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Show MEMORY OF RINGING 8CYTHE8. When Mowing Was the Portion of the Farmer and His Aids. Alas, there are no scythes nowadays! nowa-days! Tho work Is done with horses and reapers. The economical reform has swept our tomnnce unmercifully. In thoso days there were Bcythes, and there were men who knew how to swing them. It was a ilno sight to see four or Ave well-built lads, led by the father, mowing down the meadow and the timothy was nearly ns tall as their heads. Hut tho swing of their scythes fell true, and their tread was even, nnd they were glad. Birds sung overhead, and when they came near a ground bird's nest, the mother told them of It, and they went round leaving leav-ing It unharmed. Hut a bumblebee's nest! That was another thing! And they .went round that also. Dut at night the boys did not forget, for bumblebees' bum-blebees' honey Is good, and they did not know In those days that the bumblebees bum-blebees were very essential In a clover Held. I remember one tall fellow, with a touch of Indian blood, who went down the 'field on a trot cutting a good, honest swath all the way. No one could keep near him, and ho was the envy of all the boys and men. At noon he marched like a general, and at night he spoke patronizingly. Why not, for It was a grand achievement. Such art was surely as good as scanning scan-ning Homer, and tho feet never lost time. They were hexameters that rhymed. E. P. Powell, In Outing Magazine. |
