CHAPTER VII.

DAILY DISTRACTIONS.


But the sheep shearing came, and the hay season next, and then the
harvest of small corn ... then the sweating of the apples, and the
turning of the cider mill and the stacking of the firewood, and
netting of the wood-cocks, and the springes to be mended in the
garden and by the hedgerows, where the blackbirds hop to the
molehills in the white October mornings and gray birds come to look
for snails at the time when the sun is rising. It is wonderful how
Time runs away when all these things, and a great many others, come
in to load him down the hill, and prevent him from stopping to look
about. And I, for my part, can never conceive how people who live in
towns and cities, where neither lambs nor birds are (except in some
shop windows), nor growing corn, nor meadow grass, nor even so much
as a stick to cut, or a stile to climb and sit down upon--how these
poor folk get through their lives without being utterly weary of
them, and dying from pure indolence, is a thing God only knows, if
his mercy allows him to think of it.

LORNA DOONE.

A farm-house looks on the outside like a quiet place. No men are seen
about, front windows are closely shaded, front door locked. Go round to
the back door; nobody seems to be at home. If by chance you do find,