Milford chronicle. [volume] (Milford, Del.) 1878-1974, 1885-09-25
BoSsING A YOKE OF OXEN.
An Exciting "Reminiscences Of
Life on the Farm.
Flowing stumpy Ground Among Snakes
and Yellow Jackets,

" NN%- A+J AHSA-eAJ SNeo beeA W NAe
good old days of "whoa-haw Buck, +"
cannot help instinctively rubbing
my shins. The first thing ever boss
cd was a yoke of oxen. At the ma.
ture age of II, was invested with a
large whip, ornamented with keen
cracker, and informed that might
shape the course of old Buck and
Bright while our hired man guided
the plow. was young and inexperi-
enced, and entered upon my new du-
ties with zeal well nigh amounting
to enthusiasm, but at the end of the
FIRST half day, when I started for din
ner with the bark nearly all off the
front part of my legs, and 1000 splin-
ters in the bottom Of my feet, 1 felt
that change had come over the happy
scene, and was willing, in considera-
ton of some slight recompense to re-
sign my position of honor and trust.
and accept a more humble and less re-
spcnsible Office, where 1 would not be
held to answer for everything that
happened to the hired man.
Oxen, when drawing the plow in
land that has not yet yielded to the
gentle influences of civilization, are
apt to pause occasionally for the pur-
pose of meditating upon the good they
are doing. They generally pause just
at the moment the pillow gets stuck
against stump, and when the hired
man, who has been walking leisurely
along after the team thinking about
getting married, overtakes the pillow
and attempts to shove it right ahead |
with his stomach, the sky generally
becomes a shade more azure, and the
superintendent atmosphere reeks
with the fumes Of Overdone birthstone.
At such a moment, the boy who is
driving steers needs great presence of
mind. Unless he is quick and firm,
he is liable to be slapped over before he
can detract the attention of the hired
man from himself to the steers. An
experienced boy, as soon as he OBJ
serves that the hired man has been
successful in driving the plow through
the stump, will have a great deal of
trouble with the whip in trying to
bring them to right, in a way that
will render it dangerous for the hired
man to get very close to him. The
chances are that he will get interested
in the oxen, and confer upon them the
ravors he seemed about to shower up
IN the boy. t
There were few other small issues S
liable to crop out in the course of
Irving yoke of oxen across a field 5
# stumpy ground. One of them was Il
he premature awakening of the
make that had lain dormant during
he winter. AS the plow- shear rolled f.
hem up and then wound them around il
he bare legs of the hired man, he Of h
en- expressed himself in a way that |
lade me doubt his Christianity, and r
always noticed that he did not beam c
pom me so graciously at such mo-
tents as he did when the patriotic
Ote of the dinner horn was waited to
s from the house. CO
There was another experience, how IL
yer, that sometimes fell to our lot. ~
was to ruthlessly break in upon the h,
)mestic harmony and bltssful repose ca
a den of yellow jackets I am afraid II
= readers never saw yellow jacket, h,
1 will inform them right here that so
is a sort of a small, yellow wasp that CO
n sting few bars and then go right III
.ck and repeat fortissimo. The he
llow-jackets always build their nests ar
the immediate vicinity of a small pc
imp, and the hired man never found pc
t that he had disturbed them until
e plow was effectually set against the co
amp, when he bent all his energies on
pull it out while the oxen were res
nding all their energies to pull it in, an an
d the yellow jackets were working ina
their energies on the oxen and moi
ed man, while boy about my size It
IS carrying his energies away from
lger at a rate truly surprising. roI
The oxen finally broke the chain are
1t bound them to the pillow, and POI
de their way to place where they
I'D stand in water something more wa.
N knee Deep and that ended the S 5e
TX of that particular day, the rest nes
which was devoted to cremating T Fey
yellow Jackets nest -Blooming- are
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