146 Singing Valleys 



hoeing com, baking hoecakes in the embers, remembering 

 Africa and freedom; tales of Deerfield and the Genesee coun- 

 try, of the Wilderness Road to Boonesboro and of the little 

 company of axemen who cut that road and who sat by their 

 fire at nights, eating hot pones and listening to their leader 

 read aloud Gullivers' Travels; tales of the Great Valley and the 

 Father of Waters; tales of the Montezuma and the Maya who 

 preceded him; tales of the Plumed Serpent and of Coatlicue 

 the Earth Mother. 

 The corn has its own poets. Not the least of them sings: 



Always, I never knew it any other way, 

 The wind and the corn talk things over together 

 And the rain and the corn, and the sun and the corn 

 Talk things over together. 



Some of the things they tell each other are in this book. 



