MY FARM OF EDGEWOOD 



cords of wood between sun and sun. With 

 bare feet, and a keen-whetted six-pound 

 Blanchard, they laid such clean and broad 

 swathes through the fields of dewy herds- 

 grass, as made "old-country-men" stare. By 

 a kind of intuition, they knew the locality of 

 every tree, and of every medicinal herb that 

 grew in the woods. Rarest of all which they 

 possessed, was an acuteness of understanding, 

 which enabled them to comprehend an order 

 before it was half uttered, and to meet occa- 

 sional and unforeseen difficulties, with a steady 

 assurance, as if these had been an accepted part 

 of the problem. It was possible to send a man 

 of this sort into a wood with his team, to 

 select a stick of timber, of chestnut or oak, 

 that should measure a given amount ; he could 

 be trusted to find such, — to cut it, to score it, 

 to load it; if the gearing broke, he could be 

 trusted to mend it ; if the tree lodged, he could 

 be trusted to devise some artifice for bringing 

 it down; and finally, — for its sure and prompt 

 delivery at the point indicated. Your Irish- 

 man, on the other hand, balks at the first turn; 

 he must have a multitude of chains; he needs 

 a boy to aid him with the team, and another 

 to carry a bar ; he spends an hour in his doubt- 

 ful estimate of dimensions; but "begorra it *s 



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