THE SQUIRREL
V.—HARVEST TIME.
“They are very busy here,” said Uncle George, as he went into the field with Frank, Tom, and Dolly.
And well might he say so, for the whirr of the reaping-machine could be heard far away. Round the field it went, sweeping down the golden wheat. Following behind it were several girls, who twisted bands of straw and laid them on the ground. Behind these came women who quickly gathered up the cut wheat and placed it in bundles upon the bands. Then came men who bound these bundles into sheaves and tossed them aside. After these, again, came men who caught up the sheaves and placed them upright in bunches of six or eight. These bunches of sheaves they called “stooks.” Last of all came a huge rake drawn by horses, gathering up all the straws that were left. Every now and then the man that guided the rake pressed an iron bar, and, whenever he did so, all the teeth of the rake rose up at once, and left a row of gathered straw on the field. Then a man came and bound them into rough sheaves as before.
All was work and bustle and noise. What with the whirr of the reaping-machine, the girls singing as they worked, the larks singing in the sky, and the glorious autumn sun, the children thought the harvest-field was the most cheerful place they had ever seen.
“Why do you do that?” Frank asked a man who was fixing up the stooks. “Would it not be just as well if you left the sheaves lying on the ground until you cart them away?”
“Ah, no, Master Frank,” said the man, who knew him well, “that would never do. We must allow the corn time to get dry, so we place the sheaves upright that the sun and wind may dry them; and so that any rain that falls may run down the stalks to the ground. When the sheaves are quite dry, we take them home to the stack-yard.”
“How long does that take?” Frank asked.
“It all depends on the weather,” the man replied. “If it keeps fine, they will be dry within a week. In rainy weather, sometimes the sheaves have to stand in the fields for some weeks. In the next field the crop was cut a week ago. They are taking it home now.”