Stud's Jersey heifers, sleek Poland China shoats, and Shropshire lambs looked like blue ribbon material down to the last little orphan. A lively pair of twin kids had the family captivated with their antics. At the age of six weeks this pair of baby billy goats were leaping about the shed roofs like veritable young chamois. Sarah discovered four beautiful new hybrids among her gladioli; and her chickens—Plymouth Rocks and Leghorns—might have stepped right out of the pages of the "Country Gentleman."
It was true that Sarah felt tired these days, and that Ulysses S. Grant, the great Poland China boar, was acting particularly vicious, but on the whole the farm was running like clock work.
Almost before the Brailsfords realized it the grain had all been cut, and the thrashing crew had descended in a hungry horde upon the farm. Some of the oats went sixty bushels to the acre, the wheat nearly forty.
What a time they had with the thrashers! The womenfolks from all over the country came to help with the baking and cooking. Country kids for miles around rode Admiral Dewey and his patient wife, took turns in carrying water to the men, slid down the hay rope, begged for cookies, played pomp-pomp-pullaway and run-sheep-run.
The teen-aged boys, after work in the fields, wrestled and boxed, not always in fun. The teen-aged girls, who helped their mothers as little as possible, watched the boys and giggled.
Out in the fields and at the thrashing machine the men labored in the hot, sticky atmosphere with barley beards in their shirts and sweat in their burning eyes. They pitched bundles of grain onto the wagons, pitched them off into the thrashing machine; they drew water for the steam engine and shoveled coal in under the boiler; they carried the great sacks of grain—which poured from the shoot, winnowed, clean, and plump,—and dumped them into the big bins in the granary.
They marveled at Stud's fine new red and silver thrashing machine with its blower which could send the golden straw into a pile at any point he wished. They looked forward to following this beautiful machine up and down the valley.
In Sarah's kitchen the hot and perspiring women fairly tumbled over one another in their efforts to prepare for the hungry men. They stewed chickens by the dozen, fried thick slices of ham, made brown ham gravy, boiled pecks of new potatoes, baked pies and cakes and opened cans of pickles. There was nothing fancy about the fare they served, but it was ample.
They were jovial, catty, good-natured, cross, polite, or rude as the spirit moved them. They dropped the "sistering" and "Missusing" of the church suppers and called each other plain Mary, Meg, Bert, and Cissy. They had a perfectly grand time for all their complaining.