of a single field often lie a mile in length, and the brown earth,
with such a strong, clean smell, and such a power of growth and
fertility in it, yields itself eagerly to the plow; rolls away
from the shear, not even dimming the brightness of the metal, with
a soft, deep sigh of happiness. The wheatcutting sometimes goes
on all night as well as all day, and in good seasons there are
scarcely men and horses enough to do the harvesting. The grain is
so heavy that it bends toward the blade and cuts like velvet.

There is something frank and joyous and young in the open face
of the country. It gives itself ungrudgingly to the moods of the
season, holding nothing back. Like the plains of Lombardy, it
seems to rise a little to meet the sun. The air and the earth are
curiously mated and intermingled, as if the one were the breath
of the other. You feel in the atmosphere the same tonic, puissant
quality that is in the tilth, the same strength and resoluteness.

One June morning a young man stood at the gate of the Norwegian
graveyard, sharpening his scythe in strokes unconsciously timed to
the tune he was whistling. He wore a flannel cap and duck trousers,
and the sleeves of his white flannel shirt were rolled back to
the elbow. When he was satisfied with the edge of his blade, he
slipped the whetstone into his hip pocket and began to swing his
scythe, still whistling, but softly, out of respect to the quiet
folk about him. Unconscious respect, probably, for he seemed
intent upon his own thoughts, and, like the Gladiator's, they were
far away. He was a splendid figure of a boy, tall and straight
as a young pine tree, with a handsome head, and stormy gray eyes,
deeply set under a serious brow. The space between his two front
teeth, which were unusually far apart, gave him the proficiency