LEAF AND TENDRIL 



rather behind them; they have felt the bowlder and 

 sized it up. At the word and the crack of the whip 

 they bend their heads and throw their weight upon 

 the yoke. Now the hickory bows settle into their 

 shoulders, they kink their tails and hump their backs, 

 their sharp hoofs cut the turf, and the great inert 

 mass moves. Tearing up the sod, grinding over 

 stones, the shouts of the excited driver urging them 

 on, away they go toward the line. The peculiar and 

 agreeable odor of burnt and ground stone arises 

 from the rear. Only a few yards at a time; how 

 the oxen puflE as they halt to take breath and lap 

 their tongues out over their moist muzzles! Then 

 they bend to the work again, the muscular effort 

 reaching their very tails. Thus the work goes on 

 for several days or a week, till the row of bottom 

 rocks is complete. If there are others remaining 

 in the field, then the row is doubled up till the land 

 is cleaned. 



What a torn and wounded appearance that sec- 

 tion of ground presents, its surface everywhere 

 marked with red stripes or bands, each ending in or 

 starting from a large and deep red cavity in the 

 sward! But soon the plow will come, equalizing 

 and obliterating and writing another history upon 

 the page. 



There is something to me peculiarly interesting 

 in stone walls — a kind of rude human expression 

 to them, suggesting the face of the old farmer him- 

 48 



