I am glad to observe that all the poetry of the midsummer harvesting has
not gone out with the scythe and the whetstone. The line of mowers was a
pretty sight, if one did not sympathize too deeply with the human backs
turned up there to the sun, and the sound of the whetstone, coming up
from the meadows in the dewy morning, was pleasant music. But I find the
sound of the mowing-machine and the patent reaper is even more in tune
with the voices of Nature at this season. The characteristic sounds of
midsummer are the sharp, whirring crescendo of the cicada or harvest
fly, and the rasping, stridulous notes of the nocturnal insects. The
mowing-machine repeats and imitates these sounds. 'T is like the hum of
a locust or the shuffling of a mighty grasshopper. More than that, the
grass and the grain at this season have become hard. The timothy stalk
is like a file; the rye straw is glazed with flint; the grasshoppers
snap sharply as they fly up in front of you; the bird-songs have ceased;
the ground crackles under foot; the eye of day is brassy and merciless;
and in harmony with all these things is the rattle of the mower and the
hay-tedder.