44 



fire have made way for it. Once the earth 

 is ready for turning there is a feast indeed 

 for winged things. Though the cold, wet 

 clay affords never an earth-worm it has 

 rich store of bugs, grubs, beetles, larvae. 

 Not one of the huge clods but holds a 

 Thanksgiving dinner for the feathered for- 

 agers. It has been for. so long their city 

 of refuge they have nested there, shel- 

 tered them against cold and heat they are 

 full of twittering surprise over finding it also 

 a happy-hunting-ground. 



What pungent, savage odor bitter, cling- 

 ing comes up from the furrow the smell 

 of wet clay, underlying the sharp scent of 

 bruised sassafras and brier-root. The plough 

 has torn up both by thousands, by ten thou- 

 sands. Steel of best temper, and sharp 

 though it be, three stout beasts abreast have 

 much ado to drag through the tangle under- 

 earth. How low their heads, how steady 

 their strain against the collar. Round about 

 the field they go once, twice, thrice fling- 

 ing barriers of damp sod 'twixt the hedge- 

 row and the wide inner wilderness. 



What a jungle it is brier and bramble, 

 sassafras and thorn, furzy fleeces of dry 

 golden-rod, over and through all a masking 

 of yellow sedge. Through the daylight the 



