And such
sleep! That first steel-blue starlit night in the open we said that we
meant to sleep and sleep it out, even if we lost a whole day by it. It
seemed but a moment after sleep had claimed us, when, struggling through
the heavy darkness, came far-away light strands groping for our eyes,
and soft, half-uttered music questioning the ear. Returning I opened my
eyes, and there was the sun struggling slowly through the screen of
white birches in Opie's wood lot, and scattering the night mists that
bound down the Opal Farm with heavy strands; the air was tense with
flitting wings, bird music rose, fell, and drifted with the mist, and it
was only half-past four! You cannot kill time, you see, by stopping
clocks--with nature day _Is_, beyond all dispute. In two days, by
obeying instead of opposing natural sun time, we had swung half round
the clock, only now and then imitating the habits of our four-footed
brothers that steal abroad in the security of twilight.
[Illustration: THE SCREEN OF WHITE BIRCHES.
Copyright, 1901, H. Hendrickson.]
_June 24._ Amos Opie, the carpenter, owner of Opal Farm, is now keeping
widower's hall in the summer kitchen thereof.
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