Go round to the back door; nobody seems to be at home.

If by chance you do find, after long bruising of knuckles, that you have roused an inmate, it is some withered, sad-faced old dame, who is indifferent and hopelessly deaf, or a bare-footed, stupid urchin, who stares as if you had dropped from another planet, and a cool "Dunno" is the sole response to all inquiries.
All seems at a dead standstill.

In reality everything and everybody is going at full speed, transpiring and perspiring to such a degree that, like a swiftly whirling top, it does not appear to move.
Friends think of me as not living, but simply existing, and marvel that I can endure such monotony.

On the contrary, I live in a constant state of excitement, hurry, and necessity for immediate action.
The cows were continually getting out of pasture and into the corn; the pigs, like the chickens, evinced decided preference for the garden.

The horse would break his halter and dart down the street, or, if in pasture, would leap the barbed-wire fence, at the risk of laming his legs for life, and dash into a neighbor's yard where children and babies were sunning on the grass.
Rival butchers and bakers would drive up simultaneously from different directions and plead for patronage and instant attention.
The vegetables must be gathered and carried to market; every animal was ravenously hungry at all hours, and didn't hesitate to speak of it.