It looked like an old hat on a dung heap.

I pitied the old Judge, because he was a man that took the world as he found it, and made no complaints.
He know'd if you got the best, it was no use complainin' that the best warn't good.
"Well, the house stood alone in the middle of a clearin', without an outhouse of any sort or kind about it, or any fence or enclosure, but jist rose up as a toodstool grows, all alone in the field.

Close behind it was a thick short second growth of young birches, about fifteen feet high, which was the only shelter it had, and that was on the wrong side, for it was towards the south.
"Well, when we alighted, and got the baggage off, away starts the guide with the Judge's traps, and ups a path through the woods to a settler's, and leaves us.

Away down by the edge of the lake was a little barn, filled up to the roof with grain and hay, and there was no standin' room or shelter in it for the hosses.

So the lawyer hitches his critter to a tree, and goes and fetches up some fodder for him, and leaves him for the night, to weather it as he could.