OLD HOMESTEAD 



over night on the wagon if it was very late — a thing which was 

 made necessary by the fact that there was milking to do, or to 

 help do, after the work was done in the field. This, however, 

 could not be permitted if it was Saturday night, especially in the 

 earlier days which I remember, for at that time there was but 

 one wagon on the farm available for going to meeting, and that 

 the lumber wagon used for drawing hay and for all other pur- 

 poses. 



There were some features of haying that interested a boy. 

 At the beginning there was a good chance to mow into a nice 

 patch of dead-ripe strawberries, the very sweetest and finest fla- 

 vored ever seen. Around the fence-corners of the back lots we 

 found occasionally a black raspberry bush which had escaped 

 the scythe or been exempt from the ugly little bush-hook. Find- 

 ing hens' nests in the deep grass and fence-corners, wasp and 

 hornet nests on bushes and trees, and birds' nests here and there, 

 was common; but the thing which made lively sport, and fur- 

 nished a luxurious treat as well, was the finding and breaking up 

 of bumblebees' nests. There were plenty of stone heaps, little 

 and big, in which the bees built their nests and stored up their 

 honey. If the mowing did not disturb them, we were sure to 

 do so in spreading, for we never passed a stone heap without 

 rapping on it with our forks, to see if any bees lived there. If 

 they did we were sure to hear from them, and for our rude im- 

 pudence we sometimes got it in the neck, over the eye, or under 

 the ear, and temporarily beat a retreat. Providing ourselves 

 with long wisps of green hay — wet, if possible — we waited for 

 the bees to go in, and then attacked their little stone fortress, 

 wildly swinging the hay around our heads and with it beating to 

 death every bee that came out of the nest. It was easy to do 

 this if one were quick enough to hit them before they took wing, 



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