Sample
from
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
by
Thomas Hardy
Oxford Progressive English Readers
Grade 4
retold by
Katherine Mattock
New life
It was sunrise on a day in August. In a yellow corn field just outside Marlott, a reaping machine stood ready. Two groups of harvesters -- one of men, the other of women-- came down the lane from the village and turned into the field.
Presently the machine started. Slowly, its great wooden arms revolved as three horses began pulling it around the field. The mechanical reaper left the fallen corn in little heaps, and the harvesters who came behind had to bind each heap into a sheaf.
Most of those doing the binding were women, wearing large cotton bonnets to keep out the sun and leather gloves to protect their hands. One of them, in a pink cotton jacket, was finer than the rest. She never looked around to attract attention and perhaps that was one reason why she attracted it. At intervals, however, she stood up to rest or pull her bonnet straight. Then one could see the pale face of a handsome young woman with deep dark eyes, long brown hair, and a mouth like a flower.
It was Tess Durbeyfield, feeling like a stranger in her own village. After a long time within the house she had come out to earn some money in the busiest season of the farming year.
More of this story in
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
by
Thomas Hardy
Oxford Progressive English Readers
Grade 4
ISBN 0 19 586 312 7
This text is copyright Oxford University Press 1995.
If you can read this sample easily, you can enjoy any Oxford Progressive English Reader from Grade 1 through to Grade 4.
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