Excerpt from The Old Orchard It was after the noon hour of a particularly warm day in June; such a day as the rustic, panting with all his aerating capacity as he toils at making hay, describes laconically as a scorcher. The new-mown grass wilted, then became crisp. The cattle sought the friendly shade of all the available trees of the pasture. Robins having a family to provide for might be seen resting a moment on a bough, with loosely opened wings and gaping bill. The air rang with the croon ing of crickets and the crackle of brown grasshoppers; while the bumble-bee hummed by in his glory, laden with the rich spoils of his morning forage. Over the dry roofs, upon which the vertical sun had glared for hours, the apparent quivering of the atmosphere gave evidence of the intensity of the heat. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.