266 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



with its pink blossoms, as the mower cuts it! Aye, 

 't were better could we but see more of it. There are 

 some fine lines in one of Joaquin Miller's poems, "The 

 Arizonian :" 



"And I have said, and I say it ever, 

 As the years go on and the world goes over, 

 'T were better to be content and clever, 

 In the tending of cattle and the tossing of clover, 

 In the grazing of cattle and growing of grain. 

 Than a strong man striving for fame or gain, 

 Be even as kine in the red-tipped clover ; 



Be even as clover with its crown of blossoms, 

 Even as blossoms ere the bloom is shed, 

 Kiss'd by the kine and the brown sweet bee." 



Whittier felt the poetry of hay-making. His 

 "Maud Muller" is probably the best known poem on 

 the subject, and is familiar to everybody. It is not an 

 uncommon picture; yet would it were even more com- 

 mon, and that sunbonnets and torn hats were not going 

 out of fashion: 



"Maud Muller, on a summer's day, 

 Raked the meadow sweet with hay. 



"Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth 

 Of simple beauty and rustic health." 



But haying is hard work, and the men benefit by 

 it only indirectly. Hay is for horses and stock. Yet 

 the men work the hardest in the fields, while the horses 

 merely draw the loads, and wait while the men pitch 

 on the hay or unload it into the mow. It is a case, 

 in this instance, of the servant being greater than his 

 master; but the master generally manages to make up 



