OCTOBER

_Oct. 5._--Can husking corn be described as a sedentary occupation? You

certainly sit down while at work, but before the day is over you sit in

so many different ways that you really get considerable exercise. Some

people use a milking-stool, some sit tailor-fashion, others kneel

devoutly, and if it were not for the cold weather I believe some people

would lie down beside the work and go to sleep. During the first

forenoon I sampled all the different methods except lying down, and

found them all equally uncomfortable. The simple fact is that when you

go at it energetically, husking corn is really work. It has no holiday

features that I have been able to discover. You work with both hands,

and when you strike a stiff-necked ear you have to put forth as much

strength that, as the realistic novelists say, the muscles on your back

"stand out like knotted whipcords." Besides, when the field has a

considerable acreage it is not simply a day's job, nor a week's job, but

a month's job. Of course, you get used to it in time, and the more used

to it you get the more sore your hands become between the thumb and

forefinger through breaking off the ears. And there's another thing

besides the sitting down that requires thinking out before you settle

down to work. Is it better to sit facing the sun with the north wind

blowing on the small of your back, or to sit with the wind in your face

while the sun gives a nice, comfy feeling to your spine? I have tried

both ways, but have not yet reached a definite conclusion.

A nail with a string tied to the head and a loop to go around your third

finger makes an excellent substitute for the old hickory husking-peg

whose end had been hardened in the fire. A sharp wire nail slips through

the husks readily to make the opening tear that reveals the yellow

grain. Then you bend the ear back over the sorest spot on your hand to

break the cob, and the trick is done. When you are husking corn your

mind is apt to be more on your tender hands than on your work, but still

one has a chance to do a little thinking from time to time. Husking

corn--in fact, all the work of this last harvest, such as digging

potatoes, pulling roots, and caring for vegetables--brings one into a

closer dealing with nature than the grain harvest earlier in the season.

Wheat, oats, and barley are reaped by machinery and thrashed by

machinery, so that your contact with them is never intimate. The things

we are harvesting now we must attend to with our hands, and for that

reason we seem to be receiving them directly from the hand of Nature.

Being food for man and beast, these things represent true wealth as it

comes to us directly from the soil. Every ear that is husked and every

potato that is dug means a distinct addition to the wealth of the world.

In this way the work of the farmer is superior to that of any other man.

The more wealth the farmer produces, the more mouths will be fed and the

cheaper the cost of living will be. Many people who have not given the

matter thought imagine that the production of gold increases the wealth

of the world. As a matter of fact, every dollar of gold that is produced

reduces the buying power of every other dollar, and in that way makes

living harder for men of fixed income or men who work on salary. The

miner is simply providing us with more counters to be used in the

handling of the natural wealth which is produced by the farmer. This is

all very elementary, of course, but it helps to give a man a proper

pride in his work. If farmers would think more of this aspect of their

lives we might hear less grumbling.

There is a flock of quail somewhere in the cornfield, but as yet I have

not seen them. Their gathering calls can be heard in the evening, and I

have seen their dusting-place, but thus far I have not seen a feather of

the quail themselves. Last Sunday I flushed a woodcock beside the

Government drain, the first one I have ever seen in this neighbourhood.

And that reminds me that I recently had a conversation with a sportsman

who unburdened himself with considerable vigour regarding our game laws.

To begin with, he said that, as far as woodcock are concerned, our laws

are especially designed to protect woodcock for American hunters. Most

of the woodcock migrate before the season for them opens in Canada.

Another complaint is that, as at present administered, the game laws

simply keep law-abiding sportsmen from getting any game. No true

sportsman will do any shooting in the close season, but long before the

season opens for quail, partridge, woodcock, and squirrels, the country

is hunted out by people who have no regard for the law. Town and country

boys who have guns take to the woods and fields early in the season and

kill everything they come across. As there are no funds to pay the game

wardens, these offenders against the law are seldom or never prosecuted,

and practically all the game goes to them. This sportsman suggested a

remedy that should meet with the approval of every one interested in the

preservation of game. He urges that all guns be registered and a gun tax

levied that would pay for wardens who would properly enforce the law.

This would not only provide the necessary machinery for enforcing the

game laws, but would make the ownership of a gun a matter requiring

consideration. Something must be done if we who have a respect for the

law are to get any of our corn-fed quail and squirrels.

The coon-hunting season is on again, and almost every night one can hear

the barking of coon dogs. There has been a change in the method of

procedure of coon hunters, however. The ringing of the axes no longer

disturbs the stillness, and you never hear at midnight the crash of a

falling tree. Trees are now worth more than many coonskins, and the

farmer who heard coon hunters chopping in his woods would not only make

a roar, but would probably chase off the hunters with a fence stake. The

present method is to hunt on moonlight nights and try to bring down the

coons with a rifle. I am told that if the barrel is whitened with chalk

it is possible to sight the gun fairly accurately. If the coon happens

to be treed where it is not too hard to get at, the hunter straps on

telephone pole climbers and shins up the tree. But with all these

improvements coon hunting is not what it used to be--chiefly because the

farmers do not raise as many melons as they used to. I remember--but no,

I guess I'll not tell about it.

The husking was varied by an exciting rat hunt. Under one of the shocks

there was a surprising pile of earth, fully two feet high. It was

evidently the home of a family of rats, and as these creatures have no

redeeming features it was decided to destroy them. They are filthy,

destructive, disease-bearing vermin, and to kill them is a public

service. As the ground was mellow, it was easy to follow the winding

tunnels that went out on every side. These tunnels had little chambers

every yard or two, evidently to enable the rats to turn round if

pursued, but I was surprised to find that every tunnel ended without a

hole leading to the surface. I thought that every creature that burrows

in the earth has a back door as well as a front door to his home, but

these rats had only one hole for going in or out. They evidently

depended for safety on their intricate system of tunnels, and they had a

system that must have equalled the one in the Portland estates in

England or the kind you read about in old romances. The tunnels were so

near the surface that they broke through when stepped on, and it was not

hard to follow them and throw them open with a fork-handle. After yards

of tunnels had been opened rats began to pop out--but there is no need

describing the carnage. One old rat and twelve that were partly grown

were rooted out and killed. It was an unpleasant duty, but a duty

nevertheless. If left to themselves those rats would have eaten and

destroyed as much corn as several hogs. While it is a scientific fact

that man and the rats have discovered and conquered the world together

there is war between them, and there will be war until the end of time.

After the day's husking comes the job of binding up the cornstalks and

when the stalks are dry it is just about the meannest job imaginable.

You pick out the softest, juiciest-looking stalk you can find, bend it

between the joints and proceed to tie up an armful of stalks that

scratch your wrists and face, and just as you are starting to twist the

ends into a knot the wretched thing breaks and you have to start the

whole performance over again. After this has happened a few times your

temper begins to slip cogs and your language becomes "painful and

frequent and free." Of course it had the advantage of making me forget

how stiff my joints were from sitting on the cold ground, and before I

knew it I was warm clean through, but that kind of warmth is not the

kind of warmth a fellow wants. I grumbled so much about this feature of

the husking that a man of experience asked why I did not use binder

twine. That solved the difficulty, and the husking is being done in a

proper frame of mind. Although the yield is not remarkable for quantity,

the ears are large and the grain is sound.

_Oct. 8._--There is a pear tree that is hemmed in on one side by an

apple tree and on the other by an oak. The result is that the lower

branches have died and fallen off and the fruit grows from thirty to

forty feet above the ground. For some time past the children had been

picking up the wind-falls, ripening them in the bureau drawers, and

asking when I was going to pick the pears. When it comes to lofty and

fancy climbing I have to do it myself. The youngsters do enough climbing

to tear their clothes, but that is all. When we got ready to pick the

apples I decided to begin by picking the pears. I have a weakness for

these particular pears that made me want to harvest them. This was the

only kind on the farm when I was a boy and I have never found others

quite like them. They are not of any of the standard varieties, and as

they are not good keepers or particularly good for preserves they are

not in favour with thrifty people. But as eating pears they are

unrivalled. When picked at the right time and hidden in a hay-mow for a

few weeks they used to be as delicious to a predatory small boy as

hoarded beechnuts to a red squirrel. Even when ripened among the clothes

in a bureau drawer they are good enough, though they lack the tang of

stolen fruit. This year there was about a bushel on the tree in spite of

the spring frost that destroyed most of the blossoms. The longest ladder

on the place barely reached to the first branches, but when I had pulled

myself up among the fruit I was greatly rewarded. About the first thing

that caught my eye was a big, perfect pear lying in a little nest of

twigs where several branches were crossing one another. It had evidently

ripened early, fallen into this hiding place, and then mellowed in the

sun and wind. As I picked it up my thumb made a dent in its soft flesh.

