The Old Lumber
The wet day brings the chance for doing various little carpentering jobs, long neglected. The keeper may have set himself the task of making a new hand-barrow before the coming of another pheasant-rearing time—a barrow for carrying the coops, two at a time, with the hen and precious chicks within, where a horse and cart cannot pass through the coverts. Perhaps he remembers a day when the crazy handle of the old barrow snapped off and upset two coops of his best birds. Then a wet day is a good day for sorting coops, and putting apart for professional treatment those beyond the keeper's makeshift craft. He can set about painting the whole ones. Now and again he must look to his ferret-hutches, and fit new wire-netting to the fronts if any meshes are rotten with rust—should the ferrets escape there is no telling what may happen. And guns are never the worse for an extra special examination, and a thorough cleaning and oiling. An all-round tidying-up of his varied assortment of tackle certainly makes for a temporary improvement in the look of his work-places—but, as it has been with every clearance, the same old lumber is once more reprieved. "You see," says the keeper, "it might come in useful some time."
