DANVIS FARM LIFE 49 



and sometimes so snowed in that they had to 

 be released from their imprisonment by dint of 

 much shoveling. This old-time foddering, which 

 was the fare of all the stock but the horses and 

 working oxen, though sadly lacking in comfort 

 for feeder and fed, was very picturesque: the 

 farmer, in blue-mixed smock-frock of homespun 

 woolen, pitching down the great forkfuls from the 

 stack; the kine and sheep crowding and jostling 

 for the first place on the leeward side, or chasing 

 wisps of wind-tossed hay down wind; then the 

 farmer distributing the fodder in little piles, fol- 

 lowed by all the herd, each thinking (as who does 

 not?) that what he has not is better than what he 

 has; the strong making might right; the poor 

 underling, content to snatch the scant mouthfuls, 

 overrun by the stronger brethren all in a busy 

 throng about the rail pen from which rises the 

 dun truncated cone of the stack, their only har- 

 bor in the wide, white sea. A path, to be freshly 

 broken after every wind or snowfall, leads to the 

 water-holes, chopped out every morning in the 

 brook, some furlongs off, whither they wend their 

 way in lazy lines as the day grows older. But 

 no one need mourn the passing away of this 

 old custom; for the later warm stables, sheds, 

 and barnyards, with their contented and well- 

 sheltered inmates, are comfortable as well as 

 picturesque. 



