housed as hay by the
second night, if the weather was favorable; if not, it took little harm
in the haycocks, even from foul weather. It is the sun-bleach that takes
the life out of hay.

This year we had no trouble in getting fifty tons of as fine timothy hay
as horses could wish to eat or man could wish to see. We began to cut on
Tuesday, the 6th of July, and by Saturday evening the twenty-acre crop
was under cover. The boys blistered their hands with the fork handles,
and their faces, necks, and arms with the sun's rays, and claimed to
like the work and the blisters. Indeed, tossing clean, fragrant hay is
work fit for a prince; and a man never looks to better advantage or more
picturesque than when, redolent with its perfume, he slings a jug over
the crook in his elbow and listens to the gurgle of the home-made ginger
ale as it changes from jug to throat. There may be joys in other drinks,
but for solid comfort and refreshment give me a July hay-field at 3
P.M., a jug of water at forty-eight degrees, with just the amount of
molasses, vinegar, and ginger that is Polly's secret, and I will give
cards and spades to the broadest goblet of bubbles that was ever poured,
and beat it to a standstill. Add to this a blond head under a broad hat,
a thin white gown, such as grasshoppers love, and you can see why the
emptying of the jug was a satisfying function in our field; for Jane was
the one who presided at these afternoon teas. Often Jane was not alone;
Florence or Jessie, or both, or others, made hay while the sun shone in
those July days, and many a load went to the barn capped with white and
laughter. The young people decided that a hay farm would be ideal--no
end better than a factory farm--and advised me to put all the land into
timothy and clover. I was not too old to see the beauties of
haying-time, with such voluntary labor; but I was too old and too much
interested with my experiment to be cajoled by a lot of youngsters. I
promised them a week of haying in each fifty-two, but that was all the
concession I would make. Laura said:--

"We are commanded to make hay while the sun shines; and the sun always
shines at Four Oaks, for me."

It was pretty of her to say that; but what else would one expect from
Laura?

The twelve acres from which the fodder oats had been cut were ploughed
and fitted for sugar beets and turnips. I was not at all certain that
the beets would do anything if sown so late, but I was going to t