When the grass is tall and sweet and full of summer sunshine, it is time to cut it down and make hay – hay that will hold that summer sweetness all through the cold, hungry winter months. But the work must be done quickly, to keep the new hay safe from wind and rain. Every farmer knows this.

Geoffrey and Maurice know it too. They are farmer's sons, and work hard, building the haystack. But what do these young men think about, while they work under the hot summer sun? They think about a girl, a German girl called Paula, a girl in a yellow dress, a girl with bright eyes and a funny, quick way of talking. They can see her now, up the hill, in the garden of a house next to the hayfield. Maurice has kissed her, but Geoffrey has not, and Geoffrey burns with hate for his brother. He finds words difficult. No woman will ever love him, he thinks, because he cannot find the words to win her love.

But love does not always need words, and who knows what the day or the night will bring? Paula is not the only young woman to visit the hayfield that day...