All the way down, the boys had been finding the old things instead of the new—or, to their way of thinking, the new things instead of the old. The thatched roofs they had so counted upon seeing were few and far between. But American binders, of well-known makes, stood where the fields were beginning to ripen, —and they were being oiled and put in order, not by "peasants," but by wise-looking old farmers who seemed to know their business. Pear trees trained like vines against the wall, did not astonish them half so much as the sight of the familiar cottonwood (三叶杨), growing everywhere. Claude thought he had never before realized how beautiful this tree could be. In verdant little valleys, along the clear rivers, the cottonwoods waved and rustled; and on the little islands, of which there were so many in these rivers, they stood in pointed masses, seemed to grip deep into the soil and to rest easy, as if they had been there for ever and would be there for ever more.