256 
RURAL HOURS. 
chiircli-bell rino-s, in other villaojes the beat of the drum calls the 
gleaners to the fields ; peasant mothers, with their little children, 
boys and girls, old and infirm men and women, are seen in little 
parties moving toward the nnfenced fields, and spreading them- 
selves through the yellow stubble. In Switzerland, parties of the 
very poor, the old and the little ones who cannot earn much, 
come down from the mountain villages, where grain is not raised, 
into the more level farms of the lower country, expressly to glean. 
One never sees these poor creatures without much interest ; moth- 
ers, children, and the aged make up the greater number of their 
bands, and liumble as the occupation may be, it is yet thoroughly 
honest, and, indeed, creditable, so far as it shows a willingness to 
undertake the lowliest task for a livelihood, rather than stand by 
wholly idle. 
There is no country in Europe, I believe, where gleaning is not 
a general custom, from the most northern grain-growing valleys, 
to the luxuriant plains of Sicily. Even in fertile Asia, and in the 
most ancient times, gleaning was a common practice. The sign 
of the Zodiac, called the Virgin, is said to represent a gleaner, 
and that carries one back very far. The Mosaic laws contain mi- 
nute directions for sfleanino'. While the children of Israel were 
yet in the wilderness, before they had conquered one field of the 
Promised Land, they received tlie following injunctions : 
" And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not 
wholly reap the corners of thy field ; neither shalt thou gather 
the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vine- 
yard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of tliy vineyard ; thou 
shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger : I am the Lord 
your God." — Lev. xix. 
