That summer I remember we had mowed four acres
of grass on the morning of the fifth. But in the afternoon the sky
clouded, the night turned wet, and the sun scarcely showed again for a
week. A day and a half of clear weather followed; but showers came
before the sodden swaths could be shaken up and the moisture dried out,
and then dull or wet days followed for a week longer; that is, to the
twenty-first of the month. Not a hundredweight of hay had we put into
the barn, and the first hay we had mown had spoiled in the field.
At such times the northeastern farmer must keep his patience--if he can.
The old Squire had seen Maine weather for many years and had learned the
uselessness of fretting. He looked depressed, but merely said that
Halstead and I might as well begin going to the district school with the
girls.
In the summer we usually had to work on the farm during good weather, as
boys of our age usually did in those days; but it was now too wet to hoe
corn or to do other work in the field. We could do little except to wait
for fair weather. Addison, who was older than I, did not go back to
school and spent much of the time poring over a pile of old magazines up
in the attic.
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