A BARN 



About the straw-rick, and over the chaff that 

 everywhere strews the earth, numerous fowls search, 

 and by the gateway Chanticleer proudly stands, tall 

 and upright, the king of the rickyard still, as he 

 and his ancestors have been these hundreds of 

 years. Under the granary, which is built on stone 

 staddles, to exclude the mice, some turkeys are 

 huddled together calling occasionally for a " halter," 

 and beyond them the green, glossy neck of a drake 

 glistens in the sunshine. 



When the corn is high, and sometimes before it 

 is well up, the doors of the barn are daily open, 

 and shock-headed children peer over the hatch. 

 There are others within playing and tumbling on 

 aheap of straw always straw which is their 

 bed at night. The sacks which form their coun- 

 terpane are rolled aside, and they have half the 

 barn for their nursery. If it is wet, at least one 

 great girl and the mother will be there too, gravely 

 sewing, and sitting where they can see all that goes 

 along the road. 



A hundred yards away, in a corner of an arable 

 field, the very windiest and most draughty that 

 could be chosen, where the hedge is cut down so 

 that it can barely be called a hedge, and where the 

 elms draw the wind, the men of the family crowd 

 over a smoky fire. In the wind and rain the fire 

 could not burn at all had they not by means of a 

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