ghum patch behind the barn, were the only
broken land in sight. Everywhere, as far as
the eye could reach, there was nothing but
rough, shaggy, red grass, most of it as tall as I.

North of the house, inside the ploughed fire-
breaks, grew a thick-set strip of box-elder
trees, low and bushy, their leaves already
turning yellow. This hedge was nearly a
quarter of a mile long, but I had to look very
hard to see it at all. The little trees were in-
significant against the grass. It seemed as if
the grass were about to run over them, and
over the plum-patch behind the sod chicken-
house.

As I looked about me I felt that the grass
was the country, as the water is the sea. The
red of the grass made all the great prairie the
color of wine-stains, or of certain seaweeds
when they are first washed up. And there was
so much motion in it; the whole country
seemed, somehow, to be running.

I had almost forgotten that I had a grand-
mother, when she came out, her sunbonnet on
her head, a grain sack in her hand, and asked
me if I did not want to go to the garden with
her to dig potatoes for dinner. The garden,
curiously enough, was a quarter of a mile from

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