RANCH LIFE. 235 



tic cries for " R-e-e-chard " to "geeta uppa." Dick, I am sorry 

 to say, often "possumed," when our interlocutor would get so 

 excited that "Scottie" or I was fain to answer by proxy for the 

 derelict Dick. 



When our eleven horses were all working we divided their 

 care b'etween us, and generally had them ready for work before 

 day. We fed them on wild oats, cut green, clover and timothy 

 hay being unknown, while for solid feed we gave them barley. 

 This was put to soak twelve hours before using, as it was indi- 

 gestible otherwise. The horses cleaned and harnessed, we went 

 to breakfast, which was invariably composed of galleta Italiana, 

 a kind of hard bread and coffee ; each of the best quality, but 

 not a very solid diet for laboring men. This bread, which is 

 far superior to hard tack, is six inches in diameter and from a 

 half-inch to an inch in thickness, and one of these disks we 

 found each morning by our coffee-bowls. Plates and knives 

 and forks we never had, because we had no use for them. Of 

 coffee, with the customary trimmings, we had an abundance on 

 tap in the tea-kettle. The bread we broke up and put to soak, 

 as we did the barley for the horses; in fact, the two and foar- 

 legged workers on the farm fared pretty much alike, except 

 the latter got waited on and we did not. The bread puffed up 

 elegantly, but its staying qualities were poor. One hour's 

 worrying with the teams or swinging the big maul would turn 

 it into hired man. Thinking our allowance too small, Dick 

 explored the kitchen loft one morning with his long arms and 

 found the source of our bread supply, and after that we did 

 not want. Our dinners were composed of fresh beef in general, 

 or cod-fish on fast days, fried in oil, and bread and coffee. Pie 

 we never saw, but mushrooms we had sometimes. Supper the 

 same. This was our favorite meal as we were not hurried, and 

 we often prolonged it rather than go to the gloom of tlie barn. 

 We were never in the house except at meal time, and as we 

 had no village store, with its nail-keg seats held down by gar- 



