A FAVORITE ROUND 19 



This morning (it is July 10) the vesper 

 sparrow is singing here also, with the song 

 sparrow and the chipper. And while I am 

 listening to them but mainly to the ves- 

 per the sickle stroke (as I believe Mr. 

 Burroughs calls it) of a meadow lark cuts 

 the air. It is a good concert, vesper spar- 

 row and lark going most harmoniously to- 

 gether ; and to make it better still, a bobo- 

 link pours out one copious strain. Him I 

 am especially glad to hear. After the grass 

 is cut one feels as if bobolink days were 

 over. 



However, the grass is not all cut yet. I 

 hear the rattle of a distant mowing-ma- 

 chine as I walk, and by and by come in 

 sight of a man swinging a scythe. That is 

 the poetry of farming from the specta- 

 tor's point of view ; and I think from the 

 mower's also, when he is cutting his own 

 grass and is his own master. I like to 

 watch him, at all events. Every motion he 

 makes is as familiar to me as the swaying 

 of branches in the wind. How long will it 

 be, I wonder, before young people will be 

 asking their seniors what a scythe was like, 



