Say what you will about the general usefulness of boys, it is my
impression that a farm without a boy would very soon come to grief.
What the boy does is the life of the farm. He is the factotum, always
in demand, always expected to do the thousand indispensable things
that nobody else will do. Upon him fall all the odds and ends, the most
difficult things. After everybody else is through, he has to finish
up. His work is like a woman's,--perpetual waiting on others. Everybody
knows how much easier it is to eat a good dinner than it is to wash
the dishes afterwards. Consider what a boy on a farm is required to do;
things that must be done, or life would actually stop.
It is understood, in the first place, that he is to do all the errands,
to go to the store, to the post office, and to carry all sorts of
messages. If he had as many legs as a centipede, they would tire before
night. His two short limbs seem to him entirely inadequate to the task.
He would like to have as many legs as a wheel has spokes, and rotate
about in the same way. This he sometimes tries to do; and people who
have seen him “turning cart-wheels” along the side of the road have
supposed that he was amusing himself, and idling his time; he was only
trying to invent a new mode of locomotion, so that he could economize
his legs and do his errands with greater dispatch. He practices standing
on his head, in order to accustom himself to any position. Leapfrog
is one of his methods of getting over the ground quickly. He would
willingly go an errand any distance if he could leap-frog it with a
few other boys. He has a natural genius for combining pleasure with
business. This is the reason why, when he is sent to the spring for a
pitcher of water, and the family are waiting at the dinner-table, he is
absent so long; for he stops to poke the frog that sits on the stone,
or, if there is a penstock, to put his hand over the spout and squirt
the water a little while. He is the one who spreads the grass when the
men have cut it; he mows it away in the barn; he rides the horse to
cultivate the corn, up and down the hot, weary rows; he picks up the
potatoes when they are dug; he drives the cows night and morning; he
brings wood and water and splits kindling; he gets up the horse and puts
out the horse; whether he is in the house or out of it, there is always
something for him to do. Just before school in winter he shovels paths;
in summer he turns the grindstone. He knows where there are lots of
winter-greens and sweet flag-root, but instead of going for them, he is
to stay in-doors and pare apples and stone raisins and pound something
in a mortar. And yet, with his mind full of schemes of what he would
like to do, and his hands full of occupations, he is an idle boy who has
nothing to busy himself with but school and chores! He would gladly do
all the work if somebody else would do the chores, he thinks, and yet I
doubt if any boy ever amounted to anything in the world, or was of much
use as a man, who did not enjoy the advantages of a liberal education in
the way of chores.
A boy on a farm is nothing without his pets; at least a dog, and
probably rabbits, chickens, ducks, and guinea-hens. A guinea-hen suits a
boy. It is entirely useless, and makes a more disagreeable noise than
a Chinese gong. I once domesticated a young fox which a neighbor had
caught. It is a mistake to suppose the fox cannot be tamed. Jacko was a
very clever little animal, and behaved, in all respects, with propriety.
He kept Sunday as well as any day, and all the ten commandments that he
could understand. He was a very graceful playfellow, and seemed to have
an affection for me. He lived in a wood-pile in the dooryard, and when I
lay down at the entrance to his house and called him, he would come out
and sit on his tail and lick my face just like a grown person. I taught
him a great many tricks and all the virtues. That year I had a large
number of hens, and Jacko went about among them with the most perfect
indifference, never looking on them to lust after them, as I could see,
and never touching an egg or a feather. So excellent was his reputation
that I would have trusted him in the hen-roost in the dark without
counting the hens. In short, he was domesticated, and I was fond of him
and very proud of him, exhibiting him to all our visitors as an example
of what affectionate treatment would do in subduing the brute instincts.
I preferred him to my dog, whom I had, with much patience, taught to go
up a long hill alone and surround the cows, and drive them home from the
remote pasture. He liked the fun of it at first, but by and by he seemed
to get the notion that it was a “chore,” and when I whistled for him to
go for the cows, he would turn tail and run the other way, and the more
I whistled and threw stones at him, the faster he would run. His name
was Turk, and I should have sold him if he had not been the kind of dog
that nobody will buy. I suppose he was not a cow-dog, but what they call
a sheep-dog. At least, when he got big enough, he used to get into
the pasture and chase the sheep to death. That was the way he got into
trouble, and lost his valuable life. A dog is of great use on a farm,
and that is the reason a boy likes him. He is good to bite peddlers and
small children, and run out and yelp at wagons that pass by, and to
howl all night when the moon shines. And yet, if I were a boy again, the
first thing I would have should be a dog; for dogs are great companions,
and as active and spry as a boy at doing nothing. They are also good to
bark at woodchuck-holes.
A good dog will bark at a woodchuck-hole long after the animal has
retired to a remote part of his residence, and escaped by another hole.
This deceives the woodchuck. Some of the most delightful hours of my
life have been spent in hiding and watching the hole where the dog was
not. What an exquisite thrill ran through my frame when the timid nose
appeared, was withdrawn, poked out again, and finally followed by the
entire animal, who looked cautiously about, and then hopped away to feed
on the clover. At that moment I rushed in, occupied the “home base,”
yelled to Turk, and then danced with delight at the combat between the
spunky woodchuck and the dog. They were about the same size, but science
and civilization won the day. I did not reflect then that it would have
been more in the interest of civilization if the woodchuck had killed
the dog. I do not know why it is that boys so like to hunt and kill
animals; but the excuse that I gave in this case for the murder was,
that the woodchuck ate the clover and trod it down, and, in fact, was a
woodchuck. It was not till long after that I learned with surprise that
he is a rodent mammal, of the species Arctomys monax, is called at the
West a ground-hog, and is eaten by people of color with great relish.
But I have forgotten my beautiful fox. Jacko continued to deport himself
well until the young chickens came; he was actually cured of the
fox vice of chicken-stealing. He used to go with me about the coops,
pricking up his ears in an intelligent manner, and with a demure eye and
the most virtuous droop of the tail. Charming fox! If he had held out
a little while longer, I should have put him into a Sunday-school book.
But I began to miss chickens. They disappeared mysteriously in the
night. I would not suspect Jacko at first, for he looked so honest, and
in the daytime seemed to be as much interested in the chickens as I
was. But one morning, when I went to call him, I found feathers at the
entrance of his hole,--chicken feathers. He couldn't deny it. He was a
thief. His fox nature had come out under severe temptation. And he died
an unnatural death. He had a thousand virtues and one crime. But that
crime struck at the foundation of society. He deceived and stole; he
was a liar and a thief, and no pretty ways could hide the fact. His
intelligent, bright face couldn't save him. If he had been honest, he
might have grown up to be a large, ornamental fox.