Once, as
I paused to whet my scythe, my eye caught the line of the
untroubled hills strong and still in the broad sunshine; then to
work again in the labouring, fertile valley.
Rest time came, and wiping the sweat from brow and blade we sought
the welcome shadow of the hedge and the cool sweet oatmeal water
with which the wise reaper quenches his thirst. Farmer Marler
hastened off to see with master-eye that all went well elsewhere;
the farm men slept tranquilly, stretched at full length, clasped
hands for pillow; and old Dodden, sitting with crooked fingers
interlaced to check their trembling betrayal of old age, told how
in his youth he had "swep" a four-acre field single-handed in three
days--an almost impossible feat--and of the first reaping machine
in these parts, and how it brought, to his thinking, the ruin of
agricultural morals with it. "'Tis again nature," he said, "the
Lard gave us the land an' the seed, but 'Ee said that a man should
sweat. Where's the sweat drivin' round wi' two horses cuttin' the
straw down an' gatherin' it again, wi' scarce a hand's turn i' the
day's work?"
Old Dodden's high-pitched quavering voice rose and fell, mournful
as he surveyed the present, vehement as he recorded the heroic
past. He spoke of the rural exodus and shook his head mournfully.
"We old 'uns were content wi' earth and the open sky like our
feythers before us, but wi' the children 'tis first machines to
save doin' a hand's turn o' honest work, an' then land an' sky
ain't big enough seemin'ly, nor grand enough; it must be town an' a
paved street, an' they sweat their lives out atwixt four walls an'
call it seein' life--'tis death an' worse comes to the most of 'em.
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