A moment later I had sunk my teeth in its rosy, juicy side and my palate

was quivering with joy. It had the real hay-mow flavour and after the

first taste I got the stolen fruit tang, for a voice floated up from

below,

"Aw, gimme a bite!"

"All right! Come up and get it!" I exulted. Making myself comfortable in

a fork of the tree I proceeded with my little banquet, and before it was

done I was derisively singing an old schoolboy refrain:

"Billy! Dey ain't goin' to be no core!"

Feeling greatly refreshed I then picked the pears.

It was no easy job, for the top branches were long and slim, and as I

swung around and took chances I felt that Calverly knew what he was

talking about when he described the monkeys as clinging,

"With ape-like glee,

By the teeth or tail or eyelid

To the slippery mango tree."

While occupying my position of vantage I had a rush of primordial

feelings that made me almost a believer in the Darwinian theory. It

could be nothing but the stirring of some hereditary emotion that made

me long to throw pears at the people below who were sending up

exclamations of caution and advice. There would be a joy in it such as

must have been felt by our ancestors when:

"Side by side 'twas theirs to ravage

The potato ground and cut

Down the unsuspecting savage

With the well-aimed cocoanut."

Before my task was finished I was led to reflect that a prehensile tail

must be a great advantage to a climber. Yet there can be no advantage

without its penalty. I remember a joke in _Life_ about a monkey that was

complaining because it had slipped and sprained its tail.

While picking the pears I had a chance to overlook the activities of the

whole neighbourhood, but my interest was largely centred in my own

cornfield, where a band of original Canadians, Indians, were busy

husking. That corn had been hanging over me like an incubus, for I

thought I would have to husk it all myself, but

"The red man came, the roaming hunter tribe,"

and I promptly made a treaty with them. But the consideration was not

glass beads and red cotton handkerchiefs. Not at all. They are

civilised--as civilised as an imported hired man. They insisted on

getting five and a half cents a bushel--"and find themselves."

Reflecting that even at that price I would not make much more than board

wages, I agreed to pay. And as I looked at the cornfield from the pear

tree I felt glad that I had done so, for real judges have estimated that

there will be at least five hundred bushels. I will have enough to do in

hauling home the ears and stalks. The piles of yellow ears delighted my

eye, and then I noticed the golden sprinkling of pumpkins in the field,

and I called down orders for pies. Somehow, in this country life our

appetites are always with us.

Looked at from the height I was occupying, the world seemed more alive

than usual. I could see men working in their fields or about their

buildings for a mile or two in every direction. Ordinarily we see only

the people and animals on our own farms, and are oppressed by a sense

of loneliness. From my tree-top I could see that I really have

neighbours. As I realised this I was struck by the thought that all our

activities take place within a few feet of the ground. In spite of our

boasted freedom of action we are the slaves of the law of gravity which

keeps us "crawling 'twixt the earth and heaven." But because we can walk

and run and travel in trains, and even fly a little, we think ourselves

entirely free and are not conscious of the fact that gravity binds us as

with chains. Who knows but in a similar way our actions, both moral and

intellectual, are governed by laws of which we are unconscious? Perhaps

if we could make our analysis keen enough we would find that our lives

impinge on the peripheries of other spheres than that of the earth, and

that we are whirled around on them forever like Ixion on his wheel. Such

a discovery would settle to the satisfaction of all the endless debate

regarding predestination and free will. But it does not do to indulge in

such metaphysical flights while clambering around in a tree forty feet

from the ground. They might make us giddy, and then "What a fall would

be there, my fellow-countrymen." Still it was worth the climb to get

away for a little while from the flatness of things and to realise that

there is much in life that is missed by the sensible people who keep

their feet constantly on the ground. We need an occasional breath from

the heights, and I am inclined to think there was much wisdom in the

words of the poetess who closed a notable poem in a recent number of

_The Forum_ with the couplet:

"He whose soul is flat, the sky

Will cave in on him by and by."

_Oct. 10._--Why are there no good quotations about October? We are

having weather just now that makes one long for a burst of poetry that

will surpass "What is so rare as a day in June?" as much as ripeness

surpasses greenness. Poe has something about "the lonesome October" that

gives one cold chills to remember. Is it because the only decent rhyme

for October is "sober" that the poets have been unable to get

enthusiastic? And what a peculiar touch of irony it is that "sober" is

the only rhyme for the month of wine-pressing, cider-making, and "brown

October ale." But perhaps the trouble is that the poets cannot do the

subject justice. At no other season of the year is the country so

bewilderingly beautiful--so "beautiful exceedingly." The frost has

worked miracles with the foliage. The staid green of summer has given

place to "a riot of colour" (good old phrase) ranging from the most

delicate yellow to crimson and purple. After the frosty nights the air

has an exhilarating quality not to be described in a country where

prohibition sentiment is so strong. The October sunshine has a

satisfying warmth that makes a man as mellow as a fall pippin. Some one

has somewhere described this as "the season when every schoolboy trudges

along the country roads munching a ripe apple." That does very well for

prose, but the subject is one that demands poetry. We should have

something as meaty as the well-filled granaries and as luscious as the

closely-packed apple barrels. Let our poets get busy. Some American

magazine will be glad to pay a proper price for the gem when it is

completed.

A drive through the country has charms at all times, but just now it is

especially worth while. If scenery is your hobby the above-mentioned

"riot of colour" may be seen from a thousand angles. Piles of apples,

rosy, yellow, and green, give an appetising beauty to every

orchard--marred somewhat by commercial-looking apple barrels, indicating

that these good things will be sold to be enjoyed elsewhere. It may be

observed everywhere that

"The frost is on the pumpkin, and the corn is in the shock."

Potatoes are being dug and huge piles are in evidence ready to be

pitted. This, by the way, is the season of the real Canadian harvest.

The corn, potatoes, beans, and pumpkins are native products and were

cultivated long before the coming of the white man. The Indian harvest

was really gathered in Indian summer. The harvest over which we make so

much is all of cereals introduced by the white man.

This is also the small boy's harvest. The nutting season is on, although

it is somewhat spoiled by "No Trespassing" signs that give such an

unneighbourly look to some parts of the country. Walnuts and chestnuts

are carefully protected as a rule, for they have a market value, but

beechnuts and hickory nuts are free for all. One misses, however, those

most industrious nut-gatherers, the red squirrels. They have practically

disappeared from this part of the country. They understood the science

of nut-gathering to the last detail, and the boy who kept a close watch

on them usually reaped a rich, though piratical, harvest. When gathering

hickory nuts, the red squirrel selected the best and put them through a

proper course of treatment before carrying them to his nest in some

hollow tree. The nuts were first buried under decaying leaves or old

damp logs until the outer husks were loosened. These preliminary

storehouses were the ones raided by the predatory small boys, for the

squirrels usually managed to hide their winter homes so carefully that

there was no finding them. It used to be said that the squirrels never

climbed a home tree, but left and approached it through the branches so

that no tell-tale tracks would be left on the snow. The boy who managed

to plunder a number of busy squirrels usually got a winter store of the

choicest nuts, but the urchin of to-day must do his own climbing,

selecting, and hulling. Judging by observation, the shell-bark hickories

have not changed in any way, but are just as exasperating to climb as

ever. Moreover, they are just as tall as ever, and the choicest nuts

grow out of range of the well-aimed sticks. The boy who does not want to

get into trouble by having his clothes torn wisely waits until the nuts

are brought down by his ancient enemy, Jack Frost.

