gs so much as formerly, but
distributed about to do light jobs for which a man cannot be spared, and
in these they are useful. The pay used to be tenpence a day; now it is
one shilling and a pint of beer per day, and in some places
fifteenpence. The Arcadian innocence of the hayfield, sung by the poets,
is the most barefaced fiction; for those times are the rural saturnalia,
and the broadest and coarsest of jokes and insinuations are freely
circulated; nor does it always stop at language only, provided the
master be out of sight. Matrons and young girls alike come in for an
equal share of this rude treatment, and are quite a match for the men in
the force of compliment. The women leave work an hour or so before the
men, except when there is a press, and the farmer is anxious to get in
the hay before a storm comes. It is not that the hayfield itself
originates this coarseness but this is almost the only time of the year
when the labouring classes work together in large numbers. A great deal
of farm-work is comparatively solitary; in harvest droves of people are
collected together, and the inherent vulgarity comes out more strongly.
At the wheat-harvest the women go reaping, and exceedingly hard they
work at it. There is no harder work done under the sun than reaping, if
it is well followed up. From earliest dawn to latest night they swing
the sickles, staying with their husbands, and brothers, and friends,
till the moon silvers the yellow corn. The reason is because reaping is
piece-work, and not paid by the day, so that the longer and the harder
they work the more money is earned. In this a man's whole family can
assist. His wife, his grown-up sons and daughters cut the corn, the
younger ones can carry it and aid in various ways.

It is wonderful how the men stand the excessive and continuous labour;
it is still more wonderful how the women endure it, trying as it is to
the back. It is the hottest season of the year--the early autumn; the
sun burns and scorches, and the warm wind gives no relief; even the
evenings are close and sultry. The heated earth reflects the rays, and
the straw is dry and warm to the touch. The standing corn, nearly as
high as the reaper, keeps off the breeze, if there is any, from her
brow. Grasping the straw continuously cuts and wounds the hand, and even
gloves will hardly give perfect protection. The woman's bare neck is
turned to the colour of tan; her thin muscular arms bronze right up to
t