‘Aye, lass, tell Sam I’ll be over with the boar tomorrow.’

Soon the corn harvest was upon them. The work for Sam was not quite as hard for he did not do the cutting but allowed Tom Willoughby to send his new reaper.

‘Newfangled thing,’ Esther heard Sam mutter as he watched the sails of the reaper crossing the field pulled by three heavy horses. ‘’Spect me corn’ll be ruined.’

Sam still worked in the field, tying the sheaves and stooking, all the time keeping a truculent eye upon the machine swallowing up his harvest and spewing it out behind. The stooks stood in the fields for a few weeks to dry in the wind that always seemed to blow across this flat land and when the time came for them to be moved, the wagon was loaded so high at times that Esther held her breath thinking a wheel would crack and it would surely tipple over. But when Sam walked behind the last load to leave the field carrying the last sheaf and placed it on top of the final stack, he knew he had never had a better harvest.

The cry went up amongst the workers, ‘Harvest home, harvest home.’ Then the gleaners were allowed into the fields and one of the first was Ma Harris, wearing a bag apron over her long skirt in readiness. With her tribe to feed, Ma Harris was thankful that the old traditions still survived. She could usually collect enough corn from all the nearby farms for her family’s needs through the winter.

When harvest was finally over, Esther noticed that Sam’s walking was more painful, that his back was a little more bent and the joints of his fingers were gnarled with rheumatism. He was tired, yet not too tired to give thanks for a good harvest.

One Sunday morning in September, Sam Brumby bade Esther put on her best frock and be ready in the yard in half an hour.

Esther blinked and looked down at the coarse, well-worn skirt in dismay and then back at Sam. Didn’t he realize these were all the clothes she had? Didn’t he know that when she washed them each week and hung them on the clothes horse so close to the warm range over night that they almost scorched, it was because they had to be dry for the following morning? Esther wrinkled her forehead and smiled at her own foolishness. Of course he didn’t know, for she was careful to strip off and take her bath in the tin bath in front of the kitchen range and wash her clothes long after Sam had climbed the stairs.

‘I ain’t no more clothes, mester,’ she said flatly.

‘Huh,’ was Sam’s only comment, but his glance at her, up and down, spoke volumes.