Disjointed Sketches And Grumbles


It was my duty to "rare the poddies". This is the most godless occupation
in which it has been my lot to engage. I did a great amount of thinking
while feeding them--for, by the way, I am afflicted with the power of
thought, which is a heavy curse. The less a person thinks and inquires
regarding the why and the wherefore and the justice of things, when
dragging along through life, the happier it is for him, and doubly,
trebly so, for her.

Poor little calves! Slaves to the greed of man! Bereft of the mothers
with which Nature has provided them, and compelled to exist on milk from
the separator, often thick, sour, and icy cold.

Besides the milking I did, before I went to school every morning, for
which I had to prepare myself and the younger children, and to which we
had to walk two miles. I had to feed thirty calves and wash the breakfast
dishes. On returning from school in the afternoon, often in a state of
exhaustion from walking in the blazing sun, I had the same duties over
again, and in addition boots to clean and home lessons to prepare for the
morrow. I had to relinquish my piano practice for want of time.

Ah, those short, short nights of rest and long, long days of toil! It
seems to me that dairying means slavery in the hands of poor people who
cannot afford hired labour. I am not writing of dairy-farming, the
genteel and artistic profession as eulogized in leading articles of