Barn

“ The old barn creaked dismally as each gust of wind racked it, and loose boards rattled and banged. No created place can be more dreary than an old and empty barn.
After our exertions we soon felt very chilly. We should not have dared build a fire in the barn, even if we had had matches. Willis groped about in the old hay bay and gathered a few handfuls of musty hay, which we spread on the barn floor, and then lay down as snugly together as we could nestle, but nothing that we could do sufficed to warm us, and we lay shivering for what seemed hours. ”

“ I can think of no finer picture of rural peace than such a barn as this, the cool wind sighing gently through the wide doors, the beams stretching across the cavernous space above dotted with the gray nests, the air full of the friendly, homey twittering of the birds, some resting and preening their feathers on the beams, others swinging in amazing flight down and out through the doors to skim the grass of the neighboring fields and marshes for food, then flashing back again to the hungry nestlings. ”

“ I stand and look long at my barnyard family. I observe with satisfaction how plump they are and how well they are bearing the winter. Then I look up at my mountainous straw stack with its capping of snow, and my corn crib with the yellow ears visible through the slats, and my barn with its mow full of hay—all the gatherings of the year, now being expended in growth. I cannot at all explain it, but at such moments the circuit of that dim spiritual battery which each of us conceals within seems to close, and the full current of contentment flows through our lives. ”

“ By the ruined, moss-clothed barn the owl will build her nest, and the twilight will tread a measure with the night. And the rustic maidens will gather the shell-pink honeysuckle with their lovers, and the amorous clouds will slumber above the exquisite plough-boy with his primrose locks, as he wanders, whistling, on his way. ”

“ Otherwise it was black darkness: one breathed darkness.
He opened the doors, upper and lower, and they entered into the high, dry barn, that smelled warm even if it were not warm. He hung the lantern on the nail and shut the door. They were in another world now. The light shed softly on the timbered barn, on the whitewashed walls, and the great heap of hay; instruments cast their shadows largely, a ladder rose to the dark arch of a loft. Outside there was the driving rain, inside, the softly-illuminated stillness and calmness of the barn. ”

“ Night and day the barn doors stand wide open, and the great barn is bursting with its heaped treasures. The wagons come and go, and the beat of the flail begins. Bright and beautiful and abundant is the cheery scene, but there is a pervading sense of accomplishment. The cattle graze in the pastures, and in the meadows where the growth is over. The harvest fields will clearly do no more. ”

“ To find herself in a barn or under a hedge would seem paradise compared to this close breathless atmosphere, this hot summer air laden with the scent of stale vegetables, fish, and refuse of all kinds. ”

“ At the far end of the barn, close by the doors, I stood a minute or two before shifting up to watch the shearing. Into that dim, beautiful home of age, with its great rafters and mellow stone archways, the June sunlight shone through loopholes and chinks, in thin glamour, powdering with its very strangeness the dark cathedraled air, where, high up, clung a fog of old grey cobwebs so thick as ever were the stalactites of a huge cave. At this end the scent of sheep and wool and men had not yet routed that home essence of the barn, like the savour of acorns and withering beech leaves. ”

“ To roam at will from garden to garden, to run at full speed through the alleys, to recline when wearied in some shaded recess, or to seat myself with a book, on a mow of hay in the large, lofty barn, where the quiet cows ruminated over their fragrant food, gave variety and fulness of delight to the liberal periods allotted for out-of-door rambling. ”

“ Nailed on the barn are the fostering, wind-dried, grinning trophies of the keeper's prowess—hawks, owls, jays, magpies, slender stoats and weasels, grey-pated daws and a rook or two, a squirrel, and the tails of sundry domestic cats. ”

“ He smiled and rose to lead the way. The barn was dark and cool, odorous with the freshly garnered hay. He helped her up the ladder and over the springy mows to where a rickety set of cross-bars led to the sparsely-floored beams above. ”

