chapter I 



AWN broadened into day- 

 light as the teams came 

 out to the clover land at 

 White Oaks. Neighbor- 

 ing fallowers had been at 

 work since they could see 

 a hand before them, but 

 Major Baker, the master of White Oaks, was 

 merciful to his beasts, especially his plough- 

 beasts. He knew they got their best, sleep 

 in the hour or two before dawn, as he knew 

 also , that for fallowing they needed all the 

 strength sleep and rest could give. He liked 

 to think of them stretched at ease, sometimes 

 even snoring as a tired man snores. Waking 

 them to be fed about the second chicken- 

 crow, was, to his way of looking at things, 

 haste without speed. 



The clover lay upland, in broad undulant 

 reaches, without a stump or a serious gall to 

 break its expanse. Here or there sparse 



