XIV. HAYING. HAYING. 67 T is five o'clock. The morning is clear and fresh. A thin blue film of mist hovers over the circuit of the Housatonic along the mountain belt. A hundred birds – yes, five hundred-are singing as birds never sing except in the morning. 2. In our house the girls are astir, and the mystery of breakfast is developing. The little dog is so glad after the lonesome night to see you, that he surfeits you with frolic. The men are in the barn feeding the horses, and getting everything ready for work. 3. Will it rain to-day? The heavens overhead look like it. But the barometer says, No. Then a few rounds with the scythe before breakfast, just by way of getting the path open. 4. There they go, a pretty pair of mowers! The blinking dew-drops on the grass-tops wink at them and pitch headlong under the stroke of the swinging scythe. How low and musical is the sound of a scythe in its passage through a thick pile of grass! It has a craunching, mellow, murmuring sound, right pleasant to hear. 5. The grass, rolled over in a swath to the left, green and wet, lies like a loosely corded cable, vast and half twined. Around the piece, step by step, go the men, and the work is fairly laid out and begun. 6. There sounds the horn! Breakfast is ready. All the children are farmer's boys for the occasion. Were Sevastopol built of bread and cakes, these are the very engineers who would take it. 7. Bless their appetites! It does one good to see growing children eat with a real hearty appetite. Mountain air, a free foot in grassy fields and open groves, plain food and enough of it, these things kill the lilies in the cheek and bring forth roses. 8. But we must haste, and make hay while the sun shines. Already John Dargan is there whetting his scythe, John, tough as a knot, strong as steel, famous in all the region for ploughing, and equally skilful at mowing, turning his furrow and cutting his swath alike smoothly and evenly. If Ireland has any more such farmers to spare, let them come on. 9. The Man of the Farm strikes in first; John follows, and away they go, up the hill, toward the sun. The grass is full of dew, which quivers in the sunlight, and winks and flashes by turns all the colors of the rainbow. Round and round the field they go, with steady swing, the grassplat growing less at every turn. 10. Meanwhile all the boys have been at work spreading the grass. The hay-cocks of yesterday have been opened. The noon comes on. It is time to house the hay. 11. The day passes and the night. With another morning, and that Saturday morning, comes up the sun without a single cloud to wipe his face upon. The air is clear and crystal. No mist on the river. No fleece on the mountains. 12. Yet the barometer is sinking, has been sinking all night. It has fallen more than a quarter of an inch, and continues slowly to fall. Our plans must be laid accordingly. We will cut the clover, and prepare to get in all of yesterday's mowing before two o'clock. 13. One load we roll in before dinner. While catching our hasty meal, affairs grow critical. The sun is hidden. The noon is dark. All hands are summoned. 14. Now if you wish to see pretty working, follow the cart; the long forks leap into the cocks of hay; to a backward lift they spring up, poise a moment in the air, shoot forward, are caught upon the load by the nimble John, and in a twinkling are in their place. 15. We hear thunder! Lightnings flash on the horizon. Jim and Frank and Henry Sumner are springing at the clover, rolling it into heaps and dressing it down so as to shed rain. There are no lazy-bones there! 16. Even we ourselves wake up and go to work. All the girls and ladies come forth to the fray. Delicate hands are making lively work, raking up the dispersed grass, and flying with right nimble steps here and there, bent upon cheating the rain of its expected prey. 17. And now the long windrows are formed. The last load of hay from the other fields has just rolled triumphantly into the barn! Down jumps John, with fork in hand, and rolls up the windrows into cocks. We follow and glean. with the rake. The last one is fashioned. 18. A drop pats down on my face, another, and another. Look at those baseless mountains that tower in the west, black as ink at the bottom, glowing like snow at the top edges! Far in the north the rain has begun to streak down upon old Greylock! 19. But the sun is shining through the shower, and changing it to a golden atmosphere, in which the mountain lifts up its head like a glorified martyr amid his persecutions! Only a look can we spare, and all of us run for the house, and in good time. 20. Down comes the flood, and every drop is musical. We pity the neighbors who, not warned by a barometer, are racing and chasing to secure their outlying crop. H. W. Beecher. EXERCISE. 1 A thin mist hovers over the river. 2. We will cut the clover, and prepare to get in yesterday's mow ing. 3. The heavens overhead look like rain. 4. These things kill the lilies in the cheek and bring forth roses. 5. We must haste, and make hay while the sun shines. 6. They poise a moment in the air. 7. All the girls and ladies come forth to the fray. [Contest.] 8. Delicate hands are raking up the dispersed grass. 9. They are flying with right nimble steps here and there. 10. Look at the mountains that tower in the west. 11. All of us run for the house, and in good time. 12. Down comes the flood, and every drop is musical. [Pleasing to the ear.] 13. The neighbors are racing and chasing to secure their hay. A I. CHILD sat by a limpid stream, And gazed upon the tide beneath; II. And time flew on, and flower by flower She woke up from her blissful dream. 66 Bring back the flowers I flung to thee!" But echo's voice alone replied, As danced the streamlet down the lea; And still, amid night's gloomy hours, In vain she cried, "Bring back my flowers!" III. O maiden, who on time's swift stream Else when death's shadow o'er thee lowers, Thy heart will wail, "Bring back my flowers!" IT THE BOSTON MASSACRE. XVI. THE BOSTON MASSACRE. 71 T was now the 3d of March, 1770. The sunset music of the British regiments was heard, as usual, throughout the town. The shrill fife and rattling drum awoke the echoes in King Street, while the last ray of sunshine was lingering on the cupola of the town-house. 2. And now, all the sentinels were posted. One of them marched up and down before the custom-house, treading a short path through the snow, and longing for the time when he would be dismissed to the warm fireside of the guard room. 3. In the course of the evening there were two or three slight commotions, which seemed to indicate that trouble was at hand. Small parties of young men stood at the corners of the streets, or walked along the narrow pavements. Squads of soldiers, who were dismissed from duty, passed by them, shoulder to shoulder, with the regular step which they had learned at the drill. Whenever these encounters took place, it appeared to be the object of the young men to treat the soldiers with as much incivility as possible. 4. Turn out, you lobster-backs!" one would say. "Crowd them off the sidewalks!" another would cry. "A red-coat has no right in Boston streets." 5 "O, you rebel rascals!" perhaps the soldiers would reply, glaring fiercely at the young men. "Some day or other we'll make our way through Boston streets, at the point of the bayonet :" 6. Once or twice such disputes as these brought on a scuffle; which passed off, however, without attracting much notice. About eight o'clock, for some unknown cause, an alarm-bell rang loudly and hurriedly 7 At the sound many people ran out of their houses, supposing it to be an alarm of fire. But there were no flames to be seen, nor was there any smell of smoke in the clear, frosty air, so that most of the townsmen went |