The weather cleared and Ase mowed the short hay in the high pasture without trouble but the amount would not see the stock through the winter. In early September he went to the marsh along the willow stream. The marsh grass was coarse and not too nutritious, but Mink Fisher had told him many years ago that it made good fodder in bad times. The Indians had often used it for their ponies. He moved slowly across the marsh, swinging the big hand scythe rhythmically, cautious against deep hidden pools of water and against the equally hidden small rattlesnakes. These had once infested the marsh by the hundreds and as a boy he had sometimes killed as many as thirty in one day. He smiled to himself, remembering that his father had paid him a penny a snake. He had been rich for weeks. Of late years
