Look at them are great dykes; well, they all go to feed horses; and look at their grain fields on the upland; well, they are all sowed with oats to feed horses, and they buy their bread from us:  so we feed the asses, and they feed the horses.  If I had them critters on that are marsh, on a location of mine, I’d jist take my rifle and shoot every one on them; the nasty yo necked, cat hammed, heavy headed, flat eared, crooked shanked, long legged, narrow chested, good for nothin brutes; they aint worth their keep one winter.  I vow, I wish one of these Blue Noses, with his go-to-meetin clothes on, coat tails pinned up behind like a leather blind of a Shay, an old spur on one heel, and a pipe stuck through his hat band, mounted on one of these limber timbered critters, that moves its hind legs like a hen scratchin gravel, was sot down in Broadway, in New York, for a sight.  Lord!  I think I hear the West Point cadets a larfin at him.  Who brought that are scare-crow out of standin corn and stuck him here?  I guess that are citizen came from away down east out of the Notch of the White Mountains.  Here comes the Cholera doctor, from Canada—­not from Canada, I guess, neither, for he don’t look as if he had ever been among the Rapids.  If they would’nt poke fun at him its a pity.  If they’d keep less horses, and more sheep, they’d have food and clothing, too, instead of buying both.  I vow I’ve larfed afore now till I have fairly wet myself a cryin, to see one of these folks catch a horse:  may be he has to go two or three miles of an arrand.  Well, down he goes on the dyke with a bridle in one hand, and an old tin pan in another, full of oats, to catch his beast.  First he goes to one flock of horses, and then to another, to see if he can find his own critter.  At last he gets sight on him, and goes softly up to him, shakin of his oats, and a coaxin him, and jist as he goes to put his hand upon him, away he starts all head and tail, and the rest with him:  that starts another flock, and they set a third off, and at last every troop on ’em goes, as if Old Nick was arter them, till they amount to two or three hundred in a drove.  Well, he chases them clear across the Tantramer marsh, seven miles good, over ditches, creeks, mire holes, and flag ponds, and then they turn and take a fair chase for it back again seven miles more.  By this time, I presume, they are all pretty considerably well tired, and Blue Nose, he goes and gets up all the men folks in the neighborhood, and catches his beast, as they do a moose arter he is fairly run down; so he runs fourteen miles, to ride two, because he is in a tarnation hurry.  Its e’en a most equal to eatin soup with a fork, when you are short of time.  It puts me in mind of catching birds by sprinkling salt on their tails; its only one horse a man can ride out of half a dozen, arter all.  One has no shoes, tother has a colt, one arnt broke, another has a sore back, while a fifth is so etarnal cunnin, all Cumberland could’nt catch him, till winter drives him up to the barn for food.