The doctors bought a house in town, but the office was two blocks away. They also bought a farm a mile out, and put a man, named Stringer, on to farm it.
[CHAPTER VI.]
Before I had been in M—— long I was willing to admit that hitherto I had seen and heard little of the dark side of life for the dumb creation.
The doctors rented stalls for us in a big livery barn, usually trying to keep one or two of us at a time out at the farm on pasture.
At this latter place I learned considerable of the beauties(?) of country life from our standpoint.
The Stringers were average people, ambitious, but erring in judgment. They were thoughtless and ignorant, rather than cruel—intentionally cruel, I mean; but it does not alleviate in the least the pangs of thirst and hunger, the pain of extreme heat and cold, the tiresomeness of long continuance in an uncomfortable position, or the woes of a mother torn from her offspring, to know that carelessness is the cause of the trouble.
I tell you I used to pity even the chickens on that place, and, in conversation with other animals, there and elsewhere, I have found that the Stringers represent the majority of farmers. There are so many what they call "big things," to attend to, that there is no time for either attending to dumb creatures' comforts or stopping the small leaks in the grain sacks.
I am not surprised at all that so many farmers die poor, and so many go fretting through life declaring that farming don't pay. It will never pay the great "Stringer" majority.