164 WITH EARTH AND SKY 
on the other side of which wheat was growing 
with a silver touch upon it looking toward the 
gold of harvest, and the wind making merry 
and being giddy with the silvery sheen of the 
wheat. The lane went dusty and printed with 
hoof marks. The wind was gentle and smelling 
of growing things. 
So I sauntered with a Sabbath heart full of great 
gratitude for mercies beyond reckoning and thus 
came to the lane-end, climbed over the wooden 
gate and came into the pasture where horses 
were grazing near the gate, content as if know- 
ing it was the day of rest. Cattle were near by 
at breakfast, and were scattered about the pasture, 
and chickens were a long way from home. They 
were chicken gadabouts. One red rocster far 
too far away from home for a lone man, made 
much of my intrusion and cackled a persistent, 
exaggerated cackle, which was the _ladylike 
thing to do but scarcely becoming a man. Why 
I irritated him so he did not distinctly state, 
but he may have noticed my Bible and long 
coat and have taken me for a preacher. What- 
ever his ground of antagonism to me, he made 
that antagonism noisily apparent. In due time 
he shook the dust of his feet from him and went 
his manly way and left me to the kindly solitude 
of the grazing horses and cattle and the content- 
ment of the Sabbath morning. One lone tree 
grew on the east edge of the pasture near the 
gate. I invaded its solitude and sat me down 
