My First Summer 



that of the corral, as if determined to take 

 ammoniacal snuff all night after chewing 

 tobacco all day. Following the sheep he 

 carries a heavy six-shooter swung from his 

 belt on one side and his luncheon on the 

 other. The ancient cloth in which the meat, 

 fresh from the frying-pan, is tied serves as 

 a filter through which the clear fat and 

 gravy juices drip down on his right hip and 

 leg in clustering stalactites. This oleaginous 

 formation is soon broken up, however, and 

 diffused and rubbed evenly into his scanty 

 apparel, by sitting down, rolling over, cross- 

 ing his legs while resting on logs, etc., 

 making shirt and trousers water-tight and 

 shiny. His trousers, in particular, have be- 

 come so adhesive with the mixed fat and 

 resin that pine needles, thin flakes and fibres 

 of bark, hair, mica scales and minute grains 

 of quartz, hornblende, etc., feathers, seed 

 wings, moth and butterfly wings, legs and 

 antennae of innumerable insects, or even 

 whole insects such as the small beetles, 



[ 172 ] 



