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THERE were
three in the meadow by the brook
Gathering up
windrows, piling cocks of hay,
With an eye always
lifted toward the west
Where an irregular
sun-bordered cloud
Darkly advanced with a perpetual
dagger
Flickering across its bosom. Suddenly
One
helper, thrusting pitchfork in the ground,
Marched
himself off the field and home. One stayed.
The
town-bred farmer failed to understand.
"What is there
wrong?"
"Something you just now said."
"What did I
say?"
"About our taking pains."
"To cock the
hay?--because it's going to shower?
I said that more
than half an hour ago.
I said it to myself as much as
you."
"You didn't know. But James is one big fool.
He thought you meant to find fault with his work.
That's what the average farmer would have meant.
James would take time, of course, to chew it over
Before he acted: he's just got round to act."
"He is
a fool if that's the way he takes me."
"Don't let it
bother you. You've found out something.
The hand that
knows his business won't be told
To do work better or
faster--those two things.
I'm as particular as
anyone:
Most likely I'd have served you just the
same.
But I know you don't understand our ways.
You were just talking what was in your mind,
What was
in all our minds, and you weren't hinting.
Tell you a
story of what happened once:
I was up here in Salem
at a man's
Named Sanders with a gang of four or five
Doing the haying. No one liked the boss.
He was one
of the kind sports call a spider,
All wiry arms and
legs that spread out wavy
From a humped body nigh as
big's a biscuit.
But work! that man could work,
especially
If by so doing he could get more work
Out of his hired help. I'm not denying
He was hard on
himself. I couldn't find
That he kept any hours--not
for himself.
Daylight and lantern-light were one to
him:
I've heard him pounding in the barn all night.
But what he liked was someone to encourage.
Them that
he couldn't lead he'd get behind
And drive, the way
you can, you know, in mowing--
Keep at their heels
and threaten to mow their legs off.
I'd seen about
enough of his bulling tricks
(We call that bulling).
I'd been watching him.
So when he paired off with me
in the hayfield
To load the load, thinks I, Look out
for trouble.
I built the load and topped it off; old
Sanders
Combed it down with a rake and says, 'O. K.'
Everything went well till we reached the barn
With a
big catch to empty in a bay.
You understand that
meant the easy job
For the man up on top of throwing
down
The hay and rolling it off wholesale,
Where
on a mow it would have been slow lifting.
You
wouldn't think a fellow'd need much urging
Under
these circumstances, would you now?
But the old fool
seizes his fork in both hands,
And looking up
bewhiskered out of the pit,
Shouts like an army
captain, 'Let her come!'
Thinks I, D'ye mean it?
'What was that you said?'
I asked out loud, so's
there'd be no mistake,
'Did you say, Let her come?'
'Yes, let her come.'
He said it over, but he said it
softer.
Never you say a thing like that to a man,
Not if he values what he is. God, I'd as soon
Murdered him as left out his middle name.
I'd built
the load and knew right where to find it.
Two or
three forkfuls I picked lightly round for
Like
meditating, and then I just dug in
And dumped the
rackful on him in ten lots.
I looked over the side
once in the dust
And caught sight of him
treading-water-like,
Keeping his head above. 'Damn
ye,' I says,
'That gets ye!' He squeaked like a
squeezed rat.
That was the last I saw or heard of
him.
I cleaned the rack and drove out to cool off.
As I sat mopping hayseed from my neck,
And sort of
waiting to be asked about it,
One of the boys sings
out, 'Where's the old man?'
'I left him in the barn
under the hay.
If ye want him, ye can go and dig him
out.'
They realized from the way I swobbed my neck
More than was needed something must be up.
They
headed for the barn; I stayed where I was.
They told
me afterward. First they forked hay,
A lot of it, out
into the barn floor.
Nothing! They listened for him.
Not a rustle.
I guess they thought I'd spiked him in
the temple
Before I buried him, or I couldn't have
managed.
They excavated more. 'Go keep his wife
Out of the barn.' Someone looked in a window,
And
curse me if he wasn't in the kitchen
Slumped way down
in a chair, with both his feet
Stuck in the oven, the
hottest day that summer.
He looked so clean disgusted
from behind
There was no one that dared to stir him
up,
Or let him know that he was being looked at.
Apparently I hadn't buried him
(I may have knocked
him down); but my just trying
To bury him had hurt
his dignity.
He had gone to the house so's not to
meet me.
He kept away from us all afternoon.
We
tended to his hay. We saw him out
After a while
picking peas in his garden:
He couldn't keep away
from doing something."
"Weren't you relieved to find
he wasn't dead?"
"No! and yet I don't know--it's hard
to say.
I went about to kill him fair enough."
"You took an awkward way. Did he discharge you?"
"Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right."
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