he most delights in watching fowls during the brief life when they
are in such a hurry to eat.

And we watch them in unison, not forgetting the shabby old cock,
worn threadbare. Where his feathers have fallen appears the naked
india-rubber leg, lurid as a grilled cutlet. He approaches the white
sitter, which first turns her head away in tart denial, with several
"No's" in a muffled rattle, and then watches him with the little
blue enamel dials of her eyes.

"We're all right," says Barque.

"Watch the little ducks," says Blaire, "going along the
communication trench."

We watch a single file of all-golden ducklings go past--still almost
eggs on feet--their big heads pulling their little lame bodies along
by the string of their necks, and that quickly. From his corner, the
big dog follows them also with his deeply dark eye, on which the
slanting sun has shaped a fine tawny ring.

Beyond this rustic yard and over the scalloping of the low wall, the
orchard reveals itself, where a green carpet, moist and thick,
covers the rich soil and is topped by a screen of foliage with a
garniture of blossom, some white as statuary, others pied and glossy
as knots in neckties. Beyond again is the meadow, where the shadowed
poplars throw shafts of dark or golden green. Still farther again is
a square patch of upstanding hops, followed by a patch of cabbages,
sitting on the ground and dressed in line. In the sunshine of air
and of earth we hear the bees, as they work and make music (in