Semi-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1853-18??, 1855-09-29
A. B. LONGSTREET

Gle in the N. Y. Independent descriptive of hay
making, we make the following extracts:
There they go, pretty pair of mowers! The
blinking dew-drops on the grass-tops wink at them
and pitch headlong under the stroke of the swinging
scythe in its passage through thick pile of grass
1t has craunching, mellow, murmurlng sound right
pleasant to hear The grass rolled over in swath
to the left green and wet lies like loosey-corded
cable vast and half-twined. Around the piece, step
by step, go the men, and the work fairly laid out and
begun There sounds the horn! Breakfast is ready.
most useful and salutary custom is that of break
fast. One may work with the hands before break
fast but not much with the head. The machine
must be wound up. The blue must be taken out
of your Spirits and the gray out of your eyes. A
cup of coffee-real cotfee-home-browned home
ground homemade, that comes to you dark as ma
eel eye but changes to a golden bronze you tenn
per it with cream that never cheated, but was real
cream from it's birth thick, tenderly yellow, perfectly
sweet neither lumpy nor frothng on the Java: such
cup of coffee is match for twenty blue devils, and
will exercise them ALL Involuntarily one draws in
his breath by the nostrils The fragrant SAVIOR fills
his senses with peasure-for no coffee can be good
in the mouth that does nopfrst send sweet offering
of odor to the nostrils All the Children farmers
boys for the occasion. We're SebastopOl built of
bread and cakes, these are the very engineers who
would take it. Bless their appettes! 1t does
good to see growing children eat with real hearty
appetite. Mountain air. free foot in grassy fields
and open groves, plain food and enough of it. these
things kill the lilies in the cheek and bring forth
roses
under-brush clover? How full of population !
Vast communities dwell here of which we have but
little knowledge, and for which we have but little
sympathy. All manner of grasshOppers, field crck-
cts, bugs of every shape and color, worms, birds
young and old, and nameleSs life, swarm through
these grassy forests past all counting One imagines
the sudden surprise with which the crash of the
scythe overtirows all their structures obliterates
their paths destroys their hauts and societies. and
bures thousands of them under each swath of grass.
All the bright webs of spiders that sit up late at
nights the virgin webs that have as yet caught moth
ing but dew and have caug whole lapfull of that,
are swept in stroke. A mower will, in half
day. dsarrange the plans of myriads of his fellow
creatures, walking conqueror through their desc
lated cities and dwellings, without thinking,
even, that he has wrought his task amid such multi
tudinous company |, following on, turn the
grass and watch the liberated captves, that take
their disasters very patiently Spiders forget to be
voracious. Insects spiders without fear all
hcrded together in peace, made by common miSfor-
tune So we have read that bears, wolves pantherS,
deer rabbits, and foxes, are sometimes pent up on
some high ground, isanded by sudden freshet, and
forget their destructive habits, and live together
peacefully until the recedng waters let them forth
again.
The day passes and the night. With another
morning, and that Saturday morning. comes up the
sun without single cloud to wipe his face upon
The air is clear as crystal. No mist on the river
No fleece upon the mountains Yet the barometer
is sinking-has been sinking all night. 1t has fall
len more than quarter of an inch, and continues
slowly to fall. Our plans must be laid accordingly
We will cut the clover which is to be cured in the
cock and prepare to get in all of yesterdays NOW
ing before two o'clock Not till about o'clock is
any change Then the sunlight seems pale,
though cloud is before it.
All the girls and ladies forth to the fray
Delicate hands making lively work, raking up
the dispersed grass, and flying with right nimble
steps here and there, bent upon cheating the rain
of its expected prey. And now the long winrows
formed The last load of hay from the other
fields has just rolled triumphantly into the barn!
Down jumps John, with fork in hand, and rolls up
the winrows into cocks. We follow and CLEAN with
the rake. The last one is fashioned. A drop pats
down my face. Another, and another Look at
those baseless mountains that tower in the west,
black ink at the bottom, glowing like at the
top edgesl What gigantic evolutons They open,
unfold, change form, flash lghtnngs through their
spaces, close up their black CULTS, and with
irresistible but silent march through the heated air.
Far in the north the rain has begun to sheet down
upon old Grey-Lock! But the sun is shining through
the shower and changing it to golden atmosphere,
in which the mountain lifts up its head like glori-
fled martyr amid his prosecutions! Only look
spare and all of for the house. and in
good time. Down comes the food, and every drop
is musical. We pity the neighbors who, not warned
by barometer, are racing and chasing to secure their
outlying crop
AMALGAMATIoN AND observation-disclosures