PEEP AT OUR NEIGHBORS. 69

each side of the wide open space, called
the ‘barn floor,’ two high beams, run-
ning horizontally, the whole length of
the building. These beams were some
twenty feet, perhaps, from the floor.
When the hay was all in, the mows on
each side of the barn floor reached as
high as these great beams, though, as the
hay was generally taken away during the
winter, of course the distance from the |
hay mow to the beams increased. In
the middle of the winter, I recollect, it
always seemed a great feat to jump from
the high beam to the mow, as Peter, my
father’s hired man, used sometimes to
do, for the amusement, he said, of the