SOLON ROBINSON, 1838 101 



ingly put his chimbley outside, to sarve the new part as 

 well as the old. He has been too "busy" ever since, you 

 see, to remove the banking put there the first fall, to keep 

 the frost out of the cellar, and consequently it has rotted 

 the sills off, and the house has fell away from the chimb- 

 ley, and he has had to prop it up with that great stick 

 of timber, to keep it from coming down on its knees al- 

 together. All the winders are boarded up, but one, and 

 that might as well be, for little light can penetrate them 

 old hats and red flannel petticoats. Look at the barn; 

 its broken back roof has let the gable eends fall in, where 

 they stand staring at each other, as if they would like 

 to come closer together (and no doubt they soon will,) 

 to consult what was best to be done to gain their stand- 

 ing in the world. Now look at the stock; there's your 

 "improved short horns." Them dirty looking, half starved 

 geese, and them draggle-tailed fowls that are so poor 

 the foxes would be ashamed to steal them — that little 

 lantern jawed, long leg'd, rabbit ear'd runt of a pig, 

 that's so weak it cant curl its tail up — that old cow frame 

 standing there with her eyes shut, and looking for all 

 the world as tho' she's contemplating her latter eend — 

 (and with good reason too,) and that other reddish 

 yellow, long wooled varmint, with his hocks higher than 

 his belly, that looks as if he had come to her funeral, 

 and which by way of distinction, his owner calls a horse 

 — is all "the stock," I guess, that this farmer supports 

 upon a hundred acres of as good natural soil as ever 

 laid out door. — Now there's a specimen of "Native 

 Stock." I reckoon he'l imigrate to a warmer climate 

 soon, for you see while he was waiting to finish that thing 

 you see the hen's roosting on, that he calls a sled, he's 

 had to burn up all the fence round the house, but there's 

 no danger of cattle breaking into his fields, and his old 

 muley has larnt how to sneak round among the neigh- 

 bors fields o' nights, looking for an open gate or bars, 

 to snatch a mouthful now and then. For if you was to 

 mow that meadow with a razor and rake it with a fine 



