United States or Chad ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But even then most of the work around the machine was done by hand. The straw pile required the attention of three or four men; or if the straw were "bucked," as they said, it required a man with a horse or team hitched to a long pole. In this latter case the straw was spread in various parts of the field and finally burned.
My command of language doesn't seem to be sufficient, for so far the team looks on me with mild scorn." Jim grinned. "It's nervous work for Joe, too. I got him with the tail of the whip yesterday, when I'd every intention of correcting old Ranger! However, I plod on, and Joe keeps well out of the way now. He yells instructions at me from some way back in the landscape!"
The struggle, however, ended suddenly, and hailing a man who plodded behind another team, Winston picked up his broad hat, which was trampled into shapelessness, and turned towards the wagon. There was dust and spume upon him, a rent in the blue shirt, and the knuckles of one hand dripped red, but he laughed as he said, "I did not know we had an audience, but this, you see, is necessary."
That some one else was himself, and, though the members of the team treated him as cordially as ever, he had the unpleasant feeling that they looked upon him now as one who had failed in a crisis, and he had to admit to himself that their opinion if they held it was justly founded. He went back to his room and for half an hour before supper sat by his window, thinking deeply.
I'll tell you what I am going to do: I am going to take this matter into my own hands, and drill that scrub team myself, and see if we can't teach the varsity a thing or two. I believe that, with a little practice and a little good sense, we can shove 'em off the earth." This struck the fellows as the proper and the Lakerim method of doing things, and they responded with a cheer.
Under the officer's direction, telegrams were sent to different points where it was thought probable the thieves might go, and, so far as the boys were concerned, nothing more could be done until the officers, who had been sent out to find some news of the team during the time it had been in Bradford, should return.
"I want to see the nerve, and I want to see the game prove its worth," insisted the kicker. Second eleven, though made up of bright, husky boys, was having a hard time of it. Thrice coach arbitrarily advanced the ball for second, in order to give that team a better chance with High School eleven. And now the practice was over for the afternoon.
So the Tug of War, which had been intended only for an exhibition, became in a sense the deciding event of the whole contest. The captain of the Kingston four was the large Sawed-Off, who was also the anchor of his team. He came out upon the floor, wearing around his waist a belt that was almost as graceful as a horse-collar, and quite as heavy, made, as it was, of padded leather.
She floundered on beside the horses, with another team dimly visible in front of her, until a faint ray of light streamed out into the snow. Then the team stopped, and she had only a hazy recollection of staggering into a lighted room in the homestead and sinking into a chair. What they did with Hastings she did not know, but Mrs.
John Hunter had been vexed at Elizabeth for the sangfroid with which she had walked away from established custom in ordering the team prepared for her to be taken to Nathan's, but with Noland present he had accepted it without remark. Here was a man before whom John would always, but instinctively rather than premeditatively, endeavour to show his best side.
Word Of The Day