Hills of the Shatemuc

The light of an early Spring morning, shining fair on upland and lowland, promised a good day for the farmer's work. And where a film of thin smoke stole up over the tree-tops, into the sunshine which had not yet got so low, there stood the farmer's house. It was a little brown house, built surely when its owner's means were not greater than his wishes, and probably some time before his family had reached the goodly growth it boasted now. All of them were gathered at the breakfast-table. "Boys, you may take the oxen, and finish ploughing that upland field - I shall be busy all day sowing wheat in the bend meadow." "Then I'll bring the boat for you, papa, at noon," said a child on the other side of the table. "And see if you can keep those headlands as clean as I have left them." "Yes, sir. Shall you want the horses, father, or shall we take both the oxen?" "Both? - both pairs, you mean - yes; I shall want the horses. I mean to make a finish of that wheat lot."