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Stratton-Porter, Gene, 1863-1924

"At the Foot of the Rainbow"

"

So sang Jimmy as he drove through the wheat, oats and rye
accompanied by the clacking machinery. Dannie stopped stacking
sheaves to mop his warm, perspiring face and to listen. Jimmy
always with an eye to the effect he was producing immediately
broke into wilder parody:
"Drive this mower, a little slower,
On this beautiful Wabash shore,
Cuttin' wheat to buy our meat,
Cuttin' oats, to buy our coats,
Also pants, if we get the chance.
By and by, we'll cut the rye,
But I bet my hat I drink that, I drink that.
Drive this mower a little slower,
In this wheat, in this wheat, by and by."
The larks scolded, fluttering over head, for at times the reaper
overtook their belated broods. The bobolinks danced and chattered
on stumps and fences, in an agony of suspense, when their nests
were approached, and cried pitifully if they were destroyed. The
chewinks flashed from the ground to the fences and trees, and
back, crying "Che-wink?" "Che-wee!" to each other, in such
excitement that they appeared to be in danger of flirting off
their long tails. The quail ran about the shorn fields, and
excitedly called from fence riders to draw their flocks into the
security of Rainbow Bottom.


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