Some

for it, and gets even in the plowing season. times hay-making becomes a great frolic, and the children climb on the loads, and happy are the long rides from the field while they nestle among the fragrant grasses. I have even seen a fiddle go to the field with the jug, when the meadows were far distant from the farmhouse; and the laborers would then stay out for some days, until all was cut and stacked.

Whitman has left a realistic picture of the return. of the load to the barn:

"The big doors of the country barn stand open and ready,

The dried grass of the harvest-time loads the slow-drawn wagon,
The clear light plays on the brown gray and green intertinged,
The armfuls are packed to the sagging mow.

"I am there, I help, I came stretch'd atop of the load,

I felt its soft jolts, one leg reclined on the other,

I jump from the cross-beams and seize the clover and timothy,
And roll head over heels and tangle my hair full of wisps."

You must be careful not to get mixed up in a bumble-bees' nest in the field. They are very irascible customers. And yet I knew of no better fun as a boy than to stir up a nest, and, armed with leafy branches or a bunch of weeds, to fight my way right among them, and finally, after the massacre, secure the little eggshaped globules, of cocoon-like covering, that contained. the honey. Bumble-bee honey is stronger than the honey-bee's, but it has a sort of wild taste, and serves very well to vary the monotony in the haying season. The big yellow-banded fellows-regular ogres, so cross are they seem to choose a clover field above all others for their domicile. If they sting the horses, you will have a time of it, and may get the harness all broken

and tangled before you get through, and perhaps the mowing machine itself will get into bad order.

Sometimes a turtle or two will be found amongst the clover, or a snake is cut to pieces in the hayfield. I know of a man who cut off the heads of two big black snakes in a small field, unintentionally, with the knife of his mower. They were lying coiled in the clover, with their heads raised a little, and the Juggernaut came along and slivered them. Sometimes a dog will come too close, as he bounds about after a rabbit, and perhaps he will be badly mangled, and may have to be killed.

It is quite a trick to know how to pitch hay, and to gather all into one bunch clean with a fork, without the necessity of a hand-rake following; and it is an even greater trick to load the hay properly, so that it will not slide off on side-hills; and a still greater one to form and top off a stack. Mowing away is not such an art, nor is the boys' job of treading the hay downbut ah! brethren, many a drop of genuine sweat has glistened in the hayfield and the loft. If there is a time when a man can enjoy a refreshing drink from the bucket at the well, it is after pitching off a load of hay. So, sings Woodworth, in the well-known lines:

"That moss-covered vessel I hailed as a treasure;

For often at noon, when returned from the field,

I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure

The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell!
Then soon, with the emblem of truth overflowing,
And dripping with coolness, it rose from the well-

The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket, arose from the well."

AFTER THE LOAD.