en read some verses from the parish Bible, telling us to
lift up our eyes, and look upon the fields already white to harvest;
and then he laid the Bible down on the square head of the gate-post,
and despite his gown and cassock, three good swipes he cut off corn,
and laid them right end onwards. All this time the rest were huddling
outside the gate, and along the lane, not daring to interfere with
parson, but whispering how well he did it.

When he had stowed the corn like that, mother entered, leaning on me,
and we both said, "Thank the Lord for all His mercies, and these the
first-fruits of His hand!" And then the clerk gave out a psalm verse by
verse, done very well; although he sneezed in the midst of it, from a
beard of wheat thrust up his nose by the rival cobbler at Brendon. And
when the psalm was sung, so strongly that the foxgloves on the bank were
shaking, like a chime of bells, at it, Parson took a stoop of cider, and
we all fell to at reaping.

Of course I mean the men, not women; although I know that up the
country, women are allowed to reap; and right well they reap it, keeping
row for row with men, comely, and in due order, yet, meseems, the men
must ill attend to their own reaping-hooks, in fear lest the other cut
themselves, being the weaker vessel. But in our part, women do what
seems their proper business, following well behind the men, out of harm
of the swinging hook, and stooping with their breasts and arms up they
catch the swathes of corn, where the reapers cast them, and tucking them
together tightly with a wisp laid under them, this they fetch around and
twist, with a knee to keep it close; and lo, there is a goodly sheaf,
ready to set up in stooks! After these the children come, gathering each
for his little self, if the farmer be right-minded; until each hath a
bundle made as big as himself and longer, and tumbles now and again with
it, in the deeper part of the stubble.

We, the men, kept marching onwards down the flank of the yellow wall,
with knees bent wide, and left arm bowed and right arm flashing steel.
Each man in his several place, keeping down the rig or chine, on the
right side of the reaper in front, and the left of the man that followed
him, each making farther sweep and inroad into the golden breadth and
depth, each casting leftwards his rich clearance on his foregoer's
double track.

So like half a wedge of wildfowl, to and fro we swept the field; and
when to either hedge w