90 Outlook to Nature 



much work to do, no hired man nor boy, but 

 simply to amuse himself and live. He carts 

 not so much to raise a large crop as to do his 

 work well. He knows every pin and nail in 

 his barn. If any part of it is to be floored, he 

 lets no hired man rob him of that amusement, 

 but he goes slowly to the woods, and at his 

 leisure selects a pitch pine tree, cuts it, and 

 hauls it or gets it hauled to the mill ; and so 

 he knows the history of his barn floor. Farm- 

 ing is an amusement which has lasted him 

 longer than gunning or fishing. He is never 

 in a hurry to get his garden planted, and yet it 

 is always planted soon enough, and none in the 

 town is kept so beautifully clean. He always 

 prophesies a failure of his crops, and yet is 

 satisfied with what he gets. His barn floor is 

 fastened down with oak pins, and he prefers 

 them to iron spikes, which he says will rust 

 and give way. He handles and amuses him- 

 self with every ear of his corn crop as much as 

 a child with its playthings, and so his small 

 crop goes a great way. He might well cry if 

 it were carried to market. The seed of weeds 



