THE PADDOCK
There we were at last,—at home,
Hand-in-hand, and heart-to-heart,
Sharing, caring, two together—
Nothing that we couldn’t weather!
So, we went to work, we two.
Built and blasted, stump’d and sow’d,
Logg’d-up, dug, and drain’d and hoed,
Milk’d, of course, and made the cheese,
Fenced the paddocks, and the road,
Plough’d a bit, and planted trees,
Rear’d the poultry, started bees.
Up at earliest blink of light,
Often with the stars still bright,
He’d be off, to sledge-in wood;
Mostly I’d to bake at night;
And we’d many pricks and pinches—
Progress only came by inches;
But, it came! We said it should!
Yes, we got on, bit by bit,
Fighting every inch of it;
Day by day, and year by year
Saw some blemish disappear,
Something else come clean and clear;
And the kindly creatures kept
At their growing while we slept.
Ay, we’d only fix’d the yards,
Just the week the boy was born
(I remember, as I lay,
Picturing how he’d help, some day!);
Two years back, when Jeanie came,
Why, we’d near five hundred shorn!
....That first season, when we found
Things were really coming round—
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