By this simple process of construction he formed a separate chamber for each bird, with a yard in front six feet broad and ten long, and with an opening through the paling at the road side, by which the inmates could go in and out at their pleasure. His rye assisted in feeding them, and he also cultivated grey peas for them, which are excellent for fattening; and with cabbage and lettuce leaves, the pods of beans, and other green food, he afterwards kept them in high condition; and in the succeeding year, when other young geese were dying of disease, occasioned by want of shelter, and from _starvation_, his were thriving. And to the credit of this worthy man and his wife I must mention, that the feather-plucker was indignantly sent away from his door whenever he came round for the execrable purpose of plucking the geese alive. Johnny’s wife would as soon have let him pull out the hairs of her own head, as give up one of her birds to his barbarous hands; and the consequence was, that while their neighbours’ geese were miserably crawling about, with draggling and mutilated wings and smarting bodies, until many of them died, in their miseries invoking as it were in their dying screams shame and curses on their unfeeling owners, Johnny Halfacre’s geese strutted about on the common, with an independent and unconstrained step, as if conscious of their security from the tortures to which their fellows had been doomed. HOW JOHNNY HALFACRE BECAME A LITTLE FARMER. If it be true, and it unquestionably is, that “he who despiseth small things, shall fall by little and little,” the converse is, I think, no less so--that he who pays attention to little matters will rise by degrees. Mr B. having narrowly observed Johnny’s general good conduct and extreme industry as a common labourer, put him in possession, two years ago, of a field adjoining his cottage and garden, which contains about six statute acres, and which fortunately was in good condition. Johnny at first was afraid to accept the tempting offer, at which any other labourer would have jumped, on the sincere and modest plea that he had no capital for such a weighty speculation. He did not wish to grasp at more than he could properly manage; but Mr B. set him at ease, by telling him that he considered health, industry, and skill, sufficient capital for Johnny to possess, as he himself would not only build a barn, cow-shed, ass-house, and pig-styes, but put the boundary fence into perfect order (according to the frequent practice of _British_ landlords), and lend Johnny a sum sufficient for the purchase of every thing necessary to give him a good start, charging him only five per cent on the advances. Mr B., who in riding over his property often “went by the field of the slothful,” which “was all grown over with thorns and nettles that covered the face of it, and the stone wall whereof was broken down,” wished to render Johnny an exemplar of superior management to other tenants.