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A birch, the only tree in the enclosure, cast fluttering shadow on the closely cropped sod. Sunlight sparkled on the river and on the row of tin milk pans set out near the kitchen door. To this door Eliza went slowly, fanning herself with her handkerchief, for the walk had been warm. She saw Miss Rexford was in the kitchen alone, attending to some light cookery.
Fortunately no damage was done beyond the smashing of a couple of oars and the incontinent precipitation backwards into the bottom of the boat of the pullers thereof, amidst the uproarious laughter of all hands, and before these unfortunates had fairly picked themselves up, the cutter was sent surging half her length high and dry up on the beach, the carronade belched forth its contents, and out we jumped, master and man, and charged up to the sod battery which had fired upon us.
"Rachel started, stopped suddenly, and fixed upon me a mournful gaze, the only glance of tenderness which ever beamed upon me from those brilliant, stern eyes. "'Poor child! you may have your wish gratified only too soon. Did Robert Moncton or Dinah North know of your existence, the green sod would not lie long unpiled upon your head.
Leonard's gaze involuntarily wandered in search of the old apple-tree, and he presently discovered it. It was loaded with fruit, and the rounded sod beneath it proclaimed the grave of the ill-fated Dame Lucas. Satisfied with this survey, Leonard opened the gate, but had no sooner set foot in the garden than the loud barking of a dog was heard, and Bell rushed forth.
While thus engaged in working and stopping her attention was attracted by the sudden rising and running away of the sheep squatted on the down; and there succeeded sounds of a heavy tramping over the hard sod which the sheep had quitted, the tramp being accompanied by a metallic jingle.
But, as he uttered it, it became oracular, the most sacred of words. Early the next morning I ran out of doors to look about me. I had been told that ours was the only wooden house west of Black Hawk—until you came to the Norwegian settlement, where there were several. Our neighbors lived in sod houses and dugouts—comfortable, but not very roomy.
The tough prairie sod had to be broken up and worked over, but the only implement which the Colonist had to use was a simple hoe, the one harrow being incomplete. The crofters were poor farmers, for they were rather fishermen. But the fish in Red River were scarce in this year, so that even the fisher's art which they knew was of little avail to them.
In the middle lay a piece of cut sod upon which rested a honeycomb with the grass arranged around it. An Egyptian slave passed bread around from a silver oven and in a most discordant voice twisted out a song in the manner of the mime in the musical farce called Laserpitium.
As we looked up the Salten Fjord, while crossing its mouth, the snows of Sulitelma, the highest mountain in Lappmark, 6000 feet above the sea, were visible, about fifty miles distant. Next came the little town of Bodö where we stopped for the night. It is a cluster of wooden houses, with roofs of green sod, containing about three hundred inhabitants.
There was silence again, broken only by the horse's impatient pawing, and then Philip said more calmly, "Let Dr. Mylechreest see her first, at all events." "I'm not a man for skinning the meadow to the sod, no " said Pete, in a doleful tone; but Kate heard no more. She was trembling with a new thought. It was only a shadowy suggestion as yet, and at first she tried to beat it back.
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