and forth across the field. That makes twenty people. It was a pretty sight-the busy harvest field among the great, sturdy English elms, with the ivied walls and tall chimneys of "the big house" rising on the slope beyond.

Sometimes the "squire," the occupant of the big house, comes into the hayfield and takes part in the work. He gets off his coat and pitches on the hay with great gusto for perhaps a couple of hours, chaffs

with the

men, drinks

beer with

them, and

makes himself as companionable as possible. The men feel that he is a good fellow to conde

scend to

work on their level, and it inclines them to serve him faithfully. But it would not do for the squire to work every day with them; that would lower him at once in their estimation. The work is beneath him; he must do it only for fun.

the stray ears of grain. Often there are sixty or seventy pigs in a drove, with a boy or two along to "mind" them.

Hop-picking begins with the first days of September. By then the blossoming brightness of the earlier months is past, the grain is nearly all reaped, the hay harvested, and the fields are bare and sombre. Yet many flowers still linger along the roadsides, and the hedges are en

livened by the scarlet of hips and haws. There is much land recently ploughed, and many new ricks are in the field corners, looking very tidy with their roofs of fresh thatch glistening in the sunlight. I was eager to see all that I could of the hop harvest; and one day when I was passing hop kiln and noticed smoke issuing from its squat chimney, I stopped to investigate. A small door at one end was open, and I went in; but I did not stay long. Three men in the dim interior were feeding the fires with charcoal and brimstone, and the air was so sulphurous I was glad to hurry out to escape choking. I got little notion of the process of hop-drying. The men had pointed to a ladder and said I might go upstairs, but I was already getting anxious for a change of air and

The term "harvest time," in England, means more particularly that part of summer when the wheat and other cereals are garnered. There is a repetition then of the busy scenes of haymaking. After the harvest the farmer turns his pigs out "earshin" in the stubble fields, where they are allowed to roam six or seven hours each day till they have picked up all

a

refused. Besides, they winked at each other suspiciously, and I think, had I gone up, they would have kept me there till I tipped them. At any rate that is one of the pleasantries that the hop-drier is privileged to indulge with any visitor he can catch in that way. I asked one of the men who followed me to the door where I could see the hop-picking, and he said, "About a mile to the south." I questioned him whether I had better go around by the road or try a more direct way cross lots. The man replied in the bluff, rude manner that one too often finds among the rural English, "You've got legs, ain't ye? Go there any way ye want to."

I found the pickers at work in a field that sloped down into a little valley. The poles were being taken down as fast as needed, and the pickers were pulling off the hops, into great baskets. Men, women and children were all at work. The old women and the grandfathers were there, and so were the babies, tucked up in blankets and wraps and lying

A VILLAGE CORNER.

quite contented on the ground among the shadows of the festooned poles. It was a pleasant scene there amidst the greenery,-nimble fingers flying, always the voices calling and the hum of gossip, the rustic costumes, the

children playing or helping with industrious clumsiness, and in it all the rustle of the vines and the wholesome odor of the hops. It makes a healthy out-of-doors holiday, and the people flock from far and near into the hop regions to enjoy it. When the journey is short they come in great farm wagons with all their bags and baggage prepared to cook their own food and sleep in barns and sheds. They shout and joke as they go along in spite of the plodding slowness of the journey and the apparent discomfort of the vehicle. The fact that no one is too young to go is attested by the presence of one or two baby carriages dragging along at the rear of the

wagon.

A vast army of hop-pickers come by train from London at this time. They are the scum of the city, a dilapidated crowd of old and young, who arrive heavily loaded with their household goods, and make a very motley scene at the railroad stations, bowed with their sacks and baskets. The wages of a laborer in the

poorer parts of England are ten ог twelve shillings a week; while in the more favored districts he is paid double that amount. Work begins in summer at six o'clock. At eight the laborer stops half an hour for breakfast, at ten he eats a luncheon, and at noon takes an hour to rest and eat dinner. His work is done at five, when he trudges home to supper. Just before he goes to bed he disposes of one more luncheon, and the day is ended.

A man could hardly live and support a family on ten or twelve shillings a week, were it not that in summer he always has a chance to do

"task work." While this lasts, he works extra hard and overtime, and earns six or eight shillings a day. He will very likely be out at four in the morning and keep at it till nine or ten at night.

The extra wages a man and his wife make in summer task work are used to buy shoes and clothing. The ordinary wages are pretty much used up in paying rent and in buying the daily necessities of food and drink. The fare is always rough and poor, and a couple of pounds or so of bacon is all the meat a family will eat in a week. Few make any provision for sickness, and when sickness comes the laborer is compelled to rely on

the parish doctor and parochial charity.

Yet in spite of small earnings there are a goodly number among the laborers who save money. With some it is a blind habit, with others it is simply miserliness, and with still others it is ambition. One does not see much chance for hoarding on the wages received, but the thrifty are always on the lookout to save their pennies. Persons who receive parish help are sometimes found to have a considerable sum laid by when they

die.

Laborers marry early. The wife has usually been in domestic service, and often contributes the larger half

of the little ready money that is spent in getting the scanty home furnishings. Very little is bought in the years that follow. A replenishing of blankets and bed linen, when it takes place, is quite apt to be from the charities which are distributed at Christmas time.

It is the rule rather than the exception that the laborer's cottage is overcrowded. Even when there are eight or nine children in a family, there may be no more than two sleeping rooms -a condition that is plainly bad both morally and physically.

One of the most interesting views of how the laborer lives and how it all ends, I got one day from a village shoemaker. My American shoes had early given out on the gritty English roads, and to make them once more serviceable I sought out this cobbler. While he worked on the shoes I sat and talked with him. I was asking about the farm workers when the shoemaker looked out of the window and said: "There's a

man just goin' past. He's been workin' from early morning, ten hours, for his master. Now he's goin' home to have tea, and work in his garden awhile, and then he'll be goin' out again for two or three hours to help his wife,

'op-tying. He and his wife has to work all they can to get along. They couldn't live on their weekly wages. They has to do task work to earn something extra, or they'd have to go to the workhouse.

That

man in harvest just slivers into it and works night and day, and the wife helps. The employers!-they don't care whether a man lives or dies, and if they get a man down they tread on him. They can do anything to a man, or to his wife or children-and they does pretty roughish things sometimesand the man daren't make any complaint. If he does, come Saturday night, there's his wages, and he's not wanted any more. Then where's he to go, and where's his next week's food to come from?

"Yes, these laborers travel from hedge to hedge till they are wore out,

and they're so dependent on their master that some of 'em are afraid to say their soul's their own. As

soon as they