58 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 





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'HE OXEN AND THE HAY CART. 



The champion needed no prodding 

 to declare himself. He who had held 

 the record in the past, as if by right of 

 prestige it belonged to him, struck in 

 first, and unhesitatingly mowed 

 through the center of the lot, and then 

 came the tug of war, the real display. 

 To prove that he had lost none of his 

 right of supremacy without slacking in 

 speed, he turned back a doubler 

 through the entire length of that field, 

 while the others carried ordinary 

 swathes. 



I low modestly conscious he was of 

 the eternal fitness of things, of his 

 power to excel the others. No boast- 

 ing from him, no admission from the 

 others, that he was by right their 

 leader — and yet there he was. The wisp 

 of hay with which he wiped his scythe 

 was larger as befitted a handful taken 

 from a doubler turned by a champion. 

 How small were those taken by the 

 others; how pitifully lisping their 

 "a-wink, a-wink, a-wink, a-wink" of trie 

 rifle first on one side of the scythe and 

 then on the other. How strong and 

 exultant was the "a-wrank, a-wrank, 

 a-wrank" from the scythe of the 

 doubler ! 



Tt was easy to see that Fred had 



won. He stopped not for parley nor 

 for rest. The doubler had been thrown 

 in as a challenge. It must be sustained. 

 And it was. The strong muscles, the 

 firm determination, the full shirt had 

 won. 



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Then came the noon shirt-filling — 

 more as if for celebration than contest. 

 It lasted for only an hour, but it was 

 an era. The sun changed from east 

 to west; the scene changed. Can this 

 be the same hayfield. All seems so dif- 

 ferent. Unless the crop were unus- 

 ually heavy it had dried enough for 

 raking. The man ahead was now in 

 the rear, thus in a different point of 

 view still showing his championship 

 because the last raker has his own hay 

 and that of all the others. Still he 

 marched up the quadrupling or sex- 

 tupling windrow in the same masterly 

 manner. He was disproving the truth 

 of the time-honored maxim, "Many 

 hands make light work." 



The haying day is a year, a round of 

 the seasons. This now is the Indian sum- 

 mer. How long ago it seems since the 

 golden sunshine streamed into the cor- 

 ner of the window, and all things out- 

 side were crisp, cool and growing. 



