halter made specially for him. He finally became such a perpetual
torment that we sold him, and we all had a good cry when the old horse
went away. He was upwards of twenty-five years old at this time. How
much longer he lived I cannot say. I never saw him afterward.

[Illustration: RUNNING BY.]

As soon as the sun was well up, and our tasks about the house over, our
part of this new play in the hayfield began, and with a fork or long
stick we followed up the swathes and spread them out nicely, so that the
grass would dry. In the afternoon, it had to be raked up into winrows--
work in which the girls often joined us--and after tea one or two of the
men cocked it up, while we raked the ground clean after them. If the
weather was clear and dry it would be left out for several days before
it was drawn into the barn or stacked; but often it was housed as soon
as dry.

Another important matter which claimed the farmer's attention at this
time was the preparation of his summer-fallow for fall wheat. The ground
was first broken up after the spring sowing was over, and about hay time
the second ploughing had to be done, to destroy weeds, and get the land
in proper order. In August the last ploughing came, and about the first
of September the wheat was sown. It almost always happened, too, that
there were some acres of woodland that had been chopped over for fire
wood and timber, to be cleaned up. Logs and bush had to be collected
into piles, and burned. On new farms this was heavy work. Then the
timber was cut down, and ruthlessly given over to the fire. Logging bees
were of frequent occurrence, when the neighbours turned out with their
oxen and logging chains, and, amid the ring of the axe and the shouting
of drivers and men with their handspikes, the great logs were rolled one