Dan did n't go near the plough any more. He stayed inside every day, and
drank the yeast, and provided music for the women. Sometimes he would
leave the sofa, and go to the back-door and look out, and watch Dad
tearing up and down the paddock after the plough; then he'd yawn, and
wonder aloud what the diggins it was the old man saw in a game like that
on a hot day; and return to the sofa, tired. But every evening when Dad
knocked off and brought the horses to the barn Dan went out and watched
him unharnessing them.
A month passed. Dad was n't so fond of Dan now, and Dan never talked of
going away. One day Anderson's cows wandered into our yard and surrounded
the hay-stack. Dad saw them from the paddock and cooeed, and shouted for
those at the house to drive them away. They did n't hear him. Dad left
the plough and ran up and pelted Anderson's cows with stones and
glass-bottles, and pursued them with a pitch-fork till, in a mad rush to
get out, half the brutes fell over the fence and made havoc with the wire.
Dad spent an hour mending it; then went to the verandah and savagely asked
Mother if she had lost her ears. Mother said she had n't.
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