at the house, on we jogged to where Homer and the rest of �the boys�
were preparing to thrash out two wheat-ricks, at a neighbour�s.
The great machine was placed beteen the ricks, and all were busy.
A call to dinner � all in the house.  Coffee, bacon & fixings.  Then
the thrashing began right bonnily.   Four horses the propelling power,
a man standing whip in hand at the centre of the horizontal wheel
they caused to revolve; Homer �feeding � the machine with what his
brother pitchforked from the rick above.  Three or four others busily
employed also.   Clack went the iron & wood work, straw & chaff
mounted aloft by means of revolving canvass, (falling & commencing
a rick on its own account);      while at the side sacks were busily
filled with the grain.      An hour or so, then Mr Hall intima-
ting he was ready, to the buggy again, and off for four or five
miles of hot dusty road, the latter part of it wild & pictures-
que looking.   Up-hill & through thick trees, valley & rock &
stream below us.       Scarcely did a mortal pass us.      Arrived at
the spot, we dismounted,       tied horse, clambered through fence &
passing across a meadow came to what should have been Buttermilk
Falls.  But the hot Summer had caused the stream to dry up &
sink into crevices above, so standing at the centre of the edge we
could but look down.      Some seventy feet perhaps, a small though
deep pool, (semicircular the basin) and beyond all thicket rock
and woodland, tall cliffs rising on each side, all hidden by trees.