Weaning

“ At whatever time weaning may be determined on, the transition from one food to another so exceedingly opposite, should not be too suddenly made; the salutary interposition of mashes, made from ground malt and bran, equal parts, and thin in consistence, from which the fluid may be sucked, will prove a pleasing and consolatory assistance for the loss the foal has sustained.
WEASEL
.—The weasel, though little seen in the environs of towns, is an animal very well known in most parts of the country: it varies in no great degree from the stoat, either in shape, make, or propensity. ”

“ After 5 or 6 litters, the female’s best production is over and another younger female replaces her to continue that pen’s production, which in a year of continuous production may run from 40 to 70 or more weaned young of standard weight, depending upon quality of breeding stock, care, and purpose for which young are raised. Replacement females should be saved from the production of mothers who give birth to greatest numbers and also best nurse culled litters to weaning. ”

“ I awakened Weena, and we went down into the wood, now green and pleasant instead of black and forbidding. We found some fruit wherewith to break our fast. We soon met others of the dainty ones, laughing and dancing in the sunlight as though there was no such thing in nature as the night. And then I thought once more of the meat that I had seen. ”

“ It is, like the poor, always with us. But the very weeds we have been so persistently abusing may be brought into our service to overcome it. Watch a mass of floating weed that is about to be carried over the position [42] of your fish, throw your fly so that the gut lies on the advancing weed; the fly, with some inches of free gut, should rest upon the water in front of the weed; the rest of your cast, being supported by the weed, will be freed from the drag of the stream, and the fly will float proudly over the fish. ”

“ Weeng is not only the dispenser of sleep, but, it seems, he is also the author of dulness, which renders the word susceptible of an ironical use. If an orator fails, he is said to be struck by Weeng. If a warrior lingers, he has ventured too near the sleepy god. If children begin to nod or yawn, the Indian mother looks up smilingly, and says, "They have been struck by Weeng," and puts them to bed.
ADDIK KUM MAIG, [89]
OR
THE ORIGIN OF THE WHITE FISH.
A long time ago, there lived a famous hunter in a remote part of the north. ”

“ Ah! did anybody ever try to clean a neglected carrot or beet bed, or bend his back in a hot sun over rows of weedy onions! He is the man to feel for my despair! How I weeded, and sweat, and sighed! till, when high noon came on, as the result of all my toils, only three beds were cleaned! And how disconsolate looked the good seed, thus unexpectedly delivered from its sheltering tares, and laid open to a broiling July sun! Every juvenile beet and carrot lay flat down wilted, and drooping, as if, like me, they had been weeding, instead of being weeded. ”

“ As I understand it, weeding consists of chopping the soil up with a hoe. I'm sure I could do that as well as a younger—boy.”
“The sort of weeding I want performed is done with the hands and not with the hoe. Have you ever worked in a garden?” ”

“ I scarcely dare trust myself to speak of the weeds. They grow as if the devil was in them. I know a lady, a member of the church, and a very good sort of woman, considering the subject condition of that class, who says that the weeds work on her to that extent, that, in going through her garden, she has the greatest difficulty in keeping the ten commandments in anything like an unfractured condition. ”

“ Some people advise hacking up your walks from time to time, and other people advise you not. Some people say there is nothing like salt to destroy walk weeds and moss, and brighten the gravel, and some people say that salt in the long run feeds the ground and the weeds. I am disposed to think that, in a Little Garden, there is nothing like a weeding woman [136] with an old knife and a little salt afterwards. It is also advisable to be your own weeding woman, that you may be sure that the weeds come up by the roots! ”

“ Their sleeping dens are arranged so as to be easily and silently opened. Several times I have lifted the lid to find the weasel in a deep sleep—a sleep so profound that I had to poke him vigorously with a stick before he awoke, looked up, and rushed forth with a little puff of wrath, and a little puff of smell. ”

