All must mount now, rakes and forks in hand. Not only children.—grandpapa was in, now papa, now mama, now Aunt Lucy, now Aunt Emily and Uncle John, and Emma and Harriet. All were in. Charley walked at the head, a long red streamer on his whip. Joe and Roger waited on the stack, streamers on their forks.
"Now hold up your rakes and forks, and shout for the last load," cries Thomas. He was obeyed; there was a famous shout.
They stopped at the stack. "Master must please to get up on the stack, and Joe and Roger must come down."
Grandpapa mounted on the stack; all the rest stood up in the wagon.
"Three cheers for Squire Wakefield! whose hay we have got in this day," cries Thomas.
There were three capital cheers, and then Mr. Wakefield, thanking them, told them supper would be ready in half an hour, and invited them all to partake.
It was a lovely evening, and the long supper table was laid in the garden, on the lawn. The children helped to lay the tables, and were ready and delighted to wait on the company at supper. There was abundance of everything, and the tables looked beautiful when the high vases of flowers and heaped dishes of fruit were placed among the substantial dishes.
The hay was stacked, Smiler put up in the stable, and Thomas and his two assistants, with Charley, had come into the garden; and now the guests began to arrive,—Thomas's wife and three children, Emma's brother and sister, Harriet's father and sister, Charley's old mother, Joe's wife, Roger's mother and sister. There were seats for everybody. Mr. Wakefield and Aunt Lucy took the two ends of the table, and the children waited on all. Everything was so well arranged that they found it quite easy, and when they had no more to do they formed rings on the grass, and danced to their own voices.
Then songs were sung, and the children sometimes joined in chorus, and pleasant stories were told, and they stopped their dance to listen. The sun had gone down in a golden sky, and the moon was up when the happy party separated. The children stayed all night; every sofa and bed was full, and the moon that lighted the other guests to their several homes, peeped in at the windows of Mr. Wakefield's cottage on many little eyelids fast closed in sleep after a very merry day.
