You may go."
The children ran away, laughing; the boys hurried off together to the
swimming hole, their casual shouts stealing after them down the road.
Mr. Jeminy, lying on his back in the grass, listened to them sadly. As
the voices grew fainter and fainter, it seemed to him as if they were
saying: "School is over, school is over." And he thought: "They are
counting the seasons. But to the old, the year is never done."
Mr. Frye, who had been sitting quietly by the road during Mr. Jeminy's
little speech to the children, now got up, and went back to the
village, shaking his head solemnly with every step.
III
THE BARLYS
The two hired men on Barly's farm rose in the dark and crept
downstairs. By sun-up, Farmer Barly was after them, in his brown
overalls; he came clumping into the barn, dusty with last year's hay,
and peered about him in the yellow light. He opened the harness room,
and took out harness for the farm wagons; he went to ask if the horses
had been watered.
The cows were in pasture; in the wagon shed the two men, before a tin
basin, plunged their arms into water, flung it on their faces, and
puffed and sighed.
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