20 THE CLERK OF THE WOODS 



and how a man used it ? Pictures of it will 

 look odd enough, we may be sure, after the 

 thing itself is forgotten. 



While I am watching the mower (now he 

 pauses a moment, and with the blade of his 

 scythe tosses a troublesome tangle of grass 

 out of his way, with exactly the motion that 

 I have seen other mowers use a thousand 

 times ; but I look in vain for him to put the 

 end of the snathe to the ground, pick up a 

 handful of grass, and wipe down the blade) 

 while I am watching him a bluebird 

 breaks into song, and a kingbird flutters 

 away from his perch on a fence-wire. After 

 all, the glory of a bird is his wings ; and 

 the kingbird knows it. In another field 

 men are spreading hay with pitchforks, 

 I mean ; and that, too, is poetry. In truth, 

 by the old processes, hay could not be made 

 except with graceful motions, unless it were 

 by a novice, some man from the city or out 

 of a shop. A green hand with a rake, it 

 must be confessed, is a subject for laughter 

 rather than for rhymes. The secret of 

 graceful raking is like the secret of graceful 

 writing, a light touch. 



