A Farmer’s Life 
I went, the time and place for a rustic idyll— 
for some eightcenth-century harvesting idyll. 
The generous August weather seemed to ask for 
that. In the hot sky was just enough cloud to 
show immense heights: the cottages and the 
grey-walled yard, quiet and nettle-grown, looked 
as if they had been prepared and waiting for 
generations for something romantic to happen. 
Just beyond them was more pasture, more field ; 
and near them stood that shed spoken of in the 
last chapter, beside the elm and the little rick- 
yard. Only, the ancient waggons were not 
under the shed. They were harvesting. One 
of them, in faét, loaded with oat-sheaves, stood 
under the elm. 
Farmer Smith himself was in the waggon, 
with a prong pitching the sheaves from it on to 
an unfinished rick one of his sons was building 
there. As ricks will until they have had time 
to settle down, this one trembled at every move- 
ment on it; and it slightly leaned towards the 
waggon. But this seemed not to matter. Father 
and son, and later on the two waggoners, were 
well content. The easy, steady toil told as much ; 
and so did some occasional quiet jest or other, 
breaking into the silence. For the most part 
only the dry sheaves rustled, and there was 
no other sound. As the waggon-load lowered, 
slowly the rick grew to a more tottering height. 
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