tle
something in the swish of the scythe that makes one seek to know the
song it is singing to the grasses.

"Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying,
Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep;
Hush, they say to the grasses swaying,
Hush, they sing to the clover deep;
Hush,--'t is the lullaby Time is singing,--
Hush, and heed not, for all things pass.
Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging
Over the clover, over the grass."

And now, spent with fatigue and watching and care and grief,--heart
sick, mind sick, body sick, sick with past suspense and present
certainty and future dread,--he sat under the cool shade of the nooning
tree, and buried his face in his hands. He was glad to be left alone
with his miseries,--glad that the other men, friendly as he felt them
to be, had gone to the circus, where he would not see or hear them for
hours to come.

How clearly he could conjure up the scene that they were enjoying with
such keen relish! Only two days before, he had walked among the same
tents, staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons as one
who noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now saw at last lit up
all the rest as with a lightning flash, and burned the scene forever
on his brain and heart. It was at Wareham, too,--Wareham, where she had
promised to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before.
How well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage; they had
ten miles to drive in the moonlight before reaching their
stopping-place,--ten miles of such joy as only a man could know, he
thought, who had had the warm fruit of life hanging within full vision,
but just out of reach,--just above his longing lips; and then, in an
unlooked-for, gracious moment, his! He could swear she had loved him
that night, if never again.

But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle with the
caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous creak of
the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. As first the
thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, into which there
presently crept form and order. ... A boy who had cried to get on, and
was now crying to get off. ... Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube
looking white and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly
by the prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. ...
Pretty Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland;