style="font-size:15px;"> “We always take an axe,” said Beechnut, “when we go away to work. We are pretty sure to want it for something or other.”
Beechnut then gave Stuyvesant a goad stick, and told him that he might drive. Stuyvesant had observed very attentively what Beechnut had done in driving, and the gestures which he had made, and the calls which he had used, in speaking to the oxen, and though he had never attempted to drive such a team before, he succeeded quite well. His success, however, was partly owing to the sagacity of the oxen, who knew very well where they were to go and what they were to do.
At length, after passing through one or two pairs of bars, they came to the field.
“Which is the easiest,” said Stuyvesant, “to drive the team or hold the plow?”
“That depends,” said Beechnut, “upon whether your capacity consists most in your strength or your skill.”
“Why so?” asked Stuyvesant.
“Because,” said Beechnut, “it requires more skill to drive, than to hold the plow, and more strength to hold the plow, than to drive. I think, therefore, that you had better drive, for as between you and I, it is I that have the most strength, and you that have the most skill.”
Stuyvesant laughed.
“Why you ought to have the most skill,” said Beechnut – “coming from such a great city.”
Beechnut took the plow off from the drag, and laid the drag on one side. He then attached the cattle to the plow. They were standing, when they did this, in the middle of one side of the field.
“Now,” said Beechnut, “we are going first straight through the middle of the field. Do you see that elm-tree, the other side of the fence?”
“I see a large tree,” said Stuyvesant.
“It is an elm,” said Beechnut.
“There is a great bird upon the top of it,” said Stuyvesant.
“Yes,” said Beechnut, “it is a crow. Now you must keep the oxen headed directly for that tree. Go as straight as you can, and I shall try to keep the plow straight behind you. The thing is to make a straight furrow.”
When all was ready, Stuyvesant gave the word to his oxen to move on, and they began to draw. Stuyvesant went on, keeping his eye alternately upon the oxen and upon the tree. He had some curiosity to look round and see how Beechnut was getting along with the furrow, but he recollected that his business was to drive, and so he gave his whole attention to his driving, in order that he might go as straight as possible across the field.
The crow flew away when he had got half across the field. He had a strong desire to know where she was going to fly to, but he did not look round to follow her in her flight. He went steadily on attending to his driving.
When he was about two thirds across the field, he saw a stump at a short distance before him, with a small hornet’s nest upon one side of it. His course would lead him, he saw, very near this nest. His first impulse was to stop the oxen and tell Beechnut about the hornet’s nest. He did in fact hesitate a moment, but he was instantly reassured by hearing Beechnut call out to him from behind, saying,
“Never mind the hornet’s nest, Stuyvesant. Drive the oxen right on. I don’t think the hornets will sting them.”
Stuyvesant perceived by this, that Beechnut thought only of the oxen, when he saw a hornet’s nest, and he concluded to follow his example in this respect. So he drove steadily on.
When they got to the end of the field the oxen stopped. Beechnut and Stuyvesant then looked round to see the furrow. It was very respectably straight.
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