On moves the plowman, steady as a clock, silent and reflective.
Right after him comes the corndropper, dropping corn.
The grains faintly chink as the bare feet of the corndropper hurry past; and before the corn has well cuddled itself into the shoe-heel of the plowman’s track, down comes the hoe of the “coverer”—and then the seeds pass into the portals of the great unknown; the unknown of burial, of death and of life renewed.
Peeping from the thicket, near at hand, the royal redbird makes note of what is going on, nor is the thrush blind to the progress of the corndropper. And seated with calm but watchful dignity on the highest pine in the thicket sits the melancholy crow, sharpening his appetite with all the anticipated pleasures of simple larceny.
The mocking-bird circles and swoops from tree to tree, and in her matchless bursts of varied song no cadence is wanting, no melody missed.
The hum of the bees is in the air; white butterflies, like snowflakes, fall down the light and lazily float away.
The robin lingers about the China tree, and the bluejay, lifting his plumed frontlet, picks a quarrel with every feathered acquaintance and noisily asserts his grievances.
The jo-ree has dived deeper into the thicket, and the festive sapsucker, he of the scarlet crest, begins to come to the front, inquisitive as to the location of bugs and worms.
On such a day, such a cloudless, radiant, flower-sweetened day, the horseman slackens the rein as he rides through lanes and quiet fields; and he dares to dream that the children of God once loved each other.
On such a day one may dream that the time might come when they would do so again.