"Wife, make us a dinner, spare flesh neither corn, Make wafers and cakes, for our sheep must be shorn; At sheep-shearing, neighbors none other things crave But good cheer and welcome like neighbors to have." HARVEST-HOME. The ingathering of the harvest was a season of great rejoicing from the most remote antiquity. "Sowing is hope; reaping, fruition of the expected good." To the husbandman to whom the fear of wet, blights, and other mischances has been a source of anxiety between seedtime and harvest, the fortunate completion of his long labors cannot fail to be a relief and a delight. Paul Hentzner, writing in 1598 at Windsor, says: "As we were returning to our inn we happened to meet some country-people celebrating their harvest-home. Their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having besides an image richly dressed, by which perhaps they would signify Ceres. This they keep moving about, while men and women, riding through the streets in the cart, shout as loud as they can till they arrive at the barn." In the reign of James I., Moresin, another foreigner, saw a figure made of corn drawn home in a cart, with men and women singing to the pipe and the drum. Matthew Stevenson, in the _Twelve Months_ (1661), under August, alludes to this festival thus: "The furmenty-pot welcomes home the harvest-cart, and the garland of flowers crowns the captain of the reapers; the battle of the field is now stoutly fought. The pipe and the tabor are now busily set a-work; and the lad and the lass will have no lead on their heels. O, 't is the merry time wherein honest neighbors make good cheer, and God is glorified in his blessings on the earth." Robert Herrick, in his _Hesperides_ (1648), refers to the harvest-home as follows:-- "Come, sons of summer, by whose toil We are the lords of wine and oil, By whose tough labor and rough hands We rip up first, then reap our lands, Crown'd with the ears of corn, now come, And to the pipe sing harvest-home. Come forth, my lord, and see the cart, Drest up with all the country art. See here a mawkin, there a sheet As spotless pure as it is sweet: The horses, mares, and frisking fillies Clad all in linen, white as lilies; The harvest swains and wenches bound For joy to see the hock-cart crown'd. About the cart hear how the rout Of rural younglings raise the shout; Pressing before, some coming after, Those with a shout, and these with laughter. Some bless the cart, some kiss the sheaves, Some prank them up with oaken leaves; Some cross the fill-horse; some, with great Devotion, stroke the home-borne wheat. * * * * *