EVERYBODY in Riverboro, Edgewood, Milliken's Mills, Spruce Swamp, Duck Pond, and Moderation was "haying." There was a perfect frenzy1 of haying, for it was the Monday after the "Fourth," the precise date in July when the Maine farmer said good-bye to repose2, and "hayed" desperately3 and unceasingly, until every spear of green in his section was mowed4 down and safely under cover. If a man had grass of his own, he cut it, and if he had none, he assisted in cutting that of some other man, for "to hay," although an unconventional verb, was, and still is, a very active one, and in common circulation, although not used by the grammarians.
Whatever your trade, and whatever your profession, it counted as naught5 in good weather. The fish-man stopped selling fish, the meat-man ceased to bring meat; the cobbler, as well as the judge, forsook6 the bench; and even the doctor made fewer visits than usual. The wage for work in the hay-fields was a high one, and every man, boy, and horse in a village was pressed into service.
When Ivory Boynton had finished with his own small crop, he commonly went at once to Lawyer Wilson, who had the largest acreage of hay-land in the township. Ivory was always in great demand, for he was a mighty7 worker in the field, and a very giant at "pitching," being able to pick up a fair-sized hay-cock at one stroke of the fork and fling it on to the cart as if it were a feather. Lawyer Wilson always took a hand himself if signs of rain appeared, and Mark occasionally visited the scene of action when a crowd in the field made a general jollification, or when there was an impending8 thunderstorm. In such cases even women and girls joined the workers and all hands bent9 together to the task of getting a load into the barn and covering the rest.
Deacon Baxter was wont10 to call Mark Wilson a "worthless, whey-faced, lily-handed whelp," but the description, though picturesque11, was decidedly exaggerated. Mark disliked manual labor12, but having imbibed13 enough knowledge of law in his father's office to be an excellent clerk, he much preferred travelling about, settling the details of small cases, collecting rents and bad bills, to any form of work on a farm. This sort of life, on stage-coaches and railway trains, or on long driving trips with his own fast trotter, suited his adventurous14 disposition15 and gave him a sense of importance that was very necessary to his peace of mind. He was not especially intimate with Ivory Boynton, who studied law with his father during all vacations and in every available hour of leisure during term time, as did many another young New England schoolmaster. Mark's father's praise of Ivory's legal ability was a little too warm to please his son, as was the commendation of one of the County Court judges on Ivory's preparation of a brief in a certain case in the Wilson office. Ivory had drawn16 it up at Mr. Wilson's request, merely to show how far he understood the books and cases he was studying, and he had no idea that it differed in any way from the work of any other student; all the same, Mark's own efforts in a like direction had never received any special mention. When he was in the hay-field he also kept as far as possible from Ivory, because there, too, he felt a superiority that made him, for the moment, a trifle discontented. It was no particular pleasure for him to see Ivory plunge17 his fork deep into the heart of a hay-cock, take a firm grasp of the handle, thrust forward his foot to steady himself, and then raise the great fragrant18 heap slowly, and swing it up to the waiting haycart amid the applause of the crowd. Rodman would be there, too, helping19 the man on top of the load and getting nearly buried each time, as the mass descended20 upon him, but doing his slender best to distribute and tread it down properly, while his young heart glowed with pride at Cousin Ivory's prowess.
Independence Day had passed, with its usual gayeties for the young people, in none of which the Baxter family had joined, and now, at eleven o'clock on this burning July morning, Waitstill was driving the old mare21 past the Wilson farm on her way to the river field. Her father was working there, together with the two hired men whom he took on for a fortnight during the height of the season. If mowing22, raking, pitching, and carting of the precious crop could only have been done at odd times during the year, or at night, he would not have embittered23 the month of July by paying out money for labor: but Nature was inexorable in the ripening24 of hay and Old Foxy was obliged to succumb25 to the inevitable26. Waitstill had a basket packed with luncheon27 for three and a great demijohn of cool ginger28 tea under the wagon29 seat. Other farmers sometimes served hard cider, or rum, but her father's principles were dead against this riotous30 extravagance. Temperance, in any and all directions, was cheap, and the Deacon was a very temperate31 man, save in language.
