It was usual also, not only to feast the men and women, but to reward likewise the boys and girls who were in any degree instrumental
in getting in the harvest; accordingly Tusser humanely observes,
"Once ended thy harvest, let none be begilde,
please such as did please thee, man, woman and child:
Thus doing, with alwaie such helpe as they can,
thou winnest the praise, of the labouring man;"[188:A]
an injunction which Mr. Hilman has further explained by subjoining to this stanza the following remark:—"Every one," says he, "that did any thing towards the Inning, must now have some reward, as ribbons, laces, rows of pins to boys and girls, if never so small, for their encouragement, and to be sure plumb-pudding."
The most minute account, however, which we can now any where meet with, of the ceremonies and rejoicings at Harvest-Home, as they existed during the prior part of the seventeenth century, and which we may justly consider as not deviating from those that accompanied the same festival in the reign of Elizabeth, is to be found among the poems of Robert Herrick, and will be valued, not exclusively for its striking illustration of the subject, but for its merit, likewise, as a descriptive piece.
"THE HOCK-CART, OR HARVEST-HOME.[188:B]
Come, Sons of Summer, by whose toile