THE FLOWERS OF SUMMER 77 



Then there is the lowing of kine, and the cool 

 sound of churning butter. The dame returns with 

 an apron full of eggs, gathered from no stale hen- 

 houses, with their wire-netting runs ; but from 

 barn, and stable, and byre, wherever erratic hens 

 which spend the day in the stackyard and roost 

 on the stalls, chose to sit. The Scots grey, missing 

 for three weeks or more, pushes her way through 

 the hedge with a brood of thirteen chickens. 



