dog. The dog knows the part of farming that
suits him. He likes to run along the road and see all the dogs and
other people, and he likes best of all to lie on the store steps at the
Corners--while his master's horse is dozing at the post and his
master is talking politics in the store--with the other dogs of his
acquaintance, snapping at mutually annoying flies, and indulging in
that delightful dog gossip which is expressed by a wag of the tail and a
sniff of the nose. Nobody knows how many dogs' characters are destroyed
in this gossip, or how a dog may be able to insinuate suspicion by a wag
of the tail as a man can by a shrug of the shoulders, or sniff a slander
as a man can suggest one by raising his eyebrows.

John looks after the old gentleman driving off in state, with the
odorous buffalo-robe and the new whip, and he thinks that is the sort of
farming he would like to do. And he cries after his departing parent,

"Say, father, can't I go over to the farther pasture and salt the
cattle?" John knows that he could spend half a day very pleasantly in
going over to that pasture, looking for bird's nests and shying at red
squirrels on the way, and who knows but he might "see" a sucker in the
meadow brook, and perhaps get a "jab" at him with a sharp stick. He
knows a hole where there is a whopper; and one of his plans in life
is to go some day and snare him, and bring him home in triumph. It is
therefore strongly impressed upon his mind that the cattle want salting.
But his father, without turning his head, replies,

"No, they don't need salting any more 'n you do!" And the old equipage
goes rattling down the road, and John whistles his disappointment. When
I was a boy on a farm, and I suppose it is so now, cattle were never
salted half enough!

John goes to his chores, and gets through the stable as soon as he can,
for that must be done; but when it comes to the out-door work, that
rather drags. There are so many things to distract the attention--a
chipmunk in the fence, a bird on a near-tree, and a hen-hawk circling
high in the air over the barnyard. John loses a little time in stoning
the chipmunk, which rather likes the sport, and in watching the bird, to
find where its nest is; and he convinces himself that he ought to watch
the hawk, lest it pounce upon the chickens, and therefore, with an easy
conscience, he spends fifteen minutes in hallooing to that distant bird,
and follows it away out of sight over the wo