100 A GREEN MOUNTAIN CORN-FIELD. 



scarcity of social comforts and opportuni- 

 ties, their only experience of what we fondly 

 call this wide, wide world. 



From my inn I had walked eastward for 

 perhaps a mile ; then at the little school- 

 house had taken a cross-road, which pres- 

 ently began to climb. Here I passed two 

 or three cottages (one of them boasting the 

 singularity of paint), and after a while came 

 to another, which appeared to be the last, 

 as the road not far beyond struck into the 

 ancient forest. First, however, it ran up 

 to a small plateau, where, out of sight from 

 the house, lay a scanty quarter of an acre, 

 in which the old parable, " First the blade, 

 then the ear, then the full corn in the ear," 

 was in the primary stage of its fresh annual 

 fulfillment. The ground was but newly 

 cleared, and the brambles still felt them- 

 selves its true and rightful possessors. Who 

 was this puny-looking, good-for-nothing for- 

 eigner, that they should be turned out of 

 house and home for his accommodation ? 

 So they seemed to be asking among them- 

 selves, as they lifted up their heads here and 

 there in the midst of the pale-green shoots. 

 The crows, on the other hand, bade the new- 



