WILD PASTURES 



soft grace in their curves they that 

 stood so grim and sombre before that 

 each tree seems like some bounteous and 

 beautiful woman, arrayed for wedding 

 festivities, who yet bows a moment at 

 a sanctuary in prayer, even as she joins 

 the guests. 



The rain had been long coming. A 

 solitary quail predicted it; the first I 

 have heard since the severe cold and 

 deep snows of three winters in succes- 

 sion not long ago. I had thought every 

 quail smothered in the white depths or 

 frozen by the bitter cold. Three years 

 is a long time not to hear a quail 

 whistle, and this I believe to be no sur- 

 vivor of the old stock, but one that has 

 worked up from Southern fields where 

 the snows were less deadly during those 

 rigid winters. 



It is pretty hard to tell whether a 



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