SUMMER
SUMMER
SUMMER
drop-cap
Thehaymakers are working blithely, tossing about the grass, and talking and laughing right merrily. This is a holiday, both for old and young. Many who are employed in manufactures, with their wives and children, obtain leave to work in the fields when hands are scarce; and doing so seems like a new life to them. You may see at the further end, hillocks of grass thrown up in long rows; the haymakers call them wind-cocks; they are piled light and high, that the wind may blowthrough them; but in this part of the field people are tossing the hay about. Gray-headed old men are here, aged women, and children, seemingly without number. Their parents are hard at work and very glad are they to put the “wee things” in safe keeping among the old folks, who yet can help a little. Look at those girls and boys at play—see how they pelt one another with the hay, and roll each other over upon the grass—these are happy days. See those youngsters, scarcely able to totter, how they tumble on the sweet, fresh grass; while those who have strength to handle the rake mimic the labors of their parents, and draw tiny loads along the greensward. Meanwhile the hay is thrownabout, and with each returning day comes the same pleasant labor, till the creaking of a wagon, lumbering up the hollow-road from the old farm-house, half way down the hill, gives the signal, which tells that the haymaking season is about to close. A short time elapses, and the creak of the heavy laden wagon is heard ringing over the stones. It comes up again for another load, then lumbers back to the old farm, where laborers are busily employed in placing the hay upon a strong foundation of wattled boughs. Some tread down the hay; others throw it up from out the wagon; till at length loud huzzas, that wake up all the neighboring echoes, announce that all the hay-stacks are completed.