e the lunch waggons seen standing about the streets in cities.

"Hello, boys, is it dry enough to begin loadin' yet?"

"Naw; the dew's still as heavy as rain on the bundles."

"We'd best wait a little longer, then."

* * * * *

Though it seemed that half the day had wheeled by already, by seven
o'clock we rode a-field, and the less experienced of us were hard at it,
tossing up bundles to the loaders, who placed them swiftly here and
there till the waggons were packed tight and piled high.

I pitched up bundles from below, to an old man of sixty, who wore a
fringe of grey beard, like a Mennonite.

"I don't see why Bonton ever hired you," he remarked unsympathetically,
peering over the top at me from his high-piled load. Several times I had
missed the top and the bundle of wheat had tumbled back to me again....

"I can't be reaching out all the time to catch your forkfuls."

"Just give me time till I learn the hang of it."

I was better with the next load. The waggons came and went one after
the other ... there was a light space of rest between waggons. It was
like the rest between the rounds of a prizefight.

From the cloudless sky the sun's heat poured down in floods. A
monotonous locust was chirr-chirr-chirring from a nearby cottonwood ...
and in the long hedge of Osage oranges moaned wood doves....

By noon I had achieved a mechanical swing that helped relieve the
physical strain, a swinging rhythm of the hips and back muscles which
took the burden off my aching and weaker arms.

That afternoon, late, when the old man drove his waggon up to me for the
hundredth time it seemed, he smiled quizzically.

"Well, here you are still, but you're too skinny to stand it another day
... better draw your two bucks from the boss and strike out for Laurel
again."

--"that so, Daddy!" and I caught three bundles at once on the tines of
my fork and flung them clear to the top, and over. They caught the old
man in the midriff.... I heard a sliding about and swearing ... the next
moment he was in a heap, on the ground ... on the other side of the
waggon.

"What th' hell did ye do that for?"

I looked innocent. "Do what?"

--"soak me in the guts with three bundles to onct an' knock me off'n the
top of the load?"

"Ever since morning you've been kidding me and telling me I went too
slow for you.... I thought I'd speed up a bit."

After surveying me scornfully for a minute, he mutely r