"Turn to, and give us a lift, girls," said Mark.

"Beware of meeting Rinar!" Sally laughed.

"Because you know what you promised him, Sally," he retorted. "Come, a
bargain's a bargain; there's the outside row standin'--not enough of us
to stretch all the way acrost the field--so let's you and me take that
and bring it down square with th' others. The rest may keep my row
a-goin', if they can."

Two or three of the other maidens had cut the supporting stalks of the
next shock, and overturned it with much laughing. "I can't husk, Mark,"
said Martha Deane, "but I'll promise to superintend these, if you will
keep Sally to her word."

There was a little running hither and thither, a show of fight, a mock
scramble, and it ended by Sally tumbling over a pumpkin, and then being
carried off by Mark to the end of the outside row of shocks, some
distance in the rear of the line of work. Here he laid the stalks
straight for her, doubled his coat and placed it on the ground for a
seat, and then took his place on the other side of the shock.

Sally husked a few ears in silence, but presently found it more
agreeable to watch her partner, as he bent to the labor, ripping the
covering from each ear with one or two rapid motions, snapping the cob,
and flinging the ear over his shoulder into the very centre of the heap,
without turning his head. When the shock was finished, there were five
stalks on her side, and fifty on Mark's.