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30 HOME LIFE ON AN OSTRICH FARM. 



had orders to bring liberal supplies for Jacob every 

 day, and the greedy bird soon learned to know the hour 

 at which he called. He would stand solemnly looking 

 in the direction from which the cart came, and as soon 

 as it appeared, he would run in his ungainly fashion to 

 meet it. 



Jacob was largely endowed with that quality which 

 is best expressed by the American word " cussedness ; " 

 and though friendly enough with us, he was very spite- 

 ful and malicious towards all other creatures on the 

 place. He grew much worse after we went to live up- 

 country, and became at last a kind of feathered 

 Ishmael ; hated by all his fellows, and returning their 

 dislike with interest. Some time after we settled on 

 our farm we found that he had been systematically in- 

 flicting a cruel course of ill-treatment on one unfortu- 

 nate fowl, which, having been chosen as the next victim 

 for the table, was enclosed, with a view to fattening, 

 in a little old packing-case with wooden bars nailed 

 across the front. Somehow, in spite of abundant 

 mealies and much soaked bread, that fowl never would 

 get fat, nor had his predecessor ever done so ; we had 

 grown weary of feeding up the latter for weeks with 

 no result, and in despair had killed and eaten him at 

 last a poor bag of bones, not worth a tithe of the food 

 he had consumed. And now here was another, ap- 

 parently suffering from the same kind of atrophy ; the 

 whole thing was a puzzle to us, until one day the mystery 

 was solved, and Jacob stood revealed as the author of 

 the mischief. He had devised an ingenious way of per- 