The cider presses are now working overtime, and everybody who cares to

can have a plentiful supply of apple butter, cider vinegar, and possibly

a little--only a little, for the stomach's sake--hard cider. Those who

have encountered some of this home-made hard cider when it giveth its

colour aright assure me that it stingeth like an adder and biteth like a

serpent and has a headache in every mouthful. It is whispered that some

people add a bushel of white wheat to every barrelful--which ought to

make a fairly husky brew. But let us talk of apple butter. This is made

by boiling down the cider to one-third the original quantity and adding

enough sound apples to make a thick "sass." It is a "nippy" preserve

that is appetising and satisfying. Some cider is boiled slightly and put

away in sealers to be used for drinking purposes and to make

Thanksgiving and Christmas mince pies. Cider-making, like almost

everything else, has undergone a change. It is unusual to find a farmer

with an old-fashioned hand press, as it was found that these did not

extract all the cider. They now have cider mills, to which the farmers

take their apples to be ground and pressed by powerful machinery. And

even though the huge presses seem to squeeze the fruit as dry as a small

dealer who has fallen into the hands of a trust, I am told that in some

places the pulp is carefully preserved and shipped to wine

manufacturers, who subject it to a further treatment, which enables them

to make a champagne that, when properly labelled, will rank with the

finest and most costly. Speaking of wines, if ancient tales tell true,

this is the year for connoisseurs to lay in a supply. It is one of the

superstitions of wine countries that wine made in a "comet year"

surpasses all others in body and bouquet.

Country sales are now in progress and are being advertised on every

convenient roadside tree. Bridges and gate posts are decorated with

attractive bills and the voice of the auctioneer is heard in the land.

It is said that owing to the scarcity and high price of feed many

farmers are selling their young cattle, but the prices reported indicate

that few bargains can be picked up. Good stock still commands high

prices. The auctioneers of the present are business-like individuals,

and those who attend sales do not come home with the good stories and

choice bits of repartee that used to make a sale a sort of country

entertainment. Sales are now attended chiefly by people who are looking

for something to buy, and "business is business, b'gosh."

The turkeys, that reverted as far as they could to the wild state during

the summer, are now returning to the barns about the time the chickens

are being fed, and are selecting for themselves the best

roosting-places. They have grown plump on wild seeds and grasshoppers,

and now they make daily excursions to the woods for beechnuts, which

they swallow whole. As beechnuts are plentiful this year, nut-fed

turkeys should be a feature of the Thanksgiving markets, though no one

seems to have made a classification of this kind. Beechnut bacon is

sometimes advertised--a fact that causes wonder among the farmers, for

in the old days when they dressed their hogs for market the buyers were

expert in picking out hogs that had been allowed to eat nuts. These were

promptly culled out and either had to be sold at a lower price or taken

home. It was claimed that the flesh was soft and oily. But possibly

beechnut pork had qualities that were overlooked. Anyway, it sounds

good.

_Oct. 13._--When the little yellow handbills announcing the

Muncey-Tecumseh Fair appeared in the post office and other places where

people assemble a curiosity was aroused that could only be satisfied by

a visit to the Indian show. The whole affair was to be conducted by

Indians, and the exhibits would be of Indian products. Here was

something to kindle the imagination. It recalled memories of times when

the Indians made regular excursions from their reservations to sell

baskets, axe-handles, whipstocks, and bead-work pincushions to the

farmers and the farmers' wives. It is not so many years since there was

still "good hunting" in the land, and parties of Indians would be

discovered, unexpectedly, living in a brush and bark wigwam in the

woods. Although they carried guns, they still used bows and arrows for

squirrels and small game, and a visit to one of their camps was an event

in the life of a small boy. It was believed in those days, and the

belief may have had a foundation in fact, that the Indians had a right

to take hickory trees for their axe-handles and whipstocks and hoop-ash

for their baskets wherever they found the timber to their liking. At any

rate, they helped themselves, with no one to object, and their little

camps were developed into primitive manufacturing centres. They usually

bartered their products for salt pork, flour, potatoes, old clothes, and

apples with the farmers, and for bright ribbons, calico, and many

unnecessary things with the storekeepers. When they visited a store they

seemed to feel it a duty to keep on buying as long as they had a cent to

spend or anything with which to barter.

These recollections naturally roused expectations for the fair. It would

surely give an opportunity for another glimpse of primitive life. The

trip involved a drive of fifteen miles over roads that varied from a

piece that had to be travelled with one wheel in the roadside ditch to

avoid a stretch of crushed stone put down under the "county roads

system" a year ago, and still unfinished, to a piece that was nothing

more than an Indian trail over hills and across gullies. It would take a

man of keen discrimination to decide which was the worse, the road made

by the white man when working at what should be his best, or by the

Indian when not working at all. It should be explained, however, that

the trouble with the white man's crushed stone road was the proverbial

one of the "ha'p'orth of tar," for lack of which the ship was spoiled.

In this case the ha'p'orth represented a heavy steam roller, costing

several thousands of dollars, but absolutely indispensable to good road

building. Because such a roller was not used on the crushed stone the

road that had been treated has naturally caused many people to regard

the county roads system of road building a failure. But any system is a

failure when the work is not properly done. Another stretch of road

represented the work done under military management in pioneer days, and

it was something to make automobilists cast all speed limits to the

winds--which they mostly do when they strike it, leaving the foot

passengers and drivers the option of dodging into the fence corners or

landing among the telegraph wires. But despite the roads the scenery was

excellent, and gave us much the same comfort that the Irishman's cow got

when her owner drove her to the top of a barren hill and told her that,

although the pasture was bad, the view was the finest to be had in three

counties. Presently a British flag was seen floating from a flag-pole in

a bare, open tract of country beyond two interesting-looking gullies

that made the horse prick forward his ears and made the driver remember

that hill-climbing on foot is excellent for the liver.

One naturally expects an Indian show to be held under spreading trees,

but the trees in the part of the Muncey Reserve through which we passed

are not doing much spreading just now. Somebody--let us hope it was the

Indians--has cleared away the timber so industriously that only a few

patches of scrub remain. The show ground is behind a high board fence

enclosing a couple of buildings and a little race track. An Indian was

in charge of the ticket selling, and two more guarded the gate. So far,

the prospect was promising. Evidently the Indians were in charge of

their own show, but on entering the grounds the disillusionment began.

The refreshment stand looked just like a refreshment stand anywhere

else, covered with bunting, and made inviting with exhibits of coloured

popcorn balls, pink lemonade, and roasting peanuts. There was no

pemmican or jerked buffalo meat in sight anywhere. The one specialist

who was calling his wares was selling perfume, "three bottles for a

quarter," all undoubtedly coal-tar derivatives. The Indians who were on

the grounds wore white men's clothing, and were going around seeing the

sights like ordinary citizens at any other fair. They wore the

Sunday-go-to-meetin' ready-made clothes with as much grace as the white

men who were mingling with them. The dresses of the squaws suggested

that at least some of them are dealing with the mail-order houses. There

was not a blanket in sight. In the Exhibition Hall there were log-cabin

quilts, hand and machine made shirts, knitted woollen socks and

mittens, quilted babies' bibs, fancy-work, and overgrown vegetables and

fruits of the kind seen at every Fall Fair. Among the work of the school

children were obvious copies of pictures by Henry Hutt and Gibson,

copied from current magazines by the Indian children. In fact, the

Indian show was simply a white man's show, exhibiting products such as

might be found at a show in any purely white community. The only

evidences of Indian work were a few baskets and a Navajo blanket, loaned

by some one who wished to show the Indians some of the kind of work the

Indians do elsewhere.

One conspicuous exhibit was worth the trip and the price of admission.

Two little Indian children, in red dresses and caps, were playing among

the feet of the sightseers with all the vivacity and joyousness of a

couple of squirrels. Their liquid black eyes danced with merriment as

they risked the chance of being trampled while they played tag with all

of childhood's unconsciousness. Their little bronzed faces showed no

touch of the care, and perhaps confusion, noticeable in the older faces.

