THE EPOCH MAKING AGE OF HAVING 



137 



different hue. If you have been in the 

 hayfield in June before the grass is cut, 



and again perhaps two weeks later, you 

 have observed that the light along the 

 wall, and on the top rail of the crooked 

 fence at the edge of the grove, is differ- 

 ent from the light that flickered from 

 the uncut grass. Two weeks in ha\ ing 

 time are an age. The world speeds up 

 a bit at the first swish of the scythe. 

 All things have become new. All 

 things now enter into the mild light of 

 the iiayfield's Indian summer, and the 

 mower lives in retrospect amid new 

 surroundings. One unaccustomed to 

 the hayfield can never comprehend 

 these facts. They must be experi- 



farm. During May and the early part 

 of June the farmer gathers his forces 

 for that great work ; call it poetry or 

 labor or muscular straining or what 

 you will, nothing in the world is like 

 it. All must be done within two 

 weeks; that age passes, the old order 

 of things changes, and one looks back 

 to the spring as a stage of preexistence. 

 What is it in haying that so com- 

 pletely ushers in the new order, and 

 changes the point of view? It is not 

 merely the work. It is, one might al- 

 most say, a hysterical explosion of the 

 accumulated energy of all the farmers. 

 One expects to work until exhausted, 

 to make longrcr hours, to vie with other 



THE HALF PAST NINE LUNCHEON WAS A NECESSITY IN THE OLD-TIME HAYFIELD. 

 "Can't expect old fellows to go through till noon with breakfast at six o'clock." 



enced. Nothing in human life is equal 

 to hayfield experiences. Something 

 similar to it exists in the life of a na- 

 tion before and after a great war. The 

 old order of things has ceased, the na- 

 tion was breathless for a time, then the 

 war ended, and a new era entered. 

 From the earliest sprouting of the 

 grass, when the snows melt and reveal 

 slender bits of fluted green in the ex- 

 posed spots in the lowlands or on the 

 warm hillside, until it billows in the 

 breeze and blooms like a field of feath- 

 ery plumes in the sunshine, preparation 

 has been made for this epic of the 



workmen in tests of strenuosity. Every 

 workman then seems to think that 

 every other is trying to outdo him, and 

 that every man's hand is against him. 

 He stands alone in a great test of 

 strength and endurance. It is hard to 

 be on good terms with anybody in hay- 

 ing time. An air of suspicion is always 

 present, though the rules may be 

 closely observed. The leader retires to 

 the rear of the line, the second takes 

 his place and so on, until each member 

 of the band has his turn in carrying the 

 head swathe or in raking the rear wind- 

 row. Each workman eats a heartier 



