THE Master of the Harvest walked by the side of his cornfields in the early year, and a cloud was over his face, for there had been no rain for several weeks, and the earth was hard from the parching of the cold east winds, and the young wheat had not been able to spring up.
So, as he looked over the long ridges that lay stretched in rows before him, he was vexed, and began to grumble, and say, "The harvest would be backward, and all things would go wrong." At the mere thought of which he frowned more and more, and uttered words of complaint against the heavens, because there was no rain; against the earth, because it was so dry and unyielding; against the corn, because it had not sprung up.
And the man's discontent was whispered all over the field, and all along the long ridges where the corn seeds lay; and when it reached them they murmured out, "How cruel to complain! Are we not doing our best? Have we let one drop of moisture pass by unused, one moment of warmth come to us in vain? Have we not seized on every chance, and striven every day to be ready for the hour of breaking forth? Are we idle? Are we obstinate? Are we indifferent? Shall we not be found waiting and watching? How cruel to complain!"
Of all this, however, the Master of the Harvest heard nothing, so the gloom did not pass away from his face. On the contrary, he took it with him into his comfortable home, and repeated to his wife the dark words that all things were going wrong; that the drought would ruin the harvest, for the corn was not yet sprung.
And still thinking thus, he laid his head on his pillow, and presently fell asleep.
But his wife sat up for a while by the bedside, and opened her Bible, and read, "The harvest is the end of the world, and the reapers are the angels."
Then she wrote this text in pencil on the flyleaf at the end of the book, and after it the date of the day, and after the date the words, "Lord, the husbandman, Thou waitest for the precious fruit Thou hast sown, and hast long patience for it! Amen, O Lord, Amen!"
After which the good woman knelt down to pray, and as she prayed she wept, for she knew that she was very ill.
But what she prayed that night was heard only in heaven.
And so a few days passed on as before, and the house was gloomy with the discontent of its master; but at last one evening the wind changed, the sky became heavy with clouds, and before midnight there was rain all over the land; and when the Master of the Harvest came in next morning, wet from his early walk by the cornfields, he said it was well it had come at last, and that, at last, the corn had sprung up.