Those Who Live in the Country 29 



out in the foreground o' my memory a little tlie 

 most prominent o ' my experiences on the road. 



''Talk about navigatin' a schooner in a livin' 

 gale with a sea beatin* on the wrong quarter — 

 'tain't nothin' compared to drivin' a yoke of cat- 

 tle along a drifted bush-road with a cuttin' head 

 wind. 



"Dad an' me hadn't gone more'n forty rod be- 

 fore them cattle began to act up. They crowded 

 each other off the track. First Buck would be 

 over in the deep snow a-wallerin' an' a-puffin'. 

 Then he'd get an underholt on his mate an' hist 

 him off the track. At times they'd both be off the 

 road. Didn't seem to care no more for the whip 

 than if it had been a stalk o' timothy Dad was 

 wieldin'. 



"It took us plum four hours to make the vil- 

 lage an'. I'd done enough o' road work to let us 

 out o' statute labor for ten years. In one scrim- 

 mage with a big drift old Buck's yoke pin worked 

 out and that meek-eyed old chap, when he found 

 himself free of the yoke, wheeled about an' cut 

 for home. Dad held the other fellow while I 

 undertook to round up that home-lovin' ox. He 

 gave up the run after half a mile o' back track 

 had been covered an' then it took us about half an 

 hour longer to find that yoke pin. An' all the 

 while it was blowin' an' snowin'. 



"Talk about your difficulties o' travel these 

 days. Pshaw! it's like roller-skates an' a re- 

 volvin' track compared with the days when Dad 



