y likes to have winter come for one thing, because it
freezes up the ground so that he can't dig in it; and it is covered
with snow so that there is no picking up stones, nor driving the cows to
pasture. He would have a very easy time if it were not for the getting
up before daylight to build the fires and do the "chores." Nature
intended the long winter nights for the farmer-boy to sleep; but in my
day he was expected to open his sleepy eyes when the cock crew, get out
of the warm bed and light a candle, struggle into his cold pantaloons,
and pull on boots in which the thermometer would have gone down to zero,
rake open the coals on the hearth and start the morning fire, and then
go to the barn to "fodder." The frost was thick on the kitchen windows,
the snow was drifted against the door, and the journey to the barn, in
the pale light of dawn, over the creaking snow, was like an exile's trip
to Siberia. The boy was not half awake when he stumbled into the cold
barn, and was greeted by the lowing and bleating and neighing of cattle
waiting for their breakfast. How their breath steamed up from the
mangers, and hung in frosty spears from their noses. Through the
great lofts above the hay, where the swallows nested, the winter wind
whistled, and the snow sifted. Those old barns were well ventilated.
I used to spend much valuable time in planning a barn that should be
tight and warm, with a fire in it, if necessary, in order to keep the
temperature somewhere near the freezing-point. I could n't see how the
cattle could live in a place where a lively boy, full of young blood,
would freeze to death in a short time if he did not swing his arms and
slap his hands, and jump about like a goat. I thought I would have a
sort of perpetual manger that should shake down the hay when it was
wanted, and a self-acting machine that should cut up the turnips and
pass them into the mangers, and water always flowing for the cattle and
horses to drink. With these simple arrangements I could lie in bed,
and know that the "chores" were doing themselves. It would also be
necessary, in order that I should not be disturbed, that the crow should
be taken out of the roosters, but I could think of no process to do it.
It seems to me that the hen-breeders, if they know as much as they say
they do, might raise a breed of crowless roosters for the benefit of
boys, quiet neighborhoods, and sleepy families.
There was another notion that I had about kind
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