It was this complete freedom that made the Manor Farm so delightful to Dennis and Maisie, who ran in and out very much as the cats and dogs did, and always found something to interest and amuse them. If Mrs Solace were too much occupied in dairy, laundry, or store-room to give them her attention, they had only to go into the farm-yard to be surrounded by friends and acquaintances. Some of these, it is true, disappeared from time to time, but you had hardly missed them before there was something new to take their place. The great brown cart-horses, at any rate, were always to be found after their work, and always ready to bow their huge heads and take apples or sugar gently with their soft lips. And in summer it was pleasant to be there just at milking time, and watch the cows saunter slowly home across the fields, to stand in a long patient row in the shed, to be milked. Indeed it would be hard to say what time was not pleasant at the farm, for in such a large family of creatures there was always something happening of the very deepest interest to the children. In the spring they were quite as anxious and eager about successful broods of early ducklings, or the rearing of the turkeys as Mrs Solace was herself, and she was secure of their heartfelt sympathy when the fox made away with her poultry. For unlike Mrs Broadbent, Mrs Solace not only knew all about such matters, but liked nothing so well as to talk of them. "When I'm a man," Dennis would say, "I mean to be a farmer." "So do I," Maisie would answer. "You couldn't be," Dennis would argue. "How could you go rook-shooting? You know you scream when a gun goes off; and besides, you're afraid of the turkey-cock." "Well, then," Maisie would conclude, deeply conscious that both these facts were true, "I'll be a farmer's wife, and rear turkeys; that's quite as hard as shooting rooks, and much usefuller." "That it is, dearie," Mrs Solace would agree, with her comfortable laugh. "Puley pingling things they are, and want as much care as children." But apart from the animals, there was to Dennis one corner at the Manor Farm which had special attractions, and that was where the wheelwright worked. It was a long narrow barn fitted up as a carpenter's shop, with a bench and a lathe and all manner of tools: full of shavings and sawdust, planks of wood and half-finished farm implements. Here the wheelwright stood and worked all day. He made and mended carts, wheelbarrows, ladders, hay-rakes, and all sorts of things used in the farm, and had always as much as he could do. Dennis liked nothing better than a little quiet time with Tuvvy, as he was called, and though he did not talk much, he eyed all his movements with such earnest attention that it may be supposed he learned something of carpentering.