own a round
sum, a fresh creature is brought out to the road, and again they pursue
their homeward way. It is a young heifer this time--most difficult of
animals to drive. She runs like a deer: in a minute she is far ahead of
the boy. She takes the wrong road: the boy makes frightful efforts to
overtake her--enters the fields to follow her unseen, and cuts across
lots to head her off. She, being a bright creature, is aware of his
manoeuvres. She watches him over the fences, and contrives to keep
beyond his reach, spite of all he can do. To hold her on the homeward
route is a miracle: still, the trio of farmer, boy and heifer do manage
to reach the home village, where the farmer, who is riding in his
carriage, stops at the bank and tells the boy to be "boss and all hands"
and go on alone with the heifer. This is terrible. Night is at hand, the
demoniac beast is wilder than ever, and the boy knows that, though
palpitating with fatigue through all his frame, there are the chores at
home yet for him to do. Well, it is then he determines to go on a
whaling-voyage or to go and be a stoker for a steam-engine, or a
boiler-maker, or a tramp, or anything but a boy on a farm; and so hope
grows strong in his heart.

An old hill-farmer must be beloved of Hermes, he so understands the arts
of gain. If he wants to buy anything, he takes a sap-bucketful of eggs
to the village, and makes a point of bringing back a part of the money.
When in town he does not dine at a tavern, but on some crackers and
cheese: he says baker's bread tastes like wasps' nests, and city fare in
general is light and dry. He saves more picking up horseshoes when the
snow melts than many persons do in all their lives. He works all the
year round: he thrashes in midwinter with the thermometer below zero.
The hard times affect him no more than a fly would a rhinoceros. This is
perfectly exasperating to the poor spendthrift, good-for-nothing, lazy
part of the community. The tramp hired man is particularly mad about it;
he declares the old farmer wants him to work all day for a sheep's head
and pluck, and sleep under a cart at night. The tramp hired man
entertains inverted financial ideas, and a creed that would probably
read, "Strike a man on his right cheek, and if he don't turn his left,
boot him;" and the tramp hired man lies _en grand_--tells lies two days
long when he finds a listener.

The old hill-farmer never wastes nor wears out things. He has a coat for