DANVIS FARM LIFE 51 



by lantern -light, and to milk the "winter cow" 

 whose meager, foamless "mess" alone now fur- 

 nishes the household all the milk it has. 



The early chores done, breakfast comes when 

 goodman and goodwife, — as Gervase Markham 

 delights to style the farmer and his wife, — their 

 children and hired folk, all gather about the long 

 table in the big kitchen, and doughty trencher 

 men and women prove themselves every one. 

 The fried pork, or sausages, or beefsteak, — let us 

 hope not fried, — or cold roast beef, left from 

 yesterday's dinner, the potatoes, the wheaten and 

 "rye-'n'-injun" bread, the johnny-cake or buck- 

 wheat-cakes, the apple-sauce, the milk and the 

 butter, colored with October's gold, and likely 

 enough the sugar, are all home-grown; nothing 

 "boughten" but the tea or coffee and the pepper 

 and salt. 



After breakfast the children, with books and 

 dinner-pails and " shining morning faces," set out 

 for school; but not "creeping unwillingly," for 

 there will be plenty of fun there at "recess" and 

 nooning, with sleds and snowballing and no end 

 of outdoor winter games. 



The sheep are fed and then some work of the 

 day begins. Perhaps it is threshing or drawing 

 wood home or to the market from the " woodlot " 

 where a man is chopping "by the cord." He is, 

 likely enough, a light-hearted "Canuck" fresh 



