110 Old Bays on the Farm 



fore the court of posterity or any other court for 

 any wealth acquired from it. 



It's honest money gotten thataway. 



To-morrow the farmer and his two stalwart 

 sons will harvest that field of wheat. The blades 

 of their ''grapevines," ''turkey wings" or 

 "muleys," — these were some of the names applied 

 to the different makes of grain cradles of other 

 days, — ^have been ground to razor keenness on the 

 old grindstone in the shed. 



They have to wait an hour or two in the morn- 

 ing for the dew to clear away. They whet their 

 shining blades, those brawny three, and with 

 breasts bared and shirt-sleeves rolled up to shoul- 

 ders, advance to the charge. 



The swish, swish, swish of severing scythes 

 resounds ; this, and the rhythmical tinkling of the 

 shorn stems against the cradle blades, is the death- 

 song of the wheat. 



Those three mighty reapers sway from side to 

 side with steady swing across the field leaving 

 three ribbons of yellow — three well-butted swaths 

 behind. 



A few years ago that field was a forest and 

 there are still some stumps as evidence of the 

 mightier growth that fell before the woodman's 

 axe. The ground is uneven, full of "cradle 

 knolls," as the pioneer termed the hillocks left 

 by overturned tree-stumps. It is rough going, but, 

 that dauntless three, in slant array, like wild 

 geese or ducks a-flying, swing and sweep through 



