The plough went not out; the herds wandered through broken hedges from field to field and came up with staring bones and shrunken sides; a frenzied mob of weeds and thorns wrestled and throttled each other in a struggle for standing-roomrag-weed, smart-weed, sneeze-weed, bindweed, iron-weeduntil the burning skies of midsummer checked their growth and crowned their unshorn tops with rank and dingy flowers.