but the time varied according as the
grass was dry or green and damp when mown. Once in the haymaker it dried
so fast that you could often see a cloud of steam rising from the
scuttles in the glass roof, which had to be left partly open to make a
draft from below.

Of course, we used artificial heat only in wet or cloudy weather. When
the sun came out brightly we depended on solar heat. Perhaps half a day
served to make a "charge" of grass into hay, if we turned it and shook
it well in the loft. Passing the grass through the haymaker required no
more work than making hay in the field in good weather.

In subsequent seasons when the sun shone nearly every day during haying
time we used it less. But when thundershowers or occasional fogs or
heavy dew came it was always open to us to put the grass through the
haymaker. In a wet season it gave us a delightful feeling of
independence. "Let it rain," the old Squire used to say with a smile.
"We've got the haymaker."

Late in September the first fall after we built the haymaker, there came
a heavy gale that blew off fully one half the apple crop--Baldwins,
Greenings, Blue Pearmains and Spitzenburgs. Since we could barrel none
of the windfalls as number one fruit, that part of our harvest, more
than a thousand bushels, seemed likely to prove a loss. The old Squire
would never make cider to sell; and we young folks at the farm,
particularly Theodora and Ellen, disliked exceedingly to dry apples by
hand.

But there lay all those fair apples. It seemed such a shame to let them
go to waste that the matter was on all our minds. At the breakfast table
one morning Ellen remarked that we might use the haymaker for drying
apples if we only had some one to pare and slice them.

"But I cannot think of any one," she added hastily, fearful lest she be
asked to do the work evenings.

"Nor can I," Theodora added with equal haste, "unless some of those
paupers at the town farm could be set about it."

"Poor paupers!" Addison exclaimed, laughing. "Too bad!"

"Lazy things, I say!" grandmother exclaimed. "There's seventeen on the
farm, and eight of them are abundantly able to work and earn their
keep."

"Yes, if they only had the wit," the old Squire said; he was one of the
selectmen that year, and he felt much solicitude for the town poor.

"Perhaps they've wit enough to pare apples," Theodora remarked
hopefully.

"Maybe," the old Squire said in doubt. "So far as they are able the