the figures beating out the grain with their flails in some
sheltered nook, or some grassy lane lined with cedars. When there
are three flails beating together, it makes lively music; and when
there are four, they follow each other so fast that it is a
continuous roll of sound, and it requires a very steady stroke not
to hit or get hit by the others. There is just room and time to get
your blow in, and that is all. When one flail is upon the straw,
another has just left it, another is halfway down, and the fourth is
high and straight in the air. It is like a swiftly revolving wheel
that delivers four blows at each revolution. Threshing, like mowing,
goes much easier in company than when alone; yet many a farmer or
laborer spends nearly all the late fall and winter days shut in the
barn, pounding doggedly upon the endless sheaves of oats and rye.

When the farmers made "bees," as they did a generation or two ago
much more than they do now, a picturesque element was added. There
was the stone bee, the husking bee, the "raising," the "moving,"
etc. When the carpenters had got the timbers of the house or the
barn ready, and the foundation was prepared, then the neighbors for
miles about were invited to come to the "raisin'." The afternoon was
the time chosen. The forenoon was occupied by the carpenter and the
farm hands in putting the sills and "sleepers" in place ("sleepers,"
what a good name for those rude hewn timbers that lie under the
floor in the darkness and silence!). When the hands arrived, the
great beams and posts and joists and braces were carried to their
place on the platform, and the first "bent," as it was called, was
put together and pinned by oak pins that the boys brought. Then pike
poles were distributed, the men, fifteen or twenty of them, arranged
in a line abreast of the bent; the boss carpenter steadied and
guided the corner post and gave the word of command,--"Take holt,
boys!" "Now, set her up!" "Up with her!" "Up she goes!" When it gets
shoulder high, it becomes heavy, and there is a pause. The pikes are
brought into requisition; every man gets a good hold and braces
himself, and waits for the words. "All together now!" shouts the
captain; "Heave her up!" "He-o-he!" (heave-all,--heave), "he-o-he,"
at the top of his voice, every man doing his best. Slowly the great
timbers go up; louder grows the word of command, till the bent is
up. Then it is plumbed and stay-lathed, and another is put together