On days set apart for the pulling of flax and wheat-cutting, the neighbors and their children assembled in happy mood and as cheerfully applied themselves to their gratuitous tasks. While the men were pulling the flax or reaping and shocking the wheat, the women at the house were preparing the harvest-noon feast. The rough table, for which the side and bottom boards of a wagon were frequently used, was placed when practicable under the shade of a spreading tree in the yard. The visitors contributed from their meagre store such additional dishes, knives, forks, and spoons as were needed. Around the table, seated on benches, stools, or splint-bottom chairs, with such appetites as could only be gained from honest toil in the open field, the company partook of the bounties set before them. These consisted, in addition to the never-failing corn-bread and bacon, of bear and deer meat, turkey, or other game in season, and an abundance of vegetables which they called "roughness." The bread, styled "jonny-cake," was baked on journey or "jonny" boards, about two feet long and eight inches wide. The dough was spread over the boards which were then placed before the fire; after one side was browned, the cake was reversed and the unbaked side turned toward the flames. However strictly it might be abstained from at other times, a harvest without whisky was like a dance without a fiddle. It was partaken of by all--each one, male and female, drinking from the bottle and passing it to his or her nearest neighbor. Drinking vessels were dispensed with as mere idle superfluities. Dinner over, the company scattered, the elders withdrawing in a body and seating or stretching themselves upon the ground. After the filling and lighting of the inevitable pipe, conversation would become general. The news of the day--not always, as may be imagined, very recent--was commented upon, and then, as now, political questions were sagely and earnestly discussed. Stories, mainly of adventure, were told; hairbreadth escapes from Indian massacre recounted and the battles of late wars fought again beneath the spreading branches of the trees. Meanwhile, the boys and girls wandered off in separate and smaller groups, singing and playing and making love much in the manner of today.