282 AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



prolonging the ceremonies with good things the whole 

 year round. Hamerton, I remember, in "The Sylvan 

 Year," has left a delightful picture of the harvest-time.^ 

 Ceres was the old Roman goddess of plenty; and it 

 was fitting that one of the best of Shakespeare's songs 

 should have been that of Ceres, In "The Tempest," in 

 blessing Ferdinand and Miranda: 



"Earth's increase, foison plenty, 

 Barns and garners never empty ; 

 Vines with clustering bunches growing ; 

 Plants with goodly burthen bowing ; 

 Spring come to you, at the farthest, 

 In the very end of harvest ! 

 Scarcity and want shall shun you ; 

 Ceres' blessing so is on you." 



Iris, also, in the same play, calls some reapers from the 

 fields to join in a dance with nymphs in honor of the 

 same twain : 



"You sunburnt sicklemen, of August weary, 

 Come hither from the furrow, and be merry. 

 Make holiday; your rye-straw hats put on, 

 And these fresh nymphs encounter every one 

 In country footing." 



I am reminded, from these thoughts upon the har- 

 vest, of the most beautiful book in the Bible, the story 

 of Ruth the Moabitess; of her gleaning after the reap- 



^ Since writing the above I have come across a very delightful 

 description of an old-time "husking bee" out in the barn, and the frolic 

 afterwards in the spacious kitchen, with its apple-hung rafters, in a 

 charming book of outdoor sketches, upon another "old homestead," this 

 time in New England, in a sketch entitled "Mist," in Mr. Herbert Milton 

 Sylvester's "Prose Pastorals." 



