's lucid observation that the ontogenesis may be traced
in the philogenesis, must now be in the stone age, came in with the news
that there were rabbit-tracks in the garden. Of course, that meant a
rabbit hunt to be organised at once. With outward signs of reluctance,
but secret joy, I took a squirrel rifle and joined in the chase. While
we were trying to unravel the tangle of tracks and find the freshest, a
neighbour told us where a rabbit had been seen not five minutes ago.
Following the direction we found the tracks, and started wolfishly on
the trail, giving the best imitation we could of

    "The long, hard gallop which can tire
    The hound's deep hate, the hunter's fire."

We had not travelled far before it was apparent from the tracks that the
rabbit was frightened about something. His easy lope had changed to
frenzied jumps. In some places he had cleared fully fifteen feet at a
spring. We increased our pace, climbed fences impetuously, floundered
through snow-filled ditches, and tried to get through a thorn hedge, but
after due consideration, induced by some ugly scratches, decided to walk
around the end of it. Finally we came to the tracks of three people, and
found that the rabbit had started along this broken path. Just then we
realised that the tracks were our own, and that the rabbit had led us
around a circle. Although we had not seen him, he had seen us, and it
was at our pursuit he had been frightened. Feeling sure that he could
not be far ahead of us we kept on, and finally he left the circle and
loped off through the woods. But the pack was on his trail and would not
be shaken. By actual count we climbed eleven wire fences, floundered
through a government drain twice, crossed three farms, and then found
that the rabbit was leading us around a larger circle. Once more we
followed our own tracks to where he branched off again. This time he ran
into brush heaps and then doubled back on his own trail to throw us off.
At last he struck off across a field, and, observing the curve of his
path, I made a hasty calculation and decided that he was going to
circumnavigate the earth on his next circle. So I pantingly called a
halt, and led my protesting young barbarians straight home. We had not
seen hide or hair of the rabbit during the chase, though he had
certainly seen us. It was disappointing, of course, but the
disappointment was forgotten in the ravenous appetites we had developed.
In a Toronto restaurant we would have been bankrupted before being
satisfied, but in the country they like to see one eat heartily. It is
proof that the food offered is being appreciated. Having no ill-will
against the rabbit, we hoped that he found a good supper and enjoyed it
as much as we did ours.

_Dec. 28._--"Eben," said Mrs. Summersox in the tone of settled
resignation which she adopted on the day they had moved into the
country. "The cook has gone away to visit her mother, and you will have
to look after the fires."

"Yes, my dear," said Mr. Summersox brightly, without moving his paper.

"The kitchen fire went out while you were at the post office, and I
don't understand the draughts on the heater, and----"

"You don't tell me," said Mr. Summersox, putting down his paper, and
taking up his rôle of spontaneous joy-maker. In order to square himself
with his wife, the world, and his own conscience, he had to see the rosy
side of everything.

"The fire is out, you say. Well, well. Now you mustn't think, my dear, I
induced you to come out here to live without foreseeing just such little
troubles as this. Nothing will please me better than to look after the
fires. Fires are one of the few things I know all about. I have lit all
kinds of them, from a clay pipe to a political bonfire. Lighting the
fires will take me back to my happy youth when I used to light the wood
fires every morning. Gee, it fairly makes me shiver to think of some of
the mornings I used to get up in, and I didn't wear pyjamas then either.
I remember lots of times when I left the kettle boiling on the stove
when I went to bed, and got up to find it full of ice. Those were the
happy days when I laid the foundations of my constitution. And the stove
I used to light was no halter-broke coal stove, with all the modern
improvements, but a rip-snorting, bucking high-oven stove, with a back
draught that would blow out the kindling, and I never used coal oil to
light it, either. Now you just watch me renew my youth with that fire."

"You had better light it now so that it will be ready to turn off when
we go to bed."

"Nonsense. I'll lay the fire to-night, and to-morrow morning I'll pop
out of bed, touch a match to it, and then rush back between the blankets
as I used to when a boy."

"Very well," said Mrs. Summersox with a little sigh.

Taking up a lamp Mr. Summersox went down cellar and broke up a packing
box for kindling. Then he returned to the kitchen, and while he
slithered off slivers with the carving knife he sang "Old Dan Tucker,"
for his mind was in the past. Then followed much banging of the
stove-lids and rattling of coal, while he laid the fire. When the task
was done to his satisfaction he returned to the sitting-room, and took
up the tale.

"I tell you this life just makes a new man of me. There is nothing like
having to do things for oneself once in a while. It was the
self-reliance that I cultivated when a boy in the country that made me
get along so well in the city that we are now in a position to retire
modestly. You just mark my words, Verbena, when you have been here a
year you can't be hired to go back to the city to live."

