SHADOW & SCYTHE BENEATH SWORD 305 



offices in London. But although in his heart he 

 didn't love the plough, he never hated it as he hated 

 the pen. I heard with great regret a year later or so 

 that my suspicion concerning his health had been 

 only too well founded, and that he was lying 

 seriously ill in a hospital many miles west. 



That there must have been a few isolated days 

 of the typical sunshine of the prairie during May 

 and June I am sure, because I have always in the 

 smiling corner of my memory a picture of Julia and 

 Felicity lying on a manure heap under the blazing 

 sun, and ever so many small pigs running in and 

 out their legs and sniffing round their ears, and then 

 bolting like an army of cowards when Julia flicked 

 her friendly tail or Felicity raised her inquisitive 

 head ; but when the rains of June started to fall 

 it was obvious that the shadow of 1907 which had 

 veiled the way of spring was lingering on the prairie. 

 Cold, wild days were with us still although no hint 

 of frost, and the well-advanced grain had leaped 

 into long luxuriant growth. The prairie was an 

 oasis of deep green, waiting in coolest patience for 

 the harvest sun. I looked thankfully and hope- 

 fully at the crops, but disconsolately at the big field, 

 from end to end of which the plough still made its slow 

 but strenuous way. Before the exit of Mr. Oliver 

 I had abandoned hope of a second ploughing, with 

 the exception of the few acres Adam had ploughed 

 first, and which now bore a growth far and away 

 thicker than any seeding. These acres lay in the 

 south-west corner, catching every sunbeam that 

 strayed from threatening clouds, a brilliant sheet 

 of emerald grain threatening to fulfil the natural 

 law of its maturity long before the plough 



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