The woods were gone, but they were still the little people of the woods.

In their veins flowed the pure Indian blood, but they were unconscious

that they had been despoiled of their birthright. What they were their

elders might still be in a more mature way had it not been for the

coming of the white man, but it will not be long before they begin to

feel the tragedy of civilisation. All that is left for the Indian is to

suppress his own individuality and become an imitation white man. That

this is being done with some success is proven by such shows as this, by

Government reports, educational reports, and reports of missionary

boards. The old quotations about the Indians no longer apply. Pope's

lines are obsolete. There were too many black-frocked clergymen going

around shaking hands for any one to stand aside, strike a pose, and

murmur:

"Lo, the poor Indian, whose untutored mind

Sees God in storms and hears him in the wind."

"Gitche Manitou, the Mighty," has gone to the happy hunting grounds with

everything else characteristic of the Indian.

On the homeward trip, as we turned on the Longwoods road, a cloud of

dust was sighted in the east.

"To the ditch!" said the driver, and to the ditch we went while a

devil-car, driven by what seemed to be a band of Wendigoes, or other

fierce barbaric spirits, whirled past. They were of those referred to

above, who cast speed limits to the winds, and their passing made a

couple of usually very peaceful citizens regret that a few more laws

couldn't be cast to the winds for a minute or two. It would have been a

real comfort to have taken a pot-shot at that crime against civilisation

with an old army musket filled to the muzzle with slugs.

Any one encountering a speed maniac in circumstances such as these no

longer wonders why they are hated by the farmers. To be frightened half

out of one's wits and then smothered in dust do not give rise to

charitable and philanthropic thoughts. The sensation one feels is

somewhat the same as that experienced when a man finds himself crossing

a railway track and catches sight of an express train coming at the rate

of fifty miles an hour. The great difference is that he can get out of

the way of the express train, and the engineer and passengers will not

show evidences of enjoyment at his discomfiture. No wonder people are

afraid of good roads, if having them would entail the advent of

motorists of this sort.

_Oct. 18._--After all there is nothing like a day in autumn. At dawn the

grass was stiff with hoarfrost. Not a breath was stirring. The crickets

and grasshoppers were all silent. The occasional crowing of a rooster or

barking of a dog only served to make the stillness more noticeable.

Slowly the red sun climbed up the hazy sky and flooded the world with

light. Slowly the heat filtered through the still air. The hoarfrost was

gone. The grasshoppers and crickets resumed their concert. Flocks of

cow-birds whirled over the pasture. The crows in the woods began to caw

confidentially as if telling one another secrets. A mower began to clack

in the distance, where some farmer was cutting his second crop of

clover. An automobile raced past on the concession line throwing up a

long cloud of dust that looked like a roll of wool prepared for a

giant's spinning. A single hawk circled in the sky and as we looked up

we saw that the air was vibrant with heat and light. In the orchard not

a leaf was stirring. The apples glowed like fairy lamps on the bending

branches. Here and there in the distant woods that were mantled in a

blue haze a maple flared out in red and gold. The ducks in the

Government drain suddenly exploded into a loud quacking. The air was

heavy with heat. The cattle huddled in the shade and the cow-birds

flocked around them. By noon it was as hot as midsummer. And yet there

was hoarfrost in the morning. After all there is nothing like a day in

the autumn.

We have had a visitor on the farm for the past few days--a visitor that

every one from the dog up has treated with respect. When I got home from

the village on Saturday night the boys were bubbling over with

excitement. When they had gone after the cows at sundown they had

noticed a little black and white animal with a big bushy tail in the

pasture field. After throwing a stick at it they knew it was a skunk.

They had never seen one before, but they had no doubt about the identity

of the visitor. A vagrant breeze touched my face while they were telling

the story and I knew that they were not mistaken. A skunk had certainly

paid us a visit. After they had made sure that it was really a skunk

they got out the rifle, for where there are ducks roosting on the ground

and an occasional clucking hen passing the night on a low nest skunks

are regarded as vermin rather than as fur-bearing animals. But it was

too dark for them to be able to see the sights and as they were afraid

to go too near the intruder they were not sure that their shots had any

effect. In the morning we went up to the woods where the skunk had been

seen and Sheppy was not long in locating him. He was under a log among

some long grass. The dog stood about a rod away and barked. It was quite

evident that he knew the nature of skunks. He makes short work of any

rats, muskrats, or ground-hogs that he finds in the open, but he seemed

to know that a skunk is different. Instead of urging him on I scolded

him away, for he lives with us most of the time. When the skunk found

that he was attracting so much attention he came out from under the log,

probably so as to increase his sphere of influence, and we fell back

respectfully. As it was the Sabbath it would not do to take out the

rifle, so he escaped. In the evening he was seen again in the

pasture-field where he was evidently feeding on crickets and

grasshoppers. On Monday morning even Sheppy could not locate him, so it

is probable that he has resumed his travels. But every time the wind

blows from the north-west we are reminded of his visit.

If every cow-bird that we see in the pastures at this time of the year

owes its existence to the destruction of a brood of some other kind of

birds the destruction of song-birds this season must have been

appalling. I have never before known the cow-birds to be so plentiful.

Now that they are flocking before migrating to the south they seem even

more plentiful than the blackbirds. One day when driving to the village

I noticed a flock of these feathered parasites around a pasturing cow.

As nearly as I could judge with my eye the flock was about four rods

long and a rod wide. The ground seemed black with them, but supposing

that only one stood on each square foot we can make a rough calculation

of the number in the flock. Four rods equal sixty-six feet--one rod

sixteen and a half feet--say sixteen. Sixteen times sixty-six (I had to

take a pencil to finish the sum) gives one thousand and fifty birds or

rather square feet on each of which a bird stood. Let us say that there

were one thousand birds. Each of these during the nesting period

probably crowded out from four to five young song sparrows or other

small birds. So that one flock of useless, pestiferous cow-birds

probably meant the death of three or four thousand useful birds. No

wonder our scientists advise us to shoot cow-birds at sight. If they

keep on increasing as they have done this year our smaller birds will be

in danger of extermination.

I understand that the golden rod is listed among the injurious weeds of

Ontario, but I have a very tender spot for it in my heart. I have never

heard any one complaining much about it or putting in a hoed crop to get

rid of it, so I do not think it can be very bad. Of course it makes the

fence corners look neglected during the summer months, but at this

season of the year when it is in bloom it is a delight to the eye. I am

told that those afflicted with hay fever have a special grudge against

this weed, or flower, but as I have heard hay fever attributed to almost

everything from the first violet to the last asters I am not sure that

they are right in their diagnosis. Anyway, I am as fond of the golden

rod as of the chrysanthemum, and I think that those people who advocate

having it adopted for the national flower show excellent taste. The

golden rod is now in its glory, and though there may be too much of it

to please careful farmers there can never be too much for our artists.

It should be allowed to grow in all our parks, for there are no flowers

that give a richer touch of colour to the landscape.

_Oct. 21._--The days we are having now are not only worth describing

separately, but worth living separately. Each one is complete in itself.

Take to-day, for instance. When I opened one eye sleepily and looked

out--the tent-flap had been open all night--the "rosy-fingered dawn" was

busy in the east. Light, smoky clouds were stretched along the horizon,

and while they slowly changed to ribbons of ruddy flame I caught the

first glimpse of

"The great, deliberate sun

Counting his hill-tops one by one."

Probably I dozed off again, for when I opened my eyes wide in what

seemed a moment later the sun was clear of the clouds and the day had

begun. All the grass and ground vegetation was white with hoarfrost. As

I walked to the mushroom bed that had been made in a patch of sod in the

corner of the garden I could feel and hear it crunching underfoot. Of

course, the night had been too cold for mushrooms, but before leaving

the subject I want to put on record the fact that among those gathered

from this bed yesterday was one beauty that measured seventeen inches in

circumference. No, I am not living entirely on mushrooms these days.

