But if the scythes cut well and swing merrily, it is due to the boy who turned the grindstone.  Oh, it was nothing to do, just turn the grindstone a few minutes for this and that one before breakfast; any “hired man” was authorized to order the boy to turn the grindstone.  How they did bear on, those great strapping fellows!  Turn, turn, turn, what a weary go it was.  For my part, I used to like a grindstone that “wabbled” a good deal on its axis, for when I turned it fast, it put the grinder on a lively lookout for cutting his hands, and entirely satisfied his desire that I should “turn faster.”  It was some sport to make the water fly and wet the grinder, suddenly starting up quickly and surprising him when I was turning very slowly.  I used to wish sometimes that I could turn fast enough to make the stone fly into a dozen pieces.  Steady turning is what the grinders like, and any boy who turns steadily, so as to give an even motion to the stone, will be much praised, and will be in demand.  I advise any boy who desires to do this sort of work to turn steadily.  If he does it by jerks and in a fitful manner, the “hired men” will be very apt to dispense with his services and turn the grindstone for each other.

This is one of the most disagreeable tasks of the boy farmer, and, hard as it is, I do, not know why it is supposed to belong especially to childhood.  But it is, and one of the certain marks that second childhood has come to a man on a farm is, that he is asked to turn the grindstone as if he were a boy again.  When the old man is good for nothing else, when he can neither mow nor pitch, and scarcely “rake after,” he can turn grindstone, and it is in this way that he renews his youth.  “Ain’t you ashamed to have your granther turn the grindstone?” asks the hired man of the boy.  So the boy takes hold and turns himself, till his little back aches.  When he gets older, he wishes he had replied, “Ain’t you ashamed to make either an old man or a little boy do such hard grinding work?”

Doing the regular work of this world is not much, the boy thinks, but the wearisome part is the waiting on the people who do the work.  And the boy is not far wrong.  This is what women and boys have to do on a farm, wait upon everybody who—­works.  The trouble with the boy’s life is, that he has no time that he can call his own.  He is, like a barrel of beer, always on draft.  The men-folks, having worked in the regular hours, lie down and rest, stretch themselves idly in the shade at noon, or lounge about after supper.  Then the boy, who has done nothing all day but turn grindstone, and spread hay, and rake after, and run his little legs off at everybody’s beck and call, is sent on some errand or some household chore, in order that time shall not hang heavy on his hands.  The boy comes nearer to perpetual motion than anything else in nature, only it is not altogether a voluntary motion.  The time that the farm-boy gets for his own is usually at the end