Meanwhile, the buckwheat has been harvested and garnered; on sunny afternoons the old wives winnow the grain in sieves on every threshold. The poorer sort goes to feed the fowls and fatten the calves for the Martinmas fair; while the perfect grain is set aside for the daily _bourriols_. The apples now are ripe. They should be gathered, save the later sorts, and laid on straw in the fruitery, before the little cowherds come down from the mountains. The chestnuts must be brought from the lower valleys--a dozen miles away, where the conjunction of a milder climate with a granite soil lets them grow in abundance; the potatoes must be uprooted from the fields. With buckwheat-meal, potatoes, chestnuts in store, the farm can affront the winter. And now, in this year’s potato-field, the plough is put; and the sower, with a noble gesture, scatters far and wide the grain of the rye. Two women follow him [Illustration: TRÉMOULET] and gather in a basket any stray potatoes now upturned. And close after the plough hop some half-dozen ash-grey buntings, neat and slender, pecking the worms and seeds from the new-turned clods. IX The oxen scarcely quit the yoke, for the winter crops must all be sown by Martinmas, and the compassionate farmer throws a pint of oats into their every feed. But, busy as we are, to-day is holiday. It is the 15th of October, and the herds return from the mountain. A great music of cowbells awoke us at five in the morning; one hears a tramp of feet, and the loud greetings of the herdsmen, whom the whole village turns out to welcome; the cows utter long “moos” of excitement and delight; in their midst we see a rustic cart or chariot piled high with great cheeses--each cow of the herd should have produced at least three of these huge moons during the five months of its _Estivade_. Without a word from the herdsman, the beasts stop at Langeac’s farm and turn into the pastures they left in May, lowing and frolicking for joy despite the fatigue of the night-long march. Happier still are the herdsmen. The master-_vacher_ tosses his baby in the air; the little _pâtre_ has found his mother; the herdsmen are talking eagerly to a knot of relatives and friends. What joy to see the valley, and the last bright asters in the gardens, and the apples red and gold in the orchard trees! How they eye that bright one out of reach on the topmost bough! (And again a verse of Sappho rings in my mind:-- ᾪς γλυκύμαλου ἐρευθεται ἄκρῳ ἐπ’ ὄσδῳ.