THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS, 



BITS OF OAK BARK, 



I. The Acorn-Gatherer. 



Black rooks, yellow oak leaves, and a boy asleep 

 at the foot of the tree. His head was lying on a 

 bulging root close to the stem : his feet reached to a 

 small sack or bag half full of acorns. In his slumber 

 his forehead frowned — they were fixed lines, like the 

 grooves in the oak bark. There was nothing else in 

 his features attractive or repellent : they were such as 

 might have belonged to a dozen hedge children. The 

 set angry frown was the only distinguishing mark — 

 like the dents on a penny made by a hobnail boot, by 

 which it can be known from twenty otherwise pre- 

 cisely similar. His clothes were little better than 

 sacking, but clean, tidy, and repaired. Any one would 

 have said, " Poor, but carefully tended." A kind heart 

 might have put a threepenny-bit in his clenched little 

 fist, and sighed. But that iron set frown on the young 

 brow would not have unbent even for the silver. Caw ! 

 Caw ! 



The happiest creatures in the world are the rooks 

 at the acorns. It is not only the eating of them but 

 the finding : the fluttering up there and hopping from 



