The land before him had been upturned by shallow ploughing some days since, and it lay now pale and arid, the large clods of earth showing the detached roots of grass and herbs, and presenting a hint of menacing destruction rather than the prospect of the peaceful art of cultivation.  It was the boy’s duty to drag the soil free from grass, after which it would be laid out into rows some three feet apart.  When this was done two furrows would be thrown together to give what the farmers called a “rise,” the point of which would be finally levelled, when the ground would be ready for the peanut-sowing, which was performed entirely by hand.

The boy worked industriously through the deepening dawn, giving an occasional “gee up, Rhody!” to the mare, and following the track of the harrow with much the same concentration of purpose as that displayed by his four-footed friend.  He was strong for his years, lithe as a sapling, and as fearless of elemental changes, and as he walked meditatively across the bare field he might have suggested to an onlooker the possible production of a vast fund of energy.

Presently the gray light was shot with gold and a streak of orange fluttered like a ribbon in the east.  In a moment a violet cloud floated above the distant hill, and as its ends curled up from the quickening heat it showed the splendour of a crimson lining.  A single ray of sunshine, pale as a spectral finger, pointed past the woodlands to the brook beneath the willows, and the vague blur of the mixed forest warmed into vivid tints, changing through variations from the clear emerald of young maples to the olive dusk of evergreens.

Last of all the ploughed field, which had preserved a neutral cast, blushed faintly in the sunrise, glowing to pale purple tones where the sod was newly turned.  From the fugitive richness of the soil a warm breath rose suddenly, filling the air with the genial odour of earth and sunshine.  The shining, dark coils of worms were visible like threads in the bright brown clods.

Nicholas raised his head and stared with unseeing eyes at the gorgeous east.  A rooster crowed shrilly, and he turned in the direction of the barnyard.  Then he flicked the ropes gently and went on, his gaze on the ground.  His thoughts, which at first were fixed solely upon the teeth of the harrow, took tumultuous flight, and he reviewed for the hundredth time his conversation with the judge and the vast avenue of the future which was opening before him.  He would not be like his father, of this he was convinced—­his father, who was always working with nothing to show for it—­whose planting was never on time, and whose implements were never in place.  His father had never had this gnawing desire to know things, this passionate hatred of the work which he might not neglect.  His father had never tried to beat against the barriers of his ignorance and been driven back, and beat again and wept, and read what he couldn’t