Chapter 7 DAILY DISTRACTIONS.

But the sheep shearing came, and the hay season next, and then the harvest of small corn ... then the sweating of the apples, and the turning of the cider mill and the stacking of the firewood, and netting of the wood-cocks, and the springes to be mended in the garden and by the hedgerows, where the blackbirds hop to the molehills in the white October mornings and gray birds come to look for snails at the time when the sun is rising.

It is wonderful how Time runs away when all these things, and a great many others, come in to load him down the hill, and prevent him from stopping to look about. And I, for my part, can never conceive how people who live in towns and cities, where neither lambs nor birds are (except in some shop windows), nor growing corn, nor meadow grass, nor even so much as a stick to cut, or a stile to climb and sit down upon-how these poor folk get through their lives without being utterly weary of them, and dying from pure indolence, is a thing God only knows, if his mercy allows him to think of it.

LORNA DOONE.

A farm-house looks on the outside like a quiet place. No men are seen about, front windows are closely shaded, front door locked. Go round to the back door; nobody seems to be at home. If by chance you do find, after long bruising of knuckles, that you have roused an inmate, it is some withered, sad-faced old dame, who is indifferent and hopelessly deaf, or a bare-footed, stupid urchin, who stares as if you had dropped from another planet, and a cool "Dunno" is the sole response to all inquiries.

All seems at a dead standstill. In reality everything and everybody is going at full speed, transpiring and perspiring to such a degree that, like a swiftly whirling top, it does not appear to move.

Friends think of me as not living, but simply existing, and marvel that I can endure such monotony. On the contrary, I live in a constant state of excitement, hurry, and necessity for immediate action.

The cows were continually getting out of pasture and into the corn; the pigs, like the chickens, evinced decided preference for the garden. The horse would break his halter and dart down the street, or, if in pasture, would leap the barbed-wire fence, at the risk of laming his legs for life, and dash into a neighbor's yard where children and babies were sunning on the grass.

Rival butchers and bakers would drive up simultaneously from different directions and plead for patronage and instant attention.

The vegetables must be gathered and carried to market; every animal was ravenously hungry at all hours, and didn't hesitate to speak of it. The magnificent peacock would wander off two miles, choosing the railroad track for his rambles, and loved to light on Si Evans's barn; then a boy must be detailed to recover the prize bird, said boy depending on a reward. His modest-hued consort would seek the deep hedges back of a distant swamp.

Friends would come from a distance to surprise and cheer me in my lonely retreat just at the time that the butter must positively be made, while the flowers were choking for water, smothered with weeds, "pus'ley," of course, pre-eminent. Then a book agent would appear, blind, but doubly persistent, with a five-dollar illustrated volume recounting minutely the Johnstown horror. And one of my dogs would be apt at this crisis to pursue and slay a chicken or poison himself with fly-paper. Every laboring man for miles around would come with an air of great importance to confidentially warn me against every other man that could be employed, with the stereotyped phrase in closing: "Well, whatever you do" (as if I might be left to do anything) "don't hire John Smallpate or Bill Storer. I've known him, man and boy, for thirty years; you'll do well not to trust him!"

Yet these same men who had so villified each other could be seen nightly lounging in front of the grocery, discussing politics and spitting in sweet unison.

The general animosity of my entire family to each other caused constant interruptions.

"Sandy," the handsome setter, loathed the pug, and tried to bite his neck in a fatal way. He also chased the rabbits, trod on young turkeys so that they were no more, drove the cat out of the barn and up a tree, barked madly at the cows, enraging those placid animals, and doted on frightening the horse.

The cat allowed mice to roam merrily through the grain bins, preferring robins and sparrows, especially young and happy mothers, to a proper diet; was fond of watching the chickens with wicked, malicious, greedy, dangerous eyes, and was always ready to make a sly spring for my canaries.

The rabbits (pretty innocent little creatures I had thought them, as I gazed at their representatives of white canton flannel, solidly stuffed, with such charming eyes of pink beads) girded all my young trees and killed them before I dreamed of such mischief, nibbled at every tender sprout, every swelling bud, were so agile that they could not be captured, and became such a maddening nuisance that I hired a boy to take them away. I fully understand the recent excitement of the Australians over the rabbit scourge which threatened to devastate their land.

