"Who will have a ride on the top of the hay?" cries Thomas.
All the children were ready. So now Uncle John must lift them up, and, as Thomas received them, and seated them on the dry loose hay, they sunk in it very comfortably, and their faces peeped out like the young birds in a nest. When Smiler moved on they set up a shout, and grandpapa himself came out to see what was doing.
"Here we are! Ah, grandpapa, come up too!" cried Alice and Willie; but he laughed, and said, "that would never do for him."
Now they had to be handed down again, sliding and jumping as well as they could, for the wagon was led to the right place, and the hay was to be forked out and laid in order on the wood. Joe and Roger built the stack; Thomas, Robert, and Uncle John threw the hay out of the wagon; the rest had time to rest or play; only a few had to rake what was scattered by the wind or dropped, and Thomas soon sent them all to shake the rest of the cocks into ridges.
Now came a new visitor into the field: it was Daisy, the cow. All the time the grass was growing, she had been kept in the cow-house, but now Aunt Lucy had determined she should come and enjoy the pleasant air and grass once more. Daisy was a pretty Guernsey cow, with short horns, a small head, short legs, and was prettily spotted white and light brown. She was very gentle and tame, but she was young and playful; so when she found herself once more in her field, she set off, levelled her horns at a large hay-cock, knocked it down, and ran round by the hedge with a great bunch of hay on her head. Everybody laughed, and grandpapa declared it was exactly as if she had said to the hay-cock, "So it was for you I was shut up all this time! down with you!"
"You ought to have jumped over it, Daisy!" cried Uncle John.
"Uncle John must jump over a hay-cock!" cried Alice.
"Yes, yes, Uncle John. Do jump over a hay-cock," exclaimed several voices.
"To be sure I will," he said; so he laid down his fork, took off his straw hat, chose out one of the tallest hay-cocks, went back several paces, took a run, then a jump; but, high as he jumped, it was not high enough. His foot came thump against the top of the hay-cock, knocked it off, and he tumbled down on the other side, where he was buried under the rest of it by the children the next minute.
There is no saying when he would have got out; but the sight of the empty wagon, going down the field, made them all eager for a ride, and Uncle John must crawl out and help them in; and then every one was hard at work again.