God's Green Country

children weepin

rrow comes

eir young heads aga

nnot stop t

s are bleating

s are chirping

are playing wi

rs are blowing

young children,

weeping

g in the playti

untry of

Brow

little more than usu

litter of Tamworths in the barnyard, nosing sleepily into their mother's side. It seemed to come up from the swamp in the spring n

ll he could forget about it as far away from him as possible. In the meantime, with the merciful forgetfulness of childhood, he enjoyed whatever passing pleasures came between. Just now he was down by the milk-house with little Jean, bending over her pathetic garden of four potato plants and a pansy. Billy had never had a garden for himself. It was too much like playing. Besides, as far back as he could remember

ning the potato planting started. It wasn't difficult to get help just then, but for some reason of his own Dan Withers had decided to take Billy out of school and "br

s father his heart sank. Somehow he was just beginning to wonder why, but not for years yet would he realize the injustice of being brought into the world entirely without his own willing, only to be made the prey of a

iness of movement and a slouch of the shoulders that was almost insolent, except when he walked before a crowd. He could command a military spine the instant it seemed worth the effort. When the occasion required it the hard cunning in his little brown eyes could take cover, leaving them as soft and honest as a spaniel's. The coarseness of speech that had become a habit in his own family could, with an effo

the thousand battles which, with her gentle, appealing logic, she tried to fight for her children. Her intercessions were never of any avail, but she was no strategist and she knew no other tactics. Moreover she had never been trained to fight.

sew; but when she had to ask Dan for anything she always felt le

is coming on nicely," s

o into his pipe a little

'll come along nice enough, if a man slaves from one ye

t Jonas to help with the potato

rom to pay Jonas? I've throwed away enough good money hirin' men. It don't ever occur to you, I suppose,

timidly. "The teacher called to-day to say she felt sure he'd pa

me for. I can see as far into a mill stone as them that picks it, an' I ain't more'n usual blind just now. You think what's good enough fer me ain't good enough fer Bill. You don't care how hard I work so's he can get to school an' learn enough tomfoolery to get him a job thet

and Mary called them to come to bed. In the darkness of the kitchen when she was getti

d for a moment on his shoulder and dropped away discouraged at the quivering of the resolute little back. Her whole body ached to take him in her arms. He really wasn't much more than a baby yet, but such expressions were deni

ess of the little bedroom off the kitchen he stopped, slipping a brace over h

atch the horses by five o'clock?

e thousand bi

before climbing the narrow stairs to Billy's room. Then she hesitated. There was something so b

emed nothing short of cruel to disturb him. Perhaps h

aken several times before the slow, painful process began. It started somewhere in his dimmest consciousness, and gradually sent a long, slow quiver down through his healthy little muscles and back again, emer

other and started out for the horses in a very philosophical frame of mind, considering everything. The dew on the grass was cool to his bare feet; the robins in the bushes as he passed didn't seem to expect anyone so early, so from their reckless chattering he learned the location of many a new nest. He marked the places so he could show them to Jean. On the hill in the pasture, where the sun was just coming up like a yellow half bal

sacrifice of any minor details. He had been shown just how far apart to drop the pieces, but when you see the furrow reaching up behind you like an unfriendly snake, and no escape before the end of the row; when the handle of the pai

hat you wasn't a durn sight more bother than help. Well, you c'n just stake off these rows, an' when we're through plantin'

n called across the headland: "You'd better go to the barn an' get some more seed. Save the p

drove the pigs ahead of him and went after some rails. On the way he heard his mother ring the dinner-bell, saw, from many a furtive glance back, his father stop at the littered remains of the prize Carmens, look all around and start on to the barn. The most Billy could hope for was that his wrath might have cooled a little before h

s made hot biscuits to break into the gravy and had the grandest pot pies ever to tide a fellow over a time like this. If they had it for dinner when

the details. Still, in spite of the morning's "aggrevations," he was eating his dinner

you get

th a disconcerting unstea

have your dinner while it's hot.

rd satisfaction, to be treated as though he were no more than a figurehead in his own house! He had often declared that

errupted. "He'll git his belly full o' some

is flesh quailed before the coming ordeal. "I didn't leave the gate open," he crie

azy tricks, thinkin' I wouldn't see 'em, then let the stock in to eat up the seed I've paid f

s hook; it had been kept in the hou

eness of touch that always irritated him into a frenzy, "

f. "No wonder the young un's no good with your etern

ts helpless way. Still she clung to his arm. On

e ordered calmly;

hing like a bird when you cover it with your hand and find it all feathers and skeleton and crushable, so he suffered the full punishment-the sickening, lithe, cutting, kind of blows that we have shivered to hear dealt to colts out in the far recesses of the gr

sun shining pleasantly on the horses' sleek backs and glittering over the bright parts of the harness. Billy climbed up to the vantage point of the gate post, and looked up the road eagerly, as many another boy has watched for a circu

nd women with their hair beginning to turn grey and children of their own almost grown up. And the people had sung "The Lord's my Shepherd, I'll not want." It was just fine. You could almost see old Mr. Hopkins going down the green pastures with his long staff, just like he came out to salt the sheep, only not so bent over, and maybe with a long gown on like the charts showed at Sunday school. He would lik

at the pump, and she looked so white and thin she had almost frightened him. When he asked if he could carry the water for her she couldn't answer-just leaned on the pump and coughed and coughed. He had seen her helping her husband plant potatoes once too. She hadn't

taken the turn, how she had said good-bye to the children the last night and sent them off to bed with a smile, then gone completely out of her mind in the bitterness of it-and how hard it was going to be for Jim. He was just getting ready to build a barn too; a pile of gravel a few yards from the back door was evidence of its progress-it seemed hard, just when they were getting along so well. And he had done all for her that a

ty, stopped to shake hands with a strong, honest

he remarked nodding

cooped up in a cage breathing the dust and smoke of the place, I'd never got back at all. But I got out of it in time. I'm out in the field now ten hours a day. I eat like a horse and I'll bet you couldn't find a spot on my lungs with the point of a needle. I'm always glad

ut very well for

their mo

always th

ywhere. What

things from freezing. Did you ever see where they slept in there? A little room off the kitchen just big enough for a bed and the window frozen down from summer to summer. I told Brown the danger, but he reckoned he got enough fresh air out doors all day, and if his wife had a cough it was no place for her in a draught. Besides, he said, she was prowling around so late at night sewi

man rese

to his family anywhere; nor a woman more contented or that took more pride in her home than sh

w of tomato cans holding weary-looking geraniums. There were new coverings of wall-pape

ming him. He thought this driving and saving now was going to make things easier later on, and he just got the h

on seemed

husband answered.

ntry. The plume in her chiffon hat sagged a little; her wedding dress hung a bit limp, her face seemed noticeab

n the strained quiet of the drowsy afternoon, the voice of the

trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut d

hildren who could know anything of the meaning of their loss. He was no callous materialist. He was

ys and full of trouble.' ... It's a great text. Now some day," the doctor was neither amused or irreverent, "some Sunday, can't you preach from it again, and tell 'em how to stretch the time out and make it happier? I could give you some f

rted to go barefoot. They were hard, sturdy, unyielding little cases. Billy hated to go to Sunday school on account of them-but he always took them off on his way home. He asked his mother if he could now, but she paid no attention. She was walking very fast,

tter?" he aske

you like to go across the fields now and brin