On we labored, the golden evening sun glinting down upon our picturesque row of haymakers, nor did we cease until the angelus sounded from the village spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, their men and maids, fell devoutly upon their knees and thanked God that Christ Jesus had been born. These humble Tyrolese remember thrice daily to praise the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, subdued look upon their honest faces, they arose, and we joining them the fresh, fragrant hay was carted triumphantly home. The hay is cut long before we should consider it ready, and is housed whilst still green and moist. The newer the hay the richer the cream, they say. The Hofbauer has three crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie higher, have only two, and sometimes but one.
The good old Kathi stood at the door cooling a gigantic pan of buckwheat polenta, and when she had set down this dish, intended for the haymakers' supper, she brought us each, as our pay, a couple of _krapfen_, which are oblong dough-cakes fried in butter.
Although the haymakers were worn out and weary with a long day's work of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded in the chapel like the humming of bees in lime trees. This pious custom duly impressed us, until on the very next day, as we walked up our village street on the evening of the festival, our solemn feelings received a great check. We observed that the prayer-leaders, who knelt at the open windows of each separate house, followed our every movement with their eyes, whilst their mouths mechanically repeated sonorous Ave Marias and Paternosters. Nay, there was our own pious Moidel watching us from the kitchen window, her Hail Marys mingling with her friendly greetings; but then Moidel was waiting upon us and our supper whilst her family were on their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon learnt to perceive that Rosenkranz was considered quite as efficacious if merely uttered by the tongue, whilst the mind was far away. This being a festival, and no one tired with work, the household trooped into the old pleasaunce after supper. The elders sat together in a row, whilst the younger members congregated on a second long stone bench and struck up singing, Moidel and her elder brother beginning with a duet: