PHASES OF FARM LIFE 237 



of the man behind you. Many a race has been 

 brought on by some one being a little indiscreet in 

 this respect. Two men may mow all day together 

 under the impression that each is trying to put 

 the other through. The one that leads strikes out 

 briskly, and the other, not to be outdone, follows 

 close. Thus the blood of each is soon up; a little 

 heat begets more heat, and it is fairly a race before 

 long. It is a great ignominy to be mowed out of 

 your swath. Hay-gathering is clean, manly work 

 all through. Young fellows work in haying who 

 do not do another stroke on the farm the whole 

 year. It is a gymnasium in the meadows and 

 under the summer sky. How full of pictures, too ! 

 — the smooth slopes dotted with cocks with length- 

 ening shadows ; the great, broad- backed, soft-cheeked 

 loads, moving along the lanes and brushing under 

 the trees; the unfinished stack with forkfuls of hay 

 being handed up its sides to the builder, and when 

 finished the shape of a great pear, with a pole in 

 the top for the stem. Maybe in the fall and win- 

 ter the calves and yearlings will hover around it 

 and gnaw its base until it overhangs them and shel- 

 ters them from the storm. Or the farmer will 

 " fodder " his cows there, — one of the most pic- 

 turesque scenes to be witnessed on the farm, — 

 twenty or thirty or forty milchers filing along 

 toward the stack in the field, or clustered about it, 

 waiting the promised bite. In great, green flakes 

 the hay is rolled off, and distributed about in small 

 heaps upon the unspotted snow. After the cattle 



