drafty mountain hut

Fast-Day. — Some fields are dried sufficiently for the games of ball with which this season is commonly ushered in.  I associate this day, when I can remember it, with games of baseball played over behind the hills in the russet fields toward Sleepyhollow, where the snow has just melted and dried up, and also with the uncertainty I always experienced whether the shops would be shut, whether we should have an ordinary  dinner, an extraordinary one , or none at all, and whether there would be more than one service at the meeting-house. This last uncertainty old folks share with me. This is a windy day, drying up the fields; the first we have had for a long time.

from the journals of Henry David Thoreau