The creatures of the barn yard contend with the storm in different ways. When the cattle and horses are driven out to be watered they turn their backs to the pelting wind and rain and drift to the nearest shelter. The turkeys, on the contrary, stand and face the storm with their heads huddled down on their breasts at the point where the carver inserts the fork. The turkey, by the way, is the true weathercock. When roosting in the open he invariably faces the wind. The reason for this is plain. The wind blowing on his breast packs his feathers down closer and so makes their protection complete. If it were allowed to strike in the opposite direction it would ruffle up the feathers and leave the bird practically naked to the elements. As for the chickens--well, if there is anything in nature more disconsolate-looking than a wet hen the tragedy of its existence has never been adequately described. The hogs are the weather prophets of the barn yard, and those that are not penned up began to burrow into the strawstacks even before the newspapers reported the coming storm. When called to the feed-trough they respond reluctantly in spite of their much-maligned appetites, and when the east wind strikes them they let out a concert of squeals that makes one understand just what the good Sir Walter meant when he described the singing at a conventicle as sounding "like a hog in a high wind." But enough of this, lest some patient reader should be tempted to exclaim with Job: "Should a wise man utter vain knowledge and fill his belly with the East Wind!"
Last Sunday afternoon there were a couple of black squirrels on the beech knoll, and I was glad it was Sunday, because the sight roused in me certain predatory feelings that I thought I had outlived. In the old evil days to see a black squirrel was to run for a gun, and there is no knowing of what might have happened if it hadn't been Sunday in a community where there is a proper regard for the Lord's Day Alliance. Still, the squirrels were comparatively safe. My own rifle is twenty miles away and the nearest shotgun that might be borrowed is in a farmhouse at a distance of three miles. But although circumstances made it possible for me to restrain myself, it will probably make little difference to the squirrels. They will almost certainly go into the bag of some city hunter. At the present time these gentry are ranging through the country, shooting up everything from chipmunks to stray hens, and no doubt imagining that, like Nimrod of old, they are "mighty hunters before the Lord." Why can't they stick to clay pigeons and spare the feelings of those who haven't got guns handy? It is really no wonder that the farmers are beginning to disfigure the country with "No shooting" and "No trespassing" signs. The few squirrels and quail that remain are farm pets rather than wild game. A few more seasons of the city hunter, and the boys in this district will know nothing about black squirrels, except what they learn from Sam Wood's vivid article in the new Fourth Reader.
