216 FARMING IT 



Dick and I did not hesitate to go across the line 

 and bring the poor old fellow back. He died 

 before we got him over the fence. Nobody inter- 

 fered with us, and I think we were both hugely 

 disappointed. 



If the old man had appeared I think some one 

 would have been hurt. Nothing makes a man 

 more wolfish than to see a pet shot to death, and 

 dying with wide-open, pleading eyes and panting, 

 choking breath. We buried the poor animal 

 under an apple tree in the orchard. 



During the first spring, summer, and fall, old 

 Cyrus exhausted every device to annoy us. In 

 the spring, if the wind blew in the direction of our 

 buildings, on that day he would light a huge 

 bonfire of damp matter and send dense clouds of 

 smoke over us. Finding that this did not annoy 

 us particularly, as the smoke of spring bonfires 

 was very agreeable to us, he would put on an old 

 horse-blanket, a few shovels of stable manure, or 

 a dead hen, and raise a stench that nearly stifled 

 the entire neighborhood. 



He never failed to shoot one of my hens if it 

 escaped from the yard and trespassed, but after 

 the first experience I no longer dressed and sent 

 them to him. But on one occasion, when his hens 

 got out and strayed on my premises, I carefully 

 drove them back unhurt, only to be accused of 

 purposely letting them out. 