The relations were strained between my cows; mother and daughter of a noble line; they always fed at opposite corners of the field, indulging in serious fights when they met.

My doves! I am almost ready to say that they were more annoying than all the rest of my motley collection, picked all seeds out of the ground faster than they could be put in, so large spaces sowed with rye lay bare all summer, and ate most of the corn and grain that was intended to fatten and stimulate my fowls.

Doves are poetical and pleasing, pigeons ditto-in literature, and at a safe distance from one's own barn. It's a pretty sight at sunset on a summer's eve to see them poising, wheeling, swirling, round a neighbor's barn. Their rainbow hues gleam brightly in the sun as they preen their feathers or gently "coo-oo, I love oo," on the ridge pole. I always longed to own some, but now the illusion is past. They have been admired and petted for ages, consecrated as emblems of innocence and peace and sanctity, regarded as almost sacred from the earliest antiquity. They have been idealized and praised from Noah to Anacreon, both inclined to inebriety! But in reality they are a dirty, destructive, greedy lot, and though fanciers sell them at high prices, they only command twenty-five cents per pair when sold for the market!

The hens lost half their feathers, often an eye, occasionally a life, in deadly feuds. My spunky little bantam game cock was always challenging one of my monster roosters and laying him low, so he had to be sent away.

John, my eccentric assistant, could abide no possible rival, insulted every man engaged to help him, occasionally indulging in a free fight after too frequent visits to the cider barrels of my next neighbor, so he had to follow the bantam.

Another distress was the constant calls of natives with the most undesirable things for me to buy; two or three calls daily for a long time. Boys with eager, ingenuous faces bringing carrier pigeons-pretty creatures-and I had been told there was money in pigeons. I paid them extortionate prices on account of extreme ignorance; and the birds, of course, flew home as soon as released, to be bought again by some gullible amateur. I had omitted to secure the names and addresses of these guileless lads.

A sandy-haired, lisping child with chronic catarrh offered me a lot of pet rats!

"I hear you like pets," she said, "Well, I've got some tame rats, a father and mother and thirteen little ones, and a mother with four. They're orful cunning. Hope you'll take 'em."

A big, red-faced, black-bearded, and determined man drove one day into the yard with an immense wagon, in which was standing a stupid, vicious old goat, and almost insisted on leaving it at a most ridiculously high price.

"Heard that the woman that had come to live here wanted most every animal that Noah got into the ark; was sure she'd like a goat." It was with considerable difficulty that he could be induced to take it away.

Dogs, dogs, dogs-from mastiff to mongrel, from St. Bernard to toy poodle-the yard really swarmed with them just before the first of May, when dog taxes must be paid!

A crow that could talk, but rather objectionably, was offered me.

A pert little boy, surrounded by his equally pert mates, said, after coming uninvited to look over my assortment: "Got most everything, hain't ye? Got a monkey?"

Then his satellites all giggled.

"No, not yet. Will not you come in?"

Second giggle, less hearty.

A superannuated clergyman walked three miles and a quarter in a heavy rain, minus umbrella, to bring me a large and common pitcher, badly cracked and of no original value; heard I was collecting old china. Then, after making a long call, drew out a tiny package from his vest pocket and offered for sale two time-worn cheap rings taken from his mother's dead hand. They were mere ghosts of rings that had once meant so much of joy or sorrow, pathetic souvenirs, one would think, to a loving son. He would also sell me his late father's old sermons for a good sum!

This reminded me of Sydney Smith's remark to an old lady who was sorely afflicted with insomnia: "Have you ever tried one of my sermons?"

Perhaps I have said enough to prove that life in a bucolic solitude may be something more varied than is generally-don't let that old peddler come into the house, say we want nothing, and then tell the ladies I'll be down directly-and, O Ellen, call Tom! Those ducks are devouring his new cabbage-plants and one of the calves has got over the stone wall and-what?

"He's gone to Dog Corner for the cow-doctor."

-Yes, more varied than is generally supposed!