Ill 



LIFE ON A WISCONSIN FARM 



Humanity in Oxen — Jack, the Pony — Learning to Ride 

 — Nob and Nell — Snakes — Mosquitoes and their Kin — 

 Fish and Fishing — Considering the Lilies — Learning to 

 Swim — A Narrow Escape from Drowning and a Victory — 

 Accidents to Animals. 



COMING direct from school in Scotland 

 while we were still hopefully ignorant 

 and far from tame, — notwithstand- 

 ing the unnatural profusion of teaching and 

 thrashing lavished upon us, — getting ac- 

 quainted with the animals about us was a 

 never-failing source of wonder and delight. At 

 first my father, like nearly all the backwoods 

 settlers, bought a yoke of oxen to do the farm 

 work, and as field after field was cleared, the 

 number was gradually increased until we had 

 five yoke. These wise, patient, plodding ani- 

 mals did all the ploughing, logging, hauling, 

 and hard work of every sort for the first four or 

 [ 90 1 



