COUNTRY LIFE
THERE is something wonderful about the peace of a Sunday morning in the country. The cottages and farms are only half awake, and the roads are almost deserted. We were on our way early, and when we stopped, after going through one sleeping village after another, there was still a little mist among the trees of the orchard although the sun was breaking through. I was startled to hear a turkey gobbling close at hand, and when a cuckoo alighted almost overhead one bird seemed to be answering the other. One hears the cuckoo in spring but sees it less often, and this is a pity, for it is a handsome bird. A small boy came along the road carrying a milk-can. He was unimpressed by cuckoo or turkey, and went through into the farmyard on his errand for milk. When he returned a little later, he was whistling and swinging the can with a careless vigour that made some of its contents spill from beneath the badly-fitting lid. Before we left the spot we could hear the boy's mother scolding him. Her voice carried strongly on the still air of the morning, and was cut off abruptly when her cottage door clumped shut.
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