When Life Was Young: At the Old Farm in Maine

It was on a sunny, windy May afternoon, late in the month, that the old gentleman drove to the railway station, eight miles from the farm, to fetch home the writer of this narra...

My dreams that first night at the old farm were many and disturbing; and I waked in the morning with a resentful recollection that I had received not a few hard knocks; but as e...

"I shall expect you to work with us on the farm, 'Edmund,'" grandfather said to me after breakfast. "But you may have this forenoon, to look about and see the place. Enjoy yours...

Theodora had brought home the mail from the post-office out at the Corners; and I remember that at the breakfast table next morning, the Old Squire, who was reading the news fro...

"To-morrow we must wash the sheep," the Old Squire remarked at the breakfast table next day. "We will try your water-warming apparatus, Addison," he continued. "Do you think tha...

"A little," replied Gramp. "That is about the only use I ever would like to see tobacco put to," he added with a glance at Halse, at which the latter gave me a sly nudge under t...

The sheep were inclosed at the barn that night, partly that they might not take cold, owing to the sudden loss of their winter coats, partly also that, being pent up close with...

Monday morning dawned bright and very warm. As we were about to sit down to breakfast, Catherine Edwards called at the door and left a letter for me, from my mother, which had a...

The jaunt with Edgar and the excitement about old "Three-Legs" had distracted my thoughts for the time being, but had not cured me of homesickness. Two days later my mother sent...

To this day I recall with what a zest my appetite returned after that last attack of homesickness, and how good the farm food tasted. That day, too, Gram had "mug-bread," and fo...

Looking back to that first fortnight after my arrival at the Old Squire's, I think what most impressed my youthful mind was the country verdure and the bird-songs. Everything lo...

Except on Sunday mornings, breakfast at the farm in summer came at six. The Old Squire himself was often astir at four; and we boys were supposed to get up at five, so as to hav...

A few days later--I think it was June 15th--Gram's constant, urgent reminders prevailed, and directly after the noontide meal we all set off for the village, to have our picture...

It was the following Sunday morning, if I remember aright, that I first heard the name of Charles Darwin and received an intimation as to the now world-famous theory of the orig...

The first days of July were very hot and sultry; the hoeing was finished; haying was at hand. We young folks, however, were now chiefly interested in the Fourth of July celebrat...

Creameries with ice-chests were as yet unheard of in the rural counties of Maine in 1866. At the old farm, all of the dairy milk was set in pans on the clean, cool cellar bottom...

But haying in and of itself is a clean and pleasant kind of farm work, if only the farmers would not rush it so relentlessly. As soon as haying begins, a demon of haste to finis...

We heard a great deal concerning "Reconstruction" of the Union that summer. The Old Squire was painfully concerned about it; he feared that Congress had made mistakes which woul...

After haying came grain harvest. There were three acres of wheat, four of oats, an acre of barley, an acre of buckwheat and an acre and three-fourths of rye to get in. The rye,...

It was a part of Gram's household creed, that the wood-house and carriage-house could be properly swept only with a cedar broom. Brooms made of cedar boughs, bound to a broom-st...

During the next week there was what is termed by Congregationalists a "Conference Meeting," at the town of Hebron, distant fifteen miles from the Old Squire's. Gram and he made...

Truth to say, we had a pretty "high time" that week. When not at Tom's fort evenings, our youthful neighbors came to our house. Sweet corn was in the "milk;" and early apples, p...

Truth to say, farm work is never done, particularly on a New England farm where a little of everything has to be undertaken and all kinds of crops are raised, and where sheep, c...

About this time we began to hear raccoons, in the early part of the night. There were numbers of these animals in the woods about the farm; they had their retreats in hollow tre...

Afterwards I came to know that delicious apple well; but it was at the Fair that I first made its acquaintance. Willis Murch was peddling them, and made the place resound, not u...

So occupied were our minds with the Fair and its incidents, that not one of us had thought to go or send to the post office during that entire week. We had even passed near it,...

We had breakfast at six; and then Asa Doane hitched up old Sol and Nancy to the farm wagon on which we loaded our outfit and set off to take up our friends, Thomas and Kate, als...

It seemed good, even after only three days' camping out, to sit down in the house again and see the supper table nicely set and Gram at the head of it. She welcomed us home as w...

Not a little farm work still remained to be done;--our farm work, in fact, was never done. For a fortnight after our return from the camping trip, we were busy, ploughing stubbl...

Thanksgiving was always a holiday at the old farm. Gram and the girls made extensive preparations for it and intended to have a fine dinner. Besides the turkey and chickens ther...