Going to the stable, we found it a small affair, like the house, but built wholly of logs and brush. Scattered about were other diminutive edifices and places of retreat and refreshment for animals, and of so great a number that they looked at a distance like a Hottentot village, such as we see in early books of travel. About these structures, and in the remote and secluded corners and places of vantage, chickens congregated, singly and in numbers, and amid such a carnival of cackling and desultory talk as I had never heard before. Running in from the yards and edges of the forest, they crowded about Mrs. Blake with such noisy exuberance of spirit that it was impossible to hear one's voice, much less to think. In her, you could see, they recognized a benefactress and friend who knew and treasured them for all and more than they were worth. In return, it was as if they were every one filled with expectancy of labor, and the prospect it held out to their mistress of pin money such as no one had ever dreamed of before. Overjoyed, I lost no time in making up to these old friends, and in this sought out such offerings of food as I could find that came within the scope of their appetites. For they were dainty things, and accustomed to much refinement of fare, not regarding the coarser kinds of food with any relish whatsoever, so long as the grasses and forest yielded a profusion of delicate morsels in the way of succulent bugs and relishable insects that only needed a little running and craning of the neck to secure.
Mr. Blake's likings tended altogether to horses and cattle, and of the former he owned a great number, though only the two he used were broken. The others, all fine animals, I volunteered to take hold of and fit for the saddle and harness; and this offer he hailed with pleasure when I told him I had been accustomed to such things at Wild Plum. In this way he would be able, he said, to market the animals, whereas now he could hardly give them away, men being too busy to properly break them. The appetites of these idle creatures, I soon discovered, were keen beyond all measure of reason, as if, like idle men, they needed more than those who worked or otherwise contributed to the common good. Of cows, the Blakes had many and of fine form, but save the two set apart for use, all ran wild with their calves, only the more sturdy surviving the neglect. For it was apparent they got no attention whatever, save grudgingly from the hired man, except as Mrs. Blake or her husband saw their needs, and this only occasionally. My small ideas of thrift were yet enough for me to see how little was being done to make the farm productive. For Mr. Blake's earnings as a carpenter, it was apparent, were used to make up his losses as a farmer, and so he was making little or no headway, except in the rise of his land, which at best could not be much.