or the poetry of haying, as he struggles
along, filling the air with the wet mass which he shakes over his head,
and picking his way with short legs and bare feet amid the short and
freshly cut stubble.

But if the scythes cut well and swing merrily, it is due to the boy
who turned the grindstone. Oh, it was nothing to do, just turn the
grindstone a few minutes for this and that one before breakfast; any
"hired man" was authorized to order the boy to turn the grindstone. How
they did bear on, those great strapping fellows! Turn, turn, turn,
what a weary go it was. For my part, I used to like a grindstone that
"wabbled" a good deal on its axis, for when I turned it fast, it put
the grinder on a lively lookout for cutting his hands, and entirely
satisfied his desire that I should "turn faster." It was some sport to
make the water fly and wet the grinder, suddenly starting up quickly and
surprising him when I was turning very slowly. I used to wish sometimes
that I could turn fast enough to make the stone fly into a dozen
pieces. Steady turning is what the grinders like, and any boy who
turns steadily, so as to give an even motion to the stone, will be much
praised, and will be in demand. I advise any boy who desires to do this
sort of work to turn steadily. If he does it by jerks and in a fitful
manner, the "hired men" will be very apt to dispense with his services
and turn the grindstone for each other.

This is one of the most disagreeable tasks of the boy farmer, and, hard
as it is, I do, not know why it is supposed to belong especially to
childhood. But it is, and one of the certain marks that second childhood
has come to a man on a farm is, that he is asked to turn the grindstone
as if he were a boy again. When the old man is good for nothing else,
when he can neither mow nor pitch, and scarcely "rake after," he can
turn grindstone, and it is in this way that he renews his youth. "Ain't
you ashamed to have your granther turn the grindstone?" asks the hired
man of the boy. So the boy takes hold and turns himself, till his little
back aches. When he gets older, he wishes he had replied, "Ain't you
ashamed to make either an old man or a little boy do such hard grinding
work?"

Doing the regular work of this world is not much, the boy thinks, but
the wearisome part is the waiting on the people who do the work. And the
boy is not far wrong. This is what women and boys have to do on a farm,
wait upon everybody who--work