The clover is cut down by mowing machines one day, and hauled into the barn the next. One day it is clover grass, the next day it is clover hay, ready to feed to cows and horses. A little later we cut the wheat and oats. This is done with a machine that cuts the grain and binds 5 it in sheaves or bundles. These we set up in shocks and then it stands until the sap is dried out of the straw. Then comes the threshing. This is the very top of the season. Our neighbors exchange work with us and our barnyard is full of horses, wagons, and men. 10 The big thresher is run by a steam or gas engine. It hums day after day, beating the grain from the straw. All summer long each of us children has his part of the regular chores to do. I shell the corn for the chickens, drive the cows in from the pasture, put hay in the man- 15 gers for the horses, and see that the tanks are kept full of water for the cattle and hogs. This gives me plenty of time to tend my own patch of corn and vegetables. Of course in the fruit seasons, all of us help pick strawberries, currants, cherries, or peaches. 20 We get tired sometimes of work, but I should be more tired with nothing to do. When I grow up I expect to own a big farm of my own. I hope this long letter will make your friends in the city want to come out into the country and help us young farmers grow 25 more food for everybody. Your cousin, Dick. THE GLAD HOLIDAYS These are the red-letter days of the calendar. These are the times to which we all look forward with joy. Read the following stories in their proper season; and a Bountiful Thanksgiving, a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to you! A HALLOWEEN SHOW You are all invited to a Halloween Be there by eight o'clock sharp. Joe Hartford ΤΟ HIS was the note Mrs. Pence received on the THIS morning of October 31. Mrs. Smith had a similar one; and Mrs. Berry, Mrs. Paul, and Mrs. Finch all had invitations of the same kind. Mrs. Pence smiled s as she read it, Mrs. Smith chuckled as she read hers, and Mrs. Berry laughed long and loud, and called Mr. Berry from the garage. Directly Mrs. Hartford was busy answering telephone calls from her neighbors in the suburban village. "Yes," she was saying, "Joe, Jack Pence, Tom Finch, Elmer Smith, Jim Berry, and Sam Paul are all busy as beavers right here in our back yard now. You must The show is to be all theirs, and we must not disappoint the boys." And so the matter was settled Is among the mothers. come. For days Joe, Jack, Tom, Elmer, Jim, and Sam had been wondering what they could do together to make this Halloween different. Joe had an idea. He had read a story of a boy who had once frightened away 20 the Indians on Halloween by putting a lighted candle in a grinning pumpkin. This suggested an Indian show. Mrs. Hartford had been called in to help out with details; and thus the show was arranged. At seven-thirty Berry's automobile drove into Hartford's big back yard with the whole Berry family inside. A painted "brave" jumped on the running board and showed Mr. Berry where to park his car. The Finches came next; then the Pences, and so on. 5 The crowd was prompt; and a big audience it was for the young actors. As the night was fine, the visitors 10 were seated on porch chairs and benches on the drive overlooking the two-acre back lawn, garden, and orchard of the Hartfords'. Sharply at eight o'clock an electric light flashed on a screen which read: ACT ONE-PIONEER HOME IN WOODS 15 Then another light went on, and another, until the yard was bright as far as the flower garden on one side and the orchard on the other. In the middle of the drive was a "log cabin," neatly and firmly built out of corn stalks, and big enough to hold three or four 20 boys at a time. On one side of it was a shock of corn fodder; on the other a pile of limbs and small logs. In On one of these logs a boy, dressed like a woodsman, was busily chopping. That was Joe Hartford. a few minutes he was joined by his "wife" - Jim 25 Berry, togged up in Mrs. Hartford's made-over kitchen |