GRANDMOTHER RUTH'S LAST LOAD OF HAY
Haying time at the old farm generally began on the Monday after the
Fourth of July and lasted from four to six weeks, according to the
weather, which is often fitful in Maine. We usually harvested from
seventy to seventy-five tons, and in the days of scythes and hand rakes
that meant that we had to do a good deal of hard, hot, sweaty work.
Besides Addison, Halstead and me, the old Squire had the two hired men,
Jim and Asa Doane, to help him; and sometimes Elder Witham, who was
quite as good with a scythe as with a sermon, worked for us a few days.
First we would cut the grass in the upland fields nearest the farm
buildings, then the grass in the "Aunt Hannah lot" out beyond the
sugar-maple orchard and last the grass in the south field, which, since
it was on low, wet ground where there were several long swales, was the
slowest to ripen. Often there were jolly times when we cut the south
field. Our enjoyment was owing partly to the fact that we were getting
toward the end of the hard work, and partly to the bumblebees' nests we
found in the swales. Moreover, when we reached that field grandmother
Ruth was wont to come out to lay the last load of hay and ride to the
barn on it.
In former days when she and the old Squire were young she had helped him
a great deal with the haying. Nearly every day she finished her own work
early--the cooking, the butter making, the cheese making--and came out
to the field to help rake and load the hay. The old Squire has often
told me that, except at scythe work, grandmother Ruth was the best
helper he had ever had, for at that time she was quick, lithe and strong
and understood the work as well as any man. Later when they were in
prosperous circumstances she gave up doing so much work out of doors;
but still she enjoyed going to the hayfield, and even after we young
folks had gone home to live she made it her custom to lay the last load
of hay and ride to the barn on it just to show that she could do it
still. She was now sixty-four years old, however, and had grown stout,
so stout indeed that to us youngsters she looked rather venturesome on a
load of hay. On the day of my narrative, we had the last of the grass in
the south field "mown and making" on the ground. There were four or five
tons of it, all of which we wanted to put into the barn before night,
for, though the forenoon was bright and clear, we could hear distant
rumblings; and there were other signs that foul weather was coming. The
old Squire sent Ellen over to summon Elder Witham to help us; if the
rain held off until nightfall, we hoped to have the hay inside the barn.
At noon, while we were having luncheon, grandmother Ruth asked at what
time we expected to have the last load ready to go in.
"Not before five o'clock," Asa replied. "It has all to be raked yet."
"Well, I shall be down there by that time," she said in a very
matter-of-fact tone. "I'll bring the girls with me."
"Don't you think, Ruth, that perhaps you had better give it up this
year?" the old Squire said persuasively.
"But why?" grandmother Ruth exclaimed, not at all pleased.
"Well, you know, Ruth, that neither of us is quite so young as we once
were--" the old Squire began apologetically.
"Speak for yourself, Joseph, not for me!" she interrupted. "I'm young
enough to lay a load of hay yet!"
"Yes, yes," the old Squire said soothingly, "I know you are, but the
loads are rather high, and you know that you are getting quite heavy--"
"Then I can tread down hay all the better!" grandmother Ruth cried,
turning visibly pink with vexation.
"All right, all right, Ruth!" the old Squire said with a smile,
prudently abandoning the argument.
Then Elder Witham put in his word. "The Lord has appointed to each of us
our three-score years and ten, and it behooves us to be mindful that the
end of all things is drawing nigh," he remarked soberly.
"Look here, Elder Witham," the old lady exclaimed with growing
impatience, "you are here haying to-day, not preaching! I'm going to lay
that load of hay if there are men enough here to pitch it on the cart to
me."
Jim and Asa snorted; Theodora's efforts to keep a grave face were
amusing; and with queer little wrinkles gathering round the corners of
his mouth the old Squire, who had finished his luncheon, rose hastily to
go out.
We went back to the south field and plied our seven rakes vigorously for
an hour and a half. Then Asa went to get the horses and the long rack
cart. That day, I remember, Jim laid the loads. Halstead helped him to
tread down the hay, and Elder Witham and Asa pitched it on the cart. The
old Squire had mounted the driver's seat and taken the reins; and
Addison and I raked up the scatterings from the "tumbles."
In the course of two hours four loads of the hay had gone into the barn,
and we thought that the thirty-three tumbles that remained could be
drawn at the fifth and last load. It was then that grandmother Ruth
appeared. She had been watching proceedings from the house and followed
the cart down from the barn to the south field, resolutely bent on
laying the last load. Theodora and Ellen came with her to help tread
down the hay on the cart.
"Here I am!" she cried cheerily. She tossed her hayfork into the empty
rack and climbed in after it. Her sun hat was tied under her chin, and
she had donned a white waist and a blue denim skirt. "Come on now with
your hay!"
Elder Witham moistened his hands, but made no comment. Jim was grinning.
The old Squire drove the cart between two tumbles, and the work of
pitching on and laying the load began. No one knew better than
grandmother Ruth how a load should be laid. She first filled the
opposite ends of the rack and kept the middle low; then when the load
was high as the rails of the rack she began prudently to lay the hay out
on and over them, so as to have room to build a large, wide load.
