The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-06-07
ONCE UPON A TIME.
Bob Burdesse in Ex.'

noon. Every thing nooded ana ooxed m the sun or rested in the shade. How the sun streamed down on meadow and field. The corn blades dropped and wilted. In the old hill 6eld could sec the men in the wheat, their arms sway ing in perfect rythm with the swinging cradles. and how like silver, the bright blades flashed as they turned. The bees drsned and drummed laxily about the old fashioned cypress under the sit- ting room windows We always called it "cyprus,' you know, because that wasn't the name of it; and they buxzed in vagrant fashion upon and down she long rows of flowers iha, lined the path to the front gate. The morning glories had closed their bright eyes of blue and pink. but a forest of four o'clocks were getting ready to wake up the holly hooks stood up like blossoming bean poles. always used to think that Aaron's rod, when it brought forth buds and blvomed blossoms" looked like a holly-hock it yielded almonds, bu, it looked like a holly-hock, l know. The breath of the old-fashioned pinks-no, dear, they were not carnations, we had no carnations then, they were just pinks -come sweesly on the air l: and the fro~sy bush of "Old Man" at the cor ner looked old and wilted indeed: in the blazing heat a tall group of sundowers stood up like cluster of hospitable do- ral umbrellas the big bunch of ribbon grass looked seasonable as . striped summer silk, with the lark spun dropping over 1t on one side, and on the other a group of rugged robins standing up, cherry and blue as the skies. As though it was not sensibly warm enough to sight as well as feeling, . colony of poppies stood 5laxing away above their pale leaves, while the coxcenb and Prince of Wales leather added an unheeessaTy toach of warmth to the partene. And here. there, everywhere and trying to ge, somewhere else the Bouncing Bets swarmed all over the garden, crep, through the garden fence and ran right along in the corners and right by the dusty roadside among the disreputable dog fennel and plebeian rag weed, clear down to where the big slough crossed the road. l lay under the big Morello cherry tree by the new well-the one near the house, you remember seventy eigh, feet deep, and yielded the coldess, ciearest water in America-and lazily watched a few struggling Aeecy clouds sailing aimlessly across the blue skies, as though they had lost their reckoning, and were only waiting to be picked up and set right. 1 could hear the old clock tick solemnly away in the sitting room {; if lim2ed little on it's way around the dial, and always ticked loudest on the left hand swing of the pendulum, and is had startling way of going of at unex- pected times in funny sort of noise that sounded like cough or chuckie, which ever would scare yca the most
 The girls had gone 90 town. Grand ma sat in the open sitting-rooTn door sewing. Crandfathsz stood in the cool shade at the long work bench sf the end of the kitchen, making . new singie-tree for the light wagon They could not see each other. doubt if they hezsd, os as any rate observed, each osheS's voices, but l could plainly see and hear each one, and forgot my book, listening to them. and trying to guess their thoughts rom their disjointed, changing abrupt fragments of song. And the occasional 6ufter of the leaves stirred hy . wander ing breath of wind, the shadows dimp- ling the second growth of rcd dover, the straying note of resfiess bird, the Ieog, dussy road, stretching far away pase the woods to the high praisie," the Aash of bufterfys vings-hov t all harmon ized with the broken soeSs thas feil d. most unccnsciousiy at tmes rom the old lips, while @the singen were over with the business of the house,- &ad in all that hour of peace, while the whole earth is at rest, and is quies, they break foyfh into sin9in4.