ut of
breath. He poked Nell with the stick again. She "kicked up." Dad
lost his balance. Joe laughed. Dad said, "St-o-op!" Joe was
energetic. So was Nell. She kicked up again--strong--and Dad fell off.

"Wot, could'n' y' s-s-s-stick to 'er, Dad?" Joe asked.

"STICK BE DAMNED--run--CATCH her!--D----N y'!"

Joe obeyed.

Dad made another start, and this time Nell went willingly. Dad was
leading her!

Those two old horses are dead now. They died in the summer when there
was lots of grass and water--just when Dad had broken them into
harness--just when he was getting a good team together to draw logs for
the new railway line!

Chapter XX.

The Cow We Bought.

When Dad received two hundred pounds for the wheat he saw nothing but
success and happiness ahead. His faith in the farm and farming
swelled. Dad was not a pessimist--when he had two hundred pounds.

"Say what they like," he held forth to Anderson and two other men
across the rails one evening--"talk how they will about it, there's
money to be made at farming. Let a man WORK and use his HEAD and know
what to sow and when to sow it, and he MUST do well." (Anderson stroked
his beard in grave silence; HE had had no wheat). "Why, once a farmer
gets on at all he's the most independent man in the whole country."

"Yes! Once he DOES!" drawled one of the men,--a weird, withered fellow
with a scraggy beard and a reflective turn of mind.

"Jusso," Dad went on, "but he must use his HEAD; it's all in th'
head." (He tapped his own skull with his finger). "Where would I be
now if I had n't used me head this last season?"

He paused for an answer. None came.

"I say," he continued, "it's a mistake to think nothing's to be made at
farming, and any man" ("Come to supper, D--AD!"--'t was Sal's voice)
"ought t' get on where there's land like this."

"LAND!" said the same man--"where IS it?"

"Where IS it?" Dad warmed up--"where IS N'T it? Is n't this land?"
(Looking all round.) "Is n't the whole country land from one end to
the other? And is there another country like it anywhere?"

"There is n't!" said the man.

"Is there any other country in th' WORLD" (Dad lifted his voice) "where
a man, if he likes, can live" ("Dad, tea!") "without a shilling in his
pocket and without doing a tap of work from one year's end to the
other?"

Anderson did n't quite understand, and the weird man asked Dad if he
meant "in gaol."

"I mean," Dad said, "tha