Four pages in the diary now, and the year’s been turned all the way round once and tipped over into itself again. Summer come back around, and Amos went back to the same work a man always goes back to, which is the whole secret of livin on this ridge and never once figurin you’ve got it licked. This next page is dry and brittle at the top, curled a little at the corner like it’d been left on a windowsill in a draft, and the writing rolls downhill like a man set it down in a hurry fore the light went.
Monday, July 20, 1903
Sun come up mean and never let up, and the hay was past ready a day ago, so I got the old mule out and mounted the scythe on the two of us and started cuttin the south meadow fore breakfast was cold in my belly. A man cuttin hay in July is got two enemies and both of em is the same one, the heat, and the heat dont never get tired and a man does. I cut all morning till my shirt was wringin, and the boys come along behind rakin what fell and cussin the horseflies like I wasnt already cussed out myself.
Amos, about mid page, the letters leanin hard: “you cut hay when it tells you to, not when it suits you. hay dont wait on a man’s lazy streak, and a field gone to seed is just feed for the widow’s cattle come winter.”
By noon I had the meadow opened up clean and the windrows layin even, and I stopped to git a drink and looked up at the sky and seen it aint been payin no attention to what I wanted. Built up dark over the ridge, and I knowed a rain would flat the whole crop and turn three days of cuttin into a lesson in church about patience I aint asked for. So I hollered at the boys like a man half out of his mind, and we throwed that hay into cocks faster than the Lord could git the first drop arranged, and I’ll swear the mule caught the hurry cause she pulled like she understood the wages.
Amos, scratched up the margin crooked: “a rainstorm dont ask a man if he’s done. it’ll flat your hay and then it’ll stand there and dry you out like it’s doin you a favor.”
We got it all up and cocked with maybe ten minutes to spare, and the rain come and did what it wanted to the rest of the county, but my hay stood under it dry as a poked egg and twice as pretty. The boys set under the wagon and watched it pour and eat their cold pone like men that’d won somethin, and I let em, cause a boy that’s helped beat a storm ought to git to watch it lose. Martha said I smelled like a mule and sweat and one of the two could be fixed, and I told her the hay couldnt wait and neither could the rain, and she give me a look that said I’d put on clean britches or sleep in the barn, so I put on clean britches.
