"Perhaps, William, I'm to blame for having spoilt 'em a bit;--but it'd
be good policy for you to take them as you find them, and get them
bound to you before you begin drilling 'em. A soft word now and then,
William--you don't know how far it goes sometimes."

"What I complain of is this," said Dale; "they don't show any spirit.
Every stroke o' bad luck I've had--every chance where they might step
in with common sense, or extra care, or a spark of invention to save a
situation for me--it's just as if they were a row o' turnips."

And the strokes of bad luck were so many and so heavy. The elements
seemed to be making war against him--such wet days as made it
impossible to deliver hay without damage to it, and an accusation from
somebody's stables that the last lot was poisoned; then frost, and two
horses seriously injured on the ice-clothed roads; then February
gales, wrecking the barn roofs, entailing costly repairs; then floods;
and last of all _rats_. The unusual amount of land water had driven
them to new haunts, and Dale's granaries were suddenly invaded. "Oh,
William," said Mr. Bates, horror-stricken, "beware of rats. They are
the worst foe. _One_ rat will mess up a mountain of grain."

About the time of the vernal equinox there came a tempest in
comparison with which all previous wind and rain were but a whispering
and a sprinkling. Every door was being rattled as if by giant hands,
the glass sang in the latticed windows, and the whole house seemed
swaying, when Mary told her mistress that something had gone wrong
with the big straw stack and that the master was attempting to climb
to the top of it on the long ladder.

Mavis instantly pulled up her skirt in true country fashion to make a
cloak, and told Mary to help her open the kitchen door.

"You bide where you be, Mrs. Dale," said the old charwoman. "You ben't
goin' to be no use of any kind out there, and you may bring yourself
to a misfortune."

But Mavis insisted on struggling through the doorway, into the rude
embrace of the weather. Great branches of the walnut tree were waving
wildly, while little twigs and buds flew from apple trees like dust;
the rain, not in drops but as it seemed in solid packets, struck her
face and shoulders with such force that she could scarcely stand
against it; a shallow wooden tub came bounding to her along the
flagged path and passed like a sheet of brown paper; and just as she
got to the corner of the buildings from w