CHAPTER VI 
WE TAKE POSSESSION 
My barn was full of horses, but none of them 
was fit for farm work; so I engaged a veterinary 
surgeon to find three suitable teams. By the 
25th of the month he had succeeded, and I in- 
spected the animals and found them satisfactory, 
though not so smooth and smart-looking as I had 
pictured them. When I compared them, some- 
what unfavorably, with the teams used for city 
trucks and delivery wagons, he retorted by say- 
ing: “I did not know that you wanted to pay 
$1200 a pair for your horses. These six horses 
will cost you $750, and they are worth it.” They 
were a sturdy lot, young, well matched, not so 
large as to be unwieldy, but heavy enough for 
almost any work. The lightest was said to 
weigh 1375 pounds, and the heaviest not more 
than a hundred pounds more. Two of the teams 
were bay with a sprinkling of white feet, while 
the other pair was red roan, and, to my mind, 
the best looking. 
Four of these horses are still doing service on 
the farm, after more than seven years. One of 
the bays died in the summer of ’98, and one of the 
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