HAPPY VILLAGE 7 



certain in action that speed follows as a necessary con 

 comitant of style. Neighbours in describing the partner 

 ship paid the man the highest possible compliment when 

 they said almost pityingly of his spouse Elk avait de quoi\ 

 elk avait de quoi : she had her work cut out to keep 

 pace. He helped her to bind the last few sheaves, easing 

 her tired back and paying himself a subtle compliment. 



The excellence of the harvest was in one detail directly 

 enjoyed by the labourer over and above the piece wages. 

 In the cottage next to Old George s lived a family often. 

 A widower with children had married a widow with 

 childreii, so there were three families and Old George 

 said one day that he hoped the wotnan would be &quot; sporn 

 to bring up her own/* Her own, of course, were the two 

 children of her first marriage. The mother and most of 

 the children would go gleaning after harvest and return 

 each with a bundle of corn tied very tight close to the 

 ears, and a number of these quaintly pictorial bundles 

 would be given for the church decoration at the harvest 

 festival. The rest was stored within the low but spacious 

 living-room of the cottage and stacked tight from floor 

 to ceiling. The family, when gathered under its lee in a 

 narrowed semicircle round the fireplace, suggested ewes 

 and lambs in a shepherd s lambing pen. Presently the 

 grain was sent to the local mill, long since dismembered, 

 and the flour from those sheaves and no others exactly 

 returned. It made a loaf neither brown nor white, but 

 yellow, of a savour that, like the memory of the just, 



&quot; Smells sweet and blossoms in the dust.&quot; 



They gave their snoods of corn for church decoration ; 

 they gave a loaf of gleaning bread to the Rector, for gen 

 erosity and a love of giving were part and parcel of the 

 make-up of these poor country folk, to whom an extra 



