70 FRUIT RANCHING. 



liveliest interest. From one point of view all our 

 animals were in her eyes of regal breed: they were 

 incapable of doing wrong. They might eat our 

 young cabbages and cauliflowers, crop (as they 

 did three limes in succession) our green peas, nibble 

 our melon plants, and so on ; their offences were not 

 at all too heinous for pardon. But when they went 

 the length of invading our water-works and upsetting 

 the pipes, so that the flow of water into the house was 

 stopped, they overstepped the bounds of pardon, 

 particularly when the offence was on a washing day ! 

 The children were, perhaps, more delighted with 

 the animals than we were. The horses, the cows, the 

 other cattle, but, above all, the calves, were never- 

 ending objects of interest and wonderment. At first, 

 so long as the two calves were too small to be allowed 

 to range the woods with their mothers, they were kept 

 at home. Still, the weather was warm, and I did not 

 like the idea of their being shut up all day in the 

 stable. We had as yet no home paddock or pasture 

 to turn them into. The only enclosure was a large 

 poultry run, fenced round with wire netting six feet 

 high. In lieu of any belter place, we used to turn 

 them loose into this poultry run. It often fell to 

 Leslie's lot to lead them out of the stable and put them 

 into their day quarters. Many were the half-hours of 

 frantic amusement this task afforded, not only to 

 Leslie, and to Olive, who was sometimes ambitious 

 enough to try to help her " little " brother, but to all 

 the rest of us. 



After we had been settled at Bonnington about 

 four months the owner of one of the oldest orchards 

 in the immediate vicinity of Nelson came and offered 



