op. While in the field he
took upon himself the task of "packing" the load, the hired man's duty
being to pitch it on to the cart. The man began his work too slowly to
suit Deacon Hale, who soon called out, "More hay!" This call he repeated
three or four times, as cock after cock of hay was still somewhat lazily
pitched up to him. Finally his tardy helper, becoming sensible that his
easy way of working was being rebuked, set himself to work with a will
equal to the Deacon's, and at last pitched the hay up so rapidly that
his employer was unable to "pack" it properly upon the cart. Very soon,
therefore, to the dismay of both men, the whole load slipped off in one
great mass on to the ground, carrying the Deacon along with it!

"What do you want now, Deacon?" shouted the Hercules by his side with a
satisfied grin.

"_More hay!_" instantly replied the discomfited Deacon, nimbly
scrambling back to his place on the cart.

Despite this little accident at the beginning of the afternoon, it is
safe to state that a generous storage of hay took place before sunset.

But happy as were these college days and home-comings, and rich as were
the harvests gleaned in them, the four years in college halls sped
swiftly, and in 1773 Enoch Hale and Nathan turned their faces toward the
future; the one to a long life and faithful Christian service, the other
toward the briefest of mortal days, but to a service whose memory will
not end till his college walls shall have crumbled, and the names of all
its heroic sons faded from the earth. For even though stones may
crumble, influence lives on.

It has already been said that at graduation Nathan Hale stood among the
first thirteen in a class of thirty-six. On Commencement Day, September
3, 1773, he took part in a forensic debate on the question, "Whether the
Education of Daughters be not, without any just reason, more neglected
than that of Sons."

In "Memories of a Hundred Years" Dr. Edward Everett Hale says: "As early
as 1772 there appears at Yale College the first question ever debated
by the Linonian Society. It was, 'Is it right to enslave the Affricans?'
I think, by the way, that this record, bad spelling and all, is made by
my great-uncle, Nathan Hale." These debates show how seriously, even in
the colonial period, men were thinking of the urgent problems of later
days.

In the debate first mentioned, the others taking part in it were
Benjamin Tallmadge, Ezra Samson, and William R