What seemed the most remarkable event of this morning was the singing of

a robin that had perched on the top of a spruce tree. It sang as robins

sing in the early spring. As I had not heard one for months, it made the

morning start off "cheerily, cheerily, cheerily!" Crows were cawing in

that emphatic way they have when they appear to be saying something, and

every now and then a meadow-lark flung its musical cry across the

fields.

When breakfast was over the frost had disappeared and the chill had left

the air. There was a minute of indecision in which we argued whether to

haul in corn or to dig the potatoes. It was finally decided to go at the

potatoes, as they were planted on a clay knoll and would come out

cleaner if dug when the ground was dry than if left until after a rain.

The corn could wait. With pails and potato forks we started across the

pasture, with the sun behind us, towards a fringe of maple trees. The

colours of the landscape ranged from the tender green of a near-by

wheatfield to the violent crimson of one bushy maple at the edge of the

pasture. The gently-stirring air was full of autumn odours, autumn

sounds, autumn touches. There was something to delight every sense. It

was a perfect Canadian October day.

The belated harvest of the corn and vegetables is really the most

delightful of the year, though people often let it become the most

disagreeable. Because there is no particular hurry about husking the

corn or getting in the roots and vegetables, many people linger over the

work until the bad weather catches them. It is safe to say that every

fall there is enough good weather for this work, but it is such

beautiful, lazy, deceitful weather that they dawdle through it until it

ends in a storm, and then they pick their roots and potatoes with wet,

red, cracked, and chilled hands, and perhaps sit in a snowdrift and husk

their corn. The potatoes we were digging were not so big as those that

proud farmers send to the office of _The Farmer's Advocate_ to show what

can be done by scientific methods, but they were of the clean, smooth

variety that you like to get baked with a chop and kidney. They came out

of the dry ground free from clay, and it was not long before the pile

began to look like good eating. I had not picked many bushels, however,

before I began to be glad that the day was so beautiful, and that nature

about me had so many charms that one had to straighten up to observe and

talk about. Picking potatoes is a job that should be done by a man of

the kind described by Lincoln, when he said that the fellow's legs were

barely long enough to reach to the ground. Mine are altogether too long

for this work, and stooping to pick even the finest potatoes gets

tiresome.

A frog was heard croaking in the long grass, and I knew from the sound

he was making that a garter snake was slowly swallowing him. A careful

search failed to locate the scene of the tragedy, but it rested my back.

The potato patch is in a little clearing that extends into the woods

from the south, and when the October sun got nicely warmed up to its

work I doubt if there was a hotter spot in western Ontario. That gave me

an excuse to walk home for a drink of water. I was almost discouraged

when I saw the number of potatoes that had been uncovered during my

absence. When I was about ready to drop from exhaustion a stray hen

began to cackle in the distance. Her nest had to be found, of course.

More rest. By this time I was not so much surprised that people put off

digging their potatoes until after the snow fell. A black squirrel that

stole out of the woods and stole an ear of corn and then stole back to

the woods with it afforded a few minutes of restful nature-study. Still

the pile grew and was good to look at. The pailfuls of potatoes got

heavier every trip that was made to the pit, and I was thinking of going

home to get the children's express cart when a mourning dove flew

across; but he was too brisk to be interesting. In fact he was not

mourning at all. I was. Just about the time I was beginning to wonder

if some one had not commanded the sun to stand still so as to give us an

interminable forenoon, the call for dinner was heard. I responded as

quickly as the hired man who blew up the factory by letting go of the

can of dynamite he was lifting the moment he heard the whistle blow.

In the afternoon the nature-study continued, and the thermometer

registered eighty-two in the shade. I hate to think what it must have

registered out there in the sun. A great flock of crows went flapping

across the south-west early in the afternoon, and it was quite

comfortable to sit back on the edge of a furrow and watch them and

wonder where they were going, but the last one trailed past and then I

began to wonder why people eat so many potatoes. There are doctors who

say that too much starchy food is not good for one. I wish I had met one

in the spring before we planted the potatoes and had been convinced by

him that this is true. The chief trouble in this world is that we do so

much needless work, but there is a proverb that unless we work we cannot

eat. Oh, well, the patch is not so very big, after all, and a good rush

will finish it. By the time it was finished I was beginning to feel

proud of the pile I had gathered, and was almost sorry to lend a hand in

covering it with straw and earth, because that hid the potatoes from

sight. But I'll see them again, when they will have to be picked over

before being put in winter quarters.

The care of vegetables for winter is quite a study in itself, and I hear

many suggestions about the best way to keep cabbages. A favourite plan

in this part of the country is to dig a trench and place the heads in

it, face downwards, and then cover them with earth. It is also a

question whether the parsnips and salsify should be left in the ground

as they are and dug as wanted. The celery must be buried in sand, so

they say. Beets, carrots, and turnips for household use seem to do

better and keep a finer flavour if pitted--provided the mice do not get

after them. These are all things that must be settled within the next

few days in intervals of corn-husking.

After all--to be guilty of a bull--the best part of the day was the

night. After the sun went down in hazy mildness the full moon swung up

in the east to take his place, and almost immediately a fog began to

rise from the heated earth. By the time the moon was well clear of the

trees all the low places looked like pools of silver water. Towards the

east the illusion of a broad river, with the distant woods as the

farther bank, was perfect. Although the temperature ceased to be

oppressively hot, the thermometer registered over sixty at 9 o'clock.

There are weather-wise folk who say that this unusual heat and the

screaming of the bluejays in the afternoon mean a sudden change in the

weather, so perhaps we may have to wear mits when handling corn after

all. But to-day has been sufficient unto itself. And now to

sleep--perchance to dream.

The hawk of the summer wind is proud,

She circles high at the throne of the sun;

When the storm is fierce her scream is loud,

And the scorching glance of her eye we shun;

And oftentimes, when the sun is bright,

A silence falls on the choirs of song,

And the partridge shrinks in wild affright,

Where a searching shadow swings along.

The hound of the autumn wind is slow,

He loves to bask in the heat and sleep

When the sun through the drowsy haze bends low,

And frosts from the hills through the starlight creep;

But oftentimes he starts in his dreams,

When the howl of the winter wolf draws nigh,

Then lazily rolls in the gold-warm beams,

While the flocking birds to the south drift by.

_Oct. 24._--At this time of the year we get evenings and nights "that

were not meant for slumber." They invite us to lowly self-communion,

mental expansion, and serene thoughts. After a busy day the night comes

upon us unexpectedly, before the chores are done, and there is an

irresistible temptation to sit in the darkness and be at peace. The warm

air is heavy with the odour of ripe apples, and the shrill concert of

the crickets and other innumerable insects is so steadily maintained

that it seems a new phase of silence. One thin note is poured out so

insistently that you almost mistake it for a ringing in your ears. Over

this beats a ceaseless rhythm that rises and falls in waves of sound as

if in obedience to the baton of some invisible leader. Through all rises

the irregular shrilling of the crickets. This autumn concert is so

constant that the ear becomes unconscious of it, except in moments of

attention. Yet it seems to have a stimulating effect on the mind.

Sitting idly in the darkness, we find our thoughts becoming active with

all manner of themes--the progress of science--the mystery of our

political and business organisations--the place and fate of the

individual in the scheme of things.

While meditating idly on these things in the darkness under the stars I

could not help realising how little we really understand about even the

most familiar scientific, business, commercial, or political facts. They

seem to be of importance to the race rather than to the individual. The

individual is compelled to do his part in carrying out all sorts of

ideas of which even the mightiest have no control and perhaps but little

understanding. Thinking along this line I looked up at the stars and

quite naturally thought of the astronomical facts that are now the

commonplaces of our public schools. Where I sat I was facing the "Circle

of Constant Apparition" and overhead was the constellation Lyra, towards

which the sun and its attendant planets are said to be rushing like a

flaming disc sent spinning through space from the hand of some mighty

discobolus. My thoughts turned to the motions of the heavenly bodies as

they are taught to us in the schools. For years I thought I had a clear

conception of the motions of the earth on its axis and around the sun,

and with little effort could visualise it as

"A great round marvel, rolling in space."

