May 22—Farmers don't worry about weath in the fertile Yangtsze Valley: the Good Lord has arranged that "farmers weather" takes place once a week in May... and last Sunday (18th) was an excellent example; a slight wind. a dry dewless night and a sunny day io follow. Overnight innumerable Farmer Wangs had smelt the perfect day to come, and at crack of dawn every man, woman, and child was being hastened to the folds to lift the crops. Hurry, hurry, hurry!—for this perfect day has only fifteen hours of daylight hurry, hurry,—for if the wind drops have a heavy night dew and wet crops tomorrow: hurry, hurry, hurry. for the cabbages are ready too, and the dreaded white butterfly ie already out in the fields. So all the adults of the Wang family dash at the standing crops of barley, wheat and rape, and cut it with the ancient sickle: behind them come Grandma and the youngest children, apron bags bulging with their gleanings. and behind them come all the birds which feed on grain to do a little gleaning too. "Hei-ho, Ha-ho, Hei-ho, Ha-ho" chant all the able-bodied Wangs as they amble back to the villages with great sheaves of corn carried on shoulder-poles: here the Mrs. Wangs and Miss Wangs wait, heads tied in cotton handkerchiefs to do the threshing and the winnowing: threshing by literally thrashing the heads of corn on bamboo racks; winnowing by pouring the grain slowly through the air so that that twice-blessed wind may blow away
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.