The Ragged Month 7 1 



shout told them the last bush had fallen al- 

 most as the last furrow was run. 



Joe flung himself down upon the broken 

 ground, and lay for a minute motionless. 

 He had made those last rounds with set teeth, 

 keeping up entirely upon his courage. It 

 had been dry for ten days. The tramped 

 ground had broken up in tremendous yard- 

 long clods, and the aftermath had grown so 

 stout and tough it choked twice as often as at 

 first. He sat up and looked down the long 

 dun ridges, ragged and blotched with wav- 

 ing clover heads, then got up, and set his 

 mules trotting, yet as he hung on to the 

 plough-handle glanced across at the crisping 

 tangle. He had no breath for speaking. He 

 was too tired even to tell himself what he 

 was thinking. But Sunday morning it came to 

 him clearly. " It was a battlefield — two 

 battlefields," he said to himself; " and battle- 

 fields, where there is so much fighting and 

 dying, are bound to be ugly." 



BATTLEFIELDS of every sort in time 

 become glorified. The rain and the 

 fine weather, winds, sunshine, and seed- 

 sowing, glorified the fallows. Frost-fall found 

 them dressed in the green velvet of strong 

 young wheat. And when the frost had done 



