246 FARMING IT 



my table furnished with my own vegetables, eggs, 

 milk, cream, and butter, and adorned from spring 

 to fall with my own flowers. 



I have brought my farm to a high state of fer- 

 tility, hardened my hands, strengthened my mus- 

 cles, cured my indigestion, and benefited every 

 member of my family, and I have never neglected 

 in any way the duties of my profession. 



It is a gray afternoon near the end of Novem- 

 ber, and I am driving Polly hitched to a farm 

 wagon. In the back of the wagon in a rack, 

 straw-bedded, is a beautiful Jersey heifer. Be- 

 hind, loping easily along, comes the little roan 

 Indian pony, upon which, sitting easily on a 

 cross saddle, is my once small daughter, now a 

 girl of fourteen, riding with the ease and abandon 

 of a cavalryman. 



The roads are hard and smooth, the going ex- 

 cellent. Polly is ambitious and spins along at a 

 spanking pace, but cannot shake off the smooth- 

 gaited pony. A chill wind blows from the north, 

 the dry rushes at the river's edge bend and rustle 

 eerily, a little gray bird with jerking tail flies in 

 and out of the dead bushes, while overhead a 

 single crow, black against the gray sky, wings 

 its way toward a growth of giant pines that 

 shoulder to shoulder seem to defy the coming 

 assaults of the storm king. 



