126 THE DAILY LIFE OF OUR FARM. 



manure on my turnip land, having an eye especially to 

 the clover that will follow in regular succession. 



How murderous hot it is ! There must be thunder 

 somewhere, and it is felt with its effects in more w^ays 

 than one. Just now, taking my usual nocturnal nursery 

 rounds, I came upon the boy juveniles in their broiling 

 bed-room. Yet they were boiling over with boisterous 

 fun and larking in all sorts of ways. Just arrayed in 

 a sheet each, they lay and tossed and chaffed, and 

 frolicked one with the other, and were " cheeky" above 

 measure, as their elder brother observed confidentially 

 to his mother, with whose pony-carriage whip I, finding 

 it opportunely in the hall, made my silent way up the 

 back stairs to their room, the door of which was open. 

 I found them rolling in their respective sheets upon 

 their elder's bed. Catch a weasel asleep you won't, 

 nor will you readily find our young French friend 

 off his guard. One eye out somewhere he must have 

 had ; for immediately, when I aimed at them a quiet 

 cut, as much to awe as to afilict them, the sharp 

 youngster, by an effort getting undermost, upturned 

 his brother's — not his head — so as to intercept the 

 flick, and then rolled, roaring with delight, off the bed 

 atid underneath, there enjoying to the uttermost the 

 juvenile's discomfiture and astonishment. The young- 

 ster squalled, of course ; whilst underneath the bed 

 crowed our French friend. 



The wail has, however, caught the doting mother's 

 ear ; so, while little Benjamin's hurt is being looked to, 

 we have urgent private affairs with the bailiff, to whom 

 we confide our earnest feeling that a fall of rain, if it 

 do damage to the corn crop, would be of inestimable 

 service to the roots. 



