Bean-planting was the business again after dinner, but dark clouds rose in the west, shortly before three o'clock, and soon the first thunder-shower of the season rose, rumbling upward over the White Mountains. We were compelled to run for the barn. Gramp improved the opportunity to sharpen the sheep-shears, and as soon as the shower abated, sent Halstead off to notify a man at the Corners, named Peter Glinds, a professional shearer, that his services would be required on the following day. "Old Peter," as he was called, had made shearing sheep his spring vocation for many years; he was a very tall, lean, yellow old man, who was reported to use a plug of tobacco a day, the year round. Addison set about preparing a half-hogshead tub to hold the poke decoction for immersing the lambs after the sheep were sheared. But singeing off caterpillars' nests in the orchard was my work for the remainder of that afternoon and the following forenoon. I went up to the west barn a number of times, however, to see Peter Glinds shear sheep, for I had a great curiosity concerning this piece of farm work. Addison and Halstead were assisting at the shearing, the latter catching and fetching the sheep, one by one, to the shearers, while the former was attending to the fleeces, binding up each one by itself in a compact bundle with stout twine. Instead of sitting at a bench, or standing at a table, the sheep-shearer worked on his knees, extending the sheep prone upon the barn floor. Old Peter could shear a sheep in ten minutes; Gramp was less speedy with the shears; he contrived to shear about as many as Peter, however, for, after every fourth sheep, the latter would have to stop to light his pipe and refresh himself. "A bad habit! A bad habit!" he would exclaim nearly every time he lighted up. "A bad habit! but I can't seem to get along 'thout it." He also "chewed" constantly during the intervals between smokes. Peter was not very considerate of the feelings of the sheep while under his hands, and a little careless with the shears. Naturally a sheep will get clipped occasionally, and lose a bit of skin; but all those that Peter sheared were plentifully covered with red spots. It nettled the Old Squire, who always detested needless cruelty to domestic animals. One of the sheep, in fact, looked so badly that Gramp exclaimed, "Glinds, if you are going to skin the sheep, better take a butcher knife!" "'Twas a bad nestly sheep; 'twouldn't keep still nowheres," replied Peter.