"Come on now with your hay!" Elder Witham moistened his hands, but made no comment.

Jim was grinning.
The old Squire drove the cart between two tumbles, and the work of pitching on and laying the load began.

No one knew better than grandmother Ruth how a load should be laid.

She first filled the opposite ends of the rack and kept the middle low; then when the load was high as the rails of the rack she began prudently to lay the hay out on and over them, so as to have room to build a large, wide load.
But in this instance there was a hindrance to good loading that even grandmother's skill could not wholly overcome.

Much of the hay for that last load was from the swales at the lower side of the field, where the grass was wild and short and sedgy, a kind that when dry is difficult to pitch with forks and that, since the forkfuls have little cohesion and tend to drop apart, does not lie well on the rails of the rack.