und a good one.

Dad peered into the almost-empty water-cask and again muttered a short
prayer for rain. He decided to do no more grubbing that day, but to
run wire around the new land instead. The posts had been in the ground
some time, and were bored. Dave and Sarah bored them. Sarah was as
good as any man--so Dad reckoned. She could turn her hand to anything,
from sewing a shirt to sinking a post-hole. She could give Dave inches
in arm measurements, and talk about a leg! She HAD a leg--a beauty!
It was as thick at the ankle as Dad's was at the thigh, nearly.

Anyone who would know what real amusement is should try wiring posts.
What was to have been the top wire (the No. 8 stuff) Dad commenced to
put in the bottom holes, and we ran it through some twelve or fifteen
posts before he saw the mistake--then we dragged it out slowly and
savagely; Dad swearing adequately all the time.

At last everything went splendidly. We dragged the wire through panel
after panel, and at intervals Dad would examine the blistering sky for
signs of rain. Once when he looked up a red bullock was reaching for
his waistcoat, which hung on a branch of a low tree. Dad sang out.
The bullock poked out his tongue and reached higher. Then Dad told Joe
to run. Joe ran--so did the bullock, but faster, and with the
waistcoat that once was a part of Mother's shawl half-way down his
throat. Had the shreds and ribbons that dangled to it been a little
longer, he might have trodden on them and pulled it back, but he did
n't. Joe deemed it his duty to follow that red bullock till it dropped
the waistcoat, so he hammered along full split behind. Dad and Dave
stood watching until pursued and pursuer vanished down the gully; then
Dad said something about Joe being a fool, and they pulled at the wire
again. They were nearing a corner post, and Dad was hauling the wire
through the last panel, when there came the devil's own noise of
galloping hoofs. Fifty or more cattle came careering along straight
for the fence, bellowing and kicking up their heels in the air, as
cattle do sometimes after a shower of rain. Joe was behind
them--considerably--still at full speed and yelping like a dog. Joe
loved excitement.

For weeks those cattle had been accustomed to go in and out between the
posts; and they did n't seem to have any thoughts of wire as they
bounded along. Dave stood with gaping mouth. Dad groaned, and the
wire's-end he was holding in h