THE YOUTH’S CABINET.

brings it around to his left side, so as to

lay the grain on the ground in a row. e

have watched a man cradling in a field
of rye, when I was a boy, for hours,
and thought there was nothing so grace-
ful and pretty as this process in the
whole range of a farmer’s duties.

Before the cradle was invented, wheat
and rye were harvested with the sickle,
and the process was called reaping. It
takes a farmer a great while longer to
reap a field of grain than it does to cra-
dleit. A sickle is an instrument made
of steel, in a curved form, with teeth
somewhat similar to the teeth of a fine
saw, and a handle of wood, just large
enough for one hand. The reaper takes
bold with his left hand of as many of
the heads of grain as he can conveniently
grasp, and with his right hand he cuts
the grain near the ground. Then he
lays the handful of wheat or rye care-
fully in a row. You see it is slow busi-

ness. Besides, the reaper often finds it

provokingly convenient to cut his fingers
with the sickle. So that cradling is
much preferable to reaping.

When the grain has lain upon the
ground long enough to dry a little—and
that does not take a great whilein a hot
sun—it is raked up and made into bun-
dies, after which it is pitched upon a
cart and carried into the barn.

We used to have a good deal of fun
in our neighborhood, when I was a boy,
soon after the time when the Indian corn
was harvested. That, however, was not
until autumn, after the nights had be-
gun to grow cold. Did you ever hear
anything about a husking scrape in New
England? You ought to know some-
thing about the affair, at anyrate. The

corn, taken from the field sometimes
V. 16

rods, perhaps, in length.
farmer invites all the neighbors to come
and help him husk his corn. He uses
no partiality in his invitations. Every-
body is asked, old and young, male and
female, whité and black, rich and poor.
It is a great time with the Jittle folks, of

 

247

with a part of the stalk, and sometimes
with the ear only, is carried to some
convenient place near the farm-house,

and piled in a heap about as high as a

man’s head, and stretching along some
Then the

course. Before the husking comes off,
there is a vast amount of work to be
done inside of the house. The oven is
heated a good many times, and lots of
fine things are baked in it. Pumpkin
pies abound about these days, you may
be sure; and as to the dough-nuts and
other articles of that genus, they are
“too numerous to mention,” as the
dealer in dry goods, groceries, and
crockery ware would say.

It is understood that the moon is to
shine when the husking party comes off.
That is, the farmer so understands it.
He makes his calculations for a moon-
light night. But there seems sometimes
to be another understanding on the part
of the moon; although she is plainly ad-
vertised in the almanacs as expected at
that time, she does not always come.
In this respect she is not unlike other
celebrated people, whom the papers
speak of as sure to be present on a giv-
en occasion of importance, and to take
a part in the exercises of that occasion,
but who, when the time comes, are
among the missing. Taking it for grant-
ed that the moon does just as the alma-
nacs say she will do, and that she does
not take a fancy to hide her face behind
a thick veil, it is light enough to go

® AUG