The Open Air 



half-sovereign in his pocket. That and his new pair 

 of boots, not yet finished, represented the golden 

 harvest to him. He lodged with his parents when at 

 home ; he was so far fortunate that he had a bed to 

 go to; therefore in the estimation of his class he was 

 not badly off. But if we consider his position as 

 regards his own life we must recognise that he was 

 very badly off indeed, so much precious time and the 

 strength of his youth having been wasted. 



Often it is stated that the harvest wages recoup 

 the labourer for the low weekly receipts of the year, 

 and if the money be put down in figures with pen and 

 ink it is so. But in actual fact the pen-and-ink 

 figures do not represent the true case; these extra 

 figures have been paid for, and gold may be bought 

 too dear. Roger had paid heavily for his half- 

 sovereign and his boots; his pinched face did not 

 look as if he had benefited greatly. His cautious old 

 father, rendered frugal by forty years of labour, had 

 done fairly well ; the young man not at all. The old 

 man, having a cottage, in a measure worked for his 

 own hand. The young man, with none but himself 

 to think of, scattered his money to the winds. Is 

 money earned with such expenditure of force worth 

 the having? Look at the arm of a woman labouring 

 in the harvest-field thin, muscular, sinewy, black 

 almost, it tells of continual strain. After much of 

 this she becomes pulled out of shape, the neck loses 

 its roundness and shows the sinews, the chest flattens. 

 In time the women find the strain of it tell severely. 

 I am not trying to make out a case of special hard- 

 ship, being aware that both men, women, and children 

 work as hard and perhaps suffer more in cities ; I am 

 simply describing the realities of rural life behind 

 the scenes. The golden harvest is the first scene; 



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