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Haying
- Ohio University Press
- Chapter
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3 Haying The throb of the tractor’s diesel carrying over the fields. From the house, all afternoon, the steady lope. She puts the leg back on a chair. Writes a thank-you to their niece. At six, she eats a cold supper and blinks out the window. The engine chugs. By ten, she knows: this is something; it’s something. She phones their son, who comes with flashlight and follows the sound. On a gentle rise in the meadow he circles the tractor, plays his beam across and back, then draws it close. Closer. The old man has reached in the baler without killing the motor. It’s run fast idle, six, seven hours. Till two in the morning men stand in the freshcut. Their long shadows lean and stretch in a circle of light. Voices kept low in the quiet. ...