Mrs. Summersox smothered a sigh, and her husband resumed his paper.

Next morning when the alarm clock went off at six o'clock the
thermometer had lost its grip on the higher register. But Mr. Summersox
was not to be daunted. Flinging back the blankets with an energy that
uncovered his patient wife, he bounded out on the floor as well as the
chalky deposits in his joints would allow.

"You'd better put on some clothes or you'll catch your death of cold,"
said Mrs. Summersox in a tone as crisp as the atmosphere.

"Tut, tut," said Mr. Summersox as he groped his way towards the kitchen.
Mrs. Summersox tucked the blankets into the small of her back, and
awaited developments. Presently Mr. Summersox called in a restrained
voice:

"Where in--in this igloo do you keep the matches?"

"Under the pantry shelf."

"Under which shelf, Bezonian?"

Mr. Summersox rarely paraphrased Shakespeare except under the stress of
deep emotion.

"Under the bottom shelf."

There was some stumbling, a gratified grunt as the matches were found,
and after a pause a sharp exclamation of pain. Mrs. Summersox didn't
need to be told what had happened. In spite of all her protests he would
insist on lighting matches on his trousers, and now he had forgotten
that all he had on was a thin pair of pyjamas. She stuffed a corner of
the blanket in her mouth and began to take an interest in life.

"Did you light this fire last night?" came from the icy kitchen.

"Indeed, I did not," was the reply from the cosy depths of the blankets.
The cheerfulness of her tone was not lost on Mr. Summersox.

"Well, it is burned out," he bawled.

"Hadn't you better come back and put on your clothes?" she asked in a
choking voice. "Probably there was a live coal in the ashes and it
started the fire after we went to bed. Do be sensible and come and put
on your clothes."

If the world was one vast storehouse of fur-lined overcoats Mr.
Summersox wouldn't have put on another stitch after realising that she
was laughing at him. No, by thunder. He would show her. Disdaining to
make any reply to her chirpy explanation of the calamity, he went down
cellar for more kindling. For a couple of minutes he made a noise like a
railroad wreck, and as he returned to the kitchen he was whimpering to
himself:

"You needn't tell me! I don't believe C-Cook or P-Peary ever went to the
P-Pole. B-r-r-r!"

In the darkness of the parlour bedroom Mrs. Summersox laughed a
noiseless laugh. She hadn't had so good a time since she had left the
city. She could already see visions of a detached house in Rosedale,
with a subdued husband, who was thoroughly cured of his foolish
hankering for the country. Meanwhile, the lids banged, paper rustled,
and coal rattled. Despite the condition of the temperature Mr. Summersox
was evidently working with feverish haste. After a pause, during which
he watched the lighted paper flare up and die out, he suddenly yelled in
desperation:

"Where do you keep the coal oil?"

"In a wicker-covered carboy in the cellar entrance."

Once more the lids banged and Mr. Summersox splashed the contents of the
carboy lavishly over the paper, kindling wood, and coal. Then he struck
a match and applied it to the soaked paper. It spluttered once and went
out. He lit another match. Same fate. As the last vestiges of his
self-control were slipping away he lit a third match. He waited until it
was burning brightly and then plunged it into the midst of the paper and
kindling. It went out quicker than the others. Then Mr. Summersox lifted
up his voice and tore a passion into tatters.

"Confound the greedy, griping, soulless Standard Oil Company anyway. If
I didn't want it to light that confounded oil would explode at the sight
of the cook's red hair, and here I can't light it with a forced draught.
The whole cursed corporation ought to be rooted out and drowned in its
own incombustible product. What is the flash point of this condemned
coal oil anyway?" Not being a swearing man, Mr. Summersox was greatly
handicapped in dealing with so universal a sinner as the Standard Oil.
Just as he was going to start on a second outburst his wife called
softly:

"Eben, dear. Are you sure you didn't take the carboy of vinegar? It
stands beside the coal oil."

"Vinegar, woman? Did you say vinegar?" He sniffed at the fluid, and then
his whiskers began to bristle with rage.

"What in blazes do you think I am trying to do? To make a salad? If I
didn't have more sense than to put the vinegar beside the coal oil I'd
go and run a junk shop, instead of pretending to be a housekeeper."

Mrs. Summersox was altogether too happy to resent the attack. The cosy
bed shook with her silent laughter. Meanwhile her husband put fresh
paper under the kindling and poured on so much oil to neutralise the
vinegar that when he touched a match to it it started with a blaze that
singed off his eyebrows. Banging the door shut he started for the
parlour bedroom with chattering teeth, and feet so numb with cold that
he hobbled rather than ran.