The fields on both sides of the road were full of haymakers and everywhere there was bustle32 and stir. There would be three or four men, one leading, the others following, slowly swinging their way through a noble piece of grass, and the smell of the mown fields in the sunshine was sweeter than honey in the comb. There were patches of black-eyed Susans in the meadows here and there, while pink and white hardhack grew by the road, with day lilies and blossoming milkweed. The bobolinks were fluting33 from every tree; there were thrushes in the alder34 bushes and orioles in the tops of the elms, and Waitstill's heart overflowed35 with joy at being in such a world of midsummer beauty, though life, during the great heat and incessant36 work of haying-time, was a little more rigorous than usual. The extra food needed for the hired men always kept her father in a state of mind closely resembling insanity37. Coming downstairs to cook breakfast she would find the coffee or tea measured out for the pot. The increased consumption of milk angered him beyond words, because it lessened38 the supply of butter for sale. Everything that could be made with buttermilk was ordered so to be done, and nothing but water could be used in mixing the raised bread. The corncake must never have an egg; the piecrust must be shortened only with lard, or with a mixture of beef-fat and dripping; and so on, and so on, eternally.
When the girls were respectively seventeen and thirteen, Waitstill had begged a small plot of ground for them to use as they liked, and beginning at that time they had gradually made a little garden, with a couple of fruit trees and a thicket39 of red, white, and black currants raspberry and blackberry bushes. For several summers now they had sold enough of their own fruit to buy a pair of shoes or gloves, a scarf or a hat, but even this tiny income was beginning to be menaced. The Deacon positively40 suffered as he looked at that odd corner of earth, not any bigger than his barn floor, and saw what his girls had done with no tools but a spade and a hoe and no help but their own hands. He had no leisure (so he growled) to cultivate and fertilize41 ground for small fruits, and no money to pay a man to do it, yet here was food grown under his very eye, and it did not belong to him! The girls worked in their garden chiefly at sunrise in spring and early summer, or after supper in the evening; all the same Waitstill had been told by her father the day before that she was not only using ground, but time, that belonged to him, and that he should expect her to provide "pie-filling" out of her garden patch during haying, to help satisfy the ravenous42 appetites of that couple of "great, gorming, greedy lubbers" that he was hiring this year. He had stopped the peeling of potatoes before boiling because he disapproved43 of the thickness of the parings he found in the pig's pail, and he stood over Patty at her work in the kitchen until Waitstill was in daily fear of a tempest of some sort.
Coming in from the shed one morning she met her father just issuing from the kitchen where Patty was standing44 like a young Fury in front of the sink. "Father's been spying at the eggshells I settled the coffee with, and said I'd no business to leave so much good in the shell when I broke an egg. I will not bear it; he makes me feel fairly murderous! You'd better not leave me alone with him when I'm like this. Oh! I know that I'm wicked, but isn't he wicked too, and who was wicked first?"
Patty's heart had been set on earning and saving enough pennies for a white muslin dress and every day rendered the prospect45 more uncertain; this was a sufficient grievance46 in itself to keep her temper at the boiling point had there not been various other contributory causes. Waitstill's patience was flagging a trifle, too, under the stress of the hot days and the still hotter, breathless nights. The suspicion crossed her mind now and then that her father's miserliness and fits of temper might be caused by a mental malady47 over which he now had little or no control, having never mastered himself in all his life. Her power of endurance would be greater, she thought, if only she could be certain that this theory was true, though her slavery would be just as galling48.
It would be so easy for her to go away and earn a living; she who had never had a day of illness in her life; she who could sew, knit, spin, weave, and cook. She could make enough money in Biddeford or Portsmouth to support herself, and Patty, too, until the proper work was found for both. But there would be a truly terrible conflict of wills, and such fierce arraignment49 of her unfilial conduct, such bitter and caustic50 argument from her father, such disapproval51 from the parson and the neighbors, that her very soul shrank from the prospect. If she could go alone, and have no responsibility over Patty's future, that would be a little more possible, but she must think wisely for two.
