RAKING THE MEADOW-LOT.
A HAY-TIME IDYL.
"We'll mow," quoth old farmer Jacobs, "the new corner medder to-day—
Nell, you come an' help with the rakin'—its right ketchin' weather for hay;
Neighbor Smith's Jim, he's bin to the city, an' a new-fangled patent he's bought;
An' he's bound to come over this mornin', an' streak through that air medder-lot.
He sez—an' I tell him the kaounty ain't able to beat him for cheek—
The thing'll do more execution than me an' my boys in a week;
But he offered so kinder perlite-like (I've no faith in the gim crack—not I),
I couldn't do other than 'low him to fetch the queer critter an' try."
Pretty Nell, skimming cream in the dairy, peeped out through the vine-shaded pane,
As Jim, with "Old Roan" and "Black Billy" went clattering down through the lane;
And was it the "new-fangled mower" her shy blue eyes followed? I ween
From the blushes that deepened and flitted, it could not have been the machine.
Prone under the lengthening shadows the feathery meadow-grass lay;
The daises uncrowned in their glory, sun-smitten, slow fading away;
The cardinal flower in the ditches, rose proudly, right royally dressed,
And restlessly hither and hither moaned the bobolinks spoiled of their nest.
