Mary Thacher Higginson, Thomas Wentworth Higginson: the story of his life

‘ [306] calf, dog, two white fantail pigeons, two kittens and expect a lamb to-morrow to complete the menagerie.’ Both father and child entered into the farm labors, tossing pumpkins into the barn and feeding the animals.

This has been the after breakfast programme. She and I go out of the back door taking with us stale bread for the hens, soft bread for the doves; then in the barn we get ears of corn for the rabbits and a pan of ‘shorts’ for the calf and lamb. Then we open the high gate of the great pleasant poultry yard, sloping down the hill and crossed by rows of raspberries and roses and sunflowers and apple trees. The creatures all come to us except the rabbits which are in their own enclosure within. The hens and ducks scramble and flutter; and I always wish I could make a sketch in oils of Margaret as she stands rosy and sunburnt holding the pan of grain as best she can against the vehement appetites of calf and lamb growing daily stronger and larger, nudging each other away and stretching over or under each other's heads till the pan is empty. Then they trot along by us in hope of more, the hens and ducks also following till we go inside the rabbit hutch and tempt the timid things with clover and green corn. Then Margaret looks for eggs in the various boxes and we climb on the haymow to see if the doves are laying . . . . Our two white fantails are the most devoted little creatures and seem like two immaculate ladies, always keeping the rooms in order. Yesterday we found some