But when Halley's comet appeared in the sky a few years ago I found that

I had no grasp of solar and planetary motions. What puzzled me was that

we saw the comet every morning for a while, and then it suddenly changed

to the evening sky. Why was this? What caused the sudden jump of about

sixteen hours in the time of seeing the comet? Of course I figured it

out finally, but in doing so I found that I had never had a clear

conception of the movements of the planets, though I had learned about

them in school and had taught them in school. Since then I have

propounded the question to others, and have yet to find any one who

could explain that change of time off-hand. Yet we all know that the

earth revolves on its axis and circles the sun. This is probably the

most familiar of the great astronomical facts, and though we assent to

it few of us understand it in the least. I am inclined to think it is

the same with most of the great facts of business and government that we

talk about so glibly.

Presently the moon rose serenely and lit up the quiet scene. In the

growing light much of the magic of the night disappeared or rather the

coming of the moon brought a new and different magic. But I had had

enough for one night. Rising to my feet, I paused for a moment to look

at the moon, and in spite of all I had been thinking about, life seemed

good. The perfume of ripe apples was still in the air, and the little

musicians of the night were still giving their concert. In the

circumstances it seemed only right to apostrophise the moon, but in my

lighter mood I did not recall anything from Tennyson or Browning or

Whitman, as I had done earlier. Instead, my memory gave back a whimsical

bit from an apostrophe to the moon that had appeared in _Puck_ many

years ago and in spite of its flippancy it seemed to fit the situation.

After telling his troubles to the moon the poet exclaimed:

"Never you mind!

You are a durned good old moon anyhow."

_Oct. 26._--Packing apples is an ideal job for an Indian-summer day. The

year seems to be as ripe as the fruit and a poet might pick off perfect

days to store in song for future meditation just as we pick and store

the apples for future use. Last night there was a sharp frost and when

"the sun, new risen, looks through the horizontal misty air shorn of his

beams," the fields were white with rime. While the air was being warmed

and the south wind began to stir was a good time to carry apple barrels

from the shed to the orchard. Having been shown how to carry two at a

time by placing them against my hips and catching the outer rims, I felt

as if I were trying to fly. I would gladly have employed a professional

packer to do the work, but being unable to get any one to help, a

demonstrator of the Fruit Branch showed me how the job should be done,

and I tackled it myself. He assured me that after I get through with the

Peewaukees it will be fun, as the Spies and Baldwins are all over No. 1

size, and all I shall have to watch for will be the culls. In the

Peewaukees the side worms were particularly active and did a lot of

damage. Wherever apples touched one another or touched a leaf the worms

burrowed around in the skin and made culls of what would otherwise have

been prime fruit. The cut made by this worm "is not so deep as a well,

nor so wide as a church door; but 'tis enough, 'twill serve." I have

heard it said that experienced packers can tell a defective apple by the

touch and go on picking up three apples in each hand and looking at the

scenery at the same time. I am not yet an experienced packer, and though

I wore my glasses and did not handle more than a couple of apples at a

time, defective ones would still get past me. I would find them in the

sorting basket, and later on in the barrel when I was racking it after

emptying each basket. Those first barrels caused me a lot of work and

worry, and though I did my best, I am haunted by the fear that some

culls have got past me. This leads me to sympathise with at least some

of the farmers who get into trouble by packing improperly branded fruit.

Unless one is skilled at the work, he is almost certain to make

mistakes, and the man from the Fruit Branch told me that culls were so

sure to get in that one might as well forget about the ten per cent.

allowed by law. You may do your level best and the ten per cent. will

still be there. This goes to prove that packing apples is a thoroughly

artistic job. Art critics tell us that no work of art is great if it

does not contain some slight error. If it is mathematically perfect it

is beyond human sympathy. But the artist need not take the trouble to

deliberately put in the error. Being human, he is bound to do that in

spite of all his skill. Only machine-made art objects can be absolutely

perfect, and they never appeal to a cultivated taste. But let us get

back to the apples.

There is always something to learn about apple-growing. This summer I

learned more about the work than I thought there was to know before I

began, and as each expert I meet tells me something new, I am being

forced to the conclusion that as yet I haven't got rightly started. The

last thing I have learned is that if a man is not careful when picking

this year's crop he may pick next year's crop along with it. When apples

are pulled too green, as altogether too many have been this season, the

twigs on which they grow are liable to break off with the stems. As

these twigs are the ones that have the fruit buds for next year's crop,

careless picking can do a great deal of damage. When an apple is

properly matured, the stem separates from the twig naturally without

breaking close to the apple or pulling off the twig. As the fruit on one

Peewaukee tree was somewhat green, I had a chance to see just what this

destruction amounts to, and it was surprising. This leads me to wonder

if there will be much fruit next year on orchards where the fruit was

picked at least a month ago, when the apples were decidedly green. It is

bad enough to have to sell this year's crop for a small price without

destroying next year's at the same time.

Although the apples are being packed, they are not definitely sold, but

the probability is that they will be shipped to Edmonton, where people's

mouths seem to be watering for choice Ontario apples. As I know with

whom I am dealing, I feel sure of fair treatment, and the prices

suggested are so amazing that I am compelled to take a chance.

Arrangements are being made to get a fruit car that will be heated if

necessary, and every precaution will be taken to insure the delivery of

the apples in good condition. It looks as if we would have a carload of

No. 1 fruit, about one-half Spies and Baldwins, and, according to the

information I have received, Ben Davises will rank as first-class apples

in the West. If the venture turns out well, others may be encouraged to

act independently, and if I do not realise the wonderful prices that are

being suggested, I shall be like the man who was kicked by a mule, I

shall not be as pretty as I was, but I'll know more.

_Oct. 27._--It was all a mistake about those ducks. I might have studied

them and written them up any time since they came out of the shell, but

I got an idea into my head that ducks are so active that I should have

to be feeling particularly fit and to be prepared to take a day off for

the job. Now that I have looked into the matter I find that the old hen

that hatched them misled me entirely. She kept up such a continual

clacking and scolding because those ducks didn't act like chickens that

I got to thinking that they must be unusually trying creatures. And all

the while those young ducks were probably living their duck lives in a

quiet, contented way, and there was no reason in the world why they

should be reformed into chickens. Fortunately, the old hen finally gave

up in despair, and after loudly prophesying that the whole place was

going to the dogs just because those ducks couldn't be taught to roost

in an apple tree, and because they were all the time getting their feet

wet, she went back to laying eggs, and the last I heard of her she was

in solitary confinement, because she wanted to start hatching again at

this time of the year. All of which goes to show that there is a great

deal of unnecessary fussing going on in this world, and that it is

possible for well-meaning people to make a nuisance of themselves. The

old hen meant well, but she had tackled an entirely unnecessary job.

This morning I hunted up the ducks for the purpose of trying to get a

sympathetic understanding of their view of life. I had no trouble

finding them. Ever since the oats have been hauled in they haven't

wandered very far from the stack. Besides getting all the heads that

were exposed within reach, they rob the hens whenever they manage to

scratch loose a few grains. As the wet weather has filled all the

puddles around the barn yard they do not have to go far for water, and I

would give something to be as contented with my lot as they are. I found

them lying under the granary with their heads tucked under their wings,

and the first thing that struck me about them was the satisfying way in

which they lie down. They seem to be built for just that kind of

restfulness. When a duck lies down it does it in a whole-souled way that

leaves nothing to be desired. It touches the ground from its crop to its

tail and gives an exhibition of perfect rest that is worthy of a poem.

Come to think of it, there is nothing surprising about this. Ducks are

water birds, and the attitude of swimming is the one that they naturally

take. Nature intended them to lie at full length in their own element,

and now that they have been civilised into living on land, out of their

element, they keep to the old habit. If the ground had not been so wet I

would have sprawled down at full length to watch them, and would have

shown them that when it comes to taking a rest they have nothing on me.

