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The swallows were the sole tenants; the barn had fallen a prey to decay and storms, and the roof lay comparatively uninjured at some distance on the ground. A pair of glistening eyes, peeping through a broken board at the end, showed me that the foxes had appropriated it to their own use. The horse-stable, coach-house, and other buildings were in a similar state of dilapidation.

One pile of this material had been placed near the stable door, and another at the entrance to the poultry-room in the basement of our vanished barn. The cleanings of the horse-stable had been spread over a layer of this black soil. When the layer of such cleanings was about a foot thick, spread evenly, another layer of earth covered all from sun and rain.

The bailiff went in through the horse-stable, something in his carriage showing that he was not altogether unprepared for an attack from behind. Erik was in bed, with the quilt drawn up to his eyes. "What's the meaning of this? Are you ill?" asked the bailiff. "Yes, I think I've caught cold, I'm shivering so." He tried to make his teeth chatter.

There is no blasphemy, according to their system, in naming their shops after the Holy Ghost, a horse-stable after "the Precious Blood," though I could never hear them mentioned or see them without having my Protestant notions shocked, while I equally shocked their feelings by refusing to kneel to the Host, and slipping out of the way to avoid it.

It prefers decidedly manure from the cow-stable, though that from the horse-stable answers very well; but it is not advisable to incorporate it with the soil in its raw, unfermented state, and then to plant immediately. The ground can scarcely be too rich for strawberries, but it may easily be overheated and stimulated.

He is first to clean out the horse-stable; then to take a bill-hook and cut down the thistles and weeds from the fence corners in the home mowing-lot and along the road towards the village; to dig up the docks round the garden patch; to weed out the beet-bed; to hoe the early potatoes; to rake the sticks and leaves out of the front yard; in short, there is work enough laid out for John to keep him busy, it seems to him, till he comes of age; and at half an hour to sundown he is to go for the cows "and mind he don't run 'em!"

He is first to clean out the horse-stable; then to take a bill-hook and cut down the thistles and weeds from the fence corners in the home mowing-lot and along the road towards the village; to dig up the docks round the garden patch; to weed out the beet-bed; to hoe the early potatoes; to rake the sticks and leaves out of the front yard; in short, there is work enough laid out for John to keep him busy, it seems to him, till he comes of age; and at half an hour to sundown he is to go for the cows "and mind he don't run 'em!"

On the other hand, stolid, phlegmatic clay requires the stimulus of manure from the horse-stable. It can be plowed under at once, and left to ferment and decay in the soil. The process of decomposition will tend to banish its cold, inert qualities, and make the ground loose, open, and amenable to the influences of frost, sun, and rain.

In fertilizing, ever keep in mind the two great requisites moisture and coolness. Manure from the horse-stable, therefore, is almost doubled in value as well as bulk if composted with leaves, muck, or sods, and allowed to decay before being used. Next to enriching the soil, the most important step is to deepen it. If a plow is used, sink it to the beam, and run it twice in a furrow.

The cattle were mine, the horses were my brother's, and in transferring his allegiance from the cow-stable to the horse-stable Bingo seemed to give me up too, and anything like daily companionship ceased, and yet, whenever any emergency arose Bingo turned to me and I to him, and both seemed to feel that the bond between man and dog is one that lasts as long as life.