fence, where a trumpet-vine hung heavily, divided the field from the
road, and several straggling sheep that had strayed from the distant
flock stood looking shyly over the massive crimson clusters.

When Nicholas came out from the funereal dusk of the cedars the field
was almost blinding in the morning glare, the yellow-centred daisies
rolling in the breeze like white-capped billows on a sunlit sea. From
the avenue to his father's land the road was unbroken by a single
shadow--only to the right, amid the young corn, there was a solitary
persimmon tree, and on the left the gigantic wreck stranded amid the
tossing daisies.

The sun was hot, and dust rose like smoke from the white streak of the
road, which blazed beneath a cloudless sky.

The boy was tired and thirsty, and as he tramped along the perspiration
rose to his forehead and dropped, upon his shoulder. With a sigh of
satisfaction he came upon the little cottage of his father and saw his
stepmother taking the clothes in from the bushes where they had been
spread to dry. It was Saturday, and ironing day, and he hoped for a
chance at his lessons before night came, when he was so tired that the
facts would not stick in his brain. He thought that it must be very easy
to study in the mornings when you were fresh and eager and before that
leaden weight centred behind your eyeballs.

When Marthy Burr saw him she called irritably:


"I say, Nick, did they take the chickens?"