I had no stable. The cow stood out in all the storms until late in
December. The hair grew very thick, almost like a buffalo robe, and she
did not seem to mind the cold. There was an old chicken house on the
place, standing on posts about five feet high. It was in a hollow, and
was sheltered by evergreens on the north and west. As I pulled up her
stake one night in a drizzle to let her go under the tree where I milked
her, she started on the gallop for this house, and from that time it was
her winter couch. There I milked and fed her. I tied the chain around one
of the corner posts, so as to leave her the choice of the shelter of the
building or of exposure to the storm at her discretion, and I must say
that she often surprised me by seeming as fond as a child of standing
out in the rain. Under this coop I fed her fodder; the stalks she left,
littered down her bed, and I had more manure in the spring than I had
ever had before. A boy spread it from a wheelbarrow at twenty-five cents
a day. The spring before I paid fifty cents a load for the manure, and
two dollars and fifty cents a day for the hauling.