It never troubled dear old Jem that there had not been a man of mark among all the men who had handed on our name from generation to generation.  He had no feverish ambitions, and as to books, I doubt if he ever opened a volume, if he could avoid it, after he wore out three horn-books and our mother’s patience in learning his letters—­not even the mottle-backed prayer-books which were handed round for family prayers, and out of which we said the psalms for the day, verse about with my father.  I generally found the place, and Jem put his arm over my shoulder and read with me.

He was a yeoman born.  I can just remember—­when I was not three years old and he was barely four—­the fright our mother got from his fearless familiarity with the beasts about the homestead.  He and I were playing on the grass-plat before the house when Dolly, an ill-tempered dun cow we knew well by sight and name, got into the garden and drew near us.  As I sat on the grass—­my head at no higher level than the buttercups in the field beyond—­Dolly loomed so large above me that I felt frightened and began to cry.  But Jem, only conscious that she had no business there, picked up a stick nearly as big as himself, and trotted indignantly to drive her out.  Our mother caught sight of him from an upper window, and knowing that the temper of the cow was not to be trusted, she called wildly to Jem, “Come in, dear, quick!  Come in!  Dolly’s loose!”

“I drive her out!” was Master Jem’s reply; and with his little straw hat well on the back of his head, he waddled bravely up to the cow, flourishing his stick.  The process interested me, and I dried my tears and encouraged my brother; but Dolly looked sourly at him, and began to lower her horns.

“Shoo! shoo!” shouted Jem, waving his arms in farming-man fashion, and belabouring Dolly’s neck with the stick.  “Shoo! shoo!”

Dolly planted her forefeet, and dipped her head for a push, but catching another small whack on her face, and more authoritative “Shoos!” she changed her mind, and swinging heavily round, trotted off towards the field, followed by Jem, waving, shouting, and victorious.  My mother got out in time to help him to fasten the gate, which he was much too small to do by himself, though, with true squirely instincts, he was trying to secure it.

But from our earliest days we both lived on intimate terms with all the live stock.  “Laddie,” an old black cart-horse, was one of our chief friends.  Jem and I used to sit, one behind the other, on his broad back, when our little legs could barely straddle across, and to “grip” with our knees in orthodox fashion was a matter of principle, but impossible in practice.  Laddie’s pace was always discreet, however, and I do not think we should have found a saddle any improvement, even as to safety, upon his warm, satin-smooth back.  We steered him more by shouts and smacks than by the one short end of a dirty rope which was our apology for reins; that is, if we had any hand in guiding his course.  I am now disposed to think that Laddie guided himself.