"I'll try not to be a bother to him, mother, but I don't think it's much use my trying to love him unless he stops looking so cross."
"Well, try your best, at all events, Bert," said Mrs. Lloyd, giving her son a tender kiss. "And now come, let's see if we can find grandmother."
CHAPTER VII.
COUNTRY EXPERIENCES.
Bert had come to Maplebank just in time for the haying season. The long slopes of upland and the level stretches of intervale waved before the breeze their russet and green wealth, awaiting the summons of the scythe and reaper. A number of extra hands had been hired to help in gathering the crop, which this year was unusually abundant, and a few days after Bert's coming the attack was begun.
The mowing machine had not yet reached Maplebank. The papers were talking about it a good deal, but Squire Stewart was not the man to quickly adopt new inventions, and nobody else in the neighbourhood could afford to do so. Consequently, the West River Valley still continued to witness the good, old-fashioned way of mowing with the scythe; and Bert, accompanying Uncle Alec to the field, was filled with admiration for the stalwart "Rorys" and "Donalds" and "Sandys" as they strode along through the thick grass, cutting a wide swath before them. There was something in the work that appealed to the boy's bump of destructiveness, and filled him with eagerness to join in it.
"Oh, Uncle Alec, mayn't I mow?" he asked.
"Certainly, Bert, if you know how; but if you don't, I wouldn't advise you to try it," was the smiling reply.