When the conditions are right I can assume a restful attitude and rest

as completely as anything in nature. But some people do not regard this

as resting. They have another unpleasant word to describe it.

To begin with, I shooed the ducks from under the granary. Though I was

loath to disturb them duty must be done. The whole flock rose with a

simultaneous "quack" and squattered through a near-by puddle.

"Squattered" is exactly the right word, and I have the authority of

Burns for using it:

"Awa' ye squattered like a drake

On whistling wings."

The word seems to describe both their appearance and the sounds they

make. As soon as they reached a place of safety they all stopped and

began wiggling their tails. Then I saw a great light. Duck language is

not expressed with the tongue, but with the tail. There is a sameness

about the sounds they utter that would make it impossible for them to

carry on a connected conversation. With their tails it is different.

They seem able to give an infinite variety to the way in which they

wiggle them. They can express joy, satisfaction, contempt, surprise, or

any other emotion, by the simple wiggling of their tails. Did you ever

see a duck dive into the water in such a way as to leave only its tail

exposed? If you have you could never fail to tell when it managed to get

a good juicy root or a snail by the happy way it would wiggle its tail.

Sometimes when they are very happy they can wiggle their tails so fast

that all the eye can catch is a sort of hazy blur. At other times, when

they are attending to their toilet and rubbing themselves down with the

backs of their heads, they will give their tails a little flirt that is

just as proud as proud. I think if I set myself to it I could write a

bulletin on the language of duck tails. After I had disturbed them they

stood and wiggled their tails at one another in a way that seemed to be

entirely disrespectful to me. They seemed to be saying, "Humph! I wonder

what he thinks he wants now. Did you ever see such a looking creature?

How on earth does he manage to balance himself up on end in that way

when every duck knows that the true, graceful position for a creature's

body is to be hung between two legs horizontally! I wonder how he

manages to convey his ideas, if he has any, without having a gaudy

little bunch of feathers to wiggle the same as we have. Those sounds he

makes with his mouth when the children are around can't have any more

meaning than our quacking. It must be terrible to be a poor dumb

creature like that." Then they all said "Quack" and gave their tails a

most superior wiggle. At this point an unwary cricket started to move

past about ten feet away, and instantly every neck in the flock was

stretched out full length and every tail wig-wagged: "My meat!" I don't

know which one got it, though I think it must have been the brown drake

from the contented way he wiggled his tail for some minutes afterwards.

Now, don't be offended, but there are really lessons to be learned from

the ducks. Their faculty for flocking together is something that farmers

might study with profit. Whether sleeping or feeding it would be

possible almost at any time to cover the whole flock with a tablecloth,

and when they make up their minds to travel they move in Indian file

behind a chosen leader like a band of Iroquois braves. And yet it is

possible for the poison of class distinction to find its way even among

ducks. I remember that one day when I was moving a pile of boards I

uncovered a fair-sized frog. Instantly the ducks swooped down on it, and

before I had time to interfere the frog had gone head-first to his doom.

He must have made just about as satisfactory a meal as that duck had

ever had. And what was the result? While the other ducks went foraging

around for crickets and angleworms, the one that had swallowed the frog

squatted on the shady side of the stable and crooned to itself and

wiggled its tail as if it were the most superior duck in the country. It

was easy to see that it felt itself above all the others. (Wiggle.) It

was made of finer clay. (Wiggle--Wiggle--Wiggle.) It was really

disgraceful the way those common ducks squattered around after grubs and

such refuse as collects in the bottom of puddles. (Wiggle--Wiggle.) All

afternoon it lay there meditating and digesting and refusing to

associate with common ducks. And yet--and yet--even that superior duck

will probably figure at a Christmas dinner just like the others. It is a

strange world. Even the most gifted ducks cannot long maintain a

superior position.

_Oct. 28._--Isn't there an old fable about an ass that wrapped himself

in a lion's skin and tried to ramp and roar like the king of beasts, and

got himself laughed at and kicked in the diaphragm and otherwise

subjected to "grievous bodily harm"? I seem to remember such a fable,

but I cannot lay my hands on it, and the children, who are at the

fable-reading stage of education, are all in bed and I cannot ask them.

Anyway it doesn't matter, for I do not want to quote it. I simply want

to have the moral of the thing in the back of my head to keep me on the

right track, while I indulge in an old-fashioned grumble. This morning I

got a letter from a correspondent that finally brought to a head a

number of things that I have been feeling peevish about ever since

coming back to the country. Broadly speaking I have been mourning the

disappearance of all kinds of country amusements. There is no

encouragement for local talent of any kind, either for the intellectual

talent for reciting and singing, or the physical talent for jumping or

catching the greased pig. If we have an entertainment we import singers

and elocutionists, and if we have a fall fair it must be an imitation

World's Fair. The lion's skin of city attractions is being stretched out

in every direction, and we can see long ears peeping from under every

corner of it. Every town and village must be citified in everything it

does, and the result is a lot of low-grade attractions entirely lacking

in the old-fashioned and forever-artistic merit of sincerity. I do not

think I am peculiar in my tastes, but if I cannot see the best I want to

see what is honest and sincere. It has been my good fortune to hear some

of the world's best entertainers, but when I cannot hear them I prefer

the honest sing-song recitations of a schoolboy or school-girl to the

conceited caterwauling of some half-baked elocutionist. In the same way

if I cannot see a real world's fair I can enjoy myself thoroughly at an

old-fashioned country fair where the exhibits are those of honest people

who are trying to excel in their own way. But when we have an

entertainment nowadays we must import talent, and when we have a fall

fair we must have a midway and circus stunts by hamfatters, who would be

hooted in the places where such performances really belong. We must be

citified at any cost, and the result is tawdry entertainments and fairs,

when by employing local talent and encouraging local effort we could

have entertainments and fairs that would be wholesome and helpful.

But say, do you remember the old-time country fall fairs before the days

of vaudeville turns and hand-painted chickens? Every day when going to

the post office, I pass the spreading tree from whose branches I watched

my first horse-race. I would climb that tree right now and not care who

was looking if I thought I could feel again the thrills and excitement

of that bygone day. I not only knew the jockeys, but I knew the

horses--all except one. My favourite was a bay mare somewhat given to

what the society reporters call "om-bong-pong" on account of living on

pasture, and her rider was one of my youthful heroes, perhaps because he

was said to be "a leetle wild." But in spite of high hopes and a

blue-beech gad our horse didn't win. The stranger took the prize, but I

never felt that it was fair, and I leave it to you. For three weeks or a

month before the show the stranger kept in his mare and fed her on dry

timothy and oats, and had her all "ganted up." And he had a real

raw-hide riding whip. Still it was a great race even if we did lose, and

never since have I seen a race by which I was so deeply moved. And after

the races there was a baseball match, and when the catcher got "het up"

and excited he threw his vest on top of the Temperance Hall, and after

the game was over had to put up a rail and climb after his vest. And the

winning team won by at least twenty runs. And then there was the fat

pig--so fat he couldn't stand up and took his meals in bed, like a

person of leisure. But I mustn't get started on the exhibits or I'll

never know when to stop. It was a few years after this that the "Pride

of the Valley" man began coming to our fair. What a wonderful man he

was, with that eloquent voice and long flowing hair. They don't make

medicine like "Pride of the Valley" any more. It was good for man and

beast, and indispensable to fowls. It toned your muscles, stimulated

your circulation, and renovated your liver. It brightened your eye,

restored your complexion, and stopped your hair from falling out. And

all it cost was twenty-five cents, one quarter, or two York shillings a

box. One fall I was feeling low and I bought a box. The stuff looked as

if it had been culled from the Ontario weed book, but I made a tea from

it as instructed, and took a dose. My recovery was instantaneous. I

forgot everything except the taste in my mouth. No, they don't make

medicines like that any more, and there are no gifted orators like the

man who sold the incomparable and universal panacea. Both medicine and

vendor belonged to a more robust age. We are living in an age of soft

speech, and sugar-coatings, and vaudeville stunts. Ehue! ehue!

