PHASES OF FARM LIFE 227 



straight swaths behind them, are more picturesque 

 than the "Clipper" or "Buckeye" mower, with 

 its team and driver. So are the flails of the 

 threshers, chasing each other through the air, more 

 pleasing to the eye and the ear than the machine, 

 with its uproar, its choking clouds of dust, and its 

 general hurly-burly. 



Sometimes the threshing was done in the open 

 air, upon a broad rock, or a smooth, dry plat of 

 greensward; and it is occasionally done there yet, 

 especially the threshing of the buckwheat crop, by 

 a farmer who has not a good barn floor, or who 

 cannot afl'ord to hire the machine. The flail makes 

 a louder thud in the fields than you would imagine ; 

 and in the splendid October weather it is a pleasing 

 spectacle to behold the gathering of the ruddy crop, 

 and three or four lithe figures beating out the grain 

 with their flails in some sheltered nook, or some 

 grassy lane lined with cedars. When there are 

 three flails beating together it makes lively music; 

 and when there are four they follow each other so 

 fast that it is a continuous roll of sound, and it 

 requires a very steady stroke not to hit or get hit 

 by the others. There is just room and time to get 

 your blow in, and that is all. When one flail is 

 upon the straw, another has just left it, another is 

 half way down, and the fourth is high and straight 

 in the air. It is like a swiftly revolving wheel 

 that delivers four blows at each revolution. Thresh- 

 ing, like mowing, goes much easier in company 

 than when alone; yet many a farmer or laborer 