"Turn on the draughts on the heater," shouted his wife.

"It's out!" he snarled as he still approached rapidly like a runaway
iceberg on the high seas. Mrs. Summersox was filled with sudden alarm.

"Eben Summersox! Don't you dare to come bouncing into this bed and
giving me my death of cold. If you touch me with your cold hands or feet
I'll----" But she never told what she would do. With a wild, despairing
scramble her husband clawed at the clothes with numb fingers, and then
plunged between the blankets like a hunted thing.

"Well, I hope you are satisfied," said Mrs. Summersox tartly. "If this
is the way the joys of your youth are going to turn out I should think
this would cure you."

"W-what are y-you talking about? The whole trouble is that we tried to
bring city conveniences with us to the cu-country. A man needs a course
in a technical college before trying to run one of those coal stoves. I
am going down town to-day to get a couple of wood stoves, and I'll throw
those confounded coal stoves on the scrap heap. The country is all
right, but if you are going to live in it and enjoy it you must live as
country people do. I am going to root out of this house everything that
has to do with city life, and then I can live as a man should."

At this point Mrs. Summersox resumed her air of resignation and sighed
deeply. There was silence for a while, and then a knock sounded from the
kitchen door. Mr. Summersox blazed with wrath.

"What miserable idiot is knocking at this hour of the morning? He can
just knock till he is tired, and then come back at a reasonable hour."
The knock sounded again, louder than before. Mr. Summersox sulked. His
wife sighed once more and stirred as if about to get up, but was careful
not to uncover herself.

"Oh, well, I suppose I must get up and see who it is."

Mr. Summersox threw back the clothes and went to the door intending to
work off his wrath on the intruder. When he came back he was almost
cheerful.

"It's the cook," he volunteered.

"Well, I am glad she had the kitchen fire lit when she came in out of
the cold."

"She hadn't. It went out," snapped Mr. Summersox.

Then silence reigned in the parlour bedroom until the warmth from the
newly-lighted heater began to take the chill off the air.

_Dec. 31._--I want to fulfil a promise I made some time ago that I would
sum up the results of my experiment at farming before the end of the
year and tell frankly what it means to get back to the land. I cannot do
that in facts and figures because I have not received the returns for my
shipment of apples, and yet I feel that I got enough from it to justify
me in saying something. But what I got is not the sort of thing that a
man can store in his granary or deposit in a bank. It can be set down
only in terms of personal satisfaction with the world we live in. What I
am treasuring is chiefly the memory of spacious days, serene hours, and
emotions that were not even productive of thought. That seems rather
hazy, does it not? And yet it seems everlastingly worth while. After
having felt the grip and grind of the world it is something to feel
peaceful and secure for a few hours.

And now let us get back to the real advantages of farming and country
life. The prevailing idea with many people is that it is monotonous and
lonely. It has never struck me in that way, and I take much satisfaction
in quoting what Thoreau replied when questioned about the loneliness of
his life.

"What sort of space is that which separates a man from his fellows and
makes him solitary? I have found that no exertion of the legs can bring
two minds much nearer to one another. What do we want most to dwell near
to? Not to many men, surely--but to the perennial source of our life,
whence in all our experience we have found it to issue, as the willow
stands near the water and sends out its roots in that direction. This
will vary with different natures, but this is the place where a wise man
will dig his cellar."

There are joys surpassing the joys of any success, of good harvests, of
fat steers, or anything that most farmers desire and take account of,
but these joys cannot be set down in words. I can only ask the poets to
suggest them for you. Whitman says in one of those seemingly egotistical
passages where he is really voicing the soul of things:

"I will never translate myself at all only to him or her who privately
stays with me in the open air."

In the supreme hours of the open life of the country those who are able
to feel and see and enjoy reap a harvest that is beyond all sordid
dreams. At such times they care little for your trusts and mergers, or
for what the future may have in store. And though these days cannot last
those who have once enjoyed them feel that they counterbalance all the
failures and worries and bitterness of life.

    A FARMER'S DEFENCE

    The world is full of deeds of praise,
      But what is that to me?
    I work my fields and do my chores,
      Nor care what deeds they be.
    Year in, year out, with glare and gold,
      The wonder world goes by,
    And all my fellows of the fields
      As little care as I.

    But oh, it seems another world,
      Out there where things are done,
    Where glories worth a king's desire
      We see so bravely won.
    But something clutches at my heart
      When I would rise and go--
    Who wins the most shall lose the most!
      The world is ordered so.

