Very likely they did hear cries--the cries of wild
animals; that old clearing in the woods was a great place for bears,
foxes, raccoons and "lucivees."
A year or two before we young folks went home to live on the old farm
the town sold this deserted lot at auction for unpaid taxes. Some years
before, vagrant woodsmen had accidentally burned the old house; but the
barn, a weathered, gray structure, was still intact. Since the land
adjoined other timber lots that the old Squire owned, he bid it off and
let it lie unoccupied except as a pasture where sheep, or young stock
that needed little care, could be put away for the summer. The soil was
good, and the grass was excellent in quality.
One year, in May, after we had repaired the brush fence, we turned into
it our three Morgan colts along with two Percherons from a stock farm
near the village, a Morgan three-year-old belonging to our neighbors,
the Edwardses, three colts owned by other neighbors, and a beautiful
sorrel three-year-old mare, the pet of young Mrs. Kennard, wife of the
principal at the village academy. Her father, who had recently died, had
given her the colt.
All four Morgans were dark-chestnut colts, lithe but strong and
clear-eyed.
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