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back ! Pull for life ! They know their driver, 

 too well enough, indeed, now and again to 

 take a freakish liberty, presuming on his 

 soft heart. He gives to them sweet hay, 

 clean beds, sound corn, sweet water, the best 

 of grooming, the nicest adjustment of strap 

 and chain. He gets of them a faithful 

 strength that moves mountainous loads, let 

 ways be never so sticky, so foul. 



He knows their strength and never asks 

 the impossible. " Done gimme all dey got 

 cain't do no mo'," he would say, in the 

 thrice-impossible event of stalling with a 

 load. To-day he works them full strength. 

 The corn-land earth is light the corn extra 

 heavy. Before he has driven twice the fields' 

 length the wheels will crush deep in the mel- 

 low soil. See him swing the wagon across 

 a row, the tall stalks crashing, crushing to 

 earth. How heavy the ears fall ! how high 

 they hang in the rows either side ! what 

 rain of them the four gatherers toss rever- 

 berant in the bed ! Each pulls two rows, 

 snapping off the long ears with one dexter- 

 ous turn of wrist that leaves the coarse 

 outer husk still fluttering from the stalk. 

 How they pile in mounding heaps, as the 

 wagon moves slow each mule of the six 

 nibbling as it pleases him at such ears as 



