300 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



ye don't cut it, and a makin' for lumber; and lumber's better to sell, 

 a sight, than cord-wood. Ye must git along somehow with brush; 

 mother used to burn next to nothin'." 



She did not remind him that his mother was bent double with 

 rheumatism, and died of the fifth attack of pneumonia. Wealthy 

 never wasted words. 



Then there were eight cows to njilk, the milk to strain, set, skim, 

 churn or make into cheese, and nothing but the simplest utensils 

 to do with. A cloth held over the edge of the pail served for a 

 strainer; the pails themselves were heavy wood, the pans old, and 

 some of them leaky, the holes stopped with bits of rag, often to 

 be renewed; the milk room was in the shed, built against the 

 chimney that it might not freeze there in winter, and only aired 

 by one slatted window; the churn was an old wooden one with a 

 dasher, and even the " spaddle " with which she worked her butter 

 was whittled out of a maple knot by Amasa himself, and was 

 heavy and rough. 



Then to her belonged the feeding of the pigs — gaunt, lean ani- 

 mals with sharp snouts, ridgy backs, long legs and thin flanks, 

 deep-set eyes that gleamed with intelligent malice, and never-sated 

 hunger. Wealthy grew almost afraid of them when they clamb- 

 ered up on the rails of the pen in their fury for food and flapped 

 their pointed ears at her, squealing and fighting for the scanty fare 

 that she brought. For Amasa underfed and overworked every- 

 thing that belonged to him. 



Then there were hens to look after — the old-fashioned barn 

 door -'creepers," who wanted food too, and yet catered for them- 

 selves in great measure, and made free with barn and woodshed, 

 for want of their own quarters, and were decimated every season 

 by hawks, owls, skunks, weasels, and foxes, to say nothin;<2; of the 

 little chickens on which crows and cats worked their will, if they 

 dared to stray beyond the ruinous old coop contrived for them by 

 Amasa's inventive genius out of sticks and stones. 



Add to all this the cooking, washing, baking, and sewing, the 

 insufficient supply of pork, potatoes, and tough pies, the "b'iled 

 dinners " whose strength lay in the vegetables, rather than the 

 small square of fat pork cooked with them, of which Amasa inva- 

 riably took the lion's share: these accumulating and never ceasing 

 labors all wore day by day on the vitality of Mrs. Tucker, and 



