30 FARMING IT 



spurs, while the Dominique was solid and 

 chunky, with the well-marked hawk plumage 

 that glowed with health. 



However, I refrained, and after watching them 

 until breakfast-time, I went in without having 

 fed and watered Polly and our well-bred brood- 

 mare, which welcomed me after breakfast with 

 reproachful nickerings and pricked-up ears. 



That noon, to my great delight, I found three 

 fresh eggs in the nests, which I conveyed tri- 

 umphantly into the house, dropping one on the 

 floor, however, in my eagerness to show them to 

 my wife, and induce her to retract certain opin- 

 ions she had expressed to the effect that I would 

 never get a single egg from my old hens as long 

 as I lived. 



I might say in passing that that egg was some- 

 what more than ruined for life. The painstaking 

 endeavors I made to scrape it up with a spoon 

 added nothing to its value or sphere of usefulness. 

 But never mind, I had at least received some 

 financial return for my outlay. Eggs were worth 

 forty-two cents a dozen. 



That afternoon the long delayed snow-storm 

 came, and before morning nearly a foot had fallen. 

 I was out betimes with shovel and plough, and it 

 was a pleasure to sit on the plough and drive 

 while my son wielded the shovel. Exercise is a 

 good thing for the young, and one of the greatest 



