68 AUTOBIOGRAPHY 



balance it, for both old folks and children knew 

 how to turn work into play. Certainly husking 

 corn was not work when it was done by the light 

 of lanterns hung from the rough beams of the 

 great barns where the horses wondered and blinked 

 at the unwonted scene, and where the soft shadows 

 mellowed the rosy but modest blushes of a bevy of 

 girls who were all on the qui vive for the expected 

 tussle for a kiss when one of the boys should find 

 the coveted red ear. Nor was the aftermath of 

 the husking bee a glorious supper and a moon- 

 light walk laborious. It could scarcely be called 

 work when a score of young men on a moonlight 

 night cut a small field of overripe grain for a sick 

 neighbor and afterward went to some farmhouse, 

 or to where the brook met the lake, to partake of 

 a picnic meal served by hands not oversoft but 

 willing and competent. 



I remember mornings when the snow came with 

 the sting of a whip over the clear, cold, blue lake. 

 Jump on the ox-sled with me and go to the woods, 

 sitting on the rave, and hanging your feet over on 

 the outside! Don't touch the chain with your 

 hands, for this is a morning when " cold steel 

 tastes sweet ". The whole wood is covered with 

 virgin snow, which comes showering down on you 