    The children crowd about my knee
      And question till I tell
    About the golden wonder world
      Where all their heroes dwell.
    Their eager voices thrill my heart,
      I see their eyes ashine,
    And would not change for wonder worlds
      This little world of mine.

    So unashamed I stand with those
      Who do no deeds of praise;
    We work our fields and do our chores,
      Unhonoured all our days.
    We may not set the world on fire,
      And yet we do our share!
    Without our toil your wonder world
      Would hungry go and bare.

                      INDEX

  Agricultural bulletins,                   34
  Apple blossoms,                          124
  Apples,                               1, 246
  Art of pruning, the,                      39
  Automobile ride, an,                     165
  Automobiles,                             193
  Autumn day, an,                          290
  Autumn evening, an,                      294

  Back to the land,                        162
  Balancing accounts,                      359
  Ballade of apples, a,                    244
  Ballade of nutting, a,                   310
  Barn-raising, a,                         202
  Bee-keeping,                             170
  Bees,                               107, 226
  Berry-picking,                           232
  Birds, the,                          46, 185
  Burden of labour, the,                   222

  Catching the driver,                     256
  Celery,                                  220
  Celery and apples,                        26
  City farming,                            222
  Coon hunting,                            181
  Country from a hammock, the,             210
  Country life,                  145, 314, 353
  Country swindles,                         22
  Cow's digestion, a,                      333
  Curing meat,                         34, 324
  Cutting corn,                            262
  Cutting the maple,                        78

  Danged farm, the,                         93
  December day, a,                         336
  Digging potatoes,                        291
  Dog story, a,                            159
  Ducks, the,                         299, 340

  Educating Sheppy,                         46
  Educating the farmer,                     28
  Exercise for hens,                       237
  Experiment, an,                           73

  Facts about Ontario,                      45
  Fallen tree, a,                            1
  Fall fairs,                              302
  Fall rain, a,                            311
  Fall weather,                            255
  Fall work,                               248
  Farmer's defence, a,                     360
  Farm profits,                            152
  Farm prospects,                          136
  Farm work,                          141, 214
  Fences,                                  110
  Fox-hunt, a,                              51

  Good neighbours,                          47
  Good roads,                              105
  Grasshoppers,                            196
  Great day, a,                             77

  Hen, the,                                 97
  High cost of living, the,                177
  Hired men,                                88
  Hiving bees,                             173
  Hoar frost,                              350
  Horses,                                   18
  Hunters,                                  24
  Husking corn,                            272

  Indian fair, an,                         283
  Indian summer day, an,                   328

  January thaw, the,                        16
  Job of draining, a,                      147

  Landed pride,                             43
  Lime-sulphur wash,                        89
  Little pigs,                             264
  Live horse-hairs,                        245
  Lonesome calf, the,                      305

  Maple syrup,                              69
  Moving the hens,                         319
  Mudturtle, the,                          139
  My first stack,                          198

  Nature's poems,                          261
  New alarm clock, a,                      185

  October,                                 279
  Old-fashioned winter,                    346
  Ontario farms,                           104
  Orchard, the,                             37
  Out to grass,                            130
  Overwork,                                120

  Packing apples,                          297
  Picking pears,                           276
  Picnics, 154
  Piece of foolishness, a,                 325
  Pioneer days,                             58
  Pioneer spring, a,                        58
  Pitching oat-sheaves,                    230
  Planting apple trees,                    128
  Planting trees,                          111
  Playing checkers,                         12
  Potato bugs,                             192
  Pot herbs,                                99

  Quail, the,                               66

  Rabbit hunt, a,                          352
  Reforestation,                       36, 111
  Retired farmer, the,                     100
  Roses,                                   197
  Round-headed bolts,                      190
  Rural telephones,                         32

  Sawing wood,                               7
  Selling farm stock,                      206
  Signs of fall,                           242
  Signs of spring,                          33
  Simple inventions,                        87
  Skating,                                 349
  Skidding logs,                            62
  Spraying the orchard,                    133
  Spring,                                  108
  Spring emotions,                          85
  Spring frost,                            117
  Spring rush, a,                          112
  Spring work,                              82
  Still morning, a,                         31
  Stone, the,                              233
  Strawberry season, the,                  169
  Sulky ride, a,                           250
  Sun-dogs,                                 56
  Supply and demand,                        14

  Thinning apples,                         218
  Thoughts of cows,                          4
  Thoughts on Diogenes,                    156
  Ticklish load, a,                        268
  Turkeys, the,                            317

  Value of birds, the,                     150
  Visiting weasel, a,                      169

  Winter evening, a,                       343
  Winter food,                             322
  Wordsworth on the farm,                  125

THE
TEMPLE PRESS LETCHWORTH
ENGLAND