HAYING TIME 



vate me in my own estimation, and possibly in 

 the estimation of the practical young woman who 

 came over to get our breakfasts. Every man of 

 sedentary elegance likes to kick through his po 

 lite shackles at times, and show that his arms are 

 not utterly devoid of pith, and that he is not 

 such a &quot; goldarned galoot&quot; as the sententious 

 judgment of the yeoman declares him to be. 



At all events, I learned some things which 

 possibly gave my after-thoughts a gentler and 

 less selfish colour when I got back among my fel 

 lows. First, I found out that there isn t any 

 delicious odour of new-mown hay in the haying 

 operation, or at least, if there is, you do not 

 notice it. There are too many other things to 

 attend to. In the second place, the Arcadian 

 delights of it are only apparent to the on-lookers, 

 and, if there is any satisfaction to the workers 

 themselves, it depends a great deal on whether 

 hay is worth twelve dollars a ton, and who owns 

 it. There are no iced drinks between swathes. 

 There is no shady side to it, and in haying time 

 the thermometer usually stands among the 9o s. 

 But I must acknowledge that Gabe Hotchkiss 

 never heard of a man being sunstruck in a hay- 

 field, and Gabe s going on sixty-two, coming 

 next apple time, and doesn t lie for a cent. Such 

 ideas as I may have possessed prior to this experi 

 ence were vaguely ideal and Watteauish. Hay 

 ing time, to me, was a sort of rural festival, with 

 village maidens in short dresses and ribbons and 

 high heel shoes, the heels generally painted red, 



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