Spiders' webs, marvels of lace, dotted the
short grass under the apple trees. Every flower that had a
fragrance was pouring it gratefully into the air; every bird with
a joyous note in its voice gave it more joyously from a bursting
throat; and the river laughed and rippled in the distance at the
foot of Town House Hill. Then dawn grew into full morning and
streams of blue smoke rose here and there from the Edgewood
chimneys. The world was alive, and so beautiful that Waitstill
felt like going down on her knees in gratitude for having been
born into it and given a chance of serving it in any humble way
whatsoever.
Wherever there was a barn, in Riverboro or Edgewood, one could
have heard the three-legged stools being lifted from the pegs,
and then would begin the music of the milk-pails; first the
resonant sound of the stream on the bottom of the tin pail, then
the soft delicious purring of the cascade into the full bucket,
while the cows serenely chewed their cuds and whisked away the
flies with swinging tails.
Deacon Baxter was taking his cows to a pasture far over the hill,
the feed having grown too short in his own fields. Patty was
washing dishes in the kitchen and Waitstill was in the
dairy-house at the butter-making, one of her chief delights.
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