er in the next barn-yard crowed. Then Bobby remembered.

He ran toward the house. There was Red Top on the little mound.

"Oh, I must stop him before he crows," thought Bobby. He shouted, "Shoo,
shoo!"

Just then a loud cock-a-doodle-doo rang out on the morning air.

"I beat you, Bobby," it seemed to say.

Father looked out of his window and said, "Red Top was smarter than you,
wasn't he?"

"I am sorry I let him wake you," said Bobby.

John put his head out of his window and called, "You have lost the
dime, Bobby."

"I don't care," said Bobby. "I heard the birds and saw the sunrise."

Then he chased Red Top down to the Old Red Barn, so Father could finish
his morning nap.

[Illustration: HAYING TIME]

VII

One of the many pretty sights on the farm in early June, was the clover
field, all covered with red blossoms.

It was an interesting place, too.

Bobby and Rover loved to romp in it. The honey bees came to it to get
honey. The bobolinks, like flashes of black and white, skimmed over it
as they sang. The ground-birds had their nests in it.

Bobby knew of three nests there.

But the time had come for cutting the clover.

One morning, Bobby saw Father and Hobson in the tool-shed and
went to see what they were doing. He found them busy about the
mowing-machine--oiling it, tightening the screws and sharpening the
knives.

"Oh, Father, you aren't going to cut the grass now, are you?" said
Bobby.

"Yes," said Father, "the clover is ready."

"I wish it could be left all Summer," said Bobby.

"But we must cut it," said Farmer Hill, "to make hay for the horses and
cows to eat next Winter."

When the mower was ready, they hitched Prince and Daisy to it, and
Father climbed to the seat and drove to the hayfield.

As the mower went around the field, it cut a wide swath of clover and
left it lying flat on the ground.

A humming sound the mower made, a pleasant sound to a person some
distance away, a very loud sound to one near by.

In one of the nests in the field, there was a mother bird and three
young birds. The little mother bird, there in the quiet clover field,
had never heard such a loud sound before.

"What can it be that makes that big noise?" the frightened mother bird
thought as the mower passed close by.

Then the sound grew fainter as the mower went to the other side of the
field. The little mother bird settled down happily in her nest.

But it was not long before the sound