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Updated: June 15, 2025
His wife had always begged him to build a shed; it was hard for a woman to manage with wet wood in stormy weather; often he was away, and they never kept a boy or man to help with farm-work except in summer. "Joe Banks was terribly surly about something," said Mr. Packer to himself. But Joe wanted Lizzie.
The men folks had finished their breakfast and gone to their farm-work hours before Westover came down to his breakfast, but the boy seemed to be of as much early leisure as himself, and was lounging on the threshold of the back door, with his dog in waiting upon him. He gave the effect of yesterday's cleanliness freshened up with more recent soap and water.
The Angel was frankly and simply disreputable, his idea of being properly clad for farm-work being to be ragged wherever possible and faded all over. Jimmie, however, wore his ordinary business clothes, patent leather shoes, and a derby hat. And as events transpired, I was glad of it. I love to think of Jimmie pruning trees in patent leathers and a derby.
And as for the daughters of Angus Dhu, they had been as good as sons even for the farm-work, labouring in the fields, as is the custom for young women in this part of the country, as industriously and as efficiently as men far more so, indeed, than their own brother Evan did; for he was often impatient of the closeness with which his father kept them all at work, and it was this, quite as much as his love of adventure and his wish to see the world, that made him go away at last.
In a week the two fields were ploughed, and what little farm-work remained to be done before the first of April, could be safely left to Sam. On the second Monday after the chase, therefore, he harnessed his four sturdy horses to the wagon, and set off before the first streak of dawn for Columbia, on the Susquehanna.
Harry was very sorry to hear of this lost time, for he knew that his wood-cutting would come to an end as soon as the season was sufficiently advanced to give the men an opportunity of hiring themselves for farm-work; but it was of no use to talk any more about it; and so, after depositing Kate at the post-office, where the post-mistress, who knew her well, gave her a nice little "snack" of buttermilk, cold fried chicken, and "light-bread," he went to the station and transacted his business.
Poetry, too, was to him, and particularly so at this time, its own exceeding great reward. He rhymed 'for fun'; and probably he was finding in the exercise that excitement his passionate nature craved. Herein was his stimulant after the routine of farm-work spiritless work that was little better than slavery, incessant and achieving nothing.
Hence the need of further help, which is met by our boys, who take their place, beginning with the A B C of farm-work, or, as Canadians express it, 'choring round.
Even the interest had been in part paid with borrowed money, and there were other signs and tokens that the Flemings were going back in the world. It was not to be wondered at; for Mr Fleming was an old man, and the greater part of the farm-work had to be done by hired help, at a cost which the farm could ill bear.
"Mr Berrington is a verra gude gentleman, but he kens little about farm-work as yet, and I canna trust him," he observed. The captain took the most trustworthy of the men, thus making up his party to four. Paul, Harry, and Reggy accompanied Mr Hayward, and with the addition of Bendigo, who was likely to prove very useful, their party was complete.
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