“Why, so ‘tis!  Pitchin’ hay hyar made me think it was hot,” he said, as she tripped on.  “Now, lass, don’t go up to the wheat-fields.”

But Lenore heard heedlessly, and she ran on till she came to the uncut alfalfa, which impeded her progress.  A wonderful space of green and purple stretched away before her, and into it she waded.  It came up to her knees, rich, thick, soft, and redolent of blossom and ripeness.  Hard tramping it soon got to be.  She grew hot and breathless, and her legs ached from the force expended in making progress through the tangled hay.  At last she was almost across the field, far from the cutters, and here she flung herself, to roll and lie flat and gaze up through the deep azure of sky, wonderingly, as if to penetrate its secret.  And then she hid her face in the fragrant thickness that seemed to force a whisper from her.

“I wonder—­how will I feel—­when I see him—­again....  Oh, I wonder!”

The sound of the whispered words, the question, the inevitableness of something involuntary, proved traitors to her happy dreams, her assurance, her composure.  She tried to burrow under the hay, to hide from that tremendous bright-blue eye, the sky.  Suddenly she lay very quiet, feeling the strange glow and throb and race of her blood, sensing the mystery of her body, trying to trace the thrills, to control this queer, tremulous, internal state.  But she found she could not think clearly; she could only feel.  And she gave up trying.  It was sweet to feel.

She rose and went on.  Another field lay beyond, a gradual slope, covered with a new growth of alfalfa.  It was a light green—­a contrast to the rich darkness of that behind her.  At the end of this field ran a swift little brook, clear and musical, open to the sky in places, and in others hidden under flowery banks.  Birds sang from invisible coverts; a quail sent up clear flutelike notes; and a lark caroled, seemingly out of the sky.

Lenore wet her feet crossing the brook, and, climbing the little knoll above, she sat down upon a stone to dry them in the sun.  It had a burn that felt good.  No matter how hot the sun ever got there, she liked it.  Always there seemed air to breathe and the shade was pleasant.

From this vantage-point, a favorite one with Lenore, she could see all the alfalfa-fields, the hill crowned by the beautiful white-and-red house, the acres of garden, and the miles of orchards.  The grazing and grain fields began behind her.

The brook murmured below her and the birds sang.  She heard the bees humming by.  The air out here was clear of scent of fruit and hay, and it bore a drier odor, not so sweet.  She could see the workmen, first those among the alfalfa, and then the men, and women, too, bending over on the vegetable-gardens.  Likewise she could see the gleam of peaches, apples, pears and plums—­a colorful and mixed gleam, delightful to the eye.

Wet or dry, it seemed that her feet refused to stay still, and once again she was wandering.  A gray, slate-colored field of oats invited her steps, and across this stretch she saw a long yellow slope of barley, where the men were cutting.  Beyond waved the golden fields of wheat.  Lenore imagined that when she reached them she would not desire to wander farther.