farming, and gentleman farming, may do very well, he says, "to keep idle
young fellows from the city out of mischief; but as for real, effective
management, there's nothing like the old stock of men, who ran barefoot
until they were ten, and who count the hard winters by their frozen
toes." And he is fond of quoting in this connection--the only quotation,
by the by, that the old gentleman ever makes--that couplet of "Poor
Richard,"--

"He, that by the plough would thrive,
Himself must either hold or drive."

The Squire has been in his day connected more or less intimately with
turnpike enterprise, which the railroads of the day have thrown sadly
into the background; and he reflects often in a melancholy way upon the
good old times when a man could travel in his own carriage quietly
across the country, without being frightened with the clatter of an
engine, and when turnpike stock paid wholesome yearly dividends of six
per cent.

An almost constant hanger-on about the premises, and a great favorite
with the Squire, is a stout, middle-aged man, with a heavy-bearded
face, to whom Frank introduces you as "Captain Dick"; and he tells you
moreover that he is a better butcher, a better wall-layer, and cuts a
broader "swathe," than any man upon the farm. Beside all which he has an
immense deal of information. He knows in the spring where all the
crows'-nests are to be found; he tells Frank where the foxes burrow; he
has even shot two or three raccoons in the swamps; he knows the best
season to troll for pickerel; he has a thorough understanding of
bee-hunting; he can tell the ownership of every stray heifer that
appears upon the road: indeed scarce an inquiry is made, or an opinion