school days kept me from marrying Polly. I had other puppy loves but
they all died a natural death.

But let me get back to the farm work.

The gathering of the things in the sugar bush, when the flow of sap had
stopped, usually fell to Eden and me. We would carry the pans and spiles
together in big piles, where the oxen and sled could reach them. Then
when they were taken to the house it was my mother's and sister's task
to get them ready for the milk.

The drawing out of the manure and the spring ploughing was the next
thing in order on the farm. I took a hand in the former but not in the
latter. The spreading of the manure that had been drawn out and placed
in heaps in the fields during the winter often fell to me. I remember
that I did not bend my back to the work very willingly, especially when
the cattle had been bedded with long rye straw, but there were
compensations. I could lean on my fork handle and gaze at the spring
landscape, I could see the budding trees and listen to the songs of the
early birds and maybe catch the note of the first swallow in the air
overhead. The farm boy always has the whole of nature at his elbow and
he is usually aware of it.

When, armed with my long-handled "knocker," I used to be sent forth in
the April meadows to beat up and scatter the fall droppings of the cows
--the Juno's cushions as Irving named them--I was in much more congenial
employment. Had I known the game of golf in those days I should probably
have looked upon this as a fair substitute. To stand the big cushions up
on edge and with a real golfer's swing hit them with my mallet and see
the pieces fly was more like play than work. Oh, then it was April and I