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He did not do any regular work with the shearers, but pretended to help in the yards, his real aim being to get the grog, which is always more freely circulated at shearing-time: he did not get much, for he was apt to be dangerous when drunk; and very little would make him so: still he did get it occasionally, and if one wanted to get anything out of him, it was the best bribe to offer him.
She said naught but to commend my diligence, and she went whiter than a just washed sheep at shearing-time. Quoth I to myself, "Butter, there is more here than thou wottest of;" which was very true.
"That depends. Sundowners are as uncertain as they are unknown quantities. After shearing-time they're thickest; in the dead of summer fewest. This is the dead of summer," and, for the hundredth time in our travel, Glenn shook his head sadly. Sadness was ill-suited to his burly form and bronzed face, but it was there. He had some trouble, I thought, deeper than drought.
"About two weeks later comes shearing-time. The sheep had to be driven up to the ranch, and a lot of frowzy-headed Mexicans would snip the fur off of them with back-action scissors.
"I don't know," said John, at last, as Fairy repeated her question. "By the bye, how long have I been here exactly?" asked Fairy. "Let me see; twelve years last shearing-time," said the shepherd, whose dates were few and simple, sheep-washing, shearing, lambing, and next and last sheepfair being the principal. "But I want to know the day of the month; and I'll tell you why.
Jim, old man, I'm sorry for you, but my belief is we're quartered here for a year or two certain, and the sooner we make up our minds to it the better. Here poor old Jim groaned. 'Don't you think, he said, quite timid-like, 'that about shearing-time a man might take his chance, leading an old horse with a swag on, as if he wanted to get shearing in some of the big down-the-river sheds?
March and August and December, and every month, will bring about the changes in the atmosphere and earth and vegetation and in the animals, which have been from of old, which he knows how to meet, and the old, familiar task, lambing-time, shearing-time, root and seed crops hoeing, haymaking, harvesting.
Out in the flock there was a white sheep which she called hers, since she had brought it up as a lamb when its mother would not own it, as is sometimes the way with sheep silly things! It was shearing-time now and she wanted that wool. Sheep-shearing is not an easy thing for a girl to do.
About two miles from the town was a sheep-fold, near the margin of a pond, where the sheep could be washed. It was built of four or five concentric fences, which thus formed a sort of labyrinth, into which and through which the sheep and lambs were driven at shearing-time, and in it they were sorted out and placed in cotes or pens erected for each sheep-owner.
"There's men that want Indian ryots or negro slaves to do their turn. I want free men at Sandal-Side as long as I am squire of that name." "They missed you sorely in the fields, father. It was not shearing-time, nor hay-time, nor harvest-time to any one in Sandal this year. But you will stand in your meadows again God grant it! next summer. And then how the men will work!
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