"And isn't Jake coming?"
"No. He has hay of his own to get in, and so I offered to come in his stead."
"Just like Jake," Stubbles growled, "always thinking of himself. He knows very well what a fix I am in. I don't know what this place is coming to, anyway. One can't get a neighbour to do a hand's turn, and the men you hire these days are as impudent as the devil."
"Don't you worry about the hay," Douglas soothed. "We can get it in all right this afternoon."
"Do you know anything about haying?"
"I was brought up on a farm, and should know something about it."
"You look big and strong enough," and Stubbles viewed him from head to foot. "Say, are you the chap who beat Jake in a wrestling bout lately?"
"So you heard about that little encounter, did you?"
"Oh, yes, I naturally hear of such things sooner or later. But what are you doing here, anyway? You don't look like a man who has been in the habit of hiring out."
"I'm just trying to earn my daily bread, and farming suits me at the present time."