“ But he has one undeniable wren-like trait, that of twitching, wagging, and thrashing his long tail about to help express his emotions. It swings like a pendulum as he rests on a branch, and thrashes about in a most ludicrous way as he is feeding on the ground upon the worms, insects, and fruit that constitute his diet. ”

“ He shortly again takes the water, brings one more weed-load, and then swims away, joining, after a time, the female, who has by this time also desisted, and both birds now float idly on the water. I now walk along the bank to the nest, which I find to be twenty-three paces beyond the old one, and at another twenty-three paces beyond the new nest I find the little platform or foothold of weeds which the male bird has made. ”

“ At this point in the pleasing prospect Weenie used to cry dismally, and their own eyes would fill with tears of self-pity.
They would pursue it a little further, however; their clothes would grow more and more ragged, and the wind would whistle through them, and chill them to the bone; they would all be barefoot, their boots having worn out and their stockings gone long since; and they would all have such hacking coughs that the passers-by, hurrying away to their rich, luxurious homes, would occasionally fling them a glance of pity. ”

“ CHAPTER III. IN WHICH I CHASE DEER AND SEE STRANGE HORSEMEN ON THE HILL, AND A LIGHT FLASHING ON THE SEA. The corn was in the stackyard and the stacks thatched, and all that summer Belle and her wean stayed with us, the lass working at the weeding and the harvesting, and the wean well cared for, for the mistress remained not long abed after the spaewife's coming. Belle's wean might be "a tinker's brat" in whispered corners in byres and hay-sheds, where the wenches could claver out of hearing, but the Laird's son got no better attention than the tinker's brat when the mistress was near. ”

“ And the great task, to try, then know, the good.
To discern weeds, and judge of wholesome food,
[246] Is a rare, scant performance: for man dies
Oft ere 'tis done, while the bee feeds and flies.
But you were all choice flow'rs, all set and drest
By old sage florists, who well knew the best:
And I amidst you all am turned a weed! ”

“ We must greedily devour lean venison, and that commonly roasted to a stick.—Have I a moment's repose at night?—My slumber is disturbed by the din of horses and elephants, or by the sons of slave-girls hollooing out, "More venison, more venison!"—Then comes a cry that pierces my ear, "Away to the forest, away!" ”

“ The night was so dark that he lost his way, and did not succeed in getting out of the wood again till daybreak. When he gained the open, he rested a short time to let his horse graze in the meadow, and to eat his own breakfast. After that he set out again for the mountains, and at length reached the wall of rock his mother had mentioned. He rode along the foot of it, as she had told him, till he heard the gurgling of the spring, and, on turning a corner, saw the lime before him. ”

“ In the morning, when he rises, he finds water and fine linen, and when he has washed, she prepares a needle for him with a silk thread, and he must pass the thread through the eye of the needle, and if at the third trial he finds he cannot succeed, then the women deprive him of all his chattels, and give him nothing back. ”

“ May 3rd.—This morning one of the birds is sitting upon a large structure of weeds which I imagine to be the finished nest. It would seem, however, that some touches are added even after incubation—or, at least, the laying of the eggs—has commenced, for now the other bird is swimming to the nest, and, when within a little distance of it, dives, and, coming up with some weeds in its bill, lays them at the edge of it. ”

“ For the Wenuses were gorgeous: that is the sum of the matter.
Those who have never seen a living Wenus (there is a specimen in fairly good spirits in the Natural History Museum) can scarcely imagine the strange beauty of their appearance. ”

“ They all live on venison, and are further supported on a great abundance of milk, and on many kinds of herbs, and on whatever birds they can catch by fowling. And we have seen a great many of them wholly ignorant of the use of either corn or wine. ”

“ The wild-eyed young wench, with her dishevelled hair, ferocious bangle-ornaments, tattooings, and nondescript blue rags open at the side and revealing charms well fitted to disquiet some robust savage—what has such a creature in common with the rest of us? Not even certain raptures, misdeemed primeval; hardly more than what falls to man and beast alike. ”

