mothy and purple clover, the heat shimmered in dancing waves.
Everywhere the growing crops were drinking in the light and heat with
eager thirst, for the call of the harvest was ringing through the land.
The air was sweet with scents of the hay fields, and the whole country
side was humming with the sound of the mowers. It was the crowning time
of the year; toward this season all the life of the farm moved steadily
the whole year long; the next two months or three would bring to the
farmer the fruit of long days of toil and waiting. Every minute of these
harvest days, from the early grey dawn, when Mandy called the cows in
for the milking, till the long shadows from the orchard lay quite across
the wide barley field, when Tim, handling his team with careless pride,
drove in the last load for the day, every minute was packed full of life
and action. But though busy were the days and full of hard and at times
back-breaking and nerve-straining work, what of it? The colour, the
rush, the eager race with the flying hours, the sense of triumph, the
promise of wealth, the certainty of comfort, all these helped to carry
off the heaviest toil with a swing and vim that banished aches from the
body and weariness from the soul.

To Cameron, all unskilled as he was, the days brought many an hour of
strenuous toil, but every day his muscles were knitting more firmly, his
hands were hardening, and his mastery of himself growing more complete.

In haying there is no large place for skill. This operation, unlike that
of turnip-hoeing, demands chiefly strength, quickness, and endurance,
and especially endurance. To stand all day in the hay field under the
burning sun with its rays leaping back from the super-heated ground, and
roll up the windrows into huge bundles and toss them on to the wagon,
or to run up a long line of cocks and heave them fork-handle high to the
top of a load, calls for something of skill, but mainly for strength
of arm and back. But skill had its place, and once more it was Tim who
stood close to Cameron and showed him all the tricks of pitching hay. It
was Tim who showed him how to stand with his back to the wagon so as to
get the load properly poised with the least expenditure of strength; it
was Tim who taught him the cunning trick of using his thigh as a fulcrum
in getting his load up, rather than doing it by "main strength and
awkwardness"; it was Tim who demonstrated the method of lifting half a
cock by runni