"
^Emerson^.
[page]
THURSDAY.
--*--
When we awoke this morning, we heard the faint, deliberate, and
ominous sound of rain-drops on our cotton roof. The rain had
pattered all night, and now the whole country wept, the drops
falling in the river, and on the alders, and in the pastures, and
instead of any bow in the heavens, there was the trill of the
hair-bird all the morning. The cheery faith of this little bird
atoned for the silence of the whole woodland choir beside. When
we first stepped abroad, a flock of sheep, led by their rams,
came rushing down a ravine in our rear, with heedless haste and
unreserved frisking, as if unobserved by man, from some higher
pasture where they had spent the night, to taste the herbage by
the river-side; but when their leaders caught sight of our white
tent through the mist, struck with sudden astonishment, with
their fore-feet braced, they sustained the rushing torrent in
their rear, and the whole flock stood stock-still, endeavoring to
solve the mystery in their sheepish brains.
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