de. In spring and summer the ground
was white with daisies and in the autumn it donned gorgeous vestments of
golden-rod and sumach. In the centre of the waste, standing alike grim
and majestic at all seasons, there was the charred skeleton of a
gigantic tree, which had been stripped naked by a bolt of lightning long
years ago. At its foot a prickly clump of briars surrounded the
blackened trunk in a decoration of green or red, and from this futile
screen the spectral limbs rose boldly and were silhouetted against the
far-off horizon like the masts of a wrecked and deserted ship. A rail
fence, where a trumpet-vine hung heavily, divided the field from the
road, and several straggling sheep that had strayed from the distant
flock stood looking shyly over the massive crimson clusters.

When Nicholas came out from the funereal dusk of the cedars the field
was almost blinding in the morning glare, the yellow-centred daisies
rolling in the breeze like white-capped billows on a sunlit sea. From
the avenue to his father's land the road was unbroken by a single
shadow--only to the right, amid the young corn, there was a solitary
persimmon tree, and on the left the gigantic wreck stranded amid the
tossing daisies.

The sun was hot, and dust rose like smoke from the white streak of the
road, which blazed beneath a cloudless sky.

The boy was tired and thirsty, and as he tramped along the perspiration
rose to his forehead and dropped, upon his shoulder. With a sigh of
satisfaction he came upon the little cottage of his father and saw his
stepmother taking the clothes in from the bushes where they had been
spread to dry. It was Saturday, and ironing day, and he hoped for a
chance at his lessons before night came, when he was so tired that the
facts would not stick in his brain. He thought that it must be very easy
to study in the mornings when you were fresh and eager and before that
leaden weight centred behind your eyeballs.

When Marthy Burr saw him she called irritably:

"I say, Nick, did they take the chickens?"

Nicholas nodded, and, crossing the weeds in the garden, gave her the
money from his pocket.

"They didn't say nothing 'bout wantin' more, I 'spose? Did you tell 'em
I was fattenin' them four pairs of ducks?"

Nicholas shook his head. No, he hadn't told them.

"Well, your pa wants you down in the peanut field. You'd better get a
drink of water first. You look powerful red."

An hour later, when work was ove