What joy at nightfall to gather them home to food and warmth and rest!
If there is ever a time when I feel myself a mediaeval lord to trusty
vassals, it is then. Of a truth I pass entirely over the Middle Ages,
joining my life to the most ancient dwellers of the plains, and
becoming a simple father of flocks and herds. When they have been duly
stabled according to their kinds, I climb to the crib in the barn and
create a great landslide of the fat ears that is like laughter; and
then from every stall what a hearty, healthy chorus of cries and
petitions responds to that laughter of the corn! What squeals and
grunts persuasive beyond the realms of rhetoric! What a blowing of
mellow horns from the cows! And the quick nostril trumpet-call of the
horse, how eager, how dependent, yet how commanding! As I mount to the
top of the pile, if I ever feel myself a royal personage it is then; I
ascend my throne; I am king of the corn; and there is not a brute
peasant in my domain that does not worship me as ruler of heaven and
earth.

Or I love to catch up the bundles of oats as they are thrown down from
the loft and send them whirling through the cutting-box so fast that
they pour into the big baskets like streams of melted gold; or,
grasping my pitchfork, I stuff the ricks over the mangers with the rich
aromatic hay until I am as warm as when I loaded the wagons with it at
midsummer noons.

With what sweet sounds and odors now the whole barn is filled! How
robust, clean, well-meaning are my thoughts! In what comfort of mind I
can turn to my own roof and store!

This hour in my stable is the only one out of the twenty-four left to