  “They are very busy here,” said Uncle George, as he went into the field with Frank, Tom, and Dolly. And well might he say so, for the whirr of the reaping-machine could be heard far away. Round the field it went, sweeping down the golden wheat. Following behind it were several girls, who twisted bands of straw and laid them on the ground. Behind these came women who quickly gathered up the cut wheat and placed it in bundles upon the bands. Then came men who bound these bundles into sheaves and tossed them aside. After these, again, came men who caught up the sheaves and placed them upright in bunches of six or eight. These bunches of sheaves they called “stooks.” Last of all came a huge rake drawn by horses, gathering up all the straws that were left. Every now All was work and bustle and noise. What with the whirr of the reaping-machine, the girls singing as they worked, the larks singing in the sky, and the glorious autumn sun, the children thought the harvest-field was the most cheerful place they had ever seen. “Why do you do that?” Frank asked a man who was fixing up the stooks. “Would it not be just as well if you left the sheaves lying on the ground until you cart them away?” “Ah, no, Master Frank,” said the man, who knew him well, “that would never do. We must allow the corn time to get dry, so we place the sheaves upright that the sun and wind may dry them; and so that any rain that falls may run down the stalks to the ground. When the sheaves are quite dry, we take them home to the stack-yard.” “How long does that take?” Frank asked. “It all depends on the weather,” the man replied. “If it keeps fine, they will be dry within a week. In rainy weather, sometimes the sheaves have to stand in the fields for some weeks. In the next field the crop was cut a week ago. They are taking it home now.” The Stack-yard. “And you build the sheaves into great stacks there?” said Tom. “Yes, it is kept in stacks until we are ready to thresh it. You must all come over to the farm and see it being threshed into grain and straw some day.” “But why do you build it into stacks?” asked Frank. “So that we may keep it through the winter, and thresh a stack at a time as we need it,” the man replied. “It is threshed by passing it through a mill. At our farm the mill is turned by horses. At some farms there are mills turned by a great water-wheel. Sometimes a steam-engine comes and threshes the whole crop in the fields.” “And what do you do with it when it is threshed?” Dolly asked. “When the corn is passed through the mill, it is so shaken up that all the grain is removed from the stalks. The grain comes out at one side of the mill and falls into sacks. The straw is tossed out at another part. We use the straw for bedding for horses and cows, and some kinds of straw we use for feeding them. The grain goes to the miller, who grinds it into flour. The “Come along, boys!” Uncle George shouted from the next field. “We are going over to the farmyard to see the stacks made.” In the next field the farmer’s men were loading a waggon with sheaves of corn. The sheaves were caught up by long pitch-forks and tossed on to the waggon. Here a man put them into a great square load. When this was done, the men lifted Dolly up, and she rode up to the farmyard on the top of the great load of sheaves. In the stack-yard a large round stack was being built. A wooden frame was in the middle, and round this a man put the sheaves in a circle as they were thrown to him from the waggon. “Now, boys,” said Uncle George, “Dolly wants to know why sheaves are made with all the ears of corn at one end. Can you tell us?” “Oh, that is easy,” said Tom. “The sheaves have to stand in the field for a long time to dry. They could not stand up so well if they were made any other way. Besides, “There is another reason,” said Uncle George. “Look how the stack is being made. The top, or grain end of the sheaf is inside. The outside of the stack is made up of the cut ends of the straws. Thus the grain is kept secure from bad weather and thieving birds. Besides, the stack could not be made round in shape if they were placed in any other way. The bottom of the sheaf is much wider than the top.” In another part of the yard men were busy roofing the newly built stacks with straw. The straw roof was tied down with many ropes, also made of twisted straw, and then the stack was ready. “What a lot of work there is in getting corn,” said Frank. “Ah, yes,” said his uncle, “much more work than we have seen to-day. Think of the work done in the fields in spring, getting the land ready for seed—the work of ploughing, sowing, reaping, and threshing done by the farmer’s men and horses—the work done by the rain and sun in growing and ripening the wheat—the work done by the miller and Questions and Exercises.
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