e had as yet acted only as assistant, and had not felt the
responsibility of "cookin' for thrashers" which weighs so heavily on
housewives. It is not alone the fact that they must provide dinner and
supper for fifteen or twenty hungry men, but the knowledge that their
viands will be compared, favorably or unfavorably, with those of other
women in the neighborhood. So they exert themselves to provide a
variety, and load their tables with rich food, insomuch that "goin' with
the thrashers" means to farm-workers in this section a round of
sumptuous living. The Loper family rose Saturday morning while the east
was red, and did the milking and despatched breakfast earlier than
usual. The threshers were coming at eight o'clock, and they hoped to get
the engine and threshing-machine in order and be well under way at nine.
Two neighbor women came over to help Mrs. Loper, and Elvira assisted
Maggie in all her tasks. Together they cleaned and scraped a tub half
full of potatoes, plucked the feathers of two fat hens, gathered a lot
of beets and summer squashes, and sliced cucumbers and tomatoes into
dishes of vinegar, adding pepper and salt; they brought eggs from the
barn, rousing a protesting cackle among the hens by scaring some of them
off their nests, and milk and butter from the spring-house.

In the mean time Mrs. Loper and her two assistants, warm and red, but
sustained by the importance of the occasion, were at work in the
kitchen, beating eggs and stirring sugar and butter together for cakes,
making pies, and roasting, baking, boiling, and stewing. When their
other tasks were done, Maggie and Elvira were deputed to set the table.
Two long tables were placed end to end in the shade of some maple-trees
which stood near the house, and covered with white cloths, then the
plates, knives and forks, and drinking-glasses were placed in order. The
Loper supply of dishes was not sufficient, but there were two large
basketfuls which had been borrowed from neighbors for the occasion, and,
by having recourse to these, the tables were furnished. Chairs were
brought from kitchen and parlor and every room in the house, but even
then two were lacking. "Never mind," said Maggie: "Joe and Will can sit
on nail-kegs," referring to two of her brothers.

The men and machinery and wagons had come early in the day, the engine
drawn by two oxen, the threshing-machine by four horses. The oxen swayed
hither and thither as they were driven through t