twenty men at the house then, and Annie
cooked for all of them. Jim had tried to
get some one to help her, but he had not
succeeded. Annie strove to be brave, re-
membering that farm-women all over the
country were working in similar fashion.
But in spite of all she could do, the days
got to seem like nightmares, and sleep be-
tween was but a brief pause in which she was
always dreaming of water, and thinking that
she was stooping to put fevered lips to a
running brook. Some of these men were
very disgusting to Annie. Their manners
were as bad as they could well be, and a
coarse word came naturally to their lips.

"To be master of the soil, that is one
thing," said she to herself in sickness of
spirit; "but to be the slave of it is another.
These men seem to have got their souls all
covered with muck." She noticed that
they had no idea of amusement. They had
never played anything. They did not even
care for base-ball. Their idea of happiness
appeared to be to do nothing; and there was
a good part of the year in which they were
happy, -- for these were not for the most
part men owning farms; they were men
who hired out to help the farmer. A good
many of them had been farmers at one time