Litchfield enquirer., 1875-02-04
WHOLE NO. 25s2.:

nearly knocking me over, and shoots. Out at theo open gate, ,Asus EOusmeanAsd Up geld en fleece of hair floating stright behind | her. I can see her whipping him up the bng hill. He plunges, kicks, breaks into a run again, and the next minute they are out of sight, and the. Kromers all come out to the gate to look. I can hear them for little while over on the other road, the wagon rattling and bounding once or twice, and then there is nothing more to | be heard. -
 They are gone an hour. try to. get dinner, but cannot see, for tears. T let one of our plates fall and break. iiet the meat burn. wiring my hands and walk the floor. I am just trying on my sun
 bonnet to go and see what I can find,
 when suddenly I think I hear wheels aI
 run to the door. did hear wheels And it is Louise coming from the other way.
 Pampas is walking meekly. He is cover ed with sweat and foam-such, at sorry l looking beast! Lou sits on the seat, se- rene; but white and large-eyed. ~s sas.s She smiles as they pass in the gateway. She composedly backs him little. Then | they come on again few steps, th9n she stops him. She backs him again. sSSel don't he know his master?"
 He looks so meek and sorry. i think he would like to lay his nose against my cheek, but she will not let me pet him, not ever so little.
 How we congratulate ourselves for the neigbborhood has for the last fortnight plainly been of the opinion that ''them two girls have no business with horse! But the next morning at breakfast, we
 hear the old ringing hoof-blows upon the side of the barn. Louise jumps up and
 takes down the whip, and follow her. It is dreadful to me that we two gentle in- l telligent girls, cannot coax and win and govern horse according to theory. I hear Pampas start with jump as Lou un- latches the stable door. He sees her, sees upon his knees. Lou mods at him mean ingly, lays down the whip, tells him to get up, which he does, tells him to go to eating, which he does.
 ''There, old fellow" she says.
 Pampas trembles when he hears her coming, for nearly week. Once more he 1 has to be shown the whip at time when his memory bids fair to fail him concern ing the art of backing, and then it is all | over with; and am permitted to pet him again. He is good horse for a year at time, and very dear to the hearts of his small mistresses. Then, usually, he and Louise have to make. some few fresh arrangements concerning good be- havior; but 1t is never now @ serious affair. | By this time the money capital of the enterprise had become entirely exhausted, and we were left dependent upon the but ter and eggs of ourplan. During our first week at cousin Janet's we had found that they were not going to bring us the prices hoI o%o1 No 0T1Ixy trust that there might be such thing as making good the deficiency in prices by the production of larger quantities. We experimented with the feed of our poultry, and at last we did succeed in bringing
 what Louise called "a perfect storm of eggs
 l Knowing 1t costs no more to keep the | good COW than the poor one, we had paid an extra price and had secured one of ex- Gf& eXceIIenCe, uPUu vfrOIu IIES7esl cad ''middlings" were not wasted; gentle Mag gie, with her little Maggie of still more precious blood in the stall adjoining. She was all that Short-horned, yellow-skih- ed, slender-footed, black -nosed little COW can be; and we never blamed her because our butter brought us only twenty-five, twenty, eighteen, fifteen, twelve and half cents per pound; that is the descend l ing scale from March to June.
 | We make, I fancy, the yeritable ''gilt- | edged" butter of the Boston and Philadel- | phia markets. It is sweet, fragrant, spark | ling, golden tinted daintily, ,salted and dain- | tly put up; but even from the most fastidi-
 ous private buyers we never have received above thirty cents per pound, and during
 the greater portion of the summer have sold it for fifteen cents and twelve cents,
 the same price which Mrs. Kroner re- ceives for her soft. lard-looking rolls; perhaps that is the most aggravating part
 of it The finer grades of butter, it seems
 are not appreciated by the Western citi-
 zen and his family. Making inquiries in Detroit and Chicago, we learn there is no
 trade in these extra grades, and that, if
 offered, they could not be placed at any
 thing like Eastern prices. ts- And while Eastern families are accus- toned to pay from thirty to forty cents per dozen for eggs, we have never, even | in winter, secured over twenty-five cents | for the fresh-laid, while in the plenteous summer time we sell for ten cents.
 | In due time also we found that our | blackcap raspberry would really go for ten cents per quart, and the bulk of our straw l berries for the same. We abandoned for ever the ''small fruits' item of our plan.
 We have our thrifty purple canes and our
 Wilson and Jocunda beds, where, with many back-ache and many dizzy head
 ache, we grow those great. rich-hearted,
 scarlet and crimson berries which are chronicled as marvels by grateful editors. berries that one must needs slice for the
 table; but they are never for sale, thank you!' /
 Therefore, enterpris1ng little women, if you can secure land there, remain East | 1os~ 1T l horns and Dorkings. Stay by the good
 markets. Your Iabors wll1 be no more
 arduous, while the returns will be double.
 However, by cheerfuHy ignoring several
 of the items mentioned by the Labor
 Commission as among the necessities ofs the ordinary family, we did, week by
 week, made both ends meet. For our very
 own personal needs the little Arcadian in-
 come would really have sufficed; but there
 always came up something to be purchas- | ed which we had not made account of: the
 pane of glass, the feed for our fowls,
 horseshoe to be set, bit of repair upon
 wagon or tools, the road tax, the pleasant little expenses for company. It was, in- deed quite close affair those first years
 Even in the early weeks we dismissed the | idea of smoked ham and dainty sausage, l and devoted "Pincushion" and "Roly-po- y 10 the payment oI taxes ana the dls- charge of debt for hired labor. Since, however, we conjugated the Spartan verbs,
 ''To save" and ''To scrimp;" and the new year never did find us in debt. They were good days, full of discipline and wisdom; we would not have missed them.
 It was the busiest of all the springs; home has to be begun in so many direc- tiOns at ODce-meadOw field OardeD Or- setting of trees! With us ''arbcr day" stretched through week, what with pear, apple, preach, and cherry. evergreen, lilac, rose, and locust, to say. nothing of the vines and canes confess to hours when we toiled side by side in silence, digging those holes. Nature is no gallant. She has memorable laws which woman, in com mon with man, must meet The spade in