When Life Was Young Part 11

We went on down the brook to the meadow, called after its owner's name; the stream was more sluggish here, and along its turfy banks the clumps of Indian poke were very numerous. With shovel and hoe, we then proceeded to dig up the rank-growing and ranker-smelling plant. To get out much of the root required a great effort, and we did not like to smear our hands with the juice. For this plant (which is the same made use of by h.o.m.oeopathic physicians as a medicine) proves poisonous to cattle when, as is sometimes the case in the early spring, the animals are tempted to crop its rank, fresh leaves. In order to take home enough in our two baskets, we trod it down with our feet very solidly; and when at length they were heaped full, each was heavy.

"I wish Ellen could have come, to help us home with it," said Addison.

"There ought to be two to each basket, one on each side, and so change hands once in a while."

"Are we going to fish now?" I asked.

"Well, but you see the sun is nearly down," replied Addison. "It is getting late in the afternoon for fishing, and we have a hard job before us, to tote these baskets home. Besides, Halse has fished away down past us, in all the good holes. I guess we had better not stop this time, but wait for a lowery day.

"Come, help carry these baskets home!" he shouted to Halstead, who was now near the lower end of the meadow. But the latter was very intent at a trout-hole into which he had just dropped his hook, and did not respond. We waited a few minutes, then shouldered the baskets, and carrying our shovels in our free hands, set off. At first the basket did not seem very heavy; but, by the time I had gone half a mile, I found myself very tired. Addison, however, plodded st.u.r.dily forward with his basket, and after resting for a few moments, I toiled on in his wake.

Presently Halse overtook us.

"Hullo, shirk!" Addison called out. "How many fish?"

Halstead held up a pretty string of fourteen.

"Well, you've had all the fun so far," said Addison. "Now let's see you carry one of these baskets."

"What a fuss about a little basket of green stuff!" exclaimed Halstead contemptuously; and throwing mine on his shoulder, he started on at a great pace.

Before he had got as far as the "calf pasture," however, he began to lag, fell behind and at length set down the basket.

"What was the use of stuffing them so full!" he grumbled. "There was no need of so much."

A few rods farther on, he again set the basket down on a rock. Addison turned round and laughed at him. "What's the matter with that 'little basket of green stuff?'" he exclaimed.

"But there's no need of so much!" cried Halstead, and he threw out a part of it before going on. I gathered up what he threw out and followed behind him. When we came to the stone wall between the pasture and the southwest field, Halse set the basket down and hurried on past Addison to the house, in advance of us.

"He has run ahead to show his trout and tell a fine story," said Addison, with a laugh. "That's the way he always does. But they know him pretty well. I don't take the trouble to contradict any of his talk now."

"Does he tell lies?" I asked.

"Not exactly outright lies," said Addison. "But he will talk large and try to lead the folks to think that he dug the most of the poke and brought it home, besides catching the trout. That's the kind of boy he is; but if I were you, I would not mind anything of that sort. They all know how it is--a great deal better than they want to know. You will not lose anything by keeping quiet." Addison saw that I was a little ruffled on account of the fishing incident, and thought it best to calm me.

By the time I reached the farm-yard, where the Old Squire had hung up a large iron kettle and had water boiling in it, I was very tired indeed.

What with splitting wood in the early morning, catching seventy sheep and digging and carrying poke, I had put forth a good deal of muscular strength that day, for a lad unused to such exertion. In fact, the day had seemed a week in length to me; for I appeared to myself to have learned a hundred new things since morning, and had pa.s.sed through a wide series of new experiences.

But supper was ready, and supper is a great source of recuperation with a hungry boy. How delicious the "pop-overs" and maple syrup tasted! I was ashamed to ask for a sixth "pop-over;" but when cousin Theodora called for more and slipped a sixth upon my plate, I felt very grateful to her. Halstead was boasting of his skill fishing, and relating how he threw the trout out of the holes.

"Won't they taste good for breakfast!" he exclaimed. "Nell, if you will clean them and fry them, you shall have three. I shall want four for my share," he continued; "and that will give the rest of you one apiece!"

Addison laughed. "That's real generous of you, Halse, seeing that the rest of us had such poor luck fishing," said he. Theodora was listening, and by and by asked me in a whisper--her chair at table being next mine--whether Halstead had helped dig the poke.

"Ask Addison," I said, laughing in turn.

She did not ask, but I noticed that her face wore a thoughtful expression during the remainder of the time we were at table.

After supper we put the poke into the kettle. The Old Squire had already chipped up and thrown into it a pound of tobacco; and during the evening we brought wood several times from the wood-shed and kept the kettle boiling. By the time it had grown dark, I was glad to creep away to bed, for I had grown so sleepy that I could scarcely keep my eyes open. It seemed to me, too, that I had no more than fallen soundly asleep when I heard somebody knocking and saying that it was time to get up and dress.

'Twas actually some moments before I could believe that morning had come again. The sun had risen, however, and Halstead was dressing.

"Grandmarm's up fryin' my trout," said he. "I can smell 'em. O won't they taste good! But one is all you can have."

"If you had done your part, we might all three have caught some trout,"

I grumbled, for I felt sleepy still and not in a good humor.

"Look here," said Halstead, "I stand a good deal of that kind of talk from Ad, but you needn't think you can take up his tune."

"What will you do?" I asked.

"Give you a thrashing," said Halstead. "It would do you good, too. One little George Washington is all we can have in this house."

I had some doubts as to his being able to handle me; still he was considerably the larger, and I concluded that I had better not provoke him to a trial of his ability in that direction. But his threat set a deep resentment brewing in my mind. At breakfast time, however, he attempted to soften the asperities of boy life between us, by putting two trout, instead of one, on my plate. I surmised that Theodora had prompted him to do it, however, but was not certain.

