60 Old Bays on the Farm 



of overhanging trees along its grassy banks and 

 it had old swimmin' holes a-plenty, and many 

 shady pools where the small boy loved to linger 

 and dream and fish. The stream had then more 

 water and there were not so many microbes or 

 bacilli in it. In the spring-time the Avon did not 

 roll her waters gently to the sea, but forwarded 

 them in a mighty rush. When the rush was over 

 and fences, and sometimes bridges, had been swept 

 away that sweet river would babble sonnets all 

 summer long. And, it may be remarked, that there 

 is no sweeter melody in nature, to the ear properly 

 attuned, than the chattering, babbling, rippling 

 concord of sweet sounds from a running stream. 

 A small boy on the farm, in the days when the 

 grain had to be bound into sheaves by hand, and 

 when the Canada thistle flourished and made its 

 presence felt in the harvest field, had to cut this- 

 tles amid the growing grain. He was given a 

 spud, an instrument like a chisel with a long han- 

 dle, and along about — well, knee-deep in June, as 

 Whitcomb Eiley, the poet, puts it — went up and 

 down the ridges through the growing crops spear- 

 ing thistles. Of course, he'd rather have been 

 fishing but the fates were prominently arrayed 

 against him. In these modern days with the self- 

 binding reaper, thistles are not looked upon as 

 dangerous to the harvester, and beside, I am in- 

 formed that their place has been taken largely 

 by other weed pests that are really much more 

 threatening to agricultural success. 



