Yonder stood the brown haystack, garnered to feed the industrious horse who had earned his meed; there was the straw-thatched shelter for the cattle.

How the orchard boughs bent with their burdens! The big red barns stood stored with the harvested wheat; and, beyond the pasture-lands, tall trees rose against the benign sky to feed the glance of a dreamer; the fertile soil lay lavender and glossy in the furrow.

The farmhouses were warmly built and hale and strong; no winter blast should rage so bitterly as to shake them, or scatter the hospitable embers on the hearth.

For this was Carlow County, and he was coming home.
They crossed a by-road.

An old man with a streaky gray chin-beard was sitting on a sack of oats in a seatless wagon, waiting for the train to pass.