Not even the fabled
"Beds of amaranth and moly,
Where soft winds lull us breathing lowly,"
can surpass a Canadian garden, brimming with the old-fashioned flowers beloved in childhood. As I linger among them the years fall from me like an "envious shadow." I press the delicate blooms to my face, inhale their fragrance, and let my whole being vibrate with the joy of life until my heart joins in the morning chorus of the birds. And then the great sun swings up and the day's work begins.
July 22.—For the past few days we have been hauling in hay and hustling like a gang of lightning-rod peddlers following up a destructive thunderstorm. And I have built my first stack. That may not seem a very startling statement to a tired business man, but I beg to assure all such that a stack of blue grass and a stack of blues are two entirely different things. The method of building them is not the same, and a stack of blue grass goes farther in feeding the cattle than a stack of blues in feeding the kitty. But sh-h-h! I should not be introducing these esoteric terms of high finance into innocent pastoral scenes.
To return to the stack—I feel fairly proud of it. It is more symmetrical than I thought I could ever make one, and it is settling down on its foundation like a benediction. Having seen real farmers, who are reputed to be good stack-builders, get down off their stack and run for a rail to prop it up so that it would not fall over, it gives me a glow of satisfaction to see my first attempt sitting as upright as a pyramid. Whenever I have nothing else to do when I am smoking my pipe after dinner, I always wander to some spot where I can see and admire my first stack from a new angle, and I find that it looks fairly well from every side. Of course, it is not perfect, and I would not advise people who are busy or have something important to do to come far out of their way to look at it, but still I am not ashamed to have it examined.
In the past I have always had an expert stack-builder to do the building, but this year the boys and I are doing all the farm work, and I had to build myself. Of course, I have often helped at stack-building, keeping the hay in front of the builder or pitching off the loads, but I never before had the courage to act as chief architect. I have also heard good stack-builders discuss the art, and I know that the chief thing is to "keep the middle full." As nearly as possible I made this stack all middle, kept it well tramped and never went too near the edges. Experts who have looked at it say that it will turn the wet all right, but I shall not feel entirely safe until it has been opened next winter. I have no doubt the cows have a proverb to the effect that "the proof of the stack is in the eating."
A real farmer with whom I was discussing my stack with more modesty than I really felt made the disquieting comment: "Your first two or three stacks will probably be all right, for you will be careful. It is after you think that you know how to build stacks that you will get careless and then you will begin to build poor ones." Possibly that is true, but to be forewarned is to be forearmed. I certainly did give my whole attention to the work while building that stack. My mind was on it all the time, and every forkful was placed with considerate care. It irritated me to have any one distract my attention by speaking to me while I was at the work. I was bound to make a good job of it.
To those who have never built stacks it would be surprising to know the amount of concentrated attention that is required. A stack isn't simply a pile of hay, and when it comes to topping off you need a good eye to make all sides slope up evenly. I didn't intend to build it so high, but the slope at which I started kept me going up and up as far as the two boys could pitch. One was throwing hay up as high as he could from the load, and the other was perched precariously on a little ledge, from which he threw it up to me, and when I reached the top I was also pitching the bundles higher than my head. By that time I had become sufficiently accustomed to my work to have a chance to observe and to note that my stack was like
"Some tall cliff vertiginously high."
The boy who was perched on the side of the stack reminded me of the lines: