Being a Boy | Page 6

take a bill-hook and cut down the
thistles and weeds from the fence corners in the home mowing-lot and
along the road towards the village; to dig up the docks round the garden
patch; to weed out the beet-bed; to hoe the early potatoes; to rake the
sticks and leaves out of the front yard; in short, there is work enough
laid out for John to keep him busy, it seems to him, till he comes of age;
and at half an hour to sundown he is to go for the cows "and mind he
don't run 'em!"
"Yes, sir," says John," is that all?"
"Well, if you get through in good season, you might pick over those
potatoes in the cellar; they are sprouting; they ain't fit to eat."
John is obliged to his father, for if there is any sort of chore more
cheerful to a boy than another, on a pleasant day, it is rubbing the
sprouts off potatoes in a dark cellar. And the old gentleman mounts his
wagon and drives away down the enticing road, with the dog bounding
along beside the wagon, and refusing to come back at John's call. John
half wishes he were the dog. The dog knows the part of farming that
suits him. He likes to run along the road and see all the dogs and other
people, and he likes best of all to lie on the store steps at the
Corners--while his master's horse is dozing at the post and his master is
talking politics in the store--with the other dogs of his acquaintance,
snapping at mutually annoying flies, and indulging in that delightful
dog gossip which is expressed by a wag of the tail and a sniff of the
nose. Nobody knows how many dogs' characters are destroyed in this
gossip, or how a dog may be able to insinuate suspicion by a wag of the
tail as a man can by a shrug of the shoulders, or sniff a slander as a man
can suggest one by raising his eyebrows.

John looks after the old gentleman driving off in state, with the odorous
buffalo-robe and the new whip, and he thinks that is the sort of farming
he would like to do. And he cries after his departing parent,
"Say, father, can't I go over to the farther pasture and salt the cattle?"
John knows that he could spend half a day very pleasantly in going
over to that pasture, looking for bird's nests and shying at red squirrels
on the way, and who knows but he might "see" a sucker in the meadow
brook, and perhaps get a "jab" at him with a sharp stick. He knows a
hole where there is a whopper; and one of his plans in life is to go some
day and snare him, and bring him home in triumph. It is therefore
strongly impressed upon his mind that the cattle want salting. But his
father, without turning his head, replies,
"No, they don't need salting any more 'n you do!" And the old equipage
goes rattling down the road, and John whistles his disappointment.
When I was a boy on a farm, and I suppose it is so now, cattle were
never salted half enough!
John goes to his chores, and gets through the stable as soon as he can,
for that must be done; but when it comes to the out-door work, that
rather drags. There are so many things to distract the attention--a
chipmunk in the fence, a bird on a near-tree, and a hen- hawk circling
high in the air over the barnyard. John loses a little time in stoning the
chipmunk, which rather likes the sport, and in watching the bird, to find
where its nest is; and he convinces himself that he ought to watch the
hawk, lest it pounce upon the chickens, and therefore, with an easy
conscience, he spends fifteen minutes in hallooing to that distant bird,
and follows it away out of sight over the woods, and then wishes it
would come back again. And then a carriage with two horses, and a
trunk on behind, goes along the road; and there is a girl in the carriage
who looks out at John, who is suddenly aware that his trousers are
patched on each knee and in two places behind; and he wonders if she
is rich, and whose name is on the trunk, and how much the horses cost,
and whether that nice- looking man is the girl's father, and if that boy
on the seat with the driver is her brother, and if he has to do chores; and
as the gay sight disappears, John falls to thinking about the great world
beyond the farm, of cities, and people who