in streams and
lakes. There is a slough around a little plateau near the post, and for
a week or more this was teeming with all kinds of ducks, until it was
frozen over. Sometimes we would see several species quietly feeding
together in the most friendly way. Faye and I would drive the horses
down in the cutter, and I would hold them while he walked on ahead
hunting.

One day, when the snow was falling in big moist flakes that were so
thick that the world had been narrowed down to a few yards around us,
we drove to some tall bushes growing on the bank of the slough. Faye was
hunting, and about to make some ducks rise when he heard a great whir
over his head, and although the snow was so thick he could not see just
what was there, he quickly raised his gun and fired at something he saw
moving up there. To his great amazement and my horror, an immense swan
dropped down and went crashing through the bushes. It was quite as
white as the snow on the ground, and coming from the dense cloud of snow
above, where no warning of its presence had been given, no call sounded,
one felt that there was something queer about it all. With its enormous
wings spread, it looked like an angel coming to the earth.

The horses thought so, also, for as soon as it touched the bushes they
bolted, and for a few minutes I was doubtful if I could hold them. I was
so vexed with them, too, for I wanted to see that splendid bird. They
went around and around the plateau, and about all I was able to do at
first was to keep them from going to the post. They finally came down
to a trot, but it was some time before I could coax them to go to the
bushes where the swan had fallen. I did not blame them much, for when
the big bird came down, it seemed as if the very heavens were falling.
We supplied our friends with ducks several days, and upon our own dinner
table duck was served ten successive days. And it was just as acceptable
the last day as the first, for almost every time there was a different
variety, the cinnamon, perhaps, being the most rare.

Last year Hang was very contrary about the packing down of the eggs for
winter use. I always put them in salt, but he thought they should be put
in oats because Mrs. Pierce had packed hers that way. You know he had
been Mrs. Pierce's cook two years before he came to me, and for a time
he made me weary telling how she had things done. Finally I told him he
must do as I said, that he was my cook now. There was p