“ Yeaning.—In March the yeaning season sets in; and as this time approaches, the food of the animals should be improved, and the greatest care must be taken of them. The shepherd should be unceasing in his watchfulness, frequently examining every individual animal. ”

“ In one locality, on our journey, we saw some horses that had been born and reared on top of the mountains, above the range of running water, and consequently they had never drank that fluid in their lives, but had been always accustomed to quenching their thirst by eating dew-laden or shower-wetted leaves. ”

“ Why, even some of the birds do a kind of weaving in their pretty, irregular fashion, and it was probably from the birds and other small, wild creatures that the earliest human mothers took their lessons in weaving, and learned to make the mats for their babies to sleep on and baskets for carrying their food. ”

“ They believe that nature is possest of such a property, as to transfuse into men and animals the qualities, either of the food they use, or of those objects that are presented to their senses; [50] he who feeds on venison, is according to their physical system, swifter and more sagacious than the man who lives on the flesh of the clumsy bear, or helpless dunghill fowls, the slow-footed tame cattle, or the heavy wallowing swine. ”

“ The farmer who has the notion that his child can wait, does not dare to let his corn and cotton wait. He has observed that there are noxious weeds which spring up side by side with the seed he has planted, and, marvelous to say, the weeds outgrow the plants. ”

“ Among the people of the frontier it was customary, when fortune was kind, so that they happened to possess an overabundance of fresh venison, to dry a stock of this meat for the lean time when food would be scarce. ”

“ When they find an inch of mud in the bottom of a glass, they stir it up, and then take the draught as they would gruel. It is difficult for a stranger to get used to this batter, but once used to it he will prefer it to water. ”

“ A little while afterwards the birds again approach the weeds, and again the male (quite certainly) leaps up and lies along them. He evidently waits for the other—the female—but she this time does not comply. He comes down, follows her a little, they turn, he again leaps up, waits, looks round and waits, but to no purpose. Coming off again, he now (for the first time that I have yet seen) lays some weeds on the place—whether nest or otherwise—and the female then dives and lays a piece too. ”

“ I will talk about the weavers this morning. And the first thing I have to say is that this is no uncommon trade among birds. Take the nest of any of the common small birds that use hair for a lining, and you will be apt to find some part of it woven."
"But, Uncle Philip, you do not mean that [Pg 203] birds weave as smoothly and regularly as people do!"
"Not quite, boys; but still it is very fair weaving, and done as our weaving is, by working a hair or thread in and out between other hairs and threads, or roots, or bits of stick and grass. ”

“ On any alarm it is stretched a little forward, or raised straight up. When the female has sat like this for about an hour, the male again swims up, and, diving, brings some more weeds to the nest. He does this two or three times, bringing once a large green stalk of some plant or lily, and again quite a mass of weeds. The birds then, I think, arrange this a little together, but not much in this way appears to be done, and what is, principally by the male. ”

“ It springs up fresh and clean from the earth itself, and spreads its clinging viny stems over the hospitable wild balsam and golden rod. In a week's time, having reached the warm sunshine of the upper air, it forgets its humble beginnings. ”

“ With all his pleasant cooings in the wood, therefore, and all his complacent strutting about with elevated head and protruded breast—with all his gambols and graces, his striking the points of his wings together as he rises into the air, to express a pleasure to his mate beyond his cooing, he has not such a care free life of it. ”

“ Two possible interpretations are (1) become weeded out, i.e. the springing seed soon gives rise to a plant which dies and is therefore thinned out; (2) germinate, spring out as a weed, with implication of subsequent death and decay. In either event one is in little doubt about the intention)
8 The drops dry up, and filth wipe clean away: 9 So shall wrath, jealousy, grief, love, die and decay. ”

“ Whatever may be the relation of the two factors in the domestication of cattle, whether the taming of the ox preceded the raising of cows or vice versa, the production of milk, at any rate, represents the more difficult and slower task. The taming of the ox is essentially an act that affects only the particular animal in question ”