We Must Be There, And You Shall See Some Of Our English Country Customs."

We said we'd be sure to be in for that sort of thing.

I wish, madam, you could have seen that great hayfield. It belongs to the lord of the manor, and must have twenty or thirty acres in it. They've been three or four days cutting the grass on it with a machine, and now there's been nearly two days with hardly any rain, only now and then some drizzling, and a good, strong wind, which they think here is better for the hay-making than sunshine, though they don't object to a little sun. All the people in the village who had legs good enough to carry them to that field went to help make hay. It was a regular holiday, and as hay is clean, nearly everybody was dressed in good clothes. Early in the morning some twenty regular farm laborers began raking the hay at one end of the field, stretching themselves nearly the whole way across it, and as the day went on more and more people came, men and women, high and low. All the young women and some of the older ones had rakes, and the way they worked them was amazing to see, but they turned over the hay enough to dry it. As to schoolgirls and boys, there was no end of them in the afternoon, for school let out early. Some of them worked, but most of them played and cut up monkey-shines on the hay. Even the little babies was brought on the field, and nice, soft beds made for them under the trees at one side.

When Jone saw the real farm-work going on, with a chance for everybody to turn in to help, his farmer blood boiled within him, as if he was a war-horse and sniffed the smoke of battle, and he got himself a rake and went to work like a good-fellow. I never saw so many men at work in a hayfield at home, but when I looked at Jone raking I could see why it was it didn't take so many men to get in our hay. As for me, I raked a little, but looked about a great deal more.

Near the middle of the field was two women working together, raking as steadily as if they had been brought up to it. One of these was young, and even handsomer than Miss Dick, which was the name of the bar lady. To look at her made me think of what I had read of Queen Marie Antoinette and her court ladies playing the part of milkmaids. Her straw hat was trimmed with delicate flowers, and her white muslin dress and pale blue ribbons made her the prettiest picture I ever saw out-of-doors. I could not help asking Mrs. Locky who she was, and she told me that she was the chambermaid at the inn, and the other was the cook.

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