82 AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER XI. 



The Break of Day A Full Heart Familiar Things The Village at 

 Sunrise Flowers Birds Dog Kennels " The Squire " and " The 

 Hall " Rooks Visit to a Small Farm The Cows The Milking 

 The Dairy-Maids The Stables Manure Bones Pasture White 

 Clover Implements Carts The English Plow and Harrow. 



31s* .May. 



TT was very early this morning when I became gradually aware 

 -*- of the twittering of house-sparrows, and was soon after 

 brought to more distinct consciousness of time and place by the 

 long, clear note of some other stranger bird. I stepped from bed 

 and kneeled at a little, low, latticed window, curtained without by 

 a woodbine. Parting the foliage with my hands, I looked out 

 upon a cluster of low-thatched cottages, half overgrown with ivy ; 

 a blooming hawthorn hedge, enclosing a field of heavy grass and 

 clover glistening with dew ; a few haystacks ; another field be- 

 yond, spotted with sheep ; a group of trees ; and then some low 

 hills, over which the dawn was kindling, with a faint blush, the 

 quiet, smoky clouds in a gray sky. It may seem an uninteresting 

 landscape, but I gazed upon it with great emotion, so great that 

 I wondered at it. Such a scene I had never looked upon before, 

 and yet it was in all its parts as familiar to me as my native 

 valley. Land of our poets ! Home of our fathers ! Dear old 



