The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1903-02-20

IT?" ASKED JOE.
a path which traversed a small or.
chard that was separated by a high
picket fence from one much more
extensive. AT the left-hand lower cor
ner of the lesser orchard, and within
a stones throw of the farmhouse,
was a long, rather low one-storied
building.
Here's your sleepin'-
said Jack Parmelee, throwing open
the door and revealing a double row
of snowy cots, you'll have to do
your washin' up to the barn. I'll
show you after you pick your places
and stow your traps" and there
with he left them.
The floor was scruplously clean;
there was mosquito-netting at all
of the windows; and there were three
lamps, with refectors, for lighting
the room. Rossiter and the two Be-
crafts secured cots at the farther
end of the apartment, and then, hav-
ing made themselves acquainted with
the basin and towel arrangements at
the barn, went in to the large kitch-
en-, which had been cleared for an
eating-room, to a plentiful supper.
"Well, what do you think of it?"
asked Joe Becraft, as he and Rossiter
strolled, smoking, down the road in
the afterglow, having satisfied to
the full their by no means slender
appetites. 81 say it's the slickest
thing I've ever struck, by long Odds"
81 don't fancy we shall find much
70 complain of, unless it's the hop
picking. What's that like?"
"Oh, that's fun. There's no work
about it. All you do is just to strip
the hops from the vines, that some
chap called 'pole-puller' brings you,
an chuck 'em into your box. You
mustn't put many leaves in, though.
They don't like that
"It doesn't sound difficult"
Difficult! Well, no; but I can
tell you it's quite trick to pick so
that you can turn out your three
boxes day. They used to allow you
to put some leaves in, an then a
fellow could manage four or five, but
now it's different. They're darn par
ticular."
Lets see, what do we get?"
'Thirty-ive cents a box an grub
If you boarded yourself, you'd prob
ably get so. They usually have lot
of people who pick after that fashion
come up from Hintonville, so 1 un-
derstand. That's how they manage in
zscst yards hereabouts."
"I'm really quite keen on it," said
Rossiter, with a touch of Joe's en-
thusiasm.
"You must try and get at box
next to ours. You see four boxes
are generally joined together, made
so, consequently they's only room
for our family at one of the combi-
nation things" announced Becraft.
"Oh, that's how it isl"
"Yes, that's the way they work it."
The little breeze that sprung up
just before their arrival had died
with the going down of the sun, and
the fever of the day was still in the
air. Far away beyond the western
bills black cloud was beginning to
invade the sky, and Rossiter con-
cluded that the prophecy of the sill
vering popular leaves and the trum-
peting peacock was likely to be full
filled before morning. In the parched
and dusty grass at the roadside a
cricket chorus was ringing clear and
CHEEKY, and late locust was vio-
lining in the stubble of barley field.
They walked for perhaps half a mile
before they turned, Becraft COM
menting in his frank way upon the
pleasure he was anticipating in his
sojourn of two or three weeks in the
hop-felds, and telling Rossiter of the
monotony, the colorlessness of his
ordinary daily life.
do you know" he said, with a
somethin' like this every year or
two, I'd be fit subject for an asy-
lum. 1t often seems, when 1 leave
the mill at night, as though 1 was
never goin' to get the clatter O. ma
chinery out o. my head. 1 hear the
wheels hummin' in the dark, an see
the straps spinnin' round an round.
Then 1 begin to think O. the country,
the smell o. things"-and he drank in
the pungent aroma of the hop-felds
with infinite content-"an'. after a
while I'm all right. There's nothin'
like havin' somethin' free an healthy
to look forward to-"
"You'd thrive on a farm, wouldn't
you? Haven't you ever thought of
trying it?"