It does not do the cows much good, but it is
very good exercise for a boy farmer. I used to commit to memory as
good short poems as I could find (the cows liked to listen to
"Thanatopsis" about as well as anything), and repeat them when I went
to the pasture, and as I drove the cows home through the sweet ferns
and down the rocky slopes. It improves a boy's elocution a great
deal more than driving oxen.
It is a fact, also, that if a boy repeats "Thanatopsis" while he is
milking, that operation acquires a certain dignity.
II
THE BOY AS A FARMER
Boys in general would be very good farmers if the current notions
about farming were not so very different from those they entertain.
What passes for laziness is very often an unwillingness to farm in a
particular way. For instance, some morning in early summer John is
told to catch the sorrel mare, harness her into the spring wagon, and
put in the buffalo and the best whip, for father is obliged to drive
over to the "Corners, to see a man" about some cattle, to talk with
the road commissioner, to go to the store for the "women folks," and
to attend to other important business; and very likely he will not be
back till sundown.
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