The farmers had formed a beef company, a group of six or eight men who killed a beef every ten days or two weeks and shared in the meat by a carefully drawn contract. Each man furnished a yearling steer in turn and each man was given a part in turn. One or two of the men sold their portions, peddling it from house to house in the hamlet, or others used all, having many at hand to feed. The slaughter-house was a dull shed at the back of a small enclosure near the beginning of the village, removed from the schoolhouse by the whole length of the village, but Theodosia saw it as she walked in the late afternoon, and on the killing days she saw the men gathered there. A constant stench floated out from the place, and toward the back of the shed were scattered quantities of bones, the heads and feet of cattle that had been gnawed by the dogs until they were clean, some of them weathered white by the rains. Often the dogs fought there all night, their yelpings heard through her sleep, and the day after the night of the snarling dogs there was fresh meat on every table up and down the lane and the road, and fresh meat to eat with the bread for the school lunches. It was sweet to taste, good to the mouth and satisfying to the want of the inner hunger. With the meat was buttered bread and apples from some cellar or apple house, or there was honey that had been saved from the past year’s garnering, or conserve. Sometimes a sheep was slaughtered on one of the farms, or if these animals were lacking there were fowls to be baked and served in their richly buttered sauces. At playtime the children played a game, singing, I went to the door and picked up a pin, And asked if Mistress Jones was in, She neither was in she neither was out, She’s up in the garret a-hoppen about.