About this time, too, the beans had to be pulled and stacked; and there were always early apples to be gathered, for sale at the village stores. Sometimes, too, the corn would be ripe enough to cut up and shock by the 5th or 6th of September; and immediately after came potato-digging, always a heavy, dirty piece of farm work. Not far from this time, "the thrashers" would make their appearance, with "horse-power," "beater" and "separator," which were set up in the west barn floor. These dusty itinerants usually remained with us for two days and threshed the grain on shares: one bushel for every ten of wheat, rye and barley and one for every twelve of oats. There were always two of them; and for five or six years the same pair came to our barn every fall: a sturdy old man, named Dennett, and his son-in-law, Amos Moss. Dennett, himself, "tended beater" and Moss measured and "stricted" the grain as it came from the separator;--and it was hinted about among the farmers, that "Moss would bear watching." We were kept very busy during those two days; Halse, I remember, was first set to "shake down" the wheat off a high scaffold, for Dennett to feed into the beater; while Addison and I got away the straw. I deemed it great fun at first, to see the horses travel up the lags of the horse-power incline, and hear the machine in action; but I soon found that it was suffocatingly dusty work; our nostrils and throats as well as our hair and clothing were much choked and loaded with dust. We had been at work an hour or two, when suddenly an unusual snapping noise issued from the beater; and Dennett abruptly stopped the machine. After examining the teeth, he looked up where Halse stood on the scaffold, shaking down, and said, "Look here, young man, I want you to be more careful what you shake down here; we don't want to thrash clubs!" "I didn't shake down clubs," said Halse. "A pretty big stick went through anyway," remarked Dennett. "I haven't said you did it a-purpose. But I asked you to be more careful." They went on again, for half or three-quarters of an hour, when there was another odd noise, and Dennett again stopped and looked up sharply at Halse. "Can't you see clubs as big as that?" said he. "Why, that's an old tooth out of a loafer rake. You must mind what you are about." Halse pretended that he had seen nothing in the grain; and the machine was started again; but Addison and I could see Halse at times from the place where we were at work, and noticed that he looked mischievous. Addison shook his head at him, vehemently. Nothing further happened that forenoon; but we had not been at work for more than an hour, after dinner, when a shrill _thrip_ resounded from the beater, followed by a jingling noise, and one of the short iron teeth from it flew into the roof of the barn. Again Dennett stopped the machine, hastily.