“ And then the barn, the cavernous dark doors, the hoofs of the horses thundering on the floor, the smell of cattle from below, the pigeons in the loft whirring startled from their perches. Then the hot, scented, dusty “pitching off” and “mowing in”—a fine process, an honest process: men sweating for what they get. ”

“ The swallows dive and chatter about the barn, or squeak and build beneath the eaves; the partridge drums in the fresh sprouting woods; the long, tender note of the meadow lark comes up from the meadow ”

“ Upon the beams in the top of the barn the brown-breasted, fork-tailed barn-swallows have made their mud nests for years. These birds are wholly domesticated. We cannot think of them as wild. And what a place in our affections they have won! If it is the bluebirds that bring the spring, the barn-swallows fetch the summer. They take us back to the farm. We smell the hay, we see the cracks and knot-holes of light cutting through the fragrant [76] gloom of the mows, we hear the munching horses and the summer rain upon the shingles, every time a barn-swallow slips past us. ”

“ In the winter, when the earth was buried deep in new-fallen snow, and no path fit for walking in was left, this barn was like a great gallery, well suited for that purpose, and furnished with pictures, not unpleasing to a simple and contented mind. ”

“ Pick a barn, a whole barn, and bend more slender accents than have ever been necessary, shine in the darkness necessarily.
Actually not aching, actually not aching, a stubborn bloom is so artificial and even more than that, it is a spectacle, it is a binding accident, it is animosity and accentuation. ”

“ You know it will sound a great deal worse to talk about living in a barn than it will to go in and see it all fixed up with rugs and curtains and screens and the piano and a couch, and the supper-table set, and the sun setting outside the open door, and a bird singing in the tree. ”

“ A barn ought not to be worth such a big price. How much would you feel like paying?"
He was studying the girl before him with interested eyes; noting the well-set head on the pretty shoulders, even in spite of the ill-fitting shabby blue coat; the delicate features; the glint of gold in the soft brown hair; the tilt of the firm little chin, and the wistfulness in the big blue eyes. This was a new kind of girl, and he was disposed to give her what she wanted if he could. And he could. He knew well that anything he willed mightily would not be denied him. ”

“ With a rush and a whir of shining wings, They hear and obey—the dainty things! Dun and purple and snowy white, Clouded gray, like the soft twilight, Straight as an arrow shot from a bow, Wheeling and circling high and low, Down they fly from the slanting roof Of the old red barn at Mendon. ”

“ The junk pile in the barn is invaded, and the rusty plough abstracted from the midst of rakes and scythes and other farming tools. The old white horse thrusts his long head from the stall near by, and whinnies at the memories it revives, and with pricked-up ears and whisking tail tells plainly of the eagerness he feels. ”

“ For glad would I be in a barn for to be.
The place it is pleasant and bonny indeed,
But the people are hard-hearted to us that’s in need,
Perhaps they’ll not grant us their barn nor byre,
But I’ll go and ask them as it is your desire. ”

“ The barn is still more dim than the land, so that a stretch of soft brown darkness is all that is known of the far-off roof. Nearing footfalls are heard in the road, and a woman's singing grows clearer. ”

“ The little clearing was everywhere as light as day, except where the shadows of the rude fences checkered the ground, or where the gloom, cast by the forest, fell like an ominous pall across the eastern edge. Before our heroine was the little, tumble-down barn, which we have once before described. ”

“ I have a barn-door outlook because I have a hay-barn study, and I chose a hay-barn study because I wanted a barn-door outlook—a wide, near view into fields and woods and orchards where I could be on intimate terms with the wild life about me, and with free, open-air nature. ”

“ A little farther on stands a great barn with huge mows and the big hay doors front and rear always hospitably open to the scores of barn swallows that build on the beams up next the roof. In no barn have I found quite so many swallows at home. At every vantage point on a beam, wherever a corner of a timber or a locking pin protrudes to give a support, nests have been built, generation following generation till some of the structures are curious, deep, inverted mud pyramids, topped with straw and grass and lined with feathers, downy beds for the clamorous young. ”

