PHASES OF FARM LIFE. 263 



birds and birds' nests, the berries, the squirrels, the 

 woodchucks, the beech woods with their treasures 

 into which the cows loved so to wander and to browse, 

 the fragrant wintergreens and a hundred nameless 

 adventures, all strung upon that brief journey of half 

 a mile to and from the remote pastures. Sometimes* 

 one cow or two will be missing when the herd is 

 brought home at night ; then to hunt them up is an- 

 other adventure. My grandfather went out one night 

 to look up an absentee from the yard, when he heard 

 something in the brush, and out stepped a bear into 

 the path before him. 



Every Sunday morning the cows were salted. The 

 farm-boy would take a pail with three or four quarts 

 of coarse salt and, followed by the eager herd, go 

 to the field and deposit the salt in handfuls upon 

 smooth stones and rocks and upon clean places on the 

 turf. If you want to know how good salt is, see a 

 cow eat it. She gives the true saline smack. How 

 she dwells upon it and gnaws the sward and licks the 

 stones where it has been deposited ! The cow is the 

 most delightful feeder among animals. It makes one's 

 mouth water to see her eat pumpkins, and to see her 

 at a pile of apples is distracting. How she sweeps 

 off the delectable grass ! The sound of her grazing 

 is appetizing ; the grass betrays all its sweetness and 

 succulency in parting under her sickle. 



The region of which I write abounds in sheep also. 

 Sheep love high, cool, breezy lands. Their range is 

 generally much above that of cattle. Their sharp 



