CROPS AND PROFITS 



is a little, withering sarcastic laugh of ap- 

 proval. 



Presently, another is charged with a reflec- 

 tion which he submits in this shape: "Ef a 

 crittur breaks loose in sich a rannge as that, I 

 raether guess he '11 have a time on't." And 

 there is another chirrupy laugh, and significant 

 noddings are passed back and forth between 

 the astute old gentlemen — as if they were man- 

 darin images, and nodded by reason of the 

 gravity of some concealed dead weight — (as 

 indeed they do). 



A third suggests that "there woant be no 

 great expense for diggin' o' post holes," which 

 remark is so obviously sound, that it is passed 

 by in silence. 



The clearance, however, goes forward swim- 

 mingly. The new breadth which seems given 

 to the land as the dwarfish fields disappear one 

 after another, develops a beauty of its own. 

 The Yellow-weeds, and withered wild-grasses, 

 which had clung under the shelter of the 

 fences, even with the best care, are all shorn 

 away. The tortuous and irregular lines which 

 the frosts had given to the reeling platoons of 

 rails, perplex the eye no more. 



Near to the center of these opened fields is a 

 great feeding-shed, one hundred feet by forty, 



147 