Gramp and Ellen had been to the pasture the previous evening and driven the flock of sheep and lambs down to the west barn, where they had remained shut up over night. This was the Old Squire's custom with his flock the night of the washing, to prevent the sheep from taking cold, and also from a theory of his that if they were kept warm for two nights after washing, the oil from their skins would start sufficiently to put the wool in proper condition for shearing on the third day.

After breakfast, the business of the day was announced to be bean-planting, at which Halstead groaned audibly. Twelve quarts of yellow-eyed beans, which had been carefully picked over, were brought out from the granary chamber for seed; and with tin basins to drop from and hoes to cover with, we were about setting off for the field, when the bleating of sheep was heard along the road, and a babel of voices.

"There comes Edwards' flock!" cried Halstead. "And there's Tom and Kate."

The flock went streaming along the road; and we young folks turned out to a.s.sist in driving them through the field and pasture, down to the yard by the Little Sea.

Thomas I had met already. His sister Catherine looked to be a little older than Ellen. She and our girls appeared to be great friends and rapidly exchanged a stock of small news and confidences. I felt bashful about drawing near them, to receive an introduction; but Ellen brought her young neighbor around, near where I was helping the other boys pen up the sheep, and informed her that I was the new cousin who had come to live at the farm, and hence that we must needs become acquainted.

Catherine and I did not become much acquainted, however, for months afterwards.

Thomas and Catherine had an older brother, who did not appear with them that morning. Mr. Edwards himself was a strong, weather-browned farmer, then about forty-five years of age. Addison explained to them the workings of his water-warming apparatus, and showed them where fuel could be gathered for a fire beneath the pipes; we then returned to go to our work. Before we had gone to the field, however, another interruption occurred. A swarm of bees came out of one of the hives, at the bee-house in the garden, and after mounting in a dense, brown cloud into the air over the hives, settled upon the limb of a large apple tree, a few rods distant. Gram bustled out with a pan and began drumming noisily upon it, to drown the hum of the queen bee, as she said, and thus prevent the swarm from flying away.

Meantime the Old Squire was putting on a veil and gloves, and then came out with a saw in his hand, while Addison brought forth a new hive which had been hurriedly rinsed out with salt and water.

"Fetch a ladder, quick!" was the order to Halstead and me.

Theodora had brought the clothes-line, which Addison hastily took from her hands, and climbing the apple tree, attached one end of it to the bending bough upon which the dark-brown ma.s.s of bees now cl.u.s.tered. This seemed to me then to be a very brave act, for numbers of the bees were darting angrily about, and one--as he afterwards showed us--stung him on the wrist.

By this time the Old Squire had set the ladder, and climbing up, sawed off the bough a little back of the point where the bees were clinging to it. All this time Gram was drumming vigorously without cessation; and Theodora having fetched a broad bit of board which she placed on the ground under the tree, Addison slowly lowered the bough with the bees till it rested upon the board, when Gramp clapped the empty hive over them, and the swarm was hived; for during the day the bees went up from the bough into the top of the hive, and that evening it was gently removed to a place in the row of hives at the bee-house.

This was an early swarm, hence valuable. Gram repeated to us a proverb in rhyme which set forth the relative values of swarms.

"A swarm in May is worth a load of hay.

A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon, But a swarm in July is not worth a fly."

July swarms would not have time to lay up a store of honey during the season of flowers.

Between bees and neighbors the forenoon was far advanced before we reached the field and began bean-planting. Quite enough of it remained, however, to render me certain that farm work, in summer, is far from being a pastime. We planted the beans among the corn which had been planted two weeks previously and was now a finger's length above the ground. The corn hills were three feet and a half apart, and between the hills of every row we now inserted a hill of beans. Halstead and I dropped the seed, three beans to a hill, going a few steps in advance of Addison and the old Squire, who followed us with hoes and covered the beans. The process of dropping was very simple; we had only to make an imprint in the soft earth with the right heel, and then drop three beans in the hole. Yet with the sun hot above my head, I found it a sweaty task, and was but too glad to hear Ellen blow the horn for dinner.

Bean-planting was the business again after dinner, but dark clouds rose in the west, shortly before three o'clock, and soon the first thunder-shower of the season rose, rumbling upward over the White Mountains. We were compelled to run for the barn. Gramp improved the opportunity to sharpen the sheep-shears, and as soon as the shower abated, sent Halstead off to notify a man at the Corners, named Peter Glinds, a professional shearer, that his services would be required on the following day. "Old Peter," as he was called, had made shearing sheep his spring vocation for many years; he was a very tall, lean, yellow old man, who was reported to use a plug of tobacco a day, the year round.

Addison set about preparing a half-hogshead tub to hold the poke decoction for immersing the lambs after the sheep were sheared.

But singeing off caterpillars' nests in the orchard was my work for the remainder of that afternoon and the following forenoon. I went up to the west barn a number of times, however, to see Peter Glinds shear sheep, for I had a great curiosity concerning this piece of farm work.

Addison and Halstead were a.s.sisting at the shearing, the latter catching and fetching the sheep, one by one, to the shearers, while the former was attending to the fleeces, binding up each one by itself in a compact bundle with stout twine. Instead of sitting at a bench, or standing at a table, the sheep-shearer worked on his knees, extending the sheep p.r.o.ne upon the barn floor. Old Peter could shear a sheep in ten minutes; Gramp was less speedy with the shears; he contrived to shear about as many as Peter, however, for, after every fourth sheep, the latter would have to stop to light his pipe and refresh himself. "A bad habit! A bad habit!"