wuz a-goin' by one of the horses got down, and of all the yellin' I ever
heard that was the cap sheaf.

Steve Yerden is rough on his horses, dretful rough. He yells at 'em
enough to raise the ruff. His threshin' machine is one of the kind where
the horses walk up and look over the top. It is kinder skairful any way,
and it made it as bad agin when you expected to see the horse fall out
every minute.

Wall, that very horse fell out of the machine three times that day. It
wuz a sick horse, I believe, and hadn't ort to have been worked. But
three times it fell, and each time the yellin' wuz such that it skairt
the author of "Peaceful Repose," and me, almost to death.

The machine wuz in plain sight of the house, and every time we see the
horse's head come a mountin' up on top of the machine, we expected that
over it would go. But though it didn't fall out only three times, as I
said, it kep' us all nerved up and uneasy the hull of the time expectin'
it. And Steve Yerden kep' a-yellin' at his horses all the time; there
wuzn't no comfort to be took within a mile of him.

I wuz awful sorry it happened so, on her account.

[Illustration: "IT DIDN'T FALL OUT ONLY THREE TIMES."]

Wall, I had to get dinner for nine men, and cook if all from the very
beginnin'. If you'll believe it, I had to begin back to bread. I hadn't
any bread in the house, but I had it a-risin', and I got two loaves out
by dinner time. But I had to stir round lively, I can tell you, to make
pies and cookies and fried cakes, and cook meat, and vegetables of all