n. I went up to the
west barn a number of times, however, to see Peter Glinds shear sheep,
for I had a great curiosity concerning this piece of farm work.

Addison and Halstead were assisting at the shearing, the latter catching
and fetching the sheep, one by one, to the shearers, while the former
was attending to the fleeces, binding up each one by itself in a compact
bundle with stout twine. Instead of sitting at a bench, or standing at a
table, the sheep-shearer worked on his knees, extending the sheep prone
upon the barn floor. Old Peter could shear a sheep in ten minutes; Gramp
was less speedy with the shears; he contrived to shear about as many as
Peter, however, for, after every fourth sheep, the latter would have to
stop to light his pipe and refresh himself. "A bad habit! A bad habit!"
he would exclaim nearly every time he lighted up. "A bad habit! but I
can't seem to get along 'thout it." He also "chewed" constantly during
the intervals between smokes.

Peter was not very considerate of the feelings of the sheep while under
his hands, and a little careless with the shears. Naturally a sheep will
get clipped occasionally, and lose a bit of skin; but all those that
Peter sheared were plentifully covered with red spots. It nettled the
Old Squire, who always detested needless cruelty to domestic animals.
One of the sheep, in fact, looked so badly that Gramp exclaimed,
"Glinds, if you are going to skin the sheep, better take a butcher
knife!"

"'Twas a bad nestly sheep; 'twouldn't keep still nowheres," replied
Peter.

The old man had a thin, but rather long, gray beard; and while shearing
one of the sheep, either in revenge for its cuts, or else, as is more
likely, mistaking Peter's beard for a wisp of hay, it made a fitful grab
at it and tweaked away a small mouthful. Peter cried out angrily and
continued scolding in an undertone about it for some minutes. This
vastly amused Addison, who chanced to see the incident. In addition to
his duties with the wool, Addison was also "doctor." When a sheep was
cut with the shears, Gramp had the spot touched up with a swab, dipped
in a dish of melted tallow, to coat over the raw place and exclude the
air. To be effective, however, the tallow needed to be hot, or at least
quite warm, so that Addison was frequently making trips with the tallow
dipper to the stove in the house kitchen.

Going in with him to tell the girls of the accident to old Peter's
beard, I found them