KATHARINE LEE BATES is an American writer and educator. O beautiful for spacious skies, For amber waves of grain, For purple mountain majesties America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea! 5 O beautiful for pilgrim feet, America! America! God mend thine every flaw, O beautiful for heroes proved In liberating strife, Who more than self their country loved, America! America! May God thy gold refine, O beautiful for patriot dream America! America! God shed his grace on thee And crown thy good with brotherhood THE RESCUE OF THE SHEEP RICHARD D. BLACKMORE RICHARD D. BLACKMORE (1825-1900) was an English novelist of marked originality and power. Lorna Doone, from which this selection is taken, is one of the most popular of English novels. It must have snowed most wonderfully to have made that depth of covering in about eight hours. And here it 5 was, blocking up the doors and stopping the ways and the water courses. However, we trudged along in a line; I first and the other men after me, trying to keep my track, but finding legs and strength not up to it. All this time it was snowing harder than it had ever snowed before, 10 so far as a man might guess at it; and the leaden depth of the sky came down, like a mine turned upside down on us. Not that the flakes were so very large, but that there was no room between them, neither any relaxing nor any change of direction. 15 Watch, like a good and faithful dog, followed us very cheerfully, leaping out of the depth, which took him over his back and ears already, even in the level places; while in the drifts he might have sunk to any distance out of sight, and never found his way up again. However, we 20 helped him now and then, especially through the gaps and gateways; and so, after a deal of floundering and some laughter, we came all safe to the lower meadow, where most of our flock was hurdled. But, behold, there was no flock at all! None, I mean, to be seen anywhere; only at one corner of the field, by the eastern end, where the snow drove in, a great white billow as high as a barn and as broad as a house. Ever 5 and again the tempest snatched little whiffs from the channeled edges, twirled them round and made them dance over the monster pile, then let them lie like herring bones, or the seams of sand where the tide has been. And all the while, from the smothering sky, more and more fiercely at 10 every blast, came the pelting, pitiless arrows, winged with murky white and pointed with the barbs of frost. But although, for people who had no sheep, the sight was a very fine one (so far, at least, as the weather permitted any sight at all), yet for us, with our flock beneath 15 it, this great mount had but little charm. Watch began to scratch at once, and to howl along the sides of it; he knew that his charge was buried there and his business taken from him. But we four men set to in earnest, digging with all our might and main, shoveling away at that great white 20 pile and fetching it into the meadow. Each man made for himself a cave, scooping at the soft, cold mass, which slid upon him at every stroke, and throwing it out behind him in piles of castled fancy. At last we drove our tunnels in (for we worked, indeed, for the lives of us), and all con25 verging toward the middle, held our tools and listened. The other men heard nothing at all, or declared that they heard nothing, being anxious now to abandon the matter, because of the chill in their feet and knees. But I said: "Go, if you choose, all of you. I will work it out by myself"; and upon that they gripped their shovels. But before we began again I laid my head well into the chamber, and there I heard a faint ma-a-ah coming 5 through the snow, like a plaintive, buried hope or a last appeal. I shouted aloud to cheer him up, for I knew what sheep it was. And then we all fell to again, and very soon we hauled him out. Watch took charge of him at once, with an air of the noblest patronage, lying on his frozen 10 fleece, and licking all his face and feet, to restore his warmth to him. Soon Fighting Tom jumped up and made a little butt at Watch, as if nothing had ever ailed him, and then set off to a shallow place and looked for something to nibble at. 15 Farther in, and close under the bank, where they had huddled themselves for warmth, we found all the rest of the poor sheep, packed as closely as if they were in a great pie. It was strange to observe how their vapor and breath and the moisture exuding from their wool had 20 scooped a room for them, lined with a ribbing of deep yellow snow. Also the churned snow beneath their feet was as yellow as gamboge. "However shall we get them home?" John Fry asked in great dismay, when we had cleared about a dozen of 25 them, which we were forced to do very carefully, so as not to fetch the roof down. |