The Hills of Hingham

by Dallas Lore Sharp

A flood of warm, sweet sunshine poured over us; a breeze, wild-rose-and-elder-laden, swept in out of the broad meadow that stretched from the very doorstep to a distant hill of pines, and through the air, like a shower in June, fell the notes of soaring, singing bobolinks.

Joel stood looking out over his farm with the eyes of a stark stranger. He had never seen it from the front door before. It was a new prospect.

"Let's sit here on the millstone step," I said, bringing the Bible out into the fresh air, "and I 'll read you something you never heard before," and I read,—laying the emphasis so as to render a new thing of the old story,—"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light; and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good. And God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness he called night.

"And the evening and the morning were the first day."

Starting each new phase of the tale with "And God said," and bringing it to a close with "And God saw that it was good," I read on through the seas and dry land, the sun and stars, and all living things, to man and woman—"male and female created he them"—and in his own likeness, blessing them and crowning the blessing with saying, "Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it,"—farm for a living; rounding out the whole marvelous story with the sweet refrain: "And God saw everything that he had made, and behold it was very good.

"And the evening and the morning were the sixth day."

"Thus, Joel," I concluded, glancing at him as with opened eyes he looked out for the first time over his new meadow,—"thus, according to my belief, and not as you have been reading it, were the heavens and the earth finished and all the host of them."

He took the old book in his lap and sat silent with me for a while on the step. Then he said:—

"Nobody has got to the bottom of that book yet, have they? And it's true; it's all true. It's just accordin' as you see it. Do ye know what I'm going to do? I 'm going to buy one of them double-seated red swings and put it right out here under this sassafras tree, and Hannah and I are going to set in, and swing in it, and listen a little to them bobolinks."