But in this instance there was a hindrance to good loading that even
grandmother's skill could not wholly overcome. Much of the hay for that
last load was from the swales at the lower side of the field, where the
grass was wild and short and sedgy, a kind that when dry is difficult to
pitch with forks and that, since the forkfuls have little cohesion and
tend to drop apart, does not lie well on the rails of the rack. Such hay
farmers sometimes call "podgum."
Fully aware of the fact, the old Squire now said in an undertone to the
elder and to Jim that they had better make two loads of the thirty-three
tumbles. But grandmother Ruth overheard the remark and mistook it to
mean that the old Squire did not believe she could lay the load. It
mortified her.
"No, sir-ee!" she shouted down to the old Squire. "I hear your talk
about two loads, and it's because I'm on the cart! I won't have it so!
You give me that hay! I'll load it; see if I don't!"
"Bully for you, Gram!" shouted Halstead.
It was no use to try to dissuade her now, as the old Squire well knew
from long experience. When her pride was touched no arguments would move
her.
With the elder heaving up great forkfuls and grandmother Ruth valiantly
laying them at the front and at the back of the rack, they continued
loading the hay. Jim tried to place his forkfuls where they need not be
moved and where the girls could tread them down.
The load grew higher, for now that we were in the swales the hay could
not be laid out widely. It would be a big load, or at least a lofty one.
Grandmother Ruth began to fear lest the girls should fall off, and,
calling on Elder Witham to catch them, she bade them slide down
cautiously to the ground at the rear end of the cart. She then went on
laying the load alone. As a consequence it was not so firmly trodden and
became higher and higher until Jim and the elder could hardly heave
their forkfuls high enough for her to take them. But they got the last
tumble up to her and shouted, "All on!" to the old Squire, who now was
nearly invisible on his seat in front. Grandmother Ruth settled herself
midway on the load to ride it to the barn, thrusting her fork deep into
the hay so as to have something to hold on by. We could just see her sun
hat and her face over the hay; she looked very pink and triumphant.
Carefully avoiding stones and all the inequalities in the field, the old
Squire drove at a slow walk. I surmise that he had his fears. It was
certainly the highest load we had hauled to the barn that summer.
The rest of us followed after, glad indeed that the long task of haying
was now done, and that the last load would soon be in the barn. Halfway
to the farm buildings the cart road led through a gap in the stone wall
where two posts with bars separated the south field from the middle
field. There was scanty space for the load to pass through, and in his
anxiety not to foul either of the posts the old Squire, who could not
see well because of the overhanging hay, drove a few inches too close to
one of them, and a wheel passed over a small stone beside the wheel
track. The jolt was slight, but it proved sufficient to loosen the
unstable "podgum." The load had barely cleared the posts when the entire
side of it came sliding down--and grandmother Ruth with it! We heard her
cry out as she fell, and then all of us who were behind scaled the wall
and rushed to her rescue. The old Squire stopped the horses, jumped from
his seat over the off horse's back and was ahead of us all, crying,
"Ruth, Ruth!"
There was a huge heap of loose hay on the ground, fully ten feet high,
but she was nowhere to be seen in it. Nor did she speak or stir.
"Great Lord, I'm afraid it's killed her!" Elder Witham exclaimed. Jim
and Asa stood horrified, and the girls burst out crying.
The old Squire had turned white. "Ruth! Ruth!" he cried. "Are you badly
hurt? Do you hear? Can't you answer?" Not a sound came from the hay, not
a movement; and, falling on his knees, he began digging it away with his
hands. None of us dared use our hay-forks, and now, following his
example, we began tearing away armfuls of hay. A moment later, Addison,
who was burrowing nearly out of sight, got hold of one of her hands. It
frightened him, and he cried out; but he pulled at it. Instantly there
was a laugh from somewhere underneath, then a scramble that continued
until at last grandmother Ruth emerged without aid of any sort and stood
up, a good deal rumpled and covered with hay but laughing.
"It didn't hurt me a mite!" she protested. "I came down light as a
feather!"
"But why didn't you answer when we called to you?" the elder exclaimed
reprovingly. "You kept so still we were scared half to death about you!"
"Oh, I just wanted to see what you would all do," she replied airily and
still laughing. "I was a little afraid you would stick your forks into
the hay, but I was watching for that."
The old Squire was so relieved, so overjoyed, to see her on her feet
unhurt that he had not a word of reproach for her. All he said was,
"Ruth Ann, I'm afraid you are growing too young for your age!"
The truth is that grandmother Ruth was dreadfully chagrined that the
load she had laid had not held together as far as the barn; and it was
partly mortification, I think, that led her to lie so still under the
hay.
She wanted to remount the cart and have the hay pitched up to her; but
as it was getting late in the afternoon, and as there was no ladder at
hand, Jim and Asa hoisted Addison up, and he succeeded in rebuilding the
load so that we were able to take it into the barn without further
incident.
We could hardly believe that the fall had not injured grandmother Ruth,
and as a matter of fact Theodora afterwards told us that she had several
large black-and-blue spots as a result of her adventure. The old lady
herself, however, scouted the idea that she had been in the least
injured and did not like to have us show any solicitude about her.
The following year, as haying drew to a close, we young folks waited
curiously to see whether she would speak of going out to lay the last
load. Not a word came from her; but I think it was less because she felt
unable to go than it was that she feared we would refer to her mishap of
the previous summer.