Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 8, 2025
When Bert came down the ladder those standing around set up a cheer, and Freddie and Flossie clapped their hands in delight. "Oh, I'm so glad you got him back!" said Freddie and hugged the kitten almost to death. "What boy was that who threw the stone?" asked Mr. Roscoe of Nan, while Bert was returning the ladder to the cow-shed. "That was Danny Rugg," answered Nan. "He is a bad boy."
"Well," said the Deacon, "it's a powerful price to pay for work on a cow-shed, but I s'pose I mus' stan' it. Hurry up; thar's the mill-whistle blowin' seven." Hay snatched his tools, kissed a couple of thankful tears, out of his wife's eyes, and was soon busy on the cow-shed, with the Deacon looking on.
"Have you got the kangaroo?" shouted the children, determined to be civil, if possible. "This place is bewitched, I think," said he, "The kangaroo was fast asleep in the cow-shed. What! how dare you laugh at me?" But they hadn't laughed at all. And they found it no laughing matter, poor children, when Gardener came on the ice, and began to scold them and order them about.
The mossy thatch of the cow-shed, the broken gray barn-doors, the pauper laborers in ragged breeches who had nearly finished unloading a wagon of corn into the barn ready for early thrashing; the scanty dairy of cows being tethered for milking and leaving one half of the shed in brown emptiness; the very pigs and white ducks seeming to wander about the uneven neglected yard as if in low spirits from feeding on a too meagre quality of rinsings, all these objects under the quiet light of a sky marbled with high clouds would have made a sort of picture which we have all paused over as a "charming bit," touching other sensibilities than those which are stirred by the depression of the agricultural interest, with the sad lack of farming capital, as seen constantly in the newspapers of that time.
As for me, I picked up my ax and I said to her: 'Laura, I am going to clear land for you. And from morning till night it was chop, chop, chop, without ever coming back to the house except for dinner; and all that time she did the work of the house and the cooking, she looked after the cattle, mended the fences, cleaned the cow-shed, never rested from her toiling; and then half-a-dozen times a day she would come outside the door and stand for a minute looking at me, over there by the fringe of the woods, where I was putting my back into felling the birches and the spruce to make a patch of soil for her.
There were a few log-houses visible among the dark trees; the best, a cow-shed or a rude stable; but for the wharves, the market-place, the public buildings 'Here comes an Edener, said Mark. 'He'll get us help to carry these things up. Keep a good heart, sir. Hallo there! The man advanced toward them through the thickening gloom, very slowly; leaning on a stick.
They had no regular stable, and the father left the boys to fit part of the cow-shed up for the pony, which they did by throwing part of the hen-coop open into it. The pigeon-cots were just over his head, and he never could have complained of being lonesome.
"There!" said she, stepping backwards to view her work, "that makes a very good master for me. I will obey him in everything he bids me till master comes home." At the same moment, she walked backwards against something, and little George clung screaming to Mildred's knees. Roger had spread his arms for Ailwin to walk back into; and Stephen was behind, leaning against the cow-shed.
But there is always a stronger sense of life when the sun is brilliant after rain; and now he is pouring down his beams, and making sparkles among the wet straw, and lighting up every patch of vivid green moss on the red tiles of the cow-shed, and turning even the muddy water that is hurrying along the channel to the drain into a mirror for the yellow-billed ducks, who are seizing the opportunity of getting a drink with as much body in it as possible.
The hens were happily engaged in scratching the earth for their breakfast; the rooster, no longer crestfallen, was strutting in the sunshine, while next to the barn several grunting, squealing pigs struggled for supremacy in the trough. From the cow-shed came an occasional low and soon a slip-shod maid, yawning mightily, appeared, pail in hand, and moved across the yard to her early morning task.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking