106 FIVE ACKES TOO MUCH. 



glish nation has a gift for building pirate ships, the 

 French for fashioning new dresses, the Chinese for 

 growing pig-tails and cutting off heads, the Russians 

 for eating candles, the Turks for stealing wives, the 

 Americans for doing a little of every thing, and the 

 Irish for digging holes. Pat never could learn to 

 use a saw or an axe, or even to drive a nail without 

 splitting the wood, but he could dig against the world. 

 He proceeded at once to make the holes for the posts 

 of the fence. 



While he was thus occupied, however, the garden 

 was neglected, and as he could not by any possibili 

 ty keep the holes in a line, and consequently wasted 

 much time, the weeds grew apace. It requires a 

 great many boards to reach round five acres, and the 

 holes for tRe posts had to be very numerous. The 

 cows, having discovered the superior qualities of 

 Daniel O Rourke peas, paid them regular visits, and 

 kept them well cropped, so that the garden fared 

 badly. Pat dug so many holes, in consequence of 

 making them either out of line or at an improper 

 distance, that he might almost be said to have trench 

 ed the lot ; and by the time he was through, and be 

 fore the posts were all up, or the fence more than 

 half finished, it was time to cut the grass. 



This was a season of scarcity of labor. The high 



