otherwise empty grand-stand and, with his straw hat pulled well over his
eyes, watched the progress of a horse-drawn mower about a field
A boy in a blue serge suit sat on the second tier of seats of an
otherwise empty grand-stand and, with his straw hat pulled well over his
eyes, watched the progress of a horse-drawn mower about a field. The
horse was a big, well-fed chestnut, and as he walked slowly along he
bobbed his head rhythmically. In the seat of the mower perched a thin
little man in a pair of blue overalls and a shirt which had also been
blue at one time, but which was now faded almost white. A broad-brimmed
straw hat of the sort affected by farmers, protected his head from the
noonday sun. Between the overalls and the rusty brogans on his feet
several inches of bare ankle intervened, and, as he paraded slowly
around the field, almost the only sign of life he showed was when he
occasionally stooped to brush a mosquito from these exposed portions of
his anatomy. The horse, too, wore brogans, big round leather shoes which
strapped over his hoofs and protected the turf, and, having never before
seen a horse in leather boots, the boy on the grand-stand had been for
a while mildly interested. But the novelty had palled some time ago, and
now, leaning forward with his sun-browned hands clasped loosely between
his knees, he continued to watch the mower merely because it was the
only object in sight that was not motionless, if one excepts the white
clouds moving slowly across a blue September sky.