The Country Flavour 
He grubbed a hedge or two; levelled an old 
gravel-pit; converted two wet fields into one 
passable meadow; and in short, while making 
both ends meet with his milk, kept his face hard 
to the invigorating touches of land and weather. 
This, I think, is how he enjoyed life. He carried 
on business because needs must; but what he 
cared for was the intimacy his business thrust on 
him with elemental things. He loved, nay, he 
needed, to do for himself as far as possible—to 
mend his own fences, clear out his own ditches, 
cut firing for himself, be his own horse-doétor, 
cow-doétor; for so he received in his own hands, 
eyes, skin, brain, the messages that come from 
wood, from water, from animal life. He wanted 
no one between him and necessity: no shield; 
no screen; no servant. 
At one corner of the farm a house was built 
for him—the landowner knew his worth; and 
here I often visited him. Sometimes I strolled 
with him, across a rick-yard and through various 
meadows, to chat with him while he brought his 
cows home to the new cow-stalls to be milked. 
Then came an hour during which he could only 
talk in snatches, now and then, while I listened 
to the spurt of milk in his pail, or in his son’s 
pail, a few cows away. Wearing a very greasy 
hat and squatting on a little low stool greasy and 
shiny, Mr. Smith had his head butted into the 
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