45 



field-hands will work at the hedge-row. The 

 crooked fence-corners are the nursery of all 

 vagrants. Therein you will find cheek-by- 

 jowl peach and persimmon, woodbine from 

 the garden, and grape o' the woods ; young 

 oaks, seedling apples indeed an epitome 

 of all that grows and blows. Or wild or 

 tame, they must give room. Axe, bill-hook, 

 brier-scythe, flash in and out the tangle is 

 tossed this way and that, soon to be piled 

 in great matted heaps well across the en- 

 circling furrows. 



Sundown shall not more than see the work 

 well done. The field lies crisp and dry, 

 rustling desolately in the freshening wind. 

 It seems a waste place all predestinate 

 one whose reclamation was always and al- 

 together hopeless. The belting, sinuous 

 furrows seem to say aloud, " Man has wres- 

 tled with the wilderness and got the worst 

 of it." 



Wait a little space. See, there to wind- 

 ward, a small, leaping flame, carefully kin- 

 dled. A torch-bearer darts away from it, 

 another, another. Almost as you draw 

 breath, a line of fire upflashes, climbs, 

 spreads, wavers, goes roaring down the 

 field's breadth. See the pure red flame 

 leap thirty feet in air, writhe, bend, toss, 



