The grain must now in some way be covered; but Ben had no harrow to cover it with; besides, the ground was dotted with stumps, whose great roots stuck out in every direction, and no common harrow would have worked. He cut down a scrubby spruce, and trimming off the limbs within six or eight inches of the trunk, sharpened the points of them; he then hitched the oxen to this hedge-hog, as he called it, and hauled it over the ground, thus scratching the earth over the grain. When Charlie saw this, he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks.