I can see
too the glistening of the steel, as they wipe their blades, and can just
catch floating on the air the measured, tinkling thwack of the
rifle-stroke.
Here and there a lark, scared from his feeding-place in the grass, soars
up, bubbling forth his melody in globules of silvery sound, and settles
upon some tall tree, and waves his wings, and sinks to the swaying
twigs. I hear too a quail piping from the meadow fence, and another
trilling his answering whistle from the hills. Nearer by, a tyrant
king-bird is poised on the topmost branch of a veteran pear-tree, and
now and then dashes down, assassin-like, upon some homebound,
honey-laden bee, and then with a smack of his bill resumes his predatory
watch.
A chicken or two lie in the sun, with a wing and a leg stretched
out,--lazily picking at the gravel, or relieving their _ennui_ from time
to time with a spasmodic rustle of their feathers. An old, matronly hen
stalks about the yard with a sedate step, and with quiet self-assurance
she utters an occasional series of hoarse and heated clucks. A speckled
turkey, with an astonished brood at her heels, is eying curiously, and
with earnest variations of the head, a full-fed cat, that lies curled
up, and dozing, upon the floor of the cottage porch.
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