Page:Letters from an Oregon Ranch.djvu/174

 chickens (I knew it long ago—read it in a book—but kept still about it), and I have now to bake about a yard of it daily. As Mrs. Todgers, of boarding-house fame, said of the making of gravy for single gentlemen, “That one item has aged me ten years.”

This tale of woe might be continued indefinitely, but enough has been said to show that our “leisure” is not really burdensome; that we are not quite all the time sitting with folded hands, “rapt in nameless reverie.” And yet, in spite of the toil, the hardships, and the privations of this life, these Oregon scenes are so dear to me that I would not exchange this woodsy old ranch for the finest of city homes, with a retinue of servants and ten thousand a year thrown in. I am far happier here under these dark firs, with the wood pigeons and the owls, the fresh air, and the glorious freedom of the hills.