ly, while his young
heart glowed with pride at Cousin Ivory's prowess.

Independence Day had passed, with its usual gayeties for the young
people, in none of which the Baxter family had joined, and now, at
eleven o'clock on this burning July morning, Waitstill was driving the
old mare past the Wilson farm on her way to the river field. Her father
was working there, together with the two hired men whom he took on for a
fortnight during the height of the season. If mowing, raking, pitching,
and carting of the precious crop could only have been done at odd times
during the year, or at night, he would not have embittered the month
of July by paying out money for labor: but Nature was inexorable in the
ripening of hay and Old Foxy was obliged to succumb to the inevitable.
Waitstill had a basket packed with luncheon for three and a great
demijohn of cool ginger tea under the wagon seat. Other farmers
sometimes served hard cider, or rum, but her father's principles were
dead against this riotous extravagance. Temperance, in any and all
directions, was cheap, and the Deacon was a very temperate man, save in
language.

The fields on both sides of the road were full of haymakers and
everywhere there was bustle and stir. There would be three or four men,
one leading, the others following, slowly swinging their way through a
noble piece of grass, and the smell of the mown fields in the sunshine
was sweeter than honey in the comb. There were patches of black-eyed
Susans in the meadows here and there, while pink and white hardhack grew
by the road, with day lilies and blossoming milkweed. The bobolinks were
fluting from every tree; there were thrushes in the alder bushes and
orioles in the tops of the elms, and Waitstill's heart overflowed with
joy at being in such a world of midsummer beauty, though life, during
the great heat and incessant work of haying-time, was a little more
rigorous than usual. The extra food needed for the hired men always
kept her father in a state of mind closely resembling insanity. Coming
downstairs to cook breakfast she would find the coffee or tea measured
out for the pot. The increased consumption of milk angered him beyond
words, because it lessened the supply of butter for sale. Everything
that could be made with buttermilk was ordered so to be done, and
nothing but water could be used in mixing the raised bread. The corncake
must never have an egg; the piecrust must be shortened only with lard,
or