“ As we grope about in the barn, we cannot touch anything but what is sodden and cold, and the sour smell of wet animals is added to the vapor of the liquid manure that our beds contain.
We gather again, standing, around the props that hold the barn up, and around the rills that fall vertically from the holes in the roof—faint columns which rest on vague bases of splashing water. "Here we are again!" we cry. ”

“ Every tree we plant, every flower we grow, every clean field we cultivate, every good cow or hog we raise, we are helping to finish and furnish the house and make it fit to live in. Every kind word we say or even think, every gracious deed, if it is only thinking to bring out the neighbor's mail from town, helps to add those little touches which distinguish a house from a barn. ”

“ A properly-conducted barn-raising contains the excitement of a fire, the sociability of a garden party, and the sentimental delights of a summer resort "hop." The young men are given a chance to show their agility and prowess and the girls are enabled to shine as hostesses. Although it is especially a function for young people, there are always enough old folks on hand to give the occasion historical colour and perspective with their reminiscences of past raisings—some of them going back to the days of log barns and houses. ”

“ There was an undertone of sadness and suppressed excitement, for it was in the minds of all the Hollisters that the time in the old barn must of necessity be growing brief. The fall would soon be upon them, and a need for warmth. They must go hunting for a house at once. And yet they all wanted this one day of delight before they faced that question.
At last they reached the final curve and could see the tall old tree in the distance, and the clump of willows knee-deep in the brook. By common consent they all grew silent, watching for the first glimpse of the dear old barn. ”

“ Besides the wrens and bluebirds, the robins built under the eaves of the wood-shed, and became exceedingly tame. The more social swallow took possession of every convenient nestling-place about the barn, while troops of little sparrows came confidingly to the kitchen door to pick up the crumbs of bread which the children scattered on the pavement as soon as they discovered that these innocent little creatures were fond of them. ”

“ And here, for the last fifty years, a kind welcome has awaited all, be they voluntary idlers or sea-wrecked men. Screened by the sand-hills, here is a well-stocked barn and barnyard, filled with its ordinary inhabitants, sleek milch cows and heady bulls, lazy swine, a horse grazing at a tether, with geese and ducks and fowls around. ”

“ Sometimes I think the beasts have the best of it. The barns here are as large as churches. Built against the side of the mountain, they have two entrances, each on the level of the ground: the higher story forms the barn, the lower the byre. I have sometimes counted as many as twenty windows, set some two metres apart, along one side of those huge stone structures. Here from mid-November till mid-May the cattle live under cover, chew the cud and see in memory, no doubt, the meadows hard by with their delicious grass and the aromatic pastures on the mountain-top. ”

“ The happiness of many people depends upon us. We'll stroll back to that big farm we passed awhile ago. It's starred in the official guide books of the dusty ramblers and the milk and bread and butter there will be excellent. And the barn is red, Archie! A red barn is the best of all for sleeping purposes. An unpainted barn advertises the unthrift of the owner, and the roof is always leaky. The scent of moldy hay is extremely offensive to me—suggests rheumatism and pneumonia. And a white barn stares at you insolently. Whenever I see a white barn I prepare for bad luck. ”

“ Still, it must be confessed, an old barn is not without its disadvantages, which the impartial historian must not pass silently by. It shakes wonderfully in a high wind. You hardly dare drive a nail anywhere, for fear the whole edifice should rattle down over your head. ”

“ At each return I refilled my seed-bag, and sometimes I drank from the jug of water which I had hidden in the grass. Often I stood a moment by the fence to look up and around me. Through the clear morning air I could hear the roosters crowing vaingloriously from the barnyard, and the robins were singing, and occasionally from the distant road I heard the rumble of a wagon. I noted the slow kitchen smoke from Horace's chimney, the tip of which I could just see over the hill from the margin of my field—and my own pleasant home among its trees—and my barn—all most satisfying to look upon. ”