OUTDOORS 



around a trough where the cattle drink the 

 mud is ridged with many hoof-marks. It is 

 the bleakest corner of the fields. There is no 

 grass here, and the wind has a free sweep 

 on the boldest days that sets the mill dole- 

 fully wailing under steel-blue skies. Farther 

 along, and near a pair of bars, stands a lone 

 walnut-tree. Under it are scattered the hulls, 

 and on a smooth bowlder near by is a dark 

 stain which accounts for a heap of shells close 

 at hand. Here the harvesters have loitered 

 and cracked the nuts, and sticks and clubs 

 lying about tell of various assaults on the old 

 tree to bring down the coveted prizes. 



On one sandy rise, when later rains wash 

 the soil into gullies and polish pebbles and 

 bits of flint that are exposed, there have been 

 Indian arrow-heads found. Here, then, the 

 savage wandered, and before him the mas- 

 todon, maybe. But against the sky, however 

 the flint-points tell of primitive days, there 

 comes the figure of the sower. Always on 

 these rises this figure seems to pass or wait, 

 the right hand outstretched, the left carrying 

 a bag of grain. In the day of the scythe 

 and cradle, the by-gone days of boyhood, 

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