"
Farmer Ford soon cleared the place of potatoes, sacks, and tools. Then,
taking his broom, he made a clean sweep of dust and dirt.
"Theer's a many more rats here than I knawed seemin'ly," he said, as he
examined a sink in the stones of the floor, used for draining the stalls;
"they come up here for sartain, an' runs out 'long the heydge to the
mangel-wurzel mound, I lay."
Without, evidences of the vermin were clear enough. Long hardened tracks,
patted down by many paws, ran this way and that; and the main rat
thoroughfare extended, as the farmer foretold, to a great mound where,
stowed snugly in straw under earth, lay packed the remains of a
mangel-wurzel crop. At one end the store had been opened and drawn upon for
winter use; but a goodly pile of the great tawny globes still remained,
small lemon-colored leaves sprouting from them. Farmer Ford, however,
viewed the treasure without satisfaction.
"Us killed a power o' sheep wi' they blarsted roots last winter," he said.
"You'd never think now as the frost could touch 'em, but it did though,
awin' to the wicked long winter. It got to 'em, sure 'nough, an' theer was
frost in 'em when us gived 'em to the sheep, an' it rotted theer innards,
poor twoads, an' they died, more'n a score."
Barron listened thoughtfully to these details, then pointed to an ugly
sight beyond the wurzel mound.
"I should like that removed," he said.
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