Now he was busy harnessing the team.

At the division blacksmith shop--temporarily put up--he had been obliged to wait while one of his lead horses was shod, and he had thus been delayed quite five minutes.

Nearly all the other teams were harnessed, the drivers on their seats, waiting for the foreman's signal.
"All ready here ?" inquired the foreman, driving up to Vanamee's team in his buggy.
"All ready, sir," answered Vanamee, buckling the last strap.
He climbed to his seat, shaking out the reins, and turning about, looked back along the line, then all around him at the landscape inundated with the brilliant glow of the early morning.
The day was fine.

Since the first rain of the season, there had been no other.

Now the sky was without a cloud, pale blue, delicate, luminous, scintillating with morning.