"We did. Ah! this country air has already refreshed me."
"Has, eh? Well, there's heaps of it, and I'm thinking you'll get all you want in about a week. I think a city chap is a blamed fool to come out here."
"Do you? Why, the doctors recommended it. That boy ought to gain a pound a day, and I am sure my wife will brace right up with these pastoral scenes before her eyes."
"The doctors and pastoral scenes be darned!" growled the farmer, as he turned to his horses, and those were the last words he uttered until he landed us at the gate.
It was a comfortable frame house, and I did not observe the surroundings until after dinner. The barn had partly fallen in, giving it a weird and lonely look; most of the fencing was down, a gust of wind had laid the smoke-house on its back, and nearly every tree and bush about the house was dead or dying.
"Is this one of the pastoral scenes you referred to?" I asked Mr. Bowser.
"There you go!" he snapped. "You can't expect things to look as nice out here as in Central Park. We come for the balmy breezes and the rest."
"You spoke of hunting hens' eggs in the meadow grass."
"So we will—come on."
He made a dash for a big patch of burdocks near the back door, got tangled up in the ruins of a barrel, and when he got up he had a cut on his chin and his nose was bleeding. He tried to make light of the affair, but it was hard work.