A BARN-DOOR OUTLOOK 



I HAVE a barn-door outlook because I have a 

 hay-barn study, and I chose a hay-barn study 

 because I wanted a barn-door outlook a wide, 

 near view into fields and woods and orchards where 

 I could be on intimate terms with the wild life 

 about me, and with free, open-air nature. 



Usually there is nothing small or stingy about a 

 barn door, and a farmer's hay-barn puts only a very 

 thin partition between you and the outside world. 

 Therefore, what could be a more fit place to thresh 

 out dry philosophical subjects than a barn floor? I 

 have a few such subjects to thresh out, and I thresh 

 them here, turning them over as many times as we 

 used to turn over the oat and rye sheaves in the old 

 days when I wielded the hickory flail with my 

 brothers on this same barn floor. 



What a pleasure it is to look back to those 

 autumn days, generally in September or early Octo- 

 ber, when we used to thresh out a few bushels of the 

 new crop of rye to be taken to the grist-mill for a 

 fresh supply of flour ! How often we paused in our 

 work to munch apples that had been mellowing in 

 the haymow by our side, and look out through the 

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