A Farmer’s Life 
to pay his carter who was coming from the old 
farm-buildings, and to ask about the mare, soon 
to foal. But before we reached her stable we 
came to a gate on the opposite side of the road, 
and Mr. Smith called my attention to the field 
within, sown with oats. A neighbour had lately 
bought it. How much did I guess he paid? 
What was the extent? Eight acres, he said, 
and it was probably for building. I guessed 
£400. “Double that,” said my uncle. He 
discussed the prospects, seeing them from a 
modern standpoint. So we strayed on, talking 
of the buyer—a man we both knew and agreed 
in liking, for all his “nearness” in money 
matters. 
That “nearness”? had enabled the man to 
save money. His father, Mr. Smith recalled, 
had been a butcher in a very small way of busi- 
ness. ‘‘ We used to call him ‘ Old Bramble- 
mutton,’ and ask him when he was goin’ to 
kill t’other half o’ the sheep. Because he never 
kilied a sheep unless one got caught in the 
brambles or something of that kind; and we 
always said he only killed half a sheep at a time.” 
I mentioned a recent talk with the son (the 
Boy Scout movement was just coming into 
favour), when this son told of his own ability 
as a young man to track a lost heifer over the 
heath, reading signs in the heath itself. Mr. 
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