Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/203

 io» s. iv. AUG. 26,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 165 when an ordinary harvest - time in good weather lasted quite two months. Those who know the harvest customs of sixty years ago must regret that such have passed, never to be revived, for these are flays of implements, which have all but pushed out the human harvester. In the Midland villages of sixty years ago the harvest-time was brighter and sunnier than now seems to be the case; every man, woman, and child went forth into the fields to help the farmer, and win the " extra wage for_ harvest" which was one of the con- ditions of farming work, as is still the case even when only machines are employed. When the first cornfield was ready for the sickle or scythe, word was passed round, and early on a morning the sicklemen or scythe- men with the gatherers and binders were at the field. The gatherers of the sheaves and the binders were generally the wives and children of the men, and the whole work of the_ harvest was of the nature of a family outing, and at that a most pleasant though hard-working one if the weather was good. On some farms the work began by the pleasing ceremony of the farmer himself taking the sickle and cutting the first hand- fuls, or making the first sweep with the scythe. Then the reapers or mowers fell in one by one behind the leader, the women and children, as gatherers and binders, following in their wake. The first stop was when the leader wanted to sharpen. He said, "Now," and all stopped at the end of his sickle cut or scythe swing. Then came the music of half a dozen tools sharpening as the stone rasped the steel blades, and in the case of scythes the sound of each in a different note was far from unpleasing, the newest and broadest blades making the deepest notes, the worn ones the higher. The sharpening pause was as often as not the time for " 'low- ance " as well, when from the wooden kegs or stone bottles came the welcome " guggle, guggle," of the home-brewed as it fell into the horn ale-tots provided for that purpose. These ale-tots of horn were held to be the best for harvest drinkings, the liquor drunk in this way being cooler and sweeter than in any other form, and far before that of "suck- ing the monkey," as liquor drunk from a bottle was called. The tots were emptied at a drain, all except a few drops, and a curious action was that of each man tossing the last drops from the horn to the ground by a twist of the wrist, a custom that was always carried out. The drink for the women and children was beer made of herbs, or milk. Eleven o'clock was the first stopping for a meal, when the workers sat down on the cut corn, or sheltered from the sun behind the- shocks, each shock made up by seven sheaves, which the binders had built as the work went on. This meal was generous in kind, but plain—bread, cheese, or bacon, with ale, beer, and milk for drink. The food came from the farmhouse quite ready for use, in deep baskets lined and covered with snow- white cloths. It was the pride of the farmer's wife to send out each day fresh, good, and wholesome food — the bread, cheese, and bacon of a kind for quality seldom met with now, everything home-made. The work went on after this with breaks for "drinkings1' to the "four o'clock," as the second meal in the field was called. When dusk was near, the leader stopped the whole harvest gang, and then the rest of the eatables and drinkables were finished before going home. The first day's work of harvest was trying to the best hands, but all considered it pleasurable work. THOS. RATCLIFFE. Worksop. "Coop," TO TRAP.—The opening sentence of a story, 'Charley's "Coup,"' by Mr. Jack London, in the July number of The Pall Mall Magazine, reads thus :— "Charley called it a 'coup,'«having heard Neil Partington use the term ; but I think he misunder- stood the word, and thought it meant 'coop,' to catch, to trap." Coop is not given in Hotten's ' Slang Dictionary,' though therein is "Cooper, to destroy, spoil, settle, or finish"; but the following illustrative paragraph is from The Observer of Sunday, 28 July, 1805, repub- lished in that journal of 30 July, 1905 :— "One of the large schooners belonging to the Boulogne flotilla was lately brought into the Downs under the following circumstances:—An American Creole, bound, some time since, from Philadelphia to Amsterdam, was, according to their phrase, 'silver cooped, that is getting the American sea- men into a state of intoxication, putting money into their pockets, and afterwards swearing them in as having enlisted in the Batavian ser- vice. This stratagem was made use of in the case of the Creole, who was forced on board a large steamer, bound, with forty others, along shore from Dunkirk to Boulogne. Indignant at the treat- ment he had met with, he determined to extricate himself. On Thursday se'night, himself and two- others, the mate and the master, sailed with the flotilla. The Creole contrived to make the master and the other man inebriated and persuaded them to turn in to sleep, and he would take the helm. In the course of the night he steered for the English land." ALFRED F. ROBBINS. VANE OF KENT.—John West, of Tunbridge, in the county of Kent, yeoman, otherwise called John a Vane, of Tunbridge, yeoman,