a far-off faint halloo.

"There they are," shouted father, catching up his old square tin lantern
and hurriedly lighting the candle within it. "That's Frank's voice."

The night air was sharp, and as we had taken off our boots we could only
stand at the window and watch father as he piloted the teamsters through
the gate. The light threw fantastic shadows here and there, now lighting
up a face, now bringing out the separator which seemed a weary and
sullen monster awaiting its den. The men's voices sounded loud in the
still night, causing the roused turkeys in the oaks to peer about on
their perches, uneasy silhouettes against the sky.

We would gladly have stayed awake to greet our beloved uncles, but
mother said, "You must go to sleep in order to be up early in the
morning," and reluctantly we turned away.

Lying thus in our cot under the sloping raftered roof we could hear the
squawk of the hens, as father wrung their innocent necks, and the crash
of the "sweeps" being unloaded sounded loud and clear and strange. We
longed to be out there, but at last the dance of lights and shadows on
the plastered wall died away, and we fell into childish dreamless sleep.

We were awakened at dawn by the ringing beat of the iron mauls as Frank
and David drove the stakes to hold the "power" to the ground. The rattle
of trace chains, the clash of iron rods, the clang of steel bars,
intermixed with the laughter of the men, came sharply through the frosty
air, and the smell of sizzling sausage from the kitchen warned us that
our busy mother was hurrying the breakfast forward. Knowing that it was
time to get up, although it was not yet light, I had a sense of being
awakened into a romantic new world, a world of heroic action.

As we stumbled down the stairs, we found the lamp-lit kitchen empty of
the men. They had finished their coffee and were out in the stack-yard
oiling the machine and hitching the horses to the power. Shivering yet
entranced by the beauty of the frosty dawn we crept out to stand and
watch the play. The frost lay white on every surface, the frozen ground
rang like iron under the steel-shod feet of the horses, and the breath
of the men rose up in little white puffs of steam.

Uncle David on the feeder's stand was impatiently awaiting the coming of
the fifth team. The pitchers were climbing the stacks like blackbirds,
and the straw-stackers were scuffling about the stable door.--Finally,
just as the east began to