for a bed, and were forced
to sleep wherever we could find covert. One night we couched on the
floor of an old school-house, the next we crawled into an oat-shock and
covered ourselves with straw. Let those who have never slept out on the
ground through an August night say that it is impossible that one should
be cold! During all the early warm part of the night a family of skunks
rustled about us, and toward morning we both woke because of the chill.

On the third night we secured the blessed opportunity of nesting in a
farmer's granary. All humor had gone out of our expedition. Each day the
world grew blacker, and the men of the Connecticut Valley more cruel and
relentless. We both came to understand (not to the full, but in a large
measure) the bitter rebellion of the tramp. To plod on and on into the
dusk, rejected of comfortable folk, to couch at last with pole-cats in a
shock of grain is a liberal education in sociology.

On the fourth day we came upon an old farmer who had a few acres of
badly tangled oats which he wished gathered and bound. He was a large,
loose-jointed, good-natured sloven who looked at me with stinging,
penetrating stare, while I explained that we were students on a vacation
tramping and in need of money. He seemed not particularly interested
till Frank said with tragic bitterness, "If we ever get back to Dakota
we'll never even look this way again." This interested the man. He said,
"Turn in and cut them oats," and we gladly buckled to our job.

Our spirits rose with the instant resiliency of youth, but what a task
that reaping proved to be! The grain, tangled and flattened close to the
ground, had to be caught up in one hand and cut with the old-fashioned
reaping-hook, the kind they used in Egypt five thousand years ago--a
thin crescent of steel with a straight handle, and as we bowed ourselves
to the ground to clutch and clip the grain, we nearly broke in two
pieces. It was hot at mid-day and the sun fell upon our bended shoulders
with amazing power, but we toiled on, glad of the opportunity to earn a
dollar. "Every cent means escape from this sad country," I repeated.

We stayed some days with this reticent gardener, sleeping in the attic
above his kitchen like two scullions, uttering no complaint till we had
earned seven dollars apiece; then we said, "Good luck," and bought
tickets for Greenfield, Massachusetts. We chose this spot for the reason
that a great railway alluringly crossed