And how could she leave Ivory when there might perhaps come a crisis in his life where she could be useful to him? How could she cut herself off from those Sundays in the choir52, those dear fugitive53 glimpses of him in the road or at prayer-meeting? They were only sips54 of happiness, where her thirsty heart yearned55 for long, deep draughts56, but they were immeasurably better than nothing. Freedom from her father's heavy yoke57, freedom to work, and read, and sing, and study, and grow,--oh! how she longed for this, but at what a cost would she gain it if she had to harbor the guilty conscience of an undutiful and rebellious58 daughter, and at the same time cut herself off from the sight of the one being she loved best in all the world.
She felt drawn towards Ivory's mother to-day. Three weeks had passed since her talk with Ivory in the churchyard, but there had been no possibility of an hour's escape from home. She was at liberty this afternoon--relatively at liberty; for although her work, as usual, was laid out for her, it could be made up somehow or other before nightfall. She could drive over to the Boynton's place, hitch59 her horse in the woods near the house, make her visit, yet be in plenty of time to go up to the river field and bring her father home to supper. Patty was over at Mrs. Abel Day's, learning a new crochet60 stitch and helping her to start a log-cabin quilt. Ivory and Rodman, she new, were both away in the Wilson hay-field; no time would ever be more favorable; so instead of driving up Town-House Hill when she returned to the village she kept on over the bridge.
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frenzy
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| n.疯狂，狂热，极度的激动 | |
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repose
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| v.(使)休息；n.安息 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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mowed
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| v.刈，割( mow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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naught
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| n.无，零 [=nought] | |
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forsook
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| forsake的过去式 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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impending
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| a.imminent, about to come or happen | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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wont
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| adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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imbibed
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| v.吸收( imbibe的过去式和过去分词 )；喝；吸取；吸气 | |
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adventurous
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| adj.爱冒险的；惊心动魄的，惊险的，刺激的 | |
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disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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fragrant
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| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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helping
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| n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的 | |
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descended
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| a.为...后裔的，出身于...的 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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mowing
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| n.割草，一次收割量，牧草地v.刈，割( mow的现在分词 ) | |
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embittered
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| v.使怨恨，激怒( embitter的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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ripening
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| v.成熟，使熟( ripen的现在分词 )；熟化；熟成 | |
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succumb
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| v.屈服，屈从；死 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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luncheon
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| n.午宴，午餐，便宴 | |
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ginger
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| n.姜，精力，淡赤黄色；adj.淡赤黄色的；vt.使活泼，使有生气 | |
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wagon
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| n.四轮马车，手推车，面包车；无盖运货列车 | |
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riotous
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| adj.骚乱的；狂欢的 | |
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temperate
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| adj.温和的，温带的，自我克制的，不过分的 | |
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bustle
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| v.喧扰地忙乱，匆忙，奔忙；n.忙碌；喧闹 | |
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fluting
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| 有沟槽的衣料； 吹笛子； 笛声； 刻凹槽 | |
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alder
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| n.赤杨树 | |
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overflowed
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| 溢出的 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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insanity
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| n.疯狂，精神错乱；极端的愚蠢，荒唐 | |
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lessened
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| 减少的，减弱的 | |
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thicket
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| n.灌木丛，树林 | |
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positively
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| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
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fertilize
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| v.使受精，施肥于，使肥沃 | |
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ravenous
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| adj.极饿的，贪婪的 | |
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disapproved
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| v.不赞成( disapprove的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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prospect
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| n.前景，前途；景色，视野 | |
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grievance
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| n.怨愤，气恼，委屈 | |
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malady
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| n.病，疾病(通常做比喻) | |
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galling
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| adj.难堪的,使烦恼的,使焦躁的 | |
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arraignment
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| n.提问，传讯，责难 | |
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caustic
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| adj.刻薄的，腐蚀性的 | |
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disapproval
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| n.反对，不赞成 | |
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choir
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| n.唱诗班，唱诗班的席位，合唱团，舞蹈团；v.合唱 | |
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fugitive
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| adj.逃亡的，易逝的；n.逃犯，逃亡者 | |
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sips
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| n.小口喝，一小口的量( sip的名词复数 )v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的第三人称单数 ) | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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draughts
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| n. <英>国际跳棋 | |
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yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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rebellious
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| adj.造反的，反抗的，难控制的 | |
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59
hitch
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| v.免费搭(车旅行)；系住；急提；n.故障；急拉 | |
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crochet
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| n.钩针织物；v.用钩针编制 | |
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