She stopped at nothing; even Nature herself she had a try at, like some mettlesome horse which does not like to be balked by anything in the shape of a wall.

Old Jonas Martin was a talker, and he talked freely about the people for whom he worked.  “Old Deacon Sears had a cow once that would jump everything.  Wa’n’t a wall could be built that was high enough to stop her,” he would say. “’Tain’t no ways clear to my mind that she ain’t the identical critter that jumped the moon;—­and I swan if Mis’ Jameson ain’t like her.  There ain’t nothin’ that’s goin’ to stop her; she ain’t goin’ to be hendered by any sech little things as times an’ seasons an’ frost from raisin’ corn an’ green peas an’ flowers in her garden.  ‘The frost’ll be a-nippin’ of ’em, marm,’ says I, ’as soon as they come up, marm.’  ‘I wish you to leave that to me, my good man,’ says she.  Law, she ain’t a-goin’ to hev any frost a-nippin’ her garden unless she’s ready for it.  And as for the chickens, I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes unless they hatch when Mis’ Jameson she wants ’em to.  They have to do everything else she wants ’em to, and I dunno but they’ll come to time on that.  They’re the fust fowls I ever see that a woman could stop scratchin’.”

With that, old Jonas Martin would pause for a long cackle of mirth, and his auditor would usually join him, for Mrs. Jameson’s hens were enough to awaken merriment, and no mistake.  Louisa and I could never see them without laughing enough to cry; and as for little Alice, who, like most gentle, delicate children, was not often provoked to immoderate laughter, she almost went into hysterics.  We rather dreaded to have her catch sight of the Jameson hens.  There were twenty of them, great, fat Plymouth Rocks, and every one of them in shoes, which were made of pieces of thick cloth sewed into little bags and tied firmly around the legs of the fowls, and they were effectually prevented thereby from scratching up the garden seeds.  The gingerly and hesitating way in which these hens stepped around the Jameson premises was very funny.  It was quite a task for old Jonas Martin to keep the hens properly shod, for the cloth buskins had to be often renewed; and distressed squawkings amid loud volleys of aged laughter indicated to us every day what was going on.

The Jamesons kept two Jersey cows, and Mrs. Jameson caused their horns to be wound with strips of cloth terminating in large, soft balls of the same, to prevent their hooking.  When the Jamesons first began farming, their difficulty in suiting themselves with cows occasioned much surprise.  They had their pick of a number of fine ones, but invariably took them on trial, and promptly returned them with the message that they were not satisfactory.  Old Jonas always took back the cows, and it is a question whether or not he knew what the trouble was, and was prolonging the situation for his own enjoyment.

At last it came out.  Old Jonas came leading back two fine Jerseys to Sim White’s, and he said, with a great chuckle:  “Want to know what ails these ere critters, Sim?  Well, I’ll tell ye:  they ain’t got no upper teeth.  The Jamesons ain’t goin’ to git took in with no cows without no teeth in their upper jaws, you bet.”