28 



3 



WINTER SUNSHINE, 



ments. Near this there was a large, compact tent, 

 made entirely of corn-stalks, with, for door, a bundle 

 of the same, in the dry, warm, nest-like interior of 

 which the husking of the corn crop seemed to have 

 taken place. A few rods farther on, we passed through 

 another humble door-yard, musical with dogs and dusky 

 with children. We crossed here the outlying fields of 

 a large, thrifty, well-kept-looking farm with a showy, 

 highly ornamental frame house in the centre. There 

 w r as even a park with deer, and among the gayly painted 

 out-buildings I noticed a fancy dove-cot, with an im- 

 mense flock of doves circling above it, — some whiskey- 

 dealer from the city, we were told, trying to take the 

 poison out of his money by agriculture. 



We next passed through some woods, when we 

 emerged into a broad, sunlit, fertile-looking valley, called 

 Oxen Run. We stooped down and drank of its clear 

 white-pebbled stream, in the veritable spot I suspect 

 where the oxen do. There were clouds of birds here 

 on the warm slopes, with the usual sprinkling along 

 the bushy margin of the stream of scarlet grosbeaks. 

 The valley of Oxen Run has many good-looking farms, 

 with old picturesque houses, and loose rambling barns, 

 such as artists love to put into pictures. 



But it is a little awkward to go east. It always seems 

 left-handed. I think this is the feeling of all walkers, 

 and that Thoreau's experience in this respect was not 

 singular. The great magnet is the sun, and we follow 

 him. I notice that people lost in the woods work to 



