It was a warm morning in August. As the sun rose, the morning mists evaporated. On such a morning it was easy to understand the ancient sun worshippers. There has never been a saner religion! The sun was a golden-haired god, vigorous and young, looking down on the earth with loving interest. His light broke through the cottage windows and awoke those still sleeping. The brightest thing the sun illuminated that morning was the great reaping-machine that stood in the corn field. Soon a group of field workers came down the lane and entered the field. A strange sound came out of the machine, and it began to move slowly. The mechanical reaper passed clown the hill and out of sight. In a minute it came up on the other side of the field. As the machine went round, it cut the corn. Each time it completed a circuit, the area of standing corn left in the middle of the field was smaller. Rabbits, snakes, rats, and mice ran towards the centre of the field.

The reaping-machine left behind it piles of corn, and the field workers followed it, tying the corn into sheaves. The women were more interesting to watch than the men. A field man is a personality in the field; a field woman is a part of the field. Somehow she loses her own boundaries; she absorbs the essence of the landscape and becomes part of it.

The field women wore hats to protect them from the sun and gloves to prevent their hands from being scratched by the stubble. One was wearing a pale pink jacket, another wore a beige dress, and a third had a bright red skirt. The girl in the pale pink jacket was the most interesting. She had the finest figure of all the women there, and her manner was the most reserved. The other women often looked around them, but Tess never raised her eyes from her work.

She tied the sheaves of corn with clock-like monotony.

At eleven o'clock the field workers paused for lunch. Tess's sisters and brothers brought her lunch and the baby. Tess took the baby from her sister, unfastened the front of her dress, and began suckling the child.

When the baby had finished feeding, Tess held it in her arms and looked off into the distance with a sad indifference that was almost dislike. Then suddenly she started kissing the baby with passionate intensity.

'She loves that child,' said the woman in the red skirt, 'even though she says she wishes that both she and the baby had died.'

'Oh,' said the woman in the beige dress. 'She'll get used to it! You get used to anything in time!'