Nothing could keep him away.

"Night cometh," he said to his brother, who was remonstrating with him.

His day's work was drawing to its close.
But Ranald would not let himself see the failing of his father's health, and when, in the harvest, the slightest work in the fields would send his father panting to the shade, Ranald would say, "It is the hot weather, father.

When the cool days come you will be better.

And why should you be bothering yourself with the work, anyway?
Surely Yankee and I can look after that." And indeed they seemed to be quite fit to take off the harvest.
Day by day Ranald swung his cradle after Yankee with all a man's steadiness till all the grain was cut; and by the time the harvest was over, Ranald had developed a strength of muscle and a skill in the harvest work that made him equal of almost any man in the country.