COUNTRY LIFE
RAIN set in just after seven o'clock in the morning. The sky had been overcast when I awoke earlier but it was not until seven that I heard the rain beating across the skylight and spattering on the bedroom windows. I got up and looked at the half-cut corn hill. A sheeted binder and a red tractor sat waiting for the harvest to continue, both of them coddled by a packing of sheaves. Had the rain held off they might have set to somewhere about half-past nine or ten when the dew dried out, but with such a heavy atmosphere the lifting of the dew would have been slow. Once in the morning the sun blazed through, glistening on the wet corn, but just as suddenly It dived back into the grey sky and I knew that harvest was at a standstill for the people round about. Towards evening the rain passed but everything was thoroughly drenched. One day out of August had been lost, an important day with so much to be done. I passed a man with a set of binder knives on his shoulder. " Maybe tomorrow afternoon," he said as he looked to the west. I did not need to ask what he was speculating about.
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