Produced by Daniel Fromont
A wise man is strong.
Proverbs xxiv.5.
1856.
Low stirrings in the leaves, before the wind
Wakes all the green strings of the forest lyre.
LOWELL.
The light of an early Spring morning, shining fair on uplandand lowland, promised a good day for the farmer's work. Andwhere a film of thin smoke stole up over the tree-tops, intothe sunshine which had not yet got so low, there stood thefarmer's house.
It was a little brown house, built surely when its owner'smeans were not greater than his wishes, and probably some timebefore his family had reached the goodly growth it boastednow. All of them were gathered at the breakfast-table.
"Boys, you may take the oxen, and finish ploughing that uplandfield — I shall be busy all day sowing wheat in the bendmeadow."
"Then I'll bring the boat for you, papa, at noon," said achild on the other side of the table.
"And see if you can keep those headlands as clean as I haveleft them."
"Yes, sir. Shall you want the horses, father, or shall we takeboth the oxen?"
"Both? — both pairs, you mean — yes; I shall want the horses.
I mean to make a finish of that wheat lot."
"Mamma, you must send us our dinner," said a fourth speaker,and the eldest of the boys; — "it'll be too confoundedly hotto come home."
"Yes, it's going to be a warm day," said the father.
"Who's to bring it to you, Will?" said the mother.
"Asahel — can't he — when he brings the boat for papa?"
"The boat won't go to the top of the hill," said Asahel; "andit's as hot for me as for other folks, I guess."
"You take the young oxen, Winthrop," said the farmer, pushingback his chair from the table.
"Why, sir?" said the eldest son promptly.
"I want to give you the best," answered his father, with atouch of comicality about the lines of his face.
"Are you afraid I shall work them too hard?"
"That's just what I'm afraid they'd do for you."
He went out; and his son attended to his breakfast in silence,with a raised eyebrow and a curved lip.
"What do you want, Winthrop?" the mother presently called to