and returned to the stoop. Belshazzar arose, pleading in his eyes,
and cautiously advanced a few steps. The man bent over his work and paid
not the slightest heed, so the discouraged dog sank to earth and fixedly
watched the unresponsive master. The carving of the candlestick went
on steadily. Occasionally the Harvester lifted his head and repeatedly
sucked his lungs full of air. Sometimes for an instant he scanned the
surface of the lake for signs of breaking fish or splash of migrant
water bird. Again his gaze wandered up the steep hill, crowned with
giant trees, whose swelling buds he could see and smell. Straight before
him lay a low marsh, through which the little creek that gurgled and
tumbled down hill curved, crossed the drive some distance below, and
entered the lake of Lost Loons.

While the trees were bare, and when the air was clear as now, he could
see the spires of Onabasha, five miles away, intervening cultivated
fields, stretches of wood, the long black line of the railway, and
the swampy bottom lands gradually rising to the culmination of the
tree-crowned summit above him. His cocks were crowing warlike challenges
to rivals on neighbouring farms. His hens were carolling their spring
egg-song. In the barn yard ganders were screaming stridently. Over the
lake and the cabin, with clapping snowy wings, his white doves circled
in a last joy-flight before seeking their cotes in the stable loft. As
the light grew fainter, the Harvester worked slower. Often he leaned
against the casing, and closed his eyes to rest them. Sometimes he
whistled snatches of old songs to which his mother had cradled him, and
again bits of opera and popular music he had heard on the streets of
Onabasha. As he worked, the sun went down and a half moon appeared above
the wood across the lake. Once it seemed as if it were a silver bowl set
on the branch of a giant oak; higher, it rested a tilted crescent on the
rim of a cloud.

The dog waited until he could endure it no longer, and straightening
from his crouching position, he took a few velvet steps forward, making
faint, whining sounds in his throat. When the man neither turned his
head nor gave him a glance, Belshazzar sank to earth again, satisfied
for the moment with being a little closer. Across Loon Lake came the
wavering voice of a night love song. The Harvester remembered that as a
boy he had shrunk from those notes until his mother explained that they
were made by a little b