A MESSAGE FROM THE WEST Surely it was no longer ago than yesterday.

I had left the scythe lying at the edge of the long grass, and gone up through the rows of nodding Indian corn to the house, seeking a draught of cool water from the spring.

It was hot in the July sunshine; the thick forest on every side intercepted the breeze, and I had been at work for some hours.
How pleasant and inviting the little river looked in the shade of the great trees, while, as I paused a moment bending over the high bank, I could see a lazy pike nosing about among the twisted roots below.
My mother, her sleeves rolled high over her round white arms, was in the dark interior of the milk-house as I passed, and spoke to me laughingly; and I could perceive my father sitting in his great splint-bottomed chair just within the front doorway, and I marked how the slight current of air toyed with his long gray beard.

The old Bible lay wide open upon his knee; yet his eyes were resting upon the dark green of the woods that skirted our clearing.

I wondered, as I quaffed the cool sweet water at the spring, if he was dreaming again of those old days when he had been a man among men.