226 FROM A NEW ENGLAND HILLSIDE. 



XLIV. 



THE day is warm, and it is a trial to walk 

 along the hot and dusty road ; the distant 

 hills float and fade in the soft haze ; but 

 sitting here at the carpenter s bench in 

 my bay window and looking southward, a 

 refreshing breeze tempers the heat, and 

 though the currents in the fervid air rising 

 from the newly ploughed field cause a 

 flickering in the outlines of objects near the 

 surface, suggestive of a seven-tiines-heated 

 furnace, at a little greater height and dis 

 tance the finger-like motions to and fro of 

 the pendulous branches of slender elms, and 

 the multitudinous ripple on the surface of 

 dense maples and velvety locust trees, give 

 a sense of life and healthfulness. Here and 

 there the tops of chokccherries and other 

 shrubs peering above the curve of the roll 

 ing field, and now and then the upper rail 

 and the posts of a few panels of fence, 

 indicate the line of the highway, but, for 

 tunately, no unsightly telegraph poles 



