A group of red calves stood at the bars of a small field
plaintively calling for their supper. It was not just an
ordinary bawl, but a double-jointed hyphenated appeal,
indicating a very exhausted condition indeed.
Pearl looked at them in pity. The old dog, wrinkling his
nose and turning away his head, did not give them a
glance. He knew them. Noisy things! Let 'em bawl. Come
on!
Across the narrow creek they bounded, Pearl and old Nap,
and up the other hill where the silver willows grew so
tall they were hidden in them. The goldenrod nodded its
plumy head in the breeze, and the tall Gaillardia, brown
and yellow, flickered unsteadily on its stem.
The billows of shadow swept over the wheat on each side
of the narrow pasture; the golden flowers, the golden
fields, the warm golden sunshine intoxicated Pearl with
their luxurious beauty, and in that hour of delight she
realised more pleasure from them than Sam Motherwell and
his wife had in all their long lives of barren selfishness.
Their souls were of a dull drab dryness in which no flower
took root, there was no gold to them but the gold of
greed and gain, and with it they had never bought a smile
or a gentle hand pressure or a fervid "God bless you!"
and so it lost its golden colour, and turned to lead and
ashes in their hands.
When Pearl and Nap got the cows turned homeward they had
to slacken their pace.
"I don't care how cross she is," Pearl said, "if I can
come for the cows every night.
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