MEMORIES OF THE 



but if three or four of them got fairly in the air and charged you 

 in front, flank and rear, they were apt to make it hot for you. 

 Having subdued the spiteful little swarm, we carefully broke in 

 and curiously uncovered and secured the comb which held the 

 honey. No honey ever tasted so sweet to me as this bumblebee 

 wild honey, and when at Sunday-school I first heard Philo 

 Brown, my teacher, explain as to the experience of John the 

 Baptist in the wilderness, when he ate nothing but locusts and 

 wild honey, I rather envied the old saint the honey part of his 

 diet, though not hankering for the locusts, which Philo told us 

 were grasshoppers. 



When the land was newer and more productive, a part of the 

 hay had to be stacked out, but it was a wasteful practice and 

 avoided if possible. I can, however, remember when we filled 

 all the barns and hay-sheds on the home place and both the big 

 and the little barn over the creek, and stacked out hay at both 

 places. Cattle were then wintered in the old barn across the 

 creek, so as to feed out the hay cut and stored there. No one 

 then expected to see the hay crop dwindle as it has. 



Father did not use a mowing machine on the farm for many 

 years after its general introduction. The land was rough and 

 stony, and the help of the mowers was needed in pitching and 

 handling the hay after it was cut. He figured it to be cheaper 

 doing haying on a rough farm by hand than to use a hundred- 

 and-fifty-doUar machine, which required constant repairs. With 

 good help, hay was cut and put into the mow for fifty cents a 

 ton. 



In the year 1858, and after my brother and myself had prac- 

 tically left the farm for good — or for bad — we were home from 

 school, helping father do his haying, a practice we kept up as 

 long as we could. It was Thursday night, and the haying was 



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