United States or Micronesia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
So she was taken indoors, and the haymakers worked hard and cleared the field, all but a few cocks which were left till the morning. The sun set, the dew fell, the moon rose. It was a lovely night. Amelia peeped from behind the blinds of the drawing-room windows, and saw four haycocks, each with a deep shadow reposing at its side.
After a prolonged dispute the matter was decided by the peasants taking these eleven stacks, reckoning them as fifty loads each. The arguments and the division of the haycocks lasted the whole afternoon.
Come home, and go to bed while the house is fragrant with the smell of hay, and dream that you are still playing among the haycocks. When you grow old, you will have other and sadder dreams. Hullo! hi! wake up. Jump out of bed, and come to the window, and see where you are. What a wonderful place! So it is: though it is only poor old Ireland.
The eldest took his turn first, but after having watched all night fell asleep towards morning, when he awoke to find another haycock missing. The second son was not more fortunate in preventing the disappearance of the hay, while the others succeeded no better; in fact, of all the twelve haycocks, there only remained the largest, Niezguinek's, and even that had been meddled with.
In the open parts they are studded over the surface exactly as haycocks are in harvest, or heaps of manure in spring, rather disfiguring the landscape. In the woods they are as large as round haystacks, 40 or 50 feet in diameter at the base, and at least 20 feet high. These are more fertile than the rest of the land, and here they are the chief garden-ground for maize, pumpkins, and tobacco.
The ground is often so undermined with their burrows that the foot sinks in at every step. Little haycocks, about two feet high, and rather more than that in breadth, are made by one variety of these little creatures. The same thing is done in regions annually covered with snow for obvious purposes, but it is difficult here to divine the reason of the haymaking in the climate of Africa.*
After 81° S. the Barrier began to take on a slightly different appearance instead of the absolutely flat surface, we saw on the first day a good many small formations of the shape of haycocks. At that time we did not pay much attention to these apparently insignificant irregularities, but later on we learned to keep our eyes open and our feet active when passing in their vicinity.
In the fields the corn was waving like the sea; in the ditches red and yellow flowers were growing; while wild-drone flowers, and blooming convolvuluses were creeping in the hedges; and towards evening the moon rose round and large, and the haycocks in the meadows smelt so sweetly. "This one never forgets!" "It is lovely here in autumn!" said the little maiden.
The haycock he built was about the size of a bucket I have since seen them as large as bushel baskets. His tiny fields lay between bowlders; some of them were but a few inches square, others a foot, several a yard, perhaps. I was interested to learn if the little haycocks were blown away by the timberline gales, so returned later, not really expecting to find them.
Captain Gardiner remained at Port Natal, which in 1835 consisted of a cluster of huts, all of them built Kaffir-fashion, like so many hollow haycocks, except Mr. Collis's, which was regarded as English because it had upright sides, with a good garden surrounded by reeds.
Word Of The Day