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 To the right of them lay Ezra's gently rolling pasture dotted with cattle and sheep. To the left stretched his dark green alfalfa fields, his corn, ripe and ready to be cut, and his field of ripe tobacco, the broad, tropical looking leaves now turned to a rich golden color. Part of the field was already bare; and in the distance Jerry and Jabez could be seen going down the rows with their sharp tobacco knives. With one stroke they split the stalk of each plant, with the other they severed it from the root. The cut plants drying on the tobacco sticks set at intervals along the rows, trailed limply, waiting to be hauled in.

Arrived at the tobacco barn, they found the alfalfa stacked in a close-packed pile in one corner.

"Why, there hain't much hay here!" shouted Uncle Sam, kicking disdainfully into the pile. "It's loose as kin be. There hain't no weight there. It wasn't tromped when it was put in. I bet I cud haul the whole thing away in two loads."

"Two loads!" snorted Uncle Ezra. "Why, Sam Whitmarsh, there's a good seven ton o' hay there if there's a paound. It's packed close as it kin be packed."

Uncle Sam kicked into the hay and succeeded in finding near a crack in the wall a small mildewed spot.

"It's spiled, Ezry, same's I said it was," he shouted triumphantly. "Look ye here! All along these cracks the rain's beat in an' spiled it. An' there's no tellin' haow far that there mildew goes. Spiled alfalfy hain't no good fer nuthin'."

"Now, Sam, there ain't no use in your a-talkin' on like that," said Uncle Ezra in the tone of one who deals with facts. "You know well nuf there hain't but a handful of it in that corner that's been teched by rain."

"An' see here," went on Sam, "this hay must o' laid two or three days afore you raked it. Why, half the leaves is off. An' I bet it had a rain onto it, too, while it laid on the graound. Look what a dark color it is. Good alfalfy hain't that color."

"It didn't lay ner it didn't see no rain," exclaimed Uncle Ezra, his voice harsh with indignation. "You know yerse'f, Sam, I cut an' hauled that hay latter part of las' July; an'