Across the field, in another patch of corn, she could see her father--a big, gruff-voiced, wide-bearded Norwegian--at work also with a plow. The corn must be plowed, and so she toiled on, the tears dropping from the shadow of the ugly sun-bonnet she wore. Her shoes, coarse and square-toed, chafed her feet; her hands, large and strong, were browned, or, more properly, burnt, on the backs by the sun. The horse's harness "creak-cracked" as he swung steadily and patiently forward, the moisture pouring from his hide, his nostrils distended. The field bordered on a road, and on the other side of the road ran a river--a broad, clear, shallow expanse at that point--and the eyes of the girl gazed longingly at the pond and the cool shadow each time that she turned at the fence. This same contrast is expressed by Hamlin Garland in two poems presented here. The first, "Ploughing," sets forth the irksome toll to which the undeveloped boy was subjected. The second, "Ladrone," portrays the joy which the youth in the country acquires from association with the animals of the farm. These poems and all the following selections are taken from "Boy Life on the Prairie," and are here published by permission of the Macmillan Company. PLOWING A lonely task it is to plough! All day the black and clinging soil Rolls like a ribbon from the mould-board's Glistening curve. All day the horses toil Battling with the flies--and strain Their creaking collars. All day The crickets jeer from wind-blown shocks of grain. October brings the frosty dawn, The still, warm noon, the cold, clear night, When torpid insects make no sound, And wild-fowl in their southward flight Go by in hosts--and still the boy And tired team gnaw round by round, At weather-beaten stubble, band by band, Until at last, to their great joy, The winter's snow seals up the unploughed land. LADRONE And, "What of Ladrone"--do you ask? Oh! friend. I am sad at the name. My splendid fleet roan!--The task You require is a hard one at best. Swift as the spectral coyote, as tame To my voice as a sweetheart, an eye Like a pool in the woodland asleep, Brown, clear, and calm, with color down deep, Where his brave, proud soul seemed to lie-- Ladrone! There's a spell in the word. The city walls fade on my eye--the roar Of its traffic grows dim As the sound of the wind in a dream. My spirit takes wing like a bird. Once more I'm asleep on the plain, The summer wind sings in my hair; Once again I hear the wild crane Crying out of the steaming air; White clouds are adrift on the breeze, The flowers nod under my feet, And under my thighs, 'twixt my knees, Again as of old I can feel The roll of Ladrone's firm muscles, the reel Of his chest--see the thrust of fore-limb And hear the dull trample of heel.