33 o Next to the Ground 



required only the standards and pretty careful 

 driving. 



The driver of course vi^alked beside, as be- 

 fitted a genuine ox team. It was aWays the 

 tvs'o or three-year-old oxen, fairly broken, 

 and toughened to work, that did the real 

 truckle-hauling. The calves might have 

 pulled Billy-Boy, or even Joe himself, easily. 

 But Joe would not impose upon anything 

 weak and young — and as for risking Billy- 

 Boy anywhere there was the least danger — 

 you could not have hired either Joe or Dan 

 to think of that. Billy-Boy was the apple of 

 every eye at White Oaks. Even Patsy, for 

 all she was so up-headed, delighted in his 

 tyranny, and was proud to be ranked the 

 most obedient of all his humble subjects. 



Well-matched oxen working for years in 

 the same yoke grow pathetically fond of each 

 other. They feed side by side at grass, lie 

 down and rise up together, low disconsol- 

 ately if by chance one gets out of sight, and 

 if forcibly separated, sometimes breach the 

 stoutest fences to reach one another. Ox 

 feet wear to the quick — not so easily as 

 horses' feet do, but still so as to make shoe- 

 ing imperative if they needs must travel over 

 rocks either to the wagon or plough. An 

 ox-shoe is a queer-looking plate of iron, split 

 like the hoof, ill to make fast, not so easily 



