Page:A Kentucky Cardinal.djvu/161

 Berkshire. As I crossed the lot, near the milk-trough, ash-heap, and paring of fruit and vegetables thrown from my neighbor’s kitchen, I saw a litter of these pigs having their awkward sport over some strange red plaything, which one after another of them would shake with all its might, root and tear at, or tread into greater shapelessness. It was all there was left of him.

I entered my long yard. If I could have been spared the sight of that! The sun was setting. Around me was the last peace and beauty of the world. Through a narrow avenue of trees I could see my house, and on its clustering vines fell the angry red of the sun darting across the cool green fields.

The last hour of light touches the birds as it touches us. When they sing in the morning, it is with the happiness of the earth; but as the shadows fall strangely about them, and the helplessness of the night comes on,