Hay and Hard Lessons

The stacker was almost erected.

"You can get some hay," Alec called as he tightened a guy-rope.

The tumbler sweep had been built to be pulled by a horse, but this year, it was fastened in front of the truck; nine wooden teeth tipped with steel that ran along the ground to slide under the hay. Edith got into the truck to bring in enough hay to form the base of the stack. She set off for the top of the hill that was part of this paddock.

Fred and the soldiers, Jim and Tom, had just arrived, but they all looked in consternation as the truck, with its load of hay in front, came hurtling down the hill to stop with a jerk at the stack.

"It would be better not to go so fast," said her father mildly (though he really had got a fright). "If the teeth struck a snag, the truck would turn a somersault, and they’d break, and we do want to get the hay in today." Edith knew all the suggestions he’d left unsaid.

"But the truck wouldn’t go any slower," she said, "I was nearly pushing the brake pedal right through the floorboards."

"But you also had your foot on the clutch, I think," said her father. Thinking it over, Edith agreed that was what she had done, and next time, with the truck in low, she came back much more carefully.

They started off with a horse pulling the grab-loads, and young Rewa guiding it into place. When Jim put a whole truckload on, old Duke gave a groan and flopped down.

"He’s too slow," said Tom, one of the soldiers, "let’s put the car onto it."

Fred was reluctant. He and Tom were stacking, and he felt a strange breathlessness as he tried to keep up with the younger man. Like most farmers who have passed the 50 mark, he did not want to admit that he was not as strong as in other years. But the hay must go in.

So the change was made, the car was hitched to the stacker; Alec and one of the soldiers took over the work on the stack. Fred, himself, drove the truck bringing in the hay, while Edith and Rewa were sent to rake all the rest of the paddock. Mary was told to bring down the lunch.

"It will be quicker to have it here," they said, "We’ll get all the paddock in in one day instead of taking two."

Forward and back went the car. Forward and back, up went the grab with its load of hay, then down for more. Up and down. Up and down. The loads were very big now as the grab dropped a whole sweep-load onto the stack and the two working up there had no rest.

By evening, the hay was in the stack. Fred took the soldier lads back to the barracks and the rest of the team went to milk the cows. The job was done, but somehow the exhilaration that usually attended the end of the haymaking was missing.