Birxin's Life

John Birxin had spent his five years on the divide, getting into death, and the last six getting out. He owned exactly six hundred and forty acres of what stretched outside his door. To the south, his plowed fields, to the east, the sawed stables, the cattle-crow, the pond, and then the grass. The next summer one of his plow horses broke its leg in a prairie dog hole and had to be shot. Another summer he lost his hogs from cholera,. A valuable stallion died from a rattlesnake by.