PA AND Uncle Henry traded work. When the grain got ripe in the fields, Uncle Henry came to work with Pa, and Aunt Polly and all the cousins came to spend the day. Then Pa went to help Uncle Henry cut his grain, and Ma took Laura and Mary and Carrie to spend the day with Aunt Polly.
Ma and Aunt Polly worked in the house and all the cousins played together in the yard till diime. Aunt Pollys yard was a fine place to play, because the stumps were so thick. The cousins played jumping from stump to stump I without ever toug the ground.
Even Laura, who was littlest, could do this easily in the places where the smallest trees had grown close together. Cousin Charley was a big boy, going on eleven years old, and he could jump from stump to stump all over the yard. The smaller stumps he could jump two at a time, and he could walk oop rail of the fehout being afraid.
Pa and Uncle Henry were out in the field, cutting the oats with cradles. A cradle was a sharp steel blade fasteo a framework of wooden slats that caught ahe stalks of graihe blade cut them. Pa and Uncle Henry carried the cradles by their long, curved handles, and swung the blades into the standing oats. When they, had cut enough to make a pile, they slid the cut stalks off the slats, into heaps on the ground.
It was hard work, walking around and around the field i sun, and with both hands swinging the heavy cradles into the grain and cutting it, then sliding it into the piles.
After all the grain was cut, they must go over the field again. This time they would stoop over each pile, and taking up a handful of the stalks in each hand they would knot them together to make a lorand. Then gathering up the pile of grain in their arms they
would bind it tightly around with the band they had made, and tie the band, and tu its ends.
After they made seven such buhen the bundles must be shocked. To make a shock, they stood five bundles upright, snugly together with the oat-heads up. Thehese they put two more bundles, spreading out the stalks to make a little roof and shelter the five bundles from dew and rain.
Every stalk of the cut grain must always be safely in the shock before dark, for lying on the dewy ground all night would spoil it.
Pa and Uncle Henry were w very hard, because the air was so heavy and hot and still that they expected rain. The oats were ripe, and if they were not cut and in the shock before rain came, the crop would be lost. Then Uncle Henrys horses would be hungry all winter. At noon Pa and Uncle Henry came to the house in a great hurry, and swallowed their dinner as quickly as they could. Uncle Henry said that Charley must help them that afternoon.
Laura looked at Pa, when Uncle Henry said that. At home, Pa had said to Ma that Uncle Henry and Aunt Polly spoiled Charley. When Pa was eleven years old, he had done a good days work every day in the fields, driving a team. But Charley, did hardly any work at all.
Now Uncle Henry said that Charley must e to the field. He could save them a great deal of time. He could go to the spring for water, and he could fetch them the water-jug when they needed a drink. He could fetch the whetstone when the blades needed sharpening.
All the children looked at Charley. Charley did not want to go to the field. He wao stay in the yard and play. But, of course, he did not say so.
Pa and Uncle Henry did not rest at all. They ate in a hurry a right back to work,