read the pale, grayish-yellow of the green
leaves, and from five to seven feet arose the flower stems, while
the entire earth between was covered with rosettes of young plants.
Belshazzar went before to give warning if any big rattlers curled in the
sun on the hillside, and after him followed the Harvester cutting leaves
in heaps. That was warm work and he covered his head with a floppy old
straw hat, with wet grass in the crown, and stopped occasionally to
rest.

He loved that yellow-faced hillside. Because so much of his reaping lay
in the shade and commonly his feet sank in dead leaves and damp earth,
the change was a rest. He cheerfully stubbed his toes on rocks, and
endured the heat without complaint. It appeared to him as if a member of
every species of butterfly he knew wavered down the hillside. There were
golden-brown danais, with their black-striped wings, jetty troilus with
an attempt at trailers, big asterias, velvety black with longer trails
and wide bands of yellow dots. Coenia were most numerous of all and to
the Harvester wonderfully attractive in rich, subdued colours with a
wealth of markings and eye spots. Many small moths, with transparent
wings and noses red as blood, flashed past him hunting pollen.
Goldfinches, intent on thistle bloom, wavered through the air trailing
mellow, happy notes behind them, and often a humming-bird visited the
mullein. On the lake wild life splashed and chattered incessantly, and
sometimes the Harvester paused and stood with arms heaped with leaves,
to interpret some unusually appealing note of pain or anger or some very
attractive melody. The red-wings were swarming, the killdeers busy, and
he thought of the Dream Girl and smiled.

"I wonder if she would like this," he mused.

When the mullein leaves were deep on the trays of the dry-house he began
on the bloom and that was a task he loved. Just to lay off the beds in
swaths and follow them, deftly picking the stamens and yellow petals
from the blooms. These he would dry speedily in hot air, bottle, and
send at once to big laboratories. The listed price was seventy-five
cents a pound, but the beautiful golden bottles of the Harvester always
brought more. The work was worth while, and he liked the location and
gathering of this particular crop: for these reasons he always left
it until the last, and then revelled in the gold of sunshine, bird,
butterfly, and flower. Several days were required to harvest the mullein
an