IN THE COUNTRY

Good Seaside Friends
So many interesting things are to be seen at the seaside that there is no need to be always at play. Fishermen will come in with their boats, which need pulling up; or a net that has been dropped near the shore wil...

Making Friends
The most important thing to do when staying at a farmhouse is to make friends with the principal people. The principal people are those in charge of the chickens and ducks, the cows and the horses. The way to make ...

Exploration
On reaching the farm, it is well to make a journey of discovery, in order to learn where everything is. The more one knows about the things in store--the size of the barn, the height of the haystacks, the number of...

Finding Hens' Eggs
The farmer's wife usually has charge of the chickens and ducks, but very often it is her daughter or a servant. No matter who it is, as soon as she is convinced that you will be careful and thorough she will let yo...

Ducks' Eggs
Ducks' eggs, which are rather larger than hens' eggs, and pale green in color, are often more difficult to find. They have to be hunted for in the grass by the pond. ...

Feeding The Chickens
The farmer's wife also lets her visitors feed the chickens if they are gentle with them and thoughtful. It needs quite a little thought, because if you throw down the grain without thinking, many of the weaker and ...

The Dairy
If the farmer's wife makes her own butter there will be an opportunity to help her. Perhaps she will let you use the skimmer. Turning the churn is not much fun except just when the butter forms. ...

Bee-swarming
Bees swarm on hot days in the early summer, usually in a tree, but sometimes in a room, if the window is open, and often in a bush, quite close to the ground. When they swarm in a tree you would think a black snow-...

The Cows
The man who looks after the cows is a very valuable friend. He may even let you try to milk, which only specially gifted children ever succeed in doing at all well; and he will teach you the cows' names (in some fa...

Sheep
In a general way sheep are not very interesting, especially in low-lying farms. But though sheep, as a rule, are dull, there are two occasions when they are not--at sheep-washing and sheep-shearing. The washers sta...

The Blacksmith
It may be that while you are at the farm the day will come for having the horses shod, and you may go with them to the blacksmith. The blacksmith is of course a very important person to be friends with; and people ...

Birds'-nesting
One of the advantages of being in the country in spring is that that is the time when birds build. In May the weather is not yet sufficiently warm to make sitting about out-of-doors very comfortable, but birds'-nes...

Blowing Eggs
For blowing eggs a brass or glass blow-pipe is the proper thing, using only one hole, which is made at the side with a little drill. But for your purpose a hole at each end made with a pin is simpler and equally go...

Butterflies
Butterfly-hunting begins when birds'-nesting is done and the weather is hot. Here again it is not the purpose of this book to go into particulars: the subject is too large. It is enough to say that the needful thin...

Collecting Flowers
A quieter pastime, but a very interesting one, and also one that, unlike egg-collecting and butterfly-collecting, goes on all the year round, is collecting flowers. For this purpose tin cases are made, with straps ...

Nuts And Blackberries
In nutting you want a hooked stick with which to pull down the branches. For blackberries a hooked stick is not so important, but it is well to have leather gloves. The blackberries ought to be dry when they are pi...

Ponds And Sailing Boats
Near the farm is certain to be either a pond or a stream. If it is a clean and high pond, not in a hollow surrounded by trees, it will be good to sail boats on. Sailing boats on inland water is much better than on ...

Little Boats On A Stream
Sailing boats in a stream is little good, because there is no steadiness of wind, but ordinary boats will float along in the current splendidly. It is interesting to launch one and follow its adventures from the ba...

A Stream's Fascination
But there is no absolute need for you to have boats in order to enjoy a stream. There are so many other things to do, not the least interesting being to make a dam and stop or divert the course of the water. And wh...

Solitary Watchfulness
Indeed, to keep absolutely quiet and watch things happening is for many people one of the most delightful occupations which the country holds. When there is no one else to play with it is as good a way of spending ...

Mice And Moles
In a wood or in any place where there are old leaves, as in a dry ditch, you will usually get through the ear the first tidings of any moving thing. For instance, you will hear a field-mouse rustling long before yo...

Snakes
Sometimes the rustling is a snake on his way to a sunny spot where he can bask and sleep. Very slender brown speckled snakes, or blind-worms, are quite harmless, and so are the large grass-snakes, which are somethi...

Ants
There is a book about bees. Hardly less wonderful are ants, concerning whom there is much curious information in the same work, the reading of which makes it ten times more interesting to watch an ant-hill than it ...

Swallows And Hawks
In the flight of birds there is nothing to compare for beauty and speed with the swift, or for power and cleverness with the hawk. On moist evenings, when the swifts fly low and level, backward and forward, with a ...

Squirrels
The time to see squirrels is September and October, when the beech nuts and hazel nuts are ripe. In the pictures he sits up, with his tail resting on his back, holding nuts in his little forepaws; but one does not ...

A Country Diary
If you are fond of writing you might find a good deal of interest in keeping a country diary: that is to say, a small note-book in which you set down evening by evening all things seen during the day that seemed to...

A Camera In The Country
Nothing is said in this book about amateur photography, because to own a camera is still the exception rather than the rule, and if once we began to say anything practical about photography we should have to say ve...