William John Hopkins

“ Captain Solomon had sailed on the great ocean a great many years, and he was tired of being a sailor, and thought he would like to have a farm; and besides, he was afraid that if he kept on being a sailor, his little boys would want to be sailors, too, and he didn't want them to be. There were three boys, Uncle John and his two brothers; and when they got big enough, Uncle John's brothers ran away and were sailors. ”

“ Every time Uncle John had finished milking the cows, he took the milk to the spring-house and put it in flat pans and left the pans in the cool water. And when the milk had stood so for as long as all day or all night, Aunt Deborah went out to the spring-house and took a kind of big spoon and skimmed the cream off the top of the milk, and put the cream into a stone jar. ”

“ By the time the cows had eaten all the grass they wanted, it was hot out in the sun, and they all walked over to the big tree and got in the cool shade.
Some of them lay down and some of them stood still, and they switched their tails about to keep the flies off, and they chewed their cuds. For a cow has two kinds of stomach. When she bites off the grass, she swallows it down quickly, and it goes into the first stomach ”

“ In this fence was a door that was kept shut in winter, but was open in summer so that the hens and chickens could go out and eat the bugs and worms. Bugs and worms sometimes eat the growing things that the farmers have planted, so the farmers like to have the chickens eat the bugs and worms. ”