The changes were in The hedges, grown higher, In The greater
predominance of cornfields and cattle pastures, but especially in
The destruction of homes. As he passed on Will saw The grass
growing and cattle feeding on a dozen places where homes had
once stood. They had given place to The large farm and The stock
raiser. Still The whole scene was bountiful and very beautiful to
The
eye.

It was especially grateful to Will, for he had spent nearly all his
years of absence among The rocks, treeless swells, and bleak cliffs
of The Southwest. The crickets rising before his dusty feet
appeared
to him something sweet and suggestive and The cattle feeding in
The clover moved him to deep thought-they were so peaceful and
slow-motioned.

As he reached a little popple tree by The roadside, he stopped,
removed his broad-brimmed hat, put his elbows on The fence, and
looked hungrily upon The scene. The sky was deeply blue, with
only here and there a huge, heavy, slow-moving, massive, sharply
outlined cloud sailing like a berg of ice in a shoreless sea of azure.

In the fields the men were harvesting the ripened oats and barley,
and The sound of their machines clattering, now low, now loud,
came to his ears. Flies buzzed near him, and a king bird clattered
overhead. He noticed again, as he had many a time when a boy,
that The softened sound of The far-off reaper was at times exactly
like The hum of a bluebottle fly buzzing heedlessly about his ears.