would say, or, "Tank you put more there"; but Bill told mostly by the
feel of the load under his feet or by the "squareness of his eye."
John, the Pole, is a big, powerful fellow, and after smoothing down the
load with his fork he does not bother to rake up the combings, but
gathering a bunch of loose hay with his fork, he pushes it by main
strength, and very quickly, around the load, and running his fork
through the heap, throws it upon the mountain-high load in a
twinkling--an admirable, deft performance.

Hay-making is a really beautiful process: the clicking mower cutting its
clean, wide swath, a man stepping after, where the hay is very heavy, to
throw the windrow back a little. Then, after lying to wilt and dry in
the burning sun--all full of good odours--the horse-rake draws it neatly
into wide billows, and after that, John, the Pole, and I roll the
billows into tumbles. Or, if the hay is slow in drying, as it was not
this year, the kicking tedder goes over it, spreading it widely. Then
the team and rack on the smooth-cut meadow and Bill on the load, and
John and I pitching on; and the talk and badinage that goes on, the
excitement over disturbed field mice, the discussion of the best methods
of killing woodchucks, tales of marvellous exploits of loaders and
stackers, thrilling incidents of the wet year of '98 when two men and
one team saved four acres of hay by working all night--"with lanterns, I
jing"--much talk of how she goes on, "she" being the hay, and no end of
observations upon the character, accomplishments, faults, and excesses
of the sedate old horses waiting comfortably out in front, half hidden
by the mountain of hay above them and nibbling at the tumbles as they go
by.

Then the proud moment when Bill the driver, with legs apart, almost
pushing on the reins, drives his horses up the hill.