the; when
the sky, without a cloud, was whitened by an overspreading haze; when
the crickets sang sleepily as if in dream of eternal summer; and the
grasshoppers clicked and buzzed from stalk to stalk in pure delight of
sunshine and the harvest.

Another humbler source of pleasure in stacking was the watermelon which,
having been picked in the early morning and hidden under the edge of the
stack, remained deliciously cool till mid-forenoon, when at a signal,
the men all gathered in the shadow of the rick, and leisurely ate their
fill of juicy "mountain sweets." Then there was the five o'clock supper,
with its milk and doughnuts and pie which sent us back to our
task--replete, content, ready for another hour of toil.

Of course, there were unpleasant days later in the month, noons when the
skies were filled with ragged, swiftly moving clouds, and the winds blew
the sheaves inside out and slashed against my face the flying grain as
well as the leaping crickets. Such days gave prophecy of the passing of
summer and the coming of fall. But there was a mitigating charm even in
these conditions, for they were all welcome promises of an early return
to school.

Crickets during stacking time were innumerable and voracious as rust or
fire. They ate our coats or hats if we left them beside the stack. They
gnawed the fork handles and devoured any straps that were left lying
about, but their multitudinous song was a beautiful inwrought part of
the symphony.

That year the threshing was done in the fields with a traction engine.
My uncle David came no more to help us harvest. He had almost passed out
of our life, and I have no recollection of him till several years later.
Much of the charm, the poetry of the old-time threshing vanished with
the passing of horse power and the coming of the nomadic hired hand.
There was less and less of the "changing works" which used to bring the
young men of the farms together. The grain was no longer stacked round
the stable. Most of it we threshed in the field and the straw after
being spread out upon the stubble was burned. Some farmers threshed
directly from the shock, and the new "Vibrator" took the place of the
old Buffalo Pitts Separator with its ringing bell-metal pinions. Wheeled
plows were common and self-binding harvesters were coming in.

Although my laconic little diary does not show it, I was fiercely
resolved upon returning to the Seminary. My father was not very
sympathetic. In