mowing away. I remember the first wire-toothed horse rake with its two
handles, which when the day was hot and the grass heavy nearly killed
both man and horse. The holder would throw his weight upon it to make it
grip and hold the hay, and then, in a spasm of energy, lift it up and
make it drop the hay. From this rude instrument, through various types
of wooden and revolving rakes, the modern wheeled rake, with which the
raker rides at his ease, has been evolved. At this season the cows were
brought to the yard by or before five, breakfast was at six, lunch in
the field at ten, dinner at twelve, and supper at five, with milking and
hay drawing and heaping up till sundown. Those mid-forenoon lunches of
Mother's good rye bread and butter, with crullers or gingerbread, and in
August a fresh green cucumber and a sweating jug of water fresh from the
spring--sweating, not as we did, because it was hot, but because it was
cold, partaken under an ash or a maple tree--how sweet and fragrant the
memory of it all is to me!

Till I reached my 'teens it was my task to spread hay and to rake after;
later I took my turn with the mowers and pitchers. I never loaded, hence
I never pitched over the big beam. How Father watched the weather! The
rain that makes the grass ruins the hay. If the morning did not promise
a good hay day our scythes would be ground but hung back in their
places. When a thunderstorm was gathering in the west and much hay was
ready for hauling, how it quickened our steps and our strokes! It was
the sound of the guns of the approaching foe. In one hour we would do,
or try to do, the work of two. How the wagon would rattle over the road,
how the men would mop their faces and how I, while hurrying, would
secretly exult that now I would have an hour to finish my crossbow or to
work on my pond in the pasture lot!

Those late summer afternoons after the shower--what man who has spent