392 
RURAL HOURS. 
for ourselves ; the general distress, dismay, confusion, and suffer- 
ing — the excess of misery — which follow its paralyzing progress 
through a country, are only known to us as evils which our fellow- 
men have suffered, and from which we, and those we love most 
warmly, have ever been graciously spared. Year after year, from 
the early history of the country, the land has yielded her 
increase in cheerful abundance ; the fields have been filled witli 
the finest of wheat, and maize, and rice, and sugar ; tlie orchards 
and gardens, ay, the very woods and wastes, have yielded all 
their harvest of grateful fruits ; the herds have fed in peace within 
a thousand quiet valleys, the flocks have whitened ten thousand 
green and swelling hills ; like the ancient people of God, we may 
say, that fountains of milk and honey have flowed in upon us ; 
the humming of the cheerful bee is heard through the long sum- 
mer day about every path, and at eventide the patient kine, yield- 
ing their nourishing treasure, stand lowing at every door. 
General scarcity in anything needful has been unknown among 
us ; now and then the failure of some particular crop has been 
foretold by the fearful, but even this partial evil has been averted, 
and the prognostic has passed away, leaving no trace, like the gray 
cloud overshadowing but for an instant the yellow harvest-field, 
and followed by the genial glow of the full summer sunshine. In 
this highland valley we often hear fears expressed of this or that 
portion of the produce being cut off by the frosts belonging to our 
climate ; now we are concerned for the maize, now for our stock 
of fruits, and yet how seldom has the dreaded evil befallen us ! 
What good thing belonging to the climate has ever wholly failed ; 
when have we wanted for maize, when have we suflPered from lack 
of fruit ? Every summer, currants have dried on the bushes. 
