e chain that holds the plough to the yoke, and one of them gets its
foot on the chain and proceeds on three feet. If the tramp hired man
goes between them to adjust the chain, the oxen squeeze him flat, and
one ox steps on his toe. The toe goes Pop! and what anguish! The ox
cannot be made to understand that it must step off. No use in saying
"Highst!" or anything else. Nothing but kicking the ox in the leg with
your free foot will stir it. In addition to these troubles of the
ox-driver, the oxen know how to "turn the yoke:" they can twist their
heads in the yoke after a fashion that enables them to stand facing the
plough and staring at the driver. If they "turn the yoke" while drawing
a cart down a side-hill, the cart, with the driver in it, slips about in
front of them, and drags them down the gulf face foremost. The noisiest
being on earth is a man ploughing with a pair of old bulls. At night,
when he comes home to supper, he is scarcely able to whisper, and the
parting blow he gives his beasts is no damage to them nor consolation to
him. A man ploughing green sward with two old plugs of horses is about
as miserable.

Cows, whether the fine old "line-backs" of the hills or scrawny,
beefless Alderneys or milkless Durhams, have one merit with a boy. It is
not that they enjoy fine weather, a good pasture and a green
landscape--have thoughts, notice the sprouting beanfields as they come
up to milking, and the new flag-staff on the green: it is that they are
good at fighting. In every herd there is a queen who can vanquish all
the rest, and a vice-queen who can vanquish all but the queen, and a
second vice-queen who can vanquish all but the first two, and so on down
to the weakest of the herd, who cannot withstand any of the others.
Sometimes there is one that can defeat the queen, but none of the rest;
and other complications occur that give diversity to the cow-fights. The
boy has comfort superintending these combats. He encourages the cowards
and helps the weak by drawing them forward by the horns to attack. When
the queen stops the way at the bars, and will not let the rest through,
or when she amuses herself running up and down the stanchions driving
away the other cows, the boy puts her down and relieves the drove of her
tyranny.

The boy oversees some fighting among the fowls of the hill-farm, where
they still keep the old hawk-colored breed--a breed that fights to the
death--not being over-partial as yet to Shang