Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/139

 “Thank heaven it is!” fervently responded the gentleman, turning down the hem of his overalls as a slight concession to the usages of polite society. The housekeeper, noting the half-pint of oats which rolled out on the floor, was calmly ignored, as in his best circus tones he announced himself ready “for the great, free, moral, and spectacular exhibition of the recently incubated.” A half-hour later, in comfortable negligée, we were seated at the social board of our successful competitors in the poultry art.

What topics, think you, are discussed “over the teacups” in the hills? Dinner-parties, luncheons, receptions, last night’s drama? Not at all; nothing so giddy as that. Nor do we discourse of art, music, literature, and such hackneyed themes. No; the agricultural mind soars not so far above the soil. The flow of soul usually begins with chickens and eggs; the subject of butter is then tactfully brought forward, which naturally suggests cows; cows suggesting pasture, it is then but a step to crops in general and “vetch” in particular. Lives there a man with soul so dead that he does not expatiate upon the wonderful properties of “vetch?” If such there be, he is not a resident of the hill-country. Until we came here, I had never heard the word spoken; and now these new landed proprietors talk of it from the rising to the setting of the sun.

On the evening of which I write, the talk began, as usual, with fowls, dwelling chiefly upon the idiosyncrasies