_Oct. 29._--"Blaa-aa-aa-aa-umph!"

That is something like it, but not exactly. I am afraid it is not

possible to express with type the discontent, impatience, and disgust

with life that the red calf gets into her bawling. Still, if you went

out behind the barn and practised for a while, you might be able to make

sounds that would give you an idea of what I mean. Her bawl begins in a

tone of savage impatience and ends with a grumble of bitter pessimism.

She seems to be saying:

"Where is that skim milk? If you can't let me have anything better, you

might at least let me have that on time."

"Blaa-aa-aa-aa-umph!"

I suppose all calves are more or less alike, but this one has certainly

had much to sour her on life. Since the day of her birth she has been an

Ishmaelite. Even her own mother has been against her. And that brings me

to a piece of proverbial wisdom that I haven't seen quoted in the

reports of the Dairyman's Association. There is a Gaelic proverb which

most people will find about as hard to pronounce as the bawling of the

calf:

"Gu dheamhar a gabhais bo ri a laoig na ha gul aiche do ar gamhain."

For the benefit of Gaelic scholars who may read this, I wish to explain

that my Gaelic is a mixture of Argyllshire and Inverness, with a touch

of bad spelling added. The interpretation of this proverb is:

"How can a cow take to her calf when she is still in love with her

yearling?"

Well, that was exactly the state of affairs that met the red calf when

she came into the world. Her mother was still in love with the yearling

that had been allowed to run with her in the pasture on the previous

summer. She had no welcome for the newcomer; in fact, she never looked

at it from the hour when it was born, and to this day the unnatural

mother has to be kept away with a club when her neglected offspring is

being fed. If the poor little thing gets an apple and tries to eat it,

her own mother is the first to bunt her aside and take it away from her.

At the same time that cow goes frantic if her yearling gets out of her

sight. They are seldom a rod apart in the pasture field, and they

invariably get into mischief together. I use the same club on both of

them when they find a gate open and get into the orchard.

About the only creature on the farm that pays any attention to the calf

is Sheppy, the collie dog. He stands in front of her by the hour,

growling and barking, while she keeps her little sprouts of horns

towards him and goes on feeding. I wish I could understand dog language

well enough to know what Sheppy is saying to her, for he seems to be

dreadfully in earnest, even though he never ventures near enough to give

her a nip. As a matter of fact, Sheppy is cow-shy, and it is all due to

the capable mother of this calf. When he was in the puppy stage, and

beginning bravely to learn his work in the world, she reached him with a

swinging kick that knocked him heels over head across the barn yard, and

took all the spunk out of him as far as cows are concerned. He will

drive a horse or pigs, and the turkey-gobblers have no terrors for him,

but I can't make him go after the cows. She taught him a lesson that he

hasn't forgotten. Possibly that is why he snarls so much at her calf.

If he knew how to quote Shelley, he would probably be saying:

"Loathed image of thy mother,

Thy milky meek face makes me sick with hate."

In spite of all this bluster, Sheppy is thoroughly afraid of the calf.

One day, when I was watching them, the calf coughed unexpectedly, and

Sheppy fell over backwards in his hurry to get out of the way. He

evidently thought that she was going to bite him. She knows that he is

afraid of her, for after she has listened to all the barking she thinks

she can stand, she shakes her head at him, and he makes off instantly

with his tail between his legs.

I sometimes wonder if our scientists have observed the calf as carefully

as they should. Every one who has fed calves knows their tendency to

bunt unexpectedly when feeding. They do the same when feeding from the

cow, and it is just possible that there is light and leading in this

fact for our inventors of milking machines. It is well known that

incubators were a failure until some one noticed that sitting hens

always turn their eggs at regular intervals. This hint led him to turn

the eggs in the incubator in the same way as the hen does, and from that

hour dates the success of artificial incubation. Perhaps, if some one

would invent a milking machine that would bunt the cow at regular

intervals, it would be a complete success. It is worth thinking about.

Possibly, also, if we studied calves a little, the job of feeding them

would not be so trying on the temper and damaging to our clothes. I have

noticed that, when it is feeding, a calf always wiggles its tail, and it

has occurred to me that there may be some connection between this and

its bunting. Mark Twain once showed that a donkey couldn't bray if it

couldn't lift its tail at the same time. He tied a brick to the tail of

one that was serenading him, and it stopped at once. Perhaps if one tied

a brick to a calf's tail, it wouldn't bunt over the pail when learning

to feed by itself. The co-ordination of actions is one of the mysteries

of nature. Some one who has a young calf might try it and report the

result. The calf I have under observation is too far advanced to be

experimented on in this way. It is passing from the milk stage, and now

has a preference for harness straps, and it seems to positively relish a

yard or two of night-shirt when it can get near the clothes-line.

The lonesome calf has convinced me that there is something in the law of

heredity. Its mother is probably about as impudent a piece of cow-flesh

as ever was allowed to live. She was raised as a pet, and human beings

have no terrors for her. Nothing ever proved more clearly than she does

that familiarity breeds contempt. I could safely defy any one to carry a

pail across a field that she is in without having her get her nose in

it. If a gate or door shows a crack an inch wide, she will work it open,

and, followed by her darling yearling, will proceed to get into

mischief. If she happens to be in the lane when some one comes along in

a buggy, she will stand right in the middle of the path and stare in the

most unmannerly way. It is useless to yell at her. The only thing to do

is to get out and use the buggy whip on her and her yearling. Now, I

have noticed that the calf is developing along the same lines. Every day

I have to push it out of my way, and it has the same investigating

spirit. It pokes its way into everything, and then looks surprised and

hurt when it is reproved. Sometimes it is hurt, too, for some people

inherit hasty tempers. But the point I want to make is that the calf has

really inherited its exasperating ways. It hasn't learned them from its

mother, because they are seldom or never together. They are bred in its

bones. I hope that her good qualities, as the producer of a liberal

supply of milk, rich in butter-fat, are also inherited. If they are, I

shall forgive much. Anyway, I have learned that heredity is a real

thing, and if I ever go in for a herd of cows, I shall take care to get

a few that will have all the good qualities that a cow should have, in

the firm belief that their offspring will inherit their virtues. It

seems to me it should be just as easy to have good cows as poor ones, if

one started right.

A couple of weeks ago, the red cow and her yearling got on the road and

started off to see the world. Of course, it was the wettest day of the

season, but that didn't matter. I had to hitch up and hunt for them. It

was then I realised for the first time how complex is our system of

roads. Within a radius of two miles, there were no less than eighteen

turns they might have taken. If they went further than that, the roads

that might invite them were almost beyond computation. I hadn't the

faintest hint of the direction they had taken, and the search was

bewildering. I splashed through the rain around a couple of blocks,

stopping at every farmhouse that was near the road to ask if any one had

been pestered by a red cow and a yearling that were cheeky enough to go

on the front lawn without wiping their feet, and that wouldn't hesitate

to help themselves from the swill-barrel. No one had seen them. I also

questioned every one who was fool enough to be out on the road in such

weather, but could get no trace of them. At last, when I was about to

give up in despair, and was thinking of advertising in the "Lost,

Strayed, or Stolen" column of the local paper, I remembered that on the

previous night I had dreamed of an old schoolmate who was living a

couple of miles away. Possibly that was an omen. Anyway, I couldn't

think of anything better to do, so I headed in that direction. Sure

enough, I found the cow and her yearling. She was in the field, and the

yearling on the road. How she got into the field I cannot imagine, for

it was well fenced, and I had to let the fence down to the last rail

before I could get her out. She probably found some spot where she poked

through with her usual impudence. Of course, I don't want to put myself

on record as believing that the dream had anything to do with my finding

the cow. All I want to point out is that when a cow has gone astray, a

dream is just as likely to lead you to her as anything else. But I am

not going to act as if I had found an infallible method of finding a

stray cow. No, indeed. Instead of doing that, I have fixed the fence

where she got out.

When I got home in the rain with the stray cows, the lonesome calf was

standing humped up under the drip of the granary. "Blaa-aa-aa-umph!"