After that it was possible,
and indeed probable, that they would endeavor to take vengeance for
their disastrous defeat; but that at present they would be too
crippled and disheartened to think of it.
The settlers were now, therefore, able to give their whole
attention to the farm. The first operation was the sheep-shearing.
Four men had been hired to do the shearing at Canterbury, and then
to come over to Mount Pleasant. Charley rode over to their
neighbors' with Mrs. Hardy and his sisters, Mr. Hardy and Hubert
remaining at home--the latter laid up with the wound in his leg.
It was an amusing sight to see three or four hundred sheep driven
into an enclosure, and then dragged out by the shearers. These men
were paid according to the number shorn, and were very expert, a
good hand getting through a hundred a day. They were rather rough,
though, in their work, and the girls soon went away from the
shearing-place with a feeling of pity and disgust, for the shearers
often cut the sheep badly. Each man had a pot of tar by his side,
with which he smeared over any wound. A certain sum was stopped
from their pay for each sheep upon which they made a cut of over a
certain length; but although this made them careful to a certain
extent, they still wounded a great many of the poor creatures.
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