Suddenly a bale from the ground flew up, knocking against the side of Matthew’s legs, sending him sprawling across the bales onto his back.

“You won’t be much help to me up here if you can’t keep your feet any better than that!” laughed Sabina.

“I didn’t see it coming.”

“Watch out—there’s another one!”

One more bale tumbled onto the wagon beside them.

“What do you want me to do?” said Matthew, climbing to his feet.

“You stand here, and when Hans tosses them up, you bring them back to me. If you can set them at my feet, I’ll be able to stack up the back of the wagon without having to go back and forth.”

“Sounds simple enough.”

“As my pile moves, though,” said Sabina, “you’ll have to adjust your position too—look out!”

Another bale tumbled up.

“Hey, these things come fast!” cried Matthew.

“And they get heavier and heavier as the day wears on, as your fingers get rubbed raw from grabbing them by the twine. We should have brought gloves! Oh well… grab it and toss it back to me.”

Matthew did so, beaming with satisfaction, while Sabina placed the bale in place. By the time Matthew turned around, another bale was already at his feet. He reached down, laid hold of the twine, took two or three steps to place it at Sabina’s feet, and turned again just as another bumped into his knees.

“Did I forget to tell you that they keep coming and coming, seemingly faster and faster?” laughed Sabina. “You’ve got to be ready for them.”

“I’ll try!” shouted Matthew.

Within five or six minutes they had completed the third layer across the entire bed of the wagon, and at the back end Sabina began with the stacking of the fourth. Gradually Matthew discovered the secret of using the momentum of the wagon and his own body weight to toss the bales with less strain on his arms.

“You look like you’ve been doing this for years!” Sabina called out to him. “I had the feeling you were a farmer at heart!”

In less than an hour the wagon was full, seven layers high. By that time Heiko had returned with another empty one. They all stopped, unhooked the full wagon, attached it to Heiko’s tractor, hooked up the empty flatbed, and were ready to begin piling up another load while Heiko pulled the full wagon, slowly and carefully, back to the barn.

The driver of the tractor ground it into gear once more, and again the baling contraption, followed now by an empty wagon, lurched across the field. Soon the bales were flying again, and Matthew and Sabina busily stacked them in place.