TAKING REINS IN HAND 



AROUND THE HOUSE 



ALTHOUGH possessing all the special re- 

 /\ quisites of which I had been in search, 

 1 V yet the farm was by no means without 

 its inaptitudes and roughnesses. There was 

 an accumulation of half-decayed logs in one 

 quarter, of mouldering chips in another, — be- 

 ing monumental of the choppings and hewings 

 of half a score of years. Old iron had its 

 establishment in this spot; cast-away carts 

 and sleds in that; walls which had bulged out 

 with the upheaval of — I know not how many 

 — frosts, had been ingeniously mended with 

 discarded harrows or axles; there was the 

 usual debris of clam shells, and there were old 

 outbuildings standing awry, and showing 

 rhomboidal angles in their outline. These 

 approached the house very nearly, — so nearly, 

 in fact, that in one direction at least, it was 

 difficult to say where the province of the poul- 

 try and calves ended, and where the human 

 occupancy began. 



49 



