balls wherein the rags were wound rolled about the floor. Most women
kept their rag balls in a basket when they braided, but Ann Edwards
worked always in a sort of untidy fury.

Jerome went out, little hungry boy with the winter chill again
creeping through his veins, got the spade out of the barn, and set to
work in the garden. The garden lay on the sunny slope of a hill which
rose directly behind the house; when his spade struck a stone Jerome
would send it rolling out of his way to the foot of the hill. He got
considerable amusement from that, and presently the work warmed him.

The robins were singing all about. Every now and then one flew out of
the sweet spring distance, lit, and silently erected his red breast
among some plough ridges lower down. It was like a veritable
transition from sound to sight.

Below where Jerome spaded, and upon the left, stretched long waving
plough ridges where the corn was planted. Jerome's father had been at
work there with the old white horse that was drawing wood for him
to-day. Much of the garden had to be spaded instead of ploughed,
because this same old white horse was needed for other work.

As Jerome spaded, the smell of the fresh earth came up in his face.
Now and then a gust of cold wind, sweet with unseen blossoms, smote
him powerfully, bending his slender body before it like a sapling. A
bird flashed past him with a blue dazzle of wings, and Jerome stopped
and looked after it. It lit on the fence in front of the house, and
shone there in the sunlight like a blue precious stone. The boy gazed
at it, leaning on his spade. Jerome always looked hard out of all his
little open windows of life, and saw every precious thing outside his