One of the
most amusing things is their effort to acquire personal property.
The boy has the care of the calves; they always need feeding, or
shutting up, or letting out; when the boy wants to play, there are
those calves to be looked after,--until he gets to hate the name of
calf. But in consideration of his faithfulness, two of them are
given to him. There is no doubt that they are his: he has the entire
charge of them. When they get to be steers he spends all his
holidays in breaking them in to a yoke. He gets them so broken in
that they will run like a pair of deer all over the farm, turning the
yoke, and kicking their heels, while he follows in full chase,
shouting the ox language till he is red in the face. When the steers
grow up to be cattle, a drover one day comes along and takes them
away, and the boy is told that he can have another pair of calves;
and so, with undiminished faith, he goes back and begins over again
to make his fortune. He owns lambs and young colts in the same way,
and makes just as much out of them.
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