THE BARE, BROWN 

 FIELDS 



WIDE stretches of rolling country, 

 with here and there a clump of 

 leafless trees, where the farm- 

 houses stand, and scattered hay-stacks adja- 

 cent. On the slopes sometimes are lines of 

 yellowish corn-shocks that rise like tents silent- 

 ly against the clear horizon. Around those 

 shocks may be found, when a hunter happens 

 to draw near, signs of industrious rabbits, 

 inquisitive field-mice, and foraging prairie- 

 chickens. Occasionally there is a slight whorl 

 of faint snow drifted in the spaces between 

 the shocks, and if this be so the tiny tracks of 

 the mice dot the place, and perhaps the tracks 

 of the prairie-chickens. The wind dallies 

 with the loose blades that project from the 

 shocks, and a whistling of fluttering strips 

 marks the flight of northern breezes. The 

 soil is hard and crumbly to the heel, and the 

 infrequent little ditches or pools of water are 

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