But of all things which the farmer's boy is wanted to do, and wants to do, there is nothing such clear fun as the breaking of a yoke of calves. First, the little yoke is to be got on to the pair somehow and a rope made fast to the "nigh" one's head, that is, the calf on the left side, where the driver goes. Then comes bawling and hauling and pushing, and often too much beating, until the little cattle are made to understand that "Gee" means turn to the right, and "Haw" means turn to the left, and that "Whoa" means stop, and "Back" means, of them all, just what is said.
Every command is roared and shouted; for an idea seems to prevail that oxen, big and little, are deaf as adders, and can never be made to hear except at the top of the voice. In a still, winter day, you may hear a grown-up ox-teamster roaring at his patient beasts two miles away; and a calf-breaker not half his size may be heard more than half as far. Then, on some frosty Saturday, when the little nubby-horned fellows have learned their lessons, they are hitched to a sled, and made to haul light loads, a little wood, or some of the boys,—the driver still holding to the rope, and flourishing his whip as grand as a drum-major.
Once in a while the little oxen of the future take matters into their own hoofs and make a strike for freedom, upsetting the sled and scattering its load, and dragging their driver headlong through the snow.
But they have to submit at last; and three or four years hence, you would never think from their solemn looks and sober pace that they ever had thought of such rebellious freaks. They were the boy's calves, but father's oxen.
Halter-breaking a colt is almost as good as breaking steers, only there is no sled-riding to be had in this.
UPON THE HAY-MOW.
Till lately, the young fellow has had the freedom of the fields, digging in the first snows for a part of his living, and with his rough life has grown as shaggy-coated as a Shetland pony, with as many burrs stuck in his short foretop as it will hold; for if there is an overlooked burdock on all the farm, every one of the horse kind running at large will find it, and each get more than his share of burrs matted and twisted into his foretop and mane.