A strongly-built young man, who had been driving the reaping machine in his shirt-sleeves, alighted from his seat and came across to the hedge.
'Goes very well to-day,' he said, meaning that the machine answered.
'You be got into a good upstanding piece, John,' replied the old man sharply in his thin jerky voice, which curiously contrasted with his still powerful frame.

'You take un in there and try un'-- pointing to a piece where the crop had been beaten down by a storm, and where the reapers were at work.

'You had better put the rattletrap thing away, John, and go in and help they.

Never wasted money in all my life over such a thing as that before.

What be he going to do all the winter?
Bide and rust, I 'spose.
Can you put un to cut off they nettles along the ditch among they stones ?' 'It would break the knives,' said the son.
'But you could cut um with a hook, couldn't you ?' asked the old man, in a tone that was meant to convey withering contempt of a machine that could only do one thing, and must perforce lie idle ten months of the year.
'That's hardly a fair way of looking at it,' the son ventured.
'John,' said his mother, severely, 'I can't think how you young men can contradict your father.