Silver Rags

The forenoon was spent quietly in the barn, in the capacious bays of which the mounds of fragrant hay had just been stored, still warm with the midsummer sunshine, and furnishing an occasional sleepy grasshopper, by no means startled out of his dignity by his sudden change of residence. The west wind blew softly in at the open doors, through which one could look, as one lay on the mow, into the sunny world outside, and catch a few bars of an oriole’s call, or of robin’s cheery note.

The cattle were all out to pasture. Over the floor walked the hens, in serene meditation, placidly clucking, or uttering a remonstrative and warning “Wha-a-a-t!” as a swallow careened too near them in the bars of dusty sunlight. The only other noise was the occasional bird-twitter from one of the dozen or more nests upon the rafters overhead, and the tapping of bills on the floor as the sober fowls now and then gleaned a stray insect or bit of seed-food.